First Printing: July 2004
Bragdon, Emma, 1946-
Kardec's Spiritism: A Home for Healing and Spiritual Evolution
Includes bibliographic references, glossary, and index.
1. Spirituality 2. Metaphysics 3. Health 4. Religion 5. Brazil
Graphic Illustrations:
Marty Cain ([email protected])
Graphic Design and Typography:
Cookson Publishing ([email protected])
Cover Design:
Blue Design (www.bluedes.com)
Acknowledgements
I deeply appreciate the generosity of Laurance Rockefeller and the Lloyd Symington Foundation who sponsored the research and printing of this book.
I have had the great good fortune to come to know Elsie Dubugras and Martha G. Thomaz, two women who have been leaders in the development of Kardecist Spiritism in Brazil since the 1940s. I have learned much from their wisdom, good humor, and dedication to the path of service. Julika Kiskos, a Brazilian psychologist, both introduced me to these leaders, and helped me understand Spiritism through the lens of Parapsychology. She took Spiritism "out of the clouds of mysticism" and anchored it into the footprint of science, as her teacher, Hernani Andrade, did.
I thank other wonderful Brazilians who also gave of their time and goodwill to help me gather details about Spiritist Centers in Brazil and the philosophy behind their good works. Without the friendship of Elizabeth Pereira, of Abadiania, this book could not have been created.
Johann Grobler, MD, is one of those avant-garde psychiatrists who integrates notions intrinsic to the path of spiritual evolution into his practice of medicine. Since we met in March, 2001, our conversations have helped refine my thinking on many themes articulated in this book. Johann has also been my host and benefactor allowing me to visit his Lighuis (Lighthouse) Farm in South Africa, and use his extensive library during three long retreats. Johann's analysis of Laussac's electromagnetic medical devices grounded and supported my enthusiasm for this new arena of Energy Medicine.
My community of friends and sources of spiritual guidance, stretching all around the world, continue to bring peace, good humor, and inspiration into my life. The interconnectedness we share inspires me to work with joy.
The ferocity, friendship and caring of my editor, Joby Thompson, is the reason this book is as cogent as it is. Profound thanks.
May this book honor the Perennial Wisdom teachings, the teachers, and all loving beings who inspire us to proceed on the "Path of Love."
January, 2004
Woodstock, Vermont
and
Lighuis Farm, South Africa
Foreword by Rustum Roy, PhD.
In his 2003 Presidential Address to the MAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science), Floyd Bloom, Professor of Neuroscience at U.C. San Diego and former Editor of "Science," minces no words. Nor can anyone else who calls himself or herself a scientist mince words any longer. Bloom introduces the paper thus: "This problem is the imminent collapse of the American health care system." He refers to "the Delusions of Success" of the incredibly expensive research system for medicine. ($25 billion of public funds for NIH alone ... $1 billion of private money to bring one new major drug to market.)
Emma Bragdon's book offers a practical, down to earth, thoroughly researched (i.e. studied, with ample reproducible data), possible partial solution to the U.S.' problems. Unbelievable you say!? ... well, read it first. As a physical scientist holding five professorships in three Universities, elected to the National Academies of the U.S. and four major countries, and one who has intensively studied the field of Whole Person Healing (much superior in accuracy, as a title, to CAM-complementary and alternative medicine) for some years, I must say that some aspects of Bragdon's suggestion are much more likely to stay the collapse of the U.S. system than ANY research, ANY breakthrough, ANY gadget that our dominant high-tech paradigm can produce. More gas in the tank, or a new battery, or repaired tires, have nothing to contribute to helping your car find its way in a strange city. This is a long way to say: This book is extremely relevant and important to the future of American health care.
When I read about and watched various videos, and talked to friends whom we sent down to visit the Brazilian Abadiania Spiritist center, and studied the incontrovertible scientific data, I came to the same puzzled states that Bragdon describes. How is it possible that the American public, the American medical establishment, and U.S. policy makers are totally (100%) ignorant of these completely inexorable facts.
As a physical scientist, working by science's rules, not those of medical research, to me the facts were absolutely clear. In literally millions of cases, the experiences of "psychic surgery" consistently broke the Western paradigm: surgery was performed routinely in the open air in crowded rooms with no anesthesia, no pain, no bleeding, no sepsis; day in and day out. Obviously our Western paradigm is simply wrong or perhaps inadequate. I then recalled the wisdom of a very politically savvy and practical scientist, Benjamin Franklin. He wrote: "You will observe, with concern, how long a useful truth may be known and exist, before it is generally received and practiced on." That is where the United States stands today, being forced by economic realities perhaps, to now receive the truth of Bragdon's observations, and begin to shape their own practices in accord with it.
The reader gets several excellent, concise introductions in Emma's book. First the history via which Allan Kardec, the French intellectual, influenced a whole Portuguese colony by the practices of his disciples. Second, both the agreed upon general principles and the differences among the different Spiritist centers and practitioners. Third, Dr. Bragdon's very insightful treatment of the commonalities of "theory" among the diversities of "practice" among different brands of centers. I believe that Bragdon's treatment here is both subtle and nuanced. First and foremost as she states "Spiritual healing may ultimately be more important than bodily healing." All of the energized world community now emerging under the banner of "Whole Person Healing" recognize that the key error of allopathic medicine was the single-minded focus on a person as a 'Body' alone. Kardecists, Spiritists, (and all whole person healers) simply state the obvious when they assert that Spirit matters, and profoundly so in health. While Bragdon struggles with the distinction between spirituality and religion (as many theologians are doing today), she ultimately comes down on the correct etymological definition of religion. Religion is indeed to bind again, to re-connect, via practice. All true religions affirm both theory (belief) and experience (practice). 'Faith' and 'works' are hardly a novel idea in all traditions. The Spiritist tradition links belief and practice at the point of the most universally experienced need-for health. The vast majority in the Christian world today simply have forgotten (or never knew) that Jesus was basically a well-known healer. Moreover, his spiritual insights were passed on in profoundly situational ways, for each individual to learn from their own responses. The vagabond son returns and the father rejoices and kills the fatted calf. The stranger in the ditch needs help. No dogma-only practice-but deeply connected to the spirit of caring and its translation into action.
Bragdon carefully dissects the non-sectarian, yet profoundly spiritual nature of the culture of Brazil in which all this occurs. I myself have puzzled over the question: Can the Spiritist experience be duplicated in the U.S.? I believe it works in Brazil (and