Consequences of the doctrine of reincarnation upon the propagation of Spiritism.

Spiritism is advancing rapidly, a fact that no one can deny. Now, when a thing propagates itself, it is because it answers a need; thus, if Spiritism also propagates itself, it is because it likewise answers a need. There are several causes for this. The first is, without contradiction, as we have already explained on various occasions, the moral satisfaction it affords to those who understand and practice it. But this very cause derives part of its force from the principle of reincarnation. This is what we shall attempt to demonstrate.

No man who reflects can fail to be concerned with his future after death, which is well worth the trouble. Who is there that does not attach more importance to his situation on Earth during a few more years than during a few days? More still: during the first part of life one works, exhausts oneself with fatigue, and imposes upon oneself every sort of privation in order, in the other half, to secure for oneself a little rest and well-being. If we take such care for a few possible years, is it not rational to take still more care for the life beyond the tomb, whose duration is unlimited? For what reason does the majority work more for the transient present than for the endless future? It is that we believe in the reality of the present and doubt the future. Now, one doubts only that which one does not understand. Let the future be understood and all will cease. Even in the eyes of those who, in the state of common beliefs, are best convinced of the future life, that life presents itself in so vague a manner that faith does not always suffice to fix the ideas; it has more the characteristics of a hypothesis than those of a reality. Spiritism comes to remove this uncertainty through the testimony of those who have lived and through proofs that are in a certain sense material. Every religion necessarily rests upon the future life, and all dogmas converge inevitably toward that single end. It is with a view to attaining that end that they are practiced; and faith in the dogmas is in direct ratio to the efficacy attributed to them for reaching it. The theory of the future life is, then, the cornerstone of every religious doctrine. If that theory is faulty at its base; if it opens the field to serious objections; if it contradicts itself; if the impossibility of certain parts can be demonstrated, everything collapses. First comes doubt, which is followed by absolute negation, and the dogmas are dragged down in the shipwreck of faith. People thought to escape the danger by proscribing examination and by making a virtue of blind faith. But to claim to impose blind faith in this century is to fail to recognize the time in which we live; we reflect, in spite of ourselves; we examine by the force of things; we want to know how and why. The development of industry and of the exact sciences teaches us to look at the ground on which we tread, which is why, if we probe the ground over which, they say, we shall walk after death, and if we do not find it solid, that is to say, logical, rational, we will not concern ourselves with it. Whatever they may do, they will not succeed in neutralizing this tendency, because it is inherent in the intellectual and moral development of Humanity. According to some, it is a good; according to others, an evil. Whatever way we regard it, we must accommodate ourselves to it, whether we wish to or not, since it cannot be otherwise. The need to give oneself an account of things and to understand them concerns material things and moral things alike. Undoubtedly, the future life is not a palpable thing, like a railroad or a steam engine; but it can be understood through reasoning. If the reasoning by which we seek to demonstrate it does not satisfy reason, we abandon the premises and the conclusions. Question those who deny the future life, and all will say that they were led to incredulity by the very picture that was made for them, with its retinues of demons, flames, and endless sufferings.

All moral, psychological, and metaphysical questions are connected in a more or less direct manner with the question of the future. From this it results that, in some measure, the rationality of all philosophical and religious doctrines depends upon that last question. Spiritism comes, in its turn, not as a religion, but as a philosophical doctrine, to bring its theory, supported by the fact of the manifestations. It does not impose itself; it does not demand blind confidence; it enters into the number of the competitors and says: Examine, compare, and judge; if you find something better than this which I give you, take it. It does not say: I come to destroy the foundations of religion and to replace it with a new cult. It says: I do not address myself to those who believe and are satisfied with their beliefs, but to those who desert your ranks through incredulity and whom you have not known how, or been able, to retain. I come to give them, concerning the truths they reject, an interpretation capable of satisfying their reason and leading them to accept it. And the proof that I succeed in this is the number of those I draw out of the mire of incredulity. All will tell you: If I had been taught these things in this way from childhood, I would never have doubted; now I believe, because I understand. Should you reject them because they accept the spirit and not the letter? the principle, and not the form? You are free; if your conscience makes a duty of this, no one will think of doing violence to it; but I do not merely say that this would be an error; I say more: it would be an imprudence. As we have said, the future life is the essential aim of every moral doctrine. Without the future life, morality lacks a basis. The triumph of Spiritism lies precisely in the manner in which it presents the future; besides the proofs it offers, the picture it presents is so clear, so simple, so logical, so conformable to the justice and goodness of God, that we involuntarily say: Yes, it is indeed thus that it must be; it is thus that I imagined it; and if I had not believed, it is because the future life had been shown to me in another way.

But what is it that gives the theory of the future such a power? what is it that wins for it so many sympathies? It is, we say, its inflexible logic, which resolves all the difficulties hitherto insoluble; and this it owes to the principle of the plurality of existences. Indeed, suppress this principle, and thousands of problems, each more insoluble than the last, will immediately present themselves. At every step we will collide with innumerable objections. These objections were not raised in former times, that is to say, no one thought of them. But today, now that the child has become a man, he wishes to go to the bottom of things; he wishes to see clearly the path along which he is led; he probes and weighs the value of the arguments presented to him and, if these do not satisfy his reason or leave him in vagueness and uncertainty, he rejects them, awaiting something better. The plurality of existences is a key that opens new horizons, that gives a reason for being to a multitude of things not understood, and that explains the inexplicable. It reconciles all the events of life with the justice and goodness of God. That is why those who had come to doubt that justice and that goodness now recognize the finger of Providence where they had ignored it. Indeed, without reincarnation, to what shall we attribute innate ideas? how shall we account for idiocy, cretinism, savagery, alongside genius and civilization? the profound misery of some, alongside the happiness of others? premature deaths and so many other things? From the religious point of view, certain dogmas, such as that of original sin, that of the fall of the angels, the eternity of punishments, the resurrection of the flesh, etc., find in this principle a rational interpretation, leading those who rejected the letter to accept its spirit. In short, present-day man wishes to understand. The principle of reincarnation illuminates what was obscure. This is why we say that this principle is one of the causes that makes Spiritism be favorably received.

It will be said that reincarnation is not necessary in order to believe in the Spirits and in their manifestations; and the proof of this is that there are believers who do not admit it. That is true. Nor have we said that one cannot be a good Spiritist without believing in reincarnation. We are not among those who cast stones at those who do not think as we do. We say only that they have not addressed all the problems raised by the unitary system, without which they would have recognized the impossibility of giving them a satisfactory solution. The idea of the plurality of existences was at first received with astonishment, with distrust; then, little by little, people became familiar with it, as they recognized the impossibility of escaping, without it, the innumerable difficulties raised by psychology and by the future life. One thing is certain: this system gains ground daily, while the other loses it. Today, in France, the adversaries of reincarnation — we speak of those who have studied the Spiritist science — are imperceptible in number, in comparison with its partisans. In America itself, where they are more numerous, for reasons we explained in our previous issue [Reincarnation in America], the principle is beginning to become popular, so that we may conclude that the time is not far off when, on this point, there will be no dissension at all.