NO ONE CAN SEE THE KINGDOM OF GOD UNLESS HE IS BORN AGAIN.

Resurrection and reincarnation.

— The family bonds strengthened by reincarnation and broken by the unity of existence.

— INSTRUCTIONS FROM THE SPIRITS: Limits of incarnation.

— Is incarnation a punishment? Necessity of incarnation.

Jesus, having come into the region of Caesarea Philippi, questioned his disciples thus: What do men say concerning the Son of Man?

Whom do they say that I am? — They answered him: Some say that you are John the Baptist; others, Elijah; others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.

— Jesus asked them: But you, who do you say that I am? — Simon Peter, taking the word, answered: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

— Jesus replied: Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for it was not flesh nor blood that revealed this to you, but my Father who is in Heaven. (Saint Matthew, chapter XVI, vv. 13 to 17; Saint Mark, chapter VIII, vv. 27 to 30.)

Meanwhile, Herod, the Tetrarch, had heard of all that Jesus was doing, and his mind was in suspense, — because some said that John the Baptist had risen from the dead; others that Elijah had appeared;

and others that one of the ancient prophets had risen. — Herod then said:

I ordered John the Baptist to be beheaded; who then is this of whom I hear such great things told? And he was eager to see him. (Saint Mark, chapter VI, vv. 14 to 16; Saint Luke, chapter IX, vv. 7 to 9.)

(After the transfiguration.) His disciples then questioned him in this way: Why do the scribes say that Elijah must first return?

— Jesus answered them: It is true that Elijah is to come and restore all things; — but I declare to you that Elijah has already come and they did not know him and treated him as they pleased. So too will they make the Son of Man suffer. — Then his disciples understood that it was of John the Baptist that he had spoken. (Saint Matthew, chapter XVII, vv. 10 to 13; Saint Mark, chapter IX, vv. 10, 11, 12.)

Resurrection and reincarnation.

Reincarnation was part of the dogmas of the Jews, under the name of resurrection; 2 only the Sadducees, whose belief was that all things end with death, did not believe in it.

The ideas of the Jews on this point, as on many others, were not clearly defined, because they had only vague and incomplete notions about the soul and its connection with the body.

They believed that a man who had lived could live again, without knowing precisely in what manner the fact could occur; 5 they designated by the term resurrection what Spiritism, more judiciously, calls reincarnation.

Indeed, resurrection gives the idea of bringing back to life the body that is already dead, which Science demonstrates to be materially impossible, especially when the elements of that body have already, for a long time, been dispersed and absorbed.

Reincarnation is the return of the soul or Spirit to corporeal life, but in another body especially formed for it and which has nothing in common with the old one.

The word resurrection could thus be applied to Lazarus, but not to Elijah, nor to the other prophets.

If, therefore, according to their belief, John the Baptist was Elijah, the body of John could not be that of Elijah, since John had been seen as a child and his parents were known. John, then, could be Elijah reincarnated, but not resurrected.

Now, among the Pharisees, there was a man named Nicodemus, a senator of the Jews, — who came by night to Jesus and said to him: Master, we know that you have come from God to instruct us as a learned man, for no one could perform the miracles that you perform, if God were not with him.

Jesus answered him: Verily, verily, I say to you: No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.

Nicodemus said to him: How can a man who is already old be born? Can he enter again into his mother's womb, to be born a second time?

Jesus replied to him: Verily, verily, I say to you: Unless a man is born again of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. — That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. — Do not marvel that I have told you that you must be born again. — The Spirit breathes where it wills and you hear its voice, but you do not know where it comes from, nor where it goes; the same happens with every man who is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus answered him: How can this be done? — Jesus remarked to him: What! you are a master in Israel and you are ignorant of these things?

— I say to you verily, verily, that we say only what we know and that we bear witness only to what we have seen. Yet you do not accept our testimony. — But if you do not believe me, when I speak to you of the things of the Earth, how will you believe me, when I speak to you of the things of Heaven? (Saint John, chapter III, vv. 1 to 12.)

The idea that John the Baptist was Elijah and that the prophets could live again on the Earth meets us in many passages of the Gospels, notably in those reproduced above (nos. 1, 2 and 3). If this belief were erroneous, Jesus would not have failed to combat it, as he combated so many others. Far from that, he sanctions it with all his authority and sets it down as a principle and as a necessary condition, when he says: No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again. And he insists, adding: Do not marvel that I have told you that YOU MUST be born again.

These words: “Unless a man is born again of water and of the Spirit” were interpreted in the sense of regeneration through the water of baptism; 2 the original text, however, read simply: is born again of water and of the Spirit, whereas in some translations the words of the Spirit were replaced by the following: of the Holy Spirit, which no longer corresponds to the same thought.

This capital point stands out from the first commentaries to which the Gospels gave rise, as will one day be proven, without possible mistake.

To grasp the true meaning of these words, one must also attend to the significance of the term water, which there was not employed in the sense proper to it.

Very imperfect were the knowledge of the ancients regarding the physical sciences. They believed that the Earth had come forth from the waters and, therefore, considered water as the absolute generating element; 3 thus it is that in Genesis one reads: “The Spirit of God was borne over the waters; it floated over the waters. Let the firmament be made in the midst of the waters. Let the waters that are under the heaven be gathered together in one place and let the dry element appear. Let the waters produce living animals that swim in the water and birds that fly over the earth and under the firmament.”

According to this belief, water had become the symbol of material nature, as the Spirit was that of intelligent nature.

These words: “Unless man is born again of water and of the Spirit, or in water and in Spirit”, mean therefore: “Unless man is born again with his body and his soul.” It is in this sense that at first they were understood.

Such an interpretation is justified, moreover, by these other words: That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. Jesus there establishes a positive distinction between the Spirit and the body. That which is born of the flesh is flesh clearly indicates that only the body proceeds from the body and that the Spirit is independent of it.

The Spirit breathes where it wills; you hear its voice, but you do not know either where it comes from, or where it goes: it can be understood that this refers to the Spirit of God, which gives life to whom it wills, or to the soul of man; 2 in this latter acceptation, “you do not know where it comes from, nor where it goes”, means that no one knows what the Spirit was, nor what it will be.

If the Spirit, or soul, were created at the same time as the body, one would know where it came from, since one would know its beginning.

In any case, this passage consecrates the principle of the preexistence of the soul and, consequently, that of the plurality of existences.

Now, from the time of John the Baptist until the present, the kingdom of Heaven is taken by violence and it is the violent who carry it off; — for thus all the prophets prophesied until John, and the law also; — if you wish to understand what I tell you, he himself is the Elijah who is to come. — Let him who has ears to hear, hear him. (Saint Matthew, chapter XI, vv. 12 to 15.)

If the principle of reincarnation, as it is expressed in Saint John, could, strictly speaking, be interpreted in a purely mystical sense, the same no longer happens with this passage of Saint Matthew, which permits no mistake: HE HIMSELF is the Elijah who is to come. There is here no figure, nor allegory: it is a positive affirmation. —

“From the time of John the Baptist until the present the kingdom of Heaven is taken by violence.” What do these words mean, since John the Baptist was still living at that moment? Jesus explains them, saying: “If you wish to understand what I say, he himself is the Elijah who is to come.” Now, John being Elijah himself, Jesus alludes to the time when John lived under the name of Elijah.

“Until the present the kingdom of Heaven is taken by violence”, another allusion to the violence of the Mosaic law, which ordered the extermination of the unfaithful, so that the rest might win the Promised Land, Paradise of the Hebrews, whereas, according to the new law, Heaven is won through charity and gentleness.

And he added: Let him who has ears to hear, hear. These words, which Jesus repeated so often, clearly say that not all were in a condition to understand certain truths.

Those of your people to whom death was given will live again;

those who were dead in the midst of me will rise. Awake from your sleep and sing praises to God, you who dwell in the dust; for the dew that falls upon you is a dew of light and because you will lay waste the Earth and the kingdom of the giants. (Isaiah, chapter XXVI, v. 19.)

This passage of Isaiah is also very explicit: “Those of your people to whom death was given will live again.” If the prophet had wished to speak of spiritual life, if he had meant to say that those who had been executed were not dead in Spirit, he would have said: they still live, and not: they will live again. In the spiritual sense, these words would be a contradiction, since they would imply an interruption in the life of the soul. In the sense of moral regeneration, they would be the negation of the eternal punishments, since they establish, as a principle, that all who are dead will live again.

But, when man has died once, when his body, separated from his Spirit, has been consumed, what becomes of him? — Having died once, could man live again anew? In this war in which I find myself all the days of my life, I wait for my change to come. (Job, chapter XIV, vv. 10 to 14. Translation of Le Maistre de Sacy.) n When man dies, he loses all his strength, he expires. Then, where is he? — If man dies, will he live again? I will wait all the days of my combat, until some change comes? (Idem, Protestant translation of Osterwald.)

When man is dead, he lives ever; the days of my terrestrial existence ending, I will wait, for I will return to it again. (Id., Version of the Greek Church.)

In these three versions, the principle of the plurality of existences is clearly expressed. No one could suppose that Job wished to speak of regeneration through the water of baptism, which he certainly did not know.

“Man having died once, could he live again anew?” The idea of dying once, and of living again, implies that of dying and living again many times.

The version of the Greek Church is still more explicit, if that is possible: “The days of my terrestrial existence ending, I will wait, for I will return to it”, or, I will return to terrestrial existence. This is as clear as if someone said: “I leave my house, but I will return to it.”

“In this war in which I find myself all the days of my life, I wait for my change to occur.” Job evidently intended to refer to the struggle that he was sustaining against the miseries of life. He awaits his change, that is, he resigns himself.

In the Greek version, I will wait seems to apply, preferably, to a new existence: “When my existence is ended, I will wait, for I will return to it.” Job as it were places himself, after death, in the interval that separates one existence from another and says that there he will await the moment of returning.

There is, then, no doubting that, under the name of resurrection, the principle of reincarnation was a point of one of the fundamental beliefs of the Jews, a point that Jesus and the prophets confirmed in a formal manner; whence it follows that to deny reincarnation is to deny the words of the Christ.

One day, however, his words, when they are meditated upon without preconceived ideas, will be recognized as authoritative on this point, as well as in relation to many others.

To this authority, from the religious point of view, is added, from the philosophical point of view, that of the proofs that result from the observation of the facts.

When it is a matter of going back from the effects to the causes, reincarnation appears as an absolute necessity, as a condition inherent to Humanity; in a word: as a law of Nature; 3 by its results, it is made evident, in a manner, so to speak, material, in the same way that the hidden motor reveals itself by the movement; 4 it alone can tell man where he comes from, where he goes, why he is on the Earth, and justify all the anomalies and all the apparent injustices that life presents. n

Without the principle of the preexistence of the soul and of the plurality of existences, the maxims of the Gospel are, for the most part, unintelligible, which is why they have given rise to such contradictory interpretations. In this principle lies the key that will restore to them their true meaning.

The family bonds strengthened by reincarnation and broken by the unity of existence.

The family bonds suffer no destruction whatever with reincarnation, as certain persons think. On the contrary, they become more strengthened and tightened. The opposite principle, indeed, destroys them.

In Space, the Spirits form groups or families intertwined by affection, by sympathy and by similarity of inclinations; 3 happy to find themselves together, these Spirits seek one another. Incarnation separates them only momentarily, since, upon returning to erraticity, they again unite like friends returning from a journey.

Often, even, some follow others into incarnation, coming here to be reunited in a same family, or in a same circle, in order to work together for their mutual advancement.

If some incarnate and others do not, they nonetheless do not cease to be united by thought; 6 those who remain free watch over those who are in captivity.

The more advanced strive to make the laggards progress.

After each existence, all have advanced a step on the path of perfection; 9 ever less bound to matter, their reciprocal affection becomes more alive, for the very reason that, being more purified, it is not disturbed by egoism, nor by the shadows of the passions.

They can, therefore, thus traverse an unlimited number of corporeal existences, without the mutual esteem that binds them receiving any blow.

It is well understood that here it is a matter of real affection, of soul to soul, the only kind that survives the destruction of the body, since the beings who in this world unite only through the senses have no reason to seek one another in the world of the Spirits.

Durable are only the spiritual affections; those of a carnal nature are extinguished with the cause that gave them origin; 13 now, such a cause does not subsist in the world of the Spirits, while the soul exists always.

As regards the persons who unite exclusively for reason of interest, these are really nothing to one another: death separates them on the Earth and in Heaven.

The union and the affection that exist between related persons are an index of the prior sympathy that brought them together; 2 hence it comes that, in speaking of someone whose character, tastes and tendencies present no resemblance to those of their nearest relatives, one is accustomed to say that they are not of the family. In saying this, one enunciates a truth more profound than is supposed.

God permits that, in families, these incarnations of antipathetic or strange Spirits occur, with the double objective of serving as a trial for some and, for others, as a means of progress.

Thus, the wicked improve little by little, by contact with the good and by effect of the care bestowed upon them. Their character softens, their customs are refined, the antipathies vanish; 5 it is in this way that the fusion of the different categories of Spirits is operated, as happens on the Earth with the races and the peoples.

The fear that the kindred may increase indefinitely, in consequence of reincarnation, is of an egoistic foundation: it proves, in the one who feels it, a lack of love broad enough to embrace a great number of persons.

Does a father, who has many children, love them less than he would love one of them, if he were an only child? But let the egoists be reassured: there is no foundation for such a fear.

From the fact of a man having had ten incarnations, it does not follow that he will find, in the world of the Spirits, ten fathers, ten mothers, ten wives and a proportional number of children and new relatives. There he will always find those who were the object of his affection, who will have bound themselves to him on the Earth, under various titles, and, perhaps, under the same title.

Let us now see the consequences of the anti-reincarnationist doctrine. It necessarily annuls the preexistence of the soul.

The souls being created at the same time as the bodies, there is no prior bond between them, which, in that case, will be completely strangers to one another. The father is a stranger to his son. The filiation of families is thus reduced to corporeal filiation alone, without any spiritual bond. There is then no reason whatever for anyone to glory in having had for ancestors such or such illustrious personages.

With reincarnation, ascendants and descendants may already have known one another, lived together, loved, and may be reunited later, in order to tighten between them the bonds of sympathy.

This as regards the past. As regards the future, according to one of the fundamental dogmas that derive from non-reincarnation, the fate of the souls is irrevocably determined, after a single existence; 2 the definitive fixing of the fate implies the cessation of all progress, for as soon as there is any progress there is no longer a definitive fate.

According as they have lived well or ill, they go immediately to the abode of the blessed, or to the eternal hell. They remain thus, immediately and forever, separated and without hope of joining together again, so that fathers, mothers and children, husbands and wives, brothers, sisters and friends can never be certain of seeing one another again: 4 it is the absolute rupture of the family bonds.

With reincarnation and the progress to which it gives rise, all those who have loved one another find one another again on the Earth and in space and together gravitate toward God.

If some falter on the way, these delay their advancement and their happiness, but there is for them no loss of all hope. Helped, encouraged and supported by those who love them, one day they will come out of the mire in which they have buried themselves.

With reincarnation, finally, there is perpetual solidarity between the incarnate and the disincarnate, and, from there, a tightening of the bonds of affection.

In summary, four alternatives present themselves to man, for his future beyond the grave: 1st, nothingness, according to the materialist doctrine; 2nd, absorption into the universal whole, according to the pantheist doctrine; 3rd, individuality, with definitive fixing of the fate, according to the doctrine of the Church; 4th, individuality, with indefinite progression, according to the Spiritist Doctrine.

According to the first two, the family bonds are broken at the time of death and no hope remains to the souls of finding one another in the future; 3 with the third, there is for them the possibility of seeing one another again, provided they go to the same region, which can be either hell or paradise; 4 with the plurality of existences, inseparable from gradual progression, there is the certainty of the continuity of the relations between those who have loved one another, and it is this that constitutes the true family. INSTRUCTIONS FROM THE SPIRITS.

Limits of incarnation.

What are the limits of incarnation?

Properly speaking, incarnation lacks precisely traced limits, if we have in view only the envelope that constitutes the body of the Spirit, given that the materiality of that envelope diminishes in proportion as the Spirit purifies itself.

In certain worlds more advanced than the Earth, it is already less compact, less heavy and less gross and, consequently, less subject to vicissitudes; 3 in a higher degree, it is diaphanous and almost fluidic. It goes on dematerializing from degree to degree and ends by merging with the perispirit.

According to the world in which it is led to live, the Spirit clothes itself with the envelope appropriate to the nature of that world.

The perispirit itself passes through successive transformations. It becomes ever more ethereal, until complete purification, which is the condition of the pure Spirits.

If special worlds are destined for Spirits of great advancement, these latter are not bound to them, as in the inferior worlds. The state of detachment in which they find themselves permits them to go everywhere where the missions confided to them call them.

If we consider incarnation from the material point of view, such as it occurs on the Earth, it can be said that it is limited to the inferior worlds; 8 it depends, therefore, on the Spirit to free itself from it more or less rapidly, working for its purification.

It must also be considered that in the disincarnate state, that is, in the interval of the corporeal existences, the situation of the Spirit holds relation with the nature of the world to which it is bound by the degree of its advancement; 10 thus, in erraticity, it is more or less happy, free and enlightened, according as it is more or less dematerialized. — (SAINT LOUIS. Paris, 1859.)

Necessity of incarnation.

Is incarnation a punishment and are only the guilty Spirits subject to suffering it?

The passage of the Spirits through corporeal life is necessary so that they may fulfill, by means of a material action, the designs whose execution God confides to them; 2 it is necessary to them, for their own good, since the activity that they are obliged to exercise aids them in the development of the intelligence.

Being sovereignly just, God must distribute everything equally among all his children; thus it is that he established for all the same starting point, the same aptitude, the same obligations to fulfill and the same liberty to act. Any privilege would be a preference, an injustice.

But incarnation, for all Spirits, is only a transitory state. It is a task that God imposes upon them, when they begin life, as a first experience of the use they will make of free will.

Those who perform this task with zeal cross rapidly and less painfully the first degrees of the initiation and sooner enjoy the fruit of their labors.

Those who, on the contrary, make ill use of the liberty that God grants them, delay their march and, such be the obstinacy they demonstrate, can prolong indefinitely the necessity of reincarnation, and it is then that it becomes a punishment. — (SAINT LOUIS. Paris, 1859.)

Note: A common comparison will make this difference better understood. The schoolboy does not reach the higher studies of Science, except after having traversed the series of classes that will lead him there. These classes, whatever the work they demand, are a means for the student to reach the end and not a punishment inflicted upon him. If he is diligent, he shortens the way, in which, then, he finds fewer thorns. Not so much happens to the one whom negligence and laziness oblige to pass twice through certain classes. It is not the work of the class that constitutes the punishment; this lies in the obligation to begin the same work again.

Thus it happens with man on the Earth. For the Spirit of the savage, who is only at the beginning of spiritual life, incarnation is a means for him to develop his intelligence; however, for the enlightened man, in whom the moral sense is largely developed and who is obliged to traverse anew the stages of a corporeal life full of anguish, when he could already have reached the end, it is a punishment, by the necessity in which he finds himself of prolonging his stay in inferior and less happy worlds.

The one who, on the contrary, works actively for his moral progress, besides shortening the time of material incarnation, can also cross at a single stroke the intermediate steps that separate him from the superior worlds.

Could the Spirits not incarnate a single time on a given globe and fulfill in different spheres their different existences? Such a way of seeing would only be admissible if, on the Earth, all men were exactly at the same intellectual and moral level. The differences that exist between them, from the savage to the civilized man, show what steps they have to climb.

Incarnation, moreover, needs to have a useful end. Now, what would be that of the ephemeral incarnations of the children who die at a tender age? They would have suffered with no profit for themselves, nor for others. God, whose laws are all sovereignly wise, does nothing useless. By reincarnation on the same globe, he willed that the same Spirits, putting themselves again in contact, might have occasion to repair their reciprocal harms; 6 by means of their prior relations, he willed, moreover, to establish on a spiritual base the family bonds and to support on a natural law the principles of solidarity, of fraternity and of equality. [1]

The translation of Osterwald [La Sainte Bible, ou L'Ancien et le Nouveau Testament, Jean-Frédéric Ostervald, Société biblique de Lausanne, Société biblique de Neuchâtel - 1836 - Google Books,] is in conformity with the original text. It says:

is born again of water and of the Spirit; that of Sacy says: of the Holy Spirit;

that of Lamennais: of the Holy Spirit.

[2] [La Sainte Bible contenant l'Ancien et le Nouveau Testament, by Isaac-Louis Le Maistre de Sacy is Catholic, the translator rendered it from the Vulgate into French, as well as the present one in this compilation, by Father Figueiredo;

at the end of each chapter of the Divine Testament there is a link to the corresponding chapter of the French version.]

[3] See, for the developments of the dogma of reincarnation, The Spirits' Book, chaps. IV and V; What is Spiritism, chapter II, by Allan Kardec; The plurality of existences, by Pezzani.