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Systematized Study of the Spiritist Doctrine Portuguese  Spanish
Program IV: Philosophical Aspect

Year 2 - N° 83 - November 23, 2008

THIAGO BERNARDES
thiago_imortal@yahoo.com.br

Curitiba, Paraná (Brasil)  
Translation
FELIPE DARELLA - felipe.darella@gmail.com


Forgetfulness of the Past


We present in this issue the topic #83 from the Systematized Study of the Spiritist Doctrine, that is being presented weekly, according to the programme elaborated by the Brazilian Spiritist Federation (FEB), structured in 6 modules and 147 topics.

If the reader uses this program for a study group, we suggest that questions proposed be discussed freely before the reading of the text that follows. If you would like to study alone, we ask you to try to answer the questions at first and only then read the text that follows. The answer key can be found at the end of the lesson. 

Questions

1. If the man lived before, why doesn’t he remember his past incarnations?

2. If he can’t remember his past incarnations, how can he make the most of the experiences acquired then?

3. If he can’t remember what he did or learned in the past, each existence wouldn’t be for him as if it were the first one? This way, wouldn’t he be always starting again?

4. Would the reminiscence of past existences disturb or improve social relations?

5. Are there scientific reason for the Spirit, when reincarnating, forget his past?

Text

Our instinctive tendencies are a reminiscence of the past

1. The forgetfulness of the past, which is considered the most serious objection opposed to the Law of reincarnation, gives opportunity to its opposition to bring up such questions: 

  • If the man lived before, why doesn’t he remember his past incarnations?

  • If he can’t remember his past incarnations, how can he make the most of the experiences acquired then?

  • If he can’t remember what he did or learned in the past, each existence wouldn’t be for him as if it were the first one? This way, wouldn’t he be always starting again?

2. Allan Kardec gives us in “The Spirits’ Book”, in a clear explanation, a convincing answer to such questions.

 

3. If we have not an exact remembrance, during our corporeal life, of what we have been, and of the good or evil we have done, in our preceding existences, we have the intuition of our past, of which we have a reminiscence in the instinctive tendencies that our conscience, which is the desire we have conceived to avoid committing our past faults in the future, warns us to resist.

 

4. The aptitude for this or that profession, the ability for this or that subject, e moral flaws – those are elements with no explanation but reincarnation. With effect, if the soul was really created along with the kid’s body, people should reveal similar talent and taste, but this is not what we see. Those who have children know how different they are, even if they are raised in the same environment.

 

The forgetfulness of the past attests the wisdom of God

 

5. Is there not, in the forgetfulness of our past existences, and especially when they have been painful, a striking proof of the wisdom and beneficence of providential arrangements? It is only in worlds of higher advancement, and when the remembrance of our painful existences in the past is nothing more to us than the shadowy remembrance of an unpleasant dream, that those existences are allowed to present themselves to our memory. Would not the painfulness of present suffering, in worlds of low degree, be greatly aggravated by the remembrance of all the miseries we may have had to undergo in the past?

 

6. A Spirit is frequently reborn into the same ambient where it has previously lived, establishing once again the same relationships, in order to repay the evil done. Recognition of these same persons, who perhaps had been hated, would only serve to rekindle that emotion. In any case, humiliation would be felt on confronting those who had been offended. So in order that we may improve ourselves God has bestowed upon us precisely what we need, that which is sufficient and nothing more, this being none other than the voice of conscience and our instinctive tendencies. He has only deprived us of what would be prejudicial.

 

7. Moreover, this forgetfulness only occurs during bodily existence. On returning to the spiritual world the remembrance of the past is regained. So it is only temporary, a slight interruption similar to that which occurs during sleep, but which does not prevent the remembrance on the subsequent day of what was done on the previous one.

 

8. God gives us for our amelioration just what is necessary and sufficient to that end, viz., the voice of our conscience and our instinctive tendencies. He keeps from us what would be for us a source of injury. Moreover, if we retained the remembrance of our own former personalities and doings, we should also remember those of other people a kind of knowledge that would necessarily exercise a disastrous influence upon our social relations. Not always having reason to be proud of our past, it is evidently better for us that a veil should be thrown over it.

 

9. And these considerations are in perfect accordance with the statements of spirits in Regard to the existence of higher worlds than ours.

 

There are scientific reasons to explain the forgetfulness of the past

 

10. Leon Denis and Gabriel Delanne explain to us why the Spirit doesn’t remember his past incarnations.

 

11. According to Denis, in consequence of the diminishment of his vibratory state, the Spirit, every time he takes over a new body, of a blank brain, is unable to express what he lived in past existences.

 

12. Delanne says that the perispirit takes, as it reincarnates, a weak vibratory movement so that the least of his previous experiences can be brought up.

 

13. We can, then, sum up:

 

·                 The forgetfulness of the past and, consequently, the mistakes made doesn’t lessen the results.

·                 The knowledge of them would be, though, an unbearable burden and a cause of discouragement for many people.

·                 If the remembrance of the past was general, this would incentivize keeping hatred and anger.

·                 The terrestrial existence is, sometimes, hard to take, and it would be even harder if, to the cortege of our current faults, we add to our memory the previous ones.

 

Answer Key


1. If the man lived before, why doesn’t he remember his past incarnations?

 

A.: A Spirit is frequently reborn into the same ambient where it has previously lived, establishing once again the same relationships, in order to repay the evil done. Recognition of these same persons, who perhaps had been hated, would only serve to rekindle that emotion. In any case, humiliation would be felt on confronting those who had been offended. So in order that we may improve ourselves God has bestowed upon us precisely what we need, that which is sufficient and nothing more, this being none other than the voice of conscience and our instinctive tendencies. He has only deprived us of what would be prejudicial.

 

2. If he can’t remember his past incarnations, how can he make the most of the experiences acquired then?

 

R.: If we have not an exact remembrance, during our corporeal life, of what we have been, and of the good or evil we have done, in our preceding existences, we have the intuition of our past, of which we have a reminiscence in the instinctive tendencies that our conscience. The aptitude for this or that profession, the ability for this or that subject, e moral flaws – those are elements with no explanation but reincarnation.

 

3. If he can’t remember what he did or learned in the past, each existence wouldn’t be for him as if it were the first one? This way, wouldn’t he be always starting again?

 

A.: Apparently so, but the acquired knowledge, the lived experiences, the lessons taken in the past give us basis for our talents and aptitudes. Those who have children know how different they are, even if they are raised in the same environment. While some advance in the study and sometimes surpass their own teachers, there are those who have difficulties in learning, which shows they bring their own baggage, in the intellectual field as well as the moral one.

 

4. Would the reminiscence of past existences disturb or improve social relations?

 

A.: Moreover, if we retained the remembrance of our own former personalities and doings, we should also remember those of other people a kind of knowledge that would necessarily exercise a disastrous influence upon our social relations. Not always having reason to be proud of our past, it is evidently better for us that a veil should be thrown over it.

 

5. Are there scientific reason for the Spirit, when reincarnating, forget his past?

 

A.: Yes. Leon Denis and Gabriel Delanne talk about this in their books. According to Denis, in consequence of the diminishment of his vibratory state, the Spirit, every time he takes over a new body, of a blank brain, is unable to express what he lived in past existences. Delanne says that the perispirit takes, as it reincarnates, a weak vibratory movement so that the least of his previous experiences can be brought up.

 

 

Bibliography: 

The Spirits’ Book, by Allan Kardec, questions 392 - 394.

The Gospel according to Spiritism, by Allan Kardec, chapter V, item 11.

What Spiritism Is, by Allan Kardec, pp. 114, 116 and 117.

Reincarnation, by Gabriel Delanne, pp. 305 - 306.

The Psychic Revolution, by Gabriel Delanne, p. 175.

After Death, by Leon Denis, pp. 145 e 146. 

The Problem of Being, Destiny and Pain by Leon Denis, p. 182.


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