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Methodical Study of the Pentateuch Kardecian   Portuguese  Spanish

Year 8 - N° 366 – June 8, 2014

ASTOLFO O. DE OLIVEIRA FILHO  
aoofilho@gmail.com
       
Londrina, 
Paraná (Brasil)  
 
 
Translation
Jon Santos - jonsantos378@gmail.com
 

 
 

Genesis

Allan Kardec

(Part 5)
 

Continuing with our methodical study of Genesis - Miracles and predictions according to Spiritism by Allan Kardec which had its first edition published on January 6, 1868. The answers to the questions suggested for discussion are at the end of the text below.

Questions for discussion

A. Knowing not be true the dogma of the original sin, which is the true original sin that man brings upon birth?

B. How important is the study of the spiritual fluids and the perispirit?

C. If first revelation was personified in Moses, the second in Christ, can it be concluded that the third was in Kardec? 

Text for reading

84. Spiritist centers lacked a uniting link that would put them in communion of thought with their brothers and sisters in the faith in order to inform them about what was happening elsewhere. This uniting link, which Spiritism, can be found today in the publications that circulate far and wide, and which condense in one single, concise and methodical approach the teachings provided everywhere under multiple forms and in many languages.

85. The first two revelations could only have been the result of a direct teaching; since humans were not yet sufficiently advanced to aid in these revelations’ development, they had to be imposed on people’s beliefs through the authority of the Master’s word. However, we should make note of the fact that they contained a highly perceptible nuance in connection with the progress of customs and ideas, although they were given to the same people and in the same environment, but after an interval of eighteen centuries. 

86. The doctrine of Moses is absolute, despotic; it accepts no argument and is imposed on all the people through force. That of Jesus is essentially one of counseling; it is accepted freely and imposes itself only through persuasion; it was controversial even during the time of its founder, who did not hesitate to debate his adversaries.

87. The third revelation, appearing at a time of intellectual emancipation and maturity, wherein the developed mind cannot settle itself into a passive role, and wherein people accept nothing blindly, but want to see where they are being led and to know the why and how of each thing, had to be at the same time the product of a teaching and the fruit of work, research and free examination.

88. The Spirits teach only what is needed to place humans on the path of truth, but they abstain from revealing what humans can discover by themselves, allowing them the right to discuss, verify and submit everything to the crucible of reason, even leaving them many times to acquire experience at their own expense. The Spirits have furnished them with the principle and materials; it is their responsibility to take advantage of them and put them into practice.

89. Since the elements of the Spiritist revelation have been given simultaneously in a multitude of places to persons of all social conditions and various degrees of education, it is quite obvious that observations could not have been made everywhere with the same outcome, and that the consequences derived from them, the deductions of the laws that govern that order of phenomena, in a word, the conclusion that would establish the ideas, could be derived only from the whole and from a correlation of the facts.

90. Hence, each isolated center, limited to a narrow circle and often observing only a particular order of phenomena, at times contradictory in appearance because they had to do with only one category of spirits, and furthermore, being hindered by local influences and sectarianism, found itself running up against the material impossibility of encompassing the whole, and, for this very reason, powerless to combine the isolated observations into a common principle.

91. With each person judging the facts from the point of view of his or her own knowledge and former beliefs, or from the particular opinion of the spirits who manifested themselves, there would very soon have been as many theories and systems as there were centers, and all would be incomplete for lack of elements for comparison and control. In sum, each person would be paralyzed by his or her own partial revelation, believing that he or she had the whole truth, not knowing that in a hundred other places more and better information had been obtained.

92. It should be noted that no part of the Spiritist teaching has been given in its entirety; it touches upon such a large number of observations and such diverse subjects that require either specialized knowledge or mediumistic abilities that it would have been impossible to bring all the necessary conditions together in one place.

93. Since the teachings had to be collective and not individual, the Spirits divided up the work, disseminating the subjects of study and observation as is done in certain factories where the production of each part of the same object is divided up among different workers. Thus, the revelation was given partially, in several places and through a multitude of intermediaries, and it is in this manner that it continues to progress at this time, for not everything has yet been revealed.

94. Each center finds in others a supplement for what it has obtained, and it is this collection, the coordination of all the partial teachings, that comprises the Spiritism. It was therefore necessary to group the scattered facts in order to understand their correlation, and to collect the diverse documents and teachings given by the Spirits regarding all points and subjects in order to compare, analyze and study their similarities and differences.

95. Since communications are given by spirits of all the hierarchical orders – some more enlightened than others – it would be necessary to analyze the degree of trust that reason would allow to be given to them; to distinguish the individual and isolated theoretical ideas from those that had the sanction of the overall teaching of the Spirits, and the utopian ideas from the practical ones; to prune those that were obviously refuted by data arising from positive science and sound logic; and to utilize the errors and the information furnished by spirits (even those of the lowest category) for an understanding of the state of the invisible world, thereby forming a homogenous whole. In other words, a center for development was necessary, independent of any preconceived idea, of any sectarian prejudice, and resolved to accept the truth that had become self-evident, even if it were contrary to personal opinion. Such a center formed by itself through the force of things and without premeditated intent.

96. From this state of affairs a double current of ideas resulted: some moving from the perimeter toward the center, others from the center toward the perimeter. This is how Spiritism progressed rapidly toward unity in spite of the diversity of the sources from which it emanated, and how the divergent theories fell little by little due to their isolation, and due to the ascendancy of the opinion of the majority, in which they did not find a sympathetic echo. A communion of ideas has thus been established among the different centers. Speaking the same spiritual language, they understand one another and sympathize with one another from one end of the world to the other.

97. Thus, Spiritists felt much stronger and fought with more courage; they progressed with a surer step when they found themselves no longer isolated, and when they sensed a point of support, a tie that linked them to the larger family. The phenomena they witnessed no longer seemed peculiar, abnormal or contradictory to them, once they were able to connect them to the general laws of harmony, embracing the edifice in one glance and seeing a great and humanitarian aim in the entire whole.

98. However, how can one know if a principle is taught universally, or if it is only the result of a personal opinion? Since isolated groups were in no position to know what was being said elsewhere, it was necessary for one center to bring together all the teachings in order to do a kind of scrutiny of views and to take the opinion of the majority to everyone else.

99. There is no science that, in all its parts, has come from the mind of one sole human being. All, without exception, are products of successive observations that find support in previous ones, leaning on one known point to arrive at an unknown one. That is how the Spirits have proceeded with Spiritism; that is why their teaching has been gradual. They address issues only in proportion and to the extent that the principles upon which such issues must be based have been sufficiently developed, and analysis has matured enough to assimilate them. It is quite significant that every time individual centers have tried to address issues prematurely, they have obtained only contradictory and inconclusive answers. On the other hand, when the favorable moment has arrived, the teaching generalizes and becomes unified in almost all of the centers.

100. Between the progression of Spiritism and that of the sciences there is a crucial difference, however: the latter reached the point to which they have arrived only after a long stretch of time, whereas only a few years have been sufficient for Spiritism, if not to reach the peak, at least to collect a number of observations large enough to constitute a faith. This is due to the incalculable multitude of spirits who, by God’s will, have manifested simultaneously, each one bringing the contingent of its own knowledge. The result of this was that, instead of being developed successively over many centuries, all the parts of Spiritism were formed almost simultaneously in a matter of a few years, which was sufficient to group them and form a whole.

101. God has willed it to be so; first, so that the building could more rapidly be built up to the top; second, so that it could, by means of comparison, have an immediate and permanent control, so to speak, in the universality of the teaching, each part having worth or authority only by its connection with the whole, each part harmonized with every other part, each finding its place in the general order, and each arriving at the right time. By not entrusting to only a single spirit the task of promulgating the Spiritism, God has also willed that the least as much as the greatest among spirits, as well as humans, bring their stone to the building in order to establish amongst themselves a bond of cooperative solidarity that was lacking in all the other doctrines arising from one single source.

102. On the other hand, since each spirit, just like each human being, has only a limited amount of knowledge, individually they were unable to address ex-professo the innumerable issues touched upon by Spiritism. This is also why that, in order to fulfill the Creator’s designs, the Spiritism could not be the work of only one spirit or of only one medium. It could emerge only from a collection of works, all controlled by one another.  

Answers to Proposed Questions 

A. Knowing not be true the dogma of the original sin, which is the true original sin that man brings upon birth? 

Man bring at birth the seed of their imperfections and the defects they have not yet corrected, and which are expressed through their innate instincts and their propensities toward this or that vice. This is their true original sin, whose consequences they naturally suffer, but with the crucial difference that they undergo punishment for their own wrongs only and not those of someone else. And there is yet another difference – at once consoling, heartening, and supremely equitable: each existence offers them the means to redeem themselves through reparation and to progress further whether by ridding themselves of a few imperfections or by acquiring new knowledge to the point where they are sufficiently purified so as to have no more need of corporeal life, but can live exclusively the spirit life. (Genesis, Ch. I, item 38)

B. How important is the study of the spiritual fluids and the perispirit?

The study of the properties of the perispirit, the spiritual fluids and the physiological attributes of the soul opens up new horizons to science and provides the key to a number of phenomena incomprehensible until now for lack of knowledge of the law governing them; phenomena denied by materialism for being connected to spiritual matters and qualified by others as either miracles or sorcery, depending on their belief system. Such phenomena are, among others, second sight, at-distance vision, natural and induced somnambulism, the psychic effects of catalepsy and lethargy, prescience, presentiments, apparitions, transfigurations, transmission of thought, fascination, instantaneous healings, obsessions and possessions, etc. By demonstrating that these phenomena rest on laws that are as natural as those of electrical phenomena, and by demonstrating the normal conditions in which they can be reproduced, Spiritism has destroyed the empire of the extraordinary and supernatural, and consequently, the source of most superstitions. (Genesis, Ch. I, items 39 and 40)

C. If first revelation was personified in Moses, the second in Christ, can it be concluded that the third was in Kardec?

No.  The first two were individual; the third is collective – an essential character of great importance. It is collective in the sense that it was not given as a privilege to any one person in particular; consequently, no one can claim to be its exclusive prophet. It has been given simultaneously all over the earth to millions of people of all ages and social statuses, from the lowest to the highest on the scale, according to this prediction referred to by the author of The Acts of the Apostles: “In the latter days,” says the Lord, “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; your sons and daughters shall prophesy; your young men shall have visions and your old men shall have dreams” (Luke 2: 17,18). (Genesis, Ch. I, items 45 and 46)

 

 

 


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