The contradictions related to the studies of Spiritism come from two origins

1. The contradictions related to the studies of Spiritism are usually more deceptive than real because they usually are more superficial than deep in concepts. That is the reason why they are not important. These contradictions come from two origins: men and spirits.

2. When the phenomena of Spiritism started, each individual interpreted it in their own way, according to their individual ideas, beliefs and preconceptions. This created many systems to combat what later on would become Spiritism as a religion. The systems appeared as a consequence of men’s contradictions.
 

3. The enemies of Spiritism can be classified in three different groups:
 

First: People who automatically refuse to believe in everything that is new or that doesn’t come from themselves. They generally talk about what they don’t know. To them, Spiritism is utopia and madness. They are the ones who disbelieve on purpose.

Second: People who know what to think about the reality of facts but combat them for personal gain. To them, Spiritism is real, but they combat it because they fear the consequences of their actions.

Third: People who think that the ideas of Spiritism are too strict for them, their tendencies and habits. They combat it because they are selfish and don’t want to change.


The theory of the cracking-muscle tried to explain “spirit-rap”

4. There were many philosophical systems created by the enemies of Spiritism in order to combat it. The main ones are:
 

Charlatanism: Consisted in stating that communications from spirits were a result of shady and manipulative individuals and that the spiritualists who believed them would be naive people. Although the people who believed them were considered honest and intelligent people.
 

Madness: Consisted in stating that there were not shady or manipulative individuals behind the communications from the spirits, but the ones who believed in them were simply mad.
 

Hallucination: Consisted in stating that the ones who produced or participated in the communications from spirits were believed to act in good faith. But it was also stated that, the ones who thought that they saw something, didn’t actually see anything. It was just their imagination.
 

Theory of the cracking muscle: Consisted in stating that the origin of the “spirit-raps” was in the voluntary or involuntary contractions of the short tendon of the muscle of the instep. If this theory was enough to explain the phenomena of the “talking tables”, it wasn’t enough to explain the phenomena of the tables which levitated, table-turning or sounds made by the table’s own feet.
 

Theory of reflexion: Consisted in stating that there is an intelligent mind behind the communication from spirits, but this intelligent mind would be the medium or the medium’s assistant and not a spirit communicating. Cesar Lombroso wrote about this philosophical system: “Other explanations were given to try to avoid admitting the influence of spirits in the communications. For example, the possibility that the medium extracts his answers from the brain of the people present at the time of the communication. It’s not possible to understand how the medium could do such a thing though.”
 

Pessimist theory: Consisted in stating that the communications from spirits wouldn’t be produced by spirits who lived once on Earth, but they would be produced by the devil or Satan. This philosophical system collides with nature and many messages from spirits which talk about fraternity, forgiveness, generosity and teach us that the only way to happiness is being good. If these are the processes used by Satan to disturb us, it’s interesting to notice that they are very similar to the ones that Jesus used to change men. Which means that Satan’s business has been poorly managed!


Truly evolved spirits never contradict themselves

5. Spiritism has for sure many enemies interested in destroying it. At one side there are the materialists; at the other side there are the religious people from all other religions which fight against people who believe in Spiritism since its beginning.
 

6. It’s necessary to be connected to the nature of the invisible world and have studied all about it to understand the cause and the value of contradictions about Spiritism. At first, it looks strange that not all spirits think alike. But to think that they all should think alike is to assume that they are all of the same moral level. To think that all spirits should be just is to assume that they have all achieved perfection already. This is not exact and it couldn’t be considering that spirits are humanity without a body.
 

7. Spirits of all moral levels can communicate and the messages they bring reveal their wisdom or their ignorance, their moral superiority or moral inferiority. This is the reason why some contradictions appeared when understanding Spiritism. For example, it happened in England and in the United States, where both diverged in the way they explained reincarnation.
 

8. The truly evolved spirits never contradict themselves and their language never changes when dealing with the same people. It could possibly diverge according to people and places, but this diversion would be of words but not of ideas. The same spirit could answer in different ways to the same question, according to the moral level of the ones who receive their message. It’s not always suitable to give the exact same answers to different people if they are not in the same moral level. If a wise man and a kid asked us the same question, we would answer it differently to both but at the end the answer would have the same meaning.