Le Livre des Esprits

« body; 3rd, the bond that unites the soul and the body, an intermediary principle between matter and Spirit.

« Man thus has two natures: through his body, he participates in the nature of animals, sharing their instincts; through his soul, he participates in the nature of Spirits.

« The bond or perispirit original: "périsprit" which unites the body and the Spirit is a kind of semi-material envelope. Death is the destruction of the coarsest envelope; the Spirit retains the second, which constitutes for it an ethereal body, invisible to us in our normal state, but which it can occasionally make visible, and even tangible, as occurs in the phenomenon of apparitions.

« The Spirit is thus not an abstract, indefinite being that only thought can conceive; it is a real, circumscribed being who, in certain cases, can be perceived by the senses of sight, hearing, and touch.

« Spirits belong to different classes and are not equal in power, intelligence, knowledge, or morality. Those of the first order are the superior Spirits, distinguished from others by their perfection, their knowledge, their proximity to God, the purity of their sentiments, and their love of the good: these are the angels or pure Spirits. The other classes move further and further away from this perfection; those of the lower ranks are prone to most of our passions: hatred, envy, jealousy, pride, etc.; they take pleasure in evil. Among their number are those who are neither very good nor very bad; more disruptive and troublesome than wicked, malice and inconsistencies seem to be their lot: these are the frivolous spirits: the original "Esprits follets" refers to playful or mischievous entities, similar to the concept of brownies or hobgoblins or light spirits.

« Spirits do not belong to the same order forever. All improve by passing through the different degrees of the spirit hierarchy: the organized levels of advancement that spirits move through as they gain wisdom and purity. This improvement takes place through incarnation, which is imposed on some as an expiation: a way to make amends for past wrongs through the difficulties of earthly life and on others as a mission. Material life is a trial they must undergo several times until they have reached absolute perfection; it is a kind of sieve: the original "étamine" is a fine cloth used for straining or sifting or refining process from which they emerge more or less purified.

« Upon leaving the body, the soul returns to the world of Spirits from which it had departed, to take up a new This sentence continues on the next page.