Recent Genetic studies about behavior have brought new issues, with important implications for the understanding of the Doctrine. In a tentative to make these issues known, we decided to write this article.

Incarnation puts the Spirit in a special condition, imposing restrictions to it, making it a target of deep influences. Kardec recognizes the importance of that state, when he says that the incarnated Spirit is under the influence of matter. (LE, Introduction, item VI).

The Encoder refers to what influences? We believe that these influences take place on two levels: cultural and biological. 

Cultural influences

The influences that environment exercises over the reincarnated Individuality, whether it is the shared environment or the non-shared environment. The shared environment is the one that influences us and our brothers in the same way: our parents, our domestic life and our neighborhood. The non-shared or unique environment is everything else: everything that influences one brother, but not the other, including the parents’ favoritism, the presence of other brothers, unique experiences such as falling off a bike, or being infected by a virus, and, in fact, anything that happens to us during our life, which does not necessarily happen to our brothers.

Studies in different areas of human knowledge have shown that, almost invariably, people shape themselves according to their peers in the environments in which they live and develop within the possibilities that the environment around offers them.

The importance of environmental influences in shaping human personality is noted in Allan Kardec’s thought. He recalls that although the Spirit keeps, in his knew life, traces of the moral character of previous lives, this is not always obvious because their social position can also not be the same. If from a master he becomes a slave, his inclinations will be very different and we would have difficulties in recognizing him. Since the Spirit is the same, in various incarnations, its manifestations may show certain similarities. These, however, are modified by the customs of the new position, until a remarkable improvement will completely change its character. (LE, item 216) 

Biological influences

The reincarnation process also submits the Spirit to important biological influences, linked especially to the genes responsible for the organization and functioning of his body, especially the brain, where significant part of the genome is expressed.

The brain is the organ of expression of thought, through which the Spirit interacts with the environment and the people around him. He works from electrical impulses that connect his approximately 85 billion neurons. These connections, called synapses, depend on the interaction of hundreds of proteins and neurotransmitters. The genes specify the proteins that participate in the process of construction and functioning of the brain. Different genes will build different brains, hence its importance.

The behavioral genetic studies have shown that genes play an important role in the behavior (“how a person is"). To some extent, people create their own experiences for genetic reasons. Genetic research on personality is extensive and is described in several books. The basic message is: the genes have an important contribution to individual differences in personality. Personality traits, as risk behaviors, often called sensation seeking, the use and drug abuse, shyness, obesity, antisocial behavior, intelligence and learning abilities have a consistent substantial genetic influence. (Behavioral Genetics, Plomin).

Studies show how the similarities between identical twins can be amazing, especially in those, whose brains were formed with the genetic recipes. Their minds are amazingly similar, not only in crude measures like IQ and personality traits such as neuroticism and introversion. They are similar in talents like spelling and math, in their opinions on issues such as apartheid, death penalty, working mothers, career choice, hobbies, vices, religious devotions and the same taste for girlfriends. Identical twins are more alike than fraternal twins, who share only half of the genetic recipes and, what is more surprising is that those, who are raised apart, are almost as similar as those, who are brought up together. Identical twins separated at birth have common characteristics like walking backwards to step in the water, and allowing water only to the knees, abstaining from voting in elections because they feel insufficiently informed, obsessively counting everything in sight, becoming captain of a voluntary fire brigade, leaving loving little notes around the house for their wives, flushing before and after using the toilet, or pretending to sneeze in a crowded elevator. (How the Mind Works, Pinker).

It is also important to consider the indirect effects of genes: tall men, on average, are promoted in their jobs more quickly than the short ones; and attractive people are usually more confident than the unattractive people. In one experiment, individuals were undergoing a fake interview and it was suddenly interrupted and they had to wait while the interviewer was called out of the room. The non-attractive candidates waited nine minutes before complaining; the attractive three minutes and twenty seconds. (Tabula rasa, Pinker).

The influence of the body in the incarnate Spirit’s behavior is amply demonstrated in the work of Kardec. Let us see:
 

The Spirit is certainly influenced by matter, which may hinder its manifestations. (LE, item 846)

The incarnate Spirit, since he suffers the influence of the body, his character changes, according to circumstances and bends to the needs and care imposed by that same body (RE, January 1866)

[...] A peaceful Spirit, although in a bilious body, will always be peaceful, and a violent Spirit, even in a lymphatic body will not be mild; only violence will take another character. Lacking a body itself to second his violence, cholera will become concentrated, while in the other case it will be expansive. (ESE, Chapter IX, item 10)

Intelligence depends on the state of the body that you obtain. (LE, item 180)

When changing bodies, certain intellectual faculties may be lost. (LE, item 220)

The organs are the instruments of the manifestation of the faculties of the soul. This manifestation is subject to the development and the degree of perfection of the respective organs. (LE, item 369)

Madness is always caused by a disorganized body and not by a disorganized Spirit. (LE, item 375-a)

The two existing natures in man, which furnish his passions, are from two different sources: some come from his animal instincts, others from the impurities of the incarnate Spirit. (LE, item 605-a)

In humans, only the body comes from the animal, the passions that arise from the influence of the body and the survival instinct inherent to matter [...] (LE, item 611)

The temperament is at least partly determined by the nature of the Spirit, which is cause and not effect. We say partly, because there are cases where the body does influence the moral: it is when a morbid or abnormal state is determined by an external cause, accidental, independent of the Spirit, such as temperature, climate, hereditary vices of formation, a constitution, a temporary illness, and so on. The moral of the Spirit can then be affected in its manifestations by this pathological state, without its intrinsic nature being changed. (RE, March 1869)

There are vicious inclinations, of course, inherent in the Spirit, because they are more moral than physical; others seem more a consequence of the organism. (RE, March 1869)

Note: All italics and underline are ours.

Translator’s note:

LE – Book of Spirits       ESE – Gospel according to Spiritism        RE – Spiritist Magazine

(This article will be completed in the next issue of this magazine).