By Brian Foster

Introduction

You may ask, how does reincarnation really work? How can we know who we are in successive lives and in the spirit world? The answer is the perispirit. The perispirit is the part of us that combines with our body at birth and detaches from our physical body upon death. We are our perispirit, until we reach the level of a pure spirit, which at such time, we become pure energy. There are more detailed explanations in other Spiritist books, but for a quick and relatively comprehensive summary, this article is a good beginning.

In the book Between Heaven and Earth, there is a quick summary of how the perispirit controls our physical body. The passage below is when a team of Spirits is examining a male spirit, named Julio, who poisoned himself, even as a spirit, the man’s throat is an area of pain. The team leader Clarencio, explains the now discarnated spirit’s problems;

“Whatever the corruption of the thought is, such will be the disharmony in the particular force center that reacts in our body to this or that class of mental inflow. Let’s apply earthly terminology to our short lesson as much as possible so that you can better grasp what we are saying. As we analyze the physiology of the perispirit, we may classify its force centers by remembering the most important areas of the physical body. Thus, using the best expression for the vehicle that serves us presently, there is the ‘crown center’, which, on earth, is considered by Hindu philosophy as being the thousand-petal lotus and the most important center of all due to its high radiation potential and its connection with the mind, the shining seat of the consciousness. The crown center receives, first of all, the stimuli of the spirit, commanding other centers, yet vibrating with them in a perfect system of interdependence. Considering in our exposition the phenomena of the physical body, and satisfying the imperatives of simplicity in our definitions, we can say that the energies of nourishment for the nervous system and it subdivisions emanate from this center, providing all the electromagnetic resources that are indispensable for organic stability. Therefore, it is the great assimilator of the solar energies and rays from the Higher Realms that can favor the sublimation of the soul. Next, there is the ‘cerebral center’, contiguous to the ‘crown center’, and which orders the various types of perception, which in the physical body, comprise sight, hearing, touch and the vast network of the processes of the mind that have to do with Speech, Learning, Art and Knowledge. It is in the ‘cerebral center’ that we possess the command of the endocrine center, which has to do with the psychic powers. Next, there is the ‘throat center’, which presides over the vocal phenomena, including the activities of the thymus, the thyroid and the parathyroid. Then, there is the ‘heart center’, which sustains the services of the emotions and overall equilibrium. Proceeding on down, there is the ‘splenic center’, which, in the dense body, is seated in the spleen and regulates the distribution and circulation adequate for the vital resources in every corner of the body. Then, comes the ‘gastric center’, which controls the entrance of nourishment and fluids into the body, and lastly is the ‘genesic center’, housing the sanctuary of sex as a molding temple of forms and stimuli.”

“But we mustn’t forget that our subtle vehicle, like the physical one, is a mental creation on the evolutionary pathway, woven out of resources taken temporarily by us from the storehouse of the universe. It is a vessel that we utilize to house the divine light of sublimation in our eternal spirit. Everything is the work of the mind in time and space, making use of thousands of forms in order to become purified and sanctified for the Divine Glory.”[1]

Force Centers

This was a lot to review, here is a table with the listed centers;

1. Crown Center – Command all other centers. The stimuli of the spirit. Assimilates and distributes solar energies and electromagnetic resources.

2. Cerebral Center – Controls senses, sight, hearing, touch, psychic abilities.

3. Throat Center – Controls speech.

4. Heart Center – Controls emotions.

5. Splenic Center – Controls the distribution of nourishment for your body.

6. Gastric Center – The entry point of food and fluids.

7. Genesic Center – Controls sex and allows stimulus to your body.

Therefore, the perispirit is composed of seven major centers, all working in concert to regulate our spiritual and physical bodies. One could imagine the perispirit lying as a transparent layer inside our bodies, connected to our material organs to guide, heal and regulate our physical life. The connection is a two way street, as we live and learn in our bodies, the perispirit absorbs feedback, allowing it to transfer the knowledge gained in our present life to be used in the spirit world and our subsequent lives.

What Happens in the Next Life, When One Center is Affected?

Let us return to Julio, the one who poisoned himself, his throat is an object of pain for him even in the Spirit world. How will he repair his pain and his sin of suicide? Again the learned Clarencio explains;

“When by acts contrary to the Divine Law, our mind harms the harmony of any one of our soul’s force centers, it is naturally enslaved to the effects of the unbalancing action, thus making the toil of readjustment necessary. In Julio’s case, he is the author of disturbance in the ‘throat center’, an alteration expressed by an infirmity or imbalance that will by necessity go with him into reincarnation.”

“How will he cleanse the deficiency?” I asked (Andre Luiz, author of Between Heaven and Earth), edified by the explanation I had just heard.

“Julio will have to live with pain in his throat, thus healing himself by correcting the vibratory tonus of the ‘throat center’ and reestablishing it to normality.”

“Julio will be reborn in a physiologically defective body, which will somehow portray the injured area, his throat. He will suffer intensely from the vocal organ, which will undoubtedly be characterized by weak resistance to microbial attacks. In virtue of our friend having scorned the blessing of a physical body, he will be faced with dreadful struggles in order to learn how to appreciate it instead.”[2]

All deficiencies are carried over with us, from one life to the next. Whichever part of the body we abuse in one life will be affected in the next. Socrates, the ancient Greek philosopher, knew what we was talking about when he said, “Everything in moderation, nothing in excess”, over 2500 years ago. Keep in mind the seven centers, and check your excesses. If you are having problems in one or more areas, then you should know exactly what to work on in your present life. This is reinforced by one of the team members asking Clarencio, “So, we must attribute an important role to infirmities in the human realm because most of them play an important role in the regeneration of souls.”[3]

The statements above contradicts all that we modern humans have learned. We are told sickness is caused by viruses, bacteria, and other environmental factors, not our own behavior. To believe so puts us back in the eras of superstition. Back then, when an ailment occurred, the first thing a person would ask is, “Why is God punishing me?” or “What did I do wrong to deserve this?” Could there be, perhaps, truth in the real cause of our troubles? Are we then supposed to ask, when a bad illness strikes us, “What should I improve in my life to not have this occur again?”

The answer is “Yes”. The Spirit World knows all, even each effect of our scientific advances, what can be cured and what can’t be cured. We are programmed in our new life to experience trials; each trial is arranged with whatever assistance we may have from medicine taken into account.

Your life has more meaning and complexities than you realize. There are levels of the spirit world that helps us and hinders us. To understand how your individual fate is determined, tracked, and evaluated please read my book, Explore Your Destiny – Since Your Life’s Path is (mostly) Predetermined.

All Must be Brought into Harmony

Hence, each center must calibrated and re-measured periodically. As Andre Luiz says, “Each ‘force center’, must be brought into complete harmony with the Divine Laws that govern us so that we can ascend toward Perfect Equilibrium.”[4]

What are the main causes of our diseases? Clarencio supplies the answer, “Pride, vanity, tyranny, selfishness, laziness and cruelty are vices of the mind that generate disturbances and diseases in its instrument of expression.”[5] Unfortunately, even if we have conquered all in our present life, we may have been destined to have a trial of illness for a sin in a past life. Therefore, as we suffer through bad periods, the best strategy is to maintain a good attitude, don’t blame other people, and meditate on how to improve ourselves.

When, during our life here on earth, we persist in the sins of selfishness and others, the affect carries on in our perispirit. Whatever we did incorrect will harm one or more of our force centers, causing a breakdown in the harmony of our perispirit. Clarencio details the effects and the remedy;

“Infirmity, as disharmony of the spirit continues on in the perispirit. Known diseases, in addition to others that have escaped human diagnosis, will persist for a long, long time in the tormented spheres of the soul, leading us to readjustment. Pain is the great, blessed remedy. It reeducates our mental activity, restructuring the pieces of our instrumentation and polishing the animic centers that our mind uses to develop itself on its journey toward the life eternal. Aside from the power of God, pain is the only force capable of altering the course of our thoughts, compelling us to make indispensable changes with a view to the Divine Plan for us, the execution of which we cannot avoid without grave harm to ourselves.”[6]

The remedy is pain. When we are in error, we pay for it. Pay for it, means discomfort. As we train our children, with a gentle spank, when they do something that could be life threatening, the small amount of pain is meant for them to focus on the undesirability of performing that action again. Well, the same goes for us. When we are in pain, think of what we could have done to deserve the punishment, then think of how to train ourselves to not perform that action anymore in this or the next lifetime.

The conduit of experiences from one life to the Spirit realm to the next life on earth is the perispirit. In The Gospel According to Spiritism, we are told, “God has given us for our advancement precisely what is necessary and what will be enough for us: the voice of conscience and our instinctive tendencies, taking from us what could harm us.”[7] Therefore the perispirit guides us in our conscience and instincts when we are here on earth and absorbs new lessons to carry us through the next life, honing our instincts to know what is the right thing to do and what circumstances to avoid. The voice of our conscience becomes stronger and more accurate as we acquire new proficiencies. The perispirit is the vehicle in which we must ride in our eternal quest to become an elevated spirit.

A more detailed explanation of the process of reincarnation is in my book, The Case for Reincarnation – Your Path to Perfection.

Author:

Brian Foster has a BSCS degree and a MBA. He has worked in R&D for medical device corporations and in IT for large financial institutions. Brian Foster has a blog at http://www.nwspiritism.com.

Works Cited

Kardec, A. (2008). The Gospel According to Spiritism. Brasilia (DF): International Spiritist Council.

Xavier, F. C. (2011). Between Heaven and Earth. Brasilia (DF), Brazil: International Spiritist Council.

[1] XAVIER, Francisco C. Between Heaven and Earth, EDICEI, pp. 131-132

[2] XAVIER, Francisco C. Between Heaven and Earth, EDICEI, pp. 132-133

[3] XAVIER, Francisco C. Between Heaven and Earth, EDICEI, p. 136

[4] XAVIER, Francisco C. Between Heaven and Earth, EDICEI, p. 136

[5] XAVIER, Francisco C. Between Heaven and Earth, EDICEI, p. 138

[6] XAVIER, Francisco C. Between Heaven and Earth, EDICEI, p. 139

[7] KARDEC, Allan The Gospel According to Spiritism, EDICEI, Chap. V, Item 11, p. 103