PDF version - Geae

After the Hundred Years' War and the execution of Joan of Arc, England was afflicted by a terrible
civil war, the War of the Roses, which led it to the brink of ruin. What happen to Spain - responsible for so
much suffering and slaughter - Spain with its Inquisition and its Holy Office? Where today is its vast empire
upon which 'the sun never set'?
The empire of Napoleon passed like a meteor. Napoleon and Bismarck, in disgrace, began on earth to
expiate their lack of respect for moral laws. As for Germany, one can foresee even now what awaits her in the
future. 28 History is our great teacher, and we can read in its pages the action of a powerful law. From the center
of the night of centuries we see shining the radiations of an eternal thought.
For the people as for the individual it is justice. We can follow this march of justice for the populace
silently: often we see it manifesting itself through a chain of facts. For the individual it is more difficult. It is
not always visible, as in the life of Napoleon. We do not know how to follow its march when its action, in
place of being immediate, is exercised at long periods. It descends into flesh with the reincarnation of the soul,
and we lose the succession of causes and effects. But we have seen in the phenomenon of trance that as soon
as we can lift the veil stretched over the past, and read what is written engraved in the depths of the human
soul, then in the adversities which strike it in its great sorrows, its dreams, its poignant afflictions, we are
constrained to recognize the action of an anterior cause - of a moral cause, and to how before the majesty of
the laws which preside over the destiny of souls and the societies of worlds.
* * *
The plan of history unrolls in formidable lines. God sends to humanity His messiahs, His revealers,
both visible and invisible; His guides, His educators of all kinds. But man, free in his thoughts, listens to them
or denies them-man is free! Social incoherencies are his work: and he adds his confused note to the universal
concert. But this discordant note does not always succeed in dominating the harmony of the centuries.
Geniuses sent from on high shine like torches in the black night. Without returning to remote antiquity,
without speaking of Hermes, Zoroaster, Krishna, since the dawn of Christian times we have seen arise the
numerous figures of the prophets, giants who still dominate history. It was they who prepared the way for
Christianity, the master religion, to be born later, with the evolution of time and universal fraternity. Then we
see Christ, the Man of Sorrows, the Man of Love, whose thoughts shine with imperishable beauty, and we see
the drama of Golgotha, the ruin of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the Jews. We see the flowering of Greek
genius, the cradle of education, the splendor of Rome which taught the world discipline and social life. Then
came the somber ages of ignorance, a thousand years of barbarism, and the descent of the intellectual level into
the night of thought. Then Gütenberg, Christopher Columbus and Luther appeared. Gothic cathedrals arose:
new continents were revealed, religion began to be disciplined, and the art of printing spread its ideas over the
world. Following the Reformation came the Renaissance-then the Revolution! And so behold, after so many
vicissitudes, after strifes and anguish, in spite of religious persecutions and civic tyrannies and inquisitions,
thought emancipated itself! The problem of life, which with the conceptions o the Church had become fanatic
and blind, remained impenetrable-this problem began to be clarified anew. Like a star over a foggy sea, the
great law reappeared. The world saw the life of the spirit reborn. Human existence was to be no more an
obscure byway, but a broad route leading into the open future.
The laws of nations and history unite in an imposing verity. One circular law presides over the
evolution of beings and things: it regulates the march of centuries and of humanities. Every destiny gravitates
in an immense circle, and every life describes an orbit. All human ascension divides into cycles and spirals
which are enlarged in the manner that they take their places in the universal scheme.
As natural renews itself without cessation in its resurrection, from the metamorphosis of
insects to the birth and death of worlds, so collectively human beings are born, develop, and die in successive
forms. But they die only to be reborn, and grow to perfection in arts, sciences, cults, and doctrines. At the
hours of a great crisis or danger, messengers come to reestablish the obscure verities and set humanity on its
right path. In spite of the flight of the greatest souls to the higher spheres, earthly civilizations and societies
evolve. In spite of all the evil on our planet, humanity in its ensemble is slowly mounting at each rebirth. The
28 This was written three years before the war.
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