SHORT SPIRITIST CONFERENCE - THIRD DIALOGUE. — THE SKEPTIC - Questions 1-20.

An abbot. — Will you permit me, sir, to address some questions to you as well?

A. K. — With the greatest pleasure, reverend; but, before answering them, I think it well to make known to you the ground on which I must place myself before you. First of all, it behooves me to declare that I have no pretension of converting you to our ideas. If you wish to know them in detail, you will find them in the books in which they are set forth; in them you may study them at your leisure and accept or reject them.

Spiritism has as its aim to combat incredulity and its dire consequences, by furnishing patent proofs of the existence of the soul and of the future life; it is addressed, therefore, to those who believe in nothing or who doubt, and the number of these is great, as you well know; those who have religious faith and whom this faith satisfies have no need of it. To the one who says: “I believe in the authority of the Church and I am content with its teachings, without seeking anything beyond its limits,” Spiritism replies that it imposes itself upon no one and that it does not come to force any conviction.

Freedom of conscience is a consequence of freedom of thought, which is one of the attributes of man; if it did not respect it, Spiritism would be in contradiction with its principles of charity and tolerance. In its eyes, every belief is respectable, even though erroneous, provided it be sincere and does not allow man to do harm to his neighbor. If someone were led, by his own conscience, to believe, for example, that it is the Sun that turns around the Earth, we would say to him: Believe it if you wish, for that will not prevent the Earth from turning around the Sun. But, just as we do not seek to do violence to your conscience, do not attempt to do violence to that of others. If, however, you transform a belief, in itself innocent, into an instrument of persecution, it then becomes harmful and may be combated. Such, sir abbot, is the line of conduct that I have followed with the ministers of the various religions who have addressed themselves to me. When they questioned me on some points of the Doctrine, I gave them the necessary explanations, abstaining, however, from discussing certain dogmas, with which Spiritism has no business concerning itself, since all men are free in their judgments; but I never went to seek them out with the purpose of shaking their faith by means of any pressure whatever. He who comes to us as a brother, we welcome him as such; the one who rebuffs us, we leave him in peace. This is the advice that I never tire of giving to Spiritists, because I have never approved the pretension of those who arrogate to themselves the mission of converting the clergy. I have always said to them: Sow in the field of the incredulous, for it is there that you have much to reap. Spiritism does not impose itself because, as I have told you, it respects freedom of conscience; it knows, moreover, that every imposed belief is superficial and awakens nothing but the appearances of faith, but never sincere faith. It sets forth its principles before the eyes of all, so that each one may form an opinion with full knowledge of the matter. Those who accept its principles, priests or laymen, do so freely and because they find them rational; but we do not hold any grudge against those who depart from our opinion. If today there is a struggle between the Church and Spiritism, we are fully aware of not having provoked it.

The Priest. — If the Church, seeing a new doctrine arise whose principles, in conscience, it judges that it must condemn, can you contest its right to discuss and combat them, forewarning the faithful against what it considers error?

A. K. — In no way can we contest that right, which we also claim for ourselves. If it had confined itself within the limits of discussion, nothing would be better; but read the majority of the writings emanating from its members or published in the name of religion, the sermons that have been preached, and you will see in them insult and calumny overflowing everywhere and the principles of the Doctrine disfigured in an unworthy and malicious manner. From the height of the pulpit, have Spiritists not been characterized as enemies of society and of public order? Have those whom Spiritism led back to faith not been anathematized and rejected by the Church, under the pretext that it is better to be an unbeliever than to believe in God and in the soul through the teachings of the Spiritist Doctrine? Do many not lament today that the stakes of the Inquisition cannot be lit for the Spiritists? In certain localities have they not been pointed out to the hatred of their fellow citizens, to the point of having them persecuted and insulted in the streets? Have not all the faithful been required to avoid them as plague-stricken and have servants not been prevented from entering their service? Have not many wives been advised to separate from their husbands, as many husbands from their wives, all on account of Spiritism? Have not positions been taken away from employees, the bread of labor withdrawn from workers, and charity refused to the needy, because they were Spiritists? Have not even blind men been sent away from some hospitals, for not wishing to abjure their belief? Tell me, sir abbot: is this a fair discussion? Have the Spiritists, perchance, answered insult with insult, evil with evil? No. To everything they have always opposed calm and moderation. Public conscience already does them the justice of recognizing that they were not the aggressors.

The Priest. — Every sensible man deplores these excesses, but the Church cannot be held responsible for the abuses committed by some of its little-enlightened members.

A. K. — Agreed; but, will the princes of the Church enter into the class of the little enlightened? See the pastoral letter of the bishop of Algiers and of some others. Was it not a bishop who ordered the auto-da-fé of Barcelona? Does the higher ecclesiastical authority not have full power over its subordinates? If, then, it tolerates these sermons unworthy of the evangelical chair, if it favors the publication of insulting and defamatory writings against an entire class of citizens, and if it does not oppose the persecutions carried out in the name of religion, it is because it approves of them.

In short, the Church, by systematically rebuffing the Spiritists who sought it out, forced them to retreat; by the nature and violence of its attacks it enlarged the discussion and carried it onto new ground. Spiritism was nothing more than a simple philosophical doctrine; it was the Church that gave it greater proportions, presenting it as a dangerous enemy; it was the Church, in short, that proclaimed it a new religion. This was a great clumsiness on its part, but passion does not reason any better.

A Freethinker. — A short while ago you proclaimed freedom of thought and of conscience, and you declared that every sincere belief is respectable. Materialism is a belief like any other; why deny it the freedom that you grant to all the others?

A. K. — 1 Certainly, each one is free to believe in what he wishes or to believe in nothing at all, so that we would no longer tolerate a persecution against the one who believes in nothingness after death any more than one carried out against a schismatic of any religion.

In combating materialism, we do not attack the individuals, but a doctrine which, if it is harmless to society when it is confined to the inner forum of the conscience of enlightened persons, is a social plague if it should become generalized.

The belief that everything ends for man after death, that all solidarity ceases with the extinction of life, leads him to consider as nonsense the sacrifice of his present well-being for the benefit of others; hence the maxim: “Each one for himself during earthly life, since nothing exists beyond it.”

Charity, fraternity, morality, in short, are left without any foundation, without any reason for being.

Why should we trouble ourselves, constrain ourselves, and subject ourselves to privations today, when tomorrow, perhaps, we shall already be nothing?

The denial of the future, the mere doubt about another life, are the greatest stimulants of selfishness, source of the majority of the evils that afflict Humanity.

One must possess a great measure of virtue not to follow the current of vice and crime, when for this one has no other restraint than that of one's own willpower.

Human respect may restrain the man of the world, but it does not restrain the one who attaches no importance to public opinion.

By showing the perpetuity of the relations between men, the belief in the future life establishes among them a solidarity that is not broken in the tomb; only the course of ideas changes.

If this belief were a mere scarecrow, it would last only for a time; but, since its reality is a fact proven by experience, it is a duty to propagate it and to combat the contrary belief, in the very interest of social order.

This is what Spiritism does; and it does so with success, because it furnishes proofs and, in the end, because man prefers to have the certainty of living and of being able to be happy in a better world, as compensation for the miseries of this world, to having to die forever.

The thought of being annihilated, of seeing forever lost the children and the beings who are dearest to him, satisfies a very limited number, believe me; this is why the attacks directed against Spiritism, in the name of incredulity, have obtained so little success and have not caused it the least disturbance.

The Priest. — Religion teaches all this; up to now it has been sufficient. What, then, is the need for a new doctrine?

A. K. — If religion is sufficient, why are there so many unbelievers, religiously speaking? It is certain that religion teaches us; it commands us to believe, but there are so many people who do not believe on the basis of what others say! Spiritism proves and makes visible what religion teaches in theory. Whence come these proofs? From the manifestation of the Spirits. Now, it is probable that the Spirits manifest themselves only with the permission of God; if, then, God in His mercy sends men this aid to draw them out of incredulity, it is an impiety to rebuff it.

The Priest. — Nevertheless, you cannot deny that Spiritism is not, on all points, in agreement with religion.

A. K. — Well, sir abbot, all religions will say the same thing: the Protestants, the Jews, the Muslims, as much as the Catholics.

If Spiritism denied the existence of God, of the soul, of its individuality and immortality, of future punishments and rewards, of the free will of man; if it taught that each one ought to live only for himself, and to think of nothing but himself, it would not only be contrary to Catholicism, but to all the religions of the world; it would be the denial of all moral laws, the basis of human societies. Nevertheless, that is not what they teach; the Spirits proclaim a single God, sovereignly just and good; they say that man is free and responsible for his acts, rewarded for the good or the evil that he may have done; they place evangelical charity n above all the virtues, as well as the sublime rule taught by the Christ: to do unto others what we would like others to do unto us. Are these not the foundations of religion? But the Spirits do more: they initiate us into the mysteries of the future life, which for us is no longer an abstraction, but a reality, since it is precisely those whom we knew on Earth who come to describe to us their situation, to tell us how and why they suffer or are happy. What can there be that is anti-religious in all this? This certainty of the future, of going to meet again those whom we loved, will it not be a consolation? This grandeur of the spiritual life, which is our essence, compared to the petty preoccupations of earthly life, will it not be of such a nature as to elevate our soul and to strengthen us in the practice of good?

The Priest. — I agree that, in general questions, Spiritism conforms to the great truths of Christianity; but does the same hold true with regard to the dogmas? Does it not contradict some principles that the Church teaches us?

A. K. — Spiritism is, above all, a science, and it does not concern itself with dogmatic questions. It has moral consequences like all philosophical sciences; will these consequences be good or bad? One can judge them by the general principles that I have just set forth.

Some persons deceive themselves about the true character of Spiritism. The question is of great importance and merits some elaboration. Let us first make a comparison: being in Nature, electricity has existed in all times and has always produced the effects that we observe today and many others that we do not yet know. Because they were ignorant of its true cause, men explained these effects in a more or less extravagant manner. The discovery of electricity and of its properties came to overthrow a quantity of absurd theories, casting light upon more than one mystery of Nature. What electricity and the physical sciences did for certain phenomena, Spiritism did for others of a different order.

Spiritism is founded on the existence of an invisible world formed by the incorporeal beings who people space and who are nothing more than the souls of those who lived on Earth, or on other globes, on which they left their material envelopes. They are the beings whom we call Spirits; they surround us and exercise a constant influence over us, although we do not perceive them; moreover, they play a very active role in the moral world and, up to a certain point, in the physical world. Spiritism is, therefore, in Nature, and we can say that, in a certain order of ideas, it is a power, just as are, from another point of view, electricity and gravitation. The phenomena whose source is the invisible world have been produced in all times; this is why the history of all peoples makes mention of them. Only, in their ignorance, as happened with electricity, men attributed them to causes more or less rational, giving free rein to their imagination. Better observed since it became widespread, Spiritism comes to shed light upon a great number of questions hitherto insoluble or poorly understood. Its true character is, therefore, that of a science, and not of a religion; n and the proof of this is that it counts among its adherents men of all beliefs, who have not on that account renounced their convictions: fervent Catholics who continue to practice all the duties of their worship, when the Church does not rebuff them; Protestants of all sects, Israelites, Muslims, and even Buddhists and Brahmanists.

Consequently, Spiritism rests on principles independent of the dogmatic question. Its moral consequences are all in the direction of Christianity, because of all the doctrines this is the most enlightened and pure, which is why, of all the religious sects of the world, Christians are the most apt to understand it in its true essence. Can we be reproached for this? Certainly, each one can make of his opinions a religion and interpret at will the known religions; but from that to constituting a new Church, the distance is great.

The Priest. — Nevertheless, do you not perform the evocations according to a religious formula?

A. K. — Indeed, the religious sentiment predominates in the evocations and in our gatherings; but we have no sacramental formula: for the Spirits thought is everything and form is nothing. We call upon them in the name of God, because we believe in God and we know that nothing is done in this world without His permission, and therefore that they will not come without God permitting it. We proceed in our work with calm and recollection, because that is a necessary condition for the observations and, also, because we know the respect that is owed to those who no longer live upon the Earth, whatever may be their condition, happy or unhappy, in the world of the Spirits; we make an appeal to the good Spirits, because, knowing that there are good and evil ones, we do not want the latter to come and take part fraudulently in the communications that we receive. What does all this prove? That we are not atheists, which does not at all imply that we are sectarians of a religion.

The Priest. — Well then! What do the superior Spirits say with regard to religion? The good ones must advise and guide us. Let us suppose that I have no religion and wish to choose one; if I ask them to advise me whether I should be Catholic, Protestant, Anglican, Quaker, Jew, Muslim, or Mormon, what will be their answer?

A. K. — There are two points to consider in religions: the general principles, common to all, and the particular principles of each one of them. The first are those of which we spoke a short while ago; these are proclaimed by all the Spirits, whatever their category may be. As for the second, the common Spirits, even though they are not evil, may have preferences, opinions; they may recommend this or that form and encourage certain practices, whether from personal conviction, whether because they have kept the ideas of earthly life, whether from prudence, so as not to alarm timorous consciences. Do you believe, for example, that an enlightened Spirit, even were it Fénelon, addressing himself to a Muslim, would commit the imprudence of telling him that Muhammad is an impostor, and that he will be condemned if he does not become a Christian? In no way, because he would be rebuffed. In general, unless the superior Spirits are solicited by some special consideration, they do not concern themselves with these questions of detail, limiting themselves to saying: “God is good and just; He wants nothing but good; the best of all religions is the one that teaches only what is in conformity with the goodness and the Justice of God; that gives of God the greatest and most sublime idea and does not lower Him by attributing to Him the weaknesses and the passions of Humanity; that makes men good and virtuous and teaches them to love one another all as brothers; that condemns all evil done to one's neighbor; that does not permit injustice under whatever form or pretext it may be; that prescribes nothing contrary to the immutable Laws of Nature, because God cannot contradict Himself; the one whose ministers give the best example of goodness, charity, and morality; the one that best seeks to combat selfishness and least satisfies the pride and the vanity of men; the one, finally, in whose name the least evil is committed, because a good religion cannot serve as a pretext for any evil; it must not leave any door open to it, neither directly, nor by interpretation. See, judge, and choose.”

The Priest. — I believe that certain points of the Catholic doctrine are contested by the Spirits whom you consider superior; supposing even that these principles are false, can such a belief, according to the opinion of these same Spirits, be prejudicial to the salvation of those who, erring or being right, consider it an article of faith and practice it?

A. K. — Certainly not, provided that it does not turn them away from the practice of good, nor incite them to evil, since the most well-founded belief will harm them, if it furnishes them occasion to do evil, to fail in charity toward one's neighbor, to make them hard and selfish, because, in that case, such a belief does not act according to the Law of God, and God looks more at thoughts than at acts. Who would dare to maintain the contrary?

Do you believe, for example, that faith can be profitable to a man who, believing perfectly in God, practices inhuman acts or acts contrary to charity? Will there not always be more guilt in the one who had more means of enlightening himself?

The Priest. — Thus, the fervent Catholic, who rigorously fulfills the duties of his worship, is not reproached by the Spirits?

A. K. — No, if for him this is a matter of conscience and if he does it with sincerity; yes, a thousand times yes, if he is a hypocrite, if he has only an apparent piety.

The superior Spirits, those who have for their mission the progress of Humanity, rise up against all the abuses that may delay that progress, whatever their nature may be and whoever the individuals or the classes of society may be that profit from them. Now, it cannot be denied that religion has not always been exempt from abuses; if, among its ministers, there are many who fulfill their mission with entirely Christian devotion, who make it great, beautiful, and respectable, it is also certain that not all have thus understood the holiness of their ministry. The Spirits combat evil, wherever it may be found; but, to point out the abuses of religion, is that to attack it? It has no worse enemies than those who defend these abuses, because it is these abuses that give rise to the thought that it could be replaced by a better one. If religion were to run any danger, the responsibility should fall upon those who give a false idea of it, transforming it into an arena of human passions and exploiting it for the benefit of their ambition.

The Priest. — You said that Spiritism does not discuss dogmas and, yet, it admits certain points combated by the Church, such, for example, as reincarnation, the presence of man on Earth before Adam; it denies the eternity of punishments, the existence of demons, purgatory, the fire of hell.

A. K. — These points have been under discussion for a long time; it was not Spiritism that brought them to the fore; they are points about some of which there exists controversy, even among the theologians, and which only the future will judge. One great principle dominates them all: the practice of good, which is the superior law, the sine qua non condition of our future, as the state of the Spirits who communicate with us proves to us. Until the light is made for you upon these questions, believe, if you wish, in material flames and tortures, if you judge that this prevents you from doing evil; this belief, however, will not make them any more real if they do not exist.

You believe that we have only one corporeal existence, but this does not prevent you from being reborn here or elsewhere, if it must be so, even against your will; you believe that the whole world was created in six times twenty-four hours, despite the proofs to the contrary that the Earth presents to us, written in its geological layers; you are convinced that Joshua made the Sun stop , and, yet, it is the Earth that turns; you affirm that man has been on Earth for only 6,000 years, although the facts contradict you. And what will you say if one day Geology demonstrates, by patent traces, the anteriority of man, as it has already demonstrated so many other things?

Believe, then, in everything that pleases you, even in the existence of the devil, if such a belief can make you good, humane, and charitable toward your fellow beings. Spiritism, as a moral doctrine, imposes only one thing: the necessity of doing good and the duty of not doing evil. It is a science of observation that, I repeat, has moral consequences, which are the confirmation and the proof of the great principles of religion; as for the secondary questions, it leaves them to the conscience of each one.

Note well, sir, that some of the divergent points of which you have just spoken are not, in principle, contested by Spiritism. If you had read all that I have written on the subject, you would have seen that it limits itself to giving them a more logical and rational interpretation than the one that is commonly given to them. It is thus, for example, that it does not deny purgatory; on the contrary, it demonstrates its necessity and justice; it goes even further, it defines it. Hell has been described as an immense furnace, but is it thus that high theology understands it? Evidently not; it says very well that this is a mere figure; that the fire that is consumed there is a moral fire, symbol of the greatest sufferings. As for the eternity of punishments, if it were possible to hold a vote to know the inner opinion of all the men who reason and are apt to understand it, even among the most religious, one would see to which side the majority would lean, because the idea of an eternity of torments is the denial of the infinite mercy of God. Here, moreover, is what the Spiritist Doctrine says in this regard:

The duration of the punishment is subordinate to the improvement of the guilty Spirit. No condemnation for a determined time is pronounced against him. What God requires in order to put an end to the sufferings is repentance, expiation, and reparation; in short, a serious, effective improvement, and a sincere return to good. The Spirit is thus the arbiter of his own fate; he can prolong his sufferings, according to his persistence in evil, or lessen and abridge them, according to the efforts that he employs to do good. The duration of the punishment being subordinate to repentance, the guilty Spirit who did not repent and never improved would suffer always, and for him then the punishment would be eternal. The eternity of punishments must, therefore, be understood in the relative sense and not in the absolute. A condition inherent in the inferiority of the Spirit is not to see the end of his situation and to believe that he will suffer forever, which is for him a punishment. From the moment, however, that his soul opens to repentance, God lets him glimpse a ray of hope. Evidently, this doctrine is more in conformity with the Justice of God, who punishes as long as the guilty one persists in evil, and grants him grace from the moment he returns to the good path. Who imagined this theory? Was it we? No, it was the Spirits who teach it and prove it by the examples that they daily furnish us.

The Spirits do not deny future punishments, for it is they themselves who come to describe to us their own sufferings; and this picture touches us more than that of the perpetual flames, because everything in it is perfectly logical. One understands that this is possible, that it must be so, that this situation is a very natural consequence of things; the philosopher can accept it, because nothing in it is repugnant to reason. This is why the Spiritist beliefs have led so many people to good, even among the materialists, whom the fear of hell, such as it is described to us, did not shake at all.

The Priest. — Admitting this reasoning, do you not judge that the common people need images more striking than that of a philosophy that they cannot understand?

A. K. — This is an error that has cast more than one man into materialism, or, at least, turned some men away from religion. The moment comes when these images no longer make an impression, and then those who do not go to the bottom of things, not accepting one part, reject the whole, because, they say: if I was taught as incontestable truth a point that is false, if I was given an image, a figure, for reality, who guarantees to me that the rest is true? If, on the contrary, reason, as it grows, has nothing to reject, faith is fortified. Religion will always gain by following the progress of ideas; if it ever runs any danger, it is when men want to advance and it remains in the rear. He repeats the same errors of the past who expects to lead the men of today by the fear of the devil and of eternal tortures.

The Priest. — The Church, in effect, recognizes today that the material hell is a figure, n which does not exclude the existence of the demons; without them, how to explain the influence of evil, which cannot come from God?

A. K. — Spiritism does not admit the demons in the common sense of the word, but it does admit the evil Spirits, who are worth no more than those and who likewise do evil, by arousing evil thoughts; only it says that they are not separate beings, created for evil and perpetually devoted to evil, a kind of pariahs of Creation and executioners of the human race; they are backward beings, still imperfect, but for whom God will reserve the future. In this Spiritism is in full agreement with the Greek Catholic Church, which admits the conversion of Satan, an allusion to the improvement of the evil Spirits. Note, also, that the word demon does not imply the idea of an evil Spirit, which is given to it by the modern acceptation, since the word daimon, Greek, means genius, intelligence. Be that as it may, today it expresses an evil Spirit. Now, to admit the communication of the evil Spirits is to recognize, in principle, the reality of the manifestations. The question lies in knowing whether they are the only ones who communicate, as the Church affirms in order to justify the prohibition, made by it, of communicating with the Spirits. Here, we invoke reasoning and the facts. If the Spirits, whatever they may be, communicate, it is because they have the permission of God; would it be possible that He had permitted it only to the evil ones, leaving these latter all the freedom to come and deceive men and preventing the good ones from coming to make a counterweight to them and neutralize their pernicious doctrines? To believe that it is so, would that not be to cast doubt upon His power and goodness, and to make of Satan a rival of the Divinity? The Bible, the Gospel, the Fathers of the Church recognize perfectly the possibility of communications with the invisible world, and from that world the good ones are not excluded; why, then, should we today exclude them? Moreover, the Church, by admitting the authenticity of certain apparitions and communications of saints, rejects, by that very fact, the idea that we can enter into relation only with the evil Spirits. Surely, when the dictations obtained contain only good things, when they preach to us the purest and most sublime evangelical morality, abnegation, disinterestedness, and love of one's neighbor; when in them evil is combated, whatever the aspect under which it manifests itself may be, would it be rational to believe that the malignant Spirit acts in this way?

The Priest. — The Gospel teaches us that the angel of darkness, or Satan, transforms himself into an angel of light in order to seduce men.

A. K. — According to Spiritism and the opinion of many Christian philosophers, Satan is not a real being; he is the personification of Evil, as Saturn was, formerly, the personification of Time. The Church takes this allegorical figure literally; it is a matter of opinion that I will not discuss at all.

Let us admit, for an instant, that Satan is a real being; the Church, by so exaggerating his power, with a view to intimidating, arrives at a totally contrary result, that is, at the destruction, not only of fear, but also of belief in such a personage, according to the proverb: He who wants to prove too much ends up proving nothing at all. It represents him as eminently subtle, sagacious, and cunning, but, in the question of Spiritism, it makes him play the role of a madman or a fool.

Since the objective of Satan is to feed hell with victims and to snatch souls from the power of God, one easily understands that he addresses himself to those who are in good in order to lead them to evil, and, for such an end, finds himself obliged to transform himself, according to a most beautiful allegory, into an angel of light and to simulate the truth. How to understand, however, that he lets escape those who were already in his clutches?

Those who believe neither in God nor in the soul, those who despise prayer and live plunged in vice, are already the devil's, and there is nothing more left for him to do to bury them in the mire; now, to excite them to return to God, to pray, to submit themselves to the will of the Creator, to encourage them to renounce evil, by showing them the happiness of the chosen and the sad fate that awaits the wicked, would be the act of a simpleton, more stupid than that of giving freedom to birds that are in a cage, with the intention of catching them again.

There is, therefore, in the doctrine of the exclusive communication of the demons, a contradiction that shocks every sensible man. No one will ever be convinced that the Spirits who lead back to God those who denied Him; those who guide toward good the beings who practiced evil; those who console the afflicted and give strength and courage to the weak; those who, by the sublimity of their teachings, raise the soul above material life, are accomplices of Satan, and that, for this reason, all relation with the invisible world should be forbidden.

The Priest. — If the Church forbids communications with the Spirits of the dead, it is because they are contrary to religion, as being formally condemned by the Gospel and by Moses. The latter, by pronouncing the penalty of death against these practices, proves how reprehensible they are in the eyes of God.

A. K. — Pardon, sir, but that prohibition is not found in any part of the Gospel; it is found only in the Mosaic law. It is, therefore, a matter of knowing whether the Church places the Mosaic law above the evangelical, that is, whether it is more Jewish than Christian. We must even note that, of all religions, the one that makes least opposition to Spiritism is the Jewish, against whose evocations it has not invoked the law of Moses, on which the Christian sects rely. [see. Is it permitted to evoke the dead, since Moses forbade it?] If the biblical prescriptions are the code of the Christian faith, why do they forbid the reading of the Bible? What would they say if a citizen were forbidden the study of the code of the laws of his country? The prohibition made by Moses had then its reason for being because the Hebrew legislator wanted his people to break with all the habits brought from Egypt and, among them, the one with which we are dealing was an object of abuse. The dead were not evoked out of the respect and affection that was vowed to them nor with the sentiment of piety, but rather as a means of divination, as an object of shameful traffic, exploited by charlatanism and superstition; Moses had, therefore, reason to forbid it. If he pronounced against this abuse a severe penalty, it is that he needed rigorous means to govern this undisciplined people; this is why his legislation was prodigal in the application of the death penalty.

It is, therefore, an error to rely on the severity of the punishment to prove the degree of culpability of the evocation of the dead. If the prohibition of the evocation of the dead comes from God Himself, as the Church claims, it must also be God who instituted the death penalty against the delinquents. This penalty comes then to have an origin as sacred as the prohibition; in that case, why do they not also keep it? All the laws of Moses are promulgated in the name and by the order of God; if they believe that God is the author of them, why do they no longer observe them? If the law of Moses is for the Church an article of faith on one point, why is it not so on the others? Why do they have recourse to it in that which suits them, and reject it when it does not interest them? Why do they not follow all its prescriptions, among others that of circumcision, which Jesus underwent and did not abolish? There were in the Mosaic law two parts: 1st the Law of God, summarized in the tablets of Sinai; this law was kept because it is divine, and the Christ did nothing more than develop it; 2nd the civil or disciplinary law, appropriate to the customs of the time and which the Christ abolished. Today, the circumstances are no longer the same, so that the prohibition of Moses has lost its reason for being. Moreover, if the Church forbids the evocation of the Spirits, can it perchance prevent them from coming without being called? Do we not see daily manifestations of all kinds, among persons who never concerned themselves with Spiritism, and even before its divulgation was contemplated?

Another contradiction: If Moses forbade the evocation of the Spirits of the dead, it is because they could come; otherwise that prohibition would be useless. If they could come in that time, why could they not today? And, if they are Spirits of the dead, they are not exclusively demons. Above all, we must be logical.

The Priest. — The Church does not deny that the good Spirits can communicate, for it recognizes that the saints too have manifested themselves; but it cannot consider as good those who come to contradict its immutable principles. The Spirits teach, it is true, that there are future punishments and rewards, but in a manner different from the one it teaches; only it can judge what they preach and, therefore, distinguish the good from the evil.

A. K. — Here is the great question. Galileo was accused of heresy and of being inspired by the devil, because he came to reveal a Law of Nature, proving the error of a belief judged unassailable; he was condemned and excommunicated. If the Spirits had, on all points, agreed with the exclusive teaching of the Church; if they did not proclaim freedom of conscience and did not condemn certain abuses, they would all have been welcome and they would not characterize them as demons. Such is also the reason why all religions, the Muslims as the Catholics, by judging themselves in the exclusive possession of absolute truth, look upon as the work of the devil every doctrine that, from their point of view, is not entirely orthodox. Now, the Spirits do not come to overthrow religion, but, like Galileo, to reveal to us new Laws of Nature. If some points of faith suffer by this, it is because, as in the old belief of the Sun turning around the Earth, they are in contradiction with these laws. The question lies in knowing whether an article of faith can annul a natural law, which is the work of God, and whether, once this law is recognized, it will not be more rational to interpret the dogma without injuring the law, instead of attributing it to the devil.

The Priest. — Let us leave the question of the demons; I know well that it is variously interpreted by the theologians. The system of reincarnation, however, seems to me more difficult to reconcile with the dogmas, for it merely resurrects the metempsychosis of Pythagoras.

A. K. — This is not the proper moment to discuss a question that would require long elaboration; you will find it in The Spirits' Book and in the Morality of the Gospel According to Spiritism, n I will only add a few words.

The metempsychosis of the Ancients consisted of the transmigration of the soul of man into animals, which implies a degradation. Moreover, it is well to remember that this doctrine was not what is commonly believed. The transmigration through the bodies of animals was not considered as a condition inherent in the nature of the human soul, but as a temporary punishment; it was admitted, thus, that the souls of murderers went to inhabit the bodies of ferocious animals, to receive in them their punishment; those of the sensual passed through the bodies of pigs and wild boars; those of the inconstant and the foolish migrated into the bodies of birds; those of the lazy and the ignorant, into the bodies of aquatic animals. After some thousands of years, more or less, according to the culpability, the soul, leaving this kind of prison, returned to Humanity. Animal incarnation was not, therefore, an absolute condition; as one sees, it allied itself with human reincarnation, and the proof of this is that the punishment of timid men consisted in passing into the bodies of women exposed to scorn and insults. n It was rather a kind of scarecrow for the simple, than an article of faith for the philosophers. Just as we say to children: “Do not become wicked, otherwise the wolf will eat you,” the Ancients said to the criminals: “You will be transformed into wolves,” and today one says: “The devil will seize you and carry you off to hell.” According to Spiritism, the plurality of existences differs essentially from metempsychosis, in that it does not admit the incarnation of the human soul in the bodies of animals, even as a punishment. The Spirits teach that the soul does not retrograde, but always progresses. Its different corporeal existences are accomplished in humanity, each one being a step that the soul takes on the path of intellectual and moral progress, which is quite different from metempsychosis. Not being able to acquire a complete development in a single existence, often abridged by accidental causes, God permits it to continue, in a new incarnation, the task that it could not finish in another, or to begin again what it did wrongly. The expiation in corporeal life consists of the tribulations that we suffer in it. As for the question of knowing whether the plurality of the existences of the soul is or is not contrary to certain dogmas of the Church, I limit myself to saying the following: either reincarnation exists, or it does not; if it exists, it is because it is in the Laws of Nature. To prove that it does not exist, it would be necessary to demonstrate that it is contrary, not to the dogmas, but to these laws, and that there is another clearer and logically better than it, explaining the questions that only it can resolve.

Moreover, it is easy to demonstrate that certain dogmas find in reincarnation a rational sanction, today accepted by those who formerly rebuffed them, for lack of comprehension. It is not, therefore, a matter of destroying, but of interpreting; this is what will happen later, by the force of things. Those who do not wish to accept the interpretation remain entirely free, as they still are today, to believe that it is the Sun that turns around the Earth. The idea of the plurality of existences becomes widespread with astonishing rapidity, by reason of its extreme logic and conformity with the Justice of God. What will the Church do, when reincarnation is recognized as a natural truth and accepted by all?

In short: reincarnation is not a system conceived to satisfy the needs of a cause nor a personal opinion; it either is or is not a fact. If it is proven that certain existing effects are materially impossible without reincarnation, we must admit that they derive from reincarnation; therefore, if this law is in Nature, it cannot be annulled by a contrary opinion.

The Priest. — According to the Spirits, will the one who believes neither in them nor in their manifestations be less favored in the future life?

A. K. — If this belief were indispensable to the salvation of men, what would become of those who, since the beginning of the world, did not have the chance to possess it, as well as of those who, for a long time, will die without having it? Can God close to them the doors of the future? No; the Spirits who instruct us are much more logical; they say to us: God is sovereignly just and good and does not subordinate the future fate of man to conditions foreign to his will; they do not tell us that outside of Spiritism there can be no salvation, but rather, like the Christ, that Outside of charity there is no salvation.

The Priest. — Permit me, then, to tell you that, since the Spirits teach only the principles of morality found in the Gospel, I do not see what can be the usefulness of Spiritism, seeing that before it came and today, without it, we could and can attain salvation. It would not be the same if the Spirits came to teach some great new truths, some of those principles that change the face of the world, as the Christ did. At least the Christ was alone, his doctrine was unique, whereas the Spirits number in the thousands and contradict one another, some saying that what others affirm to be black is white; from which it results that, already from the beginning, their partisans form many sects. Would it not be better to leave the Spirits in peace and content ourselves with what we already have? A. K. — You labor in error, sir, in not departing from your point of view and in always considering the Church as the only criterion of human knowledge. If the Christ spoke the truth, Spiritism could not say anything else, and instead of stoning it for this, it should be welcomed as a powerful auxiliary, which comes to confirm, by all the voices from beyond the tomb, the fundamental truths of religion, combated by incredulity. That materialism combat it, one understands easily; but that the Church should associate itself with materialism to combat it, is what cannot be conceived. It also contradicts itself when it characterizes as demonic a teaching that relies on the authority of Jesus, and, at the same time, proclaims the divine mission of the founder of Christianity. Would the Christ have said everything? revealed everything? No, because He Himself said: “I would still have many things to say to you, but you cannot understand them; this is why I speak to you in parables.” Today, that man is mature enough to understand, Spiritism comes to complete and explain what the Christ did nothing but touch upon, or said only under the allegorical form. You will say, no doubt, that it belonged to the Church to give this explanation. But which of them? the Roman, the Greek, or the Protestant? Since they are not in agreement, each one of them would explain in its own way and would claim the privilege of giving this explanation. Which of them would succeed in reuniting all the dissidents? God, who is wise, foreseeing that men would contaminate it with their passions and prejudices, did not wish to entrust them with the care of this new revelation: He entrusted it to the Spirits, His messengers, who proclaim it throughout all points of the globe, outside the particular limits of any worship, in order that it may apply to all, and that none may transform it into an object of exploitation. On the other hand, will the various Christian denominations not have, in some respect, departed from the path traced by the Christ? Are his precepts of morality scrupulously observed? Have they not denatured his words, in order to serve as support for human ambition and passions, when they are their very condemnation? Now, Spiritism, by the voice of the Spirits sent by God, comes to call to the strict observance of his precepts those who depart from it; will it be for this that they characterize it as a satanic work?

You deceive yourself by giving the name of sects to some divergences of opinions relative to the spiritist phenomena. It is not surprising that at the beginning of a science, when for many the observations were still incomplete, contradictory theories arose; these theories, however, rest upon details and not upon the fundamental principle. They may constitute schools that explain certain facts in their own way, but they are not sects, just as the different systems that divide our learned men over the exact sciences are not: in Medicine, Physics, etc. Strike out, then, the word sect, which is improper to our case. To how many sects has Christianity not given rise, since it arose? Why did the word of the Christ not have enough power to impose silence upon all the controversies? Why is it susceptible of interpretations that still today divide the Christians into different churches, all of them claiming to possess exclusively the truth necessary to salvation, detesting one another intimately and anathematizing one another in the name of their divine Master, who preached nothing but love and charity? — Owing to the weakness of men — you will say. So be it; how, then, do you want Spiritism to triumph suddenly over this weakness and transform Humanity as if by enchantment? Let us pass to the question of usefulness. You say that Spiritism teaches us nothing new. It is an error: it teaches, on the contrary, a good deal to those who do not stop at the surface. Even if it did nothing more than substitute the maxim: Outside of charity there is no salvation, which unites men, for that one: Outside of the Church there is no salvation, which divides them, it would already have marked a new era for Humanity.

You said that one could do without Spiritism; I agree, just as one could also do without a number of scientific discoveries. Men certainly lived well, before the discovery of all the new planets, before the eclipses had been calculated, before the microscopic world and a hundred other things were known; the peasant, in order to live and to make the wheat germinate, does not need to know what a comet is, and, yet, no one denies that all these things widen the circle of ideas and make us understand better the Laws of Nature. Now, the world of the Spirits is one of those laws that Spiritism makes known to us; it teaches us the influence that this world exercises over the corporeal one. Even supposing that its usefulness were limited to that, would not the revelation of such a power already be much? Let us see, now, its moral influence. Let us admit that it teaches nothing, from that point of view; what is the greatest enemy of religion? Materialism, because materialism believes in nothing; now, Spiritism is the negation of materialism, which no longer has any reason for being. Thus, it is no longer by reasoning nor by blind faith that one says to the materialist that not everything ends with the body, but by the facts, making him, so to speak, touch it with his fingers and see it. Will that not be a small service rendered to Humanity and to religion? This, however, is not all: the certainty of the future life and the living picture of those who preceded us in that life show the necessity of good and the inevitable consequences of evil. This is why, without being a religion, n Spiritism is essentially connected to religious ideas, develops them in those who do not possess them and fortifies them in those who waver. Religion finds, therefore, a support in it, not for persons of narrow vision, who see the future life entirely in the doctrine of eternal fire, more in the letter than in the spirit, but for those who see it according to the grandeur and the majesty of God. In synthesis, Spiritism enlarges and elevates ideas; it combats the abuses engendered by selfishness, cupidity, ambition; but who will have the courage to defend them and declare themselves their champions? If it is not indispensable to salvation, it facilitates it, by firming us in the path of good. Moreover, what sensible man will dare to advance that the lack of orthodoxy is more reprehensible, in the eyes of God, than atheism and materialism?

I submit the following questions to all the persons who combat Spiritism, from the point of view of its religious consequences:

1st Who will be less favored in the future life: the one who believes in nothing at all, or the one who, believing in the general truths, does not admit certain parts of the dogma?

2nd Will the Protestant and the schismatic be confounded in the same reprobation as the atheist and the materialist?

3rd Will the one who, in the strict sense of the word, is not orthodox, but does all the good that he can, who is good and indulgent toward his neighbor, loyal in his social relations, have less guarantee of salvation than the one who believes in everything, but who is hard, selfish, and fails in charity?

4th Which is worth more in the eyes of God: the practice of the Christian virtues without that of the duties of orthodoxy, or that of these latter without that of morality?

I have answered, sir abbot, the questions and objections that you addressed to me, but, as I told you at the beginning, without any preconceived intention of leading you to our ideas and of changing your convictions, limiting myself to making you envisage Spiritism under its true aspect. If you had not come, I would not have gone to seek you out, which does not mean that we would scorn your adherence to our principles, should it occur, far from it, we always judge ourselves happy for the acquisitions that we make, which have for us all the more value the more free and voluntary they are. Not only do we not have the right to exercise constraint upon whomever it may be, but we would also feel scruple in going to disturb the conscience of those who, having beliefs that satisfy them, do not come spontaneously to meet us. We have said that the best means of enlightening oneself about Spiritism is to study the theory beforehand; the facts will come afterward, naturally, and will be easily understood, whatever the order in which circumstances cause them to come. Our publications are made with the intent of favoring this study.

The first reading to be made is that of this summary, which presents the whole and the most salient points of the science; with this, one can already form an idea of Spiritism and become convinced that, at bottom, there is something serious. In this rapid exposition we have endeavored to indicate the points upon which the observer should particularly fix his attention. The ignorance of the fundamental principles is the cause of the false judgments of the majority of those who want to judge what they do not understand, or who base themselves on preconceived ideas.

If from the reading of this first summary the desire arises to know more about the subject, one should read The Spirits' Book, where the principles of the Doctrine are completely developed; then, The Mediums' Book, for the experimental part, intended to serve as a guide for those who wish to operate by themselves, as well as for those who want to understand the phenomena better. Then come the various works in which the applications and the consequences of the Doctrine are developed, such as: The Morality of the Gospel According to Spiritism, Heaven and Hell, etc.

The Spiritist Review is, in a certain way, a course of applications, by virtue of the numerous examples and elaborations that it contains, both on the practical part and on the experimental part.

To serious persons, who have already made a preliminary study of the Doctrine, we will have pleasure in giving verbally the explanations that may become necessary, on the points that they may perchance not have understood sufficiently.

[1] Translator's Note: “Benevolence toward all, indulgence for the imperfection of others, forgiveness of offenses.” (The Spirits' Book, Book III, chapter XI, question 886.)

[2] Translator's Note: The 1st edition of this work was published in 1859. Almost ten years later, Allan Kardec made his thought clearer about the religious character of Spiritism, as can be verified in the article that he wrote for the Spiritist Review of December 1868, titled: “Is Spiritism a religion?”

[3] Translator's Note: This affirmation should not be taken too literally. In recent declarations [2008], Pope Benedict XVI defended with sufficient clarity the existence of a material hell and a material fire, which burns the condemned without consuming them, resurrecting, on this point, ancient concepts of medieval theology. In the same terms a high-ranking minister of the Anglican Church has pronounced himself, and it is thus too that the so-called evangelical or neo-Pentecostal churches teach.

[4] See The Spirits' Book, no. 166 et seq., Id. 222; Id. 1010; The Morality of the Gospel, chaps. IV and V.

[5] See the work: Plurality of the existences of the soul, by Pezzani.

[6] Translator's Note: See footnote no. 2, just above: “Is Spiritism a religion?”