Progression of Spirits
[To the index][To
the header]
114. Are spirits good or bad by nature, or are they the same spirits
made better through their own efforts?
"The same spirits made better through their own efforts. In growing
better they pass from a lower to a higher order."
115. Are some spirits created good and others created bad?
"God has created all spirits in a state of simplicity and ignorance;
that is to say, without knowledge. He has given to each of them a mission,
with a view to enlighten them and to make them gradually arrive at perfection
through the knowledge of the truth, and thus to bring them nearer and nearer
to Himself. This perfection is, for them, the condition of eternal and
unalloyed happiness. Spirits acquire knowledge by passing through the trials
imposed on them by God. Some of them accept these trials with sub-mission,
and arrive more quickly at the aim of their destiny others undergo them
with murmuring, and thus remain, through their own fault, at a distance
from the perfection and the felicity promised to them."
- According to this statement, it would appear that spirits, a'
their origin, are like children, ignorant and without experience, but acquiring,
little by little, the knowledge which they lack, by passing through the
different phases of human life?
"Yes; the comparison is correct. The child, if rebellious, remains
ignorant and faulty; he profits more or less according to his docility.
But the life of man has a term; whereas that of spirits stretches out into
infinity."
116. Do any spirits remain for ever in the lower ranks?
"No; all become perfect. They change in course of time, however
long may be the process of amendment; for, as we have already said, a just
and merciful parent cannot condemn his children to eternal banishment.
Can you suppose that God, so great, so good, so just, is less kind than
you are?"
117. Does it depend on the spirits themselves to hasten their progress
towards perfection?
"Certainly; they reach the goal more or less quickly according
to the strength of their desire and the degree of their submission to the
will of God. Does not a docile child learn faster than one who is obstinate
and idle?"
118. Can spirits degenerate?
"No; in proportion as they advance, they understand what has retarded
their progress. When a spirit has finished with any given trial, he has
learned the lesson of that trial, and never forgets it. He may remain stationary;
but be never degenerates."
119. Could God exonerate spirits from the trials which they have
to undergo in order to reach the highest rank?
"If they had been created perfect, they would not have merited
the enjoyment of the benefits of that perfection. Where would be the merit
without the struggle ? Besides, the inequality which exists between spirits
is necessary to the development of their personality; and, moreover, the
mission which each spirit accomplishes at each step of his progress is
an element of the providential plan for ensuring the harmony of the universe.”
Since, in social life. all men may reach the highest posts. we might
as well ask why the sovereign of a country does not make a general of each
of his soldiers, why all subaltern functionaries are not made heads of
departments, why all scholars are not schoolmasters. But there is this
difference between the life of the social and the spirit worlds, viz.,
that the first is limited, and does not afford to every one the possibility
of raising himself to the highest rank whereas the second is unlimited,
and ensures to every one the possibility of attaining to supreme degree.
120. Do all spirits pass by the road of evil to arrive at good?
"Not by the road of evil, but by that of ignorance."
121. How is it that some spirits have followed the road of good,
and others the road of evil
"Have they not their free-will? God has not created any spirits
bad; He has created them simple and ignorant, that is to say, possessing
an equal aptitude for good and for evil. Those who become bad become so
of their own free-will."
122. How can spirits, at their origin, when they have not yet acquired
self-consciousness, possess freedom of choice between good and evil? Is
there in them any principle, any tendency, which inclines them towards
either road rather than towards the other?
"Free-will is developed in proportion as the spirit acquires the
consciousness of himself. Freedom would not exist for the spirit if his
choice were solicited by a cause independent of his will. The cause which
determines his choice is not in him, but is exterior to him, in the influences
to which he voluntarily yields in virtue of the freedom of his will. It
is this choice that is represented tinder the grand figure of the fall
of man and of original sin. Some spirits have yielded to temptation; others
have withstood it."
- Whence come the influences that act upon him?
"From the imperfect spirits, who seek to take possession of him
and to dominate him, and who are happy to see him succumb. It is this temptation
that is allegorically pictured as Satan."
- Does this influence act upon a spirit only at its origin?
"It follows him through all the phases of his existence as a spirit,
until he has acquired such thorough self-command that evil spirits renounce
the attempt to obsess him."
123. Why has God permitted it to be possible for spirits to take
the wrong road?
"The wisdom of God is shown in the freedom of choice which He
leaves to every spirit, for each has thus the merit of his deeds."
124. Since there are spirits who, from the beginning, follow unswervingly
the right path, and others who wander into the lowest depths of evil, there
are, no doubt, many degrees of deviation between these two extremes?
"Yes, certainly; and these degrees constitute the paths of the
great majority of spirits."
125. Will the spirits who have chosen the wrong road be able to
reach the same degree of elevation as the others?
"Yes; but the eternities will be longer in their case."
This expression, "the eternities," must be understood as referring
to the belief of spirits of inferior degree in the perpetuity their sufferings,
resulting from the fact that it Is not given to them to foresee the termination
of those sufferings, and that this conviction of the perpetuity of the
latter is renewed after every new trial to which they have succumbed.
126. Are spirits who have reached the supreme degree after wandering
into the wrong road less meritorious than the others in the sight of God?
"God regards the wanderers who have returned to the right road
with the same approval and the same affection as the others. They have
been classed, for a time, as evil spirits, because they succumbed to the
temptation of evil; but, before their fall, they were merely neutral in
regard to good and evil, like all other spirits."
127. Are all spirits created equal in point of intellectual capacity
?
"They are all created equal, but not knowing from whence they
come; for their free-will must have its fling. They progress more or less
rapidly in intelligence as in morality."
The spirits who, from the beginning, follow the right road, do not thereby
attain at once to the state of perfection for, although they are free from
evil tendencies, they have none the less to acquire the experience and
the varied knowledge indispensable to their perfection. They may be compared
to children who, however good their natural instincts, need to be developed
and enlightened, and who cannot attain to maturity without transition.
But, just as some men are good and others bad from their infancy, so some
spirits are good and others bad from their beginning; with this radical
difference, however, that the child possesses instincts already formed,
whereas the spirit, at his formation, is neither bad nor good, but possesses
all possible tendencies, and strikes out his path, in the direction of
good or evil. through the action of his own free-will.
Angels and Demons
[To the index][To
the header]
128. Do the beings whom we call angels, archangels, seraphim, form
a special category of a nature different from that of other spirits?
"No; the spirits who have purified themselves from all imperfection,
have reached the highest degree of the scale of progress, and united in
themselves all species of perfection."
The word angel is generally supposed to imply the idea of moral perfection
but it is often applied, nevertheless, to all beings, good or bad, beyond
the pale of humanity. we say, "a good angel" "a bad angel,"
"an angel of light," "the angel of darkness," etc.
In those cases, it is synonymous with spirit or genius. It is employed
here in its highest sense.
129. Have the angels passed up through all the degrees of progress?
"They have passed up through all those degrees, but with the difference
which we have already mentioned. Some of them, accepting their mission
without murmuring, have reached the goal more quickly; others have been
longer in reaching the same goal.”
130. If the opinion which admits that some beings have been created
perfect and superior to all others be erroneous, how is it that this opinion
is to be found in the tradition of almost every people?
“Your world has not existed from all eternity. Long before it was called
into being hosts of spirits had already attained to the supreme degree.
and, therefore, the people of your earth naturally supposed those perfected
spirits to have always been at the same degree of elevation."
131. Are there any demons in the usual acceptation of that term?
"If demons existed, they would be the work of God; but would it
he just on the part of God to have created beings condemned eternally to
evil and to misery? If demons exist, it is in your low world, and in other
worlds of similar degree. that they are to be found. They are the human
hypocrites who represent a just God as being cruel and vindictive, and
who imagine that they make themselves agreeable to Him by the abominations
they commit in His name."
It is only in its modern acceptation that the word demon
implies the idea of evil spirits, for the Greek work daimôn
from which it is derived, signifies genius, intelligence,
and is applied indiscriminately to all incorporeal beings, whether good
or bad.
Demons or devils¹, according to the common acceptation
of these words are supposed to be a class of beings essentially bad. If
they exist, they must necessarily be, like everything else, a creation
of God but God, who is sovereignly just and good, cannot have created beings
predestined to evil by their very nature, and condemned beforehand to eternal
misery. If, on the contrary, they are not a creation of God, they must
either have existed. like Him, from all eternity, or there must be several
creators. The first requisite of every theory is to be consistent with
itself but that which asserts the existence of demons, in the popular acceptation
of the term, lacks this essential condition of theoretic soundness. It
was natural that the religious belief of peoples Who, knowing nothing of
the attributes of God, were backward enough to admit the existence of maleficent
deities, should also admit the existence of demons but, on the of those
who acknowledge the goodness of God to be His distinguishing quality, it
is illogical and contradictory to suppose that He can have created beings
doomed to evil. and destined to do evil for ever, for such a supposition
is the negation of His goodness. The partisans of the belief in devils
appeal to the words of Christ in support of their doctrine and it is certainly
not we who would contest the authority of His teachings, which we would
faint see established, not merely on the lips of men, but also in their
hearts. But are those partisans quite sure of the meaning attached be Him
to the word "devil"? Is it not fully admitted that the allegorical
form is one of the distinctive characteristics of His utterances, and that
the Gospels contain many things which are not to be taken literally? To
prove that such is the case, we need only quote the following passage:
-
"Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun shall
be darkened,and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall
fall from heaven. and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken And then
shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven... Verily I say unto
you. This generation shall not pass till all these things are fulfilled"
(Matt. xxiv. 29, 30, 34.) Have we not seen that the form
of the biblical text, in reference to the creation and movement of the
earth, is contradicted by the discoveries of science? May it not be the
same in regard to certain figurative expressions employed by Christ in
order to adapt His teachings to the time and the scene of His mission?
Christ could not have made a statement knowing it to be false. If, therefore,
His sayings contain statements which appear to be contrary to reason, it
is evident either that we do not understand their meaning or that we have
interpreted them erroneously.
Men have done in regard to devils what they have done in regard to
angels. Just as they have imagined that there are beings who were created
perfect from all eternity. so they have imagined that spirits of the lower
degrees Were beings essentially and eternally bad. The words demon,
devil, ought, therefore, to be understood as indicating impure
spirits who are often no better that the imaginary beings designated by
those names, but with this difference. viz., that their state of impurity
and inferiority is only transitory. They are the Imperfect spirits who
rebel against the discipline of trial to which they are subjected, and
who, therefore, have to undergo that discipline for a longer period, but
who will, nevertheless, reach the goal in time, When they shall have made
up their minds to do so. The words demon, devil,
might accordingly be employed in this sense but as they have come to be
understood exclusively as conveying the meaning now shown to be false.
their employment might lead into error by seeming to recognise the existence
of beings specially created for evil.
As regards the term "Satan," it is evidently a personification
of the principle of evil under an allegorical form for it is impossible
to admit the existence of a being who fights against God as an independent
and rival power, and whose sole business in life is to contravene His designs.
As images and figures are necessary in order to strike the human imagination,
men have pictured to themselves the beings of the incorporeal world under
a material form. with attributes indicative of their good or bad qualities.
It is thus that the ancients, wishing to personify the idea of time, represented
it under the figure of an old man with a scythe and an hour-glass. To have
personified it under the figure of a youth would have been contrary to
common sense. The same may be said of the allegories of Fortune, Truth,
etc. The moderns have represented the angels or pure spirits under the
form of radiant beings with white Wings-emblem of purity Satan, with horns,
claws, and the attributes of bestiality-emblems of the lowest Passions;
and the vulgar, prone to understand such representations literally, have
taken these allegorical embodiments of abstract ideas for real personalities,
as they formerly did in regard to the allegorical personifications of the
old mythology.
¹The Zoroastrian term, Dev is the designation
of spirits under the orders of Ahriman, the genius of evil, who, with their
leader, will eventually be "converted," and share the beatitude
of the just.- Zendavesta, A DU PERRON. Paris, 1771. Vol. i. p.2,
pp. 164, 202 etc. - TRANS.