The plurality of worlds

Paulo Degering R Jr
spiritist magazine March 1858
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The science of Kardec's time is something quite different from what it is today. Many scientific advances were made and, while Kardec could only imagine what the neighboring planets and even the moon would be like, today we have visited the last celestial body several times, we have already landed at least 3 autonomous vehicles on Mars and, a little while ago, we made it reach the orbit of Mercury the first human probe. Huge revolution, compared to a time when you could only think through a telescope.

We started like this in order to place ourselves in Kardec's time, which is essential to understand his conjectures about nearby astral bodies. It is also very important to note that there are two distinct parts in the Spiritist Doctrine in this regard: human knowledge and conjectures and the knowledge taught by Spirits, in the way that man could understand at that time.

On the human side, Kardec, in this article, makes several conjectures about what other worlds would be like, based on what human science at that time had already been able to observe. It creates hypotheses, quite plausible for the knowledge of the time, about the atmospheric formations of these distant orbs, conjecturing, then, about the possible forms of life that could exist there, including those not detectable by our five senses, that is, those that could be in much more subtle states of matter.

But the intention of this article by Kardec is not only to make philosophical conjectures about life, seen in a scientific way, outside the Earth: it is also to make the reader reflect on the divine greatness, which does nothing by chance and that, also in this sense , would not have made planets just for our enjoyment. In fact, Kardec makes this approach based on the teachings of the Spirits, as we can see in The Spirits' Book:

55. ARE ALL THE GLOBS THAT MOVE IN SPACE inhabited?

“YES AND EARTHLY MAN IS FAR FROM BEING, AS YOU SUPPOSE, FIRST IN INTELLIGENCE, IN KINDNESS AND IN PERFECTION. HOWEVER, THERE ARE MEN WHO HAVE VERY STRONG SPIRITS AND WHO IMAGINE THE PRIVILEGE OF CONTAINING RATIONAL BEINGS TO BELONG TO THIS LITTLE GLOBE. PRIDE AND VANITY! THEY JUDGE THAT GOD CREATED THE UNIVERSE ONLY FOR THEM.”

[…]

57. IF THE PHYSICAL CONSTITUTION OF THE WORLDS IS NOT ONE FOR ALL, WILL THE BEINGS THAT inhabit them have different ORGANIZATIONS?

“NO DOUBT, IN THE SAME WAY THAT FISH ARE MADE TO LIVE IN WATER AND BIRDS IN THE AIR.”

Scientifically, at that time, it was already possible to verify that the Moon had no atmosphere, that Mercury would be very hot and that Saturn would be very cold. How, then, could there be life in these orbs? About this, we have two hypotheses, adopted by Allan Kardec:

  1. The beings that live there, if they have a physical constitution of the same density as ours, could be adapted to these places, as on Earth there are living beings that survive extreme cold and heat or even chemical compounds that would kill us in a short time, as well as there are animals adapted to live their entire lives in water and others only on land.
  2. The beings that live there are made up of ethereal matter, more subtle than our matter and, therefore, they live in conditions that are totally adverse to ours. About this, also in The Spirits' Book, there is an indication:

58. WILL THE WORLD FAR AWAY FROM THE SUN BE DEPRIVED OF LIGHT AND HEAT, BECAUSE THAT ASTRO IS SHOWN TO THEM WITH ONLY THE APPEARANCE OF A STAR?

“THEN DO YOU THINK THAT THERE ARE NO SOURCES OF LIGHT AND HEAT OTHER THAN THE SUN, AND IN NO WAY DO YOU THINK OF ELECTRICITY, WHICH, IN CERTAIN WORLDS, PLAYS A ROLE THAT YOU KNOW AND MUCH MORE IMPORTANT THAN IT HAS TO PLAY ON EARTH? FURTHERMORE, WE DO NOT SAY THAT ALL BEINGS ARE MADE OF THE SAME MATTER AS YOU OTHERS AND WITH ORGANS OF IDENTICAL CONFORMATION TO YOURS.”

What Kardec does in this article is, in possession of information obtained by human science and spirit science, reason, together with the reader, about the very natural possibility of there being life, in some way, in all existing orbs in space, and even in space, that is, in “empty” space. There is nothing wrong with this thinking.

However, we can think: “We have already arrived at the Moon and Mars and we have not found anything of what he imagined. Kardec, therefore, was wrong”. Now, by the second hypothesis, no, he was not wrong. There may exist beings in an ethereal state, as among us the Spirits live, walk and interact, through their perispirits, without us even noticing them (except when we have mediumistic faculties for such). Furthermore, we must remember that Kardec never claimed to be the owner of the ultimate truth: he only reasoned based on what science provided him.

It may be that one day we land on a nearby planet and there we find new forms of life, sensitive to our senses, or it may be that all the nearby planets are empty of biological life, perhaps even by divine wisdom that, who knows, understands that man it would only find reasons for wars if it found other living beings on nearby planets. Now, you see, it's just me guessing.

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