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vol. title: Miscellaneous Scraps from January 1st 1878 vol. period: 1875-1878 pages in vol.: 153 |
< John Paul`s Spiritual Experience (continued from page 5-47) >
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How Many Heretics Are There?
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The Future State of Existence
Sir,—Concerning the fact of our future progress all shades of Spiritualists are in accord, though not in the manner of it; all also agree in the desirability of our striving against the retardation of that progress. But over and above, though not apart from our future, certain questions have been of late mooted respecting our past, necessarily speculative, and, however important, naturally of less importance, as a matter of knowledge, than that which concerns our future. Still, as questions on the past are now receiving attention on all sides, not only among all shades of Spiritualists, but by the psychologists and occulists also, with progressive prominence, there must be reason for it. Such questions, for instance, as the following are now asked—Whether man’s soul pre-exists? whether a man’s soul is a divine spark, shot forth directly from the Divine Centre? and at what period, under the last-named supposition, our assumed divinity as beings thus separated from the parent stock may be supposed to have commenced?
These questions concerning our past condition, if it existed, may be considered as futile by some, even if we could hope for any certitude concerning them while denizens of this world, whether in or out of the flesh; but since seeking for what may appear rational in the above direction, concerning that on which our present and future may have depended and will depend, is at any rate now called for on all sides, I send a communication which seems to have anticipated this now general train of thought on this side of the channel, as it was written two years and a half ago. It is a translation from the last number of the Révue Spirite, that for June, 1876, and is an extract from a book lately published at Bordeaux, in November, 1873, giving the remarkable experiences of Madame Krell, a medium of that place:—
“The intelligent principle developes with the being that possesses it, and it is a Unit in its origin, and one only during its development, ever one! It is a spark which goes on enlarging, to become light and finally seen. Our present object is to know at what moment this spark makes its appearance, transforming a material being into an intelligent being. So long as the being, during its first peregrinations in the animal form, only as yet possesses latent life, movement; so long as in the quality of an atom, a molecule, a vibration (vibrion), appearing and disappearing during a few short moments, it only as yet serves for the transformation of matter; so long as it has no conscience of its life, we must admit that it does not as yet possess in itself that instinct which afterwards becomes intelligence, soul, spirit. Those unnamed existences of no precise form, impalpable and almost invisible, which are everywhere present in fluidic as well as in compact matter, are in the intermediary state between vegetable vitality and animal life which is commencing.
“According to my belief, this divine spark lightens up matters as soon as a being attains to the feeling of preserving its life. From this point, it is some one (il est quelqu’un).* It does not yet understand this, but it feels in itself this indefinable thing which is life!
“This feeling is still entirely instinctive, for the animal, as it scarcely comprehends life, has no fear of death; not understanding dangers, it rarely avoids them; death overtakes it without suffering, so to speak, and transfers it to another form. The above is the intermediary condition between instinct and intelligence; from this first state to the second, that is to intelligence, there exists, we cannot but see, all the degrees by which the being must pass in order to arrive at the higher grades through the lower.
“When instinct in a being grows into intelligence to the extent of a desire to preserve its life, a dread of death and of suffering ensues: the animal now defends its life in every way; it attacks its enemy; it foresees danger; it uses cunning to avoid it; the animal now possesses self-love, and will hold its own to the death so far as its force will go. It is already gifted with memory and reasoning powers, as well as with will, in its struggles against the fatal law of death, which nevertheless comes upon it of necessity. Might we not also add that the animal has now an intuition of sufferings endured at some former period; for this innate fear of death, is it not the result of a dim memory of anterior struggles? . . . Who knows? . . . I can but think that at this crisis the intelligent spark is very near becoming sufficiently luminous for a still more important transformation. I believe that the hour is not far distant when this intelligence will be able to call itself—let us not hesitate—Soul! Then this creature not only seeks to defend its life, but does its best to preserve it, and strives to prolong it: a few more passages, and the creature is on the eve of becoming master of himself, and attaining the power of a free will. From this point can he be very far from possessing the ability to comprehend the duty of preserving his life, the necessity for trial, and the goal to be sought after, as imposed on the creature by the Creator?
“We should pass the limits we have set ourselves were we to go further; but I must repeat that God’s work is alike admirable in order, connection, harmony, and simplicity. Man’s pride can scarcely find place when he contemplates grandeur such as this! So then, although man is averse to the idea, it is none the less true that, by attentively studying the world which he inhabits, he may easily come to a conclusion concerning his origin.
“Man, the king of creation, by the law of progress, will at a later period understand the connecting chain which links him to all the beings by which he is surrounded; when he attains this fraternal standing point, he will no longer call himself master, king, but father and protector of those inferior beings that are beginning the life which he is finishing.”
As these last words are certainly no denial of man’s immortality, perhaps the substitution of the term “phase of life” would have expressed the meaning more plainly. An essay on progress is no herald of death.
Editor's notes