Allan Kardec

Born in Lyon, France, on October 3, 1804, and disincarnated in Paris on March 31, 1869. Much has been written about Allan Kardec's personality, and there are many extensive biographies of his mission. His life before 18 April 1857, when he published his masterly work The Spirits' Book, which initiated the process of codification of spiritism, is well known. In this unique biography, we shall attempt to sketch some accounts of his unmistakable personality, some of which are already generally known.

His real name was Hippolyte - Léon - Denizard Rivail. "Hippolyte" in the family, “Professor Rivail” in society and “H-L-D Rivail” in literature, he was, from the age of 18, a school teacher of science and letters and, from the age of 20, a renowned author of didactic books. His spiritism works were written under the pseudonym of Allan Kardec. 

He excelled in the profession for which he was first educated in Switzerland, at the school of the greatest pedagogue of the first quarter of the 19th century, world-famous and to this day the paradigm for teachers: Jean-Henri Pestalozzi. And, in Paris, he succeeded the master himself. 

Allan Kardec was 51 years old when he devoted himself to the observation and study of spiritism, without the natural enthusiasm of unripened and inexperienced creatures. His own reputation as a man of learning and learning was a stumbling block to the light-hearted assertions of the detractors of spiritism. Two years later, in 1857, he published The Spirits' Book. In 1858, he began the publication of the famous Spiritism Magazine. In 1864, The Gospel According to the Spiritism appeared, followed by Heaven and Hell or Divine Justice According to Spiritism, in 1865. Finally, in 1868, Genesis, Miracles and Predictions according to Spiritism completed the Pentateuch of Spiritism. 

In the intelligent task of codification of spiritism, Allan Kardec had the valuable assistance of three girls who became the principal mediums in the work of The Spirits' Book: Caroline Baudin, Julie Baudin and Ruth Celine Japhet. The first two of them were used for the binding of the essence of the spiritist teachings; the last one, for the complementary clarifications. Once the work was completed and all the teachings contained therein were rectified, by suggestion of the Spirits, Allan Kardec had recourse to other mediums, foreign to the first group, among them Japhet and Roustan, intuitive mediums; Mrs. Canu, unconscious somnambulist; Canu, medium of incorporation; Mrs. Leclerc, psychographer medium; Mrs. Clement, psychographer medium; Mrs. Kardec, psychologist medium; and Mrs. Kardec, psychologist medium; Mrs. Kardec, psychologist medium, Clement, psychographer and incorporation medium; Mrs. De Pleinemaison, auditory and inspired medium; Mrs. Roger, clairvoyant; and Miss Aline Carlotti, psychographer and incorporation medium. 

Writing about the personality of the illustrious teacher, the illustrious Dr. Silvino Canuto Abreu stated the following: ‘Of a culture above the norm for illustrious men of his age and time, he commanded general respect from an early age. With a temperament opposed to fantasy, without a poetic or romantic instinct, and inclined to method, order and mental discipline, he practised precision, clarity and simplicity in the written or spoken word, in a perfect vernacular, free of redundancies. 

Of medium height, barely 1.65 cm, and with a delicate constitution, although healthy and resistant, Professor Rivail's face was always pale, thin, with pronounced cheekbones and freckled skin, punished with wrinkles and warts. His forehead was broad, rounded at the top, erect with pronounced orbital rings under his eyes, and his eyebrows were bushy and brown. Smooth, grey hair, sparse all over, lacking at the back (where a few hairs poorly covered the long, bald crown of his mature head), spread over his forehead from left to right, without a topknot, blending in with the greyish, cropped sideburns that went down to his earlobes and covered, at the nape of his neck, the collar of his shirt, with the tips of his shirt hanging down to his chin. Eyes small and sunken, with dark circles and papules. Large nose, slightly rounded near the eyes, with long nostrils between arched, austere rictus. Dense moustache, up to the edge of the lip, almost all white. 

Triangular goatee under the lip, disguising a hairy appearance. Stern countenance when studying or magnetising, but full of pleasant and seductive vivacity when teaching or conversing. What was most impressive about him was his strange and mysterious gaze, captivating because of the affability of his brown pupils, authoritative because of his penetration into the soul of the interlocutor. He rested on the listener like a gentle lantern and did not turn away in ecstasy for the idler, but only when he was meditating, alone. And what gave him most personality was his voice, clear and firm, with a pleasant and oratorical tone, which he could mix pleasantly from a caressing murmur to explosions of parliamentary eloquence. His gesticulation was restrained, polite. When he was distracted, reading or thinking, he confided ‘favours’. When he listened to a person, he hooked his right thumb in the space between two buttons of his waistcoat, so as not to appear impatient and, on the contrary, to convince them of his tolerance and attention. When conversing with disciples or close friends, he would sometimes place his right hand on the listener's shoulder in a gesture of familiarity. He maintained strict social etiquette before the ladies’. 

By his deep and utmost love of good and truth, Allan Kardec built for all the greatest monument of wisdom that Humanity could ever aspire to, deciphering the great mysteries of life, of destiny and of pain, by the rational and positive understanding of multiple existences, all in the meridian light of the postulates of Christianity. 

The son of Catholic parents, Allan Kardec was brought up in Protestantism, but he did not embrace any of these religions, preferring to place himself in the position of a free thinker and a man of analysis. He resented the rigidity of dogma which alienated him from religious conceptions. The excessive symbolism of theologies and orthodoxy made him incompatible with the principles of blind faith. 

Placed in that position, facing an absorbing intellectual life, he was the man of pondering, inhibited character and profound knowledge, awakened to the examination of the manifestations of the so-called revolving tables. At that time the world was turned, in its curiosity, to the innumerable psychic effects which, everywhere, were recorded, and which, soon after, culminated in the advent of the highly consoling doctrine which received the name of Spiritism, having as its codifier, the emeritus and immortal educator of Lyons. 

The Spiritism was not, however, a creation of man, but a divine revelation to Humanity for the defence of the postulates bequeathed by the Meigo Rabbi of Galilee, at a time when overwhelming materialism was conquering the most powerful intelligences and the prominent minds of Europe and America. 

The first regularly constituted spiritism society was founded by Allan Kardec, in Paris, on April 1st, 1858. Its name was ‘Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies’. The codifier lent his valuable assistance to it, advocating that it should fulfil the noble objectives for which it was created. 

Allan Kardec is invulnerable to the accusation that he wrote under the influence of preconceived ideas or a systemic spirit. A man of cold and severe character, he observed the facts and from these observations he deduced the laws that govern them. 

The codification of the Spiritist Doctrine placed Kardec in the gallery of the great missionaries and benefactors of Humanity. His work is as extraordinary an event as the French Revolution. It established man's rights within society, it instituted man's links with the universe, it gave him the keys to the mysteries observed by men, among them the problem of so-called death, which at that time had not been equated by religions. The mission of the illustrious teacher, as foretold by the Spirit of Truth, was one of pitfalls and dangers, for he would not only have to codify, but he would also have to speak to and transform Humanity. The mission was so arduous for him that, in a note dated January 1st, 1867, Kardec referred to the ingratitude of friends, the hatred of enemies, the insults and slander of fanatical elements. In the meantime, he never grew weary of the task.