Homosexuality in the spiritist perspective (Part 1)

Allan Kardec elucidates the issue in the Spiritist Magazine. Emmanuel explains the theme in Life and Sex and
Chico Xavier comments on the subject

We will start the development of this theme with the question posed by Allan Kardec, the Codifier Spiritism, in the question 200 of The Spirits' Book, on whether the Spirits have a gender.

The Spiritual Benefactors responded: "Not as you understand; for sex, in that sense, depend on corporeal organization. Love and sympathy exist among them, but founded on similarity of sentiments."

The Spirits gave this answer to Kardec due to the concept that man has of sex being linked to physical organization. Man distinguishes male and female as a manifestation of the form and according to the role played in the reproductive function. Nevertheless, they do not extend their thinking about the true source of sexual energies. For them, as a whole, sex is merely an instrument of pleasure. There are some, however, who seek sex for reproduction, for various reasons, but always associated with the pursuit of pleasure of the senses.

It is true that the use of sex is a natural law in the material sphere, as the Spirit Alexander says, in Chapter 13 of the work Missionaries of Light in dealing with reincarnation: "There is no creation without fertilization. Physical forms come from physical unions. Spiritual constructions proceed from spiritual unions. The work of the Universe is a child of God. Sex, therefore, as a positive or passive quality of principles and beings, is a cosmic manifestation in all evolutionary circles until we reach the realm of Perfect Harmony, where these qualities are balanced within the Divinity." 

The theme of the Spiritist Magazine 

The Codifier of Spiritism, in the Spiritist Magazine issue of January 1866, in the article published under the title of "Do women have a soul?" at the end of the 13th paragraph, says:
 

"(...) Men and women are assigned special duties equally important in the order of things; they are two elements that complement each other. When the incarnate Spirit suffers the influence of the body its character changes depending on the circumstances and bends to the needs and demands imposed by that same body. This influence does not fade immediately after the destruction of the material body, just as tastes and habits are not changed instantly. Then it may be that the Spirit scroll through a series of lives in the same sex, which makes it preserve, for a long time, in the state of Spirit, the character of a man or of a woman, whose features were imprinted on it. Only when they have reached a certain degree of advancement and dematerialization is that the influence of matter completely fades and with it the character of the sexes. Those spirits, who appear to us as men or as women, do it to remind us of a specific lifetime in which we met them. If this influence is reflected from physical life to spiritual life, the same happens when the Spirit passes from the spiritual life to the corporeal one. In a new incarnation, it will bring the character and inclinations, which it had as a Spirit. If advanced, it will be an advanced man; if backward, it will be a backward man. When changing gender, it may bring forward impressions in its new incarnation; retain tastes, inclinations and the inherent character of the gender it had just left. This explains certain apparent anomalies noted in the character of certain men and certain women. Thus, there is no difference between men and women, but in the material body, which is annihilated by its death. However, as for the spirit, the soul, the essential being, imperishable, it does not exist, because there are no two kinds of souls. Thus did God in His justice for all creatures. By giving all the same principle, He founded the true equality. Inequality exists only temporarily in the degree of progress; but everyone is entitled to the same destiny that each one reaches through their own effort, because God has not favoured anyone at the expense of others"(...).

Emmanuel's Life and Sex 

Through the psychography of Chico Xavier, the spiritual benefactor Emmanuel, in Chapter 21 of the book Sex and Life, comments about homosexuality, starting with the question 202 of The Spirits' Book:

"- Does a spirit, when existing in the spirit-world, prefer to be incarnated as a man or as a woman?"

The response of the Spiritual Benefactors to this question was as follows:

"- It is indifferent to the spirit. What guide him are the trials which he has to undergo."

After initially highlighting this question from The Spirits' Book, the Spirit Emmanuel comments:
 

"Homosexuality, also known as transexuality in some circles of science and that is defined in all of its features according to the creature's tendency to affective communion with another creature of the same sex, has no fundamental explanation within the psychological studies that deal with the issue on materialistic bases, but which is perfectly understandable in the light of reincarnation."

When homosexuality occurs, it is observed in a rather biased way by a society formed on Earth by the heterosexual majority than with the simple truths of life, this same event has been growing in intensity and extension along with the development of mankind, as the world can see it, in all countries, large communities of brothers and sisters in similar experience, totalling millions of men and women asking for attention and respect, on equal respect and attention given to heterosexual creatures.
 

Humanity will gradually learn to understand that the concepts of normality and abnormality fall short in the case of morphological signs alone and may rise up as more sublime agents of definition of human dignity, since individuality itself either intensifies community life through their behaviours in support of the common good, or depresses it for the evil that it causes together with the role it plays in the game of delinquency.

The bisexuality phenomenon

"The pure and simple spiritual life is governed by essential elective affinities; however, through millennia upon millennia, the Spirit goes through a long string of reincarnations, now in a position of femininity, then in terms of masculinity, which consolidates the bisexuality phenomenon more or less pronounced in almost all creatures.
 

Men and women are thus, in a respective way, markedly masculine or markedly feminine, without absolute psychological specification.

In the face of it, the individuality in transit, from the feminine experience to masculine one or vice versa, when one incarnates, he will fatally demonstrate the traits of femininity that he will have matured over many centuries, in spite of a male body, and an analogous process may be observed with reference to women in the same circumstances.

Clearly understandable, in view of the foregoing, that the reincarnating Spirit among men may take a male or a female body, not just attending to the imperative of individual charges in a given sector of work, but also with respect to regenerative obligations. 

Consequences of abuse

"The man who abused the sexual faculties ruining other people's life with the destruction of many homes and construction unions, in many cases, is driven to seek a new position rebirth in a morphologically female body and will
learn, as if under a prison system, to readjust his own feelings, as well as the woman, who acted similarly, is driven to reincarnate in a morphologically male body with the same purpose.
 

And yet, in many cases, cultured and sensitive spirits, anxious to perform specific tasks to help the elevation of human groupings and hence the elevation of themselves, pray for the Instructors of the Greater Life who assist them in their confinement in the physical plane, in carnal vestment opposite to the psychological structure through which transiently they define themselves.

They choose to live that way, temporarily hidden in the armour of flesh, as a means to protect themselves against irreversible haulage in the emotional field, in order to persevere without difficulty in the goals they set for themselves.

Educational Support

"Once noted the homosexual tendencies of reincarnated fellows in this level of trial or experience, it is necessary that they are given the appropriate educational support, as much as education is provided to the heterosexual majority. And for this to happen aligned with justice and understanding, today's world goes towards the highest understanding of the problems of love and sex, because, in the face of eternal life, the rights and wrongs of the brothers of any provenance in the fields sex and love, are analysed by the same high standards of Justice and Mercy. This is why all the issues in this area of evolution and of life are specified in the privacy of each person's conscience."

Chico Xavier answers 

In the book A Terra e o Semeador (The Earth and the Sower), the medium from Minas Gerais, when asked, "How do our Spiritual Friends conceptualize the homosexuality issue?" he replied the following:

"The issue of homosexuality has always existed in all nations, nevertheless, with the demographic extension on the planet, the subject took on characteristics of high intensity, or more intensity, because in the last 50 years, the psychological science has been closely concerned and rightly so, with regard to the most intimate ingredients of our personal nature.

"We are conducting the discovery of ourselves beyond the known psychological standards or scrutinised by the knowledge we have, within the respectable precepts which govern the social and human behaviour. In this case, it is fair to note that the impositions of discipline and education should offer us constructive barriers so that abuse does not destroy any benefits established by law. 

Causes of the tendencies  

"We believe that homosexual tendencies arise in the creature after many lifetimes in conditions of femininity or vice versa. We think so, based on reincarnation, because, besides the morphological signs, individuality is the individuality itself, with all their experiences of previous lives. As a result, homosexuality may be examined now offering humankind a vast field of studies about the bisexual nature of the Spirit.

"The topic is, however, object to symposia of scientists and teachers of Humanity, until we can find the exact formula to decide, from the legal point of view, as to the fate of our fellows in a gender or another, presenting the opposite with the purpose of work to be laboriously valued by the person who is the bearer of such a condition for certain tasks.

"We know that great civilizations such as the Greco-Roman, after achieving a spectacular advancement in the field of intelligence, when investigating the complex nature of man they found very deep problems of sex that the legislators then were unwilling or could not acknowledge. These problems, however, breaking out without the cap of legal precepts, full of intemperance in the affective manifestations, cooperated in the decay of both civilizations, Greek and Roman, which got lost in time, from the point of view of respectability and authority.

"Hopefully the Messengers of the Greater Life may inspire our worthy representatives of Science and Justice on Earth so that the solution of the problem may appear in due course, fostering peace and harmony in the various fields of evolution of mankind." (This article will be completed in the next issue of this magazine.)