In this issue, we continue the study of the book, Practical Instructions on Spiritist Manifestations, work published by Allan Kardec in 1858. This work which we suggest you read, refers to the edition published by “Casa Editora O Clarim”, and is based on Cairbar Schutel’s translation.
Questions for discussion
A. What is a medium? Mention three types of mediums of physical influence and six types of mediums of moral influence.
B. What is Perispirit, its nature and how is it formed?
C. What is the meaning of pneumatophony and pneumatography?
Reading Text
24. Spiritist scale: It is a classification of the different orders of Spirits, indicating the stages they still have to go through to reach perfection. It is formed by three main orders: The imperfect Spirits, the good Spirits and the pure Spirits, subdivided into nine classes according to the progress they have reached regarding their moral feelings and intellectual ideas. (Vocabulary, page 25).
25. Spirits in the special sense of the Spiritual Doctrine are creation’s intelligent beings and populate the Universe out of the corporeal world. Their intimate nature is unknown to us; they themselves cannot define it, either by ignorance or by the inadequacy of our language. The Spirit is not material, in the ordinary sense of the word; nor is it immaterial in the absolute sense, because the Spirit is something and the absolute immateriality would be nothing. One can compare it to a flame or spark, whose brightness varies according to the degree of purification. It can go into all kinds of forms through the Perispirit that involves it. (Vocabulary, pages 25 and 26).
26. Knocking Spirit: the Spirit that reveals its presence through knocks. It belongs to the lower classes. (Vocabulary, page 26).
27. Family Spirit: Spirit that is linked to a person or a family, and wants to protect it if the Spirit is good, or harm if it is bad. It does not need to be evoked, because it is always present and answers instantly to the call. (Vocabulary, page 26).
28. Incarnation: state of the Spirits who have a body casing. It is called incarnate Spirit, as opposed to a wandering Spirit. The incarnation can happen on this Earth or in another world. (Vocabulary, page 26).
29. Spiritist: refers to Spiritism. (Vocabulary, page 28).
30. Spiritism: Doctrine founded on the belief that Spirits exist and they communicate with man. (Vocabulary, page 28).
31. Spiritist: The one who follows the Spiritist Doctrine. (Vocabulary, page 28).
32. Spiritualism: It is the belief in the existence of a spiritual and immaterial soul that maintains its individuality after death. This belief is supported by the belief in Spirits. It is the opposite of materialism. Everyone, who believes that everything in us is not matter, is a Spiritual being, but it does not mean that he follows and accepts the Spiritist Doctrine. Every Spiritist is necessarily spiritual, but one can be spiritual without being a Spiritist. The materialist is not Spiritist and not Spiritualist. (Vocabulary, page 29).
33. Atonement: it is the suffering of the Spirits as a punishment for the faults they committed during their bodily life. The atonement, moral suffering occurs in the state of erraticity or wandering, as physical suffering occurs in the body condition. The vicissitudes and the torments of corporeal life are at the same time evidence of the future, and atonement of the past. (Vocabulary, page 30).
34. Ecstasy: paroxysm of emancipation of the soul during the bodily life, resulting in the temporary suspension of the perceptive faculties and sensory organs. In this state, the soul is not related more to the body except through weak ties, from which it seeks to break free. Ecstasy is sometimes natural and spontaneous but can be caused by a magnetic action, and in this case it is a higher degree of sleepwalking. (Vocabulary, page 30).
35. Witches: it was said, originally, about the individuals who thought themselves fit to read peoples’ future and were considered to have a supernatural power. The weird phenomena that are produced by the influence of certain mediums prove that the power attributed to them is real, but many of them are not reliable and give place to quackery. If in our century there are still people who attribute these phenomena to demons, we can imagine what happened in those times of ignorance. This caused that many of those individuals, who had some psychic faculties, were condemned to burn in fire. (Vocabulary, page 31).
36. Eternal fire: the idea of eternal fire as a punishment dates right back to the Highest Antiquity and originates in the belief of people who put Hell in the Earth's bowels, and this central fire was revealed to them by geological phenomena. (Vocabulary, page 32).
Answers to the proposed questions
A. What is a medium? Mention three types of mediums of physical influence and six types of mediums of moral influence.
Medium (from the Latin medium, mid, intermediary) is the name given to the person who is accessible to the influence of the Spirits, and also to the person who more or less has the faculty to receive and transmit spiritual communications. For the Spirits, the medium is an intermediary; he is an agent or a more or less comfortable instrument, according to the nature and level of his psychic faculty. There are several types of mediums according to their specific fitness for each type of transmission, or each communication. They are psychic of physical influence, those who have the power to cause ostensible manifestations. Examples: Motor mediums, typtological mediums, apparition mediums. And there are moral influence mediums, which are more specifically fit to receive and transmit intelligent communications. Examples: writing mediums or psychographics, pneumatography mediums, drawing mediums, talking mediums, inspired mediums and premonition mediums. (Spiritist Vocabulary, pages 41 to 43).
B. What is Perispirit, its nature and how is it formed?
Perispirit (from peri, around, and spiritus, Spirit) is the name given to the semi material casing of the Spirit after it has separated from the body. The Spirit takes it from the world in which it is and changes it when passing from one to another; it is more or less subtle or rough, according to the nature of each world. The Perispirit can be seen in all shapes according to the Spirit’s will; it usually has the image it had in its last body existence. Although its nature is ethereal, its substance can change making him visible to us. This is what happens with the apparitions. It can even become temporarily tangible, due to the union with the fluid of certain people, i.e., it offers the same resistance of a solid body when touched in the same manner as can be seen in the stereologic or palpable apparitions. The intimate nature of the Perispirit is not yet known (Spiritist Vocabulary, pages 50 and 51).
C. What is the meaning of pneumatophony and pneumatography?
Pneumatophony (from pneuma and phonia, sound or voice) means a verbal and direct communication from the Spirits without the aid of the voice organs. Pneumatography (from the Greek pneuma, air, breath, wind, spirit, and graphia, meaning writing) is the direct writing by the Spirits with no help of the medium’s hand. (Spirit Vocabulary, pages 51 and 52).
