The six stages of death and
life in the spiritual world

The duration of these phases is extremely variable, being that some of them can be drastically reduced or even quashed

The basic stages faced by the discarnate Spirit can be divided in six fundamental phases: Death itself; Discarnation; Spiritual Help; Adaptation to the Spiritual World; and the preparation for a new reincarnation.

Death is consisted of the biological collapse of the body which enables the material life of the Spirit, that is, is the interruption of the current minimal conditions required for the physical body to develop its physiological manifestations indispensable to the manifestation of life.

The death of the physical body can occur in a sudden way, when a physical accident interrupts the organic life of an individual who was healthy, or in a slow and gradual way, when old age or a certain disease wear out, step by step, the vitality of the body.

In these cases, above all when it is popularly said that the individual “died of old age” we can infer that a total wearing out of the vital fluid, which is a type of fuel of physical life, has occurred. Besides, the vital fluid has fundamental participation in the constitution of the so called “silver cord” or “silvery cord”, which is the bond that unites the perispirit to the physical body from the moment of conception up to discarnation (disembodiment).

While we use the terms death and discarnation interchangeably, strictly speaking, these should be distinct phenomena.

In fact, in our evolutionary level, the temporal coincidence of the durations of both processes is rare.

For Spirits such as we, who live on Earth, and who live in levels of Tests and Atonements, it is rare when the process of death itself is concluded much before the so called discarnation.

Discarnation would be an untying of any links between perispirit and the physical body.  André Luiz and Brother Jacob talks  in depth about the theme in their works “Workers of Eternal Life” and “I am back”, respectively.

Brother Jacob affirm thats when the “silver cord” between his corpse and his perispirit got “cut out” during his funeral, the impact he felt was so intense that he thought that “he was dying for a second time”.

It is worth adding that, according to Brother Jacob (the pseudonym of a former president of the Brazilian Spiritist Federation, Mr Frederico Figner), after this process of rupture of the “silvery cord”, the deterioration of the corpse became significantly accentuated.

The depurating passage through the lower spirit zones with the level of excessive materiality of our perispirit

In cases of direct or indirect suicides, this process is much slower, as, besides suicide being an offence against the Laws of God, the discarnate spirit still has an excess of vital fluid, once it is “dying” well before the foreseen time.

This abundance of vital fluid (also known as “ectoplasm” when it is exteriorised and/or materialised) strenghtens the intensity of interaction between perispirit and physical body, enabling the spirit or spiritual body to be excessively “materialised”, and unduly hampering the process of liberation of the Spirit in relation to the corpse.

The diminution of vital fluid explains, in a certain way, common phenomena of terminally ill people who, despite having never been clear and evident mediums during their physical life, start having truly spiritual dreams, clear clairvoyance and more concrete intuitions.

Besides the preparatory spiritual protection for death, the greatest freedom in terms of spiritual bi-corporeity or bi-location due to the slow and gradual disconnection of the sick person, occur due to the lesser intensity of the perispirit/physical body interaction associated with the depletion of the physiological organs and to the shortage of vital fluid.

These processes can occur with high clarity and evidence at the deathbed, when despite being still incarnated, the discarnate Spirit, accentuates its spiritual perception.

André Luiz comments on this subject in the chapter “Mediumship at the deathbed”, of the book entitled “In the Domains of Mediumship”.

Moreover, several cases of “Near Death Experience” reported by doctors and healthcare professionals and who are totally unconnected with Spiritism, have corroborated with the spiritist analysis in respect to these phenomena of almost total unbinding of the incarnate Spirit.

The very same depurating passage through the lower spirit zones, necessary for many of us, has a relatioship with the level of excessive materiality of our perispirit, due to the excessive mental focus in purely material questions which many individuals have during their physical existences.

Such mental vices, associated with other sick estates of the soul as feelings of guilt, fear, hatred, resentment and attachment to matter, amongst other things, increase the level of materiality of the perispirit, rendering it “denser”, “coarser”, by consequence causing it to be nearer to the material body in its needs and manifestations.

According to the spiritual affinity that defines the vibrational barriers of the spiritual world, Spirits of similar evolution end up inhabiting the same regions or regions of similar spiritual level.

The spiritual relief or rescue can take place simultaneously in the processes of death and discarnation

The more materialised, more complex, the perispirit is, the vibrational pattern of the newly discarnate Spirit tend to be more complex, prolonged and suffered.

Consequently, in a lower spirit zone the departure of this Spirit from an idle and counter-productive state of perturbation in the direction of a region of effective work for the greater good, such as Nosso Lar (The Astral City), tends to be much later.

This stage is known as “spiritual relief or rescue”.

This “spiritual relief or rescue” can take place simultaneously with the death processes and discarnation, but this is a common situation for the Spirits that return to the Spirit World in a good spiritual condition, which, unfortunately in our world, still corresponds to the minority of creatures.

This spiritual assistance, with posterior guidance referral to regions where the greater goodness is the predominant behaviour, would free the discarnate spirit from a larger depurative period in regions of suffering.

Despite constant spiritual help that we always receive in any situations, “spiritual relief” will only be effectively provided and felt by the newly discarnate Spirit when it minimally ascends from the spiritual point of view, in order to have conditions to be received in a spiritual region of active work in the field of the greater good.

This type of care avoids the discarnate Spirit being a motive for problems for the spiritual workers and muddles their roles in the innumerable tasks to which they dedicated themselves. On the other hand, the placing of a Spirit in a spiritual colony, who still finds itself in a rebellious attitude will not be productive for the Spirit itself, as it will not have the due appreciation for its new condition, as it has not even reflected upon the reasons that had brought it to a situation of suffering after its discarnation.

Obviously, an eventual passage through a spirit lower zone also generates intense terror. This fear is often more pronounced in followers of orthodox religions that preach that the referred regions of sufferings beyond the grave, known generically through the vulgar name of “hell”, would be associated to eternal damnation.

Subsequently, the discarnate Spirit would initiate the fourth stage, which would be a broader adaptation process to the spiritual world, in which the moral and intellectual evolutions, with special highlight to kindness and knowledge associated to questions related to spirituality, would be fundamental for the newly arrived to the in-between incarnations break at the spiritual world.

The discarnate being understands more and more that it will reap what it had sown in the last incarnation

In this level, the Spirit starts to work and study hard and with dedication, seeking to analyse, concomitantly, the profound objectives of life and, mainly, its present spiritual status.

It is an important phase, as besides learning about the spiritual world and knowing more about the laws of life, it analyses its past reincarnation, identifying positive and negatives points in its trajectory, analysing developed tasks and neglected work.

It is worth highlighting that, besides the evaluation of the developed tasks, it is a phase in which the process of self-knowledge rises or deepen itself many times through rigorous self-criticism, as the Laws of God which are recorded in the conscience of the creature, come to the surface even more concrete and lucid than at the moment of discarnation.  

Normally, this phase is also associated with the first contacts with loved ones in the spiritual world, but this opportunity is subjected to a series of variations, depending on a range of spiritual possibilities of the Spirits involved in this eventual reunion.

The fifth phase would be an extremely interesting step, as it corresponds to the Spiritual life of the discarnate Being prefectly adapted to its new state.

It is conscious of its spiritual level, including its shortcomings and conquests, as well as being aware of its spiritual debts and many times of the spiritual states of loved ones.

This Spirit goes to work with dedication, many times having goals in short, medium and long term, involving achievements in the greater good, spiritual achievements, desired reunions with beings who remained incarnated, amongst others.

This phase can be short or relatively long, depending on several factors.

Anyhow, the discarnate being understands more and more that it will reap what it had planted in the last incarnation or what it is planting in the spiritual world and, if minimally mature and conscious, it accentuates the effort and the use of time to carry on increasingly, to learn and help, aiming to future challenges.

It is worth remembering that André Luiz describes extraordinary activities developed by six Ministries in Nosso Lar: Regeneration, Aid, Communication, Enlightenment, Elevation and divine Union. The first four would be more linked to the inter-relation between Nosso Lar and the Physical realm of Earth’s environment and the last two would connect Nosso Lar more effectively to the higher spiritual realms.

André Luiz said he had a difficult and painful death in a hospital, and spent over eight years in the lower spirit zone

The sixth and last phase would be the preparation for reincarnation. This phase which in a significant part co-exists with the fifth phase, starts to look more defined when the projects start to be designed more concretely.

Indeed, in the fifth phase, when the Spirit is aware that it should reincarnate in the future, this concern is not yet a prority as the spiritual world has many works, studies and opportunities for growth in reserve.

When the projects of the new experience in the flesh start to be planned, the regimen of urgency in the preparation for the next physical experience starts to co-exist with the own tasks of the spiritual life.

Probably due to our ancestral fears of physically dying and going to “hell”, we always worry more over the three first stages (Death, discarnation and spiritual relief).

Indeed, even the concern about the so called spiritual relief is not so disseminated, as it depends on a certain level of information in respect to life after death which very few individuals have in our society.

We always worry more about having a “good death”, preferably without pain and with quick spiritual relief, than really with our real future spiritual condition.

André Luiz, for example, had a difficult and painful death in a hospital and spent more than 8 years in the spirit lower zone.

However, even so, after the phase of adaptation to the Nosso Lar spiritual colony, he presented an extraordinary spiritual maturation, having been chosen, due to his achievements, for a great mission of becoming a type of “reporter from the spiritual world” unveiling to us great realities and enabling for all of us spiritists, a deepening in the teaching of the Codification which was left to us by Allan Kardec.

Therefore, despite not having had an excellent death and discarnation, Andre Luiz has a remarkable spiritual baggage, which was catalysed by his effort and spiritual discipline and allowed the noble spiritual author to proportionate a work of unique relevance for the spiritual advancement of the planet.

Many times we also worry over the evolutionary level of the spiritual colony in which we will be helped and which also does not cease to be secondary, as, despite certain levelling, this homogenisation is not absolute, implying that Spirits of different evolutions can inhabit the same spiritual colony, above all in those most populous ones.  

The interval between incarnations is a significant period that can improve the future conditions of the person

It is common that truly missionary Spirits as Veneranda (according narrated on Nosso Lar) and Bezerra de Menezes abdicate from inhabiting higher spheres in order to help us in our evolutionary process in name of authentic practice of Love and Fraternity.

Brother Jacob, the author of the extraordinary work “I am back”, is an example of a Spirit that achieved much while incarnated, doing justice to what we might call “good death”, as he was worthy of being rescued spiritually by a spiritual team led by Dr. Adolfo Bezerra de Menezes.  

This help took place during the process of death and discarnation, minimizing the inherent perturbation to the great transition largely as they were immediately succeeded by Brother Jacob’s entrance into an elevated spiritual colony.

However after a certain time of adaptation in the spiritual world the noble spiritist worker realised that he did not have the conditions of spiritual elevation that, a priori, he was thought to have had, even though having had deserved all discarnation assistance, as well as being placed in the above mentioned spiritual colony.

It is important to stress the duration of these phases is extremely variable, being that some of them can be drastically reduced or even practically eliminated depending on the spiritual evolution of each being.   

As an illustration we can cite Andre Luiz’ father who, due to his spiritual difficulties, came literally out of the spirit lower zone to reincarnation procedure.

So, the phases of spiritual relief and of preparation for reincarnation overlapped, practically having a total suppression of the phases of adaptation to the spiritual world and of achievements.

However, in more general and frequent occurrences, the six stages are observed by a large number of Spirits.

Indeed, the period of permanence in the spiritual world for the majority of the Spirits that inhabit Earth at the present time, is usually greater than the average time in which we remain incarnated on Earth.

Therefore, the break between incarnations is a significant period, which, if really well used, can much improve the conditions of the individual in his next reincarnatory experience.

For us incarnated, is only left to accomplish more and better in the realm of material and spiritual duties, increasingly studying with more dedication to the Spiritist Doctrine, in order to have moral merit and intellectual knowledge about spiritual life, which will render our future period a phase of peace, of work in the greater good and fulfilled achievements during our between incarnations break at the spiritual world, from the first moment, that is, the moment of physical death.