The modern man, although he is a researcher from stratosphere to subsoil, when he faces the subject "grave", he feels the same anguish and affliction just as the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans in earlier times. Centuries went by. Several civilizations appeared and transformations occurred in different peoples. However, man did not get rid of the mystery that involves matter "grave". Death is a millennial question mark and still hurts feelings and tortures intelligences. 

This is the beginning of the preface of the book "Workers of Eternal Life" by Andre Luiz, which presents four cases of disembodiment. The text is modern, except when it mentions researcher from stratosphere to subsoil, because the book was written in 1964, when man had not yet conquered space. However, if written today, only one word would have to be changed: cosmos instead of stratosphere. This is due to the advance of Science. Science advanced incredibly, while man progressed very little regarding "death". 

Death frightens the human being so strongly that it makes him act as a child, and shows his immaturity, and sometimes he even denies his condition of rational being. It is very strange that this creature, considered the King of Creation, is so painfully unprepared before the only certainty common to all human beings: death.

This issue bothers so much, to the point of making adults behave like children. If you ask a person where they want to be buried when they die, we often hear in response the designation of a place of their choice. Then, if asked what will happen to his soul, he will say he hopes it will go to Heaven. However, logic fails easily with a simple question: "What if your soul goes to Hell instead of Heaven? What does this matter to you, because it is your soul that goes and not your body? Did you not say that you wish to be buried in such a place? Well, if you are buried where you wish, it does not matter where your soul goes. You will be with your place secured in the chosen grave. 

It hurts to think about death  

We are always astonished and surprised by these questions and they lead most of us to think for the first time about death. Some of us answer, "It is not me that is going to be buried there, but my body"! But this statement, instead of solving the problem, aggravates it further...

The air of victory vanishes as soon as they notice that they used "my" twice, "my body" and "my soul". "My" indicates possession. Therefore there is a possessor. Who owns that body and that soul?

It is exactly where reasoning fails and makes man not want to discuss this matter, behaving like a child that hides his face with his hands imagining that by doing this the problem is solved, in the same manner as what as ostrich does when it hides its head under the sand when facing any danger. 

Man does not want to think about death because it hurts. When he thinks about this matter, he feels frail and unprepared to face this unavoidable event.

And what is the way out of this impasse? The only logical solution is for man to accept his condition of immortal Spirit, however with a body, through which he acts temporarily. It is the Spirit that thinks, learns, hates, and loves. The body is a mere instrument to be used temporarily. We might even say that it is disposable. The Spirit is immortal and not likely to be destroyed. The Spirit is a living archive of all our experiences while living in this Earth. The spiritual body, which survives the physical body, as Apostle Paul teaches us (I Co, Chapter 15) is the record of all experiences lived by the human being.
 
There is a physical body and a spiritual body also  

In his letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle makes it very clear that there is resurrection in a spiritual body: "How will the dead resurrect? And in which body will they come? And further he says, "So is also the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in decomposition and will return immortal (v. 42)". "The physical body is sown and will resurrect as a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is a spiritual body too (V. 44)". And to be no doubt regarding the nature of the resurrection body, he says, "Now, this is what I say, brethren, flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, nor decomposition inherits immortality (v. 50)".

With the phenomenon of death, the Spirit departs the body, which no longer serves as an instrument, and it may say, "I lived in this body, it served me as a garment for many years." However, the body cannot say, "This Spirit was mine", simply because the body is dead matter, which begins to decompose as soon as death occurs. 

Upon becoming aware of this fact, man starts to have a true consciousness of what is immortality. The more he meditates on the subject (if disconnected from the explanations of certain theologians) he acquires a state of consciousness that can be called "spiritual citizenship". He begins to feel immortal. Death no longer is that terrible disaster, which breaks his being into two or three parts: "My body is going under the ground, my soul is going to eaveHHeaven, and I myself do not know where I am going to".

When man accepts his spiritual citizenship, his horizons widen. He is no longer just a man, but an immortal being, and his faith is not just on Earth, and he feels he belongs to the Universe, to the "many mansions of the Father's house", as Jesus taught us (Jo 14:2) . Thinking like this we conclude that we are essentially Spirits, at the moment embodied. One day, we will leave our earthly body, as Jesus left His, keeping only our Heavenly body, immortal, as our Master taught us in a genial manner! 

Jesus after the Crucifixion  

The most striking lesson about immortality, given by Jesus, was unfortunately buried by the theologians, who preferred to create the absurd theory of the resurrection of the flesh, although Paul had already denied it (I Corinthians, 15:50).

In this regard, there are points that deserve our attention: how did Jesus appear dressed as a man of that time - to the point of Magdalene, when she saw Him from the back, she thought he was the gardener? Let us recall that His body was naked when He was removed from the cross. As stated by the Evangelists, His clothes were divided among the soldiers, according to the custom of the Romans of stripping the crucified (John 19:23). The theological treatises do not explain why Jesus began to act totally different from how He usually performed before the torture. He appeared and disappeared all of a sudden and went through closed doors. Also, He no longer stayed at anyone's home, and He had no meals with them as He had done up to then. 

During that period of forty days, between resurrection and ascension, didn't Jesus want to show that He was still alive, but that He was no longer incarnate? If His body was fleshy, why did He not act this way before? Why would He go back to "Heaven" taking with Him a body, which He did not have before? And, if we reason according to the Catholic-Protestant dogma, that Jesus was God incarnate - or at least one third of the Trinity - how could He take a physical body generated on Earth and add it to Divinity? In this latter case, God then would have not been complete, because what is complete does not accept any other adding... Moreover, this reasoning would have been acceptable during Middle Age when the Earth enjoyed the status of being the center of the Universe, but today, this theory is not acceptable considering our present knowledge about the Cosmos, even if the Universe was formed only by our galaxy, the Milky Way.

What happened to Jesus' body?  

However, for many people one question always arises when this matter is discussed: If the Tomb was empty and the body with which Jesus appeared was Spiritual, where was His physical body then? The Master, of course, could not clarify the matter to those He had lived with, according to His own words, "I still have a lot to tell you, but you cannot bear it now" (John 16:12).  

Fulfilling the promise of Jesus, the Comforter comes to remind us of His lessons and explain many facts recorded by the Evangelists, which at the time were not understood as the sudden appearances of Jesus in the Cenacle, going through closed doors (John 20:19) and fishing (John 21: 4-14), and the mystery of His bewildering disappearance when walking with His fellow pilgrims on the road to Emmaus (Luke, 00:31). These facts, considered as miracles by many theologians, are explained in a clear and logical manner by Spiritism, not as a theological speculation, but with base on the reality of Science, and the research carried out by many scientists regarding the phenomenon of materialization, now called ectoplasm by the parapsychologists. One of them, Sir William Crookes, a famous English physicist proved that the Spirit Katie King, with her spiritual body materialized, behaved within the material plane as if she was incarnate becoming visible, audible and tangible (See "Spiritist Facts", William Crookes, "History of Spiritism", Arthur Conan Doyle). ⁽¹⁾

As for the vanishing of Jesus' physical body, we have an explanation about the dissipation of fluid remaining in cadavers, in the book "Workers of Eternal Life" authored by Andre Luiz (Chapters 15 and 16). It is a pious operation carried out by Spiritual benefactors, which dissipate in the atmosphere the remaining fluids remaining in the body before burial. This is done in order to protect it from being profaned by the inferior spirits, inhabitants of cemeteries. 

Why did the body of Jesus disappear?  

By drawing a parallel, it is logic to suppose that the Master himself was responsible for the dissipation of the remaining energy in His body and, in doing so, it completely dematerialized.

This dematerialization is the most plausible explanation for the appearance of His body - front and back - engraved on the piece of linen called The Holy Shroud, kept by the Catholic Church as a relic, where the figure of a plagued man appears with head injuries, with a wound on his side, and marks of nails on His wrists and feet, as per the New Testament descriptions.

It is easy to understand that the body of Jesus could not stay in the grave, because when it became known that the Master had resurged from death His body would be fatally exposed by the priests in order to deny the resurrection, which, for almost everyone, was just physical.

The Master could not explain everything that happened, because those with whom He lived were not yet sufficiently enlightened to understand what He said. Therefore, He promised, "But the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send unto you in my name, He shall teach you all things and shall bring to your remembrance, everything I have said unto you" (Jo 14:26).

Fulfilling His promise, Jesus sent us Spiritism, which enlightens us about our immortality. 

⁽¹⁾ The book Spiritist Facts, by William Crookes, is the object of a methodical and sequential study in our magazine. Click on http://www.oconsolador.com.br to access the first part of this study, which began in the 376 issue.