Sometimes You Just Need Someone With A Perispirit

- The Blessing of Having Spiritual Benefactors - 

On the day my husband and I were married, our wonderful pastor said something that has always stuck with me in more ways than one. There were many details that made that ceremony quite special, but one of them was the message she delivered. I appreciated that it was quite simple and meaningful. At one point, as she was speaking about the value of having that very special someone to go through this journey of life with, she mentioned that even when our faith in God is strong and we trust in God to get us through the difficult moments, it still just really helps to have someone “with skin on”.  You know, this is someone who you can see right there before your eyes, who can converse with you, hold you in his or her arms, and travel with you through the ups and downs of life.  I loved that idea, and I still do.

Fast forward to today. While I still recall and cherish those words, they remind me of how grateful I feel to also know about and appreciate the invisible, spiritual benefactors that we have alongside us, something I only became aware of through my studies of Spiritism. By these spiritual companions, I refer to loving discarnate beings (spirits, like ourselves, with the spiritual body called the "perispirit"* but not presently incarnated in a physical body). Accompanying us even when we don’t know they're there, they help us in so many ways - inspiring us (and others in our lives) with new and uplifting ideas, bringing us comfort and encouragement when we are down, giving us courage when we are afraid, and so much more.

[*Note: For those interested, you can read more about the perispirit here].

Even when we have friends and loved ones whom we can count on, there are times when there is not someone immediately available in a given moment, or when, for whatever reason, we do not want to share our thoughts or feelings with another incarnate person. Even in those moments, we are not without support from another realm. When we are feeling desperation, anguish, anger, sadness, fear, you name it, we have invisible friends and loved ones by our side.

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This kind of reassuring consolation is poignantly captured in the answer given to Question 495 of “The Spirits Book”, where we are told:

“Isn’t it a very consoling idea to know that you always have at your side beings who are more evolved than you, who are always there to counsel, sustain, and aid you in scaling the rugged mountain of the good, who are more reliable and devoted friends than the most intimate connections that may be contracted on earth? These beings are there at God’s orders. It was God who has placed them at your side; they are there out of love for God and they fulfill a beautiful but laborious mission alongside you. Wherever you may be, your angel will be there with you: in prison, in the hospital, in dens of iniquity, in solitude; nothing separates you from that friend whom you cannot see, but from whom your soul nonetheless receives the gentlest impulses and hears the wisest counsels.”1

Spiritism teaches us a great deal about our invisible benefactors. These include our personal spiritual mentors, loved ones who have passed on before us but who remain connected to us by way of thoughts and sentiments, and even “strangers” who wish to help us.

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I’ll admit that even when I pray to God, I’m not sure I could do so with the same degree of faith that I do now if I did not have the understanding and vision of the spiritual world that I have acquired through Spiritism. This is one reason why I so cherish and so enthusiastically recommend Spiritist books and novels that help us to see what the interactions between the spiritual and material realms look like in action.

It is simply so reassuring to know that we are never alone. And I, for one, am truly grateful.

Thank you for reading!

Blessings to all, today and always
Heather 


1 See question and answer #495 in The Spirits’ Book by Allan Kardec [original title in French: Le Livre des Espirits, published in 1857 with 2nd edition in 1860], translation © 2006 by the International Spiritist Council, authorized edition printed in 2010 by Edicei of America.