The Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1863

Allan Kardec

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The communication below was obtained in the session at the Parisian Society on October 9th, 1863:

“How many days have passed, my children, since I was fortunate enough to be with you! Thus, it is a great joy to be here at my dear Parisian Society.

What is the subject matter today? The majority of the moral questions were already handled by skillful pens. Yet they are so very close to me and their scope is so broad that I will still find some seeds of truth to sow. Besides, even if I just repeat what has already been said by others, it may perhaps bring about new teachings considering that good words, like the good seeds, always produce good fruits.

For us the sacred books are inextinguishable flames and the great apostle Paul that has formerly contributed so much to the establishment of Christianity from his powerful speeches and that left monumental writings that will serve, not less powerfully, to the expansion of Spiritism.

I do not ignore the fact that your religious adversaries invoke his testimony against you but that does not preclude the illustrious illuminated individuals from Damascus to support you and to be with you. You can rest assured.

The breath that airs from his works; the sacred inspiration that animates his teachings, far from being hostile to the doctrine it is, on the contrary, full of predictions regarding what is happening today. That is how in his first words to the Corinthians there isn’t a single person, even if a saint, a prophet and that could transport mountains that can be proud of being a true disciple of our Lord Jesus Christ. Like the Spiritists and before them he was the first to proclaim the maxim that is your glory: there is no salvation but through charity!

But that is not the only side that connects him to the doctrine that we taught you and that you now propagate. Highly intelligent, he had foreseen what God had spared to the future and notably this transformation, this regeneration of the Christian faith that you are called upon to lay profoundly onto the modern Spirit, describing in the aforementioned epistle and unquestionably the main mediumistic faculties that he names the blessed gifts of the Saint Spirit.



Ah my dear! That saint contemplates, with an undisguisable sadness, the degree of shame in which those who speak in his name fall and proclaim ‘urbi et orbi[1] that in the past God gave to Earth all the truths that the planet could take.

This apostle had said, however, that in his time there were not more than one science and imperfect prophecies. Well, the one that was sorry for such a situation knew that for that very reason they both would perfect in the future. Isn’t that the absolute condemnation of all of those that condemn progress? Isn’t that the hardest strike against those that pretend that Jesus and the apostles, the fathers of Church and above all the reverends in the company of Jesus would have given Earth all the philosophical and religious science that it deserved? Fortunately, the apostle himself took care of belying it in anticipation.

My dears, in order to assess the ones that fight you in their fair value all you must do is to study the arguments of the controversy, their heated words and the sorrow that pain inflicted like those of Rev. Father Pailloux; may the flames be extinguished and that the Saint Inquisition no longer work ‘ad maorem Dei gloriam.’[2]

My brothers, you have charity, they have intolerance and for that we can only feel sorry. That is why I invite you to pray for those poor ones that are lost so that the Saint Spirit that they invoke so much may finally illuminate their consciences and their hearts.

François-Nicolas Madeilene

We add the following words of St. Paul to this remarkable communication, taken from the first letter to the Corinthians:

But someone will say, “How are the dead raised up? With what body do they come?” You fool! What you sow is not made alive unless it dies. When you sow, you do not sow the body that shall be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. Then God gives it a body as He pleases, and to each seed its own body. All flesh is not the same flesh. There is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fish, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies. The glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars. One star differs from another star in glory. So too is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

- Now this I say, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does corruption inherit incorruption.

St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 15:35-44 and 50.

Now what else can that spiritual body be since it is not the animal body; it is the fluidic body whose existence is demonstrated by Spiritism, the perispirit that covers the soul after death! The Spirit experiences some confusion with death and for some time the Spirit loses consciousness of oneself and later recovers the awareness and is reborn for the intelligent life. In one word the Spirit resuscitates with the spiritual body.

The last paragraph about doomsday positively contradicts the doctrine of the resurrection of the flesh because it says: “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God”. Thus, the dead will not resurrect with in flesh and blood and won’t need to gather their scattered bones but will have their celestial body that is not the animal body.

If the author of Catéchisme philosophique[3] had given more thoughts to these words he would have avoided making the remarkable mathematical calculation that every person that died since Adam’s days would fit perfectly well in Josapha’s Valley after their resurrection.

Therefore St. Paul established in principle and in theory what Spiritism now teaches about the state of mankind after death. But St. Paul was not the only one to present the truths taught by Spiritism. The Bible, the Gospels, the apostles and the Fathers of the Church are full of them so much so that denying Spiritism is the same as denying their own authority and upon which religion is founded. Attributing all of the teachings to the devil is the same as saying anathema to the majority of the holy authors.

Thus, Spiritism does not come to destroy but on the contrary to reestablish all things, that is to assign the true meaning to all things.









[1] Latin expression meaning: to the city and to the world (TN)


[2]the Latinmotto of the Company of Jesus (Jesuits), a religious order of the Catholic Church, meaning "For the greater glory of God"(TN)


[3] Philosophical Catechism by Father Feller, Vol. III, page 83 (TN)


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