THE PASSING.

— The certainty of the future life does not exclude apprehensions concerning the passage from this life to the other.

There are many people who fear, not death itself, but the moment of transition. Do we suffer or not in this passage? For this reason they grow anxious, and rightly so, since no one escapes the fatal law of this transition.

We may exempt ourselves from any journey in this world except this one. Rich and poor, all must make it, and however painful the crossing may be, neither position nor fortune could soften it.

— Seeing the calm of some dying persons and the terrible convulsions of others, one may judge beforehand that the sensations experienced are not always the same. Yet who can enlighten us in this regard? Who will describe to us the physiological phenomenon of the separation between the soul and the body?

Who will recount to us the impressions of that supreme instant when Science and Religion fall silent? And they fall silent because they lack the knowledge of the laws that govern the relations between the Spirit and matter, the one halting at the threshold of spiritual life and the other at that of material life.

Spiritism is the link of union between the two, and it alone can tell us how the transition takes place, whether through the most positive notions about the nature of the soul, or through the description given by those who have left this world.

The knowledge of the fluidic bond that unites the soul to the body is the key to this and to many other phenomena.

— The insensibility of inert matter is a fact, and it is the soul alone that experiences sensations of pain and pleasure.

During life, every material disaggregation reverberates upon the soul, which for this reason receives a more or less painful impression. It is the soul and not the body that suffers, for the body is no more than the instrument of pain: the soul is the patient.

After death, the soul being separated, the body may be mutilated with impunity and will feel nothing; the soul, being insulated, experiences nothing of the organic destruction; 4 the soul has sensations of its own whose source does not reside in tangible matter.

The perispirit is the envelope of the soul and does not separate from it, neither before nor after death. It forms with the soul but a single entity, and one cannot even conceive of the one without the other.

During life the perispiritic fluid penetrates the body in all its parts and serves as the vehicle of the physical sensations of the soul, just as the soul, through its intermediary, acts upon the body and directs its movements.

— The extinction of organic life brings about the separation of the soul as a consequence of the breaking of the fluidic bond that unites it to the body, but this separation is never abrupt; 2 the perispiritual fluid detaches itself from all the organs only little by little, so that the separation is complete and absolute only when not a single atom of the perispirit remains bound to a molecule of the body.

The painful sensation of the soul, at the moment of death, is in direct proportion to the sum of the points of contact existing between the body and the perispirit, and consequently also to the greater or lesser difficulty presented by the breaking.

It is therefore needless to say that, according to the circumstances, death may be more or less painful. It is these circumstances that we must now examine.

— Let us first establish, as a principle, the following four cases, which we may regard as extreme situations within whose limits there is an infinity of variants: 1st If, at the moment when organic life is extinguished, the detachment of the perispirit were complete, the soul would feel absolutely nothing; 2nd if, at that moment, the cohesion of the two elements is at the height of its strength, a kind of rupture is produced which reacts painfully upon the soul; 3rd if the cohesion is weak, the separation becomes easy and takes place without shock; 4th if, after the complete cessation of organic life, there still exist numerous points of contact between the body and the perispirit, the soul may feel the effects of the body's decomposition, until the bond is entirely undone.

It follows from this that the suffering accompanying death is subordinate to the adhesive force that unites the body to the perispirit; 6 that whatever can attenuate this force, and accelerate the rapidity of the detachment, makes the passage less painful; 7 and, finally, that, if the detachment takes place without difficulty, the soul will cease to experience any disagreeable feeling.

— In the transition from corporeal life to spiritual life, yet another phenomenon of capital importance is produced — the disturbance.

In that instant the soul experiences a torpor that momentarily paralyzes its faculties, neutralizing, at least in part, the sensations. It is, so to speak, a state of catalepsy, so that the soul almost never consciously witnesses the final breath.

We say almost never, because there are cases in which the soul can consciously contemplate the detachment, as we shall soon see.

The disturbance may, then, be considered the normal state at the moment of death and may endure for an indeterminate time, varying from a few hours to a few years.

As it frees itself, the soul finds itself in a situation comparable to that of a man who awakens from a deep sleep; the ideas are confused, vague, uncertain; the sight barely distinguishes things, as though through a fog, but little by little it clears, the memory and the knowledge of self awaken; 6 yet this awakening is very diverse; calm, for some, it awakens delightful sensations within them; gloomy, terrifying, and anguished, for others, it is like a horrendous nightmare.

— The last breath is almost never painful, since it ordinarily occurs in a moment of unconsciousness, but before it the soul suffers the disaggregation of matter, in the death throes of agony, and, afterward, the anguishes of the disturbance.

Let us hasten to affirm that this state is not general, for the intensity and duration of the suffering are in direct proportion to the affinity existing between body and perispirit; 3 thus, the greater this affinity, the more painful and prolonged will be the efforts of the soul to detach itself; 4 there are persons in whom the cohesion is so weak that the detachment takes place by itself, as though naturally; it is as if a ripe fruit detached itself from its stalk, and this is the case of calm deaths, of peaceful awakening.

— The principal cause of the greater or lesser ease of detachment is the moral state of the soul.

The affinity between the body and the perispirit is proportional to the attachment to matter, which reaches its maximum in the man whose preoccupations concern exclusively and solely material life and pleasures; 3 on the contrary, in pure souls, which beforehand identify themselves with spiritual life, the attachment is almost nil.

And since the slowness and difficulty of the detachment are in proportion to the degree of purity and dematerialization of the soul, it depends upon ourselves alone to make this detachment easy or painful, agreeable or sorrowful.

This being established, whether as theory or as the result of observations, it remains for us to examine the influence of the kind of death upon the sensations of the soul in its last throes.

— In the case of a natural death resulting from the extinction of the vital forces through old age or illness, the detachment takes place gradually; 2 for the man whose soul has dematerialized itself and whose thoughts detach themselves from earthly things, the detachment is almost completed before real death, that is, while the body still has organic life, the Spirit already penetrates spiritual life, bound only by a link so fragile that it breaks with the last beat of the heart.

In this contingency the Spirit may already have recovered its lucidity, so as to become a conscious witness of the extinction of the body's life, considering itself happy to have left it; 4 for such a one the disturbance is almost nil, or rather, it is no more than a light, calm sleep, from which it awakens with an unspeakable impression of hope and bliss.

In the materialized and sensual man, who has lived more of the body than of the Spirit, and for whom spiritual life means nothing, nor even touches his thought, everything contributes to tightening the material bonds, and, when death approaches, the detachment, although it likewise takes place gradually, demands continual efforts.

The convulsions of agony are signs of the struggle of the Spirit, which sometimes seeks to break the resisting links, and at other times clings to the body from which an irresistible force tears it away with violence, molecule by molecule.

— The less the Spirit sees beyond corporeal life, the more it clings to it, and thus it feels that life slipping away from it and wishes to retain it; instead of abandoning itself to the movement that carries it off, it resists with all its forces and may even prolong the struggle for entire days, weeks, and months.

Certainly, at that moment the Spirit does not possess all its lucidity, since the disturbance greatly preceded death; but it suffers no less for that, and the void in which it finds itself, and the uncertainty of what will become of it, aggravate its anguishes.

At last death occurs, and yet not everything is finished; the disturbance continues, it feels that it is alive, but cannot determine whether materially or spiritually, it struggles, and struggles still, until the last bonds of the perispirit have been entirely broken.

Death has put an end to the actual affliction, but it has not halted its consequences, and, as long as there exist points of contact of the perispirit with the body, the Spirit feels and suffers from its impressions.

— How different is the situation of the dematerialized Spirit, even in the cruelest infirmities! The fluidic bonds that bind it to the body being fragile, they break gently; 2 then, the confidence in the future glimpsed in thought or in reality, as sometimes happens, makes it regard death as a redemption and its consequences as a trial, whence there comes to it a resigned calm that softens its suffering.

After death, the bonds broken, not a single painful reaction affects it; the awakening is sprightly, unencumbered; with unique sensations: relief, joy!

— In violent death the sensations are not precisely the same.

No initial disaggregation has previously begun the separation of the perispirit; organic life in the full exuberance of its strength is suddenly annihilated. Under these conditions, the detachment begins only after death and cannot be completed quickly.

The Spirit, caught unawares, remains as though stunned and feels, and thinks, and believes itself alive, this illusion being prolonged until it comprehends its state.

This intermediate state between corporeal and spiritual life is one of the most interesting to study, because it presents the singular spectacle of a Spirit that believes its fluidic body to be material, experiencing at the same time all the sensations of organic life.

There is, besides, within this case, an infinite series of modalities that vary according to the knowledge and moral progress of the Spirit.

For those whose soul is purified, the situation lasts but little, because they already possess within themselves, as it were, an anticipated detachment, whose completion the most sudden death only hastens; 7 there are others for whom the situation is prolonged for entire years. This is a situation very frequent even in cases of ordinary death, which, having nothing painful for advanced Spirits, becomes horrible for backward ones.

In the suicide, especially, it exceeds all expectation. Bound to the body by all its fibers, the perispirit makes all the body's sensations reverberate upon the soul, with excruciating sufferings.

— The state of the Spirit at the moment of death may be summarized thus:

The suffering is the greater, the slower the detachment of the perispirit; 3 the swiftness of this detachment is in direct proportion to the moral advancement of the Spirit; 4 for the dematerialized Spirit, of pure conscience, death is like a brief sleep, free of agony, and whose awakening is most gentle.

— In order that each one may labor at his own purification, repress his evil tendencies, and master his passions, it is necessary that he renounce immediate advantages for the sake of the future; 2 for, in order to identify oneself with spiritual life, directing all one's aspirations toward it and preferring it to earthly life, it is not enough to believe, but to comprehend; we must consider this life from a point of view that satisfies at once reason, logic, good sense, and the conception in which we hold the greatness, the goodness, and the justice of God.

Considered from this point of view, Spiritism, by the unshakable faith it affords, is, of all the philosophical doctrines we know, the one that exercises the most powerful influence.

The serious Spiritist does not limit himself to believing; he believes because he comprehends, and he comprehends because he reasons; 5 the future life is a reality that unfolds incessantly before his eyes; a reality that he touches and sees, so to speak, at every step, in such a way that doubt cannot lay hold of him, or find shelter in his soul.

Corporeal life, so limited, is belittled before spiritual life, the true life. What do the incidents of the journey matter to him if he comprehends the cause and usefulness of human vicissitudes, when they are borne with resignation?

His soul rises in its relations with the visible world; the fluidic bonds that bind it to matter weaken, a partial detachment taking place in anticipation, which facilitates the passage to the other life.

The disturbance consequent upon the transition lasts but little, because, once the step is taken, he at once recognizes himself, finding nothing strange, but rather comprehending, his new situation.

— Spiritism is assuredly not indispensable to this result; thus it does not pretend to assure, by itself alone, the salvation of the soul, but it facilitates it by the knowledge it furnishes, by the sentiments it inspires, as by the dispositions in which it places the Spirit, making it comprehend the necessity of improving itself.

It gives, moreover, and to each one, the means of aiding the detachment of other Spirits as they leave the material envelope, shortening their disturbance through evocation and through prayer.

By sincere prayer, which is a spiritual magnetization, the more rapid disaggregation of the perispiritual fluid is provoked; 4 by evocation conducted with wisdom and prudence, with words of benevolence and comfort, the numbness of the Spirit is combated, helping it to recognize itself sooner, and, if it is suffering, repentance is instilled in it — the only means of shortening its sufferings. n [1] The examples we are about to transcribe show us the Spirits in the different phases of happiness and unhappiness of spiritual life. We did not go to seek them among the more or less illustrious personages of Antiquity, whose situation might have changed considerably since the existence we knew of them, and which for this reason would not offer sufficient proofs of authenticity. On the contrary, we have taken these examples from the most ordinary circumstances of contemporary life, since in this way each one can find more similarities and draw, by comparison, the most profitable instructions. The closer the earthly existence of the Spirits is to us — whether by social position, or by bonds of kinship or of mere relations — the more we are interested in them, and the easier it becomes to ascertain their identity. Common positions are the most usual, those of the greatest number, and each one can apply them to himself, so that they become useful, whereas exceptional positions move us less, because they fall outside the sphere of our habits. It was not, then, the eminent figures that we sought, and if among these examples there are found any known personages, the greater number is composed of obscure ones. Add to this that resounding names would add nothing to the instruction we aim at, and might still wound susceptibilities. And we address ourselves neither to the curious, nor to the lovers of scandal, but only to those who wish to instruct themselves. These examples could be multiplied infinitely, but, forced to limit their number, we have made a choice of those that could best enlighten us about the spiritual world and its state, whether by the situation of the Spirits, or by the explanations they were in a position to furnish. The greater part of these examples is unpublished, and only a few, very few, have already been published in the Spiritist Review. From these, we have suppressed superfluous details, preserving only what is essential to the end we proposed to ourselves, and adjusting to them the complementary instructions to which they may give rise later on.