OCCUPATIONS AND MISSIONS OF THE SPIRITS.

Is there some other thing incumbent upon the Spirits to do, besides bettering themselves personally?

“They contribute to the harmony of the Universe, carrying out the wills of God, of whom they are the ministers.

The spirit life is a continual occupation, but one that has nothing painful about it, as life on Earth does, because there is neither bodily fatigue nor the anguishes of need.”

Do the inferior and imperfect Spirits also perform a useful function in the Universe?

“All have duties to fulfill.

For the construction of a building, does not the lowest of the mason’s helpers contribute as much as the architect?”

Does each Spirit have special attributions?

“We all have to dwell everywhere and acquire the knowledge of all things, presiding successively over what is carried out at every point of the Universe.

But, as Ecclesiastes says, there is a time for everything. Thus, one Spirit fulfills its destiny today in this world, while another will fulfill, or has already fulfilled, its own, at a different time, on the earth, in the water, in the air, etc.”

Are the functions that the Spirits perform in the order of things permanent for each one, and do they lie within the exclusive attributions of certain classes?

“All have to traverse the different degrees of the scale in order to perfect themselves.

God, who is just, could not have given knowledge without labor to some, while destining others to acquire it only through effort.”

This is what happens among men, where no one reaches the supreme degree of perfection in any art whatsoever without having acquired the necessary knowledge by practicing the rudiments of that art.

Having nothing left to acquire, do the Spirits of the most elevated order find themselves in absolute repose, or do occupations also fall to them?

“What would you have them do throughout eternity? Eternal idleness would be an eternal torment.”

a — Of what nature are their occupations?

“To receive directly the orders of God, to transmit them to the entire Universe, and to watch that they be carried out.”

Are the occupations of the Spirits unceasing?

“Unceasing, yes, considering that their thoughts are always active, for they live by thought.

You must not, however, identify the occupations of the Spirits with the material occupations of men.

This very activity constitutes an enjoyment for them, through the awareness they have of being useful.” a — This is conceivable with respect to the good Spirits. Does the same hold, however, with the inferior Spirits?

“To these fall occupations suited to their nature.

Do you, perchance, entrust to the manual laborer and to the ignorant man works that only the educated man can carry out?”

Are there Spirits who remain idle, who occupy themselves with nothing useful?

“There are, but that state is temporary and depends on the development of their intelligences.

There are, certainly, just as there are men who live only for themselves.

But that idleness weighs upon them, and sooner or later the desire to progress makes activity necessary to them, and they will feel happy at being able to make themselves useful.

We are referring to the Spirits who have reached the point of having awareness of themselves and of their free will; 5 for, at their origin, all are like children newly born, who act more by instinct than by express will.”

Do the Spirits take notice of our works of art, and do they take an interest in them?

“They take notice of what proves the elevation of the Spirits and their progress.”

Does a Spirit who cultivated an artistic specialty on Earth, who was, for example, a painter or an architect, take an interest preferentially in the works that constituted the object of its predilection during life?

“Everything merges into a general aim. If it is a good Spirit, those works will interest it to the measure of the opportunity they afford it to help souls rise toward God.

Moreover, you forget that a Spirit who cultivated a certain art in the existence in which you knew it may have cultivated another in a prior existence, since it must know everything in order to be perfect.

Thus, according to the degree of its advancement, it may happen that nothing is a specialty for it. That is what I meant by saying that everything merges into a general aim.

Note further the following: what, in your backward world, you consider sublime is but childishness compared to what exists in more advanced worlds.

How could you expect the Spirits who inhabit those worlds, where there exist arts you do not know, to admire what, in their eyes, corresponds to schoolboys’ exercises? That is why I said: they take notice of what demonstrates progress.” a — We conceive that it is so, in the case of very advanced Spirits. We are referring, however, to more ordinary Spirits, who have not yet risen above earthly ideas.

“With respect to these, the case is different. More restricted is the point of view from which they observe things. They can, therefore, admire what causes admiration in you.”

Are the Spirits accustomed to involve themselves in our pleasures and occupations?

“The ordinary Spirits, as you say, are accustomed to do so. These surround you constantly and frequently take a very active part in what you do, in conformity with their natures.

It is fitting that this should happen, because, for men to be impelled along the various pathways of life, it is necessary that their passions be excited or moderated.”

With the things of this world the Spirits occupy themselves in conformity with the degree of elevation or of inferiority in which they find themselves.

The superior Spirits dispose, no doubt, of the faculty of examining them in their least particulars, but they do so only to the extent that this is useful to progress.

Only the inferior Spirits attach to these things an importance relative to the reminiscences they still retain and to the material ideas not yet extinguished in them.

Do the Spirits who have missions to fulfill fulfill them in erraticity, or incarnated?

“They may have them in one state or the other. For certain wandering spirits, it is a great occupation.”

In what do the missions consist with which the wandering spirits may be charged?

“They are so varied that it would be impossible to describe them. There are even many that you could not comprehend.

The Spirits carry out the wills of God, and it is not given to you to penetrate all His designs.”

The missions of the Spirits always have the good for their object. Whether as Spirits or as men, they are charged with aiding the progress of humanity, of peoples, or of individuals, within a circle of ideas more or less broad, more or less special, and with watching over the execution of determined things.

Some perform more restricted missions and, in a certain way, personal or entirely local, such as assisting the sick, the dying, the afflicted, watching over those of whom they have made themselves guides and protectors, directing them, giving them counsel or inspiring good thoughts in them.

It may be said that there are as many kinds of missions as there are species of interests to safeguard, both in the physical world and in the moral. The Spirit advances according to the manner in which it performs its task.

Do the Spirits always perceive the designs which it is their part to execute?

“No. There are many who are blind instruments.

Others, however, know very well to what end they act.”

Do only the elevated Spirits perform missions?

“The importance of the missions corresponds to the capacities and the elevation of the Spirit.

The courier who carries a telegram to its recipient also performs a perfect mission, though a different one from that of a general.”

Is a Spirit’s mission imposed upon it, or does it depend on its will?

“It asks for it and considers itself fortunate if it obtains it.”

a — Can the same mission be asked for by many Spirits?

“Yes, it is frequent that many candidates present themselves, but not all are accepted.”

In what does the mission of the incarnated Spirits consist?

“In instructing men, in aiding their progress; in bettering their institutions, by direct and material means.

The missions, however, are more or less general and important. He who cultivates the earth performs as noble a mission as he who governs, or he who instructs.

Everything in Nature is linked together. At the same time that the Spirit purifies itself through incarnation, it thereby contributes to the execution of the designs of Providence.

Each one has in this world its mission, because all can have some usefulness.”

What can be, on Earth, the mission of creatures voluntarily useless?

“There are indeed persons who live only for themselves and who do not know how to make themselves useful for anything whatsoever.

They are poor beings worthy of compassion, for they will expiate harshly their voluntary uselessness, their punishment often beginning already in this world, through the weariness and the disgust that life causes them.” a — Since the choice was granted to them, why did they prefer an existence that would bring them no profit?

“Among the Spirits there are also slothful ones who recoil before a life of labor. God consents that they should so proceed.

Later they will understand, at their own cost, the disadvantages of the uselessness to which they devoted themselves, and they will be the first to ask to be granted the chance to recover the lost time.

It may also happen that they had chosen a useful life and that they recoiled before the execution of the work, letting themselves be carried away by the suggestions of the Spirits who induce them to remain in idleness.”

Common occupations seem to us more like duties than missions properly so called. The mission, in accordance with the idea associated with this word, has a less exclusive character, of an importance above all less personal. From this point of view, how can it be recognized that a man really has on Earth a determined mission? “By the great things he accomplishes, by the progress toward whose realization he leads his fellow men.”

Were the men who bring an important mission and who have knowledge of it predestined to it before being born?

“Sometimes it is so. Almost always, however, they are unaware of it.

In descending to Earth, they aim at a vague objective. It is after birth and according to circumstances that their missions take shape before their eyes.

God impels them toward the path where they are to execute His designs.”

When a man does something useful, does he always do it by virtue of the mission with which he was previously invested and to which he comes predestined, or may it happen that he has received an unforeseen mission?

“Not everything that a man does results from a mission to which he was predestined.

Often he is the instrument of which a Spirit makes use to bring about the execution of a thing it judges useful.

For example, a Spirit deems it useful that a book be written, which it would itself write if it were incarnated. It then seeks the writer most apt to comprehend its thought and execute it. It transmits to him the idea of the book and directs him in the execution. Now, that writer did not come to Earth with the mission of publishing such a work. The same occurs with various artistic works and many discoveries.

We must add that, during bodily sleep, the incarnated Spirit communicates directly with the wandering spirit, the two coming to an understanding concerning the execution.”

Can the Spirit, through its own fault, fail in its mission?

“Yes, if it is not a superior Spirit.”

a — What consequences will result for it from its failure?

“It will have to take up the task again; that is its punishment.

It will also suffer the consequences of the harm it may have caused.”

Since it is from God that the Spirit receives its mission, how is one to understand that God should entrust an important mission, one of general interest, to a Spirit capable of failing?

“Does God not know whether His general will obtain the victory or be defeated? He knows it, believe it, and His plans, when important, do not rest upon those who would abandon the work midway.

The whole question, for you, lies in the knowledge that God has of the future, but which is not granted to you.”

Does the Spirit who incarnates to perform a determined mission have apprehensions identical to those of another who does so for trial?

“No, because it brings the experience acquired.”

The men who serve as beacons to the human race, who illuminate it with the light of genius, certainly perform a mission. Among them, however, there are some who are mistaken, who, together with great truths, propagate great errors. How should the mission of these men be considered?

“As falsified by themselves. They are below the task they took upon their shoulders.

Nevertheless, it is necessary to take the circumstances into account. Men of genius have to speak in accordance with the epochs in which they live, and thus a teaching that seemed erroneous or puerile in an advanced epoch may have been what was fitting in the century in which it was divulged.”

Can paternity be considered a mission?

“It is, beyond possible contestation, a true mission.

It is at the same time a very great duty, and one that involves, more than man thinks, his responsibility regarding the future.

God placed the child under the guardianship of the parents, in order that they may direct it along the path of good, and He facilitated their task by giving it a frail and delicate organization, which makes it susceptible to all impressions.

There are many, however, who take more care to straighten the trees of their garden and to make them yield good fruit in abundance than to form the character of their child.

If the latter should come to succumb through their fault, they will bear the sorrows resulting from that fall and will share in the sufferings of the child in the future life, for not having done what was within their reach so that it might advance along the road of good.”

Are parents responsible for the going astray of a child who takes the path of evil, in spite of the care they bestowed upon it?

“No; but the worse the propensities of the child, the heavier the task and the greater the merit of the parents, if they succeed in turning it away from the bad path.”

a — If a child becomes a man of good, notwithstanding the negligence or the bad examples of its parents, do these draw some profit from it?

“God is just.”

Of what nature is the mission of the conqueror who aims only to satisfy his ambition and who, to attain that objective, does not waver before any of the calamities he goes on spreading?

“Most often he is but an instrument of which God makes use for the fulfillment of His designs, those calamities representing a means by which He brings about a people’s more rapid progress.”

a — Having no part in the production of the good that may result from those passing calamities, since he aimed at an entirely personal end, will he who constitutes himself the instrument of them nonetheless draw profit from that good?

“Each one is recompensed according to his works, according to the good he intended to do, and according to the rectitude of his intentions.”

The incarnated Spirits have occupations inherent to their corporeal existences.

In the state of erraticity, or of dematerialization, such occupations are suited to their degree of advancement. Some traverse the worlds, instruct themselves, and prepare for a new incarnation.

Others, more advanced, occupy themselves with progress, directing events and suggesting ideas favorable to it. They assist the men of genius who contribute to the advancement of Humanity.

Others incarnate with a determined mission of progress.

Others take under their guardianship individuals, families, gatherings, cities, and peoples, of whom they make themselves the guardian angels, the protecting geniuses, and the familiar Spirits.

Others, finally, preside over the phenomena of Nature, of which they make themselves the direct agents.

The ordinary Spirits involve themselves in our occupations and diversions.

The impure or imperfect ones await, in sufferings and anguishes, the moment when it pleases God to provide them the means of advancing. If they practice evil, it is out of spite at not yet being able to enjoy the good.”