965. Is there anything of materiality in the joys and sorrows of the soul after death?

"Common-sense tells you that they cannot be of a material nature, because the soul is not matter. There is nothing carnal in those joys and sorrows; and yet they are a thousand times more vivid than those you experience upon the earth; because the spirit when freed from matter is more impressionable; matter deadens its sensibility." (237-257.)

 

966. Why does man often form to himself so gross and absurd an idea of the joys and sorrows of the future life?

"Because his intelligence is still but imperfectly developed. Does the child comprehend as does the adult? Besides, his idea of a future life is often a result of the teachings to which he has been subjected – teachings that are urgently in need of reform.

"Your language being too incomplete to express what lies beyond the range of your present existence, it has been necessary to address you through comparisons borrowed from that existence, and you have mistaken the images and figures thus employed for realities; but, in proportion as man becomes enlightened, his thought comprehends much that his language is unable to express."

 

967. In what does the happiness of perfected spirits consist?

"In knowing all things; in feeling neither hatred, jealousy, envy, ambition, nor any of the passions that make men unhappy. Their mutual affection is for them a source of supreme felicity. They have none of the wants, sufferings, or anxieties of material life; they are happy in the good they do, for the happiness of spirits is always proportioned to their elevation. The highest happiness, it is true, is enjoyed only by spirits who are perfectly purified; but the others are not unhappy. Between the had ones and those who have reached perfection, there is an infinity of gradations of elevation and of happiness; for the enjoyments of each spirit are always proportioned to his moral state. Those who have already achieved a certain degree of advancement have a presentiment of the happiness of those who are further on than themselves; they aspire after that higher happiness, but it is for them an object of emulation, and not of jealousy. They know that it depends on themselves to attain to it, and they labour to that end, but with the calmness of a good conscience; and they are happy in not having to suffer what is endured by evil spirits."

 

968. You place the absence of material wants among the conditions of happiness for spirits; but is not the satisfaction of those wants a source of enjoyment for mankind?

"Yes, of animal enjoyment; but when men cannot satisfy those wants, they are tortured by them."

 

969. What are we to understand when it is said that the purified spirits are gathered into the bosom of God, and employed in singing His praises?

"The statement is an allegorical picture of the knowledge they possess of the perfections of God, because they see and comprehend Him; but you must not take it literally, any more than other statements of a similar character. Everything in nature, from the grain of sand upwards, 'sings' – that is to say, proclaims the power, wisdom, and goodness of God; but you must not suppose that spirits of the highest order are absorbed in an eternal contemplation, which would be a monotonous and stupid sort of happiness, and a selfish one also, because such an existence would be a perpetual uselessness. They have no longer to undergo the tribulations of corporeal life, an exemption which is itself an enjoyment; and, besides, as we have told you, they know and comprehend all things, and make use of the intelligence they have acquired in aiding the progress of other spirits; and they find enjoyment in this order of occupation."

 

970. In what do the sufferings of inferior spirits consist?

"Those sufferings are as various as are the causes by which they are produced, and are proportioned to the degree of inferiority of each spirit, as the enjoyments of the higher spirits are proportioned to their several degrees of superiority. They may be summed up thus:– The sight of happiness to which they are unable to attain; envy of the superiority which renders other spirits happy, and which they see to be lacking in themselves; regret, jealousy, rage, despair, in regard to what prevents them from being happy; remorse and indescribable moral anguish. They long for all sorts of enjoyments; and are tortured by their inability to satisfy their cravings."

 

971. Is the influence exercised by spirits over one another always good?

"It is always good on the part of good spirits; but perverse spirits endeavour to draw aside from the path of repentance and amendment those whom they think are susceptible of being misled, and whom they have often led into evil during their earthly life."

 

- Death, then, does not deliver us from temptation?

"No, but the action of evil spirits is much less powerful over other spirits than over men, because they no longer have the material passions of the tempted for auxiliaries." (996.)

 

972. In what way do evil spirits bring temptation to bear upon other spirits, since they have not the passions to work upon?

"If the passions no longer exist materially, they still exist in thought, on the part of spirits of slight advancement; and the evil ones keep up impure thoughts in their victims by taking them to places where they witness the exercise of those passions, and whatever tends to excite them."

 

- But what end do those passions subserve, since they have no longer any real object?

"That is just what constitutes the tortures of the spirit-life. The miser sees gold which he cannot possess; the debauchee, orgies in which he can take no part; the haughty, honours which he envies, but cannot share."

 

973. What are the greatest sufferings that can be endured by wicked spirits?

"It is utterly impossible to describe the mental tortures that are the punishment of some crimes; even those by whom they are experienced would find it difficult to give you an idea of them. But, assuredly, the most frightful of them all is the sufferer’s belief that his condemnation is unchangeable and for all eternity."

 

Men form to themselves, in regard to the joys and sorrows of the soul after death, a conception more or less elevated according to the state of their intelligence. The greater a man's degree of development, the more refined and the more divested of materiality is his idea of them; the more rational is the view he takes of the subject, and the less literally does he understand the images of figurative language in regard to them. Enlightened reason, in teaching us that the soul is an entirely spiritual being, teaches us also that it cannot be affected by impressions that act only upon matter; but it does not follow there-from that is exempt from suffering, or that it does not undergo the punishment of its wrong-doing. (237.)

The communications made to us by spirits show us the future state of the soul, no longer as a matter of theory, but as a reality. They bring before us all the incidents of the life beyond the grave; but they also show us that they are the natural consequences of the terrestrial life, and that, although divested of the fantastic accompaniments created by the imagination of men, they are none the less painful for those who, in this life, have made a bad use of their faculties. The diversity of those consequences is infinite, but may be summed up by saying that each soul is punished by that wherein it has sinned. It is thus that some are punished by the incessant sight of the evil they have done; others, by regret, fear, shame, doubt, isolation, darkness, separation from those who are dear to them, etc.

 

974. Whence comes the doctrine of eternal fire?

"From taking a figure of speech for a reality, as men have done in so many instances."

 

- But may not this fear lead to a useful result?

"Look around you, and see whether there are many who are restrained by it, even among those by whom it is inculcated. If you teach what is contrary to reason, the impression you make will be neither durable nor salutary."

 

Human language being powerless to express the nature of the sufferings of spirit-life, man has been unable to devise any more appropriate comparison for them than that of fire, because, for him, fire is at once the type of the most excruciating torture, and the symbol of the most energetic action. It is for this reason that the belief in "everlasting burning" has been held from the earliest antiquity and transmitted by succeeding generations to the present day; and it is for this reason, also, that all nations speak, in common parlance, of "fiery passions," of "burning love," "burning hate," "burning with jealousy," etc.

 

975. Do inferior spirits comprehend the happiness of the righteous?

"Yes; and that happiness is a source of torment for them, for they understand that they are deprived of it through their own fault; but it also leads a spirit, when freed from matter, to aspire after a new corporeal existence, because every such existence, if well employed, will shorten the duration of that torment. It is thus that he makes choice of the trials through which he will be enabled to expiate his faults; for you must remember that each spirit suffers for all the evil he has done or of which he has been the voluntary cause, for all the good which he might have done and which he did not do, and for all the evil that has resulted from his having failed to do the good he might have done."

"In the state of erraticity, a spirit's sight is no longer veiled; it is as though he had emerged from a fog and saw the obstacles that intervene between him and happiness, and he therefore suffers all the more, because he understands the full extent of his culpability. For him, illusion is no longer possible; he sees things as they really are."

 

A spirit, when errant, embraces, on the one hand, all his past existences at a glance: on the other, he foresees the future promised to him, and comprehends what he lacks for its attainment He is like a traveller who, having reached the top of a hill, beholds both the road over which he has already travelled, and that by which he has still to go in order to reach the end of his journey.

 

976. Is not the sight of spirits who suffer a cause of affliction for the good ones? And, if so, what becomes of the happiness of the latter, that happiness being thus impaired?

"Good spirits are not distressed by the suffering of those who are at a lower point than themselves, because they know that it will have an end; they aid those who suffer to become better, and lend them a helping hand. To do this is their occupation, and is a joy for them when they succeed."

 

- This is comprehensible on the part of spirits who are strangers to them, and who take no special interest in them; but does not the sight of their sorrows and sufferings disturb the happiness of the spirits who have loved them upon the earth?

"If spirits did not see your troubles, it would prove that they become estranged from you after death, whereas all religions teach you that the souls of the departed continue to see you; but they regard your afflictions from another point of view. They know that those sufferings will aid your advancement if you bear them with resignation; and they are consequently more pained by the want of fortitude which keeps you back, than by sufferings which they know to be only temporary."

 

977. Spirits being unable to hide their thoughts from one another, and all the acts of their lives being known, does it follow that those who have wronged their fellows are always in presence of their victims?

"Common sense might suffice to tell you that it cannot be otherwise.

 

- Is this divulging of all his evil deeds, and the perpetual presence of those who have been the victims of them, a chastisement for the guilty spirit?

"Yes, and a heavier one than you may suppose it to be; but it only lasts until he has expiated his wrong-doing, either as a spirit, or as a man in new corporeal existences."

 

When we find ourselves in the world of spirits, all our past will be brought into view, and the good the evil that we have done will be equally known. In vain would the malefactor seek to avoid the sight of his victims; their presence, from which he cannot possibly escape, will be for him a punishment and a source of remorse until he has expiated the wrongs he has done them, while the spirit of the upright man will find himself constantly surrounded by kindness and good-will.

Even upon the earth there is no greater torment for the wicked man than the presence of his victims, whom he does his utmost to avoid. What will it be when, the illusions of the passions being dissipated, he comprehends the evil he has done, sees his most secret actions brought to light and his hypocrisy unmasked, and perceives that he cannot hide himself from the sight of those he has wronged? But, while the soul of the wicked is thus a prey to shame, regret, and remorse, that of the righteous enjoys perfect peace.

 

978. Does not the remembrance of the faults committed by the soul, during its state of imperfection, disturb its happiness even after it has attained to purity?

"No, because it has redeemed its faults, and has come forth victorious from the trials to which it had submitted for that purpose."

 

979. Does not the prevision of the trials it has still to undergo, in order to complete its

purification, excite in the soul a painful apprehension that must lessen its happiness?

"Yes, in the case of a soul who is still soiled by evil, and therefore it can only enjoy perfect happiness when it has become perfectly pure. But for souls who have attained to a certain degree of elevation, the thought of the trials they have still to undergo has in it nothing painful."

 

The soul, arrived at a certain degree of purification, has already a foretaste of happiness. It is pervaded by a feeling of satisfaction, and is happy in all that it sees, in all that surrounds it. The veil which covers the marvels and mysteries of creation being already partially raised for it, the divine perfections begin to be perceived by it in their splendour.

 

980. Is the sympathic link which unites spirits of the same order a source of felicity for them?

"The union of spirits who sympathise in the love of goodness is one of their highest enjoyments, for they have no fear of seeing that union disturbed by selfishness. In worlds altogether spiritual, they form families animated by the same sentiment, and this union constitutes the happiness of those worlds, as in your world you group yourselves into categories, and experience pleasure in being thus brought together. The pure and sincere affection felt by elevated spirits, and of which they are the object, is a source of felicity, for there are neither false friends nor hypocrites among them."

 

Man enjoys the first-fruits of this felicity upon the earth when he meets with those with whom he can enter into cordial and noble union. In a life of greater purity than that of the earth, this felicity becomes ineffable and unbounded, because their inhabitants meet only with sympathetic souls whose affection will not be chilled by selfishness. For love is life; it is selfishness that kills.

 

981. Is there, as regards the future state of spirits, any difference between him who, during his earthly life, was afraid of death, and him who looked forward to it with indifference, or even with joy?

"There may be a very considerable difference between them, though this is often obliterated by the causes which gave rise to that fear or that desire. Those who dread death, and those who desire it, may be moved by very different sentiments, and it is those sentiments which determine the state of a spirit. For instance, it is evident that, if a man only desires death because it will put an end to his tribulations, that desire is, in reality, a sort of murmuring against Providence, and against the trials which he has to undergo."

 

982. Is it necessary to make a profession of spiritism, and to believe in spirit-manifestations, in order to ensure our well-being in the next life?

"If it were so, it would follow that those who do not believe in them, or who have not even had the opportunity of learning anything about them, will be disinherited, which would be absurd. It is right-doing that ensures future well-being; and right-doing is always right-doing, whatever may be the path that leads to it." (165-799.)

 

Belief in spiritism aids our self-improvement by clearing our ideas in regard to the future; it hastens the progress and advancement of individuals and of the masses, because it enables us to ascertain what we shall some day be, and is at once a beacon and a support. Spiritism teaches us to bear our trials with patience and resignation, turns us from the wrong-doing that would delay our future happiness, and contributes to our attainment of that happiness; but it does not follow that we may not attain to that happiness without it.