Eternal halves.

— We extract the following passage from the letter of one of our subscribers. “ Some years ago I lost a good and virtuous wife and, although she had left me six children, I felt myself in complete isolation, when I heard tell of the Spiritist manifestations. Soon I found myself within a small group of good friends, who every evening occupied themselves with this subject. In the communications obtained, I soon learned that true life is not on Earth, but in the world of Spirits; that my Clémence was happy there and that, like the others, she labored for the happiness of those she had known here. Now, here is a point on which I ardently wish to be enlightened by you. “One evening, I was saying to my Clémence: dear friend, why was it that, despite all our love, it happened that we did not always come to agreement in the different circumstances of our common life, and why were we often forced to make mutual concessions in order to live in good harmony? “She answered me thus: my friend, we were honorable and honest people; we lived together, and we might say, in the best manner possible on this Earth of trials; but we were not each other's eternal halves. Such unions are rare on Earth; they may, however, be found, and they represent a great favor of God. Those who enjoy that happiness experience joys that are unknown to you. “Can you tell me — I replied — whether you see your eternal half? — Yes, she says, it is a poor wretch who lives in Asia; he will only be able to be reunited with me within 175 years, according to your manner of counting. — Will you be reunited on Earth or in another world? — On Earth. But listen: I cannot well describe to you the happiness of beings thus reunited; I shall beg Heloise and Abelard to come and inform you. Then, sir, these two happy beings came to speak to us of that unspeakable happiness. “At our will,” they said, “two make no more than one; we travel through the spaces; we enjoy everything; we love one another with a love without end, above which can exist only the love of God and of perfect beings. Your greatest joys are not worth a single one of our glances, a single one of our handclasps.” “The idea of the eternal halves gladdens me. In creating Humanity, it seems that God made it double and, in separating its two halves, would have said: Go through this world and seek incarnations. If you do good, the journey will be short and I shall permit your union; otherwise, many centuries will pass before you can enjoy that happiness. Such is, it seems to me, the first cause of the instinctive movement that leads Humanity to seek happiness; a happiness we do not understand and that we do not take the trouble to understand. “I ardently wish, sir, to be enlightened on this theory of the eternal halves, and I would be happy if I found an explanation on the subject in one of your forthcoming issues ”

— Abelard and Heloise, questioned on this point, gave us the following replies: [Lettres et épitres amoureuses d’Héloise et d’Abailard ... Par Peter Abelard — Google Books. – Épître d’Heloise à Abelard. Par Alexander Pope, Aimé Ambroise Joseph Feutry — Google Books. – Abailard et Héloïse: avec un aperçu du XIIe siècle comparé sous tous les ... Par F. C. Turlot, Peter Abelard — Google Books.]

Were souls created double?

Answer. – Had they been created double, the simple ones would be imperfect.

Is it possible for two souls to reunite in eternity and form a single whole?

Answer. – No.

Did you and Heloise form, from the origin, two quite distinct beings?

Answer. – Yes.

Do you still form, at this moment, two distinct souls?

Answer. – Yes; but always united.

Are all men in the same condition?

Answer. – According as they are more or less perfect.

Are all souls destined one day to unite with another soul?

Answer. – Every Spirit has the tendency to seek another Spirit akin to it; this you call sympathy.

In that union is there a condition of sex?

Answer. – Souls have no sex.

— As much to satisfy the desire of our subscriber as for our own instruction, we addressed to the Spirit Saint Louis the following questions:

Are the souls that are to unite, from their origins, predestined to that union, and does each of us have, somewhere in the Universe, his half, with which he will inevitably one day be reunited?

Answer. – No; there is no particular and inevitable union of two souls. The union that exists is that of all Spirits, but in diverse degrees, according to the rank they occupy, that is, according to the perfection they have acquired. The more perfect, the more united. From discord are born all human ills; from concord results complete happiness.

In what sense should the word half be understood, which some Spirits use to designate sympathetic Spirits?

Answer. – The expression is inexact. If one Spirit were the half of another, the two, once separated, would both be incomplete.

If two perfectly sympathetic Spirits unite, will they be united forever and ever, or can they separate and unite with other Spirits?

Answer. – All Spirits are reciprocally united. I speak of those who have attained perfection. In the lower spheres, as soon as a Spirit rises, it no longer sympathizes, as before, with those who have remained below it.

Are two sympathetic Spirits the complement of one another, or is the sympathy existing between them the result of perfect identity?

Answer. – The sympathy that draws one Spirit to another results from the perfect concordance of their inclinations and instincts. If one had to complete the other, it would lose its individuality.

Does the identity necessary to the existence of perfect sympathy consist only in the analogy of thoughts and feelings, or also in the uniformity of acquired knowledge?

Answer. – In the equality of the degrees of elevation.

Can Spirits that are not sympathetic at present become so in the future?

Answer. – All will be. A Spirit, who today is in a lower sphere, will ascend, by perfecting itself, to the one in which some other Spirit finds itself. And the encounter of the two will come about even more quickly if the more elevated one, bearing badly the trials to which it submitted, has lingered in the same state.

Can two Spirits that are already sympathetic to one another cease to be so?

Answer. – Certainly, if one of them is slothful.

— These answers resolve the question perfectly. The theory of the eternal halves contains a simple figure, representative of the union of two sympathetic Spirits. It is an expression used even in common language and which should not be taken literally. Those Spirits who employed it certainly do not belong to an elevated order. The field of their ideas being necessarily limited, they expressed their thoughts with the terms they would have used in corporeal life. One should not, then, accept the idea that, created one for the other, two Spirits must inevitably one day reunite in eternity, after having been separated for a more or less long time. n [1] Translator's Note: This subject was not addressed in the first edition of The Spirits' Book, brought to light by Allan Kardec on April 18, 1857, which contained only 501 questions, divided into three parts. It appears in the second edition – the definitive one – of 1860. The seven questions above correspond to questions numbered 298 to 303 of the said book, augmented by the commentaries with which the Codifier enriched them. See the Note to question 324, inserted at the end of the book The Comforter, by the Spirit Emmanuel, published by the FEB and psychographed by the medium Francisco Cândido Xavier, regarding the theory of twin souls.