Need for Incarnation

25. Is  incarnation a punishment and are only guilty spirits subject to it?

The passage of spirits through corporeal life is necessary so that they may accomplish, with the help of physical action, the designs whose execution God has entrusted to them. This is necessary for them because the activity they are obliged to perform helps the development of their intelligence. God, being supremely just, must regard all his children equally; that is why he gives all of them the same starting point, the same aptitude, the same obligations to fulfill and the same freedom to act. Any privilege would be a preference and any preference an injustice. But incarnation is nothing for all spirits but a transitory state. It is a task that God imposes on them upon their entry into life as the first test of the use they will make of their free will. Those who eagerly fulfill this task quickly and less painfully  clear their first degree of initiation and enjoy the fruits of their labor sooner. On the other hand, those who make bad use of the freedom that God has granted them delay their advancement; it is thus that by their obstinacy they may prolong indefinitely the need to reincarnate, and it is at that point that incarnation becomes a punishment.

St. Louis (Paris, 1859)

26. Comment: A rough comparison will make this difference more understandable. Students can reach degrees of knowledge only after having passed through the series of classes leading to it. These classes, whatever the work they require, are a means for reaching the objective and not a punishment. Diligent students shorten the way and encounter fewer thorns along it. It is otherwise for those whose negligence and laziness obligate them to repeat certain classes. It is not the class work that is a punishment, but the obligation to recommence the same work.

The  same applies to  humankind  on  the earth. For the spirits of primitives, who are nearly at the beginning of their spirit lives, incarnation is a means for developing their intelligence. However, for educated individuals in whom the moral sense is broadly developed and who are obligated to recommence the steps of a corporeal life full of anguish, when they could have already reached the objective, it is a punishment because of their need to prolong their stay on lower and unfortunate worlds. On the other hand, those who work actively for their moral progress not only shorten the duration of physical incarnation, but they may all at once transcend the intermediate degrees that separate them from the more highly evolved worlds.

Might spirits incarnate only once on the same globe and fulfill their many existences on different spheres? This opinion would be acceptable only if all the humans on earth were at the same intellectual and moral level. The differences among them, from primitives to civilized individuals,  show the many degrees that they are called to ascend. Moreover, an incarnation must have a useful purpose. But what would be the useful purpose of the ephemeral incarnations of children who die very young? They would have suffered without profiting either themselves or others. God, whose laws are all supremely wise, does nothing useless. Through reincarnation on the same globe, God has willed that the same spirits come into contact with one another again for the chance to repair their mutual offenses. Because of their previous relationships, God wishes furthermore  to establish family ties on a spiritual basis and to support the principles of solidarity, fraternity and equality as a natural law.