Relationships Beyond the Grave

(from Kardec's The Spirits Book)

 

Relationships Beyond the Grave

278. Do spirits of different orders mingle? 

“Yes and no, meaning, they see each other, but they are still separated. They avoid or approach one another depending on the empathy or aversion of their thoughts and ideas, just like you. Your world is merely the obscured refection of the spirit world. Those holding the same rank are attracted to each other, and form groups or families of spirits united by sympathy and a common goal. Good spirits are united by the desire to do good, while bad spirits are united by the desire to do wrong, the shame of their wrongdoing, and the desire to be among those they resemble.”

The spiritual world is like a big city where people of every social standing and means see and meet one another without actually mingling. Various social circles are formed based on the similarity of tastes. Vice and virtue rub elbows without interacting with one another.

279. Are all spirits mutually accessible to one another?

“The good can go everywhere, and it must be this way in order to bring their influence to bear upon the bad ones. However, the regions inhabited by the good are blocked off to lower order spirits, so as to not disrupt those places by introducing vile passions.”

280. What are the relationships like between good and bad spirits?

“The good strive to combat the immoral propensities of others, to help them rise to a higher degree. This is a mission.”

281. Why do lower spirits take pleasure in tempting us to do wrong?

“Out of jealousy. They have not earned a place among the good and relish preventing other inexperienced spirits from reaching supreme happiness. They want to make others feel the same way they do. Do you not see this same desire among yourselves?”

282. How do spirits communicate with one another?

“They see and understand one another. Speech is a material creation that reflects the spirit. The universal fluid establishes constant communication, a vehicle by which thought is transmitted, similar to air being the vehicle of sound in your world. This fluid is similar to a universal telegraph, uniting all worlds and enabling spirits to correspond from one world to another.”

283. Can spirits hide their thoughts from one another? Can they hide themselves from one another?

“No, everything is out in the open, particularly for those who have reached perfection. They may withdraw from one another, but they are always visible. Note that this is not an absolute rule. Higher spirits can render themselves invisible to lower spirits, when they deem it useful to do so.” 284. How can spirits establish their individuality and maintain their uniqueness from other beings around them when they no longer have a physical body? “Their individuality is established by their perispirit, which makes each spirit distinct from one another, as the body does for human beings.”

285. Do spirits recognize one another when they have lived together on Earth? Does a son recognize his father? Does a friend recognize a friend?

“Yes, and from generation to generation.”

a) How do those who have known each other on Earth recognize one another in the spirit world?

“We see our past life and can read it like a book. In seeing the past of our friends and our enemies, we see their journey from life to death.”

286. Does the soul see family and friends who have died before it immediately after vacating the body?

“Immediately is not the right word. As we have said, the soul needs time to restore its self-consciousness and shed the material veil.”

287. How is the soul welcomed when returning to the spirit world?

“The righteous are welcomed back as dearly loved family members who have been long expected, while the wicked are despised.”

288. How do impure spirits feel when they see another bad spirit joining them?

“They are delighted to see others like them who are also deprived of supreme happiness. Similar to thieves being welcomed by their peers.”

289. Do our friends and family ever come to meet us when we leave this world?

“Yes, they meet the souls of their loved ones, welcome them like travelers safely returning from a journey, and help them to free themselves from their material bonds. Being met by loved ones is a favor granted to good spirits. Meanwhile, the wicked are punished by being left alone, or as a result of only being surrounded by spirits who are like themselves.”

290. Do relatives and friends always reunite after death?

“That depends on their elevation and their road to advancement. If one is more advanced and progresses more rapidly than the other, they cannot stay together. They may see each other occasionally.

They are reunited only when they can walk side by side, or when both of them have reached equality in perfection. Sometimes, spirits who are deprived of seeing friends and family have had this inflicted upon them as an atonement.”

Spirit Sympathy and Antipathy – Soul Mates 

291. Besides the general sense of sympathy for similar beings, do spirits have any special feelings or sense of affection? 
“Yes, just like incarnate people. However, the link between spirits is stronger when the body is gone because it is no longer subjected to the impulses of the passions.” 

292. Do spirits feel hatred? “Hatred only exists among impure spirits. These spirits spread hatred and cause conflict among people.” 

293. Do enemies on Earth hold fast to their resentment of one another in the spirit world? 
“No, because they see that it was stupid and meaningless. Only imperfect spirits maintain their hostility until they are purified. When spirits are dematerialized they forget the anger they felt as incarnate people as it was merely due to a material interest. As the subject of their disagreement no longer exists, they may happily see each other again, provided there is no hostility remaining between them.” 

294. Is the memory of crimes or injuries they may have committed against one another as human beings an obstacle to sympathy between two spirits? 
“Yes, it keeps them apart.” 

295. How do those whom we have wronged feel after death? 
“If they are good, they forgive you once you repent. If they are bad, they may cling to their resentment against you, or even track you down in another existence. This may be allowed by God as an atonement.” 

296. Can a spirit’s individual affections change? “No, because they cannot be mistaken. Hypocrites can no longer hide behind a mask in the spirit world and their sentiments, when pure, are unchangeable. The love uniting them is a source of supreme happiness.” 

297. Does the affection of two spirits carry over from this world to the spirit world? 
“Yes, if it is based on true sympathy. If physical causes have influenced this affection more than sympathy, it ends with those causes. Affections are more solid and lasting among spirits than human beings because they are not subject to the whims of material interests and self-love.” 

298. Are souls predestined to be together from inception, and do we each have our other half somewhere in the universe with whom we will be reunited one day? 
“No, there is no destined union between two souls. Union exists between all spirits, but in varying degrees according to their ranking, or their degree of perfection. The closer to perfect, the more united they are. Disharmony produces all the problems of human life, while harmony generates perfect happiness.” 

299. In what sense should we interpret the term half, sometimes used by spirits when referring to sympathetic spirits? 
“That expression is inaccurate. If one spirit were the half of another, it would be incomplete when separated from its other half.” 

300. When two perfectly sympathetic spirits are reunited, do they remain united for all eternity, or can they separate and unite with other spirits? 
“All spirits who have reached perfection are united. In all other worlds, when a spirit ascends from a lower world to a higher one, it does not always feel the same sympathy for those it has left behind.” 

301. When two spirits are completely like-minded, do they complement one another, or is this sympathy the consequence of their perfect identity of character? 
“The sympathy attracting one spirit to another is the result of the perfect harmony of their predispositions and instincts. If one were needed to complete the other, individuality would be lost.” 

303. May spirits become sympathetic in the future even if they are not so today? 
“Yes, they all eventually will. A spirit who is currently in a lower sphere will advance to join another spirit in a higher world. Their reunion will occur sooner if the higher spirit fails any of its trials and remains stationary.” 

a) Can two currently sympathetic spirits cease to be so? 
“Absolutely, if one of them is lazy.”

The theory of soul mates is merely a figurative representation of the union of two sympathetic spirits, and should not be taken literally. Spirits using this expression do not belong to the higher orders. Hindered by their narrow range of ideas, they have expressed their thoughts using terms that they employed during their physical lives. We must disregard this idea of two spirits created for each other, who must someday be inevitably reunited in eternity after having remained separated for a more or less long period of time.

Memory of Physical Life

304. Does a spirit remember its physical life?

“Yes, since a spirit has lived as a human being many times, it remembers what it has been and often laughs at the foolishness of its past.” Like adults who laugh when reminiscing about the foolishness of their youth and the silliness of their childhood.

305. Do spirits spontaneously recover memory of their physical life immediately after death?

“No, it comes back to them little by little, like objects gradually becoming visible out of a fog once they focus on it.”

306. Does a spirit remember every detail of its life? Can it grasp its entire life at a single retrospective glance?

“Depending on the influence things have had on its state as a spirit, it remembers them more or less clearly. However, we should understand there are many trivial things in its life of no importance; as such, the spirit does not even try to remember them.”

a) Could it remember them if it wanted to remember?

“It could recall the most obscure details of every incident of its life, even of its thoughts. However, a spirit will not choose to do this if it does not fulfill a useful purpose.”

b) Does it understand the purpose of its physical life in relation to the future life?

“Of course, it sees it and understands it better than when incarnated in the living. It understands the need for purification to reach God, and it knows that some of its impurities are shed in each existence.”

307. How does a spirit recall its past life? Is it through an effort of imagination, or is it like a picture right before its eyes?

“Both. Everything that it is interested in remembering appears to it as if it were present. Others life events appear more or less vaguely in its thoughts, or are forgotten entirely. The more dematerialized the spirit is, the less importance it attaches to material things. When we communicate with an errant spirit who has just left this world, it often forgets the names of people it liked or other details that may seem important to you. They are inconsequential to the spirit and it erases them from its memory. However, it remembers perfectly the main events of its life that have contributed to its improvement.”

308. Does a spirit recall all the lives that have preceded the one it has just left?

“Its entire past unfurls before it like the legs of a journey completed by a traveler. As we have told you, it does not precisely remember all its past actions. It can only remember them in proportion to the impact they have had on its present state. Its earliest lives are hazy, like infancy for instance, and swallowed by the night of oblivion.”

309. How does a spirit view the body that it has just vacated?

“As uncomfortable clothing that encumbered it. It is elated to finally be rid of it.”

a) How does it feel when it sees the decomposition of its body?

“Almost always indifferent, like something it no longer cares about.”

310. In time, does a spirit recognize the remains that once belonged to it?

“Sometimes, but this depends on a more or less elevated perspective with regard to material matters.”

311. Does respect for the material items once owned by a spirit attract its attention to those objects, and is it pleased by this respect?

“A spirit is always happy to be remembered by those it has left behind. The objects preserved jog the memory of those holding onto them; however a spirit is attracted by their thought and not the objects themselves.”

312. Do spirits preserve the memory of the pain and suffering that they endured in their last physical life?

“They often do and this memory further accentuates the happiness they enjoy as spirits.”

313. Do people who have been happy in their physical lives miss their earthly pleasures when they leave this world?

“Only lower order spirits miss pleasures that accompany the impurity of their nature, and which must be atoned by suffering. Higher spirits prefer the happiness of eternity to the fleeting happiness of human life.” Just as an adult despises the delights of his or her youth.

314. When individuals have initiated important endeavors for a worthwhile cause and their lives are cut short by death, do they regret leaving the work unfinished when they reach the other world?

“No, because they understand that others are destined to complete them. On the contrary, they try to inspire other people to carry on what they left behind. Their goal in this world is to be useful to the human race, and it is the same in the spirit world.”

315. When individuals leave behind works of art or literature, are they still as interested in these matters when they reach the spirit world as they were in this world?

“They view them from a different perspective, according to their elevation, and often criticize what they once admired.”

317. Do spirits retain a love of their country and patriotism after death?

“For elevated spirits, their country is the universe. In terms of the Earth, they only prefer the spot wherever the most like-minded individuals assemble.”

A spirit’s circumstances and perspectives are infinitely diverse according to their many degrees of moral and intellectual development. Higher spirits generally stay on Earth for short periods of time. Everything that happens here is so trivial in comparison to the splendor of infinity, yet human beings attach so much importance to incredibly foolish matters. Higher spirits have very little interest in earthly things, unless they have been sent here with a mission to contribute to the progress of its people. Lower spirits visit our Earth more frequently, but have a higher perspective of earthly matters than humans. Most spirits are sedentary and make up the ambient population of the invisible world. They retain the same ideas and tastes that they had while clad with their corporeal envelope, and intermingle at our gatherings, in business, and during pastimes. According to their character, they partake in all of these matters more or less actively. No longer able to satisfy their material passions, they relish watching those who immerse themselves in their indulgences and encourage them to do so. Some have better inclinations and simply watch and observe in order to bring about their advancement by acquiring knowledge.

318. Do spirits change their ideas when in the spirit state?

“Very often. A spirit’s ideas undergo drastic changes as it becomes dematerialized. It may occasionally retain the same ideas for a long period of time, but gradually the influence of matter diminishes, and it sees more clearly. Eventually, a moment arrives when it seeks the means of advancing.”

319. As spirits have already lived in the spirit world before they incarnate here, why are they astonished when they re-enter that world?

“This feeling is only fleeting, and results from the confusion that follows their waking. They soon recover their consciousness as the memory of the past comes back to them, and the impression of the earthbound life is erased.”