Give Freely What You Received Freely

“Give freely what you received freely” — Prayers and financial exploitation — Merchants in the temple — Mediumship and responsibility.

Gift of healing

1. When sending out the disciples, Jesus speaks of caring for the sick and performing acts that the biblical text describes as healings and spiritual deliverances.

The central guidance is: “Give freely what you have freely received.” (Matthew 10:8)

2. Kardec interprets this phrase as a prohibition against turning spiritual gifts into commerce. In the religious language of the work, abilities of healing or spiritual help should serve to assist, not to exploit suffering or need. Claims of spiritual healing do not replace medical care and should not lead anyone to stop treatment.

Paid prayers

3. Jesus criticizes religious leaders who display devotion while exploiting vulnerable people, especially widows. (Luke 20:45-47; Matthew 23:14; Mark 12:38-40)

4. Kardec applies this criticism to charging for prayers as though payment could buy special access to God. For him, prayer is an expression of charity and sincerity, not a product sold by the number of words.

If God listens to sincerity, it would make no sense to imagine that a longer or more expensive prayer automatically has greater value. No one should be denied spiritual support because they do not have money.

God's mercy, justice, and forgiveness cannot be bought. Therefore, no one can guarantee divine blessings in exchange for payment.

The work also warns against the risk of someone paying another person to pray and imagining that, because of this, they no longer need to develop their own relationship with God.

In the Spiritist view, the value of prayer lies mainly in intention and feeling. Turning it into a commercial chain of intermediaries would move away from precisely this personal meaning.

Merchants expelled from the temple

5. The Gospel tells that Jesus expelled merchants from the temple and criticized the transformation of a place of prayer into a place of exploitation. (Mark 11:15-18)

Matthew 21:12-13

6. Kardec understands the episode as a condemnation of commerce involving things considered sacred. Blessing, forgiveness, and access to God are not merchandise.

Free mediumship

7. In the Spiritist Doctrine, mediumship is considered a faculty of spiritual communication and should be used for instruction, comfort, and doing good, not as ownership of content supposedly received from Spirits.

The message insists that financial circumstances should not prevent anyone from receiving spiritual support. Charging for access to a supposed communication can create inequality and make it easier to exploit people who are grieving or suffering.

8. Kardec rejects the idea that elevated Spirits can be placed at someone's disposal in exchange for payment per session. For him, money does not guarantee spiritual authenticity.

A message received in a paid setting still needs critical analysis. No person can honestly guarantee communication with a particular deceased person or a specific spiritual answer.

In the work's view, humility, dedication, and absence of selfish interest would be important moral conditions for responsible mediumistic practice.

9. Kardec also argues that mediumship would be unstable and could not be guaranteed as a service with a certain result at a particular time.

He distinguishes this faculty from a profession based on acquired knowledge and work, for which receiving payment is legitimate. The specific argument about mediumship belongs to the Spiritist ethics presented in the work.

Because communication would also depend, according to the Doctrine, on the Spirits, no medium could guarantee that a certain phenomenon will occur when requested.

Promising guaranteed contact with deceased people or certain spiritual results in exchange for money creates a risk of deception and exploitation. Grieving or vulnerable people deserve special protection from this type of promise.

Kardec presents mediumship as a moral responsibility and refers to The Mediums' Book and Heaven and Hell for further study.

See The Mediums' Book, chapter XXVIII, and Heaven and Hell, chapter XI

10. The work considers free practice even more important when mediumship is presented as “healing.” Spiritual claims about fluids and cures belong to the doctrinal context of the nineteenth century and do not constitute proven medical treatment. Health professionals may legitimately charge for their work, training, and services; spiritual practices should not present themselves as substitutes for medical care.

Kardec's conclusion is that anyone who needs income should seek it through other work and should not promise cures or spiritual communications as a means of enrichment. The broader principle is to avoid financial exploitation of faith, grief, illness, and vulnerability.