We prepared this post to explain how the spirits communicated with Allan Kardec for the codification of the Spiritist Doctrine, in France, from the 1850s. You can check, in chronological order, the means of communication used.
1- Tables
In the 19th century, a phenomenon impressed Europe, the United States and other parts of the world: the table-turning. This phenomenon caught the attention of many people, among them Rivail. It took place surrounded by strange circumstances, such as unusual noises, knocks without any apparent cause. The table’s movement, however, was not always circular; it was often abrupt and disorderly. Usually the table was violently shaken, overturned, carried in different directions, and, contrary to all the laws of statics, lifted into the air where it remained suspended without any support.
The first intelligent manifestations, through this phenomenon, were produced by means of knocks and taps that were produced within the table’s wood itself, in which a certain number of taps answered – yes or no – to a question asked. As those responses were quite limited, a new system was established using a certain number of taps to correspond to each letter of the alphabet in order to form words and sentences.
The accuracy of the tables’ responses has astounded even the most skeptical. The mysterious intelligence that provided the answers and asked about its nature, declared itself to be a spirit. It declined to give its name, but gave a variety of information about itself. There is a very important circumstance here which must be noted. Until that moment, no one had imagined that it was the spirits that were communicating through the tables; it was the phenomenon that revealed itself spontaneously.
One of the main purposes of table-turning in the 19th century was to draw men’s attention to the existence of the spiritual world. So much so that after reaching this first goal, this phenomenon naturally stopped. Furthermore, this method of communication was very ineffective. It used to take a long time to form sentences. To Kardec’s relief, the spiritual world began to use other more efficient methods of communication for the revelation of Spiritism, as we will detail below.
2- Baskets with Pencils
The spirits communicated with Kardec through this new method, which themself indicated, recommending the adaptation of a pencil to a beaked basket. Placed on top of a sheet of paper, the basket was set in motion by the same occult power used by the spirits to move the tables. However, instead of a single regular movement, the pencil itself formed words, sentences, dissertations of many pages on advanced subjects: philosophy, morals, metaphysics, poetry, psychology; as quickly as if it had been written by hand.
The basket could only be set in motion under the influence of certain people, gifted with a special aptitude for that purpose, who are designated by the name of mediums, that is, means or intermediaries between spirits and men.
3- Spirits communicated with Kardec through Psychography
It was later recognized that the basket was really no more than an appendage to the hand. And the medium, taking the pencil directly, began to write by an involuntary and almost feverish impulse. In this way, the spirits’ communications with Kardec became more easy, fluid and complete. Allan Kardec used many psychographic mediums to prepare the books that make part of the Spiritist Doctrine. Among these mediums there were many women and even young girls, as is the case of the sisters Julie and Caroline Baudin, who were 14 and 16 years old respectively when they began to cooperate with Kardec in the codification of The Spirits’ Book, which was published in 1857.
Currently, psychography is the most used means of communication with spirits. The number of people gifted with this aptitude is considerable and is growing every day. There are many other varieties of mediumistic faculties: communications transmitted by speaking, hearing, viewing, touching, and even by direct writing from the Spirits, that is, without the aid of the medium’s hand or pencil.
Mediumship was a very well explored theme in The Mediums’ Book, which was codified by Allan Kardec and published in 1861.
We hope you enjoyed learning more about the means of communication that the spirits used to convey to Allan Kardec the messages that comprised the codification of Spiritism. If you want to understand more about the Spiritist Doctrine, check out the post we prepared here regarding the 8 curiosities about Spiritism.
Sources:
Brazilian Spiritist Federation (FEB)
The Mediums’ Book, Allan Kardec.
Kardec: the biography, Marcel Couto Maior.