13. By its nature, the spiritual revelation has a two fold character: it is at the same time a divine and a scientific revelation. It is the first in that its coming is providential, and not the result of the initiative and premeditative design of man. The fundamental points of the doctrine being the fact of the teaching given by spirits commissioned by God to enlighten men concerning things whereof they were ignorant, - things they could not learn by themselves and which it is important for them to know today, as they are ready to comprehend them. It is the second because it informs us that this teaching is a privilege granted to no one individual, but that it is given to all the world by the same means (or in the same way) that those who transmit and those who receive it are not passive beings, excused from the work of observation and research; that they are not called upon to abnegate their judgment and their free will, that their control of themselves is not interdicted but on the contrary, recommended; and, finally, that the whole doctrine has not been enunciated in every part, nor imposed upon blind belief, but is deduced by the work of man, by the observation of facts that the spirits place before us. The instructions that they give to us to compel us to study, comment, compare, until we arrive at a knowledge of consequences and applications. In short, that which characterizes the spiritual revelation is the divine source from which it proceeds: - that the initiative belongs to the spirits and that the elaboration is the work of man.
