Browse:Two Spirits: Good and Bad (Volume 1, entries 20–21)
Two Spirits: Good and Bad
Volume 1, entries 20–21. Source context: SPIRITS → GHOSTLORE. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 20
I've seen two spirits myself because I have asked God. When - I was going to church one Sunday night when something says to me, a spirit, "You haven't got something to tell them people. Are you going to get up there before all them people and tell that little thing? Why they'll all laugh at you." I didn't get up that night. I went back home and said to the Lord, "Lord, if I ain't right, make me right; and if I is right, show me that I am right." He did show me that I was right and I've been right ever since. [The informant, a grown girl in Georgia when Sherman marched to the sea, here acknowledges two spirits within - one urging evil thoughts and actions, the other prompting their opposites. While going to church her good spirit said to her evil spirit, "Better test that testimony you are about to give."
The informant recounts their own appeal to God/the Lord; the editor's later explanation of two spirits remains separate.
Entry 21
A good spirit, it leaves the body, that is why the body becomes helpless. It cannot exist any longer. It goes to decomposition because the spirit is gone. The life is gone out of it. But still the spirit never dies. It goes to its immediate loved ones on earth, it overlooks them, it hovers around them. In my belief, what I have really had experience of, we are continually being enveloped and surrounded by the spirits of our loved ones who have gone before; especially until their spirits have been reincarnated and born in some child and come back to the world in the flesh again. The reincarnation comes earlier in some and late in others. Sometimes they are reincarnated in babies who are cut off. That spirit comes right back and goes again to be on earth until it is reincarnated. That is the good spirit. The evil spirit, it is abroad in the world. That is the spirit of those who haven't lived their lives consistent with right living. Their spirits are abroad and still doing Work they were engaged in, either frightening or bringing about disorder, just like they was when in the body, until they are reincarnated. They are reincarnated. Usually it comes out in the child. The child is very fretful. Usually, if it goes to any age, it goes into crime. That is the people that chose the evil way in life. When man was created he was created in the image of God. When he fell, that is in the Garden of Eden. Then when he was redeemed, he has since that time been left as a free agent to chose which he will do, right or wrong. That is the choice given us by the Son of God who died for us that we might be redeemed under the curse of the broken Law. Since then, we have this privilege of chosing for ourselves and being left as a free agent. Then this is the point where the evil and the good spirit exist. This is the origination of the good spirit and the evil. The good is permanent and the evil spirit is a choice of man. You know how long Christ stayed on the Cross, three days. It is supposed that everybody when they die their spirit still lingers in their body and about their personalities for three days until they are planted in the ground. Then it is around and about until the changes come. When the spirit comes out of your body your body really becomes like neutral, you can't move or do anything; you never will again. The mind of the person does not die. That is the spirit after all. That is the soul so to speak. It lingers around and it really sees what's being done until its visit is complete. The person who is responsible for the arrange- ment of the final affairs will dream about them. Often you will be half asleep and that person will appear to you and give you some gestures, satisfactory or dissatisfactory. I know that by experience.