Board of the Main Facts Regarding Allan Kardec and the Origins of Spiritism
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Board of the main facts regarding Allan Kardec and the origins of Spiritism Written by Dr Silvio Seno Chibeni, P.hD. 1. Introduction In this work we will try to gather some important data from the history of Spiritism, especially those referring to Allan Kardec and nascent Spiritism. Our basic source will be the work Allan Kardec, in three volumes, by Zêus Wantuil and Francisco Thiesen, given to the public by the Brazilian Spiritist Federation in 1979/80. Any scholar of Spiritism will readily recognize that it represents the most complete and rigorous study ever published on Kardec's life and work. Volumes 2 and 3, by Thiesen, also contain analyzes and comments of great accuracy and depth on many topics related to the spiritist doctrine and movement. The three volumes of this work present a very dense mass of information. They have anthroponomic indices, but they do not have analytical indices. In the last two volumes, the chapters are of wide proportions, containing many sections. Thiesen chose, certainly with reasonable reasons, not to make a chronological presentation of the facts. All of this makes it very difficult to locate subjects. For these reasons, we find it useful to compile here, in a simpler and more direct way, some of the most important events. We were motivated by our personal experience, of often wanting to quote precise dates and places and not being able to find references right away. It may also be of some use to have a succinct panel of facts, which allows a global view. Of course, we know that what matters most are not names, dates and places, but their historical, scientific and philosophical significance. The careful researcher cannot dispense with the respectable work of Thiesen and Wantuil. It should also be remembered that the second part of Allan Kardec's Posthumous Works consists of texts of enormous relevance to the history of Spiritism, full, as it could not fail to be, of precious doctrinal considerations. The same goes for the Revue Spirite volumes edited by Kardec. There are some other sources about Spiritism and its history, which can be consulted, although they are nowhere near in scope and precision, to what Thiesen and Wantuil bequeathed us. Among them are: ● Moreil, André. La vie et l'Œvre d'Allan Kardec. Paris, Vermet, undated. (Wantuil mentions another Parisian edition, Éditions Sperar, 1961; Thiesen refers to a translation for the vernacular, by Miguel Maillet, published undated by Edicel. See Allan Kardec, vol. I, pp. 79 and 26, respectively.) ● Sausse, Henri. Biographie d'Allan Kardec. 4th ed., Paris, Éditions Jean Meyer, 1927. The Brazilian Spiritist Federation features a translation of this biography in its edition of What is Spiritism, without indication of the translator. {note 1} For ease of reference, we will adopt the following abbreviations: ● AK I, AK II and AK III respectively volumes I, II and III of the work Allan Kardec. ● OP Posthumous Works ● RS or Revue Revue Spirite ● SPES Société Parisienne des Études Spirites ● FEB Brazilian Spiritist Federation The numbers that will appear before these symbols refer to pages of the works, unless otherwise specified. We used the 1st edition of Allan Kardec and the 18th edition of the Febian translation of Posthumous Works, translated by Guillon Ribeiro (confronted with the French original: Paris, Dervy-Livres, 1978). 2. Hippolyte-Léon Denizard Rivail 1804 - (10/3rd) - Birth of Hippolyte-Léon Denizard Rivail, the future Allan Kardec, in Lyon, the second largest French city after Paris. His parents were Jean-Baptiste Antoine Rivail, a lawman, and Jeanne Louise Duhamel, residents of Rue Sale, 76; this house was demolished in the middle of the 19th century. (AK I 29) 1815 - Rivail goes to the Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi Institute to continue his studies. The Institute was in the city of Yverdon, Switzerland, and operated as a boarding school. There the students received thorough comprehensive education, according to the innovative pedagogical method of the famous teacher, based on the conviction that love is the eternal foundation of education. (AK I chapters 2 to 11 and 15) 1822 - Rivail leaves Yverdon and settles in Paris. There is no complete certainty about that date. It is known that in January 1823 he already lived at Rue de la Harpe, 117. It is also confirmed that at least from 1828 to 1831 he lived at Rue de Vaugirard, 65. (AK I chapters 12 and 21) 1824 - Rivail publishes his first textbook, Cours pratique et théorique d'arithmétique, designed according to the Pestalozzian method. It was published in Paris in the Imprimerie de Pillet Ainé, Rue Christine, 5. (AK I chapters 14 and 16) 1825 - Rivail founds his first school, the École de Premier Degrée. (AK I chapter 18) 1826 - Institution Rivail, a technical institute, is located at Rue de Sèvres, 35; it operated until 1834. The Lycée Polymathique, which was also run by Rivail, would later exist in this same place until 1850, when it was ceded to A. Pilotet. From that date Prof. Rivail would no longer practice teaching activities. (AK I chapter 19 and pp. 131, 145 and 146) 1828 - Rivail gives the public the "Plan proposé pour l'amélioration de l'éducation publique", suggesting guidelines for public education. (AK I chapter 21) 1831 - Rivail's Grammaire Française Classique sur un nouveau plan appears. (AK I chapter 22) 1832 - Marries Amélie-Gabrielle Boudet (1795-1883), who would be his dedicated companion and support at all times, until his disincarnation. Known later among spiritists as "Madame Allan Kardec", Amélie-Gabrielle was a teacher and collaborated with her husband in his teaching activities. They never had children, as explicitly read in the Revue Spirite of 1862. (AK I chapter 20, III 45) Rivail and his wife were dignified people, of unassailable morality, dedicating themselves entirely to the cultivation of the superior ideals of culture, education, the good. They fought for the causes of freedom of education and education for girls. Rivail taught free courses for poor children for many years. Besides being a teacher, he was always a friend of the students. (AK I chapters 23 to 29) From a material point of view, the Rivail couple led simple lives, often facing economic difficulties. In the spiritist phase, his meager resources would be used in the publication of the initial works and in other expenses related to Spiritism. In the years of greatest limitations, Rivail supplemented his income with modest temporary jobs, such as an accountant. (AK I chapter 33) There are reliable references to about 21 texts published by Prof. Rivail, among didactic books and several pamphlets referring to education. (AK I chapter 37) Rivail had a solid scholarship, knowing the sciences, philosophy and the arts quite well. He translated German and English works into French, and vice versa. He was a member of several cultural academies, having several degrees. (AK I chapters 22, 30, 35) Contrary to what Henri Sausse affirmed, and some maintain today, Rivail was not a doctor (AK I ch. 31). There is also no evidence that he was a Mason, and it is more reasonable to assume that he was not (AK I chapter 32). 3. From the initial observations to the first edition of The Spirits' Book 1848 - Beginning of the famous spiritist phenomena that involved the Fox family, in Hydesville (USA). On March 28, the first physical manifestations took place; three days later, the first tiptological communication was established. Within a few years, similar phenomena began to draw public attention not only in the United States, but also in Europe. It was the phase of the so-called "turning tables''. (AK II 49-60; see also The Turning Tables and Spiritism, by Zêus Wantuil, published by FEB.) 1854 - Rivail is informed by Mr. Fortier, magnetizer of his acquaintance, about the occurrence of the turning table phenomena. Although he found them strange, he did not consider them impossible, since they could have some physical cause not yet well determined. However, some time later that same Mr. Fortier told him that the tables also "spoke", that is, they gave signs of intelligence. The reaction now was skeptical: "I will only believe it when I see it and when they prove to me that a table has a brain to think, nerves to feel and that it can become sleepwalking." (OP 265; AK II 62) 1855 - At the beginning of that year, Mr. Carlotti gave him a long account of the singular phenomena. Although Rivail had known him for 25 years, he once again expressed reservations, given his friend's exalted temperament, so in opposition to his. (OP 266; AK II 124) 1855 - In May, Rivail goes, with Fortier, to the home of Mrs. Roger, sleepwalker, where he meets Mr. Pâtier and Mrs. Plainemaison. The latter talks about the phenomena, but with seriousness and coldness, which predisposes him, finally, to observe the facts. (OP 266) 1855 - At one of these meetings, he meets the Baudin family, then a resident of Rue Rochechouart (from 1856 he would go to Rue Lamartine; see AK 64). Invited by Mr. Baudin, he began to regularly attend the weekly sessions that were held at his home. The mediums were the couple's daughters, Caroline and Julie, who at the beginning wrote with the help of a basket. {note 2} From numerous and frivolous that were, under the influence of Rivail, the meetings became reserved and serious, dedicated to the rational and methodical research of the new domain. "I understood, first of all, the gravity of the exploration I was going to undertake; I realized, in those phenomena, the key to the problem so obscure and so controversial of humanity's past and future ..