Fatality and presentiments.

— One of our correspondents wrote us the following:

“This past September, a light vessel, making the crossing from Dunkirk to Ostend, was caught by bad weather at night; the boat capsized and, of the eight people aboard, four perished; the other four, among whom I was, managed to hold onto the keel. We remained the whole night in that horrible position, with no other prospect than to await death, which seemed inevitable to us and of which we already experienced all the anguish. At daybreak, the wind having pushed us toward the coast, we were able to reach land by swimming. “Why, in this peril, equal for all, did only four people succumb? Note that, in my own case, this is the sixth or seventh time I have escaped a peril so imminent and under more or less the same circumstances. I am truly led to believe that an invisible hand protects me. What have I done to deserve this? I do not really know; I am someone of no importance and of no use in this world, and I do not boast of being worth more than others; far from it: among the victims of the accident there was a worthy ecclesiastic, a model of evangelical virtues, and a venerable Sister of Saint Vincent de Paul, who were going to fulfill a holy mission of Christian charity. Fatality seems to play a great role in my destiny. Might the Spirits have something to do with it? Would it be possible to obtain an explanation from them in this regard, by asking them, for example, whether it is they who provoke or ward off the dangers that threaten us?…”

— In accordance with our correspondent's wish, we addressed the following questions to the Spirit Saint Louis, who willingly communicates with us each time there is a useful instruction to convey.

When an imminent danger threatens someone, is it a Spirit who directs the danger, and when one escapes it, is it another Spirit who wards it off?

Answer. – When a Spirit incarnates, it chooses a trial; in electing it, a kind of destiny is established that it can no longer avert, since it is subject to it; I speak of the physical trials. Preserving its free will over good and evil, the Spirit is always master to endure or to repel the trial; seeing it falter, a good Spirit may come to its aid, but cannot influence it in such a way as to dominate its will. An evil Spirit, that is, an inferior one, by showing it or exaggerating a physical danger, may shake it and frighten it, but the will of the incarnate Spirit remains no less free of any hindrance.

When a man is on the verge of perishing by accident, it seems to me that free will counts for nothing. I ask, then, whether it is an evil Spirit who provokes that accident; whether, in some manner, it is its agent; and, should one be delivered from the danger, whether a good Spirit came to one's aid.

Answer. – Good and evil Spirits can suggest only good or evil thoughts, according to their nature. The accident is marked in the destiny of man. When your life is put in danger, it is a warning that you yourself desired, in order to turn yourself away from evil and to become better. When you escape that danger, still under the influence of the peril you have run, you think more or less keenly, according to the more or less strong action of the good Spirits, of becoming better. When the evil Spirit comes – and I say evil, meaning the evil that still persists in it – you think that you will likewise escape other dangers, and you let your passions break loose once more.

The fatality that seems to preside over the material destinies of our life, is it also the result of our free will?

Answer. – You yourself chose your trial. The harsher it is and the better you bear it, the more you will rise. Those who pass their life in abundance and in human good fortune are pusillanimous Spirits, who remain stationary. Thus, the number of the unfortunate is far greater than that of the happy of this world, considering that the Spirits, for the most part, seek the trials that are most profitable to them. They see perfectly well the futility of your grandeurs and pleasures. Moreover, the most blissful existence is always agitated, always troubled, even when there be an absence of pain.

We understand this doctrine perfectly, but it does not explain to us whether certain Spirits exercise a direct action upon the material cause of the accident. Let us suppose that a bridge collapses at the moment a man passes over it. Who impelled the man to pass over that bridge?

Answer. – When a man passes over a bridge that is to fall, it is not a Spirit that leads him to pass there, it is the instinct of his destiny that conducts him to it.

Who made the bridge collapse?

Answer. – Natural circumstances. Matter has within itself the causes of destruction. In the present case, the Spirit having need to resort to an element foreign to its nature in order to set material forces in motion, will resort preferably to spiritual intuition. Thus, the bridge being due to collapse, the water disjoins the stones that compose it, rust corrodes the chains that support it, and the Spirit, let us say, will insinuate to the man that he pass over that bridge, instead of passing by another place. You have, moreover, a material proof of what I say: whatever the accident, it always occurs naturally, that is, by causes that link to others and produce it imperceptibly.

Let us take another case, in which the destruction of matter is not the cause of the accident. An ill-intentioned man shoots at me, the bullet grazes me, but does not strike me. Could it have happened that a kindly Spirit diverted the projectile?

Answer. – No.

Can the Spirits warn us directly of a danger? Here is a fact that seems to confirm it: A woman left her house and was walking along the boulevard. An inner voice says to her: Go away; return to your house. She hesitates. The same voice makes itself heard several times; then she turns back; but, thinking better of it, she says to herself: What am I going to do at my house? I have just left it; no doubt it is an effect of my imagination. Then she continues on her way. A few steps farther on, a beam being taken out of a house strikes her on the head and lays her low, unconscious. What voice was that? Was it not a presentiment of what was going to happen to that woman? Answer. – The voice of instinct; no presentiment, moreover, presents such characteristics: they are always vague.

What do you mean by the voice of instinct?

Answer. – I mean that, before incarnating, the Spirit has knowledge of all the phases of its existence; when these phases have a fundamental character, it retains a kind of impression in its inmost being, and such impression, awakening when the moment approaches, becomes a presentiment.

Note: The explanations above refer to the fatality of material events. Moral fatality is treated in a complete manner in The Spirits' Book.