Continuation of the article The True Mindset and the False Idea.

Several times in his works, Kardec mentions Passive obedience and blind faith. Now let us reflect on why they are the principles of False Idea.

The false prophets, in order to conquer through passive obedience, needed to prevent the masses from learning through their own efforts without the experience of trial and error to learn. They, the false prophets, condemned error, as if error were the cause of evil in the world.

However, we all know that You can only learn when you try. From trying, errors and successes are produced. From there, we evaluate and understand the best way to act. And God does not condemn error, because error is part of learning. Think about it: it's very different to make mistakes unconsciously than to persist in making mistakes consciously.

“To rise, man must be tested. Preventing their action and putting an obstacle to their free will would be going against God and in this case the tests would become useless, because the Spirits would not commit faults.. The Spirit was created simple and ignorant. To reach happy spheres, it is necessary for him to progress and rise in knowledge and wisdom, and it is only in adversity that he acquires an elevated heart and better understands the greatness of God.”

Allan Kardec. Spiritist Magazine — Journal of Psychological Studies — 1858 – November

At the same time, when someone does something, whether at work or in everyday life, they have to know what they are doing and what the results of what they are doing are. So, this someone may be doing evil without knowing it or even participating in evil without being aware of the evil. Therefore, the ideal would be to never carry out an activity without understanding it.

The good thing is to try to act with conscience, understanding.

The false idea, through the two principles of passive obedience and blind faith, leads us to believe that the error is evil. Consequently, error generates fear. Is it better to obey without understanding and have faith?

Since ancient times, priests have determined people's behavior, as they themselves claim that God chose them to determine His Law. Priests created the false teaching that the right thing is to obey God to receive divine rewards and be saved. They also propagate that error represents action inspired by the devil, who attacks man to take possession of him. Kardec shows this understanding in A Genesis:

Religion was, at that time, a powerful brake on governing. The people voluntarily bowed before the invisible powers, in the name of which they were subjugated and whose rulers claimed to possess their dominion, when they did not pretend to be equivalent to these powers. To give more strength to religion, it was necessary to present it as absolute, infallible and immutable, without which it would have lost its ascendancy over these almost primitive beings, just initiated towards rationality. It could not be discussed, just like the orders of a sovereign. This resulted in the principle of blind faith and passive obedience, which had, in origin, its reason for being and its usefulness. The veneration of sacred books, almost always considered to have come down from heaven, or inspired by divinity, prohibited any examination65.

Allan Kardec. GENESIS – Miracles and Predictions According to Spiritism (Portuguese Edition) . chapter IV, item 2. Kindle edition. ((Genesis – Miracles and Predictions According to Spiritism: https://amzn.to/3RM91hF ))

What is the thesis of the priests: if you do what we tell you, you will do what God tells you, then you will do right and you will be saved. If you do things differently using your own reason and conscience, you will not do the same as God, so you will do things wrong. The consequence is that the person will stop thinking. You will only obey. For priests, evil is not obeying. The good thing is to obey.

Whoever disobeys or does not repent will be handed over to the devil, suffering punishment, vicissitudes and pain. Through this false idea, the priests conditioned the masses to believe without reasoning — Blind Faith — claiming that reason does not understand the divine will. Obeying without understanding — Passive Obedience.

What are the instruments to make a person submissive? Believing without reasoning! Obey without understanding! Any understanding that starts from these two principles is a False Idea!

Blind faith and passive obedience occur in any area of activity: science, philosophy, religion, at work, at home, in relationships. In the Middle Ages, the religious dogma to guide actions. Today we use the materialistic dogma. In this way, it's like the middle ages of science!

If a person believes that their work is not and cannot be spiritualized, they are excluded from the environment. Exclusion is the same instrument that the church used, with condemnation, excommunication, persecution, etc. It is true that the church's condemnation led to death, but today exclusion by society is practically dying, becoming marginalized. There are graduates of higher education (or even technical education) who tend to believe in materialism; the others are the excluded. And the fight of the superior versus inferior. Spiritualism is the devil of science! And Materialism is the god of science!

Finally, currently, due to the false idea, those who think differently, whether from other countries or other religions, are enemies, they are controlled by the Devil, and must be fought and destroyed. Those who obey are protected by Good God. Thus, they create exclusivism and war. It is a MATERIALIST exclusivism!

Spiritism is not exclusivist. Spiritism is an idea. And it is through this idea that he will transform the world.

This article was prepared based on a lecture given by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo. Click here to meet her.

Continue on The Truth about Evil and Punishment

Recently, the Mesa Girante channel on YouTube produced a video where it addresses another video, by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo, talking about the work “Neither Heaven nor Hell”, from about 3 years ago. The work deals with the legal fact ((São legal fact at tampering of A Gênesis and O Céu e o Inferno, for the mere reason that editions were released, with changes, after the death of the author and without legal deposit. That cool fact it is above of any consideration and, because of this, spiritist federations from other countries, respecting the law, returned to the third edition of the work.)) from adulteration of Heaven and Hell and the context of the betrayal plot around Kardec.

In this video, the author of the Mesa Girante channel mockingly tries to invalidate the importance of the work due to Paulo Henrique's supposed rashness when dealing with the topic, on video. I wonder why he, the owner of the Mesa Girante channel, didn't dedicate himself firstly to read this work, which would have enriched too much the debate? Why did he only focus on what seemed incongruous to him, based on Paulo Henrique's speeches, without paying attention to the other relevant points of the work? I say this because I sought it out myself, through the comments, to demonstrate that the adulteration of Heaven and Hell is the unquestionable product of Roustainuist dogmas, in addition to the legal fact.

The next day, I produced a video, under the influence of irritation at the way the topic was approached, with a mocking tone and without any intention of cooperation, but of competition, since I didn't go looking for Paulo Henrique to talk about the differences. of understandings. I decided to delete this video, which I produced, because I ended up treating with affectation a topic where there should be absolutely nothing like that. Instead of this video, I recorded a new one, where I talk about the central focus of tampering, as you can see at the end of this article.

It turns out, however, that as soon as I recorded it, a live broadcast with Lucas Sampaio, co-author of the book Neither Heaven, Nor Hell, came to my attention, where he explains in detail all the issues involved in this topic of adulteration. The content is very explanatory in itself, so I reproduce the same video below and take the opportunity to comment on its content.

Comments on Lucas Sampaio's live

• IT'S legal fact at tampering of A Gênesis and O Céu e o Inferno, for the mere reason that editions were released, with changes, after the death of the author and without legal deposit. That cool fact it is above of any consideration and, because of this, spiritist federations from other countries, respecting the law, returned to the third edition of the work.
• Kardec was, indeed, making revisions to these works, preparing new editions. This is recorded in letters. However, less than a month after the letter mentioning the translation work into German, there is a letter from Kardec to a friend of his, saying that, due to health problems, he needed Suspend all activities that are not strictly necessary.
• The Spirits, evoked by Kardec, say that he nothing should be removed from new editions. Exactly the opposite was done in the editions published after his death, with the deletion of points important in the works.
• The original psychography, where the Spirits told Kardec not to suppress anything in the new editions, was tampered with by Leymarrie in Posthumous Works, removing precisely this advice, to give credibility to the 5th edition of A Gênesis. This happened after Henry Sausse's complaint.
• Those who deny legal facts and evidence of adulteration even use testimonies from people linked to Leymarie to support their theses.
• It is extremely important to read the work The Legacy of Allan Kardec, which provides diverse evidence about the facts surrounding the adulteration of A Gênesis.
• There is talk of the Society's accounting records, signed by Kardec's wife, three years after his death, where the costs of printing O Céu e o Inferno in February 1869 would be recorded. Anonymous (company)? Does it make sense to trust documents from the Sociedade Anônima, the same company that carried out the post-mortem coup on Kardec? As we will see below, official documents show that the work was not printed on that date.
• In the legal records of the National Library, printer's declaration no. 8,584 with a request for authorization from the typographer Rouge registered on 7/9/1869 to print 2,000 copies of the same fourth edition of Heaven and Hell, according to page 294 of document F/18(II)/128, more than three months after the disembodiment of Allan Kardec.
• In the Revista Espírita of June 1869, the Sociedade Anônima published the article titled “On sale on June 1, 1869”, dealing with the edition that was ready only on the 19th of the following month. And the notice further explains:

Fourth edition of Heaven and Hell or divine justice according to Spiritism, containing numerous examples on the situation of Spirits in the spiritual world and on Earth; 1 vol. in-12, price: 3 fr. 50.

Note – The doctrinal part of this new edition, entirely revised and corrected by Allan Kardec, went through significant changes. Some chapters in particular have been entirely reworked and considerably expanded.

(SOCIETY ANONYMOUS, [RE] 1869, jul., p. 224)

• Everything indicates that Amelie, over 70 years old, in mourning, was deceived by the Public Limited Society, and trusted what they said or presented to her. Berthe Froppo mentions that she believed that the SA would sell Kardec's books at popular prices (and they did the opposite). Sweet Gabi, as Kardec called her, gave everything, believing that the best would be done, as he did not have a leadership spirit. She was removed from any decision-making role in the SA. In short, deceived. She did not oppose the new editions, as she knew that her husband was working on them. He chose to hand over all of Kardec's work to the SA, as he thought, following Kardec's purposes, that Spiritism should belong to everyone, and no longer be centered on anyone. It was the promise of Society, finally unfulfilled.
• There is a lack of will (and here I reiterate: including by the CSI of Espiritismo and the owner of the Mesa Girante channel) to carry out a careful and applied study, including comparative. No: we just keep focusing on the surface of affirmations and simple denials, in a desire to deny what we see to be obvious to our eyes.
• Denial theses do not respect the legal fact; they don't care about Kardec's plans for the future of Spiritism; they do not care about the various blows suffered by Kardec and Spiritism; they do not care about the blow to the unity of method and organization, necessary for doctrinal continuity; they do not carry out doctrinal analyzes of the previous content and changes; do not care about the fact that the Public Limited Company has set on fire a large number of Kardec's manuscripts, after his death; they do not talk about the real plot being formed around Kardec, by Roustaing and his followers; do not bring to light the countless facts and evidence of interests contrary to good, by people around Kardec.

  No, and they cannot, because paying attention to the fact of the disasters suffered by Kardec and Spiritism would be feeding the arguments of adulteration, which would not be in their interest. On the contrary: they strive to place unjustifiable doubt on people like Berthe Froppo, a close friend of the Kardec couple, who made some serious accusations against Leymarie and the limited company! No, for them Froppo's testimony is not valid, but the allegations of the adulterer, Leymarie, and his wife, as well as the others involved, out of interest, in their affairs are valid. spiritual business!

• The preface to Genesis and the introduction to chapter 8 of Heaven and Hell (3rd edition) deal precisely with the method of Spiritism, which protects it from becoming a personal system, which greatly bothered Roustaing and Pezzani, his personal friend , which had their own conceptions of what Spiritism should be. Is it chance that both were removed in the new editions?
• The excerpts removed in the adulteration of Genesis they denounce exactly how people think and act enemies of the true idea.
• Each of the 25 items in chapter VIII of Heaven and Hell had a basis in the rest of the work. In the 4th edition, which was tampered with, many items lost this correspondence, as demonstrated in O Céu e o Inferno, from the publisher FEAL (click on here to download for free).

Live with Lucas Sampaio about Tampering in Kardec's works

Video from my channel talking about the video from the Mesa Girante channel

How can Our Home? How would it be possible, given the doctrinal knowledge brought to light with so much care, with appropriate methodology, gathered from the study of a multitude of Spirits, of all evolutionary degrees, to communicate everywhere? Does not make sense.

According to the spirit of André Luiz, the Governor of the "astral city" himself asserts:

In "Our Home," we are more than a million creatures devoted to higher purposes and the moral improvement of ourselves.

How can we reconcile, however, the idea of millions of “creatures”, devoted to superior designs, but still so absurdly attached to earthly materialism? Does not make sense. We do not object to the idea that inferior Spirits, attached to materialism, when leaving the body, remain attached to false needs and false ideas of the earthly personality. In fact, this is abundantly demonstrated by the Spiritist Doctrine. Here, however — in theory — we speak of Spirits devoted to superior designs.

I ask: how can we admit a hierarchical organization of supposedly superior Spirits devoting themselves to the systematization and cultivation of false ideas? Bonus hours? After all, doesn't the Spiritist Doctrine teach us that charity is a moral duty, which is practiced without waiting for a return? In Nosso Lar, according to André Luiz, Narcisa's Spirit worked out of obligation, to earn the right to reincarnate:

I need to find some beloved spirits on Earth for joint upliftment services. For much
time, due to my past deviations, I prayed, in vain, for the possibility necessary for my ends. She was disturbed, distressed. They advised me, however, to turn to Minister Veneranda, and our benefactor of Regeneration
promised that he would endorse my purposes in the Ministry of Aid, but demanded ten consecutive years of work here, so that I can correct certain imbalances of feeling. At first, I wanted to refuse, considering the demand too much; later, I recognized that she was right. After all, the advice was not aimed at her interests but rather my own benefit. And I gained a lot by accepting his opinion. I feel more balanced and more human and I believe I will live my future experience on Earth with spiritual dignity.

Now, in addition to a superior Spirit interfering with the free will of that Spirit, demanded, against his will, the fulfillment of a “sentence”, so that she could later reincarnate. I wonder where Nosso Lar or any other spiritual colony would be, which did not interfere with the choice of Spirits like that of the Assassin Lemaire (Revista Espírita, March 1858) who thought he was strong enough to challenge himself in a type of test in the face of which succumbed. And what about the Spirit of Charles Dupont (The Spirit of Castelnaudary, RE60), who, having previously lived among savages, in another world, chose to incarnate on Earth, where, without yet having control over his instincts and emotions, he ended up killing his brother and his wife?

No, it's not possible. Our Home, with its great walls, faithfully reproduces false earthly ideas, where the "unchosen" are kept outside the walls. Our Home, with its multitude of millions of Spirits "devoted to higher purposes," would be a portrait of selfishness distracted by rampant materialism.

What a difference with the communications frequently presented by Kardec from superior Spirits! There is no attachment to materiality in his descriptions: his occupations are working for infinite Space, acting in Creation:

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.

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.

Spirit of Countess Paula, Heaven and Hell

Careful reading is enough to realize that this Spirit figuratively uses the term “aerial dwellings”. What beauty, what a completely different scenario from that world of material attachment and false physiological needs presented by André Luiz in his first work, whose logical disparity with the Doctrine and common sense we cannot explain until Kardec's methodology, with the use of evocations, be recovered.

By changing our mentality, we will leave our attachment to materialism to be useful, acting, according to our possibilities, in the Good, in Divine Creation. We can learn and teach, ever. Detached, in the world of Spirits, we do not attach ourselves to things, nor to forms. The universal divine creation itself is enough for us: the Universes to travel through, the processes of Nature to participate in, the planets to visit, the souls to help and those to learn from. But the idea of Our Home is a place where we need to work to earn “spiritual money” so that we can then buy a small house, where we can have “utilities”, such as a comfortable bed, a beautiful table with spiritual mahogany chairs, where we can sit comfortably to drink a fluidic soup (sic). Sorry for the sarcasm.

As on Earth, property here is relative. Our purchases are made based on working hours. The hourly bonus, in essence, is our money. Any utilities are purchased with these coupons, obtained by ourselves, through effort and dedication.

Our home

Now, why have a house, if infinite Space serves as our Home? Why have a house if the Spirit does not feel any material need? Why protection if you don't feel fear or pain? Why soup or water if the Spirit doesn't feel thirsty? For what "aerobus“"Oh my God, if the Spirit is transported by thought—even the least elevated thoughts?"

No, Spirits do not need any of this, and only Spirits who are still very disturbed, very attached to earthly ideas, are confused with the body they left behind and believe they need rest, food, protection, etc.

39. Could you tell us what your occupations are?

– R. I have them like you; I first try to educate myself and, therefore, I mix with better societies than I am; as leisure I do good, and my life is spent in the hope of achieving greater happiness. We have no material needs to satisfy and therefore all our activity is directed towards our moral progress.

Spirit of Mrs Reynaud, RE59

There are sensations that have as their source the state of our organs. Now, the needs inherent to the body cannot be verified as long as there is no longer a body. Thus, the Spirit does not experience fatigue, nor the need for rest or food, because it has no loss to repair. He is not affected by any of our illnesses. The needs of the body determine social needs, which for them do not exist. Thus, there are no longer the worries of business, the discord, the thousand and one tribulations of the world and the torments to which we surrender to meet our needs or the superfluities of life. They feel sorry for the effort we make because of frivolities. However, the happier the elevated Spirits are, the more the lower ones suffer, but these sufferings are mainly anguish that, although they have nothing physical, are no less poignant.

KARDEC, ibid.

The case here is not to accuse Chico of lack of care. Chico was the communication tool, like a pencil in a writer's hand. No, we would have questioned the Spirit that communicated, in possession of the knowledge of all the problems and all the care that revolve around mediumship and the communication of Spirits. That's not what we did: simply accepting, placing on Chico Xavier's account the weight of responsibility for communications that we should have evaluated.

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!

Check out a more complete approach in the article Umbral and the doctrinal basis.

I am always emphatic in demonstrating that the Spiritist Movement is considerably far from true Spiritism. We almost always find the Spiritist Movement, represented by the Spiritist Centers, the FEB, the USE and the speakers and representatives of these institutions, surrounded by atavisms, trapped in systems of ideas built on distortions and spiritist romances, attached to their own opinions gradually formed over decades. of a teaching distanced from Kardec and full of Roustaing, or supported on the false ideas born by adulteration of Heaven and Hell. As a result, the Spiritist Movement distanced itself from the logical and clear face of spiritual science and became a new religious variant, something that Spiritism has never been (nor will it ever be).

In the last almost four years (I write in February 2024), what I thought I knew about Spiritism has suffered a huge shock. It started with reading Allan Kardec's Legacy, followed by the reading of “Nem Heaven, Nor Hell: the laws of the soul according to Spiritism” and then went deeper with the inauguration of our Study Group, where we began to study the Spiritist Magazine and also with the reading of the works of Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo, dealing both with Rational Spiritualism, a scientific-philosophical movement of the 19th century that gave basis to the emergence of Spiritism, and with the true face of Spiritism.

I am, therefore, interested in summarizing, in this article, some recommendations for the Spiritist student, wishing to free themselves from the webs of the stagnant and dogmatic Spiritist Movement, to get to know and experience true Spiritism in their lives. Let's go in order:

1. Study the work Neither Heaven nor Hell: the laws of the soul according to Spiritism, where it will be possible to understand the importance of the adulteration of the work Heaven and Hell.
2. Study the work Autonomy — The Untold History of Spiritism: https://amzn.to/3PIvbyy
3. Study the work “Final Point: the reunion of Spiritism with Allan Kardec“, where it will be possible to understand what actually happened to Spiritism on Brazilian soil.
4. Create a study group on the Revista Espírita (1858–1869). It is there that you can learn about the formation of the Spiritist Doctrine, with a great gain in understanding through the study of the previous work — “Autonomy”.

Concomitantly with these previous steps, here are some suggestions for content that can be studied with great benefit:

• Lecture Allan Kardec and the moral revolution of humanity.
• Study Good and Evil, Punishments and Rewards, Shadow and Light.
• Spiritist Revolution. Allan Kardec's forgotten theory: https://amzn.to/3t7HIUH
• Allan Kardec's Legacy: https://amzn.to/3RIn2gv
• Genesis, Miracles and Predictions According to Spiritism https://amzn.to/3RM91hF
• Heaven and Hell, or Divine Justice According to Spiritism: https://bit.ly/3vVYQhu (Free PDF) / https://amzn.to/3ZGrcal (book)
• Mesmer. The denied science of animal magnetism: https://amzn.to/3PYc1X2
• PDFs of Kardec's works: https://bit.ly/3sXXBxk

I hope this can be very useful to you. If you have any doubts, contact.

The publisher FEAL recently released the free PDF of the work Heaven and Hell, by Allan Kardec. The big difference for this edition is that it recovers the work originally written by Allan Kardec, free from the absurd disfigurement that this work suffered in its 4th edition, tampered with after Kardec's death.

Adulteration? Yes, if you don't already know, this work was tampered with after Kardec's death and released with a huge variety of removals of original, very clear ideas and the addition of exiguous ideas to the Spiritist Doctrine, contrary to what Kardec often denied or stated. You can understand this adulteration a little better by clicking on here and also by reading “Neither Heaven Nor Hell – The laws of the soul according to Spiritism“".

Click on the link below to download the free PDF of Heaven and Hell, by Allan Kardec, by FEAL:

https://portalmundomaior.com.br/artigo/o-ceu-e-o-inferno-ou-a-justica-divina-segundo-o-espiritismo

Continuation of the article Spiritism: The Idea of Jesus. Are we going to better understand the differences between the true mentality and the false idea?

Over time, the true mindset and false idea have taken root in the world's traditions in various ways. Religions have always embedded competition, dispute and the law of the strongest into their teachings.

The Christian tradition considers that Jesus was announced by John the Baptist and foreshadowed by repentance: “repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near”. With this thought, we had to repent of our sins, of our mistakes. This education leaves us full of guilt, because if I made a mistake, I need forgiveness to be saved.

TO MAKE AN ERROR IS A SIN, says Christianity.

Religions used this idea to say that only God's forgiveness saves those who make mistakes, and those who disobey are eternally punished and handed over to the devil. This thought was not only implemented by religions: at work, if you make a mistake you will be fired, in the family, if you make a mistake you will be ignored, and this happens in countless situations. In life, you can't go wrong! People use pretense, hide, camouflage mistakes, falsehood, because remember: making mistakes is a Sin. This triggers several consequences, including that people are not as they truly are, nor do they feel included, lost, aimless.

That's why we have to understand Spiritism's message of belonging, of being part, of collaboration. We have to seek this understanding. We have to put aside the idea that the strongest will save the simple, the ignorant, that the strong and outstanding are bigger and better.

To make the truth count, you have to do good! But it is necessary to reform the way these teachings are taught, changing how and what is taught to children, with structural changes in schools. Competition cannot be the stimulus for learning. False ideas are taught when children are told that fighting serves to stand out, to be superior, to be better than others, to be “among the superiors”, so as not to be rejected by society. This mentality is false!

Cooperation is the key to changing the world! It is not the superior that makes the world move forward, but everyone's cooperation! says Spiritism

However, the most recent translation work on the gospels makes it clear that the Greek verb methaneô, linked to the noun metanoia, has the meaning of “changing mentality”. Frederico Lourenço explains: “At the heart of the word is the word nous (“mind”): hence the fact that the essence of the idea is anchored in mental change (of which regret is a symptom)” (New Testament).

Verse 14 of chap. 1, by Mark, goes like this:

14 After John [the Baptist] was betrayed, Jesus went to Galilee to proclaim the good news of God, 15 saying: “The time has come and the kingdom of God has come near. Change your mentality and believe in the good news.”

Mark: 1:14-15

With this simple passage from the Bible, we completely transform the understanding of the meaning of Repentance: there is a need to change our mentality to overcome a false mentality! It is not regretting the mistake, but changing the way of understanding, Change your mindset.

This article was prepared based on a lecture given by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo. Click here to meet her.

Continue on Passive Obedience and Blind Faith – The Two Principles of the False Idea

Esse texto, intitulado “Remorso e Arrependimento”, foi integralmente extraído da Revista Espírita de maio de 1860:

"I am happy to see you all united by the same faith and love for Almighty God, our divine Lord. May he always guide you on the right path and shower you with his benefits, which he will do if you make yourselves worthy.

Always love one another as brothers; help one another, and let love of neighbor not be a meaningless word to you.

Remember that charity is the most beautiful of virtues, and that of all, it is the most pleasing to God, not only that charity which gives an offering to the unfortunate, but that charity which pities the miseries of our brothers and sisters; which makes you share in their moral pain, lighten the burden that oppresses them, in order to make their pain less vivid and their lives easier.

Remember that sincere repentance obtains forgiveness for all faults, so great is God's goodness. Remorse has nothing in common with repentance. Remorse, my brothers, is already the prelude to punishment. Repentance, charity and faith will lead you to the happiness reserved for good spirits.

Go and listen to the words of a superior Spirit, beloved of God. Retreat and open your heart to the lessons he will give you."

A GUARDIAN ANGEL

Repentance, for Spiritism, is not something external, subject to a figure of others, as it is for religions: no, repentance is the movement of the Spirit that understands its own deviation and then seeks to correct itself, through the atonement and reparation.

A Brazilian Spiritist group, with unquestionable merit for its approach to practical Spiritism through evocations and dialog with the Spirits, recently published an article in which, having evoked the Spirit of Allan Kardec, he supposedly commented on the ten Moisaic laws - the Ten Commandments. In this evocation, he said something about atonement that caught our attention.

We don't doubt the possibility of this Spirit communicating. In fact, he must be very keen to do this essentially spiritist work, wherever he is called. However, reading the comments attributed to him, we find the following:

Who punishes the iniquity of the fathers in the children who hate me to the third generation.

"That would be a denial of God's sovereign justice and supreme goodness. Truly, this is what has been said: everyone will be punished for his sin. Isn't that a refutation of these sad words? The guilty atone for their faults, for which they have no regretsin a series of painful incarnations."

Spiritist Review Group. "Explanations of the Ten Commandments given by the Spirits". Available at https://www.revistaespirita.net/pt-br/artigo/184/explicacoes-dos-dez-mandamentos-dadas-pelos-espiritos. Accessed on 01/12/2023. Emphases added.

The conclusion is not correct. I ask you to bear with me amicably, because I'm not here to throw stones at anyone.

"The guilty atone for their faults, which they do not repent of, in a succession of painful incarnations." This leads to the idea that atonement is a punishment given by God to unrepentant spirits:

The word atone means to purify, to pay for sins. Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we can purify ourselves in order to be reconciled with our Heavenly Father.

Available at https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/true-to-the-faith/atonement-of-jesus-christ?lang=eng

This cannot be Kardec's thinking. The third edition of Heaven and Hell contains the following, later removed in the adulteration of this work:

“8º) The duration of the punishment is subordinated to the improvement of the guilty spirit. No condemnation for a fixed time is pronounced against him. What God requires to put an end to suffering is repentance, atonement, and reparation—in short: a serious, effective improvement, as well as a sincere return to the good.”

The spirit is thus always the arbiter of its own destiny; he can prolong his sufferings by his hardening in evil, alleviate them or abbreviate them by his efforts to do good.

A sentence for any given period of time would have the double disadvantage of either continuing to affect the spirit that had been perfected, or ending while it was still in evil. God, who is just, punishes evil while it exists; and ends punishment when evil no longer exists.

Thus this expression is confirmed: I do not want the sinner to die, but for him to live, and I will accuse him UNTIL HE REPENTS

Then, in a passage removed in the 5th edition of The Genesis, he states:

"Far from replacing one exclusivism with another, Spiritism presents itself as the absolute champion of freedom of conscience. It combats fanaticism in all its forms, cutting it out at the root, announcing salvation for all good people, as well as the possibility for the most imperfect to reach, through their efforts, through atonement and reparation, the unique perfection that leads to supreme happiness. Instead of discouraging the weak, it encourages them by showing them the port they can reach."

Of course the atonement is a result of the Spirit's repentance. Before that he only suffers remorse, but sincere repentance puts him on the conscious path of reparation through atonement, the fruit of his choices (remorse and regret are different things). This is the result of all Kardec's long years of study and research, and is constantly evidenced in the Spiritist Review.

The clear evidence of adulteration, especially in Heaven and Hell, have disfigured the doctrine and tarnished Kardec's reputation as a fool who contradicts himself or someone who has lost his capacity for judgment. We have shown that item 10 of the 4th edition of this work demonstrates, without a doubt, that there has been tampering, and this tampering does not allow us to know the reality of Kardec's conclusions.

I suggest the following thoughts, which have inspired me, as a prayer for the good Spiritist student. They are thoughts that I think are useful to reflect on before study meetings.

"Good Spirits, I'm about to start another learning activity together with the group that welcomes me. Much more than a pastime, I understand the depth of this knowledge, which over time will change me and, from me, the human family around me.

I ask my guardian Spirit and the good Spirits who guide me to inspire me with good thoughts at this time. Spirits of our mothers, fathers, grandparents, relatives or close friends; spirits of people who I may not even remember, but who may be grateful to me for the slightest good I have done them, or sympathetic to my difficulties and my will: may my thoughts be more accessible to their good influences, thus warding off the influences of those who, unhappily, even without knowing it, aim at malevolence or frivolity.

Right now, may I look inward, so as not to be hypocritical with myself. Help me to notice my inner dispositions, my mistakes, my bad habits and, perhaps, my imperfections. Before I say "but him", may I turn to myself and say "what about me?", so that I can first see the beam in my own eye before I see the speck in someone else's. May I learn not to see what is wrong with me. May I learn not to see the evil in someone else's mistake, thus creating the evil in myself. May "judge not" be clear in my mind, understanding that seeing another person's mistake should not lead me to judge them for that mistake, which they may not even be aware of and which they often commit while trying to do good.

Help me, finally, not to deceive myself. Learning can only be built through collaborative effort, and happiness is no less a joint effort. If my purpose is to learn, in order to share and help, may I, in learning, first apply the consequences of Spiritism to myself, making the effort that the true Spiritist, the one who has understood the Doctrine at the core of their Being, must make. So, wishing to be a good tool, may I use all this knowledge to develop better habits, replacing the bad ones; may I learn, day after day, to tame my emotions, counting on the good inspiration of you, my fellow Spirits, as well as the group that welcomes me with open arms.

May pride and selfishness gradually leave my being and be replaced by true humility and charity. May personalism find no place in my soul. May vanity not instigate me to think I am superior to anyone, when I am only a mere apprentice, trying to keep on the learning curve of God's Law, and may levity, still characteristic of Spirits like us, not lead me to be careless and behave like pseudo-wise Spirits, who think they know what they don't know. Let praise not instigate my vanity, which I must firmly combat, and let criticism be taken only as an opportunity for reflection. If I have mediumship, may I not think I'm infallible, nor be led to blindly believe in the Spirits who may communicate with me or inspire me, and may, when I may have my attention drawn to them, sullenness and pride be far from my thoughts.

May the innermost purposes of this group with which I sympathize be mine too, and may I learn to do my part, carrying my blocks for the effort that, together, will help to restore the foundations and re-erect the edifice of Spiritist science, so that one day it can once again illuminate the whole of humanity with its torch of light, today overshadowed by contempt and neglect.

Help me so that, leaving this meeting, I can maintain these dispositions in my daily life, knowing that true prayer is experienced every moment, through will, founded on knowledge. Intuade me, out of charity, to remember to find more moments to study this Doctrine, replacing idle time with knowledge of the Good, so that I can ultimately become a more useful individual for the group and for humanity.

Thank you, etc…

Cover photo by Andrea Piacquadio: https://www.pexels.com/pt-br/foto/aluna-com-dor-de-cabeca-na-biblioteca-3808057/