Here we want to present, in a simplified way, the main points of the Spiritist doctrine, the basic pillars for understanding life, where we come from, where we are going, why we are here, etc. Perhaps it can help all Spiritist educators, mothers, fathers and families.

God

God is eternal, immutable, immaterial, unique, omnipotent, sovereignly just and good. He created the universe, which encompasses all animate and inanimate, material and immaterial beings.

Spirits

Material beings form the visible or corporeal world, and immaterial beings, the invisible or spirit world, i.e., the world of spirits. The spiritual world is the normal, primitive, eternal, pre-existent and all-surviving world. The corporeal world is secondary; it may cease to exist or never have existed, without altering the essence of the spiritual world. Spirits are temporarily clothed in a perishable material sheath, the destruction of which by death restores their freedom. Among the various species of corporeal beings, God chose the human species for the incarnation of spirits.

The soul

The soul is an embodied spirit; the body is only its shell. There are three elements in man:

1º – Body or material being, similar to that of animals, animated by the same vital principle;

2º – The soul or immaterial being, the spirit incarnate in the body;

3º – The connecting link that connects the soul with the body, a mediating principle between matter and spirit (...) The connecting link or perispirit that connects the body with the spirit is a kind of semi-material covering.

The Death

The death is the destruction of the grosser sheath. The spirit retains the second, which constitutes his ethereal body, invisible to us in the normal state, but which may accidentally become visible and even tangible, as in the phenomena of apparitions. The spirit is not, therefore, an abstract, indefinite being, which can only be conceived of in thought. It is a real, delimited being, which in certain cases becomes appreciable to our sight, hearing and touch.

Evolution of the spirits

The spirits belong to different categories, and are not equal either in power, intelligence, knowledge, or morality. Those belonging to the first order are superior spirits, distinguished from the others by their perfection, their knowledge, their nearness to God, the purity of their sentiments, and their love of good; they are the angels or pure spirits. Those of the other classes are more and more distant from this perfection, while those of the lower categories, for the most part, are contaminated by our passions: hatred, envy, jealousy, jealousy, pride, and so on.

Reincarnation as a tool of evolution

The spirits do not remain perpetually in one category. All evolve as they pass through the different grades of the spiritist hierarchy. This improvement is effected by incarnation, which is imposed upon some as an atonement and upon others as a mission. The material life is a test to be endured repeatedly until absolute moral perfection has been attained. When the soul leaves the body, it returns to the spirit-world from whence it came, to pass through a new material existence after a more or less prolonged lapse of time, during which it remains in the state of a wandering spirit. Since the spirit has had to pass through many incarnations, it follows from this that all of us have had many existences, and that we shall still have more or less perfected ones, whether on earth or in other worlds.

The incarnation of spirits always takes place within the human species; it would be a mistake to believe that the soul or spirit can incarnate in the body of an animal. The various bodily existences of the spirit are always progressive, never retrograde; but the rapidity of his progress depends upon the efforts he makes to reach perfection. Incarnated spirits inhabit the various globes of the universe. The non-incarnated or wandering spirits do not occupy a definite or circumscribed region. They are everywhere, in space and beside us, they see us and rub shoulders with us continually. It is an invisible population that moves around us.

Mediality

The spirits exercise an incessant action upon the moral world, and even upon the physical world. They work upon matter and thought, and constitute one of the powers of Nature, the efficient cause of a multitude of phenomena, unexplained or poorly explained until recently, which can only be rationally understood through Spiritism.

The relationships between spirits and humans are constant.

Good spirits induce us to do good, sustain us in the trials of life and help us to bear them with courage and resignation.

The wicked drive us to evil; they rejoice when they see us give in and become like them.

The communications of the spirits with men are either occult or ostensible. The occult ones are produced through the good or evil influence they exert upon us, without our knowing it. It is for our judgment to discern the good from the bad inspirations.

The spirits manifest themselves spontaneously or by evocation; they are attracted by the sympathy produced by the moral nature of the environment which evokes them. Higher spirits take pleasure in serious gatherings where, in those who compose them, the love of good and the sincere desire for instruction and improvement predominate. The presence of these drives away the lower spirits, who, on the contrary, find free access and can operate with complete freedom among frivolous or curiosity-driven people, as well as where pernicious instincts may exist. The superior spirits use on all occasions a dignified, noble language, imbued with the highest morality. The language of inferior spirits, on the contrary, is inconsequential, often trivial, and even coarse.

Spiritist Morality

The morality of the higher spirits is summed up, like that of Christ, in this Gospel maxim: Do unto others as we would have others do unto us, that is, do good, not evil. In this principle man finds a universal rule of conduct which will guide him even in the smallest actions.

The Higher Spirits teach that in the world of spirits, where nothing can be hidden, the hypocrite will be unmasked and his crookedness exposed; that the inevitable and continuous presence of those with whom we have done wrong is one of the punishments reserved for us; that the inferior or superior states of spirits are in correspondence with penalties or joys unknown on Earth.

They also teach that there are no irremediable faults which cannot be atoned for by atonement. A means of attaining this is found by man in the various existences which enable him to advance, according to his desires and efforts, along the path of progress, towards the perfection which is his final destiny.