Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1866

Allan Kardec

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Questions and Problems

It is in the air

Paris, May 13th, 1866 – medium Mr. Tail…



Question: When something is foreseen by the masses, generally it is said that “it is in the air”. What is the origin of this expression?

Answer: Its origin, like of many things that go unnoticed and that are explained by Spiritism, it is in the intimate and intuitive feeling of reality. The expression is more truthful than one may think. This general pre-sense of approximation of a serious event has two causes: the first comes from the innumerable masses of Spirits that incessantly move around space and that are aware of things in preparation; because of their dematerialization, they are in more condition to follow the unfolding and predict its occurrence. These Spirits, that incessantly rub elbows with humanity, communicate their thoughts through the fluidic currents that connect the corporeal to the spiritual world. Although you do not see them, their thoughts get to you like the aroma of the flowers hidden by the foliage, and you assimilate them unnoticeably. Air is literally crossed by these fluidic currents that sow the idea everywhere, so much so that the expression “it is in the air” is not only an image, but it is positively true. Certain Spirits are more specially assigned by the Providence with the transmission of inevitable things through presentiment to men, aiming at giving them a secret warning, and they accomplish that mission by meddling among men. They are like intimate voices that reverberate in your intimate self.

The second cause of this phenomenon is in the detachment of the incarnate Spirit in the resting of the body. In those moments of freedom, the Spirit gather with fellow Spirits, those with whom there is more affinity; the Spirit absorbs their thoughts, sees what he cannot see with the eyes of the body, reporting his intuition when waking up, as if it were a totally personal idea. This explains how the same idea may appear at the same time, in a hundred different points and in thousands of brains.

As you know, certain individuals are more capable than others to receive the spiritual influx, be it through the direct communication of strange Spirits, be it through the easier detachment of their own Spirit. Many enjoy, in different degrees, the second sight or spiritual vision, a much more common faculty that you think, and that is revealed in a thousand ways; others keep a more or less clear memory of what they saw during the emancipation of the soul. Due to such a skill, they have a more accurate notion of things; it is not a vague presentiment to them, but the intuition, and in some the actual knowledge of the thing, whose realization they foresee and announce. If we ask them how they know, the majority will not be able to explain; some will say that an inner voice told them, others that they had a revealing vision; others still will say that they feel but do not know how. In times of ignorance, and to the eyes of superstitious people, they go by foretellers and witches, although they are only persons endowed by a spontaneous and unconscious mediumship, a faculty that is inherent to human nature, and that has nothing of supernatural, but that cannot be understood by those that do not admit anything outside matter.

Such a faculty has always existed, but it must be noticed that it develops and multiplies under circumstances that excite the activity of the mind, at moments of crises and imminence of important events. Revolutions, wars, persecutions of party and sects have always given rise to many clairvoyants and inspired people that were classified as enlightened.

Dr. Demeure

Observation: The relationships between the corporeal and the spiritual worlds have nothing of surprising if we consider that these two worlds are formed by the same elements, that is, the same individuals that pass alternately from one to the other. The one that is among the incarnate on Earth today, will be among the discarnate of spaces tomorrow and vice-versa. The world of the Spirits, therefore, is not a world aside. It is humanity itself disentangled from its material covering, and that continues its existence with a new form and more freedom. The relationships between these two worlds, in permanent contact, are then part of the natural laws. The ignorance of the law that rules them has been the tripping stone of every philosophy. It is for the lack of knowledge about it that so many problems have remained unsolved. Spiritism, which is the science of those relationships, gives us the only key that can solve them. How many things are no longer mysteries, thanks to Spiritism!



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