Using as a reference the summary on Spiritism made by Allan Kardec himself, we prepared this post for you, organized in the format of a Q&A. This summary on Spiritism contains the main teachings sent by superior Spirits, which form the foundations of a doctrine that put an end to death and brought us answers that until then, we did not know where to find.
We divided the summary into two parts so as not to be too long. After finishing this first part, feel free to go to Summary on Spiritism Part II by clicking here!
1- What is God?
God is the supreme intelligence and primary cause of all things. God is eternal, immutable, immaterial, unique, omnipotent, sovereignly just and good. He created the Universe, which encompasses all animate and inanimate, material and immaterial beings.
2- What are material and immaterial beings?
Material beings constitute the visible or physical world, and immaterial beings comprise the invisible or spirit world – that is, where the Spirits dwell.
The spirit world is the normal, primitive, eternal, pre-existing and surviving world. The physical world is secondary: it could cease to exist, and could never have existed, without altering the essence of the spirit world.
3- How is the incarnated man/woman constituted?
We are constituted as follows:
1st The material body: analogous to animals and animated by the same vital principle.
2nd The perispirit: the semi-material body that connects the soul to the body.
3rd The soul or immaterial being: the Spirit incarnated in the body.
Thus, the man/woman has two natures. Through the body, he/she participates in the nature of animals, whose instincts are common to him/her. As for the soul, he/she participates in the nature of the Spirits.
4- Can you tell me more about the perispirit?
As mentioned above, the perispirit connects the Spirit to the body. It is a kind of semi-material body. After death, the material body, which is nothing more than a shell, ceases to exist. However, the Spirit retains its perispirit, which constitutes an ethereal body, invisible to us in the normal state (incarnated). However, the perispirit of a Spirit can become visible to people who have ostensive mediumship, as in the case of seeing mediums.
5- What is the soul?
The soul is nothing but the Spirit incarnated in the body. The qualities of the soul are those of the Spirit that are incarnated in us. Thus, the good man is the incarnation of a good Spirit, the bad man that of an impure Spirit. The Spirit has its individuality before incarnating; and the Spirit will keep it after separating from the body upon the death of the physical body.
6- What is the Spirit?
The Spirit, divine essence, is the immaterial, immortal and individualized principle of each human being. It is endowed with intellect, reason, conscience and free will.
The Spirit temporarily takes on a perishable physical body, whose destruction by death restores its freedom and return to the spiritual homeland, which is our true home. That’s right, life goes on after we die!
The Spirit is not, therefore, an abstract, undefined being, only conceivable through thought. It is a real being, circumscribed, which, in certain cases, becomes visible to ostensive mediums who can identify them by sight, hearing and touch.
7 – Can Spirits interfere in our daily lives?
Spirits are constantly interacting with physical world. They can act on matter and on our thinking. They constitute one of the powers of nature, causing of a multitude of phenomena that are hitherto unexplained (or poorly explained), and which find no rational explanation except in Spiritism. The relationships between Spirits and men are constant and have always existed. Good Spirits attract us to the good, sustain us in the challenges of life and help us to bear them with courage and determination. The bad Spirits push us towards evil: it is a pleasure for them to see us succumb and resemble them.
8- Are there different classes of Spirits?
Yes. Spirits belong to different classes and are different in power, intelligence, knowledge and morality.
First class: they are the superior Spirits. They are distinguished from others by their perfection, their knowledge, their closeness to God, the purity of their feelings and their love of doing good. They are the angels or pure Spirits.
Lower classes: these Spirits find themselves increasingly distanced from this perfection. Most of them are impregnated with our passions: hate, envy, jealousy, pride, etc. They take pleasure in evil. There are also, among the inferior, those who are neither very good nor very bad; disturbing and malicious rather than perverse. Malice and irresponsibility seem to prevail in them. They are the foolish Spirits.
9- Do Spirits evolve or do they always remain in the same class?
Spirits do not perpetually occupy the same class. Everyone improves by passing through the different degrees of the Spiritist hierarchy. This improvement takes place through incarnation, which is imposed on some as a test, and on others as an atonement. Material life is an experience that they have to go through repeatedly, until they have reached absolute moral perfection. Superior Spirits can incarnate on a mission, with the aim of helping humanity in its progress. As our greatest example of an incarnation of mission, we can mention Jesus himself, who was the purest Spirit that has ever passed through the Earth.
It is important to point out that the different corporeal existences of the Spirit are always progressive and never regressive. But the speed of this progress depends on the efforts the Spirit makes to reach perfection.
10 – Are there irremissible faults?
Superior Spirits teach that there are no irremissible faults that atonement cannot erase. The means to achieve this is found by the man in the different existences that allow him to advance, according to his desires and efforts, on the path of progress towards perfection, which is his final destination.
11- How many existences have we had?
As the Spirit needs to go through many incarnations, it is natural to consider that all of us have already had many existences, and that we will still have others, more or less perfected, either on Earth or in other worlds that are compatible with our evolutionary state.
12 – What happens to the Spirit when we die?
Leaving the body, the Spirit returns to the spirit world, meeting all those a person had known on Earth. Their entire previous existence is drawn in their memory, like a movie, with the memory of all the good and bad they have done.
Whoever overcomes bad influences through the elevation and purification of their soul, approaches the good Spirits, in whose company they will one day be. Those who allow themselves to be dominated by passions and vices, placing all their joys in the satisfaction of gross appetites, approaches impure spirits, giving preponderance to their animal nature, requiring new incarnations to purify themselves.
We hope you enjoyed the first part of our summary on Spiritism.
You can read the second part of the Summary on Spiritism by clicking here! Happy reading!
Do you want to know more about how the Spirits communicated with Kardec? Check it out in this post here!
Download Allan Kardec’s books on the website of the Brazilian Spiritist Federation (FEB) through this link.