Spirit Visits of Living Individuals
413. The liberation of the soul during sleep seems to indicate that we simultaneously live two lives, that of the body, which gives us a life of outside relationships, and the invisible life of the soul, which gives us a life of hidden relationships. Is this true?
“During the liberation of the soul, the spirit life takes precedence over the physical life, but properly speaking, these are not two separate lives, but two phases of one life. A human being does not live a double life.”
414. Can two individuals who know each other visit one another in sleep?
“Yes, and many others, who are not aware of their relationship when awake, meet and talk. You may have friends in another country without even knowing it. Visiting friends, relatives, acquaintances, and anyone who can be of use to you in sleep is very common, and you yourselves carry out these visits almost every night.”
415. What is the purpose of these nightly meetings, since we do not remember them?
“The intuition of them generally remains with you while awake, and is often the origin of ideas that occur to you in a seemingly spontaneous manner afterwards, without your being able to account for them. In reality you obtained them from the spirit contact in which you participated during sleep.”
416. Can incarnates trigger spirit visits to happen? Can they do this by saying to themselves right before falling asleep, ‘Tonight I will meet this person, and talk to them about this subject?’
“This is what happens: The person falls asleep, and his or her spirit awakens. The spirit of that person is often very far from following the plan that it decided upon while in the body because human life is of little interest to a spirit when its free from matter. This only applies to those members of the human race who have already reached a certain degree of perfection. Others spend their spiritual life very differently. They give free rein to their passions, or remain inactive. It may so happen that a spirit visits someone that their incarnated self suggests to visit before falling asleep, but this is not because it was willed to do so while awake.”
417. Can incarnate spirits get together and form assemblies while asleep?
“Defnitely. The bonds of friendship, old or new, often bring together spirits who are happy to enjoy each other’s company.”
By the term old one must understand the bonds of friendship forged in prior lives. Upon waking, we recall a sense of the ideas that we derived from these meetings, but we do not know the source.
418. If I believed that one of my friends had died and this were not true, could I meet my friend as a spirit and discover that he or she is alive? Could I preserve the awareness of this fact when awake?
“As a spirit, you could defnitely see your friend and learn the truth about his or her situation. If the belief in the death of that friend had not been imposed on you as an atonement, you might preserve an impression of your friend’s existence, just as you may preserve that of his or her death.”
