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The Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1863 > August
August
We had the opportunity to throw some flowers into the grave of a man that was not only known for his knowledge but for his moral qualities. Jean Reynaud was born in Lyon, in February 1808 and died in Paris, on June 28th, 1863. We could not give a better example of his character than by reproducing the short and touching necrology given by his friend, Mr. Ernest Legouvé, published in the Siècle, on June 30th, 1863:
“Democracy, philosophy, religion and I are not afraid of saying that we have been impacted by a loss : Jean Reynaud died yesterday, after a short illness. From any point of view that his doctrines may be judged, his work as well as his life were eminently religious because both his life as well as his work were an eloquent protest against the great scourge that threatens us: skepticism in all forms and shapes. Nobody believed more strongly in the divine personality; nobody believed more strongly in the human personality; nobody loved more ardently freedom. In his book Terre et Ciel that created a huge groove from the get-go and whose memory will be engraved more and more, in that book there is such a breath of infinite, such a feeling of the divine presence that one may say that God beats in each page there!
How could that be different if the writer of those pages always lived in the presence of God? We know well, all of us who know and love him and whose highest honorary title is that of having been loved by such a man, that he was a continuously flowing source of moral life. Nobody was able to approach him without leaving closer to goodness; his face alone was a lesson of righteousness, honor and devotion. Fallen souls felt uneasy before his clear eyes, as if before the very sight of justice. And all that has gone! He left while still strong when so many useful words, so many great examples could still come out of that mouth, that heart!
We don’t cry for ourselves only, Reynaud. We cry for our whole country.”
E. Legouvé
In the same edition of the journal on July 16th, Mr. Henri Martin gave more details about the life and works of Jean Reynaud. He says:
“Raised in the freedom of the country side by a mother of strong and kind soul, it was there that he discovered the habits of closeness to nature that never abandoned him, developed the robust physical structure that later on allowed him to cover twenty leagues in one breath, jumping from glacier to glacier, from one tip to another through the Alps, through narrow cornices where even the deer hunters would not adventure.
He had a fast and fecund education. He very soon developed a strong interest for literature and arts and initially turned his eyes to science, a fortunate direction that would feed him with the food and instruments of thought by turning the wise man into a faithful server of the philosopher. Coming out of the first class of the Polytechnic School, he graduated in Mining Engineering at the time of the outburst of the July revolution. He returned to Paris where Sansimonism had just started and was engulfed by this great and singular movement that then excite so many minds by the idea of the dogma of the perfectibility of mankind. The school, however, pretended to become a church. Jean Reynaud did not follow that replacing it by democracy. He then rebuilt a group and a center of intellectual action with friends that had moved away from the movement at the same time he did. Pierre Leroux, Carnot and him recovered the Revue Encyclopédique from the hands of Julien (from Paris). It was when Pierre Leroux published his remarkable Essai sur la doctrine du progress continu[1] and Jean Reynaud the very attractive passage about the Infinite des Cieux[2], germ of his great book Terre et Ciel.[3] He then founded the Encyclopédie Nouvelle together with Pierre Leroux, a huge task that was left unfinished. On February 24th he became involved in politics. President of the Commission for High Studies of Science and Literature and after that Sub secretary of State of the Ministry of Public Education, he developed in cooperation with Carnot, one of his oldest and closest friends, plans to raise public education to the level of democratic institutions. Transferred from public education to State Council Jean Reynaud conquered there an authority that originated from his personal character and wisdom and however short his passage there he left in the memory of the most renowned experts an inextinguishable memory.”
Of all the writings from Jean Reynaud, the one that contributed most to his popularity was undoubtedly the book Terre et Ciel, although the abstraction used in the language does not make it reachable by everyone; the depth of the ideas, though, and the logic of deductions made it appreciated by every serious thinker, placing the author in the class of spiritualist philosophers. To the Church that book was a threat to the orthodoxy of faith. It was consequently condemned and listed in the “Index” by the Roman Curia, a fact that gave the book even more importance that it already had and hence increasing the demand for that piece work. Nobody spoke of Spirits when the book was published, around 1840, however Jean Reynaud seemed to have had, like many other modern writers in fact, the intuition and presentiment of Spiritism, from which he was one of the most persuasive precursors. Like Charles Fourier, he admits the indefinite progress of the soul and as a consequence of such progress the need for the plurality of the existences, demonstrated by the multiple states of people on Earth.
Jean Reynaud had seen nothing. Everything was taken out of his profound intuition. Spiritism saw what the philosopher had only presented, thus adding the sanction of experience to the purely speculative theory and the experience naturally led to the discovery of details that could not be foreseen by imagination only, but that comes to complement and corroborate the fundamental points. Like all the great ideas that revolutionized the world, Spiritism was not suddenly born. It germinated in more than one brain, showing up here and there, bit by bit, as if to have people used to the idea. A sudden and complete appearance would have found a too strong resistance and it would have fascinated without convincing.
Incidentally, everything must come at the right time and every plant must germinate and grow before it reaches a complete development. The same happens in politics for there is no revolution that had not been incubated for a long time and anybody guided by experience and the study of the past may safely follow those preliminaries and foresee them unfolding with no need to be a prophet.
That is how the principles of modern Spiritism were partially presented and with different faces, in several occasions: with Swedenborg in the last century; with the doctrine of the theosophist in the beginning of this century, who clearly admitted the communications between the visible and the invisible worlds; with Charles Fourier that admits the progress of the soul through reincarnation; with Jean Reynaud, who admits the same principle, probing infinity with science at hand; in the American manifestations, twelve years ago, which such a great repercussion demonstrating the material relationships between the dead and the living ones and finally with the Spiritist philosophy that consolidated those several elements in a body of doctrine, deducing their moral consequences.
Who could tell that a whole philosophy would stem out of the entertainment with the turning tables? When the philosophy came out who could tell that in a few years it would go around the world, conquering millions of followers? Today, who could tell that it has said the last word? It has certainly not but the foundation is established and there are still many details to be clarified and that will come at the right time.
Besides, the more it advances, the more one can see the multiplicity of interests that it touches, for one can say without exaggeration that this doctrine embraces every issue of the social order. Thus, it is only the future that can unfold all of its consequences, or even better, its consequences will be developed by themselves, by the force of things, because Spiritism contains what was uselessly sought elsewhere. For that reason, one will be forced to acknowledge that only Spiritism can fill out the moral emptiness that daily surrounds people, an emptiness that threats society itself on its foundation and whose fear can be felt already.
At a given time Spiritism will be the lifeline but it was not necessary to wait for that moment in order to throw in the safe rope, as one does not wait for the harvest to sow the seeds. The wisdom of the Providence prepares things slowly. That is why the core idea has had, as we said, many precursors that paved the way and prepared the terrain to receive the seed, some in one direction, others in another, and all the numerous treads that intertwine to arrive at the fundamental idea will one day be recognized. Now, each of those ideas has their own followers resulting from that a natural predisposition to accept the complement of that idea for each of them prepared a portion of the terrain. That is, unequivocally, one of the causes of such a propagation that borders a prodigy without precedent in the history of the philosophical doctrines. The adversaries, in turn, are stunned by the resistance that this doctrine offers to their attacks. They will have to yield later before by force of opinion.
There are a number of contemporary writers that must be added to the roll of precursors of Spiritism whose works are spotted with Spiritist ideas, perhaps unwillingly. One would need to write several books if wanting to collect the innumerable passages that make more or less direct reference to the preexistence and survival of the soul; to their presence amongst the living ones; to their manifestations; to their pilgrimage through progressive worlds; to the plurality of existences, etc. Admitting that it was no more than imagination of the authors, the idea is not less filtered in the heart of the masses where it remains latent up until the time it is demonstrated as a truth. Will there be a more Spiritist thought than that found in the letter of Mr. Victor Hugo about the death of Mrs. Lamartine, and that the majority of the newspapers received with enthusiasm even those that more strongly question the belief in Spirits? Here is the letter that says a lot in a few lines:
“Hauteville-House, May 23rd,
Dear Lamartine,
A great tragedy hurts you. I need to place my heart near yours. I revered the one you loved. Your elevated Spirit sees beyond the horizon. You clearly perceive the future life.
You are not the one to be told: Wait. You are among those who know and wait. She is always your companion, invisible but present. You lost the wife but not the soul.
Dear friend, let us live in the dead.
Victor Hugo.”
It is not only isolated writers that sow some of the ideas here and there but it is science itself that comes to pave the way. Magnetism was the first step towards the knowledge of the perispiritual action, source of every Spiritist phenomenon. Somnambulism was the first isolated manifestation of the soul. Phrenology demonstrated that the brain is a keyboard at the service of the intelligent principle for the expression of multiple skills for contrary to Gall’s intention, its materialistic founder, it served to demonstrate the independence between Spirit and matter. Demonstrating the power of action of the spiritualized matter, homeopathy shows the important role of the perispirit in certain diseases; it attacks the illness in its source, out of the physical organization whose alteration is only a consequence. That is why homeopathy is successful in a number of cases in which ordinary medicine fails: more than the latter, the former takes into account the spiritualist element, so dominating in this matter, thus explaining the facility with which homeopathic doctors accept Spiritism and why the majority of the Spiritist doctors belong to the Hahnemann school. Finally, it was not but until the recent discoveries about the properties of electricity that its contingent was brought to the question of concern to us and that sheds some light onto what could be called the physiology of the Spirits. We could not stop if we wanted to analyze every circumstance, great or small, that has come to open the route to the new philosophy since half a century. We would see the most contradictory doctrines provoking the development of the idea; the political events themselves preparing its introduction in practical terms; but from all causes the most preponderant is the Church that seems fatally predestined to impel it.
Everything comes to support it and if people knew the large number of documents that come to our hands from everywhere; if they could follow, as we do, this providential march in the world, favored by the least expected events and that would seem in contradiction at first sight, they would understand better how irresistible it is and would be less surprised with our unaffectedness. Fact is that we see everyone working towards that, in good will or unwillingly, voluntarily or involuntarily; we see the objective and we know when and how it is going to be achieved; we see the whole advancing and that is why we don’t bother with individualities that march backwards. Thus, Jean Reynaud was a precursor of Spiritism in his writings. He also had his providential mission and was supposed to open a groove. It would benefit him after his death. An eminent Spirit gave the following appreciation about the event:
“This is another circumstance that is going to support Spiritism. Jean Reynaud had done what he was supposed to do in his last existence. People will talk about his death, his life and more than never about his books. Speaking of his works is the same as to step foot into Spiritism’s way. Many intelligences will learn about our belief by studying this philosopher who gained authority. They will understand and see that you are not as mad as those who laugh at you and at your faith pretend that you are. All the works of God is well done, believe me. He will be praised by your detractors and know this that they will unwillingly work to recruit more followers to you. Let them act. Let them scream. It will all be according to the will of God.
Still a bit of patience and the elite of people of intelligence and knowledge will join you and before certain ostensive adhesions criticism will have to lower its voice.”
Saint Augustine
NOTE: See some communications of Jean Reynaud in the Spiritist dissertations below
[1] Essay about the doctrine of continuous progress (T.N.)
[2] Infinite of heavens (T.N.)
[3]Earth and sky (T.N.)
“Democracy, philosophy, religion and I are not afraid of saying that we have been impacted by a loss : Jean Reynaud died yesterday, after a short illness. From any point of view that his doctrines may be judged, his work as well as his life were eminently religious because both his life as well as his work were an eloquent protest against the great scourge that threatens us: skepticism in all forms and shapes. Nobody believed more strongly in the divine personality; nobody believed more strongly in the human personality; nobody loved more ardently freedom. In his book Terre et Ciel that created a huge groove from the get-go and whose memory will be engraved more and more, in that book there is such a breath of infinite, such a feeling of the divine presence that one may say that God beats in each page there!
How could that be different if the writer of those pages always lived in the presence of God? We know well, all of us who know and love him and whose highest honorary title is that of having been loved by such a man, that he was a continuously flowing source of moral life. Nobody was able to approach him without leaving closer to goodness; his face alone was a lesson of righteousness, honor and devotion. Fallen souls felt uneasy before his clear eyes, as if before the very sight of justice. And all that has gone! He left while still strong when so many useful words, so many great examples could still come out of that mouth, that heart!
We don’t cry for ourselves only, Reynaud. We cry for our whole country.”
E. Legouvé
In the same edition of the journal on July 16th, Mr. Henri Martin gave more details about the life and works of Jean Reynaud. He says:
“Raised in the freedom of the country side by a mother of strong and kind soul, it was there that he discovered the habits of closeness to nature that never abandoned him, developed the robust physical structure that later on allowed him to cover twenty leagues in one breath, jumping from glacier to glacier, from one tip to another through the Alps, through narrow cornices where even the deer hunters would not adventure.
He had a fast and fecund education. He very soon developed a strong interest for literature and arts and initially turned his eyes to science, a fortunate direction that would feed him with the food and instruments of thought by turning the wise man into a faithful server of the philosopher. Coming out of the first class of the Polytechnic School, he graduated in Mining Engineering at the time of the outburst of the July revolution. He returned to Paris where Sansimonism had just started and was engulfed by this great and singular movement that then excite so many minds by the idea of the dogma of the perfectibility of mankind. The school, however, pretended to become a church. Jean Reynaud did not follow that replacing it by democracy. He then rebuilt a group and a center of intellectual action with friends that had moved away from the movement at the same time he did. Pierre Leroux, Carnot and him recovered the Revue Encyclopédique from the hands of Julien (from Paris). It was when Pierre Leroux published his remarkable Essai sur la doctrine du progress continu[1] and Jean Reynaud the very attractive passage about the Infinite des Cieux[2], germ of his great book Terre et Ciel.[3] He then founded the Encyclopédie Nouvelle together with Pierre Leroux, a huge task that was left unfinished. On February 24th he became involved in politics. President of the Commission for High Studies of Science and Literature and after that Sub secretary of State of the Ministry of Public Education, he developed in cooperation with Carnot, one of his oldest and closest friends, plans to raise public education to the level of democratic institutions. Transferred from public education to State Council Jean Reynaud conquered there an authority that originated from his personal character and wisdom and however short his passage there he left in the memory of the most renowned experts an inextinguishable memory.”
Of all the writings from Jean Reynaud, the one that contributed most to his popularity was undoubtedly the book Terre et Ciel, although the abstraction used in the language does not make it reachable by everyone; the depth of the ideas, though, and the logic of deductions made it appreciated by every serious thinker, placing the author in the class of spiritualist philosophers. To the Church that book was a threat to the orthodoxy of faith. It was consequently condemned and listed in the “Index” by the Roman Curia, a fact that gave the book even more importance that it already had and hence increasing the demand for that piece work. Nobody spoke of Spirits when the book was published, around 1840, however Jean Reynaud seemed to have had, like many other modern writers in fact, the intuition and presentiment of Spiritism, from which he was one of the most persuasive precursors. Like Charles Fourier, he admits the indefinite progress of the soul and as a consequence of such progress the need for the plurality of the existences, demonstrated by the multiple states of people on Earth.
Jean Reynaud had seen nothing. Everything was taken out of his profound intuition. Spiritism saw what the philosopher had only presented, thus adding the sanction of experience to the purely speculative theory and the experience naturally led to the discovery of details that could not be foreseen by imagination only, but that comes to complement and corroborate the fundamental points. Like all the great ideas that revolutionized the world, Spiritism was not suddenly born. It germinated in more than one brain, showing up here and there, bit by bit, as if to have people used to the idea. A sudden and complete appearance would have found a too strong resistance and it would have fascinated without convincing.
Incidentally, everything must come at the right time and every plant must germinate and grow before it reaches a complete development. The same happens in politics for there is no revolution that had not been incubated for a long time and anybody guided by experience and the study of the past may safely follow those preliminaries and foresee them unfolding with no need to be a prophet.
That is how the principles of modern Spiritism were partially presented and with different faces, in several occasions: with Swedenborg in the last century; with the doctrine of the theosophist in the beginning of this century, who clearly admitted the communications between the visible and the invisible worlds; with Charles Fourier that admits the progress of the soul through reincarnation; with Jean Reynaud, who admits the same principle, probing infinity with science at hand; in the American manifestations, twelve years ago, which such a great repercussion demonstrating the material relationships between the dead and the living ones and finally with the Spiritist philosophy that consolidated those several elements in a body of doctrine, deducing their moral consequences.
Who could tell that a whole philosophy would stem out of the entertainment with the turning tables? When the philosophy came out who could tell that in a few years it would go around the world, conquering millions of followers? Today, who could tell that it has said the last word? It has certainly not but the foundation is established and there are still many details to be clarified and that will come at the right time.
Besides, the more it advances, the more one can see the multiplicity of interests that it touches, for one can say without exaggeration that this doctrine embraces every issue of the social order. Thus, it is only the future that can unfold all of its consequences, or even better, its consequences will be developed by themselves, by the force of things, because Spiritism contains what was uselessly sought elsewhere. For that reason, one will be forced to acknowledge that only Spiritism can fill out the moral emptiness that daily surrounds people, an emptiness that threats society itself on its foundation and whose fear can be felt already.
At a given time Spiritism will be the lifeline but it was not necessary to wait for that moment in order to throw in the safe rope, as one does not wait for the harvest to sow the seeds. The wisdom of the Providence prepares things slowly. That is why the core idea has had, as we said, many precursors that paved the way and prepared the terrain to receive the seed, some in one direction, others in another, and all the numerous treads that intertwine to arrive at the fundamental idea will one day be recognized. Now, each of those ideas has their own followers resulting from that a natural predisposition to accept the complement of that idea for each of them prepared a portion of the terrain. That is, unequivocally, one of the causes of such a propagation that borders a prodigy without precedent in the history of the philosophical doctrines. The adversaries, in turn, are stunned by the resistance that this doctrine offers to their attacks. They will have to yield later before by force of opinion.
There are a number of contemporary writers that must be added to the roll of precursors of Spiritism whose works are spotted with Spiritist ideas, perhaps unwillingly. One would need to write several books if wanting to collect the innumerable passages that make more or less direct reference to the preexistence and survival of the soul; to their presence amongst the living ones; to their manifestations; to their pilgrimage through progressive worlds; to the plurality of existences, etc. Admitting that it was no more than imagination of the authors, the idea is not less filtered in the heart of the masses where it remains latent up until the time it is demonstrated as a truth. Will there be a more Spiritist thought than that found in the letter of Mr. Victor Hugo about the death of Mrs. Lamartine, and that the majority of the newspapers received with enthusiasm even those that more strongly question the belief in Spirits? Here is the letter that says a lot in a few lines:
“Hauteville-House, May 23rd,
Dear Lamartine,
A great tragedy hurts you. I need to place my heart near yours. I revered the one you loved. Your elevated Spirit sees beyond the horizon. You clearly perceive the future life.
You are not the one to be told: Wait. You are among those who know and wait. She is always your companion, invisible but present. You lost the wife but not the soul.
Dear friend, let us live in the dead.
Victor Hugo.”
It is not only isolated writers that sow some of the ideas here and there but it is science itself that comes to pave the way. Magnetism was the first step towards the knowledge of the perispiritual action, source of every Spiritist phenomenon. Somnambulism was the first isolated manifestation of the soul. Phrenology demonstrated that the brain is a keyboard at the service of the intelligent principle for the expression of multiple skills for contrary to Gall’s intention, its materialistic founder, it served to demonstrate the independence between Spirit and matter. Demonstrating the power of action of the spiritualized matter, homeopathy shows the important role of the perispirit in certain diseases; it attacks the illness in its source, out of the physical organization whose alteration is only a consequence. That is why homeopathy is successful in a number of cases in which ordinary medicine fails: more than the latter, the former takes into account the spiritualist element, so dominating in this matter, thus explaining the facility with which homeopathic doctors accept Spiritism and why the majority of the Spiritist doctors belong to the Hahnemann school. Finally, it was not but until the recent discoveries about the properties of electricity that its contingent was brought to the question of concern to us and that sheds some light onto what could be called the physiology of the Spirits. We could not stop if we wanted to analyze every circumstance, great or small, that has come to open the route to the new philosophy since half a century. We would see the most contradictory doctrines provoking the development of the idea; the political events themselves preparing its introduction in practical terms; but from all causes the most preponderant is the Church that seems fatally predestined to impel it.
Everything comes to support it and if people knew the large number of documents that come to our hands from everywhere; if they could follow, as we do, this providential march in the world, favored by the least expected events and that would seem in contradiction at first sight, they would understand better how irresistible it is and would be less surprised with our unaffectedness. Fact is that we see everyone working towards that, in good will or unwillingly, voluntarily or involuntarily; we see the objective and we know when and how it is going to be achieved; we see the whole advancing and that is why we don’t bother with individualities that march backwards. Thus, Jean Reynaud was a precursor of Spiritism in his writings. He also had his providential mission and was supposed to open a groove. It would benefit him after his death. An eminent Spirit gave the following appreciation about the event:
“This is another circumstance that is going to support Spiritism. Jean Reynaud had done what he was supposed to do in his last existence. People will talk about his death, his life and more than never about his books. Speaking of his works is the same as to step foot into Spiritism’s way. Many intelligences will learn about our belief by studying this philosopher who gained authority. They will understand and see that you are not as mad as those who laugh at you and at your faith pretend that you are. All the works of God is well done, believe me. He will be praised by your detractors and know this that they will unwillingly work to recruit more followers to you. Let them act. Let them scream. It will all be according to the will of God.
Still a bit of patience and the elite of people of intelligence and knowledge will join you and before certain ostensive adhesions criticism will have to lower its voice.”
Saint Augustine
NOTE: See some communications of Jean Reynaud in the Spiritist dissertations below
[1] Essay about the doctrine of continuous progress (T.N.)
[2] Infinite of heavens (T.N.)
[3]Earth and sky (T.N.)
Extracted from the journey to the East by Mr. Lamartine
“Oh, for that matter I tell you there is another question. Nobody suffers and bears the burden of nature, people and society more than I do. Nobody speaks so loudly of the social, political and religious abuse. Nobody expects a reparation to all these intolerable evils of humanity more than I do. Nobody is better convinced that such a repairer cannot be but divine! If you expect a messiah, I expect, like you, to do more than you as I wait for his appearance; like you, and more than you, I see in the shaken beliefs of mankind, in the turmoil of ideas, in the emptiness of hearts, in the depravation of the social fabric, in the repeated commotion of the political institutions, all the symptoms of disorder and consequently of a nearing and imminent renovation. I believe that God is always present at the precise moment when everything that is human is insufficient confessing humans’ inability of doing anything on their own. That is where the world is. I thus believe in a messiah; I don’t see Christ who cannot give us more wisdom, virtue and truth; I see the one that one announced by Christ that would come after him: this always an active saint Spirit, always supporting mankind, always revealing, according to the times and needs, what they need to know and do. May such a divine Spirit incarnate in a man or in a doctrine, in a fact or in an idea, it does not matter: it is always him, man or doctrine, fact or idea. I believe in him, I wait for him and more than you, madam, I invoke him! As you see we can understand one another and that your stars are no so much diverging as this conversation made us to think.” (vol. 1, page 176)
“Human imagination is truer than thought. It does not always build with the dreams but proceeds by instinctive assimilations of things and images that give safer and more positive results than science and logic. With the exception of the valleys of Lebanon, the ruins of Baalbek, the waterways of the Bosphorus, Constantinople and the first signs of Damascus, from the top of the Anti-Lebanon, I have never found a place, something that at first sight was not a memory to me! Have we already lived twice or a thousand times? Isn’t our memory a foggy glass that is cleaned by the breath of God? Or do we have in our imagination the power of presenting and seeing before we do actually see? Insoluble questions!” (vol. 1, page 327).
OBSERVATION: In our preceding article about the precursors of Spiritism, we said that there are, in many authors, sparse elements of this doctrine. The fragments above are very clear without the need for us to point out their purpose. For that fact that Mr. Lamartine and others issue Spiritist ideas in their texts does it follow that they frankly adopt Spiritism? No. In most cases they did not study it or, if they did, they don’t dare to associate their already well-known names to a new flag. Their conviction, incidentally, is only partial and to them the idea is just a flash that starts from a vague intuition, not formulated and not matured in their minds; they can thus back up before a whole body from which certain parts may obfuscate them, even horrify them. To us it does not represent less an indication of a presentiment of the general idea that germinates in bright minds, what is sufficient to demonstrate to certain adversaries that these ideas do lack so much sense as they pretend to be as long as they are shared by the people whose superiority they acknowledge. By gathering and coordinating the partial idea of each one it would certainly constitute the complete Spiritist Doctrine according to the most renowned and trustworthy persons. We thank our subscriber from Joinville that kindly sent us the two passages cited above and will always be very thankful to the persons that have the kindness of sending us the result of their readings, as he did.
NOTE: We take the opportunity to thank the person that sent us a brochure entitled “Dissertation about the floods”. Since the parcel came without a letter we cannot thank directly. A glance at the brochure convinced us that the very original system of the author is in contradiction with the most common and positive data of geological science that irrespective of people say have its value. Thus, it would be easy to refute his theory by observations that are at least as rigorous as his own.
“Oh, for that matter I tell you there is another question. Nobody suffers and bears the burden of nature, people and society more than I do. Nobody speaks so loudly of the social, political and religious abuse. Nobody expects a reparation to all these intolerable evils of humanity more than I do. Nobody is better convinced that such a repairer cannot be but divine! If you expect a messiah, I expect, like you, to do more than you as I wait for his appearance; like you, and more than you, I see in the shaken beliefs of mankind, in the turmoil of ideas, in the emptiness of hearts, in the depravation of the social fabric, in the repeated commotion of the political institutions, all the symptoms of disorder and consequently of a nearing and imminent renovation. I believe that God is always present at the precise moment when everything that is human is insufficient confessing humans’ inability of doing anything on their own. That is where the world is. I thus believe in a messiah; I don’t see Christ who cannot give us more wisdom, virtue and truth; I see the one that one announced by Christ that would come after him: this always an active saint Spirit, always supporting mankind, always revealing, according to the times and needs, what they need to know and do. May such a divine Spirit incarnate in a man or in a doctrine, in a fact or in an idea, it does not matter: it is always him, man or doctrine, fact or idea. I believe in him, I wait for him and more than you, madam, I invoke him! As you see we can understand one another and that your stars are no so much diverging as this conversation made us to think.” (vol. 1, page 176)
“Human imagination is truer than thought. It does not always build with the dreams but proceeds by instinctive assimilations of things and images that give safer and more positive results than science and logic. With the exception of the valleys of Lebanon, the ruins of Baalbek, the waterways of the Bosphorus, Constantinople and the first signs of Damascus, from the top of the Anti-Lebanon, I have never found a place, something that at first sight was not a memory to me! Have we already lived twice or a thousand times? Isn’t our memory a foggy glass that is cleaned by the breath of God? Or do we have in our imagination the power of presenting and seeing before we do actually see? Insoluble questions!” (vol. 1, page 327).
OBSERVATION: In our preceding article about the precursors of Spiritism, we said that there are, in many authors, sparse elements of this doctrine. The fragments above are very clear without the need for us to point out their purpose. For that fact that Mr. Lamartine and others issue Spiritist ideas in their texts does it follow that they frankly adopt Spiritism? No. In most cases they did not study it or, if they did, they don’t dare to associate their already well-known names to a new flag. Their conviction, incidentally, is only partial and to them the idea is just a flash that starts from a vague intuition, not formulated and not matured in their minds; they can thus back up before a whole body from which certain parts may obfuscate them, even horrify them. To us it does not represent less an indication of a presentiment of the general idea that germinates in bright minds, what is sufficient to demonstrate to certain adversaries that these ideas do lack so much sense as they pretend to be as long as they are shared by the people whose superiority they acknowledge. By gathering and coordinating the partial idea of each one it would certainly constitute the complete Spiritist Doctrine according to the most renowned and trustworthy persons. We thank our subscriber from Joinville that kindly sent us the two passages cited above and will always be very thankful to the persons that have the kindness of sending us the result of their readings, as he did.
NOTE: We take the opportunity to thank the person that sent us a brochure entitled “Dissertation about the floods”. Since the parcel came without a letter we cannot thank directly. A glance at the brochure convinced us that the very original system of the author is in contradiction with the most common and positive data of geological science that irrespective of people say have its value. Thus, it would be easy to refute his theory by observations that are at least as rigorous as his own.
By Hppolyte Renaud, former student at the Polytechnic School[1]
The Presse on July 27th, 1862 published the following news about the book mentioned above. It is directly related to the Spiritist Doctrine so the readers must know that we are glad to reproduce it here. We ourselves could have analyzed that work but preferred a person that has no interest in the matter. We will limit ourselves to make comments about this article. The editor says:
“What is there that is more attractive to the Spirit and more refreshing to the soul than finding at this time a man of sincere, plain and profound faith, a man that believes and nonetheless, reasons and reasons without prejudice in order to seek light upon his conscience? That is Mr. Renaud.
For him mathematics and sciences did not kill the feeling or combine the mysterious sources that bond us to infinity through faith. Mr. Renaud is a firm believer, convict, an excellent Christian, even being a bad Catholic, from which he does not defend himself. On the contrary.
His enlightened reason, no less important than his loving heart, allows him to dismiss the idea of a jealous and enraged God; of a God that would have chosen rage to link the creature to the creator; of a God that punishes the son for the fault of the father, something that is iniquitous to the eyes of human justice.
Mr. Renaud’s God is a God of light and love. The harmony of His infinite work manifests His omnipotence and goodness. Man is not a victim but a collaborator in a smallbut still glorious part, proportional to his strength. Why evil then and how to explain it? Evil does not arise from a primitive downfall that would have changed all human condition. Its cause is the noncompliance with God’s law and man’s disobedience by the bad use of one’s free-will. We would find it clearer if Mr. Renaud had simply said that man begins by instinct and that only gradually could develop superior feelings and intelligence. The species man, like all other living creatures, cannot suddenly achieve the plenitude of the being. Goes through successive and normal evolutions. His social infancy is characterized by the domination of instincts. Then his misery, ignorance and brutality.
It gradually detaches from the mud of the first ages as it elevates in life. Intelligence grows, the feelings become stronger and he begins to humanize. The more man understands the more is connected to the law, the more he becomes religious and concur from his side to the general harmony.
Suffering is a warning, a stimulus to get rid of evilness, to move away from the shadows and walk with light. The more he advances, the more he rejects the world of instinct, fight, violence and war; the more he sees and understands, the more he aspires the world of peace and order, the empire of reason, the reign of elevated feelings, that are the dignity and the sacred sign of his species.
It follows that thanks to sciences, technology and to the incessant progress of sociability, mankind tends to become the king or if you prefer a less ambitious term, the manager of the globe. But later on, admitting for a moment this hypothesis that seems to become certain every day, will there be always this insatiable desire of man that cannot be limited to the present however magnificent it can be? What does it matter the material and earthly happiness if my soul remains empty and thirsty? We are taken by a supreme tedium and a great displeasure before such a short living happiness.
That is true, Mr. Renaud responds, and it is here that he triumphs. Illuminated by science, his robust faith in the eternal destines of man show him a whole infinite future of conscientious activity and paradisiacal joy.
At the birth of thought, at the first trembles of the soul, man raises the eye to the sky, interrogates his infinite depths and seeks the link that he foresees with the universe. This earthly existence, so short and sometimes so sad, is not enough. He feels that he is part of the infinity and wants to find his place at any price. He dreads the oblivion as nature does to the vacuum. Instead of going without an ideal he will madly throw himself at the strangest beliefs. Hence so many more or less flamboyant beliefs but that attest this absolute and fundamental need to feel reconnected to the infinity, assured of his own immortality.
The paradise of the Buddhists is well-known; the Greek Champs-Élysées; the paradise of the natives with their abundant forests and hunting prairies; the paradise of Mohamed with its material delights. The Catholic paradise that puts humanity in a state of infinite contemplative beatitude is a concept relative to cruel times in which work was considered suffering and punishment; where the general pain is such that resignation in this world and rest in the other would seem to be the sovereign wisdom and the highest ideal. But this hypothesis is evidently contradictory with the simplest and clearest notions of life. To live is to be; to be is to act with all the strength of one’s skills and its vital energy. To live is to incessantly aspire for transformation.
Pythagoras’ metempsychosis is incomplete, although respecting the idea of activity in the sense that it limits the transformation to passages through organisms that live on the face of Earth and still for not taking into account the law of the ascending progress that governs everything.
According to Mr. Renaud there is only one rational way of looking at the issue of immortality.
For starters the author rejects the idea that after having spent some time in the visible world, a place of atonement, the soul would move to the invisible world, a paradise, in the state of pious contemplation, uninterested about the fate of one’s fellow human beings and the earthly works. That the elected and blessed ones would be these creatures stripped of from any desire and aspiration, of any useful activity, any interest about the past and their neighbors, about the infinite universe where they worked, felt and thought!
Mr. Renaud equally rejects the hypothesis of an indefinite series of existences on Earth and on other globes. This kind of immortality already has an advantage with respect to the first concept because it opens up an indefinite field to human activity. Mr. Jean Reynaud, Mr. Pierre Leroux, Mr. Henri Martin and Mr. Lamennais are more or less connected to this idea. But there is an essential point that deteriorates its foundation: the absence of memory. What does it matter an immortality from which I have no conscience of and only God knows about it? To make my immortality real it would be necessary that in a life different from the current one I have the memory of my previous existences; that I am aware of the continuity and identity of my being. It is only with that condition that I am truly immortal participating to the infinite and conscious of my function in the universe. We only know our being through its manifestations because its virtual essence escapes us. What is it that would harm reason by admitting that our being whose persistence we verify down here in its incessant modifications would persist eternally? It only changes its form and organs according to the environment in the successive incarnations.
That is how Mr. Renaud exposes his conception that satisfies this essential condition of keeping the memory and that is, besides, according to the justice and the omnipotent benevolence of God.
There is no oblivion in the universe. Now, if the visible world is everywhere the invisible is nowhere, as Mr. Renaud wisely say, unless it is also everywhere.
Man has two very distinctive states on this Earth. During vigil he generally remembers all of his actions and has conscience of himself; during the sleep he loses both memory and conscience. Consequently, why would he not have two distinct modes of existence, always interconnected, always bonded to the life in space and in the planet? Initially the existence that we know down here and in the other life, of a more elevated order, in which the individual organizes himself and reincarnate through imponderable fluids; participates in a broader and more extensive way of the life of our maelstrom; preserves then the memory of his previous existences and had plentiful awareness of his own role and function in the universe? Has the mundane and visible life a relationship to the sleep and the trans mundane or ethereal has an analogy to the vigil state?
With such a hypothesis, the solidarity of mankind in its present and future generations seem to be complete and thorough. Each one of us lived, lives and will live in different times of life on Earth in both worlds, visible and invisible. Each one of us was born there and lives there according to the laws of numbers, weights and measures that presides the harmony of the worlds. Our several alternations are counted as days and seasons. Each one of us is reborn, takes one’s class in the species and function in the general works according to one’s value and the universal law of order. Perhaps each one of us go through the multiples states and functions presented by the species. The most absolute justice certainly presides such transformations like the most harmonious order shines in the eternal creation, in the multiple combinations that characterize every organism and living being. We are reborn for the ethereal life and leave it under the same conditions of order and harmony. That is Mr. Renaud’s conception that I cannot reveal completely here. It is necessary to refer to his book, clear, simple and quick where a profound faith linked to an as much elevated as impartial reason, keep the reader constantly under the enchantment of a theory that is as much reassuring as it is great and religious. The free spontaneity of the man, his intimate and endless solidarity with his fellow human beings, with his planet, his maelstrom, with the universe; his ever more progressive activity, efficient, radiant, in harmony with the divine laws; an infinite career for his eternal aspiration; the omnipotence and goodness of God justified, explained and glorified; love as the link between God and mankind, that is what sticks out of that little book, the most complete of any that was written under the inspiration of this great sentence: “Man’s desires are God’s promises.”
E. de Pompéry
This article provoked the two letters below also published in the Presse on July 31st and August 5th 1862.
“Paris, July 29th 1862
To the Editor,
Dear Sir,
I have just read in the yesterday’s Presse the following passage (article by Mr. de Pompéry about the works of Mr. Renaud):
Mr. Renaud equally rejects the hypothesis of an indefinite series of existences on Earth and on other globes. This kind of immortality already has an advantage with respect to the first concept because it opens up an indefinite field to human activity. Mr. Jean Reynaud, Mr. Pierre Leroux, Mr. Henri Martin and Mr. Lamennais are more or less connected to this idea. But there is an essential point that deteriorates its foundation: the absence of memory. What does it matter an immortality from which I have no conscience of and only God knows about it? To make my immortality real it would be necessary that in a life different from the current one I have the memory of my previous existences; that I am aware of the continuity and identity of my being.
Mr. de Pompéry is right, in my opinion: an indefinite metempsychosis and without memory is not immortality. But, if he is right about the ideas he is not about the persons. Out of the four writers mentioned by him only one professed the doctrine that he combats: Mr. Pierre Leroux, in his book Humanité. As for myself I must give my position considering that I was mentioned. Although without titles to stand side by side with the three eminent philosophers I must say that I share the opinion exposed above by Mr. de Pompéry. As for Mr. Jean Reynaud, in a certain way he crowned his book Terre et Ciel with this idea where he presents the absence of memory as a condition of inferior existences and the acquired and permanently preserved memory as an essential attribute of a more elevated life. I don’t believe either that Mr. Lamennais, at some point in his career, had in any fashion accepted the idea of an unconscious and indefinite transmigration. It was very much opposed to all of his tendencies.
I do appreciate, dear chief editor, if you accept this complaint and please receive my most sincere acknowledgement.
Henri Martin”
“To the Editor,
Dear Sir,
Analyzing Mr. Renaud’s book I said that according to the author Mr. Henri Martin, Jean Reynaud, Pierre Leroux and Lamennais, and according to the systems that they adopted, man could not keep a memory in their future lives. It does not mean that these philosophers did not support the idea of man keeping his own identity and perpetuity of the being through memory.
Mr. Henri Martin’s complaint would then be very just from the point of view of his intention. It still needs to be verified if Mr. Renaud when discussing the systems of his illustrious contradictors, is not right on concluding by their unfoundedness. That is the whole question that I cannot discuss. It is necessary to look at the debate in the book by Mr. Renaud that incidentally expresses his highest sympathy to those renowned men.
Yours sincerely,
E. de Pompéry
This is ia serious debate that takes place in a newspaper without criticism and all of them about the plurality of the existences, one of the fundamental basis of the Spiritist Doctrine, by men of incontestable intellectual value, demonstrating that it cannot be as absurd as some like to say.
If someone wants to study more in depth the ideas given in Mr. de Pompery’s article they will find all of those common to the Spiritist Doctrine in that point. All that is missing to complement them is the relationships between the visible and invisible worlds that is not discussed.
By the simple force of reason and intuition those gentlemen that could be joined by many others like Charles Fourier and Louis Jourdan, they got to the summit of Spiritism without passing through the intermediary levels. The only difference between them and us is that they found the thing on their own whereas to us it was revealed by the Spirits and to the eyes of certain people that is its biggest mistake.
[1] Single vol, 18-in, price 2 francs. Ledoyen; Palais-Royan – do not confuse with Jean Reynaud.
The Presse on July 27th, 1862 published the following news about the book mentioned above. It is directly related to the Spiritist Doctrine so the readers must know that we are glad to reproduce it here. We ourselves could have analyzed that work but preferred a person that has no interest in the matter. We will limit ourselves to make comments about this article. The editor says:
“What is there that is more attractive to the Spirit and more refreshing to the soul than finding at this time a man of sincere, plain and profound faith, a man that believes and nonetheless, reasons and reasons without prejudice in order to seek light upon his conscience? That is Mr. Renaud.
For him mathematics and sciences did not kill the feeling or combine the mysterious sources that bond us to infinity through faith. Mr. Renaud is a firm believer, convict, an excellent Christian, even being a bad Catholic, from which he does not defend himself. On the contrary.
His enlightened reason, no less important than his loving heart, allows him to dismiss the idea of a jealous and enraged God; of a God that would have chosen rage to link the creature to the creator; of a God that punishes the son for the fault of the father, something that is iniquitous to the eyes of human justice.
Mr. Renaud’s God is a God of light and love. The harmony of His infinite work manifests His omnipotence and goodness. Man is not a victim but a collaborator in a smallbut still glorious part, proportional to his strength. Why evil then and how to explain it? Evil does not arise from a primitive downfall that would have changed all human condition. Its cause is the noncompliance with God’s law and man’s disobedience by the bad use of one’s free-will. We would find it clearer if Mr. Renaud had simply said that man begins by instinct and that only gradually could develop superior feelings and intelligence. The species man, like all other living creatures, cannot suddenly achieve the plenitude of the being. Goes through successive and normal evolutions. His social infancy is characterized by the domination of instincts. Then his misery, ignorance and brutality.
It gradually detaches from the mud of the first ages as it elevates in life. Intelligence grows, the feelings become stronger and he begins to humanize. The more man understands the more is connected to the law, the more he becomes religious and concur from his side to the general harmony.
Suffering is a warning, a stimulus to get rid of evilness, to move away from the shadows and walk with light. The more he advances, the more he rejects the world of instinct, fight, violence and war; the more he sees and understands, the more he aspires the world of peace and order, the empire of reason, the reign of elevated feelings, that are the dignity and the sacred sign of his species.
It follows that thanks to sciences, technology and to the incessant progress of sociability, mankind tends to become the king or if you prefer a less ambitious term, the manager of the globe. But later on, admitting for a moment this hypothesis that seems to become certain every day, will there be always this insatiable desire of man that cannot be limited to the present however magnificent it can be? What does it matter the material and earthly happiness if my soul remains empty and thirsty? We are taken by a supreme tedium and a great displeasure before such a short living happiness.
That is true, Mr. Renaud responds, and it is here that he triumphs. Illuminated by science, his robust faith in the eternal destines of man show him a whole infinite future of conscientious activity and paradisiacal joy.
At the birth of thought, at the first trembles of the soul, man raises the eye to the sky, interrogates his infinite depths and seeks the link that he foresees with the universe. This earthly existence, so short and sometimes so sad, is not enough. He feels that he is part of the infinity and wants to find his place at any price. He dreads the oblivion as nature does to the vacuum. Instead of going without an ideal he will madly throw himself at the strangest beliefs. Hence so many more or less flamboyant beliefs but that attest this absolute and fundamental need to feel reconnected to the infinity, assured of his own immortality.
The paradise of the Buddhists is well-known; the Greek Champs-Élysées; the paradise of the natives with their abundant forests and hunting prairies; the paradise of Mohamed with its material delights. The Catholic paradise that puts humanity in a state of infinite contemplative beatitude is a concept relative to cruel times in which work was considered suffering and punishment; where the general pain is such that resignation in this world and rest in the other would seem to be the sovereign wisdom and the highest ideal. But this hypothesis is evidently contradictory with the simplest and clearest notions of life. To live is to be; to be is to act with all the strength of one’s skills and its vital energy. To live is to incessantly aspire for transformation.
Pythagoras’ metempsychosis is incomplete, although respecting the idea of activity in the sense that it limits the transformation to passages through organisms that live on the face of Earth and still for not taking into account the law of the ascending progress that governs everything.
According to Mr. Renaud there is only one rational way of looking at the issue of immortality.
For starters the author rejects the idea that after having spent some time in the visible world, a place of atonement, the soul would move to the invisible world, a paradise, in the state of pious contemplation, uninterested about the fate of one’s fellow human beings and the earthly works. That the elected and blessed ones would be these creatures stripped of from any desire and aspiration, of any useful activity, any interest about the past and their neighbors, about the infinite universe where they worked, felt and thought!
Mr. Renaud equally rejects the hypothesis of an indefinite series of existences on Earth and on other globes. This kind of immortality already has an advantage with respect to the first concept because it opens up an indefinite field to human activity. Mr. Jean Reynaud, Mr. Pierre Leroux, Mr. Henri Martin and Mr. Lamennais are more or less connected to this idea. But there is an essential point that deteriorates its foundation: the absence of memory. What does it matter an immortality from which I have no conscience of and only God knows about it? To make my immortality real it would be necessary that in a life different from the current one I have the memory of my previous existences; that I am aware of the continuity and identity of my being. It is only with that condition that I am truly immortal participating to the infinite and conscious of my function in the universe. We only know our being through its manifestations because its virtual essence escapes us. What is it that would harm reason by admitting that our being whose persistence we verify down here in its incessant modifications would persist eternally? It only changes its form and organs according to the environment in the successive incarnations.
That is how Mr. Renaud exposes his conception that satisfies this essential condition of keeping the memory and that is, besides, according to the justice and the omnipotent benevolence of God.
There is no oblivion in the universe. Now, if the visible world is everywhere the invisible is nowhere, as Mr. Renaud wisely say, unless it is also everywhere.
Man has two very distinctive states on this Earth. During vigil he generally remembers all of his actions and has conscience of himself; during the sleep he loses both memory and conscience. Consequently, why would he not have two distinct modes of existence, always interconnected, always bonded to the life in space and in the planet? Initially the existence that we know down here and in the other life, of a more elevated order, in which the individual organizes himself and reincarnate through imponderable fluids; participates in a broader and more extensive way of the life of our maelstrom; preserves then the memory of his previous existences and had plentiful awareness of his own role and function in the universe? Has the mundane and visible life a relationship to the sleep and the trans mundane or ethereal has an analogy to the vigil state?
With such a hypothesis, the solidarity of mankind in its present and future generations seem to be complete and thorough. Each one of us lived, lives and will live in different times of life on Earth in both worlds, visible and invisible. Each one of us was born there and lives there according to the laws of numbers, weights and measures that presides the harmony of the worlds. Our several alternations are counted as days and seasons. Each one of us is reborn, takes one’s class in the species and function in the general works according to one’s value and the universal law of order. Perhaps each one of us go through the multiples states and functions presented by the species. The most absolute justice certainly presides such transformations like the most harmonious order shines in the eternal creation, in the multiple combinations that characterize every organism and living being. We are reborn for the ethereal life and leave it under the same conditions of order and harmony. That is Mr. Renaud’s conception that I cannot reveal completely here. It is necessary to refer to his book, clear, simple and quick where a profound faith linked to an as much elevated as impartial reason, keep the reader constantly under the enchantment of a theory that is as much reassuring as it is great and religious. The free spontaneity of the man, his intimate and endless solidarity with his fellow human beings, with his planet, his maelstrom, with the universe; his ever more progressive activity, efficient, radiant, in harmony with the divine laws; an infinite career for his eternal aspiration; the omnipotence and goodness of God justified, explained and glorified; love as the link between God and mankind, that is what sticks out of that little book, the most complete of any that was written under the inspiration of this great sentence: “Man’s desires are God’s promises.”
E. de Pompéry
This article provoked the two letters below also published in the Presse on July 31st and August 5th 1862.
“Paris, July 29th 1862
To the Editor,
Dear Sir,
I have just read in the yesterday’s Presse the following passage (article by Mr. de Pompéry about the works of Mr. Renaud):
Mr. Renaud equally rejects the hypothesis of an indefinite series of existences on Earth and on other globes. This kind of immortality already has an advantage with respect to the first concept because it opens up an indefinite field to human activity. Mr. Jean Reynaud, Mr. Pierre Leroux, Mr. Henri Martin and Mr. Lamennais are more or less connected to this idea. But there is an essential point that deteriorates its foundation: the absence of memory. What does it matter an immortality from which I have no conscience of and only God knows about it? To make my immortality real it would be necessary that in a life different from the current one I have the memory of my previous existences; that I am aware of the continuity and identity of my being.
Mr. de Pompéry is right, in my opinion: an indefinite metempsychosis and without memory is not immortality. But, if he is right about the ideas he is not about the persons. Out of the four writers mentioned by him only one professed the doctrine that he combats: Mr. Pierre Leroux, in his book Humanité. As for myself I must give my position considering that I was mentioned. Although without titles to stand side by side with the three eminent philosophers I must say that I share the opinion exposed above by Mr. de Pompéry. As for Mr. Jean Reynaud, in a certain way he crowned his book Terre et Ciel with this idea where he presents the absence of memory as a condition of inferior existences and the acquired and permanently preserved memory as an essential attribute of a more elevated life. I don’t believe either that Mr. Lamennais, at some point in his career, had in any fashion accepted the idea of an unconscious and indefinite transmigration. It was very much opposed to all of his tendencies.
I do appreciate, dear chief editor, if you accept this complaint and please receive my most sincere acknowledgement.
Henri Martin”
“To the Editor,
Dear Sir,
Analyzing Mr. Renaud’s book I said that according to the author Mr. Henri Martin, Jean Reynaud, Pierre Leroux and Lamennais, and according to the systems that they adopted, man could not keep a memory in their future lives. It does not mean that these philosophers did not support the idea of man keeping his own identity and perpetuity of the being through memory.
Mr. Henri Martin’s complaint would then be very just from the point of view of his intention. It still needs to be verified if Mr. Renaud when discussing the systems of his illustrious contradictors, is not right on concluding by their unfoundedness. That is the whole question that I cannot discuss. It is necessary to look at the debate in the book by Mr. Renaud that incidentally expresses his highest sympathy to those renowned men.
Yours sincerely,
E. de Pompéry
This is ia serious debate that takes place in a newspaper without criticism and all of them about the plurality of the existences, one of the fundamental basis of the Spiritist Doctrine, by men of incontestable intellectual value, demonstrating that it cannot be as absurd as some like to say.
If someone wants to study more in depth the ideas given in Mr. de Pompery’s article they will find all of those common to the Spiritist Doctrine in that point. All that is missing to complement them is the relationships between the visible and invisible worlds that is not discussed.
By the simple force of reason and intuition those gentlemen that could be joined by many others like Charles Fourier and Louis Jourdan, they got to the summit of Spiritism without passing through the intermediary levels. The only difference between them and us is that they found the thing on their own whereas to us it was revealed by the Spirits and to the eyes of certain people that is its biggest mistake.
[1] Single vol, 18-in, price 2 francs. Ledoyen; Palais-Royan – do not confuse with Jean Reynaud.
The fact below was transmitted to us by Mr. A. Superchi from Parma, an honorary member of the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies:
“In our session on April 23rd last, I had the medium to pose his hand onto the paper, without the evocation of any Spirit. As soon as the hand started to move he felt a strange force that obliged him to keep the index finger up and straight, in an abnormal position. The finger was singularly cold. Since I could not find the reason for that I asked the Spirit about it. Answer: ‘You forgot! Don’t you remember the one who used to write like that when alive? I hardened this finger to give you proof of our authenticity and power.’ It was the Spirit of one of the medium’s brother, deceased more than twenty years ago in Florence. He had hurt his finger with a broken bottle when pouring its content no much so that his finger became ankylosed. I attach a drawing illustrating the medium’s hand.
Another medium, envious due to a mystification, deservedly in fact, struggled to demonstrate that the phenomena were produced by our own Spirits, somehow concentrated. Talking with him one day he distractedly took a pencil to jokingly draw some lines but his hand became immobile, despite every effort he made to use it. Yielding, he then began to write: ‘You will never be able to write anything if I don’t want you to .’ Astonished, but at the same time hurt by his own ego , he took the pencil again saying that he did not want to write and that he challenged the supposed Spirit to force him. Despite his resolution his hand moved quickly writing: ‘You cannot stop writing if I don’t want you do’
In both cases above, as it can be seen, the action of the Spirit upon the organs is entirely independent of one’s will. It can be readily seen that it can occur spontaneously, abstraction made of any knowledge of Spiritism. That is what in fact is demonstrated by many observations. Here it occurs in a finger, elsewhere it will be on another organ and could be translated by other effects. Temporary in such a case, the action could last certain time and have a pathological appearance that is inexistent in reality and against which ordinary treatments would be ineffective.
From the point of view of the Spiritist manifestations this phenomenon provides a remarkable proof of identity. The Spirit, in the condition of Spirit, unquestionably does not have the ankylosed finger; but to the eyes of a clairvoyant, he would have presented himself as having it in order to be recognized; to the one that could not see him, he communicates his disease. Still once more there is here a proof that the Spirit identifies with the medium and utilizing the body as if his own.
If such an action is produced by a bad Spirit, with a certain duration, that takes the most characteristic and eccentric forms, we will find the explanation to the majority of the cases of physical subjugation, taken by madness.
The fact below, of a similar kind, was reported by a member of the Parisian Society that witnessed it in a provincial town. He says:
“I saw a very normal medium. It was a young lady that asked her familiar Spirit for example to paralyze her tongue and soon she cannot speak but only struggle to communicate and make herself understood like a mute person. On her request she has both hands glued to one another, making it impossible to separate them. The Spirit grounds her on a chair until she asks to have her freedom back. I asked the Spirit to make her sleep instantaneously and he did. The medium fell asleep immediately at the first time without the help of anyone. It was in that state that I thought I had recognized the nature of that Spirit that seemed like an obsess or to me because when the young lady suffered or at least became agitated during the sleep the Spirit forced her to push me away when I tried to apply some magnetic passes on her. I advised the lady not to repeat those experiments very often.”
As for ourselves, we advise that she should abstain from that completely for he could trick her. It is obvious that a good Spirit is not given to such things. Playing games with that is the same as voluntarily be under dismal dependence, morally and physically, and only God can tell where it would end. It could result in any terrible subjugation to her from which it would be very difficult if not impossible for her to get rid of. It is already enough that such accidents take place spontaneously, without enjoyment and only to satisfy an empty curiosity.
Such experiments have no use for the moral betterment and may lead to the most serious inconveniences. People would then blame Spiritism when in fact the only thing to blame is improvidence or the pride of those who believe to be able to control the bad Spirits according to their own will. We never go unpunished when challenging them.
We don’t say that the Spirit referred above is fundamentally bad. But it is certain that he cannot be advanced not even fundamentally good and that it is always dangerous to submit oneself to such domination whose minimal inconvenience would be the removal of one’s free-will. By given access to Spirits of such a nature one becomes engulfed in their fluids, necessarily refractory to the influence of good Spirits that stay away if we do not strive to attract them by seeking in Spiritism the means of improving ourselves.
Once immersed in such a mean fluid the perispirit is like an outfit that is impregnated by an acrid odor that the most delicious perfume cannot make disappear.
“In our session on April 23rd last, I had the medium to pose his hand onto the paper, without the evocation of any Spirit. As soon as the hand started to move he felt a strange force that obliged him to keep the index finger up and straight, in an abnormal position. The finger was singularly cold. Since I could not find the reason for that I asked the Spirit about it. Answer: ‘You forgot! Don’t you remember the one who used to write like that when alive? I hardened this finger to give you proof of our authenticity and power.’ It was the Spirit of one of the medium’s brother, deceased more than twenty years ago in Florence. He had hurt his finger with a broken bottle when pouring its content no much so that his finger became ankylosed. I attach a drawing illustrating the medium’s hand.
Another medium, envious due to a mystification, deservedly in fact, struggled to demonstrate that the phenomena were produced by our own Spirits, somehow concentrated. Talking with him one day he distractedly took a pencil to jokingly draw some lines but his hand became immobile, despite every effort he made to use it. Yielding, he then began to write: ‘You will never be able to write anything if I don’t want you to .’ Astonished, but at the same time hurt by his own ego , he took the pencil again saying that he did not want to write and that he challenged the supposed Spirit to force him. Despite his resolution his hand moved quickly writing: ‘You cannot stop writing if I don’t want you do’
In both cases above, as it can be seen, the action of the Spirit upon the organs is entirely independent of one’s will. It can be readily seen that it can occur spontaneously, abstraction made of any knowledge of Spiritism. That is what in fact is demonstrated by many observations. Here it occurs in a finger, elsewhere it will be on another organ and could be translated by other effects. Temporary in such a case, the action could last certain time and have a pathological appearance that is inexistent in reality and against which ordinary treatments would be ineffective.
From the point of view of the Spiritist manifestations this phenomenon provides a remarkable proof of identity. The Spirit, in the condition of Spirit, unquestionably does not have the ankylosed finger; but to the eyes of a clairvoyant, he would have presented himself as having it in order to be recognized; to the one that could not see him, he communicates his disease. Still once more there is here a proof that the Spirit identifies with the medium and utilizing the body as if his own.
If such an action is produced by a bad Spirit, with a certain duration, that takes the most characteristic and eccentric forms, we will find the explanation to the majority of the cases of physical subjugation, taken by madness.
The fact below, of a similar kind, was reported by a member of the Parisian Society that witnessed it in a provincial town. He says:
“I saw a very normal medium. It was a young lady that asked her familiar Spirit for example to paralyze her tongue and soon she cannot speak but only struggle to communicate and make herself understood like a mute person. On her request she has both hands glued to one another, making it impossible to separate them. The Spirit grounds her on a chair until she asks to have her freedom back. I asked the Spirit to make her sleep instantaneously and he did. The medium fell asleep immediately at the first time without the help of anyone. It was in that state that I thought I had recognized the nature of that Spirit that seemed like an obsess or to me because when the young lady suffered or at least became agitated during the sleep the Spirit forced her to push me away when I tried to apply some magnetic passes on her. I advised the lady not to repeat those experiments very often.”
As for ourselves, we advise that she should abstain from that completely for he could trick her. It is obvious that a good Spirit is not given to such things. Playing games with that is the same as voluntarily be under dismal dependence, morally and physically, and only God can tell where it would end. It could result in any terrible subjugation to her from which it would be very difficult if not impossible for her to get rid of. It is already enough that such accidents take place spontaneously, without enjoyment and only to satisfy an empty curiosity.
Such experiments have no use for the moral betterment and may lead to the most serious inconveniences. People would then blame Spiritism when in fact the only thing to blame is improvidence or the pride of those who believe to be able to control the bad Spirits according to their own will. We never go unpunished when challenging them.
We don’t say that the Spirit referred above is fundamentally bad. But it is certain that he cannot be advanced not even fundamentally good and that it is always dangerous to submit oneself to such domination whose minimal inconvenience would be the removal of one’s free-will. By given access to Spirits of such a nature one becomes engulfed in their fluids, necessarily refractory to the influence of good Spirits that stay away if we do not strive to attract them by seeking in Spiritism the means of improving ourselves.
Once immersed in such a mean fluid the perispirit is like an outfit that is impregnated by an acrid odor that the most delicious perfume cannot make disappear.
The weekly magazine of the Siècle from July 12th, 1863 brought the following:
“Besides these important questions there are many others that cannot be neglected, including the spectra issue. . Have you seen the spectra? For about eight days the spectrum is the only subject to be entertained in conversations. Thus, each theater has its own: spectra of honest con men that robbed, deceived and murdered and that come back, untouchable shadows, to stroll around at midnight in the fifth act of a very well planned play. The secret of the spectrum or, using the language from behind the curtains, the trick, as they say, is due to a very well paid Englishman, of an elemental simplicity that allows all theaters to have their spectra on the same day, this one more expensive than the next. After the theater the spectrum moved on to the living room where it says good evening to the ladies and gentlemen that are like stung by a tarantula through this gentle spectromania.
That is an entertainment that come to explain many prodigies and I want to specifically mention the prodigies of Spiritism. Much has been said about these Spiritists that evoke the dead showing them in small groups of terrified believers. With the help of a simple trick one can do the same thing without being taken by a witch. That general evocation of the spectra throws a dismal blow on the wonderful, now that has been demonstrated that to make a ghost show up is not more difficult than to do the same to a person in flesh and blood. The esteem of the renowned Mr. Home may have already fallen 75% on the account of his admirers. The ideal turns into dust at the touch of the real. The real is a trick.”
Edmond Texier
We were right when we said that the newspapers would still talk about Spiritism when referring to this new ghostly process. The Indepéndence Belge, in turn, had rubbed their hands and asked: “How are the Spiritists going to get out of that?”
We only say to these gentlemen that they should learn about the behavior of Spiritism. What most clearly sticks out of such articles is as always a proof of the most absolute ignorance about the subject that they attack. In fact, it is necessary to ignore the first word to believe that the Spiritists meet to make ghosts to show up. What is even more astonishing is that we have never seen them not even in the theaters although these people say that we are greatly interested in the subject. Mr. Robin, the prestidigitator mentioned in our preceding article, goes further. It is not only Spiritism that he wants to destroy but the Bible itself. In his daily speech to the spectators he affirms that the apparition of Samuel to Saul happened in the same way that he operates. We did not know that the knowledge about optics was so advanced in those days among the Hebrew who were not considered very educated. Following such a line of thought there is no doubt that Jesus appeared to his disciples using some sort of trick as well.
Since the false spectra do not produce the expected results we will undoubtedly see very soon the appearance of a new gimmick. They will have their time as everything else whose only result is to satisfy curiosity. Such a time may be shorter than expected because people get tired soon of things that left nothing in their Spirits. The theaters then do well by using them while they count on the privilege of attracting the crowds by the force of novelty. Their production will nevertheless have had the advantage of making people talk about Spiritism and to spread its ideas. It was a means, like any other, of leading a large number of people to seek the truth.
What can we say about Mr. Oscar Comettant’s article about Mr. Home’s book published in the Siecle on July 15th, 1863? Nothing other than the fact that it is the best propaganda for the sale of the book and that it will benefit Spiritism. It is useful that from time to time there are whip lashes in order to wake up the attention of the indifferent. If the article is not Spiritist or Spiritualist is it at least witty? Let the others say.
There is however something good in that article. The author, following the example of several of his comrades, falls heavily onto those who make a profession out of the mediumistic skill. He criticizes with just severity the abuse that results from that thus contributing to discredit them, something that serious Spiritism cannot be sorrow for since Spiritism itself rejects any kind of exploitation of that kind as unworthy of the exclusively moral character of Spiritism and as a lack of respect to the dead.
Mr. Comettant makes the mistake of generalizing what would be, at the extreme, a rare exception, particularly by comparing the mediums to jesters, foretellers and deceivers just because he saw charlatans using the titles of mediums, as we see charlatainsusing the titles of doctors.
It seems that he ignores the fact that there are mediums amongst the members of families of the highest social echelons; that there are some even among renowned writers, highly considered by him and his own friends; that it is notorious that Mrs. Émile de Girardin was an excellent medium. We have the curiosity of knowing if he would have the courage to call them deceivers on their face.
If those who say saw had studied before speaking they would know that the exercise of mediumship requires a profound reverence, incompatible with the lightheartedness of character and the turmoil of curious people and that one must not expect anything serious out of such public gatherings.
Spiritism disapprove any experiment based on pure curiosity, with the objective of distraction, for we must not entertain ourselves with such things. The Spirits, which are the souls of those who left Earth, of our relatives and friends, come to instruct and moralize us and to entertain the lazy ones and that is not funny at all. They don’t come to predict the future or to uncover hidden treasures. They come to teach us that there is another life and how we must behave to be happy there, something that is not very entertaining to certain people. If one does not believe in the soul and in the survival of those who were dear to them, it is always wrong to make fun of that belief at least out of respect for their memory.
Spiritism also teaches us that the Spirits are not there to serve anybody; that they come when and with whom they want; that whoever pretended to have them at their service and to control them at will could well be taken as ignorant or a charlatan with good reason; that it is as much logical as irreverent to admit that serious Spirits attend the caprices of the first one to show up and at a given amount per session, playing the role of accomplices; that there is even a feeling of repugnance associated to the idea that the soul that deserves our tears may come for money.
On the other hand the principle that the Spirits do not communicate easily is confirmed by experience, as they don’t do it out of good will through certain mediums andthat, among the latter, there are some that absolutely repulse certain Spirits, something that is easily understood by the way that the communication takes place, by the assimilation of fluids. Hence there could be attraction or repulsion between the Spirit and the medium, according to the degree of sympathy and affinity.
Sympathy is founded on the moral and sentimental similarities. Well, which sympathy can a Spirit have to a medium that only calls him for money? They may say perhaps that the Spirit comes for the person that invokes and not the medium that is only an instrument. Agree but that does not make the need for the fluidic conditions less necessary, essentially modified by moral feelings and by the personal relationship between Spirit and medium. That is why there isn’t a single medium that can boast about communicating with every Spirit in distinctively, a capital problem to whoever wanted to exploit them.
That is what we teach Mr. Comettant since he ignores as it does destroy the similarities that he pretend to establish. Real mediumship is a precious skill that increases in value the more it is well employed towards good and the more it is exercised religiously and with total moral and material selflessness.
As for the simulated or abusive mediumship, whatever it is we leave it to the severity of the critic. Believing that Spiritism is the defender of such a thing and that the legal repression of an abuse would constitute a setback to Spiritism shows complete ignorance of its most elementary principles.
No repression could reach the mediums that did not use their mediumship as a profession and that did not stay away from the moral path delineated to them by the doctrine. The weapons that the abuse provide to the detractors, always eager to use any occasion to attack, and even the ones that are created, when they don’t exist they point out even more to the eyes of the sincere Spiritist the need to show that there is no solidarity between the true doctrine and the ones who make a parody of that.
“Besides these important questions there are many others that cannot be neglected, including the spectra issue. . Have you seen the spectra? For about eight days the spectrum is the only subject to be entertained in conversations. Thus, each theater has its own: spectra of honest con men that robbed, deceived and murdered and that come back, untouchable shadows, to stroll around at midnight in the fifth act of a very well planned play. The secret of the spectrum or, using the language from behind the curtains, the trick, as they say, is due to a very well paid Englishman, of an elemental simplicity that allows all theaters to have their spectra on the same day, this one more expensive than the next. After the theater the spectrum moved on to the living room where it says good evening to the ladies and gentlemen that are like stung by a tarantula through this gentle spectromania.
That is an entertainment that come to explain many prodigies and I want to specifically mention the prodigies of Spiritism. Much has been said about these Spiritists that evoke the dead showing them in small groups of terrified believers. With the help of a simple trick one can do the same thing without being taken by a witch. That general evocation of the spectra throws a dismal blow on the wonderful, now that has been demonstrated that to make a ghost show up is not more difficult than to do the same to a person in flesh and blood. The esteem of the renowned Mr. Home may have already fallen 75% on the account of his admirers. The ideal turns into dust at the touch of the real. The real is a trick.”
Edmond Texier
We were right when we said that the newspapers would still talk about Spiritism when referring to this new ghostly process. The Indepéndence Belge, in turn, had rubbed their hands and asked: “How are the Spiritists going to get out of that?”
We only say to these gentlemen that they should learn about the behavior of Spiritism. What most clearly sticks out of such articles is as always a proof of the most absolute ignorance about the subject that they attack. In fact, it is necessary to ignore the first word to believe that the Spiritists meet to make ghosts to show up. What is even more astonishing is that we have never seen them not even in the theaters although these people say that we are greatly interested in the subject. Mr. Robin, the prestidigitator mentioned in our preceding article, goes further. It is not only Spiritism that he wants to destroy but the Bible itself. In his daily speech to the spectators he affirms that the apparition of Samuel to Saul happened in the same way that he operates. We did not know that the knowledge about optics was so advanced in those days among the Hebrew who were not considered very educated. Following such a line of thought there is no doubt that Jesus appeared to his disciples using some sort of trick as well.
Since the false spectra do not produce the expected results we will undoubtedly see very soon the appearance of a new gimmick. They will have their time as everything else whose only result is to satisfy curiosity. Such a time may be shorter than expected because people get tired soon of things that left nothing in their Spirits. The theaters then do well by using them while they count on the privilege of attracting the crowds by the force of novelty. Their production will nevertheless have had the advantage of making people talk about Spiritism and to spread its ideas. It was a means, like any other, of leading a large number of people to seek the truth.
What can we say about Mr. Oscar Comettant’s article about Mr. Home’s book published in the Siecle on July 15th, 1863? Nothing other than the fact that it is the best propaganda for the sale of the book and that it will benefit Spiritism. It is useful that from time to time there are whip lashes in order to wake up the attention of the indifferent. If the article is not Spiritist or Spiritualist is it at least witty? Let the others say.
There is however something good in that article. The author, following the example of several of his comrades, falls heavily onto those who make a profession out of the mediumistic skill. He criticizes with just severity the abuse that results from that thus contributing to discredit them, something that serious Spiritism cannot be sorrow for since Spiritism itself rejects any kind of exploitation of that kind as unworthy of the exclusively moral character of Spiritism and as a lack of respect to the dead.
Mr. Comettant makes the mistake of generalizing what would be, at the extreme, a rare exception, particularly by comparing the mediums to jesters, foretellers and deceivers just because he saw charlatans using the titles of mediums, as we see charlatainsusing the titles of doctors.
It seems that he ignores the fact that there are mediums amongst the members of families of the highest social echelons; that there are some even among renowned writers, highly considered by him and his own friends; that it is notorious that Mrs. Émile de Girardin was an excellent medium. We have the curiosity of knowing if he would have the courage to call them deceivers on their face.
If those who say saw had studied before speaking they would know that the exercise of mediumship requires a profound reverence, incompatible with the lightheartedness of character and the turmoil of curious people and that one must not expect anything serious out of such public gatherings.
Spiritism disapprove any experiment based on pure curiosity, with the objective of distraction, for we must not entertain ourselves with such things. The Spirits, which are the souls of those who left Earth, of our relatives and friends, come to instruct and moralize us and to entertain the lazy ones and that is not funny at all. They don’t come to predict the future or to uncover hidden treasures. They come to teach us that there is another life and how we must behave to be happy there, something that is not very entertaining to certain people. If one does not believe in the soul and in the survival of those who were dear to them, it is always wrong to make fun of that belief at least out of respect for their memory.
Spiritism also teaches us that the Spirits are not there to serve anybody; that they come when and with whom they want; that whoever pretended to have them at their service and to control them at will could well be taken as ignorant or a charlatan with good reason; that it is as much logical as irreverent to admit that serious Spirits attend the caprices of the first one to show up and at a given amount per session, playing the role of accomplices; that there is even a feeling of repugnance associated to the idea that the soul that deserves our tears may come for money.
On the other hand the principle that the Spirits do not communicate easily is confirmed by experience, as they don’t do it out of good will through certain mediums andthat, among the latter, there are some that absolutely repulse certain Spirits, something that is easily understood by the way that the communication takes place, by the assimilation of fluids. Hence there could be attraction or repulsion between the Spirit and the medium, according to the degree of sympathy and affinity.
Sympathy is founded on the moral and sentimental similarities. Well, which sympathy can a Spirit have to a medium that only calls him for money? They may say perhaps that the Spirit comes for the person that invokes and not the medium that is only an instrument. Agree but that does not make the need for the fluidic conditions less necessary, essentially modified by moral feelings and by the personal relationship between Spirit and medium. That is why there isn’t a single medium that can boast about communicating with every Spirit in distinctively, a capital problem to whoever wanted to exploit them.
That is what we teach Mr. Comettant since he ignores as it does destroy the similarities that he pretend to establish. Real mediumship is a precious skill that increases in value the more it is well employed towards good and the more it is exercised religiously and with total moral and material selflessness.
As for the simulated or abusive mediumship, whatever it is we leave it to the severity of the critic. Believing that Spiritism is the defender of such a thing and that the legal repression of an abuse would constitute a setback to Spiritism shows complete ignorance of its most elementary principles.
No repression could reach the mediums that did not use their mediumship as a profession and that did not stay away from the moral path delineated to them by the doctrine. The weapons that the abuse provide to the detractors, always eager to use any occasion to attack, and even the ones that are created, when they don’t exist they point out even more to the eyes of the sincere Spiritist the need to show that there is no solidarity between the true doctrine and the ones who make a parody of that.
Questions and Issues
A letter from Locarmo contains the following passage:
“…To me the doubt would be impossible considering that I have a daughter that is a very good, all-around medium and my own son is a medium that writes.But ah! He received suchterrible mystifications that his discouragement contaminated me a little without, however, disturbing our belief in this so pure and reassuring doctrine, despite the displeasures that we have when we see ourselves deceived by disappointing answers. Why then would God allow individuals in good faith be deceived by the ones who were supposed to teach them?...”
Answer:
The physical world spills over into thespiritual world by death while the spiritual world spills over the physical one through incarnation. As a result, the normal population that surrounds the planet Earth is composed of Spirits that come from the earthly humanity. Since the latter figures among the most imperfect humanities it can only produce imperfect fruits. That is why the bad Spirits elbow around it. For the same reason, in the more advanced worlds,where good reigns sovereignly, there is only good Spirits. One can now understand why there is so much frequent meddling of inferior Spirits; it is based on the the mediumistic relationships that is inherent to the inferiority of our globe. We take the risk that we could fall victim to deceiving Spirits just as someone on this physical planet can be robbed in a country of thieves.
Isn’t this also the case of asking why would God would allow honest people to be mugged by thieves, victims of wickedness and exposed to all sorts of miseries? Ask before why you are here on Earth and the answer will be that you do not deserve a better place, with the exception of the Spirits that are here on a mission. It is then necessary to endure the consequences and strive to leave it as soon as possible. While waiting, it is necessary to make efforts in order to be protected from the assault of the bad Spirits something that can only be achieved by closing all doors that may give them access to our soul, imposing ourselves by moral superiority, courage, perseverance and by an unshakable faith in God’s protection and that of the good Spirits, and in the future that is everything whereas the present is nothing. However, since nobody is perfect on Earth nobody can be proud of being sheltered from their malice in absolute terms.
There is no doubt that purity of intentions means a lot. It is the path to perfection but it is not perfection and there can still be some old yeast at the bottom of the soul. That is why he is not the only medium that has been more or less deceived.
Simple commonsense tells us that the good Spirits can only do good, otherwise they would not be good, and that evil can only come from imperfect Spirits. Hence mystification can only be made by frivolous or lying Spirits that abuse people’s beliefs and that frequently exploit pride, vanity and other passions. Such mystifications aim at testing perseverance and the firmness of faith and also exercise judgment. If the good Spirits allow them on certain occasions is not for impotence on their side but to allow us the merit of the fight. Considering that the experience that is acquired in such situations is the most valuable if courage fails us it is a proof of weakness that leaves us defenseless before the bad Spirits.
The good Spirits watch us, assist and help us but with the condition that we help ourselves. Man is on Earth for the fight. It is necessary to succeed to leave it behind otherwise hewill stay here.
“…To me the doubt would be impossible considering that I have a daughter that is a very good, all-around medium and my own son is a medium that writes.But ah! He received suchterrible mystifications that his discouragement contaminated me a little without, however, disturbing our belief in this so pure and reassuring doctrine, despite the displeasures that we have when we see ourselves deceived by disappointing answers. Why then would God allow individuals in good faith be deceived by the ones who were supposed to teach them?...”
Answer:
The physical world spills over into thespiritual world by death while the spiritual world spills over the physical one through incarnation. As a result, the normal population that surrounds the planet Earth is composed of Spirits that come from the earthly humanity. Since the latter figures among the most imperfect humanities it can only produce imperfect fruits. That is why the bad Spirits elbow around it. For the same reason, in the more advanced worlds,where good reigns sovereignly, there is only good Spirits. One can now understand why there is so much frequent meddling of inferior Spirits; it is based on the the mediumistic relationships that is inherent to the inferiority of our globe. We take the risk that we could fall victim to deceiving Spirits just as someone on this physical planet can be robbed in a country of thieves.
Isn’t this also the case of asking why would God would allow honest people to be mugged by thieves, victims of wickedness and exposed to all sorts of miseries? Ask before why you are here on Earth and the answer will be that you do not deserve a better place, with the exception of the Spirits that are here on a mission. It is then necessary to endure the consequences and strive to leave it as soon as possible. While waiting, it is necessary to make efforts in order to be protected from the assault of the bad Spirits something that can only be achieved by closing all doors that may give them access to our soul, imposing ourselves by moral superiority, courage, perseverance and by an unshakable faith in God’s protection and that of the good Spirits, and in the future that is everything whereas the present is nothing. However, since nobody is perfect on Earth nobody can be proud of being sheltered from their malice in absolute terms.
There is no doubt that purity of intentions means a lot. It is the path to perfection but it is not perfection and there can still be some old yeast at the bottom of the soul. That is why he is not the only medium that has been more or less deceived.
Simple commonsense tells us that the good Spirits can only do good, otherwise they would not be good, and that evil can only come from imperfect Spirits. Hence mystification can only be made by frivolous or lying Spirits that abuse people’s beliefs and that frequently exploit pride, vanity and other passions. Such mystifications aim at testing perseverance and the firmness of faith and also exercise judgment. If the good Spirits allow them on certain occasions is not for impotence on their side but to allow us the merit of the fight. Considering that the experience that is acquired in such situations is the most valuable if courage fails us it is a proof of weakness that leaves us defenseless before the bad Spirits.
The good Spirits watch us, assist and help us but with the condition that we help ourselves. Man is on Earth for the fight. It is necessary to succeed to leave it behind otherwise hewill stay here.
The following letter was sent to us from St. Petersburg on July 1st:
“…In The Spirits’ Book, book I, Chap. I, #2, I noticed the proposition: Everything that is unknown is infinite. It seems to me that many things are unknown to us but that does not imply that they are infinite. Since the word is found in all editions I requested an explanation to my guide that answered: “The word infinite here is a mistake. It should read indefinite. What should one think about it? ...
Response:
The two words although synonyms in their general sense, have each a special meaning. Here is how the Academy define them:
Indefinite, whose end and limits are not or cannot be determined. Indefinite time. Indefinite number. Indefinite line. Indefinite space.
Infinite that has no beginning or end that has no boundaries or limits. The space is infinite. God is infinite. The mercy of God is infinite. By extension it is said of something that cannot be delimited, the term and by exaggeration, both in the physical as in the moral sense, that everything that is much considered in its kind. It is said particularly for the uncountable. An infinite duration. The infinite contemplation of the elected ones. Globes situated at an infinite distance. My appreciation to you is infinite. An infinite variety of objects. Infinite penalties. There is an infinite number of authors that wrote about this subject.
It results that the word indefinite has a more particular meaning while the word infinite has a more general one; that the first one is preferably used about material things whereas the second about abstract things, hence the former is vaguer than the latter.
The more general sense of the word infinite allows its application in certain cases in which it is not but indefinite while the opposite cannot occur. One can equally say: an infinite duration or an indefinite duration but one could not say God is indefinite, God’s mercy is indefinite.
From that point of view the use of the word infinite in the above mentioned phrase is not abusive and it is not an error. We say more that the word indefinite would not express the same idea. From the time that something is unknown it presents to our mind the vagueness of the infinite, if not absolute at least relative.
For example: You don’t know what is going to happen to you tomorrow hence your thoughts wander in the infinite; the events are the ones that are indefinite. You don’t know the number of stars hence the number is indefinite but it is also infinite to imagination. In the issue in question, it was then adequate to use the word that generalizes the idea, preferably the one that would give it a restrictive meaning.
“…In The Spirits’ Book, book I, Chap. I, #2, I noticed the proposition: Everything that is unknown is infinite. It seems to me that many things are unknown to us but that does not imply that they are infinite. Since the word is found in all editions I requested an explanation to my guide that answered: “The word infinite here is a mistake. It should read indefinite. What should one think about it? ...
Response:
The two words although synonyms in their general sense, have each a special meaning. Here is how the Academy define them:
Indefinite, whose end and limits are not or cannot be determined. Indefinite time. Indefinite number. Indefinite line. Indefinite space.
Infinite that has no beginning or end that has no boundaries or limits. The space is infinite. God is infinite. The mercy of God is infinite. By extension it is said of something that cannot be delimited, the term and by exaggeration, both in the physical as in the moral sense, that everything that is much considered in its kind. It is said particularly for the uncountable. An infinite duration. The infinite contemplation of the elected ones. Globes situated at an infinite distance. My appreciation to you is infinite. An infinite variety of objects. Infinite penalties. There is an infinite number of authors that wrote about this subject.
It results that the word indefinite has a more particular meaning while the word infinite has a more general one; that the first one is preferably used about material things whereas the second about abstract things, hence the former is vaguer than the latter.
The more general sense of the word infinite allows its application in certain cases in which it is not but indefinite while the opposite cannot occur. One can equally say: an infinite duration or an indefinite duration but one could not say God is indefinite, God’s mercy is indefinite.
From that point of view the use of the word infinite in the above mentioned phrase is not abusive and it is not an error. We say more that the word indefinite would not express the same idea. From the time that something is unknown it presents to our mind the vagueness of the infinite, if not absolute at least relative.
For example: You don’t know what is going to happen to you tomorrow hence your thoughts wander in the infinite; the events are the ones that are indefinite. You don’t know the number of stars hence the number is indefinite but it is also infinite to imagination. In the issue in question, it was then adequate to use the word that generalizes the idea, preferably the one that would give it a restrictive meaning.
Mr. Cardon, the doctor, deceased in September 1862
Parisian Society, medium Mr. Leymarie
Mr. Cardon had spent part of his life in the mercantile navy as the doctor and had acquired somehow materialistic habits and ideas. Retired to the J… village, he practiced the modest profession of the doctor of the township. For some time, he was convinced that he had a cardiac hypertrophy and, since he knew that it was an incurable disease, the idea of death threw him into a somber melancholy from which nothing would rescue him.
At a given point he predicted his final days about two months in advance and when he was close to that date he gathered the family to say his last farewell. The mother, his wife, the three children and other relatives were around this bed. When his wife tried to lift him up he fell down, his color turned into a livid blue, his eyes closed and was considered dead. His wife placed herself between him and the kids, to preclude them from seeing such a spectacle. After a few minutes he opened his eyes and with the face illuminated, he took a radiant expression of beatitude and said: Oh my children, how beautiful! Oh death! What a prize! How sweet! I was dead and felt my soul rising up very high but God allowed me to come back to tell you: Have no fear for death. It is freedom… I cannot paint the magnificence of what I saw and the impressions that engulfed me! You would not understand them! Oh my children, always behave in such a way that you may deserve this ineffable happiness, reserved to the righteous by living according to charity. … My dear wife, I leave you in a position that does not make you happy. People owe us but I conjure you, do not torment those who owe us. If they are in trouble wait until they can pay and those who cannot, make the sacrifice. God will reward you. You, my son, work to support your mother. Be always an honest man and guard yourself from doing anything that can dishonor our family. Take this cross that comes from my mother; keep it and may it always remind you of my last advices… My children, help one another and sustain one another and may the good harmony reign among you. Don’t allow yourselves to be empty or proud; forgive your enemies if you want God to forgive you… He then brought them closer, reached out to them with his hands and added: - I bless you my children. His eyes then were closed this time forever but he kept such an outstanding expression in his face that a huge crowd came to admire him up to the moment when he was buried.
These interesting details were transmitted to us by a friend of the family, giving us the suggestion for an evocation that could be educational to everyone, at the same time that it could be useful to the Spirit. It follows below:
Parisian Society, medium Mr. Leymarie
Mr. Cardon had spent part of his life in the mercantile navy as the doctor and had acquired somehow materialistic habits and ideas. Retired to the J… village, he practiced the modest profession of the doctor of the township. For some time, he was convinced that he had a cardiac hypertrophy and, since he knew that it was an incurable disease, the idea of death threw him into a somber melancholy from which nothing would rescue him.
At a given point he predicted his final days about two months in advance and when he was close to that date he gathered the family to say his last farewell. The mother, his wife, the three children and other relatives were around this bed. When his wife tried to lift him up he fell down, his color turned into a livid blue, his eyes closed and was considered dead. His wife placed herself between him and the kids, to preclude them from seeing such a spectacle. After a few minutes he opened his eyes and with the face illuminated, he took a radiant expression of beatitude and said: Oh my children, how beautiful! Oh death! What a prize! How sweet! I was dead and felt my soul rising up very high but God allowed me to come back to tell you: Have no fear for death. It is freedom… I cannot paint the magnificence of what I saw and the impressions that engulfed me! You would not understand them! Oh my children, always behave in such a way that you may deserve this ineffable happiness, reserved to the righteous by living according to charity. … My dear wife, I leave you in a position that does not make you happy. People owe us but I conjure you, do not torment those who owe us. If they are in trouble wait until they can pay and those who cannot, make the sacrifice. God will reward you. You, my son, work to support your mother. Be always an honest man and guard yourself from doing anything that can dishonor our family. Take this cross that comes from my mother; keep it and may it always remind you of my last advices… My children, help one another and sustain one another and may the good harmony reign among you. Don’t allow yourselves to be empty or proud; forgive your enemies if you want God to forgive you… He then brought them closer, reached out to them with his hands and added: - I bless you my children. His eyes then were closed this time forever but he kept such an outstanding expression in his face that a huge crowd came to admire him up to the moment when he was buried.
These interesting details were transmitted to us by a friend of the family, giving us the suggestion for an evocation that could be educational to everyone, at the same time that it could be useful to the Spirit. It follows below:
- Evocation. – A. I am near you.
- We were told about your final moments that really impressed us. Could you kindly describe better than you did what was it that you saw in the interim that could be called the interval between your two deaths? – A. Could you understand what I saw? I don’t know because I would not be able to find expressions that could help you understand what I saw during the lapse of time when it was possible for me to leave behind my mortal remains.
- Do you have any idea about the place where you had been? Was it far from Earth? On another planet or space? – A. The Spirit does not know the value of distances as you see them. Taken by an unknown wonderful agent I saw the splendor of a sky that could only be seen in our dreams. Such a journey through the infinite is so fast that I cannot precisely indicate the time spent by my Spirit.
- Do you enjoy the foreseen happiness at this point in time? – A. No. I wish I could but God cannot reward me with that. I was revolted many times with the good thoughts dictated by the heart and death seemed like injustice to me. As a doctor, I had acquired in the art of healing an aversion to the second nature that is our intelligent, divine movement. The immortality of the soul was a fiction used to seduce less advanced minds, and yet the emptiness scared me and I frequently sworn against this mysterious agent that always hurts and hurts. Philosophy had deterred me, without providing the understanding of the greatness of the Eternal that knows how to distribute pain and joy for the betterment of humanity.
- Have you recognized yourself just after your true death? – A. No; I recognized myself during the transition carried out by my Spirit when traveling through ethereal places; but after the real death, no; I needed a few days to wake up. God had rewarded me with a grace. I will tell you why: My initial disbelief was gone. I had believed before death because after having scientifically probed the heavy matter that made me perish I had found the divine reasons after the earthly ones. It had inspired, reassured me and my courage was stronger than the pain. I then blessed what I had cursed before; the end seemed like freedom to me. God’s thought is as large as the world! What a supreme consolation found in prayer that touches you ineffably; it is the safest means in our physical nature; it was through prayer that I understood, that I firmly believed and that is why God, hearing about my blessed actions, wanted to reward me before the end of my incarnation.
- Could we say that you were dead the first time around? – A. Yes and no. Since the Spirit left the body the flesh would naturally extinguish but when it retook the possession of my earthly dwelling life returned to the body that had gone through a transition, a sleep.
- At that moment did you feel the bonds that attached you to the body? – A. No doubt. The Spirit has a link that is hard to break and it is necessary a final shake of the body so that it can return to its natural life.
- How come during your apparent death and during a few minutes your Spirit could detach instantaneously and without difficulty, while real death was followed by a disturbance that lasted a few days? It seems that in the first case the links between the soul and the body, subsisting more than in the second one, the detachment should have been slower and it was the contrary that actually happened. – A. You have many times evoked incarnate Spirits that gave you real answers. I was in the condition of those Spirits. God had called me and His servers had told me: “Come…” I obeyed and I thank God for the special grace that he was kind to give me. I could see the infinite of his greatness and be aware of that. I thank those who allowed me to teach my loved ones before the real death so that they could have good and fair incarnations.
- Where did the good and beautiful words come from, those that you addressed to your family over your return to life? – A. It was the reflex of what I had seen and heard. The good Spirits inspired my voice and illuminated my face.
- What is the impression that you believe your revelation had on those present, particularly on your children. – A. Shocking, profound. Death is not a liar. However ungrateful the children may be they bow before a disappearing life. If one could probe the heart of the children by the semi open tomb there would be only beats of true feelings, profoundly touched by the secret hands of the Spirits that dictate such thoughts to all. Tremble if you are in doubt; death is the reparation, it is God’s justice and I assure you that despite the unbelievers, my friends and my family will believe in the words that I voiced before dying. I was the interpreter of another world.
- You said that you don’t enjoy the happiness that you had foreseen. Are you unhappy? – A. No because I believed before I died and that in my soul and my heart. Notice that God took into account my prayers and my absolute belief in him. I am on my way to perfection I will arrive at the stage that I was given to foresee. Pray, my friends, for this invisible world that preside over your destinies. This fraternal interchange is charity; it is a powerful lever that puts in touch the Spirits of all worlds.
- Would you like to send a few words to your wife and children? – A. I beg all of them to believe in God, powerful, just and immutable; in the prayer that reassures and alleviate; in charity that is the purest act of human incarnation. May they remember that one can give little: the alms of the poor is more meritorious to God who knows that a poor gives much by giving little. The rich needs to give much and many times to deserve as much. Future is charity and benevolence in every action; is to believe that all Spirits are brothers, never taking advantage of puerile vanities. My beloved family you will have tough tests but know to support them with courage thinking that God see them. Always say this prayer: God of love and goodness, that provides for everything and always, give us the strength that does not back up before any penalty; makes us good, meek and charitable, small for the fortune but great in our hearts; may our Spirit be Spiritist on Earth to better understand and love you. May your name, oh my God, symbol of freedom, be the reassuring objective of all of the oppressed ones, of all those who have the need of love, forgiveness and belief.
Spiritist dissertations
Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, medium Mrs. Costel
“My friends, how magnificent is this new life! Like a shiny torrent it drags in its huge course the merry souls of infinity! After the rupture of the corporeal links my eyes glanced at the new horizons that surround me and I enjoy the splendid wonders of the infinite. I passed from the shadows of matter to the brilliant lightthat announces the Almighty. I am saved but not for the merit of my works but for the knowledge of the eternal principle that made me avoid the dirt impressed by ignorance onto humanity. My death was a blessing; the biographers judged it premature. How blind! They will be sorry for some writings that were born from the dust and will not understand how much the little noise made around my tomb is useful to the cause of Spiritism. My work was finished; my predecessors followed the path; I had reached the summit of of someone that had done his uttermost and where there is only a new beginning. My death draws the attention of the educated ones and they analyze my fundamental work that is related to the great Spiritist question that they pretend to ignore and that will soon entangle them. Praise the Lord! I will be one of the front runners of the motorcade that delineate your route, helped by the superior Spirits that protect your doctrine.”
In a private family meeting – medium Mr. Charles V…
The Spirit responds to this refection: Your unexpected death, at such an early age, surprised many people.
“Who told you that my death was not be a benefit to Spiritism, to its future and to its consequences? Have you noticed, my friend, the march that progress follows, the route of the Spiritist faith? From starters God gave material proofs: the dance of the tables, the vibrating raps and all kinds of phenomena. That was to draw attention. It was an entertaining preface. Men need material proofs to believe. Now things are very different! After the material facts, God speaks to the intelligence, common sense and cold reason. It is no longer a manifestation of strength but rational things that must convince and unite even the biggest [need to check non or in…I think it may be non] unbelievers. It is just the beginning. Notice well what I tell you: a whole series of intelligent, irrefutable facts will follow and the number of followers of the Spiritist faith that is already large will grow even more. God will take care of the bright minds, of the renowned Spirits, of talent and knowledge. It will be a shiny bolt spreading everywhere on Earth, like an irresistible magnetic fluid, pushing the most refractory ones to the search for the infinite; to the study of this admirable science that teaches us such sublime maxims. They will all group around you, and abstraction made to the title of geniuses that they were given before, they will make themselves small and humble to learn and be convinced. Then, later on when well instructed and convinced will utilize their authority and notoriety of their names to impel it even further still, thus reaching the final objective of everyone: the regeneration of mankind through a reasoned and investigated knowledge of past and future existences. That is my sincere opinion about the current state of Spiritism.”
Jean Reynaud
Bordeaux, medium Mrs. C…
I attend your call with pleasure, ma’am. Yes, you are right, the Spiritist perturbation, as to say, did not exist to me (responding to the medium’s thoughts). Voluntarily exiled on your Earth where I had to sow the first serious seed of the great truths that surround you at this time I was always aware of the homeland and soon recognized myself amongst my brothers.
Q – I thank you for your kindness in having come but I did not believe that my desire to speak with you would have any influence upon you. There must necessarily be such a difference between us that I only think about it with respect.
A – Thank you my child for your thought. However you must know as well that whatever the distance more or less realized or more or less existent or that could more or less fortunately exist between us there is always a powerful link that unites us: sympathy and that was the link that you embraced through your constant thoughts.
Q – Given that many Spirits have explained their initial sensations at their wakening, could you kindly tell me what you did experiment when recognizing yourself and how did the separation took place between the Spirit and the body?
A – Same as with everyone else. I felt the time of separation approaching, happier than many though, as it did not cause me anxiety because I knew the result of that, although greater than I thought. The body is a hurdle to the spiritual faculties and whatever the enlightenment that had been preserved, they are always more or less muffled by the contact with matter. I fell asleep expecting a happy awakening. The sleep was short, the admiration immense! The celestial splendors unfolded before my eyes, shinning at full power. My stunned eyes plunged into the greatness of those worlds whose existence and habitability I had affirmed. It was a mirage that revealed and confirmed the truth of my feelings. When we speak, however secure we may feel, there are frequently moments of doubt, of uncertainty at the bottom of our hearts; there is then mistrust if not about the truth that we may claim but at least of the imperfect means utilized to demonstrate them. Convinced of the truth that I wanted people to admit I often had to fight against myself, against the frustration of seeing, touching in a way, the truth and not being able to make it tangible to those who needed to believe it so much to provide them with the guidelines on the path to be traveled.
Q – Did you profess Spiritism when alive? – A. There is a big difference between professing and practicing. Many profess a doctrine that they don’t practice. I did practice and did not profess. Like every person that follows the laws of Christ is Christian, even when not knowing those laws, every person may also be a Spiritist if he believes in his immortal soul, in their previous lives, in their incessantly progressive march, in their earthly trials, necessary ablution to their purification. I did believe; I was then Spiritist. I understood erratically, this intermediary link between incarnations, this purgatory where the guilty Spirit strips off from the dirty clothes to take on new ones, where the progressing Spirit carefully weaves the dress that will be worn again and that they want to keep pure. I told you that I understood and without professing it I continued to practice.
OBSERVATION: These three communications were obtained by three mediums that were did not know one another. . We don’t have material proofs of the identity of the Spirit that manifested but by the similarity of the thoughts and the style of the language one can at least admit the presumption of identity. The expression “carefully weaves the dress that will be worn again” is a charming figure that paints the solicitude with which the Spirit in progress prepares the new life that must make him advance even further. The inferior Spirits take less precaution and sometimes make unfortunate choices that will force them to restart.
“My friends, how magnificent is this new life! Like a shiny torrent it drags in its huge course the merry souls of infinity! After the rupture of the corporeal links my eyes glanced at the new horizons that surround me and I enjoy the splendid wonders of the infinite. I passed from the shadows of matter to the brilliant lightthat announces the Almighty. I am saved but not for the merit of my works but for the knowledge of the eternal principle that made me avoid the dirt impressed by ignorance onto humanity. My death was a blessing; the biographers judged it premature. How blind! They will be sorry for some writings that were born from the dust and will not understand how much the little noise made around my tomb is useful to the cause of Spiritism. My work was finished; my predecessors followed the path; I had reached the summit of of someone that had done his uttermost and where there is only a new beginning. My death draws the attention of the educated ones and they analyze my fundamental work that is related to the great Spiritist question that they pretend to ignore and that will soon entangle them. Praise the Lord! I will be one of the front runners of the motorcade that delineate your route, helped by the superior Spirits that protect your doctrine.”
In a private family meeting – medium Mr. Charles V…
The Spirit responds to this refection: Your unexpected death, at such an early age, surprised many people.
“Who told you that my death was not be a benefit to Spiritism, to its future and to its consequences? Have you noticed, my friend, the march that progress follows, the route of the Spiritist faith? From starters God gave material proofs: the dance of the tables, the vibrating raps and all kinds of phenomena. That was to draw attention. It was an entertaining preface. Men need material proofs to believe. Now things are very different! After the material facts, God speaks to the intelligence, common sense and cold reason. It is no longer a manifestation of strength but rational things that must convince and unite even the biggest [need to check non or in…I think it may be non] unbelievers. It is just the beginning. Notice well what I tell you: a whole series of intelligent, irrefutable facts will follow and the number of followers of the Spiritist faith that is already large will grow even more. God will take care of the bright minds, of the renowned Spirits, of talent and knowledge. It will be a shiny bolt spreading everywhere on Earth, like an irresistible magnetic fluid, pushing the most refractory ones to the search for the infinite; to the study of this admirable science that teaches us such sublime maxims. They will all group around you, and abstraction made to the title of geniuses that they were given before, they will make themselves small and humble to learn and be convinced. Then, later on when well instructed and convinced will utilize their authority and notoriety of their names to impel it even further still, thus reaching the final objective of everyone: the regeneration of mankind through a reasoned and investigated knowledge of past and future existences. That is my sincere opinion about the current state of Spiritism.”
Jean Reynaud
Bordeaux, medium Mrs. C…
I attend your call with pleasure, ma’am. Yes, you are right, the Spiritist perturbation, as to say, did not exist to me (responding to the medium’s thoughts). Voluntarily exiled on your Earth where I had to sow the first serious seed of the great truths that surround you at this time I was always aware of the homeland and soon recognized myself amongst my brothers.
Q – I thank you for your kindness in having come but I did not believe that my desire to speak with you would have any influence upon you. There must necessarily be such a difference between us that I only think about it with respect.
A – Thank you my child for your thought. However you must know as well that whatever the distance more or less realized or more or less existent or that could more or less fortunately exist between us there is always a powerful link that unites us: sympathy and that was the link that you embraced through your constant thoughts.
Q – Given that many Spirits have explained their initial sensations at their wakening, could you kindly tell me what you did experiment when recognizing yourself and how did the separation took place between the Spirit and the body?
A – Same as with everyone else. I felt the time of separation approaching, happier than many though, as it did not cause me anxiety because I knew the result of that, although greater than I thought. The body is a hurdle to the spiritual faculties and whatever the enlightenment that had been preserved, they are always more or less muffled by the contact with matter. I fell asleep expecting a happy awakening. The sleep was short, the admiration immense! The celestial splendors unfolded before my eyes, shinning at full power. My stunned eyes plunged into the greatness of those worlds whose existence and habitability I had affirmed. It was a mirage that revealed and confirmed the truth of my feelings. When we speak, however secure we may feel, there are frequently moments of doubt, of uncertainty at the bottom of our hearts; there is then mistrust if not about the truth that we may claim but at least of the imperfect means utilized to demonstrate them. Convinced of the truth that I wanted people to admit I often had to fight against myself, against the frustration of seeing, touching in a way, the truth and not being able to make it tangible to those who needed to believe it so much to provide them with the guidelines on the path to be traveled.
Q – Did you profess Spiritism when alive? – A. There is a big difference between professing and practicing. Many profess a doctrine that they don’t practice. I did practice and did not profess. Like every person that follows the laws of Christ is Christian, even when not knowing those laws, every person may also be a Spiritist if he believes in his immortal soul, in their previous lives, in their incessantly progressive march, in their earthly trials, necessary ablution to their purification. I did believe; I was then Spiritist. I understood erratically, this intermediary link between incarnations, this purgatory where the guilty Spirit strips off from the dirty clothes to take on new ones, where the progressing Spirit carefully weaves the dress that will be worn again and that they want to keep pure. I told you that I understood and without professing it I continued to practice.
OBSERVATION: These three communications were obtained by three mediums that were did not know one another. . We don’t have material proofs of the identity of the Spirit that manifested but by the similarity of the thoughts and the style of the language one can at least admit the presumption of identity. The expression “carefully weaves the dress that will be worn again” is a charming figure that paints the solicitude with which the Spirit in progress prepares the new life that must make him advance even further. The inferior Spirits take less precaution and sometimes make unfortunate choices that will force them to restart.
Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, March 13th 1863 – medium Mrs. Costel
“My child, I come to give a teaching to the Spiritist doctors. Here Astronomy and Philosophy have eloquent interpreters and moral counts on as many writers as mediums. Why would medicine on its practical and physiological side be neglected? I was the creator of a medical renovation that today penetrates the ranks of the sectary of the old medicine. United against homeopathy they hopelessly created barriers and uselessly screamed: - You are not going far!
The triumphant young medicine transposed every obstacle and Spiritism will be its powerful supporter. Thanks to Spiritism that medicine will abandon the materialistic tradition that has delayed its development for so long. The medical study is entirely connected to the research of spiritualist causes and effects; it dissects the bodies and must also analyze the soul. Allow then an old doctor to justify the aims and the means of the doctrine that he promoted and that he sees strangely disfigured down here by the practitioners and above by ignorant Spirits that usurps its name. I wish my spoken word has the power of correcting the abuse that change homeopathy thus impeding it of becoming as useful as it should be. If you spoke in a practical center where my advices could be heard with utility I would stand against the negligence of my earthly colleagues that ignore the fundamental laws of the Organum, exaggerating the doses and above all not giving the trituration that is so important to the medication the necessary care that I indicated. Many forget that a hundred, and sometimes two hundred blows are absolutely necessary to the detachment of the medical principle appropriated to each of the plants of poisons that form our healing arsenal. No medication is indifferent and none is inoffensive. When the badly executed diagnostic produces an irrelevant result it develops the germ of the disease that it should combat.
I get carried away though and here I am teaching a course of homeopathy to an audience that cannot be interested in the subject. However I don’t believe it is useless to initiate the Spiritist in the fundamental principles of the science in order to prevent them against eventual deceptions be it from the part of man or from the part of the Spirits.
Samuel Hahnemann
OBSERVATION: This dissertation was motivated by the presence of a foreign homeopathic doctor at the session and who wished Hahnemann’s opinion about the current state of that science. We must add that it was obtained by a young lady that did not study medicine and to whom many special terms are strange.
“My child, I come to give a teaching to the Spiritist doctors. Here Astronomy and Philosophy have eloquent interpreters and moral counts on as many writers as mediums. Why would medicine on its practical and physiological side be neglected? I was the creator of a medical renovation that today penetrates the ranks of the sectary of the old medicine. United against homeopathy they hopelessly created barriers and uselessly screamed: - You are not going far!
The triumphant young medicine transposed every obstacle and Spiritism will be its powerful supporter. Thanks to Spiritism that medicine will abandon the materialistic tradition that has delayed its development for so long. The medical study is entirely connected to the research of spiritualist causes and effects; it dissects the bodies and must also analyze the soul. Allow then an old doctor to justify the aims and the means of the doctrine that he promoted and that he sees strangely disfigured down here by the practitioners and above by ignorant Spirits that usurps its name. I wish my spoken word has the power of correcting the abuse that change homeopathy thus impeding it of becoming as useful as it should be. If you spoke in a practical center where my advices could be heard with utility I would stand against the negligence of my earthly colleagues that ignore the fundamental laws of the Organum, exaggerating the doses and above all not giving the trituration that is so important to the medication the necessary care that I indicated. Many forget that a hundred, and sometimes two hundred blows are absolutely necessary to the detachment of the medical principle appropriated to each of the plants of poisons that form our healing arsenal. No medication is indifferent and none is inoffensive. When the badly executed diagnostic produces an irrelevant result it develops the germ of the disease that it should combat.
I get carried away though and here I am teaching a course of homeopathy to an audience that cannot be interested in the subject. However I don’t believe it is useless to initiate the Spiritist in the fundamental principles of the science in order to prevent them against eventual deceptions be it from the part of man or from the part of the Spirits.
Samuel Hahnemann
OBSERVATION: This dissertation was motivated by the presence of a foreign homeopathic doctor at the session and who wished Hahnemann’s opinion about the current state of that science. We must add that it was obtained by a young lady that did not study medicine and to whom many special terms are strange.
Letter from Mr. T. Jaubert, from Carcassone
Mr. T. Jaubert, Vice-President of the Civil Court of Carcassone, sent us the letter below. This honorary title was awarded to him by the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies. The Society was fortunate to give Mr. Jaubert this testimony of sympathy and demonstrate to him how much his devotion to the cause of Spiritism is appreciated as well as his modesty and his resolute character. There are positions that reinforce even more the merit of the courage of opinion and qualities that place the man above the critic. (See the last June issue of the Spiritist Review: A Spirit crowned by the Academy of Floral Games).
“Molitg-les-Bains, July 21st 1863
Mr. President,
Your letter with the minutes giving my admission among the honorary members of the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies hasfound me in Molitgwhere,for health reasons, I have been on recovering for the past twenty-nine days. I must enthusiastically send you my gratitude.
I believe in the immortality of the soul, in the communication of the dead with the living ones as I believe in the sun. I love Spiritism as the most legitimate affirmation of God’s law: the law of progress. I confess this out loud as to do so is good.
I accepted the primula of the Academy of Toulouse as a shiny response to those who don’t want to see in the real messages of the Spirits but rather wrong perceptions or ridiculous exclamations.. I receive the title of honorary member of the Society, of which you are the chief, as the most honorable that I have ever received from the hands of men. Still once more, Sir, I send to you and to all members of the Parisian Society my most sincere appreciation.
Your report about the session of the Floral Games faithfully interpreted my feelings and my behavior. By declaring that the awarded fable was the work of my familiar Spirit, I could expose myself to shocking the public and my judges. You expressed perfectly well in your Spiritist Review the respect that I owe to myself and to the opinion of others.
Now, if in any case,I did not have any initiative towards you and if I only respond it is for the fact that I would have to speak about myself, associating my name to an event that certainly makes me happy but that others have given me the honor of considering a success.
I feel freer today and it is from the very bottom of my heart that I beg you, Sir and dear master, to accept the tribute of my acknowledgement, of my sympathy and my most distinct consideration.
T. Jaubert
Vice-President, Court of Carcassone
The abundance of material forces us to postpone to the next issue our second letter to Father Marouzeau as well as the answer to the question that was sent to us about the distinction between atonement and trial.
Allan Kardec
Mr. T. Jaubert, Vice-President of the Civil Court of Carcassone, sent us the letter below. This honorary title was awarded to him by the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies. The Society was fortunate to give Mr. Jaubert this testimony of sympathy and demonstrate to him how much his devotion to the cause of Spiritism is appreciated as well as his modesty and his resolute character. There are positions that reinforce even more the merit of the courage of opinion and qualities that place the man above the critic. (See the last June issue of the Spiritist Review: A Spirit crowned by the Academy of Floral Games).
“Molitg-les-Bains, July 21st 1863
Mr. President,
Your letter with the minutes giving my admission among the honorary members of the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies hasfound me in Molitgwhere,for health reasons, I have been on recovering for the past twenty-nine days. I must enthusiastically send you my gratitude.
I believe in the immortality of the soul, in the communication of the dead with the living ones as I believe in the sun. I love Spiritism as the most legitimate affirmation of God’s law: the law of progress. I confess this out loud as to do so is good.
I accepted the primula of the Academy of Toulouse as a shiny response to those who don’t want to see in the real messages of the Spirits but rather wrong perceptions or ridiculous exclamations.. I receive the title of honorary member of the Society, of which you are the chief, as the most honorable that I have ever received from the hands of men. Still once more, Sir, I send to you and to all members of the Parisian Society my most sincere appreciation.
Your report about the session of the Floral Games faithfully interpreted my feelings and my behavior. By declaring that the awarded fable was the work of my familiar Spirit, I could expose myself to shocking the public and my judges. You expressed perfectly well in your Spiritist Review the respect that I owe to myself and to the opinion of others.
Now, if in any case,I did not have any initiative towards you and if I only respond it is for the fact that I would have to speak about myself, associating my name to an event that certainly makes me happy but that others have given me the honor of considering a success.
I feel freer today and it is from the very bottom of my heart that I beg you, Sir and dear master, to accept the tribute of my acknowledgement, of my sympathy and my most distinct consideration.
T. Jaubert
Vice-President, Court of Carcassone
The abundance of material forces us to postpone to the next issue our second letter to Father Marouzeau as well as the answer to the question that was sent to us about the distinction between atonement and trial.
Allan Kardec