Plato: Doctrine of the choice of trials.

Through the curious Celtic documents we published in our April issue, we saw that the doctrine of reincarnation was professed by the Druids, according to the principle of the ascending march of the human soul, traversing the various degrees of our Spiritist scale. Everyone knows that the idea of reincarnation goes back to the highest Antiquity and that Pythagoras himself had drawn it from the Indians and the Egyptians. It is not, therefore, surprising that Plato, Socrates, and others should share an opinion admitted by the illustrious philosophers of that time; but what is perhaps even more remarkable is to find, from that epoch onward, the principle of the doctrine of the choice of trials, today taught by the Spirits, a doctrine that presupposes reincarnation, without which it would have no reason to exist.

We shall not today discuss this theory, which was so far from our thought when the Spirits revealed it to us that it surprised us strangely, because—we humbly confess—what Plato had written on this special subject was then completely unknown to us, a new piece of evidence, among so many others, that the communications given to us in no way reflect our personal opinion. As for Plato's, we merely note the principal idea, it being easy for each one to recognize the form under which it is presented and to judge the points of contact that, in certain details, it may have with our present theory. In his allegory of the Spindle of Necessity, he imagines a dialogue between Socrates and Glaucon, attributing to the former the following discourse, on the revelations of the Armenian Er, a fictitious character in all probability, although some take him for Zoroaster.

It is easily understood that this account is nothing more than a picture imagined to develop the principal idea: the immortality of the soul, the succession of existences, the choice of such existences by effect of free will, and finally, the happy or unhappy consequences of that choice, often imprudent, propositions all found in The Spirits' Book and which come to confirm the numerous facts cited in this Review.

“The account I wish to bring back to your memory—says Socrates to Glaucon—is that of a man of heart: Er, the Armenian, a native of Pamphylia. He had been slain in a battle. Ten days later, as they carried away the already disfigured corpses of those who had fallen with him, his was found sound and intact. They bore it to his house in order to perform the funeral rites, and on the second day, when it was placed upon the funeral pyre, he revived and recounted what he had seen in the other life.

“As soon as his soul had left the body, he found himself on his way with a host of other souls, arriving at a marvelous place, from which one saw, on the Earth, two openings near to one another, and two others in the sky, corresponding to those. Between these two regions sat the judges. As soon as they pronounced a sentence, they ordered the just to take their place on the right, through one of the openings of the sky, after having fixed upon their breast a placard containing the judgment pronounced in their favor, and ordered the wicked to take the road on the left, located in the abysses, bearing on their backs a similar placard, on which were listed all their actions. When his turn came to present himself, the judges declared that he was to carry to men the news of what was happening in that other world, ordering him to hear and observe everything that referred to it.

“At first he saw the souls that had been judged disappear, some ascending to Heaven, others descending to the Earth, through two openings that corresponded to one another: while through the second opening of the Earth he saw souls come forth covered with dust and filth, at the same time pure and unblemished souls descended through the other gate of the sky. All seemed to come from a long journey and lingered pleasantly in a meadow, as though it were a place of gathering. Those who knew one another greeted each other and asked for news of what was happening in the places whence they came: Heaven and Earth. Here, amid groans and tears, everything they had suffered or seen suffered while sojourning on the Earth was recalled; there, they told of the joys of Heaven and the happiness of contemplating the divine marvels.

“It would be too long to follow the entire discourse of the Armenian, but here, in sum, is what he said. Each of the souls endured tenfold the penalty of the injustices it had committed on the Earth. The duration of each punishment was a hundred years, the natural duration of human life, so that the chastisement might always be tenfold for each crime. Thus, those who caused their fellow men to perish in great number; who betrayed cities or armies; who reduced their fellow citizens to slavery or committed other wicked deeds were tormented tenfold for each of these crimes. Those who, on the contrary, only spread good around them and were just and virtuous received in the same proportion the reward of their good actions. What he said of children, whom death carries off shortly after birth, deserves fewer comments; but he assured that for the impious, the unnatural son, and the murderer the cruelest sufferings were reserved, while for the religious man and the good son the most abundant felicities.

“He was present when one soul had asked another where the great Ardiaeus was. This Ardiaeus had been a tyrant in a city of Pamphylia, a thousand years before; he had killed his old father, his elder brother, and committed, so it was said, several other heinous crimes. ‘He does not come, nor will he ever come here,’ answered the soul. In this regard we were all witnesses of a horrifying spectacle. When we were about to leave the abyss, after having paid our penalties, we saw Ardiaeus and several others, the majority of whom were tyrants like him, or beings who, in a particular situation, had committed great crimes: in vain did they strive to ascend; and every time these guilty ones, whose crimes were beyond remedy or had not been sufficiently expiated, attempted to come out, the abyss repelled them, roaring. Then detestable personages, with bodies aflame, who were there, rushed to these roarings. First they carried off by force some of these criminals; as for Ardiaeus and the others, they bound their feet, their hands, their head and, casting them to the ground and maltreating them violently with blows, dragged them off the road, through bloody brambles, repeating to the shades as they passed some of them: ‘Here are the tyrants and the murderers; we are dragging them off to cast them into Tartarus.’ This soul added that, among so many terrible cases, nothing caused it more dread than the roaring of the abyss, it being for them a supreme joy to be able to leave in silence. “Such were, approximately, the judgments of the souls, their chastisements and their rewards.

“After seven days of repose in that meadow, the souls had to depart on the eighth, setting out on their way. At the end of four days of travel, they perceived from on high, over the entire surface of Heaven and Earth, an immense light, upright like a column and resembling iridescent quartz, but more brilliant and more pure. A single day was enough to reach it, and then they saw, more or less in the middle of that wall, the extremity of the chains that bind to the heavens. It is that which sustains them, it is the casing of the ship of the world, it is the vast girdle that surrounds it. At the top hung the Spindle of Necessity, around which all the circumferences were formed. n “Around the spindle, and at equal distances, the three Fates, daughters of Necessity, sat upon thrones: Lachesis, Clotho, and Atropos, clothed in white and crowned with a small band. They sang, joining in the concert of the Sirens: Lachesis, the past; Clotho, the present; and Atropos, the future. With her right hand Clotho touched from time to time the exterior of the spindle, while it fell to Atropos, with her left hand, to impart movements to the inner circles, while alternately, now with one hand, now with the other, Lachesis touched the spindle and a kind of inner balance.

“As soon as they arrived, the souls had to present themselves to Lachesis. First, a hierophant placed them in orderly rows; then, taking from the lap of Lachesis the lots or numbers in the order in which each soul was to be called, as well as the various human conditions offered to their choice, he mounted a platform and spoke thus: ‘Here is what the virgin Lachesis, Daughter of Necessity, has said: Passing souls, you are about to begin a new career and be reborn in the mortal condition. The genius will not be assigned to you; you yourselves shall choose it. The one whom the lot calls first shall choose, and that choice shall be irrevocable. Virtue belongs to no one: it allies itself with him who honors it and abandons him who despises it. Each one is responsible for the choice he makes, God is innocent.’ At these words he scattered the numbers and each soul took up the one that fell before it, except the Armenian, to whom this was not permitted. Next the hierophant unveiled to them all the kinds of life, in greater number than the souls there gathered. The variety was infinite; one found at the same time all the human conditions, as well as that of the animals. There were tyrannies: some lasted until death, while others, abruptly interrupted, ended in poverty, exile, and abandonment. Distinction showed itself under various faces: one could choose beauty, the art of pleasing, combats, victory, or nobility of race. Conditions wholly obscure in every sense, or intermediate, mixtures of wealth and poverty, of health and sickness, were offered to choice: there were also conditions of woman that presented the same variety. “There evidently lies, my dear Glaucon, the trial that is feared by Humanity. Let each one of us be able to reflect, leaving all vain studies to give himself over to the Science that makes the fortune of man. Let us seek a master who may teach us to discern between good and ill destiny, and to choose all the good that the sky affords us. Let us examine with him which human situations, separated or combined, lead to good actions: whether beauty, for example, united with poverty or with wealth, or such a disposition of the soul should produce virtue or vice; what advantage there is in a brilliant or a common birth, the private or the public life, strength or weakness, instruction or ignorance, in short, everything that man receives from Nature and everything he contains within himself. Enlightened by conscience, let us decide which destiny our soul ought to prefer. Yes, the worst of destinies would be the one that made it unjust, and the best the one that will ceaselessly lead it to virtue: all the rest means nothing to us. Were we to forget that there is no choice more salutary after death than during life! Ah! May this sacred dogma identify itself forever with our soul, so that it may not let itself be fascinated on the Earth by riches, nor by other evils of that nature, and so that, hurling itself avidly upon the condition of the tyrant n or any other like it, it may not expose itself to commit a great number of evils beyond remedy and to suffer others still greater. “According to the account of our messenger, the hierophant had said: ‘To him who chooses last, provided he does so with discernment and is consistent in his conduct, a happy life will be promised. Let him who chooses first guard against being too confident, and let the last not despair.’ Then he whom the lot distinguished first advanced hastily and chose the most important tyranny; led by his imprudence and his greed, and without looking enough at what he was doing, he did not perceive the fatality bound to the object of the choice, which would cause him one day to eat the flesh of his own children, besides many other terrible crimes. But when he considered the lot he had chosen, he groaned, lamented, and, forgetting the lessons of the hierophant, ended by accusing as responsible for his ills fortune, the genii, everything else, except himself. This soul was among the number of those that came from the sky: it had previously lived in a well-governed State and had done good more by force of habit than by philosophy. That is why, among those who fell into such disappointments, the souls coming from the sky were not the least numerous, by virtue of not having been tried by suffering. On the contrary, those which, having passed through the subterranean abode, had suffered and seen suffering, did not choose so quickly. Hence, independently of the chance of the positions to be called to choose, there resulted a kind of exchange of goods and evils for the greater part of the souls. Thus, a man who, at each renewal of his life on the Earth, constantly applied himself to sound philosophy and had the good fortune not to be allotted the last lots, according to this account would have great probability not only of being happy on this planet, but also, in his voyage from this to the other world and in his return, of marching along the smooth road of the sky, and no longer along the painful byways of the subterranean abyss. “The Armenian added that it was a curious spectacle to see in what manner each soul made its choice. Nothing more strange and, at the same time, more worthy of compassion and mockery. Most often the choice was made according to the habits of the previous life. Er had seen a soul, which had once belonged to Orpheus, choose the soul of a swan, out of hatred for women, who had brought about his death, not wishing to owe his birth to any of them; the soul of Thomyris n had chosen the condition of a nightingale; and, reciprocally, a swan that, like him, had adopted the nature of man. Another soul, the twentieth to be called to choose, had assumed the nature of a lion: it was that of Ajax, son of Telamon. He detested Humanity, recalling the judgment that had snatched from him the arms of Achilles. After this one came the soul of Agamemnon, n whose misfortunes also made him an enemy of men: he assumed the position of an eagle. The soul of Atalanta, n called to choose at the middle of the ceremony, having considered the great honors paid to athletes, could not resist the desire to become an athlete. Epeius, n who built the horse of Troy, became a laborious woman. The soul of the buffoon Thersites, one of the last to present itself, took on the forms of an ape. The soul of Ulysses, n whom chance had called last, presented itself also to choose: as the recollection of its long reverses had taken from it all ambition, for a long time it sought and painfully discovered, in a corner, the tranquil life of a private man that all the other souls had discarded. On perceiving it, it said that it would have made no other choice, even had it been the first soul to be called. The animals, whatever they may be, pass equally into one another or into human bodies: those that were wicked become ferocious beasts and the good ones, domesticated animals. “After all the souls had made the choice of a condition, they approached Lachesis according to the order they had chosen. To each one the Fate gave the genius that had been preferred, in order to serve them as guardian during life and to assist them in the fulfillment of their destiny. First, this genius led them to Clotho who, with her hand and with a turn of the spindle, confirmed the chosen destiny. After having touched the spindle, the genius led the soul to Atropos, who wound the thread to make irrevocable that which had been spun by Clotho. Next, they advanced to the throne of Necessity, beside which the soul and its genius passed together. As soon as all had passed, they made their way toward a plain of Lethe—Forgetfulness, n—where they experienced an unbearable heat, since there were neither trees nor plants there. As the day died, they passed the night beside the river Ameles—absence of serious thoughts—whose waters all were obliged to drink, although no vessel could contain them; but the imprudent drank too much. Those who did so without ceasing lost their memory completely. Then they fell asleep, but, around midnight, the rumbling of a thunderclap was heard, accompanied by an earthquake; soon the souls dispersed here and there, to the various points of their earthly birth, like stars that suddenly twinkled in the sky. As for Er, he had been prevented from drinking the water of the river; he did not know, however, either where or how his soul had reunited itself with the body; yet, in the morning, opening his eyes suddenly, he perceived that he had been laid upon the funeral pyre. “Such is the myth, dear Glaucon, that tradition preserves to this day. It can preserve us from our ruin: if we give it credence, we shall happily cross Lethe and keep our soul purified of all stain.”

[1] These are the various spheres of the planets or the various stories of the sky, revolving around the Earth, fixed to the axis of that same spindle (See COUSIN).

[2] The Ancients did not attribute to the word tyrant the same sense that we give it today. This name was given to all those who seized sovereign power, whatever their qualities, good or bad; History cites tyrants who did good; as, however, the contrary happened more frequently and, moreover, in order to satisfy ambition or to perpetuate themselves in power, no crime was forbidden to them, and this term became, later, synonymous with cruel and is applied to every man who abuses his authority.

In choosing the most important tyranny, the soul of which Er speaks had not sought cruelty, but simply the most vast power, as the condition of its new existence; when its choice became irrevocable, it perceived that this same power would drag it to crime, lamenting having made it and accusing everyone for its ills, except itself. It is the history of the majority of men who, even while not admitting to confessing it, are the architects of their own misfortune. (Note from the French original.)

[3] Tomyris (sometimes Thomyris) is a legendary Massagetan queen, famous for the decapitation of Cyrus the Great; she buried his head in a skin filled with blood to avenge her son. She is considered the last queen of the Amazons.

[4] Agamemnon, Agamêmnon or Agamémnon (in Greek, Aγαμέμνων—“very resolute”) was one of the most distinguished Greek heroes, son of King Atreus of Mycenae and Queen Aerope/Erope, and brother of Menelaus.

[5] [see Atalanta.]

[6] [see Epeius.]

[7] [see Odysseus. (in Greek: Ὀδυσσεύς, transl. Odysseýs) or Ulysses (in Latin: Ulysses or Ulixes.)]

[8] Allusion to the forgetfulness that follows the passage from one existence to another. (Note from the French original.)