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The Works of Allan Kardec
A selection of wonderful eBooks
brought to you through mediumship from advanced Souls in
the Spirit World. These books are free to download and
are here for the advancement and understanding of
Spiritism / Spiritualism.
Please respect the copyright
holders, these eBooks are not for resale, if you wish to
purchase a hardcopy please see details enclosed in the
eBooks themseves.
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The Gospel According to Spiritism - Allan Kardec
Ask any Spiritualist in the United Kingdom how many branches of
Spiritualism there are, most will reply two: National Union of Spiritualists and
Christian Spiritualists. Yet in Brazil there is a group of Spiritualists
or, as they call themselves, Spiritis who follow the teachings of
Allan Kardec who far outnumber all the Spiritualists in the U.K.
Kardec wrote a number of books on the subject of Spiritualism. It has been
our policy to publish all aspects of Spiritualism leaving the reader to
make up his or her own mind as to which path to follow. When Janet
Duncan of the ALLAN KARDEC STUDY GROUP asked us if we would be
interested in publishing a new translation of The Gospel According to
Spiritism, we decided yes. This volume is the result. We hope The Gospel
According to Spiritism will be the first in a series of all the Kardec
works.
The Gospel According to Spiritism is the Spiritism view and explanation
of the New Testament as brought to us by the Spirits and codified by
Allan Kardec.
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The Spirits’ Book - Allan Kardec
An extract from the Spirits Book
When these Spirit conversations had been going on for nearly two
years, he one day remarked to his wife, in reference to the unfolding of
these views, which she had followed with intelligent sympathy: "It is a
most curious thing! My conversations with the invisible intelligences
have completely revolutionised my ideas and convictions. The
instructions thus transmitted constitute an entirely new theory of human
life, duty, and destiny, that appears to me to be perfectly rational and
coherent, admirably lucid and consoling, and intensely
interesting. I have a great mind to publish these conversations in a
book; for it seems to me that what interests me so deeply might very
likely prove interesting to others." His wife warmly approving the idea,
he next submitted it to his unseen interlocutors, who replied in the
usual way, that it was they who had suggested it to his mind, that their
communications had been made to him, not for himself alone, but for the
express purpose of being given to the world as he proposed to do, and
that the time had now come for putting this plan into execution.
"To the
book in which you will embody our instructions," continued the
communicating intelligences, "you will give, as being our work rather
than yours, the title of Le Livre des Esprits (THE SPIRITS’ BOOK); and
you will publish it, not under your own name, but under the pseudonym of
ALLAN KARDEC.¹ Keep your own name of Rivail for your own books already
published; but take and keep the name we have now given you for the book
you are about to publish by our order, and, in general, for all the work
that you will have to do in the fulfilment of the mission which, as we
have already told you, has been confided to you by Providence, and which
will gradually open before you as you proceed in it under our guidance."
The book thus produced and published sold with great rapidity,
making converts not in France only, but all over the Continent, and
rendering the name of ALLAN KARDEC "a household word" with the readers
who knew him only in connection with it; so that he was thenceforth
called only by that name, excepting by his old personal friends, with
whom both he and his wife always retained their family-name. Soon after
its publication, he founded The Parisian Society of Psychological
Studies, of which he was President until his death, and which met every
Friday evening at his house, for the purpose of obtaining from spirits,
through writing mediums, instructions in elucidation of truth and duty.
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The Mediums’ Book - Allan Kardec (pdf)
EXPERIENCE daily confirms us in the opinion that the difficulties and
disappointments so often encountered in the practice of Spiritualism
result from ignorance of its fundamental principles; and we rejoice to
know that our endeavours to forewarn inquirers of the difficulties
besetting this new study have borne fruit, and that many have been
enabled to avoid them by an attentive perusal of the present work
Persons who are interested in Spiritualism very naturally desire to enter
into communication with spirits, and it is with a view to smoothing
their path in this direction, by giving them the results of our own long
and laborious investigation of the subject, that we have written this
book, a perusal of which will show that those who imagine they have only
to put their hands upon a table to make it move, or to hold a pencil to
make it write, have come to a false conclusion in regard to the whole
question.
They would be equally mistaken who should expect to find in this work a
universal and infallible recipe for making mediums; for, although every
one possesses the germ of the qualities necessary for becoming a medium,
those qualities exist in very different gradations, and their
development depends on causes which no one can control by his own will
alone. The rules of poetry, painting, and music, do not make poets,
painters, or musicians, of those who are not gifted with genius,
although those rules guide men in the employment of the faculties which
they naturally possess. So it is with the work before us ; its object is
to indicate the means of developing the mediumistic faculty so far as the
receptivity of each will permit; and, above all, to guide it in a manner
that may elicit its usefulness. Not, however, that this is the sole end
for which the present work has been undertaken.
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Heaven and Hell - Allan Kardec
Of the four principal works of Allan Kardec, the first The
Spirits’ Book, sets forth the Spiritualist theory of life and destiny;
the second The Mediums’ Book, treats of experimental Spiritualism, in
other words, of Medianimity , under its various aspects and in reference
to the conclusions to which it leads; the third (Heaven and Hell,
which the translator has now the pleasure of offering to English
readers), gives a series of spirit-narratives confirmatory of the
Spiritualist theory; the fourth (Genesis, of which a translation will
soon follow the present volume), shows the consonance of this theory
with the results of modern science.
These works constitute the basis of a religious belief that is
equally in harmony with reason, with science, with experience, and with
aspiration. They consequently supply the true substitute for the
unreasoning faith that is so rapidly dying out from the minds of men,
the true antidote to the scientific materialism of the day, the true
cure for the selfishness which is the practical outcome of the
short-sightedness that regards our present life as the sum of our
existence, the true explanation and guide of the sentiment which prompts
each human being to desire something better than the unsatisfying
conditions among which he finds himself.
The correctness of this estimate of the works of Allan Kardec will be
recognized in proportion, as the scope and bearings of the principles
they enunciate are understood; and the conditions of human life will
improve in proportion and only in proportion as the principles obtain
mental assent, and practical application, among mankind.
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Genesis - Allan Kardec
This new work is one step more in the advancement in the effects and
applications of
Spiritualism. As its title indicates, its object is the study of three
points diversely commented upon and interpreted even to this day, -
“Genesis, Miracles, and Predictions” in their relations with the
recently known laws which are revealed through the observation of
spiritual phenomena.
Two elements, or we may say two forces, govern the universe, - the
spiritual element and
the material one. By the simultaneous action of these two principles are
developed some special phenomena, which are naturally rendered
inexplicable if one should take away one of its two constituent
elements, oxygen and hydrogen.
Spiritism, in demonstrating the
existence of the spiritual world and its relations with the
material world, furnishes the key to a multitude of unknown phenomena,
which are considered as inadmissible by a certain class of thinkers. The
record of such facts abounds in the Scriptures; and it is in default of
knowledge concerning the laws that govern them that
commentators of the two opposing parties moving always in the same
circle of ideas, - some
abstracting positive gifts from science, others from the spiritual
principle, - have not been able to arrive at any rational solution.
The solution is found only in the
reciprocal action between spirit and matter. It takes
away, it is true, the great part of the supernatural character of these
facts. But which is the more valuable method: to admit them have sprung
from the laws of nature, or to reject them entirely?
Their absolute rejection removes the base from the edifice; while their
admission as facts,
suppressing only accessories, leaves the base intact. This is why
Spiritism leads so many people
to a belief in truth, which they formerly considered utopian ideas.
This work is then, as we have said
before, a complement of the applications of Spiritism
to this special point of a view. The materials were ready, or at least
elaborated a long time
since; but the moment for their publication had not arrived. It was
necessary at first that the
ideas which were to form the base should arrive at maturity; and
moreover, it was necessary to take advantage of circumstances. Spiritism
has neither mysteries nor secret theories. It can bear the full light of
day so that everyone can judge of it by a knowledge of its laws; but
everything has to come in its own time in order to win its way. A
solution given lightly, prior to the complete elucidation of the
question, would be a retarding force, rather than a means of
advancement. In the matter in question the importance of the subject
makes it a duty to avoid all precipitation.
Before entering into the subject, it
has appeared necessary to us to define distinctly the
respective roles of spirits and men according to the new doctrine. These
preliminary
considerations, which discard all ideas of mysticism, form the subject
of the first chapter,
entitled “Character of the Spiritualist Revelation.” We call serious
attention to this point, because it is in a measure the knot of the
question.
Notwithstanding the work incumbent upon
human activity in the elaboration of this
doctrine, the initiative belongs to the spirits; but conclusions are not
drawn from the personal
opinion of none of them. The truth can only be the resultant of their
collective and concordant
teachings. Without this united testimony, a doctrine could not lawfully
be called the doctrine of the spirits; it would be merely that of one
spirit, and would possess only the value of a personal opinion.
General concordance in teaching is the doctrine’s essential character,
the condition even
of its existence. It is evident that all principles which have not
received the consecration of
general agreement can only be considered as a fractional part of this
same doctrine, merely as a simple, isolated opinion for which
Spiritualism cannot assume the responsibility.
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