Unreason and its antidote

 
Under the title “Samples of unreason”, a very concerning text has been circulating on the Interne, showing through many examples, how unvigilance and absence of good sense have facilitated foolishnesses in the name of Spiritism in Brazil.

Shocking revelations, diets, wedding in Spiritist centers, reincarnation in the Spiritual World, spiritual vaccination against Swine Flu, registration of a new balm, the Hope Balm – recommended by its author for treatment of infectious fluidic matter accumulated by living elements of witchery – and so on. The balm is or will be out for sale for the price of R$ 15 (unit)

Is there any remedy for this?

Honestly, we don’t know if there’s any remedy, but there are some measures that could be taken in order to prevent it to spread.

The main one is to prohibit that Spiritism lose its scientific character. It’s up to us, by the way, to remember what Herculano Pires wrote regarding the so-called Kardecian method, which made possible the existence of the Spiritist Doctrine codification in this world, something that has been confirmed and reaffirmed more and more through the years without any damage.

Herculano digested the method adopted by Kardec in 4 topics:

1st. Selection of unsuspected mediumistic collaborators, in terms of morallity, purity of both spiritual faculty and assistence.

Allan Kardec used to submit the answers previously obtained to the criticism of other Spirits, through different mediums. So, he worked with Mrs. Caroline and Julie Baudin, Ms. Japhet, Aline and Ermance Dufaux, Mrs. Schmidt and Forbes, Mr. Crozet and many others.

2nd. Rigorous analysis of the communications and comparison with the scientific truths demonstrated, discarding anything that could not be logically explained.

Kardec wrote in “The Medium’s Book”: "there’s no evil communication that can resist rigorous criticism" (chapter 24, item 266). And, in the same work, he restates the well-known instruction by Erastus: “Better reject ten truths than admit one single lie, one single false theory” (The Medium’s Book, chapter 20, item 230).

3rd. Control the communicating Spirits, regarding the coherence of their communications and the quality of their language.

4th. Universal consensus, that is, concordance of various communications performed by different mediums, at the same time and in various places, regarding the same subject.

The "Spiritist Magazine", which Kardec wrote and published from January 1858 to March 1869, was very important in that regard. The Spirit’s Book appeared initially with 501 questions on 18/4/1857. In its second edition, released in March 1860, the number had already increased to 1,019 questions. Thanks to the magazine, Kardec consolidated messages and communications from everywhere, including Brazil.

Indeed, he would write in 1864, in the item II of the Introduction of the "The Gospel According to Spiritism": "Only one sure guarantee exists for spirit teachings: This is the concordance that exists between revelations which have been received spontaneously by a large number of mediums not known to each other and located in different places". 

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It’s worth remembering these words by Herculano Pires to tell our readers how the observance of the Kardecian method in our activities is important to the Brazilian Spiritist Movement, because only it will prevent new examples of unreason to appear in our circle.

The principle of verification of the universality, for instance, should guide the steps of all of us who speak or write to the audience. If this was followed by continuous vigilance, every new theory and so all fashions would have to wait for the right moment to be either considered or discarded.

We can affirm that the same caution should be taken regarding the books written by certain mediums, disseminating weird or doubtful information in our circle, which could be avoided if the Kardecian method was taken seriously by Spiritists in Brazil.