The Spirit (or Soul) and The Spirit World

- A spirit is the intelligent principle of the Cosmos. It is “who we are.” It contains our intelligence, our will, and our personality. A spirit retains its individuality, whether in the material or spirit world.

- Spirits have no gender and do not procreate. Spirits incarnate into male and female bodies in the material world, depending on the type of incarnation that is necessary for the advancement of a particular spirit.

- A spirit’s original and true home is in the spirit world. This spirit world exists all around us although we are mostly unaware of it while we are in the material world.

- Time and space in the spirit world does not exist, as we know it in the material world.

- When the spirit returns to the spirit world (depending on its level of advancement) it can generally remember its past lives and all the knowledge it has gained in those past lives. There it can truly be itself at its full potential in intellect, spirituality, and morality; it is in a freer state of existence. While in a physical body, the spirit is like a prisoner until the moment of release, in what we humans call “death.”

- When a spirit incarnates into the material world it is subject to the various limitations of the body it may have; some physical limitations are more severe then others, examples are: mental retardation, blindness, deformities, and other physical, and, organic related mental and emotional conditions.

- The spirit controls its physical body by way of what Spiritists calls the perispirit (see separate section on this) when it is incarnated in the material world. The spirit can either control its impulses, or indulge in the physical sensations it feels through the perispirit from its physical body.

- The spirit, when incarnated in a physical body, needs to reenergize itself, so that is why the physical body (which also needs rest) must sleep. That is also when the incarnated spirit comes into more direct contact with spirits in the spirit world. Sometimes spirits remember these visits as dreams. But most of the time the spirit does not remember its activities upon waking in the material world because the physical body’s matter is too dense for these impressions to come through.

- When the physical body sleeps, the spirit can visit all those friends and relatives it has known from other lives or those who have passed into it from their current one before them. It can visit with those loved ones who are still incarnated in the material world (but are physically asleep). It can visit with inferior or superior spirits. It can consult with its assigned “guardian angel” (a more superior spirit guide) regarding its trials and tribulations in the material world and more directly receive the advice it may need.

- Spirits are assigned a spirit protector during their sojourn into the material world; many times we call them guardian angels. These spirits who are superior to us having already evolved further, have accepted the mission of looking after us; they try and influence our thoughts and inspire in us to do and be good. They act as our conscience.

- A spirit’s condition in the spirit world, whether happy or unhappy, is the direct consequence of the degree of its advancement or its imperfections. Spirits receive and see what they need. Many need much rest from their trials and tribulations in the material world. Some may report they are in hospitals or rest homes. Others report they attend classes with others, learning many things regarding morality and improving their condition. Depending on the level of morality and intelligence, spirits receive special assignments. Difficult and very important assignments go to more superior spirits.

- Spirits in the spirit world exercise a tremendous influence over humans in the material world, for good and for bad. Spirits are one of the Forces of Nature of which conventional science does not yet realize and this is the primary knowledge of which Spiritism brings to the world in a logical and concise manner. When this fact becomes general knowledge it will provide clearer explanations of the processes of: inspiration, intuition, foreknowledge, spiritual healing, and certain types of mental and emotional disorders, and much more.

- Superior spirits, with their moral superiority, have authority over all those spirits inferior to them and strictly control those spirits in the spirit world and their influence upon those in the material world. They do this through a force of their will and can exercise what may be called a certain kind of “mind control.” Superior spirits also influence those who are incarnated in the material world to assist mankind in its intellectual and moral progression. They sometimes incarnate into our world to inspire and guide mankind through special missions.

- It has been consistently communicated to us by the spirit world that the spirit of the person we know as Jesus of Nazareth, was and is, the most morally superior spirit to have incarnated upon the planet earth to date. His mission was to teach Love towards our Creator, Love to one another, and to bring us the knowledge of an afterlife. We call it the spirit world (He called it the “Kingdom of Heaven”). He emphasized that we should concentrate on spiritual matters over material ones (which are transitory). He is our model to strive for in our own moral conduct.

- Finally, the Creator’s Will is Supreme over all, whether upon the material or spirit world. The Supreme Intelligence has a continued influence upon the direction of the Cosmos (and as a result upon us) in harmony with universal laws. We just cannot fully comprehend at our present level of evolutionary stage the influence of the Supreme Intelligence. But communicating spirits insist that it exists and nothing can occur without permission from the Divine Will.