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

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CHAPTER VI
SPIRIT-LIFE
1. ERRANT OR WANDERING SPIRIT - 2. TRANSITIONAL WORLDS
- 3. PERCEPTIONS, SENSATIONS, AND SUFFERINGS OF SPIRITS -
4. THEORETIC EXPLANATION OF THE NATURE OF SENSATION IN SPIRIT -
5. CHOICE OF EARTHLY TRIALS - 6. RELATIONSHIPS BEYOND THE GRAVE -
7. SYMPATHIES AND ANTIPATHIES OF SPIRITS - 8. REMEMBRANCE OF
CORPOREAL EXISTENCE - 9. COMMEMORATION OF THE DEAD : FUNERALS.
Wandering Spirits
223. Is the soul reincarnated immediately after its separation from the body?
"Sometimes immediately, but more often after intervals of longer or shorter duration. In the
higher worlds, reincarnation is almost always immediate. Corporeal matter in those worlds
being less gross than in the worlds of lower advancement, a spirit, while incarnated in them,
retains the use of nearly all his spirit-faculties, his normal condition being that of your
somnambulists in their lucid state."
224. What becomes of the soul in the intervals between successive incarnations?
"It becomes an errant or wandering spirit, aspiring after a new destiny. Its state is one of
waiting and expectancy."
- How long may these intervals last?
"From a few hours to thousands of ages. Strictly speaking, there are no fixed limits to the
period of erraticity or wandering, which may be prolonged for a very considerable time, but
which. however, is never perpetual. A spirit is always enabled, sooner or later, to commence a
new existence which serves to effect the purification of its preceding existences."
-Does the duration of the state of erraticity depend on the will of the spirit, or may it be
imposed as an expiation?
"It is a consequence of the spirit's free-will. Spirits act with full discernment; but, in some
cases, the prolongation of this state