13. Spiritual life is the normal and eternal life of the spirit; and incarnation is only a temporary form of its existence. Save the exterior vestment, then, there is, then, identity between the embodied and disembodied. These are the same individualities under two different aspects, belonging sometimes to the visible and sometimes to the invisible world, finding themselves again either in one or in the other, concurring in both to the same end by means appropriate to their situation. From this law flows that of perpetuity of connection between created beings. Death does not separate them, and does not put an end to their sympathetic relations or reciprocal duties, from whence springs solidarity of all beings for each other, and each one for all; from which also comes fraternity. Men will not live happily upon the earth until these two sentiments shall have entered into their hearts and in their manners; for then they will conform to their laws and their institutions.
    It is through these that the principal results of the transformation will be accomplished. But how to conciliate the duties of solidarity and fraternity with the belief that death renders forever men strangers to one another? By the law of the perpetuity of connections which bind together all beings, Spiritism founds this double principle upon the laws themselves o nature; it makes not only a duty of it, but a necessity. By that of the plurality o existences, man attaches himself to that which has been done, and that which will be done, to men o the past and those of the future. He can no more say that he has nothing in common with the dead, since both ind each other again and again continually in this world and the other, in order to climb the ladder o progress together, and to lend mutual support to one another. Fraternity is no more circumscribed to a few individuals which chance assembles together during the ephemeral duration of life. It is perpetual as the life of the spirit, universal as humanity, which constitutes a great family, of which all the members are joined to one another at whatever epoch they may have lived.

    14. Such are the ideas which springs from Spiritism, and which will be created in all men when it shall be universally dispersed, comprehended, taught, and practiced. With Spiritism, fraternity is synonymous with the charity preached by Christ. It is no more a vain word; it has its purpose in lie. From the sentiment of fraternity is born that of the reciprocation of the social duties from man to man, from people to people, from race to race. From these two sentiments, well comprehended, will spring necessarily the most profitable institutions for the welfare of man.


    15. Fraternity must be the corner-stone of the new social order. But there is no real, solid, and effective fraternity if it has not been supported upon an unchangeable base. This base is faith, - not the faith in such and such particular dogmas, which change with time and people, and at which the stone is cast, and in anathematizing it they sustain the antagonism to it, but the faith in fundamental principles which all the world can accept, - God, the soul, the future, individual progress as well as indefinite, the perpetuity of connection between individuals. When all men shall be convinced that God is the same to all, that this God, sovereignly just and good, can will no injustice; that evil comes from men, and not from him, - they will regard themselves as children of the same Father, and will extend to him the hand.
     It is this faith which is given to Spiritism, and which will henceforth be the pivot upon which human beings will move, whatever be their mode of adoration and their particular beliefs, which Spiritism respects, but with which it desires not to occupy itself. From this faith alone can spring veritable moral progress, because that it alone gives a logical sanction to legitimate rights and duties. Without it the right is that which strength gives, - duty a human code, imposed by constraint. Without it, what is man? A little matter, which is dissolved; an ephemeral being, which is made only to pass away. Genius, even, is but a spark which shines an instant, only to be extinguished forever. There is no certainty of any thing which is revealed to his eyes. In connection with such thoughts, where, really, are the rights and duties?
    What is the object of progress? This faith alone makes man eel his dignity by the perpetuity and progression of his being, - not in a paltry future, circumscribed to personality, but one grand and splendid. This thought elevates it above the earth. It feels itself expand by thinking that it has its role in the universe; that this universe is its domain, which it will be able to pass over some day; and that death will not annihilate it, or make o it a useless being to itself and others.


    16. The vast proportion o intellectual progress which has been accomplished is a great step, and marks the first phase o humanity; but alone it is impotent to regenerate it. So long as man will be governed by pride and egotism he will use his intelligence and his knowledge for the profit of his passions and personal interests. For this reason he applies them to the perfection o means for injuring others, and of destroying each the other. Moral progress alone can assure the happiness of men upon the earth by patting a rein upon their bad passions. It alone can make harmony, peace, and fraternity reign between them.
    It is this which will break down the barriers between them, which will destroy the prejudices of caste, silence the antagonisms of sects, by teaching men to regard themselves as brothers called to aid one another, and not to live at the expenses of one another. It is moral progress, seconded by the progress of intelligence, which will lead men to one belief established upon the eternal truths, not subject to discussion; and for this accepted by all. The unity of belief will be the most powerful bond of union, the most solid foundation for universal fraternity, which has alway been broken by religious antagonisms, which divides people and families, which makes one see in a neighbor a person to fly from - one to combat, exterminate, - instead of a brother whom we should love.

    17. Such a state o things supposes a radical change in the sentiment o the masses, a general progress which could be accomplished only by departing from the circle of narrow ideas, and quitting the ground which fosters pride. At different epochs superior men have sought to lead men into this way; but humanity, yet too young, has remained deaf, and their teachings have been like good seed fallen among stones. Now humanity is capable of looking higher then it has done, in order to assimilate larger ideas, and comprehend that which it had never before comprehended. This generation which will disappear will carry with it its prejudices and errors; the generation which is being educated has drunk at a purer spring, is imbued with healthier ideas, will impress on the world the ascensional movement by way of moral progress, which must mark the new phase of humanity.

    18. This phase is already revealed by unmistakable signs, by attempts at useful reforms, by grand and generous ideas which are brought to light, and which commence to find echoes. Multitudes of protective, civilizing, and emancipating institutions are founded under the management and by the introductory movement of men evidently predestined to the work of regeneration; while each day the penal laws seem to be impregnated with a more humane sentiment. The prejudices of race are weakened. Nations commence to regard themselves as members of one great family. By the uniformity and facility of the means of transaction, they abolish the barriers which divide them. In all parts of the the world they unite in universal assemblages for electing officers and passing laws, and for pacific interchange of sentiments. But to these reforms a base is wanting to complete, develop, and consolidate them, - a more general moral predisposition in order to bear fruit, and to be accepted by the masses. It is no less a characteristic sign of the time, the prelude of that which will be accomplished upon a larger ladder by measure, as the ground will become more propitious.

     19. A sign no less characteristic of the period upon which we enter is the evident reaction in spiritualistic ideas. An instructive repulsion is manifested against materialistic ideas. The spirit of unbelief, which was carrying away the masses, ignorant or enlightened, and had made them reject with the form even the true basis of all faith, seems to have been asleep, on the awakening from which one experiences a need of breathing a more life-giving air. Involuntarily, where the void has been made, one seeks something, a support, a hope.

    20. In this great regenerative movement, Spiritism has a considerable role, not the ridiculous Spiritism invented by a jesting critic, but the philosophical Spiritism, such as whoever comprehends it must seek the almond under its shell. By the proofs it brings of fundamental truths, it fills the void which infidelity make in ideas and belies; by the certitude which it gives of a future conformed to the justice of God, and which the most severe reason can admit, it tempers the bitterness of life, and hinders the fatal effects of despair; by making known new laws of nature, it gives the key of hitherto unknown phenomena and of insoluble problems, and kills a the same time infidelity and superstition. To it nothing is supernatural or miraculous; all is accomplished in the world by virtue of immutable laws. Far from substituting one exclusivism for another, it stands as an absolute champion of the liberty of conscience; it combats bigotry under all forms, and cuts it to the root by proclaiming salvation for all good men, and the possibility for the most imperfect of, by their efforts, expiation and reparation, to that perfection which alone conducts to supreme felicity.
    Instead of discouraging the weak, it encourages them by showing them the haven to which they can attain. It does not say, "Outside Spiritism is no salvation," but with Christ, Outside of charity is no salvation, no principal of union, no tolerance, which will rally men round a common sentiment of fraternity, instead of dividing them into sects in enmity to each other. By this other principle there is no unchangeable faith than that which can look reason face to face in all ages of humanity; it destroys the empire of blind faith, which annihilates reason by passive obedience which brutalizes; it emancipates the intelligence of man, and elevates his moral being. Consequently, it does not impose itself upon any one; it tells that which it is, what it wishes, and what it is, and waits for them to come freely, voluntarily; it wishes to be accepted by the reason, and not by force; it respects all sincere beliefs, and combats only infidelity, selfishness, pride and hypocrisy, which are the plagues of society, and the most serious obstacles to moral progress; but it gives the anathema to no one, not even to its enemies, because that it is convinced that the good road is open to the most imperfect.

     21. If one suppose the majority o men imbued with these sentiments, one can easily figure the changes it would bring in social relations, - charity, fraternity, kindness towards all, tolerance for all beliefs; such will be their motto. It is the end towards which humanity is evidently tending without being very sure of the means of realizing them. It tries, it counts the pulse, but is arrested by active resistance, or the force of the inertia of the prejudices of stationary beliefs which are opposed to progress. These are resisting forces, which it must vanquish; and it will be the work of the new generations. If one follows the present course of things, one will recognize that all seems predestined to prepare the way for it. There will be the double power of number and of ideas, and, moreover, the experience of the past.

    22. The new generation will march them to the realization of all compatible humanitarian ideas with the degree of advancement to which it will have reached. Spiritism marching towards the same end, and realizing its views, they will meet each other on the same ground. Men of progress will  find in the ideas o the Spiritists a powerful lever, and Spiritism will find in men new minds entirely disposed to welcome it. With this state of things, what will those do who would desire to place an obstacle in its way?

    23. It is not Spiritism which creates social renovation. it is the maturity of humanity which makes this renovation a necessity. By its moralizing power, by its progressive tendencies, by the liberty o its views, by the generality o the questions which it embraces, Spiritism is, more than any other doctrine, qualified to second the regenerative movement; or that reason it is contemporary with it. It has come at the moment when it could be useful; for it also is the time arrived. Sooner, at an earlier date, it would have encountered insurmountable obstacles. It would have inevitably succumbed, because men, satisfied with that which they had, had not experienced a need for that which it brings. Now, born with the movement of fermenting ideas, it finds the earth prepared to receive it. Spirits, tired of doubt and of incertitude, frightened by the gulf that opens before them, welcome it as an anchor of salvation and a supreme consolation.

     24. By saying that all humanity is ripe for salvation, we do not wish to convey the idea that all individuals are so in the same degree; but many have intuition he germ o new ideas, which circumstances will bring to light; then they will show themselves more advanced than they were supposed to be, and they will eagerly follow the impulsion of the majority. There are those, however, obstinately opposed, even among the most intelligent, and who assuredly will never embrace it, at least in this existence, - some o these in good faith by conviction, others by interest.
    Those whose material interests are joined to the present state o things, and who are not advanced enough to sacrifice them, to whom the general good is of less account then their own, cannot see without apprehension the least reformatory movement. Truth is for them a secondary question, or, rather, truth for certain people is in that which causes them no trouble. All progressive ideas are to their eyes subversive ones; for this reason they vow implacable hate to them, and make towards them inveterate war. Too intelligent not to see in Spiritism an auxiliary o these ideas, and the elements of the transformation which they dread, because they are not far advanced enough to receive it, they force themselves to combat it. If they judged it to be without value or importance, they would not bother themselves with it. Besides, as we have already said, "The greater an idea is, the more adversaries it encounters, and the importance of it can be measured by the violence of the attacks of which it is the object."

    25. The number of those who have not joined our ranks is still great without doubt; but what can they do against the rising wave, except to throw a few stones at it? This wave is the generation which is being educated by it, whilst those who do not believe will disappear with the generation which is rapidly passing away. Until that they will defend every step of the ground. There is an inevitable contest, but an unequal one; for it is that of a decrepit past, which falls into fragments against the juvenile future; of stagnation against progress; of the creature against the will of God, - for the times appointed by him are come.

                                                                                                      

° ELECTRONIC BOOKS

Translated from the Sixtieth Thousand - By Anna Blackwell
[London: Trubner & Co., Ludgate Hill - 1878]

Part Second - Examples

CHAPTER I

  THE PASSAGE
Second Part
[The First Part was published on the SM # 94]

    6. In examining the passage from the earthly life to the spirit-life, another point, and one of the greatest importance, has to be noted, viz., the mental confusion which usually accompanies the separation of the soul from the body. At the moment when this separation is taking place, the soul is seized with a sort of torpor which paralyzes its faculties, and, at least, to a certain extent, neutralizes its sensations; it is in a state resembling  catalepsy, so that it is rarely conscious of the termination of the process of dying. We say very rarely, because there is a case in which the soul may preserve its self-consciousness to the very last, as we shall presently see. The state of confusion may therefore be considered as the normal condition of the sou at the moment of death; its duration differs in different cases and may vary from a few hours to many years. When this confusion passes off, the soul finds itself in the position of one who is awaking out of a deep sleep; its ideas are muddled, vague, and clouded; it sees, so to say, through a fog; but, little by little, its sight becomes clearer, its memory comes back, and it regains the consciousness of itself. But this awaking is very different, according to the character of the individual; with some, it is calm and accompanied with delightful sensations; with others, it is full of terror and anxiety, and is like a hideous nightmare.

    7. The moment when the body heaves the last sigh is, consequently, not the most painful, because, in general, the soul is then in a state of unconsciousness; the suffering attendant on dying is undergone either before, or after, the moment of dissolution. The suffering which precedes death is due to the convulsions that accompany the disaggregation of the physical body; that which follows death results from the distress occasioned by the confusion of which the soul becomes conscious as it gradually regains possession of its faculties. Let us hasten to say, however, that this suffering is not usual. As we have already remarked, the intensity and duration of the suffering that may accompany death is in exact proportion to the affinity which exists between the body and the perispirit; the closer is this affinity, the longer and the more painful will be the spirit's efforts to free himself from the links by which he is held to the body; but there are persons in whose case the cohesion is so slight that the disengagement of the perispirit is effected spontaneously and naturally, and without any conscious effort on the part of the spirit. In such cases, the fleshly body drops away from the spirit as gently and easily as the ripe fruit drops from the three; and this peaceful death is followed by a waking equally peaceful.

    8. The moral state of the soul is the condition which determines the ease, or the difficulty, with which the spirit disengages himself from his terrestrial envelope. The strength of the affinity between the body and the perispirit is in the exact ratio of the spirit's attachment to materiality; it is, consequently, at the maximum in the case of those whose thoughts and interest are concentrated on the earthly life and the enjoyment of material pleasures; it is almost null in the case of those whose soul has identified itself, beforehand, with the spirit-life. The slowness and difficulty of the separation depending entirely on the degree of the soul's purification and dematerialization, it is in the power of each of us to render our passage, from the life of the earth to that of the spirit-world, more or less easy or difficult, pleasant or painful.
    This point being laid down, both as a theoretic principle and as a result of observation, we have now to examine the influence exercised, by the various kinds of death, on the sensations of the soul at the moment of dissolution.

    9. In all cases of natural death, that is to say, of death resulting from the extinction of the vital forces by age or disease, the separation is effected gradually; in the case of those whose soul is dematerialized and whose thoughts are detached from earthly things, the disengagement of the spirit is almost complete before death takes place; the body is still vitalized by the organic life, when the soul has already entered upon the life of the spirit-world, and is only held to the body by a link so slight that it breaks, of itself and without effort, with the last beat of the heart. A spirit, in this situation, may have already recovered his mental lucidity, and may therefore be the conscious witness of the extinction of the life of the body from which he rejoices to be freed; for such a one, confusion scarcely exists; death is, for him, only a moment of peaceful sleep, from which he issues with an indescribable impression of happiness and hope.
     In the case of the worldly-minded and the sensual, of those who have lived with the life of the body rather than with that of the intelligence, for whom the things of the spirit-life are non-entities - not even being thought of by them as realities - everything in their earthly life has helped to tighten the links which bind them to matter; nothing, through all their earthly career, has tended to relax, before hand, the links which have to be severed abruptly when the hour of their departure has come. As death approaches, the soul, in these cases also, effects its disengagement by degrees, but through a series of continuous and painful efforts. The convulsions of the process of dying, under the conditions we are now considering, are the index of the conflict undergone by the spirit, who, at one moment, tries to break the bonds which resist his efforts to get himself free, and, at another moment, clutches at the body of which he would fain regain possession, but from which he is violently torn away, bit by bit, by an irresistible force.

    10. A spirit attaches himself all the more strongly to the life of the body, in proportion to his inability to see anything beyond it; he feels that the organic life is escaping him, and he does his utmost, but in vain, to retain it within his grasp; Instead of yielding himself up to the movement which is drawing him away, he resists it with all his might; and, in some instances, the struggle is thus prolonged for days, for weeks, of for months. Undoubtedly, in such cases, the spirit is no longer in possession of his usual lucidity; the confusion attendant on dissolution has begun, for him, long before death actually occurs; but his suffering is none the less severe, and the state of vagueness and doubt in which he finds himself, his certainty as to what will become of him, add poignancy to his trouble. Death at length takes place, but his misery is not ended. His mental confusion still continues; he feels that he is alive, but he knows not whether he is living with the fleshly life or with spirit-life; and his struggles are prolonged until the last links between his perispirit and his body are completely broken. In such a case, death has put a term to the disease which has killed the body, but it has not arrested the repercussion of the physical effects of corporeal dissolution in the consciousness of the spirit; so long as any points of contact exist between the body and the perispirit, the spirit feels, and suffers from, the processes of decay that are going on in the former.

Note from the Editor: The theoretical part of the above Chapter I will be concluded on our next issue. In the following topics of this and the next issues of the Spiritist Messenger, the reader will see a variety of communications from spirits in different conditions [Happy Spirits; Spirits in a Middling Condition and Suffering Spirits], which will enable them to have a better understanding about the theoretical arguments on the aforementioned chapter.

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