68- What causes the death of organic beings?
“Their organs wear out.”
– Could we compare death to the cessation of movement in a machine that has broken down?
“Yes. If the machine has been badly assembled, it breaks down; likewise, if the body becomes diseased, life leaves it.”
69- Why does a lesion in the heart seem to cause death more often than one in any other organ?
“The heart is a life-producing machine. Nevertheless, it is not the only organ in which a lesion causes death; it is only one of the body’s essential parts.”
70- What happens to the matter and the vital principle of organic beings after death?
“The inert matter decomposes and is used to form other beings; the vital principle returns to the vital mass.”
After the death of the organic being, the elements that had formed its body undergo new combinations to form new beings. These new beings in turn draw the principle of life and activity from the universal source; they absorb and assimilate it, and restore it again to that source as soon as they themselves cease to exist.
The organs are impregnated (so to speak) with the vital fluid25, which enables all the body’s components to actively communicate with one another when certain lesions occur and to restore functions that have temporarily ceased. However, when the elements essential for the functioning of the organs are destroyed or profoundly altered, the vital fluid cannot transmit this life-giving movement to them, and the organism dies.
A body’s organs necessarily react upon one another to a lesser or greater extent, and this reciprocity of action results from their being in harmony as a whole. Their functions cease when something destroys this harmony, just like what occurs in the movement of a mechanism when its essential components break down, or like a clock that has been worn out by use or broken by accident, and in which there is no longer any motive force to keep it running.
We have an even better image of life and death in an electronic device. Such a device receives electricity and stores it in a latent state – as do all bodies in nature. However, the electric phenomenon does not manifest until the electric fluid is put in motion by a certain cause; only then can we say that the device is alive. When the cause of the activity ceases, so does the phenomenon: the device returns to the state of inertia. Organic bodies may thus be compared to batteries or electronic devices in which the vital fluid’s activity produces the phenomenon of life; the cessation of this activity causes death.
The amount of vital fluid is not the same in all organic beings. It varies according to species and is not constant in the same individual or in the various individuals of the same species. There are those who are saturated (so to speak) with this fluid, while others possess barely enough of it. That is why for some life is more active, more energetic and, in a certain way, more superabundant.
The amount of vital fluid may become depleted and insufficient for maintaining life if it is not renewed by absorbing and assimilating substances that contain it.
Finally, the vital fluid may be transmitted from one individual to another. Those who have greater quantities of it can give it to those who have less, and in certain cases they can bring back a life on the verge of being extinguished.
25 “The ethereal fluid spread throughout the physical body is like a telegraph that transmits sensation to the sensitive center, which is the spirit. The nerves are the conducting wires for this fluid, whose course, however, can be interrupted by an agent that isolates it from the brain.” (Marchal, V. The Consoler Spirit, Federação Espírita Brasileira, 1980, p. 284). “The vital fluid, also called the vital principle, is a modified form of the universal cosmic fluid. It is the basic element of life. Life here is considered in the meaning attributed by science, which is characterized by… birth, growth, reproduction and death.” (Gurgel, Luiz Carlos de M., O Passe Espírita, Federação Espírita Brasileira, 1994, p. 73 – Both translations ours). – Tr.
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