A distinct publicist to whom we profess the most profound esteem and whose sympathy was conquered by the Spiritist Philosophy was not yet convinced about the utility of the teaching of the Spirits, sent us the following:
“…
I believe that humanity already owned the principles that you show, principles that I like and that I defend without the support of the Spiritist communications. This does not mean, , , rest assured, that I deny the help given by the divine lights.Each one of us receives that help within certain limits according to their good will, self-love and love towards their neighbor and also according to their mission during the passage on Earth. I don’t know if your communications have given you a single idea, a single principle that had not already been exposed by a number of philosophers, from Confucius to Plato, Moses, Jesus Christ, St. Agostine, Luther, Diderot, Voltaire, Condorcet, Saint-Simon, etc. all helped our humble planet progress. I don’t believe so and if I am mistaken I would appreciate your help in demonstrating my error. Notice that I do not condemn your Spiritist systems but I consider them useless, etc…”
My dear Sir, I will answer your question with a few words. I don’t have your talent or eloquence but I will try to be clear not only for yourself but for our readers to whom my answer may serve as a teaching and that is why I answer through the Spiritist Review.
To begin with I will say that there are two choices : either the communication with the Spirits does exist or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, millions of people that daily communicate with them are victims of an illusion and I myself would have had a singular idea by attributing to them something that could not have been theirs. However, it is useless to discuss this point because you do not dispute that fact. If such a communication does exist then it must have a utility because God does nothing useless. Now, such utility not only sticks out of that teaching but also and above all from the consequences of those teachings as we will see below. You say that those communications do not teach anything new beyond what had already been taught by the philosophers since Confucius; hence your conclusion is that they are useless.
The proverb “there is nothing new under the sun” is perfectly right and Edouard Fourrier clearly demonstrated that in his interesting book
Vieux neuf.
[1]What he said about the works created by the human genius is also true, philosophically speaking, by the very simple reason that the truths are from all times and they must have been revealed in all times to geniuses.
But because an idea has been formulated by someone does it mean that it is useless to have it formulated by someone else later? Haven’t Confucius and Plato enunciated moral principles identical to those of Jesus? Must one then conclude that the doctrine of Jesus was superfluous? If that were the case then very few pieces of work would have real utility since, for the majority of them, one can say that the idea had been thought of before and that it would be enough to go back to the first one.
You, yourself, my dear Sir, that dedicate your talent to the triumph of ideas of progress and freedom, what do you say that has not been said by another hundred others before you? Does it mean that you should go quiet? You don’t think so.
Confucius, for example, proclaims a truth. After him, one, two, three, or hundred others that came after him develop this idea, complement and present it in a different form, and the truth that was hidden in the archives of history and as a privilege of some erudite becomes popular, reaches the masses and becomes a popular belief. What would have happened to the ideas of former philosophers if their ideas had not been retaken second hand by modern writers? How many would know them today? That is how each pushes their own weight.
Let us then suppose that the Spirits had not taught anything new; that they had not revealed any new truths; in short, that they had only repeated all of those ideas professed by the apostles of progress. Then, those principles taught by the voices of the invisible world, in all corners of the planet, in the privacy of the homes, from the palace to the hut, would have not meant anything. Therefore, are the daily and hourly contributions that we see everywhere nothing?
Don’t you think that the masses are more enlightened and impressed by the maxims that come from their relatives and friends instead of those from Socrates and Plato that they never read or that they just know by name?
How can you, my dear Sir, that fights all kinds of abuse neglect similar help, a help that knocks on all doors, challenging all kinds of sorcery and inquisition measures?
Jcm11
This helper alone – you shall one day have the proof – will triumph over all resistances because it fights the abuse in its foundation, supported by the fading faith that it helps to consolidate.
You preach fraternity in eloquent terms and that is great and I admire you for that. But what is fraternity with selfishness? Egotism will always be the stepping stone for the accomplishment of the most generous ideas. There is no lack of old and recent examples to support such proposition. It is then necessary to fight the evil on its foundation, thus combating egotism and pride that have already done so and will abort the best conceived projects. But how can we destroy selfishness under the empire of the materialistic ideas that concentrate the action of man in present life? To someone that expects nothing from this life denial [jcm-need to check definition to ensure follows line of thinking] has no meaning and any sacrifice is silly because it diminishes the short pleasures of this world. Who better than Spiritism gives that unshakable faith in the future? How has Spiritism succeeded against disbelief in such a large number of persons and to dominate so many bad passions but through the material proofs that it provides? And how can Spiritism provide such proofs without the relationships established with those who no longer live on Earth?
So, isn’t that useful to teach people about where they come from, where they are going to and the future that is reserved to them? The solidarity that Spiritism teaches is no longer a simple theory but an unavoidable consequence of the existing relationships between the living ones and the dead, relationships that make fraternity among the living ones not only a moral duty but a necessity because it is related to the interest of their future life.
Weren’t the ideas of a cast systems and the the aristocratic prejudices resulting from pride and selfishness, an obstacle to the emancipation of the masses in all times? Is it enough to say that all men are equal to the privileged ones? Were the Gospels sufficient to persuade the Christian owners of slaves that they were their brothers? Now, who is capable of destroying such prejudices? Who can place all minds on a level plane better than the certainty that among creatures that are in the lowest level of the social hierarchy there are some that have occupied the top of that scale; that among our servants and among those to whom we give the alms there could be relatives, friends, people who had authority over us and finally that those who are on top today may go down to the last step? Is that a sterile teaching to humanity? Is such an idea new? No. More than one philosopher issued that and presented that great justice of God. However, is it useless to give them a positive and evident proof of all that?
Several centuries before Copernicus, Galileo and Newton the thesis of the roundness and the movement of Earth had been established. Those wise geniuses came to demonstrate what the others had only suspected. Therefore there are Spirits that come to demonstrate the great truths that remained like dead words to most people, giving them the basis of a natural law.
Ah! Dear Sir! If you only knew, as I do, how many people that would have been obstacles to the realization of humanitarian ideas changed the way they see things and today, thanks to Spiritism, became its champions, and you would not say that the teaching of the Spirits is useless. You would praise it as the life line of society and would strongly support its propagation.
Was it the teaching of the philosophers that they lacked? No because almost all of them were enlightened people but to them philosophers were dreamers, idealists, conservatives. In fact, they were revolutionaries! It was necessary to touch their hearts and it was the voice of beyond the grave that were heard in their own homes.
Allow me, dear Sir, to stop here today. The abundance of material forces me to analyze the issue from a different point of view in the next issue.
[1] New old (TN)
