The Official Seal of the Magnetic-Spiritualist School of the Universal
Commune, the theosophic congregation to which Sandino belonged since at
least 1930-31. He served as 49th Chapter
Director for Nicaragua until the day he died. The Magnetic-Spiritualist School of the
Universal Commune (EMECU) was founded in Argentina by the Basque electrician Joaquín
Trincado. The School had --and continues to have-- much success in
Mexico, and other countries in Latin America. Sandino's
association with the EMECU had a profound and lasting impact on him.
Trincado constructed an elaborate speculative system of "spiritual
magnetism," which he understood as an omnipresent, unitary substance governing the
universe. He called this doctrine "spiritism of Light and Truth." Sandino read
several of Trincado's works. He studied with close attention Los cinco amores, in
which Trincado argued that there were five realms of love, each higher than the other.
Trincado thought men move toward, and would soon reach, the perfect form of love,
universal love. At the final stage he envisaged a universal commune where all things would
be held in common, the hate caused by religions would disappear and there would exist one
single race (the Hispanic race) with one single language (Spanish) in universal
brotherhood.
Trincado zealously opposed organized religion and Bolshevik Communism in favor of his
own brand of communism, the solidarity of the spirit, which according to him would soon
replace all religion. In his first doctrinal treatise, Filosofía austera racional, he
exhibited a strong potential for violence: "We will save humanity at the cost of
destroying all religions," he wrote. Trincado's millenarian expectations strongly
influenced Sandino. For Trincado, the final knowledge to reach perfection in this world
was attained in the knowledge of electromagnetism, whose effects were already at work
promoting the advancement of the "New Age."
