The Time Is At Hand
The final chapter, one of the last things Kardec published in life, is in itself a prophecy about the future of Spiritism, containing the following claims:
- The world was going to suffer the most dramatic change it ever experienced, and that this change would not be a cataclysm but the complete disruption of the beliefs of man, prompting the establishment of a new faith, capable of harmonizing with science, to prevent science "alone" from leading mankind to madness.
- The changes would affect the world as a whole and blur the borders between nations and peoples.
- The crisis would lead to great advancement of mankind, eliminating most causes of suffering and turning our planet into a higher type of world (most Spiritists believe our world is one of punishment for morally debased, but intelligent spirits).
- The crisis will prompt a redefinition of many keystones of man's political organizations in terms of ethics.
- After the crisis, or as a consequence of it, man will be bodily different from its current shape.
- After the crisis there will not be any organized religions left, people will be all either free-thinkers or theists and most will believe the central tenets of Spiritism.
- We won't be able to detect the changes while they happen because they will be deep, but slow, and will take centuries to fully develop. Future generations will look unto us as an era of permanent turmoil, but not all of us will live realizing this.
- Most of the push for the change will not come from scientific improvement, but from moral progress.
Read more about this topic: The Genesis According To Spiritism
Famous quotes containing the words the time, time and/or hand:
“People who are always praising the past
And especially the times of faith as best
Ought to go and live in the Middle Ages
And be burnt at the stake as witches and sages.”
—Stevie Smith (1902–1971)
“My tea is nearly ready and the sun has left the sky;
It’s time to take the window to see Leerie going by;
For every night at tea-time and before you take your seat,
With lantern and with ladder he comes posting up the street.”
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)
“In the drawing room [of the Queen’s palace] hung a Venus and Cupid by Michaelangelo, in which, instead of a bit of drapery, the painter has placed Cupid’s foot between Venus’s thighs. Queen Caroline asked General Guise, an old connoisseur, if it was not a very fine piece? He replied “Madam, the painter was a fool, for he has placed the foot where the hand should be.””
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)