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

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THE SPIRITS’ BOOK
to be endured by others. And as these sufferings endure for a very long time, they believe
themselves to be destined to suffer for ever. God, for their punishment, wills that they should
believe this.
They may be subdivided into five principal classes: -
102. Tenth Class-Impure Spirits.-They are inclined to evil, and make it the object o£ all their
thoughts and activities. As spirits, they give to men perfidious counsels, stir up discord and
distrust, and assume every sort of mask in order the more effectually to deceive. They beset
those whose character is weak enough to lead them to yield to their suggestions, and whom
they thus draw aside from the path of progress, rejoicing when they are to retard their
advancement by causing them to succumb under the appointed trials of the corporeal life .
Spirits of this class may be recognised by their language, for the employment of coarse or
trivial expressions by spirits, as by men, is always an indication of moral, if not of
intellectual, inferiority. Their communications show the baseness of their inclinations; and
though they may try to impose upon us by speaking with an appearance of reason and
propriety, they are unable to keep up that false appearance, and end by betraying their real
quality.
Certain nations have made of them infernal deities; others designate them by the name of
demons, evil genie evil spirits.
The human beings in whom they are incarnated are addicted to all the vices engendered by
vile and degrading passions-sensuality, cruelty, roguery, hypocrisy, cupidity, avarice. They do
evil for its own sake, without any definite motive; and, from hatred to all that is good, they
generally choose their victims from among honest and worthy people. They are the pests of
humanity, to whatever rank of society they belong; and the varnish of a civilised education is
ineffectual to cure or to hide their degrading defects.
103. Ninth Class - Frivolous Spirits. - They are ignorant, mischievous, unreasonable, and
addicted to mockery. They meddle with everything, and reply to every question without
paying any attention to truth. They delight in causing petty annoyances, in raising false hopes
of petty joys, in misleading people by mystifications and trickery. The spirits vulgarly called
hobgoblins, will-o'-the-wisps, gnomes, etc., belong to this class. They arc under the orders of
spirits of a higher category, who make use of them as we do of servants.