Control of the Spiritist TeachingThe organization we proposed for the formation of Spiritist groups aims at preparing the avenue that must facilitate their mutual relationships. Among the resulting advantages is the unity of Spiritism as the most relevant and its natural consequence. That unity is already partially accomplished and is the fundamental bases of Spiritism. A large majority of the followers now follow these principles. Nonetheless there are still some doubtful questions. The reason may be that these principles have not yet been resolved or because they were done so in different ways by people or even by the Spirits.
If sometimes the methodologies are produced by human minds, we know that certain Spirits do not fall behind. In reality there are some that elaborate absurd ideas with a marvelous skill, interweaving them with a lot of art, and building something that is more imaginary than real. This can mislead the opinion of individuals who do not make the effort to investigate or who are unable to do so given their lack of knowledge. The false ideas, no doubt, end up breaking up as a result of direct experience and logic. Prior to that, however, such ideas can produce uncertainty.
We also know that the Spirits may have a more or less accurate way of seeing things, according to their elevation; that the signatures following the communications are not always a guarantee of authenticity and that arrogant Spirits sometimes preach utopias under the cover and embellishment of respectable names. This is undoubtedly one of the greatest difficulties of the practical science against which many people have crashed.
In case of divergence the best criterion is the agreement of the teachings from different Spirits, transmitted through different mediums and that are strange to one another. When the same principle is proclaimed or condemned by the majority we must surrender to the evidence. If there is a means of getting to the truth it is certainly through the agreement as much as the rationality of the communications, added to the means that we have to attest the superiority or inferiority of the Spirits. Since the opinion is no longer individual and becomes collective it acquires a higher degree of authenticity for it cannot be considered as the result of a personal or local influence. The doubtful ones will find a basis to support their ideas because it would be irrational to believe that someone that sustains an isolated point of view is right against everybody else.
What has fundamentally contributed to give credit to the doctrine of The Spirits’ Book was precisely the fact that it finds support everywhere given the fact that it results from a similar work. Like we said, it is neither the works of a single spirit who could be systematic nor the works of a single medium that could be deceived. It is, on the contrary, the result of a collective teaching provided by a large diversity of Spirits and mediums and whose principles are more or less confirmed all over the world. We say more or less for the reason that as we said above there are Spirits who try to make their personal ideas prevail. Therefore it is useful to submit divergent ideas to the proposed control. If Spiritism or any doctrinaire point that we profess was unanimously recognized to be wrong, we would submit to that without complaints, feeling happy for the fact that others found the truth. If, however, those points are confirmed we should be allowed to believe that we are with the truth.
The Spiritist Society of Paris will submit questions considered to be more useful to the propagation of truth to the several corresponding centers, understanding the importance of similar work and having to enlighten itself in the first place, demonstrating that by no means it wants to stand out as an absolute judge of the professed doctrines. Those questions will be submitted via private correspondence or through The Spiritist Review, according to the circumstances.
It is clear to the Society, and given the seriousness with which it faces Spiritism, that the authority of the communications depend on the conditions in which the meetings take place, the character of the members and their objective. Provided that the communications are originated from groups formed on the basis indicated in our article about the organization of Spiritism, to the eyes of the Society the better the conditions of those groups the more weight they will have.
While waiting for the question e, we submit the following ones to our corresponding groups.
