In this issue we continue the study of the book Posthumous Works, published after Allan Kardec disembodied and containing texts written by him. The present work is based on the translation made by Dr. Guillon Ribeiro, published by the Brazilian Spiritist Federation.
Questions for discussion
122. If we consider that future life is a moralizing element, then why are many men, who have preached it since they have come to this Earth, so evil?
123. Can we say that man lacked the knowledge to accept afterlife and to worry about it?
124. How do you explain the collective misfortunes that reach the masses, sometimes a whole family, a whole city, an entire nation or an entire ethnic group, and affect the good and the bad, the innocent and the guilty?
125. What do these calamities bring of good and useful?
126. Where do we find selfishness and how does it affect our society?
Answers to the proposed questions
122. If we consider that future life is a moralizing element, then why are many men, who have preached it since they have come to this Earth, so evil?
You must first ask if they would not be worse without it. Secondly, it is understandable that this idea, still very imperfect in the past, could not carry out the influence it will necessarily have, as it is better understood and fairer notions are acquired about what is reserved to us in the future.
Whatever is the belief in immortality, man does not care much for his soul except for the mystical point of view. The future life, when insufficiently defined, does not impress him, but vaguely; it is a goal that is lost in the distance, and not a means, as fate is irrevocably fixed, and no part of it was presented as progressive; from which it follows that he will be for eternity what he was when he left here.
Moreover, the determining conditions of happiness or unhappiness that they experience here are far from, especially in a century like ours, fully satisfying the reason. Then it does not appear to be directly linked to earthly life; there is no solidarity between the two, but an abyss, so that the one, who is concerned primarily with one of them, frequently, loses sight of the other.
Under the rule of blind faith, this abstract belief was enough to inspire men; then they allowed themselves to be lead. Today, under the reign of free examination, they want to self-lead themselves, to see by their own eyes and understand; and the vague notions of the afterlife are no longer up to the new ideas or respond to the needs created by the progress.
With the development of ideas, everything must progress around man, because everything is connected, everything is supportive in Nature: science, beliefs, cults, legislation, means of action. The forward movement is irresistible, because it is the law of existence of beings. Whatever remains behind, below the social level, it is put aside, as the garments that no longer serve, and finally are taken by the wave that grows. That's what happened with the puerile ideas about the future life with which our parents were content; to persist in enforcing it today would lead to unbelief. To be accepted by the opinion, and to exercise its moralizing influence the afterlife should be presented under the aspect of something positive, tangible of some sort, able to withstand the test, and satisfactory for the reason, leaving nothing in the shade . (Posthumous Works - Afterlife).
123. Can we say that man lacked the knowledge to accept afterlife and to worry about it?
Yes, because man does not worry about afterlife until he can see in it a clean and defined purpose, a logical situation that will answer all his aspirations, and solve all his present difficulties and in which there is nothing that reason cannot accept.
If he cares about tomorrow, it is because the life of the next day is intimately linked to the life of the day before: they are sympathetic with each other; it is known that our tomorrow’s situation is a consequence of what we do today; and the day after tomorrow depends of what we do tomorrow, and so on.
This should be for men the future life, when it is no longer lost in the clouds of abstraction, but is presented as a palpable today, completely necessary, one of the phases of life in general, in the same way that the days are phases of our bodily life.
When you see the present react on the future, by force of circumstances, and especially when, at last, you see the past, present and future chaining by an inexorable necessity, as the day before, the day and the following day in the present life - then your ideas will change completely because you will see, in the next life, not just a goal but a means; not a distant effect, but a current one. And this belief will exercise, necessarily, and by a very natural consequence, a predominant action on the social state and the moralization of customs and people. This is the perspective under which Spiritism makes us face the future life. (Posthumous Works - Afterlife).
124. How do you explain the collective misfortunes that reach the masses, sometimes a whole family, a whole city, an entire nation or an entire ethnic group, and affect the good and the bad, the innocent and the guilty?
The faults of individuals, of the family, or the nation, whatever its character, are atoned subject to the same law. The executioner atones towards his victim, whether he is in the victim’s presence in space, or lives in contact with it in one or more successive lives, until all evil committed is repaired. The same occurs when there are crimes committed jointly by a certain number of individuals; atonement is then united, but this does not cancel the atonement for individual faults.
In every man there are three features: the individual himself, the family member, and, of course, the citizen. In each of these three features man can be a criminal or a virtuous man. He can be a good man as a family man, and be a criminal as a citizen, and vice versa; according to this, in his successive lives, he has to go through special conditions.
With some exceptions, we may accept that, as a general rule, all those, who have a common task together in one life, have already worked together in a previous life for the same purpose, and will still be together in the future until they have reached their purpose, i.e., atoned the past or accomplished the mission they accepted.
Thanks to Spiritism, we now understand why the atonement is just, because it is not a consequence of our acts during our present life, but, as we have already been told, a discharge of our past debts. Why is it not the same with the collective atonement? It is said that the general misfortunes hit the innocent, as well as the guilty; but it may be that the innocent today has been the culprit yesterday. Whether he was affected individually or collectively, he certainly deserved it. In addition, there are faults practiced by man as an individual and as a citizen too; the atonement regarding one, does not exempt the other from payment, because it is necessary that every debt be paid until the very last penny.
The virtues a man practices in his private life, most of the times, are not the same as those of his public life; one, who is a top citizen, can be a bad father; and a good man both regarding his family and business, may be a bad citizen by causing distress among his fellows, oppressing the weak, getting his hands dirty with crimes against society. These are the collective faults that are expiated by individuals of a group, for they contributed for them, and together they shall suffer the penalty of retaliation, or will have the opportunity to repair the harm they have done, proving their devotion to the public cause, helping and assisting those that they mistreated before. (Posthumous Works - Collective Atonement).
125. What do these calamities bring of good and useful?
These social upheavals always leave something good behind; the Spirits are clarified by these experiences; unhappiness is the stimulus that impels them to seek a remedy for evil; they reflect the spiritual world (erraticity), make new decisions, and when they return, they do better. That is how progress is made from generation to generation. One cannot doubt that there are families, cities, and guilty nations that, due to being controlled by pride, selfishness, ambition, and greed, walk in a bad path and do collectively what a man does as an individual. A family is enriched at the expense of another family; people subjugate other people, and take with them desolation and ruin; an ethnic group wants to destroy another ethnic group. That is why there are families, people and ethnic groups over which falls the penalty of retaliation. "Who killed by the sword will perish by the sword," said Christ, words that can be translated as: he, who shed blood, will see his blood shed; the one, who paced the fire torch in another house, will see the fire torch walk into his own house; the one, who pillaged, will be looted too; he, who subjugated and mistreated the weak will be weak, subjugated and mistreated, in turn, whether as an individual, a nation or a people, because the members of a collective individuality are in solidarity regarding the good and the evil that is done in common.
Spiritism also teaches us that if the faults committed collectively are jointly atoned, the common progress is also supportive, and it is because of this principle that the differences among the races will end, among families and individuals, and Humanity, leaving its childhood, will step forward, quickly and with courage, to conquer its true purposes. (Posthumous Works - Collective Atonement).
126. Where do we find selfishness and how does it affect our society?
Most human misery has its source in the selfishness of men. Now, since everyone thinks of himself before thinking of others, and wants his own satisfaction in the first place, each one looking, of course, to provide his own pleasure at any price; and, to achieve this he sacrifices without scruple, the interests of others, from the smallest things to the biggest, in the moral order, and in the material order as well; hence all social antagonisms, all the fights, all conflicts and all miseries, because each one wants to deprive his neighbor.
Selfishness has its source in pride. The enlargement of a man’s personality makes him he consider himself superior to others, believing he has more rights, and thus he feels hurt with everything that, according to him, is a blow to his rights. Due to his pride, he gives himself an importance, which makes him naturally selfish. But both selfishness and pride have their source in a natural feeling: self-preservation. (Posthumous Works - Selfishness and Pride).
