Would Allan Kardec be racist, sexist, homophobic, etc?

A sad time, that of slavery and segregation, now long over. Today, we no longer talk about “races”, because we know that there is only one race: the human race. Today, in the vast majority, especially in our Brazilian society, black people integrate and actively participate, still facing some difficulties, but which decrease day after day, with human advancement. From that time, some speeches by Allan Kardec appear, racist in today's eyes. They say he would be racist without an understanding of the times.

The mistake, always, is trying to confuse Allan Kardec with Spiritism. Spiritism exists by itself, as a fact of nature. Kardec dedicated himself to studying it. He never imposed his ideas or truths on the Doctrine. In fact, as we will see, it was through this study that he was able to verify black people, women and even homosexuals, as we will see, from another angle, as no philosophy had ever done before.

It remains to be remembered that the concept of races was a scientific concept of the time, which was only overcome at the end of the 20th century.

the infamous phrase

The phrase in question, used to claim that Allan Kardec would be racist, belongs to a much more complete and in-depth article, published in the Spiritist Magazine of April 1862 and which precisely comes against the racist idea, demolishing it:

“Thus, as a physical organization, blacks will always be the same; as spirits, it is undoubtedly an inferior race, that is, primitive; they are true children to whom very little can be taught [...]”

Allan Kardec, RE, April 1862

It is, however, the old human craze, cultivated until today: a sentence is isolated, taking it out of an entire context, and presented as complete proof of the opposite point that one wants to prove, almost always with a view to denigrating the image of others.

We need to remember that Allan Kardec was in France ethnocentric mid-1800s, when the entire society EVEN attributed a soul to black people and when science itself adopted a concept racist:

in the 19th century, the process of neocolonialism or European imperialism. England, France, Germany and others European capitalist powers invested in new policies of territorial expansion and practically divided the territories of the Africa, gives Asia and from Oceania.

To justify the exploitation of the riches of those places and the policy of racial segregation, Europeans had to look for a scientific justification, because, in the 19th century, science was already widely disseminated and religion was no longer sufficient to justify any kind of authoritarian action.

In that sense, the anthropology emerged as an attempt to create scientific theories that justified the exploitation of peoples outside Europe by European peoples. The first theories in this area, developed by the English biologist and geographer Herbert Spencer, stated that there was a kind of hierarchy of races.

From this perspective, European whites were superior, followed by Asians, Indians and Africans, the latter being the least developed. This current became known as Darwinism Social or social evolutionism, as it appropriated the theory of biological evolution of Charles Darwin and applied it in the sociological field[…]

Francisco Porfírio – Brasil Escola – https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/sociologia/etnocentrismo.htm

Says Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo, in A Genesis (ed. FEAL, 2022):

When Allan Kardec wrote this work, the evolutionary hierarchization of the then considered human races was not seen as racism, but adopted by eminent scientists such as Cuvier, Charles Darwin, Buchner, or Carl Vogt, who stated: “As soon as young black people reach the period During puberty, we witness a phenomenon identical to that which occurs in monkeys. From now on, the intellectual faculties remain stationary and the individual, like the entire race, becomes incapable of any progress” (Leçons sur l'homme. p. 253).

This understanding was hegemonic in the scientific environment, thus contextualizing the outdated descriptions developed here, belonging to the Science of the time, and not to Spiritism.

Allan Kardec was, therefore, led to make this error of judgement, racist in today's eyes, based on some prejudices and scientific concepts of the time. while, on the other hand, he demonstrated, through the studies of Spiritism, that all human beings have souls that can even reincarnate wherever and under any color, “race” or creed..

Let's see: Kardec judged black people from the point of view of the concepts of the time, which admitted them only as savages, coming from the African jungles, all far below any civilization and culture. It is on this fundamental error that Kardec bases himself to say: “as Spirits, they are, without a doubt, an inferior race, that is, primitive”. It was a concept of science at the time, guided by racism, even due to interests!

However, if we go beyond this thought by Allan Kardec, racist by definition, studying the Spiritist Doctrine in the background, we will see that it contradicts, I repeat, any and all racial, sexual or caste prejudice.

In fact, let us recover very important excerpts from the article in question:

it is said about black slaves: “They are beings so brute, so unintelligent, that it would be a vain effort to try to instruct them. They are an inferior, incorrigible, profoundly incapable race.” The theory that we have just presented allows us to look at them in a different light.. In the question of the improvement of races, it is always necessary to take into account two constitutive elements of man: the spiritual element and the corporeal element. It is necessary to know both, and only Spiritism can enlighten us as to the nature of the spiritual element, the most important, for being what thinks and what survives, while the corporeal element is destroyed.

Allan Kardec, RE April 1862

Here it is very evident, especially for those who read the entire article, that Kardec precisely brings the issue in vogue, at that moment, for analysis from another perspective – that of Spiritism – which could bring another way of interpreting the subject. Let's go on, presenting the complete paragraph from which the quoted sentence was extracted:

Thus, as a physical organization, blacks will always be the same. As spirits, they are unquestionably an inferior race, that is, primitive. They are true children to whom very little can be taught. But, through intelligent care, it is always possible to modify certain habits, certain tendencies, which already represents a progress that they will take to another existence, and that will allow them, later on, to take on an envelope of better conditions. Working for its improvement, one works less for its present than for its future and, however little it is achieved, for them it is always an acquisition. Each progress is a step forward that facilitates further progress.

ibidem

Vemos, como apresentado, que Allan Kardec partiu de um fundamento errado, racista, baseado em conceitos científicos, sociais e culturais da época — o de que os negros seriam uma “raça” selvagem e sem conhecimentos e o de que os brancos constituiriam uma raça superior — num contexto, onde muito provavelmente, ou ele sequer tinha contato com negros, ou, hipótese mais razoável, que ele apenas os conhecia de sua posição socialmente inferior, posto que a escravatura na França foi apenas abolida em 1848. Contudo, logo em seguida, ele adiciona que, por mais que pudessem constituir uma “raça” inferior, esses Espíritos, que ora ocupavam um corpo tido como “inferior” ao branco — nada mais afastado da realidade — através de sua progressão espiritual, ocupariam “envoltórios melhores”. Isso está mais ou menos expresso no seguinte pensamento, da Revista Espírita de novembro de 1858: “the Spiritist Doctrine is broader than all this. For her, there are no different kinds of men; there are simply men whose spirit is more or less backward, capable, however, of progressing“.

Kardec goes ahead and reproduces the reigning thought, at that moment, regarding the physical body that constitutes the “black race”: “That is why the black race, as a black race, bodily speaking, will never reach the levels of the Caucasian races, but as spirits it is something else: it can and will become what we are. It will only need time and better instruments.“

Is it repugnant to our eyes today? Yes it is. And it is something that we need to discuss, in a non-anachronistic way, in order to understand and separate the thought of man, imperfect, from the thought expressed by Spiritist science, as in everything.

Note that Kardec took a point of view based on human science and the science of Spirits. For the first time, it was based on the ideas of races, thus expressing wrong thinking. For the second time, he was right to understand that we are all equal. Spiritism, therefore, is not racist, but quite the opposite.

It is also worth making another observation: Kardec didn't see black people as beings who should not have the same respect, charity, fraternity and love as we owe to everyone else. We see this very well expressed in the Spiritist Magazine of June 1859, when a deceased black man is evoked, and he expresses himself as follows:

4. ─ However, you were free. What are you most happy about now?
─ Because my Spirit is no longer black.

To which Kardec makes the following note:

NOTE: This answer is more sensible than it seems at first glance. Certainly the Spirit is never black. He means that, as a Spirit, he no longer has the humiliations to which the black race is subjected.

Now, it is necessary, then, to understand this issue, in the right historical context, from both sides: on the one hand, Kardec, the white, European, who believed that the black was an inferior “race”, but who understood that it was a matter of our brother, Spirit like us, who also suffered from humiliation and wanted to be happy. On the other hand, the black man, who not only felt humiliated and mistreated, but was also humiliated and mistreated because of his skin color. Would it be too much to assume that, in this very specific context, very different from what modern society is today (in large part), the Spirit who incarnated in a black body wanted to stop being black in a next life? This is evident in the thought of the Spirit (Father Caesar):

10. (To Father Caesar) – You said that you are looking for a body with which you can advance. Will you choose a white or black body?
─ A white, because contempt would hurt me.

From the point of view that the black was treated as an animal, facing severe difficulties, would it be too much to suppose that, at that time, a Spirit chose to incarnate in a black body in order to face the immense difficulties that this life would offer him, learning from them? Today, living as a black person is no longer as painful as it was at that time and, with the evolution of the human being, the atonements chosen by the Spirits would be different. The question, always, in order to understand these difficult questions, is to separate Spirit and body, in addition to contextualizing terms and ideas according to time, history and social context.

It is also important to remember that, if Kardec was, in a way, prejudiced, on the other was not a slave or even segregationist or, if one day he was, he changed his opinion when in contact with spiritist science:

829. Are there men who are by nature destined to be the property of other men?

“It is contrary to the law of God every absolute subjection of one man to another man. Slavery is an abuse of force. It disappears with progress, as all abuses will gradually disappear.”

The human law that enshrines slavery is contrary to nature, since it makes man the irrational and degrades him physically and morally. (note by Allan Kardec)

[…]

831. Does not the natural inequality of aptitudes place certain human races under the dependence of the more intelligent races?

“Yes, but for them to elevate them, not to further brutalize them through enslavement. For a long time, men considered certain human races as working animals, equipped with arms and hands, and thought they had the right to sell those of those races as beasts of burden. Those who do so are considered to be of purer blood. fools! They see nothing but matter. More or less pure is not the blood, but the Spirit.” (361–803.)

Allan Kardec - The Spirits' Book

Let's not stop, however. Let's move on, looking at other important and related issues.

Would Kardec be sexist?

To analyze these themes, I will use as a basis the article produced by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo, which can be fully appreciated at the link https://revolucaoespirita.com.br/kardec-homossexualidade/

Starting with the issue of machismo, Kardec makes a very interesting approach in the Spiritist Magazine of January 1866, in the article entitled “Do women have a soul?”. Yes, amazingly, that was the question at the time.

Do women have souls? It is known that the thing was always taken for grantedfor, it is said, was put to deliberation in a council. Denial is still a principle of faith in certain peoples. It is known to what degree of debasement this belief reduced them in most parts of the East.. Even if today, among civilized peoples, the matter is resolved in their favor, the prejudice of his moral inferiority was perpetuated to such an extent that that a writer of the last century, whose name escapes me, defined woman in this way: “An instrument of man's pleasures”, a definition more Muslim than Christian. From this prejudice was born its legal inferiority, still not erased from our codes. For too long they have accepted this enslavement as a matter of course, so powerful is the force of habit. This is how it is with those who are subjected to servitude from father to son., who end up judging themselves to be of a different nature from their masters.

Allan Kardec, RE, January 1866

Amazing, no? It was still questioned, in some societies, if the woman really had a soul and, born of a prejudice, your inferiority cool still existed. Women could not even vote – a fact that is well known even today. Let us note one thing: if Kardec may have been prejudiced against black people, he, however, did not consider them animals that should be enslaved to the will of the white man, just as the woman should not be enslaved to the will of the man.

“After having recognized that they have a soul, if they have been recognized as having the right to conquer the degrees of science, that is already something. But their partial liberation is only the result of the development of urbanity, of the softening of customs, or, if you like, of a more exact feeling of justice; it is a kind of concession that is made to her, and, it is necessary to bless her, haggling over them as much as possible”.

ibidem

Paulo Henrique comments in his article:

At that time, despite the question of the existence of a woman's soul being considered ridiculous, it was still not considered that the “equality of social position between man and woman was a natural right”, and not a concession made by man. The contribution of Spiritism to the debate is extraordinary and current. While the fact that traditional gender differences were established as a function of culture and not of physiological nature is currently being discussed (in order to justify the power of man), Spiritism demonstrates the other extreme of the question: equality is natural, because spirits have no sex distinction! In other words, if the division of sex by gender is cultural (it is known today), equality is natural (the spirits explain).

In The Spirits' Book, Kardec delves into this issue, in a very current way, creating, once and for all, through the teachings of the Superior Spirits, the deepest notion of equality ever seen in a Doctrine, as it is based on the principles of Natural Law, which transcends matter and time:

817. Man and woman are equal before God. women and have the same rights?

“Has not God bestowed on both the intelligence of good and evil and the faculty of progress?”

818. Whence comes the moral inferiority of women in certain regions?

“Of the unjust and cruel predominance that man has taken over her. It is the result of social institutions and the abuse of strength over weakness. Among morally little advanced men, strength makes right.”

819. To what end weaker physically than man is the women?

“To assign you special functions. To man, for being the strongest, the rough works; The women, light work; to both of them the duty to help each other to endure the trials of a life full of bitterness.”

Allan Kardec - The Spirits' Book

And, further, worthy of note, presents this incredible and profound thought:

821. The functions to which the women destined by Nature will be as important as those deferred to man?

“Yes, even bigger. It is she who gives him the first notions of life.”

ibidem

We have already seen, so far, that Kardec goes in the opposite direction of the thought in force at that time: women, of course, have a soul and, being equal to men, should be treated with the same conditions guaranteed by natural law, given to men. Spiritism demonstrates that equality is Natural, since the Spirit has no sex and, therefore, no color or race, as is exemplified in the communication with the Spirit of Mr.

“Spirits do not have sex; but as you were still a man a few days ago, do you tend in your new state to be male nature rather than female nature? Is it the same with a spirit who has left his body a long time ago?”

And, through the medium, Sanson replied:

“We don't have to be male or female: Spirits don't reproduce. God creates them at his will, and if, for his wonderful purposes, he wanted spirits to be reincarnated on Earth, he had to add the reproduction of species for male and female. But you feel it, without any explanation being necessary, spirits cannot have sex.”

So, finally, we come to the question:

Kardec homophobic?

Dear reader, I have to say that I don't even know where people get these thoughts from. In fact, I know: from common sense, that well-known “cordless phone”, which transmits ideas from one to the other without seriously analyzing them.

Those who really seek to study and understand Spiritism and Allan Kardec already understood, just from the above, that he could not be homophobic. However, we will end the article with the following quote, in the same issue of Revista Espírita, followed by the quote by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo about this passage:

“If this influence of the corporeal life has repercussions on the spiritual life, the same happens when the Spirit passes from the spiritual to the corporeal life. In a new incarnation he will bring the character and inclinations he had as a Spirit; if he is advanced, he will be an advanced man; if he is late, he will be a late man.

By changing his sex, he will therefore be able, under this impression and in his new incarnation, to retain the tastes, tendencies and character inherent in the sex he has just left. This explains certain apparent anomalies in the character of certain men and women.”.

Therefore, there is only difference between man and woman in relation to the material organism, which is annihilated with the death of the body. But as for the Spirit, the soul, the essential, imperishable being, it does not exist, because there are not two kinds of souls.

Allan Kardec, RE, Jan/1866

It is very important to highlight here that the term “apparent anomaly”, used by Kardec, was present in the sciences of the time, referring to phenomena that escape the explanation of accepted theories, not being “normal” for them; but that, when a new natural explanation for the phenomenon is found in new theories, they cease to be “anomalies” and become natural phenomena. That's why she's "apparent"

Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo, Spiritist Revolution website, 08/25/2016

Final considerations

There are very good people of all colors, including people of the worst kind, also of all colors and sexual options. There are high spirits in misshapen bodies, just as there are terrible spirits in the most beautiful bodies. We need to learn to stop judging the next, as well as to stop creating concepts and prejudices based on how people look, in our eyes.

The understanding of Spiritism comes precisely in this sense, when we understand that the body is just a vessel, which can contain more or less crystalline water. The human Spirit can incarnate into any type of human body, according to its needs. How, then, knowing this very well, Kardec could have expressed such an erroneous opinion about black people?

This is partly explained by a strong ethnocentric prejudice that, in France in the mid-1800s, saw black people as an inferior “race”, savages, without knowledge and without culture. On the other hand, let's understand clearly, Allan Kardec, based on the racist ideology of current science, assumed that the Spirits that incarnated in black people were also Spirits of lesser evolution, in a phase of spiritual infancy. Nothing, I repeat, nothing further from the truth, since we know how much moral value and knowledge these brothers had, still used as slaves shortly before in France and, for many decades to come, in Brazil. However, at the same time as he started from this wrong starting point, he added: “they are Spirits like us, doomed to evolution and perfection”.

It was already a big step, for a man of that time, to have given soul to a people who were treated like machines. But, we know, the march of progress advances and, as Kardec always said, we should always follow scientific advances, abandoning the opinion that proved to be wrong in the face of science. That's what we do here and it's the same thing that Allan Kardec would do if, today, he were incarnated among us.

However, none of this changes our way of understanding Spiritism, in its true conception, and not even in relation to the great role that Kardec had in his study, since he was an imperfect man, although committed to charity and science. In fact, he adds, to the Doctrine of Spirits, the real beauty that it has, understood in its depth and without the human prejudices and concepts that, after all, it does not have, but rather undoes.