851. Is there a fatality in the events of life, in the sense commonly attached to that word – that is to say, are the events of life ordained beforehand, and, if so, what becomes of free-will?

"There is no other fatality than that which results from the determination of each spirit, on incarnating himself, to undergo such and such trials. By choosing those trials he makes for himself a sort of destiny which is the natural consequence of the situation in which he has chosen to place himself. I speak now of physical trials only: for, as regards moral trials and temptations, a spirit always preserves his freedom of choice between good and evil, and is always able to yield or to resist. A good spirit, seeing a man hesitate, may come to his aid, but cannot influence him to the extent of mastering his will. On the other hand, a bad spirit – that is to say, a spirit of inferior advancement, may trouble or alarm him by suggesting exaggerated apprehensions; but the will of the incarnated spirit retains, nevertheless, its entire freedom of choice."

 

852. There are persons who seem to be pursued by a fatality independent of their own action. Are not their misfortunes, in such cases, the result of predestination?

"They may be trials which those persons are compelled to undergo because they have been chosen by them in the spirit-state; but you often set down to destiny what is only the consequence of your own faults Try to keep a clear conscience, and you will be consoled for the greater part of your afflictions.”

 

The true or false view we take of the things about us causes us to succeed or to fail in our enterprises; but it seems to us more easy, and less humiliating to our self-love, to attribute our failures to fate, or to destiny, than to our mistakes. If the influence of spirits sometimes contributes to our success, it is none the less true that we can always free ourselves from their influence, by repelling the ideas they suggest when they are calculated to mislead us.

 

853. They are persons who escape one danger only to fall into another; it seems as though it had been impossible for them to escape death. Is there not a fatality in such cases?

"There is nothing fatal, in the true meaning of the word, but the time of death. When that time has come, no matter under what form death presents itself, you cannot escape it."

 

- If so, whatever danger may seem to threaten us, we shall not die if our hour has not come?

"No, you will not be allowed to die – and of this you have thousands of examples; but when your hour has come, nothing can save you. God knows beforehand the manner in which each of you will quit your present life, and this is often known also to your spirit; for it is revealed to you when you make choice of such and such existence."

 

854. Does it follow, from the inevitability of the hour of death, that the precautions we take in view of apparent danger are useless?

"No, for those precautions are suggested to you in order that you may avoid the dangers with which you are threatened. They are one of the means employed by Providence to prevent death from taking place prematurely."

 

855. What is the aim of Providence in making us incur dangers that are to be without result?

"When your life is imperilled, it is a warning which you yourself have desired, in order to turn you from evil, and to make you better. When you escape from such a peril, and while still feeling the emotion excited by the danger you had incurred, you think, more or less seriously, according to the degree in which you are influenced by the suggestions of good spirits, of amending your ways. The bad spirit returning to his former post of temptation (I say bad, in reference to the evil that is still in him), you flatter yourself that you will escape other dangers in the same way, and you again give free scope to your passions. By the dangers you incur, God reminds you of your weakness, and of the fragility of your existence. If you examine the cause and the nature of the peril you have escaped, you will see that in many cases its consequences would have been the punishment of some fault you have committed, or of some duty you have neglected. God thus warns you to look into your hearts, and to pursue the work of your self-amendment." (526-532.)

 

856. Does a spirit know beforehand the kind of death to which he will succumb in the earthly life?

"He knows that he has exposed himself by the life he has chosen to die in some particular manner rather than in another; but he also foresees the efforts he will have to make in order to avoid the danger, and he knows that, if God so permit, he will escape it."

 

857. There are men who brave the perils of the battlefield with the full persuasion that their hour is not come; is there any foundation for such confidence?

"A man often has a presentiment of his end; he may, in the same way, have a presentiment that his time for dying has not yet come. These presentiments are due to the action of his spirit-protectors, who may wish to lead him to hold himself ready to go away, or to raise his courage in moments when he has especial need of it. They may also come to him from the intuition he has of the existence he has chosen, or of the mission he has accepted, and which he knows, as a spirit, that he has to fulfil." (411-522.)

 

858. How is it that those who have a presentiment of their death generally dread it less than others?

"It is the man, and not spirit, who dreads death; he who has the presentiment of his death thinks of it rather as a spirit than as a man. He understands that it will be a deliverance, and awaits it calmly."

 

859. If death is inevitable when the time appointed for it has arrived, is it the same in regard to all the accidents that may happen to us in the course of our life?

"They are often small enough to permit of our warning you against them, and sometimes of enabling you to avoid them by the direction we give to your thoughts, for we do not like physical suffering; but all this is of little importance to the life you have chosen. The true and sole fatality consists in the hour at which you have to appear in, and disappear from, the sphere of corporeal life."

 

- Are there incidents which must necessarily occur in a life, and that spirits will not avert?

"Yes, but those incidents you, in your spirit-state, foresaw when you made your choice. But, nevertheless, you must not suppose that everything which happens to you was 'written,' as people express it. An event is often the consequence of something you have done by an act of your free-will, so that, had you not done that thing, the event would not have taken place. If you burn your finger, it is not because such an incident was preordained, for it is a trifling inconvenience resulting from your own carelessness, and a consequence of the laws of matter. It is only the great sorrows, the events of serious importance and capable of influencing your moral state, that are foreordained by God, because they will be useful to your purification and instruction."

 

860. Can a man, by his will and his efforts, prevent events that were to have occurred from taking place, and vice-versa?

"He can do so if this seeming deviation is compatible with the life he has chosen. And, in order to do good, which should be, and is, the sole end of life, he may prevent evil, especially that which might contribute to a still greater evil."

 

861. Did the man who commits a murder know, in choosing his existence, that he would become a murderer?

"No; he knew that, by choosing a life of struggle, he incurred the risk of killing one of his fellow-creatures; but he did not know whether he would, or would not, do so; for there is, almost always, deliberation in the murderer's mind before committing the crime, and he who deliberates is, evidently, free to do or not to do. If a spirit knew beforehand that he would commit a murder, it would imply that he was predestined to commit that crime. No one is ever predestinated to commit a crime; and every crime, like every other action, is always the result of determination and free-will.

"You are all too apt to confound two things essentially distinct – the events of material life, and the acts of moral life. If there is, sometimes, a sort of fatality, it is only in those events of your material life of which the cause is beyond your action, and independent of your will. As to the acts of the moral life, they always emanate from the man himself, who, consequently, has always the freedom of choice; in those acts, therefore, there is never fatality."

 

862. There are persons who never succeed in anything, and who seem to be pursued by an evil genius in all their undertakings; is there not, in such cases, something that may be called a fatality?

"It is certainly a fatality, if you like to call it so, but it results from the choice of the kind of existence made by those persons in the spirit-state, because they desired to exercise their patience and resignation by a life of disappointment. But you must not suppose that this fatality is absolute, for it is often the consequence of a man's having taken a wrong path, one that is not adapted to his intelligence and aptitudes. He who tries to cross a river without knowing how to swim stands a very good chance of drowning; and the same may be said in regard to the greater part of the events of your life. If a man undertook only the things that are in harmony with his faculties, he would almost always succeed. What causes his failure is his conceit and ambition, which draw him out of his proper path, and make him mistake for a vocation what is only a desire to satisfy those passions. He fails, and through his own fault; but, instead of blaming himself, he prefers to accuse his 'star.' One who might have been a good workman, and earned his bread honourably in that capacity, prefers to make bad poetry, and dies of starvation. There would be a place for every one, if every one put himself in his right place."

 

863. Do not social habits often oblige a man to follow one road rather than another, and is not his choice of occupation often controlled by the opinion of those about him? Is not the sentiment which leads us to attach a certain amount of importance to the judgement of others an obstacle to the exercise of our free-will?

"Social habits are made, not by God, but by men; if men submit to them, it is because it suits them to do so, and their submission is therefore an act of their free-will, since, if they wished to enfranchise themselves from those habits, they could do so. Why, then, do they complain? It is not social habits that they should accuse, but their pride, which makes them prefer to starve rather than to derogate from what they consider to be their dignity. Nobody thanks them for this sacrifice to opinion, though God would take note of the sacrifice of their vanity. We do not mean to say that you should brave public opinion unnecessarily, like certain persons who possess more eccentricity than true philosophy: there is as much absurdity in causing yourself to be pointed at as an oddity, or stared at as a curious animal, as there is wisdom in descending, voluntarily and unmurmuringly, when you are unable to maintain yourself at the top of the social ladder."

 

864. If there are persons to whom fate is unpropitious, there are others who seem to be favoured by fortune, for they succeed in everything they undertake. To what is this to be attributed?

"In many cases, to their skilful management of their affairs; but it may also be a species of trial. People are often intoxicated by success; they put their trust in their destiny, and pay in the end for their former successes by severe reverses, which greater prudence would have enabled them to avoid."

 

865. How can we account for the run of luck that sometimes favours people under circumstances with which neither the will nor the intelligence have anything to do; in games of hazard, for instance?

"Certain spirits have chosen beforehand certain sorts of pleasure, the luck that favours them is a temptation. He who wins as a man often loses as a spirit; such luck is a trial for his vanity and his cupidity."

 

866. The fatality which seems to shape our material destinies is, then, a result of our free will?

"You, yourself, have chosen your trial; the severer it is, and the better you bear it, the higher you do raise yourself. Those who pass their lives in the selfish enjoyment of plenty and of human happiness are cowardly spirits who remain stationary. Thus the number of those who are unfortunate is much greater, in your world, than of those who are fortunate, because spirits generally make choice of the trial that will be most useful to them. They see too clearly the futility of your grandeurs and your enjoyments. Besides, the most fortunate life is always more or less agitated, more or less troubled, if only by the absence of sorrow." (525 et seq.)

 

867. Whence comes the expressions: "Born under a lucky star"?

"From an old superstition that connected the stars with the destiny of each human being – a figure that some people are silly enough to take for literal truth."