Allan Kardec, before this pseudonym, already produced texts on education. It is clear that their thoughts changed and expanded after the advent of Spiritism, but, like Hypolite Leon Denizard Rivail, many of them already showed an enviable lucidity of reasoning.

We talk a lot about heteronomy and autonomy, and we greatly highlight how religious doctrines, adulterated by clergy, and also materialist doctrine, exert a pernicious influence on the propagation of heteronomous thought. However, let's face it, when it comes to doctrines, they are actually more present in the post-childhood phase, when the individual has more developed reason.

There is, however, a type of [bad] education that affects the individual from his first steps and throughout his childhood, habituating him to heteronomous habits: that commonly reproduced, thoughtlessly, by the family and school, still today based on the punishment of errors through punishment – in the most diverse ways – and in the formation of a culture of dispute and the “way”, that is, of bending the rules to win, since this has become the only objective.

We will reproduce, very succinctly, a part of Rivail's text, presented in the Proposed Plan for the Improvement of Public Education (Click here to download), which expresses very well some considerations in this regard.

“There are habits of three different natures: they are physical, intellectual or moral. The first are those that most particularly modify our animal constitution; the second consist in the more or less perfect possession of a science. Thus, for example, someone who is very familiar with a language speaks it without effort and without thinking; he who has perfect knowledge of mathematics, makes his calculations without difficulty: this is what can be called having the habit of a science; and by the way, it is the acquisition of the habit, which is neglected, in the common method; It is generally limited to a very elusive theory, which barely touches the mind. Finally, moral habits are those that lead us, despite ourselves, to do something good or bad.

The source of these latter habits lies, we said, in impressions long resented or perceived in childhood.. It is thus understood how important it is to carefully avoid anything that could make the child experience dangerous impressions; but I don't just regard as bad impressions, the example of vice, bad advice or inappropriate conversations; no one doubts the disastrous effects of such models and there is no mother of a family who does not put all her care into avoiding them; but there are a great number of others, minutiae in appearance, and which do not fail to exercise an influence often more pernicious than the ugly spectacle of vice, which one can even sometimes take advantage of to make one conceive its horror; I want above all to speak of those that the child receives directly in his relationships with the people around him, who, without giving him either bad examples or bad advice, nevertheless give birth to very serious vices, like the parents, due to their weakness or teachers because of a rigidity that is misunderstood, or when little care is taken to adapt their behavior to the child's character when, for example, they yield to their importunities, when their faults are tolerated under vain pretexts, when they submit to their whims, when he is allowed to perceive that he is a victim of his tricks, when the motive that makes him act is not known, and that in this way he takes defects or germs of vices for qualities, which often happens to parents; when the subtle circumstances that can modify this or that action of the child are not taken into account, when, above all, nuances of character are not taken into account, he is made to experience impressions that are often the source of very serious vices. A smile, when you had to be serious; a weakness when it would be necessary to be firm; severity when sweetness would be needed; a word without thinking, a nothing, in short, are sometimes enough to produce an indelible impression and to make a vice germinate.
What will happen then when these impressions are felt from the cradle, and often throughout childhood? In this aspect, the punishment system is one of the most important parts to consider in education; for they are commonly the source of most defects and vices. Often too harsh or inflicted with partiality and in a bad mood, they irritate children rather than convince them.. How many tricks, how many means of diversion, how many frauds do they employ to avoid them! This is how the seeds of bad faith and hypocrisy are thrown into them and this is often the only result that is obtained.. The angry and unpersuaded child submits only to force; nothing proves to him that she did wrong; she only knows 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.

How is she commonly made to feel physical superiority rather than moral superiority, she waits impatiently to have enough strength herself to escape this; hence this hostile spirit that reigns between the masters and their students. There is no mutual trust between them, no attachment; on the contrary, there is a continual exchange of tricks; whoever is smart enough to surprise the other wins, and it is already known who wins most often. These are two parties that, when not at open war, are continually distrusting each other. How is it possible to have a good education in such a state of affairs?

RIVAIL, HLD Proposed Plan for the Improvement of Public Education. Paris, 1828.

We see how important it is to rescue this educational base, guided by morality. We add the importance of understanding the morals brought by thinkers such as Paul Janet (Click here to download one of his works). If you liked this article and see its importance, do more: share it with whoever you can!

What does Spiritism have to say about pornography? This is a complicated subject, because it is not a subject that has been directly addressed by the Doctrine. To talk about this, we need to extrapolate knowledge and understanding that the Doctrine gives us.

Spiritism places, above all, freedom of conscience and autonomy. Let this be noted, as a result of the study of the Spiritist Doctrine in its moral and philosophical content.

Apart from this principle, we will verify in Spiritism, developing the thought of Rational Spiritualism, that man can acquire bad habits by repeating an act related to pleasure. This can become an imperfection, which becomes an addiction, of which the work of overcoming will cost the Spirit a lot, through the CONSCIOUS and AUTONOMOUS reincarnation effort.

Paul Janet talks about this in Little Elements of Morals, which I highly recommend reading (Click here For download):

20 Habits. – It is true that habits become, over time, almost irresistible. It is a frequently observed fact; but, on the one hand, if an inveterate habit is irresistible, the same is not true of a habit that begins; and thus man remains free to prevent the invasion of bad habits. That is why moralists advise us above all to watch the origin of our habits. “Be especially careful with the beginnings.”

The big problem with entering into materialistic habits – which are those that surpass physiological needs – is that, by developing attachments, not only will it be more difficult and painful for us to disconnect from matter at the moment of death, but we will also attract the “clouds of witnesses”. ”, Spirits also attached to such vices. Normally, this will lead us to live in a troubled and difficult spiritual and social context.

But look: there is no sin. There is an error. No one will be punished for making mistakes, nor for choosing, consciously, to cling to an addiction or any bad habit; however, the results of our choices can be harmful to us, which we can call punishment, which, at all, is not a deliberate imposition of God.

It should be noted that no one should be martyred by an imperfection or any bad habit to the point of getting sick. It takes little ant work, perhaps slow but constant, so as not to do like those who promise not to eat sweets in the new year, but, being a very heavy commitment, talk after the first few days, saying, then: “I am not strong is impossible. I will therefore eat whatever I want, whenever I want.” This figure, by the way, represents the exact image of the non-use of reason to contain instinct. Kardec, in A Genesis, adds:

The man who acted on instinct alone might be very good, but he would keep his intelligence dormant. He would be like a child who didn't leave the walkers and didn't know how to use his limbs. He who does not master his passions can be very intelligent, but at the same time very bad. Instinct annihilates itself; the passions can only be tamed by the effort of the will.

“All men experience passions. Those who have overcome them, and are not, by nature, proud, ambitious, selfish, spiteful, vindictive, cruel, wrathful, sensual, and do good without effort, without premeditation and, so to speak, involuntarily, it is because they have progressed in the sequence of their previous existences, having freed themselves from this uncomfortable weight. It is unfair to say that they have less merit when they do good, compared to those who fight against their tendencies. It turns out that they have already achieved victory, while the others have not yet. But when they achieve it, they will be like the others. They will do good without thinking about it, like children who read fluently without needing to spell. It is as if there were two sick people: one cured and full of strength while the other is still convalescing and hesitates to walk; or like two runners, one of which is closer to the finish than the other.”

Kardec, A Genesis, 4th edition — FEAL Publisher

A correspondent asked about what would be this supposed distance, always affirmed by us, between the Spiritist Doctrine and the Spiritist Movement.

To her, we can answer in this way, to exemplify for everyone:

“B…, this is something that everyone really needs to study or seek information about, especially about the works mentioned ((

• In the sense of doctrinal changes: The Legacy of Allan Kardec, by Simoni Privato; Neither Heaven Nor Hell, by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo; Final Point, by Wilson Garcia
• In the sense of knowledge about the doctrinal context: Autonomy: the never-told story of Spiritism, by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo;
• In the real understanding of the Doctrine, in the essence proposed by Kardec, through the studies: Heaven and Hell and Genesis, both from the publisher FEAL, as the others are adulterated versions, still.)), because understanding and, hence, assuming new positioning, it needs to be a autonomous action. However, I can highlight some key differences between the Spiritist Doctrine (DE) and the current Spiritist Movement (SM):

• Evocations of spirits: DE was formed on them and demonstrated the need to be carried out, with method, to continue their development; ME recommends not doing it, provoking a wave of mediums who are only “available”, therefore, without control or learning objective.
• Generality of teaching: DE demonstrated the need to develop the spiritist study through the method of double control: universality and agreement of teaching and rational judgment; ME, infected by Roustaing, who saw a danger in this method (which would disprove her theories), started to take isolated communications as an expression of the truth, without reasoning.
• Life of the Spirit in Erraticity: DE demonstrated that emotions and physical sensations only exist for the attached Spirit; ME began to teach a fully materialized spiritual world, thus creating ideas of attachment harmful to the Spirit who disincarnates.
• Necessity of the incarnation: DE demonstrated that the incarnation is a necessity for the progress of the Spirit, in which he, even if involuntarily, plays his solidary role in creation. He removed the concepts of punishment and punishment as an arbitrary action of God, demonstrating that everything is the fruit of the conscious Spirit's choice; ME, under Roustainguist influence, inserted the false concepts of karma, redemption, law of action and reaction and law of return.
• Heteronomy x autonomy: DE demonstrated, throughout it, that the Spirit develops autonomously, being the first, if not the only, author of its choices; ME, influenced by Roustaing, started to deal with life in a heteronomous way – if I suffer, it is because I am receiving the return; if I have joy it is because I have been blessed, &c.
• Charity: DE demonstrated that charity is a disinterested action, fruit of the Spirit's duty, which consciously moves towards the good; ME started to treat charity as an external action, almost always only material. Due to the absence of DE studies, ME fails to do the good it could to help in the development of society through spiritist ideas.
• Moral: DE demonstrated that, all created simple and ignorant, the Spirits develop wrong and right, through the incarnations, choosing between acting in this or that way. There is no duality between good and evil. Some choose to repeat the mistake, developing imperfections from which they will be very difficult to get rid of, through reincarnation work, in a conscious and autonomous action; ME, influenced by Roustaing, started to treat the incarnation as a punishment, as if all the spirits that incarnate were imperfect.
• Method: DE has always demonstrated the way it would develop itself: through the study of human sciences, confronted, by reason, with the spiritist teachings, in the exchange of information with reputable groups spread all over the world; On the other hand, the ME practically does not study the fundamentals of DE, it has isolated itself in the centers in routines that include: monologues, almost always filled with all the errors mentioned above; passes, without knowledge of magnetism; and mediumistic sessions that, without method and without studies, lose the purpose and usefulness they could really have.

And so on.”

We see that the differences between the Spiritist Doctrine, in its origin, and what the Spiritist Movement professes or believes today, are profound and, almost always, harmful to the propagation of the Doctrine. Therefore, it is up to the voluntary effort of each one in honest and detached study, as well as in the fraternal and cooperative dissemination of knowledge.

Complementing the cited works, we cannot fail to point out the need to study the Spiritist Magazine, which demonstrates how the formation of the Spiritist Doctrine took place.

Based on the video of the same title by weekly chat of the Study Group Spiritism for All

For to demonstrate (and not to test) reincarnation as a natural law, Kardec is based on the fundamental principles of Spiritism and Rational Spiritualism. Among them are the essential attributes of God ((Eternal, immutable, immaterial, unique, almighty, sovereignly just and good. See The Spirits' Book, Chapter I, item III – Attributes of Divinity)), which are perfect to an infinite degree, even though, if it were different, this would not be God himself, making it necessary, then, for there to be another above, in perfect condition.

It is through the observation and understanding of these essential conditions that understanding of divine creation is derived. As we will see later, its creation must also be perfect and its creatures – the Spirits – perfectible, which, otherwise, would not be consistent with infinite divine perfection.

Allan Kardec, at first, did not accept reincarnation. In fact, he did not even accept the possibility of our interaction with the Spirits, in his youth. He was an educator emeritus, fully linked to the concepts of morality in pedagogy, as well as a researcher in the sciences of the time. He said that, if the education of children was carried out well, they, when they grew up, would not believe in souls from the other world or in ghosts ((RIVAIL, H.- L.- D. Discurso pronounced at the Distribution of prizes. Paris, 1834 )). It was only after his first contacts with spiritist facts, where he understood the existence of a natural law, which he began to study, that, defeated by evidence and reason, accepted, as the most rational conclusion, the aforementioned facts.

About Spirits, says Kardec, in the introduction to The Spirits' Book: “As we noted above, the beings who communicate designate themselves by the name of spirits or jinn“.

As for reincarnation, we found an article of great interest in Spiritist Magazine of 1858, from the month of November, called “Plurality of Stocks“, from which we take the following excerpt:

[…] when the doctrine of reincarnation was taught to us by the spirits, she was so far from our thinking, that we had built a completely different system on the antecedents of the soul, system, incidentally shared by many people. On this point, the doctrine of the Spirits surprised us. We will say more: she antagonized us, because it overturned our own ideas. As you can see, it was far from a reflection of them.

This is not all. We we don't give in to the first shock. We fight; we defend our opinion; we raise objections and only surrender in the face of evidence and when we realize the inadequacy of our system to resolve all issues relating to this problem ((we already talked about how important this type of attitude is towards spiritist research. Far from constituting an act of arrogance or arrogance, it is necessary and instigated by the Spirits themselves – when superior)) .

KARDEC, Allan. The Spirits' Book, 2nd edition. Our emphasis.

Kardec, in that same article, whose reading we strongly recommend, gives some preliminary notions about the antiquity of the idea of transmigration of souls. We will cite them, to then present the difficulties encountered in the falsehoods on which they often rely – or have come to rely.

Of the various doctrines professed by Spiritism, the most controversial is, unquestionably, that of reincarnation or the plurality of corporeal existences. Although this opinion is presently shared by a great number of people, and has already been addressed by us on several occasions, we deem it our duty here to examine it more closely, in view of its extraordinary importance, and in order to answer several objections which have been raised.

Before delving into the matter in depth, we must make a few observations that seem to us to be indispensable.

For many people the dogma of reincarnation is not new: it is resurrected from Pythagoras. We have never said that the Spiritist Doctrine is a modern invention. As a result of a natural law, Spiritism must have existed since the beginning of time, and we have always endeavored to prove that its traces are found in the highest antiquity.

As is well known, Pythagoras is not the author of the metempsychosis system. He drank it from Indian philosophers and from among the Egyptians, where it had existed from time immemorial. Thus, the idea of the transmigration of souls was a common belief, admitted by the most eminent personalities.

Ibid.

It is interesting to note that, although this idea was admitted since antiquity, “by the most eminent personalities”, Kardec did not admit it. Perhaps there are two possible reasons for this: he did not think about it, because he did not admit the survival of the Spirit, or he did not find rationality in these ideas. It is on this point that we will enter below, to demonstrate that the absence of reason resides in false principles, taken in a dogmatic way by the clergy of religions and taught, from childhood, to their followers.

False principle of soul degradation

In the article “Doctrine of reincarnation among the Hindus”, from the Spiritist Magazine of December 1859, Allan Kardec takes up the subject of reincarnation in depth, presenting the following:

According to the Hindus, souls had been created happy and perfect and yours decadence resulted from a rebellion; its incarnation in the body of animals is a punishment. According to the Spiritist Doctrine, souls were and still are created simple and ignorant; it is through successive incarnations that, thanks to their efforts and divine mercy, they arrive at the perfection that will provide them with eternal happiness. Having to progress, the soul can remain stationary for a more or less long period, but not retrograde. What he has acquired in knowledge and morality is not lost. If it doesn't advance, it doesn't retreat either: that's why it can't animate beings inferior to Humanity.

Thus, the metempsychosis of the Hindus is founded on the principle of the degradation of souls. Reincarnation, according to the Spirits, is based on the principle of continuous progression..

According to the Hindus, the soul began with perfection to reach abjection.; perfection is the beginning and abjection the result. According to the Spirits, ignorance is the beginning; perfection, goal and result. It would be superfluous to try to show which of these two doctrines is more rational and gives a higher idea of the justice and goodness of God.

It is, therefore, through complete ignorance of their principles that some people confuse them.

KARDEC, Allan. Spiritist Magazine of 1859.

The Hindu belief in the fall into sin is shared by many other currents of thought, including the Roman Church. According to this belief, it would be necessary to suppose that God would not be so perfect, because, after a mistake of his son, created perfect, therefore, without experience, he submits him to a punishment in the flesh.

In the article “On the principle of non-retrogradation of spirits”, in the RE of June 1863, Kardec highlights that:

According to a system, the spirits would not have been created to be incarnated, reincarnating only when they commit faults. Common sense repels such a thought.

The incarnation is a need for the Spirit who, to fulfill his providential mission, works on his own advancement through activity and intelligence, which he must develop in order to provide for his life and well-being. But the incarnation becomes a punishment when, having not done what it should, the Spirit is constrained ((This constraint, of course, occurs as a result of natural, divine law, and not by the direct and arbitrary action of God) ) to resume his task and multiply his painful corporeal existences through his own fault.

A student only graduates after passing all classes. Are these classes a punishment? No: they are a necessity, an indispensable condition for their advancement. ((This is completely in line with Kardec's pedagogical thinking, aligned with Pestalozzi's pedagogy, totally focused on autonomy and away from the concepts of punishment or punishment, which, says Rivail, in his “Proposed Plan for the Improvement of Public Education” (Paris, 1828), “they irritate children instead of convincing them”)). But if, due to laziness, you are forced to repeat them, then it is a punishment ((Remembering that the word “punishment”, for Spiritism and Rational Spiritualism, has the meaning of being the result of an action, and not of a divine imposition (see This one article). Thus, it is possible to understand that repeating a year, for the student, would be a consequence of their actions, and not a punishment inflicted by them.)). Being approved in some is a merit.

What is false is to admit in principle the incarnation as a punishment.

KARDEC, Allan. Spiritist Magazine of 1863. Emphasis ours.

Incredible as it may seem, this false principle dominated the Spiritist Movement, after Kardec. Today, without studies, in the spiritist world, people talk about karma, the law of return and the law of action and reaction, imputing this arbitrarily punitive characteristic, of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”, to reincarnation. . It is complete nonsense, which only exists, as we said, due to the absence of study.

In the Spiritist Magazine of February 1864, in the article “Spiritist Dissertations – Necessity of Incarnation”, Kardec presents the communication of a Spirit, assisted by another, named Pascal:

God wanted the Spirit of man to be linked to matter in order to suffer the vicissitudes of the body. ((After all, reincarnation is a law. As Kardec would say in the first article cited, “God does not ask us for permission; he does not consult our taste. Either he is, or he is not.”)), with which he identifies himself to the point of deluding himself and taking it for himself, when it is no more than its temporary prison; it is as if a prisoner is confused with the walls of the cell...

If God wanted his spirit creatures to be momentarily united to matter, it is, I repeat, to make them feel and, in fact, so that they suffer the necessities that matter demands of their bodies, with regard to their sustenance and conservation..

From these needs arise the vicissitudes that make you feel the suffering and understand the pity you must have for your brothers in the same position.. That transient state it is therefore necessary for the advancement of your Spirit, which, without this, would be stagnant.

The needs that the body makes you experience stimulate your spirits and force them to seek the means to provide them; from this forced labor is born the development of thought. Constrained to preside over the body's movements to direct them, aiming at their conservation, the Spirit is led to material work and from there to intellectual work, necessary to each other, because the realization of the conceptions of the Spirit requires the work of the body and this can only be done under the direction and impulse of the Spirit.

KARDEC, Allan. Spiritist Magazine, 1864. Our emphasis.

To what Kardec observes:

To these remarks, which are perfectly fair, we will add that, working for himself, the incarnate Spirit works for the improvement of the world he inhabits, thus helping his transformation and his material progress., which are in the designs of God, whose intelligent instrument it is. In your farsighted wisdom, Providence wanted everything to be linked in Nature; that all, men and things, would be in solidarity ((This fundamental principle of natural law, demonstrated by Spiritism, goes against the false principle of the Spirit isolated in itself. Let us see that, even without knowing or wanting, the Spirit works for the whole, since always. If it had been created perfect ( which is also nonsense), there would be no need.)).

Reincarnation is necessary while matter dominates Spirit. But since the incarnate Spirit came to dominate matter and annul the effects of your reaction on morale, the reincarnation it has no more use nor reason to be.

In fact, the body is necessary to the Spirit for progressive work until, having managed to handle this instrument at will, to impress its will on it, the work is done..

Ibid. Idem.

I don't think further explanation is needed. The principle of successive progress, through multiple incarnations, is shown to be the only one capable of giving reason to all the questions raised to date about divine justice.

In a next article we will continue the subject.

by Paulo Degering Rosa Junior

Há tempos venho realizando abordagens ((Veja os artigos “Spiritualism and Politics" and "The silence of the Spiritist Movement in the face of social issuesabout the impossibility of linking Spiritism to any political ideology and how harmful and harmful this practice is to the Spiritist Movement. When I defend that Spiritism should not be mixed with politics, I do not mean that it cannot give its contribution to it, but rather that it should not be mixed with the opinions and ideas of systems that, contrary to spiritist morality, , want to change society by force, by imposition, while Spiritism demonstrates that the only way to effect any change in society is by helping the individual to abandon bad habits and imperfections, in a gesture rational, conscious and autonomous.

Anyone who studies Spiritism with some dedication easily understands this principle. However, I needed to find a true pearl of Allan Kardec, inserted in the middle of a text that, until today, I confess, I had not read or known. The pearl in question is in the publication “Spiritist Journey in 1862”, in “Discourses pronounced at the general meetings of the Spiritists of Lyon and Bordeaux.”, item III:

I just said that without charity man only builds on sand. An example will make us understand better.

Some well-meaning men, touched by the sufferings of a part of their fellow men, thought they found the remedy for the evil in certain social reform systems. With minor differences, the principle is more or less the same in all of them, whatever name you give them. Community life as it is the least expensive; community of goods, so that everyone has their share; participation of all for the common work; no great riches, but also no misery. This was very seductive for someone who, having nothing, could already see the rich man's purse entering the social fund., without calculating that the totality of the riches, put in common, would create general misery rather than partial misery; that the equality established today would be broken tomorrow by the mobility of the population and the difference between skills; what permanent equality of goods presupposes equality of capacities and work. But this is not the point; it does not enter into my considerations to examine the positive and negative sides of these systems. I disregard the impossibilities I have just mentioned and propose to consider them from another point of view which, it seems to me, has not yet concerned anyone and which is related to our subject.

KARDEC, Allan. Spiritist Journey of 1862, my emphasis.

Kardec, as always very lucid in his notes, begins by pointing out the very clear problems that such “social reform systems” would bring to society. However, it does not delve into this, to then attack the moral theme, which is very important, and demonstrating, once again, that its interests, aligned with Spiritism, did not consist in destroying, but in building:

The authors, founders or promoters of all these systems, without exception, had no other aim than the organization of material life in a way that would benefit everyone. The goal is laudable, no doubt. It remains to be seen whether this building lacks the only foundation that could consolidate it, assuming it were practicable.

Community is the most complete self-denial of the personality((One of the principles of Spiritism is the relationship of Spirits with everyone, contrary to the false principle of individuality (N. do E.) )). Each one owing Giving oneself personally, it requires the most absolute devotion ((Moral Duty was something very well defined by Rational Spiritualism, of which Spiritism is the development(N. of E.) )). Now, the motive of self-denial and devotion is the charity, that is, love for others ((Disinterested charity (N. do E.) )). But we recognize that the The foundation of charity is belief ((Charity, to be possible, requires conscience, based on reason (N. do E.) )); that lack of belief leads to materialism and materialism leads to selfishness. A system which, by its nature and for its stability, requires moral virtues in the highest degree, must take its starting point in the spiritual element.. Well done! since the material side is their exclusive objective ((Because they are systems based on materialist philosophies, with their main origin in Aristotle and reproduced with great force by Comte (N. do E.) )), not only the spiritual element is not taken into account, as many systems are founded on a highly avowed materialistic doctrine((Let's see: imperfection can develop due to a complete inability to deal with life's issues, due to a lack of understanding of morals (lack of education). When seeking, for example, happiness in things and situations in life, the being begins to attribute unreasonable importance to the resources necessary to do so. If he does not have them, he feels unhappy (sad), but, judging that happiness is also his responsibility, he may judge that, to satisfy this, he must be It is licit to obtain it from those who have these resources in abundance. It is the materialist way of approaching the subject, reproduced by almost all of these systems (N. do E.) )), or about pantheism, a kind of disguised materialism, a true adornment of the beautiful name fraternity. But fraternity, like charity, is neither imposed nor decreed; it must be in the heart and it will not be a system that will give birth to it if it is not there; otherwise the system will collapse and give way to anarchy.

Ibid. Idem.

Kardec sowed the seed: moral virtues, from which fraternity is born, are not born of a system. They cannot be imposed or decreed. You have to be born from the heart.

Experience is there to prove that don't suffocate neither ambitions nor cupidity. Before doing the thing for men, it is necessary to train men for the thing, how workers are formed, before entrusting them with a job. Before building, it is necessary to ensure the solidity of the materials. Here the solid materials are men of heart, devotion and self-denial. Egoism, love and brotherhood are, as we have said, empty words; How, then, under the empire of selfishness, to found a system that requires self-denial to a greater degree since it has, as an essential principle, the solidarity of all with each and of each with all?

Ibid. Idem.

It is incredible not to see, yet, Kardec occupy space among the names of the highest moral philosophy. But it is not only morality that is forgotten, but also, along with it, rational spirituality.

Simple and without linguistic adornments that only serve to confuse and flatter, says the professor: “Before doing the thing for the men, it is necessary to form the men for the thing”. Always, always, attacking the heart of the issue, since his youth, with just over 20 years old: education. If you want to change society, you have to educate from childhood. Now, in a society where there is no education, but only instruction, what do you want to achieve, if not the results that we are forced to meet, daily, around the world? What can one expect from individuals who are trained, from their very first steps, in the schools of dispute, cheating, reward and punishment, in a word, heteronomy? Certainly, they will not be autonomous and fraternal individuals, much less charitable. And, for Kardec,

Without charity, there is no stable human institution; and there can be no possible charity or fraternity, in the true sense of the word, without belief ((Again, Kardec highlights the importance of knowledge, which underpins reason (N. do E.) )). So, apply yourselves to developing those feelings that, by increasing themselves, will destroy the selfishness that kills you. When charity has penetrated the masses, when it has become the faith, the religion of the majority, then your institutions will become better by the very force of things.; abuses, arising from personalism, will disappear. Teach, therefore, charity and, above all, I preached by example: is the anchor of salvation of society. Only she can realize the kingdom of good on Earth, which is the kingdom of God; without it, whatever you do, you will only create utopias, from which you will only be disappointed..

Ibid. Idem.

You don't have to go much further. Kardec's thinking is quite clear and lucid, and I take it not as an argument from authority, but because it is in full agreement with what I believe to be the best expression of knowledge in morals, philosophy and education, especially with regard to successive and progressive progress. of being, a principle demonstrated by Spiritism.

As long as we continue to fight for social transformations imposed by force, and even violence, we will only create utopias and disappointments. Let's see that the examples of this, after Kardec, are already several, and they swarm around us. In a way, he practically predicted what a good part of the world would face, in the following century, due to the materialist systems and ideologies that still prevail today and which, paradoxically, are defended by a significant part of the Spiritist Movement, which, in In fact, he still hasn't understood the true moral of Spiritism and wants to force others to change according to what external agents define as ideal, and not by conscience itself, in an autonomous and conscious movement.

When it comes to the Spiritist Movement, it is nonsense to see materialist ideas defended within this medium. Let us suppose, quite naively, that a law is created that obliges the rich to share their riches: this will only generate revolt in the spirits who have the imperfection of avarice and, at the first opportunity, in this or in other lives, they will fight to reestablish the power previously possessed. Not to mention the individuals who, accustomed to various vices, will only use shared resources to feast a little more. This is not how a society changes.

Without charity, which is born from the understanding of the morality of the divine law and from the autonomous movement towards the good, man only builds on sand..

Calm down, please don't run away! It's not that much work.

I would like to make a very simple invitation to you, who are dedicated to studying Spiritism: help yourself to spread it too!

Often, we study individually or in groups a topic that can serve as the basis for a simple article, succinct, punctual, but of great interest to other people. I invite you, then, to write! Just take notes, indicate sources of studies, or even indicate video excerpts of up to 10 minutes, for posting on TikTok, the fastest growing video network in the world.

where to post articles? Well, you can count on our support to use our platform, after analyzing the content, and you can also count on our help to help you create your own blog.

We can do a lot of good with a little effort from each one! Don't deny yourself that: the world needs everyone's help! Sharing knowledge is the fastest and most powerful way to change society!

Contact.

We recently obtained the following observation from a correspondent of ours, Ms. A…:

Science today does not confirm much of what we believe to be the spirit world and the intervention on our plane. The turntable itself has already been accused of being just the result of the ideomotor effect and not messages from the spirits. We don't have scientific proof of many things and yet we believe them. Science at the time of Kardec evolved and did not confirm everything. Spiritism, as much as it has used the scientific method, is not proven by science, perhaps in the future it will be. But it's still not science. We can call philosophy, religion based on the scientific method. There are things that we know are not real like the name of the person who gave certain messages in psychographs and we are told to just consider the content of the message given and ignore the supposed false identity. There are things we prefer not to know or accept to be weird. But when we see these same things in other doctrines and in other groups, we accuse them of lack of common sense and scientific method.

We summarize our response to these observations below:

Dear Miss. A... well said: TODAY's science and, we add, since always, materialistic, dogmatic science, do not accept the findings that the Spirits came to demonstrate. However, even before Kardec, many honest scientists even found the existence of something beyond the material body. Says Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo, in "Mesmer: the denied science of animal magnetism":

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

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

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

We then see Rivail, educator emeritus, years before, saying, regarding the education of children that, if it were done well, it would prevent them from believing in souls from the other world or in ghosts; that they would not take will-o'-the-wisps for Spirits ((RIVAIL, H.- L.- D. Speech given at the Distribution of prizes. Paris, 1834)). See the incredible change that took place in his ideas – not without resistance, as we can see in the article “Plurality of stocks“, from the Revista Espírita of November 1858 – to then, like Kardec, say that “in general, a very false idea is given about the state of Spirits. They are not, as some think, vague and indefinite beings, nor flames, like will-o'-the-wisps, nor ghosts, as in apparition tales. They are beings similar to us, having a body like ours, but fluid and invisible in a normal state ((Spiritist Magazine — Journal of Psychological Studies — 1864 > April > Summary of the law of Spiritist phenomena))”.

We would produce an endless text, seeking to reaffirm the countless points that demonstrate the strength of the formation of Spiritism as a science – science, which, in fact, was developed on Rational Spiritualism ((see “Autonomy: the never told story of Spiritism”, by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo)) – a task that can only be well performed and achieved by those who, freely, decide to leave their preconceptions and STUDYING Spiritism, in all its formation, which is easily found in the Spiritist Magazine and, later, deeply established in anthology, philosophy and morals in the works O Céu e o Inferno and A Genesis (in their original, unadulterated versions).

It can be seen that the path is long and can only be followed by those who are really interested in leaving heteronomy, which freezes the pace, towards autonomy, which puts us in charge of the helm of our own ship.

See, just to complement, that Spiritism was born like every science we know: by methodological and rational observation of facts of nature. If it has not yet reached the status of a recognized science, it is not its fault, but due to the great deviation that the spiritualist philosophical sciences took at the end of the 19th century, which turned off the lights of reasoning supported by morality to leave us in the shadows of Aristotelian materialism, which contaminates and defines our society until today. We reached the height of seeing Psychology forgetting its own definition – the study of the soul – to look at man only from a behaviorist, materialist point of view. Do you see the gap between the current point of view and the philosophical, moral, psychological and rational sciences of the past?

The big mistake is wanting to define science by current understanding, as if it were just what is done in the laboratory, forgetting that, even today, inference and the elaboration of ideas through hypotheses are still part of the scientific method. It is incredible, then, to see that Kardec, corroborating Mesmer and supported by spiritualist research, had already, at that time, arrived at the concepts of field and wave, approaching Modern Physics ((See A Gênesis, publisher FEAL)). We see, finally, that natural science is one, subdivided, however, by the specialties of men.

Kardec would say, in the Spiritist Magazine of January 1858:

Perhaps we are challenged by the name of science that we give to Spiritism. It would, without a doubt and in no case, have the characteristics of an exact science and precisely in this lies the error of those who try to judge and experiment with it as a chemical analysis or a mathematical problem; it is enough that it be a philosophical science. All science must be based on facts, but facts alone do not constitute science. It is born from the coordination and logical deduction of facts: it is the set of laws that govern them. Has Spiritism reached the state of science? If it is a question of a finished science, it will undoubtedly be premature to answer in the affirmative, but the observations are already numerous enough to allow at least to deduce the general principles, where science begins.

When Miss A… says that “there are things we prefer not to know or we accept that they are really strange”, she is only speaking from her point of view, which does not include our ideas. We don't act that way. We just don't accept it. We search, we seek answers. If, really, there are no answers, we are waiting for the day when we will be able to obtain them, through the scientific method necessary to establish communication with beings that we cannot judge otherwise than by reason. If, today, the Spiritist Movement does not excel in this method, once again, the fault is not Spiritism, but the misrepresentations made in the doctrinal core, but which, for those who are willing to study, are being quickly corrected and annulled, with the consequent restoration of true Spiritism.

Shall we be part of this movement?

By Suely GO Caine

We know how instinctive and from the beginnings the idea of continuity of existence of the spirit, after the death of the body. The comments to question 148 of The Spirits' Book highlight this issue:

(...) Man instinctively has the conviction that everything does not end for him with life; he has a horror of nothingness; it is in vain that he persists against the idea of a future life, and when the supreme moment arrives, there are few who do not ask what will become of them, because the idea of leaving life forever has something poignant about it. Who, in fact, could face with indifference an absolute and eternal separation from everything he loves? 

(…)

No one, it is said, has come back from there to tell us what exists. This, however, is an error, and the mission of Spiritism is precisely to enlighten us about this future, to make us, to a certain extent, see and touch it, no longer through reasoning, but through facts. Thanks to spiritist communications, this is no longer a presumption, a probability about which each one imagines at will, which poets embellish with their fictions or embellish with allegorical images that seduce us. It is reality that shows us its face, because it is the beings from beyond the grave who come to tell us about their situation, tell us what they do, allow us to witness, so to speak, all the adventures of their new life and by this means show us the inevitable fate that is in store for us, according to our merits or our crimes.”

Well then! It is not necessary to consider that anyone has “come back” to tell how he is in the spiritual plane, since there are countless reports, studies carried out around narratives obtained in mediumistic sessions, sometimes with rich details, that Kardec collected and gathered through of a developed scientific method, and in chapter VIII, Future penalties according to Spiritism, of the book Heaven and Hell, or Divine Justice According to Spiritism, clarifies:

“The Spiritist Doctrine, with regard to future penalties, is no more founded on a preconceived theory than its other parts. In everything she relies on observations, which is what gives her authority. No one then imagined that souls, after death, should find themselves in this or that situation. It is the very beings who left the Earth who come today - with God's permission and because humanity enters a new phase - to initiate us into the mysteries of the future life, to describe their happy or unhappy position, their impressions and their transformation in the death of the body. . The spirits come today, in short, to complete the teaching of Christ on this point.”

But… after all… will we find ourselves in a circumscribed place in the spiritual life? The answer is negative; there are no records in the spiritist doctrine of places reserved for the suffering or the happy, nor any subdivisions.

Spiritism teaches us that the spirit in need of progress, which is attached to matter, shares the world to which it naturally maintains affinity, to which it has an attraction, while the one that has evolved, having detached itself from matter, travels through different worlds. . Answers 232 and 233 of The Book of Spirits clarify the issue:

232. In the wandering state, can spirits go to all worlds? - According. When the Spirit leaves the body, it is not yet completely disconnected from matter and still belongs to the world in which it lived or to a world of the same degree; unless, during his lifetime, he has risen. This is the objective to which he must turn, for without it he would never be perfected. He can, however, go to some higher worlds, passing through them as a foreigner. He does nothing more than catch a glimpse of them, and that is what gives him the desire to improve himself, to be worthy of the happiness that is enjoyed in them and to be able to inhabit them.

233. Do spirits already purified come to the lower worlds? – They come often to help them progress; without it, these worlds would be left to themselves, without guides to guide them.

However, we often come across messages from spirits that narrate that they are in certain places of suffering, or that experience physical sensations, such portray the illusions that the spirit attached to matter can create for itself, but which are nothing more than a perception of the spirit that narrates it, and which, therefore, is not universal. 

From what we can infer is that the happy or unhappy state is inherent to the degree of purification or imperfections of the spirit, as we can conclude by reading items 1 to 25 of chapter VIII. book Heaven and Hell, or divine justice according to Spiritism, with emphasis on items 1 to 3 transcribed below:

1°) The soul or spirit is subject, in the spiritual life, to the consequences of all the imperfections of which it did not get rid of during the corporeal life. Your happy or unhappy state is inherent to the degree of your debugging or your imperfections. 

2°) Since 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. 

3°) Perfect happiness is linked to perfection, that is, to the complete purification of the spirit. Every imperfection is a cause of suffering, just as every acquired quality is a cause of satisfaction and alleviation of suffering; whence it follows that the sum of happiness and unhappiness is in proportion to the sum of the good or bad qualities possessed by the spirit.

However, let us pay attention to the study of the first edition of the book Heaven and Hell, or Divine Justice According to Spiritism and from the book Genesis – Miracles and Predictions According to Spiritism, by Allan Kardec, behold, the adulterations found in the 4th and 5th editions of the aforementioned books do not hover over this edition, respectively.

Another information obtained through the method of the universality of spirits, and which makes up the spiritist doctrine, is that spirits come together by a kind of affinity (not associated with the idea of merely material affinity) and form groups, according to the answer 278 of O Spirits Book:

278. Are Spirits of different orders mixed? - Yes and no; that is, they see each other, but they are distinguished from each other. They move away or approach according to the similarity or divergence of their feelings, as between you. It is a whole world, of which yours is the dark reflection. Those of the same order come together by a kind of affinity, and form groups or families of spirits united by sympathy and purposes; the good, by the desire to do good; the wicked, from the desire to do evil, from the shame of their faults and from the need to find themselves among beings similar to them. Like a big city, where men of all classes and of all conditions see each other and meet, without being confused, where societies are formed by the similarity of tastes, where vice and virtue rub shoulders, without speaking. .

In the Spiritist Magazine May/1858, under the title Eternal Halves , the spirit of São Luís also leaves interesting notes: 

"No. There is no particular and fatal union of two souls. There is union between all spirits, but in different degrees, according to the position they occupy, that is, according to the perfection acquired: the more perfect, the more united. From discord all human ills spring; from concord comes complete happiness.

(...) 3 ─ Once united, two perfectly sympathetic spirits remain united for eternity or can they separate and unite with other spirits? All Spirits are united with each other. I speak of those who have reached perfection. In the lower spheres, when a Spirit rises, he is no longer sympathetic to those he has left. 4 ─ Are two sympathetic spirits complementing each other or is this sympathy the result of a perfect identity? The sympathy that attracts one Spirit to another results from the perfect agreement of their inclinations and their instincts. If one were to complete the other, it would lose its individuality.”

These are reduced reflections on the subject. And what are yours? What texts do you know that could expand our studies? Would you like to study with us?!

Study sources:

Recently, an alleged psychographed letter from the director of Chapecoense appeared. The subject is tiresomely repetitive: whenever a tragedy occurs, whether individual or in a group, which draws the attention of society, a supposed psychographic appears that, due to the lack of care of the Spiritist Movement, no accident come repeat the false ideas linked to the dogmas of falling into sin and paying debts, karma, punishment, law of return, etc., already far surpassed by the spiritist science developed by the studies of Allan Kardec.

See an excerpt from supposed psychography:

“What appears to be injustice, when seen from above, all ideas and concepts about the divine are rethought, redone, put to the test, in remaking. First, I want you to know that nothing happens by chance. There are no victims in the Universe. We reap what we sow. I learn here that this is the universal and unalterable law, (…) the law of action and reaction […] We were together in other lives and we caused several air disasters during the wars. And divine good justice called us to right!”.

We never tire of highlighting how false this idea is, as we have already covered in length more than once ((refer to the articles “Law of action and reaction, law of return, karma: why do we suffer, according to Spiritism?“, “Karma (or karma), punishment, sin and punishment: how Kardec approached all this in A Genesis“, “Spiritism in the face of wars“)).

We will not repeat what we have already said in the cited articles. We will just remember: be careful, spiritists, because the spirits deceive the unsuspecting, the majority of mediums and workers who do not study the Spiritist Doctrine. To these, they reproduce communications full of false concepts, with a single objective: to keep the minds that blindly accept them away from true spiritist morality, which is autonomous and which is guided by the principle of successive progress.

These are ideas repeated by “teachers” of Spiritism, with channels and groups filled with hundreds of thousands of people, and which could do enormous good for themselves and society, but which choose to blindfold their eyes and cover their ears to the necessary study, because they believe they already know everything, since they are even “teaching” others.

They are, in fact, individuals who do not think about the great harm they do to Spiritism and the disrespect to these families, judging deceased loved ones, when they are told “criminals of the past“.

Divine Justice is not guided by collecting debts, but by allowing all spirits to reach their destination, which is relative perfection, by self effort, conscious and autonomous. Therefore, supposed psychographics like this supposed psychographed letter from the Chapecoense director can only be one of three things:

• Fruits of an obsessive Spirit to which the medium surrenders;
• Fruits of an inferior Spirit, with almost no ability to understand the spiritist world and attached to old religious ideas;
• Fruits of the medium's own opinion.

In any case, the supposed psychographics must be ever analyzed by other people, knowledgeable about Spiritism, and only made public when verified as important and rational for the general interest.

O Study Group The Legacy of Allan Kardec repudiates this type of inconsequential act, which increasingly distances Spiritism from those who, judging by what they see reproduced by the Spiritist Movement, absent from studies, do not conform with such nonsense and with the absence of reason and charity in the Doctrine that says to excel in these two fundamental principles.

Below is a playlist with very interesting videos of studies with the participation of Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo, currently the most prominent spiritist researcher.