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The Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1860 > October > Mr. Allan Kardec’s response to the Gazette de Lyon
Mr. Allan Kardec’s response to the Gazette de Lyon
The 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