The nineteenth century is called the Age of Enlightenment, since it was at that time that the great development of the arts, science, and culture took place. On April 18, 1857 (date of the first edition of The Book of Spirits) Spiritism, codified by Allan Kardec in France, emerged. At that time, Paris, the French capital, then considered the City of Light, was the core of thinking of the 19th century. However, Spiritism, the Third Revelation, like the previous revelations (Moses and Christ), did not emerge abruptly.

Let us remember that Christian ideas were envisioned many centuries before Jesus with Socrates and Plato, precursors of the Christian Doctrine and Spiritism. Jesus complemented the Ten Commandments, the Laws of God, received by Moses on Mount Sinai, while Spiritism gave us the rational interpretation of Jesus' teachings.

Mediumship and the so-called "spiritual phenomena" (not because they belong to Spiritism, but because it is Spiritism that studies them without preconceptions) were part of the daily lives of pioneers such as Emmanuel Swedenborg, Edward Irving, Andrew Jackson Davis, the Fox sisters, among others. 

Until the mid-sixth century, all Christianity believed in reincarnation, proclaimed centuries before the Christian era as an undeniable fact, guiding the principles of Divine Justice. However, the second Council of Constantinople in 553 AD, held in Istanbul, Turkey, in what is considered a political decision to meet the demands of the Roman Empire, decided to abolish such conviction, replacing it with the resurrection (of the flesh). This contradicts the whole principle of science, since it allows the return of the being, in the supposed doomsday, in the same body, which has already disintegrated in all its constituent elements. 

The greater Light of Spiritism - Over time, in accordance with human requirements, various concepts emerged, such as:

1) Materialism declares that intelligence is a product of matter, material pleasures are considered the only real and desirable purpose in life, and living for ourselves is the best we can do while we are here.

2) The pantheistic doctrine considers the soul independent from matter, and extracted at birth from the universal whole, becoming individualized in each being during life and, at time of death, it returns to the common mass.

3) The deist doctrine, taught by independent Deists, who believe in God, accept all His attributes as Creator. However, having established the general laws that govern the Universe, the Creator no longer is occupied by them. Therefore, we have nothing to ask or thank God.

4) The doctrine taught by the providential Deists, who believe in the existence and in the creative power of God, in the origin of things and in the never-ceasing intervention of God in Creation, pray to Him and do not accept the outward worship and dogmatism.

5) The dogmatic doctrine says that the soul is independent of matter. Created at the birth of the physical body, it survives and retains its individuality after bodily death, and, from that moment, its fate is irrevocably determined, and its previous progress becomes null.

6) The Spiritist Doctrine teaches that the intelligent principle is independent of matter. The individual soul pre-exists and survives the body. The starting point is the same for all souls, without exceptions. Souls are created simple and ignorant and are subject to the law of progress. 

Spiritism is founded on the basic pillars: the existence of God, reincarnation or plurality of existences, the plurality of inhabited worlds, the intercommunication between the two planes of life, and the Moral Code of the Gospel of Christ.

The conception of the existence of God, innate in man, as well as the certainty of the immortal Spirit, is part of the thinking of philosophers who influenced the culture of the 19th century. Immanuel Kant notes that conscience is the voice of God in man. In addition, he shows that the moral law is the deepest possibility of our being, and the achievement of our true destination. When Rene Descartes arrives to his famous conclusion: "I think, therefore I am", he is saying that thinking is something more certain than the body matters, and discovers the reality of the Spirit. Hegel wrote the Phenomenology of the Spirit, where he reveals the history of how the human consciousness rose from the most elementary representations of God to its proper philosophical representation.

Among discordant voices, Friedrich Nietzsche proclaimed the death of God, but Voltaire was accurate when he said he did not believe in the gods made by men, but in the God who made men.

The moral progress distanced itself increasingly from the scientific progress. Looking at the progress of Mankind, we see that at all times the moral progress always marched behind the material progress, while, for us Christians, the material progress must go hand in hand with the moral progress. We are like the birds. We have two wings: the wing of moral and the wing of knowledge, which should always go hand in hand.

Let us return to the various concepts that have arisen on Earth. As we said in the first paragraph, the Doctrine appeared on April 18, 1857 in Paris, France, with the first edition of The Book of Spirits, consisting of 501 questions made by Allan Kardec and answered by the Spirits, with the Encoder's comments in bold. Kardec restructured and enhanced the second edition of March 16, 1860. It contains 1,019 issues, and the Spirit of Truth guided Kardec. On the first edition, the Spirit of Truth had already warned Kardec that the first edition could not contain all. 

The "spiritual phenomena" with which Europe was already familiar, especially through the phenomena of the turning tables, which were mere entertainment in lounges, began to be taken seriously, causing reactions from all over the world.

In the second part of the book Posthumous Works, published in 1890 with notes left by Allan Kardec, in the chapter My first initiation into Spiritism, the Encoder states, "I realized, first of all, the seriousness of the research that I was to undertake. I saw in the phenomena the key of the problem so obscure and so controversial of the past and future of Humanity, the solution I was looking for in my entire life. In short, it was a whole revolution of ideas and beliefs."

After The Book of Spirits, came The Mediums' Book on January 1861; The Gospel according to Spiritism on April 1864; Heaven and Hell on August 1865; and The Genesis on January 1868. 

In this scenario, Allan Kardec launched on January 1, 1858 the Spiritist Magazine and on April 1, 1858, he opened the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, the first Spiritual Center of the world. Contradicting the procedures followed at the time, in which the "turning tables" were a practice held in the halls of bourgeois homes, Kardec understood that spiritual meetings should be carried in an institution specially created for this purpose, to avoid frivolity and interference of situations of the private life of the participants. 

Difficult and complex task - On the final page of the Spiritist Magazine, 1858, Kardec recorded, "Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies. Established on April 1, 1858 and authorized by ordinance of the Mr. Police Mayor, as per warning of His Excellency the Minister of the Interior of General Security on the date of April 13, 1858. "

In Chapter XXX of The Mediums' Book, Encoder lists 29 articles dealing with the objectives and purposes of the organization: the constitution, the members of the administration, the sessions and other provisions. In two years, the Company had 87 effective paying members among which were scientists, writers, artists, doctors, engineers, lawyers, judges, members of the nobility, army and navy officers, civil servants, businessmen, teachers and artisans. The number of visitors reached nearly fifteen hundred a year. 

Kardec, who held the position of Chairman since the foundation of the organization, tired by overwork and annoyed with administrative disputes, repeatedly expressed his desire to resign. However, advised by his spiritual mentors, he continued acting as Chairman until his disembodiment.

The Encoder was strict in compliance with the statutory provisions and discipline activities. He required severe seriousness from all participants, which contributed to give credibility to the institution and its pronouncements, since Kardec was extremely austere in opinions and never allowed the Society to become a means of sterile controversies and debates. 

Allan Kardec made several trips to the service of the Spiritist Doctrine, and the 1862 trip was the most important and deserved a special booklet by the Encoder. In that year, he traveled for almost two months. He traveled 693 miles by train and visited 20 cities.

He was born Hippolyte Leon Denizard Rivail in the city of Lyon, France, on October 3, 1804, studied at the Yverdun Institute in Switzerland, founded and directed by John Henry Pestalozzi. 

At the age of 51, he was a dedicated educator in France and author of several books on education. Bachelor of Arts and Science, he spoke and wrote in German, English, Spanish, Italian and Dutch.

He married the teacher Amelie Gabrielle Boudet, disembodied on January 21, 1883. Allan Kardec passed away on March 31, 1869, from an aneurysm. 

In Chapter XXIII of the book The Path of Light, psychographic by Francisco Candido Xavier, Emmanuel writes, "The task of Allan Kardec was difficult and complex. He was responsible for the reorganization of the collapsed building of belief, ushering civilization to the deepest religious basis."

In addition, in the volume III of the work Allan Kardec (literature and interpretation essays), by Zeus Wantuil and Francisco Thiesen, you will find the following statement: "Observing, comparing and judging the facts, always with caution and perseverance, he concluded (Allan Kardec) that the Spirits of those who died were, indeed, the intelligent cause of the intelligent effects. Thus, he deduced the laws governing these phenomena, extracting from them admirable philosophical consequences and a whole doctrine of Hope, Consolation and Universal Solidarity." 

Spiritism, idea of many - In the editorial of the magazine Reincarnation, published by the Spiritist Federation of Rio Grande do Sul, no. 407, on the 2nd semester of 1993, Jason de Camargo wrote, "Spiritism, supported on rational faith and based on natural laws, monitors the progress of science and consolidates itself as a Doctrine devoid of dogmas, of puerile interpretations, and of religious fanaticism. Unequivocally, he dedicated himself to thorough studies on these topics. He sought to remove the still existing mythological conceptions and enabled a new world view for all creatures, starting precisely by God - the first issue of The Book of Spirits ".

In the item Influence of Spiritism in Progress of The Spirits' Book, Chapter VIII (Law of Progress) - Book III - The Moral Laws - issue 798, Allan Kardec asks: "Will Spiritism become a common belief or will it be just for some people?"

The Spirits thus answered, "Certainly it will become a common belief and mark a new era in the History of Humanity, because it belongs to Nature and the time came when it must take place in human knowledge. However, great fights will take place, more against private interests than against conviction, because we cannot conceal that there are people interested in fighting it, some due to their pride and others because of material reasons. However, its opponents will become more and more isolated and, at the end, will be forced to think like everyone else, or otherwise they will become foolish."

In Posthumous Works, we have on record Kardec's position regarding the intolerant "Auto-de-fe" of Barcelona, which occurred on October 9, 1861, when 300 books, sent by the Encoder to the bookseller Mauritius Lachatre, were burned in a public square in Barcelona. When the fire consumed the 300 volumes, the priest and the bishops left booed and cursed by the numerous assistants, who shouted, "Down the Inquisition!" Then, numerous people approached the fire and gathered the ashes. 

Kardec said, "They can burn the books, but ideas cannot be burned; the flames of the fire inspire them more and more instead of extinguishing them. Moreover, the ideas are in the air, and there are no Pyrenees high enough to stop them; and when an idea is large and generous, it finds thousands of willing hearts to crave it."

Like the phoenix, with the "Auto-da-fe" of Barcelona, Enlightenment was born from the ashes! Like Christianity, Spiritism is a true idea that will prevail. It can already say that Spiritism won and shall win with men, without men, despite men.