“Does Spirits feel hunger?” or, "How to deter the honest student from studying"

Paulo Degering R Jr
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Spirit feels hungry, but calm down!

Contrary to what many affirm bluntly (and often in a very harsh way, the best formula to keep people who come from the spiritist movement as we know it from studying), a Spirit attached to matter can suffer from all the vicissitudes of matter, at most attached to her. You may suffer from hunger, cold, heat, fear, etc. Of course: it is a suffering that originates in him, in itself, that is, it is a suffering of moral origin, but that, for him, until you understand, has all the characteristics of suffering material.

It is Kardec and the Spirits who say this, not me:

“To anyone who does not know the true constitution of the invisible world, it will seem strange that spirits who, according to them, are abstract, immaterial, indefinite, bodyless beings, are victims of the horrors of hunger; but the astonishment ceases when one knows that these same spirits are beings like us, that they have a fluidic body, it is true, but that does not cease to be matter; that, leaving their carnal envelope, certain spirits continue their earthly life with the same vicissitudes, for a more or less long time. This seems singular, but it is, and observation teaches us that this is the situation of spirits who have lived a material life more than a spiritual life, a situation that is sometimes terrible, because the illusion of the needs of the flesh makes itself felt, and they they have all the anguish of an impossible need to satisfy. The mythological torment of Tantalus, among the Ancients, indicates a more exact knowledge than is supposed, of the state of the world beyond the grave, above all more exact than among the moderns. Very different is the position of those who from this life dematerialized themselves by elevating their thoughts and their identification with the future life. All the pains of bodily life cease with the last breath, and soon the Spirit glides, radiant, in the ethereal world, happy as a prisoner freed from his chains. Who told us this? Is it a system, a theory? Someone said it should be so, and do we believe it at our word? No; it is the inhabitants of the invisible world themselves who repeat it in all parts of the globe, for the teaching of the incarnates. Yes, legions of Spirits continue their corporeal life with its tortures and anguish. But which ones? Those who are still too immersed in the subject to instantly stand out from it. Is it a cruelty of the Supreme Being? No. It is a law of Nature, inherent to the state of inferiority of Spirits and necessary for their advancement; it is a mixed prolongation of terrestrial life for a few days, a few months, a few years, depending on the moral state of individuals. “

[RE, June, 1868]

The communications that indicated such types of suffering are the most diverse, frequently presented in the Spiritist Magazine and in other works. Some of them:

10. Do you remember the moments of your death?

– A. It is something terrible, impossible to describe. Imagine yourself being in a pit with ten feet of earth over you, wanting to breathe and gasping for air, wanting to scream: “I am alive!” and feel your muffled voice; seeing yourself die and not being able to call for help; feeling full of life and crossed off the list of the living; being thirsty and not being able to quench your thirst; feeling the pangs of hunger and not being able to stop it; to die, in a word, in a condemned rage

[RE, August, 1862]

[…] As for the inferior spirits, they are still completely impregnated with earthly fluids; therefore, they are material, as you can understand. For this reason, they suffer hunger, cold, etc., sufferings that cannot reach superior spirits, since the earthly fluids have already been purified in their thoughts, that is, in their souls.

[LAMENNAIS, OLM, 1861]

[…] there is not a single [Spirit] whose matter does not have to fight with the Spirit that finds itself again. The duel took place, the flesh was torn apart, the Spirit was darkened at the moment of separation, and in erraticity the Spirit recognized true life. Now I will tell you a few words of those for whom this state is a test. Oh! how painful she is! they believe themselves alive and very much alive, possessing a body capable of feeling and savoring the pleasures of the Earth, and when their hands go to touch, their hands go out; when they want to bring their lips close to a cup or a fruit, their lips annihilate each other; they see, they want to touch, and they can neither feel nor touch. As for paganism, it offers a beautiful image of this ordeal, presenting Tantalus as hungry and thirsty and never able to touch his lips to the fountain of water that murmurs in his ear, or the fruit that seems to ripen for him.

[Saint Augustine, RE, 1864]

“It is an ordeal for the proud to see themselves relegated to the lowest positions, while above them, covered in glory and celebrations, are those whom they despised on Earth. For the hypocrite, to see himself penetrated by the light that exposes his most secret thoughts that everyone can read, with no means to hide and dissimulate. For the sensual, having all the temptations, all the desires, without being able to satisfy them. For the miser, to see his gold wasted and not be able to retain it. For the selfish person, to be abandoned by everyone and suffer what others have suffered for him: he will be thirsty and nobody will give him a drink, he will be hungry and nobody will give him something to eat.”

[Kardec, OCI, 1865]

The Spirit can feel a hunger greater than ours, due to moral suffering, this is of course due to material attachment. By this attachment, you will see yourself in body, not in Spirit. It will materialize all sensations. You can even try to ingest a “food”, created by your own mind, and that food can have all the characteristics of a material food… But that, however, will not satisfy you, since, in fact, the Spirit does not have a stomach real, nor any other organ. It does not depend on food to survive. Thus, he will remain in that state for a longer or shorter period of time, which will seem eternal to him, as long as he remains voluntarily in that mental state — which, many times, compulsory reincarnation, as an act of divine mercy, given his inability to choose, the come steal. There is a way of acting, spreading among the studious spiritist movement, which is as harmful as that of spiritists who believe in everything: it is to deny everything and refute everything harshly. That's what I've been trying to draw attention to. Many even tend to attack individuals and reject ideas with stones in their hands, as if they were all ridiculous, without understanding the nuances of the spiritual world and becoming doctors in subjects of which we are only apprentices, learning to babble the first letters of the alphabet . I've been among them, and today I understand my mistake.

Perhaps, guided by an irresolute and almost rabid animosity towards certain affirmations often seen in the spiritist environment in general, and believing themselves to be lords of spiritual enlightenment, many receive questions like these — “Spirits feel hungry” — with the same degree of animosity. Instead of clarifying, they distance the individual, who feels humiliated for having asked about something that, perhaps, he saw Kardec himself affirm.

It was not by chance (it is never by chance that a Spirit, of any elevation, acting with honesty, makes any kind of affirmation) that São Luís said, in the RE of 1866:

But if, thanks to the lights from above, you are more educated and understand more, you must also be more tolerant and use nothing but reasoning as a means of propagation., because every sincere belief is respectable.

Friends, Spiritism is science, and has two parts: the part of the Spirits, which is more or less known about them and which we know by their manifestations, and the part of men, which is purely theoretical, although absolutely rational and logical (and the that doesn't make it any less "science"). Theories come more or less close to the truth and, for our part, it is up to us to investigation, and not the foolish mania to affirm or deny everything. Kardec, indeed, was the extremely brilliant scientist who understood this principle, which made him, instead of discarding it, investigate the apparently most absurd statements coming from the Spirits, when, of course, he identified honesty in it, and not the clear purpose of mystifying.

Therefore, to the questions “Does the Spirit feel hungry? Are you cold? Sleep? Build houses?”, the answer is: depends on your elevation. You can feel or do all that, but rest assured, you have no need, you suffer and waste time when you are in that state, due to attachment to matter.

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