OF SPIRITS.

Origin and nature of Spirits. —

Primitive normal world. — 3. Form and ubiquity of Spirits. —

Perispirit.

— 5. Different orders of Spirits. — 6. Spiritist scale. — 7. Progression of Spirits. — 8. Angels and demons.

Origin and nature of Spirits.

What definition can be given of Spirits?

“It may be said that Spirits are the intelligent beings of creation. They populate the Universe, beyond the material world.”

Note. — The word Spirit is employed here to designate the individualities of extracorporeal beings, and no longer the intelligent element of the Universe.

Are Spirits beings distinct from the Divinity, or are they simple emanations or portions of it and, for this reason, called children of God?

“My God! They are the work of God, exactly as the machine is of the man who makes it. The machine is the work of man, it is not man himself. You know that, when he makes something beautiful, useful, man calls it his daughter, his creation. Well then! The same holds with regard to God: we are his children, since we are his work.”

Did Spirits have a beginning, or do they exist, like God, from all eternity?

“If they had had no beginning, they would be equal to God, whereas, on the contrary, they are his creation and are submitted to his will.

That God exists from all eternity is incontestable; 3 but as to the manner in which he created us and the moment in which he did so, we know nothing.

You may say that we had no beginning, if by that you mean that, God being eternal, he must always have created without interruption; 5 but when and how each of us was made, I repeat to you, no one knows: therein lies the mystery.” [See question 611.]

Since there are two general elements in the Universe: the intelligent element and the material element, may it be said that Spirits are formed from the intelligent element, as inert bodies are from the material element?

“Evidently;

Spirits are the individualization of the intelligent principle, as bodies are the individualization of the material principle; 3 it is the epoch and the manner in which this formation took place that are unknown.”

Is the creation of Spirits permanent, or did it occur only at the origin of time?

“It is permanent. That is to say: God has never ceased to create.”

Do Spirits form spontaneously, or do they proceed from one another?

“God creates them, as he does all other creatures, by his will.

But, I repeat once more, their origin is a mystery.”

Would it be correct to say that Spirits are immaterial?

“How can one define a thing, when terms of comparison are lacking and with a deficient language? Can one blind from birth define light?

Immaterial is not quite the term; incorporeal would be more exact, for you must understand that, being a creation, the Spirit must be something; 3 it is quintessentialized matter, but without analogy for you others, and so ethereal that it entirely escapes the reach of your senses.”

We say that Spirits are immaterial because, by their essence, they differ from all that we know under the name of matter.

A people of the blind would lack terms to express light and its effects. The one blind from birth believes himself capable of all perceptions through hearing, smell, taste, and touch. He does not comprehend the ideas that could only be given to him by the sense he lacks.

We others are veritable blind with regard to the essence of superhuman beings. We can only define them by means of comparisons that are always imperfect, or by an effort of the imagination.

Do Spirits have an end? It is understood that the principle from which they emanate is eternal, but what we ask is whether their individualities have a term and whether, at a given time, more or less long, the element of which they are formed does not disperse and return to the mass from which it came, as happens with material bodies. It is difficult to conceive that a thing which had a beginning could have no end.

“There are many things you do not comprehend, because you have limited intelligence. That, however, is no reason to reject them. The son does not comprehend all that is comprehensible to his father, nor the ignorant all that the learned man grasps.

We say that the existence of Spirits has no end. That is all we can say for now.”

Primitive normal world.

Do Spirits constitute a world apart, outside the one we see?

“Yes, the world of Spirits, or of incorporeal intelligences.”

Which of the two, the spiritist world or the corporeal world, is the principal one, in the order of things?

“The spiritist world, which pre-exists and survives everything.”

Could the corporeal world cease to exist, or never have existed, without that altering the essence of the spiritist world?

“Certainly. They are independent; nevertheless, the correlation between the two is incessant, for the one reacts incessantly upon the other.”

Do Spirits occupy a determined and circumscribed region in Space?

“They are everywhere. They populate the infinite spaces infinitely.

You have many of them continually at your side, observing you and acting upon you, without your perceiving it, 3 for Spirits are one of the powers of nature and the instruments of which God makes use for the execution of his providential designs; 4 not all of them, however, go everywhere, for there are regions forbidden to the less advanced.” Form and ubiquity of Spirits.

Do Spirits have a determined, limited, and constant form?

“For you, no; for us, yes; 2 the Spirit is, if you will, a flame, a glow, or an ethereal spark.”

a — Does this flame or spark have color?

“It has a coloration which, for you, ranges from a dark and opaque hue to a brilliant color, like that of the ruby, according as the Spirit is more or less pure.”

The genii are ordinarily represented with a flame or star upon the brow. It is an allegory recalling the essential nature of Spirits. It is placed at the top of the head, because that is the seat of intelligence.

Do Spirits take some time to traverse space?

“Yes, but they do it with the rapidity of thought.”

a — Is thought not the very soul transporting itself?

“When thought is in some place, the soul is also there, for it is the soul that thinks.

Thought is an attribute.”

Does the Spirit that transports itself from one place to another have consciousness of the distance it traverses and of the spaces it crosses, or is it suddenly transported to the place where it wishes to go?

“Both the one and the other occur. The Spirit can perfectly well, if it wishes, apprise itself of the distance it traverses, but that distance can also disappear completely, this depending on its will, as well as on its more or less purified nature.”

Does matter set an obstacle to the Spirit?

“None; they pass through everything. The air, the earth, the waters, and even fire are equally accessible to them.”

Do Spirits have the gift of ubiquity? In other words: can a Spirit divide itself, or exist in many points at the same time?

“There can be no division of one and the same Spirit; but each one is a center that radiates in various directions. That is what makes a Spirit seem to be in many places at the same time. Do you see the Sun? It is but one. Nevertheless, it radiates in all directions and carries its rays very far. Yet it does not divide.”

a — Do all Spirits radiate with equal force?

“Far from it. That force depends on the degree of purity of each one.”

Each Spirit is an indivisible unity, but each one can cast its thoughts in various directions, without fractioning itself for that purpose. It is only in this sense that the gift of ubiquity attributed to Spirits is to be understood.

What occurs with them is what occurs with a spark that projects its brightness far and can be perceived from all points of the horizon; or, again, what occurs with a man who, without changing place and without fractioning himself, transmits orders, signals, and movement to different points. Perispirit.

Does the Spirit, properly so called, have no covering, or, as some claim, is it always enveloped in some substance?

“A substance envelops it, vaporous to your eyes, but still rather gross for us; vaporous enough, however, to be able to rise into the atmosphere and transport itself wherever it wishes.”

Enveloping the germ of a fruit there is the perisperm; in the same way, a substance which, by comparison, may be called perispirit, serves as an envelope to the Spirit properly so called.

From where does the Spirit draw its semimaterial envelope?

“From the universal fluid of each globe; which is why it is not identical in all worlds; 2 in passing from one world to another, the Spirit changes its envelope, as you change your clothes.”

a — Thus, when the Spirits who inhabit superior worlds come into our midst, do they take on a grosser perispirit?

“It is necessary that they clothe themselves in your matter, as we have already said.”

Does the semimaterial envelope of the Spirit have determined forms and can it be perceptible?

“Yes, it has the form the Spirit wishes, 2 it is thus that it appears to you sometimes, whether in dream, or in the waking state, and that it can take on a visible, even palpable, form.”

Different orders of Spirits.

Are Spirits equal, or is there among them some hierarchy?

“They are of different orders, according to the degree of perfection they have attained.”

Are the orders or degrees of perfection of Spirits in a determined number?

“They are unlimited in number, because among them there are no lines of demarcation traced as barriers, so that the divisions may be freely multiplied or restricted; 2 nevertheless, considering the general characters of Spirits, they may be reduced to three principal ones.

“In the first will be placed those who have reached the maximum perfection: the pure Spirits; 4 the second is formed by those who have arrived at the middle of the scale: the desire for good is what predominates in them.

To the third will belong those who are still in the inferior part of the scale: the imperfect Spirits. Ignorance, the desire for evil, and all the evil passions that retard their progress, this is what characterizes them.”

Do the Spirits of the second order, for whom good constitutes the dominant preoccupation, have the power to practice it?

“Each of them disposes of that power, according to the degree of perfection to which it has arrived.

Thus, some possess knowledge, others wisdom and goodness. All, however, still have trials to undergo.”

Are those of the third category all essentially evil?

“No; there are some who do neither evil nor good; others, on the contrary, take pleasure in evil and are satisfied when an occasion to practice it presents itself to them.

There are also the frivolous or scatterbrained ones, more disturbing than malign, who delight rather in mischief than in malevolence and whose pleasure consists in mystifying and causing small vexations, at which they laugh.” Spiritist scale.

Preliminary observations. — 1 The classification of Spirits is based on their degree of advancement, on the qualities they have already acquired, and on the imperfections of which they still have to divest themselves.

This classification, moreover, has nothing absolute about it. Only in its ensemble does each category present a definite character; 3 from one degree to another the transition is imperceptible and, at the extreme limits, the shades fade away, as in the kingdoms of nature, as in the colors of the rainbow, or, also, as in the different periods of the life of man.

A greater or smaller number of classes may therefore be formed, according to the point of view from which the question is considered.

What happens here is what happens with all systems of scientific classification, which may be more or less complete, more or less rational, more or less convenient for the intelligence. Whatever they may be, however, they in no way alter the foundations of the science.

Thus, it is natural that, questioned on this point, Spirits should have diverged as to the number of categories, without this having any value.

Nevertheless, there were those who seized upon this apparent contradiction, without reflecting that Spirits attach no importance to what is purely conventional. For them, thought is everything; 8 they leave to us the form, the choice of terms, the classifications, in a word the systems.

Let us make one more consideration that should never be lost from view, namely, that among Spirits, just as among men, there are the very ignorant, so that one can never be too cautious against the tendency to believe that, because they are Spirits, all must know everything.

Any classification requires method, analysis, and profound knowledge of the subject. Now, in the world of Spirits, those who possess limited knowledge are, as in this world, the ignorant, those unfit to grasp a synthesis, to formulate a system. They perceive or comprehend any classification whatever only very imperfectly; 11 they consider of the first category all Spirits superior to them, being unable to appreciate the gradations of knowledge, of capacity, and of morality that distinguish them, as happens among us with a coarse man with regard to the civilized.

Even those capable of such appreciation may show themselves divergent, as to particulars, according to the points of view in which they find themselves, above all when it is a matter of a division that presents no absolute stamp.

Linnaeus, Jussieu, Tournefort each had their methods, without Botany having in consequence undergone any modification. It is that none of them invented the plants, nor their characters. They only observed the analogies, according to which they formed the groups or classes.

It was thus that we too proceeded. We did not invent the Spirits, nor their characters. We saw and observed, we judged them by their words and acts, then we classified them by their resemblances, basing ourselves on data that they themselves furnished us.

Spirits, in general, admit three principal categories, or three great divisions. In the last, the one that lies in the inferior part of the scale, are the imperfect Spirits, characterized by the predominance of matter over spirit and by the propensity toward evil. Those of the second are characterized by the predominance of Spirit over matter and by the desire for good: they are the good Spirits. The first, finally, comprises the pure Spirits, those who have attained the supreme degree of perfection.

This division seemed to us perfectly rational and with well-defined characters. It only remained for us to bring out, by means of subdivisions in sufficient number, the principal shades of the ensemble. This is what we did, with the concourse of the Spirits, whose benevolent instructions never failed us.

With the aid of this table, it will be easy to determine the order, as well as the degree of superiority or of inferiority of those who may enter into relations with us and, consequently, the degree of confidence or of esteem that they merit; 18 it is, in a certain way, the key of the spiritist science, for it alone can explain the anomalies that the communications present, enlightening us concerning the intellectual and moral inequalities of Spirits.

We shall, nevertheless, point out that these do not remain belonging, exclusively, to such or such a class. Their progress being always gradual and often more accentuated in one direction than in another, it may happen that many reunite in themselves the characters of various categories, which their acts and language make it possible to appreciate. THIRD ORDER. — IMPERFECT SPIRITS.

General Characters. — 1 Preponderance of matter over Spirit. Propensity toward evil. Ignorance, pride, egoism, and all the passions that are consequent upon them.

They have the intuition of God, but do not comprehend him.

Not all are essentially evil. In some there is more frivolity, thoughtlessness, and mischief than true wickedness.

Some do neither good nor evil; but, by the simple fact of not doing good, they already denote their inferiority.

Others, on the contrary, take pleasure in evil and rejoice when an occasion to practice it presents itself to them.

Intelligence may be found in them allied to wickedness or to mischief; 7 but, whatever the degree of intellectual development they may have attained, their ideas are little elevated and their sentiments more or less abject.

They have restricted knowledge of the things of the spiritist world, and the little they know is confused with the ideas and prejudices of corporeal life. They can give us only erroneous and incomplete notions; nevertheless, in their communications, even imperfect ones, the attentive observer finds confirmation of the great truths taught by the superior Spirits.

In the language they use, their character is revealed.

Every Spirit who, in its communications, betrays an evil thought may be classified in the third order. Consequently, every evil thought that is suggested to us comes from a Spirit of this order.

They see the happiness of the good, and that spectacle constitutes for them an incessant torment, because it makes them experience all the anguish that envy and jealousy can cause.

They retain the remembrance and the perception of the sufferings of corporeal life, and that impression is often more painful than the reality.

They suffer, then, truly, for the evils they endured in life and for those they occasion to others; 14 and as they suffer for a long time, they judge that they will suffer forever. God, to punish them, wills that they judge thus. [See an example in the Spiritist Review of February 1858: Avarice] They may comprise five principal classes.

Tenth class. IMPURE SPIRITS. — 1 They are inclined to evil, of which they make the object of their preoccupations.

As Spirits, they give perfidious counsels, breathe discord and distrust, and mask themselves in all manner of ways the better to deceive.

They attach themselves to men of character weak enough to yield to their suggestions, in order to lead them to perdition, satisfied to succeed in retarding their advancement, by making them succumb in the trials they undergo.

In manifestations they make themselves known by their language. Triviality and coarseness of expressions, in Spirits as in men, is always an indication of moral, if not also intellectual, inferiority.

Their communications express the baseness of their inclinations and, if they attempt to delude, speaking with good sense, they cannot sustain the role for long and always end by betraying themselves.

Some peoples raised them to maleficent divinities; others designate them by the names of demons, evil genii, Spirits of evil.

When incarnate, the living beings they constitute show themselves prone to all the vices that generate the vile and degrading passions: sensuality, cruelty, felony, hypocrisy, cupidity, sordid avarice.

They do evil for pleasure, most often without motive, and, out of hatred for good, almost always choose their victims among honest persons.

They are scourges for Humanity, no matter what social category they belong to, and the veneer of civilization does not shield them from opprobrium and ignominy.

Ninth class. FRIVOLOUS SPIRITS. — 1 They are ignorant, mischievous, thoughtless, and mocking.

They meddle in everything, answer everything, without troubling about the truth.

They like to cause small distresses and slight joys, to intrigue, to lead maliciously into error, by means of mystifications and trickery.

To this class belong the Spirits commonly called sprites, goblins, gnomes, imps.

They are under the dependence of the superior Spirits, who often employ them, as we do with our servants.

In their communications with men, the language they use is often witty and droll, but almost always without depth of ideas; 7 they take advantage of human oddities and absurdities and appreciate them, biting and satirical.

If they take on supposed names, it is more out of mischief than out of malice.

Eighth class. PSEUDO-LEARNED SPIRITS. — 1 They dispose of rather ample knowledge, but believe they know more than they really know.

Having realized some progress under various points of view, their language has the appearance of a stamp of seriousness, of a nature to delude with respect to their capacities and lights; but, in general, this is no more than a reflection of the prejudices and systematic ideas they nourished in earthly life; it is a mixture of some truths with the most full-blown errors, through which penetrate the presumption, the pride, the jealousy, and the obstinacy of which they have not yet been able to divest themselves.

Seventh class. NEUTRAL SPIRITS. — 1 Neither good enough to do good, nor evil enough to do evil; they lean as much toward the one as toward the other and do not surpass the condition common to Humanity, whether in what concerns the moral, or in what touches the intelligence.

They cling to the things of this world, whose coarse joys they miss.

Sixth class. RAPPING AND DISTURBING SPIRITS. — 1 These Spirits, properly speaking, do not form a class distinct by their personal qualities. They may fall into all the classes of the third order.

They generally manifest their presence by sensible and physical effects, such as raps, abnormal movement and displacement of solid bodies, agitation of the air, etc.

They appear, more than others, bound to matter; 4 they seem to be the principal agents of the vicissitudes of the elements of the globe, whether they act upon the air, the water, the fire, the hard bodies, or in the bowels of the earth. It is recognized that these phenomena do not derive from a fortuitous or physical cause when they denote an intentional and intelligent character.

All Spirits can produce such phenomena, but those of elevated order ordinarily leave them as attributions of the subalterns, more apt for material things than for the things of the intelligence; when they judge manifestations of this kind useful, they make use of these latter as their auxiliaries. SECOND ORDER. — GOOD SPIRITS.

General characters. — 1 Predominance of Spirit over matter; desire for good.

Their qualities and powers for good are in relation with the degree of advancement they have attained; some have knowledge, others wisdom and goodness. The more advanced reunite knowledge with the moral qualities.

Not yet being completely dematerialized, they retain more or less, according to the category they occupy, the traces of corporeal existence, whether in the form of their language, or in their habits, among which one even discovers some of their manias. Otherwise, they would be perfect Spirits.

They comprehend God and the infinite and already enjoy the happiness of the good.

They are happy by the good they do and the evil they prevent.

The love that unites them is for them a source of ineffable felicity, which has nothing to trouble it, neither envy, nor remorse, nor any of the evil passions that constitute the torment of imperfect Spirits; 7 all, however, still have to pass through trials, until they attain perfection.

As Spirits, they arouse good thoughts, turn men away from the path of evil, protect in life those who show themselves worthy of protection, and neutralize the influence of imperfect Spirits over those to whom it is not pleasing to suffer it.

When incarnate, they are kindly and benevolent toward their fellows. They are moved neither by pride, nor by egoism, or ambition. They experience no hatred, rancor, envy, or jealousy and do good for the sake of good.

To this order belong the Spirits designated, in common beliefs, by the names of good genii, protecting genii, Spirits of good. In epochs of superstition and ignorance, they have been raised to the category of beneficent divinities.

They may be divided into four principal groups:

Fifth class. BENEVOLENT SPIRITS. — Goodness is in them the dominant quality. It pleases them to render service to men and to protect them. Limited, however, is their knowledge. They have progressed more in the moral sense than in the intellectual sense.

Fourth class. LEARNED SPIRITS. — They are distinguished by the breadth of their knowledge. They concern themselves less with moral questions than with those of a scientific nature, for which they have greater aptitude. Nevertheless, they regard science only from the point of view of its usefulness and are never dominated by any passions proper to imperfect Spirits.

Third class. SPIRITS OF WISDOM. — The moral qualities of the most elevated order are what characterize them. Without possessing unlimited knowledge, they are endowed with an intellectual capacity that affords them sound judgment about men and things.

Second class. SUPERIOR SPIRITS. — 1 These reunite in themselves knowledge, wisdom, and goodness.

From the language they employ benevolence always emanates; it is a language invariably dignified, elevated, and often sublime.

Their superiority renders them more apt than the others to give us exact notions about the things of the incorporeal world, within the limits of what it is permitted to man to know.

They communicate complacently with those who seek the truth in good faith and whose soul is already sufficiently detached from earthly bonds to comprehend it. They withdraw, however, from those whom only curiosity impels, or who, through the influence of matter, flee from the practice of good.

When, by exception, they incarnate on Earth, it is to fulfill a mission of progress, and they then offer us the type of the perfection to which Humanity can aspire in this world.

FIRST ORDER. — PURE SPIRITS.

General Characters. — No influence of matter. Absolute intellectual and moral superiority, with regard to the Spirits of the other orders.

First class. Sole class. — 1 The Spirits who compose it have traversed all the degrees of the scale and have divested themselves of all the impurities of matter.

Having attained the sum of perfection of which the creature is susceptible, they have no more trials to undergo, nor expiations.

No longer being subject to reincarnation in perishable bodies, they realize eternal life in the bosom of God.

They enjoy unalterable happiness, because they are not submitted to the necessities, nor to the vicissitudes of material life. That happiness, however, is not that of monotonous idleness, passed in perpetual contemplation.

They are the messengers and the ministers of God, whose orders they execute for the maintenance of universal harmony.

They command all the Spirits inferior to them, aiding them in the work of their perfecting and assigning them their missions.

To assist men in their afflictions, to incite them to good or to the expiation of the faults that keep them distanced from supreme happiness, constitutes for them a most gratifying occupation.

They are sometimes designated by the names of angels, archangels, or seraphim.

Men may place themselves in communication with them, but extremely presumptuous would be he who claimed to have them constantly at his orders.

Progression of Spirits.

Are Spirits good or evil by nature, or is it they themselves who improve?

“It is the Spirits themselves who improve and, in improving, they pass from an inferior order to another more elevated one.”

Of Spirits, were some created good and others evil?

“God created all Spirits simple and ignorant, that is to say, without knowledge.

To each he gave a determined mission, with the aim of enlightening them and of making them arrive progressively at perfection, through the knowledge of the truth, in order to bring them nearer to himself.

It is in this perfection that they find pure and eternal happiness.

It is by passing through the trials that God imposes on them that Spirits acquire that knowledge.

Some accept these trials submissively and arrive more quickly at the goal assigned to them; 6 others endure them only with murmuring and, through the fault into which they thus fall, remain distanced from perfection and from the promised happiness.” a — According to what you have just said, Spirits, in their origin, would be like ignorant and inexperienced children, acquiring only little by little the knowledge they lack as they traverse the different phases of life?

“Yes, the comparison is good. The rebellious child remains ignorant and imperfect. Its profit depends on its greater or lesser docility. But the life of man has a term, whereas that of Spirits is prolonged to infinity.”

Will there be Spirits who remain eternally in the inferior orders?

“No; all will become perfect.

They change order, but slowly, for, as we have said on another occasion, a just and merciful father cannot banish his children forever. Would you claim that God, so great, so good, so just, should be worse than you yourselves?”

Does it depend on Spirits to progress more or less rapidly toward perfection?

“Certainly. They attain it more or less rapidly, according to the desire they have to attain it and the submission they testify to the will of God. Does not a docile child instruct itself more quickly than another recalcitrant one?”

Can Spirits degenerate?

“No; 2 as they advance, they comprehend what distanced them from perfection.

On concluding a trial, the Spirit retains the knowledge that came to it from it and does not forget it.

It may remain stationary, but it does not retrograde.”

Could God not have exempted Spirits from the trials they have to undergo to arrive at the first order?

“If God had created them perfect, they would have no merit to enjoy the benefits of that perfection. Where would the merit be without the struggle?

Moreover, the inequality existing among them is necessary to their personalities; 3 there is also the fact that the missions they perform in the different degrees of the scale are in the designs of Providence, for the harmony of the Universe.”

Since, in social life, all men can arrive at the highest functions, it would be the case to ask why the sovereign of a country does not make of each of his soldiers a general; why all the subaltern employees are not superior functionaries; why all the schoolboys are not masters. Now, between social life and spiritual life there is this difference: while the first is limited and does not always permit man to climb all its steps, the second is indefinite and offers to all the possibility of elevating themselves to the supreme degree.

Do all Spirits pass through the channel of evil to arrive at good?

“Through the channel of evil, no; through the channel of ignorance.”

Why is it that some Spirits followed the path of good and others that of evil?

“Do they not have free will?

God did not create them evil; he created them simple and ignorant, that is to say, having as much aptitude for good as for evil; 3 those who are evil became so by their own will.”

How can Spirits, in their origin, when they do not yet have consciousness of themselves, enjoy the liberty of choice between good and evil? Is there in them any principle, any tendency that directs them toward one path in preference to another?

“Free will develops as the Spirit acquires consciousness of itself.

There would no longer be liberty, the moment the choice were determined by a cause independent of the will of the Spirit.

The cause is not in it, it is outside it, in the influences to which it yields by virtue of its free will.

This is what is contained in the great emblematic figure of the fall of man and of original sin: some yielded to temptation, others resisted.” a — From where come the influences that are exercised upon it?

“From the imperfect Spirits, who seek to take possession of it, to dominate it, and who rejoice in making it succumb. This is what was intended to be symbolized in the figure of Satan.”

b — Is such influence exercised over the Spirit only in its origin?

“It accompanies it in its life as Spirit, until it has gained such empire over itself that the evil ones desist from obsessing it.”

Why has God permitted that Spirits may take the path of evil?

“How do you dare ask God to account for his acts? Do you suppose you can penetrate his designs?

You may, nevertheless, say the following: The wisdom of God is in the liberty of choosing that he leaves to each one, for, thus, each one has the merit of his works.”

Since there are Spirits who from the beginning follow the path of absolute good and others that of absolute evil, there must, without doubt, be gradations between those two extremes. Is there not?

“Yes, certainly, and those who are in the intermediate degrees constitute the majority.”

Will the Spirits who set out on the path of evil be able to arrive at the same degree of superiority as the others?

“Yes; but the eternities will be longer for them.”

By these words, the eternities, is to be understood the idea that the inferior Spirits form of the perpetuity of their sufferings, the term of which they are not given to see, an idea that revives every time they succumb in a trial.

Having arrived at the supreme degree of perfection, do the Spirits who walked along the path of evil have, in the eyes of God, less merit than the others?

“God looks in equal manner upon those who went astray and upon the others and loves all with the same heart.

Those are called evil because they succumbed. Before, they were no more than simple Spirits.”

Are Spirits created equal as to intellectual faculties?

“They are created equal, but, not knowing whence they come, it is necessary that free will follow its course. They progress more or less rapidly in intelligence as in morality.”

The Spirits who from the beginning follow the path of good are not for that reason perfect Spirits. They have, it is true, no evil inclinations, but they need to acquire the experience and the knowledge indispensable to attain perfection.

We may compare them to children who, whatever the goodness of their natural instincts, need to develop and enlighten themselves and who do not pass, without transition, from infancy to maturity; 4 simply, just as there are men who are good and others who are evil from infancy, so too there are Spirits who are good or evil from the origin, with the capital difference that the child has instincts already entirely formed, whereas the Spirit, on forming itself, is neither good nor evil; it has all the tendencies and takes one or another direction, by effect of its free will. Angels and demons.

Do the beings we call angels, archangels, seraphim, form a special category, of a nature different from that of the other Spirits?

“No; they are the pure Spirits: those who are at the highest degree of the scale and reunite all the perfections.”

The word angel generally awakens the idea of moral perfection. Nevertheless, it is often applied to the designation of all beings, good and evil, who are outside Humanity. One says: the good angel and the evil angel; the angel of light and the angel of darkness. In this case, the term is synonymous with Spirit or genius. We take it here in its best acceptation.

Have the angels traversed all the degrees of the scale?

“They traversed all the degrees, but in the manner we have said: some, accepting their missions without murmuring, arrived quickly; others took more or less time to arrive at perfection.”

The opinion of those who admit the existence of beings created perfect and superior to all other creatures being erroneous, how is it explained that this belief is in the tradition of almost all peoples?

“Know that the world in which you find yourself does not exist from all eternity and that long before it existed, there were already Spirits who had attained the supreme degree. Men believed that they were thus from all time.”

Are there demons, in the sense that is given to this word?

“If there were demons, they would be the work of God. But would God be just and good if he had created beings destined eternally to evil and to remaining eternally unhappy?

If there are demons, they are found in the inferior world you inhabit and in others similar to it. They are those hypocritical men who make of a just God an evil and vengeful God and who believe they please him by means of the abominations they practice in his name.”

The word demon does not imply the idea of an evil Spirit, except in its modern acceptation, for the Greek term daïmon, from which it derived, signifies genius, intelligence and was applied to incorporeal beings, good or evil, indistinctly.

By demons, according to the common acceptation of the word, are understood beings essentially malefic; 5 like all things, they would have been created by God; now, God, who is supremely just and good, cannot have created beings predisposed, by their nature, to evil and condemned for all eternity.

If they were not the work of God, they would exist, like him, from all eternity, or else there would be many sovereign powers.

The first condition of any doctrine is to be logical. Now, that of demons, in the absolute sense, lacks this essential base.

It is conceivable that backward peoples, who, through ignorance of the attributes of God, admit maleficent divinities into their beliefs, should also admit demons; but it is illogical and contradictory that one who makes of goodness one of the essential attributes of God should suppose that he created beings destined to evil and to practicing it perpetually, because that amounts to denying him goodness.

The partisans of demons rely on the words of Christ. We will not be the ones to contest the authority of his teachings, which we would wish to see more in the heart than in the mouth of men; but, are those partisans certain of the meaning he gave to that word? Is it not known that the allegorical form constitutes one of the distinctive characters of his language? Should everything the Gospel contains be taken literally?

We need no other proof than that which this passage furnishes us: “Immediately after those days of affliction, the Sun will darken and the Moon will no longer give its light, the stars will fall from the heaven and the powers of heaven will be shaken. Verily I say unto you that this generation shall not pass, without all these things having been fulfilled.”

Have we not seen Science contradict the form of the biblical text, with regard to the Creation and the movement of the Earth? Will not the same happen with some figures of which Christ made use, who had to speak in accordance with the times and the places? It is not possible that he consciously said a falsehood. Thus, then, if in his words there are things that seem to shock reason, it is that we do not comprehend them well, or interpret them badly.

Men did with the demons what they did with the angels. As they believed in the existence of beings perfect from all eternity, they took the inferior Spirits for perpetually evil beings.

By demons are to be understood the impure Spirits, who are often worth no more than the entities designated by that name, but with the difference that their state is transitory.

They are imperfect Spirits, who rebel against the trials that fall to them and who, for that reason, suffer them more lengthily, but who, in their turn, will come to leave that state, when they wish to.

One could, then, accept the term demon with this restriction. As it is understood at present, being given an exclusive sense, it would induce into error, by making one believe in the existence of special beings created for evil.

With respect to Satan, it is evidently the personification of evil under an allegorical form, since one cannot admit that there exists an evil being struggling, as power to power, with the Divinity and whose sole preoccupation consisted in thwarting his designs.

As he needs figures and images that impress his imagination, man painted the incorporeal beings under a material form, with attributes recalling human qualities or defects. It is thus that the ancients, wishing to personify Time, painted it with the figure of an old man furnished with a scythe and an hourglass. To represent it by the figure of a youth would have been a contradiction. The same holds with the allegories of fortune, of truth, etc.

The moderns represented the angels, the pure Spirits, by a radiant figure, with white wings, emblem of purity; and Satan with horns, claws, and the attributes of animality, emblem of the vile passions. The common people, who take things literally, saw in these emblems real individualities, as they had formerly seen Saturn in the allegory of Time.