The cannibals.

One of our subscribers addressed to us the following question, begging us that it be answered by the Spirits who assist us, in case it had not yet been.

“The wandering spirits, after a lapse of more or less long time, desire and ask God for reincarnation as a means of spiritual progress. They choose the trials and, using their free will, naturally elect those that seem to them most appropriate to that progress, in the world where reincarnation is permitted to them. Now, during their wandering existence, which they employ in instructing themselves (it is they who tell us this), they come to know which nations can best enable them to attain the end they propose. They see ferocious, anthropophagous populaces, and they are certain that, incarnating among them, they will become ferocious and eaters of human flesh. Surely it is not in that environment that they will accomplish spiritual progress; their brutal instincts will only have acquired more consistency through the force of habit. Behold, then, their objective thwarted, as regards the choice of incarnations among this or that people.

“The same happens with certain social positions. Among these, there are certainly those that present insurmountable obstacles to spiritual progress. I will cite only the slaughtermen in the slaughterhouses, the executioners, etc. They say that such creatures are necessary: some, because we cannot do without animal food; others, because the decisions of justice, required by our social organization, must be carried out. It is no less true that, reincarnating in the body of a child destined to embrace one or another of these professions, the Spirit must know that it sets out upon the wrong path and that it voluntarily deprives itself of the means that can lead it to perfection. Could it not happen, with God's permission, that no Spirit would want these kinds of existence and, in that case, what would be the necessity of these professions in our social state?”

The answer to this question follows from all the teachings that have been given to us. We can, therefore, answer it, without having to submit it again to the Spirits.

It is evident that a Spirit already elevated, for example, that of an enlightened European, could not choose as a means of progress a savage existence: instead of advancing, it would regress. But we know that our own anthropophagi are not found on the lowest rung of the scale and that there are worlds where the brutishness and the ferocity have no analogy on Earth. These Spirits are still inferior to the most backward Spirits of our world, and to be reborn among our savages is, for them, a progress. If they do not aim higher, it is because their moral inferiority does not allow them to comprehend a more complete progress. The Spirit cannot advance except gradually; it must pass successively through all the degrees, so that each step forward may be a base on which to settle a new progress. It cannot leap in one bound over the distance that separates barbarism from civilization, just as the schoolboy cannot be promoted, without transition, from the ABCs to rhetoric. It is in this that we see one of the necessities of reincarnation, which is truly in conformity with the justice of God. Were it not so, what would become of those millions of beings who die in the last state of degradation, if they had no means of attaining superiority? Why would God have disinherited them of the favors granted to other men? We repeat it, as it is an essential point: by reason of their limited intelligence, they comprehend what is best only from their own point of view and within narrow limits. There are, however, some who go astray by wanting to climb too high, and who offer us the sad spectacle of ferocity in the midst of civilization. These, returning among the cannibals, will still gain. These considerations also apply to the professions of which our correspondent speaks. It is evident that they offer relative superiority for certain Spirits, and it is not in that sense that the choice they will make should be understood. For the same reason, they may be chosen as expiation or as mission, since none exists in which one cannot find opportunity to do good and to progress, by the very manner in which they are exercised.

As for the question of knowing what these professions would become, in case no Spirit wanted to embrace them, it is answered by the facts. Since the Spirits who sustain them come from lower down, there is no need to fear unemployment. When social progress permits the suppression of the office of executioner, this class will disappear, and not the candidates, who will go and present themselves among other peoples or in other less advanced worlds.