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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[…]

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

[…]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Division in Spiritism?

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

Segundo Carlos Seth, “cabeça” do CSI do Espiritismo, agora a divisão se dá no campo moral, porque Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo – esse o autor das referidas obras, de 2018 e 2020, a quem Seth nem sequer se digna a fazer referência – estaria distorcendo falas de Kardec para implantar, na Doutrina, algo que nada tem a ver com ela. We'll see.

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

Termina o autor novamente atacando quem, por outras evidências e argumentos lógicos e racionais, conclui pela probabilidade da adulteração ((A teoria da não-adulteração (de O Céu e o Inferno e A Gênese) tem também evidências e argumentos, mas não apresenta prova cabal. Arvora-se numa falácia para atacar outra (segundo defende), esquecendo-se das valiosas sugestões de Kardec: nunca tomar por final senão aquilo que pode ser provado.))

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

Antes de mais nada, porém, precisaremos evocar Kardec e questionar o porquê de ele ter defendido o tal Espiritualismo Racional – movimento filosófico-científico encabeçado por pessoas como Maine de Biran e Victor Cousin ((Por A + B, se o Espiritualismo Racional estava instituído oficialmente no ensino francês e se era um movimento sólido, fundamentado principalmente pelos autores citados, é fácil concluir, com certeza, que Kardec refere-se ao mesmo movimento, e não a outro qualquer)). Ora, vemos, na Revista Espírita de 1868, que:

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

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

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

KARDEC, Allan. Spiritist Magazine, November 1868

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

E isso não é tudo. Antes disso, em 1863, Kardec diz, no artigo intitulado “Noticias bibliográficas – O rational spiritualism pelo Sr. G. H. Love, engenheiro”:

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

KARDEC, Allan. Spiritist Magazine, October 1863

Que sandice, senhor Kardec! Defendendo ideias que, segundo algumas pessoas, não tem nada a ver com o Espiritismo! Afirmando que o Espiritualismo Racional, ao qual se refere, no texto, apenas como “ideias espiritualistas” (o que nos leva a crer que, em outras referências do tipo – “espiritualismo”, “espiritualistas”, etc – ele se referia ao mesmo Espiritualismo Racional) seria algo obtido da observação científica dos fatos! Ora, onde já se viu ciência e espiritualismo andarem juntos? Só se foi no passado, no tempo do “doido” Kardec.

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

The great difficulty, however, will be that all of us, who follow the work of Paulo Henrique and himself, will have to deny reality, deny historical documents and existing works, censor the works of Paul Janet, deny Kardec, deny his conclusions and his statements, all so as not to cause a new split, “now in the moral field”. In other words: let us erase and adulterate the truth, so that morality, as they understand it, remains untouched. Well, this desire to take the truth for oneself, ignoring facts, seems like a habit of the WArlos seth Investiga do Espiritismo, como demonstramos no artigo “CSI of Spiritism: the official organ of Truth“.

Também precisamos evocar o Espírito do Sr. Love e ter uma séria conversa com ele, a fim de esclarecer sua ousadia em, sendo um espiritualista racional, afirmar que encontrou a mesma moral obtida em suas observações, justamente no Espiritismo “de Kardec”:

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

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

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

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

BASTOS, Carlos Seth. Ibid. My emphasis.

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

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

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

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

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

Já citei uma das vezes em que Kardec citou, com ênfase, e nomeadamente, “Espiritualismo Racional”, afirmando que toda defesa dele seria favorável ao Espiritismo. Em outubro de 1863 (RE) você terá DOIS artigos muito interessantes sobre o assunto. Cito o início do segundo, ao final do número (“O Espiritualismo racional pelo Sr. G. H. Love, engenheiro”):

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

Vá até o Google e coloque assim: “site:kardecpedia.com espiritualismo”, e encontrará muita coisa.

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

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

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

The monopoly of common sense

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

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

KARDEC, Allan. Spiritist Magazine, May 1860

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

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

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

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

The word psychology literally means “study of the soul” (ψυχή, psyché, “soul” – λογία, logia, “treatise”, “study”). This is not, however, what we see reflected in current – and long-standing – studies on the subject, because, as much as this area approaches the understanding of the soul as “the intelligent principle, rationality and thought”, it still seeks to in the cerebral matter the origin of all the characteristics of the individual

“Our brain, involuntarily, looks for elements to lean on, reinforce its convictions or interests, which leads to an individualized, own lifestyle. No matter what you use to strengthen or motivate your desires, your hopes, all the various forms are valid. People who don't believe in anything tend to be pessimistic and negative., because for them, nothing can happen to change their lives. For the dominion of reason binds man to what is earthly. Genetics explains the origin of faith.”

SOUZA, Andreia Maria S. “What is the soul: meaning in psychology and psychoanalysis”. Available at https://www.psicanaliseclinica.com/alma-o-que-e/. Accessed on 09/10/2022. Emphasis added.

As can be seen, even faith, for modern psychology, is still materialistic, conditioned, for it, to genetics and not to the soul (necessarily, therefore, in progress).

)).

The search area of to be human being, of his “psyché” (psyche) is predominantly characterized by the Aristotelian ideas that define the to be as a result of the body – ideas that, going through the centuries, created, contrary to the philosophy of Socrates and Plato, autonomous and spiritualist in essence, a regrettable heteronomous and materialist doctrine, which, in addition to removing from the to be the principles of autonomy and will gave rise to the absurd ideas of racism, eugenics and, in the individual field, heteronomy, which, from the individual, contaminates his social environment and, finally, defines social, philosophical and political structures.

Guided and contaminated by the Aristotelian idea, where the individual attributes, when purely materialistic, all his moral characteristics to the genetics of the body and, when “spiritualist”, to one or more beings acting as arbitrators (as if God, or “the gods” , whether vengeful, interfering) or evil-enhancing beings – the devil, demon(s), etc. – society mischaracterizes itself as social, becoming predominantly selfish and insulating the being in itself, aiming at the care of your material needs, instead of leading him to the understanding of his will as the principle of everything, in the daily exercise and in solidarity with the other.

Religions, finally, took away, for sectarian interests, the autonomy of the individual, to subordinate him to the whims and punishments of other beings, interfering, bellicose and vindictive, when not malicious, while science, not seeing rationality in the dogmatic principles of religions, denying it completely, denied human spirituality, only to fall into the same error, taking away the individual's autonomy by transforming him into a “ventriloquist's dummy” of body chemistry. It is not by chance that Darwinian eugenics was based on Aristotle, because, if on the one hand it is right in observing the natural fact of selection, on the other hand, it extends it to the human being, placing it, once again, as It is made of your body, and not as a determining factor about it. Darwin said: “Linaeus and Cuvier were my two deities, but they are nothing more than schoolboys compared to old Aristotle.”.

We did not know, however, that for an expressive amount of time, and in capital of the world From the 18th and 19th centuries, a philosophical current was born that resumed the concepts of the autonomy of the individual as a fundamental principle of existence and the definition of (or of) to be. a philosophy that defined at moral sciences francesas ((Diz Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo in “Autonomia”: The first division of the sciences, presented in Paul Janet's Treatise on Philosophy, according to the structure prevailing at the Sorbonne University in the 19th century, was between:

a) The exact sciences or mathematics.

b) The natural sciences, which study the objects of the physical world (physics, chemistry, biology, etc.).

c) The moral sciences, which study the moral world, which comprises the actions and thoughts of the human race.

The moral sciences, in turn, were divided into four groups:

• The philosophical sciences, divided into two classes: psychological (psychology, logic, morals, aesthetics) and metaphysical (theodicy, rational psychology, rational cosmology).
• The historical sciences (history, archeology, epigraphy, numismatics, geography) study human events and development over time.
• The philological sciences (philology, etymology, paleography, etc.), whose object is language and human symbolic expression.
• The social and political sciences (politics, jurisprudence, political economy), which study the social life of human beings (JANET, 1885, p. 15-17).)) and which became a fundamental subject in the Normal School, in teacher training, and which later began to be adopted in lyceums and colleges, but which was surreptitiously erased from human history, together with two other philosophical sciences of the same foundation, as we will see below.

It was at the beginning of the 19th century that Maine de Biran and, later, Victor Cousin, among others, took up the concept of will as a principle psychologically elaborated by the soul, defining free will. For these thinkers – at a time when, as we have seen, philosophy was treated as a science – the autonomy of the individual is based on the will as a characteristic of the soul. From this fundamental principle, the principles that distanced the being from heteronomy were born, placing it as an autonomous agent of itself and, through its solidary action, of society. The individual was no longer a reflection of his genetics (or, as they thought at the time, their dispositions bile ((White bile defined good and black bile defined evil, in body chemistry. Based on this principle, many doctors performed bloodletting, often deadly, seeking to eliminate the black bile.)), but the primary reflection of its will.

This revolutionized the psychology of the time and totally transformed the moral sciences, as it placed the individual in the condition of being solely responsible for his moral conditions and choices. More: it started to deal with moral issues, under these principles, in order to separate what was external to the individual - the emotions (at the time called passions), pleasures, physical pain, etc. internal to the individual – the choices, born from the will of his soul (being that the soul would be, for them, the being that defines the will and that survives death, without, however, investigating it in that state) that, in the end, would determine your state of happiness or unhappiness.

This knowledge is fantastic and deserves to be recovered and studied! See: today, we define (or confuse) our state of happiness and unhappiness by external factors – if I don't have money to travel, or if I have a weakened body, or if I lost dear people, think unhappy, since happiness, for the current materialist thought, would be in the things of the world - parties, travel, money, etc. By understanding this morality defined by this spiritualist philosophy – rational spiritualism, as it became known – we begin to separate things: can I be unhappy because of a condition or event, or not having pleasures because of not having money, or having poor health, or physical limitations, but that is not what defines my happiness, for this is a construction of the will of my soul as far as morals are concerned, that is, in my striving for detachment of everything that arises from conditions external to my will. For example: as a condition external to my will, defined by my soul, there is the bodily impulse to react violently to a given situation; By allowing this impetus, which is born from the protective instinct, to dominate my will, I can perform actions that later make me regret (when I become aware), for what I will suffer. If I cling to such a way of acting, I will develop a habit and, hence, an addiction, which will make me suffer indefinitely, until, repenting, I consciously resolve to seek to detach myself from this error, in an effort that can only be autonomous. , and not imposed.

Perhaps the person who best defined these concepts is Paul Janet, in two main works: “Small Elements of Morals”, a very succinct and simple to read work (we recommend reading it!), available for download here and also available on Amazon Kindle, and “Elementary Treatise on Philosophy“, a much larger and more complex work.

But does not stop there. We mentioned the issue of black bile and white bile, which took over the medical concepts of the time and which, due to the absurd actions imposed on patients, such as bloodletting or “medicines”, which even mixed poison, weakened and sometimes killed the sick. Contrary to these ideas, still in the 18th century, Mesmer, observing some patients, arrived – in a very summarized way – to elaborate concepts that were also autonomous in the treatment of health, theorizing that the individual could also if heal by the action of your will. Hahnemann, with homeopathy, followed the same principle. For Mesmer, the external agent, acting through the will of the sick individual – what became known as magnetism – could help him to achieve, through persistent work, cures that, for many, would be impossible and, in some cases, almost miraculous (which, in fact, it was not: it is just an unknown science). Such was the accuracy of his theories that, already at that time, and against the scientific theories of the time, they were aligned with the concepts now in force and demonstrated by modern physics, such as those of the Quantum Field Theory and the existence of elementary matter, " quintessenced”, which gives rise to all matter (dark matter). It is all knowledge that would require a real book to treat it. As this book already exists, we recommend reading it: “Mesmer: the denied science of animal magnetism”, by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo.

We also mentioned the question that the study of rational spiritualists was limited to understanding the soul as an agent of the will, external to the body and dominant over it, surviving death (by mere rational inference from the previous postulates), but with an unknown subsequent fate, since unobservable. It turns out, however, that “something” was happening, gaining ground for the establishment of a new science, born, at the time, like all the others: through the rational and methodological observation of the facts of nature.

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

“The magnetizers proved very early on the relations of somnambulists with invisible beings. Deleuze, a disciple of Mesmer, in his correspondence with Dr GP Billot for more than four years, from March 1829 to August 1833, was initially reluctant, but eventually stated: “Magnetism demonstrates the spirituality of the soul and its immortality; he proves the possibility of communication between intelligences separated from matter with those still linked to them..” (BILLOT, 1839)”

[…]

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

[…]

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

FIGUEIREDO. Mesmer: the denied science of animal magnetism.

We have arrived, therefore, at the birth of the spiritist science, a science, and not, as many believe, a “religion”. Being aware of the facts that swarmed across Europe (and the world, in fact) and, removing, through investigation, the quackery that only aimed to attract curious people and their bags of money, Professor Rivail ((Hippolyte Leon Denizard Rivail.)) set out, after much insistence from some known people, to a study that culminated in what became known as Spiritism, which, instead of being born, like all religious doctrines, from the isolated opinion of an individual or a group, was born from the rational analysis of thousands of communications, obtained from all “corners” of the world, in the same way that the magnetizers who preceded him also obtained theirs: through individuals placed in a state of somnambulism, induced by magnetism (from Mesmer). A fact was established, supported by reason: the soul, previously uninvestigatable, could, by its will, communicate through the soul of the individual placed in a somnambulistic state.

Through these communications, Allan Kardec, the name adopted by Rivail in order not to confuse his work as an educator and scientist with his new studies, inaugurated a new era in psychological study, because now, fully aligned with the concepts already developed by rational spiritualism, he studied the soul in its state, after death, of happiness or unhappiness, fruits of its choices. Not only: against the preconceived ideas he had, along with other scholars, regarding the origin of the soul, communications from countless Spirits evidenced, by reason, the law of reincarnation as a necessary element for the incessant progress of the Spirit ((Highlights Kardec, in his Magazine:

“Undoubtedly, say some opponents, you were imbued with such ideas and that is why the spirits agreed with your way of seeing. It is an error that proves, once again, the danger of hasty and unexamined judgments. If, before judging, such people had taken the trouble to read what we write about Spiritism, they would have spared themselves the trouble of such a light objection. We will therefore repeat what we have already said about it, that is, that when the doctrine of reincarnation was taught to us by the spirits, it was so far from our thinking that we had built a completely different system on the antecedents of the soul, a system that we actually shared. by many people. On this point, the doctrine of the Spirits surprised us. We'll say more: it upset us, because it overthrew our own ideas. As you can see, it was far from being a reflection of them.

This is not all. We don't give in to the first shock. We fight; we defend our opinion; we raise objections and only surrender in the face of evidence and when we realize the inadequacy of our system to resolve all issues relating to this problem.

In the eyes of some people, it may seem strange to use the term evidence, in such a subject, however, it will not be inappropriate for those who are used to scrutinizing spiritist phenomena. For the attentive observer, there are facts which, although not of an absolutely material nature, nevertheless constitute true evidence, at least moral evidence.

This is not the place to explain these facts, which can only be understood through continuous and persevering study. Our aim was only to refute the idea that this doctrine is nothing more than a translation of our thinking.”

KARDEC, Allan. Spirit Magazine. 1858.

)), in their choices to return to the subject, to continue their learning and, in many cases, to, after the repentance process, through your choices, and not by an arbitrary imposition, give rise to the necessary evidence for the search for detachment from habits and vices that, transformed into imperfections, led them to suffering.

Such studies complemented what Rational Spiritualism could not explain and demonstrated that the autonomy of the being, defined by his will and his free will, was indeed a determining factor in his progress and, consequently, in his state of happiness or unhappiness, as happiness would be the closer to the law natural would be, while unhappiness would be in fighting it, developing attachments. In recognizing the state of unhappiness and its reason, the Spirit would choose new opportunities that would provide learning, not being, under any circumstances, the effect of a punishment imposed by the mistake committed.

Here, dear reader, are the facts of the true psychological and philosophical revolution that, for more than a century, remained unknown to society, swept under the rug by a strong materialist reaction. Once recognized as a science, today, under the empire of a materialist – and inexact – understanding of what is science, is treated as pseudoscience, discredited and discredited under this classification. Here are the facts that, currently, are inconceivable to be addressed in the classrooms of philosophy, medicine, psychology and similar classes. Here are the facts, finally, that led the whole world to dive or remain under the fearsome principles that take away autonomy from being and that transform man into a veritable mass of flesh, defined by his body chemistry and, consequently, by his DNA. . Today, in general, one does not seek to investigate the origin of unhappiness, depression or disturbances by investigating the soul and its will: on the contrary, one seeks to investigate what is the gene of psychopathy, not considering that the “anomalies ” would be defined by the soul, not the other way around.

It happens, however, that the human being, precisely through spiritual progress, which does not cease, more and more search autonomy, because, slowly and progressively, it approaches, by reason itself, the verification and understanding of these principles, since the progress of the Spirit does not occur only in the state of incarnation. Autonomous ideas are starting to gain strength, both in society in general and in scientific circles, which, every day, come closer to this truth arbitrarily erased from human knowledge in the past. That is why, vehemently, we recommend the study of the cited works to, later, indicate, to those who feel compelled to do so, the study of the Spiritist Magazine, prepared by Kardec, from January 1858 to April 1869, where it is exposed, very clearly, the formation of this philosophical and moral doctrine that, in order to be well understood, lacks the understanding of the context in which it was born and formed.

We spoke of truth arbitrarily erased from human knowledge. Spiritism, having been the only scientific and philosophical doctrine that deepened the study of the psychology of the Spirit after the death of the body – this is why the Spiritist Magazine received, as subtitle, “Journal of Psychological Studies” – studied the facts that they were given rationally and with scientific methodology (which can be very well understood through a serious study of the work of Allan Kardec, and about which we have spoken a few times in our articles).

Duly contextualized in its time, the Spiritist Doctrine was so rational and logical, clear and, in a way, simple, that it “converted” ((Of course, the meaning given here to “convert” is to adopt principles and ideas of a doctrine, and not of affiliating with any religious system.)) countless people, even atheists and materialists, from the working classes to those occupying the highest social positions. Today, however, the Spiritist Movement, contaminated, for more than a century, by adulterations in Kardec's two final works and by ideas instilled in his environment, has lost precisely this rational and logical characteristic of an observational science. Currently, many move away from the spiritist environment precisely because they see their reasoning clashing with false concepts of debt payment, karma, divine punishment through reincarnation and unreasonable acceptance of any supposed spiritist psychography, without subjecting it, as Kardec recommended, to the scrutiny of reason.

This is why there is a need to study and get to know Spiritism in the original works ((The works Heaven and Hell and Genesis were respectively adulterated in their 4th and 5th editions, but the publisher FEAL currently already has the original works, with a huge amount of contextualizing notes by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo.))] by Kardec. Spiritism Never it was a religion, nor was it born with the intention of competing with religions for a position that does not belong to it ((Kardec would say, in the Revista Espírita of 1862:

“With regard to the issue of the miracles of Spiritism that was proposed to us, and which we dealt with in our last issue, this is also proposed: 'The martyrs sealed the truth of Christianity with their blood; where are the martyrs of Spiritism?'

You are therefore very urged to see the Spiritists placed on the bonfire and thrown to the wild beasts! Which should make you suppose that your good will would not be lacking if that were still the case. You want, therefore, with all your strength to elevate Spiritism to the status of a religion! Note well that he never had that pretension; he never set himself up as a rival to Christianity, of which he claims to be the son; that he fights his cruelest enemies: atheism and materialism. Once again, it is a philosophy resting on the fundamental foundations of all religion, and on the morals of Christ.; if he denied Christianity, he would contradict himself, he would commit suicide. It is these enemies that show it as a new sect, which gives it priests and great priests. They will shout so much, and so often, that it is a religion, that one could end up believing in it. Is it necessary to be a religion to have its martyrs? Have not science, the arts, genius, work, at all times, had their martyrs, as have all new ideas?”

Allan Kardec – Spiritist Magazine of 1862

)). It is, first of all, a moral science, as we have demonstrated, but also a science born from the observation of the facts of nature. Studied as such, it removes prejudices and attacks the only real enemy of human autonomy, materialism, demonstrating it to be false and unsustainable.

Janet was a contemporary of Allan Kardec. His works demonstrate, with excellence, the philosophical context in which the coder was inserted, making use of his concepts.

Many, when reading Kardec, suppose that he, due to the words he used in his works, was just reproducing ideas and concepts originating from the Catholic Church. Nothing could be further from the truth, as we will see below, because Kardec was, in fact, using the concepts widely widespread and understood in the midst of French cultured society, which, by the way, was the class that was most interested in the study of Spiritism.

Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo explains:

During the nineteenth century, what we call the human sciences were established from a spiritualist assumption for their constitution. Meanwhile, in the natural sciences, such as Physics and Chemistry, materialism predominated. This condition is very different from what we are used to today, when the university is almost completely guided by materialistic thinking.

This current of thought was known as Rational Spiritualism. For it was completely independent of formal religions and their dogmas. The fundamental basis was psychology, science of the soul, which had as a guideline: “The human being is an incarnate soul”.

As is explained at length in the book Autonomy, the untold story of Spiritism, Allan Kardec made psychology the conceptual basis for developing the Spiritist Doctrine. His monthly newspaper was the Spiritist Magazine, journal of psychological studies.

Rational Spiritualism was taught, since 1830, at the University of Paris, also at the Ecole Normale, where teachers were trained, and also at the Lyceums, in the education of young people. For these, there were manuals, like Paul Janet's. This manual has been translated into several languages and adopted in many countries, including Brazil.

This manual is of fundamental importance to understand the conceptual basis of Kardec's studies, especially regarding spiritist morals.

FIGUEIREDO, Paulo Henrique de. Paul Janet's Treatise on Philosophy. Portal do Espírito, July 22, 2019. Available at . Accessed on May 19, 2022.

Using, we said, the concepts of Rational Spiritualism, which was taught at the University of Paris and at the Escola Normal Superior in Paris, Kardec develops the most diverse philosophical concepts of the Spiritist Doctrine, in the light of the agreed teachings of the Spirits. Thus, it will give a deep development to the ideas of moral treated by these scholars, approaching the concepts of pain and pleasure, good and bad, to owe, disinterested charity, freedom, merit, punishment and reward. Let us, by way of illustration, demonstrate the construction of these last two concepts:

The reward and the punishment

in your work Small Elements of Morals, available for download, in PDF, in this link, Janet builds the various philosophical concepts that will support those of the reward and gives punishment. He expresses himself thus: "pleasure, considered as the consequence due to the accomplishment of good, is called reward, and pain, considered as the legitimate consequence of evil, is called punishment".

Pleasure, for him, is the quest to experience what life allows, and there would thus be good pleasures and bad pleasures, varying, in this interval, according to certainty, purity, intensity, duration, etc. Thus, the fugitive pleasure of drunkenness would be a bad pleasure, while the lasting pleasure of health would be a good pleasure:

Há prazeres muito vivos, mas passageiros e fugitivos, como os prazeres das paixões ((Assim define o dicionário Oxford: “no Kantianism, violent emotional inclination, capable of completely dominating human behavior and moving it away from the desirable capacity for autonomy and rational choice. This is the meaning of passion, used by Kardec and the philosophers of his time)). There are others that are durable and continuous, such as health, safety, convenience, consideration. Will those pleasures that last a lifetime be sacrificed for pleasures that last only an hour?

JANET, 1870((JANET, Paul. Small Elements of Moral. Translation by Maria Leonor Loureiro. Paris, 1870))

Therefore, morally, the human being should always seek the good pleasures, that do not produce regrets, passing them over to the bad pleasures, which generate regrets and complications:

Experience teaches us that pleasures must not be sought without discernment and without distinction, that it is necessary to use reason to compare them with each other, to sacrifice the uncertain and fleeting present for a lasting future, to prefer simple and peaceful pleasures, not followed. of regrets, to the tumultuous and dangerous pleasures of passions, etc., in a word, to sacrifice the pleasant to the useful.

ibid.

It is clear, therefore, that the concept of reward, used in this context, is linked to the understanding of the joy of having performed an action linked to the good, while the punishment is the pain generated as legitimate consequence from evil. There is no attribution, therefore, to a mechanical imposition of a supposed “law of return” or “law of reparation”, by God or by the “Universe”, for bad action, as many insist on proclaiming, nor are there any rewards given for good action. Everything is a consequence moral, from the individual to himself, which necessarily depends on the knowledge of the Law:

In morals, as in legislation, no one takes advantage of ignorance of the law. There is, therefore, in every man a certain knowledge of the law, that is, a natural discernment of good and evil: this discernment is what is called conscience or sometimes the moral sense.

ibid.

However, for the individual to act morally, he must have free will:

It is not enough for man to know and distinguish between good and evil, and to experience different feelings from one to the other. It is also necessary, to be a moral agent, that man is capable of choosing between one and the other((Here the studies of Spiritism lead us to another understanding: in truth, man does not choose between good and evil, because, deep down , if you choose poorly, it is because you do not yet know the law. The Spirit that really knows and understands the Law of God only does good, always.)); You cannot order him what he could not do, nor prohibit him what he would be forced to do. This power to choose is freedom, or free will.

ibid.

But it is important to remember that man, as an incarnate soul, is a basic concept of Rational Spiritualism, as defined by Janet, in the same work:

Every law presupposes a legislator. The moral law will therefore presuppose a moral lawgiver: this is how morality elevates us to God. Every human or earthly sanction being shown to be insufficient by observation, the moral law needs a religious sanction. This is how morality leads us to the immortality of the soul.

From all this, the understanding of vice and virtue is born:

Human actions, we said, are sometimes good and sometimes bad. These two qualifications have degrees, because of the importance or difficulty of the action. This is how an action is convenient, estimable, beautiful, admirable, sublime, etc., on the other hand, bad action is sometimes a simple fault, sometimes a crime. It is reprehensible, base, hateful, execrable, etc.

If, in an agent, the habit of good deeds be regarded as a constant tendency to conform to the law of duty, that constant habit or tendency is called virtue, and the contrary tendency is called vice.

ibid.

Evil, however, is a judgment of oneself (no one can do harm to another((According to the rational principle of autonomy, developed so far, the individual can only commit physical harm against another, but never moral harm. A subject can stealing someone else's belongings, which will cause him some difficulties, but, in truth, he does harm to himself, as he violates the moral law, for which he will suffer depending on his state of consciousness. The victim, for his Once, apart from the material setback, she may or may not do harm to herself, depending on whether or not she clings to what happened and generates some suffering for herself. This will also depend on her awareness of the moral law))), which depends on the awareness of what one does:

The judgment that is made from yourself It differs according to the principle of action that is admitted. He who lost at the game may feel distressed about himself and his recklessness ((In other words: he may realize that he did himself wrong by losing money at the game)); but he who is conscious of having cheated in the game (even though he has won by that means) must despise himself when he judges himself from the point of view of the moral law ((Because, when he becomes aware of what he has done, he realizes that he has harmed the another, and this makes him remorse)).

ibid.

And then, a little further on, still in the same work, Janet develops the understanding of moral satisfaction and repentance:

Regarding our own actions, feelings change depending on whether the action is to be done or already done. In the first case, we feel, on the one hand, a certain attraction to the good (when the passion is not strong enough to suffocate it), on the other, a repugnance or aversion to evil (more or less attenuated according to circumstances by the habit or violence of the desire). These two feelings were not usually given particular names.

When, on the contrary, the action has been performed, the pleasure that results from it, if we act well, is called moral satisfaction, and if we act badly, remorse or regret..

Remorse is the burning pain, and, as the word indicates, the wound that tortures the heart after a reprehensible action. This suffering can be found in the very ones who have no regrets for having done wrong and would do it again.. It has, therefore, no moral character, and must be regarded as a kind of punishment inflicted on crime by its very nature. “Malice, said Montaigne, poisons itself with its own poison. Addiction leaves as it were an ulcer in the flesh, a regret in the soul, which is always scratching and bleeding itself.”

Repentance is also, like remorse, a suffering born of wrongdoing; but there is added to it the regret for having carried it out, and the desire (or the firm resolution) not to carry it out any more..

For Janet, then, remorse would not yet be the suffering generated by regret, but just a certain torture for carrying out the reprehensible action. In other words, one does not suffer because evil has been done, but only because what has been done is reprehensible. And then, Kardec, in Heaven and Hell ((Always remembering that this work was tampered with and mutilated starting from the fourth French edition, which served as the basis for all other editions and translations. The topics covered in this article were those that suffered most from these adulterations)), speaking of punishment, which has, for Janet, the same meaning as punishment ((Diz Janet: “A ideia de punição ou castigo também não se explicaria se o bem fosse apenas o útil. Não se pune um homem por ter sido inábil; pune-se por ter sido culpado”)), assim se expressa:

The duration of the punishment is subject 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 the repentance, expiation and reparation – in short: a serious, effective improvement, as well as a sincere return to the good.

KARDEC, Allan. Heaven and hell. Translation by Emanuel G. Dutra, Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo and Lucas Sampaio. 2021.

In other words: God does not pronounce punishments or punishments against the individual. It is he himself who punishes himself, through legitimate consequences of the evil done. So, to end this suffering, you need to repent, in the first place, that is, identify that you have done something reprehensible (remorse) and add to that the regret of having done it (repentance, which is moral), as well as the desire to no longer do it. In order to reach this understanding, it is necessary for the Spirit to advance in intelligence and, in order to repair the harm done (which it is already clear that he has committed against himself, and not against others, from which it follows that he must repair in itself the origin of this evil), Spiritism demonstrates, without the possibility of error, the existence of the law of reincarnation.

All this, in short, to understand the concepts of punishment and reward. Behold, in accordance with all the above, Kardec says, in an excerpt prior to the one mentioned above:

Punishment is always the natural consequence of the fault committed. The spirit suffers for the evil it has done, so that, as its attention is incessantly focused on the consequences of this evil, it better understands its inconveniences and is motivated to correct itself.

And then, because of all this, Kardec thus begins chapter IV of this work - The hell:

Man has always intuitively believed that the future life should be more or less happy in the ratio of good and evil practiced in this world. But the idea he has of this future life is in proportion to the development of his moral sense and the more or less just notion he has of good and evil. The penalties and rewards are a reflection of the instincts that predominate in him..

But it is worth remembering that, using these philosophical concepts of his time, Kardec, at the same time, developed them for the moral consequences of spirit science.

O spiritualism in Kardec

It is worth, before closing, to remember that Allan Kardec several times used the word spiritualism in your work. It is to Rational Spiritualism that he refers:

Whoever believes that there is something more in himself than matter is a spiritualist. It does not follow from this, however, that he believes in the existence of spirits or in their communications with the visible world. instead of the words spiritual, spiritualism, we use, to indicate the belief to which we refer, the terms spiritist and spiritualism, whose form recalls the origin and the radical meaning and which, for that very reason, have the advantage of being perfectly intelligible, leaving the word spiritualism its own meaning. We will say, therefore, that the doctrine spiritist or the spiritism its principle is the relations of the material world with the Spirits or beings of the invisible world. The adepts of Spiritism will be the spiritists, or, if you like, the spiritists.

As a specialty, the Book of Spirits contains the doctrine spiritist; in general, it is linked to the doctrine spiritualist, one of whose phases presents. This is the reason why it has the words in the header of its title: spiritual philosophy.

KARDEC, Allan. The Spirits' Book. 1857

This is, finally, proved by the following excerpt from the Spiritist Magazine of 1868:

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

KARDEC, Allan. Spiritist Magazine, November 1868

Conclusion

Here is clearly presented proof that we cannot know and understand Kardec's philosophy without understanding the philosophy and morals of his time, fully inserted in the context of French Rational Spiritualism, just as we cannot fully understand the spiritist science without understanding the sciences of Magnetism [by Mesmer] and Psychology (the latter also included in the ER, under the division of moral sciences).

It was clearly evidenced that Kardec no he used dogmatic religious concepts, but only words that, found in these concepts, were first re-signified under the philosophy of the time and, later, under the spiritist philosophy.

Therefore, it is very necessary to study and disseminate this knowledge. Once again, we invite the reader to study and distribute, in all possible spiritist media, the work referred to in this article, as well as the present text, which is the result of an effort made in this direction as well.

During the nineteenth century, what we call the human sciences were established from a spiritualist assumption for their constitution. Meanwhile, in the natural sciences, such as Physics and Chemistry, materialism predominated. This condition is very different from what we are used to today, when the university is almost completely guided by materialistic thinking.

[originally posted on https://espirito.org.br/autonomia/livros-tratado-de-filosofia-paul-janet/]

This current of thought was known as rational spiritualism. For it was completely independent of formal religions and their dogmas. The fundamental basis was psychology, science of the soul, which had as a guideline: “The human being is an incarnate soul”.

As is explained at length in the book Autonomy, the untold story of Spiritism, Allan Kardec made psychology the conceptual basis for developing the Spiritist Doctrine. His monthly newspaper was the Spiritist Magazine, journal of psychological studies.

Rational Spiritualism was taught since 1830 at the University of Paris, also at the Ecole Normale, where teachers were trained, and also at the Lyceums, in the education of young people. For these, there were manuals, like Paul Janet's. This manual has been translated into several languages and adopted in many countries, including Brazil.

This manual is of fundamental importance to understand the conceptual basis of Kardec's studies, especially regarding spiritist morals.

The first division of the sciences, presented in the treatise on philosophy, by Paul Janet, work in two volumes, which can be downloaded here, according to the structure in force in Sorbonne University, in the 19th century, was between:

• a) The exact sciences or mathematics.
• b) The natural sciences, which study the objects of the physical world (physics, chemistry, biology, etc.).
• c) The moral sciences, which study the moral world, which comprises the actions and thoughts of the human race.

The moral sciences, in turn, were divided into four groups:

1) The philosophical sciences, divided into two classes: psychological (psychology, logic, morals, aesthetics) and metaphysical (theodicy, rational psychology, rational cosmology).

2) The historical sciences (history, archeology, epigraphy, numismatics, geography) study human events and development over time.

3) The philological sciences (philology, etymology, paleography, etc.), whose object is language and human symbolic expression.

4) The social and political sciences (politics, jurisprudence, political economy), which study the social life of human beings (JANET, 1885, p. 15-17).

The last three classes of the moral sciences (historical, philological and social) deal with moral facts or phenomena that are external to the human being, seen from the objective point of view. But, considering the human spirit “the set of the intellectual and moral faculties of man, such as they manifest themselves internally in each of us”, everything that concerns the I, an interior principle conscious of itself, is the subjective point of view, or “study of the soul itself” (JANET, 1885, p. 17). Hence a group of sciences called psychological sciences. They adopt the methodology of introspection and were a development of the scientific school started by Maine de Biran. However, to support the psychological study from a spiritual perspective, the conceptual bases of this paradigm needed to become an object of research, comprising a science of man (human spirit) and a science of first causes, or metaphysics. These are the objects of the philosophical sciences.

See more details at work Autonomy, the untold story of Spiritism.