Essay on the roots of the doctrinal inconsistencies

The Spiritism is a synthesis of human efforts to understand the world and life

 (Part 1)

"The naive faith, imposed by authority and tradition,
melts as fragile wax by the fire of reason. “
- Herculano Pires
 

Unfortunately different tones  of madness predominate now, due to lack of studies and lack of doctrinal sedimentation of who "learned" Spiritism by ear", without proper study of primary works of the spiritist codification.

Let’ s seek in the roots of civilizations, the explanation for this state of things, so that we can understand how, despite all the clarity of the Spiritist Doctrine, there are still many old fashion ideological models, compromised with ignorance, corruptning  the Spiritism, as a logical consequence and the self-indulge of the invigilant in the mission.

Speaking of "roots of civilizations', we must understand that the various levels of evolution extended between ages since the early days until today are known as" horizons ". At the time of the wandering man went to his first sedentary experiences, we have the beginning of the “agricultural horizon” that time located in the most primitive ages of which we had already passed, but incredible as it may seem, even nowadays, we still carry remnants of this distant "horizon", as we will see in our following  unpretentious lucubration. Such substrates generate the doctrinal mistakes that we see in struggle today, as the ancestral atavisms are difficult to eradicate.

According to Herculano Pires said:

"(...) More than a century after the advent of Spiritism still reigns great misunderstanding about the doctrine, of its nature and its purpose. However The Codification was elaborated in clear language, accurate, accessible to all. The natural lucidity of the French spirit, Kardec, added to his vocation and his teaching experience, and also his understanding to deal with extremely complex matters. He had affirmed, at each step, that he wanted to write in a way that it would leave no room for interpretation, or differences in interpretation...

What reason, then, that the supporters of Spiritism, even today, differ with regard to doctrinal issues of importance? 

Spiritism, according to Kardec and his main contributors is the last stage of the process of knowledge

In the same way as Christianity, Spiritism makes way in the world, facing incomprehension of followers and non-followers.

Firstly, there is the problem of the position of the doctrine: Some sees it as the systematisation of ancient superstitions, others, sees the doctrine as an unsuccessful attempt of scientific elaboration, others consider it as a mixture science, not organized, others as vague outline of religious philosophy, other as another sect, among the many others religious sects in the world. For most of the followers and non followers Spiritism appears as mere "belief", a sort of religion and superstition, while contaminated with magic residues.

Contrary to this, however, according to the definition of Kardec and its main contributors, Spiritism is the last stage of the process of knowledge. Last not meaning the end, but that the stage that man could achieve so far, in its slow evolution through time. Clearly it is the knowledge in a general sense, not limited to a certain point, not specialized ... In this general sense, Spiritism appears as a synthesis of human efforts to understand the world and life. It is, therefore, difficult to comprehend the doctrine, despite the clarity of the doctrine of the coding structure. On one hand, some people can not embrace it in full, contenting themselves with the religious aspect, on the other hand, the experts do not recognize its synthetic nature, and other yet the cultural prejudices raise numerous objections to its principles.

As a historical reality, posited by the codifier and its successors, Spiritism has its past and its present, as will have its future. In the time of Kardec, to introduce someone to the study of Spiritism was to introduce that person to a source of reality, real fresh issues and ideas, in a historical process starting to be defined, and especially in a “new order of ideas”. Today, it is to introduce someone in a process already defined, and not just an order of ideas, but also the historical context in which the order originated. Thus, it is also to introduce the person in Kardec’s own introduction.

Without the historical examination of the mediumistic problem, for example, the current students are threatened by floating in the abstract. Entering into an order of ideas, without the knowledge of their historical roots, they risk confusing mediumship and Spiritism, as the incompetent do, or, specifically the mediunic process of spiritual development of man, with the Spiritism. They also risk confusing themselves with rudimentary mediunic facts considering them by their extravagant appearance, as new. Moreover, they will hardly understand the apparent contradiction in the fact that Spiritism is, at the same time, teaching a modern doctrine and a historic process that came from remote ages of mankind.

There is also the religious problem, and particularly the one of the connections between Spiritism and Christianity, that only a historical introduction can explain.” This is what we will try to do in this small assessment. 

* 

There is also the religious problem, and "You worship what you do not know, but the time comes, and now is, where the true worshipers worship the Father in spirit and truth, because the Father seeks those who worship Him.”- Jesus. (Jo, 4:22 to 24.) 

This part of the dialogue between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the edge of the well of Jacob, transcending the merely circumstantial and temporal aspect, marks the exact moment that he spoke not only to her but to all humanity on the urgent need to break myths and fantasies of yesteryears, rising themselves to the levels where the light of reason thrive, that is, where the spiritual reality is shown, which by the way is very distant from where we still are. 

The myths have lost the power of speech, not, however, the content, because it is inserted in the evolutionary history of the creatures 

According to Joanna de Angelis, we have a legacy of archetypal myths and fantasies, from the initial periods of the evolution of thought, which proceeds by subjecting and subjugated us and consequently preventing us from discerning the spiritual horizons and achievements, evidently preventing as well our desired spiritual liberation, a goal signed by God for all His creatures. 

Going along with the noble words of the Mentor:

"(...) The mythological figures of the Greco-Roman Pantheon or the all-powerful gods of Eastern heritage have reappeared with force rather unique in many different periods of ancient civilizations, taking a dominating form in the present.

The revival of barbaric cultures taken as exhibitionism of the modern youth, not only resurrected atavism that remain from its previous reincarnations, that are still alive in the unconsciousness, but also , as violent expressions of the instinct of survival, aggressive by defence mechanisms and self-realization , drawing external attention to hide the internal conflicts of each one, such as the timidity, the fear of society, thus forming new groups of identification, where they escape to, widening the primitiveness presenting them.

Furthermore, the myth that remains alive in the individual creates new gods, to which they refer to, creating their own language of communication, through which they feel chosen, predating and attacking the other social groups and consuming themselves in the hallucination of drugs in terrible altered states of consciousness, which manifest themselves in imbalance and death.

The exacerbated cult of the body evokes the underlying Hellenism and the ideals of the gladiators in arenas; conquering glories while killing, promoting the self destructive rather than the deeper and satisfying "Self".

The positive expressions of ancient myths were instruments for stimulating the growth of countless generations who were fascinated with these archetypes inherent in human beings, and live out the forces of nature.

Given the anthropogenic social-psychological development, the identification of the myth as a resource of evolution required a reinterpretation concluding that, in most cases, is becoming a fantasy; separating the minds and emotions from reality, providing spectacular escapes from reality, with immense damage to the enlightment inside.

Because they seemed to have disappeared, the myths have lost the power of speech, however, not the content, being in the inserted in evolutionary history of the creatures themselves.

Remember that, as the old fake tales and others were being left out in educational programs, the industrialization of the people and the struggles of people for acquiring consumer power, produced terrible existential void, taking over the profound meaning of human life.

With the absence of a own psychological language to fill gaps in the goal of passing the physical life, new gods were created, as the behavioural patterns of time, masking many conflicts and giving way to the validity of myths that could overcome the uninteresting and tiring operational journey, in which people find themselves in.                                                         

 The ancient myths and fantasies reappeared in the noisy and primitive music, requiring tribal body movement  

The weight of atavism is so considerable that even in the time of Moses we can find their immediate action: As Moses went up to Mount Sinai to receive the transcendental new procedures that would change the “status quo” of the ignorant mass, the people didn’t waste time: they worshiped a calf made of smelted gold at the moment when Moses descended with the Tables of Law. Clearly the image of the golden calf spoke more closely to their needs for protection, to be exact, materialize a more tangible resource to address the collective phobias, in flagrant doctrinal deviation of the line that Moses was showing.

Take the record of such an occurrence in the narrative of the Hebrew legislator: "(...) and the two boards of the concert were in my hands, and I looked, and realised that you had sinned against the Lord your God, you had made a calf of foundry; soon you deviated from the way that the Lord ordered. So I took the two boards, and then I threw them both and I broke them in front of you. "

Go on with with the completion of Joanna de Angelis:

"(...) Regurgitation, myths and ancestors fantasies, reappeared in the noisy and primitive music, demanding tribal body movements, with the luxury of exacerbated sensuality, promoting wearing sex games and drunkenness of the senses, as sources of pleasure and abysses of oblivion of the responsibility of consciousness to the demands of the intellect, moral development, and sports resurrected their gladiators, in the most violent, or brought back the demigod of competitions throughout gender, committed to always win, without the least respect of the pleasure of competing, the ruthless professionalism spread organizations, some criminal, no doubt, in which the athlete is only the subject of commercial interest, which must be discarded when no longer meets the passions of mafia and the fanatics that love them , death and dying kill of die for them, ending by devouring them as well "

After this necessary digression where we can understand something about why there is so much inconsistency in the Spiritualists doctrine grounds, as the "deviations" are rooted in our “cultural broth”, we will follow the lucid reasoning of Herculano Pires, to get better positioned in question, travelling with him in a beneficial "flashback" historic. For this, we will extract some topics of his book (1) identified by a research of Candeia Distribuidora de Livros de Catanduva (SP) as one of the ten spiritists books of the 20th century, which contain the testimonies of several wiser scholars, among them Ernesto Bozzano which, in his turn, supported his meditations on the  scientific research of anthropologist Andrew Lang and ethnologist Max Freedom Long, held between the tribes of Polynesia, to show the existence of spiritual phenomena in tribal horizon, and therefore the belief in survival of the human spirit .

We can see, therefore, that from the most pristine ages, man already has identified "a force" beyond matter. Hence the myths and its retinue of fantasies arose. However, it is reasonable to note that from the jungles to civilization, the spirits teach men that life does not end in the tomb; neither has it begun in the cradle.

When from nomads man became the first sedentary ways of life, we see that the animism developed in the plan of rationalization. This ancient period is also known as "agricultural horizon", of which there are still remnants, as we shall see next.

The knowledge of historical processes is essential to the spiritist, to immunize them against mystical misrepresentations of the doctrine 

We are in that period Hegelian, and therefore dialectical, where the reason takes place in the historical process, understood this as the progress of man on Earth. The inventions, the use of instruments, population growth and mental development, they process simultaneously, and it is precisely of the mental development that will create a curious result: the deepening of tribal beliefs in spirits, in a sense of personalization, involving the aspects and elements of nature. The practical experience that brought the knowledge of the existence spirits to the primitive man now combines a broader use of categories of reason. The two general types of primitive rationalization are the concept of the Earth Mother and Sky-Father. These forms appear very clear in the Chinese thinking, which conserved to this date the characteristic features of the agricultural horizon. “The sky is the god-father, who fertilizes the earth, the mother goddess.”

We can see therefore that the dogma of the virginity of Mary, Mother of Jesus and the “divine fertilization” that alleged and boldly attempts to explain the divinity of Christ. It is nothing more than an ostensible and rude copy; we would say a "plagiarism", of the pagan myths made by the priestly caste. Later we will see that the use of bread and wine held until today in many religious denominations have the same origin, as the religion of the Middle Ages that did not understand the essence of the teachings of Jesus at the last supper, when referring to the bread and wine, they mistakenly materialize the precept and they lost the course of its real meaning. The same source also provided the source of the sacrament of baptism by water, as we also see. But as we already noted, even now, the original inventors of religions didn’t even had originality, as they simply repeated editions retired, poorly cobbled from existing models in the past.

Let us carry on with Herculano Pires:

"(...) In the Egyptian civilization, there is a reversal of positions: The Sky is the mother and the Earth is the Father, and within the ancestral Egyptian “theogamy”, the Pharaohs were also holders of dual nature: the human and divine, because they were children of the queen with the sun-god. There weren’t, therefore, children of a man, nor even a man-god, but of God himself, through that process God impregnated the queen.

The knowledge of these historical processes is essential to the spiritist, to immunize them against misrepresentations of mystical or superstitious doctrine, so common in a world that, while proud of its scientific progress, has not yet freed itself from its heavy mythological heritage. "(Continues in the next issue.) 

Note:

(1) PIRES, José Herculano. The Spirit and Time. 3.ed.São Paulo: EDIECEL, 1979.