We continue the methodical study of the Pentateuch Kardec, which focuses on the five major works of the spiritual doctrine, in the order they were first published by Allan Kardec, the Encoder of Spiritualism.
The answers to the questions presented, founded in the 2th edition published by FEB, based on translation of Anna Blackwell, are at the end of the text below.
Questions for discussion
A. Who are the beings we call angels and demons?
B. What is the purpose of the incarnation of spirits?
C. Soul and Spirit are the same thing?
D. What is the material body, the seat of the soul?
E. As the Spirit finds its individuality after death, it no longer has a material body?
Text for reading
77. Those whom we call angels also went through all grades of evolution. Some accepted his mission without murmuring and arrived quickly, others took longer. (L.E., 129)
78. There are no demons. If there were demons, they would be God's work. And God would be just and good creating unhappy beings, eternally doomed to evil? (L.E., 131)
79. The men did the same with the demons that with the angels. Just as believed in the existence of perfect beings from all eternity, also took on the spirits of inferior beings perpetually bad. (L.E., 131)
80. Spirits are created simple and ignorant and instruct through the trials and tribulations of corporeal life. (L.E., 133)
81. The penalty of life is often the consequence of the imperfection of the Spirit. The less imperfect it is, the less will suffer torments. He who is not envious, jealous, greedy or ambitious, does not undergo the torments that come from such defects. (L.E., 133-A)
82. Before birth, there is a critical union between soul and body, while, after this marriage, the death of the body breaks the bonds that unite him and the soul leaves. (L.E., 136-A)
83. A body without a soul would be a mass of flesh without intelligence, it would be all that we want to imagine, except one man. (L.E., 136-B)
84. The Spirit is indivisible and cannot simultaneously animate two different creatures. (L.E., 137)
85. The soul is not over the body like a bird in the cage. She shines and manifests itself abroad, as light through a glass globe. (L.E., 141)
86. The soul thus has two wrappers: a subtle and light, the first, which is called perispirit, the other coarse and heavy material, which is the body. The soul is the center of wraps, such as almond bark. (L.E., 141)
87. Spirits do not have defined the soul the same way because they are not equally clear on these issues. (L.E., 143)
88. Fortunately, the materialistic ideas are far from being widespread. They are individual opinions, in part because some were erected in doctrine. A society founded on this basis would in itself the germs of dissolution. (L.E., 148)
89. The Spirit's mission is precisely to enlighten us about the future existence, to make us, to some extent, see it and touch it, no more reasoning, but by the facts. (L.E., 148)
90. Thanks to the spirit communications, this is no longer a presumption, or a probability. They are the very beings from beyond the grave we are telling your situation and tell us what they do. Spiritism is therefore the most powerful aid to religion. (L.E., 148)
Answers to Questions
A. Who are the beings we call angels and demons?
The beings we call angels, archangels, seraphim do not form a special category of a different nature from that of other spirits. They are pure spirits, those who are in the highest degree of scale and meet all the perfections, after having gone through all the degrees of the scale of evolution.
There are no demons. If there were, they would be the work of God, but perhaps God would be just and good if there were ever created beings destined to remain eternally evil and wretched? The beings we call demons are inferior spirits, who also one day rise to the top of the scale, as pure spirits. (The Spirit’s Book, issues 128, 129, 130 and 131.)
B. What is the purpose of the incarnation of spirits?
God imposes the incarnation of spirits in order to make them attain perfection. For some it is atonement, for others mission. But to achieve this perfection, must suffer all the vicissitudes of bodily existence. The embodiment also aims at a different purpose: to put the Spirit in a position to support its part in the work of creation. To run it is that in each world, the Spirit takes an instrument of harmony with the essential matter of this world in order to meet there, from that point of view, God's orders. And so, contributing to the overall work, he moves forward. All spirits, without exception, are created simple and ignorant and instruct the trials and tribulations of corporeal life. God is just, could not do the happy ones, without toil and work, therefore without merit. (Ibid., 132 and 133 questions.)
C. Soul and Spirit are the same thing?
Yes, the souls are but the spirits. Prior to joining the body, the soul is one of the intelligent beings that inhabit the unseen world, which are of a temporary housing flesh to purify and clarify. (Ibid., 134 to 136 questions.)
D. What is the material body, the seat of the soul?
The soul is in the body, a host determined and circumscribed, however, the great geniuses and all those who think too much, it lies more particularly in the head, while the heart's main focus is on those who really feel and whose actions have all object for Humanity. Understand, however, that the soul is not found enclosed in the body, like a bird in a cage. Forth and manifests itself outwardly, as light through a glass globe, or like the sound around a central tone. (Ibid., 141 and 146 questions.)
E. As the Spirit finds its individuality after death, it no longer has a material body?
Although the body has lost material used during the Incarnation, the Spirit continues to have a fluid of its own, drawing in the atmosphere of your planet, and which bears the appearance of its latest incarnation: the perispirit. (Ibid., 149 and 150 questions.)
