786. History has shown us many cultures that relapsed into barbarity after shocking events deeply upset them. Where is the progress in such a case?
“When your house threatens to collapse, you demolish it in order to build a stronger and more comfortable one. Until it is rebuilt, however, there is trouble and confusion in your dwelling.
“A further example: you are poor and live in a hovel, but you become wealthy and leave it to live in a palace. Then, some poor fellow (as you formerly were) comes and takes your place in the hovel and feels very content because he previously had no shelter at all. Very well! Learn from this that the spirits incarnated in those declining cultures are no longer the spirits who had comprised them during their time of splendor. Because they have progressed, those former spirits have moved into even more perfect dwellings, while less advanced ones have taken their place, which they too will leave behind in their turn.”
787. Aren’t there peoples that by their very nature rebel against progress?
“Yes, but they are corporeally disappearing day by day.”
– What will be the future fate of the souls who animate those peoples?
“Like all other souls, they will finally arrive at perfection by passing through many, many existences. God deserts no one.”
– So the most civilized individuals may have been primitive beings and cannibals?
“You yourselves were such more than once before becoming what you are now.”
788. Like individuals, cultures are collective individualities that pass through childhood, adulthood and decrepitude. Since this truth is attested to by history, doesn’t it lead us to assume that the most advanced cultures of this century will decline and end just as those of antiquity?
“Those cultures that only live a material existence, and whose greatness is founded only upon power and territorial expansion, are born, grow and die out because the might of a culture exhausts itself just like that of an individual. Cultures with selfish laws that clash with the progress of enlightenment and charity die out because light annihilates darkness and charity eradicates selfishness. However, for cultures, as for individuals, there is the life of the soul, and cultures with laws that are in harmony with the eternal laws of the Creator will live and will be guiding lights for other cultures.”
789. Will progress someday unite all of earth’s peoples into a single nation?
“Not into a single nation. That would be impossible because nationalities are formed based on different customs and needs arising from the diversity in climates, and their local laws are designed to accommodate such customs and needs. Charity, on the other hand, knows nothing of geographical latitudes and does not differentiate people by their color. When the law of God comprises the basis of human law everywhere, both cultures and individuals will practice the law of charity toward each other, living joyfully and peacefully because no one will attempt to deceive their neighbor or live at his or her expense.”
Humankind progresses by means of individuals who increasingly improve and enlighten themselves. When these grow in number, they take the lead and draw the rest forward. Geniuses appear from time to time to provide an impulse, followed by individuals invested with authority, who, as instruments of God, enable humankind to advance many centuries in just a few years.
The progress of cultures further highlights the justice of reincarnation. Moral individuals make praiseworthy efforts to help a nation advance morally and intellectually; the nation thus transformed will be happier both in this world and in the next. Nonetheless, during the slow march across the centuries, thousands of people die every day. What will be the fate of those who succumb along the way? Does their relative state of imperfection deprive them of the satisfaction reserved for those who arrive last? Or is their happiness relative? Divine justice could not consecrate such an injustice. Through the plurality of existences, the right to happiness is always the same for all, for no one is deprived of progress. Those who live at a time of barbarity can return at a time of civility in the same culture or in another one. It is obvious that all are benefited by the ascendant march.
The theory of one sole existence, however, presents another problem in this case. According to this theory, the soul is created at the moment of birth; thus, if some individuals are more advanced than others, it is because God has created a more advanced soul for them. Why this favoritism? Why would these individuals, who have not lived any longer than the ones before them – often not as long – deserve to be given a more advanced soul? But even this is not the main problem. Over a thousand years, a culture passes from barbarity to civility. If human beings were able to live a thousand years, one could conceive that they would have time to progress during that time. But every day humans die at all ages. Their numbers are constantly being replenished, with new ones appearing and disappearing every day to such an extent that by the end of a millennium, no trace remains of the former inhabitants; the barbaric nation has become civilized. What is it that has actually progressed? The individuals who used to be barbarians? But they already died long ago. Is it the newly-arrived? Well, if their souls were created at the time of birth, they could not have existed during the time of barbarity. Thus, we would have to believe that the efforts made to civilize a people do not have the power to improve imperfect souls, but to cause God to create other souls who are more advanced.
Let us compare this theory of progress with the one that has been given to us by the Spirits. The souls that come during the time of civility have had their infancy like all the others, but they had already lived many times before, and they arrive already advanced as the result of previous progress. They come because they are attracted to an environment which is sympathetic to them and which suits their current state. Therefore, the efforts made to civilize a people do not have the effect of determining the future creation of souls who are more advanced but of attracting those who have already progressed, whether they had already lived among that people in times of barbarity, or whether they have come from somewhere else. Upon this rests the key to the progress of all humankind. When all cultures are at the same level of morality, the earth will house only good spirits living in fraternal unity. The evil spirits, having been repelled and dislocated, will seek out less evolved worlds and an environment that suits them until they have made themselves worthy to come back to our transformed world. The usual theory, unlike that of reincarnation, has one further effect: works of social improvement only benefit present and future generations, but are meaningless for past generations, who were unfortunate because they arrived too soon and were able to advance only according to their own efforts and under the burden of their barbaric acts. According to the Spirits’ doctrine, however, later progress also profits those generations that are reborn into better conditions, and they can therefore perfect themselves in an environment of civility. (See no. 222)
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