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Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1866 > April > Independent Spiritism
Independent Spiritism
A letter sent to us some time ago spoke of a project for the publication of a periodical with the title “Journal du Spiritisme Indépendant”. Since this idea is evidently the corollary of the other one about Spiritism without Spirits, we will try to place the question in its true terrain.
For starters, what is independent Spiritism? Independent from what? Another has it stated clearly: it is free Spiritism, not only freed from the tutorship of the Spirits, but from every personal direction or supremacy; from every subordination to the instructions of a chief, whose opinion cannot become law for it is not infallible.
This is the easiest thing in the world, since it does exist in reality, considering that Spiritism, by proclaiming the absolute freedom of conscience, does not admit any constraint in matters of belief, and it has never denied anyone the right to believe their own way in matters of Spiritism, as with anything else. From that point of view, we believe to be perfectly independent ourselves, and intend to take advantage of this independence. If there is subordination, it is therefore entirely voluntary; even more, it is not subordination to a man but to an idea that is adopted because it is convenient; that outlives man, if it is fair; that falls with him or before him, if it is false.
In order to free ourselves from somebody else ideas, we must necessarily have our own; we naturally try to make these ideas prevail, without which they would be kept to ourselves; we proclaim, sustain and defend them, because we believe them to be the expression of truth, because we admit good faith and not the exclusive desire to destroy what exists; the objective is to attract the largest possible number of followers, and with that we have the one that does not admit a chief, becomes the chief of the sect, seeking to subordinate the others to his own ideas. The one that says, for example: “We must no longer receive instructions from the Spirits”, isn’t that person issuing an absolute principle? Isn’t him exerting a pressure upon those that want to receive them, persuading them not to? If he establishes this as a condition for a meeting, the supporters of the communications must be excluded, for if they were the majority, they would turn it into a law. If they are admitted but have their wishes denied, this is against their freedom of complaining. “Here the Spirits do not have the word”, and those that wish to hear them will not dare object to the order and will participate. We have always said that an essential condition to every Spiritist gathering is homogeneity, without which there would be dissention. Someone that founded a meeting on the basis of rejecting the communications would be on his own right; it is okay if he only admits those that share his ideas, but he has no right to say that because he doesn’t want it nobody else shouldn’t either. He is certainly free to act as he wishes, but if he claims freedom to himself, he must also want it to others. Considering that he defends his ideas and criticizes that of others, if he is consistent with himself, he must not see with bad eyes the fact that others may defend their own ideas and criticize his.
We generally forget that, above the authority of a single person, there is another one that whoever becomes the representative of an idea must not avoid: the authority of everybody. General opinion is the supreme jurisdiction, that sanctions or defeats the edifice of the systems; nobody can escape the subordination imposed by that. Such a law is not less omnipotent with Spiritism. Whoever harms the feelings of the majority, and has them abandoned, may as well expect to be abandoned by them. That is the reason for the failure of certain theories and certain publications, abstraction made of the intrinsic merits of the latter, about which, sometimes, there is no illusion.
One must not forget that Spiritism is not a feud around an individual, or a group of individual, or a circle, not even a city, but that its representatives are all over the world, and that there is a dominant opinion among them and that it is profoundly believed. By judging that one is strong against everybody because one has the support of a group is an exposure to great deceptions.
Spiritism has two parts: the material facts and that of moral consequences. The first one is necessary as a proof of the existence of the Spirits, and the Spirits started by that one; the second, that derives from the first one, is the only one that can lead to the transformation of humanity by the individual betterment. This betterment is, therefore, the essential objective of Spiritism. That must be the objective of every serious Spiritist. We defined the duties that such a belief imposes, by deducing those consequences from the instructions given by the Spirits. We inscribed the first one on the flag of Spiritism: “There is no salvation but through charity”, a maxim acclaimed as the sun of the future, since its appearance, and that soon traveled around the globe, becoming a word of connection among all those that see in Spiritism more than a material fact. It was welcomed everywhere, as the symbol of universal fraternity, as a guarantee of security in social relationships, as the dawn of a new era where hatred and dissentions must be extinguished. We understood its meaning so well that we are already harvesting the fruits; among those that turned it into a rule of conduct, sympathy and trust rule, the enchantment of social life; we see a brother in every heartfelt Spiritist, whose company makes us happy, for we know that the one that practices charity cannot wish nor do harm.
Was it then by our own authority that we promulgated such a maxim? Had we done it, who would consider it bad? But, no; it follows from the teaching of the Spirits, who collected it from those of Jesus Christ, where it is written with all letters, as the cornerstone of the Christian edifice, but where it remained buried for eighteen centuries. The egotism of men took care of keeping it forgotten, in the shadows, otherwise it would be their own condemnation; they preferred to seek their salvation through more comfortable and less boring practices. Nonetheless, everybody had read and read again the Gospels, and with very few exceptions, nobody saw that great truth left behind in a secondary level. Now, through the teachings of the Spirits, it became known and understood by all. How many truths are contained in the Gospels and that will surge in due time! (The Gospel According to Spiritism, Chap. XV).
By inscribing onto the frontispiece of Spiritism the supreme law of Christ, we open the way for the Christian Spiritism; we then dedicate ourselves to the development of its principles, as well as the characters of the true Spiritist from that point of view. We shall not oppose if others can do better than us, for we have never said: “there is no truth but through us”. Our instructions, therefore, are for those that find them good; they are freely accepted, without embarrassment; we design a route and those who wish will follow it; we give advices to the ones that request them and not to those that believe not need them; we give orders to nobody because we are not qualified for that. As for the supremacy, it is totally moral and in the adhesion of those that share our way of seeing things; since we are not assigned any official role, even by those, we do not solicit or claim any privilege; we do not attribute any title to ourselves, and the only one that we would take with the followers of our ideas is that of brothers in faith. If they consider us their chief it is for the position that our works give us, and not for any decision made. Our position is the one that anybody could have taken before us; our right is the same as everybody else that wish to work as they please, and is prepared to take the risk of public judgement.
What is the aggravating authority that those who wish the independent Spiritism want to free from, considering that there is no formal power or hierarchy closing the door to anyone, and since we do not have any jurisdiction upon them, and if they are pleased to stay away from our route, nobody will force them to get on that route? Have we ever pretended to be a prophet or a messiah? Would them take seriously the titles of supreme priest, sovereign pontiff, and even pope that the critics thought of attributing to us? We not only have never taken them but the Spiritists have never called us such. Is there an ascendent in our writings? The field is open to them, as it is to us, to captivate the sympathies of the public. If there is pressure, it does not come from us, but from the general opinion, that vetoes what is not convenient, and that it is submitted to the ascendent of the general teaching of the Spirits.
It is, therefore, to the latter ones that we must attribute the state of affairs, and it is precisely that that makes them wish to no longer listen to them. Are there instructions given by us? But nobody is forced to submit to them. Can they regret our censorship? We never mention persons, except when we must praise, and our instructions are given in general terms, as development of our principles, for the use of everybody.
On another hand, if they are bad, if our theories are false, how can this obfuscate them? The ridicule, if there is any ridicule, will be on us. Are they so much worried about the interests of Spiritism that they are afraid of seeing it perish in our hands? Are we too radical in our ideas? Are we so stubborn that there is nothing to be done? Oh God! Each one of us has their own defects; ours is to not thing white now, and then black; we have a designed route and we do not veer off from that to please anybody. It is likely that we will be like that to the end.
Is it our wealth that they envy? Where the castles, equities, and servants? Certainly, if we had the fortune attributed to us, it would not have come in our sleep, and many people accumulate millions in a less troublesome labor. What do we do with the money that we earn? Since we do not demand anybody’s report, we are not supposed to give it to anyone; what is certain is that it does not serve our pleasures. With respect to utilizing it to support agents and spies, we return the calumny to its source. We have more important things to worry about than knowing what this one or that one is doing. If they do good, they must not be afraid of any investigation; if they do bad, it is their problem. If there are those that ambition our position, is it in the interest of Spiritism or their own? They should then take it, with all its burdens, and they will not, perhaps, find it an as much pleasant an endeavor as they suppose.
If they think we are badly piloting the boat, who precluded them from taking the rudder before us? And who still preclude them today? Are they sorry for our restrictions to make followers? We wait for them to come to us and we will not seek anybody; we don’t even chase those that leave us, because we know that they cannot hinder the march of things; their personality fades away before the whole. On another hand, we are not too naïve to believe that they are connected to us due to our person; it is evidently for the idea that we represent. It is, therefore, to this idea that we refer the testimonies of sympathy that they kindly give us.
In short, independent Spiritism would be senseless to our eyes, for independence does exist de facto and by right, and there is no discipline imposed to nobody. The field of exploration is open to all; the supreme judge of the tournament is the public; the applause is to the one that can conquer it. Too bad for those that fall before they reach the objective.
Wouldn’t it be, perhaps, to give too much importance to these things, scaring away the followers by making them believe that there are more profound fissures than they really are, when we speak of these divergent opinions, that are definitely reduced to a few individuals, and that they do not form a body anywhere? Isn’t that also to provide arms to the enemies of Spiritism?
It is precisely to prevent such inconvenient that we speak about it. A clear and categoric explanation, that reduces the issue to its fair value, it is much more suited to assure than scare away the followers. They know how to behave and find here the arguments for the replica.
As for the adversaries, they have already exploited the fact many times, and since they exaggerate its reach, it is useful to show the matter to them as is. For a broader answer we refer to the article “Departure of one enemy of Spiritism to the world of the Spirits”, Spiritist Review, October 1865.
For starters, what is independent Spiritism? Independent from what? Another has it stated clearly: it is free Spiritism, not only freed from the tutorship of the Spirits, but from every personal direction or supremacy; from every subordination to the instructions of a chief, whose opinion cannot become law for it is not infallible.
This is the easiest thing in the world, since it does exist in reality, considering that Spiritism, by proclaiming the absolute freedom of conscience, does not admit any constraint in matters of belief, and it has never denied anyone the right to believe their own way in matters of Spiritism, as with anything else. From that point of view, we believe to be perfectly independent ourselves, and intend to take advantage of this independence. If there is subordination, it is therefore entirely voluntary; even more, it is not subordination to a man but to an idea that is adopted because it is convenient; that outlives man, if it is fair; that falls with him or before him, if it is false.
In order to free ourselves from somebody else ideas, we must necessarily have our own; we naturally try to make these ideas prevail, without which they would be kept to ourselves; we proclaim, sustain and defend them, because we believe them to be the expression of truth, because we admit good faith and not the exclusive desire to destroy what exists; the objective is to attract the largest possible number of followers, and with that we have the one that does not admit a chief, becomes the chief of the sect, seeking to subordinate the others to his own ideas. The one that says, for example: “We must no longer receive instructions from the Spirits”, isn’t that person issuing an absolute principle? Isn’t him exerting a pressure upon those that want to receive them, persuading them not to? If he establishes this as a condition for a meeting, the supporters of the communications must be excluded, for if they were the majority, they would turn it into a law. If they are admitted but have their wishes denied, this is against their freedom of complaining. “Here the Spirits do not have the word”, and those that wish to hear them will not dare object to the order and will participate. We have always said that an essential condition to every Spiritist gathering is homogeneity, without which there would be dissention. Someone that founded a meeting on the basis of rejecting the communications would be on his own right; it is okay if he only admits those that share his ideas, but he has no right to say that because he doesn’t want it nobody else shouldn’t either. He is certainly free to act as he wishes, but if he claims freedom to himself, he must also want it to others. Considering that he defends his ideas and criticizes that of others, if he is consistent with himself, he must not see with bad eyes the fact that others may defend their own ideas and criticize his.
We generally forget that, above the authority of a single person, there is another one that whoever becomes the representative of an idea must not avoid: the authority of everybody. General opinion is the supreme jurisdiction, that sanctions or defeats the edifice of the systems; nobody can escape the subordination imposed by that. Such a law is not less omnipotent with Spiritism. Whoever harms the feelings of the majority, and has them abandoned, may as well expect to be abandoned by them. That is the reason for the failure of certain theories and certain publications, abstraction made of the intrinsic merits of the latter, about which, sometimes, there is no illusion.
One must not forget that Spiritism is not a feud around an individual, or a group of individual, or a circle, not even a city, but that its representatives are all over the world, and that there is a dominant opinion among them and that it is profoundly believed. By judging that one is strong against everybody because one has the support of a group is an exposure to great deceptions.
Spiritism has two parts: the material facts and that of moral consequences. The first one is necessary as a proof of the existence of the Spirits, and the Spirits started by that one; the second, that derives from the first one, is the only one that can lead to the transformation of humanity by the individual betterment. This betterment is, therefore, the essential objective of Spiritism. That must be the objective of every serious Spiritist. We defined the duties that such a belief imposes, by deducing those consequences from the instructions given by the Spirits. We inscribed the first one on the flag of Spiritism: “There is no salvation but through charity”, a maxim acclaimed as the sun of the future, since its appearance, and that soon traveled around the globe, becoming a word of connection among all those that see in Spiritism more than a material fact. It was welcomed everywhere, as the symbol of universal fraternity, as a guarantee of security in social relationships, as the dawn of a new era where hatred and dissentions must be extinguished. We understood its meaning so well that we are already harvesting the fruits; among those that turned it into a rule of conduct, sympathy and trust rule, the enchantment of social life; we see a brother in every heartfelt Spiritist, whose company makes us happy, for we know that the one that practices charity cannot wish nor do harm.
Was it then by our own authority that we promulgated such a maxim? Had we done it, who would consider it bad? But, no; it follows from the teaching of the Spirits, who collected it from those of Jesus Christ, where it is written with all letters, as the cornerstone of the Christian edifice, but where it remained buried for eighteen centuries. The egotism of men took care of keeping it forgotten, in the shadows, otherwise it would be their own condemnation; they preferred to seek their salvation through more comfortable and less boring practices. Nonetheless, everybody had read and read again the Gospels, and with very few exceptions, nobody saw that great truth left behind in a secondary level. Now, through the teachings of the Spirits, it became known and understood by all. How many truths are contained in the Gospels and that will surge in due time! (The Gospel According to Spiritism, Chap. XV).
By inscribing onto the frontispiece of Spiritism the supreme law of Christ, we open the way for the Christian Spiritism; we then dedicate ourselves to the development of its principles, as well as the characters of the true Spiritist from that point of view. We shall not oppose if others can do better than us, for we have never said: “there is no truth but through us”. Our instructions, therefore, are for those that find them good; they are freely accepted, without embarrassment; we design a route and those who wish will follow it; we give advices to the ones that request them and not to those that believe not need them; we give orders to nobody because we are not qualified for that. As for the supremacy, it is totally moral and in the adhesion of those that share our way of seeing things; since we are not assigned any official role, even by those, we do not solicit or claim any privilege; we do not attribute any title to ourselves, and the only one that we would take with the followers of our ideas is that of brothers in faith. If they consider us their chief it is for the position that our works give us, and not for any decision made. Our position is the one that anybody could have taken before us; our right is the same as everybody else that wish to work as they please, and is prepared to take the risk of public judgement.
What is the aggravating authority that those who wish the independent Spiritism want to free from, considering that there is no formal power or hierarchy closing the door to anyone, and since we do not have any jurisdiction upon them, and if they are pleased to stay away from our route, nobody will force them to get on that route? Have we ever pretended to be a prophet or a messiah? Would them take seriously the titles of supreme priest, sovereign pontiff, and even pope that the critics thought of attributing to us? We not only have never taken them but the Spiritists have never called us such. Is there an ascendent in our writings? The field is open to them, as it is to us, to captivate the sympathies of the public. If there is pressure, it does not come from us, but from the general opinion, that vetoes what is not convenient, and that it is submitted to the ascendent of the general teaching of the Spirits.
It is, therefore, to the latter ones that we must attribute the state of affairs, and it is precisely that that makes them wish to no longer listen to them. Are there instructions given by us? But nobody is forced to submit to them. Can they regret our censorship? We never mention persons, except when we must praise, and our instructions are given in general terms, as development of our principles, for the use of everybody.
On another hand, if they are bad, if our theories are false, how can this obfuscate them? The ridicule, if there is any ridicule, will be on us. Are they so much worried about the interests of Spiritism that they are afraid of seeing it perish in our hands? Are we too radical in our ideas? Are we so stubborn that there is nothing to be done? Oh God! Each one of us has their own defects; ours is to not thing white now, and then black; we have a designed route and we do not veer off from that to please anybody. It is likely that we will be like that to the end.
Is it our wealth that they envy? Where the castles, equities, and servants? Certainly, if we had the fortune attributed to us, it would not have come in our sleep, and many people accumulate millions in a less troublesome labor. What do we do with the money that we earn? Since we do not demand anybody’s report, we are not supposed to give it to anyone; what is certain is that it does not serve our pleasures. With respect to utilizing it to support agents and spies, we return the calumny to its source. We have more important things to worry about than knowing what this one or that one is doing. If they do good, they must not be afraid of any investigation; if they do bad, it is their problem. If there are those that ambition our position, is it in the interest of Spiritism or their own? They should then take it, with all its burdens, and they will not, perhaps, find it an as much pleasant an endeavor as they suppose.
If they think we are badly piloting the boat, who precluded them from taking the rudder before us? And who still preclude them today? Are they sorry for our restrictions to make followers? We wait for them to come to us and we will not seek anybody; we don’t even chase those that leave us, because we know that they cannot hinder the march of things; their personality fades away before the whole. On another hand, we are not too naïve to believe that they are connected to us due to our person; it is evidently for the idea that we represent. It is, therefore, to this idea that we refer the testimonies of sympathy that they kindly give us.
In short, independent Spiritism would be senseless to our eyes, for independence does exist de facto and by right, and there is no discipline imposed to nobody. The field of exploration is open to all; the supreme judge of the tournament is the public; the applause is to the one that can conquer it. Too bad for those that fall before they reach the objective.
Wouldn’t it be, perhaps, to give too much importance to these things, scaring away the followers by making them believe that there are more profound fissures than they really are, when we speak of these divergent opinions, that are definitely reduced to a few individuals, and that they do not form a body anywhere? Isn’t that also to provide arms to the enemies of Spiritism?
It is precisely to prevent such inconvenient that we speak about it. A clear and categoric explanation, that reduces the issue to its fair value, it is much more suited to assure than scare away the followers. They know how to behave and find here the arguments for the replica.
As for the adversaries, they have already exploited the fact many times, and since they exaggerate its reach, it is useful to show the matter to them as is. For a broader answer we refer to the article “Departure of one enemy of Spiritism to the world of the Spirits”, Spiritist Review, October 1865.