Allan Kardec-THE Spirit's Book_ The Principles of Spiritist Doctrine (1989)

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ALLAN KARDEC
According to the statements of spirits, the earth, as regards the physical and moral qualities of its
inhabitants, is one of the least advanced of all the globes of our solar system. Mars is stated to be at a
point even lower than that of the earth, and Jupiter to be greatly superior to the earth in every respect.
The sun is not a world inhabited by corporeal beings, but is a place of meeting for the spirits of a higher
order who, from thence, send out the radiations of their thought towards the other worlds of our solar
system, which they govern through the instrumentality of spirits of a less elevated degree, to whom they
transmit their action by the intermediary of the universal fluid. As regards its physical constitution, the
sun would appear to be a focus of electricity ; and all the other suns seem to be identical with ours in
nature and function.
The size of planets, and their distance from the sun, have no necessary relation with their degree of
advancement for Venus is said to he more advanced than the earth, and Saturn is declared to be less
advanced than Jupiter.
The souls of many persons well known on this earth are said to be reincarnated in Jupiter, one of the
worlds nearest to perfection; and much surprise has been felt on hearing it stated that persons who, when
here, were not supposed to merit such a favour, should have been admitted into so advanced a globe. But
there is nothing in this fact that need surprise us, if we consider, first, that certain spirits who have
inhabited this planet may nave been sent hither in fulfilment of a mission which, to our eyes, did not seem
to place them in the foremost rank secondly, that they may have had, between their lives here and in
Jupiter, intermediary existences in which they have advanced ; and thirdly, that there are innumerable
degrees of development in that world as in this one, and that there may be as much difference between
these degrees as there is, amongst us, between the savage and the civilised man. It no more follows that a
spirit is on a level with the most advanced beings of Jupiter because he inhabits that planet than it follows
that an ignoramus is on a level with a philosopher because he inhabits the same town.
The conditions of longevity, also, are as various in other worlds as they are on our earth and no
comparison can be established between the ages of those who inhabit them. A person who had died some
years previously, on being evoked, stated that he had been incarnated for six months in a world the name
of Which is unknown to us. Being questioned as to his age in that world, he replied, "that is a point which
I am unable to decide ; because, in the first place, we do not count time in the same way as you do, and, in
the next place, our mode of existence is not the same as yours. Our development is much more rapid in
this world; for, although it is only six of your months since I came here, I may say that, as regards
intelligence, I am about what one usually is at the age of thirty in your earth."
A great number of similar replies have been given by other spirits; and these statements contain nothing
improbable. Do we not see upon our earth a host of animals that acquire their normal development in the
course of a few months? Why should not men do the same in other spheres? And it is to be remarked,
moreover, that the degree of development acquired by a man at the age of thirty upon the earth may be
only a sort of Infancy in comparison with what he is destined to arrive at in worlds of higher degree.
Short-sighted indeed are they who look upon our present selves as being in all respects the normal type of
creation: and to suppose that there can be no other modes of existence than our present one, is, in soothe,
a strange narrowing of our idea of the possibilities of the divine action.
Progressive Transmigrations
189. Does the spirit enjoy the plenitude of his faculties from the beginning of his formation?
"No; for the spirit, like the man, has his infancy. Spirits at their origin have only an instinctive
existence, and have scarcely any