Obsessed and Subjugated — The Dangers of Spiritism

Ariane Netto D.
dangers of spiritualism
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Kardec opens the month of September 1858 with a long and deep digression – a real lesson on the DANGERS OF SPIRITISM. As at that time, today it is still said that mediumship can pose dangers to mediums and assistants. In a word, that contact with spirits can be dangerous. Will be?

“[…] If we wanted to banish from Society everything that could pose danger and give rise to abuse, we would not know very much what would be left, even of those essential things, starting with fire, the cause of so many misfortunes; then the railways, &c. etc”. 

Kardec's Thought, RE 1858

This denotes that, yes, there are some dangers, but, taking the necessary precautions, if the advantages outweigh the inconveniences, then one should not outlaw such investigation.

Kardec continues, highlighting: 

“Actually, Spiritism presents a real danger, but it is not the one that is supposed. It is necessary to be initiated in the principles of Science to understand it well. We do not address those who are alien to it, but the adepts themselves, those who practice it, since it is for them that there is danger.”

Idem

Observation: Mediums and scholars. For example: Roustaing was fascinated by what he received through a medium.

See also the group study we did on the topic.

What does this danger consist of, anyway? It consists of the haste or the exaggerated enthusiasm of those who put themselves in contact with the Spirits, who often allow themselves to be influenced. Now, when they obtain any mediumistic phenomenon, how many are not amazed by it – and why do they sink?

Here, the big question is precisely with regard to the medium's knowledge: he could avoid many evils, including his morals. We already know that spirits are not special beings, but only human beings outside the flesh and that, therefore, as shown, they guard their vices and their virtues.

We also know that we are incessantly surrounded by a “cloud” of Spirits, of the most diverse classes and inclinations, the quasi connect to us as they become attached to our spiritual reality, in acting and in thinking, that is, to our deepest inclinations towards the passions or for the virtues.

Passion is a term that designates a very strong feeling of attraction to a person, object or topic. Passion is intense, enveloping, an enthusiasm or a strong desire for something. The term is also often applied to designate a lively interest or admiration for an ideal, cause, or activity. In the 19th century, psychology called passions what we now call emotions.

Due to the condition of our planet, we know that the inferior spirits are more abundant here than the superior ones. This should put us on alert, us, initiates in the Spiritist science, in relation to the Spirits that we attract to us.

We also know that imperfect spirits, when they find a breach in the human heart, can attach themselves to it, and if their moral ancestry – however inferior it may be – is accepted, it can reach the point of subdue, fascinate and obsess the incarnate.

Source: Internet – pexels website
  • Subjugation: 
  • It is a moral bond that paralyzes the will of the one who suffers it and that impels the person to the most unreasonable attitudes, often the most contrary to their own interest. [RE, Oct/1858]
  • Subjugation can be moral or corporal. In the first case, the subject is forced to make resolutions that are often absurd and compromising, which, by a kind of illusion, he judges to be sensible: it is a type of fascination. In the second case, the Spirit acts on the material organs and causes involuntary movements. It is translated, in the writing medium, by an incessant need to write, even at the least opportune moments. We saw some who, lacking a pen or pencil, pretended to write with their finger, wherever they were, even in the streets, on doors, on walls. [OLM]
Contents hide
1 Obsession [AG]:
2 Fascination – The Book of Mediums
3 Possession:
4 Let's study?
5 Reading Recommendations (Books)

Obsession [AG]: 

  • Obsession is the persistent action that an evil Spirit exerts on an individual. It presents very different characters, from the simple moral influence without sensitive external marks to the complete disturbance of the organism and mental faculties. Obliterates all mediumistic faculties. In auditory and psychographic mediumship, it is translated by the obstinacy of a spirit in manifesting itself to the exclusion of others.
  • Obsession is almost always the fact of revenge exercised by a Spirit and that most often originates in the relationships that the obsessed person has had with that one in a previous existence. 
  • In cases of severe obsession, the obsessed person is surrounded and impregnated by a pernicious fluid that neutralizes the action of healthy fluids and repels them. It is from this fluid that it becomes necessary to disentangle oneself; now, a bad fluid cannot be repelled by another bad fluid. By an action identical to that of the healing medium, in the case of diseases, it is necessary to expel the bad fluid with the help of a better fluid. 
  • That's mechanical action, but that's not always enough. It is also, and above all, necessary to act on the intelligent being, to which it is necessary to have the right to speak with authority, and this authority is only given by moral superiority; the greater it is, the greater the authority.

Fascination – The Book of Mediums 

  • Fascination has far more serious consequences. It is an illusion produced by the direct action of the Spirit on the medium's thought and which, in a certain way, paralyzes his reasoning, regarding communications. The fascinated medium does not believe that he is being deceived: the Spirit has the art of inspiring blind confidence, which prevents him from seeing the hoax and from understanding the absurdity of what he writes, even when this absurdity jumps to everyone's eyes. The illusion can even go so far as to make the most ridiculous language sublime.
  • […] The Spirit leads the individual whom he has come to take possession of, as he would a blind man, and can lead him to accept the strangest doctrines, the most false theories, as if they were the only expression of the truth. Even more, it can lead you into ridiculous, compromising and even dangerous situations.

possession: 

  • It was formerly called possession to the empire exercised by bad spirits, when their influence reached the aberration of the victim's faculties. Possession would be, for us, synonymous with subjugation. [OLM]
  • In possession, instead of acting externally, the free Spirit replaces, so to speak, the incarnate Spirit; he makes the choice of domicile in his body without, however, this leaving him definitively, which cannot take place except with death. Possession is therefore always temporary and intermittent because a disembodied Spirit cannot definitively take the place and dignity of an incarnate Spirit, bearing in mind that the molecular union of the perispirit and the body can only operate at the moment of conception.
  • The Spirit, in the momentary possession of the body, uses it as its own; he speaks through his mouth, sees through his eyes, acts with his arms as if he had made his experience. It is no longer like in psychophonic mediumship, in which the incarnate Spirit speaks transmitting the thought of a disembodied Spirit. It is the latter himself who speaks and acts and if you have known him in life, you will recognize him by his language, his voice, by his gestures and even by the expression of his physiognomy. [AG]
  • It was formerly called possession to the empire exercised by bad spirits, when their influence reached the aberration of the victim's faculties. Possession would be, for us, synonymous with subjugation. [OLM]
  • In possession, instead of acting externally, the free Spirit replaces, so to speak, the incarnate Spirit; he makes the choice of domicile in his body without, however, this leaving him definitively, which cannot take place except with death. Possession is therefore always temporary and intermittent because a disembodied Spirit cannot definitively take the place and dignity of an incarnate Spirit, bearing in mind that the molecular union of the perispirit and the body can only operate at the moment of conception.
  • The Spirit, in the momentary possession of the body, uses it as its own; he speaks through his mouth, sees through his eyes, acts with his arms as if he had made his experience. It is no longer like in psychophonic mediumship, in which the incarnate Spirit speaks transmitting the thought of a disembodied Spirit. It is the latter himself who speaks and acts and if you have known him in life, you will recognize him by his language, his voice, by his gestures and even by the expression of his physiognomy. [AG]

Returning to the mediums, Kardec observes: 

"The cold man, on the contrary [from excited], is impassive. He is not deceived; it combines, weighs, examines maturely and does not allow itself to be seduced by subterfuges. This is what gives you strength. The malevolent spirits, who know this as well or better than we do, also know how to take advantage of the situation to subjugate those they wish to have under their dependence.”

idem

Let us remember the imposter spirit of Father Ambrósio, questioned by Kardec (July/1858):

“16. ─ Why don't you sustain the imposture in our presence? ─ Because my language is a touchstone, with which you cannot be deceived.”

Let's see, friends, that Kardec, here, is giving solid foundations for the formation and maintenance of spiritist research.

"Whether for enthusiasm, or for the fascination of the Spirits, or for self love, in general the psychographic medium is led to believe that the spirits that communicate with him are superior, and all the more, the more the spirits, seeing their propensity, do not cease to adorn themselves with pompous titles, according to the need”


“From blind and thoughtless belief in the superiority of spirits who communicate, to trust in their words, there is only one step, as it happens among men.” – And Kardec will give a very practical example of that.

Allan Kardec tells that a young man, educated, carefully educated, of a mild and benevolent character, but a little weak and indecisive, he became a psychographic medium with very quickly and became obsessed by a Spirit. This Spirit began to dictate to him true absurdities, which, as a result, almost led the boy to illness and madness:

"Subjugation had reached a point where he had been told to throw himself into the water or go to the antipodes. [other side of Earth], he would have done. When they wanted to force him to do something he disliked, was dragged by an invisible force.”

“When the creature managed to replace the devil with Jesus, it still does not possess the truth. to have it, it is necessary to believe. God does not give the truth to those who doubt: it would be to do something useless and God does nothing in vain. As most new mediums doubt what they say and write, good spirits, begrudgingly, by God's formal order, they are obliged to lie and have no choice but to lie until the medium is convinced; but as soon as he believes one of these lies, the high spirits rush to reveal to him the secrets of heaven: the whole truth dissipates in an instant that cloud of errors with which they had been forced to envelop their protege.

"At this point, the medium has nothing to fear anymore.. The good spirits will never leave you. However, he must not believe that he always has the truth and only the truth. Whether to try it out, or to punish it for past faults, or even to punish it for selfish or curious questions, the good spirits him inflict physical and moral corrections, come to torment him by the command of God.”

RE October, 1858 (quotes from the psychographs of the fascinated Spirit

The report that Kardec gives, obtained from the psychographies of these obsessing Spirits, through the boy, is even difficult to read, let alone to understand, such is the level of disparity of the ideas presented there. For its extension, we will abstract from the citation. It is worth highlighting Kardec's observation, only: 

"Note that in all this there is nothing coarse or banal. It is a series of sophistical reasonings linked together with the appearance of logic. There is indeed an infernal art in the means employed to deceive him, and if it had been possible for us to relate all these manifestations, one would have seen to what extent the cunning was carried and with what skill they used honeyed words.”


In the midst of all this struggle, however, Kardec highlights that it was easy to recognize another spirit, kind, who struggled to make himself ear. It was his father, who, at one point, wrote: "Yes, my son, courage! You undergo a harsh ordeal, which will be for your good in the future. Unfortunately, at the moment, I can't do anything to free you, and it costs me a lot. Go see Allan Kardec; listen to him and he will save you”

The boy, listening to the good advice, goes to look for Kardec, who starts what today we would call disobsession:

"I used all my willpower to call the good spirits through you; all my rhetoric to prove to him that he was the victim of detestable spirits; that what he wrote was senseless and profoundly immoral. For this charity work I joined a colleague, Mr. T… and little by little we got him to write sensible things. He took a dislike to that bad temper, repelling him willingly each time he tried to manifest himself, and slowly the good spirits triumphed.”

To change his ideas, he followed the advice of the Spirits, to give himself to a rough job, that did not leave him time to listen to bad suggestions.

  • But disobsession it does not only aim at the incarnate, who can drive away bad Spirits at will, but it can positively affect the Spirit as well (and often does):

Dillois himself ended up confessing himself defeated and expressed a desire to progress in a new existence. He confessed the evil he had tried to do and gave evidence of repentance. The fight was long and painful and offered the observer really curious features. Today Mr. F. feels free and happy. It's as if you've dropped a burden. He regained his joy and thanks us for the service we have given him.

Kardec begins the conclusion of the article with a reflection: far from proving the danger of mediumship, cases like these show its utility. Now, the spirits are around us, with or without mediumship, and with or without it they can obsess us, if we allow. 

Mediumship only puts us in direct contact with them, which provides an important tool for the spirits themselves to reveal themselves and accuse themselves, allowing the medium or someone else to try to open their eyes – exactly as it happened with the boy.

Finally, mediumship is not what makes the communication of ideas from inferior spirits exclusive. Says Kardec: 


"Who says that among all these ridiculous or dangerous speculations there will not be some whose authors are driven by malevolent spirits? Three-quarters of our evil actions and our evil thoughts are the fruit of this hidden suggestion.”

"In short, the danger is not exactly in Spiritism, because it can, on the contrary, serve as a control[…]. The danger lies in the propensity of certain mediums to, very lightly, believe themselves to be instruments exclusive to superior spirits and in a kind of fascination that does not allow them to understand the nonsense of which they are interpreters. Even those who are not mediums can be dragged along.”


In closing, Kardec makes some remarks. Some we have already dealt with recently, regarding the language of the Spirits and the contradictions:

1st – Every medium must guard against the irresistible excitement that leads him to write incessantly and even at inopportune moments; he must be master of himself and not write unless he wants to;

2nd – We do not dominate superior spirits, not even those who, not being superior, are good and benevolent, but we can dominate and tame inferior spirits. He who is not master of himself cannot be master of the spirits;

3rd – There is no other criterion than common sense to discern the value of spirits. Any formula given for this purpose by the spirits themselves is absurd and cannot emanate from superior spirits;

4th – Spirits, like men, are judged by their language. Every expression, every thought, every concept, every moral or scientific theory that clashes with common sense or does not correspond to the idea that we have of a pure and elevated Spirit, emanates from a more or less inferior Spirit;

5th – Superior spirits always speak the same language with the same person and never contradict each other;

6th – Superior spirits are always good and benevolent. In their language we never find acrimony, arrogance, harshness, pride, boasting, or foolish presumption. They speak plainly, advise, and withdraw when they are not heard;

7th – We should not judge spirits by their material form or by the correctness of their language, but probe their depths, scrutinize their words, weigh them coldly, maturely and without prejudice. Any escape from common sense, reason and wisdom cannot leave any doubt as to its origin, whatever the name under which the Spirit is masked;

8th – Inferior spirits are afraid of those who analyze their words, they unmask their turpitude and do not allow themselves to be caught by their sophistry. Sometimes they try to resist, but they always end up running away, when they realize that they are the weakest;

9th – He who in everything acts with a view to the good, rises above human vanities, expels selfishness, pride, envy, jealousy and hatred from his heart, and forgives his enemies, putting this into practice. Christ's maxim: “Do to others what you want done to you”; he sympathizes with the good spirits, while the bad ones fear him and move away from him.

Let's study?

Check out the study groups that exist, dealing with the Spiritist Doctrine, in which we have learned A LOT. Click here.

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Reading Recommendations (Books)

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