Questions
A. How does the progress of Mankind operate?
B. The current order of things leaves much to be desired. What does it lack?
C. Jesus predicted changes to come. Will they take place without commotion?
Reading Text
1155. If we no longer have to fear general cataclysms on Earth, nevertheless it is still subject to periodic changes, the causes of which, from a scientific point of view, are explained in the following message, passed to us by two eminent Spirits (1):
"Beyond the simple laws that rule day, night, seasons, and so on, there are also changes that required thousands of centuries for their full accomplishment. However, just as it occurs with the shorter changes, they go through all phases, from their beginning to their maximum effect, and when they reach their ultimate limit, they start to decrease. Then, it starts all over again”.
“Man only understands the relatively short periods, which he can grasp. Some of these periods, however, cover several generations and even races. Man considers the effects of these changes spontaneous and new. However, if he could only look back and see what happened a few thousand centuries ago, he would see in those effects and its causes a correlation that he never even suspected. Those periods, since they last a very long time, they are confusing for man’s imagination. However, if we take into considering the eternal time, those periods only represent a few instants”.
"In a same planetary system, all bodies that form it, react and affect all the others, which are part of it too. All physical influences are interconnected and there is not one of them, which you call a great change that is not a consequence of the component of the influences of the entire system. I go further: I say that the planetary systems react on each other, in reason of their proximity or remoteness, which results from their translation movement, through the myriad of systems that form our nebula. I even go further. I say that our nebula, that is like a cluster of islands in the vastness, also having its translation movement through the myriads of nebulae, suffers the influence of those that approach it. The nebulae react over the nebulae, the systems over the systems, in the same manner planets over planets, the elements of each planet over the elements of other planets, and so on until we reach the atom. Hence, in each world, there are local or general changes, which do not look like changes, because of they are so quick, and therefore we only are aware of their partial effects”.
"Organic matter could not escape these influences; the alterations it suffers can therefore change the physical state of living beings and determine some of the diseases that generally attack plants, animals and men. These diseases, like all plagues, are a stimulant for human intelligence, driving this intelligence, by virtue of the necessity, to look for ways to fight them, and to discover laws of nature. But organic matter, in turn, reacts on the Spirit too. Thus, due to its contact and its close ties with the material elements, it also suffers influences that modify its provisions, without, however, depriving it from its free will, that over-excite or attenuate its activity and that, therefore, contribute to its development”.
“The effervescence, which sometimes manifests itself in an entire population, among men of the same race, is not something accidental or resulting by chance. It is caused by the Laws of Nature. This effervescence, unconscious at first, a kind of a vague desire, an undefined longing for something better, or a need for change is shown first by a deaf stirring, then by acts that lead to social changes, which, believe it, also have a periodicity in the same manner as the physical changes, because everything is interconnected. If you had not your spiritual vision limited by the veil of matter, you would see the fluidic currents, like thousands of leads, connecting the things of the spiritual world to the material world.
When you say that Humanity has reached a period of transformation and that the Earth has to rise in the hierarchy of worlds, do not see anything mystical in these words. On the contrary, do see the implementation of one of the major fatal Laws of the Universe, against which all the human bad will is broken, ARAGO”.
1156. This is the second message:
"The earthly Humanity, having come to one of these periods of growth, is in full, for nearly a century, engaged in the work of its transformation. Thus, we see it stir from all sides, with a sort of fever and as if driven by an invisible force. Thus, it will go on, until it is again stabilized in new bases. The one, who can see it, will find it very much changed, in all its customs, character, laws, beliefs, in a word: in all it social state.
"As much as it may seem strange to you, but it is no doubt a big truth, the world of the Spirits, the world around you, experiences the counter-shock of all the stirrings that affect the world of the embodied. I would even say that the spiritual world takes an active part in this commotion. This is not at all surprising for those who know that the Spirits are part of Humanity. They leave it and come back to it, and therefore, it is natural that they show interest in everything that affects man. Be sure that when a social revolution takes place on Earth, it shakes the invisible world too, where all good and bad passions are exacerbated in the same way as they are among the embodied. Inexpressible effervescence takes over within the community of Spirits that still belong to your world and await the moment to return to it”.
"At times, the embodied and disembodied feel the same excitement, and the storms and changes of the physical elements occur together, since everything comes together in Nature. Thus, there is for a while a general confusion, but which will pass as a hurricane passes, after which the sky is calm again and Humanity, reconstituted on new bases, with new ideas, begins a new era of progress”.
“It is in the period that starts now that Spiritism will blossom and bear fruit. Therefore, you work more for the future than for the present. But, it was necessary that this work was prepared in advance, because they trace the paths of regeneration, the unification and rationality of beliefs. Blessed are those who benefit from them now. These will have so much pain spared and so many blessings to receive. Doctor Barry”.
1157. Of what was said, we conclude that in consequence of the translation movement that the heavenly bodies execute, they do affect the other bodies in a greater or lesser form, depending on the proximity of each other and their respective positions. This influence can give place to a momentary disruption within its constitutive elements and modify the conditions of life of its inhabitants; also the regularity of the movements determines the periodic return of the same causes and the same effects; and if certain periods are so very short that men cannot enjoy them, others see generations and races go by and are unaware of the things they observe. On the contrary, the contemporary generations of transition suffer its counter-shock and all seems to be out of the ordinary laws. These generations see a supernatural cause, wonderful, miraculous in what, in reality, is nothing more than the implementation of the Laws of Nature.
1158. If, due to the chaining and solidarity of the causes and effects, the periods of moral renewal of the Humanity, as it seems, coincide with the physical changes of the globe, those periods can be accompanied or preceded by natural phenomena, unusual for those that are not familiar to them, of meteors that seem strange, of increase or not common intensification of destructive calamities, which are not a cause, nor a supernatural presage, but a consequence of the general movement operating in the physical and moral worlds.
1159. Announcing the time of renewal that was opened for Humanity and determining the end of the old world, it was licit for Jesus to say that it would be marked by extraordinary phenomena, earthquakes, plagues, many signs in the sky, which are not more than meteors without annulment of natural law. The common and ignorant people, however, saw in these words the prediction of miraculous facts.
1160. The forecast of the progressive movements of Mankind has nothing amazing when done by dematerialized beings that can see the purpose for which all things tend, some with direct knowledge of God's thinking. By partial movements, these beings can see the time when a movement will occur in the same way that man can calculate beforehand how long it takes for a tree to bear fruit, just as astronomers calculate the time of an astronomical phenomenon, by the time a star spends to make its revolution.
1161. Humanity is a collective being in which the same moral revolutions take place in the same manner as they do in an individual, with the difference that one occurs every year and the other every century. If we watch Humanity in its evolution through time, we will see the lives of several ethnic groups marked by periods that give a special appearance to that time.
1162. As we have already said, the progressive march of Mankind operates in two ways: one is gradual, slow, imperceptible, if we consider the consecutive seasons and it is shown by the successive improvements in customs and traditions, and laws. These improvements can only be seen with continuation, such as the changes that the watercourses cause on the earth's surface; the other, operates by relatively sudden movements, similar to a flood that, breaking the dam where it is contained, it covers in some years a space, which would take centuries to do.
1163. It is then a moral cataclysm that swallows in brief moments the institutions of the past and to which befalls a new order of things that gradually stabilizes, as calmness is restored, and ultimately becomes final.
(1) Extracted from two messages given at the Paris Society and published in the Revue Spirite of October 1868, page 313. They are corollaries of those of Galileo, reproduced in Chapter VI, and complementary of Chapter IX, on the globe revolutions.
Answers to the proposed questions
A. How does the progress of Mankind operate?
This double progress is accomplished in two ways: one is slow, gradual and we do not feel it; the other, is characterized by abrupt changes, each of which corresponds to a faster upward movement, which is signaled, by means of strongly marked impressions.
These movements, subordinated to men's free will, are, in a sense, fatal if considered in their whole, because they are subject to laws, as those seen in the germination, growth and maturity of plants. This is the reason why the progressive moment takes place sometimes in a partial way, i.e., limited to a people or to a nation, and other times in a general manner.
The progress of Humanity is accomplished, therefore, due to a law. Now, since all Nature's laws are an eternal work of wisdom and divine foreknowledge, whatever is the effect of these laws results from God's will, and not from an accidental and fickle will, but from an immutable will. When, therefore, Humanity is ripe to go up one step, it can be said that the time appointed by God has arrived, as we can also say that in a determined season, the fruit ripens and it is harvesting time. (Genesis, Chapter XVIII, items 1 to 4 and 7 to 13).
B. The current order of things leaves much to be desired. What does it lack?
The current order of things still lacks charity, brotherhood and solidarity. But men cannot reach this with their beliefs and antiquated institutions, since they are remains of another age, good for a determined period, enough for a transitory state, but having given all they had, today are an obstacle.
Men do not need to develop their intelligence only, but they need to develop their feelings and, for that, everything that causes selfishness and pride in them has to be destroyed.
Such is the period in which Humanity is now entering and it will mark one of the most important phases of its history. The future generation, free from the scoria of the old world and now constituted by purer elements, will have in it ideas and feelings very different to those of the present generation, which is leaving us in giant steps. The old world is dead and will only live in History, in the same way as the Middle Ages are today, with their barbaric customs and superstitious beliefs. (Genesis, Chapter XVIII, items 5 and 6).
C. Jesus predicted changes to come. Will they take place without commotion?
No. Such a radical change like the one that is taking place cannot happen without commotion. A fight of ideas will be inevitable. From this conflict temporary disruptions are inevitable until the surface is flattened and the balance restored.
It is therefore from the fight of ideas that serious foretold events will be originated and not cataclysms or purely material catastrophes. General cataclysms were a result of the Earth's formation. Today, it is no longer the bowels of the planet that stir, but those of Mankind.
The effervescence which sometimes manifests itself in an entire population, among men of the same ethnical group, is not something fortuitous, or the result of a fickle; it has its cause in the Laws of Nature. This effervescence, unconscious at first, going from a vague desire, an undefined longing for something better, in a need for change, is reflected by a deaf stirring, and then by acts that lead to social revolutions, which also have their time, as physical changes do, because everything is linked together in the Universe. (Genesis, Chapter XVIII, items 6 to 8).