“O visitant of the Resort of spirits (who are) sincere in...”
O visitant of the Resort[69] of spirits (who are) sincere in the Religion of God!
Blessed is the mother who bore thee and the breast whose milk suckled thee and the bosom wherein thou wert nurtured, because thou hast apprehended the Day of the Lord, hast prepared thyself to enter in unto His kingdom, hast set thy face singly toward His Gracious Countenance, hast believed in the Manifest Light, hast rejoiced in the Abundant Grace, hast responded to the Voice of thy Lord with a sincere and beating heart and hast presented thyself from those regions at the Glorious Threshold and hast marked thy forehead with the pure, holy, fragrant Tomb[70], the breaths of whose sanctity are spread abroad throughout the lands as fragrant musk is diffused unto the distant place! Then thank thy Lord, the Merciful, the Clement, for this great salvation (or fruition, achievement, or attainment) and exceeding grace!
Now as to what thou askest concerning the spirit and its “return” to this world of humanity and this elemental space: Know that spirit in general is divided into five sorts—the vegetable spirit, the animal spirit, the human spirit, the spirit of faith, and the divine spirit of sanctity.
The vegetable spirit is the virtue augmentative, or growing or vegetative faculty, which results from the admixture of the simple elements, with the co-operation of water, air and heat.
The animal spirit is the virtue perceptive resulting from the admixture and absorption of the vital elements generated in the heart, which apprehend sense impressions.
The human spirit consists of the rational, or logical, reasoning faculty, which apprehends general ideas and things intelligible and perceptible.
Now these “spirits” are not reckoned as Spirit in the terminology of the Scriptures and the usage of the people of the Truth, inasmuch as the laws governing them are as the laws which govern all phenomenal being (i.e., all existences belonging to the phenomenal or material universe, called “the world of generation and corruption”), in respect to generation, corruption, production, change and reversion, as is clearly indicated in the Gospel where it says: “Let the dead bury their dead;” “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit”; inasmuch as he who would bury these dead was alive with the vegetative, animal and rational human soul, yet did Christ—to whom be glory! —declare such dead and devoid of life, in that this person was devoid of the Spirit of Faith, which is of the Kingdom of God.
In brief, for these three spirits there is no restitution or “return,” but they are subordinate to reversions and production and corruption.