Theory of the motive of our actions.

— Mr. R…, correspondent of the Institute of France and one of the most eminent members of the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, developed the following considerations in the session of September 14, as a corollary to the theory that had just been given concerning the harm of fear, which we related above.

“It results from all the communications given to us by the Spirits that they exercise a direct influence over our actions, some inducing us to good, others to evil. Saint Louis has just told us: ‘Malevolent Spirits love to laugh; be on your guard; he who thinks he is saying something pleasant to those around him, amusing a company with his jokes or attitudes, sometimes deceives himself, which frequently happens, when he thinks that all this comes from himself. The frivolous Spirits who surround him identify themselves with him and little by little deceive him concerning his own thoughts, the same occurring with those who hear him.’ From this it follows that what we say does not always come from us; that often we are, like speaking mediums, no more than interpreters of the thought of a foreign Spirit, who has identified himself with our own. The facts come to support this theory, proving, also, that very frequently our acts are the consequence of that thought which is suggested to us. The man who practices evil yields, then, to a suggestion when he is weak enough not to resist and when he closes his ears to the voice of conscience, which may be his own voice, or that of a good Spirit who, by his warnings, combats the influence of an evil Spirit. According to the common doctrine, man would draw from himself all his instincts. These instincts would proceed as much from his physical organization, for which he could not be responsible, as from his own nature, in which he can find an excuse in his own eyes, saying that it is not his fault to have been created thus. The Spiritist Doctrine, evidently, is more moral; it admits in man free will in all its plenitude. By saying that if he does evil he will be yielding to an evil suggestion, it leaves him all the responsibility, since it recognizes in him the power to resist, something evidently easier than if he had to struggle against his own nature. Thus, according to the Spiritist Doctrine, there is no irresistible compulsion: man can always close his ears to the hidden voice which, in his innermost being, invites him to evil, just as he can close them to the material voice of the one who speaks to him; and he can do so by his will, asking God for the necessary strength and claiming, for this, the assistance of the good Spirits. This is what Jesus teaches us in his sublime prayer of the Pater, when he makes us say: ‘Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.’

— When we took as the text of one of our questions the little anecdote that we have just related, we did not imagine the developments that it would have. We are doubly happy for the beautiful words it merited from Saint Louis and from our honored colleague. If, for a long time, we had not been aware of the elevated capacity of the latter, and of his profound knowledge in matters of Spiritism, we would be tempted to believe that the application of that theory is due to him, and that Saint Louis made use of him to complete his teaching. We are going to add our own reflections:

This theory of the exciting cause of our acts evidently stands out from all the teaching given by the Spirits; not only is it of sublime morality, but it also rehabilitates man in his own eyes; it shows him free to shake off the yoke of the obsessor, just as he is also free to close his house to intruders: he no longer resembles a machine, acting by an impulse independent of the will; he is a being who reasons, hears, judges, and chooses freely between two counsels. Let us add that, in spite of this, man is not deprived of his initiative, not ceasing to use it of his own movement since, in the final analysis, he is nothing more than an incarnate Spirit, preserving, under the corporeal envelope, the qualities and defects that he possessed as a Spirit. The faults we commit have, then, their first source in the imperfection of our Spirit, which has not yet attained the moral superiority it will have one day, but which, for that reason, does not cease to have its free will; corporeal life is granted to it to purge itself of its imperfections through the trials it suffers therein, and it is precisely these imperfections that render it more fragile and more accessible to the suggestions of other imperfect Spirits, who take advantage to try to make it succumb in the struggle it undertakes. If it comes out victorious, it will elevate itself; if it fails, it will continue what it was, neither worse nor better: it is a trial to begin again, which can thus last a long time. The more it purifies itself, the more its weak sides will diminish and the less it will give itself over to those who instigate it to evil; its moral strength will grow in proportion to its elevation and the evil Spirits will withdraw. What, then, are these evil Spirits? Are they those whom we call demons? They are not demons, in the common acceptation of the term, since by that is understood a class of beings created for evil, and perpetually devoted to evil. Now, the Spirits say that all improve in a time more or less long, according to their will; but, while they are imperfect they can do evil, just as water that, not purified, can spread putrid and morbid miasmas. In the condition of incarnate Spirits they purify themselves, provided that, for this, they do what is necessary; as disincarnate, they suffer the consequences of what they did or failed to do to improve themselves, consequences that they also experience when they are on Earth, since the vicissitudes of life constitute, at the same time, expiations and trials. When incarnate, all the Spirits, more or less good, constitute the human species. As our Earth is one of the less advanced worlds, there are found here more evil Spirits than good; that is why we see so much perversity in it. Let us employ, then, all our efforts not to return to it after this stay, and to merit to inhabit a better world, in one of those privileged orbs where good reigns absolute and where we will remember our passage on Earth only as a bad dream.