Spiritist Review — 1860 · Allan Kardec
Chapter 109 of 148
The awakening of the Spirit
— When man abandons his mortal remains, he experiences an astonishment and a bewilderment that leave him for some time undecided as to his real state; he does not know whether he is dead or alive, and his sensations, very confused, take a long while to clear up. Little by little, the eyes of the Spirit become dazzled by the various lights that surround him, and he follows a whole order of things, great and unknown, which at first he has difficulty understanding, but he soon recognizes that he is no more than an impalpable and immaterial being; he searches for his remains and is surprised not to find them; some time passes before the memory of the past comes to him and convinces him of his identity. Looking at the Earth he has just left, he sees the relatives and friends who mourn him, just as he sees the inert body. Finally his eyes detach themselves from the Earth and rise toward Heaven; if the will of God does not retain him on the ground, he rises slowly and feels himself floating in space, which is a delightful sensation. Then the memory of the life he is leaving appears to him with a clarity most often desolating, but at other times consoling. I am speaking to you here of what I myself experienced, I who am not an evil Spirit, but who do not have the good fortune to occupy an elevated position. We strip ourselves of all earthly prejudices; the truth appears in all its light; nothing attenuates the faults, nothing conceals the virtues; we see our soul as clearly as in a mirror; we seek among the Spirits those who were known to us, because the Spirit is terrified in its isolation, but they pass by without stopping; there are no friendly relations among the wandering spirits; even those who loved one another do not exchange signs of recognition; those diaphanous forms glide and do not fix themselves; affectionate communications are reserved for the superior Spirits, who exchange their thoughts. As for us, our transitory state serves only for our advancement, seeing that nothing distracts us; the only communications permitted to us are with humans, because they have an aim of mutual utility, which God prescribes. Evil Spirits also contribute to human improvement: they serve for the trials; whoever resists them gains merits. The Spirits who direct men are rewarded by a great mitigation of their penalties. The wandering spirits do not suffer from the absence of communications among themselves, for they know that they will meet again; they have only more ardor to reach the moment when the trials accomplished will give them the object of their affection, which cannot be expressed, but which lies latent within them. None of the bonds we contracted on Earth is undone; our sympathies will be re-established in the order in which they existed, more or less vivid according to the degree of warmth or intimacy they had. [See: Preliminary Observations.]
Georges.
[Review of November 1860.]
AFFECTIONATE RELATIONS OF THE SPIRITS.
Commentary on the spontaneous dictation published in the Review of the month of October 1860, under the title of: The Awakening of the Spirit.
The beautiful communications of the Spirit who signs Georges are generally admired; but, precisely because of the superiority of which this Spirit gives proof, several persons saw with surprise what he says in his communication The Awakening of the Spirit, regarding relations from beyond the grave. There one reads the following:
“When we strip ourselves of all earthly prejudices, the truth appears in all its light. Nothing attenuates the faults, nothing conceals the virtues. We see our soul as clearly as in a mirror; we seek among the Spirits those who were known to us, since the Spirit is terrified in its isolation, although they pass by without stopping. There are no friendly communications among the wandering spirits; even those who loved one another do not exchange signs of recognition; those diaphanous forms glide and do not fix themselves; affectionate communications are reserved for the superior Spirits.”
The thought of reunion after death and of communication with those we love is one of the sweetest consolations of Spiritism, and the idea that souls cannot have relations of friendship among themselves would be painful, were it absolute; that is why we are not surprised at the distressing sentiment it produced. Had Georges been one of those vulgar and systematic Spirits who express their own ideas without troubling themselves about their accuracy or falsity, we would not have given it the least importance. By reason of his habitual wisdom and depth, one might imagine that at the bottom of this theory there was something true, but that the thought had not been completely expressed. That is, indeed, what results from the explanations we requested. We have, then, one more proof that nothing should be accepted without having submitted it to the control of reason; and here reason and the facts tell us that this theory could not be absolute. If isolation were a property inherent in erraticity, such a state would be a true torment, all the more painful in that it can be prolonged for many centuries. We know, from experience, that the privation of the sight of those we love is a punishment for certain Spirits; but we also know that many are happy to meet one another; that, as we leave this life, our friends from the spirit world come to receive us and help us free ourselves from the material garments, and that nothing is more painful than to find no benevolent soul at that solemn moment. Would this consoling doctrine be a chimera? No, it cannot be, since it is not merely the result of a teaching: it is the souls themselves, happy or suffering, who come to describe their situation. We know that the Spirits gather and combine among themselves to act in common accord, with more force on certain occasions, both for evil and for good; that the Spirits who do not possess the knowledge necessary to answer the questions addressed to them can be assisted by more enlightened Spirits; that these have the mission of aiding with their counsels the progress of the more backward Spirits; that the inferior Spirits act under the impulse of other Spirits, of whom they are the instruments; that they receive orders, prohibitions, or permissions, circumstances that would not occur if the Spirits were left to themselves. Simple common sense tells us, then, that the situation of which he spoke is relative and not absolute; that it may exist for some in given circumstances, but could not be general, because, otherwise, it would be the greatest obstacle to the progress of the Spirit and, for that very reason, would not be in conformity with the justice of God, nor with his goodness. Evidently, the Spirit of Georges considered only one phase of erraticity, in which, to put it better, he restricted the meaning of the term wandering to a particular category of Spirits, instead of applying it, as we do indiscriminately, to all non-incarnate Spirits. It may, then, happen that two beings who loved one another do not exchange signs of recognition; that they may not even be able to see and speak to one another, in case it is a punishment for one of them. On the other hand, since the Spirits gather according to the hierarchical order, two beings who loved one another on Earth may belong to very different orders and, precisely for that reason, find themselves separated until the less advanced one attains the degree of the other. This privation may thus be a consequence of expiation and of earthly trials: it is up to us to act in such a way as not to deserve it.
The happiness of the Spirits is relative to their elevation. This happiness is complete only for the purified Spirits, and consists principally in the love that unites them; this is conceivable and is altogether just, since true affection cannot exist except among beings who have stripped themselves of all egoism and of all material influence, for only in them is it pure, without ulterior motive, unable to be disturbed by anything. From this it follows that their communications must be, for that very reason, more affectionate and more expansive than among the Spirits who are still under the empire of earthly passions. From this it must be concluded that the wandering spirits are not necessarily deprived, but may be deprived of those communications, if such is the punishment imposed upon them. As Georges says in another passage: “This momentary privation gives them more ardor to reach the moment when the trials accomplished will restore to them the object of their affection.” Therefore, this privation is not the normal state of the wandering spirits, but an expiation for those who have deserved it, one of the thousand and one varieties that await us in the other life, when we shall have proved unworthy in this one. [Review of February 1861.]
COMMENTARY ON THE DICTATION PUBLISHED UNDER THE TITLE OF “AWAKENING OF THE SPIRIT”.
In a communication that the Spirit Georges dictated to Mrs. Costel, published in the Review of 1860 under the title of The Awakening of the Spirit, it was said that there are no friendly relations among the wandering spirits; that even those who loved one another do not exchange signs of recognition. In several persons this theory caused a very painful impression, above all because the readers of the Review consider that Spirit elevated, having admired the majority of his communications. If this theory were absolute, it would be in contradiction with what has so often been said, that at the moment of death the friendly Spirits come to receive the newcomer, helping him to free himself from the earthly ties and, in a certain way, initiating him into his new life. On the other hand, if the inferior Spirits did not communicate with the more advanced ones, they could not progress. We sought to refute these objections in an article of the Review of 1860, under the title of Affectionate Relations of the Spirits, but here are the comments that, at our request, Georges himself gave on his communication:
“When a man is surprised by death in the materialistic habits of a life that never left him time to occupy himself with God; when, still throbbing with earthly anguishes and fears, he arrives in the world of the Spirits, he resembles a traveler who is ignorant of the language and customs of the country he visits. Immersed in perturbation, he is incapable of communicating, understanding neither his own sensations nor those of others. He wanders enveloped in silence; then he feels unknown thoughts germinate, burst forth, and slowly develop, and a new soul blossoms within his own. Having reached this point, the captive soul feels the bonds fall and, like a bird to whom liberty is restored, casts itself toward God, uttering a cry of joy and of love. Then there crowd around it the Spirits of the relatives, of the purified friends who, silently, had welcomed it on its return. Few in number are those who can, immediately after the liberation of the body, communicate with the friends they find again. It is necessary to have deserved it, and only those who have gloriously fulfilled their last migrations find themselves, from the very first moment, sufficiently dematerialized to enjoy this favor that God grants as a reward. I have presented one of the phases of the spirit life; I did not wish to generalize. As one sees, I spoke only of the state of the first instants that follow death, which may be more or less durable, according to the nature of the Spirit. It depends on each one to shorten it, by freeing himself from the earthly bonds while still in the corporeal life, since only attachment to material things prevents him from enjoying the happiness of the spiritual life. [See: Preliminary Observations.]
Georges.
Observation. – Nothing is more moral than this doctrine, for it shows us that none of the enjoyments promised to the future life is obtained without merit; that the very happiness of seeing again the beings dear to us and conversing with them can be postponed. In a word, that the situation in the spirit life, as in everything, will be what we make of it by our conduct in the corporeal life.