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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.
“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.
Excerpt from Allan Kardec’s “The Spirit’s Book”, translated by Anna Blackwell, LAKE (Livraria Allan Kardec Editora), Printed in Brazil. Version found at Public Domain.
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For more information, please check out these links:
- Our Spiritist Studies section – published on Tuesdays
- Questions & Answers section
- The version of “The Spirit’s Book” (that is in public domain) is available for free download here (.pdf format)
- Get to know the other basic books of Christian Spiritist Doctrine by clicking here
- Download the other basic books of Spiritism here (.pdf format). All of the books are on public domain.
Love one another and you will be happy. Above all else, take to heart the need to love all those who inspire indifference, hate and scorn. Christ, who should be considered as the model, gave an example of this kind of devotion. Missionary of Love that He was, He loved so much as to give His very blood and life for Love. It is a painful sacrifice to love those who insult and torment us, but it is exactly this sacrifice which makes you superior to them. If you were to hate them, as they hate you, then you would be worth no more than they. To love them is the Immaculate Host you offer to God on the altar of your hearts, which will envelop you in its aroma as if it were a sweet perfume.
If the law of Love demands that each one love all their brothers and sisters without distinction, it does not mean that the heart will be protected as if by a breastplate against evil conduct. On the contrary, it is the most anguishing of trials, which I know full well, having experienced this same torture during my last earthly existence. But God is ever present, and punishes in this life or the next all who violate the law of love. My dear children, do not forget that love draws us near to God and hate drives us away from Him.
FENELON (Bordeaux, 1861)
Excerpt from Allan Kardec’s “The Gospel According to Spiritism”, The Headquarters Publishing Co Ltd (London), 1987. Version found at Public Domain.
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For more information, please check out these links:
- Our Spiritist Studies section – published on Tuesdays
- The version of “The Gospel According to Spiritism” (that is in public domain) is available for free download here (.pdf format)
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PREFACE:
Through the dangers we run God reminds us of the frailty of our existence. He shows us that our lives are in His hands, and that being held by only a thread, it may break when we least expect it to happen. From this point of view privilege does not exist for anyone because the same alternatives are to be found for both great and small alike.
If we look at the nature and the consequences of danger we will see in most cases that these consequences, if they are verified, will have been a punishment for a misdeed or for an unfulfilled duty.
PRAYER:
Almighty God, and you who are my Guardian Angel, help me! If I must succumb, may God’s will be done. If I am to be saved, may the rest of my life be given to repay the evil I have done, for which I am truly repentant.
This prayer can be found on “The Gospel According to Spiritism”, which can be downloaded here.
Please pray with us.
As everything may be made a source of pecuniary profit, it would not be strange if attempts were made to turn Spiritism to that purpose; but the spirits would probably be at no loss to show their opinion of such a speculation, should it be attempted, for it is evident that nothing could be more easily abused by charlatans than such a trade.
On the other hand, it is to be remarked that, although the turning of the medianimic faculty into a source of gain must lay its genuineness open to suspicion, it would not be a proof that such suspicion is founded; for a medium may possess real medianimic aptitude, and employ it with perfect honesty, while receiving payment. Let us see, then, what are the results that may be reasonably hoped for under such circumstances.
If our readers have carefully weighed what we have said of the conditions necessary for inducing superior spirits to communicate, of the causes which repel them, and of the circumstances independent of their will that are often an obstacle to their coming, they will see that no medium, whatever his faculty or moral worth, could pretend to have them constantly at his beck and call; while, on the other hand, the repugnance of the higher spirits to everything connected with terrestrial aims and interests would indispose them towards any attempt to make a traffic of their manifestations.
The same considerations are applicable, not only to mediums who receive payment in money, but to all who turn their faculty to the furtherance of their worldly affairs; for self-interest does not always take the form of seeking pecuniary gain, but is shown as certainly by every sort of contrivance for the furtherance of ambition or of any other personal aim. To sum up: medianimity is a faculty given for a high and holy purpose, and spirits of high advancement withdraw from those who make it a steppingstone to any other ends than those marked out for it by Providence.
Physical mediums are not in the same category as those who habitually receive intelligent communications. The physical phenomena are usually produced by lower and less scrupulous spirits; and mediums of this category, desirous to turn their faculty to pecuniary account, may therefore find willing assistants among the spirits with whom they are habitually connected. But the medium for physical effects, like the medium for intelligent manifestations, has not been endowed with this faculty for Isis own pleasure merely. It has been given him in order that he may make a good use of it; should he do otherwise, it may be taken from him, or it may turn to his disadvantage, the lower spirits being always under the orders of the higher ones, who sometimes use them for the punishment of unfaithful mediums.
From the preceding considerations we conclude that the most entire disinterestedness, on the part of evokers and of mediums, is the best guarantee against deception; for, although it does not always suffice to insure the intellectual superiority of the communications received, it deprives evil spirits of a powerful means of action and shuts the mouths of detractors.
Excerpt from Allan Kardec’s “The Medium’s Book”, translated by Anna Blackwell, LAKE (Livraria Allan Kardec Editora). Printed in Brazil. Version found at Public Domain.
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For more information, please check out these links:
- Our Spiritist Studies section – published on Tuesdays
- Questions & Answers section
- The version of “The Medium’s Book” (that is in public domain) is available for free download here (.pdf format)
- Get to know the other basic books of Christian Spiritist Doctrine by clicking here
- Download the other basic books of Spiritism here (.pdf format). All of the books are on public domain.
1) To be said by the sick person:
Lord, You are all justice. The illness You saw fit to send me must be deserved, because You never impose suffering without just cause. Therefore I entrust my cure to Your infinite mercy. If it pleases You to restore my health, may Your Name be blessed! If on the contrary it is necessary for me to suffer more, may You be blessed just the same. I submit without complaint to Your wise purpose, since what You do can only be for the good of Your creatures.
Dear God, let this infirmity be a timely warning to me, which will cause me to meditate upon myself. I accept it as an expiation for my past and as a test of my faith and submission to Your blessed will.
2) For the sick person:
Dear God, Your designs are impenetrable and in Your wisdom You have sent this affliction to X… I implore You, Lord, to cast a glance of compassion over his sufferings and if You see fit, to terminate them.
Good Spirits, you who are ministers of the Almighty, I beseech you to second my request to alleviate his sufferings; direct my thought so that a balsam may be poured over his body and consolation poured into his soul.
Inspire him with patience and submission to God’s Will. Give him enough strength to support the pain with Christian resignation, so that the fruits of this test may not be lost.
This prayer can be found on “The Gospel According to Spiritism”, which can be downloaded here.
Please pray with us.
(Please click here for Physical and Moral Likeness, part I)
212. In children whose bodies are joined together, and who have some of their organs in common, are there two spirits, that is to say, two souls?
“Yes; but their resemblance to one another often makes them seem to you as though there were but one.”
213. Since spirits incarnate themselves in twins from sympathy whence comes the aversion that is sometimes felt by twins for one another?
“It is not a rule that only sympathetic spirits are incarnated as twins. Bad spirits may have been brought into this relation by their desire to struggle against each other on the stage of corporeal life.”
214. In what way should we interpret the stories of children fighting in their mother’s womb?
“As a figurative representation of their hatred to one another, which, to indicate its inveteracy, is made to date from before their birth. You rarely make sufficient allowance for the figurative and poetic element in certain statements.”
215. What is the cause of the distinctive character which we observe in each people?
“Spirits constitute different families, formed by the similarity of their tendencies, which are more or less purified according to their elevation. Each people is a great family formed by the assembling together of sympathetic spirits. The tendency of the members of these families to unite together is the source of the resemblance which constitutes the distinctive character of each people. Do you suppose that good and benevolent spirits would seek to incarnate themselves among a rude and brutal people ? No; spirits sympathise with masses of men as they sympathise with individuals. They go to the region of the earth with which they are most in harmony.”
216. Does a spirit, in his new existence, retain any traces of the moral character of his former existences?
“Yes, he may do so; but, as he improves, he changes. His social position, also, may be greatly changed in his successive lives. If, having been a master in one existence, he becomes a slave in another, his tastes will be altogether different, and it would be difficult for you to recognise him. A spirit being the same in his various incarnations, there may be certain analogies between the manifestations of character in his successive lives; but these manifestations will, nevertheless, be modified by the change of conditions and habits incident to each of his new corporeal existences, until, through the ameliorations thus gradually effected, his character has been completely changed, he who was proud and cruel becoming humble and humane through repentance and effort.”
217. Does a man, in his different incarnations, retain any traces of the physical character of his preceding existences?
“The body is destroyed, and the new one has no connection with the old one. Nevertheless, the spirit is reflected in the body; and although the body is only matter, yet, being modelled on the capacities of the spirit, the latter impresses upon it a certain character that is more particularly visible in the face, and especially in the eyes, which have been truly declared to be the mirror of the soul-that is to say, that the face reflects the soul more especially than does the rest of the body. And this is so true that a very ugly face may please when it forms part of the envelope of a good, wise, and humane spirit; while, on the other hand, very handsome faces may cause you no pleasurable emotion, or may even excite a movement of repulsion. It might seem, at first sight, that only well-made bodies could be the envelopes of good spirits, and yet you see every day virtuous and superior men with deformed bodies. Without there being any very marked resemblance between them, the similarity of tastes and tendencies may, therefore, give what is commonly called a family-likeness to the corporeal bodies successively assumed by the same spirit.”
The body with which the soul is clothed in a new incarnation not having any necessary connection with the one which it has quitted (since it may belong to quite another race), it would be absurd to infer a succession of existences from a resemblance which may be only fortuitous but, nevertheless, the qualities of the spirit often modify the organs which serve for their manifestations, and impress upon the countenance, and even on the general manner, a distinctive stamp. It is thus that an expression of nobility and dignity may be found under the humblest exterior, while the fine clothes of the grandee are often unable to hide the baseness and ignominy of their wearer. Some persons, who have risen from the lowest position, adopt without effort the habits and manners of the higher ranks, and seem to have returned to their native element while others, notwithstanding their advantages of birth and education, always seem to be out of their proper place in refined society. How can these facts be explained unless as a reflex of what the spirit has been in his former existences?
Excerpt from Allan Kardec’s “The Spirit’s Book”, translated by Anna Blackwell, LAKE (Livraria Allan Kardec Editora), Printed in Brazil. Version found at Public Domain.
***
For more information, please check out these links:
- Our Spiritist Studies section – published on Tuesdays
- Questions & Answers section
- The version of “The Spirit’s Book” (that is in public domain) is available for free download here (.pdf format)
- Get to know the other basic books of Christian Spiritist Doctrine by clicking here
- Download the other basic books of Spiritism here (.pdf format). All of the books are on public domain.
