“Spirits are not, as many think, abstract, vague, indefinite beings, nor are they anything like a luminosity or a spark. Quite to the contrary, they are very real beings, with clear identities and shapes.” – Kardec (“Spiritism Easily Explained”)
As Allan Kardec said, an erroneous idea still prevails about Spirits, in which they are believed to be vague and indefinite beings. In truth, however, they are beings similar to ourselves. They do not even constitute a distinct creation or population, for in fact, we (humans) are all spirits, only we are presently incarnated in material bodies as part of the process of reincarnation. Those spirits referred to as “spirits of the dead” “spirits of the invisible world”, even “ghosts” are only spirits or souls that were once incarnated in a human body and are, at the time of reference, free from the earthly flesh.
Here we will look at what the basic principles of Spiritism teach about Spirits.
DEFINITION
Spirit, as it is referred to in our web’s section on Science (as one of the three aspects of Spiritism), is defined as the intelligent principle of the universe (matter being the other major element). In this section here, however, we are referring to individual Spirits, as defined in the Spirits’ Book, as “the intelligent beings of creation.” These intelligent beings, then, are the individualization of that intelligent principle, and they populate the invisible realms of the universe.
ORIGIN
The exact, intimate nature and origin of Spirits is still unknown to us. Even the intelligent Spirits that communicate to us are unable to explain it, either from their own ignorance, or for the lack of ability of our language to express it. What we do know is that they are a creation of God, that God has existed and created from all eternity, that the creation of Spirits is ongoing, and that the existence of Spirits has no end (“Spirits Book”, questions 78-80; 83). The Spirits tell us (question 155) that each Spirit is created in an equal state of simplicity and unawareness, whereby it’s mission is of “self-enlightenment and gradual achievement of perfection through the pursuit of knowledge and truth”, acquired through the experiences of trials and atonements throughout multiple [material] existences.
PHYSICAL NATURE
The Spirits clothed in physical bodies constitute living human beings, or the visible corporeal/material world, and are referred to as incarnate Spirits. Freed from those bodies, they inhabit the spiritual or invisible world, and are referred to as discarnate Spirits. In understanding what Spirits are and how they operate, in both the material and spiritual worlds, it is important to understand that the spirit has a semi-material envelope called the perispirit. To explain this concept, here is an excerpt from Allan Kardec’s book, “What is Spiritism”:
When the soul is united to the body during life, it has a double covering. One is heavy, gross and destructible-the material body. The other is fluid, light , and indestructible-the perispirit [Editor's note: This perispirit accompanies the soul even when freed from the material body].
There are, then, three essential elements in man:
1) the soul or Spirit- the intelligent principle in which thought, will and the moral sense reside;
2) the body- the material covering that establishes the Spirit’s relationship with the exterior world; and
3) the perispirit- a fluidic envelope, light and imponderable which serves as a bond and link between the Spirit and the body.
When the material body is worn out and can no longer function, the Spirit abandons it just as the tree sheds its bark and the snake its skin. In short, it abandons the body as one would a garment that is no longer useful. This is what we call death. Death comes only to the bodily covering abandoned by the soul. The soul retains its fluidic body or perispirit.
Bodily death frees the Spirit from the bond that confined it to the earth and caused it to suffer. Once freed of that burden, but still retaining the ethereal body, the Spirit is able to travel through space with the speed of thought.
The soul, perispirit, and material body together constitute man; the soul and perispirit, separated from the body constitute the Spirit.
Note: The soul is thus one single entity, while the Spirit is a double entity and man a triple entity. It would be more exact to use the word soul to designate the intelligent principle and the term Spirit to designate the semi-material being formed from the union of that principle with the fluidic body. But because the intelligent principle cannot be conceived separated from the material, and the perispirit cannot be conceived without the animation of the intelligent principle, the words soul and Spirit are used interchangeably.
Question 88 of “The Spirit’s Book” asks “Are Spirits immaterial?” The Spirits answered, “Human language has no exact words to describe the essence of Spirit, as a person who is born blind has no conception of how to define light. Immaterial is not quite the term; incorporeal would be a better word. After all, once a spirit is created, it must be “something,” but your senses can’t grasp the essence of spirit any more than your language can satisfactorily define it.” So, while we say that the Spirit’s fluidic envelope or body, the perispirit, is semi-material, we say that the actual Spirit or soul itself is incorporeal. When we call the latter immaterial, it is, as Kardec noted, “because their essence differs from everything we know under the name of matter” and that “we can only define them by means of comparisons that are imperfect, that is to say, by an effort of the imagination.
What about the Spirit’s form? Question 88 of “The Spirit’s Book” asks, “Do spirits have a well-defined and consistent form?” The Spirits answered, “Not for human eyes. You imagine them only vaguely as a flame, a gleam, an ethereal spark. But for us they have a form.” When asked if that flame or spark is of any color”, they replied, “If you could see it, it would appear to you to vary from dull gray to a perfect brilliance, according to the degree of the spirit’s purity.”
When discarnate spirits or human mediums are able to see spirits, the form that they are seeing is that of the perispirit. The perispirit assumes the definite form that the spirit wishes to give it, which is why we see spirits in human form, and most generally in a form that mirrors the physical body of their most recent incarnation.
PERISPIRT
As we said previously, the perispirit is crucial in understanding the nature and operation of the Spirit. It has many important functions in the spirits interaction with the spiritual and material worlds, as well as its own evolution. We have dedicated a separate subsection to this topic. You can find it by clicking on the link to “The Perispirit” on the menu at left.
- Kardec, Allan. “The General Elements of the Universe ” The Spirits’ Book. Trans. Allan Kardec Educational Society (translated from 2nd edition in French). Philadelphia, PA. Allan Kardec Educational Society. 1996.1-4.
- Kardec, Allan. “Spirits.” The Spirits’ Book. Trans. Allan Kardec Educational Society (translated from 2nd edition in French). Philadelphia, PA. Allan Kardec Educational Society. 1996. 31-35
- Kardec, Allan. “The Incarnation of Spirits.” The Spirits’ Book. Trans. Allan Kardec Educational Society (translated from 2nd edition in French). Philadelphia, PA. Allan Kardec Educational Society. 1996. 50-54.
- Barbosa, Pedro Franco. “O Homem” [Man] Espiritismo Basico [Basic Spiritism]. 3rd ed. Rio de Janeiro-RJ, Brazil: Federação Espírita Brasileira [Brazilian Spiritist Federation].1987. 152-163.
- Christian Spiritism (What is Spiritism- Elementary Principles [About the Spirits])
- Kardec, Allan. “Elementary Principles of Spiritism.” Christian Spiritism (a compilation of two Kardec books: Spiritism Reduced to Its Simplest Expression and What is Spiritism). Trans. Allan Kardec Educational Society (translated from original French editions, published 1860 and 1859, respectively). Philadelphia, PA. Allan Kardec Educational Society. 1985. (About The Spirits), pgs 125-129.
- Palhano Jr., Lamartine. “Seres Espirituais” [Spiritual Beings]. Teología Espírita [Spiritist Theology]. Rio de Janeiro: Centro Espírita Léon Denis [Leon Denis Spiritist Center]. 2001. 51-58
Source: www.SpiritistDoctrine.com
Filed under: Fundamentals
