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Different Orders of Spirits
(From the Spirits' Book)
FIRST ORDER PURE SPIRITS
First Class Pure Spirits
General Characteristics The influence of matter, null; a superiority,
both intellectual and moral, so absolute as to constitute what, in comparison
with the spirits of all the other orders, may be termed perfection.
Spirits of this order have passed through every degree of the scale
of progress and have freed themselves from all the impurities of materiality.
Having attained the sum of perfection of which created beings are susceptible,
they no longer have to undergo either trials or expiations. Being no longer
subject to reincarnation in perishable bodies, they enter on the life of
eternity in the immediate presence of God. They are in the enjoyment of
a
beatitude which is unalterable, because they are no longer subject to the
wants and vicissitudes of material life; but this beatitude is not the
monotonous idleness of perpetual contemplation. They are the messengers
and ministers of God, the executors of His orders in the maintenance of
universal harmony. They exercise a sovereign command over all spirits inferior
to themselves, aid them in accomplishing the work of their purification,
and assign to each of them a mission proportioned to the progress already
made by them. To assist men in their distresses, to excite them to the
love of good or to the expiation of the faults which keep them back on
the road to the supreme felicity, are for them congenial occupations. They
are sometimes spoken of as angels, archangels or seraphim. They can, when
they choose to do so, enter into communication with men.
SECOND ORDER GOOD SPIRITS
Second Class High Spirits
These unite, in a very high degree, scientific knowledge, wisdom and
goodness. Their language, inspired only by the purest benevolence, is always
noble and elevated, often sublime. Their superiority renders them more
apt than any others to impart to us just and true ideas in relation to
the incorporeal world, within the limits of the knowledge permitted to
mankind. They willingly enter into communication with those who seek for
truth in simplicity and sincerity, and who are sufficiently freed from
the bonds of materiality to be capable of understanding it; but they turn
from those whose inquiries are prompted only by curiosity, or who are drawn
away from the path of rectitude by the attractions of materiality.
When, under exceptional circumstances, they incarnate themselves in
this earth, it is always for the accomplishment of a mission of progress;
and they thus show us the highest type of perfection to which we can aspire
in the present world.
Third Class Wise Spirits
The most elevated moral qualities form their distinctive characteristics.
Without having arrived at the possession of unlimited knowledge, they have
reached a development of intellectual capacity that enables them to judge
correctly of men and of things.
Fourth Class Learned Spirits
They are specially distinguished by the extent of their knowledge. They
are less interested in moral questions than in scientific investigation,
for which they have a greater aptitude; but their scientific studies are
always prosecuted with a view to practical utility, and they are entirely
free from the base passions common to spirits of the lower degrees of advancement.
Fifth Class Benevolent Spirits
Their dominant quality is kindness. They take pleasure in rendering
service to men and in protecting them, but their knowledge is somewhat
narrow. They have progressed in morality rather than in intelligence.
THIRD ORDER IMPERFECT SPIRITS
Sixth Class Noisy and Boisterous Spirits
Spirits of this kind do not, strictly speaking, form a distinct class
in virtue of their personal qualities; they may belong to all the classes
of the third order. They often manifest their presence by the production
of phenomena perceptible by the senses, such as raps, the movement and
abnormal displacing of solid bodies, the agitation of the air, etc. They
appear to be, more than any other class of spirits, attached to matter;
they seem to be the principal agents in determining the vicissitudes of
the elements of the globe, and to act upon the air, water, fire and the
various bodies in the entrails of the earth. Whenever these phenomena present
a character of intention and intelligence, it is impossible to attribute
them to a mere fortuitous and physical cause. All spirits are able to produce
physical phenomena; but spirits of elevated degree usually leave them to
those of a lower order, more apt for action upon matter than for the things
of intelligence, and when they judge it to be useful to produce physical
manifestations, employ spirits of subaltern degree as their auxiliaries.
Seventh Class Neutral Spirits
They are not sufficiently advanced to take an active part in doing good,
nor are they bad enough to be active in doing wrong. They incline sometimes
to the one, sometimes to the other; and do not rise above the ordinary
level of humanity, either in point of morality or of intelligence. They
are strongly attached to the things of this world, whose gross satisfactions
they regret.
Eight Class Spirits Who Pretend to More Science than
They Possess
Their knowledge is often considerable, but they imagine themselves to
know a good deal more than they know in reality. Having made a certain
amount of progress from various points of view, their language has an air
of gravity that may easily give a false impression as to their capacities
and enlightenment; but their ideas are generally nothing more than the
reflection of the prejudices and false reasoning of the terrestrial life.
Their statements contain a mixture of truths and absurdities, in the midst
of which, traces of presumption, pride, jealousy and obstinacy, from which
they have not yet freed themselves, are abundantly perceptible.
Ninth Class Frivolous Spirits
They are ignorant, mischievous, unreasonable and addicted to mockery.
They meddle with everything and reply to every question without paying
any attention to truth. They delight in causing petty annoyances, in raising
false hopes of petty joys, in misleading people by mystifications and trickery.
The spirits vulgarly called hobgoblins, will-o'-the-wisps, gnomes, etc.
belong to this class. They are under the orders of spirits of a higher
category, who make use of them as we do of servants.
Tenth Class Impure Spirits
They are inclined to evil, and make it an object of all their thoughts
and activities. As spirits, they give to men perfidious counsels, stir
up discord and distrust, and assume every sort of mask in order the more
effectually to deceive. They beset those whose character is weak enough
to lead them to yield to their suggestions, and whom they thus draw aside
from the path of progress, rejoicing when they are to retard their advancement
by causing them to succumb under the appointed trials of the corporeal
life. Spirits of this class may be recognized by their language, for the
employment of coarse or trivial expressions by spirits, as by men, is always
an indication of moral, if not of intellectual, inferiority. Their communications
show the baseness of their inclinations; and though they may try to impose
upon us by speaking with an appearance of reason and propriety, they are
unable to keep up that false appearance, and end by betraying their real
quality. Certain nations have made of them infernal deities; others designate
them by the name of demons, evil genii or evil spirits.
The human beings in whom they are incarnated are addicted to all the
vices engendered by vile and degrading passions sensuality, cruelty,
roguery, hypocrisy, cupidity, avarice. They do evil for its own sake, without
any definite motive; and, from hatred to all that is good, they generally
choose their victims from among honest and worthy people. They are the
pests of humanity, to whatever rank of society they belong; and the varnish
of a civilized education is ineffectual to cure or to hide their degrading
defects. |
