There is a group in the Spiritist movement that advocates a sort of doctrinal study “Strictly Kardec”, i.e., Spiritism is based only in the work of Allan Kardec, and nothing else.

The above mentioned position is almost as odd as the unwise attitude of those who say "everything that speaks about God is good". The “Strictly Kardec” group seems to be an "answer", within the Spiritist Movement, to this last subgroup, which is larger and older, and which has highly permissive spiritual characteristics, in the best style "just by talking about the good is enough to mean that it is good".  This subgroup associated to a "Permissive Spiritualism” usually claims that any position of doctrinal orientation - more illuminated and distinguished for its quality -  if compared to the one that has no doctrinal quality, “is lack of charity” with those who make doctrinal errors.

These are two completely opposite and analyzable positions.

Let's start with the Highly Permissive Spiritualists. They state that the Spiritist Center has to divulge and sell everything that speaks about good, because they claim that they cannot limit people's freedom. We could ask: can we really advertise and sell everything? Including Marcelo Rossi, Nelson Rodrigues and Paulo Coelho? It would be the case also to ask what differentiates a Spiritist bookstore from a Spiritualist bookstore or a common bookstore.

Just like we did with the Spiritist bookstore, we can question the Spiritist Center. What distinguishes a Spiritist Center from any Spiritualist group or any other group, religious or not?

Some might risk answering that it is charity, but this answer is unsatisfactory because charity is practiced with various nuances, in various environments that are not Spiritist. Others would answer: the Gospel, but good or bad, the Gospel is preached in several Christian nuclei, which even occurred long before Spiritism appeared in 1857. It is evident that the Gospel is present in the Spiritist Doctrine, but only the Gospel, like charity, cannot fully characterize and differentiate the Spiritist nucleus from other groups, even though the Spiritist interpretation of the Gospel has peculiar characteristics and a greater lucidity in terms of reasoned faith.

The fact that it is a highly enlightened Doctrine, regarding alterity and not restricting spiritual happiness to any segment, does not mean that the Spiritist Doctrine does not have its own identity from the conceptual point of view. On the contrary, it is a doctrinal body extremely coherent and well-constructed, and it does not accept any idea just because it contains some positive thinking, self-help, Gospel and/or Spiritualism (see the wonderful work by our confrere, Jose Passini, entitled "Spiritist Literature Analysis)”.

At the other end, the subgroup "Strictly Kardec” would have only the works of Kardec in its bookstore, which would be at first a "mini-bookstore". In the Spiritist Centers of this subgroup, only the works of Allan Kardec could be mentioned.

It is important to emphasize that if it is to read only one author, then let it be Kardec. Kardec is the first, the most known, reliable, and recommended Spiritist author.

From the point of view mentioned in the previous paragraph, we do respect the confreres who only study Kardec. However, it is important to note: only studying Kardec is one thing; only to accept information that is explicitly in Kardec’s works is another, completely different! The first position is a worthy choice of the Spiritist study, while the second point of view means to completely ignore the evolutionary feature of the Spiritist Doctrine, which, of course, is clear in Allan Kardec (see "The Genesis"). Therefore, the second position goes against it.

To study only Kardec as a matter of priority – to initially get a better doctrinal base, or because of a limited time available - is a very reasonable attitude, provided that this selection, at first wise and logical, does not turn into rude and crude attacks to other respectable authors of the Spiritist movement, as we have seen in some cases. In fact, we need not to go any further to consider this position as inconceivable in any person with a minimum of spirituality, regardless of which religion they follow.

We must, however, mention a paradox found in the "Strictly Kardec" confreres. Kardec’s second book is "The Book of Mediums – Evocators Guide". It is the Codification’s second fundamental work and in it Kardec tries to explain the mediumistic phenomenon and teach how to conduct it adequately in the Spiritist context, i.e., how to practice mediumship for high purposes, in an efficient manner (i.e., in the manner that is conventionally called in the Spiritist movement "mediumship with Jesus"). Now, let us see, if the only work that serves is that of Kardec and no other work of any other medium, why did the Master of Lyons teach how to deal with and work with mediumship? Was it just for the laying on of hands or only for psychophony in séances for the treatment of obsessions? Probably not.

In fact, Kardec mentions but does not emphasize the laying on of hands in his work; moreover, the Master of Lyon gives a special emphasis to the psychographics or writing mediumship in “The Book of Mediums”, which does not occur with psychophony or speaking mediumship. Kardec, in “The Book of Mediums”, recommends mediumistic tests concerning psychographics. Therefore, the Master of Lyon probably expected that the new psychographics mediums would develop doctrinal aspects after his death, since he knew he was ill and was aware that he probably would not live long (in the dialogue with the disembodied Doctor Demeure in 1865, this is evident ). Nothing that he has left written, even in the Spiritist Magazine, presupposes the contrary, i.e., in no text does Kardec show any sign that Spiritism would be ready and finished and that only his works should be read and valued.

On the other hand, we find confreres "forming" mediums in courses that accept large numbers of students and making severe restrictions on Chico Xavier, Divaldo Pereira Franco, Waldo Vieira (here meaning the period when

Waldo did Spiritist work) and Yvonne do Amaral Pereira. Are the mediums formed in this manner, perhaps better than the four mediums mentioned? If they are, we would like to know their works, mediums which were supposedly better trained with such procedures, courses and pedagogical strategies. Since psychographics was the mediumship most valued by Kardec in “The Book of Mediums”, we await the supposedly higher messages that are obtained with such procedures; especially those coming from groups that underestimate the content obtained by the mediumship of a Chico Xavier, Divaldo Pereira Franco, Waldo Vieira, and Yvonne do Amaral Pereira.

In this scenario, we have two possible situations:

1) These groups do not receive psychic messages superior to those mediums they despise.

2) These groups may consider that they have mediumistic messages superior to those of the mentioned mediums. They are invited, therefore, to publish them so that we ourselves may also benefit from these contributions.

With all due respect, I find it most unlikely that they have messages superior to those of the mentioned four mediums whom they so much despise.

We are not stating that everything that was transmitted by these four mediums is not subject to criticism and correction, but, in general, they furnished us with what we have of the best in the twentieth century mediumship, unless better judgment.

Then, what do such "Strictly Kardec" groups usually do?

Or they stop the mediumistic meetings (which is a less-used alternative).

Or they continue their psychic meetings for the laying on of hands and psychophonics purposes in disobsession meetings, and go on disrespecting Chico, Divaldo, Yvonne and Waldo, the greatest Spiritist psychographics mediums of the twentieth century, without generating results close to those produced by these mediums, but continuing to criticize them.

The above attitude, of clear doctrinal incoherence, has two very negative implications:

a) it makes one suppose that Kardec failed in some way, because he proposed something so difficult that only he could efficiently organize it (i.e., the mediumistic meeting and, mainly, the mediumistic results generating doctrinal knowledge), and nobody else!

b) it considers all other mediums inferior to them by promoting a strange mentality that favors bad quality mediums and authors (from a doctrinal point of view). Many of these mediums and authors – some of them “best-sellers” – feel “free” to go on producing very bad quality works, because in their highly distorted view of reality, they consider themselves “almost in the same level” as Chico, Divaldo, Yvonne e Waldo, for they would be “equally”  despised.

Kardec, in his book "What is Spiritism", in the second Chapter, in item four, explains:

"Spiritism also has apprentices; and whoever wishes to be clarified must not learn from a single source, because only by examination and comparison can a judgment be established" (Allan Kardec - "What is Spiritism”).

Our conclusion and suggestion is that the subgroup "Strictly Kardec" should refrain from criticizing Chico, Divaldo, Yvonne and Waldo so inconsequently, because in doing so, they commit themselves to the duty of providing contributions to the Spiritist Literature , mediumistic or not, superior to those provided by the said mediums. However, this objective, as far as we can see, has not been achieved. Thus, such bitter criticisms regarding Chico, Divaldo, Yvonne and Waldo demonstrate, in reality, on the part of these critics that they have little ability to deal with mediumship in order to produce messages that generate effective contributions to the growth of the Spiritist Doctrine and/or the Spiritist Movement.

Such contradictions denote misunderstanding or at least the need for greater exchange of information and experiences in our studies on mediumship in the Spiritist Movement.

Conclusions

The Spiritist’s ideal position should be to emphasize the work of Allan Kardec in the first place and secondly, to value the so-called excellent subsidiary works. It is up to the conscious Spiritist to study with depth and perseverance to select the works that are truly worthy of being considered a complement to the work of Allan Kardec.

Between the two points of view analyzed in this article - in our opinion undue - of the subgroups "Strictly Kardec" and "Permissive Spiritualism", we consider that the "Strictly Kardec" attitude is the least incoherent. However, such a position would be, at first, less inappropriate as long as it does not impact on workers and mediums who have provided and provide legitimate contributions to the Spiritist work and since it does not imply a perception that the Kardec text is a type of "sacred text”, “infallible”, which would violate one of the great contributions of Spiritism which is the "Alliance of Science and Religion" (see "The Gospel According to Spiritism"), or, in other words, the threefold doctrinal aspect: Science, Philosophy and Religion.