CHAPTER VII - DISINCARNATION OF THE SPIRIT
Human life is arranged in such a way that events occur at the right time, provided natural laws are not opposed in the course of life.
Violation of natural laws is a frequent cause of disturbances and instability which, by altering the natural rhythm of life, bring about much suffering to the spirit.
Evolution demands time, work, sacrifice. Normally, disincarnation occurs in old age. However, to ensure this, it is necessary to take good care of physical and mental health.
Many factors on Earth contribute to premature disincarnation. Among these are abrupt changes in temperature, earthquakes, air pollution, insalubrity in certain regions, epidemics, sources of contamination, vices and, last but not least, the harmful influence of spirits of the Inferior Astral.
There are also certain social phenomena which generate conflicts and wars of extermination.
In any event, premature disincarnation always represents a lapse in evolution that can only be repaired in one way: by reincarnation.
However, such reincarnation is not an easy problem. Candidates to reincarnation are innumerable and exceed existing possibilities. Hence the need to wait.
To avoid wasting time, many spirits, willing to face whatever difficulties they may encounter, decide to incarnate in an unfavourable environment.
It is a source of suffering for these spirits to realise that others of the same class, through more effort and better use of their time in earthly life, succeeded in ascending to a higher class. It is not their ascension itself, that causes this suffering, but the realisation that it was impossible to accompany them and that the distance separating them became greater on the way to evolution.
Spirits of a certain class are aware to others of their own class and of lower classes. They are unaware, however, of what happens to spirits of higher classes.
Those that stay behind or stop lose contact with old, dear friends, comrades of long journeys in previous incarnations, and therefore they suffer like incarnate spirits who see their dear ones die.
This contact, however, can be re-established, as those in spiritual worlds well know. But how? The answer is obvious. If a person walks at a slower pace than another, who walks faster, they become further and further apart. And, if the person who is in front is not willing to slow down, the one behind will have to speed up if he wants to reach him.
That is precisely what many spirits do when they decide to incarnate and face all earthly sufferings, which they know are transitory. They do so to enrich themselves with knowledge and moral values that will enable them to ascend to the next class.
With strong determination and redoubled effort, they succeed in recovering the time lost and fraternally reapproaching those that had surpassed them.
Normally, disincarnation should occur in old age. The human body is like a flower or a fruit: It is born, grows, blooms, and withers. When it withers, it ceases to be useful to the spirit. The one natural, spontaneous, wise solution therefore would be disincarnation.
Only in exceptional instances may disincarnation take place, without loss to the spirit, before man has completed the four stages of earthly existence. For instance, when a spirit belongs to a higher class than the 17th and incarnates on a special mission to awaken mankind or to contribute to moral changes designed to hasten the rhythm of evolution on this planet.
After all, what is disincarnation? What does it consist of? How does it occur?
DISINCARNATION, A NATURAL PHENOMENON
Disincarnation is a natural phenomenon in human life. It is the opposite of incarnation. The spirit incarnates the moment it takes hold of the body, at birth. It disincarnates the moment it leaves the same body definitely.
When this happens, the spirit causes the fluidic links, which conveyed life to the physical body, to be disconnected, and withdraws from it along with the astral body.
Let us however not lose sight of the fact that the word 'spirit' applies only to those particles of Force that have already evolved enough to incarnate in a human body.
Once it has been abandoned by the spirit, the physical body is but a composite of matter. Its source of life is no longer present. Life having ceased, due to withdrawal of the spirit, the body falls under the domain of chemical laws: it disintegrates, and its molecules go on to make up other forms of life and to compose other organisms.
The sorrow of those who survive is only natural in the absence of those who have been deceased. Sorrow indeed, not despair. A feeling of fond remembrance, not one of mortification, is both understandable and admissible.
A thorough understanding of evolution is a great blessing. It is the only way to make people view disincarnation naturally, recognising that it is an event as normal as incarnation in the unfolding of human life.
In as much as disincarnate spirits do not lose sight of their fellow incarnate spirits, they do not suffer separation the way incarnate spirits do. Obviously they cannot talk the way they did before. However, they are endowed with a telepathic sense which enables them to transmit thoughts to incarnate spirits, who receive them as if they were their own.
And what is worse: while still subject to earthly influences, a spirit does not transmit thoughts only. It also transmits feelings, many of them morbid, evil, obsessive.
Therefore, men should, with the help of noble thoughts, assist their dear ones who have disincarnated to rise to the worlds where they belong, where life is felt realistically without the disturbing influences prevailing on Earth.
UNFOUNDED BELIEFS
It is time we give up the belief that disincarnate spirits need prayers or supplications. This is simply not true. In the spiritual field, where disturbing influences do not exist, life is felt in full reality. The mental soundness of the spirit is complete. The spirit is fully aware of life's eternity and of the process of evolution.
Blissful, paradisiacal heavens, probationary purgatories, hells and red-hot boilers, these are all imaginative human creations that common-sense itself repels.
The same applies to a supposed divine trial, which is sheer fabrication. There are no gods to try those who disincarnate.
After leaving Earth's atmosphere - and with it all the factors of confusion and disturbance - the spirit views the good it has done with joy, and its reprehensible actions with deep regret.
Cemeteries and churches, where mental evocations of disincarnate spirits take place, are focal points of attraction of spirits of the Inferior Astral, due to the similar fluidic currents formed in those places by the thoughts of incarnate and disincarnate spirits. Therefore, whenever man's presence in such surroundings becomes necessary, he should do so with enlightened awareness in order to avoid taking part in the vibration of those currents.
If for instance, one feels a moral obligation to be present at a funeral, he should divert his thoughts from those of the surrounding assembly and elevate them, serenely, clearly, conscientiously to the Superior Astral. That is the goal of all spirits freed from matter and from the fluidic influences derived from inferior emotions so prevalent on Earth.
USELESS DELAYS ON EARTH'S ATMOSPHERE
We already know how disincarnation works. When the spirit abandons its physical body definitely, it withdraws, taking along with it the animistic body which is made of fluidic matter, imponderable to the ordinary senses.
Most spirits, when they disincarnate, know nothing about spiritual life. Consequently, things closely related to matter are the ones that influence them the most in the moments immediately before or after disincarnation, of which they are often unaware.
These influences are still stronger, still more powerful if the spirit has lived wallowing in vice, with thoughts turned only to materialistic pleasures.
In such condition - and because the spirit is under the impression that the astral body is physical - it roams Earth's surface like a common pedestrian, annoyed at the disregard of his fellow beings, who are understandably unaware of its presence. However, it finds plenty of opportunities to establish relationships with other disncarnate spirits in similar situations.
The movements of disncarnate spirits on Earth follow the pattern of their astral bodies. If the latter are saturated with coarse components due to their vicious conduct on Earth, they move about step by step like incarnate spirits.
Those, however, that led a less materialistic life, glide in the atmosphere, according to the density of their astral bodies, impelled by the action of thought.
Although such spirits become easily aware of the phenomenon of disincarnation, their thoughts are excessively concentrated on events of earthly life. Their aim is to continue feeling the emotions and delights of earthly life. Therefore they begin to exercise influence over incarnate spirits and such influence, when it persists, eventually becomes obsessive. It is this desire that prompts them to remain on Earth's atmosphere engaged in activities similar to those they exercised while incarnated.
For instance, those that were physicians try to exercise their activities wherever they find developed mediumnity which is used without the safeguards of the Christian Rationalist discipline.
However, since the spirits roaming earth's atmosphere have no way of expanding their knowledge, they are unable to avoid mystifications and get rid of the harmful influences prevailing in their living environment.
Therefore, no matter what their degree of evolution may be, as long as they stay on earth's atmosphere, their influence over the incarnate spirits is always harmful.
INFERIOR ASTRAL
We call Inferior Astral the atmospheric layer that encircles Earth. In this layer are the spirits that, while incarnate, were wholly engulfed in materialistic emotions and belonged to all walks of life.
Such emotions are not lacking in the Inferior Astral, which is also an environment pervaded with religious mysticism.
Many of those who deceived their fellow men with promises of heaven and threats of hell are also present in the Inferior Astral. It is the paradise of all materialists and hedonists.
No spirit ever incarnates having in mind the Inferior Astral as a goal. It goes from the Inferior Astral to a planet that corresponds to its level of evolution and only from such a planet will it incarnate.
In the Inferior Astral the knowledge which spirits possess does not go beyond what they knew while on Earth. Those that were materialists cling still more to this idea because their environment does not favour a change of opinion.
There they realise that neither devils nor saints, neither heaven nor hell exist, and they scorn those worshippers who are still benumbed under the influence of their beliefs.
The devout who were educated under the principle of fear, are at first intimidated when they enter the Inferior Astral, because they think about hell and the purgatory.
Next, realising that they have been deceived, they become disturbed, lose notion of their condition, and enter into a state of complete perplexity. Thus bewildered, they seek the churches, as if in search of a route or a guiding light, as a last resort.
With the passage of time, they become familiar with the environment and establish relations with other disincarnate spirits in the same plight.
It is with no small disillusionment that they see the daydreams built into their minds with the plentiful, suggestive material of religious mysticism vanish into smoke.
Still, so addicted are they to saints and gods, and so deeply rooted is their fear of punishment, that not even in that state of spiritual-awareness are they able to make their atrophied reasoning work to liberate themselves and derive the consequent benefits.
The transformation that the disincarnate spirit sees when it enters the Inferior Astral is relatively small. It realises that it has an astral body similar to the physical body and it sees a picture of earthly life as it was known before.
Expressing itself, like the other disincarnate spirits, by the action of thought, as if it were talking, the spirit can even hear the tone that gives in the impression of hearing its own voice.
This phenomenon is perfectly understandable: each thought has a density of its own, and consequently a special, characteristic, individual sound.
All this leads the disincarnate spirits to adapt themselves to the Inferior Astral. They are unaware of the harm derived from their stay in an environment in which evolution is stagnant. As an aggravating circumstance, smaller or larger liabilities are accumulated for the future, depending on the activity the spirit engaged in, in this environment of low spirituality.
FREE REIN TO VICES AND DANGEROUS CONTACTS
In the Inferior Astral, disincarnate spirits give free rein to the vices entertained by them while in a human body. Thus, if they feel the urge to smoke, they lean on an incarnate spirit who smokes and feel by induction the same pleasure he is feeling.
The same happens with regard to other urges. Hence it may be inferred that all incarnate spirits who entertain vices lend themselves, like unconscious instruments, to satiation of vices entertained by spirits of the Inferior Astral.
There is still one point to be clarified: vicious urges do not always originate with the incarnate. Many times vicious urges are aroused by the obsessors that follow the incarnate and, by intuition, prompt the incarnate to appease the desire.
The danger of keeping contact with spirits of the Inferior Astral goes beyond man's subjection to harmful intuitive influences which result in madness, obsession, family clashes, unfounded resentments, family disagreements, extra-marital relationships and infidelity.
There is also the risk of accidents and disasters caused by the disturbed state to which they may lead man. Add to these the infectious diseases which spirits of the Inferior astral usually cause or aggravate, leading to disincarnation.
Their method is relatively simple: in the sources of putrid matter they pick up contaminating miasmas and deposit these in the victim's body, taking advantage of lesions or exposed wounds, of the patients' feebleness, and of any conditions that are favourable to the diffusion or growth of the illness.
UNLIMITED CRUELTY
The degree of cruelty with which the spirits of the Inferior Astral may act is almost unlimited. Many misfortunes are the doing of their harmful activity.
Many more misfortunes would occur, however, if the spirits of the Superior Astral could not rely on stronger currents formed by the thought vibrations of incarnate spirits who are enlightened about their spiritual duties. These spirits are thus capable of keeping their minds clear and repel harmful influences.
The spirits of the Inferior Astral are aware that every man and woman is endowed with intuitive mediumnity and they take advantage of this to instil preposterous, absurd ideas upon their minds.
Hence the reason for some people to appear as harassment maniacs, while others always see the darker side of things, and many believe they suffer from a number of diseases.
It should be emphasised - and it is of the utmost importance - that not all of the evils that afflict mankind are caused by the activity of the Inferior Astral. Every individual has his own tendencies, temperament, and ways of feeling and looking at things, besides a free will, and personality to make his own decisions. He is, therefore, directly responsible for his success or failure in life.
It is true that forces of the Inferior Astral are attracted by affinitive thoughts. These forces intervene in man's life and cause certain harms or aggravate already existing harms. However, it is no less true that man is able to defend himself against those inferior forces with the powerful weapons of thought and will power.
FORMATION OF PHALANXES
On Earth there are individuals who rule and others who are ruled. If these individuals are unable to impart a spiritualistic meaning to their earthly activities, when they disincarnate they enter the Inferior Astral and there they retain the same inclinations of command and obedience.
Thus, phalanxes are organised, always under the command of a leader. If the spirit in command is cruel, so are its subordinates because affinity of feelings is precisely what keeps them together.
Such phalanxes co-ordinate their activities with those of the incarnate spirits who engage in black magic and its numerous branches.
The degree of cruelty of a phalanx depends on the spiritual inferiority of its members. Those willing to cooperate in the most accomplished acts of savagery assist the most violent and perverted individuals. Other phalanxes of less aggressive instincts convey intuitions to mediums of identical feelings like followers of voodoo rites, soothsayers, swindlers, business-settlers, fortune-tellers and all the impostors who exploit other people's credulity and ignorance.
Most suicides, insanities, quarrels, commotions, conflicts, aggressions, arguments, turmoils, intrigues, and political upheavals are the result of interference by forces of the Inferior Astral.
The spirits of the Inferior Astral are all surrounded by dense coarse animistic matter pervaded with harmful vibratory currents like envy, jealousy, corruption, hate, falsehood, ingratitude, hypocrisy, treason, and other equivalent feelings.
These spirits are frequently guileful and bland. They outwardly express the purest and noblest feelings and the sweetest and most pleasing manifestations of love of fellow men in the places where they actuate (not to be confused with Christian Rationalist centres).
WELL-MEANING SPIRITS
It should not be thought that only evil prevails in the Inferior Astral. In the same environment of perverted souls there are others that intended to be good while incarnated but failed in their purpose. The reason for that is that they kept their reasoning dormant because they were unaware of the important role played by feelings of justice and the effective practice of good, not limited to good thoughts.
It should be reiterated that the forces of the Inferior Astral can do nothing useful to mankind even though among them there are well-meaning spirits.
The reason is obvious: their best intentions are neutralised by the animistic action of their environment and they end up causing harm, the intensity of which varies with the degree of their spirituality.
Only after they reach the planets corresponding to their class, where they will have to go before reincarnating, will the spirits - fully lucid and trouble-free - realise the long delays in human evolution caused by premature disincarnation.
Generally speaking, and from certain viewpoints, they deem life on Earth's atmosphere better than that of the incarnate. Therefore, they sometimes wish the friends they left of Earth would disincarnate too, in order to enjoy their company. Thus, they start working astrally towards this goal although they are not driven by hostile feelings.
RISING TO WORLDS WHERE THEY BELONG
It is a mistake to believe that all spirits that disincarnate stay in the Inferior Astral. Many ascend immediately to the worlds of their class. They are not detained for a single moment on Earth's atmosphere.
These are the spirits of men who knew to live spiritually and materially, those who took work as one of the serious reasons for living, those whose thoughts were kept pure, clean, uncontaminated.
Those who live and think in this way frequently attract Superior Forces that assist them, especially at the moment of disincarnation, helping them to rise to the worlds where they belong.
As we have already seen, in order to carry out its task of spiritual sanitation on Earth, the Superior Astral depends on various points of support, in several places on Earth. Without this support their task would be much more difficult or even impossible.
Wherever there is a person irradiating elevated thoughts, there is a magnetic pole, an instrument of support to the action of Superior Forces. This is the sole purpose of psychical cleansing done in Christian Rationalist centres.
With the help of animistic currents formed in those centres, the spirits of the Superior Astral penetrate Earth's atmosphere and drive away all kinds of obsessors, from the most peaceful to the most aggressive.
There are countless disturbers of the peace of earthly life, some extremely dull, others on incipient intellectuality, but all of them engulfed in the deepest materialism. Among those are stubborn deceivers, venal judges, daring mystifiers, unrepentant quacks, vain ministers of state, impatriotic Presidents, megalomaniac kings, worshipper popes mentally obscured by dogmas, etc. All of them are driven away by the animistic currents organised by these Forces of Good whose bright light illuminates and awakens even the most hardened of consciences.
The first duty of the spirit after disincarnation is to rise to the world where it belongs, without lingering on Earth's atmosphere.
However, no one is able to carry out a duty without prior preparation. Therefore most spirits, when they disincarnate are enveloped in the intoxicating mist of physical emotions which is aggravated by the fantasies of religious mystiques. Thus they proceed, with the help of obsessors, to swell the hosts of those that stay behind on Earth's atmosphere.
Only those who, while incarnated, did not neglect their spiritual duties and made them the basis of their lives are prepared to rise to the worlds where they belong without skidding in the impure currents of the Inferior Astral.
If man would only understand that all events happen within natural conditions, in accordance with each individual's state of mind and spiritual development, he would neither torment himself nor feel disheartened by the despair and bitterness which frequently take hold of people.
All spirits of the Superior Astral are fully aware of this. They therefore follow with an enlightened mind all the misfortunes that are deplored on Earth without any alteration whatsoever in their feelings and activities.
LIFE IS ACTION
Life is action. Where there is action there is fulfilment of duty. Since life is a dynamic, continuous process, the spirit's duty is ever present and its fulfilment is a non-postponable imposition which is strictly observed in the Superior Astral.
There, fatigue, laziness, and idleness are unknown and what needs to be done is never postponed. Fatigue results from physical work and is not felt by the spirit.
Day and night are inexistent in Superior Space. The light that illuminates and saturates it permanently is Intelligence Force in action in the infinite ocean of the Universe.
The spirits in the Inferior Astral disregard the laws of nature and are consequently prevented from fulfilling their duties. They live in an environment derived from error, non-fulfilment of duty, vice, atrophy and brutalization of the spiritualistic sense. They give free rein to inferior inclinations which they did not care to eliminate in previous incarnations.
In such surroundings the spirits are completely misled about life and in need of being awakened. And this awakening is not easy, taking into consideration the influence of the disturbing fluids by which they are surrounded.
Lacking the mental soundness which is indispensable to awaken their weak sense of duty, they vegetate in a worse situation than they had while incarnated because in the Inferior Astral they have no possibility whatsoever of improving their spiritual condition.
Certain deceitful aspects of life on Earth may bewilder the spirit but this lasts only while it is incarnated or living on Earth's atmosphere. In the world where it belongs, free from all earthly influences, real life is seen with the clearness of truth. There, duty has but one interpretation and therefore there are no sophisms, ways of thinking, alternatives, ambiguities, hesitations, doubts or uncertainties. A duty established and a duty performed are principles which translate into ultimate fulfilment.
As explained in this book, the spirit cannot evolve in the world corresponding to its class. This impossibility stems from the fact that there, all spirits share the same intellectual level and, therefore, the same degree of growth. Thus, they have nothing to teach one another.
But the planet Earth - as already explained - is prepared to receive spirits of seventeen different classes which here mingle, associate, exchange knowledge and help each other.
We need emphasise once more the role that this disparity of values plays in mankind's evolutionary process. It is so important, so valuable and necessary that, as a rule, even members of the same family have different degrees of spirituality.
VISION OF THE PAST
No detail, no motion, no fact connected with its past existences ever escapes the spirit's perception. The spirit's past life, since its beginnings, is recorded in animistic matter by the vibratory action of thought, and will continue being recorded eternally, with extreme accuracy.
It is difficult to picture this eternal animistic register of all the actions of each individual member of the human race. In it all actions are perfectly featured like on a motion picture that can be shown at any time.
As soon as the spirit reaches the world of its own class, it reviews all its past life. This examination is minute and detailed. The spirit compares, looks at lost incarnations, evaluates the time wasted in those incarnations it only took partial advantage of. It reasons, analyses and appraises exactly where it now stands in order to draw a new plan for its next incarnation.
If the spirit arrives at the conclusion that it wasted time in the Inferior Astral, it regrets not having made better use of its spiritual resources, by which it might have added new values to its moral assets.
MAGNETIC POLES
We already know - because it was explained in previous chapters - that spirits grow in spirituality by reincarnating on Earth until they reach the seventeenth stage of evolution.
From then on, evolution is processed in Space which - as we have seen - is called Superior Astral.
Among their many duties, the spirits of the Superior Astral are committed to contributing to the spiritual growth of men and, as a rule, they do not interfere with man's free will.
It would be impossible for the spirits of the Superior Astral to reach Earth without establishing strong magnetic poles of attraction. Therefore, in addition to enlightened men and women who serve as their instruments on Earth, they depend on the help of the spirits of opaque planets at their service.
As a rule, such spirits would have reincarnated in order to achieve spiritual growth. However, they underwent so many lost incarnations and so much useless suffering that they decided to work in Space although realising that this would slow their advancement.
Nevertheless, this option has the advantage that it does not entail loss of time, as happens on Earth, where many millions of incarnated spirits mire in low earthly passions and allow themselves to be overcome by the false pleasures of earthly life.
The spirits in opaque planets belong to class six through eleven. Their astral bodies are made of more or less dense fluidic matter, which enables them to move around easily on Earth. They are strictly disciplined by Superior Forces and their activity is extremely valuable in that they can enter any environment no matter how low or evil.
Moreover, the spirits of opaque planets co-operate closely with incarnate spirits under the disembodiment rules explained in this book. Thus they enable the Superior Astral to undertake large-scale psychic cleansing in the Inferior Astral by driving away obsessor spirits. In the Superior Astral, spirits have all necessary resources at their disposal in order to carry out their assigned tasks.
SPACE AN TIME
Space and time are two relativities unknown in the Superior Astral. Man's visual field is restricted to three dimensions.
When science records the speed of light, it says nothing about the speed at which the Superior Spirits - which are also light - move about in Space. In reality, such knowledge is still unnecessary in the present state of man's evolution.
Space and Time - relativities abstracted - are two expressions that mingle into one.
When the human intellect becomes able to exercise its deductive, imaginative and analytical powers within the range of this conception, then the configuration of the Universe will change completely and the problems of immeasurable values will acquire a new meaning.
It is precisely within this mode of life that the spirits of the Superior Astral move. The dimensions of their field of action are beyond the limits of comprehension of the human mind. Their duties consequently involve tasks which are unlike those of earthly life.
Particulars of life in the Superior Astral are of interest only to those that are already there. For the time being there is not much that such elaborations can offer to the incarnate spirit.