THE SPIRITIST REVIEW - JOURNAL OF

PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES - 1864

Allan Kardec

Spiritist Society of Sens – medium Mr. Percheron

God wanted the Spirit of person to be connected to matter to suffer the vicissitudes of the body with
which it identifies to the point of having the illusion that the body is the self when it is no more than
its transient prison. It is like the prison that would confound himself with the walls of the prison.

Materialistic persons are too blind to be aware of their mistake for if they wanted to reflect a little
more seriously they would see that their own manifestation is not matter; that considering the fact
that the matter of the body renovates continuously like the water current of a river it is only the Spirit
that allows them to be always aware of themselves.

Suppose that the body of a man that weights sixty kilograms would renovate 1 kilogram per day to
repair his forces and replace old molecules that separate and that accomplished the task that was
assigned to them in the composition of the organs. After sixty days the whole body would have
completely renovated its matter. Based on that hypothesis that is true in principle but whose
numbers may be contested the matter of the body would be completely renovated six times per year.
The body of a twenty year old man would already have been renovated one hundred times; at the
age of forty, two hundred and forty times; at eighty four hundred and eighty times. But would the
soul have been renovated at all? No because you are aware that you are always yourself. Hence your
Spirit is your own self and through which you affirm yourself and not your body that is nothing more
than ephemeral and mutable matter.
The materialists and pantheists say that after death the disaggregating molecules return to a common
mass of the primitive elements and that the same happens to the soul, that is, with the being that
thinks in you. But do they know about it? Is there a common substance of mass that thinks? They
never demonstrate that but before stating they should have demonstrated it. It is no more than a
hypothesis from them. Considering that the molecules disaggregate several hundreds of times during
the life of the body while the Spirit remains the same and keeps the consciousness of its own
individuality, isn’t that more logical to admit that the nature of the Spirit is not disaggregating? Why
then would it dissolve after the death of the body and not before?

After the digression addressed to the materialist I return to my subject. If God wanted the spiritual
creatures momentarily attached to matter it is, and I repeat, to make them feel and in a way suffer the
needs imposed by matter to the conservation of its bodies. From those needs arise the vicissitudes
that make you suffer and understand the commiseration that you must have towards your fellow
human beings in such situation! Such a transient state is then necessary for the progress of your Spirit
what would remain stagnant without that. The needs imposed by the body stimulate your Spirit
forcing it to find the means of providing for those needs and the development of thought is born
from that forced labor. Forced to preside over the movements of the body to drive it aiming at its
own conservation the Spirit is led to the material work and from there to the intellectual work, one
needed by the other, for the realization of the Spirit’s conceptions require the work of the body that
can only be done under the direction and impulse of the Spirit.

Thus having acquired the habit of working, constrained by the needs of the body, the work in turn
becomes a necessity and when detached from its links the Spirit no longer needs to think about
matter but still thinks about the need to work and advance oneself.

You now understand the need for your Spirit to be linked to matter during part of its existence so as
not to remain stationary.

Your father, Percheron – assisted by the Spirit of Pascal

OBSERVATION: We add to these perfectly fair observations that by working for oneself the
incarnate Spirit works towards the betterment of the world that he inhabits. The Spirit that is the
intelligent element of creation therefore helps its own transformation and material progress that are
in God’s designs. Everything interconnects in nature as designed by the wisdom of Providence; all
creatures and things are solidary. Later on when the Spirit is sufficiently advanced it will enjoy the
fruits of its own work.

PROXIMO 