Control of Spiritist teaching.

— The organization we proposed for the formation of Spiritist groups [v. Organization of Spiritism,] has as its objective to prepare the path that should facilitate mutual relations among them. Among the advantages that will result from such relations, one must place in the first rank the unity of doctrine, which will be its natural consequence. This unity is already in great part realized and the fundamental bases of Spiritism are today admitted by the immense majority of adepts. But there are still doubtful questions, whether because they have not been resolved, or because they have been resolved in a divergent sense by men and even by the Spirits.

— If at times the systems are products of human brains, it is known that, in this respect, certain Spirits owe nothing to them. Indeed, some are seen who engender the most absurd ideas with marvelous skill, linking them together with much art and making of them an ensemble more ingenious than solid, but which might falsify the opinion of persons who do not take the trouble to go deeper, or who are incapable of doing so through the insufficiency of their knowledge. Without doubt false ideas end by falling before experience and inflexible logic; but, before that, they may cast uncertainty. It is also known that, according to their elevation, the Spirits may have, on certain points, a more or less correct manner of seeing; that the signatures of communications are not always a guarantee of authenticity, and that proud Spirits sometimes seek to pass off utopias, protected by respectable names with which they adorn themselves. It is, incontestably, one of the principal difficulties of the practical science, and against which many have collided.

— In case of divergence, the best criterion is the conformity of the teachings by different Spirits and transmitted by mediums completely foreign to one another. When the same principle is proclaimed or condemned by the majority, we must take account of the evidence. If there is a means of arriving at the truth, it is surely by the concordance and the rationality of the communications, aided by the means we have at our disposal to ascertain the superiority or the inferiority of the Spirits. By ceasing to be individual to become collective, opinion acquires a greater degree of authenticity, since it cannot be considered as the result of a personal or local influence. Those who are still in doubt will have a basis on which to fix their ideas, for it would be irrational to think that he who, in his point of view, stands alone, or almost alone, has reason against all. What above all contributed to the credit of the doctrine of The Spirits' Book was precisely the fact that it was the product of a similar work, which reverberates everywhere. As we have said, it is neither the work of a single Spirit, who might be systematic, nor of a single medium, who might be deceived, but, on the contrary, a collective teaching, given by a great diversity of Spirits and of mediums, and the principles it contains are confirmed more or less everywhere. We say more or less considering that, for the reason explained above, there are Spirits who seek to make their personal ideas prevail. It is, then, useless to submit divergent ideas to the control we propose. If the doctrine or some of the theories we profess were recognized unanimously as erroneous, we would submit without murmur, feeling happy that others had found the truth; but if, on the contrary, they are confirmed, they will allow us to believe we are with the truth.

— The Spiritist Society of Paris, understanding all the importance of such a work and having, itself, first to enlighten itself and then to prove that it does not at all claim to set itself up as the absolute arbiter of the doctrines it professes, will submit to the various groups that correspond with it the questions it judges most useful for the propagation of the truth. These questions will be communicated, whether by private correspondence or through the intermediary of the Spiritist Review.

It is understood that for it, and by reason of the serious manner in which it regards Spiritism, the authority of communications depends on the conditions in which the meetings are held, on the character of the members, and on the objective they set for themselves. Originating from groups formed upon the bases indicated in our article on the organization of Spiritism, the communications will have all the more weight in its eyes the better the conditions of those groups are.

— We submit to our correspondents the questions that follow, while they await those we shall address to them later.

QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS PROPOSED TO THE VARIOUS SPIRITIST GROUPS.

1st — FORMATION OF THE EARTH.

There are two systems concerning the origin and the formation of the Earth. According to the most common opinion, the one that seems generally adopted by science, it would be the product of the gradual condensation of cosmic matter upon a determined point of space. The same would have occurred with the other planets.

According to another system, advocated in recent times and according to the revelation of a Spirit, the Earth would have been formed by the incrustation of four satellites of an ancient vanished planet. Such an adjunction would have resulted from the very will of the soul of these planets. A fifth satellite, our Moon, would have refused, by virtue of its free will, this association. The voids left between them by the absence of the Moon would have formed the cavities filled by the seas. Each of these planets would have brought with it cataleptic beings — men, animals, and plants — that were peculiar to it. Emerging from their lethargy, after the adjunction had been carried out and equilibrium restored, these beings would have peopled the present globe. Such would be the origin of the mother-races of the man of the Earth: the black race in Africa, the yellow in Asia, the red in America, and the white in Europe. Which of these two systems can be considered as the expression of the truth?

On the subject of this matter, as well as of the others, we request an explicit and rational solution.

Observation. – It is true that this and other questions stray from the moral point of view, which is the essential goal of Spiritism. This is why it would be a mistake to make them the object of constant preoccupations. We know, moreover, as regards the principle of things, that the Spirits, not knowing everything, say only what they know or what they think they know. But as there are persons who might draw from the divergence of these systems an inference against the unity of Spiritism, precisely because they are formulated by the Spirits, it is useful to be able to compare the reasons for and against, in the interest of the doctrine itself, and to support upon the assent of the majority the judgment that may be made of the value of certain communications. 2nd — SOUL OF THE EARTH.

We find the following proposition in a brochure entitled Summary of the Harmonic Religion.

“God created man, woman, and all the most beautiful and best beings, but granted to all the heavenly bodies the power to create beings of inferior order, in order to complete their furnishing, whether by the combination of their own fecundating fluid, known on our globe by the name of aurora borealis, or by the combination of this fluid with that of other heavenly bodies. Now, the soul of the terrestrial globe, enjoying, like human souls, its free will, that is, the faculty of choosing the path of good or of evil, allowed itself to be dragged along by the latter. Hence the imperfect and evil creations, such as ferocious and venomous animals and poisonous plants. But Humanity will make these noxious beings disappear when, by coming into agreement with the soul of the Earth to march along the path of good, it occupies itself in a more intelligent manner with the management of the terrestrial globe, in which a more perfect furnishing will be created.” What is there of truth in this proposition, and what should be understood by the soul of the Earth?

3rd — SEAT OF THE HUMAN SOUL.

One reads in the same work the following passage, cited as an extract from The Key of Life, page 751:

“The soul is of a luminous, divine nature. It has the form of the human being it animates. It resides in a space situated in the median cerebral substance, which joins the two lobes of the brain by their base. In harmonious man and in unity, the soul, a resplendent diamond, is encircled by a white luminous crown: the crown of harmony.”

What is there of truth in this proposition?

4th — SEAT OF THE SOULS.

In the same work:

“While they inhabit the planetary regions, the Spirits are obliged to reincarnate in order to progress. As soon as they reach the solar regions, they no longer need reincarnation and progress by going to inhabit other suns of superior order, whence they pass to the celestial regions. The Milky Way, of such soft light, is the abode of the angels or superior Spirits.”

Is this true?

5th — MANIFESTATIONS OF THE SPIRITS.

According to the doctrine taught by a Spirit, no human Spirit can manifest itself or communicate with men, nor serve as an intermediary between God and Humanity, considering that, God being omnipotent and omnipresent, He has no need of auxiliaries for the execution of His will, since He does everything by Himself. In all the so-called Spiritist communications, only God manifests Himself, taking on the form in apparitions, and the language in written communications, of the Spirits we evoke and to whom we believe we are speaking. In consequence, man being dead, there can no longer be relations between him and those who remained on Earth, until, through a series of successive reincarnations, during which they progress, they have attained the same degree of advancement in the world of the Spirits. As only God can manifest Himself, it follows that the gross, trivial, blasphemous, and lying communications are also given by Him — but as a trial — in the same way as He gives good ones, in order to instruct. Naturally the Spirit who dictated this theory passes itself off as God Himself, formulating, under that name, an extensive philosophical, social, and religious doctrine. What should be thought of such a system, of its consequences, and of the nature of the Spirit who teaches it?

6th — REBEL ANGELS, FALLEN ANGELS, PARADISE LOST.

What to think of the theory formulated in this respect, in the article published above by Mr. Allan Kardec?

[1]

Translator's note: Here Allan Kardec is already beginning to sketch certain theories that, developed later, will come to form part of the last book of the Spiritist Codification. (See Genesis, chapter VIII.)

[2] [Clé de la vie: l'homme, la nature, les mondes, Dieu, anatomie de la vie… - Louis Michel - Google Books.]