– Ah, você é Espírita? Que legal. Frequenta algum centro?

– Sim, frequento um perto da minha casa.

– E o que vocês fazem lá?

– Ah, a gente assiste palestra sobre o Evangelho, depois toma passe… Aí a gente faz algumas preces, e vai embora. Tem também a evangelização infantil.

– Aaah… Então é tipo uma igreja católica.

– Não! Porque o Espiritismo não tem ritual.

- Huh?! But it's just the same. At church, you arrive, there was a sermon on the Gospel, then you receive the host, then you pray, and you leave. Children participate in catechism.

– Não, mas…

- Admit it, it's the same. Even evangelization, which I know has a positive aspect, is done in this kind of imposing way, isn't it? But what surprises me is that I've already studied a little of Spiritism, but I've never attended a center... And, from what I've studied, there wasn't any of that in Spiritism. For example: do you evoke Spirits to help them?

– Não, não pode evocar Espíritos, porque você pode terminar obsedado.

– Nossa! Quem te disse isso?

– Ué?! Todo mundo do centro! A própria FEB diz isso!

– Ah, a FEB… Mas… Se o próprio Kardec evocava Espíritos para aprender com eles, Espíritos até de suicidas, e muitas vezes terminava ajudando-os a refletir?!

– Ah, but that was in a controlled group, and these Spirits were already calmer. And it was Kardec.

– It wasn't what I read. And it wasn't just Kardec who evoked. Did you know that, at that time, people practiced studies, with evocations even of disturbed spirits, in their homes, in small groups?

– Nossa, e eles não ficavam obsedados, se sentindo mal, por esses Espíritos inferiores?

– Look, we are all inferior in relation to the most advanced spirits. And no, they weren't obsessed or sick. In fact, they often helped these Spirits while learning from them.

There is an evocation, for example, of this suicide, which was just a few days after his death, and he appeared to be in full disarray. Kardec asked some questions, trying to understand what was going on with that Spirit, and with these questions, he understood something. Then he asked for prayers and said goodbye, because he didn't want to talk anymore. I agree that seriousness and control are needed, but Kardec never mentioned any of the mediums becoming obsessed while trying to learn, with the analysis of the situation of Spirits like this, and even murderers!

– Assassinos?!

- Yes! There is an evocation of Assassin Lemaire, look for it in the Spiritist Magazine of 1858, it is very interesting.

– E você disse que evocavam DIAS após a morte?

– Sim. Algumas vezes, horas depois!

– Hours?! But I've always heard that, in addition to not being able to evoke, you have to wait patiently for that Spirit to gain the light and come to communicate of its own accord.

- This is not true. It all depends on the purpose. As the intention was to analyze these Spirits psychologically, there was no problem. Furthermore, it is clear that they respected the will of the Spirits. Many times they did not want to talk about their sufferings. There is another problem there: Kardec has always shown that being available to any Spirit brings the danger of purposeless, often misleading, communications.

But then you don't do evocations in the center?

– Não. Até tem uma reunião de médiuns, mas é fechada para o público.

– Ah, natural. Mas lá eles evocam, então, para aprender e ajudar?

- No no. They are available to any spirit that wants to communicate. These days, they received communication from the Apostle John!

– How do they know it was John, and not another? Did they later question the guiding Spirit of the group?

– Spirit guide? No, the Spirit SAID that he was John the apostle and spoke of Jesus and the need for much prayer because the deadline is coming.

– Ah… Mas… E se esse Espírito estivesse usando o nome do apóstolo e palavras bonitas para passar ensinamentos errados?

– Ah, mas…

– E em casa, vocês praticam o Espiritismo?

– Como assim, praticar?

– Estudar, evocar Espíritos para fins de aprendizado com a análise das situações deles…

– If we don't evoke it even in the center, do you think we're going to evoke it at home? Get out! Will a Spirit decide to stay there?

– Como assim, “ficar por lá”? Os Espíritos estão por toda parte. Com certeza tem alguns aqui agora mesmo.

– Valha-me Deus!

- Yes of course! And they are attracted by affinity of thoughts. If the evocation is done with serious intent and with knowledge, there is no problem. The wrong thing is to evoke it as a joke or lightly. If the evocator is proud, for example, a frivolous spirit can appear and say things that feed that pride. There, without studying, and willing to cultivate his own pride, the subject enters the spirit and ends up fascinated. This is the danger, but this can happen even through intuition, indirectly.

– Nossa, não sabia disso. Eu já tinha ouvido que, se evocar um Espírito perturbado, ele “cola” em você.

– Não, claro que não. Depende da intenção e do preparo. Bom, mas pelo menos existe estudo nesse centro? Tipo, estudar as obras de Kardec, a Revista Espírita…

– Spiritist Magazine? What's that? No, we study works by Chico and Divaldo, because we know that Kardec's works are outdated in many points, right?!

– Outdated? My friend, I know that there are even beautiful and correct things in these mediumistic works, but they were the result of uncontrolled communications. How, without studying Kardec, do they recommend the study of mediumistic works? Spiritism is science!

– Ciência? Não! Espiritismo é religião!

– Não era o que Kardec demonstrava. Você já leu A Gênese?

– Wow, I already took a leaf, but very difficult and, as I said, outdated! Imagine they believed there was life on the moon!!

– But, my friend, that was part of the human science of the time. But there is the part of the spiritist science.

– Ciência Espírita?

– Yes, what was developed by the methodological study of Kardec, with the use of reason and with the need for universal confirmation of the teachings of the Spirits. But then, if there is a group of mediums in the house, how did it form?

– Ah, eles são médiuns bem antigos da casa, e o grupo é fechado.

– Mas e a mediunidade das outras pessoas?

– Ah, se aparecer algum médium “bom” por lá, ele tem que passar por um curso de 5 anos de Espiritismo!

– Mas que curso, se não estudam Kardec?

– Não, aí, lá, tem umas cartilhas da FEB, onde aborda Kardec…

– Pelo menos alguma coisa!

– And then there is the complement with mediumistic works. Have you seen the works of Ramatis, about mediumship??

– Meu Deus…

– Quê?

– Amigo, Ramatis é um pseudossábio.

– Pseudo o que?

– It means that he pretends to be a wise man, but there are several absurdities in these works. We don't even know, in fact, if it's just a Spirit, because anyone can use that name.

– Mas eu já vi algumas coisas dele, pareciam coerentes

– Consistent? Well, being a Spirit, it is clear that something or other will be true... But the problem is that they accept what this or these Spirits say without even reasoning! These works are mystic, not doctrinal.

– How are they not doctrinal? The same thing he says, many others also say. It's not that?

- Not only that. It is necessary to submit this to reason, which demands knowledge. What is already established by this process can only be undone by the same process, that is, it is not enough to say the same thing everywhere, when there is no control, no method, no rationality. For example: Ramatis talks about seven spiritual bodies, which is mystical – you know those things about biblical, kabbalistic numbers? Then!

Kardec has already demonstrated, through studies with the Spirits and in a scientific way, that what exists is the perispirit, formed by the universal cosmic fluid. Just that. This story of seven bodies, after all, is materialistic.

– Friend, I don’t understand anything anymore! You mean everything I've been told is wrong?

– Not all, but most of it. When Spiritism was disseminated in Brazil, the Spiritist Movement was already worn out and weakened, due to an adulteration of principles after Kardec's death.

Well, the question is this: do you want to study, or are you comfortable with what you experience in this center?

– Ah, eu me sinto bem, e é tão difícil tentar entender Kardec!

– Really, there are things difficult to understand in Kardec. But the dedicated study of the Spiritist Magazine, from 1858 to 1864, helps to understand a lot! Also, there are many study groups, and I myself participate in one. But, you see, these are study groups. There is no professor, nor is it a course.

Give it a chance, study it, and your reason will lead you, with the intuition of good spirits, along the path that best suits you.

– É… Vou pensar…

———————————————————-

I didn't want to title this text. We don't need to give exhaustive names. It is enough that we understand the distance that exists between the Spiritist Movement and Spiritism. This distance needs to be overcome through dialogue, through facts, but only by those open to dialogue and learning. It's no use fighting the recalcitrant.

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

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

Destaco, a título de exemplo, um dos itens que faz pertence a parte “Manifestações dos Espíritos”:

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

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

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

Is it possible for someone to be in two places at the same time? Of course yes! This phenomenon is called BICORPORITY. This is what this article from the Spiritist Magazine of December 1858 is about.

It is the story of a young man who goes to bed, without leaving home, goes to London where he meets his friends, drinks coffee, plays and then returns home, without remembering anything.

Briefly, this happened:

A correspondent from the interior of France sent a letter saying that, after “by order of the Spirits”, he magnetized his son, he became a very rare medium.

One case, in particular, caught his attention: his son, after reading in a book of Baron Du Potet about the adventure of a doctor from America, whose Spirit went to visit a friend from a great distance, told his guide that he would like to do the same. His guide then told him: Tomorrow is Sunday. You are not required to get up early to work. You'll sleep at eight o'clock and walk around London until eight-thirty. Next Friday you will receive a letter from your friends, reproaching you for having spent so little time with them.

Said the father: Indeed, the next day, in the morning, at the appointed time, he fell into a deep sleep. I woke him up at eight-thirty. He didn't remember anything. For my part, I said nothing to him, waiting for events.

And as promised, a letter arrived in the mail: “the postman came to deliver a letter from London, in which my son's friends reproached him for having spent only a few minutes with them, the previous Sunday, from eight to eight-thirty, with a lot of details that it would be long here to relate, including the singular fact of having breakfast with them”

Having told the above fact, one of the assistants said that History narrates several similar cases. He cited Saint Alphonsus of Liguori, who was canonized before the required time, for having shown himself simultaneously in two different places, which was considered a miracle.

In the first, with a religious aspect, Alfonso left the convent of Ciorani for Pagani and at the same time was seen attending confessions in the Redemptorist church of Ciorani.

On the second occasion of a religious nature, the Saint preached popular missions in Amalfi, Italy. It was in 1756. During the mission, he was seen simultaneously preaching in Amalfi Cathedral and answering confessions in the house where the missionaries were housed.

Antonio Benedetto Maria Tannoia (II, c. 44), his biographer, comments: “An angel, wanting to continue his zeal in welcoming sinners, wanted to replace him in the pulpit”.

On the third occasion, this one of a social nature, the saint was in Naples and at the same time in Pagani, where every Saturday he used to help a former prostitute he had managed to convert. This happened in 1759.
The last occasion is of a political-religious nature. On September 22, 1774, Afonso was in Arienzo, a village in his diocese of Santa Ágata dei Goti, where he would go on those days when it was very cold. At the same time he was seen in Rome, beside the deathbed of Pope Clement XIV, watching him. (This case has been documented by the Catholic Church).

Note: The Church says that “bilocation” is an extraordinary manifestation of the power of God, consisting of the bodily presence of a person, at the same time, in two or more places. Physically, bilocation is impossible for material beings, by the very nature of things.

There are also some reports of bicorpority of Saint Anthony of Padua. His most famous was on the occasion of his father's accusation of murder: Once, while preaching in Padua, the saint felt a strong intuition that his presence was necessary in Lisbon at that very moment. He sat down beside the pulpit and, as he had done once before, covered his head with the capeio, the hood of the Franciscans. He then appeared at the Lisbon Court, where he made a strong defense of his father. To prove his father's innocence, he went with the authorities to the cemetery. To the astonishment of those present, he resuscitated the victim, who acquitted the accused of any responsibility for his death. He then allowed the murdered man to return to his rest. Soon after, far beyond, he regained consciousness and resumed his preaching.

The first time this happened was in Limoges, southern France, in the year 1226. On Holy Thursday, the friar preached in the Church of St. Peter. At the same moment, a few kilometers away, his Franciscan brothers were already singing matins in the convent. As Custos, he was responsible for reading a lesson in the trade to his brothers.

At the very moment when he was supposed to be present at the convent, the friar interrupted his sermon and leaned back in the pulpit, covering his face with his hood. To the surprise of the Friars Minor, the voice of the Portuguese friar rang out among the Franciscans' choir. He sang the lesson and fulfilled his task together with his brothers, to then disappear and wake up from his apparent nap in the Church of São Pedro.

Thus, to begin to clarify the phenomenon, Kardec evoked the aforementioned Saint Alfonso de Liguori. The following questions were asked:

1. ─ Is the fact for which you were canonized real? ─ Yes.

2. ─ Is this phenomenon exceptional?─ No. It can present itself in all dematerialized individuals.

3. ─ Was it just reason to canonize you? ─ Yes, because by my virtue I had raised myself to God. Without it I would not have been able to transport myself to two different places at the same time.

4. ─ Do all the individuals with whom these phenomena occur deserve to be canonized? ─ No, because not everyone is equally virtuous.

Comment: Liguori died in 1787 – quite recent, in terms of spiritist life. At the time of its evocation, it presents thoughts still quite imbued with Catholic ideas. We have just seen, and in OLM Kardec gives other examples, that bi-corporeity does not seem to depend that much on such high virtuosity. It is necessary to be sure if it was really this phenomenon, or if it was just the case of another person, a seer, seeing the Spirit semi-disconnected from the sleeping body.

5. ─ Could you give us an explanation of this phenomenon? ─ Yup. When man, by his virtue, is completely dematerialized; when he has raised his soul to God, he can appear simultaneously in two places, as follows: Feeling sleep, the incarnate Spirit can ask God to transport himself to any place. His Spirit or his soul, whatever you want to call it, then leaves his body, followed by a part of his perispirit and leaves the filthy matter in a state close to death. I say close to death because there is a bond in the body that connects the perispirit and the soul to matter, and this bond cannot be defined. The body then appears in the desired place. I believe that's all you want to know.

Comment: once again, a large number of concepts that have, in the background, Catholic ideas as a determining influence: “To ask God”, “Filthy matter”, “Neighbor to death”. At the same time, it characterizes the veracity of the communication.

Observation: The answer to question 5 characterizes a certain ambiguity in the communication in relation to the answer to question 2, because if bi-corporation can manifest itself in all materialized individuals, not only the virtuous can do it.

6. ─ This does not explain the visibility and tangibility of the perispirit. – Finding itself detached from matter, according to its degree of elevation, the Spirit can make matter tangible.

7. – However, certain tangible apparitions of hands and other parts of the body are evidently due to inferior spirits. - They are superior spirits who make use of inferior ones in order to prove the fact.

Observation: If it is true that superior spirits use inferiors in order to prove the fact, it would explain why inferior spirits cannot materialize in monstrous forms, to frighten the people. would explain the “God would not allow”! more explanations click here on this article

8. Is the sleep of the body essential for the Spirit to appear in other places? – The soul can be divided when it feels transported to a place different from that where its body is.

9. What would happen to a man sunk in a deep sleep, and whose Spirit appeared elsewhere, if he were suddenly awakened? – This would not happen, because if someone had the intention of awakening him, the Spirit would foresee the intention and return to the body, considering that the Spirit reads the mind.

Division is an inaccurate term. Better to say that the soul, that is, the perispirit, can extend to other places, when one has this capacity.

The perispirit, being extended, never leaves the body, except for its death. It is possible to understand that, therefore, the Spirit, being distant, perceives what happens around the body.

After this communication was given to us, several facts of the same kind, whose source is authentic, were told to us, and among them there are very recent, which occurred, so to speak, in our midst, and which presented themselves with the most singular circumstances. The explanations to which they gave rise have singularly widened the field of psychological observations.

In the RE of August 1859 we read the following:

Communications – Mr. Allan Kardec announces that he saw Mr. W… son, from Boulogne-Sur-Mer, who was an issue in the December 1858 magazine, regarding an article on the phenomenon of bicorporeality, and which confirmed the fact of his simultaneous presence in Boulogne and London.

Spiritism, in its turn, comes to give its theory. It relies on experimental psychology; he studies the soul, not only during life, but after death; he watches her in a state of isolation; he sees it acting in freedom, whereas ordinary philosophy sees it only in union with the body, subject to the constraints of matter, for which reason it often confuses cause and effect.

AK, in RE May 1864

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uF6VAEmXPI

In this article, Kardec leads us to think about the evil that exists in fear and how it can affect us. 

The case: a man had left a very expensive bottle of liquor in a carriage and, fearing that he would be drunk, went to the parking lot manager, to whom he said the bottle contained poison. When he had just returned to his apartment, he was hurriedly sought out: three coachmen were suffering from terrible stomach pains. With effort, he convinced them of his rudeness.

Can the case be explained simply by the power of suggestion? Kardec says, initially, that it could not be an action of magnetism, as it was not the case, and then questions São Luís:

─ Your reasoning is very fair in relation to imagination. But the malevolent spirits who induced those men to commit an impolite act, cause a shiver of fear to pass through their blood, through matter, that you could well call magnetic shiver, which stretches the nerves and produces a cold in certain regions of the body. You well know that any cold in the abdominal region can produce colic. It is, therefore, a means of punishment that amuses the spirits who provoked carrying out the theft and at the same time making them laugh at the expense of those to whom they sin [language neologism, to make himself understood, since S. Luís himself speaks of autonomy, between the lines].

Sao Luis, RE 1858

Comment: when talking about induction it cannot, in any way, replace the responsibility that the incarnate has to accept these suggestions.

Comment: Magnetic Shiver: since magnetism is an action of the will on the perispirit, which reflects on matter, we understand this term well.

Observation: THE punishment it is in the following sense: God “places” us to live among Spirits as imperfect as we are, or more. This contact is an ordeal of our imperfections, learning from it as they learn from us.

“They do so whenever an opportunity is offered to them, which they even seek, for their satisfaction. We can avoid this, I assure you, by raising ourselves to God by thoughts less material than those that occupied the minds of those men. Evil spirits like to have fun. Watch out for them! He who thinks he is saying a pleasant phrase to the people around him and who amuses a society with jokes and acts, is sometimes wrong, and even often, when he thinks that all this comes from himself.. The frivolous spirits that surround him identify with him in such a way that little by little they deceive him about his thoughts, also deceiving those who listen to him. In that case, you think you are dealing with a man of spirit, who, however, is only an ignorant. Think carefully, and you will understand what I say to you. Superior spirits are not, however, enemies of joy. Sometimes they like to laugh to make themselves nice to you. But everything has its opportune moment.”

Idem

KARDEC NOTE: “Saying that in the reported case there was no emission of magnetic fluid, perhaps we were not being very accurate. Here we venture a guess. As we said, it is known that transformations of the properties of matter can be operated under the action of the fmagnetic liquid driven by thought. Now, it is not possible to admit that, by the thought of the doctor who wanted to make believe in the existence of a toxic and give thieves the anguish of poisoning, there had been a kind of magnetization of the liquid at a distance, which would have acquired new properties, whose action would have been corroborated by the moral state of individuals whom fear had made impressionable? This theory would not destroy St. Louis's on the intervention of frivolous spirits in similar circumstances. We know that spirits act physically by physical means; they can therefore, in order to carry out certain designs, make use of those which they themselves provoke and which we inadvertently provide them with..”

Comment: Kardec is speaking in the following sense: through suggestion, Spirits can obtain physical results, through those who perform them. It is clear that, in order to act directly on matter, the existence of a medium with such capacities is necessary.

Doubts: Here, we raise a question: if we can saturate an object with our perispiritual fluid, by the action of our will, why can't a Spirit do it? Because the Spirit cannot act on matter directly, nor with his perispirit. He needs matter or an intermediary medium of physical effects.

Doubts: Could we explain the phenomenon, also, only by autosuggestion, not as an effect of the imagination, but as a patent effect of the individual himself on his perispirit? Yes we can, like the placebo effect.

In this picture, which, if written in the Brazilian context, would probably be called “spiritist stories”, Kardec cites the cause reported by Patrie, on August 15, 1858:

an officer of French Directory(Name given to the Government of France), while traveling, he stayed in a hovel. During his sleep, he saw a terrible apparition: a “specter” that came out of the shadows, hair red with blood, throat cut, etc., came to him and gave him details of his own murder, indicating the place where his body was buried and the perpetrators of the crime. It evoked the officer's help to call the police and solve the case.

The officer did not listen, as he considered it to be his imagination. The next day, as he fell asleep, he had the vision of the Spirit again, this time more sad and threatening. He has ignored it again, the next day he saw the Spirit again, in sleep, now even more irritated and threatening. The officer thought it best not to ignore this time: he returned to the indicated place, called the officers and solved the case. This shows that this Spirit was very attached to material concepts, still, and that it had many imperfections, as it sought revenge.

Another apparition, this time with the contentment of the Spirit, more “kind” and affable. He said he would show himself again two hours before the officer's death, which he did years later.

Kardec takes up the subject of the engravings, reproduced by the medium Victorien Sardou, who, according to Kardec, does not know how to draw or record, about Jupiter's dwellings.

"Even assuming that this drawing is a fantasy of the Spirit that traced it, the mere fact of its execution would not be a phenomenon less worthy of attention. […] not to satisfy the curiosity of frivolous people, but as a subject of study for serious people who want to delve into all the mysteries of Spirit Science” – As far as is known, only through Sardou were these drawings obtained.

It would be a mistake to think that we make the revelation of unknown worlds the main object of the doctrine. This will never be for us more than one accessory, which we consider useful as a complementary study; the main thing will always be for us the moral teaching and communications from beyond the grave we will seek above all that which can enlighten Humanity and lead it to the good, the only way to assure you of happiness in this world and in the next.

ardec presents a case that happened around December 1761, in the city of Dibbelsdorf – Germany, whose documents were published in 1811. The original article, written by Dr. Kerner, was translated into French by Alfred Pireaux.

It is another article of interest about the spiritist facts, which have always occurred everywhere and at all times. However, science was not yet ready to seriously analyze them, even less in the case of Germany at that time. 

Despite the fact that the facts – clever knocks on a corner of the Kettelhuts' house – were analyzed from all possible aspects, reaching the point of demolishing walls and a deep hole, in addition to confining all the residents to their houses and placing in observation the suspects, nothing was found. The only possible answer was never accepted, and they ended up prosecuting and condemning, under a coercive confession, the Kettelhuts.

We highlight Kardec's observation, always surgical in his words:

OBSERVATION: If we pay attention to the date when these things took place and compare them with what is happening in our day, we will find in them perfect identity in the manner of manifestation and even in the nature of the questions and answers. Neither America nor our time discovered the scouting spirits, as they did not discover the others, as we will demonstrate by countless authentic and more or less ancient facts.

KARDEC, RE Aug/1858

There is, however, between current phenomena and those of the past, a major difference: the latter were almost all spontaneous, while ours are produced almost at the will of certain special mediums. This circumstance allowed them to be better studied and their cause more in-depth. To the judges’ conclusion that “perhaps the future will enlighten us in this regard”, today the author would not answer: “the future has not taught us anything yet.” If this author were still alive, he would know, on the contrary, that the future taught everything and that the justice of our days, more enlightened than a century ago, would not commit, in relation to spiritist manifestations, mistakes that remind those of the Middle Ages. Our own sages have penetrated far enough into the mysteries of Nature not to play with unknown causes. They are shrewd enough and do not expose themselves, like their predecessors, to a denial of posterity, to the detriment of their reputation. If something appears on the horizon, they don't run to proclaim, "This is nothing", for fear it might be a ship. If they don't see it, they shut up and wait. This is true wisdom.

In this article, São Vicente de Paulo brings a great reflection on the charity.

Let us analyze, in addition to the necessary moral application that this text brings, its form and content, since it is a communication attributed to this Spirit. What is in these but spiritual elevation? 

“See the multitude of good men, whose pious memory your history recalls. I could cite thousands of those whose morals were aimed only at improving your globe. Has not Christ told you everything concerning the virtues of charity and love? Why are your divine teachings set aside? Why are the ears closed to his divine words and the heart closed to all his soft maxims?

I would like the reading of the Gospel to be done with more personal interest. But they abandon that book; they transform it into an empty expression and a dead letter; leave this admirable code to oblivion. Your evils come from the voluntary abandonment in which you leave this summary of divine laws. Read, then, these fiery pages of Jesus' devotion and meditate on them. I myself feel ashamed to dare to promise you a work on charity, when I think that in this book you will find all the teachings that should lead you to the heavenly regions..”

Charity, in Kardec's context, was understood differently:

[…] rational morality is based on psychology and the definition of an active human being. That is, the moral act is characterized by a free and conscious act, which is defined as the act of duty. It is the morality of freedom, therefore absolutely free, by definition, from any reward or punishment. In this way, as defined by the thinkers of Rational Spiritualism, duty grounds charity as free and disinterested action. The beauty of charity lies precisely in its freedom, said Victor Cousin, the main leader of this school at the Sorbonne University in Paris. (Figueiredo 2019)

Does this mean that we only need the Gospel?

Assuming the Gospel of Jesus very well understood, without sophistry and adulteration, yes, we only need it. However, it is necessary to take into account that its teachings, even if scientific, have a moral aspect, according to the Moral Sciences. Therefore, it is a mistake to abandon this study to fall only in the Evangelical study, given the present needs of Spirits of our category.

Seguindo no artigo sobre Caridade, segundo São Vicente: “Strong men, arm yourselves; weak men, forge your weapons of your sweetness and your faith; have more persuasion, more constancy in the propagation of your new doctrine. We only come to bring you an encouragement; it is only to stimulate the zeal and virtues that God allows us to manifest to you. But if you wished, you would need only the help of God and your own will.. “

Does that mean that we don't need Spiritism?

Morally speaking, if we knew how to apply all the lessons presented so far, we wouldn't even be talking about it now. But that's not how spiritual progress happens – in jolts. It is slow and gradual and, as far as we know, it is everywhere in the Universe. Therefore, the Spiritist Science, which, in the limit, is the science of Creation, is a necessary part of our progress, as knowledge develops morality.

Let's look a little more critically at the content of this message. The following passage caught our attention:

“When you allow your heart to open to the supplication of the first unfortunate person who reaches out to you; when you give it to him without asking whether his misery is feigned or whether his illness has a vice as its cause; when you leave all righteousness in God's hands; when you leave to the Creator the punishment of all false miseries; finally, when you practice charity for the sole pleasure that it provides, without questioning its usefulness, then you will be the children that God will love and that he will call to himself.“

This Spirit, who goes on saying to congratulate himself on the beginning of a movement (São Vicente de Paulo Society), a very important and necessary movement, suggests that we must respond to any request, without verifying whether it is something faked or not. In reality, can we and should we do this, especially nowadays?

We must not blindly follow any Spirit, especially when it makes no sense to our own reason. But Kardec comes to our rescue:

Continuing the conversation with S. Vicente de Paulo, through the psychography of an assistant medium, Kardec informs himself that, in this previous passage, this Spirit speaks specifically of alms. The teacher then asks:

“[…] it seems to us that giving without discernment to those who do not need it or who could earn a living by honest work is to encourage vice and laziness. If lazy people found someone else's purse easily open, they would multiply to infinity, to the detriment of the truly needy.”

SVP responds:

"You can identify those who can work and then charity obliges you to do everything to provide them with work. However, there are also poor liars, who know very well how to simulate miseries that they do not suffer. These are the ones to be left to the righteousness of God.”

Kardec continues with some questions of interest:

6. – Jesus said: “May your right hand not know what your left hand is doing.” Do those who give out of ostentation have any merit? ─ They only have the merit of pride, for which they will be punished.

7. Doesn't Christian charity, in its broadest sense, also include sweetness, benevolence and indulgence towards the weaknesses of others? ─ Do like Jesus. He told you all this. I listened to him more than ever.

8. ─ Is charity properly understood when it is exclusive among creatures of the same opinion or of the same party? ─ No. It is above all the spirit of sect and party that must be abolished, since all men are brothers. That's what we focus our efforts on.

9. ─ Let us admit that a person sees two men in danger, but cannot save but one. One is your friend and the other your enemy. Whom should you save? ─ You must save your friend, because that friend could accuse you of not being friends with you. As for the other, God will take care of it.

It was a consensus that this last question (9.) seemed strange to us, but it must have a reason for being at that moment.

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

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

Imagine, por exemplo, as controvérsias e falta de informações a respeito das “cidades espirituais”: não podemos, claro, perguntar ao Espírito, na sessão mediúnica: “Ei, você vive numa cidade espiritual? Onde fica?”. Isso provocaria, quase sempre, uma ideia contaminada como resposta. Antes, perguntaríamos: “poderia nos dizer como foi a sua chegada no plano espiritual? O que encontrou aí? Qual é a sua ocupação, hoje? Você se cansa? [Se sim] O que você faz para descansar?”

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

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

Allan Kardec was, above all, a scholar. At the beginning of the chapter of the Spirits' Book (Chapter II – General Elements of the Universe, 2. Spirit and Matter item 27.), new terms appear such as Universal Fluid, or UNIVERSAL COSMIC FLUID. It is about him that we intend to deal here.

Beforehand, we recommend that the reader study the work Mesmer: the denied science of animal magnetism, by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo.

O Universal Cosmic Fluid it is a hypothesis that explains much of the spiritual manifestations and phenomena, that is why its understanding is so important for the student of the Spiritist Doctrine. In your latest book, Genesis, Miracles and Predictions According to Spiritism , Allan Kardec concluded the entire Spiritist Doctrine. It has a whole chapter dedicated to the fluids, chapter XIV. I suggest the new edition of FEAL as it contains a more faithful translation of Kardec's first edition of January 1868. It is worth reading. (note: Editions currently published in Brazil are from A Genesis from the 5th French edition onwards, which have been tampered with by a former helper involved with other ideas.)

O Universal Cosmic Fluid was first described by Frans Anton Mesmer, in 1784. He was a German physician who lived between 1734 and 1815. He developed the Animal Magnetism Theory.

In 1775, after many experiences, Mesmer recognized that he could heal through the application of his hands. He declares: "Of all the bodies of Nature, it is man himself who most effectively acts upon man." The disease would just be disharmony in the creature's equilibrium, he believes. Mesmer, who charged nothing for treatments, preferred to treat disorders linked to the nervous system. In addition to the imposition of hands on the sick, to extend the benefit to a greater number of people, he magnetized water, dishes, bed, etc., whose contact subjected the sick.

FEB article

His theory is that all phenomena in nature originate from a single principle, The original matter of the entire universe: O Universal Cosmic Fluid, because? Because all phenomena are explained from it.
And how does he explain?

It will grant the hypothesis that nature works through vibration states. each state of Universal Cosmic Fluid, which is for where is the vibration, it would have degrees of subtlety. And the vibration of each of these degrees would result in different phenomena. He talked about electromagnetic waves, but in other words... The “little problem” is that there was still no study on electromagnetic waves, nor was it known if they existed... At the time, in the 18th century, they believed that there was nothing between molecules. The Fluid would be where the transmission takes place.

note: Magnetism is the name given to the studies of phenomena related to the properties of magnets. The first magnetic phenomena were observed in ancient Greece, in a city called Magnesia. The first studies carried out in this area were carried out in the 6th century BC by Thales of Miletus, who observed the ability of some pebbles, which today are called magnetite, to attract each other and also to iron. The first practical application of magnetism was found by the Chinese: the compass, which is based on the interaction of the magnetic field of a magnet (the compass needle) with the earth's magnetic field. In the sixth century, the Chinese already dominated the manufacture of magnets. Studies on magnetism only gained strength from the 13th century onwards, when some work and observations were made on electricity and magnetism, which were still considered completely different phenomena. This theory was accepted until the 19th century. Experimental studies in the area were carried out by Europeans. Pierre Pelerin de Maricourt, in 1269, described a large number of experiments on magnetism. The names of the North Pole and South Pole to the ends of the magnet are due to him, as well as the discovery that the compass needle pointed exactly to the geographic north of the Earth. The great revolution in the study of magnetism was made by Oesterd in 1820. He discovered that electrical and magnetic phenomena are interrelated. According to this theory, called electromagnetism, moving electric charges generate a magnetic field, and a moving magnetic field generates an electric current. These studies were completed by Maxwell, who established solid theoretical foundations on the relationship between the electric and magnetic fields, that is, electromagnetic waves.

Dr. Mesmer believed that the ANIMAL MAGNETISM, that is, of vital principle, was an invisible natural force possessed by all living/animate beings (humans, animals, plants, etc.). He believed that such a force could have physical effects, including healing properties. This theory is known as MESMERISM.

He said that the denser matter is "vibrating" the waves materials through the fluid.

Let's exemplify, to illustrate: imagine the wind/pressure make water waves; then the waves of air, a little more subtle than those of water, would result in the phenomenon of sound; more subtle waves generate the phenomenon of light, which would be, for him, the vibration of matter in an even more subtle state. It's the most we can see.
So, Mesmer will grant a hypothesis: after the fluid of light, there would be something even more subtle, which would receive the vibration of our thoughts and our will. And these vibrations of thoughts and will, then, would extend throughout the Universe from a focus that is each one of us. and that the nervous system of other individuals could interpret that thought.

Note: Today it is known that the light it's a kind of wave visible electromagnetic field, formed by the joint propagation of an electric and a magnetic field. As is characteristic of electromagnetic radiation, the light it can propagate through different media and undergo changes in speed when passing from one propagation medium to another. Light can propagate in a vacuum with velocity of approximately 300 thousand km/s. The frequencies of light that are visible to the human eye are called visible spectrum, these waves have lengths between 400 no and 700 no. Electromagnetic waves that have frequencies lower than that of visible light are called infra-red, while those with higher frequencies are called ultraviolet. In Mesmer's time, there was no such understanding, yet... They believed that there was always a fluid, such as magnetic fluid, electric fluid, chloric fluid, etc. and the prevailing theory was mechanist, that is, everything was transmitted from one molecule to another.

Dr. Mesmer performed a series of experiments with applications of his hands to heal people. He realized that his patients, when awake, influenced perception at the time of healing. He then imagined the following: if I put this patient in a state of sleep, putting the body to sleep (this would be our hypnosis today), he would begin to perceive the subtlety of the vibration of the thoughts of others. This was his way of explaining somnambulistic lucidity by this method. It will grant the existence of a 6th. Sense, which, for him, would be in the our nervous system(I didn't think it was something spiritual). He will also perceive states of vibration above light, it would be a state of vibration of the universal cosmic fluid that would have thought waves. The Fluid is the medium through which the thought of the healing will reached the patient.

Mesmer says it like this: that's why, just thinking about the question, the sleepwalker, who is perceiving everything through the sixth sense, captures my thought.

quote from Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo in a lecture for the Spiritism For All Channel on 02/01/2021

Mesmer's hypothesis was that matter is the same in different states. And who acts on matter is the movement of this sixth Sense from our nervous system.
Mesmer spoke of conditions of matter veryuntessentialthe, most subtle, where thought can act. That would be the spirit world only he, at the time, didn't use the "spirit world" to explain...
He knew that at a certain point the matter was so subtle that it was possible for thought to act there.

When he did the healings he was talking to me out of matter. “He talked with the Spirit, by thought. Your proposal was very advanced.”

Kardec would say about Mesmer.

Around the 1850s, around 70 years later, Allan Kardec began his studies. He did not have access to all of Mesmer's work, but the Spirits knew, knew and talked with him about the Mesmer principle. The Spirits will explain that it is not an organ of the body's physiology that perceives the vibrations of thought, but our perispirit(which is a means by which the Spirit can communicate with the body). Kardec, then, developed the hypothesis that it is the Spirit who activates the fluid through thought-will and moves it. would be the smart principle.

So there is a difference between Mesmer, who conceived a Hypothesis, and Spiritism, which works from the observation of the Spirits of the reality of the spiritual world.

Mesmer never thought of perispirit. He couldn't "invent" something that far. He imagined that it was the nervous system that perceived the vibrations of thought. would never be a perispiritual fluid of a spiritual principle not belonging to the material world. Kardec, then, explained the phenomena from these hypotheses of Mesmer regarding matter. And the Spirits will explain to Kardec that no, “our thoughts really vibrate matter, but that matter does not belong to our universe”. This matter is spiritual.

This is very important for every spiritist to understand: the vibrations of our thoughts are not of our observable world. No device will be able to capture it. It is above the light. And light is our limit. Light and electromagnetic waves are at the limit of our observable universe. Thought vibrates above that. In other words, it belongs to another universe. And the Spirits explain this, they say: This is the spiritual universe. And there in the spiritual universe there is the “matter” that they will call perispiritual fluid and he who makes the matter of thought vibrate. And they go even further: that in the spiritual universe matter has various stages of subtlety, that as Spirit evolves, both Spirit and thought will vibrate in this higher range. That's why we're going to have a difference between the more evolved Spirits and less evolved Spirits.

So, the Spirits explained it like this: we have 3 things in the Universe: God, matter and Spirit. Matter is inert, and would be represented by the Universal Cosmic Fluid, because it is inert, it has no form. For a form to emerge, someone has to think. So the Spirit, in its simplest condition, when it thinks (or has a will), the form that appears in matter is the simplest particle.

And what is this unity of the Universal Fluid? She is like the thought of God. But as God created in all times, there are Spirits of all evolutionary scale: there are beings who live in the vegetable kingdom, in the animal kingdom, there are human spirits that range from the simple ignorant to the pure Spirit, all of this concomitant. And among us, Spirits in an evolutionary process, none is equal to the other. If an individual, with his characteristics, will reflect what he is, which is different than another form of another incarnate, with other virtues, other abilities, and so on. Each one completely different from the others, due to the choices and knowledge they made. In such a way that we present the most absolute variety. and everything inside Universal Cosmic Fluid.

Observation: We have to understand that Never does a Spirit manifest with a physical effect alone.. There has to be a medium, there has to be someone alive to mediate with a vital principle. There is no action in the world of the disembodied for the material world. The disembodied spirit acts in the intelligent principle of atoms, which is physical, that from there it effects motion. He acts in the THOUGHT of the incarnate. It is necessary that there be one or more mediums for this interference in the material world to happen. Spirit alone cannot transfer energy to us. You have to understand this very clearly. It is a animalized principle donated by the medium, human being. It can be conscious or unconscious. The spirit that wants the cure uses the vital principle of the medium. But that part is for another article… (coming soon)

So, the spiritual world is invisible, obscure, imponderable (we cannot measure).
We do not possess the foundations of the invisible and spiritual world… We do not know how it is made…

O The future holds for us the knowledge of new laws, which will allow us to understand what remains a mystery.
It may be that the Electromagnetism explain a lot of what mesmer theorized and then Allan Kardec explained with your hypothesis?

YEA!!!

But it may be that the future tells us that this mechanism is all different from that…

Source: Kardec, Allan, GENESIS – Miracles and Predictions According to Spiritism, chapter XIV – Fluids, chapter III, chapter I; Kardec, Allan Book of Spirits question 223 and following; Lecture given by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo on 02/01/2021; Channel Spiritism for All, Study of Genesis by Allan Kardec; FEB – https://www.feeb.org.br/index.php/institucional/artigos/372-biografia-de-mesmer ; Figueiredo, Paulo Henrique Mesmer. The denied science of animal magnetism ; https://kardecpedia.com/roteiro-de-estudos/2/o-livro-dos-espiritos/64/parte-primeira-das-causas-primarias/capitulo-ii-dos-elementos-gerais-do-universo