In the article in question, as presented in the Spiritist Magazine of June 1858, Kardec talks about an annual banquet, in Paris, to commemorate Mesmer's birth anniversary.

At this banquet there were two types of “supporters”: those who mocked Spiritism, forgetting that Spiritism itself science that they embraced - and I emphasize the word because, in fact, it was an established and recognized science at the time - had, in turn, faced the same type of hurdle that, at that time, Spiritism also faced and, on the other hand, those who, even if they did not profess Spiritism, were of the opinion that it should be respected as a science of its importance.

The text itself does not go much further than that, in depth. We only take this opportunity to highlight a few important points:

 – Magnetism was a science cited several times by Kardec but never deepened, because, in its context, it was fully established and understood. He could never imagine that it would be put into oblivion by a strong materialist movement in the future.  

– Mesmer was a controversial scientist for a long time. By many, he was painted as crazy or a deceiver. Currently, however, his true face is being rescued: that of a sage, very cultured, who formulated the first theory about the Universal Cosmic Fluid and its influence on human health.  

– “Through” Mesmer, countless patients were cured of the most diverse illnesses, just by will, at a time when medicine performed bloodletting and cold-blooded surgeries, procedures from which few survived.

– Magnetism and Spiritism are sister sciences. One without the other is incomplete, limp.  

– We suggest that everyone read the book “Mesmer: the negated science of animal magnetism”, by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo, just started by us.

In this article, Kardec evokes a Spirit who had committed bodily suicide just 6 days before. As can be seen in the original text, this man was not recognized by anyone, having been buried as a pauper. It is possible to raise several considerations about this article.

“The phone only rings from there to here”

The first of these considerations, we would say, is regarding the evocation itself: at a time when the motto “the phone only rings from there to here” reigns, that has a background of reason, but which is thoughtlessly repeated by so many, we are faced with the doctrinal basis of Spiritism, built largely under evocations - i.e, the phone also rings from here to there. Only that, like a telephone, who will answer and if will answer is the problem of the question, always addressed by Kardec.

The Suffering of the Suicide

It is important to understand that the Spirit of the suicide will not suffer divine punishment for a sin committed – not in this way. Any Spirit will always have forgiveness and new chances, as it all starts from ignorance regarding evolving Spirits.

There are infinite variations between each case, with the result that there are infinite effects related to each case, because, essentially, such effects will be linked to the general mentality of the Spirit who commits suicide. While some will throw themselves into a real hell, because they believe they have committed sin, others may even be relieved, In a first moment – because later, when you really understand everything, you will most likely regret the wasted life.

Anyway, as São Luis attests, we understand that the first effect for every suicidal person – or, at least, for most of them – will be a great difficulty to disconnect from the body, given the violence of the act, their mental state and the fact that the body is still saturated with vitality. This, however, is only what we can say at the moment, based on what we understand from the article, because, really, it is a subject that requires further development and investigation.

It is also important to emphasize that the Spirit does not suffer none kind of physical pain. It is always your morality, your conscience, that externalizes and places in external factors the pain that is, in fact, within yourself. The suicidal person (like other spirits), therefore, can claim to suffer from cold or thirst, when, in fact, he is suffering morally, and not physically. In fact, we do this ourselves, with the difference that, through psychosomatic processes, we can develop actual damage or illness in the physical body.

That is why, when we come in contact with any Spirit in suffering, we can and should have a natural and healthy conversation with him, clarifying these points. It helps enormously for them to understand that suffering is moral, internal, not external and imposed.

the valley of the suicides

To put it bluntly: there is no “the” valley of suicides, just as there is no “the” hell. It is important that the Spiritist learns to remove this type of concept from his imagination and, above all, to spread them to others, because we know that, as a not very enlightened Spirit, we seek environments and other Spirits that are in accordance with our mentality that, moreover, shape these environments of suffering together. Therefore, when a suffering Spirit says that he is “in” hell, he acts like an incarnate person who, in a very difficult situation for him, expresses himself in the same way, with the difference that the Spirit shapes, alone or together, his own hell. .

Once again, it is very important to seek to clarify such Spirits, when in contact with him.

Above all, it is important to remember that there is no such fateful connection between a suicide and the exile of the Spirit in a “valley”, as a penalty.

The effects of suicide on the next incarnation

There is something much wrong in the spiritist environment in general, currently, and which is not doctrinal - in fact, it is something anti-doctrinal, born from the lack of study of the Doctrine: it is to make the depressing claims that such an individual was born under such tests or deformations because in the previous life he did this or that.

In the particular case, about suicide, there is a terrible statement made out there: that the individual who has physical problems today is so because he would be “rescuing” a suicide committed in the previous life. Brethren, this statement is criminal, why:

1. keep away people who, suffering in their skin or having a loved one in these situations, feel (rightly) outraged by this type of statement.
2. it's fallacious, because it is not based on reality: we do know that for every effect there is a cause, but it is not for us to probe the evidence of each, both because of the imposition of charity, which we must practice, and because a Spirit can choose a deformed body not only as a test, in order to try to get rid of an imperfection, but also as a mission in front of other Spirits or also as an opportunity to learn other virtues that you still feel the need to exercise. Anyway, it's ever a conscious choice of the Spirit, not the effect of a divine mechanics of sin and punishment. We note, moreover, that in all the spiritual communications studied so far, they always assert, even for the case of the monomaniacal madman, that the proof is the result of a choice prior and personal.

Suicide is not fought by fear

Finally, we remind you that suicide will never be fought by imposing the fear of suffering, but, rather, through the clarification. Let us introduce such individuals to the essence of Spiritism. Let us try to lead them to the following reasoning:

Pains and joys are fleeting, related to incarnate life. Happiness, which is what we really seek, will only be achieved after we leave our imperfections behind – since, for example, someone who is too worried, or too anxious, or too angry, or too jealous, or too proud, or too sensual, etc., cannot be really happy. To do so, on the spiritual plane, when we are aware of our imperfections, we plan lives with opportunities and difficulties, sometimes quite heavy, which, in our judgment, can help us overcome such imperfections. Therefore, giving up a life, with the extinction of the corporeal life itself, will not result in any progress, because, having not taken advantage of the difficult test for learning, we will not have perfected ourselves and, therefore, we will need - by our own will and verification – restarting a new life, carrying an even greater burden, due to the feeling of guilt caused by giving up and, who knows, by the disastrous effects that such an act can cause in the incarnate spirits that surround us.

Nobody is saying it's easy. Everyone knows where the callus presses and when you squeeze it, it hurts a lot. But we need to learn to separate physical pains from moral pains, placing ourselves, before ourselves and before the Creator, naked of any mask of selfishness or vanity and of all the imperfections that arise from these. We need to seek, in each hard test, as well as in the abundant opportunities that are presented to us, the deep needs we have for learning and, not forgetting that we are never alone, trust in the good Spirits, who do not abandon us, to go through such difficult moments.

Here, by the way, a final thought arises, supported by Spiritism: God does not give us a greater burden than we can carry. Most of the time, life presents us with opportunities that would allow us to learn in a much “lighter” way, but we, almost always, driven by pride, try to wear a mask, confuse us from ourselves and, thus, we choose leave aside the straight path, in order to embark on the winding and tortuous paths of passions (not speaking here in love, but in the deep feeling provoked by sensations). This is how, for example, many choose leave aside the study of Spiritism, which can leverage our evolution so much, to live life in laziness.

Therefore, let us take advantage of the opportunities that life offers us for our learning and evolution. Sometimes they are prickly, chosen by ourselves; at others, they are fields of soft and smooth grass, full of teachings given by love. It is up to us to recognize them.

NOTE: This evocation is in the book Heaven and Hell by Allan Kardec, first report of Chapter V – Suicides, of Part Two. It is worth reading the entire chapter V with several reports of evocations of suicides with many considerations by the author.

Dear friends, brothers who are attached to this initiative,

Once again, we invite each of you to participate actively in our group and to spread the essential ideas of Spiritism that, little by little, are beginning to be rediscovered and understood. It is in the interest and responsibility of all of us to restore, peacefully and patiently, but persistently and firmly, the original truths of this Doctrine born from the rational observation of the Spiritist teachings given everywhere and for all times! No longer an adulterated Spiritism, after Kardec's death, in order to give space to the retarding ideas of sin, fall and punishment, of karma, of rescues, but the Doctrine in its essence, based on the realization of free will, of choice of proofs and atonements, finally, the Doctrine that shows us that our step is always towards learning and spiritual progress, making part of this journey the mistakes and setbacks of each one, the same Doctrine that showed us, in its essence , not a pure soul created and deviated by sin, a simple and ignorant created Spirit and that, as it advances in its experiences, through mistakes and successes, joys and sufferings, it purifies itself of its imperfections and its materiality towards the true happiness of the superior spirits, already detached from these same imperfections and materiality through the acquisition of better habits and moral values.

It is natural, however, that such liberating and renewing ideas find resistance both in proud ignorance, closed to the reform of ideas, and in knowledge interested in keeping the class of faithful to the old doctrines under their wing. Even within Spiritism, such ideas of fall, sin and redemption are deeply rooted, as the adulterations come from a few months or years after the death of the worthy professor Rivail.

It will not be on the basis of wars and disputes, however, that we will discover this path full of briars and thorns, but on the basis of lucid understanding and a firm but friendly word. Let us avoid wasting time with those who make up the classes highlighted above, because both have no interest in changing their ideas in the face of irrefutable truth. For these, only time will have an effect. Let us invest our time, however, in the class of all those to whom these ideas not only please, but to whom they are substantial: those who no longer see any pleasure in life, those who think of giving it up, those who do not understand a vengeful God, who, in short, do not understand the reasons for day-to-day difficulties, or even to those who, of good will, wish to study Spiritism in its essence, in order to transmit, to all who can, the reforming and consoling ideas of this Doctrine in its originality.

Let us roll up our sleeves, therefore, dear brothers. Inaction does no one any good. Let's do our part. I, the author of this text, am here today, for a much loved Spirit who reached out to me in the most difficult moment of my life and for another, incarnate, who insisted on, daily and without any thanks, to spread a spiritist reflection in a WhatsApp group that was and still is forgotten why they formed a family in the spiritist center that, because of the pandemic, is now closed.

A gesture is often enough to change a life, an opinion, and, from there, start a movement. Onward, dear ones, and may God enlighten us all so that, in this process, we never let ourselves be contaminated by personalism, vanity, selfishness and pride.

The path is winding, long, rocky and full of thorns, but we have to walk it and clean it for the next generations, of which we will probably be a part again.

Views: 66 Various anomalies and deformities. Cretinism, mental, physical, intellectual disabilities. When questioning the reason for such physical complications, in the spiritist world, how many times have we heard: “it’s because so-and-so is repaying a past debt”. And for how long do we take comfort in this malicious and slanderous statement, made in a generic way?! But not anymore today. […]

After the irrefutable confirmation of changes to the two final – and fundamental – works by Allan Kardec, Heaven and Hell and Genesis[1], we were able to verify that such concepts were never part of the Doctrine of Spirits, being it originally and essentially based on free will, that is, on each one's ability to choose. However, such ideas still face great resistance, as many are those who come from a creation, including a spiritist one, which affirms the concepts of fall, sin, punishment, ransom, karma, etc.

O article of the same title, presented in Blog Spiritist Letters, hits on many points, but also brings this type of concept (debt and redemption), at a certain point, when using a statement by Suely C. Schubert (“The sick spirit, in debt“) and also when using a text from O Céu e o Inferno, based on the adulterated 4th edition.

Action and Reaction – what is it?

It is one thing to identify, as Kardec found in the law of successive reincarnations, that every effect has a cause, and that, almost always, this cause is found in previous lives. Another thing, quite different, is to say that every morally negative action will have a reaction in order to punish the original action in order to repair an alleged sin. This, within the scope of the Spiritist Doctrine, is a fallacy. Action and reaction is a material law of physics, not a moral law. So much so that there is no such law among those presented in The Spirits' Book.

Rescue?

Unfortunately, many modern spiritualists and spiritualists insist on preaching in people's heads that their pain, difficulties and current tragedies are "ransoms" of past debts, forgetting that, if on the one hand the Spirit can impose suffering for the purpose of to overcome the imperfections that made him fall before, on the other hand, hard tests can also be imposed that have nothing to do with past mistakes, but only as rich opportunities to learn virtues and to overcome aspects related to imperfections that have nothing to do with them, directly, with the type of evidence chosen. Thus, a Spirit may choose blindness only to be able to deal with the need to depend on the help of others, and not because it has blinded someone in previous lives. In fact, the whys are NOT FOR US TO PROBATE: it is only up to us to be charitable and help everyone along the way.

debts?

We need to understand that the “indebted” Spirit is not indebted to God or to any law, but rather to himself, and for believing so (this is very important). Because we all have the divine Laws in our consciences - a fact that makes us Spirits with free will - as long as we are not in denial, our own conscience accuses us of the mistakes made, for which we blame ourselves, as well as pointing out imperfections to us. that cause us moral pain. This is how a Spirit who, in the previous incarnation, had animated a rich and selfish man, often chooses poverty in the next incarnation, in order not to embark on the difficult path and so full of responsibilities that earthly riches bring.

I said “believe yourself like this” (indebted) because, when the Spirit really understands that what happened was a mistake, natural from its ignorance and imperfections, and that these imperfections and ignorance make it suffer, it ceases to believe itself a sinner. and deserving of punishment to understand himself as a Spirit in evolution, seeking, then, new proofs and atonements that give him the opportunity to learn and get rid of his imperfections, developing better virtues. Furthermore, he also understands that everyone is liable to mistakes and, therefore, he stops putting himself in the condition of collector and avenger. This is substantial, and this is what Spiritism essentially came for.

We are not saying, with that, that there are no physical consequences that the disturbed Spirit causes to appear on their body, since we know about the psychosomatic relationships that we keep with our body. But we are stating, based on the study of Spiritism in its originality, that WE CANNOT look at an individual with any deficiencies and affirm that this is because he is a “indebted” Spirit, as much as WE CANNOT (because it would be a mistake as much factual as well as moral) to tell a mother who lost her child by burning in a fire that "this happened because her child must have been a soldier in X's time who burned people". This is terrible, it causes revolt and distances people from Spiritism, a fact about which we will respond – in front of our own conscience.

Based on an error, another error is produced

Finally, I want to point out that the article in question makes the mistake – probably involuntary, due to lack of information – of basing itself on the adulterated version of O Céu e o Inferno, since it has already been duly and undeniably proven that the 4th edition of the work , bringing profound changes in the original thought, was not commissioned until after Kardec's death, not to mention that the careful comparative study of these changes indicates that the content was modified precisely to insert the concepts of sin and punishment that were never in the Doctrine of Spirits and that, although Kardec may have presented some previous thought in the sense of this belief, in the original work, from the first to the third edition (which are the same) it concluded precisely in the opposite direction.

See, in this sense, the differences between the original and what appears in the 4th edition:

[ORIGINAL]
“The mentally handicapped are beings punished on Earth for their misuse of powerful faculties. They have the soul imprisoned in a body whose organs are incapable of expressing their thoughts. This intellectual and physical mutism is one of the cruelest punishments on Earth. she is often chosen by the repentant spirits who want EXPIATE your faults”

[4th Edition]
“Cretins are beings punished on earth for the misuse they have made of powerful faculties; your soul is imprisoned in a body whose impotent organs cannot express its thoughts; this moral and physical mutism is one of the cruelest earthly punishments; often it is chosen by repentant spirits who want to REDEEM their faults”

Note that the meaning changes completely when talking about “rescuing” and when talking about “expiating”. As Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo says,

“To explain the laws of the soul according to Spiritism, while Christianity revives, restoring the true message of autonomy, as Jesus did, Allan Kardec will resignify terms such as punishment, repentance, atonement, reparation, eternity of penalties. The difference between punishment and atonement is the primordial point to understand the moral theory of Spiritism. For while punishment is a natural response to any thought or act that goes against the moral law present in conscience, atonement is a conscious, voluntary and effective effort to overcome one's own imperfection, through the choice of evidence. Ancestral religions reverse the meaning of these phenomena, dogmatically confusing punishment with atonement, as if they were one and the same. Furthermore, they consider punishment to be a deliberate choice of God and not a natural consequence.”

Figueiredo. Neither Heaven nor Hell: The Laws of the Soul according to Spiritism

There is also something very, but VERY important in practically ALL communications of this type, by the Spirits: the word CHOICE. Yes, there are proofs, there are expiations and there are punishments, even the most severe ones, but they are always CHOICES of the Spirit. See that, further on, in the same message, the Spirit repeats:

“[…] Some revolt against their voluntary torture, regretting having it chosen and feeling a furious desire to return to another life, a desire that makes them forget the resignation with the present life and the remorse of the past life that they keep in their conscience”. (Heaven and Hell, 3rd Edition)

---

[1] Consult the works O Legado de Allan Kardec, by Simoni Privato, and Neither heaven nor hell: The laws of the soul according to Spiritism, by Lucas Sampaio and Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo

It is not necessary.

The veil of oblivion has its reason for being and, many times, knowing about the other life brings more trouble than solution. É algo que jamais uma pessoa séria fará, mas, infelizmente, existem os indivíduos mais interessados em ganhos e que, de forma irresponsável, se lançam a esse tipo de “trabalho”.

By observing ourselves with a very critical and honest look, verifying our own imperfections, we can easily identify what puts us in difficulties in the face of life situations, understanding, then, that these difficult situations are precisely opportunities, often planned by us. ourselves, in order to overcome these imperfections and move towards true happiness.

Por fim, destaco que, segundo a Doutrina Espírita, não existe “resgate”, não existe pagamento de dívidas, não existe, nesse sentido, o “carma”: the Spirit, conscious and free, choose trials and atonements (and opportunities) with the purpose set out above – overcoming imperfections and acquiring virtues – never, ever, the difficulties of life being the result of a divine mechanics, a concept linked to the dogma of the fall for sin. The only Spirit that does not choose its proofs is the Spirit in a state of denial., who still reincarnates, but who just lives a life that, by itself, in the face of the contents of this individual, will bring difficulties and moral pain, which one day will make him leave denial and go back to seeking to face these imperfections through conscious choices.

Portanto, ao enfrentar uma prova difícil, não pense “estou pagando por algo ou resgatando algo do passado”, mas sim “é uma difícil mas importante oportunidade de aprendizado. Vou tirar dela o máximo possível”. E, para tanto, understanding Spiritism in depth is substantial!

We invite the reader to pay close attention to this group study, with the participation of Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo. It's a big change in our way of thinking, still so rooted in the old concepts of heteronomy (the other's fault). Karma (or karma), action and reaction, rescue... Karma (or karma)action and reaction, debt recovery, all are themes that have never been part of Spiritism. It’s time to understand this!

The Ethiopian Empire, also known as Abyssinia, was an empire that occupied the present territories of Ethiopia and Eritrea, existing from approximately the year 1270 (beginning of the Solomonic dynasty) until 1974, when the monarchy was deposed by a coup d'état. Therefore, it still existed at the time of Allan Kardec.

Kardec opens the article by citing a narration by James Bruce (1730 – 1794), a Scottish explorer and writer, in his work Voyage aux sources du Nil, in which he says he is appalled by the practices of witchcraft and evocation of the Devil practiced by the king of Gingiro, a small kingdom in the southern part of Abyssinia.

Kardec points out that, had Bruce known Spiritism, he would have seen that there was nothing absurd there (in terms of evocations). In addition, it would be a people that, for sure, kept a large number of Jewish traditions and some rudimentary ideas of Christianity in which, for lack of knowledge, they absorbed the idea of the Devil, not understanding that they were for inferior spirits who made their sacrifices.

Two ambassadors that Socinius, to the king of Abyssinia, sent to the pope, around 1625, and who had to cross the Gingiro. It was then necessary that the king be asked for an audience for the caravan to cross his territory. The king happened to be in ceremonial, and he ordered the ambassador and his attendant to wait eight days for the audience with him. After the deadline, the delegation was received.

What Kardec thinks is that at such a short distance there was still degradation and ignorance in doing everything through consultations with Spirits being so close to the main intellectual centers. It merges this idea with the local temperature, which, being hot, could be potentiated in cold climates. He compares the Ethiopians, who cover almost the whole of Abyssinia, with the Gingerans, who neither worship the devil, nor pretend to have any communication with him; nor do they sacrifice men on their altars; in short, there was no trace of this revolting atrocity among them.

Our encoder continues the censorship by stating that the king of Gingiro sacrificed to Devil, at that time of the slave trade, the poor people who would have the destiny of being exiled, given the proximity of that kingdom to the sea, because, away from the coast, their safety was guaranteed.

As we have seen, Mr. Bruce is the narrator of the story, and if he had seen what we are witnessing today, he would have found nothing astonishing in the practice of the evocations used in Gingiro. He only saw in them a superstitious belief, while we find its cause in the fact of falsely interpreted manifestations, which could take place there as in other documented places.

To end the article, when sacrificing human beings, Kardec concludes, with complete confidence in the light of Spiritism, that they could not attract superior Spirits to their midst. It is attributed to credulity the fact that the barbarian peoples worshiped an evil power the phenomena that they could not explain, because it was a very backward people morally and spiritually.

This article was inspired by the article “The Genesis case“, presented on the Portal Luz Espírita. In this article, which is quite extensive, several details are presented, step by step, which finally lead the author, Ery Lopes, and his collaborators — Adair Ribeiro, Adriano Calsone, Carlos Luiz, Carlos Seth Bastos, Jorge Hessen and Wanderlei dos Santos — to assume that, no, the Genesis was not adulterated and that we can be completely confident that the 5th edition, according to them edited and printed in 1869, was indeed a version printed by Allan Kardec.

I must recognize that the article has the merit of having tried to remain impartial, including the works of Simoni Privato, in The Legacy of Allan Kardec, where he presents a huge collection of evidence and evidence of adulterations.

At what point, then, does the article move on to assuming that such tampering does not exist and that all the evidence is wrong? Mainly from item 37 — “Clues from the Rational Catalog — which I reproduce below:

In this context, some clues are presented, obtained through the analysis of the work Catálogo Racional, which would have had its first edition distributed on April 1, 1869, the day after the death of Allan Kardec:

1. There is a quote from the work La clef de la vie (The key to life), by Michel de Figagnères, on which Kardec would have made a comment referring to items 4 to 7 of chapter VIII of A Genesis. Item 7, however, The Soul of the Earth, only came into existence from the 5th edition of this work.
2. Next, there is evidence that the work the four gospels, by Roustaing, would have already been cited by Professor Rivail himself in this first edition of the Catalog, unlike what some people would have said, supposing that such a citation would only have been due to adulteration. 

There is, however, a very important piece of information that was left out at this point: Kardec's reference to items 64 to 68 of chapter XV of A Genesis. It turns out that item 68 only existed until the 4th edition of this work, transformed into item 67 from the 5th edition, when the original item 67 was withdrawn. This item was very important, because it dealt with the question that the disappearance of the body of Jesus, until then, would be an unsolvable issue, due to the absence, until then, of the sanction of the double control of confirmation by rigorous logic and by the general teaching of the Spirits, and its withdrawal seems very strategic, if we consider that the contrary ideas, coming from Roustaing, could not be sustained, due to the absence of this double control.

Now, why this contradiction in Kardec's references? Why would he have simultaneously referred, at one point, to an item that would still be inserted in A Genesis, in the 5th edition, while, at another, he referred to an item that would be removed from it, in the same edition?

Logic takes me down the following path:

• Kardec had already prepared the printing of the Rational Catalogue, but he was still in the process of finishing the printing of A Genesis, which was still, apparently, in the final stages of reprinting for corrections and editions.
• In the Catalog, Kardec refers to an item that did not yet exist in The Genesis (Chap. VIII, item 7) and another that, from the 5th known edition, ceased to exist (item 68). This may demonstrate that Kardec, in the Catalog, would refer to an item from the new edition of A Gênese, and that would keep the reference to item 68, cited above. A would-be adulterer, determined to remove the all-important principle of double-checking sanction, missed the problem.
• The Catalog had already been ordered and printed with Kardec's knowledge, but that does not mean that it would be readily distributed. Most likely, by the logic of the facts, he would expect the printing of the new version of The Genesis.

I also suppose, by the logic of the facts, that the 5th edition of A Genesis, known to us, was based on changes to Allan Kardec's own clichés, since, in this edition, item 7 of chapter VIII presents content in accordance with with his own style and thinking (in my opinion). Thus, the alterations that we know, I suppose, are not all tampering, but the tampering hypothesis is very evident by all the evidence and evidence already presented, until today, and by the simple analysis of some altered or suppressed points, which are out of line with the thought, of Kardec's style and purposes and, above all, of the teaching of the Spirits during the entire first phase of Spiritism.

I add that I see no reason why Kardec has not cited Roustaing's work in his Catalogue, since he himself suggests, just below the recommendation, that the reader seek better clarifications in A Genesis, in the items mentioned. In fact, in the 5th edition of A Gênese, there is a reference to the Spiritist Magazine of September 1868, p. 261, which refers to the same theme contained in item 7 of the first work: A Alma do Mundo.

One more evidence that shows that the alterations in the 5th edition of A Gênese are not totally the result of adulterations, although, even on this item, I cannot say whether it would have been, in addition to being introduced, also adulterated, since the passage that in the 5th edition of A Gênese, he ends item 7 of chap. VIII, continues, in the Spiritist Magazine, in a very important way: “Spiritism would, with good reason, be ridiculed by its opponents if it made the editor responsible for utopias that do not stand up to scrutiny. If the ridiculous didn't kill you, it's because it only kills what is ridiculous.“

About the very common statement that some letters confirm the printing of the 5th edition of the work by the hands of Kardec himself, I have already addressed the case in the article “The adulterations in Kardec's works and the "CSI of Spiritism” (click here to read).

What I want to say with all this is that, yes, it is a very deep and complex subject, with a lot of cross information to be analyzed under a very rational, logical and truly impartial methodology. Unfortunately, it seems that many people desperately try to cling to any evidence that the tampering did not occur, and in doing so, fail to analyze the facts with all the care the matter deserves.

I always repeat: the content presented in the works “The Legacy of Allan Kardec” and “Neither Heaven nor Hell” is complete and too profound to be taken as if it were just any error, based on incomplete or false information. Even so, if there is room for doubt, let the other information be analyzed with the utmost scientific criteria, as Kardec himself taught us and, while they cannot be remedied, let us remain safe with the works undoubtedly printed by his own hand and pocket.

Finally, I would like to highlight the following: one of the most used proofs to affirm that the 5th edition was fully authored by Kardec himself, the 5th edition of 1869, presents on its cover, as a printing address, the new address of the headquarters from the Parisian Spiritist Society: “Librairie Spirite et des Sciences Psychologiques”, at “7, rue de Lille”.

We know that Kardec died before of the Company's establishment at the new address, which proves that this edition was only printed after your death. Read more by clicking on here.

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.

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 the belief in divine punishment.

Autonomy

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.

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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

Kardec brings to light the fact that Spiritism entered, after the initial moments of purely material manifestations, in the Psychological Period.

He disagrees, however, that human science would be closed: far from that, it would still have a lot to develop in the future.  

To better understand the article, we need to understand the meaning of psychology in the context of Allan Kardec and in the current context.

Current Psychology

Psychology, nowadays, with a materialistic therapeutic characteristic, has 3 aspects:

Psychology in the context of Kardec

In Kardec's context, Psychology did not have the materialistic therapeutic characteristic of today: it was a moral science, spiritualist, inserted in the context of Rational Spiritualism, and its main objective was to investigate and analyze the natural laws that govern human nature, including experimentally.

In this context, Psychology understood the human being as a being constituted of body and soul. The soul, which would survive the body, was the primary cause of the psyche, which was not just a material effect of chemistry and stimuli.

Before Allan Kardec, or before Rational Spiritualism, traditional philosophy dealt with the soul in a speculative way, through systems created by thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, Leibniz and Kant. The advent of experimental psychology opened a new path: that of the philosophical sciences, which Spiritism complementary. In the words of Allan Kardec:

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

 Allan Kardec – RE – May 1864

Psychology is the science that studies mental processes (feelings, thoughts, reason) and human behavior. It derives from the Greek words: psique, which means “soul” and logia, which means “the study of”.

And how does Spiritism study the soul? Through the spiritist phenomena that, however, are no longer studied just for entertainment or curiosity, but precisely with the aim of investigating the natural laws that govern human nature!

And why did it all end?

The end of the psychological period, or rather, the twilight of the Philosophical Sciences, according to Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo, was due to the union of the power of the Church with the Dictatorial State, which were hostile to the enlightenment of society and against the liberal doctrine defended by Rational Spiritualism.

It is important to say: liberalism in this context does not refer to unbridled freedom, the fruit of selfishness, but to a freedom guided by reason and enlightened by conscience.

Allied to this, a strong materialist movement begins to rise in Germany, around 1860, and ends up invading France, where it removes the Moral Sciences from the official chair.

It's in Brazil? Rational Spiritualism, which formed the first philosophical school established in the country and which came to be implanted in the teaching curricular structure, also faced

 […] adverse conditions that the first individuals aware of the original theory faced when they intended to create a Brazilian spiritist movement. A combative Church, struggling to maintain its privileges and the power that had been ebbing away since the Second Empire. And a materialist scientific current, rocked by the retrograde thoughts of Comte and German physiologists, such as Vogt, Moleschott, Virchow and Büchner. The rational spiritualist current, bravely defended by the leadership of Gonçalves de Magalhães and Porto-Alegre, who became disseminators of animal magnetism and later of Spiritism, despite infecting teachers and students of their time, was soon silenced and forgotten. In fact, it was not possible to establish in our lands the favorable scenario that Kardec found in France

Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo – Autonomy: the untold story of Spiritism

The result of all this is what we see today: a totally materialistic society, focused on the pleasures of the flesh and forgetful of spirituality, afraid of life and desperate before the grave!

What to expect for the future?

Only the best, because, in the same way that Rational Spiritualism was born in opposition to the materialism of the time, we are now experiencing a swarm of initiatives like ours and even better ones, which will certainly produce, in a few years, very important fruits for this time. of changes we are going through!

Remember Kardec, with which we end the article:

These excesses, however, have their utility, their reason for being. They frighten society, and good always comes out of bad; it takes the excess of evil to make the need for the best feel, without this man would not get out of his inertia.

(KARDEC, [RE] 1868, p. 201)