(BTA) I would like you question me about Spiritism and New Age.
(BTA) Eugênia, what can you tell us about this ideological comparison?
(EE) New Age is a field of study too broad and Spiritism, on the other hand, is an extraordinary synthesis of the same thematic field. While New Age is a diffuse movement, in which different activities, from ecological movements, passing by researches of depth psychology till groups of preservation of eastern doctrines, are placed in the same basket, including all sorts of cheap of self-help literature, many of dubious quality, opening space to all sorts of misinterpretations about the importance that underlies it, as a seed of a gigantic civilizational revolution, the Spiritism, in the condition of spectacular synthesis, brings together, under the aegis of the scientific-rational thought, all the colossal miscellanea of values, ideas and information relative to the spiritual subject, moving away from all dogmatism.
(BTA) Right. What else must one think about that?
(EE) In fact, Spiritism, like it is indeed understood in Brazil, as a doctrine, the kardecism, the set of ideas of the illustrious Allan Kardec, will not be generalized in the future of humanity, as a large and single religion, but it will be an excellent tool, or at least, an exceptional model of integration of all mass of information regarding the human soul and the complex dimensions and domains of physical, astral and spiritual reality. The word Spiritism is even appropriate to summarize, under its nickname, all spiritualist denominations and all forms of beliefs that include: immortality, reincarnation and mediumship. That is: those who believe in the immortality of the soul, in reincarnation and in the contact with the spirit world can be called spiritist, even if they do not call themselves that way. In this manner, we would have, under this denomination, two distinctive categories: the spiritists sensu stricto – Allan Kardec’s followers – and the spiritists sensu lato – all those who accept the survival of the being after the death of the body, its evolution through the palingenetic pathway, and, finally, the existence of inter-dimensional communicability (making allusion, in particular, to the exchange between those alive in the physical world and those alive out of it).
(BTA) Interesting. What to do in relation to the existence of these two gigantic areas of thought and behavior?
(EE) There should be no excessive rigor in the postulations of Kardec’s theses. This is not Spiritism’s primary objective, as said by Kardec himself. Spiritism exists to be disseminated with or without Allan Kardec’s ideas, despite the singular brilliance of the illustrious codifier’s synthesis. The issue is that, for new syntheses, a series of barriers can be erected, against the thought of the respectable “founder” of Spiritism because almost a century and a half have already passed since its inception and ethno-centric prejudices. I refer mainly to the fact that the Anglo-phonic nations, not only dominant today, as also bearers of the almost hegemonic culture of nowadays, are extremely resistant to everything that has not been created within their corners. In this way, the critical and rational spirit must be disseminated, as also the unquestionable reality of immortality, of evolution-reincarnation, and, finally, of the psychic means of communication inter-domains of a cosmological multidimensional reality, without a rigorous preoccupation in giving to these new approaches, the name of Kardec’s Spiritism. Jesus’ thought, likewise, which is the basis of Kardec’s doctrine, must be carried forward, thereby providing a repagination of the evangelical exegesis, according to necessities, concepts and values of the man and the woman of the Third Millennium. The Western culture (Anglo-centric, as we said) being hegemonic today, and being fundamentally Christian, it is of paramount importance that the ideas of Christ are remodeled for the modern culture, without losing its content, or, much better saying: revealing its true and original content, according to interpretative possibilities of a more aware human being of the current times, like never before it was possible, in all long history of two thousand years of Christianity.
(BTA) Anything else to say?
(EE) May our dear Brazilian friends who had the unique blessing of having access to Spiritism, according to Kardec’s view, not despise it, pretermitting it to other sects and limited interpretations, like those that, although revolutionary in its countries of origin, are nothing new for those who follow the universalist and scientific primer of Kardec, such as Transpersonal Psychology, ITC (Instrumental Trans Communication) studies and the analyses of comparative religion that anthropology departments in modern academies make. May they appreciate the immense treasure of eternal truths they have in their hands and, instead of substituting such pearl of wisdom by cheap jewelry of esoteric knowledge, may they read and evaluate, but with this superior parameter of analysis and knowledge, since that a long time will still pass until the esoteric-spiritualist knowledge from abroad reaches the level of maturity and depth reached by Spiritism, in considering its complete body of philosophic, scientific and religious system of thought.
(Dialogue held on April 06, 2004.)