Physical Manifestations

Here's something that caught my attention. There is a much deeper purpose in the Magazine, which we had not yet understood: in it, Kardec, in addition to seeking to disseminate Spiritism to the masses, also seeks to universal agreement of the teachings!

We know very well that Kardec used a few mediums, automatic psychographers, to formulate mainly the first two works. How, then, could he judge whether what the Spirits responded to would have universal agreement, in addition to agreement with reason and logic? In addition to the letters he sent and received from various places, with questions and answers from the Spirits, he also found a great source of these reports through the Spiritist Magazine. 

Like Ernesto Bozzano (who, in fact, followed in his footsteps), Allan Kardec collected reports from all parts, analyzing them in essence and, in the most interesting cases, he sought to verify their origins, the seriousness of those involved, the lack of interest, etc. and, thus, he compared the contents and facts obtained there with the teachings that were or were transmitted to him by more direct means!

Now talking about this chapter specifically, Kardec is addressing concepts that will later be confirmed in The Mediums' Book, as is the case of the finding that physical phenomena are always performed by Inferior Spirits, as he shows in the answer “Who makes the monkeys dance in the streets? Will the men be superior?” that Spirits gave to such questioning. That is to say: just as, at that time, the people who made monkeys dance in the streets, to earn money, were people of a more brutish gender, illiterate, perhaps frivolous, but not necessarily malicious, so it also happened with the Spirits who made the tables. “dance”.

We have, in fact, strong evidence of this in the various cases of communications by blows and, especially, in the case of Fox sisters, where the main concern of the Spirit who communicated there was to make known that he had been murdered in that locality, revealing his hidden remains and the author of the crime committed. It was, therefore, a serious communication, but not one high or wise communication.

Kardec emphasizes that the teachings obtained through the reports in the publication "Le Spiritualiste de la Nouvelle-Orléans" are very consistent with the teachings obtained, as well, given by the Superior Spirits: that a serious, well-developed and balanced medium offers a moral ascendant on these Spirits, acting in favor of attenuating their manifestations and even helping them to find better reflections.