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The Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1860 > October
October
Mr. Allan Kardec’s response to the Gazette de LyonThe Gazette de Lyon published the article below, in its August 2nd,
1860 edition, with the title “A session of the spiritists”, to which Mr.
Allan Kardec gave the answer that follows, unfortunately not yet published
by that paper.
“The so called spiritists are certain hallucinatory people who broke
apart from every religious belief of their time and country, and yet pretend
to be in communication with the spirits. Born out of the turning
tables, Spiritism is nothing more than one out of a thousand pathological
states in which the human brain may fall into, when allowed to be carried
away by the other thousand and one aberrations that the antiquity,
the middle ages and the current times have given way too. Sensibly condemned
by the Catholic Church, all those mysterious studies, away from
the positive facts, have no other result than the production of madness in
all those who get involved with it, supposing that this state of madness has
not yet become chronic in the brains of the adepts, a fact that is far from
being demonstrated.”
“The spiritists have a periodical in Paris and it is enough to read
some of its contents to be assured that we are not exaggerating. The
clumsiness of the questions addressed to the evoked spirits is only
matched by the clumsiness of their answers, and in good faith we can tell them that it is not worth it to come back from the other world to
say so many silly things.”
“And finally, this new madness, renewed from the ancient times, is
looming over our town. Lyon has spiritists and it is in the house of simple
weavers that the spirits come to communicate.”
“Throphonius’ cave is located in a weaver’s workshop; the high priest
of the place is a silk weaver and the prophetess is his wife; the followers are
generally workers, since they don’t receive well those who denounce much
intelligence from their looks; the spirits only care to manifest to the simple
ones. That is the likely cause of our admission there.”
“Invited to attend one of the weekly sessions of the spiritists of Lyon,
we got to the workshop where there were four looms, one of them idle.
There, among the four gallows25, the prophetess sat in front of a square
table where there was a notebook and a goose feather pen. Notice that I said a
goose feather pen and not a metallic pen because metals horrify the spirits. “
“Twenty five people, including this server of yours, formed a circle
around the table. After a brief speech given by the high priest about the
nature of the spirits, everything done in a style that may enchant the spirits,
due to its… simplicity, the questions began.”
“A young man approaches and asks the prophetess why, eight days before
the battles, in Crimea or Italy, he was always called somewhere else?”
“The inspired (that is how they call her) takes the pen and moves it
over the paper where she sketches cabalistic signs, and then pronounces
this formula: - Lord, allow us the grace of learning about this. Then she
adds: - I read the following answer: - You are destined to live to teach and
enlighten your brothers.”
“That is evidently an influential adept that they want to entice to the
cause. Besides, he had been a soldier and perhaps a Zouave. Let us not
create difficulties and proceed.”
“Another young man approaches and asks if the spirit of his father followed
him and protected him during combats. The answer: Yes.”
“We took the man aside and asked him how long his father had been
dead. – My father is not dead, he said.”
“Then an old man approaches and asks: - pay attention to the subtleness
of the question, by imitation of the former Tarquinius: - if what
he thinks is the reason why his father had given him the name John.
Answer: - Yes.”
“An old soldier of the first Empire asks if the spirits of the soldiers of
the old empire haven’t followed our young soldiers to Crimea and Italy.
Answer: Yes.”
“Then follows a superstitious question, framed by a young lady: Why
is Friday an ill-fated day? The answer was given promptly and certainly
deserves attention for several historical obscurities that it eliminates. The
inspired answer: - Because Moses, Salomon and Jesus died on that day.”
“A young worker form Lyon, based on his accent, wants to learn about
a marvelous fact. One night, he said, my mother felt a face touching hers.
She wakes both, my father and I up. We searched everywhere and found
nothing. Suddenly, one of our looms starts moving. We approached and
it stopped. Another one starts moving on the other side of the workshop.
We were scared to death and it got worse when we saw them all working
simultaneously, and saw nobody. It is your grandfather, responded the
prophetess. He came to ask for prayers.”
“The young man responded with an air that it would be easy for
him to enter the sanctuary: That is true. Poor old man! He was promised
Church masses which never happened.”
“Another worker asks why the pointer of his scale sometimes moves
by itself. The inspired responds: - It is a rapping spirit that produces the
phenomenon.”
“Very well, said the worker. But I stopped the prodigy by placing a
mass of lead on the lighter plate. – It is very simple, the foreteller continued,
the spirits are afraid of lead due to the mirage.”
“All wanted an explanation about the word mirage. The power of the
prophetess stops there.”
“God does not wish to explain that, not even to me.”
“It was a force major, before which everyone bowed.”
“Then the high priest, foreseeing serious internal objections, took the
word and said:”
“We must abstain from this question, ladies and gentlemen, since we
would be dragged to other scientific questions that we cannot solve.”
“At this point in time the questions were plenty and all over the place.”
“If the signs that appear in the skies, for some time now (the comets!),
are those mentioned in the Apocalypse.” She responds: Yes and this world
will no longer exist in one hundred and forty years.”
“Why has Jesus said that there will always be poor people? Answer:
Jesus was talking about the poor of spirit. For these God has just prepared
a special world.”
“We will not point out the whole importance of such an answer. Who
cannot understand how happy our descendants will be when they no longer
have to worry about any contact with those poor of spirit? As for the
others, the prophetess’s answer fortunately gives us indication that her
reign is over. Good news to the economists who go sleepless to solve the
poverty issue.”
“To finalize, a forty-five-year old lady approaches and asks if her spirit
has already reincarnated and how often? You, like me, would be very embarrassed
to answer that but the spirits respond to everything. Yes, the
goose pen answered, it was three times: the first as a natural daughter of
a respectable Russian princess (this word respectable, near the preceding
word, intrigues me); the second as the natural daughter of a ragman from
Bohemia, and the third she knows…”
“We hope that this sample of a session of the spiritists of Lyon will
be suffice to demonstrate that the spirits of Lyon are as much worthy as
those of Paris.”
“However, here is the question: wouldn’t it be good to stop the poor
mad people from becoming even crazier?”
“In former times the Church was powerful enough to silence similar
diversions. It was perhaps too harsh, it is true, but it stopped evil.
Nowadays, since the religious authority is powerless and common sense does not have sufficient power to do justice to such hallucinations,
shouldn’t the established authority intervene in such a case, putting an
end to practices whose least effect is to ridicule those involved?”
C.M
Mr. Allan Kardec’s answer to Mr. Editor of the Gazette de Lyon
Sir,
We received an article signed by C.M., published in the Gazette de Lyon on August 2nd, 1860 under the title “A session of the spiritists”. In that article, although I was not directly attacked, I am so in the person of all those who share my convictions. However, this would mean nothing if your words did not tend to deceive the public opinion about the principles and consequences of the spiritist beliefs, casting ridicule and criticism upon those who profess these beliefs and that you point to the legal courts. Please allow me some corrections about it, while I count on your impartiality with the hopes that you will publish them since you thought adequate to publish the attack in the first place.
You should not think Sir that this has the objective of convincing you or to respond to aggression with aggression. Whatever the reasons that may impede you from sharing our way of seeing things I don’t intend to look for them and I do respect them, if they are sincere. I only ask for reciprocity that is a normal practice among civilized people. With respect to unfriendly name-calling, I don’t have the habit of doing that.
Had you seriously discussed the principles of Spiritism; had you opposed any arguments, good or bad, I could have responded. However, your whole argumentation is limited to classify us as ignorant people; and that is not up to me to discuss if you are right or wrong since pointing out everything that is inaccurate in your assertions would be total personalism.
It is not good enough to tell those who don’t think like us that they are a bunch of fools; anybody can do that. It is necessary to show them that they are wrong. But how can it be done? How to get into the heart of the issue if we don’t know the first word about it? Well, I believe that this is your situation otherwise you would have used better weapons than the banal accusation of stupidity. When you have given the necessary moral time to the serious study of Spiritism – and I warn you that one needs a lot of time – when you have learned everything that can substantiate your opinion, doing an in-depth analysis of all questions; when you have witnessed thousands of experiments, as a mindful and impartial observer, your criticism will then bear some value. Until then it is no more than an individual opinion, based on nothing and it can expose you to be caught off-guard later, accused of ignorance. The beginning of your article is a demonstration of that. Here is what you say: “The so called spiritists are certain hallucinatory people who broke away from every religious belief of their time and country…” Do you know Sir that this is a very serious accusation, even more so for being false and a slanderous? Spiritism is entirely based on the dogma of existence of the soul, in its survival to the body, in its individuality after death, immortality and in the future penalties and rewards. Spiritism does not sanction those truths by theory. Its objective is to patently demonstrate them. That is why so many people who believed nothing have been redirected to the religious ideas. The whole moral of Spiritism is simply the development of Christ’s maxims: the practices of charity, pay evil with good, to be indulgent to one’s neighbors, forgive the enemies; in a word, to act towards the others as we wished they would do towards us. Would you then find these ideas so stupid? Have they broken down every religious belief? No, you will say, but then it is enough to be a Catholic to have those ideas. To have them, maybe, but to practice them is something else, as it seems. Is it very Christian of you, catholic, to insult courageous people who have never done any harm to you, that you don’t even know and that trusted you enough to welcome you in their ambient. Let us suppose that they are wrong. Will it be through name-calling and by bothering them that you will drive them back?
Your article contains another factual mistake that once again demonstrates your ignorance in matters of Spiritism. You say that the “followers are generally workers”. You should then know Sir, to your own benefit, that from the current number of five to six million spiritists, almost all of them belong to the most educated classes of society; among its fervent members, Spiritism counts on doctors in all countries, lawyers, judges, scholars, civil servants of high echelons, officers of all ranks, artists, scientists, businessmen, etc., people that you lightheartedly classify as ignorant. Let us nevertheless get over it. Do the words insult and calumny seem too harsh to you? Let us see.
Have you given enough thought to your words when, after saying that the followers are generally workers, you added with respect to the gatherings of Lyon: “since they don’t receive well those who denounce much intelligence from their looks; the spirits only care to manifest to the simple ones. That is the likely cause of our admission there”. And later you say: “After a brief speech given by the high priest about the nature of the spirits, everything done in a style that may enchant the spirits, due to its… simplicity, the questions began.” I don’t remember the mockery related to the goose pen that according to you the medium used, and other also very witty things. I speak more seriously. I will say only this: your eyes and ears served you very badly because the medium that you speak of does not use a goose pen and both the form and the content of most questions and answers mentioned in the article are pure invention. Those are then small calumnies through which you intended to make your talent shine.
Thus, in your opinion, to be admitted to such worker’s sessions one needs to be a worker, that is, lacking common sense, and you were introduced there because you were certainly taken by a fool. Had they assessed you with sufficient spirit to invent things that don’t exist, it is very likely that they would have shut the door on you.
Have you thought, Sir, that you don’t only attack the spiritists but the whole working class, and in particular that of Lyon? Have you forgotten that these are the very workers, the weavers as you say with contempt, that make your city prosper through the industry? Weren’t those worthless creatures the workers that produced Jacquard? Where have the manufacturers come from, in good number, those who acquired fortune out of their own work, order and savings? Isn’t that an insult to their work comparing their looms to shameful gallows? You ridiculed their language; do you forget that their skill is not that of giving academic speeches? Does one need a sophisticated style to say what is in their mind? Your words are not only frivolous, Sir, and I used this word for consideration. Your words are insensible. If God has never reserved you terrible days, pray for those who feel offended don’t remember that. The spiritists will forget because that is what charity commands them. You must then wish that all of them are, since they drink out of the fountain of Spiritism, the principles of social order, respect to property and religious feelings.
Do you know what the Lyon workers do, those that you treat with so much disdain? Instead of going to get high in the cabarets or being fed by subversive and chimerical doctrines, in that workshop that you contemptuously compare to the cave of Throphonius, amidst those looms of four gallows, they think of God. I have seen them during my staying here. I talked to them and I am convinced of the following: Many among them used to curse their tough work; today, they accept it with Christian resignation, as a trial. Many were envious and jealous of the luck of the wealthy ones; today they know that richness is a trial still more slippery than misery and that the unfortunate person that suffers and does not yield to temptation is the true elected of God. They know that true happiness is not in the superfluous and that those who are called the happy ones in this world also endure cruel anguishes, not appeased by the gold. Many of them laughed at the prayer; today they pray and return to the forgotten path of church, because they did not believe in anything before and now they do. Several would have succumbed in despair; now that they know the fate of those who voluntarily abbreviate their lives, now they yield to God’s will since they know that they have a soul which was uncertain before. Finally, because they know that their passage on Earth is transient and that God’s justice fails no one.
There you have, Sir, what those ignorant people know, as you call them know. They may perhaps express themselves in a ridicule language, trivial to the eyes of a smart man like you, but to the eyes of God the merit is in the heart and not in the elegance of the phrases.
In another point you say: “In former times the Church was powerful enough to silence similar diversions. It was perhaps too harsh, it is true, but it stopped evil. Nowadays, since the religious authority is powerless and common sense does not have sufficient power to do justice to such hallucinations, shouldn’t the established authority intervene …etc.?” In fact, the Church used to burn people at the stake. It is a real shame that we no longer have the stakes. Oh! Disgraceful effects of the progress of the ideas!
I don’t have the habit of responding to diatribes. If it were only about me I would not have said anything. However, since it is related to a belief that makes me proud of professing it because it is an eminently Christian belief, you try to ridicule hard working and honest people just because they are illiterate, forgetting that Jesus was a worker. You provoke them with offensive words; promote the rigor of the law and the religious authorities against them when they are a peaceful people that understand the emptiness of utopias that move them and that have scared you. I had to take their defense, keeping up with the duties imposed by charity, telling them that if others don’t do their duty this is not a reason for them to stay away from theirs.
That is, Sir, the advice that I give you; these are also the advice of the spirits who are silly enough to address simple and ignorant people and not you. It is perhaps because they know that they are going to be better understood. By the way, could you tell me why has Jesus chosen his apostles among the people and not among the scholars? It is certainly because in those days there was no reporter to tell him what to do.
You will certainly say that your criticism only affects the belief in the spirits and their manifestations and not the sacred principles of religion. I am sure about it. Why then saying that the spiritists broke away from every religious principle? The fact is that you don’t know about their basis. Nevertheless, you saw there a person praying with heart and you, a Catholic, you laughed at a person in prayer!
You probably don’t know what that the spirits are either? The spirits are only the souls of those who had lived. Souls and spirits are one and the same thing. Thus, by denying the existence of the spirits you are also denying the soul. Admitting the soul, its survival and its individuality is the same as admitting the spirits. The whole question then is to know if the soul can manifest to the living ones, after death. The sacred books and the priests of the Church have acknowledged that. If the spiritists are wrong so are those authorities. In order to prove it it is necessary to demonstrate, not by a simple denial, but through imperious reasons:
1. That the thoughtful being existing in us during this life can no longer think after death;
2. That if the being thinks it must no longer think of the
loved ones;
3. That if the being thinks of the loved ones, it must no
longer wish to communicate with them;
4. That if the being can be everywhere, it cannot be around
us;
5. That if the being is around us, it cannot communicate
with us.
If you only knew the condition of the spirits, their nature, and
if I can say so, their physiological organization as they describe
it to us, and as the observation confirms, you would know that
the spirit and the soul, as the only and the same thing, the spirit
lacks only the body that is left behind at death, keeping however
an ethereal body that is a fluidic body to the spirit, with whose
support the spirit may, under certain conditions, become visible.
That is the case of the apparitions that is perfectly admitted by
the Church itself, since it uses some of them as an article of faith.
Given the foundation above, I will add the following propositions
to the previous ones, asking you to prove them:
6. That the spirit cannot act upon inert matter through its
fluidic wrapping;
7. That if it can act upon inert matter, it cannot act upon an
animated being;
8. That if it can act upon an animated being, it cannot drive
their hand and write;
9. That if it can make someone write, it cannot respond to
their questions and transmit their thoughts.
When you have demonstrated that everything above is impossible,
by the use of so blatant reasoning as those used by Galileo when demonstrating that it is not the Sun that goes around Earth,
then your opinion shall be taken into account.
You will certainly object that the spirits sometimes say absurd
things in their communications. That is very true; and they
do more than that: they sometimes say rude and insolent things.
This is because when the spirit leaves the body it does not leave
immediately behind all of its imperfections. It is then likely that
those who say ridiculous things as spirits also did the same when
they were among us. That is why we don’t blindly accept everything
that comes from the spirit more than we do to what comes
from human beings.
However, I stop here since I don’t intend to give a lecture. It
was enough for me to demonstrate that you spoke about Spiritism
without having any knowledge about it.
Respectfully yours,
Allan Kardec
Banquet Offered to Mr. Allan Kardec by the Spiritists of Lyon
Answer given by Mr Allan KardecLadies and gentlemen, and all of you, my dear and good brothers in Spiritism:
The warm and benevolent welcome that I received from you, since my arrival, would be enough to make me proud, if I did not understand that such testimonies are addressed much less to the person than to Spiritism, of which I am no more than one of the most humble servers. It is the consecration of a principle and I feel doubly happy, for this principle must one day ensure human’s happiness and the appeasement of society, when it is well understood and even better when it is practiced. Its adversaries only combat it because they do not understand it. It is up to us; it is up to the true spiritists, to those who see in Spiritism something more than experiments more or less curious, making it understood and propagating it, preaching by actions as much as by words. The Spirits’ Book resulted in the demonstration of its philosophical reach. If this book has any merit it would be presumptuous of me to be proud of it because the Doctrine that it contains is not my creation. The honor for the good that it has done is due to the wise spirits that have dictated it and that used me as their server. I can then hear the praise without harming my modesty and without exalting my self-esteem. Had I wished to prevail from that I would certainly have claimed its conception, instead of having it attributed to the spirits; and If there is any doubt about the superiority of those who cooperated, one just needs to take into account the influence that it has exerted in such a short time, only by the power of logic, and without any of the material means proper to super excite curiosity.
Nonetheless, ladies and gentlemen, the warmth of your reception shall be a powerful encouragement to me in my laborious undertaking, which I have turned into the reason of my life, because it gives me the consoling assurance that the good hearted individuals are no longer so rare in this materialistic century, as people like to proclaim it.
The feelings that such benevolent testimonies make germinate in me are better understood than expressed; and what gives them a priceless value to my eyes is that they are not driven by any personal consideration. I do thank you from the bottom of my heart, in the name of Spiritism, especially on behalf of the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, that shall be happy for your kind demonstrations of sympathy, and proud for having such a great number of good and loyal comrades in Lyon. Allow me to cover in a few words the impressions I take from my brief passage among you.
The first thing that caught my attention was the number of followers. I already knew that Lyon had a large number but I was far from suspecting that it was so significant, already in the hundreds, and soon I hope will be countless. But if Lyon is distinguished for the number it is not less for the quality, which is even better. I have only met sincere spiritists, all over the place, those who understand the Doctrine in its true point of view. There are, ladies and gentlemen, three categories of adepts: the first ones limit themselves to the belief in the manifestations, seeking the phenomena before anything else. Spiritism for those is just a series of more or less interesting facts. The second group sees more than facts. They understand its philosophical reach; admire the moral that result from it but do not practice it. For them, Christian charity is a beautiful maxim, and that is all. Finally, the third group is not satisfied by the admiration of the moral: they practice it and accept all of its consequences. Well convinced that the earthly life is a transient trial, try to take advantage of these short intervals to march in the path of progress delineated by the spirits, struggling to do the good deeds and to repress their bad inclinations. Their relationships are always safe because their convictions keep them away from any evil thought. Charity is their rule of conduct in everything. These are the true spiritists, or better, the Christian spiritists.
Well, ladies and gentlemen! I am glad to tell you that I have not found here any adept of the first category. I have not seen anywhere people concerned with Spiritism for mere curiosity. I have not seen anywhere people using the communications for futile issues. The objective is serious and the intentions honest everywhere. Based on what I see and from what I hear, there are many in the third category. Thus, honor to the spiritists of Lyon, for having entered so widely into this progressive avenue, without which Spiritism would be aimless. Such example shall not be lost and will have its consequences. It was not without reason, I see it well, that the other day the spirits responded, through one of our most dedicated mediums, although one of the most obscure, when I manifested my surprise to them: “Why are you surprised? Lyon was the city of the martyrs. Faith is alive here. It shall give apostles to Spiritism. If Paris is the brain, Lyon shall be the heart.” The coincidence between this answer and the message that was just given before in Mr. Guillaume’s speech, is something very meaningful.
The latest speed of propagation of Spiritism, despite the still present opposition, or perhaps because of that opposition, can give us an insight into the future. Let us then sensibly avoid everything that may produce an unpleasant impression. Let us avoid not the loss of a granted cause, but to delay its development.
Let us follow the advice of the wise spirits on this, and let us not forget that many results have been compromised in the world for excess of precipitation. Let us not forget either that our enemies from the other world, as those from this, may try to drag us through a dangerous path.
You have asked me to give you some advice and to me it is a pleasure to give you those that can be suggested by experience. They shall never be more than a personal opinion that I invite you to analyze with your wisdom, making the use that may seem more adequate to you since I do not have the pretension of imposing myself as an absolute judge. You intendedto form a large society. I have already given you my thoughts on that and I will summarize them here.
It is a fact that the best communications are obtained in meetings with a small number of people, where there is harmony and communion of feelings. Well then, the larger the number the more difficult it is to obtain such homogeneity. Since it is impossible that in the beginning of a science, still so new, there would not be some divergences in the way of assessing certain things, from that divergence there would infallibly be a discomfort which could lead to disunion. The small groups, on the contrary, will always be more homogeneous. In the small groups everyone knows everyone better; it is a more family-like and may admit with better criteria those who are desired. As everybody definitely tends to the same objective they can get along perfectly well and will do even more so due to the absence of that unstoppable susceptibility, incompatible with the quietness and concentration of the spirit. The bad spirits that always try to spread disharmony, irritating susceptibilities, will always have less domination in a small group when compared to a large and heterogeneous group. In short, the unity of vision and feeling will be easier to establish there. The multiplicity of groups has another advantage: the reception of a much larger variety of communications, by the diversity of skills of the mediums. These partial sessions should share their production with the other small groups, each group separately, and everyone will then take advantage of the mutual works. As a matter of fact, there will come a time when the number of attendees will no longer fit a unique session, and the group will have to break by the force of things. That is why it would be better to do now what will have to be done later.
From the point of view of propaganda, there is no doubt that the novice may collect better elements of conviction in the intimacy rather than in the large meetings. Hence there are two reasons to prefer the small groups that can be multiplied to the infinity. Well, twenty groups of ten persons, for example, will unquestionably obtain more and make more proselytes than a single session of two hundred people.
I mentioned, not long ago, the divergences that may arise and I said that they should not create obstacles to the perfect understanding between the centers. In fact, those divergences can only occur in the details and not in the broader picture. The objective is the same: the moral betterment; the means is the same: the teachings given by the spirits. If such teachings were contradictory; if one had evidently to be false and the other true, notice that this could not alter the objective which is to lead the individual towards the good path, for his greater present and future happiness.
Now, good cannot have double standards. However, from a scientific or dogmatic point of view, it is useful, or at least interesting, to know who is right and who is wrong. Then! You have an infallible criterion to evaluate it, be it some simple details or radically divergent systems. This does not apply to the spiritist systems only but to every philosophical system.
First, analyze which one is more logical, which one better corresponds to your expectations, which one can achieve the objective in a better way. The truer will evidently be the one that explains better, that gives better reasons for everything. If a single fact can be opposed to a system, contradicting its theory, it means that the theory is either false or incomplete. Then, analyze the practical results of each system. The truth must be on the side of the one that produces the greater good; that exerts a healthier influence; that produces more good and virtuous people; that stimulates the good deeds based on the purest and most rational motives. Happiness is the constant objective aspired by the human being. Truth will be on the side that yields greater moral satisfaction; In short, that makes people happier.
Considering that the teachings come from the spirits, the multiple groups, as with the individuals, are under the influence of certain spirits who preside over their works, or direct them morally. If those spirits are not in agreement the question will be which ones are more trustworthy. It will evidently be the one whose theory cannot raise serious objection; in short, the one that in all points gives more proof of superiority. If everything that is taught is good, the name taken by the spirit is irrelevant. In that sense, the issue of identity is absolutely secondary. If, under a respectable name, the teaching fails in its essential qualities, you can definitely conclude that the name is apocryphal and an impostor or a mocking spirit is using it. General rule: the name is never a guarantee. The only, the true guarantee is the superiority of thought and the way it is expressed. The deceiving spirits may imitate everything, everything, except true wisdom and true feeling.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is not my intention here to give you a course in Spiritism, and I will perhaps abuse your patience with such details. However, I cannot avoid adding a few more words. It frequently happens that in order to have certain utopias accepted, the spirits impersonate a false wisdom, trying to impose them through the utilization of an arsenal of technical words, trying to fascinate those who easily believe in anything. They have still an even more efficient way that is the presentation of false virtues. Supported by great words like charity, fraternity, and humility, they expect to obtain free access to the grossest absurd; and that is what happens often when one is not forewarned. Hence, we must not be led by the appearances from the part of the spirits as much as human beings. Now, I do confess that this is one of the greatest difficulties. However, it has never been said that Spiritism is an easy science. It has its hurdles that can only be avoided by experience. To avoid falling in the trap it is necessary, from starters, to be guarded against blinding enthusiasm and pride that leads certain mediums to believe that they are the only interpreters of truth. One needs to examine everything cold-bloodedly, weigh-in everything, control everything, and if one’s own assessment is suspicious, which it is sometimes sensible, it is then necessary to report to others, following the proverb that four eyes see more than two. A false self-esteem or an obsession may singly push a notoriously false idea, which is repelled by everyone’s common sense.
Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t ignore the fact that I have many enemies here. Although it may stun you there is nothing truer. Yes, there are people here who hear me with rage; not among you, thank God, where I expect to have friends only. I refer to the deceiving spirits who don’t want me to provide you with the means of unmasking them, since I uncover their tricks, putting you on guard, subtracting from them the domination they could exert upon you. With that respect, ladies and gentlemen, it would be a mistake to imagine that such domination is exerted upon the mediums only. Rest assured that the spirits act incessantly upon us, since they are everywhere, and without our knowledge, mediums or not, spiritists or not. Mediumship does not attract them; on the contrary, it provides the means of knowing the enemy that is always betrayed. Always, listen well, and that the only abuse is to those who allow themselves to be abused.
That, ladies and gentlemen, brings me to complete my thought about what I have just said regarding the dissidences that could take place among several groups, given the diversity of the teachings. I told you that despite some divergences, they should get along and must get along well, as long as they are true spiritists. I gave you the means of controlling the value of the communications, which is how the kind of influence exerted on each one may be appreciated. Given that every good influence comes from a good spirit; that everything that is bad comes from a bad source; that the evil spirits are the enemies of union and concord, the group that is assisted by a bad spirit will be the one to throw the stones on the other and will not reach out to them. As for myself, ladies and gentlemen, I see you all as my brothers and sisters, both with the truth and in error. However I declare out loud that I will be wholeheartedly with those who show more charity and abnegation. If any of you, God forbid, had any feelings of hatred, envy or jealousy I would be sorry for you because you would be under a bad influence and I would rather have those bad thoughts coming to you from a strange spirit than from your own heart. And that would only make me suspicious of the truthfulness of the communications received by you, considering that a truly good spirit will only suggest good feelings.
I will finish this speech, ladies and gentlemen, too long already, with a few considerations about the causes that must ensure the future of Spiritism. You all understand, from what you have before your eyes and from your own feelings, that on a future day Spiritism must exert a huge influence onto the social fabric. However, it is still far away from the day when such influence will be generalized, no doubt. Generations are needed so that man can dispose of the old man. However, since now and if good cannot be generalized, it is already individual, and because that good is effective, the doctrine that entails it is so easily accepted. I will even say that it is enthusiastically accepted, by many. In fact, and abstraction made of its rationality, which philosophy is more capable of liberating human beings from the earthly bonds, elevating their soul to infinity? Which one can give them a more just, more logical idea, supported by patent proofs, about their nature and destiny? May its adversaries replace it by something better; by a more consoling doctrine, better accommodated to reason; by a more cheerful thought than knowing that our dead loved ones remain close to us, see us, hear us, speak to us and give us advice; that gives a more legitimate reason for resignation; that lessens the fear of death even further; that entails more calmness during life’s trials; that replaces, finally, that smooth quietness that one feels by saying: I feel better. Spiritism will lower its weapons before any doctrine which can do all that better.
Hence, Spiritism makes people sovereignly happy. With Spiritism there is no more isolation or despair. It has already spared many faults, impeded several crimes, given peace to many families, and corrected many deviations. How shall that be then when all people are fed by such ideas! Because they will strengthen through reason and will no longer relegate their soul. Human beings want happiness; Spiritism gives that; they will embrace Spiritism. Is Spiritism annihilation wanted? Then, give human beings a better source of happiness and hope. That is as far as the individuals are concerned.
There are two other forces that may have feared Spiritism’s arrival: the civil and the religious authorities. Why is that so? It is because Spiritism is unknown to them. Today the Church begins to see that it will find in Spiritism a powerful weapon against incredulity; the logical solution to several embarrassing dogmas, and finally, that it brings back a good number of stray sheep to their Christian duties.
The civil authority, on the other hand, starts to see proofs of its beneficial influence upon the working classes to which this doctrine, through conviction, brings ideas of order, the respect to property and clarifies about the emptiness of the utopias. Witnessing almost miraculous moral metamorphoses, it shall soon see in the propagation of these ideas a more useful food for thought than the joys of the cabaret or the turmoil of public squares, and consequently a safeguard to society. Thus, people, Church and power envisaging one day in Spiritism a barrier against the brutality of passions, a guarantee to public order and tranquility, a return to the extinguishing of religious ideas, its obstruction will be in no one’s interest. On the contrary, each part will seek a support in Spiritism. As a matter of fact, who can stop the current of this river of ideas that already flows its benevolent waters in the five continents?
These are, my dear comrades, the considerations that I wanted to bring you. I end by thanking you once again for your kind welcome, whose memory shall always be in my mind. I equally thank the good spirits for the total satisfaction granted to my trip, because wherever I stopped I found good and sincere spiritists and I could attest, before my own eyes, the immense development of these ideas and how easily they spread. I found happy people everywhere; suffering people who were consoled, sorrows that were soothed, hatred that was appeased; everywhere I found trust and hope succeeding the anguishes of doubt and uncertainty. Still once more, Spiritism is the key to true happiness and that is the secret of its irresistible power. Is then utopia a doctrine that does such prodigies? May God in His goodness, my dear friends, send you good spirits to assist you with your communications, so that you can be clarified about the truths that you have been assigned to spread. There will be one day when you will harvest a hundred times the grain that you have sowed.
May this feast of friends, my beloved companions, like the former feasts, may this be the guarantee of union among all true spiritists! I propose a toast to the spiritists of Lyon, both in my name and in the name of the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies.
The warm and benevolent welcome that I received from you, since my arrival, would be enough to make me proud, if I did not understand that such testimonies are addressed much less to the person than to Spiritism, of which I am no more than one of the most humble servers. It is the consecration of a principle and I feel doubly happy, for this principle must one day ensure human’s happiness and the appeasement of society, when it is well understood and even better when it is practiced. Its adversaries only combat it because they do not understand it. It is up to us; it is up to the true spiritists, to those who see in Spiritism something more than experiments more or less curious, making it understood and propagating it, preaching by actions as much as by words. The Spirits’ Book resulted in the demonstration of its philosophical reach. If this book has any merit it would be presumptuous of me to be proud of it because the Doctrine that it contains is not my creation. The honor for the good that it has done is due to the wise spirits that have dictated it and that used me as their server. I can then hear the praise without harming my modesty and without exalting my self-esteem. Had I wished to prevail from that I would certainly have claimed its conception, instead of having it attributed to the spirits; and If there is any doubt about the superiority of those who cooperated, one just needs to take into account the influence that it has exerted in such a short time, only by the power of logic, and without any of the material means proper to super excite curiosity.
Nonetheless, ladies and gentlemen, the warmth of your reception shall be a powerful encouragement to me in my laborious undertaking, which I have turned into the reason of my life, because it gives me the consoling assurance that the good hearted individuals are no longer so rare in this materialistic century, as people like to proclaim it.
The feelings that such benevolent testimonies make germinate in me are better understood than expressed; and what gives them a priceless value to my eyes is that they are not driven by any personal consideration. I do thank you from the bottom of my heart, in the name of Spiritism, especially on behalf of the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, that shall be happy for your kind demonstrations of sympathy, and proud for having such a great number of good and loyal comrades in Lyon. Allow me to cover in a few words the impressions I take from my brief passage among you.
The first thing that caught my attention was the number of followers. I already knew that Lyon had a large number but I was far from suspecting that it was so significant, already in the hundreds, and soon I hope will be countless. But if Lyon is distinguished for the number it is not less for the quality, which is even better. I have only met sincere spiritists, all over the place, those who understand the Doctrine in its true point of view. There are, ladies and gentlemen, three categories of adepts: the first ones limit themselves to the belief in the manifestations, seeking the phenomena before anything else. Spiritism for those is just a series of more or less interesting facts. The second group sees more than facts. They understand its philosophical reach; admire the moral that result from it but do not practice it. For them, Christian charity is a beautiful maxim, and that is all. Finally, the third group is not satisfied by the admiration of the moral: they practice it and accept all of its consequences. Well convinced that the earthly life is a transient trial, try to take advantage of these short intervals to march in the path of progress delineated by the spirits, struggling to do the good deeds and to repress their bad inclinations. Their relationships are always safe because their convictions keep them away from any evil thought. Charity is their rule of conduct in everything. These are the true spiritists, or better, the Christian spiritists.
Well, ladies and gentlemen! I am glad to tell you that I have not found here any adept of the first category. I have not seen anywhere people concerned with Spiritism for mere curiosity. I have not seen anywhere people using the communications for futile issues. The objective is serious and the intentions honest everywhere. Based on what I see and from what I hear, there are many in the third category. Thus, honor to the spiritists of Lyon, for having entered so widely into this progressive avenue, without which Spiritism would be aimless. Such example shall not be lost and will have its consequences. It was not without reason, I see it well, that the other day the spirits responded, through one of our most dedicated mediums, although one of the most obscure, when I manifested my surprise to them: “Why are you surprised? Lyon was the city of the martyrs. Faith is alive here. It shall give apostles to Spiritism. If Paris is the brain, Lyon shall be the heart.” The coincidence between this answer and the message that was just given before in Mr. Guillaume’s speech, is something very meaningful.
The latest speed of propagation of Spiritism, despite the still present opposition, or perhaps because of that opposition, can give us an insight into the future. Let us then sensibly avoid everything that may produce an unpleasant impression. Let us avoid not the loss of a granted cause, but to delay its development.
Let us follow the advice of the wise spirits on this, and let us not forget that many results have been compromised in the world for excess of precipitation. Let us not forget either that our enemies from the other world, as those from this, may try to drag us through a dangerous path.
You have asked me to give you some advice and to me it is a pleasure to give you those that can be suggested by experience. They shall never be more than a personal opinion that I invite you to analyze with your wisdom, making the use that may seem more adequate to you since I do not have the pretension of imposing myself as an absolute judge. You intendedto form a large society. I have already given you my thoughts on that and I will summarize them here.
It is a fact that the best communications are obtained in meetings with a small number of people, where there is harmony and communion of feelings. Well then, the larger the number the more difficult it is to obtain such homogeneity. Since it is impossible that in the beginning of a science, still so new, there would not be some divergences in the way of assessing certain things, from that divergence there would infallibly be a discomfort which could lead to disunion. The small groups, on the contrary, will always be more homogeneous. In the small groups everyone knows everyone better; it is a more family-like and may admit with better criteria those who are desired. As everybody definitely tends to the same objective they can get along perfectly well and will do even more so due to the absence of that unstoppable susceptibility, incompatible with the quietness and concentration of the spirit. The bad spirits that always try to spread disharmony, irritating susceptibilities, will always have less domination in a small group when compared to a large and heterogeneous group. In short, the unity of vision and feeling will be easier to establish there. The multiplicity of groups has another advantage: the reception of a much larger variety of communications, by the diversity of skills of the mediums. These partial sessions should share their production with the other small groups, each group separately, and everyone will then take advantage of the mutual works. As a matter of fact, there will come a time when the number of attendees will no longer fit a unique session, and the group will have to break by the force of things. That is why it would be better to do now what will have to be done later.
From the point of view of propaganda, there is no doubt that the novice may collect better elements of conviction in the intimacy rather than in the large meetings. Hence there are two reasons to prefer the small groups that can be multiplied to the infinity. Well, twenty groups of ten persons, for example, will unquestionably obtain more and make more proselytes than a single session of two hundred people.
I mentioned, not long ago, the divergences that may arise and I said that they should not create obstacles to the perfect understanding between the centers. In fact, those divergences can only occur in the details and not in the broader picture. The objective is the same: the moral betterment; the means is the same: the teachings given by the spirits. If such teachings were contradictory; if one had evidently to be false and the other true, notice that this could not alter the objective which is to lead the individual towards the good path, for his greater present and future happiness.
Now, good cannot have double standards. However, from a scientific or dogmatic point of view, it is useful, or at least interesting, to know who is right and who is wrong. Then! You have an infallible criterion to evaluate it, be it some simple details or radically divergent systems. This does not apply to the spiritist systems only but to every philosophical system.
First, analyze which one is more logical, which one better corresponds to your expectations, which one can achieve the objective in a better way. The truer will evidently be the one that explains better, that gives better reasons for everything. If a single fact can be opposed to a system, contradicting its theory, it means that the theory is either false or incomplete. Then, analyze the practical results of each system. The truth must be on the side of the one that produces the greater good; that exerts a healthier influence; that produces more good and virtuous people; that stimulates the good deeds based on the purest and most rational motives. Happiness is the constant objective aspired by the human being. Truth will be on the side that yields greater moral satisfaction; In short, that makes people happier.
Considering that the teachings come from the spirits, the multiple groups, as with the individuals, are under the influence of certain spirits who preside over their works, or direct them morally. If those spirits are not in agreement the question will be which ones are more trustworthy. It will evidently be the one whose theory cannot raise serious objection; in short, the one that in all points gives more proof of superiority. If everything that is taught is good, the name taken by the spirit is irrelevant. In that sense, the issue of identity is absolutely secondary. If, under a respectable name, the teaching fails in its essential qualities, you can definitely conclude that the name is apocryphal and an impostor or a mocking spirit is using it. General rule: the name is never a guarantee. The only, the true guarantee is the superiority of thought and the way it is expressed. The deceiving spirits may imitate everything, everything, except true wisdom and true feeling.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is not my intention here to give you a course in Spiritism, and I will perhaps abuse your patience with such details. However, I cannot avoid adding a few more words. It frequently happens that in order to have certain utopias accepted, the spirits impersonate a false wisdom, trying to impose them through the utilization of an arsenal of technical words, trying to fascinate those who easily believe in anything. They have still an even more efficient way that is the presentation of false virtues. Supported by great words like charity, fraternity, and humility, they expect to obtain free access to the grossest absurd; and that is what happens often when one is not forewarned. Hence, we must not be led by the appearances from the part of the spirits as much as human beings. Now, I do confess that this is one of the greatest difficulties. However, it has never been said that Spiritism is an easy science. It has its hurdles that can only be avoided by experience. To avoid falling in the trap it is necessary, from starters, to be guarded against blinding enthusiasm and pride that leads certain mediums to believe that they are the only interpreters of truth. One needs to examine everything cold-bloodedly, weigh-in everything, control everything, and if one’s own assessment is suspicious, which it is sometimes sensible, it is then necessary to report to others, following the proverb that four eyes see more than two. A false self-esteem or an obsession may singly push a notoriously false idea, which is repelled by everyone’s common sense.
Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t ignore the fact that I have many enemies here. Although it may stun you there is nothing truer. Yes, there are people here who hear me with rage; not among you, thank God, where I expect to have friends only. I refer to the deceiving spirits who don’t want me to provide you with the means of unmasking them, since I uncover their tricks, putting you on guard, subtracting from them the domination they could exert upon you. With that respect, ladies and gentlemen, it would be a mistake to imagine that such domination is exerted upon the mediums only. Rest assured that the spirits act incessantly upon us, since they are everywhere, and without our knowledge, mediums or not, spiritists or not. Mediumship does not attract them; on the contrary, it provides the means of knowing the enemy that is always betrayed. Always, listen well, and that the only abuse is to those who allow themselves to be abused.
That, ladies and gentlemen, brings me to complete my thought about what I have just said regarding the dissidences that could take place among several groups, given the diversity of the teachings. I told you that despite some divergences, they should get along and must get along well, as long as they are true spiritists. I gave you the means of controlling the value of the communications, which is how the kind of influence exerted on each one may be appreciated. Given that every good influence comes from a good spirit; that everything that is bad comes from a bad source; that the evil spirits are the enemies of union and concord, the group that is assisted by a bad spirit will be the one to throw the stones on the other and will not reach out to them. As for myself, ladies and gentlemen, I see you all as my brothers and sisters, both with the truth and in error. However I declare out loud that I will be wholeheartedly with those who show more charity and abnegation. If any of you, God forbid, had any feelings of hatred, envy or jealousy I would be sorry for you because you would be under a bad influence and I would rather have those bad thoughts coming to you from a strange spirit than from your own heart. And that would only make me suspicious of the truthfulness of the communications received by you, considering that a truly good spirit will only suggest good feelings.
I will finish this speech, ladies and gentlemen, too long already, with a few considerations about the causes that must ensure the future of Spiritism. You all understand, from what you have before your eyes and from your own feelings, that on a future day Spiritism must exert a huge influence onto the social fabric. However, it is still far away from the day when such influence will be generalized, no doubt. Generations are needed so that man can dispose of the old man. However, since now and if good cannot be generalized, it is already individual, and because that good is effective, the doctrine that entails it is so easily accepted. I will even say that it is enthusiastically accepted, by many. In fact, and abstraction made of its rationality, which philosophy is more capable of liberating human beings from the earthly bonds, elevating their soul to infinity? Which one can give them a more just, more logical idea, supported by patent proofs, about their nature and destiny? May its adversaries replace it by something better; by a more consoling doctrine, better accommodated to reason; by a more cheerful thought than knowing that our dead loved ones remain close to us, see us, hear us, speak to us and give us advice; that gives a more legitimate reason for resignation; that lessens the fear of death even further; that entails more calmness during life’s trials; that replaces, finally, that smooth quietness that one feels by saying: I feel better. Spiritism will lower its weapons before any doctrine which can do all that better.
Hence, Spiritism makes people sovereignly happy. With Spiritism there is no more isolation or despair. It has already spared many faults, impeded several crimes, given peace to many families, and corrected many deviations. How shall that be then when all people are fed by such ideas! Because they will strengthen through reason and will no longer relegate their soul. Human beings want happiness; Spiritism gives that; they will embrace Spiritism. Is Spiritism annihilation wanted? Then, give human beings a better source of happiness and hope. That is as far as the individuals are concerned.
There are two other forces that may have feared Spiritism’s arrival: the civil and the religious authorities. Why is that so? It is because Spiritism is unknown to them. Today the Church begins to see that it will find in Spiritism a powerful weapon against incredulity; the logical solution to several embarrassing dogmas, and finally, that it brings back a good number of stray sheep to their Christian duties.
The civil authority, on the other hand, starts to see proofs of its beneficial influence upon the working classes to which this doctrine, through conviction, brings ideas of order, the respect to property and clarifies about the emptiness of the utopias. Witnessing almost miraculous moral metamorphoses, it shall soon see in the propagation of these ideas a more useful food for thought than the joys of the cabaret or the turmoil of public squares, and consequently a safeguard to society. Thus, people, Church and power envisaging one day in Spiritism a barrier against the brutality of passions, a guarantee to public order and tranquility, a return to the extinguishing of religious ideas, its obstruction will be in no one’s interest. On the contrary, each part will seek a support in Spiritism. As a matter of fact, who can stop the current of this river of ideas that already flows its benevolent waters in the five continents?
These are, my dear comrades, the considerations that I wanted to bring you. I end by thanking you once again for your kind welcome, whose memory shall always be in my mind. I equally thank the good spirits for the total satisfaction granted to my trip, because wherever I stopped I found good and sincere spiritists and I could attest, before my own eyes, the immense development of these ideas and how easily they spread. I found happy people everywhere; suffering people who were consoled, sorrows that were soothed, hatred that was appeased; everywhere I found trust and hope succeeding the anguishes of doubt and uncertainty. Still once more, Spiritism is the key to true happiness and that is the secret of its irresistible power. Is then utopia a doctrine that does such prodigies? May God in His goodness, my dear friends, send you good spirits to assist you with your communications, so that you can be clarified about the truths that you have been assigned to spread. There will be one day when you will harvest a hundred times the grain that you have sowed.
May this feast of friends, my beloved companions, like the former feasts, may this be the guarantee of union among all true spiritists! I propose a toast to the spiritists of Lyon, both in my name and in the name of the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies.
Allan Kardec
About the Value of the Spiritist Communications
By Mr. Jobard
The religious orthodoxy confers the devil a role of exaggerated importance
as well as to his supposed satellites that should be only designated
as evil, ignorant, spirits of vanity, and almost all stained by the sin of
pride that lost them. They are not much different from human beings in
that respect, as they were also human beings for a short period relatively to
the eternity of their fluidic life, which can be compared to that of a body
that has passed to the volatile state. The mistake is in the belief that for
being spirits they must be perfect, as if the steam or the gases were more
perfect than the water or the liquid which originated them; as if the bully
could only become a peaceful man after leaving prison; as if a mad man
could be considered wise for having transposed the walls of Charenton26;
as if a blind man that came out of Quinze-Vingts27 could be mistaken by
someone with good eyes.
Mediums, do imagine that you have to deal with all those people,
and that there is as much difference among the spirits as there is among human beings. Well, you know that there are as many men as there are
feelings; as many bodies as their multiple properties, before as well as
after their change of state. You can assess the quality of the spirits by
their mistakes, as one can assess the quality of a body by its smell. If they
are sometimes in agreement about certain points, among themselves and
with you; the fact is that they cheat since they know better than you
do what was written before and what is written now about this or that
doctrine which they repeat to you, like parrots often, on other occasions
with conviction if they are conscious and hardworking spirits, like certain
philosophers or wise person who had honored you by coming to discuss
those things with you. However, rest assured that they will only respond
what they think you are in a condition to understand. Without that they
only tell you vulgarities and nothing that surpasses the reach of your intelligence
and knowledge that you have already acquired. They know, as
much as you do, that one doesn’t throw pearls to the swine. Then, they can
cite the Gospel if you are Christians, the Quran if you are Arab and easily
synchronize with you because in the fluidic state they have the intelligence
that the material bodies don’t have. The preceding comparison is
not accurate in that aspect only. If you like to laugh and play with words,
when dealing with a serious spirit it will send you deceiving spirits that
are stronger than you with jokes and word playing. If your mind is weak
it will leave you to mystifying spirits, who will take you further than you
would like.
The spirits generally like to speak with human beings. It is a distraction
and sometimes a study to them. They all say so. Don’t be afraid
of tiring them since you will always tire first; but they will not tell you
anything beyond what they could have told you when alive. That is why
so many people ask what would be the advantage of wasting any time in
consulting with them, since one cannot expect any extraordinary revelation,
any unexpected invention, panaceas, philosophical stones, transmutation
of metals, perpetual motion machine, and since they don’t know
more than you do about results not yet obtained by human science. If
they stimulate you to carry out experiments it is because they are curious themselves about the results. On the other hand, they only give you confusing
explanations, like the pseudo-wise individuals and the lawyers who
want to make sure that they win the debates. If it is a treasure, they will
say: dig it up; if it is an alloy, they will say: blow it up. It is possible that by
searching you find it. They will be as stunned as you and will boast about
having given you advice. Human vanity is still with them.
The good spirits don’t assure you that you will find the solution like
the bad ones do, those who have no scruples in ruining you. That is the
reason why you must never make abstraction of your judgment, of your
free will, of your reason. What do you say when a person leads you to a
bad deal? That he is infernal, diabolic. There you go! The spirit that gives
you bad advice is not more diabolical or more infernal; it is an ignorant
spirit, another deceiving spirit, but he does not have a special mission or
a super human power, nor does he have great interest in deceiving you:
that spirit is equally employing the God given free-will, like you, and like
you he can make a good or bad use: that is all. It is silly to think that he
is connected to you for years and years in order to enlist you in the devil’s
army. What good does one more or one less recruit do to the devil, when
the spontaneously come to him by the millions, without any recruiting
effort? The elected ones are rare but the volunteers to the evil side are in
large number. If God and the devil have each their army then it is God
who needs recruiters. The devil can be spared of the trouble of filling out
the openings. As victory is always on the side of the large battalions, you
may assess its greatness, its power and the easiness of its triumphs in all
corners of the universe, and without going too far, just look around you.
But all that does not make sense, since one can easily talk to the
people from the other world these days, it is necessary to accept them as
they are. There are poets that can dictate good verses; philosophers and
moralists that can dictate good maxims; Historians that can shed light
onto their times; Naturalists who can teach what they know or rectify former
mistakes; Astronomers that may reveal certain phenomena that you
ignore; Musicians; authors who can write their post-mortem works and
that even have the vanity of requesting it to be published in their names.
One of them, that had invented something, was stunned when he learned
that the patent would not be delivered to him in person; others couldn’t
care more about the earthly things than certain wise people. Some watch
the inauguration of their statues with a childish pleasure while others
don’t even bother to see it and show a profound contempt for the idiots
who pay them such homage after their deaths but who have ignored or
even persecuted them when alive. With respect to his statue, Humboldt
said only this: Irony! Another spirit provided the inscription to be placed
on his statue that was in preparation, knowing that he was unworthy: “To
the great thief, from the thankful robbed.”
In summary, we must consider as certain that each one carries their
character, their moral and scientific acquisitions; the fools here are the
fools there. The thieves are there, those who no longer have pockets to
pick; the gluttons who find nothing else to fry; the bankers that cannot
discount anything else and who suffer such deprivations. That is why
the Saint Spirit, the Spirit of Truth recommends neglect for the earthly
things, that we cannot carry or save; that we should think about the spiritual
and moral values which will follow and serve us for eternity, not only
as a distraction but as steps which will allow us to elevate incessantly in
the great ladder of Jacob, in the immeasurable hierarchy of the spirits.
Thus, see how little importance the good spirits give to the goods
and gross pleasures they lost after death, or when entering into their real
homeland, as they say. Like a pioneering scholar who is suddenly withdrawn
from his study, it is not his clothes, his money that he is sorry
for having left behind, but his books and his manuscripts. The butterfly
that shakes the dust off her wings before flying is not much concerned
with the remains of the cocoon that served as a dwelling. Therefore, a
superior spirit like Buffon, does not regret his Montbard castle more than
Lamartine will regret his Saint-Point castle, so much valued in life. That is
why the death of a wise individual is calm whereas that of a “humanimal”
is so horrible, because the latter feels the total loss by losing his earthly
things and that is why he grasps to those things like the avaricious to his
safe. His spirit cannot even separate from it as it bonds to the material and continues to haunt the places which were dear to him, and instead
of struggling to break those links which keep him attached to Earth, he
clings to them in despair. He suffers desperately, like mad, since he is no
longer able to use them. That is actually hell, the fire that those outcasts
struggle to maintain forever.
Those are the bad spirits that repel the advices of the good ones, and
who need the support of reason and even human wisdom to convince
them to abandon their prey. The good mediums must take the task of
helping them to think, moralizing them and praying for them, for they
recognize that the prayer gives them relief and that is why they give testimony
of recognition, sometimes very moving. This demonstrates the
existence of a common solidarity among all spirits, free or incarnated, because
incarnation is nothing more than a punishment and Earth is nothing
more than a place of atonement, where all of us come, as found in the
psalms, not for our enjoyment but for our betterment and for us to learn
the love of God, studying God’s works. Hence, the most unhappy is the
one who is the most ignorant; the most savage becomes the most vicious;
the most criminal is the most miserable of all beings, to whom God has
given a spark of His own divine soul, and talents to be applied and not to
be buried until the arrival of the Master, or even better, until the guilty of
laziness and negligence finds himself before God.
That is how the spiritual world presents itself, likely to some, true to
others, scaring some, enchanting others, and that does not deserve excessive
tributes or so much outrage.
When, by the force of things and from experience, we get familiarized
with the phenomenon of the manifestations, as natural as any other, we
will recognize the truthfulness of the information that we have just given
above. The evil power attributed to some spirits has the opposition of the
good power that we can expect from other spirits. Those two forces are
adequate, as everything in nature, without which the equilibrium would
break and the free will would be replaced by fatality, by the blind fate, by
the brute force, unintelligent, by everyone’s death, by the catalepsy of the
universe, by the chaos.
The prohibition of interrogating the spirits is an acknowledgement of
their existence. Identifying them as followers of the devil is the same as
presupposing that there are others who are God’s agents and missionaries.
We agree that the bad ones are in larger number, but there are many other
things like that on Earth. Should we condemn the miners for the fact that
there are many more grains of sand than golden pellets?
When the spirits tell us that they cannot respond to certain questions
of purely personal interest it is a way of justifying their ignorance
about the future. Everything that depends on our own effort, on our own
studies and intellectual researches, cannot be revealed without a breach
of the law that forces the human being to work. It would be very easy for
the first medium that showed up, communicating with a familiar and
complacent spirit, to effortless acquire the whole knowledge, all treasures
and all imaginable power, moving away from all obstacles that the others
have to face with great difficulty. No, the spirits don’t have such a
power and they want to make it clear that they are not allowed to say
anything beyond certain limits. However, they exert great influence upon
the incarnated spirits, towards good or evil. Fortunate are those who are
advised and protected by the good spirits. Everything goes well if they
obey the good inspirations that, as a matter of fact, they would not receive
if not deserved, and for which they pay an equivalent price for the added
success. Anyone who waits for fortune by just lying in bed will not have
much chance to attract it. Everything here depends on intelligent and
honest work, which gives us great internal satisfaction, keeping us from
physical harm, giving us the gift of alleviating the suffering of others,
because there isn’t a medium that in good faith is not a magnetizer and a
healing medium by nature. However, they ignore having such a treasure
and don’t know how to utilize it. Here is where they should be better advised
and more powerfully helped by their good spirits. There have been
miracles like the one that Duke of Celeuza has experienced, Prince Vasto
in the Nocera Cafe in Naples, on June 13th last, which was just published
that he was cured from a supposedly incurable disease that he carried for
over 10 years, through the simple word of an old French knight, to whom he was speaking about his sufferings. There are others who perform these
things in several other countries such as Holland, England, France and
Switzerland. But they shall multiply with time. The germs are sowed.
The mediums, duly warned by earthly spirits about nature, habits and
customs, there is nothing else to do but to behave accordingly. As for the
heavenly spirits or from a transcendental order it is so rare to have them
communicating with people that it is not enough time to talk about them.
They preside over the destinies of nations and the great catastrophes, the
important evolutions of the globes as well as humanity. They work as
we speak. Let us respectfully wait the great things that are still to come:
“Renovabunt faciem terrae”.
Jobard
OBSERVATIONS
Mr. Jobard had given his article the tittle: Advices to the medium. We thought it would be more adequate to give it a less exclusive title, considering that his observations are generally applicable to the way we must assess the spiritist communications. Since the mediums are just instruments of the manifestations, these can be given to everyone, be it directly or through some intermediary. Therefore, all the evokers and the mediums can benefit from them.
We approve his way of assessing the communications because it is rigorously correct and can only contribute to prevent against the illusion that exposes those who accept too easily everything that comes from the world of the spirits as the expression of truth.
However, we think that Mr. Jobard may be a little bit too radical about certain points. In our opinion he is not considering properly the progress achieved by the spirit in the errant state. It is certain that the spirit carries their earthly imperfections beyond the grave, a fact demonstrated by experience. However, and since: the spirit is in a completely diverse environment; their sensations are no longer received from impressions on the material organs; they no longer have a thick veil covering their eyes, confusing their ideas, their sensations, their perceptions and their thinking must experience a significant change. That is why every day we see people who think very differently after death than when alive because their moral horizon has widen up.
Authors criticize their own work; mundane people criticize their behavior; wise people acknowledge their mistakes. If the spirit did not advance in the spiritual life they would return to the corporeal life as they left it, no more advance, no more delayed, a fact that is contradicted by experience. Then, certain spirits may see more clearly and more fairly than when they were on Earth; as a consequence, some are seen giving excellent advices with excellent results. But among the spirits, like among human beings, it is necessary to know whom we are talking to and not to believe that the first one to show up may be the messenger of science or that a wise person may have lost his earthly prejudices just because they are spirits.
Mr. Jobard is entirely correct about it when he says that their theories and systems must only be accepted with extreme reservation. One must act with them as it is done with people, by giving them credit only after they have given irrefutable demonstrations of their superiority, not by the name that they may sometimes falsely use, but for the constant wisdom of their thoughts, by the irrefutable logic of their reasoning and by the unbreakable benevolence of their character. The judicious observations of Mr. Jobard, leaving aside some excesses, will certainly disillusion those who think to have, by communicating with the spirits, an easy way of knowing everything, of making profitable discoveries, etc. In fact, to the eyes of certain people, what is the use of the spirits if they cannot help us to make a fortune? We believe that just a short study of Spiritism is enough to understand that we are taught a number of things which are more useful than knowing if we are going to win in the stock market or lottery. However, even by admitting the most rigorous hypothesis that it would be completely indifferent to address the spirits or people for the things of this world, isn’t that something that they give us proof about life beyond the grave, enlightening us about the happy state or unfortunate condition of those who preceded us? Isn’t that something the proof that our loved ones are not lost and that we will meet again in that world that awaits us, rich or poor, powerful or slaves?
There is definitely a certainty: we will sooner or later make that move. What is there beyond the barrier? What is behind the curtain that hides the future? Is there something or nothing? Behold! The spirits tell us that there is something; that it is not over when we die; far from that, it is when real life begins, the normal life. Even if that was all that we were taught, their communications with us would not be useless. They do better: they teach us what to do here, to be in the best possible position in the other world. Since we are going to stay there for a long time we’d better make sure that we are granted the best possible place. As Mr. Jobard says, generally speaking the spirits don’t bother with the earthly things for a very simple reason: what they have is better. Their objective is to teach us what to do to be happy there. They know that we are attached to the earthly pleasures like children to their toys. They want to makes us think forward. That is their mission. If we are deceived by some, it is for the fact that we want to move them away from their attributions; because we ask them about what they don’t know, cannot or must not tell us. It is then that some people are mystified by the crowds of mocking spirits that make fun of our credulity.
The mistake of certain mediums is to believe in the infallibility of the spirits who communicate with them, seducing them by beautiful phrases, supported by borrowed, generally false names.
We approve his way of assessing the communications because it is rigorously correct and can only contribute to prevent against the illusion that exposes those who accept too easily everything that comes from the world of the spirits as the expression of truth.
However, we think that Mr. Jobard may be a little bit too radical about certain points. In our opinion he is not considering properly the progress achieved by the spirit in the errant state. It is certain that the spirit carries their earthly imperfections beyond the grave, a fact demonstrated by experience. However, and since: the spirit is in a completely diverse environment; their sensations are no longer received from impressions on the material organs; they no longer have a thick veil covering their eyes, confusing their ideas, their sensations, their perceptions and their thinking must experience a significant change. That is why every day we see people who think very differently after death than when alive because their moral horizon has widen up.
Authors criticize their own work; mundane people criticize their behavior; wise people acknowledge their mistakes. If the spirit did not advance in the spiritual life they would return to the corporeal life as they left it, no more advance, no more delayed, a fact that is contradicted by experience. Then, certain spirits may see more clearly and more fairly than when they were on Earth; as a consequence, some are seen giving excellent advices with excellent results. But among the spirits, like among human beings, it is necessary to know whom we are talking to and not to believe that the first one to show up may be the messenger of science or that a wise person may have lost his earthly prejudices just because they are spirits.
Mr. Jobard is entirely correct about it when he says that their theories and systems must only be accepted with extreme reservation. One must act with them as it is done with people, by giving them credit only after they have given irrefutable demonstrations of their superiority, not by the name that they may sometimes falsely use, but for the constant wisdom of their thoughts, by the irrefutable logic of their reasoning and by the unbreakable benevolence of their character. The judicious observations of Mr. Jobard, leaving aside some excesses, will certainly disillusion those who think to have, by communicating with the spirits, an easy way of knowing everything, of making profitable discoveries, etc. In fact, to the eyes of certain people, what is the use of the spirits if they cannot help us to make a fortune? We believe that just a short study of Spiritism is enough to understand that we are taught a number of things which are more useful than knowing if we are going to win in the stock market or lottery. However, even by admitting the most rigorous hypothesis that it would be completely indifferent to address the spirits or people for the things of this world, isn’t that something that they give us proof about life beyond the grave, enlightening us about the happy state or unfortunate condition of those who preceded us? Isn’t that something the proof that our loved ones are not lost and that we will meet again in that world that awaits us, rich or poor, powerful or slaves?
There is definitely a certainty: we will sooner or later make that move. What is there beyond the barrier? What is behind the curtain that hides the future? Is there something or nothing? Behold! The spirits tell us that there is something; that it is not over when we die; far from that, it is when real life begins, the normal life. Even if that was all that we were taught, their communications with us would not be useless. They do better: they teach us what to do here, to be in the best possible position in the other world. Since we are going to stay there for a long time we’d better make sure that we are granted the best possible place. As Mr. Jobard says, generally speaking the spirits don’t bother with the earthly things for a very simple reason: what they have is better. Their objective is to teach us what to do to be happy there. They know that we are attached to the earthly pleasures like children to their toys. They want to makes us think forward. That is their mission. If we are deceived by some, it is for the fact that we want to move them away from their attributions; because we ask them about what they don’t know, cannot or must not tell us. It is then that some people are mystified by the crowds of mocking spirits that make fun of our credulity.
The mistake of certain mediums is to believe in the infallibility of the spirits who communicate with them, seducing them by beautiful phrases, supported by borrowed, generally false names.
Spiritist Dissertations - Received or read by several mediums at the Society
Formation of the Spirits(Medium Mrs. Costel)
God created the human seed, scattered over the worlds like the farmer
sows in the grooves the grain that must germinate and mature. God’s
seeds are like molecules of fire that He blows out of the great focus, the
center of life, from where God radiates His power. These molecules are to
humanity what the germs of the plants are to Earth; they develop slowly,
only maturing after long periods in the mother-planets, where the beginning
of things is formed. I speak of the principle only. In the condition of
human, the being reproduces and God’s work is done.
Why are human destinies so diverse if there is a common starting
point?
Why would some be born in a civilized environment and others
in a savage state? What is then the origin of the demons? Let us recall
the story of the spirit in its first appearance. Just formed, staggering and
spluttering, the souls are nonetheless free to incline towards good or evil.
The good ones separate from the bad ones from birth. Abel’s story is
naively true. The ungrateful souls that have just left God’s hands persist
in the crime; in the succession of centuries they make mistakes, they
harm others and above all they harm themselves, until they are inexorably
touched by regret. The first demons then are the guilty people. In His immense justice God only imposes suffering resulting from bad deeds.
Earth should be entirely inhabited but not equally, and according to the
degree of progress obtained in the earthly migrations, some are born in
the great centers of civilization and others, uncertain spirits that still require
initiation, are born in the remote forests. The savage state is preparatory.
There is harmony in everything, and the blind and guilty soul
of a demon from Earth cannot be born again in an enlightened center.
There are some, however, who venture into those environments that are
not theirs. It is when they cannot be in sync in that environment, that
they give the spectacles of barbarism in the heart of civilization. These are
the creatures from different worlds.
In the embryonic state the being has not gone through any migration
yet. It cannot be studied separately because it is the origin of man.
Georges
Errant Spirits
(Medium Mrs. Costel)
The spirits are divided in several categories. In the beginning the embryos, which have no distinct faculty; which move in the air like the insects flying around a Sun light beam, pointlessly, incarnating without a choice. They turn into ignorant and rude human beings. Above them come the frivolous spirits with no evil instincts, just jester; they have fun with people, causing them silly, child-like inconveniences. They show puerile caprices and meanness.
The spirits are divided in several categories. In the beginning the embryos, which have no distinct faculty; which move in the air like the insects flying around a Sun light beam, pointlessly, incarnating without a choice. They turn into ignorant and rude human beings. Above them come the frivolous spirits with no evil instincts, just jester; they have fun with people, causing them silly, child-like inconveniences. They show puerile caprices and meanness.
The bad spirits are not all on the same level. Some are bonded to no
one, causing little deceptions or inducing slight mistakes. The malefactors
lead to wrongdoing and they enjoy that, although they may still show
some level of compassion. The really wicked ones have none. All their
faculties serve the purpose of wickedness. They act with calm and premeditation,
pleased with the moral tortures of their doing. In the spiritual
world those correspond to the criminal in yours. They get to such a condition
for showing no respect for God’s laws. From downfall to downfall,
centuries go by before a single thought of change crosses their minds.
Evilness is their element, their cause for rejoice; forced to reincarnate they
endure such sufferings that their passion for evil things wears out. They end up understanding, giving in to the voice of God that unceasingly calls
to them. We have seen rebel spirits enthusiastically asking for the most
terrible atonements, supporting them with the joy of the martyr. Such
return to good is a motive of great happiness to the pure spirits. Jesus’s
words shine truth upon the stray sheep. The errant spirits of second order
are the intermediaries between the superior spirits and the mortals, since
it is rare that the superior spirits communicate directly. They must be
impelled by a particular circumstance. Such intermediaries are the spirits
of people who bear no serious evil and whose intentions were not bad.
Fewer migrations are needed to them; their assigned missions award them
with faster progress when successfully accomplished. Thus the spirits eagerly
desire those missions, only granted as a reward and when considered
capable of accomplishing them. They are guided by superior spirits who
choose their functions. The superior spirits are not all on the same level.
Although free from migrations in your world they are not released from
the required conditions of advancement on the more elevated spheres.
There is no blank in the visible as well as invisible world. A remarkable
order oversees everything. No creature is idle or useless. Everyone contributes
to the perfection of the endless and boundless works of God to the
limit of their faculties.
Georges
Punishment
(Medium Mrs. Costel)
The wicked, selfish and obstinate spirits are given to a cruel doubt about their current and future destinies, just after death. Look around them and see no place where their negative influence may be in order, and are then taken by desperation because isolation and inaction are intolerable to the bad spirits. They dare not raise their eyes to places inhabited by pure spirits. They assess their surroundings and soon, touched by the abatement of the weak and punished spirits, charge as over a prey, armed by the memories of their past mistakes, frequently revealed in their minimum gestures. Not satisfied by that mockery, they fall upon Earth like hungry vultures, looking for those among people who will give easier access to their temptations. They seize over them, exalting greed, extinguishing their faith in God and when finally owning their consciences and see they have dominated their prey, they then extend the fatal contamination upon everything that nears their victim. The bad spirit given to rage is almost happy. He only suffers when he cannot act or when good triumphs over evil. The centuries go by though, and the bad spirit suddenly feels taken over by darkness. His circle of influence diminishes and his hitherto silent conscience makes him feel the sharp tips of regret. Inactive, swept away by the whirlwind of his regrets, he wanders around, seeing as the Scriptures says, the hair of his flesh stand up in fear. He is soon surrounded by a large sense of emptiness.
The wicked, selfish and obstinate spirits are given to a cruel doubt about their current and future destinies, just after death. Look around them and see no place where their negative influence may be in order, and are then taken by desperation because isolation and inaction are intolerable to the bad spirits. They dare not raise their eyes to places inhabited by pure spirits. They assess their surroundings and soon, touched by the abatement of the weak and punished spirits, charge as over a prey, armed by the memories of their past mistakes, frequently revealed in their minimum gestures. Not satisfied by that mockery, they fall upon Earth like hungry vultures, looking for those among people who will give easier access to their temptations. They seize over them, exalting greed, extinguishing their faith in God and when finally owning their consciences and see they have dominated their prey, they then extend the fatal contamination upon everything that nears their victim. The bad spirit given to rage is almost happy. He only suffers when he cannot act or when good triumphs over evil. The centuries go by though, and the bad spirit suddenly feels taken over by darkness. His circle of influence diminishes and his hitherto silent conscience makes him feel the sharp tips of regret. Inactive, swept away by the whirlwind of his regrets, he wanders around, seeing as the Scriptures says, the hair of his flesh stand up in fear. He is soon surrounded by a large sense of emptiness.
Time has come for atonement. There looms reincarnation. He sees the
terrible hardships that wait, like in a mirage. He wants to step back but
advances, and precipitated into the widely open chasm of life he moves on
until the frightening veil of forgetfulness falls over his eyes. Born again, he
lives; he acts, he is again guilty. He has an uneasy memory, like presentiments
that give him the shivers but do not make him quit the evil path.
Worn out and tired of crimes he is going to die.
Lying on a pallet or on a bed, who cares! The guilty person, in his
apparent immobility, feels alive in a world of forgotten sensations! He sees
a glimmer of light under the closed eyelids; he hears strange sounds, his
soul is about to leave his body and agitates impatiently while his clenched
hands try to cling to the bed sheets. He wants to speak; he wants to shout
to those around him: Hold me now! I see the punishment! But he cannot.
Death falls upon the livid lips and the assistants say: he is in peace!
However, he hears everything. He fluctuates around the body that he
refuses to leave behind; a mysterious force attracts him. He sees and acknowledges
what he had already seen. In desperation, he throws himself
into space where he wants to hide. There is no place to hide. There is no
rest. Other spirits pay him back for the evil he has done; he feels punished,
ridiculed, confused; he errs and shall continue to err up until the day
when the divine spark shines upon his hardness, enlightening him, showing
him God the avenger, triumphant over evil, can only appease to the
price of groans and atonements.
Georges
Observation: The fate of the wicked has never been sketched in a more
eloquent, terrible and truthful way. Is it then necessary to resort to the
phantasmagoria of flames and physical tortures?
Mars
(Medium Mrs. Costel)
Mars is a rough draft of the Earth and also a planet inferior to it. It is not vital for habitation but is the first incarnation of crude demons. These creatures are rudimentary with a human form null of beauty; having the same instincts as human beings without the refinement of goodness.
Mars is a rough draft of the Earth and also a planet inferior to it. It is not vital for habitation but is the first incarnation of crude demons. These creatures are rudimentary with a human form null of beauty; having the same instincts as human beings without the refinement of goodness.
Driven by physical needs, their daily life consists of eating, drinking,
fighting and mating. However, since God never abandons any of His
creatures, in the darkness of their elemental intelligence, there lies, in a latent
state, the vague consciousness of themselves, more or less developed.
Such an instinct is enough to make them want to progress higher than
some of the others and prepare for the emergence to a more thorough life.
Theirs is a short-lived life. People, who are nothing more than matter,
disappear after a short period of progress. God rejects evilness and will not
tolerate that as a servant of good principles; He shortens its reign allowing
resurrection as a triumph.
The soil of Mars is arid with scarce vegetation and somber foliage,
never renewed by spring; one day is the same as the others, always gray.
The hardly noticeable sun never brings about festivities; a monotonous passage of time, without the changes and hopes carried over by new seasons;
there is no winter or summer. The shorter days are not measured
in the same way and the longer nights reign sovereign. Without technology
or inventions, Mars’ inhabitants spend their lives seeking food. Their
crude homes, low like lairs, are repulsive with prevalence for untidiness
and negligence. Women play an inferior role: more famished, they are
nothing but females, barely having maternal feelings, they give birth with
ease without any anguish and feed and keep the children by their side
until their complete development when they are pitilessly sent away.
They are not cannibals. The only objective of their never-ending battles
is the conquest of good hunting areas. They hunt in the boundless
plains. Uneasy and mobile as creatures void of intelligence, they move
constantly. The equity of seasons entails the same needs and the same
functions all the time with little difference between the inhabitants of
either hemisphere.
Death does not scare them nor hold any mysteries; it is seen as the
putrefaction of the body, which they immediately burn. When someone
is about to die they are abandoned and left alone. It is on the deathbed
that they think for the first time. They have a vague instinct like the robin
that feels the coming migratory season, feeling that it is not the end, but
something unknown is about to begin. They are not intelligent enough to
suppose, fear or expect, but are able to hastily calculate their defeats and
victories; the number of preys which were taken down, rejoicing or saddening
according to the results.
His wife (they never have one at a time, and can always be replaced at
will), crouches before the doorway of the house and throws some pebbles
in the air. When they form a small mound, she is ready to look inside.
If the expectations are confirmed and the man is dead she comes inside
showing no emotions, strips the man from the animal skins that cover
him and coldly informs the neighbors, who then carry the body away and
burn it as the skin barely turns cold.
The animals on the planet suffer from the human influence and are
more savage and cruel than in any other place. Dogs and wolves form a single species, always fighting man in gory combats. Moreover, serving as
a reflection of their human counterparts, the animals are also less diverse
and lower in quantity than on the Earth.
The elements show a blind wrath of chaos. A furious ocean where
navigation is not possible separates the continents. The roaring winds
bend trees down to the ground. The high waters flood the ingrate and
sterile land. The terrain does not offer the same conditions as those found
on Earth. It is cold; the volcanoes are unknown; the mountain chains are
not very high, offering no beauty; their view is uninspiring for exploration;
everywhere you look, there is monotony and violence; and only men
without foresight who kill for survival.
Georges
OBSERVATION: To serve as transition between the image of Mars
and Jupiter there is the need for an intermediary, like for example Earth,
that we know sufficiently well. The observation easily tells us that we
are closer to Mars than Jupiter since even amidst civilization there still
are such abject creatures, lacking in humanity and feeling, living in the
most absolute state of brutalization, only attending to their material
needs, without ever having raised their eyes to heaven, apparently coming
straight from Mars.
Jupiter
(Medium Mrs. Costel)
Jupiter is infinitely larger than the Earth and looks very different. It is
embraced by a pure and brilliant light that illuminates but does not
obfuscate. The trees, flowers, insects, the animals which have their starting
point here, are larger and more perfected; nature is more grandiose
and varied; temperature is stable and pleasing; eyes and ears are enchanted
by harmony. The form of its inhabitants is like yours but embellished,
perfected and purified above all. We are not subjected to the material
needs of your physical nature and neither have we the consequent needs
or diseases. Our souls are covered by a diaphanous wrapping, which keeps
the signs of past migrations. We show ourselves to our friends as we were
known to them but lit by a divine light, transfigured by our inner and
always elevated feelings.
Like Earth, Jupiter is also divided in a large number of regions with
different aspects, but not different climates. The different conditions are
only determined by the moral superiority and intelligence; there are no
master or slaves; the highest echelons are characterized by direct communications
with pure spirits and by the most important functions assigned
to us. Your homes cannot give you the slightest idea about ours since we don’t share the same needs. We appreciate art that has achieved a degree of
perfection unknown to you. We enjoy sublime events, as we have a better
understanding of the inextinguishable varieties of Creation; all harmonious
varieties originating at the same starting point, perfecting in the same
direction. Every noble and kind feeling of human nature is more elevated
and purified and the constant desire to reach the level of the pure spirits
is a noble ambition, rather than a torment, driving us to our betterment.
We study constantly and with love in order to elevate ourselves to them,
as the inferior spirits as well, try to reach our level. Your tiniest hatred,
your petty jealousies are unknown to us. The strongest help is given to
the weakest. You need the shadow of evil to understand the good in your
world, you need darkness to admire light, disease to appreciate health.
Those contrasts are unnecessary here since eternal light, eternal benevolence
and peace bring eternal joy upon us. Here is what is most difficult
for the human spirit to understand: it was ingenious to paint the torments
of hell; it could never represent the joys of heavens. Why? Because since
it is inferior, and having only endured sufferings and misery, it cannot
foresee the celestial clarities. It can only speak of what is known, like the
traveler who describes only the countries that were visited in his journey.
However, as the spirit elevates and purifies, the horizon widens up and he
perceives the good before his eyes, as the evil left behind will also be understood.
There has already been other spirits who have tried to help you
to understand, as much it is possible to your current condition, the state
of the happy worlds, so as to stimulate you to follow the only path leading
to them. However, there are still so many of you attached to matter that
you prefer the physical joys of Earth to the pure joys reserved to those
who know how to disengage from material links. May they enjoy then
while they are there, for a sad turnaround awaits, perhaps still in this life!
Those that we have chosen as our interpreters are the first ones to receive
the light. Woe to them, especially if they do not profit from the favor that
God has granted, for his justice will weigh heavily upon them!
Georges
Pure Spirits
(Medium Mrs. Costel)
Pure spirits are those who have achieved the highest degree of perfection, worthy of appearing before God. Their infinite splendor does not preclude them from being useful to God’s creation. The functions assigned to them correspond to the extension of their faculties. They are the ministers of God, under God, they govern the countless worlds; from above they guide spirits and humans, linked between one another by a boundless love, whose devotion is extended upon all creatures that they attract to become worthy of the supreme happiness. God radiates over them, transmitting His orders. They see His light and it does not blind them.
Pure spirits are those who have achieved the highest degree of perfection, worthy of appearing before God. Their infinite splendor does not preclude them from being useful to God’s creation. The functions assigned to them correspond to the extension of their faculties. They are the ministers of God, under God, they govern the countless worlds; from above they guide spirits and humans, linked between one another by a boundless love, whose devotion is extended upon all creatures that they attract to become worthy of the supreme happiness. God radiates over them, transmitting His orders. They see His light and it does not blind them.
Their form is ethereal and there is nothing tangible left in them. They
speak among superior spirits, to whom they share their knowledge and
become infallible. In these ranks the guardian angels are chosen, who
kindly lower their gaze upon mortals, entrusting them to the loving care
of the superior spirits. These agents choose the course of direction for
second order spirits. The pure spirits are equal, and that could not be different
since only those who have achieved the highest degree of perfection
belong to that category. There is equality but not uniformity, for God did not want any point of His works to be identical. The pure spirits keep
their personality that has only acquired the most complete perfection, in
a sense, since its starting.
We are not allowed to give more details about that supreme world.
Georges
Dwellings of the Blessed Ones
(Medium Mrs. Costel)
Let us talk about the last spirals of glory, inhabited by pure spirits. Nobody can achieve them before going through the cycles of the errant spirits. Jupiter is in the highest degree of the scale. When a spirit that has gone through the long purification stage of that planet is considered worthy of the supreme happiness, he is informed by an increased fervor; a subtle fire takes over every delicate fabric of his intelligence that apparently shines, turning visible. Stunning, transfigured, he illuminates the already radiant day before the eyes of Jupiter’s inhabitants. His brothers acknowledge the elected of God and trembling, kneel before his will. However, the selected spirit rises and the heavens, in their supreme harmony, reveal its indescribable beauties. As it rises, the spirit no longer sees things like in the errant state, similar to the concerted creation in Jupiter but now embracing all of infinity. His intelligence soars like a transfigured arrow until it reaches God, there is no fear, no disharmony, as if inside an immense hall powered by a thousands of different things. Love, in these various spirits takes on the color of their refined personalities; they recognize one another and are happy for being together. Their reflected virtues reverberating, so to speak, to the delights of God’s vision, and incessantly increasing the happiness of the elected ones. A sea of love enlarged by every tributary river, their pure strength is set in motion, like the strength of other spheres. Endowed also by the gift of ubiquity, they simultaneously embrace the minimal details of human life, from start to finish. Inexorable like light, their vision penetrates everything at the same time, and active like their driving force, they spread the Lord’s wishes. Like the bountiful wave that escapes the abundant reservoir, their universal benevolence warms up the worlds, confusing evil.
Let us talk about the last spirals of glory, inhabited by pure spirits. Nobody can achieve them before going through the cycles of the errant spirits. Jupiter is in the highest degree of the scale. When a spirit that has gone through the long purification stage of that planet is considered worthy of the supreme happiness, he is informed by an increased fervor; a subtle fire takes over every delicate fabric of his intelligence that apparently shines, turning visible. Stunning, transfigured, he illuminates the already radiant day before the eyes of Jupiter’s inhabitants. His brothers acknowledge the elected of God and trembling, kneel before his will. However, the selected spirit rises and the heavens, in their supreme harmony, reveal its indescribable beauties. As it rises, the spirit no longer sees things like in the errant state, similar to the concerted creation in Jupiter but now embracing all of infinity. His intelligence soars like a transfigured arrow until it reaches God, there is no fear, no disharmony, as if inside an immense hall powered by a thousands of different things. Love, in these various spirits takes on the color of their refined personalities; they recognize one another and are happy for being together. Their reflected virtues reverberating, so to speak, to the delights of God’s vision, and incessantly increasing the happiness of the elected ones. A sea of love enlarged by every tributary river, their pure strength is set in motion, like the strength of other spheres. Endowed also by the gift of ubiquity, they simultaneously embrace the minimal details of human life, from start to finish. Inexorable like light, their vision penetrates everything at the same time, and active like their driving force, they spread the Lord’s wishes. Like the bountiful wave that escapes the abundant reservoir, their universal benevolence warms up the worlds, confusing evil.
These several interpreters are already purified spirits by ministers of
their power. Therefore, everything elevates, everything perfects and charity
radiates upon the worlds, fed in its powerful heart. The pure spirits
have by attribute everything that is good and truthful, because God is in
them, the principle in itself. The poor human thought limits everything
that is not reachable and does not comprehend infinity, unbounded by
happiness. What is there after God? God still, always God. The traveler
sees horizons succeeding horizons, one as the beginning of the next. That
is how infinity unfolds incessantly. The greatest joy of the pure spirits is
precisely such extension, as profound as eternity itself. One cannot describe
a grace, a flame, and a beam of light. I cannot describe the pure
spirits. More alive, more beautiful and more stunning than the most ethereal
images, one word summarizes that being, their power and joys: Love!
Fill up the space that separates Earth from the skies with that word and
you still will not have but the idea of a drop in the ocean. It is only the
earthly love, however limited it may be, that can give you an idea of their
divine reality.
Georges
Reincarnation
(Medium Mr. de Grand-Boulogne)
There is logic in the doctrine of reincarnation that does not escape your understanding. Since only the physical is compatible with acts of virtue and since those acts are necessary to the betterment of the spirit, the latter will barely find the necessary circumstances required to its progress above humanity in one existence only.
There is logic in the doctrine of reincarnation that does not escape your understanding. Since only the physical is compatible with acts of virtue and since those acts are necessary to the betterment of the spirit, the latter will barely find the necessary circumstances required to its progress above humanity in one existence only.
Considering that God’s justice is incompatible with the doctrine of
the eternal penalties, reason must conclude that there is the need for:
1st – A time frame during which the spirit examines its past and
make resolutions regarding the future;
2nd – A new existence, according to the current condition of
that spirit. I don’t talk about the sufferings, sometimes terrible, to
which certain spirits are condemned, during the period of errant
state; they are, on one hand, related to the enormity of faults, and
on another hand, to God’s justice. This says enough, avoiding
the need for details that you shall find, as a matter of fact, in the
study of the evocations. Let us go back to the reincarnations and
you will understand its need through a common but very true
comparison.
What happens to a young college student after one year of studies? If he
has made progress he shall then advance to the next level; if he remained
stationary in his ignorance, he shall be left behind. Let us go further. If his
faults were serious, he is expelled. He can wander from college to college,
even expelled from the University or move from a place of education to a
place of correction. That is an accurate image of the fate of the spirits, and
there is nothing more logical.
Would you like to perform a more in-depth study of the doctrine? It
will be seen in these ideas how much more perfect God’s justice seems
to be and also more in agreement with the greatest truths that dominate
our intelligence. There is something so exciting about this, in general
and in the details that someone who is initiated with the doctrine for
the first time feels illuminated. The criticism to God’s Providence; the
curse against the sufferings; the scandalous and happy addiction before
the painful virtue; the premature death of the child; remarkable qualities
hand in hand with an early evilness, in the heart of the same family; the
born with diseases; the infinite diversity of fates of individuals as well as
peoples, hitherto insoluble problems, enigmas which lead people to doubt
God’s benevolence and almost doubt his existence, all that is explained at
once. A pure ray of light is shed upon the horizon of the new philosophy,
and every circumstance of human existence is harmoniously grouped in
its generous land. Difficulties are smoothed out, problems resolved, and
mysteries up until now impenetrable are broken down and explained by
this simple word: reincarnation. I read your thoughts, dear Christian. You
say: That is a real heresy! It is too much!
No more than the denial of the eternal penalties, my child. What is
human life? The period when the spirit remains attached to the body. On
the God chosen day, the Christian philosophers shall not have any difficulty
in saying that life is multiple. That does not add or change anything
in your duties.
The Christian moral stands and the memories of Jesus’s mission hovers
upon humanity. Religion has nothing to fear regarding that teaching,
and the day is not far when the ministers will open their eyes to light.
They will finally acknowledge in the new revelation the much-expected
help, claimed from the end of their basilicas. They believe that society
shall perish, but it will be saved.
Zenon
Awakening of the Spirit
(Medium Mrs. Costel)
When the individual leaves behind his mortal remains, he is taken by such fear and astonishment that it makes him uncertain about his actual state; he does not know if is dead or alive, and it takes long for his very confused sensations to clear up. The spirit’s eyes are progressively amazed by the many clarities around him, leading him to a new order of things, great and unknown that he can hardly understand in the beginning but soon recognizes that he is nothing more than an intangible and immaterial creature; he seeks his vestiges, and surprise, he does not find them; some time goes by before he recovers the memory of his past, then convinced of his identity. He looks back to Earth and sees his crying relatives and friends and his inert body. The eyes finally leave Earth and seek the skies. If the will of God no longer keeps him attached to the soil, he then rises slowly and feels his body floating in space, a marvelous sensation. Then, the memory of the life he has just left behind comes with this sometimes devastating, other times consoling clarity. I speak about what I felt, and I am not a bad spirit but I don’t occupy an elevated position, unfortunately. We get rid of every earthly prejudice. Truth shines with full intensity. Nothing mitigates our faults. Nothing hides the virtues. We see our own souls as clearly as before a mirror. We seek familiar spirits because isolation is frightening, but others go by and they don’t stop. There are no affectionate relationships among errant spirits; even those who loved one another don’t exchange expressions of love; those misty forms slide and move on. Loving exchanges are reserved to the superior spirits in their interactions. As for ourselves, our transient state is only good for our advancement, and nothing should distract us from that path. The only communications allowed to us are with the humans because it is mutually useful, and prescribed by God. The bad spirits also contribute to human betterment: they serve through the trials; those who resist conquer merits. The spirits who guide people are rewarded by a substantial extenuation of their penalties. The errant spirits don’t suffer for the absence of communication among them for they know that they will meet again. Hence, their devotion is amplified so that the object of their affection is brought back to them, at the end of their trials, affections which cannot be expressed but which remain dormant. Not one bond established on Earth is broken; our sympathies will be reestablished in the order of their existence, more or less vividly, according to their intensity or intimacy.
When the individual leaves behind his mortal remains, he is taken by such fear and astonishment that it makes him uncertain about his actual state; he does not know if is dead or alive, and it takes long for his very confused sensations to clear up. The spirit’s eyes are progressively amazed by the many clarities around him, leading him to a new order of things, great and unknown that he can hardly understand in the beginning but soon recognizes that he is nothing more than an intangible and immaterial creature; he seeks his vestiges, and surprise, he does not find them; some time goes by before he recovers the memory of his past, then convinced of his identity. He looks back to Earth and sees his crying relatives and friends and his inert body. The eyes finally leave Earth and seek the skies. If the will of God no longer keeps him attached to the soil, he then rises slowly and feels his body floating in space, a marvelous sensation. Then, the memory of the life he has just left behind comes with this sometimes devastating, other times consoling clarity. I speak about what I felt, and I am not a bad spirit but I don’t occupy an elevated position, unfortunately. We get rid of every earthly prejudice. Truth shines with full intensity. Nothing mitigates our faults. Nothing hides the virtues. We see our own souls as clearly as before a mirror. We seek familiar spirits because isolation is frightening, but others go by and they don’t stop. There are no affectionate relationships among errant spirits; even those who loved one another don’t exchange expressions of love; those misty forms slide and move on. Loving exchanges are reserved to the superior spirits in their interactions. As for ourselves, our transient state is only good for our advancement, and nothing should distract us from that path. The only communications allowed to us are with the humans because it is mutually useful, and prescribed by God. The bad spirits also contribute to human betterment: they serve through the trials; those who resist conquer merits. The spirits who guide people are rewarded by a substantial extenuation of their penalties. The errant spirits don’t suffer for the absence of communication among them for they know that they will meet again. Hence, their devotion is amplified so that the object of their affection is brought back to them, at the end of their trials, affections which cannot be expressed but which remain dormant. Not one bond established on Earth is broken; our sympathies will be reestablished in the order of their existence, more or less vividly, according to their intensity or intimacy.
Georges
Progress of the Spirits
(Medium Mrs. Costel)
The spirits can advance intellectually if they sincerely and strongly wish to do so. They have their free will, like people, and the errant state does not preclude them from using their faculties; it even helps, giving them the means of observation that they can utilize.
The spirits can advance intellectually if they sincerely and strongly wish to do so. They have their free will, like people, and the errant state does not preclude them from using their faculties; it even helps, giving them the means of observation that they can utilize.
The bad spirits are not fatally condemned to remain evil. They can
evolve but they rarely wish that since they lack discernment and find
some sort of sickly pleasure out of their evil deeds. They must be violently
shocked and punished in order to return to the good path because their
wicked minds can only learn through punishment.
The weak spirits that take no pleasure in evil things but who don’t
advance, these are restrained by their own weakness and by a kind of
numbness that freezes their capabilities; they wander around; time goes
by without their assessment; they couldn’t care less about what they see
and take no advantage of that or even show rebellion. A certain degree of
moral progress is necessary so that they can advance in the errant state.
These poor spirits sometimes choose badly their trials; they particularly
seek wealth in their material life, not concerned about the aftermath.
These weak spirits eagerly seek reincarnation, not to depurate but to live again. The spirits who had many migrations are more experienced than
the others: each life has given them a certain sum of knowledge; they saw
and learned; they are less naïve than those who are closer to the starting
point.
The spirits that come from Earth reincarnate back on Earth more frequently
than in any other place, because the acquired experience is more
applicable there. They almost never visit other worlds before or after their
perfecting. Living conditions vary in each planet for the diversity of God’s
work is inexhaustible. Nonetheless, the creatures who live in those worlds
obey the same laws of expiation and all tend towards the same objective
that is complete perfection.
Georges
Material Charity and Moral Charity
(Medium Mrs. De B…)
“Let us love one another and do to others what we would have them do unto us”. The whole of religion, the whole of morals are contained in these two principles. If they were followed here on Earth we would all be perfect: no more hatred, no more hard feelings; I say even more: there would be no more poverty since the many poor people would be fed from the excesses of the tables of the rich, and you would not see in the somber neighborhoods, where I lived in my last incarnation, poor women dragging around wretched children lacking everything.
“Let us love one another and do to others what we would have them do unto us”. The whole of religion, the whole of morals are contained in these two principles. If they were followed here on Earth we would all be perfect: no more hatred, no more hard feelings; I say even more: there would be no more poverty since the many poor people would be fed from the excesses of the tables of the rich, and you would not see in the somber neighborhoods, where I lived in my last incarnation, poor women dragging around wretched children lacking everything.
Rich! Give some thought to that. Help the unfortunate ones the best
you can. Give so that God may one day return the good you did; so that
when you leave the terrestrial wrapping you may one day find an entourage
of thankful spirits welcoming you at the throne of a happier world.
If you could only know how happy I felt when I met above those that
I was able to help in my last life! Give and love thy neighbor; love them as you would love yourself, because now you also know that God has allowed
you to initiate into the Spiritist Science, that the miserable pariah
may be a brother, a father, a son, a friend that you send away; and that,
what a despair when you meet again in the spiritual world!
I wish that you truly understand what moral charity is, that everybody
can practice it; that it has no material cost but is the most difficult
to practice!
Moral charity consists of supporting one another, and that is the least
done in this inferior world where you are now incarnated. Hence, be charitable
for you shall advance more in the path of good. Be humane and bear
one another. There is great merit in knowing when to be silent so that the fool
may speak and this is a form of charity; go silent when the mockery leaves
the jester’s mouth; don’t notice the sarcastic smile in the mouth of those who
wrongly judge themselves above you, when in the spiritual life, the only true
life, they are sometimes far off; there is merit, not of humility but of charity in
this because it is moral charity in not seeing others’ mistakes. There is much
more merit in looking at an infirm person with compassion than throwing
him your opinion with neglect. However, the image must not be taken literally
because one charity does not preclude the other. Above all, do not neglect
your fellow human beings. Remember what I have told you: it is always necessary
to keep in mind that those you repel might very well be a spirit dear to
you, temporarily situated in an inferior position.
I have met again a poor person from your Earth that I had fortunately
helped a few times and to whom in turn, I must now implore for help.
Thus, be charitable; don’t scorn; let go of the words that hurt you
and don’t think that charity is only the act of giving material things, but
do practice also the moral charity. I repeat: practice one and the other.
Remember that Jesus told us that we are brothers and always think about
it, before you send the leprous or the beggar away. I shall come back to
give you a longer communication since I am called back now. Good-bye.
Think of those who suffer and pray.
Sister Rosalie
Electricity of Thought
(Medium Mrs. Costel)
I will talk about the strange phenomenon that takes place in the meetings, whatever their character. I mean the electricity of thought, which spreads as if by magic through the brains of those less prepared to receive it. That alone could confirm magnetism to the eyes of the most incredulous. I am amazed by the coexistence of the phenomena and how they reciprocally confirm each other. You will certainly say: Spiritism explains them all, because it provides the reason for the facts up until now left to the domain of superstition. It is necessary to believe in what Spiritism teaches you since it transforms stones into diamonds, that is, it incessantly elevates the souls dedicated to its understanding, giving them patience to endure their sufferings on Earth, allowing them the glorious elevation in heaven, drawing them closer to the Creator.
I will talk about the strange phenomenon that takes place in the meetings, whatever their character. I mean the electricity of thought, which spreads as if by magic through the brains of those less prepared to receive it. That alone could confirm magnetism to the eyes of the most incredulous. I am amazed by the coexistence of the phenomena and how they reciprocally confirm each other. You will certainly say: Spiritism explains them all, because it provides the reason for the facts up until now left to the domain of superstition. It is necessary to believe in what Spiritism teaches you since it transforms stones into diamonds, that is, it incessantly elevates the souls dedicated to its understanding, giving them patience to endure their sufferings on Earth, allowing them the glorious elevation in heaven, drawing them closer to the Creator.
I return to the starting point from which I moved a little bit away.
The electricity that unites the spirit of people in an assembled meeting,
allowing them to simultaneously understand the same thing, that very
electricity shall one day be employed with such efficiency among people
as it is in the communications at a distance. I reveal to you this idea that I will develop one day because it is very prolific. Keep the serenity in your
works and count on the benevolence of the good spirits that assist you.
I will complete my thought that was unfinished in my previous communication.
I was speaking about the electricity of thought and I told you
that one day it would be used like its sister, the physical electricity is used.
In fact, when in a meeting, people release the fluids that transmit the
minimal impressions to them, with the speed of light. Why hasn’t such
a means been used, for example, to discover a criminal or to make the
masses understand the truths of religion or Spiritism? In the great criminal
or political trials the audience of the judicial dramas could detect the
magnetic current that progressively forces those very people more interested
in hiding their thoughts to reveal it or even accuse themselves, since
they no longer can withstand the electrical pressure that would irrespectively
produce the truth, not out of their consciousness, but of their hearts.
Apart from those strong emotions, the same phenomenon happens with
intellectual ideas, transmitted from the brain to brain. The means then
have already been found. It is necessary to apply it: to gather in the same
center, people of conviction, or educated people, and bring together the
contrast of ignorance or vice. Such experiments must be carried out with
awareness and are more important than debates about words.
Delphine de Girardin
Hypocrisy
(Medium Mr. Didier Jr.)
There should be two very distinct fields on Earth: on one side those who openly do the good things and on the other, those who openly do bad things. No, however! The human being is not honest not even when it comes to bad things, since it affects virtue! Hypocrisy! Hypocrisy! Powerful goddess! How many tyrants have you created? How many idols to adore!
There should be two very distinct fields on Earth: on one side those who openly do the good things and on the other, those who openly do bad things. No, however! The human being is not honest not even when it comes to bad things, since it affects virtue! Hypocrisy! Hypocrisy! Powerful goddess! How many tyrants have you created? How many idols to adore!
The human being’s heart is very strange really since it can beat in
death, as it can apparently love honor, virtue, truth and charity! The human
being bows daily before those virtues and daily fails his word, neglecting
the poor Christ. He is a constant lying hypocrite.
How many people seem honest, because their appearance is often
deceiving! Christ called them whitewashed tombs, which are rotten inside
but shinny outside. Man! You truly seem like that house of death,
and while your heart is dead Jesus shall not inspire you, Jesus, that
divine light that does not illuminate the exterior but that brings clarity
to the interior.
Hypocrisy, understand this well, is the vice of your time. And you
wish to become great by hypocrisy! In the name of freedom you become
greater; in the name of morale you become more brutal; in the name of
truth, you lie.
Lamennais