By Suely GO Caine

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

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

(…)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2°) Since all spirits are perfectible, by virtue of the law of progress, they carry within themselves the elements of their happiness or future unhappiness and the means of acquiring one and avoiding the other by working towards their own advancement. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Study sources:

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

See an excerpt from supposed psychography:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Good spiritists, my beloved ones, you are all workers of the last hour. He would be very proud if he said: I started the work at dawn and I will only finish it at dusk. You all came when you were called, a little earlier, a little later, to the incarnation whose shackles you drag; but how many centuries and centuries ago the Lord called you to his vineyard, without your wishing to penetrate in it! Here you are at the time of pocketing the salary; make good use of the hour you have left and never forget that your existence, however long it may seem to you, is but a fleeting moment in the immensity of times that form eternity for you.. – Constantine, Protective Spirit. (Bordeaux, 1863.)”

“Don't be scared anymore! Tongues of fire are over your heads. O true adepts of Spiritism!. . . you are the chosen of God! Go and preach the divine word. The time has come when you must sacrifice your habits, your work, your futile occupations to its propagation.. Go and preach. With you are the elevated Spirits.” – Erastus, the medium's guardian angel. Paris, 1863.

The Gospel according to Spiritism » Chapter XX – Workers at the last minute » Instructions from the Spirits » The last will be the first.

As always, we can't take anything literally. Of course, we cannot put aside work, which is necessary for the sustenance of the flesh, or even moments of joy or relaxation, which are necessary for the health of the body… Nor does it mean going out into the streets bothering others with gossip about reincarnation. But it means studying and producing. We can, with a little that each can study and do, do much more. Let's work, friends.

It is a fact that we are eternal, but don't we want to reach the happiness of those who live in goodness sooner, without the stain of imperfections? And do we not wish this also for our brethren? It has been about 150 years since the spiritist morality stopped developing. We have the knife and cheese in hand, and we are hungry. Let's study?

Here are some suggestions for important studies on Spiritism, carried out by us and by sister groups.

Studies of the Spiritist Magazine – Study Group The Legacy of Allan Kardec:

What is the Spiritist Magazine and how to study it?

Studies of the book Spiritist Revolution – Philosophy and Moral Education

Weekly Studies of the Spiritist Revolution Work, with the Spiritism for All Study Group

Studies from O Céu e o Inferno – Study Group Spiritism for All – EPT:

Heaven and Hell Studies – Spiritism Study Groups for All (EPT)

Studies by A Gênese – Study Group Spiritism for All – EPT:

Genesis Studies – Spiritism for All Study Groups (EPT)

Studies on the work Ponto Final, by Wilson Garcia – Grupo de Estudos Espiritismo para Todos – EPT:

Final point: the reunion of Spiritism with Allan Kardec – study of the work

EPT chat

Click to know:

https://www.geolegadodeallankardec.com.br/artigos/category/bate-papo-espiritismo-para-todos/

Studies, in Portuguese, carried out on the work “A Gênesis”, by the publisher FEAL, which is based on the 4th edition, original, and not in the 5th edition, tampered with.

If you would like information on how to actively participate in the studies, contact.

Studies – Genesis 2022 | Class 3 | Third

Studies – Genesis 2021 | Class 2 | Saturday

Studies – Genesis 2021 | Class 3 | Third

Studies – Genesis 2020 | Class 2 | Saturday

Studies – Genesis 2020 | Class 1 | Fifth

Support material

Estudos, em português, realizados sobre a obra “O Céu e o Inferno”, da editora FEAL, which is based on the 3rd edition, original, and not in the 4th edition, tampered with.

If you would like information on how to actively participate in the studies, contact.

Studies on Tuesdays

studies on saturdays

Completed Studies

Support material

The belief in existence do mal, como algo criado por Deus (ou pelo “diabo”, quem, por ter sido criado por Deus, acarreta a mesma consequência) e que vem de fora, é algo muito difundido, em todo o mundo e em todas as crenças. O Espiritismo, porém, é a única doutrina filosófica, até hoje existente, a to demonstrate, rationally and factually, that this is not true.

Começamos citando Kardec, em A Gênese, no texto “Fonte do Bem e do Mal”:

being God the the beginning of all things, and this beginning being all wisdom, all goodness, and all righteousness., whatever proceeds from him must share these attributes, for what is infinitely wise, just, and good cannot produce anything unreasonable, evil, and unjust. The evil we observe cannot have originated from him.

If evil were the responsibility of a special being, whether he was called Ahriman or Satan((Zoroastrianism, the ancestral religion of Persia, proposed the existence of twin gods: Ahura Mazda, of goodness and light, and Angra Mainyu, the Ahriman , god of darkness and evil. The world would be in a battle between good and evil. Satan, a character from the Bible, is identified as a fallen angel in the new testament. (N. do E.))), of two, one: Either he would be equal to God and, consequently, also powerful and eternal, or he would be inferior.

In the first case, there would be two rival powers, fighting incessantly, each trying to undo what the other is doing, opposing each other. This hypothesis is irreconcilable with the harmony that is revealed in the order of the Universe.

In the second case, being inferior to God, that being would be subordinate to him. Not being able to be eternal like him without being his equal; could only have been created by God. If it was created, it could only have been by God. In this case, God would have created the Spirit of evil, which would be a denial of his infinite goodness..

KARDEC, Allan. The Genesis. FEAL Publisher. 2nd edition, 2018.

Thus, Kardec demonstrates that it would not be possible for a being to exist that gave a principle to evil, because, since this principle is God himself, it would not be in accordance with his attributes (being He the good); being another being, that being would have been created by God, which would mean that evil would still be God's creation.

In Heaven and Hell, Kardec talks about the origin of the principle of good and evil:

For long centuries and under different names, the double principle of good and evil was the basis of all religious beliefs, being personified in the figures of Ahura-Masda and Ahriman among the Persians, and of Jehovah and Satan among the Hebrews. However, as any sovereign must be aided by ministers, all religions have admitted secondary agents, good or bad geniuses. The pagans represented them through an innumerable multitude of individuals, each with special attributions for good and evil, for vices and virtues, and to which they gave the generic name of gods. Christians and Muslims received angels and demons from the Hebrews.

KARDEC, Allan. Heaven and hell. FEAL Publisher. 1st edition, 2021.

These doctrines, which, in truth, answer to the heteronomous moral, lead to the belief that evil is something external, defined. In the case of Christian religions, this principle was reproduced in the belief of angels and demons, and this mainly after the Roman Church appropriated Christianity:

The doctrine of devils has its origin, therefore, in the ancient belief in the principles of good and evil.. Let us examine it here only from the Christian point of view, verifying that it accords with the most exact knowledge we have at present of the attributes of the Deity.

These attributes are the starting point, the basis of all religious doctrines ((The confusion between the material principle of pleasure and pain (good and bad) with the moral principle (good and evil) is the basis of the heteronomy present in beliefs of ancestral religions. The animal submits to instincts, thus acting blindly to the needs of the species. But the human being has a dual nature, participating in animal life through the body and spiritual life through the soul. Treated slavishly, the human being becomes a machine It is up to the human spirit to abandon the heteronomous condition of subjection to the will of others (blind faith and passive obedience) in order to achieve free will and moral sense, as proposed by Spiritism. (N. do E.))). Dogmas, worship, ceremonies, customs, morals, everything is in harmony with the more or less fair, more or less elevated idea of God, from fetishism to Christianity. If the intimate essence of God is still a mystery to our intelligence, we understand Him today, however, better than ever before, thanks to the teachings of Christ. Christianity teaches us, in line with reason, that God is one, eternal, immutable, immaterial, all-powerful, sovereignly just and good, and infinite in all his perfections..

Thus, as has been said before (chap. VII, “Eternal punishments”), “If the smallest fraction of one of his attributes were subtracted, there would be no more God, since there could be a more perfect being.”. Such attributes, in their absolute fullness, are therefore the criterion of all religions, the measure of the truth of each of the principles they teach. And in order for any of these principles to be true, it is necessary that it does not attack any of the perfections of God.. Let us see whether this is so in the common doctrine of demons.

ibid.

Kardec continues to weave a line of reasoning from which it is not possible to escape: either God is sovereign, in everything, or he is not.

According to the Church, Satan, the chief or king of demons, is not an allegorical personification of evil, but actually a real being doing only evil, while God does only good. Let us therefore take it as it is presented to us.

Does Satan exist from all eternity, like God, or is he later? If he exists from all eternity, he is uncreated, and therefore equal with God, in which case God would no longer be unique, as there would be a god of good and a god of evil.

Is Satan later than God? So he is a creature of God. Since he only does evil, being incapable of doing good and of repenting, God will have created a being eternally consecrated to evil. If evil is not the work of God, but the work of one of his creatures predestined to do so, God will always be the first author of evil, not being, therefore, infinitely good. O mesmo acontece com todos os seres maus, chamados demônios((Sabemos que a palavra “demoônio” vem do grego, e significa “gênio” ou “Espírito”.)).

ibid.

If, to say that God did not create evil, it is said that the devil also exists from all eternity. If so, then God would no longer be God, because he would not be unique, since there would be a god of good and a god of evil.

Kardec advances:

According to Spiritism, neither angels nor demons are separate beings, since the creation of intelligent beings is one and the same.. United with material bodies, they constitute the humanity that populates the Earth and other inhabited spheres. Freed from these bodies, they constitute the spiritual world or the spirits that populate the Spaces. God created them to be perfectible, giving them perfection and the happiness that comes from it, but he did not give them perfection. God wanted them to reach it through personal effort, in order to have the merit of their conquest.. Beings progress from the moment of their creation, whether incarnated or in the spiritual state ((The heteronomous beliefs of ancestral religions affirm the false idea that souls were created by God perfect in wisdom and virtue. Evil would occur through sin and would cause the fall in the world, where the vicissitudes would be divine punishments. Thus, all of humanity would be in this condition. Everything changes with the autonomous moral theory of Spiritism, where all souls are created simple, ignorant and perfectible, happiness is the goal, and evil, when it exists, is temporary, being overcome by effort. (N. do E.))) Once they reach their apogee, they become pure spirits, or angels, according to the common expression, so that, from the embryo of the intelligent being to the angel, there is an uninterrupted chain in that each link marks a step on the scale of progress

ibid.

We are therefore not created perfect. We are created simple and ignorant and, by our will, we progress or stop, we develop virtues or imperfections. Now it is already established that the existence of the devil is, in fact, an impossibility. Where was the evil then? Evil is in each one, when one moves away from the good by living in imperfections.

As a result, there are spirits in all degrees of moral and intellectual advancement, depending on the position they occupy on the scale.((VIDE a “Spiritist Scale. There are, therefore, spirits in all degrees of wisdom and ignorance, of goodness and evil. In the lower classes there are those who are still deeply inclined to evil, delighting in it. If we like, we can call them demons because they are capable of all the transgressions attributed to the latter. If Spiritism does not call them that way, it is because such a name is linked to the idea of beings distinct from humanity., of an essentially perverse nature, consecrated to evil for all eternity, incapable of progressing in the direction of good.

ibid.

We said, then, that evil is the departure of the individual from the morality of the divine, natural law, to live in imperfections. We therefore want to understand: how does evil develop? We will deal with this in a next article, under that title!

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, because understanding autonomous morality makes a total difference in understanding Spiritism.

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 belief in divine punishment and the fall through sin, which were both ideas overcome by Spiritism.

Autonomous Morality

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

O Espiritismo “é uma total revolution that operates in ideas; revolução maior e mais poderosa porquanto não se restringe a um povo nem a uma casta, pois alcança simultaneamente, pelo coração, todas as classes, todas as nacionalidades, todos os cultos” (Allan Kardec – A Gênese)

To reach this revolution of ideas, which starts from the individual to his social circle and, from there, to the world, it is necessary to study and knowledge, which feeds and underpins individual and autonomous transformation. So let's study!

We meet weekly, on Wednesdays, 15:00h (São Paulo time, GMT -3), as of 08/03/22.

Attention: We will start on the 03/08/22.

good conduct agreement

The work in question touches on quite controversial topics, as it analyzes several of the social problems and systems of social reform, including Marxism and socialism. Following in Kardec's footsteps, we emphasize that It will not be our intention to carry out in-depth analyzes on these topics; we will limit ourselves to maturing, together with the author, the understanding of the spiritist philosophy in its educational application, since Spiritism promotes a revolution of ideas, which go from the individual to society, respecting the autonomy and conscience of each one, differently from what proposes most of these systems. Entering the path of debate on these issues, which easily becomes a passionate political debate, should not be our purpose, and will always be restrained, in the name of the good progress of our studies.

Application form

To participate in the study room, fill in the form below. You will receive a confirmation in your email, which must be sent to the address geolegadodeak@gmail.com.

At first, the studies will be recorded, for later evaluation and posting on Youtube (you must agree with this). However, we will not carry out simultaneous transmission of these studies, in order to better evaluate the recorded content.