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We will now briefly sum up important points of the Spiritist doctrine, according to the spirits' teachings.

"God is eternal, immutable, immaterial, unique, all-powerful, sovereignly fair and good.

"The Almighty has been creating the universe, which comprehends all beings, animate and inanimate, material and immaterial.

"The material beings constitute the visible or corporeal world. The immaterial beings constitute the invisible or spiritual world, that is to say, the spirit-world, or world of spirits.

"The spirit-world is the normal, primitive, eternal world, pre-existent to and surviving everything else.

"The corporeal world is only secondary. It might cease to exist or never have existed without changing the essentiality of the spiritual world.

"Spirits temporarily assume a perishable material envelope: the body. The destruction of which by death restores them to liberty.

"Among the different species of corporeal beings, God has chosen the human species for incarnation of spirits that arrived at a certain degree of development, which allows moral and intellectual superiority over the others.

"The soul is an incarnated spirit whose body is only its envelope.

"In a human being there are three principles: (1) The body or material being, analogous to animals, and animated by the same vital principle; (2) The soul or immaterial being, a spirit incarnated in the body; (3) A link which unites the soul and the body, a principle intermediary between matter and spirit.

"Humans have thus two natures. By their bodies they participate in the nature of animals, of which it has the instincts. By their souls they participate in the nature of spirits.

"The link which unites the body and the spirit, the perispirit, is a sort of semi-material envelope. Death is the destruction of material body, which is the grossest of humans' two envelopes. But the spirit preserves their other envelope, the perispirit, which constitutes for them an ethereal body, invisible in its normal state, but which spirits can occasionally render visible, and even tangible, as in the case of apparitions.

"A spirit, therefore, is not an abstract, undefined being, only to be conceived by our thought. It is a real and circumscribed being which, in certain cases, is appreciable by the senses of sight, hearing, and touch.

"Spirits belong to different evolutionary classes, and are not equal to one another either in power, in intelligence, in knowledge and in morality. Those of the highest order are distinguished from the others below them by their superior purity and knowledge, their nearness to God and their love of goodness. They are the pure spirits which people use to call "angels". The other classes are more and more distant from perfection. Those of the lower ranks are inclined to most of our passions: hatred, envy, jealousy, pride, selfishness etc. They take pleasure in evil. Among them there are some who are neither very good nor very bad, but are teazing and troublesome rather than malicious. Are often mischievous and unreasonable, and may be classed as giddy and foolish spirits.

"Spirits do not belong perpetually to the same order. All are destined to attain perfection by passing through the different degrees of spiritual hierarchy. This improvement is effected by series of incarnations, which are imposed on some of them as atonement or entrusted to others as mission. Material life is a trial which they have to undergo many times, until they have attained absolute perfection. Incarnation is like a sort of filter, from which they issue more or less purified after each new embodiment.

"On quitting the body the soul re-enters the world of spirits from which it came and from which it will start a new material existence after a longer or shorter lapse of time, during which it lives in the spiritual world.

"As the spirits have to pass through many incarnations, it follows that all of us have had many existences, and that we will have others, more or less perfect, either upon the Earth or in other worlds.

"The incarnation of spirits always takes place in the human species. It is an error to suppose that the human soul or spirit could be incarnated in the body of an animal.

"The spirits' successive corporeal existences are always progressive and never retrograde. But the speed of our progress depends on the efforts each one of us make to arrive at perfection.

"The soul qualities are those of the incarnated spirit. Thus, a good human is the incarnation of a good spirit and a bad human is that of an unpurified spirit.

"The soul possessed its own individuality before its incarnation. It preserves that individuality after its separation from body.

"On its re-entrance into the spirit world, the soul finds there those whom it has known upon the Earth. Its former existences come back to its memory, with remembrance of good and evil which it has done in them.

"The incarnated spirit is under the influence of matter. Humans who surmount this influence, through the elevation and purification of their souls, raise themselves nearer to the superior spirits, among whom they will one day be classed. Those who allow themselves to be ruled by bad passions, and who places all his delight in gross animal appetites satisfaction, bring themselves nearer to the impure spirits, by giving preponderance to his animal nature.

"Incarnated spirits inhabit the different globes of the universe.

"Spirits who are not incarnated, that is, free of matter, do not occupy any fixed and circumscribed region. They are everywhere in space and around us, seeing us, and mixing with us incessantly. They constitute an invisible population, constantly moving around us.

"Spirits exert an incessant action upon the moral world and even upon the physical world. They act both upon matter and upon thought and constitute one of the powers of nature, the efficient cause of many classes of phenomena still unexplained or misinterpreted, and of which the Spiritist theory can give a rational explanation.

"Spirits are often in relationship with humans. The good spirits try to lead us to the right road, sustain us under the life trials and aid us to bear them with courage and resignation. The bad ones tempt us to evil. It is a pleasure for them to see us fall down, and make us like themselves.

"The communications of spirits with humans are either occult or ostensible. Their occult communications are made through the invisible good or bad influence they exert on us, which we are not aware of. It is our duty to distinguish, by the exercise of our judgement, between the good and bad inspirations that they exert upon us. Their ostensible communications take place by means of writing, speech, or other physical manifestations, usually through the intermediary of mediums who serve as their instruments.

"Spirits manifest themselves spontaneously or in response to evocation.

"All discarnated spirits may be evoked. Those who have animated the most obscure of mortals as well as those of the most illustrious personages, whatever the epoch at which they lived. Those of our relatives, our friends or our enemies. And we may obtain, from the good spirits, by written or verbal communications, counsels, information in regard to their situation beyond the grave, their thoughts in regard to us and whatever revelations they are permitted to make to us.

"Spirits are attracted by their sympathy with the moral quality of the parties by whom they are evoked. Advanced spirits take pleasure in meetings of a serious character, animated by the love of goodness and the sincere desire of instruction and improvement. Their presence repels the spirits of inferior degree who find, on the contrary, free access and freedom of action among people of frivolous or wicked disposition, or brought together by mere curiosity and wherever evil instincts are to be met with. So, under such circumstances, far from obtaining from spirits either good advice or useful information, nothing is to be expected from them but trifling, lies, ill-natured tricks, humbugging or evil guidance. They often borrow the most venerated names, in order they better to impose themselves upon those with whom they are in communication.

"It is easy to distinguish between good and bad spirits. The language of spirits of superior elevation is constantly dignified, noble, characterized by the highest morality, free from every trace of earthly passion. Their counsels breathe the purest wisdom and always have our improvement and the good of humankind as their aim. The communications of spirits of lower degree, on the contrary, are full of discrepancies. Their language is often commonplace and even coarse. If they sometimes say things that are good and true, they more often make false and absurd statements, prompted by ignorance or malice. They play upon the credulity of those who interrogate them, amusing themselves by flattering their vanity and fooling them with false hopes. In a word, instructive communications, worthy of the name, are only to be obtained in Spiritist centers of a serious character, whose members are united by an intimate communion of thought and desire in the pursuit of truth and goodness.

"The moral teaching of the higher spirits may be summarized, like that of Christ, in the Gospel maxim, Do to others as you would like that others do to you, that is to say, Do good to all and wrong no one. This principle of action provides humankind with a conduct rule of universal application, from the smallest subjects to the greatest.

"They teach us that selfishness, pride, sensuality, etc. are passions which bring us back towards the animal nature, by attaching us to matter. That those who, in this lower life, detache themselves from matter through contempt of worldly trifles and through love of the neighbour, bring themselves up towards the spiritual nature. That all we should make ourselves useful, according to the means which God has placed in our hands for our trial. That the strong and the powerful owe aid and protection to the weak. And that those who misuse strength and power to oppress their fellow-creatures violate the law of God. They teach us that in the spirit-world nothing can be hidden, that the hypocrite will there be unmasked and all their wickedness unveiled. That the presence, unavoidable and perpetual, of those whom we have wronged in the earthly life is one of the punishments that await us in the spirit-world. And that the lower or higher state of our spirits lead us, in the other life, to a suffering or to an enjoyment unknown to us upon the Earth.

Do to others what you want that others do to you. (Matthew 7:12)
You'll know the truth and the truth will make you free. (John 8:32)
 
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God is fair and good. Know the Spiritist philosophy and be sure about it.
Unshakable faith is only that which can always face reason. (Allan Kardec)

   
A tree is known by its fruits
   

The vine branch