Old tactic of the Spiritism’s opponents

 

Old tactic of the Spiritism’s opponents

 

Marco Milani

 

(Text published in the magazine Dirigente Espírita, ed. 193, Jan/Feb 2023, p. 11-12)

  

                In June 1865, Allan Kardec published in the Spiritist Review the important article “New tactics of the Spiritism’s opponents”, in which he highlighted the discomfort generated by this emerging philosophy that broke with the decayed religious traditions established on blind faith and, above all, unmasked the illusory and alienating materialism, declaring it as its greatest antagonist.

                As Spiritism quickly disseminated its ideas and gained supporters and sympathizers in dozens of countries and in all social strata, it faced the strong egotistical resistance of those who saw their deepest convictions about reality being questioned or refuted.

                At the time, Kardec warned that the opponents were trying to compromise, ridicule and discredit the doctrine, surreptitiously sowing division and lighting the fuse of discord to stir up disturbance among the followers and guided:

 

“It is, therefore, a duty of all sincere and devoted spiritists to openly repudiate and disavow, in their name, all types of abuse that could compromise it, in order not to assume responsibility for them; to collude with the abuses would be to become an accomplice and provide weapons to our adversaries.”[1]

 

                 In addition to syncretic proposals that attempted to mix beliefs and mystical ideas in the teachings of the Spirits, other issues could serve as ammunition for the detractors. One of them was the attempt to impose a partisan appearance on the Spiritist Doctrine, as if Spiritism could be reduced to an appendix of political ideologies or regimes in vogue.

                In the Spiritist Review of February 1863, various attacks made by Catholic priests during their sermons were reported, accusing Spiritism of preaching the Division of the family, adultery, abortion and communism. About these facts, Kardec comments on the foolishness of these detractors for attributing to the Spiritist Doctrine what it, precisely, preaches the opposite.[2]

                Kardec stated that a serious study of Spiritism was enough to refute such accusations and further highlighted: “Who could believe that we preach communism after the instructions given about it in the speech published in full in the report of our trip in 1862?”[3]

                In that trip, Kardec addressed the Lyonnese workers quoting an enlightening and objective mediumistic message from Erasto about the materialistic deception expressed in utopian and totalitarian proposals.

 

“I have just uttered the word egalitarian. I think it's useful to dwell on it a bit, because we have not come to preach impractical utopias in your midst, because, on the contrary, we energetically reject anything that seems to be linked to the prescriptions of an antisocial communism. First of all, we are essentially propagandists of individual freedom, indispensable for the development of the incarnated. Consequently, we are declared enemies of everything that resembles these conventional legislations, which brutally annihilate individuals. Although I address an audience partially composed of craftsmen and proletarians, I know that their consciences, clarified by the radiations of the spiritist truth, have already rejected all contact with antissocial theories given with the support of the word equality.[4]

 

                Contrary to what some might suppose, out of bad faith or ignorance, Kardec never hesitated to emphasizing the active participation of the spiritist one in the direction of society, contributing to the improvement of human relations, but he never prescribed partisan or ideological manuals for the spontaneous exercise of solidarity and fraternity. The warning about totalitarian ideologies served as guidance on individual rights and choices, valuing free will and freedom of conscience.

                In the regular meetings of the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, monarchists, liberals and socialists sat side by side and what united them was the same spiritist ideal. Disagreements and passionate discussions about the models to guide and improve society were not topics to be discussed by its sympathizers in the face of the higher ideal of fraternal union among all, indiscriminately. On this issue, Kardec is positioned as follows:

 

I must still point out to you another tactic of our opponents, which is to try to compromise the spiritists, inducing them to move away from the true goal of the doctrine, which is morality, to address issues that are not within their scope and that, rightly, could awaken susceptibilities and mistrusts. Don't fall into this trap; carefully keep away from your meetings everything related to politics and irritating issues; with regard to this, discussions will only cause embarrassment, while no one will object to morality, as long as it is good.[5]

 

Almost 160 years later, the tactics of the Spiritism's opponents have aged, but not changed. Adapting to technological progress, the detractors continue to try to discredit the doctrine and foment dissent among the spiritists.

                The spread of syncretic practices, superstitious and mystical information, in addition to the rise of political-ideological infiltrations are recurrent and require conscious supporters to apply reasoned faith to separate the wheat from the chaff and openly repudiate these misrepresentations that have nothing new in their essence.

 

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[1] Spiritist Review, June/1865. New tactics of the Spiritism's opponents.

[2] Spiritist Review, February/1863. Sermons against Spiritism.

[3] Same.

[4] Spiritist Review, October/1861. Letter from Erastus to the Lyon Spiritists.

[5] Spiritist Review, February/1862. Response to the New Year message from the Lyon Spiritists.

 

Source: https://usesp.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/DE193.pdf