Special

por Altamirando Carneiro

Spiritist Art and the man of the future

At the time of caves, man used music associated with dances, as gratefulness for the abundance of hunting, the fertility of the land and the victories in war.

As time went by, David - the second King of the Hebrews - did a lot to cultivate music among the Hebrews.

In Rome, at the time of Augustus, the most sought after Roman physician was Cornelius Celio, who prescribed musical auditions as a sedative. (Augustus was a title given by the Roman Senate to Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, great-nephew of Julius Caesar, whom he adopted as a son).

In ancient Greece, music was indicated as a remedy for all ills.

The Arabs believed in the effectiveness of sounds in preventing and fighting diseases. They believed that the sounds produced by the four strings of the lute had the gift of healing. It was said that each string of the lute corresponded to one of the fundamental elements: water, fire, earth and air.

Schumann, a German composer (1810-1856), felt Beethoven (1770-1827) - also German - at his side when composing his compositions.

The Brazilian doctor and composer Joubert de Carvalho, (1900-1977) author of songs like Maringa and Tai, in the same way that he felt hungry and thirsty, he felt music and poetry come together, as a universal manifestation.

Rosemary Brown (1916-2001), an English housewife who had no musical knowledge, received more than 400 music scores from Spirits like Liszt (most frequent contact), Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Grieg, Chopin, Schubert, Brahms, Schumann, Debussy, Berlioz, Rachmaninoff, among others. Some made contact frequently, others appeared only a few times. It all started at age seven, when Liszt promised that when she was an adult, he would give her a gift through music.

This is how mediumship gives us the opportunity to continue to admire the art of great composers, great writers, great poets, who did not die - just changed plans - bringing us their art, in the same style they had, when they were embodied.

This fact intrigues unbelievers and materialists. They argue that if great composers, great writers, great poets progress, why would they stay attached to their old styles, when they could (in the case of poets) pass poetry in modern style to Earth?

If they want, they will do it, but their intention is to dictate compositions, writings or poetry to the Earth in the same style they had in life, to better reach those who identify with them and worship their memory, through the works they left in Earth.

Another interesting side in mediumistic poetry is the fact that a disincarnated poet dictates poems through various mediums, from different cultural levels, maintaining the same style. Thus, one cannot doubt that it sure is that particular poet. An example of this are the poems of Castro Alves (the Spirit), dictated to mediums like Francisco Candido Xavier, Jorge Rizzini, Waldo Vieira and Dolores Bacelar. The same Spirit, different mediums, but the same unmistakable style.

Having reached this point, let us see the interesting subject in the Spiritist Magazine by Allan Kardec, in the December 1860 edition: it presents an interesting communication of the Spirit of Alfred de Musset, through the medium Miss. Eugenie.

- What will be the influence of poetry on Spiritism?

- Poetry is the balm that is applied to wounds. Poetry was given to man as the heavenly manna. All poets are mediums that God sent to Earth to regenerate His people a little and not let them become completely brutalized, because what is there more beautiful, that speaks more to the soul than poetry?

- Painting, sculpture, architecture, and poetry were, one by one, influenced by pagan and Christian ideas. Can you say if, after the pagan and Christian arts, one day there will be a Spiritist Art?

- You ask a question that answers itself: the worm is the worm; he becomes a silkworm; then, a butterfly. What is there more light, more graceful, than a butterfly? So! The pagan Art is the worm; the Christian Art is the cocoon; the Spiritist Art will be the butterfly.

We highlight excerpts from the explanation of the mentioned issue of the Spiritist Magazine about the content of this communication.

"The Christian Art had to be inspired by the terrible trials of the martyrs and put on the severity of its maternal origin; the Spiritist Art, represented by the butterfly, will be inspired by the vaporous and splendid pictures of the future existence that will be unveiled; the soul - that the Christian Art had focused on admiration and fear – will be full of joy, the song of joy after the battle.

When we say that the Spiritist Art will someday be a new art, we mean that the Spiritist ideas and beliefs will give the genius’ productions a particular stamp, as happened with the Christian ideas and beliefs; this does not mean that the Christian affairs will fall into disrepute - far from it; but when a field is covered with the harvested cobs, the reaper will reap elsewhere, and will reap abundantly in the field of Spiritism. He has already done so, no doubt, but not in the way he will do later on, when he is encouraged and excited by the general approval. When these ideas are popularized, and this will not take long, because the blind of the current generation daily disappear from the scene by force of things and the new generation will have less prejudices. Painting more than once was inspired by ideas of this kind; poetry, above all, is full of them; but they are isolated, lost in the crowd. The time will come when they will make masterpieces emerge, and Spiritist Art will have its Rafael and Miguel Angelo, as pagan art had its Apelles and its Phidias".

Spiritist Art, in its greatest expression, will be highly developed in the period of social regeneration, the last of the six periods because Spiritism has passed and will pass, determined by Allan Kardec (Spiritist Magazine, December 1863). The periods are: that of curiosity, with the turning tables; the philosophical, with The Book of Spirits; the struggle, with the Auto-da-Fé de Barcelona: the religious, the intermediary and that of social regeneration.

The period of social regeneration will take place when the Earth moves from the world of atonement and testing to the category of the world of regeneration. It is when the Humanity that will populate the Earth will be composed of people who only wish good.

It is important to prepare the Earth for that period that will one day come. For it will be the people who are currently engaged in the practice of goodness, who will have the opportunity to return to Earth in a next reincarnation, to continue to develop the good work they have done here, in favor of the progress of the Earth itself. As for those who, today, are barbarizing and spreading violence, the vast majority of them will no longer be able to return here, going to reincarnate in a backward world, which is in accordance with the evolution they have achieved. It is not that, in these cases, the Spirit regresses. In its path, it never regresses. In this case, the Spirit remains in the steady state in which it finds itself, to follow its journey from there, towards its evolution.

In the so-called period of social regeneration, Christian values ​​will prevail, based on charity, humility and love of neighbor. Men will unfurl only the flag of union and solidarity. Deeply harmonized with Nature and the Divine Laws, man will be connected to flora, ecology, and respect for animals. You will find that institutions are made to serve man. And it will be against the rigid, inflexible institution, which never changes, which has been the same thing for millennia, or for tens of years; who doesn't absorb anyone's experience, who doesn't care about someone else's experience.

The man of the future is a man who has grown up, he is an adult man. There is no need for anyone to tell him: do this. You know exactly what is essential to him. It is much more connected to spiritual things. His heroes are personalities like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Teilhard de Chardin.

The man of the future is the one who presents all the characteristics of the good man, explicit in The Book of Spirits, by Allan Kardec, question 918: who practices the law of justice, love and charity in its most complete purity; does good for good; he is good, human and benevolent; considers gifts as deposits, to be used for good; treats everyone with kindness and benevolence; is forgiving of others' weaknesses; he is not vindictive; respects the rights of others, as you would like them to respect yours.

These are the Spirits that will contribute to the regeneration of Humanity. However, according to Genesis, this regeneration does not require the complete renewal of the Spirits, but the modification in their moral dispositions, which operates in all who are willing.

Formed by better Spirits or ancient Spirits that have improved, says Genesis that "the result is always the same. As long as they are more willing, there is always a renewal. Thus, according to their natural willingness, incarnated Spirits form two categories: On the one hand, the laggards, who leave; on the other, the progressives, who arrive. The state of society's customs will therefore be within a people, a race, or the whole world, in relation to that of the two categories that predominated".

Chapter 18 of the book Genesis, by Allan Kardec, the item Signs of the Times, says that ”the generation that disappears will take its mistakes and losses; the generation that emerges, recovered in a purer source, imbued with healthier ideas, will impress the ascension world with a movement towards moral progress that will assimilate the new phase of human evolution".   
 


Translation:
Eleni Frangatos - eleni.moreira@uol.com.br

 
 

     
     

O Consolador
 Revista Semanal de Divulgação Espírita