GENESIS THE MIRACLES AND THE PREDICTIONS ACCORDING TO SPIRITISM

1. How is it possible to obtain a knowledge of the future? One comprehends how to predict events which are a consequence of the present state of things, but not of those which have no connection with this, and still less of which are attributed to chance. Future things, they say, do not exist. They are still in nothingness. How then can one know that they will come? The examples of verified predictions are, however, numerous enough, from whence it is necessary to conclude it is a phenomenon of which we have not the key; for there is no effect without a cause. It is this cause we are seeking; and it is Spiritism, the key to so many mysteries, which will furnish it to us. Moreover, we will show that the fact of the predictions themselves is not obtained by a departure from the natural laws.

Let us take, as a comparison, an example in common things, which will aid us to make the principle which we have to develop better understood.

2. Let us suppose a man placed upon a high mountain, and considering the vast extent of the plain. In this situation the distance of a league, or three miles, will be a very short distance seemingly and he will easily embrace with a glance of the eye all the undulations of the Earth from commencement to the end of the route. The traveler who follows this route for the first time knows that by marching he will arrive at the end. There is a simple foreknowledge of the consequence of his march; but the unevenness of the route, the ascents and descents, the rivers to cross, the woods to traverse, the precipices from which he may fall, the places where thieves may be stationed to waylay him, the inns where he will be able to repose – all this is independent of his personal knowledge. It is for him the unknown, the future, because his sight extends not beyond the little circle which surrounds him. As to the continuance of it, he measures it by the time that it takes him to go from one point to another of the route. Take away from him the knowledge of the data of the route, and his knowledge of its continuance is effaced. For the man who is on the mountain, and who follows with the eye of the traveler, all this is the present. Let us suppose that he comes down, and says to the traveler, “At such a moment you will encounter such a thing; you will be attacked and delivered.” He will predict the future to him; for it is the future to the pedestrian, but the present to the man of the mountain.

3. If we depart now from the circle of things purely material, and if we enter by thought into the domain of spiritual life, we will see this phenomenon produced upon a grander scale. The dematerialized spirits are like the man of the mountain. Space and duration of time are to them no more; but the extent and penetration of their sight are in proportion to their purification and to their elevation in the spiritual hierarchy. They are in connection with inferior spirits, like the man armed with a powerful telescope beside him who has only his eyes to see with. With the latter their view is circumscribed, not only because it can only with difficulty go far away from the globe to which they are attached, but because the coarseness of their perispirit veils distant things, as the fog does for the eyes of the body.

One understands then that, according to the degree of perfection to which a spirit has attained, it can foretell the events of a period of a few years; for what is a century in the presence of infinitude? The events do not successively unroll themselves like the incidents on the route of the traveler. He sees simultaneously the commencement and the end of the period.
All the events, which in this period are the future for the man of the Earth, are for him the present. He will be able to tell us with certitude: such a thing will happen at this epoch, because he sees this thing, as the man of the mountain sees that which awaits the traveler on his route. If he does not inform him of it, it is because the knowledge of the future would be hurtful to the man; it might trammel his free will; it might paralyze him in the work which he must accomplish for his progress. The good and the evil which await him, being unknown to him, are the trial for him.

If such a faculty, even in a limited state, can be one of the attributes of the creature, to what a degree of power must it not be elevated in the Creator, who embraces infinitude? For him time does not exist; the commencement and the end of worlds are the present. In this immense panorama, what is the duration of the life of a man, of a generation, of a people?

4. However, as man must concur in the general progress, and as certain events must result from his cooperation, he can be useful in certain cases if he has a knowledge of these events, in order that he may prepare the way for them, and hold himself ready to act when the right moment comes. That is the reason God permits sometimes a corner of the veil to be lifted; but it is always for a useful object, and never to satisfy a vain curiosity. This mission can then be given not to all spirits; for there are some who know the future no better than men, but to some spirits sufficiently advanced for that. Now, it is well to observe that this kind of revelation is always made spontaneously, and never, or very rarely at least, in response to a direct demand.

5. This mission can equally be given to certain men in this manner:

He, to whom is confided the care of revealing a concealed fact, can receive in his ignorance, the inspiration of the spirits who know it, and then he transmits it mechanically, without rendering an account of them to himself. It is known besides that either during sleep, in a waking state, or in the ecstasies of second sight, the soul leaves the body, and is possessed in a greater or less degree with the faculties of the free spirit. If he is an advanced spirit, if he has, above all, like the prophets, received a special mission for this effect, he enjoys, in the moments of emancipation of the soul, the faculty of embracing by himself a greater or less extent of time, and sees as present the events of this period. He can then reveal them at the same instant, or preserve the memory of them for his awakening. If these events must remain a secret, he will lose the remembrance of them, or there will remain with him only a vague intuition of them sufficient to guide him.

6. Thus is this faculty seen developed on providential occasions, in imminent dangers, in great calamities, in revolutions; and the greater numbers of sects which have been persecuted have had numbers of prophets. Thus inspired by these visions, great captains are seen resolutely marching towards the enemy with a certitude of victory, that men of genius, like Christopher Columbus, for example, have pursued an object, predicting the moment when they will attain it. The reason for this is, they have seen this object accomplished in prophetic vision.

The gift of prophecy is then no more supernatural than a multitude of other phenomena. It is based upon the properties of the soul, and the law of connection between the spiritual and material worlds, which Spiritism has come to explain.

This theory of foresight does not solve, perhaps, in an absolutely correct manner, all cases which can be presented as revelations of the future; but one cannot deny that it is based on a truly fundamental principle.

7. Frequently, the person gifted with a faculty capable of foreseeing the future, either in ecstasy or in a somnambulistic state sees the events as if they were being drawn on a picture. The idea of a photograph of the thought could also explain this occurrence. Let us suppose an event is in the thought of a spirit responsible for its accomplishment, or in the thought of those whose acts should provoke them. Such thought, upon crossing the space, as sound crosses the air, can form an image which is visible by the clairvoyant. However, because its accomplishment can be either hastened or delayed depending upon the circumstances, he sees the facts without being able to determine the moment of its accomplishment. Perhaps this thought could be only a projection, a desire, which could not be translated into reality. Hence, we have the frequent errors regarding facts and dates in such previsions (Chap. XIV, from item n° 13 on).

8. In order to comprehend spiritual things – that is to say, to form as distinct an idea as that we make of a landscape before our eyes – there truly fails us a sense, exactly as the necessary sense is wanting to the blind man to comprehend the effects of light, of colors, and of sight, without contact with them. Thus it is only by an effort of the imagination we attain to it, and by the aid of comparisons drawn from familiar things. But some material things can give only very imperfect ideas of spiritual ones. On this account it is best not to take the comparisons which have been drawn too literally, and believe, for example, that the spirit is held at such an elevation as has been stated in one comparison, or that they are obliged to be upon mountains, or above the clouds, in order to see into time and space.

This faculty is inherent to a state of spiritualization or of dematerialization: that is to say, that spiritualization produces an effect which can be compared, though very imperfectly, with that view of the whole which a man has on the mountain-top. The object of this comparison was simply to show that some events, which are in the future to some, are in the present for others, and thus can be predicted which does not imply that the effect is produced in the same manner.

In order to enjoy this perception it is not necessary that the spirit should transport himself to any point in space whatever. He who is on Earth at our side can possess it in its plentitude as well as if he were a thousand miles away, although we see nothing beyond the horizon of our material vision. Sight, with spirits, not being produced in the same manner or with the same elements as with man, their visual horizon is entirely different; this is something that we have not the sense to conceive. The spirit beside the incarnated one is a person with good eyes beside a blind man.

9. It is also necessary to figure to one’s self that this perception is not limited by extent of space, but that it comprehends penetration in all things. It is, we repeat, an inherent faculty proportioned to the state of dematerialization. This faculty is weakened by incarnation, but not completely deadened, because the soul has not been enclosed in the body as in a box. The incarnated being possesses it, although in a lesser degree than when free from matter; it is this that gives to some men a penetrating power, which is totally lacking in others, greater justice in a moral point of view, and a quicker comprehension of things beyond the material world.

Not only the mind perceives, but it remembers that which it has been seen in a spiritual state; and this remembrance is like a picture traced on its thoughts. In incarnation it sees but vaguely, as through a veil; in a liberated state, it sees and conceives clearly. The principle of sight is not outside itself, but within it: thus there is no need of our exterior light. By moral development the circle of our ideas and conception is enlarged. By the gradual dematerialization of the perispirit the latter is purified of the coarse elements which affect the delicacy of the perceptions, whence it is easy to comprehend that the extension of all the faculties follow spiritual progress.

10. It is the degree of extension of the spiritual faculties which, in incarnation, render it more or less apt to conceive of spiritual things. At the same time this aptitude is not the necessary consequence of the development of intelligence; common science does not give it. Thus we see men of great learning as blind in spiritual things as others are in material ones; they are stubborn in regard to spiritual things, because they do not understand them. The reason for which is, their progress in this respect is not yet accomplished; whilst one sees persons of an inferior intelligence and knowledge grasp them with the greatest facility, which proves that the latter have obtained the necessary preliminary intuition of it. It is with them a retrospective remembrance of that which they have seen and known either as a wandering spirit, or in their anterior existences, as others have the intuition of languages and sciences which they have possessed.

11. As to the future of Spiritism, the spirits are unanimous in affirming the near triumph of it, notwithstanding the opposition it receives. This foresight comes easy to them, firstly, because that its propagation is their own personal work. Concurring in the movement or directing it, they know, consequently, what they must do. Secondly, it is sufficient for them to know that it is within a short time, and in this period they see upon the way the powerful auxiliaries which God raises up for them, and which will not be tardy in manifesting themselves.

Without being discarnated spirits, let the Spiritists carry themselves by thought thirty years in advance of this time, to the bosom of the generation which is now being educated by it; let them from that point consider what is taking place today; follow this main spring of action, and they will see those who think they are called to overturn it worn out in their vain endeavors. They will see them gradually disappear from the scene, while this tree, constantly increasing in magnitude, will take deeper root each day.

12. The common events of private life are nearly always governed by the different traits of character manifested by each individual. Some will succeed according to his capacities, his knowledge of things, his energy and perseverance, while another will fail by want of these traits; whilst we can truly say that each one is the “architect of his own future,” which is never submitted to a blind fatality independent of his personal supervision. Knowing the character of an individual, one can easily predict for him his future.

13. The events which touch upon the general interests of humanity are regulated by Providence. When God designs a thing to be accomplished, it will be done in one way or another. Men concur in its execution; but no one is indispensable to it; otherwise God himself would be at the mercy of His creatures. If he, to whom the mission is entrusted fails to execute it, another is entrusted with the charge of it. There is not an unaccomplished mission. Man is always free to fulfill that which has been confided to him, and which he has voluntarily accepted. If he does not perform it, he loses its reward, and he assumes the responsibility of delays, which can be caused by his negligence or bad desire. If he becomes an obstacle to its accomplishment, God can cast him down with a breath.

14. The final result of an event can then be certain, because that it is in the designs of God; but, as most frequently the details and mode of execution are subordinate to circumstances and to the free will of men, the ways and means of doing it can be uncertain. The spirits can give us a general idea of its future accomplishment, if it is necessary that we be foretold of it; but in order to particularize in regard to it, giving date and place, a knowledge in advance of the determination of such and such individuals would be necessary. Now, if this determination is not yet in his mind, according to that which it will be, it can hasten or delay the announcement, thereby changing the secondary means of action, but all ending in the same result. Thus spirits can, judging from existing circumstance, predict that a war is more or less near, that it is inevitable, without being able to predict the day when it will commence, nor the detailed incidents which can be changed by the will of men.

15. In order to fix a time for future events, it is necessary also to take account of a circumstance inherent to the nature even of spirits.

With them time, as well as space, cannot be estimated only by aid of points of comparison or data which divides it into periods which they can count. Upon the Earth the natural division of time into days and years is marked by the rising and setting of the sun, and by the duration of the movement of translation of the Earth. The united measure of time must vary according to worlds, since the astronomical periods are different. Thus, for example, in Jupiter one day is equivalent to ten of our hours, and one year to nearly twelve of our years.

There is, then, in each world a manifest difference in computing time according to the nature of the astral revolutions which take place in it. This would make it difficult for a spirit unacquainted with our Earth to give dates. But outside of worlds these means of distinguishing time do not exist. For a spirit in space, there is for him no rising or setting of the sun marking the days, nor a periodic revolution marking the years. There is for him only duration of time and infinite space (chap. VI, from item n° 1 on). He, then, who had never come to the Earth could have no knowledge of our calculations, which besides would be useless to him. Moreover, he who had never been incarnate upon any world would have no notion of the fractions of duration of time. When a stranger spirit comes to this Earth to manifest, he cannot assign dates to events only by identifying himself with our usages, which is without doubt in his power, but that which the most frequently he judges useless to do.

16. However, the spirits which form the invisible population of our globe, where they have already lived, and still continue to remain in our midst, are naturally identified with our habits, of which they retain the remembrance in their free, wandering state. They have, then, less difficulty than the others in placing themselves at our point of view in regard to that which concerns terrestrial usages. They would therefore more easily assign a date to future events if they knew it; but, beyond that, it is not always allowed them to give data. They are hindered by this reason, that every time circumstances of detail are subordinate to the free will and eventual decision of man. The precise date really exists only when the event is accomplished.

For this reason circumstantial predictions cannot be offered as certitudes, and must be accepted only as probabilities. Then, even, they will carry with them a seal of justifiable suspicion. For this reason the truly wise spirits never give a fixed date to any event. They are limited to predict to us the issue of things which it is useful for us to know. To insist upon having fixed dates to events is to expose ourselves to the mystifications of inferior spirits, who predict what they wish without concerning themselves about the truth of it, and amuse themselves with the frights and deceptions they cause.

17. The forms generally enough employed till now for predictions makes of them veritable enigmas, often undecipherable. This mysterious and cabalistic form, of which Nostradamus offers the most complete type, give to them a certain prestige to the common eye, which attribute so much the more value as they are the more incomprehensible. By their ambiguity they end themselves to very different interpretations, in such a way that, according to the sense attributed to certain allegorical words or those of convention, the manner of computing the calculation, oddly complicated with dates, with a little patience one finds there nearly all that one desires.

Whatever it may be, one cannot deny that some are of a serious character, and are confounded by their truth. It is probable that this veiled form has had some time its use, and even its necessity.

Today circumstances are no more the same; the positivism of the century would not accommodate itself to sibylline language. Thus the predictions of our day affect no more these strange forms. Those which the spirits give have nothing mystical about them. They speak in common language, as they did when living, because they have not ceased to belong to humanity. They predict to us future things, personal or general, as this can be useful to us, according to the clear-sightedness with which they are endowed, as counselors or friends would do. Their predictions are, then, rather warnings, which take nothing away from the free will, than predictions which properly speaking, would imply an absolute fatality. There is nearly always also a motive assigned for their opinion, because they do not wish to annihilate man’s reason under a blind faith which permits them to appreciate the justice of it.

18. Contemporaneous humanity has also its prophets. More than one writer, poet, litterateur, historian, and philosopher has predicted in his writings the future march of things which is realized around us today.

This aptitude comes often, without doubt, from a rectitude of judgment which deduces logical consequences from the present; but often, also, it is the result of a special unconscious clairvoyance, or of a strange inspiration. That which these men have done in life, they can for a much stronger reason do, and with more exactitude, in the spiritual state, when the spiritual sight is no more obscured by matter.

1. Coming to his hometown, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. “Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?” they asked. “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Aren’t all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?” And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, “Only in his hometown and in his own house is a prophet without honor.” And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith. (Matthew, 13: 54 to 58)

2. Jesus announced there a truth which passed into a proverb, which, from the beginning of time has been true as now, and to which one can still add: “That no one is a prophet during life.”

In the present acceptation of this maxim, it is understood to be the credit which a man enjoys among his own people, and among those in whose midst he lives, by the confidence in his superior knowledge and intelligence with which he inspires them. If there are some exceptions, they are rare; and in all cases they are never absolute. The principle of this truth is a natural consequence of human weakness, and can be explained thus:

The habit of seeing them from infancy up, in the common circumstances of life, establishes between men a sort of material equality which makes one often refuse to recognize a moral superiority in him of whom one has been the companion and comrade, who has sprung from the same place, and of whom one has seen the first weakness. Pride suffers from the superiority which one is obliged to submit to. Whoever is educated above the common level is always a motive for jealousy and envy. Those who feel themselves unable to attain to his height must perforce try to lower him by slander and calumny. They cry out against him so much the louder as they see themselves inferior to him, believing by so doing to aggrandize themselves, and eclipse him, by the noise they make. Such has been, and such will be, the history of humanity as long as men will not comprehend their spiritual nature, and will not enlarge their moral horizon. This is also a prejudice characteristic of narrow-minded and common spirits who yield to all this in their selfishness.

On the other hand, they make generally of men whom they do not know personally, only by their mind, an ideal which increases by distance, time, and place. They nearly despoil them of humanity. It seems to them that they must not speak or feel like the rest of the world, that their language and thoughts must constantly be at the height of sublimity, without thinking that the mind cannot be incessantly strained and in a perpetual state of excitability. In the daily contact of private life they see too many men who live for the greater part of the material plane, in whom is nothing to distinguish them from the common man. The man who lives on the material plane, who impresses the senses, eclipses nearly always the spiritual one, who interests the spirit. From afar one only sees the lightning of genius; nearer, they see the spirit at rest.

After death, the comparison existing no more, the spiritual part of man alone is left; and he appears so much the grander as the remembrance of the corporeal man has been put farther away. That is the reason why men, who have marked their passage upon the Earth by works of real value, have been better appreciated after death than in life. They have been judged with more impartiality, because, the envious and jealous having disappeared, personal antagonisms exist no more. Posterity is a disinterested judge, which appreciates the work of the spirit, – accepts it without blind enthusiasm if it is good, and rejects it without hatred if it is bad. A separation from the individuality that has produced it has taken place.

Jesus suffered the more from the consequences of this principle, inherent in human nature, because he lived among people who were much unenlightened, and among men who lived entirely upon the material plane. His compatriots saw in him only the son of the carpenter, the brother of men as ignorant as themselves; and they demanded why he could be superior to them, and where he obtained the right to censure them. Therefore, seeing his words had less power over his own people, who despised him, than over strangers, he went to preach among those who would listen to him, and give him that sympathy which he needed.

One can judge somewhat of the feelings which his relatives entertained of his action by reading the account where his mother, accompanied by his brothers, came into an assembly where he was, and tried to induce him to go home with them, accusing him of being deranged in mind (Mark, 3: 20, 21, and 31-35; “The Gospel According to Spiritism,” chap. 14).

Thus on one side priests and Pharisees accused Jesus of being influenced by evil spirits, and on the other he was accused of insanity by his nearest relatives. Is this not the same treatment that Spiritists receive in our day? And must they complain if they are not better treated by their fellow-citizens than Jesus was? That which was not astonishing among an ignorant people two thousand years ago is more so now in this nineteenth century of a more advanced civilization.

3. (After the cure of the lunatic.) – While everyone was marveling at all that Jesus did, he said to his disciples, “Listen carefully to what I am about to tell you: The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men.” But they did not understand what this meant. It was hidden from them, so that they did not grasp it, and they were afraid to ask him about it. (Luke, 9: 44 and 45)

4. From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. (Matthew, 16: 21)

5. When they came together in Galilee, he said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. 23. They will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised to life.” And the disciples were filled with grief. (Matthew, 17: 22 and 23)

7. Jesus took the Twelve aside and told them, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. He will be handed over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, insult him, spit on him, flog him and kill him. On the third day he will rise again.” The disciples did not understand any of this. Its meaning was hidden from them, and they did not know what he was talking about. (Luke, 18: 31 to 34)

8. When Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to his disciples, “As you know, the Passover is two days away—and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.” Then the chief priests and the elders of the people assembled in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, And they plotted to arrest Jesus in some sly way and kill him. “But not during the Feast,” they said, “or there may be a riot among the people.” (Matthew, 26: 1 to 5)

9. At that time some Pharisees came to Jesus and said to him, “Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill you.” He replied, “Go tell that fox, ‘I will drive out demons and heal people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.” (Luke, 13: 31 and 32)

10. “Be on your guard against men; they will hand you over to the local councils and flog you in their synagogues. On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles.” (Matthew, 10: 17 and 18)

11. “All this I have told you so that you will not go astray. They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God. They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. I have told you this, so that when the time comes you will remember that I warned you. I did not tell you this at first because I was with you.” (John, 16: 1 to 4)

12. You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. All men will hate you because of me. But not a hair of your head will perish. By standing firm you will gain life.” (Luke, 21: 16 to 19)

13. Martyrdom of St. Peter. – Jesus said, “Feed my sheep. I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him: “Follow me!” (John, 21: 18 and 19)

14. Then Jesus began to denounce the cities in which most of his miracles had been performed, because they did not repent. “Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths. If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.” (Matthew, 11: 20 to 24)

15. Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. “Do you see all these things?” he asked. “I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.” (Matthew, 24: 1 and 2)

16. As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.” (Luke, 19: 41 to 44)

17. “In any case, I must keep going today and tomorrow and the next day—for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem! O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” (Luke, 13: 33 to 35)

18. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those in the city get out, and let those in the country not enter the city. For this is the time of punishment in fulfillment of all that has been written. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! There will be great distress in the land and wrath against this people. They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. (Luke, 21: 20 to 24)

19. A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him. Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. For the time will come when you will say, ‘Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ Then they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!” And to the hills, “Cover us!” For if men do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?” (Luke, 23: 27 to 31)

20. La facultad de presentir los hechos futuros es uno de los atributos del alma que se explica por la teoría de la presciencia. Jesús la poseía, al igual que todas las demás, en un grado sobresaliente. Podía, por lo tanto, prever los acontecimientos que sobrevendrían a su muerte, sin que en ese hecho hubiera nada sobrenatural, pues vemos cómo se repite, delante de nuestros ojos, en las condiciones más comunes. No es raro que las personas anuncien con precisión el instante en que habrán de morir; eso se debe a que sus almas, en estado de desprendimiento, se encuentran como el hombre en la cima de una montaña (Véase el Capítulo XVI, § 1): abarca el camino que habrá de recorrer y ve la meta.

21. It must have been thus with Jesus, who, being conscious of the mission which he came to fulfill, knew that a violent death was the necessary consequence of it. Spiritual sight, which was permanent with him, as well as power to read thought, must have shown him the circumstances and fatal time. For the same reason he could foretell the ruin of the temple, that of Jerusalem, the misfortunes which would overtake its inhabitants, and the dispersion of the Jews.

22. John the Baptist. – But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” (Matthew, 3: 7 to 10)

23. “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are. Woe to you, blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’ You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred? You also say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gift on it, he is bound by his oath.’ You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred? Therefore, he who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. And he who swears by the temple swears by it and by the one who dwells in it. And he who swears by heaven swears by God’s throne and by the one who sits on it. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our forefathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of the sin of your forefathers! “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? Therefore I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on Earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. I tell you the truth, all this will come upon this generation.” (Matthew, 23: 13 to 36)

24. Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?” He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. Leave them; they are blind guides.” (Matthew, 15: 12 to 14)

26. The words of Jesus will not pass away, because they will be true always. His moral code will be eternal, because that it contains conditions of well-doing which conduct man to his eternal destiny. But have his words been studied over, and purified of all alloy false interpretations? Have all the Christian sects seized the spirit of them? Has no one misconstrued the true sense of them in consequence of prejudices and ignorance of the laws of nature? Has no one made them an instrument of power to serve ambition and material interests, a stepping- stone, not for elevation to heaven, but for earthly elevation? Have they not all been given for a guide to the practice of the virtues which are made the express conditions upon which salvation depends? Are they not all exempt from the reproaches which he addressed to the Pharisees of his time? In short, are they not all, in theory and practice, the pure expression of his doctrine?

Truth, being one, it cannot be found in contrary affirmations. Jesus has not desired to give a double meaning to his words. If, then, the different sects contradict one another, if some consider as true that which others condemn as heresies, it is impossible that they are all right. If all had taken the true sense of the evangelical teaching, they would have taken the same ground of belief, and not formed different sects.

That which will not pass away is the true sense of the words of Jesus; that which will disappear is that false sense which men have built upon his words.

Jesus’ mission being that of bringing to men God’s thoughts, his pure doctrine alone can be their expression; for that reason he has said: “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots.”

27. Jesus said to them: “Have you never read in the Scriptures: “The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? “Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed.” When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet. (Matthew, 21: 42 to 46)

28. The teachings of Jesus have become the cornerstone; that is to say, the stone which is the foundation of the new edifice of faith, elevated upon the ruins of the ancient one of old. The Jews, princes, priests, Pharisees, having rejected this word, it has crushed them, as it will crush those who since that time have slighted it, or misconstrued the sense of it, to aid ambition.

29. “Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey. When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit. “The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said. “But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’ So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. “Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.” (Matthew, 21: 33 to 41)

30. The Father is God; the vine which he has planted is the law which he has established; the tenants, to whom he has rented his vine, are the men who must teach and practice his law; the servants, whom he sent to them, are the prophets whom they have killed; his son, whom he has at length sent, is Jesus whom they have in like manner destroyed. How, then, will the Lord treat the prevaricating attorneys of his law? He will treat them as they have acted towards his ambassadors; he will fill their places with others, who will render better account of his goodness, and of the conduct of his flock.

Thus has it been with the scribes, with the princes, priests, and Pharisees; thus will it be when he will come again to ask an account of each one of that which he has made of his doctrine. He will take away authority from him who may have abused it; for he desires that justice be administered in his vineyard according to his law.

After nineteen centuries of growth, humanity, arrived at the virile age, is ripe to comprehend that which Christ has only touched upon, because, as he says himself, it could then not have been comprehended. What has been effected by those who during this long period have been charged with its religious education? To see indifference be supplanted by faith in it, and incredulity, or unbelief in God, erect a faith upon it. At no other epoch, indeed, has skepticism and disbelief in God been more manifested than today.

If a few of the sayings of Christ have been veiled in allegory, in respect to all that which concerns the rule of conduct, the connection of man with man, the moral principles of whom he makes the express condition of salvation, it is clear, explicit, and without ambiguity. (“The Gospel According to Spiritism,” chap. 15)

What have men done with his maxims of charity, of love, and of tolerance? With the exhortations he has given his disciples to convert men by gentleness and persuasion, by simplicity, humility, by unselfishness, and all the virtues of which he has been the example? The anathema and malediction have been cast at men for acknowledging him as their Master. They have been slain in the name of him who has said: “All men are brothers.” They have made a jealous, cruel, vindictive, and partial God of him whom he has proclaimed infinitely just, good, and merciful. They have sacrificed to this God of peace and of truth thousands more of victims at the stake, by tortures and persecutions, than the pagans have ever sacrificed to false gods. They have sold prayers and favors from heaven in the name of him who has chased those who sold from the Temple, and who has said to his disciples: “Freely you have received, freely give.”

What would Christ say to all this if he lived among us today? If he saw his representatives ambitious for the honors, the riches, the power and pomp of the princes of this world, whilst he, more kingly than the kings of the Earth, made his entrance into Jerusalem seated upon a donkey? Would he not do right if he said to them, “What have you made of my teachings, you who worship the golden calf, and address the greater part of your prayers to the rich, and the meager part to the poor? As I have said to you: the last shall be first, and the first last, in the kingdom of heaven.” If it is not so carnally, it is so spiritually; and, as the master of the parable, he will come to demand an account of his tenants of the product of the vine when the harvest shall come.

31. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. (John, 10: 16)

32. By these words Jesus announces clearly that some day men will have only one religious belief. But how can this unity be effected? The thing appears difficult, if one considers the difference which exist between religions, the antagonism which exists between their respective adepts, their obstinacy in believing themselves in exclusive possession of the truth. All desire unity of faith; but all flatter themselves that it will be made to their profit, and no one understands how to make concessions to his beliefs.


However, unity will be in religion, as well as in all social, political, and commercial affairs, by the lowering of the barriers which separate nations, by the assimilation of manners, laws, and language. The nations of the entire world fraternize already, like the provinces of the same empire. They hasten this unity; they desire it. It will be done by the force of things, because it will become a necessity to tighten the bonds of fraternity between nations. It will be done by the development of human reason, which will make them comprehend the puerility of these differences; by the progress of the sciences, which demonstrates each day the material errors upon which they lean, and detaches little by little the decayed stones of their foundations. If science demolishes in religions that which is the work of men, and the fruit of their ignorance of the laws of nature, it cannot destroy, notwithstanding the opinion of some, that which is the work of God and of eternal truth. By clearing away the accretions of error it prepares the way of unity, religions must meet upon a neutral ground, however common to all.

In order to bring this about, all will have to make concessions and sacrifices, more or less great, according to the multiplicity of particular dogmas. But, by virtue of the principle of immutability that they all possess, the initiative concession should come from the official camp. Instead of taking their starting point from on high, it will be taken below by the initiative individual. It has been operating some time by a movement of decentralization, which is tending towards the acquisition of an irresistible force. The principle of immutability, which religions have hitherto considered as an aegis conservatrix, will become a destructive element on account of the unchangeable creeds. Whilst society marches ahead of them, they will be overflowed, and then absorbed in the current of progressive ideas.

The immobility, contrary to being a source of strength, becomes a cause of weakness and ruin for those who do not follow the general movement; it tears down the unity, because those who want to move forward separate from those who are obstinate in staying behind.

Judging from the present state of opinion and knowledge, the religion which must one day attract all men under the same banner shall be that which will the best satisfy the reason and legitimate aspirations of the heart and mind; which shall not at any point conflict with positive science; which, instead of being immovable, will follow humanity in its progressive march without allowing itself to ever be outrun; which shall be the emancipator of intelligence by admitting only a reasonable faith, that of which the moral code shall be the purest, the most rational, the most in harmony with social needs; in short, that which is the best adapted to found upon the Earth the reign of goodness by the practice of charity and universal fraternity.

That which supports antagonisms between religions is the idea that each one has its particular god, and their pretension to having the only true and most powerful one which is in constant hostility with the gods of the other creeds, and occupied in combating their influence. When they shall have become convinced that there is only one God in the universe, and that he is the same that they adore under the names of Jehovah, Allah, or Deus; when they shall be in accord upon his essential attributes – they will comprehend that one being alone can have only one will; they will extend their hands to one another as servants of the same Master, and as children of the same Father; and they will have made a great stride towards unity.

33. The disciples asked him, “Why then do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?” Jesus replied, “To be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things. But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him everything they wished. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.” Then the disciples understood that he was talking to them about John the Baptist. (Matthew, 17: 10 to 13)

34. Elijah was already returned in the person of John the Baptist. His new advent has been announced in an explicit manner. Now, as he can only return in a new body, it is a formal consecration of the principle of the plurality of existences (“The Gospel According to Spiritism,” chap. 4, item 10).

35. “If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever. The Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. (John, 14: 15 to 17 and 26) (“The Gospel According to Spiritism,” chap. 6)

36. But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; In regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; And in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned. “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. (John, 16: 7 to 14)

37. This prediction, without doubt, is one of the most important, in a religious point of view, because it verifies in the most conclusive manner that Jesus has not said all that he had to say, because that he would not have been comprehended even by his apostles, since it is to them he addresses his words. If he had given secret instructions to them, they would have mentioned it in the Gospels. Since he has not told everything he knew to his apostles, their successors have known no more than themselves of it. They themselves have been able to misconstrue the sense of his words, to give a false impression of his ideas, often veiled under the form of parables. The religions founded upon the Gospels can then not be said to be in possession of all the truth, since the completion of them has been postponed to a subsequent time. Their principle of immutability is a protestation against even the words of Jesus.


He announces, under the name of “Consoler” and “Spirit of Truth,” he who must teach all things and make them recall that which he has said; then his teaching was not complete. Moreover, he predicted that they will have forgotten that which he has said, and that they will have altered the nature of it, since the Spirit of Truth must make them recall it, and in concert with Elias reestablish all things; that is to say, according to the true idea of Jesus.

38. When ought this new revelator to come? It is very evident, that, if at the epoch where Jesus spoke, men were not in a state to comprehend the things which remained for him to say, in a few years they could not acquire the necessary light. For intelligence in regard to certain parts of the Gospel, with the exception of its moral precepts, a knowledge which progress in the sciences alone could give was necessary, which must be a work of time and of many generations. If, then, the new Messiah had come shortly after Christ, he would not have found the ground prepared for him, and he would not have accomplished more than Christ. Now, from the time of Christ to our day, no one great revelation has been produced which might have completed the knowledge of the Gospel, and which might have elucidated the obscure parts of it, – a certain indication that the Messenger had not yet appeared.

39. Who must this Messenger have been? By Jesus saying: “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Consoler,” indicates clearly that it is not himself; otherwise he would have said: “I will return to complete that which I have taught you.” Then he adds: “to be with you forever.” The latter would not grasp the idea of an incarnated being who can live eternally with us, and still less be in us, but is comprehended very well of a doctrine which, when it has been assimilated, can be eternally in us. The Consoler is, then, in the thought of Jesus, the personification of a sovereignly consoling doctrine, of whose inspirer will be the Spirit of Truth.

40. Spiritism realizes, as has been demonstrated (chap. I, n° 30), all the conditions of the Consoler promised by Jesus. It is not an individual doctrine – a human conception. No one can tell the creator of it. It is the product of the collective teachings of the spirits, at which presides the Spirit of Truth. It suppresses nothing of the Gospel; it completes and elucidates it. By the aid of the new laws that it reveals, joined to that of science, it enables us to comprehend that which was unintelligible to admit, the possibility of that which incredulity regarded as inadmissible. It has had its prophets and harbingers, who have predicted its coming. By its moralizing power it is preparing for the reign of goodness upon the Earth.

The doctrine of Moses, incomplete, has remained circumscribed to the Jewish people. That of Jesus, more complete, has been spread all over the Earth by Christianity, but has not converted the whole world. Spiritism, more complete, still having roots over all the Earth, will convert all. *


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* All philosophical and religious doctrines bear the name of the individual founder. They say, the Mosaic, Christianity, Mohammedanism, Buddhism, etc. The word Spiritism, to the contrary, recalls no personality; it encloses a general idea, which indicates at the same time the character and multiple source of the doctrine.

41. Christ’s saying to the apostles: “But the Consoler, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you,” proclaimed by that the necessity of reincarnation. How could these men profit, then, by the more complete teaching which must be given subsequently? How would they be more apt to comprehend it if they were not to live again? Jesus would have said an inconsistent thing if the future men were, according to the common doctrine, to be a new men, of souls which arose from nothingness to birth. Admit, to the contrary, that the apostles and the men of their time have lived since, that they still live again today, the promise of Jesus is found justified. Their intelligence, which must have been developed by contact with social progress, can bear now that which it could not then. Without reincarnation the promise of Jesus would have been an illusory one.

42. If they say that this promise was realized on the day of Pentecost by the descent of the Holy Spirit one would reply that the Holy Spirit has been able to inspire them, that he has opened their intelligence, developed in them medianimic aptitudes which were to facilitate their mission; but as nothing more, other than Jesus had taught them, has been given to them, one can find no trace of a special teaching. The Holy Spirit has, then, not realized that which Jesus announced as the Consoler; otherwise the apostles would have elucidated, while living, all which has remained obscure in the Gospels to this day, and the contradictory interpretation of which has given rise to innumerable sects, which have been divided, in regard to Christianity, since the first century.

43. Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” (Matthew, 16: 24 to 28)

44. Then the high priest stood up before them and asked Jesus: “Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?” But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer. Again the high priest asked him: “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?” “I am,” said Jesus. “And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.” The high priest tore his clothes. “Why do we need any more witnesses?” he asked. “You have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?” (Mark, 14: 60 to 63)

45. Jesus announces his second coming; but he does not say he will return with a carnal body, neither that the Consoler will be personified in him. He presents himself as coming in spirit, in the glory of his Father, to judge the good and wicked, and render to each one according to his works, when the time shall be accomplished.

This saying, “I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom,” seems a contradiction, since it is certain that he has not come during the life of anyone of those who were present. Jesus could not, however, be deceived in a prophecy of this nature, and above all in a contemporary fact which concerned him personally. At first it is necessary to demand if his words have always been faithfully rendered. One can doubt it when one thinks that he has written nothing himself; that a compilation of his teachings has not been made until after his death. And, when one sees the same discourse nearly always reproduced in different terms by each evangelist, it is an evident proof that they are not the textual expressions of Jesus. It is also probable that the sense has been sometimes altered in passing through successive transitions.

On the other hand, it is certain, that, if Jesus had said all that he could have said, he would have explained all things in a distinct and precise manner which had not given place to any equivocation, as he does it for moral principle; whilst he must have veiled his thoughts upon subjects which he has not judged proper to propose to them. The apostles, persuaded that the present generation must be the witness of that which he announced, must have interpreted the thought of Jesus according to their idea. They have been able, consequently, to draw from it a more absolute sense of the present than he has perhaps intended to convey himself. Whatever it may be, the fact is there, which proves that the circumstances have not happened as they have believed they would.

46. A capital point which Jesus has not been able to develop, because that men of his time were not sufficiently prepared for this order of ideas and its consequences, but of which he has, however, based the principle, as he has done for all things: this is the great and important law of reincarnation. This law, studied and brought to the light of day by Spiritism, is the key of many passages of the Gospel, which without that would appear nonsensical.

It is in this law that one can find the rational explanation of the above words by admitting them as textual. Since they cannot be applied to any one of the apostles, it is evident they refer to the future reign of Christ; that is to say, in the time when his doctrine, better comprehended, will be the universal law. By telling them that anyone of those who were present would see his coming, could not be understood in the sense that he would inhabit the carnal body at this epoch. But the Jews imagined they were to see all that Jesus announced, and took his allegories literally.

Finally, a few of his predictions have been accomplished in their time, – such as the ruin of Jerusalem, the misfortunes which followed it, and the dispersion of the Jews; but he saw farther, and, in speaking of the present, he makes constant allusion to the future.

47. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains. (Matthew, 24: 6 to 8)

48. “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child. Children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.” (Marc, 13: 12 and 13)

49. “So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand—then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. * Let no one on the roof of his house go down to take anything out of the house. Let no one in the field go back to get his cloak. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again. If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.” (Matthew, 24: 15 to 22)


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*The expression: the abomination of desolation, despite being meaningless, is also ludicrous. Ostervald’s translation that says: “The abomination that causes desolation,” is quite different. The meaning then becomes perfectly clear, as one comprehends that abomination brings desolation as punishment. Jesus said: “when abomination comes to a saintly place, so does desolation, and that will be a sign that the times are near.”

50. “Immediately after the distress of those days ‘the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’ “At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the Earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other. “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door. I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.” (Matthew, 24: 29 and 34)

As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark. (Matthew, 24: 37 and 38)

52. I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. (John, 16: 20 to 22)

53. And many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, But he who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. (Matthew, 24: 11 to 14)

54. This picture of the end of time is evidently allegorical, as the greater part of them are which Jesus presented. The images which they contain are colored in a way to make a deep impression upon intelligences corroded with sin and ignorance. In order to strike these clouded spirits, it was necessary to paint vigorously with glaring colors. Jesus addressed himself particularly to the people who were the least enlightened, those incapable of comprehending metaphysical abstractions, and of seizing the delicacy of forms. In order to reach the heart it was necessary to speak to the eyes by the aid of material signs, and to the ears by the vigor of language.

As a natural consequence of this disposition of mind, supreme power could not, according to the belief then, manifest itself only by extraordinary or supernatural things. The more impossible they were, the more ready were they to accept them.

The Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with great majesty, surrounded by his angels, and with the sound of trumpets, seemed to them much more imposing than a being invested with moral power alone. So the Jews, who expected the Messiah to be a king of the Earth, mighty above all kings, to place their nation in the first rank among them, to raise up again the throne of David and Solomon, would not recognize him in the humble son of the carpenter without material authority. However, this poor, despised man of Judea has become the greatest among the great. He has conquered by his sovereignty more kingdoms than the most powerful potentates.

With his word alone, and with the aid of a few miserable fishermen, he has revolutionized the world; and it is to him that the Jews will owe their rehabilitation. He then had the truth when he replied to this question of Pilate: “Are you the king of the Jews?” “Yes, it is as you say,” Jesus replied.

55. Allow us to observe, that among the ancients, earthquakes and the eclipse of the sun were necessary symbols of all events and all sinister presages. One finds them at the death of Jesus, of Caesar, and in a multitude of times in the history of paganism. If these phenomena were produced as often as has been related, it would appear impossible that men had not preserved the memory of them by tradition. To this is added that of the stars having fallen from heaven, which is evidently a fiction, as one knows now stars cannot fall.

56. However, under these allegories are concealed great truths. Firstly, it is the announcement of calamities of all kinds, which will strike and decimate humanity, – calamities engendered by a great contest between good and evil, faith and incredulity, progressive and retrogressive ideas. Secondly, that of the diffusion over all the Earth of the Gospel reestablished in its primitive purity. Then the reign of goodness, which will be that of peace and universal fraternity, will arise from the code of evangelical morals put in practice by all nations. This will truly be the reign of Jesus, since he will preside at its establishment, and men will live under the aegis of his law – a reign of goodness; for, said he, “Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.”

57. When will these things be accomplished? “No one knows,” says Jesus, “not even the Son of man;” but, when the moment shall have come, men will be warned of it by precursory indication. These signs will not take place in the sun or in the stars, but in the social state, as well as in phenomena which partake more largely of the moral quality than the physical, which one can in part deduce from his allusions to it.

It is very certain that this change could not have been operated during the life of the apostles; otherwise Jesus would not have been ignorant of it. Moreover, such a transformation could not take place in a few years. However, he speaks to them as if they were to be witness of it. He meant by it that they were to be reborn into life for this epoch, and to work themselves at the transformation. Sometimes he speaks of the approaching end of Jerusalem, and takes this fact as a point of comparison for the future.

58. Is it the end of the world which Jesus announces by his second coming, and when he says: “The end of the world will come when the Gospel shall have been preached over all the Earth?”

It is not rational to suppose that God will destroy the world precisely at the moment when it will enter into the way of moral progress by the practice of evangelical teachings. Nothing, moreover, in the words of Christ indicates a universal destruction, which, under such conditions, would not be justified.

The general practice of evangelical truths must lead to an amelioration of the moral state of men, will lead of itself to the reign of good, and will lead the downfallen from the errors of his ways. He refers, then, to the end of the old world, of the world governed by prejudices, pride, selfishness, fanaticism, incredulity, cupidity, and all the bad passions to which Christ alludes when he says: “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come;” but this will lead to a struggle from which will proceed the evils which he predicts.

59. “In the last days,” God says, ”I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.” (Acts, Chap. II: 17 and 18 - Joel, Chap.2: 28 and 29))

60. If one considers the present state of the moral and physical world, the tendencies, aspirations, and presentiments of the masses, the decadence of old ideas which have struggled in vain for a century against new ideas, one cannot doubt that a new order of things is being prepared, and that the old world is reaching its end.

If now, by taking the true sense of the allegorical form of certain of his pictures, inquiring upon the innermost meaning of the words of Jesus, and comparing them with the present state of society and of the world, one cannot deny that many of his predictions are receiving their accomplishment today; whence it is reasonable to conclude that we are on the borders of the time announced, which confirmed at all points of the globe by the spirits who manifest themselves.

61. Thus, as one has seen (chap. I, n° 32), the advent of Spiritism, coinciding with other circumstances, realizes one of the most important predictions of Jesus by the influence which it must forcibly exercise over ideas. It is, besides, clearly announced in this passage of the Acts of the Apostles: “In the last days, God says: I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy.”

This is an unmistakable announcement of the prevalence of mediumship, which is revealed in our day in individuals of all ages, sexes, and conditions, and in consequence of the universal manifestations of the spirits; for without the spirits there would not be mediums. This, it has been said, will arrive in the latter days. Since it is not the end of the world, but its regeneration, we must understand this prophecy to imply, the last days of the moral world which is at an end. (“The Gospel According to Spiritism,” chap. 21)

62. “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. “(Matthew, 25: 31 to 34) (“The Gospel According to Spiritism,” chap. 15)

63. The reign of goodness being established upon the Earth, it is necessary that spirits hardened in evil, and those who would be able to bring trouble to it, should be excluded. God has given them the necessary time for their improvement; but the moment when the globe must elevate itself into the hierarchy of worlds by the moral progress of its inhabitants, being arrived, the sojourn of spirits and incarnated beings, will be forbidden to those who have not profited by the instructions which they have been received in this world. They will be exiled into inferior worlds, as were formerly those of the adamic race upon our Earth, whilst their places will be filled by better spirits. It is this separation at which Jesus will preside, which is represented by these words of the last judgment: “The good will be on my right hand and the wicked on my left” (chap. XI, from item n° 31 on).

64. The doctrine of a last judgment, unique and universal, putting an end to humanity, conflicts with reason in this sense: that it would imply the inactivity of God during the eternity which has preceded the creation of the Earth, and the eternity which will follow its destruction. One would naturally demand of what use the sun, the moon, and stars would be, which, according to Genesis, have been made for the illumination of this Earth. One is astonished that a work so immense should have been made for such a short space of time, and for the profit of beings of whom the greater part were condemned in advance to eternal suffering.

65. Materially speaking, the idea of a unique judgment was, to a certain point, admissible to those who sought not the reason of things, when they believed all humanity concentrated upon this Earth, and that the whole universe was made for its inhabitants. It is inadmissible since it is known there are millions of similar worlds in which humanity is perpetuated during all eternity, and among which the Earth is an imperceptible point.

One sees by this fact alone that Jesus was right in saying to his disciples: “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear;” for the progress of science was indispensable to the healthy interpretation of some of his words. Assuredly the Apostles, St. Paul and the first disciples of them, would have established otherwise certain dogmas if they had known the principles of astronomy, geology, physics, chemistry, physiology, and psychology, which are known today. Thus Jesus has postponed the complement of his instructions, and announced that all things were to be reestablished.

66. Morally speaking, a positive judgment to which there is no appeal is irreconcilable with the infinite goodness of the Creator, whom Jesus constantly presents to us as a good Father, leaving always a way open for repentance, and ready ever to extend his arms to the prodigal son. If Jesus had understood the judgment in this sense, he would have contradicted his own words.

Then, if the last judgment must surprise men suddenly in the midst of their ordinary work, and mothers at the point of childbirth, one asks what object God has in it. He who does nothing uselessly or unjustly, why should he cause children to be born and create new souls at this supreme moment of the extermination of humanity, in order to make them pass into judgment from their mothers’ bosoms before they were conscious beings, while others have had thousands of years to acknowledge him? On which side, right or left, will pass these souls who are not yet either good or bad, and to whom the way of all subsequent progress is henceforth closed, since humanity will exist no longer? (Chap. II, n° 19)

Let those whose reason is contented with similar beliefs preserve them. It is their right, and no one should blame them; but let them not expect the rest of the world to join them in their belief.

67. The judgment looked at in the emigration point of view is rational, (see n°63). It is founded upon the most rigorous justice, as it leaves eternally to the spirit its free will, as by it no partiality is shown to anyone, as an equal latitude is given by God to all his creatures, without exception, to progress; for the door of heaven is always open for those who are worthy of entering therein; but the annihilation of the world would bring no interruption to the progressive march of the spirit. Such is the consequence of plurality of worlds and of existences.

According to this interpretation, the name last judgment is not correct, since spirits pass by similar spheres to each renewal of worlds which they inhabit, until they have attained a certain degree of perfection. There is then, properly speaking, not a last judgment; but there are general judgments at all the epochs of partial or total renewal of the population of worlds, in consequence of which great emigrations and immigrations of spirits are brought about.

1. The time appointed by God has arrived, is said to us on all sides, where great events have been accomplished for the regeneration of humanity. In what sense is it necessary to understand these prophetic words? To the incredulous they are of no importance; to their eyes, it is only the expression of a puerile belief without foundation; for the greater number of the believing, they have something mysterious and supernatural, which seems to be the harbinger of the overturning of the laws of nature. These two interpretations are equally erroneous, – the first, in that which implies a denial of Providence; the second, in that these words announce no perturbation of the laws of nature, but their accomplishment.

2. All is harmony in creation. All reveals a foresight, the effects of which are wanting neither in the smallest nor largest of God’s works. We must then, firstly, discard irreconcilable caprice with the divine wisdom. Secondly, if our epoch is marked for the accomplishments of certain things, it is because there is a reason for their accomplishment in the onward march of all things.

Our globe, like all which exists, is submitted to the law of progress. It progresses physically by the transformation of the elements which compose it, and morally by the purification of the incarnated and discarnated spirits who people it. The progress of the two is a parallel one; for the habitation becomes perfected according to the degree of perfection of its inhabitant. Physically, the globe has been submitted to transformations, ascertained by science, which have successively rendered it habitable for beings more and more perfected; morally, humanity progresses by the development of intelligence of the moral sense and gentleness of manners. At the same time, as the improvement of the globe has been accomplished under the empire of material forces, men have concurred in it by the efforts of their intelligence. They have learned how to make unwholesome localities healthy, rendering communications with one another easier and the soil more productive.

This double progress is accomplished in two ways, one slow, gradual, and insensible; the other by sudden changes, to each one of which has been operated a more rapid upper movement, which mark, in distinct characters the progressive periods of humanity. These movements, subordinate in details to the free will of man, are in a measure necessary or inevitable in their relation to the whole, because they are submitted to laws like those operated in the germination, growth, and maturity of plants. This is why the progressive movement is sometimes partial – that is to say, limited to a race or one nation – at other times general.

The progress of humanity is effected then by virtue of a law. Now, as all laws of nature are the eternal work of wisdom and divine prescience, all which is the effect of these laws is the result of the will of God – not of an accidental, capricious will, but an immutable one. Then, when humanity is ripe to take a higher degree in progression, one can say that the time appointed by God has arrived, as one speaks of the harvest season as having arrived with the maturity of its fruit.

3. While this progressive movement of humanity is inevitable, because it is natural, it does not follow that God is indifferent to it, and that, after having established laws, he is now in an inactive state, leaving things to take care of themselves. His laws are eternal and immutable without doubt, but only because his will itself is eternal and constant, and that his thought animates constantly all things. His thought which penetrates all things is the intelligent and permanent force which keeps all in harmony. If this thought should one moment cease to act, the universe would be like a clock without a pendulum. God watches, then, incessantly over the execution of his laws; and the spirits who populate space are his ministers charged with the details according to the unfoldment of their functions in their degree of advancement.

4. The universe is at the same time an incommensurable mechanism, conducted by a number no less incommensurable of intelligences, an immense government, where every intelligent being has his active part assigned him under the eye of the Sovereign Master, whose unique will maintains unity everywhere. Under the empire of this vast regulating power, all moves, all operates in perfect order. That which seems like perturbations to us are partial and isolated movements, which appear irregular only because our sight is circumscribed. If our vision could embrace the whole, we would see that these irregularities are only apparent, and that they harmonize with all.

5. Humanity has already accomplished incontestable progress. Men by their intelligence have attained to a knowledge of the sciences, arts, and material comforts never reached before. An immense progress still remains for them to realize, which is to make charity, fraternity, and union reign among them in order to assure to them their moral well-being. They could never accomplish this progress with their present beliefs, their superannuated institutions, which are remains of another age, good for a certain epoch, sufficient for a transitory state, but which, having given all that it has to give, would only be a hindrance now. It is not only the development of intelligence which is necessary to men, it is the elevation of sentiment; and for that reason it is necessary to destroy all that which excites in them undue selfishness or pride.

Such is the period upon which they are entering, and which will mark one of the most important phases of humanity. This phase, which is being elaborated at this moment, is the necessary complement of the preceding state, as the manly age is that of youth. It could then be foreseen and predicted in advance, and thus they say that the times appointed by God have come.

6. In these times a partial change is not being enacted, a renovation limited to one country, to one people or nation, or one race. It is a universal movement which is operating in moral progress. A new order of things is being established, and the men the most opposed to it are in their ignorance working for it. The future generation, rid of the dross of the old world, and formed of purer elements, will find itself animated with ideas and sentiments entirely different from the present one, which is passing away with gigantic strides. The old world will die, and live in history, as that of the Middle Ages, with its barbaric customs, is remembered in the present.

Each one knows that we all desire something different from the present order of things. After having exhausted in some respects the good which is the product of intelligence, one comes to comprehend that the complement of this well-being can be only in moral development. The more one advances, the more one feels that which is missing, without, however, being able to define it clearly. It is the effect of the interior work which is being effected for regeneration. We have desires and aspirations which are the prelude to a better condition.

7. But change as radical as that which is being elaborated cannot be accomplished without commotion. There will be an inevitable conflict in ideas. From this conflict will forcibly arise temporary perturbations, until the rubbish be cleared away, and the equilibrium be re- established. It is, then, from a battle of ideas that these grave events will arise, and not from cataclysms, or purely material catastrophes. The general cataclysms were the consequence of the state of formation of the Earth. Now it is no more the center of the globe which is agitated, but that of the humanity.

8. If the Earth no longer has to fear general cataclysms, it is nevertheless still subject to periodical revolutions; their causes, from a scientific point of view, are explained by the following instructions given by two eminent spirits: *

“In addition to obeying the ordinary laws that preside over the division of days and nights, seasons, and the like, each celestial body is subject to revolutions that require thousands of centuries to reach full completion. Analogous to brief revolutions, these long-term upheavals pass through all periods, from birth until those phases of utmost effect. After reaching such potential a decrease to the lowest limit occurs; then the cycle starts all over again.

Humanity only apprehends the phases of relatively short duration whose periodicity can be proved. Some of these revolutions, however, embrace lengthy creations of beings and even successions of races; consequently, their effects have the appearance of novelty and spontaneity. But if man could project his vision back some thousands of centuries he would see amidst these causes and effects a correlation he could hardly anticipate. Nevertheless, these periods, which confound the human imagination due to their relatively long duration, last only instants in the everlasting duration of eternity.

In a planetary system each body that constitutes the system reacts with the others, and all physical influences are mutually dependent of each other. In fact, there aren’t any effects that you would consider as great disturbances that are not the consequence of the set of influences of the system as a whole.

I go further and say that planetary systems also react with each other; this is because of the proximity or distance resulted from their orbital movement through the myriads of systems comprising our nebula. In addition, our nebula, which is like an archipelago in the immensity of space, having also its own orbital movement through a large number of other nebula, is also subject to the influences of those nebula it approaches.

Therefore, nebula react on nebula and systems react on systems; planets react on planets, and the elements of each planet react with each other; and thus successively down to the atom. Whence in each world we have local or general revolutions that do not appear to be disturbances only because life’s brevity allows us to perceive only their partial effects.

Organic matter could not escape these influences; the disturbances it suffers can thus alter the physical state of living beings and, in general, determine some of the diseases that attack plants, animals and humanity. We remark that these diseases, like all plagues, act as stimulants to propel the human intelligence, by need, to search for means to combat them and to discover the laws of nature.

Organic matter in turn has an effect on the spirit; through its contact and inner connection with the material elements, the spirit also suffers influences that modify its dispositions. This fact, however, does not deprive it of its free will, but rather accelerates or attenuates its activities, thus contributing to its development. The effervescence manifested from time to time in a population, among people of the same race, is neither a fortuitous occurrence nor the result of a whim, but has its origin in the laws of nature. This effervescence, which is unconscious at first and only a vague desire, a non-definite aspiration towards something better or a need for change, is characterized by a silent agitation; later on, however, it brings about acts that lead to social revolutions. As everything is interconnected in the universe, be certain that these revolutions, like physical revolutions, also have their periodicity. If your spiritual vision were not restricted by the veil of matter, you would see the fluidic currents that, like thousands of conductive wires, links together things of the spiritual world to those of the material world.

When you are told that humanity has arrived at a period of transformation, and that the Earth must rise within the hierarchy of worlds, do not find anything mystical in these words but, on the contrary, see it as the fulfillment of one of the greatest fatal laws of the universe, against which all ill-disposition of humanity collapses.” Arago


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* Extracted from two communications given at the Société de Paris and published in the “Revue Spirite,” October 1868, pg. 313. They are consequence of Galileo’s message, reproduced in Chapter VI and complementary of Chapter IX about the Globe’s revolutions.

9. Yes, certainly, humanity changes, as it has changed at other times; and each transformation is marked by a crisis which is, for mankind, similar to the crises of the growth of individuals. These transformations are frequently sorrowful and painful, and take along with them generations of people and institutions; nevertheless, they are always followed by a phase of material and moral progress.

“Because earthly Humanity has reached one of these periods of growth, it has been working vigorously at its transformation for nearly a century. Whence we see it stirring from side to side, as if captured by some kind of fever and propelled by an invisible force. In such a state it will remain until it has again stabilized itself on its new foundation. Whoever shall see it then will find it greatly changed in its habits and character, in its laws and beliefs; in short, in all its social state.

One thing that will seem strange to you, although it is the absolute truth, is that the world of the spirits, a world that surrounds you, experiences the aftershocks of all commotions that agitate the world of incarnate beings. I even say that the former takes an active role in these commotions. This fact should bring no surprise to those who know that the Spirits comprise of one body with humanity; that they may leave it, but must eventually return to it. It is thus natural that they should take an interest in the movements that occur among mankind. Be certain that when a social revolution takes place on Earth, it agitates the invisible world alike, wherein all passions, good and bad, are intensified. Just as it happens among yourselves, inexpressible effervescence starts to reign among the community of spirits that still belong to your world and that await the moment to return to it.

As everything is linked together in Nature, to the agitation of incarnate and discarnate beings, quite often, it is added the disturbances of the physical elements as well. Whence, for a while there exists a true general confusion, which passes through like a hurricane. Henceforward heaven reacquires its usual serenity and Humanity, reconstituted on its new basis and imbued with new ideas, proceeds with its new phase of progress.

It is within this period that is now in progress that Spiritism will flourish and bear its fruits. Thus, you are working more for the future than for the present. Still, it was necessary to prepare the work in advance, as it prepares the way for regeneration, through unification and rationality of beliefs. Blessed are those who profit from it today. So much will be gained and so many sorrows avoided.” Dr. Barry

10. From what precedes above we conclude that in consequence of their orbital movement through space, the celestial bodies exert upon each other a greater or lesser influence, according to their mutual proximity and respective positions; and that this influence can cause momentary disturbances to their constituent elements and modify the conditions of vitality for their inhabitants. Additionally, the regularity of these movements determines the periodical return of the same causes and effects; that while some periods are too short to be perceived by men, other periods go through generations and races who do not perceive them and consider them to be the normal state of things. In contrast, generations contemporary to these transitions suffer their effect and feel that everything is beyond the ordinary laws; they believe them to have a supernatural, marvelous, and miraculous cause, albeit they are simply the fulfillment of the laws of Nature.

If by the sequence and reciprocity of causes and effects these periods of moral renovation of Humanity shall also coincide with the physical revolutions of the globe, as everything leads us to think, then such periods can be accompanied or preceded by natural phenomena, which appear strange to those who are not accustomed to them, by the appearance of strange meteors and by the recrudescence and unusual intensification of deadly plagues. Still, these occurrences are neither a cause nor a supernatural omen; instead, they are the result of the general movement that takes place on the physical and moral world.

When predicting the era of restoration that would open to Humanity and mark the end of the old world, Jesus affirmed that it would be announced by extraordinary phenomena and by earthquakes, by a variety of plagues and by signs from the skies – these being simply meteors, without any abrogation of the natural laws. Nevertheless, ordinary and unaware people saw in these words a prediction of miraculous facts. *


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* An extraordinary and abundant rain of shooting stars occurred in 1866 which terrified the inhabitants of Maurice Island. This occurrence preceded the terrible epidemic that from 1866 to 1868 decimated the population of the Island. The illness that was spreading in a benign way for a few months developed into a devastating plague. This was a real sign from the skies; it is perhaps in this meaning that we must understand the phrase “stars falling from the sky,” which is said in the Gospel as being one of the signs of the times. (Details of the epidemic of Maurice Island: Revue Spirite of July of 1867, pg. 208, and November of 1868, pg. 321).

11. The prediction of Humanity’s progressive movements offers no surprise for dematerialized beings who foresee the purpose and tendency of all things; considering, still, that some of them have direct knowledge of God’s thoughts. Through partial movements these beings are able to predict the time that such generalized movements could occur; like a man can calculate beforehand the time a tree will take to bear fruits; and an astronomer can predict the time of an astronomical phenomenon by the time a celestial body takes to achieve its revolution.

12. Humanity is a collective being, in whom is operated at the same moral revolutions as in each individual being, with this difference: one is accomplished from year to year, the other from century to century. Let one follow it in its evolutions through time, and one will see the life of the diverse races marked by periods which give to each epoch a particular physiognomy.

13. The progressive march of humanity is operated in two ways – the gradual, slow, and insensible, if one considers well the epochs which have drawn to a close, which is expressed by successive ameliorations in manners, laws, and customs, which do not fully unfold themselves until after a long space of time, like the changes which currents of water bring to the face of the globe; the other, by movements relatively sudden and rapid, similar to a torrent breaking its barriers, which enables it to jump over in a few years the time which it otherwise would have taken centuries to go over. It is, then, a moral cataclysm which engulfs in a few instants the institutions of the past, and to which succeed a new order of things which little by little become fixed by measure as tranquility reestablishes itself, and becomes positive.

To him who lives long enough to embrace the two sides of the new phase, it seems that a new world is sprung from the ruins of the ancient one. The character, manners, customs, all are changed. It is true that new men, or better still, regenerate ones, have sprung up. The ideas swept away by the generation which is extinct have made place for new ideas in the generation which is being educated.

14. Humanity is becoming adult. With new needs, more elevated and larger aspirations, it comprehends the emptiness of the ideas with which it has been fed and the insufficiency of its institutions for its well-being. It finds no more, in the existing state of things, the legitimate satisfactions to which it has been called. For this reason it shakes off its swaddling-clothes, and bounds, aided by an irresistible force, towards unknown shores to the discovery of new horizons less limited.

It is one of those periods of transformation, or of moral growth, which has reached humanity. From adolescence it passes to the manly or virile age. Past ideas cannot suffice for its new aspirations, for its new needs. It can no more be led by the same means. It pays no more for illusions and magical unrealities. For its ripe reason something more substantial is necessary. The present is too ephemeral. It feels that its destiny is more vast, and that corporeal life is too restrained to enclose it entirely. For this reason it looks deeply into the past, and into the future also, to discover the mystery of its existence, and draw from it a consoling security.

It is at this moment, when its material sphere is too narrow for it, when the intellectual life outruns it, when the sentiment of spirituality expands itself, that men calling themselves philosophers hope to fill up the void left by belief in nothing beyond this life and in materialism, strange aberration! These same men, who pretend to be pushing on in advance, are striving to circumscribe the limits of the narrow circle of matter from whence humanity aspires to extricate itself. They shut off the view of the infinite life, and say to it, as they point to the tomb: “There is nothing beyond.”

15. Whoever has meditated upon Spiritism and its consequences, and circumscribes it not to the production of a few phenomena, comprehends that it opens to humanity a new way, and unrolls to it infinite horizons. By initiating it into the mysteries of the invisible world, it shows to it its true role in creation, a perpetually active one, as well to the spiritual state as to the corporeal one. Man marches blindly no more. He knows from whence he came, where he is going, and why he is on Earth. The future show its reality to him, rid of the prejudice of ignorance and superstition. It is no more a vague hope; it is a palpable truth, as certain to him as the succession of day and night. He knows that his being is not limited to a few instants of an ephemeral existence; that the spiritual life is not interrupted by death; that he has already lived, that he will live again, and that of all he has acquired in perfection by labor nothing has been lost. He finds in his anterior existences the reason for that which now he is; and, by that which man is doing now, he can conclude that which he will be someday.

16. The idea that individual cooperation and activity in the general work of civilization have been limited to the present life, that one has been nothing and will be nothing, gives to man no incentive for the present or future. What matters it to him that in the future man will be better governed, happier, more enlightened, kinder to one another, since it bears no fruit for him? Is not this progress lost upon him? What good will it do him to work for posterity if he will never be acquainted with it, if it is composed of strangers who will, after a little, enter themselves into nothingness? Under the empire of a denial of a future for the individual, all forcibly shrinks to the narrow proportions of the moment and of personality.

But, on the contrary, what amplitude is given to the thought of man by a certainty of the perpetuity of his spiritual being? What can be more rational, grander, more worthy of the Creator, according to which the spiritual and corporeal life are only two modes of existence which alternate themselves for the accomplishment of progress? What can be more just, more consoling, than the idea of the same beings progressing without ceasing, at first through generations on the same Earth, afterwards, from world to world onward and upward to perfection, without solution of continuity? All actions have, then, an object; for, by working for all, one works for himself, and reciprocally. As long as individual or general progress is never sterile in its results, it is profitable to future generations and individuals, who are none other than the past generations and individualities arrived at a higher degree of advancement.

17. Fraternity must be the cornerstone 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.

18. The vast proportion of intellectual progress which has been accomplished is a great step, and marks the first phase of humanity; but alone, it is impotent to regenerate it. So long as man will be governed by pride and selfishness 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 of means for injuring others and of destroying them.

19. Moral progress alone can assure the happiness of men upon the Earth by putting 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 expense 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 always been broken by religious antagonisms, which divides people and families, which makes one see in a neighbor a person to avoid – one to combat, exterminate – instead of a brother whom we should love.

20. Such a state of things supposes a radical change in the sentiment of 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.

21. 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 world they unite in universal assemblages for pacific interchange of sentiments.

But to those reforms a base is missing 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.

22. 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.

23. If one supposes the majority of men imbued with these sentiments, one can easily figure the changes it would bring on social relations – charity, fraternity, kindness towards all, and 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 generation. 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 explosion of the past.

24. 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 in the same ground. Men of progress will find in the ideas of 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?

25. 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 liberality of its views, by the generality of the questions which it embraces, Spiritism is, more than any other doctrine, qualified to second the regenerative movement; for 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.

26. 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, while 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 then 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.

27. In order that man shall be happy upon the Earth, it is necessary that it be peopled with good spirits, incarnate or discarnate, who desire only good. This time has arrived; a great emigration is being accomplished at this moment among those who inhabit it. Those who return evil for evil, and in whom the desire to do right is not felt, being unworthy of the transformed state of the Earth, will be banished from it, because they will bring only trouble and confusion, and would be an obstacle to progress. They will go to expiate their hardness of heart, some into inferior worlds, and others with terrestrial races behind them in development, which will be the equivalent of inferior worlds, where they will carry their acquired knowledge, and where it will be their mission to teach undeveloped beings this knowledge. They will be replaced by better spirits, who will make justice, peace, and fraternity rule among them.

The Earth, according to the intelligence gained from the spirits, must not be transformed by a cataclysm which would suddenly annihilate a generation. The present generation will gradually disappear, and the new one succeed in the same manner without anything having been changed in the natural order of things.

All externally will pass along as is usual, with this difference alone, which is an important one, that a part of the spirits which are incarnated here now will no more be incarnated here. The children who will then be born, instead of being underdeveloped and inclined to evil, will be more advanced spirits inclined towards righteousness.

It acts then much less upon a new corporeal generation than upon the new generation of spirits. It is undoubtedly within this context that Jesus understood things when he said: “I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.” Thus, those who will expect to see the transformation brought about by supernatural or miraculous effects will be disappointed.

28. The present epoch is a transition one; the elements of the two generations are mingling together. Placed at the intermediary point, we assist at the departure of one and at the arrival of the other. Each one signalized itself by its own proper character.

The two generations which follow each other have views and ideas totally opposed to one another. By the nature of the moral disposition, but more particularly by the intuitive and innate disposition, it is easy to distinguish to which of the two each individual belongs.

The new generation, being the founder of the era of moral progress, is distinguished generally by a precocious intelligence and reasoning powers, joined to the innate sentiment of goodness and of spiritualist beliefs, which is the unmistakable sign of a certain degree of anterior advancement. It will not be composed exclusively of eminently superior spirits, but of those who, having progressed already, are predisposed to embrace all the progressive ideas, and apt to second the regenerative movement.

That which distinguishes, on the contrary, undeveloped spirits is, firstly, the revolt against God by refusing to recognize any power superior to humanity; then the instinctive propensity to the degrading passions, to the anti-fraternal sentiments of selfishness, of pride, of the attachment for all that which is material; sensuality, cupidity and avarice.

These are the vices of which the Earth must be purged by the removal of those who refuse to amend, because they are incompatible with the reign of fraternity, and as good men will suffer always by contact with them. When the Earth shall have been delivered from them, men will march without hindrance towards that better future which has been reserved for them here below as the recompense for their efforts and perseverance, looking forward to a purification still more complete, which will open to them the entrance to superior worlds.

29. By this emigration of spirits it is not necessary to understand that all undeveloped spirits will be expelled from Earth, and condemned to live in inferior worlds. Many, on the contrary, will return here – those who have yielded to temptation by the force of circumstances and example; those who appeared to be much worse than they really were. Once delivered from the influence of matter, and the prejudices of the corporeal world, the greater part of them will see things in an entirely different light than when living, as we have numerous examples of it. In this they are aided by benevolent spirits who are interested in them, and who try to enlighten them by showing them the wrong in the way they have pursued. By our prayers and exhortations we can ourselves contribute to their improvement, because there is a perpetual connection, an unbroken chain, between the dead and living.

The transformation is very simple, entirely a moral one, which is according to the laws of nature.

30. Allowing that the spirits of the new generation are new ones, but better, more advanced than the preceding ones, or ancient developed spirits, the result is the same. From the instant that they become inspired by better desires, the renovation takes place. There are then two categories of incarnated spirits, which are formed according to their natural dispositions – on one side those tardy in progression who depart, and on the other the progressive ones who arrive. The condition of society in a nation or in the entire world will be according to the preponderance which one of these two categories has over the other.

31. A common comparison will make this better comprehended. Let us suppose a regiment composed of a great majority of undisciplined and unruly men, those who in constant disorder are brought to feel the severity of the penal laws. These men are the stronger, because they are the more numerous; they are sustained, encouraged, and stimulated by example. The few good ones among them are without influence; their counsels are despised, they are scoffed at, badly treated by the others, and suffer from this contact. Is this not an emblem of society at present?

Let us suppose that these men are withdrawn from this regiment one by one, ten by ten, hundred by hundred, and that they are replaced by an equal number of good soldiers, even by those who have become seriously amended. At the end of some greater or less period of time, there will be the same regiment, but a transformed one; good order will have succeeded to disorder. Thus will it be with regenerated humanity.

32. The great collective departures have not alone for object the acceleration of the different departures, but they also transform more rapidly the minds of the masses by removing the bad influences from the way, and by giving a greater ascendancy to new ideas, because many are ready for this transformation, notwithstanding their imperfections, while many depart to strengthen themselves at a purer source.

Should they have remained in the same midst and under the same influences, they would have persisted in their opinions, and in their manner of seeing things. A sojourn in the spirit- world suffices to open their eyes to the truth, because they see there that which they could not see on Earth. The incredulous, the fanatic, the absolutist, will then be enabled to return with innate ideas of faith, of tolerance, and of liberty. On their return they will find things changed, and will submit to the ascendancy of the new midst in which they will be born. Instead of making opposition to new ideas, they will be helpers towards them.

33. The regeneration of humanity does not absolutely require the complete renewal of the spirits. A modification in their moral dispositions suffices. This modification takes place with all those who are predisposed to it when they shall have freed themselves from the pernicious influence of the world. Those who return, then, are not always other spirits, but often the same ones, thinking and feeling otherwise.

When this amelioration is isolated and individual, it passes unperceived, and is without ostensible influences upon the world. Entirely different is the effect when it operates simultaneously over great masses of people; for then, according to the proportions of it in one generation, the ideas of a nation or a race can be profoundly modified by it.

This is observed after great accidents which decimate a population. The destructive scourges do not destroy the spirit, but only the body; they accelerate the coming-and-going movement between the corporeal and spiritual world, and consequently the progressive movement of incarnate and discarnate spirits. It has been observed, at all historical epochs that great social crises have been followed by an era of progress.

34. It is one of these general movements which is operating at this time, and which must lead to the repairing of humanity. The multiplicity of the means of destruction is a characteristic sign of the times; for they must hasten the expansion of the new germs. They are the leaves of autumn which must fall, but to which will succeed new leaves full of life; for humanity has its season, as individuals have their ages. The dead leaves of humanity fall, carried away by the tempestuous blasts of life, only to be reborn with still greater strength, with the same breath of life which is not annihilated, but purified.

35. To the materialist, destructive scourges are calamities without compensation, without useful results, since, according to him, they annihilate the beings forever. But for him who knows that death destroys only the envelope, they have not the same consequences, and cause not the least bit of fear. He comprehends the object of it, and knows that men lose no more by dying together than separately, since, in one way or another, it is necessary to arrive there.

Incredulous will laugh at these things, and treat them as chimerical dreams; but, whatever they may say, they cannot escape the common law. They will fall in their turn like the others; and then what will occur? They say: nothing! but they will live in spite of themselves, and be forced some day to open their eyes to the truth.