258. In the state of erraticity, and before taking on a new corporeal existence, does a spirit foresee the things which will happen to him in that new existence?

"He chooses for himself the kind of trials which he will undergo, and it is in this freedom of choice that his freewill consists."

 

– It is not God, then, who imposes upon him the tribulations of life as a chastisement?

"Nothing comes to pass without the permission of God, for it is He who has established all the laws that rule the universe. You would have to inquire why He has made such and such a law, instead of taking some other way. In giving to a spirit the liberty of choice, He leaves to him the entire responsibility of his acts and of their consequences. There is nothing to bar his future; the right road is open to him as freely as the wrong road. But if he succumbs, there still remains to him the consoling fact that all is not over with him, and that God in His goodness allows him to recommence the task which he has done badly. You must, moreover, always distinguish between what is the work of God's will and what is the work of man's will. If a danger threatens you, it is not you who have created this danger, but God; but you have voluntarily elected to expose yourself to this danger, because you have seen in so doing a means of advancement, and God has permitted you to do so."

 

259. If the spirit has the choice of the kind of trials which he will undergo, does it follow that all the tribulations we experiance in the earthly life have been foreseen and chosen by us?

 "It would not be correct to say that such has been the case with all of them; for you cannot be said to have chosen and foreseen all the things which happen to you in this life, and all their details. You have chosen the kind of trial to which you are subjected; the details of this trial are a consequence of the general situation which you have chosen, and are often the result of your own actions.

"If, for instance, a spirit has chosen to be born among malefactors, he knew to what kind of temptations he was exposing himself, but not each one of the actions which he would accomplish; those actions are the effect of his volition, of his free-will. A spirit knows that, in choosing such and such a road, he will have such and such a kind of struggle to undergo; he knows, therefore, the nature of the vicissitudes which he will encounter, but he does not know whether these will present themselves under one form or under another. The details of events spring from circumstances and the force of things. It is only the leading events of his new life, those which will exercise a determining effect on his destiny, that are foreseen by him. If you enter upon a road full of ruts, you know that you must walk very warily, because you run a risk of stumbling; hut you do not know the exact place where you will stumble, and it may be

that, if you are sufficiently on your guard, you will not stumble at all. If, when you are passing along a street, a tile falls upon your head, you must not suppose that 'it was written,' as the common saying is."

 

260. How can a spirit choose to be born among those who are leading a bad life?

"It is necessary for him to be sent into the conditions which will furnish the elements of the trial he has demanded. To this end, there must be a correspondence between the imperfection of which he desires to free himself, and the social surroundings into which he is born. For example, if he have to struggle against the instinct of brigandage, it is necessary for him to be thrown among brigands."

 

– If, then, there were no evil livers upon the earth, spirits could not find in it the conditions necessary to certain kinds of trial?

"Would there be any reason for complaining, if such were the case? The case you suppose is that of the worlds of higher order, to which evil has no access, and which are therefore inhabited only by good spirits. Try to bring about such a state of things as soon as possible in your earth."

 

261. Is it necessary for the spirit, in the course of the trials to which he has to submit in order to arrive at perfection, to undergo every sort of temptation? Must he encounter all the circumstances that can excite in him pride, jealousy, avarice, sensuality, etc.?

"Certainly not, since there are, as you know, many spirits who take from the beginning a road which spares them the necessity of undergoing many of those trials; but he who suffers himself to be drawn into the wrong road, exposes himself to all the dangers of that road. A spirit, for instance, may ask for riches, and his demand may he granted; and, in that case, he will become, according to his character, avaricious or prodigal, selfish or generous, and will make a noble use of his wealth, or waste it on vanity or sensuality; but this does not imply that he will be compelled to run the gauntlet of all the evil tendencies that may be fostered by the possession of riches."

 

262. As a spirit, at its origin, is simple, ignorant, and without experience, how can he make an intelligent choice of an existence, and how can he be responsible for such a choice?

"God supplies what is lacking through his inexperience, by tracing out for him the road which he has to follow, as you do for the infant in its cradle; but he allows him, little by little, to become the master of his choice, in proportion as his free-will becomes developed; and it is then that he often loses his way and takes the wrong road, if he do not listen to the advice of the good spirits, who endeavour to instruct him; it is this which may be called the fall of man."

 

– When a spirit is in possession of his free-will, does the choice of his corporeal existence always depend solely on his own volition, or is this existence sometimes imposed on him by God as an expiation?

"God can afford to wait; He never hurries the work of expiation. Nevertheless, God does sometimes impose an existence upon a spirit, when the latter, through his ignorance or his obstinacy, is incapable of perceiving what would be to his advantage, and when He sees that this existence may subserve his purification and advancement, while furnishing him also with the conditions of expiation."

 

263. Do spirits make their choice immediately after death?

"No; many of them believe their sufferings to be eternal: you have already been told that this is a chastisement."

 

264. What is it that decides a spirits choice of the trials which he determines to undergo?

"He chooses those which may serve to expiate faults, and at the same time help him to advance more quickly. In view of these ends, some may impose upon themselves a life of poverty privations, in order to exercise themselves in bearing them with courage; others may wish to test their powers of resistance by the temptations of fortune and of power, much more dangerous, because of the bad use that may be made of them, and the evil passions that may be developed by them; others, again, may desire to strengthen their good resolutions by having to struggle against the influence of vicious surroundings."

 

265. If some spirits elect to expose themselves to the contact of vice as a trial of their virtue, may it not be that others make a similar choice from a desire to live amidst surroundings in unison with their depraved tastes, and in which they may give free course to their sensual tendencies?

"Such instances undoubtedly occur; but only among those whose moral sense is still but imperfectly developed. In such cases, the needed trial occurs spontaneously, and they are subjected to it for a longer time. Sooner or later, they will understand that indulgence of the animal instincts leads to disastrous consequences, which they will undergo during a period so long that it will seem to them to be eternal; and God sometimes leaves them in this state until they have comprehended the gravity of their fault, and demand, of their own accord, to be allowed to repair it by undergoing trials of a profitable nature."

 

266. Does it not seem natural to make choice of such trials as are least painful?

"From your point of view, it would seem to be so, but not from that of the spirit; when he is freed from materiality, his illusions cease, and he thinks differently".

 

Man, while upon the earth, and subjected to the influence of carnal ideas, sees only the painful aspect of the trials he is called upon to undergo; and it therefore appears to him to be natural to choose the trials that are allied to material enjoyments. But when he has returned to spirit-life, he compares those gross and fugitive enjoyments with the unchangeable felicity of which he obtains occasional glimpses, and judges that such felicity will be cheaply purchased by a little temporary suffering. A spirit may, therefore, make choice of the hardest trial, and consequently of the most painful existence, in the hope of thereby attaining more rapidly to a happier state, just as a sick man often chooses the most unpalatable medicine in the hope of obtaining a more rapid cure. He who aspires to immortalise his name by the discovery of an unknown country does not seek a flowery road. He takes the road which will bring him most surely to the aim he has in view, and he is not deterred from following it even by the dangers it may offer. On the contrary, he braves those dangers for the sake of the glory he will win if he succeeds.

The doctrine of our freedom in the choice of our successive existences and of the trials which we have to undergo ceases to appear strange when we consider that spirits, being freed from matter, judge of things differently from men. They perceive the ends which these trials are intended to work out – ends far more important for them than the fugitive enjoyments of earth. After each existence, they see the steps they have already accomplished, and comprehend what they still lack for the attainment of the purity which alone enable them to reach the goal; and they willingly submit to the vicissitudes of corporeal life, demanding of their own accord to be allowed to undergo those which will aid them to advance most rapidly. There is, therefore, nothing surprising in a spirit making choice of a hard or painful life. He knows that he cannot, in his present state of imperfection, enjoy the perfect happiness to which he aspires but he obtains glimpses of that happiness, and he seeks to effect his own improvement, as the sole means to its attainment.

Do we not, every day, witness examples of a similar choice? what is the action of the man who labours, without cessation or repose, to amass the property which will enable him eventually to live in comfort, but the discharge of a task which he has voluntarily assumed as the means of insuring for himself a more prosperous future? The soldier who offers himself for the accomplishment of a perilous mission, the traveller who braves dangers no less formidable in the interest of science or of his own fortune, are examples of the voluntary incurring of hardships for the sake of the honour or profit that will result from their successful endurance. What will not men undergo for gain or for glory? Is not every sort of competitive examination a trial to which men voluntarily submit in the hope of obtaining advancement in the career they have chosen? He who would gain a high position in science, art, industry, is obliged to pass through all the lower degrees which lead up to it, and which constitute so many trials. Human life is thus seen to be modelled on spirit-life, presenting the same vicissitudes on a smaller scale. And as in the earthly life we often make choice of the hardest conditions as means to the attainment of the highest ends, why should not a disincarnate spirit, who sees farther than he saw when incarnated in an earthly body, and for whom the bodily life is only a fugitive incident, make choice of a laborious or painful existence, if it may lead him or towards an eternal felicity? Those who say that, since spirits have the power choosing their existences, they will demand to be princes and millionaires, are like the purblind, who only see what they touch, or like greedy children, who, when asked what occupation they would prefer to follow, reply that they would like to be pastry-cooks or confectioners.

It is with a spirit as with a traveller, who, in the depths of a valley obscured by fog, sees neither the length nor the extremities of his road. When he has reached the top of the hill, and the fog has cleared away, his view takes in both the road along which he has come and that by which he has still to go. He sees the point which he has to reach, and the obstacles he has to overcome in reaching it, and he is thus able to take his measures for successfully accomplishing his journey. A spirit, while incarnated, is like the traveller at the foot of the hill; when freed from terrestrial trammels, he is like the traveller who has reached the top of the hill. The aim of the traveller is to obtain rest after fatigue; the aim of the spirit is to attain to perfect happiness after tribulations and trials.

Spirits say that, in the state of erraticity, they seek, study, observe, in order to make their choice wisely. Have we not examples of analogous action in corporeal life? Do we not often spend years in deciding on the career upon which, at length, we freely fix our choice, because we consider it to be the one in which we are most likely to succeed? If, after all, we fail in the one we have chosen, we seek out another; and each career thus embraced by us constitutes a phase, a period, of our life. Is not each day employed by us in deciding what we shall do on the morrow? And what, for a spirit, are his different corporeal existences, but so many phases, periods, days, in comparison with his spirit-life, which, as we know, is his normal life, the corporeal life being only a transitional passage?

 

267. Can a spirit make his choice while in the corporeal state?

"His desire may exercise a certain amount of influence, according to the quality of his

intention; but, when he returns to spirit-life, he often judges things very differently. It is only as a spirit that he makes his choice; but he may, nevertheless, make it during the material life, for a spirit, even while incarnated, has occasional moments in which he is independent of the matter he inhabits."

 

– Many persons desire earthly greatness and riches, but not, assuredly, either as expiation or as trial.

"Undoubtedly; in such cases it is their material instinct which desires greatness in order to enjoy its satisfactions. The spirit could only desire it in order to understand its vicissitudes."

 

268. Until a spirit has reached the state of perfect purity, has he constantly to undergo trials?

"Yes; but not such as you understand by that term. By the term trials, you understand only material tribulations. But when a spirit has reached a certain degree of purification, although he is not yet perfect, he has no more tribulations of that kind to undergo. He has, nevertheless, to perform certain duties which advance his own improvement, but there is nothing painful in these, as, for example, the duty of aiding others to work out their own improvement."

 

269. Is it possible for a spirit to make a mistake as to the efficacy of the trial he chooses?

"He may choose one which exceeds his strength, and, in that case, he will succumb; or he may choose one from which he will reap no profit whatever, as, for instance, if he seeks to lead an idle and useless life. But, in such cases, he perceives, on returning to the spirit-world, that he has gained nothing, and he then demands to make up for lost time."

 

270. What is the cause of the vocations of some persons, and their spontaneous desire to follow one career rather than another?

"It seems to me that you yourselves might answer this question. Is not the existence of such vocations a necessary consequence of what we have told you concerning the choice of trials, and of the progress accomplished in a preceding existence?"

 

271. As a spirit in the wandering state studies the various conditions of corporeal life that will aid him to progress, how can he suppose that he will do so by being born, for example, among cannibals?

"Those who are born among cannibals are not advanced spirit, but spirits who are still at the cannibal degree, or, it may be, who are even lower than cannibals."

 

We know that our anthropophagi are not at the lowest degree of the scale, and that there are worlds in which are found degrees of brutishness and ferocity that have no analogues in our earth. The spirits of those worlds are, therefore, lower than the lowest of our world, and to come among our savages is, for them, a step in advance, as it would be for our cannibals to exercise, in a civilised community, some profession obliging them to shed blood. If they take no higher aim, it is because their moral backwardness does not allow of their comprehending any higher degree of progress. A spirit can only advance gradually; he cannot clear at a single bound the distance which separates barbarism from civilisation. And in this impossibility we see one of the causes that necessitate reincarnation, which is thus seen to be really a consequence of the justice of God for what would become of the millions of human beings who die every day in the lowest depths of degradation, if they had no means of arriving at higher states? And why should God have refused to them the favours granted to other men?

 

272. Can spirits, coming from a world of lower degree than the earth, or from the lowest of our human races, such as our cannibals, for instance, be born among our civilised peoples?

"Yes, such spirits sometimes come into your world, through trying to reach a degree too far above them; but they are out of their proper place among you, because they bring with them instincts and habits that clash with the convictions and habits of the society into which they have strayed."

 

Such beings present us with the melancholy spectacle of ferocity in the midst of civilisation. For them, to return among cannibals is not a going down, but only a resuming of their proper place; and they may even gain by so doing.

 

273. Might a man belonging to a civilised race be reincarnated, as an expiation, in a savage race?

"Yes; but that would depend on the kind of expiation he bad incurred. A master who had been cruel to his slaves might become a slave in his turn, and undergo the torments he had inflicted on others. He who has wielded authority may, in a new existence, be obliged to obey those who formerly bent to his will. Such an existence may be imposed upon him as an expiation if he have abused his power. But a good spirit may also choose an influential existence among the people of some lower race, in order to hasten their advancement; in that case, such a reincarnation is a mission."