(Benjamin Teixeira) – Eugênia, do you wish to engender any particular subject?
(Spirit Eugenia) – Yes. Near Death Experiences.
(BT) – That is great, Eugênia. This subject is fascinating and I don’t hear you talk about it often, nor I see it in the classical spiritist literature.
(SE) – Indeed. It is roughly about this subject, this line of reasoning that I would like to expend my opinions. Near Death Experiences came to renew mankind’s expectations, concepts and hopes about the hereafter. Neither the philosophical nihilism of Oriental lines of spiritual thought, nor the infantile and mythological view of an idyllic paradise, opposed to a monstrous hell of the western classical Christian perspective. We should have a more realistic view and, concomitantly, more optimistic of the after-life.
(BT) – Absolutely, and this is what I notice. Despite most of those who go through NDE’s are not aces of spirituality and love to others, they have very positive experiences in the after-life, contradicting the standard of mediumistic reports in the classical spiritist literature that presents a bitter life after death.
(SE) – Very well. That is where it lies the most important issue to be dealt with here. There are calcified prejudice among spiritists, impregnated even in the mediumistic literature, which must be broken. There are not so daunting experiences in the after-life, as widespread as indicated by such literature. That is: there are infernal regions. But the current spiritist literature suggests that even those of relative evolution and dedication to good, will suffer hard times when they pass to the other dimension, for not doing more and better. It’s not quite what happens. The Divine Providence is wise and would not demand ripe fruit from fragile sprouts. Each is evaluated according to the level of consciousness reached.
(BT) – So, there are errors in the spiritist literature…
(SE) – As in every literature, even scientific. It is a revisionist necessity that we propose, without invalidating the general message of the great missionaries of the past, who composed enlightening works of love and wisdom. Kardec himself predicted this: a change of postulates and perspectives in the “doctrine”, as human knowledge advanced. One should free oneself from the illusion that mediumistic information has a character of truth. Like every human work, it is impregnated with the mental colour, prejudice and assumptions of truth of a specific time and culture. Even Kardec’s spiritual guides, in “The Book of Mediums”, predicted that spiritual guides skirt controversial matters, respecting the assumptions of truth and, as a result, the pre-conceptions of their mediums, in order to not cause them any untimely and inappropriate conflicts. The information from the Higher Plane follow a gradual program of revelation, which uncovers overlapping layers of truth, to not overshadow sensitive eyes with an overdose of light. With respect to the expectations of the after-life, however, the time has come to reassess the spiritist literature, since it no longer suits the general average level of values of the human population to wait for draconian judgments, similar to the ethics and moral of bygone days. A lot of people even move away, understandably, from the spiritist subject, because they “mentally” feel the smell of retrograde ideas, in the excessive moralism of certain positions and an almost worship to suffering that gives off the classical spiritist literature. Thus, it would be not only advisable, as blatantly necessary to revise these concepts, even because, in fact, as indicated by studies of thanatology, there isn’t so much horror in the life beyond physical death, as it was supposed till now. Quite the contrary: the Divine Love involves everyone, with forgiveness and goodness, although it does not exempt anyone the responsibility over their actions; thereby bringing these individuals back transformed from such experiences, rather than terrified with the perspective of bitter punishments in the hereafter.
(BT) – Many people will contradict this view, out of respect for the integrity of the great missionaries of the past.
(SE) – We are not arguing the importance of the works of the past, even less the integrity of those who gave their lives for the spiritist ideal. Only as a matter of historic logic and mainly scientific, we cannot stop in time and recite ancient obsolete concepts just to honour their formulators of another time. Nobody, for instance, will be dethroning Einstein from his undeniable merit as a scientist, for being a proponent of Quantum Physics, and no doctor today will follow Galen’s system to prescribe medicine to patients, in honour of the great sage of health in the past. With respect, for example, to reports collected by NDE’ researchers, concerning to testimonies and experiences of millions of people, it is therefore an undeniably great amount of data to be regarded only as an opinion. It is the fact, the statistics, the inter and multicultural confrontation of data, that gives a character of truth virtually indisputable to these studies. No matter how respectable one or more mediums of the past have been, no isolated source can be considered more secure than the confrontation of data of millions of patients who were “clinically dead”, in distant countries, cultures and times, all of them reporting the same order of experiences and occurrences beyond death. Important detail: this sequence of experiences, in general, confirms what the classic spiritist literature has been saying since its beginning, with regards to the arrival at the other dimension: being received by disincarnate relatives, the process of detachment from the physical body, often accompanied by the patient. But the important thing to consider is the almost generalised contact with loving beings, and with the Being of Light, interpreted by many as the very Own Divine Presence, which appears to nearly all those who goes deep into NDE’s, what in classic literature is reserved only for great luminaries of the spirits.
We live in the era of understanding and acceptance of the Infinite Goodness of God. The relentlessly way that death is shown in the classic spiritist literature, with severe judgments and bitter punishments for almost everyone (the inverse of what’s shown in NDE’s), is a residue of medieval views of the after-life, which proclaimed terror and guilt, as a mean to restrain humanity’s bad behaviour and regenerate it. Today, with the new prisms of psychology and pedagogy, it is known that such methodology is counterproductive, and do not correspond to the Divine Reality.
(BT) – Wow! This is revolutionary and controversial.
(SE) – Irreversible, I rather say. What I say is not so revolutionary, as it sounds at first glance, because it is in perfect accordance with the new pattern of average consciousness on Earth, which no longer admits the childish and medieval notion of eventual punishments beyond the grave. Controversial only for those of “the opposite team”, reactionary, who rises up to make noise in face of any perspective of change. But their members will make an inglorious noise, if they wish to rebel against progress, because the train of history does not pity reactionary people, even because they will be against the Divine Will, who does not want to frighten Their creatures, but educate them. They will thus be fighting against all forces: of Heaven and Earth, fated, therefore, to resounding failure, either sooner or worse if later.
(Mediumistic dialogue held on February 21, 2004.)