Presently, the Spiritist movement is experiencing a moment of great turmoil. We will highlight in this article one of the controversies that have called the attention of numerous confreres, which consists of the so-called “political issue”. The “party-political discussions”, to our knowledge, have never been on the agenda of doctrinal discussions, at least not as it has been happening recently in the Brazilian Spiritist movement. Surprisingly, the discussion about the political orientation of confreres, sectors or even the Spiritist Doctrine itself started to be regarded as a relevant “agenda item” of a significant part of the current movement.

Some Spiritist writers even propose or disclose expressions that show explicit political orientation and are directly related to the Brazilian political moment, such as “leftist Spiritists”, “rightist medium”, “progressive Spiritists”, “conservative Spiritists”and so on.

If we consider the moment of deep political rivalry (not to say hate) that thrives in Brazil, we will find the inconvenience of contaminating doctrinal debates with themes of Brazilian party politics.

We could mention Jose Raul Teixeira's beautiful reflections at conferences such as “The Spiritist Center and the dynamics of Love” and the 1994 COMEERJ, among others, when the remarkable speaker and medium, born in the city of Niteroi, reflected on the political debate, covering topics such as the land reform, which at that time threatened to permeate the Spiritist movement: "Relevant issues, yes, but not within the purview of Spiritism."

Does Spiritism - both understood as doctrine and as a movement – not have more pressing problems and issues to address?

If Spiritism fails to prioritize the discussion of laying on of the hands, magnetized water, Spiritual treatment, obsession, mediumship, soul immortality, evidence of soul immortality, moral transformation of the immortal Spirit, soul emancipation, perispirit, reincarnation, physical and moral suffering, evidence of reincarnation, Law of Progress, God, Spiritual World, Universality of Spirit Teaching, Gospel in the light of the Spiritist Doctrine, among many other items, will any other doctrine discuss these issues with a minimum of quality? And, on the other hand, do we want to give up this primary task of Spiritists?

If Spiritist leaders and expositors fail to emphasize the discussion about the quality of Spiritist lectures, study groups, published mediumistic and non-mediumistic books, Spiritist events, mediumistic meetings, spiritual pass, gratuitousness of religious work, checking the mediumistic legitimacy, among many other topics, will any other movement develop such a task?

Both the properly doctrinal questions and the organizational questions of our movement are in need of greater commitment, aiming for a better quality in their manifestations. Does not bringing the partisan political debate / clash, often of very low quality and unhappy behavior that permeates our entire society, into the Spiritist work environment constitute a disservice to the Spiritist cause?

In order to find some answers or at least signs of answers, we could draw on our maximum references: Jesus of Nazareth and Allan Kardec.

It would be a question to ask: Did Jesus found a political party? Did you explicitly position yourself on the politics of your day, spending too much time and making the political issue the core of your guidelines?

Nowadays, some Spiritualists may, unfortunately, answer yes, but I believe that the majority, coherently, would answer no. In fact, it was very difficult for Jesus to make himself understood because of our limitations at that time. In this context, Jesus did not want to be interpreted as a politician, which was not an easy scope to achieve, since at that time religious were fully associated with politicians. Still, the Master of Nazareth made a remarkable effort to make it clear that “His Kingdom was not of this world” and that He was not and would not be interpreted as a common politician.

Would it be consistent and reasonable to say that “Jesus was from the right” or “Jesus was from the left”? And would this kind of analysis be productive? Amazing as this may sound, some confreres seem to be inclined to this kind of discussion.

Jesus, the proponent of “give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's”, clarified the minimum necessary regarding the ideal ethical posture for a citizen who respects the state, current laws, and the authorities. Nothing else.

In fact, one of the main problems that the Master of Nazareth faced was precisely to make it clear, and to be understood at least by the closest Apostles and disciples, that He was not a “revolutionary or common politician”, and had no aspirations regarding any office or situations of political attribution. In addition, he emphasized that he no longer sought money, temporal power, or facilities to exercise his ministry, and urged his followers not to live up to such expectations.

On the part of the disciples and their contemporaries, it was very difficult to understand this proposal and some tried to misuse the Master for political purposes, even contributing to his arrest, trial and condemnation.

Surprisingly, for various Christian religious groups, this proposal of the Master Jesus remains so far misunderstood. This issue was not a problem in the Spiritist movement, at least until recently, but some are trying to change it. The question remains: will it be a change for the better?

Kardec, in turn, was advised by the phalanx Spirits of “The Spirit of Truth” not to sue the Bishop Dom Palau for the so-called “Act of Faith of Barcelona” and the consequent loss of approximately 300 Spiritist books. The process in question would not be a proper political attitude, but could, and probably would, have deep political implications (possibly even affecting the mindset of Spiritist confreres) and a clash in which the Encoder would spend time, labor, money, energy, intellectual effort and his already fragile health in something that was not a priority. According to the Spirits, let him, Kardec, spend all this on doctrinal elucidation. And that's what Allan Kardec did until he disembodied.

Would Kardec and / or the phalanx of the Spirit of Truth have been mistaken in their priorities?

In addition, Kardec warned the Spiritists not to lead the movement to annoying issues such as politics. Was the Encoder wrong again?

Some may claim that certain non-political positions are nonetheless political attitudes. To some extent this is true. However, such an argument is often misused to equalize all such attitudes with exaggerated, pamphleteering, and even partisan politics fanatics.

Spiritism is already an excessively fractional movement without going headfirst into these heated debates of circumstantial politics of our country. Interestingly, some promoters of this “new division” (the unprecedented political division) of our movement support the “union and / or unification” movements of the Brazilian Spiritist movement. Will such an initiative help achieve this goal?

The Spiritist, individually considered as a citizen, has the right to vote, to be voted and not to be voted, according to his free will. And we hope that the eventual more effective participation of some Spiritist in politics will be positive. However, dividing our movement into “leftist” and “rightist” is something else entirely different. Indeed, a conscious Spiritist who wants to position and fragment the movement as a whole with a partisan political orientation within the chaotic Brazilian party situation is difficult to assimilate.

Some claim that Allan Kardec has identified various types of Spiritists and even Spiritism. However, the fact that he identified such groups does not mean that Kardec encouraged or encouraged their formation. On the contrary, several passages of the Kardequian work demonstrate the effort of the Encoder to clarify very well the most diverse questions so that the Spiritist movement of his time and the future had the maximum unity. By the way, in the text called “My Successor” (see “Posthumous Works”), the communicating Spirit clarifies that it was really important that the beginning work was concentrated in the hands of one man, that is, Allan Kardec, so that the Doctrine would have maximum unity and consistency. It should be added that Kardec's identifications of currents in no way emphasize ideological aspects of the political realm.

Amid the political hatred, marked by various shades of folly and potentiated by the advent of social media, will bringing this discussion into the Spiritist movement generate any effective benefit in the lucidity of creatures that justifies the obvious risks of such initiatives?

Will Spiritism end up like other religious groups creating “Spiritist political parties” or even “Spiritist benches” in Congress? And if that happens, will we have the “left Spiritist bench” and the “right Spiritist bench”? And, finally, will this help to understand and practice the Gospel and the Spiritist Doctrine?

Let us remember Paul: “Everything is lawful for me. Not everything suits me”. And we also remember "The Gospel According to Spiritism: "When in doubt, abstain". Let us avoid, therefore, that our personal partisan political enthusiasm contaminates our doctrinal work with matters that, at the very least, are not a priority for quality doctrinal dissemination, which, according to Emmanuel, "is the greatest charity we can do for the Spiritist Doctrine."