PDF version - Geae

across time as a stone thrown into the air falls to earth; and only by conforming our actions to this law can we
bring order, justice, and solidarity into the world, and ameliorate the condition of humanity.
Certain schools of spiritualism combat the principle of successive lives, and teach that the evolution of
the soul only continues after death. Others, while admitting reincarnation, believe it takes place only on higher
spheres: the return to earth does not appear necessary to them.
To those of these opinions we would say that reincarnation on earth has an aim - the perfecting of the
human being. But being given the infinite variety of conditions in the earth existence, whatever its duration or
its results, it is impossible to admit that all men could attain the same degree of perfection in one life. The
obligation to return permits them to acquire the qualities requisite to penetrate the more advanced worlds. The
present is only explained by the past; it required a series of rebirths on earth to reach the point to which man
has actually arrived, and it cannot be admitted that this point of evolution is a definite one, for on our sphere
all inhabitants are not in a state to be admitted into a more perfect society immediately after death; the
imperfection of their natures, on the contrary, indicates the need of new work and new trials to perfect their
education and permit them to climb one higher degree on the ladder of life. Everywhere nature proceeds with
wisdom, method, and leisure. Civilization was not born until long after periods of barbarism; evolution,
physical and mental, is regulated by the same moral laws. We could never be satisfied with one existence, and
why seek on other spheres the elements of a new progress when we find them right about us? Has not our
planet offered a vast field of development for the spirit from savagery to refined civilization?
Contrasts and opposites are found under all their forms. The good and the bad, wisdom and ignorance
are so many examples of education and so many causes of emulation. It is no more extraordinary to be reborn
than to be born! The soul returns to the flesh to there submit to the laws of necessity. The needs and the
strivings of material life are stimulants which oblige the soul to work, to augment its energy, and ripen its
character. Such results could not be obtained in space by young spirits with untrained wills. For their
advancement there must be the whip of necessity and numerous incarnations in which the soul learns
concentration, self-reliance, and the strength indispensable to its immense journey in space.
The aim of reincarnation is then in a way the revelation of the soul to itself, or rather its
comprehension of the value of developing its forces by knowledge, conscience, and will. The inferior new soul
can only become conscious of itself but by the condition of being separated from other souls in a material
body. It so constitutes a distinct being whose individuality affirms itself, and its progression is accentuated in
the measure that it triumphs over difficulties and obstacles which earth life multiplies in its path.
Planetary existences put us en rapport with an order of things which constitutes the initial plan, the
base of our infinite evolution. But this order of things and the series of lives attached to it, numerous as they
might be, represents but one fraction of sidereal existence, an instant in the illimitable duration of our
destinies.
The passage of souls from earth to the other worlds is effected under the empire of certain laws. The
peopled globes vary in their nature and density. The etheric envelopes of souls could not adapt themselves to
the new centers save under special conditions of purity. It is impossible for inferior spirits in their erratic life to
penetrate high worlds and describe their beauty to mediums. The same difficulty occurs, still greater even,
when it comes to reincarnation in other worlds. The high spheres are inaccessible to the majority of earth
spirits, still gross, and not sufficiently evolved to permit them to be dwellers in those far worlds. They would
find themselves like the blind in the light, or the deaf at a concert. The attraction which chains their etheric
bodies to this planet no less unites their thoughts to inferior things. We must first learn to break the bonds
which rivet us to earth before we take our flight to more advanced worlds. To tear earth souls from their center
before their special term in this center expired, to send them to superior spheres before they realise the
necessity of progress, would lack logic and reason. Nature does not so proceed; her work unfolds majestically
and harmoniously in all its phases. Beings directed by its laws in their ascension, do not quit their field of
action until they have acquired the virtues and the powers necessary to give access to higher domains of
universal life.
* * *
65