Questions
A. What is one particular phenomenon that always accompanies the incarnation of the Spirit?
B. Why does the Spirit in the reincarnation process, regaining consciousness of itself, loses the memory of its past?
C. Is forgetfulness of the past absolute or relative?
Text for reading
564. Spiritism teaches us that this separation is sometimes quick, easy, gentle and painless; at other times it is slow, laborious and horribly painful due to the moral state of the spirit, and it may take entire months.
565. One particular phenomenon, also pointed out through observation, always accompanies the incarnation of the spirit. Since the spirit is held by the fluidic tie that attaches it to the fetus, confusion seizes it; this confusion increases as the tie strengthens, and during the last moments, the spirit loses all self-awareness so that it is never a conscious witness of its own birth.
566. The moment the newborn breathes, the spirit begins to recover its faculties, which develop as the organs that are to serve for their manifestation form and consolidate. However, at the same time that the spirit recovers its self-awareness, it loses the memory of its past, but without losing the faculties, qualities and aptitudes that it had acquired previously, aptitudes which had remained temporarily in a latent state, and which, upon resuming their activity, will help the spirit do more and do better than what it did in its previous incarnation.
567. It picks up its previous work where it left off; it is for it a new departure point, a new step to climb. Here, the Creator’s goodness is once again expressed, since the remembrance of an often painful or humiliating past, if added to the heartaches of its new existence, could trouble and hamper it. Instead, it remembers only what it has learned because it is useful.
568. If it sometimes retains a vague intuition of past events, it is like the remembrance of a fleeting dream. Therefore, this is indeed a new person despite how old the spirit might be. It leans on new experiences aided by its earlier acquisitions. When it returns to the spirit life, its past unfolds before it and it can then determine whether it used its time well or badly.
569. Thus, there is no gap in the life of the spirit in spite of the forgetfulness of the past. The spirit is always itself before, during and after incarnation; incarnation is but one special phase of its existence. Such forgetfulness occurs only during the outward life of relationships, however. During sleep, while it is partially disengaged from its corporeal ties and restored to freedom and the spirit life, the spirit remembers; its spirit sight is not so obscured by matter.
570. Taking humankind at its lowest degree of the intellectual scale, such as the least evolved humans, one questions if that is the starting point for the human soul. According to the opinion of certain spiritualist philosophers, the intelligent principle, distinct from the material principle, individualizes and develops by passing through the many degrees of animality. This is the time when the soul rehearses for life and develops its first skills through practice. One might say that this is its incubation period. Having arrived at the degree of development that the human state requires, it receives the special characteristics that comprise the human soul. Hence, there would be a spiritual filiation from animal to human being, just as there is a corporeal filiation.
571. Founded on the great law of unity that presides over creation, one must agree that this theory is in keeping with the justice and goodness of the Creator. It gives a reason, an objective and a destiny to animals, which are no longer disinherited beings, but which find in the future reserved for them a compensation for their sufferings. What constitutes the spiritual human being is not its origin, but the special attributes it is endowed with upon entering humanity, attributes that transform it and make it into a distinct being, just as the tasty fruit is distinct from the bitter root that produced it.
572. By having passed through the lineage of animality, the human being would not be any less human; it would not be any more an animal than the fruit is the root, just as a learned person is not the shapeless fetus through which he or she debuted in the world. However, this theory leads to numerous issues, whose pros and cons are not amenable to discussion at the moment, nor would it be appropriate to examine the different theories that have been formulated on the matter.
573. Hence, without searching for the soul’s origin and the channels through which it might have passed, we shall take as its entrance into humanity the point at which, endowed with moral sense and free will, it begins to bear responsibility for its own actions.
574. The incarnate spirit’s obligation to provide for the sustenance of its body, its safety and well-being constrains it to apply its faculties in the search to exercise and develop such faculties. Thus, its union with matter is useful for its evolution and that is why incarnation is a necessity. Furthermore, by means of the intelligent labor that it performs upon matter to its own advantage, it concurs in the physical transformation and progress of the globe that it inhabits. Its laboring for its own progress is how it contributes to the Creator’s work as an unsuspecting agent.
575. The spirit’s incarnation, however, is neither constant nor perpetual; it is only transitory. Upon leaving one body behind, it does not take another immediately. During a shorter or longer length of time, it lives the spirit life, which is its normal life. Hence, the amount of time spent during its different incarnations is very small compared with the time it spends in the state of a free spirit.
576. During the interval between its incarnations, the spirit also progresses in the sense that it uses for its advancement the knowledge and experience it acquired during its corporeal life. It examines what it did during its earthly stay, reviews what it learned, recognizes its wrongs, draws up its plans and makes resolutions by which it hopes to be guided in a new existence as it tries to do better. It is in this way that each life is a step forward on the path of progress, a sort of a practical schooling.
577. Incarnation is therefore not normally a punishment for the spirit, as some might think, but a condition inherent to the unevolved state of the spirit and a means of progressing. As the spirit progresses morally, it dematerializes; that is, by freeing itself from the influence of matter, it purifies itself. Its life becomes more spiritualized and its abilities and perceptions broaden; its happiness is a result of the progress it has accomplished. However, since it acts in virtue of its free will, it can, through negligence or ill will, delay its advancement. Consequently, it prolongs the duration of its material incarnations, which then become a punishment, since due to its own fault it remains in the lower ranks and must start the same task all over again. It thus depends on the spirit itself to shorten — through its own efforts at self-purification — the extent of the period of incarnations.
578. The physical progress of a planet accompanies the moral progress of its inhabitants. Now, since the creation of worlds and spirits is incessant, and since the latter progress quickly or slowly by virtue of their free will, it follows that there are both newer and older worlds at different degrees of physical and moral advancement; worlds where incarnation is more material or less so, and where, consequently, the labor for spirits is also harsher or less harsh.
579. From this point of view, earth is one of the least advanced. Because it is populated with relatively low ordered spirits, corporeal life is harder than on other worlds, just as there are less-evolved worlds where life is even harder than on the earth, and for whom the earth would be a relatively happy world.
580. When, on one world, spirits have accomplished the amount of progress that the state of that world makes possible, they leave it in order to incarnate on another that is more advanced, where they acquire new knowledge; this process continues until incarnation in physical bodies is no longer useful, and they live the spirit life exclusively, where they progress in yet another sense and through other means.
581. When they arrive at the culminating point of progress, they enjoy supreme bliss. Admitted into the counsels of the Almighty, they have God’s thought and become God’s messengers and direct ministers in the government of worlds, having under their orders other spirits at different degrees of advancement.
582. Hence, all spirits, incarnate or discarnate, at whatever degree they may find themselves in the spirit hierarchy, from the lowest to the highest, have their functions in the grand mechanism of the universe. All are useful to the whole while at the same time useful to themselves; the least advanced, as happens with unskilled underlings, are charged with material tasks, at first unconsciously and then gradually more aware. There is activity everywhere in the spirit world; nowhere is there useless idleness.
583. The collectivity of spirits is, in a way, the soul of the universe. It is the spiritual element that acts in everything and everywhere under the impulse of the divine thought. Without this element there is only inert matter, without purpose, without intelligence, and without any other driving power than the physical forces that leave a multitude of unsolvable problems. Through the action of the individualized spiritual element, everything has a purpose, a reason for being; everything is explained. This is why, without spirituality, one runs into insurmountable difficulties.
584. When the earth possessed the climactic conditions appropriate for the existence of the human species, human spirits began to incarnate on it. Where did they come from? Whether they were created at that moment, or whether they came completely formed from the earth, space or other worlds, their presence after a certain time is a fact, because before their arrival there were only animals.
585. They clothed themselves in bodies that were appropriate for their special needs and aptitudes, and which physiologically belonged to animality. Under their influence and by the exercising of their faculties, these bodies changed and improved — this is what results from observation.
586. Thus, let us set aside the issue of origin as being unsolvable for the time being; let us consider the spirit, not at its point of departure, but at the point in which the first seeds of free will and moral sense start to manifest in it: we see it performing its human-related role, without troubling ourselves with the environment where it had spent the period of its infancy, or, if one prefers, its incubation.
587. Despite the similarity of its envelope to that of the animals, by the intellectual and moral faculties that characterize it, we are able to distinguish the human spirit from the latter, just as beneath the same woolen garments we may distinguish the uncouth from the refined person.
588. Although the first humans to arrive must have been little-advanced, and for that very reason had to incarnate in highly imperfect bodies, they must have had among them perceivable differences in their characteristics and aptitudes. Kindred spirits naturally grouped together due to similarity and affinity. The earth was thus populated with diverse categories of spirits who varied in their desire either to progress or to rebel against progress. Their bodies received the imprint of their spirit’s character, and procreating according to their respective types, the result was races that differed both physically and morally.
589. Similar spirits continued to incarnate, preferably amongst those who were similar to them, thereby perpetuating the distinctive physical and moral characteristics of the various races and their peoples. Such characteristics are lost only over long periods of time through interbreeding and the progress of the spirits.
590. The spirits who came to populate the earth may be compared to those multitudes of immigrants of various origins who go to settle in a virgin land. There they find wood and stone to build their dwellings, and individuals give theirs their own different style, according to the degree of their own knowledge and particular flair. There, they form groups based on similarity of origin and taste, and these groups end up forming tribes and then whole nations with their own customs and character.
591. Therefore, progress has not been uniform throughout the human species. The more intelligent races naturally surpassed the others, aside from the fact that, upon coming to incarnate on the earth after the arrival of the first ones, spirits newly born to the spirit life rendered the differences in progress more noticeable. In fact, it would be impossible to attribute the same antiquity of creation to the primitives barely distinguishable from the apes, to the Chinese, for example, and even less to civilized Europeans. Nevertheless, the spirits of primitives also belong to humankind; someday they will reach the level of their elders.
Answer Key
A. What is one particular phenomenon that always accompanies the incarnation of the Spirit?
One particular phenomenon, also pointed out through observation, that always accompanies the incarnation of the spirit is the fact that the spirit is held by the fluidic tie that attaches it to the fetus, confusion seizes it; this confusion increases as the tie strengthens, and during the last moments, the spirit loses all self-awareness so that it is never a conscious witness of its own birth. The moment the newborn breathes, the spirit begins to recover its faculties, which develop as the organs that are to serve for their manifestation form and consolidate. (Genesis, Chap. XI, item 20)
B. Why does the Spirit in the reincarnation process, regaining consciousness of itself, loses the memory of its past?
At the same time that the spirit recovers its self-awareness, it loses the memory of its past, but without losing the faculties, qualities and aptitudes that it had acquired previously, aptitudes which had remained temporarily in a latent state, and which, upon resuming their activity, will help the spirit do more and do better than what it did in its previous incarnation. It picks up its previous work where it left off; it is for it a new departure point, a new step to climb. Here, the Creator’s goodness is once again expressed, since the remembrance of an often painful or humiliating past, if added to the heartaches of its new existence, could trouble and hamper it. Instead, it remembers only what it has learned because it is useful.
If it sometimes retains a vague intuition of past events, it is like the remembrance of a fleeting dream. Therefore, this is indeed a new person despite how old the spirit might be. It leans on new experiences aided by its earlier acquisitions. When it returns to the spirit life, its past unfolds before it and it can then determine whether it used its time well or badly. (Genesis, Chap. XI, item 20)
C. Is forgetfulness of the past absolute or relative?
The forgetfulness is, as we saw, relative. There is no gap in the life of the spirit in spite of the forgetfulness of the past. The spirit is always itself before, during and after incarnation; incarnation is but one special phase of its existence. Such forgetfulness occurs only during the outward life of relationships, however. During sleep, while it is partially disengaged from its corporeal ties and restored to freedom and the spirit life, the spirit remembers; its spirit sight is not so obscured by matter. (Genesis, chap. XI, items 21 and 22)
