The Spirits' Book

Allan Kardec

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II

Spiritism is a staunch opponent of materialism, and it is not surprising that materialists are its adversaries. Materialism is a theory that many hardly dare to admit defending (proof that its supporters are not ardent believers and that they are dominated by their conscience), they hide behind a mask of reason and science. It is interesting how the most skeptical people speak on behalf of religions that they neither know nor understand any better than Spiritism. They focus particularly on the miraculous and the supernatural, which they deny, and as they presuppose that Spiritism is founded on the miraculous and supernatural, they declare that it can be nothing more than a ridiculous fantasy. They do not realize that in categorically denying the possibility of the miraculous and the supernatural, they are denying religion itself, which is founded on revelation and miracles. What are revelations if not extra-human communications? All the writers of the scriptures, since Moses’ time, have spoken of this type of communication. What are miracles if not events of an unparalleled miraculous and supernatural nature, since they are, according to the liturgical sense, deviations from the laws of nature? In rejecting the miraculous and the supernatural, they reject the very basis of all religions and we should not view the subject from this perspective. Spiritism does not necessarily settle the question of miracles, meaning whether God, in certain cases deviates from the eternal laws that regulate the universe. In this regard, Spiritism leaves full freedom of choice as when it comes to belief. It dictates and proves that the phenomena on which it is based are supernatural only in appearance and that they only appear to be such to some because they are unusual. They are simply outside the limits of facts known at the moment of their observation. They are no more supernatural than all the other phenomena that science explains today, though they appeared to be miraculous in the past. All Spiritist phenomena, without exception, are the consequence of general laws. They reveal one of the powers of nature, albeit an unknown power, or rather one that has not been understood, but which observation has shown to be included in the order of things. Spiritism, therefore, is founded less on the miraculous and the supernatural than religion itself, and those who attack it for this reason do so because they do not know what it truly is. Even if they were among the most educated people, we would say to them, “If your science, which has taught you so many things, has not taught you that the realm of nature is infinite, you are not nearly as advanced as you think you are.”


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