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1 2 3 Here and Hereafter Being a Treatise on Spiritual Philosophy, offering a Scientific and Rational Solution of the Problems of Life and Death. Nature and Destiny of Human Beings. The successive Lives. Semper ascendens By LÉON DENIS Translated into English by GEORGE G. FLEUROT 1909 Totally revised by: SAB Spiritist Alliance for Books 2003 4 Translation copyright © Spiritist Alliance for Books, 2003 Spiritist Alliance for Books/Spiritist Group of New York http://www.sgny.org P. O. Box 2223 - Radio City Station, New York, NY 10101-2223 Email:[email protected] Original Title: Après La Mort – Léon Denis All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior permission in writing from the copyright holder. Cover design: Library of Congress Control Number: Main entry under title: Here and Hereafter 1. Religious Philosophy 2. Spiritist Doctrine 3. Christianity I. Denis, Léon ISBN 5 This version was edited and revised utilizing the French original (Nouvelle Edition conforme a L'Edition Originale - Union Spirite Française et Francophone) by the Editorial and Publishing Department of the Spiritist Group of New York (SGNY) and the Spiritist Alliance for Books (SAB) team. The Spiritist Group of New York (SGNY) is a not-for-profit organization, which has the sole aim to promote and disseminate the Spiritist Doctrine in English, as codified by Allan Kardec. The group was officially established on April 12th, 2001. However, some of its participants have been earnestly fostering the dissemination of the Spiritist Doctrine in the United States and in the United Kingdom for about ten years. As a result, a number of its founders and participating members have founded the Spiritist Alliance for Books (SAB), which is an organization that aims to unite people from all over the world who are willing to volunteer in the effort of translating spiritist books (which were originally written in other languages) into English. Special thanks for the Spiritist Alliance for Books Team who participated in this project: Antonio Leite, Jussara Korngold, Marie Levinson & Crisley Akin 6 7 To The Great and Noble Spirits Who Have Revealed to Me The August Mysteries of Destiny, Whose Teachings Have Strengthened Within Me The Sentiment of Justice, The Love of Wisdom, and of Duty; Whose Voices Have Banished My Doubts and Appeased My Cares; Whose Generous Souls Have Sustained Me in My Struggles; Comforted Me in the Hour of Trial; Who Have Elevated My Thoughts To the Level of Those Luminous Heights Where Truths Sits Enthroned; I Dedicate These Pages. 8 9 CONTENTS Introduction 13 FIRST PART - Beliefs and Unbeliefs 1. Religion and the Secret Doctrine 15 2. India 19 3. Egypt 24 4. Greece 27 5. Gaul 32 6. Christianity 36 7. Materialism and Positivism 46 8. The Moral Crisis 51 SECOND PART - The Great Problems 9. The Universe and God 56 10. The Immortal Spirit 64 11. The Plurality of Lives 66 12. The Purpose of Life 69 13. Trial and Death 71 14. Objections 73 THIRD PART - The Invisible World 15. Nature and Science 75 16. Matter and Force - The Sole Principle of All Things 77 17. The Fluids, Magnetism 78 18. Spirit Phenomena 80 19. Scientific Testimony 81 20. Spiritualism in France 86 10 21. The Perispirit, or Fluidic Body 89 22. The Mediums 91 23. The Evolution of the Soul and of the Perispirit 94 24. Ethical and Philosophical Consequences 95 25. Spiritism and Science 96 26. The Dangers of Spiritualism 97 27. Charlatanism and Venality 99 28. Of the Utility of Psychological Research 100 FOURTH PART - The Hereafter 29. Know Thyself 102 30. The Last Hour 103 31. The Judgment 105 32. The Will and the Fluids 107 33. The Life of Space 110 34. Errant Souls 112 35. The Higher Life 113 36. Inferior Spirits 117 37. Hell and its Demons 119 38. Man's Influence over Unhappy Spirits 120 39. Justice, Solidarity, Responsibility 122 40. Providence and Free Will 124 41. Reincarnation 126 FIFTH PART - The Straight Way 42. The Moral Life 128 43. Duty 130 44. Faith, Hope, Consolation 132 45. Pride, Wealth, and Poverty 134 46. Selfishness 137 47. Charity 139 48. Mildness, Patience, Goodness 142 11 49. Love 144 50. Resignation in Adversity 146 51. Prayer 150 52. Work, Sobriety, Continence 153 53. Study 155 54. Education 157 55. Social Problems 159 56. The Moral Law 162 Recapitulation 163 Conclusion 165 12 13 INTRODUCTION I have seen, half buried in their winding-sheets of sand or stone, the famous cities of a bygone day; Carthage, of the white promontories; the Greek towns of Sicily; the Roman Campagna with its broken aqueducts and gaping tombs, and also those ancient cities of the dead, that lie so still, wrapped in their twenty centuries of slumber beneath Vesuvius' ashes. I have seen the last vestiges of ancient towns that teemed, of yore, like ant hills with human life - today but forsaken ruins, simmering in loneliness beneath the ardent rays of Eastern sun. I have evoked the multitudes that people these cities with their busy life. At my call they have defiled before me with passions that consumed them: their hatreds, their loves, their fleeting ambitions, their triumphs and their reverses; all to be blown away like a puff of smoke by the breath of time. Beholding which I said to myself: this then is what becomes of great nations, of mammoth capitals - a few heaped stones, a few dreary mounds, a few stones carvings meagerly sheltered by a sparse vegetation through which the night wind moans. Of these history has kept a record telling of their existence, of their passing greatness, of their final fall - until the earth has buried all. But, besides these, how many others are there whose very names are unknown? How many towns, how many races, how many civilizations lie forever engulfed beneath the glittering waste of waters that overspreads submerged continents! And I asked myself, whence this unrest that torments the children of men: wherefore these countless generations that succeed one another like the sand beds that the tide so constantly brings to overlay those that were before? Wherefore, indeed, these labours, these struggles, these sufferings, if all is to end in the grave? The centuries, those brief instants of eternity, have witnessed the passing of nations and of kingdoms, and nothing has remained: the Sphinx has devoured all. Whiter then is man bound? Is it to nothingness or towards some light unknown? Nature, smiling and eternal, festoons with garlands of beauty the crumbling remains of fallen empires. In it nothing dies but to be born again. Its evolutions are presided over by profound laws and immutable order. Can it be that man and his works are alone destined to nothingness, to oblivion? The impression wrought by the contemplation of dead cities I have again experimented, more acutely, in the presence of the cold remains of some dear one who had shared my life. One, beloved, is about to die! While, as with a heavy heart you bend over him, even as you look, upon his features the shadows of the hereafter slowly spread. The inner light now casts but a pale and trembling flicker: so, it weakens still, and then goes out. And now behold, all that in him betokened life: the sparkling eye, the mouth that smiled, the limbs that so freely moved, all is glazed, dumb, motionless. On that funereal couch there lies but a corpse outstretched. Where is the man who has not pondered this mystery; who, during the final vigil, alone in solemn communication with death, has not asked himself how it would be with him? This problem concerns us all, for we must, each one of us, submit to the law. It behooves us to know whether, at that hour, everything is verily at an end, whether death signifies but annihilation's gloomy rest; or whether it is, on the contrary, the portal to a new realm of sensation. But problems everywhere arise. Over the world's vast area, some thinkers claim, suffering holds sovereign sway; everywhere the goad of need and pain urges on the frantic round, the terrible saturnalia of life and death. From every quarter arises the despairing cry of some human being, speeding over the dark roadway that leads to the unknown: to such, life spells but a perpetual struggle-glory, wealth, beauty, talent, the royalties of a day. Death passes and in passing gleans these glittering flowers and leaves the withered stalks behind. Death is the question mark that unceasingly confronts us; the great first question upon which hang other questions without end, the study of which has been the preoccupation and the despair of the ages, and to whose solution so many philosophies have been dedicated. Despite all these efforts, night still enshrouds us. Our own epoch struggles in darkness and in emptiness, vainly seeking a panacea for its woes. Material progress is immense, but in the midst of the wealth accumulated by civilization one may still perish from want and privation. Man is neither happier nor better, his heavy labours are no longer lightened by a high ideal, nor is he heartened by any clear conception 14 of his destiny: hence his backslidings, his excesses, and his rebellion. Vanished is the faith of the past; materialism and scepticism have stepped into its place, their breath has fanned the devouring flame of human passions, desires and appetites, and social revolutions lowers upon us! At times, tormented alike by the spectacle that this world presents and by the uncertainty of the hereafter, man raises his eyes heavenward in search of the truth.