Heaven and Hell

Containing: the comparative examination of doctrines on the passage from corporeal life to spiritual life, future penalties and rewards, the angels and the demons, eternal penalties, etc.; followed by numerous examples concerning the real situation of the soul during and after death.

BY ALLAN KARDEC.

Since it is not for us to make either the praise or the critique of this work, we limit ourselves to making known its purpose, by reproducing an extract from the preface.

“The title of this work clearly indicates its purpose. In it we have gathered all the elements suited to enlighten man about his destiny. As in our other writings on the Spiritist Doctrine, we have introduced nothing there that is the product of a preconceived system, or of a personal conception, which would have no authority: everything there is deduced from observation and from the concordance of facts.

“The Spirits' Book contains the fundamental bases of Spiritism; it is the cornerstone of the edifice; all the principles of the doctrine are set forth there, even those that are to constitute its crowning; but it was necessary to give them developments, to deduce from them all the consequences and all the applications, as these unfolded through the complementary teaching of the Spirits and through new observations. This is what we did in The Mediums' Book and in The Gospel According to Spiritism, from special points of view; it is what we do in this work from another point of view, and it is what we shall do successively in those that remain for us to publish, and that will come in their time. “New ideas bear fruit only when the ground is prepared to receive them. Now, by prepared ground one must not understand a few precocious intelligences, which would yield only isolated fruits, but a certain whole in the general predisposition, so that not only does it yield more abundant fruits, but that the idea, finding a greater number of points of support, may meet less opposition, and be stronger to resist its antagonists. The Gospel According to Spiritism was already a step forward; Heaven and Hell is one more step whose scope will be easily understood, because it touches certain questions to the quick; but it could not have come sooner.

“If one considers the epoch in which Spiritism came, one will readily recognize that it came at an opportune time, neither too soon nor too late. Sooner, it would have miscarried, because, the sympathies not being numerous, it would have succumbed under the blows of its adversaries; later, it would have lost the favorable occasion to arise; ideas might have taken another course, from which it would have been difficult to turn them aside. It was necessary to leave the old ideas time to wear themselves out and to prove their insufficiency, before presenting new ones.

“Premature ideas miscarry because one is not ripe to understand them and because a change of position does not yet make itself felt. Today it is evident to all that a great movement is manifesting in opinion; a formidable reaction is taking place, in the progressive sense, against the stationary or retrograde spirit of routine; those satisfied of yesterday are the impatient of the morrow. Humanity is in the labor of childbirth; there is something in the air, an irresistible force that impels it forward; it is like a youth emerging from adolescence, who glimpses new horizons without defining them, and frees himself from the swaddling clothes of infancy. One sees something better, more solid nourishment for the reason; but this better is still in the vague; it is sought; everyone works at it, from the believer to the unbeliever, from the workman to the scientist. The Universe is a vast worksite; some demolish, others rebuild; each one cuts a stone for the new edifice, of which the great architect alone possesses the definitive plan, and whose economy [organization] will only be understood when its forms begin to be outlined above the surface of the ground. This was the moment that sovereign wisdom chose for the advent of Spiritism. “The Spirits who preside over the great regenerating movement act, then, with more wisdom and foresight than men would, because they embrace the general march of events, whereas we see only the limited circle of our horizon. The times of renewal having arrived, in accordance with the divine designs, it was necessary that, amid the ruins of the old edifice and in order not to lose courage, man should glimpse the bases of the new order of things; it was necessary that the sailor should perceive the polar star, which is to guide him to port.

“The wisdom of the Spirits, which showed itself in the rise of Spiritism, revealed almost instantaneously over all the Earth, at the most propitious epoch, is no less evident in the order and the logical gradation of the successive complementary revelations. It is up to no one to constrain their will in this respect, because they do not mete out their teachings according to the impatience of men. It is not enough for us to say: “We would like to have such a thing” for it to be given; and still less does it become us to say to God: “We judge that the moment has come for you to give us such a thing; we judge ourselves advanced enough to receive it,” because that would be to say to him: “We know better than you what is fitting to do.” To the impatient the Spirits reply: “Begin first by knowing well, understanding well and, above all, by practicing well what you know, so that God may judge you worthy to learn more; then, when the moment comes, we will know how to act and we will choose our instruments.” “The first part of this work, entitled Doctrine, contains the comparative examination of the various beliefs concerning heaven and hell, the angels and the demons, future penalties and rewards; the dogma of eternal penalties is there considered in a special manner and refuted by arguments drawn from the very laws of Nature, and which demonstrate not only its illogical side, already pointed out hundreds of times, but its material impossibility. With eternal penalties fall, naturally, the consequences that were believed to be drawable from them.

“The second part contains numerous examples in support of the theory, or, rather, that served to establish the theory. They draw their authority from the diversity of times and places where they were obtained, since, if they emanated from a single source, they could be considered as the product of one and the same influence. Moreover, they draw it from their concordance with what is daily obtained everywhere that people occupy themselves with the Spiritist manifestations from a serious and philosophical point of view. These examples could have been multiplied to infinity, for there is no Spiritist center that cannot furnish them in remarkable quantity. To avoid tiresome repetitions, we had to make a choice among the most instructive. Each one of these examples is a study in which all the words have their scope for whoever meditates upon them with attention, because from each side a light gushes forth upon the situation of the soul after death, and the passage, until then so obscure and so dreaded, from corporeal life to spiritual life. It is the guide of the traveler, before entering a new country. The life beyond the grave there unfolds under all its aspects, like a vast panorama; each one will gather there new motives of hope and of consolation, and new supports to strengthen faith in the future and in the justice of God. “In these examples, the majority taken from contemporary facts, we have concealed the proper names, whenever we judged it useful, for reasons of propriety easy to appreciate. Those whom such examples may interest will easily recognize them. For the public, names more or less known and, at times, very obscure, would have added nothing to the instruction that can be drawn from them.”

Here are the titles of the chapters:

FIRST PART. Doctrine. I. – The future and nothingness. II.

– Fear of death. III. – Heaven. IV. – Hell. V. – Comparative table of pagan hell and Christian hell. VI. – Purgatory. VII. – Doctrine of eternal penalties. VIII. – Future penalties according to Spiritism. IX.

– The angels. X. – The demons. XI. – Intervention of demons in modern manifestations. XII. – On the prohibition of evoking the dead.

SECOND PART. Examples. I. – The passing. II. – Happy Spirits. III. – Spirits in middling conditions. IV. – Suffering spirits.

V. – Suicides. VI. – Repentant criminals. VII. – Hardened Spirits.

VIII. – Earthly expiations.