Questions
A. Why do disasters and flagella occur?
B. Is Adam the father of the human species? What Spirits joined the Adamic race?
C. How do the worlds develop and advance?
Reading Text
665. Today, the Serpent is far from being considered a model of craftiness. Therefore, it appears here more because of its shape than for its character, as a reference to treachery and bad advice, which man does not suspect of, because the bad advice insinuates into man's mind just as the Serpent does when it moves.
666. The Hebrew term nâhâsch, translated as Serpent or Snake, comes from the root nâhâsch, which means: to cast spells, the guessing of secret things, and, therefore, it can mean: charmers, soothsayers. With this meaning, it is found in Genesis, Chapter XLIV, vv 5 to 15, where it refers to the cup that Joseph hid in Benjamin's bag: "The cup you stole is the one out of which my Lord drinks and which He uses to guess (nâhâsch). Do you not know that there is no one who can equal me in the guessing science (nâhâsch)?" - In the book Numbers, Chapter XXIII, v. 23: "There are no spells (nâhâsch) in Jacob or soothsayers in Israel". Hence there is the word nâhâsch also meaning the Snake, here considered as the reptile that the snake charmers claimed to charm, or which they used in their spells.
667. The word nâhâsch was only translated as "snake" in the version of the Seventy - which, according to Hutcheson, this translation altered the Hebrew text in many places - this version was written in Greek in the second century A.D. The inaccuracies resulted undoubtedly from the changes that the Hebrew language suffered in the elapsed interval, because the Hebrew language at the time of Moses was a dead language, which differed from the ordinary Hebrew in the same manner as the ancient Greek and the literary Arabic differ from current Greek and Arabic.
668. Therefore, it is likely that Moses considered that the woman was seduced by her desire of becoming acquainted with the hidden things, inspired by the spirit of divination, which agrees with the original meaning of the word nâhâsch: guess, and on the other hand, with these words: "God knows that once that ye eaten thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods. She, the woman, saw that the tree was desirable and she would achieve through it knowledge/understanding (léaskil) and took of its fruit".
669. One should not forget that Moses wanted to outlaw among the Hebrews the art of divination practiced by the Egyptians, as evidenced by the banning of questioning the dead and the spirit of Python.
670. If Adam's error consisted literally in having eaten a fruit, this could not, undoubtedly, even by its almost childlike nature, justify the severity with which he was punished. Rationally, we cannot accept that the fact occurred as it is usually assumed. If it were, we would have God considering this a crime without forgiveness and then how do we explain that God would be condemning His own work since He created man to populate the Earth? If Adam had understood the prohibition to touch the fruit of the tree and if he was strictly resigned with this order, where would Humanity be and what would have become of God's plans?
671. God had not created Adam and Eve to live alone on Earth. The proof is in the words He said shortly after He created them when they were still in the earthly Paradise: "God blessed them and said: Be fruitful and multiply; fill the Earth and subdue it to your domain". Since multiplication was already law in the earthly Paradise, their expulsion might not have been caused by the alleged fact. What makes us believe in this was the feeling of shame that Adam and Eve felt before God and that led them to hide.
672. Ultimately, what was then the so great fault that made them deserve, and all their descendants included, such an everlasting condemnation? Cain, the fratricide, was not treated so severely. No theologian could determine it logically, because everyone stuck to the words and turned into a vicious circle.
673. Nowadays, we know that this fault is not an isolated act, personal, of an individual, but it comprises, in a single allegorical fact, all the transgressions that Mankind on Earth, still imperfect, can become guilty of and that boils down to this: violation of God's law. That is why the fault of the first man (according to the biblical assumption), here representing Humanity, is symbolized by an act of disobedience.
674. Telling Adam that he would take his nourishment from the earth by the sweat of his face, God symbolizes the obligation of work; but why did He consider work a punishment? What would happen to man's intelligence if he did not develop it through work? What would be of Earth if it were not fertilized, transformed, drained by the intelligent work of man?
675. If the cultivation of the land had to be a consequence of Adam's fault, then it would be that if Adam had not sinned, the Earth would have remained uncultivated and God's purposes would not have been accomplished. Why did He tell the woman that as a consequence of her sinning, she would give birth in pain? How can this pain be a punishment when it is caused by the body itself and it has been proved that it is a necessity of the body? How can it be a punishment if it is produced according to laws of Nature? This is what the theologians absolutely still have not explained and cannot explain.
676. To begin, let us note that, when they were created, the souls of Adam and Eve came from nowhere, as we are taught. Thus, they would have no experience at all. They would not have known the meaning of dying. Being by themselves on Earth, as they were while they lived in Paradise, they had not yet seen the death of anyone. So, how could have they understood God's threat of death? How could they understand that Eve could give birth in pain and that this would be a punishment? They themselves had just been born and Eve never had children and was the only woman in this world.
677. Therefore, God's words had no sense for Adam and Eve. They had barely emerged from nowhere. Therefore, they could not know how or why they were created and could not understand the Creator and the reason for the ban that was made to them. With no experience in life, they sinned like tactless children. This makes it still weirder the terrible responsibility that God put on their shoulders and on all Humanity.
678. However, what is for theology a dead end, Spiritism explains it easily and rationally, based on previous lives and on the plurality of existences, law without which all is mystery and unexplained in man's life. Indeed, let us assume that Adam and Eve had already lived a previous life. This would explain everything: God did not address them as if He was talking to children, but as beings capable of understanding Him due to the knowledge acquired in their previous lives. Let us accept that they lived in an earlier world more advanced and less material than ours where the work of the Spirit replaced the work of the body, and since they rebelled against the law of God disobeying what was determined by Him, they were sent away from there and came to Earth as punishment where man is constrained to a body work. Thus, we can understand why God told them: "In the world where, from now on, you shall live, you will work the land and from it you will draw your nourishment with the sweat of your face" and to the woman, He said: "You shall give birth with pain", because this is the condition of this world.
679. The remains of the earthly Paradise have been sought in vain. This was the blissful place where Adam lived, or rather the race of Spirits, which he represents. The banishment from Paradise marks the moment when these Spirits came to incarnate among the inhabitants of this world. Disobedience was what caused the banishment. The Angel with a flaming sword symbolizes the impossibility of the Spirits entering Paradise, here as higher world, while they are still in lower worlds and have not cleared their souls to deserve this.
680. Cain, after the killing of Abel, said to the Lord: "My wickedness is so great and not capable of being forgiven. You ban me today from this world, and I will keep away and hide from you. I shall go as a fugitive and vagabond throughout this Earth and anyone who finds me will kill me".
681. The Lord, however, marked Cain, so that those who met him would not kill him. Thus, leaving the Lord, Cain became a wanderer on Earth and went to live in the eastern region of Eden. Then he met his wife and she gave birth to Enoch. He built then a city which he called Enoch, named after his son.
682. If we follow what the Mosaic Genesis teaches us, then we shall arrive to the following conclusions: Adam and Eve were alone in the world, after they were banned from the Paradise on Earth. Only later they had two sons, Cain and Abel. Since Cain left to go and live in another area after he killed his brother, his parents were again by themselves. Only much later, at the age of 130 years, was that Adam had a third son, who was called Seth, after whose birth he still lived, according to biblical genealogy, eight hundred years and had more sons and daughters.
683. Therefore, when Cain was settled at the east of Eden, there were only three people on Earth: his father and his mother, and himself. However, Cain had a wife and a son. What woman could this be and how and where did he marry her? The Hebrew text says that he built a city. Now a city assumes the existence of other inhabitants since it is not supposed that Cain build a city for himself, his wife and his son or that he could have built it alone.
684. Having this in mind, we arrive to the conclusion that the region was populated. This could not have been done by Adam since his descendents were reduced to one and only, Cain. Moreover, the existence of other people is implied in Cain's words: "I will be a restless wanderer and whoever finds me will kill me", and the response which God gave him. Whom could he be afraid of killing him and what was the use of the sign with which God marked him not to be killed, if there was no one else in the world? If there were other men besides Adam's family, this means that they were there before him. So, we can agree with what is stated in the Genesis itself: Adam is neither the first nor the only father of Mankind.
Answers to the proposed questions
A. Why do disasters and flagella occur?
The flagella and disasters should be considered as occasions of collective arrivals and departures, providential means of renewing the physical population of the globe, by introducing new, and more purified Spirits. The destruction that can be seen, with a large number of dead bodies, is nothing more than a disruption of garments, since no Spirit perishes. They just go from one dimension to another. Instead of leaving individually, they leave in groups and that is the only difference, since, due to one reason or another, they would inevitably have to leave sooner or later. The quick renovations, almost instantaneous, which occur in the spiritual element of the population, hasten social progress. Without the emigrations and immigrations, which from time to time give them a violent impulse, progress would happen very slowly. It is also worth noting that all great calamities that decimate populations are always followed by an era of a physical, intellectual, or moral progress. Therefore, the social status of nations benefit with these experiences. Their purpose is to renew the spiritual population, which is the normal active population of the world. (Genesis, Chapter XI, Items 35 and 36)
B. Is Adam the father of the human species? What Spirits joined the Adamic race?
No. Adam cannot be considered the father of the human species. According to the teaching of the Spirits, it was a colony of Spirits, coming from another sphere, which gave rise to the race symbolized in the person of Adam, and for that very reason, called Adamic race. When they arrived here, the Earth was already inhabited since ancient times, in the same manner as America, when the Europeans arrived. The Adamic race was more advanced than the others and more intelligent thus impelling to progress all the others. The Genesis states that the Adamic race was, from its beginnings, industrious, able to arts and sciences, as in fact it was formed by Spirits who had progressed enough. As we know, according to Genesis, Adam and his descendants, from the second generation, built cities, worked the land, and metals, and their progress in the arts and sciences was quick and lasting.
The Adamic race has all the features of a proscribed race. The Spirits were exiled to Earth, already populated by primitive men, immersed in ignorance. They task was to make them advance, by enlightening them and developing their intelligence. Their intellectual superiority proves that the world from where they came from was more advanced than the Earth. The world where they came from began a new phase of progress and these specific Spirits, being stubborn, did not want to accompany this progress and, therefore, were banned from that world and replaced by others who deserved it. (Genesis, Chapter XI, Items 38 to 41 and 45)
C. How do the worlds develop and advance?
The worlds progress, physically, through the preparation of matter, and morally, through the purification of the Spirits that live there. Your happiness is in proportion to the predominance of good over evil, and the predominance of good results from the moral advancement of the Spirits. (Genesis, Chapter XI, Items 43 to 45)
