Questions
A. According to Spiritism, what is the meaning of the "Earthly Paradise" referred to in the Bible?
B. What can we learn from Cain's escape and his marriage in a distant city?
C. What is the meaning of the word miracle, in its true etymological sense, and what does it define?
Reading Text
724. Nature and fluid properties - Science has solved the issue: miracles, specifically those which are originated from the material element, or by explaining them, or by demonstrating them to be impossible, according to the laws that rule matter. But science has not been able to explain the phenomena in which the spiritual element prevails. This is the reason why, above all, it displays the apparent features of the wonderful. Therefore, it is in the laws that govern the spiritual life that we can find the explanation for such miracles.
725. The universal cosmic fluid is, as we already know, the early elementary matter, and its changes and transformations give place to the variety of existing beings and bodies in our Nature. Being a basic principle of the Universe, it appears in two different states: the ethereal or weightlessness, which can be considered the primitive normal state, and the one of materialization or able to be weighed, which follows the first. The intermediate point is the change of the fluid into tangible matter.
726. Each of these two states cause two different types of phenomena: the first one refers to the phenomena of the invisible world, and the second, to those of the visible world. Science is responsible for the so-called material phenomena. Spiritism is responsible for the spiritual or psychic phenomena (1), because they regard the Spirits. But as the spiritual life and bodily life are in a constant interconnection, these phenomena, material and spiritual, often occur simultaneously.
727. While man is in his body he can only perceive the psychic phenomena, which relates to bodily life. The ones belonging to the spiritual world cannot be sensed and can only be perceived in the Spiritual state.
728. In the ethereal state, the cosmic fluid is not uniform; while being ethereal, it suffers various changes and perhaps more numerous than in the state of tangible matter. These modifications constitute distinct fluids that, although coming from the same principle, are endowed with special properties and give rise to phenomena peculiar to the invisible world.
729. Since everything is relative, the Spirits see these fluids in a material state, in the same manner as the embodied see the tangible objects. For the Spirits the fluids are the same as for us are the substances of the earthly world. They elaborate and combine them to produce certain effects, as men do with their materials, though using different processes. There, however, in the same way it happens in this world, only the most enlightened Spirits are capable of understanding the role played by the constituent elements of the world where they are. The ignorant in the spiritual world cannot understand the phenomena they see, even though they often cooperate mechanically with them, in the same way the ignorant on Earth cannot explain the effects of light or electricity and how they can see and hear it.
730. The fluidic elements of the spiritual world are beyond our analysis and our senses, and we have a perception of the tangible matter but not of the ethereal matter. There are some which belong to such a different environment that we can only imperfectly understand them, in the same manner a man born blind tries to have an idea of colors.
731. There are, however, among those fluids some so linked to our physical life that in a way they belong to our earthly environment. Not being able to see them directly, however, their effects can be seen as the magnet fluid, a fluid that has never been seen, and we can acquire precise knowledge about their nature.
732. Nothing else can give us the idea of absolute purity, as the starting point of the universal fluid. The opposite point is the one when it turns into tangible matter. Between the two extreme points, many changes occur, and roughly approximate of one and the other.
733. The fluids, which are closer to matter, however less pure, form the spiritual environment of the Earth. This environment has various degrees of purity and the embodied and disembodied Spirits draw from it the necessary elements for their existences. As much as these fluids are subtle and ethereal for us, they continue being of a rough nature, if compared to the ethereal fluids of the upper regions.
734. Strictly speaking, they cannot be classified as spiritual fluids because they are always more or less quintessential matter. Only the soul or the intelligent principle can be considered truly spiritual. They are so called by comparison and mainly because of the affinity they have with the Spirits. One can say that they are the matter of the spiritual world, reason why they are called spiritual fluids.
735. Who knows the inner constitution of tangible matter? It might only be compact in relation to our senses. This compact matter as seen by us is easily crossed by the spiritual fluids and by the Spirits and it offers no greater resistance, in the same way the transparent bodies are crossed by light.
736. By having the ethereal cosmic fluid as primitive element, it is possible that the tangible matter when disaggregated can return to its ethereal state in the same manner as a diamond, the hardest bodies, can volatilize into an intangible gas. In fact, the solidification of the matter is not more than a transitory state of the universal fluid, which can return to its primitive state, when the cohesion conditions cease.
737. The perisprit, its formation and properties - The perisprit or the Spirit's fluidic body is one of the most important products of the cosmic fluid; it is a condensation of this fluid around a focus of intelligence or soul. We have seen that the carnal body also has its origin in that condensed fluid and transformed into tangible matter. In the perisprit the molecular transformation operates differently, because the fluid retains its weightlessness and its ethereal qualities. The perispritic and the body have, therefore, their origin in the same primitive element; both are matter, although in two different states.
738. The Spirit draws its perisprit from the environment in which he is, i.e. he forms his wrapping with the environmental fluids. It follows that the elements that form the perisprit naturally vary according to the worlds. Considering Jupiter as a very advanced world, if compared to our Earth, as a planet where the bodily life is not material like ours, the perisprit wrappings will be there of a much more quintessential nature than here.
739. Therefore, as we could not live in that world with our body, also our Spirit could not enter this world with the wrapping of our perisprit. Leaving Earth, the Spirit leaves here its fluidic wrapping and takes another one in the world where he is going to live.
740. The nature of the fluidic wrapping is always related to the degree of moral advancement of the Spirit. Inferior spirits cannot change their wrapping at their own criteria, so they cannot easily go from one world into another. Therefore, the wrappings of some, although ethereal and weightless regarding the tangible matter, are still very heavy, if we can use these words, if compared to those of the spiritual world, thus not allowing them to leave the environment where they are meant to be.
741. Those with very coarse perisprits are included in the above mentioned category. They mistake this coarse perisprit and take it for their own flesh and that is the reason why they believe they are still alive. These Spirits in a large number remain on Earth's surface, as if they are embodied and believe to be busy with their earthly occupations. There are other Spirits, a little more dematerialized, however not enough to rise above earthly regions.
742. On the contrary, the superior spirits can come to the lower worlds and even embody in these worlds. They draw from the constituent elements of the world where they enter, the materials to form their fluidic wrapping appropriate to the environment in which they are now. They do as the noble who temporarily strips his clothes to wear common clothes, but by doing this he does not lose his nobility. This is how the higher Spirits can manifest themselves to the Earth's inhabitants or reincarnate to accomplish their mission. Such Spirits do not bring their wrapping but the memory, by intuition, of the places where they came from and which they see in their thoughts. They are clairvoyants among the blind.
743. The layer of spiritual fluids that surrounds the Earth can be compared to the lower layers of the atmosphere, heavier and more compact, and less pure than the upper layers. These fluids are not homogeneous; they are a mixture of different grades of molecules, among which are necessarily the elementary molecules that form their base, however more or less unchanged.
744. The Spirits called to live in such an environment draw their perisprits from it. However, according to the level of purification of the Spirit, its perisprit will be formed from the purest or the coarsest parts of the fluid of the world where he embodies. The Spirit produces there, always by comparison and not by assimilation, the effect of a chemical reactive that draws the molecules that his nature can assimilate.
(1) The designation of psychic phenomenon expresses more accurately the thought than the spiritual phenomenon does, since these phenomena are based on the properties and attributes of the soul, or rather of the perisprit fluids, inseparable from the soul.
Answers to the proposed questions
A. According to Spiritism, what is the meaning of the "Earthly Paradise" referred to in the Bible?
Earthly Paradise is the blissful world where the group of embodied Spirits represented by Adam and Eve lived. The Expulsion from Paradise marks the moment when these Spirits arrived to incarnate among the inhabitants of Earth and this change of situation was the consequence of the expulsion. (Genesis, Chapter XII, item 23)
B. What can we learn from Cain's escape and his marriage in a distant city?
According to biblical records, after killing his brother, Cain left and went to a distant place and he never saw his parents again, who were then living by themselves. Adam - at the age of 130 years - had his third son, who was called Seth. Therefore, when Cain settled east of Eden, there were only three people on this Earth: his father, his mother and himself. However, Cain had a wife and a son. Where did this woman come from and how did he marry her? The Hebrew text also says that Cain built a city in honor of his first child. Well, a city assumes the existence of other inhabitants since it is not believable that Cain would build a city only for himself, his wife and his son. It is also not believable that he built a city all by himself.
From this account we can infer that the region was settled. Moreover, the presence of other people, besides Adam's family, is also highlighted in the following words of Cain: "I will be a restless wanderer and whoever finds me will kill me" and also God's answer on this matter. How could he be afraid of someone killing him if he was only with his wife and son and why did God mark him to avoid that someone might kill him?
There is only one conclusion that seems reasonable to us: if there were other human beings living on Earth, besides Adam's family, it is because these men were there before him, and therefore, we can arrive to this conclusion, based on Genesis, which says that Adam was not the first and not the only father of mankind. (Genesis, Chapter XII, item 25).
C. What is the meaning of the word miracle, in its true etymological sense, and what does it define?
Etymologically, the word miracle (of mirari, admire) means wonderful, extraordinary, amazing. The Academy defined it this way: An act of divine power contrary to the known laws of nature. Like so many others, this word presently has lost its original meaning. From its general meaning it is used today restricted to a particular order of facts. As understood by the masses, a miracle implies the idea of an extra-natural fact; in the theological sense it is an exception to the laws of nature, through which God manifests His power. This is the ordinary meaning of the word today, and it is only through the use of comparison and metaphor that it applies to ordinary circumstances of life. (Genesis, Chapter XIII, items 1 and 2).
