Brief reply to the detractors of Spiritism.

The right to examination and criticism is imprescriptible, and Spiritism does not entertain the pretension of withdrawing itself from examination and criticism, just as it does not have the pretension of satisfying everyone. Each one is therefore free to approve or reject it; but, for that, it is necessary to discuss it with knowledge of the matter. Now, criticism has proved all too well that it is ignorant of its most elementary principles, making it say precisely the contrary of what it says, attributing to it what it disapproves, confusing it with the coarse and burlesque imitations of charlatanism, in short, presenting, as the rule of all, the eccentricities of a few individuals. Malice too has all too much wished to make it responsible for reprehensible or ridiculous acts in which its name was casually involved, and takes advantage of this as a weapon against it. Before imputing to a doctrine the fault of inciting to any condemnable act whatsoever, reason and equity require that one examine whether that doctrine contains maxims that justify such an act.

To know the share of responsibility that, in a given circumstance, may fall to Spiritism, there is a very simple means: to proceed in good faith to an inquiry, not among the adversaries, but at the very source, into what it approves and what it condemns. This is all the easier in that it has no secrets; its teachings are manifest, and whosoever wishes may verify them.

Thus, if the books of the Spiritist Doctrine explicitly and formally condemn an act justly reprovable; if, on the contrary, they enclose only instructions capable of guiding toward the good, it follows that it was not in them that an individual guilty of misdeeds drew his inspiration, even should he possess them.

Spiritism is not in solidarity with those who please to call themselves Spiritists, just as Medicine is not with those who exploit it, nor sound religion with the abuses and even crimes committed in its name. It does not recognize as its adherents any but those who practice its teachings, that is, who labor to improve themselves morally, striving to overcome evil inclinations, to be less selfish and less proud, gentler, more humble, more charitable toward their neighbor, more moderate in all things, because that is the characteristic of the true Spiritist. This brief note does not have for its object to refute all the false allegations cast against Spiritism, nor to develop and prove all its principles, nor, still less, to attempt to convert to those principles those who profess contrary opinions; but only to say, in a few words, what it is and what it is not, what it admits and what it disapproves.

The beliefs it advocates, the tendencies it manifests, and the end it aims at are summed up in the following propositions:

1st The spiritual element and the material element are the two principles, the two living forces of Nature, which complete one another and react ceaselessly upon one another, both indispensable to the functioning of the mechanism of the Universe.

From the reciprocal action of these two principles arise phenomena which each of them, in isolation, has no possibility of explaining.

To Science, properly speaking, belongs the special mission of studying the laws of matter.

Spiritism has for its object the study of the spiritual element in its relations with the material element, and points in the union of these two principles to the reason for an immensity of facts hitherto unexplained.

Spiritism walks alongside Science, in the field of matter: it admits all the truths that Science verifies; but it does not stop where the latter stops: it pursues its researches into the field of spirituality.

2nd The spiritual element being an active state of Nature, the phenomena in which it intervenes are subject to laws and are for that very reason as natural as those that derive from neutral matter.

Some such phenomena were reputed supernatural merely through ignorance of the laws that govern them. By virtue of this principle, Spiritism does not admit the character of the marvelous attributed to certain facts, though it recognizes their reality or possibility. There are, for it, no miracles, in the sense of a derogation of natural laws, whence it follows that Spiritists do not perform miracles and that the qualifier of thaumaturges which a number of persons give them is improper.

The knowledge of the laws that govern the spiritual principle is connected in a direct manner to the question of man's past and future. Is his life confined to the present existence? On entering this world, does he come from nothing and return to nothing on leaving it? Has he already lived, and will he live again? How will he live, and under what conditions? In a word: whence does he come and whither does he go? Why is he on Earth, and why does he suffer there? Such are the questions each one asks of himself, because they are for everyone of capital interest and to which no doctrine has yet given a rational solution. The one that Spiritism gives them, based on facts, in satisfying the demands of logic and of the most rigorous justice, constitutes one of the principal causes of the rapidity of its propagation. Spiritism is not a personal conception, nor the result of a preconceived system. It is the resultant of thousands of observations made over all points of the globe and which converged toward a center that gathered and coordinated them. All its constitutive principles, without exception of any, are deduced from experience. The latter always preceded theory.

Thus, from the beginning, Spiritism cast roots everywhere. History offers no example of a philosophical or religious doctrine that, in ten years, has won so great a number of adherents. Yet it employed, to make itself known, none of the means vulgarly in use; it propagated itself by itself, through the sympathies it inspired.

Another fact no less constant is that, in no country did its doctrine arise from the lowest social strata; everywhere it propagated itself from top to bottom on the scale of society, and it is still in the enlightened classes that it is found almost exclusively spread, the illiterate constituting an insignificant minority within its adherents.

It is verified also that the dissemination of Spiritism followed, from its very beginnings, an ever ascending march, in spite of all that its adversaries did to hinder it and to disfigure its character, with the aim of discrediting it in public opinion. It is even to be noted that all they have attempted with that purpose favored its diffusion; the uproar they provoked on the occasion of its advent caused many persons who had previously never heard of it to come to know it; the more they sought to denigrate or ridicule it, the more they awakened the general curiosity, and, as every examination can only be profitable to it, the result was that its opponents constituted themselves, without wishing it, its ardent propagandists. If the diatribes brought it no harm, it is because those who studied it in its legitimate sources recognized it to be very different from what they had pictured. In the struggles it had to sustain, the impartial attested to its moderation; it never used reprisals against its adversaries, nor answered injuries with injuries.

Spiritism is a philosophical doctrine of religious effects, like any spiritualist philosophy, and for that reason it necessarily arrives at the fundamental bases of all religions: God, the soul, and the future life. But it is not a constituted religion, since it has no cult, no rite, no temples, and since, among its adherents, none has taken or received the title of priest or of high priest. These qualifiers are of pure invention of criticism.

One is a Spiritist by the mere fact of sympathizing with the principles of the doctrine and of conforming one's conduct to those principles. It is an opinion like any other, which all have the right to profess, just as they have the right to be Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Saint-Simonians, Voltairians, Cartesians, deists, and even materialists.

Spiritism proclaims liberty of conscience as a natural right; it claims it for its adherents, just as for everyone. It respects all sincere convictions and makes a point of reciprocity.

From liberty of conscience flows the right of free examination in matters of faith. Spiritism combats blind faith, because it requires that man abdicate his own reason; it considers without root any imposed faith, whence it inscribes among its maxims: Unshakable faith is only that which can look reason face to face, in every epoch of Humanity.

Consistent with its principles, Spiritism does not impose itself on anyone whatsoever; it wishes to be accepted freely and by effect of conviction. It sets forth its doctrines and welcomes those who voluntarily seek it.

It does not care to turn anyone away from their religious convictions; it does not address itself to those who possess a faith and for whom that faith suffices; it addresses itself to those who, unsatisfied with what is given them, ask for something better.

Allan Kardec.