CARNIVAL OR MOZART? A TIMELESS DIALOGUE

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PHILOSOPHY AND SPIRITIST PHILOSOPHY – CONVERGENT AND DIVERGENT ASPECTS - 1st. PART

What is Philosophy?
What is the origin of Philosophy? What is the reason why men desire or need to think philosophically? And putting into practice the act of philosophizing or just thinking, what man really expects to find? Our thoughts tell us that such an uncontrollable impulse is part of human nature. (...) The origins of Philosophy would exist in the first deep thought the first man who first philosophized (...) When God created man, He did not make him of clay, but of thought, so, philosopher. There are many definitions of Philosophy, but there is only one which remains essential: Pythagoras’ Love of Wisdom. (Excerpts from JHPires contained in the Program Booklet of the Spiritist Philosophical Studies Project, fev.2001).

Luc Ferry, philosopher, former Education minister in France, concludes that every definition of Philosophy remains controversial, since most philosophers have been discussed it nowadays without coming to a deal. Among several definitions, we can mention: the formation of a critical and autonomous thinking, a method to meet the main aspects of a rigorous thinking, the art of thought rooted in a wonderment and questioning attitude (FERRY, L. 2006); it is through its methods, more than its subjects, that Philosophy must be distinguished from other arts or sciences (AYER, AJ 2008); Philosophy is the study of fundamental, abstract and general problems since they are concerned to the nature of existence, knowledge, morality, reason and human purposes (Teichman, J., Evans, KC, 2009). No one is absolutely sure about what Philosophy is (...), it can be understood in a traditional way, when dealing with the three Big Questions: What is it? How do we know? What do we do about it? (...) Other thinkers also said that Philosophy is much more defined through a particular method which could find reasons for conclusions and making them clear: finally, some people still say that Philosophy is a kind of attitude or way of life based on Socrates’ teachings (GARVEY, J.; Stangroom. J. 2009).

PHILOSOPHY AND SPIRITIST PHILOSOPHY – CONVERGENT AND DIVERGENT ASPECTS - 2nd. PART

In the Socratic and after Socratic period in Greece, Philosophy embraces many subjects, when intended to be a method of apprehending reality. In fact, this movement had already taken place with the pre-Socratics and the search for the arkhe (source) of everything. The Western Philosophy, science of the sciences, inquires about the first cause, it is concerned on the “being of things” and about all the latest goals; so, in order to be developed it had to be separated from religion, since it is focused on divine revelation. Its questions about God, the origin of the universe, the nature of being, must be done by the reason itself, detached from any mystical or mythical interpretation.

PHILOSOPHY AND SPIRITIST PHILOSOPHY – CONVERGENT AND DIVERGENT ASPECTS - 3rd. PART

The Spiritist Philosophy

“This book (The Spirits’ Book) was written by the order and dictation of the higher Spirits to lay the foundations of a rational philosophy, free of the damage caused by the spirit of systems. (Prolegomena/SB)”. By saying that Spiritism is a philosophy, Allan Kardec was not excluding its scientific character, quite the contrary; moreover, as ethics or morality is one of the areas that Philosophy embraces, such denomination did not exclude the moral aspect of Spiritism, which is the essence of so-called spiritist religion. (CHIBENI, S.S. Spiritism’s triple aspect).
Philosophy has much to gain by seriously considering the facts of Spiritism, not only because such facts are the solemn sanction of its moral teaching and by themselves will prove to the most hardened spirits the responsibility of their behavior (...), the detailed study of the consequences deduced from the existence of the soul in a disembodied state (...) the knowledge of the essence of the soul will lead philosophy to know the essence of things and the attributes of God. Philosophy means the search for the answers, meaning, rationality, understanding of things, and Spiritism, by the very nature of the issues it manages, is Philosophy. (PIRES, JH, 1983).
What is the philosophical originality of Spiritism? It was born among the French rationalist heritage (formed in the West since Greek philosophy), it admits the self-identity, as an individual soul researched after death; it admits the intelligibility of the real, yet it admits the effectiveness of human action as a factor of evolution; it accepts the intuition, the possibility to access the spiritual side of life, therefore under this historical and objective reason’s control. (INCONTRI, D. 2004).

In other words, the being, as the immortal Spirit, builds his interexistentiality, his spiritual identity through successive lives. The Spiritist Philosophy, far from being conflicting and unsystematic, assumes the role of conceptual synthesis of all knowledge developed in secure foundations of reason leading to full understanding of natural laws, the divine presence in creation. More than that, it guides the being to a fully identification with his Father, and makes him to know his own religiosity in spirit and truth, so that one day the being might say as Jesus said, I am one with my Father.

PHILOSOPHY AND SPIRITIST PHILOSOPHY – CONVERGENT AND DIVERGENT ASPECTS - 4th. PART

INTERACTIVE SPACE:
THESE ARE THE FIRST COMMENTED CLASSES FROM THE SPIRITIST PHILOSOPHY COURSE OF THE SPIRITIST PHILOSOPHiCAL STUDIES PROJECT – SPSP; AS YOU CAN SEE, THERE ARE MANY CONVERGENT POINTS ACCORDING TO THE AUTHORS ABOVE BETWEEN THE SO-CALLED "TRADITIONAL" PHILOSOPHY AND OUR BELOVED SPIRITIST PHILOSOPHY. SO, LET’S GO DEEP INTO KNOWING WHAT THESE CONVERGENT POINTS ARE, BUT ABOVE ALL, POINTS OR ASPECTS THAT DO NOT CONTRADICT OR PUT IN DOUBT THE PRINCIPLES ON WHICH THE SPIRITIST PHILOSOPHY HAS ITS FOUNDATIONS, SIMPLY BECAUSE THEY ARE UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLES!
ACCORDING TO LUC FERRY, THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN PHILOSOPHY IS TO THINK: "THINK ABOUT IT, IF POSSIBLE, WITH RIGOUR AND SOMETIMES IN A CRITICAL AND INTERROGATIVE WAY TOO."
HOWEVER, ANY SCIENCE OR EVEN THE EXERCISE OF PROFESSIONS COULD ALSO LEAD TO REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION. THEREFORE THE DIFFERENCE IS THAT WITH PHILOSOPHY, WE DO NOT DIGRESS ABOUT COMMON SENSE, THAT IS, THE ULTIMATE PURPOSE OF PHILOSOPHY IS NOT JUST THINK ABOUT PRACTICAL METHODS OF LIFE, FEELINGS ABOUT WAY OF LIFE, OR STILL DIFFICULTIES ABOUT EXISTENCE, ETC.

WHEN WE DO NOT FIND THOSE ANSWERS, OUR TENDENCY IS TO THINK THAT RELIGION CAN IMPROVE LIFE BY ITS REPRESENTATIVES ON EARTH OR EVEN THROUGH SOME "CONTACT" CERIMONIES WITH THE DIVINE. BOTH, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION "THINK" WHY WE EXIST, AND WHAT IS THE ULTIMATE PURPOSE OF EXISTENCE. BUT THEY FOLLOW OPPOSED WAYS: WHILE PHILOSOPHY REFLECTS THE HUMAN AMBITIONS, DESIRES, EMULATIONS, RELIGION PROJECTS TOWARD THE DIVINE THE SOLUTION OF THOSE PROBLEMS WICH CANNOT BE SOLVED!! SO, WHAT CAN WE DO?
WELL, THERE IS NO PRACTICAL SOLUTION TO SUCH MATTERS! THE ONLY THING WE CAN DO IS TO LOOK FOR THE ANSWERS.

FOR EXAMPLE, THE HUMAN BEING EVER ASKED THE CAUSES OF AN EARTHQUAKE. IN OLD TIMES IT WAS CAUSED BY THE FURY OF GODS; LATER, BY DIVINE PUNISHMENT BECAUSE OF BAD ACTIONS MEN PRACTICED. TODAY, WE KNOW THAT THERE ARE ISLANDS WHICH FORM COUNTRIES AND CONTINENTS, AND THAT BELOW OR NEAR THEM THERE ARE PLATFORMS THAT MOVE AT REGULAR TIMES. AND WHY? BECAUSE OUR PLANET IS NOT A COMPACT BLOCK; IT HAS AN INCANDESCENT CENTER FORMED BY PLATES THAT MOVE TO THE SURFACE; AND THE EARTH IS ALIVE BECAUSE THERE ARE A GREAT NUMBER OF ANIMAL BEINGS DEPOSITED IN THE DEEP SEA AND OVER IT WHICH LIVE WITH US, HUMANS BEINGS. WE ARE JUST ONE MORE LINK OF A HUGE CHAIN FORMING A WEB OF LIFE, FRITJOF CAPRA SHALL SAY.

WE ARE HUMAN BEINGS WHO HAVE EXPERIENCED, THROUGH THE TIME, THE SEVERAL STAGES OF EVOLUTION - AND MUCH MORE THAN THIS, WE HAVE REGISTERED IN OUR PERISPIRIT THE INORGANIC AND ORGANIC PHASES OF THIS PROCESS, ALTHOUGH WE CANNOT CONSCIOUSLY CONCEIVED IT YET, IN AN EFFECTIVE WAY. DEEP INSIDE US, WE SEEK TO RESPOND TO SUCH PHENOMENA DEFINING THEM AS "TRAGEDIES”, AS "DIVINE PUNISHMENT”, OR " REDEMPTION OR ATONEMENT." THE TRUTH IS THAT IT IS THE SAME IDEA WITH DIFFERENT WORDS.
THEN, LET'S PHILOSOPHISE ACCORDING TO THE SPIRITIST KNOWLEDGEMENTS: THE BOOK OF SPIRITS, QUESTION 920, KARDEC WONDERS IF IT IS POSSIBLE THAT A HUMAN BEING HAS A COMPLETE HAPPINESS ON EARTH. ARISTOTLE WAS ALREADY WORRIED ABOUT OFFERING PRACTICAL GUIDANCE ON HOW TO BE HAPPY. LET’S SEARCH FOR IT?
SEE THAT SPIRITIST PHILOSOPHY NEVER OFFERS WAYS OF "SELF-AID”, BUT RELIABLE AND PERFECT WAYS FOR THE HUMAN BEING TO FIND AND LOVE THEMSELVES AND TO RESPECT LIFE AROUND - INCLUDING YOUR FELLOW! ! AND THEN, TO THANK GOD FOR EVERYTHING THAT MIGHT LEAD YOU TO THIS CONCRETE, SAFE AND FULL HAPPINESS.

BIBLIOGRAPHY (1) – Spiritist Philosophical Studies Project

A thorough and comprehensive study of literature to be used in this course is designed in order to lead the students to approach issues concerning Spiritist Philosophy, and also to equip them to the best and known researchers and historians’s works concerning philosophy (2). Equal work was done in order to highlight convergent aspects to the work contained in the Spiritist Codification, as well as the researches and studies of the pioneers of Spiritism in Europe (France, England and Italy) and North and South Americas (United States and Brazil), whose focus include scientific, philosophical and religious aspects. We also have in view to introduce serious spiritists scholars and researchers whose works reflect coherence and competence in dealing with Spiritism, and by any means have brought interpolations of doubtful character defacing this course or even the Spiritist Doctrine.
Educating Men to think in a “spiritist way” means to lead them to the highest level of consciousness, which implies to update their own potential, to develop and expand their intellectual and moral horizon in connection with the High Spirits who lead human destinies. (Sonia Theodoro da Silva).

(1) This course adapted its literature to make the acquisition and/or consultation easier for the students abroad. You can also try to download the books mainly the Spiritist’s ones. The books of History of Philosophy in general can be used – we indicate some of them. Therefore, none of them can be dogmatic or to express religious thinking or even theologies, since they are not applicable for this course.
(2) Although we have sometimes used some philosophical expressions, it is important to remember that Spiritism have already developed its own expressions and conceptual language (see the Lesson of Language and The Spirits' Book, INTRODUCTION I).

The Dawn of Regeneration

Referring to the concept of Regeneration, amongst numerous definitions, we chose two, the first, as the restoration of what was destroyed. The second, that which is also in tune with the philosophical-spiritist aspect, which is figuratively the moral reform. Let us explain: concerning the first definition, to restore what was destroyed, we re-
fer to restoring the intellectual and conscientious values obstructed by an avalanche of new concepts and ways of life based on the existential-nihilist movements which are summarized in the following statement: live today because there is no tomorrow.
The Spiritist Philosophy, contained in The Spirit´s Book brings up, as a synthesis, the actual values indicated above, giving the human being the responsibility for one’s actions and revealing to oneself, based on science, that life is immortal, and that as heirs of time, we bring weights from the past that need revision today so that, freed, we can write a better future. The second concept, reviewed by the scope of the spiritist thought, leads us to the work of revision of our moral posture before the events that occur in our personal day-to-day lives and that calls us to make decisions, as well as in social events, as members that we are of the community of incarnated Spirits. The current time, as defined by Allan Kardec in “Genesis” is one of a battle of ideas: “Spiritism does not create social renewal: it is the hu-manity’s maturity that will make this renewal a necessity”.
What we are seeing in the world today, is exactly this process, which we conventionally label as “transition”; however, much more than conventions, the Human Being claims for the Divine Being, latent, and that by virtue of incisive external stimuli is projecting oneself to the full Life, like it was predicted by the Spirits to Kardec. Undoubtedly, the tragedies, the cataclysms, the socio-economic crises, the social unrest, do not come from nowhere. All of these appear at the right time for a revision of values, for the regeneration of our Spirits.
(Sonia Theodoro da Silva - published in The Journal of Psychological Studies,Year V l Issue N° 20)

Spiritual Perspective Of Citizenship

We are used to position the concept of citizenship only in the relations human State; it is the space of the social and political relations, where we elect the managers of public administration having as aim the public well being. Plato, in The Republic, structures his form of govern based in the vision that the philosopher would be the ideal leader, “the authentic government, which should not aim at its personal interests, but those of the ruled.”
Would the philosophers of nowadays be on this condition? Maybe. We know that the excellence of the professions fundamentally lies in the character of the practitioners of these professions, much more than only on their abilities. The training of the woman or man on the course of their duties concerns education and ethics and their moral implications. Ethics that sustains the pillars of citizenship based on the moral laws, without being dogmatized, politicized in the sense of the prevalence of power games in detriment of the basic needs of the individuals.
It seems to us that Spiritism touched the bottom of these issues, by encouraging the exercise of fraternal solidarity. Socrates idealizes a society where the beings would give up power for the common well being, however, we are far from this. The Superior Spirits of the spiritist Codification pointed us to the path of self knowledge and of self education. Allan Kardec integrates these teachings when he tells us about the Intellectual - Moral Aristocracy as the last phase of human growth, where we would direct our behavior based on Wisdom and Fraternity. Léon Denis welcomes this guidance and idealizes a socialist society, in the true sense of the term, without ideolo-gies, which have much afflicted the human beings, little or nothing doing for their ennoblement. Herculano Pires touches upon this issue, telling us about the spiritist cosmossociology, goal of the Spirit that transits between dimensions apparently opposed.
The question is not closed. Still a lot remain to us to do, to meditate, to become aware of, to teach, to be. Let us take the initiative.
(Sonia Theodoro da Silva - Published in The Journal of Psychological Studies - Year IV l Issue N° 19)

Communication with the dead

With the rise of Spiritism, codified by Allan Kardec, the most important moment of the planetary life was launched: the "dead" demystified death! Since then, they never ceased to communicate, revealing details of their immortal lives when incarnated and of life after death, without interruption; we would no longer grieve at the loss of loved ones, no longer would we fear to die because in fact to die would mean to return home. And, most importantly, they corroborated the most important event to Jesus' teachings - his own resurrection, explained in the most natural manner possible, based on the divine natural laws, giving evidence to His greatest lesson: life goes on in other dimensions. Not that this was unknown; see Ernesto Bozzano's research in Primitive People and Supernormal Manifestation, and The Spirit and the Time, by José Herculano Pires, based on John Murphy's The Origins and History of Religions, which we had the satisfaction to translate into English some years ago.
In Plato (Ion and Timaeus), we find the philosopher approaching the mediumship subject matter; in Greece, the prophetic mediumship flourished in the great Oracle at Delphi; the classical antiquity reminds us of times when communication between the living and the dead happened consistently and uninterrupted. The Old and New Testa-ment are books produced via the mediumship, in which the guiding Spirits of the communities listed therewith are present at all essential times. Mediumship is present at the transfiguration of Jesus on the Mount Tabor, when Elijah and Moses manifested themselves to the surprised eyes of Peter, John and James (Luke 9: 28).
With Spiritism, is Jesus of Nazareth who comes back to talk to us, demystified, full and grand in His mission to lead humanity to its fullness. It is the true religiosity that resurges to our hearts eager for peace, and to our reason as an avid faith - a faith that questions, that seeks, that finds, that reaches plenitude.
(Sonia Theodoro da Silva - Published in The Journal of Psychological Studies,Year IV l Issue N°17)

PAUL AND STEPHEN - A GREAT STORY

How did an old man's trip to the market to buy fish and vegetables lead to a chain of cause and effect events that would change te religious face of the world forever?
Who was Paul of Tarsus?
A fanatical Pharisee and ruthless persecutor of Christians and the newborn Christian doctrine? Or a being predestined by divine choice, who converted upon receiving the gift of the apparition of Jesus in a glorious vision at the gates of Damascus?
This book will show the reader the greatness of Paul of Tarsus, a courageous, daring and sincere man, who repented for radical posture that culminated in the stoning of Christianity's first martyr, Stephen, and who humbly undertook the accelerated revision of his ideas in answer to Jesus' call. Amid persecutions, infirmities, mockery, disillusionment, desertions by friends, stonings, beatings and imprisonments, he transformed his life intoan example of labor through dozens of years of struggle by founding churches and rendering them assestance.
At some pointe in our lives, we all receive Christ's call. What have we done? Paul And Stephen wil enable the reader tounderstand how love erases a multutude of wrongs.

(source: http://www.ceilivraria.com.br/Livros-edicei/Ingles/Livro-paul-and-stephen-paulo-e-estevao-ingles-.html?acao=DT&prod_id=98694)

OPERATION CHRISTMAS CHILD

COME AND JOIN WITH THOSE WHO HELP TO MAKE A BETTER WORLD !

SEE THE NEW VIDEO ABOUT SPIRITIST PHILOSOPHY AND MEDIUMSHIP

What is the meaning of Spiritist Philosophy? 1st. Part

“To know how to 'philosophise' we need to learn the science of going deep into ourselves.”(J.H.Pires)

There is a great importance in the practical meaning of philosophy and Spiritist Philosophy as they stimulate serious and careful thoughts that bring us self-knowledge and open great perspectives to understand the most important human and spiritualists questions. If we just think of philosophy as a disposition to think, we are minimasing its importance in the context of human history. With philosophy, we learn to consider the elements that make up the existence of being-in-the-world, as there is a congenital existential anxiety inside us. The Spiritist Philosophy expands this quest and reveals the existence of the interbeing living in infinite dimensions, temporal and evolutive ones, where he expresses its lights or shadows in the forms concerning to its level of consciousness.
Philosophy seeks answers, rises, develops, reflects, and reconsider the previous answers. It does not conclude, just leads you to do so. During this journey we discover to be in a constant and infinite search of ourselves. Hamlet, Shakespeare’s character, in front of the mirror, and with his court jester’s remains in hands, opens the perspective of the nothing, a distressing, confusing and overwhelming emptiness that takes us by surprise before the silence of the death. The answer is this ? Are these remains the great answer?
Existentialism - or the anguish to exist – has urged man to be fully “here” and “now” to accept his intense “human reality” of present moment – the future is nothing but visions and illusions to give to our present direction and purpose. "One hundred years after Kardec, the philosophy in France almost fell apart in the sophism of nothing, with Jean Paul Sartre and his school. But Simone de Beauvoir, Sartre's companion and disciple, confirms and illustrates Kardec’ s considerations, writing: '... I hate to think of my annihilation. I think about the books I read, places I visited, and the accumulated knowledge that no longer will exist (in La Force des Choses).’ The approaching of death, under the idea of nothing, brings to the most cultured creatures a bitter hopelessness. (Pires, JH)."

What is the meaning of Spiritist Philosophy? 2nd. Part

It is under this distressing perspective that human intelligence has tried to minimize the undeniable and irrefutable reality of death. The Thinker (Le Penseur) is one of the most famous bronze sculptures of French sculptor Auguste Rodin. It shows a man into deep meditation, in a gesture of one who is fighting with a powerful internal struggle. He became the archetype of philosophical inquiry as a quest for himself.
All those who have managed to overcome the surface of existence, even because it carries a sign of their inherent fragility, has been identified themselves with that figure. The Thinker brings an anguish of the form lacerated by suffering; he seems to carry a deformed, disproportionate, personal and tragic drama. His face looks upside down.
He does not look for the anwers in the sky above his thought, but upside down his feet. He does not show a peaceful thinking, he shows a facial expression of torment due to lack of responses.
He is naked. He is abandoned or deprived of illusions that could hide his own reality, he exposes himself. And leaves one of the most eloquent messages to the human being now: the true reality of being does not lie here, in the perishable temporality, but the immortality of the one who thinks: the Spirit.

What is the meaning of Spiritist Philosophy? 3rd. Part

(BABEL)

The "predictions" of great tragedies to happen, through movies and television have shown, metaphorically, this current drama: human being, lost in his inner dramas wants to destroy himself, destroying the source of his own existence - the planet he lives on.Other authors whose works are on the screens, have shown human senses (Babel, Essay on blindness), to dive deep into their emotions, throught the sensitive world, seeking to bring out their personal tragedies and throwing them, as they were projections of himself, in a cathartic movement in search of identification.
In 25 centuries of philosophy, we have innumerable contradictory doctrines. None of the western thinkers have agreed among themselves with their proposals. There is a deep dissatisfaction generated by the lack of agreement. The ultimate goal should be to accomplish at least with some aspects of philosophy, but who could get it until now? We praise those who tried. Their efforts have immortalized the history of the human spirit in its infinite journey through self-knowledge. Even those, who got lost in the emptiness of themselves. So they did, because of the absolute necessity of identifying with each other, and everyone with God.

What is the meaning of Spiritist Philosophy? 4th. Part

(Photo: Nietzsche and his mother)

"God is dead," Nietzsche said once. The god presented by the religions is dead. He died for lack of mercy and love to the human being. He died asphyxiated after falling into the millions of coins generated from the criminal money raising from the naivety and lack of knowledge. He died in each ritual of empty answers, which perpetuates the belief that the crucifixion is our freedom (!?).
He died in each mutilated or killed being by lost bullets or bombs strapped to the heart of those who have sought Him in despair. He died in each fallen tree, in every polluted river in the super-heating of the air we breathe. He died yet by the lack of kindness, cordiality and mutual respect among those who call themselves his followers.Prof. Herculano Pires used the phrase "agony of religions" (Pires, JH), to better define the process of transmutation of ostentation for internalization. Pageantry of faith to affirm himself. To perpetuate the olympic representation of human god on Earth, in the figure of those who insist on represent Him.

What is the meaning of Spiritist Philosophy? 5th. Part

(Jesus says: FOLLOW ME !)

God has no representatives. He has children and the biggest one was disfigured by the archetypal human psyche, making of his actions and projections of a mythological hero, the son of a god with a mortal woman, and therefore bearer of miraculous virtues, a mix of hero-martyr-warrior who came to let us free from Evil, the archetypal figure of the fallen angel who insists on tormenting human beings with diseases and plagues, which arises between us, one of the most serious moments of our evolution. Jesus reborn in the Spiritist Doctrine, just as simple as he came in person in the manger of light. Jesus became a complete Being, He is one with the Father because He identifies Himself with His laws, in His own dilated consciousness by accepting Love because it is fully understood.
In the format of Philosophy, Spiritism synthesizes the human efforts in searching the Self, illustrated by the image of The Thinker. As Philosophy, it analyses the elements that accomplish the existence of the human being in the world, however, adding a great journey that awaits him on the timeline, out of this world too.
The human being is – he/she could never “not to be”. Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Sartre’s existentialism, served as a pulsing red light, as if to say: wake up! The beauvoirian anguish in the face of potential losses of her intellectual treasures as a clear demand of death, remains in the hearts of mothers and fathers who have lost their teens because of drugs, alcohol, crime, or sexuality in pathological derangement.
The hopelessness generated by the "scandal" has been mitigated by the Philosophy of the High Spirits; Socrates came first, with his loving experience with ethics-moral founded on the logic and undeniable truth. Plato, with the reality of the world of the ideas that lay covered up at the bottom of the cave. Aristotle, with the the world of forms immediacy to sketch out the persona and his/her achievements.
The Spiritist Philosophy is not a mere instrument for lucubration. Not even the ostentation before the human and worldly trophies. It is rather an alternative, an invitation (for now) to change the current system of thinking. The Spiritist Philosophy provides an universe of self-discovery, however, this process requires the recognition of God's presence in us through His laws, which guide our logic, our development, our evolution, our lovingness. The Moral Laws didactically determined by the Spirits to Kardec, represent part of the process of awareness and recognition of the divine into ourselves.
Non-being is the raving mentioned above, non-being composes the nasty feelings that isolate us from each other: jealousy, pride, arrogance. These feelings are destructive forces which makes the being to stagnate in his/her existence and show the need to suffer in order to awake. Such journey is not over. Jesus’ example remains as a subliminal image-message to permeate our existential moment. His appeal is still beating in the human hearts. The reading of this call has been wrongly decoded. But he is still there. And when the being gets saturated for not being, he will open his/her heart and mind for the banquet - not a platonic one, as a representation of the sensitive, but the intelligible, since it is full of joy, hope and identification with God.

SPIRITISM – PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES

Just a few people know the articles and chronicles written by dr. Bezerra de Menezes, signed Max (pseudonym,) to “O Paiz” (The Country), a newspaper widely read in Brazil in the late nineteenth century, Rio de Janeiro, with Quintino Bocaiúva as editor. By 1977, Freitas Nobre, founder of “Folha Espírita”, in São Paulo, Brazil, and known for his role in the political circles in São Paulo, researches, organizes and launches this work in the form of published books in three volumes.
Freitas Nobre explains that the first edition came out in books published in Portugal, and he focused on making his work more didactic, giving titles to the chapters according to the contents. Without pretensions of philosophical depth, as in another of his books "The Spiritist Doctrine", better known as "Bezerra’s Letter to his brother", since the target was focused to the population of Rio de Janeiro, Bezerra de Menezes, however, moves through the vast universe of philosophical knowledge to find aspects connected with the Spiritist Philosophy.
Since pre-Socratic period, going to Hellenism with Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Bezerra moves on the neo-Platonic, for Origen, to bring us the ideas about reincarnation, mediumship, cause and effect law, the situation of the Spirit after death, God, Spirit and matter, intellect and moral conditions that determine happiness or the conscious self-flagellation of humans. Ideas that permeated the thinking of ancient scholars, however, some covered in the mythological time in which they lived, are revisited by the doctrine of Spirits, bringing them stripped of Isis’ veils, that covered up the reality with the magic of mystery.
A great admirer of Léon Denis, and vice versa, they both exchanged mails, and on many occasions he was the eminent French thinker Brazil's representative, in the most important events to the process of strengthening of Spiritism in Europe. Honorary President of Brazilian Spiritist Federation, Léon Denis had a special affection for the Brazilian spiritists and in his work “After Death” refers to the development of Spiritism in Brazil, highlighting the efforts of its pioneers, with emphasis on Bezerra, expressing his feelings after his death saying: "When such a man disappears, it is a loss not only for Brazil but for the spiritists of the whole world."

Léon Denis and Bezerra de Menezes are Spiritist Philosophy legitimate thinkers. This philosophy unfolds naturally in Science and Religion, because this is the correct way the knowledge has been constructed: the phenomenon, its study and research that result in a philosophy and their ethical and moral ramifications are natural conductors to lead the spiritist knowledge which, sometime later, had had its natural sequence with the mission with Emmanuel, leader of the phalanx of Spirits dedicated to the development of the three aspects of doctrinal approach going by the romancing literature and poetry.
Absolute consistency; total harmony of purposes and selflessness in the cause of Jesus, which was re-established after almost 2000 years of wandering the world, after being dead in the temples that men has risen to their own and ephemeral purposes.
The alliance - mentioned in the Bible - between God and man, has been transformed, transfigured and demystified with Spiritism, which appears, brilliant, as a natural result of the achievements made by the noble Spirits of "heaven" and earth.
To guide the beginners of Spiritism, we mention the following authors and their approaches, although the ones who has been mentioned here also developed their studies on other aspects, but all under the legitimate foundations of the Spiritist Doctrine:
• Philosophy: Léon Denis, Bezerra de Menezes, Deolindo Amorim, José Herculano Pires.
• Science (here we mention researchers on mediumship, spiritist anthropology, cosmology, physics, medicine, reincarnation, etc.): Gabriel Dellane, Ernesto Bozzano, Cesar Lombroso, William Crookes, Alexander Aksakoff, Camille Flammarion, Albert de Rochas, Arthur Conan Doyle, Alfred Russel Wallace, Hernani Guimarães Andrade, André Luiz (Spirit).
• Ethical and moral principles: Emmanuel (Spirit), Cairbar Schutel, Euripedes Barsanulfo, Herminio C. Miranda.
Based on the above authors, the knowledge is firmly structured on critical sense where accuracy and faithfulness to the legitimacy of the High Spirits’ teaching is the keynote.
Certainly today there are serious writers who follow the same paths of their predecessors, and therefore will be easily identifiable by the seriousness of their work and behaviour that guide their spiritist researches.
According to Gabriel Dellane in his message psychographed in 2004 in Paris: "If the knowledge we have had nowadays has not able to release us from the generalized shadow of reason, of feelings and moral, something has been misunderstood. Either that knowledge is not an expression of the truth, or we are not properly assimilating their contents. It is time to wake up (...). We are facing the overflow of madness without dimensions; (...) explosions of selfishness (...) serious fights caused by countless stunned souls. (...) Above all, however, the sun shines wonderfully in Spiritism, which shall heat our hearts and light up us to victory, for our spiritual freedom."
PS: THE SPIRITIST PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES PROJECT WAS INSPIRED BY DR. BEZERRA DE MENEZES.
Bibliography: Menezes, Bezerra, Philosophical Studies - Vols.,I II, III; ________, Spiritism; MACHADO, DJ, ed., org., Leon Denis and International Spiritist Congress, Paris 1925; Delanne, Gabriel (Spirit), TEIXEIRA, Raul (medium), Freedom to Spiritism - psychographed message on the occasion of the closing of the Fourth World Spiritist Congress on 10/05/2004 in Paris, France.

SPRINGTIME IS COMING IN BRAZIL!

We say hello to all our friends in France, England, Japan and all the countries who have studied with us through these blogs of the Spiritist Philosophy Project


The picture "Water Lily Pound" by Claude Monet above, give us an idea of rebirth: our lives should be as a flowered garden, like Monet's; we are entering springtime in Brazil, so you may also renew hopes, plans and all the good things that life can give to you; enjoy it with us!

Sex and Evolution

The educator José Herculano Pires thus define the Spirit’s experiences in the process of evolution: “Every experience represents an acquisition to the Spirit, which will become integrated on its cognitive functions in the form of intuition categories. While the unconscious residue does not disappear, the overcome experience can be reactivated by the imprudence and abuse”. (PIRES, J.H. Pesquisa sobre o amor, Paidéia, 1983). The lucid Kardec’s follower recognizes that the mistakes and crimes committed in previous existences can resurge in the form of obsessive or even aggres-sive behavior if they are not systematically and constantly worked throughout an entire existence, in order to develop latent values and virtues. “Sexuality”, he continues, “is a form of manifestation of love. In the human being, however, the love’s manifestation covers all its vital, existential and psycho-affective structure”. On the vital level it is sensation, bringing peripheral expressions, displacing them to the passion, which is not the exaltation of love but of sensuality. The crimes of love have nothing to do with Love; they are fed by these expres-sions and end up animalizing the human being in the vile expression of its deepest indignity.
Sexuality, as a manifestation of affection when accompanied by Love, fulfills the human being. Without love, sexuality is a mere animal impulse, degradation of the generative functions, whose ultimate goal is the incarnation of the Being. “In the evolved couples the sexual act is not merely sensorial pleasure. The sensorial pleasure is only a spark of the vital fire which triggers the whole process of human creation. (…) Only the meanness of the rabble, of the populace incapable of un-derstanding the greatness of a creative act could have made of sexuality a matter of scandal, malice and sin”.
We are living the evolutionary moment of sensorial unruliness, activated by the allegedly libertarian of woman world movements. The woman, subjugated to man’s violence during centuries and animated by the inferiority feeling brought by religions, has shifted to the other end of the rope. The woman does not recognizes herself as a Being that brings with it the possibility to love and to generate lives, but as that who should dispute the same baseline of excesses practiced by man. A media tool to sell male products, the woman continues to be a slave of her own image, deluded by the advertising exposure.
When Jesus freed the adulterous woman and Magdalene, He recognized their immense latent power of Love but out of focus and unbalanced. The first woman may have remade her paths. Mag-dalene, the divine sinner, found herself and loved Humanity to whom she dedicated the rest of her days, leaving an eloquent message of redemption through Love.
Men and women of the twenty-first century. We were created for the development of the divine potentialities that silently lie in the depths of our being. It is time to make them flourish. It is time to place them on top of the bushel, as Jesus has done.Published on The Journal of Psychological Studies, September, October 2011 of The Spiritist Psychological Society, London, England. See this article also in André Luiz Spiritist Foundation: http://www.feal.com.br/artigo.php?car_id=60&col_id=22&t=Evolucao-e-Sexo