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

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ALLAN KARDEC
539. In the production of certain phenomena, of storms, for example, is it a single spirit that
acts, or a mass of spirits?
"A mass of spirits; or, rather, innumerable masses of spirits."
540. Do the spirits who exert an action over the phenomena of nature act with knowledge and
intention, in virtue of their freewill, or from an instinctive end unreasoning impulse?
"Some act in the one way, others in the other. To employ a comparison -Figure to yourself the
myriads of animalcule that build up islands and archipelagos in the midst of the sea; do you
believe that there can be, in this process, no providential intention, and that this
transformation of the surface of the globe is not necessary to the general harmony? Yet all
this is accomplished by animals of the lowest degree, in providing for their bodily wants, and
without any consciousness of their being instruments of God. In the same way, spirits of the
most rudimentary degrees are useful to the general whole; while preparing to live, and prior
to their having the full consciousness of their action and free-will, they are made to concur in
the development of the various departments of nature, in the production of the phenomena of
which they are the unwitting agents. They begin by executing the orders of their superiors;
subsequently, when their intelligence is more developed, they command in their turn, and
direct the processes of the material world; still later, again, they are able to direct the things of
the moral world. It is thus that everything in nature is linked together, from the primitive atom
to the archangel, who himself began at the atom; an admirable law of harmony, which your
mind is, as yet, too narrow to seize in its generality."
Spirits During a Battle
541. When a battle is being fought, are there spirits who assist and support each party?
"Yes, and who stimulate their courage."
The ancients represented the gods as taking part with such and such a people. Those gods were nothing
else than spirits represented under allegorical figures.
542. In every war, the right is only on one side. How can spirits take the part of the one
which is in the wrong?
"You know very well that there are spirits who seek only discord and destruction; for them
war is war; they care little whether it be just or unjust."