Today, October 3, is the birth anniversary of Allan Kardec – Hypolite Leon Denizard Rivail¹, his registered name – and, as we understand his fundamental role in the study of the Doctrine of the Spirits, which he called Spiritism, we are going to address a very important subject, which, for those who study Kardec’s works, may even sound puerile, unimportant: the “Spiritism without Spirits”.

Now, it will not be rare for someone who has already heard the most diverse statements or who is aware of the widespread thought that we should not disturb the spirits by evoking them. Many are based on the well-known phrase by Chico Xavier, “the phone rings from there to here”, attributing to it a distorted understanding and making it a stony clause in the mediumistic code: “we cannot evoke them. We must wait for them to look for us.” There is nothing further from the truth and even from the purpose of Spiritism.

Noteworthy, Chico's phrase can be interpreted as follows: “we can evoke them, but it depends on them, not on us, whether they will respond or not”. Furthermore, we need to remember that Chico was constantly surrounded by thousands of people in search of a message from their deceased loved ones. Chico could not guarantee that he could attend to all of them, being led to say, in my own words: “Brothers, I am just an intermediary and I cannot, by myself, attend to everyone. Therefore, I place myself at their disposal, allowing their communications, as the good spirits judge best”.

This opinion, however, that we should not evoke the Spirits, comes from very far away and, in fact, was very pleasant to those who, after Kardec, did not want that the method of universal agreement of the teachings of the Spirits remained standing, since it would put down their personal opinions. This is well known.

Allan Kardec, in the Spiritist Magazine of January 1866, in an article with the same title as ours, makes the following observation:

Let us now examine the matter from another point of view. Who made Spiritism? Is it a personal human conception? Everyone knows otherwise. Spiritism is the result of the teaching of the Spirits, in such a way that without the communications of the Spirits there would be no Spiritism. If the Spiritist Doctrine were a simple philosophical theory born of a human brain, it would only have the value of a personal opinion; coming from the universality of the teaching of the Spirits, it has the value of a collective work, and that is why in such a short time it has spread throughout the Earth, each one receiving for himself, or for his intimate relationships, identical instructions and the proof of the reality of the demonstrations.

And he goes on, criticizing the enemies of the Doctrine who, because they see in the universality of the teaching of the Spirits, a great enemy to his own ideas:

Well then! It is in the presence of this patent, material result that attempts are made to build into a system the uselessness of the communications of the Spirits. Let's agree that if they didn't have the popularity they acquired, they wouldn't attack them, and that it is the prodigious vulgarization of these ideas that raises so many opponents to Spiritism. Don't those who reject communications today look like those ungrateful children who deny and despise their parents? Is it not ingratitude towards the spirits, to whom they owe what they know?

Where the Spiritist Movement took a detour

After Kardec, as we already know, the Spiritist Movement suffered a huge deviation, practically putting the Lyonnais master and his method of study into oblivion. After that, when he arrived in Brazil, the Movement was already quite altered in its bases, forgetting that Spiritism without Spirits is just a system of personal ideas, ideas that proliferated among Spiritists for more than a century.

Roustaing, one of the first major opponents of Spiritism, a contemporary of Kardec, moved by enormous vanity, mainly through Pierre-Gaëtan Leymarie, inserted his contents in the spiritist environment which, if it were not enough to be contrary to the Spiritist Doctrine in many points, were obtained through of one Spirit--that is, no universality of teachings. If they had encouraged such a method, they would see such theories denied by the Spirits themselves, which would not be interesting to the personal vanity of the “chosen one”.

Astonished, I discovered recently that the FEB itself, at the beginning of the 20th century, defended Roustangist ideas as a complement to Allan Kardec:

And it was to understand its preponderant usefulness [of the Gospel] that the Federation instituted its study in the sessions on Tuesdays, preferring it to the Gospel according to Spiritism [by Allan Kardec], which only contains the moral teachings, The Four Gospels (Revelation of Revelation), dictations to J.-B. Roustaing, because this revelation is complete, containing not only the development of those teachings, but the explanation of all the acts of Jesus' life, with a new and enlightening orientation about nature and his messianic mission.

(FEB, 1902, p. 1)

We see, therefore, since when such harmful ideas have infiltrated Spiritism, especially in Brazil, where several mediums – not questioning their purposes and values – started to be taken as oracles or prophets - again, nothing universality of teachings.

But do we need it today?

Many, however, will say: this method of Kardec, based in evocations, it was only useful for the birth of Spiritism. Today, we don't need that anymore, because we already have a lot of content that serves as a teaching base.

Yes, unquestionably we have so much foundation of moral teaching today that, if we really understood them, we would be light years ahead in our spiritual evolution. However, it was not the same with the teachings of Christ who, even so, sent us the Promised Comforter – The Doctrine of the Spirits. Why? Because the Spirit advances first in intellectuality, to only later advance in morality. How, then, to reduce this distance? Only through the union of faith and science. And that was Kardec's mission, so well accomplished in the study of the Doctrine of Spirits.

Now, we cannot forget: Spiritism is a science moral and philosophical aspect, born of study and observation of the spiritist manifestations, obtaining, from them, the knowledge, based on the universality of the teachings of the Spirits – that is, the distribution of the teachings of the Spirits everywhere, obtaining, from these teachings, the agreement, under the light of reason. We thus arrive at a conclusion:

To remove the evocations from Spiritism is to remove its main characteristic: that of a science that, as Kardec has always demonstrated and defended, should go hand in hand with human science.

So, we are forced to note, too, that evocations, with a serious purpose, are still necessary and, perhaps, always will be. Or do we already know everything about our relationships with Spirits and the world of Spirits? Or has the advancement of human science not brought, on the one hand, so many confirmations and, on the other, new doubts, regarding these relationships and our spiritual nature? Or is it that the mystifications did not start to flood the Spiritist Movement?

Let's see, regarding the last question, the thoughts of Cláudio Bueno da Silva on the portal O Consolador:

When talking about mystification, about deviations from the route of the spiritist movement, it is impossible not to mention the famous and traumatic “isms”, which caused so many controversies: Ubaldismo, by Pietro Ubaldi; Ramatisism, by Ramatis; Roustainguismo, by JB Roustaing; Edgar Armond's Armondism; Divinism, by Oswaldo Polidoro, and other “isms”. All of them with a curious characteristic: in the midst of truths, many misconceptions that differ from the Spiritist Revelation, codified by Allan Kardec. Although some of these propositions did not really arise within the spiritist movement, they infiltrated it, leaving remnants that still persist in many centers and federations across the country.

But the onslaught of shadows don't stop. Some time ago, many spiritist houses were “invaded” by the theory of indigo children, an imported version about the reincarnation of many intelligent “little angels”, full of independence and malice, but also full of rebelliousness and aggressiveness who, according to the fantasy of their North American “creators”, have the mission of renewing (?) the Earth . Many spiritists were delighted with the news and for a long time there was nothing else to talk about inside the spiritist house.

CLÁUDIO BUENO DA SILVA – http://www.oconsolador.com.br/ano6/285/claudio_bueno.html

The Spirits themselves defend our communication with them

The reading and study of Allan Kardec's work demonstrates to us, without ceasing, that the Spirits come willingly, whenever possible, to respond to the evocations carried out. When kind or wise spirits are happy to transmit good teachings; when Spirits, still inferior, find relief in exposing their difficulties or in transmitting some word of comfort to their relatives. At other times, as permitted, they convey important advice, as we can see in the article “Mama, Here I Am”, by RE of January 1858:

Julia: Mother, why do you grieve? I'm happy, very happy. I don't suffer anymore and I always see you.

The mother: But I do not see you! Where are you?

Julia: Here beside you, with my hand on Mrs. X (the medium) to write down what I say. See my handwriting (the handwriting was really the girl's).

The mother: You say: my hand. So you have a body?

Julia: I no longer have the body that made me suffer so much, but I have your appearance. Aren't you happy because I don't suffer anymore and because I can talk to you?

The mother: If I saw you, would I recognize you then?

Julia: Yes No doubt; and you have seen me many times in your dreams.

The mother: I really saw you in my dreams, but I thought it was a figment of the imagination, a memory.

Julia: Do not. It is I myself who am always with you and I try to comfort you; I was the one who inspired you with the idea of evoking me. I have many things to tell you. Distrust Mr. Z… He is not sincere.

(This gentleman, known only to the mother, mentioned spontaneously, was a new proof of the identity of the Spirit who manifested.)

The mother: What can Mr. Z?

Julia: I can't tell you. This is forbidden to me. I can only warn you to be suspicious of him.

We need, therefore, to remember that mediumship serves exactly this purpose: exchange between the “two planes”. If it were not so, God would not give us this ability. Yes, it is a fact that we must try to walk with our own feet, without giving in to the urge to ask the Spirits about everything. But it is also a fact that, with seriousness and good purpose, they have much to help us, both in personal matters and in matters of general importance. And this, by the way, they do constantly, through our intuition.

But then, if we think we need clearer communications, what can we do? Live in doubt?

I think that we need to think very carefully about this in order to really not to occupy mediums and spirits with something that we ourselves can understand or do, including steeped in the teachings already existing in Spiritism. We should act like the student who, before asking silly questions, should always research the already existing knowledge, otherwise he could even be scolded by the teacher: “you didn't study carefully. The knowledge is there; go back and reread”.

For the rest, if there is serious purpose, they will answer us within the limits allowed. If, on the other hand, there is no serious purpose, the good spirits will be able to give us a good ear tug, in the best of cases; in others, malicious spirits may respond, with the intention of causing us difficulties and deviations, or just making fun of us.

Conclusion

Being a memorable date, in short, in the life of this Spirit that we know as Allan Kardec, we need, in recognizing his work so well done and so dedicated, to recover the real history of Spiritism, restoring its essence and removing the obstacles that took such a large part of it.

Spiritism without Spirits, that is, Spiritism without universal agreement of the teachings of the Spirits and therefore without the Wow search for communication with them is not Spiritism: it is just personal opinion.

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1. Among Allan Kardec's own handwritten papers is an autobiographical sketch in which he corrects his first name, normally spelled Hippolyte, to the true spelling Hypolite. Canuto Abreu made considerations in an article, which can be accessed at https://espirito.org.br/autonomia/allan-kardec-data-e-nome. as well as Kardec's manuscript. Also the year of his birth was corrected in that same document, having been born in 1803 and not in 1804 as later biographies wrongly recorded. [Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo- Autonomy: the untold story of Spiritism]

We live in the great darkness, again. After Spiritism dawned on the face of the Earth as a great light that could launch us into the most accelerated process of human spiritual and moral renewal, spreading with the speed of lightning, it suffered a huge setback and, then, slowly began to be forgotten in its proposals. and true face originals. Then came the wars, the great industrial development, the enormous material facilities, the enormous profits and, behind the big false smiles, the beautiful social masks, happy and fun, the enormous pain and anguish multiplied that, not infrequently, find a way out in giving up on life and in direct or indirect suicide.

Humanity cries out. There is weeping and gnashing of teeth. So, then, the unimaginable happens and a disease that is easily transmitted, although with relatively low mortality rates, spreads across the entire surface of the planet, taking loved ones, neighbors and acquaintances, poor and rich, in a matter of a few weeks – almost always, in less than 20 days. Humanity is once again wounded and vulnerable. The Spirit was forgotten. Morality was put aside as an article of politicking. God has become an article of blind faith, often misunderstood and, although present in many languages, empty in the heart.

The departures of close people shake families and individuals. A great movement accelerates: the search for rapprochement with the spiritual, the search for consolation, the search for answers. And behold, precisely at that same time, great studies and precious works began to increase in our eyes, by the dedicated hands of brothers dedicated to the work of Truth, bringing to us the true face of Spiritism and its history, and great and precious part, hitherto misunderstood or otherwise unknown.

Today, we are experiencing a process very similar to that experienced in the mid-19th century, bringing us an opportunity that is once again extremely grandiose. I see and believe that, as before, we are experiencing a great call back to spirituality. Mediumship phenomena are multiplying everywhere, including physical ones, with a view to attracting our attention. As before, humanity passed through a very serious materialist phase, giving rise to the great wounds of selfishness and pride, in addition to space for the proliferation of all vices and imperfections, physical and moral.

It was made known to us that Spiritism suffered from various manipulations and deviations, sometimes criminal, if not in the eyes of human justice, but at least in the eyes of Divine justice. Lyrics and Movement have been tampered with. Spiritism, after Kardec's death, lost the gigantic force that it had been developing and, with the wars, found shelter in Brazil, to remain in a semi-gestational stage, in the religious environment, for more than a century...

Brothers, as I said, we are living a very important and unique moment. Spiritism was born at a favorable and necessary moment, when humanity was looking for philosophical answers to face materialist denialism, which, in turn, was born to face the fierce dogmatism of the old religions. Today, Spiritism is reborn, in its real exuberance, at the right time, to respond to the cries of those who seek answers to the same strong and fervent materialism that cooled souls during the last century and put man on the path of gain and profit, of ephemeral passions and the cult of the body.

The huge difference is that, today, we find the work already started. We don't need to develop reasoning from scratch, analyzing physical phenomena, talking to Spirits through blows. It is enough for us to study in depth, with great wisdom and dedication, Spiritism and the complementary works that help us to better understand it, placing it in a contextualized way in the historical moment in which it was born, in order to bring it to our days. the exact understanding, which until today we have not had, for the most part, about what really It's Spiritism!

But this will not be possible until we act according to the example of the one whom God has given us as an example in this regard. I'm not talking about our ultimate example, Jesus, but about our great and humble master, affable and charitable, a researcher dedicated to humanity, Allan Kardec. No, until we follow their example, I repeat, the recovery of Spiritism will not be possible. Kardec was not perfect, as none of us are, but he exemplified one very important thing: the total absence of personalism, vanity and pride, as well as the quest to analyze facts, evidence and opinions, from all sides and from all sources. , without, before, form an idea previously conceived. As long as our personalism, our vanity, our pride, our prejudices, in short, speak louder, we will not leave the same place. Unfortunately, this is not what has been done by people who, taking fragile arguments in favor of their personal ideas, continue to deny historical facts and who, therefore, distance themselves from the unfolding of a clear and deep understanding of Spiritism, as already I treated in this article.

Spiritualists, look around: work calls us, hard! The world of regeneration will not come alone! Regeneration needs to come from us, but it won't happen as long as we keep still, sitting, waiting for life and what we think are punishments, to pass. We need to understand that the difficulties of life, which we consider insurmountable punishments, are actually valuable opportunities for learning and correcting our imperfections that lead us to make mistakes. We need to understand that, just as God does not impose punishments on us, but rather difficult opportunities - but totally bearable, as long as we ourselves do not increase their difficulties - for learning and elevation, we also need, with the help of the Spiritist Doctrine, to learn to putting into practice in our lives and, above all, with our children, the same moral: we are imperfect and punishing the error born of imperfection only causes retraction and, often, an increase in imperfection and error. That's what Spiritism comes to show us: no one becomes an angel at the snap of a finger and, also, no one loses what they've already conquered. There are no fallen angels, just as there are no chosen ones by God. We will all reach perfection, no exceptions, but the speed with which we will get there depends, solely and exclusively, of us.

So, brothers, more than ever, that important exhortation is worth: “spiritualists! love–you, this is the first teaching; instructyou, this is the second”. We need to put aside divisions. We need to put aside prejudices. We need, like Kardec, to listen to all opinions, from all sources, but only like Kardec, understanding his work, his example and his method very well, can we unite, love and educate each other. And above all, we need to produce, in our good and in favor of the next, because time is pressing and, after a year and a half of closed spiritist centers, many without none production, even among its closest members, we need to recover Spiritism that is not lived in closed temples, but in our family intimacy and, from there, to the outside world!

Once again, here is the exhortation, the request, so that you, brothers, also read the works so important and necessary for our understanding:

• Allan Kardec's Legacy, by Simoni Privato
• Neither heaven nor hell, by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo and Lucas Sampaio
• Autonomy: the untold story of Spiritism, by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo
• A lot of light, by Berthe Fropo

At the time of Kardec, it was easy to obtain contents with a great guarantee that they had not been “contaminated” by other mediums or groups, that is, when the same teaching came from different parts of the globe, or even from Europe, at the same time, it was possible to have great confidence that the medium from Provence, for example, had no contact with the medium from Tuscany, obtaining from the latter and not from spirituality the content transmitted, even if inadvertently.

How to adopt a necessary methodology, in times when communication can be in the same second on the other side of the globe? In times of global Internet and telephony, this becomes a great challenge, but we believe we can lessen this possibility of bias through the following methodological precepts, in a way already prescribed by Allan Kardec:

1. The groups constituted need keep in touch with each other, giving news of their existence. 
2. Through this, they can form other groups, which we will call Confederative Groups, because we lack a better term, made up of members of each of the Study Groups, and that, necessarily, don't be the psychics who participate as mediators of the contents transmitted by spirituality, in Study Groups.
3. The members of the Study Groups will be able to share with the mediums of their groups only the knowledge that has already passed through the sieve of agreement and reason, through verification by the Confederative Groups.
4. The contents obtained through the mediums of each study group you can not be shared with other study groups, nor with other people outside that group, but with those belonging to the Confederative Groups.

In this way, great reliability is guaranteed that the teachings coming from different study groups, through their participating mediums, are not biased by content from other groups and mediums. The work of the Confederative Group, then, would be to coordinate these contents, seeking to analyze them in the Kardec fashion, accepting those that appear to be in agreement and that meet the sieve of reason and logic, as well as the teachings previously affirmed by the same method. There is also the problem that has always existed that a given content is biased by other previously known, but not necessarily correct, content, as is the case with the theory of the seven astral bodies. However, groups endowed with good faith and humility will be able to easily verify what are the contents that (1) go against what was already affirmed by the Kardequian codification itself and that (2) can be easily denied by the study itself.

We remind you that our condition will not be that of researchers who put themselves to ask the most varied questions, hoping that they will be answered according to our will, but that of people who, starting from the precept of humility and availability to learn, will be attentive to the teachings received. , seeking to understand them in their entirety, within the limits that superior spirituality sets for us, as was done at the time of Allan Kardec. So, like Kardec, we will need to organize questions in a constructive way, moving forward or changing directions as the answers are given.