Questions
A. How can we explain that some people have premonitions regarding future events?
B. What increases the Spirit’s perception regarding the past and future?
C. When the Spirit reincarnates, does his perception decrease?
Reading Text
1071. One only flock and one only shepherd - I also have other sheep that are not from this flock. I also have to lead them. They will listen to my voice and there will be one only flock and one only shepherd. (John, Chapter X, v. 16).
1072. By these words, Jesus clearly announces that one day men will come together for a single belief. But how can they become thus united? It is difficult to imagine it, considering the differences among religions, the antagonism fed by their supporters, the stubbornness in believing they are the only ones who possess the truth. They all want this union, but each one is flattered imagining that it will be in its own advantage and no one admits the possibility of making any kind of concessions regarding their beliefs.
1073. However, this union will be accomplished regarding religions, as tends to be socially, politically, commercially, by the fall of barriers separating peoples, the assimilation of customs and traditions, and of language. People around the world already fraternize, in the same way the people of the provinces of one country do among them. We can feel this union and we all want it to happen. It will be by force of circumstances, because it will become a necessity to approach and strengthen the bonds of fraternity between nations. It will be made through the development of human reason, which will become mature to understand the childishness of these differences. Based on the progress of science, it will show us, on a daily basis, the material errors on which the differences find support, and will gradually separate the spoiled stones.
1074. Science can break down man’s work in the religions, as well as the result of their ignorance on the Laws of Nature. However, it cannot break down, despite the opinion of some, the work of God and the eternal truth. By removing the accessories, it prepares the way for union.
1075. In order to reach union, religions will have to meet in a neutral ground, however, common to all. For this, they will have to make concessions and sacrifices more or less important, according the multiplicity of their particular dogmas. But, due to their immutability process, the initiative of concessions cannot be made officially. Instead of the starting point coming from the top, it has to come from the bottom, by individual initiative.
1076. In the current state of beliefs and knowledge, the religion that will gather one day all men under one banner will be the one that best meets reasoning and the legitimate expectations of the Heart and the Spirit. It cannot be at any point contradicted by positive science, and, instead of being frozen, it will have to accompany Humanity in its progressive march, not allowing it to be overtaken. It cannot be exclusive or intolerant, and it must represent the emancipation of intelligence, only accepting rational faith. Its moral code has to be the purest, the more logical, in harmony with social needs, the most adequate to, finally, establish on Earth the reign of the Good, by the practice of charity and universal brotherhood.
1077. What feeds the antagonism between religions is the idea, widespread by all of them, that each has its particular god, and claims that this god is the only true one and the most powerful in a constant fight with the gods of other religions, and always engaged in fighting their influence. When they become convinced that there is only one God in the Universe and He is the same as the one they adore under different names, such as Jehovah, Allah or God, and when they agree on the essential attributes of Divinity, they will understand that, if the Supreme Being is only one, then the supreme will is only one too. Then, men will stretch out their hands to hold their brothers, and all will become servers of the same Master and children of the same Father, and, only then will a big step be taken towards the desired union.
1078. The advent of Elijah - Then His disciples asked him: “Why do the scribes say that it is required that Elijah arrives first?” Jesus answered them: “It is true that Elijah must come and restore all things. But I say unto you that Elijah has already come and they did not recognize him; they treated him as it pleased them. This is how they will make the Son of Man die”. Then His disciples understood that He was talking about John the Baptist. (Matthew, Chapter 17, verses 10 to 13).
1079. Elijah was back in the person of John the Baptist. His new arrival is announced explicitly. Now, since he could not return if not in a new body, here we have the formal confirmation of the principle of plurality of lives.
1080 Annunciation of the Comforter - If you love me, keep my commandments and I will ask my Father and He will send you another Comforter to be with you forever: the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see him. You, however, will know him, because he will remain with you and shall be in you. But the Comforter, which my Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything that I have told you. (John, Chapter XIV, vv. 15 to 17 and 26).
1081. However, I tell you the truth: It is appropriate that I go, because if I do not go, the Comforter will not come to you. However, I will go and will send him to you. And when he arrives, he will convince the world in regard to sin, righteousness and judgment: with regard to sin, because you did not believe me; with regard to righteousness, because I am going to My Father and you will no longer see me; with regard to judgment, because the ruler of this world is already judged. I have yet many things to tell you, but now you cannot bear them. When this Spirit of Truth comes, he will teach you all the truth, for he will not speak of himself, but he will tell you what he has heard and will announce things to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is in me, and declare it to you. (John, Chapter XVI, vv. 7 to 14).
1082. This prediction is no doubt the most important one from a religious point of view, since it proves, without the possibility of error, that Jesus did not say all He had to say, because not even His Apostles would have understood, because it was them the Master addressed. If He had given them secret instructions, the Gospels would have made reference to such instructions.
1083. But since He did not say anything to his Apostles, the ones that followed them were not able to know more than the Apostles about what was said. Did they possibly misunderstood the Lord’s words, or gave a false interpretation to His thoughts, often veiled under a parabolic sense?
1084. The religions that were founded in the Gospel cannot, therefore, be said to be possessed of all the truth, because Jesus, kept it to Himself the further completion of His teachings. The principle of immutability, in which they are based, constitutes a denial to the very words of Christ.
1085. Under the name of Comforter and Spirit of Truth, Jesus announced the coming of the one who was to teach all things and to remind us of what He had said. So His teachings had not been completed. And also He foresaw that He would be forgotten and that what He had said would be undermined, and the Spirit of Truth would remember and restore everything, i.e., in accordance with the real meaning of His teachings.
1086. When is this new revelator arriving? It is obvious that, if at the time Jesus spoke, men were in no state or condition to understand what was still to be said, it would not be in just a few years that they would acquire the necessary enlightenment to understand them.
1087. Regarding the intelligence of certain parts of the Gospel, the moral precepts excluded, it was necessary to have enough knowledge provided by the progress of science and this could only be accomplished by time and the work of many generations. Therefore, if the new Messiah had come shortly after Christ, he would have found the land still under the same conditions and would not have made more than Christ Himself.
1088. But since that time until today, no great revelation took place to complete the Gospel and explained the unclear parts, and it is strong evidence that the Envoy had not yet appeared.
1089. Who is this Envoy? By saying: “I shall ask my Father and He will send you another Comforter”, Jesus clearly shows that this Comforter would not be Him, because otherwise He would have said: “I will come back to end what I have taught you". Not only He did not say this, but still added: “In order to be with you forever and he will be in you”.
1090. This statement could not refer to someone embodied. Obviously, an embodied spirit could not stay with us eternally, and still less be in us. We consider this as a reference to a doctrine, which, as we assimilate it, it can be with us forever. The Comforter is, therefore, according to Jesus’ thought, the personification of a supremely comforting doctrine, whose inspirer is to be the Spirit of Truth.
1091. Spiritism fulfills, as shown (Genesis, Chapter 1, paragraph 30), all the conditions of the Comforter that Jesus promised. It is not a single doctrine, nor of human conception. No one can say that he is its creator. It is the result of collective teaching of the Spirits, presided by the Spirit of Truth. It deletes nothing from the Gospel, but it completes and clarifies it. With the help of new laws, which it reveals, combining these laws with those that Science had already discovered, it makes us understand what was unintelligible and admit the chance of what our unbelief considered inadmissible. It had precursors and prophets, who sensed its arrival. By its moralizing force, it prepares the reign of goodness on Earth.
1092. The doctrine of Moses, incomplete, was limited to the Jewish people. The one of Jesus, more complete, spread throughout the Earth, by Christianity, but did not convert everybody. Spiritism, even more complete, with roots in all faiths, will convert Mankind.
Answers to the proposed questions
A. How can we explain that some people have premonitions regarding future events?
Since it is man’s duty to contribute for progress, and certain events must result from his cooperation, it may be necessary that certain special cases require his premonition regarding these events. The purpose of this is to prepare him so that he is ready to take action when required. That is why God sometimes allows the veil to be lifted, but always with a useful purpose and never for the satisfaction of man’s curiosity.
Such a mission is not for all Spirits, because there are many of them whose awareness of the future is still in the same level of development of any man. However, there are some Spirits, who are developed enough to carry out such a mission. Moreover, a revelation of this kind is always made spontaneously and never, or at least very rarely, in response to a direct question. (Genesis, Chapter XVI, items 1 to 5).
B. What increases the Spirit’s perception regarding the past and future?
A Spirit’s perception depends on his effective enlightenment. This faculty is inherent to his level of spiritualization, or, if you prefer, of dematerialization. This means that the spiritualization produces an effect which can be compared, though very imperfectly, to the overall vision that the man, placed on top of the mountain, has.
The purpose of this comparison is just to show that certain future events can be foreseen by some men, and as for the remaining men they are still limited to a vision of the present. However, this does not imply that the event and its effect are not produced in the same manner.
To have this perception, the Spirit does not need to move to any point of Space. The one that possesses it, in all its fullness, can be beside us on this Earth, or at a thousand leagues away, while we do not see anything beyond our horizon. (Genesis, Chapter XVI, items 7 to 10).
C. When the Spirit reincarnates, does his perception decrease?
Yes. When incarnated, man has is spiritual perception decreased. However, it is not completely void, because the soul is not closed in a box. The embodied has it, although in a lower degree than when it is completely detached and free; this is what allows certain men to have a power to see what others cannot see, meaning a stronger moral vision and an easier understanding of the non-material things. (Genesis, Chapter XVI, items 8 to 10).
