Questions
A. Does the Spirit progresses also in the spiritual world?
B. What happens to the Spirit who negligently slows its progress?
C. Is the physical progress of a planet related to the moral progress of its inhabitants?
Text for reading
613. The doctrine of the fallen angels and paradise lost - Worlds evolve physically through the development of matter and morally through the purification of the spirits who inhabit them. Happiness on them is due to the predominance of good over evil, and the predominance of the good is the result of the moral advancement of the spirits. Intellectual progress is not enough, however, because intelligence can be used for evil.
614. Thus, as soon as a world reaches one of its periods of transformation — necessary to enable it to ascend hierarchically — mutations occur within its incarnate and discarnate population. This is when the large emigrations and immigrations take place. Those who, in spite of their intelligence and knowledge, persevere in evil — in their rebellion against God and God’s laws — would henceforth be a hindrance to subsequent moral progress and a permanent cause of problems contrary to the happiness and peacefulness of the good ones. That is why they are excluded and sent to less advanced worlds; there they will use their intelligence and intuition of previously acquired knowledge for the progress of those among whom they have been called to live. At the same time, by means of a series of pain-filled existences and arduous labor, they will expiate their past wrongs and the intentional hardening of their hearts.
615. What could they be among such new (from their point of view) peoples that are still in the infancy of barbarism but fallen angels or spirits sent in expiation? The world from which they were expelled, would it not be for them a paradise lost? Would it not be for them a place of delight in comparison with the harsh environment to which they have been relegated for thousands of centuries until the day when they will have deserved their deliverance? Their vague, intuitive memory of that world is like a distant mirage that reminds them of what they lost due to their own fault.
616. However, at the same time that evil spirits depart the world they used to inhabit, they are replaced by better spirits, perhaps coming from a world less advanced that they have merited leaving behind, and for whom the new habitation is a reward. Because the spirit population has been renewed and purged of its worst members, after some time the moral state of that world is improved.
617. Such changes are sometimes partial, that is, limited to one culture or race. At other times, they are widespread, when the period for renewal for the entire globe has come.
618. The Adamic race displays all the characteristics of a proscribed race. The spirits that comprised it were exiled to the earth, which was already populated, but with primitive human beings immersed in ignorance. They had the mission of enabling them to progress by bringing amongst them the light of a developed intelligence.
619. Is this not actually the role that this race has played until today? Its intellectual superiority shows that the world it left behind was more advanced than the earth. However, this world had to enter a new phase of progress, and due to their own stubbornness, these spirits were not up to this task. They would have been out of place and would have become an obstacle to the providential headway of things.
620. Consequently, they were expelled, while others more deserving began to replace them. In relegating that race to this earth of labor and suffering, God had reason to tell them, “You shall gather your nourishment with the sweat of your brow.” However, out of divine mercy God promised to send them a Savior, that is, one who would shine a light on the path they were to follow so that they could leave this place of misery, this hell, and attain to the bliss of the elect. God sent this Savior in the person of Christ, who taught the law of love and charity unknown to them, and which would be their true anchor of salvation.
621. It is with the same objective of enabling humankind to advance in a determined sense that high order spirits — although without Christ’s qualities — incarnate from time to time on the earth to carry out special missions that simultaneously result in their own personal advancement if they fulfill them according to the objectives of the Creator.
622. Without reincarnation, God’s promise and Christ’s mission would have been nonsense. Let us suppose that the soul of each human being is actually created at the birth of its body and that it does nothing except to appear and then disappear from the earth for good. There would be no relationship between those who came between Adam and Christ, nor between those who have come since Christ; they would all be strangers to one another. God’s promise of a Savior would not apply to Adam’s descendants if their souls had not yet been created. So that Christ’s mission could correspond to God’s words, it would be necessary for it to apply to the same souls.
623. If such souls are new, however, they could not be stained by the wrong of the first father, who is a carnal father and not a spiritual one. Otherwise, God would have created souls stained by a wrong that could not apply to them because they did not yet exist at the time. The common doctrine of original sin consequently implies the need for a link between the souls of Christ’s time and those of Adam’s; it implies, therefore, reincarnation.
624. If you state instead that all those souls made up a part of the colony of spirits exiled on earth at the time of Adam and that they were stained with vices that had caused them to be excluded from a better world, then you will have the only reasonable interpretation of original sin, a sin that is proper to each individual and not the result of his or her responsibility for the wrong of another whom he or she has never known.
625. If you say that those souls or spirits are reborn many times on the earth to live corporeally in order to progress and purify themselves, and that Christ came to enlighten those same souls not only about their past lives but also about their subsequent ones, then you will give his mission a real and serious objective acceptable to reason.
626. A familiar example, striking by its similarity, will make the principles that have just been set forth even more comprehensible. On May 24, 1861, the frigate Iphigenia transported a disciplinary company of 291 men to New Caledonia. When they arrived, the commander of the colony gave them an order for the day, as follows: “When you set your feet upon this far-off land, you will have already understood the role reserved for you. “At the example of the brave sailors of our navy serving in your presence, you will help us bring with distinction the banner of civilization into the midst of the primitive tribes of New Caledonia. Is this not a fine and noble mission, I ask you? You shall fulfill it worthily. “Listen to the voice and advice of your superiors. I am their commander; may my words be well understood. “The choice of your commander, your officers, your subordinates and corporals is a sure guarantee for all efforts that will be made to render you excellent soldiers, and, I might add, to elevate you to the stature of good citizens and transform you into honored colonists if you so desire. “Your discipline will be harsh and so it must be. In our hands you can be sure it will be firm and unbending, but also just and paternal. It will know how to discern error from vice and degradation…”
627. Here we have men who because of bad conduct have been expelled from a civilized country and sent to a barbaric culture as punishment. What did their leader tell them? “You broke the laws of your own country. You were cause for trouble and scandal and you were expelled. They sent you here, but here you can redeem your past. Through labor, you will be able to create an honorable position and become honest citizens. You have a fine mission to fulfill: bringing civilization to these wild tribes. The discipline will be harsh but just, and we will know how to discern those who proceed well. Your fate is in your own hands; you can improve it if you so desire, because you have free will.”
628. For those men relegated to the midst of the wild, was their motherland not a paradise lost because of their wrongs and their rebellion against the law? In that far-off land weren’t them fallen angels? Was not the language of their leader that which God used in addressing the spirits exiled on earth: “You disobeyed my laws and for that you were expelled from the world where you could have lived happily and peacefully. Here, you shall be condemned to labor; however, through good behavior you will merit pardon and regain the homeland you lost because of your own fault, that is, the heaven you have lost?”
629. At first sight, the notion of a fall seems to contradict the principle that spirits cannot regress. However, one must consider that it is not the case of a return to the primitive state. The spirit, notwithstanding its lower position, loses nothing of what it has acquired. Its moral and intellectual development remains the same, whatever may be the environment into which is has been placed. It is in the situation of the man and woman of the world condemned to prison for their crimes; certainly, they are disgraced and fallen from a societal point of view, but they become neither more stupid nor more ignorant.
630. Would we believe that those men sent to New Caledonia are suddenly going to become models of virtue? Are they going to suddenly be absolved of their past errors? One would have to not know humanity to believe so. For the same reason, the spirits of the Adamic race, once transplanted in the land of exile, did not instantly shed their pride and their evil instincts. For a long time they retained the tendencies they brought with them, a vestige of the old yeast — now, is this not original sin?”
Answer Key
A. Does the Spirit progresses also in the spiritual world?
Yes. During the interval between its incarnations, the spirit also progresses in the sense that it uses for its advancement the knowledge and experience it acquired during its corporeal life. It examines what it did during its earthly stay, reviews what it learned, recognizes its wrongs, draws up its plans and makes resolutions by which it hopes to be guided in a new existence as it tries to do better. It is in this way that each life is a step forward on the path of progress, a sort of a practical schooling. (Genesis, Chap. XI, item 25)
B. What happens to the Spirit who negligently slows its progress?
When the Spirit delays its advancement through negligence or ill will, it consequently prolongs the duration of its material incarnations, which then become a punishment, since due to its own fault it remains in the lower ranks and must start the same task all over again. It thus depends on the spirit itself to shorten — through its own efforts at self-purification — the extent of the period of incarnations.” (Genesis, Chap. XI, item 26)
C. Is the physical progress of a planet related to the moral progress of its inhabitants?
Yes. The physical progress of a planet accompanies the moral progress of its inhabitants. Now, since the creation of worlds and spirits is incessant, and since the latter progress quickly or slowly by virtue of their free will, it follows that there are both newer and older worlds at different degrees of physical and moral advancement; worlds where incarnation is more material or less so, and where, consequently, the labor for spirits is also harsher or less harsh. From this point of view, earth is one of the least advanced. Because it is populated with relatively low ordered spirits, corporeal life is harder than on other worlds, just as there are less-evolved worlds where life is even harder than on the earth, and for whom the earth would be a relatively happy world. (Genesis, Chap. XI, items 27 and 28)
