Description

Nosso Lar (Portuguese) = Astral City (English) = Nuestro Hogar (Spanish)229 pags.”Nosso Lar” (or “The Astral City” in the present English version) appeared on Earth in 1943 through the mediumship of Francisco Xavier and edited by the Brazilian Spiritist Federation (FEB). The book tells us the odyssey of a recently departed physician who introduces himself under the pen name “André Luiz” (see forewords by Emmanuel and J Haddad). The author discloses a spiritual society, a colony of work located in the vicinity of the Earth surface, where one finds the happy of sad results of one acts after reaching “the other side” of life. Far from abstractions or purely philosophical argumentation, André Luiz speaks about the actual reality of imperfect spirits still alive, working and preparing themselves for the next life’s struggles.“Nosso Lar” is an evolving society, much similar to the terrestrial one. It displays many patterns of the Brazilian society at the time, forecasting other ones that would arise in the following years. Using a comparison, “Nosso Lar” is a kind of spiritualized Rio de Janeiro or, more exactly, Rio is a material “Nosso Lar” in so far as many of its inhabitants come from this spiritual colony.Putting aside the Brazilian feature of the colony, “Nosso Lar” is an universal example. Wherever the human spirit goes after death, be it a spiritual colony of an English speaking country or a spiritual town in ancient India, it always meets itself, carrying its conquests or past mistakes, beloved affections or inner enemies. In one word, it goes to a place with which it has strong affinities. And then, perhaps under different customs or dressings, the spirit finds a reality much similar to the one revealed by André Luiz.So we strongly recommend to all our dear friends the reading of this work. We also hope that it can consolidate the certainty in the afterlife and in the maxim “without charity there is no salvation” as it did to many Brazilian fellows. We remark that just after the edition of this book, as if reinforcing a practical teaching by Bezerra de Menezes, Brazil saw the appearance of many Spiritist groups attached to the ideal of social and spiritual assistance works. In this way, Spiritism became one of the leading schools of thought in Brazil. Thanks to this book, we find today assistance works everywhere, no matter how small the Spiritist group.Finally, we would like to recall one of the strongest messages of this book: “work appears when the worker is ready”. Let us be in the service of our beloved sisters and brothers, that God will open the closed gates, placing us at the exact position where required hands lack.”