The belief in existence do mal, como algo criado por Deus (ou pelo “diabo”, quem, por ter sido criado por Deus, acarreta a mesma consequência) e que vem de fora, é algo muito difundido, em todo o mundo e em todas as crenças. O Espiritismo, porém, é a única doutrina filosófica, até hoje existente, a to demonstrate, rationally and factually, that this is not true.

Começamos citando Kardec, em A Gênese, no texto “Fonte do Bem e do Mal”:

being God the the beginning of all things, and this beginning being all wisdom, all goodness, and all righteousness., whatever proceeds from him must share these attributes, for what is infinitely wise, just, and good cannot produce anything unreasonable, evil, and unjust. The evil we observe cannot have originated from him.

If evil were the responsibility of a special being, whether he was called Ahriman or Satan((Zoroastrianism, the ancestral religion of Persia, proposed the existence of twin gods: Ahura Mazda, of goodness and light, and Angra Mainyu, the Ahriman , god of darkness and evil. The world would be in a battle between good and evil. Satan, a character from the Bible, is identified as a fallen angel in the new testament. (N. do E.))), of two, one: Either he would be equal to God and, consequently, also powerful and eternal, or he would be inferior.

In the first case, there would be two rival powers, fighting incessantly, each trying to undo what the other is doing, opposing each other. This hypothesis is irreconcilable with the harmony that is revealed in the order of the Universe.

In the second case, being inferior to God, that being would be subordinate to him. Not being able to be eternal like him without being his equal; could only have been created by God. If it was created, it could only have been by God. In this case, God would have created the Spirit of evil, which would be a denial of his infinite goodness..

KARDEC, Allan. The Genesis. FEAL Publisher. 2nd edition, 2018.

Thus, Kardec demonstrates that it would not be possible for a being to exist that gave a principle to evil, because, since this principle is God himself, it would not be in accordance with his attributes (being He the good); being another being, that being would have been created by God, which would mean that evil would still be God's creation.

In Heaven and Hell, Kardec talks about the origin of the principle of good and evil:

For long centuries and under different names, the double principle of good and evil was the basis of all religious beliefs, being personified in the figures of Ahura-Masda and Ahriman among the Persians, and of Jehovah and Satan among the Hebrews. However, as any sovereign must be aided by ministers, all religions have admitted secondary agents, good or bad geniuses. The pagans represented them through an innumerable multitude of individuals, each with special attributions for good and evil, for vices and virtues, and to which they gave the generic name of gods. Christians and Muslims received angels and demons from the Hebrews.

KARDEC, Allan. Heaven and hell. FEAL Publisher. 1st edition, 2021.

These doctrines, which, in truth, answer to the heteronomous moral, lead to the belief that evil is something external, defined. In the case of Christian religions, this principle was reproduced in the belief of angels and demons, and this mainly after the Roman Church appropriated Christianity:

The doctrine of devils has its origin, therefore, in the ancient belief in the principles of good and evil.. Let us examine it here only from the Christian point of view, verifying that it accords with the most exact knowledge we have at present of the attributes of the Deity.

These attributes are the starting point, the basis of all religious doctrines ((The confusion between the material principle of pleasure and pain (good and bad) with the moral principle (good and evil) is the basis of the heteronomy present in beliefs of ancestral religions. The animal submits to instincts, thus acting blindly to the needs of the species. But the human being has a dual nature, participating in animal life through the body and spiritual life through the soul. Treated slavishly, the human being becomes a machine It is up to the human spirit to abandon the heteronomous condition of subjection to the will of others (blind faith and passive obedience) in order to achieve free will and moral sense, as proposed by Spiritism. (N. do E.))). Dogmas, worship, ceremonies, customs, morals, everything is in harmony with the more or less fair, more or less elevated idea of God, from fetishism to Christianity. If the intimate essence of God is still a mystery to our intelligence, we understand Him today, however, better than ever before, thanks to the teachings of Christ. Christianity teaches us, in line with reason, that God is one, eternal, immutable, immaterial, all-powerful, sovereignly just and good, and infinite in all his perfections..

Thus, as has been said before (chap. VII, “Eternal punishments”), “If the smallest fraction of one of his attributes were subtracted, there would be no more God, since there could be a more perfect being.”. Such attributes, in their absolute fullness, are therefore the criterion of all religions, the measure of the truth of each of the principles they teach. And in order for any of these principles to be true, it is necessary that it does not attack any of the perfections of God.. Let us see whether this is so in the common doctrine of demons.

ibid.

Kardec continues to weave a line of reasoning from which it is not possible to escape: either God is sovereign, in everything, or he is not.

According to the Church, Satan, the chief or king of demons, is not an allegorical personification of evil, but actually a real being doing only evil, while God does only good. Let us therefore take it as it is presented to us.

Does Satan exist from all eternity, like God, or is he later? If he exists from all eternity, he is uncreated, and therefore equal with God, in which case God would no longer be unique, as there would be a god of good and a god of evil.

Is Satan later than God? So he is a creature of God. Since he only does evil, being incapable of doing good and of repenting, God will have created a being eternally consecrated to evil. If evil is not the work of God, but the work of one of his creatures predestined to do so, God will always be the first author of evil, not being, therefore, infinitely good. O mesmo acontece com todos os seres maus, chamados demônios((Sabemos que a palavra “demoônio” vem do grego, e significa “gênio” ou “Espírito”.)).

ibid.

If, to say that God did not create evil, it is said that the devil also exists from all eternity. If so, then God would no longer be God, because he would not be unique, since there would be a god of good and a god of evil.

Kardec advances:

According to Spiritism, neither angels nor demons are separate beings, since the creation of intelligent beings is one and the same.. United with material bodies, they constitute the humanity that populates the Earth and other inhabited spheres. Freed from these bodies, they constitute the spiritual world or the spirits that populate the Spaces. God created them to be perfectible, giving them perfection and the happiness that comes from it, but he did not give them perfection. God wanted them to reach it through personal effort, in order to have the merit of their conquest.. Beings progress from the moment of their creation, whether incarnated or in the spiritual state ((The heteronomous beliefs of ancestral religions affirm the false idea that souls were created by God perfect in wisdom and virtue. Evil would occur through sin and would cause the fall in the world, where the vicissitudes would be divine punishments. Thus, all of humanity would be in this condition. Everything changes with the autonomous moral theory of Spiritism, where all souls are created simple, ignorant and perfectible, happiness is the goal, and evil, when it exists, is temporary, being overcome by effort. (N. do E.))) Once they reach their apogee, they become pure spirits, or angels, according to the common expression, so that, from the embryo of the intelligent being to the angel, there is an uninterrupted chain in that each link marks a step on the scale of progress

ibid.

We are therefore not created perfect. We are created simple and ignorant and, by our will, we progress or stop, we develop virtues or imperfections. Now it is already established that the existence of the devil is, in fact, an impossibility. Where was the evil then? Evil is in each one, when one moves away from the good by living in imperfections.

As a result, there are spirits in all degrees of moral and intellectual advancement, depending on the position they occupy on the scale.((VIDE a “Spiritist Scale. There are, therefore, spirits in all degrees of wisdom and ignorance, of goodness and evil. In the lower classes there are those who are still deeply inclined to evil, delighting in it. If we like, we can call them demons because they are capable of all the transgressions attributed to the latter. If Spiritism does not call them that way, it is because such a name is linked to the idea of beings distinct from humanity., of an essentially perverse nature, consecrated to evil for all eternity, incapable of progressing in the direction of good.

ibid.

We said, then, that evil is the departure of the individual from the morality of the divine, natural law, to live in imperfections. We therefore want to understand: how does evil develop? We will deal with this in a next article, under that title!

We live in a world hitherto dominated by the concepts of heteronomy. To understand this concept well, we need to analyze the etymology of the word: heteronomy is formed from the Greek radical “hetero” which means “different”, and “nomos” which means “law”, therefore, it is the acceptance of norms that are not ours, but that we recognize as valid to guide our conscience that will discern the moral value of our actions. This understanding is fundamental, because understanding autonomous morality makes a total difference in understanding Spiritism.

the heteronomous world

In the heteronomous world, we attribute everything to something external: the fault lies with the devil or the obsessor, the effect lies with divine wrath, and reparation lies with the imposition. karma. Everything, absolutely everything in the heteronomous world comes as an external imposition, through laws that we respect out of obligation and not out of understanding. And in the absence of her or her actors, we find ourselves without limits and even without self-love.

Heteronomy is something inherent and perhaps even necessary to a condition of little spiritual advancement, when, without a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of life and evolution, we are forced to attend, out of fear, to the impositions of divine laws, humanized, or even human laws, divinized. Unfortunately, as we already know, it is also widely used by religions to maintain control over their faithful. But this is something that, as we can see, changes as the human spirit advances, both in science and in morality.

A big problem with the concept of heteronomy, or, rather, with the belief in it, is that for a certain time the evolution of the Spirit was involved: well, if the individual believes that his difficulties in life are a punishment imposed by God, he only accepts his submissively (which, yes, is important), but without doing anything to change it. He just waits for the end of his trials. Not even charity can really be understood and practiced in a heteronomous context, as the individual practices charity expecting a return, without understanding that it is a moral and natural obligation of the thinking being.

Another very problematic point is that when the individual believes in divine punishment - and, even worse, in eternal punishment - it is very common for him to lose any limit after making a mistake. Surely, the reader has heard the statement countless times: “I'm already going to hell, so one more sin, whatever”.

But we are wrong if we think that the heteronomous concept is found only in religions. Unfortunately, even in the spiritist milieu, this concept has also infiltrated, especially with the adulteration of the works O Céu e o Inferno and A Genesis, by Allan Kardec. If today we constantly hear, from the mouths of spiritists, the words “karma”, “law of action and reaction”, “rescue”, this is largely due to these adulterations, passed from generation to generation and that today make many of us , spiritists, we still believe that “karma” makes me reborn in this life to “rescue” a past mistake.

Let's see: it is precisely one of the most serious adulterations in O Céu e o Inferno that instilled this heteronomous thought, which delays the advance of the Spirit, in the heart of a Doctrine that was totally focused on the autonomy of being. In chapter VII, item 9 of the cited work, we read: “Every fault committed, every wrong done is a debt that must be paid; if not in one lifetime, it will be in the next one or more.” This item did not exist until Kardec's death, and only appeared in new editions made more than two years after the Professor's death.

No — I insist on saying: in Spiritism there is no karma, nor "law of action and reaction” and, much less, “rescue”. These are concepts that, deep down, have the same effect as belief in divine punishment and the fall through sin, which were both ideas overcome by Spiritism.

Autonomous Morality

Opposed to the concept of heteronomy, autonomy (self — of oneself) places the individual at the center of its evolution. It depends on your will, solely and exclusively, both your actions and your thoughts and the spirits attracted or repelled by them.

In the concept of autonomy, which was not born with Spiritism, but which was expanded by this Doctrine — and demonstrated — the Spirit is master of itself and of its choices from the moment it develops consciousness and, with that, comes to have the free will. Thus, he chooses between good and bad, or rather, he chooses ways to act in the face of situations and whether or not he congratulates himself on its effects. However, when the effect is negative, it does not mean that you are being effectively punished by a punishing God, but that you are suffering the moral consequences of your actions. And these moral consequences only exist for the Spirit who is already aware of their existence, which is why animals, for example, do not have them.

This is how, evaluating the consequences of our actions and, when more conscious, the moral imperfections that lead us to make mistakes, we impose on ourselves lives full of evidence and atonements, in order to try to get rid of these imperfections, by learning:

“Some, therefore, impose upon themselves a life of miseries and privations, aiming to bear them with courage”, when they wish to acquire patience, resignation or know how to act with few resources. Others wish to test whether they have already overcome inferior passions and then “prefer to experience the temptations of wealth and power, which are far more dangerous, through the abuses and misapplications to which they can give rise”. Those who struggle with the abuse they have committed, “decide to test their strength in the struggles they will have to sustain in contact with addiction” (The Book of Spirits, p.220).

It is clear: when doing evil against Inferior Spirits, we will have an almost guaranteed chance of receiving, in return, revenge; but this revenge, if any, is the effect of choice of the other Spirit, and not of a “karmatic” reaction of a supposed “law of action and reaction” — which, by the way, is a law of Newtonian Physics, and not a divine one. When practicing revenge, the other Spirit also errs, as it gives rise to the habit of its imperfections and, therefore, it can enter a circle of error and revenge with the other that can last centuries. When this does not occur - and this is the key point - the effect is only the Spirit who errs to remain longer away from the happiness of good Spirits, due to his own imperfections.

There is no “law of action and reaction” in Spiritism

Many people, attached to old concepts of the past, feel perplexed by such a statement, but anyone who has dedicated themselves to studying Spiritism can perceive that autonomous morality, in everything, is made very clear to our eyes, through the agreement universal teachings of the Spirits. What do we gain by doing good? We will move faster. And what will we suffer for doing evil? We will be longer held back by spiritual inferiority and around successive incarnations in lower worlds.

Spiritism shows us that, when we enter the circle of consciousness, we start to talk about our own destinies, and the trials and atonements that we face in the current incarnation are due to our own choices, made before incarnating, although very difficult, since, in a state of wandering spirit (freed from the body), we evaluate our imperfections much more clearly and, thus, choose opportunities, even if suffered, to learn and rise. Spiritism, by the way, when well understood, favors us to make better choices, because we stop only wishing for atonement past mistakes, in a mechanics of sin and punishment, and we start to choose opportunities that take us deeper to learn and develop better habits, hiding the imperfections that we have turned into habits.

We have already addressed a very typical case, extracted from the Spiritist Magazine, which deals with the question of the Spirit's choices regarding its tests, treated by Kardec in Evocation of the assassin Lemaire, in the March 1858 issue.

Another very interesting case is that of Antonio B, who, having walled up his wife alive in the previous life, not knowing how to deal with this guilt, planned an incarnation where he ended up buried alive, after being thought dead. He woke up in his coffin and inside he suffered horribly until his death, as if he had “paid” that debt with his own conscience. What really matters in this case is that, effectively, in life, he was a worthy and good man, and he wouldn't need this tragic end to “require” anything.

A rational proof that there is no such “law”: if an inferior Spirit does evil against a superior Spirit, what will he receive in return? Nothing but understanding and love. The example of the murderer Lemaire demonstrates this. So where would the return be? In another Spirit that God would designate for his "vengeance", to "collect a debt", thus making him also a Spirit in debt to the Law?

No, dear brother: there is no return except in the realization, sooner or later, on the part of the Spirit itself, that he is not happy as long as he is imperfect. Of course, we also need to remember: the Spirit is in the environment where it likes, and it attracts Spirits of the same vibration to itself. Therefore, he may even feel happy, but the Spirit will never be happy, which, due to its predispositions, only attracts inferior Spirits to itself. In this also consists a kind of punishment.

Reason explains, guides and comforts

The greatest characteristic of Spiritism is to be a rational scientific Doctrine, whose theory was born from the logical observation of the facts and the teachings of the Spirits. Now, when it comes to God, what would be the reason for him to punish us with punishments, since he created us and knows that our mistakes are born of our imperfections? There is no rationality in that. It's as if we punish our children for getting math wrong or putting their finger in the socket: in either case, the pain or feeling of being left behind is the punishment itself, and by adding an additional punishment to that, we are only conditioning the being not to think and only to be afraid of making mistakes - and therefore, to be afraid to try.

We were talking about reason: because it is mainly through reason that Spiritism leads us to better evolutionary choices. By deeply understanding the Doctrine, we stop making choices because of impositions or external expectations, either because “God wants”, because “Jesus waits”, or because “the devil haunts”. We start to make better choices, with a more active will, when we understand that the more time we allow for our imperfections or our materiality, the longer it will take to get out of this painful and brutish “wheel of incarnations”.

This understanding is also great remedy against suicide: we no longer see it with the concepts of sin and punishment - which are still disseminated and defended even in the spiritist environment - but, with a rational understanding: if I am an inferior Spirit, full of imperfections, it means that life is a rich opportunity for apprenticeship. Shortening it by my choice, in addition to being a huge missed opportunity, will just be a waste of time, because I will see myself, in Spirit, imperfect as I am, maybe even more wide open, and I will have to go back and start a new existence to be able to learn and get rid of imperfections that make it impossible for me to become happier.

The atonement explained in the light of the Spiritist Doctrine

Kardec defines it like this, in Practical Instructions on Spiritist Manifestations, from 1858:

ATONEMENT — penalty suffered by Spirits in punishment of faults committed during corporeal life. As moral suffering, the atonement it is found in the errant state; as physical suffering, in the incarnate state. The vicissitudes and torments of bodily life are, at the same time, tests for the future and atonement to the past.

It seems, from this text, that Kardec then defended that, yes, we pay in the present life for past mistakes? Not exactly. We cannot forget that, for the Spiritist Doctrine, autonomy, or the Spirit as the central actor of everything, is the key piece of everything. Therefore, even in the case of atonement, is something that consists in the choice of the Spirit itself, in order to seek to overcome an acquired imperfection:

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. FEAL Publisher, 2021.

And, to better understand the use of the terms punishment and punishment, by Allan Kardec, it is necessary to understand the philosophical context of Rational Spiritualism, in which it was inserted. We already talked about this in the article “Punishment and reward: you need to study Paul Janet to understand Allan Kardec“.

However, we are well aware that “the times have come” and that the planet Earth will slowly cease to be a planet of trials and atonements to be a world of regeneration, where there should be incarnations a little happier than the current ones. Let us use, for a moment, reason to evaluate all that we have exposed so far:

If the Spiritist Doctrine, teaching us autonomous morality, outlines better paths and better choices, let's think: what does it teach the individual more? A suffering of the same kind and degree, as in the case of Antônio B, above, or, understanding the imperfections that led us to do evil, in the first place, a life full of opportunities, often quite challenging and laborious, to exercise learning and doing good?

Do you understand where we are going? everything, absolutely everything, depends on our choices in face of our ability to consciously understand ourselves, and, in this, the study of Spiritism leverages us in several steps.

This is why the world will cease to be a world of trials and expiations: because the Spirits who incarnate here will begin to choose their incarnations better, ceasing to apply the law of talion (an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth) to themselves in order to then take care to develop healthier moral habits. Even in this we contact that everything comes from the individual to the outside, and not the other way around.

Conclusion

Therefore, brothers, onward: let us study Spiritism in depth and, today knowing the adulterations in O Céu e o Inferno and A Genesis, let us study the original versions (already made available by FEAL) so that we no longer waste time with heteronomous concepts and, above all, so that we no longer repeat, in the Spiritist environment, the pitiful statements like those who say that “so and so was born with mental problems because he is paying for a mistake in his past life”. This, in addition to being an absurd mistake, keeps people away from Spiritism.

See an example:

Let's be amazed: this sentence is not from Kardec. Nor does it appear to be yours, nor can it be found in ANY of your works. This is one more proof of how much Spiritism was invaded by false ideas, almost always anti-doctrinal.

Our tests are rich opportunities, almost always chosen by ourselves, being imposed only in cases in which we do not have consciential conditions for such choices and, even so, they are given by action of benevolence of superior Spirits, and not as divine punishment.

The soul or Spirit suffers in the spiritual life the consequences of all the imperfections that it has not been able to correct in the corporeal life. Your state, happy or unhappy, is inherent in your degree of purity or impurity. (Heaven and hell).

The greatest punishment is that we continue for countless ages dragging ourselves in the mud of our imperfections. That's enough.

---

Note: the name of the article comes from the text of the same title, which served as inspiration for this one, from the book Autonomia: a história sem contada do Espiritismo, by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo.

study suggestions

We suggest to the reader the following additional content:

• Autonomy: the never-told story of Spiritism, by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo.
• Article "The true law that governs our life!“, by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo
• Article "For spiritism there is no karma or cause and effect.“, by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo
• Heaven and Hell, by Allan Kardec (search for recent FEAL publications, based on the first French edition)
• Channel Spiritism for All

O Espiritismo “é uma total revolution that operates in ideas; revolução maior e mais poderosa porquanto não se restringe a um povo nem a uma casta, pois alcança simultaneamente, pelo coração, todas as classes, todas as nacionalidades, todos os cultos” (Allan Kardec – A Gênese)

To reach this revolution of ideas, which starts from the individual to his social circle and, from there, to the world, it is necessary to study and knowledge, which feeds and underpins individual and autonomous transformation. So let's study!

We meet weekly, on Wednesdays, 15:00h (São Paulo time, GMT -3), as of 08/03/22.

Attention: We will start on the 03/08/22.

good conduct agreement

The work in question touches on quite controversial topics, as it analyzes several of the social problems and systems of social reform, including Marxism and socialism. Following in Kardec's footsteps, we emphasize that It will not be our intention to carry out in-depth analyzes on these topics; we will limit ourselves to maturing, together with the author, the understanding of the spiritist philosophy in its educational application, since Spiritism promotes a revolution of ideas, which go from the individual to society, respecting the autonomy and conscience of each one, differently from what proposes most of these systems. Entering the path of debate on these issues, which easily becomes a passionate political debate, should not be our purpose, and will always be restrained, in the name of the good progress of our studies.

Application form

To participate in the study room, fill in the form below. You will receive a confirmation in your email, which must be sent to the address geolegadodeak@gmail.com.

At first, the studies will be recorded, for later evaluation and posting on Youtube (you must agree with this). However, we will not carry out simultaneous transmission of these studies, in order to better evaluate the recorded content.

The world will only change when society changes, and society will only change when the individual knows and understands the morality of good, which is the Law of God. How to achieve this, if not through basic education, inside and outside the home? And how can the moral of Spiritism leverage this change?

Come be part of this important and special study. SEPTEMBER 19, 2022, at 19:00 GMT (GMT -3).

You can follow the live on our Youtube channel – https://youtu.be/vW8TeJoKASE – or via Facebook – https://fb.me/e/1xarUPHXF – but also can join the chat room. To receive the access link, simply fill in the form below.

For this event, we recommend that you carefully watch the following video:

---

Application form for active participation in the Zoom chat room

Many have spoken in silence that the Spiritist Movement would need to break with respect to politics. We must remember, of course, that the silence of the Spiritist Movement is not only reflected in a political nature, but is a generalized silence before the Doctrine itself, which has recently been agitated under the studies of Kardec's original works and works that recover knowledge forgotten in time.

Of course, when it comes to politics, we will never be supporting anyone who seeks to link Spiritism to ideologies, especially when these ideologies are not guided by the ideas that we will express below.

There are several initiatives that are seeking to counteract the aforementioned silence. Only from study groups, we know of three or four that are very strong, in addition to the roles of current researchers, among which it is impossible not to highlight Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo, in his exhausting work of recovering unknown information, especially those related to autonomous morality. and to rational spiritualism, as well as in the work so important that it is to resume Kardec's original works, unadulterated.

Well then: this work, which emphasizes the issue of autonomy, is unquestionably based on the power of autonomous choice that the Spirit must have. There would be no lack of citations in Kardec's work, of him and of different spirits, in this regard: the Spirit, to really change, needs to act by its own free will and reason, which is the basis for the other. There is no initiative, political or otherwise, that has succeeded in any lasting and real social change, however small, on the basis of authority alone. That is why I always see very carefully the issue of politics linked to any spiritist thought: it should, inexorably, be guided by the principle of morality, applied to relationships, from the first steps of the child on this planet.

I never tire of highlighting, and this will always be my flag, after understanding Spiritism in its essence: social transformation will only occur through the transformation of the individual, through family and school education. That's what we need to go back to ALL our efforts, inside and outside of politics, the latter being an effective way to return to society the morality guided by Rational Spiritualism, which understands and distinguishes the difference between happiness and unhappiness, which are characteristics of the soul's advances towards to the good, from emotions and pleasures, which are purely material. This is the missing understanding. Man will stop living under bridges when he understands that his progress depends on himself, and on no one else, and when others understand that charity is a moral and disinterested duty, going far beyond the alms that humiliate the parties.

Let us turn our intelligence to this purpose, dear brothers! Children continue to grow into youth and adults, full of acquired imperfections, or of those not corrected, largely purely because of bad habits of education, simply because no one is aware of the urgent need to bring the family and all public education officials to their senses. and private. Kardec saw the future with radiant eyes, because he believed that the educational model, guided by Rational Spiritualism, would continue to flourish and spread... matter.

We need to go back and understand Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Rivail, Biran, Janet and so many other free-thinkers who never wanted to bring about change by force, as they soon realized that it, in reality, only produces anger and irritation. Rivail would say, in his “Proposed Plan for the Improvement of Public Education”:

“The irritated and unpersuaded child submits only to force; nothing proves to him that she did wrong; she knows only that she did not act according to the master's will; and this will he regards, not as just and reasonable, but as a caprice and a tyranny; it believes itself to be always subject to the will. As she is commonly made to feel physical superiority rather than moral superiority, she waits impatiently to have enough strength herself to withdraw from it; hence this hostile spirit that reigns between the masters and their students.”

So it will be, because so it is, in any aspect of the Spirit. Rivail did not think of this when he wrote this work, but we know today, as he later came to know: the child is animated by the same Spirit as the adult, only a little more limited in his perceptions and capacities. It is your Spirit, therefore, and not your body, that does not submit to force. Let us remember this.

Paulo Degering Rosa Junior

As far as our state of mind is concerned, the feelings that affect us the most are those of unhappiness and unhappiness… Or, at least, we believe so. In this way, society in general lives in a search for happiness, almost always without lasting results, happiness that, when not achieved, refers to the general states that often lead to the abysses of depression or melancholy.

I begin by saying, dear reader, that the almost total absence of current direction and understanding is due to the forgetfulness of Rational Spiritualism. Having transformed man into a biological machine, lacking a soul, materialism took from morality its primordial essence, which the Spirit in its role of first cause of everything that goes on in the matter.

Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo says:

Religious doctrines and also materialistic thought are heteronomous, as they assume that morality would be based on pain and pleasure, which are innate impulses and linked to instinct and survival, sensations that arise from physiological changes, proper to the body. biological. The false idea of divine punishment for the guilty creature dogmatically points to the existence of physical pain after death, caused by the environment of hell, for all eternity. On the other hand, pleasures and eternal contemplation for the elect in Heaven. Spiritism, on the other hand, will demonstrate, for the first time, in its autonomous morality, the existence of intimate sensations proper to the spirit, which are happiness and unhappiness, giving these terms specific definitions.

KARDEC, Allan. Heaven and hell. Editor FEAL, 2021. Editor's Note.

O Espiritismo, que se desenvolveu do Espiritualismo Racional – “movimento” que formou os mais ilustres pensadores do século XIX, tinha, de forma muito resumida((recomendo, para melhor compreensão, o estudo da obra O Céu e o Inferno, de Allan Kardec, pela editora FEAL, com comentários de Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo, e da obra “Autonomia: a história jamais contada do Espiritismo”, do mesmo autor. Outra sugestão é search for videos featuring Paulo, on YouTube)), in morality, the concepts of happiness and unhappiness are very well defined as achievements from the soul, whereas, of the body or matter, are part of emotions, be they the fear, a sadness, a happiness, a rage, etc. Also, in the matter aspect, we must mention the sensations, as the pleasure and the ache, which are the immediate result of the physical impression captured by the nerves and carried to the brain.

As incarnate Spirits, we are all subject to the conditions of matter. As evolved as a Spirit may be, the fact of receiving a hammer to the hand will cause a lot of pain, perhaps the same as for everyone else, but the detail is that the superior Spirit will not cling to that pain or to the individual who eventually provoked it — which is a very important one.

We thus have, well separated, what belongs to the Spirit and what belongs to matter. In a very simplistic way, and counting on the reader's willingness to believe that what I am saying is based on studies of the original works of Allan Kardec, from what he can check for himself, we conclude that the emotions of the body has nothing to do, a priori, with the feelings of soul or spirit. Happiness has to do with the achievements of the Spirit, while unhappiness has to do with his inferiority. A spirit, incarnated, can be very unhappy, despite being rich and with all resources of pleasures and joys within your reach, while another may be very happy living in a mud hut. A spirit incarnated in a healthy body can be very depressed or angry, while another, in a deformed or sick body, can be very calm, happy and kind.

To form a better understanding, let's talk about unhappiness. It is often confused with human emotions and pain, but, as we have seen, it does not reside in them. Unhappiness is actually how far the Spirit is away from happiness. This seems pretty obvious, but let me explain: happiness is living under God's law, that is, living in goodness. The absence of it, unhappiness, is living far from the good, under the empire of imperfections that lead us to error and suffering, which is the result of actions performed, and not divine punishment.

Here is the great key to understanding morality and the human being's necessary search for happiness: it does not reside in the fleeting things of matter, nor in pleasures, nor in passions. she resides in the soul, as a result of an inner, individual and non-transferable achievement.

Paulo Henrique, in the same work, says:

Already in the law that governs the human spirit, which has its main life in the spiritual world, the improvement of faculties through its effort is its goal, making use of reincarnations as a means of progress. Happiness is not like the physiological sensation of pleasure; it is an intimate state or sensation of the spirit, inherent to its intellectual-moral perfection. Every act of good corresponds to a feeling of happiness, and the development of virtues, knowledge and skills makes this condition progressive, until the full happiness of pure spirits. On the other hand, the condition of imperfection is inherent to moral suffering, which will last until the spirit overcomes imperfection by its effort. These are intimate states and feelings of the spirit, in no way dependent on something external to them. These are the laws of the soul, which govern the moral world. Thus Kardec expressed himself, in item 2 of Chapter VIII:

“As all spirits are perfectible, by virtue of the law of progress, they carry within themselves the elements of their happiness or future unhappiness and the means of acquiring one and avoiding the other by working towards their own advancement. (p. 132)”

The elements of your happiness or your unhappiness are in the spirit itself; it is up to him to provide one or the other. In this way, happiness is not a concession or a divine grace, but an achievement of the being itself. Nor is unhappiness a punishment, but a condition created when the spirit develops an imperfection that ends when the spirit itself undoes it.

ibid.

We can be very happy to experience relaxed and fun moments with friends, but once these moments are over, what remains it is our state of mind. We can be happy buying things to dress us well or eating tasty delicacies... But, after these actions, the same state of mind still remains. And here we come to something very important: this constant pursuit of happiness in things and occasions, instead of seeking it in the inner conquest, often leads us to imperfections!

Man, when seeking the satisfaction of his desires and instincts, confusing this search with the search for happiness, can “exaggerate the dose”. Let us take the example of the purchase of material goods: a person who links possessions to the feeling of happiness, when he cannot satisfy this desire with his own resources, may be led to commit the crime of robbery or theft, in order to satisfy this desire. there. Just in this example, we have greed and selfishness being cultivated. If repeated, forming habits, they can settle in the soul, as imperfections, which will produce sufferings that, to be overcome, will have to be overcome. understood and actively faced, for the will of the Spirit, which commonly takes more than one incarnation to achieve.

Paulo Henrique continues:

Every imperfection is the result of the free choice of the spirit, which, by attachment to matter, uses the faculties of the soul to act in order to conquer pleasure (sensation) and joy (emotion). This act of abuse, turned into a habit, is imperfection, which has as an inherent consequence moral suffering, or unhappiness (sensation of the spirit). This condition is transitory, because, overcoming imperfections, the spirit returns to the path of good and frees itself from unhappiness.

ibid.

The opposite is also true: the spirit that confuses unhappiness with the pains and negative emotions of matter, in order to see itself far from them, can launch itself on an endless search, which, often, also puts it in contact with bad habits that can make an imperfection appear.

This understanding, which seems very simple in principle, and which is of paramount importance, it's not very easy to be internalized. How will she be? Through study, which leads to knowledge, which strengthens reason. The Spirit only changes, really, when you see its imperfections and mistakes and when, actively, of its own accord, it starts to seek to overcome them. Therefore, the invitation to studies remains, and the one being carried out by the Spiritism for All Study Group (EPT), on the work O Céu e O Inferno (FEAL publisher, based on the 1st edition of the unadulterated original) is one of the best in this sense.

Here, before ending, we have one more reflection. We talk about the formation of imperfections arising from bad habits… That's why we can't help but talk about early childhood education. The child, by virtue of a bad habit, taught or reinforced from the cradle, can also acquire an imperfection, from which it will be very difficult to get rid of. Therefore, parents, the time has passed to focus on the study of morals and education, in order to better educate children, from their first acts in material life, helping them, through the charity that is our responsibility, to help these Spirits to reach happiness sooner, as we wish we had.

Esperamos que muito em breve possamos iniciar uma série de artigos ligados a esse tema. Não deixe de se inscrever em nossa lista de e-mails para recebê-los também – basta informar o seu e-mail em “ASSINE NOSSA NEWSLETTER”, ao lado ou abaixo do artigo!

We suggest the reader to watch the video:

Dear reader, the topic of abortion is on the rise... And how many absurd opinions, issued as a “spiritist view of abortion”, have we seen, on this subject, in the Spiritist Movement (which, today, does not represent Spiritism)! “Women who are infertile are paying for abortions in past lives” is just one of them. We always remember: there is no karma, no law of return, no payment of debts, none of that.

These days, the theme has returned to full activity, due to the case of the girl from Santa Catarina, who became pregnant at the age of 11, and which divided society between opinions, and it did not happen less in the Spiritist milieu. Many, guided by false ideas implanted in the Movement, speak of sin, karma, debts... Anyway, as we have already pointed out, none of this really exists, and Spiritism explains it very well.

Let's go back to The Spirits' Book, checking what there is in it on the subject:

357. What consequences does abortion have for the Spirit?
“It is a nullified existence and he will have to start over.”

358. Is it a crime to provoke abortion at any period of pregnancy?

“There is crime whenever you transgress the law of God. A mother, or whoever,
will commit a crime whenever he takes the life of a child before birth, which is why
prevents a soul from passing through the tests to which the body that
was forming.”

359. In the event that the birth of the child endangered the mother's life
her, is there a crime in sacrificing the first to save the second?

"It is preferable to sacrifice the being that does not yet exist than to sacrifice what already exists.”

KARDEC, Allan. My italics.

In the study of Spiritism, an isolated passage can never be taken as a general rule. It is necessary to understand the whole, as the superior spirits often respond objectively to a question, complementing it or clarifying other points at another time. By not carrying out the study in this way, we would see contradictions that, in fact, do not exist.

The Spirits, in Kardec's time, often used the word “crime” to highlight any act we took against Natural Law. However, Spiritism is not a doctrine of dogmas, but rather a scientific and rational doctrine. Now, given that the fact of pregnancy can put the mother at risk, isn't it fairer to preserve the mother's life, who, perhaps, could even attempt a new pregnancy? It is important to remember that the Spirit's progress is uninterrupted and, if that existence is not possible, he will need to choose another.

There is, however, the materialist thinking that currently prevails regarding abortion, and which, by making the human being a mere biological machine, wants to transform the practice into something banal. This is a mistake, of course, but let's say that the fact happens, and that it becomes legal to carry out an abortion by the simple will of the mother. What will be the consequences, then, for those involved, before the law of God?

We have already seen that, for the Spirit of the fetus, there will be a need to restart the incarnation planning, which is never easy. But what about the mother, who practices the act? She, as we read above, would be committing a crime against the divine law. Will there therefore be condemnation?

It must be remembered, dear reader, that there is no condemnation, and that punishment is always an effect of consciousness of the Spirit on the act performed. By making a mistake many times, the Spirit can acquire an imperfection, which will make it suffer and, eventually, repent and seek reparation (in itself). On this subject, we recommend the reader to watch the studies carried out in this video, with Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo. But what if the individual is not aware what do you do?

A woman can, for example, without planning, become pregnant. being away from understanding of divine laws, and not wanting to have that child, then practices abortion, at any stage of pregnancy. She doesn't even think about it, because for her it's something simple and without implications. Technically, he committed a “crime”, but what will be his suffering in the face of it? Perhaps none, at least until, through understanding, your thinking changes. But in that case, perhaps, when she understand the mistake he made, and never made again, is so far gone that there will only be regret, but it will not necessarily generate suffering. It is a mistake. We make mistakes in our progress. The problem is knowingly repeating the mistake.

Another case would be that of a woman who, given over to her emotions, often, through an inconsequential act, becomes pregnant and who, every time she becomes pregnant, miscarries. She will, every time, be aborting the planning of a Spirit, but the picture demonstrates that what she does arises from a lack of knowledge and also from a sinking into the pleasures of matter. Do you see the path she will need to take, until she reaches the understanding that what she does is wrong? Will she need to “pay” for what she does? No, of course, because, at present, she already suffers from the effects of her way of thinking and acting, which keep her away from good — even if she is not aware of it. It may be that, when you become aware and understand your error, you will choose a way of life that leads you to fight directly against your imperfections, or it may be that, depending on your beliefs, you will feel so guilty that you choose to reincarnate without the possibility of having children, which can be more or less useful in their atonement, that is, in the process of overcoming those imperfections.

And what about the Spirit of the aborted fetus? Will you be sad, angry? Will you hate the ex-mother? Will you want revenge? Of course, all this depends on your degrees of understanding and evolution, all depending on your choices.

In everything, as far as transgressions of divine or natural law are concerned, the effects and possibilities are infinite, because they depend on the individual's level of consciousness about what he does. It is a fact that thoughtless and widespread abortion is a profound mistake for the Holy Spirit., but this happens, I think, much less because of the act itself, and much more because of the context that leads the error to exist, and which is always the result of a complete lack of knowledge of spiritualist morals. Those who practice abortion inconsequentially almost always demonstrate a materialistic thinking that, for sure, in various aspects of life, makes the individual suffer.

Much better than trying to guess, from the present vision of suffering, the infinity of past possibilities that gave rise to it, is to seek to study Spiritism, in Kardec, and spread the knowledge. If most of the world knew the Spiritist Doctrine and evaluated it rationally, we wouldn't be here talking about it. But as long as humanity is immersed in materialism or dogma, which leads to materialism, the same mistakes and their painful consequences will continue to be perpetrated.

It is clear that Spiritism cannot be in favor of facilitated abortion. In a way, we cannot be in favor of legalizing this practice. But then, we fall into the old discussion: to what extent can the State interfere in individual decisions that, at least from a materialist point of view, affect only the individual himself? We see, once again, that the political struggle will not change society through imposition. The transformation has to come from the base, from childhood, through education, embracing morality and rationality.

Are there two forces in the Universe - good and evil? Is evil something, a divine creation? There are doctrines that say yes, and that human life would be an eternal duality of this power struggle.

“For a long time, man understood only physical good and evil. The conception
of good and evil of a moral nature marked a progress for human intelligence, for
only from there can man glimpse spirituality, understanding that the power
superhuman is outside the visible world, and not in material things.”

KARDEC, Allan. Heaven and hell. FEAL Publisher, 2021.

Watch this study in the video below:

We leave below, for the aroused interest, the advice given by Allan Kardec, in 1862, regarding the formation of Spiritist groups, given on the occasion of the Spiritist Journey of 1862.

In several places I was asked for advice on forming spiritist groups. I have little to say about it, other than the instructions contained in The Mediums' Book. I will add just a few words.

The first condition is to form a group of serious people, however restricted it may be. Five or six enlightened, sincere members, penetrated by the truths of the Doctrine and united by the same intention, are worth a hundred times more than the inclusion, in this group, of the curious and indifferent. Then, that these founding members establish a regulation that will become law for the new adherents.

This regulation is very simple and almost only includes measures of internal discipline, as it does not require the same details required for a large and regularly constituted society. Each group can therefore establish itself as it sees fit. However, for greater ease and uniformity, I will give a model, which can be modified according to the circumstances and needs of the place. In any case, the essential objective proposed must be the collection, the maintenance of the most perfect order and the removal of any person who was not animated by serious intentions and could become a cause of disturbance. This is why one would never be too severe with regard to the new elements to be admitted. Do not be afraid that this severity will harm the propagation of Spiritism. Quite the contrary: serious meetings are the ones that make the most proselytes. Frivolous meetings, those that are not conducted with order and dignity, in which the first curious person who appears may come to pour out his cheeks, inspire neither attention nor respect, and unbelievers leave them less convinced than when they enter. These meetings make the enemies of Spiritism happy, while the others are their nightmare and I know people who would gladly see their multiplication, as long as the others disappeared. Fortunately, the opposite happens. One must, moreover, be persuaded that the desire to be admitted to serious meetings increases by reason of difficulty. As for propaganda, it is done much less by the number of attendees, which one or two sessions cannot convince, than by the previous study and the conduct of the members outside the meetings.

[…]

Nor should you fear the admission of young people. The gravity of the assembly will be reflected in its character; they will become more serious and will soon be able to draw, in the teaching of good spirits, this living faith in God and in the future, this feeling of family duties, which will make them more docile, more respectful, and which moderates the effervescence of passions.

[…]

Recently, some special groups were formed, whose multiplication we would never fail to encourage: they are the so-called teaching groups. In them, little or nothing is concerned with the manifestations, but with the reading and explanation of The Book of Spirits, in 'The Mediums' Book and articles from Spiritist Magazine((The study of Revista Espírita, being carried out by this group, can be better understood on here and followed on our channel, on here)).

Some devoted persons gather for this purpose a number of listeners, supplying them with the difficulties of reading and studying for themselves. We wholeheartedly applaud this initiative which, we hope, will have imitators and cannot, as it develops, fail to produce the happiest results.

For that, you don't need to be a speaker or a teacher; it is a family reading, followed by some explanations without any pretense of eloquence, and which is within everyone's reach.

[…]

I hope you don't think it's wrong for me to indicate these works as a basis for teaching, since they are the only ones in which the spiritist science is developed in all its parts and in a methodical((In 1862, these were the existing and published works. Today, with the restoration of the original versions of O Céu e o Inferno and A Gênesis (published by FEAL), it is also recommended to study these, especially to understand the philosophical part of the Spiritist Doctrine. The Spiritism for All Study Group (EPT) is developing a large and rich study of these works (find out more by clicking on here))).

[…]

Here is another habit, the adoption of which is no less useful. It is essential that each group collects and cleans up the communications obtained, in order to easily refer to them in case of need. Spirits who saw their instructions disregarded would soon leave the meetings; but it is necessary, above all, that a special collection, organized and clear, of the most beautiful and instructive communications be set aside, and reread some of them in each session, in order to make better use of them.

The sister group, Grupo de Estudos Espiritismo para Todos (EPT) is developing studies of a very interesting and important work, on its YouTube. Weekly, on Saturdays, they look at the book “Ponto Final: o reencontro do Espiritismo com Allan Kardec”, a work in which Wilson Garcia goes deep and scrutinizes the paths that led the current Spiritist Movement to be this religious, dogmatic movement, far from science and averse to reason and logic.

We have no other way of saying it: Wilson Garcia really puts his finger on the wound, in a necessary and urgent action, following the path started many decades ago by other scholars of the Spiritist Doctrine and, more recently, by the works of Simoni Privato and Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo.

We'll highlight a short excerpt from the book's introduction, then link to videos from the EPT studies, which you can follow or even participate in.

Certainly, spiritism has been seriously affected in its credibility by the proliferation of charlatans and speculators who present themselves as healers, fortune tellers or fortune tellers, who use the doctrine's name in an inappropriate and abusive way. Similarly, the publication of pamphlets and books full of strange messages loaded with an anachronistic religious mysticism, tempered with supposed revelations and apocalyptic prophecies, announced by entities of heterogeneous origin or category, contributes to discredit the publication of pamphlets and books full of strange messages. It is necessary to add to this pandemonium the proliferation of works of spiritualist or esoteric tendencies that surround the borderline areas of spiritist thought, in whose pages, in a veiled or explicit way, the affirmation that they surpass spiritism, supposedly bearers of more current knowledge or modern.

All this semantic and conceptual chaos, of which the doctrine founded and systematized by Kardec is absolutely foreign, affects to a greater or lesser extent the progress of the spiritist movement from its origins to the present day, in France and elsewhere in Europe, as well as in Brazil and in numerous countries on the American continent. It is enough to remember the insistent efforts that are made within the ranks of Kardecism to demarcate and protect themselves from the influences generated by Ramatisism, Ubaldist monism, Trincadism, the Basilio cult, Emanuelism, Umbanda and other syncretisms, and, of course, Roustainuism. , denomination that receives the set of theories and beliefs gathered in the work The four Gospels […]

GARCIA, Wilson. Final point: the reunion of Spiritism with Allan Kardec. EME Publisher, 2020.

If you would like information on how to actively participate in the studies, contact.

Click below to watch the playlist videos of this study.