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 is a punishment inflicted by God, while in others, it has been granted to them at their own request, to enable them to pursue studies which they can prosecute more effectually in the disincarnate state."

225. Is erraticity necessarily a sign of inferiority on the part of spirits?
"No, for there are errant spirits of every degree. Incarnation is a transitional state, as we have already told you. In their normal state, spirits are disengaged from matter."

226. Would it be correct to say that all spirits who arc not incarnated are errant?
"Yes, as regards those who are to be reincarnated; but the pure spirits who have attained to perfection are not errant; their state is definitive."
In virtue of their special qualities, spirits are of different orders or degrees of advancement, through which they pass successively as they become purified. As regards their state, they may be-1. Incarnated, that is to say, united to a material body; 2. Errant or wandering, that is to say disengaged from the material body and awaiting a new incarnation for purposes of Improvement; 3. Pure spirits, that is to say, perfected, and having no further need of incarnation.

227. In what way do wandering spirits obtain instruction? It can hardly be in the same way as men.
"They study their past, and seek out the means of raising them-selves to a higher degree. Possessed of vision, they observe all that is going on in the regions through which they pass. They listen to the discourse of enlightened men, and to the counsels of spirits more advanced than themselves, and they thus acquire new ideas."

228. Do spirits retain any human passion?
"Elevated spirits, on quitting their bodily envelope, leave behind them the evil passions of humanity, and retain only the love of goodness. But inferior spirits retain their earthly imperfections. Were it not for this retention, they would be of the highest order.”

229. How is it that spirits, on quitting the earth, do not leave behind them all their evil passions, since they are then able to perceive the disastrous consequences of those passions?
"You have among you persons who are, for instance, excessively jealous; do you imagine that they lose this defect at once on quitting your world ? There remains with spirits, after their departure from the earthly life, and especially with those who have had strongly marked passions, a sort of atmosphere by which they are enveloped, and which keeps up all their former evil qualities; for spirits are not entirely freed from the influence of materiality. It is only occasionally that they obtain glimpses of the truth, showing them, as it were, the true parth which they ought to follow."

230. Do spirits progress in the state of erraticity?
"They may make a great advance in that state, in proportion to their efforts and desires after improvement, but it is in the corporeal life that they put in practice the new ideas they have thus acquired."

231. Are wandering spirits happy or unhappy?
"More or less so according to their deserts. They suffer from the passions of which they have retained the principle, or they are happy in proportion as they are more or less dematerialised. In the state of erraticity, a spirit perceives what he needs in order to become happier, and he is thus stimulated to seek out the means of attaining what he lacks. But he is not always permitted to reincarnate himself when he desires to do so, and the prolongation of erraticity then becomes a punishment."

232. Can spirits in the state of erraticity enter all the other worlds?
"That depends on their degree of advancement. When a spirit has quitted the body, he is not necessarily disengaged entirely from matter, and he still belongs to the world in which he has lived, or to a world of the same degree, unless he has raised himself during his earthly life to a world of higher degree; and this progressive elevation should be the constant aim of every spirit, for without it lie would never attain to perfection. A spirit, however, may enter worlds of higher degree; but, in that case, he finds himself to be a stranger in them. He can only obtain, as it were, a glimpse of them; but such glimpses often serve to quicken his desire to improve and to advance, that he may become worthy of the felicity which is enjoyed in them, and may thus be enabled to inhabit them in course of time."

233. Do spirits who are already purified ever come into worlds of lower degree?
"They come into them very frequently in order to help them forward. Unless they did so, those worlds would be left to them-selves, without guides to direct them."

234. Are there, as has been stated, worlds which serve as stations and resting-places for errant spirits?
"Yes; there are worlds which are specially adapted for the reception of wandering beings, worlds which they may temporally inhabit; a sort of camping-ground in which they may bivouac for a time, and repose after a too lengthened erraticity-a state which is always somewhat wearisome. Those worlds constitute intermediary stations between the worlds of other orders, and are graduated according to the nature of the spirits who are to come into them, and who will find in them the conditions of a rest more or less enjoyable."

- Can the spirits who occupy these worlds quit them at pleasure?
"Yes, they can leave them for any other region to which they may have to go. They are like birds of passage alighting on an island in order to rest and recover strength for reaching their destination."

235. Do spirits progress during their sojourns in the transitional worlds?
"Certainly; those who thus come together do so with a view to their instruction, and in order more readily to obtain permission to enter a higher region, and thus to advance their progress towards the perfection which is their aim."

236. Are the transitional worlds of a special nature, and destined to be for ever the sojourn of wandering spirits?
"No; their position in the hierarchy of worlds is only temporary."

- Are they, at the same time, inhabited by corporeal beings?
"No; their surface is sterile. Those who inhabit them have no corporeal wants."

- Is this sterility permanent, and does it result from anything special in their nature ?
"No; their sterility is only transitional."

- Such worlds are, then, void of everything like the beauties of nature?
"The inexhaustible richness of creation is manifested by beauties of immensity that are no less admirable than the terrestrial harmonies which you call the beauties of nature."

- Since the state of those 'worlds is only transitory, will the state of our earth, at some future time, be of that character?
"Such has already been its state."

- At what epoch?
"During its formation."
Nothing in nature is useless everything has its purpose, its destination There is no void every portion of immensity is inhabited. Life is everywhere. Thus, during the long series of ages which preceded man's appearance upon the earth, during the vast periods of transition attested by the superposition of the geologic strata, before even the curliest formation of organised beings, upon that formless mass, in that arid chaos in which the elements existed in a state of fusion, there was no absence of life. Beings who had neither human wants nor human sensations found therein a welcome refuge. The will of God had ordained that the earth, even in that embryonic state, should be useful. Who, then, would Venture to say that, of the innumerable orbs which circulate in immensity, one only, and one of the smallest of them all, lost in the crowd, has the exclusive privilege of being inhabited? What, in that case, would be the use of the others? Would God have created them merely to regale our eyes? Such a supposition, of which the absurdity is incompatible with the wisdom that appears in all His works. becomes still more evidently inadmissible when we reflect on the myriads of heavenly bodies which we are unable to perceive. On the other hand, no one can deny the grandeur and sublimity of the idea that worlds in course of formation, and which are still unfitted for the habitation of material life, are, nevertheless, peopled with living beings appropriate to its condition-an idea which may possibly contain the solution of more than one problem as yet obscure.

237. Does the soul, when it has returned into the world of spirits, still possess the perceptions it possessed in the earthly life?
"Yes; and others which it did not possess in that life, because its body acted as a veil which obscured them. Intelligence is an attribute of spirit; but it is manifested more freely when not hindered by the trammels of flesh."

238. Are the perceptions and knowledge of In a word, do they know everything?
"The nearer they approach to perfection, the more they know Spirits of the higher orders possess a wide range of knowledge; those of the lower orders are more or less ignorant in regard to everything."

239. Do spirits comprehend tile first principle of things?
"That depends on their degree of elevation and of purity inferior spirits know no more than men."

240. Do spirits perceive duration as we do?
"No; and this is why you do not always understand us when you seek to fix dates and epochs."
The life of spirits is exterior to the idea of time as perceived by us. The idea of duration may be said to be annihilated for them ages, which seem so long to us, appear to them only as so many instants lapsing into eternity, just as the inequalities of the earth's surface are effaced and disappear beneath the gaze of the aeronaut as he mounts into space.

241. Do spirits take a truer and more precise view of present than we do?
"Their view, In comparison with yours, is pretty much what eyesight is in comparison with blindness. They see what you do not see; they judge, therefore, otherwise than you do. But we must remind you that this depends on their degree of elevation."

242. How do spirits acquire the knowledge of the past, and is this knowledge without limits for them?
"The past, when we turn our attention to it, is perceived by us as though it were present, exactly as is the case with you, when you call to mind something which may have struck you in the course of your present exile; with this difference, however, that, as out view is no longer obscured by the material veil which covers your intelligence, we remember things that are at present effaced from your memory. But spirits do not know everything; for example, their creation."

243. Do spirits foresee the future?
"That, again, depends on their degree of advancement. Very often, they foresee it only partially; but, even when they foresee it more clearly, they are not always permitted to reveal it. When they foresee it, it appears to them to be present. A spirit sees the future more clearly in proportion as he approaches God. After death, the soul sees and embraces at a glance all its past emigrations, but it cannot see what God has in store for it. This foreknowledge is only possessed by the soul that has attained to entire union with God, after a long succession of existences."

- Do spirits, arrived at absolute perfection, possess the complete knowledge of the future?
"Complete is not the word; for God alone is the sovereign master, and none can attain to equality with Him."

244. Do spirits see God?
"Only spirits of the highest order see and understand Him: spirits of lower order feel and divine Him."

- When a spirit of lower degree says that such and such a thing is permitted to him or forbidden by God, how does he know that such ordering is really by Him?
"He does not see God, but he feels His sovereignty; and when anything is not to be done or said, he feels a sort of intuition, an invisible warning, which commands him to abstain. Are not you yourselves sometimes conscious of a secret impression, enjoining on you to do or not to do, as the case may be? It is the same thing with us, but in a higher degree; for you can easily understand that, the essence of spirits being more supple than yours, they are better able to receive the divine monitions."

- Are the divine commands transmitted to each spirit directly by God, or through the intermediary of other spirits?
"Those commands do not come direct from God; in order to communicate directly with God, a spirit must have made himself worthy of such communication. God transmits His orders through spirits of higher degrees of wisdom and purity."

245. Is spirit-sight circumscribed, as is tile sight of corporeal beings?
"No ; it resides in them."

246. Do spirits require light in order to see?
"They see by themselves, and have no need of any exterior light. There is, for them, no other darkness than that in which they may be made to find themselves as expiation."

247. Do spirits need to travel in order to see two different points? Can they, for instance, see the two hemispheres of the globe at the same time?
"As spirits transport themselves from point to point with the rapidity of thought, they may be said to see everywhere at the tame time. A spirit's thought may radiate at the same moment on many different points; but this faculty depends on his purity. The more impure the spirit, the narrower is his range of sight. It is only the higher spirits who can take in a whole at a single glance."
The faculty of vision, among spirits, is a property inherent in their nature, and which resides in their whole being, as light resides in every part of a luminous body. It is a sort of universal lucidity, which extend. to everything, which embraces at once time, space, and things, and in relation to which, darkness or material obstacles have no existence. And a moment's reflection shows us that this must necessarily be the case. In the human being. sight being produced by the play of an organ acted upon by light, it follows that, without light, man finds himself in darkness but the faculty of vision being an attribute of the spirit himself, independently of any exterior agent, spirit-sight is independent of light. (Vide Ubiquity, Nº 92)

248. Do spirits see things as distinctly as we do?
“ More distinctly, for their sight penetrates what yours cannot penetrate: nothing obscures it."

249. Do spirits perceive sounds?
"Yes; they perceive sounds that your obtuse senses can not perceive"

- Does the faculty of hearing reside in tile whole of a spirit’s being, like the faculty of sight.?
"All the perceptive faculties of a spirit are attributes of his nature, and form part of his being. When he is clothed with a material body, his perceptions reach him only through the channel of his bodily organs; but the perceptions of a spirit, when restored to the state of freedom, are no longer localised."

250. The perceptive faculties being attributes of a spirit’s nature, is it possible for him to withdraw himself from their action?
"A spirit only sees and hears what he chooses to see and hear. This statement, however, is to he taken in a general sense, and mainly as regards spirits of the higher orders; for imperfect spirits are compelled to see and hear, and often against their will, what-ever may be useful for their amelioration."

251. Are spirits affected by music?
"Do you mean the music of your earth ? What is it in comparison with the music of the celestial spheres, of that harmony of which nothing in your earth can give you any idea ? The one is to the other as is the howl of the savage to the most lovely melody. Spirits of low degree, however, may take pleasure in hearing your music, because they are not yet able to appreciate anything more sublime. Music has inexhaustible charms for spirits, owing to the great development of their sensitive qualities; I mean, celestial music, than which the spiritual imagination can conceive of nothing more exquisitely sweet and beautiful."

252. Are spirits sensible of the beauties of nature?
"The beauties of nature are so different in the different globes, that spirits are far from knowing them all. They are sensible of them in proportion to their aptitude for appreciating and comprehending them; but, for spirits of a high degree of advancement, there are beauties of general harmony in which beauties of detail are, so to say, lost sight of."

253. Do spirits experience our physical needs and sufferings?
"They know them, because they have undergone them; but they do not, like you, experience them materially: they are spirits."

254. Do spirits experience fatigue and the need of rest?
"They cannot feel fatigue as you understand it, and consequently they have no need of your corporeal rest, because they have no organs whose strength requires to be restored. But a spirit may be said to take rest, inasmuch as he is not constantly in a state of activity. He does not act materially; his action is altogether intellectual, and his resting is altogether moral; that is to say, that there are moments when his thought becomes less active, and is no longer directed to any special object, and this constitutes for him a state which is really one of repose, but a kind of repose which cannot be likened to that of the body. The sort of fatigue which may be felt by spirits is proportionate to their inferiority; for, the higher their degree of elevation, the less is their need of rest."

255. When a spirit says that he suffers, what is the nature of the suffering he feels?
"Mental anguish, which causes him tortures far more painful than any physical sufferings."

256. How is it, then, that spirits sometimes complain of suffering from cold or heat?
"Such sensations on their part are caused by the remembrance of sufferings endured by them in the earthly life, and are sometimes as painful as though they were real; but complaints of that nature are often only figures by which, for lack of any better means of description, they endeavour to express the situation in which they find themselves. When they remember their earthly body, they experience the same sort of impression which makes you feel for a few moments, when you have taken off a cloak, as though you had it still upon your shoulders."