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

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ALLAN KARDEC
"The earth is not the starting-point of the earliest phase of human incarnation; the human
period commences, in general, in worlds still lower than yours. This, however, is not an
absolute rule; and it may happen that a spirit, at his entrance upon the human phase, may be
fitted to live upon the earth. Such a case, however, though possible, is unfrequent; and would
be an exception to the general rule."
608. Has a man's spirit, after death, any consciousness of the existences that have preceded
his entrance upon the human period?
"No; for it is only with this period that his life, as a spirit, has begun for him. He can scarcely
recall his earliest existences as a man; just as a man no longer remembers the earliest days of
his infancy, and still less the time he passed in his mother's womb. This is why spirits tell you
that they do not know how they began." (78.)
609. Does a spirit, when once he has entered upon the human period, retain any traces of
what he has previously been, that is to say, of the state in which he was in what may be called
the ante-human period?
"That depends on the distance which separates the two periods, and the amount of progress
accomplished. During a few generations, there may be a reflex, more or less distinct, of the
primitive state, for nothing in nature takes place through an abrupt transition, and there are
always links which unite the extremities of the chain of beings or of events; but those traces
disappear with the development of free-will. The first steps of progress are accomplished
slowly, because they are not yet seconded by the will; they are accomplished more rapidly in
proportion as the spirit acquires a more perfect consciousness of himself."
610. The spirits who have said that man is a being apart from the rest of creation are, then,
mistaken?
"No, but the question had not been developed; and besides, there are things that can only be
known at their appointed time. Man is, in reality, a being apart, for he has faculties that
distinguish him from all others, and he has another destiny. The human species is the one
which God has chosen for the incarnation of the beings that are capable of knowing Him."