A Mere Disciple of Kardec

For those of you that may not know me personally, this past December I made the very difficult choice to leave the Spiritualist Church I had been attending for about three years. I was very active in this church, in several different capacities: Historian, Secretary, Lyceum Director (basically a Sunday School teacher), the occasional volunteer Medium, and friend. It was an incredibly difficult choice, but something that I felt very deeply was for the best, and was something that my own Guides wanted me to do.

Late this past summer, I started to read through the works of Spiritism, this was originally part of small outreach I was doing on my Instagram with sharing different Spiritualist texts, but more and more the focus seemed to be on Kardec and the Spiritist books. The wisdom in the books helped me through several stressful events during the late summer, and I carried on in studying them more.

I'm not a stranger to Kardec and the Spiritist Codification. I had read selections from the Spirits Book and Gospel, and the Mediums Book was the first textbook on mediumship I studied when I was about 16. It was a huge help in understanding my own mediumship, and the importance of assisting others; it helped me, and I did understand the major points, but I certainly didn't give it the kind of study it deserved. I largely set aside Kardec's books afterwards.

When I was attending my church, I wanted to assist with education as much as possible, so I spent the bulk of my time in studying Spiritualist texts and books and coming up with different things to share that might be interesting to the congregation. I had largely avoided Kardec because of this, but by late Fall this past year I was reading small portions of Kardec almost daily.

Coming back to Spiritism, and the works of Kardec, was like reading a letter from an old friend. As I worked through the books my sense of purpose felt much more like myself than it had been, and I felt a great relief to some of the anxiety that I had been having from so many different aspects of life.

In early December I cam across a very old, out of print book called Two Appeals to The Leaders of Spiritualism in England and America by Giorlamo Parisi, a Disciple of Allan Kardec. I'm sure it's not a coincidence that this book came to me then. Giolamo Parisi was an Italian Spiritist from Florence in 1873. The small book lays out specific reasons why he feels that American Spiritualism at the time, while good, was lacking in the depth and spiritual fulfillment provided by the teachings of Spiritism, and that American Spiritualism would flourish if they took a few points from Spiritism. Although things have certainly changed since the writing of his book, I found that many of the points Parisi made, were the same as some of my own issues with the state of Spiritualist Churches today.

Reading this little book helped me reaffirm to myself that I am very much a Spiritist; to be clear, I am far from a strict Scientific Spiritist, or Kardecist. But in terms of principles, I am very much a Spiritist. I absolutely agree that we should live in Faith, Hope, and Charity; help one another, offer healing, prayer, and kindness to everyone in the Spirit of Charity. These are things I can stand for.

To quote Giorlamo Parisi, I am "under the banner of Love and Charity, unfurled by Allan Kardec" As a fellow 'mere disciple of Allan Kardec' I absolutely agree, to progress, to develop as our true selves, we must live our lives with "charity in thought, in words, and in acts."