The Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1863

Allan Kardec

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Unbeliever and materialist Spirits

Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, March 27th, 1863



Question: – In the evocation of Mr. Viennois, during the last session, there is the following phrase: “Your prayer touched many unbeliever and lighthearted Spirits.” How can the Spirits be unbelievers? Isn’t their environment mitigate this disbelief? We would like to have this question addressed by the Spirits who wish to communicate in case they find it pertinent.

Answer (medium Mr. d’Ambel): – Isn’t the explanation that you requested written in all your books? You ask why the unbeliever Spirits were touched. Having you said it yourself that the Spirits who entered erraticism did so with all their skills, knowledge and old ways of seeing things? My God! I am still too rooky to solve the hard questions of the doctrine, yet I can, from my somehow recent experience, respond to the questions about facts. In the world that you live, people who used to generally think that death can suddenly change the opinion of those who leave and that the blindness of incredulity is suddenly removed from the eyes of those who denied God while on Earth. That is the mistake because the punishment for those begins exactly in their insistence in having the same uncertainty about the Lord of all things and keep the same doubts as they had on Earth. No, believe me, the obscured sight of human intelligence cannot suddenly discover light. There is as much prudence in erraticism as there is on Earth and there is no focus of light shed upon the eyes of ill people to have them cured.

The passage from earthly life to the spiritual life offers, it is true, a period of disturbance and confusion to the majority of the discarnate. There are some that once disconnected from the material things, realize that transition as easily as a dove floating in space. It is easy for you to identify such a difference by examining the habits of travelers who go aboard to cross the oceans. The journey is a pleasure to some; to some it is a common suffering that lasts until the end of the trip. Well! That is what happens, as to speak, to those who travel from Earth to the spiritual world. Some detach rapidly without suffering and disruption while there are others who suffer the illness of the ethereal crossing. But here is what happens: Like the travelers who recover their senses and health as soon as they get to harbor the Spirits that have also transposed all the obstacles of death arrives at the end, like in their beginning, with a clean and transparent conscience of their individuality. It is then certain, my dear Mr. Kardec, that the unbelievers and absolute materialists keep their opinion beyond the grave up until the moment when by reason or grace a thought of truth hidden in their hearts awakens. Hence the diffusion of ideas and the divergence of communications from the Spirits from beyond the grave. Hence some communications still stained by the idea of atheism and pantheism.

Allow me to go back to personal issues at the end. I thank you for my evocation. That helped me to acknowledge myself. I also thank you for the consolations taken to my wife and I beg you to continue with your good exhortations towards her so as to support her in the tests that wait for her. As for myself I will always be by her side and inspire her.

Viennois



Question: – One can understand disbelief in certain Spirits but one could not understand materialism since its very state is a statement about the absolute reign of matter and the void after death.

Answer: (medium Mr. d’Ambel) – Just one word: Every solid or fluidic body belongs to matter and that is well demonstrated. Those who only admitted one principle in nature during their lives – matter – frequently do not acknowledge anything else but that unique, absolute principle. If you think about the dominant thoughts that they entertained during their entire life you will certainly see them under the domination of the same idea. Before they saw themselves as solid matter; today they recognize their fluidic bodies and that is all. You must recognize that, although they have the vaporous form, this form is bounded and identical to the one they had when on Earth in a material, human state, so that they only see a transformation that they had not considered. It is still, however, the path that will take them to their final destination when sufficiently separated so that it can be dissolved into the great universal whole. Nothing more stubborn than a wise man and they persist in the belief that such an end is the least inevitable. One of the conditions of their moral blindness is that of keeping them more strongly attached to the links of materialism and consequently precluding them from moving away from the terrestrial zones or zones similar to those of Earth. In the same ways as the great majority of the incarnate that are imprisoned by flesh and cannot perceive the vaporous forms of the Spirits that surround them the opacity of the envelope of the materialists block their vision so that they cannot see the spiritual entities that move so graciously and beautifully in the elevated spheres of the celestial empire.

Erastus



Another one: (medium Mr. A. Didier) – Doubt is the cause of the penalties and frequently of the errors of this world. The knowledge of Spiritualism, on the contrary, causes the penalties and errors of the Spirits. Where would the punishment be if the Spirits did not acknowledge their mistakes by the conscience that is the penitentiary reality of the other life? Where would their punishment be if their soul did not feel the weight of the worldly skepticism and the nothingness of matter? The Spirit sees the Spirit as the flesh sees the flesh. The Spirit’s mistake is not that of the flesh and the materialist that doubted here no longer doubts up there. The torment of the materialist is to regret the earthly joys and satisfactions, those that still cannot understand the joys and perfections of the soul. Look at the moral inferiority of these Spirits that live in a complete physical and moral sterility, lamenting the possessions that momentarily where the cause of their happiness and that now are the cause of their torment. It is true that one does not need to be materialist by the earthly satisfactions of their passions but only be in the field of the ideas and soul. That is what people call free-thinkers and these are the ones who dare not analyze profoundly the cause of their existences. These will be equally punished in the other world. They are surrounded by truth without being penetrated by truth. Their abated pride punishes them and they regret those worldly days in which they had at least the freedom of the doubt.

Lamennais

OBSERVATION: At first sight this appreciation seems to be in contradiction with the previous one from Erastus. The latter admits that certain Spirits may preserve their materialist ideas while Lamennais thinks that those ideas are just the regret of material pleasures, but that these Spirits are perfectly aware of their spiritual state. The facts seem to support Erastus opinion. If we see Spirits that even a long time after their deaths still believe to be alive, involved with or believing to be involved with earthly activities, the fact is that they have a complete illusion of their position and are not aware of their spiritual condition. If they do not consider themselves dead it is not surprising that they still keep the idea of the void after death, a death that has not yet come to them. That was undoubtedly the meaning employed by Erastus.

Answer: – They evidently have the idea of the oblivion but that is a matter of time. There comes a time when high and above the veil is broken and the materialist ideas become unacceptable. Erastus’ answer refers to particular and momentary facts. I spoke of general and defined facts.

Lamennais


OBSERVATION: The divergence was only apparent resulting from the standpoint from where each one answered the question. It is obvious that a Spirit cannot remain materialist indefinitely. We asked if such an idea was immediately destroyed after death. Well, both Spirits agree in this point responding negatively. We add that the persistence of the doubt is a punishment to the disbelieving Spirit. It is a torture to the Spirit the more pungent the more they lack the distractions of the earthly concerns.





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