We are, on this date, experiencing a new moment of apprehension in the world, with a new war starting between Russia and Ukraine. It will be very opportune, therefore, to remember some important concepts of Spiritism in the face of such situations, such as wars.

The situation of those who die in wars

In the first place, it is necessary to remember that any human evil is born from the imperfection inherent in Spirits who, like practically all of us, are still in the third order of life. spirit scale. The Spirit who practices evil, individually or in combination, does so because he is still ignorant of morals and acts according to his already conquered free will. Thus, I emphasize, never an action of perversity or evil, practiced by someone, arises from a divine collection of a past “debt”.

I believe it's very important to highlight this thought right from the start, because many still mistakenly think that the victim of a crime is "paying off past debts," which is not true. Now, what kind of God is this who collects debts through crimes and, in doing so, causes another Spirit—that of the criminal—to acquire a new debt?

Therefore, no, people who die victims of a crime, whether isolated, such as a homicide, or in a group, from smaller but no less expressive cases, such as the Kiss nightclub fire, which resulted in a criminal case, even the biggest, such as the cases of Nazism, which killed more than six million Jews, or the genocide committed by the Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong, whose politics killed 50 to 80 million people, do not die because they are being charged for absolutely nothing in the past: they die as a result of the decisions of others, criminals - remembering that, of course, the Spirit that foresees life under such a condition can choose then reincarnate in order to atone for past mistakes and try to learn and get rid of the imperfections that made him wrong.

I already addressed this issue in another article, highlighting that collective deaths do not occur due to “collective rescues”, but because we are subject to such vicissitudes, inherent to the raw material we occupy today.

The “deadline”

Many have, with some fear, referred to a supposed “prophecy” attributed to Chico Xavier regarding the so-called deadline, where, from a certain date in 1969, the elevated Spirits who care for earthly progress would give an “ultimatum” to the earthly human being: if there were no war, within the next 50 years, we would enter a new phase of planetary evolution.

It so happens that we have some problems with the Doctrine:

1. Superior spirits do not usually give future predictions of this kind.
2. How could superior spirits give such an ultimatum knowing that the human being is still very imperfect and knowing the going and going in the human heart?
3. We know that the evolution of the Spirit does not respect dates. For the immortal Spirit, time does not exist, and what is not done today, nor here, will be done in decades, centuries or millennia. The urgency that exists lives in each one, because each lost day of detachment from imperfections will be one more day of suffering in this spiritual condition.

Another problem is that much of this subject has been discussed secondhand, through other people, not having come directly from Chico Xavier's mouth. Therefore, it is necessary to look at this matter very carefully.

War and Spiritism: The Spirits’ Book

In the cited work, Kardec also addresses the theme of wars. Let's review the questions and answers:

742. What is it that drives man to war?

“The predominance of the animal nature over the spiritual nature and the overflow of passions. In the state of barbarism, peoples only know one right: that of the strongest. That is why, for such peoples, war is a normal state. As man progresses, war becomes less frequent, because he avoids its causes. And when it becomes necessary, he knows how to do it with humanity.”

The human being, still very imperfect, wants to rule by force in order to enforce his selfish desires. As we progress, we will leave such imperfections behind and fight less, on any scale. The big problem is that, today, man is forgotten about morals and the soul.

743. From the face of the earth, will war ever disappear?

“Yes, when men understand justice and do the law of God. At that time, all peoples will be brothers.”

Unfortunately, in an absurdly materialistic society, we are quite forgetful about practicing the Law of God.

744. What did Providence aim at, making war necessary?

“Freedom and Progress.”

When it is said that Providence (God) made war necessary, it is important to understand that God would never make war a necessity in itself, but rather that He allows free will to the imperfect Spirit that, without a shadow of a doubt, will come into play. strife and wars of every kind. It's part of evolution. It is almost always necessary to know the bad, in its most advanced stage, for society to seek the good. In the past, the human being, in general, fought and killed for any petty reason. Today we are considerably far from that past.

There is also something important to note: larger-scale wars are always commanded by one or more tyrannical individuals or groups. At the end of the line is the soldier who, many times, has nothing to do with it and who would not even like to be there, but who is forced to follow the orders of his commanders. Divine Justice, of course, “takes into account” these differences, that is, the soldier who acts under command, without the will to do evil, will have, before his own conscience, much less sense of guilt than the commander. who sends them to murder.

744. a) — If war must have the advent of freedom as its effect, how can it often aim and result in subjugation?

“Temporary subjugation, for press peoples, in order to make them progress more quickly.”

It is the complement of what was said above. War presses for advancement, both scientific and moral.

745. What is to be thought of him who stirs up war for his own benefit?

“This is the big culprit and many stocks will be necessary for him to atone for all the murders he has caused, for he will answer for all the men whose death he has caused to satisfy his ambition.”

From the answer to this question, it seems then that the Spirit who provokes war to take advantage will indeed have to pay for each of those who have suffered for this reason. But that's not exactly it. It is necessary to read carefully and carefully, and Kardec's works, being based on science, are continually built on previous postulates.

Let us note here that the spiritual response speaks in atonement. Atonement, being a kind of penance, is not a punishment imposed directly by God, as a charge, but rather as an effect of the conscience that the Spirit takes on the evil done. From the moment the Spirit understands that what suffers from being far from the good, starts to suffer morally because of it and, then, starts to plan incarnations where it will atone for its imperfections, to overcome them. Nor does it mean that the Spirit will individually atone for each one sufferings or deaths that he has caused, but, yes, that he will go through a long reincarnation work, trying to get rid of the moral weight acquired with his mistakes. Hitler will certainly not be reincarnated more than six million times to die in the same way and "pay" for the death of every single Jew (and other victims of the war), but surely the moment he understand the extent of the evil he did and the size of the suffering he himself experiences, he will go through a long series of incarnations suffered, by his own choice, in order to seek to overcome the exacerbated imperfections that made him act in such a way.

Conclusion

War and contention, to a lesser or greater degree, are still inherent to our condition of very imperfect spirits, and will only cease to exist on the day we practice God's laws, that is, on the day when moral charity, benevolence, in short, the good in itself is installed in the heart of each one, as an obligation, as well as that each one makes his own effort to get rid of selfishness and pride, imperfections that give rise to all the others. And, for that, it is necessary that the man rises above the matter and understands that, as incarnate Spirits, the only thing that really matters and what we take from here is the progress we have made or not. And, in this, Spiritism, as a science, and education based on Pestalozzi's pedagogy (mainly), still has much to contribute.

Let us pray, yes, for our brothers. We know that thought has the power of transmission over infinite distances. They can, who knows, reach the most hardened hearts, as they can also do a lot of good to those who are victims of the despotic excesses of all those who want to rule by force and violence. And let's take the opportunity to study, not to teach Spiritism classes, but to make ourselves more useful to society through our own transformation and the propagation of ideas based on the preexistence of the soul and its infinite continuity.

This is an honest and open reflection. It so happens that, today, one only thinks about indoctrinate. We forget, however, that Spirits have a lot to teach us – even the most unhappy ones, because we can analyze their current state, the reasons for the complications in their lives and, from that, obtain a lot of important knowledge. Studying Kardec, we see that not only he, but also many groups distributed across Europe and North America carried out serious research on the subject through mediumistic communications – not just waiting for “the phone to ring from there to here”, but carrying out evocations with serious and useful purposes.

Furthermore, at that time, it was customary to annotate everything, generating large volumes of documents regarding these communications, which could then be studied independently by external researchers, through rationality, seeking to find agreement between them. It is practically what Kardec did, and it is what allowed the structuring of Spiritism as a Scientific Doctrine. Today this is rarely done, except in the production of “letters” from disembodied relatives (whose communications could be much better used). My point is: we will need to resume this methodology, after all, human science has advanced a lot, but Spiritism has practically stopped in time, and many concepts that are accepted today did not go through this necessary methodology. If, today, the various groups of studies or mediumistic practices spread out there resumed this task, taking care not to contaminate each other from the sharing of ideas not sanctioned by this method, we could once again have a large volume of production. of contents that, little by little, could be analyzed. This, however, requires at least the basic study of The Spirits' Book and The Mediums' Book.

Imagine, for example, the controversies and lack of information regarding "spiritual cities": we can't, of course, ask the Spirit in a mediumship session: "Hey, do you live in a spiritual city? Where is it?" This would almost always provoke a tainted idea as a response. Instead, we would ask: "Could you tell us about your arrival in the spiritual plane? What did you find there? What are you doing today? Do you get tired? [If so,] what do you do to rest?"

He understands? There is another very positive point: in addition to learning from such reports, with effects on ourselves, our thoughts and our attitudes, these communications are also very useful to Spirits, especially those in a state of disturbance, who, when contracted to the mediumistic connection, he focuses a little more, again and can, at that moment, reflect a lot on his condition, changing his life.

Anyway, that's it. It has to start over, somehow. We just cannot forget to study Kardec for this, in order to avoid the difficulties already known and dealt with very clearly by him.

Spiritist Magazine — Journal of Psychological Studies — 1858 > June > The laziness

A man left very early and went to the square to hire workers. Now, there he saw two men of the people, sitting with their arms folded. He approached one of them and approached him like this: “What are you doing there?” To which he replied: “I have no work.” Then the one looking for workers said: “Take your tool and come to my field on the hillside, where the south wind blows; you shall cut the heather and turn the ground until nightfall. The task is hard, but you will get a good salary.” The man of the people put the hoe on his shoulder, thanking him for it, with all his heart.

Hearing this, the other workman got up and approached, saying: "Sir, let me go work in the field too." And having told them both to follow him, he marched ahead to show the way. Then, when they reached the side of the hill, he divided the work in two and left.

When he left, the last of the hired workers set fire to the weeds on the plot that he had been lucky enough to turn over the earth with his hoe. Under the scorching sun, sweat beaded on his forehead. The other imitated him, at first muttering, but soon he stopped his work and, putting the hoe in the ground, sat down beside him, watching his companion's work.

Now in the evening the owner of the field came and examined the work. Calling the diligent worker, he congratulated him saying: “You did well. Here is your salary.” And he sent him away, giving him a silver coin. The other also approached, demanding the price of his wages, but the owner said to him: “Bad worker, my bread will not satisfy your hunger, because you have left uncultivated the part of my field that was entrusted to you. It is not fair that the one who has done nothing is rewarded as the one who has worked well.”

And fired him without giving him anything.

I say to you that strength was not given to man, nor intelligence to his spirit, to spend his days in idleness, but to be useful to his fellow men. Now, he whose hands are unoccupied and whose spirit is idle will be punished and must begin his task anew.

Truly I say to you, your life will be set aside as a worthless thing when your time is fulfilled. Understand this as a comparison. Which of you, having in the orchard a tree that bears no fruit, will not say to the servant, “Cut down that tree and throw it into the fire, for its branches are barren?” Now, just as that tree will be cut down because of its barrenness, so the lazy man's life will be thrown into waste, because he has been barren in good works.

Laziness: workers of the last work

The Gospel According to Spiritism is a book by Allan Kardec and the Spirits that was published in Paris on April 15, 1864, which used this text, but with a different guise. 

It is good to know that Kardec made use of his studies with Revista Espírita to add part of them to his great work, recognized as basic to Spiritism, which, among them, gives greater focus to religious, ethical and behavioral issues of the human being.

The cited article: Last minute workers

Our Facebook group: Study Group The Legacy of Allan Kardec.

It is time to recover Kardec.

A few days ago I got involved in a heated discussion – behind the keyboards – which ended up making me angry and indignant. The reason? The issue of tampering (or not) in Kardec’s two final works – Heaven and hell and The Genesis.

Here, the discussion itself about these adulterations being a fact or not is not relevant. My criticism goes towards the rude and sarcastic position with which some of the “partisans” of non-adulteration behave, directly attacking the people and the work of the researchers who raised this very important information and who gave strength to the need to investigate the past, with the mere intention of taking any and all credit or even the desire to study them with the seriousness that, I argue, deserve.

It turns out that, if, for some (but not for me) the adulterations of the cited works are still a reason for doubt, on the other hand, there can be no doubt about the adulterations that the Movement suffered after Kardec, with the total loss of direction of the initial purposes of the Spiritist Society and its means of communication - this is very clear in O Legado de Allan Kardec. It is an undeniable fact that Leymarie allowed, due to material interests, Roustaing's thoughts to take precedence in the Doctrine, promoting anti-doctrinaire ideals and disrespecting the immense and dedicated work of Kardec and his wife, Amélie Boudet, “the sweet Gabi”. The Spiritist Society of Paris, commanded by Leymarie, distanced itself from totally Kardec's purposes, letting this unfortunate gentleman succumb to the temptation of vanity and money. reached the point of kick out, from one of the apartments destined by Allan Kardec for charity purposes, an elderly couple, for simple delay in payments of the rent, when the same and the Society had large sums of possessions and money [Private, 2019]. Furthermore, put aside the plans for the continuity of the spiritist movement which, according to Kardec's project, should rely on the multiplication of study groups and spiritist "investigations", governed under the necessary methodology [ibidem] - well, how could those who would be denied by it apply such a medotology, right?

It is also a fact that Spiritism, since its arrival on Brazilian soil, has been affected by this line of thought, finding shelter even in Bezerra de Menezes, one of the first presidents of the FEB, an institution that, until 2019, had, as a clause stony, the orientation of the study of the Four Gospels, by Roustaing.

It is also a fact that today's Spiritism is completely mischaracterized and misrepresented. Spiritist centers, which were once meetings of confessed spiritists, dedicated to the study of mediumistic communications and their moral and scientific effects, today reproduce Catholic churches, where the faithful attend the sermon (lecture), receive the blessing (pass), say a prayer and leave. Mediums, in search of help, are placed in long courses, which sometimes reach 7 years in duration, almost always with complicated FEB primers, so that, at the end of that, if they are still minimally interested, they are “initiated” in the mediumistic group of the house. Honest mediums began to be persecuted for “animism”, while others are taken as oracles: everything they say, through mediumship or their own opinion, is taken as a summation of absolute truth and wisdom. And then we started to hear, left and right, the most outrageous ideas, which, continuously, have promoted scandals and the removal of people who, in the most diverse conditions, feel motivated to enter a spiritist center in search of hearing something different from what they say around.

The moment is serious. We have arrived, once again, at a new critical point in society, with materialism happily flourishing in the hearts of men. But, once again, the opposite movement begins to take shape, because, as we know, it is necessary for man to know the apex of evil in order to go back to seeking the good and the beautiful. And that's what these works are about. There are those who criticize Figueiredo for defending autonomy over heteronomy, that is, for defending the essence of the teaching of the Spiritist Doctrine: everything depends on our will and our choices, and not on the blind acceptance of punishments and rewards. Precisely he, the first researcher IN THE WORLD to look for the original works of several philosophers and scientists, in order to give a scientific and historical context to the birth of Spiritism, together with Magnetism, the sister science of Spiritism. Well, by not agreeing with your position – also based on proof and evidence – that there was tampering in Heaven and Hell, should we then discard everything else?

When I said that “it is time to recover Kardec”, I am not referring only to the very important study of his works, which are the basis of the Spiritist Doctrine, but I am objectively referring to “recovering Kardec” in his example, in his person, always, according to all records, so good and affable, but also so sensible and serious in the face of science studies. Kardec always recommended that, in order to criticize a certain subject, it was necessary to fully understand it, which is why, on several occasions, he failed to address in depth what he could not have given due attention to. When Kardec criticized The Four Gospels of Roustaing, he only did so after to read all four volumes. And he, with the time he didn't have, did it because he realized that it was a work full of important ideas, even if inaccurate or even contrary to the consistent teaching of the Spirits. Kardec always did that. And what we see today is that many do not want to reproduce the steps of the expert researcher. They cling to superficial issues and, with prejudice, stop delving into the content, going on to criticize or put such works into oblivion.

Before finishing, I would like to say that I read The Legacy of Allan Kardec from start to finish, with great attention and care. The facts presented there, regarding the adulteration of A Gênese, from the 5th edition onwards, I repeat, are too objective, complete and complex for such an opinion to be just the result of a misinterpretation. At the very least – and this is my position – it opens up a very large margin for suspicion that, there, there is a mixture of contents that Kardec would really change or insert, combined with contents inserted by another party, with the clear purpose of changing what was already established doctrinally.

I don't want, anyway, to force anyone to believe in anything. That's why our media, unlike many out there, will always be open to comments and the exchange of ideas. But I want to leave you, dear reader, an invitation to read the following works, so that you can take your position according to your own reasoning:

• The Legacy of Allan Kardec, by Simoni Privato
• Neither heaven nor hell: The laws of the soul according to Spiritism – by Lucas Sampaio and Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo
• Much Light, by Berthe Fropo (link to pdf on here).
• Autonomy: the untold story of Spiritism – by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo
• About “the Genesis case” – article of my authorship.
• Tampering in Kardec's works and the "CSI of Spiritism" - article of my authorship

Recently, the mountain region of Rio de Janeiro suffered another shock, resulting in a few dozen deaths. At the outset, I wish to express my feelings and those of the Group towards all the victims of this scourge and towards their loved ones.

I need, however, to position myself in the face of some comments that, at these moments, with great misfortune, some so-called “spiritists” end up making, almost always supported by supposed mediumistic communications. In no way do I want to say that my observations represent the sum of the teachings of the Spiritist Doctrine, which I have just begun to study, but I just want to rely on the logic of facts and on reasoning based on what this same study gives us.

lack of charity

It is enough for any disaster, of any proportion, to occur for someone, claiming to bring a mediumistic communication, to attribute it to a supposed action of “karma”, the “law of action and reaction”, the “redeeming of past debts”, without, first, reflecting on the complete lack of charity with which they act when they say so.

In the Kiss Nightclub disaster, unfortunately, several “spiritist” media outlets spoke out, linking those sad deaths to the Nazi Holocaust, stating that those people were “soldiers who killed Jews by burning them or asphyxiating them with cyanide” (see here a little more about it).

About the Gol plane crash in São Paulo, at Congonhas airport, in 2007, a book, called “O Voo da Esperança”, was produced, supposedly attributed to a Spirit, through the medium WF. This work, a true disservice to Spiritism, is enough to mention the following, as highlighted in Folha:

“It is the law of action and reaction […] Divine providence, in its infinite wisdom, did not place innocent spirits on this plane, but souls seriously committed to a past of errors […]”

“This group, of more than two hundred people, committed to the past of lack of compassion towards others […]”

This work resulted in at least one lawsuit against the publisher and the medium (see more).

And, in the case of the recent disaster in Petrópolis, there are already people publishing mediumistic communications claiming that it is a “collective rescue”.

The spiritist movement is crumbling from the inside out

My brothers, let us reflect! It's errors about errors, causing enormous damage to Spiritualism, committed by people who stopped being guided by the necessary rational method in the analysis of mediumistic communications and who began to allow any kind of concept, transmitted in this way, to be taken as true and doctrinal! Now, Kardec always called everyone's attention to the fact that imposter, deceiver or pseudo-wise spirits communicate everywhere, even in serious mediumistic groups, and that, because of this, we cannot accept the communication of any Spirit, under any name that presents itself, as an expression of the truth (read more by clicking here)!

You, who are reading, can put yourself in the position of that mother, who turned the mud in search of his daughter, 17 years old, hearing from someone who declares themselves a spiritualist the words “your daughter died like this because she is paying for past mistakes”? It achieves? Well done! If you succeed, it is for this reason – for charity – in the first place, and for the following reasons, that never we must express that kind of thinking!

Not everything is atonement for past mistakes

Anyone who studies Kardec – a study that is largely absent nowadays – knows very well that individual tragedies can occur for four main reasons: atonement, when the Spirit choose go through a certain test, with a view to overcoming an imperfection; test, which is when the Spirit goes through any difficulty, planned or not, and that promotes learning and progress; mission, when the Spirit chooses to perform a task in order to promote good for others; and force of nature, when, for example, an inevitable natural scourge affects thousands or millions of people simultaneously. Therefore, how can we give ourselves the right to point to a situation like these above, collective or individual, to infer, wrong and ruthlessly, that it occurs due to a “recovery” of past mistakes? That’s definitely not up to us!

Let's think about the following: imagine that you, as a Spirit, before incarnating, choose a type of evidence and, maybe, of atonements. Your incarnation takes place under this plan, until you move to any city, summoned by a job opportunity. You live there for some time when, by a fortuitous action of nature, a meteorite falls on this city, killing you and thousands of others around. See: it is an inevitable scourge of nature, to which we are subject by the simple fact of being incarnate. We will die and restart another incarnation, continuing our evolution.

Another example: in the case of Nightclub Kiss, could it be that everything happened due to someone else's irresponsibility? Well, we know that everything happened because they used combustible materials in a closed environment, with difficult exit (several exits were locked) and without an efficient fire extinguishing system. That is, there was negligence, which is the result of other people's choices. Many of those who were there, at that moment, were victimized by this chain of events – or can we suppose that the band that played was intuited to use the pyrotechnic materials (fire) in order to fulfill a “collective karma”? This is irrational!

Many do not know, but, geologically, the mountainous region of Serra da Mata Atlântica, which passes through SP and Rio, is very old, formed by the deposit of lighter matter (earth) on rocky elevations. Over the millions of years, this surface layer is getting more fragile and, when heavy rains occur, they cause landslides and disasters like these. The human being, being incarnated in the same dense matter, is subject to these occurrences, as he is part of a world whose nature is quite unstable, renewing itself day after day. Such scourges are not the result of God's impiety: they are actually necessary to accelerate our scientific and moral advancement (see The Spirits' Book, Part Three, Chapter 5 - Destroying Scourges - Click here).

Planetary Transition?

Much is said that such scourges are accelerating because of the so-called "planetary transition", where the Earth will cease to be a world of trials and atonement for a world of regeneration. In essence, this transition is still true, but we need to be very careful, once again, with the implication of what we say, as many attribute to such scourges, including pandemics, the effect of “separating the wheat from the chaff”, as if they were taking from here the Spirits that will no longer be able to be part of this planet in its new phase. This is yet another wrong and merciless thought.

We need to remember that scourges have always existed. Since before the time of the pharaohs, the globe has been plagued by immense tragedies, which demonstrates that they are not linked to such a transition. They have always occurred and always will occur, in this phase of materiality, in order to make us advance scientifically and morally. The transition will take place through the modification of ideas, from the individual to society, and not through the simple separation of Spirits who still have a lot to learn and contribute on this planet.

No benevolent spirit publicly accuses others of wrongdoing

We live a sad moment in the spiritist environment, where Kardec is relegated to the past, as if he had been overcome (everything that is the basis of a doctrine cannot be overcome, because it is a basis) and his method and all the rationality that he demonstrated to be necessary in communication with the Spirits, they are forgotten and buried as if they were unnecessary. The current “Spiritist Movement” (which has almost nothing of true Spiritism, and it is necessary to separate the Doctrine from what its adherents do) started to accept practically any and all mediumistic communication as an expression of wisdom and truth and, in this way, it is allowing anti-doctrinal concepts to be crumbling, little by little, the movement, on their bases.

Let us observe: when we see, in Kardec, the cases of atonement of the same kind, as in the case of Antonio B, we need to remember that it is an evocation, where the Spirit itself reports its choice to go through that. It is very clear that it is never an external imposition of a supposed law of sin and rescue, and it is also very clear that no minimally benevolent Spirit uses communication to point out the faults of others and link the present sufferings as a way of “redeeming them”. them.”

Spread the information and come study with us

Once again I come to ask you, who reads this article, to, as a Spiritist, inform everyone who can that It is not our place to point the finger and say that someone goes through certain suffering to pay off past “debts”. This distances people from the Doctrine and, especially when it starts with the blind acceptance of spiritual communications, it has been destroying the spiritist movement from the inside out.

And, finally, regarding the role of the medium and the researcher in mediumistic communications, as well as “animism”, we will address all of this in the next live, on 02/24/2022, about the article “Impostor Spirits – The False Father Ambrósio”, in the Revista Espírita of July 1858. read the article and do not forget to present your considerations, in our facebook group, so that we can enrich our study.

Spiritism does not need to be defended, and the time has come for us to do our part.

Spiritist Magazine — Journal of Psychological Studies — 1858 > June > The Beating Spirit of Bergzabern II

The second article about the scout

In this second article on the subject, Allan Kardec takes it up again after the Filipina Sanger girl spent a season at Dr. Bentner, your doctor.

The passages that follow come from a new German paperback, published in 1853.

It is now known that phenomena of this kind do not result from a pathological state; rather, they denote an excessive sensitivity.

In the first brochure entitled The Beating Spirits saw that Filipina Sänger's manifestations have an enigmatic and extraordinary character. We relate these wonderful facts from its beginning until the moment when the girl was taken to the doctor. When the girl left Dr. Bentner and returned home, the knocking and scratching began again at the Sänger house. Until that moment, and even after his complete healing, the manifestations were more marked and changed in nature.

The phenomena also become musical

• a small spindle is thrown from the bedroom.
• a piece of cloth that had previously been dipped in a basin of water. without being shaken and not a single drop had landed on the table.
• the bed pillows were tossed over a closet and the bedspread thrown against the door.
• an iron weighing about six pounds had been placed at the girl's feet, under the covers. Soon he was thrown into the first room; the cable had been removed and was found on an armchair in the bedroom.
• chairs placed three feet from the bed to be overturned;
• windows being opened, when before they were tightly closed;
• Another time, two chairs were carried over to the bed, without disturbing the covers.
• One night, as he left his daughter's room, Sänger threw a chair cushion in his back. At other times it was a pair of old slippers, shoes that were under the bed, or clogs that found him.
• They often blew out the lighted candle on the work table.
• keys, coins, cigarette cases, watches, gold and silver rings. All, without exception, were suspended in his hand.
• They had once left a harmonica on a chair. Sounds were heard. Rushing into the room, they found, as usual, the girl calm in her bed. The instrument was on the chair, but it no longer played.

Other Facts about Bergzabern's Beater Spirit

Usually, when the little sleepwalker was about to begin the session, she would call everyone present to her room. Often he only calmed down when everyone, without exception, was at his bedside.

After a time, the tapping and scratching was joined by a hum comparable to the sound produced by a thick bass string; a kind of whistling mingled with this hum.

Through the scratches, he called by name the people of the house or the strangers present. Everyone easily understood to whom the appeal was addressed. To this call, the designated person responded yea, to make her understand that she knew how to treat herself. Then, in his honor, a piece of music was played that sometimes provoked comic scenes.

The phenomenon's birthday

The anniversary of the day on which the scouting Spirit had first manifested has arrived: many changes had taken place in the state of Filipina Sänger. The beatings, scratches and buzzing continued, but to all these manifestations was added a special cry, which sometimes sounded like a goose, sometimes a parrot or any other large bird.

Some time before Christmas, the demonstrations were renewed with more energy: the blows and scratches became more violent and lasted longer. More agitated than usual, Filipina often asked not to sleep in her bed, but in her parents'.

Filipina gets sick

In a short time Filipina Sänger's condition changed to the point of causing apprehension about her health, because, being awake, she rambled and dreamed aloud. He didn't recognize his parents or his sister or anyone else. To this state was added a complete deafness, which persisted for fifteen days.

Filipina's deafness was manifesting itself, and she herself declared that she would be deaf for some time and that she would be sick. What is singular is that sometimes he recovered his hearing for about half an hour, with which he was happy. She herself predicted the moment when she would become deaf and when she would regain her hearing. Once, among others, he announced that at eight-thirty in the evening he would hear clearly for half an hour. In fact, at the predicted time, he heard again, which lasted until nine o'clock.

During the young Sänger's deafness, the fuss of furniture, the inexplicable opening of windows, the turning off of the lights on the work table were renewed a few times.

This was how things went on at Sänger's house, whether during the day or at night, during the girl's sleep or when she was awake, until March 4, 1853, when the demonstrations entered another phase. That day was marked by an event even more extraordinary than the preceding ones.

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As it turns out, Filipina Sänger was a very complex natural medium. In addition to her influence on the well-known phenomena of noise and movement, she was an ecstatic sleepwalker. She talked with the incorporeal beings she saw; at the same time he saw the assistants and spoke to them.

It is likely that, in these moments of ecstasy, the girl's spirit would see herself transported to some distant place, where she would attend, perhaps in memory, a religious ceremony. We can be amazed at the memory he brought back when he woke up, but the fact is not unusual. In fact, we can see that the memory was confused and that it was necessary to insist a lot to provoke it.

If we carefully observe what happened during deafness, we will easily recognize a cataleptic state. As the deafness was only temporary, it is evident that it did not cause changes in Organs respective organs. The same happened with the obliteration of the mental faculties, which was not pathological, since, at a given moment, everything returned to the normal state. This kind of apparent stupidity was due to a more complete detachment of the soul, whose excursions were made with greater freedom and left the senses no more than organic life.

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The cited article: The Beating Spirit of Bergzabern II

Our Facebook group: Study Group The Legacy of Allan Kardec.

In the article in question, as presented in the Spiritist Magazine of June 1858, Kardec talks about an annual banquet, in Paris, to commemorate Mesmer's birth anniversary.

At this banquet there were two types of “supporters”: those who mocked Spiritism, forgetting that Spiritism itself science that they embraced - and I emphasize the word because, in fact, it was an established and recognized science at the time - had, in turn, faced the same type of hurdle that, at that time, Spiritism also faced and, on the other hand, those who, even if they did not profess Spiritism, were of the opinion that it should be respected as a science of its importance.

The text itself does not go much further than that, in depth. We only take this opportunity to highlight a few important points:

 – Magnetism was a science cited several times by Kardec but never deepened, because, in its context, it was fully established and understood. He could never imagine that it would be put into oblivion by a strong materialist movement in the future.  

– Mesmer was a controversial scientist for a long time. By many, he was painted as crazy or a deceiver. Currently, however, his true face is being rescued: that of a sage, very cultured, who formulated the first theory about the Universal Cosmic Fluid and its influence on human health.  

– “Through” Mesmer, countless patients were cured of the most diverse illnesses, just by will, at a time when medicine performed bloodletting and cold-blooded surgeries, procedures from which few survived.

– Magnetism and Spiritism are sister sciences. One without the other is incomplete, limp.  

– We suggest that everyone read the book “Mesmer: the negated science of animal magnetism”, by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo, just started by us.

In this article, Kardec evokes a Spirit who had committed bodily suicide just 6 days before. As can be seen in the original text, this man was not recognized by anyone, having been buried as a pauper. It is possible to raise several considerations about this article.

“The phone only rings from there to here”

The first of these considerations, we would say, is regarding the evocation itself: at a time when the motto “the phone only rings from there to here” reigns, that has a background of reason, but which is thoughtlessly repeated by so many, we are faced with the doctrinal basis of Spiritism, built largely under evocations - i.e, the phone also rings from here to there. Only that, like a telephone, who will answer and if will answer is the problem of the question, always addressed by Kardec.

The Suffering of the Suicide

It is important to understand that the Spirit of the suicide will not suffer divine punishment for a sin committed – not in this way. Any Spirit will always have forgiveness and new chances, as it all starts from ignorance regarding evolving Spirits.

There are infinite variations between each case, with the result that there are infinite effects related to each case, because, essentially, such effects will be linked to the general mentality of the Spirit who commits suicide. While some will throw themselves into a real hell, because they believe they have committed sin, others may even be relieved, In a first moment – because later, when you really understand everything, you will most likely regret the wasted life.

Anyway, as São Luis attests, we understand that the first effect for every suicidal person – or, at least, for most of them – will be a great difficulty to disconnect from the body, given the violence of the act, their mental state and the fact that the body is still saturated with vitality. This, however, is only what we can say at the moment, based on what we understand from the article, because, really, it is a subject that requires further development and investigation.

It is also important to emphasize that the Spirit does not suffer none kind of physical pain. It is always your morality, your conscience, that externalizes and places in external factors the pain that is, in fact, within yourself. The suicidal person (like other spirits), therefore, can claim to suffer from cold or thirst, when, in fact, he is suffering morally, and not physically. In fact, we do this ourselves, with the difference that, through psychosomatic processes, we can develop actual damage or illness in the physical body.

That is why, when we come in contact with any Spirit in suffering, we can and should have a natural and healthy conversation with him, clarifying these points. It helps enormously for them to understand that suffering is moral, internal, not external and imposed.

the valley of the suicides

To put it bluntly: there is no “the” valley of suicides, just as there is no “the” hell. It is important that the Spiritist learns to remove this type of concept from his imagination and, above all, to spread them to others, because we know that, as a not very enlightened Spirit, we seek environments and other Spirits that are in accordance with our mentality that, moreover, shape these environments of suffering together. Therefore, when a suffering Spirit says that he is “in” hell, he acts like an incarnate person who, in a very difficult situation for him, expresses himself in the same way, with the difference that the Spirit shapes, alone or together, his own hell. .

Once again, it is very important to seek to clarify such Spirits, when in contact with him.

Above all, it is important to remember that there is no such fateful connection between a suicide and the exile of the Spirit in a “valley”, as a penalty.

The effects of suicide on the next incarnation

There is something much wrong in the spiritist environment in general, currently, and which is not doctrinal - in fact, it is something anti-doctrinal, born from the lack of study of the Doctrine: it is to make the depressing claims that such an individual was born under such tests or deformations because in the previous life he did this or that.

In the particular case, about suicide, there is a terrible statement made out there: that the individual who has physical problems today is so because he would be “rescuing” a suicide committed in the previous life. Brethren, this statement is criminal, why:

1. keep away people who, suffering in their skin or having a loved one in these situations, feel (rightly) outraged by this type of statement.
2. it's fallacious, because it is not based on reality: we do know that for every effect there is a cause, but it is not for us to probe the evidence of each, both because of the imposition of charity, which we must practice, and because a Spirit can choose a deformed body not only as a test, in order to try to get rid of an imperfection, but also as a mission in front of other Spirits or also as an opportunity to learn other virtues that you still feel the need to exercise. Anyway, it's ever a conscious choice of the Spirit, not the effect of a divine mechanics of sin and punishment. We note, moreover, that in all the spiritual communications studied so far, they always assert, even for the case of the monomaniacal madman, that the proof is the result of a choice prior and personal.

Suicide is not fought by fear

Finally, we remind you that suicide will never be fought by imposing the fear of suffering, but, rather, through the clarification. Let us introduce such individuals to the essence of Spiritism. Let us try to lead them to the following reasoning:

Pains and joys are fleeting, related to incarnate life. Happiness, which is what we really seek, will only be achieved after we leave our imperfections behind – since, for example, someone who is too worried, or too anxious, or too angry, or too jealous, or too proud, or too sensual, etc., cannot be really happy. To do so, on the spiritual plane, when we are aware of our imperfections, we plan lives with opportunities and difficulties, sometimes quite heavy, which, in our judgment, can help us overcome such imperfections. Therefore, giving up a life, with the extinction of the corporeal life itself, will not result in any progress, because, having not taken advantage of the difficult test for learning, we will not have perfected ourselves and, therefore, we will need - by our own will and verification – restarting a new life, carrying an even greater burden, due to the feeling of guilt caused by giving up and, who knows, by the disastrous effects that such an act can cause in the incarnate spirits that surround us.

Nobody is saying it's easy. Everyone knows where the callus presses and when you squeeze it, it hurts a lot. But we need to learn to separate physical pains from moral pains, placing ourselves, before ourselves and before the Creator, naked of any mask of selfishness or vanity and of all the imperfections that arise from these. We need to seek, in each hard test, as well as in the abundant opportunities that are presented to us, the deep needs we have for learning and, not forgetting that we are never alone, trust in the good Spirits, who do not abandon us, to go through such difficult moments.

Here, by the way, a final thought arises, supported by Spiritism: God does not give us a greater burden than we can carry. Most of the time, life presents us with opportunities that would allow us to learn in a much “lighter” way, but we, almost always, driven by pride, try to wear a mask, confuse us from ourselves and, thus, we choose leave aside the straight path, in order to embark on the winding and tortuous paths of passions (not speaking here in love, but in the deep feeling provoked by sensations). This is how, for example, many choose leave aside the study of Spiritism, which can leverage our evolution so much, to live life in laziness.

Therefore, let us take advantage of the opportunities that life offers us for our learning and evolution. Sometimes they are prickly, chosen by ourselves; at others, they are fields of soft and smooth grass, full of teachings given by love. It is up to us to recognize them.

NOTE: This evocation is in the book Heaven and Hell by Allan Kardec, first report of Chapter V – Suicides, of Part Two. It is worth reading the entire chapter V with several reports of evocations of suicides with many considerations by the author.

Dear friends, brothers who are attached to this initiative,

Once again, we invite each of you to participate actively in our group and to spread the essential ideas of Spiritism that, little by little, are beginning to be rediscovered and understood. It is in the interest and responsibility of all of us to restore, peacefully and patiently, but persistently and firmly, the original truths of this Doctrine born from the rational observation of the Spiritist teachings given everywhere and for all times! No longer an adulterated Spiritism, after Kardec's death, in order to give space to the retarding ideas of sin, fall and punishment, of karma, of rescues, but the Doctrine in its essence, based on the realization of free will, of choice of proofs and atonements, finally, the Doctrine that shows us that our step is always towards learning and spiritual progress, making part of this journey the mistakes and setbacks of each one, the same Doctrine that showed us, in its essence , not a pure soul created and deviated by sin, a simple and ignorant created Spirit and that, as it advances in its experiences, through mistakes and successes, joys and sufferings, it purifies itself of its imperfections and its materiality towards the true happiness of the superior spirits, already detached from these same imperfections and materiality through the acquisition of better habits and moral values.

It is natural, however, that such liberating and renewing ideas find resistance both in proud ignorance, closed to the reform of ideas, and in knowledge interested in keeping the class of faithful to the old doctrines under their wing. Even within Spiritism, such ideas of fall, sin and redemption are deeply rooted, as the adulterations come from a few months or years after the death of the worthy professor Rivail.

It will not be on the basis of wars and disputes, however, that we will discover this path full of briars and thorns, but on the basis of lucid understanding and a firm but friendly word. Let us avoid wasting time with those who make up the classes highlighted above, because both have no interest in changing their ideas in the face of irrefutable truth. For these, only time will have an effect. Let us invest our time, however, in the class of all those to whom these ideas not only please, but to whom they are substantial: those who no longer see any pleasure in life, those who think of giving it up, those who do not understand a vengeful God, who, in short, do not understand the reasons for day-to-day difficulties, or even to those who, of good will, wish to study Spiritism in its essence, in order to transmit, to all who can, the reforming and consoling ideas of this Doctrine in its originality.

Let us roll up our sleeves, therefore, dear brothers. Inaction does no one any good. Let's do our part. I, the author of this text, am here today, for a much loved Spirit who reached out to me in the most difficult moment of my life and for another, incarnate, who insisted on, daily and without any thanks, to spread a spiritist reflection in a WhatsApp group that was and still is forgotten why they formed a family in the spiritist center that, because of the pandemic, is now closed.

A gesture is often enough to change a life, an opinion, and, from there, start a movement. Onward, dear ones, and may God enlighten us all so that, in this process, we never let ourselves be contaminated by personalism, vanity, selfishness and pride.

The path is winding, long, rocky and full of thorns, but we have to walk it and clean it for the next generations, of which we will probably be a part again.

Views: 66 Various anomalies and deformities. Cretinism, mental, physical, intellectual disabilities. When questioning the reason for such physical complications, in the spiritist world, how many times have we heard: “it’s because so-and-so is repaying a past debt”. And for how long do we take comfort in this malicious and slanderous statement, made in a generic way?! But not anymore today. […]

After the irrefutable confirmation of changes to the two final – and fundamental – works by Allan Kardec, Heaven and Hell and Genesis[1], we were able to verify that such concepts were never part of the Doctrine of Spirits, being it originally and essentially based on free will, that is, on each one's ability to choose. However, such ideas still face great resistance, as many are those who come from a creation, including a spiritist one, which affirms the concepts of fall, sin, punishment, ransom, karma, etc.

O article of the same title, presented in Blog Spiritist Letters, hits on many points, but also brings this type of concept (debt and redemption), at a certain point, when using a statement by Suely C. Schubert (“The sick spirit, in debt“) and also when using a text from O Céu e o Inferno, based on the adulterated 4th edition.

Action and Reaction – what is it?

It is one thing to identify, as Kardec found in the law of successive reincarnations, that every effect has a cause, and that, almost always, this cause is found in previous lives. Another thing, quite different, is to say that every morally negative action will have a reaction in order to punish the original action in order to repair an alleged sin. This, within the scope of the Spiritist Doctrine, is a fallacy. Action and reaction is a material law of physics, not a moral law. So much so that there is no such law among those presented in The Spirits' Book.

Rescue?

Unfortunately, many modern spiritualists and spiritualists insist on preaching in people's heads that their pain, difficulties and current tragedies are "ransoms" of past debts, forgetting that, if on the one hand the Spirit can impose suffering for the purpose of to overcome the imperfections that made him fall before, on the other hand, hard tests can also be imposed that have nothing to do with past mistakes, but only as rich opportunities to learn virtues and to overcome aspects related to imperfections that have nothing to do with them, directly, with the type of evidence chosen. Thus, a Spirit may choose blindness only to be able to deal with the need to depend on the help of others, and not because it has blinded someone in previous lives. In fact, the whys are NOT FOR US TO PROBATE: it is only up to us to be charitable and help everyone along the way.

debts?

We need to understand that the “indebted” Spirit is not indebted to God or to any law, but rather to himself, and for believing so (this is very important). Because we all have the divine Laws in our consciences - a fact that makes us Spirits with free will - as long as we are not in denial, our own conscience accuses us of the mistakes made, for which we blame ourselves, as well as pointing out imperfections to us. that cause us moral pain. This is how a Spirit who, in the previous incarnation, had animated a rich and selfish man, often chooses poverty in the next incarnation, in order not to embark on the difficult path and so full of responsibilities that earthly riches bring.

I said “believe yourself like this” (indebted) because, when the Spirit really understands that what happened was a mistake, natural from its ignorance and imperfections, and that these imperfections and ignorance make it suffer, it ceases to believe itself a sinner. and deserving of punishment to understand himself as a Spirit in evolution, seeking, then, new proofs and atonements that give him the opportunity to learn and get rid of his imperfections, developing better virtues. Furthermore, he also understands that everyone is liable to mistakes and, therefore, he stops putting himself in the condition of collector and avenger. This is substantial, and this is what Spiritism essentially came for.

We are not saying, with that, that there are no physical consequences that the disturbed Spirit causes to appear on their body, since we know about the psychosomatic relationships that we keep with our body. But we are stating, based on the study of Spiritism in its originality, that WE CANNOT look at an individual with any deficiencies and affirm that this is because he is a “indebted” Spirit, as much as WE CANNOT (because it would be a mistake as much factual as well as moral) to tell a mother who lost her child by burning in a fire that "this happened because her child must have been a soldier in X's time who burned people". This is terrible, it causes revolt and distances people from Spiritism, a fact about which we will respond – in front of our own conscience.

Based on an error, another error is produced

Finally, I want to point out that the article in question makes the mistake – probably involuntary, due to lack of information – of basing itself on the adulterated version of O Céu e o Inferno, since it has already been duly and undeniably proven that the 4th edition of the work , bringing profound changes in the original thought, was not commissioned until after Kardec's death, not to mention that the careful comparative study of these changes indicates that the content was modified precisely to insert the concepts of sin and punishment that were never in the Doctrine of Spirits and that, although Kardec may have presented some previous thought in the sense of this belief, in the original work, from the first to the third edition (which are the same) it concluded precisely in the opposite direction.

See, in this sense, the differences between the original and what appears in the 4th edition:

[ORIGINAL]
“The mentally handicapped are beings punished on Earth for their misuse of powerful faculties. They have the soul imprisoned in a body whose organs are incapable of expressing their thoughts. This intellectual and physical mutism is one of the cruelest punishments on Earth. she is often chosen by the repentant spirits who want EXPIATE your faults”

[4th Edition]
“Cretins are beings punished on earth for the misuse they have made of powerful faculties; your soul is imprisoned in a body whose impotent organs cannot express its thoughts; this moral and physical mutism is one of the cruelest earthly punishments; often it is chosen by repentant spirits who want to REDEEM their faults”

Note that the meaning changes completely when talking about “rescuing” and when talking about “expiating”. As Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo says,

“To explain the laws of the soul according to Spiritism, while Christianity revives, restoring the true message of autonomy, as Jesus did, Allan Kardec will resignify terms such as punishment, repentance, atonement, reparation, eternity of penalties. The difference between punishment and atonement is the primordial point to understand the moral theory of Spiritism. For while punishment is a natural response to any thought or act that goes against the moral law present in conscience, atonement is a conscious, voluntary and effective effort to overcome one's own imperfection, through the choice of evidence. Ancestral religions reverse the meaning of these phenomena, dogmatically confusing punishment with atonement, as if they were one and the same. Furthermore, they consider punishment to be a deliberate choice of God and not a natural consequence.”

Figueiredo. Neither Heaven nor Hell: The Laws of the Soul according to Spiritism

There is also something very, but VERY important in practically ALL communications of this type, by the Spirits: the word CHOICE. Yes, there are proofs, there are expiations and there are punishments, even the most severe ones, but they are always CHOICES of the Spirit. See that, further on, in the same message, the Spirit repeats:

“[…] Some revolt against their voluntary torture, regretting having it chosen and feeling a furious desire to return to another life, a desire that makes them forget the resignation with the present life and the remorse of the past life that they keep in their conscience”. (Heaven and Hell, 3rd Edition)

[1] Consult the works O Legado de Allan Kardec, by Simoni Privato, and Neither heaven nor hell: The laws of the soul according to Spiritism, by Lucas Sampaio and Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo