The Spiritist Creed
Pierre-Gaëtan Leymarie
The evils of Humanity come from their imperfection ; it's because of man's addictions that they harm each other. As long as they are vicious, they will be unhappy because the struggle of interests will generate constant miseries. Of course, good laws give to improving social status, but powerless to make humanity happy, for they too crush the bad passions without eliminating them. Secondly, because they are more repressive and not moralizing, and only repress the most salient evil acts, without destroying the causes. In fact, the goodness of laws relate to the goodness of men; As long as they remain dominated by pride and selfishness, they will make laws in benefit of their personal ambitions. Civil law only modifies the surface; only the moral law can penetrate the intimate forum of consciousness and reform it.
The only remedy for their evils lies in them if they improve morally. Since the cause of evils lies in imperfections, happiness will increase to the extent that imperfections eradicate.
No matter how good a social institution, if men are bad, they will distort and disfigure the essence to exploit it for their own benefit. When men are good, they will organize good institutions, which will be durable, because all have an interest in keeping them.
Therefore, the social question does not have as its starting point the form of such or that institution; it is all in the moral improvement of people and masses. That's what is the principle, the true key to the happiness of humankind, because then man will no longer think to harm each other. It is not enough corruption hidden with varnish, it is indispensable to extirpate corruption.
The principle of improvement is in the nature of beliefs, as these constitute the motive of actions and modify the feelings. Also in the ideas inculcated since childhood identifying Spirit are ideas that further development of intelligence and reason; can strengthen, and never to destroy. It is through education, that humanity will transform.
A man who makes a serious effort to improve, is already happy in this life. In addition to the satisfaction he brings to his conscience, he is free from material and moral miseries, which are the inevitable result of their imperfections. You will be calm, because the tribulations will only affect you lightly. You will enjoy health, because it will not spoil your body with excesses. You will be rich, because you will satisfy with what is necessary. You will have peace of conscience because you don't experience fictitious needs, nor will you be tormented by the seat of honors and of the superfluous, by the fever of ambition, envy, and jealousy. Indulge the imperfections of others, inspire pity and not anger which will cause less suffering for them. Avoid anything that might harm your neighbor by words and by acts, seeking, instead, to do useful and pleasing things for others, let no one to suffer with your contact.
It guarantees your happiness in the future life because, the more you cleanse yourself, the more you will rise in the hierarchy of intelligent beings and soon abandon this land of trials, going to higher worlds, for the evil which you have repaired in this life you will not meet problems later; since you will only find in erraticism beings friendly and not plagued by the ceaseless vision of those who have grounds of complaint against you.
When men live as such they will be so much happier. So gain, step by step, these feelings all over a people, a whole race, all Humanity and our globe will take their place among the happy worlds.
Is this a utopia, a chimera? It will be for one who does not believe in progress of the soul; and not for one who believes in its indefinite perfectibility.
General progress is the result of all personal progress; but the progress does not consist only in developing intelligence, but in acquisition of some knowledge. In this there is but one part of progress, that does not necessarily lead to good, since there are men who use evil of their wisdom. Progress consists mainly in moral improvement, in the Spirit, in ridding evil tendencies that exist in us. This is the real progress, the only one that can guarantee happiness to the human race, because it is the opposite from evil. Too bad can a man of the most cultivated intelligence, that if morally advanced, only good will do. Therefore, the moral progress of Humanity is in Everyone's Interest.
But what matters the improvement and happiness of future generations, to one who believes that everything ends with life? What interest does he have in improving himself, in taming inferior passions, in depriving themselves of whatever benefit of someone? - None. Logic itself tells you that the interest is to enjoy quickly and by all possible means, since tomorrow he is never more.
The doctrine of nadismo(practicing nothingness) is the paralysis of human progress, because it limits the views of man at the imperceptible point of the present existence; because it restricts ideas and forcibly concentrates them on material life. With this doctrine - in which the man is nothing before or after, ceasing with life all social relations - solidarity is a vain word, fraternity is a theory without foundation, self-denial in favor of the other is a mere scam, egoism, with its maxim: each by itself, is a natural law; revenge is an act of reason; happiness, privilege of the strongest and more astute; suicide is the logical end of the one who, being empty of resources and no more waiting and can not get out of the woods. A society founded on the nadismo would bring in itself the germ of its next dissolution.
However, there are other feelings of the one who has faith in the future; that nothing he has acquired in wisdom and morality will be lost to him; that today's work will bear fruit tomorrow; that he himself will be part of the generations more advanced and more successful. You know that by working for others, works for itself. His vision does not stop on Earth, it covers the infinity of worlds that will serve him a day's dwelling; see the glorious place that will fit you, like that of all beings who attain perfection.
With faith in the future life, the circle of ideas expands to him; the future belongs to him; personal progress has an end, a real utility. The continuity of relations between men is born solidarity; fraternity is based on a law of the Nature and in the interest of all.
Belief in the future life is at last an element of progress, because it stimulates the Spirit; only it can give man courage in his trials, because it provides him with reason for being and the perseverance in the fight against evil, the goal. Therefore, it is to form this belief in the spirit of the masses that apply those who possess it.
However, it is innate in man. All religions proclaim it. Because so to this day did not give the results expected? In general, the conditions which reason can not accept. As they paint it, it breaks all relations with the present; as long as he has left Earth, the creäture becomes strange to humanity: no solidarity exists between the dead and the living; O progress is purely personal; each one, working for the future, only for if he works, he thinks only in himself and for a vague purpose, which has nothing defined, nothing positive, on which the thought is firmly established; Finally, because it is more a hope than a material certainty. This results, for some, indifference, for others, a mystical exaltation that, isolating man from the earth, is fundamentally harmful to humanity's real progress, because it neglects material progress, for which nature imposes on him to give.
However incomplete the results , they are effective. How many men felt encouraged and sustained in the path of good for this vague hope! How many did stop the fall to evil, for fear of compromising their future! How many noble virtues this belief develop! Not to disregard past beliefs, however imperfect they were, when they lead to the good: they were in accord with the degree of advancement of Humanity.
But, having progressed, Humanity claims beliefs in harmony with new ideas. If the elements of faith remain stationary and are spirit, lose all influence; and the good that they have produced, in time, can continue because those elements are no longer up to par.
That the doctrine of the future life from now on bear the fruits which are due, it is necessary, first, to completely satisfy reason; that corresponds to the idea of the wisdom, justice, and goodness of God; not denied in any way by Science. It is necessary that the future life, in essence be as positive as the present life, which is its continuation, just as tomorrow continues the previous day.
Finally, it is necessary to show solidarity between the past, the present and the future, through the various existences. Such an idea of the future life that Spiritism presents, it is not a human conception with the merit of just being more rational. It is the result of studies made on the testimonies offered by Spirits of different categories, in their manifestations, which allowed exploring the extracorporeal life in all the its phases, from the upper end to the lower end of the scale of beings. Consequently, it is no longer a simple theory, or a more or less probable hypothesis: they derive from observations. Inhabitants of the invisible world come to describe respective states and situations that a most avid imagination could not conceive.
By ministering to the material proof of the existence and immortality of the soul, beginning in the mysteries of birth, death, the future life, the inevitable consequences of good and evil, Spiritist Doctrine - better than any other - highlights the need for improvement. Through it, man knows where he comes from, where he goes, why he is on Earth; that good has a purpose and practical utility. It does not just prepare the man for the future, but also for the present and for society. Improving morally, men will prepare the reign of peace and fraternity.
The Spiritist Doctrine is thus the most powerful element of moralization understood simultaneously by the heart, intelligence and self-interest. In its very essence Spiritism participates in all branches of the physical, metaphysical and moral knowledge.