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

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THE SPIRITS’ BOOK
himself to your world, if be came among you in any other way than in that which has been
ordained by God-that is to say, by passing through the sieve of infancy? It is through this
sifting process of infancy that all the thoughts, all the characteristics, all the varieties of
beings engendered by the crowd of worlds in which creatures pursue the work of growth, are
eventually mingled. And you, also, on dying, find yourselves in a sort of infancy, and in the
midst of a new family of brothers; and in your new non-terrestrial existence you are ignorant
of the habits, manners, relations of a world which is new to you, and you find it difficult to
express yourselves in a language which you are not accustomed to employ, a language more
living than is your thought to-day. (319.)
"Childhood possesses yet another utility. Spirits only enter into corporeal life in order to
effect their improvement, their self-amelioration. The weakness of corporeal youth tends to
render them more pliable, more amenable to the counsels of those whose experience should
aid their progress. It is thus that evil tendencies are repressed, and faulty characters are
gradually reformed; and this repression and reformation constitute the duty confided by God
to those who assume the parental relation, a sacred mission of which parents will have to
render a solemn account to Him.
"You see, therefore, that childhood is not only useful, necessary, indispensable, but that it is,
moreover, the natural result of the laws which God has established, and which govern the
universe.
Terrestrial Sympathies and Antipathies
386. Could two beings, who have already known and loved each other, meet again and
recognise one another, in another corporeal existence?
"They could not recognise one another; but they might be attracted to each other. The
attraction resulting from the ties of a former existence is often the cause of the most intimate
affectional unions of a subsequent existence. It often happens in your world that two persons
are drawn together by circumstances which appear to be merely fortuitous, but which are
really due to the attraction exercised upon one another by two spirits who are unconsciously
seeking each other amidst the crowds by whom they are surrounded.”
-Would it not be more agreeable for them to recognise each other?