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
190. The first message that mentioned the future of the Earth was received in the city of Lyon, on January 30, 1866. What did it say?
191. There were many messages received referring to Mankind’s regeneration. In short, what did they say?
192. What are the features that will distinguish the new generation?
193. Were the Spirits concerned with the Encoder’s health?
Answers to the proposed questions
190. The first message that mentioned the future of the Earth was received in the city of Lyon, on January 30, 1866. What did it say?
The message was received in the Villon group and it says initially that the Earth pulsed with joy because the day of the Lord was arriving. According to the message, the gold kingdom would give place to a purer kingdom; thought will then be sovereign, and the elite Spirits, who came from prior times, illuminating their century and serving as reference for future centuries, will be incarnated among us. Their wise words will carry a destructive flame that will cause the irreparable downfall of the old abuses, and old prejudices will fall at once, when the Spirit, like a double-edged ax, will undermine them in their fundamentals. The parents of the progress of the human Spirit left, some their radiant dwellings, others their great work, where happiness joins the pleasure of learning, to come and recover the pilgrim's staff that they had only deposited on the threshold of the temple of Science, and, from the four corners of the globe, the official wise men will listen with fear to beardless young people, who will come, and in a profound language, will answer their arguments, which they believed irrefutable. The mocking smile will no longer be a safe shield, and under the risk of falling, they will have to answer.
It will be then that the vicious circle - in which the masters of the vain philosophy are enclosed - will be laid bare, because the new fighters take with them not only a torch, which is the resourceful intelligence free of gross veils, yet many of them shall enjoy that particular state, a privilege of great souls like Jesus, who gives the power to heal and work and to do wonders, reputed as miracles. The old rotted world will crack in every way; the old world will end, and with it all its old dogmas. In conclusion, the message says: "Rejoice, for all of you, who wish to be happy, and who want your brothers to participate of it too, the day has come! Earth pulses with joy because the Kingdom of Peace promised by Christ, the divine Messiah, is starting, the Kingdom of which He came to set the foundations”. (Posthumous Works - Second Part - The new generation and Mankind's regeneration)
Editor's note: The message of optimism contrasts with the current situation of the planet, although more than 150 years have gone by. According to some Spiritist scholars, the transition from the world of atonement and tests to a world of Regeneration has already begun, but we are still in the early stages and there is a long way to go before this transition is complete. To understand it, we suggest that you read the lesson signed by St. Augustine, contained in item 17 of the Chapter III of “The Gospel According to Spiritism”.
191. There were many messages received referring to Mankind’s regeneration. In short, what did they say?
On April 25, 1866 in Paris, several communications were received in this sense through the psychics M… and T... in somnambulistic state.
Here is a summary of the contents of these messages:
The events happen quickly. We do no longer say as before: "Times are coming”, but "Times have come". These words do not mean a new flood, or a cataclysm or a general disorder. Partial convulsions of the globe occur in all ages… and they still occur because they are connected to its constitution, but they are not signs of the times. However, all that is predicted in the Gospel must be fulfilled and it is fulfilled now, as we shall see later. But, do not consider the announced signs as figures, since we must grasp its spirit and not the word. All Scriptures contain great truths under the veil of allegory, and because the scholiasts considered the word, they went astray. They missed the key that would make them understand the true meaning. This key is in the discoveries of science and in the laws of the invisible world that Spiritism came to reveal.
From now on, with the help of new knowledge, what was obscure will become clear and intelligible. It follows the natural order of things, and the immutable Laws of God will never be reversed. Therefore, we will not see neither miracles nor wonders, or anything supernatural in the ordinary sense attached to these words. Let us not look to the sky to find in it the warning signs, because we will see nothing, and those who announced them deceived us; but let us look around us, among the men. It will be here that we will find them.
We should not believe, however, in the end of the material world. Earth has progressed since its transformation, and it must still progress, not be destroyed. But Humanity has reached one of its periods of transformation in which the Earth will rise in the hierarchy of worlds.
Therefore, it is not the end of the material world that is being prepared, but the end of the moral world: it is the old world, the world of prejudice, selfishness, pride and fanaticism that collapses. Everything will end together with the generation that is departing, and the new generation will raise the new building that the following generations will consolidate and complete.
From the world of atonement, the Earth is being called to become, one day, a happy world, and to live in it will be a reward, rather than being a punishment. The Kingdom of the Well will replace the Kingdom of Evil. For men to be happy on Earth, it is necessary that it is populated only by the Good Spirits, embodied and disembodied, who only want the Well. When this time comes, there will be a great emigration among those who live in it. Those who do Evil, and are not touched by the feeling of Well, not being worthy of the transformed Earth, will be excluded from it, because they would lead again to disturbance and would be an obstacle to progress. They will atone their hardness in inferior worlds to which they will take their acquired knowledge and will have the mission of making these worlds progress. They will be replaced on Earth by better Spirits, who will make justice, peace and fraternity reign in our world.
The Earth, as previously said, should not be altered by a cataclysm that would suddenly annihilate a generation. The current generation will disappear gradually and the new one will succeed it without anything being changed in the natural order of things. Everything will therefore happen outside, as usual, with this only difference, but this difference is capital, that some of the Spirits that now are embodied in this Earth will not reincarnate here again. In a child that is born, instead of a backward Spirit and inclined to evil, that would be incarnating in it, there will be a more advanced Spirit and inclined to good. It will be, therefore, a much less new physical generation than a new generation of Spirits. When, those, who expect to see the changes taking place due to supernatural and marvelous effects, they will be disappointed.
The current time is of transition; the elements of the two generations overlap. Placed at the midpoint, you see the departure of one and the arrival of the other, and each one is marked already according to their peculiar features. The two generations that follow one another have strong opposing ideas and purposes. Because of the nature of the moral dispositions, but mainly due to the intuitive and innate dispositions, it is easy to distinguish to which of the two generations an individual belongs to. The new generation, founding an era of moral progress is distinguished by intelligence and a generally early reason, attached to the innate sense of good and of Spiritual beliefs, and this is a sure sign of a certain degree of a previous advance. It will not be formed exclusively by eminently superior Spirits, but by those who, having progressed, are predisposed to assimilate all progressive ideas and able to second the regenerating movement.
Regarding this migration of Spirits, it does not mean that all backward Spirits will be expelled from Earth and relegated to the lower worlds. Many of them gave in to temptation caused by the circumstances and the examples; their shell was worse than their inner part. Once withdrawn from the influence of matter and prejudice of the corporeal world, most will see things differently to when they were alive, as you have witnessed in many examples. They are aided by benevolent Spirits, who are interested in them, and hasten to enlighten them by showing the false path they were following. Therefore, there will not be a definitive exclusion except for those Spirits, who are essentially rebel, those, whose pride and selfishness, more than ignorance, make them deaf to the voice of the good and right. But not even these are voted to a perpetual inferiority, and a day will come when they will reject their past and open their eyes to the light. (Posthumous Works - Second Part - The new generation and Mankind's regeneration)
192. What are the features that will distinguish the new generation?
One of their distinctive features will be their innate faith; not the exclusive and blind faith that divides men, but the reasoned faith that clarifies and strengthens, that unites and fuses them in a common feeling of love for God and neighbor. With the generation that is extinguished, the last vestiges of unbelief and fanaticism - also contrary to the moral and social progress – will disappear.
Spiritism is the path to renewal, because it destroys the two biggest obstacles that oppose it: incredulity and fanaticism; and all feelings and all ideas that correspond to the purposes of the new generation are developed by it. The new era will see it, therefore, increase and prosper by the force of things. It will become the basis of all faiths, the fulcrum of all institutions. But from here to there, how many fights will Spiritism also have to hold up against its two greatest enemies: incredulity and fanaticism. These can sense its future and its ruin: that's why they fear it because they already see it plant - on the ruins of the old selfish world - the banner that shall gather all peoples. In the divine maximum: Without Charity there is no Salvation they read their own condemnation, because it is the symbol of the new fraternal alliance proclaimed by Christ. (Posthumous Works - Second Part - The new generation and Mankind's regeneration)
193. Were the Spirits concerned with the Encoder’s health?
Yes, as shown in a particular communication received on April 23, 1866 in Paris, signed by Dr. Demeure, who insisted that Kardec pay attention to the need to rest and avoid the excesses at work. Going on like this, he would ruin his health, making it impossible to complete the task for which he came into the world. "Your present illness - said Demeure - is nothing but the result of a constant expenditure of vital forces that do not have enough time to recover, and also due to the heating of the blood because of the absolute lack of rest. We sustain you, no doubt, but with the condition that you do not undo what we do. What is the use of running? Didn’t we tell you many times that everything will come in time, and that the Spirits in charge of the ideas would know how to give rise to favorable circumstances when the time for action arrived”? Kardec accepted in part the advice and apologized to those who wrote to him, as well as his readers, for not being able to answer, in detail, as desired, to his letters. (Posthumous Works - Second Part - Instructions for Allan Kardec's health)
