The Evil of Fear

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uF6VAEmXPI

In this article, Kardec leads us to think about the evil that exists in fear and how it can affect us. 

The case: a man had left a very expensive bottle of liquor in a carriage and, fearing that he would be drunk, went to the parking lot manager, to whom he said the bottle contained poison. When he had just returned to his apartment, he was hurriedly sought out: three coachmen were suffering from terrible stomach pains. With effort, he convinced them of his rudeness.

Can the case be explained simply by the power of suggestion? Kardec says, initially, that it could not be an action of magnetism, as it was not the case, and then questions São Luís:

─ Your reasoning is very fair in relation to imagination. But the malevolent spirits who induced those men to commit an impolite act, cause a shiver of fear to pass through their blood, through matter, that you could well call magnetic shiver, which stretches the nerves and produces a cold in certain regions of the body. You well know that any cold in the abdominal region can produce colic. It is, therefore, a means of punishment that amuses the spirits who provoked carrying out the theft and at the same time making them laugh at the expense of those to whom they sin [language neologism, to make himself understood, since S. Luís himself speaks of autonomy, between the lines].

Sao Luis, RE 1858

Comment: when talking about induction it cannot, in any way, replace the responsibility that the incarnate has to accept these suggestions.

Comment: Magnetic Shiver: since magnetism is an action of the will on the perispirit, which reflects on matter, we understand this term well.

Observation: THE punishment it is in the following sense: God “places” us to live among Spirits as imperfect as we are, or more. This contact is an ordeal of our imperfections, learning from it as they learn from us.

“They do so whenever an opportunity is offered to them, which they even seek, for their satisfaction. We can avoid this, I assure you, by raising ourselves to God by thoughts less material than those that occupied the minds of those men. Evil spirits like to have fun. Watch out for them! He who thinks he is saying a pleasant phrase to the people around him and who amuses a society with jokes and acts, is sometimes wrong, and even often, when he thinks that all this comes from himself.. The frivolous spirits that surround him identify with him in such a way that little by little they deceive him about his thoughts, also deceiving those who listen to him. In that case, you think you are dealing with a man of spirit, who, however, is only an ignorant. Think carefully, and you will understand what I say to you. Superior spirits are not, however, enemies of joy. Sometimes they like to laugh to make themselves nice to you. But everything has its opportune moment.”

Idem

KARDEC NOTE: “Saying that in the reported case there was no emission of magnetic fluid, perhaps we were not being very accurate. Here we venture a guess. As we said, it is known that transformations of the properties of matter can be operated under the action of the fmagnetic liquid driven by thought. Now, it is not possible to admit that, by the thought of the doctor who wanted to make believe in the existence of a toxic and give thieves the anguish of poisoning, there had been a kind of magnetization of the liquid at a distance, which would have acquired new properties, whose action would have been corroborated by the moral state of individuals whom fear had made impressionable? This theory would not destroy St. Louis's on the intervention of frivolous spirits in similar circumstances. We know that spirits act physically by physical means; they can therefore, in order to carry out certain designs, make use of those which they themselves provoke and which we inadvertently provide them with..”

Comment: Kardec is speaking in the following sense: through suggestion, Spirits can obtain physical results, through those who perform them. It is clear that, in order to act directly on matter, the existence of a medium with such capacities is necessary.

Doubts: Here, we raise a question: if we can saturate an object with our perispiritual fluid, by the action of our will, why can't a Spirit do it? Because the Spirit cannot act on matter directly, nor with his perispirit. He needs matter or an intermediary medium of physical effects.

Doubts: Could we explain the phenomenon, also, only by autosuggestion, not as an effect of the imagination, but as a patent effect of the individual himself on his perispirit? Yes we can, like the placebo effect.