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“…The high moral tone of The Mediums’ Book, as of all the writings of Allan Kardec, is in unison with the assertion so often repeated by the spirits whose communications he has co-ordinated with such exceptional Clearness and reach of thought, that the aim of the open intercourse which is now being established between spirits and men is not the mere gratification of Curiosity, not the mere enlargement of the Sphere of interesting inquiry, not even the mere giving of the certainty of our continued existence beyond the grave; but that the sole aim of this intercourse is the moral improvement of the human race, which it will accomplish through the new light it will throw on the nature and purpose of human life. By showing us that our present is always the result of our past and the arbiter of our future, and that the acquisition of wisdom and benevolence is the sole condition of happiness, this intercourse will furnish us with the most powerful incentive to the pursuit of knowledge and the practice of kindness; and it will thus effect the gradual amelioration of mankind that is destined to transform the earth from a world of punishment and discipline, as it now is, into a portal of the happier realms of existence to which we can only attain as the result of our intellectual and moral improvement.
No serious and intelligent student of the works of Allan Kardec has ever doubted that the theory of human progress, of which that early pioneer of the great spiritualistic movement of the present day was made to lay the foundations, will eventually be accepted as the basis of a reasoned out religious belief, not only by all those who are interested in spirit-manifestations, but by the world at large.
And this conviction of the Providential character of the works in question - abundantly justified by the reception they have eventually commanded wherever they have been introduced, - will doubtless be still further strengthened by the gradual acceptance of The Mediums’ Book in England and in the United States, in proportion as its scope and character become known in those countries; for, while the progressive development of spirit-manifestation has constantly brought new confirmation to the explanations of the phenomena given in this book at so early a stage of the great movement - and often in advance of the occurrence of the phenomena themselves - not a single phenomenon has occurred to disprove or invalidate those explanations. (Anna Blackwell – Paris 1876)
The Mediums Book will comprise all the data we have arrived at through long experience and conscientious study ; and will help, we hope, to give to spiritism the character of seriousness which is essential to its usefulness, and to dissipate the idea that it may be taken up as a matter of frivolous curiosity and amusement.
We would add to the above considerations one more of no small importance, viz., the unfavourable impression which the sight of experiments entered on lightly, and with no proper knowledge of the cause of the phenomena evolved, necessarily produces on novices and persons who are ill-disposed towards spiritism, giving them a very false idea of the world of spirits, and bringing ridicule upon the cause of spiritism ; sceptics usually leave such sittings unconvinced, and but little disposed to admit that Spiritism can have its serious side. The ignorance and frivolity of some mediums have done more harm to the cause than is generally supposed…. (Allan Kardec)
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