Spiritist Knowledge

P ainter or drawer mediums are people who "paint or draw under the influence of the spirits" (1). They are rarer than other notable kinds of mediumship (as psychography, for example), however, their artistic works can be impressive, mainly if they paint or draw under very particular circumstances. We already presented here the mediumship of Luiz Antônio Gasparetto , however, other Brazilian mediums followed him and are presently active. An interesting case is Florêncio Anton (2). Florencio Anton was born in November 1973 in the city of Salvador (Bahia). Since his first childhood, he was in contact with spirits. One of this entities used to warn him on his misdoings and helped him as a family guide. When he was 14 he was initiated to Spiritism after a battle to understand the many phenomena that took place in his presence. He looked for answers to clairvoyance, out of the body experiences, physical effects and other occurrences he was associated with since they always...

Jorge Rizzini (1924-2008). The different varieties of mediums rest upon special faculties whose principle are still unknown to us. At first sight and to those who haven't made a systematic study of this science yet, it seems easier for a medium to write prose than verses. One would say - mainly if one deals with a mechanical medium - a spirit can both make the medium write in a foreign language and make him sketch or write music. However, that is not so. Although at every moment one can see sketches, verses and music made by mediums who, in the normal state, are not draftsmen, poets nor musicians, it is certain that not all them are able to produce such things. In spite of their lack of knowledge, they have an intuitive faculty and flexibility which transform them into gentle instruments. That is what Bernard Palissy said when he was asked about his choice of Mr. Victorien Sardou, who couldn't draw, to make his admirable sketches (Revue Spirit, April/August 1858). "I...

I t is presently a mystery how some lost animals - usually cats and dogs - find their way home. A recent case was Pero (1), a four-year sheepdog which was back to home 15 days later after its scape. Somehow Pero was able to find its home 240 miles (~400 km) away.  Many other "anecdotes" accumulate, narrated by many families and now Pero's case seems to have confirmed this surprising ability. According to the present scientific knowledge, animals are endowed with a multitude of "sensors" (2) used to provide accurate information and supporting the notion that they are able to guide themselves through long distances. Such sensor are not only far superior than the human versions (dogs, for example, have acute smell and hearing, cats see very well in the dark etc), but represent perhaps other sense modes as, for example, magnetic sensing. Birds and bees have their own inner "compasses". Magnetic substances have been found in the retina of many animal...

Image of " Almanaque del Espiritismo " (or "The Spiritist Almanac"), an edition of 1873 (first year). Edited in Madrid (1), Spain. Source: Spanish National Library. T he IAPSOP ( International Association for the Preservation of Spiritualist and Occcult Periodicals, 2 ) has recently uploaded a page with many images of old and rare Spiritualist journals (the files are not transcribed but can be read either using OCR or any other method). You can easily acess this material at: http://www.iapsop.com/archive/materials/index.html  (access february 2016) Among the precious works one can find: " Revue Spirite ":  http://www.iapsop.com/archive/materials/revue_spirite/ " Light ":  http://www.iapsop.com/archive/materials/light/ " The Spiritual Telegraph ":  http://www.iapsop.com/archive/materials/spiritual_telegraph/ " Proceedings of and Journal of the Society for Psychical Research ":  http://www.iapsop.com/archive/m...

" The Helper...He will teach you all things.  And He will help you remember everything  that I have told you. " (John, 14:26) What man destroys and kills, God's Law  (which is Nature's law) recreates and rebuilds elsewhere. W hat is the most important text in the Gospel According to Spiritism? By "importance" we understand a relevance degree that is surely dependent on the moment we live. Here we suggest a good reading motivated not only by present-day terrorist attacks in the name of Religion but also by the everlasting human problem of survival and life meaning. Launched by Allan Kardec in 1864 as a new interpretation of the Gospels, the Gospel According to Spiritism (1), GAS (in French  L'Évangile Selon le Spiritisme ) is a compendium of the maxims of Christ in accordance to spirit teachings both within the contexts of the Spiritist and Spiritualist movements that appeared in Europe in the last half of the XIX century.  But ...

If every effect has a cause, every intelligent effect  must have an intelligent cause.  (A. Kardec, "Spiritism in its simplest expression", History of Spiritism.) Wherefore seeing we also are compassed  about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight,  and the sin which doth so easily beset us,  and let us run with patience  the race that is set before us.  (Paul, Heb. 12:1,KJV) R ecent debates about the nature and cause of many psychic phenomena have been polarized between two antagonistic explanations. On one side, the so-called "super-psi" supporters seek to explain all events by hypothesizing the existence of yet unknown human "superpowers" which would be responsible for all events. On the other hand, proponents of human-spirit interaction explain many facts as an interplay between an unknown force of Nature - the Spirits - and the human mind. Moreover, the existence of Spirits is directly linked to ...

It is not to be thought, however, that all suffering in this world denotes the existence of a determined shortcoming. Many times it is simply an ordeal requested by the Spirit, which will help it towards purification and active progress. So atonement is always a test,  but a test is not always an  atonement.  ( A. Kardec, "The  Gospel According to Spiritism", Chap. 5,  "Blessed are the afflicted", Paragraph 9, see ref. 1 ) A crisis always reveals the consequence of something not properly done in the past or an action erroneously undertaken. We suffer the effect of the past living in us because we are its product. We are informed by the spirits that our actions today have two goals: to solve life's problems and to act upon current events resulting in either moral gains or losses, just as to influence the future when we will sistematically reap gains or losses again.  As a result, if we fail to act today towards the future, we will hardly...