Spiritist Society Towards the Light

Thought

January 13, 2017

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Thinking – From the Latin pensare means weigh, that means measure, evaluate and compare.
 

In the broadest sense, all psychic activity is called a thought;
 

In a narrower sense, only the set of all cognitive phenomena, and therefore excluding the feelings and volitions;
 

More narrowly still, thought is synonymous with “intellect”, and while allowing comprehension - or act of understanding -  of the matter of knowledge and it secures a higher degree of synthesis than perception, memory and imagination.
 

The thought in this narrower sense, takes three forms: conception, judgment and reasoning , which are the objects of study, logic considers its validity in relation to the object thought, and psychology, presiding the critical value, investigates the nature and laws of appearance.

 

We can also say that thought is the sequence of representations and concepts -- not of time or space and are generalizations that Virtualized remain in our mind. The act of thinking, as an act, and is forever new, that is, the temporal and spatial updating of the concept. Example: the circle as a concept is always the same. To think once, twice, three times ... many times on this figure, each of which for us will be always new. This is the meaning of Bergson's creative evolution. For him, every moment is creative, because we never experienced it before.
 

To Spiritualism, it is the prime element and modulator of the actions of spirits through ethereal fluids. Allan Kardec, in Genesis, says that thinking " is the large workshop or laboratory of spiritual life." “The thought and will are for the spirits what the hand is to the man." (1977, ch . 14 , it.14 , p.282 )
 

GENESIS OF THOUGHT
 

As for the steps in the genesis of thought, there are those who distinguish five, namely:
 

1st - stimulus - an issue that arouses, could be a doubt, uncertainty, uneasiness, or anything else ;
 

2nd - research - search for documentation able to clarify the problem, through a nervous and psychic activity that is triggered;
 

3rd - hypothesis - most important and crucial stage of thought process, in which the data are drawn;
 

4th - solution - abandonment of doubt in view of the strength of the collected elements;
 

5th - criticism - Final analysis phase of the path followed.
 

Other authors are content to mention three moments in the thought process:
 

This begins with an empirical intuition, sensory and psychological (Insight ) , which immediately makes known a fact not understood and raises problems . After comes the operations for which it seeks to solve these problems, which constitute the conversational thought. Finally, rational intuition appears, which flows the work of thinking. (Encyclopedia Luso - Brazilian Culture )
 

2. THOUGHT AND MENTAL MATTER
 

Through the mind spirits absorb cosmic fluid, transmuting it into a sub - product, the vibrating mental matter, a living fluid and multiform, ardent and unstoppable, similar vitality process to breathing, in whose vibrations are printed by the mind who issued it and whose action influences, starting from itself and under its own responsibility, the Creation.
 

The mental matter has corpuscular nature, atomic and also results from the association of positive and negative forms. It is used to call these principles of “nuclei , protons , neutrons , positrons , electrons or photons mental " in view of the absence of analog terminology for safer structuring of our notes. ( Xavier , 1977 , ch . 4 )
 

3 . ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS
 

The Spirit André Luiz says : " Sending an idea , we start to reflect on the ones that resemble it, this idea that soon symbolizes , with intensity corresponding to our insistence to support it, keeping us thus spontaneously in communication with all those who espouse the way of feeling " ( Xavier , 1977 , p . 48 ) .
 

It means to say: given stimulus, we immediately put our thinking in tune with the mood of the responses that this stimulation suggests. Note when reading a newspaper: each of us goes straight to what interests us the most. If you like soccer,  you’ll open the sports page if our preference is to knowing about the public life of a country, you’ll consult the pages of economics and politics, if we prefer art, we search through the illustrated book. Thus, "our companions”, whether good or bad, depend upon our choices.
 

4 . THOUGHT FORM AND FORM THINKING
 

Often the changes are the product of a thought. Kardec says: “All it takes for the Spirit is to think of something and that such thing is produced “. Thus, taking notice of this fact, we should make good use of our thoughts, as they are moved by cosmic energy , ethereal fluid , which , though invisible to our eyes , are present where our physical forces would never reach . Our thinking is a ray that can lead energies either of uplifting light or harmful and destructive.
 

5 . PHOTOGRAPH OF THOUGHT
 

Thought being the creator of fluidic images, is reflected in the Perispirit as a mirror, taking body and then taking a picture. If a man, for example, has the idea of ​​killing someone, although his material body be preserved impassive, his body fluid is driven by this idea and reproduces every nuance . He fluidly performs the gesture, the act that the individual premeditated. His thought creates the image of the victim and the entire scene is drawn as a picture, just as he is in his mind. That's how most secret movements of the soul resound in fluidic housing. That's how a soul can read in another soul like a book and see what is not perceptible to the bodily eyes. ( Kardec , 1975 , p . 115 )

6 . DISTURBANCES OF THOUGHT
 

According to psychology, it is understood as a set of more or less profound changes in the structure of differentiated and intentional psychic act. It is thus possible to describe the anomalies of ideation (chaining of ideas) , spontaneous and voluntary attention , intellectual efficiency etc. . From another perspective, describes itself through the expressive modes of speech, an apparent acceleration (flight of ideas) or slowdown ( bradypsychia ) of the thought, in mania and melancholy. In schizophrenia, disturbed in its operation, thought is expressed through a strange , chaotic , dissociated language sometimes interrupted. (Thines 1984)
 

7 . MENTAL FIXATION
 

Mental Fixation is a pathological state characterized by the tendency of a person to always return in their thinking on a word to a single theme . It is a fixed idea, or morbid state of consciousness, characterized by the persistence of an idea , that neither the normal course of ideas , or the will can dissipate. Revenge, despair , passion and discouragement are some of the causes of mental fixation . Our brain works like a dynamo. Since the first stimulus, internal or external, which will count is the maintenance of our thinking in the same content idea. The longer we remain in a subject, the more the theme images become crystallized in our mental halo. Mental fixation is a matter of assumed attitude: improving the energy content of our thinking, we will extend our mental field for good and we will be freeing ourselves from unhealthy thoughts .
 

8 . THOUGHT AND WILL
 

The phenomenon of mental suggestion is appropriate. Sending an idea, we start to reflect on those that resemble it. In this sense, we are the heirs of the reflections of our past experiences, but with the ability to change its direction. Cranking the handle of the will, we can chart new directions for the release of our spirit. The will is the element of free will. We should have control over our thought, because we don’t just fail with words and deeds. By thought (no barrier or distance), the incarnate Spirit acts upon the same, and the disembodied also operates about us , incarnate. Improving thinking, enhances life on the two planes - physical and spiritual.
 

CONCLUSION
 

Watchfulness and prayer attenuate the vicissitudes of regenerative path. Through them, we put ourselves in tune with ourselves, making us more self - conscious every day . Clearly realizing our everyday reactions, we create conditions to evaluate us and therefore we replace the negative by automatic positive.