The duel Bordeaux, November 21st, 1861 – medium Mr. Guipon1st – 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.
2nd – 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.
3rd – 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.
