There are certain spirits who attach themselves to a particular person in order to protect and help him. These are what are termed the spirit brother, spirit protector or the good genius of a person, and is often spoken of as a guardian angel, or spirit protector of high degree. The mission of the spirit protector is the same as that of the father toward his child. It is their aim and desire to lead the object of their protection into the right road, to aid him with his counsels, to console him in his afflictions and sustain his courage under the trials of his earthly existence. This spirit protector is attached to a person from the moment of his birth to the time of his death, when this attachment is continued after death in spirit life and in even their next earthly existence, if this particular spirit or soul should become reincarnated or live on earth again at some future period. Every person's spirit protector is obliged to watch over him, because he has accepted the charge and duty, but the spirit brother or protector has the privilege of choosing his ward from among those who are sympathetic and congenial with him. It is many times that this duty is a pleasure, others it is a mission.

Once a spirit protector has attached himself to a given person he need not necessarily refrain from protecting another person, but he does so less exclusively.

A spirit protector sometimes abandons his ward when the latter persists in neglecting his counsels. He withdraws from him when he sees that his counsels are useless and that there is a stubborn determination to yield to the influence of inferior spirits, but he does not abandon them entirely and continues to make himself heard. It is not the spirit who quits the man, but the man who closes his soul against the spirit. As soon as the man calls him back the spirit returns to him.

If there be a doctrine that should win over the most incredulous by its charm and its beauty it is that of the existence of the spirit protectors or guardian angels. To think that you have always near you beings who are superior to you and who are always beside you to counsel you, to sustain you, to aid you in climbing the steep ascent of self-improvement, whose friendship is truer and more devoted than the most intimate union that you can contract upon the earth. Is not such an idea most consoling? Those good spirits are near you by the commands of God. It is He who has placed them beside you.

They are there for love of Him, and fulfill towards you a noble but laborious mission. They are with you wherever you may be; in the dungeon, in solitude, in the lazar-house, even in the haunts of debauchery. Nothing ever separates you from a true friend whom you cannot see, but whose gentle impulsions are felt, and whose wise monitions are heard in the innermost recesses of your heart.