Thomas Paine and the Spiritist Thought

By Luis Salazar, Jr.

April 2008

Meeting Thomas Paine

Spiritism

I read about Thomas Paine at school and impressed me the similarities in language (straight forward, angry, with great sense of social justice). As the lyrics of my

favorite rock punk band (Rage)

Then I realized that everything is part of the same message, also contained in the Spiritist Doctrine

Who was Thomas Paine?• Thomas Paine was born on the

29th of January 1737 , Norfolk in England,. In 1774, he met Benjamin Franklin in London, who advised him to emigrate to America. He was 37.

• Common Sense• The American Crisis

(1776)

Who was Thomas Paine?

He wrote the Rights of Man (1791)

The Age of Reason (1793)

Sketch by Jacques-Louis David of the French National Assembly.

Who was Thomas Paine?

• Paine remained in France during the early Napoleonic era.

• Paine died at age 72, New York City, on the morning of June 8, 1809. Photograph of the monument to Thomas Paine on North

Avenue in New Rochelle, New York, on March 30, 2007

Who was Thomas Paine?

• “Contributing fundamentally to the American Revolution, the French

Revolution, and the struggles of Britain's Industrial Revolution, Thomas Paine was

one of the most remarkable political writers of the modern world and the

greatest radical of a radical age. “ Harvey J. Kaye

The American Prospect magazine July 2005

Who was Thomas Paine?

The Lost FounderThomas Paine has often been the forgotten

Founding Father

• For much of the 19th century, and well into the 20th, Paine's role in the making of the United States was effectively erased in the official - - telling. Generations of historians and biographers assumed that memory of Paine's contributions to American history had been lost.

Thomas Paine and Allan Kardec

Thomas Paine and Allan Kardec

• The Bible or any other Holy Book: Preaches that Faith is to accept the word as is true without questioning it.

• Thomas Paine says Reason must come before faith.

• Allan Kardec: Faith alone is blind faith if there is no reason. “Unshakable faith is only that which can meet reason face to face in every human epoch.”

Thomas Paine and Allan Kardec

• Thomas Paine, as Kardec, was interested in science.

Iron bridge designed by Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine and Allan Kardec• They both used

writing as a tool.• They were

persecuted by the Inquisition

• Both had books with record sales.

• Neither had children.

• Their work lasted over time.

Thomas Paine and Allan Kardec• “My conscience tells me that Paine broke the ice for Kardec’s navigation upstream into the difficult water of

moral evolution.”William Moreira

from the book What Christ, Thomas Paine and Allan Kardec want you to know and religion doesn’t.

Thomas Paine and the Spiritist Thought

The Spiritist Creed• God is the Supreme Intelligence,

first cause of all things. • To believe in the soul and its

immortality; in the pre-existence of the soul;

• in goodness and evil according to the principle: to each according to his/her deeds;

• in the equality of justice for all, without any exceptions, favors or privileges towards any creature;

Thomas Paine•The only idea man can affix to the name of God is that of a first cause, the cause of all things.•“I believe in one God and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life”.

•Human nature is not of itself vicious.

•I believe in the equality of man

God

Soul

Good& Bad

Equality

Thomas Paine and the Spiritist Thought

The Spiritist Creed• All the Laws of Nature are Divine Laws because God is their author. They cover both the physical and moral laws.

• The morality of Christ, as contained in the Gospels, is the guidance for the secure progress of all Human Beings.

• Human Beings are given free-will to act, but they must answer for the consequences of their actions

Thomas Paine• That the Creation we behold is the real and ever-existing word of God, in which we cannot be deceived. It proclaims his power, it demonstrates his wisdom, it manifests his goodness and beneficence.

• I have too much respect for the moral character of Christ.

•The Doctrine of original Sin takes away all men free will, because of Adam

Divine Laws

ChrIst

Free Will

Thomas Paine and the Spiritist Thought

The Spiritist Creed• The Spirits’ relations with Human Beings are constant and have always existed.

Thomas Paine• There are two distinct classes of what are called thoughts — those that we produce in ourselves by reflection and the act of thinking, and those that bolt into the mind of their own accord. I have always made it a rule to treat those voluntary visitors with civility, taking care to examine, as well as I was able, if they were worth entertaining, and it is from them I have acquired almost all the knowledge that I have.

Spirits Communications

Thomas Paine and the Spiritist Thought

The Spiritist Creed• Within the Universe there are

other inhabited worlds, with beings at different degrees of evolution: some equal, others more or less evolved than earthly Man.

Thomas PaineBut it is not to us, the inhabitants of this globe, only, that the benefits arising from a plurality of worlds are limited. The inhabitants of each of the worlds of which our system is composed enjoy the same opportunities of knowledge as we do.

Plurality of inhabited worlds

Thomas Paine and the Spiritist Thought

Thomas Paine• Every preacher ought to be a

philosopher. Most certainly; and every house of devotion a school of science.

• It is certain that, in one point, all the nations of the earth and all religions agree — all believe in a God; the things in which they disagree, are the redundancies annexed to that belief; and, therefore, if ever a universal religion should prevail, it will not be by believing anything new, but in getting rid of redundancies, and believing as man believed at first. Adam, if ever there were such a man, was created a Deist; but in the meantime, let every man follow, as he has a right to do, the religion and the worship he prefers.

The Spiritist Creed

• Spiritist Center: Promote the study of the SpiritistDoctrine in its three basicaspects: scientific,philosophical and religious.

• The day will come when all beliefs, however diverse in form, but which repose upon the same fundamental principles, God and the immortality of the Soul, will form a great unity.

Churches

Future of Religions

“I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow creatures happy” Thomas Paine – The Age of Reason

“Without charity there is no salvation” Gospel according to Spiritism.

God Bless us