The Jacobins, the Guillotine, and the Forgotten Fraternity

When answering Portuguese journalist Ana Serra, on September 19, 2008, about what my purpose was in writing Reflexões da Alma [Reflections of the Soul] and having it launched in Portugal, I said that at first it was for my friends who asked me to publish some of my experiences in Brazil, Portugal, and other parts of the world throughout these years. They have been recounted during work meetings, speeches, talks, in my writings, and in the electronic media. I have modestly tried to share these experiences by printing in letters some of the lessons that are placed before all who want to learn something that the spiritual and earthly existence always has to offer us.

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We need to understand that a decisive change must first take place within our Soul. The main key to success in the third millennium is to take care of the Spirit and to reform human beings. Consequently, everything will be perfected, having as its beacon of light the so-often neglected Universal Fraternity, which is mentioned in last place in the ideological triad of the French Revolution―1^st Liberty, 2^nd Equality, and 3^rd Fraternity. Therefore, seemly forgotten, resulting in what we know: after beheading those whom they considered to be opponents, the Jacobins began to guillotine each other. Not even the uncontained Robespierre (1758-1794) escaped. Terror attracts terror, when not super-terror. The famous French poet Victor Hugo (1802-1885), perhaps writing on the subject, said that instead of blood, what should be shed for fertilizing the field where people’s future germinates are ideas.

Exactly!