TO THE BRAZILIAN EDITION.

I.

— Exhortation to study, to charity, and to unification. n Peace and love be with you.

May we once more, united by the bonds of fraternity, study this doctrine of peace and of love, of justice and of hopes, thanks to which we shall find the narrow gate of future salvation — the unlimited and undying joy for our humble souls.

Before touching upon the points that are the object of my manifestation, I must ask all of you who hear me — all of you Spiritists to whom I speak at this moment — to forgive me if perchance, in the expression of my thoughts, you should find something that wounds you, some thorn that may hurt the sensibility of your heart.

The fulfillment of duty requires us to use frank, even rude language. For each one of us has an individual and collective responsibility and, in order to fulfill it, we lay hold of every means offered to us, often without taking into account the poverty of our intelligence, which does not allow us to say what we feel without wounding, not seldom, friendly hearts, for which we desire only peace, love, and the sweetness of charity. Certain that you will hear my supplication; certain that, in speaking to Spiritists, I speak to an assembly of men full of benevolence, I began my little work, whose sole purpose is to discharge myself of grave commitments I undertook toward our Creator and Father!

Ever compassionate and good, turning His merciful eyes to Humanity, enslaved by the errors and passions of the world, God makes the words of the Christ a truth, and sends the Comforter — the Spirit of Truth — to speak openly of the messianic revelation to that same Humanity, forgetful of Him who was led through the streets of bitterness, under the weight of the iniquities and the ingratitudes of men! The centuries having passed, and the human spirit having developed intellectually, God, in His wisdom, found that the moment had come to invite men to the meditation of the Gospel — a precious book of divine truths — until then darkened by the letter, owing to the deficiency of human perception to understand it in spirit.

Everywhere light was made; to Humanity was revealed the promised Comforter, the peoples receiving — according to their moral and intellectual preparation — important missions, tending to accelerate the triumphant march of the Good News!

All were called: there was no recess of the Earth to which the Comforter failed to present himself in the name of that God of mercy, who does not desire the death of the sinner — nor the extermination of the ungrateful — but rather desires to see them redeemed from the aberrations of the flesh, from the obsession of the instincts.

This being so, to that piece of land which you call Brazil was also given the Revelation of the Revelation, your Spirits, before incarnating, having made commitments of which you have not yet discharged yourselves. And forgive me for saying it: you have indeed delayed the fulfillment of them and of grave duties, carried away by sentiments which it is not fitting now to scrutinize. Ismael, your Guide, taking upon himself the responsibility of leading you to the great temple of love and of human fraternity, raised his banner, having inscribed upon it — God, Christ, and Charity. Strong through dedication, animated by the mercy of God, which never fails the laborers, his holy and evangelical voice echoed in all hearts, seeking to draw them into a single grouping where, united, they would have the strength of lions and the meekness of doves; where, united, they could confront all the weight of human iniquities; where, bound together in a single sentiment — that of love — they could adore the Father in Spirit and Truth; where the great wall of faith might be raised, against which all the weapons of the enemies of the Light would come to shatter; where, finally, a great dike might be formed against the stormy wave of the passions, the crimes, and the vices that overwhelm all Humanity! That grouping was constituted; the voice of Ismael was felt in hearts. But, like seeds cast upon the gravel, they find no good soil for their roots, and when that good angel — that Envoy of God — believed he had in his bosom friends and brothers capable of helping him in his great task, holy and good, the seeds withered in the fire of the passions, became lodged in the rock, although the dew of divine mercy bathed them constantly for their quickening. There, where humility should have pitched its tent, pride raised its stronghold; there, where love should have risen, sublime and splendid, up to the Christ, indifference dug furrows; justice was called injustice; fraternity — dissension!

But, on account of the ingratitude of some, should the gratitude and good will of others be sacrificed?

On account of the pride of those who have already set themselves up as masters in their ignorance, should the humility of the disciple, perfectly imbued with his duties, be sacrificed? No!

Thus, when the enemies of the Light — when the Spirit of darkness believed Ismael's banner, symbol of the divine trinity, to be torn to pieces; when the iniquitous voice already resounded in Space, glorifying the reign of darkness and cursing the name of the Martyr of Calvary, he gathered up his standard and caused a small tent of combat to be raised with the name — Fraternity! This was surely the point toward which all the dispersed forces should converge — all those who did not receive the seed of the gravel.

Certain that chance is a word without meaning, and witnesses of the facts that determined the raising of that tent, all Spiritists had the sacred duty to come here to gather together — to hear the sacred word of the good Guide Ismael — the only one who directs the propagation of the Doctrine in this part of the planet and the only one who has the responsibility for its march and development. But, unfortunately, my friends, you have not yet been able to understand the great significance of the word — Fraternity!

It is not a term, it is a fact; it is not an empty word, it is a sentiment, without which you will always find yourselves weak for that struggle whose extraordinary greatness you yourselves cannot measure!

Ismael has his Temple, and over it his banner — God, Christ, and Charity! Ismael has his little tent, where he seeks to gather all his brothers — all those who have heard his word and accepted it as true: it is called Fraternity!

I ask you: Do you belong to the Fraternity? Do you labor for the raising of that Temple whose motto is: God, Christ, and Charity?

How, and in what manner?

My friends! It is possible that I am being unjust toward you in what I am about to say: your work, done wholly in accordance — not with the Doctrine — but with what concerns exclusively your own sentiments, cannot bear good fruit. That work, without order, without discipline, can only, according to the doctrine you have espoused, bring thorns that lacerate your souls, poignant pains to your Spirits, for, distorting the principles on which it rests, you give constant and baleful entry to him who, finding you disunited by egoism, by pride, by vanity, will easily overwhelm you with all the weight of his iniquity. Meanwhile, would the same occur if you were united? Do you perchance believe in the efficiency of a great army directed by several generals, each one with his own system, with his own method of operating, and with divergent points of aim? Never! Under such conditions you will find only defeat, for — mark this well — what you cannot do with the Gospel: unite yourselves through the love of good, your enemies do, uniting themselves through the love of evil! They do not obey diverse orientations, nor do they aim at diverse objectives; everything converges upon the Spiritist Doctrine — Revelation of the Revelation — which does not suit them and which they need to destroy, for which they employ all their intelligence, all their love of evil, submitting themselves to a single direction!

The struggle grows day by day, for the will of God, initiating His creatures into the mysteries of the life beyond the grave, becomes ever more manifest. Finding, however, your Spirits in the face of the Doctrine, in the precarious state I have just pointed out, I ask: — With what element do they, your Spirits, count in the fearful action in which they are about to engage, full of responsibility? In what corner of the Earth is the great tabernacle already raised where you will elevate your thoughts; in what corner of the Earth have you built the great wall against which the weapons of your adversaries are to shatter?

Is it possible that, like the five little zealous virgins, you have lost all care for your peace? That you count on the others, who do not sleep and who anxiously await the coming of their Lord?

But, if this is so, in what consists the profit of the lessons that are constantly given to you in order to make your vigilance a truth and your prayer a sanctity?

If this is so, where are the fruits of that fecund labor of every day, of your friends from beyond the grave?

Have your archives, filled with communications, perhaps rotted, gnawed by the moth — touched by mold?

Where, I ask again, is the security of your faith, the stability of your belief, if, having a single doctrine for a strong and unshakable support, you subdivide it, you multiply it at the caprice of your individualities, without counting on the collectivity that could give you strength, if you constituted a homogeneous element, perfectly prepared by those who take charge of the revelation? But, where is the advantage of the subdivisions? Where the real interest for the Doctrine and its development, in the dispersion you make of your great whole, thereby already giving a most wretched example to the profane, since you preach fraternity and divide yourselves full of dissensions?

Where are the advantages of such conduct? Are they in the diversity of the names you give to the Groups? Why this? Is it because this or that one has received a greater grant of the divine patrimony? Is it because it suits the propaganda you carry out?

But, for the propaganda, we need the constitutive elements of it. I ask: — where is the school of mediums? Does it exist?

Do the men who have the good will to study with you the mysteries of the Creator, preparing their Spirits for the rising again into the other life, find in you the disciplined instruments — the mediums perfectly imbued with the important role they play in the human family and full of that seriousness which gives an idea of the greatness of our Doctrine?

Or is your propaganda limited solely to speaking of Spiritism? Or are your individual and collective duties and responsibilities limited to giving a note of ridicule to those who observe you, judging you to be mad and visionary?

My friends! I know how painful is all this that I tell you, for each one of my thoughts is a pain that deeply reaches my Spirit. I know that your consciences feel perfectly all the weight of the truths I set before you. But, I told you at the beginning: — we have responsibilities and commitments undertaken, of which we seek to discharge ourselves by every means within our reach! If my mission on Earth is not complete; if I still merit from the Lord the grace of coming to clarify the doctrine that was revealed to me there, giving you new knowledge compatible with the development of your intelligences; if I see that each day that passes of your existence — illumined by the sublime light of revelation, without your producing a work worthy of the grace granted to you — is a cause of scandal to your own consciences; I must use this rude language of a friend, so that you may, truly imbued with your duties as Christians and as Spiritists, unite yourselves in a great fraternal grouping, where — strengthened by mutual support and by the protection of the good — you may face the extraordinary work which it falls to you to accomplish for the emancipation of your Spirits, a work that will undeniably bring about a great revolution in Humanity, not only as to the part of Science and Religion, but also in that of customs! Once and for all I tell you, my friends: — Your works, your labors cannot remain within the narrow limit of good will and propaganda, without the elementary means indicated by the simplest reason.

It is absolutely beside the point to refer you to the words of Jesus Christ when he said that — the light was not made to be placed under the bushel. It is beside the point and has no application, because you do not possess your own light!

Make the light by your own effort; illuminate your whole being with the sweet brightness of the virtues; discipline yourselves through good customs in the Temple of Ismael, the temple where God is adored, the Christ is venerated, and Charity is cultivated. Then, yes; distribute the light, it belongs to you!

And it belongs to you, because it is a sacred product of your own effort, a brilliant conquest of your Spirit — engaged in the sublime struggles of the Truth.

Outside of these terms, you may produce works that cause intoxication to the sight, but never works that speak sincerely to the heart. You may produce strong emotions, for many are those who gladly give themselves to the cult of the marvelous; never, however, will they leave the gentle impressions of the Truth vibrating the strings of divine love in the great human heart. Outside of that orthodox convention, it is possible that the plants may grow in your Groups, but it is also quite possible that their fruits may be quite bitter, quite poisonous, determining, contrary to what should happen, the moral death of your Spirit — the destruction, at the foundation, of your Temple of work!

If the Gospel does not truly become a buckler in your spirits, who will be able to succor you, since the Revelation tends to absorb all consciences, emancipating your century? If the Gospel in your hands has only the usefulness of profane books, which delight the soul and enchant the thought, who will be able to succor you at the moment of that planetary revolution that already makes itself felt, which will give the dominion of the Earth to the good, prepared for its development, which will bring about the transmigration of the obsessed and the hardened to the world that shall be proper to them? What will become of you — who will be able to succor you — if, in the lamp of your Spirit, the element of light is lacking with which you may see the unexpected arrival of the Christ, witnessing the worth of the good and the moral weakness of the wicked and of the ungrateful?

If you were called to the wedding of your King's son, why do your Spirits not take the garments worthy of the banquet, exchanging with us the toast of love and of charity for the union of the Christ with his people?

If everything is prepared, if only the guests are lacking, why do you yield your place to the lame and the crippled who, last, shall come to be first at the abundant table of divine charity?

Have these points of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, despite the Revelation, not yet provoked your meditation?

That echo that resounds throughout the whole atmosphere of your planet, saying — The times have come! — will it be a jest of the envoys of God, with the purpose of terrifying your spirits?

Is it possible for us to prepare ourselves for the times that are coming, living full of dissensions and struggles, as if we did not constitute a single family, having for the governance of our acts and of our sentiments a single doctrine?

Is it possible for us to prepare ourselves for the times that are coming, giving at every moment and at every instant the note of scandal, presenting ourselves to men under the aspect of men full of ambitions, who do not hesitate to lay hold even of divine things for the enjoyment of the flesh and the satisfaction of the passions of the world?

But it would be simply an obsession of the Spirit — to claim to discharge oneself of one's commitments and to penetrate, into the kingdom of God, covered with those passions and those human miseries!

This would be equivalent to your not believing in that very thing in which you say you believe; it would be to mock your Creator who, not demanding sacrifice of you, nevertheless asks you not to transform His house of prayer into a den of thieves!

My friends! Without charity there is no salvation — without fraternity there can be no union.

Unite yourselves, then, through fraternity, under the watch of the good Ismael, your Guide and Protector. Save yourselves through Charity, distributing good everywhere, indistinctly, without hidden thought, to those who ask you to give them of your belief at least a moral testimony, which may oblige them to respect in you the well-intentioned and truly Christian individual. Concerning the propaganda you seek to carry out, exclusively to call into your bosom a greater number of adherents, I will say — if the easiest means you have found are the cure of your obsessed brothers, the home visits, and the expansion of fluids — there you have a modest work for your meditation and study.

And, reading, understanding, call upon me every time it pleases you to hear my word, and I will come to clarify the points you find doubtful — I will come, in new terms, if it be necessary, to show you that that side which seems easy to you for the propaganda of the Doctrine — is the greatest reef cast in your path — is the stone placed at the wheels of your triumphant chariot — will be, finally, the cause of your disastrous fall, if you do not know how to guide yourselves with the discernment required of all who engage in so great a cause. May God grant that the Spiritists to whom I speak, that the men to whom was given the grace of knowing in spirit and truth the Doctrine of the Christ, may have the good will to understand me — the good will to see in my words only the interest of the love I devote to them.

Allan Kardec.

II.

— Studies on obsessions.

Peace and Love! In the face of the great responsibility we assumed toward our Creator, when we committed ourselves to defend the Doctrine of His beloved Son, sealed with His own blood on the summit of Calvary, to redeem the faults of men; in the face of the commitments undertaken by our own Spirit, certain then of triumphing over the flesh and its passions; of establishing on Earth the reign of love and of the fraternity of creatures; in the face of the struggles that grow day by day, rendering ever more rugged the path of your existence on the way of regeneration, I raise my thought to the Being of Beings, to our Creator and Father, and I implore, in the name of divine charity, that the wings of His beloved Son be extended over the Earth, placing you in the shadow of His Gospel — the sole guarantee of your belief — the sure stability of your faith! Friends! Just now, traversing with the eyes of the Spirit the reign of darkness, reasoning upon the facts that constantly torment Humanity, you recognized the necessity of the forgiveness of offenses, of paying for evils with benefits, of answering hatred with love; you recognized the necessity that man, invested with so holy a Mandatum upon the Earth, has of virtue and of the lofty sentiments that ennoble him in the eyes of his Creator so that, undaunted, he may engage in the tremendous struggle of the Light against the darkness, in the name of the Christ — the Master, the Model, the Redeemer. Indeed, mad would be he who, recognizing in the sufferings of others the full execution of the justice of a clement and merciful God, should attempt to appease them only with words — if not empty of meaning — completely devoid of Christian sentiment.

Mad would be he who, without the weapons that the words of Jesus give him, should give himself to that inglorious struggle, aggravating — who knows! — the sufferings and the pains of those for whom he disposes himself to struggle.

You understand that I speak to you of the obsessed, of those unfortunate brothers whom you find at every moment and who awaken your curiosity or your sentiments. I speak of those victims of errors and faults that escape your perception and to whom, looking upon them with merciful eyes, you seek to minister the consoling word — the holy balm of divine charity. If it were possible, for all those who shudder before those horrifying tableaux, to practice the fast of which Jesus spoke to his apostles; if it were possible for each one to understand the role of a true priest, with which he is charged when he seeks to share the sacred host, on the altar of Jesus, with his brothers of the Earth; if the elevation of views over these facts were possible, in which the justice of God is manifested and, perchance, the very repentance of him whose suffering so moves you, certainly sadness would not invade your soul, disillusion would not disturb your belief, pain would not dominate the impulses of your faith! You wish the ends, seek the means. The ends you aim at are good, employ the good means — understanding always, constantly, that God watches over all His creatures and that even the hairs of each one are counted.

Understand what is meant by — Mercy; understand what is meant by — Justice!

That which you on Earth call — good will, thus often belied by the direction you give to your acts and to your actions, does not enter into the highly divine questions that those two words enclose.

Understand the immutability of the law of God; its execution can be suspended, but never revoked.

The execution is suspended when — not the good will, but the love of His creatures, the holy effluvia of charity rise to Him on the wings of a prayer and go to weep before His merciful power. Then He appeases the sufferings temporarily, for the principle of justice always prevails, distributing to each one according to his works.

It belongs, then, to the true Spiritist, to the true imitator of Jesus, to furnish himself with the holy and pure means to reach ends so divine and so sacred. To make oneself worthy — that is the great question!

God is good; let us seek, at least, not to be wicked. God is mercy; let us seek, in the measure of our strength, to share with our fellow creatures — not the mire of the soul, which fades the sentiments — but the love we drink in the great Jordan of the Gospel, washing ourselves of faults and of errors of the past.

Humble, charitable, you will see your course clearly; you will be able, as Jesus said, to raise the paralytics, to give sight to the blind, like the Apostles who did not limit their love for the Master only to good will, but extended it to the practice of good actions.

Humble and charitable, you will not fall into the ravines with those whom you lead by the hand. Humble and charitable, you will be able to shut up the house swept and adorned, defeating the malevolent powers that today intimidate you, because (unfortunate as you are!), in possession of the Gospel, you find yourselves without strength!

Yes! Let us invoke with love the grace of Jesus, let us implore with humility the mercy of God, so that, in possession of the Gospel, we may receive His strength — that we may give battle to all the sentiments that do not speak of His name, propagate by example His word, the sole means of reaching our desideratum without aggravating the responsibility which perchance currently weighs upon each one of us, in the distribution of His doctrine. Let us invoke His love so that we may have strength in the heart and light in the intelligence, so that He may clarify for us the dictates of conscience in the calm and serene terrain where the Spirit goes, according to His word, fertilizing the good seeds through the continuous work of actions, with the hoe of the virtues.

Let us seek, through that grace which we invoke, to give the just value to the sentiment we call charity — the key with which we open the doors of Heaven —, that is: the key with which we attain the peace of conscience, the temple of love, the sacrarium of justice, the tabernacle of faith!

Let us seek to give just value to that sentiment, which perhaps we profane, consciously or unconsciously, and with the profanation of which we disturb the peace, the serenity of justice, which is fulfilled — not by the will of men, but — by the will of God, in accordance with the law which, emanated from His wisdom and His never-belied love, distributes to each one according to his works. Let us ask ourselves, so that our conscience may answer, whether charity, that divine virtue, perchance excludes prudence, reason, when we know beforehand that everything always has a reason for being, that everything is done by the will of God!

Let us ask ourselves, whenever the sentiment of philanthropy, which nestles in our being and which we suppose to be that of charity, allows us moments of meditation, suggesting to us social and personal considerations, even molding our hearts in the narrow molds of the prejudices of the world, whenever that sentiment does not receive from us and spontaneously the impulses of faith, the breath of hope, and the certainty that it is charity that one wishes to realize; let us ask ourselves whether there are within us sentiments so great and so divine that they can supplant the love of God for His creatures! Let us ask our reason and our intelligence whether above our heads, where ideas quite sinful sometimes ferment, there exists a veil so dense and so impenetrable that it cannot be pierced by the eyes of God, who sees all, feels all!

My friends! I draw your attention strongly to this passage of my pale communication, speaking to you of charity in the face of obsessions. I draw your attention, because I wish to leave established a principle relative to your conditions, in order to spare you displeasures and, perhaps, revolts, when, without knowing how to give the true weight to the inconsequence of your acts, to the imprudences of your actions — allow me to speak to you thus — you claim to reach great ends, using limited means. I do not forbid you — and it would be an aberration of my Spirit to forbid you — to treat of obsessions. Note well! what I condemn, if I may condemn anything in the name of the Doctrine, is that, under the pretext of charity, charity generally spoken of and seldom felt — you expose yourselves to conflicts with the spirit of darkness, disturb the justice of God that is realized in your fellow creatures, and aggravate, consequently, the responsibility of your Spirit, for often, in those attempts, far from distributing the ripe fruits of the Gospel, you distribute the sharp thorns of pain and of martyrdom! The charity that excludes reason, prudence, and good sense — true charity — is instinctive!

Let us not argue with it. That charity constitutes the powerful force of the soul, which already knows no restrictions in the infinite.

Let us not argue with it, for, being true charity, it does not dispute with us. By its purity, it hovers in a region we cannot yet touch. It is bedewed with Divine Mercy, partakes of the breath of the Creator, is great, is immense, we cannot measure it.

But the charity that obliges the Spirit to consider the means, the charity that disputes, that attends to social considerations and prejudices, that charity — rather a philanthropic sentiment — needs to be analyzed, needs to be measured to serve as a norm for our conduct upon the Earth, in the distribution of the words of the Gospel, in the purification of your Spirits, until you may reach the end, the desired harbor, which is Jesus — our Master and our friend. The study of the obsessed person is indispensable, the person upon whom we are going to carry out the work that the philanthropy of the heart demands of us: — physiological and pathological study, study of the determining causes of the sufferings that move us; study of the milieu in which we are going to act; of the religious sentiments of him whom we intend to cure; of his moral qualities; of his principles; of his education, of the time, of everything, finally, that may contribute to our orientation in the work we intend to do. It is in that serious, sure study that we can find the thread of Ariadne that will guide us in the work of salvation of the unfortunate brother, the stray sheep, in the phrase of the Gospel — for whom we shall be the shepherd, but with the sentiments of the shepherd. The word should enter the house of the obsessed person only as something secondary; what we should bring him are sentiments, are moral qualities that impose themselves: — the faith of the true Levite, the seriousness of the true Priest!

And there is no fleeing from that thought, and there is no fleeing from that principle, when reason tells us that we are going to place ourselves between the justice of God and an unfortunate one — that we are going to place our heart as a rampart against the will of the Eternal, who sees all, feels all.

There is no fleeing from that doctrine, when we know that the formulas of good will are completely unknown to God and that into His domains only the spirit of faith can penetrate.

To cure! Who does not seek to cure?

To soothe the sufferings of others, to partake of the pains of one's fellows, to drink from the chalice of their bitterness; who does not seek to do it?

All who have the Christian sentiment — all who do not pulverize the sentiments of love, innate in the heart of creatures and placed there by the hand of God!

But, let all see themselves again in the Master; — let all remember his words when, sought by the sick and the obsessed, of body and of spirit, he told them it was not fitting that they be cured, because it was not fitting, in the language of the Spirit, that they should aggravate their responsibilities by making bad use of a grace received. Furthermore: — it was not fitting that they be cured because they needed the trials and the expiations in order to elevate themselves to the feet of God, which they would not achieve with the health of the body, but rather with the health of the Spirit. Friends! I leave you, for the rest of the instrument that serves me, and I will not continue until you honor me, soliciting my assistance for your study. I beg you, as a true friend, to question me on the points that you may not be able to accept, so that I, with the elements at my disposal in your medium, may make myself better understood, or be clarified by you. * I feel well in the midst of friends who seek with me to investigate the truth necessary to the progress of Humanity, and this without the preconceptions and prejudices that distort a study that should be done with humility and true interest.

From the communication presented to your critical study, let us seek to draw the necessary premises and their immediate consequences.

Leaving aside the form, which is of no interest to the question we are dealing with, let us see what we can find in the substance, that may profit our Spirits, avid for light and for new knowledge.

First question: — Should the Spiritist attempt the cure of obsessions, when he knows beforehand that everything has its reason for being — that everything is done by the will of God — and that even the hairs of the head of each one are counted?

I will answer, as an absolute rule: Yes!

Second question: — Can the Spiritist, conscious of his weakness, of the deficiency of his moral strength, go to meet the obsessed, seeking to save them from the persecution, the pain, and the suffering that move them?

Again I answer: — Yes! — also as an absolute rule.

Third question: — But should the Spiritist, carried away solely by the knowledge he has of the Doctrine and by the hope of the grace he is to receive, attempt the cure, disregarding the means advised?

No!

And this, my friends, for the simple reason that it is not admissible to place at the bedside of a sick person a physician who completely ignores Medicine!

In the same way that the physician, who treats the body, does not cure merely with his good will but seeks the therapeutic means to combat the illness denounced by the pathological state of the sick person, so the Spiritist, who must be a physician of the soul, must seek the means appropriate to the hygiene of the soul to cure it, overcoming the determining causes of the evil that saddens it and awakens in it the will to practice good. To admit that from the simple encounter of a Spiritist with an obsessed person could result the removal of the tormentor and the safety of the victim, would be to admit a caprice of the Divinity, susceptible of being undone at the first human gesture.

But, if God is just, if God is merciful, and if no one can exceed Him in sentiment of charity, you will understand the impossibility of any attempt in that sense; you will understand, furthermore, the responsibility that ensues, for your Spirit, from the profanation of holy things, subject to the justice of God!

Speaking of the sentiment that often makes your soul shudder and that you suppose to be that of charity, since you cannot yet understand the greatness and the sanctity of this sentiment, I let all of you perceive that it would be better to call it a philanthropic sentiment, this sentiment which, not being charity, but its principle budding forth in your Spirit, does not, however, inhibit you from treating your brothers, victims of obsessions, provided that, with prudence, with discernment, and with reason, you know how to give direction to your acts of philanthropy, thus exercising your Spirit in the practice of good, providing it day by day with new strength and new lights for its moral upliftment, and for the progress of the Doctrine. When the Spiritist has faith, but felt faith; when the Spiritist has love, but enlightened love; when the Spiritist has charity, but proven charity, he goes, without strange considerations, to meet those who suffer and, after the example of the Master and of the Apostles, expels the demons, gives sight to the blind, makes the paralytics walk.

When, however, the Spiritist knows these sentiments only by tradition; when he is the first to be conscious of the weakness of his soul to make himself a rampart between the justice of God and the suffering of his fellow; when, despite all this, he aspires — which is quite natural —, desires — which is noble — to reach the condition of him who possesses the great sentiments of the soul, the Spiritist cannot fail to be prudent, judicious, and sensible, seeking the means to supply the sentiments lacking in his soul, in order to fulfill his duty as a Christian and as a Spiritist. It is at this point that the physiological and pathological study of the determining causes of the suffering intervenes, the study of the milieu where one is going to act, of the time, of everything, finally, that concerns the work that has to be done.

The Spiritist, before the obsessed person, is before the unknown, and, in the same way that no man ventures to explore a certain unknown zone without making the necessary reconnaissance in order to walk undaunted and to open his road, so too that pathological study of the determining causes of the suffering constitutes the reconnaissance necessary to the work that is going to be attempted, for in it are found the substitutive elements of the faith that operates the removal of the mountains — of the love that effects the unification of souls — of the charity that extends throughout the whole infinite! Invariable principle: — In all cases of obsession there is always a morbid state to combat — a morbid state that is cause or effect.

This being so, the physiological study is indispensable, my friends, the therapeutic means are more than necessary, for it is a matter of entering into a play — if I may so express myself — of disequilibrium of organs disordered by the absorption of fluids that have altered the economy [the organism] peculiar to each being.

To restore the organs, to bring them back to their normal functions, is a work all the more necessary as we know that, at times, it is their disorganization that permits the establishment of the bond between the obsessor and the obsessed person. This as to the physiological part.

As to the moral part, although your aim is to restore the obsessed person, you cannot, nevertheless, abandon the obsessor who is before you and who, though wicked, does not for that reason cease to be your brother and to be under the mercy of God. Because it is fitting that the cures of both be concomitant, it becomes impossible, simply through good will, to obtain the grace that you often go to invoke from the mercy and the love of the Most High. Without doubt, God, in His wisdom and will, can, at a given moment, drive away all the legions of evil Spirits. But, if God does not desire the death of the sinner but rather that he be saved, God does not permit that, by the simple evocation of His name, one who needs to suffer and to expiate faults committed should be restored, and that others, who are also His children and who, if they do not love Him, it is because they do not know Him, should be cast into the darkness, into despair! Thus, then, good should be done indistinctly, whatever be the terrain in which we are to practice it. But, not even good itself can exclude our reason, when, in dealing with the justice of God, we claim to contravene it.

The Father loves His children and opens His loving bosom to receive them, when the children know how to go to Him. God appeases the evils of Humanity; God withdraws the sword of His justice from over the head of His children; but only when from the soul of these same children springs forth, sanctified, the sweet effluvium of divine charity, whose germs were deposited there to develop and to return to His bosom. If you have faith, if you have love, if you have charity, close your eyes, march even toward the unknown, and you will produce astonishing things!

If you have passions, if you have vices, if you have crimes, be prudent. March timidly, reconnoiter the terrain on which you tread, surround yourselves with the means necessary to your undertaking, and cure the obsessed and the obsessors by the grace of the Lord, who recognizes your humility and your firm desire to practice good, despite your being very small. My friends! I do not wish to fatigue him who serves me so passively. May God in His infinite love permit, through the intermediary of your Guides, that you may have your understanding very clear so as to comprehend — not the counsels of the master, but rather the proofs of friendship that your friend and brother gives you.

* Blessed be the Lord, who permits a poor Spirit, desirous of light and of progress, to come among his brothers of the Earth to expound pale doctrinal thoughts with the just purpose — not of teaching — but of exchanging with them the sentiments that go in his soul, thus establishing the bond of spiritual friendship — undoubted herald of the love toward which we tend. Returning to the communications presented to your examination, let us seek still to draw the consequences of the premises formulated, completing our study relative to the cure of obsessions.

It was established that he who has the faith, as Jesus wished it, that is — that of the grain of mustard — does not need the formulas and cares prescribed by pathogenesis for the rehabilitation of those sick in soul and in body.

It was also established that he who recognizes himself to be spiritually weak; he in whom errors and faults can be pointed out — should not be carried away merely by good will, hoping from the grace of the Lord that which he can conquer only through his own effort, in the consecutive and daily work of perfecting his spiritual functions, for — I said —, were the contrary hypothesis to be admitted, we would have, not a just and good God, but a capricious God, susceptible to the errors and crimes of His own creatures. It was also established that the pathological examination of the sick person is a necessity, for there is always a morbid state to combat — a morbid state that may be the cause of the obsession, but that may also be its effect.

These are two distinct things, my friends, each one requiring special treatment, for in the first case your action should be exercised entirely upon the obsessed person, whereas in the second it should be exercised entirely upon the obsessor.

The pathological study becomes all the more necessary and fitting in our eyes, as we need to conduct ourselves with all discernment in the life of relations, with all good sense in social life — life of relations, social life where the maladies, well or ill, are classified and known — where it would be a grief for the Doctrine to confuse encephalitis, splenitis, myelitis, hysteria, and epilepsy with the presence of obsessing Spirits, to whom you intend to bring the light, the salutary counsel, the restoration, finally. You well understand that, in the hypothesis of one of those maladies, it is natural that there always be strange influences, which take advantage of the morbid state, but this is not what can really be called obsession.

In such a case, the treatment being done with the therapeutic agents, one has the restoration of the organs, the return of health: the cause ceasing, the effects cease.

Meanwhile, when the organs are brought to disequilibrium by the absorption of fluids, by the constant presence of the Spirit that obsesses, the treatment should converge entirely upon the strange cause that presents itself, determining the mental disorganizations, the loss of will, the annihilation of free will.

It is at this point that you almost always find yourselves weak; it is in this mechanical work — for it is a work entirely of fluids — that you find yourselves in serious difficulties, suffering, who knows, often, fainting spells that would lead you to disbelief, to the abandonment of the Doctrine of Jesus, if your Guides did not come to touch your conscience, showing the unsoundness of your reasonings, which impel you to judge yourselves, in your delusion, superior to God. Just as to combat a physical cause one opposes to it a physical force, so too to combat a moral cause it is necessary to oppose to it the moral force.

It being certain that the obsessed Spirit has its perispirit impregnated, saturated with evil and pernicious fluids, you should, through the power of the will, produce the work that has nothing material or mechanical about it and that consists in opposing to it pure and salutary fluids; and that purity, that salubrity of the fluids can come only from the moral superiority of your self — moral superiority which gives you authority — which no Spirit can resist, for there is absolutely not the homogeneity that would permit the exercise of a force contrary to the Law, and you will be within the Law! This is why I said that all prudence was fitting in conducting yourselves in those thorny works, because the man who does not have with him elements of salvation does not hurl himself upon the waves of the turbulent ocean that can suck him down, that can swallow him into its stormy bosom.

Good will may be a means, but it is not everything.

The man who wishes to destroy the mountain does not cross his arms, limiting himself to telling God, or Nature, that he has the will that the mountain be destroyed: he goes to fetch the tool, works to the point of mortification of the body, digs at the rock, and effects the destruction.

You have the good will to cure, that is right, I have already said it. But obsession is an extraordinary mountain of disordered passions and sentiments, for whose destruction you need the tools of love, the tools of humility and of true abnegation.

If your Spirit comports all those great sentiments; if your soul can absorb the whole doctrine emanated from the Gospel of Jesus; why not dilate it entirely?

Why not love — why not be humble since you know that only love and humility will give the moral capacity to produce the astonishing things obtained by the Holy Apostles; when, in the name of the Divine Master, they went from city to city, from village to village, preaching his doctrine — cleansing the bodies and purifying the souls?

Brothers! Let not the caprices of the flesh delude you; let not those will-o'-the-wisps of human grandeurs delude you, which cannot illuminate the impassable road of your existence upon the Earth, nor point out to you the landmarks of the joy that does not die!

In each one of you I see, it is true, a sinner; but, rather, I see in each one of you a will; and, if that will knows how to exercise itself, if it knows how to make use of the power, the ruined castles of difficulties will be destroyed forever and ever, and upon their wreckage your Spirits, sinners of today, will rise, pure and glorified by a God who is just! To give little is already to give something. If you recognize in your Spirit the weakness for the great undertakings of the soul, pray, ask strength of Jesus, and do not believe, not even remotely, that the drop of water for parched lips is denied you — a ray of light of divine mercy to your heart that humbles itself, to your Spirit that abases itself in order to rise! When you do thus; when you understand that to be a Spiritist is not to be a man, but a Christian; when you know how to give all value to that grace granted to you through the complete espousal of the doctrine that is preached to you; when, finally, you become convinced that you were shipwrecked in this world, and that God kindly caused the plank of the Gospel to reach your hands, then you will be able to go to the house of the obsessed sick person and, saying simply — «May the peace of Jesus be in this house» — the sick person will have peace, will have health in body and in soul, through Jesus Christ, in whose name you will have gone to practice good, fulfilling his law! My Brothers! My devoted Friends! I do not wish to fatigue your companion.

What I have told you suffices for you to understand the manner in which you should proceed when you find yourselves in the presence of an obsessed person.

May God enlighten your understanding, may Jesus, through the intermediary of the good Guides, give you all the intuitions of good for your happiness in this world and in the world where I await you.

So may it be!

Allan Kardec.

[1] Dictated to the medium Frederico Júnior, in 1888 and 1889, at the Spiritist Society "Fraternidade"; extracted from the book A Prece, published by the Brazilian Spiritist Federation.