As far as our state of mind is concerned, the feelings that affect us the most are those of unhappiness and unhappiness… Or, at least, we believe so. In this way, society in general lives in a search for happiness, almost always without lasting results, happiness that, when not achieved, refers to the general states that often lead to the abysses of depression or melancholy.

I begin by saying, dear reader, that the almost total absence of current direction and understanding is due to the forgetfulness of Rational Spiritualism. Having transformed man into a biological machine, lacking a soul, materialism took from morality its primordial essence, which the Spirit in its role of first cause of everything that goes on in the matter.

Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo says:

Religious doctrines and also materialistic thought are heteronomous, as they assume that morality would be based on pain and pleasure, which are innate impulses and linked to instinct and survival, sensations that arise from physiological changes, proper to the body. biological. The false idea of divine punishment for the guilty creature dogmatically points to the existence of physical pain after death, caused by the environment of hell, for all eternity. On the other hand, pleasures and eternal contemplation for the elect in Heaven. Spiritism, on the other hand, will demonstrate, for the first time, in its autonomous morality, the existence of intimate sensations proper to the spirit, which are happiness and unhappiness, giving these terms specific definitions.

KARDEC, Allan. Heaven and hell. Editor FEAL, 2021. Editor's Note.

O Espiritismo, que se desenvolveu do Espiritualismo Racional – “movimento” que formou os mais ilustres pensadores do século XIX, tinha, de forma muito resumida((recomendo, para melhor compreensão, o estudo da obra O Céu e o Inferno, de Allan Kardec, pela editora FEAL, com comentários de Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo, e da obra “Autonomia: a história jamais contada do Espiritismo”, do mesmo autor. Outra sugestão é search for videos featuring Paulo, on YouTube)), in morality, the concepts of happiness and unhappiness are very well defined as achievements from the soul, whereas, of the body or matter, are part of emotions, be they the fear, a sadness, a happiness, a rage, etc. Also, in the matter aspect, we must mention the sensations, as the pleasure and the ache, which are the immediate result of the physical impression captured by the nerves and carried to the brain.

As incarnate Spirits, we are all subject to the conditions of matter. As evolved as a Spirit may be, the fact of receiving a hammer to the hand will cause a lot of pain, perhaps the same as for everyone else, but the detail is that the superior Spirit will not cling to that pain or to the individual who eventually provoked it — which is a very important one.

We thus have, well separated, what belongs to the Spirit and what belongs to matter. In a very simplistic way, and counting on the reader's willingness to believe that what I am saying is based on studies of the original works of Allan Kardec, from what he can check for himself, we conclude that the emotions of the body has nothing to do, a priori, with the feelings of soul or spirit. Happiness has to do with the achievements of the Spirit, while unhappiness has to do with his inferiority. A spirit, incarnated, can be very unhappy, despite being rich and with all resources of pleasures and joys within your reach, while another may be very happy living in a mud hut. A spirit incarnated in a healthy body can be very depressed or angry, while another, in a deformed or sick body, can be very calm, happy and kind.

To form a better understanding, let's talk about unhappiness. It is often confused with human emotions and pain, but, as we have seen, it does not reside in them. Unhappiness is actually how far the Spirit is away from happiness. This seems pretty obvious, but let me explain: happiness is living under God's law, that is, living in goodness. The absence of it, unhappiness, is living far from the good, under the empire of imperfections that lead us to error and suffering, which is the result of actions performed, and not divine punishment.

Here is the great key to understanding morality and the human being's necessary search for happiness: it does not reside in the fleeting things of matter, nor in pleasures, nor in passions. she resides in the soul, as a result of an inner, individual and non-transferable achievement.

Paulo Henrique, in the same work, says:

Already in the law that governs the human spirit, which has its main life in the spiritual world, the improvement of faculties through its effort is its goal, making use of reincarnations as a means of progress. Happiness is not like the physiological sensation of pleasure; it is an intimate state or sensation of the spirit, inherent to its intellectual-moral perfection. Every act of good corresponds to a feeling of happiness, and the development of virtues, knowledge and skills makes this condition progressive, until the full happiness of pure spirits. On the other hand, the condition of imperfection is inherent to moral suffering, which will last until the spirit overcomes imperfection by its effort. These are intimate states and feelings of the spirit, in no way dependent on something external to them. These are the laws of the soul, which govern the moral world. Thus Kardec expressed himself, in item 2 of Chapter VIII:

“As all spirits are perfectible, by virtue of the law of progress, they carry within themselves the elements of their happiness or future unhappiness and the means of acquiring one and avoiding the other by working towards their own advancement. (p. 132)”

The elements of your happiness or your unhappiness are in the spirit itself; it is up to him to provide one or the other. In this way, happiness is not a concession or a divine grace, but an achievement of the being itself. Nor is unhappiness a punishment, but a condition created when the spirit develops an imperfection that ends when the spirit itself undoes it.

ibid.

We can be very happy to experience relaxed and fun moments with friends, but once these moments are over, what remains it is our state of mind. We can be happy buying things to dress us well or eating tasty delicacies... But, after these actions, the same state of mind still remains. And here we come to something very important: this constant pursuit of happiness in things and occasions, instead of seeking it in the inner conquest, often leads us to imperfections!

Man, when seeking the satisfaction of his desires and instincts, confusing this search with the search for happiness, can “exaggerate the dose”. Let us take the example of the purchase of material goods: a person who links possessions to the feeling of happiness, when he cannot satisfy this desire with his own resources, may be led to commit the crime of robbery or theft, in order to satisfy this desire. there. Just in this example, we have greed and selfishness being cultivated. If repeated, forming habits, they can settle in the soul, as imperfections, which will produce sufferings that, to be overcome, will have to be overcome. understood and actively faced, for the will of the Spirit, which commonly takes more than one incarnation to achieve.

Paulo Henrique continues:

Every imperfection is the result of the free choice of the spirit, which, by attachment to matter, uses the faculties of the soul to act in order to conquer pleasure (sensation) and joy (emotion). This act of abuse, turned into a habit, is imperfection, which has as an inherent consequence moral suffering, or unhappiness (sensation of the spirit). This condition is transitory, because, overcoming imperfections, the spirit returns to the path of good and frees itself from unhappiness.

ibid.

The opposite is also true: the spirit that confuses unhappiness with the pains and negative emotions of matter, in order to see itself far from them, can launch itself on an endless search, which, often, also puts it in contact with bad habits that can make an imperfection appear.

This understanding, which seems very simple in principle, and which is of paramount importance, it's not very easy to be internalized. How will she be? Through study, which leads to knowledge, which strengthens reason. The Spirit only changes, really, when you see its imperfections and mistakes and when, actively, of its own accord, it starts to seek to overcome them. Therefore, the invitation to studies remains, and the one being carried out by the Spiritism for All Study Group (EPT), on the work O Céu e O Inferno (FEAL publisher, based on the 1st edition of the unadulterated original) is one of the best in this sense.

Here, before ending, we have one more reflection. We talk about the formation of imperfections arising from bad habits… That's why we can't help but talk about early childhood education. The child, by virtue of a bad habit, taught or reinforced from the cradle, can also acquire an imperfection, from which it will be very difficult to get rid of. Therefore, parents, the time has passed to focus on the study of morals and education, in order to better educate children, from their first acts in material life, helping them, through the charity that is our responsibility, to help these Spirits to reach happiness sooner, as we wish we had.

Esperamos que muito em breve possamos iniciar uma série de artigos ligados a esse tema. Não deixe de se inscrever em nossa lista de e-mails para recebê-los também – basta informar o seu e-mail em “ASSINE NOSSA NEWSLETTER”, ao lado ou abaixo do artigo!

We suggest the reader to watch the video:

Photo by samer daboul: https://www.pexels.com/pt-br/foto/fotografia-de-criancas-felizes-1815257/

Anyone who has ventured to know a little more about Allan Kardec's history knows that he was educated by the Pestalozzi method, being one of his most exemplary disciples. For his teacher, education must be guided by the principles of fraternity and love, away from the concepts of sin and punishment, which greatly shaped Kardec's way of thinking, which later was based even more fully on Rational Spiritualism and, later, by Spiritism. We also know that the investigative and humble character of Professor Rivail was also fundamentally formed by this education, guided by the exploration of the natural sciences through the scientific method, and this, of course, explains a lot the way in which he acted against Spiritism.

All of this – fraternity, learning about the moral principles of good and God's laws, disinterested charity, which is the fruit of this learning, humility, which is born from the heart of one who never takes as a principle that his word is the last, in short, everything that is contained in the Pestalozzian methodology – provides the basis for a much better quality education, from the first steps of human beings on Earth. It is, I have no hesitation in saying, one of the greatest tools for the (trans)formation of society, greatly complemented by the understanding of the laws that Spiritism came to demonstrate. The two, together, have the greatest power, from childhood, to prevent the installation or development of the most harmful habits for the individual and for society – selfishness and pride – but, to date, neither of them has gained the space it deserves. , due to human attachment to false concepts that, on the surface, seem to please, but that, deep down, only cause unhappiness and delay.

To exemplify all this, nothing better than reproducing, in full, the content of the homonymous article by Allan Kardec, presented in the Spiritist Magazine of February 1864.

Of all the moral wounds of Society, it seems that selfishness is the most difficult to root out. Indeed, it is all the more so the more it is nourished by the very habits of education. It seems that the task is taken to arouse, from the cradle, certain passions that later become second nature. And they marvel at the vices of the Society, when children suck it up with their milk. Here is an example which, as everyone can judge, belongs more to the rule than to the exception.

In a family we know there is a girl between four and five years old, of a rare intelligence, but who has the small defects of spoiled children, that is, she is a little capricious, weepy, stubborn, and does not always thank her when given something. , which the parents take great care to correct, because apart from these defects, according to them, she has a heart of gold, a consecrated expression. Let's see how they manage to remove those small stains and preserve the gold in its purity.

One day they brought the child a sweet and, as usual, they told him: “You will eat it if you are good”. First lesson in sweet tooth. How many times, at the table, do they tell a child that he won't eat that snack if he cries. “Do this, or do that”, they say, “and you will have cream” or anything else that pleases him, and the child is constrained, not for reason, but in order to satisfy a sensual desire ((Desire of the senses)) that stings her.

It is even worse when they are told, which is no less frequent, that they will give their piece to someone else. Here, it's not just gluttony that's at stake, it's envy. The child will do what he is told, not only to have it, but so that the other child does not have it. Do you want to teach him a lesson in generosity? Then they say to him: “Give this fruit or this toy to so-and-so”. If she refuses, they do not fail to add, in order to stimulate a good feeling in her: “I will give you another one”, so that the child does not decide to be generous unless he is sure of losing nothing.

One day we witnessed a very characteristic event in this genre. It was a child of about two and a half years old, to whom they had made a similar threat, adding: “We will give it to your little brother, and you will have nothing.” To make the lesson more sensitive, they put the piece on the little brother's plate, who took the matter seriously and ate the portion. At the sight of this, the other turned red and it didn't take either the father or the mother to see the flash of anger and hatred that came from his eyes. The seed was sown: could it produce good grain?

Let's go back to the girl we talked about. As she did not realize the threat, knowing from experience that they rarely carried it out, this time they were firmer, for they understood that it was necessary to master this little character, and not wait for her to acquire a bad habit with age. They said that it is necessary to train children early, a very wise maxim, and to put it into practice, here is what they did: “I promise you, said the mother, that if you do not obey, tomorrow morning I will give your cake to the first poor girl who pass." No sooner said than done.

This time they wanted to keep their promise and teach him a good lesson. So the next day, in the morning, having seen a little beggar in the street, they brought her in and forced her daughter to take her by the hand and she herself gave her her cake. Then they praised his docility. Moral of the story: The daughter said, “If I had known about this, I would have rushed to eat the cake yesterday.” And everyone applauded this witty response. Indeed, the child had received a strong lesson, but one of pure selfishness, which he will not fail to take advantage of another time, for now he knows how much forced generosity costs. It remains to be seen what fruits this seed will bear later when, at an older age, the child applies this moral to things more serious than a cake.

Do you know all the thoughts that this single fact could have caused to germinate in that little head? After that, how do you want a child not to be selfish when, instead of awakening in him the pleasure of giving and representing the happiness of the recipient, they impose a sacrifice on him as punishment? Is it not inspiring aversion to the act of giving and to those in need?

Another habit, equally frequent, is to punish the child by sending him to eat in the kitchen with the servants. The punishment lies less in exclusion from the table than in the humiliation of going to the servants' table. This is how, from an early age, the virus of sensuality, selfishness, pride, contempt for inferiors, passions, in a word, which are rightly considered as the wounds of Humanity, is inoculated.

It is necessary to be endowed with an exceptionally good nature to resist such influences, produced at the most impressionable age, in which neither will nor experience can find a counterweight. Thus, however little the germ of evil passions may be found there, which is the most ordinary case, given the nature of most spirits who are incarnated on Earth, it cannot fail to develop under such influences, while it would be necessary to observe the slightest traces in order to repress them.

Without a doubt, the fault lies with the parents, but it must be said that they often sin more out of ignorance than out of ill will. In many there is undoubtedly a guilty insouciance, but in many others the intention is good, yet it is the remedy that is worthless, or that is misapplied.

As the first physicians of their children's souls, parents should be instructed, not only in their duties, but in the means of fulfilling them. It is not enough for the doctor to know that he must seek a cure, it is necessary to know how to act. Now, for parents, where are the means of instructing themselves in this most important part of their task? Today, much instruction is given to women; they make her pass rigorous examinations, but was the mother ever required to know how to build up her child's morale?

They teach you homemade recipes, but was it initiated to the thousand and one secrets of ruling young hearts?

Parents, therefore, are left unguided to their own initiative. This is why they so often follow the wrong path. Thus, in the mistakes of their grown children, they pick up the bitter fruit of their inexperience or misunderstood tenderness, and the whole Society receives the backlash.

Whereas selfishness and pride are admittedly the source of most human miseries; that while they reign on Earth, neither peace, nor charity, nor fraternity can be expected, so it is necessary to attack them in the embryo state, without waiting for them to become alive.

Can Spiritism remedy this evil? Undoubtedly, and we do not hesitate to say that he is the only one powerful enough to stop it, from the new point of view with which he allows us to perceive the mission and responsibility of parents; making known the source of innate qualities, good or bad; showing the action that can be exercised on incarnate and disincarnate spirits; giving the unbreakable faith which sanctions the duties; finally, moralizing their own parents. It already proves its effectiveness by the most rational way employed in the education of children in truly Spiritist families. The new horizons that Spiritism opens up make things look differently. Since its objective is the moral progress of Humanity, it will inevitably have to shed light on the serious problem of moral education, the first source of the moralization of the masses. One day it will be understood that this branch of education has its principles, its rules, like intellectual education, in a word, which is a true science. Perhaps one day, too, the obligation to possess this knowledge will be imposed on every mother of a family, as it is imposed on the lawyer to know the Law.

Kardec gives full weight to the responsibility we have towards children and their habits. Spiritism shows the origin of children's innate tendencies, but it also demonstrates that the Spirit incarnated in a child may not yet be strong enough to resist a bad habit that their parents or caregivers teach them from their first steps. This creates imperfections that could be very difficult to overcome…

Commonly, in the flesh, the fruit of these imperfections will lead people to ask: “what did I do to deserve this?”, or “where did I go wrong?”. However, it is enough for reason to speak a little louder to the conscience for them to launch into heavy lamentations, born from the fruit of the realization that the suffering their son may have gone through not just in one, but in many earthly lives, originated , if not in all, but at least in part, in the first seed sown and cultivated by those who should help them develop under the morality of good, and not move away from it.

Therefore, parents and caregivers, pay much more attention to the Spirits that God has entrusted to you as children. It will be their own consciences, and not God, who will hold them accountable tomorrow...

After the discovery that I didn't know anything about Spiritism (which happened almost a year ago) and with the confirmation that a series of doubts that I always kept in my mind, and that were accentuated as I started to put my head to work, I stopped reading the works carried out through the mediumship of Chico Xavier.

Recently, however, instigated by the suggestion of a girl, in a group, who recommended studying the work Ação e Reação to understand why animals suffer pain, I found several inconsistencies, from the many already known, among the “teachings” transmitted by André Luiz and the doctrinal postulates of Spiritism, passed through the double control of the sieve of reason and the general teaching of the Spirits.

I can no longer blindly overlook various concepts that were previously more or less accepted without reasoning. Not after getting to know Allan Kardec in his essence, through the studies of the Spiritist Magazine, and also after beginning to understand the concepts of autonomy and morality, based on Rational Spiritualism and developed by Spiritism.

Collective rescues? Action and reaction? Look, if there is any way to get something useful out of this work, it is first necessary to know Spiritism, deeply, understanding it as the development of Rational Spiritualism and making use of its concepts, because the most absurd ideas have spread, in the Doctrine , due to this lack of knowledge.

just see that complicated:

In our study, however, we analyzed the pain-atonement, which comes from the inside out, marking the creature on the path of the centuries, holding it in complicated labyrinths of affliction, to regenerate it, before the… It is very different… "

Now, it is established, by the study of Spiritism, that atonement and pain do not inherently go together. The passage above leads the unwary reader to understand that, in the face of “[divine] Justice”, the being is regenerated by the ache, being that pain is an inherent condition of the incarnate Spirit, and differs from moral suffering. From physical pain, he suffers the bad and the good. Atonement can go far beyond pain, but rely only on difficulties, often morally suffered, which, according to the planning of the Spirit, aim to give you opportunities for learning.

However, in possession of the new (actually, old) knowledge, we could give a whole different meaning to this passage, by simply observing the term “that comes from the inside out”, which implies that this pain is coming from consciousness to the outside.

It is necessary to be very careful to focus on these works - which, in fact, are novels, and not sources of studies - because we know the enormous reservations that Kardec always had in relation to spiritual ideas not passed by the double control of reason and general teaching. of the Spirits. Furthermore, without having the aforementioned knowledge, novels, in general, lead readers to a totally adverse path to what Spiritism teaches, in fact, and can cause (as they have caused) more harm than good.

So, to studies!

Cover image: photo by asiama junior at the pexels

Just yesterday, I wrote here, on this blog, the article “Root Spiritism“, talking about the absurd subversions being carried out by people who adopt the title of Spiritists, but who, about Spiritism, don't say anything. They talk a lot about concepts of certain Spirits, which, in short, does not constitute the Doctrine. These individuals, who, under the false guise of the “evangelizer”, with sweet words from the Gospel of Jesus (we have already seen such a case in practice, presented by Kardec, in the article Obsessed and Subjugated: The Dangers of Spiritism), take them to, slowly and progressively, subvert it to the most absurd and wide-open ideas, even prior to Christ himself, worthy of the time when human beings were consciously enslaved by the religious ideas of heteronomy, sin and punishment.

Behold, right after the conclusion of this article, going to Spiritist groups to share, I come across, in the largest of them, with hundreds of thousands of followers, the following post, from one of the administrators from the group:

MULTI-GENERATION DNA CLEANING

I, _____________ (your name), break, destroy, disintegrate and pulverize all the negativity that I bring in the family tree of my Father and my Mother, from the first generation that formed their families to the inheritance we receive from them in this life((This idea is directly subordinate to dogma of original sin, which, despite starting from a figure of language, in a very distant time, was instituted by the Roman Catholic Church as such, with the purpose of imprisoning the consciences of the faithful at its pleasure)).

[…]

I'm taking it all out of my DNA((Deoxyribonucleic acid is an organic compound whose molecules contain the genetic instructions that coordinate the development and functioning of all living beings and some viruses, and that transmit the hereditary characteristics of each living being (ref: Wikipedia). This phrase sums it all up : contrary to the demonstration, by Spiritism, of the soul and its relations with the Spirits as the principle of all what concerns the incarnate being, it is totally materialistic!))!
DECREE AND INSTALL HERE AND NOW:
A system of health, love, abundance, prosperity, serenity, trust and happiness guided by universal laws.

I was and still am perplexed and stupefied! I would consider it valid to find a message of this content in a group of religious linked to the ideas of original sin and materialism, contrary to Spiritism and its liberating doctrine... But within a group "spiritist", which establishes, as the first of its rules, that "our main objective is the STUDY OF THE SPIRITIST DOCTRINE“, and by the hands of an administrator?! Never! Now, it comes to disrespect the Spiritist Doctrine itself and Kardec's effort to fight, in the light of reason and with great effort, precisely these two systems contrary to Spiritism and the liberation of man: materialism and religious dogmatism.

The intention here is not to descend to the level of personal attack. Each one with their conscience and with the results of their actions. What I want to firmly emphasize is the following two very important points:

1. Caution, dear reader, with the wave of evangelical moralism spread in the spiritist environment! The Gospel is indeed very important, but Spiritism must be studied to understand it well. There are many "wolves in sheep's clothing” who hide under the words of the Gospel, but who actually spread ideas contrary to him.
2. We have been absorbed for a long time in inaction and in the absence of studies. This is why false ideas spread at a gallop. IT'S our responsibility, facing the doctrine and ourselves, study it, apply its moral consequences in our own lives and spread it in its essence! We can no longer accept that such ideas continue to be disseminated in the spiritist environment, undermining the Doctrine from the inside out!

the spiritist does not study not even the Gospel According to Spiritism, because, if study, could be on guard. It is not for nothing that Saint Louis expresses himself in this way, about false prophets:

If they say to you: “Christ is here”, don't go; on the contrary, be on your guard, because the false prophets will be numerous.. Do you not see that the leaves of the fig tree begin to whiten; you do not see its many shoots awaiting the time of flowering; and did not Christ say to you, Is a tree known by its fruit? If, then, the fruit is bitter, you already know how bad the tree is.; but if they are sweet and wholesome, you will say, “Nothing pure can come from an evil source.”

It is thus, my brethren, that you must judge; are the works that you must examine. If those who claim to be invested with divine power show signs of a mission of a high nature, that is, if they possess the highest degree of Christian and eternal virtues: charity, love, indulgence, the kindness that reconciles hearts; if, in support of the words, they present the acts, then you can say: These are really sent from God.

But be wary of honeyed words, be wary of the scribes and Pharisees who pray in the public squares, dressed in long robes. Be wary of those who claim to have a monopoly on the truth!

KARDEC, Allan. The gospel According to spiritism. My italics.

The Spirit of Erastus, in the same work, says the following:

False prophets are not only found among the incarnate. There are also them, and in much greater numbers, among the proud spirits who, appearing to love and charity, sow disunity and delay the work of emancipation of humanity, throwing their absurd systems through it, after having made their mediums accept them.. And, to better fascinate those whom they wish to deceive, to give more weight to their theories, they unscrupulously appropriate names that only men pronounce with great respect.

Ibid. Idem.

This exhortation, however, does not carry the meaning that we should not be on guard against the wolves in sheep's clothing, for it is they themselves who sow the disunity by throwing, in the midst of consoling ideas, the thorny fruit of the old religions. Kardec, by the way, highlights the need to keep away from these individuals, even when mediums:

It should be noted that when good spirits see that a medium is no longer well assisted and becomes, due to his imperfections, the prey of deceiving spirits, circumstances almost always arise that reveal his defects and distance him from serious and well-respected people. -intentioned, whose good faith could be lacquered. In this case, whatever faculties he possesses, his departure is not to be missed.

KARDEC, Allan. The Mediums' Book. 1862. Italics mine.

None of this means that we should fight with rudeness or hatred, on the contrary, because we would be in error too. But we must fight false ideas by disseminating true Spiritism, the one that is truly consoling. And how to do it? Understanding Spiritism and its context! It is necessary to understand Rational Spiritualism ((we recommend studying the book Small Elements of Morals, by Paul Janet, in addition to studying the work Autonomy: the never-told history of Spiritism, by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo, or following the several videos on this subject, with this author, on Youtube)), it is necessary to study the Doctrinal essence in its unadulterated works((as always, we recommend studying the works O Céu e o Inferno and A Gênesis according to the editions of the publisher FEAL, translated and commented, among others, by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo, as well as also following the study of these works in channel Spiritism for All)) and it is necessary to study the Spiritist Magazine, as we have done, in order to understand what Spiritism really is and how this doctrine was formed.

Finally, it's time to move. It is not only the spiritist milieu that lacks the recovery of the ideas of the moral theory developed by Spiritism and based on the Rational Spiritualism: is all mankind.

Do your part.

Root spiritism is to look at Allan Kardec, contextualized for knowledge of Rational Spiritualism and Animal Magnetism. It is not, in any way, adopting mystical ideas born from one's own or others' opinions, as unfortunately Eduardo Sabbag, from Espiritismo Raiz, has unfortunately done. Another individual with such great potential to help human progress, but who only sees the surface of Spiritism and favors delay, by spreading false ideas.

Tough times, those we live in. Everywhere, the spiritist doctrine of the most varied absurdities is undermined. Through the unwary, the unsuspecting and the great mass of resistant to the necessary study, Spiritism suffers as much as Isaac Newton's Physics would suffer if there were no Physics scholars to defend it against ideas such as the non-existence of the Law of Gravity or how Astronomy would suffer if there were no people to defend it against the ideas persistence of geocentrism or flat Earth.

Of course, the doctrinal basis will be understood more or less clearly, depending on the progress that the Spirit itself has made in this sense. This is what Kardec refers to when he says about innate ideas, which find, in many, full rational acceptance, because, for them, they are as natural as discovering that water vapor is the result of its evaporation. However, what is widely seen is that the absence of “instruct yourselves” leaves the ship adrift, at the whim of the wind.

“Spirits!, love one another, here is the first teaching. Educate yourselves, here is the second. All truths are found in Christianity; the errors that took root in it are of human origin. And behold, beyond the grave, in which you believed nothingness, voices come to cry out to you: Brothers! nothing perishes. Jesus Christ is the conqueror of evil, be the conquerors of wickedness!” – (Spirit of Truth. Paris, 1860.)

Allan Kardec – The Gospel According to Spiritism, Cap. VI, item 5.

The exhortation of the Spirit of Truth, when recommending “instruct yourselves”, makes clear the need to study the Spiritist Doctrine, the voices beyond the grave – which requires scientific methodology. But the “spiritists” forgot who Allan Kardec was. They buried their work, next to their body, and began to limit themselves to knowing the basics of the essentials: the law of reincarnation and our relationships with the Spirits. Even this, however, did not survive the absurd ideas unscathed, as reincarnation, with a consoling law, was filled with ideas of sin and punishment, and our relationships with the Spirits lost their former objective of enlightenment, becoming, again, in the same type of relationship that, amazingly, man had with the Spirits before of the coming of Christ.

932. Why, in the world, so often does the influence of the bad overcome that of the good?“

Because of their weakness. The bad are intriguing and daring, the good are shy. When they want it, they will prevail.” (The Spirits’ Book)

Yes, the scenario of the Spiritist Movement is sad. With the death of Allan Kardec, we are not only going back decades, but millennia, therefore, without the necessary instruction, we once again allow ourselves to be subjugated by the ideas that imprison consciences and, consequently, of progress. The Doctrine was emptied of its philosophical aspect.

The “spiritist” responds to the census, saying, “this is my religion”, but he does not know that what he claims to embrace is a science, and not a religion. He says he reads and studies it, but he has never studied Kardec in depth: he prefers to read novels, full of ideas from both sides, no matter how absurd they may be. He retired his reasoning and, with it, his own autonomy, in a scenario that, for him, seems much more comfortable – without knowing, however, that it is also one of the most painful. He embraces the ideas of karma, “law of return”, “law of action and reaction” and accepts mediumistic prophecies without even questioning his own conscience. And, finally, when he is presented to reason, by the few who try to demonstrate true Spiritism, the one that Kardec studied, dedicating his life, health and resources, finally, when he gets attention, he fights fiercely to keep clinging to the halter that leads him .

It desolates us to leave the cave, attracted by the light, to see that, everywhere, that light is muffled by the dust and the webs of old religious concepts. It hurts to see unconscious consciences, trapped in materialistic and petty concepts, without the ability, by choice, to see how much they suffer from ignorance!

Look at that one! At your side, a kind Spirit, full of light, breathes good advice into your ears. It leads you, in a moment of mental elevation, to the door of knowledge. Someone invites you: “Shall we study?” But the light goes out of his conscience: “who is this to tell me to study? Already read The Spirits' Book and I've already gone through the entire famous collection of that Spirit who taught about the threshold and spiritual life - although he wasn't even spiritualized. Furthermore, I am a medium and, in my astral travel, I see the truth with my own eyes!”

Look at that other one: he is a volunteer at the Spiritist Center, but he doesn't study. A mother, in full suffering, came to look for him: her son, born with physical disabilities, demands too much of his energy. Is tired. Your son is tormented daily under heavy commotions: screams, contortions. The volunteer tries to comfort her based on what he knows, and tells her that her son is suffering the law of action and reaction, as he was probably suicidal in his previous life. The woman is horrified and walks away: “who is this to say such a thing about my beloved son? This Spiritism is useless!”.

There goes one more. She is desperate, because they told her, in a certain spiritist center, that the man she loves is her soul mate. It happens, however, that the man married another woman. What will become of her now? how can you live half? Better to end your own suffering, she thinks. In a flash of inspiration, she goes to the spiritist center of the previous case, where she talks to the same volunteer, who tells her that she must never think about committing suicide, because, if she does, she will spend years wandering on the threshold or in the valley of suicidal, and that she must endure this “ordeal”, as it must be the consequence of a past life debt. She did, regretfully, but, leaving there, she thinks: wouldn't it be better to suffer punishment there than to suffer here?

Here's a man: he's haunted by thoughts of self-destruction too. Hear voices: kill yourself, enough suffering, they say. He arrives at the same center. The boy diagnoses him with obsessors, orders him to say a famous prayer to drive away spirits and also recommends him to clean the house with indigo. The scenario does not change and, after a few months, the man ends up taking his own life.

Another day, another scenario, the volunteer is looking for a woman. She is suffering psychological and physical abuse from her husband, who, addicted to alcohol, returns home with the worst company. It exposes the whole scenario. The volunteer tells her that she must be suffering the consequence of the law of action and reaction, as she must have done her husband wrong in her past life. Therefore, he must bear everything with courage, in order to “redeem this debt”.

As we said, the scenario is, yes, a bit bleak. But, if we are aware of this, it is because we need to do our part, starting with studying, knowing, because the Spirit only advances in morality through its own will. conscious. Root spiritism is to look at Allan Kardec, contextualized by the knowledge of Rational Spiritualism and Animal Magnetism. It is studying it carefully, in its original pages, away from the adulterations of Heaven and Hell and Genesis. It is to understand and retake the philosophical and moral aspects of Spiritism, so that, living in our own lives, we are active parts, and no longer inoperative, in social transformation.

There are many speaking, writing, acting in the name of something called Spiritism on the poster, but which is essentially dogma, because there are still few studying and acting in the name of the Doctrine, inspired by the honest and conscientious model of Allan Kardec, a man who, with his effort, helped to form the Doctrine with the greatest capacity to leverage change in the world.

Spiritualists: instruct yourselves!

Janet was a contemporary of Allan Kardec. His works demonstrate, with excellence, the philosophical context in which the coder was inserted, making use of his concepts.

Many, when reading Kardec, suppose that he, due to the words he used in his works, was just reproducing ideas and concepts originating from the Catholic Church. Nothing could be further from the truth, as we will see below, because Kardec was, in fact, using the concepts widely widespread and understood in the midst of French cultured society, which, by the way, was the class that was most interested in the study of Spiritism.

Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo explains:

During the nineteenth century, what we call the human sciences were established from a spiritualist assumption for their constitution. Meanwhile, in the natural sciences, such as Physics and Chemistry, materialism predominated. This condition is very different from what we are used to today, when the university is almost completely guided by materialistic thinking.

This current of thought was known as Rational Spiritualism. For it was completely independent of formal religions and their dogmas. The fundamental basis was psychology, science of the soul, which had as a guideline: “The human being is an incarnate soul”.

As is explained at length in the book Autonomy, the untold story of Spiritism, Allan Kardec made psychology the conceptual basis for developing the Spiritist Doctrine. His monthly newspaper was the Spiritist Magazine, journal of psychological studies.

Rational Spiritualism was taught, since 1830, at the University of Paris, also at the Ecole Normale, where teachers were trained, and also at the Lyceums, in the education of young people. For these, there were manuals, like Paul Janet's. This manual has been translated into several languages and adopted in many countries, including Brazil.

This manual is of fundamental importance to understand the conceptual basis of Kardec's studies, especially regarding spiritist morals.

FIGUEIREDO, Paulo Henrique de. Paul Janet's Treatise on Philosophy. Portal do Espírito, July 22, 2019. Available at . Accessed on May 19, 2022.

Using, we said, the concepts of Rational Spiritualism, which was taught at the University of Paris and at the Escola Normal Superior in Paris, Kardec develops the most diverse philosophical concepts of the Spiritist Doctrine, in the light of the agreed teachings of the Spirits. Thus, it will give a deep development to the ideas of moral treated by these scholars, approaching the concepts of pain and pleasure, good and bad, to owe, disinterested charity, freedom, merit, punishment and reward. Let us, by way of illustration, demonstrate the construction of these last two concepts:

The reward and the punishment

in your work Small Elements of Morals, available for download, in PDF, in this link, Janet builds the various philosophical concepts that will support those of the reward and gives punishment. He expresses himself thus: "pleasure, considered as the consequence due to the accomplishment of good, is called reward, and pain, considered as the legitimate consequence of evil, is called punishment".

Pleasure, for him, is the quest to experience what life allows, and there would thus be good pleasures and bad pleasures, varying, in this interval, according to certainty, purity, intensity, duration, etc. Thus, the fugitive pleasure of drunkenness would be a bad pleasure, while the lasting pleasure of health would be a good pleasure:

There are pleasures that are very lively, but fleeting and fugitive, such as the pleasures of passion ((This is how the Oxford dictionary defines it: “in the Kantianism, violent emotional inclination, capable of completely dominating human behavior and moving it away from the desirable capacity for autonomy and rational choice. This is the meaning of passion, used by Kardec and the philosophers of his time)). There are others that are durable and continuous, such as health, safety, convenience, consideration. Will those pleasures that last a lifetime be sacrificed for pleasures that last only an hour?

JANET, 1870((JANET, Paul. Small Elements of Moral. Translation by Maria Leonor Loureiro. Paris, 1870))

Therefore, morally, the human being should always seek the good pleasures, that do not produce regrets, passing them over to the bad pleasures, which generate regrets and complications:

Experience teaches us that pleasures must not be sought without discernment and without distinction, that it is necessary to use reason to compare them with each other, to sacrifice the uncertain and fleeting present for a lasting future, to prefer simple and peaceful pleasures, not followed. of regrets, to the tumultuous and dangerous pleasures of passions, etc., in a word, to sacrifice the pleasant to the useful.

ibid.

It is clear, therefore, that the concept of reward, used in this context, is linked to the understanding of the joy of having performed an action linked to the good, while the punishment is the pain generated as legitimate consequence from evil. There is no attribution, therefore, to a mechanical imposition of a supposed “law of return” or “law of reparation”, by God or by the “Universe”, for bad action, as many insist on proclaiming, nor are there any rewards given for good action. Everything is a consequence moral, from the individual to himself, which necessarily depends on the knowledge of the Law:

In morals, as in legislation, no one takes advantage of ignorance of the law. There is, therefore, in every man a certain knowledge of the law, that is, a natural discernment of good and evil: this discernment is what is called conscience or sometimes the moral sense.

ibid.

However, for the individual to act morally, he must have free will:

It is not enough for man to know and distinguish between good and evil, and to experience different feelings from one to the other. It is also necessary, to be a moral agent, that man is capable of choosing between one and the other((Here the studies of Spiritism lead us to another understanding: in truth, man does not choose between good and evil, because, deep down , if you choose poorly, it is because you do not yet know the law. The Spirit that really knows and understands the Law of God only does good, always.)); You cannot order him what he could not do, nor prohibit him what he would be forced to do. This power to choose is freedom, or free will.

ibid.

But it is important to remember that man, as an incarnate soul, is a basic concept of Rational Spiritualism, as defined by Janet, in the same work:

Every law presupposes a legislator. The moral law will therefore presuppose a moral lawgiver: this is how morality elevates us to God. Every human or earthly sanction being shown to be insufficient by observation, the moral law needs a religious sanction. This is how morality leads us to the immortality of the soul.

From all this, the understanding of vice and virtue is born:

Human actions, we said, are sometimes good and sometimes bad. These two qualifications have degrees, because of the importance or difficulty of the action. This is how an action is convenient, estimable, beautiful, admirable, sublime, etc., on the other hand, bad action is sometimes a simple fault, sometimes a crime. It is reprehensible, base, hateful, execrable, etc.

If, in an agent, the habit of good deeds be regarded as a constant tendency to conform to the law of duty, that constant habit or tendency is called virtue, and the contrary tendency is called vice.

ibid.

Evil, however, is a judgment of oneself (no one can do harm to another((According to the rational principle of autonomy, developed so far, the individual can only commit physical harm against another, but never moral harm. A subject can stealing someone else's belongings, which will cause him some difficulties, but, in truth, he does harm to himself, as he violates the moral law, for which he will suffer depending on his state of consciousness. The victim, for his Once, apart from the material setback, she may or may not do harm to herself, depending on whether or not she clings to what happened and generates some suffering for herself. This will also depend on her awareness of the moral law))), which depends on the awareness of what one does:

The judgment that is made from yourself It differs according to the principle of action that is admitted. He who lost at the game may feel distressed about himself and his recklessness ((In other words: he may realize that he did himself wrong by losing money at the game)); but he who is conscious of having cheated in the game (even though he has won by that means) must despise himself when he judges himself from the point of view of the moral law ((Because, when he becomes aware of what he has done, he realizes that he has harmed the another, and this makes him remorse)).

ibid.

And then, a little further on, still in the same work, Janet develops the understanding of moral satisfaction and repentance:

Regarding our own actions, feelings change depending on whether the action is to be done or already done. In the first case, we feel, on the one hand, a certain attraction to the good (when the passion is not strong enough to suffocate it), on the other, a repugnance or aversion to evil (more or less attenuated according to circumstances by the habit or violence of the desire). These two feelings were not usually given particular names.

When, on the contrary, the action has been performed, the pleasure that results from it, if we act well, is called moral satisfaction, and if we act badly, remorse or regret..

Remorse is the burning pain, and, as the word indicates, the wound that tortures the heart after a reprehensible action. This suffering can be found in the very ones who have no regrets for having done wrong and would do it again.. It has, therefore, no moral character, and must be regarded as a kind of punishment inflicted on crime by its very nature. “Malice, said Montaigne, poisons itself with its own poison. Addiction leaves as it were an ulcer in the flesh, a regret in the soul, which is always scratching and bleeding itself.”

Repentance is also, like remorse, a suffering born of wrongdoing; but there is added to it the regret for having carried it out, and the desire (or the firm resolution) not to carry it out any more..

For Janet, then, remorse would not yet be the suffering generated by regret, but just a certain torture for carrying out the reprehensible action. In other words, one does not suffer because evil has been done, but only because what has been done is reprehensible. And then, Kardec, in Heaven and Hell ((Always remembering that this work was tampered with and mutilated starting from the fourth French edition, which served as the basis for all other editions and translations. The topics covered in this article were those that suffered most from these adulterations)), speaking of punishment, which has, for Janet, the same meaning as punishment ((Says Janet: “The idea of punishment or punishment would also not be explained if the good were only the useful. You don't punish a man for having been unskillful; you punish him for having been guilty”)), it is expressed as follows:

The duration of the punishment is subject to the improvement of the guilty spirit. No condemnation for a fixed time is pronounced against him. What God requires to put an end to suffering is the repentance, expiation and reparation – in short: a serious, effective improvement, as well as a sincere return to the good.

KARDEC, Allan. Heaven and hell. Translation by Emanuel G. Dutra, Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo and Lucas Sampaio. 2021.

In other words: God does not pronounce punishments or punishments against the individual. It is he himself who punishes himself, through legitimate consequences of the evil done. So, to end this suffering, you need to repent, in the first place, that is, identify that you have done something reprehensible (remorse) and add to that the regret of having done it (repentance, which is moral), as well as the desire to no longer do it. In order to reach this understanding, it is necessary for the Spirit to advance in intelligence and, in order to repair the harm done (which it is already clear that he has committed against himself, and not against others, from which it follows that he must repair in itself the origin of this evil), Spiritism demonstrates, without the possibility of error, the existence of the law of reincarnation.

All this, in short, to understand the concepts of punishment and reward. Behold, in accordance with all the above, Kardec says, in an excerpt prior to the one mentioned above:

Punishment is always the natural consequence of the fault committed. The spirit suffers for the evil it has done, so that, as its attention is incessantly focused on the consequences of this evil, it better understands its inconveniences and is motivated to correct itself.

And then, because of all this, Kardec thus begins chapter IV of this work - The hell:

Man has always intuitively believed that the future life should be more or less happy in the ratio of good and evil practiced in this world. But the idea he has of this future life is in proportion to the development of his moral sense and the more or less just notion he has of good and evil. The penalties and rewards are a reflection of the instincts that predominate in him..

But it is worth remembering that, using these philosophical concepts of his time, Kardec, at the same time, developed them for the moral consequences of spirit science.

O spiritualism in Kardec

It is worth, before closing, to remember that Allan Kardec several times used the word spiritualism in your work. It is to Rational Spiritualism that he refers:

Whoever believes that there is something more in himself than matter is a spiritualist. It does not follow from this, however, that he believes in the existence of spirits or in their communications with the visible world. instead of the words spiritual, spiritualism, we use, to indicate the belief to which we refer, the terms spiritist and spiritualism, whose form recalls the origin and the radical meaning and which, for that very reason, have the advantage of being perfectly intelligible, leaving the word spiritualism its own meaning. We will say, therefore, that the doctrine spiritist or the spiritism its principle is the relations of the material world with the Spirits or beings of the invisible world. The adepts of Spiritism will be the spiritists, or, if you like, the spiritists.

As a specialty, the Book of Spirits contains the doctrine spiritist; in general, it is linked to the doctrine spiritualist, one of whose phases presents. This is the reason why it has the words in the header of its title: spiritual philosophy.

KARDEC, Allan. The Spirits' Book. 1857

This is, finally, proved by the following excerpt from the Spiritist Magazine of 1868:

The work of Mr. Chassang is the application of these ideas to art in general, and to Greek art in particular. We are happy to reproduce what the author of the Patrie review says about it, because it is further proof of the energetic reaction that takes place in favor of spiritualist ideas and which, as we said, every defense of rational spiritualism opens the way to Spiritism, which is its development, fighting its most tenacious adversaries: materialism and fanaticism.

KARDEC, Allan. Spiritist Magazine, November 1868

Conclusion

Here is clearly presented proof that we cannot know and understand Kardec's philosophy without understanding the philosophy and morals of his time, fully inserted in the context of French Rational Spiritualism, just as we cannot fully understand the spiritist science without understanding the sciences of Magnetism [by Mesmer] and Psychology (the latter also included in the ER, under the division of moral sciences).

It was clearly evidenced that Kardec no he used dogmatic religious concepts, but only words that, found in these concepts, were first re-signified under the philosophy of the time and, later, under the spiritist philosophy.

Therefore, it is very necessary to study and disseminate this knowledge. Once again, we invite the reader to study and distribute, in all possible spiritist media, the work referred to in this article, as well as the present text, which is the result of an effort made in this direction as well.

Cover image: Photo by Andrea Piacquadio at the pexels

The Spiritist Doctrine has suffered a lot because of individuals who think that, because read Kardec — which is quite different from study and understand Kardec, which requires other knowledge, properly contextualized, as is the case of Rational Spiritualism — they believe that they can put themselves in the position of teaching, in your own way, what Spiritism is and, worse, how are the concepts and themes that were not even approached or developed in the space of time in which Spiritism developed as it should be: as a science.

See: Spiritism is a natural law. As such, it has always existed and will always exist and, of this law, we know only a small part, the doctrine named Spiritism. Recognizing, however, that we know very little about this law of nature does not mean to say that what we know is invalid and, in certain respects, conclusive, as long as it is very well grounded, with certainty, in doctrinal concepts. It just means recognizing that the spiritist science is not concluded, but rather that it is the basis, just as the studies of Isaac Newton provided the basis for Physics.

Our role first must be that of a humble student, because, most of the time, we do not even understand all the concepts brilliantly developed by Allan Kardec in his works. In fact, knowing that his last two works, O Céu e o Inferno and A Genesis were tampered with and that Rational Spiritualism and Magnetism were almost erased by time, we have to recognize that we learned a lot wrong and that we failed to learn so many others.

What we have today, in general, is a very meager and superficial knowledge, in addition to being often distorted, of Spiritism “contained” in Kardec's works. As if that weren't enough, putting Kardec into oblivion, we started to admit as doctrinal other concepts that, in most cases, did not pass through the sieve of reason, nor the control of the scientific method, so well developed by the coder. And, armed with all this lack of knowledge, many have wanted to dictate Spiritism, according to their visions and conceptions. That is why, of what we are not sure about, because there is nothing conclusive in Spiritism, we cannot say anything, although we can say, paradoxically, that many certainties, which persist today in the spiritist movement, are not exact, like the existence of the threshold.

We don't go much further. Our texts and studies are full of notes and examples of everything we said above. We end up reaffirming: we are not teachers, but students, and we will never be closed to re-evaluating any idea or content that proves to be wrong or incomplete, according to an irrefutable and irrefutable logic of facts that, perhaps, we have come to not fully understand or know.

That's it, for the sake of humanity, which we invite everyone.

Did you know that Kardec has a real “treatise on social philosophy”? So it is. We will demonstrate this below, but first, let's talk a little about the current state of human society.

Much has been said about the moment we are going through: the social transformations, the commotions, the transition period we are going through towards a planet of regeneration. However, there is a huge shadow hovering over the collective imagination, accustomed to materialistic or emergency workers. It seems that wherever we look, there is nothing but sadness, pain and contempt. we get used to to look at our neighbor as an enemy, as someone willing to do us harm or, at best, to ignore our mere existence. It happens, however, that we are a society that is far from the essential concepts of spirituality and the good. We say we are spiritists, or spiritualists, to, however, for lack of studying Spiritism, materialize the world of spirits, which should be the target of consolation, away from the miseries of the flesh and, when we deal with human beings, we get used to forgetting that , inside and outside that body, there is a Spirit that commands everything, and that is the origin of all its action.

As we will see in Kardec, it is a false assumption to believe that “humanity is lost”, as many have heard. No: humanity is just distracted, because it has ceased to know what underlies moral development. Here's what we're going to recover, in this article.

We have forgotten, we have said, about Kardec, but we are also unaware of everything that was called moral elements, existing in Rational Spiritualism and so well defined by Paul Janet ((JANET, Paul. SMALL ELEMENTS OF MORAL)) to later serve as a basis and be developed, in practice, through the study of Spiritism. There was, with the rational spiritualists, the theory, based on reason, that the human being is an incarnated Spirit, responding to the laws of God, but it was mainly with Kardec that this theory was developed in a practical way, through the study of manifestations spiritists, a study that, at the hands of Allan Kardec, lasted for about twelve years, and which culminated in the most beautiful and elevated philosophical treatises that humanity has ever known, because they are based on ourselves, Spirits, on our journey towards the happiness.

Contained in the original pages of The Genesis ((We use the work by publisher FEAL, based on the 1st French edition, original)), before tampering post-mortem of its fifth edition, at the end of this work of scientific and moral content, there are Kardec's reflections on the social theme and the evolution of humanity. Let's go to it:

signs of the times

Under this title, Kardec begins chapter XVIII of the work, the last, and perhaps the most beautiful of all. Kardec, on the release date of this work, was just over a year away from his death. In it, he demonstrates that humanity inevitably follows the movement of progress, since it is a Law of Nature, that is, a Law of God, which never rests. According to Kardec:

Humanity has made undeniable progress so far. Men, by their intelligence, have reached results that they had never achieved in relation to Science, Arts and material well-being. They still have immense progress to make: to make charity, fraternity and solidarity reign among them in order to ensure their moral well-being.

Leaving the state of childhood, humanity entered a new era, where the necessary moral development would take place, destroying, in itself, all the passions, that is, anything that could give rise to imperfections:

It is no longer just the development of intelligence that is necessary for men, it is the elevation of feelings and, therefore, it is necessary to destroy everything that can over-excite selfishness and pride.

We need to understand that Kardec saw all of this with enormous optimism. Inserted in the context of Rational Spiritualism and Moral Sciences and with the rapid development and wide acceptance of Spiritism by educated men, he predicted that, with the exception of some difficulties, the moral revolution through Spiritism would take great strides. He could not have predicted, however, that, after his death, everything would take such an adverse turn, with the prohibition of the teaching of Moral Sciences in France, the deviation of the Spiritist Movement, mainly by Leymarie((To understand these facts well, it is important to read The Legacy of Allan Kardec, by Simoni Privato)), and the wars, finally, that just launched the world into the necessary search for care in daily survival — in other words, man had to worry much more about matters of matter , not having the opportunity, for a long time, to take care of the things of the Spirit.

Kardec believed that this period definitely marked a new moral phase for the human Spirit:

This is the period we enter from now on and will mark one of the main phases of humanity. This phase, which is currently being worked out, is the necessary complement of the previous state, as adulthood is the complement of youth. It could, therefore, be foreseen and announced in advance, so we can say that the times marked by God have arrived.

At this time, it is not a question of a partial change, of a renewal limited to a region, a people, a race; it is a universal movement that operates in the direction of moral progress. It tends to establish a new order of things, and the men who are its greatest opponents unknowingly contribute to this.

And then, he completes, as if he were talking exactly about the current moments, where philosophers fight spirituality:

It is at this precise moment, when one finds oneself excessively oppressed in one's material sphere, where intellectual life overflows and the feeling of spirituality flourishes, that men claiming to be philosophers intend to fill the void with doctrines of neantism ((Doctrine of nothingness, nihilism)) and materialism! Strange aberration! These men, who intend to boost humanity, strive to circumscribe it within the limits of matter, from which it seeks to escape. They hide the perspective of infinite life and say to him, showing the tomb: Nec plus ultra ((Latin expression meaning “nothing beyond!”))!

the social spirit

So, as we said, looking at the result of more than a hundred years of exacerbated materialism and denial of human spirituality, we see, in society, the evil of passions installed: war, violence, selfishness, pride, vanity, Avarice, in short, everything that is the result of not knowing something better and more important, takes over the social environment, where it is not possible to identify the Gospel maxim, “do to others what you would like to be done to yourself. – Don’t do to others what you wouldn’t want them to do to you.” We also live under a treaty of social philosophy, but it is materialistic and nihilistic!

Man, stuck in materialistic ideas, forgets that there is a future. He forgets that, in addition to the body, there is his true life, eternal life, which extends from far to infinity, and he ignores, therefore, that it is up to his efforts to live the good, by fulfilling the divine laws for himself and towards all others, sooner or later attain the happiness reserved for the good. Says Kardec:

By the law of the plurality of existences, man is related to what he has done and what he will do with the men of the past and those of the future; it can no longer say that it has nothing in common with the dead, for both of them meet constantly, in this world and in the next, to ascend together the scale of progress, providing mutual support. Fraternity is no longer restricted to a few individuals united by chance during the short, ephemeral duration of a life, but is perpetual like the life of the Spirit, universal like humanity, which constitutes a great family where all the members are in solidarity with one another. others, whatever the time in which they lived.

Now, how to wish for a fraternal humanity if it lives today, wishing for tomorrow, only with the purpose of supplying its individual material needs and pleasures, ignoring that, in addition to pains and joys, inherent to matter, the Spirit continues, so evolved how much did you try to do? See: the action of the Spirit with society is not an imposition, but a consequence, because the one who understands and starts to live the good in itself, out of moral obligation, extends a helping hand to others:

Fraternity will be the cornerstone of the new social order, but there is no real, solid and effective fraternity without being supported by an unshakable foundation. That basis is faith; not faith in this or that particular dogmas that change with the times and peoples and stone each other, because, by cursing each other, they maintain antagonism. But faith in fundamental principles that everyone can accept: God, the soul, the future, UNLIMITED INDIVIDUAL PROGRESS, THE PERPETUITY OF RELATIONS BETWEEN BEINGS. When men are convinced that God is the same for all; that God, sovereignly just and good, cannot will anything that is unjust; that evil comes from them and not from Him, then all will be considered children of the same Father and will stretch out their hands to one another.

Regarding the materialism of his time, Kardec says that “a no less characteristic sign of the period into which we have entered is the evident reaction that takes place in the direction of spiritualist ideas. ((The reaction to spiritualist ideas occurred in opposition to the post-French Revolution materialist period, represented by ideologists (Destutt de Tracy, Cabanis, Volney, etc.). Rational spiritualists, after 1830, such as Royer-Collard, Victor Cousin, Théodore Jouffroy, among others, established Philosophical Sciences at the University of Paris (and in schools), including Theoretical and Practical Morals, Experimental Psychology, Theodicy, considering the human being as an “incarnated soul”. According to Kardec, Spiritism is found among these Sciences, giving them development. (N. do E.))); an instinctive repulsion manifests itself against materialistic ideas“. Today, on the contrary, we see materialist ideas being defended on all sides. However, we see another movement: society, more and more, rejects the dogmatic ideas of religions, causing a massive emptying of the ranks of religious organizations - including the Brazilian Spiritist Movement, which has become a religion, full of dogmas. It is interesting to note that the religions that still hold some attraction for people are precisely those that spend more time cultivating materialistic ideas than the other way around.

This is actually a move positive. We cannot forget that the spiritualist movement, which gave rise to Rational Spiritualism and, later, to Spiritism, was born in opposition to the materialist ideas of its time, which, in turn, were also born in opposition to the dogmas of religions. Man became materialist because he had nothing better to believe in, until spiritualist and spiritist philosophies developed - which is precisely why they gained so many followers in a short time and among the most educated classes of society.

The movement that is operating in the present, after a gigantic fall that lasted for more than a century, also leads to this result, and we can already see nascent signs of this work that is being carried out, and the recovery of spiritualist philosophy and science spiritism and magnetism are the first steps to support all this:

The new generation will march towards the realization of all humanitarian ideas compatible with the degree of progress at which it has reached. Spiritism, advancing towards the same goal and achieving its objectives, will meet it again on the same ground. Men favorable to progress will find in spiritist ideas a powerful resource, and Spiritism will find, in new men, spirits fully willing to accept it. Faced with this combination of circumstances, what can anyone who wants to stand in your way do?

Spiritism did not create social renewal, because the maturity of humanity makes this renewal a necessity. For its moralizing power, for its progressive tendencies, for the elevation of its purposes, for the generality of the questions that it embraces, Spiritism is, more than all other doctrines, able to support the regenerating movement.

Curious: at certain moments, it seems that Kardec is writing about the current moment. The scenario repeats itself: humanity, not having been able to take advantage of the development of spiritualist ideas, has only been delayed. But, as always, having known the height of evil, man begins to seek new answers to his moral desolation.

The age of regeneration: the stretch we didn't know

In the tampering of this conclusive work, the losses were enormous, especially due to the numerous deletions carried out. If you wish, compare this last chapter and you will see how much it has been mutilated. In the original version, there is a very deep thought, but also hard, by Allan Kardec, regarding the resistance found by Spiritism, among those who are definitely not ready for this order of ideas, because their spiritual age has not yet achieved such resourcefulness. Follow:

Saying that humanity is ripe for regeneration does not mean that all individuals are on the same level, but many have, by intuition, the germ of new ideas that circumstances will make blossom. Then, they will show themselves to be more advanced than one might suppose and will diligently follow the majority's initiative((The majority of individuals are just distracted. They are not necessarily bad, nor do they use their intelligence for evil, but they just don't use it for the good. give them better things, and they will quickly come to reason again)).

There are, however, those who are essentially refractory to these ideas, even among the most intelligent, and who will certainly not accept them, at least in this lifetime.; in some cases, in good faith, out of conviction; others out of interest. sThey are those whose material interests are linked to the current situation and who are not advanced enough to give them up, because the general good matters less than their personal good. – are apprehensive at the slightest reform movement. Truth is a secondary matter for them, or, rather, the truth for certain people lies entirely in that which does not cause them any trouble. All progressive ideas are, from their point of view, subversive ideas, and for that reason they have an implacable hatred for them and make an obstinate war against them. They are intelligent enough to see in Spiritism an aid to progressive ideas and the elements of transformation that they fear and, because they do not feel up to it, they strive to destroy it.. If they thought him worthless and unimportant, they wouldn't worry about him. We have already said it elsewhere: “The more grandiose an idea is, the more it finds opponents, and its importance can be measured by the violence of the attacks to which it is the object”.

The number of stragglers is still large, no doubt, but what can they do against the rising wave, but throw a few stones at it? This wave is the generation that rises, while they disappear with the generation that leaves each day with great strides. Until then, they will defend the ground step by step; there is, therefore, an inevitable struggle, but an unequal struggle, because it is that of the decrepit past that falls in rags against the young future; of stagnation against progress, of the creature against the will of God, because the times appointed by Him have arrived.

Unfortunately, for all that happened, intelligent but refractory individuals found space to spread their ideas that, today, hinder the progress of humanity. The laggards, “neither here nor there”, having nothing to inspire, just remained, for the most part, laggards. They are spirits that, many times, do not want evil, but do not have any understanding of what is good and the need for their own transformation, which is why they fall into the tale of materialism, operating as masses in favor of the former.

the planet of regeneration

Many believe that the planet of regeneration will be reached by a divine imposition, where, in a magic pass, the bad ones will be expelled and the good ones will conquer their deserved paradise. Nothing further from the truth (and from reason). Kardec highlights that

For men to be happy on Earth, it must be populated only by good spirits, incarnate and disembodied, who only want the good. That time having arrived, a great emigration will take place at that time among its inhabitants. Those who do evil for evil and are not touched by the feeling of good, being no longer worthy of the transformed Earth, will be excluded, because they would bring discord and confusion again and would be an obstacle to progress. These will atone for their hardening, some in inferior worlds, others among backward terrestrial races that will be the equivalent of the inferior worlds, where they will take their acquired knowledge and whose mission will be to advance them. They will be replaced by better spirits who will make justice, peace and fraternity reign among them.

Planet Earth will only change for the better when the Spirits that incarnate on it have changed for the better. This transformation will not take place in an instant, however: it takes place on a daily basis, in the process of disincarnation and incarnation of Spirits, because a part of the Spirits that previously incarnated here, will no longer incarnate, as they are no longer able to live here.

This, of course, demonstrates the slowness of this process. However, this process can be leveraged by a new order of ideas, which are those of Spiritism, which was born precisely for this:

The new generation, having to establish the era of moral progress, is distinguished by a generally precocious intelligence and reason, added to the innate feeling of goodness and spiritualist beliefs. It is the indisputable sign of a certain degree of earlier advancement. It will never be composed exclusively of eminently superior spirits, but of those who, having already progressed, are willing to assimilate all progressive ideas and able to support the regenerating movement.

We must not believe, however, that all the laggards will be expelled from the Earth, although this idea pleases many of us, as we think that this would be better, in order to let's get rid of of those who embarrass the general happiness. We need to recognize that it is a very petty thought and, also, lacking in reason. Explain the encoder:

It is not to be understood by this emigration of Spirits that all those laggards will be expelled from Earth and relegated to inferior worlds. On the contrary, many will return, because they had yielded to the influence of circumstances and bad example. In them, the appearance was worse than the essence. Once freed from the influence of matter and the prejudices of the corporeal world, most of these spirits will see things in a completely different way from how they saw them in life, which is in agreement with numerous examples. In this case, they are helped by benevolent spirits, who are interested in them and hurry to enlighten them and show them the wrong path they had followed.. By our prayers and exhortations, we ourselves can contribute to their improvement because there is a perpetual solidarity between the dead and the living.

Let's look at those who displease us, because we think we are superior. We recognize that, in many, there really are bad habits and imperfections that cause general discomfort. However, let's take a closer look at them: what's wrong with them? Often nothing. They are Spirits that, in the observed material life, forgetful of the greater purposes of evolution, are only absorbed in their worries or passing joys, as we have been so many times. They are not disgusting creatures, but only Spirits who, in the present life, could not learn and develop like others, but who, even so, have the sympathy of good Spirits and should also have ours, so that, leaving our selfishness , we can extend the friendly word to them, if possible knowledge and, at least, good thought, through prayer. Can you imagine the joy of seeing, tomorrow, reincarnating with us, the one who used to cause restlessness, now more concerned with the good and its need for progress?

The regeneration of humanity does not absolutely need the integral renewal of the Spirits, since a modification in their moral dispositions is enough. This modification takes place among all those who are predisposed, whenever they are withdrawn from the pernicious influence of the world. Therefore, those who return are not always other Spirits, but often the same Spirits, thinking and feeling differently.

The cataclysms, the mass deaths, far from serving to fulfill a “collective karma” (sic ((This is complete nonsense, an idea that was never in the Spiritist Doctrine and, moreover, something irrational, as we have already discussed in this article), comply with the laws of Nature. Yet they accelerate social change:

When this improvement is isolated and individual, it goes unnoticed and has no overt influence on the world. Another effect occurs when improvement takes place simultaneously on large masses, for then, according to the proportions in a generation, the ideas of a people or a race can be profoundly modified.

This is what is almost always noticed after the great calamities decimate the populations. Destroying scourges only destroy bodies, but do not affect the Spirit. They activate the movement of entry and exit between the corporeal and the spiritual world and, consequently, the progressive movement of incarnate and disincarnate Spirits. It is worth noting that, at all times in history, great social crises have been followed by eras of progress.

Conclusion

It is very clear, therefore, that social changes will not take place by the order of imposition, nor politics, nor that of weapons, nor that of human laws, and even less, by the action of the “finger of God”, who in no way interferes with our progress.

No: social advancement will be a consequence of moral advancement, and this will only happen by retaking, precisely, the forgotten morality, and will be boosted if it is combined with the practical knowledge brought by Spiritism, capable of causing a revolution of ideas at the individual level. and then to society. Is obvious, from the above, that this revolution of ideas is linked to the moral transformation of the individual, and not to the use of this or that political bias — it bears repeating.

Don't let yourself fall into that snare either. In your meetings, carefully put away everything when it comes to politics and irritating matters. In this respect, discussions will only cause embarrassment, while no one will have anything to object to morality, as long as it is good.

Look for in Spiritism what can improve you. Here's the essentials. When men are better, really useful social reforms will follow naturally. By working for moral progress, you will lay the truest and most solid foundations of all improvements.

Spiritist Magazine — Journal of Psychological Studies — 1862 > February > Response to the New Year's Message from the Lionesses Spiritists

In other words, it's no use taking the stage or going to the streets with posters asking for change, when we ourselves are not doing our part. Change modifies by example, it is contagious, because everyone wants to be happy (that's why, mixing joys with happiness, the Instagram profiles of rich and “well-to-do” people gain so many followers).

Let us, therefore, take care of improving ourselves, for the moral consequence that all the study of Spiritism has. Let us also take care to do our part: to study this Doctrine, with dedication, in order to understand it well, spreading its real face of consoling science, far from dogmas and ideas that materialize and imprison the Spirit in the false concepts of sin, punishment, etc. Let us strive to recover the knowledge of the great spiritualist philosophers, but also the forgotten knowledge of Magnetism. Let us strive to bring these concepts to society as well, starting with making an effort to make, from early childhood education, something better, more autonomous and cooperative, fraternal, away from the ideas of punishment, rewards and "ways", based, in short, , in the education of great humanist thinkers, such as Rousseau and Pestalozzi, who excelled in reason and humility in the pursuit of answers, through the scientific method… And, then, we will be tracing a new path for social change.

Cover photo: INTERNATIONAL SPIRITIST COUNCIL (CEI) – https://cei-spiritistcouncil.com/obras-de-allan-kardec-para-download/

SOURCE OF GOOD AND EVIL
Extracted from A Genesis, 4th edition, FEAL — Allan Kardec

1. God being the beginning of all things, and that beginning being all wisdom, all
goodness and all righteousness, whatever comes from him must share these attributes, for the
who is infinitely wise, just, and good cannot produce anything unreasonable, evil, and unjust. The evil we observe cannot have originated from him.

2. If evil were in the attributions of a special being, be he called Ahriman, or Satan, of two, one: either he would be equal to God and, consequently, also powerful and eternal, or he would be inferior.

In the first case, there would be two rival powers, fighting incessantly, each seeking to undo what the other is doing, opposing each other. This hypothesis is irreconcilable with the harmony that is revealed in the order of the Universe.

In the second case, being inferior to God, this being would be subordinate to him. Not being able to be eternal like him without being his equal; could only have been created by God. If it was created, it could only have been by God. In that case, God would have created the Spirit of evil, which would be a denial of his infinite goodness.

3. According to a certain doctrine, the evil Spirit, created good, would have become evil, and God,
to punish him, would have condemned him to remain eternally evil, giving him the mission of
seduce men to lead them into evil. Now, with the possibility of a single fall ((The fall, for dogmatic religions represents an event in which man, in his origin, committing a serious offense against God, losing his original sanctity, justice and wisdom, falling through punishment in his present condition: with suffering, ignorance, drift into sin and death. In other words, there would be degradation of the soul. The Spiritist Doctrine, based on the concept of the evolution of the soul from being simple and ignorant due to its effort, establishes its theory through this solid logic. (N. do E .))) cost them the cruelest punishments for eternity, without hope of forgiveness, there would not only be a lack of kindness. However, a premeditated cruelty, because, to make the seduction easier and better hide the trap, Satan would be authorized to to transform himself into an angel of light and to simulate the works of God, even to the point of deceiving. Thus, there would be more iniquity and improvidence on the part of God, because giving Satan all the freedom to emerge from darkness and surrender to worldly pleasures to drag men, the provoker of evil would be less punished than the victims of his tricks, for these, falling through weakness, once into the abyss, they can no longer come out. God refuses them a glass of water to quench their thirst, and throughout eternity, with the angels, He hears their groans, without being moved, while allowing Satan all the pleasure he desires.

Of all the doctrines on the theory of evil, this is undoubtedly the most irrational and the
most offensive to the deity. (To see Heaven and Hell according to Spiritism.
First part, chapter IX, The demons.)

4. However, evil exists and has a cause.

There are several classes of evil ((At the time of Allan Kardec, the Philosophy taught at universities, in normal schools (currently teaching) and in colleges was rational Spiritualism. In the discipline of theoretical morality (one of the Philosophical Sciences), it was taught to difference between physical and moral evil, to demonstrate a revolutionary theory based on personal freedom, contrary to the dogma of the fall and divine punishment of ancestral religions and external coercion, by materialism: “Physical evil consists of pain, illness, death . They are inevitable consequences of the organization of sentient beings, an essential stimulant for their activity. Moral evil is the fundamental condition of freedom. Without evil, good is not possible in the world, because if man could not make mistakes, he would not be free nor would I be able to do good. This life is a time of trial and, without physical and moral evil, there is no place for courage, patience, dedication and other virtues.” (Le Mansois-Duprey. Cours de Philosophie Élémentaire em L 'école normale: journal de l'enseignement pratique. v. 13. Paris: Larousse et Boyer, 1864. p. 235.) Spiritist moral theory was a development of rational Spiritualism: “Spiritism rests, therefore, on general principles independent of all dogmatic questions. It has, it is true, moral consequences like all Philosophical Sciences.” (Spiritist Magazine, 1859.). (N. do E.))). Firstly, there is physical evil and moral evil. We can also classify evils into those that man can avoid and those that are independent of his will. Among the latter, it is necessary to include natural scourges.

Man, whose faculties are limited, cannot understand all of them or encompass all the Creator's designs; he judges things from the point of view of his personality, interests and artificial conventions he has created for himself, which do not belong to the order of nature. That is why, in general, what he would consider just and admirable, if he knew its cause, its objective and the final result, seems to him harmful and unjust. By investigating the reason for being and the usefulness of each thing, you will recognize that everything has the imprint of infinite wisdom and will bow before that wisdom, even in relation to things that you do not understand.

5. Man has been given an intelligence by which he can ward off, or at least
greatly diminish the effects of natural scourges. The more knowledge you acquire and
advances in civilization, the less these calamities are disastrous. with wise organization
social, may even neutralize their effects, when they cannot be fully
avoided. In this way, for the same scourges which are useful in the general order of nature and for the future, but which attack us in the present, God has given to man, with the faculties with which he has endowed his Spirit, the means to paralyze their effects.

Thus, man cleanses unhealthy regions, neutralizes pestilent miasmas, fertilizes
uncultivated lands, preserves them from flooding; healthier houses are built, stronger to withstand the winds, so necessary for the purification of the atmosphere, and protection from the climate. It is thus, finally, that, little by little, necessity made him create the Sciences, with the help of which he improves the conditions of habitability of the globe and expands the whole of its well-being.

As man must progress, the evils to which he is exposed constitute an incentive for the exercise of his intelligence and of all his physical and moral faculties, inviting him to research the means to avoid them. If he had nothing to fear, none
necessity would drive him to seek the best; he would numb himself in the inactivity of his mind; I wouldn't invent or discover anything. Pain is the sting that pushes man forward, on the path of progress..

6. But the most numerous evils are those created by man through his own vices;
from your pride, your selfishness, your ambition, your greed, your
excesses in all things. This is the cause of the wars and calamities that cause
disagreements, injustices, the oppression of the weak by the strong, and, finally, most diseases.

God has established laws full of wisdom, the aim of which is good. man finds
in itself all that is necessary to follow them. Your path is traced by your
conscience, and the divine law is engraved in his heart. Furthermore, God remembers him,
constantly, by its messiahs and prophets, by all the incarnate spirits that
received a mission to clarify, moralize and contribute to their improvement, as well as
as, in recent times, by the multitude of disembodied spirits that manifest themselves on all sides. If men strictly conform to divine laws, there is noThe doubt that they would avoid the most serious evils, living happily on Earth. If he doesn't, it's because of his free will, and he must accept the consequences.

7. But God, full of goodness, placed the remedy on the side of the evil; that is, from evil itself it gives birth to good. There comes a time when the excess of moral evil becomes intolerable and makes man feel the need to change his life. Instructed by experience, he feels obliged to look for the medicine he needs in the good, always by virtue of free will. When he takes a better path, it is of his own volition and because he has recognized the disadvantages of the other road. Necessity compels him to improve morally in order to be happier, as this same necessity compelled him to improve the material conditions of his existence.

it can be said that evil is the absence of good, as cold is the absence of heat. The evil
it is no longer a distinct attribute, any more than cold is a special fluid; one is the
denial of the other. Where good does not exist, there is necessarily evil. Not doing evil is already the beginning of good. God only wants good, evil only comes from man. If there were in Creation a being in charge of evil, man could not avoid him. However, having the cause of evil in yourself and, at the same time, having his free will and the divine laws for his guide, he will avoid it when he will.

Let's take a common fact by comparison: an owner knows that, at the
of your land, there is a dangerous place where you can be injured or die. What do you do to avoid
accidents? Place, near the place, a sign to move away, because of danger. This is the law; she is wise and provident. If, in spite of this, a reckless person ignores the warning and has an accident, who could be held responsible but himself?

So it is with evil. Man would avoid it if he observed divine laws.
God, for example, has placed a limit on the satisfaction of needs; the man is
warned by satiety; if he goes beyond that limit, he acts voluntarily. The illnesses, the bodily weaknesses, the death that can result are your doing, not God's.

8. Evil being the result of man's imperfections, and man created by God, they will say, that if he did not create evil, at least he would have created the cause of it. If I had created the perfect man, evil would not exist.

If man had been created perfect, he would be fatally inclined towards good. Now,
by virtue of his free will, he does not inevitably tend towards either good or evil. God wanted him to be subjected to the law of progress, and for this progress to be the result of his own work, so that the merit would be his, even though he is responsible for the evil he commits by his will. The question, therefore, is to know what, in man, is the origin of his propensity to evil((The error consists in claiming that the soul came perfect from the hands of the Creator, when he, on the contrary, wanted perfection to be the result of the gradual refinement of the spirit and its own work. God wanted the soul, by virtue of its free will, to be able to choose between good and evil, reaching its ultimate ends through a dedicated life and resistance to evil. If he had created the soul with perfection in his likeness – and, leaving his hands, he had linked it to his eternal beatitude –, God would have made it, not in his image, but similar to himself, as already said. Knowing all things due to its essence and without having learned anything, but moved by a feeling of pride born of the awareness of its divine attributes, the soul would be induced to deny its origin, to ignore the author of its existence, remaining in state of rebellion against its Creator. (Bonnamy, investigating judge. The reason for Spiritism, chapter VI.) (Note by Allan Kardec.))).

9. If we study all passions, and even all vices, we see that they have their principle in the instinct of conservation. This instinct, in all its strength in animals and in the primitive beings that are closest to animal life, dominates alone, because, among them, there is still no counterbalance to the moral sense. The being has not yet been born for intellectual life. Instinct weakens, on the contrary, as intelligence develops, because it dominates matter. With rational intelligence, free will is born, which man uses at will: then only, for him, does the responsibility for his actions begin ((In the spiritist moral theory, free will arises after the development of rational intelligence. From this In this way, moral responsibility only begins there and gradually expands, in direct proportion to rational development. In animals and in beings that are still simple and ignorant, free will, moral sense and responsibility for their actions did not arise. These concepts Psychological approaches completely remove the dogmas of original sin, the fall and incarnation as punishment. The scientific hypotheses of selfishness and antisocial feelings innate in all individuals are also false. It brings encouragement, because the greater the intelligence, the greater the responsibility. Finally , for the full moral evolution of humanity it is necessary to guarantee for all individuals the opportunity for rational development through education. (N. do E.))).

10. The destiny of the Spirit is spiritual life. But in the early stages of its existence
bodily, he has only material needs to satisfy. For that purpose, the
exercise of the passions is a necessity for the conservation of the species and individuals,
materially speaking. However, coming out of this period, he has other needs, at first semimoral and semimaterial, and later exclusively moral. It is then that Spirit dominates matter. As he frees himself from his yoke, he advances through the proper life and approaches his final destination. If, on the contrary, he lets himself be dominated by matter, he delays and identifies himself with the irrational. In this situation, what was once a good, because it is a necessity of its nature, becomes an evil, not only because it is no longer a necessity, but because it becomes harmful to the spiritualization of the being.. Therefore, evil is relative, and responsibility is proportional to the degree of progress.

All passions have their providential utility, without which God would have done something useless.
and harmful. It is abuse that constitutes evil, and man abuses, according to his free will. Later, enlightened by self-interest, he freely chooses between good and evil.

March 31st. A date little known or little remembered in the Spiritist world, it is the day on which, in 1869, the beloved and emeritus professor, scientist, philosopher and scholar of Spiritist phenomena, Hypolite Leon Denizard Rivail, died - spelled that way, as he himself corrected , in a handwritten document, made available by CDOR. This was Allan Kardec, the one who dedicated the last years of his life and did, in little more than a decade, what few do in a lifetime: he obtained, through the rational and methodological observation of spiritist, natural and intelligent phenomena, an entire Doctrine, consoling in its essence and which, one day, will be recognized as the great revolution in human thought regarding life, society, charity and the truth about good.

the sad day

With a poetic beauty, Simoni Privato, in The Legacy of Allan Kardec, expresses it like this, about Kardec's death:

As he felt that his incarnation was passing quickly and he saw that his doctrinal tasks continued to increase, Allan Kardec avoided wasting time. […] There [at the Sainte-Anne Passage] worked from morning to night and often from night to morning, without even being able to rest, since he was just about to occupy himself with a work whose dimension can hardly be imagined and which increased as spiritism spread.

As the lease for the property on the Passage Sainte-Anne was about to expire, Allan Kardec intended to leave it on April 1, 1869 and retire to Villa Ségur, where he intended to concentrate more on the elaboration of doctrinal texts. On the same date, the office for subscription and dispatch of the Spiritist Magazine, as well as the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies would be transferred from Passagem Sainte-Anne to the headquarters of the Spiritist Bookshop, at 72 rue de Lille.

On Wednesday, March 31, Allan Kardec was at Passagem Sainte-Anne, organizing his books and papers for the move, which had already begun and should finish the next day. During the morning, he received an employee of a bookstore who wanted to purchase an issue of Revista Espírita. Upon handing him the copy, Allan Kardec suddenly lost consciousness and fell to the ground without having said a single word.

[…]

Until the last moment of his physical existence, Allan Kardec left deep teachings. He died as he lived: working for Spiritism. His industrious hands said goodbye to this world delivering the Spiritist Magazine — a periodical in which he recorded his teachings, his struggles, his victories and, in that last moment, his immortality.

[…]

In the cemetery, the curious tried to position themselves in the places where they could listen to the speeches. However, when the coffin descended to the bottom of the grave, emotion silenced the words; there was a great silence.

And this silence seems to have dragged on to the present day, in which most of the spiritist movement, in fact, does not know Allan Kardec and, much less, his work in the formation of the Spiritist Doctrine — Spiritism.

Allan Kardec forgotten

With great sadness, we can verify that, in the historical points that involve this great work, the name of Kardec does not exist, neither as Allan Kardec, nor as Rivail: it was erased by the time, as they did with all the scientists who dedicated themselves to study Spiritualism and Magnetism. There is no plaque dedicated to Kardec. There is no bust. There is no inscription on the wall or on the sidewalk, when, for much less, personalities of satirism or horror deserve a dedicated recording, under the light of the spotlight, on the sidewalks of fame that exist, around the world. Do not. On the streets of France, it seems that the only place where the dear professor deserves a memory is in the cemetery, as if out of obligation, and where, dead and buried, he doesn't attract anyone's attention with his “subversive” ideas.

But the big issue here is not just the forgetting of the figure of Allan Kardec, but his role as a spiritist scientist and his methodology, his honesty, his humility and his seriousness in the study of Spiritism. We do not worship Kardec, but we recognize his work and dedication. In a very pertinent parody, there are those who believe, today, that gravity is a great farce, for not having studied and understood the study of Isaac Newton, who started the physical sciences, as we know them today. It is the same with Spiritism.

An unknown doctrine

We said that the Spiritist Movement is unaware of Kardec and his work. Yes, in such a way that, in fact, to a large extent, they are unaware of the very Doctrine they claim to profess. Few know the enormous deviation that the Doctrine, or rather the Spiritist Movement, suffered after Kardec's death, at the hands of Leymarie and with the influence of Roustaing and his followers; few know that the works “A Genesis” and “O Céu e o Inferno” were tampered with, respectively in the 5th and 4th editions; few know that this influence spread and settled in the nascent Spiritist Movement, here in Brazil, right in its first steps; few know that Bezerra de Menezes himself, due to his religious inclinations, preferred Roustaguist ideas over spiritists and that, therefore, he spread them in Brazil; few know, still, that Kardec planned to start, from April 1869, a new phase of Spiritism, without centralizing figures or entities and without hierarchies, so that no one could dictate rules — a scenario totally different from what we live in our country. country, where, since the beginning of the Spiritist Movement, a Federation called itself centralizing and ruler — the same Federation that also put Roustaing above Kardec.

No Brasil, país onde o Espiritismo parece ter conquistado o maior número de adeptos, vivemos um movimento espiritista religioso, com rituais e paramentos, onde “o telefone só toca de lá para cá” virou lei e, pior, onde as ideias de pecado e castigo, carma, “lei de causa e efeito” ou “lei de ação e reação”, que Never were part of this Doctrine, they began to be taken as doctrinal.

I'm sorry, dear Chico, but, in the statement over the phone, he was wrong, or was misunderstood. However, the adepts err even more, who, due to lack of study and thoughtlessly, began to take the opinions of mediums and spirits as if they were the law or the unquestionable expression of truth and wisdom. That is why we reaffirm: the Spiritist Movement is unaware of Spiritism, since the fundamental point of the Doctrine is the one with which Kardec begins his latest work, A Genesis, presenting, right on the first page:

Generality and agreement in teaching, this is the essential character of the doctrine, the very condition of its existence, from which it follows that any principle that has not yet received the consecration of the control of generality cannot be considered an integral part of that same doctrine. It will be a simple isolated opinion, for which Spiritism cannot assume responsibility.

The Movement is much more unaware of the formation of the Doctrine, widely presented in the Spiritist Magazine (read This article), where Kardec, number after number, demonstrates several evocations of Spirits of the most diverse categories (according to the spiritist scale), asserting its usefulness. Kardec evoked assassins and scientists, wise and ignorant, suicides a few days after his death, kings and queens and, from all of them, he always obtained important teachings, which, progressively, through the method of seeking universal agreement, under the judgment of reason, common sense and human science, constituted a whole Doctrine and which later served as the basis for the formation of other works and for the complementation of The Spirits' Book.

The unknown tampering

But we cannot blame, at all, only the lack of commitment to study, as many studied, but studied without knowing that they were studying something adulterated, as was the case of A Genesis and Heaven and Hell[1]. Now, one of the most controversial points of OCI was born out of adulteration, as the following sentence did not exist in the original work, written by Kardec:

Every fault committed, every wrong done, is a debt that must be paid; if it is not so in one existence, it will be so in the next one or the following ones, because all existences are solidary with each other. He who discharges it in the present existence will not have to pay a second time.

Text inserted in the altered version of OCI, from the 4th edition

We know today, from historical documents, that not only these works, but the entire spiritist movement, under Leymarie's hands, was adulterated and subverted, in the name of money and vanity. One of the worst cases was the one known as “The Spiritist Process“, que manchou a reputação do Espiritismo na sociedade francesa.

The context of Allan Kardec

We also did not know the context of Kardec, where Rational Spiritualism and Moral Sciences gave base education, as we can largely verify in “Autonomia: the never-told history of Spiritism”, by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo, a work that also presents the purely autonomous face of Spiritism, completely removed from notions such as karma, widely present in the current Spiritist Movement. Not only that, we also have the issue of Magnetism, constantly cited by Kardec as the twin science of Spiritism, so that one without the other would be incomplete. Now, Mesmer, “father” of Magnetism, only came to be understood recently, through the recovery and translation of his works, culminating in the book Mesmer: The negated science of animal magnetism, by the same author.

Anyway: we need to recover Kardec. We need to study him in his works and in the Spiritist Magazine; we need to understand the context in which it was inserted; we need to know Magnetism; we need to understand Spiritism as a science, which in fact it is, and not as a religion, which never was, but under the understanding of natural religion, according to the understanding of Rational Spiritualism. And, understanding Spiritism in its essence, we need to make it leave the closed circles of spiritist centers, to make it conquer society through its renewing and truly consoling ideas. But for that, change needs to start with the individual, then spread to the family and society.

Kardec overcome?

Muitos pensam e afirmam o seguinte: “Kardec está superado no passado, então esqueçamo-lo e sigamos com o estudo dessas novas concepções que temos hoje”, o que é um erro profundo.

Spiritism is a science, both from the point of view of the French moral sciences, in the context of its birth, and from the point of view of a science of observation, which deduces, infers, analyzes empirically, as is very clear to all who study it in its sources. As a science, it has a foundation, without which it cannot advance. The Nuclear Physicist also needs to go through Newton, to later reach Einstein and, later, the current scientists.

In Spiritism, there are at least two things that have not changed in relation to our current state: morality and the Spirits. The first needs to be studied since Jesus, and even before, being one of the central proposals of Spiritism. The Spirits, on the other hand, continue to belong to that entire scale, proposed by Kardec and refined by the Spirits, and continue to communicate with us, influencing and leading us in the same ways they have always used. Since there is undeniably a science in this, it is necessary to study and understand it.

It is by forgetting Kardec that, today, pernicious, irrational and anti-doctrinal contents are accepted in the spiritist movement.

Do we have a lot to learn? Well, of course it is! And the Spirits teach us what we are ready to understand, according to the progress of our material science. Kardec “scratched” on such profound scientific matters, but which could not yet be understood. Imagine what he could achieve if, back then, we knew what we know today? Imagine, moreover, what a serious, elevated and honest researcher like him could obtain, according to current science, regarding everything that could not be explored in depth at that time?

But that, my dear ones, will only be done at the right time. That's why I echo Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo's words: let's study, study, study, until we get tired. Let's understand Spiritism in the Spiritist Magazine and in its complements. Let us study the works of Kardec, those of Bozzano, those that, today, study the context of Spiritism, inserted in Rational Spiritualism, and let us also study Mesmer's magnetism.

When we are ready, as in the past, the Spirits themselves will look for us and, who knows, they will need to turn tables and play invisible drums again in order to get our attention.

More motivation to study

And, if you still lack a motivation to delve into these studies, I leave you with the following reflection:

What keeps us from real happiness are our imperfections, our moral vices, our unbridled passions. Only the Spirit that conquered its imperfections, through the tests, and that developed its reasoning, through knowledge, manages to progress on the path of spiritual evolution. We all will, sooner or later, but the speed depends on the will of each one, based on reason, because only the Spirit that really you see, rationally.

Diz Kardec, em A Gênese: “Aquele que não domina as suas paixões pode ser muito inteligente, porém, ao mesmo tempo, muito mau. O instinto se aniquila por si mesmo; as paixões somente pelo esforço da vontade podem domar-se”.

However, that chapter ends here, in the 5th edition of this work (which formed the basis for all translations and future editions), which, we now know, has strong indications of having been tampered with. Taking the 4th edition, we have the following closing, all-important, omitted for tampering:

All men go through passions. Those who have overcome them, and are not, by nature, proud, ambitious, selfish, spiteful, vindictive, cruel, wrathful, sensual, and do good without effort, without premeditation and, so to speak, involuntarily, it is because they have progressed in the sequence. of their previous existences, having rid themselves of this uncomfortable weight. It is unfair to say that they have less merit when they do good, compared to those who fight against their tendencies. It turns out that they have already achieved victory, while the others have not yet. But when they do, they will be like the others. They will do good without thinking about it, like children who read fluently without having to spell. It is as if they were two sick people: one cured and full of strength while the other is still recovering and hesitates to walk; or as two runners, one of which is closer to the finish than the other.

Everything that we live, therefore, as the Doctrine shows us, it's never about punishment, but of opportunities for our evolution. Spiritism is autonomous in its essence — “In the eyes of God, repentance is sacred, because it is man who judges himself, o que é raro no vosso planeta” [RE — outubro de 1858].

If all that doesn't motivate you to study Kardec, we don't know what else would.

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1. The FEAL publishing house already has the translations of these works, according to the original text. The context of the tampering of A Genesis can be understood by reading the work O Legado de Allan Kardec, by Simoni Privato; the adulteration of O Céu e o Inferno can be understood in the work “Nem heaven, nor hell: The laws of the soul according to Spiritism”, by Lucas Sampaio and Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo