Science and Spiritism: matters in opposite dimensions?

Paulo Degering R Jr
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We have recently obtained the following observation from a correspondent of ours, Ms. THE…:

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

We summarize our response to these observations below:

Dear Miss. A… said it well: the science OF TODAY and, we have always added, the materialistic, dogmatic science, do not accept the findings that the Spirits came to demonstrate. However, even before Kardec, many honest scientists even verified the existence of something beyond the material body. Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo says in “Mesmer: the denied science of animal magnetism”:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shall we be part of this movement?

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