The consequences of Spiritism are innumerable because they touch all branches of the social order

"I'm the way, the truth and the life." - Jesus. (John, 14: 6.)

Humanity lives in vain agitation and is lost in the confusion of nothing, often trapped in obsessive processes, discouraged by the tangle of purely materialistic cogitations without space for meditations in the spiritual realm. How could thoughts of a spiritual nature thrive on such meager ground?!

But, if through today's philosophical and scientific knowledge, man has not yet managed to rise from ignorance, there is Spiritism, providing the north, clearing the paths to avoid stumbling blocks.

Kardec teaches: “(...) Earth life is only a brief passage leading to a better life. Undoubtedly, men progress by themselves and by the efforts of intelligence; but, given to the forces themselves, they would only progress very slowly if they were not helped by others more advanced, as the student is by the teachers”.

Spiritism is the greatest teacher, who “will teach us all things”, according to Jesus' assertion.

In the basic book “Genesis”, chapter IV, items 13 to 17, we read the following: “(...) all religions are in accord with the principle of the existence of the Soul, without, however, demonstrating it. They are not, however, neither in terms of their origin, nor in relation to their past and their future, nor, above all, and this is the essential thing, as to the conditions on which their future luck depends. Most of them present, from the future of the Soul, and impose it on the belief of their followers, a picture that only blind faith can accept, since it does not support serious examination. Linked to their dogmas, to the ideas that in primitive times were made of the material world and the mechanism of the Universe, the destiny that they attribute to the Soul is not reconciled with the current state of knowledge. Therefore, being able to lose only through examination and discussion, religions find it simpler to outlaw one and the other.

From these divergences regarding the future of man, doubt and incredulity were born, which give rise to a painful vacuum. Man looks with fear and anxiety at the unknown that he must inevitably enter, and it is glacial for him the idea of​​nothing. The conscience tells him that something is reserved for him beyond the present. What will it be? His reason, with the development he achieved, no longer allows him to admit the stories with which his grandparents nurtured him in his childhood, nor does he accept the allegory as reality. What is the meaning of this allegory? Science tore a corner of her veil; however, it did not reveal to him what he most cares to know. In vain he questions it and it gives no answers in a peremptory and unanswerable way in order to appease his thirst for knowledge and calm his apprehensions. Therein lies the fulcrum that generates his frenzy for the things of material life, since this is the natural corollary offered by the uncertainty about what concerns the Future Life. This is the inevitable effect of transitional times, which is what life on Earth today marks: the gloomy building of the past collapses, without the future being yet built.

If the spiritual question has remained, until the present day, in a state of theory, it is that the means of direct observation, existing to prove the state of the material world, were lacking, therefore, keeping the field open to the conceptions of the human spirit.

While man did not know the laws that govern matter and could not explain the experimental method, he went on erring from system to system, regarding the mechanism of the Universe and the formation of the Earth. What happened in the physical order, also happened in the moral order. To fix the ideas, the essential element was lacking: the knowledge of the laws to which the spiritual principle is subject. This knowledge was reserved for our time, as it was for the last two centuries, that of the laws of matter.

With the help of mediumistic faculty in the light of Spiritism, man found himself in possession of a new and efficient instrument of observation. Mediumship was, for the spiritual world, what the telescope was for the astral world and the microscope for the infinitely small. It allowed to explore, study, “de visu”, the relations of the spiritual world with the corporeal world”.

Once the relations between the two planes of life were established, it was possible for man to follow the Soul in its upward march, in its migrations, in its transformations ... Finally, it was possible to study the spiritual element, and discover that the Soul is the spring that moves and transports, by a continuous and unconscious action, the elements of living bodies.

In August 1868, Kardec's reasoning appears in the “Revue Spirite”: “the physiologist does not admit the Spirit; but what is admirable about it? It is a cause and he put himself in the study with a method that precisely forbids him to research the causes.

We do not want to subject the cause of spiritualism to a question of controversial physiology, and for which we could be rightfully refused. The intimate sense reveals to me the existence of the Soul with a very different authority. When the physiological materialist was as true as it is arguable, not even our spiritualist convictions would be less whole. Fortified by the testimony of the intimate sense, confirmed by the assent of a thousand generations that followed one another on Earth, we would repeat the old adage: “the truth does not destroy the truth”, and we would expect that the reconciliation would take place over time. But of what weight are we not relieved when we see that, to deny the Soul and give this statement as a result of Science, the sage, by his own confession, methodically departed from this idea that the Soul does not exist!

We read many physiology books, which are generally very poorly written, but what caught our attention was the constant addiction of the organicist physiologist's reasoning when he left the subject to become a philosopher. One sees it constantly taking effect for a cause, a faculty for a substance, an attribute for a being, mistaking existences and forces, etc.

What spirit, exact and clear, for example, could never understand the thought so well known by Cabanis and Broussais, that “the brain produces, secretes thought”' Other times, the positive man, the man of observation and facts, the man of science, will seriously tell us that the brain “stores ideas”. In a little while, he will draw them. Is it a metaphor or a Harangue?¹

(...) Now, the existence of the invisible world, in our midst, an integral part of earthly humanity, the outlet of disincarnated Souls and the source of incarnated Souls, is an immense capital fact; it is a revolution in beliefs; it is the key to the past and the future of man, who in vain sought all philosophies, as the sages in vain sought the key to astronomical mysteries before knowing the law of gravitation. Let us follow the string of forced consequences of this single fact: the existence of the invisible world around us, and a complete, inevitable transformation in ideas will be arrived at, in order to destroy the prejudices and abuses arising from them, and, consequently, to a change in social relations. This is where Spiritism leads! Its Doctrine is development, the deduction of the consequences of the main fact, the existence of which has just been revealed. Its corollaries are innumerable, because, little by little, they touch the branches of the social order, both in the physical and in the moral. It is understood by all who took the trouble to study it seriously, and who will understand it even better later, but those who, having only seen the surface, imagine that it is all intact on a rotating table or in childish questions about the identity of the Spirits”.

Joanna de Angelis offers us the following advice¹: commit yourself to your spiritual self-improvement and do not prevaricate in this enterprise.

You will fight against vigorous factors of an internal nature, which will seem to conspire, preventing you from promoting the relevant values. You will face obstacles that will increase, making it difficult for you to walk. You will be surprised by subtle invitations and strong impositions, urging you to give up. Challenging problems will grow, exhausting your efforts to persevere, in a conspiracy in favor of your desertion. They will incite you to discouragement and will repeat ferocious accusations in harsh aggression against your purposes of ennobling (...) Consider physical life to be a kilometer-long road starting at the cradle and ending at the grave. Keep in mind that after the tomb, life is also lengthened, as a route that gets lost in in the path you will travel to the stars...

Each stage represents a challenge or several that you must overcome. Once a stretch has been conquered, another stretches out into view, waiting. The victory will only be considered valid after the end of the day, when you will be able to make a safe evaluation of the achievements and an examination of the experiences. Once the mark for each kilometer is exceeded, do not stop and list the failures, because that will delay your progress”.

Let us not be like the Pharisees, who discussed long and innocuously the trifles in an endless harangue, while the most important thing remained to be done...

Controversies are ceaselessly waged around faith in modern Pharisee circles. And that comes from a long time ago. At the time of Jesus, this situation provoked the following teaching from Him: “a great lord received alarming news from a vast group of servants, in a distant area from the seat of his government, who were plagued by malignant fever, and eager to help their tutored, he sent them trusted messengers, carrying remedies appropriate to the situation. The emissaries, however, as soon as they found themselves outside the Lord's doors, began to disagree as to the choice of the best path.

Some claimed the shortcut, others the plain without thorns and others asked for passage through the hills. Long days lost in the dispute, until the group dissolved, each phalanx attending to its own whims, with absolute oblivion of the main objective.

Now, numerically reduced, the expeditions suffered more severely the sterilizing blows of personal opinions. The travelers did nothing but invent new reasons for useless friction. Among those who marched on the shorter trails, the floodplain and the mountain range, they engaged in unproductive, forceful and endless discussions. Precious days and nights were spent in loud comments about the fever, about the condition of the sick or about the surrounding landscapes. Difficult hours of bitterness and disharmony, for the moment, interrupted the trip, and the scenes of pugilism and homicide were avoided at great cost.

By coincidence, the three teams arrived at their destination together and, because the trip was delayed due to the endless strife, all the sick died in short supply of the promised resources. Death had devoured them, one by one, while the discussing messengers wasted their precious time in useless harangue.

The Master fixed the apprentices with a very lucid gaze and added: in this symbol, we have the world attacked by the plague of evil and disbelief and we see the profile of those who bear the celestial medication, who are religious of all shades who speak on Earth in the name of the Father.           

However, despite having received valuable resources from Heaven for those who suffer and weep, as a result of the dominant ignorance and affliction in the world, they are oblivious to the obligations that mark their lives and, overlapping the very whims for the purposes of the Supreme Lord are unraveled in verbal deviations of all kinds. As long as they feed the disorder, frivolous and distracted, those in need of light and help will faint at the lack of assistance and dedication.

The discussion, however profitable, should never distract us from the service the Lord has given us to do”.

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1 - Harangue: a discourse loaded with dispensable details, prolix and tedious, harangue.

2 - FRANCO, Divaldo. Oferenda. Salvador: LEAL, 1980, p. 163 and 174.

3 - XAVIER, F. Candido. Jesus no Lar.  36. ed. Rio [de Janeiro]: FEB, 2008, chap. 23.