Questions
A. What is necessary for the soul to finally be submitted to the test of life? When does it develop its abilities?
B. Why does the Spirit attach to matter?
C. Is incarnation a permanent or a transient state?
Reading Text
592. Reincarnations - Reincarnation is a necessary consequence of the Law of Progress. Only reincarnation can explain the evolution from barbarism to our days. If we believe that souls are created at the same time as the bodies, then those born today should be as primitive as those who lived thousands of years ago. And, if we still add that there is no connection between them and no relation at all, then they would be mere strangers. How can we explain the difference made by God between the first primitive souls and the present souls? Why do they have now a better understanding? Why do they have more accurate instincts, milder manners? Why do they have a sense of already knowing certain things, without having learned them?
593. We doubt that someone can solve these issues, unless it admits that God creates souls of various grades, according to time and place, and this is a strongly unacceptable proposition for it is not in accordance with our idea of a just Sovereign. Suppose, instead, that souls living today have lived earlier and were barbaric but progressed along the centuries. Therefore, the souls living now in civilized times are not souls created perfect, but they surely are the earlier ones who improved with time. Then you will have the only likely explanation for social progress.
594. Some think that the soul's different lives are carried out, going from one world to another and not in the same world, where each Spirit would only live there once. This doctrine would be acceptable if all earthly habitants had the same intellectual and moral level. Then they could only progress going from one world to another and there would be no use for them to come back to this Earth.
595. Since we can see here all levels of intelligence and morality, from savagery to the most advanced civilization, we can conclude that this world is a place of improvement. Why should the savage look elsewhere for a level of progress immediately following his, when he can find it beside him, and so on? Why should man in an advanced level make his first stages only in lower worlds, if around him there are beings in an inferior stage, similar to those of the mentioned lower worlds?
596. Thus, there is no need for man to go to another world at each stage of his improvement, just as the student does not have to change school from one class to another. This would not benefit progress instead it would be an obstacle, because the Spirit would be deprived of the example of what occurs in higher levels and of the possibility of repairing his mistakes in the same environment and in the presence of the people who he offended. This is the most powerful way for his moral progress.
597. Besides the moral inconvenience there would be the material inconvenience too. The nature of the elements, the organic laws, the conditions of life are different according to the worlds. There are no two identical worlds. Physics, Chemistry, Anatomy, Medicine and Botany treaties would be of no use in another world. However, what man learns in this world would also not be lost, and this knowledge not only develops his intelligence, but what he learns also contributes for the acquirement of more knowledge.
598. If the Spirit appeared only once and briefly in the same world, at each immigration he would find himself in completely different conditions. Each time he would deal with new elements and with unknown laws and he would leave without having had time to elaborate the knowledge he had previously acquired, to study and apply them. Each time he would have to learn and these continuous changes would be an obstacle to his progress. The Spirit, therefore, has to remain in the same world, until it has acquired the knowledge and level of perfection that this world holds.
599. What is right is for a Spirit to leave this world when there is nothing else to obtain from it. This is the Principle. If some leave this world earlier, due to their behavior, this can only be judged by God's wisdom.
600. God is prudent and wise. This is why everything in creation has a purpose. If the Earth was designed to be a single step of progress for each man, what would be the use for the Spirits of children, who die at an early age, to come and stay here for a few years, months, or hours, during which they can benefit nothing from it? The same applies to idiots and cretins.
601. A theory is valid if it solves all issues to which it relates. The issue of premature deaths has been a stumbling stone in all doctrines, except for the Spiritist Doctrine, which gave the solution in a rational and clear way. For the progress of those who fulfill a normal mission on Earth, there is a real gain in coming back to continue what they left unfinished, often in the same family or in contact with the same people, to repair the evil they have done, or to suffer the penalty of retaliation.
602. Emigration and immigration of Spirits - In between their embodied lives, the Spirits are in an erraticity state (the errant state, wandering Spirits), and form the spiritual population on Earth's environment. The deaths and births, of both the earthly and spiritual populations, they disembogue one in another. Therefore, there are daily emigrations from the corporeal to the spiritual world and immigrations from the spiritual to the corporeal world: this is the normal state.
603. Once in a while, when determined by divine wisdom, these emigrations and immigrations operate on considerable masses, because of the great revolutions that cause them to simultaneous depart in a high number, soon replaced by equivalent amounts of incarnations. The destructive calamities and disasters should therefore be considered as occasions of collective arrivals and departures, providential means of renewing the globe's population, so that it refreshes by introducing new, more purified spiritual elements. In these great destructions there is only like a disruption of garments. No Spirits perishes. They just change from one plan to another, and instead of departing by themselves, individually, they depart in a great number, and this is the only difference, as, for one reason or another, they will inevitably have to leave sooner or later.
604. The rapid renovations, almost instantaneous, which occur in the spiritual element of the population, due to the destructive calamities, speed social progress. Without the emigrations and immigrations that give them a violent impulse, the progress would be very slow. Note that all great calamities that decimate populations are always followed by an era of physical, intellectual or moral progress, and therefore, influence the social status of the nations in which they occur. Their purpose is to improve the spiritual population, which is the normal active population of the world.
605. This movement between the incarnate and disembodied population of a planet, also occurs in other worlds, either individually in normal conditions, or by masses, in special circumstances. There are, therefore, collective emigrations and immigrations from one world to another, resulting in the insertion of entirely new elements in the population of one of them. However, as the Spirits never lose what they have acquired, they always bring with them the intelligence and intuition of the knowledge they possess, which makes them print their peculiar character to the ethnic group in which they will live in. Thus, they only need that new bodies be formed so they can use them. Since the body species exists, they always find bodies ready to receive them. They are therefore only newcomers. In coming to earth, they at first integrate the spiritual population, and then they reincarnate as others.
606. Adamic Race - According to the teaching of the Spirits, it was one of these great immigrations, or, if you prefer, one of those colonies of Spirits, coming from another sphere, which gave rise to the race symbolized in the person of Adam, and for that reason it was called Adamic race. When it arrived here, the Earth was already inhabited since immemorial times, as America, when the first Europeans arrived. More advanced than those that had preceded it in this planet, the Adamic race is considered the most intelligent, and the one who drives all others to progress. The Genesis shows this race, from its beginnings, industrious, fit for arts and sciences, without having passed on this Earth by its spiritual childhood, as what happened with the primitive races, because it consisted of Spirits who had progressed enough.
607. Everything proves that the Adamic race is not ancient on Earth and it is considered as inhabiting this globe since only a few thousand of years, which would not be in contradiction neither with the geological facts, nor with anthropological observations, instead it would tend to confirm them.
608. The knowledge we have today shows us that not all human gender comes from only one and individual, six thousand years ago. From a physiological point of view, some ethnic groups have different features, which show us that they did not have the same origin. There are differences that are obviously not caused by the climate. Whites born in the countries of black people do not become black and vice-versa. The burning sun tans the skins, but never changed a white into black, neither did it flatten his nose or changed the shape of the face, or changed his long silky hair into frizzy hair. Today, we know that the black's color comes from a special subcutaneous tissue, peculiar to the species.
609. It should be therefore considered that the different ethnic groups - Negroes, Mongolian, and Caucasians - had their own origin and were born, simultaneously or successively, in different parts of the globe. Their physiological characters of primitive peoples are a clear indication that they came from special kinds.
610. Adam and his descendants are shown in the Mosaic Genesis as very intelligent men, because from the second generation onwards, they build cities, cultivate the land, and work metals. Their progress in the arts and sciences is quick and lasting. Therefore, we could not imagine that they branched into numerous people so backward, with such a rudimentary intelligence, as our savages. Such a radical difference regarding their intellectual abilities a moral development is proof that they are from a different origin.
611. Regardless of the geological facts, through the world's population we have the proof of the existence of man on Earth, before the time fixed by the biblical Genesis. Not to mention the Chinese chronology, which dates back to thirty thousand years, more authentic documents prove that Egypt, India and other countries were villages and flourished, at least three thousand years before the Christian era, a thousand years hence after the creation of man according to biblical chronology.
612. Documents and recent researches confirm the existing relation between America and the ancient Egyptians. Therefore, we can arrive to the conclusion that this region was already populated at that time. Thus, it is unacceptable to believe that in thousands of years, the descendants of one man were able to settle most of the Earth. Now, this kind of fertility would go against all anthropological laws. The Universal Exhibition of 1867 displayed antiques, which, no doubt, are proof of the connection that the Mexican civilization had with the Egyptians.
Answers to the proposed questions
A. What is necessary for the soul to finally be submitted to the test of life? When does it develop its abilities?
The soul has to go through the various degrees of animalism. It then becomes apt to be tested in life, and improves through the practice of its abilities. There is an incubation period. When it reaches the level of development required, it is granted the abilities to become a human soul. In the same way there is a body evolution from animals to man, there is also a spiritual evolution. This system based on the great Law of Unity of Creation shows that God is just and good, because He gives a purpose and destiny to animals and does not consider them underprivileged beings, but has a purpose for them, a recompense for their sufferings. (Genesis, Chapter XI, item 23)
B. Why does the Spirit attach to matter?
Because the Spirit, when embodied, has the obligation to provide food for the body, care for its security, and its well-being. It is forced to use its abilities to research, practice and develop them. That is why it is useful for the Spirit to unite with matter. And this is why there is the need of incarnation. Now we understand why its union with matter becomes so useful. In addition, by means of the intelligent work, which it performs for its own benefit on the matter, it helps in the change and material progress of the globe, which is his house. This is the reason why by progressing, he collaborates with the Creator's work, of which he becomes an unconscious factor. (Genesis, Chapter XI, item 24).
C. Is incarnation a permanent or a transient state?
Incarnation is a transient state. When a Spirit leaves a body, it does not return immediately in another body. For quite a while it lives in spiritual life, which is his normal life. Let us remember that incarnation is an inexpressive fraction of time, if compared to the period while the Spirit is free. (Genesis, Chapter XI, item 25).
