Automatism and the spiritual body The same law of evolution prevails for all beings of the universe, be they stars or be they men 1st Part

The spiritual body models the physical body which represents the former. Our proposal, from this affirmation is to highlight that the Law of evolution is equal for all beings, connecting them amongst themselves in dependence for the growth of all. If it is so in society, where individuals deliver the result of their work towards society in order that it gives back to them benefits and safety, we can notice yet more in the lower kingdoms where every individual depends on the other for its growth.

Lost in time, the intelligent principle has been shaping, in its own vehicle of exteriorsation, the conditions which provide it – on the terrestrial and spiritual level – the physiologic automatism that allows it to carry out, without obstacles, the primary acts of maintenance, preservation and renovation of life. We have, for example the writing and the reading which only become mechanical activities with the training of eyes, lips and hand co-ordination, after the learning of the alphabet. Repetition of actions is indispensable to its development. In these same bases of repetition, the spiritual body through birth, death and rebirth – in the physical and extra-physical life – in different experiences, incorporated all knowledge of intelligence to reflect itself in the “brain of the future” by the reflexive activities of the unconscious.

In the 18^th century, delighted with the complexity of nerves and with the gigantic patrimony that represents the human mind; Descartes formulated the “theory of the animal spirits” that, enclosed in the brain, would circulate in the network of nerves, responding to breathing movements, to moods and to organic defence without conscious participation of the will. He elaborated this theory by observing animals that he considered “machines not endowed with thoughts”.

For André Luiz, culturally, the intelligence is followed by reasoning and this by responsibility. In the evolutionary transformism, reflex precedes instinct that manifests itself in the reflected activity that, in its turn, is the basis of intelligence manifested through acquired knowledge in the activity of acquisition and transmission throughout millennia, followed by reasoning and by responsibility.

To look after the body is more that a duty

When we study the spiritual body (spiritual Individual), we cannot separate automatism (Physiology) from inheritance (Psychology) because throughout time, we see the still latent consciousness building its faculties of organisation, sensibility and intelligence, transforming gradually every nervous activity into psychic activity.

Body Concept – Generally conceptualising, the body is every and any quantity of limited matter that impresses the physical senses, that shape the animated forces or not, to the impulse of the vital principles; animistic and spiritual; the Physical stage through which the animistic element transits in the long journey with the aiming of perfection, quality of pure spirit.

The Divine loan, is an instrument of spiritual evolution on Earth. Slowly, through time, it gets to abandon the coarser organic frames for contours and functions more useful to the future experiences.

To look after the body is more than a duty. It is an elevated commitment from which nobody is free. To love, to look after it, to use it with nobleness is a task that is fit for us all, without tiredness, for our own good. Paul of Tarsus reminds us very well of this commitment in the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, 4:4, when he writes: “that each of you should learn to control his own body^[a] in a way that is holy and honourable”.

Small History - In 1950, palaeontology undertook the present classification of hominoid fossils, simplifying all previous classifications, into the unique Homo , distributed between three classes; transvaalensis, erectus and sapiens, thus making possible new research and discoveries.

Philosophic thought, since its beginnings, has always had as a preoccupation the problem of the evolution of man. From Greek philosophy which reduced everything to incessant transformations, by which all live species were changeable, until Spencer with a broader view of evolution, passing through “Darwin’s natural selection” in which evolutionary concepts cannot be denied and are verified by science today, in the different fields in which they are expressed.

The Spirit’s task in the somatic exteriorsation

“It deserves to be observed, however, that the transmission of coarser forms, of the psychic needs, which impose the emergence of organs and of new characteristics to be transmitted by hereditary and to be fixated, continuing the evolutionary processes incessantly is due to the to the spiritual principle in  successive reincarnations. This affirmation of Joanna de Ângelis in chapter 5 of the book Spiritist Studies, automatically written by Divaldo Pereira Franco, make us understand that, to begin with, the Spirit was found in a retarded expression, using the simian form in transition to fixate in the Spirit new implements: the function precedes the organ and the functions proceeds from the Spirit that shapes the new forms that it needs to grow and produce unknown experiences.

As the form is improved, Superior Spirits impose on it other attributes that through millennia give form to the body which, today, still serves as a dwelling place for the Spirit that will shape new forms through which Humanity will continue to progress.

Joanna de Ângelis still presents us with the following thought, extracted from the above mentioned book: “To the Spirit, which is the being, is due the somatic exteriorsations that constitute the not being”.  It thus becomes clear to understand physical body as a reflex of the spiritual body.

Improved over through a long period of time, this evolution therefore obeys a Higher Plan. Thus, the physical body receives orientations from the Spirit, from reflexive actions (for example to take the hand away from fire) up to intellectual, and the body receives from the Spirit the impressions of the material world through the organs of sense.

 The body is a live being formed by the union of cells which, united, form tissues, organs, and when several organs carry out the same work, we have a system.

The cells vary in form and size, but are united one to another as magnets, according to an orientation will which associate them for the same function and also govern them. In the words of André Luiz, they are “intelligent electromagnetic parts, in super-intelligent electromagnetic machines.

The cells and their submission to the nervous system 

It is important that we remember that, according to modern Biology:

-           A cell is the headquarters of all the organism’s metabolic reactions; 

-           It is originated from pre-existing cells, so there is no spontaneous generation;

-           It contains hereditary material through which the specific characteristics are transmitted from mother-cell to child-cell.

-           It form organs and these are surrounded by the nervous system which, added to the control carried out by hormones, fulfil the ideal functioning for preservation of normal life.

From all these cellular organisations, the one which presents the most complex and extremely delicate function is the nerve cell or neuron that, divided into specific functions, takes care, on one hand of the life of relationship – focused on conscious activities through the organs of sense; and, on another focused on autonomous activities which command, outside the action of the will, the circulatory, respiratory, digestive systems for example. This set of nerves and glands form the plexuses which correspond in then perispirit to the Centres of Force. (In medicine, the bundles of muscles and vases are also considered plexuses).

The automatic repetition of work for the execution of tasks to which the cells are obliged, through intelligence, from maintenance of functioning up to life preservation, characterises cellular automatism.

Through electric and electronic complexes, the human body is self-repairing. The archives of micro-photography in the centres of memory can be considered equal to a construction, that through the techniques of miniaturising with which computers are elaborated, these departments would occupy about 160.000 cubic kilometres, with information regarding only one reincarnation. The cells are, thus, under the command of the mind, submitted to the nervous system, and this gives them such saturation content that explains the demonstrations of mediumistic materialisation. It is a state of stress which makes the medium’s body to exteriorise this energy (ectoplasm) that, manipulated by an external mind (Spirit), takes the desired plasmatic form through this mind, for the objective in question.

(The conclusion of this article will be published in the next edition of the magazine)

Literature:

ÂNGELIS, Joanna de (Spirit)). Spiritist Sutdies. (automatically written by) Divaldo Pereira Franco. 3^rd Editon. Rio de Janeiro: FEB, 1983. Chapter 5.

LUIZ, André (Spirit). Evolution in two Worlds. (automatically wirtten by) Francisco Cândido Xavier. 11^th edition. Rio de Janeiro: FEB, 1989, 1st part, Chapter 4 and 8. 

Sex e Destiny (automatically written by) Francisco Cândido Xavier e Waldo Vieira. 16^th edition, Rio de Janeiro: FEB, 1996, 1st part, Chapter 1, pages 13 & 14, Chapter 3, pages 25 & 26, Chapter 10, pages 105 to 111.

PIRES, J. Herculano – Agonia das Religiões(The Agony of the Religions). 4^th edition, São Paulo: Paideia Publishing House, 1994, Chapter 4