According to the statements of Astral Spirits this planet, as regards the physical and moral qualities of its inhabitants, is one of the least advanced of all the globes of our solar system. Mars is stated to be at a point even lower than that of the earth, and Jupiter to be greatly superior to the earth in every respect. The sun is not a world inhabited by corporeal beings, but is a place of meeting for the spirits of a higher order, who from thence send out the radiations of their thought toward the outer worlds of the solar system, which they govern through the instrumentality of spirits of a less elevated degree, to whom they transmit their action by the intermediary of the universal fluid. As regards its physical constitution the sun would appear to be a focus of electricity, and all other suns seem to be identical with ours in nature and function.

The size of planets and their distance from the sun have no necessary relation with their degree of advancement, for Venus is more advanced than the earth and Saturn is declared to be less advanced than Jupiter.

The souls of many persons well known in this earth are reincarnated in Jupiter, one of the worlds nearest to perfection, and much surprise has been felt on hearing it stated that persons who, when here, were not supposed to merit such a favor should have been admitted into so advanced a globe. But there is nothing in this fact that need surprise us if we consider, first, that certain spirits who have inhabited this planet may have been sent hither in fulfillments of a mission which, to our eyes, did not seem to place them in the foremost rank; secondly, that they may have had, between their lives and here and in Jupiter, intermediary existences in which they have advanced, and thirdly, that there are innumerable degrees of development in that world as in this one, and that there may be as much difference between these degrees as there is amongst us between the savage and the civilized man. It no more follows that a spirit is on a level with the most advanced beings of Jupiter because he inhabits that planet than it follows that an ignoramus is on a level with a philosopher because he inhabits the same town.

The conditions of longevity, also, are as various in other worlds as they are in our earth, and no comparison can be established between the ages of those who inhabit them. A person who had died some years previously, on being evoked by a Hindu, stated that he had been incarnated for six months in a world which the name is unknown to us. Being questioned as to his age in that world he replied, "That is a point which I am unable to decide, because in the first place we do not count time in the same way as you do, and in the next place our mode of existence is not the same as yours. Our development is much more rapid in this world, for, although it is only six of your months since I came here, I may say that, as regards intelligence, I am about what one usually is at the age of thirty in your earth."

A great number of similar replies have been given by other spirits, and these statements contain nothing improbable. Do we not see upon our earth a host of animals that acquire their normal development in the course of a few months? Why should not men do the same in other spheres? And it is to be remarked, moreover, that the degree of development acquired by a man at the age of thirty upon the earth may be only a sort of infancy in comparison with what he is destined to arrive at in worlds of higher degree. Short-sighted indeed are they who look upon their present selves as being in all respects the normal type of creation, and to suppose that there can be no other modes of existence than their present one is, in short, a strange narrowing of their idea of the possibilities of the Divine action.

The life of a spirit in his totality goes through successive phases similar to those of a corporeal lifetime. He passes gradually from the embryonic state to that of infancy, and arrives, through a succession of periods at the adult state, which is that of his perfection, with this difference, however, that it is not subject either to decrepitude or to decline, like the corporeal life; that the life of a spirit, though it has had a beginning, will have no end; that he takes what appears from your point of view to be an immense length of time of passing from the state of spirit infancy to the attainment of his complete development, and that he accomplishes this progression, not in one and the same sphere, but by passing through different worlds. The life of a spirit is thus composed of a series of days, in each of which he acquires a new increment of experience and of knowledge. But just as in a human lifetime there are days which bear no fruit, so in the life of a spirit there are corporeal existences which are barren of profitable result, because he has failed to make the right use of them.

The line of march of all spirits is always progressive, never retrograde. They raise themselves gradually in the hierarchy of existence; they never descend from the rank at which they have once arrived. In the course of their different corporeal existences they may descend in a rank as man, but not as spirits. Thus the soul of one who has been at the pinnacle of earthly power may, in a subsequent incarnation, animate the humblest day laborer, and vice versa, for the elevation of ranks among men is often in the inverse ration of that of the moral sentiments. Herod was a king, and Jesus a carpenter. The certainty of man's being able to improve himself in a future existence would not in itself lead him to persist in an evil course by thinking that he will at some period be able to make amends. For he who made such a calculation would have no real belief in anything, and such a one would not be any more restrained by the idea of incurring eternal punishment, because his reason would reject that idea, which leads to every sort of unbelief.

An imperfect spirit, it is true, might reason in that way during his corporeal life, but when he is freed from his material body he thinks very differently, for he soon perceives that he has made a great mistake in his calculations, and this perception causes him to carry an opposite sentiment into his next incarnation. It is thus that progress is accomplished, and it is thus also that you have upon the earth some men who are farther advanced than others who have not yet acquired knowledge, but will be gradually acquired by them. It depends greatly upon each spirit to hasten his own advancement or to retard it indefinitely. The man who has an unsatisfactory position desires to change it as soon as possible. He who is convinced that the tribulations of the present life are the consequences of his own imperfections will seek to insure for himself a new existence of a less painful character, and this conviction will draw him away from the wrong road much more effectually than the threat of eternal flames, which he does not believe in. Man's spirit or soul influences his body, for the soul is everything, the physical body simply a house for its earthly habitation, a something that is subject to the physical laws of decomposition.

Nothing more.

A material illustration of the various degrees of purification of the soul is furnished by the juice of the grape. It contains the liquid called spirit of alcohol, but is weakened by the presence of various foreign elements which change its nature, so that it is only brought to a state of absolute purity after several distillations, at each of which it is cleared of some portion of its impurity. The still represents the corporeal body, into which the spirit or soul enters for its purification; the foreign elements represent the imperfections from which the perispirit is gradually freed, in proportion as the spirit approaches the state of relative perfection.