RETURN TO CORPOREAL LIFE.

Prelude to the return.

— 2. Union of the soul and the body. Abortion. — 3. Moral and intellectual faculties. — 4. Influence of the organism. — 5. Idiocy, madness. — 6. On childhood. — 7. Earthly sympathies and antipathies. — 8. Forgetfulness of the past.

Prelude to the return.

Do the Spirits know at what time they will reincarnate?

“They have a presentiment of it, as happens to the blind man who approaches the fire.

They know they must take up a body again, just as you know that you must die one day, but they do not know when that will happen.”

a — Then is reincarnation a necessity of the spiritual life, as death is of the corporeal life?

“Certainly; so it is.”

Are all Spirits concerned with their reincarnation?

“There are many who do not think about such a thing, who do not even understand it. It depends on their being more or less advanced.

For some, the uncertainty in which they find themselves about the future that awaits them constitutes a punishment.”

Can the Spirit hasten or delay the moment of its reincarnation?

“It can hasten it, drawing it on by an ardent desire.

It can likewise put it off, recoiling before the trial, for among the Spirits there are also cowards and the indifferent.

None, however, does so with impunity, since it suffers for it, like one who refuses the remedy capable of curing him.”

If a Spirit considered itself quite happy, in a condition midway among the wandering spirits and, consequently, did not aspire to rise, could a Spirit prolong that state indefinitely?

“Indefinitely, no. Sooner or later, the Spirit feels the need to progress. All must rise; that is the destiny of all.”

Is there predestination in the union of the soul with this or that body, or is the choice of the body it will take made only at the last hour?

“The Spirit is always designated beforehand.

Having chosen the trial to which it wishes to submit, it asks to incarnate. Now, God, who knows and sees all, already knew and had foreseen in advance that such a Spirit would unite with such a body.”

Does it fall to the Spirit to choose the body in which it incarnates, or only the kind of life that will serve as its trial?

“It can also choose the body, inasmuch as the imperfections this presents will still be, for the Spirit, trials that will aid its progress, if it overcomes the obstacles they set against it.

It is not always, however, permitted to choose its corporeal envelope; but, simply, the faculty of asking that it be such or such.” a — Could the Spirit refuse, at the last hour, to take the body it had chosen?

“If it refused, it would suffer much more than one who attempted no trial at all.”

Could it happen that there be no Spirit willing to incarnate in a child that is to be born?

“God would provide for that. When a child is to be born viable, it is always predestined to have a soul.

Nothing is created without a design presiding over the creation.”

Can the union of the Spirit with a particular body be imposed by God?

“Certainly, in the same way as the different trials, especially when the Spirit is not yet fit to make a choice with full knowledge of the matter.

By way of expiation, the Spirit may be constrained to unite with the body of a particular child who, by its birth and by the position it will come to occupy in the world, becomes for it an instrument of chastisement.”

If it happened that several Spirits presented themselves to take a particular body destined to be born, what would decide to which of them the body would belong?

“Many may ask for it; but, in such a case, it is God who judges which is the most capable of carrying out the mission to which the child is destined.

But, as I have already said, the Spirit is designated before the instant sounds at which it is to unite with the body.”

At the moment of incarnating, does the Spirit undergo a perturbation similar to that which it experiences upon disincarnating?

“Much greater and above all longer.

Through death, the Spirit leaves slavery; through birth, it enters into it.”

Is the instant of its incarnation solemn for the Spirit? Does it perform that act regarding it as great and important?

“It acts like the traveler who embarks for a perilous crossing and who does not know whether or not he will meet death in the waves he resolves to confront.”

The traveler who embarks knows to what dangers he commits himself but does not know whether he will be shipwrecked. The same happens with the Spirit: it knows the kind of trials to which it submits, but it does not know whether it will succumb.

Just as, for the Spirit, the death of the body is a kind of rebirth, so reincarnation is a kind of death, or rather, of exile, of confinement.

It leaves the world of the Spirits for the corporeal world, as man leaves this world for that one. It knows that it will reincarnate, as man knows that he will die.

But, like the latter with respect to death, the Spirit only at the supreme instant, when the predestined moment has come, becomes aware that it is going to reincarnate. Then, like the man in agony, perturbation takes hold of it, which lasts until the new existence is positively begun.

At the approach of the moment to reincarnate it feels a kind of agony.

In the uncertainty in which it finds itself, regarding the eventualities of its triumph in the trials it is going to bear in life, does the Spirit have a cause for anxiety before its incarnation?

“For very great anxiety, for the trials of its existence will hold it back or make it advance, according as it bears them.”

At the moment of reincarnating, does the Spirit find itself accompanied by other Spirits, its friends, who come to attend its departure from the incorporeal world, as they come to receive it when it returns there?

“It depends on the Sphere to which it belongs.

If it is already in those where affection reigns, the Spirits who love it accompany it until the last moment, encourage it, and even often follow its steps throughout life.”

Those whom we see in dreams, who show us affection and who present themselves to us with unknown countenances, are they sometimes the friendly Spirits who follow our steps in life?

“Very often it is they who come to visit you, as you go to visit a prisoner.”

Union of the soul and the body. — Abortion.

At what moment does the soul unite with the body?

“The union begins at conception, but is complete only at the time of birth.

From the instant of conception, the Spirit designated to inhabit a certain body is bound to it by a fluidic tie, which grows ever tighter until the instant when the child sees the light.

The cry which the newborn lets out announces that it is counted in the number of the living and of the servants of God.”

Is the union of the Spirit with the body definitive from the moment of conception? During this first phase, could the Spirit renounce inhabiting the body destined for it?

“The union is definitive, in the sense that another Spirit could not replace the one designated for that body.

But, as the ties that bind it to the body are still very weak, they break easily and may be broken by the Spirit's will, if it recoils before the trial it chose. In such a case, however, the child does not thrive.”

What does the Spirit do, if the body it chose dies before birth occurs?

“It chooses another.”

a — What is the use of these premature deaths?

“The imperfections of matter are most often their cause.”

What use will a Spirit find in its incarnation in a body that dies a few days after being born?

“The being then does not have full awareness of its existence. Thus, the importance of the death is almost nil.

As we have already said, what there is in these cases of premature death is a trial for the parents.”

Does the Spirit know, in advance, that the body of its choice has no probability of living?

“It knows it sometimes; but, if in that circumstance lies the motive of the choice, this means that it is fleeing the trial.”

When, for any cause, the incarnation of a Spirit fails, is it immediately supplied by another existence?

“Not always immediately.

It is necessary to give the Spirit time to make a new choice, unless the immediate reincarnation corresponds to a previous determination.”

Once united with the body of the child and when it is no longer possible to turn back, does it ever happen that the Spirit deplores the choice it made?

“Do you ask whether, as a man, it complains of the life it has? Whether it would wish it to be otherwise? Yes; but that it repents of the choice it made, no, since it is unaware that it made such a choice.

Once incarnated, the Spirit cannot lament a choice of which it has no awareness. It can, however, find the burden too heavy and consider it beyond its strength.

It is when this happens that it resorts to suicide.”

In the interval between conception and birth, does the Spirit enjoy all its faculties?

“More or less, according to the point it has reached in that phase, since it is not yet incarnated, but only bound.

From the instant of conception, the Spirit begins to be seized by perturbation, which warns it that the moment to begin a new corporeal existence has sounded for it.

This perturbation grows continually until birth.

In this interval, its state is almost identical to that of an incarnated Spirit during sleep.

As the hour of birth approaches, its ideas fade, as does the remembrance of the past, of which it ceases to be aware in the condition of man as soon as it enters into life.

This remembrance, however, returns to it little by little upon returning to the state of Spirit.”

Immediately upon being born, does the Spirit recover the fullness of its faculties?

“No, they develop gradually with the organs.

The Spirit finds itself in a new existence; it must learn to make use of the instruments at its disposal.

Its ideas return little by little, like a person who awakens and finds himself in a situation different from the one he occupied the day before.”

The union of the Spirit with the body not being complete, not being definitively consummated except after birth, may the fetus be considered as endowed with a soul?

“The Spirit that is to animate it exists, in a certain way, outside of it.

The fetus does not therefore, properly speaking, have a soul, since the incarnation is only in the process of taking place. It is, however, bound to the soul it will come to possess.”

How is intrauterine life explained?

“It is that of the plant that vegetates. The child lives an animal life.

Man has the vegetal life and the animal life which, by his birth, are completed with the spiritual life.”

Are there, in fact, as Science indicates, children who already in the maternal womb are not viable? For what purpose does this occur?

“Frequently this happens and God permits it as a trial, whether for the parents of the unborn child, or for the Spirit designated to take a place among the living.”

Among the stillborn, are there some that were not destined for the incarnation of Spirits?

“There are some, indeed, to whose bodies no Spirit was ever destined. Nothing was to be accomplished for them.

Such children then come only for their parents' sake.”

a — Can a being of this nature reach the term of birth?

“Sometimes; but it does not live.”

b — Does it follow from this that every child that lives after birth necessarily has a Spirit incarnated in it?

“What would it be, if it were not so? It would not be a human being.”

What consequences does abortion have for the Spirit?

“It is a nullified existence, and one that it will have to begin again.”

Does the provocation of abortion constitute a crime, at any period of gestation?

“There is crime whenever you transgress the law of God.

A mother, or whoever it may be, will commit a crime whenever she takes the life of a child before its birth, because she prevents a soul from passing through the trials for which the body that was being formed would have served as instrument.” [N.

693.]

Should it be the case that the birth of the child endangered the life of its mother, would there be crime in sacrificing the former to save the latter?

“It is preferable to sacrifice the being that does not yet exist than to sacrifice the one that already exists.”

Is it reasonable to show toward a fetus the same attentions that are given to the body of a child that lived some time?

“See in all this the will and the work of God. Do not, then, treat carelessly things you ought to respect. Why not respect the works of creation, sometimes incomplete by the will of the Creator? Everything occurs according to His designs and no one is called to be His judge.”

Moral and intellectual faculties.

What is the origin of man's moral qualities, good or bad?

“They are those of the Spirit incarnated in him.

The purer that Spirit is, the more inclined to good is the man.”

a — Does it follow from this that the man of good is the incarnation of a good Spirit and the vicious man that of a bad Spirit?

“Yes, but say rather that the vicious man is the incarnation of an imperfect Spirit, 2 for, otherwise, you might lead people to believe in the existence of Spirits that are always bad, which you call demons.”

What is the character of the individuals in whom heedless and frivolous Spirits incarnate?

“They are scatterbrained, malicious individuals and, not rarely, harmful creatures.”

Do Spirits have passions that Humanity does not share?

“No, for otherwise they would have communicated them to you.”

Does the same Spirit give man the moral qualities and those of intelligence?

“Certainly, and that by virtue of the degree of advancement to which it has risen. Man does not have two Spirits within him.”

Why is it that some very intelligent men, which indicates that superior Spirits are incarnated in them, are at the same time profoundly vicious?

“It is that the Spirits incarnated in these men are not yet pure enough, and therefore, for that reason, yield to the influence of other more imperfect Spirits.

The Spirit progresses in an imperceptible ascending march, but progress does not take place simultaneously in all directions. During one period of its existence, it advances in science; during another, in morality.”

What should be thought of the opinion of those who claim that the different intellectual and moral faculties of man result from the incarnation, in him, of as many Spirits, different from one another, each with a special aptitude?

“Reflecting, you will recognize that it is absurd.

The Spirit must have all the aptitudes. To progress, it needs a single will.

If man were an amalgam of Spirits, that will would not exist and he would lack individuality, for, at his death, all those Spirits would form a flock of birds escaped from the cage.

Man often complains of not understanding certain things and yet it is curious to see how he multiplies the difficulties, when he has within his reach very simple and natural explanations.

In this case too they take the effect for the cause. They do, with respect to the human creature, what the pagans did with respect to God, who believed in as many gods as there were phenomena in the Universe, although the sensible persons coexisting with them saw in such phenomena only effects proceeding from a single cause — God.”

The physical world and the moral world offer us, in this respect, several points of similarity. As long as they stopped at the appearance of phenomena, scientists believed that matter was multiple. Today, it is understood to be quite possible that such varied phenomena consist only of modifications of the single elementary matter.

The diverse faculties are manifestations of one same cause, which is the soul, or the incarnated Spirit, and not of many souls, exactly as the different sounds of the organ, which all proceed from the air and not from as many kinds of air as there are sounds.

From such a system it would follow that, when a man loses or acquires certain aptitudes, certain inclinations, this would mean that as many Spirits had come to inhabit him or had left him, which would make him a multiple being, without individuality and, consequently, without responsibility. Add to this that he is contradicted by very numerous examples of manifestations of Spirits, in which these prove their personalities and identity. Influence of the organism.

In uniting with the body, does the Spirit identify itself with matter?

“Matter is only the wrapping of the Spirit, as clothing is of the body.

In uniting with the latter, the Spirit retains the attributes of the spiritual nature.”

After its union with the body, does the Spirit exercise its faculties with full freedom?

“The exercise of the faculties depends on the organs that serve as their instrument.

The grossness of matter weakens them.”

a — Thus, the material envelope is an obstacle to the free manifestation of the Spirit's faculties, as an opaque glass is to the free radiation of light?

“It is, like a very opaque glass.”

The action which gross matter exerts upon the Spirit may be compared to that of a muddy pool upon a body plunged into it, from which it takes away freedom of movement.

Is the free exercise of the soul's faculties subordinate to the development of the organs?

“The organs are the instruments of the manifestation of the soul's faculties, a manifestation that is subordinate to the development and the degree of perfection of the organs, as the excellence of a work is to that of the tool proper to its execution.”

From the influence of the organs can one infer the existence of a relation between the development of those of the brain and that of the moral and intellectual faculties?

“Do not confuse the effect with the cause.

The Spirit always has at its disposal the faculties proper to it.

Now, it is not the organs that give the faculties, but rather these that impel the development of the organs.”

a — Should it be deduced from this that the diversity of aptitudes among men derives solely from the state of the Spirit?

“The term solely does not express with all exactitude what occurs.

The principle of that diversity resides in the qualities of the Spirit, which may be more or less advanced.

One must, however, take into account the influence of matter, which more or less curtails its exercise of its faculties.”

In incarnating, the Spirit brings certain predispositions; if we admit for each of them a corresponding organ in the brain, the development of those organs will be effect and not cause. If the principle of the faculties lay in the organs, man would be a machine without free will and without responsibility for his acts. It would then be necessary to admit that the greatest geniuses, the learned, the poets, the artists, are such only because chance gave them special organs, whence it would follow that, without those organs, they would not have been geniuses and that, thus, the greatest of imbeciles could have been a Newton, a Virgil, or a Raphael, provided he were furnished with certain organs.

Such a hypothesis shows itself even more absurd if we apply it to the moral qualities. Indeed, according to that system, a Vincent de Paul, had Nature endowed him with this or that organ, could have been a scoundrel, and the greatest of scoundrels would need only a certain organ to be a Vincent de Paul.

Admit, on the contrary, that the special organs, granting they exist, are consequent, that they develop by effect of the exercise of the faculty, as the muscles by effect of movement, and no irrational conclusion will be reached.

Let us make use of a comparison, trivial by virtue of being true. By certain physiognomic signs it is recognized that a man has the vice of drunkenness. Is it these signs that make him a drunkard, or is it drunkenness that imprints those signs in him? It may be said that the organs receive the stamp of the faculties. Idiocy, madness.

Is there any foundation for the claim that the soul of cretins and idiots is of an inferior nature?

“None.

They bring human souls, often more intelligent than you suppose, but who suffer from the insufficiency of the means at their disposal for communicating, in the same way that the mute suffers from the impossibility of speaking.”

What objective does Providence have in view in creating unhappy beings, such as cretins and idiots?

“Those who inhabit the bodies of idiots are Spirits subject to a punishment.

They suffer by effect of the constraint they experience and of the impossibility in which they are of manifesting themselves through undeveloped or dismantled organs.”

a — There is, then, no foundation for saying that the organs have no influence upon the faculties?

“We never said that the organs have no influence.

They have a very great one upon the manifestation of the faculties, but they are not the origin of these. Here is the difference.

An excellent musician, with a defective instrument, will not let good music be heard, which will not make him cease to be a good musician.”

It is important to distinguish the normal state from the pathological state. In the first, the moral overcomes the obstacles that matter sets against it.

There are, however, cases in which matter offers such resistance that the manifestations of the soul are hindered or denatured, as in those of idiocy and of madness.

These are pathological cases and, the soul not enjoying in that state all its freedom, human law itself exempts it from the responsibility for its acts.

What will be the merit of the existence of beings who, like cretins and idiots, being able to do neither good nor evil, find themselves incapable of progressing?

“It is an expiation arising from the abuse they made of certain faculties.

It is a temporary halt.”

a — Can the body of an idiot thus contain a Spirit that animated a man of genius in a preceding existence?

“Certainly. Genius becomes at times a scourge, when man abuses it.”

Moral superiority is not always in proportion to intellectual superiority and the great geniuses may have much to expiate. Hence, frequently, there results for them an existence inferior to those they had and a cause of sufferings.

The hindrances that the Spirit encounters for its manifestations resemble for it the shackles that impede the movements of a vigorous man.

It may be said that cretins and idiots are crippled in the brain, as the lame man is in the legs and the blind man in the eyes.

In the condition of free Spirit, does the idiot have awareness of its mental state?

“Frequently it does. It understands that the chains hindering its flight are trial and expiation.”

In madness, what is the situation of the Spirit?

“The Spirit, when at liberty, receives its impressions directly and directly exerts its action upon matter.

Incarnated, however, it finds itself in very different conditions and in the contingency of doing so only with the aid of special organs.

Let a part or the whole of such organs be altered and behold, in what depends on these, its action or its impressions are interrupted. If it loses its eyes, it becomes blind; if its hearing, it becomes deaf, etc.

Imagine now that it is the organ which presides over the manifestations of the intelligence that is attacked or modified, partially or wholly, and it will be easy for you to understand that, the Spirit having at its service only incomplete or altered organs, a perturbation will result of which it, by itself and in its inmost being, has perfect awareness, but whose course it is not in its hands to arrest.” a — Then it is always the body that is disordered and not the Spirit?

“Exactly; but it is well not to lose sight of the fact that, just as the Spirit acts upon matter, so too this reacts upon it, within certain limits, 2 and that it may happen that the Spirit is temporarily impressed by the alteration of the organs through which it manifests itself and receives impressions.

It may even happen that, with continuation, the madness lasting a long time, the repetition of the same acts ends by exerting upon the Spirit an influence, from which it will free itself only after having freed itself from all material impression.”

For what reason does madness sometimes lead man to suicide?

“The Spirit suffers from the constraint in which it finds itself and from the impossibility in which it sees itself of manifesting freely, whence its seeking in death a means of breaking its fetters.”

After death, does the Spirit of the deranged person feel the effects of the disorder of its faculties?

“It may feel them, for some time after death, until it detaches itself completely from matter, as the man who awakens feels, for some time, the effects of the perturbation into which sleep had cast him.”

In what way does the alteration of the brain react upon the Spirit after death?

“Like a recollection. A weight oppresses the Spirit and, as it did not have understanding of all that happened during its madness, a certain time is always necessary, in order to put itself abreast of everything.

That is why, the longer the madness lasts in the course of earthly life, the longer the uncertainty, the constraint, will last for it after death.

Freed from the body, the Spirit feels, for a certain time, the impression of the ties that bound it to it.” On childhood.

Is the Spirit that animates the body of a child as developed as that of an adult?

“It may even be more so, if it has progressed more.

It is only the imperfection of the childish organs that prevents it from manifesting itself. It works in conformity with the instrument at its disposal.”

Setting aside the obstacle that the imperfection of the organs sets against its free manifestation, does the Spirit, in a small child, think as a child or as an adult?

“Since it is a question of a child, it is clear that, the organs of intelligence not yet being developed in it, they cannot give all the intuition proper to an adult to the Spirit that animates it. This Spirit, then, has, indeed, its intelligence limited, until age ripens its reason.

The perturbation that the act of incarnation produces in the Spirit does not cease suddenly, at the time of birth. It dissipates only gradually, with the development of the organs.”

There is a fact of observation that supports this answer. Dreams, in a child, do not present the character of those of an adult. Almost always the object of childish dreams is puerile, which indicates of what nature are the preoccupations of the respective Spirit.

Upon the death of the child, does the Spirit immediately regain its previous vigor?

“So it must be, since it sees itself rid of its corporeal envelope.

However, it does not regain its previous lucidity except when it has completely separated from that envelope, that is, when no tie any longer exists between it and the body.”

During childhood does the incarnated Spirit suffer, in consequence of the constraint that the imperfection of the organs imposes upon it?

“No.

That state corresponds to a necessity, it is in the order of nature and in accordance with the views of Providence.

It is a period of repose for the Spirit.”

What, for the Spirit, is the use of passing through the state of childhood?

“Incarnating, with the aim of perfecting itself, the Spirit during that period is more accessible to the impressions it receives, capable of aiding its advancement, to which those charged with educating it must contribute.”

Why is weeping the child's first manifestation upon being born?

“To stimulate the mother's interest and to provoke the care it has need of.

Is it not evident that if its manifestations were all of joy, when it does not yet know how to speak, those around it would little concern themselves with the care indispensable to it? Admire, then, in everything the wisdom of Providence.”

What is it that causes the change which takes place in the character of the individual at a certain age, especially upon leaving adolescence? Is it that the Spirit is modified?

“It is that the Spirit takes up again the nature proper to it, such as it was.

“You do not know what the innocence of children conceals. You do not know what they are, nor what they were, nor what they will be. And yet, you have affection for them, you caress them, as if they were portions of yourselves, to such a point that the love a mother consecrates to her children is considered the greatest love that one being can devote to another.

Whence is born the gentle affection, the tender benevolence that even strangers feel for a child? Do you know? No. Well then! I am going to explain it. “Children are the beings whom God sends into new existences. So that they cannot impute excessive severity to Him, He gives them all the aspects of innocence. Even when it is a question of a child of bad inclinations, its bad actions are covered with the cloak of unconsciousness.

That innocence does not constitute a real superiority with respect to what they were before, no. It is the image of what they ought to be and, if they are not so, the consequent chastisement falls exclusively upon them.

“It was not, however, for them alone that God gave them this aspect of innocence; it was also and above all for their parents, whose love the weakness that characterizes them needs. Now, that love would weaken greatly at the sight of a harsh and intractable character, whereas, judging their children good and docile, the parents devote to them all their affection and surround them with the most meticulous care.

But once the children no longer need the protection and assistance that were given to them during fifteen or twenty years, their real and individual character emerges in all its nakedness. They remain good, if they were fundamentally good; but always tinged with shades that early childhood kept hidden.

“As you see, God's processes are always the best and, when one has a pure heart, one easily grasps the explanation of them.

“Indeed, consider that in your homes children are possibly born whose Spirits come from worlds where they built up habits different from yours, and tell me how these beings could be in your midst, bringing passions different from those you nourish, inclinations, tastes, entirely opposed to yours; how they could fall into line among you, except as God determined it, that is, by passing through the sieve of childhood? In this come to be merged all ideas, all characters, all the varieties of beings begotten by the infinity of worlds in which creatures grow.

And you yourselves, when you die, will find yourselves in a state that is a kind of childhood, among new brothers. On returning to the extraterrestrial existence, you will be ignorant of the habits, the customs, the relations observed in that world, new to you. You will handle with difficulty a language which you are not accustomed to speak, a language more lively than your thought now is.

“Childhood still has another use. The Spirits enter corporeal life only to perfect themselves, to better themselves. The delicacy of the childish age makes them gentle, accessible to the counsels of experience and of those who are to make them progress. It is in that phase that one can reform their characters and repress their bad inclinations. Such is the duty that God imposed upon parents, a sacred mission of which they will have to render account.

“Thus, therefore, childhood is not only useful, necessary, indispensable, but also a natural consequence of the laws that God established and that govern the Universe.”

Earthly sympathies and antipathies.

Can two beings, who knew and esteemed each other, meet again in another existence and recognize each other?

“Recognize each other, no.

They can, however, feel drawn to one another. And, frequently, no different is the cause of intimate bonds founded on sincere affection.

Two beings draw near to one another, owing to apparently fortuitous circumstances, but which in reality result from the attraction of two Spirits, who seek each other reciprocally amid the multitude.” a — Would it not be more agreeable for them to recognize each other?

“Not always.

The recollection of past existences would have greater drawbacks than you imagine.

After being dead, they will recognize each other and will know how much time they spent together.”

Does sympathy always have as its principle a prior acquaintance?

“No.

Two Spirits, who bond well, naturally seek each other, without having known each other as men.”

The encounters that are wont to occur, of certain persons, and that are commonly attributed to chance, might they not be the effect of a certain relation of sympathy?

“Among thinking beings there are bonds that you do not yet know.

Magnetism is the pilot of this science, which you will later understand better.”

And the instinctive repulsion that is experienced toward certain persons, whence does it originate?

“They are antipathetic Spirits who divine and recognize each other, without speaking to one another.”

Is instinctive antipathy always a sign of a bad nature?

“From their not sympathizing with one another, it does not follow that two Spirits are necessarily bad.

The antipathy between them may derive from diversity in the manner of thinking.

As they rise, however, that divergence will disappear and the antipathy will cease to exist.”

Does the antipathy between two persons arise first in the one who has the worse Spirit, or in the one who has the better?

“In one and the other indifferently, but distinct are the causes and the effects in the two.

A bad Spirit feels antipathy toward whoever may judge and unmask it.

On seeing a person for the first time, it at once knows that it is going to be censured. Its withdrawal from that person turns into hatred, into envy, and inspires in it the desire to do evil.

The good Spirit feels repulsion for the bad one, because it knows that the latter will not understand it and because its sentiments are disparate from those of the latter.

However, conscious of its superiority, it nourishes neither hatred nor envy against the other. It limits itself to avoiding it and to pitying it.” Forgetfulness of the past.

Why does the incarnated Spirit lose the remembrance of its past?

“Man can neither, nor should, know everything. God so wills it in His wisdom.

Without the veil that hides certain things from him he would be dazzled, like one who, without transition, came out of the dark into the light.

Forgetful of his past, he is more master of himself.”

How can man be responsible for acts and redeem faults of which he does not remember? How can he profit from the experience of lives he has forgotten? It is conceivable that the tribulations of existence would serve him as a lesson, if he remembered what could have occasioned them. But since he does not remember this, each existence is, for him, as if it were the first, and behold he is then always beginning again. How can this be reconciled with the justice of God?

“In each new existence, man has at his disposal more intelligence and can better distinguish good from evil.

Where would the merit be if he remembered all his past? When the Spirit returns to the prior life (the spiritual life), all its past life stretches before its eyes.

It sees the faults it committed and that gave cause to its suffering, as well as in what manner it would have avoided them.

It recognizes as just the situation in which it finds itself and then seeks an existence capable of repairing the one that has just elapsed.

It chooses trials analogous to those it did not know how to profit from, or the struggles it considers appropriate to its advancement, 6 and it asks Spirits superior to it to help it in the new enterprise it takes upon itself, 7 aware that the Spirit given to it as guide in that other existence will strive to lead it to repair its faults, giving it a kind of intuition of those into which it fell.

You have that intuition in the thought, in the criminal desire that frequently assails you and that you instinctively resist, attributing, most often, that resistance to the principles you received from your parents, when it is the voice of conscience that speaks to you.

That voice, which is the remembrance of the past, warns you not to fall again into the faults of which you have already made yourself guilty.

In the new existence, if it bears those trials with courage and resists, the Spirit rises and ascends in the hierarchy of the Spirits, on returning into their midst.”

We do not, it is true, during corporeal life, have exact remembrance of what we were and what we did in prior existences; but we have of all this the intuition, our instinctive tendencies being a reminiscence of the past.

And our conscience, which is the desire we experience not to relapse into the faults already committed, incites us to resistance against those inclinations.

In the worlds higher than the Earth, where those who inhabit them do not find themselves pressed by physical needs, by the infirmities that afflict us, do men understand that they are happier than we? Happiness is, in general, relative. We feel it by comparison with a less fortunate state. Since, in short, some of these worlds, though much better than ours, have not yet attained the state of perfection, their inhabitants must have causes for displeasure, although of a kind different from ours. Among us, the rich man, although he does not suffer the anguishes of material needs, like the poor man, is nonetheless not exempt from tribulations, which make his life bitter for him. I ask then: In the situation in which they find themselves, do the inhabitants of these worlds not consider themselves as unhappy as we, in the one in which we see ourselves, and do they not lament their lot, oblivious of inferior existences that might serve them as terms of comparison?

“Two distinct answers are in order here.

There are worlds, among those of which you speak, whose inhabitants keep a clear and exact remembrance of their past existences. These, you understand, can and know how to appreciate the happiness that God permits them to enjoy.

There are others, however, whose inhabitants, finding themselves, as you say, in better conditions than you on the Earth, do not fail to experience great displeasures, even misfortunes.

These do not appreciate the happiness they enjoy, for the very reason that they do not remember a more unhappy state. However, if they do not appreciate it as men, they appreciate it as Spirits.”

In the forgetfulness of the existences previously elapsed, especially when they were embittered, is there not something providential and that reveals divine wisdom? In the superior worlds, when recalling them no longer constitutes a nightmare, it is then that the unhappy lives present themselves to the memory. In the inferior worlds, would not the remembrance of all those that have been suffered aggravate the present misfortunes? Let us conclude, then, from this that all that God has done is perfect and that it does not fall to us to criticize His works, nor to teach Him how He ought to have regulated the Universe.

The remembrance of our prior individualities would have very grave drawbacks. In certain cases, it would humiliate us exceedingly. In others it would exalt our pride, fettering, in consequence, our free will.

To better ourselves, God gives us exactly what is necessary and sufficient for us: the voice of conscience and the instinctive inclinations. He deprives us of what would harm us.

Let us add that, if we remembered our previous personal acts, we would equally remember those of others, from which would result perhaps the most disastrous effects for social relations. Not always being able to honor ourselves with our past, it is better that a veil be cast over it.

This agrees perfectly with the doctrine of the Spirits concerning the worlds superior to the Earth. In those worlds, where only good reigns, the reminiscence of the past has nothing painful about it. Such is the reason why in them the creatures remember their antecedent existence, as we remember what we did the day before. As for the sojourn in inferior worlds, it is then nothing more, as we have already said, than a bad dream.

Can we have some revelations regarding our prior lives?

“Not always.

Nevertheless, many know what they were and what they did.

If they were permitted to say it openly, they would make extraordinary revelations about the past.”

Some persons believe they have a vague recollection of an unknown past, which presents itself to them like the fleeting image of a dream, which one tries in vain to retain. Is there not in this a simple illusion?

“Sometimes, it is a real impression; 2 but also, frequently, it is nothing more than a mere illusion, against which man needs to put himself on guard, since it may be the effect of an overexcited imagination.”

In the corporeal existences of a nature higher than ours, is the remembrance of prior ones clearer?

“Yes, as the body becomes less material, with more exactitude man remembers his past.

This remembrance, those who inhabit the worlds of a superior order have it more distinct.”

The instinctive inclinations being a reminiscence of one's past, may it be that, through the study of these inclinations, it is possible for man to know the faults he committed?

“Up to a certain point, so it is.

It becomes necessary, however, to take into account the improvement that may have been wrought in the Spirit and the resolutions it may have taken in erraticity.

It may happen that the present existence is much better than the preceding one.” a — Might it also be worse, that is, might the Spirit commit, in one existence, faults that it did not commit in the preceding one?

“It depends on its advancement.

If it does not know how to triumph over the trials, it will possibly be dragged into new faults, consequent, then, upon the position it chose.

But, in general, these faults denote a halt rather than a retrogradation, 4 since the Spirit is capable of advancing or of stopping, never, however, of retreating.”

The vicissitudes of corporeal life being expiation of the faults of the past and, at the same time, trials with a view to the future, will it follow that from the nature of such vicissitudes one can deduce of what kind the prior existence was?

“Very often this is possible, since each one is punished in that wherein he sinned. However, no absolute rule is to be drawn from this.

The instinctive tendencies constitute a surer indication, since the trials through which the Spirit passes are so both with respect to the past and with respect to the future.”

Having arrived at the term that Providence assigned to its life in erraticity, the Spirit itself chooses the trials to which it wishes to submit in order to hasten its advancement, that is, it chooses means of advancing, and such trials are always in relation with the faults it must expiate. If it triumphs over them, it rises; if it succumbs, it has to begin again.

The Spirit always enjoys free will. It is by virtue of that freedom that it chooses, when disincarnated, the trials of corporeal life and that, when incarnated, it decides to do or not to do a thing and makes the choice between good and evil. To deny man free will would be to reduce him to the condition of a machine.

Plunged into corporeal life, the Spirit loses, momentarily, the remembrance of its prior existences, as if a veil covered them. Nevertheless, it sometimes retains a vague awareness of those lives, which, even in certain circumstances, may be revealed to it. This revelation, however, only the superior Spirits make to it spontaneously, with a useful purpose, never to satisfy vain curiosity.

The future existences, those can in no case be revealed, for the reason that they depend on the manner in which the Spirit will come out of the present existence and on the choice that it later makes.

The forgetfulness of the faults committed does not constitute an obstacle to the improvement of the Spirit, since, if it is true that it does not remember them with precision, it is no less true that the circumstance of having known them in erraticity and of having desired to repair them guides it by intuition and gives it the idea of resisting evil, an idea that is the voice of conscience, having to second it the superior Spirits who assist it, if it heeds the good inspirations they give it.

Man does not know the acts he performed in his past existences, but he can always know what kind of faults he became guilty of and what is the predominant stamp of his character. It will then suffice to judge of what he was, not by what he is, but by his tendencies.

The vicissitudes of corporeal life constitute expiation of the faults of the past and, simultaneously, trials with respect to the future. They purify us and raise us, if we bear them resigned and without murmuring.

The nature of those vicissitudes and of the trials we suffer can also enlighten us concerning what we were and what we did, in the same way that in this world we judge of the acts of a guilty person by the chastisement that the law inflicts on him. Thus, the proud man will be chastised in his pride, through the humiliation of a subaltern existence; the bad rich man, the miser, through poverty; he who was cruel to others, through the cruelties he will suffer; the tyrant, through slavery; the bad son, through the ingratitude of his children; the lazy man, through a forced labor, etc.