"What is the threshold?"; "Who goes to the threshold?"; "What is the meaning of threshold?"; "What does Spiritism say about the threshold?". Followers of the Spiritist movement are so concerned about something that, in truth, has no reason to exist—not as they imagine it to be.

I think that a lot of time is wasted on this subject, the “Umbral”, which is a peaceful point in the Doctrine (therefore, a result of the scientific method of research): it is nothing more than a mental creation of attached, suffering Spirits, when they are not intentionally cultivated ideas and transmitted in order to delay. This is so much a fact that, before Spiritism, the Spirit would say he was suffering in the fires of hell and, before Catholicism, he would say he was in Tartarus. They are not local, they are a state of soul and, if you seek to do good, with all your strength and with all your understanding, you should not worry about this suffering. moral.

Therefore, the question "what is the threshold" is answered thus: it is an allegory, a figure of speech, representing a state of the soul. It can also be an allegory representing this denser spiritual layer, of the Spirits most connected to matter. This is the meaning of "threshold," and "those who go to the threshold" are those who are attached to imperfections and materiality, knowing, however, that this is an allegorical idea to illustrate a previous state.

When you focus on what you want, based on previous ideas, you miss the important details of the work. Here's what we're going to demonstrate. This is a simple work analyzing the article “Umbral, is there a doctrinal basis to support it?”, by Paulo da Silva Neto Sobrinho, by Paulo Degering Rosa Junior.

Paulo Neto's study on the umbral

In the study presented by Paulo Neto, “Umbral, is there a doctrinal basis to support it?”, there are some initial problems. Let us check, for example, the very sensitive differences between the first edition of Heaven and Hell and the edition used by him. In the first edition:

In most cases, he is unhappy in this world through his own fault, but if he is imperfect, it is because he was already imperfect before coming to Earth, where it atones not only for current faults, but the previous faults that were not repaired, suffers in a life of trials the suffering imposed on others in another existence. The vicissitudes that man experiences are simultaneously a temporary punishment and a warning about the imperfections that must be eliminated to avoid future misfortunes and progress towards good.

KARDEC, Allan. Heaven and Hell, 1868 (original edition).

In the edition cited by Paulo Neto:

[…] Most of the time he [man] is unhappy through his own fault; however, if it is imperfect, it is because it was already imperfect before coming to Earth, expiating not only current faults, but previous faults not repaired. Suffer in a life of trials what you made others suffer in a previous existence. The vicissitudes he experiences are, at the same time, a temporary correction and a warning regarding the imperfections that he must eliminate from himself, in order to avoid future evils and progress towards good. […].

NETO, Paul. Umbral: Is there a doctrinal basis to support it?. Available in: http://www.paulosnetos.net/artigos/send/6-ebook/806-umbral-ha-base-doutrinaria-para-sustenta-lo. Accessed on: 20 Apr. 2023.

Can you notice that the difference in the use of the verb atone causes a whole change of ideas? In the first version, by Kardec, it is clear that man atones in the land. In the version used by Neto, it is possible to infer that atonement begins before coming to Earth, which would not be true, according to doctrinal conclusions.

Not only that: this edition, by Paulo Neto, does not even match the 4th edition in French, already adulterated:

Le plus souvent, il est malheureux ici-bas par sa propre faute; mais s'il est imparfait, c'est qu'il l'était avant de venir sur la terre ; il y expie non seulement ses fautes actuelles, mais les fautes antérieures qu'il n'a point réparées ; il harden dans une vie d'épreuves ce qu'il a fait harden aux autres dans une autre existence. Les vicissitudes qu'il éprouve sont à la fois un châtiment temporaire et un avertissement des imperfections dont il doit se défaire pour éviter les malheurs futurs et progresser vers le bien.

---

Most of the time he is unhappy down here through his own fault; but if he is imperfect, it is because he was imperfect before he came to earth; he expiates there not only his present faults, but the former faults which he has not repaired; he endures in a life of trials what he made others endure in another existence. The vicissitudes he experiences are both a temporary punishment and a warning of the imperfections he must get rid of in order to avoid future misfortunes and progress towards good.

KARDEC, Allan. Heaven and Hell or Divine Justice According to Spiritism. 4th ed. Rio de Janeiro: FEB, 2019. Available at: https://kardecpedia.com/roteiro-de-estudos/886/o-ceu-e-o-inferno-ou-a-justica-divina-segundo-o-espiritismo. Accessed on: 20 Apr. 2023.

It is evident that Kardec, in the first edition and also in the fourth, reaffirms that the atonement takes place on Earth, and to infer the opposite would be to assume that the Spirit atones, materially, in the spiritual world, which is intrinsically linked to the ideas of hell, purgatory, umbral, etc.

Let's go.

Spiritist Magazine

One of the most interesting articles in the RE is “About the Spirits who believe they are still alive”, from the 1864 Revista Espírita:

Not everything is proof in existence; the life of the Spirit continues, as you have been told, from its birth to infinity; for some, death is nothing more than a simple accident that has no influence on the fate of the person who dies. A fallen tile, an attack of apoplexy, a violent death, very often, do nothing but separate the Spirit from its material envelope; but the perispiritual envelope preserves, at least in part, the properties of the body that has just succumbed. On a day of battle, if I could open your eyes, which you have but which you cannot make use of, you would see many fights continuing, many soldiers still going up to the assault, defending and attacking the redoubts; ye would hear them even utter their hurrahs! and their battle cries, in the midst of silence and under the gloomy veil that follows a day of carnage; the combat is over, they return to their homes to embrace their old fathers, their old mothers who are waiting for them. Sometimes this state lasts a long time for some; it is a continuation of terrestrial life, a mixed state between corporeal life and spiritual life. Why, if they were simple and wise, would they feel the cold of the tomb? Why should they pass abruptly from life to death, from daylight to night? God is not unfair, and leaves this joy to the poor in spirit, hoping that they will see their state through the development of their own faculties, and that they will be able to pass calmly from the material life to the real life of the Spirit.

We have, in The Spirits' Book, the well-known question 1012, which, in my opinion, Neto completely disregarded to focus only on “we have already answered this question”, making an assumption that it would refer to question 87. This question, for In turn, he interpreted it as he wanted, not taking into account the often figurative language used by the Spirits:

1012. Will there be circumscribed places in the universe for the pains and joys of spirits, according to their merit? “We have already answered that question. Feathers and pleasures are inherent to the degree of perfection of spirits. Each one takes from himself the principle of his happiness or his misfortune. And as they are everywhere, no circumscribed or closed place exists especially for one thing or another. As for the incarnates, they are more or less happy or unhappy, depending on the more or less advanced world they inhabit.”

a) — In agreement, then, with what you have come to say, hell and paradise do not exist, such as man imagines them?

“They are simple allegories: there are happy and unhappy spirits everywhere. However, as we have already said, spirits of the same order gather together out of sympathy; but they can meet wherever they like, when they are perfect.”

The absolute location of the regions of penalties and rewards only exists in man's imagination. It comes from his tendency to materialize and circumscribe things whose infinite essence he cannot understand.

KARDEC, Allan. The Book of Spirits. 1st ed. Rio de Janeiro: FEB, 2019. Available at: https://kardecpedia.com/roteiro-de-estudos/2/o-livro-dos-espiritos. Accessed on: 20 Apr. 2023.

87. Do Spirits occupy a determined and circumscribed region in space?

“They are everywhere. Infinitely populate the infinite spaces. You have them continually at your side, observing you and acting on you, without realizing it, since Spirits are one of the powers of nature and the instruments that God uses to execute his providential designs. Not everyone, however, goes everywhere, as there are regions forbidden to the least advanced.”

Referring to question 87, note: "Spirits are everywhere. They infinitely populate infinite spaces." Space is not the Universe. Space is infinite; the Universe is not. The Universe is material, cyclical, has a beginning and an end, just like matter. Space is not.

When, in the end, he asserts that “there are regions forbidden to the less advanced", Neto took a figurative phrase for a literal one. Still, if we consider the fact that the less advanced do not easily detach themselves from the material world, we can easily imagine the difficulty of living in material regions that give way to incarnations of more advanced Spirits.

Back in RE, we have in 1858, “The Berezina Drum”:

28. ─ Do you see other spirits around you?

─ Yes, many.

29. ─ How do you know they are spirits?

─ Among us, we see ourselves as we are.

30. ─ How do you see them? ─ How one can see spirits, but not through the eyes.

31. ─ And you, in what form are you here?

─ Under the one I had when I was alive, that is, as a drum.

32. ─ And do you see the other spirits with the forms they had in life?

─ No. We don't take on an appearance until we are evoked. Other than that, we are formless.

In the same year, in “Lectures from beyond the grave — Mrs. Schwabenhaus. Ecstatic Lethargy”:

29. ─ In what form are you among us?

─ Under my last female form.

30. ─ Do you see us as clearly as if you were alive?

─ Yes. 31. ─ Since you are here with the form you had on Earth, is it through the eyes that you see us?

─ ─ No, the Spirit does not have eyes. I only find myself in my last form to satisfy the laws that govern the Spirits when evoked and forced to resume what you call perispirit.

In the Spiritist Magazine of March 1860, Kardec, talking (via mediums) with three different Spirits, questions one of them, the Spirit of Charles Dupont, the one involved in the “History of a Damned”, an inferior Spirit, quite late and still very linked to matter. Kardec asks how he sees the Spirit of Dr. Vignal, a living person, evoked for that study:

53. ─ Do you see the Spirit of the doctor, with whom we spoke?

─ Yes.

54. ─ How do you see it?

─ I see him with a less transparent envelope than that of other Spirits.

55. ─ How do you know that he is still alive?

─ Ordinary Spirits have no apparent form. This one has a human form; he is enveloped in a mist-like matter, which repeats his earthly human form. The Spirit of the dead no longer has this envelope, as it is detached from it.

In other words: the Spirits continue to affirm that, for them, form is nothing. In the last case, Charles Dupont's Spirit, being inferior, himself affirms the same principle: common (detached) Spirits have no apparent shape. Kardec realizes, based on all this, that, when they claim otherwise, they are in a state of suffering. Ever. The big mistake, allow me to repeat, is wanting to say that, outside of the methodological study, it is enough to collect something that is said everywhere and it becomes true. If so, we should include elves, fairies and mermaids in the Spiritist Doctrine.

It is not enough and we cannot simply believe in the Spirits

From then on, Paulo Neto began to catalog several statements by Spirits, after Kardec — among them André Luiz — and other conclusions by Spiritists or Spiritualists who, putting the Doctrine aside, were left with their partial conclusions.

It is a very big problem to assume that the universal communication of the Spirits is enough for the acceptance of a new doctrinal idea. No: it must also attend to reason and respect what has already been climbed by the same method. So, when a lot of people read a book that talks about “umbral”, a lot of people start to accept this idea, which becomes an illusion after death; that becomes illusion in “unfoldings”; that the medium inserts, finally, through their own ideas, when translating a thought of a Spirit, during a communication.

It is remarkable to note that, in Spiritist circles, there is great concern about whether, upon death, one will go to "Nosso Lar" or to the "Umbral." Since "Nosso Lar" could not support billions of Spirits in their beds and homes, hundreds of new "colonies" soon emerged, each located, they claim, over specific cities or regions of the Earth. Spiritists are no longer concerned about their morals, based on their spiritual progress, but are now concerned about whether they will be punished by the Umbral or rewarded with a comfortable bed and hot soup in Nosso Lar or some other "colony"!

Neto misinterprets the concepts of atonement and punishment. I say this with certainty, because Kardec and the Spirits were using concepts present at that time, based on Rational Spiritualism, to express themselves.

When the author cites the article “O Dia de Todos-os-Saints”, in the RE of 1862, we have an excerpt highlighted in bold: “[...] unhappy spirits who endure the anguish of punishment and isolation”. It turns out that “punishment” was considered the legitimate consequence of evil, not an external action of a punitive force. The irresponsible father's punishment, for example, is to see his beloved son go astray. If the father is blamed for human justice and imprisoned for his irresponsibility, this, perhaps, means absolutely nothing for him, compared to the real punishment he himself suffers. Punishment is not something external, imposed, but as a result of natural law. We thus understand Spiritism from another point of view, much more congruent.

By not understanding this fundamental idea, Neto infers that suffering or pleasure, in the spiritual world, is an external, materialistic condition, as I have already demonstrated.

Next, Neto emphasizes the following passage:

“My dear brother, what horrible torments for all these [those who have chosen the path of materialism]! It's just like the Scripture says, "There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." They will be plunged into the deep abyss of darkness. These unfortunates are commonly called the damned, and although it is more accurate to call them the punished, they still suffer the terrible tortures that are attributed to the damned amidst the flames. Wrapped in the thickest darkness of an abyss that seems unfathomable to them, although it is not circumscribed, as you are taught, they experience indescribable moral sufferings, until they open their hearts to repentance.”

From this passage, Neto sticks to the idea of a “deep abyss of darkness”, without paying attention to the fact that this abyss, if it seems unfathomable and not circumscribed, can only exist as a mental creation of suffering spirits, being, therefore, , ephemeral. Let us evoke these Spirits and help them to understand that their pain is moral and not physical, and the abysses, mud, etc. , where they will have the new opportunity to work on their past attachments.

Did you know that there are spirits who put themselves in such circumstances because they made a mistake and because they believe in the Doctrine of Sin? Yes. An individual may, for example, have killed another because he believed that the other was coming to take his life. He believes that this is a sin and, thus, mentally submits himself to this suffering, which he externalizes in fluidic creations (which are not matter like ours, but something much more subtle, formed by the “condensation” of the Universal Cosmic Fluid). . Make him understand that this apparent error was born of an instinctive reaction; that God does not punish; that he can seek, in new lives, to work this instinct, to dominate it by will; that, finally, the one he killed has nothing against him, because he understands his mistake, and that Spirit will get rid of such ideas, really disturbing.

André Luiz himself makes this clear when he cites the case of the girl who, having died, her spirit did not want to leave the coffin, because she believed that Christ himself would come to take her out of there, subjecting her to judgment.

Furthermore, the author, based on a preconceived notion, adopts a paradigm that leads him to understand all the examples given according to his own preferences. When he mentions "spiritual spheres" and "spiritual layers," he fails to realize that this is figurative language, and in this last case, it refers to the classification of Spirits by "layers," as is done in Spiritist Scale. By the way, this is very clear in question nº 1017 of OLE, which the dear Paulo Neto did not include in his assessment (my emphasis):

1017 [1016]. Some Spirits said they were inhabiting the fourth, fifth heavens, etc. What did they mean by that?

“If you ask them what heaven they inhabit, it is that you form an idea of many heavens arranged like the floors of a house. They then respond according to your language. But for these words room and fifth heavens express different degrees of purification and, therefore, happiness. It's exactly like when you ask a spirit if he's in hell. If he is unhappy, he will say Yesbecause, for him, hell is synonymous with suffering. He knows, however, very well that it is not a furnace. A heathen would say to be in Tartarus.”

The same occurs with other analogous expressions, such as: city of flowers, city of the elect, first, second or third ball, etc., which are only allegories used by some Spirits, either as figures or, sometimes, out of ignorance of the reality of things, and even of the simplest scientific notions.

When you focus on what you want, based on previous ideas, you miss the important details of the work.

The Countess Paula – Heaven and Hell

Many people use the case of this Spirit, Countess Paula, presented in Heaven and Hell, to support their theories of “astral cities”.

What are your palaces and your golden halls before the aerial abodes, the vast field of space variegated with colors that would make the rainbow pale? What are your step-by-step walks in the parks, compared to journeys through the immensity, faster than lightning? What are your limited and cloud-laden horizons, given the grand spectacle of the worlds moving in the limitless universe, under the powerful hand of the Almighty?

How are your most melodious concerts sad and noisy, in the face of this harmony that makes the fluids of the ether and all the fibers of the soul vibrate? How sad and insipid your great joys are compared to the ineffable sensation of happiness that incessantly saturates our being in the form of a beneficent effluvium, without any mixture of restlessness, any worry, any suffering! Here everything breathes love and trust and sincerity. Everywhere loving hearts, everywhere we see friends, no envious and jealous. This is the world I find myself in, my friend, and you will all reach it infallibly by following the right path.

Unfortunately, many stop reading the points that interest them. When the Spirit speaks of “aerial dwellings”, that’s enough to say that she was speaking of spiritual cities! What point do biases adopted in a hurry lead to…

Right after the quote about “aerial addresses”, he continues:

[…] the vast space field tinted with colors that would make the rainbow pale? What are your step-by-step walks in the parks, in front of Travels through the immensity, faster than lightning? What are your limited and cloud-laden horizons, compared to the grand spectacle of worlds moving in the limitless universe, under the mighty hand of the Most High?

These Spirits are talking about Space! He is not talking about astral cities, but about the Space! “Aerial addresses” is a figurative language to say about Space, “above” us!

She continues:

However, uniform happiness would soon become boring. Do not think that our happiness is free from vicissitudes. This is not a perpetual concert, nor an endless party, nor of beatific contemplation through eternity. No. It is movement, life, activity. The occupations, although free from fatigue, present an incessant variety of aspects and emotions, due to the thousand incidents that contain them. Each one has their mission to fulfill, their protégés to assist, friends from Earth to visit, Nature's processes to direct, suffering souls to console. There is a back and forth, not from one street to another, but from one world to another. Creatures come together, separate to come together again; they meet here and there, they talk about what they do, they congratulate each other on their successes; They understand each other and assist each other in difficult cases. Anyway, I assure you that no one has a second of time to get bored.

What exists “on the other side”, for detached Spirits, is action in divine creation! It is the transit through infinite Space, where they come together, here and there, with other Spirits, to act in the processes of Nature, to console suffering souls, incarnate and disembodied! That's it, and not a life limited by walls and false physiological needs!

Conclusion

It is important to note, however, that if such creations exist, it is because God allows them. In fact, this is something linked to the divine benevolence itself, which guarantees, to each one, a gradual and shock-free development. In the article “About the Spirits who believe they are still alive”, from the Spiritist Magazine of 1864, there is an important spiritual communication, from which we take the following excerpt:

Not everything is proof in existence; the life of the Spirit continues, as you have been told, from its birth to infinity; for some, death is nothing more than a simple accident that has no influence on the fate of the person who dies. A fallen tile, an attack of apoplexy, a violent death, very often, do nothing but separate the Spirit from its material envelope; but the perispiritual envelope retains, at least in part, the properties of the body that has just succumbed. On a day of battle, if I could open your eyes which you have, but which you cannot make use of, you would see many fights continue, many soldiers still rising to the assault, defending and attacking the redoubts; you would even hear them utter their hurrays! and their battle cries, in the midst of the silence and under the dismal veil that follows a day of carnage; the fight is over, they return to their homes to embrace their old fathers, their old mothers who are waiting for them. Sometimes this state lasts a long time for some; it is a continuation of terrestrial life, a mixed state between corporeal and spiritual life. Why, if they were simple and wise, would they feel the cold of the grave? Why would they pass abruptly from life to death, from daylight to night? God is not unjust, and He leaves this joy to the poor in spirit, hoping that they will see their state through the development of their own faculties, and that they may pass calmly from the material life to the real life of the Spirit.

We see, therefore, that the existence of such “places” is a fact, permitted by divine benevolence, to those who are not yet developed to understand something above and outside of matter and material needs.

We remember what is printed on our home page:

General concordance in teaching is the doctrine’s essential character, the condition even of its existence. It is evident that all principles which have not received the consecration of general agreement can only be considered as a fractional part of this same doctrine, merely as a simple, isolated opinion for which Spiritism cannot assume the responsibility.

This collective agreement of the opinion of the Spirits, passed, to the rest, by the criterion of logic, is what constitutes the strength of the spiritist doctrine and ensures its perpetuity.Allan Kardec – Genesis

Kardec gave the safe guide to the research method, often presenting it in RE. Current rescues of science at the time allow us to deepen this knowledge. Spiritists need to learn to study, just as those who do not study science end up believing in theories such as the flat Earth. I argue that the most interesting thing is to resume Kardec, understand Spiritist science (which depends on a scientific understanding of its context and current affairs) and then resume contact with the Spirits. With the detachment of one's own ideas and the firm purpose of research, it will be very easy to resume the step, clearing up this confusion caused in the Spiritist Movement with a single purpose: delay of moral progress.

I finished one of the last articles talking about the Spiritist Movement, attached to the errors that were slowly and continuously being admitted in its midst, slowly erasing the doctrinal knowledge now acquired through Kardec's studies.

Mistakes? Oh, several. Ideas of places in erraticity; the idea of reincarnation as payment of debts; the ban on talking to spirits outside the Spiritist Center; the blind acceptance of isolated communications, without going through the sieve of already acquired science and reason; The churchization of spiritist centers, which began to adopt rituals and formulas, in short, a series of contradictions to what had already been established by the scientific study of Spiritism.

And who am I to point out such mistakes? Well, I am a mere student of the Doctrine who, after being in contact with a series of historical facts and diving into the study of the Spiritist Magazine, found so much disparity. But, I said, it is not the Spiritist Movement, resistant to detachment from the ideas fixed by years, sometimes decades, of reading Spiritist novels, without going through the study of the Spiritist Doctrine. Neither do those who, in their simplicity, are very calm in claiming to be supporters of the Doctrine, but who do not study it, nor do they dedicate themselves to disseminating it. No.

As in Kardec's time, with safeguarded differences, we address scholars, researchers and scientists in good faith (and not blind faith) who are interested in knowing what is unknown to them. They are the ones who will seek to understand and who, when they have understood, will spread the ideas that were born with Mesmer and with Rational Spiritualism and that found full development with Spiritism. They are the ones who will have their eyes shining and, who knows, end up moved like the rest of us, when they see in Spiritism a vast depth of philosophical, metaphysical, scientific and moral knowledge. The mathematician, the physicist, the chemist, in short, all those with common sense, will see, amazed, the extension of the doctrine formed by the studies of Kardec, whose figure will rise to the highest conditions of prominence among the names that changed the world...

We are here, finally, anxious and hopeful for the development of the latest studies, the latest research. While we do not have access to the contents of the latest research that valuable colleagues are carrying out, we can only talk about what we know, what we understand so far, producing something that, we hope, will be useful tomorrow, when Science begins to leave dogma and return to metaphysics rational, rational spiritualism, but, this time, with an enormous ballast of knowledge that touches on all areas of human knowledge, with its already known philosophical and moral aspects.

We are very happy for the path that opens in front of us. And we hope that you, feeling infected, are too. Spiritism will return to its condition of science, away from mysticism and dogma. As for the resisters and dissidents, time will show where the truth lies, with the difference that when Science admits Spiritism, this time it will be definitive and will change the world.

Dear Reader: If you feel compelled, participate in the studies, but also help spread the word about what we already have in hand. It is knowledge that touches all areas and that can count on the familiarity of each one. Videos are good, but they are not enough, because they are still not searchable, that is, what a video is about, speaking, is not accessible to search engines. The text is.

We wait for you.

I have just responded to an objection related to the topic of Science versus Spiritism (the subject wanted to impute Spiritism to the imagination). I found it interesting to reproduce it here:

“"X, it's clear you're talking about what you think is true, that is, you're speaking from your own opinion. That's not science. You probably don't know that Science (with a capital "S") was formed alongside metaphysics, and that the great geniuses of the past were also great philosophers, addressing the question of God and Creation, but distanced from dogmatic and retrograde theology. Naturally, Science, becoming as dogmatic as the Church, turned its back on metaphysics, labeling as superstitious, mystical, or crazy anyone who dares to touch on the subject of God or spirituality, even rationally. Well, my friend. That's precisely what those who started the [scientific field] did." Rational Spiritualism, in the 19th century, and that was precisely what Kardec did in the study of certain phenomena that, despite crossing humanity, were treated in a dogmatic way, both by the Church and by Science.

What modern Science does not realize, because it has forgotten this knowledge, is that, by acting as it does, it acts like the Church. While the latter led man by the dogma of the fall through sin and punishment, the former leads man by the dogma of materialism. Both one and the other make him absent from his responsibilities: the latter, because it subjects man to the will of third parties — he acts bad through the influence of the devil and he acts well through the influence of Christ — and the first because he becomes man is this machine that acts in this or that way simply by force of sensations, acting chemically on his brain ((not excluding from here, of course, the influence that “body chemistry” and even genetics have on the individual. Just highlighting- If they are not the only factors, why, when faced with a great temptation, the individual can choose, by his will, not to give in to it.)). They fall into the same error as certain ancient scientists, who attributed good and bad behavior to white bile and black bile. The only difference is that modern science does not treat the psychological with leeches, but with pills.

I said that Science, in the past, dealt with metaphysics, in a rational way (and, of course, not at all mysticistic). It turns out that, for her, a key was missing, just as psychology of the time was missing, which investigated man as an incarnated soul only through the processes of logical induction and extrapolation. This key, which came to give, was Spiritism, not this false “spiritism”, gathered between the lines of false ideas, arising from errors and opinions of supposed mediumistic works, but the spiritism studied by Kardec, with methodology, that Spiritism that, more than 150 years ago, advanced knowledge, or paths to it, that modern Science is only now beginning to verify. It is important, of course, to separate the errors, natural to the human side, found in the science of the time (such as the theory of fluids), from the successes of the part that concerns natural law. What Kardec did was investigate the causes of certain effects, from which he deduced a Doctrine, which touches not only on the issue of certain material phenomena, but which is entirely moral in aspect.

The researcher and scientist who had the good faith to investigate the works “O Céu e o Inferno” and “A Gênese” (taking care to refer to the recent editions of FEAL, where we are sure that they are the original works of Kardec, untouched) would find, with great surprise, something very different from what they thought Spiritism was, and, however much they might end up disagreeing, by imputing whatever it was to Kardec, they could not conclude this study without realizing that he launched very seriously into this research, which constituted something that, contrary to what you think, was not a religion.”

In the first half of 2021, I had — and I don't even remember how — contact with the work of Simoni Privato — The Legacy of Allan Kardec — a work that shook me a lot, given the understanding of everything that happened with the French Spiritist Movement, after Kardec's death, and how much this defined the direction of this movement in the following century, especially in Brazil. Then, “by chance”, someone posted, in a group, a question about a recently released work at the time: “Neither heaven nor hell”, by Lucas Sampaio and Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo (PHF). The first thought was: it must be absurd. But the title was too challenging to pass up. I decided to research and found an article, on a spiritist blog, talking about the work... And, to understand what the bases of what the authors were saying were, I acquired and read the work, with great avidity, I must confess.

. Demerit? None. I studied what was within my reach. Humiliation? Only if I thought that the truth was just what I knew and that, outside of that, nothing would exist. But if there's one thing I knew about Kardec, by tradition of studying The Spirits' Book with my father, it was his great commitment to the scientific search for the truth, which was the reason that instigated me to study, without attachments. But… Study what? I already knew most of the Spirits' Book. The essence of The Mediums' Book, too. I mean: in the face of what was within my reach, the moral and scientific essence seemed to me to be well understood.

A fact that caught my attention and that perhaps intuition reinforced is that there must be something important in this “Spiritist Magazine”, since these authors often resorted to very pertinent and insightful quotes from Kardec or Spirits, contained in these volumes. Thus, this initiative and our study group were born… But you probably already know all of this. That's not the point, I just thought it would be interesting to demonstrate, once again, the path I've taken so far, as this path is taking me to places I've never visited before.

A very important fact that happened in this trajectory was the approximation with the Grupo de Estudos Espiritismo para Todos, which happened because, in contact with Paulo Henrique, he himself referred me to someone from that group, who studied with him the works of Kardec and its scientific context. Then came the knowledge of Rational Spiritualism, which we have discussed here several timesand, more recently, a massive in-depth study of Kardec's entire context, which is unknown today. Metaphysics, something unknown or disconnected from current science, was an elementary part of any scientist's studies at the time, and it was this, along with everything that science provided at the time, that made the formation of the Spiritist Doctrine possible.

In the same way that Science itself has as its object the study of the laws of the material principle, the special object of Spiritism is the knowledge of the laws of the spiritual principle. Now, as this last principle is one of the forces of nature which incessantly reacts on the material principle and reciprocally, it follows that the knowledge of the one cannot be complete without the knowledge of the other; that Spiritism and Science complement each other; that Science without Spiritism is unable to explain certain phenomena resorting only to the laws of matter, and for having dispensed with the spiritual principle, it finds itself in the midst of so many difficulties; that Spiritism without Science would lack support and control and could make mistakes. If Spiritism had arrived before scientific discoveries, it would have failed, like everything that happens before its time.

KARDEC, Allan. The Genesis, 1868

It's impossible to describe everything we've studied so far in this article alone. The reader who follows us will be able to identify when reading the texts on this site, various suggestions and clues that we often give and that it is up to each person whether or not they want to investigate. The fact is that we are reaching a point, following the studies of our friend Paulo Henrique, where my first questions are beginning to be answered: is it possible to return to Spiritism, studied scientifically, as Kardec did? Is it possible to resume contact with the Spirits, continuing the formation, or even the doctrinal recovery? Indeed, it is possible (and I write this with a smile on my face).

Have a look: Kardec had understood and advanced on scientific points that we had never suspected, and this could be verified through a method that will soon be made known to us and to the dear reader, because the interest is to present it to humanity. Not just the method, in fact, but the knowledge found through it. In my study with PHF, where this knowledge is being developed, I could feel nothing but very diminished compared to Kardec. I felt ignorant of my previous understanding of Spiritism. With each new realization, I laughed, but it wasn't a laugh of disdain or sarcasm: it was a laugh that was impossible to contain, expressing my level of ignorance in the face of the size of Spiritist science, formed by Kardec's studies through years of learning from the Spirits.

We already know (and if you don't, hurry up and read the Spiritist Review) that when we learn from the spirits, we can't treat them as revelators to whom all we have to do is ask and they'll answer with the theory ready. No.

“… in the world of spirits a very singular fact occurs, which surely no one had suspected – that there are spirits that do not consider themselves dead. Well then: the superior Spirits, who know this fact perfectly, never came to say in advance: “There are Spirits who suppose they still live in terrestrial life; preserving their tastes, habits and instincts”. Instead, they caused the manifestation of Spirits of this category so that we could observe them. Thus, after seeing Spirits who are insecure about their state, or claiming to belong to this world and carrying out their usual occupations, the rule can be deduced from the example. The multiplicity of similar facts proved that this is not an exception, but one of the phases of spiritual life, allowing us to study all the varieties and causes of this singular illusion, in addition to recognizing, above all, that this situation is typical of Spirits who are not yet morally advanced, and characteristic of certain types of death; which is only temporary, but can last days, months and years. Thus, the theory was born from observation. The same happened with all the other principles of the doctrine.”

KARDEC, Allan. Ibid.

It's easy to see, therefore, how much knowledge these studies require and, in a century where each area is niche, that is, where the physicist doesn't study philosophy; where the mathematician doesn't know botany; where the chemist doesn't know astronomy, and where none of them know metaphysics, it's even easier to understand the difficulty we face. I recognize that adventuring in these studies is not for everyone, and I can only behave like a goose (because I don't want to compare myself to a hen, that would be too humiliating), chasing the crumbs that fall from the hands of the one who planted and who now reaps the grains of the plantation.

Well, as I was saying, new horizons are opening up and everyone who is interested in learning and spreading knowledge can and should throw themselves into their studies in whatever way they can. It's difficult to gather all the lessons learned in order to take up the scientific study of Spiritism in our own hands, but who says we need to be as brilliant as Einstein to understand the essence of the laws of our universe, as demonstrated by this great genius? We can behave in the same way with Spiritism: all it takes is dedication, putting our minds to work and, on our part, researching, questioning and delving into everything that seems nebulous to us. The most important thing of all is that we are not alone: in a group, construction becomes much more fruitful, as each person, being in a position to help and be helped, assists and participates in the construction of knowledge. All that we need to do is get out of the position of being teachers of Spiritism.

We ended our last study with Paulo saying something more or less like this: “if this knowledge is so interesting and transformative for us, who are ignorant, imagine for those who are intelligent!”. Yes. Imagine what it would be like for a mathematician to discover that Spiritism talks about mathematics. Imagine what it will be like for the physicist, the chemist, the doctor, the philosopher, to realize that, in Spiritism, it is all about this, with moral aspect and without mysticism? From what can everything be deduced from Natural Law, and what is Spiritism about?

But, to achieve this, it is necessary to overcome some barriers created by materialism, not only in science, but also within the spiritist movement. Firstly, it will be necessary to demonstrate that modern science, by turning its back on metaphysics, has become as dogmatic as the Church which, in the past, treated as a heretic anyone who stated that the Earth revolved around the sun, or that it burned. witches” for claiming to be hearing or seeing Spirits. Then, it will be necessary to demonstrate that what they think is Spiritism — often based on absurd things they read out there, other times based on what acquaintances present to them, so-called spiritists, but dogmatic and walking on false ideas, or even false confusion between Spiritism and modern, mystical, superstitious and also dogmatic spiritualism — it will be necessary to demonstrate, I said, that this is not Spiritism. It will be necessary to demonstrate that Spiritism was (is) something so rational and serious, an undeniable fact, that, more than 150 years ago, it advanced truths that Science is only now confirming. Finally, for those who reach this point, through the use of common sense, it will be necessary to demonstrate that Spiritism, as a science very well established in its time, was formed in the same way as all other sciences of observation, being, therefore, rational — as rational as the search, in current physics, for the existence of dark matter or the existence of other universes, guided by effects whose causes are not, and may never be, directly observable. Here's the challenge.

I needed help, and, despite the predominance of Catholic religious culture, I found some volumes of the Spiritist Magazine on the shelf! No. I opened it and leafed through it, but at that moment I didn't go any further. It was necessary to pass the trouble, to, only later, give attention to such work, through the process explained above. It is natural for everyone to follow their path, and we must respect each other's choices. Perhaps those who cling to and close themselves off from knowledge believe that they are doing good, just as many of those who burned scientific works believed that they were doing what was right (which does not exempt them from their responsibility, but which mitigates their faults, before their consciences). Let us present the knowledge if we wish, but if they wish to burn it let them be while we do our part. Time takes care of everything.

Well, I've written a lot. I stop here for this moment. I need to harvest some grains that were left along the way.

At the doors of the 21st century, it is difficult to see how the spiritist movement intends to do Spiritism, after having forgotten, modified and misrepresented the work of Allan Kardec. After 154 years of Professor Rivail's disincarnation, it is very common to find so-called spiritist literature in which, in very few cases, only images of Kardec remain on sensationalist and advertising covers.

Spiritist philosophy has a method, for study purposes, it has principles or fundamentals that are impossible to separate if we try to practice it; here is the cause of such frequent errors. Faced with such a scenario, we ask ourselves:

Would it be possible today to practice, disseminate, study Spiritism, leaving aside the concepts systematized by Denizard Rivail? Is there spiritism without Kardec?

We believe that returning to Kardec, studying Kardec through Kardec, educating the mass of Spiritism followers on the need to practice this philosophy from its bases are urgent issues and necessary development, because in this and many other ways we would adopt measures against a movement that it has lost the identity of the Doctrine it supposedly practices, which it supposedly disseminates. It is an indispensable measure in the face of a movement that has been confused by a sea of opinions, distorted by waves of figures in sales of books and magazines, mistaken in the exaltation of men and women who were nothing more than imperfect mediumistic instruments like all the others. others. Dear brothers, there is the work of that man firm in his determinations, there is the logical and reasoned guide, the bases that we need to develop. The starting point of a destination full of freedom. Let's use it!

Let's walk together, and finally rescue, once and for all, Kardec's legacy without which there is no possible Spiritism.

SUMMARY OF THE LAW OF SPIRITIST PHENOMENA is one of Kardec's not-so-publicized works (Click here For download). It was written in 1864, and would be a summary of the summary of the Book of Spirits and Book of Mediums, I think. Because it is a compact work, only 20 pages, it conveys the very general concept of what the Spiritist Doctrine and the Spiritist Phenomena are.

It is divided into 5 parts: Preliminary Observations, On Spirits, Manifestations of Spirits, On Mediums, On Spiritist Meetings.

I highlight, as an example, one of the items he makes belongs to the “Manifestations of Spirits” part:

23. Spiritist evocations do not consist, as some imagine, in bringing back the dead with a gloomy aspect of the tomb. It is only in novels, in fantastic tales of ghosts and in the theater that one sees the emaciated dead emerge from their tombs dressed in sheets and making their bones crack. Spiritism, which has never performed miracles, this one as well as others, has never revived a dead body; when the body is in the grave, it is definitely there; but the spiritual, fluidic, intelligent being is not involved with its gross envelope; he separated from him at the moment of death, and once the separation has been effected, it no longer has anything in common with him.”

Summary of the Law of Spiritist Phenomena, page 12, A. Kardec

It is worth knowing it or simply sending it to that friend who wants to understand what Kardec's Spiritism is in a nutshell...

The question was proposed in a discussion, on Facebook, regarding science's resistance to investigating the soul, attributing the matter to mysticism and the supernatural. I highlight below my considerations on the possibility of verifying the existence of the soul:

Tell me: is the atom observable? He will say yes, that's it and a fact: by means of an instrument, it is possible to observe the atom, whose behavior investigation leads scientists to theorize in several hypotheses.

Without the microscope, in the past, man, certainly, I would say that this is madness or supernatural. The point is always to attribute to the supernatural what we do not understand: that is the point.

Are we like that, so knowledgeable about everything, to the point that we can discard the body as an instrument of the soul?

Unfortunately, due to a materialist turn in philosophical paradigms, after the end of the 19th century, many truths were forgotten. Today, when we talk about Psychology, we don't quote Victor Cousin or Paul Janet; when the subject is quantum physics, nobody talks about Mesmer, who, labeled crazy in the past, envisioned theories in agreement with modern physics.

The mistake, always, is to associate Science only with what is observable, forgetting that scientific investigation also advances through the elaboration of theories based on hypotheses based on rational observations. Want to see?

“Dark matter is a hypothetical form of matter that scientists believe exists in the universe due to astronomical observations. It is called “black” because it does not emit, absorb or reflect light or other forms of electromagnetic radiation, making it invisible to our telescopes.

Dark matter is believed to make up about 85% of matter in the universe, but has yet to be directly detected. Scientists infer its existence from the gravitational effects it causes on observed objects, such as galaxies and galaxy clusters.

Although many studies and experiments have been carried out to try to identify dark matter, its nature is still unknown. Several hypotheses have been proposed, including as yet undetected exotic particles, primordial black holes, and alternative theories of gravitation. Dark matter research remains one of the most important and intriguing areas of modern physics and astronomy.”

Would we say that scientists are crazy, chasing something that cannot be observable by our instruments (and may never be) simply because they observed certain effects? Starting from the common census, could we say that dark matter would be something supernatural?

And this is not to enter the scope of theories of parallel universes, which are a logical consequence of some theories of quantum mechanics.

You see: science seeks answers in something unobservable, based merely on effects. Seeks the cause of an effect. And is it really that the effects, in the human scope, are unobservable - or is the tendency to treat any form of spiritualism as mysticism or the supernatural just a prejudice in a field where prejudice should not enter?

Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo says, in “Mesmer: the denied science of animal magnetism”:

The magnetizers very soon proved the relationships of somnambulists with invisible beings. Deleuze, a disciple of Mesmer, in his correspondence maintained with doctor GP Billot for more than four years, from March 1829 to August 1833, was initially reluctant, but finally affirmed: “Magnetism demonstrates the spirituality of the soul and its immortality; it proves the possibility of communication between intelligences separated from matter and those still connected to them.” (BILLOT, 1839)”

[…]

In turn, Deleuze stated: “I see no reason to deny the possibility of the appearance of people who, having left this life, take care of those they loved here and come to manifest themselves to them, to give them healthy advice. I just had an example of this.” (Ibid.)

[…]

“Years later, the magnetizer Louis Alphonse Cahagnet (1809-1885), with courage and determination, spoke to the spirits through his somnambulists in ecstasy, mainly Adèle Maginot, recording in his work more than one hundred and fifty letters signed by witnesses who recognized the identity of the communicating spirits. Cahagnet anticipated this spiritist science research instrument by more than ten years.

We see, therefore, that the soul is as observable as dark matter: through its intelligent effects. The difference is that the Spirit (synonymous with soul) acts of its own will.

It seems that some Spiritists – those who did not understand the proposal of Spiritism – work by division, and not through collaborative construction. They find in every place and in every person an object of their criticisms which, although they may have some basis, are almost always lost due to the notorious lack of depth and of a real and solid argumentation, which presents point and counterpoint, not giving final judgment on nothing that cannot be proven or sufficiently elaborated by reason. Interesting, because, precisely, they are (we are) supporters of a Doctrine entirely based on logic and reason, where evidence and hypotheses corroborate theories, without giving ownership over the truth. Not acting like this, Carlos Seth Bastos, from the “CSI of Spiritism”, comes to say that the theme of Rational Spiritualism and Spiritism would be a new division in the spiritist movement, without having the courage (or the will) to mention the name of the author to whom it refers. refers.

History repeated itself between 2016 and 2020 now in the field of morality, with the release of books that sought to bring the thoughts of Kant, Maine de Biran and Victor Cousin into Spiritism, even if that meant distorting the ideas of Allan Kardec.

Its propagation, under the pretext of convincing people averse to religion, seems to us the same speech as Marius George (Surprised that the spiritist idea had recruited so few adherents from the army of republicans, he was finally led to see that the obstacle was entirely due to the disguise under which Allan Kardec had introduced him) and Émile Blin (Until we have brought to the Parisian Society a sufficient number of members to enter this path of research, we must, in order to see our ranks increase, invite to come to us the unbelievers and the unbelievers to, by word, let them know our intentions, prove to them our disinterest, and persuade them of our good faith and honesty; then, by experiments as simple as possible, to place in their hands the means of acquiring for themselves the certainty that everything we propose is real and, in fact, the immortalist doctrine is the only one that, without mysticism and without prayers, gives man consolation and courage in the present, and hope and faith in the future).

At least these speeches were not based on the fallacy of an improbable adulteration of Allan Kardec's works.

BASTOS, Carlos Seth. Added bonus – The ending. Spirits under investigation. Available at: <https://www.luzespirita.org.br/leitura/pdf/L193.pdf>. Accessed on: 04/15/2023.

Division in Spiritism?

In the first place, it is important to point out that Spiritism is not divided. Being a natural truth, it is one. Putting aside the difficulties encountered in communications made without control, Spiritism is one, at all times. What, yes, can be divided, is the Spiritist Movement – and this division is countless. Over time, after Kardec, it split with “roustainguization” and then with countless others, for various reasons that cannot be mentioned here, but which Simoni Privato, Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo and Wilson Garcia, among others, recount well in their works (see Recommended Works).

According to Carlos Seth, “head” of the CSI of Spiritism, the division now occurs in the moral field, because Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo – the author of the aforementioned works, from 2018 and 2020, to whom Seth does not even deign to make reference – would be distorting Kardec’s words to implant, in the Doctrine, something that has nothing to do with it. We'll see.

Secondly, it is important to address the sentence “on the pretext of convincing people averse to religion”. As if making legitimate and well-founded efforts to attract the interest of “people averse to religion” were a demerit, since (1) Spiritism is not a religion, (2) it developed from a science, as a science and (3) it was precisely in the non-religious milieu that it found, at its origin, the greatest adherence – precisely because a large part of the scientists who became followers of Spiritism were well penetrated by the development of Rational Spiritualism and its scientific findings.

The author ends by again attacking those who, based on other evidence and logical and rational arguments, conclude that adulteration is likely ((The theory of non-adulteration (from Heaven and Hell and Genesis) also has evidence and arguments, but does not present conclusive proof. It takes on one fallacy to attack another (as it defends), forgetting Kardec's valuable suggestions: never take as final anything other than what can be proven.))

Kardec defended Rational Spiritualism, but Seth doesn't seem to know that

First of all, however, we need to evoke Kardec and question why he defended Rational Spiritualism – a philosophical-scientific movement led by people like Maine de Biran and Victor Cousin ((By A + B, if Rational Spiritualism was officially established in French teaching and if it was a solid movement, founded mainly by the authors cited, it is easy to conclude, with certainty, that Kardec refers to the same movement, and not to any other)). Now, we see, in the Spiritist Review of 1868, that:

The work of Mr. Chassang is the application of these ideas to art in general, and to Greek art in particular. We are happy to reproduce what the author of the Patrie review says about it, because it is further proof of the energetic reaction that takes place in favor of spiritualist ideas and which, as we said, every defense of rational spiritualism opens the way to Spiritism, which is its development, fighting its most tenacious adversaries: materialism and fanaticism.

Mr. Chassang is the author of the story of Apollonius of Tiana, The which we refer to Magazine of October 1862.

“This book, of a very special character, was not made during the recent debates on materialism and, without the slightest doubt, it is regardless of the author's will that circumstances have given it a kind of topicality. Writing it, Mr. Chassang did not intend to do work of metaphysician, but simply literate. However, as the great questions of metaphysics are currently, as always, on the agenda, and every literary work truly worthy of the name always presupposes some philosophical principle, this book, of a very decided spiritualist inspiration, is found in correlation with the concerns of the moment.

KARDEC, Allan. Spiritist Magazine, November 1868

Since metaphysics was one of the fields of study of the philosophical sciences, officially Instituted at the University of the Sorbonne:

And that's not all. Before that, in 1863, Kardec says, in the article entitled “Bibliographical News – The rational spiritualism by Mr. G.H. Love, engineer”:

This remarkable and conscientious book is the work of a distinguished scientist, who proposed to draw from Science itself and from the observation of facts the demonstration of the reality of spiritualist ideas. It is one more piece in support of the thesis that we support above. It is even more, because it is a first step, almost official, of Science, in the spiritist way; in fact, it will soon be followed - and of this we are sure - by other, even more resonant adhesions, which will lead deniers and opponents of all schools to seriously reflect

KARDEC, Allan. Spiritist Magazine, October 1863

What nonsense, Mr. Kardec! Defending ideas that, according to some, have nothing to do with Spiritism! Claiming that Rational Spiritualism, which he refers to in the text merely as "spiritualist ideas" (which leads us to believe that in other similar references—"spiritualism," "spiritualists," etc.—he was referring to the same Rational Spiritualism) is something obtained through scientific observation of facts! Now, where have you ever seen science and spiritualism go hand in hand? Only in the past, during the time of the "crazy" Kardec.

The biggest nonsense, in fact, is that of Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo, who decided to investigate in depth and discovered that metaphysics, at the time of Kardec, was one of the areas of study of the Moral Sciences officially taught at the University of Paris and also at the Normal School (refer to “Autonomy: the never told story of Spiritism”, by this author). All this contained in works that, until then, were unknown or forgotten by the modern world.

The great difficulty, however, will be that all of us, who follow the work of Paulo Henrique and himself, will have to deny reality, deny historical documents and existing works, censor the works of Paul Janet, deny Kardec, deny his conclusions and his statements, all so as not to cause a new split, “now in the moral field”. In other words: let us erase and adulterate the truth, so that morality, as they understand it, remains untouched. Well, this desire to take the truth for oneself, ignoring facts, seems like a habit of the WArlos seth Iinvestigates Spiritism, as we demonstrated in the article “CSI of Spiritism: the official organ of Truth“".

We also need to evoke the Spirit of Mr. Love and have a serious conversation with him, in order to clarify his audacity in, being a rational spiritualist, affirming that he found the same moral obtained in his observations, precisely in “Kardec’s” Spiritism:

Morality, as I understand it and deduce it from scientific notions - I am not afraid to admit it - has numerous points of contact with that transmitted by the mediums of Mr. Allan Kardec. I am also not far from admitting that if there are many pages written by them that do not go beyond the ordinary reach of the human spirit, including theirs, there must be, and there are, of such a scope that it would be impossible for them to write identical ones in the books. your ordinary moments.

LOVE, GH apud KARDEC, Allan. Spiritist Magazine, October, 1863.

I don't think it's necessary to go any further. I leave the reader the freedom and the task, if he so wishes, of seeking to obtain information that will allow him to arrive, through his own reasoning, at his answers. I would just like to quote Carlos Seth once again:

The spiritist doctrine is progressive, but your study is the key. Let us know how to wait for new data instead of rejecting some of its aspects, such as the action of Spirits in natural phenomena. If, even so, a certain characteristic, such as the religious one, bothers us to the point that we are unable to put it aside, let us stop being Kardecist Spiritists and then follow any other sects originating from the original Spiritism. Despite recurring in history,
This is what we are witnessing once again today with secular, eclectic and syncretic people.

BASTOS, Carlos Seth. Ibid. My emphasis.

Oh, if Mr. Carlos had followed his own teaching and studied. If I had known how to wait, before jumping hastily to foolish hasty conclusions... I would have seen Paulo Henrique affirm, in Spiritist Revolution, how evident it is that Spiritism complements and develops what Rational Spiritualism was unable to study, in fact resolving many of its errors , contradictions and uncertainties. Ah, this rush from certain “renowned researchers”…

Why didn't Kardec give more details about Rational Spiritualism?

It should be noted that, to the objection of why Kardec did not give more information about something so important to him, we must answer the following: the same happened with Magnetism, a science that he claims to have studied for more than 35 years. He simply did not delve into something that was so deeply established in its context, in the same way that, today, to talk about astronomy, we do not dedicate time to narrate the entire current scientific context, limiting ourselves to talking, for example, of the theory of Big Bang. If, by chance, this theory were put into oblivion, because it was outdated or because of the adoption of another theory, not necessarily correct, any reader, in the future, would need to seek to recover this knowledge in order to better understand our theories, assumptions and doctrines.

I should just mention that, when pronouncing on the case, I am asked for evidence that Kardec would have, as I said, widely defended Rational Spiritualism. Here's my answer:

X, if the authors of the article (PDF), willingly, had dedicated themselves to studying the work of this author, before criticizing, they would have understood this whole context very easily, so that I would not have to repeat all the information here that already exists.

I've already mentioned one of the times Kardec emphatically cited "Rational Spiritualism," stating that any defense of it would be favorable to Spiritism. In October 1863 (RE), you'll find two very interesting articles on the subject. I quote the beginning of the second, at the end of the issue ("Rational Spiritualism by Mr. G.H. Love, Engineer"):

“This remarkable and conscientious book is the work of a distinguished scientist, who set out to extract from Science itself and from the observation of facts the demonstration of the reality of spiritualist ideas. It is one more piece in support of the thesis that we support above. It is even more, because it is a first step, almost official, of Science, in the spiritist way”.

Go to Google and type in: “site:kardecpedia.com spiritualism”, and you will find a lot.

Well, if Kardec was talking about fluids (vital, electric, magnetic, etc.) isn't it up to us to investigate what that is, instead of blindly adopting wrong theories? Let's then verify that it was a concept of the science of the time, surpassed by current science and, by all indications, abandoned by Kardec, after becoming convinced of the veracity of Mesmer's theory. Without doing this, I fall into the error of saying that Mesmer and Spiritism have nothing to do, not knowing that Kardec ALSO defended Mesmer's Magnetism.

After all, what line of research is this, to which they want to give so many airs of seriousness and confidence, but which makes such a serious and absurd error as such, with the aggravating factor of giving final sentences on this or that subject, influencing the spiritist environment? towards a new split that only exists in their minds, attached to an initial disagreement ((I'm referring to the disagreement between whether or not there were adulterations in the works Heaven and Hell and Genesis))?

Those who act in this way end up being ridiculed and discredited. Not that we are not free, on our part, from making similar or worse mistakes, but the study of Spiritism and Kardec's scientific approach has helped us a lot in this sense.

The monopoly of common sense

I will end with an observation by Kardec, made about the article “The Librarian of New York”, in the Spiritist Magazine of May 1860. It is not related to the main theme, but, who knows, it will serve as a reflection. The italics are mine, as always:

About the article, we will make a first observation: it is the indifference with which the deniers of the Spirits attribute to themselves the monopoly of common sense. “The spiritualists, says the author, see in this one more example of the manifestations of the other world. sensible people will not seek the explanation so far and recognize clearly the symptoms of a hallucination”. Thus, according to this author, only people who think like him are sensible; the rest have no common sense, even if they were doctors, and Spiritism counts them by the thousands. A strange modesty, indeed, which has as its maxim: no one is right but us and our friends!

KARDEC, Allan. Spiritist Magazine, May 1860

The documents they found, corroborating a hypothesis of non-adulteration, they are, according to them, probative, they give final sentences – even though they are nothing more than evidence that does not explain many things. Beyond that, according to them, everything is disposable, fallacy or invention.

Questioning is natural, healthy and necessary. He encourages us to research, to reread, to study. But it would be even more productive if the dissenting opinion were always born from a deep bibliographic and scientific basis, so as not to end up like Messrs. Schiff and Jobert (Revista Espírita, June, 1859) who, having discovered in the snapping of a muscle confirmation of one hypothesis, ended up stating categorically, with the final word, against all spiritist phenomena. Well, just read the article to see how ridiculous they were when faced with the facts presented by Kardec.

This is science. This is detachment. This is commitment to the truth. For all this commitment, far from configuring it as an attack, but as a defense, I do what they did not do, and I give name and surname to those who frivolously attack the work of others.

Strangely, Seth sees a division when dealing with the movement that gave basis to the emergence of Spiritism, but he sees no problem in poking around and bringing up gossip of the time, launched by mediums who did not want to adapt to what the Spiritist Doctrine demanded. Go figure…

I'm going to give myself the luxury of “getting wet”, just because the subject is important and requires, I think, reflection and rationality. The attacks carried out in schools were regrettable, but even more regrettable is hearing the absurdities that speak in the name of Spiritism.

In the face of the events in question, we see again the search for “spiritualist” answers to the reasons why those children went through such tragedies, and it is not uncommon to come across speakers who, in the name of Spiritism, will say that “they are indebted spirits who came together to redeem past faults”. Having overcome the initial moment of true disgust due to the lack of empathy of someone who puts himself in the position of judge of the path of others, without putting himself in the position of a father or mother listening to such words – a real disservice to Spiritism – I feel it necessary to reiterate: no it is possible, much less reasonable, to point to anyone to say whether the situation that the person is going through is the result of their choices – I repeat: choices – or whether it is a simple result of natural law, that is, the result of being alive.

We've covered this a few times already (see Can a person die before his time or is it always fate or fate?, The Petrópolis disaster from the point of view of Spiritism: collective rescue? and Karma and Spiritualism. There is no karma, everything is the effect of the Spirit's choices, which, only in exceptional cases, due to lack of reasoning capacity, is subjected to compulsorily incarnate (ref. OLE, p. 262). God does not punish his children for making bad choices, because he knows that everything is the result of ignorance, and when that ignorance is so great as to obliterate his ability to judge, his laws make up for this momentary incapacity.

Let's say that participating in certain disasters, private or collective, could even be the effect of a lucid choice of the Spirit who believes that that will teach him something or who believes in the law of talion or karma, judging it necessary to go through the same kind of suffering to in order to "debug". This has its basis in logic and truth, and we will see some cases like this permeating Allan Kardec's studies.

Could all these children have chosen to be there voluntarily, as a result of a choice made in Spirit? Let's assume so, and analyze the logic of the assumption. For that, one of two things: either these Spirits would have to know, in advance, that that individual, practically of the crime, would choose that school where they would have have to study, to commit their crime, premeditated for years, or these Spirits would have to, through themselves or others, instigate this individual to commit a crime (taking on, in turn, a “debt”) just so that they could carry out your “rescue” – a true never-ending cycle.

Yes, a particular Spirit could have premeditatedly foreseeing the crime and managed to be there, to suffer its consequences, who knows why, just as another could have chosen to leave that place, that day, due to the same premonition. We see this all the time. It becomes inconceivable, however, to imagine that all those who are killed in any disaster chose to be there, often months or years before, just waiting for all the aligned circumstances to provoke the situation that would offer the opportunity of “rescue”. Furthermore, when Kardec or other Spirits speak of “rescue”, it is the rescue of oneself, through the process “repentance, expiation and reparation – in short: a serious, effective improvement, as well as a sincere return to the good“((KARDEC, Allan. O Céu e o Inferno. Translation by Emanuel G. Dutra, Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo and Lucas Sampaio. 2021.)), and not a redemption of reciprocal debts or with divine law – because God does not charge debts that, in truth, do not even exist.

Children who died in such tragic cases are not paying for anything. They died as a result of being incarnated and as a result of a bad choice by another individual. This individual, who already suffers as a result of his choices, even if he does not realize it, will suffer when his conscience awakens, either because of a feeling of guilt in the face of the crime committed, or because of the realization of his own condition of attachment, because of the effect of his actions, even who doesn't even remember the specific case in question. Children's Spirits may have already moved on, evolved a lot, by the time the criminal's Spirit becomes aware. There is no need to consider, therefore, a joint incarnation with the aim of any reciprocal rescue, but we can imagine the spirit of one of these children, touched with compassion for the other, choosing be born with him to help him on his way back to goodness. Or not. The spirit of the criminal can choose, if he is aware of it, to be born in the midst of a very good family, with great spiritual values, which can help him to learn... Or he can choose to be born in the midst of criminality, to put himself to the test of resistance. What is better? How to know who and for what reason made this or that choice? I don't know. Neither do you. The point is: any of the choices, for that Spirit, will be an atonement, and “atonement” does not mean punishment, but condition in which he has his “unceasingly concentrated attention on the consequences of this evil, understands its inconveniences better and is motivated to correct itself“((Ibidem)).

If you have already gone through something similar or if you have someone close to you who has gone through it, my message is this: the Spirit survives and will continue its journey. Those who go and those who stay need to make an effort not to get attached to what happened, understanding that whoever commits the crime will suffer alone, and that getting attached to him or the situation will lead you to suffer too. Sadness is part of it. Miss you, hurt. But attachment is unhappiness. Pray that you and the Spirit who passed away will not become attached to all of this, nor the personality that died with the body. Spirits that love each other communicate instantly, without intermediaries, and it is enough for one to think of the other for them to be together, without any need for this to be perceived as a sensation of presence. Thought reaches everything, anywhere in the Universe.

Finally: be careful when accepting “spiritist visions” without studying the foundations of Spiritism. Spirits, incarnated or disembodied, say what they want and, due to carelessness, often serve as a tool for the enemies of the Doctrine.

Our last virtual study meeting, on 04/06/23, was based on the article “Refutation of an article from L'Univers”, from the Spiritist Magazine of May 1859.

Kardec's article begins with a full citation of a publication by Abbot Chesnel in the aforementioned newspaper, a publication that is, by the way, somewhat complex to understand and, in fact, quite confused in its ideas. Despite citing several current ideas at that time, such as Spiritualism, Magnetism and Spiritism (although he confuses Spiritism with Rational Spiritualism), it is very easy to notice the confusion of concepts made by the Abbot, who, as a central point, defends the idea that Spiritism (Spiritualism) would be a new religion, presenting dangers and a threat to the Catholic religion.

The text, although written with some depth, is notably frivolous, in the sense of making several statements about Spiritism (which, I reiterate, he calls Spiritualism), without having read even The Spirits’ Book – which is certain, because, right at the beginning of the work, Kardec makes a clear distinction between Spiritism and [Rational] Spiritualism. But that is not the main point of this discussion.

What we noticed in our study, and about what we had already talked about other times, is the distance between the modern Spiritist Movement and Spiritism "of Kardec" - with great care when using this term, because Spiritism was never of Kardec, neither created nor imagined by him. Now, it is not possible to deny that the Spiritist Movement made Spiritism a religion, a definition that many defend fiercely, while Kardec makes, with all letters, an arduous rational defense to the contrary, demonstrating that Spiritism had no aspect of a religion, but that of a science. We already talked about this in the article “Spiritism is religion?", ”Science and Spiritism: matters in opposite dimensions?“, “The distance between Spiritism and the Spiritist Movement” and on other occasions, but we decided to return to the subject due to the new opportunity provided and the emphatic persistence of Kardec – which continues in the RE of July, with a reply to the Abbot’s response.

The more we study the Spiritist Magazine, the more we notice this enormous distance mentioned. We invite the reader to ask: why? Is "our" Spiritism, based on information from Spirits not verified in a scientific and controlled manner, "more correct" than the Spiritism studied so seriously, in a methodical and controlled manner, by Kardec and other members of the Parisian Society of Studies Spiritualists? Note the following:

Its true character is, therefore, that of a science and not of a religion, and the proof is that it counts as adherents men of all beliefs, who have not, for that reason, renounced their convictions: fervent Catholics, who practice all the duties of his cult; Protestants of all sects; Israelites, Muslims and even Buddhists and Brahmanists.

Kardec, Spiritist Magazine, May 1859

Let's look coldly at the Spiritist Movement and try to find people from other religions inserted in it: they practically don't exist. They are very rare and, almost always, they are people who say they have “no defined religion”. Is this normal, compared to what Kardec demonstrated? Another question: if a Census agent asks you what your religion is and you are a follower of Spiritism, what will you answer?

All these questions are not intended to attack the personal belief of each one (because, in fact, Spiritism is not made of beliefs, but of scientific investigation), but to raise a serious aspect that, perhaps, many do not notice : defining Spiritism as a religion has become the reason for the downfall of the Spiritist Movement, which is increasingly emptied. Read the article quoted right at the beginning – you can find it on here – at least from Kardec’s answer and try to analyze, for yourself, how much the definition of “religion” makes Spiritism lose in reach and help in the development of terrestrial humanity. See the Abbot's position, compatible with the modern position of most of his opponents: instead of understanding in this science support for your beliefs; instead of having it as an aid to their uncertainties, they have an enemy in it, as if the fact of filling the pews of a spiritist center means emptying the pews of a church. Sadly, very unfortunately, this has come to be true.

We are extremely happy to have, among our most active students, at least one person who identifies himself as a practicing Catholic, who goes to Mass, who takes Communion, who practices, in short, his religion, but who studies deeply and who, many times, understands better than us the moral, philosophical and scientific precepts of Spiritism, understanding its scientific character with clear distinction. Spiritism is the science of what we are and what creation is; religion is the choice of human, material practices, with a spiritualist meaning.

Finally, think about the following: while Kardec recommended the practice of spiritist studies at home, which was really common at that time, ask yourself: is there, today, Spiritism outside the centers? What is said about mediumistic practice outside the spiritist center?

Finally, the invitation is reiterated: study the Spiritist Magazine. Many well-known mediums did not have access to it. Today, we have it, and in a very, very easy and practical way. Leaving it aside to study mediumistic novels, without contestation or investigation, is attachment, and brings demerit, difficulties and errors to Spiritism, which, today, in the Spiritist Movement, has nothing.