We begin today the methodical study of “Heaven and Hell, or Divine Justice According to Spiritism” by Allan Kardec. The first edition was published in August 1, 1865. This work is part of the Kardecian Pentateuch. The answers to the questions suggested for discussion are at the end of the text below.

Questions for discussion 

A. What is pantheism?

B. According to Kardec, there are three theoretic alternatives. What are these alternatives?

C. Why is Spiritism eagerly welcomed by those who are undergoing the tortures of doubt?

D. In Kardec's opinion what will be the first step towards the fusion of all religions?  

Reading text 

1. We live, think, and act. It is not less certain that we shall die. However, where are we going when we leave Earth? What will become of us? (First Part, Chapter I, section 1.)

2. Everyone feels the need to live, enjoy, love and be happy. Announce to the one who knows he is going to die, that his life will be prolonged, and his heart will be full of joy. (First Part, Chapter I, section 1.)

3. The belief in annihilation, certainly leads a man to concentrate all his thoughts on his present life. Evidently, it is not logical to trouble ourselves about a future, which we do not believe will exist. Therefore, man's exclusive concern with his present leads him to think only in himself. This belief is the most powerful stimulant to selfishness, and the unbeliever is consistent when he comes to the following conclusion: Let us get the greatest possible amount of enjoyment, since with us all is over. Let us hasten our enjoyment because we do not know how long our life may last. Still, this most dangerous conclusion and equally consistent, Let us enjoy despite everything. Each for himself. The good things in life are prizes for the most astute. (First Part, Chapter I, section 2.)

4. If there is any doctrine pernicious and anti-social, it sure is that of annihilation, because it destroys the sentiments of solidarity and fraternity, which are the sole basis for social relations. (First Part, Chapter I, section 2.)

5. Let us suppose that an entire nation has acquired, by one way or another, the certainty that, at the end of eight days, it shall be destroyed and nobody will survive. During this period, will they work for their living? Will they respect the rights of their neighbors? Would they recognize any duty? Certainly not. Well, what we are imagining could happen collectively, the doctrine of annihilation does this every day, individually. What, however, avoids disastrously consequences is that in the majority of unbelievers there is more bravado than absolute unbelief, more doubt than conviction. However, should the absolute disbelief arrive, the dissolution of society would sure follow, and the doctrine of annihilation leads inevitably to this result. (First Part, Chapter I, section 3.)

6. Skepticism, doubt, and indifference are gaining ground every day. If the religions systems are powerless against unbelief, it is because they lack the necessary weapons for combating it. However, if religion became immobile, it would be defeated. What it lacks in this age of positivism, when man demands to understand before believing, is the confirmation of their doctrines by positive facts and the concordance of those doctrines with the discoveries of Positive Science. (First Part, Chapter I, section 3.)

7. It is in these circumstances that Spiritism opposes a barrier against the invasion of skepticism, not only by argument, or by the prospect of the dangers it reveals, but also by the production of physical, palpable, and visible, facts, which render the existence of the soul and future life. (First Part, Chapter I, section 4.)

8. There is a doctrine that repudiates the qualification of materialist, because it admits the existence of an intelligent principle distinct of matter: it is the doctrine that asserts that each individual soul is to be absorbed in the Universal Whole. According to this doctrine, each human being absorbs, at birth, a particle of this principle, which is his soul and gives him life, intelligence, and feeling. At death, this soul returns to the common source, and is merged in infinity as a drop of water is merged in the ocean. Although this doctrine is undoubtedly an improvement over that of pure materialism, its consequences are precisely the same. For the individual the future is nil, and such a doctrine, from the point of view of moral consequences, is just as pernicious, just as devoid of hope, just as a powerful stimulus to selfishness, as senseless, desperate, and as subversive as materialism properly so called. (First Part, Chapter I, section 5.)

9. This system, such as pantheism, is open to innumerable objections, of which the principal are the following:

a) It is impossible to conceive Divinity without the infinitude of His perfections, how can a Perfect Whole be formed of parts so imperfect?

b) Being each part subject to the law of progress, it follows that God Himself must progress too. Well, if He progresses incessantly, He must have been at the origin of time imperfect too. How then could an imperfect being, with so different ideas and wills, conceive harmonic laws, so wise, and forethought as those governing the Universe?

c) If all souls are portions of the Divinity, all of them must have concurred to establish the laws of nature. How come, then, that they are perpetually murmuring against these laws, which are of their own inventing? (First Part, Chapter I, section 8.)

10. A theory cannot be accepted as true if it does not satisfy the reason, and it must explain all the facts it covers. If a single fact may deny it, then it does not contain the absolute truth. (First Part, Chapter I, section 8.)

11. The theories we have been examining not only fail to satisfy either the reason or the aspirations of humankind but they also present insurmountable difficulties, because they are powerless to solve all the questions raised. (First Part, Chapter I, section 10.)

12. If reason leads us to the conviction of the individuality of the soul, it also leads us to another consequence. The fate of each soul must depend on its own personal qualities, for it would be irrational to assume that the backward soul of the soul of the savage and the evil-minded, are in the same level as that of the scientific and benevolent. Souls should be responsible for their own action, but, in order for soles to be thus responsible, they must be free to choose between good and evil. Without freedom of the will, there is fate and responsibility does not co-exist with fatality. (First Part, Chapter I, section 10.)

13. All religions have proclaimed the principle of happiness or unhappiness of the soul after death, i.e., the principle of future rewards and punishments. They differ essentially as to the nature of these penalties and pleasures, especially on the conditions that determine such consequences. Hence, the contradictory points of faith originated different religions, making the greater part of the religious duties to consist in the accomplishment of certain external forms, which for a long time satisfied the mind, but this does not happen presently. (First Part, Chapter I, sections 11 and 12.)

14. If religion, at the beginning suitable to the limited knowledge of man, had always followed the progress of the human spirit, there would be no unbelievers, because it is of man's nature the need to believe, and he will believe if he is presented with religious ideas in harmony with his intellectual needs. (First Part, Chapter I, section 13.) 

Answers to the proposed questions

A. What is pantheism? 

Pantheism, properly so called, considers the universal principle of life and intelligence as constituting the Divinity. God is both Spirit and matter. All the beings, all the bodies of Nature, compose the Divinity of which they are molecules, the constituent elements. God is the total of all that is. Each individual, being a part of this total, is himself God. The total is not ruled over by any commanding and superior being. Universe is an immense republic without a chief, or rather, where each of its members is a chief, endowed with absolute power.  (Heaven and Hell, Part First, Chapter I, sections 6, 7, 8 and 9.)

B. According to Kardec, there are three theoretic alternatives. What are these alternatives?

They are annihilation, absorption, and the individuality of the soul before and after death. It is to this last belief that reasoning impels us irresistibly. This belief formed the base of all religions since the world exists. (Ibid, First Part, Chapter I, section 10.)

C. Why is Spiritism eagerly welcomed by those who are undergoing the tortures of doubt?

Reasoning and facts is the base of Spiritism. This is why it has been fought uselessly. By teaching the individuality of the soul before and after death, Spiritism offers us a better perspective on life and this explains why those who are undergoing the tortures of doubt, those who do not find, in the common beliefs and philosophies, the certainty for which they long, eagerly welcome it. (Ibid, First Part, Chapter I, sections 13 and 14.)

D. In Kardec's opinion what will be the first step towards the fusion of all religions?

The unification regarding the future existence of the soul, will be the first step towards the unification of the forms of worship, a huge step, which will lead, first, to a mutual tolerance, and, eventually, to their fusion. (Ibid, First Part, Chapter I, section 14.)