The edition of the Spiritist Magazine of January 1868 announced that the book The Genesis would be on sale on January 6, 1868.

With The Genesis the fifth volume of the so-called Basic Works of Codification is completed. Allan Kardec discusses important issues that he emphasizes in the subtitle: miracles and predictions according to Spiritism; and analyzes the origin of the planet according to the laws of Nature and the Spiritist interpretation.

The copy of the Spiritist Magazine, dated February 1868, featured an essay of the Spirit Sao Luis on the new work:

"Religion, antagonist of Science, answered all questions of skeptical philosophy through mystery. It violated the laws of Nature and adapted them to its fantasy, so that it could get an incoherent explanation of its teachings. You, on the contrary, sacrifice yourselves to Science; you accept all its teachings without exception and you opened up horizons that it thought insurmountable. [...] The question of origin that attaches itself to Genesis is for everyone a passionate issue. A book written on this subject must therefore interest all serious minds".¹

Throughout the year of 1868 he copied several passages of this new work in the Spiritist Magazine. There was news about two new issues: the 2nd edition (March) and the 3rd edition (April). Until Kardec disembodied (1869), there are references to three editions of this Basic Work of the Encoder. ^1,2

Most of the translations into Portuguese – editions of the FEB of IDE - were made from the French edition of the year 1870, i. e., after Kardec disembodied. Only the editor of the Spiritist Center Leon Denis, in Rio Janeiro, published a translation of the French edition of 1868.

There are doubts and controversies about the editions of this work in French, launched soon after the disincarnating of the Encoder.

Recently, the Argentine Spiritist Confederation (CEA) provided the Spanish edition of the pioneering version of The Genesis, that is, the one released in January, 1868. At the same time, CEA published the results of studies that it encouraged and disclosed it in a publication in Buenos Aires in October 2017 and distributed an explanatory letter during a meeting of the Executive Committee of the International Spiritist Council, held in Bogota, Colombia, in October 2017, with a letter from the president of the Argentine Spiritist Confederation. It is reported that the translation of The Genesis would have been motivated by a questioning at a time of the FEB National Federative Council meeting in November 2017.

In our opinion, the measures taken by the President of the Argentine Spiritist Confederation are meritorious in publishing the results of the study it supported and in bringing the matter to the CEI.

The CEA requested a survey of Ms. Simoni Privato Goidanich, together with the National Archives of France and the National Library of France, located in Paris, as well as in CEA itself and in the Constancia Spiritist Association of Buenos Aires. The conclusion of the research is that a single copy, published in 1868, was legally deposited during the physical existence of Allan Kardec in the National Library of France. Thus, the Encoder would not have modified the content ⁴. These clarifications are found in the book El legado de Allan Kardec, written by Simoni Privato Goidanich, released at C.E.A. headquarters in Buenos Aires on 10/3/2017.⁵ 

Thus, doubts that already existed regarding the reliability of the French version that served as the basis for the translations of The Genesis reappear.

There are suspicions that some passages of The Genesis might have been altered probably by Pierre-Gaëtan Leymarie (1827-1901). With the disincarnating of Kardec, he became editor-in-chief and director of the Revue Spirite (1870-1901), manager of the Librairie Spirite (1870-1979) and was president of the Society for Continuation of the Spiritist Works of Allan Kardec".^{2, 6} He began to take care of the editions and authorizations of translations of Kardec’s works. ²

In addition, there is the case of the pioneering translations of the works of Kardec, in our country. At the beginning of the year 1875, Pierre-Gaëtan Leymarie authorized in a letter addressed to Dr. Joaquim Carlos Travassos the translation of the works of Allan Kardec into Portuguese, and this correspondence was published in the Spiritist Magazine. With the exception of The Genesis, Joaquim Carlos Travassos (1839-1915) using the pseudonym "Fortunio", translated into Portuguese four basic works of the Codification, published by BL Garnier, Rio de Janeiro, 1875 and 1876.⁶  An interesting fact was the comment of Zeus Wantuil in a biography about the translator Travassos: "[...] without referring to the good style of the translator, it is the judicious enlightenment, of “rustenist” background, that comes in the work “Heaven and Hell”..." ⁶ There is correspondence of Leymarie exchanged with the then recent Brazilian Spiritist Federation and the 1st edition of the Reformer magazine, January 1883, news that he represented France at a congress held in Brussels, aiming at the creation of a Universal Spiritualist Union. ⁷

Many facts now reappear with the translation into Portuguese of the historical and sold out book by Berthe Fropo - Beaucoup de Lumiere (1884) -, available in the bilingual digital edition: the Portuguese translation and the French original. The author was an active Spiritist, faithful to the ideals of Allan Kardec, a friend of Amelie Boudet, a neighbor and supporter of the latter after the disincarnating of the Encoder of Spiritism.² In this work the controversial action of Leymarie is clear and he was also involved in the historical “trial of the Spiritists", related to the exploitation of the so-called photos of Spirits, in which he was condemned.

In this mentioned book, Berthe Fropo addresses points of doctrinal distortion that occurred in the French Spiritist movement shortly after the disembodiment of Kardec, jeopardizing the continuation of the works of the Encoder of the Doctrine; it is clear that "with the endorsement of Amelie Boudet, Gabriel Delanne and Berthe Fropo set out to revive the plans for the continuation of the works of Kardec, which in the hands of Leymarie had been misrepresented by other ideologies such as - even more strongly - the mystical doctrine of the Theosophy of Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott".²

Therefore, there are indications that reinforce the suspicions about possible changes promoted by Leymarie in items of The Genesis.

Regarding FEB’s editions, only the one translated by Evandro Noleto Bezerra, also from the 5th French edition of 1870, brings a footnote in item 67 of chapter XV, registering that there is a difference with respect to the 1868 edition, with Kardec still incarnate. He justifies that "in reviewing the work with a view to the 4th edition, Allan Kardec had to delete item 67 that appeared in previous editions". In this footnote, number 124, the translator Evandro transcribes the suppressed item in other versions "for its priceless historical value, item 67 of the first three editions of The Genesis".⁸ But how do we deal then with Allan Kardec’s statement about the revision he made regarding the 4th edition?

In the edition of the Spiritist Center Leon Denis, the translator Albertina Escudeiro Seco is based on a 4th French edition, from 1868.

This CELD’s translator introduces the original item 67, namely:

"67. To what has the fleshly body been reduced? This problem cannot be solved through inference - until further notice - except by hypotheses, by the lack of sufficient elements to establish a conviction. This solution, by the way, is of secondary importance and would add nothing to the merits of Christ, or to the facts which attest, in a very peremptory way, His superiority and His divine mission.

There can, therefore, be no more than personal opinions as to how this disappearance took place, opinions which would only be of value if they were sanctioned by a rigorous logic and by the general teaching of the Spirits; nowadays, none of those formulated have received the sanction of this double control. If the Spirits have not solved the question by the unanimity of their teachings, it is because the time has not yet come to do so, or because knowledge is still lacking with the help of which it can be solved in person. However, if the hypothesis of a clandestine robbery is removed, one could find by analogy a probable explanation in the theory of the double phenomenon of transport and invisibility. (The Book of Mediums, chapters IV and V.) "And an item 67 appears, usually absent in the various versions, and with a renumbering item 68 appears, identified as item 67, in the other translations. ⁹

In any case, the recent questions that we have mentioned persist. Ideally, the publishers of Allan Kardec's works should make efforts to clarify the doubts that have been raised. The 150th anniversary of the launch of The Genesis could have as a milestone the clear definition of the reliability of the first editions of this book in French and add explanatory notes in the editions translated into Portuguese.

References:

1) Kardec, Allan. Translated by Bezerra, Evandro Noleto. Spiritist Magazine. Year XI. No. 1. 1868. Rio de Janeiro: FEB.

2) Fropo, Berthe. Translated by Lopes, Ery; Miguez, Rogerio. A lot of Light. 1^st ed. Digital edition: www.luzespirita.org.br; access in November 2017.

3) Kardec, Allan. Translated by d. Martinez, Gustavo N. The Genesis. 1^st ed. Buenos Aires: Argentine Spiritist Confederation. 2017.

4) Letter from the President of the Argentine Spiritist Confederation, Mr. Gustavo N. Martínez, of 10/14/2017, distributed at a meeting of the International Spiritist Council, in Bogota, Colombia.

5) Goidanich, Simoni Privato. The legacy of Allan Kardec. eis o link (access in November 2017).

6) Wantuil, Zeus. Great Spiritists of Brazil. 1st ed. Cap. Joaquim Carlos Travassos. Rio de Janeiro: FEB. 1969.

7) The Reformer, Year I, no.1, January 21, 1883, pages 1 to 4.

8) Kardec, Allan. Translated by Bezerra, Evandro Noleto. The Genesis. 1^st ed. Chap. XV. Item 67. Rio de Janeiro: FEB. 2010

9) Kardec, Allan. Translated by Seco,  Albertina Escudeiro. The Genesis. 3^rd ed. Chap. XV. Items 67 to 68. Rio de Janeiro: Ed. CELD. 2010

The author is former president of FEB and USE-SP.