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“Pain is a necessary warning, a stimulant to man's
will, as it forces us to concentrate to reflect, and
forces us to tame our passions. Pain is the path to
improvement. Physical or moral, it is a powerful means
of development and progress. It is supreme purification,
it is the school in which patience, resignation and all
austere duties are learned. It is the furnace where
selfishness melts into which pride dissolves.”
(In: "After Death", 2nd part, 18th Ed., chap. 13, p.
140, FEB - RJ/RJ)
Stimulating questions:
- If animals, like men, have no conscience, why do they
suffer? Is castrating animals a transgression of some
Divine Law? Is it reprehensible to practice euthanasia
on an animal suffering pain, having an illness without
cure?
Here I will list some teachings of the Doctrine of the
Spirits about it.
Suffering (pain) in plants and animals
In “The Genesis”, by Allan Kardec, chap. XVIII, no. 8,
we find that plants and animals are affected by
diseases.
Considering that plants have sensibility, nothing
objects to inferring that this causes them suffering.
There is no way to say that they feel pain, only
that:
- a cut tree loses sap and dies;
- burnt branches, quickly wither away; rather, at the
simple approach of fire, they withdraw;
- there are many pests that attack crops, in addition to
parasites that cause damage to them, resulting in them
to wither and die.
In the case of animals, there is no doubt that
they suffer pain as much as humans.
But then, not a few people, most Spiritists, ponder:
— If man redeems debts contracted by mistaken actions,
far removed from the Moral Laws, how to justify that
animals and plants also suffer? What blame can be
attributed to them if they do not, like us, have
intelligence, free will and conscience?
Really, here is an apparent nonsense of Nature...
But, in fact, there is nothing wrong with that.
Sufferings in man
As for men, there is no doubt that Divine Justice - so
that each being can climb the steps of progress through
their own responsibility and effort - provides them with
the mechanism of reincarnations and engendered the
physical body susceptible to disease and pain. Initially
placed them in primitive worlds and from there, always
supported, progressively transfers them to worlds
consistent with the individual evolution that each one
has already achieved.
Diseases are characteristic of the evolutionary level of
backward planets, such as Earth. They help man to
develop intelligence, to remove them, which the blessed
progress of Medicine makes sublime proof. It is that
pain acts as a powerful warning that something isn't
right, spiritually or physically.
Furthermore, the Law of Cause and Effect marks the
balance of Justice, making good or evil return to the
origin. In the case of evil — pain, suffering, illness
—, still by the Supreme Goodness of God, the debtor,
knowing why he suffers, without revolt and with
resignation, can repay his debt through actions to help
others. In this case, even though he is visited by
sufferings, they do not weigh so much anymore, as Hope
and Faith in the Father's Justice are powerful balms, in
addition to being powerful energetic to overcome
difficulties.
— Very well: And pain in animals?
Having no intelligence, free will or conscience, their
actions, necessarily instinctive, are only aimed at
survival. And if so, how to impute guilt to them and the
respective ransom?
Starting from the premise that God is the Supreme
Perfection and the Absolute Love, under no circumstances
can the slightest possibility be raised that this
consists in injustice or misunderstanding of Nature.
Another has to be the focus.
Here, the clarifying condition of Spiritism comes into
play.
I'll linger a little longer on reflections on pain, on
living beings:
a. In “The
Genesis”, chap. III, Allan Kardec philosophizes with
great depth about good and evil, analyzing
in detail instinct and intelligence and,
particularly, the “destruction of living beings by
each other”. In item 21, he clarifies
that “true life, both animal and man, is not
in the body wrapping, just as it is not in clothing. It
is in the intelligent principle that pre-exists and
survives the body”. (Emphasis added).
Here, there is already enough content to reflect that
physical damage that destroys matter, that is, that
results in death, does not destroy the spirit
(naturally, clothed in perispirit, which animals also
have, although of more rudimentary matter than the
human).
Kardec continues, now in item 24: “in the
inferior beings of creation, in those who still lack
moral sense, in whom intelligence has not yet replaced
instinct, the fight is for the satisfaction of the
imperative need — food; they struggle only to live; it
is in this first period that the soul develops and
rehearses for life”.
b. The Spirit Emmanuel clarifies, in a psychographic
text in the Magazine O REFORMADOR, June, 1987 – FEB,
in order to leave no doubts, that pain represents
learning, in the evolutionary path of each living being,
towards evolution; this information is textual, crystal
clear and leaves no room for philosophical derivations.
Here it is:
“Nobody suffers, in one way or another, just to
redeem the price of something. One suffers, too, raising
the precious resources to obtain it. Thus it is that the
animal goes through long ages of trial in order to
domesticate itself, just as man goes through so many
other long ages in order to educate himself. No spirit
obtains elevation or culture through osmosis, but
through patient and non-transferable work. In order to
reach the aureole of reason, the animal must also
know a worthy and long string of experiences that will
end up integrating it into the definitive possession of
reasoning. Physical pain in animals is a passport to
broader resources in the domains of evolution”. (My
italics)
Thus, even if it is painful for many to accept, it would
be prudent to reflect a lot on the subject and on how
much man still ignores the things of God — Father who
never abandons any of His children. With this certainty,
it is immediately ruled out that the cruelty that
victimizes animals is indifferent to the Life and Love
of God, present in the infinitely perfect Plan of
Creation.
ç. Juvanir Borges de Souza (1916-2010), late former
president of the Brazilian Spiritist Federation, in
“Tempo de Renovaçao”, cap. 20, p. 164, Ed. FEB, 1989,
concludes: “to understand the role of pain well, it
will be necessary to situate it as the great educator of
living beings, with different functions in plants,
animals and humans, but always as a driver of the
evolutionary process, one of the levers of the progress
of the spiritual principle”. (My italics)
In view of the above statements, I reflect:
- animals suffer so that they register in their
spiritual, eternal memory, that pain hurts, it is bad;
thus, as they evolve, reaching intelligence, they will
already bring in their cognitive baggage, that pain
should be avoided - the pain itself, for
self-preservation and that of others, embodied by Jesus,
when He advised us not to do to others what we do not
wish for ourselves;
- nothing prevents you from considering that pain, in
animals, once learning is completed, will no longer be
repeated, and it is very likely that when they
disincarnate, under whatever conditions, the suffering
is interrupted in the act of disincarnating and under
charitable sponsorship of the Missionaries of Eternal
Love;
- in fact, I imagine that more than one painful
experience is needed to fix the learning process; as
there are thousands of species and millions of dwellings
in the Universe, there is a great probability that
animals travel through many of these worlds, in adequate
bodies, accumulating experiences;
- as the restoration of the perispirit is a reality of
the Greater Plan, nothing prevents me from imagining
that the perispirit of animals, if damaged, will be
recomposed there by Sidereal Geneticists, the same ones
who promote the changes that tend to the evolutionary
scale of the species (see the chapter “A Grande
Transição (The Great Transition)”, in the work A
Caminho da Luz (On the Path to Light), by the Spirit
Emmanuel, a psychographics by Francisco Candido Xavier,
13th Ed., 1985, FEB, RJ/RJ);
- if animals are "anesthetized" by Protective Spirits,
at the time of slaughter, to avoid pain, there would not
be fixation of evolutionary learning there; however, I
have no objection to reasoning that in many, many cases
even this occurs, but in other circumstances; for
example: when human cruelty is present, inflicting
suffering on animals whose reincarnation program did not
provide for it;
- to the Spirits who love animals, they are probably
delegated the role of guiding the animal species when on
the spiritual plane, and of protecting them when on the
material; in this one, they do it with selflessness and
love, creating "habitats" and maintaining ecosystems;
watching them in the difficult times they go through; I
consider, for example, that when a predator of great
offensive potential (I remember that it was the
Promoters of Life who equipped it under Divine
delegation...) attacks a defenseless prey (also of an
organism engendered by the Guardians of Eternal Life),
God is present in one animal and another; by the Law of
Progress, certainly, in the course of time, the roles
may be reversed and after such remarkable physical
experiences, both will already have such memories well
fixed in their spiritual memory (by biological-spiritual
automatism); then, when they reach reason/intelligence,
they will only commit violence by self-decision, on
board of free will; and, based on free will, evolution
is guided by the Law of Cause and Effect - Action and
Reaction.
d. In due course, I will quote some excerpts from the
always elucidating instructions of Allan Kardec, years
after his death, clarifying the matter through a message
contained in “O Diário dos Invisíveis” (“The Diary of
the Invisibles)”, psychographed by Zilda Gama (pages 73
to 75 of the 1st Ed., 1927, Publisher O
Pensamento):
(...) “You well know that pain, physical and moral,
is the bleach that targets the stained soul of the
conscious being responsible for his actions; it is the
lamp that floods it with light, making it eternally
radiant.
(...) If only man were susceptible to pain and illnesses
and the irrational had an organism immune to suffering,
insensitive as steel, the link that binds them by
matter, which is similar in all animals.
(...) The animals, whether those with a constitution
similar to that of man, those of imperfect organisms, do
not suffer, like the rational ones, only to progress
spiritually, as they are unconscious and irresponsible,
but God, who foresees everything, does not made them
insensitive to their own defense and conservation, as a
means of being domesticated, making them useful to
communities.
A horse that was indifferent to pain would be capable of
rushing, with the rider, to the first abyss that it came
across, trying to get rid of the saddle and the annoying
load that hinder its movements, depriving it of living
freely by the vastness of meadows or in the shade of
forests. Why do they recoil, fearful, at the threat of a
pebble or a barb, an enraged dog or bull? Afraid of the
suffering they would have if they were hit by them.
(...) The irrationals need pain, so that they can, in a
state of freedom, defend their own life, fear abuse,
suffer the fierce impulses, seek rest and food, become
less dangerous to man, maintain the instinct of
conservation, which they would not have, if their bodies
were devoid of sensibility. Man progresses more through
moral sufferings than through physical ones; in the
irrationals these predominate over those.
(...) Pain is useful to animals so that the weak and
small can defend themselves from the strong and the
cruel, looking for hiding places inaccessible to their
opponents in the caves or in the highest fronds”.
I understand that, as paradoxical as it may seem, pain,
in an analysis of understanding and respect for the
Divine Laws, is actually a friend, since for man it acts
as an inexorable warning that there is something
personal to be reformed; and for animals, as an
undoubted learning...
Animal castration
— As for the castration of animals, I cannot advise,
neither yes nor no. There are several components to this
question, both moral and material. The decision has to
be individual, of each pet owner.
What I inform and affirm, only as an opinion, is
that — between the cruel alternative of abandonment, or
castration, I find this providence (castration) useful,
a thousand times preferable to letting the multiplied
offspring come into the world and then abandoning them,
or what is worse, sacrifice them.
Nevertheless, an expressive meeting is supported by the
answer in "The Spirits' Book", question 693, with
excerpts that I reproduce:
Q.693 – Are human laws and customs that have the purpose
or effect of creating obstacles to reproduction contrary
to the law of Nature?
A: Anything that hinders Nature in its march is contrary
to general law.
a) – However, there are species of living beings,
animals and plants, whose indefinite reproduction would
be harmful to other species and of which man himself
would eventually be a victim. Does he practice a
reprehensible act, preventing this reproduction?
A: God has given man, above all living beings, a power
that he must use, without abusing it. He can therefore
regulate the reproduction according to his needs.
Animal euthanasia
(Spiritism consigns with solar clarity that euthanasia
(in humans) is a practice contrary to Divine Laws,
recording "the value of the last thought" of a dying
person in a desperate state, when he will be able to
awaken to spiritual understanding and this minute "save
many tears in the future.” As for animals, it
does not specifically address the topic of
“euthanasia”).
In 1995, an international meeting was held in Sao Paulo
to debate abuse against pets — basically dogs and cats.
Main themes: control of reproduction (by neutering or
castration), animal welfare and education... of their
owners. An activity to be reviewed worldwide is the way
in which countries sacrifice animals abandoned on the
streets: poisoning, electrocution or decompression in
vacuum chambers. All these methods cause the animal to
suffer for about one to three minutes before dying. If
the holocaust is unavoidable, let it be by anesthetics
that cause painless death, such as in London, where
animals that are sacrificed are injected and die in less
than a second, without suffering.
I dare not advise the euthanasia of any animal.
The theme is ardent and can raise a lot of controversy,
as the owner's love for an animal is among the most
beautiful pages of earthly existence. Therefore, such a
decision will have to obey the impulses of the heart.
Extremely advisable at these times to consult a
veterinarian... and conscience!
For my part, I think that, exclusively in the case of
animals in a terminal state, almost always suffering
excruciating pain, if they are sacrificed for the
cessation of suffering, those who love them have decided
to do so out of love.
In these poignant cases, the owner's intention to opt
for euthanasia is therefore based on love. And
to God, intent is everything!
Jesus, the Good Shepherd, bless us all.
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