The Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1862

1^st – General Considerations


The human being or the incarnate spirit may be on your Earth on a mission, in progress of punishment. Having said that, you must know once and for all the state of mission, progression or punishment must accomplish the term designed by the supreme justice otherwise a new test must be reinitiated. Hence anticipating the return to the world of the Spirits by oneself or through provocation is an enormous crime. The duel is an even bigger crime since it is simultaneously both a premeditated murder and a suicide. Do you believe in fact that the challenger and the challenged are not committing moral suicide when they voluntarily expose themselves to the mortal attacks of the adversary? Do you believe that they are not both murderers when they mutually seek to destroy the life of one another, life that was chosen by them or imposed as atonement or trial by God? Yes, my friend, I tell you this: the duelist is a double criminal to the eyes of God; their punishment shall be twice as terrible for there will be no excuses once everything was cold-bloodedly premeditated and calculated. I read it in your heart, my child, because you were also a criminal and here is my answer: In order to avoid failing before such a terrible temptation the only thing you need is humility, sincerity and charity towards your brother in God. On the other hand, pride and ostentation will lead you to failure.

2^nd – Spiritual consequences


The one that, like Jesus, humbly forgave and supported the greatest grievances and who had forgiven in their heart for the love of God will conquer, in addition to the celestial reward of a new life, peace in this life and an indescribable happiness for having respected God’s work twice. The one who had demonstrated fraternal love in the charity to the neighbor will have granted the protection and support of the glorious mother of Jesus for she loves and blesses those who obey the commandments of God; those who follow and practice the teaching of her son.

The one who, despite the attacks, had respected the life of a brother and his own life will find millions of legions of good Spirits in the ethereal world, demonstrating their devotion and sympathy in his first steps in the new life, like true friends and brothers that he would have conquered. Together they will thank God through their actions for the mercy of having one brother resisting temptation.

I tell you this: the one that resists these temptations may wait not for changes in God’s designs, which are immutable, but for the sincere and affectionate benevolence of the Spirit of Truth, the son of God, who will in an incomparable way inundate their soul with the happiness of having understood the Spirit of perfect justice and infinite goodness and consequently spare him or her of any similar trap.

The ones instead, challenged or challengers, who have succumbed may rest assured that they will experience the greatest moral tortures by the continual presence of the dead body of their victims as well as their own. Eaten by remorse for centuries for having disobeyed so miserably the celestial laws, persecuted by the horrible spectrum of the double bloody corpses up until the time of atonement.

Still fortunate if they relieve their pain through sincere and profound repentance that opens their souls for reason that they will at least envisage an end to their punishments, understanding God and begging for strength in order to never again provoke the severe justice.


3^rd – Human consequences


The words duty, honor and courage are sometimes considered matters of life and death by human beings, thus justifying their actions and crimes. Do they always understand their meaning? Do not they assume and self-interpret Jesus’ intentions? Why changing their meaning then? Why returning to barbarian times?

Unfortunately human beings, in their majority, are still under the influence of pride and ostentation. They amplify the words duty, honor and courage as excuses to themselves, not realizing their meaning: execution of God’s commandments, wisdom, charity and love. They use those words, however, to strangulate their brothers, to commit suicide and to find themselves lost. What a blindness! They consider themselves strong for having triumphed over someone weaker. They are blind in believing that the agreement of other blind like themselves will bring human consideration! The society where they live reproach them and it will soon curse them for the kingdom of fraternity is near. Meanwhile sensible people stay away from them as if running away from beasts. Let us check a few cases and see if reason justifies their interpretation of the words duty, honor and courage.

A man is heartbroken and his soul is full of sorrow because he found irrefutable proofs of misconduct from the part of his wife. He then challenges one of those who seduced the poor miserable woman. Would such a challenge be the result of his duties, his honor and courage? No because his honor will not be reestablished. His personal honor was not and cannot be achieved. This will be vengeance. In addition, to demonstrate that his pretense honor is not at risk his misfortune is ignored and would remain ignored if not made public by a thousand voices provoked by the scandal of the vengeance.

Finally, if his misfortune were known he would count on the sympathy of every sensible person and would only be laughed at by malevolent and indifferent people who are nevertheless insignificant.

In any case his honor would not be reestablished or damaged. Hence it is almost only pride that guides the duelists and not honor.


Do you really believe that it is just a single word; a false interpretation of a statement or the involuntary and invisible touch of an elbow in motion; or even a yes or a no or eventually the way someone may look at another person that will make the duelist to the pretense demand for reparation through murder or suicide? Ah! Make no mistake. Pride and certainty about one’s power are the only drivers sometimes boosted by pride as the duelist wants to show off, demonstrate courage and knowledge and sometimes generosity.

Ostentation! Ostentation I repeat because the only thing they know is about the duel itself whilst courage and generosity are lies.

Would you like to present this courageous swordsman with a real test? Offer him a rival who bears a huge reputation, much above his own, although less educated and he will go pale and try everything possible to avoid the combat. Conversely placing him before a much weaker and uninformed opponent and he will look ruthless, proud and arrogant even when forced to show mercy.

Is that courage?


Let us now talk about generosity. Would a man who is confident in his own strength be generous after provoking the weak and then sparing his life, allowing for continuous humiliation and ridicule? Would a man who desires something be generous by provoking someone in order to obtain that and be rewarded by his generosity? Would the criminal be generous by sparing the lives of those who they have offended?

Would he be generous by giving demonstrations of generosity to a husband or a brother to whom he caused profound harm and who are now exposed to suicide by despair? Know this my friends: the duel is a terrible invention of bad and malevolent Spirits, a barbarian invention that affects our good Father.

It is up to you, Spiritists, to fight against and destroy this sad habit, a crime proper to the angels of darkness. It is up to you, Spiritists, to give a noble example of renunciation to this dismal evil, despite everything. It is up to you, sincere Spiritists, to make understood the sublime words duty, honor and courage and God will speak through your voices. Finally, it is up to you to sow the seeds of Spiritism among your brothers, seeds so much ignored by us in our earthly lives.

Your father, Antonio.


Observation: Pistol duels are increasingly rarer – at least in France – and if we still see painful examples from time to time their number is not comparable to those of the past. In the old days a man would not leave home without expecting an encounter for which it was necessary to take precautions. A characteristic and traditional habit in those days was to carry defensive or offensive weapons openly or hidden. The abolishment of such a habit demonstrates the softening of customs and it is curious to follow its evolution since the time when the knights would never ride without their armors and spears up until the simple use of the sword more like an ornament than a weapon so to speak. Another milestone in the evolution of things is that in the past the duels would take place out in the street before the crowds that would make room for the combat and now they are hidden. Today the death of a person causes commotion. In the past, people would not pay attention. Spiritism will erase these last vestiges of barbarism by introducing in people the spirit of charity and fraternity.

Note: This communication was obtained in a private session presided by Mr. Allan Kardec


Here you are gathered to see Spiritism at its foundation, to face this idea and to appreciate the huge waves of love that overwhelm those who get to know it. Spiritism is moral progress; it is the elevation of the spirit on the way to God. Progress is fraternity in its infancy for complete fraternity as imaginable by the spirit is perfection. Pure fraternity is a perfume from above, an emanation from the infinite, an atom of celestial intelligence; it is the basis of all moral institutions and the only means of achieving a sustainable social order and producing the effects worthy of the cause that you have embraced. Hence, be brothers and sisters in humanity if you want the seeds sowed among you to develop and become the tree that you seek. Union is the sovereign power that comes to Earth and fraternity is the sympathy in the union, it is the poetry, the enchantment, the positive ideal.

You must be united to be strong and be strong to cast the foundations of an institution that is solely based on the truth, the so-much admirable, touching, simple and sublime truth. When divided, the strength disappears. When united, it becomes stronger.

When we think about the individual progress of each person, about the love and charity that comes out of each heart the power shall be much greater. Under the sublime breeze of this ineffable breath, family bonds become stronger and the social links so vaguely defined become bolder, get closer and establish a unique stream with all kinds of thoughts, wishes and objectives.

What can you see without fraternity? Selfishness and greed. Each one with their own objective; each one concerned with themselves only; each marching separately and every one inexorably dragged to the abyss in which human dreams have been drowning for centuries. With union there is only one objective since there is only one thought, one desire and one heart. Hence, my friends, unite and that is what the voice of our spiritual world repeats incessantly. Unite and you shall reach the objective more rapidly.

It is particularly in this entirely sympathetic meeting that you must make the irrevocable resolution of being united by a thought common to every Spiritist on Earth to offer the tribute of your acknowledgement to the one who has opened to you the path to the supreme good; the one who brought happiness to your minds, joy to your hearts and faith to your souls. Your acknowledgment is your present reward. Therefore do not refuse that and make your offer in one voice only walking the first step of true fraternity.

Léon de Muriane, protector spirit.

Observation: This name is totally unknown, even to the medium. This demonstrates that to be an elevated spirit it is unnecessary to have one’s name inscribed in the archives of history and that there are many unknown Spirits among those who communicate.

Mr. Émile who received the previous communication and many others equally remarkable, is very young. He is not only an excellent writing medium but he is also a painting medium even though he had not ever learned drawing or painting. He oil paints landscapes and multiple themes choosing and combining the required colors. From the point of view of quality his paintings are certainly not perfect since there have been many seen in exhibitions but have not been taken noticed. They lack finishing touch and subtleness and the shades are crisp and too accentuated. However, when we look at how they are created, it is quite remarkable. Who knows if he will not become a true painter with practice and acquire the skill that he lacks, like the worker of Bordeaux who barely writes his name but who writes as a medium and ended up developing a nice handwriting for his personal use without any teacher other than the Spirits? When we saw Mr. Émile he was finishing an allegoric painting where one can see a funeral that reads on top: Here lies eighteen centuries of light. We allowed ourselves to criticize such inscription first for not understanding the meaning of such allegory by placing eighteen centuries of lights in a coffin since, we said, thanks to Christianity humanity is now more enlightened than in those days. That happened in the session on September 16^th when he received the communication above.

The spirit then responded to our observations adding the following: The expression here lies is placed there intentionally. The subject is not the number 18 representing centuries, rather it is a summation of centuries, a collective idea as if there was a time interval lasting 18 centuries. You may tell your grammarians that they should not confuse a collective idea with the idea of time span.” Do not they say to themselves when referring to the crowds that may be formed by an incalculable number of people that it may dislocate? That is enough about the subject. That is how it must be for this is the idea.

Let us now talk about the allegory. Eighteen centuries of lights in a coffin! This idea represents all the struggle endeavored by truth during this time, struggles always endeavored by the spirit of party and by selfishness. Eighteen centuries of lights at daylight would have been eighteen centuries of happiness for humanity, eighteen centuries that just begin to sprout on Earth and that would have had its development. Christ brought truth to Earth and made it available to all. What happened to that? It was taken over by human passions and thrown in a coffin from where Spiritism has just recovered it. Such is the allegory.”

Léon de Muriane

Paris is the port of arrival for the world. Everyone comes here to collect an idea or an impression. When I was among you I used to ask myself why this great city, meeting point of the world, did not shelter a large Spiritist gathering but as large as that allocated in the largest amphitheaters. Sometimes I used to think that the Parisian Spiritists were much too devoted to having fun. I even thought that the Spiritist faith was an amateurish pleasure, a distraction among many continuously offered by Paris. However, from a distance and nonetheless so close to you I see and understand better. Paris seats on the riverbanks of the Sena but in fact Paris is everywhere and its powerful mind revolves the world daily.

Like Paris, the central Society spreads its thoughts throughout the universe. Its strength is not in the circle where the sessions take place but in all countries that follow its dissertations, in all places where it becomes law given its intelligent teachings. It is like the sun whose beams reach the infinite. For that very reason the Society cannot be a common group. Its points of view are predestined and greater is its apostolic mission. It cannot be restricted to a small space. It needs to reach the world for its nature is invasive. In fact, today it pacifically conquer cities, tomorrow kingdoms and later on the whole world.

When visited by a stranger you welcome him or her with warmth and dignity so that the person may carry a great idea of Spiritism, this powerful weapon of civilization that must pave every way and defeat every resistance and destroy every doubt. That is needed so that everyone may have their Spirits nourished by a food that transforms everything in its mysterious passage for the new belief is strong like God, great like Him, charitable like everything else that comes from a superior power, that harms in order to send consolation, giving in the works of humanity prayer and pain in anticipation.

Blessed may you be, my dear Society, you that always give with benevolence, you that carries out tough task without looking at the obstacles on the way. You have deserved a lot from God. You will not be and cannot be an ordinary center but on the contrary – I repeat – you must be the beneficent spring where suffering will always come to find the healing balsam.

Sanson, (former member of the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies)

My dear and beloved friends and listeners, you have asked today that I ask my medium about the history of language. I will try to satisfy you. You must understand, however, that it would be impossible for me to handle this important issue in a few lines only, an issue to which another even more import is forcibly connected that is the origin of the human races. May the Almighty God, so benevolent with the Spiritists, give me the necessary lucidity to keep away from my explanation any source of confusion, obscurity and mistakes!

I enter the subject by saying that we must initially admit in principle this eternal truth: The Creator gave all creatures of the same race a special but safe way of understanding each other. Yet, that means of communication called language was all the more restricted the lower the species. That is why savage and less civilized peoples have such primitive languages to the point that many words used in more developed regions cannot find equivalence in their language. It is in consequence of this law that progressing nations create new terms for new findings and new needs. As I said elsewhere humanity has already gone through three great periods: the Barbarian phase, the Hebraic and Pagan and the Christian phase. The great Spiritist period whose foundations we prepare with you will succeed the latter.

Let us then examine the first phase and the beginning of the second one and only repeat here what I have already told you. The first human phase that we can call pre-Hebraic or Barbarian dragged on for a long time and slowly experienced the horrors and convulsions of a terrible time. Humans there were hairy like wild animals and like the beast used to shelter in caves and under trees; subsistence is based on raw meat and human flesh in the most absolute period of anthropophagy. There was no society or family! A few groups wandering here and there in complete promiscuity always ready to devour one another. That is the picture of this cruel time. There is no cult, no tradition and no religious ideas. There is only the bodily need to be satisfied and that is all! Imprisoned in a brute matter the soul remains in a latent condition in its carnal jail. The soul could not do much as this primitive envelope surrounded it and, as such, the intelligence can hardly expand within the limited ability of this underdeveloped brain. Fuzzy eyes, heavy lids, thick lips and a cramped skull all capable of producing a few throaty sounds that constitute their language.

There is no indication that the forefathers of the Hebraic and Pagan races came from that brute animal. Nevertheless, with time, there became the need to defend themselves against other carnivores like the lion and the tiger whose terrible fangs and sharp claws easily dominated an isolated man. It was the password for the realization of the first social progress. Nevertheless, it remained as the period of matter and brute force for this whole period. Do not seek feelings or reason or even language in the people of those days. There is only blind obedience to immediate material needs and the only objective is survival through eating, drinking and sheltering. Nothing beyond. We can say that the intelligent creature is in its germ state but is not there yet. Nevertheless, it is possible to find among the brute some superior creatures, incarnate Spirits with the mission of leading humanity to its objective and speed up the appearance of the Hebraic and Pagan races.

I must add that besides those incarnate Spirits the planet was constantly visited by those ministers of God whose memory was kept by tradition as angels and archangels that almost daily were in contact with the superior and incarnate Spirits that I mentioned. The mission of some of those angels continued during a great part of the second human phase. I must add that the quick picture above of the initial times of humanity teaches you a little about the strict laws to which the Spirits are submitted in going through the exercise of inhabiting planets of recent formation.

Language, properly speaking, as well as social life, only starts to incorporate a structured character in the Hebraic and Pagan era during which the incarnate spirit, always subjected to matter, begins to rebel and break down some links of the heavy chain. The soul ferments and agitates in its carnal prison; it fights hard against the physical limitations of the brain whose matter is made sensitive by the soul itself; there is permanent work through which the performance of the brain and its faculties improves and consequently the physical organs are developed; finally thoughts can be transmitted through clear and limpid eyes. We are now far from the flattened craniums! It is the beginning of the self-identification of the soul and the human being begins to understand that there is something beyond the body.

The soul feels and acknowledges itself and is aware of oneself and begins to understand that it is independent of the body. It is the beginning of the struggle against the oppression of the greatest rival. Humans begin to experience significant change and intelligence moves more freely in a more developed brain. Yet people are still marked and sold like cattle and man is the slave of man; slavery is consecrated by the God of the Hebrew as much as by the Pagan gods and Jehovah, like Jupiter and Olympic, demand blood and live victims. This second phase offers curious aspects from a philosophical point of view about which I have already provided a quick description that will be soon communicated to you by the medium. In any case and to return to the main subject you must rest assured that it was only during the long patriarchal and pastoral periods that human language established a regular progress adopting special forms and sounds.

During that primitive era in which humanity was just leaving the cradle and beginning to mumble in its infancy only a few words were needed for communication for people without any science and whose needs were restricted and whose social relationships stop at the entrance of the huts, primitive families and later on tribes. It was the time when the father, the shepherd, the elder or the patriarch had absolute domination with the right of life and death.

The primitive language was uniform; as the number of shepherds increased they broke away from the paternal protection and founded other regions that were still inhabited with new families and tribes.

Their languages followed different patterns and progressed and from generation to generation modified from the original paternal structure; that is how the several languages were created. Furthermore, and with the disclaimer that my intention is not to provide you with a course on linguistics, it should not go unnoticed that in the most distant and different languages you will find radicals that have almost not changed and whose meanings are almost the same. On another hand since you have the pretension of being from the old world the same reason that corrupted the primitive language is still very much present in your France so much proud of its civilization where you see the terms and meanings varying not from town to town but from county to county. I call the attention of those who have visited Bretagne as well as those who traveled to Provence and Languedoc. There is a variety of idioms and dialects that surprises anyone wishing to compile a single dictionary.

Once primate people, helped by the missionaries of the Eternal, gave certain special sounds to some special ideas the spoken language was created and the modifications suffered later were always the result of human progress; hence and according to the richness of a given language, one can easily establish the degree of civilization of the people that speak that language. I can add that humanity marches towards a common language as a forced consequence of a communion of moral and political ideas and most importantly religion. That shall be the task of the new Spiritist philosophy that we are teaching you today.

Erastus