2.5 Why We Live Many Lives

Considerations concerning the plurality of existences

Some persons have claimed that the doctrine of reincarnation is not new, and that it was borrowed from Pythagoras. We have never said that the Spiritist Doctrine is a modern invention. Since it arises from the very laws of nature, Spiritism must obviously have existed since the beginning of time, and we have always sought to show that traces of it may be found in the remotest antiquity. It is well known that Pythagoras was not the originator of the theory of metempsychosis; he received it from the Hindu philosophers and the Egyptians, who had held it from time immemorial. The idea of the transmigration of souls was therefore a common belief, accepted by many of the most eminent minds. By what path this idea came to them, whether by revelation or intuition, we do not know. Whatever the case, an idea could not have endured through the ages and been accepted by advanced minds if there were not something to it. The antiquity of this doctrine should therefore be, if anything, a point in its favor rather than an objection against it. However, it is equally well known that between the metempsychosis of the ancients and the modern doctrine of reincarnation there is one principal difference: the Spirits absolutely reject the transmigration of human souls into animals, and vice versa.

In teaching the doctrine of the plurality of corporeal existences, the Spirits have therefore renewed a doctrine born in the earliest ages of the world and preserved, up to our time, in the innermost thought of many persons. But they have presented it from a more rational point of view, more in accordance with the progressive laws of nature, and more in harmony with the wisdom of the Creator, by stripping it of the accoutrements of superstition. It is worth noting that they have not taught it only in this book. Even before its publication, numerous communications of the same nature had been received in many places, and they have multiplied considerably since then. It might also be useful to examine why not all Spirits seem to agree on this doctrine; we shall return to that question later.

For the moment, the issue may be examined from another angle, apart from any revelation by the Spirits. Let us set their teachings aside for the time being and assume that this theory did not come from them at all. Let us even suppose that we had never considered it with them. Let us instead place ourselves in a neutral position and give equal provisional weight to the hypothesis of the plurality of corporeal existences and to that of a single existence. Then let us see to which side reason and our own interests lead us.

Some reject the idea of reincarnation simply because it is inconvenient to them. They declare that one existence is quite enough and that they have no desire to begin another like it. We even know persons who become angry at the mere thought of returning to the earth. But God does not ask for their advice or consult their wishes in ordering the universe. One of two things is true: either reincarnation is a fact, or it is not. If it is, then their opposition changes nothing; they will undergo it without God asking their permission. To object would be like a sick man saying, “I have already suffered too much today; I do not want to suffer anymore tomorrow.” No matter how unwilling he may be, he will not suffer any less tomorrow or in the days that follow until he is cured. Likewise, if such individuals must live again in a body, they will do so; they will reincarnate. They may protest in vain, like a child who does not want to go to school, or a criminal condemned to prison, but they will have to reincarnate nevertheless. Objections of this kind are too childish to deserve extended examination.

Still, to reassure such persons, the Spiritist doctrine of reincarnation is not as frightening as they imagine. If they were to study it seriously, they would see that they have nothing to fear. They would understand that each new existence depends on themselves; that it will be happy or unhappy according to what they do in the present one; and that, beginning in this very life, if they improve themselves sufficiently, they need never fear falling back into the mire.

We are addressing persons who believe in some kind of future after death, rather than those who believe that only nothingness awaits them, or those who wish to dissolve the soul into the universal whole without preserving individuality, like drops of rain falling into the ocean. If you believe in any future at all, you certainly do not suppose that it will be the same for everyone, for that would mean that doing good during life does not matter in the end. Why, then, restrain ourselves? Why not satisfy all our passions and all our desires, even at the expense of others, if our future will be neither better nor worse for it?

If, on the other hand, you believe that the future will be happier or less happy according to what one has done in life, would you not desire to make it as happy as possible, especially if it has consequences for all eternity? Do you imagine yourself one of the most perfect beings who has ever walked the earth, and therefore immediately entitled to the bliss of the elect? Probably not. Then, without counting yourself among the reprobate, you must admit that there are those who deserve more than you do and who have a right to a better condition.

Place yourself mentally, for a moment, in that intermediate state which is your present one, and imagine that someone says to you: “You suffer; you are not as happy as you might be, while others around you seem to enjoy perfect happiness. Would you like to exchange your position for theirs?” “Certainly,” you answer. “What must I do?” “Almost nothing. Begin again what you have done badly, and try to do it better.” Would you hesitate to accept such a proposal, even at the cost of many lives of trial? Let us use a more ordinary comparison. Suppose one were to say to a man who, though not reduced to utter poverty, is passing through hardship because of limited means: “A great fortune awaits you, but you must work hard for one minute.” Even if he were the laziest man on earth, he would say without hesitation, “I am willing to work for one minute, two minutes, an hour, a whole day if necessary. What does that matter if my life is to end in abundance?” What, then, is the duration of one corporeal life in comparison with eternity? Less than a minute; less than a second.

We sometimes hear the following argument: God, who is supremely good, would not impose upon us the obligation to begin another series of misfortunes and tribulations. But do such persons suppose that God would show greater goodness by condemning us to eternal suffering for a few moments of error than by granting us the means to repair our faults? Two manufacturers each had a worker who aspired to become a partner. One day, both workers were unproductive and deserved dismissal. One manufacturer dismissed his worker despite his pleas; unable to find other employment, the man died in poverty. The other said to his worker, “You have wasted a day and therefore owe me compensation. You have worked badly and therefore owe me reparation. But I will let you begin again tomorrow. If you work well, I will keep you, and you may continue to aspire to the higher position I promised you.” It is hardly necessary to ask which of the two manufacturers was more humane.

Can God, who is clemency itself, be more inflexible than a human being? There is something deeply painful in the thought that our fate could be fixed forever because of a few years of trial, especially when all our efforts are insufficient to attain perfection on earth. The opposite idea is therefore profoundly consoling, because it does not deprive us of hope. Thus, without deciding either for or against the plurality of existences, and without favoring one hypothesis over the other, it may be said simply that, if the choice were ours, no one would prefer an irrevocable sentence. A philosopher once said that if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent one for the peace of humankind. The same might be said of the plurality of existences. But, as already noted, God does not ask our permission or consult our preferences: things either are or are not. Let us therefore see on which side the probabilities lie. Let us consider the matter from another point of view, still setting aside the teaching of the Spirits, and examine it solely as a philosophical question.

If there is no reincarnation, then there can be only one corporeal existence. If there is only one corporeal existence, then the soul of each individual must be created at birth, unless we admit the preexistence of the soul. But if that were so, we must ask what the soul was before birth, and whether that prior state would not itself constitute an existence of some kind. There is no middle ground: either the soul existed before the body, or it did not. If it did exist, what was its state? Was it or was it not conscious of itself? If it was not, that is nearly the same as saying that it did not exist at all. But if it was, was its individuality progressive or stationary? In either case, what was its state when it joined the body?

According to the common belief, which assumes that the soul is born at the same time as the body, or that before incarnation it possessed only negative faculties, the following questions arise:

1. Why does the soul display aptitudes so different from, and independent of, the ideas acquired through education?
2. Why do some very young children display extraordinary aptitude in a particular area, while others remain mediocre throughout life?
3. Why do some children seem to possess innate or intuitive ideas that others lack?
4. Why do certain children show precocious tendencies toward vice or virtue, or innate sentiments of dignity or baseness, so strongly at variance with the environment into which they were born?
5. Why are some individuals, regardless of education, more advanced than others?
6. Why are there uncivilized and civilized peoples? If one were to take a Hottentot infant at birth, educate that child, and place him in one of our most renowned schools, could he be made into a Laplace or a Newton?

What philosophy or theosophy can solve these problems? Either souls are equal at birth, or they are not. If they are equal, why are there such differences of aptitude? It may be said that this depends on the physical organism, but in that case we would be reduced to a doctrine at once monstrous and immoral. Human beings would be nothing more than machines, the playthings of matter. They would not be responsible for their actions, since everything could be attributed to bodily defects. If souls are unequal, then God creates them unequal. But then why is innate intellectual superiority granted to some and denied to others? Such favoritism would not be compatible with the justice and love that God extends equally to all creatures.

If, on the contrary, we admit a succession of prior and progressive existences, everything is explained. At birth, individuals bring with them the intuition of what they have already acquired. They are more or less advanced according to the number of lives they have lived, or according to how near or far they are from their point of departure. It is exactly as in a gathering of persons of all ages, each of whom has developed according to the number of years lived. Successive lives are to the life of the soul what years are to the life of the body.

Suppose, for example, that a thousand individuals from one to eighty years of age were brought together on the same day. Imagine that a veil had been cast over all the days preceding that one, so that you mistakenly believed they had all been born on that same day. You would naturally ask why some were large and others small, some old and others young, some learned and others ignorant. But if the cloud hiding their past were removed, if you suddenly understood that all had lived for a longer or shorter time, everything would be explained. In divine justice, God could not have created some souls more advanced and others less so. With the plurality of existences, the inequality that we observe presents nothing contrary to the strictest equity. There only seems to be inequality because we see only the present and not the past.

This argument does not rest on a mere theory or a gratuitous supposition, because it begins from a patent and incontestable fact: the inequality of aptitudes and of intellectual and moral development. This fact cannot be explained by current theories, whereas the new theory gives it a simple, natural, and logical explanation. It would not be rational to prefer the theory that explains nothing over the one that explains everything.

As to the sixth question, it will no doubt be said that Hottentots are less advanced. But then one must ask: are they or are they not human? If they are human, why would God have denied them the privileges granted to Caucasians? And if they are not human, why attempt to make them Christians? The Spiritist Doctrine is broader and more coherent than such views, because it teaches that there are not several species of human beings, but one humanity. Spirits are at different points on the scale of advancement, yet all are destined to progress continually. This is more in harmony with the justice of God.

So far, the soul has been considered in relation to its past and present. But if we consider it in relation to its future, the same kinds of difficulties arise:

1. If the present life is decisive for our future destiny, what will be the respective conditions in the future life of those belonging to less advanced cultures and those belonging to highly advanced cultures? Will they be equal, or divided with regard to eternal happiness?
2. Will those who have labored all their lives to improve themselves be on the same level as those who have remained undeveloped, not through their own fault but because they lacked the time or the means to improve?
3. Are those who have done evil because they were unable to enlighten themselves liable for a condition that did not depend on them?
4. Efforts are made to enlighten, moralize, and civilize people, yet for every one who is enlightened, millions die each day before the light can reach them. What is their fate? Are they to be treated as reprobates? If not, what have they done to deserve to be placed on the same level as the others?
5. What is the fate of children who die very young, before having done either good or evil? If they are among the elect, why are they granted such favor without having done anything to deserve it? And by what privilege are they spared the trials of a full earthly life?

No doctrine can resolve these difficulties except that of successive lives, by which everything can be explained in conformity with the justice of God. What we cannot accomplish in one existence, we shall accomplish in another. Thus no one escapes the law of progress. All will be rewarded according to their true personal merit, and none will be excluded from the supreme happiness to which all aspire, whatever obstacles they may have encountered on the way.

These questions could be multiplied indefinitely, for the psychological and moral problems that have no solution apart from the plurality of existences are innumerable. We have addressed only the most general. Nevertheless, it may still be argued that the doctrine of reincarnation has not been accepted by the Church and would therefore subvert Christianity. This is not the place to examine that issue in full. It is enough, for the present purpose, to have shown that the doctrine is eminently moral and rational. Whatever is moral and rational cannot be contrary to a religion that proclaims God as goodness and reason par excellence.

What would have become of Christianity if, contrary to universal opinion and the testimony of science, it had denied evidence and cast out all who did not believe in the movement of the earth or in the nonliteral meaning of the six days of creation? What credit would a religion deserve, and what authority would it retain among enlightened nations, if it were founded on obvious errors once treated as articles of faith? Whenever evidence has been established, the Church has wisely sided with it. If it is proved that certain things exist which would be impossible without reincarnation, and if certain points of Church teaching cannot be explained except through it, then it will be necessary to accept it and recognize that the antagonism between this doctrine and Church teaching is only apparent. It will later be shown that perhaps the Church is less distant from this doctrine than it thinks, and that it would suffer no more from accepting it than it suffered from accepting the earth’s movement and the geological ages, which at first also seemed to contradict the sacred texts. Moreover, the principle of reincarnation appears in many passages of Scripture, and is found especially and explicitly formulated in the Gospels:

“As they descended from the mountain [after the transfiguration], Jesus commanded them, saying, ‘Tell no one of the vision until the Son of Man has risen from the dead.’ Then his disciples asked him, ‘Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Indeed, Elijah comes first and will restore all things. But I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they wished. So also the Son of Man is about to suffer at their hands.’ Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them of John the Baptist.” (Mt. 17)

If John the Baptist was Elijah, then he must have been the reincarnation of the spirit or soul of Elijah in the body of John the Baptist.

Whatever opinion people may hold concerning reincarnation, whether they accept it or reject it, no one will escape it merely by believing otherwise. The essential point is that the teaching of the Spirits is eminently Christian. It rests on the immortality of the soul, future rewards and punishments, God’s justice, human free will, and the morality of Christ. It is therefore not anti-Christian.

As stated earlier, the reasoning up to this point has excluded all Spiritist teaching, which some persons regard as lacking authority. If we, like many others, have adopted the doctrine of the plurality of existences, it is not only because it has come from the Spirits, but because it has seemed to us the most logical doctrine, and the only one that resolves problems that had until now remained unresolved. Had it come from a mere mortal, we would have adopted it just the same, without hesitation in relinquishing our former ideas. When an error is shown to us, self-esteem has more to lose than to gain by insisting upon it.

Likewise, we would have rejected reincarnation, even though it came from the Spirits, if it had seemed contrary to reason, just as many other teachings have been rejected. Experience shows that not everything that comes from spirits should be blindly accepted, just as not everything that comes from human beings can be accepted without examination. In our view, its first merit is that it is eminently logical. But it has another merit as well, one confirmed by facts—positive facts, material facts, so to speak—which attentive and well-directed study may reveal to anyone who observes patiently and perseveringly, and before which doubt is no longer possible. When these facts become widely known, it will be necessary to yield to evidence, just as was the case with the formation and movement of the earth, and those who opposed it will have argued in vain.

In summary, the doctrine of the plurality of existences is recognized as the only one capable of explaining what would otherwise remain unexplained. It is eminently consoling and fully in accord with the strictest justice. For humankind, it is the life-preserver that God, in divine mercy, has extended.

The words of Jesus themselves seem to leave no doubt on this point. In the third chapter of John’s Gospel, we read:

Verse 3. In reply to Nicodemus, Jesus says: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Verse 4. Nicodemus says to him: “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”

Verse 5. Jesus answers: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and of spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you: you must be born again.”