We present in this issue the topic #82 from the Systematized Study of the Spiritist Doctrine, that is being presented weekly, according to the programme elaborated by the Brazilian Spiritist Federation (FEB), structured in 6 modules and 147 topics.

If the reader uses this program for a study group, we suggest that questions proposed be discussed freely before the reading of the text that follows. If you would like to study alone, we ask you to try to answer the questions at first and only then read the text that follows. The answer key can be found at the end of the lesson. 

Questions

1. What is the main evidence that reincarnation exists?

2. Does the so-called “retrocognition” help in any way to prove reincarnation?

3. What is the importance of the revelations contained in the mediumistic writings to prove reincarnation?

4. How does Spiritism explain the existence of the so-called Wonder kids?

5. The critics of Spiritism state that reincarnation leads the individual idleness, because what is not done today can be done later. Is this thought correct? 

Text

The retrocognition is one of the evidence of reincarnation

2. Secondarily, not as an evidence of its existence, but as an obvious indication of its antiqueness in the human thought, reincarnation is also taught by many religious schools– mostly Oriental ones – and philosophical too. Pythagoras, for example, was one of his most active backers. 

3. Some facts registered in history deserve to be remembered, since they constitute of important evidence in favor of reincarnation: 

·       The poet Lamartine declares in his “Voyage en Orient” to have had very clear reminiscences of previous existences.

·       The French writer Mery remembered having combated in the War of Gaul and also Germania, when it was called Minius.

·       The sensitive Edgar Cayce, in a mediumistic trance, reveals facts of previous existence of himself. Cayce claims that in a previous existence he was John Bainbridge, born in Britain in 1742. 

4. By the retrocognition obtained either by hypnosis, as well as suggestion, method that is widely used by many therapeutists, there has been some evidence as well. 

5. The English psychiatrist Denys Kelsey in his book “Now and Then”, written in partnership with his wife, the case of a client, middle-aged person, afflicted by a persistent and unbeatable homosexual inclination. After applying the classic methods of psychoanalysis, with no results, in a hypnosis section, in his fourteenth appointment, the patient started describing episodes of an existence lived among the Hittites ^[2], when, in the quality of a wife, used to luxury, exercised great power over her husband. When the physical beauty was gone and her husband was not interested in her anymore, the emotional shock was so strong for her passionate nature. Trying to attract dreadful malefactions upon her husband, she asked a priest from Baal to cast a spell on him; but she ended up murdered, taking to the Spirit-world all the frustration of her humiliating position of proud and unvalued wife. As it seemed, Dr. Kelsey supposed, the episode was echoing in his current existence, in which the same person had a homosexual inclination.  

6. As examples of proof of reincarnation through mediumistic messages, Gabriel Delanne, in his book “The Reincarnation”, talks about many cases. In one of them, which was reported by Mr. E. B. de Reyle, through a letter: “In August 1886, we had an evoking session, in which it happened, through typtology at first, and then, to our request, by psychography, an entity that my parents had lost, still young...? He assured to wait, to reincarnate, as my first kid, specifying that it would be a boy and would come within 18 months. There was no kid expected. Well, in February 1888, was born our eldest son, whose name was Allan, on the foreseen date, and foreseen gender”.   

The doctrine of reincarnation stimulates the collective and individual progress 

7. Allan Kardec asked the High Spirits: “What is the origin of the extraordinary faculties of those individuals who, without any preparatory study, appear to possess intuitively certain branches of knowledge, such as languages, arithmetic, etc.?” The Spirits answered: “The vague remembrance of their past; the result of progress previously made by the soul, but of which it has no present consciousness. From what else could those intuitions be derived? The body changes, but the spirit does not change, although he changes his garment.” In this quotation we find another proof of reincarnation: the innate ideas. History tells us countless examples of geniuses, scholars, valuable men whose parents, or even kids, weren’t as valuable.  

8. Some of these Spirits were on Earth what we are used to calling as Wonder kids, whose talent managed to cast a doubt on the laws of heredity. Evidently, Spiritism neither denies the physical nor genesic heredity, but rejects the idea that there is a moral or intellectual inheritance that is transmitted from parents to kids. Indeed, we know that many scholars were born in obscure settings, like Augusto Comte, Espinosa, Kleper, Kant, Bacon, Young, Claude Bernard etc., while men of value had as kids, average people or even mediocre ones. Pericles, for example, had two fools. Socrates and Themistocles had kids who didn’t honor their names, and there are many other examples.   

9. In view of the mentioned evidence the thesis of reincarnation shows to be an innovative doctrine, since it stimulates the individual and, consequently, collective progress. Reincarnation shows us what we were, what we are and what we’ll be, and constitutes of the instrument of the Law of progress and the application of the Law of cause and effect.  

10. The doctrine of successive lives – contrary to the belief that we are condemned to an eternal punishment after a single opportunity of life – satisfies, then, all the aspirations of our soul, which requires a logic explanation of the problem of fate. And, most important, it conciliates perfectly with the idea that there is a Divine Providence, at the same time just and good, which doesn’t punish our faults with eternal torments, but which allows us, all the time, the power to repair our mistakes, raising us through the ranks of the evolutional scale thanks to our own efforts.  

Answer Key

1. What is the main evidence that reincarnation exists? 

A.: The evidence that reincarnation is a fact can be based on the following: I. In the retrocognition, which may be done by suggestion or spontaneous remembrance of previous existences, without being identified a cause to justify such a thing. In the latter, remembrance can happen either in the average sleep or while awake, as the studied cases, among others, by the Professors H. N. Banerjee and Ian Stevenson. II. In the revelation obtained through mediumship, in which the Spirits transmit revelations about their own existences or other’s ones. III. In the fact of innate ideas and the existence of Wonder kids, topic which keeps shaking the scientific basis of heredity. 

A.: Yes, mainly when the fact contained in the revelation was proved through an unbiased research, such as Ian Stevenson e Banerjee’s. 

3. What is the importance of the revelations contained in the mediumistic writings to prove reincarnation? 

A.: It depends on the conditions that are given and the moral idoneity of the medium, its importance is very big. 

A.: The vague remembrance of their past; the result of progress previously made by the soul, but of which it has no present consciousness. From what else could those intuitions be derived? The body changes, but the spirit does not change, although he changes his garment. 

5. The critics of Spiritism state that reincarnation leads the individual idleness, because what is not done today can be done later. Is this thought correct? 

A.: Obviously, not. In view of the mentioned evidence the thesis of reincarnation shows to be an innovative doctrine, since it stimulates the individual and, consequently, collective progress. Reincarnation shows us what we were, what we are and what we’ll be. And, most important, it conciliates perfectly with the idea that there is a Divine Providence, at the same time just and good, which doesn’t punish our faults with eternal torments, but which allows us, all the time, the power to repair our mistakes, raising us through the ranks of the evolutional scale thanks to our own efforts. 

The Spirits’ Book, by Allan Kardec, items 219 and 222.

Reincarnation, by Gabriel Delanne, p. 178, 234, 235, 236, 266 and 310.

Reincarnation and Immortality, by Hermínio C. Miranda, p. 125, 126, 239 and 242.

Twenty Suggestive Cases of Reincarnation, by Ian Stevenson.