Isolation of heavy bodies

Paulo Degering R Jr
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The movement imprinted on inert bodies by the will is today so well known that it would be almost puerile to report facts of the kind.

Kardec starts this article like this, saying something like this: “that tables can be lifted off the floor by psychic force, this is already a known fact”. Today it seems very strange to us to think this way. Because?

Contents hide
1 The phenomenon was already widely accepted – and studied
2 Kardec, Mr Fortier and the turning tables
3 Back to the article in question…
4 Reading Recommendations
5 Reading Recommendations (Books)

The phenomenon was already widely accepted – and studied

We need to understand that Spiritism emerged in the midst of the movement called Rational Spiritualism, adopted in France, mainly, as an opposition to the materialist movement and the old religions that enslaved thought. According to FIGUEIREDO, 2019, the Movement, “It is characterized by the adoption of scientific methodology, seeking to do with the human being what has been successfully achieved by studying the matter: the understanding of the natural laws that underlie it. In other words, it replaced blind faith with a rational faith, a requirement of the new times.”¹. 


At that time and in that context, the moral sciences studied everything born of human action, and that included the study of phenomena psychological¹ of magnetism and somnambulism, among many others. Well then: Spiritism, having been born in a so favorable, unfolded easily and, precisely because of this, quickly conquered countless adepts, among whom many, perhaps the majority, were educated, serious and dedicated to the sciences. All this to bring the relevant understanding that Rational Spiritualism was already concerned, before the birth of Spiritism, of “supernormal” phenomena, as Bozzano calls them, among which the magnetization of a heavy object, such as a table, which then moved and rose, against the laws of known of Physics, was a known and studied fact.

The psychological sciences deal with the natural laws that govern human nature. And these laws are of two kinds, the experimental or empirical, expressing the results of the experience of the human spirit as it is, and the others being ideal, representing the end towards which we must direct our faculties by means of evolution, or as such. they should be. The study of the human being in its real state is experimental psychology itself. (FIGUEIREDO, 2019)

Kardec, Mr Fortier and the turning tables

In fact, at this moment, we interrupted to return to Kardec, who tells about his contact with Mr. Fortier, known magnetizer:

It was in 1854 that I first heard of turning tables. One day I met Monsieur Fortier, whom I had known for a long time, and who said: Do you already know about the singular property that has just been discovered in Magnetism? It seems that it is no longer only people who can be magnetized, but also tables, making them turn and walk at will. – 'It is indeed very singular,' I replied; but, strictly speaking, this does not seem to me radically impossible. The magnetic fluid, which is a kind of electricity, can perfectly act on inert bodies and make them move'. The reports, which the newspapers published, of experiences carried out in Nantes, Marseille, and in some other cities, did not allow any doubts about the reality of the phenomenon.

Kardec, A., Posthumous Works, Rio: FEB, 1964. p. 237

It is noted that Kardec calmly accepted the phenomena in question, and the turning table was not his first contact with magnetism. However, shortly afterwards, a new episode will mark forever its history with the nascent Spiritism: 

Some time later, I met again with Mr. Fortier, who said to me: We have something much more extraordinary; not only do you get a table to move, magnetizing it, but also to speak. When questioned, she responds. — This now, I replied, is another matter. I will only believe it when I see it and when they prove to me that a table has a brain to think, nerves to feel and that it can become sleepwalker. Until then, allow me not to see in the case more than a story to make us sleep on our feet.” [emphasis ours]

ibidem

Back to the article in question…

All of the above is for us to understand, rationally, the logic that led Kardec to so calmly accept isolation (and motion) of heavy bodies. He continues to make an analysis similar to the one made before Mr Fortier's account, when he said that the tables responded intelligently: if there is intelligence, there is an intelligent cause. Where, then, is this cause?

It is important to highlight, as Kardec demonstrates in the article, that we need to be very calm to analyze such facts and their reports, so that the overexcited imagination does not make the phenomenon seem like “magic”: to reach the lifting of a heavy body , it takes a lot of concentration and several attacks, with which the phenomenon seems to gain more and more strength, not happening in a snap of the fingers.

It is also noteworthy that Kardec mentions that the facts obtained “at Mr. B…” took place repeatedly, even without the contact of hands and in the presence of several witnesses, including those “very unfriendly” and who would not fail to raise suspicion if they had reason to do so. The same type of phenomenon also occurred easily in several other houses.

Reading Recommendations

To deepen the study, we recommend, in addition to the works “Transportation Phenomena” and “Spiritism and the Supranormal Manifestations”, by Ernesto Bozzano, the study of The Mediums' Book, where, in chapters I, II, III, IV and V of the Second Part, an extensive theoretical approach on the subject is carried out.

We also recommend the book "Autonomy: the untold story of Spiritism“, by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo

  1. That is why the Spiritist Journal is called “Journal of Psychological Studies”, in perfect agreement with the understanding of the moral sciences in the historical and social context of Allan Kardec.
  2. FIGUEIREDO, Paulo Henrique de. Autonomy: the untold story of Spiritism, 2019, editor FEAL
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Reading Recommendations (Books)

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