Herculano Pires and the Works of Andre Luiz Part 2 (Final)

Herculano Pires, in the Correio Fraterno, 1989, continues:

All who participate in the Spiritist movement know that Spirits actively participate in the doctrinal work; nothing more natural, therefore, than their intensive participation in the celebrations of the centenary. A concrete proof of this has just been given by the publication of another book, a psychographics by Francisco Candido Xavier, a book in which the preface of Emmanuel contains the following sentences: "A century of work, of renewal and of light. To contribute to the homage to the memorable event, Andre Luiz wrote the pages of this book".

As it turns out, "Action and Reaction", Andre Luiz's new book, which the Brazilian Spiritist Federation has just published, is a Spiritual contribution to the celebrations of the centenary.And what an excellent contribution! The title is sufficient to indicate the content. Andre Luiz makes an ample exposition of the problem of action and reaction, through examples taken directly in the dark areas where the suffering Spirits live.

Andre Luiz's books, which already constitute a large collection, are a real work of illustration of the Spiritist principles, through reports of episodes lived in the Spiritual planes. In Our Home or Astral City, in the first volume of the series, we have the detailed description of a Spiritual city,intended for the preparation of creatures for higher Spirituality. In The Messengers, the Dantesque description of the zones of suffering, purgatorial or infernal regions - as you wish – where the souls - of those who did not understand the opportunities of the earthly incarnation - crawl. Messengers are the Higher Spirits who descend into the shadowy areas or onto the surface of the Earth, to bring relief to the creatures given to despair, anguish, remorse, and all forms of Spiritual suffering.

In "Action and Reaction" the events also take place in a Spiritual zone heavily loaded with material influences. In the midst of a seemingly abandoned region, where the "brute and brave souls", to which Dante refers, roar, cry, rage, and moan, lost in the shadows and rescued by the gale of their own iniquities, rises an architectural ensemble which offers asylum, comfort and healing to those who have been able to be helped, that is, the Spirits who have begun to repent of their mistakes.

"The establishment," says Andre Luiz, "situated in the lower regions, was a sort of Saint Bernard Monastery in an area punctuated by hostile nature, except that the snow, almost constant around the famous convent, stuck in the canyons, between Switzerland and Italy, was replaced by the thick shade, which at that hour was thickening around the institution, as if touched by unceasing wind".

For those who do not know the principles of the Spiritist Doctrine and are unfamiliar with descriptions of the Spiritual zones closest to the Earth's crust, all this may seem illusory, imaginary, and unlikely. But those who know that the Spirits are nothing more than disembodied men and who, like earthly men, live their lives, carry out their work and carry out their constructions, fully understand the descriptions of Andre Luiz.

There are those who do not accept the existence of such concrete things in the Spiritual plane. Andre Luiz refers, however, to the lower zones, those in which Spirits, still too attached to the forms of material life, could not "free themselves in Spirit". It is edifying to see, in "Action and Reaction," how the Higher Spirits work in these regions, rendering their charitable assistance to the brethren who have transgressed in the selfish paths of earthly life. (PIRES, 1992, pp. 72-74, emphasis added).

7) The infinite and the finite, Correio, 1989.

Spiritist messages abroad confirm those received in Brazil

Books by Chico Xavier in comparison with French and English Works - "Life in the Invisible Worlds", by the Anglican Rev. Robert Hugh Benson, published in Portuguese

Many people find it difficult to accept the descriptions of life beyond the grave, from Andre Luiz's books, psychographics by Chico Xavier. Even among the Spiritists, who are already accustomed to dealing with the problems of the "other side of life", these descriptions found at first, and still find, a certain dislike. Emmanuel explained, quite clearly and fully, in the preface to The Messengersthat Andre Luiz's accounts should not be taken literally but as an effort to objectify, in earthly language, the visions of the Spiritual world. Despite this, the extreme similarity of life in space with life on Earth still disturbs some people and causes criticism by religious and materialists.

The misunderstanding about this is natural, mainly because of two fundamental motives: first, the ingrained habit of considering postmortem life as mysterious, inaccessible to the understanding of mortals; second, the habitual confusion between body and Spirit, the source of materialism, which prevents many people from admitting the existence of life outside matter. This second reason is the reverse of the first and both represent extreme positions in the face of the problem of survival. Spiritism shows us that life beyond death is not inaccessible to our understanding and clarifies at the same time the materialistic confusion between body and Spirit.

Sir Oliver Lodge, the great English physicist, understood that Spiritism carries out a new Copernican revolution. This revolution consists precisely in modifying our attitude toward the problem of life. If Copernicus destroyed the geocentric conception of the Universe, Spiritism, in turn, destroys the organocentric conception of life. From an organocentric point of view, which characterizes materialism, life is only possible in plant and animal organisms. Spiritism states and proves the opposite, that is, life is independent of these organisms and manifests itself in a thousand different forms and ways, in the infinite Universe.

The religious who criticize the mediumistic descriptions of the beyond do not fail to accept this decentralization of life, but do not accept their interpretation or rational explanation. They cling to dogmas, to rigid principles of faith, remaining in the plane of mystery. However, if they studied for some more time the sacred texts of their own religions, they would see that the existence of Spiritual cities in the beyond-tomb, of dwellings, of plants and of animals, is not, as they suppose, an invention of the Spiritists. The Old Testament and the New Testament, for example, are full of descriptions of this order. Just remember what Isaiah says (33:17, 20) about "the land from afar" and "Zion of solemnity," and John's Apocalypse about the heavenly Jerusalem.

With regard to mediumistic revelations, Andre Luiz's descriptions are not new, except for what they bring of personal, the way the author sees them. Already in Heaven and Hell, Kardec presents similar descriptions. In the Revue Spirite, the Encoder published numerous reports from beyond the grave in the same sense. Sir Oliver Lodge presents a similar picture in Raymond, Denis Bradley in Star Trek, and so on. Now, Editora O Pensamento, located in this capital, has just launched the translation of Life in the World Unseen by Anthony Borgia, with the version of the title for Life in the Invisible Worlds. The translation was entrusted to J. Escobar Faria, who carried out an excellent work.

We have in this curious book a new version of life in the hereafter, with details that fully confirm the descriptions of Andre Luiz. The Spiritual author is former Rev. Robert Hugh Benson, the son of a former Archbishop of Canterbury, who, in the manner of Andre Luz, relates his passage to the other side and describes that side. The second part of the book offers us a kind of geography of the Spiritual planes closer to Earth.

Benson, who in earthly life had written about Spiritual matters, giving captious interpretation to some of his psychic experiences, seeks to correct in this book his dogmatic errors of that time. The religious in general, and the Spiritists in particular, will find in The Life in the Invisible Worlds much material for comparison with the descriptions of the sacred texts and the psychic communications obtained in our country. This confrontation, for Spiritists, meets one of the requirements of the doctrinal method, for the acceptance of Spiritual information: that of universal consensus, established by the Encoder. (PIRES, 1989, pp. 105-110, emphasis added).

8) By Jorge Rizzini: J. Herculano Pires the Apostle of Kardec, Paideia, 2001.

Is there a “Luizine” revelation?

We begin by copying a chronicle signed with the pseudonym "Brother Saulo" entitled "Is there a revelation from Luiz?", Which refutes an article by Salvador Gentile (director of the "Spiritist Yearbook", edited in Araras, State of Sao Paulo), regarding the work "Nosso Lar" (Our Home or Astral City), psychographics by Chico Xavier. The chronicle of Herculano Pires, printed in the "Diario de São Paulo", is of importance because, when the first works of the Spirit Andre Luiz appeared, some leaders, demonstrating doctrinal immaturity, proclaimed in the tribunes and in the newspapers that they were the "Fourth Revelation"...

Let us read the considerations of Herculano Pires:

"The publication in Tokyo of a Japanese edition of Andre Luiz's book "Nosso Lar" (Our Home or Astral City), led the confrere Salvador Gentile to revive in the 'Spiritist Yearbook 1969' the thesis of the “revelation of Luiz”. This thesis won a certain vogue in the Spiritist milieu (some say “andreluizine”), but it soon cooled because Emmanuel and Andre Luiz were the first to throw a wet blanket. Gentile resuscitates it in terms of doctrinal revisionism, of 'overcoming' Kardec, not forgetting to criticize “the orthodox that make Kardec an intangible dogma”. To respect the Codification is to be dogmatic, according to the accusations of the Divinists and other renovators.

"Gentile starts from the assumption that Kardec's work was based on generalities. He wants more detailed and concrete information that Andre Luiz provides about the life of the Spirits. But if they had resorted to Emmanuel's preface in the book The Messengers, he would see that this concretization is symbolic and therefore abstract. The work of Andre Luiz is illustrative of the Spiritist revelation, and not properly complementary, in the sense of overcoming, as the writer wants. It is a great and beautiful contribution in Spiritist studies, but its touchstone is the Codification.

"What impressed Gentile most was the “revelation” of Spiritual cities in space. But the Bible already told us about the Celestial Jerusalem and the ancient revelations are full of similar ideas. They are still materialized plans of the Spiritual life and not of the higher planes. The 'Spiritist Magazine' presents numerous accounts of this life that resembles earthly life. But Gentile goes further and states that certain concepts of Kardec are reformulated in Our Home, for example: the concept of the wandering Spirits, the concept of camp, the perispirit without material-type organs.

"Gentile's criticism of these concepts is not right. Kardec explains in item 226 of The Book of Spirits that all the Spirits that are yet to be reincarnated, even the most evolved, are wandering. Erraticity implies not only permanence in lower planes, but a condition of the Spirit in its evolutionary process. It is a relative concept, that is, it concerns the relationship of the Spirit with its passage through the lower stages of the earthly incarnation.  The concept or notion of camp does not have in Kardec the application that Gentile gave it. It refers to the transient worlds and not to the Spiritual planes. The concept of the perispirit without physical organs, which does not need a restoration of its forces, is also relative and is well explained in item 254, where one can read this clearly: “The kind of fatigue that the Spirits can feel is in reason of their inferiority, because the more they rise, the less they need to rest”.

"Based on false premises, the writer could only arrive to false conclusions. There is no reason to say “Luizine Revelation”, even though Kardec's own thesis is that of a continuous revelation from the acceptance and knowledge of mediumship. Before thinking about “new revelations”, what we urgently need is a systematic and in-depth study of Kardec's work, including not only the volumes of the Codification, but also of the “Spiritist Magazine”, itself indicated as necessary for a good knowledge of the Doctrine. "(RIZZINI, 2001, pp. 244-246, emphasis added)

Conclusion

What we saw was exactly the opposite of what is insinuated, since Herculano Pires was, in fact, a defender of the works of Andre Luiz; he fought, indeed, those who in his time wanted to transform them into the "Fourth Revelation", which meant leaving the works of Kardec in the background (or even rejecting them); these works were largely recognized as the "Third Revelation"; and thus, dear reader, “the Apostle of Kardec”, as Riziini would say, did not spare his criticism on them.

On the other hand, Herculano did not appear so intransigent to the point of considering all the information projected from the literature of Andre Luiz as absolute truths; he had, as we have seen, serious issues such as the existence of "ovoids", as can be seen in one of the five texts above. At first we thought that Herculano had misunderstood Andre Luiz's information, but no; based on this Spiritual author, the Spirits that are in the ovoid condition have lost their perispiritual body, which, certainly, is contrary to what we can deduct from Kardec’s Codification. However, we must understand that all of us, because we are not yet Pure Spirits, are subject to errors, even Herculano Pires himself, in the same work in question - Vampirism -, ended up by this committing this error:

Homosexuality, in both sexes, because of its intensity in ancient civilizations and its brutal revival in our time is the most serious of these abnormalities which are now claimed to be normal. [...]. Any justification for these abnormalities is no more than a sophistry that threatens the very existence of the species. [...]. (PIRES, 1980, pp. 29 and 30, emphasis added)

Herculano Pires certainly did not remember this speech of Kardec, in the article "Do Women have a soul?" published in the Spiritist Magazine1866:

[...] it may occur that the Spirit travels through a series of existences in the same sex, which makes it possible that for a long time it retains, in the state of a Spirit, the character of a man or of a woman, the mark of which remains in it. [...].

If this influence reflects from the bodily life to the Spiritual life, the same happens when the Spirit passes from the Spiritual life to the bodily life. In a new incarnation, it will bring the character and inclinations it had as Spirit; if it is advanced it will come as an advanced man; if it is backward it will come as a backward man. By changing its gender, it can, under that impression and in its new incarnation, keep its same tastes, tendencies and inherent gender character. This explains some apparent anomalies noted in the character of certain men and certain women. (KARDEC, 1993, p.4)

Following strictly what Herculano stated, it could be said that Kardec used sophistry to explain some cases of homosexuality.

We believe that the somewhat pejorative form with which Herculano Pires treated Andre Luiz in the work Vampirismo, even though we could not specify when he took the pen to write it, we consider him fully rehabilitated, for everything he says in his other works about him who exercised the function of "reporter from beyond."

In J. Herculano Pires, the Apostle of Kardec, the author, Jorge Rizzini (1924-2008), makes a biography of Herculano and mentions absolutely nothing about a possible change of his thought in relation to the works of Andre Luiz, or that he began to consider him as a "neophyte, enthused by doctrine", since his position is circumstantial to the thesis of Salvador Gentile, published in the Spiritist Yearbook 1969, that this Spiritual author is the bearer of the "Fourth Revelation." We return to the passage: "Andre Luiz manifests himself as a neophyte who is enthusiastic about doctrine, sometimes employing terms that deviate from doctrinal terminology and concepts that do not always conform to Spiritist principles".

It is good to emphasize that this cannot be generalized, since Herculano Pires makes it clear that it is only "sometimes" that Andre Luiz used terms that were not in accordance with the doctrinal terminology, and he did not say that "everything" that he produced was in accordance, as it seems to be the understanding of some companions.

Bibliographic reference:

KARDEC, A. Spiritist Magazine 1866. Araras, SP: IDE, 1993.

PIRES, H. J. Mediumship: concept of mediumship and general analysis of its current problems. Sao Paulo: Edicel, 1987.

PIRES, J. H. and XAVIER, F. At the time of testimony. Sao Paulo: Paideia, 1978.

PIRES, J. H. The Spirit and the time. Sao Paulo: Edicel, 2003.

PIRES, J. H. The infinite and the finite. Sao Bernardo do Campo, SP: Correio Fraterno, 1989.

PIRES, J. H. The mystery of good and evil. S. Bernardo do Campo: Correio Fraterno, 1992.

PIRES, J. H. Vampirism. Sao Paulo: Paideia, 1980.

RIZZINI, J. J. Herculano Pires, the Apostle of Kardec. Sao Paulo: Paideia, 2001.

XAVIER, F. C. AND PIRES, J. H. Dialogue of the living. Sao Bernardo do Campo, SP: GEEM, 2011.

Translation:
Eleni Frangatos - eleni.moreira@uol.com.br