“Premature ideas often fail because creatures are not mature enough to understand them, nor do they feel the need for a change of position for the time being.” (ALLAN KARDEC)

Introduction

The existence or not of spiritual colonies is a topic that continues to raise heated discussions among spiritists. Most of its opponents are based on question 1012 of The Book of Spirits, in which the Superior Spirits stated that there are no circumscribed places. According to the Michaelis’ dictionary, the word circumscribed means: “That it has clearly determined limits; demarcated, located, and situated”. ⁽¹⁾

The problem is that not taking the context of the answer into account, as is happening, inevitably leads to a misinterpretation of the response. We draw your attention, dear reader, to the topic title “Paradise, Hell, Purgatory. Paradise” from chap. II – Penalties and future enjoyments, from Book Four, where the following question is inserted“; 1012. Will there be limited places in the Universe for the sufferings and enjoyments of spirits, according to their merits?” (Our emphasis).

A more attentive scholar will realize that the question is about places for the pains and enjoyments of the Spirits, that is, about the common belief in traditional Christian religions about the existence of "Heaven" and "Hell" as circumscribed places for which we will go after disincarnating. Therefore, there is absolutely nothing against colonies or buildings on the spiritual plane.

We also found some confreres who claim that there is nothing about spiritual colonies in the works of the spiritist codification. Here we have to consider that we cannot have the same type of behavior as the one that reads the Bible, i.e. it does not mention it, it does not exist.

Spiritism is progressive

Allan Kardec (1804-1869) made it very clear that Spiritism is progressive and that no full stop was placed on it, as we can see in this speech recorded in the Spiritist Magazine 1867, month of April:

[…] Spiritism has not yet said its last word, far from it, not more about physical things than about spiritual things. Many of the discoveries will be the result of further observations. To some extent, Spiritism has done nothing but place the first steps of a science the importance of which is unknown. With the help of what it has already discovered, it opens the way to investigations in a special order of ideas for those who will come after us. It proceeds only by observations and deductions. If a fact is established, it is said that it must have a cause, and that this cause can only be natural, and then it looks for it. In the absence of a categorical demonstration, it can give a hypothesis, but, until confirmation, it only gives it as a hypothesis, and not as an absolute truth. […]. ⁽²⁾ (Emphasis added)

They closed “the door” of Spiritism so much that, if it continues like this, we will never see the “many of the discoveries will be the result of further observations” happen, as well as the possibility of “opening up to those who will come after us the path of investigations in a special order” of ideas”.

It is obvious that everything must go through universal control; we believe that it is unnecessary to develop this point, as it is so self-evident.

The reality that presents itself

It can also be seen that some confreres reject the existence of spiritual colonies because they assume it is a singular “revelation” of Andre Luiz.

Let's see what Jose Herculano Pires (1914-1979) said in the work The Infinite and the finite, in chapter 32 – 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 reverend Robert Hugh Benson, published in Portuguese.

Many people find it difficult to accept the descriptions of life beyond the grave, in Andre Luiz's books, psychographics by Chico Xavier. Even among spiritists, already accustomed to dealing with problems on the “other side of life”, these descriptions found at first, and still find today, a certain reluctance. Emmanuel explained, quite clearly and happily, in the preface to The Messengers, that 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 to life on Earth still disturbs some people and provokes a lot of criticism from religious and materialists.

The misunderstanding about this is natural, mainly due to two fundamental reasons: first, the ingrained habit of considering the post mortem life as mysterious, inaccessible to the understanding of mortals. Second, the usual confusion between body and spirit, source of materialism, which prevents many people from admitting the existence of life outside of 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 accessible to our understanding and, at the same time, undoes the materialistic confusion between body and spirit.

[…]

[…] the existence of spiritual cities beyond the grave, of dwellings, plant and animal, 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 afar off” and “the Zion of the solemnity”, and the Apocalypse of John about the heavenly Jerusalem.

With regard to mediumistic revelations, Andre Luiz's descriptions are nothing new, except for what they bring personally, from the author's point of view. In Heaven and Hell, Kardec presents similar descriptions. In Revue Spirite, the Encoder has published numerous reports from beyond the grave in the same vein. Sir Oliver Lodge presents similar pictures in Raymond, Denis Bradley in To the Stars, and so on. Now, Publisher Pensamento, from this capital, has just released the translation of Life in the invisible worlds, by Anthony Borgia, with the title version for Life in the Invisible Worlds. The translation work was entrusted to J. Escobar Faria, who did an exquisite job.

We have in this curious book a new version of life in the afterlife, with details that fully confirm André Luiz's descriptions. The spiritual author is the former Reverend Robert Hugh Benson, son of a former Archbishop of Canterbury, who, in the manner of Andre Luiz, recounts 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 closest to the face of the Earth. Benson, who in his earthly life had written about spiritual matters, giving a misleading interpretation to some of his psychic experiences, seeks to correct in this book his dogmatic errors of the time. Religious people in general and spiritists in particular, will find in Life in the Invisible Worlds a lot of material for comparison with the descriptions of sacred texts and mediumistic 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. ⁽³⁾
 

(To be continued in the next issue of this magazine.)

References:

KARDEC, A. Heaven and Hell. Brasilia: FEB, 2013.

KARDEC, A. The Book of Spirits. Brasilia: FEB, 2013.

KARDEC, A. Spiritist Magazine 1858. Macaws (SP): IDE, 2001.

KARDEC, A. Spiritist Magazine 1859. Macaws (SP): IDE, 1993.

KARDEC, A. Spiritist Magazine 1865. Macaws (SP): IDE, 2000.

KARDEC, A. Spiritist Magazine 1867. Macaws (SP): IDE, 1999.

PIRES, J.H. The Finite and the Infinite. Sao Bernardo do Campo (SP): Correio Fraterno, 1983.

SILVA NETO SOBRINHO, P. The Spiritual Colonies and Codification. Divinopolis (MG): Ethos Publisher, 2015.

MICHAELIS, Circumscribed, available at: Link-1. Accessed on 16 April 2022

Notes:

1 Michaelis – see Link-1

2 KARDEC, Spiritist Magazine 1867, p. 122

3 PIRES, The Finit and the Infinite, p. 98-100.