The Perispirit of Allan Kardec

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky · Constitution of Man Series · 10 pages

From La Revue Spirite of April 1878, in de Zirkoff's translation from the French, and addressed to the followers of Allan Kardec on their own ground. The terminological reversal is stated first: the Saxon spiritualists are confused between spirit and périsprit, describing the first as soul and the second as spirit, while Theosophists do the opposite — the spirit proper being Nous and the périsprit or Psyche the soul. Man is then treated as a trinity of body, périsprit and spirit, following the ancient philosophers and their pupil Paul, who held the physical body to be penetrated and kept alive by the périsprit.

What distinguishes this file from its companion is the line carried on the title page: that the morality of a system does not prove infallibility in respect of its dogmas — a courteous but pointed thing to say to Kardec's readers, granting the ethical seriousness of Spiritism while declining its metaphysics. The statement of method follows: that Theosophists accept no dogmas or preconceived principles, seek truth in good faith and will take it from any source even at the cost of sacrificing what they have held, and are far from thinking they have settled everything — since on the day a new Oedipus solves the riddle of what man is, the ancient and modern doctrines alike, and the approximations of the Spiritualists, will be flung like the Sphinx into the ocean of oblivion. Note that a second file in this section, Spirit and Perispirit, draws on the same article from La Revue Spirite of April 1878 and opens with the same paragraph; it is headed On the dual mind and omits the passage on the morality of a system.

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