Poverty, drugs, gang fights, absent parents, lack of love, easy access to weapons, prejudice, overpopulation, social inequalities, among others, are social factors that facilitate the outbreak of violence, crime, suicide and mental disorders.ⁱ

However, according to a respectable portion of Spiritist scholars, there has been a significant lack of Spiritist debates around the social factors of human problems. They rightly state that the Spiritist lectures and seminars focus almost exclusively on the personal, psychic or Spiritual factors of corporeality, relegating to a secondary level the social elements involved in the suffering and decisions of the incarnate Spirit.

Deolindo Amorim, a renowned sociologist and journalist, proposing a dialogue between Spiritism and the social sciences, wrote:ⁱⁱ

The Spiritist movement cannot remain oblivious to social problems, and is therefore responsible for interfering in the solution of these problems. We must develop and improve more and more the awareness of participation in social life, in harmony with the legitimate thinking of the Doctrine, which does not want the Spiritist outside the world, but inside the world, helping to transform it.

Still Deolindo:

It is true that the Doctrine is concerned, above all, with the Spiritual side of life, but we should not ignore the omissions of society, which is guilty of many dramas and conflicts because of its indifference in the face of injustices of all kinds. In addition, society is all of us, so we also have a share of responsibility. [...] Such inequality is incomprehensible under the sky of a Christian civilization.

However, we cannot blame the Spiritist literature in general, and the works of Kardec, in particular, for this phenomenon, since an abundant reference on the influences of the environment on the Spirit is available to the Spiritist reader.

Emmanuel, in a work from 1940, called attention to the fact that it is essential for the enlightened heart to cooperate in transforming the environment in which they live for good, improving and elevating the material and moral conditions of all those who live in their area of​​influence.ⁱ

Providing theoretical elements that help us to better understand the incarnate Spirit/environment relationship, we present some considerations extracted from Kardecian texts, relating them to three assertions extracted from the texts themselves.

First assertion: Evolution has a personal component, linked to self-effort, and a solidary component, linked to a concern for the whole, hence the commitment of each one to collaborate with collective development.

Incarnation has yet another purpose, which is to put the Spirit in a position to face his part in the work of creation. It is in order to carry it out that he takes an apparatus in each world, in harmony with its essential matter, in order to fulfill, from that point of view, the orders of God. Moreover, in this way, contributing to the general work, it progresses too.

The action of corporeal beings is necessary for the march of the Universe. However, God, in His wisdom, wanted them to have, in that very action, a means of progressing and of approaching Him. This is how, by an admirable law of His providence, everything is in chains, and everything is solidary in Nature. LE (The Book of Spirits), item 132

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Are there not men reduced to begging through their own fault?

- Undoubtedly, but if a good moral education had taught them to practice the law of God, they would not have fallen into the excesses that led to their loss. It is on this, above all, that the improvement of your globe depends. LE, item 889

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[...] the Spirits must contribute to reciprocal progress. LE, item 218

Second assertion: The incarnation places the Spirit under strong environmental influences, which are evidently related to the formation of his personality and his attitudes towards life. This influence will be greater the smaller its evolutionary condition, considered from an intellectual and moral point of view.

Does man retain, in his new existences, the traits of the moral character of previous existences?

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- Yes, that can happen. However, as it improves, it changes. Its social position may also not be the same. If from a master it becomes a slave, its inclinations will be very different and you would have difficulty in recognizing it. The Spirit being the same, in the different incarnations, its manifestations may have, from one to the other, certain similarities. These, however, will be modified by the customs of the new position, until a remarkable improvement will completely change their character, for from being proud and evil, they can become humble and human, provided they have repented. LE, item 216

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Is not the environment in which certain men live the main reason for many vices and crimes?

- Yes, but even in this there is a test chosen by the Spirit in the state of freedom; he wanted to expose himself to temptation in order to have the merit of resistance. LE, item 644

***

With a judicious and farsighted social organization, man can only lack what is necessary through his fault. However, his own faults are often the result of the environment in which he is placed. When he practices God's law, he will have a social order founded on justice and solidarity, and he will also be better. 

LE item 930

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Do you believe that you have acquired all the moral perfection of which a being is susceptible on Earth? In other words, do you suppose that there are people who are worth more than you? Do you believe that they are worth less than you are? Among all the men who have lived on Earth since it was inhabited, will there be many who have attained perfection? Will there be many who could not reach this perfection for reasons independent of their will, that is, because they were not in a position to become enlightened about Good and Evil? If the condition of men after death is the same for everyone, is it necessary to do well instead of evil? If, on the other hand, the condition is relative to the merit acquired, would you think it fair that those, on whom it did not depend, if they find themselves impure, should they be deprived of happiness forever? 

LE, first edition, note 04 by Kardec

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Do these Spirits not wish to shorten their sufferings?

- “They desire it, without a doubt, but they lack enough energy to want what can relieve them. How many individuals are among you who would rather die of poverty than work?” LE, item 995th

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Accordingly, does the diversity of aptitudes in man derive solely from the state of the Spirit?

- “Only it is not at all exact. The qualities of the Spirit, which may have a greater or lesser evolution, constitute the principle, but it is necessary to take into account the ascendancy of the matter that entered, more or less, the exercise of these faculties.” LE, item 370

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Examining a case of suicide related to human misery (The inhuman baker), the Spirit Lamennais made the following assessment of the fact in question:

“This unfortunate woman is one of the victims of your world, your laws and your society. God judges souls, but he also judges times and circumstances; He judges forced things and despair; judge the background and not the form. In addition, I dare say, this unfortunate died not for a crime, but for modesty, for fear of shame. It is that where human justice is inexorable, it judges and condemns material facts, divine justice verifies the depths of the heart and God blesses the state of conscience [...] this woman because she is unhappy and this man is cursed because he refused bread. O God! When, then, will all your gifts be recognized and put into practice? In the eyes of your justice, the one who refused bread will be punished, because Christ said: He, who gives bread to his neighbor, gives it to me" Spiritist Magazine, May 1862

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Who does not know the force of rapture that dominates agglomerations where there is homogeneity of thoughts and wills? One could not imagine how much influence we are thus subject to, with our ignorance. Cannot these occult influences be the determining cause of certain thoughts? Of those thoughts that are common to us, at the same moment, with certain people, of those vague forebodings that make us say, is there something in the air that foreshadows such or such an event?

Finally, certain indefinable sensations of well-being or moral malaise, of joy or sadness, would in no way be the effect of the reaction of the fluidic environment in which we are to the sympathetic or antipathetic effluvia that we receive and that surround us like emanations from a fragrant body?

***

If one could doubt the immense mechanism that thought brings into play, and the effects it produces from one individual to another, from one group of beings to another group, and, finally, the universal action of men's thoughts on one another, man would be dazzled! He would feel annihilated in the face of this infinity of details, in the face of these innumerable networks linked together by a powerful will, and acting in harmony to achieve a single objective: universal progress. Posthumous Works, Introduction to the Study of Thought Photography

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With a provident and wise social organization, man cannot suffer needs, unless they are due to his fault. However, man’s own faults are often the result of the environment in which he lives. When man practices the law of God, he will have a social order based on justice and solidarity, and by doing this, he will be better. LE, item 930

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Third assertion: By submitting to the laws of corporeity, we come to live under powerful influences of the body and the environment. Even so, in the vast majority of cases, our free will prevails to give in or not to the moral drags. Denying the option of individual choice would be the same as allying oneself with the follies of materialism.

When a man is immersed in the atmosphere of vice, does not evil become for him an almost irresistible drag?

- Drag, yes, irresistible, no, because in the midst of this atmosphere of vices you can find great virtues. They are Spirits who had the strength to resist, and who had, at the same time, the mission of exerting a good influence on their fellow men. LE, item 645

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[...] to judge an individual, it is necessary to take into account the degree of influence of each one, due to his development, then put temperament, environment, habits and education into the balance. 

Spiritist Magazine, 1862, p. 95.

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