2.9 How Spirits Influence Our Lives

The Reading of Our Thoughts by Spirits

Spirits can see everything we do because we are constantly surrounded by them; nonetheless, they see only those things to which they direct their attention. They are not concerned with things that do not interest them.

Spirits often know our most secret thoughts. They often know what we would like to conceal even from ourselves; neither actions nor thoughts can be concealed from them.

It would be easier to conceal something from a person while he or she is alive than to do so after he or she has died. When we think we are well hidden, we often have a crowd of spirits around us, watching us.

What the spirits who surround and observe us think about us varies. Frivolous spirits laugh at the little annoyances they cause us and scoff at our impatience. Serious spirits, on the other hand, pity our imperfections and try to help us.

Spirits During Battle

During battle, there are spirits who assist in it, who aid each of the forces in the fight, and who stimulate their courage.

Thus, the ancients represented the gods as taking the side of this or that people. Such gods were nothing more than spirits represented by allegorical figures.

In war, justice is always on one side only. Spirits can support the side that is in the wrong because there are spirits who seek only discord and destruction. For them, war is war. The justness of the cause means little to them.

Certain spirits can influence generals in the conception of their plans for a particular campaign. Spirits can influence them in this as in all conceptions.

Evil spirits can suggest faulty plans to them in order to lead them to defeat. But they have free will. If their judgment does not enable them to distinguish a good idea from a bad one, they will suffer the consequences and would do better to obey than to command.

Generals can sometimes be guided by a type of second sight, an intuitive perception that shows them the result of their strategies beforehand. That is frequently what happens with geniuses. It is what they call inspiration, and it enables them to act with a type of certainty. This inspiration comes to them from the spirits who guide them and who use the faculties with which such individuals have been endowed.

In the heat of combat, some spirits of those who die continue to be interested in the battle after death, while others withdraw.

The same thing happens in combat as occurs in all cases of violent death. At first, such spirits are surprised and bewildered. They do not believe they are dead, and they think they are still taking part in the action. It is only little by little that reality imposes itself on them.

After death, the spirits of those who had fought each other while alive do still at first regard one another as enemies and continue to be hostile toward each other. In such moments, spirits are never calm. At first, they may still hate their enemy and even pursue them, but when they regain their composure, they see that their animosity no longer has any motive. Nevertheless, they may retain greater or lesser traces of it, depending on their character.

They still hear the din of the battle perfectly.

Spirits who calmly watch a battle as spectators do witness the separation of soul from body. Very few deaths are truly instantaneous. Most of the time, a spirit whose body has been mortally wounded is not aware of it at the time. Only when consciousness begins to return can the spirit be seen moving beside its corpse. This appears so natural that the sight of the dead body lying there does not produce any disagreeable effect. All life having been transferred into the spirit, only the spirit attracts attention, and it is the spirit with whom spectators converse or to whom they give orders.

Pacts

There are no such pacts with evil spirits. However, an evil nature may be attuned to evil spirits. For example, someone wants to torment a neighbor but does not know how to proceed. Such a person calls low-order spirits who, like that person, desire only evil. In return for their help, they want that person to help them in their own evil designs. However, this does not mean that the neighbor cannot be freed from them by an opposing appeal or by an act of will. Those who desire to commit an act of evil simply for the sake of committing evil call evil spirits to their aid and then become obliged to serve them in turn because these spirits need them for the evil they themselves desire to do. It is only in this that a pact consists.

The fact that persons sometimes find themselves dependent on low-order spirits proceeds from their delivering themselves over to the evil thoughts that such spirits suggest to them, and not from any kind of stipulations made between them. A pact, in the usual sense of the word, is an allegory that portrays an evil nature sympathizing with equally wicked spirits.

The fantastic fables according to which certain individuals have sold their soul to Satan in exchange for certain favors are allegories. All fables contain a teaching and a moral; the error is in taking them literally. This one may be explained as follows: those who call evil spirits to help them obtain the gifts of fortune or any other favor rebel against Providence. They renounce the mission they have received and the trials they must undergo in this world, but they will reap the consequences of it in the life to come. This does not mean their soul is condemned to suffer forever. However, instead of detaching themselves from matter, they immerse themselves deeper and deeper in it. The joys they have preferred on earth will no longer be available to them in the spirit world until they atone for their wrong through new trials that will perhaps be even greater and more painful. Out of love for material pleasures, they place themselves under the power of impure spirits. Hence, they tacitly establish a mutual pact that leads them to ruin, but which will always be easy for them to break with the assistance of good spirits if they firmly desire to do so.

Occult Power, Talismans, Sorcerers

Evil individuals, with the aid of evil spirits to whom they are devoted, cannot cause harm to their neighbor, because God would not permit it.

Some persons possess a very strong magnetic power, which they may use for evil if their own spirit is evil. In that case, they could be aided by other evil spirits. But one must not believe in the false magical power that exists only in the imagination of superstitious people who are ignorant of the true laws of nature. The events they cite are natural events poorly observed and, above all, poorly understood.

The effect of formulas and practices with which certain persons claim to control the wills of spirits is to make them look ridiculous if they are acting in good faith; if not, they are rogues who deserve punishment. All such formulas are mere charlatanism. There is no sacramental word, no cabalistic sign, no talisman that has any power over spirits, because they are attracted only by thought and not by material objects.

Certain spirits have sometimes dictated cabalistic formulas. There are spirits who indicate signs and bizarre words, or who prescribe certain acts with the help of those who aid in performing what is called spellcasting. Nevertheless, these spirits are mocking and abusing credulity.

Those who rightly or wrongly trust in what they call the virtue of a talisman may attract a spirit by such trust, since it is their thought that acts, whereas the talisman is only a sign that helps to direct the thought. But the nature of the spirit attracted by such means depends on the purity of the intention and the quality of the sentiments. It is rare for those who are simple enough to believe in the virtue of a talisman not to have a material objective rather than a moral one. Whatever the case may be, this implies a narrowness and weakness of mind that gives access to imperfect and mocking spirits.

When they are acting in good faith, those called sorcerers are persons who possess certain faculties such as magnetic power or second sight. Since they do things that are not understood, they are supposed to be endowed with supernatural power. Learned individuals have often been mistaken for sorcerers in the eyes of the ignorant.

Spiritism and magnetism give the key to an infinite number of phenomena, around which ignorance has woven many fables and in which the facts have been greatly exaggerated by the imagination. A clear knowledge of these two sciences, which are actually but one, showing the reality of things and their true cause, is the best protection against superstitious ideas because it reveals what is possible and what is impossible, what is within the laws of nature, and what is no more than a foolish belief.

Certain individuals really do possess the gift of healing by simple touch. Their magnetic power may act to that extent when it is aided by purity of sentiments and an ardent desire to do good, for then good spirits come to their aid. It is necessary, however, to distrust the way stories are told by very gullible or enthusiastic individuals, who are always ready to see the miraculous in the simplest and most natural things. One must also distrust the self-interested claims of persons who exploit credulity for their own profit.

Blessings and Curses

God does not listen to unjust curses, and those who utter them are guilty before God. Since we have two opposing tendencies—good and evil—there may be a momentary influence in these cases, even upon matter. This influence never occurs, however, without God’s permission and as an increase in the trial for the one at whom it is aimed. Besides, most frequently, curses are aimed at the wicked, while blessings are aimed at the morally upright. Blessings or curses can never divert Providence from the path of justice. Providence does not strike those who are cursed unless they are wicked, and its protection does not cover those who do not deserve it.

The Concealed Influence of Spirits on Our Thoughts and Actions

The influence of spirits on our thoughts and actions is greater than one might suppose, for very frequently it is they who guide us.

Our soul is a spirit who thinks by itself; nevertheless, many thoughts occur at the same time regarding the same subject, and they frequently contradict one another. They are always a combination of our own ideas and those of other spirits, and this is what renders us uncertain, for there are several ideas within the mind battling with each other.

When a thought is suggested, it is like a voice speaking to us. Our own thoughts are usually those that occur at first impulse. Actually, we should not concern ourselves with such a distinction, and it is often more useful not even to know about it, for we act more freely. If we make the right decision, we will act more willingly; if we make the wrong one, our responsibility will be greater.

Individuals of intelligence and genius do not always draw their ideas from within themselves. Their ideas sometimes arise from their own spirit, but frequently they are suggested by other spirits who deem them capable of understanding them and worthy of transmitting them. When they cannot find ideas within themselves, they appeal for inspiration; they are making an evocation without even suspecting it.

If it were useful to be able to distinguish between our own thoughts and those suggested to us, God would have given us the means to do so, just as God has given us the means to distinguish between day and night. When a matter seems vague, it must be so for our own good.

It is sometimes said that the first impulse is always the best. This can be good or bad, according to the nature of the incarnate spirit. It is always good for the one who listens to good inspirations.

A suggested thought may be recognized as coming from a good or an evil spirit by studying the matter: good spirits give only good advice, and it is our responsibility to make the distinction.

Imperfect spirits induce us to evil in order to make us suffer as they themselves do. This does not actually lessen their sufferings, but they do so anyway out of envy at seeing happier beings. The suffering they wish to inflict on us is that which results from belonging to a lower order and from being far from God.

God permits spirits to incite us to evil because imperfect spirits are meant as instruments for testing the faith and constancy of individuals in the practice of the good. As a spirit, one must progress in the knowledge of the infinite, and one experiences the trials of evil in order to arrive at the good. The mission of good spirits is to place us upon the upright path. When evil influences act on us, however, it is we ourselves who call them by our desire for evil. Little-evolved spirits come to help us in evil when we have the will to commit it. However, they cannot help us in evil except when we actually desire to indulge in it. If one is inclined to murder, there will be a swarm of spirits who will maintain that thought in the mind. However, there will also be others who will try to influence one for good, and this restores the balance, leaving each person master of himself or herself.

Thus God leaves to our conscience the choice of the course we must follow and the freedom to yield to either of the opposing influences acting on us.

People can avoid the influence of spirits who incite them to evil, because such spirits attach themselves only to those who solicit them by their desires or attract them by their thoughts.

Spirits whose influence is repelled by an individual’s will finally give up their attempts. When they have nothing to do, they leave. Nevertheless, they attentively watch for a favorable moment, as the cat attentively watches the mouse.

The influence of evil spirits can be neutralized by doing good and placing all trust in God. Thus their influence is repelled and the power they desire to have over us is destroyed. We must guard ourselves against listening to the suggestions of spirits who excite evil thoughts in the mind, who incite discord and arouse all evil passions. Above all, we must distrust spirits who flatter pride, for they attack us at our weakest point. That is why Jesus teaches us to say in the Lord’s Prayer, “Lord, do not let us fall into temptation, but deliver us from evil!”

The spirits who seek to lead us into evil and who thus put our moral firmness to the test have not received a mission to do this, and they are responsible for doing so. Spirits never receive a mission to do evil. When they do evil deeds, it is by their own will and they will have to suffer the consequences. God may let them test us but never directly orders them to; it is our responsibility to repel them.

When we experience a sensation of anguish, of indefinable anxiety, or of inner satisfaction without a known cause, it is almost always the effect of communications we have with spirits without even suspecting it, or of those we have had with them during sleep.

Spirits who want to incite us to evil are not limited to taking advantage of the circumstances in which we find ourselves; they may also create such circumstances. They may take advantage of a circumstance, but they frequently cause it, pushing us without our being aware of it toward the object of our ambition. Thus, for example, a man finds a quantity of money by the road. Spirits have not placed the money there, but they may have instilled in the man the thought of going in that direction. Then they suggest that he keep the money, while others suggest that he return it to its rightful owner. The same process happens with all other temptations.

The Possessed

A spirit does not temporarily take over the corporeal envelope of a living person, enter an animate body, and replace the spirit incarnated in it. A spirit does not enter a body as one enters a house. Instead, it associates with an incarnate spirit that has the same defects and qualities so that they can both act together. Nevertheless, it is always the incarnate spirit that acts upon the matter enveloping it and according to its own wishes. A spirit cannot replace the one who is incarnate because the spirit is connected to the body until the time set for the end of its material existence.

Although there is no such thing as possession per se—that is, the cohabitation of two spirits in the same body—a spirit may nonetheless find itself dependent on another spirit so that it is subjugated or obsessed by it to such a degree that its own will is in some way paralyzed. These are the truly possessed. This kind of domination never occurs without the participation of the one who suffers it, either through weakness or desire. Epileptics and insane individuals have often been taken as being possessed, but they are in need of a doctor rather than an exorcist.

In its common meaning, the word possession presumes the existence of demons, a category of beings of a depraved nature, and the cohabitation of one of these beings with the soul of an individual in his or her body. But since there are no demons in this sense, and since two spirits cannot simultaneously inhabit the same body, there can be no one who is possessed according to the idea normally attached to the word. By the expression possessed, one should understand only the absolute dependence of a soul in relation to the imperfect spirit that has subjugated it.

Such persons can rid themselves of any burden when they have a firm will.

It may be the case that the obsession by an evil spirit is such that the subjugated person does not even perceive it. A third person may help put an end to the subjection if that individual is morally upright, because his or her willpower may help by appealing to the cooperation of good spirits. The more moral a person is, the more power that person has with regard to imperfect spirits in order to repel them, and with regard to good ones in order to attract them. Nevertheless, this third person will be completely powerless if the one who is subjugated does not cooperate. There are persons who take delight in a dependence that satisfies their tastes and desires. In all cases, those who do not have a pure heart cannot have any influence whatsoever. Good spirits ignore them, and evil ones do not fear them.

Exorcism formulas are not at all effective against evil spirits. When these spirits see anyone who takes such formulas seriously, they laugh and persevere.

For persons animated by good intentions but who are obsessed nevertheless, the best means for them to free themselves from obsessing spirits is to tire their patience, pay no attention to their suggestions, and show them that they are wasting their time. Then, when they see they can do nothing, they will withdraw.

Prayer is an effective and powerful aid in everything, but it is insufficient simply to mutter a few words to obtain what one desires. God helps those who act, not those who limit themselves merely to asking. Therefore, obsessed persons must do their part in order to destroy in themselves the cause that attracts evil spirits.

The expulsion of demons spoken of in the Gospel depends on interpretation. If by demon is meant an evil spirit who subjugates an individual, when its influence is destroyed, it will truly be expelled. If an illness is attributed to a demon, then when the sickness is cured, the demon will also have been expelled. A thing may be true or false according to the meaning given to the words. The greatest truths may seem absurd when only the form is observed and when an allegory is taken for reality. This should be well understood and remembered, because it is of universal application.

Convulsionaries

Spirits play a very large role in the phenomena produced among individuals called convulsionaries, as does magnetism, their primary source. But charlatanism has frequently exploited and exaggerated the phenomena, thereby making them appear ridiculous.

In general, the spirits who concur in these types of phenomena are little evolved. Evolved spirits would not enjoy such things.

The abnormal state of convulsionaries and hysterical persons can suddenly extend to an entire population by sympathetic effect. Mental dispositions are communicated more easily in certain cases. The effects of magnetism explain this fact and the role certain spirits play in it through their sympathy with those who cause it.

Among the remarkable faculties noted in convulsionaries, some are easily recognized among those of which somnambulism and mesmerism offer numerous examples, such as physical insensitivity, mind reading, and empathetic transmission of pain. Thus, it cannot be doubted that such individuals in crisis are in a type of awakened somnambulistic state caused by the influence they exert on one another. They are both magnetizers and magnetized at the same time without even realizing it.

The physical insensitivity displayed both among certain convulsionaries and among other individuals submitted to the most atrocious tortures is, in some, an exclusively magnetic effect, acting on the nervous system in the same manner as certain substances. In others, the exaltation of thought deadens sensitivity because life seems to have withdrawn from the body in order to be transferred to the spirit. When the spirit is intensely concerned with something, the body does not feel, hear, or see.

In cases of torture, fanatic exaltation and enthusiasm often offer an example of calmness and cool-bloodedness, in which acute pain could not have been overcome unless one were to accept the fact that sensitivity had been neutralized by some kind of anesthetic effect. It is known that frequently, in the heat of combat, a grave wound is often not felt at all, whereas under normal circumstances an ordinary scratch causes tears.

Since these phenomena depend on a physical cause and the action of certain spirits, in some cases it rested with civil authorities to put a stop to them. The reason is simple. The action of spirits here is secondary; they do nothing more than take advantage of a natural disposition. The authorities did not suppress the disposition itself, but rather the cause that maintained and excited it, which then went from active to latent. They had reason to act this way because the event resulted in abuse and scandal. Such intervention is furthermore powerless when the action of spirits is direct and spontaneous.

The Affection of Certain Spirits for Certain Persons

Good spirits sympathize with moral individuals or with those who are susceptible to improving themselves; low-order spirits sympathize with wicked individuals or with those who may become such. Their affection is the result of a similarity of sentiment.

True affection has nothing carnal about it, but when a spirit attaches itself to a particular person, it is not always out of affection. A remembrance of human passions can play a part in it.

Good spirits do all the good they can and feel happy for our joys. They are concerned about our afflictions when we do not bear them with resignation, because then they produce no good results for us; we carry on like patients who reject the bitter medicine meant to heal them.

The afflictions that cause spirits to be most concerned about us are our selfishness and hardheartedness; everything else derives from these. They smile at all our imaginary ills born from pride and ambition, but they rejoice in those that will shorten the length of our trial.

Knowing that corporeal life is only transitory and that the tribulations accompanying it are the means leading to a better state, spirits are more concerned about the moral causes that keep us from that state than about physical ills, which are only temporary.

Spirits care little about misfortunes that affect only our worldly ideas, as we care little about the childish afflictions of childhood.

Spirits who see in the afflictions of life a means for our advancement consider them a momentary crisis that will restore us to health. They commiserate in our sufferings just as we commiserate in the sufferings of a friend; but seeing things from a truer point of view, they regard them differently. While good spirits rebuild our courage for the sake of our future, others incite us to desperation and try to jeopardize us.

Our relatives and friends who have preceded us into the other life have more sympathy for us than spirits who are strangers, and as spirits they frequently protect us according to their power.

They are very sensitive to our affections for them, but they forget those who forget them.

Guardian Angels: Protector, Familiar, and Sympathetic Spirits

There are spirits who link themselves to particular individuals in order to protect them: spirit friends, good spirits, or guardian spirits.

A guardian angel is a protector spirit of a high order.

The mission of protector spirits is that of parents toward their children: to guide their wards along the path of the good, to help them with their counsels, to console them in their afflictions, and to sustain their courage in the trials of earthly life.

Protector spirits are connected to particular individuals from birth to death. They frequently accompany them after death in the spirit life and even through numerous corporeal existences, because these existences are no more than very short phases in the life of a spirit.

The mission of a protector spirit is obligatory once accepted. The spirit is obliged to watch over its ward because it has accepted the task; however, it is allowed to choose beings who are attuned to it. For some, it is a pleasure; for others, a mission or a duty.

In linking itself to an individual, the spirit does not refrain from protecting other individuals, but it does so less exclusively.

The protector spirit is not indissolubly connected to the person entrusted to its care. Certain spirits often leave their position to carry out different assignments, but in such cases they are replaced.

Protector spirits sometimes withdraw from their ward when they see that their counsels are useless and that the ward’s will is set on submitting to the influence of little-evolved spirits. They do not abandon them entirely, however, and always try to make themselves heard. Their wards are the ones who shut their ears. Their protectors return as soon as they are called.

If there is a doctrine that should convert the most incredulous by its charm and sweetness, it is that of guardian angels. It is a very consoling idea to know that one always has at one’s side beings who are more evolved, who are always there to counsel, sustain, and aid in scaling the rugged mountain of the good, who are more reliable and devoted friends than the most intimate ties that may be formed on earth. These beings are there by God’s order. It was God who has placed them at one’s side; they are there out of love for God, and they fulfill a beautiful but laborious mission alongside human beings. Wherever one may be, one’s angel will be there: in prison, in the hospital, in dens of iniquity, in solitude. Nothing separates a person from that friend whom one cannot see, but from whom the soul nonetheless receives the gentlest impulses and hears the wisest counsels.

This truth, understood more fully, would help greatly in moments of crisis and would save many from evil spirits. But on the great day of accounting, this angel of the good might have to say, “Didn’t I offer you advice? Yet you did not follow it. Didn’t I show you the abyss? Yet you fell into it. Didn’t I make the voice of truth resound in your conscience, yet you followed the counsels of a lie instead?” Guardian angels should be consulted. Between human beings and them there should be that intimate tenderness that reigns between best friends. Nothing should be hidden from them, for they are the eyes of God and cannot be deceived. The future should be considered. Progress should be sought in this life, and then trials will be shorter and lives happier. One must take heart, avoid prejudices and ulterior motives once and for all, and enter upon the new pathway now opening. Forward, forward: there are guides, and they should be followed. The goal cannot fail, for the goal is God.

To those who think it impossible that truly high-order spirits could devote themselves to such a laborious task and at all times, it is said that spirits can indeed influence human souls even though millions of miles may separate them. Space does not exist for spirits, and even while living on another world, their spirits retain a connection with human beings. They enjoy faculties that human beings cannot comprehend; however, it may be certain that God has not imposed a task on them that is above their strength, or that God has abandoned human beings alone on the earth without friends or support. All guardian angels have their wards, whom they watch over as parents watch over their children. They feel happy when they see them on the path of the good but mourn when their counsels are despised.

Questions do not tire them; rather, one should remain in contact with them always, and thus become stronger and happier. These communications between each individual and his or her familiar spirit are what make all individuals mediums, mediums ignored today but who will show themselves later, spreading out like an ocean without shores to sweep away disbelief and ignorance. People of learning must teach, and people of talent must educate their brothers and sisters. Without knowing it, the work thus accomplished is Christ’s work, which God has imposed. God has granted intelligence and knowledge in order that they be shared with brothers and sisters to enable them to progress on the path of joy and eternal blessedness.

St. Louis, St. Augustine

The doctrine of guardian angels watching over their wards, in spite of the distance separating the worlds, has nothing surprising about it; on the contrary, it is grand and sublime. On the earth, a father, albeit far away, often watches over a child and aids him or her with wise counsels through correspondence. It should not therefore be wondered that there are spirits who, from one world to another, are able to guide those whom they have taken under their protection, since to them the distance separating the two worlds is less than that separating the continents on the earth. They have the universal fluid that connects all worlds, uniting them in solidarity with one another, an immense vehicle for the transmission of thought, as the air is for human beings the vehicle for the transmission of sound.

Spirits who abandon their wards and no longer do them good do not do them evil instead. Good spirits never do evil. They leave that to those who take their place, and then human beings blame fate for the misfortunes that overwhelm them, whereas they themselves are actually to blame.

Protector spirits can leave their wards at the mercy of spirits who might harm them. There is unity among evil spirits for neutralizing the action of the good ones, but if wards so desired, they could restore the link to their good spirit. The good spirit may find a more willing person somewhere else to help in the meantime while awaiting its ward’s return.

When protector spirits allow their wards to be led astray in life, it is not because they are powerless to confront malevolent spirits, but because they do not want to. Their wards emerge from their trials more evolved and more learned. Their protector spirits assist them with their counsels through the good thoughts they suggest but which, unfortunately, are not always heeded. It is only human weakness, carelessness, or pride that grants power to evil spirits. Their power over human beings comes solely from the fact that human beings do not offer them resistance.

There are circumstances in which the presence of the protector spirit next to its ward is not necessary.

A time does come in which a spirit no longer needs its guardian angel: when it reaches the level at which it can guide itself, just as the time comes in which the student no longer needs the master. But this does not happen on the earth.

The action of spirits in human lives is hidden because, if human beings counted on their support all the time, they would not act by themselves and their spirit would not progress. In order for it to advance, it needs experience, and that experience must be acquired at its own expense. It must exert its own will; otherwise, it would be like an infant who is not allowed to walk by itself. The action of the spirits who wish human beings well always occurs in such a way as not to hamper free will, for if there were no responsibility, there would be no progress on the path that must lead toward God. Since they do not see who is helping them, human beings rely on their own efforts. Their guides watch over them nevertheless and from time to time warn them of danger.

The protector spirits who succeed in leading their ward along the path of the good acquire merit, and this will be taken into account, whether for their advancement or their happiness. They feel happy when they see their efforts crowned with success. It is a triumph for them, as when a mentor exults at the success of his or her disciple.

They are not responsible if their efforts are unsuccessful, because they have done all they could.

Protector spirits suffer when they see their wards following an immoral path in spite of their warnings, and they pity them, but this affliction has none of the anguish of earthly parenthood, because they know that there is a remedy for the evil and that what is not done today will be done tomorrow.

The name of a protector spirit or guardian angel cannot really be known as a name existing for human beings. People want names that do not exist for them. One should not believe there are only spirits with whom one is familiar.

A protector spirit may be invoked without knowing its name by giving it any name one pleases: that of a high-order spirit for whom one has sympathy or veneration. The protector will answer to that name, for all good spirits are kin and mutually assist each other.

Protector spirits who employ well-known names are not always those of the actual individuals who had those names, but they are spirits who are sympathetic to them and who often come at their orders. Human beings require a name; therefore, they employ one that will inspire trust. When one cannot personally carry out a mission, one sends someone trusted who acts in one’s name.

When human beings return to the spirit life, they will recognize their protector spirit, because they frequently knew it before their incarnation.

Protector spirits do not all belong to the order of highly evolved spirits. They can sometimes be found among average orders. A father, for example, may become the protector spirit of his child, but protection presupposes a certain degree of elevation and, additionally, a power or virtue granted by God. A father who protects his child may himself be assisted by a more evolved spirit.

Spirits who have left the earth under good circumstances can protect those whom they loved and who have survived them, but their power is more or less restricted. The position in which they find themselves does not always allow them full freedom of action.

Humans in the primitive state or in a state of moral impurity also have protector spirits. Such a mission is relative to its purpose. One does not give a professor of philosophy to a child who is just learning to read. The progress of the familiar spirit follows that of the spirit it protects. Having a highly evolved spirit who watches over a person, that person in turn may become the protector of a spirit who is less evolved, and the progress helped into that spirit will contribute to the person’s own advancement. God does not require of a spirit more than what its nature and the degree at which it has arrived will allow.

When a father who has been watching over his child reincarnates, the situation is more difficult, but in a moment of freedom he may ask that a sympathetic spirit assist him in this mission. However, spirits accept only missions that they can carry out to the end.

Incarnate spirits, especially on worlds where existence is quite material, are too dominated by their physical body to be able to devote themselves entirely to others, that is, to assist them personally. That is why those who are not sufficiently evolved are themselves assisted by spirits who are more evolved, so that if one fails, for whatever reason, it will be replaced by another.

Besides the protector spirit, an evil spirit is not connected to each one of us in order to lead us into evil and provide us an opportunity to struggle between good and evil in the same sense. Connected is not the right term. It is certainly true that evil spirits try to draw individuals away from the moral road when they find the opportunity. However, when one of them attaches itself to an individual, it does so of its own accord because it hopes to be listened to. This gives rise to a struggle between the good and the evil spirit, and the one whose influence the individual has heeded will win.

Individuals may have several protector spirits. All individuals always have sympathetic spirits who are more or less advanced, who dedicate their affection to them and who take an interest in them; there are also those who help them in evil.

Sympathetic spirits sometimes act in virtue of a mission, but generally they are attracted only by a similarity of thought and sentiment in good or evil.

It is therefore correct to assume that sympathetic spirits may be either good or evil. Human beings will always encounter spirits who sympathize with them, whatever their character may be.

Familiar spirits are not exactly the same as sympathetic spirits or protector spirits. There are many gradations of protection and sympathy, and they may be given whatever names one desires. The familiar spirit, however, is usually a friend of the home.

From the above explanations and from observations made about the nature of spirits who connect themselves to human beings, the following may be deduced.

Protector spirits, guardian angels, or good spirits are those whose mission is to follow humans during life and to help them progress. They are always more highly evolved than their ward.

Familiar spirits link themselves to certain persons by ties of varying duration in order to help them according to their power, which is frequently quite limited, however. These are good spirits, but sometimes little advanced and even a little frivolous. They voluntarily occupy themselves with the details of an individual’s personal life and act only by order or with permission of protector spirits.

Sympathetic spirits are those whom we attract to us through individual affections and a certain similarity in tastes and sentiments, both in good and in evil. The duration of their relationship almost always depends on circumstances.

Evil spirits are imperfect or wicked spirits who attach themselves to individuals for the purpose of diverting them from the good, but they behave on their own impulse and not in virtue of a mission. Their tenacity is directly related to how easy or difficult their access to the person is, and individuals are always free to listen to their voice or to repel them.

Some persons seem to attach themselves to others in order to lead them inevitably into perdition, or, on the other hand, to guide them along the path of the good. Such persons exert a certain effect on others; they hold a kind of spell over them that seems irresistible. When this happens for evil, they are in fact evil spirits whom other evil spirits employ in order to better subjugate their victims. God may permit this in order to test them.

A good spirit or an evil one may incarnate in order to follow a person more directly in life. This sometimes happens, but they frequently entrust this task to incarnate spirits who are sympathetic to them.

There are spirits who attach themselves to an entire family in order to protect it. Some spirits link themselves to the members of the same family, who live together and are united by affection; however, there are no spirit protectors of race pride.

Since spirits are attracted to individuals out of sympathy, they are attracted to groups of individuals for particular reasons as well. Spirits prefer places where they can be among those who are like themselves. In such places, they can be more at ease and more certain of being listened to. Humans attract spirits because of their tendencies, whether as individuals, as a collective group, a city, or a nation. Thus, there are societies, cities, and nations that are assisted by spirits of greater or lesser advancement, depending on their character and the passions that dominate them. Since imperfect spirits withdraw from those who repel them, the moral purity of a collective whole, like that of individuals, tends to repel evil spirits and attract good ones. The latter awaken and maintain a sense of the good in the masses, in the same way that the former may inspire in them the worst passions.

Groups of individuals such as societies, cities, and nations have their own special protector spirits, because such groups are collective individualities that are headed toward a common objective and therefore need higher direction.

The protector spirits of groups may be of a more advanced nature than those who are linked to individuals, but everything is relative to the degree of advancement, whether of groups or of individuals.

Certain spirits may help the arts to progress by watching over those involved in them. There are special protector spirits who assist those who invoke them and whom they deem worthy. But they cannot make the blind see or the deaf hear.

The ancients made special deities of such spirits. The Muses were the allegorical personification of the protector spirits of the arts and sciences, just as the family protector spirits were designated by the names of lares and penates. Among moderns, the arts and the various industries, cities, and countries also have their own patrons or protectors, who are high-order spirits, but under other names.

Since all individuals have their own sympathetic spirits, it follows that in all collective groups the overall quality of the sympathetic spirits corresponds to the overall quality of the individuals composing them, and that foreign spirits are attracted to such groups out of similarity of tastes and thoughts. In other words, these groups, as well as the individuals comprising them, are more or less favorably surrounded by protector spirits, and they are assisted and influenced according to the nature of the thoughts of the majority.

Among nations, the causes that attract spirits are their customs, habits, their dominant character, and above all, their laws, for the character of a nation is reflected in its laws. Humans who ensure that justice reigns among them combat the influence of evil spirits. Wherever laws consecrate injustices that are contrary to humanity, good spirits are in the minority and a mass of evil ones flood in, keeping the people of that nation fixed in their ideas and paralyzing the occasional good influences, which become lost in the crowd like isolated stalks of corn in the midst of weeds. By studying the customs of nations or of any group of individuals, it is therefore easy to get an idea of the invisible population that is meddling in their thoughts and actions.

Presentiments

A presentiment can be the inner and secret counsel of a spirit who wishes you well. It can also be an intuition about a choice made prior to incarnation; it is the voice of instinct. Before incarnating, a spirit has knowledge of the principal phases of its coming existence, the kind of trials in which it will be engaged. When these are of a marked character, it preserves a type of impression in its inner consciousness, and this impression, the voice of instinct, awakens when the moment arrives. It then becomes a presentiment.

Presentiments and the voice of instinct are always somewhat vague. When in doubt, invoke your good spirit or pray to God, our supreme Creator, to send you a divine messenger: one of us.

The warnings of our protector spirits have as their objective not only our moral conduct but also our conduct regarding the things of our private life—everything. They seek to enable you to live in the best way possible, but you frequently shut your ears to their good warnings and thus make yourselves unhappy through your own fault.

Our protector spirits help us with their counsels through the voice of conscience, which they make resound in our inner being. However, since we do not always give them the importance they deserve, they offer us more direct counsels by using the persons around us. Examine the various happy or unhappy circumstances of your life and you will see that on many occasions you received counsels, which you did not always take advantage of, but which would have saved you much trouble if you had listened to them.

The Influence of Spirits on the Events of Life

Spirits certainly exert an influence on the events of life because they counsel us. They also exert this influence in ways beyond the thoughts they suggest, but they never act outside natural laws.

We erroneously think that the action of spirits must manifest only through extraordinary phenomena. We would like them to come to our aid through miracles, and we always imagine them to be armed with some kind of magic wand. But such is not the case. Rather, their intervention always appears veiled, and what is accomplished through their concourse seems entirely natural. Thus, they cause the meeting of two persons who seem to have met by accident; they inspire someone with the thought of passing by a certain place; they call a person’s attention to a specific point if it will lead to the result they desire. Thus, they work in such a way that individuals, believing they have only followed their own impulse, always retain their free will.

Since spirits can act upon matter, they can cause certain effects with the aim of producing a given outcome, but only in fulfillment of the laws of nature and not in violation of them by causing an unexpected event at a given moment contrary to such laws. In the example of a man whose time is up, who climbs a ladder, the ladder breaks, and he dies from the fall, the ladder breaks because it is rotten or because it is not strong enough to support the man’s weight. If it were the man’s fate to die in this way, spirits would inspire him with the thought of climbing the ladder, which would then break under his weight. Thus, his death would stem from a natural cause without the need for any kind of miracle.

In the example of a man destined to die from lightning who seeks refuge under a tree, and lightning strikes it and he dies, it is still the same thing. The lightning struck the tree at that particular moment because the event happened according to the laws of nature. The lightning was not directed at the tree because the man was under it, but because he was given the inspiration to take refuge under the tree where lightning would strike. The tree would have been struck anyway, whether the man had been under it or not.

If an ill-intentioned man shoots at another but the bullet barely grazes him, a benevolent spirit could have inspired the intended victim with the thought of moving out of its path, or it may have confused his enemy in such a way as to make him miss. Once the bullet is on its way, however, it must follow the line of its trajectory.

Magic bullets referred to in certain legends, and whose fatality hit their mark, are pure imagination. Humans delight in the marvelous but are not content with the marvels of nature.

The spirits who direct the events of life may be thwarted by spirits who have desires to the contrary only insofar as God wills it. What God has willed must occur. If there is any delay or hindrance, it is by the divine will.

Frivolous and mocking spirits may cause the little difficulties that undo our plans and upset our calculations. They take pleasure in such annoyances, which are trials for us and are meant to test our patience, but they stop when they see that nothing comes of it. However, it would neither be just nor correct to blame them for all our frustrations, of which we ourselves are the main authors through our own carelessness. Thus, if a dish breaks, it was probably due more to clumsiness than to the fault of spirits.

Spirits who cause annoyances behave in such a manner for both reasons. Sometimes they are enemies whom we have made in this life or in a previous one, and who pursue us as a result. At other times there is no motive.

The rancor of the beings who have harmed us on earth is often not extinguished with their corporeal life. They often realize the injustice and the wrong they have done, but if God allows them, they will continue to pursue us in their hatred in order to test us further.

There is a way to put an end to this: by praying for them and by repaying their evil with good. In that way they will end up understanding their errors. In all cases, if we know how to place ourselves above their schemes, they will cease upon seeing that they have gained nothing from them.

Experience has shown that certain spirits continue their vengeance from one existence to the next, and that sooner or later we will expiate the wrongs we may have caused someone.

Spirits do not have the power entirely to divert misfortunes from certain persons and to attract prosperity to them instead, because there are misfortunes that belong to the designs of Providence. Nevertheless, they can lessen our pain by giving us patience and resignation.

Also, it frequently depends on us to divert such misfortunes, or at least to mitigate them. God has given us intelligence so that we may use it, and it is especially in this way that spirits help us by suggesting favorable thoughts to us. But they help only those who know how to help themselves. That is the meaning of the words, “Seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you.”

Moreover, what looks like misfortune to us is not always such in reality. Frequently, something good will result from it that is far better, but that is what we do not understand because we think only of the present moment or of ourselves.

Spirits can sometimes enable us to obtain the gifts of fortune if we ask them to, as a trial. Most often, however, they will refuse, just as one would refuse a child’s inconsiderate request.

Such favors may be granted by either good spirits or evil ones. It depends on their intention, but usually they are spirits who desire to lead us into evil, and who find an easy means of doing so in the pleasures that fortune provides.

When obstacles seem to fatally thwart our projects, it is sometimes because of the influence of a spirit; at other times, and more frequently, it is because we ourselves have mismanaged our projects. Position and character have much to do with it, and if we persist in following a path that is not right for us, spirits have nothing to do with it; we ourselves become our own evil spirit.

When something fortunate happens to us, we should above all thank God, without whose permission nothing takes place; afterward, thank the good spirits, who were God’s agents.

If we forgot to thank them, the same thing would happen that always happens to ingrates.

Nevertheless, there are many people who neither pray nor give thanks, but for whom everything turns out well anyway. It is necessary to see the end. They will pay dearly for this temporary undeserved happiness, for the more they have received, the more they will have to render account for it.

The Action of Spirits on the Phenomena of Nature

The great phenomena of nature, those considered perturbations of the elements, are not due to fortuitous causes. Everything has a reason for being, and nothing occurs without God’s permission.

These phenomena do not always have humankind as their objective. Sometimes they occur for a reason directly related to humankind, but most frequently they have no other purpose than to reestablish the balance and harmony of the physical forces of nature.

God’s will is the primary cause in these as in all things. Since spirits can in fact act upon matter and are agents of God’s will, some among them exert an influence over the elements in order to rouse, calm, or direct them. God does not act directly on nature, but has devoted agents at every degree of the worlds’ scales.

The mythology of the ancients is entirely based on Spiritist ideas, with the difference that they regarded spirits as deities, and they represented those gods or spirits as having special attributes. Thus, some were in charge of the wind, others of lightning, while others presided over vegetation. This belief is entirely without foundation and far from the truth.

There are spirits presiding over geological phenomena. Such spirits do not actually inhabit the earth, but they preside over and direct its phenomena according to their particular attributes. Someday there will be an explanation for all these phenomena, and they will be better understood.

The spirits who preside over the phenomena of nature do not form a separate category in the spirit world. They are spirits who either will be or have been incarnated like us.

These spirits belong to higher or lower orders of the spirit hierarchy depending on whether their role is more material or more intelligent, or less so. Some command; others execute. Those who perform material functions are always of a lower order among spirits, just as among human beings.

In the production of certain phenomena—storms, for example—a single spirit does not act alone; they gather in enormous masses.

The spirits who act upon the phenomena of nature do so, some with full awareness and in virtue of their free will, and others out of an instinctive and unreasoning impulse. Consider the myriads of animals that little by little build up islands and archipelagos in the ocean. There is a providential purpose in this, and this transformation of the surface of the globe is necessary for its overall harmony. Yet all this is accomplished by animals of the lowest degree while they are providing for their own needs and without perceiving that they are God’s instruments. In the same way, the least advanced spirits are useful to the general whole. While preparing for life, and before having full awareness of their acts and free will, they act upon certain phenomena in which they are the unwitting agents. At first they execute; later, when their intelligence is more developed, they command and direct the matters of the material world. Still later, they direct the things of the moral world. Hence, everything is useful; everything in nature is linked together, from the primitive atom to the archangel, who also began as only an atom—an admirable law of harmony, which limited minds cannot yet grasp in its entirety.