1012- Are there circumscribed places in the universe that are intended for the punishments and pleasures of spirits according to their merits?
“We have already responded to this question. Punishments and joys are inherent to the degree of a spirit’s perfection. Each spirit carries within itself the source of its own happiness or unhappiness, and since spirits are everywhere, there is no circumscribed or enclosed place for one or the other. As for incarnate spirits, the degree of their happiness or unhappiness depends on the evolution of the world they inhabit.”
– Accordingly, would heaven and hell not exist as humans have represented them?
“They are no more than figures of speech – happy and unhappy spirits are everywhere. Nevertheless, as we have also told you, spirits of the same order gather together through their mutual sympathy. When perfect, they can meet wherever they desire.”
The idea of fixed places of reward and punishment exists only in people’s imaginations. It proceeds from their tendency to materialize and circumscribe the things whose infinite nature they cannot comprehend.
1013- What is to be understood by “purgatory”?
“Physical and mental suffering; it is a period of expiation. It is almost always on the earth that you make your own purgatory, and that is where God enables you to expiate your wrongs.”
What is called purgatory is also a figure of speech that should not be understood as some definite place, but rather the state of imperfect spirits who are in expiation until their complete purification raises them to the plane of the blissful spirits. Since this purification occurs over several incarnations, purgatory consists in the trials of corporeal life.
1014- How do you explain the fact that spirits who are known to be highly evolved because of the language they use have given to serious individuals answers on hell and purgatory that are in line with commonly accepted ideas?
“They speak a language that can be understood by the individuals who question them. When such individuals are highly imbued with certain ideas, these spirits do not want to shock them too suddenly in order not to harm their convictions. If a spirit were to forget about verbal precautions and to say to a Muslim that Mohammed was not a prophet, it would be very poorly received.”
– We can understand this on the part of spirits who wish to instruct us, but how may it be explained that, when questioned about their situation, spirits have responded that they were suffering the tortures of hell or purgatory?
“When they are of a low order and are not completely dematerialized, spirits retain a portion of their earthly ideas and translate their impressions using terms that are familiar to them. They find themselves in surroundings that do not permit them to probe the future except in a deficient way. This is the reason why errant or recently discarnate spirits usually speak just as they would have if they were still incarnate. Hell may be translated as meaning a life of extremely painful trials with the uncertainty that it will ever end. Purgatory is also a life of trials, but with the awareness of a better future. Whenever you are suffering a great deal of pain, don’t you say that you are suffering like hell? These are also nothing more than words uttered as a figure of speech.”
1015- What should be understood by a tormented soul?
“An errant and suffering soul, uncertain about its future, and to whom you can provide the solace it frequently begs for when it comes to communicate with you.” (See no. 664.)
1016- In what sense should the word heaven be understood?
“Do you believe that it is a place like the Elysian Fields of the ancients, where all the good spirits are confusedly crowded together with no other concern than that of enjoying an eternity of passive bliss? No. It is universal space – the planets, the stars and all the highly evolved worlds on which spirits enjoy all their faculties without the tribulations of material life or the anguish inherent to less evolved stages.”
1017- Some spirits have said that they inhabit the fourth, the fifth heaven, etc. What is meant by this?
“You asked them which heaven they inhabit because you have the idea of many superimposed heavens resembling the stories of a house; thus, they merely responded according to your own language. However, for them, the words fourth or fifth heaven express different degrees of purification, and consequently, of happiness. It is the same when a spirit is asked if it is in hell. If it is unhappy, it will say yes, because for it hell is synonymous with suffering, although it knows very well that it is not a furnace. A pagan spirit would respond that it is in Tartarus.”
The same applies to other analogous expressions, such as the city of flowers, the city of the elect, the first, second or third sphere, etc., which are no more than allegories employed by certain spirits, whether as figures of speech, whether from ignorance of the reality of things or whether from ignorance of the simplest scientific concepts.
According to the former narrow idea of fixed places of punishment and reward, and especially according to the opinion that the earth was the center of the universe, and that the sky formed a vault in which there was a region of stars, heaven was placed up above and hell down below; hence the expressions to ascend into heaven, to be in highest heaven, to be cast down into hell, etc. Now that science has demonstrated that the earth is no more than one of the smallest worlds among so many millions of others, which gives it no special importance; that it has traced the earth’s formation and described its constitution; that it has proven that space is infinite in such a way that there is neither up nor down in the universe, it has become necessary to reject placing heaven above the clouds and hell in the lower regions. As for purgatory, no fixed place has ever been assigned to it. Concerning such matters, it was reserved for Spiritism to give the most rational, fundamental, and at the same time, the most consoling explanation to humankind. Thus, we can say that we carry our hell and our heaven within ourselves, and that we find our purgatory in our incarnation, in our corporeal or physical lives.
1018- In what sense should we understand the words of Christ, “My kingdom is not of this world?”
“Christ was responding figuratively. He wanted to say that he only reigned over pure and unselfish hearts. He is in every place where love and goodness rule; however, humans, greedy for the things of this world, are attached to the things of earth and not to him.”
1019- Will the kingdom of the good ever be realized on earth?
“The good will reign on earth when, among the spirits who come to inhabit it, the good outnumber the evil ones. They will then enable love and justice – the source of goodness and of happiness – to reign on earth. It is through moral progress and the practice of the laws of God that humans will attract good spirits to the earth and repel the evil ones. However, the evil ones will only leave after humans have banished pride and selfishness from the planet.
“The transformation of humankind has been predicted, and the time has come for all progressive individuals to hasten it. It will be implemented through the incarnation of more-evolved spirits, who will comprise a new generation on the earth. Then the spirits of evil, who are reaped daily by death, and all those who try to deter the forward advancement of things will be excluded, for they will be out of place among humans of high morality, whose happiness they would disturb. They will go to newer, less-advanced worlds to fulfill pain-filled missions, where they will be able to labor for their own progress and at the same time labor for the progress of their brothers and sisters who are even less advanced. Don’t you see in such an exclusion from a transformed earth the sublime image of Paradise Lost? Also, don’t you see in the humans who have come to the earth under similar conditions, bringing within themselves the seeds of their passions and the traces of their primitive inferiority, the no-less sublime image of original sin? Considered in this way, original sin refers to the still imperfect nature of humans, who are only responsible for themselves and for their own wrongs, and not for those of their parents.
“All of you, men and women of faith and goodwill, work therefore with zeal and courage for the great work of regeneration, for you will reap a hundredfold the grain of wheat that you have sown. Unfortunate are those who close their eyes to the light, for they are preparing long centuries of darkness and sorrow for themselves! Unfortunate are those who place all their joys in the things of this world, for they will suffer more privations than the pleasures they have had. And above all, unfortunate are the selfish, for they will not find anyone to help them bear the burden of their miseries.”
St. Louis
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