Spiritist people do not ignore that it is a current thinking among the scholars of Spiritism that the habit of reading and study is important in everyone’s life, mainly if we have tasks to perform in the various fields of work that exist in the Spiritist movement.

There are several reasons to justify such a thought.

The first one is due to the fact that we generally forget a great deal of what we have read or studied. Persistence in studies and the reading of good books neutralize this thought and can even avoid that.

The second reason is about the verification that every time we read a book we understand something else about it. A 20 year-old person who reads “The Spirits’ Book” will not see in it the focus he will certainly see when he reads it again at 45. And the same will happen when he turns 60.

The third reason, obviously, talks about the circumstance that from time to time there are new books out, full of information and analyses that we cannot find in older ones. A good example of that are the books written through the medium Divaldo P. Franco by the Spirit Manoel Philomeno de Miranda, in which enriches what we knew about mediumship, obsession and psychic disturbance.

A survey done by the National Endowment for the Arts, an American foundation focused on promoting culture, reveals that those who read regularly have a more active and successful life than those who spend their time watching TV or things that do not require thinking. For those who read – says the survey – life is a succession of new experiences and broadening of horizons.

Mark Edmondson, Professor at Virginia University and author of the book “Why Read?” understands that reading is the second opportunity life offers for our personal growth. According to him, during childhood and adolescence we pass through a socialization process and learn how to act by common sense. Later, reading allows us to develop own ideas, concepts and values. Edmondson also says that without reading, man keeps being a sheep in the flock.

In another recent survey, done by a team of psychologists at York University, in Canada, brought up new evidence about reading and study in personal development. One of the consequences of the habit of reading and study is that, according to the survey, the delay in the aging process, a fact that confirms what doctors have been saying for some time, it means, exercising the  mind by reading helps avoid Alzheimer’s disease, degenerative and terminal disease for which there is no known cure.

In Spiritism is known the lesson given by Emmanuel in item 204 of his book “The Consoler”, psychographed by the medium Francisco Cândido Xavier: “Feeling and knowledge are the two wings in which the soul will develop into infinite perfection”. And both, according to him, are fundamental to progress, which proves, the importance of reading and study in the growing process of the human creature searching for perfection.