Spiritist Teachings and Dissertations Truth will be Born
(Sent by Mr. Sabò, from Bordeaux)
What is that painful moaning that reverberates in my heart, vibrating
every single fiber of my soul? It is humanity struggling through the
rude and painful work, preparing to give birth to light. Come, spiritists,
surround its suffering bed. May the strongest among you stretch their
stiff arms to support the convulsions of pain, and may the others wait
the birth of that child, receiving it in their arms when it comes to life.
The supreme moment arrives; in a last breath of effort it escapes from the
conceiving heart, the mother left dazed behind abated by her weakness
for some time. However, it was born healthy and robust and life breathes
plentiful at full power. You, who have witnessed its birth must follow it
every step of the way. Behold! The joy of having given birth resurrects
the mother’s strength and courage, and with a maternal tone she calls all
people to gather around the blessed child, for she foresees that with his
powerful voice the scaffoldings of lies will fall in a few years, and immutable
like God, truth will unite humanity under its flag through Spiritism.
Triumph, however, will only come after the fight since its bloodthirsty enemies conspire against it. These enemies are pride, selfishness, greed,
hypocrisy and fanaticism, almighty foes that have ruled sovereignly so far
and will not be dethroned without a fight. Some laugh at its weakness,
but others are scared of its arrival predicting their own ruin. That is why
they try to eliminate it, like Herod sought to eliminate Jesus through the
massacre of the innocent. That child has no homeland. It is all over the
planet, looking for the people that will be the first to sustain its flag. Such
people will be the most powerful among all peoples because that is the
will of God.
Massilon
Progression of a
Wicked Spirit
(Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, Medium Mrs. Costel)
We published in the December 1860 issue several communications
signed by Clara under the title punishment of the selfish, in which
that spirit reveals her bad inclinations and her currently deplorable situation.
Our colleague, Mrs. Costel, who knew her when she was alive and
who serves as a medium worked with her in the process of her moral
education. Her efforts were crowned by success. It can be assessed by the
spontaneous dissertation below, given at the Society on March 1st last.
“I will speak about the important difference between the divine and
the human moral. The former supports the adulterous woman in her
lonely fate and tells the sinners: ‘Repent and the kingdom of God will
welcome you’ - The divine moral accepts every regret and all confessed
faults while human moral rejects them, admitting the occult sins with
a smile, saying that they are half-forgiven. It extends the grace of pardon to one; hypocrisy to the other. Truth seekers, you must choose!
Choose from the heavens open to regret and tolerance that admits error
as long as it does not affect its selfishness and false arrangements,
but that denies the passion and the tears dropped after the publically
confessed faults. Repent, all of you who sin; renounce to evilness but
most importantly to the hypocrisy that hides the ugliness of evil under
the smiles and deceiving mask of mutual conveniences.”
Clara
Here is another example of a conversation, obtained in a more or less
similar situation. An unknown lady who was a medium was present at
the same session, writing at the Society for the first time. She knew a
woman that had died 9 years ago and that when alive was not much loved.
Since her death she had become perverse, always seeking to do bad things.
However, good advices given to her were able to develop better feelings.
In this session she gave the following spontaneous dissertation: “I beg you
for your prayers. I need to be good. I have persecuted and obsessed someone
that was supposed to do good for a long time. God wants me to stop harassing
people but I am afraid that I don’t have the necessary courage. Help me. I have
been so bad! Oh! I suffer a lot! Much suffering! Being bad used to make me
happy. I have done that with all my heart but I want to stop doing those bad
things. Oh! Pray for me.”
Adele
Envy and the Mediums
(Sent by Mr. Ky…, a corresponding member from the Karlsruhe Society)
“A vain man is to himself and his own intelligence as despicable as
pitiful. He keeps the truth away from his eyes, replacing it by his own
personal arguments and convictions that he sees infallible and undisputable
because they are of his own. A vain man is always selfish and
selfishness is the plague of humanity. He shows his insignificance by
neglecting the rest of the world. By denying truths that are new to him
he also shows the narrowness of his intelligence, perverted by his obstinacy,
which in turn increases his vanity and selfishness. Unfortunate
is the man who is dominated by these two enemies. When he wakes
up from such a state when the truth and light will then be shed upon
him from all sides and then only a miserable creature will be seen,
someone that madness tried to raise above humanity in his Earthly
life, and who will actually be below certain modest and simple people
who he thought to be their inferior. You must be humble in your
hearts, you who have been endowed by God’s spiritual gifts. Do not
think that the merit is yours as much the credit for the work done is not of the utensils used but of the worker. Remember that you are no
more than God’s instruments to manifest his Omnipotent Spirit to
the world and there is no reason for you to be flattered. Ah! So many
mediums become vain instead of humble as their gifts develop! That
is a delay in the general progress since instead of being humble and
passive the medium frequently repels important communications, out
of pure vanity and pride, communications that will come to light
through others who are worthy. God does not take into account the
worldly position of someone in order to confer that person with the sacred
spirit; much to the contrary, for God many times raises the lowly
amongst the humble endowing him with the greatest gifts so that the
world can see that it is not man but the spirit of God that makes
miracles through man. As I said, the medium is a simple instrument
of the Great Creator of all things and he is the one to be glorified; He
is the one to be thanked for His endless benevolence.
I would also like to say a word about envy and jealousy that is
often found amongst the mediums and that is necessary to remove
like the weed and as soon as it sprouts, otherwise it can abate the
good vegetation around. Envy is as much damaging to the medium
as pride, again requiring the same testimony of humility. I say even
that it demonstrates a lack of common sense. It is not by being envious
of your neighbor’s gifts that you will receive similar ones; if God
gives a lot to some rest assured that His reasons are well founded.
Envy spoils the heart; it even muffles the best feelings in you; it is thus
an enemy that can only be defeated with a lot of effort for there is no
truce once envy is with us. That is applicable to every circumstance of
your Earthly life but I here refer in particular to envy among mediums,
something as much unfounded as ridiculous, a demonstration
of man’s weakness when enslaved by passions.”
Luos
OBSERVATION: A discussion was established after reading this latest
communication at the Society, comparing envy among mediums to that among the somnambulists. One of the members, Mr. D…, said that
in his opinion the same happens among the somnambulists who cannot
dissimulate their feelings when in the somnambulistic state.
Mr. Allan Kardec counters that opinion saying: “Envy seems to be
inherent to the somnambulistic state due to a factor that is difficult to
understand and that the somnambulists themselves cannot explain. Such
feeling occurs among somnambulists who only show benevolence to one
another when in their wake state. With the mediums it is far from natural
and it is evidently related to the moral character of each person. One
medium is the envy of another because it is in his nature to be envious.
Such wickedness, son of pride and selfishness, is essentially harmful to
the purity of the communications, while the most envious somnambulist
can be very lucid and it can be easily understood. The somnambulist sees
things by himself. It is his spirit that separates and acts. He does not need
anybody else. The medium, on the contrary, is just an intermediary, receiving
everything from strange spirits, and his personality is much less at
play than that of the somnambulist. The spirits sympathize with a given
medium for his qualities or his vices; now, the most repulsive defects to
the good spirits are pride, selfishness and envy. Experience tells us that
the mediumistic faculty is independent of the moral qualities; it thus can
be found, like the somnambulistic one, in the highest degree in the most
mischievous creature. However, the opposite happens with respect to the
sympathies from the good spirits, who communicate more naturally and
easily the purer the intermediary in charge of transmitting their thoughts
is, the more sincere and the more distant from the bad spirits the medium
is. They do the same with that respect as we do when we have someone
as our confidante. In particular with respect to envy, as this is present in
almost all somnambulists and it is much rarer with the mediums, it seems
that it is a rule with the former and an exception with the latter, from
what we must conclude that the cause must be different for each case.”
