The Spirits' Book

Allan Kardec

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195. Could the ability to improve in a future existence result in some people leading immoral lives, when they know that they are always able to make amends at some point in time?
“Such a premise indicates no real belief in anything and the idea of eternal punishment could not affect such individuals anyway, because their reason would reject it and lead to skepticism in everything. If only reason guided people, there would not be so many skeptics. An imperfect spirit might reason this way during physical life, but once freed from the shackles of the material body, they have a dramatically different way of thinking. They realize that they made a great error and this causes them to adopt an opposite sense in their next existence. This is how progress is accomplished and why some are more advanced than others. Some people have already had the experiences that others have yet to go through, acquiring them little by little, and each spirit is responsible for their own progress or delaying it indefnitely.”

Those who hold an inferior position want to change it as soon as possible. In addition, those who know that the trials and tribulations of the present life are the consequences of their own imperfections seek any means possible to insure a new existence that is less painful. This attitude will much more effectively keep them away from a bad path than the threat of eternal fre, which they do not believe in anyway.

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