Letter about Incredulity - Part IOne of our colleagues, Mr. Canu, formerly a devout materialist who
learned from Spiritism to have a healthier appreciation of things,
accused of having been the propagator of doctrines that he now considers
subversive of the social order. Aiming at the reparation of what he considers
to be his fault, and so as to enlighten those who he had mislead,
he wrote a letter to one of his friends, requesting our advice. The letter
seemed so attuned to his intentions that we decided to request his permission
to have it published here, something that will certainly please our
readers.
Instead of discussing the issue of Spiritism up front, which would
have been repelled by those who don’t admit the soul as a principle, and
particularly instead of placing before their eyes the strange phenomena
that they could deny or attribute to vulgar causes, he goes back to the origin.
He rightly tries to make them spiritualists before spiritists. He arrives
at the spiritist idea as a consequence through a perfectly logical train of
thoughts. This is obviously the most rational path. The scope of this letter
obliged us to share it in this publication.
“Paris, November 10th, 1860
My dear friend,
You would like to receive a long letter about Spiritism. I will try
to satisfy your wishes the best I can, while I await the publication of
an important book about the subject that must be published towards
the end of the year. I am forced to start by some general considerations
for which it is necessary to refer back to the origin of humankind. This
will make my letter a little bit longer but it is necessary for the understanding
of the subject. People commonly say: Everything perishes
with time! Yes, time consumes everything but generally a different
meaning is also given to this expression. Time consumes everything
but it is only matter that ends. Everything is consumed in the sense
that everything moves forward and follows its natural course, but not
a blind and aimless course, and yet it must never end. Motion is the
great physical as well as moral law of the universe, and the objective
of all that movement is the betterment; it is an active, incessant and
universal work; it is what we call progress.
Everything is submitted to such a law, with the exception of God.
God is its author; the creature is the instrument and object of application
of the law. Creation consists of two distinct natures: the material
and the intellectual nature. The latter is the active instrument; the
former is the passive instrument.
These two instruments complement each other reciprocally,
that is, one without the other would be totally useless. Without
the intellectual nature, or the intelligent and active spirit, the
material nature, that is, the unintelligent and inert matter would
be perfectly useless, since it could not do anything on its own.
Without the inert matter the same would happen to the intelligent
spirit. Even the most perfect instrument, would be the same as
any other, if there was no one to use it. The most skillful worker,
the top notch scientist, would be as impotent as the most perfect
idiot, if they did not have instruments to develop their science and
demonstrate it.
Here is the place and time to note that the material instrument
is not only the carpenter’s planer, the sculptor’s chisel, the painter’s
palette, the surgeon’s scalpel, the astronomer’s compass and telescope:
it also consists on the hand, tongue, eyes, and brain, in short, in
the union of the material organs necessary to the manifestation of
thought, thus implying the denomination of passive instrument to the
matter upon which the intelligence, properly speaking, works. That is
how a table, a house, a picture, considered in their forming elements,
are not less instruments than the saw, the planer, the ruler, the trowel,
the paint brush which has products on it; for the hand and eyes to
direct them; finally, the brain which presides over the action. Now,
all that, including the brain, was the complex instrumentation used
by the intelligence to manifest its thoughts, its will, as in producing a
form, or a table, or a house, or a painting, etc.
Inert by nature and formless in its essence, matter only acquires
useful property by the form given to it, which led a renowned physiologist
to say that the form was more necessary than matter, a somewhat
paradox proposition, but demonstrates the important role played by
the form in the modifications of matter. It is according to this law
that God, if I can say so, incessantly created and modified the worlds
and their inhabiting creatures, according to the forms that are more
adequate to His designs following the universal harmony. It is always
according to that law that the intelligent creatures concur to the
continuous transformation of matter, incessantly acting upon it like
God but having a secondary role; each level of that continuous transformation
is one step towards progress, simultaneously to the manifestation
of the intelligence that leads to such transformation. That is
how everything is always in a progressive movement; that the mission
of the intelligent beings is to drive that movement towards progress,
sometimes unknowingly; that the role of the material creature is to
obey such movement and manifest the progress of the intelligent being;
that creation, considered in whole or in parts, incessantly realizes
God’s designs.
Without leaving our planet, how many intelligent creatures accomplish
an unsuspecting mission! From my side, I confess that not
long ago I was among those. I would not feel embarrassed at all for
dropping a few words here about my own story. Please forgive this
short digression that may perhaps carry a useful side.
Raised in the school of the Catholic dogma, only much later
having developed the taste for reflection and analysis, I was a keen
believer for a long time; you certainly have not forgotten that. You
know, however, that later on the contrary excess dragged me down.
From the denial of certain principles that my personal reason could
not accept, I reached the most absolute denial. The dogma of eternal
punishment in particular, outraged me. I could not reconcile
the idea of a God that was said to be infinitely merciful with the
perpetual punishment of a transient fault. The picture of hell, its
flames, the material tortures, it all seemed ridiculous and more like
a parody of Tartarus of the Pagans. I recalled some impressions from
my childhood and remembered that during my first communion we
were told that one should not pray for the damned because it would
not do them any good; whoever did not have faith was doomed to the
flames; that one single doubt about the infallibility of the Church
was enough to be damned; that for God our good deeds were not
enough to save us because faith was one of the most elevated human
actions.
That doctrine made me unforgiving and hardened my heart.
I used to mistrust people and the simplest sin would make me see
someone condemned, and that person would be someone from whom
I should stay away, as someone does with a plague, to whom I would
then refuse a glass of water, given my indignation, telling myself that
one day God would refuse that person even more than I had just
done. If they could still burn people at the stake, I would gladly throw
in the fire all of those whose faith was not orthodox enough, even if
that person was my own father. Hence, given my state of mind, I
could not love God, I was afraid.
Later and following a large number of events that would take too
long to enumerate, I had my eyes opened, rejecting the dogmas that
did not fit my reason, because I had never been taught to place moral
above exterior form. From the religious fanaticism I fell into the absolute
incredulity, like so many other childhood friends of mine.
I will not get into the details that will take us to off topic. I will
only add that after having lost for fifteen years the sweet illusion
about the existence of an infinitely good, powerful and wise God;
about the existence and immortality of the soul, I finally found it
again, not an illusion, but a certainty as absolute as the belief in my
own existence, and that is what I write about to you now. That is,
my friend, the greatest event of our time, the greatest moment that
we can witness in our day: the material proof of the existence and
immortality of the soul. Let us return to that fact.
Nevertheless, to make you understand Spiritism, let us go back to
the origins of humankind, a theme that will not take us long.
It is evident that the planets that populate the vastness were not
uniquely made as a means of decoration. Besides the pleasantries,
they also have utility: produce and feed the material beings, docile instruments
appropriate to this infinite multitude of intelligent beings
that populate space and are definitely the masterpiece, or better, the
purpose of creation, since they are the only ones capable of knowing,
admiring and adoring the author. Each and every one of the globes
scattered in space had their beginning, regarding the formation, more
or less long ago. As for the age of the material which it is composed of,
it is a secret that is irrelevant to us now, since the form is the object
of our concern. In fact, we don’t care if matter is eternal, or just created
before the formation of the globe, or even contemporary to that
formation. What one needs to know is that the globe was created to
be inhabited. It is not perhaps useless to add that such formation does
not take place in a day, as found in the Scriptures; that a planet cannot
come out of nothing and be covered in forests, fields and inhabitants;
like Minerva born fully matured with a suit of armor from the head of Jupiter. No. God acts infallibly but slowly. Everything follows
a slow and progressive law, not because God hesitates or requires to
move slowly, but because his laws are such and unchangeable. As a
matter of fact, what we as transient human creatures call slowness is
not slow to God for whom time does not exist.
Now, let us take a forming globe or an already existing one if
you like. Many centuries or perhaps thousands of centuries must pass
before it is inhabitable. However, the moment comes. After multiple
and successive changes on its surface, it begins to be covered by vegetation
– I speak of Earth and don’t pretend to speak of other globes but
by analogy, whose evident objective is the same, and whose phases
may change from one to the next. Side by side with the vegetation
comes animal life, one and the other in their utmost simplicity, these
two branches of organic life support one another, mutually fertilizing
and feeding one another, simultaneously elaborating the inorganic
matter in order to make it gradually more adequate to the formation
of more elaborated creatures, up until the time when it can produce
and sustain the body capable of providing housing and operating as
an instrument to the being by excellence, that is, the intellectual creature
that will use such a body and that waits for its occurrence and
without which that intelligence could not advance. That is when we
get to humankind! How was the human being formed? That is not
the issue. The human being was formed according to the great law of
formation of the living creatures, and that is all. Just because it is not
known, it does not mean that such a law does not exist. How were the
first individuals of every species of plant formed? How were the first
individuals of each species of animals formed? Each one was formed
in their own way, but following the same law. What is certain is
that God had no need to become a potter or get His hands dirty in
the mud in order to create man, or to remove a man’s rib to create a
woman. Such apparently absurd and ridiculous fables may well be
an ingenious image hiding a meaning that can perhaps be reached by
more insightful minds than mine. Since I don’t understand that, I stop here. Thus, here is the physical human being, inhabiting Earth
and inhabited himself by an immaterial being, to which he serves as
an instrument. Incapable of anything on its own, as matter is generally
incapable, he cannot become capable but through the intelligence
that animates him; that very intelligence, however, is imperfect as
any other creature or anything else but God, that intelligence needs
perfecting and it is for that perfecting that a body was given, since the
spirit could not manifest without matter, and consequently could not
improve, to establish itself and finally advance.
From a collective standpoint, humanity is like the individual:
ignorant at the infancy, becoming enlightened with time. That is
naturally explained by the actual state of imperfection of the spirits
whose advancement depends on that humanity. However, considered
individually, the spirit cannot achieve the required sum of progress
in one existence only. That is why a more or less large number
of corporeal existences are needed, according to the way that each
one of those existences are lived. The more the spirit works its own
betterment on each existence, the lesser the number of required existences
to come. As each corporeal existence is a trial, an atonement,
a true purgatory, it is in the spirit’s own interest to advance as fast
as possible, to become subject to the lesser possible number of new
existences, considering that the spirit cannot move backwards. Each
level of achieved progress is definitely granted and cannot be taken
from the spirit. According to this now demonstrated principle, it
becomes evident that the faster the spirit advances, the sooner the
objective is reached. As a consequence from the preceding, each one
of us today is not in their first corporeal existence – and perhaps still
very far away from the last one – because our primitive existences
must have taken place on planets inferior to Earth where we arrived
when our spirit had achieved a level of advancement compatible
with this globe. In the same way we shall move on to superior worlds
as we advance, worlds much more advanced than Earth on every
aspect, step by step, always to a better condition. Before we leave a world, as it seems, we go through several existences whose number is
not limited but submitted to the actual progress that we may have
achieved there.
I can foresee an objection coming out of your lips. All that, you
will say, can be true but since I cannot remember anything, like everybody
else, everything that might have happened in our prior existences
is the same as if it had not happened. If that is the case in each
new existence, then to my spirit it is irrelevant to be immortal or to
die with the body, since it does not have any awareness of its own
identity during life.
In fact, it would be the same but that is not the case. We don’t
lose the memory of the past but only temporarily during this corporeal
life; we recover the memory with death, that is, when the spirit wakes
up in its true existence, the spiritual life, an effect similar to the one
that the sleep has on the body.
What happens to the soul of the dead while waiting for a new
incarnation?
Those who don’t leave Earth remain in the so called errant state
on its surface. As spirits they can certainly go where they please or, at
least, where they can, according to their progress, but in general they
don’t stay away from the living particularly from those they loved,
unless imposed by a duty of service somewhere else. We are then surrounded
by a multitude of spirits, all the time, known and unknown
to us, friends and foes, who see, observe and hear us; some of them
share our sufferings as well as our happiness, while others suffer with
our pleasures or enjoy our pains, and others still are indifferent to
everything, exactly as it happens on Earth among the mortal beings,
whose affections, antipathies, vices and virtues are kept in the other
world. The difference is that the good ones enjoy a happy state that
is unknown to us on Earth, and that is understandable since they no onger have material needs to satisfy or material obstacles to overtake
them. If they lived well, that is, if they have nothing or almost
nothing to regret from their last corporeal life, they peacefully enjoy
the testimony of their conscience and their good deeds. If they were
malicious, nasty, and considering that in the spiritual world they
are in the open and cannot dissimulate anything under a material
covering like we do here, they then suffer the shame of being known
and uncovered; they suffer with the presence of those who they have
offended, or neglected or oppressed, as well as with the impossibility
of avoiding their eyes. Finally, they suffer the effects of a corroding
remorse until regret may bring them some relief – it happens sooner
or later – or when a new incarnation may subtract them from one’s
own eyes but not from the spirits’ eyes, by momentarily removing the
awareness of his identity. Then, losing the memory of the past, the
spirits feel relieved. That is when a new trial begins. If they are lucky
to have advanced when leaving this new life, they enjoy the merit
and some progress is granted; if they don’t improve, they then find the
same torment again, until they finally repent or take advantage of a
new existence.
There is another kind of suffering: the one experienced by the
worst and more perverse spirits. Inaccessible to shame or remorse, they
don’t feel the torments. Their sufferings, however, are more vivid
because they are only excited by evilness but unable to realize it. They
suffer by the envy of seeing others happier or better than themselves,
simultaneously suffering by the hatred towards those who they can no
longer reach and the incapacity of satisfying their bad inclinations.
Oh! Those suffer more, as I told you, but that will only last until they
decide to improve. Or, put differently, up until the day they become
better. They often don’t foresee such a horizon. They are so bad, so
blind by evilness that they become oblivious to a better state of things;
as a consequence, they cannot see that their suffering may one day
end, a fact that makes them more obstinate in evil, further aggravating
their sufferings.
However, since they cannot escape indefinitely the common fate
reserved by God to every creature, without exception, there will
be a time when they will be required to follow the common path.
Sometimes it is closer than thought just by observing their evilness.
There have been some, who have converted suddenly, and their suffering
stopped; however, they still have tough trials to face in their
next existence on Earth. They need to purify, atoning their own
faults, and that is definitely more than fair. Nevertheless, they no
longer have fear of losing their accomplished progress, since they cannot
go backwards.
There you have it my friend, in short and as clear as I could
make it, a presentation of the spiritist philosophy, as it was possible
for me to deliver in a letter. You will find a better explanation and
the most thorough development of these ideas in The Spirits’ Book, the
source which made me what I am today.
Let us now move on to more practical terms.”
(Conclusion in the next issue)
