Foundation
With his humanistic background, once he was convinced of the spiritual explanation for the phenomena that he investigated between 1855 and 1856, Kardec began looking for a way to turn the survival of the human soul (and communication with it) into something useful for humankind, in the social and ethical fields. Moreover, he thought that religions were becoming unable to lead men to effective moral improvements, due to their failure as human institutions. Science, concomitantly, grew wider than ever, bringing numerous direct benefits to man. Both factors together contributed to an increasing disbelief in human spirituality at all levels of European societies. Kardec saw in it an undesirable social tendency that should be reverted by a new paradigm for understanding reality. Its main characteristics would be:
- Promoting the dialog between the three classical forms of knowledge (scientific, philosophical and religious) in order to achieve a deeper and wider comprehension of reality;
- Providing access to knowledge for all people, instead of the "Hermetic" way philosophical and scientific knowledge had been produced;
- Human relationship with the Spiritual without any institutional mediation. A natural spirituality would be enough and more appropriate for human realisation.
- Each individual is responsible for its own actions and moral/spiritual evolution is achieved through our inner transformation and charity.
Read more about this topic: History Of Spiritism
Famous quotes containing the word foundation:
“No genuine equality, no real freedom, no true manhood or womanhood can exist on any foundation save that of pecuniary independence. As a right over a man’s subsistence is a power over his moral being, so a right over a woman’s subsistence enslaves her will, degrades her pride and vitiates her whole moral nature.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1907)
“A full belly to the labourer was, in my opinion, the foundation of public morals and the only source of real public peace.”
—William Cobbett (1762–1835)
“The foundation of empire is art & science. Remove them or degrade them, & the empire is no more. Empire follows art & not vice versa as Englishmen suppose.”
—William Blake (1757–1827)