And, in all cases, if you can show them, by your patience, that you are able to rise superior to their machinations they will cease to attack you, seeing that they gain nothing by so doing. Experience proves that imperfect spirits follow up their vengeance from one existence to another, and that we are thus made to expiate, sooner or later, the wrong we may have done to others. Know also, that it often depends on yourselves to avert misfortunes, or, at least, to attenuate them. God has given you intelligence in order that you may make use of it, and it is especially by so doing that you enable friendly spirits to aid you most effectually - viz., by suggesting useful ideas; for they only help those who help themselves: a truth implied in the words, "Seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." Besides, you must remember that what appears to you to be a misfortune is not always such; for the good which it is destined to work out is often never recognized by you, because you are too apt to think only of the present moment and of your own immediate satisfaction.

It is true that spirits can obtain gifts of fortune for a person and direct them to hidden and buried treasures, but after they have directed you and guided you in a manner that you become wealthy and independent and you fail to remember them or give thanks by burning certain fumigations and giving up certain secret invocations, and if this is not done your future demands will be refused, as you yourself would refuse the inconsiderate demands of a child, for even the great God and Creator of the Universe, who is a common Master of all mankind, will not answer your pleadings unless you deserve them. The above mentioned demands and favors are answered by both good and evil spirits, for the quality, both of the request and of the grant, depends on the intention by which they are prompted. But such acquiescence is more frequent on the part of spirits who desire to lead you astray, and who find an easy means of doing this through the material pleasures procured by wealth. Many obstacles which seem to be placed by fate in the way of our projects are sometimes thrown in our way by evil spirits and sometimes by good spirits, who know what is best for us in the end. Again they are attributable to our own bad management, judgment or decision.

Position and character and knowledge, especially of Occult and Spiritual things, have everything to do with our successes or failures, for if we persist in following a path which is not a right one we ultimately become our own evil genius, consequently we cannot attribute to spirits the disappointments that result from our own ignorance and mistakes. If we are fortunate we should certainly by deep meditation and prayer, both to God and the good spirits of the Astral Plane, thank them. However, if we neglect to do this our faith is that of the ungrateful. You may say that there are individuals living today on the earth plane who never pray or give thanks, but are fortunate in everything that they undertake, but my advice to you, and it is good, I as-sure you, is to wait until the end of their lives in the body, for they shall surely pay dearly for their temporary prosperity, which they do not deserve; for the more they have received and the more they have indulged themselves at the expense of their fellow beings the more they will have to answer for it. Spirits exert an action over the phenomena of nature and some act in one way while others are busy in another.

As an illustration, meditate to yourself on the myriads of animalculae that build up islands and archipelagoes in the midst of the sea; do you believe that there can be, in this process, no providential intention, and that this transformation of the surface of the globe is not necessary to the general harmony. Yet all this is accomplished by animals of the lowest degree in providing for their bodily wants and without any consciousness of their being instruments of God. In the same way spirits of the most rudimentary degrees are useful to the general whole; while preparing to live, and prior to their having the full consciousness of their action and free will, they are made to concur in the development of the various departments of nature, in the production of the phenomena of which they are the unwitting agents. They begin by executing the orders of their superiors; subsequently, when their intelligence is more developed, they command in their turn and direct the processes of the material world; still later again they are able to direct the things of the moral world.

It is thus that everything in nature is linked together, from the primitive atom to the archangel, who himself began at the atom; an admirable law of harmony which your mind is, as yet, too narrow to seize in its generality.

In the case of those who are killed in battle, as in all other cases of violent death, a spirit, during the first few moments, is in a state of bewilderment, and as though he were stunned. He does not know that he is dead and seems to be taking part in the action. It is only little by little that the reality of his situation becomes apparent to him. A soul, under such cirmcumstances, is never calm at the first moment; he may still be excited against his enemy and even pursue him, but when he has recovered his self-possession he sees that his animosity has no longer any motive. But he may nevertheless retain some traces of it for a longer or shorter period, according to his character. Very few deaths are altogether instantaneous. In most cases the spirit whose body has just been mortally struck is not aware of it for the moment; it is when he begins to come to himself that his spirit can be seen moving beside his corpse. This appears so natural that the sight of the dead body does not produce any disagreeable effect. All the life of the individual being concentrated in his spirit the latter alone attracts the attention of the spirits about him.

It is with him that they converse, to him that orders are given.