We present in this issue the topic #69 from the Systematized Study of the Spiritist Doctrine, that is being presented weekly, according to the programme elaborated by the Brazilian Spiritist Federation (FEB), structured in 6 modules and 147 topics.

If the reader uses this program for a study group, we suggest that questions proposed be discussed freely before the reading of the text that follows. If you would like to study alone, we ask you to try to answer the questions at first and only then read the text that follows. The answer key can be found at the end of the lesson. 

Questions

1. What is erraticity? 

2. Would it be correct to say that all spirits who are not incarnated are errant? 

3. What do the Spirits do in the state of erraticity? 

4. Is incarnation necessary to the errant Spirit? 

5. Why is it that life is so often cut short in childhood? 

Text

Errant is the Spirit who needs to incarnate in order to develop 

1. Separated from the physical body, due to disincarnating, the Spirit comes back, sometimes immediately, but more often after intervals of longer or shorter duration, from a few hours to thousands of ages. Strictly speaking, there are no fixed limits to the period of erraticity or wandering, which may be prolonged for a very considerable time, but which, however, is never perpetual.

2. While waits for a new incarnation, it becomes an errant or wandering spirit, aspiring after a new destiny. Its state is one of waiting and expectancy. The fact it is disincarnated does not mean it is an errant. Errant are those who need to reincarnate in order to develop, but the pure spirits who have attained to perfection are not errant; their state is definitive. As regards their state, they may be: 1 - Incarnated, that is to say, united to a material body; 2 - Errant or wandering, that is to say disengaged from the material body and awaiting a new incarnation for purposes of Improvement; 3 - Pure Spirits, that is to say, perfected, and having no further need of incarnation. 

3. Erraticity is not necessarily a sign of inferiority on the part of spirits, for there are errant spirits of every degree. Incarnation is a transitional state. In their normal state, spirits are disengaged from matter. 

4. In the state of erraticity, the Spirits keep busy: they study their past, and seek out the means of raising themselves to a higher degree. The Spiritist teaching about life after death shows that in space there is no place for doing nothing. All regions of the space are peopled by working Spirits. 

The Spirits build their own future 

5. In the state of erraticity, they may make a great advance, in proportion to their efforts and desires after improvement, but it is in the corporeal life that they put in practice the new ideas they have thus acquired.   

6. Gabriel Delanne states that Spirits are the ones who build their own future, according to Christ: “each man's work shall be made manifest”. All the Spirits who take longer to progress can only complain about themselves, by the same token the one who progress quickly is the only one to praise.    

7. The normal life of the Spirit is made in the space, but the incarnation takes place in one of the globes of the Universe. It is necessary for its double progress, moral e intellectual. As for the intellectual one, because of the activity he is forced to develop at work. As for the moral one, because men need one another. Social life – according to Delanne – is the instrument of our good and bad qualities.   

8. Na intriguing question, explained by the Spiritist Doctrine, about the situation of children after death.  

The death of a child is often a trial or expiation for his parents  

9. According to Spiritism, as what happens to the Spirit of an adult, the Spirit of a child. Besides, the spirit of a child may, then, be more advanced than that of his father, because it had previous lives.   

10 The duration of the life of a child may be, for the spirit thus incarnated, the complement of an existence interrupted before its appointed term; and his death is often a trial or expiation for his parents.    

11. The spirit of a child who dies in infancy recommences a new existence, which will take place when it is more convenient to its progress. If man had but a single existence, and if, after this existence, his future state were fixed for all eternity, such an ordering could not be reconciled with the justice of God. Through the reincarnation of spirits the most absolute justice is equally meted out to all. 

12. With the existence lived by the Spirit of the child who died so early, his parents also go on a trial for their understanding about life, or then, expiate deeds from the past.

Answer Key

1. What is erraticity? A.: Erraticity is the state in which the Spirits wait for a new incarnation.  

2. Would it be correct to say that all spirits who are not incarnated are errant? A.: Yes, as regards those who are to be reincarnated; but the pure spirits who have attained to perfection are not errant; their state is definitive. 

3. What do the Spirits do in the state of erraticity? A.: They may make a great advance in that state, in proportion to their efforts and desires after improvement, but it is in the corporeal life that they put in practice the new ideas they have thus acquired.  

4. Is incarnation necessary to the errant Spirit? A.: The normal life of the Spirit is made in the space, but the incarnation takes place in one of the globes of the Universe. It is necessary for its double progress, moral e intellectual. As for the intellectual one, because of the activity he is forced to develop at work. As for the moral one, because men need one another.   

5. Why is it that life is so often cut short in childhood? A.: The duration of the life of a child may be, for the spirit thus incarnated, the complement of an existence interrupted before its appointed term; and his death is often a trial or expiation for his parents.

Bibliography:  

The Spirits’ Book, by Allan Kardec, items 199, 226, 227 and 230.  

The Spiritist Phenomenon, by Gabriel Delanne. 

After death, by Léon Denis.