Allan Kardec-THE Spirit's Book_ The Principles of Spiritist Doctrine (1989)

417
THE SPIRITS’ BOOK
shut up all the mediums, it would be necessary to incarcerate half the human race; and even if
it were possible, which would scarcely be easier, to burn all the spiritist books in existence,
they would at once be reproduced, because the source from which they emanate is beyond the
reach of attack, and it is impossible to imprison or to burn the spirits who are their real
authors.
Spiritism is not the work of any man; no one can claim to have created it, for it is as old as
creation itself. It is to be found everywhere, in all religions, and in the Catholic religion even
more than in the others, and with more authoritative inculcation, for the Catholic dogma
contains all that constitutes Spiritism; admission of the existence of spirits of every degree;
their relations, occult and patent, with mankind; guardian-angels, reincarnation, the
emancipation of the soul during the present life, second-sight, visions, and manifestations of
every kind, including even tangible apparitions; As for demons, they are nothing else than bad
spirits; and with the exception of the belief that the former are doomed to evil for ever, while
the path of progress is not closed against the others, there is, between them, only a difference
of name.
What is the special and peculiar work of modern Spiritism? To make a coherent whole of
what has hitherto been scattered; to explain, in clear and precise terms, what has hitherto been
wrapped up in the language of allegory; to eliminate the products of superstition and
ignorance from human belief, leaving only what is real and actual: this is its mission, but that
of a founder does not belong to it. It renders evident that which already exists; it co-ordinates,
but it creates nothing, for its elements are of all countries and of every age. Who, then, could
flatter himself with the hope of being able to stifle it, either by ridicule or by persecution? If it
were possible to proscribe it in one place, it would reappear in another, or on the very spot
from which it had been banished, because it exists in the constitution of things, and because
no man can annihilate that which is one of the powers of nature, or veto that which is in
virtue of the Divine decrees.
But what interest could any Government have in opposing the propagation of spiritist ideas?
Those ideas, it is true, are a protest against the abuses that spring from pride and selfishness;
but although such abuses are profitable to the few, they are injurious to the many, and
Spiritism would therefore have the