107- General Characteristics: Predominance of spirit over matter; desire to do good. These spirits’ qualities and ability to do good are in proportion to the degree of advancement they have reached. Some possess scientific knowledge, while others display wisdom and benevolence; the more highly evolved ones combine knowledge with moral qualities. Since they have not yet dematerialized themselves completely, and depending on their class, they still preserve stronger or weaker traces of their corporeal existence and might display some of their former eccentricities in their language or habits. If it were not for this, they would be purified spirits.
They comprehend God and the infinite, and they already enjoy the happiness of the morally upright; in addition, they feel happy when they do good and hinder evil. The love that unites them is a source of ineffable happiness that cannot be affected by envy, remorse or any of the other evil passions afflicting imperfect spirits. Nevertheless, they must continue to undergo trials until they reach perfection.
As spirits, they encourage good thoughts in people and dissuade them from the path of evil. They also watch over the lives of those who have made themselves worthy and they neutralize the influence of imperfect spirits on those who do not yield to them.
When incarnate, they are good and benevolent toward others; they do good for its own sake and they neither allow themselves to be led by pride, selfishness or ambition nor do they display hatred, bitterness, envy or jealousy.
In popular belief, this order includes the spirits called good spirits, guardian spirits and spirits of benevolence. In times of ignorance and superstition they were regarded as beneficent deities.
We may divide this order into four principal groups:
108- Fifth class. BENEVOLENT SPIRITS. Their dominant quality is kindness. They take pleasure in serving and protecting human beings but their knowledge is limited: their progress has occurred more in the moral sense than in the intellectual.
109- Fourth class. LEARNED SPIRITS. These are especially distinguished by the extent of their knowledge. They are less concerned with moral issues because they have a greater aptitude for scientific ones, but they only pursue science for its usefulness. These spirits are also free of the passions that characterize imperfect spirits.
110- Third class. WISE SPIRITS. These are characterized by moral qualities of the highest degree. Even though they do not possess unlimited knowledge, they are endowed with an intellectual capacity that enables them to judge people and things precisely.
111- Second class. HIGH ORDER SPIRITS. These combine science, wisdom and goodness. Their language only displays benevolence and is always noble, elevated and frequently sublime. Their lofty status renders them more able than the others to impart to us the most correct notions concerning the things of the incorporeal world within the limits of the knowledge permitted to us. They willingly communicate with those who in good faith seek truth, and whose souls are sufficiently freed from earthly connections to enable such understanding. However, they turn from those who are only motivated out of curiosity, or who, through the influence of matter, turn from practicing the good. When they incarnate on earth under exceptional circumstances, they accomplish a mission of progress, displaying to us the type of perfection to which humankind can aspire in this world.
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