It is necessary to distinguish between the normal state and the pathologic state. In the normal state, the moral strength of an Incarnated spirit enables him to triumph over the obstacles which are placed in his way by matter but there are cases in which matter opposes a resistance so powerful that the manifestations of the spirit incarnated In It are hindered or changed from what he intended, as in idiocy and madness. These cases are pathologic and as the soul, in such states, is not in the enjoyment of its full liberty, human law Itself exempts such persons from the responsibility of their actions.
THE SPIRITS’ BOOK 373. What merit can there be in the existence of beings who, like idiots, can do neither good nor evil, and therefore cannot progress?
"Such an existence is imposed as an expiation of the abuse which a spirit has made of certain faculties; it constitutes a pause in his career.’
-The body of an idiot may, then, contain a spirit that has animated a man of genius in a preceding existence?
"Yes; genius sometimes becomes a scourge when it is abused."
Intellectual superiority is not always accompanied by an equal degree of moral superiority, and the greatest geniuses may have much to expiate. For this reason, they often have to undergo an existence inferior to the one they have previously accomplished, which is a cause of suffering for them the hindrances to the manifestation of his faculties thus imposed upon a spirit being like chains that fetter the movements of a vigorous man. The idiot may be said to be lame in the brain, as the halt Is lame in the legs, and the blind, in the eyes.
374. Is the idiot, in the spirit-state, conscious of his mental condition?
"Yes; very often. He comprehends that the chains which hinder his action are a trial and an expiation.”
375. When aman is mad, what is the state of his spirit?
"A spirit, in the state of freedom, receives his impressions directly, and exerts his action directly upon matter; but when incarnated, he is in an altogether different condition, and compelled to act only through the instrumentality of special organs. If some or all of those organs are injured, his actions or his impressions, as far as those organs are concerned, are interrupted. If he loses his eyes, he becomes blind; if he loses his hearing, he becomes deaf; and so on. Suppose that the organ which presides over the manifestations of intelligence and of will is partially or entirely weakened or modified in its action, and you will easily understand that the spirit, having at his service only organs that are incomplete or diverted from their proper action, must experience a functional perturbation of which he is perfectly conscious, but is not able to arrest the course.
- It is then always the body, and not the spirit, that is disorganised?
"Yes; but you must not forget that, just as a spirit acts upon matter, matter, to a certain extent, reacts upon him; and that he may therefore find himself, for the time being, subjected to the influence of the false impressions consequent on the vitiated state ALLAN KARDEC of his organs of perception and of action. And it may happen, when this mental aberration has continued for a long time, that the repetition of the same perverted action may exercise upon a spirit an influence from which he is only delivered after his complete separation from all material impressions."
376. How is it that madness sometimes leads to suicide?
"In such cases, the spirit suffers from the constraint which he feels, and from his inability to manifest himself freely; and he therefore seeks death as a means of breaking his chains."
377. Does the spirit of a madman continue to feel, after death, the derangement from which he suffered in his corporeal life?
"He may continue to feel it for some time after death, until he is completely freed from matter; just as a man, on waking, continues to feel, for some little time, the confusion in which he has been plunged by sleep."
378. How can brain-disease act upon a spirit after his death?
"It is an effect of remembrance, which weighs like a burden upon the spirit; and as he was not aware of all that took place during his madness, he always needs a certain amount of time for recovering the hang of his ideas. It is for this reason that the continuance of his uneasiness after death is always proportioned to the longer or shorter continuance of the corporeal insanity from which he has previously suffered. A spirit, when freed from the body, still feels, for a longer or shorter time, the impression of the links that united him with it."
Infancy 379. Is the spirit who animates the body of a child as developed as that of an adult?
"He may be more so, if. before reincarnating himself, he bad progressed farther; it is only the imperfection of his organs that prevents him from manifesting himself. He acts according to the state of the instrument by which alone, when incarnated, he can manifest himself."
380. During the infancy of his body, and without reference to the obstacle opposed to his free manifestation by the imperfection of his organs, does a spirit think as a child, or as an adult?
"While he remains a child, it is evident that his organs of thought, not being developed, cannot give him all the intuition of THE SPIRITS’ BOOK an adult; his range of intellect is therefore only narrow, until increasing age has ripened his reason. The confusion which accompanies incarnation does not cease, all at once, at the moment of birth; it its only dissipated gradually with the development of the bodily organs."
The observation of a fact of human life furnishes us with a confirmation of the preceding reply-viz., that the dreams of childhood have not the character of those of adult age. Their object is almost always childish a characteristic indication of the nature of a spirit's thoughts during the Infancy of his organs.
381. At the death of a child, does its spirit at once regain his former vigour?
"He should do so, since he is freed from his fleshly envelope; but, in point of fact, he only regains his former lucidity when the separation is complete - that is to say, when there is no longer any connection between the spirit and the body."
382. Does the incarnated spirit suffer, during the state of childhood, from the constraint imposed on him by the imperfections of his organs?
"No; that state is a necessity. It is a part of the ordination of nature, and of the providential plan. It constitutes a time of repose for the spirit."
383. What is, the use, for a spirit, of passing through the state of infancy?
"The aim of incarnation is the improvement of the spirit subjected to it; and a spirit is more accessible during childhood to the impressions he receives, and which may conduce to his advancement-the end to which all those who are entrusted with his education should contribute."
384. Why is it that the infant's first utterances are those of weeping?
"It is in order to excite the mother's interest on his behalf, and to ensure to him the care he needs. Can you not understand that if a child, before he is able to speak, uttered only cries of joy, those around him would trouble themselves very little about his wants? In all these arrangements’ admire the wisdom of Providence."
385. Whence comes the change which occurs in the character of the young on the approach of manhood: is it the spirit that becomes modified?
ALLAN KARDEC "The spirit, regaining possession of himself, shows himself such as he was before his incarnation.
"You know not the secrets hidden under the seeming innocence of children. You know neither what they are, nor what they have been, nor what they will be; and nevertheless you love and cherish them as though they were a part of yourselves, and to such a degree, that the love of a mother for her children is reputed to be the greatest love that one being can have for another. Whence comes the sweet affection, the tender benevolence, that even strangers feel for a child? Do you know its origin? No; but I will now explain it to you.
"Children are beings sent by God into new existences, and, in order that they may not be able to reproach Him with having been unduly severe to them, He gives them all the external appearances of innocence; even in the case of a child of the worst possible nature, its misdeeds are covered by its unconsciousness of the quality of its acts. This apparent innocence does not constitute for children any real superiority over what they previously were; it is merely the image of what they ought to be, and, if they are not such, it will be on themselves alone that the punishment will fall.
"But it is not merely for themselves that God has given to children this appearance of innocence; it is given to them also, and especially, in view of their parents, whose love is so necessary to them in their weakness: for this love would be greatly diminished by the sight of a harsh or cross-grained nature, whereas, believing their children to be good and gentle, they give them all their affection, and surround them with the most minute and delicate care. But, when children no longer need this protection, this assistance, which has been given them during fifteen or twenty years, their real character and individuality reappears in all its nudity. He who is really good remains good; but, even then, his character reveals many traits and shades that were hidden during his earlier years.
"You see that God's ways are always for the best; and that, for the pure in heart, they are easily explicable.
"Get it well into your minds that the spirit of the child who is born among you may have come from a world in which he has acquired habits totally different from yours; how would it be possible for this new being, coming among you with passions, inclinations, tastes, entirely opposed to yours, to accommodate THE SPIRITS’ BOOK THE SPIRITS’ BOOK himself to your world, if be came among you in any other way than in that which has been ordained by God-that is to say, by passing through the sieve of infancy? It is through this sifting process of infancy that all the thoughts, all the characteristics, all the varieties of beings engendered by the crowd of worlds in which creatures pursue the work of growth, are eventually mingled. And you, also, on dying, find yourselves in a sort of infancy, and in the midst of a new family of brothers; and in your new non-terrestrial existence you are ignorant of the habits, manners, relations of a world which is new to you, and you find it difficult to express yourselves in a language which you are not accustomed to employ, a language more living than is your thought to-day. (319.)
"Childhood possesses yet another utility. Spirits only enter into corporeal life in order to effect their improvement, their self-amelioration. The weakness of corporeal youth tends to render them more pliable, more amenable to the counsels of those whose experience should aid their progress. It is thus that evil tendencies are repressed, and faulty characters are gradually reformed; and this repression and reformation constitute the duty confided by God to those who assume the parental relation, a sacred mission of which parents will have to render a solemn account to Him.
"You see, therefore, that childhood is not only useful, necessary, indispensable, but that it is, moreover, the natural result of the laws which God has established, and which govern the universe.
Terrestrial Sympathies and Antipathies 386. Could two beings, who have already known and loved each other, meet again and recognise one another, in another corporeal existence?
"They could not recognise one another; but they might be attracted to each other. The attraction resulting from the ties of a former existence is often the cause of the most intimate affectional unions of a subsequent existence. It often happens in your world that two persons are drawn together by circumstances which appear to be merely fortuitous, but which are really due to the attraction exercised upon one another by two spirits who are unconsciously seeking each other amidst the crowds by whom they are surrounded.”
-Would it not be more agreeable for them to recognise each other?
ALLAN KARDEC "Not always; the remembrance of past existences would be attended with greater disadvantages than you suppose. After death they would recognise one another, and would then remember the periods they had passed together." (392.)
387. Is sympathy always the result of anterior acquaintanceship?
"No; two spirits who are in harmony naturally seek one another, without their having been previously acquainted with each other as men."
388. May it not be that the meetings which sometimes take place between two persons, and which are attributed to chance, are really due to the action of some sort of sympathetic relationship?
"There are, among thinking beings, orders of relationship with 'which you are not yet acquainted. Magnetism is the pilot of the science that will enable you to understand them at a future period."
389. What is the cause of the instinctive repulsion sometimes excited in us by persons whom we see for the first time?
"The latent antipathy of two spirits who divine each other's nature, and recognise one another, without the need of speaking together."
390. Is instinctive antipathy allays the sign of an evil nature on the part of one or both of the parties who feel it?
"Two spirits are not necessarily evil because the)' are not sympathetic; for antipathy may spring from a want of similarity in their way of thinking. But in proportion as they ascend, these shades of difference are effaced, and their antipathy disappears."
391. Does the antipathy of two persons take its first beginning on the part of the better or the worse one of the two?
"It may begin simultaneously on the part of both; but, in such a case, its causes and effects are different. A bad spirit feels antipathy against whoever is able to judge and to unmask him. On seeing such a person for the first time, he knows that he will be disapproved by him; his repulsion changes into hatred or jealousy, and inspires him with the desire of doing harm to the object of his antipathy. A good spirit feels repulsion for a had one, because he knows that he will not be understood by him, and that they do not share the same sentiments; but, strong in his own superiority, he feels neither hatred nor jealousy towards him, and contents himself with avoiding and pitying him."
THE SPIRITS’ BOOK Forgetfulness of the Past 392. Why does the incarnated spirit lose the remembrance of his past?
"Man cannot, and may not, know everything; God, in His wisdom, has so ordained. Without the veil which hides certain things from his view, man would be dazzled, like one who passes suddenly from darkness to light. Through the forgetfulness of his past a man is more fully himself."
393. How can a man be responsible for deeds, and atone for faults, of which he has no remembrance? How can he profit by the experience acquired in existences which he has forgotten? We could understand that the tribulations of life might be a lesson for him if he remembered the wrong-doing which has brought them upon him; but if he forgets his former existences, each new existence is, for him, as though it were his first, and thus the work is always to be begun over again. How is this to be reconciled with the justice of God?
"With each new existence a spirit becomes more intelligent, and better able to distinguish between good and evil. Where would be his freedom if he remembered all his past? When a spirit reenters his primitive life (the spirit-life), his whole past unrolls itself before him. He sees the faults which he has committed, and which are the cause of his suffering, and he also sees what would have prevented him from committing them; he comprehends the justice of the situation which is assigned to him, and he then seeks out the new existence that may serve to repair the mistakes of the one which has just passed away. He demands new trials analogous to those in which he has failed, or which he considers likely to aid his advancement; and he demands of the spirits who are his superiors to aid him in the new task he is about to undertake, for he knows that the spirit who will be appointed as his guide in that new existence will endeavour to make him cure himself of his faults by giving him a sort of intuition of those he has committed in the past. This intuition is the evil thought, the criminal desire, which often come to you, and which you instinctively resist, attributing your resistance to the principles you have received from your parents, while it is due in reality to the voice of your conscience; and that voice is the reminiscence of your past, warning you not to fall again into the faults you have already committed. He who, having entered upon a new existence, undergoes its trials ALLAN KARDEC with fortitude, and resists its temptations to wrong-doing, rises in the hierarchy of spirits, and takes a higher place when he returns into the normal life."
If we have not an exact remembrance, during our corporeal life, of what we have been, and of the good or evil we have done, in our preceding existences, we have the intuition of our past, of which we have a reminiscence in the instinctive tendencies that our conscience, which is the desire we have conceived to avoid committing our past faults in the future, warns us to resist.
394. In worlds more advanced than ours, where the human race is not a prey to our physical wants and infirmities, do men understand that they are better off than we are? Happiness is usually relative; it is felt to be such by comparison with a state that is less happy. As some of those worlds, though better than ours, have not reached perfection, the men by whom they are inhabited must have their own troubles and annoyances. Among us, the rich man, although he has not to endure the physical privations that torture the poor, is none the less a prey to tribulations of other kinds that embitter his life. What I ask is, whether the inhabitants of those worlds do not consider themselves to be just as unhappy, according to their standard of happiness, as we consider ourselves to be according to ours; and whether they do not, like us, complain of their fate, not having the remembrance of an inferior existence to serve them as a standard of comparison?
"To this question two different answers must be given. Three are some worlds among those of which you speak the inhabitants of which have a very clear and exact remembrance of their past existences, and therefore can and do appreciate the happiness which God permits them to enjoy. But there are others, of which the inhabitants, though placed, as you say, in better conditions than yours, are, nevertheless, subject to great annoyances, and even to much unhappiness, and who do not appreciate the more favourable conditions of their life, because they have no remembrance of a state still more unhappy. But if they do not rightly appreciate those conditions as men, they appreciate them more justly on their return to the spirit-world."
Is there not, in the forgetfulness of our past existences, and especially when they have been painful, a striking proof of the wisdom and beneficence of Providential arrangements? It is only in worlds of higher advancement, and when the remembrance of our painful existences in the past Is nothing more to us than the shadowy remembrance of an unpleasant dream, that those existences are allowed to present themselves to our memory. Would not the painfulness of present suffering, in worlds of low degree, be greatly aggravated by the remembrance of all the miseries we may have had to undergo in the past? These considerations should lead us to conclude that whatever has been appointed by God is for the THE SPIRITS’ BOOK THE SPIRITS’ BOOK best, and that it is not our province to find fault with His works, nor to decide upon the way in which He ought to have regulated the universe.
The remembrance of our former personality would be attended, in our present existence, with many very serious disadvantages. In some cases, it would cause us cruel humiliation in others, it might incite us to pride and vanity in all cases, it would be a hindrance to the action of our free-will. God gives us for our amelioration just what is necessary and sufficient to that end, viz., the voice of our conscience and our instinctive tendencies. He keeps from us what would be for us a source of injury. Moreover, if we retained the remembrance of our own former personalities and doings, we should also remember those of other people a kind of knowledge that would necessarily exercise a disastrous influence upon our social relations. Not always having reason to be proud of our past, it is evidently better for us that a veil should be thrown over it. And these considerations are in perfect accordance with the statements of spirits in regard to the existence of higher worlds than ours. In those worlds. in which moral excellence reigns, there is nothing painful in the remembrance of the past, and therefore the inhabitants of those happier worlds remember their preceding existence as we remember to-day what we did yesterday. As to the sojourns they may have made in worlds of lower degree, it is no more to them, as we have already said, than the remembrance of a disagreeable dream.
395. Can we obtain any revelations respecting our former existences?
"Not in all cases. There are, however, many who know who they have been and what they have done. If it were permitted to them to speak openly, they would make curious revelations about the past."
396. Some persons believe themselves to have a vague remembrance of an unknown past, which comes before them like the fugitive image of a dream that one vainly endeavours to recall. Is this belief only an illusion?
"It is sometimes real, hut it is often an illusion to he guarded against; for it may be merely the effect of an excited imagination.”
397. In corporeal existences of a more elevated nature than ours, is the reminiscence of our anterior existences more exact?
"Yes; in proportion as the body is less material, the spirit incarnated in it remembers them more clearly. The remembrance of the past is always clearer in those who inhabit worlds of a higher order."
398. A man's instinctive tendencies being a reflex of his past, does it follow that) by studying those tendencies, he can ascertain what are the faults he has formerly committed?
"Undoubtedly he can do so up to a certain point; but he would also have to take account of the improvement which may have been effected in his spirit, and of the resolutions taken by him in the state of erraticity. His present existence may he very much better than his preceding one."
ALLAN KARDEC ALLAN KARDEC -Might it be worse? - that is to say, might a man commit, in a subsequent existence, faults which he had not committed in the preceding one?
"That depends on his advancement. If he were unable to resist temptation, he might be drawn into new faults as a consequence of the situation chosen by him; but such faults must be considered as indicating a state which is stationary rather than retrograde, for a spirit may advance or remain stationary, but he never goes back."
399. The vicissitudes of corporeal life being at once an expiation of the faults of the past and lessons for the future, can we, from the nature of those vicissitudes, infer the character of our preceding existence?
"You can do so very frequently, since the nature of the punishment incurred always corresponds to that of the fault committed. Nevertheless, it would not do to consider this as being an absolute rule. The instinctive tendencies furnish a more certain indication; for the trials undergone by a spirit are as much for the future as for the past."
When a spirit has reached the end of the term assigned by Providence to his errant life, he chooses for himself the trials which he determines to undergo in order to hasten his progress - that is to say, the kind of existence which he believes will be most likely to furnish him with the means of advancing and the trials of this new existence always correspond to the faults which he has to expiate. If he triumphs in this new struggle, he rises in grade; if he succumbs, he has to try again.
A spirit always possesses free-will. It is in virtue of this free-will that he chooses, when in the spirit-state, the trials he elects to undergo In the corporeal life, and that he deliberates, when in the incarnate state whether he will do, or not do, and chooses between good and evil. To deny a man's free-will will would be to reduce him to a machine.
When a spirit has re-entered corporeal life, he experiences a temporary forgetfulness of his former existences, as though these were hidden from him by a veil. Sometimes, however, he preserves a vague consciousness of them, and they may, under certain circumstances, be revealed to him but this only occurs as a result of the decision of higher spirits, who make that revelation spontaneously for some useful end, and never for the gratification of idle curiosity.
A spirit's future existences cannot, in any case, be revealed to him during the corporeal life, because they will depend on the manner in which he accomplishes his present existence, and on his own ulterior choice.
Temporary forgetfulness of the faults he has committed is no obstacle to a spirit's improvement for if he have not a precise remembrance of them, the knowledge he had of them In the state of erraticity, and the desire he then conceived to repair them, guide him intuitively, and inspire him with the Intention of resisting the evil tendency. This Intention is the voice of his conscience, and is seconded by the spirits who assist him, if he gives heed to the suggestions with which they inspire him.
Although a man does not know exactly what may have been his acts in his former existences, he always knows the kind of faults of Which he has been guilty, and what has been his ruling characteristic. He has only to study himself, and he will know what he has been, not by what he is, but by his tendencies.
THE SPIRITS’' BOOK The vicissitudes of corporeal life are both an expiation of faults In the past. and trials designed to render us better for the future. They purify and elevate, provided we hear them resignedly and unrepiningly.
The nature of the vicissitudes and trials that we have to undergo may also enlighten us in regard to what we have been end what we have done, just as we infer the crimes of which a convict has been guilty from the penalty Inflicted on him by the law. Thus, he who has sinned through pride will be punished by the humiliations of an inferior position the self-indulgent and avaricious, by poverty the hard-hearted, by the seventies he will undergo the tyrant, by slavery a bad son. by the Ingratitude of his children the idle, by subjection to hard and incessant labour, and so on.
CHAPTER VIII EMANCIPATION OF THE SOUL 1. SLEEP AND DREAMS - 2. VISITS BETWEEN THE SPIRITS OF LIVING PERSONS - 3. TRANSMISSION OF THOUGHT - 4. LETHARGY, CATALEPSY: APPARENT DEATH - 5. SOMNAMBULISM - 6. TRANCE -7. SECOND-SIGHT - 8. THEORY OF SOMNAMBULISM, TRANCE, AND SECOND-SIGHT.
Sleep and Dreams 400. Does the incarnated spirit reside willingly in his corporeal envelope?
"You might as well ask whether a prisoner willingly remains locked up in prison. The incarnated spirit aspires incessantly after his deliverance; and the grosser his envelope, the more desirous is be to be rid of it."
401. Does the soul take rest, like tile body, during sleep?
"No; a spirit is never inactive. The bonds which unite him to the body are relaxed during sleep; and as the body does not then need his presence, he travels through space, and enters into more direct relation with other spirits.”
402. How can we ascertain the fact of a spirit's liberty during sleep?
"By dreams. Be very sure that, when his body is asleep, a spirit enjoys the use of faculties of which he is unconscious while his body is awake. He remembers the past, and sometimes foresees the future: he acquires more power, and is able to enter into communication with other spirits, either in this world or in some other.
"You often say, 'I have had a strange dream, a frightful dream, without any likeness to reality’ You are mistaken in thinking it to be so; for it is often a reminiscence of places and things which you have seen in the past, or a foresight of those which you will see in another existence, or in this one at some future time. The body being torpid, the spirit tries to break his chain, and seeks, in the past or in the future, for the means of doing so.
THE SPIRITS’ BOOK THE SPIRITS’ BOOK "Poor human beings! how little do you know of the commonest phenomena of your life! You fancy yourselves to be very learned, and you are puzzled by the most ordinary things. To questions that any child might ask, 'What do we do when we are asleep?’ 'What are dreams?’ you are incapable of replying.
"Sleep effects a partial freeing of the soul from the body. When you sleep, your spirit is, for the time being, in the state in which you will be after your death. The spirits who at death are promptly freed from matter are those who, during their life, have had what may be called intelligent sleep. Such persons, when they sleep, regain the society of other spirits superior to themselves. They go about with them, conversing with them, and gaining instruction from them; they even work, in the spirit-world, at undertakings which, on dying, they find already begun or completed. From this you see how little death should be dreaded, since, according to the saying of St. Paul, you ‘die daily.’
"What we have just stated refers to spirits of an elevated degree of advancement. As for those of the common mass of men, who, after their death, remain for long hours in the state of confusion and uncertainty of which you have been told by such, they go, during sleep, into worlds of lower rank than the earth, to which they are drawn back by old affections, or by the attraction of pleasures still baser than those to which they are addicted in your world; visits in which they gather ideas still viler, more ignoble, and more mischievous than those which they had professed during their waking hours. And that which engenders sympathy in the earthly life is nothing else than the fact that you feel yourselves, on waking, affectionately attracted towards those with whom you have passed eight or nine hours of happiness or pleasure. On the other hand, the explanation of the invincible antipathies you sometimes feel for certain persons is also to be found in the intuitive knowledge you have thus acquired of the fact that those persons have another conscience than yours, because you know them without having previously seen them with your bodily eyes. It is this same fact, moreover, that explains the indifference of some people for others; they do not care to make new friends, because they know that they have others by whom they are loved and cherished. In a word, sleep has more influence than you think upon your life.
"Through the effects of sleep, incarnated spirits are always in connection with the spirit- world; and it is in consideration of this fact that spirits of a higher order consent, without much re- ALLAN KARDEC pugnance, to incarnate themselves among you. God has willed that, during their contact with vice, they may go forth and fortify themselves afresh at the source of rectitude, in order that they, who have come into your world to instruct others, may not fall into evil themselves. Sleep is the gate opened for them by God, that they may pass through it to their friends in the spirit-world; it is their recreation after labour, while awaiting the great deliverance, the final liberation, that will restore them to their true place.
"Dreams are the remembrance of what your spirit has seen during sleep; but you must remark that you do not always dream, because you do not always remember what you have seen, or all that you have seen. Your dreams d6 not always reflect the action of your soul in its full development; for they are often only the reflex of the confusion that accompanies your departure or your return, mingled with the vague remembrance of what you have done, or of what has occupied your thoughts, in your waking state. In what other way can you explain the absurd dreams which are dreamed by the wisest as by the silliest of mankind? Bad spirits, also, make use of dreams to torment weak and timid souls.