To the Spiritists.

Constitution of the Joint-Stock Company, non-profit and of variable capital, of the General and Central Fund of Spiritism. n (Summary)

Constitution of the Joint-Stock Company of Spiritism — Introduction

The decision to form a basis of commercial association, in order to legally consolidate the nascent Spiritist Society.

Lists of the subscriptions deposited in the General Fund for the propagation of Spiritism

Constitution of the Joint-Stock Company of Spiritism (2nd article)

Joint-Stock Company of Spiritism — Brief explanations (3rd article)

While the Parisian Society for Spiritist Studies is purely local, or at least is restricted to a few correspondences limited to the provinces and abroad, the Joint-Stock Company of Spiritism becomes, through the Spiritist Review, an organ of almost universal centralization. It is a commercial company, it is true, but there is no person of good faith who, after analyzing its constitution, would not be convinced that the most absolute disinterestedness and the most complete devotion presided over its founding.

— When death so cruelly struck the great Spiritist family in the person of its venerated leader, all of us lost an eminent and devoted guide, one who consecrated in practice the principles so wisely and solidly elaborated during fifteen years of assiduous labor. Mrs. Allan Kardec lost even more, for she was unexpectedly deprived of the companion of her whole life, of the devoted friend to whom she owed all her happiness. Wounded in her dearest affections, certainly nothing could fill the immense void carved at her side by the departure of the master; but, if there was anything capable of fortifying her courage and softening the bitterness of her longing, it was, most assuredly, the countless and warm marks of sympathy that were given to her by all the Spiritists, of France and abroad, and which touched her profoundly. In the material impossibility of replying to all, she once more charges us with conveying to them here the expression of her keen acknowledgment and of all her gratitude.

The testimonies of which she was the object are, for her, powerful encouragements and most sweet compensations, and which help her to bear the difficulties and the fatigues of every kind, inseparable from the heavy task she has imposed upon herself. No one doubts that, if she had only heeded her personal interests, she could easily have assured her tranquility and her repose, letting things follow their own course and keeping herself aside; but, placing herself from a more elevated point of view and, moreover, guided by the certainty that she could count on Mr. Allan Kardec, to continue along the path traced, the moralizing work that was the object of all her solicitude during the last years of his life, she did not hesitate for a single instant. Profoundly convinced of the truth of the Spiritist teachings, she could not, she says, better employ the time she must still spend on Earth, before being reunited in space with the coordinator par excellence of our consoling philosophy, than by assuring the vitality of Spiritism in the future. Moreover, in the present circumstances, it is evident that it falls to her, more than to anyone else, to realize materially and morally, as far as possible, the plans of Mr. Allan Kardec, for she alone possesses the elements indispensable for solidly determining their constitutive bases.

To those who might be astonished at the apparent slowness with which his plans were elaborated, we would recall that Mrs. Allan Kardec had to bear the numerous formalities to which successions give rise; that she had, like her advisers, to study with care the spirit of those plans and to attach herself especially to the execution of the parts currently practicable, counting on the future for their full realization, as new needs arose. We leave to the appreciation of all those accustomed to business affairs the real activity she had to deploy in order, amid difficulties of every kind, to elaborate a project that Mr. Allan Kardec intended to execute over the course of time, with intellectual resources that none of us could possess. Determined to act, Mrs. Allan Kardec hastened to communicate her ideas to several Spiritists of Paris and of the provinces, chosen from among those most esteemed in Spiritism, for their acts and for their gifts, or who had been specially designated by Mr. Allan Kardec to assist him in his daily work, in order to constitute the primitive organization that he had wished to found personally.

It is this decision, taken together with those gentlemen, that Mrs. Allan Kardec comes today to make public to the Spiritists.

— After mature and serious deliberation, it was decided that it was more urgent to form a basis of commercial association, as the only possible legal means of succeeding in founding anything durable.

In consequence, she established, with the concurrence of six other Spiritists, a joint-stock company of variable capital, with a duration of 99 years, in conformity with the foresight of Mr. Allan Kardec, who not long ago expressed himself in this regard, in the following terms (Review of December 1868): “To give this institution a legal existence, sheltered from all contestation, to give it, moreover, the right to acquire, receive, and possess, it shall be constituted, if it is judged necessary, by authentic act, in the form of an anonymous commercial company, for ninety-nine years, indefinitely renewable, with all the stipulations necessary so that it can never depart from its objective, and so that the funds can never be diverted from their destination.” “P. 390. – The administration may, at the beginning, organize itself on a smaller scale; the number of members of the commission may provisionally be limited to five or six, the personnel and the administrative expenses reduced to the least possible, except to provide for development through the increase of the resources and of the needs of the cause.”

If Mrs. Allan Kardec did not propose the founding of this Society to a greater number of Spiritists, it was because, apart from the reasons stated above, the law requires formalities that imply countless displacements and negotiations which would certainly have delayed its definitive constitution for a long time. She is certain that, later, countless adhesions will come to concur for the work. Above all, it was necessary to establish a center of liaison, where the intellectual and material resources scattered throughout the whole world could be gathered. Once this center is established, it falls to those who understand its urgency, and whose active devotion to our principles cannot be called into doubt, to assure their concurrence on solid and indestructible bases. We are happy to attest that, far from the millions he would have acquired with Spiritism, as he was so often accused of, it was with his own resources, with the fruit of his labors and of his vigils, that Mr. Allan Kardec provided for the greater part of the material needs of the implantation of Spiritism. To this he consecrated entirely the product of his works, which he certainly could have disposed of as just remuneration for his labors, although he did not divert any portion to his personal profit. Those who helped him propagate his works also contributed, indirectly, to the development of the Doctrine, since their product concerns Spiritism, and not an individual. Animated by the same sentiments and wishing to concur personally for the work, Mrs. Allan Kardec will come, through her last dispositions, to increase still more the resources of the common fund. Thus, she will have nobly given the example, fulfilling her duty as a devoted Spiritist and happy to satisfy the wishes of the one whose labors and difficulties she shared.

With the aim of satisfying the legitimate desire of our readers, we deem it a duty to publish in the Review various extracts from the act of the Society, aiming, above all, to make explicit the clauses of general interest, so as to leave them no doubt as to the objective and the stability of the Society.

Objective – Denomination – Duration – Seat of the Society The Joint-Stock Company has as its objective to make Spiritism known by all the means authorized by the laws. It has as its basis the continuation of the Spiritist Review, founded by Mr. Allan Kardec, the publication of the works of the latter, including therein his posthumous works and all the works that deal with Spiritism.

It takes the denomination of: Joint-Stock Company, non-profit and of variable capital, of the General and Central Fund of Spiritism.

The duration of the Society is fixed at ninety-nine years, counting from its definitive constitution, which is to occur in the current month of August.

At present the seat of the Society is: 7, rue de Lille.

The corporate fund, capital of foundation, is fixed at 40,000 francs. It is susceptible of increase, notably through the admission of new members.

This capital, entirely subscribed as of today, is divided into forty shares of 1000 francs each.

The law authorizes the increase of capital in the proportion of 200,000 francs per year.

In no case may the corporate fund be diminished by the total or partial reclaiming of the contributions made.

Each share is indivisible, the Society recognizing only one owner for each of them.

Administration of the Society The Society is administered by a commission of at least three members, appointed by the general assembly of the associates and chosen from among them.

The administrators must be owners, throughout the entire duration of their mandate, of at least two share portions, offered as a guarantee of their management and inalienable until the final settlement of their accounts.

The commission is appointed for six years, revocable by the general assembly and reeligible indefinitely.

The administrators will have a fixed honorarium of 2,400 francs per year, and a share in the profits.

This share of profits, plus the fixed honorarium, must never exceed 4,000 francs.

On the supervisory commissioners Annually a commission of supervisors of at least two members is appointed, from among the associates or from outside them.

They will appear at the corporate seat whenever they deem it convenient, taking notes from the books and devoting themselves to the examination of the operations of the Society.

They convene the general assembly in case of urgency. Those recruited from outside the Society have a deliberative voice, exercising, in a word, the supervision and making the contacts determined by law with the general assembly.

On the general assemblies The general assembly regularly constituted represents all the associates.

In July an ordinary general assembly is held. – It deliberates sovereignly upon the interests of the Society.

Depending on the cases, the deliberations are taken by unanimity, or by two thirds of the majority of the members present.

The president and the secretary are chosen at each session.

The deliberations are recorded in minutes and duly registered.

The general assembly deliberates especially upon the requests for admission of new associates, upon the statutory modifications, upon the appointment or the removal of the administrators, and upon the appointment of the supervisory commissioners.

Statements of situation – Inventory – Profits The corporate year begins on April 1st and ends on March 31st.

Every six months the administrators present a summary of the active and passive situation of the Society.

At the end of each corporate year an inventory is made, which is placed at the disposal of the associates.

From the net profits, there are withheld:

1st – 1/20 for the legal reserve fund;

2nd – 3% of the corporate fund to be paid to each share;

3rd – 10% for the salaried administrators, but without these 10%, together with the fixed honorarium, being able to surpass 4,000 francs;

4th – The surplus of the net profits returns to the corporate fund.

Reserve funds The reserve fund is composed of:

1st – The accumulation of the sums withheld from the annual net profits;

2nd – All the donations legally made to the Society, in whatever capacity.

It is destined for the reimbursement of the capital in the cases foreseen by the statutes.

When these reserve funds reach the tenth part of the corporate fund, the withdrawal of the net profits determined at their creation may cease to benefit it and be applied either to the increase of the capital, or to the expenses in the interest of Spiritism.

Only the general assembly may regulate the employment of the capital belonging to the reserve fund.

Dissolution – Liquidation In case of the loss of three quarters of the capital, any associate may request the dissolution of the Society before the tribunals.

The Society will not be dissolved by the death, retirement, interdiction, bankruptcy, or insolvency of one of the associates, continuing to exist by full right among the remaining associates.

By reason of the occurrence of one of these causes, the capital will be reimbursed to those to whom by right something belongs, at the rate of 1,000 francs for each share, in the course of five years from the day of the loss of the quality of associate, with interest of 5%. This reimbursement will be effected with the capital of the reserve fund.

No associate may withdraw during his lifetime from the Society, unless he presents an assignee to the annual general assembly. – The resolution is taken by unanimity of the members present.

The duration of the Society may be prolonged beyond the term of 99 years.

Such are the principal articles of the statutes of the Society. We are certain that the absolute disinterestedness that directed its founders will be appreciated at its just value by every conscientious observer. Moreover, it is easy to attest, if we refer to the transitory constitution of Spiritism, published by Mr. Allan Kardec in the December 1868 number, that the Society allowed itself to be guided solely and absolutely by the spirit of that constitution. It limited itself to the strictly necessary, to the urgent needs, since it did not forget, according to the precepts of the master, that in everything one must ask counsel of the circumstances, and that to want to support prematurely certain special institutions upon the Doctrine would be to expose oneself to certain failures, whose impression would be disastrous and which would have as a probable result, if not to destroy an imperishable philosophy, at least to delay for a long time its definitive propagation. n Certainly, in similar cases, our adversaries would not fail to impute to the incapacity of the Doctrine a failure which, however, would result only from improvidence. “For not knowing how to wait, in order to arrive at the exact moment, says Mr. Allan Kardec (Review of December 1868), those too hasty and the impatient, in all times, have compromised the best causes.

“One cannot ask of things anything but what they can give, as they put themselves into a state to produce. One cannot demand of a child what one can expect of an adult, nor of a tree that has just been planted what it will give when it is in all its vigor. Spiritism, in the course of elaboration, could only give individual results; the collective and general results will be the fruit of complete Spiritism, which will successively develop.

As is easy to note, the basis of the operations of the Society will be, above all, the bookshop especially founded with the objective of cleansing the fundamental works of the Doctrine from the onerous conditions of ordinary commerce, making of them the object of low-cost popular publications. This was always the keenest desire of Mr. Allan Kardec who, in this regard, expressed himself in the following terms:

“Many persons lament that the fundamental works of the Doctrine have a price so elevated for a great number of readers, and think, with reason, that if popular editions at low cost were made, they would be much more widespread, by which the Doctrine would gain.

“We are completely in agreement; but, in the present state of things, the conditions in which they are published do not permit it to be otherwise. We hope to arrive one day at that result, with the help of a new combination that is linked to the general plan of organization. But this operation cannot be realized except on a vast scale; on our part alone it would require capital that we do not possess and material cares which our labors, that claim all our meditations, do not permit us to give. It is for this reason that the commercial part properly speaking was neglected or, better said, sacrificed to the establishment of the doctrinal part. What mattered, above all, was that the works be made and the bases of the Doctrine laid down. “To those who asked why we sold our books, instead of giving them away, we reply that we would do so if we had found a printer who would print them for us at no charge, a merchant who would furnish us paper free, booksellers who would demand no commission to undertake distributing them, a postal administration that would transport them out of philanthropy, etc. While we wait, and since we do not have millions to subsidize these charges, we are obliged to give them a price. “One of the first cares of the commission will be to occupy itself with the publications, as soon as it is possible, without waiting to be able to do so with the help of the revenue; the funds destined for this use will not, in reality, be anything but an advance, since they will return through the sale of the works, whose product will return to the common fund.”

The operations necessary, having as their objective to gather into the hands of the Joint-Stock Company all the fundamental works of the Doctrine and, in general, all those that may be of capital interest for the Spiritist studies, will take only a certain time, requiring the rearrangement of relatively considerable funds. According to the desire of Mr. Allan Kardec, it is to this provision, whose importance is evident to all, that the founding members of the Society will devote themselves in the first place. Among the attributions currently practicable of the Joint-Stock Company, it is necessary to consider, equally, the care of gathering all the documents capable of interesting the Spiritists, of determining the progressive movement of the Doctrine, and of continuing with our correspondents of France and abroad the amicable and benevolent relations that they maintained with the center, relations which, by their extent and multiple object, could no longer rest upon the head of one individual. – Such is, still, one of the important considerations that led Mr. Allan Kardec to substitute for a single direction the central commission, an intelligent collectivity, whose attributions would be defined in such a way as to give no place to arbitrariness. “It is well understood, he said on this subject, that here it is a matter of a moral authority, as regards the interpretation and application of the principles of the Doctrine, and not of any disciplinary power whatever.

“For the outside public, a constituted body has greater ascendancy and preponderance; against the adversaries, above all, it presents a force of resistance and disposes of means of action with which an individual could not count; the former struggles with infinitely greater advantages. An individuality is subject to being attacked and annihilated; the same does not occur with a collective entity.

“There is, equally, in a collective entity, a guarantee of stability that does not exist when everything falls upon a single head. As soon as the individual finds himself impeded by some cause whatever, everything is paralyzed. The collective entity, on the contrary, perpetuates itself incessantly; though it lose one or several of its members, nothing is endangered.

“Consistent with the principles of tolerance and of respect for all opinions, which Spiritism professes, we do not intend to impose this organization on anyone, nor to constrain whomever it may be to submit to it. Our objective is to establish a first bond among the Spiritists, who have desired it for a long time and lament their isolation. Now, this bond, without which Spiritism would remain in a state of individual opinion, without cohesion, can only exist on the condition of being reconnected to a center by a communion of views and of principles. This center is not an individuality, but a focus of collective activity, acting in the general interest and in which personal authority is effaced.” The founders of the Joint-Stock Company are so persuaded that Spiritism cannot nor should reside in a single personality, that, in order to avoid the danger of seeing it serve as a springboard to the ambition of one or of a few, and of making of it any object of personal speculation, they invite the Spiritists, with vehemence, to make abstraction of the individuals. It would never be too much to recommend to them that they send their letters, whatever their object may be, to the administration of the Joint-Stock Company, without any personal designation. The distribution of the letters will be of purely administrative jurisdiction. Nevertheless, and in order to reduce the proceedings and the losses of time to the least possible, the monetary instruments or postal money orders inserted in the letters addressed to the Society must be directed to Mr. Bittard, charged especially with the receipts, under the supervision of the administration commission of the Society.

To those who may be astonished to see a Society founded with an eminently philanthropic and moralizing objective constitute itself upon the ordinary bases of commercial companies, we will observe that, legally, no society of this type can be founded without lucrative ends. Moreover, by virtue of a special article relative to the modifications to be made in the statutes, the Society will always be enabled to march with the events, to modify itself and to transform itself, if the circumstances permit it or if the interest of Spiritism sees a necessity in it. As for the honoraria of the administrators, the just remuneration of their work, besides being little elevated so as not to give rise to covetousness, they are fully and entirely justified by the following passage of the Review of December 1868:

“The attributions of the central commission are, as one sees, great in number, so as to necessitate a true administration. Each of its members having active and assiduous functions, if it were constituted only by men of good will, the labors would be impaired, for no one would have the right to censure the negligent. For the regularity of the labors and the normality of the proceedings, it becomes necessary to count upon men of whose assiduity one can be certain and who do not consider their functions as a simple act of obliging. The more independence they are masters of, through their personal resources, the less they will let themselves be held by assiduous occupations; if they do not have time at their disposal, they will not be able to consecrate it to those functions. It matters, then, that they be remunerated, as well as the administrative personnel. By this the Doctrine will gain in force, in stability, in punctuality, at the same time that it will constitute a means of rendering services to persons who need them.” The various clauses concerning the reimbursement of the capital, in case of retirement or of death of an associate, are quite explicit, so that it does not seem useful to us to comment on them. We will only recall that such reimbursements, certainly quite exceptional and effected upon the reserve fund, can never diminish the capital of the Society.

If an associate withdraws voluntarily, there will be no prejudice to the integrality of the capital, since, in that case, the associate must present an assignee for his losses, who, on being admitted, will enter with the sum withdrawn by the resigning member. Perhaps it may be objected that there is in this paragraph a cause of danger for the vitality of the Society, by permitting persons foreign to Spiritism to introduce themselves into it, bringing elements of disturbance and of disorganization; but such a danger has been foreseen and averted, for the admission of the assignees is only decided in the general assembly, and by the unanimity of the members present. As we said at the beginning, the legal provisions and the necessity of displacement were the only reasons that obliged us to limit the number of the founders to the least number possible.

The Society which, above all, desires to realize the designs of Mr. Allan Kardec, satisfying the wishes of the majority, will be happy with the adhesions it will obtain and with the associates and supervisory commissioners it will find among the Spiritists, known for their devotion to the cause and for their participation in its incessant propagation.

The Society constituted itself in Paris because every serious foundation needs a determined seat of operation, but the members who constitute it and associate themselves with it will evidently be able, as it develops, to belong to all the centers that recognize its authority and accept its principles.

But what will be the extent of the operations of the Joint-Stock Company? We could not answer this question better than by citing textually the reflections that, on this subject, Mr. Allan Kardec set forth:

“What will be the extent of the circle of activities of this center? Is it destined to govern the world and to become the universal arbiter of truth? If it had that pretension, it would be to understand poorly the spirit of Spiritism which, by the very fact that it proclaims the principles of free examination and of liberty of conscience, repudiates the idea of erecting itself into an autocracy; from the beginning it would enter upon a fatal path. “Spiritism has principles which, by reason of their being founded on the laws of Nature, and not on metaphysical abstractions, tend to become, and certainly will one day become, those of the universality of men. All will accept them, because they will be palpable and demonstrated truths, as they accepted the theory of the movement of the Earth; but to claim that Spiritism everywhere should be organized in the same manner, that the Spiritists of the whole world will be subject to a uniform regime, to one same manner of proceeding, that they should await the light from a fixed point, toward which they should fix their gaze, would be a utopia as absurd as to claim that all the peoples of the Earth will one day form but a single nation, governed by one sole leader, ruled by the same code of laws and submitted to the same customs. If there are general laws that may be common to all peoples, these laws will always be, in the details of application and of form, appropriate to the habits, to the characters, and to the climates of each one. “Thus will it be with organized Spiritism. The Spiritists of the whole world will have common principles, which will bind them to the great family by the sacred bond of fraternity, but whose application may vary according to the regions, without, for this, the fundamental unity being broken, without forming dissident sects that hurl at one another the stone and the anathema, which would be anti-Spiritist in the highest degree. There will thus be able to form, and inevitably will form, general centers in other countries, with no other bond than the communion of belief and the moral solidarity, without the subordination of one to the other, without the one of France, for example, having the pretension of imposing itself upon the American Spiritists and reciprocally.” Finally, it remains for us to explain the employment of the funds of the general fund which do not form part of the corporate capital and which are composed of the donations made up to today with the aim of concurring for the propagation of the principles of Spiritism. The Joint-Stock Company has no doubt that it will realize the desire of the donors, applying the quota of these donations to the constitution of the reserve fund, in conformity with the articles of the statutes that determine its objective. In this regard, in order to release completely Mrs. Allan Kardec and the Society, we fulfill the duty of publishing the list of the sums received and of the names of the subscribers, so that those whose intentions might not have been well understood and who might wish to give another destination to their funds may direct their claims to the Society.

We are pleased by the opportunity, found here, of conveying our thanks and sincere compliments to all those who, materially and morally, exerted themselves for the definitive constitution of Spiritism.

Lists of the subscriptions deposited in the General Fund for the propagation of Spiritism.

– December 20 – Mendy Group, of Nancy – 60.00

– January 7 – D…, of Angers – 5.00

– J… and B…, of Paris – 10.00

– Ch…, of Paris – 20.00

– Guilbert…, of Rouen – 1,000.00

– D…, of Toulouse – 10.00

– F…, of Saint-Étienne – 10.00

– Mrs. Al…, of Meschers – 20.00 February 1st – B…, of Dijon – 10.00

– From Th… – 2.75

– Hug…, of Guadeloupe – 50.00

– The Spiritists of the island of Oléron – 50.00 March 2 – Y…, of Paris, – 500.00

– Fr… Group, of Poitiers – 26.00

– C…, of Toulon – 30.00 April 16 – X…, of Béthune – 2.20

– Cr…, of Paris – 100.00

– F.., of Guerche (Cher) – 5.00

– Group of Saint Jean-d’Angely – 20.00

– M…, of Cognac … … … … … 2.00

– Various – 1.00 May 7 – From V…, – 20.00

– Society of Constantine – 5.00

– D…, of Philippeville – 20.00

– Spiritist Society of Rouen, president, Mr. Guilbert – 1,000.00

– Spiritist Society of Toulouse – 224.50 June 10 – Spiritist Group of Peace, of Liège – 20.00 Total of the sums received – 3,323.45 Various expenses – 3.00 In the fund, on August 1st – 3,320.45