The Spirits’ Teachings

The Limits on Incarnation

24. What are the limits of incarnation?

“Incarnation per se does not have precisely traced limits if the term is understood as referring to the envelope that comprises the body of the spirit, considering the fact that the materiality of this envelope diminishes as the spirit purifies itself. On certain worlds more advanced than earth, the body is less compact, less heavy and less course, and consequently, less subject to vicissitudes. At a higher degree, it is diaphanous and almost fluidic. Degree by degree it is dematerialized and ends up melding with the perispirit. Depending on the world on which the spirit is called to live, the spirit takes on the envelope appropriate to the nature of that world.

The perispirit itself endures successive transformations. It becomes more and more etherealized each time up to complete purification, which characterizes  pure spirits. If special worlds are meant as stations for highly advanced spirits, such spirits are not connected there as on lower worlds. The state of detachment in which they find themselves enables them to go anywhere the missions entrusted to them may call them.

If incarnation is considered from the material point  of view – as is the case here on earth – it could be stated that it is limited to less evolved worlds. It therefore depends on the spirit to free itself quickly or less quickly by working for its purification.

One must also consider the fact that in the errant state, that is, in the intervals between corporeal existences, the situation of the spirit is in keeping with the nature of the world to which it is connected according to its degree of advancement; that in the errant state it is more or less happy, free and enlightened according to the degree of its dematerialization.

St. Louis (Paris, 1859)