Spiritist Science – philosophical reflections

 The Religion – miracles, prophecies, prodigies and
irrational dogmas. 

During the condemnation of Galileo he was obliged to take refuge in his own home and forego the scientific principles he revealed. The Church at that time was giving a message that could not stand the corruption of the Aristotelian grounds that she had adopted. The system of the world created by God corresponded to that which Aristotle and Ptolemy had deciphered: "God as a supreme and omnipotent being, created the world and set it in motion, and since then, everything works to perfection and harmony, with or without his presence.   "God set order to the universe and nothing can change it . “The stars, fixed and immobile in the vaults of the sky are formed of a divine substance different from that in the sublunary world. “Earth occupies the centre of the universe and the Sun, which goes from one extreme to another on the horizon, serves as a lamp that illuminates the sky.” Everything that is perfect and escapes human understanding is the work of God.”  "The circle is regarded as the perfect figure, submitting the planets to a circular orbit in their path around the Sun”. “There is no link between man and animal life, they are part of creation just to populate the world.”  “Man was known at the time of white man, originated from a couple created in paradise, from which they were expelled for yielding to the temptation of sex.” “Condemned to live on Earth, they had to follow the commandments of the Laws of God, which only the Church is competent to reveal, to be able to be saved or condemned to eternal punishment according to their submission." 

As a doctrine that explains the beginning and end of man, the religion of the time was a ready, complete system which did not allow unnecessary changes. Its content was complete and sufficient to comfort and relieve our pain, to teach tolerance to our suffering and alleviate our pains, to justify the apparent inconsistency of divine justice and ensure the salvation of the submissive faithful ones to their priests.  Inequalities also occur through work and the will of God and it is not up to us to challenge God in his designs. 

By being able to "explain" the mysteries of the world and of life, religious beliefs played a higher role than the infant science that Galileo inaugurated at the time. Religion with this format provides security, consoles the suffering, alleviates our fears, makes exchanges with our "sins" and provides hope for a future life, where can we get what Earth has not privileged us with. 

Science - the statute of true knowledge, rationality, indeterminacy, free thinking to create its own truth. 

Galileo created a new system of understanding the world, hence the danger he posed to the Church. He used mathematical reasoning to prove the theories of Copernicus, which moved the sun to the center and put the Earth in the procession of planets orbiting it. In a world regarded as normal and perfect he discovered the irregularities of the lunar surface where he saw its craters. In a system regarded as immutable he added moons accompanying planet Jupiter, which were not described by Aristotle.

At the same time, the foundations of the Church found itself shaken by new discoveries that followed fast. For two months Tycho Brahe witnessed the passage of a new star in the firmament, that the Church assumed it to be fixed and invariable. Johannes Kepler proved mathematically that the orbits of planets are ellipses and not perfect circles as it had been supposed. René Descartes built a philosophical system that would separate the body from the Soul, and Andrew Vessálius inaugurated the study of human anatomy in a body that seemed to behave like a machine, able to move with muscles without the help of the Spirit.

 Isaac Newton identified the "attractive force" that holds the stars in their orbits, which moves the waters of the oceans, the rise and fall of tides, and causes the falling of bodies.

Gradually the "intangible forces" that produce movement and order of the universe were recognized as "forces of gravity." Later, the divine laws that maintain the regularity of physical phenomena were replaced by mathematical principles. The "mysteries" that sustain life were understood as combustion of oxygen, fermentation of food and cellular metabolism. The "animal spirits" that pass through the human body producing its reflexes and movements were chemically identified as neurotransmitters. The regularity of events was violated by the uncertainty principle.Linear determinism of a cause for every effect was shaken by the randomness in which the pattern of response determines the intensity of the cause. 

The paradox: "science as religion" - dogmas, rituals, hierarchy, the sacred and the profane 

Historically, religion is based on the cultural tradition of its followers. Its contents, which guide the behavior of the faithful, is written in sacred texts that remain unchanged for centuries. The language used here is almost always symbolic, allowing conflicting interpretations. Hence the importance of the priest and the hierarchical system that classifies them. The material benefits are distributed amongst these priests and divine power that presupposes them God's representatives on earth.

On the other hand, the construction of knowledge produced by science is an achievement of individual effort or a group of researchers. Their texts, though written in technical language, try to be as clear as possible in order to be understood by those who are interested in the texts.. The truth is searched thoroughly by observation or by experimentation. Texts which are written or uttered by personalities hierarchically prominent have relative importance and to be accepted, they will need to submit the evidence conducted to independent researchers. Scientific knowledge is relatively short.  A set of theoretical propositions that constitute a paradigm are usually gathered up, and from time to time, scientists become involved in trying to propose new and more appropriate paradigms.

Science has not also ceased to be concerned with dilemmas that have always been under the dominion of religion. Science has, in its way, a proposal for the origin of the universe and life on Earth. It is suitable for science to research the mechanism that triggers the phenomena as they happen rather than try to explain why they happen. It is concerned in detail with the cause of pain and very little about the why of human suffering. The choice of science is to clarify, rather than to console.

It is accepted by all that to do science one must adopt the scientific method. Classically, the research must be framed in the liturgy of the method. Deduction or induction, observation or experimentation is used. The phenomena under study provide the elements that, applied to mathematical reasoning, provide the value of true discovery.

Some scientific propositions are already established and so accepted that they should have an eternal duration of the sacred truths of religions - gravity exists as a force of attraction in the entire universe -  energy has inviolable value, it becomes, but is neither created nor gets lost -  heat tends to disperse, as well as all the energy of the universe where the trend is chaos - light is an electromagnetic phenomenon -  visible matter in every universe is the same kind of matter on earth - the molecules of all substances are in constant motion - the variety of species is due to evolution by natural selection. 

The Spiritist Science - Theoretical, experimental control, spiritual philosophy and moral content. 

The text of the Spiritist Doctrine began with the revelations transmitted by disembodied (discarnate) spirits of a higher nature, with the proposal to clarify and guide humanity.

 Spiritist Doctrine’s subjects of study include the spiritual world, the beings that inhabit it, its relations with the material world and the consequences of this relationship.

To Spiritism, the grandeur of the Universe and the laws that govern it are enough evidence to prove the existence of God. God is the creator of all that exists and his creation is endless. In the evolutionary situation in which humanity finds itself, we yet are unable to understand the origin of the universe and life on Earth. What is certain is that God always created and will always continue creating.There are two key elements in the universe, the spiritual and material. The spiritual element begins as "intelligent principle”. This "spiritual spark" moves from the spiritual world to the material world, occupying bodies that allow you to evolve on the scale of intelligent life on Earth. The Universe is filled by a "fluid" subtle nature with properties that still escape our understanding. All known matter originates from it. The properties of substances exist only due to this fluid, and through its performance these properties may suffer the most diverse changes. The acidity or alkalinity is given by the presence of this fluid and, by its performance; a glass of water can cure or cause harm. There is a divine purpose in creation. We are all destined to walk the extensive string of the existences, on Earth or on other worlds, seeking the status of angelic spirits which we will eventually attain.

God works through Laws that human intelligence will gradually go on discovering.  We are all "submerged in God’s thought" and nothing that occurs in the universe escapes his consent. We are free to act and forced to bear the consequences of our actions. Each one is responsible for their own destiny. Moral laws are perceived by the conscience of us all, and as humanity goes forward in its evolution, humans will become increasingly aware of the application of these laws. The spiritual world is permanently in close contact with the material world. One and the other process fluidic exchanges among themselves and each exert influence over the other. This mutual interference is so intense that one cannot remain without its acquaintanceship. A crowd of disembodied (discarnate) spirits moves with complicity in all environments of Earth. They accompany us and we attract them sharing with them our intimacy. The thoughts that we often have as ours, are many times their thoughts. It is established within the Divine that we attract to our company those whom are tuned with our purposes. Good attracts the good spirits and evil coexists with ignorance.

As it deals with the spirit world and the spirits that live there, we have no control over spiritual communication and methods of human science and its system of control and experimentation do not apply to the science of Spirit. However, some men have in their constitution a special provision that allows them to get in lucid contact with disembodied (discarnate) spirits.This is the phenomenon of mediumship, which is recorded in all people and all ages of mankind. Mediumship is the large field of experimentation in which the spiritist doctrine relies for revelation and confirmation of its postulates. The future expectative is that over the centuries, all men may be aware of their exchange with the spirit world. Mediumistic phenomena explain a series of events often regarded as supernatural or produced by an unknown energy. The transmission of thought, visions of the future, distance, premonitions, xenoglossy, psychometry, psychography, and psychophony are examples  already well studied and understood by Spiritism.