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

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, bodiless beings, are victims of the horrors of hunger; but the astonishment ceases when we know that these same Spirits are beings like us, who have a fluidic body, it is true, but which is still 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 so, and observation teaches us that this is the situation of Spirits who have lived more material life than 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 a need that is impossible to satisfy. The mythological torture of Tantalus, among the Ancients, indicates a more accurate knowledge than is supposed, of the state of the world beyond the grave, especially more accurate than among moderns. Very different is the position of those who have dematerialized since this life through the elevation of their thoughts and their identification with the future life. All the pains of bodily life cease with the last breath, and soon the Spirit soars, radiant, in the ethereal world, happy as a prisoner free from its chains. Who told us this? Is it a system, a theory? Someone said it should be like this, and we take it at face value? No; It is the inhabitants of the invisible world who repeat it in all parts of the globe, for the teaching of the incarnates. Yes, legions of Spirits continue their bodily lives with their tortures and anguish. But which ones? Those who are still too overwhelmed by the subject to instantly stand out from it. Is it cruelty from the Supreme Being? No. It is a law of Nature, inherent to the inferiority of Spirits and necessary for their advancement; it is a mixed prolongation of earthly life for a few days, a few months, a few years, depending on the moral state of the 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 being in a pit with ten feet of earth above you, wanting to breathe and gasping for air, wanting to scream: “I’m alive!” and feel your voice muffled; 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 drink; 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. That is why they suffer hunger, cold, etc., sufferings that cannot affect 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 became obscured in the instant of separation, and in the erraticity the Spirit recognized true life. Now I will tell you a few words from those for whom this state is a test. Oh! how painful it is! they believe they are alive and well, possessing a body capable of feeling and tasting the joys of the Earth, and when their hands touch, their hands disappear; when they want to bring their lips closer to a cup or a fruit, their lips annihilate each other; they see, they want to touch, and they can neither feel nor touch. When paganism offers a beautiful image of this torture, presenting Tantalus as being hungry and thirsty and never being able to touch his lips to the spring of water that murmurs in his ear, or the fruit that seems to ripen for him

[Saint Augustine, RE, 1864]

“It is a torment for the proud to see himself relegated to the last positions, while above him, covered in glory and celebrations, are those he despised on Earth. For the hypocrite, seeing himself penetrated by the light that reveals his most secret thoughts that everyone can read, without any means to hide and dissimulate. For the sensual, having all the temptations, all the desires, without being able to satisfy them. For the miser, seeing his gold dilapidated and not being able to keep it. For the selfish person, being abandoned by everyone and suffering everything that others have suffered for him: he will be thirsty and no one will give him something to drink, he will be hungry and no one will give him anything 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. Because of this attachment, you will see yourself in the body, and not in the Spirit. It will materialize all sensations. You may even try to eat a “food”, created by your own mind, and this food may have all the characteristics of a material food… But, however, it will not satisfy you, since, in fact, the Spirit does not have a stomach. nor any other body. It does not depend on food to survive. Thus, he will remain in that state for a longer or shorter time, which will seem eternal to him, as long as he voluntarily remains in that mental state — to 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 the spiritists who believe in everything: it is to deny everything and harshly refute everything. 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 have been among them, and today I understand my mistake.

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

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 it has two parts: the part of the Spirits, which is more or less known to them and which we know through their manifestations, and the part of men, which is purely theoretical, although absolutely rational and logical (and the which doesn’t make it any less “science”). Theories come more or less close to the truth and, on 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? Feel cold? Sleep? Do you 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.