Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1867

Allan Kardec

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The genius

Douay, March 13th, 1867 – medium Mrs. M…



“Question: Is the genius assigned to each Spirit according to their acquired knowledge, or according to a divine law in relation to the needs of a people or of humanity?



Answer: Genius, dear children, is the radiation of previous achievements. This radiation is the state of the Spirit in detachment or in the superior incarnations: there are, therefore, two distinctions to be made. The most ordinary genius, among you, is simply the state of a Spirit of which one or two faculties have remained unveiled, and able to act freely; he received a body that allows them to flourish in their acquired plenitude. The other kind of genius is the Spirit that comes from the happy and advanced worlds, where the acquisitions are universal, on all points; where all the faculties of the soul have come to a prominent degree, unknown on earth. These kinds of geniuses are distinguished from the first, by an exceptional aptitude for all talents, all studies. They conceive of all things by a sure intuition and that confuses the science learned from the most renowned. They excel in goodness, in greatness of soul, in true nobility, in excellent works. They are lighthouses, initiators, examples. They are men from other lands, who have come to shine light from above onto a dark world, just as one sends a few scholars from a civilized capital among barbarians, to educate them; such were among you the men who, at various times, have advanced humanity, the wise men who have pushed back the limits of knowledge, and dispelled the darkness of ignorance. They saw and foresaw the earthly destiny, however far they were from the accomplishment of this destiny; they all laid the foundations of some science or were its culmination.



The genius, therefore, is not gratuitous, and is not subordinated to a law; it comes from man himself and his antecedents. Consider that the background is all human. The criminal is by his antecedents; the man of merit and the man of genius are superior for the same reason. Not everything is veiled in the incarnation to the point that it does not touch our former being. Intelligence and goodness are too bright lights, too brilliant foci for earthly life to have them reduced to darkness.



The trials to be undergone may well veil, attenuate some of our faculties, put them to sleep, but if they have reached a high degree, the Spirit cannot entirely lose their possession and their exercise; he has the assurance that he has them at his disposal; often he cannot even consent to deprive himself of them. This is what causes the painful lives of certain advanced men who have preferred to suffer through their high faculties rather than let them vanish for a time.



Yes, we are all by hope, and some by memory, citizens of these high celestial spheres where thought radiates pure and powerful. Yes, we will all be Platos, Aristotles, Erasmus; our Spirit will no longer see its achievements fading under the weight of the life of the body or die out under the weight of old age and illnesses.



Friends, this is truly the most sublime hope; given all this, what are the dignities and treasures that were placed at the feet of these men? The sovereigns begged for their works, strived for their presence. Do you think these vain honors flattered them? No. The memory of their glorious homeland was too vivid. They went back, happily, on the shine of their glory, to those worlds that their Spirit longed for incessantly.



Earth! Earth! Cold, dark, restless region; blind, ungrateful, and rebellious land! You could not make them forget the heavenly homeland where they had lived, where they were returning to live.



Farewell, friends, rest assured that every good man will become a citizen of these happy worlds, of these splendid Jerusalems, where the Spirit lives free in an ethereal body, possessing all his assets, without clouds and without veil. You will then know all that you aspire to know, you will understand all that you seek to understand, even my name, dear medium, that I do not want to tell you.

A Spirit.”

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