Freud and Kardec

Obsession - What is obsession? - Guidance for the treatment of cases of obsession

Many psychologists and psychiatrists accuse Spiritism of invading their scientific domains in cases of mental and psychic disturbances. Unfamiliar with the Spiritist Doctrine and its history, they do not know that exactly the opposite has occurred. They claim that obsession is a disturbance resulting from endogenous imbalances, that is, from the patient's own psycho-mental structures in relation to environmental factors. They attribute almost everything to the patient's constitution, to organic and particularly cerebral or emotional dysfunctions. The unconscious is generally the seat of all psychic disturbances. They understand that Spiritists confuse the imaginary ghosts generated by the patient's pathological manifestations with real ghosts from the oldest magical and religious superstitions of Humanity. They believe that Spiritism represents a process of returning to the world of superstition.

Freud was only one year old when Kardec raised the problem of the unconscious in scientific terms, in his research on spiritual phenomena, today scientifically called paranormal phenomena. Kardec went deeper than Freud on the subject, reaching the problem of individual and collective archetypes, which only Adler and Jung would later research. In researching the problem of animism in mediumistic manifestations and psychic infiltrations in real manifestations, Kardec duly emphasized the importance of manifestations of the unconscious in individual and collective behavior. Freud approached the question of dreams within the limits of his doctrine. For no less than twelve years, Kardec had already carried out intensive research in experimental psychology (an absolute pioneer in this field) at the Parisian Society for Spiritist Studies. Today, parapsychological research, carried out in the largest university centers around the world, fully proves Kardec's accuracy. We provide this historical information solely so that victims of obsessions and their families do not allow themselves to be misled into fatal mistakes in difficult cases of obsession. Spiritist Science does not oppose Material Sciences in any field, but only tries to help them with the necessary complementation of their own research and achievements. It is easy to verify the truth of this information by simply consulting Kardec's works, including the reports on obsessions and disobsessions in his works published in the collection of the Spiritist Magazine, now entirely translated and published in our language. 

(From the book: Obsession: the Pass – the Doctrine - Chapter I - Obsession What is obsession? - Guidance for the treatment of cases of obsession.)