You are in:
The Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1864
The Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1864
January
The time for the renewal of subscription of the Spiritist Review is, to many readers whose number has increased remarkably this year, an occasion to attest their devotion to the cause and to give us testimony of feelings that touch is vividly. Letters with such expressions are received in large numbers, making it difficult for us to respond individually.
We therefore address you all collectively, sending you our sincere thanks for the undeserved things that you tell us, for your vows to us and to the future of Spiritism. Our past behavior must be your guarantor that we will not veer off from our path, regardless of its weight, and you will always find us in the vanguard and fully active. Up until now your prayers have been heard hence we invite you to thank the good Spirits that assist us, positively helping us, clearing obstacles that could hinder our progress, and showing us the objective to be achieved the more clearly the more we move on.
We were more or less alone for a long time but now here you are, new warriors that come to the arena, from all sides, working hard, with perseverance and the abnegation that leads to faith in the defense and in the propagation of the our sacred doctrine, without discouragement for the obstacles, and without fearing persecution. Thus, the majority has seen the ill-fated bending before its strength.
May you all receive our sincere congratulations in the name of all of the current and future Spiritists in whose memory you will certainly remain! They will soon have the satisfaction of seen large number of imitators following their footsteps because once the impulse is given it shall not stop. The doctrine will also soon be seen sustained by people of authority that will courageously take the cause of Spiritism in their hands, a cause of material and moral progress and well-being of humanity.
A cordial and fraternal greeting to all of our Spiritist brothers in all countries.
Allan Kardec
We therefore address you all collectively, sending you our sincere thanks for the undeserved things that you tell us, for your vows to us and to the future of Spiritism. Our past behavior must be your guarantor that we will not veer off from our path, regardless of its weight, and you will always find us in the vanguard and fully active. Up until now your prayers have been heard hence we invite you to thank the good Spirits that assist us, positively helping us, clearing obstacles that could hinder our progress, and showing us the objective to be achieved the more clearly the more we move on.
We were more or less alone for a long time but now here you are, new warriors that come to the arena, from all sides, working hard, with perseverance and the abnegation that leads to faith in the defense and in the propagation of the our sacred doctrine, without discouragement for the obstacles, and without fearing persecution. Thus, the majority has seen the ill-fated bending before its strength.
May you all receive our sincere congratulations in the name of all of the current and future Spiritists in whose memory you will certainly remain! They will soon have the satisfaction of seen large number of imitators following their footsteps because once the impulse is given it shall not stop. The doctrine will also soon be seen sustained by people of authority that will courageously take the cause of Spiritism in their hands, a cause of material and moral progress and well-being of humanity.
A cordial and fraternal greeting to all of our Spiritist brothers in all countries.
Allan Kardec
Last year was not more fruitful to Spiritism than the previous years but it is distinguished by several particular features. More than all others it was marked by the violence of the attacks, a characteristic sign whose dimension escaped no one. Everybody said: If there is anger there is fear; and if there is fear it means that there is something serious.
Since today it is well established that those aggressions helped the progress of Spiritism progress and instead of stopping the open attacks will naturally diminish but we must not relax with the apparent break or believe that the adversaries of Spiritism will not take advantage of that. Therefore it is necessary to be persuaded that the fight is not over but there will be a change of tactics.
That is the reason why we ask the Spiritists to be always alert about what is going on around them and remember what we said in our last December issue about the period of struggle, of the quiet fight and the conflicts; do not be surprised if the enemy infiltrate in your ranks; that God allows so to test the faith, courage and perseverance of the true workers. From now on their objective will be to find all possible means of compromising Spiritism to have it discredited; to push the groups with an appearance of zeal and the pretext that it is necessary to move on; to get involved with matters strange to the doctrine; to deal with politics or other subjects that may cause irritable discussions and spread division, everything with the intent of demanding its closure. The moderation of the Spiritists is what causes more admiration and annoys their adversaries the most. They will try everything to change that, including provocation, but the Spiritists will work around those maneuvers by their prudence as they have already done in several occasions and will not fall in the traps that will be laid for them; as a matter of fact they will see the antagonists embarrassed in their own webs for it is impossible that sooner or later they don’t show their faces. This is going to be a more difficult phase to go through when compared to the period of declared war when the enemy is known and seen face to face; however, the tougher the fight the greater the triumph.
That campaign had a great result that was the demonstration of the impotence of the weapons used against Spiritism. The most capable persons of the adversary party entered the arena; every resource of argumentation was employed and since Spiritism felt nothing each one was convinced that there was no evident point to use against Spiritism and the best proof of the lack of arguments is the sad and ignoble utilization of slander.
But the fact that they wanted to make believe that Spiritism said something contrary to what it actually does was hopeless because the doctrine is out there, written in terms so clear that defy any false interpretation, and that is the reason why the hatred that stems out of calumny falls back on those that employed it, convincing them of their impotence. That is a considerable fact that took place in the year that has just ended and if that had been the only result we would be satisfied but there are other not less positive events.
1863 was marked, above all, by the increase in the number of groups and societies formed in a large number of places where there was none before both in France and abroad, an evident sign of the increase in the number of followers and the propagation of the doctrine. Paris that had fallen behind yields to the general impulse and begins to move. Every day we see new private groups forming with an eminently serious objective and in excellent conditions. The Society we preside rejoices with the multiplication of vibrant newborns around it, capable of spreading the seed. The private groups, when well managed, are very useful to the initiation of new followers. Given the extension of its relationships the main Society is a center of convergence of groups from all corners of the world and must not deal but with the development of the science and issues of general interest that totally absorb it. Thus it must abstain from anything that is elemental and particular. Therefore the private groups come to fulfill the blank that is forcibly left out and that is why the Society encourages and seconds with its moral support the persons that dedicate to that kind of propagation.
If there was a momentary concern with respect to the effects of dissidences in the way of seeing Spiritism, the always growing number of societies in every country that spontaneously place themselves under the sponsorship of the Parisian Society, raising the Spiritist flag, is a fact that thoroughly dissipates that concern.
It is obvious that The Spirits’ Book is the point of convergence of the immense majority of the followers. The maxim “there is no salvation but through charity” united all of those that see the moral side of Spiritism since it cannot be interpreted differently and it does satisfy every aspiration.
Since the constitution of Spiritism in a body of doctrine many isolated systems have fallen apart and the few traces that there still remain have no influence upon the general opinion. The solid foundation of Spiritism will easily succeed from the divisions that its adversaries will certainly entail because they don’t count on good Spirits that protect their work and that utilize their own enemies to guarantee its success.
The formation of a doctrine without dissidences is unprecedented and if there is something that must surprise us is to see Spiritism’s unity happening so promptly. At any rate Spiritism has not yet penetrated everywhere and in many places it is only known by name. The rare followers found in those places attribute such a fact to two causes: first the characteristic of their populations much absorbed by material interests only; then the absence of contrary sermons. That is why they appeal to have sermons as those given elsewhere or to some remarkable manifestation of hostility that may draw attention and excite curiosity. However, they must be patient. Since everybody must get there the Spirits will find a way of providing for that need by other means.
But the most characteristic feature of 1863 was the movement formed by public opinion about the Spiritist Doctrine. It is surprising the easiness with which the principle is accepted by persons that not long ago would have repealed and led it to ridicule. The resistances – and we speak of those that are not systematic and out of interest – diminish noticeably. There are writers that in good faith fought violently against Spiritism and that today, dominated by their social environment, and without confessing defeat, resign to a fight that is considered useless. Fact is that the feeling that there is the need for a moral transformation grows more and more. The ruin of the old world is imminent because the ideas that it promotes are no longer compatible with humanity current level of intelligence. It seems that everything leads to Spiritism but, on another hand, new horizons are vaguely acknowledged; there is a feeling that something better is needed and that it is uselessly sought in the present world. There is something in the air like a precursor electric current and everybody has expectations but all say to themselves that humanity must not retrograde.
Another not less significant fact that has been noticed by many and that is consequence of the current vibe is the prodigious number of texts, serious or superficial, produced outside and probably without the knowledge of Spiritism, in which Spiritist thoughts are found. In particular the principle of the plurality of existences that has a tendency of being accepted by the masses and modern philosophy. Many thinkers are led to that by the logic of facts and soon that belief becomes popular. These are evidently the precursors of the adoption of Spiritism whose paths are thus paved and leveled. These ideas are all spread from several sides in texts that fall in the hands of everybody, making its acceptance progressively easier.
Hence the status of Spiritism in 1863 can be summarized as this: Violent attacks; multiplication of texts in favor and against; movement of ideas; remarkable expansion of the doctrine but without exterior signs to produce a general sensation; to roots grow and extend as the newborns, waiting for the tree to develop its branches. Time of maturity has not come yet.
Among the publications of last year that came to join the struggle and concur for the defense of Spiritism we place the following in the first line: la Ruche, from Bordeaux and la Vérité, from Lyon, whose editors deserve the encouragement and recognition from every true Spiritist for their demonstrations of perseverance, devotion and selflessness. The periodical la Vérité showed up like a fearful athlete, joining forces with the largest Spiritist center in France and perhaps in the world, with articles whose logic leaves no space for criticism.
Spiritism will soon have – we were led to expect that – a new and important media in Italy that, like its older brothers in France, will march in common agreement with the great principles of the doctrine.
Since today it is well established that those aggressions helped the progress of Spiritism progress and instead of stopping the open attacks will naturally diminish but we must not relax with the apparent break or believe that the adversaries of Spiritism will not take advantage of that. Therefore it is necessary to be persuaded that the fight is not over but there will be a change of tactics.
That is the reason why we ask the Spiritists to be always alert about what is going on around them and remember what we said in our last December issue about the period of struggle, of the quiet fight and the conflicts; do not be surprised if the enemy infiltrate in your ranks; that God allows so to test the faith, courage and perseverance of the true workers. From now on their objective will be to find all possible means of compromising Spiritism to have it discredited; to push the groups with an appearance of zeal and the pretext that it is necessary to move on; to get involved with matters strange to the doctrine; to deal with politics or other subjects that may cause irritable discussions and spread division, everything with the intent of demanding its closure. The moderation of the Spiritists is what causes more admiration and annoys their adversaries the most. They will try everything to change that, including provocation, but the Spiritists will work around those maneuvers by their prudence as they have already done in several occasions and will not fall in the traps that will be laid for them; as a matter of fact they will see the antagonists embarrassed in their own webs for it is impossible that sooner or later they don’t show their faces. This is going to be a more difficult phase to go through when compared to the period of declared war when the enemy is known and seen face to face; however, the tougher the fight the greater the triumph.
That campaign had a great result that was the demonstration of the impotence of the weapons used against Spiritism. The most capable persons of the adversary party entered the arena; every resource of argumentation was employed and since Spiritism felt nothing each one was convinced that there was no evident point to use against Spiritism and the best proof of the lack of arguments is the sad and ignoble utilization of slander.
But the fact that they wanted to make believe that Spiritism said something contrary to what it actually does was hopeless because the doctrine is out there, written in terms so clear that defy any false interpretation, and that is the reason why the hatred that stems out of calumny falls back on those that employed it, convincing them of their impotence. That is a considerable fact that took place in the year that has just ended and if that had been the only result we would be satisfied but there are other not less positive events.
1863 was marked, above all, by the increase in the number of groups and societies formed in a large number of places where there was none before both in France and abroad, an evident sign of the increase in the number of followers and the propagation of the doctrine. Paris that had fallen behind yields to the general impulse and begins to move. Every day we see new private groups forming with an eminently serious objective and in excellent conditions. The Society we preside rejoices with the multiplication of vibrant newborns around it, capable of spreading the seed. The private groups, when well managed, are very useful to the initiation of new followers. Given the extension of its relationships the main Society is a center of convergence of groups from all corners of the world and must not deal but with the development of the science and issues of general interest that totally absorb it. Thus it must abstain from anything that is elemental and particular. Therefore the private groups come to fulfill the blank that is forcibly left out and that is why the Society encourages and seconds with its moral support the persons that dedicate to that kind of propagation.
If there was a momentary concern with respect to the effects of dissidences in the way of seeing Spiritism, the always growing number of societies in every country that spontaneously place themselves under the sponsorship of the Parisian Society, raising the Spiritist flag, is a fact that thoroughly dissipates that concern.
It is obvious that The Spirits’ Book is the point of convergence of the immense majority of the followers. The maxim “there is no salvation but through charity” united all of those that see the moral side of Spiritism since it cannot be interpreted differently and it does satisfy every aspiration.
Since the constitution of Spiritism in a body of doctrine many isolated systems have fallen apart and the few traces that there still remain have no influence upon the general opinion. The solid foundation of Spiritism will easily succeed from the divisions that its adversaries will certainly entail because they don’t count on good Spirits that protect their work and that utilize their own enemies to guarantee its success.
The formation of a doctrine without dissidences is unprecedented and if there is something that must surprise us is to see Spiritism’s unity happening so promptly. At any rate Spiritism has not yet penetrated everywhere and in many places it is only known by name. The rare followers found in those places attribute such a fact to two causes: first the characteristic of their populations much absorbed by material interests only; then the absence of contrary sermons. That is why they appeal to have sermons as those given elsewhere or to some remarkable manifestation of hostility that may draw attention and excite curiosity. However, they must be patient. Since everybody must get there the Spirits will find a way of providing for that need by other means.
But the most characteristic feature of 1863 was the movement formed by public opinion about the Spiritist Doctrine. It is surprising the easiness with which the principle is accepted by persons that not long ago would have repealed and led it to ridicule. The resistances – and we speak of those that are not systematic and out of interest – diminish noticeably. There are writers that in good faith fought violently against Spiritism and that today, dominated by their social environment, and without confessing defeat, resign to a fight that is considered useless. Fact is that the feeling that there is the need for a moral transformation grows more and more. The ruin of the old world is imminent because the ideas that it promotes are no longer compatible with humanity current level of intelligence. It seems that everything leads to Spiritism but, on another hand, new horizons are vaguely acknowledged; there is a feeling that something better is needed and that it is uselessly sought in the present world. There is something in the air like a precursor electric current and everybody has expectations but all say to themselves that humanity must not retrograde.
Another not less significant fact that has been noticed by many and that is consequence of the current vibe is the prodigious number of texts, serious or superficial, produced outside and probably without the knowledge of Spiritism, in which Spiritist thoughts are found. In particular the principle of the plurality of existences that has a tendency of being accepted by the masses and modern philosophy. Many thinkers are led to that by the logic of facts and soon that belief becomes popular. These are evidently the precursors of the adoption of Spiritism whose paths are thus paved and leveled. These ideas are all spread from several sides in texts that fall in the hands of everybody, making its acceptance progressively easier.
Hence the status of Spiritism in 1863 can be summarized as this: Violent attacks; multiplication of texts in favor and against; movement of ideas; remarkable expansion of the doctrine but without exterior signs to produce a general sensation; to roots grow and extend as the newborns, waiting for the tree to develop its branches. Time of maturity has not come yet.
Among the publications of last year that came to join the struggle and concur for the defense of Spiritism we place the following in the first line: la Ruche, from Bordeaux and la Vérité, from Lyon, whose editors deserve the encouragement and recognition from every true Spiritist for their demonstrations of perseverance, devotion and selflessness. The periodical la Vérité showed up like a fearful athlete, joining forces with the largest Spiritist center in France and perhaps in the world, with articles whose logic leaves no space for criticism.
Spiritism will soon have – we were led to expect that – a new and important media in Italy that, like its older brothers in France, will march in common agreement with the great principles of the doctrine.
An officer of hunters, a long-time Spiritist, and one of the many examples of the moral reforms that Spiritism can operate, provides us with the following detailed report:
“Dear Master,
We used the long hours of winter to fully dedicate to the development of our mediumistic faculties. The triad of the 4th Regiment of Hunters is always united, energetic, inspired by its own duties and seeking new endeavors. You certainly wishes to know the object of our works to be able to establish if what we do is useless. You will be able to assess it by the following:
For some months now our works are concentrated on the study of fluids. Such study developed in us the healing mediumship so that we now apply it successfully. A few days ago a simple irradiation of fluids for five minutes with my hand was enough to remove a sharp neuralgia. Mrs. P… was affected by an acute hyperesthesia or an exaggerated sensitivity of the skin, a disease that kept her in her bedroom for fifteen years. She lives in a small neighboring town and having heard of our Spiritist group came to seek relief with us. After thirty five days she returned home completely cured. During that period shed received a daily dose of fifteen minutes of magnetic irradiation with the help of our spiritual guides. At the same time we extended our care to an epileptic that was affected by the disease for twenty seven years. Thirty five days were enough for that important cure and lo and behold the happiness of that mother on taking her child home, completely cured! The three of us take turns every eight hours. To emit the fluid we sometimes placed the hand on the stomach of the patient, sometimes on the back of the neck, at the bottom of the neck. The patient was able to detect some improvement every day. We ourselves, after the evocation and during the reverence, felt the exterior fluid invading us, passing by us and escaping from our extended fingers to the body of the patient under treatment.
At this point in time we are attending a second epileptic. This time the disease seems more rebellious because it is hereditary. The seed of the disease passed from the father to his four sons. We hope to be able to mitigate that on all four with the help of God. Dear master, we beg for the help of your prayers and the prayers of the Parisian brothers. Such help will be an encouragement and a stimulus to our efforts. Besides your good Spirits can come to help us, making the treatment more efficient and shorten their duration. We do not accept that for reward, as you can imagine, and for that it is enough to have the satisfaction of carrying out our duties and that of having followed the impulse given by the good Spirits. The true love towards our fellow human beings is an unblemished joy but that leaves in our soul an amazing, shiny and elevating thing. We therefore try, as much as allowed by our own imperfections, to concentrate on the duties of the true Spiritist that are not but the application of the precepts found in the Gospels.
Mr. G. de L… is supposed to bring us his brother-in-law that has been subjugated by a bad Spirit for two years. Our Spiritist guide, Lamennais, has assigned us with the task of treating such a rebellious case of obsession. Would God give us the power of expelling the demons? If that were the case instead of being proud we would have to humble ourselves before such a great favor. How much more wouldn’t we have to improve to demonstrate our recognition to God and not to lose such precious gifts?”
After reading this letter at the session of the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies on December 18th, 1863 one of our good mediums spontaneously obtained the two following communications:
“Since the free-will appears in several levels of development in human beings it has served to both alleviate and cure at all times. We are regrettably forced to acknowledge that it has also been the source of much harm but that is one of the consequences of its abuse by many people. The free-will develops both the animal as well as the spiritual fluid because, as you all know now, there are several types of magnetism and among them the animal magnetism and the spiritual magnetism that, according to the case, may request the backing of the former. Another type of magnetism much more powerful still is the prayer that a pure and selfless soul addresses to God. The free-will has frequently been misunderstood. The person that magnetizes generally thinks only of extending her own magnetism upon the person under her care not considering if there is or there isn’t an even more interested Providence in the case. Acting alone once can only obtain what her own strength allows whereas our healing mediums begin by raising their souls to God and by acknowledging that they cannot do anything alone. Their confession of weakness is an act of humility and abnegation. God then sends them powerful help that cannot be received by the others that see themselves self-sufficient for the task. God always rewards sincere humbleness by elevating it whereas pride is sent below. The help sent by God is the presence of the good Spirits that embed the medium with their beneficial fluids that are then transmitted to the patient. That is also the reason why the magnetism of the healing mediums is so powerful producing cures classified as miracles and that are simply due to the nature of the fluids cast upon the medium. While the ordinary magnetizing person drains, sometimes uselessly, with the passes, the healing medium infiltrates a regenerating fluid by the simple extension of the hands, thanks to the support given by the good Spirits. Such a support, however, is only granted to someone with a sincere faith and pure intention.
Mesmer, medium Mr. Albert”
-o-
“One word about the healing mediums that you have just mentioned. They are all in the most favorable dispositions; they have the faith that carries mountains, the selflessness that purifies the acts of life and the humility that sanctifies them. May they persevere in the beneficent work; may they remember well that those that practice the sacred laws taught by Spiritism constantly moves towards the creator. May the prayer be always their guide and support for that is the stronger will. Jesus Christ gave you the most irrefutable proof of a very firm will in all of his life, but that was the will for the good and not of the proud. Whenever he said – I want – that was full of unction. His apostles felt their hearts opening to those sacred words. The permanent kindness of Jesus, his submission to the will of God, his perfect abnegation, are the most beautiful models of will that one may have by example.
Paul, apostle. Medium, Mr. Albert”
A few explanations will suffice for the understanding of what is going on in those cases. It is well-known that the ordinary magnetic fluid may provide particular active properties to certain substances. In that case it acts like a chemical agent, modifying the molecular state of the bodies. Hence there is nothing extraordinary about the fact that it may modify the condition of certain organs and that its more or less healthy action may depend on its quality, thus yielding the expressions “good or bad fluid; a pleasant or unpleasant fluid.”
In the magnetic action per se it is the personal fluid of the magnetizer that is transmitted and it is known that such a fluid is not more than the perispirit that always suffers the influence of the Spirit and that more or less depends on the material quality of the body. Therefore it is impossible that the own fluids of an incarnate person may show absolute purity and that is why its action is slow, sometimes inexistent or even harmful because it may transmit damaging fluids to the patient.
Considering that a fluid is sufficiently abundant and energetic to produce the instantaneous effect of sleep, catalepsy, attraction or repulsion, it does not absolutely follow that it may have the necessary healing properties. It is the force that takes down but not the balm that sooths and restores. As a result there are incarnate Spirits from an inferior order whose fluids may even be very harmful and that is commonly attested by the Spiritists.
It is only with the superior Spirits that the perispirit is rid of every impurity of matter; it is somehow quintessential; its action must therefore be healthier and prompter: it is a healing fluid by excellence. Now, since it cannot be found among the incarnate or the common discarnate it is necessary to request it to the elevated Spirits, like when we need to seek a medication that we don’t find around us in distant places.
The healing medium irradiates little of own fluid. The medium feels the strange flux that pass through her and to which she operates as a conductor. It is with that fluid that the medium magnetizes and that is what characterizes the spiritual magnetism and separates it from the animal magnetism: one comes from a human being, the other from the Spirits. From that it is clear that there is nothing wonderful about it but a phenomenon that results from a law of nature that was unknown so far.
Even the common therapeutics one cannot count on any medicine to achieve the cure. One does need conveniently prepared, valid, pure and non-damaged components. For the same reason in order to cure through the magnetic action the most depurated fluids are the healthiest ones. Since these are a property of superior Spirits one does need their support and that is why prayer and evocation are needed. However, in order to pray and to pray with fervor it is necessary to have faith. In order to have the prayer heard it must have been said with humility and dictated by a real feeling of benevolence and charity. But there is no true charity without devotion or devotion without selflessness. Without these conditions the magnetizer remains without the assistance of the good Spirits, reduced to her own strength sometimes insufficient, whereas with their help that strength can increase many fold in power and efficacy.
Nevertheless, however pure a liquid may be it is always altered by the impurity of its container. That is what happens to the fluid of superior Spirits in contact with the incarnate souls. That is why mediums that would like to see their faculty improving instead of fading away must work for their own moral betterment.
There is consequently a fundamental difference between a healing medium and a magnetizer because the latter utilizes her own fluid and the former the depurated fluid of the Spirits. It then follows that the Spirits give their contribution to whoever they wish and when they wish; that they can refuse to give it and consequently they are able to have that faculty removed from whoever had abused or veered off from its humanitarian and charitable objective by trading with that.
When Jesus said to the apostles: “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons.” Jesus then added: Freely you have received, freely give. (Mathew 10:8-9)
The healing mediums tend to multiply as announced by the Spirits and that with the aim at propagating Spiritism by the impression that inevitably this new order of phenomena leave on the crowds because everybody is aware of their health even the most nonbelievers. Thus, when they see what is possible to get with the intervention of the Spirits and that cannot be given by science they must acknowledge that there is a power beyond this world. Science will then be lead out of an exclusively materialistic path that it has walked up until now. When the anti-spiritualist and anti-Spiritist magnetizers realize the existence of a more powerful magnetism than theirs they shall be forced to go back to the true cause.
However one must be forearmed against charlatanism that will still try to exploit that new faculty. The simple way of doing that is to remember that there is no selfless charlatanism and that the absolute moral and material altruism are the best guarantors of honesty. If there is a God given faculty with such a pure objective that is the one because it imperiously demands the support of the superior Spirits and such support cannot be acquired by charlatanism. We describe it with some details exactly to give more awareness of the special nature of its special nature.
Although we may have attested its existence by the positive presentation of facts, many of which taking place before our eyes, we can say that it is still rare and that it only exists partially in the mediums that don’t have the full capability yet and that it is still in its beginning. That is why such facts have not had a great repercussion yet however it won’t be long when they will present a development capable of drawing the general attention. In just a few years the skills will be show on predestined persons with a strength that will eliminate adamant reactions but these are not the only facts reserved to the future and through which God will confuse and convince the proud in their impotence. Healing mediums are one among thousands of providential means of achieving that objective and speed up the victory of Spiritism.
It is easily understood that such a qualification cannot be given to the writing mediums that receive medical prescriptions from certain Spirits. We don’t see the healing mediumship but from the phenomenological point of view and as a means of propagation but not as a common resource. In a next article we will deal with its possible alliance with medicine and ordinary magnetism.
“Dear Master,
We used the long hours of winter to fully dedicate to the development of our mediumistic faculties. The triad of the 4th Regiment of Hunters is always united, energetic, inspired by its own duties and seeking new endeavors. You certainly wishes to know the object of our works to be able to establish if what we do is useless. You will be able to assess it by the following:
For some months now our works are concentrated on the study of fluids. Such study developed in us the healing mediumship so that we now apply it successfully. A few days ago a simple irradiation of fluids for five minutes with my hand was enough to remove a sharp neuralgia. Mrs. P… was affected by an acute hyperesthesia or an exaggerated sensitivity of the skin, a disease that kept her in her bedroom for fifteen years. She lives in a small neighboring town and having heard of our Spiritist group came to seek relief with us. After thirty five days she returned home completely cured. During that period shed received a daily dose of fifteen minutes of magnetic irradiation with the help of our spiritual guides. At the same time we extended our care to an epileptic that was affected by the disease for twenty seven years. Thirty five days were enough for that important cure and lo and behold the happiness of that mother on taking her child home, completely cured! The three of us take turns every eight hours. To emit the fluid we sometimes placed the hand on the stomach of the patient, sometimes on the back of the neck, at the bottom of the neck. The patient was able to detect some improvement every day. We ourselves, after the evocation and during the reverence, felt the exterior fluid invading us, passing by us and escaping from our extended fingers to the body of the patient under treatment.
At this point in time we are attending a second epileptic. This time the disease seems more rebellious because it is hereditary. The seed of the disease passed from the father to his four sons. We hope to be able to mitigate that on all four with the help of God. Dear master, we beg for the help of your prayers and the prayers of the Parisian brothers. Such help will be an encouragement and a stimulus to our efforts. Besides your good Spirits can come to help us, making the treatment more efficient and shorten their duration. We do not accept that for reward, as you can imagine, and for that it is enough to have the satisfaction of carrying out our duties and that of having followed the impulse given by the good Spirits. The true love towards our fellow human beings is an unblemished joy but that leaves in our soul an amazing, shiny and elevating thing. We therefore try, as much as allowed by our own imperfections, to concentrate on the duties of the true Spiritist that are not but the application of the precepts found in the Gospels.
Mr. G. de L… is supposed to bring us his brother-in-law that has been subjugated by a bad Spirit for two years. Our Spiritist guide, Lamennais, has assigned us with the task of treating such a rebellious case of obsession. Would God give us the power of expelling the demons? If that were the case instead of being proud we would have to humble ourselves before such a great favor. How much more wouldn’t we have to improve to demonstrate our recognition to God and not to lose such precious gifts?”
After reading this letter at the session of the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies on December 18th, 1863 one of our good mediums spontaneously obtained the two following communications:
“Since the free-will appears in several levels of development in human beings it has served to both alleviate and cure at all times. We are regrettably forced to acknowledge that it has also been the source of much harm but that is one of the consequences of its abuse by many people. The free-will develops both the animal as well as the spiritual fluid because, as you all know now, there are several types of magnetism and among them the animal magnetism and the spiritual magnetism that, according to the case, may request the backing of the former. Another type of magnetism much more powerful still is the prayer that a pure and selfless soul addresses to God. The free-will has frequently been misunderstood. The person that magnetizes generally thinks only of extending her own magnetism upon the person under her care not considering if there is or there isn’t an even more interested Providence in the case. Acting alone once can only obtain what her own strength allows whereas our healing mediums begin by raising their souls to God and by acknowledging that they cannot do anything alone. Their confession of weakness is an act of humility and abnegation. God then sends them powerful help that cannot be received by the others that see themselves self-sufficient for the task. God always rewards sincere humbleness by elevating it whereas pride is sent below. The help sent by God is the presence of the good Spirits that embed the medium with their beneficial fluids that are then transmitted to the patient. That is also the reason why the magnetism of the healing mediums is so powerful producing cures classified as miracles and that are simply due to the nature of the fluids cast upon the medium. While the ordinary magnetizing person drains, sometimes uselessly, with the passes, the healing medium infiltrates a regenerating fluid by the simple extension of the hands, thanks to the support given by the good Spirits. Such a support, however, is only granted to someone with a sincere faith and pure intention.
Mesmer, medium Mr. Albert”
-o-
“One word about the healing mediums that you have just mentioned. They are all in the most favorable dispositions; they have the faith that carries mountains, the selflessness that purifies the acts of life and the humility that sanctifies them. May they persevere in the beneficent work; may they remember well that those that practice the sacred laws taught by Spiritism constantly moves towards the creator. May the prayer be always their guide and support for that is the stronger will. Jesus Christ gave you the most irrefutable proof of a very firm will in all of his life, but that was the will for the good and not of the proud. Whenever he said – I want – that was full of unction. His apostles felt their hearts opening to those sacred words. The permanent kindness of Jesus, his submission to the will of God, his perfect abnegation, are the most beautiful models of will that one may have by example.
Paul, apostle. Medium, Mr. Albert”
A few explanations will suffice for the understanding of what is going on in those cases. It is well-known that the ordinary magnetic fluid may provide particular active properties to certain substances. In that case it acts like a chemical agent, modifying the molecular state of the bodies. Hence there is nothing extraordinary about the fact that it may modify the condition of certain organs and that its more or less healthy action may depend on its quality, thus yielding the expressions “good or bad fluid; a pleasant or unpleasant fluid.”
In the magnetic action per se it is the personal fluid of the magnetizer that is transmitted and it is known that such a fluid is not more than the perispirit that always suffers the influence of the Spirit and that more or less depends on the material quality of the body. Therefore it is impossible that the own fluids of an incarnate person may show absolute purity and that is why its action is slow, sometimes inexistent or even harmful because it may transmit damaging fluids to the patient.
Considering that a fluid is sufficiently abundant and energetic to produce the instantaneous effect of sleep, catalepsy, attraction or repulsion, it does not absolutely follow that it may have the necessary healing properties. It is the force that takes down but not the balm that sooths and restores. As a result there are incarnate Spirits from an inferior order whose fluids may even be very harmful and that is commonly attested by the Spiritists.
It is only with the superior Spirits that the perispirit is rid of every impurity of matter; it is somehow quintessential; its action must therefore be healthier and prompter: it is a healing fluid by excellence. Now, since it cannot be found among the incarnate or the common discarnate it is necessary to request it to the elevated Spirits, like when we need to seek a medication that we don’t find around us in distant places.
The healing medium irradiates little of own fluid. The medium feels the strange flux that pass through her and to which she operates as a conductor. It is with that fluid that the medium magnetizes and that is what characterizes the spiritual magnetism and separates it from the animal magnetism: one comes from a human being, the other from the Spirits. From that it is clear that there is nothing wonderful about it but a phenomenon that results from a law of nature that was unknown so far.
Even the common therapeutics one cannot count on any medicine to achieve the cure. One does need conveniently prepared, valid, pure and non-damaged components. For the same reason in order to cure through the magnetic action the most depurated fluids are the healthiest ones. Since these are a property of superior Spirits one does need their support and that is why prayer and evocation are needed. However, in order to pray and to pray with fervor it is necessary to have faith. In order to have the prayer heard it must have been said with humility and dictated by a real feeling of benevolence and charity. But there is no true charity without devotion or devotion without selflessness. Without these conditions the magnetizer remains without the assistance of the good Spirits, reduced to her own strength sometimes insufficient, whereas with their help that strength can increase many fold in power and efficacy.
Nevertheless, however pure a liquid may be it is always altered by the impurity of its container. That is what happens to the fluid of superior Spirits in contact with the incarnate souls. That is why mediums that would like to see their faculty improving instead of fading away must work for their own moral betterment.
There is consequently a fundamental difference between a healing medium and a magnetizer because the latter utilizes her own fluid and the former the depurated fluid of the Spirits. It then follows that the Spirits give their contribution to whoever they wish and when they wish; that they can refuse to give it and consequently they are able to have that faculty removed from whoever had abused or veered off from its humanitarian and charitable objective by trading with that.
When Jesus said to the apostles: “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons.” Jesus then added: Freely you have received, freely give. (Mathew 10:8-9)
The healing mediums tend to multiply as announced by the Spirits and that with the aim at propagating Spiritism by the impression that inevitably this new order of phenomena leave on the crowds because everybody is aware of their health even the most nonbelievers. Thus, when they see what is possible to get with the intervention of the Spirits and that cannot be given by science they must acknowledge that there is a power beyond this world. Science will then be lead out of an exclusively materialistic path that it has walked up until now. When the anti-spiritualist and anti-Spiritist magnetizers realize the existence of a more powerful magnetism than theirs they shall be forced to go back to the true cause.
However one must be forearmed against charlatanism that will still try to exploit that new faculty. The simple way of doing that is to remember that there is no selfless charlatanism and that the absolute moral and material altruism are the best guarantors of honesty. If there is a God given faculty with such a pure objective that is the one because it imperiously demands the support of the superior Spirits and such support cannot be acquired by charlatanism. We describe it with some details exactly to give more awareness of the special nature of its special nature.
Although we may have attested its existence by the positive presentation of facts, many of which taking place before our eyes, we can say that it is still rare and that it only exists partially in the mediums that don’t have the full capability yet and that it is still in its beginning. That is why such facts have not had a great repercussion yet however it won’t be long when they will present a development capable of drawing the general attention. In just a few years the skills will be show on predestined persons with a strength that will eliminate adamant reactions but these are not the only facts reserved to the future and through which God will confuse and convince the proud in their impotence. Healing mediums are one among thousands of providential means of achieving that objective and speed up the victory of Spiritism.
It is easily understood that such a qualification cannot be given to the writing mediums that receive medical prescriptions from certain Spirits. We don’t see the healing mediumship but from the phenomenological point of view and as a means of propagation but not as a common resource. In a next article we will deal with its possible alliance with medicine and ordinary magnetism.
In the previous article we described the poor situation of that young lady and the circumstances of her true possession. We gladly confirm what we said before about her complete cure.
After being released from her obsessing Spirit she presented serious health complications due to the violent shocks for more than six months. She is now recovered by she is still in a somnambulistic state that does not preclude her from doing her day to day activities. Let us describe the circumstances of the cure.
Several people had tried to magnetize her unsuccessfully except a slight and momentary improvement in her pathological state. As for the Spirit he was progressively more tenacious and the crises had achieved the highest levels of violence.
In that case it would be necessary to have a magnetizer as described in the preceding article with respect to the healing mediums that is covering the patient with a sufficiently pure fluid capable of eliminating the influence of the bad Spirit. If there is a case of mediumship that requires moral superiority that is undoubtedly the case of obsession for one does need to have the ability of imposing moral superiority to the Spirit.
According to what has been announced cases of possession must multiply strongly in the near future so that the means employed so far to combat it are proven to be powerless. Even something that we cannot mention now but that happened at the time of Jesus will contribute to develop a kind of demoniacal epidemic. There is no doubt that special mediums will appear with the skill of expelling the bad Spirits as the apostles had of expulsing the demons be it because God always places the remedy near the patient or be it to provide the nonbelievers with a proof of the existence of the Spirits.
In the case of Ms. Julia, as in many analogous cases, simple magnetism proved insufficient regardless of its energy level. It was necessary to act simultaneously onto the obsessing Spirit to have her dominated and to upon the patient’s moral that was disturbed by all those events. The physical disease was only consequence; it was the effect rather than the cause. Hence, it was necessary to deal with the cause before the effect. The physical disease should disappear once the mental issue had been destroyed. But for that one does need to identify the cause; study it with great care and in all of the nuances of the thoughts to move in one or another more favorable direction because the symptoms vary according to the degree of intelligence of the patient, the character of the Spirit and the reasons behind the obsession, reasons that almost always go back to previous existences. The failure of magnetism with Ms. Julia led many other people to try. Among them there was a young man with a great fluidic power but that unfortunately had no experience and above all had no knowledge necessary to handle similar cases. He attributed himself an absolute power over the inferior Spirits that, according to him, could not resist his will power. Such pretension stretched to the extreme and based on his personal power and not on the assistance of the good Spirits had to lead him to more than one failure. That alone should be enough to the young lady’s friends that he lacked the first of the qualities required to be an efficient help. But what should have clarified them, above all, that he generally had an entirely false idea about the Spirits. According to him superior Spirits have a fluidic nature that is so ethereal that makes it impossible to them to communicate with and assist people and hence that would only be possible to inferior Spirits given their grosser nature. Even during crises he made the mistake of sustaining such idea before the patient that is nothing else but the doctrine of the exclusive communication of demons. From that point of view he could only count on himself and could not evoke the only assistance that could help him, an assistance that he thought he could go without.
The most harmful consequence was for the patient that he discouraged taking from her the hope that she could have the assistance of the good Spirits. In her weak mental state such a belief that made the obsessing Spirit stronger could be lethal to her. She then repeated endlessly in moments of crises: “Mad, mad… he makes me mad… completely mad… I am not yet but will be.”
When talking about her magnetizer she gave the right image by saying: “He gave me the strength of the body but not of the Spirit.” A profoundly significant expression that would go unnoticed.
When we saw Ms. Julia her disease was in the apogee and the crisis that we witnessed was one of the most violent. It was exactly when we tried to cheer her up; that we tried to convince her that she could fight that bad Spirit back with the help of the good Spirits and her guardian angel whose supported was necessary to evoke that the young magnetizer that was around and from an undoubtedly providential circumstance came, without any provocation, affirm and develop his theory, destroying what we were doing differently. We had to make our point with energy, saying that what he was doing was bad and that he would be responsible for the poor young lady losing her mind and her life.
One of the most remarkable things that had been observed by everyone but whose consequences had not been deduced by anybody and happened during the magnetization. When it took place during the fight with the bad Spirit the fluid was entirely absorbed by the Spirit that made the Spirit stronger while the patient weakened and succumbed to her attacks. It must be considered that the patient was always in a somnambulistic state, consequently she saw what was happening and she was the one that described it. They thought it was a malice from the Spirit and hence abstained from magnetizing her at those times, and just observed the party.
By knowing the nature of such fluids it is easy to understand the phenomenon. To begin with it is obvious that the Spirit would absorb the fluids to gain more strength against the patient and convince the magnetizer of the uselessness of his intentions. If there was any malice from the Spirit it was against the magnetizer since the Spirit was utilizing the same weapon with which the magnetizer used against him. It was not less evident that the Spirit’s easiness of appropriation of the magnetizer’s fluid indicated affinity between both whereas fluids of opposing nature would have repelled one another like water and oil. This alone is sufficient to demonstrate that there were other conditions to be met. Therefore it is one of the most serious mistakes, and we can even say, of the most dismal mistakes, to miss the point that there is more a simple fluidic transmission but there is also the intimate nature of the fluids. In the majority of the cases the success rests entirely on that quality like it does in normal therapeutics and thoroughly depends on the quality of the medication.
It would never be too much to call the attention to this fundamental point that has been demonstrated both by logic and experience. In order to combat the influence of the magnetizer’s doctrine that had already influenced the patient, we said:
After being released from her obsessing Spirit she presented serious health complications due to the violent shocks for more than six months. She is now recovered by she is still in a somnambulistic state that does not preclude her from doing her day to day activities. Let us describe the circumstances of the cure.
Several people had tried to magnetize her unsuccessfully except a slight and momentary improvement in her pathological state. As for the Spirit he was progressively more tenacious and the crises had achieved the highest levels of violence.
In that case it would be necessary to have a magnetizer as described in the preceding article with respect to the healing mediums that is covering the patient with a sufficiently pure fluid capable of eliminating the influence of the bad Spirit. If there is a case of mediumship that requires moral superiority that is undoubtedly the case of obsession for one does need to have the ability of imposing moral superiority to the Spirit.
According to what has been announced cases of possession must multiply strongly in the near future so that the means employed so far to combat it are proven to be powerless. Even something that we cannot mention now but that happened at the time of Jesus will contribute to develop a kind of demoniacal epidemic. There is no doubt that special mediums will appear with the skill of expelling the bad Spirits as the apostles had of expulsing the demons be it because God always places the remedy near the patient or be it to provide the nonbelievers with a proof of the existence of the Spirits.
In the case of Ms. Julia, as in many analogous cases, simple magnetism proved insufficient regardless of its energy level. It was necessary to act simultaneously onto the obsessing Spirit to have her dominated and to upon the patient’s moral that was disturbed by all those events. The physical disease was only consequence; it was the effect rather than the cause. Hence, it was necessary to deal with the cause before the effect. The physical disease should disappear once the mental issue had been destroyed. But for that one does need to identify the cause; study it with great care and in all of the nuances of the thoughts to move in one or another more favorable direction because the symptoms vary according to the degree of intelligence of the patient, the character of the Spirit and the reasons behind the obsession, reasons that almost always go back to previous existences. The failure of magnetism with Ms. Julia led many other people to try. Among them there was a young man with a great fluidic power but that unfortunately had no experience and above all had no knowledge necessary to handle similar cases. He attributed himself an absolute power over the inferior Spirits that, according to him, could not resist his will power. Such pretension stretched to the extreme and based on his personal power and not on the assistance of the good Spirits had to lead him to more than one failure. That alone should be enough to the young lady’s friends that he lacked the first of the qualities required to be an efficient help. But what should have clarified them, above all, that he generally had an entirely false idea about the Spirits. According to him superior Spirits have a fluidic nature that is so ethereal that makes it impossible to them to communicate with and assist people and hence that would only be possible to inferior Spirits given their grosser nature. Even during crises he made the mistake of sustaining such idea before the patient that is nothing else but the doctrine of the exclusive communication of demons. From that point of view he could only count on himself and could not evoke the only assistance that could help him, an assistance that he thought he could go without.
The most harmful consequence was for the patient that he discouraged taking from her the hope that she could have the assistance of the good Spirits. In her weak mental state such a belief that made the obsessing Spirit stronger could be lethal to her. She then repeated endlessly in moments of crises: “Mad, mad… he makes me mad… completely mad… I am not yet but will be.”
When talking about her magnetizer she gave the right image by saying: “He gave me the strength of the body but not of the Spirit.” A profoundly significant expression that would go unnoticed.
When we saw Ms. Julia her disease was in the apogee and the crisis that we witnessed was one of the most violent. It was exactly when we tried to cheer her up; that we tried to convince her that she could fight that bad Spirit back with the help of the good Spirits and her guardian angel whose supported was necessary to evoke that the young magnetizer that was around and from an undoubtedly providential circumstance came, without any provocation, affirm and develop his theory, destroying what we were doing differently. We had to make our point with energy, saying that what he was doing was bad and that he would be responsible for the poor young lady losing her mind and her life.
One of the most remarkable things that had been observed by everyone but whose consequences had not been deduced by anybody and happened during the magnetization. When it took place during the fight with the bad Spirit the fluid was entirely absorbed by the Spirit that made the Spirit stronger while the patient weakened and succumbed to her attacks. It must be considered that the patient was always in a somnambulistic state, consequently she saw what was happening and she was the one that described it. They thought it was a malice from the Spirit and hence abstained from magnetizing her at those times, and just observed the party.
By knowing the nature of such fluids it is easy to understand the phenomenon. To begin with it is obvious that the Spirit would absorb the fluids to gain more strength against the patient and convince the magnetizer of the uselessness of his intentions. If there was any malice from the Spirit it was against the magnetizer since the Spirit was utilizing the same weapon with which the magnetizer used against him. It was not less evident that the Spirit’s easiness of appropriation of the magnetizer’s fluid indicated affinity between both whereas fluids of opposing nature would have repelled one another like water and oil. This alone is sufficient to demonstrate that there were other conditions to be met. Therefore it is one of the most serious mistakes, and we can even say, of the most dismal mistakes, to miss the point that there is more a simple fluidic transmission but there is also the intimate nature of the fluids. In the majority of the cases the success rests entirely on that quality like it does in normal therapeutics and thoroughly depends on the quality of the medication.
It would never be too much to call the attention to this fundamental point that has been demonstrated both by logic and experience. In order to combat the influence of the magnetizer’s doctrine that had already influenced the patient, we said:
- My dear, have confidence in God! Look around you. Don’t you see good Spirits?
- It is true, she said, I see luminous Spirits that Fredegund dare not lay her eyes on.
- There you go! They are the ones to protect you and will not allow the bad Spirit to succeed. Beg for their assistance; pray with fervor and in particular pray for Fredegund.
- Oh! No, I could never do that for her.
- Be careful there! Notice that the good Spirits stay away after such words. If you want their protection you must deserve it through your good feelings, struggling to be better than your enemy. How would you like them to protect you if you cannot be better than her? Think about the fact that in previous lives you also were prone to criticism and what happens to you now is an atonement. If you want it to stop you will have to improve and to demonstrate that you will have to start by showing that you are good and charitable to your enemies. Fredegund herself will be touched and you will perhaps make regret penetrate her heart. Think about it.
- I will do that.
- Do it right now and repeat with me: “My God, I forgive Fredegund for the harm she has brought upon me; I accept that as a trial and an atonement that I deserved. Forgive me for my own faults as I forgive her for hers. And you, good Spirits that surround me, open your hearts to better feelings and give me the strength I lack.
- Do you promise to pray for her every day?
- Yes, I do.
- Good. As for myself I will look after you and her. Have faith.
- Oh thank you. I have the impression that this will end soon.
After this matter was brought to the Society the following instructions were given about it:
“The issue that you are involved with touched even the good Spirits that want to come and help the lady with their advice. It is true that she presents a very serious case of obsession and this is among the most important ones that you have ever seen or will see, by the particularly interesting teachings already shown and the novelties that will still offer. As I told you already these cases of obsession will frequently appear and provide two distinct subjects of utility; the first is to you and the second to those that suffer them.
First to you because like with many ecclesiastics that strongly contributed to the propagation of Spiritism among people that were completely strange to it, the same with the obsessed whose number will increase significantly to remain superficially analyzed, but instead will be broadly and profoundly assessed, opening the doors of science so that the Spiritist philosophy may join in occupying its rightful place side by side with doctors and people of science. The other utility is to them because in the state of Spirit, before incarnating among you, they accepted the struggle that such possession puts them through, aiming at their own advancement and that struggle, trust me, makes their own Spirit suffer greatly and when the body is not in a way their entire property they are perfectly aware of what is going on. Depending on how they withstand that test, whose duration you can greatly diminish with your prayers, they will have progressed more or less. The reason being, rest assured, that despite the momentary possession, they keep sufficient awareness of themselves to distinguish the cause and the nature of their obsession.
For that one in particular that is your concern now it is necessary one advice. The magnetizations to which the incarnate Spirit is submitted to are really harmful in all aspects. That Spirit is systematic. And what a system! The ones that do not report all of their actions to the greater glory of God and that is proud the faculties that were granted to them will always be confused. The presumptuous will be diminished sometimes in this world but infallibly in the other.
You must then stop those magnetizations promptly, my dear Kardec, or the most serious inconveniences will result from its continuation not only to the young lady but also to the imprudent that believes to have all the Spirits of darkness under his command. I assure you that you will see these cases of obsession and possession developing for some time because they are useful to the progress of science and Spiritism. That is how doctors and wise people will open their eyes and will understand that there are diseases whose causes are not in the body and that must not be treated by matter. Those cases of possession will equally open totally new horizons to magnetism, making it stride forward by the up until now imperfect study of the fluids. It shall obtain great things helped by the new knowledge and by its alliance with Spiritism.
Unfortunately, in magnetism, as in medicine, there will still be for a long time yet people who believe that there is nothing to learn. Those frequent obsessions will also have a very good side due to the fact that one can stop them and even acquire the right of expelling the bad Spirits by the prayer, moral power, and by the improvement of one’s behavior, and everyone will seek that aptitude, awarded when meritorious by the Spirit of Truth that governs this planet. Have faith and trust in God that does not allow a useless and without reason suffering.
Hahnemann, medium Mr. Albert
“I will be brief. It will be very easy to cure that unfortunate possessed lady. The means were implicitly contained in Mr. Allan Kardec’s thoughts a moment ago. It is not only necessary a mental and material action but also a purely spiritual one. To the incarnate Spirit under the state of possession, like Julia, it is necessary an experienced magnetizer, perfectly convinced of the Spiritist truth. He needs besides to show irreproachable morality, without presumption. However, in order to act upon the obsessing Spirit there is still the need of a not less energetic good and discarnate Spirit. Hence it is a double action: earthly and extra-terrestrial; incarnate upon incarnate; discarnate upon discarnate; that is the law. If such an action was not executed so far that is exactly to bring you to the state and experimentation of that interesting question. That is why Julia had not been released yet. She should serve your studies.
That shows you what you have to do from now on in cases of positive obsession. It is indispensable to evoke the support of a superior Spirit to help you, a Spirit that simultaneously enjoys moral and fluidic power like the excellent d’Ars and know that you can count on the assistance of the venerable St. Vianney. Besides, our support will be given to all of those that claim our help with true faith and purity of heart.
In short: When Julia is magnetized it is necessary to begin by the eager evocation of d’Ars and other good Spirits that habitually communicate with you, asking them to act against the bad Spirits that persecute the young lady and that will then run away from the luminous phalanxes. Also, one must not forget that collective prayers have a great strength when done by a certain number of persons acting in synchronism, with a vivid faith and a true desire to alleviate.
Erastus, medium Mr. d’Ambel”
Those instructions were given in succession. Several members of the Society got together to observe the prayer as recommended. An essential aspect was to lead the obsessing Spirit to modify, and that would necessarily facilitate the cure. That is what was done by the evocation of that Spirit with the provision of advices. The Spirit promised do not torment Ms. Julia anymore and the word was kept. One of our colleagues was specially assigned by his spiritual guide with the moral education of the Spirit with satisfying results. Today that Spirit works for her own improvement and requests an incarnation to atone and repair her faults.
The importance of the teaching that comes out of that fact and from the observations that it gave rise to will not escape anyone and everyone will be able to collect useful instructions from the occurrence.
An essential observation that the case allows to attest and that is easily understood is the influence of the environment. It is obvious that if the environment seconds by a unity of visions, intentions an actions, the patient is placed in a kind of homogeneous atmosphere of beneficial fluids and that must necessarily facilitate and accelerate the process. However if there is disagreement, opposition; if each want wishes to act on their own there will be reactions, contrary currents that will forcibly paralyze and sometimes null the efforts that were tried towards the cure. If the fluidic irradiation that is the moral atmosphere is bad then it can be as harmful to certain individuals as are exhalations from marsh regions.
“The issue that you are involved with touched even the good Spirits that want to come and help the lady with their advice. It is true that she presents a very serious case of obsession and this is among the most important ones that you have ever seen or will see, by the particularly interesting teachings already shown and the novelties that will still offer. As I told you already these cases of obsession will frequently appear and provide two distinct subjects of utility; the first is to you and the second to those that suffer them.
First to you because like with many ecclesiastics that strongly contributed to the propagation of Spiritism among people that were completely strange to it, the same with the obsessed whose number will increase significantly to remain superficially analyzed, but instead will be broadly and profoundly assessed, opening the doors of science so that the Spiritist philosophy may join in occupying its rightful place side by side with doctors and people of science. The other utility is to them because in the state of Spirit, before incarnating among you, they accepted the struggle that such possession puts them through, aiming at their own advancement and that struggle, trust me, makes their own Spirit suffer greatly and when the body is not in a way their entire property they are perfectly aware of what is going on. Depending on how they withstand that test, whose duration you can greatly diminish with your prayers, they will have progressed more or less. The reason being, rest assured, that despite the momentary possession, they keep sufficient awareness of themselves to distinguish the cause and the nature of their obsession.
For that one in particular that is your concern now it is necessary one advice. The magnetizations to which the incarnate Spirit is submitted to are really harmful in all aspects. That Spirit is systematic. And what a system! The ones that do not report all of their actions to the greater glory of God and that is proud the faculties that were granted to them will always be confused. The presumptuous will be diminished sometimes in this world but infallibly in the other.
You must then stop those magnetizations promptly, my dear Kardec, or the most serious inconveniences will result from its continuation not only to the young lady but also to the imprudent that believes to have all the Spirits of darkness under his command. I assure you that you will see these cases of obsession and possession developing for some time because they are useful to the progress of science and Spiritism. That is how doctors and wise people will open their eyes and will understand that there are diseases whose causes are not in the body and that must not be treated by matter. Those cases of possession will equally open totally new horizons to magnetism, making it stride forward by the up until now imperfect study of the fluids. It shall obtain great things helped by the new knowledge and by its alliance with Spiritism.
Unfortunately, in magnetism, as in medicine, there will still be for a long time yet people who believe that there is nothing to learn. Those frequent obsessions will also have a very good side due to the fact that one can stop them and even acquire the right of expelling the bad Spirits by the prayer, moral power, and by the improvement of one’s behavior, and everyone will seek that aptitude, awarded when meritorious by the Spirit of Truth that governs this planet. Have faith and trust in God that does not allow a useless and without reason suffering.
Hahnemann, medium Mr. Albert
“I will be brief. It will be very easy to cure that unfortunate possessed lady. The means were implicitly contained in Mr. Allan Kardec’s thoughts a moment ago. It is not only necessary a mental and material action but also a purely spiritual one. To the incarnate Spirit under the state of possession, like Julia, it is necessary an experienced magnetizer, perfectly convinced of the Spiritist truth. He needs besides to show irreproachable morality, without presumption. However, in order to act upon the obsessing Spirit there is still the need of a not less energetic good and discarnate Spirit. Hence it is a double action: earthly and extra-terrestrial; incarnate upon incarnate; discarnate upon discarnate; that is the law. If such an action was not executed so far that is exactly to bring you to the state and experimentation of that interesting question. That is why Julia had not been released yet. She should serve your studies.
That shows you what you have to do from now on in cases of positive obsession. It is indispensable to evoke the support of a superior Spirit to help you, a Spirit that simultaneously enjoys moral and fluidic power like the excellent d’Ars and know that you can count on the assistance of the venerable St. Vianney. Besides, our support will be given to all of those that claim our help with true faith and purity of heart.
In short: When Julia is magnetized it is necessary to begin by the eager evocation of d’Ars and other good Spirits that habitually communicate with you, asking them to act against the bad Spirits that persecute the young lady and that will then run away from the luminous phalanxes. Also, one must not forget that collective prayers have a great strength when done by a certain number of persons acting in synchronism, with a vivid faith and a true desire to alleviate.
Erastus, medium Mr. d’Ambel”
Those instructions were given in succession. Several members of the Society got together to observe the prayer as recommended. An essential aspect was to lead the obsessing Spirit to modify, and that would necessarily facilitate the cure. That is what was done by the evocation of that Spirit with the provision of advices. The Spirit promised do not torment Ms. Julia anymore and the word was kept. One of our colleagues was specially assigned by his spiritual guide with the moral education of the Spirit with satisfying results. Today that Spirit works for her own improvement and requests an incarnation to atone and repair her faults.
The importance of the teaching that comes out of that fact and from the observations that it gave rise to will not escape anyone and everyone will be able to collect useful instructions from the occurrence.
An essential observation that the case allows to attest and that is easily understood is the influence of the environment. It is obvious that if the environment seconds by a unity of visions, intentions an actions, the patient is placed in a kind of homogeneous atmosphere of beneficial fluids and that must necessarily facilitate and accelerate the process. However if there is disagreement, opposition; if each want wishes to act on their own there will be reactions, contrary currents that will forcibly paralyze and sometimes null the efforts that were tried towards the cure. If the fluidic irradiation that is the moral atmosphere is bad then it can be as harmful to certain individuals as are exhalations from marsh regions.
We provide below the two evocations of the Spirit of Fredegund, carried out at the Society with a month between them and that form a complement to the two preceding articles about the possession of Ms. Julia. The Spirit did not show signs of violence in the manifestation but wrote with great difficulty and made the medium extremely fatigued that even became ill and whose faculties seemed paralyzed in a certain way. Since we anticipated that result we were careful enough to not select a very delicate medium for the task.
On a different occasion another Spirit was questioned about Fredegund and he said that she was already trying to reincarnate for a long time but that had been denied to her because her objective was not yet to improve but, on the contrary, to have more opportunities of doing bad things, helped by a physical body. Such disposition would substantially maker her conversion more difficult but nevertheless it was not as difficult as expected thanks, no doubt, to the benevolent help of people that joined in the work and perhaps because it was about time that the Spirit should find the path of repentance.
October 16th, 1863 – medium Mr. Leymarie
On a different occasion another Spirit was questioned about Fredegund and he said that she was already trying to reincarnate for a long time but that had been denied to her because her objective was not yet to improve but, on the contrary, to have more opportunities of doing bad things, helped by a physical body. Such disposition would substantially maker her conversion more difficult but nevertheless it was not as difficult as expected thanks, no doubt, to the benevolent help of people that joined in the work and perhaps because it was about time that the Spirit should find the path of repentance.
October 16th, 1863 – medium Mr. Leymarie
- 1. Evocation. – A. I am not Fredegund. What do you want from me?
- 2. Who are you then? – A. A suffering Spirit.
- 3. Since you are suffering you must want to stop that. We will assist you because we are sorry for all of those that suffer in this world and in the next. But you need to follow us and pray with us. – A. I thank you but I cannot pray.
- 4. We will pray and that will help you. Have confidence in God’s benevolence that always forgives the one that repents. – A. I believe. Pray, pray. I will perhaps convert.
- 5. But it is not enough that we pray. You need to pray as well. – A. I wanted to pray but I couldn’t. I will try now with your help.
- 6. Say with us: My God, forgive me because I have sinned. I regret the harm I have caused. – A. I will say that later.
- 7. It is not enough. You need to write. – A. My… (Here the Spirit cannot write the word God. It was only after much encouragement that the Spirit was able to finish the sentence in an irregular and not much readable way).
- 8. You must not say that formally. It is necessary to think about it and make the resolution that you will no longer do bad things and you will see that you will be soon alleviated. – A. I will pray.
- 9. Now that you prayed with sincerity haven’t you felt better? – A. Oh, yes!
- 10. Now give us some details of your life and the causes of your skirmish with Julia. – A. Later… I will tell you but I cannot today.
- 11. Will you promise to leave Julia alone? The harm you do to her falls back on you and worsens your suffering. – A. Yes, but I am led by other Spirits that are worse than me.
- 12. It is a bad excuse that you utilizes to justify yourself. In any case you have your own will and with that you can always resist the bad suggestions. – A. Had I had the will power and I would not have suffered. I am punished because I did not resist.
- 13. However you show a lot of will to torment Julia. Since you have just made good resolutions we advise you to persist with them and we will beg the good Spirits to help you.
- 14. Evocation. – A. I am ready to respond.
- 15. Do you persist on the resolution of last time? – A. Yes.
- 16. How are you doing? – A. Very well because I prayed, I am calm and much happier.
- 17. We know for a fact that Julia was no longer tormented. Since you can now communicate better can you please tell us why your terrible fight with her? – A. I was forgotten for centuries and wanted the curse that covered my name stopped a little bit so that a prayer, a single one, could console me. I pray, I believe in God; I can now say God’s name and that is certainly more than I could expect from the help that you give me.
- 18. It is very doubtful that you wanted to torment that young lady just out of desire for a prayer. You undoubtedly also seek a remedy to your errors. In any case that was a bad way of attracting people’s compassion. – A. However if I had not tormented Julia so much you would not have thought of me and I would not have left the miserable state in which I laid helplessly. You learned something from that and I got a great benefit because that opened by eyes.
- 19. (To the guide of the medium) - Was it really Fredegund that answered that? – A. Yes, it was her, somehow helped, it is true, because she humiliated herself. But that Spirit is much more advanced in intelligence than you think; moral progress is what is missing and you now help her to move her first steps. She does not tell you that Julia will take great advantage of what happened to her own progress.
- 20. (To Fredegund) – Did Ms. Julia live in your time? Could you tell us who she was? – A. Yes. She was one of my entourage called Hildegard. A poor and resigned soul that attended my wishes. She endured the weight of her very humble services and much complacent with respect to myself.
- 21. Would you like another incarnation? – A. Yes, I do. Oh my God! I suffered a thousand punishments and deserved a fairer one. It is time for me to begin a new life with the help of your prayers so that I can wash away old impurities. God is just. Pray for me. Up until now I was not aware of the full extent of my punishment. I was like blindfolded but now I see and seek the Lord’s forgiveness as well as from my victims. Oh my God! Forgiveness is so soothing!
- 22. Tell us something about Brunehaut. – A. Brunehaut? That name gives me the goose bumps. She was the greatest mistake of my life and it makes my hatred resurge just by hearing that name! God will forgive me and from now on I can mention that name without trembling. She is happier than I am, incarnating for the second time and playing a role that I wish for myself: a religious sister.
- 23. We are glad to see you changing. We shall encourage and support you with our prayers. – A. thank you! Thanks to the good Spirits! God will compensate you.
OBSERVATION: During that evocation another medium received from his guide a communication with, among other things, the following: “do not bother with the refusal that you get from that Spirit. Her continual idea of reincarnating makes her repeal any solidarity with the past although she is not much strong to support the effects of that. She is the Spirit that was evoked but that cannot agree even with herself.”
November 13th, 1863
OBSERVATION: During the interval between the two communications the Spirit was called everyday by our colleague in charge of instructing her. A positive thing observed is that since that moment Ms. Julia was no longer bothered.
OBSERVATION: Something characteristic of the bad Spirits is their frequent impossibility of saying the name of God. That is certainly a clear sign of their bad nature but at the same time some fear and respect not shown by the hypocrites that are apparently not so bad. Far from retrieving before the name of God the latter dare use that name to entice confidence. They are infinitely more perverse and more dangerous than the openly bad Spirits. That is the class of the fascinating Spirits from whom it is very difficult to untangle because they take the minds over with the help of a false demonstration of knowledge, virtue or religion whereas the other only take the body over. A Spirit that like Fredegund retreats before the name of God is closer to her conversion than those that are covered by the mask of good. The same happens with people where both categories of incarnate Spirits are found.
November 13th, 1863
OBSERVATION: During the interval between the two communications the Spirit was called everyday by our colleague in charge of instructing her. A positive thing observed is that since that moment Ms. Julia was no longer bothered.
OBSERVATION: Something characteristic of the bad Spirits is their frequent impossibility of saying the name of God. That is certainly a clear sign of their bad nature but at the same time some fear and respect not shown by the hypocrites that are apparently not so bad. Far from retrieving before the name of God the latter dare use that name to entice confidence. They are infinitely more perverse and more dangerous than the openly bad Spirits. That is the class of the fascinating Spirits from whom it is very difficult to untangle because they take the minds over with the help of a false demonstration of knowledge, virtue or religion whereas the other only take the body over. A Spirit that like Fredegund retreats before the name of God is closer to her conversion than those that are covered by the mask of good. The same happens with people where both categories of incarnate Spirits are found.
There are so many new Spiritist gatherings that it would be virtually impossible to mention all the good words said about them, giving the testimony of the feelings driven by the doctrine. The new group that has just formed in the Island of Oléron is much worth of our sympathy particularly considering how much opposition Spiritism had in that region. Below we transcribe one of the speeches given under those circumstance to demonstrate how the Spiritist respond to the adversaries.
Speech given by the President of the Spiritist Society of Marennes:
“Ladies and gentlemen, dear Spiritist brothers and sisters of Oléron,
The daily extension taken by Spiritism in our region is the most positive proof of the impotence of the attacks against it. It is like Mr. Allan Kardec says: ‘It is one out of two possibilities; it is a mistake or a truth. If a mistake it will then fall by itself like all other utopias that have a short life since they die for not having a solid foundation that could keep it alive; if it is one of those great truths that must stay in the archives of history and mark an era of progress to humanity by the will of God then nothing can stop its progress.’
Here is the experience demonstrating in which of those categories it must be placed. The easiness of acceptance by the crowds and we say more: the happiness, consolation, courage against adversity found in this belief and the incredible speed of its propagation are not exactly the trademarks of a useless idea. The most eccentric system may form a sect and gather some people around it as followers but like a rootless tree it quickly loses its leaves and dies before producing any fruit. Is that so with Spiritism? No, you know that as much as I do. It has never stopped growing since its appearance despite the attacks and it has now planted its flag in all corners of the globe; its followers are counted by the millions and if we take into account its progress in ten years through the many obstacles laid on its path one can imagine what is going to be in another ten years from now and the more the obstacles are leveled and the number of followers grow. The tree created roots. It now needs to develop and everything seems to be favorable because despite the storms the winds blow favorably to Spiritism. One would need to be blind to not acknowledge that.
Something that powerfully contributed to its development is the fact that it is not exclusive of any religion. Its motto ‘no salvation but through charity’ belongs to all of them; it is simultaneously the flag of tolerance, union and fraternity that can congregate everyone without rejecting any particular belief. People begin to realize that it is an underwriter of security to society. As for myself, dear brothers and sisters, I go beyond and believe that you will agree with me when I say that when all peoples have written in their flags: There is no salvation but through charity, peace will be guaranteed in the world and all peoples will live like brothers. Is that just a beautiful dream? No, ladies and gentlemen, that was promised by Jesus Christ and we are living the times of its realization.
Who are we in the great movement that takes place? We are obscure workers that take our stone to the great edifice but when millions of workers have taken their millions of stones the edifice shall be built. Let us then work with zeal and perseverance, not discouraging before the little things that show around the ditches that we open because there are many of them around us. Allow me a material comparison that corresponds to this thought.
At the beginning of the railroads each small town wanted to have its stretch. Each one of those branches was small on their own but when all were interconnected we then had a huge network that today covers the world and destroys the barriers that separated the peoples. The railroad destroyed material barriers. The motto no salvation but through charity will destroy the moral barriers. It will in particular and above all eliminate religious antagonism, a cause of so much hatred and so many bloody conflicts, for Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Muslims will reach out to one another, each one worshipping their own way the only God of mercy and peace to everyone.
As you see, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, the objective is great. We still have to examine the organization of our little sphere to transform it into a useful gear to the whole. For that our task is facilitated by the instructions found in the works of our master and venerable chief and that, one can say, became the classical works of the doctrine. By strictly following them we are certain to stay on the right path because those instructions are the result of experience. Therefore, may each one carefully meditate about those works and we shall find there everything that is necessary. In fact I am sure that the support and advice of the master will never fail us.
None of us can forget that if hope and faith return to the majority of the hearts; if many of us were yanked from materialism and disbelief, we owe that to his zeal and persevering courage that nor the calumny or diatribes or the attacks from all kinds were capable of diminishing. He was the first one to understand the immense reach of Spiritism and since then he has sacrificed everything to spread its benefits among his brothers on Earth.
We must say that he was evidently chosen to this great undertaking because it is impossible not to acknowledge that he is on a moralizing mission. I propose, ladies and gentlemen, that we all thank him with the same gratitude owned to him by every sincere and true Spiritist. At the same time let us beg that God may continue to support him in the endeavor that only he has the conditions to make fructify in its plenitude.
Still a few words, ladies and gentlemen, about the character of this meeting. The maxim that guides us must tranquilize those that are afraid of the name Spiritism. As a matter of fact, what is it to be afraid of from people whose principle is the charity to all, friend or foe, as a rule of conduct? And that principle is so serious to us that we must utilize it as the necessary condition to our salvation. Isn’t that the best guarantee that we can give of our peaceful intention? Who could look at us with suspicious eyes, even the ones that do not share our beliefs, people that do not preach but tolerance, union, fraternity and whose sole objective is to redirect to God those that moved away and to combat materialism and disbelief that invade society and threaten its foundation?
Let us therefore address the nonbeliever because the field to harvest there is huge as Mr. Allan Kardec said. Based on the principle of charity that must guide us let us keep from disturbing any conscience; let us welcome those that come to us as brothers and let us not oppose anyone in their religious beliefs. Those that will find our principles good will adopt them; the ones that find them bad will put them aside and even though they will not be lesser brothers. If stones are thrown at us we will ask God to forgive their lack of charity and that they may be reminded of the examples of the Gospel and Jesus Christ, our Lord, that prayed for her executioners.
Thus, my dear brothers and sisters, let us pray so that we may deserve God’s mercy and forgiveness for our faults as we forgive those that caused us harm. Let us all say from the bottom of our hearts:
Almighty God that reads the intimacy of our souls and sees the purity of our intentions, help us in our work and protect our leader. Give us the strength to withstand the miseries that may arise from malevolence with courage and resignation, like tests to our faith and perseverance. Like the first Christian martyrs, allow us to be ready to every sacrifice needed to demonstrate to you our submission to your sacred will. In fact, what are the sacrifices of this world when we are certain, as every sincere Spiritist must be, about the imperishable rewards of a future life! Let not, our Lord, the concerns of this earthly life to veer us off from the righteous path where we were placed by your sacred hand and send us the good Spirits to help us remain there. May charity, God’s law and our law, make us indulgent with the faults of our fellow human beings! May it muffle in all of us any feeling of pride, envy and jealousy, making us good and benevolent to all so that we can preach by the word as much as by the example!”
-o-
Delegates from several nearby groups gathered on the occasion with their new brothers and sisters in faith. Many other speeches were given, all of them testifying a perfect understanding of the true foundation of Spiritism. We regret to say that due to a total lack of space we cannot transcribe them all as with a remarkable communication obtained in that session and signed by François-Nicolas Madeleine that delineates in simple in touching terms the duties of the true Spiritist.
A new group has been just formed in Lyon in special conditions that deserve to be mentioned here to serve as encouragement and example. The group has two objectives: instruction and beneficence. With respect to the instruction the group intends to dedicate a smaller space than what is typically dedicated to mediumistic communications but on another hand and greater portion of their activities to oral instructions aiming at the development and explanations of the principles of Spiritism. With respect to beneficence the new society proposes to help people in need through the donation of personal objects such us clothes, etc. Besides, the ladies also give their contribution with their personal work of sewing and home visitation to patients. A member of that society sent us the following:
“Thanks to the dedication of Mrs. G… Lyon will son count on another Spiritist gathering. Will she achieve the proposed objective? Time will tell. The group may be small but at least it counts on devoted elements full of faith and charity. We may fail in our endeavor but at least the intentions are good. To us it is enough that the Parisian Society under which protection we place ourselves approve and support us with their advices so that we can persevere with their moral support.”
Such support will never fail any work founded on the true Spirit of Spiritism and whose objective is the well-being of everybody. The Parisian Society is always glad to see the doctrine producing fruits. It will not decline solidarity unless to groups and societies that forgetting the principle of charity and fraternity, without which there is no true Spiritist, mistrust other groups and throw stones at them, trying to denigrate their work under any pretext. Charity and fraternity are recognized by the work and not by words. It is a measure of assessment that cannot deceive anybody but those that are blind by their own doing. But that is not the case to selfless third parties. It is the touchstone by which one can recognize the honesty of feelings. One we talk about charity in Spiritism everyone knows that we are not talking about the act of giving only but also and most importantly the charity that forgets and forgives; that is benevolent and indulgent; that rejects any feeling of jealousy and hurt self-love.
Every Spiritist gathering that is not founded on the principle of true charity is more damaging than useful to the cause because it will tend to cast division instead of union. Besides, it will carry its own destructive element.
Our sympathy will always be conquered by all those that demonstrate their good intentions by their actions for the good Spirits cannot inspire but good.
In the next issue we will talk about the Spiritist societies of Brussels, Turin and Smyrna that have placed themselves under the sponsorship of the Parisian Society.
Speech given by the President of the Spiritist Society of Marennes:
“Ladies and gentlemen, dear Spiritist brothers and sisters of Oléron,
The daily extension taken by Spiritism in our region is the most positive proof of the impotence of the attacks against it. It is like Mr. Allan Kardec says: ‘It is one out of two possibilities; it is a mistake or a truth. If a mistake it will then fall by itself like all other utopias that have a short life since they die for not having a solid foundation that could keep it alive; if it is one of those great truths that must stay in the archives of history and mark an era of progress to humanity by the will of God then nothing can stop its progress.’
Here is the experience demonstrating in which of those categories it must be placed. The easiness of acceptance by the crowds and we say more: the happiness, consolation, courage against adversity found in this belief and the incredible speed of its propagation are not exactly the trademarks of a useless idea. The most eccentric system may form a sect and gather some people around it as followers but like a rootless tree it quickly loses its leaves and dies before producing any fruit. Is that so with Spiritism? No, you know that as much as I do. It has never stopped growing since its appearance despite the attacks and it has now planted its flag in all corners of the globe; its followers are counted by the millions and if we take into account its progress in ten years through the many obstacles laid on its path one can imagine what is going to be in another ten years from now and the more the obstacles are leveled and the number of followers grow. The tree created roots. It now needs to develop and everything seems to be favorable because despite the storms the winds blow favorably to Spiritism. One would need to be blind to not acknowledge that.
Something that powerfully contributed to its development is the fact that it is not exclusive of any religion. Its motto ‘no salvation but through charity’ belongs to all of them; it is simultaneously the flag of tolerance, union and fraternity that can congregate everyone without rejecting any particular belief. People begin to realize that it is an underwriter of security to society. As for myself, dear brothers and sisters, I go beyond and believe that you will agree with me when I say that when all peoples have written in their flags: There is no salvation but through charity, peace will be guaranteed in the world and all peoples will live like brothers. Is that just a beautiful dream? No, ladies and gentlemen, that was promised by Jesus Christ and we are living the times of its realization.
Who are we in the great movement that takes place? We are obscure workers that take our stone to the great edifice but when millions of workers have taken their millions of stones the edifice shall be built. Let us then work with zeal and perseverance, not discouraging before the little things that show around the ditches that we open because there are many of them around us. Allow me a material comparison that corresponds to this thought.
At the beginning of the railroads each small town wanted to have its stretch. Each one of those branches was small on their own but when all were interconnected we then had a huge network that today covers the world and destroys the barriers that separated the peoples. The railroad destroyed material barriers. The motto no salvation but through charity will destroy the moral barriers. It will in particular and above all eliminate religious antagonism, a cause of so much hatred and so many bloody conflicts, for Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Muslims will reach out to one another, each one worshipping their own way the only God of mercy and peace to everyone.
As you see, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, the objective is great. We still have to examine the organization of our little sphere to transform it into a useful gear to the whole. For that our task is facilitated by the instructions found in the works of our master and venerable chief and that, one can say, became the classical works of the doctrine. By strictly following them we are certain to stay on the right path because those instructions are the result of experience. Therefore, may each one carefully meditate about those works and we shall find there everything that is necessary. In fact I am sure that the support and advice of the master will never fail us.
None of us can forget that if hope and faith return to the majority of the hearts; if many of us were yanked from materialism and disbelief, we owe that to his zeal and persevering courage that nor the calumny or diatribes or the attacks from all kinds were capable of diminishing. He was the first one to understand the immense reach of Spiritism and since then he has sacrificed everything to spread its benefits among his brothers on Earth.
We must say that he was evidently chosen to this great undertaking because it is impossible not to acknowledge that he is on a moralizing mission. I propose, ladies and gentlemen, that we all thank him with the same gratitude owned to him by every sincere and true Spiritist. At the same time let us beg that God may continue to support him in the endeavor that only he has the conditions to make fructify in its plenitude.
Still a few words, ladies and gentlemen, about the character of this meeting. The maxim that guides us must tranquilize those that are afraid of the name Spiritism. As a matter of fact, what is it to be afraid of from people whose principle is the charity to all, friend or foe, as a rule of conduct? And that principle is so serious to us that we must utilize it as the necessary condition to our salvation. Isn’t that the best guarantee that we can give of our peaceful intention? Who could look at us with suspicious eyes, even the ones that do not share our beliefs, people that do not preach but tolerance, union, fraternity and whose sole objective is to redirect to God those that moved away and to combat materialism and disbelief that invade society and threaten its foundation?
Let us therefore address the nonbeliever because the field to harvest there is huge as Mr. Allan Kardec said. Based on the principle of charity that must guide us let us keep from disturbing any conscience; let us welcome those that come to us as brothers and let us not oppose anyone in their religious beliefs. Those that will find our principles good will adopt them; the ones that find them bad will put them aside and even though they will not be lesser brothers. If stones are thrown at us we will ask God to forgive their lack of charity and that they may be reminded of the examples of the Gospel and Jesus Christ, our Lord, that prayed for her executioners.
Thus, my dear brothers and sisters, let us pray so that we may deserve God’s mercy and forgiveness for our faults as we forgive those that caused us harm. Let us all say from the bottom of our hearts:
Almighty God that reads the intimacy of our souls and sees the purity of our intentions, help us in our work and protect our leader. Give us the strength to withstand the miseries that may arise from malevolence with courage and resignation, like tests to our faith and perseverance. Like the first Christian martyrs, allow us to be ready to every sacrifice needed to demonstrate to you our submission to your sacred will. In fact, what are the sacrifices of this world when we are certain, as every sincere Spiritist must be, about the imperishable rewards of a future life! Let not, our Lord, the concerns of this earthly life to veer us off from the righteous path where we were placed by your sacred hand and send us the good Spirits to help us remain there. May charity, God’s law and our law, make us indulgent with the faults of our fellow human beings! May it muffle in all of us any feeling of pride, envy and jealousy, making us good and benevolent to all so that we can preach by the word as much as by the example!”
-o-
Delegates from several nearby groups gathered on the occasion with their new brothers and sisters in faith. Many other speeches were given, all of them testifying a perfect understanding of the true foundation of Spiritism. We regret to say that due to a total lack of space we cannot transcribe them all as with a remarkable communication obtained in that session and signed by François-Nicolas Madeleine that delineates in simple in touching terms the duties of the true Spiritist.
A new group has been just formed in Lyon in special conditions that deserve to be mentioned here to serve as encouragement and example. The group has two objectives: instruction and beneficence. With respect to the instruction the group intends to dedicate a smaller space than what is typically dedicated to mediumistic communications but on another hand and greater portion of their activities to oral instructions aiming at the development and explanations of the principles of Spiritism. With respect to beneficence the new society proposes to help people in need through the donation of personal objects such us clothes, etc. Besides, the ladies also give their contribution with their personal work of sewing and home visitation to patients. A member of that society sent us the following:
“Thanks to the dedication of Mrs. G… Lyon will son count on another Spiritist gathering. Will she achieve the proposed objective? Time will tell. The group may be small but at least it counts on devoted elements full of faith and charity. We may fail in our endeavor but at least the intentions are good. To us it is enough that the Parisian Society under which protection we place ourselves approve and support us with their advices so that we can persevere with their moral support.”
Such support will never fail any work founded on the true Spirit of Spiritism and whose objective is the well-being of everybody. The Parisian Society is always glad to see the doctrine producing fruits. It will not decline solidarity unless to groups and societies that forgetting the principle of charity and fraternity, without which there is no true Spiritist, mistrust other groups and throw stones at them, trying to denigrate their work under any pretext. Charity and fraternity are recognized by the work and not by words. It is a measure of assessment that cannot deceive anybody but those that are blind by their own doing. But that is not the case to selfless third parties. It is the touchstone by which one can recognize the honesty of feelings. One we talk about charity in Spiritism everyone knows that we are not talking about the act of giving only but also and most importantly the charity that forgets and forgives; that is benevolent and indulgent; that rejects any feeling of jealousy and hurt self-love.
Every Spiritist gathering that is not founded on the principle of true charity is more damaging than useful to the cause because it will tend to cast division instead of union. Besides, it will carry its own destructive element.
Our sympathy will always be conquered by all those that demonstrate their good intentions by their actions for the good Spirits cannot inspire but good.
In the next issue we will talk about the Spiritist societies of Brussels, Turin and Smyrna that have placed themselves under the sponsorship of the Parisian Society.
Progress in the first incarnations
Question: Two souls that were created simple and ignorant do not know good and evil when they come to Earth. If, in this first existence, one follows the good path and the other the bad, since in a certain way they move by chance, they do not deserve either punishment or reward. The first earthly trip may have only given them the conscience of themselves, an awareness that they did not have up until then. To be logical it would be necessary to admit that punishments and rewards would only be granted after the second incarnation when the Spirits can then distinguish between good and bad, an experience that they lacked at their creation but that was acquired after the first incarnation. Is that correct?
Answer: Although such a question has already been resolved by the Spiritist Doctrine we will respond for the general enlightenment.
We absolutely ignore the conditions in which the first incarnation of the soul took place because that is one of those principles of things that belong to God’s secrets. All we know is that they are created simple and ignorant thus all having the same starting point, according to the justice. We also know that the free-will develops gradually and after several experiences in the corporeal life. Thus it is neither after the first nor the second incarnation that the soul has a sufficiently clear awareness of oneself to be responsible for one’s actions. It may well be that it will only happen after the hundredth or thousandth incarnation. The same happens to a child that does not enjoy full awareness of faculties after the first or second day of birth but after years. Besides, when the soul enjoys free-will the responsibility grows in proportion to the development of intelligence. That is how, for example, that a savage that feeds from the flesh of their peers is less punished than a civilized person that simply acts unfairly. Our savage are undoubtedly much delayed compared to us but they are already far from their starting point.
During long periods the incarnate soul is submitted to the exclusive influence of instincts of conservation. These gradually transform into intelligent instincts, or even better, there is a balance between instincts and intelligence, and it is only later and always gradually that intelligence dominates the instincts. It is only then that serious responsibility begins.
In addition, the author of the question makes two serious mistakes. First is the admission that chance decides between the choice by the Spirit of a good and a bad path in the beginning. If there were any chance or fatality any responsibility would be unfair. As we said, the Spirit remains in an unconscious state during several incarnations; the light of intelligence only shines with time and true responsibility only begins when the Spirit acts freely and with knowledge of cause. The second mistake is to consider that the first human incarnations take place on Earth. Earth used to be but it is no longer a primitive world. The most delayed human beings found on the face of Earth have already left the marks of the first incarnations behind and our savage have progressed when compared to what they were before their Spirits to come and incarnate in this globe.
Now think about the number of existences necessary for those savage to transpose every step that separates them from the most advanced civilization. All of those intermediary steps are found on Earth without a solution of continuity and may be followed by tracing the nuances that distinguish the several peoples. It is only the beginning and the end that are not found here but the beginning is lost to us in the depth of the past that we are not allowed to penetrate. In fact, that is not important because such a knowledge would mean nothing to us in terms of evolution.
We are not perfect that is for sure. We know that our imperfections are the only obstacles to our future happiness. Let us then study so that we can perfect.
At the current stage our intelligence is developed enough to allow us to judiciously assess good and bad and it is there that responsibility is seriously committed because one can no longer say what Jesus said: ‘Forgive them for they don’t know what they do.”
Question: Two souls that were created simple and ignorant do not know good and evil when they come to Earth. If, in this first existence, one follows the good path and the other the bad, since in a certain way they move by chance, they do not deserve either punishment or reward. The first earthly trip may have only given them the conscience of themselves, an awareness that they did not have up until then. To be logical it would be necessary to admit that punishments and rewards would only be granted after the second incarnation when the Spirits can then distinguish between good and bad, an experience that they lacked at their creation but that was acquired after the first incarnation. Is that correct?
Answer: Although such a question has already been resolved by the Spiritist Doctrine we will respond for the general enlightenment.
We absolutely ignore the conditions in which the first incarnation of the soul took place because that is one of those principles of things that belong to God’s secrets. All we know is that they are created simple and ignorant thus all having the same starting point, according to the justice. We also know that the free-will develops gradually and after several experiences in the corporeal life. Thus it is neither after the first nor the second incarnation that the soul has a sufficiently clear awareness of oneself to be responsible for one’s actions. It may well be that it will only happen after the hundredth or thousandth incarnation. The same happens to a child that does not enjoy full awareness of faculties after the first or second day of birth but after years. Besides, when the soul enjoys free-will the responsibility grows in proportion to the development of intelligence. That is how, for example, that a savage that feeds from the flesh of their peers is less punished than a civilized person that simply acts unfairly. Our savage are undoubtedly much delayed compared to us but they are already far from their starting point.
During long periods the incarnate soul is submitted to the exclusive influence of instincts of conservation. These gradually transform into intelligent instincts, or even better, there is a balance between instincts and intelligence, and it is only later and always gradually that intelligence dominates the instincts. It is only then that serious responsibility begins.
In addition, the author of the question makes two serious mistakes. First is the admission that chance decides between the choice by the Spirit of a good and a bad path in the beginning. If there were any chance or fatality any responsibility would be unfair. As we said, the Spirit remains in an unconscious state during several incarnations; the light of intelligence only shines with time and true responsibility only begins when the Spirit acts freely and with knowledge of cause. The second mistake is to consider that the first human incarnations take place on Earth. Earth used to be but it is no longer a primitive world. The most delayed human beings found on the face of Earth have already left the marks of the first incarnations behind and our savage have progressed when compared to what they were before their Spirits to come and incarnate in this globe.
Now think about the number of existences necessary for those savage to transpose every step that separates them from the most advanced civilization. All of those intermediary steps are found on Earth without a solution of continuity and may be followed by tracing the nuances that distinguish the several peoples. It is only the beginning and the end that are not found here but the beginning is lost to us in the depth of the past that we are not allowed to penetrate. In fact, that is not important because such a knowledge would mean nothing to us in terms of evolution.
We are not perfect that is for sure. We know that our imperfections are the only obstacles to our future happiness. Let us then study so that we can perfect.
At the current stage our intelligence is developed enough to allow us to judiciously assess good and bad and it is there that responsibility is seriously committed because one can no longer say what Jesus said: ‘Forgive them for they don’t know what they do.”
Varieties
We thank Mr. Flammarion’s kindness for providing us with the information about a letter that was addressed to him with the following passage:
“You probably think dear Sir that you are the first astronomer to deal with Spiritism. You are wrong. About a century and a half ago Fontenelle employed tiptology with the medium Ms. Letard. I was enjoying myself this morning browsing a manual published fifty years ago by Philipon de la Madeleine and found a letter from Ms. Launai, that later became Madam Stael, sent by the Duchess of Maine to the secretary of the Academy of Sciences relatively to an adventure summarized below:
In 1713 a young lady by the mane Letard pretended that she communicated with the Spirits such as Socrates as her demon. Mr. Fontenelle went to see the girl and since in the conversation he showed some doubts about that kind of charlatanism the Lady of Maine that had no doubt about it had Ms. de Launai assigned to write about the fact.”
Philipon de la Madeleine
The following note is found in one edition of the selected works of Fontenelle, published in London 1761:
A young lady by the name Ms. Letard excited the public’s curiosity by a supposed gift in the beginning of the century. Everybody went to see that as did Mr. Fontenelle, advised by the Duke of Orleans. Such was the content of the letter sent by Ms. de Lunai to him, as below:
Ms. Letard’s adventure Sir makes less noisy than your testimony. People are surprised, and perhaps rightly so, that the destructor of the oracles; that the one that took the tripod of the Sybil down was now kneeling before Ms. Letard. Wow! The critics say. The man that was able to clearly unveil the frauds done a thousand miles away and more than two thousand years before his time could not dismiss a trick done before his eyes!
"The adventure of Mademoiselle Letard makes less noise, sir, than the testimony you have given." It is astonishing, and perhaps with some reason, that the destroyer of the oracles, who has overturned the tripod of the sibyls, knelt down before Mademoiselle Letard. What! "Cried the critics," this man who has put on such a fine day tricks made a thousand miles away, and more than two thousand years before him, has not been able to discover a trick that has been hatched before his eyes! The refined pretend that in good Pyrrhonian, finding everything uncertain, you find everything possible. On the other hand, devotees seem very impressed by the homage which you have paid to the devil; they hope that it will go further. From my side, sir, I suspend my judgment until I am better informed."
Reply from Mr. de Fontenelle:
"I shall have the honor, mademoiselle, of replying to you the same as I answered a friend of mine who wrote to me from Marly the day after I had been with the Spirit. I informed him that I had heard sounds of which I did not know the mechanics; to be certain about that it would require a more accurate examination than the one I did and repeat it. I have not changed my language; but because I did not absolutely decide that it was a ploy, I was accused of believing that he was an elf; and since the public does not stop in such a nice way, I was accused of having said what I did not. There is nothing wrong with that. If they have mistakenly attributed to me a speech which I have not given, they have done me the honor of paying attention to me, and one compensates the other. I did not believe that for having discredited the old prophetesses of Delphi it was a commitment to destroy a young and living girl and from whom only good things were heard. If, however, they think that I have failed my duty, on another occasion I shall adopt a more pitiless and more philosophical tone. I have been reproached for my lack of severity for a long time. I must be incorrigible, since the age, experience and injustice of the world do nothing. That, mademoiselle, is all that I can tell you about the Spirit, which has attracted me with a letter which I readily suspected of having been dictated, since I am not far from believing in that. Thus when a familiar demon comes to me, I will tell you with more grace and in a more ingenious tone, but not with more honesty, etc.”
Note:
Note: Fontenelle, as we see, does not pronounce either for or against, and confines himself to ascertaining the fact; it was caution, which most of the deniers of our time are wanting to do, who have to decide what they have not even bothered to observe, at the risk of later receiving the refutation of experience. However, it is evident that he inclines towards the affirmation, something remarkable for a man in his position and in a century of skepticism for excellence. Far from accusing Mademoiselle Letard of charlatanism, he admits that they only talked good about her. Perhaps he was even more convinced than he wished to appear, and was restrained only by the fear of ridicule, so powerful at the time. It was necessary, however, that he should be shaken, not to say frankly, that it was a trick; his opinion on this point is important. The question of charlatanism being excluded, it remains evident that Mademoiselle Letard was a spontaneous medium in the style of the Fox sisters.
“You probably think dear Sir that you are the first astronomer to deal with Spiritism. You are wrong. About a century and a half ago Fontenelle employed tiptology with the medium Ms. Letard. I was enjoying myself this morning browsing a manual published fifty years ago by Philipon de la Madeleine and found a letter from Ms. Launai, that later became Madam Stael, sent by the Duchess of Maine to the secretary of the Academy of Sciences relatively to an adventure summarized below:
In 1713 a young lady by the mane Letard pretended that she communicated with the Spirits such as Socrates as her demon. Mr. Fontenelle went to see the girl and since in the conversation he showed some doubts about that kind of charlatanism the Lady of Maine that had no doubt about it had Ms. de Launai assigned to write about the fact.”
Philipon de la Madeleine
The following note is found in one edition of the selected works of Fontenelle, published in London 1761:
A young lady by the name Ms. Letard excited the public’s curiosity by a supposed gift in the beginning of the century. Everybody went to see that as did Mr. Fontenelle, advised by the Duke of Orleans. Such was the content of the letter sent by Ms. de Lunai to him, as below:
Ms. Letard’s adventure Sir makes less noisy than your testimony. People are surprised, and perhaps rightly so, that the destructor of the oracles; that the one that took the tripod of the Sybil down was now kneeling before Ms. Letard. Wow! The critics say. The man that was able to clearly unveil the frauds done a thousand miles away and more than two thousand years before his time could not dismiss a trick done before his eyes!
"The adventure of Mademoiselle Letard makes less noise, sir, than the testimony you have given." It is astonishing, and perhaps with some reason, that the destroyer of the oracles, who has overturned the tripod of the sibyls, knelt down before Mademoiselle Letard. What! "Cried the critics," this man who has put on such a fine day tricks made a thousand miles away, and more than two thousand years before him, has not been able to discover a trick that has been hatched before his eyes! The refined pretend that in good Pyrrhonian, finding everything uncertain, you find everything possible. On the other hand, devotees seem very impressed by the homage which you have paid to the devil; they hope that it will go further. From my side, sir, I suspend my judgment until I am better informed."
Reply from Mr. de Fontenelle:
"I shall have the honor, mademoiselle, of replying to you the same as I answered a friend of mine who wrote to me from Marly the day after I had been with the Spirit. I informed him that I had heard sounds of which I did not know the mechanics; to be certain about that it would require a more accurate examination than the one I did and repeat it. I have not changed my language; but because I did not absolutely decide that it was a ploy, I was accused of believing that he was an elf; and since the public does not stop in such a nice way, I was accused of having said what I did not. There is nothing wrong with that. If they have mistakenly attributed to me a speech which I have not given, they have done me the honor of paying attention to me, and one compensates the other. I did not believe that for having discredited the old prophetesses of Delphi it was a commitment to destroy a young and living girl and from whom only good things were heard. If, however, they think that I have failed my duty, on another occasion I shall adopt a more pitiless and more philosophical tone. I have been reproached for my lack of severity for a long time. I must be incorrigible, since the age, experience and injustice of the world do nothing. That, mademoiselle, is all that I can tell you about the Spirit, which has attracted me with a letter which I readily suspected of having been dictated, since I am not far from believing in that. Thus when a familiar demon comes to me, I will tell you with more grace and in a more ingenious tone, but not with more honesty, etc.”
Note:
Note: Fontenelle, as we see, does not pronounce either for or against, and confines himself to ascertaining the fact; it was caution, which most of the deniers of our time are wanting to do, who have to decide what they have not even bothered to observe, at the risk of later receiving the refutation of experience. However, it is evident that he inclines towards the affirmation, something remarkable for a man in his position and in a century of skepticism for excellence. Far from accusing Mademoiselle Letard of charlatanism, he admits that they only talked good about her. Perhaps he was even more convinced than he wished to appear, and was restrained only by the fear of ridicule, so powerful at the time. It was necessary, however, that he should be shaken, not to say frankly, that it was a trick; his opinion on this point is important. The question of charlatanism being excluded, it remains evident that Mademoiselle Letard was a spontaneous medium in the style of the Fox sisters.
The following passage from St. Athanasius, patriarch of Alexandria, one of the fathers of the Greek Church, seems to have be written under the inspiration of today’s Spiritist ideas.
“The soul does not die but the body does when away from the soul. The soul is its own motor; life is the movement of the soul. Even when imprisoned by the body and attached to it the soul is not restricted and contained by the limits of the body but frequently when the body is at rest and like inanimate the soul is awaken by its own virtue; despite being still connected to the body the soul conceives and contemplates existences beyond the terrestrial globe; the soul sees the saints freed from their bodies; sees and rises to the angels in the freedom of its pure innocence.
When it is entirely separated from the body and when God decides that it is time to remove the shackles wouldn’t the soul have, I ask you, a much more clear vision of its immortal nature? If right now and under the chains of the flesh the soul already enjoys a life that is completely exterior, it will live much more after the death of the body thanks to God that from the Verb made the soul in that away. The soul understands, absorbs the ideas of eternity and infinity because it is immortal. In the same way that the perishable body can only perceive what is material and perishable, the soul that sees and meditates about immortal things is necessarily immortal and will live forever because the thoughts and images of immortality are always with the soul and are like a living focus that ensures and feeds its own immortality. (Sanct. Athan. Oper., vol. I, page 32, Image of Christian eloquence in the IV Century).”
Isn’t that in fact an accurate image of the external irradiation of the soul during its physical life and its emancipation during the sleep, ecstasy, somnambulism and catalepsy? Spiritism says exactly the same thing and demonstrate it by experience.
The whole modern Spiritist Doctrine can be constituted with the sparse ideas found in the Bible, Gospels, in the Apostles and Fathers of the Church, not to mention the profane writers. The remarks made about those texts were generally from an exclusive point of view and from preconceived ideas and many of them only saw what they wanted to see or they lacked the key to see something else. Spiritism today, however, is the key that gives the true meaning of passages that are poorly understood. Up until now those fragments are collected partially but there will be a day when patient and knowledgeable people whose authority cannot be ignored will turn such a study into the object of a serious and thorough project that will shine light upon all of these questions so that one will have to surrender before the clearly demonstrated evidence.
We believe we can say that such a considerable work will be the endeavor of eminent members of the Church that will be assigned with such a mission because they will understand that religion must be progressive like humanity or else be overcome because there are backward ideas in religion as there are in politics. In that case the price of not advancing is to move backwards.
It is precisely because religion has fallen behind the progressive and scientific movement that there is a surge in disbelief. Religion does even more than that by declaring that such a movement is the works of the devil and by always combating it. It turned out that science that was repelled by religion repelled it in turn.
The result is an antagonism that will not end until religion understands that it must not only march with progress but also be an element of progress. Everybody will believe in God when religion does not present God in contradiction with the laws of nature that is the work of God.
“The soul does not die but the body does when away from the soul. The soul is its own motor; life is the movement of the soul. Even when imprisoned by the body and attached to it the soul is not restricted and contained by the limits of the body but frequently when the body is at rest and like inanimate the soul is awaken by its own virtue; despite being still connected to the body the soul conceives and contemplates existences beyond the terrestrial globe; the soul sees the saints freed from their bodies; sees and rises to the angels in the freedom of its pure innocence.
When it is entirely separated from the body and when God decides that it is time to remove the shackles wouldn’t the soul have, I ask you, a much more clear vision of its immortal nature? If right now and under the chains of the flesh the soul already enjoys a life that is completely exterior, it will live much more after the death of the body thanks to God that from the Verb made the soul in that away. The soul understands, absorbs the ideas of eternity and infinity because it is immortal. In the same way that the perishable body can only perceive what is material and perishable, the soul that sees and meditates about immortal things is necessarily immortal and will live forever because the thoughts and images of immortality are always with the soul and are like a living focus that ensures and feeds its own immortality. (Sanct. Athan. Oper., vol. I, page 32, Image of Christian eloquence in the IV Century).”
Isn’t that in fact an accurate image of the external irradiation of the soul during its physical life and its emancipation during the sleep, ecstasy, somnambulism and catalepsy? Spiritism says exactly the same thing and demonstrate it by experience.
The whole modern Spiritist Doctrine can be constituted with the sparse ideas found in the Bible, Gospels, in the Apostles and Fathers of the Church, not to mention the profane writers. The remarks made about those texts were generally from an exclusive point of view and from preconceived ideas and many of them only saw what they wanted to see or they lacked the key to see something else. Spiritism today, however, is the key that gives the true meaning of passages that are poorly understood. Up until now those fragments are collected partially but there will be a day when patient and knowledgeable people whose authority cannot be ignored will turn such a study into the object of a serious and thorough project that will shine light upon all of these questions so that one will have to surrender before the clearly demonstrated evidence.
We believe we can say that such a considerable work will be the endeavor of eminent members of the Church that will be assigned with such a mission because they will understand that religion must be progressive like humanity or else be overcome because there are backward ideas in religion as there are in politics. In that case the price of not advancing is to move backwards.
It is precisely because religion has fallen behind the progressive and scientific movement that there is a surge in disbelief. Religion does even more than that by declaring that such a movement is the works of the devil and by always combating it. It turned out that science that was repelled by religion repelled it in turn.
The result is an antagonism that will not end until religion understands that it must not only march with progress but also be an element of progress. Everybody will believe in God when religion does not present God in contradiction with the laws of nature that is the work of God.
The following passage is found in a very serious article about Poland signed by Bonneau and published in the National Opinionon November 10th, 1863:
“May Francis Joseph evoke the shadow of his grandmother; request the advice of Maria Teresa, a suffering soul persecuted by the remorse of a dismembered Poland, and light will suddenly shine before his eyes.”
These words dismiss comments. We were right when we mentioned above that the Spiritist idea is found everywhere. People are dragged by that idea and it will soon overflow.
“May Francis Joseph evoke the shadow of his grandmother; request the advice of Maria Teresa, a suffering soul persecuted by the remorse of a dismembered Poland, and light will suddenly shine before his eyes.”
These words dismiss comments. We were right when we mentioned above that the Spiritist idea is found everywhere. People are dragged by that idea and it will soon overflow.
“One reads in the Story of Saint Martial, apostle of the Gaul, and particularly of Aquitaine and Limousin, by R. Bonaventure of Saint-Amable, the barefoot monk, part 3, p. 752:
"In the year 1518, in the month of December, in the house of Pierre Juge, a merchant of Limoges, a Spirit made a great noise for a fortnight, knocking on doors, planks and paving stones, moving utensils from one place to another. Several monks went there to give mass, and to watch the night with lighted candles and holy water, but the Spirit did not speak. A sixteen year old young man, native of Ussel, who served this merchant, confessed that the Spirit had often molested him at home and in several other places, and added that his relative, who had left him heir, had died in the war, and had often appeared to several of his parents, and had spanked his sister, who died three days later. The aforesaid merchant Juge released this young man and all that noise ceased."
Evidently the young man was an unconscious medium of physical effects as there has always been. The knowledge of the laws that govern the relationships between the visible and invisible worlds brings all those supposedly wonderful facts to the domain of natural laws.
Allan Kardec
"In the year 1518, in the month of December, in the house of Pierre Juge, a merchant of Limoges, a Spirit made a great noise for a fortnight, knocking on doors, planks and paving stones, moving utensils from one place to another. Several monks went there to give mass, and to watch the night with lighted candles and holy water, but the Spirit did not speak. A sixteen year old young man, native of Ussel, who served this merchant, confessed that the Spirit had often molested him at home and in several other places, and added that his relative, who had left him heir, had died in the war, and had often appeared to several of his parents, and had spanked his sister, who died three days later. The aforesaid merchant Juge released this young man and all that noise ceased."
Evidently the young man was an unconscious medium of physical effects as there has always been. The knowledge of the laws that govern the relationships between the visible and invisible worlds brings all those supposedly wonderful facts to the domain of natural laws.
Allan Kardec
February
Several newspapers reported the following:
“The event of the week, says a letter sent from Rome to the Times, is the order given to Mr. Home, the renowned medium, to leave the pontifical city in three days. Mr. Home was invited to the local police station where he was formally questioned. He was asked about the time he intended to spend in Rome; if he had practiced Spiritism after his conversion to Catholicism, etc. Here some words exchanged on that occasion as registered by Mr. Home himself in his private notes and that he apparently gives away very easily.
“The event of the week, says a letter sent from Rome to the Times, is the order given to Mr. Home, the renowned medium, to leave the pontifical city in three days. Mr. Home was invited to the local police station where he was formally questioned. He was asked about the time he intended to spend in Rome; if he had practiced Spiritism after his conversion to Catholicism, etc. Here some words exchanged on that occasion as registered by Mr. Home himself in his private notes and that he apparently gives away very easily.
- Have you exercised the power of mediumship after your conversion to Catholicism?
- I have not exercised such a power either after or before because I cannot say that I practice it since it does not depend on my own will.
- Do you consider such a power as a gift from nature?
- I consider it a gift from God.
- What religion do the Spiritists teach?
- That depends.
- What do you do so that they (the Spirits) come?
- I answered that I did nothing. But at that time repeating and distinctive taps were heard on the table where the investigator was writing.
- But you also make the tables move, he asked.
- Following that the table started moving.
Not much impressed by those prodigies, the police chief invited the magician to leave Rome in three days. Mr. Home invoked the protection of international laws and reported the event to the English Consul who was then granted by Mr. Mateucci that the renowned medium would no longer be bothered and that he would move on with his staying in Rome since he intended to abstain from any communication with the spiritual world during that time. Remarkable! Mr. Home agreed with the condition and signed the required commitment. How could he compromise to not use the power if it did not depend on his will? That is what we will not try to understand.”
We don’t know how much of the story is accurate in the details but a letter sent by Mr. Home a short while ago to a lady acquaintance of our seems to confirm the main subject. With respect to the rapping there is no doubt that they should be left to the stories habitually told by papers not much interested in studying things from the other world.
In fact Mr. Home is in Rome right now and the reason is very noble on his part for us not to mention it considering that the newspapers took the opportunity to ridicule him.
Mr. Home is not rich and he is not afraid of saying that he needs to find work to provide him with the complement he needs to make ends meet. He thought of finding a solution with his natural talent for sculpture and that is why he traveled to Rome to learn more about that art. He could have become rich, really rich from the exploitation of his remarkable mediumistic gift. The simplicity of his condition is the best answer to have the name of charlatan been thrown on his face. However, he know that the gift was given to him with a providential objective in the interest of a sacred cause, knowing that it would be a sacrilege to have it converted into a profession.
He holds the duties imposed by that gift in the highest degree, understanding that the Spirits manifest through him by the will of God to redirect mankind to the faith in a future life and not for the exhibition in spectacles of curiosity, competing with deceivers or serving the interests of greed that wanted to exploit it.
As a matter of fact he knows that the Spirits are not commanded or controlled by anybody and even less of those who wished to exhibit their actions by charging people to attend the sessions. There isn’t a single medium in the world that can guarantee the production of a phenomenon in a given moment hence we must conclude that thinking otherwise is a clear demonstration of total ignorance of the most elementary principles of the science. Now if the Spirits do not respond to the calls or don’t do sufficiently remarkable things to satisfy curiosity and sustain the medium’s reputation any supposition is allowed and one does need to find the means of providing that to the spectators in exchange for their money if one does not want to give it back.
It is never too much to repeat that the best guarantee of honesty is the absolute selflessness. A medium is always strong when capable of responding to those who are suspicious of their faith: “How much did you pay to be here”?
Still once more: Serious mediumship cannot be and will never be a profession and not only because it would be morally discredited but also because it is founded on an essentially mobile, escaping and variable gift and that no one that may have it today can be certain of still enjoying it tomorrow. It is only the charlatans who are always sure about themselves.
A talent that is acquired through work and study is something different and for that reason it is a property that one is allowed to utilize at will. Mediumship is not in that class. Exploiting that is the same as using something that is not ours; it is like deviating it from its providential objective. And there is more: One is not utilizing oneself but the Spirits, the soul of the dead, whose support would carry a price tag. Such a thought is instinctively repulsive. That is why in every serious center, where Spiritism is dealt with respect and reverence, like in Lyon, Bordeaux and so many other places, exploiting mediums would be completely disregarded. Thus, someone that does not enough to live on must look for alternative somewhere else and if necessary only dedicate to mediumship the time that is physically possible. The Spirits will take into account your sacrifices and devotion whereas those who wish to use mediumship as a ladder will be punished by the retrieval of the mediumship or by keeping the good Spirits away, by compromising mystifications or by even more unpleasant means as demonstrated by experience.
Mr. Home knows well that he would lose the assistance of his protector Spirits had he abused his gift. His first punishment would be the loss of esteem and consideration of honorable families that take him as a friend and who would no longer invite him but like those that do home delivery of theatrical plays.
During his stay in Paris we know that certain groups made him big offers to give sessions, always refused by him. All of those that know him and understand the true interest of Spiritism will applaud his resolution. From our side we are thankful for the good example that he gives.
We only insisted again on the subject of the mediums’ selflessness because we are certain that fictitious and abusive mediumship is one way through which the enemies of Spiritism will try to discredit it as charlatanism. It is thus necessary that all those who seriously take the burden of the cause of the doctrine be on alert in order to expose the fraudulent maneuvers, if any, and show that true Spiritism has nothing in common with the parodies that can be made about it and that Spiritism repudiates anything beyond its essential and moralizing principle.
The article transcribed above offers several other aspects for observation. The author believes that Mr. Home must be qualified as a magician. Everything seems very innocent however further down it says: “the much renowned medium”, an expression used with respect to doubtful celebrities.
But where are Mr. Home’s faults and crimes? It is free slander not only to him but also to all respectable persons and highly placed in society that invite him and thus seem to sponsor an ill-spoken person. The last statement of the article is more curious because it contains one of those flagrant contradictions that go unnoticed by the adversaries. The author is surprised by the fact that Mr. Home accepted the imposition of a commitment asking how he could have promised not to use a power that is independent of his will. If he wanted to know we would refer him to the study of the Spiritist phenomena, their causes and their mode of production and he would understand how come Mr. Home agreed with what in fact had nothing to do with the manifestations obtained by him in private, even if under the shackles of inquisition. However it seems that the author is not much concerned since he adds: “That is what we don’t try to understand.” With these words he insidiously hints that such phenomena are just charlatanism.
Nonetheless the bylaw passed by the pontifical government demonstrates their fear for the ostensive manifestations. Well, what they fear is not prestidigitation. Would this government interdict physicists that imitate the manifestations? Certainly not because many other less evangelical things are allowed in Rome. Why stop Mr. Home then? Why deporting him from the country if he is just a magician? Some will say that it is for the benefit of religion. Be it. But then is religion so fragile that it can be so easily compromised? In Rome as elsewhere swindlers execute more or less skillfully the trick of the magic bottle in which water is converted into all kinds of wine and the magic hat in which bread and other objects multiply. Nevertheless they are not afraid that those tricks will discredit the miracles of Jesus since everybody knows that the former are simple imitations. If they fear Mr. Home it is because there is something serious about him and not simple tricks. That is what any person that may think a little about it will conclude. Nobody will seriously consider that a sovereign court that are not exactly fools will be afraid of a myth. We are certainly not the only ones to make these considerations and the newspapers that hastily divulge the incident in search of ridicule will very naturally provoke serious investigation so that the result as everything else that has been done to denigrate Spiritism will have the only effect of make it more popular.
Thus an apparently insignificant event will inevitably have more serious consequences than expected. We don’t doubt that it may have been produced to speed up the emergence of Spiritism in Italy where it already counts on a large number of followers even among the clergy. Besides we don’t doubt that the Roman Curia sooner or later unwillingly becomes one of the main instruments of the propagation of the doctrine in that country because it has been established that the very adversaries of Spiritism will serve its propagation by all means employed to have it destroyed. Therefore blind is the one that cannot see God’s finger in all of this. This will undoubtedly be one of the most remarkable facts of the history of Spiritism; one that best attests its power and origin.
We don’t know how much of the story is accurate in the details but a letter sent by Mr. Home a short while ago to a lady acquaintance of our seems to confirm the main subject. With respect to the rapping there is no doubt that they should be left to the stories habitually told by papers not much interested in studying things from the other world.
In fact Mr. Home is in Rome right now and the reason is very noble on his part for us not to mention it considering that the newspapers took the opportunity to ridicule him.
Mr. Home is not rich and he is not afraid of saying that he needs to find work to provide him with the complement he needs to make ends meet. He thought of finding a solution with his natural talent for sculpture and that is why he traveled to Rome to learn more about that art. He could have become rich, really rich from the exploitation of his remarkable mediumistic gift. The simplicity of his condition is the best answer to have the name of charlatan been thrown on his face. However, he know that the gift was given to him with a providential objective in the interest of a sacred cause, knowing that it would be a sacrilege to have it converted into a profession.
He holds the duties imposed by that gift in the highest degree, understanding that the Spirits manifest through him by the will of God to redirect mankind to the faith in a future life and not for the exhibition in spectacles of curiosity, competing with deceivers or serving the interests of greed that wanted to exploit it.
As a matter of fact he knows that the Spirits are not commanded or controlled by anybody and even less of those who wished to exhibit their actions by charging people to attend the sessions. There isn’t a single medium in the world that can guarantee the production of a phenomenon in a given moment hence we must conclude that thinking otherwise is a clear demonstration of total ignorance of the most elementary principles of the science. Now if the Spirits do not respond to the calls or don’t do sufficiently remarkable things to satisfy curiosity and sustain the medium’s reputation any supposition is allowed and one does need to find the means of providing that to the spectators in exchange for their money if one does not want to give it back.
It is never too much to repeat that the best guarantee of honesty is the absolute selflessness. A medium is always strong when capable of responding to those who are suspicious of their faith: “How much did you pay to be here”?
Still once more: Serious mediumship cannot be and will never be a profession and not only because it would be morally discredited but also because it is founded on an essentially mobile, escaping and variable gift and that no one that may have it today can be certain of still enjoying it tomorrow. It is only the charlatans who are always sure about themselves.
A talent that is acquired through work and study is something different and for that reason it is a property that one is allowed to utilize at will. Mediumship is not in that class. Exploiting that is the same as using something that is not ours; it is like deviating it from its providential objective. And there is more: One is not utilizing oneself but the Spirits, the soul of the dead, whose support would carry a price tag. Such a thought is instinctively repulsive. That is why in every serious center, where Spiritism is dealt with respect and reverence, like in Lyon, Bordeaux and so many other places, exploiting mediums would be completely disregarded. Thus, someone that does not enough to live on must look for alternative somewhere else and if necessary only dedicate to mediumship the time that is physically possible. The Spirits will take into account your sacrifices and devotion whereas those who wish to use mediumship as a ladder will be punished by the retrieval of the mediumship or by keeping the good Spirits away, by compromising mystifications or by even more unpleasant means as demonstrated by experience.
Mr. Home knows well that he would lose the assistance of his protector Spirits had he abused his gift. His first punishment would be the loss of esteem and consideration of honorable families that take him as a friend and who would no longer invite him but like those that do home delivery of theatrical plays.
During his stay in Paris we know that certain groups made him big offers to give sessions, always refused by him. All of those that know him and understand the true interest of Spiritism will applaud his resolution. From our side we are thankful for the good example that he gives.
We only insisted again on the subject of the mediums’ selflessness because we are certain that fictitious and abusive mediumship is one way through which the enemies of Spiritism will try to discredit it as charlatanism. It is thus necessary that all those who seriously take the burden of the cause of the doctrine be on alert in order to expose the fraudulent maneuvers, if any, and show that true Spiritism has nothing in common with the parodies that can be made about it and that Spiritism repudiates anything beyond its essential and moralizing principle.
The article transcribed above offers several other aspects for observation. The author believes that Mr. Home must be qualified as a magician. Everything seems very innocent however further down it says: “the much renowned medium”, an expression used with respect to doubtful celebrities.
But where are Mr. Home’s faults and crimes? It is free slander not only to him but also to all respectable persons and highly placed in society that invite him and thus seem to sponsor an ill-spoken person. The last statement of the article is more curious because it contains one of those flagrant contradictions that go unnoticed by the adversaries. The author is surprised by the fact that Mr. Home accepted the imposition of a commitment asking how he could have promised not to use a power that is independent of his will. If he wanted to know we would refer him to the study of the Spiritist phenomena, their causes and their mode of production and he would understand how come Mr. Home agreed with what in fact had nothing to do with the manifestations obtained by him in private, even if under the shackles of inquisition. However it seems that the author is not much concerned since he adds: “That is what we don’t try to understand.” With these words he insidiously hints that such phenomena are just charlatanism.
Nonetheless the bylaw passed by the pontifical government demonstrates their fear for the ostensive manifestations. Well, what they fear is not prestidigitation. Would this government interdict physicists that imitate the manifestations? Certainly not because many other less evangelical things are allowed in Rome. Why stop Mr. Home then? Why deporting him from the country if he is just a magician? Some will say that it is for the benefit of religion. Be it. But then is religion so fragile that it can be so easily compromised? In Rome as elsewhere swindlers execute more or less skillfully the trick of the magic bottle in which water is converted into all kinds of wine and the magic hat in which bread and other objects multiply. Nevertheless they are not afraid that those tricks will discredit the miracles of Jesus since everybody knows that the former are simple imitations. If they fear Mr. Home it is because there is something serious about him and not simple tricks. That is what any person that may think a little about it will conclude. Nobody will seriously consider that a sovereign court that are not exactly fools will be afraid of a myth. We are certainly not the only ones to make these considerations and the newspapers that hastily divulge the incident in search of ridicule will very naturally provoke serious investigation so that the result as everything else that has been done to denigrate Spiritism will have the only effect of make it more popular.
Thus an apparently insignificant event will inevitably have more serious consequences than expected. We don’t doubt that it may have been produced to speed up the emergence of Spiritism in Italy where it already counts on a large number of followers even among the clergy. Besides we don’t doubt that the Roman Curia sooner or later unwillingly becomes one of the main instruments of the propagation of the doctrine in that country because it has been established that the very adversaries of Spiritism will serve its propagation by all means employed to have it destroyed. Therefore blind is the one that cannot see God’s finger in all of this. This will undoubtedly be one of the most remarkable facts of the history of Spiritism; one that best attests its power and origin.
Of all the moral plagues of society, selfishness seems the most difficult to eradicate; it is all the more so because it is sustained by the very habits of education. It seems that it is a task to excite, from the cradle, certain passions which later become second nature, and we are astonished at the vices of society, while the children suck them with milk. Here is an example which, as everyone can judge, belongs more to the rule than to the exception.
In a family of our acquaintance there is a four to five year old little girl of rare intelligence, but who has the little defects of spoiled children, that is to say, she is somewhat capricious, mournful, stubborn, and does not always say thank you when something is given to her, something that her parents are very keen to correct, because apart from these, they say she has a golden heart, a commonly used expression. Let us see how they go about removing these small spots and preserving the purity of gold.
One day they had brought a cake to the child, and as is usually the custom, they told her: "You will eat it if you are good; first lesson of greed. How many times a child is told at the table that she will not eat such a delicacy if she cries. "Do this, do that," they say, "and you will get a candy," or something else that the child may desire; and the child is constrained, not by reason, but in order to satisfy a sensual desire which is stimulated. It is still worse when not infrequently the child is told that her portion will be given to someone else; it is no longer gluttony alone that is at stake, but also envy; the child will do what is commanded, not only to have, but for someone else not to have. Want to give her a lesson of generosity? The child is told, "Give this fruit or this toy to this other child;” if the child refuses, one does not fail to add, to stimulate a good feeling in her: "I will give you another one”; so that the child decides to be generous only when she is sure of losing nothing.
One day we witnessed a very characteristic fact of that kind. It was a child of about two and half years that had been threatened by something similar, added by this: “We will give it to your little brother and you will have nothing.” To turn the threat real the put the piece on the brother’s plate that took the lesson seriously and ate the portion. Facing that the child blushed and it was not necessary to be the father or the mother to see the ray of rage and hatred in the little eyes. The seed was sown. Could it produce a good grain?
Let us go back to the girl that was mentioned earlier. Since she did not bother with the threat and knew from experience that it was rarely enforced this time they were firmer for they understood that it was necessary to tame the little personality and not wait for the acquisition of a bad habit with age. They said that it was necessary to form children at an early age, a very wise maxim, and to put that forward here is what they did: “I promise you”, the mom said, that if you don’t obey me tomorrow morning I will give your piece of cake to the first poor girl that comes around.” Said and done. This time they wanted to keep their promise and teach her a good lesson. Then, comes the next morning and they brought inside a little beggar and forced the daughter to take her by the hand and had her passing the cake to the poor child. They then praised her kindness. Here the result. The daughter said: “If I only knew that I would have eaten the cake yesterday.” Followed by a general applause for such a witty comment.
In fact the child had been given a strong lesson but of pure egotism that she will use on another occasion since now she knows the price of such a forced generosity. One does not know the fruits to be produced by such a seed when at a later age the child applies the teaching to more serious things than a piece of cake.
Does one know all the thoughts produced by the single event in the little head? After all that how can one expect a child not to be selfish when instead of exciting the pleasure of giving and to demonstrate the happiness of the one that receives the child is imposed sacrifice for punishment? Aren’t we inspiring aversion to the act of giving to the needy?
Another equally frequent custom is that of punishing a child by sending her to eat with the servants in the kitchen. The punishment is less in the exclusion of the table than in the humiliation of having to join the servants. The virus of sensuality, selfishness, pride, neglect towards the inferiors and all passions, in a word, that are considered the ulcers of humanity are then implanted.
One does need to be exceptionally good natured to resist to such influences produced in the most impressionable age in which one cannot find the counter weight of will-power or experience. Hence, however small the germ of bad passions is, and that it the more common place considering the nature of the Spirits incarnate on Earth, there is no way such a germ will not proliferate under those influences whereas it would be a matter of just observing its traces in order to curb them.
There is no doubt that it is the parents’ fault here but we must say that those frequently fail more out of ignorance than bad will. In many parents there is an undisputable carelessness but in many others there is good intention but the remedy, however, is either worthless or badly used.
Since parents are the first doctors of their children’s soul, they should be better educated not only with respect to their duties but also regarding the means for achieving them. It is not enough to the medical doctor to know that a cure is needed but how to proceed. Well, where can the parents find the proper means for such relevant task? A lot of instruction is given to mothers these days that have to go through a battery of tests but has anyone taught her how to prepare her kids morally? They are taught homemade recipes but have they been initiated into the governing issues of the youngsters’ hearts?
Parents are therefore left on their own. That is why they so frequently follow wrong paths. They then harvest the bitter fruits of their own inexperience from their children’s mistakes or misunderstood love whose blows are felt by the whole society. Considering that egotism and pride are knowingly the source of the majority of human miseries; that while those vices reign on Earth one cannot expect peace, charity or fraternity, then it is necessary to attack them in their embryonic state instead of waiting to have them grown up.
Can Spiritism remediate such a problem? We have no doubt and do not hesitate to say that Spiritism is the only one sufficiently powerful to stop that through its new point of view through which it allows parents to perceive their mission and responsibility; providing the knowledge about the source of innate qualities, good or bad; showing the action that can be exerted onto incarnate and discarnate Spirits; providing the unbreakable faith that sanctions the duties and finally moralizing the parents themselves. Spiritism already proves its efficacy by the more rational methods employed in the education of children in the truly Spiritist families. The horizons opened by Spiritism allow us to see things differently. Since its objective is the progress of humanity it will forcibly illuminate the serious problem of moral education, the first source of moralization of the masses.
One day people will understand that this side of education has its principles and rules in a true science, like in the intellectual education. Perhaps one day every mother will also have the obligation of knowing such rules like the attorney that requires the knowledge of law.
In a family of our acquaintance there is a four to five year old little girl of rare intelligence, but who has the little defects of spoiled children, that is to say, she is somewhat capricious, mournful, stubborn, and does not always say thank you when something is given to her, something that her parents are very keen to correct, because apart from these, they say she has a golden heart, a commonly used expression. Let us see how they go about removing these small spots and preserving the purity of gold.
One day they had brought a cake to the child, and as is usually the custom, they told her: "You will eat it if you are good; first lesson of greed. How many times a child is told at the table that she will not eat such a delicacy if she cries. "Do this, do that," they say, "and you will get a candy," or something else that the child may desire; and the child is constrained, not by reason, but in order to satisfy a sensual desire which is stimulated. It is still worse when not infrequently the child is told that her portion will be given to someone else; it is no longer gluttony alone that is at stake, but also envy; the child will do what is commanded, not only to have, but for someone else not to have. Want to give her a lesson of generosity? The child is told, "Give this fruit or this toy to this other child;” if the child refuses, one does not fail to add, to stimulate a good feeling in her: "I will give you another one”; so that the child decides to be generous only when she is sure of losing nothing.
One day we witnessed a very characteristic fact of that kind. It was a child of about two and half years that had been threatened by something similar, added by this: “We will give it to your little brother and you will have nothing.” To turn the threat real the put the piece on the brother’s plate that took the lesson seriously and ate the portion. Facing that the child blushed and it was not necessary to be the father or the mother to see the ray of rage and hatred in the little eyes. The seed was sown. Could it produce a good grain?
Let us go back to the girl that was mentioned earlier. Since she did not bother with the threat and knew from experience that it was rarely enforced this time they were firmer for they understood that it was necessary to tame the little personality and not wait for the acquisition of a bad habit with age. They said that it was necessary to form children at an early age, a very wise maxim, and to put that forward here is what they did: “I promise you”, the mom said, that if you don’t obey me tomorrow morning I will give your piece of cake to the first poor girl that comes around.” Said and done. This time they wanted to keep their promise and teach her a good lesson. Then, comes the next morning and they brought inside a little beggar and forced the daughter to take her by the hand and had her passing the cake to the poor child. They then praised her kindness. Here the result. The daughter said: “If I only knew that I would have eaten the cake yesterday.” Followed by a general applause for such a witty comment.
In fact the child had been given a strong lesson but of pure egotism that she will use on another occasion since now she knows the price of such a forced generosity. One does not know the fruits to be produced by such a seed when at a later age the child applies the teaching to more serious things than a piece of cake.
Does one know all the thoughts produced by the single event in the little head? After all that how can one expect a child not to be selfish when instead of exciting the pleasure of giving and to demonstrate the happiness of the one that receives the child is imposed sacrifice for punishment? Aren’t we inspiring aversion to the act of giving to the needy?
Another equally frequent custom is that of punishing a child by sending her to eat with the servants in the kitchen. The punishment is less in the exclusion of the table than in the humiliation of having to join the servants. The virus of sensuality, selfishness, pride, neglect towards the inferiors and all passions, in a word, that are considered the ulcers of humanity are then implanted.
One does need to be exceptionally good natured to resist to such influences produced in the most impressionable age in which one cannot find the counter weight of will-power or experience. Hence, however small the germ of bad passions is, and that it the more common place considering the nature of the Spirits incarnate on Earth, there is no way such a germ will not proliferate under those influences whereas it would be a matter of just observing its traces in order to curb them.
There is no doubt that it is the parents’ fault here but we must say that those frequently fail more out of ignorance than bad will. In many parents there is an undisputable carelessness but in many others there is good intention but the remedy, however, is either worthless or badly used.
Since parents are the first doctors of their children’s soul, they should be better educated not only with respect to their duties but also regarding the means for achieving them. It is not enough to the medical doctor to know that a cure is needed but how to proceed. Well, where can the parents find the proper means for such relevant task? A lot of instruction is given to mothers these days that have to go through a battery of tests but has anyone taught her how to prepare her kids morally? They are taught homemade recipes but have they been initiated into the governing issues of the youngsters’ hearts?
Parents are therefore left on their own. That is why they so frequently follow wrong paths. They then harvest the bitter fruits of their own inexperience from their children’s mistakes or misunderstood love whose blows are felt by the whole society. Considering that egotism and pride are knowingly the source of the majority of human miseries; that while those vices reign on Earth one cannot expect peace, charity or fraternity, then it is necessary to attack them in their embryonic state instead of waiting to have them grown up.
Can Spiritism remediate such a problem? We have no doubt and do not hesitate to say that Spiritism is the only one sufficiently powerful to stop that through its new point of view through which it allows parents to perceive their mission and responsibility; providing the knowledge about the source of innate qualities, good or bad; showing the action that can be exerted onto incarnate and discarnate Spirits; providing the unbreakable faith that sanctions the duties and finally moralizing the parents themselves. Spiritism already proves its efficacy by the more rational methods employed in the education of children in the truly Spiritist families. The horizons opened by Spiritism allow us to see things differently. Since its objective is the progress of humanity it will forcibly illuminate the serious problem of moral education, the first source of moralization of the masses.
One day people will understand that this side of education has its principles and rules in a true science, like in the intellectual education. Perhaps one day every mother will also have the obligation of knowing such rules like the attorney that requires the knowledge of law.
The paper Monde Illustré from February 7th, 1863 carries the drama of a family that understandably moved Florence’s society. The author begins the narrative as follows:
“Here is the story. He was a seventy-two-year old man; she was a twenty years old young lady. He had married her three years ago… Do not be disgusted! The old Count from Viterbo was absolutely alone, without any family at all, something very strange to a millionaire. Amalia had family but no millions. He almost saw her at birth and to compensate things and having a good and kind heart he told her mother: “Allow me to paternally marry Amalia. She will take care of me for a few years and then…”
The weeding took place. Amalia understands her duties; she takes good care of the old man sacrificing all the pleasures of her age. Since the Count turned blind and paraplegic she spent long hours of the day making him company, reading to him, telling him stories, distracting and enchanting his days. “How kind my dear daughter!” he used to say many times, taking her by the hand, pulling her in to deposit on her head the respectful kiss of his thankfulness and acknowledgement.
One day, however, he notices that Amalia remains distant; that although always assiduous and solicit she seems to be afraid of seating by his feet. A suspicion crosses his heart. One evening when she was reading for him he took her by the arm and pulled her towards him by the waist, producing a horrible scream and falling onto her feet, exhausted by the emotion and rage. Amalia loses it; she climbs the stairs to the second floor and throws herself out of the window, falling down and shattering her body on the ground. The old man out survives the catastrophe six hours only.”
-o-
People will ask which relationship this story may have with Spiritism. Is that the intervention of some foolish Spirits? – The relationship is in the deductions that Spiritism teaches us to make out of apparently vulgar things of life. When the skeptical or indifferent only sees reason for irony or moves on carelessly the Spiritist observes and finds a teaching there, going back to the providential causes, probing the consequences to a future life according to the examples that are offered by the relationships from beyond the grave, by the justice of God.
In the event reported above instead of a simple and pleasant anecdote between him, the old man, and her, the young lady, Spiritism sees two victims. Since the interest towards the unfortunate ones does not stop at this present life but follows the future life in which it believes, it questions then if there isn’t a double punishment for a double fault and if both aren’t punished for their sins. Spiritism sees a suicide and since it knows that such a crime is always punished it questions the degree of responsibility incurred by the one that commits it.
Those who believe that Spiritism only deals with gnomes and fantastic apparitions, with dancing tables and rapping Spirits, if you took the burden of studying it you would know that Spiritism touches all moral issues. Those Spirits that seem laughable to you and that are, however, only the souls of people, they give to those that observe their manifestations a proof that the observer herself is a Spirit, momentarily linked to a body. The observer sees in death not the end of life but the door of a prison that opens up to the prisoner that regains freedom. Learns that the vicissitudes of corporeal life are the consequences of one’s own imperfections, that is, atonement for the past and present, trials for the future. From that the observer is then led not to see the events as out of blind chance but from the hands of Providence. For that observer the fair sentence: “… he will repay each person according to what he has done” finds application not only beyond the grave but also on Earth. That is why everything that happens around has its reason to be and its value. The observer studies to take advantage and improve one’s own behavior aiming at the future that is a demonstrated reality. Such a person analyzes the disgraces that affect her and learns to no longer accuse luck or fatality for something that is owned to oneself.
These comments have the sole objective of showing that Spiritism deals with much more serious things that the rapping Spirits and we now return to our subject. Since the fact was made public it is allowed to appreciate it although we will not name anyone.
If we examine the thing from a purely mundane point of view the majority of people will only see the very natural consequence of a disproportional union and will throw at the old man the stone of ridicule as the only funeral prayer. Others will accuse the young lady of ingratitude for having betrayed the trust of the generous man that wanted to make her rich. To the Spiritist, however, it has a more serious side because the Spiritist seeks a teaching there.
The question we ask ourselves is then if the action of the old man was not more out of selfishness than generosity by imprisoning a young lady, almost a child, to his late days by indissoluble links to an age in which one thinks first about retirement instead of enjoying the world? Wouldn’t it be a terrible imposition of sacrifice to her making her pay dearly for the promised fortune? There is no true generosity without selflessness. As for the young lady, she could not accept those links but with the perspective of seeing them broken soon for she had no real affection towards the old man. Hence, there was calculation from both sides and such calculation proved wrong. God did not allow one or the other to enjoy that. One was inflicted by disillusion, the other by shame that killed them both.
It still remains the responsibility of suicide that never goes unpunished but that many times finds attenuating circumstances. The young lady’s mother in trying to encourage her had said: “With that great fortune you will bring happiness to the poor man that you love. While you wait, honor and respect that great heart that wanted to turn you into his heir during the time that he still has.”
The mother wanted to touch her; but to enjoy the benefits of that great heart that would have been greater by donating without interest, it would be necessary to speculate about the duration of his life. The lady made a mistake by giving in but the mother made an even bigger mistake by exciting her and she will be the one that will have a greater responsibility for the daughter’s suicide.
That is how the one that kills oneself to escape misery is guilty for the lack of courage and resignation, but even much guiltier still is the one that is the primary cause of that act of despair. That is what Spiritism teaches through the examples exposed to the eyes of those that study the invisible world.
As for the mother, her punishment begins in this life, first with the terrible death of her daughter whose image may perhaps persecute her and bring her a lot of remorse, then for the inutility of the sacrifice that she provoked because with the death of the husband six hours after his wife, his whole fortune will now go to the hands of collateral third parties, without any benefit to her.
The papers are full of cases of that kind, honorable or reproachable, that may offer subject matter for serious moral studies, like the one we just reported. It is an inextinguishable source of observation and education to the Spiritists. Spiritism provides the means of finding details that go unnoticed by the careless ones and even more by the skeptical that only see in them facts more or less spicy not looking for the causes or consequences. To the groups it is a fecund element of work to which the protector Spirits will not fail in providing their appreciation.
“Here is the story. He was a seventy-two-year old man; she was a twenty years old young lady. He had married her three years ago… Do not be disgusted! The old Count from Viterbo was absolutely alone, without any family at all, something very strange to a millionaire. Amalia had family but no millions. He almost saw her at birth and to compensate things and having a good and kind heart he told her mother: “Allow me to paternally marry Amalia. She will take care of me for a few years and then…”
The weeding took place. Amalia understands her duties; she takes good care of the old man sacrificing all the pleasures of her age. Since the Count turned blind and paraplegic she spent long hours of the day making him company, reading to him, telling him stories, distracting and enchanting his days. “How kind my dear daughter!” he used to say many times, taking her by the hand, pulling her in to deposit on her head the respectful kiss of his thankfulness and acknowledgement.
One day, however, he notices that Amalia remains distant; that although always assiduous and solicit she seems to be afraid of seating by his feet. A suspicion crosses his heart. One evening when she was reading for him he took her by the arm and pulled her towards him by the waist, producing a horrible scream and falling onto her feet, exhausted by the emotion and rage. Amalia loses it; she climbs the stairs to the second floor and throws herself out of the window, falling down and shattering her body on the ground. The old man out survives the catastrophe six hours only.”
-o-
People will ask which relationship this story may have with Spiritism. Is that the intervention of some foolish Spirits? – The relationship is in the deductions that Spiritism teaches us to make out of apparently vulgar things of life. When the skeptical or indifferent only sees reason for irony or moves on carelessly the Spiritist observes and finds a teaching there, going back to the providential causes, probing the consequences to a future life according to the examples that are offered by the relationships from beyond the grave, by the justice of God.
In the event reported above instead of a simple and pleasant anecdote between him, the old man, and her, the young lady, Spiritism sees two victims. Since the interest towards the unfortunate ones does not stop at this present life but follows the future life in which it believes, it questions then if there isn’t a double punishment for a double fault and if both aren’t punished for their sins. Spiritism sees a suicide and since it knows that such a crime is always punished it questions the degree of responsibility incurred by the one that commits it.
Those who believe that Spiritism only deals with gnomes and fantastic apparitions, with dancing tables and rapping Spirits, if you took the burden of studying it you would know that Spiritism touches all moral issues. Those Spirits that seem laughable to you and that are, however, only the souls of people, they give to those that observe their manifestations a proof that the observer herself is a Spirit, momentarily linked to a body. The observer sees in death not the end of life but the door of a prison that opens up to the prisoner that regains freedom. Learns that the vicissitudes of corporeal life are the consequences of one’s own imperfections, that is, atonement for the past and present, trials for the future. From that the observer is then led not to see the events as out of blind chance but from the hands of Providence. For that observer the fair sentence: “… he will repay each person according to what he has done” finds application not only beyond the grave but also on Earth. That is why everything that happens around has its reason to be and its value. The observer studies to take advantage and improve one’s own behavior aiming at the future that is a demonstrated reality. Such a person analyzes the disgraces that affect her and learns to no longer accuse luck or fatality for something that is owned to oneself.
These comments have the sole objective of showing that Spiritism deals with much more serious things that the rapping Spirits and we now return to our subject. Since the fact was made public it is allowed to appreciate it although we will not name anyone.
If we examine the thing from a purely mundane point of view the majority of people will only see the very natural consequence of a disproportional union and will throw at the old man the stone of ridicule as the only funeral prayer. Others will accuse the young lady of ingratitude for having betrayed the trust of the generous man that wanted to make her rich. To the Spiritist, however, it has a more serious side because the Spiritist seeks a teaching there.
The question we ask ourselves is then if the action of the old man was not more out of selfishness than generosity by imprisoning a young lady, almost a child, to his late days by indissoluble links to an age in which one thinks first about retirement instead of enjoying the world? Wouldn’t it be a terrible imposition of sacrifice to her making her pay dearly for the promised fortune? There is no true generosity without selflessness. As for the young lady, she could not accept those links but with the perspective of seeing them broken soon for she had no real affection towards the old man. Hence, there was calculation from both sides and such calculation proved wrong. God did not allow one or the other to enjoy that. One was inflicted by disillusion, the other by shame that killed them both.
It still remains the responsibility of suicide that never goes unpunished but that many times finds attenuating circumstances. The young lady’s mother in trying to encourage her had said: “With that great fortune you will bring happiness to the poor man that you love. While you wait, honor and respect that great heart that wanted to turn you into his heir during the time that he still has.”
The mother wanted to touch her; but to enjoy the benefits of that great heart that would have been greater by donating without interest, it would be necessary to speculate about the duration of his life. The lady made a mistake by giving in but the mother made an even bigger mistake by exciting her and she will be the one that will have a greater responsibility for the daughter’s suicide.
That is how the one that kills oneself to escape misery is guilty for the lack of courage and resignation, but even much guiltier still is the one that is the primary cause of that act of despair. That is what Spiritism teaches through the examples exposed to the eyes of those that study the invisible world.
As for the mother, her punishment begins in this life, first with the terrible death of her daughter whose image may perhaps persecute her and bring her a lot of remorse, then for the inutility of the sacrifice that she provoked because with the death of the husband six hours after his wife, his whole fortune will now go to the hands of collateral third parties, without any benefit to her.
The papers are full of cases of that kind, honorable or reproachable, that may offer subject matter for serious moral studies, like the one we just reported. It is an inextinguishable source of observation and education to the Spiritists. Spiritism provides the means of finding details that go unnoticed by the careless ones and even more by the skeptical that only see in them facts more or less spicy not looking for the causes or consequences. To the groups it is a fecund element of work to which the protector Spirits will not fail in providing their appreciation.
In the November 1863 issue of the Spiritist Review we published a letter from an inmate in a prison as a proof of the moralizing effect of Spiritism. The letter transcribed below from another prisoner in a different prison is an example of that powerful influence. The letter is dated December 27th 1863. We transcribe it textually as for the style. We only corrected orthographic typos.
“Dear Sir,
A few days ago we I learned about Spiritism for the first time and the revelation from beyond the grave I laughed and said that it was not possible. I spoke as an ignorant person that I am. A few days later and in the horrible situation that I find myself I was fortunate to have been presented with your excellent The Spirits’ Book. In the beginning I read a few pages with skepticism not willing, or even better, not believing in this science. I finally and without noticing began to like it; I then took it more seriously; next I read your book a second time but then with a different mind frame, that is, with calm and the whole intelligence that God gave me. I then felt the awakening of an old faith that my mother had planted in my heart and that was dormant for a long time. I felt the desire to clarify myself with respect to Spiritism. From that moment on I made the decision of learn, see and only later judge. I put hands on with the whole belief in God and in God’s power. I wanted to see the truth. I prayed with fervor and began the experiments.
The first ones were null, without any result but that did not discourage me. I persevered with the attempts and my word I doubled my prayers that were not perhaps strong enough and fully dedicated to the work with the conviction of a believer that waits. After a few evenings, since I only can work at night, I felt my fingertips trembling and a slight sensation in the arm as if I had felt the current of a lukewarm creek over the arm, stopping at the wrist. I was then highly concentrated with a lot of faith. My pencil delineated some perfectly legible lines but not correct enough to preclude me from thinking that it could be hallucination. I then patiently waited for the following evening to restart the experiments, this time thanking God from the bottom of my heart for I had already obtained more than I would dare expect.
Since then every other evening I work with the Spirits that are good enough to respond to my appeal and in less than ten minutes they respond with charity. I write half pages or full pages that I could never do from my own intelligence alone because sometimes they write about philosophical and religious matters that I have never thought about or practiced; at the first results I used to tell myself: Aren’t you a toy of your own hallucination or will power? Reflection and examination demonstrated that I was far from that intelligence that had scribed those lines. I would then lower my head, believed and could not go against the evidence, unless I was completely mad. I then sent two or three of those communications to the person that had charitably given me your book so that she could sanction my work. I herein ask you Sir, since you are the soul of Spiritism, to kindly allow me to send you whatever I may have obtained and that is serious in my conversations with the beyond the grave if you think it is okay. If that pleases you I will send you the dialogues established with Verger, the one that hurt the Archbishop of Paris. In order to ensure that the manifesting Spirit was the person he said he was I evoked St. Louis that responded positively as well as another Spirit that I trust a lot…etc.”
-o-
The moral consequences of that event are deduced by themselves. Here is a man that had abjured any belief and that caught by the law is mixed with the scum of society. That man returned to his faith amidst a moral swamp. He sees the abyss in which he has thrown himself; he is regretful; he prays and we must say, he prays more sincerely than many people that exhibits devotion. The simple reading of a book was enough for that, a book in which he found the elements of faith that could be admitted by his reason, animated his hopes and allowed him to understand the future. Besides, and that is remarkable, he initially read with prevention and his disbelief was only defeated by the superiority of logic.
If such results are produced by a simple reading done, say, in hiding, what would that be if it could have been added to the influence of verbal explanations! It is well true that given the current spiritual condition of these two men (see the reported fact in the last November issue of the Spiritist Review) they will not only don’t show any reproachable behavior but will also enter the world with a firm resolution of living an honest life. Considering that these two condemned men could have been redirected to the good path by the faith that they found in Spiritism it is obvious that had they had such a faith before they would not have committed their crimes. Hence the propagation of a doctrine with such a moralizing power is then in the interest of society. That is what begins to happen.
Another consequence taken from the reported fact is that the Spirits are not blocked by the shackles and that they take their consolations to the furthest places in prison. Consequently nobody has the power to impede their manifestation in a way or another. If it is not in writing it is by hearing. They face any prohibition and laugh at any attempt to stop them, transposing any physical obstacle. Which barrier then can the enemies of Spiritism impose on them?
“Dear Sir,
A few days ago we I learned about Spiritism for the first time and the revelation from beyond the grave I laughed and said that it was not possible. I spoke as an ignorant person that I am. A few days later and in the horrible situation that I find myself I was fortunate to have been presented with your excellent The Spirits’ Book. In the beginning I read a few pages with skepticism not willing, or even better, not believing in this science. I finally and without noticing began to like it; I then took it more seriously; next I read your book a second time but then with a different mind frame, that is, with calm and the whole intelligence that God gave me. I then felt the awakening of an old faith that my mother had planted in my heart and that was dormant for a long time. I felt the desire to clarify myself with respect to Spiritism. From that moment on I made the decision of learn, see and only later judge. I put hands on with the whole belief in God and in God’s power. I wanted to see the truth. I prayed with fervor and began the experiments.
The first ones were null, without any result but that did not discourage me. I persevered with the attempts and my word I doubled my prayers that were not perhaps strong enough and fully dedicated to the work with the conviction of a believer that waits. After a few evenings, since I only can work at night, I felt my fingertips trembling and a slight sensation in the arm as if I had felt the current of a lukewarm creek over the arm, stopping at the wrist. I was then highly concentrated with a lot of faith. My pencil delineated some perfectly legible lines but not correct enough to preclude me from thinking that it could be hallucination. I then patiently waited for the following evening to restart the experiments, this time thanking God from the bottom of my heart for I had already obtained more than I would dare expect.
Since then every other evening I work with the Spirits that are good enough to respond to my appeal and in less than ten minutes they respond with charity. I write half pages or full pages that I could never do from my own intelligence alone because sometimes they write about philosophical and religious matters that I have never thought about or practiced; at the first results I used to tell myself: Aren’t you a toy of your own hallucination or will power? Reflection and examination demonstrated that I was far from that intelligence that had scribed those lines. I would then lower my head, believed and could not go against the evidence, unless I was completely mad. I then sent two or three of those communications to the person that had charitably given me your book so that she could sanction my work. I herein ask you Sir, since you are the soul of Spiritism, to kindly allow me to send you whatever I may have obtained and that is serious in my conversations with the beyond the grave if you think it is okay. If that pleases you I will send you the dialogues established with Verger, the one that hurt the Archbishop of Paris. In order to ensure that the manifesting Spirit was the person he said he was I evoked St. Louis that responded positively as well as another Spirit that I trust a lot…etc.”
-o-
The moral consequences of that event are deduced by themselves. Here is a man that had abjured any belief and that caught by the law is mixed with the scum of society. That man returned to his faith amidst a moral swamp. He sees the abyss in which he has thrown himself; he is regretful; he prays and we must say, he prays more sincerely than many people that exhibits devotion. The simple reading of a book was enough for that, a book in which he found the elements of faith that could be admitted by his reason, animated his hopes and allowed him to understand the future. Besides, and that is remarkable, he initially read with prevention and his disbelief was only defeated by the superiority of logic.
If such results are produced by a simple reading done, say, in hiding, what would that be if it could have been added to the influence of verbal explanations! It is well true that given the current spiritual condition of these two men (see the reported fact in the last November issue of the Spiritist Review) they will not only don’t show any reproachable behavior but will also enter the world with a firm resolution of living an honest life. Considering that these two condemned men could have been redirected to the good path by the faith that they found in Spiritism it is obvious that had they had such a faith before they would not have committed their crimes. Hence the propagation of a doctrine with such a moralizing power is then in the interest of society. That is what begins to happen.
Another consequence taken from the reported fact is that the Spirits are not blocked by the shackles and that they take their consolations to the furthest places in prison. Consequently nobody has the power to impede their manifestation in a way or another. If it is not in writing it is by hearing. They face any prohibition and laugh at any attempt to stop them, transposing any physical obstacle. Which barrier then can the enemies of Spiritism impose on them?
Varieties
Mr. Dombre, President of the Spiritist Society of Marmande, sends us the following:
“In five days and with the support of the good Spirits we rid a thirteen-year-old young lady from a very violent and dangerous obsession under the influence of a bad Spirit since May 8th last. She used to go through pitiful daily crises at five pm, every day without exception. The girl lives in a distant region and her relatives thinking that her disease was epilepsy no longer wanted to talk about it. Nevertheless, one of our members that lives nearby heard about the case and observing the facts more attentively was then able to easily identify the true cause. Following the advice of or spiritual guides we then started working immediately. On the eleventh of this month in our 8pm session we started by evoking and moralizing the obsessing Spirit, praying for him and the victim, exerting a mental magnetization upon that Spirit. The sessions happened every evening and on Friday 15th the girl experienced her last crises. She still suffers the effects of the long and violent shocks, showing some sadness, languidness, and tears as we were previously informed. We were informed daily about the phases of the disease by the good Spirits.
Such a cure that on other occasions would have been considered miracles and on others acts of witchcraft for which we would have been either sanctified or burnt to death produced a certain vibe in town.”
We congratulate our brothers from Marmande for the good result obtained in that case and we are happy to see that they took advantage of the advices contained in the Spiritist Review when we published similar cases reported lately. They were then able to convince themselves about the strength of collective action when directed with sincere faith and true charity.
“In five days and with the support of the good Spirits we rid a thirteen-year-old young lady from a very violent and dangerous obsession under the influence of a bad Spirit since May 8th last. She used to go through pitiful daily crises at five pm, every day without exception. The girl lives in a distant region and her relatives thinking that her disease was epilepsy no longer wanted to talk about it. Nevertheless, one of our members that lives nearby heard about the case and observing the facts more attentively was then able to easily identify the true cause. Following the advice of or spiritual guides we then started working immediately. On the eleventh of this month in our 8pm session we started by evoking and moralizing the obsessing Spirit, praying for him and the victim, exerting a mental magnetization upon that Spirit. The sessions happened every evening and on Friday 15th the girl experienced her last crises. She still suffers the effects of the long and violent shocks, showing some sadness, languidness, and tears as we were previously informed. We were informed daily about the phases of the disease by the good Spirits.
Such a cure that on other occasions would have been considered miracles and on others acts of witchcraft for which we would have been either sanctified or burnt to death produced a certain vibe in town.”
We congratulate our brothers from Marmande for the good result obtained in that case and we are happy to see that they took advantage of the advices contained in the Spiritist Review when we published similar cases reported lately. They were then able to convince themselves about the strength of collective action when directed with sincere faith and true charity.
The Journal de la Vienne carried the following fact on January 21st, also reproduced by other journals:
“Five or six days ago in Poitiers an extraordinary event took place that became theme of conversations and the strangest remarks. Every evening, starting at 6pm, singular noises are heard in a home located at Rue Neuve-Saint-Paul, inhabited by Ms. de O…, Count de O… sister. From what we were told the noises resemble the effect of artillery shooting. Violent blows seem to be reach doors and their structures. In the beginning people thought they were produced by kids or ill-faith neighbors. A stake out was organized and given Ms. de O… complaint the police took the matter seriously in minor details. Agents were placed inside and outside the house. The explosions, however, continued and we heard from good people that the night before the last one officer Mr. M… was taken by such a commotion that he is not fully aware yet today. Our whole town is concerned with such inexplicable mystery. Up until now the police inquiries have not led to any result. Everybody tries to decipher the enigma. Some persons initiated in Spiritism pretend that the authors of those manifestations are the rapping Spirits, not alien to a famous medium that nevertheless does not live in the region. Others bring up the memory that in old times there was a cemetery at Rue Neuve-Saint-Paul and hence it is unnecessary to say the conjectures that follow that idea. We do not know what is the most plausible of those explanations. Public opinion is still shocked by the case and last night a considerable crowd gathered by the window of Ms. O… house for what local authorities had to send the 10th regiment of hunters to evacuate the place. The police and the guard occupy the house as we speak.”
Similar reports were sent to us by multiple correspondents. Although they do not present anything stranger than the facts verified in manifestations occurred at different times and within the limits of the possible it is wise to keep judgment until a more thorough investigation not of the facts per se but of the causes since one must keep from attributing to the Spirits everything that one cannot understand. It is also necessary to be suspicious about maneuvers perpetrated by the enemies of Spiritism and the traps that they can lay down to try to ridicule it by the great belief of its followers.
We see with satisfaction that the Spiritists of Poitiers followed the advices found in The Mediums’ Book and the warnings we gave in the Spiritist Review and keep their reserved prudence until facts are further clarified. If it is a manifestation it will be demonstrated by a total lack of material cause; if it is a mockery the authors would have unwillingly contributed, as done many times before, to excite the interest of the indifferent and provoke the study of Spiritism. When analogous facts multiply everywhere, as it has been announced, and when the cause is uselessly sought in this world, people will have to realize that it is in the other one. In any case the Spiritists demonstrate their wisdom and moderation. It is the best answer to the adversaries.
“Five or six days ago in Poitiers an extraordinary event took place that became theme of conversations and the strangest remarks. Every evening, starting at 6pm, singular noises are heard in a home located at Rue Neuve-Saint-Paul, inhabited by Ms. de O…, Count de O… sister. From what we were told the noises resemble the effect of artillery shooting. Violent blows seem to be reach doors and their structures. In the beginning people thought they were produced by kids or ill-faith neighbors. A stake out was organized and given Ms. de O… complaint the police took the matter seriously in minor details. Agents were placed inside and outside the house. The explosions, however, continued and we heard from good people that the night before the last one officer Mr. M… was taken by such a commotion that he is not fully aware yet today. Our whole town is concerned with such inexplicable mystery. Up until now the police inquiries have not led to any result. Everybody tries to decipher the enigma. Some persons initiated in Spiritism pretend that the authors of those manifestations are the rapping Spirits, not alien to a famous medium that nevertheless does not live in the region. Others bring up the memory that in old times there was a cemetery at Rue Neuve-Saint-Paul and hence it is unnecessary to say the conjectures that follow that idea. We do not know what is the most plausible of those explanations. Public opinion is still shocked by the case and last night a considerable crowd gathered by the window of Ms. O… house for what local authorities had to send the 10th regiment of hunters to evacuate the place. The police and the guard occupy the house as we speak.”
Similar reports were sent to us by multiple correspondents. Although they do not present anything stranger than the facts verified in manifestations occurred at different times and within the limits of the possible it is wise to keep judgment until a more thorough investigation not of the facts per se but of the causes since one must keep from attributing to the Spirits everything that one cannot understand. It is also necessary to be suspicious about maneuvers perpetrated by the enemies of Spiritism and the traps that they can lay down to try to ridicule it by the great belief of its followers.
We see with satisfaction that the Spiritists of Poitiers followed the advices found in The Mediums’ Book and the warnings we gave in the Spiritist Review and keep their reserved prudence until facts are further clarified. If it is a manifestation it will be demonstrated by a total lack of material cause; if it is a mockery the authors would have unwillingly contributed, as done many times before, to excite the interest of the indifferent and provoke the study of Spiritism. When analogous facts multiply everywhere, as it has been announced, and when the cause is uselessly sought in this world, people will have to realize that it is in the other one. In any case the Spiritists demonstrate their wisdom and moderation. It is the best answer to the adversaries.
Spiritist dissertations
Spiritist Society of Sens – medium Mr. Percheron
God wanted the Spirit of person to be connected to matter to suffer the vicissitudes of the body with which it identifies to the point of having the illusion that the body is the self when it is no more than its transient prison. It is like the prison that would confound himself with the walls of the prison.
Materialistic persons are too blind to be aware of their mistake for if they wanted to reflect a little more seriously they would see that their own manifestation is not matter; that considering the fact that the matter of the body renovates continuously like the water current of a river it is only the Spirit that allows them to be always aware of themselves.
Suppose that the body of a man that weights sixty kilograms would renovate 1 kilogram per day to repair his forces and replace old molecules that separate and that accomplished the task that was assigned to them in the composition of the organs. After sixty days the whole body would have completely renovated its matter. Based on that hypothesis that is true in principle but whose numbers may be contested the matter of the body would be completely renovated six times per year. The body of a twenty year old man would already have been renovated one hundred times; at the age of forty, two hundred and forty times; at eighty four hundred and eighty times. But would the soul have been renovated at all? No because you are aware that you are always yourself. Hence your Spirit is your own self and through which you affirm yourself and not your body that is nothing more than ephemeral and mutable matter.
The materialists and pantheists say that after death the disaggregating molecules return to a common mass of the primitive elements and that the same happens to the soul, that is, with the being that thinks in you. But do they know about it? Is there a common substance of mass that thinks? They never demonstrate that but before stating they should have demonstrated it. It is no more than a hypothesis from them. Considering that the molecules disaggregate several hundreds of times during the life of the body while the Spirit remains the same and keeps the consciousness of its own individuality, isn’t that more logical to admit that the nature of the Spirit is not disaggregating? Why then would it dissolve after the death of the body and not before?
After the digression addressed to the materialist I return to my subject. If God wanted the spiritual creatures momentarily attached to matter it is, and I repeat, to make them feel and in a way suffer the needs imposed by matter to the conservation of its bodies. From those needs arise the vicissitudes that make you suffer and understand the commiseration that you must have towards your fellow human beings in such situation! Such a transient state is then necessary for the progress of your Spirit what would remain stagnant without that. The needs imposed by the body stimulate your Spirit forcing it to find the means of providing for those needs and the development of thought is born from that forced labor. Forced to preside over the movements of the body to drive it aiming at its own conservation the Spirit is led to the material work and from there to the intellectual work, one needed by the other, for the realization of the Spirit’s conceptions require the work of the body that can only be done under the direction and impulse of the Spirit.
Thus having acquired the habit of working, constrained by the needs of the body, the work in turn becomes a necessity and when detached from its links the Spirit no longer needs to think about matter but still thinks about the need to work and advance oneself.
You now understand the need for your Spirit to be linked to matter during part of its existence so as not to remain stationary.
Your father, Percheron – assisted by the Spirit of Pascal
OBSERVATION: We add to these perfectly fair observations that by working for oneself the incarnate Spirit works towards the betterment of the world that he inhabits. The Spirit that is the intelligent element of creation therefore helps its own transformation and material progress that are in God’s designs. Everything interconnects in nature as designed by the wisdom of Providence; all creatures and things are solidary. Later on when the Spirit is sufficiently advanced it will enjoy the fruits of its own work.
God wanted the Spirit of person to be connected to matter to suffer the vicissitudes of the body with which it identifies to the point of having the illusion that the body is the self when it is no more than its transient prison. It is like the prison that would confound himself with the walls of the prison.
Materialistic persons are too blind to be aware of their mistake for if they wanted to reflect a little more seriously they would see that their own manifestation is not matter; that considering the fact that the matter of the body renovates continuously like the water current of a river it is only the Spirit that allows them to be always aware of themselves.
Suppose that the body of a man that weights sixty kilograms would renovate 1 kilogram per day to repair his forces and replace old molecules that separate and that accomplished the task that was assigned to them in the composition of the organs. After sixty days the whole body would have completely renovated its matter. Based on that hypothesis that is true in principle but whose numbers may be contested the matter of the body would be completely renovated six times per year. The body of a twenty year old man would already have been renovated one hundred times; at the age of forty, two hundred and forty times; at eighty four hundred and eighty times. But would the soul have been renovated at all? No because you are aware that you are always yourself. Hence your Spirit is your own self and through which you affirm yourself and not your body that is nothing more than ephemeral and mutable matter.
The materialists and pantheists say that after death the disaggregating molecules return to a common mass of the primitive elements and that the same happens to the soul, that is, with the being that thinks in you. But do they know about it? Is there a common substance of mass that thinks? They never demonstrate that but before stating they should have demonstrated it. It is no more than a hypothesis from them. Considering that the molecules disaggregate several hundreds of times during the life of the body while the Spirit remains the same and keeps the consciousness of its own individuality, isn’t that more logical to admit that the nature of the Spirit is not disaggregating? Why then would it dissolve after the death of the body and not before?
After the digression addressed to the materialist I return to my subject. If God wanted the spiritual creatures momentarily attached to matter it is, and I repeat, to make them feel and in a way suffer the needs imposed by matter to the conservation of its bodies. From those needs arise the vicissitudes that make you suffer and understand the commiseration that you must have towards your fellow human beings in such situation! Such a transient state is then necessary for the progress of your Spirit what would remain stagnant without that. The needs imposed by the body stimulate your Spirit forcing it to find the means of providing for those needs and the development of thought is born from that forced labor. Forced to preside over the movements of the body to drive it aiming at its own conservation the Spirit is led to the material work and from there to the intellectual work, one needed by the other, for the realization of the Spirit’s conceptions require the work of the body that can only be done under the direction and impulse of the Spirit.
Thus having acquired the habit of working, constrained by the needs of the body, the work in turn becomes a necessity and when detached from its links the Spirit no longer needs to think about matter but still thinks about the need to work and advance oneself.
You now understand the need for your Spirit to be linked to matter during part of its existence so as not to remain stationary.
Your father, Percheron – assisted by the Spirit of Pascal
OBSERVATION: We add to these perfectly fair observations that by working for oneself the incarnate Spirit works towards the betterment of the world that he inhabits. The Spirit that is the intelligent element of creation therefore helps its own transformation and material progress that are in God’s designs. Everything interconnects in nature as designed by the wisdom of Providence; all creatures and things are solidary. Later on when the Spirit is sufficiently advanced it will enjoy the fruits of its own work.
Spiritist Society of Paris – medium Ms. A. C.
I
Limits of incarnation
Reincarnation is needed while the Spirit is still dominated by matter. However as soon as the Spirit dominates matter and nulls the effects of its reaction upon the moral side reincarnation then has no more utility or meaning. In fact the body is needed to the Spirit for the progressive work until that instrument is managed by the will of the Spirit when the work is then concluded. The Spirit then requires another field for its evolution and advancement towards infinity. Another circle of studies is needed where the thick matter of inferior worlds is unknown. Having been depurated and experienced its sensations on Earth or similar globes the Spirit is mature for the spiritual life and its studies. Elevated above all material sensations the Spirit no longer feels the desires or needs inherent to the corporeal life: it is Spirit and live according to spiritual sensations that are infinitely more enjoyable than the most pleasant sensations of the body.
II
Reincarnation and the aspirations of mankind
The aspirations of the soul lead to their realization and such realization is achieved in incarnation while the Spirit is doing material work. I explain myself. Let us take the Spirit at the beginning of its human career. Stupid and brute it nonetheless feels the divine spark in itself for the Spirit adores a God that is materialized according to the importance of matter to the Spirit. In this creature close to the animal there is an instinctive almost unconscious aspiration to a less inferior state. It starts by the need to satisfy one’s material appetites and envies those that are in a better state. Thus, in a new incarnation the Spirit chooses or even better is dragged towards a more advanced body and always in every existence the Spirit desires a material betterment. Never satisfied the Spirit always wants to improve because the aspiration of happiness is the great lever of progress. While there is a refinement in material sensations of the Spirit the spiritual sensations also awake and flourish. That is when the moral work begins and the depuration of the soul joins the aspiration of the body to achieve a superior state. Such a state of equality between material and spiritual aspirations does not last long because soon the Spirit will elevate above matter and the sensations can no longer be satisfied there. The Spirit needs more; needs better things; but since the body has reached the limit of sensations it can no longer follow the Spirit that now dominates the body and detaches from it more and more like from a useless instrument. The Spirit now dominates desires, aspirations and the will to achieve a superior state; feels that the material aspirations that once were reason for happiness are now only obstacles, a degradation, a sad need from which Spirit wishes to free from in order to enjoy boundlessly all the presented spiritual ventures.
III
Action of the fluids in reincarnation
Since the fluids are the agents that drive our corporeal vehicle they are also the elements of our aspirations for there are material as there are spiritual fluids and all elevating and tending to reunite to fluids of same nature. These are the fluids that form the spiritual body of the Spirit that while incarnate acts through those fluids upon the human machine that must be perfected by the Spirit for everything is work in creation, everything concurs to the general advancement.
The Spirit has its free-will and always seeks what is pleasant and satisfying. If it is an inferior and material Spirit it then seeks the satisfaction of material things, then giving an impulse to material fluids that will dominate but will always tend to grow and evolve materially. The aspirations of that incarnate Spirit are then material in nature and later on after returning to the spiritual world the same Spirit will seek a new incarnation to satisfy the material needs and desires because lo and behold material aspirations cannot require but material satisfaction whereas spiritual aspirations cannot be associated to sensations of the Spirit. Those material sensations will be demanded by the fluids that were allowed to be materialized and since during the incarnation the fluids act to attract the Spirit to the body that was formed with attraction and union of fluids, reincarnation then takes place in conditions that will satisfy the aspirations of preceding existences.
There are spiritual as there are material fluids if the former dominate. When the spiritual fluids conquer ascendency upon the material fluids the Spirit that now analyzes things differently chooses or is attracted by different sympathies. Since the Spirit needs depuration and that is only achieved by work the chosen incarnations are more painful because after having given supremacy to matter and its fluids the Spirit now needs to constrain it, fight and dominate it. Hence those very painful lives that seem so unfairly imposed to good and intelligent Spirits. They are enjoying their final corporeal phase and as they exit this world they enter superior spheres where their superior aspirations will be satisfied.
I
Limits of incarnation
Reincarnation is needed while the Spirit is still dominated by matter. However as soon as the Spirit dominates matter and nulls the effects of its reaction upon the moral side reincarnation then has no more utility or meaning. In fact the body is needed to the Spirit for the progressive work until that instrument is managed by the will of the Spirit when the work is then concluded. The Spirit then requires another field for its evolution and advancement towards infinity. Another circle of studies is needed where the thick matter of inferior worlds is unknown. Having been depurated and experienced its sensations on Earth or similar globes the Spirit is mature for the spiritual life and its studies. Elevated above all material sensations the Spirit no longer feels the desires or needs inherent to the corporeal life: it is Spirit and live according to spiritual sensations that are infinitely more enjoyable than the most pleasant sensations of the body.
II
Reincarnation and the aspirations of mankind
The aspirations of the soul lead to their realization and such realization is achieved in incarnation while the Spirit is doing material work. I explain myself. Let us take the Spirit at the beginning of its human career. Stupid and brute it nonetheless feels the divine spark in itself for the Spirit adores a God that is materialized according to the importance of matter to the Spirit. In this creature close to the animal there is an instinctive almost unconscious aspiration to a less inferior state. It starts by the need to satisfy one’s material appetites and envies those that are in a better state. Thus, in a new incarnation the Spirit chooses or even better is dragged towards a more advanced body and always in every existence the Spirit desires a material betterment. Never satisfied the Spirit always wants to improve because the aspiration of happiness is the great lever of progress. While there is a refinement in material sensations of the Spirit the spiritual sensations also awake and flourish. That is when the moral work begins and the depuration of the soul joins the aspiration of the body to achieve a superior state. Such a state of equality between material and spiritual aspirations does not last long because soon the Spirit will elevate above matter and the sensations can no longer be satisfied there. The Spirit needs more; needs better things; but since the body has reached the limit of sensations it can no longer follow the Spirit that now dominates the body and detaches from it more and more like from a useless instrument. The Spirit now dominates desires, aspirations and the will to achieve a superior state; feels that the material aspirations that once were reason for happiness are now only obstacles, a degradation, a sad need from which Spirit wishes to free from in order to enjoy boundlessly all the presented spiritual ventures.
III
Action of the fluids in reincarnation
Since the fluids are the agents that drive our corporeal vehicle they are also the elements of our aspirations for there are material as there are spiritual fluids and all elevating and tending to reunite to fluids of same nature. These are the fluids that form the spiritual body of the Spirit that while incarnate acts through those fluids upon the human machine that must be perfected by the Spirit for everything is work in creation, everything concurs to the general advancement.
The Spirit has its free-will and always seeks what is pleasant and satisfying. If it is an inferior and material Spirit it then seeks the satisfaction of material things, then giving an impulse to material fluids that will dominate but will always tend to grow and evolve materially. The aspirations of that incarnate Spirit are then material in nature and later on after returning to the spiritual world the same Spirit will seek a new incarnation to satisfy the material needs and desires because lo and behold material aspirations cannot require but material satisfaction whereas spiritual aspirations cannot be associated to sensations of the Spirit. Those material sensations will be demanded by the fluids that were allowed to be materialized and since during the incarnation the fluids act to attract the Spirit to the body that was formed with attraction and union of fluids, reincarnation then takes place in conditions that will satisfy the aspirations of preceding existences.
There are spiritual as there are material fluids if the former dominate. When the spiritual fluids conquer ascendency upon the material fluids the Spirit that now analyzes things differently chooses or is attracted by different sympathies. Since the Spirit needs depuration and that is only achieved by work the chosen incarnations are more painful because after having given supremacy to matter and its fluids the Spirit now needs to constrain it, fight and dominate it. Hence those very painful lives that seem so unfairly imposed to good and intelligent Spirits. They are enjoying their final corporeal phase and as they exit this world they enter superior spheres where their superior aspirations will be satisfied.
IV
Earthly affections and reincarnation
The dogma of indefinite reincarnation finds opposition in the hearts of the incarnate that love because in presence of such infinity of existences and producing links of affection in every one of them one asks what happens to the particular affections and if they don’t mix in an unique general love which would then destroy the persistence of individual affections. The person then asks herself if such individual affection are not only a means of advancement and the person then feels a certain frustration because true affection feels the need for eternal love feeling that one would never feel tired of loving. The simple thought of having thousands of identical affections seems an impossibility even when admitting greater capacity for love.
The serious student of Spiritism without the preconceived idea of a system in detriment of another one, feels attracted to reincarnation for the justice that follows the progress and advancement of the Spirit at each new existence. Nonetheless when it is studied from the point of view of the affections of the heart one doubts and becomes surprised despite anything else. Since the student cannot conciliate these two feelings she then says that there is still a veil to uncover and her work attracts the lights of the Spirits to appease her heart and her reason.
I have already said that reincarnation stops when materiality is nulled. I showed how material progressed refined the corporeal sensations of the incarnate Spirit; how the spiritual progress that follows had counter the influence of matter and later subordinated it to the will of the Spirit and that arriving at that degree of spiritual domination corporeal life would no longer make sense because the work was done.
Let us now examine the issue of affection based on its material and spiritual aspects.
To begin with, what is affection, love? Still the fluidic attraction that brings people together one to the other, uniting them in a common feeling. Such attraction may be of two different types since the fluids are of two different nature. The attraction can only remain forever if it is spiritual and selfless; abnegation and devotion are needed and not a single feeling of personality may be the drive of such sympathetic attraction. As long as there is personality there is materiality in that feeling; well, no material affection persists in the domains of the Spirit. Therefore every affection that is only the result of animal instinct or egotism is destroyed with earthly death. Thus, how many supposedly loved creatures are forgotten not long after separation! You loved them for yourselves not for them, those that no longer live, because you have forgotten and replaced them; you sought consolation by forgetting and they became indifferent because you no longer love them.
Observe humanity and see how few true affections do exist on Earth! Thus, one should not be so much surprised by the large number of affections that are found. True affections are in a relative minority but they do exist and those that are real persist and perpetuate in all forms, first on Earth and later in the spiritual state in a through friendship or in an unchanged love that grows continually.
Let us study true affection: the spiritual love.
The foundation of true love is a fluidic spiritual attraction that determines empathy by itself. In that case it is the soul that loves the soul and the power of such love is manifested by the feelings of the soul. Two souls that are united spiritually seek one another and always tend to get together. Their fluids attract one another. If they are on the same planet that are impelled to one another. If separated by earthly death their thoughts unite in their memories and the reunion takes place at the freedom of their sleep and when it is time for the reincarnation of one of them that Spirit will try to be closer to the friend, entering the material affiliation and that will be easier the more affinity they find with the material fluids of the perispirit of those that will give birth to the new being. Hence an adder of affection, a new manifestation of love. Such a friendly Spirit that loved you as a father will also love you as a son, brother or a friend and each one of those links with strengthen from incarnation to incarnation and will remain forever when the work is done and you live the life of the Spirit.
But such true affection is not common one Earth and matter happens to delay it, nulling its effect depending on how the Spirit is dominated by matter. Since true friendship and love are spiritual everything that relates to matter does not belong to its nature consequently not contributing to the spiritual identification. Affinity remains but stays in a latent state until the time when there is prevalence of the spiritual fluid and progress of empathy.
In short, spiritual love is the only that remains in the domains of the Spirit. It concurs to the moral advancement of the incarnate Spirit both on Earth and in the regions of corporeal work, and the Spirit under the influence of empathy carries out miracles of abnegation and devotion towards the beloved ones. Here in the celestial dwellings, it is the complete satisfaction of all aspirations and the greatest happiness that the Spirit can enjoy.
V
Progress hindered by indefinite incarnation
Up to this point reincarnation has been considered too much prolonged. It was not considered that such extension of corporeal life, although less and less material, would nonetheless lead to necessities that would block the advancement of the Spirit. In fact by admitting the persistence of procreation in the superior worlds material needs are attributed to the incarnate Spirits; still material duties and occupations that imprison and refrain their spiritual impulses. What are the needs for such barriers? Can’t the Spirit enjoy the happiness of love without enduring corporeal diseases? Even on Earth such a feeling does exist irrespective of the material part of our being. However rare they may be there is a sufficient number of examples to demonstrate that it must be felt more frequently amongst more spiritualized creatures.
Reincarnation determines the union of bodies. Pure love just determines the union of souls. The Spirits unite according to the affections they developed in inferior worlds and work together towards their spiritual progress. They have a fluidic organization completely different from the one that was consequence of their corporeal structure and their works operate upon fluids and no longer onto material objects. They reach spheres that have completed their material cycles; spheres in which human activity has determined dematerialization and that once achieved the apogee of their betterment have also gone through a superior transformation now in position to experience still other changes but in an entirely fluidic sense.
You now understand the immense power of fluids, a strength that you can feel but cannot see or touch. In a lighter state than the one you are placed now you will have other means of seeing, touching and working that fluid, a great agent of universal life.
Why then would the Spirit still have the need to enter a body for a kind of work that is beyond corporeal appreciation? You will say that the body is in relation to the new activities that the Spirit must carry out but considering that such a work is entirely fluidic and spiritual in superior spheres why then give the Spirits the embarrassment of the corporeal needs? As I said, reincarnation always determines the need for procreation and feeding that is needs of matter to be satisfied and barriers to the Spirit on another hand.
You must understand that the Spirit must be free in the flight towards infinity; that leaving the cradles of matter the Spirit, like the child, wishes to walk and run and not be stopped by kid’s walking toys and that those first needs of the first education are superfluous to a grown up child and unbearable to a teenager.
You must not wish to remain in your infancy. Look at yourselves as students that go through their finals preparing to enter the world to find their places and begin another type of work facilitated by their earlier studies. Spiritism is the lever that will strongly yang every incarnate soul to the spiritual state, every soul that wishes to understand and practice it, dominating matter and becoming its matter, annihilating it. Everyone that in good will wishes to move to such a spiritual state, after leaving this world, without returning to Earth may conquer that. Spiritism provides that to all that want to understand it in its moralizing sense.
Protector Spirit of the medium
OBSERVATION: This communication has no other signature but the one above, proving that it is not necessary to have had a celebrity name on Earth to be able to dictate good things. It is possible to notice the analogy between the communications given in Sens earlier on with the first part of this one; the latter is certainly more advanced but the fundamental idea about the need for reincarnation is the same. We mentioned both to show that the great principles of the Doctrine are taught in several places and that is how the unit of Spiritism will consolidate. Such agreement is the best criterion of truth.
Now, it is noticeable that exotic and systematic theories dictated by pseudo wise Spirits are always restricted to a small and individual circle and that being the reason why none has prevailed. That is also why there is no reason to fear them since they only have transient influence that fades away like a weak flame before the clarity of daylight. Regarding the last communication it would be superfluous to point out to its reach in form and content. It can be summarized as this:
Considered from the point of view of progress the life of the Spirit presents three main periods, as:
1.Material period, in which the influence of matter dominates that of the Spirit. That is the state of people given to brutal and carnal passions and sensuality; in which aspirations are exclusively earthly, associated to temporal possessions or refractory to spiritual ideas.
2.Equilibrium period, in which both material and spiritual influence occur simultaneously; in which people, although still chained to material needs, foresee and understand the spiritual state, working to leave the material state.
In the two periods above the Spirit is subjected to reincarnation that takes place in inferior and mid-level worlds.
3.Spiritual period in which the Spirit has completely dominated matter and no longer needs incarnation or material work. The work is now entirely spiritual. That is the state of the Spirits in superior worlds.
The easiness with which certain persons accept the Spiritist ideas that they seem to have an intuition about indicates that they belong to the second period; but there are many steps between this one and the previous ones, steps that are transposed the faster the closer the Spirit is to the spiritual period. That is how the Spirit can move from a material world like Earth and inhabit a superior one like Jupiter, if the moral and spiritual progress of that Spirit is sufficient to wave its passage through intermediary levels. It is then up to us to leave Earth for good, like a world of atonement and trial or to come back only on a mission.
Earthly affections and reincarnation
The dogma of indefinite reincarnation finds opposition in the hearts of the incarnate that love because in presence of such infinity of existences and producing links of affection in every one of them one asks what happens to the particular affections and if they don’t mix in an unique general love which would then destroy the persistence of individual affections. The person then asks herself if such individual affection are not only a means of advancement and the person then feels a certain frustration because true affection feels the need for eternal love feeling that one would never feel tired of loving. The simple thought of having thousands of identical affections seems an impossibility even when admitting greater capacity for love.
The serious student of Spiritism without the preconceived idea of a system in detriment of another one, feels attracted to reincarnation for the justice that follows the progress and advancement of the Spirit at each new existence. Nonetheless when it is studied from the point of view of the affections of the heart one doubts and becomes surprised despite anything else. Since the student cannot conciliate these two feelings she then says that there is still a veil to uncover and her work attracts the lights of the Spirits to appease her heart and her reason.
I have already said that reincarnation stops when materiality is nulled. I showed how material progressed refined the corporeal sensations of the incarnate Spirit; how the spiritual progress that follows had counter the influence of matter and later subordinated it to the will of the Spirit and that arriving at that degree of spiritual domination corporeal life would no longer make sense because the work was done.
Let us now examine the issue of affection based on its material and spiritual aspects.
To begin with, what is affection, love? Still the fluidic attraction that brings people together one to the other, uniting them in a common feeling. Such attraction may be of two different types since the fluids are of two different nature. The attraction can only remain forever if it is spiritual and selfless; abnegation and devotion are needed and not a single feeling of personality may be the drive of such sympathetic attraction. As long as there is personality there is materiality in that feeling; well, no material affection persists in the domains of the Spirit. Therefore every affection that is only the result of animal instinct or egotism is destroyed with earthly death. Thus, how many supposedly loved creatures are forgotten not long after separation! You loved them for yourselves not for them, those that no longer live, because you have forgotten and replaced them; you sought consolation by forgetting and they became indifferent because you no longer love them.
Observe humanity and see how few true affections do exist on Earth! Thus, one should not be so much surprised by the large number of affections that are found. True affections are in a relative minority but they do exist and those that are real persist and perpetuate in all forms, first on Earth and later in the spiritual state in a through friendship or in an unchanged love that grows continually.
Let us study true affection: the spiritual love.
The foundation of true love is a fluidic spiritual attraction that determines empathy by itself. In that case it is the soul that loves the soul and the power of such love is manifested by the feelings of the soul. Two souls that are united spiritually seek one another and always tend to get together. Their fluids attract one another. If they are on the same planet that are impelled to one another. If separated by earthly death their thoughts unite in their memories and the reunion takes place at the freedom of their sleep and when it is time for the reincarnation of one of them that Spirit will try to be closer to the friend, entering the material affiliation and that will be easier the more affinity they find with the material fluids of the perispirit of those that will give birth to the new being. Hence an adder of affection, a new manifestation of love. Such a friendly Spirit that loved you as a father will also love you as a son, brother or a friend and each one of those links with strengthen from incarnation to incarnation and will remain forever when the work is done and you live the life of the Spirit.
But such true affection is not common one Earth and matter happens to delay it, nulling its effect depending on how the Spirit is dominated by matter. Since true friendship and love are spiritual everything that relates to matter does not belong to its nature consequently not contributing to the spiritual identification. Affinity remains but stays in a latent state until the time when there is prevalence of the spiritual fluid and progress of empathy.
In short, spiritual love is the only that remains in the domains of the Spirit. It concurs to the moral advancement of the incarnate Spirit both on Earth and in the regions of corporeal work, and the Spirit under the influence of empathy carries out miracles of abnegation and devotion towards the beloved ones. Here in the celestial dwellings, it is the complete satisfaction of all aspirations and the greatest happiness that the Spirit can enjoy.
V
Progress hindered by indefinite incarnation
Up to this point reincarnation has been considered too much prolonged. It was not considered that such extension of corporeal life, although less and less material, would nonetheless lead to necessities that would block the advancement of the Spirit. In fact by admitting the persistence of procreation in the superior worlds material needs are attributed to the incarnate Spirits; still material duties and occupations that imprison and refrain their spiritual impulses. What are the needs for such barriers? Can’t the Spirit enjoy the happiness of love without enduring corporeal diseases? Even on Earth such a feeling does exist irrespective of the material part of our being. However rare they may be there is a sufficient number of examples to demonstrate that it must be felt more frequently amongst more spiritualized creatures.
Reincarnation determines the union of bodies. Pure love just determines the union of souls. The Spirits unite according to the affections they developed in inferior worlds and work together towards their spiritual progress. They have a fluidic organization completely different from the one that was consequence of their corporeal structure and their works operate upon fluids and no longer onto material objects. They reach spheres that have completed their material cycles; spheres in which human activity has determined dematerialization and that once achieved the apogee of their betterment have also gone through a superior transformation now in position to experience still other changes but in an entirely fluidic sense.
You now understand the immense power of fluids, a strength that you can feel but cannot see or touch. In a lighter state than the one you are placed now you will have other means of seeing, touching and working that fluid, a great agent of universal life.
Why then would the Spirit still have the need to enter a body for a kind of work that is beyond corporeal appreciation? You will say that the body is in relation to the new activities that the Spirit must carry out but considering that such a work is entirely fluidic and spiritual in superior spheres why then give the Spirits the embarrassment of the corporeal needs? As I said, reincarnation always determines the need for procreation and feeding that is needs of matter to be satisfied and barriers to the Spirit on another hand.
You must understand that the Spirit must be free in the flight towards infinity; that leaving the cradles of matter the Spirit, like the child, wishes to walk and run and not be stopped by kid’s walking toys and that those first needs of the first education are superfluous to a grown up child and unbearable to a teenager.
You must not wish to remain in your infancy. Look at yourselves as students that go through their finals preparing to enter the world to find their places and begin another type of work facilitated by their earlier studies. Spiritism is the lever that will strongly yang every incarnate soul to the spiritual state, every soul that wishes to understand and practice it, dominating matter and becoming its matter, annihilating it. Everyone that in good will wishes to move to such a spiritual state, after leaving this world, without returning to Earth may conquer that. Spiritism provides that to all that want to understand it in its moralizing sense.
Protector Spirit of the medium
OBSERVATION: This communication has no other signature but the one above, proving that it is not necessary to have had a celebrity name on Earth to be able to dictate good things. It is possible to notice the analogy between the communications given in Sens earlier on with the first part of this one; the latter is certainly more advanced but the fundamental idea about the need for reincarnation is the same. We mentioned both to show that the great principles of the Doctrine are taught in several places and that is how the unit of Spiritism will consolidate. Such agreement is the best criterion of truth.
Now, it is noticeable that exotic and systematic theories dictated by pseudo wise Spirits are always restricted to a small and individual circle and that being the reason why none has prevailed. That is also why there is no reason to fear them since they only have transient influence that fades away like a weak flame before the clarity of daylight. Regarding the last communication it would be superfluous to point out to its reach in form and content. It can be summarized as this:
Considered from the point of view of progress the life of the Spirit presents three main periods, as:
1.Material period, in which the influence of matter dominates that of the Spirit. That is the state of people given to brutal and carnal passions and sensuality; in which aspirations are exclusively earthly, associated to temporal possessions or refractory to spiritual ideas.
2.Equilibrium period, in which both material and spiritual influence occur simultaneously; in which people, although still chained to material needs, foresee and understand the spiritual state, working to leave the material state.
In the two periods above the Spirit is subjected to reincarnation that takes place in inferior and mid-level worlds.
3.Spiritual period in which the Spirit has completely dominated matter and no longer needs incarnation or material work. The work is now entirely spiritual. That is the state of the Spirits in superior worlds.
The easiness with which certain persons accept the Spiritist ideas that they seem to have an intuition about indicates that they belong to the second period; but there are many steps between this one and the previous ones, steps that are transposed the faster the closer the Spirit is to the spiritual period. That is how the Spirit can move from a material world like Earth and inhabit a superior one like Jupiter, if the moral and spiritual progress of that Spirit is sufficient to wave its passage through intermediary levels. It is then up to us to leave Earth for good, like a world of atonement and trial or to come back only on a mission.
Bibliographic news
A new media about Spiritism has just been inaugurated in Antwerp, since January 1st, 1864. It is well-known that the Spiritist Doctrine makes fast progress in that city where numerous groups were formed by distinguished people for their knowledge and social position. Brussels has been reluctant for a longer period but there the new idea also gains space like in other cities of Belgium. We were invited to accept the title of honorific president of a recently formed society there. That shows the path they want to follow.
The first issue of the new Review contains an appeal to the Spiritists of Antwerp; two supporting articles one about the adversaries of Spiritism and another about Spiritism and madness and a certain number of mediumistic communications, some in Flemish, and we are pleased to say that everything in perfect alignment with the view point and principles of the Parisian Society. That publication must be welcomed in a country that knowingly receives well and propagates new ideas if, as we expect, if these ideas remain at the level of science, an essential condition of success.
Spiritism grows and daily sees new horizons opening before its eyes. It deepens questions and issues that were only blossoming since its origin. The Spirits have followed this upwards movement everywhere by accommodating their teachings to the development of the ideas in their instructions. When compared to the current mediumistic production of today the former ones are faded versions, almost puerile, although they were considered magnificent in their time. It is the difference between the lessons given to an adult as compared to those given to young students. As people grow their intelligence like their body require more substantial nourishment. Every Spiritist publication, periodical or non-periodical that remained back would necessarily find little sympathy and it would be unrealistic to suppose that contemporary readers would be interested in elemental or mediocre things. However good the intention might be every recommendation would be powerless to keep them alive if they did not have a life of their own. There is another condition for the success of such publications, even more important, that is to walk with the opinion of the majority. At the beginning of the Spiritist manifestations the still not fixated ideas gave rise to many divergent opinions that fell before more comprehensive observations or that just count with rare representatives. Everybody knows the flag and the principles followed by the majority of the Spiritists around the world. The one that becomes an echo of backward opinions or that follows the wrong path is heretofore condemned to isolation and abandonment. We are sorry for those that did it in good faith; those that premeditated with the intention of blocking the development and sowing division will only harvest shame. Neither ones nor the others can be encouraged by those that understand from the top of their heads the true interests of Spiritism. As for ourselves, personally, and for the Parisian Society, the sympathies and moral support are conquered by anticipation, as it is widely known, by all the publications and all useful meetings to the cause that we defend.
The first issue of the new Review contains an appeal to the Spiritists of Antwerp; two supporting articles one about the adversaries of Spiritism and another about Spiritism and madness and a certain number of mediumistic communications, some in Flemish, and we are pleased to say that everything in perfect alignment with the view point and principles of the Parisian Society. That publication must be welcomed in a country that knowingly receives well and propagates new ideas if, as we expect, if these ideas remain at the level of science, an essential condition of success.
Spiritism grows and daily sees new horizons opening before its eyes. It deepens questions and issues that were only blossoming since its origin. The Spirits have followed this upwards movement everywhere by accommodating their teachings to the development of the ideas in their instructions. When compared to the current mediumistic production of today the former ones are faded versions, almost puerile, although they were considered magnificent in their time. It is the difference between the lessons given to an adult as compared to those given to young students. As people grow their intelligence like their body require more substantial nourishment. Every Spiritist publication, periodical or non-periodical that remained back would necessarily find little sympathy and it would be unrealistic to suppose that contemporary readers would be interested in elemental or mediocre things. However good the intention might be every recommendation would be powerless to keep them alive if they did not have a life of their own. There is another condition for the success of such publications, even more important, that is to walk with the opinion of the majority. At the beginning of the Spiritist manifestations the still not fixated ideas gave rise to many divergent opinions that fell before more comprehensive observations or that just count with rare representatives. Everybody knows the flag and the principles followed by the majority of the Spiritists around the world. The one that becomes an echo of backward opinions or that follows the wrong path is heretofore condemned to isolation and abandonment. We are sorry for those that did it in good faith; those that premeditated with the intention of blocking the development and sowing division will only harvest shame. Neither ones nor the others can be encouraged by those that understand from the top of their heads the true interests of Spiritism. As for ourselves, personally, and for the Parisian Society, the sympathies and moral support are conquered by anticipation, as it is widely known, by all the publications and all useful meetings to the cause that we defend.
By Father Blot, Company of Jesus[1]
One of our corresponding members, Dr. C…, mentioned this book to us, writing the following:
“For some time now, words that I abstain from using as a Christian and as a Spiritist, have been pronounced many times by persons that have the mission of speaking about charity and mercy. To alleviate it from the painful impression that they may have caused you as to every true Christian, allow me to talk about a small book from Father Blot. I don’t believe him to be a Spiritist but I found in his work that Spiritism lead people to love God and wait for his mercy as there are many other passages that closely resemble what is taught by the Spirits.”
We point out the following passages that confirm the opinion of our correspondent:
“In the VII century Pope St. Gregory, the Great, after having told the story that a religious person saw the prophets before his eyes when he died and designated them by their names, added: - This example clearly shows us how important is the acknowledgement that we will have with respect to one another in the incorruptible life of heavens, for that religious person, still in a corruptible flesh, recognized the sacred prophets that he had never seen before. The saints see one another as required by the unity of the kingdom and the unity of the place where they live in the company of God. The spontaneously reveal to one another their thoughts and feelings like people in the same house that are united by a sincere love. Among their co-inhabitants of heavens they even know those that they did not know down here and the knowledge of the good deeds leads them to a more thorough knowledge of those that carried them out (Berti, De theologicis disciplinis).
Have you lost a son or a daughter? Receive the consolations given by a Patriarch of Constantinople to a heartbroken father. That Patriarch can no longer be counted among the great men or saints. It is Photios the author of the cruel schism that separates the East from the West but his words only demonstrate that the Greek think like the Latin about this point: - If you daughter appeared to you; if she rested her hand on yours and head on your head and if she spoke with you wouldn’t she describe heavens to you? She would then add: - Why suffer oh my father? I am in paradise where happiness is boundless. One day you will join me with my dear mother and you will then acknowledge that I was right about this place of enjoyment for reality is beyond my words.”
The good Spirits can therefore manifest, be seen and touch the living ones, speak with them, describe their own situation, console and strengthen the loved ones. If they can speak and take their hands why wouldn’t they be able to write? Father Blot says: - The Greek think like the Latin about this point. Why the Latin today say that such a power is only given to the devil to deceive people? The following passage is even more explicit:
“St. John Chrysostom said in one of his homilies to his followers about St. Mathews: - Would you like to see those that were taken by death? Follow their lives on the path of virtue and you will soon enjoy that sacred vision. However, would you like to see them here? Well, what is it that blocks you? You are allowed to do that and it is easy to achieve if you are prudent because hopes in future assets is clearer than life itself.”
Flesh cannot see what is purely spiritual. Hence if they can see the Spirits it is because there is a material and accessible part to our senses. It is the fluidic envelope that Spiritism calls perispirit. After a citation by Dante about the state of the blessed ones, Father Blot adds:
“Hence this is the principle of solution to the objections: - In heavens, less of a place than a state, everything is light and love.”
Therefore heavens is not a circumscribe place. It is the state of the happy souls. Wherever they are happy they are in heavens that is everything is light, love and intelligence to them. That is what the Spirits say.
On the occasion of the death of his friend, Duke of Beauvilliers, Fénelon wrote the following to the Duchess: “It is not only feelings and imagination that lost their objective. The one that we can no longer see is amongst us more than ever. We meet him all the time in our common nucleus. He sees us there and helps us. From there he knows better about our diseases, he that no longer has his own; he begs for the remedies to our cure. As for myself that did not see him for a long time I speak with him and open my heart to him.”
Fénelon also wrote to the widow of the Duke of Chevreuse: “Let us unite in our hearts to the one that we cry for. He has not moved away from us because he became invisible. He sees us, he teaches us and he is touched by our needs. He has fortunately arrived at the port and he now prays for us that are still here, exposed to the wreckage. He tells us with a smooth voice: “Hurry up to be able to join us. The pure Spirits see, understand and always love their true friends in their common nucleus. Their friendship is immortal like their source. The non-believer only love themselves. They should be desperate on losing their friends forever. Nonetheless the divine friendship converts the visible society into a society of pure faith. It cries but by crying if finds consolation in the hope of meeting their friends again in the country of truth and at the heart of love itself.”
In order to justify the title of his book: We recognize one another in heavens Father Blot cites a large number of passages by holy writers about apparitions and several manifestations that demonstrate reunion of loved ones after death; the existing relationships between the dead and the living ones; the help they provide mutually through prayer and inspiration. It never mentions eternal separation, consequence of eternal condemnation, or devils or even hell. On the contrary it shows the souls of miserable individuals freed by the power of regret and prayer and by the mercy of God. Had Father Blot said anathema against Spiritism it would be against his own book and against all the saints whose testimonies are invoked by him. Whatever his opinion is about this one can say that if they had always preached like that there would be less skeptics.
[1] Paris, 1863, 1 small volume. Price 1fr at Poussielgue-Rusand Bookstore, Rue Cassette, 27.
One of our corresponding members, Dr. C…, mentioned this book to us, writing the following:
“For some time now, words that I abstain from using as a Christian and as a Spiritist, have been pronounced many times by persons that have the mission of speaking about charity and mercy. To alleviate it from the painful impression that they may have caused you as to every true Christian, allow me to talk about a small book from Father Blot. I don’t believe him to be a Spiritist but I found in his work that Spiritism lead people to love God and wait for his mercy as there are many other passages that closely resemble what is taught by the Spirits.”
We point out the following passages that confirm the opinion of our correspondent:
“In the VII century Pope St. Gregory, the Great, after having told the story that a religious person saw the prophets before his eyes when he died and designated them by their names, added: - This example clearly shows us how important is the acknowledgement that we will have with respect to one another in the incorruptible life of heavens, for that religious person, still in a corruptible flesh, recognized the sacred prophets that he had never seen before. The saints see one another as required by the unity of the kingdom and the unity of the place where they live in the company of God. The spontaneously reveal to one another their thoughts and feelings like people in the same house that are united by a sincere love. Among their co-inhabitants of heavens they even know those that they did not know down here and the knowledge of the good deeds leads them to a more thorough knowledge of those that carried them out (Berti, De theologicis disciplinis).
Have you lost a son or a daughter? Receive the consolations given by a Patriarch of Constantinople to a heartbroken father. That Patriarch can no longer be counted among the great men or saints. It is Photios the author of the cruel schism that separates the East from the West but his words only demonstrate that the Greek think like the Latin about this point: - If you daughter appeared to you; if she rested her hand on yours and head on your head and if she spoke with you wouldn’t she describe heavens to you? She would then add: - Why suffer oh my father? I am in paradise where happiness is boundless. One day you will join me with my dear mother and you will then acknowledge that I was right about this place of enjoyment for reality is beyond my words.”
The good Spirits can therefore manifest, be seen and touch the living ones, speak with them, describe their own situation, console and strengthen the loved ones. If they can speak and take their hands why wouldn’t they be able to write? Father Blot says: - The Greek think like the Latin about this point. Why the Latin today say that such a power is only given to the devil to deceive people? The following passage is even more explicit:
“St. John Chrysostom said in one of his homilies to his followers about St. Mathews: - Would you like to see those that were taken by death? Follow their lives on the path of virtue and you will soon enjoy that sacred vision. However, would you like to see them here? Well, what is it that blocks you? You are allowed to do that and it is easy to achieve if you are prudent because hopes in future assets is clearer than life itself.”
Flesh cannot see what is purely spiritual. Hence if they can see the Spirits it is because there is a material and accessible part to our senses. It is the fluidic envelope that Spiritism calls perispirit. After a citation by Dante about the state of the blessed ones, Father Blot adds:
“Hence this is the principle of solution to the objections: - In heavens, less of a place than a state, everything is light and love.”
Therefore heavens is not a circumscribe place. It is the state of the happy souls. Wherever they are happy they are in heavens that is everything is light, love and intelligence to them. That is what the Spirits say.
On the occasion of the death of his friend, Duke of Beauvilliers, Fénelon wrote the following to the Duchess: “It is not only feelings and imagination that lost their objective. The one that we can no longer see is amongst us more than ever. We meet him all the time in our common nucleus. He sees us there and helps us. From there he knows better about our diseases, he that no longer has his own; he begs for the remedies to our cure. As for myself that did not see him for a long time I speak with him and open my heart to him.”
Fénelon also wrote to the widow of the Duke of Chevreuse: “Let us unite in our hearts to the one that we cry for. He has not moved away from us because he became invisible. He sees us, he teaches us and he is touched by our needs. He has fortunately arrived at the port and he now prays for us that are still here, exposed to the wreckage. He tells us with a smooth voice: “Hurry up to be able to join us. The pure Spirits see, understand and always love their true friends in their common nucleus. Their friendship is immortal like their source. The non-believer only love themselves. They should be desperate on losing their friends forever. Nonetheless the divine friendship converts the visible society into a society of pure faith. It cries but by crying if finds consolation in the hope of meeting their friends again in the country of truth and at the heart of love itself.”
In order to justify the title of his book: We recognize one another in heavens Father Blot cites a large number of passages by holy writers about apparitions and several manifestations that demonstrate reunion of loved ones after death; the existing relationships between the dead and the living ones; the help they provide mutually through prayer and inspiration. It never mentions eternal separation, consequence of eternal condemnation, or devils or even hell. On the contrary it shows the souls of miserable individuals freed by the power of regret and prayer and by the mercy of God. Had Father Blot said anathema against Spiritism it would be against his own book and against all the saints whose testimonies are invoked by him. Whatever his opinion is about this one can say that if they had always preached like that there would be less skeptics.
[1] Paris, 1863, 1 small volume. Price 1fr at Poussielgue-Rusand Bookstore, Rue Cassette, 27.
By Mr. Armand Durantin[1]
Spiritism has found its place among the beliefs. If it is still a reason of mockery to some writers one notices that to some of those that ridiculed it in the past mockery has lowered its voice before the antecedent of the general opinion, they now limiting to cite the facts related to Spiritism without comments or with careful restrictions. Others, not positively believing in Spiritism, and even without knowing it in depth, consider the idea too important to find matter of fantasy or imagination. Such is the case, as we see it, of the book mentioned above. It is a simple drama based on the Spiritist belief presented from a serious point of view, but that can have some mistakes reproached by us, undoubtedly originated from an incomplete study of the subject.
The author that wishes to create a fictitious story on top of a historical event must, before anything, get to know the truth of the fact to avoid sidetracking history. That is how every author that wishes to take advantage of the Spiritist idea must proceed, be it for not being accused of ignorance about what they portray or to conquer the sympathy of followers, today in large numbers to tilt the scale of public opinion and concur to the success of every work that, directly or indirectly, is related to their belief.
Made the reservation from the point of view of orthodoxy, the work in consideration will not be less read with great interest by the followers as well as by the adversaries of Spiritism and we thank the author for the gracious tribute made to us in his book that has come to popularize the new idea. We will mention the passages below that mention the Doctrine more specifically.
“At the time when Mr. Boursonne (one of the leading roles in the romance) had lost his wife a mystic doctrine was spreading quietly and slowly in the shadows. It still counted on a low number of followers but it had the great aspiration of replacing the several Christian cults. It still needs persecution to become a powerful religion. That doctrine is Spiritism, so eloquently exposed by Mr. Allan Kardec in his remarkable book The Spirits’ Book. Count de Boursonne was one of its most keen followers. I will only say a few words about that doctrine to allow the non-believers to understand that the Count’s power was entirely natural.
The Spiritists acknowledge God and the immortality of the soul. They believe that Earth is a place of transition and trial. According to them the soul is initially place on an inferior planet by God. The soul lives there in a more or less dense body until it is depurated enough to migrate to a superior world. That is how, after long migrations and several trials, the souls finally get to perfection, then living at the heart of God. It is then up to the human being to abbreviate pilgrimages and arrive more rapidly to the Lord by improving themselves more rapidly.
It is a touching belief of Spiritism that the more perfect souls may communicate with the Spirits. Thus, according to the Spiritists, we can talk to our lost loved ones if our soul is perfected enough to hear them and be heard by them. It is then the more perfected persons among us that can serve as intermediaries between common people and the Spirits. Those agents, as much ridiculed by skepticism as admired by the believers are called mediums in the Spiritist language. Having said that it is important to mention that the Spiritist Doctrine now counts on many thousands followers, in particular in large cities, and that Count de Boursonne was one of their most powerful mediums.”
Here there is a first big mistake. If one needed to be perfect to communicate with the Spirits very few would have such privilege. The Spirits communicate even with those that are seriously behind, precisely to motivate them to improve through their advices, according to these words by Jesus: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick”. (Luke 5:31) Mediumship is a faculty that depends on the physical organization more or less developed, according to the individuals, but that can be given to the least virtuous, then subjected to punishment if the person do not take advantage of that or if the faculty is abused. The moral superiority of the medium ensures the sympathy of the good Spirits, turning the medium apt to receive instructions of a higher level but the facility to communicate with the beings of the invisible world directly or through third party is given to each one for their advancement. That is what the author would know had he carried out a more in-depth study of the Spiritist science.
“Modern science demonstrated that everything is interconnected. Therefore, in the physical world, from the minute aquatic creatures and mankind, that is its highest expression, there is a chain of creatures successively improved, as abundantly demonstrated the discoveries of geologists. Well, the Spiritists ask themselves why such a chaining would not happen in the spiritual world as well; the question why such a blank between man and God, as Mr. Le Verrier asked himself how could it be possible that a single planet would be missing in a given place in the skies, given the harmonious laws that govern our still incomprehensible and unknown world. Guided by the same thought that led the eminent director of the Paris Observatory to his wonderful deduction the Spiritists then recognized immaterial creatures between mankind and God, before having the hard proof that was only acquired later on.”
There is here an equally important mistake. Spiritism was led to its theories by the observation of the facts and not by a preconceived system. The thought mentioned by the author was certainly rational but it was not the way how things happened. The Spiritists concluded that the Spirits existed because the Spirits manifested spontaneously. They indicated the law that governs the relationships between the visible and the invisible world because they observed those relationships. They admitted the progressive hierarchy of the Spirits because the Spirits were presented to them in all levels of advancement. They adopted the principle of the plurality of the existences not only because it was taught by the Spirits but because that principle results, as a law of nature, from the observation of facts that are before our eyes. In short, Spiritism admitted nothing under the assumption of hypothesis. Everything in the Doctrine is the result of experience. That is all that we have repeated many times in our works.
-o-
We find the below warning useful to all interested parties:
Whenever a letter is received our first action is to verify the signature. In the absence of signature or sufficient identification the letter meets the trash can, without being read, even if signed as: one of our subscribers, one Spiritist, etc. The latter having even less reason to remain incognito than the other ones as far as we are concerned, being that the very reason why the origin of the letters becomes suspicious and why we don’t even take notice of their letters since the authentic correspondence is large enough and sufficient to absorb our attention. The person in charge of doing their classification has our explicit recommendation to reject without examination every letter that is in the aforementioned condition.
[1] A 12-in volume. Price 3 francs. Dentu Bookstore and Central Bookstore, Blvd. des Italiens, 24
Spiritism has found its place among the beliefs. If it is still a reason of mockery to some writers one notices that to some of those that ridiculed it in the past mockery has lowered its voice before the antecedent of the general opinion, they now limiting to cite the facts related to Spiritism without comments or with careful restrictions. Others, not positively believing in Spiritism, and even without knowing it in depth, consider the idea too important to find matter of fantasy or imagination. Such is the case, as we see it, of the book mentioned above. It is a simple drama based on the Spiritist belief presented from a serious point of view, but that can have some mistakes reproached by us, undoubtedly originated from an incomplete study of the subject.
The author that wishes to create a fictitious story on top of a historical event must, before anything, get to know the truth of the fact to avoid sidetracking history. That is how every author that wishes to take advantage of the Spiritist idea must proceed, be it for not being accused of ignorance about what they portray or to conquer the sympathy of followers, today in large numbers to tilt the scale of public opinion and concur to the success of every work that, directly or indirectly, is related to their belief.
Made the reservation from the point of view of orthodoxy, the work in consideration will not be less read with great interest by the followers as well as by the adversaries of Spiritism and we thank the author for the gracious tribute made to us in his book that has come to popularize the new idea. We will mention the passages below that mention the Doctrine more specifically.
“At the time when Mr. Boursonne (one of the leading roles in the romance) had lost his wife a mystic doctrine was spreading quietly and slowly in the shadows. It still counted on a low number of followers but it had the great aspiration of replacing the several Christian cults. It still needs persecution to become a powerful religion. That doctrine is Spiritism, so eloquently exposed by Mr. Allan Kardec in his remarkable book The Spirits’ Book. Count de Boursonne was one of its most keen followers. I will only say a few words about that doctrine to allow the non-believers to understand that the Count’s power was entirely natural.
The Spiritists acknowledge God and the immortality of the soul. They believe that Earth is a place of transition and trial. According to them the soul is initially place on an inferior planet by God. The soul lives there in a more or less dense body until it is depurated enough to migrate to a superior world. That is how, after long migrations and several trials, the souls finally get to perfection, then living at the heart of God. It is then up to the human being to abbreviate pilgrimages and arrive more rapidly to the Lord by improving themselves more rapidly.
It is a touching belief of Spiritism that the more perfect souls may communicate with the Spirits. Thus, according to the Spiritists, we can talk to our lost loved ones if our soul is perfected enough to hear them and be heard by them. It is then the more perfected persons among us that can serve as intermediaries between common people and the Spirits. Those agents, as much ridiculed by skepticism as admired by the believers are called mediums in the Spiritist language. Having said that it is important to mention that the Spiritist Doctrine now counts on many thousands followers, in particular in large cities, and that Count de Boursonne was one of their most powerful mediums.”
Here there is a first big mistake. If one needed to be perfect to communicate with the Spirits very few would have such privilege. The Spirits communicate even with those that are seriously behind, precisely to motivate them to improve through their advices, according to these words by Jesus: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick”. (Luke 5:31) Mediumship is a faculty that depends on the physical organization more or less developed, according to the individuals, but that can be given to the least virtuous, then subjected to punishment if the person do not take advantage of that or if the faculty is abused. The moral superiority of the medium ensures the sympathy of the good Spirits, turning the medium apt to receive instructions of a higher level but the facility to communicate with the beings of the invisible world directly or through third party is given to each one for their advancement. That is what the author would know had he carried out a more in-depth study of the Spiritist science.
“Modern science demonstrated that everything is interconnected. Therefore, in the physical world, from the minute aquatic creatures and mankind, that is its highest expression, there is a chain of creatures successively improved, as abundantly demonstrated the discoveries of geologists. Well, the Spiritists ask themselves why such a chaining would not happen in the spiritual world as well; the question why such a blank between man and God, as Mr. Le Verrier asked himself how could it be possible that a single planet would be missing in a given place in the skies, given the harmonious laws that govern our still incomprehensible and unknown world. Guided by the same thought that led the eminent director of the Paris Observatory to his wonderful deduction the Spiritists then recognized immaterial creatures between mankind and God, before having the hard proof that was only acquired later on.”
There is here an equally important mistake. Spiritism was led to its theories by the observation of the facts and not by a preconceived system. The thought mentioned by the author was certainly rational but it was not the way how things happened. The Spiritists concluded that the Spirits existed because the Spirits manifested spontaneously. They indicated the law that governs the relationships between the visible and the invisible world because they observed those relationships. They admitted the progressive hierarchy of the Spirits because the Spirits were presented to them in all levels of advancement. They adopted the principle of the plurality of the existences not only because it was taught by the Spirits but because that principle results, as a law of nature, from the observation of facts that are before our eyes. In short, Spiritism admitted nothing under the assumption of hypothesis. Everything in the Doctrine is the result of experience. That is all that we have repeated many times in our works.
-o-
We find the below warning useful to all interested parties:
Whenever a letter is received our first action is to verify the signature. In the absence of signature or sufficient identification the letter meets the trash can, without being read, even if signed as: one of our subscribers, one Spiritist, etc. The latter having even less reason to remain incognito than the other ones as far as we are concerned, being that the very reason why the origin of the letters becomes suspicious and why we don’t even take notice of their letters since the authentic correspondence is large enough and sufficient to absorb our attention. The person in charge of doing their classification has our explicit recommendation to reject without examination every letter that is in the aforementioned condition.
[1] A 12-in volume. Price 3 francs. Dentu Bookstore and Central Bookstore, Blvd. des Italiens, 24
March
People sometimes ask if God could not have created the Spirits already perfect to spare them from evil and all its consequences. There is no doubt that God could, since he is Almighty. If God did not do that it is for the fact that God’s supreme wisdom found it more useful otherwise. It is not up to mankind to probe God’s designs and even less to judge and condemn God’s works.
Considering that one cannot admit God without the infinite of perfections, without a sovereign goodness and justice that incessantly shows His solicitude to His the creatures under our eyes, then realizing that such solicitude could not have failed at the creation of the Spirits.
The earthly mankind is like a child whose limited vision does not go beyond the small circle of the present and cannot assess the utility of certain things. Humanity must then bow before what is still beyond their reach. However, since God gave them intelligence as a guide it is not prohibited to try to understand and humbly stop at the limit of what cannot be transposed. Man can only establish more or less likely systems about all things maintained in the secrets of God. The safe criteria to judge which of those systems is closer to the truth is the attributes of the Divinity. Every theory, every doctrine, philosophical or religious, that tended to destroy a single one of those attributes would fail at the foundation and would be, for that very reason, stained by error, from what follows that the safer system is the one that better accommodate those attributes.
Since God is all about wisdom and goodness He could not have created evil as the counterpart of good. Had God made evil a necessary law He would have voluntarily weakened the power of good for something that is bad can only change good and not strengthen that.
God established laws that are entirely good and just. Man would be perfectly happy if he observed those laws scrupulously but the tiniest infringement of those laws cause a disturbance whose effect is felt and whose result is all sorts of vicissitudes. Hence man is the very cause of evil for his disobedience to the laws of God. God created man free to follow his path. The one that followed the wrong path did it out of his own choice and cannot accuse but oneself for the consequences that result from that. Given the destiny of Earth we only see the Spirits of that category and that made us believe that evil is a necessity. If we could embrace the whole set of worlds we would see that the Spirits that remained on the good path passed through the several phases of their existences in conditions that are completely different and since evil is not general it could not be indispensable. But there still remains the issue of knowing why God hasn’t created the Spirits already perfect. This question is analogous to this one: Why the child is not born completely developed, with all aptitudes, knowledge and experience of the adult age? There is a general law that governs all beings of creation, animate as well as inanimate. It is the law of progress. The Spirits are submitted to that law by the force of things without which the exception would have disturbed the general harmony and God wanted to give us an abbreviated example through the progression of infancy. However since evil is not a necessity in the order of things because it only exists to the prevaricator Spirits the law of progress absolutely does not oblige mankind to go through that row to get to good. That law only forces the Spirit to go through the state of intellectual inferiority or, in other words, the spiritual infancy.
Created simple and ignorant and for that very reason imperfect or better, incomplete, they have to acquire science and experience by themselves and their own activity, something that they cannot have from the beginning. If God had created them perfect they would have been gifted with the universal knowledge from the very beginning of their creation. They would have been exempted from any intellectual work and at the same time precluded from all the activity that is required to acquire that knowledge and to which they concur as incarnate or discarnate souls for the physical betterment of the worlds, a work that is no longer in the hands of superior Spirits that are only in charge of the moral improvement. Their own inferiority makes them an essential engine in the general works of creation.
On another hand, had God created them infallible, that is exempt from the possibility of making mistakes, they would be fatally pushed towards good like those well engineered mechanisms that automatically do precision work. They would be like those persons that are born wealthy and believe to be exempted from doing anything. But then there would not be any free-will and consequently no independence. God wanted them to have the merit of their own work by submitting them to the law of elected progress in order to deserve the merit of their work and consequently be rewarded accordingly with the satisfaction of having conquered their position on their own.
Without the application of the universal law of progress to all beings there should be another order of things, completely different. There is no doubt that God had the option but why it was not done? Would it have been better in a different way? If so, God would have made a mistake! Well, if God can make a mistake it means that God is not perfect hence it is not God. Since God cannot be conceived without the infinite perfection one must admit that God did what was best. If we are not able yet to understand God’s reasons we will certainly be later on in a more advanced state. While we wait if we cannot probe the causes we can observe the effects and acknowledge that everything in the universe is ruled by harmonic laws whose wisdom and remarkable providence blow our minds. It would consequently be too presumptuous on our side to believe that God should have governed the world in a different way for this would mean that we would have done better if in God’s shoes. Those are the souls whose pride and ingratitude are punished by God, sending them to inferior worlds that they will only leave when bending their heads under the hurting hand, acknowledging its power. God does not impose such recognition on them. God wants the recognition to be voluntary and born out of observation and that is the reason why God let them be free, waiting for their return after being convinced by the very mistakes that attract them.
To that, some say: “We understand that God did not create the Spirits perfect but if they were all supposed to be submitted to the law of progress couldn’t God have at least created them happy, without the need to undertake all miseries of life? Rigorously speaking peoples suffering can be understood since it could be deserved; but the animals suffer as well; they devour one another; the large prey the small. There are some whose life is just suffering. Would they also have the free-will as we do and have the demerit?”
That is still sometimes the objection that is made and to which the arguments above may serve well as a response. Yet, we will add a few considerations.
About the first point above we say that total happiness is the result of perfection. Considering that the miseries of life are the product of imperfection then the creation of totally happy Spirits would be the same as the creation of perfect Spirits.
The animal issue requires some development though. They bear the intelligent principle, and that is incontestable. What is the nature of that principle? What is the relationship to mankind? Is it stationary in each species or is it progressive moving from one specie to the next? What is the limit of progress to the animal? Does it walk side by side with mankind or is it the same principle that improves and rehearses life in inferior species to receive later new faculties and go through a human transformation? These are so many other questions that are still unresolved today and if the veil that covers such mystery has not yet been unveiled by the Spirits it is because it would be premature since the human species is not yet mature enough to be shone upon by the whole light. It is true that several Spirits gave theories about it but none of them has a truly authentic character to be accepted definitely. Therefore and until the right time comes they cannot be accepted but as individual systems. It is only the general agreement that can consecrate them for that is the only and true control of the Spirits’ teachings. That is why we hardly accept everything that they teach individually as irrefutable truths.
A given principle, whatever it is, only becomes authentic to us by the universality of the teachings, that is, by identical instructions given everywhere through mediums that are strange to one another, not suffering the same influences and notably exempt of obsessions and assisted by good and enlightened Spirits. By enlightened Spirits we mean those that demonstrate their superiority by the elevation of their thoughts and the far reaching teachings, never contradicting themselves and never saying anything that can be dismissed by rigorous logic. That is how the several parts of the Doctrine found in The Spirits’ Book and in The Mediums’ Book were controlled.
The issue of the animals does not fall in that category yet and that is why we have not resolved it yet. Until more serious verification one should not accept theories that may be given about the subject but with reservation and wait for its confirmation or denial.
Generally speaking it is never too much to show prudence before new theories about which we could have some illusions. That is how we have seen many of them since the origin of Spiritism that were prematurely published only to enjoy an ephemeral life! That is what is going to happen to all of those that only have an individual character and that were not run by the control of general agreement.
By receiving communications from about a thousand serious Spiritist centers spread around the world, we are in the position to see the principles about which there was general agreement. That was the boundary that guided us up until now and will equally guide in the new fields that Spiritism is called to explore. That is how we have been observing for some time communications both from France and abroad with a trend to enter a new path through revelations of a totally special nature.
Such revelations, many times through concealed words, went unnoticed to many people that received them and others considered themselves the only ones to have received them.
When considered in isolation they would have no value to us but their agreement give them high importance that will have to be assessed later when the time to give them publicity is right. Without such a general agreement who could hold the flag of truth? Reason and logic are no doubt the first means of control to be used. In many cases that is good enough but when it is about an important principle, about the arrival of a new idea, it would be presumptuous to believe in ones’ infallibility for the appreciation of things. Besides, that is one of the distinct characters of the new revelation, that of being done everywhere and at the same time. That is what happens to the several parts of the Doctrine. Experience is there to demonstrate that all adventurous theories given by systematic and pseudo-wise Spirits were always isolated and localized. None of them became general withstanding the control of the general agreement. Several of them were even ridiculed, an evident demonstration that they were not right. Universal control is the guarantee to the future unity of the Doctrine.
The above digression was a little detached from the subject but useful to make our procedure clear with respect to new theories related to Spiritism and that is far from having given the last word about everything. We never issue them unless blessed by the sanction that we have just described and that is the reason why some people, a bit too impatient, are surprised by our silence in certain cases.
Since we know that each thing will come at its own time we do not yield to any pressure, from any source, for we know the fate of those that want to go too fast with their overconfidence in themselves and in their auto-illumination. We don’t want to harvest the fruit before it is ripe but we may all be assured that when it is ripe we will not allow it to fall down.
Having made that point there isn’t much to say about the proposed issue although the fundamental point cannot be resolved yet. It is incontestable that the animals suffer but is it rational to assign such suffering to the improvidence of the Creator or a lack of benevolence on God’s part for the fact that it escapes our intelligence like the utility of the homework escapes the young student? Side by side with such apparent iniquity don’t we see the shine God’s solicitude towards the tiniest creatures? Aren’t the animals gifted by means of preservation adequate to the environments where they live? Aren’t their skins more or less appropriate to their climate zones? Their nutritional organization, offensive as well as defensive weapons, aren’t they proportional to the obstacles and enemies? Before such numerous facts whose consequences only escape the eyes of the materialist, is it truly founded to say that there is no Providence towards them?
Certainly not although our vision is too limited to assess the whole. Our point of view, restricted to the small circle around us, only allow us to see apparent irregularities, but when we elevate our thoughts above the earthly horizon those irregularities fade away before the general harmony.
What impresses the most that localized vision is the mutual destruction of the animals! Considering that God’s wisdom and benevolence is demonstrated in everything that we can see one must admit that the same wisdom governs what we cannot see. As a matter of fact we don’t use to maximize that importance but by the importance attributed to matter, always by force of the narrow stand point from which humanity observes. It is definitely only the envelope that gets destroyed while the intelligent principle is not annihilated. The Spirit is as much untouched by the destruction of the body as a person is about one’s clothes. That destruction of the temporary envelopes is necessary to the formation and maintenance of new envelopes that are formed by the same elements but the intelligent principle is not touched be it with mankind as well as with the animals.
There still remains the suffering that sometimes is caused by the destruction of those envelopes. Spiritism teaches us and demonstrates that people’s suffering is useful to their moral advancement. Who can tell that the one endured by the animals don’t have the same utility as well; that it is not in their own right and following a certain order of things a cause of progress? It is true that this is no more than a hypothesis but at least it is based on God’s attributes: justice and goodness while the others are its very denial.
After a debate that took place at the Spiritist Society of Paris about the creation of perfect beings the Spirit Erastus dictated the communication transcribed below.
Considering that one cannot admit God without the infinite of perfections, without a sovereign goodness and justice that incessantly shows His solicitude to His the creatures under our eyes, then realizing that such solicitude could not have failed at the creation of the Spirits.
The earthly mankind is like a child whose limited vision does not go beyond the small circle of the present and cannot assess the utility of certain things. Humanity must then bow before what is still beyond their reach. However, since God gave them intelligence as a guide it is not prohibited to try to understand and humbly stop at the limit of what cannot be transposed. Man can only establish more or less likely systems about all things maintained in the secrets of God. The safe criteria to judge which of those systems is closer to the truth is the attributes of the Divinity. Every theory, every doctrine, philosophical or religious, that tended to destroy a single one of those attributes would fail at the foundation and would be, for that very reason, stained by error, from what follows that the safer system is the one that better accommodate those attributes.
Since God is all about wisdom and goodness He could not have created evil as the counterpart of good. Had God made evil a necessary law He would have voluntarily weakened the power of good for something that is bad can only change good and not strengthen that.
God established laws that are entirely good and just. Man would be perfectly happy if he observed those laws scrupulously but the tiniest infringement of those laws cause a disturbance whose effect is felt and whose result is all sorts of vicissitudes. Hence man is the very cause of evil for his disobedience to the laws of God. God created man free to follow his path. The one that followed the wrong path did it out of his own choice and cannot accuse but oneself for the consequences that result from that. Given the destiny of Earth we only see the Spirits of that category and that made us believe that evil is a necessity. If we could embrace the whole set of worlds we would see that the Spirits that remained on the good path passed through the several phases of their existences in conditions that are completely different and since evil is not general it could not be indispensable. But there still remains the issue of knowing why God hasn’t created the Spirits already perfect. This question is analogous to this one: Why the child is not born completely developed, with all aptitudes, knowledge and experience of the adult age? There is a general law that governs all beings of creation, animate as well as inanimate. It is the law of progress. The Spirits are submitted to that law by the force of things without which the exception would have disturbed the general harmony and God wanted to give us an abbreviated example through the progression of infancy. However since evil is not a necessity in the order of things because it only exists to the prevaricator Spirits the law of progress absolutely does not oblige mankind to go through that row to get to good. That law only forces the Spirit to go through the state of intellectual inferiority or, in other words, the spiritual infancy.
Created simple and ignorant and for that very reason imperfect or better, incomplete, they have to acquire science and experience by themselves and their own activity, something that they cannot have from the beginning. If God had created them perfect they would have been gifted with the universal knowledge from the very beginning of their creation. They would have been exempted from any intellectual work and at the same time precluded from all the activity that is required to acquire that knowledge and to which they concur as incarnate or discarnate souls for the physical betterment of the worlds, a work that is no longer in the hands of superior Spirits that are only in charge of the moral improvement. Their own inferiority makes them an essential engine in the general works of creation.
On another hand, had God created them infallible, that is exempt from the possibility of making mistakes, they would be fatally pushed towards good like those well engineered mechanisms that automatically do precision work. They would be like those persons that are born wealthy and believe to be exempted from doing anything. But then there would not be any free-will and consequently no independence. God wanted them to have the merit of their own work by submitting them to the law of elected progress in order to deserve the merit of their work and consequently be rewarded accordingly with the satisfaction of having conquered their position on their own.
Without the application of the universal law of progress to all beings there should be another order of things, completely different. There is no doubt that God had the option but why it was not done? Would it have been better in a different way? If so, God would have made a mistake! Well, if God can make a mistake it means that God is not perfect hence it is not God. Since God cannot be conceived without the infinite perfection one must admit that God did what was best. If we are not able yet to understand God’s reasons we will certainly be later on in a more advanced state. While we wait if we cannot probe the causes we can observe the effects and acknowledge that everything in the universe is ruled by harmonic laws whose wisdom and remarkable providence blow our minds. It would consequently be too presumptuous on our side to believe that God should have governed the world in a different way for this would mean that we would have done better if in God’s shoes. Those are the souls whose pride and ingratitude are punished by God, sending them to inferior worlds that they will only leave when bending their heads under the hurting hand, acknowledging its power. God does not impose such recognition on them. God wants the recognition to be voluntary and born out of observation and that is the reason why God let them be free, waiting for their return after being convinced by the very mistakes that attract them.
To that, some say: “We understand that God did not create the Spirits perfect but if they were all supposed to be submitted to the law of progress couldn’t God have at least created them happy, without the need to undertake all miseries of life? Rigorously speaking peoples suffering can be understood since it could be deserved; but the animals suffer as well; they devour one another; the large prey the small. There are some whose life is just suffering. Would they also have the free-will as we do and have the demerit?”
That is still sometimes the objection that is made and to which the arguments above may serve well as a response. Yet, we will add a few considerations.
About the first point above we say that total happiness is the result of perfection. Considering that the miseries of life are the product of imperfection then the creation of totally happy Spirits would be the same as the creation of perfect Spirits.
The animal issue requires some development though. They bear the intelligent principle, and that is incontestable. What is the nature of that principle? What is the relationship to mankind? Is it stationary in each species or is it progressive moving from one specie to the next? What is the limit of progress to the animal? Does it walk side by side with mankind or is it the same principle that improves and rehearses life in inferior species to receive later new faculties and go through a human transformation? These are so many other questions that are still unresolved today and if the veil that covers such mystery has not yet been unveiled by the Spirits it is because it would be premature since the human species is not yet mature enough to be shone upon by the whole light. It is true that several Spirits gave theories about it but none of them has a truly authentic character to be accepted definitely. Therefore and until the right time comes they cannot be accepted but as individual systems. It is only the general agreement that can consecrate them for that is the only and true control of the Spirits’ teachings. That is why we hardly accept everything that they teach individually as irrefutable truths.
A given principle, whatever it is, only becomes authentic to us by the universality of the teachings, that is, by identical instructions given everywhere through mediums that are strange to one another, not suffering the same influences and notably exempt of obsessions and assisted by good and enlightened Spirits. By enlightened Spirits we mean those that demonstrate their superiority by the elevation of their thoughts and the far reaching teachings, never contradicting themselves and never saying anything that can be dismissed by rigorous logic. That is how the several parts of the Doctrine found in The Spirits’ Book and in The Mediums’ Book were controlled.
The issue of the animals does not fall in that category yet and that is why we have not resolved it yet. Until more serious verification one should not accept theories that may be given about the subject but with reservation and wait for its confirmation or denial.
Generally speaking it is never too much to show prudence before new theories about which we could have some illusions. That is how we have seen many of them since the origin of Spiritism that were prematurely published only to enjoy an ephemeral life! That is what is going to happen to all of those that only have an individual character and that were not run by the control of general agreement.
By receiving communications from about a thousand serious Spiritist centers spread around the world, we are in the position to see the principles about which there was general agreement. That was the boundary that guided us up until now and will equally guide in the new fields that Spiritism is called to explore. That is how we have been observing for some time communications both from France and abroad with a trend to enter a new path through revelations of a totally special nature.
Such revelations, many times through concealed words, went unnoticed to many people that received them and others considered themselves the only ones to have received them.
When considered in isolation they would have no value to us but their agreement give them high importance that will have to be assessed later when the time to give them publicity is right. Without such a general agreement who could hold the flag of truth? Reason and logic are no doubt the first means of control to be used. In many cases that is good enough but when it is about an important principle, about the arrival of a new idea, it would be presumptuous to believe in ones’ infallibility for the appreciation of things. Besides, that is one of the distinct characters of the new revelation, that of being done everywhere and at the same time. That is what happens to the several parts of the Doctrine. Experience is there to demonstrate that all adventurous theories given by systematic and pseudo-wise Spirits were always isolated and localized. None of them became general withstanding the control of the general agreement. Several of them were even ridiculed, an evident demonstration that they were not right. Universal control is the guarantee to the future unity of the Doctrine.
The above digression was a little detached from the subject but useful to make our procedure clear with respect to new theories related to Spiritism and that is far from having given the last word about everything. We never issue them unless blessed by the sanction that we have just described and that is the reason why some people, a bit too impatient, are surprised by our silence in certain cases.
Since we know that each thing will come at its own time we do not yield to any pressure, from any source, for we know the fate of those that want to go too fast with their overconfidence in themselves and in their auto-illumination. We don’t want to harvest the fruit before it is ripe but we may all be assured that when it is ripe we will not allow it to fall down.
Having made that point there isn’t much to say about the proposed issue although the fundamental point cannot be resolved yet. It is incontestable that the animals suffer but is it rational to assign such suffering to the improvidence of the Creator or a lack of benevolence on God’s part for the fact that it escapes our intelligence like the utility of the homework escapes the young student? Side by side with such apparent iniquity don’t we see the shine God’s solicitude towards the tiniest creatures? Aren’t the animals gifted by means of preservation adequate to the environments where they live? Aren’t their skins more or less appropriate to their climate zones? Their nutritional organization, offensive as well as defensive weapons, aren’t they proportional to the obstacles and enemies? Before such numerous facts whose consequences only escape the eyes of the materialist, is it truly founded to say that there is no Providence towards them?
Certainly not although our vision is too limited to assess the whole. Our point of view, restricted to the small circle around us, only allow us to see apparent irregularities, but when we elevate our thoughts above the earthly horizon those irregularities fade away before the general harmony.
What impresses the most that localized vision is the mutual destruction of the animals! Considering that God’s wisdom and benevolence is demonstrated in everything that we can see one must admit that the same wisdom governs what we cannot see. As a matter of fact we don’t use to maximize that importance but by the importance attributed to matter, always by force of the narrow stand point from which humanity observes. It is definitely only the envelope that gets destroyed while the intelligent principle is not annihilated. The Spirit is as much untouched by the destruction of the body as a person is about one’s clothes. That destruction of the temporary envelopes is necessary to the formation and maintenance of new envelopes that are formed by the same elements but the intelligent principle is not touched be it with mankind as well as with the animals.
There still remains the suffering that sometimes is caused by the destruction of those envelopes. Spiritism teaches us and demonstrates that people’s suffering is useful to their moral advancement. Who can tell that the one endured by the animals don’t have the same utility as well; that it is not in their own right and following a certain order of things a cause of progress? It is true that this is no more than a hypothesis but at least it is based on God’s attributes: justice and goodness while the others are its very denial.
After a debate that took place at the Spiritist Society of Paris about the creation of perfect beings the Spirit Erastus dictated the communication transcribed below.
(Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, February 5th, 1864, medium Mr. D’Ambel)
Why hasn’t God created all beings perfect? For the very reason of the law of progress. It is easy to understand the logic behind that law. The one that is marching is in the movement, that is, in the law of human activity; the one that is not progressing, that is stationary in essence, that one incontestably is not part of the progression or human hierarchy. I explain myself. A person that is born in a more or less elevated position is a given native situation or state. Well! It is certain that if that person lived her entire life without changes that resulted from her own actions or the actions of others such a life would be declared monotonous, boring, annoying, in a word, unbearable! I must add that such a person would be right about that considering that good is only good with respect to something that is inferior. That is such a positive fact that if you place a person in an earthly paradise where there is no further progress at some point in time that person will see life as something intolerable and that dwelling a horrible hell. The consequence of that is that progress or the push forward is the immutable law of the worlds, that is, that every created Spirit will be inevitable submitted to that great and sublime law of life. Consequently that is also the law of nature itself. There is only one and there could not be but one perfect being: God! Now, asking the Supreme Being for the creation of perfect creatures would be the same as requesting the creation of something similar and equal to God. Isn’t such proposal condemned by anticipation? Oh humankind! Why always asking the whys of certain insoluble things or those that are above human comprehension? Remember that only God can stay and live in his gigantic immobility. Yet God is the Supreme Lord of all things, the alpha and omega of the whole life. Ah, believe me my children, you should never try to lift the veil that covers that big mystery that even the greatest Spirits of creation are afraid of discussing. As for myself, humble pioneer of the initiation, all I can tell you is that immobility is one of God’s attributes, or Creator’s attribute, and that mankind and everything else that is created has mobility by attribute. Understand this if you can or wait for the time of a more intelligible answer that is more in line with your understanding.
That is the only part of the issue that I handle for I wanted to demonstrate to you that I was not unaware of your discussion. As for the rest I refer you to what was said since it seems to me that all share the same opinion. I will soon talk about the other cases that were mentioned (Poitiers’ cases).
Erastus
Why hasn’t God created all beings perfect? For the very reason of the law of progress. It is easy to understand the logic behind that law. The one that is marching is in the movement, that is, in the law of human activity; the one that is not progressing, that is stationary in essence, that one incontestably is not part of the progression or human hierarchy. I explain myself. A person that is born in a more or less elevated position is a given native situation or state. Well! It is certain that if that person lived her entire life without changes that resulted from her own actions or the actions of others such a life would be declared monotonous, boring, annoying, in a word, unbearable! I must add that such a person would be right about that considering that good is only good with respect to something that is inferior. That is such a positive fact that if you place a person in an earthly paradise where there is no further progress at some point in time that person will see life as something intolerable and that dwelling a horrible hell. The consequence of that is that progress or the push forward is the immutable law of the worlds, that is, that every created Spirit will be inevitable submitted to that great and sublime law of life. Consequently that is also the law of nature itself. There is only one and there could not be but one perfect being: God! Now, asking the Supreme Being for the creation of perfect creatures would be the same as requesting the creation of something similar and equal to God. Isn’t such proposal condemned by anticipation? Oh humankind! Why always asking the whys of certain insoluble things or those that are above human comprehension? Remember that only God can stay and live in his gigantic immobility. Yet God is the Supreme Lord of all things, the alpha and omega of the whole life. Ah, believe me my children, you should never try to lift the veil that covers that big mystery that even the greatest Spirits of creation are afraid of discussing. As for myself, humble pioneer of the initiation, all I can tell you is that immobility is one of God’s attributes, or Creator’s attribute, and that mankind and everything else that is created has mobility by attribute. Understand this if you can or wait for the time of a more intelligible answer that is more in line with your understanding.
That is the only part of the issue that I handle for I wanted to demonstrate to you that I was not unaware of your discussion. As for the rest I refer you to what was said since it seems to me that all share the same opinion. I will soon talk about the other cases that were mentioned (Poitiers’ cases).
Erastus
One of our corresponding members from Maine-et-Loire, Dr. C…, sends us the following:
“Here we have a curious example of mediumistic faculty applied to paining, manifested many years before Spiritism was known and even before the dancing tables.
About three weeks ago I was explaining Spiritism and the relationships between humans and the invisible world to a lawyer of some friends of mine in Bressuire, a person that totally ignored the basics of the Doctrine. He then told me the story below as if holding a strong relationship with what I was explaining to him:
In 1849, he said, I visited Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvres village and its two monasteries with a friend, one of them for men the other for women. We were kindly welcomed by Father Dallain, superior of the first one and that also had authority upon the second. After having visited both convents he said:
Now, gentlemen, I want to show you one of the most curious things of ladies monastery. He then sent for an album in which we enjoyed watching water paintings of great perfection. The motives were flowers, landscapes and maritime views. He then said:
These such well collected paintings were made by one of our young religious ladies who is blind. And he then said this about a beautiful flower arrangement with a blue button of rose: Some time ago and in the presence of the Marquee de La Rochejaquelein and several other visitors I called the blind religious lady and asked her to paint something on a table nearby. She was given paint, paper, pencils and brushes and immediately started this arrangement that you see. During her work an object was interposed between her eyes and the painting, sometimes a cardboard, sometimes a clipboard but her hand continued moving with the same calm and same regularity. Someone mentioned that the arrangement was a bit too narrow and she replied: That is fine. I will make a button to come out of that void. While she worked with that objective the carmine color was replaced by the blue. She did not notice the change and that is why you see a blue button of rose. Father Dallain was remarkably knowledgeable and intelligent as well as tremendously charitable. I have never met someone else that had inspired in me more sympathy and veneration.”
In our opinion the fact does not unequivocally demonstrate a mediumistic action. Given the language of the young lady it is clear that she saw something otherwise she would not have said: I will make a button to come out of this void. But it is also unequivocally certain that she did not see through her eyes considering that she continued the work despite the fact that she had the eyes covered by the obstacle before them. She acted consciously and not mechanically, like a medium. Hence, it seems evident that she was guided by the second vision. She saw through the eyes of the soul, abstraction made of the eyes of the body. It is possible that she was in a kind of awaken somnambulistic state.
Similar phenomena have been observed many times but people were satisfied by considering them remarkable. The cause could not have been discovered because the phenomenon is essentially associated to the soul and it was necessary to recognize the existence of the soul first. Even after admitting that it was not good enough for it lacked the knowledge of the properties of the soul and the laws that govern its relationships with matter.
By revealing the existence of the perispirit Spiritism gave us the knowledge of the physiology of the Spirits, if we can say so. Therefore it gave us the key to a number of incomprehensible phenomena that in the lack of better reasons were qualified as supernatural by some or of a bizarre nature by others.
Can nature present bizarre things? No, because bizarre is a caprice. Since nature is the works of God it must not show caprices without which nothing would be stable in the universe. If there is a rule without exception it must certainly be the one that governs the works of the Creator; exceptions would mean the destruction of the universal harmony. All phenomena are connected to a general law and something only looks bizarre to us because we are observing from a single point whereas if we consider the whole we will acknowledge that the irregularity of that point is only apparent and depends on our limited point of view. Having said that we say that the phenomenon above is neither wonderful nor exception. That is what we are going to explain now.
Given our current state of knowledge we cannot conceive the soul in its fluidic, perispiritual envelope. The intelligent principle completely escapes our analysis. We only know it by its manifestations that take place with the support of the perispirit. It is through the perispirit that the soul acts, perceives and transmits. Once detached from the corporeal envelope the soul or Spirit is still a complex being.
According to experience, the theory teaches us that the vision of the soul, as with all other perceptions, is an attribute of the whole being. In the body it is circumscribed to the organ of sight and that is why we need the help of light and everything that is in light’s path intercepts it. That is not what happens to the Spirit to whom there is no obscurity or opacity.
The comparison below may help to understand that difference. In day light the human body receives light rays from all sides; inside that luminous fluid the visual horizon extends everywhere around. If the person is placed inside a box with a small aperture everything will be darkness around with the exception of the point through which light is allowed in. The vision of an incarnate Spirit is like the latter. The vision of a discarnate Spirit is like the former. Such a comparison is fair from the point of view of the effect but it is not fair when taking into account the cause since the source of light is not the same to the corporeal creature as it is to the Spirit, or even better said, it is not the same light that allows them to see.
Therefore, the blind person above saw through the soul and not the eyes. That is way the obstacles placed between her eyes and the painting did not bother her more than to a clairvoyant person that had a transparent crystal placed before her eyes and the vision. That is also the reason why she could work both during the day and at night. The spiritual fluid radiated around her, penetrating everything, bringing the image to her soul rather than to her retina. In that case, someone may question, how come she did not notice the color change? First it is possible that she was thoroughly concentrated in filling out the place where she wanted to have the flower. Besides the vision of the soul does not attend the same mechanism of that of the body hence there could be effects that we don’t realize. Furthermore we must notice also that our colors are produced by the refraction of our light. Since the properties of the perispirit are different from those of our environmental surroundings it is likely that the refraction in that case did not provoke the same effects; that the colors may not cause the same impressions as they do onto an incarnate soul. Thus, she could well see pinkish in her mind something that looked blue to us. The replacement of colors is a well-known phenomenon in ordinary visions. The most important fact is to attest the vision without the help of the eyes.
From the above it can be seen that such a manifestation does not imply a mediumistic action but at the same time it does not exclude the assistance of a strange Spirit in certain cases. The young lady could then be or not be a medium and that could be revealed by a more careful study.
A blind person enjoying such a faculty would be a precious object of observation. One would need, however, to know well the theory of the soul, the perispirit and consequently somnambulism and Spiritism. These things were not known in those days and even today it would not be in places where they are considered devilish that they could be studied. Neither could it be done in places where the very existence of the soul is denied.
There will certainly come a day when people will realize that there is a spiritual physics as people are starting to acknowledge the existence of a spiritual medicine!
“Here we have a curious example of mediumistic faculty applied to paining, manifested many years before Spiritism was known and even before the dancing tables.
About three weeks ago I was explaining Spiritism and the relationships between humans and the invisible world to a lawyer of some friends of mine in Bressuire, a person that totally ignored the basics of the Doctrine. He then told me the story below as if holding a strong relationship with what I was explaining to him:
In 1849, he said, I visited Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvres village and its two monasteries with a friend, one of them for men the other for women. We were kindly welcomed by Father Dallain, superior of the first one and that also had authority upon the second. After having visited both convents he said:
Now, gentlemen, I want to show you one of the most curious things of ladies monastery. He then sent for an album in which we enjoyed watching water paintings of great perfection. The motives were flowers, landscapes and maritime views. He then said:
These such well collected paintings were made by one of our young religious ladies who is blind. And he then said this about a beautiful flower arrangement with a blue button of rose: Some time ago and in the presence of the Marquee de La Rochejaquelein and several other visitors I called the blind religious lady and asked her to paint something on a table nearby. She was given paint, paper, pencils and brushes and immediately started this arrangement that you see. During her work an object was interposed between her eyes and the painting, sometimes a cardboard, sometimes a clipboard but her hand continued moving with the same calm and same regularity. Someone mentioned that the arrangement was a bit too narrow and she replied: That is fine. I will make a button to come out of that void. While she worked with that objective the carmine color was replaced by the blue. She did not notice the change and that is why you see a blue button of rose. Father Dallain was remarkably knowledgeable and intelligent as well as tremendously charitable. I have never met someone else that had inspired in me more sympathy and veneration.”
In our opinion the fact does not unequivocally demonstrate a mediumistic action. Given the language of the young lady it is clear that she saw something otherwise she would not have said: I will make a button to come out of this void. But it is also unequivocally certain that she did not see through her eyes considering that she continued the work despite the fact that she had the eyes covered by the obstacle before them. She acted consciously and not mechanically, like a medium. Hence, it seems evident that she was guided by the second vision. She saw through the eyes of the soul, abstraction made of the eyes of the body. It is possible that she was in a kind of awaken somnambulistic state.
Similar phenomena have been observed many times but people were satisfied by considering them remarkable. The cause could not have been discovered because the phenomenon is essentially associated to the soul and it was necessary to recognize the existence of the soul first. Even after admitting that it was not good enough for it lacked the knowledge of the properties of the soul and the laws that govern its relationships with matter.
By revealing the existence of the perispirit Spiritism gave us the knowledge of the physiology of the Spirits, if we can say so. Therefore it gave us the key to a number of incomprehensible phenomena that in the lack of better reasons were qualified as supernatural by some or of a bizarre nature by others.
Can nature present bizarre things? No, because bizarre is a caprice. Since nature is the works of God it must not show caprices without which nothing would be stable in the universe. If there is a rule without exception it must certainly be the one that governs the works of the Creator; exceptions would mean the destruction of the universal harmony. All phenomena are connected to a general law and something only looks bizarre to us because we are observing from a single point whereas if we consider the whole we will acknowledge that the irregularity of that point is only apparent and depends on our limited point of view. Having said that we say that the phenomenon above is neither wonderful nor exception. That is what we are going to explain now.
Given our current state of knowledge we cannot conceive the soul in its fluidic, perispiritual envelope. The intelligent principle completely escapes our analysis. We only know it by its manifestations that take place with the support of the perispirit. It is through the perispirit that the soul acts, perceives and transmits. Once detached from the corporeal envelope the soul or Spirit is still a complex being.
According to experience, the theory teaches us that the vision of the soul, as with all other perceptions, is an attribute of the whole being. In the body it is circumscribed to the organ of sight and that is why we need the help of light and everything that is in light’s path intercepts it. That is not what happens to the Spirit to whom there is no obscurity or opacity.
The comparison below may help to understand that difference. In day light the human body receives light rays from all sides; inside that luminous fluid the visual horizon extends everywhere around. If the person is placed inside a box with a small aperture everything will be darkness around with the exception of the point through which light is allowed in. The vision of an incarnate Spirit is like the latter. The vision of a discarnate Spirit is like the former. Such a comparison is fair from the point of view of the effect but it is not fair when taking into account the cause since the source of light is not the same to the corporeal creature as it is to the Spirit, or even better said, it is not the same light that allows them to see.
Therefore, the blind person above saw through the soul and not the eyes. That is way the obstacles placed between her eyes and the painting did not bother her more than to a clairvoyant person that had a transparent crystal placed before her eyes and the vision. That is also the reason why she could work both during the day and at night. The spiritual fluid radiated around her, penetrating everything, bringing the image to her soul rather than to her retina. In that case, someone may question, how come she did not notice the color change? First it is possible that she was thoroughly concentrated in filling out the place where she wanted to have the flower. Besides the vision of the soul does not attend the same mechanism of that of the body hence there could be effects that we don’t realize. Furthermore we must notice also that our colors are produced by the refraction of our light. Since the properties of the perispirit are different from those of our environmental surroundings it is likely that the refraction in that case did not provoke the same effects; that the colors may not cause the same impressions as they do onto an incarnate soul. Thus, she could well see pinkish in her mind something that looked blue to us. The replacement of colors is a well-known phenomenon in ordinary visions. The most important fact is to attest the vision without the help of the eyes.
From the above it can be seen that such a manifestation does not imply a mediumistic action but at the same time it does not exclude the assistance of a strange Spirit in certain cases. The young lady could then be or not be a medium and that could be revealed by a more careful study.
A blind person enjoying such a faculty would be a precious object of observation. One would need, however, to know well the theory of the soul, the perispirit and consequently somnambulism and Spiritism. These things were not known in those days and even today it would not be in places where they are considered devilish that they could be studied. Neither could it be done in places where the very existence of the soul is denied.
There will certainly come a day when people will realize that there is a spiritual physics as people are starting to acknowledge the existence of a spiritual medicine!
Varieties
We personally know a lady that is a medium gifted with a remarkable faculty of tiptology. She easily obtains, and something that is rare almost constantly, accurate things like name of places and persons in several languages, dates and private circumstances before which disbelief has been confounded more than once.
The lady, entirely devoted to the cause of Spiritism, dedicates all of her spare time to the practice of her mediumship with the object of propaganda and that with absolute selflessness particularly considering that her position and fortune places her closer to mediocrity. Since Spiritism is something very serious to her she always starts her work with a prayer said with great reverence, soliciting the assistance of the good Spirits and asking God to keep the bad ones away. Here is how she ends: - “If I am tempted to abuse this God given faculty by any means I ask you to have it removed from me instead of allowing it to be veered off from its providential objective.”
One day a rich foreigner – from whom we heard this story – sought that lady asking her for a communication. He had no idea about Spiritism and even less about the belief. He then put his wallet on the table and said: “Madam, you have here ten thousand francs, they are yours if you tell me the name of the person that I am thinking now.” That is sufficient to demonstrate the level of knowledge that he had about the Doctrine. The lady then made him see what every true Spiritist would have done in similar circumstances. Well, soon after he left she received much more difficult and complicated communications to other persons than the one that he had asked.
Such occurrence should have been a demonstration of sincerity and good faith of the medium, as we told him, because charlatans always have resources at their disposal when making money is involved. But other teachings may come from that too and of a different importance. The Spirits wanted to demonstrate to him that it is not money that make them speak when they do not wish to; besides, they demonstrated that if they did not respond to the question it was not for incapacity on their side for they responded to more difficult questions to persons that offered nothing. The lesson was greater still to the medium; it demonstrated its absolute impotence without the help of the Spirits and teach her humility because if the Spirits had served her, if the person’s will were sufficient to make them speak it was then the case of making it happen now or never.
That is a positive demonstration of the support we mentioned in the February last issue of the Spiritist Review regarding Mr. Home and about the possibility that the mediums’ faculty may fail them at the very moment when it was necessary.
Someone that has a talent and explore that talent is always certain that it will be available because it is inherent to the person but mediumship is not a talent; it only exists thanks to the help of third parties. If those deny support there is no mediumship. The aptitude may remain but its exercise is nulled. A medium without the assistance of the Spirits is like a violin without the violinist. The gentleman above was surprised that since he had come to be convinced the Spirits did not yield to that. We respond that if he can be convinced then he will be convinced by other means that will cost him nothing. The Spirits did not want him to say that he had been convinced but to a high price because if money were necessary to be convinced what would be the fate of those that cannot pay? Mediumship is not a privilege so that it can be found in the humblest dwellings. It is everywhere so that everybody, rich and poor, may find the consolation of communicating with their relatives and friends from beyond the grave.
The Spirits did not want him to be convinced that way because his opinion and that of his friends would have been falsified by the shine of gold regarding the essentially moral and religious character of Spiritism.
They did not want it in the very interest of the medium and of the mediums in general whose greed would have been super excited by such a result because they would have told themselves that if such a success was achieved in those circumstances then the same could happen on other occasions.
This was not the first time that similar offers were made; that prizes are offered but always unsuccessfully, considering that the Spirits are not servers and do not attend the highest bidder.
If that lady were successful would she have accepted or refused? We don’t know because ten thousand francs are very inviting, particularly in certain situations. In any case the temptation was great. And who knows if the refusal wouldn’t have been followed by regret that would have attenuated the merit of the achievement?
Notice that in her prayer the lady asks God to remove her faculty instead of allowing it to be used to veer off from its providential objective. Well, then? Her prayer was heard; her mediumship was subtracted for that special case so as to spare her the danger of temptation and all the unfortunate consequences that would have followed, first to herself and also for the bad effect that it would have produced.
But it is not only against greed that the mediums must be forearmed. Since there are mediums in all echelons of Society their majority is above such temptation. There is, however, a much bigger danger that all are exposed to: it is pride that loses such a large number. It is against that obstacle that the most beautiful faculties are shattered. Material selflessness is of no benefit if not followed by moral altruism. Humility, devotion, selflessness and abnegation are the qualities of the medium beloved by the Spirits.
The lady, entirely devoted to the cause of Spiritism, dedicates all of her spare time to the practice of her mediumship with the object of propaganda and that with absolute selflessness particularly considering that her position and fortune places her closer to mediocrity. Since Spiritism is something very serious to her she always starts her work with a prayer said with great reverence, soliciting the assistance of the good Spirits and asking God to keep the bad ones away. Here is how she ends: - “If I am tempted to abuse this God given faculty by any means I ask you to have it removed from me instead of allowing it to be veered off from its providential objective.”
One day a rich foreigner – from whom we heard this story – sought that lady asking her for a communication. He had no idea about Spiritism and even less about the belief. He then put his wallet on the table and said: “Madam, you have here ten thousand francs, they are yours if you tell me the name of the person that I am thinking now.” That is sufficient to demonstrate the level of knowledge that he had about the Doctrine. The lady then made him see what every true Spiritist would have done in similar circumstances. Well, soon after he left she received much more difficult and complicated communications to other persons than the one that he had asked.
Such occurrence should have been a demonstration of sincerity and good faith of the medium, as we told him, because charlatans always have resources at their disposal when making money is involved. But other teachings may come from that too and of a different importance. The Spirits wanted to demonstrate to him that it is not money that make them speak when they do not wish to; besides, they demonstrated that if they did not respond to the question it was not for incapacity on their side for they responded to more difficult questions to persons that offered nothing. The lesson was greater still to the medium; it demonstrated its absolute impotence without the help of the Spirits and teach her humility because if the Spirits had served her, if the person’s will were sufficient to make them speak it was then the case of making it happen now or never.
That is a positive demonstration of the support we mentioned in the February last issue of the Spiritist Review regarding Mr. Home and about the possibility that the mediums’ faculty may fail them at the very moment when it was necessary.
Someone that has a talent and explore that talent is always certain that it will be available because it is inherent to the person but mediumship is not a talent; it only exists thanks to the help of third parties. If those deny support there is no mediumship. The aptitude may remain but its exercise is nulled. A medium without the assistance of the Spirits is like a violin without the violinist. The gentleman above was surprised that since he had come to be convinced the Spirits did not yield to that. We respond that if he can be convinced then he will be convinced by other means that will cost him nothing. The Spirits did not want him to say that he had been convinced but to a high price because if money were necessary to be convinced what would be the fate of those that cannot pay? Mediumship is not a privilege so that it can be found in the humblest dwellings. It is everywhere so that everybody, rich and poor, may find the consolation of communicating with their relatives and friends from beyond the grave.
The Spirits did not want him to be convinced that way because his opinion and that of his friends would have been falsified by the shine of gold regarding the essentially moral and religious character of Spiritism.
They did not want it in the very interest of the medium and of the mediums in general whose greed would have been super excited by such a result because they would have told themselves that if such a success was achieved in those circumstances then the same could happen on other occasions.
This was not the first time that similar offers were made; that prizes are offered but always unsuccessfully, considering that the Spirits are not servers and do not attend the highest bidder.
If that lady were successful would she have accepted or refused? We don’t know because ten thousand francs are very inviting, particularly in certain situations. In any case the temptation was great. And who knows if the refusal wouldn’t have been followed by regret that would have attenuated the merit of the achievement?
Notice that in her prayer the lady asks God to remove her faculty instead of allowing it to be used to veer off from its providential objective. Well, then? Her prayer was heard; her mediumship was subtracted for that special case so as to spare her the danger of temptation and all the unfortunate consequences that would have followed, first to herself and also for the bad effect that it would have produced.
But it is not only against greed that the mediums must be forearmed. Since there are mediums in all echelons of Society their majority is above such temptation. There is, however, a much bigger danger that all are exposed to: it is pride that loses such a large number. It is against that obstacle that the most beautiful faculties are shattered. Material selflessness is of no benefit if not followed by moral altruism. Humility, devotion, selflessness and abnegation are the qualities of the medium beloved by the Spirits.
The facts mentioned in the last issue of our Spiritist Review and about which we had postponed our opinion seem to have been definitely settled as Spiritist phenomena. A careful examination of the circumstances and details do not allow to have them confused with acts of malevolence or joke. It seems difficult that ill-intentioned persons could have escapade the eyes of law enforcement and in particular act at the very moment when they are been watched, before the eyes of those that are looking for them and that lack no will of having them caught.
Exorcisms were carried out but after a few days of interruption the noises restarted with different aspects. Here is what is found in the Journal de la Vienne, on February 17th and 18th:
“We remember that last January the rapping Spirits made their solemn apparition in Poitiers, establishing themselves at St. Paul St., in a home located near the old church designated by that name but their stayed for a short time with us and we were led to believe that it was all over when the day before yesterday the noises that had agitated so much the population were reproduced now with new intensity.
Thus, the black devils returned to the home of Ms. de O… The only difference is that now they are not only rapping Spirits but shooters that provoke extraordinary explosions. We will celebrate their party on St. Barbara’s day, patron of the artillery. There are always those to long for the restart of processions of curious persons and have the police questioning every echo to be guided by the fog of the other world.
One can only wait, however, that this time the perpetrators of those mystifications of bad taste are caught and that justice may well demonstrate to the explorers of human belief that the best Spirits are not the ones that make more noise but those that know to be quiet or only speak when necessary.”
Piogeard
“We always go back to St. Paul St. without being able to penetrate the infernal mystery. When we question someone that strolls around Ms. de O… house, showing some concern, the answer is invariably this: - I have heard nothing but someone said that the explosions were really loud. This is not but an embarrassment to the solution of the problem. However, it is certain that the Spirits have some pieces of artillery and of large caliber because they say the noise is similar to that produced by small bombs. But where do they come from? Impossible so far to determine their direction. They do not come from the underground since pistol shots in the basement are not heard on the first floor. It is then in the superior regions that they must be caught, however, all processes indicated by science and by experience to achieve that goal resulted useless.
It would then be necessary to conclude that the Spirits can shoot at the sparrows and disturb the rest of the population and not be caught. Such a solution would be too strict. In fact through certain means and by some accidental events effects can be produced that at first sight would be astonishing but that later on surprises people for not having realized their elemental mechanism. It is always the simplest things that escape people’s observations. We are forced to believe, therefore, that the shooters from the other world have the laughter by their side at this point but they are far from being unachievable.
The mystifying persons may rest assured that the mystified will have their turn.”
Piogeard
It seems that Mr. Piogeard struggles greatly against the evidence. One could say that a doubt goes unsuspected in this mind; that he is afraid of a solution that is contrary to his beliefs; in one word that he gives us the impression of those persons that when receiving some bad news say: “No, No. That is not possible. I don’t want to believe it.” They close their eyes to avoid seeing so that they can attest that saw nothing.
In one of the paragraphs above he seemed to raise doubts about the reality of the noises themselves because in his opinion all of those that are questioned say that they heard nothing. If nobody heard anything we don’t understand why such an uproar since there wouldn’t be neither ill-intentioned people nor Spirits. In a third article that goes without signature the newspaper says that it must be the last and finally gives the solution to the problem. If those that are interested don’t consider it convincing it will be their fault and not of the periodical.
“For some time now we have been receiving letters from our subscribers and persons that are strange to us requesting sound explanations about the scenes that took place at the home of Ms. O…We said everything we knew about it; we repeated everything that is said in Poitiers in our editions. Considering that our explanations did not seem complete here you have and for the last time our answer to the questions addressed to us: - It is certain that singular noises are heard every night from six o’clock to mid night at St. Paul St., home of Ms. O… Those noises are similar to the ones produced by successive discharges of a double rifle. They disturb the doors, windows and walls. One cannot see light or smoke and there is no smell. The events were attested by the most dignified persons of faith in that town, through police inquiries and the civilian guard by request of the family of Mr. Count de O… There is an association of Spiritists in Poitiers but despite Mr. D… opinion and that writes to us from Marselle, it hasn’t crossed the thought of any of our citizens, too witty for that, that the Spiritists were somehow involved in the occurrence of the phenomena. Mr. H. de Orange believes in physical causes, like gases that are expelled from a former cemetery on which the O…’s house was built. The house was built on a rock and there is no underground construction that leads to the house. As for ourselves we believe that the strange and still not explained phenomena that disturbed the peace of a respectable family for over a month will not remain as a mystery. We believe in a very ingenious gimmick and hope to see very soon the phantoms of St. Paul St. be sent to jail.”
Exorcisms were carried out but after a few days of interruption the noises restarted with different aspects. Here is what is found in the Journal de la Vienne, on February 17th and 18th:
“We remember that last January the rapping Spirits made their solemn apparition in Poitiers, establishing themselves at St. Paul St., in a home located near the old church designated by that name but their stayed for a short time with us and we were led to believe that it was all over when the day before yesterday the noises that had agitated so much the population were reproduced now with new intensity.
Thus, the black devils returned to the home of Ms. de O… The only difference is that now they are not only rapping Spirits but shooters that provoke extraordinary explosions. We will celebrate their party on St. Barbara’s day, patron of the artillery. There are always those to long for the restart of processions of curious persons and have the police questioning every echo to be guided by the fog of the other world.
One can only wait, however, that this time the perpetrators of those mystifications of bad taste are caught and that justice may well demonstrate to the explorers of human belief that the best Spirits are not the ones that make more noise but those that know to be quiet or only speak when necessary.”
Piogeard
“We always go back to St. Paul St. without being able to penetrate the infernal mystery. When we question someone that strolls around Ms. de O… house, showing some concern, the answer is invariably this: - I have heard nothing but someone said that the explosions were really loud. This is not but an embarrassment to the solution of the problem. However, it is certain that the Spirits have some pieces of artillery and of large caliber because they say the noise is similar to that produced by small bombs. But where do they come from? Impossible so far to determine their direction. They do not come from the underground since pistol shots in the basement are not heard on the first floor. It is then in the superior regions that they must be caught, however, all processes indicated by science and by experience to achieve that goal resulted useless.
It would then be necessary to conclude that the Spirits can shoot at the sparrows and disturb the rest of the population and not be caught. Such a solution would be too strict. In fact through certain means and by some accidental events effects can be produced that at first sight would be astonishing but that later on surprises people for not having realized their elemental mechanism. It is always the simplest things that escape people’s observations. We are forced to believe, therefore, that the shooters from the other world have the laughter by their side at this point but they are far from being unachievable.
The mystifying persons may rest assured that the mystified will have their turn.”
Piogeard
It seems that Mr. Piogeard struggles greatly against the evidence. One could say that a doubt goes unsuspected in this mind; that he is afraid of a solution that is contrary to his beliefs; in one word that he gives us the impression of those persons that when receiving some bad news say: “No, No. That is not possible. I don’t want to believe it.” They close their eyes to avoid seeing so that they can attest that saw nothing.
In one of the paragraphs above he seemed to raise doubts about the reality of the noises themselves because in his opinion all of those that are questioned say that they heard nothing. If nobody heard anything we don’t understand why such an uproar since there wouldn’t be neither ill-intentioned people nor Spirits. In a third article that goes without signature the newspaper says that it must be the last and finally gives the solution to the problem. If those that are interested don’t consider it convincing it will be their fault and not of the periodical.
“For some time now we have been receiving letters from our subscribers and persons that are strange to us requesting sound explanations about the scenes that took place at the home of Ms. O…We said everything we knew about it; we repeated everything that is said in Poitiers in our editions. Considering that our explanations did not seem complete here you have and for the last time our answer to the questions addressed to us: - It is certain that singular noises are heard every night from six o’clock to mid night at St. Paul St., home of Ms. O… Those noises are similar to the ones produced by successive discharges of a double rifle. They disturb the doors, windows and walls. One cannot see light or smoke and there is no smell. The events were attested by the most dignified persons of faith in that town, through police inquiries and the civilian guard by request of the family of Mr. Count de O… There is an association of Spiritists in Poitiers but despite Mr. D… opinion and that writes to us from Marselle, it hasn’t crossed the thought of any of our citizens, too witty for that, that the Spiritists were somehow involved in the occurrence of the phenomena. Mr. H. de Orange believes in physical causes, like gases that are expelled from a former cemetery on which the O…’s house was built. The house was built on a rock and there is no underground construction that leads to the house. As for ourselves we believe that the strange and still not explained phenomena that disturbed the peace of a respectable family for over a month will not remain as a mystery. We believe in a very ingenious gimmick and hope to see very soon the phantoms of St. Paul St. be sent to jail.”
In our preceding number we described the remarkable cure obtained by a young lady of Marmande through the prayer of the Spiritists of that town. A posterior letter confirms the result of that now complete cure. The lady’s face, altered by eight months of torture, recovered its youth, good health and serenity.
Whatever the opinion we might have; whatever the opinion one may have about Spiritism any person driven by a sincere love towards their neighbor must have felt happy on seeing the tranquility that returned to that family and happiness replacing despair. It is regrettable that the priest of that parish preferred not to join that feeling and that such event may have served him for the production of a not much Evangelical text for one of his sermons. His words are of public domain. If he had limited himself to an honest criticism of the Doctrine from his point of view we would not mentioned that but we believe to be our duty to respond to the attacks addressed to much respectable persons that were treated as thugs regarding the fact above.
He said: “Therefore will then the first shoeshinner that shows up, if a medium, be able to evoke the member of an honorable family when nobody else in that family can do that? Brothers, do not believe in such absurd. This is mockery, foolishness. What do you really see in those gatherings? Carpenters, workers, what else? Some people asked me if I had contributed to the cure of the young lady. No, I answered, I did not join that absolutely; I am not a doctor.”
He told the relatives: “The only thing I see in this is a physical condition that is up to medicine to handle”, adding that if he had thought that prayers could have given her any relief he would have done that long before.
If Mr. Priest does not believe in the efficacy of prayer in similar cases he did well in not saying them. It can be concluded that as a conscious person if the parents had come to him asking for masses for the cure of their daughter he would have refused the payment for that since if he accepted he would be receiving payment for something that he considered useless. The Spiritists believe in the efficacy of prayers for illnesses and obsessions. They prayed, cured and asked for nothing in return; even more, if the parents were in need they would have helped.
He says: “These are charlatans and clowns”. Since when has he seen charlatans working for free? Have they made the patient wear talismans? Have they employed cabalistic signs? Have they pronounced sacramental words? Have they connected a special virtue to those words? No because Spiritism condemns every superstitious practice. They prayed with fervor and with a communion of thoughts. Were those prayers foolish? Apparently not since they were successful meaning that they were heard.
Mr. Priest can treat Spiritism and the evocations like absurd and foolishness in his own right if that is his opinion and that is nobody else’s business. But when in order to denigrate the Spiritist functions he says that there only carpenters and workers in general isn’t that a degradation of those professions and an offense to those that practice them? You then forget, Mr. Priest, that Jesus was a Carpenter and that his apostles were all poor art craft or fishermen? Would that be Evangelical to cast from the podium such a disdain upon a class that Jesus wanted to honor by being born among them? Do you understand the implication of your words when you say: “The first shoeshiner that shows up could then be a medium and evoke the member of an honorable family”? Do you then disregard that simple shoeshiner that cleans you shoes? Why? Because his position is low you do not see him as dignified enough to evoke the soul of a noble character? Are you then afraid that such a soul could be blemished when working dirty hands reach out to heavens? Do you really believe that God makes a differentiation between the soul of the rich and the soul of the poor? Hasn’t Jesus said: “Love your neighbor as yourself”? [1] Now love the neighbor as oneself means no difference between the neighbor and oneself; it is the application of the principle that all men are brothers since all are sons of God. Does God receive with more distinction the soul of the great against that of the little one? Does God receive better the soul of a person that does a proposed well paid service than that of an unfortunate person to whom you do not dedicate the shortest prayers? You speak out of an exclusively mundane point of view forgetting that Jesus said this: “My kingdom is not of this world.” [2] There you do not find the distinctions found on Earth; the last ones will be first and the first the last.[3] When Jesus said: “In My Father’s house are many mansions” [4]does it mean that there is one for the rich and another for the worker? One to the master and another to the servant? No, but that there is one for the humble and another for the proud because he also said: “If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all and servant of all.” [5] It is then up to those that you call profane to remind you of the Gospels?
Mr. Priest such words would be little charitable in any circumstance particularly in the house of God where only words of peace and union among all members of the great family should be preached. Your words show inability in the current state of society since they spread the yeast of antagonism. We would understand your words if said in times when the servants, used to bend the cervix, judged themselves as an inferior race because they were told so, but in today’s France in which every honest person has the right to raise their heads, be it a plebeian or a noble, it is an anachronism.
If, as it is likely to be so, there were carpenters, shoeshiners and workers in the auditorium they must have felt humiliated by such a speech. As for the Spiritists we know that they prayed to God to have the speaker forgiven for his imprudent words because they themselves forgave the one that said Racca [6] to them. It is the advice that we give to all brothers.
[1] Mark 12:31
[2] John 18:36
[3]Mathew 20:16
[4]John 14:2
[5] Mark 9:35
[6]Mathew 5:22
Whatever the opinion we might have; whatever the opinion one may have about Spiritism any person driven by a sincere love towards their neighbor must have felt happy on seeing the tranquility that returned to that family and happiness replacing despair. It is regrettable that the priest of that parish preferred not to join that feeling and that such event may have served him for the production of a not much Evangelical text for one of his sermons. His words are of public domain. If he had limited himself to an honest criticism of the Doctrine from his point of view we would not mentioned that but we believe to be our duty to respond to the attacks addressed to much respectable persons that were treated as thugs regarding the fact above.
He said: “Therefore will then the first shoeshinner that shows up, if a medium, be able to evoke the member of an honorable family when nobody else in that family can do that? Brothers, do not believe in such absurd. This is mockery, foolishness. What do you really see in those gatherings? Carpenters, workers, what else? Some people asked me if I had contributed to the cure of the young lady. No, I answered, I did not join that absolutely; I am not a doctor.”
He told the relatives: “The only thing I see in this is a physical condition that is up to medicine to handle”, adding that if he had thought that prayers could have given her any relief he would have done that long before.
If Mr. Priest does not believe in the efficacy of prayer in similar cases he did well in not saying them. It can be concluded that as a conscious person if the parents had come to him asking for masses for the cure of their daughter he would have refused the payment for that since if he accepted he would be receiving payment for something that he considered useless. The Spiritists believe in the efficacy of prayers for illnesses and obsessions. They prayed, cured and asked for nothing in return; even more, if the parents were in need they would have helped.
He says: “These are charlatans and clowns”. Since when has he seen charlatans working for free? Have they made the patient wear talismans? Have they employed cabalistic signs? Have they pronounced sacramental words? Have they connected a special virtue to those words? No because Spiritism condemns every superstitious practice. They prayed with fervor and with a communion of thoughts. Were those prayers foolish? Apparently not since they were successful meaning that they were heard.
Mr. Priest can treat Spiritism and the evocations like absurd and foolishness in his own right if that is his opinion and that is nobody else’s business. But when in order to denigrate the Spiritist functions he says that there only carpenters and workers in general isn’t that a degradation of those professions and an offense to those that practice them? You then forget, Mr. Priest, that Jesus was a Carpenter and that his apostles were all poor art craft or fishermen? Would that be Evangelical to cast from the podium such a disdain upon a class that Jesus wanted to honor by being born among them? Do you understand the implication of your words when you say: “The first shoeshiner that shows up could then be a medium and evoke the member of an honorable family”? Do you then disregard that simple shoeshiner that cleans you shoes? Why? Because his position is low you do not see him as dignified enough to evoke the soul of a noble character? Are you then afraid that such a soul could be blemished when working dirty hands reach out to heavens? Do you really believe that God makes a differentiation between the soul of the rich and the soul of the poor? Hasn’t Jesus said: “Love your neighbor as yourself”? [1] Now love the neighbor as oneself means no difference between the neighbor and oneself; it is the application of the principle that all men are brothers since all are sons of God. Does God receive with more distinction the soul of the great against that of the little one? Does God receive better the soul of a person that does a proposed well paid service than that of an unfortunate person to whom you do not dedicate the shortest prayers? You speak out of an exclusively mundane point of view forgetting that Jesus said this: “My kingdom is not of this world.” [2] There you do not find the distinctions found on Earth; the last ones will be first and the first the last.[3] When Jesus said: “In My Father’s house are many mansions” [4]does it mean that there is one for the rich and another for the worker? One to the master and another to the servant? No, but that there is one for the humble and another for the proud because he also said: “If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all and servant of all.” [5] It is then up to those that you call profane to remind you of the Gospels?
Mr. Priest such words would be little charitable in any circumstance particularly in the house of God where only words of peace and union among all members of the great family should be preached. Your words show inability in the current state of society since they spread the yeast of antagonism. We would understand your words if said in times when the servants, used to bend the cervix, judged themselves as an inferior race because they were told so, but in today’s France in which every honest person has the right to raise their heads, be it a plebeian or a noble, it is an anachronism.
If, as it is likely to be so, there were carpenters, shoeshiners and workers in the auditorium they must have felt humiliated by such a speech. As for the Spiritists we know that they prayed to God to have the speaker forgiven for his imprudent words because they themselves forgave the one that said Racca [6] to them. It is the advice that we give to all brothers.
[1] Mark 12:31
[2] John 18:36
[3]Mathew 20:16
[4]John 14:2
[5] Mark 9:35
[6]Mathew 5:22
We pure and simply cite the passage of that pastoral regarding Spiritism without comments or reflections. Mr. Bishop in his own right gives his opinion from a theological point of view only attacking the idea and not persons hence there is nothing to be said. We could discuss his theory but that has been done so many times that it would be superfluous particularly because we cannot find new arguments to add. We bring it to the eyes of the public so that everybody may be aware of that and take advantage of that in the best possible way.
“The devil hides in all possible ways in order to keep his conspiracy against God and mankind forever and to continue his work of seduction. In paradise he took the disguise of a snake. He shall transform into an angel of light if that is needed or necessary to contribute to the realization of his projects, as demonstrated by a thousand and one examples registered in history. In more recent times the devil even made use of weapons that were rusted and lost in time, utilized in the most remote eras, more precisely in the second and third centuries to fight Christianity.
The dancing tables, the rapping Spirits, the evocations, etc. are so many other artifices and God does allow them for the punishment of the sinful, curious and carefree. If the bad Spirits, as assured by the sacred Scriptures, attach to people’s bodies and souls (see the book of Job and many other passages of the Scriptures), if they can give voice to sticks, rocks, a snake, goats, a donkey; if near the lake of Gennesaret and under his command they receive permission to enter into filthy animals, then they can also speak through the tables, write with the leg of a table or a chair, adopt the language and imitate the accent of the dead and absent, talk about unknown things that seem impossible to us but that can be seen and heard by them as Spirits. However, I feel sorry for the idle, unwise and indiscreet criminals that turn those devilish buffoonery into a pastime and that are not even afraid of taking advantage of superstitious and forbidden means of getting the knowledge of future events that are ignored or only superficially known by the devil! Those who love danger shall perish in danger. Those that play with poisonous snakes shall not escape their assassin fangs. Those that play with fire will be reduced to ashes. Those that seek the partnership of liars and villains shall necessarily become their victims. It is a trade with bad angels that in the Old Testament the prophets name it something that is hardly taken to Christians in good faith. When such evocations are carried out the malignant Spirit may well tell a truth or another to begin with and speak as desired by curious people to gain their trust. But people are then dazzled and seduced, anxious to unveil mysteries.
It is then that the poisoned chalice is brought to their lips, full of lies and impieties, stripped from any Christian principle or charitable feeling.
Fortunate is the one that has realized in time that he/she had fallen into diabolic hands and can, with the help of God, repel the links with which they would be carried away…”
-o-
While the antagonists remain in the terrain of theological discussions we urge our brothers that want to listen to our recommendations to abstain from any recrimination because freedom of speech must apply as much to them as to ourselves. Spiritism is not imposed it is accepted. It gives its reasons and does not find it bad that those reasons are fought against as long as it is done honestly and then it is up to common sense to pronounce about it. If Spiritism is founded on truth it will succeed despite everything. If its arguments are false it is not by violence that they will become better.
Spiritism does not wish to be believed by word; it wishes free examination and its propaganda is done by this: see the pros and cons, judge what best satisfy your reason, what best responds to your hopes and aspirations, that best touches your heart and then make a decision based on the acquired knowledge.
The Spiritists must not follow the same path by criticizing the inconvenience and personalism of the speech of their adversaries. Its strength comes from moderation and we urge you not to stay away from that. We deny support to any aggressive and inconvenient quarrel, from whatever direction, in the name of the Spiritist principles and in the interest of the cause.
Side by side with some regrettable events like that one of Marmande we could mention a good number of very different cases if we were not afraid of bothering their authors and that is why we only do so with the greatest reservation.
A lady acquaintance of ours, a good medium and like her husband, keen Spiritist, was near her death about six months ago. She found reassuring resignation in her faith and belief in the future before that supreme moment that she saw coming courageously. She called for the priest of her perish to come and give her the sacraments.
“The devil hides in all possible ways in order to keep his conspiracy against God and mankind forever and to continue his work of seduction. In paradise he took the disguise of a snake. He shall transform into an angel of light if that is needed or necessary to contribute to the realization of his projects, as demonstrated by a thousand and one examples registered in history. In more recent times the devil even made use of weapons that were rusted and lost in time, utilized in the most remote eras, more precisely in the second and third centuries to fight Christianity.
The dancing tables, the rapping Spirits, the evocations, etc. are so many other artifices and God does allow them for the punishment of the sinful, curious and carefree. If the bad Spirits, as assured by the sacred Scriptures, attach to people’s bodies and souls (see the book of Job and many other passages of the Scriptures), if they can give voice to sticks, rocks, a snake, goats, a donkey; if near the lake of Gennesaret and under his command they receive permission to enter into filthy animals, then they can also speak through the tables, write with the leg of a table or a chair, adopt the language and imitate the accent of the dead and absent, talk about unknown things that seem impossible to us but that can be seen and heard by them as Spirits. However, I feel sorry for the idle, unwise and indiscreet criminals that turn those devilish buffoonery into a pastime and that are not even afraid of taking advantage of superstitious and forbidden means of getting the knowledge of future events that are ignored or only superficially known by the devil! Those who love danger shall perish in danger. Those that play with poisonous snakes shall not escape their assassin fangs. Those that play with fire will be reduced to ashes. Those that seek the partnership of liars and villains shall necessarily become their victims. It is a trade with bad angels that in the Old Testament the prophets name it something that is hardly taken to Christians in good faith. When such evocations are carried out the malignant Spirit may well tell a truth or another to begin with and speak as desired by curious people to gain their trust. But people are then dazzled and seduced, anxious to unveil mysteries.
It is then that the poisoned chalice is brought to their lips, full of lies and impieties, stripped from any Christian principle or charitable feeling.
Fortunate is the one that has realized in time that he/she had fallen into diabolic hands and can, with the help of God, repel the links with which they would be carried away…”
-o-
While the antagonists remain in the terrain of theological discussions we urge our brothers that want to listen to our recommendations to abstain from any recrimination because freedom of speech must apply as much to them as to ourselves. Spiritism is not imposed it is accepted. It gives its reasons and does not find it bad that those reasons are fought against as long as it is done honestly and then it is up to common sense to pronounce about it. If Spiritism is founded on truth it will succeed despite everything. If its arguments are false it is not by violence that they will become better.
Spiritism does not wish to be believed by word; it wishes free examination and its propaganda is done by this: see the pros and cons, judge what best satisfy your reason, what best responds to your hopes and aspirations, that best touches your heart and then make a decision based on the acquired knowledge.
The Spiritists must not follow the same path by criticizing the inconvenience and personalism of the speech of their adversaries. Its strength comes from moderation and we urge you not to stay away from that. We deny support to any aggressive and inconvenient quarrel, from whatever direction, in the name of the Spiritist principles and in the interest of the cause.
Side by side with some regrettable events like that one of Marmande we could mention a good number of very different cases if we were not afraid of bothering their authors and that is why we only do so with the greatest reservation.
A lady acquaintance of ours, a good medium and like her husband, keen Spiritist, was near her death about six months ago. She found reassuring resignation in her faith and belief in the future before that supreme moment that she saw coming courageously. She called for the priest of her perish to come and give her the sacraments.
- You know that we are Spiritists. Despite that will you give me the sacraments of the Church?
- Why not, answered the cure priest. That belief comforts you. It does make you both kind and charitable. I see no evil. I know The Spirits’ Book. I will not say that it had me convinced in all points but it contains the moral teachings that should be followed by every Christian and I do not reproach you for reading it. But if there are good Spirits there are also bad ones. It is against those that you must protect yourselves. Those are the ones that you must distinguish. On another hand, my dear, see that true religion consists on the prayer said from the bottom of your heart and in the practice of good deeds. You have faith in god; you pray with fervor; you help thy neighbor when you can then I can forgive you.
We would not take the initiative of writing about the fact that follows but there is no reason to stop since it was published in several newspapers among which the Opinion Nationale and the Siècle on February 22nd, 1864 according to the Bulletin Diplomatique.
“A letter sent by a well-informed person reveals that recently in a private council where people discussed the Danish situation Queen Victoria declared that she would not do a thing without consulting with Prince Albert.[1] In fact after having retired for some time into her cabinet she came back saying that the Prince had pronounced against the war. That fact and other similar ones transpired and gave rise to the idea that would be appropriate to establish a regency.”
We were right when we wrote that Spiritism had followers in thrones. We could have said: even in thrones. As it can be seen, however, the sovereign themselves do not escape the qualifications given to those that believe in the communications from beyond the grave. The Spiritists should feel reassured for being in such a good company after being treated as mad people. Therefore it is too contagious and moves too far!
We are aware of a good number of foreign Princes that have that supposed weakness for some of them attend the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies. How could they wish the idea would not penetrate the whole society when it is present at all levels? From that Mr. Priest of Marmande can see that there aren’t mediums only among shoeshiners.
The following reflection follows the article in the Journal of Poitiers about the same case: “Isn’t an abandonment of reality, the only way we have to govern the world, when we fall in the hands of the Spirits”?
We agree with the journal’s opinion but from another point of view. To them the Spirits are not reality because for certain people there is only reality in what can be seen and touched. Well, God would not be a reality then and who would dare say that God does not govern the world and that there aren’t providential events to lead to a predetermined result? Then! The Spirits are the instruments of God’s will. They inspire and incite people to do this or that despite their own will; to act in one way or another instead of a given direction and that as much in great events as in private circumstances of life. Hence we do not share the journal’s opinion about this. If the Spirits give hidden inspiration is the allow people to use their free-will and to have the responsibility of their own actions. If a person receives the inspiration of a bad Spirit that person must be certain to receive at the same time that of a good Spirit since God never leaves us defenseless against bad suggestions. Each one must ponder and decide according to their own conscience.
In ostensive mediumistic communications people must no longer abstain from using their free-will. It would be a mistake to blindly guide every step and movement based on the advice given by the Spirits because there are those that still have the ideas and prejudices of life. Only the really superior Spirits are exempt from that.
The Spirits give their advices and opinion. In case of doubt one can discuss with them as one would do when they were alive. In such a way one can assess the strength of their arguments. The truly good Spirits never refuse to do that. Those that reject such examination and that demand absolute submission demonstrate that they do not depend much on the fairness of the reasons to convince others and must be considered suspicious.
In principles the Spirits are not here to carry us along. The objective of their instructions is to make us better, to give faith to those that have none and not to spare us the work of thinking by ourselves. That is what those that don’t believe in the relationship with beyond the grave ignore. They believe it to be absurd because they judge them according to their own ideas and not according to reality that they do not know.
Also, the manifestations must not be judged by the abuse or false applications that some people may make of them as it would not be rational to judge religion by the bad priests. Now to know if something is well or badly applied one needs to get to know it not superficially but in depth. If you go to a concert to know if the music is good or bad and if the musicians execute it well one does need to get to know the music before anything else.
That could be the basis to appreciate the fact in question. Would the Queen be reproached if she had said: “Gentlemen, the situation is serious, allow me some privacy to ask for God’s inspiration with respect to the resolution I must make”? The Prince is not God, that is true, but since she is pious it is likely that she had asked God to inspire the Prince’s response what is the same thing. Her affection made her have him acting as an intermediary.
Things may have gone still in a different way. If the Queen would not do anything without consulting the Prince when he was alive she could wanted to ask his opinion when dead as if he would be alive and not because he is a Spirit and for her he is not dead. He is always by her side as a guide or an obliging counselor. Between them there is nothing more than a missing body. If the Prince were alive she would have done the same hence nothing changed in her way of doing things.
Now, the theory of the Spirit-Prince is good or bad? It is not up to us to judge. What we should reject is the opinion of those to whom it seems puerile, bizarre and even stupid that someone in good judgment could believe in the reality of someone that no longer has a body because they enjoy thinking that when they are dead themselves they will be nothing. To their eyes the Queen did not do anything more sensible than if she had said: “Gentlemen I need to consult with an astrologer or the cards.”
If that alone has no consequence to politics it is not like that from a Spiritist point of view given the repercussion it had. The Queen could certainly abstain from telling the reason for her absence and from saying that such was the Prince’s advice. Saying so in such a solemn circumstance was like publically confessing her belief in the Spirits and in their manifestations and acknowledge to be a medium herself. Now, when such example comes from a crowned head that can encourage the opinion of those that are not no highly placed.
It is impossible to stop admiring the fertility of the means employed by the Spirits to oblige the skeptical to talk about Spiritism making the idea penetrate every layer of society. In this case they have to be careful with their criticism.
[1] Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was the husband of Queen Victoria. He was born in the Saxon duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, to a family connected to many of Europe's ruling monarchs. Born August 26th, 1819, Coburg, Germany and died on December 14th, 1861, Windsor, UK. (Wikipedia)
We received a death notice from Le Havre with the following subscription:
“We beg the Almighty and Merciful and the good Spirits to receive him well.”
The letter mentioned: “Given the sacraments of the Church.”
It is the first time, as far as we know, that similar public profession of faith has been carried out in similar circumstance. One must be thankful to the family for the example that has just been given. Generally speaking only a few persons, with the exception of closer relatives, take into account the request in the note to pray for the dead. We are certain that every Spiritist, even those strange to the family, that received it took it as their duty to attend the request because to them prayer is not a prosaic formula. They know about the influence of prayer on the detachment of the soul at the time of death.
“We beg the Almighty and Merciful and the good Spirits to receive him well.”
The letter mentioned: “Given the sacraments of the Church.”
It is the first time, as far as we know, that similar public profession of faith has been carried out in similar circumstance. One must be thankful to the family for the example that has just been given. Generally speaking only a few persons, with the exception of closer relatives, take into account the request in the note to pray for the dead. We are certain that every Spiritist, even those strange to the family, that received it took it as their duty to attend the request because to them prayer is not a prosaic formula. They know about the influence of prayer on the detachment of the soul at the time of death.
The order given to Mr. Home by the pontifical authorities to leave Rome in three days had been initially retracted as we saw in our last number. Nonetheless and as fear is not dominated it had been revoked. The right to stay had been definitely denied and Mr. Home had to leave at once under the accusation of witchcraft.
It is worth mentioning that the raps and lifting of tables during his questioning and that we had announced with reservation since we were not certain about it are accurate. That should have added to the belief that Mr. Home had brought the devil along to Rome where, as it seems, he had never been before. There we have him duly found guilty by the Roman government, guilty for being a witch but not those that make people laugh, a real witch or on the contrary they would not have taken him so seriously.
We read the interrogatory to which he was submitted and by the type of questions it involuntarily took us back to the times of Joan of Arc. It came short of the common conclusion for that type of accusation in those days. The teasing papers are surprised that people still believe in witchcraft in our days. That is because there are people that like Epimenides[1] have been sleeping for four centuries.
As a matter of fact how could the people not believe when its reality is attested by the very authority that must know him better and had also sent so many to be burnt at the stakes? It is necessary to be skeptical like a journalist to not acknowledge such positive truth.
What is even more remarkable is that they bring back the witches reviving them in the Spiritists, the ones that bring the proofs in their hands that there aren’t witches or wonders but just natural laws.
[1] Epimenides of Knossos (Crete) was a semi-mythical 7-6th century BC Greek seer and philosopher-poet believed to have fallen asleep for fifty-seven years in a Cretan cave that was sacred to Zeus, after which he reportedly awoke with the gift of prophecy (TN, Wikipedia).
It is worth mentioning that the raps and lifting of tables during his questioning and that we had announced with reservation since we were not certain about it are accurate. That should have added to the belief that Mr. Home had brought the devil along to Rome where, as it seems, he had never been before. There we have him duly found guilty by the Roman government, guilty for being a witch but not those that make people laugh, a real witch or on the contrary they would not have taken him so seriously.
We read the interrogatory to which he was submitted and by the type of questions it involuntarily took us back to the times of Joan of Arc. It came short of the common conclusion for that type of accusation in those days. The teasing papers are surprised that people still believe in witchcraft in our days. That is because there are people that like Epimenides[1] have been sleeping for four centuries.
As a matter of fact how could the people not believe when its reality is attested by the very authority that must know him better and had also sent so many to be burnt at the stakes? It is necessary to be skeptical like a journalist to not acknowledge such positive truth.
What is even more remarkable is that they bring back the witches reviving them in the Spiritists, the ones that bring the proofs in their hands that there aren’t witches or wonders but just natural laws.
[1] Epimenides of Knossos (Crete) was a semi-mythical 7-6th century BC Greek seer and philosopher-poet believed to have fallen asleep for fifty-seven years in a Cretan cave that was sacred to Zeus, after which he reportedly awoke with the gift of prophecy (TN, Wikipedia).
Instructions by the Spirits
NOTE: The other day Mr. Leymarie woke up earlier than normal and taken by an involuntary force felt invited to write, obtaining the following spontaneous dissertation:
“A generation of workers cursed my name. Were they right? Were they wrong? Ah, future should respond! I had the single idea of improvement, and particularly that of saving, then subtracting some hands. I wanted to simplify Vaucanson’s loom, taking the boy at an early age and turning him into a singular pariah, pale, skinny, looking fuzzy with a funny language, forming a separated population in my home town. There was always tension in my mind. I slept to wake up with another plan. Instead of carrying images and feelings my thoughts were about engines, cylinders, springs, gears and levers.
I used to see my guardian angel in my dreams, putting all my ideas to work, everything done by the hands of men. They were right when they said that “the mechanics were the poets of matter”. The most beautiful machines were ready when they left the minds of a worker. The invented the foundation of mechanics that he did not have before. The only sources of knowledge were patience and imagination.
It is truly an inspiration by the good Spirits neglected by the academia or by professional scientists but it is not less true that if Archimedes and Vaucanson are geniuses of mechanics those like Vergilius, if you like, are that patience and imagination that brings about every discovery that honors humanity. And all that by whom? By monks, ceramists, wool-workers, shepherds, a silk-worker and an ignorant blacksmith.
I was a humble worker, not a genius, but like many others I was predestined to simplify a loom that hurt people, abbreviating the lives of thousands of boys. I subtracted a physical pain and by serving the industry I served mankind.
One must admire the Providence that uses a simple Jacquard to transform a loom that feeds thousands – what am I saying? – Millions of people on Earth; an insect whose tomb compensates, transforms and feeds two fifths of the globe. Isn’t God a wonderful mechanics? God created the silkworm the ingenious artist in which resides a vast problem of economic policy. What a teaching to the proud and indifferent!
The issue of machines! A terrible issue! Each invention subtracts the bread and the tool from a whole population. The inventor is then a close enemy and a distant benefactor. The inventor multiplies the power of art and industry and the work in the future; the inventor does a remarkable service to humanity but doesn’t the inventor also cause a problem now? The first inventor of the loom destroyed the means of survival of many. Who were those that used to weave by hand other than mothers, lady shepherds and older women? However small their payments they at least had the means of making ends meet.
Similarly to the discoveries of religious, political or moral truths, the inventors of machines revolutionize matter. They are the precursors of the future, aggressively opening the way through interests, keeping the past under their feet. Thus, expecting a distant reward they are cursed by their contemporary fellow citizens.
Poor humanity! You are stupid if you stay behind, cruel if you move on. According to God you must not stay put if you do not wish to perpetuate evil but to do good you are revolutionary despite everything else.
That is why at this time of transition God tells you: Be Spiritists that is profoundly convinced of the selfless and moral initiative determined to endure every sacrifice so that you may achieve perfection in life.
Like the silkworm I painfully crawled supported by the good Spirits, endured my prison giving it all that I had. In the same way I was neglected by my contemporaries but also like the worm, the Spirit is born again from its ashes to truly live and admire the mechanism of the worlds, the God of light and goodness that wanted to show to my hometown that Spirit of Truth that vivifies and comforts.”
Jacquard
-o-
After this message was read at the Parisian Society in its February 12th, 1864 session, the Spirit of Jacquard was evoked and answered the questions below.
Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, February 12th, 1864 (medium Mr. Leymarie)
Question: You must certainly have given communications in Lyon but I don’t remember seeing communications by you. How come you chose Mr. Leymarie in Paris and not someone in one of the centers in Lyon to give the communication that we have just read? Why has Mr. Leymarie felt in a way compelled to wake up early and write that communication? Finally what is your opinion about the Spiritism in Lyon?
Answer: - “It is natural that I gave communications both in Paris as well as in my hometown because the medium’s parents are from Lyon and I met his grandfather in particular, that did me a great service in special circumstances. Besides, the medium was indicated to me by the Spirit of his grandfather that carries out a mission similar to mine in the spiritual world. Since the mission allows me some spare time I thought I would not bother the medium’s sleep a medium that like many others shows devotion to the cause that he serves. I also wanted my compatriots to hear from me through the Spiritist Review. I have always been with them, sharing their happy moments as well as the sad ones, never stopping telling them: - love one another. In times of unemployment I wanted to join my voice to so many others more influential and give them encouragement and forearm them against eventualities and against the enemy. Lyon shows you what Spiritism interpreted in good faith can do. What has become of the past violence, the riots and outcries that shed so much blood upon Lyon? Why have the night clubs that witnessed so many bad scenes in past become empty now? Family has taken back its righteous place wherever Spiritism has found dwelling, where its good influence was felt, and all over the place the Spiritist workers recovered hope and reestablished order, returned to the intelligent work and to the desire of doing good and progress. In my time my invention no longer slaved the worker to the machine, hence regenerating a generation of workers. In turn it is Spiritism that transforms the Spirit of that population, giving them the true initiation in life. It is a whole legion of good Spirits that come to open their eyes and their hearts up until now perverted to reason and love.
Spiritism today enters a new phase for now it is the time of generous aspirations. Bourgeoisie, still submitted to the clergy, remains like a spectator of the peaceful struggle carried out by the new idea against the ‘non-possumus’[1] of the past. They all wait for the end of the battle to remain side by side with the winners!
Therefore, dear compatriots, listen to and follow the advices given by Allan Kardec for they come from your protector Spirits. It is through them that you will keep the danger of clashes and even coalitions away. The more humble and serious you are the stronger you shall be.
The proud ones will lay down their flags before the truth that shall obscure them and then the great transformation of this city that we love so much will come, a city that in particular loves the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies for its faith in the future and the hopes that it was able to spread.”
Jacquard
In the same session, while Jacquard wrote the communication above, another medium, Mr. d’Ambel, obtained another one about the same subject signed by the Spirit Vaucanson.
[1] A religious phrase in Latin meaning: we cannot (TN)
“A generation of workers cursed my name. Were they right? Were they wrong? Ah, future should respond! I had the single idea of improvement, and particularly that of saving, then subtracting some hands. I wanted to simplify Vaucanson’s loom, taking the boy at an early age and turning him into a singular pariah, pale, skinny, looking fuzzy with a funny language, forming a separated population in my home town. There was always tension in my mind. I slept to wake up with another plan. Instead of carrying images and feelings my thoughts were about engines, cylinders, springs, gears and levers.
I used to see my guardian angel in my dreams, putting all my ideas to work, everything done by the hands of men. They were right when they said that “the mechanics were the poets of matter”. The most beautiful machines were ready when they left the minds of a worker. The invented the foundation of mechanics that he did not have before. The only sources of knowledge were patience and imagination.
It is truly an inspiration by the good Spirits neglected by the academia or by professional scientists but it is not less true that if Archimedes and Vaucanson are geniuses of mechanics those like Vergilius, if you like, are that patience and imagination that brings about every discovery that honors humanity. And all that by whom? By monks, ceramists, wool-workers, shepherds, a silk-worker and an ignorant blacksmith.
I was a humble worker, not a genius, but like many others I was predestined to simplify a loom that hurt people, abbreviating the lives of thousands of boys. I subtracted a physical pain and by serving the industry I served mankind.
One must admire the Providence that uses a simple Jacquard to transform a loom that feeds thousands – what am I saying? – Millions of people on Earth; an insect whose tomb compensates, transforms and feeds two fifths of the globe. Isn’t God a wonderful mechanics? God created the silkworm the ingenious artist in which resides a vast problem of economic policy. What a teaching to the proud and indifferent!
The issue of machines! A terrible issue! Each invention subtracts the bread and the tool from a whole population. The inventor is then a close enemy and a distant benefactor. The inventor multiplies the power of art and industry and the work in the future; the inventor does a remarkable service to humanity but doesn’t the inventor also cause a problem now? The first inventor of the loom destroyed the means of survival of many. Who were those that used to weave by hand other than mothers, lady shepherds and older women? However small their payments they at least had the means of making ends meet.
Similarly to the discoveries of religious, political or moral truths, the inventors of machines revolutionize matter. They are the precursors of the future, aggressively opening the way through interests, keeping the past under their feet. Thus, expecting a distant reward they are cursed by their contemporary fellow citizens.
Poor humanity! You are stupid if you stay behind, cruel if you move on. According to God you must not stay put if you do not wish to perpetuate evil but to do good you are revolutionary despite everything else.
That is why at this time of transition God tells you: Be Spiritists that is profoundly convinced of the selfless and moral initiative determined to endure every sacrifice so that you may achieve perfection in life.
Like the silkworm I painfully crawled supported by the good Spirits, endured my prison giving it all that I had. In the same way I was neglected by my contemporaries but also like the worm, the Spirit is born again from its ashes to truly live and admire the mechanism of the worlds, the God of light and goodness that wanted to show to my hometown that Spirit of Truth that vivifies and comforts.”
Jacquard
-o-
After this message was read at the Parisian Society in its February 12th, 1864 session, the Spirit of Jacquard was evoked and answered the questions below.
Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, February 12th, 1864 (medium Mr. Leymarie)
Question: You must certainly have given communications in Lyon but I don’t remember seeing communications by you. How come you chose Mr. Leymarie in Paris and not someone in one of the centers in Lyon to give the communication that we have just read? Why has Mr. Leymarie felt in a way compelled to wake up early and write that communication? Finally what is your opinion about the Spiritism in Lyon?
Answer: - “It is natural that I gave communications both in Paris as well as in my hometown because the medium’s parents are from Lyon and I met his grandfather in particular, that did me a great service in special circumstances. Besides, the medium was indicated to me by the Spirit of his grandfather that carries out a mission similar to mine in the spiritual world. Since the mission allows me some spare time I thought I would not bother the medium’s sleep a medium that like many others shows devotion to the cause that he serves. I also wanted my compatriots to hear from me through the Spiritist Review. I have always been with them, sharing their happy moments as well as the sad ones, never stopping telling them: - love one another. In times of unemployment I wanted to join my voice to so many others more influential and give them encouragement and forearm them against eventualities and against the enemy. Lyon shows you what Spiritism interpreted in good faith can do. What has become of the past violence, the riots and outcries that shed so much blood upon Lyon? Why have the night clubs that witnessed so many bad scenes in past become empty now? Family has taken back its righteous place wherever Spiritism has found dwelling, where its good influence was felt, and all over the place the Spiritist workers recovered hope and reestablished order, returned to the intelligent work and to the desire of doing good and progress. In my time my invention no longer slaved the worker to the machine, hence regenerating a generation of workers. In turn it is Spiritism that transforms the Spirit of that population, giving them the true initiation in life. It is a whole legion of good Spirits that come to open their eyes and their hearts up until now perverted to reason and love.
Spiritism today enters a new phase for now it is the time of generous aspirations. Bourgeoisie, still submitted to the clergy, remains like a spectator of the peaceful struggle carried out by the new idea against the ‘non-possumus’[1] of the past. They all wait for the end of the battle to remain side by side with the winners!
Therefore, dear compatriots, listen to and follow the advices given by Allan Kardec for they come from your protector Spirits. It is through them that you will keep the danger of clashes and even coalitions away. The more humble and serious you are the stronger you shall be.
The proud ones will lay down their flags before the truth that shall obscure them and then the great transformation of this city that we love so much will come, a city that in particular loves the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies for its faith in the future and the hopes that it was able to spread.”
Jacquard
In the same session, while Jacquard wrote the communication above, another medium, Mr. d’Ambel, obtained another one about the same subject signed by the Spirit Vaucanson.
[1] A religious phrase in Latin meaning: we cannot (TN)
In the past people were chained to the plough; they were sacrificed in gigantic works like the construction of the walls of Babylon where cars marched in line; the edification of the pyramids and the Sphinx that costed more than ten blood battles. Later on the animals were subjugated and we saw in the young Lutetia oxcarts dragging idle kings of the second race. This introduction intends to show to those that listen to us that questions framed in this center sympathetic to the Spirits may obtain their solution from one or another of us. That dear Jacquard, the glory of loom machine, an ingenious artisan that fell on the battle field of honorable work, mentioned one of the economic aspects related to humanitarian work. He kind of put me behind it, talking about the changes that I had implemented in the art of weaving and invited me to take part in this spiritual concert. That is why me, someone that was born in the old town of the Allobroges,[1] the Queen of the Grésivaudan,[2] took over the medium with the permission of his customary guides and come here to somehow complement the explanation given by my illustrious friend from Lyon through another medium.
In his dissertation, remarkable in fact, he still mentions a few complaints expressed by the eager bread winning worker, afraid of the disgraceful unemployment. One can feel that the worker fears for the suspension of his work that sustains the loved ones; they feel that disaster looms over the heads of the majority. Such a feeling is noble but shows a kind of narrow point of view. I come to discuss the same subject handled by Jacquard but if not in broader terms than he did at least in a more general point of view. I must attest, however, and paying tribute to those that rightfully deserve so, that the generous conclusion of my friend’s communication amply recovers the faulty side that I mention.
People were not created to remain as in intelligent instrument of production. Their aptitudes, their place in creation and their destiny are called to another function that is not that of the machine; to another role that is not of the horse in the carrousel. People must produce more and more intellectually, to the limit defined by their own advancement and finally emancipate from that state of servitude and intelligent machinery to which they have been enslaved for generations.
The worker is called upon to become an engineer, to see the working arms replaced by more accurate, tireless and active machines.
The artisan must turn into an artist, guiding the mechanical work through thoughts rather than arms. That is the irrefutable demonstration of that broad law of progress that governs all humanities.
Now that you can foresee the truth of human destinies by probing a future life and that you are convinced that this existence is not more than a ring in the chain of your immortal life I can say: what does it matter that a hundred thousand perish when a machine was discovered to do their work? To the philosopher that stands high and above earthly prejudices and interests such an event demonstrates that mankind was no longer walking the path designed by the Providence when dedicating to that kind of work. In fact it is in the field of intelligence that people must now apply the fertilizing plough. It is only through intelligence that progress will come.
I beg you not to attribute a much too revolutionary meaning to my words. No. But allow its broader and superior meaning allowed by a Spiritist essay that addresses the already advanced and ready minds for the thorough understanding of our instructions.
It is certain that if the artisan left overnight the bread winning loom under the pretext that it would be replaced by any sort of mechanism or invention it would be fatal and contrary to every lesson given by Spiritism. All thoughts, however, have the sole objective of demonstrating that nobody should scream against progress that replaces human arms by mechanical devices and gears.
Besides, it must be added that humanity paid high price to misery and that education penetrating further and further into all social layers will make each individual more and more capable of the intelligently called liberal functions.
It is hard to a Spirit that communicates through a medium for the first time to express the thought with enough clarity; I apologize for the disorganization of my communication that I conclude in a few words: man is a spiritual agent that must submit matter in a not too distant time to his own service and only utilizing intelligence that expands in human brains.
Vaucanson
[1] Gallic tribe of ancient Gaul, located between the Rhône River and Lake Geneva (TN – Wikipedia)
[2] A valley of the French Alps (TN – Wikipedia)
In his dissertation, remarkable in fact, he still mentions a few complaints expressed by the eager bread winning worker, afraid of the disgraceful unemployment. One can feel that the worker fears for the suspension of his work that sustains the loved ones; they feel that disaster looms over the heads of the majority. Such a feeling is noble but shows a kind of narrow point of view. I come to discuss the same subject handled by Jacquard but if not in broader terms than he did at least in a more general point of view. I must attest, however, and paying tribute to those that rightfully deserve so, that the generous conclusion of my friend’s communication amply recovers the faulty side that I mention.
People were not created to remain as in intelligent instrument of production. Their aptitudes, their place in creation and their destiny are called to another function that is not that of the machine; to another role that is not of the horse in the carrousel. People must produce more and more intellectually, to the limit defined by their own advancement and finally emancipate from that state of servitude and intelligent machinery to which they have been enslaved for generations.
The worker is called upon to become an engineer, to see the working arms replaced by more accurate, tireless and active machines.
The artisan must turn into an artist, guiding the mechanical work through thoughts rather than arms. That is the irrefutable demonstration of that broad law of progress that governs all humanities.
Now that you can foresee the truth of human destinies by probing a future life and that you are convinced that this existence is not more than a ring in the chain of your immortal life I can say: what does it matter that a hundred thousand perish when a machine was discovered to do their work? To the philosopher that stands high and above earthly prejudices and interests such an event demonstrates that mankind was no longer walking the path designed by the Providence when dedicating to that kind of work. In fact it is in the field of intelligence that people must now apply the fertilizing plough. It is only through intelligence that progress will come.
I beg you not to attribute a much too revolutionary meaning to my words. No. But allow its broader and superior meaning allowed by a Spiritist essay that addresses the already advanced and ready minds for the thorough understanding of our instructions.
It is certain that if the artisan left overnight the bread winning loom under the pretext that it would be replaced by any sort of mechanism or invention it would be fatal and contrary to every lesson given by Spiritism. All thoughts, however, have the sole objective of demonstrating that nobody should scream against progress that replaces human arms by mechanical devices and gears.
Besides, it must be added that humanity paid high price to misery and that education penetrating further and further into all social layers will make each individual more and more capable of the intelligently called liberal functions.
It is hard to a Spirit that communicates through a medium for the first time to express the thought with enough clarity; I apologize for the disorganization of my communication that I conclude in a few words: man is a spiritual agent that must submit matter in a not too distant time to his own service and only utilizing intelligence that expands in human brains.
Vaucanson
[1] Gallic tribe of ancient Gaul, located between the Rhône River and Lake Geneva (TN – Wikipedia)
[2] A valley of the French Alps (TN – Wikipedia)
Archives of Spiritism in Italy
The Spiritist Society of Turin initiated a monthly publication with the title above from which we received the two first issues. The eminently serious objective of that Society as well as the talent and enlightenment of the members allow us to have great expectations for the future of this new organ of the Doctrine.
Thanks to that and since it is written in their national language Spiritism will walk its way in Italy where it already counts on many sympathizers. The Society and its journal have clearly taken the flagship of the Parisian Society. The following passage translated from their first number is a kind of profession of faith that clearly states the Spirit that presides over the publication.
“Therefore those that wish to dedicate to the study of Spiritism must begin, before the experiments, by reading the works that handle the issue and study them thoughtfully to avoid acting like the traveler that traveled to an unknown land without guides or advices taking the risk of getting lost in every step of the way. Since others have leveled the terrain reason requires that they enlighten themselves by the study so that they can distinguish between the good and the bad Spirits and how to behave to free themselves from the latter ones and not become victims of their trickeries or the bad consequences that result from that.
The books written in French by a tireless and wise Spiritist, Mr. Allan Kardec, are highly recommended, books that we don’t know what to praise the most if the equity of the intent, the highest philosophy or the clarity of the explanations. Among the works the first to be read are The Spirits’ Book and The Mediums’ Book. The first one contains the philosophical doctrine revealed by the superior Spirits, as the author says, and the second contains a comprehensive treaty about the practice of Spiritism and the way to acquire, if possible, the mediumistic faculty. None of those works, however, was translated to the Italian and even if they could be analyzed by everybody their reach would be an obstacle to many. The author himself felt that and that is why he summarized the essential part of The Spirits’ Book in a little brochure entitled: Spiritism in its simplest expression that was translated to our language and published in Turin. One can say that the translation circulated the whole peninsula and a large number of books sold in every Italian city. But since the author did not publish a summary of The Mediums’ Book and in hopes that the complete book be translated into Italian, we had the idea of publishing a summary ourselves that although not comparable to one by Allan Kardec it at least contains the first aid kit of warnings for those that are willing to dedicate to the study of practical Spiritism. We hope it will be good enough to initiate the path that will be needed to be covered to be able to successfully establish a relationship with the good Spirits and keep the inferior and bad ones away. Studied with purity of feelings Spiritism can become a source of the sweetest consolations to every good person that longs for progress.”
A new journal has just appeared in Bordeaux, with the title: “The savior of the peoples, journal of Spiritism, propagator of the fraternal unity.” General Manager: A. Lefraise. It is a weekly publication.
The title promises a lot and imposes great obligations for today the etiquette is no longer enough. We shall remind them after appreciating the way they justify things. If it is here to bring a useful stone to the edifice; it is comes to unite, as it says, instead of breaking apart; if guided by true charity in words and actions towards their fellow believers; if the controversy with the adversaries of our doctrine does not go beyond the limits of honesty and moderation it will be welcome and we will gladly encourage and support it.
A new work of Mr. Allan Kardec more or less of the same extension of The Spirits Book is in preparation to be released in December. It should have been published in February but involuntary delays in printing and the care that it requires did not allow so. Everything leads to believe that we will be able announce the publication in the next issue of the Review. It should replace the book announced under the title: The voices of the invisible world, whose primitive plan was radically modified.
The Spiritist Society of Turin initiated a monthly publication with the title above from which we received the two first issues. The eminently serious objective of that Society as well as the talent and enlightenment of the members allow us to have great expectations for the future of this new organ of the Doctrine.
Thanks to that and since it is written in their national language Spiritism will walk its way in Italy where it already counts on many sympathizers. The Society and its journal have clearly taken the flagship of the Parisian Society. The following passage translated from their first number is a kind of profession of faith that clearly states the Spirit that presides over the publication.
“Therefore those that wish to dedicate to the study of Spiritism must begin, before the experiments, by reading the works that handle the issue and study them thoughtfully to avoid acting like the traveler that traveled to an unknown land without guides or advices taking the risk of getting lost in every step of the way. Since others have leveled the terrain reason requires that they enlighten themselves by the study so that they can distinguish between the good and the bad Spirits and how to behave to free themselves from the latter ones and not become victims of their trickeries or the bad consequences that result from that.
The books written in French by a tireless and wise Spiritist, Mr. Allan Kardec, are highly recommended, books that we don’t know what to praise the most if the equity of the intent, the highest philosophy or the clarity of the explanations. Among the works the first to be read are The Spirits’ Book and The Mediums’ Book. The first one contains the philosophical doctrine revealed by the superior Spirits, as the author says, and the second contains a comprehensive treaty about the practice of Spiritism and the way to acquire, if possible, the mediumistic faculty. None of those works, however, was translated to the Italian and even if they could be analyzed by everybody their reach would be an obstacle to many. The author himself felt that and that is why he summarized the essential part of The Spirits’ Book in a little brochure entitled: Spiritism in its simplest expression that was translated to our language and published in Turin. One can say that the translation circulated the whole peninsula and a large number of books sold in every Italian city. But since the author did not publish a summary of The Mediums’ Book and in hopes that the complete book be translated into Italian, we had the idea of publishing a summary ourselves that although not comparable to one by Allan Kardec it at least contains the first aid kit of warnings for those that are willing to dedicate to the study of practical Spiritism. We hope it will be good enough to initiate the path that will be needed to be covered to be able to successfully establish a relationship with the good Spirits and keep the inferior and bad ones away. Studied with purity of feelings Spiritism can become a source of the sweetest consolations to every good person that longs for progress.”
A new journal has just appeared in Bordeaux, with the title: “The savior of the peoples, journal of Spiritism, propagator of the fraternal unity.” General Manager: A. Lefraise. It is a weekly publication.
The title promises a lot and imposes great obligations for today the etiquette is no longer enough. We shall remind them after appreciating the way they justify things. If it is here to bring a useful stone to the edifice; it is comes to unite, as it says, instead of breaking apart; if guided by true charity in words and actions towards their fellow believers; if the controversy with the adversaries of our doctrine does not go beyond the limits of honesty and moderation it will be welcome and we will gladly encourage and support it.
A new work of Mr. Allan Kardec more or less of the same extension of The Spirits Book is in preparation to be released in December. It should have been published in February but involuntary delays in printing and the care that it requires did not allow so. Everything leads to believe that we will be able announce the publication in the next issue of the Review. It should replace the book announced under the title: The voices of the invisible world, whose primitive plan was radically modified.
R.P.F. Mathieu
Former army chief pharmacist and member of several scientific societies
Mr. Mathieu, deceased on February 12th, 1864 was very well-known in the Spiritist environment of Paris where he used to attend several meetings in which he took active part. He was involved with the Spiritist phenomena since its origin. We met him when we were initiating our preliminary works. The nature of his mind led him to doubt. A long time after he had carried out experiments himself with the planchette he still refused to acknowledge the action of the Spirits. Later on his ideas changed and he was no longer so radically against the idea of reincarnation.
Mr. Mathieu only hardly and with time would admit something that was not the way he saw things but he was not a systematic adversary and although not totally convinced by the doctrines found in The Spirits’ Book we must pay tribute to his controversy since he has never distanced himself from the boundaries of civility. The kindness and honorability of his character made him appreciated by all of those that met him and he shall be missed. He died at the moment when he was giving the finishing touch in his important book about the Convulsionaries that has just been published by Mr. Didier & Co.
Former army chief pharmacist and member of several scientific societies
Mr. Mathieu, deceased on February 12th, 1864 was very well-known in the Spiritist environment of Paris where he used to attend several meetings in which he took active part. He was involved with the Spiritist phenomena since its origin. We met him when we were initiating our preliminary works. The nature of his mind led him to doubt. A long time after he had carried out experiments himself with the planchette he still refused to acknowledge the action of the Spirits. Later on his ideas changed and he was no longer so radically against the idea of reincarnation.
Mr. Mathieu only hardly and with time would admit something that was not the way he saw things but he was not a systematic adversary and although not totally convinced by the doctrines found in The Spirits’ Book we must pay tribute to his controversy since he has never distanced himself from the boundaries of civility. The kindness and honorability of his character made him appreciated by all of those that met him and he shall be missed. He died at the moment when he was giving the finishing touch in his important book about the Convulsionaries that has just been published by Mr. Didier & Co.
April
For sale: Imitation of the Gospel According to Spiritism[1]
With the moral maxims of Jesus Christ, their agreement with Spiritism
and their application to the several situations of life
By Allan Kardec
With the following epigraph:
“There is no unbreakable faith but the one that can face reason in all times of humanity.”
We abstain from providing any reflection about the book, with the exception of the below excerpt from its introduction that explains its objective.
“The subjects found in the Gospels may be divided in four parts: the common acts of Jesus’ life, the miracles, the predictions and the moral teaching.[2] If the first was object of controversy the last one remained untouchable. Disbelief itself bends before that divine code: it is the terrain in which every doctrine can meet and the flagship that can accommodate every one, whatever their beliefs may be, for it has never been the subject of religious disputes, always and everywhere raised by issues of dogma.
As a matter of fact the sects would have found their own condemnation had they discussed them because in their majority they were more attached to the mystical than the moral part that requires the reformation of oneself. To mankind, in particular, it is a rule of behavior that embraces every circumstance of life, public or private, the principle of all social relationships based on a strict justice; it is finally and above all the infallible route to future happiness, the tip of the veil that is lifted about our future life. This is the part that constitutes the exclusive objective of this work.
“Everybody admires the evangelical moral. Each one proclaims its sublimity and necessity but many do so based on what they heard or in their faith in some maxims that became proverbial but only a few know them with profundity and even less understand them and deduce their consequences.
The reason for that is due a great deal to the difficulty in reading the Gospels, unintelligible to a large number of people. The allegorical style, the intentional mysticism of the language lead the majority to read it just to relief their consciences and out of duty as they read prayers without understanding them that is without benefit. The moral precepts that are spread here and there, mixed amongst the mass of other reports, go unnoticed. It is then impossible to retain the whole and turn it into the object of a separated reading and meditation.
It is true that treaties of evangelical moral were written but the organization in moral literary style remove the primitive sincerity that at the same gives both its enchantment and authenticity. There are even detached maxims that are reduced to the simplest expression of proverb thus becoming not more than aphorisms that lose part of their value and interest in the absence of the accessories and circumstances in which they were given. To avoid such inconveniences we gathered in this book the verses that may form, in a way, a code of universal moral, without distinction of cult. In the citations we kept everything that could be useful to the development of the idea, eliminating nothing but was strange to the subject. In addition we scrupulously respected the original translation of Sacy,[3] as well as the division of verses.
However, instead of keeping a chronological order that has no real advantage in such a matter we methodically grouped and classified the maxims according to their nature so that and as much as possible some are deduced from others. The reference of chapters and verses are provided if people want to resource to the common classification. All that was only a material effort that alone would have only a secondary utility. The essential was to bring them to the attention of everyone with the explanation of obscure passages and the development of all consequences aiming at their application to the several situations of life. That is what we tried to do with the help of the good Spirits that assist us.
Many points of the Bible, of the Gospels and sacred authors in general are unintelligible and even seem irrational just because they lack the key to understand their true meaning. Such a key is entirely in Spiritism as found by those that have already studied it seriously and as it will be later on better acknowledged.
Spiritism is found everywhere, in antiquity and in all periods of humanity. Its traces are inscribed everywhere, such as in beliefs and monuments. That is why if Spiritism opens up new horizons for the future it also casts a not less shiny light upon the mysteries of the past. As a complement to each precept we added some instructions chosen from those dictated by the Spirits in several countries and through several mediums. Had those instructions come out from a single source they could have suffered a personal influence or that of the environment whereas the diversity of origins demonstrates that the Spirits give their teachings everywhere and that nobody has the privilege of that.
This work is to be used by all. Every person may find there the means of accommodating their behavior to the moral of Jesus Christ. In addition the Spiritists find there the applications that are more specially related to them. Thanks to the communications from now on established in a permanent way between mankind and the invisible world the evangelical law taught in all nations by the Spirits themselves will no longer be dead word because every person will understand it and will be necessarily called upon to practice it by the advice of their own spiritual guides.
The instructions of the Spirits are truly the voices of heavens that come to enlighten mankind and invite us to imitate the Gospels.”
[1] A thick volume, in-12. Didier bookseller, Quai des Grands-Augustins; Ledoyen, Palais-Royal and at the office of the Spiritist Review. Price: 3.5 francs.
[2] Later on Mr. Allan Kardec modified the division into five parts, including the passages that served the Church for the establishment of its dogmas. (TN)
[3] Louis-Isaac Lemaistre de Sacy(29 March 1613 – 4 January 1684), a priest of Port-Royal, was a theologian and French humanist. He is best known for his translation of the Bible the most widespread French Bible in the 18th century, also known as the Bible de Port-Royal (TN, Wikipedia)
With the moral maxims of Jesus Christ, their agreement with Spiritism
and their application to the several situations of life
By Allan Kardec
With the following epigraph:
“There is no unbreakable faith but the one that can face reason in all times of humanity.”
We abstain from providing any reflection about the book, with the exception of the below excerpt from its introduction that explains its objective.
“The subjects found in the Gospels may be divided in four parts: the common acts of Jesus’ life, the miracles, the predictions and the moral teaching.[2] If the first was object of controversy the last one remained untouchable. Disbelief itself bends before that divine code: it is the terrain in which every doctrine can meet and the flagship that can accommodate every one, whatever their beliefs may be, for it has never been the subject of religious disputes, always and everywhere raised by issues of dogma.
As a matter of fact the sects would have found their own condemnation had they discussed them because in their majority they were more attached to the mystical than the moral part that requires the reformation of oneself. To mankind, in particular, it is a rule of behavior that embraces every circumstance of life, public or private, the principle of all social relationships based on a strict justice; it is finally and above all the infallible route to future happiness, the tip of the veil that is lifted about our future life. This is the part that constitutes the exclusive objective of this work.
“Everybody admires the evangelical moral. Each one proclaims its sublimity and necessity but many do so based on what they heard or in their faith in some maxims that became proverbial but only a few know them with profundity and even less understand them and deduce their consequences.
The reason for that is due a great deal to the difficulty in reading the Gospels, unintelligible to a large number of people. The allegorical style, the intentional mysticism of the language lead the majority to read it just to relief their consciences and out of duty as they read prayers without understanding them that is without benefit. The moral precepts that are spread here and there, mixed amongst the mass of other reports, go unnoticed. It is then impossible to retain the whole and turn it into the object of a separated reading and meditation.
It is true that treaties of evangelical moral were written but the organization in moral literary style remove the primitive sincerity that at the same gives both its enchantment and authenticity. There are even detached maxims that are reduced to the simplest expression of proverb thus becoming not more than aphorisms that lose part of their value and interest in the absence of the accessories and circumstances in which they were given. To avoid such inconveniences we gathered in this book the verses that may form, in a way, a code of universal moral, without distinction of cult. In the citations we kept everything that could be useful to the development of the idea, eliminating nothing but was strange to the subject. In addition we scrupulously respected the original translation of Sacy,[3] as well as the division of verses.
However, instead of keeping a chronological order that has no real advantage in such a matter we methodically grouped and classified the maxims according to their nature so that and as much as possible some are deduced from others. The reference of chapters and verses are provided if people want to resource to the common classification. All that was only a material effort that alone would have only a secondary utility. The essential was to bring them to the attention of everyone with the explanation of obscure passages and the development of all consequences aiming at their application to the several situations of life. That is what we tried to do with the help of the good Spirits that assist us.
Many points of the Bible, of the Gospels and sacred authors in general are unintelligible and even seem irrational just because they lack the key to understand their true meaning. Such a key is entirely in Spiritism as found by those that have already studied it seriously and as it will be later on better acknowledged.
Spiritism is found everywhere, in antiquity and in all periods of humanity. Its traces are inscribed everywhere, such as in beliefs and monuments. That is why if Spiritism opens up new horizons for the future it also casts a not less shiny light upon the mysteries of the past. As a complement to each precept we added some instructions chosen from those dictated by the Spirits in several countries and through several mediums. Had those instructions come out from a single source they could have suffered a personal influence or that of the environment whereas the diversity of origins demonstrates that the Spirits give their teachings everywhere and that nobody has the privilege of that.
This work is to be used by all. Every person may find there the means of accommodating their behavior to the moral of Jesus Christ. In addition the Spiritists find there the applications that are more specially related to them. Thanks to the communications from now on established in a permanent way between mankind and the invisible world the evangelical law taught in all nations by the Spirits themselves will no longer be dead word because every person will understand it and will be necessarily called upon to practice it by the advice of their own spiritual guides.
The instructions of the Spirits are truly the voices of heavens that come to enlighten mankind and invite us to imitate the Gospels.”
[1] A thick volume, in-12. Didier bookseller, Quai des Grands-Augustins; Ledoyen, Palais-Royal and at the office of the Spiritist Review. Price: 3.5 francs.
[2] Later on Mr. Allan Kardec modified the division into five parts, including the passages that served the Church for the establishment of its dogmas. (TN)
[3] Louis-Isaac Lemaistre de Sacy(29 March 1613 – 4 January 1684), a priest of Port-Royal, was a theologian and French humanist. He is best known for his translation of the Bible the most widespread French Bible in the 18th century, also known as the Bible de Port-Royal (TN, Wikipedia)
Universal control of the teachings of the Spirits[1]
We have already discussed this subject in the last issue of the Review regarding a special article (The perfection of the created beings) but that is so important and has consequences of such a magnitude for the future of Spiritism that we find appropriate to analyze it in a more comprehensive way.
If the Spiritist Doctrine were a purely human conception its only guarantee would be the enlightenment of the person that had conceived it. Now, nobody here could have the founded pretension of knowing the absolute truth by themselves. If the Spirits that revealed it had manifested to a single person nothing could guarantee its origin and everyone would have to believe in the word of that person that would have received their teachings. Admitting a total honesty from the part of the person that would have received it the most it could do would be to convince those that lived in the same environment. That person could find followers but never attract everybody.
God wanted the revelation to get to us through the fastest and most authentic path. That is why the Spirits were assigned with the mission of taking it from one pole to the next, manifesting everywhere, not given anybody in particular the exclusive privilege of hearing their words. A person may be mistaken, may deceive others but that could happen when millions of people see and hear the same thing. That is a guarantee to each and every one.
Besides, people can get rid of a single person but cannot do that to the crowds; books can be burnt but the Spirits cannot. Even if all books were destroyed the source of the Doctrine would not be extinguished because it is not on Earth, it shoots everywhere and everybody can enjoy it. In the absence of people to spread it there will be Spirits that reach everyone and that cannot be reached themselves.
In actual fact it is the Spirits that make the propaganda supported by a large number of mediums that are solicited everywhere. I they had a single interpreter, however skilled that medium might be, Spiritism would be hardly known.
That single interpreter, irrespective of the social class, would have felt prevention from all sides and from many people. That medium would not have been accepted by all nations, whereas communicating to all peoples and everywhere, to all sects and parties, the Spirits are accepted by all.
Spiritism has no nationality. It is indifferent to any particular cult; it is not imposed by any social class since everybody may receive communications from relatives and friends from beyond the grave. That was necessary so that Spiritism would invite humanity to fraternity. If not placed in a neutral ground it would have created dissention rather than peace.
Such universality of the teaching of the Spirits constitutes the strength of Spiritism. That is also the cause of its fast propagation while the voice of a single person, even with the support of the press, would have taken centuries to get to everyone’s ears and there we have thousands of voices that are simultaneously heard in all corners of the globe, proclaiming the same principles, transmitting them to the most ignorant as to the wisest person so that nobody may be left behind. It is an advantage not enjoyed by any doctrine so far. If then Spiritism is a truth it fears no bad will of people nor the moral revolutions or the physical cataclysms of the world because none of these things can affect the Spirits.
But that is not the only advantage that results from such an exceptional position. Spiritism finds in that a powerful guarantee against the schisms that could result from the ambition of certain persons or the contradictions of certain Spirits. Such contradictions are undoubtedly an embarrassment but that carries in itself the very remedy to the disease.
It is well-known that the Spirits, by force of the differences in their capacities, are individually far from holding the whole truth; that not all of them are given the right to have access to certain mysteries; that their knowledge is proportional to their depuration; that vulgar Spirits don’t know better than people on Earth and even less than certain persons; that among them as with ourselves there are presumptuous and pseudo-wise Spirits that believe to know what they actually don’t; systematic one that take their ideas by the truth; finally that the Spirits of a more elevated order, those that are completely dematerialized are the only ones that are free from the earthly prejudices.
But it is also well-known that deceiving Spirits have no scrupulous in hiding under borrowed names to have their utopias accepted. From that it follows that anything that is beyond exclusively moral teachings the revelations that anyone can receive have an individual character, without authenticity; that they must be considered as personal opinion from this or that Spirit, and that it would be unwise to accept them and lightheartedly promote them as absolute truths.
The first control is undoubtedly that of reason to which one has to submit, without exception, everything that comes from the Spirits. Any theory that is manifestly in contradiction with common sense, with a rigorous logic and with positive facts that are available, however respectable the signature may be, must be rejected. However such a control is incomplete in many cases due to the lack of knowledge of certain persons and the tendency that many have of making their own judgement as the only referee of truth. In such cases what do the people that do not have much confidence in themselves? Follow the opinion of the majority and that opinion is their guide. That is how it must be with respect to the teaching of the Spirits, and these means we are taught by the Spirits themselves.
Therefore the best control is the agreement in the teaching of the Spirits but that still does need to occur in certain conditions. The least safe is when a medium questions several Spirits about a doubtful point. It is obvious that if the medium is enduring a case of obsession and dealing with the same deceiving Spirit that Spirit can tell her the same thing with different names.
Also the conformity obtained by multiple mediums of the same center is not enough because they may be suffering the same influence. The only serious guarantee that there exist is in the agreement between spontaneous revelations made through mediums of a large number of mediums that are strange to one another and in several regions.
It must be understood that we are not talking about communications of secondary interest here but those that attain to the principles of the Spiritist Doctrine. Experience demonstrates that when a new principle must be learned it is taught spontaneously and in several points at the same time and in identical conditions if not in its form at least in its meaning. Hence if a Spirit wishes to propose an eccentric, based on his own ideas and not necessarily true, we can rest assured that such a system will remain inside a limited circle and will fall down before the unanimous instructions given everywhere, as we have already seen in several examples. It is that unanimity that knocked down all partial systems that were born at the origin of Spiritism when each one explained the phenomena their own way and before the laws that govern the relationships between the visible and invisible world were known.
Such is the foundation on which we base ourselves when formulating a principle of the Doctrine. We do not promote it as true because it is in agreement with our own ideas; we do not put ourselves in place of absolute judges of the supreme truth and we do not tell anyway: “Believe in this because we say so.” Our opinion, before our own eyes, is nothing more than a personal opinion that can be either right or wrong and by the simple fact that we are not more infallible than anybody else. In addition it is not because a principle was taught to us that we believe it to be true but because it received the endorsement of the general agreement. That universal agreement is a guarantee to the future unity of Spiritism and it will nullify all contradictory theories. That is where the criteria of truth will be sought in the future.
The success achieved by both The Spirits’ Book and The Mediums’ Book is that every person may receive directly from the Spirits the confirmation of their teachings. If they were contradicted by the Spirits from all sides they would have found long ago the same destiny of the fantastic ideas. Even the support of press would not have saved the wreckage whilst they propagated rapidly without that very support because they counted on the Spirits and they compensated by far the bad will of people. That is how it is going to be with every idea that may come from the Spirits or from mankind that cannot endure the trial of that control that is not in anyone’s hands.
Let us then suppose that certain Spirits decide to dictate a book with a given title and whose principles are contrary to those. Let us even imagine that with the objective of discrediting the Doctrine apocryphal messages were produced by malevolence. What would be the influence of such texts if they are disproved by the Spirits everywhere? One should count on the adhesion of the latter ones before releasing a system in their name. The distance between a system of a single Spirit and that of all Spirits is like the distance between the unity and infinite.
What can all the arguments of the detractors about the general opinion do when millions of friendly voices from space and in all corners of the globe and within the cell of each family come to contradict them? Hasn’t experience already confirmed the theory about that? What happened to all publications that pretended to have come to annihilate Spiritism? Which one has even precluded its march? Up until now this subject had not been faced by that viewpoint, undoubtedly one of the most serious. Each one of them counted on themselves but not on the Spirits.
A capital truth stems from that: Any person that wanted to oppose the flow of the established and endorsed ideas could well cause a small local and momentarily disturbance but never dominate the whole both in the present as well as in the future. It also points out the fact that instructions given by the Spirits about issues that are not clarified yet could not become law while isolated ideas and that consequently must be only accepted with the highest reservation and as informational.
Hence the need to be very careful when publishing them and if judged appropriate their publication then show them as individual opinions more or less likely but that still require confirmation. That is the confirmation that must be expected before a principle is presented as an absolute truth if one does not wish to be accused of light-heartedness or unthoughtful belief. The superior Spirits proceed with extreme wisdom in their revelations. They only gradually touch the great questions of the Doctrine as the intelligence becomes more capable of understanding the truths of a more elevated order and also the circumstances are adequate to a new idea. That is why they have not said everything from the beginning and even today they did not say everything, never yielding to the impatience of hasty persons that are ready to harvest the fruit before its maturation. It would then be useless to try to precipitate the time scheduled by the Providence for each thing because the really serious Spirits would refuse to help. The lighthearted Spirits though give little importance to the truth and respond to everything. That is why there are always contradictory answers to all premature questions. The principles above are not the result of a personal opinion but a forceful consequence of the conditions in which the Spirits manifest. It is clear that if a Spirit says something on one side while millions of others say the opposite elsewhere the presumption of truth cannot be on the side of only one or only a few. The pretension of being the only one to be right from the part of the Spirits is as much illogical as it is to a person. When the truly wise Spirits don’t feel sufficiently clarified about an issue they never resolve it in absolute terms; the openly indicate to be responding according to their personal opinion and even advise to wait for the confirmation.
However beautiful, fair and great an idea may be it is impossible to have the opinion of everybody behind it since the beginning. The resulting conflicts are an inevitable consequence of the general movement that takes place; these are even necessary to highlight the truth and it is useful that they take place in the beginning so that the false ideas be promptly discarded. The Spiritists that have some concern must rest assured. All of the isolated pretenses will fall by the force of things before the great and powerful criteria of the universal control. It is not the opinion of a person that they will follow but the unanimous voice of the Spirits. It is not a man and more importantly not us more than others that will found the Spiritist orthodoxy; it is not a Spirit that will impose upon anybody either; it is the universality of the Spirits, communicating all over Earth and commanded by God. That is the essential character of the Spiritist Doctrine, its strength and authority. God wanted His law to be founded on an unbreakable basis and that is why it was not laid upon the fragile mind of a single person.
It is before such a powerful engine that does not know little groups or envious rivalries nor sects or nations that every opposition will break, as all the ambitions and pretensions to individual supremacy; that we would ourselves be shattered if we wanted to replace the sovereign designs by our own ideas. It is the only one that will solve all the disputes; that will break the dissidences and will give or not give reason to the one that deserves it.
Before such power agreement between all voices of heavens what can the opinion of a single person or Spirit do? Less than the drop of water in the whole ocean. Less than the voice of a child muffled by the storm. The universal opinion that is the supreme judge, the one that has the last word. It is formed by all individual opinions; if one is true it will only have its relative weight on the scale; if it is false it will not be able to succeed against all others. Individuals fade away in that immense assembly and that is a new drawback to human pride.
Such a harmonious horizon is already forming. This century shall not be over before its full resplendence shines out reassuring uncertainties for until then powerful voices would have been assigned the mission of being heard to rank mankind under the same flag as long as the field is sufficiently prepared.
While wait, the one that floats between two opposing systems can observe the direction of the general opinion. That is the correct indication given by the majority of the Spirits about the several points in their communications. It is not a less certain signal about which system will succeed.
[1] This text is item II of the introduction of The Gospel According to Spiritism (TN)
We have already discussed this subject in the last issue of the Review regarding a special article (The perfection of the created beings) but that is so important and has consequences of such a magnitude for the future of Spiritism that we find appropriate to analyze it in a more comprehensive way.
If the Spiritist Doctrine were a purely human conception its only guarantee would be the enlightenment of the person that had conceived it. Now, nobody here could have the founded pretension of knowing the absolute truth by themselves. If the Spirits that revealed it had manifested to a single person nothing could guarantee its origin and everyone would have to believe in the word of that person that would have received their teachings. Admitting a total honesty from the part of the person that would have received it the most it could do would be to convince those that lived in the same environment. That person could find followers but never attract everybody.
God wanted the revelation to get to us through the fastest and most authentic path. That is why the Spirits were assigned with the mission of taking it from one pole to the next, manifesting everywhere, not given anybody in particular the exclusive privilege of hearing their words. A person may be mistaken, may deceive others but that could happen when millions of people see and hear the same thing. That is a guarantee to each and every one.
Besides, people can get rid of a single person but cannot do that to the crowds; books can be burnt but the Spirits cannot. Even if all books were destroyed the source of the Doctrine would not be extinguished because it is not on Earth, it shoots everywhere and everybody can enjoy it. In the absence of people to spread it there will be Spirits that reach everyone and that cannot be reached themselves.
In actual fact it is the Spirits that make the propaganda supported by a large number of mediums that are solicited everywhere. I they had a single interpreter, however skilled that medium might be, Spiritism would be hardly known.
That single interpreter, irrespective of the social class, would have felt prevention from all sides and from many people. That medium would not have been accepted by all nations, whereas communicating to all peoples and everywhere, to all sects and parties, the Spirits are accepted by all.
Spiritism has no nationality. It is indifferent to any particular cult; it is not imposed by any social class since everybody may receive communications from relatives and friends from beyond the grave. That was necessary so that Spiritism would invite humanity to fraternity. If not placed in a neutral ground it would have created dissention rather than peace.
Such universality of the teaching of the Spirits constitutes the strength of Spiritism. That is also the cause of its fast propagation while the voice of a single person, even with the support of the press, would have taken centuries to get to everyone’s ears and there we have thousands of voices that are simultaneously heard in all corners of the globe, proclaiming the same principles, transmitting them to the most ignorant as to the wisest person so that nobody may be left behind. It is an advantage not enjoyed by any doctrine so far. If then Spiritism is a truth it fears no bad will of people nor the moral revolutions or the physical cataclysms of the world because none of these things can affect the Spirits.
But that is not the only advantage that results from such an exceptional position. Spiritism finds in that a powerful guarantee against the schisms that could result from the ambition of certain persons or the contradictions of certain Spirits. Such contradictions are undoubtedly an embarrassment but that carries in itself the very remedy to the disease.
It is well-known that the Spirits, by force of the differences in their capacities, are individually far from holding the whole truth; that not all of them are given the right to have access to certain mysteries; that their knowledge is proportional to their depuration; that vulgar Spirits don’t know better than people on Earth and even less than certain persons; that among them as with ourselves there are presumptuous and pseudo-wise Spirits that believe to know what they actually don’t; systematic one that take their ideas by the truth; finally that the Spirits of a more elevated order, those that are completely dematerialized are the only ones that are free from the earthly prejudices.
But it is also well-known that deceiving Spirits have no scrupulous in hiding under borrowed names to have their utopias accepted. From that it follows that anything that is beyond exclusively moral teachings the revelations that anyone can receive have an individual character, without authenticity; that they must be considered as personal opinion from this or that Spirit, and that it would be unwise to accept them and lightheartedly promote them as absolute truths.
The first control is undoubtedly that of reason to which one has to submit, without exception, everything that comes from the Spirits. Any theory that is manifestly in contradiction with common sense, with a rigorous logic and with positive facts that are available, however respectable the signature may be, must be rejected. However such a control is incomplete in many cases due to the lack of knowledge of certain persons and the tendency that many have of making their own judgement as the only referee of truth. In such cases what do the people that do not have much confidence in themselves? Follow the opinion of the majority and that opinion is their guide. That is how it must be with respect to the teaching of the Spirits, and these means we are taught by the Spirits themselves.
Therefore the best control is the agreement in the teaching of the Spirits but that still does need to occur in certain conditions. The least safe is when a medium questions several Spirits about a doubtful point. It is obvious that if the medium is enduring a case of obsession and dealing with the same deceiving Spirit that Spirit can tell her the same thing with different names.
Also the conformity obtained by multiple mediums of the same center is not enough because they may be suffering the same influence. The only serious guarantee that there exist is in the agreement between spontaneous revelations made through mediums of a large number of mediums that are strange to one another and in several regions.
It must be understood that we are not talking about communications of secondary interest here but those that attain to the principles of the Spiritist Doctrine. Experience demonstrates that when a new principle must be learned it is taught spontaneously and in several points at the same time and in identical conditions if not in its form at least in its meaning. Hence if a Spirit wishes to propose an eccentric, based on his own ideas and not necessarily true, we can rest assured that such a system will remain inside a limited circle and will fall down before the unanimous instructions given everywhere, as we have already seen in several examples. It is that unanimity that knocked down all partial systems that were born at the origin of Spiritism when each one explained the phenomena their own way and before the laws that govern the relationships between the visible and invisible world were known.
Such is the foundation on which we base ourselves when formulating a principle of the Doctrine. We do not promote it as true because it is in agreement with our own ideas; we do not put ourselves in place of absolute judges of the supreme truth and we do not tell anyway: “Believe in this because we say so.” Our opinion, before our own eyes, is nothing more than a personal opinion that can be either right or wrong and by the simple fact that we are not more infallible than anybody else. In addition it is not because a principle was taught to us that we believe it to be true but because it received the endorsement of the general agreement. That universal agreement is a guarantee to the future unity of Spiritism and it will nullify all contradictory theories. That is where the criteria of truth will be sought in the future.
The success achieved by both The Spirits’ Book and The Mediums’ Book is that every person may receive directly from the Spirits the confirmation of their teachings. If they were contradicted by the Spirits from all sides they would have found long ago the same destiny of the fantastic ideas. Even the support of press would not have saved the wreckage whilst they propagated rapidly without that very support because they counted on the Spirits and they compensated by far the bad will of people. That is how it is going to be with every idea that may come from the Spirits or from mankind that cannot endure the trial of that control that is not in anyone’s hands.
Let us then suppose that certain Spirits decide to dictate a book with a given title and whose principles are contrary to those. Let us even imagine that with the objective of discrediting the Doctrine apocryphal messages were produced by malevolence. What would be the influence of such texts if they are disproved by the Spirits everywhere? One should count on the adhesion of the latter ones before releasing a system in their name. The distance between a system of a single Spirit and that of all Spirits is like the distance between the unity and infinite.
What can all the arguments of the detractors about the general opinion do when millions of friendly voices from space and in all corners of the globe and within the cell of each family come to contradict them? Hasn’t experience already confirmed the theory about that? What happened to all publications that pretended to have come to annihilate Spiritism? Which one has even precluded its march? Up until now this subject had not been faced by that viewpoint, undoubtedly one of the most serious. Each one of them counted on themselves but not on the Spirits.
A capital truth stems from that: Any person that wanted to oppose the flow of the established and endorsed ideas could well cause a small local and momentarily disturbance but never dominate the whole both in the present as well as in the future. It also points out the fact that instructions given by the Spirits about issues that are not clarified yet could not become law while isolated ideas and that consequently must be only accepted with the highest reservation and as informational.
Hence the need to be very careful when publishing them and if judged appropriate their publication then show them as individual opinions more or less likely but that still require confirmation. That is the confirmation that must be expected before a principle is presented as an absolute truth if one does not wish to be accused of light-heartedness or unthoughtful belief. The superior Spirits proceed with extreme wisdom in their revelations. They only gradually touch the great questions of the Doctrine as the intelligence becomes more capable of understanding the truths of a more elevated order and also the circumstances are adequate to a new idea. That is why they have not said everything from the beginning and even today they did not say everything, never yielding to the impatience of hasty persons that are ready to harvest the fruit before its maturation. It would then be useless to try to precipitate the time scheduled by the Providence for each thing because the really serious Spirits would refuse to help. The lighthearted Spirits though give little importance to the truth and respond to everything. That is why there are always contradictory answers to all premature questions. The principles above are not the result of a personal opinion but a forceful consequence of the conditions in which the Spirits manifest. It is clear that if a Spirit says something on one side while millions of others say the opposite elsewhere the presumption of truth cannot be on the side of only one or only a few. The pretension of being the only one to be right from the part of the Spirits is as much illogical as it is to a person. When the truly wise Spirits don’t feel sufficiently clarified about an issue they never resolve it in absolute terms; the openly indicate to be responding according to their personal opinion and even advise to wait for the confirmation.
However beautiful, fair and great an idea may be it is impossible to have the opinion of everybody behind it since the beginning. The resulting conflicts are an inevitable consequence of the general movement that takes place; these are even necessary to highlight the truth and it is useful that they take place in the beginning so that the false ideas be promptly discarded. The Spiritists that have some concern must rest assured. All of the isolated pretenses will fall by the force of things before the great and powerful criteria of the universal control. It is not the opinion of a person that they will follow but the unanimous voice of the Spirits. It is not a man and more importantly not us more than others that will found the Spiritist orthodoxy; it is not a Spirit that will impose upon anybody either; it is the universality of the Spirits, communicating all over Earth and commanded by God. That is the essential character of the Spiritist Doctrine, its strength and authority. God wanted His law to be founded on an unbreakable basis and that is why it was not laid upon the fragile mind of a single person.
It is before such a powerful engine that does not know little groups or envious rivalries nor sects or nations that every opposition will break, as all the ambitions and pretensions to individual supremacy; that we would ourselves be shattered if we wanted to replace the sovereign designs by our own ideas. It is the only one that will solve all the disputes; that will break the dissidences and will give or not give reason to the one that deserves it.
Before such power agreement between all voices of heavens what can the opinion of a single person or Spirit do? Less than the drop of water in the whole ocean. Less than the voice of a child muffled by the storm. The universal opinion that is the supreme judge, the one that has the last word. It is formed by all individual opinions; if one is true it will only have its relative weight on the scale; if it is false it will not be able to succeed against all others. Individuals fade away in that immense assembly and that is a new drawback to human pride.
Such a harmonious horizon is already forming. This century shall not be over before its full resplendence shines out reassuring uncertainties for until then powerful voices would have been assigned the mission of being heard to rank mankind under the same flag as long as the field is sufficiently prepared.
While wait, the one that floats between two opposing systems can observe the direction of the general opinion. That is the correct indication given by the majority of the Spirits about the several points in their communications. It is not a less certain signal about which system will succeed.
[1] This text is item II of the introduction of The Gospel According to Spiritism (TN)
This instruction is given in particular to persons that do not know the basics of Spiritism and to whom one wishes to provide a succinct idea in a few words. In groups and Spiritists groups in which there are rookie attendees it may be useful as a preamble to the session, according to the needs.
-o-
Persons that are strange to Spiritism and do not understand its means and objectives almost always have a false idea about it. Above all what they miss is the knowledge of the principle, the first key to the phenomena. In the absence of that what is heard or seen brings no benefit or interest to them. It is a demonstrated fact that the simple observation or report about the phenomena is not enough to convince. Someone that witnesses events capable of confounding her remains more astonished than convinced.
The more extraordinary the event the more suspicious it becomes.
The only thing that can lead to conviction is a serious previous study. Frequently that is even enough to change the way people think. In any case such a study is indispensable for the understanding of the phenomena. In the absence of a comprehensive instruction that cannot be given in a few words a succinct summary of the law that governs the manifestations will be enough to help the non-initiated to see things clearly. This is the first guideline that we provide in the short instruction that follows. A previous observation, however, is necessary.
The non-believer tends to suspect the good faith of the mediums, supposing the use of fraudulent means. Besides the fact that such a supposition is insulting to certain persons one must always question what would their interest be by pretending, deceiving or even playing a role in a comedy. The best assurance of honesty is the total lack of interest since charlatanism makes no sense in a place where there is nothing to gain. As for the reality of the phenomena it can be attested by everyone when placed in favorable conditions for the observation of the facts and when showing the necessary patience, perseverance and independence.
1. Spiritism is at the same time a science of observation and a philosophical doctrine. As a practical science it consists on the relationships that can be established with the Spirits; as a philosophy it embraces all the moral consequences that derive from those relationships.
2. The Spirits are not, as sometimes thought, special beings in creation. They are the souls of those that lived on Earth and in other worlds. Hence souls and Spirits are one and the same thing from what follows that anyone that believes in the existence of the soul consequently believes in the existence of the Spirits for that very reason.
3. People generally have a very wrong idea about the state of the Spirits. They are not, like some people think, vague and undefined beings, nor they are flames like foxfires or ghosts like in stories of apparitions. They are people like us, with a body like ours but invisible and vaporous in their normal state.
4. When the soul is united to the body during life it has a double envelope: one that is heavy, dense and destructible like ours; another one fluid, light and indestructible called perispirit. This perispirit is the link between the soul and the body. It is through the perispirit that the soul makes the body act, perceiving the sensations felt by the body.
5. Death is only the destruction of the dense envelope. The soul leaves that envelope behind like we leave behind an old peace of clothes or like the butterfly leaves the chrysalis behind but the soul keeps its fluid body or perispirit. A person is formed by the union between the soul, the perispirit and the material body. The soul and the perispirit form the so called Spirit when separated from the body.
6. The death of the body disengages the Spirit from the envelope that attached it to Earth, making the Spirit suffer. Once released from that load the Spirit only has its ethereal body with which it travels the space and transposes distances with the speed of thought.
7. The fluid that forms the perispirit penetrates all bodies and pass through them like light goes through transparent bodies. There is no material obstacle to that fluid. That is why the Spirits penetrate any environment however hermetic the place may be. The idea that they enter through an aperture or the hole of a lock or chimney is ridiculous.
8. The Spirits populate space. They form the invisible world around us in which we live and are in permanent contact.
9. The Spirits have all the perceptions they had when on Earth but to a higher degree because their sensations now are no longer lessened by matter; have sensations that are unknown to us; see and hear things that our limited senses do not allow us to see or hear. There is no darkness for them except for those whose temporary punishment is to remain in darkness. All of our thoughts reach them and are read by them like in an open book so much so that what we can hide from anyone when alive cannot be hidden from a Spirit.
10. The Spirits preserve the serious affections they had on Earth. They find pleasure in returning to be near the loved ones particularly when attracted by their thoughts and by the kind feelings addressed to them whereas they are indifferent to those that show indifference to them.
11. The Spirits may communicate in many different ways: through sight, hearing, touch, noises, movements of bodies, writing, drawing, music, etc. They manifest through persons that are gifted with a special aptitude for each kind of manifestation and that are designated mediums. That is how there are distinguished mediums clairvoyant, speaker, hearing, sensitive, of physical effects, painter, tiptologist, writing etc. Among the writing mediums there are several types according to the nature of the communications that they are capable of receiving.
12. Although invisible to us in its natural state the perispirit is still an ethereal matter. In certain cases the Spirit may produce a kind of molecular transformation onto the perispirit that makes it visible and tangible. That is how the apparitions are produced. Such a phenomenon is not more extraordinary than that of the vapor that becomes invisible when much too thin and visible when condensed. The Spirits that become visible almost always show up with the appearance they had when alive and by which they can be recognized.
13. The Spirit acts upon the living body through the perispirit. It is still with the help of that fluid that the Spirit manifests acting upon the inert matter, producing noises, motion of tables and other objects that are lifted, knocked down or transported. There is nothing remarkable about such a phenomenon if we consider that the most powerful mechanical principles among us are found in the thinnest fluids like air, vapor and electricity. It is equally with the help of its perispirit that the Spirit makes the medium write, speak or draw. Since the Spirit no longer has a tangible body to act positively the Spirit then utilizes the body of the medium when willing to communicate, making use of the organs as if their own, and all that by embracing the medium with its own fluid.
14. It is by that same process that the Spirit acts upon a table, moving it without a predetermined objective or making it rap intelligently indicating the letters of the alphabet for form words and phrases, a phenomenon called tiptology. In that case the table is not more than an instrument like the pencil that is used to write. The table receives a momentary vitality by the penetration of that fluid but there is no identification between the Spirit and the table. People that are moved by identifying the presence of a beloved one that communicates in that way and kiss the table do something ridiculous because it is absolutely the same as if they were kissing the walking stick of a friend that uses that instrument to make noise or as if the wood had become a Spirit. In the presence of such communications one must imagine the person at the table as if when alive and as the person would be seen if had become visible at that moment. The same applies to written communications. The Spirit would be seen by the side of the medium, directing the medium’s hand or transmitting the thought through a fluid tunnel. When the table is lifted from the ground and floats in space without support the Spirit is not doing that by the strength of the arm but involving and penetrating the object with a kind of fluid atmosphere that neutralizes the effect of gravity like the air does to balloons and kites. When planted on the ground it is in an analogous situation of the vacuum chamber. These are comparisons to show the analogy in the effects and not an absolute similarity of causes. After that it can be understood that to a Spirit lifting a person is not more difficult than a table or to transport an object from a place to another or throw it anywhere. These phenomena are produced by the same law. When the table is chasing someone it is not the Spirit that is running for the Spirit can calmly stay put but give the impulse to the table through a fluid chain through which moves the table at will. When the noises are heard in the table or somewhere else the Spirit is not hitting it with the hand or any other object. The Spirit addresses a beam of fluid to the place from where the noise is heard, producing the effect of an electric shock. The Spirit modifies the noises like we modify the sounds produced by air.
15. From those few words one can see that the Spiritist manifestations, irrespective of their type, have nothing of supernatural or wonderful. Those are phenomena produced according to the law that governs the relationships between the visible and invisible worlds, a natural law like that of electricity, gravitation, etc. Spiritism is the science that teaches us that law like mechanics teaches us the laws of motion and optics those of light. Since the Spiritist manifestations are part of nature they were produced at all times. When the law that governs them is known it explains a number of problems that were looked at as insoluble. It is the key to a number of phenomena that were exploited and amplified by superstition.
16. Keeping the supernatural totally away, there is no longer anything that repulses reason in such phenomena because they know come to take their seat side by side with other natural phenomena. In times of ignorance all the effects whose causes were unknown were named supernatural. Scientific discoveries progressively shrank the circle of the supernatural. The knowledge of this new law comes to shrink it to nothing. Therefore those that accuse Spiritism of having come to resuscitate the supernatural demonstrate for that very reason that they are talking about what they ignore.
17. A more or less widespread idea among those that do not know Spiritism is the belief that just because they are detached from matter the Spirits must know everything and have the supreme wisdom. That is a serious mistake. When the Spirits leave behind their corporeal envelopes they are not immediately freed from their imperfections. It is only with time that they depurate and improve. Since the Spirits are the souls of people and since there are people at all levels of knowledge and ignorance, goodness and malice the same happens to the Spirits. There are among them those that are only lighthearted and jesters; others are liars and deceivers, hypocrite, evil and vindictive; and there are others that on the contrary have the most sublime virtues and knowledge that is unknown on Earth. That diversity in the Spirits’ qualities is one of the most important points to consider for it explains the good or bad nature of the communications that are received. One must be careful in distinguishing them. The consequence of that is that it is far from enough to address any Spirit willing to get a fair answer to each question because each Spirit will respond according to their knowledge and many times will only give their personal opinion that may be right or wrong. A judicious Spirit will confess ignorance about something that is unknown; if lighthearted or liar will answer to everything without any concern with the truth; a proud Spirit will issue a personal idea as if the absolute truth. That is why St. John the Evangelist said: “Beloved, believe not every Spirit, but prove the Spirits, whether they are of God.” Experience demonstrates the wisdom of that advice. Thus, it would be imprudence and lightheartedness to accept everything that comes from the Spirits without control. The Spirits can only respond about what they know and also about what they are allowed to respond because there are things that they must not reveal because it is not time yet for mankind to know everything.
18. The level of the Spirits is known by their language. The really good and superior Spirits always use a dignified, noble, and logical language, exempt from any triviality, foolishness or contradiction; it breathes wisdom, benevolence and modesty; it is concise and free from useless words. The language of the inferior, ignorant or proud Spirits lacks those qualities; the emptiness of the ideas is almost always compensated by an abundance in words.
19. Another point to consider equally important is that the Spirits are free. They communicate with those of their choice and when they wish to do so and also when they can since they have their activities. They are not at the service or caprice of whoever and nobody has the power of making them come against their will or making them say what they do not wish to so much so that nobody can say that a given Spirit will respond to their appeal and come at a given time or respond to this or that question. To say otherwise is to demonstrate the most absolute ignorance about the most elemental principles of Spiritism. It is only charlatanism that has infallible sources.
20. The Spirits are attracted by sympathy, similarity of tastes and characters and by the intension that requires their presence. Superior Spirits do not attend futile gatherings like the earthly scientist would not join a party of foolish youngsters. Simple common sense says so; or, if they sometimes attend is to provide a healthy advice, combat vices and try to guide people in the right direction. If they are not heard they leave. It would be completely wrong to believe that serious Spirits would enjoy giving answers to silly questions that do not demonstrate interest or respect towards them nor the real desire of learning and even less that they could come to give spectacles to entertain curiosity. If they did not did that when alive they will not do it after death.
21. From the above it results that every Spiritist gathering must be serious and respectful as a first condition; that everything must take place in a serious, religious and respectful way, with dignity if the habitual support of the good Spirits is expected. One must not forget that if those elevated Spirits had attended the meeting when alive they would have enjoyed a regard that is even more justifiable after their death. It is useless to argument that certain curious, frivolous and funny experiments are necessary to convince the skeptical; the result is the opposite. The non-believer, already used to make fun of the most sacred beliefs, cannot see something serious in what people have fun with; cannot respect what is shown to them with disrespect. Therefore futile and careless meetings like those in which there is no order, sincerity and reverence always leave a bad impression. What can best convince them is above all the proof of the presence of their loved ones. We see them paling, touched by the solemn and serious words carried with intimate revelations. However, for the very reason that there is more respect, veneration and attachment to the soul that is presented to the skeptical the same person would be shocked by seen a loved one coming to an irreverent assembly among dancing tables and jester Spirits. However skeptical that person may be her conscience totally repeals such an alliance between the serious and the frivolous, between the religious and the profane, a reason for calling everything foolishness and sometimes leaving the meeting less convinced than when arrived. Meetings of that sort always do more harm than good because the keep away from the Doctrine more people than they attract, not to mention the fact that they give rise to the criticism of detractors that find there founded reason for mockery.
22. It is a mistake to transform physical manifestations into entertainment. They may not have the importance of the philosophical teachings but have their utility from the point of view of the phenomena since they are the basis of the science to which they provided the key. Although less necessary today they still help to convince certain persons. But they do not exclude absolutely order and seriousness in the gatherings where they take place. If they were always practiced in a more adequate way they would convince more easily and by all means produce much better results.
23. There is no doubt that these explanations are incomplete and may necessarily provoke many questions but one must keep in mind that this is not a course on Spiritism. They are enough to show the basis upon which Spiritism rests, the character of the manifestations and the degree of confidence that they may inspire according to the circumstances. As for the utility of the manifestations it is huge due to their consequences. Nonetheless even if their only result would be that of allowing us to get to know a new law of nature and materially demonstrate the existence of the soul and its immortality it would already be a lot because it would have opened a wide avenue to philosophy.
Societies of Anvers and Marseille
Antwerp, February 27th, 1864
Dear Master, we have the honor of letting you know about the society that we have just founded in Antwerp named Spiritist Circle Love and Charity. As you will see in the 2nd Article of the regulations we put ourselves under the sponsorship of the central society of Paris as under yours. We consequently declare to be associated to the Doctrine found in The Spirits’ Book and The Mediums’ Book. We are strongly committed to follow the path of the true Spiritists and want you to know that charity is the main objective of our meetings. Kindly consult with the spiritual president of your society to be fully convinced about our true feelings. However fragile our efforts may have been so far they were sincere and from that standpoint we are convinced that we are no strangers to him. We have the honor of attaching one of the letters obtained in our circle trough a speaking medium so that you can judge our tendencies, etc.
OBSERVATION: In fact the letter above was followed by an extensive communication that testifies about the good path followed by that society. In the same direction we also received another letter from the Spiritist Society of Marseille.
Marseille, March 21st, 1864
Mr. President, we are glad to let you know about the formation of our new society under the title Marseillaise Society of Spiritist Studies whose authorization has just been granted by Mr. Senator in charge of the administration of the Bouches-du-Rhone Department. Helped by your good advice, dear Master, we will do our best to follow the footstep of our Parisian brothers whose regulations were adopted by us for the organization of sessions. We place ourselves under the flagship of the Parisian Society and we also inscribe in our own flag: There is no salvation but through charity. Dr. C…, our President, will also have the honor of writing to you just after our inauguration. In the interest of the cause, dear Sir, we beg you to kindly give the publicity that you believe to be adequate about our Society so that the sincere followers can join us.
Sincerely, etc.
We have already said that the majority of the societies formed in France and abroad declare to be under the sponsorship of the Parisian Society. All letters that are sent to us about their formation have the same Spirit as the ones above. These spontaneous adhesions testify about the principles that prevail amongst the Spiritists and the Parisian Society cannot stay insensitive to so many signs of sympathy that demonstrate the serious intention of moving forward under the same flagship. That does not mean that others that have not made such an official declaration follow another orientation, far from that. The correspondence that they keep with us is a sufficient guarantee of their feelings and good direction of their studies. A very large number of meetings, in fact, do not have the organization of a society properly speaking and in their majority constitute only simple groups. Outside of societies and regular groups there are family gatherings that only accept family members and those are innumerable and multiply every day particularly in the higher classes.
Antwerp, February 27th, 1864
Dear Master, we have the honor of letting you know about the society that we have just founded in Antwerp named Spiritist Circle Love and Charity. As you will see in the 2nd Article of the regulations we put ourselves under the sponsorship of the central society of Paris as under yours. We consequently declare to be associated to the Doctrine found in The Spirits’ Book and The Mediums’ Book. We are strongly committed to follow the path of the true Spiritists and want you to know that charity is the main objective of our meetings. Kindly consult with the spiritual president of your society to be fully convinced about our true feelings. However fragile our efforts may have been so far they were sincere and from that standpoint we are convinced that we are no strangers to him. We have the honor of attaching one of the letters obtained in our circle trough a speaking medium so that you can judge our tendencies, etc.
OBSERVATION: In fact the letter above was followed by an extensive communication that testifies about the good path followed by that society. In the same direction we also received another letter from the Spiritist Society of Marseille.
Marseille, March 21st, 1864
Mr. President, we are glad to let you know about the formation of our new society under the title Marseillaise Society of Spiritist Studies whose authorization has just been granted by Mr. Senator in charge of the administration of the Bouches-du-Rhone Department. Helped by your good advice, dear Master, we will do our best to follow the footstep of our Parisian brothers whose regulations were adopted by us for the organization of sessions. We place ourselves under the flagship of the Parisian Society and we also inscribe in our own flag: There is no salvation but through charity. Dr. C…, our President, will also have the honor of writing to you just after our inauguration. In the interest of the cause, dear Sir, we beg you to kindly give the publicity that you believe to be adequate about our Society so that the sincere followers can join us.
Sincerely, etc.
We have already said that the majority of the societies formed in France and abroad declare to be under the sponsorship of the Parisian Society. All letters that are sent to us about their formation have the same Spirit as the ones above. These spontaneous adhesions testify about the principles that prevail amongst the Spiritists and the Parisian Society cannot stay insensitive to so many signs of sympathy that demonstrate the serious intention of moving forward under the same flagship. That does not mean that others that have not made such an official declaration follow another orientation, far from that. The correspondence that they keep with us is a sufficient guarantee of their feelings and good direction of their studies. A very large number of meetings, in fact, do not have the organization of a society properly speaking and in their majority constitute only simple groups. Outside of societies and regular groups there are family gatherings that only accept family members and those are innumerable and multiply every day particularly in the higher classes.
Instructions by the Spirits
Spontaneous communication
Parisian Society, November 19th, 1864 – medium Mr. Leymarie
The printing press was invented in the XV century. Like many other known and unknown inventions it had to take the chalice and drink the gall. I do not come to you, Spiritists, to tell you about my annoyances and sufferings because in those days of ignorance and sadness when your predecessors had on their chests the nightmare called feudalism and a blind theocracy that was much aware of its own power every person of progress had too much of a head. I only want to tell you a few words about my invention, about its results and the affinity with you, with the elements that make your power expansive.
The mother revolution, the one that carried from behind the way humanity expressed itself, human thoughts moving away from the past, from the symbolical skin, that was the invention of the printing press. Thoughts are mixed in the air in that format, turn spiritual, and becomes indestructible. Master of future centuries, it takes off an intelligent flight to connect all points in space and from that day onwards dominates the old way of speaking.
The primitive peoples needed monuments to represent them, mountains of stones telling those that could read: this is my religion, my law, my hopes and my poetry. In fact, the printing press replaced the hieroglyph. Its language is light and accessible to all. A book only requires a little bit of ink and paper and some hands whilst a cathedral demands many lives of a people and tons of gold.
Allow me a digression here. The alphabet of the first peoples was formed by chips of stones that had not been touched by iron. The stones erected by the Celtic are also found in Siberia and America. They were the confusing human memories written in durable monuments. The Hebrew Galgal, the megaliths, the dolmens, and the tombs later on expressed words. Then came the tradition and the symbols.
Since those first monuments were not enough anymore the edifice was created and architecture became monstrous; it remained like giants telling the new generations about the symbols of the past. Such were the pagodas[1], the pyramids and the temple of Solomon.
It was the edifice that contained the Verb, that mother idea of all nations. Their shape and situation represented a whole thought and that is why that all symbols have their great and magnificent pages in stone.
Freemasonry is the written and intelligent idea belonging to those men that became united by a symbol, taking Iram by their patron and forming the French-Freemasonry so much dishonored and that carried over the embryo of freedom. It knew how to spread its monuments and the symbols of the past all over the world replacing the theocracy of the first civilizations by democracy, that law of freedom. After the theocratic monuments of Egypt and India come their sisters, the Greek-Roman architectures and later the romantic and somber style representing the absolute, the unit and the priest. The crusades bring us the weapon and the Lord wants to share, waiting for the people that will take its place. Feudalism sees the birth of the communes and the face of Europe changes because the warhead dethrones the romantic; the Brickman becomes an artist and adds poetry to matter: it gives it the privilege of freedom in architecture because that was the only way of expressing thoughts those days. How many incitements written on the façades of monuments! That is why the poets, the thinkers, the disinherited and everything that was intelligent covered Europe with cathedrals!
As you see, up until the poor Guttenberg architecture was the universal writing. Printing press, in turn, knocks down the gothic; theocracy is the horror of progress, the mummified preservation of the primitive types; the warhead is the transition from darkness to the twilight zone in which one can easily read and understand the stone but the printing press is day light, destroying the manuscript, demanding more space that since then nothing can stop.
Like the Sun, the printing press will fecund the world with its beneficial rays. Society will no longer be represented by architecture because it will be classic and Renaissance’s and that world of artists breaking away from the past open up large voids in human Theogony to follow the avenue designed by God; it is now tired of being simple artisans of monuments from the Renaissance to become sculptor, painter and musician. The force of harmony wears out in books and already in the XVI century it is so much strong that printing press of Nuremberg that it is the advent of a literary century. It is at the same time Luther, Jean Goujon, Rousseau and Voltaire. The printing press is that slow fight against the old Europe that rebuilds after the destruction. And now that thought is emancipated which power could write the architectural bool of our times? All the millions of our planet would not be enough and nobody could lift up what is in the past and exclusively belongs to the past. Without neglecting the great book of architecture that the past and its teachings are we thank God that knows, at the right time, to give us the strength of such a powerful weapon that becomes the bread to the Spirit, the emancipation of the body, the free-will of mankind, the idea that is common to everyone, science, the foundation that fertilizes Earth and making us better. But if the printing press has emancipated you electricity will make you truly free and will dethrone the printing press of Guttenberg to put in your hands a much more fearful power and that will come soon.
The Spiritist science, that safeguard of humanity, will help you understand the new power that I am talking about. Guttenberg to whom God gave the providential mission will undoubtedly take part in the second one, that is, the one that will guide you in the study of the fluids. You shall soon be ready, dear friends. Nonetheless, it is not only about being eager Spirits. You also need to study so that everything that was taught about electricity and all fluids in general becomes well understood. Nothing is strange to the science of the Spirits. The stronger your intellectual foundation the lesser you shall be surprised by the new discoveries. You must be the initiators of new ways of thinking, strong and reassured of your spiritual skills. I was therefore right to speak about my mission, sister to yours. You are the elected ones in humanity. The good Spirits give you a book that goes around the world but you would do nothing without the printing press. The obsession that wakes the truth of men will disappear. But I insist: be ready and study so that you are worth of the new benefit and more intelligently than others you must be able to spread and make it accepted.
Guttenberg
OBSERVATION: The printing press produced an intellectual revelation that nobody can ignore considering the diffusion of ideas made imperishable and spread on all corners of the world. Because such a result was initially foreseen by some it was called diabolic invention. This is another point in common with Spiritism that Guttenberg did not mention.
If some people were heard it would seem that the devil has the monopoly of every great idea since all of those that push humanity a step forward are attributed to the devil. Jesus himself was accused of acting through the devil that in turn must be proud of having all good and beautiful things removed from God and attributed to him. Wasn’t the devil that inspired Galileo and every scientific discovery that made humanity progress? Following that the devil must be too modest to not consider himself the owner of the universe! Yet what can seem strange is the devil’s inability since there isn’t a single progress in science that has not contributed to the ruin of the devil’s empire. It is a detail about which people have not given enough thought.
If that was the power of such an absolutely material means of propagation how much more wouldn’t be that of the teachings of the Spirits that communicate everywhere even penetrating where books cannot go, being heard even by those that cannot hear! Which human power could resist such force?
The remarkable dissertation above provoked the following reflections from another Spirit at the heart of the Society.
[1] Buddhist religious monuments (TN)
Parisian Society, November 19th, 1864 – medium Mr. Leymarie
The printing press was invented in the XV century. Like many other known and unknown inventions it had to take the chalice and drink the gall. I do not come to you, Spiritists, to tell you about my annoyances and sufferings because in those days of ignorance and sadness when your predecessors had on their chests the nightmare called feudalism and a blind theocracy that was much aware of its own power every person of progress had too much of a head. I only want to tell you a few words about my invention, about its results and the affinity with you, with the elements that make your power expansive.
The mother revolution, the one that carried from behind the way humanity expressed itself, human thoughts moving away from the past, from the symbolical skin, that was the invention of the printing press. Thoughts are mixed in the air in that format, turn spiritual, and becomes indestructible. Master of future centuries, it takes off an intelligent flight to connect all points in space and from that day onwards dominates the old way of speaking.
The primitive peoples needed monuments to represent them, mountains of stones telling those that could read: this is my religion, my law, my hopes and my poetry. In fact, the printing press replaced the hieroglyph. Its language is light and accessible to all. A book only requires a little bit of ink and paper and some hands whilst a cathedral demands many lives of a people and tons of gold.
Allow me a digression here. The alphabet of the first peoples was formed by chips of stones that had not been touched by iron. The stones erected by the Celtic are also found in Siberia and America. They were the confusing human memories written in durable monuments. The Hebrew Galgal, the megaliths, the dolmens, and the tombs later on expressed words. Then came the tradition and the symbols.
Since those first monuments were not enough anymore the edifice was created and architecture became monstrous; it remained like giants telling the new generations about the symbols of the past. Such were the pagodas[1], the pyramids and the temple of Solomon.
It was the edifice that contained the Verb, that mother idea of all nations. Their shape and situation represented a whole thought and that is why that all symbols have their great and magnificent pages in stone.
Freemasonry is the written and intelligent idea belonging to those men that became united by a symbol, taking Iram by their patron and forming the French-Freemasonry so much dishonored and that carried over the embryo of freedom. It knew how to spread its monuments and the symbols of the past all over the world replacing the theocracy of the first civilizations by democracy, that law of freedom. After the theocratic monuments of Egypt and India come their sisters, the Greek-Roman architectures and later the romantic and somber style representing the absolute, the unit and the priest. The crusades bring us the weapon and the Lord wants to share, waiting for the people that will take its place. Feudalism sees the birth of the communes and the face of Europe changes because the warhead dethrones the romantic; the Brickman becomes an artist and adds poetry to matter: it gives it the privilege of freedom in architecture because that was the only way of expressing thoughts those days. How many incitements written on the façades of monuments! That is why the poets, the thinkers, the disinherited and everything that was intelligent covered Europe with cathedrals!
As you see, up until the poor Guttenberg architecture was the universal writing. Printing press, in turn, knocks down the gothic; theocracy is the horror of progress, the mummified preservation of the primitive types; the warhead is the transition from darkness to the twilight zone in which one can easily read and understand the stone but the printing press is day light, destroying the manuscript, demanding more space that since then nothing can stop.
Like the Sun, the printing press will fecund the world with its beneficial rays. Society will no longer be represented by architecture because it will be classic and Renaissance’s and that world of artists breaking away from the past open up large voids in human Theogony to follow the avenue designed by God; it is now tired of being simple artisans of monuments from the Renaissance to become sculptor, painter and musician. The force of harmony wears out in books and already in the XVI century it is so much strong that printing press of Nuremberg that it is the advent of a literary century. It is at the same time Luther, Jean Goujon, Rousseau and Voltaire. The printing press is that slow fight against the old Europe that rebuilds after the destruction. And now that thought is emancipated which power could write the architectural bool of our times? All the millions of our planet would not be enough and nobody could lift up what is in the past and exclusively belongs to the past. Without neglecting the great book of architecture that the past and its teachings are we thank God that knows, at the right time, to give us the strength of such a powerful weapon that becomes the bread to the Spirit, the emancipation of the body, the free-will of mankind, the idea that is common to everyone, science, the foundation that fertilizes Earth and making us better. But if the printing press has emancipated you electricity will make you truly free and will dethrone the printing press of Guttenberg to put in your hands a much more fearful power and that will come soon.
The Spiritist science, that safeguard of humanity, will help you understand the new power that I am talking about. Guttenberg to whom God gave the providential mission will undoubtedly take part in the second one, that is, the one that will guide you in the study of the fluids. You shall soon be ready, dear friends. Nonetheless, it is not only about being eager Spirits. You also need to study so that everything that was taught about electricity and all fluids in general becomes well understood. Nothing is strange to the science of the Spirits. The stronger your intellectual foundation the lesser you shall be surprised by the new discoveries. You must be the initiators of new ways of thinking, strong and reassured of your spiritual skills. I was therefore right to speak about my mission, sister to yours. You are the elected ones in humanity. The good Spirits give you a book that goes around the world but you would do nothing without the printing press. The obsession that wakes the truth of men will disappear. But I insist: be ready and study so that you are worth of the new benefit and more intelligently than others you must be able to spread and make it accepted.
Guttenberg
OBSERVATION: The printing press produced an intellectual revelation that nobody can ignore considering the diffusion of ideas made imperishable and spread on all corners of the world. Because such a result was initially foreseen by some it was called diabolic invention. This is another point in common with Spiritism that Guttenberg did not mention.
If some people were heard it would seem that the devil has the monopoly of every great idea since all of those that push humanity a step forward are attributed to the devil. Jesus himself was accused of acting through the devil that in turn must be proud of having all good and beautiful things removed from God and attributed to him. Wasn’t the devil that inspired Galileo and every scientific discovery that made humanity progress? Following that the devil must be too modest to not consider himself the owner of the universe! Yet what can seem strange is the devil’s inability since there isn’t a single progress in science that has not contributed to the ruin of the devil’s empire. It is a detail about which people have not given enough thought.
If that was the power of such an absolutely material means of propagation how much more wouldn’t be that of the teachings of the Spirits that communicate everywhere even penetrating where books cannot go, being heard even by those that cannot hear! Which human power could resist such force?
The remarkable dissertation above provoked the following reflections from another Spirit at the heart of the Society.
[1] Buddhist religious monuments (TN)
Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies – medium Mr. A. Didier
The Spirit of Guttenberg defined very poetically the positive effects and so much universally progressive of the printing press and the future of electricity. Nonetheless I allow myself, as a former builder of castles, towers, terraces and cathedrals, to expose certain theories about the character and objective of the architecture in the middle ages.
Everyone knows and in our days illustrious archeologists taught that religion, the naïve faith, erected with human ingenuity those superb gothic monuments spread all over Europe, and here the idea expressed by Guttenberg is highly appreciated. It is our duty, however, to expose our opinion not against but in favor of his own.
The idea, that light of the soul, a real spark that excites human will and movement, manifests itself in several ways through arts, philosophy, etc. Architecture, the elevated art that perhaps better expresses the nature and genius of a people, was consecrated to worship God and religious ceremonies in religious nations. The middle ages, groundwork of feudalism and belief, had the glory of founding two essentially different arts in their objective and dedication but that perfectly express the status of their civilization: the fortress castle, inhabited by the feudal master or by the king; the abbey, the monastery and the church; in a word the military and religious architectures.
The Romans, essentially administrators, warriors, universal conquerors and colonizers, forced by the extension of their domains, never had an architecture inspired by religious faith. It was only greed, profit and the executive power that made them build those formidable mountains of stones, symbol of their audacity and intellectual capability. Gothic art, at the beginning austere and discretely flowery, was created by the poetry of the north, contemplative, fuzzy and united to the pageantry of the orient. In fact we see in the architecture the realization of religious tendencies and feudal despotism.
Those famous ruins of so many human revolutions still impose themselves by their grandiose and formidable aspects, more than by time. It seems that the century that saw their birth was hard, somber and inexorable with them. But from that one must not conclude that the discovery of the printing press, by any stretch of the mind, simplified art in architecture.
No! Art, part of creativity, will always be religious, political, military, democratic or monarchist. Art and printing press have their own roles. Not willing to be excessively technical, one must not confound the objective of each thing. One must only say that different skills and manifestations of the human mind must not be mixed.
Robert de Luzarches
The Spirit of Guttenberg defined very poetically the positive effects and so much universally progressive of the printing press and the future of electricity. Nonetheless I allow myself, as a former builder of castles, towers, terraces and cathedrals, to expose certain theories about the character and objective of the architecture in the middle ages.
Everyone knows and in our days illustrious archeologists taught that religion, the naïve faith, erected with human ingenuity those superb gothic monuments spread all over Europe, and here the idea expressed by Guttenberg is highly appreciated. It is our duty, however, to expose our opinion not against but in favor of his own.
The idea, that light of the soul, a real spark that excites human will and movement, manifests itself in several ways through arts, philosophy, etc. Architecture, the elevated art that perhaps better expresses the nature and genius of a people, was consecrated to worship God and religious ceremonies in religious nations. The middle ages, groundwork of feudalism and belief, had the glory of founding two essentially different arts in their objective and dedication but that perfectly express the status of their civilization: the fortress castle, inhabited by the feudal master or by the king; the abbey, the monastery and the church; in a word the military and religious architectures.
The Romans, essentially administrators, warriors, universal conquerors and colonizers, forced by the extension of their domains, never had an architecture inspired by religious faith. It was only greed, profit and the executive power that made them build those formidable mountains of stones, symbol of their audacity and intellectual capability. Gothic art, at the beginning austere and discretely flowery, was created by the poetry of the north, contemplative, fuzzy and united to the pageantry of the orient. In fact we see in the architecture the realization of religious tendencies and feudal despotism.
Those famous ruins of so many human revolutions still impose themselves by their grandiose and formidable aspects, more than by time. It seems that the century that saw their birth was hard, somber and inexorable with them. But from that one must not conclude that the discovery of the printing press, by any stretch of the mind, simplified art in architecture.
No! Art, part of creativity, will always be religious, political, military, democratic or monarchist. Art and printing press have their own roles. Not willing to be excessively technical, one must not confound the objective of each thing. One must only say that different skills and manifestations of the human mind must not be mixed.
Robert de Luzarches
Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, February 25th, 1864
NOTE: In this session we thanked the Spirit of Guttenberg asking him to take part in our conversations at any time he thought convenient. The presence of several foreign dignitaries of the Freemasonry Order motivated the following question: Which support can Spiritism find in the French-Freemasonry? Several dissertations were given about the subject as below.
I
Mr. President I thank you for your kind invitation. It is the first time that I have one of my communications read at the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies and I hope this will not be the last one. You may have perhaps found my considerations a bit too extensive about the printing press, some thoughts that you may not approve completely, but considering the difficulties that we have to face to communicate through the mediums and utilize their faculties I beg you to kindly forgive certain expressions or language structures that are not always dominated by us. Electricity will later on makes its mediumistic revelation and since everything will change with respect to the reproduction of the Spirit’s thoughts you will no longer find those sometimes regrettable blanks, particularly when the communications are read in the presence of strangers.
You mentioned the Freemasonry and you are right about the expectation of finding good elements there. What is asked of any initiated Freemason? The belief in the immortality of the soul and in the Divine Architect; that the initiated be benevolent, devoted, sociable, dignified and humble. Equality is practiced there in the highest level. Hence there is a striking affinity between the two societies. The issue of Spiritism has been placed in the order of the day in several Masonic lodges and here the result: several long reports were read about it but they did not study it in depth, leading to discussions about matters that they did not know, judging from what they had heard about more than by reality. Many Masons, however, are Spiritists and work hard for the propagation of that belief. Everyone listens but if habit says no, reason says yes.
You must wait because time is a recruiter like no other. Through time impressions necessarily change in the vast field of the lodges and the Spiritist study will enter as a complement because it is already in the air. It was laughed at and spoken about but now they mediate about it. You will then have a Spiritist allotment in those essential liberal societies. You will enter through them in the second period that must prepare the promised avenues. The intelligent persons of the Masonry will praise you for the moral of the Spirits will give a body to that compromised and feared sect but that does more good than people think. Everything has a difficult beginning, a mysterious affinity and if that is true with respect to things that disturb society it is even more true to things that lead to the moral progress of the peoples.
Guttenberg, medium Mr. Leymarie
II
My dear brother in doctrine (the Spirit addresses one of the French-Masons and Spiritist that was present) I gladly come to respond to the benevolent appeal that you address to the Spirits that loved and founded the French-Freemasonry institutions.
I shed my own blood twice to cement this generous institution; public places of this city were tinted twice by the blood of the poor Jacques de Molay. Dear brothers, would a third time be needed? I will happily answer: No. You have already been told: the more blood the more despotism and the more executioners! A society of brothers, friends, persons full of good will that only wish to get to know the truth to do good! I had not communicated in this assembly yet. While you spoke about the Spiritist science and philosophy I yielded the space to the Spirits that are more capable of giving you advices about those several points and patiently waited knowing that my time would come. There is a time for everything as there is a time to everyone. I then believe that my time has come. I can now give you my opinion about Spiritism and French-Freemasonry.
The Masonic institutions were a path to happiness for society. In times when liberal ideas were considered crime people needed a force that entirely submitted to the rule of law was not less emancipated by their beliefs, institutions and unity of teachings. In those days religion, instead of a consoling mother, was still a despotic force that ordered, hurt and bent everything by the voice of its ministers. It was reason for fear to anyone that wished to act as a free thinker and take some moral relief to those in suffering. United by the hearts, fortune and charity our temples were the only altars where God had not been ignored; where a man could still see oneself as a man; where a child could find protection and the abandoned friends. Several centuries went by and many added flowers to the Masonic crown. Those were martyrs, educated men, legislators that added to their glory by becoming its defenders and preservers.
In the nineteenth century Spiritism comes with its luminous beam reaching out to the commanders, to the Rosicrucian, and with a thunderous voice say: Let us go, brothers! I am truly the voice that is heard in the orient and to which the occident responds: Glory, honor, victory to the children of men! Still a few days and Spiritism will have transposed the wall that separates the majority from the room of the secrets in the temple and on that very day society will see the most beautiful Spiritist flower sprout in its heart, providing from its falling petals a regenerating seed of the true freedom. Spiritism has made progresses but when it walk hand in hand with the French-Freemasonry all difficulties will be overcome; every obstacle shall be removed; truth will shiny and the greatest moral progress shall be achieved. It will have transposed the first steps of the throne where it will soon reign.
My fraternal and friendly greetings to all.
Jacques de Molay, medium Ms. Béguet
III
I was really glad to mention my participation in this so spiritualistic center and return thanks to Guttenberg as I was attracted by Jacquard the other day. Most of the dissertation given by the great typographer handled the issue from the profession stand point and he did not see in that invention but its practical, material and utilitarian side. Let us broaden the debate and look at the issue from a higher perspective.
It would be a mistake to believe that the printing press came to replace architecture as this one will remain to continue its historical role through characteristic monuments marked by the Spirit of each century, each generation, and each humanitarian revolution. We say out loud that no, the printing press is not here to knock anything down. It came to complement through its great, special and emancipating mission. It came at its right time like all other discoveries that are providentially born here on Earth. Contemporary of the monk that discovered the gun powder, changing the art of war with that, Guttenberg brought a new lever to the expression of ideas. Let us not forget this: the printing press would not have real meaning without the emancipation of the masses and by the intellectual development of individuals. Without that need to satisfy and that engine to fuel, that spiritual manna to distribute, the printing press would remain idle for a long time fighting in the void and would not be considered by a mad dream or a useless utopia. Wasn’t that the case with the first inventors, or even better, with first ones that discovered the properties of steam? Have Guttenberg been born in the Andaman Islands and the printing press would have certainly been aborted. Hence the idea is the essential lever to consider. Without the idea, without the fertilizing work of thinkers and philosophers alike and even those of the dreamer monks of the middle ages, the printing press would have turned into dead word. Guttenberg then lit more than one candle in tribute to the dialectic school that made the idea flourish and depurated intelligences.
The fervent idea around a plastic image in the human brain is and will always be the greatest engine of discoveries and inventions. The creation of a new need at the heart of modern society is like opening a new path to the eternally innovative idea; it is like pushing intelligence to search for the satisfaction of that new necessity of humanity. That is why all over the place where the idea reigns sovereign, where it is received with respect, and where finally the thinkers are honored there is assurance of progress towards God.
The so much bashed French-Freemasonry, against which the Roman Church did not have enough anathemas and still survived, French-Freemasonry had the doors of its temples wide open to the emancipating cult of ideas. All of the most serious issues were discussed in its very heart and before Spiritism had even showed up the venerable and grand-masters knew and professed that the soul was immortal and that the visible and invisible worlds communicated with one another. It was there in the sanctuaries that do not admit the profane that Swedenborg, Pasquali and Saint-Martin obtained striking results. It was there that the great Sofia, that ethereal inspiration, came to teach the firstborn of humanity the liberating dogmas whose generous principles were given in 1789. It was there and much earlier than your contemporary mediums that precursors of your mediumship, unknown persons, had evoked and made appear wise people of antiquity and from the first centuries of this era. It was there… I stop here. The restricted schedule of your sessions do not allow me to elaborate more about this interesting matter as I would like to do. We shall return to that later. All I will say now is that Spiritism will find at the heart of the Mason Lodges a compact phalanx of believers, not ephemeral but serious, resolved and unbreakable believers in their faith.
Spiritism carries out all of the generous and charitable aspirations of the French-Masonry; sanctions the beliefs of the latter by giving irrefutable proofs of the immortality of the soul; leads humanity to the objective that it proposes: union, peace and universal fraternity by the faith in God and in the future.
Wouldn’t that be the case that every sincere Spiritist of all nations, cults and classes look at one another like brothers? Isn’t that a French-Masonry between them with the exception that instead of being secret it is practiced openly? Enlightened men, like the ones it congregates that put their education above the prejudices of cast and silos, they cannot show indifference to the movement produced by this essentially liberating doctrine in the world. Repudiating such a powerful element of moral progress would be like denying their own principles and stand side by side with the retrograde. No, I am certain that they will not allow themselves to veer off and will take care of this serious issue with our influence.
Spiritism is an irresistible chain of ideas that must reach the whole world. It is a matter of time. Well, one would acknowledge ignorance with respect to the character of Masonry by believing that it would represent a negative role in the movement that impels humanity forward; believe that it would extinguish the flame as if it were afraid of light. It must be clear that I speak of the high French-Masonry and not of those lodges created for the illusion where people gather to eat and drink and to make fun of the rookies before their trials rather than discuss moral and philosophical issues. It was even necessary to the French-Masonry to accomplish its mission that from time to time and from place to place temples outside the temple, profane places outside sacred ones, false tabernacles outside the arc. It is in those places that the followers of Spiritism have uselessly tried to make themselves understood.
In short, French-Masonry taught the dogma that precedes yours and secretly professed what you proclaim out loud. I said I would return to this subject if the elevated Spirits that preside over your works allow me. While I wait I attest that the Spiritist Doctrine can perfectly mix with the great Lodges of the Orient.
Now, glory to the Great Architect.
A former French-Mason, Vaucanson, medium Mr. D’Ambel
NOTE: In this session we thanked the Spirit of Guttenberg asking him to take part in our conversations at any time he thought convenient. The presence of several foreign dignitaries of the Freemasonry Order motivated the following question: Which support can Spiritism find in the French-Freemasonry? Several dissertations were given about the subject as below.
I
Mr. President I thank you for your kind invitation. It is the first time that I have one of my communications read at the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies and I hope this will not be the last one. You may have perhaps found my considerations a bit too extensive about the printing press, some thoughts that you may not approve completely, but considering the difficulties that we have to face to communicate through the mediums and utilize their faculties I beg you to kindly forgive certain expressions or language structures that are not always dominated by us. Electricity will later on makes its mediumistic revelation and since everything will change with respect to the reproduction of the Spirit’s thoughts you will no longer find those sometimes regrettable blanks, particularly when the communications are read in the presence of strangers.
You mentioned the Freemasonry and you are right about the expectation of finding good elements there. What is asked of any initiated Freemason? The belief in the immortality of the soul and in the Divine Architect; that the initiated be benevolent, devoted, sociable, dignified and humble. Equality is practiced there in the highest level. Hence there is a striking affinity between the two societies. The issue of Spiritism has been placed in the order of the day in several Masonic lodges and here the result: several long reports were read about it but they did not study it in depth, leading to discussions about matters that they did not know, judging from what they had heard about more than by reality. Many Masons, however, are Spiritists and work hard for the propagation of that belief. Everyone listens but if habit says no, reason says yes.
You must wait because time is a recruiter like no other. Through time impressions necessarily change in the vast field of the lodges and the Spiritist study will enter as a complement because it is already in the air. It was laughed at and spoken about but now they mediate about it. You will then have a Spiritist allotment in those essential liberal societies. You will enter through them in the second period that must prepare the promised avenues. The intelligent persons of the Masonry will praise you for the moral of the Spirits will give a body to that compromised and feared sect but that does more good than people think. Everything has a difficult beginning, a mysterious affinity and if that is true with respect to things that disturb society it is even more true to things that lead to the moral progress of the peoples.
Guttenberg, medium Mr. Leymarie
II
My dear brother in doctrine (the Spirit addresses one of the French-Masons and Spiritist that was present) I gladly come to respond to the benevolent appeal that you address to the Spirits that loved and founded the French-Freemasonry institutions.
I shed my own blood twice to cement this generous institution; public places of this city were tinted twice by the blood of the poor Jacques de Molay. Dear brothers, would a third time be needed? I will happily answer: No. You have already been told: the more blood the more despotism and the more executioners! A society of brothers, friends, persons full of good will that only wish to get to know the truth to do good! I had not communicated in this assembly yet. While you spoke about the Spiritist science and philosophy I yielded the space to the Spirits that are more capable of giving you advices about those several points and patiently waited knowing that my time would come. There is a time for everything as there is a time to everyone. I then believe that my time has come. I can now give you my opinion about Spiritism and French-Freemasonry.
The Masonic institutions were a path to happiness for society. In times when liberal ideas were considered crime people needed a force that entirely submitted to the rule of law was not less emancipated by their beliefs, institutions and unity of teachings. In those days religion, instead of a consoling mother, was still a despotic force that ordered, hurt and bent everything by the voice of its ministers. It was reason for fear to anyone that wished to act as a free thinker and take some moral relief to those in suffering. United by the hearts, fortune and charity our temples were the only altars where God had not been ignored; where a man could still see oneself as a man; where a child could find protection and the abandoned friends. Several centuries went by and many added flowers to the Masonic crown. Those were martyrs, educated men, legislators that added to their glory by becoming its defenders and preservers.
In the nineteenth century Spiritism comes with its luminous beam reaching out to the commanders, to the Rosicrucian, and with a thunderous voice say: Let us go, brothers! I am truly the voice that is heard in the orient and to which the occident responds: Glory, honor, victory to the children of men! Still a few days and Spiritism will have transposed the wall that separates the majority from the room of the secrets in the temple and on that very day society will see the most beautiful Spiritist flower sprout in its heart, providing from its falling petals a regenerating seed of the true freedom. Spiritism has made progresses but when it walk hand in hand with the French-Freemasonry all difficulties will be overcome; every obstacle shall be removed; truth will shiny and the greatest moral progress shall be achieved. It will have transposed the first steps of the throne where it will soon reign.
My fraternal and friendly greetings to all.
Jacques de Molay, medium Ms. Béguet
III
I was really glad to mention my participation in this so spiritualistic center and return thanks to Guttenberg as I was attracted by Jacquard the other day. Most of the dissertation given by the great typographer handled the issue from the profession stand point and he did not see in that invention but its practical, material and utilitarian side. Let us broaden the debate and look at the issue from a higher perspective.
It would be a mistake to believe that the printing press came to replace architecture as this one will remain to continue its historical role through characteristic monuments marked by the Spirit of each century, each generation, and each humanitarian revolution. We say out loud that no, the printing press is not here to knock anything down. It came to complement through its great, special and emancipating mission. It came at its right time like all other discoveries that are providentially born here on Earth. Contemporary of the monk that discovered the gun powder, changing the art of war with that, Guttenberg brought a new lever to the expression of ideas. Let us not forget this: the printing press would not have real meaning without the emancipation of the masses and by the intellectual development of individuals. Without that need to satisfy and that engine to fuel, that spiritual manna to distribute, the printing press would remain idle for a long time fighting in the void and would not be considered by a mad dream or a useless utopia. Wasn’t that the case with the first inventors, or even better, with first ones that discovered the properties of steam? Have Guttenberg been born in the Andaman Islands and the printing press would have certainly been aborted. Hence the idea is the essential lever to consider. Without the idea, without the fertilizing work of thinkers and philosophers alike and even those of the dreamer monks of the middle ages, the printing press would have turned into dead word. Guttenberg then lit more than one candle in tribute to the dialectic school that made the idea flourish and depurated intelligences.
The fervent idea around a plastic image in the human brain is and will always be the greatest engine of discoveries and inventions. The creation of a new need at the heart of modern society is like opening a new path to the eternally innovative idea; it is like pushing intelligence to search for the satisfaction of that new necessity of humanity. That is why all over the place where the idea reigns sovereign, where it is received with respect, and where finally the thinkers are honored there is assurance of progress towards God.
The so much bashed French-Freemasonry, against which the Roman Church did not have enough anathemas and still survived, French-Freemasonry had the doors of its temples wide open to the emancipating cult of ideas. All of the most serious issues were discussed in its very heart and before Spiritism had even showed up the venerable and grand-masters knew and professed that the soul was immortal and that the visible and invisible worlds communicated with one another. It was there in the sanctuaries that do not admit the profane that Swedenborg, Pasquali and Saint-Martin obtained striking results. It was there that the great Sofia, that ethereal inspiration, came to teach the firstborn of humanity the liberating dogmas whose generous principles were given in 1789. It was there and much earlier than your contemporary mediums that precursors of your mediumship, unknown persons, had evoked and made appear wise people of antiquity and from the first centuries of this era. It was there… I stop here. The restricted schedule of your sessions do not allow me to elaborate more about this interesting matter as I would like to do. We shall return to that later. All I will say now is that Spiritism will find at the heart of the Mason Lodges a compact phalanx of believers, not ephemeral but serious, resolved and unbreakable believers in their faith.
Spiritism carries out all of the generous and charitable aspirations of the French-Masonry; sanctions the beliefs of the latter by giving irrefutable proofs of the immortality of the soul; leads humanity to the objective that it proposes: union, peace and universal fraternity by the faith in God and in the future.
Wouldn’t that be the case that every sincere Spiritist of all nations, cults and classes look at one another like brothers? Isn’t that a French-Masonry between them with the exception that instead of being secret it is practiced openly? Enlightened men, like the ones it congregates that put their education above the prejudices of cast and silos, they cannot show indifference to the movement produced by this essentially liberating doctrine in the world. Repudiating such a powerful element of moral progress would be like denying their own principles and stand side by side with the retrograde. No, I am certain that they will not allow themselves to veer off and will take care of this serious issue with our influence.
Spiritism is an irresistible chain of ideas that must reach the whole world. It is a matter of time. Well, one would acknowledge ignorance with respect to the character of Masonry by believing that it would represent a negative role in the movement that impels humanity forward; believe that it would extinguish the flame as if it were afraid of light. It must be clear that I speak of the high French-Masonry and not of those lodges created for the illusion where people gather to eat and drink and to make fun of the rookies before their trials rather than discuss moral and philosophical issues. It was even necessary to the French-Masonry to accomplish its mission that from time to time and from place to place temples outside the temple, profane places outside sacred ones, false tabernacles outside the arc. It is in those places that the followers of Spiritism have uselessly tried to make themselves understood.
In short, French-Masonry taught the dogma that precedes yours and secretly professed what you proclaim out loud. I said I would return to this subject if the elevated Spirits that preside over your works allow me. While I wait I attest that the Spiritist Doctrine can perfectly mix with the great Lodges of the Orient.
Now, glory to the Great Architect.
A former French-Mason, Vaucanson, medium Mr. D’Ambel
Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, January 17th, 1864
Medium Mrs. Costel
My friends, I come to you the experienced and tested workers in suffering. I come to salute you, brave and worthy workers, in the name of charity and love.
You are my friend Jesus’ beloved ones. Rest assured with the Spiritist belief as I did at the heart of the Divine Messenger. Workers, you are the elected ones in the painful path of trial where you walk with your bleeding feet and discouraged hearts. Wait, brothers! Every suffering carries its own compensation; every laborious day has its night of rest. Believe in the future that will be your reward and do not seek forgetfulness that is sinful. Forgetfulness, my friends, is a selfish and brutal intoxication; it is hunger to your children and tears to your wives. Forgetfulness is cowardice.
What would you think of a worker that pretending fatigue would leave the shop floor and cowardly stopped the initiated task? My friends, life is the journey in eternity. Be brave in accomplishing your task; do not dream about an impossible rest; do not turn the clock forward; everything has its own time: the reward for your courage and the blessings to a touched heart that trusts the eternal justice.
Be Spiritists and you shall become strong and patients for you will learn that that trials are your guarantee of progress and that they will open up the horizons of a happy rest where you shall praise the sufferings that granted you access.
To all of you workers and friends, my blessings. I attend your sessions because you are the loved ones of the one that was.
John, the Evangelist
Medium Mrs. Costel
My friends, I come to you the experienced and tested workers in suffering. I come to salute you, brave and worthy workers, in the name of charity and love.
You are my friend Jesus’ beloved ones. Rest assured with the Spiritist belief as I did at the heart of the Divine Messenger. Workers, you are the elected ones in the painful path of trial where you walk with your bleeding feet and discouraged hearts. Wait, brothers! Every suffering carries its own compensation; every laborious day has its night of rest. Believe in the future that will be your reward and do not seek forgetfulness that is sinful. Forgetfulness, my friends, is a selfish and brutal intoxication; it is hunger to your children and tears to your wives. Forgetfulness is cowardice.
What would you think of a worker that pretending fatigue would leave the shop floor and cowardly stopped the initiated task? My friends, life is the journey in eternity. Be brave in accomplishing your task; do not dream about an impossible rest; do not turn the clock forward; everything has its own time: the reward for your courage and the blessings to a touched heart that trusts the eternal justice.
Be Spiritists and you shall become strong and patients for you will learn that that trials are your guarantee of progress and that they will open up the horizons of a happy rest where you shall praise the sufferings that granted you access.
To all of you workers and friends, my blessings. I attend your sessions because you are the loved ones of the one that was.
John, the Evangelist
Spontaneous essay
Partial instructions about the theory of the fluids
Paris, November 11th, 1863 – medium Ms. A.C.
Progression of all things necessarily leads to the transubstantiation and spiritual mediumship is one of the powers of nature that will help our planet get there faster because like other worlds it must follow the law of transformation and progress. Not only its human contingent but also the minerals, plants and animals, gases and imponderable fluids must progress and transform into more depurated substances. Science that has already worked on the interesting issue of the formation of this planet acknowledges that it was not created by one word, as stated in the Book of Genesis[1] in a sublime allegory, but that it has endured transformations in a long series of centuries that produced mineral layers of several type. Following the evolution of those layers one can see the successive surge and multiplication of vegetables and later on animals indicating that those organized bodies found the appropriate to live in those environments.
In studying the progression of animate beings, as has been done with minerals and vegetables, it is recognized that these beings, first shellfish, gradually rose in the animal scale, and that their progress followed that of the production and treatment of soil; we notice at the same time the disappearance of certain species, as soon as the physical conditions necessary for their life no longer exist. Thus, for example, the great dinosaurs, the monster amphibious and the giant mammals that we only find the fossils, have completely disappeared from the earth with the conditions of existence that the floods had created. Being the floods one of the means of transformation of Earth, they have been almost general; that is to say, during a certain period they have upset the globe and have thus produced different types of vegetation and atmospheric fluids. Mankind, like all organic beings, has appeared on Earth when the conditions necessary to their existence were available.
Here the material creation is stopped by the forces of nature alone; it then begins the role of work of the incarnate Spirit in mankind, for they must concur to the common work; working for oneself everyone must work for the general betterment. So we see that, from the earliest races, mankind cultivating the earth, making it produce for their bodily needs, and thereby bringing about transformations in the soil, its produce, its gases and fluids. The more Earth is populated, the more it is worked, cultivated, and cleansed and the more its products are abundant and varied; the purification of its fluids gradually leads to the disappearance of plant and animal species, poisonous and harmful to mankind and that can no longer exist in a too purified and subtle air for their organization, no longer finding the necessary elements for their survival.
The health condition of the globe has improved significantly since its inception but it is still not enough, indicating that it will be improved further by the work and ingenuity of mankind. It is by design that people are induced to establish themselves in the most inhospitable and unhealthy countries; regions infested by terrible animals and harmful mists have already become habitable; little by little, the transformations on the soil will bring about complete purification.
Through work people learn to know and direct the forces of nature. One can trace in history the thread of discoveries and conquests of the human mind, and the application of that to satisfy their needs. But by following this path, one must also observe that humanity has knocked rough edges and dematerialized; by drawing a parallel between today’s person with the first inhabitants of the globe, we can assess the progress already accomplished; we can see that the more mankind progresses, the more it is excited to progress further, and that evolution itself is in proportion to the already accomplished progress. Progress today advances at a high speed and forcibly drags over those that are still behind. We have just spoken of physical, material, and intelligent progress; but let us now see the moral progress and the influence it must have on the former.
Moral progress was awakened at the same time as the material development, but it has been slower because mankind was placed in the midst of a material creation, having needs and aspirations in harmony with that reality. As humans advanced, they felt the spiritual develop and grow in them and aided by celestial influences, people began to understand the need for the intelligent driving of the Spirit over matter; moral progress continued its development and, at different times, advanced Spirits have come to guide humanity, giving a greater impulse to its ascending march; such are Moses, the prophets, Confucius, the sages of antiquity and Christ, the greatest of all on Earth and also the humblest. Christ gave humanity a greater idea of his own worth, his independence and his spiritual personality. But his followers, being far inferior to him, did not understand the grandiose idea that shines out of all of his teachings; they materialized what was spiritual; hence the kind of moral status quo in which humanity has remained. Scientific and intellectual progress continue their progress and moral progress slowly drags on. Is it not certain that if, since Christ, all who have professed his doctrine had practiced it, humanity would have spared themselves of many evils, and would now be morally more advanced?
Spiritism has come to speed up that progress, unveiling to mankind its destiny and we already see its power by the number of followers and the easiness with which it is understood. It will lead to an active moral transformation and by the multiplicity of the mediumistic communications the heart and minds of all incarnate persons will be worked by friendly Spirits and educators. From that education a new scientific impulse will surge for new avenues will open up to science that will guide its researches towards the new forces of nature that are revealed. The already developed human skills will develop even further through the mediumistic work. Initially welcomed by kind souls, inconsolable before the loss of friends and relatives, Spiritism was later on embraced by the unfortunate ones of this world whose number is large and that were encouraged and sustained in their trials by its Doctrine that is both soothing and reassuring. It then propagated fast and many astonished skeptical, that studied it out of curiosity in the beginning, were convinced by themselves, finding hopes and consolations.
Today scholars are beginning to be touched and some of them that have studied it seriously and admit Spiritism as one natural force unknown up until now, and that apply their intelligence and knowledge to its study will make humanity advance a huge scientific step.
But the Spirits are not limited to scientific instruction. They have a double duty and must above all cultivate the moral advancement. Besides the studies of science they will do, and are already doing now, help you work your own self. The incarnate ones that are intelligent and wish to progress will understand that their dematerialization is the best condition to a progressive study and that their present as well as future happiness are related to that.
OBSERVATION: That is how the world, after having achieved a certain level of intellectual progress, will enter the period of moral progress whose route is opened by Spiritism. Such progress will take place by the force of things and will naturally lead to the transformation of humanity by broadening the circle of the ideas in a spiritual sense and by the intelligent and thoughtful practice of the moral laws taught by Jesus Christ. The speed with which the Spiritist ideas propagated at the very heart of materialism that dominates our times, that is the positive indication of a prompt change in the order of things. All it is needed is the extinction of a generation for the one that stands up already announces much different sponsorship.
[1] Genesis 1 (TN)
Partial instructions about the theory of the fluids
Paris, November 11th, 1863 – medium Ms. A.C.
Progression of all things necessarily leads to the transubstantiation and spiritual mediumship is one of the powers of nature that will help our planet get there faster because like other worlds it must follow the law of transformation and progress. Not only its human contingent but also the minerals, plants and animals, gases and imponderable fluids must progress and transform into more depurated substances. Science that has already worked on the interesting issue of the formation of this planet acknowledges that it was not created by one word, as stated in the Book of Genesis[1] in a sublime allegory, but that it has endured transformations in a long series of centuries that produced mineral layers of several type. Following the evolution of those layers one can see the successive surge and multiplication of vegetables and later on animals indicating that those organized bodies found the appropriate to live in those environments.
In studying the progression of animate beings, as has been done with minerals and vegetables, it is recognized that these beings, first shellfish, gradually rose in the animal scale, and that their progress followed that of the production and treatment of soil; we notice at the same time the disappearance of certain species, as soon as the physical conditions necessary for their life no longer exist. Thus, for example, the great dinosaurs, the monster amphibious and the giant mammals that we only find the fossils, have completely disappeared from the earth with the conditions of existence that the floods had created. Being the floods one of the means of transformation of Earth, they have been almost general; that is to say, during a certain period they have upset the globe and have thus produced different types of vegetation and atmospheric fluids. Mankind, like all organic beings, has appeared on Earth when the conditions necessary to their existence were available.
Here the material creation is stopped by the forces of nature alone; it then begins the role of work of the incarnate Spirit in mankind, for they must concur to the common work; working for oneself everyone must work for the general betterment. So we see that, from the earliest races, mankind cultivating the earth, making it produce for their bodily needs, and thereby bringing about transformations in the soil, its produce, its gases and fluids. The more Earth is populated, the more it is worked, cultivated, and cleansed and the more its products are abundant and varied; the purification of its fluids gradually leads to the disappearance of plant and animal species, poisonous and harmful to mankind and that can no longer exist in a too purified and subtle air for their organization, no longer finding the necessary elements for their survival.
The health condition of the globe has improved significantly since its inception but it is still not enough, indicating that it will be improved further by the work and ingenuity of mankind. It is by design that people are induced to establish themselves in the most inhospitable and unhealthy countries; regions infested by terrible animals and harmful mists have already become habitable; little by little, the transformations on the soil will bring about complete purification.
Through work people learn to know and direct the forces of nature. One can trace in history the thread of discoveries and conquests of the human mind, and the application of that to satisfy their needs. But by following this path, one must also observe that humanity has knocked rough edges and dematerialized; by drawing a parallel between today’s person with the first inhabitants of the globe, we can assess the progress already accomplished; we can see that the more mankind progresses, the more it is excited to progress further, and that evolution itself is in proportion to the already accomplished progress. Progress today advances at a high speed and forcibly drags over those that are still behind. We have just spoken of physical, material, and intelligent progress; but let us now see the moral progress and the influence it must have on the former.
Moral progress was awakened at the same time as the material development, but it has been slower because mankind was placed in the midst of a material creation, having needs and aspirations in harmony with that reality. As humans advanced, they felt the spiritual develop and grow in them and aided by celestial influences, people began to understand the need for the intelligent driving of the Spirit over matter; moral progress continued its development and, at different times, advanced Spirits have come to guide humanity, giving a greater impulse to its ascending march; such are Moses, the prophets, Confucius, the sages of antiquity and Christ, the greatest of all on Earth and also the humblest. Christ gave humanity a greater idea of his own worth, his independence and his spiritual personality. But his followers, being far inferior to him, did not understand the grandiose idea that shines out of all of his teachings; they materialized what was spiritual; hence the kind of moral status quo in which humanity has remained. Scientific and intellectual progress continue their progress and moral progress slowly drags on. Is it not certain that if, since Christ, all who have professed his doctrine had practiced it, humanity would have spared themselves of many evils, and would now be morally more advanced?
Spiritism has come to speed up that progress, unveiling to mankind its destiny and we already see its power by the number of followers and the easiness with which it is understood. It will lead to an active moral transformation and by the multiplicity of the mediumistic communications the heart and minds of all incarnate persons will be worked by friendly Spirits and educators. From that education a new scientific impulse will surge for new avenues will open up to science that will guide its researches towards the new forces of nature that are revealed. The already developed human skills will develop even further through the mediumistic work. Initially welcomed by kind souls, inconsolable before the loss of friends and relatives, Spiritism was later on embraced by the unfortunate ones of this world whose number is large and that were encouraged and sustained in their trials by its Doctrine that is both soothing and reassuring. It then propagated fast and many astonished skeptical, that studied it out of curiosity in the beginning, were convinced by themselves, finding hopes and consolations.
Today scholars are beginning to be touched and some of them that have studied it seriously and admit Spiritism as one natural force unknown up until now, and that apply their intelligence and knowledge to its study will make humanity advance a huge scientific step.
But the Spirits are not limited to scientific instruction. They have a double duty and must above all cultivate the moral advancement. Besides the studies of science they will do, and are already doing now, help you work your own self. The incarnate ones that are intelligent and wish to progress will understand that their dematerialization is the best condition to a progressive study and that their present as well as future happiness are related to that.
OBSERVATION: That is how the world, after having achieved a certain level of intellectual progress, will enter the period of moral progress whose route is opened by Spiritism. Such progress will take place by the force of things and will naturally lead to the transformation of humanity by broadening the circle of the ideas in a spiritual sense and by the intelligent and thoughtful practice of the moral laws taught by Jesus Christ. The speed with which the Spiritist ideas propagated at the very heart of materialism that dominates our times, that is the positive indication of a prompt change in the order of things. All it is needed is the extinction of a generation for the one that stands up already announces much different sponsorship.
[1] Genesis 1 (TN)
May
How can one know about the future? One can understand forecasts of events that are consequence of the present condition but not those that no connection to them and even less those that are attributed to chance. People say that future things do not exist and that they are still in the void then how can we know if they are going to happen? Nonetheless large is the number of predictions that became reality from which one can conclude that there is a phenomenon whose understanding we lack the key since there is no effect without a cause. Such a cause that we are going to try to find is provided by Spiritism that in itself is the key to so many mysteries and that will show us that the event of prediction itself is not outside the laws of nature.
As a comparison let us take an example of common things that will help us understand the principle that we will have to develop. Suppose a person placed at the top of a mountain, contemplating the vast extension of the prairies. In such a situation one mile will not be much and the person will be able to see from a glance the accidents of the terrain from the beginning to the end of the road. The traveler that follows that road for the first time knows that she will get to the end. That is a simple forecast of the consequence of the journey. But the accidents of the march, the ascents and descents, the creeks to be transposed, the forests to cross, the cliffs to avoid, the hiding thieves, the lodgings to rest, all of that will depend on the person. For that person future is unknown because her sight does not go beyond the little circle around. As for the duration of the trip it is measure by the time taken to cover the path. If the reference points are removed the duration disappears. For the observer on the top that eyes the traveler everything is present. Suppose now that the observer comes down to meet the traveler and say: “At a given time you will find such a thing; you will be attacked and helped.” The observer will be predicting the future. To the traveler that is future. To the observer that is present. If we now leave the circle of the purely material things and in our mind enter the domain of the spiritual life we will see that such a phenomenon takes place in a much greater scale. The dematerialized Spirits are like the person on the top of the mountain. Space and time do not exist to them. The extension and penetration of their vision are proportional to their depuration and elevation in the spiritual hierarchy. Regarding the inferior Spirits they are like a person holding a powerful telescope side by side with others that only observe with their naked eyes. The latter ones have a limited vision not only because they can hardly move away from the globe to which they are connected but also because the dense nature of their perispirit covers things that are faraway, like the fog does to the eyes of the body.
It is then understood that according to their degree of perfection a Spirit may embrace a period of a few years, a few centuries and even many thousands of years for what is a century when compared to eternity?
Before the eyes of such a Spirit the events do not take place in succession like the incidents of the traveler’s path. The start and finish are seen simultaneously. All the events that constitute the future to mankind on Earth are the present to that Spirit that could say with certainty: Such a thing will occur at such a time because that event is seen like the person on top of the mountain sees what is ahead of the traveler on the road. If such a Spirit does not say anything it is because such a knowledge of the future is harmful to people. It would preclude the use of one’s free-will and paralyze the work of progress. The good and bad ahead of us are unknown as part of the trial.
If such a faculty, even restrict, may be the attribute of a creature how about at the level of the Creator that embraces the infinite? There is no time for God; the beginning and the end of the world are the present. In such a scenario what is the life of a person, of a generation, of a people?
Nonetheless and since each one must concur to the general progress and certain events must result from their cooperation, in certain cases it may be useful that a person may foresee those events to pave the way and be ready to act when the time is right. That is why sometimes God allows the tip of the veil to be lifted but that is always with a useful objective and never to satisfy futile curiosity. Thus such a mission may be given to certain Spirits, not to all of them since some do not know more about the future than people do, but to sufficiently advanced Spirits for that matter. It must be said that such revelations are always done spontaneously and never or at least very rarely in response to a direct question. Such a mission may equally be given to certain persons and here is how.
Someone that has been assigned with the task of revealing something that is occult may unpretentiously receive it by inspiration of the Spirits that have that knowledge and then transmit it mechanically, unnoticeably. Besides, it is a known fact that be it during the sleep or vigil or even in cases of ecstasy of double vision, the soul detached from the body and has in a more or lesser degree the faculties of the free Spirit. If that is an advanced Spirit and most importantly if, like the prophets, had received a special mission in that respect, at that moment of emancipation of the soul the Spirit enjoys the capacity of embracing a more or less extensive period and sees events of the future as if in the present. The Spirit may then reveal them immediately or keep their memory when waking up. If those events must be kept in secret the Spirit will lose that memory or just keep a vague intuition that is sufficient for an instinctive guidance. That is why we can see such a faculty providentially developing in certain occasions like in cases of imminent danger, great calamities and in revolutions where the majority of the persecuted sects had numerous clairvoyants. That is also why we see great commanders marching resolutely against the enemy with the certainty of victory as well as geniuses like Christopher Columbus, for example, chasing an objective and somehow predicting the time of reaching it. The reason is that they saw that objective that is not unknown to their Spirit. Every phenomena whose cause was unknown was considered marvelous. Once the law behind them is known they enter the rank of natural things. The gift of prediction is not more supernatural than a large number of other phenomena because it is founded on the properties of the soul and in the law of relationship between the visible and the invisible worlds that became known through Spiritism. But how to admit the existence of an invisible world if the soul is not admitted or its individuality after death is not accepted? The skeptical that denies prescience is consistent with herself. There is still the need to define if that person is consistent with herself when it comes to the natural law.
The theory of prescience may not solve all cases of prediction of the future in absolute terms but one must not deny the fact that it establishes its fundamental principle. If not everything can be explained that is due to the difficulty that human beings have in placing themselves in that kind of extraterrestrial stand point. Given the natural inferiority our thoughts are incessantly dragged to the material life and are frequently powerless to elevate above ground. With that respect certain persons are like those new birds whose wings are ever so weak that they can hardly fly or the short sighted ones that cannot see far away or finally like some others that lack a sense for certain perceptions. Nevertheless with some effort and the habit of meditation one can get there and the Spiritists do that faster than the others because they can better identify with and understand the spiritual life.
In order to understand spiritual things, that is, to have an idea as clear as that that we have about a landscape that stands before our eyes we do lack a sense, exactly like the blind person lacks a sense to understand the effects of light, colors and vision at a distance. We then only achieve that through an effort of our imagination, helped by comparisons that we make with familiar things. Material things, however, can only give us very imperfect images of spiritual things. That is why the comparisons should not be made word by word and believe, for example, that in the case that we are discussing the reach of the perceptive faculties of the Spirits are in proportion to their elevation and that they need to be on the top of the mountain or above the clouds to embrace time and space. Such a faculty is inherent to the level of spiritualization or, if you want, dematerialization. In other words spiritualization produces an effect that can be compared, although very imperfectly, to the vision of the whole of a person standing on the top of the mountain. That comparison only aimed at showing that events that are in the future to some may be in the present to others and in that case can be predicted but that does not mean that the effect is produced in the same way.
Therefore to enjoy such a perception the Spirit does not need to be transported to a given point in space. The one that is on Earth by our side may have it in its plenitude in the same way that the Spirit would have it even if located thousands of miles away, whereas we cannot see anything beyond the visual horizon. Since the vision of the Spirits is not produced neither in the same way nor with the same elements that it occurs with humans their horizon is very different. Well, that is precisely the sense that we miss to conceive it. Compared to an incarnate the Spirit is like a normal vision person compared to a blind one.
Besides, it is necessary to take into account that such a perception is not limited to the extension but it also incorporates penetration into all things. It is, and we repeat, a faculty inherent and proportional to the state of dematerialization. Such a faculty is lessened by incarnation but is not completely annulled because the soul is not contained in the body as if in a box. The incarnate has it in proportion to the evolution of the Spirit although always in a lesser degree than when separated from the body. That is what give to certain persons a power of penetration that others lack completely, a fairer moral assessment, a better understanding of the material things. The Spirit not only perceives but also remembers what was seen as a Spirit and that memory is like a picture that remains in their minds. During incarnation the Spirit sees but only vaguely like through a veil. In the state of freedom the Spirit clearly sees and conceives. The principle of vision is not outside but inside the Spirit. That is why there is no need for light.
The circle of ideas and conception broadens through the moral development; the Spirits purifies from the dense elements by the progressive dematerialization of the perispirit and that alters the subtlety of the perceptions and from that it becomes easy to understand that the extension of all faculties are a consequence of the progress of the Spirit. It is the degree of extension of the faculties that during the incarnation makes the Spirit more or less apt to conceive spiritual things. Such aptitude, however, is not a necessary consequence of the intellectual development because it is not given by common science. That is why we see people of great intelligence and knowledge that are as blind to spiritual matters as others are to material things. They reject those things because they do not understand them. That happens because their progress has not happened in that direction yet whereas there are people of common intelligence and education that learn them with great ease demonstrating that they had a previous intuition of them.
The possibility of changing their stand point seeing things from above not only gives the solution to the problem of prescience but also the key to a true and solid faith. It is also the most powerful element of strength and resignation because since life appears as a single point in the infinite one understands the little importance of things that seen from below seem so important. The incidents, miseries and vanities of life are belittled before the immense and splendid horizon of the future that unveils ahead. Someone that look at things in that way is hardly reached by vicissitudes and for that very reason is as happy as possible down here. One must then feel sorry for those that concentrate their minds in the narrow sphere of Earth because they feel the full power of the counter action of every tribulation that like so many other spearheads incessantly hurt them.
When it comes to the future of Spiritism, as it is well-known, the Spirits are unanimous in predicting the near ahead triumph despite the barriers that are imposed. Such a prediction is easy to them first because its propagation is the result of their personal work and consequently they know what must be done and second because all they need is to observe a period of short duration and in that period they see powerful supporters recruited by God and that will soon manifest.
Since they are not discarnate Spirits, the Spiritists must only look thirty years ahead and observe the new generation; consider what is happening today; follow the tracks and they will see the useless efforts of those that are called in to destroy Spiritism turning into ashes. They will see those efforts disappearing gradually side by side with the tree whose roots expand daily. This study will be completed by the references available between prediction and fatality. Meanwhile we refer the reader to what was said about the last point in The Spirits’ Book, item 851 and beyond.
As a comparison let us take an example of common things that will help us understand the principle that we will have to develop. Suppose a person placed at the top of a mountain, contemplating the vast extension of the prairies. In such a situation one mile will not be much and the person will be able to see from a glance the accidents of the terrain from the beginning to the end of the road. The traveler that follows that road for the first time knows that she will get to the end. That is a simple forecast of the consequence of the journey. But the accidents of the march, the ascents and descents, the creeks to be transposed, the forests to cross, the cliffs to avoid, the hiding thieves, the lodgings to rest, all of that will depend on the person. For that person future is unknown because her sight does not go beyond the little circle around. As for the duration of the trip it is measure by the time taken to cover the path. If the reference points are removed the duration disappears. For the observer on the top that eyes the traveler everything is present. Suppose now that the observer comes down to meet the traveler and say: “At a given time you will find such a thing; you will be attacked and helped.” The observer will be predicting the future. To the traveler that is future. To the observer that is present. If we now leave the circle of the purely material things and in our mind enter the domain of the spiritual life we will see that such a phenomenon takes place in a much greater scale. The dematerialized Spirits are like the person on the top of the mountain. Space and time do not exist to them. The extension and penetration of their vision are proportional to their depuration and elevation in the spiritual hierarchy. Regarding the inferior Spirits they are like a person holding a powerful telescope side by side with others that only observe with their naked eyes. The latter ones have a limited vision not only because they can hardly move away from the globe to which they are connected but also because the dense nature of their perispirit covers things that are faraway, like the fog does to the eyes of the body.
It is then understood that according to their degree of perfection a Spirit may embrace a period of a few years, a few centuries and even many thousands of years for what is a century when compared to eternity?
Before the eyes of such a Spirit the events do not take place in succession like the incidents of the traveler’s path. The start and finish are seen simultaneously. All the events that constitute the future to mankind on Earth are the present to that Spirit that could say with certainty: Such a thing will occur at such a time because that event is seen like the person on top of the mountain sees what is ahead of the traveler on the road. If such a Spirit does not say anything it is because such a knowledge of the future is harmful to people. It would preclude the use of one’s free-will and paralyze the work of progress. The good and bad ahead of us are unknown as part of the trial.
If such a faculty, even restrict, may be the attribute of a creature how about at the level of the Creator that embraces the infinite? There is no time for God; the beginning and the end of the world are the present. In such a scenario what is the life of a person, of a generation, of a people?
Nonetheless and since each one must concur to the general progress and certain events must result from their cooperation, in certain cases it may be useful that a person may foresee those events to pave the way and be ready to act when the time is right. That is why sometimes God allows the tip of the veil to be lifted but that is always with a useful objective and never to satisfy futile curiosity. Thus such a mission may be given to certain Spirits, not to all of them since some do not know more about the future than people do, but to sufficiently advanced Spirits for that matter. It must be said that such revelations are always done spontaneously and never or at least very rarely in response to a direct question. Such a mission may equally be given to certain persons and here is how.
Someone that has been assigned with the task of revealing something that is occult may unpretentiously receive it by inspiration of the Spirits that have that knowledge and then transmit it mechanically, unnoticeably. Besides, it is a known fact that be it during the sleep or vigil or even in cases of ecstasy of double vision, the soul detached from the body and has in a more or lesser degree the faculties of the free Spirit. If that is an advanced Spirit and most importantly if, like the prophets, had received a special mission in that respect, at that moment of emancipation of the soul the Spirit enjoys the capacity of embracing a more or less extensive period and sees events of the future as if in the present. The Spirit may then reveal them immediately or keep their memory when waking up. If those events must be kept in secret the Spirit will lose that memory or just keep a vague intuition that is sufficient for an instinctive guidance. That is why we can see such a faculty providentially developing in certain occasions like in cases of imminent danger, great calamities and in revolutions where the majority of the persecuted sects had numerous clairvoyants. That is also why we see great commanders marching resolutely against the enemy with the certainty of victory as well as geniuses like Christopher Columbus, for example, chasing an objective and somehow predicting the time of reaching it. The reason is that they saw that objective that is not unknown to their Spirit. Every phenomena whose cause was unknown was considered marvelous. Once the law behind them is known they enter the rank of natural things. The gift of prediction is not more supernatural than a large number of other phenomena because it is founded on the properties of the soul and in the law of relationship between the visible and the invisible worlds that became known through Spiritism. But how to admit the existence of an invisible world if the soul is not admitted or its individuality after death is not accepted? The skeptical that denies prescience is consistent with herself. There is still the need to define if that person is consistent with herself when it comes to the natural law.
The theory of prescience may not solve all cases of prediction of the future in absolute terms but one must not deny the fact that it establishes its fundamental principle. If not everything can be explained that is due to the difficulty that human beings have in placing themselves in that kind of extraterrestrial stand point. Given the natural inferiority our thoughts are incessantly dragged to the material life and are frequently powerless to elevate above ground. With that respect certain persons are like those new birds whose wings are ever so weak that they can hardly fly or the short sighted ones that cannot see far away or finally like some others that lack a sense for certain perceptions. Nevertheless with some effort and the habit of meditation one can get there and the Spiritists do that faster than the others because they can better identify with and understand the spiritual life.
In order to understand spiritual things, that is, to have an idea as clear as that that we have about a landscape that stands before our eyes we do lack a sense, exactly like the blind person lacks a sense to understand the effects of light, colors and vision at a distance. We then only achieve that through an effort of our imagination, helped by comparisons that we make with familiar things. Material things, however, can only give us very imperfect images of spiritual things. That is why the comparisons should not be made word by word and believe, for example, that in the case that we are discussing the reach of the perceptive faculties of the Spirits are in proportion to their elevation and that they need to be on the top of the mountain or above the clouds to embrace time and space. Such a faculty is inherent to the level of spiritualization or, if you want, dematerialization. In other words spiritualization produces an effect that can be compared, although very imperfectly, to the vision of the whole of a person standing on the top of the mountain. That comparison only aimed at showing that events that are in the future to some may be in the present to others and in that case can be predicted but that does not mean that the effect is produced in the same way.
Therefore to enjoy such a perception the Spirit does not need to be transported to a given point in space. The one that is on Earth by our side may have it in its plenitude in the same way that the Spirit would have it even if located thousands of miles away, whereas we cannot see anything beyond the visual horizon. Since the vision of the Spirits is not produced neither in the same way nor with the same elements that it occurs with humans their horizon is very different. Well, that is precisely the sense that we miss to conceive it. Compared to an incarnate the Spirit is like a normal vision person compared to a blind one.
Besides, it is necessary to take into account that such a perception is not limited to the extension but it also incorporates penetration into all things. It is, and we repeat, a faculty inherent and proportional to the state of dematerialization. Such a faculty is lessened by incarnation but is not completely annulled because the soul is not contained in the body as if in a box. The incarnate has it in proportion to the evolution of the Spirit although always in a lesser degree than when separated from the body. That is what give to certain persons a power of penetration that others lack completely, a fairer moral assessment, a better understanding of the material things. The Spirit not only perceives but also remembers what was seen as a Spirit and that memory is like a picture that remains in their minds. During incarnation the Spirit sees but only vaguely like through a veil. In the state of freedom the Spirit clearly sees and conceives. The principle of vision is not outside but inside the Spirit. That is why there is no need for light.
The circle of ideas and conception broadens through the moral development; the Spirits purifies from the dense elements by the progressive dematerialization of the perispirit and that alters the subtlety of the perceptions and from that it becomes easy to understand that the extension of all faculties are a consequence of the progress of the Spirit. It is the degree of extension of the faculties that during the incarnation makes the Spirit more or less apt to conceive spiritual things. Such aptitude, however, is not a necessary consequence of the intellectual development because it is not given by common science. That is why we see people of great intelligence and knowledge that are as blind to spiritual matters as others are to material things. They reject those things because they do not understand them. That happens because their progress has not happened in that direction yet whereas there are people of common intelligence and education that learn them with great ease demonstrating that they had a previous intuition of them.
The possibility of changing their stand point seeing things from above not only gives the solution to the problem of prescience but also the key to a true and solid faith. It is also the most powerful element of strength and resignation because since life appears as a single point in the infinite one understands the little importance of things that seen from below seem so important. The incidents, miseries and vanities of life are belittled before the immense and splendid horizon of the future that unveils ahead. Someone that look at things in that way is hardly reached by vicissitudes and for that very reason is as happy as possible down here. One must then feel sorry for those that concentrate their minds in the narrow sphere of Earth because they feel the full power of the counter action of every tribulation that like so many other spearheads incessantly hurt them.
When it comes to the future of Spiritism, as it is well-known, the Spirits are unanimous in predicting the near ahead triumph despite the barriers that are imposed. Such a prediction is easy to them first because its propagation is the result of their personal work and consequently they know what must be done and second because all they need is to observe a period of short duration and in that period they see powerful supporters recruited by God and that will soon manifest.
Since they are not discarnate Spirits, the Spiritists must only look thirty years ahead and observe the new generation; consider what is happening today; follow the tracks and they will see the useless efforts of those that are called in to destroy Spiritism turning into ashes. They will see those efforts disappearing gradually side by side with the tree whose roots expand daily. This study will be completed by the references available between prediction and fatality. Meanwhile we refer the reader to what was said about the last point in The Spirits’ Book, item 851 and beyond.
This book is already well-known today hence it dismisses the need for an analysis. We will limit ourselves to the analysis of the author’s point of view and deduce its consequences. The author makes a touching dedication to the soul of his sister at the top; although too short it is a fundamental text because it is a profession of faith. We show the full text because it gives rise to important observations of general interest.
-o-
To the pure soul of my sister Henriette, deceased in Biblos on September 24th, 1861
“Do you remember, from the heart of God where you rest, those long days in Ghazir where with you alone I wrote these pages inspired by the places that we had just visited? You quietly read and copied them by my side while the ocean, the villages, the ravine and mountains unfolded under our feet. When the extenuating light replaced the innumerable army of stars your smart and kind questions, your discrete doubts redirected me to the sublime object of our common thoughts. One day you said that you would love this book first because it had been written with you and it pleased you. If sometimes you feared the narrow opinion of frivolous people you were also persuaded that the true religious souls would finally like it. Among such sweet meditations death came to hurt us both with its wing. The fever made us sleep at the same time. I woke up alone! You now sleep in Adonis’ land near the sacred Biblos and the sacred waters where the women of the old mysteries came to spill their tears. Reveal to me, oh good genie, the one that you loved, reveal to me those truths that dominate death, impede fear and almost have it loved.”
Unless one does believe that Mr. Renan is unworthy joking it is impossible that such words may come out form a pen of someone that believes in the void. We certainly see writers of elastic talent playing with the most contradictory beliefs to the point of confusing people about their own feelings. They have the skill of imitation. To them an idea does not need to be an article of faith. It is a theme that they work irrespectively if that may or may not excite imagination, but that they modify in a way or another according to the circumstances. But there are subjects that even the most hardened skeptical cannot touch without feeling sacrilege.
Such is Mr. Renan’s dedication. In similar cases a generous person abstains instead of speaking against her own convictions. This is not one of those subjects that are picked to impress people.
Considering the form of dedication as an expression of the author’s mind we find there more than a vague spiritualist thought. It is not about the soul lost in the depth of space absorbed by an eternal and blessed contemplation or in endless pain; it is not the soul of the pantheist either annihilated in the ocean of universal intelligence. It is the picture of the individual soul with the memory of its earthly affections and occupations, returning to the habitual places near the loved ones. Mr. Renan would speak like that about a myth or someone lost in the nothingness. For him the soul of his sister is by his side. She sees and inspire him and is interested in his work. There is an exchange of thoughts, a spiritual communication between them. Like many others he performs a true evocation unnoticeably. What is missing for it to become a complete Spiritist belief? Material communication. Why does Mr. Renan put it in the row of superstitious beliefs? Because he does not accept the marvelous and the supernatural. If he acknowledged, however, the real state of the soul after death as well as the properties of the perispirit he would understand that the phenomenon of the Spiritist manifestations does not distance itself from the natural laws and that for that it is not necessary to resource to the marvelous; that if the phenomenon must have been produced in all periods and with all peoples it has been the source of a number of events certainly classified as supernatural by some and by others attributed to imagination; that nobody has the power to block such manifestations and that in certain cases it is possible to provoke them.
What is it that Spiritism does other than revealing to us a new law of nature? It does to a certain order of phenomena what others did the discovery of the laws of electricity, gravitation, molecular affinity and so for. Would science then have the pretension of having said the last word about nature? Is there anything more astonishing and more wonderful than corresponding with someone five hundred miles away in a matter of minutes? Before the knowledge of the laws of electricity similar communication would have been considered magic, witchcraft, a devilish thing or miracle. A wise person that would have heard it would have undoubtedly denied it and that person would not lack excellent reasons to demonstrate that it was physically impossible. Impossible, no doubt, according to the known laws but perfectly possible according to a law that was not known yet. Why then would that be easier to communicate instantaneously with a living being whose body is five hundred miles away than with the soul of that same creature that is by our side? People will say that it is for the fact that there isn’t a body any more. But who can assure you that? It is precisely the opposite that Spiritism demonstrates, proving that if the soul no longer has a material, dense and ponderable envelope it does have a fluidic, imponderable body but that still is some kind of matter; that such envelope, invisible in its natural state, can in certain circumstances and through some sort of molecular modification, become visible like vapor in condensation. As one can see that is a very natural phenomenon whose key Spiritism provides through the law that governs the relationships between the visible and the invisible world.
Persuaded that the soul or Spirit, same thing, of this sister was close to him, Mr. Renan saw and heard her and hence he should believe that such a soul was something. If someone had come to tell him: that soul, whose presence is guessed in your mind, is not a vague and undefined creature; it is a limited, circumscribed being, with a fluidic body and invisible like the majority of the fluids; for her was only the destruction of her corporeal envelope but she kept her ethereal and indestructible cover so much so that your sister is by your side as she was when alive but without the body that was left behind, like the butterfly leaves its chrysalis; dying she had only undressed from the dense garment that can no longer serve her and that kept her on the surface of the planet, but she kept the light outfit that allows her to transport to wherever she wants and transpose distances with a lightning speed; from a moral point of view it is the same person with the same ideas and affections, the same intelligence but with new, broader and more subtle perceptions for her faculties are no longer compressed by the dense and heavy matter through which they had to communicate. Tell us if such an image is irrational at all! By proving that this is real, is Spiritism ridiculous as some pretend? What is it that Spiritism does, after all? It demonstrates in a positive way the existence of the soul. Demonstrating that she is a defined being Spiritism gives a real objective to our memories and affections. If Mr. Renan’s thoughts were not but a dream, a poetic fiction, with Spiritism such thoughts transform from fiction into reality.
In all times philosophy struggled in the search for the soul, its nature, faculties, its origin and destiny. Countless theories were created about it but the issue had always remained undefined. Why? Apparently because none of them found the knot to untangle the problem and did not resolve it satisfactorily in order to convince everyone.
Spiritism, in turn, brings that solution. It is based on experimental psychology and studies the soul both during life and after death; it isolate the soul and studies it; it follows the soul and its actions in a free state while ordinary philosophy only sees the soul united to the body, enduring the obstacles of matter, reason why cause and effect are frequently confounded. Ordinary philosophy tries to demonstrate the existence of the soul and its attributes by the use of abstract formulas, unintelligible to the crowds, whereas Spiritism provides positive proofs of its existence allowing it to be in a way tangible to the eyes and fingers. It explains that clearly and understandable by anyone. Would the simplicity of its language subtract its philosophical character as intended by certain scholars?
Nevertheless the Spiritist philosophy contains, to the eyes of many, a serious mistake expressed in a single word. The word soul, even to the nonbelievers, has something of respectable and powerful. The word Spirit, on the contrary, excites in them the marvelous ideas of the legends, the fairy tales, the will-o’-the-wisp[1], the werewolf, etc. They accept in good faith that someone may believe in the soul although they don’t believe themselves but they cannot understand that someone may believe in Spirits out of common-sense. Hence the prevention that makes them look at the science as something puerile and unworthy of their attention. Judging it by the name-tag they believe it to be inseparable from magic and witchcraft.
How about this if Spiritism had abstained from using the word Spirit and if in all cases had it replaced by the word soul their impression would have been absolutely different. Strictly speaking those profound philosophers and free-thinkers would admit, without any issue, that the soul of a loved one hear our cries and come to inspire us but will not admit that the same happens to their Spirit. Mr. Renan placed this at the top of his dedication: “To the pure soul of my sister Henriette”. Couldn’t have him said this: To the pure Spirit of my sister Henriette? Now then, why has Spiritism utilized the word Spirit? Is that a mistake? Not at all and much to the contrary. First of all since the first manifestations and even before the creation of the Spiritist philosophy that word was already used. Since it was about the deduction of the moral consequences of those manifestations, it was useful to keep a usual word to show the connection between the two parts of the science. Moreover it was evident that the prevention associated to that word, circumscribed to a special group of persons, should fade away with time. The inconvenience was just momentary. Second, if on one side the word Spirit was repulsive to some on the other it was attractive to many and should contribute more than any other to the popularization of the Doctrine. Hence it was preferable to choose the larger number rather than the smaller.
A third reason is more serious than the two preceding ones. The words soul and Spirit, although synonyms and employed indifferently, do not express exactly the same idea. The soul is, as a matter of fact, the intelligent principle, a principle that is undefined and imperceptible like a thought. In our current state of knowledge we cannot conceive the Spirit isolated from matter in absolute terms. The perispirit, although formed by a subtle matter, turns it into a limited being, defined and circumscribed to its own spiritual individuality from which we can formulate the following proposition: The union between the soul, the perispirit and the body constitute a human being; the soul and the perispirit separated from the body constitute the being called Spirit. Consequently it is not the soul alone that shows up in the manifestations. The soul is always covered by its fluidic envelope and that envelope is the necessary intermediary through which the soul acts upon dense matter. In the apparitions it is not the soul that is seen but the perispirit, in the same way that when a person is seen it is the body that is seen instead of the thought, the force and the principle that make that body move. In short the soul is the simple, primitive being; the Spirit is the double being; a person is the triple being. If we add clothes to a person we have the quadruple. In the circumstance discussed here the word Spirit is the one that best correspond to what one intends to express. One can conceive the Spirit in one’s mind but not the soul.
Convinced that the soul of his sister saw him and understood him Mr. Renan could not suppose that she was alone in space. A simple thought should tell him that the same must happen to all those that leave Earth. The souls or Spirits spread like so in the immensity constitute the invisible world that surrounds us and in whose environment we live so that that world is not composed of fantastic creatures, gnomes, elves and demons with their horns and paws but composed of the same beings that formed earthly humanity. What is absurd about that? The visible and invisible world are therefore in perpetual contact thus resulting in a permanent reaction of one upon the other. From that a large number of phenomena enter the order of natural events. Modern Spiritism has not either discovered or invented them. It studied and observed them better. It sought their laws and for that very reason subtracted them from the order of marvelous phenomena. Facts related to the invisible world and its relationships with the visible more or less observed in all times belong to the history of all peoples and in particular to their religious history. That is why many profane as well as sacred writers refer to them in many passages. The lack of knowledge about those relationships made so many passages to remain unintelligible and interpreted so diverse and falsely. It is for the same reason that Mr. Renan was so strangely wrong with respect to the nature of the events reported in the Gospels and about the meaning of the words said by Jesus Christ, their role and true character as we will demonstrate in our next article. These thoughts to which we were led by his dedication, were necessary to appreciate the consequences that he saw from his standpoint.
[1] Something deceptive, deluding (TN)
-o-
To the pure soul of my sister Henriette, deceased in Biblos on September 24th, 1861
“Do you remember, from the heart of God where you rest, those long days in Ghazir where with you alone I wrote these pages inspired by the places that we had just visited? You quietly read and copied them by my side while the ocean, the villages, the ravine and mountains unfolded under our feet. When the extenuating light replaced the innumerable army of stars your smart and kind questions, your discrete doubts redirected me to the sublime object of our common thoughts. One day you said that you would love this book first because it had been written with you and it pleased you. If sometimes you feared the narrow opinion of frivolous people you were also persuaded that the true religious souls would finally like it. Among such sweet meditations death came to hurt us both with its wing. The fever made us sleep at the same time. I woke up alone! You now sleep in Adonis’ land near the sacred Biblos and the sacred waters where the women of the old mysteries came to spill their tears. Reveal to me, oh good genie, the one that you loved, reveal to me those truths that dominate death, impede fear and almost have it loved.”
Unless one does believe that Mr. Renan is unworthy joking it is impossible that such words may come out form a pen of someone that believes in the void. We certainly see writers of elastic talent playing with the most contradictory beliefs to the point of confusing people about their own feelings. They have the skill of imitation. To them an idea does not need to be an article of faith. It is a theme that they work irrespectively if that may or may not excite imagination, but that they modify in a way or another according to the circumstances. But there are subjects that even the most hardened skeptical cannot touch without feeling sacrilege.
Such is Mr. Renan’s dedication. In similar cases a generous person abstains instead of speaking against her own convictions. This is not one of those subjects that are picked to impress people.
Considering the form of dedication as an expression of the author’s mind we find there more than a vague spiritualist thought. It is not about the soul lost in the depth of space absorbed by an eternal and blessed contemplation or in endless pain; it is not the soul of the pantheist either annihilated in the ocean of universal intelligence. It is the picture of the individual soul with the memory of its earthly affections and occupations, returning to the habitual places near the loved ones. Mr. Renan would speak like that about a myth or someone lost in the nothingness. For him the soul of his sister is by his side. She sees and inspire him and is interested in his work. There is an exchange of thoughts, a spiritual communication between them. Like many others he performs a true evocation unnoticeably. What is missing for it to become a complete Spiritist belief? Material communication. Why does Mr. Renan put it in the row of superstitious beliefs? Because he does not accept the marvelous and the supernatural. If he acknowledged, however, the real state of the soul after death as well as the properties of the perispirit he would understand that the phenomenon of the Spiritist manifestations does not distance itself from the natural laws and that for that it is not necessary to resource to the marvelous; that if the phenomenon must have been produced in all periods and with all peoples it has been the source of a number of events certainly classified as supernatural by some and by others attributed to imagination; that nobody has the power to block such manifestations and that in certain cases it is possible to provoke them.
What is it that Spiritism does other than revealing to us a new law of nature? It does to a certain order of phenomena what others did the discovery of the laws of electricity, gravitation, molecular affinity and so for. Would science then have the pretension of having said the last word about nature? Is there anything more astonishing and more wonderful than corresponding with someone five hundred miles away in a matter of minutes? Before the knowledge of the laws of electricity similar communication would have been considered magic, witchcraft, a devilish thing or miracle. A wise person that would have heard it would have undoubtedly denied it and that person would not lack excellent reasons to demonstrate that it was physically impossible. Impossible, no doubt, according to the known laws but perfectly possible according to a law that was not known yet. Why then would that be easier to communicate instantaneously with a living being whose body is five hundred miles away than with the soul of that same creature that is by our side? People will say that it is for the fact that there isn’t a body any more. But who can assure you that? It is precisely the opposite that Spiritism demonstrates, proving that if the soul no longer has a material, dense and ponderable envelope it does have a fluidic, imponderable body but that still is some kind of matter; that such envelope, invisible in its natural state, can in certain circumstances and through some sort of molecular modification, become visible like vapor in condensation. As one can see that is a very natural phenomenon whose key Spiritism provides through the law that governs the relationships between the visible and the invisible world.
Persuaded that the soul or Spirit, same thing, of this sister was close to him, Mr. Renan saw and heard her and hence he should believe that such a soul was something. If someone had come to tell him: that soul, whose presence is guessed in your mind, is not a vague and undefined creature; it is a limited, circumscribed being, with a fluidic body and invisible like the majority of the fluids; for her was only the destruction of her corporeal envelope but she kept her ethereal and indestructible cover so much so that your sister is by your side as she was when alive but without the body that was left behind, like the butterfly leaves its chrysalis; dying she had only undressed from the dense garment that can no longer serve her and that kept her on the surface of the planet, but she kept the light outfit that allows her to transport to wherever she wants and transpose distances with a lightning speed; from a moral point of view it is the same person with the same ideas and affections, the same intelligence but with new, broader and more subtle perceptions for her faculties are no longer compressed by the dense and heavy matter through which they had to communicate. Tell us if such an image is irrational at all! By proving that this is real, is Spiritism ridiculous as some pretend? What is it that Spiritism does, after all? It demonstrates in a positive way the existence of the soul. Demonstrating that she is a defined being Spiritism gives a real objective to our memories and affections. If Mr. Renan’s thoughts were not but a dream, a poetic fiction, with Spiritism such thoughts transform from fiction into reality.
In all times philosophy struggled in the search for the soul, its nature, faculties, its origin and destiny. Countless theories were created about it but the issue had always remained undefined. Why? Apparently because none of them found the knot to untangle the problem and did not resolve it satisfactorily in order to convince everyone.
Spiritism, in turn, brings that solution. It is based on experimental psychology and studies the soul both during life and after death; it isolate the soul and studies it; it follows the soul and its actions in a free state while ordinary philosophy only sees the soul united to the body, enduring the obstacles of matter, reason why cause and effect are frequently confounded. Ordinary philosophy tries to demonstrate the existence of the soul and its attributes by the use of abstract formulas, unintelligible to the crowds, whereas Spiritism provides positive proofs of its existence allowing it to be in a way tangible to the eyes and fingers. It explains that clearly and understandable by anyone. Would the simplicity of its language subtract its philosophical character as intended by certain scholars?
Nevertheless the Spiritist philosophy contains, to the eyes of many, a serious mistake expressed in a single word. The word soul, even to the nonbelievers, has something of respectable and powerful. The word Spirit, on the contrary, excites in them the marvelous ideas of the legends, the fairy tales, the will-o’-the-wisp[1], the werewolf, etc. They accept in good faith that someone may believe in the soul although they don’t believe themselves but they cannot understand that someone may believe in Spirits out of common-sense. Hence the prevention that makes them look at the science as something puerile and unworthy of their attention. Judging it by the name-tag they believe it to be inseparable from magic and witchcraft.
How about this if Spiritism had abstained from using the word Spirit and if in all cases had it replaced by the word soul their impression would have been absolutely different. Strictly speaking those profound philosophers and free-thinkers would admit, without any issue, that the soul of a loved one hear our cries and come to inspire us but will not admit that the same happens to their Spirit. Mr. Renan placed this at the top of his dedication: “To the pure soul of my sister Henriette”. Couldn’t have him said this: To the pure Spirit of my sister Henriette? Now then, why has Spiritism utilized the word Spirit? Is that a mistake? Not at all and much to the contrary. First of all since the first manifestations and even before the creation of the Spiritist philosophy that word was already used. Since it was about the deduction of the moral consequences of those manifestations, it was useful to keep a usual word to show the connection between the two parts of the science. Moreover it was evident that the prevention associated to that word, circumscribed to a special group of persons, should fade away with time. The inconvenience was just momentary. Second, if on one side the word Spirit was repulsive to some on the other it was attractive to many and should contribute more than any other to the popularization of the Doctrine. Hence it was preferable to choose the larger number rather than the smaller.
A third reason is more serious than the two preceding ones. The words soul and Spirit, although synonyms and employed indifferently, do not express exactly the same idea. The soul is, as a matter of fact, the intelligent principle, a principle that is undefined and imperceptible like a thought. In our current state of knowledge we cannot conceive the Spirit isolated from matter in absolute terms. The perispirit, although formed by a subtle matter, turns it into a limited being, defined and circumscribed to its own spiritual individuality from which we can formulate the following proposition: The union between the soul, the perispirit and the body constitute a human being; the soul and the perispirit separated from the body constitute the being called Spirit. Consequently it is not the soul alone that shows up in the manifestations. The soul is always covered by its fluidic envelope and that envelope is the necessary intermediary through which the soul acts upon dense matter. In the apparitions it is not the soul that is seen but the perispirit, in the same way that when a person is seen it is the body that is seen instead of the thought, the force and the principle that make that body move. In short the soul is the simple, primitive being; the Spirit is the double being; a person is the triple being. If we add clothes to a person we have the quadruple. In the circumstance discussed here the word Spirit is the one that best correspond to what one intends to express. One can conceive the Spirit in one’s mind but not the soul.
Convinced that the soul of his sister saw him and understood him Mr. Renan could not suppose that she was alone in space. A simple thought should tell him that the same must happen to all those that leave Earth. The souls or Spirits spread like so in the immensity constitute the invisible world that surrounds us and in whose environment we live so that that world is not composed of fantastic creatures, gnomes, elves and demons with their horns and paws but composed of the same beings that formed earthly humanity. What is absurd about that? The visible and invisible world are therefore in perpetual contact thus resulting in a permanent reaction of one upon the other. From that a large number of phenomena enter the order of natural events. Modern Spiritism has not either discovered or invented them. It studied and observed them better. It sought their laws and for that very reason subtracted them from the order of marvelous phenomena. Facts related to the invisible world and its relationships with the visible more or less observed in all times belong to the history of all peoples and in particular to their religious history. That is why many profane as well as sacred writers refer to them in many passages. The lack of knowledge about those relationships made so many passages to remain unintelligible and interpreted so diverse and falsely. It is for the same reason that Mr. Renan was so strangely wrong with respect to the nature of the events reported in the Gospels and about the meaning of the words said by Jesus Christ, their role and true character as we will demonstrate in our next article. These thoughts to which we were led by his dedication, were necessary to appreciate the consequences that he saw from his standpoint.
[1] Something deceptive, deluding (TN)
Ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues:
The Society has entered its seventh year and such a period has significance when dealing with a new science. A fact of not minor importance is that it has always followed an ascending march. However, ladies and gentlemen, we know that its progress has taken place more in the moral than in the material sense. It not only did not open its doors to the first one that showed up but also did not solicit to take part any one in particular; It was more concerned with limitation than an indefinite expansion.
The number of active members is in fact secondary to any society that is not greedy. The Society does not seek sponsors hence it is not attained to numbers. That is demanded by the very nature of its works that are exclusively scientific for which calm and seriousness are necessary and not the movement of the crowds. The sign of prosperity of the Society is not therefore in the number of people or their position. It is entirely in the progression of its studies, in the respect that it has gained, in the moral ascendance that it has out there and finally in the number of followers that are in line with the principles that it promotes, even if they are not part of the Society. With that respect, ladies and gentlemen, you must know that it has gone beyond our forecasts. And, this is remarkable, it is not only in France that it has found its place but also abroad because for the true Spiritists all men are brothers irrespective of their nations. The material proof is the number of societies and groups that from several countries place themselves under the sponsorship of the Society asking for its advice. That is a remarkable fact and the more characteristic the more such a convergence occurs spontaneously since it is not less remarkable that the Society hasn’t provoked or solicited that convergence. It is then voluntarily that they come to gather under the flag raised by the Society. What are the causes for all that? The causes are multifold. It is useful to examine them because that will be part of the history of Spiritism. One of the causes is naturally the fact that it was the first regularly formed and also the first to enlarge the scope of its studies, embracing all parts of the Spiritist science. When Spiritism had just left the period of curiosity and the dancing tables it entered the resolutely philosophical period that in a way was inaugurated by the Society. For that very reason it attracted the attention of serious people from the beginning. But that would have done no good if it had remained alien to the principles taught by the generality of the Spirits. If the Society had only professed its own ideas it would never had imposed such ideas to the immense majority of followers in every country. The Society represents the principles formulated in the Spirits’ Book and being those principles taught everywhere people connected themselves to the center that irradiated those principles while those that remained away from that center stayed isolated for not finding echoes amongst the Spirits. I will repeat here what I said elsewhere because it is never too much to repeat.
The strength of Spiritism is not on the opinion of a single man or Spirit. It is in the universality of the teachings of the Spirits. The universal control, like the universal suffrage, will solve all the litigation issues in the future. It will establish the unity of the Doctrine much better than a council of persons. You may rest assured, ladies and gentlemen, that this principle will open its path like the “there is no salvation but through charity” because it is based on the strictest logic and on the abnegation of personality. It will not oppose but the adversaries of Spiritism as well as those that only have faith in their own knowledge.
The Spiritist Society of Paris conquered that position because it has never moved away from the path designed by a sound logic. People trust it because they know that it does not make any move lightheartedly; that it does not impose its own ideas and that by its position and more than anybody else it may attest the direction of its pronouncement in what can be fairly called the universal suffrage of the Spirits. If one day the Society would position differently from the majority it would forcibly no longer be the point of connection. Spiritism would not fall because its supporting point is everywhere but since the Society would not have its own supporting point it would fall.
In fact due to its exception nature Spiritism does not depend more on a society than on an individual. The Parisian Society has never said: - there is no Spiritism but through me – because it would cease existing if said so while Spiritism would not stop following its course because its roots are in the uncountable multitude of interpreters of the Spirits around the world and not in any given meeting whose existence is always eventual. The testimonies received by the Society demonstrate that it is liked and respected and that is what is more cherished. If the first cause of that is in the characteristics of its works it is fair to add that it is in the good judgement they carried from its sessions the large number of foreigners that came to visit it. The order, dignity, seriousness and the fraternal feelings that they witnessed here, more than all words, convinced them about its eminently serious character.
That is, ladies and gentlemen, the position that as a founder of the Society I promptly attested. That is also the reason why I have never yielded to any incitement that would veer it off from the path of caution. I let the impatient speak in good or bad faith. You know what became of them whereas the Society is still standing. The mission of the Society is not to solicit followers on its own and that is why it has never invited the public. The objective of its works, as explained in its name, is the progress of the Spiritist science. To achieve that the Society utilizes not only its own observations but also those that are done elsewhere. It collects documents that come from all sides, study, investigate and compare them in order to deduce their principles and extract the teachings that it propagates but not lightheartedly. That is how everyone benefits from its works and if they acquire certain authority it is for reason that everybody knows that they are achieved consciously, without any systematic prevention against people or things. You must then understand that to achieve such an objective a more or less considerable number of members is irrelevant. The result would be achieve with a dozen persons as well as or even better than with a few hundreds. Since it has no material interest that explains why it does not aim at a number. It does nothing out of curiosity and its objective is solemn and serious. Finally, considering that the elements of science would not teach it anything new the Society does not waste time by repeating what it already knows. As we have said, its role is to work towards the progress of science through the study. The Society is not sought after by those that know nothing and want to be convinced but by the already initiated followers that come to gather new instructions. That is its true character. What the Society really needs, what is really indispensable to the Society are broad relationships that allow it to see the general movement from above, to assess the whole, to align to the general movement and make it known. The Society does have those relationships that came to be spontaneously and that grow by the day as you have the proof through our correspondence.
The number of groups that are formed under its auspices and that require its sponsorship by the reasons above is the most characteristic fact of the social year that has just ended. This is not just an honor to the Society but something of capital importance for it demonstrates at the same time the reach of the Doctrine and the direction in which the unity must be established. Those that know us know the relationships between the Parisian Society and the others but it is of the essence that everybody else knows to avoid mistakes that could be brought up by smearing.
Therefore it is not superfluous to repeat that the Spiritists do not form among themselves neither a congregation nor an association; that among the multiple societies there is no material dependence or affiliation, occult or ostensible; that they do not obey any secret commandment; that those that are members are always free to leave if they wish to do so; that if their doors are not open to the public that is not because there is secrecy or hidden phenomena there but because they do not wish to be disturbed by curiosity or trouble makers. Far from acting in the shadows there are, on the contrary, always open to the investigation of proper authorities and to follow the requirements of the law. The Parisian Society only has moral authority upon the others due to its position and to its studies and because such authority is conferred by the others. It provides advices that are requested from its experience but do not impose itself to any of them. The only commandment that it gives, like a password amongst the Spiritists, is this: charity to everyone eve towards the enemies. It would therefore decline any moral support to any other society that would move away from such a principle; that were driven by material interests; that instead of keeping the union and good harmony they would tend to spread division among the followers because that very action would set them apart from the Doctrine.
The Parisian Society cannot take responsibility for the abuse that, out of ignorance or other causes, people can do to Spiritism. It does not intend in any shape or form to cover under its blanket the abusers as it cannot nor it should defend them before law enforcement in case of persecution because that would be an approval of something that the Doctrine rejects. When criticism is addressed to such abuses we must not rebuff but just respond: if you were to take the burden and study Spiritism you would understand its message and would not accuse it of doing something that it condemns. Therefore it is up to the Spiritists to carefully avoid anything that can give rise to founded criticism. Everyone will certainly achieve that by keeping aligned to the precepts of the Doctrine. It is not just because a meeting has the title Spiritist group, circle or society that it must necessarily have our full support. The tag has never been an absolute guarantee of the quality of the product but according to the maxim: “the tree is known by the fruit it bears” we assess them by the feelings that guide them, their driver, and we judge them by their works.
The Parisian Society is glad when able to add to the list of its members those gatherings that offer all the desired guarantees of order, good attitude, sincerity, devotion and personal abnegation and that can be offered as a role model to their brothers in faith. The position of the Parisian Society is consequently exclusively moral and it has never ambitioned any other. Those among our opponents that pretend that every Spiritist pays fees to the Society; that it enriches from their contributions, subtracting money from their little resources and that it evaluates its profit by the number of followers give proof of a remarkable ill-faith or of the most absolute ignorance about what they speak. There is no doubt that it has its own conscience and its archives to speak for itself but also to confound imposture and always give the testimony of truth in the present as well as in the future.
Without a premeditated role and by the force of things the Society became a center to where teachings of all kinds related to Spiritism converge. It is in what can be called an exceptional condition in that respect for the elements that it has to base an opinion. It can, better than anybody else, determine the real state of progress of the Doctrine in each country and appreciate the local causes that can it favor it or delay its development. That statistics will not be one of the less precious elements to the history of Spiritism and at the same time allows for the study of the maneuvers of the adversaries and calculate the reach of their blows that try to knock Spiritism down. This observation would be enough to allow for the prediction of the definitive result of the struggle as one judges the result of a battle by the movement of the two armies.
It can be said with absolute truth that we occupy the first row for the observation of not only people’s tactics but also those employed by the Spirits. In fact we see from the part of the latter a unity of views and plan that are providentially combined against which every human effort must forcibly shatter for the Spirits can reach and hurt mankind but the opposite is not true. As we can see the game is unequally balanced.
History of modern Spiritism will be something really curious because it will be about the fight between the visible and the invisible worlds. People in antiquity would have said: the fight between people and the gods. It will also be about facts and in particular about people that played a role in those events as true supports or adversaries of the cause. It is necessary that future generations know who those that deserve a fair tribute of acknowledgement are. They need to pay tribute to the true pioneers of the regenerating work and that no glory be stolen. What will give that history a very particular aspect is that instead of being consolidated many year or centuries after the fact based on traditions and legends it occurs while the events take place and based on authentic data from which we have, thanks to our unstoppable correspondence with every country where the Doctrine penetrates, we have the most complete archive that exists in the world.
Spiritism cannot and undoubtedly be reached by the lies and allegations of its adversaries with which they try to make it a fantasy. They could, however, give a false idea of its origins and its means of action, casting false testimonies against the actions and characters of people that may have cooperated with the Doctrine, if they were not officially countered. In the future these archives will be the light that will dissipate doubts, a mine from where the commentators of the future will certainly resource from. You now see, ladies and gentlemen, the importance of this work in the interest of true history. Our Society itself will be interested in this considering its own participation in the process.
The proverb says: “Nobility obliges”. Society’s position also imposes the obligations of preserving its credit and moral ascendance. The first one is that of not moving away from a theoretical point of view of the guidelines followed so far considering that the fruits are now being picked; the second one is the good example that it must give, justifying by its practice the excellence of the Doctrine that professes. It is a fact that such example, by demonstrating the moralizing influence of Spiritism, is a powerful element of propagation and, at the same time, of keeping the mouth of its detractors shut. A nonbeliever that only knew the philosophical part of the Doctrine said that with “such principles the Spiritist must necessary be a good person.” These words are profoundly true but to complement them we need to add that a true Spiritist must necessarily be good and benevolent towards their fellow human beings, that is, practice the evangelical charity in its broadest expression.
That is the grace that all of us must ask God to give us, making us receptive to the advices given by the good Spirits that assist us. Let us equally ask them to continue to protect us during the year that begins and that they may give us the strength to become worthy. That is the safest way of justifying and maintaining the position conquered by the Society.
A.K.
The Society has entered its seventh year and such a period has significance when dealing with a new science. A fact of not minor importance is that it has always followed an ascending march. However, ladies and gentlemen, we know that its progress has taken place more in the moral than in the material sense. It not only did not open its doors to the first one that showed up but also did not solicit to take part any one in particular; It was more concerned with limitation than an indefinite expansion.
The number of active members is in fact secondary to any society that is not greedy. The Society does not seek sponsors hence it is not attained to numbers. That is demanded by the very nature of its works that are exclusively scientific for which calm and seriousness are necessary and not the movement of the crowds. The sign of prosperity of the Society is not therefore in the number of people or their position. It is entirely in the progression of its studies, in the respect that it has gained, in the moral ascendance that it has out there and finally in the number of followers that are in line with the principles that it promotes, even if they are not part of the Society. With that respect, ladies and gentlemen, you must know that it has gone beyond our forecasts. And, this is remarkable, it is not only in France that it has found its place but also abroad because for the true Spiritists all men are brothers irrespective of their nations. The material proof is the number of societies and groups that from several countries place themselves under the sponsorship of the Society asking for its advice. That is a remarkable fact and the more characteristic the more such a convergence occurs spontaneously since it is not less remarkable that the Society hasn’t provoked or solicited that convergence. It is then voluntarily that they come to gather under the flag raised by the Society. What are the causes for all that? The causes are multifold. It is useful to examine them because that will be part of the history of Spiritism. One of the causes is naturally the fact that it was the first regularly formed and also the first to enlarge the scope of its studies, embracing all parts of the Spiritist science. When Spiritism had just left the period of curiosity and the dancing tables it entered the resolutely philosophical period that in a way was inaugurated by the Society. For that very reason it attracted the attention of serious people from the beginning. But that would have done no good if it had remained alien to the principles taught by the generality of the Spirits. If the Society had only professed its own ideas it would never had imposed such ideas to the immense majority of followers in every country. The Society represents the principles formulated in the Spirits’ Book and being those principles taught everywhere people connected themselves to the center that irradiated those principles while those that remained away from that center stayed isolated for not finding echoes amongst the Spirits. I will repeat here what I said elsewhere because it is never too much to repeat.
The strength of Spiritism is not on the opinion of a single man or Spirit. It is in the universality of the teachings of the Spirits. The universal control, like the universal suffrage, will solve all the litigation issues in the future. It will establish the unity of the Doctrine much better than a council of persons. You may rest assured, ladies and gentlemen, that this principle will open its path like the “there is no salvation but through charity” because it is based on the strictest logic and on the abnegation of personality. It will not oppose but the adversaries of Spiritism as well as those that only have faith in their own knowledge.
The Spiritist Society of Paris conquered that position because it has never moved away from the path designed by a sound logic. People trust it because they know that it does not make any move lightheartedly; that it does not impose its own ideas and that by its position and more than anybody else it may attest the direction of its pronouncement in what can be fairly called the universal suffrage of the Spirits. If one day the Society would position differently from the majority it would forcibly no longer be the point of connection. Spiritism would not fall because its supporting point is everywhere but since the Society would not have its own supporting point it would fall.
In fact due to its exception nature Spiritism does not depend more on a society than on an individual. The Parisian Society has never said: - there is no Spiritism but through me – because it would cease existing if said so while Spiritism would not stop following its course because its roots are in the uncountable multitude of interpreters of the Spirits around the world and not in any given meeting whose existence is always eventual. The testimonies received by the Society demonstrate that it is liked and respected and that is what is more cherished. If the first cause of that is in the characteristics of its works it is fair to add that it is in the good judgement they carried from its sessions the large number of foreigners that came to visit it. The order, dignity, seriousness and the fraternal feelings that they witnessed here, more than all words, convinced them about its eminently serious character.
That is, ladies and gentlemen, the position that as a founder of the Society I promptly attested. That is also the reason why I have never yielded to any incitement that would veer it off from the path of caution. I let the impatient speak in good or bad faith. You know what became of them whereas the Society is still standing. The mission of the Society is not to solicit followers on its own and that is why it has never invited the public. The objective of its works, as explained in its name, is the progress of the Spiritist science. To achieve that the Society utilizes not only its own observations but also those that are done elsewhere. It collects documents that come from all sides, study, investigate and compare them in order to deduce their principles and extract the teachings that it propagates but not lightheartedly. That is how everyone benefits from its works and if they acquire certain authority it is for reason that everybody knows that they are achieved consciously, without any systematic prevention against people or things. You must then understand that to achieve such an objective a more or less considerable number of members is irrelevant. The result would be achieve with a dozen persons as well as or even better than with a few hundreds. Since it has no material interest that explains why it does not aim at a number. It does nothing out of curiosity and its objective is solemn and serious. Finally, considering that the elements of science would not teach it anything new the Society does not waste time by repeating what it already knows. As we have said, its role is to work towards the progress of science through the study. The Society is not sought after by those that know nothing and want to be convinced but by the already initiated followers that come to gather new instructions. That is its true character. What the Society really needs, what is really indispensable to the Society are broad relationships that allow it to see the general movement from above, to assess the whole, to align to the general movement and make it known. The Society does have those relationships that came to be spontaneously and that grow by the day as you have the proof through our correspondence.
The number of groups that are formed under its auspices and that require its sponsorship by the reasons above is the most characteristic fact of the social year that has just ended. This is not just an honor to the Society but something of capital importance for it demonstrates at the same time the reach of the Doctrine and the direction in which the unity must be established. Those that know us know the relationships between the Parisian Society and the others but it is of the essence that everybody else knows to avoid mistakes that could be brought up by smearing.
Therefore it is not superfluous to repeat that the Spiritists do not form among themselves neither a congregation nor an association; that among the multiple societies there is no material dependence or affiliation, occult or ostensible; that they do not obey any secret commandment; that those that are members are always free to leave if they wish to do so; that if their doors are not open to the public that is not because there is secrecy or hidden phenomena there but because they do not wish to be disturbed by curiosity or trouble makers. Far from acting in the shadows there are, on the contrary, always open to the investigation of proper authorities and to follow the requirements of the law. The Parisian Society only has moral authority upon the others due to its position and to its studies and because such authority is conferred by the others. It provides advices that are requested from its experience but do not impose itself to any of them. The only commandment that it gives, like a password amongst the Spiritists, is this: charity to everyone eve towards the enemies. It would therefore decline any moral support to any other society that would move away from such a principle; that were driven by material interests; that instead of keeping the union and good harmony they would tend to spread division among the followers because that very action would set them apart from the Doctrine.
The Parisian Society cannot take responsibility for the abuse that, out of ignorance or other causes, people can do to Spiritism. It does not intend in any shape or form to cover under its blanket the abusers as it cannot nor it should defend them before law enforcement in case of persecution because that would be an approval of something that the Doctrine rejects. When criticism is addressed to such abuses we must not rebuff but just respond: if you were to take the burden and study Spiritism you would understand its message and would not accuse it of doing something that it condemns. Therefore it is up to the Spiritists to carefully avoid anything that can give rise to founded criticism. Everyone will certainly achieve that by keeping aligned to the precepts of the Doctrine. It is not just because a meeting has the title Spiritist group, circle or society that it must necessarily have our full support. The tag has never been an absolute guarantee of the quality of the product but according to the maxim: “the tree is known by the fruit it bears” we assess them by the feelings that guide them, their driver, and we judge them by their works.
The Parisian Society is glad when able to add to the list of its members those gatherings that offer all the desired guarantees of order, good attitude, sincerity, devotion and personal abnegation and that can be offered as a role model to their brothers in faith. The position of the Parisian Society is consequently exclusively moral and it has never ambitioned any other. Those among our opponents that pretend that every Spiritist pays fees to the Society; that it enriches from their contributions, subtracting money from their little resources and that it evaluates its profit by the number of followers give proof of a remarkable ill-faith or of the most absolute ignorance about what they speak. There is no doubt that it has its own conscience and its archives to speak for itself but also to confound imposture and always give the testimony of truth in the present as well as in the future.
Without a premeditated role and by the force of things the Society became a center to where teachings of all kinds related to Spiritism converge. It is in what can be called an exceptional condition in that respect for the elements that it has to base an opinion. It can, better than anybody else, determine the real state of progress of the Doctrine in each country and appreciate the local causes that can it favor it or delay its development. That statistics will not be one of the less precious elements to the history of Spiritism and at the same time allows for the study of the maneuvers of the adversaries and calculate the reach of their blows that try to knock Spiritism down. This observation would be enough to allow for the prediction of the definitive result of the struggle as one judges the result of a battle by the movement of the two armies.
It can be said with absolute truth that we occupy the first row for the observation of not only people’s tactics but also those employed by the Spirits. In fact we see from the part of the latter a unity of views and plan that are providentially combined against which every human effort must forcibly shatter for the Spirits can reach and hurt mankind but the opposite is not true. As we can see the game is unequally balanced.
History of modern Spiritism will be something really curious because it will be about the fight between the visible and the invisible worlds. People in antiquity would have said: the fight between people and the gods. It will also be about facts and in particular about people that played a role in those events as true supports or adversaries of the cause. It is necessary that future generations know who those that deserve a fair tribute of acknowledgement are. They need to pay tribute to the true pioneers of the regenerating work and that no glory be stolen. What will give that history a very particular aspect is that instead of being consolidated many year or centuries after the fact based on traditions and legends it occurs while the events take place and based on authentic data from which we have, thanks to our unstoppable correspondence with every country where the Doctrine penetrates, we have the most complete archive that exists in the world.
Spiritism cannot and undoubtedly be reached by the lies and allegations of its adversaries with which they try to make it a fantasy. They could, however, give a false idea of its origins and its means of action, casting false testimonies against the actions and characters of people that may have cooperated with the Doctrine, if they were not officially countered. In the future these archives will be the light that will dissipate doubts, a mine from where the commentators of the future will certainly resource from. You now see, ladies and gentlemen, the importance of this work in the interest of true history. Our Society itself will be interested in this considering its own participation in the process.
The proverb says: “Nobility obliges”. Society’s position also imposes the obligations of preserving its credit and moral ascendance. The first one is that of not moving away from a theoretical point of view of the guidelines followed so far considering that the fruits are now being picked; the second one is the good example that it must give, justifying by its practice the excellence of the Doctrine that professes. It is a fact that such example, by demonstrating the moralizing influence of Spiritism, is a powerful element of propagation and, at the same time, of keeping the mouth of its detractors shut. A nonbeliever that only knew the philosophical part of the Doctrine said that with “such principles the Spiritist must necessary be a good person.” These words are profoundly true but to complement them we need to add that a true Spiritist must necessarily be good and benevolent towards their fellow human beings, that is, practice the evangelical charity in its broadest expression.
That is the grace that all of us must ask God to give us, making us receptive to the advices given by the good Spirits that assist us. Let us equally ask them to continue to protect us during the year that begins and that they may give us the strength to become worthy. That is the safest way of justifying and maintaining the position conquered by the Society.
A.K.
Some people have asked why the Spiritist Doctrine is not the same in the old as well as in the new continent and what is the difference. It is what we are going to try to explain.
As everyone knows the manifestations took place everywhere both in Europe as well as in America and in these days that people are more aware of that they remember a large number of events that had gone unnoticed and that are abundantly registered in authentic texts. Those facts, nonetheless, were isolated. They have recently produced in the United States in a much ample scale to call people’s attention on both sides of the Atlantic. The extreme freedom that exists in that country favored the flourishment of the new ideas and that is why the Spirits chose that country as the first theater for their teachings.
Well, it is common that an idea be born in one country and develops in another as we see in sciences and technology. The American intelligence gave proof of that and must not envy Europe in any way. However if that country sticks out in all matters of commerce and mechanical arts they must not deny Europe its prominence in moral and philosophical sciences. Due to that difference in the normal features of the peoples experimental Spiritism was in its habitat in America while the theoretical and philosophical part found in Europe a more adequate environment for its development. That is how it was born there and soon conquered the first place. The facts there initially attracted curiosity but as soon as curiosity was satisfied people got tired of the material experiments without positive results. The same did not happen from the time when the moral consequences of those events for the future of humanity unfolded. It was the time when Spiritism found its place among philosophical sciences. It advanced at gigantic strides despite the obstacles that were placed on its path because it satisfies the aspirations of the masses and because it was promptly understood that it had come to fill up the immense void of beliefs and resolve what up until then seemed insoluble.
Thus, America was the crib of Spiritism but it was in Europe that it was raised and made its humanities. Should America be jealous for that? No, because was in advantage in other aspects. Wasn’t that in Europe that the steam engine was born and wasn’t in America that it found better conditions? Each one has their role according to their skills and each people theirs according to their own particular ingenuity.
As everyone knows the manifestations took place everywhere both in Europe as well as in America and in these days that people are more aware of that they remember a large number of events that had gone unnoticed and that are abundantly registered in authentic texts. Those facts, nonetheless, were isolated. They have recently produced in the United States in a much ample scale to call people’s attention on both sides of the Atlantic. The extreme freedom that exists in that country favored the flourishment of the new ideas and that is why the Spirits chose that country as the first theater for their teachings.
Well, it is common that an idea be born in one country and develops in another as we see in sciences and technology. The American intelligence gave proof of that and must not envy Europe in any way. However if that country sticks out in all matters of commerce and mechanical arts they must not deny Europe its prominence in moral and philosophical sciences. Due to that difference in the normal features of the peoples experimental Spiritism was in its habitat in America while the theoretical and philosophical part found in Europe a more adequate environment for its development. That is how it was born there and soon conquered the first place. The facts there initially attracted curiosity but as soon as curiosity was satisfied people got tired of the material experiments without positive results. The same did not happen from the time when the moral consequences of those events for the future of humanity unfolded. It was the time when Spiritism found its place among philosophical sciences. It advanced at gigantic strides despite the obstacles that were placed on its path because it satisfies the aspirations of the masses and because it was promptly understood that it had come to fill up the immense void of beliefs and resolve what up until then seemed insoluble.
Thus, America was the crib of Spiritism but it was in Europe that it was raised and made its humanities. Should America be jealous for that? No, because was in advantage in other aspects. Wasn’t that in Europe that the steam engine was born and wasn’t in America that it found better conditions? Each one has their role according to their skills and each people theirs according to their own particular ingenuity.
What particularly distinguishes the American Spiritist School from the European one is the predominance of phenomena in the former more specially related to that and the latter that is more relate to the philosophical part. The Spiritist philosophy from Europe spread straight away because it offered a consolidated theory since the beginning; because it showed the objective and incontestably broadened the horizon of the ideas and that is the one that prevails today in the whole world. Up until now in the USA they have not moved away from the primitive ideas. Does it mean that they will remain alone in the back end of the general movement? That would be an offense to the intelligence of that people. As a matter of fact the Spirits are there to push them in the common avenue giving them the teachings that they give somewhere else. They will gradually overcome the resistances that may arise from a national pride. If the Americans repel the European theory because it came from Europe they will accept it when it shows up in their environment by the voice of the Spirits themselves. They will give in not to the opinion of a few people but to the universal control of the Spirits, this powerful criterial as demonstrated in our article about the authority of the Spiritist Doctrine. It is just a matter of time particularly when personal issues have disappeared.
From all principles of the Doctrine the one that found the most opposition in America, and by America here we only mean the USA, is that of reincarnation. It can even be said that this is the only fundamental divergence because the others are more related to the format than the meaning and that because this has not been taught yet by the Spirits there and we have already explained why.
The Spirits proceed with wisdom and caution everywhere. They avoid abruptly shocking pre-established ideas to have their own accepted. The dogma of reincarnation in the USA would crash against prejudices of color that are so much entrenched in that country. The essential was to have the fundamental principle of the communication between the visible and invisible world accepted. Issues of detail would come at the right time. There is no doubt that such an obstacle will end up disappearing and that one of the results of the current Civil War will be a gradual weakening of prejudices that are an anomaly in such a liberal nation.
If the idea of reincarnation is not widely accepted in the USA it is by some if not as an absolute principle at least with certain restrictions that it is already something. As for the Spirits they already start to teach that principle in certain places undoubtedly seeing that the moment is adequate and in other places more openly. Once the issue is raised it will follow its own course. In fact we have in our hands old communications received in that country in which without being formally expressed the plurality of the existences is the obvious consequence of the principles that were taught. The idea can be seen under development there. Therefore there is no doubt that what is called American school today will soon merge with the great unity that is established everywhere. As a proof of the statements above we will cite the article below published in the Union, a San Francisco journal with a summary of the letter that followed it.
“Dear Mr. Allan Kardec,
Although I did not have the honor of getting to know you as a medium I take the liberty of sending you the attached news that those gentlemen from the newspaper summarized a bit. Despite that, however, lots of people seem to want more. All of your books, therefore, spread out and our bookstores will soon have to place new orders.
Sincerely… Pauline Boulay
From all principles of the Doctrine the one that found the most opposition in America, and by America here we only mean the USA, is that of reincarnation. It can even be said that this is the only fundamental divergence because the others are more related to the format than the meaning and that because this has not been taught yet by the Spirits there and we have already explained why.
The Spirits proceed with wisdom and caution everywhere. They avoid abruptly shocking pre-established ideas to have their own accepted. The dogma of reincarnation in the USA would crash against prejudices of color that are so much entrenched in that country. The essential was to have the fundamental principle of the communication between the visible and invisible world accepted. Issues of detail would come at the right time. There is no doubt that such an obstacle will end up disappearing and that one of the results of the current Civil War will be a gradual weakening of prejudices that are an anomaly in such a liberal nation.
If the idea of reincarnation is not widely accepted in the USA it is by some if not as an absolute principle at least with certain restrictions that it is already something. As for the Spirits they already start to teach that principle in certain places undoubtedly seeing that the moment is adequate and in other places more openly. Once the issue is raised it will follow its own course. In fact we have in our hands old communications received in that country in which without being formally expressed the plurality of the existences is the obvious consequence of the principles that were taught. The idea can be seen under development there. Therefore there is no doubt that what is called American school today will soon merge with the great unity that is established everywhere. As a proof of the statements above we will cite the article below published in the Union, a San Francisco journal with a summary of the letter that followed it.
“Dear Mr. Allan Kardec,
Although I did not have the honor of getting to know you as a medium I take the liberty of sending you the attached news that those gentlemen from the newspaper summarized a bit. Despite that, however, lots of people seem to want more. All of your books, therefore, spread out and our bookstores will soon have to place new orders.
Sincerely… Pauline Boulay
One does not need more than say something out loud that not everyone understands to be treated as deranged, extravagant or mad. One does not need to be a wise person to write something that comes from the soul and from the heart. A person of strong personality asked a lady medium:
- How come you, an intelligent person, believe in invisible Spirits and in the plurality of the existences? To which the lady replied:
- Maybe I believe because I am intelligent; what I feel gives me more inspiration than what I see for what we some sometimes is deceitful but what we feel does not ever deceive us. You are free to not believe. Those that believe in the plurality of the existences are not bad people and are more selfless than the ones that don’t believe. The nonbelievers call them mad people but that does not prove that they tell the truth, on the contrary, for doubting God’s power is an offense and denying the existence of something that we cannot touch is an insult to the Creator. When something extraordinary happen to us we usually attribute that to chance. Here is my question: what is chance? Nothing, responds the voice of truth. Since the void cannot produce something whatever does exist must come from a productive source. It would be very fair to think that what happens independent of our will must be the works of the Providence directed by the Lord of our destines. Irrespectively of what you say and irrespectively of what you do, strong minds, you will never destroy this Doctrine that has always existed. The ignorance of primitive souls imagine that it is all over after this life since they cannot fully understand it. That is mistake! We, the more or less advanced mediums, will finally convince you. Spiritism is not only a consolation; it also develops intelligence; destroy every egoistic and greedy thought; put us in contact with the loved ones and prepares progress, an immense progress that with time will destroy abuse, revolutions and wars. The soul does need to reincarnate to improve. It cannot learn everything to understand the works of the Almighty in a single material life. The body is just a temporary envelope in which God sends the soul to advance and endure the necessary trials to its own development and to the realization of the great work of the Creator that we all are called to serve when we are done with our trials and acquired the perfections. All of our contemporary celebrities are another group of souls that progressed through renovated incarnations. Many among them are writing mediums, geniuses that in every new existence bring progress to science and arts. The list of geniuses grows every year. These are so many other guides that God brings to our environment to enlighten and educate us, in a word, to teach us what we ignore and that is absolutely necessary to know. They show us the social ulcer; try to destroy our prejudices; bring to the light and before our eyes all the wickedness produced by selfishness and ignorance. These geniuses are animated by superior Spirits. They have done more for progress and civilization than all of your rifles and canyons and bring to our faces more tears of kindness and recognition than everything you have done with your weapons. Think seriously about Spiritism, intelligent men, and you will find great teachings there. There is no charlatanism in that great divine law. Everything there is beautiful, great and sublime. It only tends to lead us to perfection and to the true moral happiness. The book written by mediums and dictated by superior Spirits is a book of high philosophy and an as much subtle as profound teaching. It handles everything. It is true that not everyone is ready for that believe and that to understand it the soul must have reincarnated several times. When everybody understands Spiritism better our great poets will be better appreciated and read with more attention and respect. Every writer will be understood and admired by all peoples and without envy because causes and effects will be known. The study of science is the noblest occupation and Spiritism is its divinity. We associate ourselves to the genius through Spiritism and as said by one of our scientists after the genius comes the one that understands the genius. Education does to the Spirit what a skillful jeweler does to the diamond, polishing it, bringing out the enchanting and seducing charm, enhancing its value. The soul has not shape as to speak. It is like a spark that changes according to its intensity and according to the degree of acquired perfection. The more it progresses, the more it shines. When all of you are mediums you will be able to deal with the Spirits as we already do and they will tell you that they are happier than us. They see us, hear us and attend our gatherings, talk to us during the sleep, transport from place to place and are everywhere according to God’s wishes.
Pauline Boulay”
NOTE: The principle of reincarnation is equally found in a manuscript that was sent to us from Montreal, Canada, that we will talk about in the near future.
- How come you, an intelligent person, believe in invisible Spirits and in the plurality of the existences? To which the lady replied:
- Maybe I believe because I am intelligent; what I feel gives me more inspiration than what I see for what we some sometimes is deceitful but what we feel does not ever deceive us. You are free to not believe. Those that believe in the plurality of the existences are not bad people and are more selfless than the ones that don’t believe. The nonbelievers call them mad people but that does not prove that they tell the truth, on the contrary, for doubting God’s power is an offense and denying the existence of something that we cannot touch is an insult to the Creator. When something extraordinary happen to us we usually attribute that to chance. Here is my question: what is chance? Nothing, responds the voice of truth. Since the void cannot produce something whatever does exist must come from a productive source. It would be very fair to think that what happens independent of our will must be the works of the Providence directed by the Lord of our destines. Irrespectively of what you say and irrespectively of what you do, strong minds, you will never destroy this Doctrine that has always existed. The ignorance of primitive souls imagine that it is all over after this life since they cannot fully understand it. That is mistake! We, the more or less advanced mediums, will finally convince you. Spiritism is not only a consolation; it also develops intelligence; destroy every egoistic and greedy thought; put us in contact with the loved ones and prepares progress, an immense progress that with time will destroy abuse, revolutions and wars. The soul does need to reincarnate to improve. It cannot learn everything to understand the works of the Almighty in a single material life. The body is just a temporary envelope in which God sends the soul to advance and endure the necessary trials to its own development and to the realization of the great work of the Creator that we all are called to serve when we are done with our trials and acquired the perfections. All of our contemporary celebrities are another group of souls that progressed through renovated incarnations. Many among them are writing mediums, geniuses that in every new existence bring progress to science and arts. The list of geniuses grows every year. These are so many other guides that God brings to our environment to enlighten and educate us, in a word, to teach us what we ignore and that is absolutely necessary to know. They show us the social ulcer; try to destroy our prejudices; bring to the light and before our eyes all the wickedness produced by selfishness and ignorance. These geniuses are animated by superior Spirits. They have done more for progress and civilization than all of your rifles and canyons and bring to our faces more tears of kindness and recognition than everything you have done with your weapons. Think seriously about Spiritism, intelligent men, and you will find great teachings there. There is no charlatanism in that great divine law. Everything there is beautiful, great and sublime. It only tends to lead us to perfection and to the true moral happiness. The book written by mediums and dictated by superior Spirits is a book of high philosophy and an as much subtle as profound teaching. It handles everything. It is true that not everyone is ready for that believe and that to understand it the soul must have reincarnated several times. When everybody understands Spiritism better our great poets will be better appreciated and read with more attention and respect. Every writer will be understood and admired by all peoples and without envy because causes and effects will be known. The study of science is the noblest occupation and Spiritism is its divinity. We associate ourselves to the genius through Spiritism and as said by one of our scientists after the genius comes the one that understands the genius. Education does to the Spirit what a skillful jeweler does to the diamond, polishing it, bringing out the enchanting and seducing charm, enhancing its value. The soul has not shape as to speak. It is like a spark that changes according to its intensity and according to the degree of acquired perfection. The more it progresses, the more it shines. When all of you are mediums you will be able to deal with the Spirits as we already do and they will tell you that they are happier than us. They see us, hear us and attend our gatherings, talk to us during the sleep, transport from place to place and are everywhere according to God’s wishes.
Pauline Boulay”
NOTE: The principle of reincarnation is equally found in a manuscript that was sent to us from Montreal, Canada, that we will talk about in the near future.
The subject here is not, like some might suppose, the probative demonstration of the Doctrine but, on the contrary, a new form of attack with an attractive a bit deceiving title because someone that believed in the propaganda and thought to find lessons about Spiritism there would be greatly disappointed.
The sermons are far from having achieved the expected results. In fact they address faithful people only. Besides they require a very solemn format, exclusively of the religious type, whereas the teaching pulpit allows for more freedom of speech, more common to all. Here the ecclesiastic speaker makes abstraction of his priesthood and becomes a teacher. Will it achieve the desired result? Future will tell.
Father Barricand, professor at the Faculty of Theology of Lyon, started a series of public lessons about, or better against, Magnetism and Spiritism at the Petit-College. The Vérité in its April 10th, 1864 issue analyzes a session dedicated to Spiritism and raises several questions to the speaker. It promises to keep the readers posted about the continuation and at the same time takes the opportunity to refute them what we have no doubt will be wonderfully done considering the first part. The honesty and moderation that they have so far demonstrated in the controversy give us assurance that will remain unchanged even if the contradictor does not follow suit. As long as Father Barricand remains in the terrain of the discussion of the principles of the Doctrine it will be his own right. We cannot criticize him for not sharing our opinion, for saying it and for trying to demonstrate that he is right. We just would like the clergy to be in general as much in favor of free examination as we are. What is beyond the scope of a civil discussion are the personal attacks and above all malicious personal comments when, to justify their points, an adversary blemishes the facts and principles that are fought against as well as the words and actions of those that defend them. Such means are a proof of weakness and testify about the lack of confidence that they have on their own arguments. These deviations of truth must be raised on the spot but everything within the limits of respect and civility.
Here is how the Vérité summarizes part of Father Barricand’s argumentation:
“As for the Spiritists that are in large number I equally endeavor to demonstrate that they step down from their pretentious pedestal today on which Mr. Allan Kardec enthroned himself in 1862. In 1861 Mr. Allan Kardec traveled around France a trip that he complacently brought to public knowledge. Well, everything was great since the followers in Lyon alone counted about thirty thousand, two or three thousands in Bordeaux, etc. Spiritism seemed to have invaded the whole of Europe. What happens in 1863 then? Mr. Alan Kardec did not travel any more… nor did he provide fantastic reports! The may have likely attested a good number of desertions and in order not to discourage the number of Spiritists that there still remains due to an unfortunate situation he then judged it to be wise and correct to abstain. Forgive me, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Allan Kardec dedicates some pages of his Spiritist Review (January 1864) to give us some general information about the 1863 campaign. But here it is no longer about ambitious numbers! He avoids them and not without reason! Mr. Allan Kardec is satisfied to announce that Spiritism is always flourishing and more flourishing than ever! As a demonstration of support he mentions the creation of two supporting journals, the Ruche in Bordeaux and La Vérité in Lyon and in particular the Vérité in Lyon that says come to position itself as a fearful athlete for its articles of such a hermetic logic that allows no criticism. I hope, ladies and gentlemen, to be able to demonstrate to you on Friday that the Vérité is not that terrible as they pretend to be. It is easy, Mr. Allan Kardec, to state the following: “Spiritism is stronger than ever” and then mention the appearance of Ruche and Vérité as proof of that! That is a comedy, ladies and gentlemen!
Couldn’t those two journals exist without the conclusion that Spiritism has moved one step ahead? If you tell me that they have costs and that is the reason why they need subscribers or that they need great sacrifices I will still tell you: It is a comedy! Mr. Allan Kardec’s budget is very good from what I hear. Isn’t that fair and rational to expect him to help his disciples?”
The Vérité’s Editor, Mr. Edoux, added the following note to the citation above: “At the end of the course we had a quick talk with Father Barricand that as a matter of fact was very courteous to us. Our intent was to offer him a collection of the Vérité so that he could talk about it as much as he wished.”
Time will tell if Mr. Barricand will be more successful than his comrades and if he will find what so many others sought unsuccessfully: undisputable arguments against Spiritism. Why worry though and work so much if he is dying? Supposing that Father Barricand believe in that let us leave it up to him to keep such a soothing belief because it will not become more or less than what it is. We are not absolutely interested in persuading him. All we say is that he has no more serious reasons than those that he is pointing out; his arguments are not convincing and if all that he has got has the same impact that we can sleep in peace. It is really astonishing that a serious person may take away such lighthearted consequences of a trip that we did last year and get involved in our private matters guessing the thoughts that crossed our mind and motivated our in doing or not doing something. From a hypothesis he then come to an absolute conclusion, something that is not advisable by a rigorous logic, for if the premises are not correct the conclusion will not be either. Some may say that we are not responding but it is not our intention to satisfy anybody’s curiosity. Spiritism is a humanitarian issue. Its future is in God’s hands and does not depend on the maneuvers of anyone. We regret the fact that Father Barricand sees it from such a restricted point of view.
With respect to his opinion about our bank account balance it seems that he is guessing about what someone is carrying in the pocket when he was not given the right to do so and that could be considered an indiscretion. Now, publicizing that is in violation of the privacy law. Supposing that someone may have used something that is supposed that the person has may, according to the circumstances, go much beyond the borders of calumny. It seems that Mr. Barricand chose to proceed by suppositions and insinuations. With such a system he is exposed to be belied. We can formally answer all of his allegations, suppositions and deductions above. We can discuss as much as he likes the principles of Spiritism but what we do or do not do or what have or do not have is out of question. A course is not a diatribe. It is a comprehensive, complete and serious explanation about the subject that is at hand. If contradictory, loyalty demands the pros and cons so that the public may judge its reciprocal value. One must oppose stronger proofs against the other proofs. What he does is a poor impression of the power of his arguments when trying to discredit other people. That is how we understand a course in particular when it is given by a Professor of Theology that, before anything else, must seek the truth.
Bordeaux also has its course of Spiritism, meaning against Spiritism, by Father Delaporte, Professor at the Faculty of Theology in that city. The Ruche announces it in the following terms:
“Last Wednesday 13th of the current month we attended the public course about the dogma in which Father Delaporte dealt with the following subject: The hypothesis of a new religion revealed by the Spirits, or Spiritism. Since the renowned professor has not finished yet we will follow his lessons attentively and will keep you posted about it with impartiality and moderation that must always characterize a true Spiritist.”
In the April issues number 17 and 24 the Sauveur de peoples reports the two first lessons and provides a comprehensive criticism about them that may have caused some embarrassment to the speaker. There we have two professors of theology of incontestable talent that have started a war against Spiritism in the two most important centers in France and that find themselves entangled by two champions that have answers to them. The fact is that today we find what was rare in the past: people that have studied the Doctrine seriously and are not afraid of exposing themselves. What shall result from that? The first inevitable result: a deeper examination of the subject around the world. Those that have not read it yet will be willing to read it. The second consequence will be that Spiritism will be taken seriously by those that only see mystification since the illustrious professors consider the matter to be the subject of serious public discussion. Finally, a third result will be to stop people from being afraid of ridicule that still holds them back. When something is discussed publicly by important people, in favor or against, one is no longer afraid of talking about it.
From the religious cathedra it will soon move on to the philosophical and scientific cathedra. Such a discussion carried out by the highest intelligences with extenuate the contradictory arguments that will not be able to resist the evidence of the facts.
There is no doubt that the Spiritist idea is still a lot foggy but we can say that it is still in the condition of personal opinion. What happens today tends to give it general acceptance and will soon give it an official place among the acceptable beliefs.
We gladly take the opportunity that we are given to congratulate and send our encouragement to all of those that resolutely and fearlessly take in their hands the cause of Spiritism. We are happy to see their number grow every day. Have perseverance and you will soon see the support multiplying around you but be assured that the struggle is not over yet and that the battle in the open field is not the one that must be feared the most. The fiercest enemy is the one that moves in the shadow and is frequently hiding behind a false mask. We then say: Be suspicious of appearances. Do not judge people by their words but by their actions. Watch out in particular for the traps.
The sermons are far from having achieved the expected results. In fact they address faithful people only. Besides they require a very solemn format, exclusively of the religious type, whereas the teaching pulpit allows for more freedom of speech, more common to all. Here the ecclesiastic speaker makes abstraction of his priesthood and becomes a teacher. Will it achieve the desired result? Future will tell.
Father Barricand, professor at the Faculty of Theology of Lyon, started a series of public lessons about, or better against, Magnetism and Spiritism at the Petit-College. The Vérité in its April 10th, 1864 issue analyzes a session dedicated to Spiritism and raises several questions to the speaker. It promises to keep the readers posted about the continuation and at the same time takes the opportunity to refute them what we have no doubt will be wonderfully done considering the first part. The honesty and moderation that they have so far demonstrated in the controversy give us assurance that will remain unchanged even if the contradictor does not follow suit. As long as Father Barricand remains in the terrain of the discussion of the principles of the Doctrine it will be his own right. We cannot criticize him for not sharing our opinion, for saying it and for trying to demonstrate that he is right. We just would like the clergy to be in general as much in favor of free examination as we are. What is beyond the scope of a civil discussion are the personal attacks and above all malicious personal comments when, to justify their points, an adversary blemishes the facts and principles that are fought against as well as the words and actions of those that defend them. Such means are a proof of weakness and testify about the lack of confidence that they have on their own arguments. These deviations of truth must be raised on the spot but everything within the limits of respect and civility.
Here is how the Vérité summarizes part of Father Barricand’s argumentation:
“As for the Spiritists that are in large number I equally endeavor to demonstrate that they step down from their pretentious pedestal today on which Mr. Allan Kardec enthroned himself in 1862. In 1861 Mr. Allan Kardec traveled around France a trip that he complacently brought to public knowledge. Well, everything was great since the followers in Lyon alone counted about thirty thousand, two or three thousands in Bordeaux, etc. Spiritism seemed to have invaded the whole of Europe. What happens in 1863 then? Mr. Alan Kardec did not travel any more… nor did he provide fantastic reports! The may have likely attested a good number of desertions and in order not to discourage the number of Spiritists that there still remains due to an unfortunate situation he then judged it to be wise and correct to abstain. Forgive me, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Allan Kardec dedicates some pages of his Spiritist Review (January 1864) to give us some general information about the 1863 campaign. But here it is no longer about ambitious numbers! He avoids them and not without reason! Mr. Allan Kardec is satisfied to announce that Spiritism is always flourishing and more flourishing than ever! As a demonstration of support he mentions the creation of two supporting journals, the Ruche in Bordeaux and La Vérité in Lyon and in particular the Vérité in Lyon that says come to position itself as a fearful athlete for its articles of such a hermetic logic that allows no criticism. I hope, ladies and gentlemen, to be able to demonstrate to you on Friday that the Vérité is not that terrible as they pretend to be. It is easy, Mr. Allan Kardec, to state the following: “Spiritism is stronger than ever” and then mention the appearance of Ruche and Vérité as proof of that! That is a comedy, ladies and gentlemen!
Couldn’t those two journals exist without the conclusion that Spiritism has moved one step ahead? If you tell me that they have costs and that is the reason why they need subscribers or that they need great sacrifices I will still tell you: It is a comedy! Mr. Allan Kardec’s budget is very good from what I hear. Isn’t that fair and rational to expect him to help his disciples?”
The Vérité’s Editor, Mr. Edoux, added the following note to the citation above: “At the end of the course we had a quick talk with Father Barricand that as a matter of fact was very courteous to us. Our intent was to offer him a collection of the Vérité so that he could talk about it as much as he wished.”
Time will tell if Mr. Barricand will be more successful than his comrades and if he will find what so many others sought unsuccessfully: undisputable arguments against Spiritism. Why worry though and work so much if he is dying? Supposing that Father Barricand believe in that let us leave it up to him to keep such a soothing belief because it will not become more or less than what it is. We are not absolutely interested in persuading him. All we say is that he has no more serious reasons than those that he is pointing out; his arguments are not convincing and if all that he has got has the same impact that we can sleep in peace. It is really astonishing that a serious person may take away such lighthearted consequences of a trip that we did last year and get involved in our private matters guessing the thoughts that crossed our mind and motivated our in doing or not doing something. From a hypothesis he then come to an absolute conclusion, something that is not advisable by a rigorous logic, for if the premises are not correct the conclusion will not be either. Some may say that we are not responding but it is not our intention to satisfy anybody’s curiosity. Spiritism is a humanitarian issue. Its future is in God’s hands and does not depend on the maneuvers of anyone. We regret the fact that Father Barricand sees it from such a restricted point of view.
With respect to his opinion about our bank account balance it seems that he is guessing about what someone is carrying in the pocket when he was not given the right to do so and that could be considered an indiscretion. Now, publicizing that is in violation of the privacy law. Supposing that someone may have used something that is supposed that the person has may, according to the circumstances, go much beyond the borders of calumny. It seems that Mr. Barricand chose to proceed by suppositions and insinuations. With such a system he is exposed to be belied. We can formally answer all of his allegations, suppositions and deductions above. We can discuss as much as he likes the principles of Spiritism but what we do or do not do or what have or do not have is out of question. A course is not a diatribe. It is a comprehensive, complete and serious explanation about the subject that is at hand. If contradictory, loyalty demands the pros and cons so that the public may judge its reciprocal value. One must oppose stronger proofs against the other proofs. What he does is a poor impression of the power of his arguments when trying to discredit other people. That is how we understand a course in particular when it is given by a Professor of Theology that, before anything else, must seek the truth.
Bordeaux also has its course of Spiritism, meaning against Spiritism, by Father Delaporte, Professor at the Faculty of Theology in that city. The Ruche announces it in the following terms:
“Last Wednesday 13th of the current month we attended the public course about the dogma in which Father Delaporte dealt with the following subject: The hypothesis of a new religion revealed by the Spirits, or Spiritism. Since the renowned professor has not finished yet we will follow his lessons attentively and will keep you posted about it with impartiality and moderation that must always characterize a true Spiritist.”
In the April issues number 17 and 24 the Sauveur de peoples reports the two first lessons and provides a comprehensive criticism about them that may have caused some embarrassment to the speaker. There we have two professors of theology of incontestable talent that have started a war against Spiritism in the two most important centers in France and that find themselves entangled by two champions that have answers to them. The fact is that today we find what was rare in the past: people that have studied the Doctrine seriously and are not afraid of exposing themselves. What shall result from that? The first inevitable result: a deeper examination of the subject around the world. Those that have not read it yet will be willing to read it. The second consequence will be that Spiritism will be taken seriously by those that only see mystification since the illustrious professors consider the matter to be the subject of serious public discussion. Finally, a third result will be to stop people from being afraid of ridicule that still holds them back. When something is discussed publicly by important people, in favor or against, one is no longer afraid of talking about it.
From the religious cathedra it will soon move on to the philosophical and scientific cathedra. Such a discussion carried out by the highest intelligences with extenuate the contradictory arguments that will not be able to resist the evidence of the facts.
There is no doubt that the Spiritist idea is still a lot foggy but we can say that it is still in the condition of personal opinion. What happens today tends to give it general acceptance and will soon give it an official place among the acceptable beliefs.
We gladly take the opportunity that we are given to congratulate and send our encouragement to all of those that resolutely and fearlessly take in their hands the cause of Spiritism. We are happy to see their number grow every day. Have perseverance and you will soon see the support multiplying around you but be assured that the struggle is not over yet and that the battle in the open field is not the one that must be feared the most. The fiercest enemy is the one that moves in the shadow and is frequently hiding behind a false mask. We then say: Be suspicious of appearances. Do not judge people by their words but by their actions. Watch out in particular for the traps.
Varieties
The rumors that had the town of Poitiers moved had completely stopped from what we heard but it seems that the noisy Spirits have transferred the stage of their actions to other places. That is what we can read in the Pays about it:
“The rapping Spirits of Poitiers begin to create a school and reach neighbor lands. This letter was sent from Ville-au-Moine to the Courrier de la Vienne (do not confuse it with the Journal de la Vienne) on February 24th:
Dear Mr. Editor,
For some days now our region is worried about the presence of rapping Spirits in Bois-de-Doeuil that spread terror around our villages. Their meeting point is the home of Mr. Perroche. Every night, around eleven and midnight the Spirit manifests through nine, eleven or thirteen knocks followed by two and another one and six am the same happens again. Notice, Sir, that the knocks take place at the headboard of a bed where a lady lays terrified stating that she receives communications from her husband’s uncle that died about a month ago in our village. It is incredible. I and several friends wanted to get to the bottom line and find the truth to the point that we spent a night in Bois-de-Doeuil where we ourselves witnessed the facts that we had heard before. We even saw a kid’s cradle swinging longitudinally, apparently not touched by anybody. In the beginning we laughed at the situation but when we noticed that all the investigation carried out to uncover the tricks were unsuccessful we then left feeling more astonished than amused! If the noise continues Mr. Perroche’s house will not be able to accommodate every curious person from Marsais, Priaire, Migré, Doeuil and even from Villeneuve-la-Contesse that crowd over to spend the night there and try to resolve the mystery.
Sincerely, etc.”
A short comment about the events. The Journal de la Vienne reported them and reiterated that they were following a lead to catch the author or authors of those disturbances that would soon be brought to justice. Since they did not they cannot accuse law enforcement of negligence. How can that be having a house occupied from top to bottom by their agents and people were still unable to discover their maneuvers before their eyes and were unable to catch them? One must acknowledge that they were at the same time very audacious and skillful since they faced a whole brigade but remained unseen. Besides, that group of jokers must be very large since they do the same tricks in several cities with years separating them and still were never caught. The cases of Rue des Grès and Rue des Noyers, in Paris, the Grandes-Ventes, near Dieppe, and so many others were also unfruitful. How come the police with so many great resources, capable of catching the most astute and skillful criminals, cannot stop a few jokers? Have you thought about that? As a matter of fact those events are not new as confirmed by the report that follows.
“The rapping Spirits of Poitiers begin to create a school and reach neighbor lands. This letter was sent from Ville-au-Moine to the Courrier de la Vienne (do not confuse it with the Journal de la Vienne) on February 24th:
Dear Mr. Editor,
For some days now our region is worried about the presence of rapping Spirits in Bois-de-Doeuil that spread terror around our villages. Their meeting point is the home of Mr. Perroche. Every night, around eleven and midnight the Spirit manifests through nine, eleven or thirteen knocks followed by two and another one and six am the same happens again. Notice, Sir, that the knocks take place at the headboard of a bed where a lady lays terrified stating that she receives communications from her husband’s uncle that died about a month ago in our village. It is incredible. I and several friends wanted to get to the bottom line and find the truth to the point that we spent a night in Bois-de-Doeuil where we ourselves witnessed the facts that we had heard before. We even saw a kid’s cradle swinging longitudinally, apparently not touched by anybody. In the beginning we laughed at the situation but when we noticed that all the investigation carried out to uncover the tricks were unsuccessful we then left feeling more astonished than amused! If the noise continues Mr. Perroche’s house will not be able to accommodate every curious person from Marsais, Priaire, Migré, Doeuil and even from Villeneuve-la-Contesse that crowd over to spend the night there and try to resolve the mystery.
Sincerely, etc.”
A short comment about the events. The Journal de la Vienne reported them and reiterated that they were following a lead to catch the author or authors of those disturbances that would soon be brought to justice. Since they did not they cannot accuse law enforcement of negligence. How can that be having a house occupied from top to bottom by their agents and people were still unable to discover their maneuvers before their eyes and were unable to catch them? One must acknowledge that they were at the same time very audacious and skillful since they faced a whole brigade but remained unseen. Besides, that group of jokers must be very large since they do the same tricks in several cities with years separating them and still were never caught. The cases of Rue des Grès and Rue des Noyers, in Paris, the Grandes-Ventes, near Dieppe, and so many others were also unfruitful. How come the police with so many great resources, capable of catching the most astute and skillful criminals, cannot stop a few jokers? Have you thought about that? As a matter of fact those events are not new as confirmed by the report that follows.
We got this from St. Petersburg:
“Venerable master, after I read about the case of a rapping Spirit of the sixteenth century in the first issue of the Spiritist Review 1864 I remembered another one that you may perhaps consider proper for publication in a small section of your journal. I refer to the life and character of Tasso, written by Mr. Suard, perpetual secretary of the French and Literature classes and included in the translation of Freed Jerusalem, published in 1803.
-After saying that Tasso’s religions feelings, exalted as a result of a broken heart and the unfortunate consequences of that, seriously persuaded him that he was the object of a persecution by a Spirit that would knock everything down in his house; that stole his money and removed everything he needed from the table, before his eyes… The historian then adds: Here is how Tasso himself reports that persecution:
-Brother R… (he asks him to tell a friend) brought me two letters from you but one of them disappeared just after I read it and I believe that it was the elf that took it away particularly for the reason that you were talking about him in that one. It is one of those prodigies that happened so many times in hospital not given space for any doubt about the magical powers of which I have so many other proofs. On this very day a piece of bread was taken away from me and the other day a plate with fruits.
-He then regrets the books and papers that were taken from him adding: the stuff that was taken from me while I was not here could have been taken by people that had keys to all of my boxes so much so that I feel defenseless against my enemies or the devil with the exception of my own will that would not learn anything from them or their followers or make friends with them or their magicians.
-In another letter he says: It is all very bad. That demon that was always on my neck whenever I was resting or strolling around and that knew that he would never get to good terms with me made the decision of openly stealing my money.
-On other occasions, continues the writer of the article, he believed to have seen Holy Mary and Father Sevassi tells us that in a period when he was ill in prison Tasso devoted himself so much to the Holy Virgin that she came to him and had him cured. Tasso payed tribute to that act in a sonnet.
- Moving on, the elf transformed into someone more malleable and with whom Tasso could speak friendly and from whom he learned marvelous things. Nonetheless, dissatisfied with that strange exchange Tasso attributed its origin to some evildoings of youngster when he composed a dialogue in which he was supposedly talking to a Spirit. “…something that I would not have seriously wanted to do”, he adds, “even if that was at all possible”.
Mr. Suard finishes his report saying: “One cannot avoid the thought that at the age of thirty years old and after having written an immortal piece the miserable man was chosen to give the most pathetic example of weakness of the mind.
As for you, Sir, however, thanks to the lights of Spiritism you can assess it differently and I am sure that you will see in those phenomena one more link in the chain of the Spiritist phenomena that connect the past to the present days.”
There is no doubt that the events that take place today and that are perfectly verified and explained demonstrate that Tasso could have been dominated by one of those obsessions that we see daily and that have nothing of supernatural.
Had he known the true cause and he would not have been more impressed than people are in our days but then the idea of the devil, of witches and magicians was widespread and since instead of combating people actually entertained such idea it could then interact badly with weak minds. It is then more than likely that Tasso was not crazier than the obsessed of our days to whom we must give moral support rather than medication.
“Venerable master, after I read about the case of a rapping Spirit of the sixteenth century in the first issue of the Spiritist Review 1864 I remembered another one that you may perhaps consider proper for publication in a small section of your journal. I refer to the life and character of Tasso, written by Mr. Suard, perpetual secretary of the French and Literature classes and included in the translation of Freed Jerusalem, published in 1803.
-After saying that Tasso’s religions feelings, exalted as a result of a broken heart and the unfortunate consequences of that, seriously persuaded him that he was the object of a persecution by a Spirit that would knock everything down in his house; that stole his money and removed everything he needed from the table, before his eyes… The historian then adds: Here is how Tasso himself reports that persecution:
-Brother R… (he asks him to tell a friend) brought me two letters from you but one of them disappeared just after I read it and I believe that it was the elf that took it away particularly for the reason that you were talking about him in that one. It is one of those prodigies that happened so many times in hospital not given space for any doubt about the magical powers of which I have so many other proofs. On this very day a piece of bread was taken away from me and the other day a plate with fruits.
-He then regrets the books and papers that were taken from him adding: the stuff that was taken from me while I was not here could have been taken by people that had keys to all of my boxes so much so that I feel defenseless against my enemies or the devil with the exception of my own will that would not learn anything from them or their followers or make friends with them or their magicians.
-In another letter he says: It is all very bad. That demon that was always on my neck whenever I was resting or strolling around and that knew that he would never get to good terms with me made the decision of openly stealing my money.
-On other occasions, continues the writer of the article, he believed to have seen Holy Mary and Father Sevassi tells us that in a period when he was ill in prison Tasso devoted himself so much to the Holy Virgin that she came to him and had him cured. Tasso payed tribute to that act in a sonnet.
- Moving on, the elf transformed into someone more malleable and with whom Tasso could speak friendly and from whom he learned marvelous things. Nonetheless, dissatisfied with that strange exchange Tasso attributed its origin to some evildoings of youngster when he composed a dialogue in which he was supposedly talking to a Spirit. “…something that I would not have seriously wanted to do”, he adds, “even if that was at all possible”.
Mr. Suard finishes his report saying: “One cannot avoid the thought that at the age of thirty years old and after having written an immortal piece the miserable man was chosen to give the most pathetic example of weakness of the mind.
As for you, Sir, however, thanks to the lights of Spiritism you can assess it differently and I am sure that you will see in those phenomena one more link in the chain of the Spiritist phenomena that connect the past to the present days.”
There is no doubt that the events that take place today and that are perfectly verified and explained demonstrate that Tasso could have been dominated by one of those obsessions that we see daily and that have nothing of supernatural.
Had he known the true cause and he would not have been more impressed than people are in our days but then the idea of the devil, of witches and magicians was widespread and since instead of combating people actually entertained such idea it could then interact badly with weak minds. It is then more than likely that Tasso was not crazier than the obsessed of our days to whom we must give moral support rather than medication.
Summary of Cyropaedia[1], by Xenophon of Athens, Book VIII, Chapter VII
“I invoke you, my children, in the name of the gods of our homeland, to show consideration to one another if you have any intention of pleasing me for I don’t think that you believe that when I cease to live I will become nothing. Up until now my soul was hidden to your eyes but through its actions you shall acknowledge that it did exist. Haven’t you even noticed the terrifying thoughts that torment the minds of murderers brought up by the souls of their victims and the vengeances cast upon the impious by those souls? Do you believe that the cult to the dead would have kept as is if people believed that their souls have no power? As for myself, my children, I could never be convinced that the soul that lives while in a mortal body would be extinguished when leaving that body because I see that it is the soul that vivifies these destructive bodies while inhabiting them. Also I could never be persuaded that the soul loses its ability to think at the time when it leaves a body that cannot think. It is then natural to believe that the soul, when purer and detached from matter, plentifully enjoys its intelligence. When a person dies one can see the several parts that formed the body uniting to the very elements that formed the body initially. It is only the soul that escapes our eyes both while inhabiting the body and beyond. You know that during the sleep, image of death, the soul approaches the divinity and that in such a state the soul can frequently foresee the future, undoubtedly because in such a state the soul is entirely free.
Well, if things are the way I see them and the soul outlives the body that is left behind, do what I ask you with respect to my own soul. If I am wrong; if the soul remains with the body and dies with the body you must at least respect the gods that don’t die, that see everything, that are able to do everything and sustain in the universe this immutable, inalterable order, whose magnificence and majesty are indescribable. May such a fear keep you from any action, any thought that may hurt goodness and justice… But I feel that my soul leaves me and I feel that through the symptoms that commonly announce our dissolution.”
OBSERVATION: A Spiritist would have little to add to these remarkable words, worthy of a Christian philosopher in which we find remarkably well written the special attributes of the body and the soul: the material body, destructible and whose elements disperse to return to the similar elements and that during life only acts driven by the intelligent element; then comes the soul, outliving the body, keeping its individuality and enjoying greater perceptions when separated from the body; the freedom of the soul during the sleep; finally the influence of the dead upon the living ones. One can also detect the distinction made between the gods and the divinity itself. The gods were not more than the Spirits at several stages of elevation in charge of presiding over all things of this world, according to their specialties, in the spiritual as well as in the material order of things. The gods of the homeland were the protector Spirits of the homeland as the gods of the homes were the protector Spirits of the family. The gods, or superior Spirits, did not communicate with mankind but through inferior Spirits, the so called demons. The crowds would not go beyond this but the philosophers and the initiated ones acknowledged a Supreme Being, creator and commander of all things.
[1] The Cyropaedia, sometimes spelled Cyropedia, is a partly fictional biography of Cyrus the Great, written around 370 BC by the Athenian gentleman-soldier, and student of Socrates, Xenophon of Athens. Wikipedia, TN
“I invoke you, my children, in the name of the gods of our homeland, to show consideration to one another if you have any intention of pleasing me for I don’t think that you believe that when I cease to live I will become nothing. Up until now my soul was hidden to your eyes but through its actions you shall acknowledge that it did exist. Haven’t you even noticed the terrifying thoughts that torment the minds of murderers brought up by the souls of their victims and the vengeances cast upon the impious by those souls? Do you believe that the cult to the dead would have kept as is if people believed that their souls have no power? As for myself, my children, I could never be convinced that the soul that lives while in a mortal body would be extinguished when leaving that body because I see that it is the soul that vivifies these destructive bodies while inhabiting them. Also I could never be persuaded that the soul loses its ability to think at the time when it leaves a body that cannot think. It is then natural to believe that the soul, when purer and detached from matter, plentifully enjoys its intelligence. When a person dies one can see the several parts that formed the body uniting to the very elements that formed the body initially. It is only the soul that escapes our eyes both while inhabiting the body and beyond. You know that during the sleep, image of death, the soul approaches the divinity and that in such a state the soul can frequently foresee the future, undoubtedly because in such a state the soul is entirely free.
Well, if things are the way I see them and the soul outlives the body that is left behind, do what I ask you with respect to my own soul. If I am wrong; if the soul remains with the body and dies with the body you must at least respect the gods that don’t die, that see everything, that are able to do everything and sustain in the universe this immutable, inalterable order, whose magnificence and majesty are indescribable. May such a fear keep you from any action, any thought that may hurt goodness and justice… But I feel that my soul leaves me and I feel that through the symptoms that commonly announce our dissolution.”
OBSERVATION: A Spiritist would have little to add to these remarkable words, worthy of a Christian philosopher in which we find remarkably well written the special attributes of the body and the soul: the material body, destructible and whose elements disperse to return to the similar elements and that during life only acts driven by the intelligent element; then comes the soul, outliving the body, keeping its individuality and enjoying greater perceptions when separated from the body; the freedom of the soul during the sleep; finally the influence of the dead upon the living ones. One can also detect the distinction made between the gods and the divinity itself. The gods were not more than the Spirits at several stages of elevation in charge of presiding over all things of this world, according to their specialties, in the spiritual as well as in the material order of things. The gods of the homeland were the protector Spirits of the homeland as the gods of the homes were the protector Spirits of the family. The gods, or superior Spirits, did not communicate with mankind but through inferior Spirits, the so called demons. The crowds would not go beyond this but the philosophers and the initiated ones acknowledged a Supreme Being, creator and commander of all things.
[1] The Cyropaedia, sometimes spelled Cyropedia, is a partly fictional biography of Cyrus the Great, written around 370 BC by the Athenian gentleman-soldier, and student of Socrates, Xenophon of Athens. Wikipedia, TN
A war to the devil and to hell – the inability of the devil, the devil converted; by Jean de le Veuze. Brochure 18-in, price 1 franc. Bordeaux, Ferrei bookstore. Paris, Didier & Co., Quai des Augustins, 35. Ledoyen, Palais Royal.
Starting from the principle that Spiritism is a conception of the devil with the objective of attracting a larger number of souls the author produces a quick sketch, from the manifestations in America up to our current days, shows that the devil miscalculated because he saves the souls that were lost and unfortunately allows those that were his to escape. By seeing all that the devil converted and well as part of his entourage. It is a witty and entertaining criticism of the role that was given to the devil lately but from which stands out in a funny tone serious, profound and perfectly fair thoughts. We have no doubt that the little book will be read with great pleasure by many.
-o-
Letters to the ignorant, philosophy of common sense, by V. Tournier. Brochure, 18-in, price 1 franc. Dentu, Palais-Royal. The author, an enlightened and keen Spiritist, reproduced in verses the fundamental principles of the Spiritist Doctrine according to The Spirits’ Book. We sincerely congratulate him for the intention that guided his work. Whatever the way the Doctrine is presented it is always a sign of popularization of the idea and so many other seeds that are spread out will fructify according to the format that follows them. The essential point is that the fundamentals are correct as is the case here.
Starting from the principle that Spiritism is a conception of the devil with the objective of attracting a larger number of souls the author produces a quick sketch, from the manifestations in America up to our current days, shows that the devil miscalculated because he saves the souls that were lost and unfortunately allows those that were his to escape. By seeing all that the devil converted and well as part of his entourage. It is a witty and entertaining criticism of the role that was given to the devil lately but from which stands out in a funny tone serious, profound and perfectly fair thoughts. We have no doubt that the little book will be read with great pleasure by many.
-o-
Letters to the ignorant, philosophy of common sense, by V. Tournier. Brochure, 18-in, price 1 franc. Dentu, Palais-Royal. The author, an enlightened and keen Spiritist, reproduced in verses the fundamental principles of the Spiritist Doctrine according to The Spirits’ Book. We sincerely congratulate him for the intention that guided his work. Whatever the way the Doctrine is presented it is always a sign of popularization of the idea and so many other seeds that are spread out will fructify according to the format that follows them. The essential point is that the fundamentals are correct as is the case here.
June
2nd Article – see the May 1864 issue
This is one of those books that cannot be thoroughly refuted but through another book. It would have to be discussed article by article. That is a task what we will not undertake because it touches issues that are not in our scope and that were handled by many others. We will limit ourselves to the examination of the consequences found by the author given his stand point.
There are two distinctive parts in his book as in all historic ones: the report and the analysis of the facts. The first one is a matter of erudition and good faith; the second depends entirely on a personal opinion. Two persons may agree entirely with respect to one and totally disagree about the other. It is natural that the religious part was attacked since it is a matter of belief but the historic part does not seem to be invulnerable judging by the criticism of the theologians that not only contested the analysis but also the accuracy of certain facts.
We leave it to those that are more competent than us to come up with a decision about the last issue. However and without the pretension of becoming a judge in the debate we acknowledge that certain criticisms are evidently founded but about several important historic events Mr. Renan’s observations are perfectly fair.
Among the numerous refutations made to his book we believe to be proper to mention those from Father Gratry as one of the most logical and impartial. He points out the contradictions he found with clarity every step of the way.[1]
Let us admit, however, that Mr. Renan did not move a bit away from the historic truth. That does not imply that his analysis was fair because his work was based on his personal opinion and preconceived ideas. He studied the facts to find there proofs of his opinion and not to form an opinion. Naturally he only saw there what was according to his opinion and did not see what was against it. His opinion is his measure. As I matter of fact we learned this from him at page 5 of his introduction: “After telling Jesus’ story I would be glad to tell the story of the apostles as I see it; the status of the Christian conscience during the weeks that followed Jesus’ death; the formation of the legendary cycle of resurrection; the first acts of the Church of Jerusalem; the life of St. Paul, etc.”
There could be several ways of analyzing a fact but the fact itself is always the same irrespective of one’s opinion. Mr. Renan has his story about the apostles as he has his own about the life of Jesus. Does he show enough impartiality so that his idea may deserve credit? May he allows us to doubt it!
He acted because he was persuaded. We believe that he did so in good faith and that the material errors that he is criticized for are not the result of a premediated intention to alter the truth but from a false evaluation of things. He is in the position of a conscientious person that holds exclusive partisans ideas of the old regime that was invited to write the history of the French Revolution. His report could be highly accurate as far as the events are concerned but his judgement about people and things will be the reflex of his own ideas. He will censor what others will approve. He would uselessly cover the places where the events took place because the places will confirm the events but will not make him see things differently. That is what happened to Mr. Renan. Traveling around Judea with the Gospels in hand he found the traces of Jesus then concluding that the Christ existed but that did not change the way he saw Jesus. In places where he only saw the steps of a regular man an apostle of the orthodox faith might have seen the traces of divinity. His appreciation is the result of the stand point where placed himself. Does he deny atheism and materialism because he does not believe that matter thinks and because he admits an intelligent principle after the death of each individual? If we believe Mr. Renan’s dedication to his sister the intelligent principle does keeps its individuality and affections. But if the soul keeps its individuality and affections there is then an invisible world that is intelligent and that loves. Well, considering that such a world is intelligent it cannot remain inactive; it must play any kind of role in the universe. Lo and behold! The whole book is the very negation of that invisible world and of any active intelligence beyond the visible world. Consequently it is also the negation of any phenomenon that may result from the action of hidden intelligences and every relationship between the dead and the living ones, and hence one must conclude that his touching dedication to his sister is the work of imagination driven by a sincere grief due to the loss of his sister, expressing more his desire than his belief because if he had seriously believed in the individuality of his sister; in the persistence of her feelings towards him; in her solicitude and inspiration such a belief would have given him truer ideas about the meaning of most words of Jesus. Christ, in fact, concerned with the future of the soul, incessantly makes reference to the invisible world that he presents as something much more desirable than the material world and as supposed to constitute the objective of every human aspiration.
For those that see nothing beyond humanity these words: “My kingdom is not of this world; My Father’s house has many rooms;do not store up for yourselves treasures on Earth where rust destroy and thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heavens; Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted” and so many others must only have a fantastical meaning. That is how Mr. Renan considers them when he says: The part of truth in Jesus’s thought dragged him to the fantasticalthat obscured him. Nonetheless we must not neglect that fantastical thing that was the gross skin of the sacred fruit from which we live. That fantastical heaven, that never ending search for the city of God that has always concerned Christianism in its long career was the principle of the great instinct about the future that has driven all reformers, determined disciples of the Apocalypse from Joachim de Fiore to the sectary protestant of our days. (Chapter XVIII, page 285, 1st edition).[2]
All Jesus’ work was spiritual. Since Mr. Renan does not believe in the spiritualization of the being or in a spiritual world he should naturally take the opposite of Jesus’ words and judge him from an exclusively material point of view. A materialist or pantheist person judging a spiritual piece of work is like a deaf person judging a piece of music. When Mr. Renan judged Jesus from his stand point he must have been mistaken with respect to Jesus’ intentions and character. The most positive proof of that is found in this passage of his book (Chap. VII, page 128): “Jesus is not a spiritualist because everything that he produces is tangible work. He does not bring any notion of a soul separated from the body but he is a complete idealist since for him matter is not but the manifestation of thought and reality is a vivid expression of what cannot be seen.”
Is it possible to conceive Jesus Christ, the founder of the spiritualist Doctrine by excellence, not believing in the individuality of the soul, without any notion of that and consequently not believing in a future life? If he is not spiritualist then he is materialist and consequently Mr. Renan is more spiritualist than Jesus. Those words are not for discussion. They are good enough to show the latitude of his book demonstrating that the author read the Gospels either lightheartedly or with a preconceived mind for he did not see what is ordinarily seen by everyone. One can admit his good faith but certainly not his fair view.
His whole analysis stems from the idea that Jesus only target terrestrial things. According to him Jesus was an essentially good man, of kind gestures and education limited to the study of the sacred texts, of a naturally superior intelligence and that borrowed the idea of founding a doctrine from the religious disputes of the Jews. For that he was favored by the circumstances that he exploited skillfully. Without a plan or a preconceived idea and seeing that he would not succeed with the rich he then sought the support of the working class that were naturally revolted against the rich. He could make friends by flattering them. If he said that the kingdom of heavens belonged to the children that was to please their mothers by touching her weak points and then turning them into followers. Therefore the recently born religion was a movement of women and children. In one word Jesus was all about calculation and combinations and he succeeded helped by people’s attraction to marvelous things. As a matter of fact he was not much austere because he loved Magdalene who loved him back. His needs were provided by many rich women. Jesus and the apostles were work-shy people that did not refuse a good table. Here what he says:
“Three or four dedicated Galilee ladies followed the young master competing and taking turns in the pleasure of hearing him and taking care of him. They brought to the new sect an element of enthusiasm and marvelous whose importance is already learnt. One of them, Mary Magdalene that turn the name of her poor village into celebrity was apparently a very uneasy person. According to the language of the time she seemed to have been possessed by seven demons that is to say that she suffered of nervous and apparently inexplicable diseases. Jesus appeased that disturbed organization for her pure and kind beauty. Magdalene was faithful to him up until the Golgotha and the day after his death she played a leading role since she was the main instrument in the establishment of faith in the resurrection as we will see later. Joanna the wife of Chuzas, Herod’s steward from Antipas, Susanna and others that remained unknown followed and served him tirelessly. Some were rich and given their fortune they allowed the young prophet to live without working in the profession that had until then being his bread winning activity.” (Chap. IX, page 151).
“Jesus understood very soon that the official world of his time was not absolutely into his kingdom. He was very daring with respect to his preaching. He left aside that people of dry heart and narrow prejudices and look to the simple ones. The kingdom of God is for the children and their similar; for the forgotten of the world victimized by the social arrogance that repeals the simple but good person… The pure Ebionism meaning that only the poor are saved; that the kingdom of the poor is coming was therefore the doctrine of Jesus.” (Chap. XI, page 178).
“He did not appreciate the states of the soul but in proportion to the love that was aggregated. Women full of tears in their hearts and prepared for the feelings of humility due to their faults were closer to the kingdom than those of mediocre nature that frequently have no merit for not having failed. On another hand those kind souls conceivably found an easy way of rehabilitation in their conversion to the sect hence dedicated to that with passion.”
“Far from seeking the attenuation of their groans raised by their disdain to the social susceptibilities of the time he seemed to take pleasure in exciting them. Such a disdain towards the world had never been so much confessed before, a condition to the great things and the great originalities. He only forgave the rich when the rich was badly judged by society for some kind of prejudice. He openly preferred the people of doubtful life giving little importance to the orthodox notable. He told them: Publicans and courtesans will come before you in the kingdom of God. John says: ‘Publicans and courtesans believe in him and despite that you have not converted.’ One can understand that the criticism for not having followed the good example given by the daughters of pleasure must have been terrible to people that were serious and of a rigid conduct.”
“He was not given to exterior signs or austerity. He did not run away from joy since he would willingly go to wedding parties. One of his miracles was carried out to animate a wedding party in a village. In the Orient weddings take place at night. Each guest carries a lamp; the swinging lights form a very pleasant effect. Jesus liked that aspect that was joyful and lively and he took his parables from that.” (Chap. XI, page 187).
“The Pharisees and the doctors screamed at the scandal: Look at the people with whom he eats! Jesus then had fine answers that irritated the hypocrites: It is not the healthy ones that need doctor.” (Chap. XI, page 185).
Mr. Renan took care of indicating the passages of the Gospels that he mentioned in footnotes to demonstrate that he was supported by the texts. It is not the truth of the citations that are contested but the interpretations that he gives to them. That is how the profound maxim of the last paragraph is deformed by a witty comment. Everything materializes in Mr. Renan’s thoughts; he only sees material things in all of Jesus words because he himself sees nothing beyond material life. After an idyllic description of Galilea with its delicious climate and luxuriant fertility, of the hospitable and kind character of its inhabitants that creates the true shepherds of the Arcade, he then finds the source of Christianity in the soul of the people that should result from that.
“That joyful and easily satisfied life would not lead to the materialism of our peasant; to the great happiness of a generous dwelling; to the heavy joy of the flamingos. It spiritualized in ethereal dreams, in a kind of poetic mysticism, confounding heavens and Earth… Joy will be part of the kingdom of God. Isn’t that the daughter of the humble hearts, of the people of good will?
The whole history of Christianity then became a delicious pastoral. A Messiah in a wedding feast; the courtesan and the good Zacchaeus invited to the parties; the founders of the kingdom of God like in an entourage of paranymphs: that is what Galilea dared and had accepted.” (Chap. IV, page 67).
“Jesus was dominated by a remarkable feeling of profundity in all that as well as the band of joyful boys that followed him and that made him the true creator of peace to soul in eternity, the great consoler of life.” (Chap. X, page 172).
“Utopias of blessed life founded on the fraternity of mankind and on the pure cult of a true God concerned the enlightened souls and produced daring and sincere reactions from all sides but with not much future. (Chap. X, page 172).
“In the East when a house receives a foreigner it immediately becomes a public place. The whole village gathers there. Children invade the place and the servants keep them away but they always come back. Jesus would not accept that the naïve listeners would be mistreat; he would bring them over and embrace them. The mothers encouraged by such a reception would bring him the babies to that he would touch them… Women and children then loved him… The just born religion was therefore a movement of women and children. The latter surrounded him like a young guard would do to the inauguration of an innocent realty, cheering him up and calling him the son of David, singing Hosanna and clapping around him, and all that made him happy. Jesus, like Savonarola, perhaps used them as instruments in charitable missions. He felt relaxed with those young apostles that did not compromised him, putting them in front and conferring them with titles that he dared not take for himself.” (Chap. XI, page 190).
Jesus is then presented as a vulgar ambitious person, of petty passions, sneaking and that has no courage to expose himself. In the absence of an effective realty he is content with the most innocent and least dangerous that is conferred by the children. The following passage makes him an egotist:
“But all that did not result in the Church of Jerusalem or a group of Jerusalemite disciples. The charming doctor that forgave everybody as long as he was loved could not find much echo in that sanctuary of vain disputes and chronic sacrifices. It seems that his family did not love him and sometimes we see him tough on them. Like all those men exclusively worried about an idea Jesus got to the point of giving little importance to family links… Later on in his daring revolt against nature he would go even further and step onto everything that was related to people: blood, love, motherland and not preserving from the heart and soul but the idea that he presented as the absolute form of good and true.” (Chap. III, page 42, 43).
That is what Mr. Renan entitles the Origins of Christianity. Who would have ever believed that and band of mockers, a multitude of women, courtesans and children, led by an idealist that had no notion about the soul could change the face of the political, social and religious world, helped by an utopia, an illusion of a celestial kingdom?
In another article we will examine the way he sees the miracles and the nature of the person Jesus.
[1] Brochure 18-in, price 1 franc. Plon, Rue Guanancière, 8
[2] All the citations are taken from the 1st edition
This is one of those books that cannot be thoroughly refuted but through another book. It would have to be discussed article by article. That is a task what we will not undertake because it touches issues that are not in our scope and that were handled by many others. We will limit ourselves to the examination of the consequences found by the author given his stand point.
There are two distinctive parts in his book as in all historic ones: the report and the analysis of the facts. The first one is a matter of erudition and good faith; the second depends entirely on a personal opinion. Two persons may agree entirely with respect to one and totally disagree about the other. It is natural that the religious part was attacked since it is a matter of belief but the historic part does not seem to be invulnerable judging by the criticism of the theologians that not only contested the analysis but also the accuracy of certain facts.
We leave it to those that are more competent than us to come up with a decision about the last issue. However and without the pretension of becoming a judge in the debate we acknowledge that certain criticisms are evidently founded but about several important historic events Mr. Renan’s observations are perfectly fair.
Among the numerous refutations made to his book we believe to be proper to mention those from Father Gratry as one of the most logical and impartial. He points out the contradictions he found with clarity every step of the way.[1]
Let us admit, however, that Mr. Renan did not move a bit away from the historic truth. That does not imply that his analysis was fair because his work was based on his personal opinion and preconceived ideas. He studied the facts to find there proofs of his opinion and not to form an opinion. Naturally he only saw there what was according to his opinion and did not see what was against it. His opinion is his measure. As I matter of fact we learned this from him at page 5 of his introduction: “After telling Jesus’ story I would be glad to tell the story of the apostles as I see it; the status of the Christian conscience during the weeks that followed Jesus’ death; the formation of the legendary cycle of resurrection; the first acts of the Church of Jerusalem; the life of St. Paul, etc.”
There could be several ways of analyzing a fact but the fact itself is always the same irrespective of one’s opinion. Mr. Renan has his story about the apostles as he has his own about the life of Jesus. Does he show enough impartiality so that his idea may deserve credit? May he allows us to doubt it!
He acted because he was persuaded. We believe that he did so in good faith and that the material errors that he is criticized for are not the result of a premediated intention to alter the truth but from a false evaluation of things. He is in the position of a conscientious person that holds exclusive partisans ideas of the old regime that was invited to write the history of the French Revolution. His report could be highly accurate as far as the events are concerned but his judgement about people and things will be the reflex of his own ideas. He will censor what others will approve. He would uselessly cover the places where the events took place because the places will confirm the events but will not make him see things differently. That is what happened to Mr. Renan. Traveling around Judea with the Gospels in hand he found the traces of Jesus then concluding that the Christ existed but that did not change the way he saw Jesus. In places where he only saw the steps of a regular man an apostle of the orthodox faith might have seen the traces of divinity. His appreciation is the result of the stand point where placed himself. Does he deny atheism and materialism because he does not believe that matter thinks and because he admits an intelligent principle after the death of each individual? If we believe Mr. Renan’s dedication to his sister the intelligent principle does keeps its individuality and affections. But if the soul keeps its individuality and affections there is then an invisible world that is intelligent and that loves. Well, considering that such a world is intelligent it cannot remain inactive; it must play any kind of role in the universe. Lo and behold! The whole book is the very negation of that invisible world and of any active intelligence beyond the visible world. Consequently it is also the negation of any phenomenon that may result from the action of hidden intelligences and every relationship between the dead and the living ones, and hence one must conclude that his touching dedication to his sister is the work of imagination driven by a sincere grief due to the loss of his sister, expressing more his desire than his belief because if he had seriously believed in the individuality of his sister; in the persistence of her feelings towards him; in her solicitude and inspiration such a belief would have given him truer ideas about the meaning of most words of Jesus. Christ, in fact, concerned with the future of the soul, incessantly makes reference to the invisible world that he presents as something much more desirable than the material world and as supposed to constitute the objective of every human aspiration.
For those that see nothing beyond humanity these words: “My kingdom is not of this world; My Father’s house has many rooms;do not store up for yourselves treasures on Earth where rust destroy and thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heavens; Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted” and so many others must only have a fantastical meaning. That is how Mr. Renan considers them when he says: The part of truth in Jesus’s thought dragged him to the fantasticalthat obscured him. Nonetheless we must not neglect that fantastical thing that was the gross skin of the sacred fruit from which we live. That fantastical heaven, that never ending search for the city of God that has always concerned Christianism in its long career was the principle of the great instinct about the future that has driven all reformers, determined disciples of the Apocalypse from Joachim de Fiore to the sectary protestant of our days. (Chapter XVIII, page 285, 1st edition).[2]
All Jesus’ work was spiritual. Since Mr. Renan does not believe in the spiritualization of the being or in a spiritual world he should naturally take the opposite of Jesus’ words and judge him from an exclusively material point of view. A materialist or pantheist person judging a spiritual piece of work is like a deaf person judging a piece of music. When Mr. Renan judged Jesus from his stand point he must have been mistaken with respect to Jesus’ intentions and character. The most positive proof of that is found in this passage of his book (Chap. VII, page 128): “Jesus is not a spiritualist because everything that he produces is tangible work. He does not bring any notion of a soul separated from the body but he is a complete idealist since for him matter is not but the manifestation of thought and reality is a vivid expression of what cannot be seen.”
Is it possible to conceive Jesus Christ, the founder of the spiritualist Doctrine by excellence, not believing in the individuality of the soul, without any notion of that and consequently not believing in a future life? If he is not spiritualist then he is materialist and consequently Mr. Renan is more spiritualist than Jesus. Those words are not for discussion. They are good enough to show the latitude of his book demonstrating that the author read the Gospels either lightheartedly or with a preconceived mind for he did not see what is ordinarily seen by everyone. One can admit his good faith but certainly not his fair view.
His whole analysis stems from the idea that Jesus only target terrestrial things. According to him Jesus was an essentially good man, of kind gestures and education limited to the study of the sacred texts, of a naturally superior intelligence and that borrowed the idea of founding a doctrine from the religious disputes of the Jews. For that he was favored by the circumstances that he exploited skillfully. Without a plan or a preconceived idea and seeing that he would not succeed with the rich he then sought the support of the working class that were naturally revolted against the rich. He could make friends by flattering them. If he said that the kingdom of heavens belonged to the children that was to please their mothers by touching her weak points and then turning them into followers. Therefore the recently born religion was a movement of women and children. In one word Jesus was all about calculation and combinations and he succeeded helped by people’s attraction to marvelous things. As a matter of fact he was not much austere because he loved Magdalene who loved him back. His needs were provided by many rich women. Jesus and the apostles were work-shy people that did not refuse a good table. Here what he says:
“Three or four dedicated Galilee ladies followed the young master competing and taking turns in the pleasure of hearing him and taking care of him. They brought to the new sect an element of enthusiasm and marvelous whose importance is already learnt. One of them, Mary Magdalene that turn the name of her poor village into celebrity was apparently a very uneasy person. According to the language of the time she seemed to have been possessed by seven demons that is to say that she suffered of nervous and apparently inexplicable diseases. Jesus appeased that disturbed organization for her pure and kind beauty. Magdalene was faithful to him up until the Golgotha and the day after his death she played a leading role since she was the main instrument in the establishment of faith in the resurrection as we will see later. Joanna the wife of Chuzas, Herod’s steward from Antipas, Susanna and others that remained unknown followed and served him tirelessly. Some were rich and given their fortune they allowed the young prophet to live without working in the profession that had until then being his bread winning activity.” (Chap. IX, page 151).
“Jesus understood very soon that the official world of his time was not absolutely into his kingdom. He was very daring with respect to his preaching. He left aside that people of dry heart and narrow prejudices and look to the simple ones. The kingdom of God is for the children and their similar; for the forgotten of the world victimized by the social arrogance that repeals the simple but good person… The pure Ebionism meaning that only the poor are saved; that the kingdom of the poor is coming was therefore the doctrine of Jesus.” (Chap. XI, page 178).
“He did not appreciate the states of the soul but in proportion to the love that was aggregated. Women full of tears in their hearts and prepared for the feelings of humility due to their faults were closer to the kingdom than those of mediocre nature that frequently have no merit for not having failed. On another hand those kind souls conceivably found an easy way of rehabilitation in their conversion to the sect hence dedicated to that with passion.”
“Far from seeking the attenuation of their groans raised by their disdain to the social susceptibilities of the time he seemed to take pleasure in exciting them. Such a disdain towards the world had never been so much confessed before, a condition to the great things and the great originalities. He only forgave the rich when the rich was badly judged by society for some kind of prejudice. He openly preferred the people of doubtful life giving little importance to the orthodox notable. He told them: Publicans and courtesans will come before you in the kingdom of God. John says: ‘Publicans and courtesans believe in him and despite that you have not converted.’ One can understand that the criticism for not having followed the good example given by the daughters of pleasure must have been terrible to people that were serious and of a rigid conduct.”
“He was not given to exterior signs or austerity. He did not run away from joy since he would willingly go to wedding parties. One of his miracles was carried out to animate a wedding party in a village. In the Orient weddings take place at night. Each guest carries a lamp; the swinging lights form a very pleasant effect. Jesus liked that aspect that was joyful and lively and he took his parables from that.” (Chap. XI, page 187).
“The Pharisees and the doctors screamed at the scandal: Look at the people with whom he eats! Jesus then had fine answers that irritated the hypocrites: It is not the healthy ones that need doctor.” (Chap. XI, page 185).
Mr. Renan took care of indicating the passages of the Gospels that he mentioned in footnotes to demonstrate that he was supported by the texts. It is not the truth of the citations that are contested but the interpretations that he gives to them. That is how the profound maxim of the last paragraph is deformed by a witty comment. Everything materializes in Mr. Renan’s thoughts; he only sees material things in all of Jesus words because he himself sees nothing beyond material life. After an idyllic description of Galilea with its delicious climate and luxuriant fertility, of the hospitable and kind character of its inhabitants that creates the true shepherds of the Arcade, he then finds the source of Christianity in the soul of the people that should result from that.
“That joyful and easily satisfied life would not lead to the materialism of our peasant; to the great happiness of a generous dwelling; to the heavy joy of the flamingos. It spiritualized in ethereal dreams, in a kind of poetic mysticism, confounding heavens and Earth… Joy will be part of the kingdom of God. Isn’t that the daughter of the humble hearts, of the people of good will?
The whole history of Christianity then became a delicious pastoral. A Messiah in a wedding feast; the courtesan and the good Zacchaeus invited to the parties; the founders of the kingdom of God like in an entourage of paranymphs: that is what Galilea dared and had accepted.” (Chap. IV, page 67).
“Jesus was dominated by a remarkable feeling of profundity in all that as well as the band of joyful boys that followed him and that made him the true creator of peace to soul in eternity, the great consoler of life.” (Chap. X, page 172).
“Utopias of blessed life founded on the fraternity of mankind and on the pure cult of a true God concerned the enlightened souls and produced daring and sincere reactions from all sides but with not much future. (Chap. X, page 172).
“In the East when a house receives a foreigner it immediately becomes a public place. The whole village gathers there. Children invade the place and the servants keep them away but they always come back. Jesus would not accept that the naïve listeners would be mistreat; he would bring them over and embrace them. The mothers encouraged by such a reception would bring him the babies to that he would touch them… Women and children then loved him… The just born religion was therefore a movement of women and children. The latter surrounded him like a young guard would do to the inauguration of an innocent realty, cheering him up and calling him the son of David, singing Hosanna and clapping around him, and all that made him happy. Jesus, like Savonarola, perhaps used them as instruments in charitable missions. He felt relaxed with those young apostles that did not compromised him, putting them in front and conferring them with titles that he dared not take for himself.” (Chap. XI, page 190).
Jesus is then presented as a vulgar ambitious person, of petty passions, sneaking and that has no courage to expose himself. In the absence of an effective realty he is content with the most innocent and least dangerous that is conferred by the children. The following passage makes him an egotist:
“But all that did not result in the Church of Jerusalem or a group of Jerusalemite disciples. The charming doctor that forgave everybody as long as he was loved could not find much echo in that sanctuary of vain disputes and chronic sacrifices. It seems that his family did not love him and sometimes we see him tough on them. Like all those men exclusively worried about an idea Jesus got to the point of giving little importance to family links… Later on in his daring revolt against nature he would go even further and step onto everything that was related to people: blood, love, motherland and not preserving from the heart and soul but the idea that he presented as the absolute form of good and true.” (Chap. III, page 42, 43).
That is what Mr. Renan entitles the Origins of Christianity. Who would have ever believed that and band of mockers, a multitude of women, courtesans and children, led by an idealist that had no notion about the soul could change the face of the political, social and religious world, helped by an utopia, an illusion of a celestial kingdom?
In another article we will examine the way he sees the miracles and the nature of the person Jesus.
[1] Brochure 18-in, price 1 franc. Plon, Rue Guanancière, 8
[2] All the citations are taken from the 1st edition
See the February and March 1864 issues
Mr. Dombre, from Marmande, sent us a detailed report of this cure that has already been reported to our readers. The details in that report are of the highest interest both regarding the facts and the instruction. As it will be seen it is at the same time a theoretical and practical course, a guide to analogous cases and a great source of observations for the study of the invisible world in general in its relationships with the visible one. Mr. Dombre says in his report: I was warned by one of the members of our Spiritist Society about the violent crises that the so called Teresa B… went through regularly every afternoon for eight months. On January 11th last I went to the patient’s neighbor’s house followed by Mr. L…, a medium, at about four thirty to try to witness the crisis that supposedly happened every day at five o’clock. We found the young lady and her mother there talking to the neighbors. The half hour passed fast. We suddenly saw the lady stand up, open the door and cross the street to return to her house followed by her mother that took care of her and sent her to bed dressed up. The convulsions started. The body bent over; the head tended to touch the heels; the chest gasping. In a word it was an unpleasant sight. Myself and the medium went back to the neighbor’s house and asked the Spirit Louis David, the spiritual guide of the medium, if that was a case of obsession or a pathological case. The Spirit responded: - Poor girl! She is in fact under a fatal, truly dangerous influence. Come to help her. The Spirit is stubborn and bad and will resist for a long time. Avoid to have her treated by medication as much as you can because that would do her harm. The cause is totally psychological. Try to evoke that Spirit and moralize him with ability and we will help you out. May all the sincere souls that you know get together to pray and fight that much pernicious influence of the bad Spirit. Poor little one, victim of jealousy!
Louis David
Question – Which name shall we use to call that Spirit?
Answer: Julio.
I had him evoked immediately. The Spirit showed up in a violent mood, cursing, tearing the paper up and refusing to respond to certain questions. While entertaining ourselves with the Spirit Mr. B…, a physician that had come to examine the crisis, came close to us and said with amazement: - It is remarkable! The girl suddenly stopped contorting and she is now lying in bed motionless.
Mr. Dombre, from Marmande, sent us a detailed report of this cure that has already been reported to our readers. The details in that report are of the highest interest both regarding the facts and the instruction. As it will be seen it is at the same time a theoretical and practical course, a guide to analogous cases and a great source of observations for the study of the invisible world in general in its relationships with the visible one. Mr. Dombre says in his report: I was warned by one of the members of our Spiritist Society about the violent crises that the so called Teresa B… went through regularly every afternoon for eight months. On January 11th last I went to the patient’s neighbor’s house followed by Mr. L…, a medium, at about four thirty to try to witness the crisis that supposedly happened every day at five o’clock. We found the young lady and her mother there talking to the neighbors. The half hour passed fast. We suddenly saw the lady stand up, open the door and cross the street to return to her house followed by her mother that took care of her and sent her to bed dressed up. The convulsions started. The body bent over; the head tended to touch the heels; the chest gasping. In a word it was an unpleasant sight. Myself and the medium went back to the neighbor’s house and asked the Spirit Louis David, the spiritual guide of the medium, if that was a case of obsession or a pathological case. The Spirit responded: - Poor girl! She is in fact under a fatal, truly dangerous influence. Come to help her. The Spirit is stubborn and bad and will resist for a long time. Avoid to have her treated by medication as much as you can because that would do her harm. The cause is totally psychological. Try to evoke that Spirit and moralize him with ability and we will help you out. May all the sincere souls that you know get together to pray and fight that much pernicious influence of the bad Spirit. Poor little one, victim of jealousy!
Louis David
Question – Which name shall we use to call that Spirit?
Answer: Julio.
I had him evoked immediately. The Spirit showed up in a violent mood, cursing, tearing the paper up and refusing to respond to certain questions. While entertaining ourselves with the Spirit Mr. B…, a physician that had come to examine the crisis, came close to us and said with amazement: - It is remarkable! The girl suddenly stopped contorting and she is now lying in bed motionless.
- I am not surprised, I said, because the obsessing Spirit is with us right now.
- Please leave the past alone. When the bad things are cauterized why poking the wound? I feel that we must become better. I feel really bad about my past and look at the future with hope. When the mouth of an angel tells you: vengeance is a torture to the executioner; love is happiness to the one that spreads it; ah the yeast that spoils and shrinks the heart disappears! Love is what is needed. Are you surprised with my words? They are not mine. I learned them and have the pleasure to repeat them to you. Ah! You would be really happy if you could notice this angel for a minute only, a radiant angle like the sun, good and kind like the refreshing little drops of dew falling onto a plant in a scorching hot day! As you can see it is not hard for me to say because I drink from the spring.
- Thank you my friends, for the good you did to me. I ask you to allow me to stay with you from now on in order to attend your meetings. I need to drink from the good source the advices to fulfill a new life that I will ask God when I have endured the atonement of my infamous past reproached by my own conscience.
I then convinced Mr. B… to return to the patient while we continued to question the Spirit that at a certain point stopped responding. The medium’s guide informed us that he had returned to his task and recommended that we should no longer evoke him during the crises for the girl’s own good because if he returned to her even more furious he would torture her even more intensely. At that very moment the doctor returned and told us that the crisis had resumed stronger than ever. I showed him the warning we had just received and we were all shocked with the coincidences that left no doubt with respect to the cause of the problem. From that afternoon onwards and by recommendation of the good Spirits that assist us in the Spiritist work we gathered every night until the complete cure. On the very same 11th day we received the following communication from the protector Spirit of our group:
Vigilant guardian of the unhappy infancy I come to join your work, uniting my efforts with yours to free this young lady from the cruel claws of a bad Spirit. The remedy is in your hands. Wake, evoke and pray tirelessly until the complete cure.
Little Carita
This Spirit that uses the name Little Carita is that of a young lady that I knew and that died at an early age and that had given proof of the most angelical character and rare goodness. The evocation of the obsessing Spirit rendered only a lot of gross cursing that is useless to repeat. Our exhortations passed by him with no effect.
Friends, do not be discouraged! He feels strong because he sees your pain with his rude language. Abstain from preaching to him for now. Talk to him in a familiar and friendly way. You will gain his trust and later on you will be able to talk seriously. Perseverance, friends!
Your guides.
Following those recommendations our questions became lighter but were responded in the same tone. In the following day, Janeiro 12th, the crisis lasted such a long time and had such a violence as those of the preceding days. It lasted about an hour and a half. The girl would reject the Spirit, stand up in bed and say: Leave me! Leave me! The bedroom was full of people. Some of us were close to the bed to attentively observe the phases of the crisis. At that evening we received the following communication:
-My friends I advise you to follow this obsession step by step since this is a new event to you. Your observations will be of great help considering that similar cases may multiply and you will have to intervene. This is a purely physical obsession that I believe will be followed by a psychological but harmless one. You will soon witness happy moments amidst those tortures imposed by that bad Spirit. You must recognize the hands of the good Spirits there. If the tortures remain you will notice a complete paralysis of the body after the crisis and after paralyzing a soothing and ecstatic feeling that will relieve the pain of obsession. Observe carefully. Other symptoms will manifest and you will find in them new subjects of study. The Lord told his angels: Take my words to the children of men. We touched the earth with the stick and earth generates prodigies. Bend my children. It is the manifestation of the Eternal omnipotence. Friends, watch and pray. We are near you and close to the bed of sufferings to dry out the tears.
Little Carita
Once evoked the Spirit Julio was less adversarial than on the day before. Truth be said we responded to his witty comments with others and that pleased him. Before he left us we made him promise that he would not be so tough on his victim. He said: “I will be moderate”. As for ourselves we promised that we would pray for him. He then responded: “I accept although I do not understand the validity of that.”
Question to the Spirit: - Since you don’t know prayer would you like to get to know it and write one that we would dictate to you? – A. He then wrote the following that was dictated by us: “Oh God, I promise to open my soul to regret. Have a ray of love to my fellow human beings shinning upon my heart, the only thing that can purify me. As a guarantee to that desire I promise hereafter…” (The final part of the sentence would be: to stop my obsession, but the Spirit did not write these final words). He then added: “Watch it! You want to trick me. Be careful. I don’t like traps. You are too fast.” And because we wanted to know the origin of his vengeance and his jealousy he answered: “Don’t you ever talk to me about the girl. You can only keep me away from you.”
The struggle of the 13th only lasted half an hour and the fight was followed by smiles of happiness, ecstasy and tears of joy. The girl had her eyes wide open, forming a remarkable picture; she would raise her hands, stand up in bed and look at the sky. The predictions of Little Carita were happening in all points. In the evocation later at night the Spirit Julio seemed kinder and more submissive and again promised to moderate his attacks against the girl whose story he never told us. He even promised to pray.
The guide of the medium told us this: “Do not trust much his words. They can be sincere but he can also be deceiving you to get rid of you. Be forearmed. Having him keeping his promises and if you have to criticize him later do kindly so that he can notice the good feelings that you have towards him.”
Louis David
On the 14th the crisis was as short as on the previous evening and less lively. It was equally followed by manifestations of joy and ecstasy. The tears rolling down on the child’s face caused an undisguised emotion in the audience.
Gathered later on, at 8pm as we habitually did, we received the following communication for starters:
“As you must have seen, something more sensitive has reached the girl. I must tell you that our presence has a great influence upon the Spirit. We remind him about yesterday’s promise. The girl learned more during the ecstasy and tried to repel the attacks of the aggressor. Do not take short cuts during Julio’s evocation. Avoid the details that lead to fatigue on both sides. Be frank and benevolent with him and you will conquer him earlier. He moved a large step ahead as we noticed in this latest crisis.
Little Carita
1.Evocation of Julio – A. I am here, gentlemen.
2.How are you feeling today? – A. Good.
3.Have you felt the effects of our prayers? – A. Not much.
4.Forgive your victim and that will give you a satisfaction that is not familiar to you. That is what we feel when we forgive offenses. – A. Me? Much to the contrary. I found satisfaction in the vengeance for an offense. I call that paying the debts.
5.But the hatred in your soul is a painful feeling that is far from giving you peace. – A. Would you believe if I told you that it is the attachment?
6.We do believe. However kindly explain how do you conciliate such an affection with the ongoing vengeance that you carry out? What was to you the Spirit of this child in another life and what is it that she does to deserve such a punishment? – A. It is useless to ask. I have already told you: do not mention the girl.
7.That is fine. We will no longer talk about it but we must congratulate you for the change. We are happy for that. – A. I made progress in your school… What will the others say? They will boo and shout: Ah you became and hermit!
8.Why bother with the mockery if you have the laurel of the good Spirits? – A. True.
9.Look. In order to demonstrate to your former friends that you have definitely broke up with them you must completely forgive from now on; you must be generous and good and absolutely leave our good young lady alone. – A. My dear Sir that is impossible. That cannot happen just like that. Allow me to gradually leave behind what is now a necessity to me. Are you aware that if I suddenly stopped that would expose you? You could see me coming again. However, I want to promise you this: spare the girl and torture her tomorrow less than I did today. My condition, however, is that I am not forced to come here. I want to come and respond to your call freely and if I fail my word I agree to lose that favor. I must say that the change that you see in me is due to this shiny figure that you have near you and that is also by the girl’s bed every day, at the time of struggle. We are touch irrespective of ourselves. Without that you and your saints would have trouble for some time. (The Spirit referred to Little Carita).
10.Is she beautiful then? – A. Beautiful, very much so, yes!
11.But is she alone near you during the struggle? – A. No, no. There are others, the former ones from the body, the friends. They never laugh but now I make fun of them.
OBSERVATION: The questioner wanted undoubtedly to talk about other good Spirits but Julio mentioned the other bad ones, his companions.
12.Let us go! Before you leave we promise to pray for you tonight. – A. I want ten prayers. Say it from the bottom of your hearts and tomorrow you will be glad for me.
13.Be it ten then. And since you are in such a good mood would you like to write a three word prayer from the heart dictated by me? – A. By all means.
The Spirit then wrote: “Oh God, give me the strength to forgive.”
On January 15th the crisis happened at 5 pm but lasted just fifteen minutes. It was a weak fight followed by ecstasy, smiles and tears that expressed joy and happiness. At the evening meeting Little Carita gave us the following communication:
“My dear protégé, as expected the Spiritist phenomena before your eyes changes, improves every day, becoming lighter and less serious. An advice to begin with: You must use this as a subject matter for study from the point of view of physical tortures and moral lessons. Do not make external signals to the eyes of the world and do not use useless words. What does it matter to you what others will say? Leave the discussions to the idle ones. The element of your private and serious conversations must be the practical objective of liberation of this girl and the improvement of the Spirit that obsesses her. Do not talk about cure out loud. Ask God for that in the silence of your prayer.
I am happy to tell you that this obsession is coming to an end. Julio improved sensibly. I also acted upon the Spirit of the girl as much as I could so that these so much opposing vibes became more compatible. The combination of their fluids will no longer offer any danger with respect to the physical organization and the abandonment that this young body felt in contact with that fluid disappears notably. Your work is not finished. Everyone’s prayer must always precede and follow the evocation.”
Little Carita
After the evocation of Julio and the prayer in which he was classified as a bad Spirit he says:
-I am here. In the name of justice I request to have some words changed in your prayer. I changed my actions. You should change the way you classify me.
-You are right. We will not make the same mistake again. Have you come on your own today?
-Yes, I came freely. I kept my promises.
-Now that you are calm and full of good feelings would you agree in telling us the reasons for you to be so harsh on the girl?
A quick glance over my vagabond life: I was born amidst the miseries of life in addiction and soon I experienced the disgusting encounters of that kind of life. I was fed with milk and all kinds of beverages that come with those passions. I wandered around without faith, without law and without honor. Anything is good when one has to live wandering around. The hen of the peasant as well as the sheep of the shepherd was my meal.
Marauder was my occupation, when chance no doubt since I do not believe that Providence watches over such scoundrels, took me and equipped me. Proud of the rasped costume which replaced my rags, the halberd on my arm, I joined a band of bad companions, living at the expense of a fearful lord who, in turn, exploited his countrymen; but what mattered to us the source of money and provisions that flowed in our hands! I will not go into detail about the facts that are personal to me: they are wicked, hideous and unworthy of being told. Do you believe that educated in such a school like that one can become a good man?
Split by death the gang reunited in the spiritual world. Far from avoiding the opportunities of doing bad we sought them. In my lost thoughts I found someone to turn into my victim and I did that. You know the rest. Please ladies and gentlemen, pray also for that gang. You are sometimes surprised by the fact that certain regions have more bad people than others. It is very simple. They do not want to move away from each other and then fall onto a region like a cloud of locust. To the wolves, the forest, to the doves, the cote.
I had lived my earthly life in the times of Louis XIII. My last existence was in the Empire. I was a guerrilla. I liked very much the blunderbuss and the adorned conic hat. I loved danger, theft and the adventures. Sad taste! But what else to do? I was used to live with those bands. The change must astonish you; it is the works of an angel. I promise you nothing for tomorrow. You will judge me for my actions. A prayer please. As for myself I will say one:
-Little angel, open thy wings; fly to the throne of the Lord; ask to have me forgiven having my regret laid by your feet.
Julio
Q – Since you are in such a good path pray for the poor girl…
A – I cannot… it would be derision or a cruelty to see the executioner embracing the victim.
Next day, January 16th, the girl had no crisis but only a stomach ache. To our eyes it was her liberation. Later on at 8pm the Spirit Julio answered our call and gave the following communication:
-My friends, allow me to call you that. I, the obsessing Spirit, the bad Spirit, astute and perverse; I who was deep in the mud of evil a few days ago, I will preach you with the help of the angel. I am surprised myself with such a change and wonder if this is me. I believed that every feeling had disappeared in my soul but there was still a thread that vibrated. The angel guessed and touched it. I begin to see and feel. I am horrified by evil. I looked over my past and only saw crimes. A kind voice told me: wait; observe the hoy and happiness of the good Spirits; purify yourself; forgive instead of revenge; love instead of hate. I will also love you myself if you want to love and become better. I felt touched. I now understand the happiness that everyone will fell when they learn to practice charity. Little lady (he was addressing the child present at the session) you that I had chosen as my prey like the voucher preys the dove, pray for me, and that the name of the reproached one may disappear from your memory. I received the baptism of love from the hands of an angel of the Lord and today I dress the tunic of innocence. Poor child may your prayers addressed to the Lord in my favor soon free me from the remorse that will chase me like a well-deserved atonement.
-My friends, please keep praying for my miserable companions that chase me with their malicious envy because I escape them. Still yesterday I asked myself about what they thought of me. Today I can tell them: I won. My past is forgiven because I was able to repent. Do as I did. Engage in the battle against evil that keeps you slaved to this place of torment and desperation and leave it as winners. If your hand is stained by the blood of crime, like mine, it will also take you the sacred water of prayer that washes the stigmas of the sinner. God, forgive me!
Julio
On January 17th and following Julio’s promise, the girl experienced no ill-feeling and did not feel bad at all even in her stomach. Little Carita announced that she would still go endure a moral test at 5 pm for a few days or during her sleep, but that would not be painful to her and the only symptoms would be smiles and sweet tears and that is what really happened for two days. The following days showed a total absence of any crisis. Yet we still watched and prayed for the girl. On February 18th Little Carita gave us the following instruction:
-My good friends, have no fear. The obsession is over and very much so. It is an order of strange things to you but soon it will all seem very natural as perhaps a consequence of this obsession but not the works of Julio. Some developments are needed here for your instruction. Now that you know the Doctrine obsession or subjugation of the material being is no longer a supernatural phenomenon to you but only a different character of the organic diseases. The subjugating Spirit penetrates the perispirit of the person that is to be acted upon. The perispirit of the obsessed receives the fluidic body of the Spirit as an envelope and that is how the person is thoroughly hit. The material body experiences the pressure indirectly imposed. I seemed strange that the soul could have physically acted upon the animated matter. Yet the soul is the true actor of all those facts. Intelligence and will are the attributes of the soul. It acts from that will and the agent is the perispirit that operates like an instrument utilized by the soul. The physical discomfort is just apparent but the fluidic combination that your senses cannot detect hides an infinite number of mysteries that will be revealed with the progress of the Doctrine, considered from a scientific point of view.
When the Spirit abandons its victim its will no longer acts upon the body but the impression received by the perispirit from the strange Spirit does not vanishes instantaneously and thus continues to influence the material organization for some time still. In the case of our ill young lady it is through sadness, tears, sleepiness, insomnia and vague disturbs that will be produced as a consequence of her liberation but rest assured and make sure she and her family understand that this will not bring her any danger. It is my duty to successfully carry out the task I started with you. It is now necessary to act upon the Spirit of the girl through a moralizing influence.
As for yourselves, my friends, continue to attentively observe all of these phenomena. Study them unstoppably since it is a vast open field before you. Have all these things known and the Spiritist ideas will gradually penetrate the soul of your brothers that were found incredulous or indifferent by the surge of the Spiritist Doctrine.
Little Carita
OBSERVATION: We owe a fair tribute of praise to our brothers from Marmande by their care, prudence and enlightened devotion that they demonstrated in these circumstances. For such a brilliant success they were rewarded by God in their faith, perseverance and moral selflessness since they did not seek any satisfaction to their self-love. Things would have been different had they stained their good actions with pride. God withdraws the gifts from anyone that does not use them with humility. The most eminent mediumistic faculties are perverted, altered and extinguished under the domain of pride because the good Spirits remove their support. Deceptions, annoyances and effective disgraces in this life are many times the consequence of deviations of such faculty from its providential objective. We could mention several sad examples among mediums that anticipated the most beautiful hopes. It is never too much to revisit the instructions found in The Imitation of the Gospels, numbers 285, 326 and next, 333, 392 and the following ones. We recommend the obsessing Spirit above, Julio, to every good Spiritist in order to give him the strength needed to his good resolutions and to allow him to understand the rewards of doing good.
Vigilant guardian of the unhappy infancy I come to join your work, uniting my efforts with yours to free this young lady from the cruel claws of a bad Spirit. The remedy is in your hands. Wake, evoke and pray tirelessly until the complete cure.
Little Carita
This Spirit that uses the name Little Carita is that of a young lady that I knew and that died at an early age and that had given proof of the most angelical character and rare goodness. The evocation of the obsessing Spirit rendered only a lot of gross cursing that is useless to repeat. Our exhortations passed by him with no effect.
Friends, do not be discouraged! He feels strong because he sees your pain with his rude language. Abstain from preaching to him for now. Talk to him in a familiar and friendly way. You will gain his trust and later on you will be able to talk seriously. Perseverance, friends!
Your guides.
Following those recommendations our questions became lighter but were responded in the same tone. In the following day, Janeiro 12th, the crisis lasted such a long time and had such a violence as those of the preceding days. It lasted about an hour and a half. The girl would reject the Spirit, stand up in bed and say: Leave me! Leave me! The bedroom was full of people. Some of us were close to the bed to attentively observe the phases of the crisis. At that evening we received the following communication:
-My friends I advise you to follow this obsession step by step since this is a new event to you. Your observations will be of great help considering that similar cases may multiply and you will have to intervene. This is a purely physical obsession that I believe will be followed by a psychological but harmless one. You will soon witness happy moments amidst those tortures imposed by that bad Spirit. You must recognize the hands of the good Spirits there. If the tortures remain you will notice a complete paralysis of the body after the crisis and after paralyzing a soothing and ecstatic feeling that will relieve the pain of obsession. Observe carefully. Other symptoms will manifest and you will find in them new subjects of study. The Lord told his angels: Take my words to the children of men. We touched the earth with the stick and earth generates prodigies. Bend my children. It is the manifestation of the Eternal omnipotence. Friends, watch and pray. We are near you and close to the bed of sufferings to dry out the tears.
Little Carita
Once evoked the Spirit Julio was less adversarial than on the day before. Truth be said we responded to his witty comments with others and that pleased him. Before he left us we made him promise that he would not be so tough on his victim. He said: “I will be moderate”. As for ourselves we promised that we would pray for him. He then responded: “I accept although I do not understand the validity of that.”
Question to the Spirit: - Since you don’t know prayer would you like to get to know it and write one that we would dictate to you? – A. He then wrote the following that was dictated by us: “Oh God, I promise to open my soul to regret. Have a ray of love to my fellow human beings shinning upon my heart, the only thing that can purify me. As a guarantee to that desire I promise hereafter…” (The final part of the sentence would be: to stop my obsession, but the Spirit did not write these final words). He then added: “Watch it! You want to trick me. Be careful. I don’t like traps. You are too fast.” And because we wanted to know the origin of his vengeance and his jealousy he answered: “Don’t you ever talk to me about the girl. You can only keep me away from you.”
The struggle of the 13th only lasted half an hour and the fight was followed by smiles of happiness, ecstasy and tears of joy. The girl had her eyes wide open, forming a remarkable picture; she would raise her hands, stand up in bed and look at the sky. The predictions of Little Carita were happening in all points. In the evocation later at night the Spirit Julio seemed kinder and more submissive and again promised to moderate his attacks against the girl whose story he never told us. He even promised to pray.
The guide of the medium told us this: “Do not trust much his words. They can be sincere but he can also be deceiving you to get rid of you. Be forearmed. Having him keeping his promises and if you have to criticize him later do kindly so that he can notice the good feelings that you have towards him.”
Louis David
On the 14th the crisis was as short as on the previous evening and less lively. It was equally followed by manifestations of joy and ecstasy. The tears rolling down on the child’s face caused an undisguised emotion in the audience.
Gathered later on, at 8pm as we habitually did, we received the following communication for starters:
“As you must have seen, something more sensitive has reached the girl. I must tell you that our presence has a great influence upon the Spirit. We remind him about yesterday’s promise. The girl learned more during the ecstasy and tried to repel the attacks of the aggressor. Do not take short cuts during Julio’s evocation. Avoid the details that lead to fatigue on both sides. Be frank and benevolent with him and you will conquer him earlier. He moved a large step ahead as we noticed in this latest crisis.
Little Carita
1.Evocation of Julio – A. I am here, gentlemen.
2.How are you feeling today? – A. Good.
3.Have you felt the effects of our prayers? – A. Not much.
4.Forgive your victim and that will give you a satisfaction that is not familiar to you. That is what we feel when we forgive offenses. – A. Me? Much to the contrary. I found satisfaction in the vengeance for an offense. I call that paying the debts.
5.But the hatred in your soul is a painful feeling that is far from giving you peace. – A. Would you believe if I told you that it is the attachment?
6.We do believe. However kindly explain how do you conciliate such an affection with the ongoing vengeance that you carry out? What was to you the Spirit of this child in another life and what is it that she does to deserve such a punishment? – A. It is useless to ask. I have already told you: do not mention the girl.
7.That is fine. We will no longer talk about it but we must congratulate you for the change. We are happy for that. – A. I made progress in your school… What will the others say? They will boo and shout: Ah you became and hermit!
8.Why bother with the mockery if you have the laurel of the good Spirits? – A. True.
9.Look. In order to demonstrate to your former friends that you have definitely broke up with them you must completely forgive from now on; you must be generous and good and absolutely leave our good young lady alone. – A. My dear Sir that is impossible. That cannot happen just like that. Allow me to gradually leave behind what is now a necessity to me. Are you aware that if I suddenly stopped that would expose you? You could see me coming again. However, I want to promise you this: spare the girl and torture her tomorrow less than I did today. My condition, however, is that I am not forced to come here. I want to come and respond to your call freely and if I fail my word I agree to lose that favor. I must say that the change that you see in me is due to this shiny figure that you have near you and that is also by the girl’s bed every day, at the time of struggle. We are touch irrespective of ourselves. Without that you and your saints would have trouble for some time. (The Spirit referred to Little Carita).
10.Is she beautiful then? – A. Beautiful, very much so, yes!
11.But is she alone near you during the struggle? – A. No, no. There are others, the former ones from the body, the friends. They never laugh but now I make fun of them.
OBSERVATION: The questioner wanted undoubtedly to talk about other good Spirits but Julio mentioned the other bad ones, his companions.
12.Let us go! Before you leave we promise to pray for you tonight. – A. I want ten prayers. Say it from the bottom of your hearts and tomorrow you will be glad for me.
13.Be it ten then. And since you are in such a good mood would you like to write a three word prayer from the heart dictated by me? – A. By all means.
The Spirit then wrote: “Oh God, give me the strength to forgive.”
On January 15th the crisis happened at 5 pm but lasted just fifteen minutes. It was a weak fight followed by ecstasy, smiles and tears that expressed joy and happiness. At the evening meeting Little Carita gave us the following communication:
“My dear protégé, as expected the Spiritist phenomena before your eyes changes, improves every day, becoming lighter and less serious. An advice to begin with: You must use this as a subject matter for study from the point of view of physical tortures and moral lessons. Do not make external signals to the eyes of the world and do not use useless words. What does it matter to you what others will say? Leave the discussions to the idle ones. The element of your private and serious conversations must be the practical objective of liberation of this girl and the improvement of the Spirit that obsesses her. Do not talk about cure out loud. Ask God for that in the silence of your prayer.
I am happy to tell you that this obsession is coming to an end. Julio improved sensibly. I also acted upon the Spirit of the girl as much as I could so that these so much opposing vibes became more compatible. The combination of their fluids will no longer offer any danger with respect to the physical organization and the abandonment that this young body felt in contact with that fluid disappears notably. Your work is not finished. Everyone’s prayer must always precede and follow the evocation.”
Little Carita
After the evocation of Julio and the prayer in which he was classified as a bad Spirit he says:
-I am here. In the name of justice I request to have some words changed in your prayer. I changed my actions. You should change the way you classify me.
-You are right. We will not make the same mistake again. Have you come on your own today?
-Yes, I came freely. I kept my promises.
-Now that you are calm and full of good feelings would you agree in telling us the reasons for you to be so harsh on the girl?
A quick glance over my vagabond life: I was born amidst the miseries of life in addiction and soon I experienced the disgusting encounters of that kind of life. I was fed with milk and all kinds of beverages that come with those passions. I wandered around without faith, without law and without honor. Anything is good when one has to live wandering around. The hen of the peasant as well as the sheep of the shepherd was my meal.
Marauder was my occupation, when chance no doubt since I do not believe that Providence watches over such scoundrels, took me and equipped me. Proud of the rasped costume which replaced my rags, the halberd on my arm, I joined a band of bad companions, living at the expense of a fearful lord who, in turn, exploited his countrymen; but what mattered to us the source of money and provisions that flowed in our hands! I will not go into detail about the facts that are personal to me: they are wicked, hideous and unworthy of being told. Do you believe that educated in such a school like that one can become a good man?
Split by death the gang reunited in the spiritual world. Far from avoiding the opportunities of doing bad we sought them. In my lost thoughts I found someone to turn into my victim and I did that. You know the rest. Please ladies and gentlemen, pray also for that gang. You are sometimes surprised by the fact that certain regions have more bad people than others. It is very simple. They do not want to move away from each other and then fall onto a region like a cloud of locust. To the wolves, the forest, to the doves, the cote.
I had lived my earthly life in the times of Louis XIII. My last existence was in the Empire. I was a guerrilla. I liked very much the blunderbuss and the adorned conic hat. I loved danger, theft and the adventures. Sad taste! But what else to do? I was used to live with those bands. The change must astonish you; it is the works of an angel. I promise you nothing for tomorrow. You will judge me for my actions. A prayer please. As for myself I will say one:
-Little angel, open thy wings; fly to the throne of the Lord; ask to have me forgiven having my regret laid by your feet.
Julio
Q – Since you are in such a good path pray for the poor girl…
A – I cannot… it would be derision or a cruelty to see the executioner embracing the victim.
Next day, January 16th, the girl had no crisis but only a stomach ache. To our eyes it was her liberation. Later on at 8pm the Spirit Julio answered our call and gave the following communication:
-My friends, allow me to call you that. I, the obsessing Spirit, the bad Spirit, astute and perverse; I who was deep in the mud of evil a few days ago, I will preach you with the help of the angel. I am surprised myself with such a change and wonder if this is me. I believed that every feeling had disappeared in my soul but there was still a thread that vibrated. The angel guessed and touched it. I begin to see and feel. I am horrified by evil. I looked over my past and only saw crimes. A kind voice told me: wait; observe the hoy and happiness of the good Spirits; purify yourself; forgive instead of revenge; love instead of hate. I will also love you myself if you want to love and become better. I felt touched. I now understand the happiness that everyone will fell when they learn to practice charity. Little lady (he was addressing the child present at the session) you that I had chosen as my prey like the voucher preys the dove, pray for me, and that the name of the reproached one may disappear from your memory. I received the baptism of love from the hands of an angel of the Lord and today I dress the tunic of innocence. Poor child may your prayers addressed to the Lord in my favor soon free me from the remorse that will chase me like a well-deserved atonement.
-My friends, please keep praying for my miserable companions that chase me with their malicious envy because I escape them. Still yesterday I asked myself about what they thought of me. Today I can tell them: I won. My past is forgiven because I was able to repent. Do as I did. Engage in the battle against evil that keeps you slaved to this place of torment and desperation and leave it as winners. If your hand is stained by the blood of crime, like mine, it will also take you the sacred water of prayer that washes the stigmas of the sinner. God, forgive me!
Julio
On January 17th and following Julio’s promise, the girl experienced no ill-feeling and did not feel bad at all even in her stomach. Little Carita announced that she would still go endure a moral test at 5 pm for a few days or during her sleep, but that would not be painful to her and the only symptoms would be smiles and sweet tears and that is what really happened for two days. The following days showed a total absence of any crisis. Yet we still watched and prayed for the girl. On February 18th Little Carita gave us the following instruction:
-My good friends, have no fear. The obsession is over and very much so. It is an order of strange things to you but soon it will all seem very natural as perhaps a consequence of this obsession but not the works of Julio. Some developments are needed here for your instruction. Now that you know the Doctrine obsession or subjugation of the material being is no longer a supernatural phenomenon to you but only a different character of the organic diseases. The subjugating Spirit penetrates the perispirit of the person that is to be acted upon. The perispirit of the obsessed receives the fluidic body of the Spirit as an envelope and that is how the person is thoroughly hit. The material body experiences the pressure indirectly imposed. I seemed strange that the soul could have physically acted upon the animated matter. Yet the soul is the true actor of all those facts. Intelligence and will are the attributes of the soul. It acts from that will and the agent is the perispirit that operates like an instrument utilized by the soul. The physical discomfort is just apparent but the fluidic combination that your senses cannot detect hides an infinite number of mysteries that will be revealed with the progress of the Doctrine, considered from a scientific point of view.
When the Spirit abandons its victim its will no longer acts upon the body but the impression received by the perispirit from the strange Spirit does not vanishes instantaneously and thus continues to influence the material organization for some time still. In the case of our ill young lady it is through sadness, tears, sleepiness, insomnia and vague disturbs that will be produced as a consequence of her liberation but rest assured and make sure she and her family understand that this will not bring her any danger. It is my duty to successfully carry out the task I started with you. It is now necessary to act upon the Spirit of the girl through a moralizing influence.
As for yourselves, my friends, continue to attentively observe all of these phenomena. Study them unstoppably since it is a vast open field before you. Have all these things known and the Spiritist ideas will gradually penetrate the soul of your brothers that were found incredulous or indifferent by the surge of the Spiritist Doctrine.
Little Carita
OBSERVATION: We owe a fair tribute of praise to our brothers from Marmande by their care, prudence and enlightened devotion that they demonstrated in these circumstances. For such a brilliant success they were rewarded by God in their faith, perseverance and moral selflessness since they did not seek any satisfaction to their self-love. Things would have been different had they stained their good actions with pride. God withdraws the gifts from anyone that does not use them with humility. The most eminent mediumistic faculties are perverted, altered and extinguished under the domain of pride because the good Spirits remove their support. Deceptions, annoyances and effective disgraces in this life are many times the consequence of deviations of such faculty from its providential objective. We could mention several sad examples among mediums that anticipated the most beautiful hopes. It is never too much to revisit the instructions found in The Imitation of the Gospels, numbers 285, 326 and next, 333, 392 and the following ones. We recommend the obsessing Spirit above, Julio, to every good Spiritist in order to give him the strength needed to his good resolutions and to allow him to understand the rewards of doing good.
A few refutations
History will register the singular contradictors of Spiritism of whom we will give some examples below. We got the ordination of Mr. Bishop of Langres from the Department of Haute-Marne, containing the following passage:
“…Faith, that is what people who call themselves friends of humanity, freedom and progress struggle to remove from the heart of Christian populations at any cost, people that in reality must be taken as the most dangerous enemies of society. It is our duty to warn you, dearest brothers, we that are in charge of watching your souls so that our warnings make you prudent and cautious since such a hateful, broad and dangerous conspiracy has never been seen before and more wisely, that is, more satanically organized against the Catholic faith than the one we see today. It is the conspiracy of secret societies that operate in the shadows in order to annihilate Catholicism if they could; conspiracy of Protestantism that through an active propaganda tries to sneak in everywhere; conspiracy of the rational and anti-Christians philosophers that reject without reason and fight against every reason, the supernatural and the revealed religion and that strive to make their false and dismal doctrine prevail in the literate world; conspiracy of the Spiritist societies that through the practical superstition of the evocation of the dead incite others to engage with the perfidious malice of the spirit of lie and sin; conspiracy of an impious or corrupting literature; conspiracy of the bad journals and books that fearfully propagate in the shadow or under the pretext of a freedom boasted to be the progress of the century as the conquest of what they call modern spirit that is not but an encouragement to the genius of evil, a fair reason for pain of a Catholic nation, a trap and a very imminent danger to all followers of every class that are not sufficiently instructed in matters of religion and whose number is large, unfortunately; finally, conspiracy of that practical materialism that only sees and seeks the interest of the body and the physical well-being; that is not concerned with the soul and its destiny as if it did not exist and whose pernicious example easily seduces and drags the masses. These are, dearest brothers, at first sight, the dangers that faith encounters today etc.”
We are in perfect agreement with Mr. Bishop with respect to the dismal consequences of materialism but it is a surprise to see him confusing in the same reproach materialism that denies everything: the soul, the future, God, the Providence – with Spiritism that comes to fight against materialism and succeeds through the material proofs that are given of the existence of the soul, precisely with the very support of those supposedly superstitious evocations.
Will it be because Spiritism triumphs where the Church is powerless? Would Mr. Bishop share the opinion of that cleric that said from the pulpit: “I prefer to see you out of the Church than with Spiritism” And the other one that said: “I prefer an Atheist that believes nothing than a Spiritist that believes in God and in the soul.” It is an opinion like any other and taste is not to be discussed. Whatever Mr. Bishop’s opinion is about that point we would greatly appreciate his answer to the following two questions: “How come the Church, despite all of its powerful means of making the truth shine to the eyes of everyone, could not stop materialism while Spiritism that was born yesterday converts hardened non-believers on a daily basis? Is the means by which a goal is reached worse than that by which it is not reached?"
Mr. Bishop enumerates a large number of conspiracies that loom against religion. He certainly did not think properly; through such a threatening image he works precisely against his own objective and may even provoke thoughts that are harmful. By hearing him the deduction is that soon the conspirators will be in larger numbers.
Now, what would happen to a State if the whole nation conspired? If religion sees itself attacked by such a large number of flanks that is not a testimony in favor of the sympathies that it finds. By saying that the orthodox faith is endangered is a confession of its argumentations. If it is founded on the absolute truth it must not fear any contrary argument. Sounding the alarm in such a case is a lack of skill.
“…Faith, that is what people who call themselves friends of humanity, freedom and progress struggle to remove from the heart of Christian populations at any cost, people that in reality must be taken as the most dangerous enemies of society. It is our duty to warn you, dearest brothers, we that are in charge of watching your souls so that our warnings make you prudent and cautious since such a hateful, broad and dangerous conspiracy has never been seen before and more wisely, that is, more satanically organized against the Catholic faith than the one we see today. It is the conspiracy of secret societies that operate in the shadows in order to annihilate Catholicism if they could; conspiracy of Protestantism that through an active propaganda tries to sneak in everywhere; conspiracy of the rational and anti-Christians philosophers that reject without reason and fight against every reason, the supernatural and the revealed religion and that strive to make their false and dismal doctrine prevail in the literate world; conspiracy of the Spiritist societies that through the practical superstition of the evocation of the dead incite others to engage with the perfidious malice of the spirit of lie and sin; conspiracy of an impious or corrupting literature; conspiracy of the bad journals and books that fearfully propagate in the shadow or under the pretext of a freedom boasted to be the progress of the century as the conquest of what they call modern spirit that is not but an encouragement to the genius of evil, a fair reason for pain of a Catholic nation, a trap and a very imminent danger to all followers of every class that are not sufficiently instructed in matters of religion and whose number is large, unfortunately; finally, conspiracy of that practical materialism that only sees and seeks the interest of the body and the physical well-being; that is not concerned with the soul and its destiny as if it did not exist and whose pernicious example easily seduces and drags the masses. These are, dearest brothers, at first sight, the dangers that faith encounters today etc.”
We are in perfect agreement with Mr. Bishop with respect to the dismal consequences of materialism but it is a surprise to see him confusing in the same reproach materialism that denies everything: the soul, the future, God, the Providence – with Spiritism that comes to fight against materialism and succeeds through the material proofs that are given of the existence of the soul, precisely with the very support of those supposedly superstitious evocations.
Will it be because Spiritism triumphs where the Church is powerless? Would Mr. Bishop share the opinion of that cleric that said from the pulpit: “I prefer to see you out of the Church than with Spiritism” And the other one that said: “I prefer an Atheist that believes nothing than a Spiritist that believes in God and in the soul.” It is an opinion like any other and taste is not to be discussed. Whatever Mr. Bishop’s opinion is about that point we would greatly appreciate his answer to the following two questions: “How come the Church, despite all of its powerful means of making the truth shine to the eyes of everyone, could not stop materialism while Spiritism that was born yesterday converts hardened non-believers on a daily basis? Is the means by which a goal is reached worse than that by which it is not reached?"
Mr. Bishop enumerates a large number of conspiracies that loom against religion. He certainly did not think properly; through such a threatening image he works precisely against his own objective and may even provoke thoughts that are harmful. By hearing him the deduction is that soon the conspirators will be in larger numbers.
Now, what would happen to a State if the whole nation conspired? If religion sees itself attacked by such a large number of flanks that is not a testimony in favor of the sympathies that it finds. By saying that the orthodox faith is endangered is a confession of its argumentations. If it is founded on the absolute truth it must not fear any contrary argument. Sounding the alarm in such a case is a lack of skill.
In a Catechism of perseverance at the Diocese of Langres in regards to the ordination reported above a lesson about Spiritism was given as a matter to be handled by the students. Here is the textual narrative of one of them:
“Spiritism is the works of the devil that invented it. Dealing with Spiritism is the same as to enter into direct contact with the devil. Diabolic superstition! God sometimes allows such things in order to revive the faith of the followers. The devil pretends to be good, sacred, and cites texts of the Scriptures.”
Such a means of reviving the faith seems to be a very bad choice.
“Tertullian that lived in the second century says that they made the goats and tables talk; it is the essence of idolatry. Those satanic operations were rare in certain Christian countries and are very common today. Such demoniac power showed its full shine with the surge of Protestantism.”
These are kids well convinced of the great power of the devil. Isn’t that the case that it should have made them doubt a little bit the power of God when one sees the devil winning so many times?
“Spiritism was born in America at the heart of a Protestant family called Fox. The devil showed up first with scaring knocks. They became impatient and tried to find out about the origin of those knocks. One day Mr. Fox’s daughter started saying: Knock here, knock there and the noises happened where she had ordered.”
Always the excitement against the Protestants! We then have children educated in the hatred against their fellow citizens sometimes members of the same family! Fortunately this is countered by the spirit of tolerance that reigns in our days without which we would see the renovation of the bloody scenes of past centuries.
“That heresy vulgarized soon; it soon counted on five hundred thousand followers. The invisible Spirits were given to do all sorts of things. Just after the request of a simple creature they would move tables covered by hundreds of books; hands without bodies were seen. That is what happened in America and came to France through Spain. Soon the Spirit was forced by God and the angels to acknowledge that it was the devil so that righteous people would not fall in their traps.”
We believe to be well aware of the march followed by Spiritism and never heard that it came to France through Spain. Would that be the case to rectify the history of Spiritism?
From the confession of the adversaries of Spiritism one can see how fast the new idea gained terrain. An idea that has just appeared and conquered five hundred thousand followers is not without value and demonstrates the path that it will follow later on. That is how ten years later one of them increases the number to twenty million in France alone and forecasts that the heresy will soon gain another twenty million (see The Spiritist Review, July 1863). But then if everybody is heretic what is it that will be left to orthodoxy? Wouldn’t that be the case to apply the maxim: When everybody is wrong everybody is right? What would the instructor have answered if a young boy from his juvenile auditorium had framed the following question: how come St. Peter in his first preaching converted only three thousand Jews while Spiritism that is the works of the devil has immediately made five hundred thousand followers? Would Satan be more powerful than God?
He would perhaps have answered: The reason is that they were Protestants.
“Satan says that he is a good Spirit but he is a liar. One day they wanted the table to speak; it did not want to answer and they thought that the presence of a priest precluded that. Finally two knocks were heard warning that the Spirit was there. They asked:
“Spiritism is the works of the devil that invented it. Dealing with Spiritism is the same as to enter into direct contact with the devil. Diabolic superstition! God sometimes allows such things in order to revive the faith of the followers. The devil pretends to be good, sacred, and cites texts of the Scriptures.”
Such a means of reviving the faith seems to be a very bad choice.
“Tertullian that lived in the second century says that they made the goats and tables talk; it is the essence of idolatry. Those satanic operations were rare in certain Christian countries and are very common today. Such demoniac power showed its full shine with the surge of Protestantism.”
These are kids well convinced of the great power of the devil. Isn’t that the case that it should have made them doubt a little bit the power of God when one sees the devil winning so many times?
“Spiritism was born in America at the heart of a Protestant family called Fox. The devil showed up first with scaring knocks. They became impatient and tried to find out about the origin of those knocks. One day Mr. Fox’s daughter started saying: Knock here, knock there and the noises happened where she had ordered.”
Always the excitement against the Protestants! We then have children educated in the hatred against their fellow citizens sometimes members of the same family! Fortunately this is countered by the spirit of tolerance that reigns in our days without which we would see the renovation of the bloody scenes of past centuries.
“That heresy vulgarized soon; it soon counted on five hundred thousand followers. The invisible Spirits were given to do all sorts of things. Just after the request of a simple creature they would move tables covered by hundreds of books; hands without bodies were seen. That is what happened in America and came to France through Spain. Soon the Spirit was forced by God and the angels to acknowledge that it was the devil so that righteous people would not fall in their traps.”
We believe to be well aware of the march followed by Spiritism and never heard that it came to France through Spain. Would that be the case to rectify the history of Spiritism?
From the confession of the adversaries of Spiritism one can see how fast the new idea gained terrain. An idea that has just appeared and conquered five hundred thousand followers is not without value and demonstrates the path that it will follow later on. That is how ten years later one of them increases the number to twenty million in France alone and forecasts that the heresy will soon gain another twenty million (see The Spiritist Review, July 1863). But then if everybody is heretic what is it that will be left to orthodoxy? Wouldn’t that be the case to apply the maxim: When everybody is wrong everybody is right? What would the instructor have answered if a young boy from his juvenile auditorium had framed the following question: how come St. Peter in his first preaching converted only three thousand Jews while Spiritism that is the works of the devil has immediately made five hundred thousand followers? Would Satan be more powerful than God?
He would perhaps have answered: The reason is that they were Protestants.
“Satan says that he is a good Spirit but he is a liar. One day they wanted the table to speak; it did not want to answer and they thought that the presence of a priest precluded that. Finally two knocks were heard warning that the Spirit was there. They asked:
-Is Jesus the son of God? – A. No.
-Do you recognize the sacred Eucharistic? – A. Yes.
- Has Jesus Christ’s death brought your more suffering? – A. Yes.”
- Do you like what I hold in my hand (medals of the St. Virgin)? – A. No. I wanted to inspire trust in you. Hell calls for me. Goodbye!”
- Do you want to join?
- I want to possess you. Purgatory does not exist. Villains, bad people, all that in heavens.”
- Give us proofs.
Then there are priests that attend such diabolic sessions? The terrible boy could have asked why, when they come, they do not scare the devil away?
“This is a diabolic scene. Here is what Mr. Allan Kardec said: The lewdness of the mystifying Spirits goes beyond imagination. There was two Spirits, one representing good and the other evil. After a few months one said:
-I am tired of repeating mellow words to you, words that I do not accept.
-You are then the evil Spirit? – A. Yes.
-Talking about God, the virgin and the saints, doesn’t it make you suffer? – A. Yes.
-Do you want good or evil? – A. Evil.
-Aren’t you the Spirit that was speaking before? – A. No.
-Where are you? – A. In hell.
-Do you suffer? – A. Yes.
-Always? – A. Yes.
-Are you submitted to Jesus Christ? – A. No, to Lucifer.
-Is he eternal? – A. No.
This report is undoubtedly dramatic but someone that could demonstrate any involvement from us with such a thing would be very skillful. It is so sad to see what people do convey give faith to others. They forget the fact that these children will grow and think. A faith that is founded on such proofs is right to fear conspiracies.
“We have just seen the evil Spiritism forced to confess what it is. This is another statement written by the pencil in the hands of a medium: - if you want to give yourself to me in soul, Spirit and body I will satisfy your desires; if you want to be with me write your name below mine. He then wrote: Giefle or Satan. The medium then trembled and did not write. Every session ended with these words:
The devil wanted people to cut a deal with him.
-Give me your soul!
-Who are you?
-I am the devil.
-What do you want?
What will those children say when they witness some evocations and instead of a deal with the hellish the hear this from the Spirits: “Love God above all and your neighbor as yourselves; practice the charity taught by Christ; be good to all even to your enemies; pray to God and follow the commandments so that you may be happy in this world and in the next”?
“All of those prodigies, all of those extraordinary things come from the Spirits of darkness. Mr. Home, an eager Spiritist, tell us that the ground sometimes shakes under his feet, apartment buildings tremble, people shiver; an invisible hand touches your knee and shoulders; a table jumps. People then ask:
-Are you there? –A. Yes.
And the table lifts twice!”
Once more all that is very dramatic. However among the listeners more than one has undoubtedly wished to see that and will not miss the first opportunity. Susceptible young ladies of a delicate built will also be found, some that before the slightest sway will see the hand of the devil and will feel ill.
“All these things are ridiculous. The sacred Church, the mother of all of us, makes us see that it is all just a lie.”
If all that is ridiculous and deceptive why then giving so much importance to that? Why scaring the children with scenes that have nothing of real? If there is lie isn’t that in those very images?
“For example, the evocation of the dead. We cannot believe that it is our relatives that are talking to us; it is Satan speaking and going by the name of a dead person. We are certainly in communication through the communion of the saints. We have examples of apparitions of the dead in the life of the saints but that is a rare miracle of the divine wisdom. Here what is said: Demons sometimes manifest as if they were dead people and sometimes as if they were saints.”
“Sometimes” is not the same as always hence it may happen that the communicating Spirit is not a demon.
“They can do many other things. One day a medium that could not draw reproduced the image of Jesus Christ and the Saint Virgin having the hand led by a Spirit; the images were presented to some of our best artists and were considered worthy of being exposed.”
On hearing that one student might think: Ah if a Spirit could guide my hand to do my homework and win an award! Let us try!
“Saul consulted with the medium of Endor and God allowed Samuel to appear to him to say: Why do you bother me in my sleep? Tomorrow you will be with me in the tomb. Our Sauls of theater could well think about this story. St. Philip Neri says: If the Saint Virgin or even Jesus Christ shows up spit on their faces because it would just be a deception of the devil to induce you in error.”
What is then the meaning of the apparition of the Hail Lady of La Salette to two poor children? According to this instruction of catechism she should have been spat on the face.
“Our Saint Father Pope Pius IX expressly prohibited these things. Mr. Bishop of Langres and many others did the same. Life is at risk. Two old men committed suicide because the Spirits had told them that they would enjoy eternal happiness after death. Danger to reason. Several mediums went mad and in a psychiatric home there was more than forty that went crazy.”
We still don’t know the papal bull that expressly prohibits to get involved with such things. If it did exist Mr. Bishop of Langres and the others would not have failed to mention it. The story about the two old men that was mentioned is inaccurate. It was proved through official documents presented to the court and notably through letters written by them before their death that they were committing suicide for lack of money and their fear of becoming miserable (see The Spiritist Review, April 1863). The story of forty persons in a psychiatric homes is truer. It would be very difficult to justify by the name of those pretense mad persons that a first newspaper indicated to be four, a second one forty, a third one four hundred and a fifth said that they were working in the amplification of the home. An instructor of catechism should collect his historical information from another source other than gossips from newspapers.
The children have confidence in stories that are told seriously. However the stronger the confidence the greater the contrary reaction later on when they get to know the truth. This is said generally and not only with respect to Spiritism. If we analyze the work of that young man let it be clear that it is not the opinion of a child that we refute but the one that constitutes the summary of the narrative. If all instructions of that kind were carefully investigated we would be less surprised by the fruits that are picked up later on. It is necessary a lot of care and experience to educate children since we cannot imagine the reach of a single imprudent word that like a bad weed germinates in those young imaginations like in a virgin soil.
As it seems the adversaries of Spiritism don’t think it is too spread yet. One could say that they are imperceptibly impelled to engineer means of propagating it ever further. After the sermons whose result is well-known we could not find a more efficient way of doing that than turning it into homework of lessons of catechism. The sermons act upon the departing generations. The lessons above act upon the newcomers. We would be wrong to assess them negatively.
“This is a diabolic scene. Here is what Mr. Allan Kardec said: The lewdness of the mystifying Spirits goes beyond imagination. There was two Spirits, one representing good and the other evil. After a few months one said:
-I am tired of repeating mellow words to you, words that I do not accept.
-You are then the evil Spirit? – A. Yes.
-Talking about God, the virgin and the saints, doesn’t it make you suffer? – A. Yes.
-Do you want good or evil? – A. Evil.
-Aren’t you the Spirit that was speaking before? – A. No.
-Where are you? – A. In hell.
-Do you suffer? – A. Yes.
-Always? – A. Yes.
-Are you submitted to Jesus Christ? – A. No, to Lucifer.
-Is he eternal? – A. No.
This report is undoubtedly dramatic but someone that could demonstrate any involvement from us with such a thing would be very skillful. It is so sad to see what people do convey give faith to others. They forget the fact that these children will grow and think. A faith that is founded on such proofs is right to fear conspiracies.
“We have just seen the evil Spiritism forced to confess what it is. This is another statement written by the pencil in the hands of a medium: - if you want to give yourself to me in soul, Spirit and body I will satisfy your desires; if you want to be with me write your name below mine. He then wrote: Giefle or Satan. The medium then trembled and did not write. Every session ended with these words:
The devil wanted people to cut a deal with him.
-Give me your soul!
-Who are you?
-I am the devil.
-What do you want?
What will those children say when they witness some evocations and instead of a deal with the hellish the hear this from the Spirits: “Love God above all and your neighbor as yourselves; practice the charity taught by Christ; be good to all even to your enemies; pray to God and follow the commandments so that you may be happy in this world and in the next”?
“All of those prodigies, all of those extraordinary things come from the Spirits of darkness. Mr. Home, an eager Spiritist, tell us that the ground sometimes shakes under his feet, apartment buildings tremble, people shiver; an invisible hand touches your knee and shoulders; a table jumps. People then ask:
-Are you there? –A. Yes.
And the table lifts twice!”
Once more all that is very dramatic. However among the listeners more than one has undoubtedly wished to see that and will not miss the first opportunity. Susceptible young ladies of a delicate built will also be found, some that before the slightest sway will see the hand of the devil and will feel ill.
“All these things are ridiculous. The sacred Church, the mother of all of us, makes us see that it is all just a lie.”
If all that is ridiculous and deceptive why then giving so much importance to that? Why scaring the children with scenes that have nothing of real? If there is lie isn’t that in those very images?
“For example, the evocation of the dead. We cannot believe that it is our relatives that are talking to us; it is Satan speaking and going by the name of a dead person. We are certainly in communication through the communion of the saints. We have examples of apparitions of the dead in the life of the saints but that is a rare miracle of the divine wisdom. Here what is said: Demons sometimes manifest as if they were dead people and sometimes as if they were saints.”
“Sometimes” is not the same as always hence it may happen that the communicating Spirit is not a demon.
“They can do many other things. One day a medium that could not draw reproduced the image of Jesus Christ and the Saint Virgin having the hand led by a Spirit; the images were presented to some of our best artists and were considered worthy of being exposed.”
On hearing that one student might think: Ah if a Spirit could guide my hand to do my homework and win an award! Let us try!
“Saul consulted with the medium of Endor and God allowed Samuel to appear to him to say: Why do you bother me in my sleep? Tomorrow you will be with me in the tomb. Our Sauls of theater could well think about this story. St. Philip Neri says: If the Saint Virgin or even Jesus Christ shows up spit on their faces because it would just be a deception of the devil to induce you in error.”
What is then the meaning of the apparition of the Hail Lady of La Salette to two poor children? According to this instruction of catechism she should have been spat on the face.
“Our Saint Father Pope Pius IX expressly prohibited these things. Mr. Bishop of Langres and many others did the same. Life is at risk. Two old men committed suicide because the Spirits had told them that they would enjoy eternal happiness after death. Danger to reason. Several mediums went mad and in a psychiatric home there was more than forty that went crazy.”
We still don’t know the papal bull that expressly prohibits to get involved with such things. If it did exist Mr. Bishop of Langres and the others would not have failed to mention it. The story about the two old men that was mentioned is inaccurate. It was proved through official documents presented to the court and notably through letters written by them before their death that they were committing suicide for lack of money and their fear of becoming miserable (see The Spiritist Review, April 1863). The story of forty persons in a psychiatric homes is truer. It would be very difficult to justify by the name of those pretense mad persons that a first newspaper indicated to be four, a second one forty, a third one four hundred and a fifth said that they were working in the amplification of the home. An instructor of catechism should collect his historical information from another source other than gossips from newspapers.
The children have confidence in stories that are told seriously. However the stronger the confidence the greater the contrary reaction later on when they get to know the truth. This is said generally and not only with respect to Spiritism. If we analyze the work of that young man let it be clear that it is not the opinion of a child that we refute but the one that constitutes the summary of the narrative. If all instructions of that kind were carefully investigated we would be less surprised by the fruits that are picked up later on. It is necessary a lot of care and experience to educate children since we cannot imagine the reach of a single imprudent word that like a bad weed germinates in those young imaginations like in a virgin soil.
As it seems the adversaries of Spiritism don’t think it is too spread yet. One could say that they are imperceptibly impelled to engineer means of propagating it ever further. After the sermons whose result is well-known we could not find a more efficient way of doing that than turning it into homework of lessons of catechism. The sermons act upon the departing generations. The lessons above act upon the newcomers. We would be wrong to assess them negatively.
The following report is a textual transcription of an original letter that we hold in our hands.
“Viviers, April 10th 1741.
No one in this world, my dear de Noailles, can tell you better than I can about everything that took place in Sister Mary’s cell and if the description you gave made us face ridicule in our town I want to share that with you. The power of truth will always make me face the fear of being taken by a visionary and an excessively believer. Therefore this is a summary of everything that I saw and heard during the four nights that I spent there together with more than forty people, all of them trustworthy. I will only mention the most remarkable events.
On March 23rd, the day of the Annunciation, I heard rumors that for three days a lot of noise was coming from Sister Mary’s cell; that the two Sisters from St. Domingo that live with her were so much horrified that they had sent for Father Chambon from St. Laurent; that when he arrived one hour past midnight to that cell he heard paintings knocking on walls, a basin with holy water moving around noisily and a chair that was placed in the middle of the room taken down six times. I confess, Sir, that after hearing those things I couldn’t help it and made fun of that. All the devotees were subjected to my criticism and since then I decided to spend the night following that Sister Mary, well persuaded that it would all be quiet in my presence or that I would discover the trickery.
I then in fact went to that home about 9 pm. I questioned many Sisters and in particular Sister Mary that seemed to be aware of the cause of all those noises but did not want to tell us. I then proceed to a very careful search of her room. I looked over and below her bed, the walls and paintings. Everything was examined very carefully and since I found nothing that could explain those noises I ordered that the room was cleared and that I was the only one authorized to return there. I then accommodated myself near the fireplace in a neighboring room; I left the door to the cell opened and placed a candle by the door sill so that from my place I could see almost the whole cell and a chair that I had left near the bed. At about 10 pm Mr. d’Entrevaux and Mr. Archambaud joined me and with them two other artisans from our town.
Around 11:30 pm I heard the chair moving and promptly ran to the room. Having found it down I lifted it and put it further from the patient’s bed since I did not want to lose the sight of the chair. Mr. d’Entrevaux and Mr. Archambaud did the same and soon after we saw it moving for the second time; the basin of holy water near the bed of Sister Mary at a height that could not be reached by her jingled several times and a painting knocked the wall three times. At that time I went to speak to the patient. I found her extremely depressed and from there she fell ill, losing consciousness and the control of her senses but the hearing. I attended her as a doctor myself; she soon recovered her senses with the application of lavender water. We heard the same noises every fifteen minutes and since the paintings were always found in the same condition I ordered the noisy one to knock three times and flip the painting; at that point I was obeyed. Sometime later I ordered that the painting should be flipped back and had the second proof that my orders were obeyed.
I noticed that the only noisy things in the cell were the chair, two paintings and the basin with holy water so that I had them removed. The noise then moved over to the images that we heard dragging several times and a small crucifix that was hanging on a nail on the wall. We made no secret about everything that we saw and heard and leave you to consider if I was not tricked in my vision. I induced the most skeptical persons into believing. We went there three nights in a role and that is what seemed remarkable to me. I only reported certain facts for it would take long to describe all the details. It should be enough to tell you that Messrs. Digoine, Bonfils, d’Entrevaux, Chambon, Faure, Allier, Aoust, Grange, Bouron, Bonnier, Fontenès, Robert and many others witnessed all that.
“The rumor around town was that Sister Mary could be the good actress of that comedy and that had changed the good opinion I had about her; I wanted even to be suspicious of foul play and although she is paralyzed as attested by our doctor and all of those that approach her and that ensure us that she hasn’t moved for over three years, not even her head, I wanted to admit that she could move and with such a hypothesis, Sir, here is how I proceeded: For two or three days in a role I went to the Sister’s home at 9 pm and forewarned her about the actions that I was taking to avoid being deceived and that in the presence of five or six of the gentlemen mentioned above. I had her tucked in in her own clothes. She was placed and attached to her bed like a one month old child in her crib. I also employed two pieces of paper and placed them on her chest in the form of a cross so that she could not make any move without disarranging them.
That day she had told Father Chambon and Father David about the mystery; Father Chambon is her guide in the absence of Mr. Bishop, and Father David is the director of our Seminary. The former asked her and she allowed him to tell us about the causes of all those noises. In confidence she told me that it was a suffering soul whose name she mentioned and that with God’s permission came to have her punishments mitigated. I then duly informed about the mistake did not allow anybody in that cell. That night it was eight of us, everyone determined to not believe anything. Around 11pm the paintings and basin were heard. Next Mr. Digoine and I moved to the door with a light in hand. It must be noted that the cell is small, that I could reach all walls reaching out with my hands, standing in the middle of the room. As soon as we got there the painting knocked on the wall. We moved fast and found the painting stationary and the patient in the same position. We returned to our post and heard the painting making a second noise; we rushed back and saw the painting flipping around over the bed. I placed it by the window. A moment later and it knocked three times in front of all those gentlemen. Wanting to be convinced about the truth of the story told by Sister Mary I ordered the suffering Spirit to take the crucifix from the wall and put it on the chest of the patient. It was immediately obeyed. All of those persons that were with me witnessed that. I then ordered to have the crucifix put back on its original place and the basin moved with noise. It was obeyed again and since I had taken the precaution of moved the basin to a place that could be seen by all we all saw and heard the movement. Since those signs were not good enough to convince me I requested other proofs. I then moved a table next to the bed and told the suffering Spirit that we would in good faith offer her our vows and prayers but she would need to knock on that table as many times as the number of masses she wanted us to give in her favor and that the sacrifice of the mass was the safest to alleviate her pain. She knocked immediately and we heard thirty three. We then organized ourselves to proceed accordingly and while we talked the paintings, the basin and the crucifix knocked all at the same time with a noise that was higher than ever before.
It was 2 am when I sent for Father Chambon that witnessed everything that we had told him since the thirty three knocks were repeated in his presence. Father Chambon then asked to have the crucifix transported to a certain chair. We soon heard a noise from that chair and saw the crucifix under the bed near the chair. I had Canon Digoine, Father Chambon and Father Robert hiding around the cell to keep an eye and see if they could detect something. They heard two different voices in the patient’s bed. The voice of the patient was very distinctive and asking many questions; as for the other one they could not distinguish the response since it spoke in a very lower and fast tone. Those gentlemen passed that information to me and when asked Sister Mary confirmed the fact.
I proposed to them to say a De Profundis for the relief of the sufferings of that soul and when the prayer was over the chair dropped, the paintings knocked and the basin jingled. I told the Spirit that we would say five The Lord’s Prayer and five Hail Mary to honor the five ulcers of our Lord Jesus and that I ordered her to knock the chair down once more and with more force to demonstrate that the prayers pleased her. As soon as we kneeled the chair fell forward lifted in the air and fell backwards, before our eyes.
When I saw the kindness of that Spirit and the readiness to obey I thought I could try everything. I place 40 coins of silver on the bed of the patient and ordered to have them counted. We immediately heard the count on a glass that I had placed nearby. I took the coins and put them on the table. I ordered the same thing that was soon obeyed again. I then placed a shield of six francs and asked to have the number of masses counted with that. The Spirit knocked on the wall 33 times with the shield.
I then called Father Digoine, Father Bonfils and Father d’Entrevaux to the cell, drew the curtains and placed a candle on the bed, asking the Spirit to knock and tell us the number of masses. The four of us saw Sister Mary always lying in bed in the same condition, without a movement and with the pieces of paper in the form of a cross on her chest, and we heard the 33 knocks on the wall. It is necessary to note that the adjacent cell by this wall was empty. We had been careful enough to remove anything and anybody that could bring us any doubt.
Finally, Sir, I tried something else. I wrote the following words in a piece of paper: I command you, suffering soul, to tell us who you are for our consolation and for the satisfaction of our faith. Write your name on this paper or, at least, make a mark and from that we will know the need that you have of our prayers. I then put that text under the patient’s bed with an inkpot and a pen. A moment later and I heard the basin jingle. We all rushed at the same time and found the paper with the crucifix on top. I then ordered to have the crucifix taken back to its place and a mark left on the paper. We said the Hail Mary prayer and when finished we saw the crucifix in its place and the piece of paper with two crosses made with the pen. Father Chambon that was near the bed heard the noise of the pen on the paper. I could tell you many other equally remarkable facts but the detail would require a lot of time.
You will undoubtedly ask, my dear Sir, what my thoughts are about such adventure. I will make my profession of faith. I first establish that what I saw and heard has a cause. The paintings, the chair, the basin, etc. are animated things that cannot move on their own. What is then the cause that made them move? It must necessarily be natural or supernatural. If it is natural it must be Sister Mary since she was the only one there. I cannot consider the hypothesis of springs being used to generate the noises because we examined everything with maximum care even disassembling the paintings and even if a single hair were responsible for the basin or chair we would have noticed. Now, I say that Sister Mary was not the cause. She did not want, or better, she could not deceive us. She did not want because a young lady with the smell of sanctity, a young lady whose life is a continuous miracle that hardly eat or drink for three years and only stones come out of her body; a woman that is suffering for six year always with a remarkable patience and that only opens her mouth to pray and that shows the deepest humility; is it possible, I ask, that she may have wanted to deceive us by forcing the public, her Bishop and confessor and to a number of priests to question her? We found a marvelous consistency in everything that she said; never the slightest contradiction that is the unique character of truth since lies would not sustain it. I don’t believe the martyrs have suffered more than this saint young lady. There are times when her body is a sole ulcer; blood and pus come out of her ears and sometimes long worms are taken from her nostrils. She suffers continually and asks God to make her suffer. A wonderful thing is that every year during East she has bloody vomit collected and after that she receives the Sacred Viaticum and an instant later she is totally shut down. That is what happened last Wednesday.
I then say that she could not deceive us. She has no condition to do anything since she is paralyzed, as I said, and a young lady from our town was completely convinced when she pierced her thigh with a needle. In fact you can attest the precautions we took. We tied her up with her clothes and frequently kept her under our eyes. Hence it is not her. What can you tell me then? It is easy to find the consequence of everything that I have the honor to report to you.
Signed: Abbot de Saint-Ponc, Cannon Presenter.”
“Viviers, April 10th 1741.
No one in this world, my dear de Noailles, can tell you better than I can about everything that took place in Sister Mary’s cell and if the description you gave made us face ridicule in our town I want to share that with you. The power of truth will always make me face the fear of being taken by a visionary and an excessively believer. Therefore this is a summary of everything that I saw and heard during the four nights that I spent there together with more than forty people, all of them trustworthy. I will only mention the most remarkable events.
On March 23rd, the day of the Annunciation, I heard rumors that for three days a lot of noise was coming from Sister Mary’s cell; that the two Sisters from St. Domingo that live with her were so much horrified that they had sent for Father Chambon from St. Laurent; that when he arrived one hour past midnight to that cell he heard paintings knocking on walls, a basin with holy water moving around noisily and a chair that was placed in the middle of the room taken down six times. I confess, Sir, that after hearing those things I couldn’t help it and made fun of that. All the devotees were subjected to my criticism and since then I decided to spend the night following that Sister Mary, well persuaded that it would all be quiet in my presence or that I would discover the trickery.
I then in fact went to that home about 9 pm. I questioned many Sisters and in particular Sister Mary that seemed to be aware of the cause of all those noises but did not want to tell us. I then proceed to a very careful search of her room. I looked over and below her bed, the walls and paintings. Everything was examined very carefully and since I found nothing that could explain those noises I ordered that the room was cleared and that I was the only one authorized to return there. I then accommodated myself near the fireplace in a neighboring room; I left the door to the cell opened and placed a candle by the door sill so that from my place I could see almost the whole cell and a chair that I had left near the bed. At about 10 pm Mr. d’Entrevaux and Mr. Archambaud joined me and with them two other artisans from our town.
Around 11:30 pm I heard the chair moving and promptly ran to the room. Having found it down I lifted it and put it further from the patient’s bed since I did not want to lose the sight of the chair. Mr. d’Entrevaux and Mr. Archambaud did the same and soon after we saw it moving for the second time; the basin of holy water near the bed of Sister Mary at a height that could not be reached by her jingled several times and a painting knocked the wall three times. At that time I went to speak to the patient. I found her extremely depressed and from there she fell ill, losing consciousness and the control of her senses but the hearing. I attended her as a doctor myself; she soon recovered her senses with the application of lavender water. We heard the same noises every fifteen minutes and since the paintings were always found in the same condition I ordered the noisy one to knock three times and flip the painting; at that point I was obeyed. Sometime later I ordered that the painting should be flipped back and had the second proof that my orders were obeyed.
I noticed that the only noisy things in the cell were the chair, two paintings and the basin with holy water so that I had them removed. The noise then moved over to the images that we heard dragging several times and a small crucifix that was hanging on a nail on the wall. We made no secret about everything that we saw and heard and leave you to consider if I was not tricked in my vision. I induced the most skeptical persons into believing. We went there three nights in a role and that is what seemed remarkable to me. I only reported certain facts for it would take long to describe all the details. It should be enough to tell you that Messrs. Digoine, Bonfils, d’Entrevaux, Chambon, Faure, Allier, Aoust, Grange, Bouron, Bonnier, Fontenès, Robert and many others witnessed all that.
“The rumor around town was that Sister Mary could be the good actress of that comedy and that had changed the good opinion I had about her; I wanted even to be suspicious of foul play and although she is paralyzed as attested by our doctor and all of those that approach her and that ensure us that she hasn’t moved for over three years, not even her head, I wanted to admit that she could move and with such a hypothesis, Sir, here is how I proceeded: For two or three days in a role I went to the Sister’s home at 9 pm and forewarned her about the actions that I was taking to avoid being deceived and that in the presence of five or six of the gentlemen mentioned above. I had her tucked in in her own clothes. She was placed and attached to her bed like a one month old child in her crib. I also employed two pieces of paper and placed them on her chest in the form of a cross so that she could not make any move without disarranging them.
That day she had told Father Chambon and Father David about the mystery; Father Chambon is her guide in the absence of Mr. Bishop, and Father David is the director of our Seminary. The former asked her and she allowed him to tell us about the causes of all those noises. In confidence she told me that it was a suffering soul whose name she mentioned and that with God’s permission came to have her punishments mitigated. I then duly informed about the mistake did not allow anybody in that cell. That night it was eight of us, everyone determined to not believe anything. Around 11pm the paintings and basin were heard. Next Mr. Digoine and I moved to the door with a light in hand. It must be noted that the cell is small, that I could reach all walls reaching out with my hands, standing in the middle of the room. As soon as we got there the painting knocked on the wall. We moved fast and found the painting stationary and the patient in the same position. We returned to our post and heard the painting making a second noise; we rushed back and saw the painting flipping around over the bed. I placed it by the window. A moment later and it knocked three times in front of all those gentlemen. Wanting to be convinced about the truth of the story told by Sister Mary I ordered the suffering Spirit to take the crucifix from the wall and put it on the chest of the patient. It was immediately obeyed. All of those persons that were with me witnessed that. I then ordered to have the crucifix put back on its original place and the basin moved with noise. It was obeyed again and since I had taken the precaution of moved the basin to a place that could be seen by all we all saw and heard the movement. Since those signs were not good enough to convince me I requested other proofs. I then moved a table next to the bed and told the suffering Spirit that we would in good faith offer her our vows and prayers but she would need to knock on that table as many times as the number of masses she wanted us to give in her favor and that the sacrifice of the mass was the safest to alleviate her pain. She knocked immediately and we heard thirty three. We then organized ourselves to proceed accordingly and while we talked the paintings, the basin and the crucifix knocked all at the same time with a noise that was higher than ever before.
It was 2 am when I sent for Father Chambon that witnessed everything that we had told him since the thirty three knocks were repeated in his presence. Father Chambon then asked to have the crucifix transported to a certain chair. We soon heard a noise from that chair and saw the crucifix under the bed near the chair. I had Canon Digoine, Father Chambon and Father Robert hiding around the cell to keep an eye and see if they could detect something. They heard two different voices in the patient’s bed. The voice of the patient was very distinctive and asking many questions; as for the other one they could not distinguish the response since it spoke in a very lower and fast tone. Those gentlemen passed that information to me and when asked Sister Mary confirmed the fact.
I proposed to them to say a De Profundis for the relief of the sufferings of that soul and when the prayer was over the chair dropped, the paintings knocked and the basin jingled. I told the Spirit that we would say five The Lord’s Prayer and five Hail Mary to honor the five ulcers of our Lord Jesus and that I ordered her to knock the chair down once more and with more force to demonstrate that the prayers pleased her. As soon as we kneeled the chair fell forward lifted in the air and fell backwards, before our eyes.
When I saw the kindness of that Spirit and the readiness to obey I thought I could try everything. I place 40 coins of silver on the bed of the patient and ordered to have them counted. We immediately heard the count on a glass that I had placed nearby. I took the coins and put them on the table. I ordered the same thing that was soon obeyed again. I then placed a shield of six francs and asked to have the number of masses counted with that. The Spirit knocked on the wall 33 times with the shield.
I then called Father Digoine, Father Bonfils and Father d’Entrevaux to the cell, drew the curtains and placed a candle on the bed, asking the Spirit to knock and tell us the number of masses. The four of us saw Sister Mary always lying in bed in the same condition, without a movement and with the pieces of paper in the form of a cross on her chest, and we heard the 33 knocks on the wall. It is necessary to note that the adjacent cell by this wall was empty. We had been careful enough to remove anything and anybody that could bring us any doubt.
Finally, Sir, I tried something else. I wrote the following words in a piece of paper: I command you, suffering soul, to tell us who you are for our consolation and for the satisfaction of our faith. Write your name on this paper or, at least, make a mark and from that we will know the need that you have of our prayers. I then put that text under the patient’s bed with an inkpot and a pen. A moment later and I heard the basin jingle. We all rushed at the same time and found the paper with the crucifix on top. I then ordered to have the crucifix taken back to its place and a mark left on the paper. We said the Hail Mary prayer and when finished we saw the crucifix in its place and the piece of paper with two crosses made with the pen. Father Chambon that was near the bed heard the noise of the pen on the paper. I could tell you many other equally remarkable facts but the detail would require a lot of time.
You will undoubtedly ask, my dear Sir, what my thoughts are about such adventure. I will make my profession of faith. I first establish that what I saw and heard has a cause. The paintings, the chair, the basin, etc. are animated things that cannot move on their own. What is then the cause that made them move? It must necessarily be natural or supernatural. If it is natural it must be Sister Mary since she was the only one there. I cannot consider the hypothesis of springs being used to generate the noises because we examined everything with maximum care even disassembling the paintings and even if a single hair were responsible for the basin or chair we would have noticed. Now, I say that Sister Mary was not the cause. She did not want, or better, she could not deceive us. She did not want because a young lady with the smell of sanctity, a young lady whose life is a continuous miracle that hardly eat or drink for three years and only stones come out of her body; a woman that is suffering for six year always with a remarkable patience and that only opens her mouth to pray and that shows the deepest humility; is it possible, I ask, that she may have wanted to deceive us by forcing the public, her Bishop and confessor and to a number of priests to question her? We found a marvelous consistency in everything that she said; never the slightest contradiction that is the unique character of truth since lies would not sustain it. I don’t believe the martyrs have suffered more than this saint young lady. There are times when her body is a sole ulcer; blood and pus come out of her ears and sometimes long worms are taken from her nostrils. She suffers continually and asks God to make her suffer. A wonderful thing is that every year during East she has bloody vomit collected and after that she receives the Sacred Viaticum and an instant later she is totally shut down. That is what happened last Wednesday.
I then say that she could not deceive us. She has no condition to do anything since she is paralyzed, as I said, and a young lady from our town was completely convinced when she pierced her thigh with a needle. In fact you can attest the precautions we took. We tied her up with her clothes and frequently kept her under our eyes. Hence it is not her. What can you tell me then? It is easy to find the consequence of everything that I have the honor to report to you.
Signed: Abbot de Saint-Ponc, Cannon Presenter.”
OBSERVATION: There is an evident analogy between these events and those of the Rapping Spirit of Bergzabern and Dibblesdorf reported in the Spiritist Review May, June, July and August 1858, with the exception that in this case there was nothing malevolent about the Spirit. They are attested by a man whose character cannot be suspicious and that did not observe them lightheartedly. If, like some intend, it is only the devil that manifests, how come it would be near a lady that smells sanctity? It is noticeable that she was not afraid or tormented; she knew herself, and the experiments demonstrated, that it was a suffering soul. If it is not the devil than do other souls can communicate?
There are two things that hold a particular analogy with what we see today. To begin with the first thought is that there is deception from the part of the person that is involved with the phenomena, despite the material impossibilities that sometimes occur. In the moral and physical situation of that lady it is hard to believe that there was suspicion of a game in the minds of the other Sisters. The second aspect is more important. If some of the phenome took place before the eyes of the persons that were present the majority occurred when they were next door when showing their backs or in the absence of direct light like frequently observed in our days. What is the reason for that? That is not yet sufficiently explained. Since those phenomena have a material and not supernatural cause, it could be the case that like in certain chemical reactions diffuse light would be more favorable to the action of fluids utilized by the Spirit. Spiritual Physics is still in its infancy.
There are two things that hold a particular analogy with what we see today. To begin with the first thought is that there is deception from the part of the person that is involved with the phenomena, despite the material impossibilities that sometimes occur. In the moral and physical situation of that lady it is hard to believe that there was suspicion of a game in the minds of the other Sisters. The second aspect is more important. If some of the phenome took place before the eyes of the persons that were present the majority occurred when they were next door when showing their backs or in the absence of direct light like frequently observed in our days. What is the reason for that? That is not yet sufficiently explained. Since those phenomena have a material and not supernatural cause, it could be the case that like in certain chemical reactions diffuse light would be more favorable to the action of fluids utilized by the Spirit. Spiritual Physics is still in its infancy.
Varieties
May 1st 1864 will be marked in the archives of Spiritism like the October 9th 1862. It will remember the decision of the Sacred Congregation of the Index with respect to our books about Spiritism. If something surprised the Spiritists is that such a decision was not taken earlier on. As a matter of fact there is only one opinion about the effects that it may produce already confirmed by the information that come to us from everywhere. Given the news, all bookstores promptly give evidence to all those books. Some more timid booksellers that believe in a prohibition of their sale take them out of the shelves but continue to sell them behind the curtains. They were appeased when learned that the organic law says that “No bull, mandate, decree, provision, signature serving as provision or any other expedient from the Court of Rome, even when only concerning individuals, may be received, published, printed or in executed in any other way without authorization of the government.”
As for ourselves, that act is one that we awaited and is an indication that will serve us and that will guide us in future works.
As for ourselves, that act is one that we awaited and is an indication that will serve us and that will guide us in future works.
Spiritism counts on a large number of representatives in the army amongst officers in all ranks that have attested its beneficial influence upon themselves and their subordinates. In some regiments, however, it finds in the higher ranks not exactly deniers but declared adversaries that formally prohibit their subordinates to get involved with Spiritism. We know an officer whose name was crossed out from the list of nominees to the Legion of Honor and others that were led to forced labor because of Spiritism. We have advised them to abide by the hierarchical discipline without complaint and patiently wait for better days that won’t be long since they will come by the force of general opinion. We have even advised them to abstain from any exterior Spiritist manifestation, if absolutely necessary, because there could not be any embarrassment to an intimate belief or nobody could take away from them the encouragement and consolations that they find in Spiritism. These small persecutions are a test to their faith and serve Spiritism instead of causing it any harm. They must rejoice for suffering a little in the name of a cause that is dear to them. Don’t they feel proud for leaving a limb behind in the battle field in the name of their terrestrial battlefield? What are then a few displeasures and setbacks endured in the name of the eternal homeland and for the cause of humanity?
Sunday, April 3rd, 1864 was a day of great celebration in the commune of Cempuis, near Grand Villiers, in the Oise. Many thousands gathered there for a touching ceremony that will leave indelible marks in the hearts of all of those that attended. Our colleague, Mr. Prevost, member of the Spiritist Society of Paris and founder of the retirement home of Cempuis and charitable societies of the Department was the modest hero. A huge entourage preceded by the band of Gran Villiers led him to the City Hall where he received a medal of honor from the local authority for his noble devotion to the humane cause of those in suffering. We extracted the following passage from the speech given by the local official:
“If in this short analysis, ladies and gentlemen, I am able to assign the fair value that each one deserves in the consecration of this great day, allow me to rejoice with you in the accomplishment of a duty that is very dear to me from all points of view. It is then with great happiness and legitimate pride that you will all see on Mr. Prevost’s chest this honorific award granted by the Emperor with his name expecting, make no mistake that the star of honor may shine there with its most vivid light. Before we finish this beautiful ceremony that they youth awaits impatiently to replace by their joyful animation, and rightfully so, let us remember the great Emperor and his faithful interpreter, the mayor of Oise.”
The Spiritist Society of Paris is also proud of the distinguish honor served to one of its highly recognized members. (For more details about the retirement home of Cempuis see The Spiritist Review, October 1863).
“If in this short analysis, ladies and gentlemen, I am able to assign the fair value that each one deserves in the consecration of this great day, allow me to rejoice with you in the accomplishment of a duty that is very dear to me from all points of view. It is then with great happiness and legitimate pride that you will all see on Mr. Prevost’s chest this honorific award granted by the Emperor with his name expecting, make no mistake that the star of honor may shine there with its most vivid light. Before we finish this beautiful ceremony that they youth awaits impatiently to replace by their joyful animation, and rightfully so, let us remember the great Emperor and his faithful interpreter, the mayor of Oise.”
The Spiritist Society of Paris is also proud of the distinguish honor served to one of its highly recognized members. (For more details about the retirement home of Cempuis see The Spiritist Review, October 1863).
July
June issue of the Spiritist Review was ready and partially printed when we got the letter below from Father Barricand to which we had promptly replied as seen.
“Dear Sir,
Mr. Allan Kardec has asked me to acknowledge receiving that letter that you sent him and to tell you that it was unnecessary to request its insertion in the Spiritist Review. It would have been enough to have sent him a motivated rectification to have him considered it outright as a duty of impartiality. The June issue was already in printing at the time your letter was received hence it will come in the next issue.
Yours sincerely, etc.”
“Dear Sir,
Mr. Allan Kardec has asked me to acknowledge receiving that letter that you sent him and to tell you that it was unnecessary to request its insertion in the Spiritist Review. It would have been enough to have sent him a motivated rectification to have him considered it outright as a duty of impartiality. The June issue was already in printing at the time your letter was received hence it will come in the next issue.
Yours sincerely, etc.”
-o-
“Lyon, May 19th, 1864
Dear Sir,
I have just read in the May issue of the Spiritist Review an article about my course that is so much masked and fantasized that I see myself in a position to respond in order to destroy the unfavorable impression that that article may have left on your readers with respect to me and my teachings. The article is entitled: Public courses of Spiritism in Lyon. Such a designation has never been given to any of my programs and if anyone has attended my course in hopes of receiving lessons of Spiritism, as you insinuate, after being seduced by an attractive and deceiving title it was in reality because they were not careful enough to read what our flyers say.
You tell your readers that the journal La Vérité takes on several of our assertions and that the paper takes care of refuting us, something that you add they will do wonderfully well just by considering the way they began. But you do not show those statements. It is true that our contradictor says that one does not need to be versed in theology to use a pen and that they are not afraid of pursue us with the sole weapons of reason and Spiritism given faith in; that the paradoxical thesis that we sustain cannot be discussed; that we should not be drawn to accompany Spiritism in the cemetery, but that we must not hasten to ring the funeral knell; that, on his own account, he is able to nurse by himself, and without much trouble, that little child called Truth; ... that the blood of the future flows warmer than ever in the veins of the Spiritist, and that he has the intimate confidence that one day we shall be given the definitive tone of the most magnificent TE DEUM.
Mr. Allan Kardec is perfectly entitled to imagine that such assertions refute ours, ensuring his readers that by judging from the beginning the director of La Vérité will perform wonderfully well in his self-imposed task of refuting us. We hardly believe, however, that beyond the Spiritist school people will share the same opinion and we would even suspect that if the Director of the Spiritist Review found adequate to reproduce textually the article in which our antagonist accepts the struggle many of them would hesitate to consider that article as a starting point that promises a wonderful refutation against our lessons of Spiritism.
You may perhaps ask: doesn’t the La Vérité reproduces faithfully part of your argumentation? No, Sir, that summary is a burlesque parody. Everything there is false: our language, our ideas and our reasoning. Such arrogant expressions: I have the courage to prove to you… emphatic report, ambitions figures, everything is a comedy. Mr. Allan Kardec’s pocket is well fed and it is just fair that he helps his followers… these things have been part of our lessons and Mr. Director of the La Vérité could have spared the trouble of having attributed them to us if he had understood and wanted to understand the true study of the issue that we dealt with before him.
What was that about, in fact? To explain to our auditorium the actual situation of Spiritism in Lyon in 1862 and 1863. Now, in order to avoid basing our data on anything that could be denied by any Spiritist and instead of talking about your trips and assess your wealth we limited ourselves to evaluate your brochure entitled Spiritist Trip in 1862 and your article in the Spiritist Review, January 1864 in which you report to your readers the situation of Spiritism in 1863.
Considering the remarkable difference of tone and language in those two documents we thought appropriate to say, not as La Vérité says that Spiritism is dead and agonizing, but that it suffers at least in Lyon a moment of stagnation if it has not yet initiated a period of decadence. To support such a conclusion we remind you of the confessions given by the Director of La Vérité since while Mr. Allan Kardec affirms that in 1862 one could count and without exaggeration between 25 and 30 thousand Spiritists in Lyon, Mr. Edoux has no problem in recognizing that their number today does not reach ten thousands. What word can be used to define such a reduction other than decadence?
It seems to us that there is nothing easier than understand the true meaning of such a simple argument and to give it an accurate assessment. But Mr. Director of La Vérité, instead of just faithfully reproducing our exposition, he got a better kick out of providing his readers with a beautiful sample of our course in his newspaper.
It is, nonetheless, that report that strikes the lack of logic and sincerity at every line that you found appropriate to provide as the foundation of the malevolent insinuations that tend to present us to your readers as someone that sneaks into your private matters and that from a simple supposition reaches an absolute outcome; that calculates your account balance to turn that into a public teaching. Such accusations thrown there out of the blue and without any proof fall by themselves. Like the expression of a former writer one just need to publish them to have them refuted. Vestra exposuisse refellisse est.
When you finish your article you thought appropriate to teach us how to do a course of theology. As for ourselves we shall abstain from giving you lessons but allow us to at least give you a charitable advice if you want to avoid being belied many times by no longer accepting at least with certain mistrust reports given by your corresponding members because and now borrowing the language of our good La Fontaine:
Dear Sir,
I have just read in the May issue of the Spiritist Review an article about my course that is so much masked and fantasized that I see myself in a position to respond in order to destroy the unfavorable impression that that article may have left on your readers with respect to me and my teachings. The article is entitled: Public courses of Spiritism in Lyon. Such a designation has never been given to any of my programs and if anyone has attended my course in hopes of receiving lessons of Spiritism, as you insinuate, after being seduced by an attractive and deceiving title it was in reality because they were not careful enough to read what our flyers say.
You tell your readers that the journal La Vérité takes on several of our assertions and that the paper takes care of refuting us, something that you add they will do wonderfully well just by considering the way they began. But you do not show those statements. It is true that our contradictor says that one does not need to be versed in theology to use a pen and that they are not afraid of pursue us with the sole weapons of reason and Spiritism given faith in; that the paradoxical thesis that we sustain cannot be discussed; that we should not be drawn to accompany Spiritism in the cemetery, but that we must not hasten to ring the funeral knell; that, on his own account, he is able to nurse by himself, and without much trouble, that little child called Truth; ... that the blood of the future flows warmer than ever in the veins of the Spiritist, and that he has the intimate confidence that one day we shall be given the definitive tone of the most magnificent TE DEUM.
Mr. Allan Kardec is perfectly entitled to imagine that such assertions refute ours, ensuring his readers that by judging from the beginning the director of La Vérité will perform wonderfully well in his self-imposed task of refuting us. We hardly believe, however, that beyond the Spiritist school people will share the same opinion and we would even suspect that if the Director of the Spiritist Review found adequate to reproduce textually the article in which our antagonist accepts the struggle many of them would hesitate to consider that article as a starting point that promises a wonderful refutation against our lessons of Spiritism.
You may perhaps ask: doesn’t the La Vérité reproduces faithfully part of your argumentation? No, Sir, that summary is a burlesque parody. Everything there is false: our language, our ideas and our reasoning. Such arrogant expressions: I have the courage to prove to you… emphatic report, ambitions figures, everything is a comedy. Mr. Allan Kardec’s pocket is well fed and it is just fair that he helps his followers… these things have been part of our lessons and Mr. Director of the La Vérité could have spared the trouble of having attributed them to us if he had understood and wanted to understand the true study of the issue that we dealt with before him.
What was that about, in fact? To explain to our auditorium the actual situation of Spiritism in Lyon in 1862 and 1863. Now, in order to avoid basing our data on anything that could be denied by any Spiritist and instead of talking about your trips and assess your wealth we limited ourselves to evaluate your brochure entitled Spiritist Trip in 1862 and your article in the Spiritist Review, January 1864 in which you report to your readers the situation of Spiritism in 1863.
Considering the remarkable difference of tone and language in those two documents we thought appropriate to say, not as La Vérité says that Spiritism is dead and agonizing, but that it suffers at least in Lyon a moment of stagnation if it has not yet initiated a period of decadence. To support such a conclusion we remind you of the confessions given by the Director of La Vérité since while Mr. Allan Kardec affirms that in 1862 one could count and without exaggeration between 25 and 30 thousand Spiritists in Lyon, Mr. Edoux has no problem in recognizing that their number today does not reach ten thousands. What word can be used to define such a reduction other than decadence?
It seems to us that there is nothing easier than understand the true meaning of such a simple argument and to give it an accurate assessment. But Mr. Director of La Vérité, instead of just faithfully reproducing our exposition, he got a better kick out of providing his readers with a beautiful sample of our course in his newspaper.
It is, nonetheless, that report that strikes the lack of logic and sincerity at every line that you found appropriate to provide as the foundation of the malevolent insinuations that tend to present us to your readers as someone that sneaks into your private matters and that from a simple supposition reaches an absolute outcome; that calculates your account balance to turn that into a public teaching. Such accusations thrown there out of the blue and without any proof fall by themselves. Like the expression of a former writer one just need to publish them to have them refuted. Vestra exposuisse refellisse est.
When you finish your article you thought appropriate to teach us how to do a course of theology. As for ourselves we shall abstain from giving you lessons but allow us to at least give you a charitable advice if you want to avoid being belied many times by no longer accepting at least with certain mistrust reports given by your corresponding members because and now borrowing the language of our good La Fontaine:
There is nothing more dangerous than an ignorant friend. A wise enemy would be better.
I ask you, and if necessary I request, to have this response inserted in full in your next issue. Yours sincerely…”
Barricand
Dean of the Faculty of Theology
These are the words that generated Father Barricand’s complaint:
“It is easy to Mr. Allan Kardec to state that Spiritism is stronger than ever and then mention the appearance of Ruche and La Vérité as proof of that! That is a comedy, ladies and gentlemen! Couldn’t those two journals exist without the conclusion that Spiritism has moved one step ahead? If you tell me that they have costs and that is the reason why they need subscribers or that they need great sacrifices I will still tell you: It is a comedy! Mr. Allan Kardec’s budget is very good from what I hear. Isn’t that fair and rational to expect him to help his disciples?”
These words were extracted textually from the journal La Vérité from April 10th, 1864. We just added the very natural reflections that came to mind saying that we do not assign anybody with the right of assessing our balance and prejudge the use of what they believe we have and even less turning that into the subject of a public teaching. (See the May issue of the Spiritist Review).
Without verifying if Father Barricand pronounced the words that he denies or equivalent it is remarkable that he had not requested, to begin with, a rectification from the paper from where we extracted them. The paper edition is from April 10th. It is published weekly and sent to him. His letter though is from May 19th and in that interval another five editions were published. It is either one or the other: his words are true or false. If they are false the editor that declares having seen them in the professor’s lesson invented them. How can he protest in the same article against the allegation of being SUBVENCIONADO by us, saying that he needs nobody’s help and that he can walk on his own? He would have been strangely mistaken. How come Father Barricand allowed two months to pass in the presence of those statements and without protest? His silence, that could not go unnoticed by us, must have been considered by us as an approval since it is clear that if they were rectified in the La Vérité we would not have reproduced them.
In his letter Father Barricand returns to the thesis that he sustained before with respect to the supposedly decadence of Spiritism but now restricting the reach of his words. Considering that such a thought brings him peace we will leave it like that for we have no interest in dissuading him. Thus, he may take any conclusion about the number of Spiritists that he likes but that shall not preclude things to follow their course. Never mind if our adversaries belief or not in the progress of Spiritism. On the contrary, the less they believe the less they will bother and the more they will leave us in tranquility. We will even pretend we are dead if that pleases them. It would be up to them not to wake us up. But while they scream, fulminate and say anathemas; while they employ violence and persecution they will not make anybody believe that we are dead for good. Up until now the clergy had thought that the means of scaring people away with respect to Spiritism was in exaggerating the number of followers beyond measure. How many times in sermons, ordinations and publications of all kinds such numbers were not presented as invaders of society and endangering the Church by its increase? Better than anyone else we attest the progress of the Spiritist ideas but we never allow us to fall into hyperbolic numbers; we have never said, like a certain preacher, that in Bordeaux alone in a short period of time more than 170,000 francs were obtained from the sales of our books. It was not us who said that there were 20 million Spiritists in France nor, like in a recent book, that there was 600 million around the whole world what would be equivalent to more than half of the population of the planet. The result of these figures was much different from what they expected. Now if we wanted to proceed by induction we would suspect that Father Barricand wanted to follow an opposite tactics by diminishing the progress of Spiritism instead of exalting it.
These words were extracted textually from the journal La Vérité from April 10th, 1864. We just added the very natural reflections that came to mind saying that we do not assign anybody with the right of assessing our balance and prejudge the use of what they believe we have and even less turning that into the subject of a public teaching. (See the May issue of the Spiritist Review).
Without verifying if Father Barricand pronounced the words that he denies or equivalent it is remarkable that he had not requested, to begin with, a rectification from the paper from where we extracted them. The paper edition is from April 10th. It is published weekly and sent to him. His letter though is from May 19th and in that interval another five editions were published. It is either one or the other: his words are true or false. If they are false the editor that declares having seen them in the professor’s lesson invented them. How can he protest in the same article against the allegation of being SUBVENCIONADO by us, saying that he needs nobody’s help and that he can walk on his own? He would have been strangely mistaken. How come Father Barricand allowed two months to pass in the presence of those statements and without protest? His silence, that could not go unnoticed by us, must have been considered by us as an approval since it is clear that if they were rectified in the La Vérité we would not have reproduced them.
In his letter Father Barricand returns to the thesis that he sustained before with respect to the supposedly decadence of Spiritism but now restricting the reach of his words. Considering that such a thought brings him peace we will leave it like that for we have no interest in dissuading him. Thus, he may take any conclusion about the number of Spiritists that he likes but that shall not preclude things to follow their course. Never mind if our adversaries belief or not in the progress of Spiritism. On the contrary, the less they believe the less they will bother and the more they will leave us in tranquility. We will even pretend we are dead if that pleases them. It would be up to them not to wake us up. But while they scream, fulminate and say anathemas; while they employ violence and persecution they will not make anybody believe that we are dead for good. Up until now the clergy had thought that the means of scaring people away with respect to Spiritism was in exaggerating the number of followers beyond measure. How many times in sermons, ordinations and publications of all kinds such numbers were not presented as invaders of society and endangering the Church by its increase? Better than anyone else we attest the progress of the Spiritist ideas but we never allow us to fall into hyperbolic numbers; we have never said, like a certain preacher, that in Bordeaux alone in a short period of time more than 170,000 francs were obtained from the sales of our books. It was not us who said that there were 20 million Spiritists in France nor, like in a recent book, that there was 600 million around the whole world what would be equivalent to more than half of the population of the planet. The result of these figures was much different from what they expected. Now if we wanted to proceed by induction we would suspect that Father Barricand wanted to follow an opposite tactics by diminishing the progress of Spiritism instead of exalting it.
Nonetheless it is impossible to provide an accurate statistics of Spiritists given the immense number of persons that are sympathetic to the idea and that have no reason to put themselves in evidence because the Spiritists are not recruited like in a fraternity. We would be greatly mistaken if we took into account the number of groups officially known considering that less than a fraction of the followers participate in them. We know some cities in which there is no regularly established society and that count on more Spiritists than others that have several societies. As a matter of fact we have already said that the societies are not a necessary condition to the existence of Spiritism. Some are formed today and disappear tomorrow without affecting in any way the march of Spiritism. Spiritism is a matter of faith and belief and not of association.
Whoever may share our convictions with respect to the existence and manifestation of the Spirits and the moral consequences that stem from that is in fact Spiritist without the need to have a registration number or a diploma. A simple conversation is sufficient to get to know the ones that are sympathetic to the idea or reject it and from that one may judge if that idea gains or loses terrain.
The approximate estimate of the number of followers is based on internal reports because there isn’t any basis for the establishment of a strict figure that is in fact constantly changing. A letter, for example, can reveal to us a whole family of Spiritists and sometimes several families that we had no idea about. If Father Barricand saw our correspondence he could perhaps change his opinion. But never mind.
The opposition to an idea is always in direct proportion to its importance. If Spiritism had been a utopia people would not have given any attention to it like many other theories. The aggravating struggle is a clear indication that it is taken seriously. But if there is struggle between Spiritism and the clergy history will tell who the aggressors were. The attacks and slander that were used against Spiritism forced it to use the same weapons and show the vulnerable side of its adversaries. Have they precluded its march by attacking it? No. It is an attested fact. Had they have left Spiritism alone even the name of the clergy would not have been mentioned and perhaps they would have gained with that. Attacking Spiritism in the name of the dogmas of the Church forced Spiritism to discuss the value of the objections and for that very reason to enter a field that Spiritism did not want to touch. The mission of Spiritism is to fight disbelief by the evidence of the facts; it is to reconnect those that have neglected God; it is to demonstrate the future to those that believed in nothing. Why then the Church says anathema to those that receive such a faith from Spiritism more than when they believed in nothing? By repelling those that by the force of Spiritism believe in God and in their soul is the same as forcing them to seek refuge beyond the Church. Who was the first to declare Spiritism as a new religion with its cult and priests if not the clergy? Who has ever seen up until now the cult and priest of Spiritism? If it one day becomes a religion that was provoked by the clergy.
Whoever may share our convictions with respect to the existence and manifestation of the Spirits and the moral consequences that stem from that is in fact Spiritist without the need to have a registration number or a diploma. A simple conversation is sufficient to get to know the ones that are sympathetic to the idea or reject it and from that one may judge if that idea gains or loses terrain.
The approximate estimate of the number of followers is based on internal reports because there isn’t any basis for the establishment of a strict figure that is in fact constantly changing. A letter, for example, can reveal to us a whole family of Spiritists and sometimes several families that we had no idea about. If Father Barricand saw our correspondence he could perhaps change his opinion. But never mind.
The opposition to an idea is always in direct proportion to its importance. If Spiritism had been a utopia people would not have given any attention to it like many other theories. The aggravating struggle is a clear indication that it is taken seriously. But if there is struggle between Spiritism and the clergy history will tell who the aggressors were. The attacks and slander that were used against Spiritism forced it to use the same weapons and show the vulnerable side of its adversaries. Have they precluded its march by attacking it? No. It is an attested fact. Had they have left Spiritism alone even the name of the clergy would not have been mentioned and perhaps they would have gained with that. Attacking Spiritism in the name of the dogmas of the Church forced Spiritism to discuss the value of the objections and for that very reason to enter a field that Spiritism did not want to touch. The mission of Spiritism is to fight disbelief by the evidence of the facts; it is to reconnect those that have neglected God; it is to demonstrate the future to those that believed in nothing. Why then the Church says anathema to those that receive such a faith from Spiritism more than when they believed in nothing? By repelling those that by the force of Spiritism believe in God and in their soul is the same as forcing them to seek refuge beyond the Church. Who was the first to declare Spiritism as a new religion with its cult and priests if not the clergy? Who has ever seen up until now the cult and priest of Spiritism? If it one day becomes a religion that was provoked by the clergy.
It is broadly thought today that the Church admits the fire of hell as a moral hell and not as a material fire. That is at least the opinion of the majority of theologians and many enlightened priests. Nonetheless it is nothing more than an individual opinion and not a belief acquired from the orthodoxy otherwise it would be universally professed. One can assess it from the image below painted by a priest in the last Lent in Montreuil-sur-Mer:
“The fire of hell is millions of time more intense than that of Earth and if one body that burns there without being consumed were thrown onto our planet it would have it infected from one end to the other! Hell is a vast and somber cave, full of sharp nails and sword blades, of cutting razors in which wicked souls are thrown!”
It would be useless to refute such a description. However one could ask the speaker from where he has taken the knowledge about a place that he describes so accurately. Surely it was not from the Gospels in which there is no nails, swords or razors. In order to know that those blades and really sharp one must necessarily has seen and experimented with that. Will that be the case that like the new Eneas or Orpheus he had gone down to that somber cave that by the way has something of similar to the Tartar of the Pagans? Besides, would he have explained the action that nails and razors would have upon the souls and the need for having them really sharp and of a strong temper? Considering that he knows so well the minor details of the place he must have also said where it is located. It could not be at the center of the Earth because he supposes the case of having one of those bodies thrown onto our planet. Is it in space then? But Astronomy has reached that region much earlier and found nothing. It is true that it did not look with the eyes of faith. In any case is this picture painted to attract nonbelievers? That is more than doubtful since it is more adequate for the reduction of the number of believers.
To counter that we will mention the fragment of a letter sent from Riom and mentioned in the La Vérité in its March 20th, 1864 edition:
“Yesterday, to my great surprise and satisfaction, I personally heard this positive confession coming out of the mouth of an eloquent preacher before a crowded and surprised auditorium: There is no more hell. Hell is no more…it was remarkably replaced. The fires of charity, the fires of love atone our faults! Isn’t our divine Doctrine (Spiritism) totally contained in these few words?”
Needless to say which one of the two was received with more sympathy by the auditorium but the second one could even be accused of heresy by the first. In former times he would be invariably punished at the stake or in a prison for the audacity of having stated that God does not have his creatures burnt. Those two citations suggest the following thoughts:
If some believe in the materiality of the penalties and others don’t some necessarily are right and the others wrong. This is a more important point than it seems at first sight because it opens up the avenue to interpretations founded on an absolute unity of the belief and that, in principle, repels interpretation.
It is well true that up until now the materiality of the penalties took part in the dogmatic beliefs of the Church. Why then not all theologians believe in them? Since none of them verified the actual thing themselves what is it that leads some to just see an image whereas other see a reality other than reason that to the former goes beyond blind faith? Well, reason is free examination. There we have then reason and free examination entering the Church by the force of general opinion. One could even say, without a metaphor, that it is through the door of hell. It is the hand upon the sanctuary of dogmas and not from the lay person but from the clergy.
Make no mistake about the importance of this issue because it contains the germ of a whole revolution in matters of religion and of a huge rupture much more radical than Protestantism because it does not threat Catholicism only but Protestantism, the Greek Church and all of the Christian sects. In fact between the materiality of the penalties and the purely moral penalties there is the whole distance between real meaning and figurative meaning, from allegory to reality. As long as the flames of hell are admitted as allegories it becomes evident that these words of Jesus: “Go to the eternal hell” have a figurative meaning. From that one deduce that the same applies to many of Jesus’ words.
But here is the most serious consequence: from the moment when the interpretation of this point is admitted there is no reason to reject it about other points; it is therefore and as we said the open door to a free discussion, a deadly blow onto the absolute principle of blind faith. The belief in the materiality of the penalties is entirely related to other principles of faith that are their corollary. Once that belief is transformed the other will also transformer by the force of things and from there on successively.
Here an explanation. Not long ago the dogma “there is no salvation outside Church” was at its highest. Baptism was such an imperious need that even when the child of a heretic person received it clandestinely and irrespectively of the parents’ wishes it was enough to be saved because anything that was rigorously orthodox was irrevocably condemned. But since human reason has been up rooted against those millions of souls apportioned to the eternal penalties when they were not to blame for not having been educated in the good faith; the numerous children that die before acquiring the conscience of their actions and that nonetheless are not less damned if the religious belief of their parents deprived them from the baptism, with that respect the Church has moved away from its absolutism. Today the Church says, or at least the majority of the theologian say, that those children are not responsible for the actions of their parents; that the responsibility only begins when they deny after being enlightened and hence they are not damned for not having received the baptism; and that the same applies to the savage and all kinds of idolatries.
Some go even further since they acknowledge that the practice of the Christian virtues that is humility and charity, one can be saved in all religions because it depends on the will of a Hindu, a Jewish, a Muslim or a Protestant to live charitably; that the one that lives in that one is in the Church in Spirit even if not formally. Isn’t that the principle “there is no salvation outside the Church” enlarged and transformed into “there is no salvation but through charity”? That is exactly what Spiritism teaches and nonetheless that is exactly why it is declared the works of the devil. Why would such maxima be the breath of the devil in the mouth of the Spiritists and not in the ministers of the Church? If the orthodoxy of the faith is threatened it is not by Spiritism but by the Church itself because it inevitably feels the pressure of the general opinion and some among its members see things from a more elevated position where the force of logic overcomes a blind faith. It would be reckless to say that the Church marches towards Spiritism; it is true, however, that it shall be recognized later. Despite the fact that it moves towards confrontation with Spiritism the Church unnoticeably and gradually assimilates its principles.
This new point of view about salvation is serious. Beyond the form, the Spirit is an eminently revolutionary principle of orthodoxy. Since salvation is seen possible outside the Church the efficacy of baptism becomes relative rather than absolute and turns into a symbol. Considering that the non-baptized child cannot respond for the negligence or bad will of her parents what becomes of the penalty imposed onto the human race for the fault incurred by the first man? What becomes of the original sin as understood by the Church?
Sometimes the greatest effects result from the little causes. The right of interpretation and free examination, once the apparently puerile issue of the materiality of the future penalties is admitted, is a first step whose consequences are innumerable because it is a crack in the dogmatic immutability and a rolling stone drags others. Church’s position is embarrassing we must admit. However, there is only one path out of two alternatives: remain stationary, despite everything else, or move on. But then the Church will not escape this dilemma: if it remains absolutely immobile in the errors of the past it will be infallibly overcome, as it is now, by the flow of the new ideas; it will then be isolated and finally dismembered as it would be today had it insisted in expelling those that believe in the movement of Earth or in the geological periods of creation. The Church will change if it moves into the interpretation of the dogmas by the simple denial of the materiality of the penalties and the absolute necessity of baptism.
The danger of transformation, as a matter of fact, is clearly and energetically stated in the following passage from a brochure published by Father Marin de Boylesve, from the Company of Jesus with the title “The miracle of the devil”, in response to the Revue des Deux-Mondes:[1]
“Among other things there is one issue that is a matter of life and death to religion: the miracles. The devil is not a lesser one. Remove the devil and there is no Christianity. If the devil is not but a myth the fall of Adam and the original sin become just a fable. As a consequence redemption, baptism and the Church, in a word, have no meaning. Besides, science spares no efforts to erase the miracles and suppress the devil.”
It means that if science discovers a law of nature that brings a so called miraculous event to the row of natural events; if it demonstrates the anteriority of the human race and the multiplicity of its origins the whole edifice collapses. A religion is very weak when a scientific discovery is a matter of life and death. That is an awkward confession. As for ourselves we are far from sharing the apprehensions of Father Boylesve with respect to Christianity. We say that Christianity, as purely coming from the mouth of Jesus, is invulnerable since it is the law of God.
Hence their conclusion is this: No concession or death. The author fails to examine if there is more chance by living in immobility. In our opinion there is less and that it is better to live transformed than not to live at all. At any rate there is an unavoidable fission. One can even say that there is one already since the doctrinarian unity is broken because there is no perfect agreement in the teaching; because some approve what others deny and some condemn what others forgive.
We therefore see the followers giving preference to those whose ideas are more convenient to them. When the shepherds are divided the herd also divides. It is a short distance from this divergence to full separation. One more step and those that are ahead will be treated as heretical by those behind. That is a schism taking place. It is the danger of immobility.
Religion, or even better, all religions unwillingly suffer the influence of the progressive movement of the ideas. A fatal need forces them to maintain the level of the ascending movement otherwise they shall sink. Therefore they have all been forced from time to time to make concessions to science and to smooth out the literal meaning of certain beliefs before the evidence of facts. The one that denied the discoveries of science and their consequences from a religious point of view would sooner or later lose its authority and credit and would increase the number of nonbelievers. If a given religion can be compromised by science that is not science’s fault but the religion that is founded on absolute dogmas in contradiction to the laws of nature that are Divine laws. By repudiating science one is therefore repudiating nature and consequently the works of God. By doing so in the name of religion would be the same as putting God in contradiction with himself as if making God say: I established laws to govern the world but do not believe in those laws.
In all time mankind was not capable of knowing all laws of nature. The successive discovery of those laws constitutes progress. That entails the need for all religions to place their beliefs and dogmas in harmony with progress or be belied by the facts attested by science. That is the only condition that can make a religion invulnerable. In our opinion religion should do more than just following progress behind that is already a forceful and embarrassing march. Religion should be the advanced sentinel since it would be honoring God by proclaiming the wisdom and greatness of God’s laws. The existing contradiction between certain religious beliefs and natural laws produced the majority of the nonbelievers whose number increases in proportion to the popularization of those laws. If the agreement between science and religion were impossible there would not be any possible religion. We proclaim out loud the possibility and the need of such agreement because in our opinion science and religion are sisters for the greater glory of God and must complement one another instead of belying each other. They will reach out to one another when science sees in religion no incompatibility with the demonstrated facts and religion no longer fears for the demonstration of those facts. Spiritism shall be the uniting element that will allow them both to face one another, one not laughing and the other not fearing. It is by the agreement between faith and reason that God daily brings back so many disbelievers.
[1] Review of two worlds (TN)
“The fire of hell is millions of time more intense than that of Earth and if one body that burns there without being consumed were thrown onto our planet it would have it infected from one end to the other! Hell is a vast and somber cave, full of sharp nails and sword blades, of cutting razors in which wicked souls are thrown!”
It would be useless to refute such a description. However one could ask the speaker from where he has taken the knowledge about a place that he describes so accurately. Surely it was not from the Gospels in which there is no nails, swords or razors. In order to know that those blades and really sharp one must necessarily has seen and experimented with that. Will that be the case that like the new Eneas or Orpheus he had gone down to that somber cave that by the way has something of similar to the Tartar of the Pagans? Besides, would he have explained the action that nails and razors would have upon the souls and the need for having them really sharp and of a strong temper? Considering that he knows so well the minor details of the place he must have also said where it is located. It could not be at the center of the Earth because he supposes the case of having one of those bodies thrown onto our planet. Is it in space then? But Astronomy has reached that region much earlier and found nothing. It is true that it did not look with the eyes of faith. In any case is this picture painted to attract nonbelievers? That is more than doubtful since it is more adequate for the reduction of the number of believers.
To counter that we will mention the fragment of a letter sent from Riom and mentioned in the La Vérité in its March 20th, 1864 edition:
“Yesterday, to my great surprise and satisfaction, I personally heard this positive confession coming out of the mouth of an eloquent preacher before a crowded and surprised auditorium: There is no more hell. Hell is no more…it was remarkably replaced. The fires of charity, the fires of love atone our faults! Isn’t our divine Doctrine (Spiritism) totally contained in these few words?”
Needless to say which one of the two was received with more sympathy by the auditorium but the second one could even be accused of heresy by the first. In former times he would be invariably punished at the stake or in a prison for the audacity of having stated that God does not have his creatures burnt. Those two citations suggest the following thoughts:
If some believe in the materiality of the penalties and others don’t some necessarily are right and the others wrong. This is a more important point than it seems at first sight because it opens up the avenue to interpretations founded on an absolute unity of the belief and that, in principle, repels interpretation.
It is well true that up until now the materiality of the penalties took part in the dogmatic beliefs of the Church. Why then not all theologians believe in them? Since none of them verified the actual thing themselves what is it that leads some to just see an image whereas other see a reality other than reason that to the former goes beyond blind faith? Well, reason is free examination. There we have then reason and free examination entering the Church by the force of general opinion. One could even say, without a metaphor, that it is through the door of hell. It is the hand upon the sanctuary of dogmas and not from the lay person but from the clergy.
Make no mistake about the importance of this issue because it contains the germ of a whole revolution in matters of religion and of a huge rupture much more radical than Protestantism because it does not threat Catholicism only but Protestantism, the Greek Church and all of the Christian sects. In fact between the materiality of the penalties and the purely moral penalties there is the whole distance between real meaning and figurative meaning, from allegory to reality. As long as the flames of hell are admitted as allegories it becomes evident that these words of Jesus: “Go to the eternal hell” have a figurative meaning. From that one deduce that the same applies to many of Jesus’ words.
But here is the most serious consequence: from the moment when the interpretation of this point is admitted there is no reason to reject it about other points; it is therefore and as we said the open door to a free discussion, a deadly blow onto the absolute principle of blind faith. The belief in the materiality of the penalties is entirely related to other principles of faith that are their corollary. Once that belief is transformed the other will also transformer by the force of things and from there on successively.
Here an explanation. Not long ago the dogma “there is no salvation outside Church” was at its highest. Baptism was such an imperious need that even when the child of a heretic person received it clandestinely and irrespectively of the parents’ wishes it was enough to be saved because anything that was rigorously orthodox was irrevocably condemned. But since human reason has been up rooted against those millions of souls apportioned to the eternal penalties when they were not to blame for not having been educated in the good faith; the numerous children that die before acquiring the conscience of their actions and that nonetheless are not less damned if the religious belief of their parents deprived them from the baptism, with that respect the Church has moved away from its absolutism. Today the Church says, or at least the majority of the theologian say, that those children are not responsible for the actions of their parents; that the responsibility only begins when they deny after being enlightened and hence they are not damned for not having received the baptism; and that the same applies to the savage and all kinds of idolatries.
Some go even further since they acknowledge that the practice of the Christian virtues that is humility and charity, one can be saved in all religions because it depends on the will of a Hindu, a Jewish, a Muslim or a Protestant to live charitably; that the one that lives in that one is in the Church in Spirit even if not formally. Isn’t that the principle “there is no salvation outside the Church” enlarged and transformed into “there is no salvation but through charity”? That is exactly what Spiritism teaches and nonetheless that is exactly why it is declared the works of the devil. Why would such maxima be the breath of the devil in the mouth of the Spiritists and not in the ministers of the Church? If the orthodoxy of the faith is threatened it is not by Spiritism but by the Church itself because it inevitably feels the pressure of the general opinion and some among its members see things from a more elevated position where the force of logic overcomes a blind faith. It would be reckless to say that the Church marches towards Spiritism; it is true, however, that it shall be recognized later. Despite the fact that it moves towards confrontation with Spiritism the Church unnoticeably and gradually assimilates its principles.
This new point of view about salvation is serious. Beyond the form, the Spirit is an eminently revolutionary principle of orthodoxy. Since salvation is seen possible outside the Church the efficacy of baptism becomes relative rather than absolute and turns into a symbol. Considering that the non-baptized child cannot respond for the negligence or bad will of her parents what becomes of the penalty imposed onto the human race for the fault incurred by the first man? What becomes of the original sin as understood by the Church?
Sometimes the greatest effects result from the little causes. The right of interpretation and free examination, once the apparently puerile issue of the materiality of the future penalties is admitted, is a first step whose consequences are innumerable because it is a crack in the dogmatic immutability and a rolling stone drags others. Church’s position is embarrassing we must admit. However, there is only one path out of two alternatives: remain stationary, despite everything else, or move on. But then the Church will not escape this dilemma: if it remains absolutely immobile in the errors of the past it will be infallibly overcome, as it is now, by the flow of the new ideas; it will then be isolated and finally dismembered as it would be today had it insisted in expelling those that believe in the movement of Earth or in the geological periods of creation. The Church will change if it moves into the interpretation of the dogmas by the simple denial of the materiality of the penalties and the absolute necessity of baptism.
The danger of transformation, as a matter of fact, is clearly and energetically stated in the following passage from a brochure published by Father Marin de Boylesve, from the Company of Jesus with the title “The miracle of the devil”, in response to the Revue des Deux-Mondes:[1]
“Among other things there is one issue that is a matter of life and death to religion: the miracles. The devil is not a lesser one. Remove the devil and there is no Christianity. If the devil is not but a myth the fall of Adam and the original sin become just a fable. As a consequence redemption, baptism and the Church, in a word, have no meaning. Besides, science spares no efforts to erase the miracles and suppress the devil.”
It means that if science discovers a law of nature that brings a so called miraculous event to the row of natural events; if it demonstrates the anteriority of the human race and the multiplicity of its origins the whole edifice collapses. A religion is very weak when a scientific discovery is a matter of life and death. That is an awkward confession. As for ourselves we are far from sharing the apprehensions of Father Boylesve with respect to Christianity. We say that Christianity, as purely coming from the mouth of Jesus, is invulnerable since it is the law of God.
Hence their conclusion is this: No concession or death. The author fails to examine if there is more chance by living in immobility. In our opinion there is less and that it is better to live transformed than not to live at all. At any rate there is an unavoidable fission. One can even say that there is one already since the doctrinarian unity is broken because there is no perfect agreement in the teaching; because some approve what others deny and some condemn what others forgive.
We therefore see the followers giving preference to those whose ideas are more convenient to them. When the shepherds are divided the herd also divides. It is a short distance from this divergence to full separation. One more step and those that are ahead will be treated as heretical by those behind. That is a schism taking place. It is the danger of immobility.
Religion, or even better, all religions unwillingly suffer the influence of the progressive movement of the ideas. A fatal need forces them to maintain the level of the ascending movement otherwise they shall sink. Therefore they have all been forced from time to time to make concessions to science and to smooth out the literal meaning of certain beliefs before the evidence of facts. The one that denied the discoveries of science and their consequences from a religious point of view would sooner or later lose its authority and credit and would increase the number of nonbelievers. If a given religion can be compromised by science that is not science’s fault but the religion that is founded on absolute dogmas in contradiction to the laws of nature that are Divine laws. By repudiating science one is therefore repudiating nature and consequently the works of God. By doing so in the name of religion would be the same as putting God in contradiction with himself as if making God say: I established laws to govern the world but do not believe in those laws.
In all time mankind was not capable of knowing all laws of nature. The successive discovery of those laws constitutes progress. That entails the need for all religions to place their beliefs and dogmas in harmony with progress or be belied by the facts attested by science. That is the only condition that can make a religion invulnerable. In our opinion religion should do more than just following progress behind that is already a forceful and embarrassing march. Religion should be the advanced sentinel since it would be honoring God by proclaiming the wisdom and greatness of God’s laws. The existing contradiction between certain religious beliefs and natural laws produced the majority of the nonbelievers whose number increases in proportion to the popularization of those laws. If the agreement between science and religion were impossible there would not be any possible religion. We proclaim out loud the possibility and the need of such agreement because in our opinion science and religion are sisters for the greater glory of God and must complement one another instead of belying each other. They will reach out to one another when science sees in religion no incompatibility with the demonstrated facts and religion no longer fears for the demonstration of those facts. Spiritism shall be the uniting element that will allow them both to face one another, one not laughing and the other not fearing. It is by the agreement between faith and reason that God daily brings back so many disbelievers.
[1] Review of two worlds (TN)
A Constantinople newspaper published three articles with the title above last March about, or better said, against Magnetism and Spiritism that both count on many enthusiastic followers in that capital city. As with all criticism in general we uselessly seek serious argumentation while we find an evident proof that the author speaks about something that is unknown to him or that he only knows superficially. He judges Spiritism by appearances; by having heard of; by the reading of some incomplete fragments; by the report of some eccentric reports refuted by Spiritism itself, things that seem sufficient to him to draw up a sentence. As it can be seen it is a new sample of the logic employed by our antagonists. The readings that seem to be most popular are Mr. Mirville, the magic of Mr. Dupotet and the life of Mr. Home but one cannot find serious studies of the Spiritist science or of serious observations.
We are from pretending that anyone that studies Spiritism will necessarily approve it. However, if that person is in good faith she will not move away from the truth even in her denial and will not make us say something in opposition to what we have said; this will necessarily happen if that person is not aware of everything that we said. We would not recognize as a serious critic but only the one that would avoid generalizations and that proposed authoritative arguments against our own and demonstrated, without a possible replica, that the facts that serve as our foundation are either false, created or radically impossible. That is something that has not been done yet by the editor of the Constantinople newspaper or the others.
Spiritism has been attacked in many ways, with all weapons that were considered more lethal. Nothing was spared to annihilate Spiritism, not even slander. There isn’t a single obscure author that has not boasted about having thrown the last stroke of mercy. People of real value count amongst the adversaries who have excavated the arsenal of objections to the lowest level with more eagerness the more was the interest in muffle Spiritism.
Despite everything that was done, however, Spiritism not only stands but expands more and more on a daily basis; it establishes everywhere and the number of followers grows incessantly. That is a notorious fact. What can we conclude from all that? That nothing could have seriously and conclusively been opposed to Spiritism.
Will our opponent from Constantinople be more successful? We seriously doubt since he has not shown better arguments for that. His articles, far from stopping the Spiritist movement in the Orient, can only favor it as happened to all others of the same kind for all of them go around the same circle. That is why we are not worried. We shall limit ourselves to cite some fragments that summarize the author’s opinion.
There isn’t a single objection of his against Spiritism that does not meet a prompt refutation in our books. If we had to counter every absurd created about this subject we would have to repeat ourselves endlessly and that is something useless considering that such criticism without any serious support will definitely help us more than cause any harm.
“Side by side with skillful practitioners like the magicians exemplified by Mr. Dupotet, or the mediums, like Mr. Home, comes a different order of members in whose first rows we find Mr. Allan Kardec. This one may be presented as the role model to the whole group of Spiritists whose good faith could not be denied. The Spiritists of Constantinople belong to that artistic and literary school, as we have already said, that operates mainly through their writings in which the Spiritist Review by Mr. Allan Kardec is the most perfect example. Such a doctrine was established by its followers. The theory of the Spirits has no secret to them; hence in the majority of the cases they disdain to resource to the material processes employed by the common mediums. They obtain direct manifestations. Their process, as simple as themselves, consists on the use of a common pencil, like the one used by the first heretic that would show up, through which they enter into immediate relationship with the Spirits and capture their messages. Among other advantages the method allows them to keep their modesty aside and award their own work with the most exaggerated honors, covering themselves with the names of the supposed authors.
Before believing in the accuracy of the mechanical writing medium we would like to see an idiot writing some beautiful page such as has never been dictated by the Spirits that operate through mediumistic ways. The intuition medium is more acceptable but it seems very difficult to us that experience will teach how to separate the thought of the Spirit from that of the medium. As a matter of fact the role played by the latter one may be easily explained. The mediums in their majority are sincere and it is to them rather than operators of the kind of Mr. Home and Mr. Dupotet that the opinion issued by Mr. Count of Gasparin applies with accuracy. As for the opinion of Mr. Mirville there is no place to discuss it here since it has been well verified that no medium, at least in Constantinople, is a witch.
If we were supposed to defend the Spiritist against such hateful accusations like the ones that we repeal here we would only need to mention some teachings given by the Spirits to demonstrate its complete naivety:
- The different planets that circulate in space are inhabited like our Earth. The astronomical observations lead us to think that the environs of their respective inhabitants are very different requiring different physical organizations but the perispirit accommodates to the varieties of kinds allowing the Spirit to incarnate on the surface of different planets;
We are from pretending that anyone that studies Spiritism will necessarily approve it. However, if that person is in good faith she will not move away from the truth even in her denial and will not make us say something in opposition to what we have said; this will necessarily happen if that person is not aware of everything that we said. We would not recognize as a serious critic but only the one that would avoid generalizations and that proposed authoritative arguments against our own and demonstrated, without a possible replica, that the facts that serve as our foundation are either false, created or radically impossible. That is something that has not been done yet by the editor of the Constantinople newspaper or the others.
Spiritism has been attacked in many ways, with all weapons that were considered more lethal. Nothing was spared to annihilate Spiritism, not even slander. There isn’t a single obscure author that has not boasted about having thrown the last stroke of mercy. People of real value count amongst the adversaries who have excavated the arsenal of objections to the lowest level with more eagerness the more was the interest in muffle Spiritism.
Despite everything that was done, however, Spiritism not only stands but expands more and more on a daily basis; it establishes everywhere and the number of followers grows incessantly. That is a notorious fact. What can we conclude from all that? That nothing could have seriously and conclusively been opposed to Spiritism.
Will our opponent from Constantinople be more successful? We seriously doubt since he has not shown better arguments for that. His articles, far from stopping the Spiritist movement in the Orient, can only favor it as happened to all others of the same kind for all of them go around the same circle. That is why we are not worried. We shall limit ourselves to cite some fragments that summarize the author’s opinion.
There isn’t a single objection of his against Spiritism that does not meet a prompt refutation in our books. If we had to counter every absurd created about this subject we would have to repeat ourselves endlessly and that is something useless considering that such criticism without any serious support will definitely help us more than cause any harm.
“Side by side with skillful practitioners like the magicians exemplified by Mr. Dupotet, or the mediums, like Mr. Home, comes a different order of members in whose first rows we find Mr. Allan Kardec. This one may be presented as the role model to the whole group of Spiritists whose good faith could not be denied. The Spiritists of Constantinople belong to that artistic and literary school, as we have already said, that operates mainly through their writings in which the Spiritist Review by Mr. Allan Kardec is the most perfect example. Such a doctrine was established by its followers. The theory of the Spirits has no secret to them; hence in the majority of the cases they disdain to resource to the material processes employed by the common mediums. They obtain direct manifestations. Their process, as simple as themselves, consists on the use of a common pencil, like the one used by the first heretic that would show up, through which they enter into immediate relationship with the Spirits and capture their messages. Among other advantages the method allows them to keep their modesty aside and award their own work with the most exaggerated honors, covering themselves with the names of the supposed authors.
Before believing in the accuracy of the mechanical writing medium we would like to see an idiot writing some beautiful page such as has never been dictated by the Spirits that operate through mediumistic ways. The intuition medium is more acceptable but it seems very difficult to us that experience will teach how to separate the thought of the Spirit from that of the medium. As a matter of fact the role played by the latter one may be easily explained. The mediums in their majority are sincere and it is to them rather than operators of the kind of Mr. Home and Mr. Dupotet that the opinion issued by Mr. Count of Gasparin applies with accuracy. As for the opinion of Mr. Mirville there is no place to discuss it here since it has been well verified that no medium, at least in Constantinople, is a witch.
If we were supposed to defend the Spiritist against such hateful accusations like the ones that we repeal here we would only need to mention some teachings given by the Spirits to demonstrate its complete naivety:
- The different planets that circulate in space are inhabited like our Earth. The astronomical observations lead us to think that the environs of their respective inhabitants are very different requiring different physical organizations but the perispirit accommodates to the varieties of kinds allowing the Spirit to incarnate on the surface of different planets;
- The moral, intellectual and physical state of those worlds constitute a progressive series in which our Earth does not occupy the first or the last position; it is, nonetheless, one of the most material and least advanced planets. There are some in which evil is unknown; where arts and sciences have arrived to a degree of perfection that we cannot understand; where their physical organization is not subjected to sufferings or diseases; where people live in peace, not harming one another, exempt of pains and concerns.
Tonight I will see people on the moon with my new instruments, says King Afonso in one passage. The Spiritists were more successful and saw them but it is not certain that they envy the destiny of the lunatics. We thought that there isn’t anything that can preclude them from already enjoying that globe.
From all the above one can see the result of the wonderful and supernatural in Spiritism. In order to destroy it completely all we need is to examine the facts that we have just mentioned without preconceived ideas of finding there highly reproachable practices of witchcraft or the action of a fluid whose existence is denied by the scientists.
Anyone that would attend their sessions not subjected to accept the facts by what they pretend to be, Mr. Home and Mr. Dupotet like all players of the same type, will evidently be interested mystifying persons. Their actions will be at most comparable to those of Mr. Bosco with respect to their skills and the latter adds honesty which does not allow to carry the comparison any further. Very different from the magicians that we just mentioned, mediums like Mr. Allan Kardec and generally the mediums of Constantinople, are on the contrary mystified. All of their efforts only lead to the belief of a total mystification of themselves. Despite all the good-will that one may have towards them it is really impossible to take any of their practices seriously. However one must regret the fact that honest persons spend most of their time practicing mistakes that to them become a reality. However inoffensive their mistakes seem to be they can only produce fatal results since they take the place of truth. It is in that aspect that they are reproachable.”
The Spiritists of Constantinople responded themselves through two articles that were published in that newspaper in its numbers 21 and 22 last March. One is from a medium that reports the process through which his mediumship developed and overcame his disbelief. The other one reproduced below is in the name of everyone.
“Mr. Editor,
Your newspaper has just published three lengthy articles entitled: - Spiritism in Constantinople, and for that we ask you to provide us with space to respond with the lines below:
True Spiritism in Constantinople
The Spiritist Doctrine that is based on the belief of an infinitely just and good God, the infinite love; that indicates as the objective to the Spirits created by that very God the path to the ever growing perfection and as a punishment in their spiritual state a most complete perception of that objective, feeling sorry for having moved away from that path, at the same time that the need to restart the ascending march through new incarnations… The Doctrine that teaches the purest moral, the very doctrine exposed so well by Jesus Christ in these simple words: Love one another… Such a doctrine of love, we must say out loud, can very well go without those manifestations that the author of the article – Spiritism in Constantinople – just qualify as mystifications after having promised to explain them beyond Spiritism.
But those manifestations, very much attested today, and whose proof is found in almost every page of mankind’s history, are allowed to continue by God in order to provide everybody the proof of solidarity that exists between incarnate and discarnate Spirits so that ones can help the others and vice versa and that the spiritual being when called to the eternal life may reach the providential objective established by creation more easily and more safely.
If the facts from which such theories stem out and that are the foundation of the Spiritist Doctrine may very well be taken by mystification by certain persons but they should indicate the reasons why and what would be even better to propose other more rational and particularly truer theories.
Now, they may call truth sorcery, witchcraft, prestidigitation and other even more ridiculous names and yet they shall not preclude such truth to propagate and extend its beneficent rays onto the whole mankind.
That is why Spiritism has propagated so fast over the whole planet Earth and why, despite criticisms like the ones in those articles, it does not preclude to count its followers by the millions.
The Spiritists of Constantinople”
We send our congratulations to the Spiritists of Constantinople, both in our personal name and in the name of the members of the Spiritist Society of Paris, with our sincere felicitation to your well-deserved response that showed simultaneously worthiness and moderation.
The letter below was sent to us by Mr. Repos, lawyer and President of the Spiritist Society of Constantinople, witnessing well his dedication to the cause of the doctrine so much so that we consider it to be our duty and sincere pleasure to have it published so that the Spiritists from all countries can be aware that they can count on the fellowship of brothers from the capital of the East. We take the opportunity to also remember another town in the Orient, Smyrna. They also deserve everyone’s sympathy.
“Constantinople, June 15th 1864.
Dear Master and much honored brother in Spiritism,
In time I received your letter dated April 8th that gave me great pleasure as well as to our Spiritist brothers to whom I reported in one of our sessions. I am united to all Spiritists of Constantinople to send our most fraternal feelings to you and to all Spiritists that are member of the Parisian Society. We thank you for the encouragement that you give us and take it as a stimulus to fight for our great cause. Rest assured that we will not fail in the mission that we have undertaken and that all of our efforts will tend to the propagation of truth, love to good and to the intellectual emancipation of the other fellow human beings, our brothers in God, even if we have to sustain the most bloodthirsty battles against our enemies. If there are men that are servile and coward enough to dare fight the truth there are also those that are sufficiently independent and courageous to defend it, therefore obeying the feelings of justice and fraternal love that make a human being a true son of God. It was with great attention that I read the interesting details in your letter with respect to the progress of Spiritism in France and elsewhere. We hope that in the future the idea propagates more and more and that is what we eagerly wish to all of our earthly brothers from all countries and regions. The powerful ray of revelation shines everywhere. Blind is the one that does not see and unwise is the one that denies it and senseless the one that fights against it trying to kill it at its very source. Doesn’t its pure and pristine water come from the eternal spring, spreading the fecund and soothing dew upon the whole Earth that must be regenerated? No human power will then be able to stop it…Don’t we know, in fact, that when a there is a little water break somewhere any effort to stop it will force many others to appear in all directions and in all levels of the social fabric? It is so true that God’s will is omnipotent and that there is no obstacle capable of making opposition to that will or be prepared to be taken down and smashed by the shiny wagon of justice and truth.
Dear Master, I was assigned with the pleasant task of congratulating you in my name and in the name of every Spiritist in the East by the condemnation of your books by the Saint Inquisition of minds, I mean the so called condemnation of the index. Rejoices with all of us your brothers if your work raise great rage that could not harm you but on the contrary only had them unmasked and exposed to ridicule. That trial has already been declared null and the declaration endorsed by the public opinions of all countries.
I am sure you have received the Constantinople papers that I sent you where you could find the articles against Spiritism and the Spiritists. Have you seen our two little answers? What is your opinion? They produced good effect over here and now Spiritism is talked about more than ever before. We look forward to hearing from you in helping us to fight malice and lies, the only resource of the enemies of our doctrine.
The quiet persecution that you have announced has started here. One of our brothers lost his job for his sympathy towards Spiritism, others are attacked and threatened in their dearest family interests or means of survival by the most tenebrous maneuvers of the eternal enemies of light who dare say that Spiritism is the works of the darkness! They are so wrong if that is how they believe to be able to destroy it. Persecution, far from stopping, entails the growth of any idea that comes from above. If speeds up the blossom and maturity because it is the compost that fertilizes; it demonstrates the uselessness of any means that attempts to destroy such idea. Was Christianity muffled by the blood of the martyrs?
So long, dear Master. Kindly believe in my most sincere dedication to you and to our Spiritist brothers of Paris to whom please extend my compliments.
A.Repos Son, Lawyer.”
From all the above one can see the result of the wonderful and supernatural in Spiritism. In order to destroy it completely all we need is to examine the facts that we have just mentioned without preconceived ideas of finding there highly reproachable practices of witchcraft or the action of a fluid whose existence is denied by the scientists.
Anyone that would attend their sessions not subjected to accept the facts by what they pretend to be, Mr. Home and Mr. Dupotet like all players of the same type, will evidently be interested mystifying persons. Their actions will be at most comparable to those of Mr. Bosco with respect to their skills and the latter adds honesty which does not allow to carry the comparison any further. Very different from the magicians that we just mentioned, mediums like Mr. Allan Kardec and generally the mediums of Constantinople, are on the contrary mystified. All of their efforts only lead to the belief of a total mystification of themselves. Despite all the good-will that one may have towards them it is really impossible to take any of their practices seriously. However one must regret the fact that honest persons spend most of their time practicing mistakes that to them become a reality. However inoffensive their mistakes seem to be they can only produce fatal results since they take the place of truth. It is in that aspect that they are reproachable.”
The Spiritists of Constantinople responded themselves through two articles that were published in that newspaper in its numbers 21 and 22 last March. One is from a medium that reports the process through which his mediumship developed and overcame his disbelief. The other one reproduced below is in the name of everyone.
“Mr. Editor,
Your newspaper has just published three lengthy articles entitled: - Spiritism in Constantinople, and for that we ask you to provide us with space to respond with the lines below:
True Spiritism in Constantinople
The Spiritist Doctrine that is based on the belief of an infinitely just and good God, the infinite love; that indicates as the objective to the Spirits created by that very God the path to the ever growing perfection and as a punishment in their spiritual state a most complete perception of that objective, feeling sorry for having moved away from that path, at the same time that the need to restart the ascending march through new incarnations… The Doctrine that teaches the purest moral, the very doctrine exposed so well by Jesus Christ in these simple words: Love one another… Such a doctrine of love, we must say out loud, can very well go without those manifestations that the author of the article – Spiritism in Constantinople – just qualify as mystifications after having promised to explain them beyond Spiritism.
But those manifestations, very much attested today, and whose proof is found in almost every page of mankind’s history, are allowed to continue by God in order to provide everybody the proof of solidarity that exists between incarnate and discarnate Spirits so that ones can help the others and vice versa and that the spiritual being when called to the eternal life may reach the providential objective established by creation more easily and more safely.
If the facts from which such theories stem out and that are the foundation of the Spiritist Doctrine may very well be taken by mystification by certain persons but they should indicate the reasons why and what would be even better to propose other more rational and particularly truer theories.
Now, they may call truth sorcery, witchcraft, prestidigitation and other even more ridiculous names and yet they shall not preclude such truth to propagate and extend its beneficent rays onto the whole mankind.
That is why Spiritism has propagated so fast over the whole planet Earth and why, despite criticisms like the ones in those articles, it does not preclude to count its followers by the millions.
The Spiritists of Constantinople”
We send our congratulations to the Spiritists of Constantinople, both in our personal name and in the name of the members of the Spiritist Society of Paris, with our sincere felicitation to your well-deserved response that showed simultaneously worthiness and moderation.
The letter below was sent to us by Mr. Repos, lawyer and President of the Spiritist Society of Constantinople, witnessing well his dedication to the cause of the doctrine so much so that we consider it to be our duty and sincere pleasure to have it published so that the Spiritists from all countries can be aware that they can count on the fellowship of brothers from the capital of the East. We take the opportunity to also remember another town in the Orient, Smyrna. They also deserve everyone’s sympathy.
“Constantinople, June 15th 1864.
Dear Master and much honored brother in Spiritism,
In time I received your letter dated April 8th that gave me great pleasure as well as to our Spiritist brothers to whom I reported in one of our sessions. I am united to all Spiritists of Constantinople to send our most fraternal feelings to you and to all Spiritists that are member of the Parisian Society. We thank you for the encouragement that you give us and take it as a stimulus to fight for our great cause. Rest assured that we will not fail in the mission that we have undertaken and that all of our efforts will tend to the propagation of truth, love to good and to the intellectual emancipation of the other fellow human beings, our brothers in God, even if we have to sustain the most bloodthirsty battles against our enemies. If there are men that are servile and coward enough to dare fight the truth there are also those that are sufficiently independent and courageous to defend it, therefore obeying the feelings of justice and fraternal love that make a human being a true son of God. It was with great attention that I read the interesting details in your letter with respect to the progress of Spiritism in France and elsewhere. We hope that in the future the idea propagates more and more and that is what we eagerly wish to all of our earthly brothers from all countries and regions. The powerful ray of revelation shines everywhere. Blind is the one that does not see and unwise is the one that denies it and senseless the one that fights against it trying to kill it at its very source. Doesn’t its pure and pristine water come from the eternal spring, spreading the fecund and soothing dew upon the whole Earth that must be regenerated? No human power will then be able to stop it…Don’t we know, in fact, that when a there is a little water break somewhere any effort to stop it will force many others to appear in all directions and in all levels of the social fabric? It is so true that God’s will is omnipotent and that there is no obstacle capable of making opposition to that will or be prepared to be taken down and smashed by the shiny wagon of justice and truth.
Dear Master, I was assigned with the pleasant task of congratulating you in my name and in the name of every Spiritist in the East by the condemnation of your books by the Saint Inquisition of minds, I mean the so called condemnation of the index. Rejoices with all of us your brothers if your work raise great rage that could not harm you but on the contrary only had them unmasked and exposed to ridicule. That trial has already been declared null and the declaration endorsed by the public opinions of all countries.
I am sure you have received the Constantinople papers that I sent you where you could find the articles against Spiritism and the Spiritists. Have you seen our two little answers? What is your opinion? They produced good effect over here and now Spiritism is talked about more than ever before. We look forward to hearing from you in helping us to fight malice and lies, the only resource of the enemies of our doctrine.
The quiet persecution that you have announced has started here. One of our brothers lost his job for his sympathy towards Spiritism, others are attacked and threatened in their dearest family interests or means of survival by the most tenebrous maneuvers of the eternal enemies of light who dare say that Spiritism is the works of the darkness! They are so wrong if that is how they believe to be able to destroy it. Persecution, far from stopping, entails the growth of any idea that comes from above. If speeds up the blossom and maturity because it is the compost that fertilizes; it demonstrates the uselessness of any means that attempts to destroy such idea. Was Christianity muffled by the blood of the martyrs?
So long, dear Master. Kindly believe in my most sincere dedication to you and to our Spiritist brothers of Paris to whom please extend my compliments.
A.Repos Son, Lawyer.”
September 23rd, 1863
Chronicles of Paris
Regarding the ghosts in the theaters that is how our correspondent concludes after having given his report:
- In the next winter everyone will be able to take their friends for a fun time in the now made popular shows with some ghosts and other supernatural curiosities. After the meal the candles will be put out and modern ghosts will be seen dressed up in their shrouds, replacing the funny songs that we used to hear from our grandparents in the old days. Instead of refreshments people will see ghosts parading at dance parties. What a charming distraction! It gives us the goose bumps just by thinking of that.”
The author then moves on to Spiritism:
Since we are talking about supernatural things we cannot but mention The Spirits’ Book. What an attractive title! How many mysteries behind it? Now, if we take into account its starting point how many paths were covered by such ideas in recent years? In the beginning, those not yet explained phenomena consisted on a simple table that would move by the imposition of hands. Today the tables are not satisfied by turning around only or by jumping or stand on a single foot or somersaults. They go further: They speak! When I say “speak” it means that they have their own alphabet and even several of them. All they need is a question addressed to them followed by an answer through knocks with the foot or even by a pencil that starts doodling signs, words or even full sentences on a piece of paper held by someone’s hand; all that coming from an unknown and strange mind. The hand then becomes a simple instrument, a pencil-holder, and the person remains foreign to anything that takes place.
Spiritism – that is how the science of such phenomena is called – has made great progresses in facts and events in just a few years but the theory, in my opinion, has not followed suit since it remained stationary and here is why: it is undisputable, unless the persons involved with such a matter want to deceive us and themselves, it is undisputable that the facts do exist. They are not only revealed by the turning tables. They take place every day at all times. They excite everybody’s imagination but it stops there. Let us exemplify: two persons share the same thought or say the same word; we think of someone that we do not see often and that person shows up unexpectedly; someone knocks at the door and although outside we guess correctly who the person is; a letter with funds get to our hands in times of need; that and so many other events so frequent and so much known by everybody. Can all that be attributed to chance? No, there is no way that such events can be attributed to chance. Now, why wouldn’t that be some sort of fluidic communication that goes undetected by our physical organization, like a sixth sense of a more elevated nature? Nobody knows the dwelling of the soul that is invisible, imponderable and intangible, however given our significant conviction we can attest its existence. What is the essence of electricity? Magnetism? Nonetheless the effects of electricity and magnetism are continually present before our eyes. I am persuaded that the same will one day apply to Spiritism or whatever the name that science will definitely find convenient to give it.
Some time ago I saw several cases of catalepsy, magnetization and Spiritism and I cannot have any doubt about it but what seems more difficult to me is to explain them and have them attributed to one cause or another. It is therefore necessary to proceed with caution and reservation, abstaining from falling by one extreme or the other: denial of everything or having them all assigned to a premature theory.
The existence of the phenomena is incontestable; its theory is still to be revealed, and that is the current state of affairs. One cannot deny that there is something singular and dignified to be examined in this idea that has agitated the whole world and that resurges stronger than ever in periodicals that operate like archives of observation; ideas that have moved minds in Austria, Italy and America, that give rise to meetings in France, a country in which such things are rarely found and where the government do not tolerate them very much. Such a general invasion produces a marked impression and has high relevance. It is then necessary to verify the phenomena with prudence and without preconceived ideas, in good faith up until they can be explained, something that will one day happen if God decides to reveal to us the nature of that mysterious agent.”
-o-
As one can see the author is not much advanced but at least he does not judge something that he does not know. He acknowledges the existence of the phenomena but has not recognized the mode of production. He ignores the progresses of the theoretical part of the science and goes on to provide a very wise advice that is the avoidance of adventurous theories, like each one was trying to do, for that was the reason why each one of those premature systems failed before future events that stood against them.
Today we have the rational theory in which not a single point was admitted as hypothetical for everything is deduced from experience and from the attentive observation of the facts. One can say that in that regards Spiritism has been studied like the exact sciences.
Denied in the past this science has not yet told us everything and there is still a lot for us to learn but it has said enough to establish the fundamental basis and to know that those phenomena are not outside the scope of the natural phenomena. They were qualified as supernatural and wonderful for a lack of knowledge of the laws that govern them as has also happened to the majority of the physical phenomena. By revealing that law Spiritism restricts the circle of the supernatural instead of enlarging that. We say more: Spiritism swings the final blow onto the supernatural. Those who say otherwise demonstrate that they have not studied Spiritism. We have the pleasure to attest the progress of the Spiritist idea in Rio de Janeiro where it counts on a large number of keen and devoted representatives. The little book “Spiritism in its simplest expression” has contributed significantly to spread the true principles of the doctrine there.
Chronicles of Paris
Regarding the ghosts in the theaters that is how our correspondent concludes after having given his report:
- In the next winter everyone will be able to take their friends for a fun time in the now made popular shows with some ghosts and other supernatural curiosities. After the meal the candles will be put out and modern ghosts will be seen dressed up in their shrouds, replacing the funny songs that we used to hear from our grandparents in the old days. Instead of refreshments people will see ghosts parading at dance parties. What a charming distraction! It gives us the goose bumps just by thinking of that.”
The author then moves on to Spiritism:
Since we are talking about supernatural things we cannot but mention The Spirits’ Book. What an attractive title! How many mysteries behind it? Now, if we take into account its starting point how many paths were covered by such ideas in recent years? In the beginning, those not yet explained phenomena consisted on a simple table that would move by the imposition of hands. Today the tables are not satisfied by turning around only or by jumping or stand on a single foot or somersaults. They go further: They speak! When I say “speak” it means that they have their own alphabet and even several of them. All they need is a question addressed to them followed by an answer through knocks with the foot or even by a pencil that starts doodling signs, words or even full sentences on a piece of paper held by someone’s hand; all that coming from an unknown and strange mind. The hand then becomes a simple instrument, a pencil-holder, and the person remains foreign to anything that takes place.
Spiritism – that is how the science of such phenomena is called – has made great progresses in facts and events in just a few years but the theory, in my opinion, has not followed suit since it remained stationary and here is why: it is undisputable, unless the persons involved with such a matter want to deceive us and themselves, it is undisputable that the facts do exist. They are not only revealed by the turning tables. They take place every day at all times. They excite everybody’s imagination but it stops there. Let us exemplify: two persons share the same thought or say the same word; we think of someone that we do not see often and that person shows up unexpectedly; someone knocks at the door and although outside we guess correctly who the person is; a letter with funds get to our hands in times of need; that and so many other events so frequent and so much known by everybody. Can all that be attributed to chance? No, there is no way that such events can be attributed to chance. Now, why wouldn’t that be some sort of fluidic communication that goes undetected by our physical organization, like a sixth sense of a more elevated nature? Nobody knows the dwelling of the soul that is invisible, imponderable and intangible, however given our significant conviction we can attest its existence. What is the essence of electricity? Magnetism? Nonetheless the effects of electricity and magnetism are continually present before our eyes. I am persuaded that the same will one day apply to Spiritism or whatever the name that science will definitely find convenient to give it.
Some time ago I saw several cases of catalepsy, magnetization and Spiritism and I cannot have any doubt about it but what seems more difficult to me is to explain them and have them attributed to one cause or another. It is therefore necessary to proceed with caution and reservation, abstaining from falling by one extreme or the other: denial of everything or having them all assigned to a premature theory.
The existence of the phenomena is incontestable; its theory is still to be revealed, and that is the current state of affairs. One cannot deny that there is something singular and dignified to be examined in this idea that has agitated the whole world and that resurges stronger than ever in periodicals that operate like archives of observation; ideas that have moved minds in Austria, Italy and America, that give rise to meetings in France, a country in which such things are rarely found and where the government do not tolerate them very much. Such a general invasion produces a marked impression and has high relevance. It is then necessary to verify the phenomena with prudence and without preconceived ideas, in good faith up until they can be explained, something that will one day happen if God decides to reveal to us the nature of that mysterious agent.”
-o-
As one can see the author is not much advanced but at least he does not judge something that he does not know. He acknowledges the existence of the phenomena but has not recognized the mode of production. He ignores the progresses of the theoretical part of the science and goes on to provide a very wise advice that is the avoidance of adventurous theories, like each one was trying to do, for that was the reason why each one of those premature systems failed before future events that stood against them.
Today we have the rational theory in which not a single point was admitted as hypothetical for everything is deduced from experience and from the attentive observation of the facts. One can say that in that regards Spiritism has been studied like the exact sciences.
Denied in the past this science has not yet told us everything and there is still a lot for us to learn but it has said enough to establish the fundamental basis and to know that those phenomena are not outside the scope of the natural phenomena. They were qualified as supernatural and wonderful for a lack of knowledge of the laws that govern them as has also happened to the majority of the physical phenomena. By revealing that law Spiritism restricts the circle of the supernatural instead of enlarging that. We say more: Spiritism swings the final blow onto the supernatural. Those who say otherwise demonstrate that they have not studied Spiritism. We have the pleasure to attest the progress of the Spiritist idea in Rio de Janeiro where it counts on a large number of keen and devoted representatives. The little book “Spiritism in its simplest expression” has contributed significantly to spread the true principles of the doctrine there.
March 28th, 1864
To the Editor, Colonial Progress
Dear Sir,
Knowing your liberalism and also knowing that you are involved with Spiritism I kindly ask you to have the attached letter inserted into the next issue of the Spiritist Review; the letter was addressed to Mr. Priest de Régnon and I let you make the judgement that you consider adequate in the interest of truth. I count on your impartiality dare thinking that you will open the doors of your journal to me for all the complaints of the kind that I am honored to send you.
I am your humble servant,
… C.
“To Mr. Priest de Régnon
Port-Louis, March 26th, 1864
Mr. Priest,
In your last Thursday sermon of March 24th you attacked Spiritism but I wish to believe that you did so in good faith given the fact that the arguments that you used against Spiritism were not entirely accurate. From our side, convict Spiritists, it is regrettable that you sought them outside the positive source of that science. Had you studied it a little and you would had known that we repeal, as you do, every communication that may come from rude and deceiving Spirits that will minor experience are easily identified and that we are associated only to those communications that are clear, rational and according to the laws of God, that you know as much as we do has allowed the Spiritist manifestations at all times. The Sacred Scriptures are here as a proof of that. As a matter of fact you do not deny the existence of the Spirits, on the contrary, you only admit the bad ones. That is the difference between us. We are certain about the existence of the good Spirits and that their advices, when followed – and every true Spiritist will always follow them – lead more souls to God and do much more proselytes of religion than you can imagine. However, to understand and practice that science, as well as all others, it is necessary to study and get to know it well, to begin with. Therefore, Mr. Priest, I advise you in your own interest first and then in the interest of everyone else that has the honor of hearing you that you should read one of the main books of the subject, The Spirits’ Book, dictated by those good Spirits to Mr. Allan Kardec, president of the Spiritist Society of Paris, formed by serious and in its majority well educated people. You will then see that only ignorant persons will be deceived by false names and lies and that one can easily recognize the tree by the fruits it bears. Would it be necessary for me to remind you of the 3rd Epistle of John, verses 1-3, about the way we can check the Spirits? Yes, I agree that Spiritism is a science that like the best things in the world may sometimes produce evil things if practiced by those that have not studied and practice it carelessly.
But in that case should you, a cautious man, judged that doctrine without knowing it? Should our beautiful Christian doctrine be judged by the actions of so many senseless, ignorant and even evil persons that committed so many crimes and shed so much blood in its name? No, Mr. Priest, it is not fair nor rational to pass reckless judgment on things that we have not certified beforehand. Leave the surface and move on to the depth of knowledge and then you will be able to handle the matter with actual knowledge and we will listen to you with reverence because you will then undoubtedly be with the truth and we will no longer smile in silence saying to ourselves: He speaks of what he doesn’t know.”
A Spiritist
If Spiritism counts on detractors it also counts on defenders everywhere even in the most distant places. The author of this letter published a very interesting novel in the same journal, a novel based on Spiritism that powerfully contributed to the diffusion of these ideas in that region. We shall handle this on another occasion.
“Spiritism is definitely something horrible because no science, no heretic doctrine has ever raised stronger opposition in the heart of the Church than Spiritism, not even atheism. All imaginable resources, ethical or not, were employed first to muffle it and later on, when realized the total impossibility of destroying Spiritism, to stain it or to show it under the dark image of sin. Poor Spiritism! It was only claiming a little place under the sun to allow the world to freely enjoy its benefits. It did not ask those supposedly disciples of Jesus Christ, the man called love, to bring the word charity inscribed on their faces; all it wanted was to redirect those thousands of stray sheep to the good path, those that were failed by the pretense disciples; all it wanted was to second Jesus in his mission of devotion, healing with hope the poor hearts damaged by the gangrene of doubt and such a selfless and pure request was responded with a decree of prohibition!”
In reality we see strange things in this world: The official messengers of charity condemn more than nine tenths of mankind because they escape their influence and condemn even more severely the ones that wish to save those unfortunate ones.
“Therefore, and without a doubt, Spiritism is something much culpable because it is so much fought against and it seems strange that such a perverse doctrine may have conquered such a large space in such a short period of time. However what must seem much more remarkable is that the abhorrent Spiritism is so sturdily established and so much logical that all arguments raised against it come to contribute to its solidification and propagation despite the attempts of destroying and reducing it to nothing. In fact it is partially due to the obstacles lifted against Spiritism that it owns it fast propagation and the careless sermons of certain adversaries have do not have insignificant contribution to its spread. That is what happens in the natural order of things. Truth has no fear of its adversaries and they are in fact the contributors of its triumph. Spiritism is a tremendous focus of heat and light and whoever blows over such brazier will both infallibly burn oneself a little and revive it even further. Nonetheless commandments and conferences seem insufficient to destroy Spiritism – we are far from denying that definite insufficiency – the Roman congregation has just placed all books by Mr. Allan Kardec in the index[1], books that contain the universal teachings of the Spirits to whom all of us Spiritists are connected. Allow us to make the two considerations below with that respect:
The Spiritist books in question, no doubt, contain the purest and the required development by the current stage of evolution of humanity, the precepts of Jesus acknowledged to be a Messiah by the Spirits. By condemning those books, therefore, aren’t they condemning the words of Christ in a single blow, and by placing the books in the index isn’t the same of placing the Gospels there, the Gospels that are in agreement with us? Second reflection: isn’t the measure taken today a little bit late? Why wait so long? In addition to being more or less inexplicable (unless you believe that Spiritism seems so much truthful and that you are so much persuaded of its success that you hesitated to face it for a long time and that a very powerful personal interest led you to do so – since we do not have the pretension of considering you ignorant) and awkward. In fact The Spirits’ Book, The Mediums’ Book and the Imitation of the Gospels According to Spiritism are equally in the hands of thousands of people, and we doubt very much that the condemnation by the Roman congregation may now turn bad what everyone considered good and noble.
Regardless, the Spiritist books were placed in the index. That is even better because many of those that have not read them yet will now devour them! Seven out of ten persons that browse the books will be convinced or remain strongly shaken and willing to study the Spiritist phenomena. Even better because when our adversaries find out that their efforts lead to results in direct opposition to the expected results will change sides if they are sincere, selfless and have the enlightenment required by the ministry. In fact that is required by God’s law since nothing in this world may remain stationary but instead everything progresses and the religious idea must follow the general progress or disappear. Consequently, may all of our adversaries continue their crusade! They have already compromised the ordinations, sermons, public courses, occult influences and sometimes apparently victorious due to the state of dependence of those upon whom their tyranny is thrown; they used the auto of faith, publically burning our books in Barcelona. Since they could only burn a few books and seeing the astonishing way by which they were replaced they were finally placed in the index. Ah! Since the inquisition is no longer tolerated, although it is far from being annihilated and still operates under different formats with the support of hidden influences such as those mentioned above, the only thing that still remains is the mass excommunication of all Spiritists, that is, a remarkable percentage of people and in particular a notable percentage of Christians! (We are only talking about the confess Spiritists because there is also the large number of those that are Spiritists without knowing it).”
[1] The Index – List of Prohibited Books – was a list of publications deemed heretical, anti-clerical or lascivious, and therefore banned by the Roman Catholic Church (TN).
To the Editor, Colonial Progress
Dear Sir,
Knowing your liberalism and also knowing that you are involved with Spiritism I kindly ask you to have the attached letter inserted into the next issue of the Spiritist Review; the letter was addressed to Mr. Priest de Régnon and I let you make the judgement that you consider adequate in the interest of truth. I count on your impartiality dare thinking that you will open the doors of your journal to me for all the complaints of the kind that I am honored to send you.
I am your humble servant,
… C.
“To Mr. Priest de Régnon
Port-Louis, March 26th, 1864
Mr. Priest,
In your last Thursday sermon of March 24th you attacked Spiritism but I wish to believe that you did so in good faith given the fact that the arguments that you used against Spiritism were not entirely accurate. From our side, convict Spiritists, it is regrettable that you sought them outside the positive source of that science. Had you studied it a little and you would had known that we repeal, as you do, every communication that may come from rude and deceiving Spirits that will minor experience are easily identified and that we are associated only to those communications that are clear, rational and according to the laws of God, that you know as much as we do has allowed the Spiritist manifestations at all times. The Sacred Scriptures are here as a proof of that. As a matter of fact you do not deny the existence of the Spirits, on the contrary, you only admit the bad ones. That is the difference between us. We are certain about the existence of the good Spirits and that their advices, when followed – and every true Spiritist will always follow them – lead more souls to God and do much more proselytes of religion than you can imagine. However, to understand and practice that science, as well as all others, it is necessary to study and get to know it well, to begin with. Therefore, Mr. Priest, I advise you in your own interest first and then in the interest of everyone else that has the honor of hearing you that you should read one of the main books of the subject, The Spirits’ Book, dictated by those good Spirits to Mr. Allan Kardec, president of the Spiritist Society of Paris, formed by serious and in its majority well educated people. You will then see that only ignorant persons will be deceived by false names and lies and that one can easily recognize the tree by the fruits it bears. Would it be necessary for me to remind you of the 3rd Epistle of John, verses 1-3, about the way we can check the Spirits? Yes, I agree that Spiritism is a science that like the best things in the world may sometimes produce evil things if practiced by those that have not studied and practice it carelessly.
But in that case should you, a cautious man, judged that doctrine without knowing it? Should our beautiful Christian doctrine be judged by the actions of so many senseless, ignorant and even evil persons that committed so many crimes and shed so much blood in its name? No, Mr. Priest, it is not fair nor rational to pass reckless judgment on things that we have not certified beforehand. Leave the surface and move on to the depth of knowledge and then you will be able to handle the matter with actual knowledge and we will listen to you with reverence because you will then undoubtedly be with the truth and we will no longer smile in silence saying to ourselves: He speaks of what he doesn’t know.”
A Spiritist
If Spiritism counts on detractors it also counts on defenders everywhere even in the most distant places. The author of this letter published a very interesting novel in the same journal, a novel based on Spiritism that powerfully contributed to the diffusion of these ideas in that region. We shall handle this on another occasion.
“Spiritism is definitely something horrible because no science, no heretic doctrine has ever raised stronger opposition in the heart of the Church than Spiritism, not even atheism. All imaginable resources, ethical or not, were employed first to muffle it and later on, when realized the total impossibility of destroying Spiritism, to stain it or to show it under the dark image of sin. Poor Spiritism! It was only claiming a little place under the sun to allow the world to freely enjoy its benefits. It did not ask those supposedly disciples of Jesus Christ, the man called love, to bring the word charity inscribed on their faces; all it wanted was to redirect those thousands of stray sheep to the good path, those that were failed by the pretense disciples; all it wanted was to second Jesus in his mission of devotion, healing with hope the poor hearts damaged by the gangrene of doubt and such a selfless and pure request was responded with a decree of prohibition!”
In reality we see strange things in this world: The official messengers of charity condemn more than nine tenths of mankind because they escape their influence and condemn even more severely the ones that wish to save those unfortunate ones.
“Therefore, and without a doubt, Spiritism is something much culpable because it is so much fought against and it seems strange that such a perverse doctrine may have conquered such a large space in such a short period of time. However what must seem much more remarkable is that the abhorrent Spiritism is so sturdily established and so much logical that all arguments raised against it come to contribute to its solidification and propagation despite the attempts of destroying and reducing it to nothing. In fact it is partially due to the obstacles lifted against Spiritism that it owns it fast propagation and the careless sermons of certain adversaries have do not have insignificant contribution to its spread. That is what happens in the natural order of things. Truth has no fear of its adversaries and they are in fact the contributors of its triumph. Spiritism is a tremendous focus of heat and light and whoever blows over such brazier will both infallibly burn oneself a little and revive it even further. Nonetheless commandments and conferences seem insufficient to destroy Spiritism – we are far from denying that definite insufficiency – the Roman congregation has just placed all books by Mr. Allan Kardec in the index[1], books that contain the universal teachings of the Spirits to whom all of us Spiritists are connected. Allow us to make the two considerations below with that respect:
The Spiritist books in question, no doubt, contain the purest and the required development by the current stage of evolution of humanity, the precepts of Jesus acknowledged to be a Messiah by the Spirits. By condemning those books, therefore, aren’t they condemning the words of Christ in a single blow, and by placing the books in the index isn’t the same of placing the Gospels there, the Gospels that are in agreement with us? Second reflection: isn’t the measure taken today a little bit late? Why wait so long? In addition to being more or less inexplicable (unless you believe that Spiritism seems so much truthful and that you are so much persuaded of its success that you hesitated to face it for a long time and that a very powerful personal interest led you to do so – since we do not have the pretension of considering you ignorant) and awkward. In fact The Spirits’ Book, The Mediums’ Book and the Imitation of the Gospels According to Spiritism are equally in the hands of thousands of people, and we doubt very much that the condemnation by the Roman congregation may now turn bad what everyone considered good and noble.
Regardless, the Spiritist books were placed in the index. That is even better because many of those that have not read them yet will now devour them! Seven out of ten persons that browse the books will be convinced or remain strongly shaken and willing to study the Spiritist phenomena. Even better because when our adversaries find out that their efforts lead to results in direct opposition to the expected results will change sides if they are sincere, selfless and have the enlightenment required by the ministry. In fact that is required by God’s law since nothing in this world may remain stationary but instead everything progresses and the religious idea must follow the general progress or disappear. Consequently, may all of our adversaries continue their crusade! They have already compromised the ordinations, sermons, public courses, occult influences and sometimes apparently victorious due to the state of dependence of those upon whom their tyranny is thrown; they used the auto of faith, publically burning our books in Barcelona. Since they could only burn a few books and seeing the astonishing way by which they were replaced they were finally placed in the index. Ah! Since the inquisition is no longer tolerated, although it is far from being annihilated and still operates under different formats with the support of hidden influences such as those mentioned above, the only thing that still remains is the mass excommunication of all Spiritists, that is, a remarkable percentage of people and in particular a notable percentage of Christians! (We are only talking about the confess Spiritists because there is also the large number of those that are Spiritists without knowing it).”
[1] The Index – List of Prohibited Books – was a list of publications deemed heretical, anti-clerical or lascivious, and therefore banned by the Roman Catholic Church (TN).
“Spiritism is definitely something horrible because no science, no heretic doctrine has ever raised stronger opposition in the heart of the Church than Spiritism, not even atheism. All imaginable resources, ethical or not, were employed first to muffle it and later on, when realized the total impossibility of destroying Spiritism, to stain it or to show it under the dark image of sin. Poor Spiritism! It was only claiming a little place under the sun to allow the world to freely enjoy its benefits. It did not ask those supposedly disciples of Jesus Christ, the man called love, to bring the word charity inscribed on their faces; all it wanted was to redirect those thousands of stray sheep to the good path, those that were failed by the pretense disciples; all it wanted was to second Jesus in his mission of devotion, healing with hope the poor hearts damaged by the gangrene of doubt and such a selfless and pure request was responded with a decree of prohibition!”
In reality we see strange things in this world: The official messengers of charity condemn more than nine tenths of mankind because they escape their influence and condemn even more severely the ones that wish to save those unfortunate ones.
“Therefore, and without a doubt, Spiritism is something much culpable because it is so much fought against and it seems strange that such a perverse doctrine may have conquered such a large space in such a short period of time. However what must seem much more remarkable is that the abhorrent Spiritism is so sturdily established and so much logical that all arguments raised against it come to contribute to its solidification and propagation despite the attempts of destroying and reducing it to nothing. In fact it is partially due to the obstacles lifted against Spiritism that it owns it fast propagation and the careless sermons of certain adversaries have do not have insignificant contribution to its spread. That is what happens in the natural order of things. Truth has no fear of its adversaries and they are in fact the contributors of its triumph. Spiritism is a tremendous focus of heat and light and whoever blows over such brazier will both infallibly burn oneself a little and revive it even further. Nonetheless commandments and conferences seem insufficient to destroy Spiritism – we are far from denying that definite insufficiency – the Roman congregation has just placed all books by Mr. Allan Kardec in the index[1], books that contain the universal teachings of the Spirits to whom all of us Spiritists are connected. Allow us to make the two considerations below with that respect:
The Spiritist books in question, no doubt, contain the purest and the required development by the current stage of evolution of humanity, the precepts of Jesus acknowledged to be a Messiah by the Spirits. By condemning those books, therefore, aren’t they condemning the words of Christ in a single blow, and by placing the books in the index isn’t the same of placing the Gospels there, the Gospels that are in agreement with us? Second reflection: isn’t the measure taken today a little bit late? Why wait so long? In addition to being more or less inexplicable (unless you believe that Spiritism seems so much truthful and that you are so much persuaded of its success that you hesitated to face it for a long time and that a very powerful personal interest led you to do so – since we do not have the pretension of considering you ignorant) and awkward. In fact The Spirits’ Book, The Mediums’ Book and the Imitation of the Gospels According to Spiritism are equally in the hands of thousands of people, and we doubt very much that the condemnation by the Roman congregation may now turn bad what everyone considered good and noble.
Regardless, the Spiritist books were placed in the index. That is even better because many of those that have not read them yet will now devour them! Seven out of ten persons that browse the books will be convinced or remain strongly shaken and willing to study the Spiritist phenomena. Even better because when our adversaries find out that their efforts lead to results in direct opposition to the expected results will change sides if they are sincere, selfless and have the enlightenment required by the ministry. In fact that is required by God’s law since nothing in this world may remain stationary but instead everything progresses and the religious idea must follow the general progress or disappear. Consequently, may all of our adversaries continue their crusade! They have already compromised the ordinations, sermons, public courses, occult influences and sometimes apparently victorious due to the state of dependence of those upon whom their tyranny is thrown; they used the auto of faith, publically burning our books in Barcelona. Since they could only burn a few books and seeing the astonishing way by which they were replaced they were finally placed in the index. Ah! Since the inquisition is no longer tolerated, although it is far from being annihilated and still operates under different formats with the support of hidden influences such as those mentioned above, the only thing that still remains is the mass excommunication of all Spiritists, that is, a remarkable percentage of people and in particular a notable percentage of Christians! (We are only talking about the confess Spiritists because there is also the large number of those that are Spiritists without knowing it).”
[1] The Index – List of Prohibited Books – was a list of publications deemed heretical, anti-clerical or lascivious, and therefore banned by the Roman Catholic Church (TN).
In reality we see strange things in this world: The official messengers of charity condemn more than nine tenths of mankind because they escape their influence and condemn even more severely the ones that wish to save those unfortunate ones.
“Therefore, and without a doubt, Spiritism is something much culpable because it is so much fought against and it seems strange that such a perverse doctrine may have conquered such a large space in such a short period of time. However what must seem much more remarkable is that the abhorrent Spiritism is so sturdily established and so much logical that all arguments raised against it come to contribute to its solidification and propagation despite the attempts of destroying and reducing it to nothing. In fact it is partially due to the obstacles lifted against Spiritism that it owns it fast propagation and the careless sermons of certain adversaries have do not have insignificant contribution to its spread. That is what happens in the natural order of things. Truth has no fear of its adversaries and they are in fact the contributors of its triumph. Spiritism is a tremendous focus of heat and light and whoever blows over such brazier will both infallibly burn oneself a little and revive it even further. Nonetheless commandments and conferences seem insufficient to destroy Spiritism – we are far from denying that definite insufficiency – the Roman congregation has just placed all books by Mr. Allan Kardec in the index[1], books that contain the universal teachings of the Spirits to whom all of us Spiritists are connected. Allow us to make the two considerations below with that respect:
The Spiritist books in question, no doubt, contain the purest and the required development by the current stage of evolution of humanity, the precepts of Jesus acknowledged to be a Messiah by the Spirits. By condemning those books, therefore, aren’t they condemning the words of Christ in a single blow, and by placing the books in the index isn’t the same of placing the Gospels there, the Gospels that are in agreement with us? Second reflection: isn’t the measure taken today a little bit late? Why wait so long? In addition to being more or less inexplicable (unless you believe that Spiritism seems so much truthful and that you are so much persuaded of its success that you hesitated to face it for a long time and that a very powerful personal interest led you to do so – since we do not have the pretension of considering you ignorant) and awkward. In fact The Spirits’ Book, The Mediums’ Book and the Imitation of the Gospels According to Spiritism are equally in the hands of thousands of people, and we doubt very much that the condemnation by the Roman congregation may now turn bad what everyone considered good and noble.
Regardless, the Spiritist books were placed in the index. That is even better because many of those that have not read them yet will now devour them! Seven out of ten persons that browse the books will be convinced or remain strongly shaken and willing to study the Spiritist phenomena. Even better because when our adversaries find out that their efforts lead to results in direct opposition to the expected results will change sides if they are sincere, selfless and have the enlightenment required by the ministry. In fact that is required by God’s law since nothing in this world may remain stationary but instead everything progresses and the religious idea must follow the general progress or disappear. Consequently, may all of our adversaries continue their crusade! They have already compromised the ordinations, sermons, public courses, occult influences and sometimes apparently victorious due to the state of dependence of those upon whom their tyranny is thrown; they used the auto of faith, publically burning our books in Barcelona. Since they could only burn a few books and seeing the astonishing way by which they were replaced they were finally placed in the index. Ah! Since the inquisition is no longer tolerated, although it is far from being annihilated and still operates under different formats with the support of hidden influences such as those mentioned above, the only thing that still remains is the mass excommunication of all Spiritists, that is, a remarkable percentage of people and in particular a notable percentage of Christians! (We are only talking about the confess Spiritists because there is also the large number of those that are Spiritists without knowing it).”
[1] The Index – List of Prohibited Books – was a list of publications deemed heretical, anti-clerical or lascivious, and therefore banned by the Roman Catholic Church (TN).
Note: In one of the sessions of the Spiritist Society of Paris in which we had discussed the commotion that generally follows death, one Spirit manifested spontaneously to Mrs. Costel through the communication that follows and is not signed:
“Why do you discuss commotion? Why such hopeless words? You are dreamers and visionaries. You totally ignore things that you are dealing with. No, gentlemen, there is no disruption except perhaps in your minds. I am so recently dead as possible I clearly see myself, around me, everywhere… Life is a gloomy comedy! Awkward the ones that take us out of scene before the curtain is down… Deaf is horrible, a punishment, a desire, according to the weakness or strength of those that fear it, defy or implore for that. It is a bitter derision to everyone!
Light obfuscates and penetrates the subtleness of my being like the acute spear… I was punished by the darkness of prison and they thought I was punished again by the darkness of the grave or the ones dreamed by the Catholic superstitions.
Ah! It is you, gentlemen that suffer the darkness and I, social pariah, I float above you… I want to continue to be myself… I am strong in my thoughts and I disdain the warnings that resonate around me… I see clearly… A crime! It is a word! Crime is everywhere. When practiced by masses of men, it is glorified; in particular it is hated. Absurd! Don’t feel sorry for me… I ask for nothing… I suffice myself and will know very well how to fight against this hateful light.
The one that was a man yesterday.”
After analyzing this communication in the following session it was recognized in the very cynicism of the language a serious teaching and in the situation of this miserable soul we found a new phase of punishment that reaches the guilty ones. In fact while some are embedded in darkness or in an absolute isolation others withstand for long years the anguishes of their last hour, or even still consider to be part of this world. Light shines for this one; the Spirit enjoys the plenitude of its faculties; he knows perfectly well that he is dead and regrets nothing; asks for no assistance and still defies the divine and human laws.
Will that Spirit then escape punishment? No. What happens is that divine justice takes place in all shapes and forms and what is happiness to some to others it is a torment. That light is an ordeal against which the Spirits fights continually and despite his pride he confesses it when says: “I suffice to myself and will know very well how to fight against that hateful light” and in this other phrase: “Light obfuscates and penetrates the subtleness of my being like the acute spear”. The words subtleness of my being are telling. He acknowledges that his body is fluidic and penetrable by light from which he cannot evade and such a light surpasses like an acute spear. When requested to provide their opinion about the matter our guides dictated the three following communications that deserve serious attention:
(Medium: Mr. A. Didier)
“There are tests without atonements and atonements without tests. In erraticity[1] from the point of view of the existences the Spirits are inactive and waiting. They can, however, atone considering their pride and the formidable strength of their mistakes to not keep them behind at the time of their progressing ascension. You have a terrible example in the last communication with respect to a criminal that fights against the divine justice that constrains him and that of man as well. In such a case then the atonement, or even better, the fatal suffering that oppresses him instead of benefiting him by making him feel the profound meaning of his penalties, it exalts that suffering in his rebellion, making him groan or “gnashing of teeth” found in the poetic eloquence of the Scriptures[2], an image by excellence, symbol of a restive suffering, lost in pain but in such a rebellious state that the soul refuses to acknowledge the truth of the penalties and rewards! The great mistakes almost always linger on in the world of the Spirits. By the same token the great criminal minds. To be in control of oneself, despite everything else, and boasting before infinity is like the blindness of a person that gaze the stars and believe them to be decorations on a ceiling, like the Gallic from the times of Alexander. There is a moral infinity! Miserable and pitiful is the one that with the excuse of trying to continue the disgusting struggles and bragging of Earth cannot see further in the other world than down here! For these remains the blindness, the neglect of others, the selfish and petty personality and the stagnation of progress! It is very true, oh mankind, that there is a secret agreement between the immortality of a pure name left on Earth and the immortality that really keeps the Spirits in their successive trials.”
Lamennais
Observation: To understand the meaning of the phrase “there are tests without atonements and atonements without tests” it is necessary to understand atonement as the suffering that purifies and cleans the stains of the past. After the atonement the Spirit is rehabilitated. Lamennais’ thought is this: according to the vicissitudes of life being followed or not followed by the regret of the faults that led to them, by the desire to turn them into something useful to one’s own betterment, there will be or not be atonement, that is, rehabilitation. Therefore the greatest sufferings may not be useful to the one that suffers is such a suffering does not make them better; if they do not rise above matter; if they do not see the hand of God in that; if, finally, it does not make them move one step forward because such a Spirit will have to re-start in even more painful conditions. From that point of view the same happens to the penalties endured after death. The hardened Spirit suffer without being touched by regret. That is why the Spirit can extend that out of their own will. The Spirit is punished but there is no regret.
(Medium Mr. D’Ambel)
Throw a man in darkness or in waves of light: won’t the result be the same? In either case that man sees nothing around and will even adapt more rapidly to the shadow than to the triple electric clarity in which one can be submerse. That is how the Spirit that communicated in the last session expresses the truth of his situation when says:
“I suit myself and will know very well how to fight against this hateful light!” In fact such a light is the more terrible and the more scaring the more it makes one’s most secret thoughts visible and apparent. That is one of the hardest spiritual punishments. He is like an intern in a glass house like the one requested by Socrates, being that a teaching considering that what would be a joy and consolation to the wise man becomes a dishonorable and continuous punishment of the criminal, the perverse and parricide, haunted by his own personality. Can you understand, my children that the pain and horror that must hinder the one that during a sinister life was happy to plot and feed the saddest thoughts in the inner core of their own being, like a hiding beast in a cave, now expelled from that private refuge, hiding from the eyes and investigation of his contemporaries? The mask of impassivity is now yanked and each of his thoughts shows successively on his face! Yes, from now on no more resting or asylum to that formidable criminal! Every bad thought, and God knows his soul well, betrays itself from the inside and outside like a strong electric shock. He wants to avoid the crowds but the hateful light continuously surrounds him. He wants to flee, escaping in a desperate surge through the incommensurable space but light is everywhere! Staring eyes landing on him from all sides. He rushes again seeking the shadow, the darkness but there is none for him. He demands the help of death but death is a meaningless word. The miserable runs nonstop. He moves towards spiritual madness, terrible punishment, horrible pain in which there will always be the struggle against himself on trying to disentangle his own soul because that is the supreme law on this Earth: it is the guilty person that becomes the most inexorable punishment to oneself.
How long will that last? Up to the time when the finally broken will bends before the overpowering pressure of remorse and in which his pride shall be humiliated before his appeased victims and the Spirits of justice. Observe the robust logic of the immutable laws for he will still accomplish what was written in that haughtily message, clear, lucid and also so much full of himself, in a communication voluntarily given on the last Friday.”
Protector Spirit of the medium
(Medium Mr. Costel)
“Human justice does not privilege the individuality of those that are punished. The crime is measured by the crime itself, indistinctly reaching the criminal, the same punishment applied to the guilty one without distinction of gender and education. The divine justice proceeds differently. The degree of punishment corresponds to the level of advancement of those involved. The equality of crimes does not correspond to equality of individuals so that two persons guilty of the same crime may be separated by distance of the atonements being one in intellectual opacity of the first initiating circles and the other overpassed those circles and acquired the lucidity that frees the Spirit of any confusion. Hence no more the punishment of ignorance but the spiritual light of awareness. That reaches the earthly intelligence and leads to the anguish of the exposed ulcer. The discarnate Spirits that are persecuted by the material image of their crimes suffer the effect of physical electricity. They suffer through the senses. Those that are already dematerialized by the Spirit feel a much superior pain that annihilates the memory of the facts, only allowing the recollection of their causes. The person can then, despite the seriousness of the criminal act, have a previous advancement and despite the passions that made that person act like a brute, the faculties raise that person above the thick atmosphere of inferior layers. The absence of ponderation and balance between the moral and intellectual progress produces the anomalies so much frequent in periods of materialism and transition.
The light that tortures the guilty Spirit is therefore the spiritual ray inundating the most secret corners of pride with clarity and uncovering the uselessness of a fragmentary being. These are the first symptoms and the first anguishes of the spiritual agony that announces a separation or dissolution of the material and intellectual elements that constitute a primitive human duality and that must disappear in the great unit of a complete being.”
Jean Reynaud
Observation: These three communications, received simultaneously, complement one another and present punishment with a new eminently philosophical aspect, a little bit more rational that the flames of hell surrounded by sharp blades. It is likely that the Spirits, willing to handle the issue with an example, may have provoked the communication of the guilty Spirit.
[1] Period between two physical existences; state of the soul prior to incarnation (TN)
[2]Mathews 25, 28-30 (TN)
“Why do you discuss commotion? Why such hopeless words? You are dreamers and visionaries. You totally ignore things that you are dealing with. No, gentlemen, there is no disruption except perhaps in your minds. I am so recently dead as possible I clearly see myself, around me, everywhere… Life is a gloomy comedy! Awkward the ones that take us out of scene before the curtain is down… Deaf is horrible, a punishment, a desire, according to the weakness or strength of those that fear it, defy or implore for that. It is a bitter derision to everyone!
Light obfuscates and penetrates the subtleness of my being like the acute spear… I was punished by the darkness of prison and they thought I was punished again by the darkness of the grave or the ones dreamed by the Catholic superstitions.
Ah! It is you, gentlemen that suffer the darkness and I, social pariah, I float above you… I want to continue to be myself… I am strong in my thoughts and I disdain the warnings that resonate around me… I see clearly… A crime! It is a word! Crime is everywhere. When practiced by masses of men, it is glorified; in particular it is hated. Absurd! Don’t feel sorry for me… I ask for nothing… I suffice myself and will know very well how to fight against this hateful light.
The one that was a man yesterday.”
After analyzing this communication in the following session it was recognized in the very cynicism of the language a serious teaching and in the situation of this miserable soul we found a new phase of punishment that reaches the guilty ones. In fact while some are embedded in darkness or in an absolute isolation others withstand for long years the anguishes of their last hour, or even still consider to be part of this world. Light shines for this one; the Spirit enjoys the plenitude of its faculties; he knows perfectly well that he is dead and regrets nothing; asks for no assistance and still defies the divine and human laws.
Will that Spirit then escape punishment? No. What happens is that divine justice takes place in all shapes and forms and what is happiness to some to others it is a torment. That light is an ordeal against which the Spirits fights continually and despite his pride he confesses it when says: “I suffice to myself and will know very well how to fight against that hateful light” and in this other phrase: “Light obfuscates and penetrates the subtleness of my being like the acute spear”. The words subtleness of my being are telling. He acknowledges that his body is fluidic and penetrable by light from which he cannot evade and such a light surpasses like an acute spear. When requested to provide their opinion about the matter our guides dictated the three following communications that deserve serious attention:
(Medium: Mr. A. Didier)
“There are tests without atonements and atonements without tests. In erraticity[1] from the point of view of the existences the Spirits are inactive and waiting. They can, however, atone considering their pride and the formidable strength of their mistakes to not keep them behind at the time of their progressing ascension. You have a terrible example in the last communication with respect to a criminal that fights against the divine justice that constrains him and that of man as well. In such a case then the atonement, or even better, the fatal suffering that oppresses him instead of benefiting him by making him feel the profound meaning of his penalties, it exalts that suffering in his rebellion, making him groan or “gnashing of teeth” found in the poetic eloquence of the Scriptures[2], an image by excellence, symbol of a restive suffering, lost in pain but in such a rebellious state that the soul refuses to acknowledge the truth of the penalties and rewards! The great mistakes almost always linger on in the world of the Spirits. By the same token the great criminal minds. To be in control of oneself, despite everything else, and boasting before infinity is like the blindness of a person that gaze the stars and believe them to be decorations on a ceiling, like the Gallic from the times of Alexander. There is a moral infinity! Miserable and pitiful is the one that with the excuse of trying to continue the disgusting struggles and bragging of Earth cannot see further in the other world than down here! For these remains the blindness, the neglect of others, the selfish and petty personality and the stagnation of progress! It is very true, oh mankind, that there is a secret agreement between the immortality of a pure name left on Earth and the immortality that really keeps the Spirits in their successive trials.”
Lamennais
Observation: To understand the meaning of the phrase “there are tests without atonements and atonements without tests” it is necessary to understand atonement as the suffering that purifies and cleans the stains of the past. After the atonement the Spirit is rehabilitated. Lamennais’ thought is this: according to the vicissitudes of life being followed or not followed by the regret of the faults that led to them, by the desire to turn them into something useful to one’s own betterment, there will be or not be atonement, that is, rehabilitation. Therefore the greatest sufferings may not be useful to the one that suffers is such a suffering does not make them better; if they do not rise above matter; if they do not see the hand of God in that; if, finally, it does not make them move one step forward because such a Spirit will have to re-start in even more painful conditions. From that point of view the same happens to the penalties endured after death. The hardened Spirit suffer without being touched by regret. That is why the Spirit can extend that out of their own will. The Spirit is punished but there is no regret.
(Medium Mr. D’Ambel)
Throw a man in darkness or in waves of light: won’t the result be the same? In either case that man sees nothing around and will even adapt more rapidly to the shadow than to the triple electric clarity in which one can be submerse. That is how the Spirit that communicated in the last session expresses the truth of his situation when says:
“I suit myself and will know very well how to fight against this hateful light!” In fact such a light is the more terrible and the more scaring the more it makes one’s most secret thoughts visible and apparent. That is one of the hardest spiritual punishments. He is like an intern in a glass house like the one requested by Socrates, being that a teaching considering that what would be a joy and consolation to the wise man becomes a dishonorable and continuous punishment of the criminal, the perverse and parricide, haunted by his own personality. Can you understand, my children that the pain and horror that must hinder the one that during a sinister life was happy to plot and feed the saddest thoughts in the inner core of their own being, like a hiding beast in a cave, now expelled from that private refuge, hiding from the eyes and investigation of his contemporaries? The mask of impassivity is now yanked and each of his thoughts shows successively on his face! Yes, from now on no more resting or asylum to that formidable criminal! Every bad thought, and God knows his soul well, betrays itself from the inside and outside like a strong electric shock. He wants to avoid the crowds but the hateful light continuously surrounds him. He wants to flee, escaping in a desperate surge through the incommensurable space but light is everywhere! Staring eyes landing on him from all sides. He rushes again seeking the shadow, the darkness but there is none for him. He demands the help of death but death is a meaningless word. The miserable runs nonstop. He moves towards spiritual madness, terrible punishment, horrible pain in which there will always be the struggle against himself on trying to disentangle his own soul because that is the supreme law on this Earth: it is the guilty person that becomes the most inexorable punishment to oneself.
How long will that last? Up to the time when the finally broken will bends before the overpowering pressure of remorse and in which his pride shall be humiliated before his appeased victims and the Spirits of justice. Observe the robust logic of the immutable laws for he will still accomplish what was written in that haughtily message, clear, lucid and also so much full of himself, in a communication voluntarily given on the last Friday.”
Protector Spirit of the medium
(Medium Mr. Costel)
“Human justice does not privilege the individuality of those that are punished. The crime is measured by the crime itself, indistinctly reaching the criminal, the same punishment applied to the guilty one without distinction of gender and education. The divine justice proceeds differently. The degree of punishment corresponds to the level of advancement of those involved. The equality of crimes does not correspond to equality of individuals so that two persons guilty of the same crime may be separated by distance of the atonements being one in intellectual opacity of the first initiating circles and the other overpassed those circles and acquired the lucidity that frees the Spirit of any confusion. Hence no more the punishment of ignorance but the spiritual light of awareness. That reaches the earthly intelligence and leads to the anguish of the exposed ulcer. The discarnate Spirits that are persecuted by the material image of their crimes suffer the effect of physical electricity. They suffer through the senses. Those that are already dematerialized by the Spirit feel a much superior pain that annihilates the memory of the facts, only allowing the recollection of their causes. The person can then, despite the seriousness of the criminal act, have a previous advancement and despite the passions that made that person act like a brute, the faculties raise that person above the thick atmosphere of inferior layers. The absence of ponderation and balance between the moral and intellectual progress produces the anomalies so much frequent in periods of materialism and transition.
The light that tortures the guilty Spirit is therefore the spiritual ray inundating the most secret corners of pride with clarity and uncovering the uselessness of a fragmentary being. These are the first symptoms and the first anguishes of the spiritual agony that announces a separation or dissolution of the material and intellectual elements that constitute a primitive human duality and that must disappear in the great unit of a complete being.”
Jean Reynaud
Observation: These three communications, received simultaneously, complement one another and present punishment with a new eminently philosophical aspect, a little bit more rational that the flames of hell surrounded by sharp blades. It is likely that the Spirits, willing to handle the issue with an example, may have provoked the communication of the guilty Spirit.
[1] Period between two physical existences; state of the soul prior to incarnation (TN)
[2]Mathews 25, 28-30 (TN)
Motherly education, Advices to mothers[1]
The work is the result of mediumistic Spiritist instructions, forming a complete brochure dictated to Mrs. Collignon, from Bordeaux, by the Spirit that signs Etienne, unknown to the medium. Those instructions, initially published in sundry articles in the le Sauveur journal, were then gathered in a single brochure.
We are pleased to approve this work without reservations, highly commendable for both the format and content. The style is simple, clear, and concise, without emphasis or empty words to fill out spaces, with profound thoughts and irreproachable logic. It is surely the language of an elevated Spirit and not the verbose of Spirits that believe to compensate the emptiness of the ideas by the abundance of words.
Let us not fear these praises because we know that Mrs. Collignon will not take them personally and that her self-love will not be super excited as she would not feel offended with the most severe criticism. In that sense education is seen from a true point of view with respect to the physical, moral and intellectual development of the child, from the cradle to the late establishment in life. The Spiritist mothers, better than all others, will appreciate the wisdom of the advices that it contains for which we highly recommend as a book highly deserving your attention. The brochure is complemented with a little poem with the title Body and Spirit, also of mediumistic nature that more than one renowned author could have signed without concern. Here is the start of the poem:
'Morpheus had numbed my senses;
My Spirit, free from the heavy organization,
Wanted to conquer the spaces,
Abandoning the form, like the soldier its position.
Like a prisoner that moans in chains,
Finally freed, wandering in space.
Was it a mystery, a memory that remains
That gave me the courage to the departing face?
I wouldn’t know. The Spirit returning
Answers my questions with emptiness.
I soon realized the meaning of his astuteness.
It made me upset because that was deceiving.
- At least tell me, capricious Spirit,
What you have seen in such wandering journey?
To please you, I must tell you something;
The jailer, otherwise, with a sad sense of humor,
Would give the prisoner a rude sermon
The captive condition worsening…”
You must know… - Wait. Is it the real
Story that you are going to tell? – Oh Yes I commend,
You must believe. There was a time in the spiritual
World when I left behind relatives and numerous friends;”
I wanted to see them again for the earthly exile,
Believe, was not only to please!
While the sleep kept you in the bedstead
I left the body there and in Spirit alone
I transposed the steps that separate the worlds
Covering the space in two seconds only.
I had to be fast for the tiny delay
Could make you harm. Well if eventually
You had forgotten me in such a long journey
On my way back, notice well, I would had found
A cadaver instead of a body.
I knew that if I stayed behind a crime I would have
Committed because it is only God that our connections break.”
- Thank you for the memory, Spirit so eager,
If it is not less certain that I would have died that day,
If the smallest delay… Ah! Word of an honest body,
I even feel the shivers!'
[1] Brochure in-8, price 50 cents, by mail 60 cents; Paris: Ledoyen, Palais Royal, Galerie d’Orleans, 31; Bordeaux: Ferret bookseller, Fossés-de-l'Intendance, 15, and at the office of the journal Le Sauveur path d’Aquitaine, 57.
By Allan Kardec
Russian language edition
Edited in Leipzig, by Baer & Hermann
In Paris: Ledoyen, Palais Royal; Didier & Co., Quai des Augustins, 35 and office of the Spiritist Review
Notice
Dr. Chavaux, president of the Society of Spiritist Studies of Marseille, asks us to announce that the Headquarter of the above mentioned Society is located at Rue Petit-Saint-Jean, 24, first floor.
Russian language edition
Edited in Leipzig, by Baer & Hermann
In Paris: Ledoyen, Palais Royal; Didier & Co., Quai des Augustins, 35 and office of the Spiritist Review
Notice
Dr. Chavaux, president of the Society of Spiritist Studies of Marseille, asks us to announce that the Headquarter of the above mentioned Society is located at Rue Petit-Saint-Jean, 24, first floor.
August
In the Spiritist Review of December 1862 and January-March and May 1863 we provided a detailed report and assessment of the demoniacal epidemic of Morzine, High Savoy, and demonstrated the insufficiency of the means employed to fight it. Although the problem has never ceased completely there had been a kind of break. Several newspapers, as well as our personal correspondence, indicate the resurgence of the problem with renewed intensity. The journal of animal magnetism, Magnétiseur, published in Genève by Mr. Lafontaine, carries the following report in its May 15th, 1864 issue:
“The demoniacal epidemic that reigns in the burg of Morzine since 1857 and in the surrounding shanties located in the mountains of High Savoy, has not yet finished its devastation. The French government has shown concern with the case since the Savoy belongs to France. Specialized and intelligent persons were sent in to study the issue and its development together with inspectors of hospices of the mentally ill. Some measures were tried, some women moved to Chambery, Annecy, Thoron, etc. but the results of these attempts were unsatisfactory. Despite the medical treatment that was considered adequate there was only a few cases of cure and when the women returned to their homes they would fall ill once again.
After having initially reached children and young ladies only, the epidemic moved on to affect mature and even elderly women. Not many men suffered the influence however it claimed the life of one. This miserable person squeezed himself in the little space between the stove and the wall from where he said he could not leave, remaining there for a full month without food. He died of hunger and total breakdown, victimized by his own sick imagination.
The French government envoys prepared reports and in one of them Mr. Constant, among other things, declared that the small number of cures in that population were due to the magnetism that I employed in Genève on girls and ladies that were brought to me in 1858 and 1859. Our readers know that such scourge that the good peasants of Morzine and, what is more unpleasant, their spiritual guides, attribute to the devil manifest in those that are taken by violent convulsions followed by screams, pain in the stomach and impressive acrobatic moves, not to mention the blasphemies and other scandalous processes in which the patients find themselves guilty of something when entering o Church. We were able to cure several of those patients that had no further issues while away from the pernicious and contagious influence and the impressionable minds of their region.
In Morzine, however, the terrible disease did not stop devastating the unfortunate population. On the contrary, the number of victims continued to rise. Prayers and exorcisms were done in vain; patients were uselessly taken to hospitals of several neighboring towns. The scourge that more easily attacks the more sensitive imagination of young ladies became bloodthirsty and the only attested cures were those operated by us, and that we have reported in our journal.
Finally and given the absence of any new means of cure, a great blow was attempted. Monsignor Bishop of Annecy announced recently that he was going to visit Morzine both to baptize the inhabitants that had not yet received that sacrament and to teach the means of defeating that terrible disease. The good people of the village had high hopes for that visit. It took place Saturday, April 30th and Sunday, May 1st and here the details of the events that followed:
About 4am on Saturday the ecclesiastic approached the village. He was horse-back riding, followed by a large number of priests. The patients were gathered at the Church and some driven there by force. A witnessed said that – since the time when the Bishop stepped foot in Morzine the patients, feeling his approximation, were taken by the most violent convulsions and in particular those that were kept in the Church would scream and screech beyond humans. Every girl that had endured the diseases at some point in the past returned to show the symptoms again and many of them were free from that for over five years without any attack and now taken again by the same convulsions of those horrible crises.
The Bishop himself turned a pale face by hearing the shouts that welcomed him. Regardless he continued to move towards the Church despite the vociferation of some patients that had escaped from the hands of their guardians, throwing themselves and cursing him. He dismounted by the Church’s door and entered with dignity. He had just stepped in for the riot to redouble. It was then a truly hellish seen. The possessed girls, about seventy of them with one man, cursed and jumped all over the place. That last many hours and when the priest wanted to carry out the Confirmation the furor redoubled again, if that is at all possible. Seven or eight men had to join forces with the police and drag them towards the altar.
The Bishop should leave at 4pm but at 7pm he was still in Church where three patients were not able to be dragged to him. They were then able to bring two, breathless, foaming by the mouth and cursing at the feet of the priest. The last one resisted all efforts. The Bishop, defeated by fatigue and emotion, renounced to the imposition of hands on her. He left the Church trembling, disturbed, with his legs covered by excoriations received from the patients while agitating under his blessings. He left the village extending words of good wishes to the inhabitants but without hiding his profound impression of astonishment before an evil that he could had never imagined to be of such significance. He finished by confessing that ‘he had not felt strong enough to quench the flame that he had come to heal, promising to return as soon as possible, armed with greater powers’. Today we are not making any assessment. We are limiting ourselves to report these deplorable facts. In our next issue perhaps we will say how painful all of that is to us.”
Ch. Lafontaine
This is the succinct report that the Courrier des Alpes gave about the events and that several papers reproduced without comments:
“There is a lot of talk about an incident in Annecy, so much painful as unforeseen, that required the travel of Monsignor Maguin, our dignified prelate. Everybody knows the disease that has affected the commune of Morzine for a long time, particularly the women, namely the possessed. Many inhabitants of the commune, in fact, are persuaded that a curse has been cast upon that region. People also remember the fact that in 1862 a certain number of people were affected by that strange disease that produces the effects of furious madness, without the actual signs of the disease, spread in several hospitals and multiples locations in France, returning perfectly cured. This year the disease affected other people and took terrifying proportions. It was under such circumstances that Monsignor Maguin, only touched by charity, made his pastoral visit to Morzine and it was at the time he was administering the Confirmation that a certain number of unfortunate patients attending the ceremony were suddenly taken by the fit. The Church was then shaken by a terrible scandal. The details of that scene are too afflictive to be reported. I will only say that the superior administration was moved by that sad episode and that a platoon of thirty men from the infantry was dispatched to the region. I learned from a good source that such a platoon will double and commanded by a high echelon officer, assigned with detailed instructions. Unnecessary to say that other measures will be taken such as for example the dispatch of specialized doctors tasked with the study of the disease. The army is assigned with the mission of protecting people.”
-o-
Science is lost there and that is a confession of impotence. Then, what will the doctors do there? Haven’t they sent some highly qualified before? They say specialized doctors will be sent. But how can one establish their specialization if the nature of the disease is unknown and in which science is lost? We can understand the specialty of ophthalmology for the diseases of the eyes and toxicology for the cases of poisoning but here what is the category? The alienists? It is alright if demonstrated that the patients have a mental disorder but the alienists themselves acknowledged their failure. There is no agreement with respect to the cause or the actual treatment. Now, if science gets lost there, and that is an actual fact, the alienists are no more specialists than the surgeons. It is true that an army will join them but such a means has already been employed unsuccessfully. We doubt it very much that it will be successful this time around.
If science fails it means that it is not in the right direction. What is strange about that? Everything reveals a moral cause and they send in people that only believe in matter. They search matter and find nothing there, astoundingly demonstrating that they do not search what is needed. If it is more specialized doctors that they want then have them found among the spiritualist doctors rather than materialists. The former will at least be able to understand that there could be something there beyond the physical organization.
Religion was not more successful. It applied its ammunition against the devils but it was powerless to bring them to reason. It must be the case that either the devil is stronger or it is not the devil. The frequent failures in similar cases indicates one of the two things: it is wrong or it is defeated by the enemy.
The clearest aspect in all that is the fact that none of the employed means yielded good result and they will not have better result while adamant in not finding the origin of the true cause. A careful study of the symptoms demonstrate with the strongest evidence that its cause is in the action of the invisible world upon the visible one, an action that is the source of more diseases than one can imagine, against which science fails because it fights the effect and not the cause. In a word, that is what Spiritism calls obsession, taken to the highest degree, that is, subjugation and possession. The crises are consecutive effects. The cause is the obsessing Spirit. It is therefore upon that creature that one must act like in the convulsions produced by worms one acts upon the worms.
Some will say that the system is absurd. It is absurd to those that admit nothing beyond the tangible world but much positive to those that attest the existence of the spiritual world and the presence of invisible beings around us. As a matter of fact, the system is based on experience and observation and not in a pre-conceived theory. The action of an invisible malevolent being was attested in a number of isolated cases, keeping a complete analogy with the events of Morzine, from what is then logical to conclude that the cause is the same since the effects are similar. The difference is only in the quantity. All of the symptoms, without exception, observed in patients of that region were also observed in the particular cases that we mentioned. Considering that patients affected by the same problem were freed, without exorcisms, medications or even police, what was done elsewhere can be done in Morzine. If that is the cases, people will ask, why then the means employed by the Church are ineffective?
Here is why:
The Church believes in demons that is in a category of creatures of a perverse nature and eternally devoted to evil and for that reason not perfectible. With such an idea the Church does not try to better them. Spiritism on the contrary acknowledged that the invisible world is formed by the souls or Spirits of people that lived on Earth and that, after death, inhabit the space. There are good and bad among them, like among mankind. From those that were happy to do evil when alive there are some that persist doing bad things after death. However, since they belong to humanity, they are subordinated to the law of progress and can improve. Hence they are not demons, in the sense attributed by the Church, but imperfect Spirits.
Their actions affect people both on the physical as well as moral side. From that a number of diseases that have no root in the organism, apparent madness that are refractory to any medication. It is a new field of pathology that may be called ‘spiritual pathology’. Experience teaches to distinguish the cases in this category from those that belong to organic pathology. We do not intend to describe the treatment of such diseases because it has already been done somewhere else. We will only recap that it consists of a triple action: the fluidic action that frees the perispirits of the patient from the pressure of the malevolent Spirit; the ascendant exerted upon the latter by the authority with a moral superiority and in the moralizing influence of the advices that are given. The first one is a simple accessory of the two others. Alone it is insufficient because if it can momentarily keep the Spirit away there is nothing that preclude that Spirit from coming back. One must employ efforts to lead that Spirit to a voluntary renunciation of the intents, then moralizing the Spirit.
It is a true educational process that takes place that requires sensibility, patience, devotion and above all a sincere faith. Experience demonstrates the power of such a means by the results obtained but it also demonstrates that in certain cases it is necessary the simultaneous support of several people united by a common intention.
Now, what is it that the Church does in such cases? Certain that it is dealing with incorrigible demons the Church gives no attention to their improvement. It believes to be able to keep them away by fear and by the use of signs, formulas and instruments of exorcism that make them laugh and reinforce their malice as verified in all cases in which there was an attempt to exorcise places where there was noise and disturbance. It is a fact demonstrated by experience that the signs and exterior acts have no power upon them while the most hardened and perverse among them have been seen to yield to a moral pressure, returning to good feelings. Then the double satisfaction of freeing the obsessed person and bring a lost soul back to God.
People may also ask why the Spiritists that are convinced of the cause of the problem and the means of fighting it did not go to Morzine to operate miracles there. To begin with the Spiritists make no miracles. The curative action that may be exerted in such cases has nothing of wonderful or supernatural since it rests on a natural law, that is the relationships between the visible and invisible worlds, a law that by providing the reason for certain misunderstood phenomena for lack of knowledge narrows the limits of the supernatural, instead of widening them. Second, one must ask if their help would be acceptable; if they would not have found a systematic opposition; if far from being supported they would not have been hindered by the very persons that failed; if they would not have been insulted and mistreated by a population super excited by fanaticism, then accused of witchery together with the patients themselves and of acting in the name of the devil, as seen in other places.
In the individual and isolated cases those that dedicate themselves to alleviate the afflicted are generally helped by family and neighborhood, frequently by the patients themselves, upon whom they must act morally and through good and encouraging words that must excite the prayer. Similar cures do not happen instantaneously. Those workers need calm and profound reverence. In the current circumstances would such conditions be possible in Morzine? That is very doubtful. God will provide when the time is right to stop evil. As a matter of fact the events in Morzine and their continuation have a reason to be in the same way of the manifestations of the same kind in Poitiers. They will multiply, isolated or collectively, to convince people about the impotence of the means employed up until now to stop them, forcing disbelief to finally acknowledge the existence of an extra human power.
For every case of obsession, possession and any other unpleasant manifestations, we call the attention to what is in The Mediums’ Book, in the chapter about obsession; to the articles of the Spiritist Review relatives to Morzine, reported above; to our February, March and June 1864 articles regarding the obsessed of Marmande; and finally to the items 325 to 335 of the Imitation of the Gospels. There you will find the necessary instructions to be followed under similar circumstances.
“The demoniacal epidemic that reigns in the burg of Morzine since 1857 and in the surrounding shanties located in the mountains of High Savoy, has not yet finished its devastation. The French government has shown concern with the case since the Savoy belongs to France. Specialized and intelligent persons were sent in to study the issue and its development together with inspectors of hospices of the mentally ill. Some measures were tried, some women moved to Chambery, Annecy, Thoron, etc. but the results of these attempts were unsatisfactory. Despite the medical treatment that was considered adequate there was only a few cases of cure and when the women returned to their homes they would fall ill once again.
After having initially reached children and young ladies only, the epidemic moved on to affect mature and even elderly women. Not many men suffered the influence however it claimed the life of one. This miserable person squeezed himself in the little space between the stove and the wall from where he said he could not leave, remaining there for a full month without food. He died of hunger and total breakdown, victimized by his own sick imagination.
The French government envoys prepared reports and in one of them Mr. Constant, among other things, declared that the small number of cures in that population were due to the magnetism that I employed in Genève on girls and ladies that were brought to me in 1858 and 1859. Our readers know that such scourge that the good peasants of Morzine and, what is more unpleasant, their spiritual guides, attribute to the devil manifest in those that are taken by violent convulsions followed by screams, pain in the stomach and impressive acrobatic moves, not to mention the blasphemies and other scandalous processes in which the patients find themselves guilty of something when entering o Church. We were able to cure several of those patients that had no further issues while away from the pernicious and contagious influence and the impressionable minds of their region.
In Morzine, however, the terrible disease did not stop devastating the unfortunate population. On the contrary, the number of victims continued to rise. Prayers and exorcisms were done in vain; patients were uselessly taken to hospitals of several neighboring towns. The scourge that more easily attacks the more sensitive imagination of young ladies became bloodthirsty and the only attested cures were those operated by us, and that we have reported in our journal.
Finally and given the absence of any new means of cure, a great blow was attempted. Monsignor Bishop of Annecy announced recently that he was going to visit Morzine both to baptize the inhabitants that had not yet received that sacrament and to teach the means of defeating that terrible disease. The good people of the village had high hopes for that visit. It took place Saturday, April 30th and Sunday, May 1st and here the details of the events that followed:
About 4am on Saturday the ecclesiastic approached the village. He was horse-back riding, followed by a large number of priests. The patients were gathered at the Church and some driven there by force. A witnessed said that – since the time when the Bishop stepped foot in Morzine the patients, feeling his approximation, were taken by the most violent convulsions and in particular those that were kept in the Church would scream and screech beyond humans. Every girl that had endured the diseases at some point in the past returned to show the symptoms again and many of them were free from that for over five years without any attack and now taken again by the same convulsions of those horrible crises.
The Bishop himself turned a pale face by hearing the shouts that welcomed him. Regardless he continued to move towards the Church despite the vociferation of some patients that had escaped from the hands of their guardians, throwing themselves and cursing him. He dismounted by the Church’s door and entered with dignity. He had just stepped in for the riot to redouble. It was then a truly hellish seen. The possessed girls, about seventy of them with one man, cursed and jumped all over the place. That last many hours and when the priest wanted to carry out the Confirmation the furor redoubled again, if that is at all possible. Seven or eight men had to join forces with the police and drag them towards the altar.
The Bishop should leave at 4pm but at 7pm he was still in Church where three patients were not able to be dragged to him. They were then able to bring two, breathless, foaming by the mouth and cursing at the feet of the priest. The last one resisted all efforts. The Bishop, defeated by fatigue and emotion, renounced to the imposition of hands on her. He left the Church trembling, disturbed, with his legs covered by excoriations received from the patients while agitating under his blessings. He left the village extending words of good wishes to the inhabitants but without hiding his profound impression of astonishment before an evil that he could had never imagined to be of such significance. He finished by confessing that ‘he had not felt strong enough to quench the flame that he had come to heal, promising to return as soon as possible, armed with greater powers’. Today we are not making any assessment. We are limiting ourselves to report these deplorable facts. In our next issue perhaps we will say how painful all of that is to us.”
Ch. Lafontaine
This is the succinct report that the Courrier des Alpes gave about the events and that several papers reproduced without comments:
“There is a lot of talk about an incident in Annecy, so much painful as unforeseen, that required the travel of Monsignor Maguin, our dignified prelate. Everybody knows the disease that has affected the commune of Morzine for a long time, particularly the women, namely the possessed. Many inhabitants of the commune, in fact, are persuaded that a curse has been cast upon that region. People also remember the fact that in 1862 a certain number of people were affected by that strange disease that produces the effects of furious madness, without the actual signs of the disease, spread in several hospitals and multiples locations in France, returning perfectly cured. This year the disease affected other people and took terrifying proportions. It was under such circumstances that Monsignor Maguin, only touched by charity, made his pastoral visit to Morzine and it was at the time he was administering the Confirmation that a certain number of unfortunate patients attending the ceremony were suddenly taken by the fit. The Church was then shaken by a terrible scandal. The details of that scene are too afflictive to be reported. I will only say that the superior administration was moved by that sad episode and that a platoon of thirty men from the infantry was dispatched to the region. I learned from a good source that such a platoon will double and commanded by a high echelon officer, assigned with detailed instructions. Unnecessary to say that other measures will be taken such as for example the dispatch of specialized doctors tasked with the study of the disease. The army is assigned with the mission of protecting people.”
-o-
Science is lost there and that is a confession of impotence. Then, what will the doctors do there? Haven’t they sent some highly qualified before? They say specialized doctors will be sent. But how can one establish their specialization if the nature of the disease is unknown and in which science is lost? We can understand the specialty of ophthalmology for the diseases of the eyes and toxicology for the cases of poisoning but here what is the category? The alienists? It is alright if demonstrated that the patients have a mental disorder but the alienists themselves acknowledged their failure. There is no agreement with respect to the cause or the actual treatment. Now, if science gets lost there, and that is an actual fact, the alienists are no more specialists than the surgeons. It is true that an army will join them but such a means has already been employed unsuccessfully. We doubt it very much that it will be successful this time around.
If science fails it means that it is not in the right direction. What is strange about that? Everything reveals a moral cause and they send in people that only believe in matter. They search matter and find nothing there, astoundingly demonstrating that they do not search what is needed. If it is more specialized doctors that they want then have them found among the spiritualist doctors rather than materialists. The former will at least be able to understand that there could be something there beyond the physical organization.
Religion was not more successful. It applied its ammunition against the devils but it was powerless to bring them to reason. It must be the case that either the devil is stronger or it is not the devil. The frequent failures in similar cases indicates one of the two things: it is wrong or it is defeated by the enemy.
The clearest aspect in all that is the fact that none of the employed means yielded good result and they will not have better result while adamant in not finding the origin of the true cause. A careful study of the symptoms demonstrate with the strongest evidence that its cause is in the action of the invisible world upon the visible one, an action that is the source of more diseases than one can imagine, against which science fails because it fights the effect and not the cause. In a word, that is what Spiritism calls obsession, taken to the highest degree, that is, subjugation and possession. The crises are consecutive effects. The cause is the obsessing Spirit. It is therefore upon that creature that one must act like in the convulsions produced by worms one acts upon the worms.
Some will say that the system is absurd. It is absurd to those that admit nothing beyond the tangible world but much positive to those that attest the existence of the spiritual world and the presence of invisible beings around us. As a matter of fact, the system is based on experience and observation and not in a pre-conceived theory. The action of an invisible malevolent being was attested in a number of isolated cases, keeping a complete analogy with the events of Morzine, from what is then logical to conclude that the cause is the same since the effects are similar. The difference is only in the quantity. All of the symptoms, without exception, observed in patients of that region were also observed in the particular cases that we mentioned. Considering that patients affected by the same problem were freed, without exorcisms, medications or even police, what was done elsewhere can be done in Morzine. If that is the cases, people will ask, why then the means employed by the Church are ineffective?
Here is why:
The Church believes in demons that is in a category of creatures of a perverse nature and eternally devoted to evil and for that reason not perfectible. With such an idea the Church does not try to better them. Spiritism on the contrary acknowledged that the invisible world is formed by the souls or Spirits of people that lived on Earth and that, after death, inhabit the space. There are good and bad among them, like among mankind. From those that were happy to do evil when alive there are some that persist doing bad things after death. However, since they belong to humanity, they are subordinated to the law of progress and can improve. Hence they are not demons, in the sense attributed by the Church, but imperfect Spirits.
Their actions affect people both on the physical as well as moral side. From that a number of diseases that have no root in the organism, apparent madness that are refractory to any medication. It is a new field of pathology that may be called ‘spiritual pathology’. Experience teaches to distinguish the cases in this category from those that belong to organic pathology. We do not intend to describe the treatment of such diseases because it has already been done somewhere else. We will only recap that it consists of a triple action: the fluidic action that frees the perispirits of the patient from the pressure of the malevolent Spirit; the ascendant exerted upon the latter by the authority with a moral superiority and in the moralizing influence of the advices that are given. The first one is a simple accessory of the two others. Alone it is insufficient because if it can momentarily keep the Spirit away there is nothing that preclude that Spirit from coming back. One must employ efforts to lead that Spirit to a voluntary renunciation of the intents, then moralizing the Spirit.
It is a true educational process that takes place that requires sensibility, patience, devotion and above all a sincere faith. Experience demonstrates the power of such a means by the results obtained but it also demonstrates that in certain cases it is necessary the simultaneous support of several people united by a common intention.
Now, what is it that the Church does in such cases? Certain that it is dealing with incorrigible demons the Church gives no attention to their improvement. It believes to be able to keep them away by fear and by the use of signs, formulas and instruments of exorcism that make them laugh and reinforce their malice as verified in all cases in which there was an attempt to exorcise places where there was noise and disturbance. It is a fact demonstrated by experience that the signs and exterior acts have no power upon them while the most hardened and perverse among them have been seen to yield to a moral pressure, returning to good feelings. Then the double satisfaction of freeing the obsessed person and bring a lost soul back to God.
People may also ask why the Spiritists that are convinced of the cause of the problem and the means of fighting it did not go to Morzine to operate miracles there. To begin with the Spiritists make no miracles. The curative action that may be exerted in such cases has nothing of wonderful or supernatural since it rests on a natural law, that is the relationships between the visible and invisible worlds, a law that by providing the reason for certain misunderstood phenomena for lack of knowledge narrows the limits of the supernatural, instead of widening them. Second, one must ask if their help would be acceptable; if they would not have found a systematic opposition; if far from being supported they would not have been hindered by the very persons that failed; if they would not have been insulted and mistreated by a population super excited by fanaticism, then accused of witchery together with the patients themselves and of acting in the name of the devil, as seen in other places.
In the individual and isolated cases those that dedicate themselves to alleviate the afflicted are generally helped by family and neighborhood, frequently by the patients themselves, upon whom they must act morally and through good and encouraging words that must excite the prayer. Similar cures do not happen instantaneously. Those workers need calm and profound reverence. In the current circumstances would such conditions be possible in Morzine? That is very doubtful. God will provide when the time is right to stop evil. As a matter of fact the events in Morzine and their continuation have a reason to be in the same way of the manifestations of the same kind in Poitiers. They will multiply, isolated or collectively, to convince people about the impotence of the means employed up until now to stop them, forcing disbelief to finally acknowledge the existence of an extra human power.
For every case of obsession, possession and any other unpleasant manifestations, we call the attention to what is in The Mediums’ Book, in the chapter about obsession; to the articles of the Spiritist Review relatives to Morzine, reported above; to our February, March and June 1864 articles regarding the obsessed of Marmande; and finally to the items 325 to 335 of the Imitation of the Gospels. There you will find the necessary instructions to be followed under similar circumstances.
Several subscribers testified their sorrow for not having found a special prayer in our Imitation of the Gospels According to Spiritism*, a prayer for a habitual use in the morning and at night.
We must point out that the prayers in that book do not constitute a recipe that to be complete must contain a much larger number of prayers. They are part of the communications given by the Spirits; we gathered them in a chapter dedicated to the analysis of the prayer, as we added to each of the other chapters the communications that could be used as their references. By removing those that could be used in the morning and at night we did so on purpose to remove from our work a liturgical character, that being the reason why we limited ourselves to those that had a closer relationship with Spiritism. The others each person may find among those of their private cult. Despite that, and in order to attend a desire that was expressed to us, we provide below the ones that we believe to best attend the objective. We precede them, however, with some observations so that their reach can be better understood.
In the Imitation, number 274, we pointed out the need for the intelligible prayers. Someone that prays without knowing what is said gets into the habit of giving more importance to the words than to the thoughts; for that person it is the words that are efficient even without the participation of the heart. Therefore many consider to be free after reciting some words that subtract them from the need of improving themselves. It is like making a strange image of the Divinity, believing that God is satisfied with a few words more than with actions that attest a moral betterment. In fact, here is what St. Paul says about it:
“If I don’t understand the meaning of the words I am like a barbarian to the one to whom I speak and the one that speak to me will be a barbarian. If I pray in a language that I don’t understand my heart prays but my mind goes without a fruit. If you praise with the Spirit only how come one of those men that can only understand their own language will say Amen at the end of you prayer, considering that he cannot understand what you say? That does not mean that your prayer is not good but the others are not edified (St. Paul, 1st Epistle to the Corinthians, Chap. XIV, verses 11,14,16 and 17).”
It is impossible to condemn in a more formal and logical way the use of unintelligible prayers. One may be surprised by the fact that the authority of St. Paul is not so much taken into account in this matter whereas it is so much invoked in so many other points. The same could be said about the majority of the holy writers, considered as the lights of the Church, and whose precepts are all far from being implemented in practice.
An essential condition of the prayer, according to St. Paul, is that of being intelligible so that it may speak to our soul. For that it is not enough for the prayer to be said in the language understood by the one that prays for there are prayers in vulgar language that speak as much to the mind as it would do if spoken in a foreign language and for that very reason do not reach the heart because the rare ideas that they carry are frequently muffled by the super abundance of words and the mysticism of the language.
The main feature of the prayer is to be clear, simple and concise, without useless phraseology and the luxury of epithets that are nothing but sequin on a garment. Each word must have its reach, awake a thought, move on fiber, in a word must be food for thought. It is only with this condition that the prayer may reach its objective, otherwise it is only noise. Notice also the air of distraction and gibberish with which they are said most of the time! One can see the lips moving but by the expression of the face and tone of voice one can identify a purely mechanical act from which the soul remains indifferent.
The most perfect example of concision, in the case of prayer, is without doubt the Our Father Prayer, a true masterpiece of sublimity in its simplicity. In the most reduced form it summarizes all mankind’s duties to God, to oneself and one’s neighbors. Due to its very brevity, however, the profound meaning carried in the few words it contains escapes most people; the comments already made about it are not always live in one’s memory or are even unknown to the majority and for that matter it is generally said without the thoughts directed to the actual application of its parts. It is said like out of a recipe whose effectiveness is proportional to the number of times it is said. It is generally one of the cabalistic numbers three, seven or nine taken from the old belief in the virtue of numbers that are also applied in magical operations. Think or do not think in what you are saying but repeat the prayer so many times and that is enough. Now that Spiritism strictly repeals any efficacy attributed to words, signs and formulas, the Church accuses it of resuscitating old superstitious beliefs.
All former and pagan religions had their sacred and mysterious language, only intelligible to the initiated but whose true meaning was hidden to the general public that used to respect it in proportion to the lack of understanding. This could be accepted at the time of intellectual infancy of the masses but nowadays that those masses are spiritually emancipated the mystical languages make no sense any longer and constitute an anachronism; people want to see religious things as clearly as they see things in their civilian life; there is no more request to believe and pray but a need to understand why we do believe and what must be requested when praying.
Latin, of frequent use in the first days of Christianity, became the sacred language to the Church and it is due to a little prestige left to that language that the majority of those that don’t know it say the Our Father Prayer in that language other than in their own language.
One could say that the more value is given to something the least it is understood. Certainly it was not Jesus’ intent when dictating it and that was not St. Paul’s thought when he said: “For if I pray in a foreign language, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful.”** Even if in the absence of intelligence the heart always prays it would only be half-bad, however, unfortunately quite often the heart does not pray more than the Spirit. It the heart really prayed we would not see so many among those that pray a lot to find so little benefit, or not to be more benevolent or charitable or less defaming of their fellow human beings.
Made that point we say that the pest prayer to be said in the morning or at night is without doubt the Our Father Prayer, said with intelligence, from one’s heart and not only with the lips. In order to bridge the blank left in its concision we will add with, by advice and with the assistance of the good Spirits, a development to each proposition.
According to the circumstances and time available one can say the simple Our Father Prayer or with the added comments. One can also add some of the prayers contained in the “Imitation of the Gospels” from those that do not a special objective, like for example the prayer of the guardian angels and to the protecting Spirits #293; the one to keep the bad Spirits away #297, to our loved ones #358, to the suffering souls that request prayers #360, etc. It must be understood that this does not affect the special prayers of one’s cult and that there is no request from Spiritism for that to be renounced.
For those that request from us a line of conduct to be followed with respect to the daily prayers we advise each one to make their own collection appropriate to their own circumstances, to others and to those that have left Earth and develop or restrict them according to the occasion. Once a week, say on Sunday for example, one can dedicate a longer time to this and say all of them, be it in private or in a group, adding to that the reading of some passages of the Imitation of the Gospels and some other good instructions dictated by the Spirits. This is more specially addressed to persons that are repelled by the Church because of Spiritism and that do not feel a lesser need to connect to God through their thoughts.
With the exception of that case, there is nothing that preclude those that feel the need to assist on the days dedicated to their own cults to say, at the same time, some of the prayers related to their Spiritist beliefs. This can only contribute to elevate one’s soul to God by the union of thoughts and words. Spiritism is an intimate faith. It is in one’s hearts and not in exterior acts. It does not prescribe any action that may scandalize those that share this belief but it does recommend, on the contrary, one’s abstention in the Spirit of charity and tolerance.
In consideration and as a way of application of the preceding ideas we provide below the “Our Father Prayer” developed. If some people believe that here is not the adequate place for a document of such a nature we would remind them that our Spiritist Review is not a collection of facts only and that its scope involves everything that may help the moral betterment. There was a time that the only thing of interest to our readers was the cases of manifestations. Today, however, that the serious and moralizing objective of Spiritism is understood and appreciated, the majority of the followers seek here things that are more attractive to their hearts than to their minds.
Therefore those are the ones that we address at this time. We know that our work pleases many if not all through this very publication. That alone would have been sufficient to make us decide if we did not have other considerations about which we must keep our silence and that helped us decide to make it now rather than in another time.
* Later renamed The Gospel According to Spiritism (TN)
** Corinthians I, 14:14 (T.N.)
Our Father Prayer Developed
I. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name
We believe in you, our Lord, because everything reveals your power and your will. The harmony of the universe is the testimony of your wisdom, a prudence and providence that go beyond all human aptitudes; the name of a sovereignly great and wise being is inscribed in all works of creation, from the shoot of the weed and the minor insect to the orbs that move in space; we see the proof of a paternal solicitude everywhere and that is why the one that does not recognize you in your work is blind, the one that does not glorify you is proud and ungrateful is the one that does not praise you.
II.Your kingdom come
Lord, you gave mankind laws full of wisdom and that would bring happiness if they were observed. With those laws there would be the kingdom of peace and justice among them; they would help one another instead of harming as they do; the strong would support the weak instead of smashing them; they would avoid the wrongs that give rise to abuses and excesses of all kinds. All miseries down here come from the violation of your laws because there isn’t a single infringement that would not meet its fatal consequences.
You gave the animals the instinct that give them the limit of the necessary and they mechanically conform to that but to mankind, in addition to that instinct, you gave intelligence and reason; you also gave them the freedom of observing or infringing the laws that apply to them personally, that is, the freedom of choice between good and bad so that they may have the merit and responsibility of their own actions. Nobody can pretend ignorance of your laws because your paternal providence wanted them to be recorded in the conscience of each one, without distinction of cult or nationality. Those that violate them neglect you.
One day will come when everyone will practice them, as you promised. Disbelief will then have disappeared and everyone will acknowledge you as the Sovereign Lord of all things and the kingdom of your laws will be the kingdom on Earth. Please, Lord, speed up your arrival given mankind the necessary light beam to lead them in the path of truth.
III. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven
If submission is a duty of the son to the father, from the inferior to his superior, how much more must not be the submission of the creature to the Creator! Do as you wish, Lord, is to observe your laws and abide by them without moaning against your divine designs; mankind will submit to them when understand that you are the source of every wisdom and that without you nothing is possible; your will shall then be done on Earth as with the elected ones in heaven.
IV.Give us this day our daily bread
Give us the food to keep up with the strength of our body; give us also the spiritual food for the development of the Spirit.
The animal finds its pasture but mankind owns that to their own work and to the resources of intelligence because you created them free. You said: “By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread”.[1] By doing so you turned work into an obligation to lead them to provide the means of survival and well-being by exercising their intelligence, some by the physical others by the intellectual work. Without work they shall remain stationary and will not aspire the happiness of the superior Spirits. You help the person of good will that trusts you for what is needed but not the one that is complacent with idleness and that wanted to obtain everything effortlessly, and nor the one that seeks the superfluous.
How many fail due to their own negligence, improvidence or ambition and for not having been satisfied with what you have given them! These are the architects of their own misery and have no right to complain for they are punished by their own sins. But even those are not abandoned by you because you are infinitely merciful. You reach out to them with your helping hand allowing them to come back to you sincerely, like the prodigal son.
Before we complain about our fate let us question if that is not our own work. In every misfortune that comes to us let us ask if we were not able to avoid it; but let us also say that God gave us the intelligence to take us from the swamp and that it is up to us to make that work for us.
Considering that the law of work is the condition for mankind on Earth give us the courage to accomplish that; give us also the wisdom, providence and moderation so that we may not lose its fruit. Give us, Lord, the daily bread, that is, the means of acquiring the life needed things through work for nobody has the right to claim the superfluous. If work is impossible to us we trust our lives to your divine Providence.
If it is in your design to try us in the hardest trials, despite our efforts, we accept it as a fair atonement of faults that we may have incurred in this life or in the preceding ones because you are just; we know that there aren’t undeserved penalties and that you never punish without a reason.
Keep us, oh God, from feeding any envy towards those that have what we don’t, not even towards those that have the superfluous, even if we lack the necessary. Forgive them if they forgive the law of charity and love towards their neighbors that you taught them.
Keep also from our Spirits any thoughts of denying your justice when we see the prosperity of evil and the misfortune that sometimes upsets good people. We now know, thanks to the new lights that you wanted to give us that your justice is always accomplished and fails nobody; that the material prosperity of a bad person is transient as their physical existence and that it will entail terrible returns whereas the happiness reserved to the one that suffers with resignation will be eternal.
V. Forgive us our debts, as we have also forgiven our debtors
Each one of our breaches of your laws, Lord, is an offense to you and a new debt that sooner or later we will have to repair. We ask your infinite mercy for its remission with the promise that we will make efforts not to contract new ones.
You turn charity into an express law but charity is not only assistance to our neighbor in need; it consists also in forgiving and forgetting the offenses. How can we claim your indulgence if we fail her with those that brought us sorrow?
Give us, oh my God, the strength to muffle in our soul every resentment, hate and grudge; don’t allow that a sudden death may surprise us with a desire of vengeance in our heart. If it is in your plans to take us from here today allow us to present ourselves to you free from any animosity, like Jesus Christ, whose last words were in favor of his executioners.
The persecutions imposed on us by the bad ones are part of our earthly trials; we must accept them without complaint like every other trial and do not slander those that through their evilness open to us the path of eternal happiness for you told us through the mouth of Jesus: “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.”[2] We must then bless the hand that humiliates us because the injuries of the body strengthen our soul and we shall be exalted as a consequence of our humility.
Blessed your name, Lord, for you have taught us that our fate is not inexorably determined after death; that in other existences we shall find the means for the repair and atonement of our past faults and accomplish in a new life what we could not have achieved in this one for our own betterment. That is finally the explanation to every apparent anomaly of life; it is the light cast upon our past and future, the amazing sign of your sovereign justice and your infinite benevolence.
VI. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil
Give us, Lord, the strength to resist the suggestions of the bad Spirits that may try to veer us off from the good path, inspiring in us good thoughts.
But we, ourselves, are imperfect Spirits incarnate on Earth to atone and become better. The primary cause of the evil is in us and the bad Spirits just take advantage of our bad and vicious inclinations through which they tempt us.
Each imperfection is an open door to their influence while they become impotent and renounce to any attempt against perfect creatures. Everything that we can do to keep them away shall be useless if we don’t oppose them with an unshakable determination on the good path and an absolute renunciation to evil. Hence it is against ourselves that we must direct all of our efforts and the bad Spirits will then naturally stay away because it is evil that attracts them while good repeals them.
Lord, sustain us in our weakness; give us the inspiration, through the voice of the guardian angels and the good Spirits, so that we can fix our imperfections so that we can shut to the impure Spirits any access to our soul.
Evil is not the result of your work, Lord, because the source of every good cannot engineer evil. We created it by trespassing your laws and by the bad use that we made of the freedom that you gave us. When mankind observe your laws evil will disappear from Earth as it has already disappeared from more advanced worlds.
Evil is not a deterministic need to anyone and it is only irresistible to those that embrace it with satisfaction. If we have the will to do it we can also do good. For that, oh my God, we ask your assistance and that of the good Spirits so that we can resist temptation.
VII. Amen
May our wishes come true, Lord! But we kneel before your infinite wisdom. Above all things that are we are not given to understand may your sacred will be done and not ours because we know that the only thing you want is our good and you know what is useful to us better than we do.
We address this prayer to you, oh my God, by ourselves, for every suffering soul, incarnate and discarnate, for all of our friends and enemies, for all of those that request our assistance. For all of them we ask for you mercy and blessings.
Note: Here we can mention something that we are thankful to God for and something that we would like to us for ourselves or someone else.
* Genesis 3:19 (TN)
** Mathews 5:6 (TN)
Destruction of the aborigines of Mexico
We got the text below from Bordeaux:
“Reading in the Civilisateur the letters of Christopher Columbus about the condition of Mexico at the time of discovery, by Lamartine, the following passage has particularly drawn our attention:
“Nature, says Columbus, is so rich there that private property did not create a feeling of avarice or greed. Those men seem to live the golden age, happy and tranquil amidst open and limitless gardens that are not surrounded by moat, divided by fences or protected by walls. They are loyal to one another, without laws, books or judges. A person that rejoices harming another is considered evil. Their whole legislation seems to be in the horror that good feels towards evil. Their religions seems to be only a feeling of inferiority, recognition and love towards the invisible Being that had given them live and happiness. There isn’t a better nation or country in the whole universe. They love their neighbors as they do to themselves; they always employ a smooth and gracious language bearing a kind smile on their lips. It is true that the walk around naked but dressed on innocence and candor.”
According to this image those peoples were infinitely superior not only to their invaders but still today if compared to those of the most civilized countries. The Spaniards did not learn anything from their virtues, contaminating them with their vices; in response to their good hospitality brought them slavery and death. Those miserable peoples were exterminated in their majority and the few that still remain were perverted by contact with their conquerors.”
“Before such result here is the question: Where is the progress, the moral benefit collected by humanity with so much bloodshed? Wouldn’t have been better that the old Europe had just ignored the New World, so happy before that discovery?”
Here is how my spiritual guide answered that question:
We would respond with pleasure if your Spirit were capable of handling such a serious matter at this point in time, a matter that requires some spiritual-philosophical development. Ask Kardec. This order of ideas was already debated but they will report to that in a more lucid way than you would because you always have a tense Spirit and curious ears. That is a consequence of your current condition that you must accept.”
-o-
A first instruction sticks out from that. It is not good enough to be a medium, even a developed one, to easily receive communications about the first subject that shows up. That medium is doing his homework but at this point in time his own Spirit is struggling with other things and could not have the necessary calm. That is how a thousand other things may oppose to the exercise of mediumship. That faculty may subsist but it still depend on the support of the Spirits that may give it or deny according to their own judgment of convenience and that frequently in the interest of the medium.
As for the main question this is the response obtained at the Parisian Society:
(July 8th, 1864 – medium Mr. d’Ambel)
“Under the appearance of a certain natural goodness and with customs that are sweeter than righteous the Incas lived carelessly, without progress or elevation. Those primitive races lacked the struggle and if bloody battles did not decimate them; if an individual ambition did not exert influence there drive those populations to conquests, they were not less contaminated by a dangerous virus that would lead their race to extinction. It was necessary to stir up the vital sources of those corrupt Incas from which the Aztecs represented the fatal decadence that would affect all of those peoples. If we add to these entirely physiological causes the moral causes we will notice that the level of sciences and arts had remained there in a prolonged infancy. Hence, there was the need to put those pacific countries at the level of occidental races. Today the race is considered extinct because it melt with the Spanish conquerors. A new and lively nation flourished from that mixture of races that from a vigorous impulse will soon equate with the peoples of the old continent. What is left of so much blood shed, ask those in Bordeaux. To begin with the blood shed was not as considerable as one could believe. Facing the firearms and a few soldiers of Pizarro the whole region surrender as if before semi-gods coming out of the water. It is almost an episode of the old mythology and that indigenous race is, in more than one feature, similar to those that defended the Order of the Golden Fleece.”
We add a few reflections to these judicious explanation.
From an anthropological point of view the extinction of races is a positive fact. From the point of view of philosophy it is still a problem. From the point of view of religion the fact is irreconcilable with God’s justice if admitted only one corporeal existence to mankind to decide its future for eternity. In fact the extinguished races are always inferior to those that succeed them. Can they have an identical position in a future life when compared to the more perfected ones?
Simple common sense repeals that idea otherwise our endeavor to improve would be useless and we couldn’t care less if we remained savages. The non-pre-existence of the soul would forcibly imply the creation of new more perfect souls, for each race, leaving the hands of the Creator, a hypothesis that is irreconcilable with every principle of justice. If, on the contrary, we admit the same starting point to all souls and a succession of progressive existences, everything is explained.
In the extinction of races people generally don’t take into account that it is only the material body that is destroyed and the spiritual one is forgotten, only changing the vestment because the former was no longer compatible with one’s moral and intellectual development. Suppose the whole black race is destroyed. The only thing that will be destroyed is the black garment but the Spirit, that always lives, will first take an intermediary body between the white and the black and later a white body. That is how a being placed in last degree of humanity will reach in a given time the sum of perfections compatible with the condition of our globe.
Therefore one must not forget that the extinction of races only reaches the body not affecting the Spirit in any way. Far from suffering with that the Spirit gains a more perfected body, provided with a brain network that respond to a greater number of faculties.
The Spirit of a savage incarnate in the body of a European wise man would not be wiser and would not know what to do with his instrument whose inactive networks would break; the Spirit of a wise man, incarnate in the body of a savage would be like a pianist before a piano that lacked many strings. This thesis was developed in an article of the Spiritist Review, April 1862, about the perfectibility of the black race.
There is no doubt that the Caucasian white race is the one that occupies the first place on Earth. But has that race reached the apogee of perfection? Are all faculties of the soul represented in that race? Who would dare say? Let us then suppose that advancing continually the Spirits of that race ended up meeting in a dead end. The race would disappear to give rise to another one, of a more rich organization. That is what the law of progress wishes. Can we already see in the white race very distinct nuances, like moral and intellectual development? We may rest assured that the most advanced will absorb the others.
The disappearance of races take place in two ways: one by the natural extinction as a consequence of environmental conditions and of their degeneration when remain isolated; second by the conquests and dispersion determined by cross marriages. It is known that the black and white races gave rise to another one much superior to the former and that it is like a step further for the Spirits of that race. Furthermore the fusion of blood brings the alliance of Spirits from which the most advanced help the progress of the others. With that respect who can foresee the effects of the last war of China; the alterations that will take place in that country for so long stationary; the new physiological and psychological elements taken there? In a few centuries perhaps it may not be more recognized than today’s Mexico when compared to the times of Columbus.
As for the indigenous peoples of Mexico we say, with Erastus, that their customs were more sweet than virtuous and add that its pretense golden age was undoubtedly much poeticized. The history of conquests teaches us that they fought one another, something that does not indicate great respect towards their neighbors. Their golden age was that of infancy. Today they live the apex of youth. Later will reach maturity. If they still don’t have the virtue of the wise men they have acquired the intelligence that will lead to that when matured by experience. Nonetheless, centuries are needed for the education of peoples; it only takes place by the transformation of their constituent elements. Would France be what it is today without the conquest of the Romans? Would the barbarians get civilized without the invasion of Gallia? The Gallic wisdom and the Roman civilization together with the strength of the peoples from the North formed the current French people.
It is undoubtedly painful to think that progress may sometimes need destruction. But it is necessary to destroy the old shanties to replace them by new, more beautiful and comfortable houses. Besides, it is necessary to take into account the belated state of the globe whose humanity is still in the phase of material and intellectual progress. When it enters the phase of moral and spiritual progress the moral needs will surpass the material necessities; mankind will govern itself according to the justice and will no longer have to claim their place by force. War and destruction will no longer have a meaning. Until then the struggle is a consequence of their moral inferiority.
Living more the materiality than the spirituality mankind does not see things but from the present and material point of view, and for that matter, limited. Up until now humanity has ignored that the central role belongs to the Spirit. Mankind has seen the effects but did not figure out the causes and that is the reason for veering off in sciences, institutions and religions. By teaching them the participation of the spiritual element in everything in this world Spiritism broadens the horizon and changes the direction of the ideas. It opens up the era of moral progress.
We got the text below from Bordeaux:
“Reading in the Civilisateur the letters of Christopher Columbus about the condition of Mexico at the time of discovery, by Lamartine, the following passage has particularly drawn our attention:
“Nature, says Columbus, is so rich there that private property did not create a feeling of avarice or greed. Those men seem to live the golden age, happy and tranquil amidst open and limitless gardens that are not surrounded by moat, divided by fences or protected by walls. They are loyal to one another, without laws, books or judges. A person that rejoices harming another is considered evil. Their whole legislation seems to be in the horror that good feels towards evil. Their religions seems to be only a feeling of inferiority, recognition and love towards the invisible Being that had given them live and happiness. There isn’t a better nation or country in the whole universe. They love their neighbors as they do to themselves; they always employ a smooth and gracious language bearing a kind smile on their lips. It is true that the walk around naked but dressed on innocence and candor.”
According to this image those peoples were infinitely superior not only to their invaders but still today if compared to those of the most civilized countries. The Spaniards did not learn anything from their virtues, contaminating them with their vices; in response to their good hospitality brought them slavery and death. Those miserable peoples were exterminated in their majority and the few that still remain were perverted by contact with their conquerors.”
“Before such result here is the question: Where is the progress, the moral benefit collected by humanity with so much bloodshed? Wouldn’t have been better that the old Europe had just ignored the New World, so happy before that discovery?”
Here is how my spiritual guide answered that question:
We would respond with pleasure if your Spirit were capable of handling such a serious matter at this point in time, a matter that requires some spiritual-philosophical development. Ask Kardec. This order of ideas was already debated but they will report to that in a more lucid way than you would because you always have a tense Spirit and curious ears. That is a consequence of your current condition that you must accept.”
-o-
A first instruction sticks out from that. It is not good enough to be a medium, even a developed one, to easily receive communications about the first subject that shows up. That medium is doing his homework but at this point in time his own Spirit is struggling with other things and could not have the necessary calm. That is how a thousand other things may oppose to the exercise of mediumship. That faculty may subsist but it still depend on the support of the Spirits that may give it or deny according to their own judgment of convenience and that frequently in the interest of the medium.
As for the main question this is the response obtained at the Parisian Society:
(July 8th, 1864 – medium Mr. d’Ambel)
“Under the appearance of a certain natural goodness and with customs that are sweeter than righteous the Incas lived carelessly, without progress or elevation. Those primitive races lacked the struggle and if bloody battles did not decimate them; if an individual ambition did not exert influence there drive those populations to conquests, they were not less contaminated by a dangerous virus that would lead their race to extinction. It was necessary to stir up the vital sources of those corrupt Incas from which the Aztecs represented the fatal decadence that would affect all of those peoples. If we add to these entirely physiological causes the moral causes we will notice that the level of sciences and arts had remained there in a prolonged infancy. Hence, there was the need to put those pacific countries at the level of occidental races. Today the race is considered extinct because it melt with the Spanish conquerors. A new and lively nation flourished from that mixture of races that from a vigorous impulse will soon equate with the peoples of the old continent. What is left of so much blood shed, ask those in Bordeaux. To begin with the blood shed was not as considerable as one could believe. Facing the firearms and a few soldiers of Pizarro the whole region surrender as if before semi-gods coming out of the water. It is almost an episode of the old mythology and that indigenous race is, in more than one feature, similar to those that defended the Order of the Golden Fleece.”
We add a few reflections to these judicious explanation.
From an anthropological point of view the extinction of races is a positive fact. From the point of view of philosophy it is still a problem. From the point of view of religion the fact is irreconcilable with God’s justice if admitted only one corporeal existence to mankind to decide its future for eternity. In fact the extinguished races are always inferior to those that succeed them. Can they have an identical position in a future life when compared to the more perfected ones?
Simple common sense repeals that idea otherwise our endeavor to improve would be useless and we couldn’t care less if we remained savages. The non-pre-existence of the soul would forcibly imply the creation of new more perfect souls, for each race, leaving the hands of the Creator, a hypothesis that is irreconcilable with every principle of justice. If, on the contrary, we admit the same starting point to all souls and a succession of progressive existences, everything is explained.
In the extinction of races people generally don’t take into account that it is only the material body that is destroyed and the spiritual one is forgotten, only changing the vestment because the former was no longer compatible with one’s moral and intellectual development. Suppose the whole black race is destroyed. The only thing that will be destroyed is the black garment but the Spirit, that always lives, will first take an intermediary body between the white and the black and later a white body. That is how a being placed in last degree of humanity will reach in a given time the sum of perfections compatible with the condition of our globe.
Therefore one must not forget that the extinction of races only reaches the body not affecting the Spirit in any way. Far from suffering with that the Spirit gains a more perfected body, provided with a brain network that respond to a greater number of faculties.
The Spirit of a savage incarnate in the body of a European wise man would not be wiser and would not know what to do with his instrument whose inactive networks would break; the Spirit of a wise man, incarnate in the body of a savage would be like a pianist before a piano that lacked many strings. This thesis was developed in an article of the Spiritist Review, April 1862, about the perfectibility of the black race.
There is no doubt that the Caucasian white race is the one that occupies the first place on Earth. But has that race reached the apogee of perfection? Are all faculties of the soul represented in that race? Who would dare say? Let us then suppose that advancing continually the Spirits of that race ended up meeting in a dead end. The race would disappear to give rise to another one, of a more rich organization. That is what the law of progress wishes. Can we already see in the white race very distinct nuances, like moral and intellectual development? We may rest assured that the most advanced will absorb the others.
The disappearance of races take place in two ways: one by the natural extinction as a consequence of environmental conditions and of their degeneration when remain isolated; second by the conquests and dispersion determined by cross marriages. It is known that the black and white races gave rise to another one much superior to the former and that it is like a step further for the Spirits of that race. Furthermore the fusion of blood brings the alliance of Spirits from which the most advanced help the progress of the others. With that respect who can foresee the effects of the last war of China; the alterations that will take place in that country for so long stationary; the new physiological and psychological elements taken there? In a few centuries perhaps it may not be more recognized than today’s Mexico when compared to the times of Columbus.
As for the indigenous peoples of Mexico we say, with Erastus, that their customs were more sweet than virtuous and add that its pretense golden age was undoubtedly much poeticized. The history of conquests teaches us that they fought one another, something that does not indicate great respect towards their neighbors. Their golden age was that of infancy. Today they live the apex of youth. Later will reach maturity. If they still don’t have the virtue of the wise men they have acquired the intelligence that will lead to that when matured by experience. Nonetheless, centuries are needed for the education of peoples; it only takes place by the transformation of their constituent elements. Would France be what it is today without the conquest of the Romans? Would the barbarians get civilized without the invasion of Gallia? The Gallic wisdom and the Roman civilization together with the strength of the peoples from the North formed the current French people.
It is undoubtedly painful to think that progress may sometimes need destruction. But it is necessary to destroy the old shanties to replace them by new, more beautiful and comfortable houses. Besides, it is necessary to take into account the belated state of the globe whose humanity is still in the phase of material and intellectual progress. When it enters the phase of moral and spiritual progress the moral needs will surpass the material necessities; mankind will govern itself according to the justice and will no longer have to claim their place by force. War and destruction will no longer have a meaning. Until then the struggle is a consequence of their moral inferiority.
Living more the materiality than the spirituality mankind does not see things but from the present and material point of view, and for that matter, limited. Up until now humanity has ignored that the central role belongs to the Spirit. Mankind has seen the effects but did not figure out the causes and that is the reason for veering off in sciences, institutions and religions. By teaching them the participation of the spiritual element in everything in this world Spiritism broadens the horizon and changes the direction of the ideas. It opens up the era of moral progress.
Response from the editor of La Vérité to the complaint by Father Barricand
“Dear Mr. Allan Kardec,
Would you kindly insert the following lines in the next issue of your Spiritist Review?
I was very surprised when I opened the last issue of your Review (July 1864) and find there one letter signed by Barricand, in which that theologian mentioned my name with respect to a report that I published about one of his anti-Spiritist courses (La Vérité, April 10th, 1864).
The very judicious observations with which you followed that unqualifiable and much delayed protest would certainly dismiss my personal response if I were not afraid that my silence would go like a defeat or a mistake to the eyes of some. I herein declare that my conscience could not have associated to the serious criticism he made to me for supposedly having fantasized and deviated the course in question. I attest before God if I have not reproduced exactly the same phrases and the same words pronounced by my contradictor, continuing certain of having given them the true meaning.
Besides, if the high intelligence of Father Barricand considers my own too little or too heavy to have been able to extract the true meaning of his speech through the sinuous but flowery paths that he walked; if Father Barricand takes from that premise the induction that in such a case I am not allowed to affirm or attest; my word, it is very possible! In such a case and to be faithful to my principles of tolerance, and would almost criticize myself for having defended La Vérité and the other Spiritist journals against delusional accusations, born in my delirious brain; in being proud for having understood that instead of breaking the bells ringing above our heads it seems that they were satisfied in taking our pulses.
Therefore and as I expect the rage of Mr. Dean of the Faculty of Theology will be appeased; that is how, to the eyes of the world, his person and his teachings will be rehabilitated.
Yours sincerely, etc.”
E. Edoux, director of La Vérité
“Dear Mr. Allan Kardec,
Would you kindly insert the following lines in the next issue of your Spiritist Review?
I was very surprised when I opened the last issue of your Review (July 1864) and find there one letter signed by Barricand, in which that theologian mentioned my name with respect to a report that I published about one of his anti-Spiritist courses (La Vérité, April 10th, 1864).
The very judicious observations with which you followed that unqualifiable and much delayed protest would certainly dismiss my personal response if I were not afraid that my silence would go like a defeat or a mistake to the eyes of some. I herein declare that my conscience could not have associated to the serious criticism he made to me for supposedly having fantasized and deviated the course in question. I attest before God if I have not reproduced exactly the same phrases and the same words pronounced by my contradictor, continuing certain of having given them the true meaning.
Besides, if the high intelligence of Father Barricand considers my own too little or too heavy to have been able to extract the true meaning of his speech through the sinuous but flowery paths that he walked; if Father Barricand takes from that premise the induction that in such a case I am not allowed to affirm or attest; my word, it is very possible! In such a case and to be faithful to my principles of tolerance, and would almost criticize myself for having defended La Vérité and the other Spiritist journals against delusional accusations, born in my delirious brain; in being proud for having understood that instead of breaking the bells ringing above our heads it seems that they were satisfied in taking our pulses.
Therefore and as I expect the rage of Mr. Dean of the Faculty of Theology will be appeased; that is how, to the eyes of the world, his person and his teachings will be rehabilitated.
Yours sincerely, etc.”
E. Edoux, director of La Vérité
Juliana Maria, the beggar
In the commune of Villate, near Nozai (Lower Loire) there was a poor woman called Juliana Maria, old, sick and living out of people’s charity. One day she fell on a swamp from where she was rescued by an inhabitant of the region, Mr. Aubert, who was used to help her. Once transported to her house she died soon after as a consequence of the accident. It was the general belief that she wanted to commit suicide. On the same day of her death Mr. Albert, Spiritist and medium, felt like a person surrounding him, without any explanation for that though. When he learned about Juliana Maria’s death he thought that perhaps her Spirit had come to visit him.
Following the advice of Mr. Cheminant, one of his friends and member of the Spiritist Society of Paris where he had reported the events, he evoked that woman with the objective of being useful to her. Before that, however, he requested the advice of his spiritual guides from whom he received the following answer:
You can and that will give you pleasure besides being useful to her the service that you intend to do. She is happy and entirely devoted to those that had pity on her. You are one of her good friends. She is always around you and frequently entertains with you unnoticeably. Sooner or later the work done shall be compensated either by the recipient or by those that were interested in the case, both before and after death. If the Spirit did not have time to recognize itself other sympathetic Spirits do that in its name, testifying the whole acknowledgement. That explains what you felt on the day of her death. Now she is the one helping you in the good you want to do. Remember Jesus’ words: …whoever humbles themselves will be exalted. You will have the measure of the services that she can do to you if, however, you only ask for her help to be useful to your neighbor.
In the commune of Villate, near Nozai (Lower Loire) there was a poor woman called Juliana Maria, old, sick and living out of people’s charity. One day she fell on a swamp from where she was rescued by an inhabitant of the region, Mr. Aubert, who was used to help her. Once transported to her house she died soon after as a consequence of the accident. It was the general belief that she wanted to commit suicide. On the same day of her death Mr. Albert, Spiritist and medium, felt like a person surrounding him, without any explanation for that though. When he learned about Juliana Maria’s death he thought that perhaps her Spirit had come to visit him.
Following the advice of Mr. Cheminant, one of his friends and member of the Spiritist Society of Paris where he had reported the events, he evoked that woman with the objective of being useful to her. Before that, however, he requested the advice of his spiritual guides from whom he received the following answer:
You can and that will give you pleasure besides being useful to her the service that you intend to do. She is happy and entirely devoted to those that had pity on her. You are one of her good friends. She is always around you and frequently entertains with you unnoticeably. Sooner or later the work done shall be compensated either by the recipient or by those that were interested in the case, both before and after death. If the Spirit did not have time to recognize itself other sympathetic Spirits do that in its name, testifying the whole acknowledgement. That explains what you felt on the day of her death. Now she is the one helping you in the good you want to do. Remember Jesus’ words: …whoever humbles themselves will be exalted. You will have the measure of the services that she can do to you if, however, you only ask for her help to be useful to your neighbor.
Evocation:
-Good Juliana Maria, you are happy and that is all I wanted to know. That will not preclude me from thinking of you many times and never forget you in my prayers. A – Have trust in God; inspire a sincere faith on your patients and you will almost always succeed. Never think about the rewards that may come from that. It will go beyond your expectations. God always know how to compensate the merit of those that dedicate themselves to alleviate their fellow human beings and practice their actions with complete selflessness. Without that it is all delusion and fantasy. Before anything else one needs faith; on the contrary there is nothing. Remember this maxim and you shall be surprised by the results that will be obtained. The two mad persons that you healed are a proof of that. Given their circumstances the medicine alone would have failed. When you ask God to allow the good Spirits to cast upon you their good fluids, if that request does not make you feel an involuntary shiver it means that your prayer was not truthful enough to be heard; it will only be in the conditions I tell you. That is what you have experienced when you say from the bottom of your heart: Almighty God, Merciful God, God of infinite benevolence, hear my prayer and allow the good Spirits to assist me in the cure… have mercy on this person, my God, and give her health; without you I cannot do anything. Your will be done.
You did well by not neglecting the simple ones. The voice of the one that endured and suffered with resignation the miseries of this world is always heard and, as you see, a service done always receives its reward. Now a word about myself and that will confirm what was said above.
Spiritism explains to you my language as a Spirit. No need to enter into details about that. I also believe to be useless to give you details about my previous life. My situation on Earth when you met me must allow you to understand and appreciate my other existences which were not always irreproachable. Living a life of misery, sick and not being able to work I had to beg my entire life. I accumulated nothing and only had about one hundred francs that I kept for when my legs could no longer carry me. God judged my atonement and trial sufficient and put an end to that, freeing me without the suffering of earthly life, because I did not commit suicide as people initially thought. I fell thunderstruck by the border of the swamp at the time I addressed my last prayer to God. The slope in the terrain was the cause of having my body found in the water. I did not suffer; I am happy for having being able to accomplish my mission, without obstacles and with resignation. I became useful to the limits of my forces and means and avoided doing any harm to my neighbor. Today I receive the compensation for which I thank God, our divine Master that alleviates our bitterness in the very punishment imposed, allowing us to forget our previous existences in the present one and put on our way charitable souls to help and support the load of our previous errors. You also persevere and like myself, you will be compensated. I thank you for your good prayers on my behalf. I will never forget that. One day we will meet again and many things will be explained to you. At this point in time it would be superfluous. Know this that I am much devoted to you, I am many times by your side and whenever you need me to alleviate those in suffering.
The poor little woman Juliana Maria.
Being evoked at the Parisian Society on June 10th, 1864 by the medium Mrs. Patet, the Spirit Juliana Maria dictated the following communication:
“Thank you for the benevolence of admitting me in your session, dear President. You realized that my previous existences were in a more elevated social condition and if I returned to suffer the test of poverty it was to punish me from a hopeless pride that made me repeal whoever was poor and miserable. I then suffered the just penalty by the law of talion that turned me into the most horrible beggar of that region, and to demonstrate to me the benevolence of God, I was not rejected by anybody. That was my whole fear. I then withstood my trial without complaint, presenting a better life from where I would not have to return to this world of exile and calamity. What a joy the day in which our soul, still young, can enter the spiritual world to meet the loved ones again, because I also loved and I am happy for having met again those that preceded me. Thanks to this good Aubert. He opened to me the door of acknowledgement. Without his mediumship I could not have thanked him and demonstrated to him that the soul does not forget the happy influences upon the heart and recommend to him the propagation of this divine belief. He is called to redirect veered off souls. He rest assured of my help. Yes, I can help him a hundred times more than he helped me, instructing him on his good path. Praise the Lord for allowing the Spirits to give you instructions to give the poor encouragement in their punishments and stop the rich in their pride. Be aware of the shame that there is in repealing a miserable person. May I serve you as an example so as to avoid, like me, to have to atone such faults in these painful social positions in which you may be placed, turning you into the spoilage of society.”
Juliana Maria
OBSERVATION: This fact is full of teachings for anyone that gives some thought to the words of this Spirit in both messages. All great principles of Spiritism are gathered there. Since the first one the Spirit shows its superiority by the language; like a benevolent godmother she comes to protect the one that did not repeal her in her miserable rags. It is an application of this maxim from the Gospel: “the great will be humiliated and the simple exalted; blessed are the meek; blessed are the unfortunate because these will be consoled; do not neglect the little ones for one is little in this world may be greater than you think.” May those that deny reincarnation as contrary to God’s justice explain the position of that woman, destined to unhappiness since her birth by the diseases, if not through a previous life! After transmitting this communication to Mr. Aubert he, in turn, got the one that follows and that is confirmatory.
“Thank you for the benevolence of admitting me in your session, dear President. You realized that my previous existences were in a more elevated social condition and if I returned to suffer the test of poverty it was to punish me from a hopeless pride that made me repeal whoever was poor and miserable. I then suffered the just penalty by the law of talion that turned me into the most horrible beggar of that region, and to demonstrate to me the benevolence of God, I was not rejected by anybody. That was my whole fear. I then withstood my trial without complaint, presenting a better life from where I would not have to return to this world of exile and calamity. What a joy the day in which our soul, still young, can enter the spiritual world to meet the loved ones again, because I also loved and I am happy for having met again those that preceded me. Thanks to this good Aubert. He opened to me the door of acknowledgement. Without his mediumship I could not have thanked him and demonstrated to him that the soul does not forget the happy influences upon the heart and recommend to him the propagation of this divine belief. He is called to redirect veered off souls. He rest assured of my help. Yes, I can help him a hundred times more than he helped me, instructing him on his good path. Praise the Lord for allowing the Spirits to give you instructions to give the poor encouragement in their punishments and stop the rich in their pride. Be aware of the shame that there is in repealing a miserable person. May I serve you as an example so as to avoid, like me, to have to atone such faults in these painful social positions in which you may be placed, turning you into the spoilage of society.”
Juliana Maria
OBSERVATION: This fact is full of teachings for anyone that gives some thought to the words of this Spirit in both messages. All great principles of Spiritism are gathered there. Since the first one the Spirit shows its superiority by the language; like a benevolent godmother she comes to protect the one that did not repeal her in her miserable rags. It is an application of this maxim from the Gospel: “the great will be humiliated and the simple exalted; blessed are the meek; blessed are the unfortunate because these will be consoled; do not neglect the little ones for one is little in this world may be greater than you think.” May those that deny reincarnation as contrary to God’s justice explain the position of that woman, destined to unhappiness since her birth by the diseases, if not through a previous life! After transmitting this communication to Mr. Aubert he, in turn, got the one that follows and that is confirmatory.
- Good Juliana Maria, considering that you really want to help me with your advices so as to make me advance on the path of our divine doctrine, kindly communicate with me. I will do my best to take the most out of your teachings.
- Remember the recommendation I am going to make to you and never stays away from that. Be always charitable to the limit of your possibilities; you understand charity enough such as the one that must be practiced in every position of the earthly life. Hence, there is no need for me to give you a teaching about it because you will be the judge of that following, however, the voice of your conscience that will never deceive you when heard with sincerity. Make no mistake about the missions that you have to accomplish on Earth; great and small have their own; mine was very painful but I deserved the punishment due to my preceding existences, as I came to confess to the President of the mother Society of Paris to whom you will all associate one day, and that day is not so far off as you think. Spiritism marches at gigantic strides despite everything that is done to stop it. March on, therefore, everyone without fear, eager believers in the doctrine, and your efforts will be crowned with success. Never mind what can be said about you. Stay above any insignificant criticism that will fall upon you from the adversaries of Spiritism. The proud! They believe to be strong and to abate you easily. You, good friends, remain calm and have no fear when facing them. They are easier to defeat than you think. Many among them are afraid and fear for the light to finally come and obfuscate their eyes. Wait. They will join in at the time of coronation of the edifice.
Juliana Maria
Bibliographic News
For a long time we were alone in the battle field to sustain the struggle against Spiritism but low and behold we now see champions from multiple sides entering the field as to belie those that pretend that Spiritism is finishing. First La Vérité from Lyon, then the Ruch, the Sauveur and the Lumière from Bordeaux, the Spiritist Review d ’Anvers in Belgium, the Archives of Spiritism in Italy from Turin. I am pleased to inform that all of them bravely lift the flag and have demonstrated to our adversaries that they would have to face our reinforcements.
If we offer a just praise to those journals for their demonstrated firmness and for their refutations full of logic, we must above all praise them for maintaining moderation, that is the essential character of Spiritism, being at the same time proof of true force; for not having followed our antagonists in the terrain of personalism and offenses, incontestable sign of weakness, for one can only reach such extremes when lacking good reasons. The one that has solid argumentation makes them prevail; they are not replaced or weakened by a language that is not worth of a good cause.
In Paris, a newcomer presents itself under the unpretentious title Avenir, Monitor of Spiritism. The majority of our readers already know it as well as its editor, Mr. d’Ambel, and were able to judge it by its initial arms. The best propaganda is to demonstrate what can be done; then it is followed by the grand jury of the opinion that announces the verdict. By the way, we do not believe that the latter will not be favorable considering the sympathetic welcome it received at its appearance.
We also add our personal sympathies, conquered previously for all those publications destined to bravely serve the cause of Spiritism, because we could not consciously support or encourage those that by their form or content, voluntarily or by imprudence, were more harmful than useful, deviating public opinion with respect to the true character of the doctrine, or by offering a flank to founded attacks and criticism from our adversaries. In such a case the intention cannot be granted the credit of the fact.
If we offer a just praise to those journals for their demonstrated firmness and for their refutations full of logic, we must above all praise them for maintaining moderation, that is the essential character of Spiritism, being at the same time proof of true force; for not having followed our antagonists in the terrain of personalism and offenses, incontestable sign of weakness, for one can only reach such extremes when lacking good reasons. The one that has solid argumentation makes them prevail; they are not replaced or weakened by a language that is not worth of a good cause.
In Paris, a newcomer presents itself under the unpretentious title Avenir, Monitor of Spiritism. The majority of our readers already know it as well as its editor, Mr. d’Ambel, and were able to judge it by its initial arms. The best propaganda is to demonstrate what can be done; then it is followed by the grand jury of the opinion that announces the verdict. By the way, we do not believe that the latter will not be favorable considering the sympathetic welcome it received at its appearance.
We also add our personal sympathies, conquered previously for all those publications destined to bravely serve the cause of Spiritism, because we could not consciously support or encourage those that by their form or content, voluntarily or by imprudence, were more harmful than useful, deviating public opinion with respect to the true character of the doctrine, or by offering a flank to founded attacks and criticism from our adversaries. In such a case the intention cannot be granted the credit of the fact.
Written to priests by Mrs. J.B., with that occasional title that is a very characteristic sign of our time
“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
John 16:12-14
Our thoughts above with respect to the Avenir do not apply only to periodical publications but also to any other books or brochures whose number multiplies incessantly and whose authors are equally champions that joined the battle and bring their stone to the edifice. Our fraternal welcome greeting to all those defenders, men and women, that shaking the burden of old prejudices, raise the flag without second intentions, without any other interest but the general well-being, launching the liberating and emancipating scream of humanity: There is no salvation but through charity! As soon as that scream was heard for the first time everyone understood that it containing a whole moral revolution, presented and desired for a long time and that found sympathetic echo on all five corners of the planet. It was welcomed like the dawn of a happy world and in a few months it became the connecting words of every sincere Spiritist. Fact is that after such a lengthy and cruel fight against egotism that lemma finally allowed us to foresee the kingdom of fraternity.
The brochure that we announce here was written by a lady, member of the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, excellent medium, manager of a private group that is remarkably coordinated and someone that cannot be criticized but for an excess of modesty, if there could be excess in good. She only signed with her initials because she thought that an unknown name is not a recommendation and that she is not concerned with be seeing as a writer. That will not subtract from her the courage of expressing her opinion that she hides from nobody.
Mrs. J.B. is sincerely Catholic, but a very enlightened Catholic, and that says all. Her brochure is written from that point of view and for that very reason it addresses mainly the ecclesiastics. It is impossible to refute with more talent, elegance in the form and moderation and logic the arguments that an exclusive and blind faith opposes to the new ideas. We recommend this interesting piece of work to our readers. They can fearlessly propagate it among those persons of a very somber susceptibility with respect to the orthodoxy of the Church, giving it as a response to the attacks addressed to Spiritism, from a religious point of view.
“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
John 16:12-14
Our thoughts above with respect to the Avenir do not apply only to periodical publications but also to any other books or brochures whose number multiplies incessantly and whose authors are equally champions that joined the battle and bring their stone to the edifice. Our fraternal welcome greeting to all those defenders, men and women, that shaking the burden of old prejudices, raise the flag without second intentions, without any other interest but the general well-being, launching the liberating and emancipating scream of humanity: There is no salvation but through charity! As soon as that scream was heard for the first time everyone understood that it containing a whole moral revolution, presented and desired for a long time and that found sympathetic echo on all five corners of the planet. It was welcomed like the dawn of a happy world and in a few months it became the connecting words of every sincere Spiritist. Fact is that after such a lengthy and cruel fight against egotism that lemma finally allowed us to foresee the kingdom of fraternity.
The brochure that we announce here was written by a lady, member of the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, excellent medium, manager of a private group that is remarkably coordinated and someone that cannot be criticized but for an excess of modesty, if there could be excess in good. She only signed with her initials because she thought that an unknown name is not a recommendation and that she is not concerned with be seeing as a writer. That will not subtract from her the courage of expressing her opinion that she hides from nobody.
Mrs. J.B. is sincerely Catholic, but a very enlightened Catholic, and that says all. Her brochure is written from that point of view and for that very reason it addresses mainly the ecclesiastics. It is impossible to refute with more talent, elegance in the form and moderation and logic the arguments that an exclusive and blind faith opposes to the new ideas. We recommend this interesting piece of work to our readers. They can fearlessly propagate it among those persons of a very somber susceptibility with respect to the orthodoxy of the Church, giving it as a response to the attacks addressed to Spiritism, from a religious point of view.
With that title Mr. Aug. Bez from Bordeaux has just published a report of manifestations of Jean Hillaire, notable medium whose faculties are much similar in several aspects to those of Mr. Home and go even beyond in some of them.
Mr. Home is a man of the world, kind and full of civility, only revealed to the highest aristocracy. Jean Hillaire is a simple peasant from Charente-Inferior, no much educated and that lives from his work. His greatest travels, as it seems, were from Sonnac, his village, to Saint-Jean-d’Angely and Bordeaux. But God, in the partition of the gifts, does not take into account social positions; God wants the light to shine in all levels of the social fabric and for that He gives as much to the great as to the small.
Criticism and hateful calumny did not spare Mr. Home. Without consideration to the authorities that honored him with their appreciation and received him and still do in their intimacy, as a guest and friend, the mocking disbelief that respects nothing started to denigrate his image, presenting him as a vile charlatan, a skillful rascal, in a word, a refined scoundrel. They did not stop even before the idea that such attacks would reach the honorability of the most respectable persons, for that very reason accused of comradery with a supposedly creator of delusions. We said already about him that it was only necessary to see him to believe that he would be the most awkward charlatan because he shows neither the shocking attitudes nor the loquaciousness of the charlatans, characteristics that are not compatible with his typical shyness. As a matter of fact who would believe that he had at any time put a price to his manifestations? The reason that a short while ago led him to Rome, from where he was expelled, was to learn about sculpture and turn that into his profession, being that the most formal belying of his adversaries. But never mind! They said that he is a charlatan and do not wish to take it back.
Those that know Hillaire were equally convinced that he would be an even more awkward charlatan. It is never too much to remind people that the drive of charlatanism is always personal interest; where there is nothing to gain charlatanism makes no sense; where there is something to lose, charlatanism is a stupidity. Now, what was the material benefit that Hillaire took from his faculties? A lot of fatigue, waste of time, upsets, persecutions and slander. What he gained and that for him has no price is a vivid faith that he did not have in God, in God’s mercy, in the immortality of the soul and in the protection of the good Spirits. That is not precisely the fruit sought by charlatanism. But he also knows that such a protection cannot be obtained but through one’s betterment. That is what he strives to do and that is not what attracts charlatans either. It is also what helps him to withstand vicissitudes and trials with patience.
In similar cases a guarantee of honesty is therefore in an absolute selflessness. Before accusing someone of charlatanism it is necessary to ask first what is the benefit that the person takes from deceiving? Charlatans are not silly enough to gain nothing and less still to lose instead of gaining.
The mediums, therefore, have a peremptory answer to give to the adversaries asking them: How much did you pay me to do what I do? A not less significant guarantee and capable of causing a remarkable impression is the reformation of oneself. It is only a profound belief that can lead a person to win over oneself, disentangling from what is bad and resisting the pernicious attractions. Then it is not only the faculty that we admire but the person that we respect, something that imposes on the mockery.
The manifestations obtained by Hillaire are something sacred to him. He considers them as a favor of God. The feelings inspired in him by those manifestations are summarized in the following words extracted from the book by Mr. Bez:
“The rumor about these phenomena spread everywhere with the speed of light. All that up until then had not witnessed Spiritist manifestation could not wait until the time they could see them. More than ever Hillaire was covered by requests and invitations from all corners. Money offers were made by several persons to convince him to give sessions in their homes but Hillaire always maintained his profound belief that his faculties were only given to him with the objective of doing charity to the soul of the disbelievers and to remove them from the materialism that destroys them mercilessly, throwing them into egotism and vanity.
Since the time God gave him the grace of using him as a server to clarify his countrymen and manifestations of such an elevated degree are produced through him, the simple medium of Sonnac considered his mediumship as a priesthood, persuading himself that the day he accepted the least contribution he would have his faculties removed or given away to the bad and mocking Spirits like a toy to be utilized to harm or mystify anyone that would still be unwise enough to come to him.
His economic situation, however, is very fragile. Without fortune he needs to win the daily bread with his sweat and many times the great fatigue that he experiences during some very important manifestations affects the forces that he needs to handle the shovel and the pickaxe, two instruments that he must always have in his hands.
At time when subdued, that like Jo had the object of testing his faith and resignation, Hillaire found asylum and assistance among grateful friends that owed him their consolation through Spiritism. Is it what one can call a sale of manifestations from the Spirits? Certainly not because that is a consolation that God sent him and that he could and should accept without qualms; his conscience may rest because he did not trade with the gifts that were given to him; he did not sell consolation to the afflicted souls or the faith that he gave to the non-believers. As for those that came to help him they carried out a duty of fraternity for which they shall be compensated.
Hillaire’s faculties are multiple. He is a clairvoyant medium of first order, hearing, speaking, ecstatic and still writes. He obtained direct writing and remarkable transportations. For several times he was lifted up and transposed the space without touching ground, something that is not more supernatural than seeing a table lifting up. All of the communications and manifestations through him attest the assistance of very good Spirits and they always take place in broad daylight. He frequently enters somnambulistic sleep and it is almost always in that state that the most extraordinary phenomena take place.
Mr. Bez is written com simplicity and without exaltation. The author not only says what he saw but also cites several visual witnesses, most of those showed personal interest on the manifestations. These would not let go without a protest any inaccuracy, particularly if attributing to them a role that was in opposition to what actually happened. The author, highly considered and liked in Bordeaux, would not have submitted himself to the exposure of being belied. A conscious man is recognized by his language who would have scruples to consciously alter the truth. As a matter of fact there isn’t a single phenomenon that does not find its explanation in The Medium’s Book.
Such a work differs from that of Mr. Home because instead of a simple report of events that were frequently repeated, without deductions or conclusions, almost all contains moral appreciations and philosophical considerations that make a book that is at the same time interesting and educational and in which the Spiritist is recognized, not only convinced but clarified.
As for Hillaire we congratulate him for his devotion, wishing that he may never lose sight of what is the most important merit of a medium which is not the transcendence of his faculties that may be removed at any time but the good use that he makes of that. The continuation of the assistance of the good Spirits depends on that because there is a great difference between well capacitated medium and a well assisted medium. The former only excites curiosity; the latter, touched in the heart, reacts morally upon others as a result of his moral qualities. In the interest of the cause as well as in his own interest we wish that the praises from friends, sometimes more enthusiasts than judicious, may not take away any of his simplicity and modesty and do not make him fall into the trap of pride that has already led to the loss of so many mediums.
Mr. Home is a man of the world, kind and full of civility, only revealed to the highest aristocracy. Jean Hillaire is a simple peasant from Charente-Inferior, no much educated and that lives from his work. His greatest travels, as it seems, were from Sonnac, his village, to Saint-Jean-d’Angely and Bordeaux. But God, in the partition of the gifts, does not take into account social positions; God wants the light to shine in all levels of the social fabric and for that He gives as much to the great as to the small.
Criticism and hateful calumny did not spare Mr. Home. Without consideration to the authorities that honored him with their appreciation and received him and still do in their intimacy, as a guest and friend, the mocking disbelief that respects nothing started to denigrate his image, presenting him as a vile charlatan, a skillful rascal, in a word, a refined scoundrel. They did not stop even before the idea that such attacks would reach the honorability of the most respectable persons, for that very reason accused of comradery with a supposedly creator of delusions. We said already about him that it was only necessary to see him to believe that he would be the most awkward charlatan because he shows neither the shocking attitudes nor the loquaciousness of the charlatans, characteristics that are not compatible with his typical shyness. As a matter of fact who would believe that he had at any time put a price to his manifestations? The reason that a short while ago led him to Rome, from where he was expelled, was to learn about sculpture and turn that into his profession, being that the most formal belying of his adversaries. But never mind! They said that he is a charlatan and do not wish to take it back.
Those that know Hillaire were equally convinced that he would be an even more awkward charlatan. It is never too much to remind people that the drive of charlatanism is always personal interest; where there is nothing to gain charlatanism makes no sense; where there is something to lose, charlatanism is a stupidity. Now, what was the material benefit that Hillaire took from his faculties? A lot of fatigue, waste of time, upsets, persecutions and slander. What he gained and that for him has no price is a vivid faith that he did not have in God, in God’s mercy, in the immortality of the soul and in the protection of the good Spirits. That is not precisely the fruit sought by charlatanism. But he also knows that such a protection cannot be obtained but through one’s betterment. That is what he strives to do and that is not what attracts charlatans either. It is also what helps him to withstand vicissitudes and trials with patience.
In similar cases a guarantee of honesty is therefore in an absolute selflessness. Before accusing someone of charlatanism it is necessary to ask first what is the benefit that the person takes from deceiving? Charlatans are not silly enough to gain nothing and less still to lose instead of gaining.
The mediums, therefore, have a peremptory answer to give to the adversaries asking them: How much did you pay me to do what I do? A not less significant guarantee and capable of causing a remarkable impression is the reformation of oneself. It is only a profound belief that can lead a person to win over oneself, disentangling from what is bad and resisting the pernicious attractions. Then it is not only the faculty that we admire but the person that we respect, something that imposes on the mockery.
The manifestations obtained by Hillaire are something sacred to him. He considers them as a favor of God. The feelings inspired in him by those manifestations are summarized in the following words extracted from the book by Mr. Bez:
“The rumor about these phenomena spread everywhere with the speed of light. All that up until then had not witnessed Spiritist manifestation could not wait until the time they could see them. More than ever Hillaire was covered by requests and invitations from all corners. Money offers were made by several persons to convince him to give sessions in their homes but Hillaire always maintained his profound belief that his faculties were only given to him with the objective of doing charity to the soul of the disbelievers and to remove them from the materialism that destroys them mercilessly, throwing them into egotism and vanity.
Since the time God gave him the grace of using him as a server to clarify his countrymen and manifestations of such an elevated degree are produced through him, the simple medium of Sonnac considered his mediumship as a priesthood, persuading himself that the day he accepted the least contribution he would have his faculties removed or given away to the bad and mocking Spirits like a toy to be utilized to harm or mystify anyone that would still be unwise enough to come to him.
His economic situation, however, is very fragile. Without fortune he needs to win the daily bread with his sweat and many times the great fatigue that he experiences during some very important manifestations affects the forces that he needs to handle the shovel and the pickaxe, two instruments that he must always have in his hands.
At time when subdued, that like Jo had the object of testing his faith and resignation, Hillaire found asylum and assistance among grateful friends that owed him their consolation through Spiritism. Is it what one can call a sale of manifestations from the Spirits? Certainly not because that is a consolation that God sent him and that he could and should accept without qualms; his conscience may rest because he did not trade with the gifts that were given to him; he did not sell consolation to the afflicted souls or the faith that he gave to the non-believers. As for those that came to help him they carried out a duty of fraternity for which they shall be compensated.
Hillaire’s faculties are multiple. He is a clairvoyant medium of first order, hearing, speaking, ecstatic and still writes. He obtained direct writing and remarkable transportations. For several times he was lifted up and transposed the space without touching ground, something that is not more supernatural than seeing a table lifting up. All of the communications and manifestations through him attest the assistance of very good Spirits and they always take place in broad daylight. He frequently enters somnambulistic sleep and it is almost always in that state that the most extraordinary phenomena take place.
Mr. Bez is written com simplicity and without exaltation. The author not only says what he saw but also cites several visual witnesses, most of those showed personal interest on the manifestations. These would not let go without a protest any inaccuracy, particularly if attributing to them a role that was in opposition to what actually happened. The author, highly considered and liked in Bordeaux, would not have submitted himself to the exposure of being belied. A conscious man is recognized by his language who would have scruples to consciously alter the truth. As a matter of fact there isn’t a single phenomenon that does not find its explanation in The Medium’s Book.
Such a work differs from that of Mr. Home because instead of a simple report of events that were frequently repeated, without deductions or conclusions, almost all contains moral appreciations and philosophical considerations that make a book that is at the same time interesting and educational and in which the Spiritist is recognized, not only convinced but clarified.
As for Hillaire we congratulate him for his devotion, wishing that he may never lose sight of what is the most important merit of a medium which is not the transcendence of his faculties that may be removed at any time but the good use that he makes of that. The continuation of the assistance of the good Spirits depends on that because there is a great difference between well capacitated medium and a well assisted medium. The former only excites curiosity; the latter, touched in the heart, reacts morally upon others as a result of his moral qualities. In the interest of the cause as well as in his own interest we wish that the praises from friends, sometimes more enthusiasts than judicious, may not take away any of his simplicity and modesty and do not make him fall into the trap of pride that has already led to the loss of so many mediums.
Study in which the conditions of habitability of celestial globes are exposed and discussed from the point of view of Astronomy, Physiology and Natural Philosophy by Camille Flammarion, from the Paris Observatory. A large volume in-12 with astronomical sheets. Price 4 francs – library edition, in-8, 7 francs – Academic bookstore Didier & Co. Quais des Augustins 35.
Lack of space forces us to postpone the report of this important work to our next issue. To know about the situation of the works mentioned above see the list of the Diverse Books about Spiritism.
Lack of space forces us to postpone the report of this important work to our next issue. To know about the situation of the works mentioned above see the list of the Diverse Books about Spiritism.
Exceptionally and due to private circumstances, the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies break will start this year on August 1st. The Society will reopen the sessions on the first Friday of October.
Allan Kardec
September
The music magazine of the Siècle, June 21st, 1864 brought the following article:
“With the title - An orphan in shackles - Mr. Pontécoulant has just published excellent news in favor of a good cause. It seems that the director of a detention center conceived an ingenious idea to make music penetrate the cells of the inmates. He thought that his duty was not only that of punishment but also correction. To be sure about the character of the prisoner hurt by the punishment he went straight to music. He started by creating a singing school. The inmates that showed good behavior considered a reward to take part in the choral. The prison was therefore transformed. Among the one thousand prisoners one hundred were chosen to take part in the first rehearsals. It had a very reassuring effect on those men. Any breach of regulations could keep them away from the school; they organized themselves in order to keep up with their obligations, that up until then was neglected.
In order to better explain the importance of such choral I remind you that they are commonly imposed to be quiet. They think but do not speak. They could forget their languages for not using them in those circumstances. Easy to understand that such spoken and sung plays are to them like a gift from heavens. It is the time to hear voices, break their solitude, to be moved and to exist. I repeat, the results are excellent. From seventy singers that formed the choral this year sixteen found remission. Isn’t that convincing?
I forgot to say that the experiment was carried out in Melun. It is a test to be encouraged, an example to be followed. Who knows those hardened hearts may feel the ice breaking and still like something! By learning to sing they also learn to not slander any more. Their isolation becomes populated, their minds are calmed and their tasks become lighter. Then, when their time is done, sometimes reduced thanks to their dedication and good behavior, they are out and away from rage and bad behavior. One day I visited the health clinic of Dr. B…, accompanying one alienist. During the journey he said: - The showers, the showers! The only thing I know is the showers and the tight jacket! It is the panacea… Any other palliative is useless when dealing with a furious mad person. Then screams at the end of the garden drew our attention. – Look, he said, I see one that will have to endure one of two processes, perhaps the two. Wanted to follow him? You will see the effect. The poor miserable guy floundered in the hands of the guards. His mouth was only curses and his eyes only fire. Appeasing him without the support of the strongest means seemed impossible. Suddenly a voice was heard on the other side of the garden. It came from an isolated pavilion that gave the impression of having been raised on its own, with its virgin vine and weeds falling from the roof in a flowery thorn bush. The voice sang the romance of Saul, from Desdemona. I stopped to listen. I don’t know if the impression I had was due to the place and the occasion but I affirm that I had never before felt so much touched. I later on learned that the voice belonged to a woman of the world that had lost her reason as the result of her own misery. The mad person then stopped suddenly, no longer struggling or saying blasphemies.
“With the title - An orphan in shackles - Mr. Pontécoulant has just published excellent news in favor of a good cause. It seems that the director of a detention center conceived an ingenious idea to make music penetrate the cells of the inmates. He thought that his duty was not only that of punishment but also correction. To be sure about the character of the prisoner hurt by the punishment he went straight to music. He started by creating a singing school. The inmates that showed good behavior considered a reward to take part in the choral. The prison was therefore transformed. Among the one thousand prisoners one hundred were chosen to take part in the first rehearsals. It had a very reassuring effect on those men. Any breach of regulations could keep them away from the school; they organized themselves in order to keep up with their obligations, that up until then was neglected.
In order to better explain the importance of such choral I remind you that they are commonly imposed to be quiet. They think but do not speak. They could forget their languages for not using them in those circumstances. Easy to understand that such spoken and sung plays are to them like a gift from heavens. It is the time to hear voices, break their solitude, to be moved and to exist. I repeat, the results are excellent. From seventy singers that formed the choral this year sixteen found remission. Isn’t that convincing?
I forgot to say that the experiment was carried out in Melun. It is a test to be encouraged, an example to be followed. Who knows those hardened hearts may feel the ice breaking and still like something! By learning to sing they also learn to not slander any more. Their isolation becomes populated, their minds are calmed and their tasks become lighter. Then, when their time is done, sometimes reduced thanks to their dedication and good behavior, they are out and away from rage and bad behavior. One day I visited the health clinic of Dr. B…, accompanying one alienist. During the journey he said: - The showers, the showers! The only thing I know is the showers and the tight jacket! It is the panacea… Any other palliative is useless when dealing with a furious mad person. Then screams at the end of the garden drew our attention. – Look, he said, I see one that will have to endure one of two processes, perhaps the two. Wanted to follow him? You will see the effect. The poor miserable guy floundered in the hands of the guards. His mouth was only curses and his eyes only fire. Appeasing him without the support of the strongest means seemed impossible. Suddenly a voice was heard on the other side of the garden. It came from an isolated pavilion that gave the impression of having been raised on its own, with its virgin vine and weeds falling from the roof in a flowery thorn bush. The voice sang the romance of Saul, from Desdemona. I stopped to listen. I don’t know if the impression I had was due to the place and the occasion but I affirm that I had never before felt so much touched. I later on learned that the voice belonged to a woman of the world that had lost her reason as the result of her own misery. The mad person then stopped suddenly, no longer struggling or saying blasphemies.
-The voice! The voice! He said… Shush! He then listened, only showing ecstasy. He had calmed down.
- Then? I asked the astonished alienist, what now of your famous subject?
- Let us see. Say that riff as if the animals were about to be gathered.
He would rather have been turned into pieces than taken back his brutal statement. Systematic persons are like that. Facts are nothing to them. Whatever contradicts them is treated as exception. Do not try to fight them because they have a fixed idea and when all arguments have been used they will turn their faces the other way. No concessions! They are either convinced or not. In several homes of the mentally ill, in particular Bicêtre, they understood the benefit that can be obtained with music and they use it successfully. The masses are sung by patients there. With the exception of rare incidents, everything follows the program without the need of any repression of misconduct. There is a more horrible disease than madness. I mean cretinism. Mad persons have the moments of lucidity, sometimes only affected by a mania. They talk reasonably well about every subject, with the exception of the one that makes them fantasize. One says that he is made of glass, recommending that they only be touched with extreme care; the other points to a person and says: do you see that guy? He believes to be a child of God but I am Jesus Christ! A third one invites you to his great hunting expeditions in his huge territory; he even hears the wolves, the servants, the bands that greet him and the prey that screeches; he is happy in his dream; it is almost always an ambitious person that has fallen more or less close to the target. All of those curable and incurable have a point of reference to the imagination. But what is left to the others, the ones with cretinism? Those remain squatting at a corner wall, on a stone, deformed faces like horrible balls of flesh, never showing any spark of intelligence, not even showing animal instincts. They are completely lost, body and soul, aren’t they? Are they lowered too much in their humane dignity, are they too much degraded? The have ears but don’t hear, have eyes but don’t see, their senses are extinct. These are like living-dead. They uselessly tried to bring anything back on them, through force and kindness. It was desperation.
Then they started singing simple notes in their presence until they repeated them mechanically. Simple and short songs were sung, that they repeated. Now they sing. Singing is a joy to them. They are controlled by music. It is both their punishment and reward; they obey; they are aware of their actions. They work. There you have them half-way into mental rehab.
There are regions in which that cruel disease reproduces incessantly. Is it the air or the water that does that? On morning, after a long hunting expedition at night, I had just entered the shanty of a shepherd in the Pyrenees looking for refreshment. I found a debilitated man, a drained mother and three weak children, one of which tucked in a pile of rotten straw. When I examined that miserable creature the father said: - oh this one has never lived; he was born like that. Cretinism here sweeps one out of three persons. I am paying for my debt. Does he recognize you, I asked.
Not me, not his brothers; he remains in the position that you see and only wakes up from that torpid state at sunset and when I gather the disperse herd; he then agitates and seems to enjoy, as if something was making him happy.
-And what do you think may be causing that? I asked. I don’t know, he says.
-Which signs you use? A. – The riff of every shepherd.
The kind old man stood at the door, brought his hands in a shell around his mouth and initiated his song of calling the herd. A strange thing happened. The ill boy rose up like a spring, screaming something inarticulate. We could guess that he wanted to speak. I explained that music acted upon his muscles with great power. The father understood and then said in a strong slang: - I know songs; I will pass them to him.
Two years later I saw those people again, bringing them a hurt chamois. The boy had become meek. I published this story before others thought that music could be used in healing processes in similar cases. My report was considered a fable. Later on experience made its way with the mentally ill but it did not preclude my alienist from sustaining that there is nothing better than force and shower. He was convict of that.”
-o-
We do not know if the author of the article, Mr. Chadeuil, is anti-spiritualist but it is certain that it is strongly anti-Spiritist considering all the sarcasm thrown towards the belief in Spirits on every occasion he found in his Musical Review. In order to deny a doctrine that is based on facts and accepted by millions of people has he seen, observed and studied? Has he scrupulously sought information from all available sources? His own articles demonstrate ignorance about what they discuss. On which basis then can he affirm that it is a ridiculous belief? In his personal opinion the idea of people communicating with the Spirits is ridiculous like every other idea with some importance was considered ridiculous by people, even the most enlightened. These are, no doubt, the application of his remarkable and true words from his article:
“Systematic persons are like that. Facts are nothing to them. Anything that denies them is treated as an exception. Do not try to fight them because they have their fixed idea and when all arguments have expired they will laugh on your face.”
Isn’t that the story of the speck and the log once again? It is true that we don’t know if the reflection is his or Mr. Pontécoulant’s.Regardless, he cites it as a praise therefore he does accept it. But let us leave Mr. Chadeuil’s opinion aside because it does not matter and let us look at the article in itself that attests an important fact: the influence of music upon criminals and mentally ill. The influence of music onto customs has been acknowledged at all times. Its application to criminals would be an undisputable progress and could only bring satisfactory results. It excites the sleeping fibers of sensitivity, predisposing them to receive educating impressions. But is that enough? No. It is like harvesting in blank land that requires the plantation of new ideas, provoking a profound impression into those deviated minds. It is necessary to break the barrier of hearts to only then speak to the souls. They lack a faith in God, in their own soul and in the future; not a vague, uncertain faith that is incessantly bombarded by doubt, but a faith based on certainty, the only one that can become unbreakable. Music can undoubtedly predispose to but not give that faith. Yet it is not a support that can be neglected. Such initiative as so many others that humanity and civilization cannot but applaud constitute commendable solicitude towards the well-being of prisoners. There still remains, however, to attack the evil on its root. One day the full support that can be found in the Spiritist ideas will be acknowledged, an influence that has already been demonstrated through the many transformations that it has led to in the most rebellious minds. Those that have investigated this doctrine in depth and meditated about its inevitable consequences are the only ones that can understand its breaking power imposed onto pernicious tendencies. The reason for such a power is in the fact that the doctrine touches directly the very causes of those tendencies that are in the imperfection of the Spirit, whereas most of the time people seek such causes in the imperfection of matter. Spiritism presently, as a moral doctrine, is no longer in the condition of a simple theory. It is practiced by a large number of those that accept its principles. It is possible to affirm that according to what happens and given the produced results there will be a reduction in the number of crimes and offenses proportional to its propagation. That is what the near future will demonstrate. In the expectation that the experience may happen in a large scale it daily happens in an individual basis. The Spiritist Magazine has already provided innumerous examples of that; we will only remind you of the letters from two prisoners published in the issues of November 1863 and February 1864.
We leave up to our reader the appreciation of the fact described above regarding madness. It is undoubtedly a strong criticism to the alienists that only know the showers and the straitjackets. Spiritism comes to cast an entirely new light onto mental illnesses, demonstrating the duality of human beings and the possibility of acting separately upon the material and the spiritual creature. The continually growing number of doctors that accept such principle will certainly bring significant changes to the treatment of those kinds of diseases. Letting aside the Spiritist idea, per se, the confirmation of the effect of music in similar cases is already a step forward in the spiritualist avenue, from which the alienists have so far kept a distance in detriment of patients. The effect produced on those with idiocy and cretinism is even more characteristic. The so called mad people have almost always been intelligent people before; that is not the case with cretinism that seems to have been attributed an absolute thoughtless mind. Experimental Spiritism here also demonstrates that those patients are advanced and not retarded minds that are, however, inhabiting imperfect bodies.
Given the equality in intelligence, the difference between the mad person and the one showing cretinism is that the former is born with normal brains that later one are disorganized whereas the latter is a Spirit incarnate in a body whose brain is atrophied since day one, never allowing a free manifestation of thoughts. It is like a strong and energetic person whose freedom of movement was removed.
Such constraint is a true punishment to the Spirit because the capacity to think is there but at the same time the person feels the abjection imposed by the disease. Let us then suppose that in a given time one can disconnect the organs from the mind: the Spirit would recover its freedom and the one with the highest degree mental illness would become an intelligent person. It would be like a prisoner leaving prison or a musician before a perfect instrument or still like a mute person recovering the ability to speak. What is then missing is not the faculty of thinking but the neural networks that allow the manifestation of the thoughts.
In a normally formed child the exercise of the faculties of the Spirit leads to the development of the corresponding organs that offer no resistance. In those patients, however, the action of the Spirit is incapable of producing any development that remained in a rudimentary state, like a fruit that was aborted.
The total cure of a person with idiocy is then impossible; all that can be expected is a slight improvement. That is why nobody knows any treatment that may be applied to the organs; it is the Spirit that must be addressed. Studying the faculties and discovering the kernel one must exercise it through the Spirit and if the resistance is broken an at least partial manifestation becomes then possible. If there is an external media capable of reaching the organs is undoubtedly music. It is capable of vibrating those dormant fibers like a huge noise that comes to the ears of a deaf person. The Spirit shakes with that, like from a memory, and the provoked activity doubles the efforts to overcome the obstacles.
To the one that only sees an organized machine in a human being, without taking into account the intelligence that presides over the activity of that physical organization, everything is problem and obscurity in the vital functions as everything is uncertainty in the treatment of diseases. That is why, most of the time, the problem is not faced head-on; more than that: everything is darkness in the evolution of humanity, everything is trial and error in social institutions and that is why the wrong path is followed so frequently.
If you just hypothetically admit that human beings have a duality, the presence of an intelligent being, independent of matter, pre-existent and that outlives the body that is only a temporary envelope, and everything is explained. Through positive experiences Spiritism turns that hypothesis into reality, then revealing the law that governs the relationships between the Spirit and matter.
You may then laugh, oh skeptical, at the Doctrine of the Spirits, born out of the vulgar phenomena of the dancing tables, like the electrical telegraphy came out of Galvani’s dancing frogs, but understand that by denying the Spirits you are denying yourself and that the greatest discoveries were laughed at.
Then they started singing simple notes in their presence until they repeated them mechanically. Simple and short songs were sung, that they repeated. Now they sing. Singing is a joy to them. They are controlled by music. It is both their punishment and reward; they obey; they are aware of their actions. They work. There you have them half-way into mental rehab.
There are regions in which that cruel disease reproduces incessantly. Is it the air or the water that does that? On morning, after a long hunting expedition at night, I had just entered the shanty of a shepherd in the Pyrenees looking for refreshment. I found a debilitated man, a drained mother and three weak children, one of which tucked in a pile of rotten straw. When I examined that miserable creature the father said: - oh this one has never lived; he was born like that. Cretinism here sweeps one out of three persons. I am paying for my debt. Does he recognize you, I asked.
Not me, not his brothers; he remains in the position that you see and only wakes up from that torpid state at sunset and when I gather the disperse herd; he then agitates and seems to enjoy, as if something was making him happy.
-And what do you think may be causing that? I asked. I don’t know, he says.
-Which signs you use? A. – The riff of every shepherd.
The kind old man stood at the door, brought his hands in a shell around his mouth and initiated his song of calling the herd. A strange thing happened. The ill boy rose up like a spring, screaming something inarticulate. We could guess that he wanted to speak. I explained that music acted upon his muscles with great power. The father understood and then said in a strong slang: - I know songs; I will pass them to him.
Two years later I saw those people again, bringing them a hurt chamois. The boy had become meek. I published this story before others thought that music could be used in healing processes in similar cases. My report was considered a fable. Later on experience made its way with the mentally ill but it did not preclude my alienist from sustaining that there is nothing better than force and shower. He was convict of that.”
-o-
We do not know if the author of the article, Mr. Chadeuil, is anti-spiritualist but it is certain that it is strongly anti-Spiritist considering all the sarcasm thrown towards the belief in Spirits on every occasion he found in his Musical Review. In order to deny a doctrine that is based on facts and accepted by millions of people has he seen, observed and studied? Has he scrupulously sought information from all available sources? His own articles demonstrate ignorance about what they discuss. On which basis then can he affirm that it is a ridiculous belief? In his personal opinion the idea of people communicating with the Spirits is ridiculous like every other idea with some importance was considered ridiculous by people, even the most enlightened. These are, no doubt, the application of his remarkable and true words from his article:
“Systematic persons are like that. Facts are nothing to them. Anything that denies them is treated as an exception. Do not try to fight them because they have their fixed idea and when all arguments have expired they will laugh on your face.”
Isn’t that the story of the speck and the log once again? It is true that we don’t know if the reflection is his or Mr. Pontécoulant’s.Regardless, he cites it as a praise therefore he does accept it. But let us leave Mr. Chadeuil’s opinion aside because it does not matter and let us look at the article in itself that attests an important fact: the influence of music upon criminals and mentally ill. The influence of music onto customs has been acknowledged at all times. Its application to criminals would be an undisputable progress and could only bring satisfactory results. It excites the sleeping fibers of sensitivity, predisposing them to receive educating impressions. But is that enough? No. It is like harvesting in blank land that requires the plantation of new ideas, provoking a profound impression into those deviated minds. It is necessary to break the barrier of hearts to only then speak to the souls. They lack a faith in God, in their own soul and in the future; not a vague, uncertain faith that is incessantly bombarded by doubt, but a faith based on certainty, the only one that can become unbreakable. Music can undoubtedly predispose to but not give that faith. Yet it is not a support that can be neglected. Such initiative as so many others that humanity and civilization cannot but applaud constitute commendable solicitude towards the well-being of prisoners. There still remains, however, to attack the evil on its root. One day the full support that can be found in the Spiritist ideas will be acknowledged, an influence that has already been demonstrated through the many transformations that it has led to in the most rebellious minds. Those that have investigated this doctrine in depth and meditated about its inevitable consequences are the only ones that can understand its breaking power imposed onto pernicious tendencies. The reason for such a power is in the fact that the doctrine touches directly the very causes of those tendencies that are in the imperfection of the Spirit, whereas most of the time people seek such causes in the imperfection of matter. Spiritism presently, as a moral doctrine, is no longer in the condition of a simple theory. It is practiced by a large number of those that accept its principles. It is possible to affirm that according to what happens and given the produced results there will be a reduction in the number of crimes and offenses proportional to its propagation. That is what the near future will demonstrate. In the expectation that the experience may happen in a large scale it daily happens in an individual basis. The Spiritist Magazine has already provided innumerous examples of that; we will only remind you of the letters from two prisoners published in the issues of November 1863 and February 1864.
We leave up to our reader the appreciation of the fact described above regarding madness. It is undoubtedly a strong criticism to the alienists that only know the showers and the straitjackets. Spiritism comes to cast an entirely new light onto mental illnesses, demonstrating the duality of human beings and the possibility of acting separately upon the material and the spiritual creature. The continually growing number of doctors that accept such principle will certainly bring significant changes to the treatment of those kinds of diseases. Letting aside the Spiritist idea, per se, the confirmation of the effect of music in similar cases is already a step forward in the spiritualist avenue, from which the alienists have so far kept a distance in detriment of patients. The effect produced on those with idiocy and cretinism is even more characteristic. The so called mad people have almost always been intelligent people before; that is not the case with cretinism that seems to have been attributed an absolute thoughtless mind. Experimental Spiritism here also demonstrates that those patients are advanced and not retarded minds that are, however, inhabiting imperfect bodies.
Given the equality in intelligence, the difference between the mad person and the one showing cretinism is that the former is born with normal brains that later one are disorganized whereas the latter is a Spirit incarnate in a body whose brain is atrophied since day one, never allowing a free manifestation of thoughts. It is like a strong and energetic person whose freedom of movement was removed.
Such constraint is a true punishment to the Spirit because the capacity to think is there but at the same time the person feels the abjection imposed by the disease. Let us then suppose that in a given time one can disconnect the organs from the mind: the Spirit would recover its freedom and the one with the highest degree mental illness would become an intelligent person. It would be like a prisoner leaving prison or a musician before a perfect instrument or still like a mute person recovering the ability to speak. What is then missing is not the faculty of thinking but the neural networks that allow the manifestation of the thoughts.
In a normally formed child the exercise of the faculties of the Spirit leads to the development of the corresponding organs that offer no resistance. In those patients, however, the action of the Spirit is incapable of producing any development that remained in a rudimentary state, like a fruit that was aborted.
The total cure of a person with idiocy is then impossible; all that can be expected is a slight improvement. That is why nobody knows any treatment that may be applied to the organs; it is the Spirit that must be addressed. Studying the faculties and discovering the kernel one must exercise it through the Spirit and if the resistance is broken an at least partial manifestation becomes then possible. If there is an external media capable of reaching the organs is undoubtedly music. It is capable of vibrating those dormant fibers like a huge noise that comes to the ears of a deaf person. The Spirit shakes with that, like from a memory, and the provoked activity doubles the efforts to overcome the obstacles.
To the one that only sees an organized machine in a human being, without taking into account the intelligence that presides over the activity of that physical organization, everything is problem and obscurity in the vital functions as everything is uncertainty in the treatment of diseases. That is why, most of the time, the problem is not faced head-on; more than that: everything is darkness in the evolution of humanity, everything is trial and error in social institutions and that is why the wrong path is followed so frequently.
If you just hypothetically admit that human beings have a duality, the presence of an intelligent being, independent of matter, pre-existent and that outlives the body that is only a temporary envelope, and everything is explained. Through positive experiences Spiritism turns that hypothesis into reality, then revealing the law that governs the relationships between the Spirit and matter.
You may then laugh, oh skeptical, at the Doctrine of the Spirits, born out of the vulgar phenomena of the dancing tables, like the electrical telegraphy came out of Galvani’s dancing frogs, but understand that by denying the Spirits you are denying yourself and that the greatest discoveries were laughed at.
We got this from Spain on August 1st, 1864:
“Dear Master,
I take the liberty of sending you the new ordination of Monsignor Pantaleon, Bishop of Barcelona, just published in El Diario of Barcelona on July 31st. As you can see he wants to follow the footsteps of his predecessors. As for myself, sincere Spiritist, I forgive his cursing towards us but cannot help it thinking that he could use his education in a more beneficial way for the good of faith and his fellow human beings. To give only one example we have all the time these gruesome bull-fighting shows in which the poor animals, after spending their life serving people, come to die in those sad arenas for the cheers of a bloodthirsty multitude, whose instincts are excited in those barbarian games.
That is what you should attack, Monsignor, and not Spiritism that daily brings you back stray sheep that you had lost because I, who sincerely believed in God and that acknowledged his greatness in nature, I could not come close to a Church before becoming a Spiritist, given the huge disagreement before my eyes between those that believe to be God’s representatives on Earth and that great figure of Jesus Christ that the Gospels show us to be love and abnegation. Yes, I used to say to myself, Jesus sacrificed for us; he makes his triumphal entry in Jerusalem, simply dressed and riding a donkey, and you that are supposedly his representative are covered in silk, gold and diamonds. Is that what the Divine Messiahs called neglecting the earthly fortunes when teaching his apostles? No. Yet, Monsignor, I must confess that since the time I became Spiritist I was able to return to your churches; I was able to pray to God from the bottom of my heart, despite the mundane music dressed like opera there; I was able to pray thinking that all the theatrical pageantry could be useful to some people in helping to raise their souls to God; I was then able to forgive your luxury and even understand it in a way. As you see, Monsignor, it is not against the Spiritists that you should direct your rage and if, as I do believe so, you are only concerned with the wellbeing of your herd, you must rethink the way you see Spiritism that only preaches love to our neighbors, forgiveness of offenses, kindness, charity and love towards our enemies. Dear Master, forgive me for these lines that were suggested by this new ordination. Spiritism came to revive my faith, explaining to me all miseries of life that up until now I was incapable of understanding. Sincerely persuaded that we work towards our own advancement and that of humanity I will unstoppably propagate this doctrine in my circle of relationships, and for that I will employ a profound conviction and the means that God gave me.
Sincerely, etc.”
“Dear Master,
I take the liberty of sending you the new ordination of Monsignor Pantaleon, Bishop of Barcelona, just published in El Diario of Barcelona on July 31st. As you can see he wants to follow the footsteps of his predecessors. As for myself, sincere Spiritist, I forgive his cursing towards us but cannot help it thinking that he could use his education in a more beneficial way for the good of faith and his fellow human beings. To give only one example we have all the time these gruesome bull-fighting shows in which the poor animals, after spending their life serving people, come to die in those sad arenas for the cheers of a bloodthirsty multitude, whose instincts are excited in those barbarian games.
That is what you should attack, Monsignor, and not Spiritism that daily brings you back stray sheep that you had lost because I, who sincerely believed in God and that acknowledged his greatness in nature, I could not come close to a Church before becoming a Spiritist, given the huge disagreement before my eyes between those that believe to be God’s representatives on Earth and that great figure of Jesus Christ that the Gospels show us to be love and abnegation. Yes, I used to say to myself, Jesus sacrificed for us; he makes his triumphal entry in Jerusalem, simply dressed and riding a donkey, and you that are supposedly his representative are covered in silk, gold and diamonds. Is that what the Divine Messiahs called neglecting the earthly fortunes when teaching his apostles? No. Yet, Monsignor, I must confess that since the time I became Spiritist I was able to return to your churches; I was able to pray to God from the bottom of my heart, despite the mundane music dressed like opera there; I was able to pray thinking that all the theatrical pageantry could be useful to some people in helping to raise their souls to God; I was then able to forgive your luxury and even understand it in a way. As you see, Monsignor, it is not against the Spiritists that you should direct your rage and if, as I do believe so, you are only concerned with the wellbeing of your herd, you must rethink the way you see Spiritism that only preaches love to our neighbors, forgiveness of offenses, kindness, charity and love towards our enemies. Dear Master, forgive me for these lines that were suggested by this new ordination. Spiritism came to revive my faith, explaining to me all miseries of life that up until now I was incapable of understanding. Sincerely persuaded that we work towards our own advancement and that of humanity I will unstoppably propagate this doctrine in my circle of relationships, and for that I will employ a profound conviction and the means that God gave me.
Sincerely, etc.”
The following is the ordination of Mr. Bishop. We reproduced it in full in order to not diminish its reach. Mr. Bishop of Barcelona is deservedly considered a man of merits; he must have then gathered the strongest arguments against Spiritism. Our readers will judge if he is more fortunate than his comrades and if the final blow to us will be given from the other side of the Pyrenees. We will just intercalate some observations.
“We, D. D. Pantaleon Monserra y Navarro, by the grace of God and the Saint Apostolic Se, Bishop of Barcelona, knight of the Gran-Cross of the American Order of Isabel, the Catholic, from the Counsel of Her Majesty, etc.
To our beloved and faithful diocesans,
Placed on Earth as in a region of darkness that impedes the vision of things placed on a superior order, man cannot move one step ahead to seek them without the clarification of faith. If separated from that guide he will trip and fall today in the extreme of disbelief that denies everything, and tomorrow in the superstition that believes everything. Our time that intends to follow reason and commonsense, not admitting as true but those things shown by fallacious witnesses, is trespassed by a huge current of ideas, consequently leading to the denial of the supernatural and an excessive credulity. One and the other are the product of human intelligence pride that refuses to give reasonable attention to the revealed word of God.
The current generation is forced to witness this said display given to us by the most advanced peoples in science and civilization. The United States, the so called model nation, and some parts of France, including Alger, are for some time involved in the ridiculous study and application of Spiritism that comes, with such a name, resurrect the former practices of necromancy by the evocation of invisible Spirits in their resting places, beyond the grave, consulting them to uncover hidden secrets under the veil of God cast onto time and eternity.”
Observation: If we are prone to reproach for having relationships with the Spirits it would be necessary that the Church did preclude them from being evoked since it is evident that there are a large number of spontaneous manifestations, even with people that have never heard about Spiritism. How did the Fox sisters in the United States, the first to reveal their presence in that country, how did they come to enter into communication with the evocations, if not through the Spirits that came to manifest to them when they did not even dreamed about it? Why have those Spirits left their designated place beyond the grave? Was it with or without God’s permission? Spiritism has not come out from the mind of a single man like a philosophical system created by imagination. If the Spirits had not manifested by themselves there would not be Spiritism. If they cannot be stopped from manifesting then Spiritism cannot be stopped like a river that cannot be stopped in its course unless the source is suppressed. Pretending that the Spirits do not manifest is a question of fact not opinion. There is no possible argument against the evidence of facts.
“That exaggerated desire to know everything by ridiculous and reproachable means is not but the fruit of this need, this emptiness that mankind experiments after rejecting everything that has been presented as truth by their sovereign, legitimate and infallible: the Church.”
Observation: If what that infallible sovereign proposes as truth is demonstrated to be an error by the observations of science is someone at fault by rejecting it? Was the Church infallible when those that believed in the movement of Earth or in the antipodes were condemned? When even today it condemns people that believe that Earth was not formed in six times twenty four hours? If the Church wants to have its word accepted it would be necessary that none of the teachings be belied by the facts.
“At a time of eagerness to know everything by themselves the truth was rejected as superstition because they did not understand it or there was no agreement with the messages received about it. Later on what was neglected was then considered necessary; it was examined again and depending on the imagination of whoever examined it, if persons of lively imagination or nervous and irritable temperament, people then admitted in their belief system what thy heard an learned from the evoked Spirits, in a moment of melancholic exaltation.”
Observation: We had never thought that faith, that is, the adoption or rejection of the truths taught by the Church, according to the exam performed by the one that sincerely wanted to return there, was a matter of temperament. If to give the Church preference when compared to other beliefs one must not be nervous or irritable nor have a lively imagination there will be a lot of people that will definitely be excluded by the force of their personality. We believe that in this century of intellectual development faith is a matter of understanding.
“That is how a religion was created; by renovating the deviations and aberrations of paganism it threatens to lead a society that seeks the supernatural to madness, extravagance and to the filthiest cynicism.”
Observation: Here we have once again a prince of the Church proclaiming in an official decree that Spiritism is a created religion. It is the case of repeating here what we have already said about it: If one day Spiritism becomes a religion the Church would have been the first to propose the idea. In any case this new religion, in case it becomes one, will stay away from paganism for the main reason that it does not admit a localized hell with material penalties, whereas the hell of the Church with its flames, tridents, boilers, sharp blades and nails that shatter the condemned ones and the demons that excite the fire constitute an amplified copy of Tartarus.
“The great promoter of that sect of modern illuminati, Mr. Allan Kardec himself, confesses that in The Spirits’ Book by saying that sometimes those Spirits are happy to respond ironically and equivocally, confusing the unfortunate ones that consult them. And although it warns about the need to identify between serious and superficial Spirits he cannot give us the necessary rules to such identification, a confession that reveals the whole deception and vanity of Spiritism with its deplorable consequences.”
Observation: We refer Mr. Bishop of Barcelona to The Mediums’ Book, chapter XXIV.
“If that system that establishes a monstrous commerce between light and darkness, truth and error, good and evil, and in one word God and Belial, if it does not make proselytes in Spain, there is undoubtedly eager promoters and the metropolis of our dioceses is the chosen theater to employ all means that can be suggested by the absence of truth and moral ruin. The proof of that is in the fraudulent spread that is taking place, despite the effort carried out by local authorities, of thousands of volumes of The Spirits’ Book translated to Spanish, written by the first preacher of these lies, Allan Kardec.”
Observation: It is very difficult to conciliate these two statements: Spiritism does not make proselytes in Spain and that there is undoubtedly eager promoters. Also, one cannot understand how come a country that has no Spiritists would receive thousands of The Spirits’ Book.
“Reading that original publication we say to ourselves: each century has its concerns, its favorite mistakes, and ours is a tendency to deny what is invisible, seeking certainly only in what is tangible matter. Isn’t that incredible, hadn’t we seen it, that at the height of the nineteenth century, rich in discoveries regarding the laws of nature, observations and experiences, had adopted the dreams of magic and apparitions of Spirits by the evocation of a simple mortal? However, that is the case! It is this new heresy apparently imported from idolater countries to the countries of the new world, invading the old, and here found followers, despite the lighthouse of Christianity that has illuminated it for eighteen centuries, condemning such ridiculousness, despite the light beam spread all over the world and in particular in Europe.”
Observation: Considering that the Mr. Bishop of Barcelona is so much surprised by the fact that the nineteen century accepts Spiritism so easily, despite the positive tendencies and the richness of its discoveries with respect to the laws of nature, we would tell him that it is precisely the aptitude towards these discoveries that produces such a result. The relationships between the visible and invisible worlds constitute one of the great natural laws that was reserved to the nineteen century to reveal, as well as so many other laws. Fruit of experience and observation, based on positive facts up until now misunderstood, badly studied and even worse explained, Spiritism is the expression of that law and for that very reason destroy the fantastic, the marvelous and supernatural falsely attributed to those facts, making us enter the category of natural phenomena.
Since Spiritism comes to explain what was inexplicable; demonstrate what affirms and provides reason; since Spiritism does not wish to be credited by word; since it leads to examination and only wants to be accepted with knowledge of cause, for these reasons Spiritism corresponds to the positive ideas and tendencies of the century. Far from being an anomaly, the easy acceptance of Spiritism is a consequence of its own nature that places it among the sciences of observation. Had it been surrounded by mystery and had it claimed a blind faith it would have been repealed as an anachronism.
Young still, Spiritism like any new idea of certain importance finds opposition as from:
1.Those that only believe in tangible matter and deny any intellectual power beyond mankind;
2.Certain wise persons who believe that there is no more secret in nature or that they are the only ones supposed to unveil what is still hidden;
3.Those that always fought against the ascendance of the human Spirit because they fear the development of the ideas that may harm their personal interests if allowing things to be seen very clearly;
“We, D. D. Pantaleon Monserra y Navarro, by the grace of God and the Saint Apostolic Se, Bishop of Barcelona, knight of the Gran-Cross of the American Order of Isabel, the Catholic, from the Counsel of Her Majesty, etc.
To our beloved and faithful diocesans,
Placed on Earth as in a region of darkness that impedes the vision of things placed on a superior order, man cannot move one step ahead to seek them without the clarification of faith. If separated from that guide he will trip and fall today in the extreme of disbelief that denies everything, and tomorrow in the superstition that believes everything. Our time that intends to follow reason and commonsense, not admitting as true but those things shown by fallacious witnesses, is trespassed by a huge current of ideas, consequently leading to the denial of the supernatural and an excessive credulity. One and the other are the product of human intelligence pride that refuses to give reasonable attention to the revealed word of God.
The current generation is forced to witness this said display given to us by the most advanced peoples in science and civilization. The United States, the so called model nation, and some parts of France, including Alger, are for some time involved in the ridiculous study and application of Spiritism that comes, with such a name, resurrect the former practices of necromancy by the evocation of invisible Spirits in their resting places, beyond the grave, consulting them to uncover hidden secrets under the veil of God cast onto time and eternity.”
Observation: If we are prone to reproach for having relationships with the Spirits it would be necessary that the Church did preclude them from being evoked since it is evident that there are a large number of spontaneous manifestations, even with people that have never heard about Spiritism. How did the Fox sisters in the United States, the first to reveal their presence in that country, how did they come to enter into communication with the evocations, if not through the Spirits that came to manifest to them when they did not even dreamed about it? Why have those Spirits left their designated place beyond the grave? Was it with or without God’s permission? Spiritism has not come out from the mind of a single man like a philosophical system created by imagination. If the Spirits had not manifested by themselves there would not be Spiritism. If they cannot be stopped from manifesting then Spiritism cannot be stopped like a river that cannot be stopped in its course unless the source is suppressed. Pretending that the Spirits do not manifest is a question of fact not opinion. There is no possible argument against the evidence of facts.
“That exaggerated desire to know everything by ridiculous and reproachable means is not but the fruit of this need, this emptiness that mankind experiments after rejecting everything that has been presented as truth by their sovereign, legitimate and infallible: the Church.”
Observation: If what that infallible sovereign proposes as truth is demonstrated to be an error by the observations of science is someone at fault by rejecting it? Was the Church infallible when those that believed in the movement of Earth or in the antipodes were condemned? When even today it condemns people that believe that Earth was not formed in six times twenty four hours? If the Church wants to have its word accepted it would be necessary that none of the teachings be belied by the facts.
“At a time of eagerness to know everything by themselves the truth was rejected as superstition because they did not understand it or there was no agreement with the messages received about it. Later on what was neglected was then considered necessary; it was examined again and depending on the imagination of whoever examined it, if persons of lively imagination or nervous and irritable temperament, people then admitted in their belief system what thy heard an learned from the evoked Spirits, in a moment of melancholic exaltation.”
Observation: We had never thought that faith, that is, the adoption or rejection of the truths taught by the Church, according to the exam performed by the one that sincerely wanted to return there, was a matter of temperament. If to give the Church preference when compared to other beliefs one must not be nervous or irritable nor have a lively imagination there will be a lot of people that will definitely be excluded by the force of their personality. We believe that in this century of intellectual development faith is a matter of understanding.
“That is how a religion was created; by renovating the deviations and aberrations of paganism it threatens to lead a society that seeks the supernatural to madness, extravagance and to the filthiest cynicism.”
Observation: Here we have once again a prince of the Church proclaiming in an official decree that Spiritism is a created religion. It is the case of repeating here what we have already said about it: If one day Spiritism becomes a religion the Church would have been the first to propose the idea. In any case this new religion, in case it becomes one, will stay away from paganism for the main reason that it does not admit a localized hell with material penalties, whereas the hell of the Church with its flames, tridents, boilers, sharp blades and nails that shatter the condemned ones and the demons that excite the fire constitute an amplified copy of Tartarus.
“The great promoter of that sect of modern illuminati, Mr. Allan Kardec himself, confesses that in The Spirits’ Book by saying that sometimes those Spirits are happy to respond ironically and equivocally, confusing the unfortunate ones that consult them. And although it warns about the need to identify between serious and superficial Spirits he cannot give us the necessary rules to such identification, a confession that reveals the whole deception and vanity of Spiritism with its deplorable consequences.”
Observation: We refer Mr. Bishop of Barcelona to The Mediums’ Book, chapter XXIV.
“If that system that establishes a monstrous commerce between light and darkness, truth and error, good and evil, and in one word God and Belial, if it does not make proselytes in Spain, there is undoubtedly eager promoters and the metropolis of our dioceses is the chosen theater to employ all means that can be suggested by the absence of truth and moral ruin. The proof of that is in the fraudulent spread that is taking place, despite the effort carried out by local authorities, of thousands of volumes of The Spirits’ Book translated to Spanish, written by the first preacher of these lies, Allan Kardec.”
Observation: It is very difficult to conciliate these two statements: Spiritism does not make proselytes in Spain and that there is undoubtedly eager promoters. Also, one cannot understand how come a country that has no Spiritists would receive thousands of The Spirits’ Book.
“Reading that original publication we say to ourselves: each century has its concerns, its favorite mistakes, and ours is a tendency to deny what is invisible, seeking certainly only in what is tangible matter. Isn’t that incredible, hadn’t we seen it, that at the height of the nineteenth century, rich in discoveries regarding the laws of nature, observations and experiences, had adopted the dreams of magic and apparitions of Spirits by the evocation of a simple mortal? However, that is the case! It is this new heresy apparently imported from idolater countries to the countries of the new world, invading the old, and here found followers, despite the lighthouse of Christianity that has illuminated it for eighteen centuries, condemning such ridiculousness, despite the light beam spread all over the world and in particular in Europe.”
Observation: Considering that the Mr. Bishop of Barcelona is so much surprised by the fact that the nineteen century accepts Spiritism so easily, despite the positive tendencies and the richness of its discoveries with respect to the laws of nature, we would tell him that it is precisely the aptitude towards these discoveries that produces such a result. The relationships between the visible and invisible worlds constitute one of the great natural laws that was reserved to the nineteen century to reveal, as well as so many other laws. Fruit of experience and observation, based on positive facts up until now misunderstood, badly studied and even worse explained, Spiritism is the expression of that law and for that very reason destroy the fantastic, the marvelous and supernatural falsely attributed to those facts, making us enter the category of natural phenomena.
Since Spiritism comes to explain what was inexplicable; demonstrate what affirms and provides reason; since Spiritism does not wish to be credited by word; since it leads to examination and only wants to be accepted with knowledge of cause, for these reasons Spiritism corresponds to the positive ideas and tendencies of the century. Far from being an anomaly, the easy acceptance of Spiritism is a consequence of its own nature that places it among the sciences of observation. Had it been surrounded by mystery and had it claimed a blind faith it would have been repealed as an anachronism.
Young still, Spiritism like any new idea of certain importance finds opposition as from:
1.Those that only believe in tangible matter and deny any intellectual power beyond mankind;
2.Certain wise persons who believe that there is no more secret in nature or that they are the only ones supposed to unveil what is still hidden;
3.Those that always fought against the ascendance of the human Spirit because they fear the development of the ideas that may harm their personal interests if allowing things to be seen very clearly;
4. Finally, those that have no preconceived idea and for not having studied Spiritism assess it by the misinterpretations given by the adversaries that try to discredit the doctrine. This constitute the large category of opposition but it is diminishing day by day because the number of those that study the doctrine also increases daily; preventions fall flat before a serious examination and before the confirmation that people were mistaken about certain points.
Judging by the space covered by Spiritism in such a short time it is easy to predict that the only adversaries that will remain are the ones with preconceived ideas and since these are a small minority their influence will be null. They will suffer the influence of the masses and feel forced to follow the current. The manifestation of the Spirits is not only a belief: it is a fact. Denial has no value before a fact unless demonstrated that such a fact does not exist, something that has not happened yet. Because such a fact is confirmed in all corners of the globe on a daily basis one does believe in what is seen. That is what explains the deniers’ impotence to stop the spread of the ideas. A belief is only ridiculous when false; it is no longer ridiculous if based on something positive. Ridicule is the attribute of someone that is adamant in denying evidence.
“You must be convinced of this, dear children and brothers, of the need that mankind has to believe and when the true beliefs are neglected even the false ones are embraced with little enthusiasm. That is why the great Pascal says in one of his thoughts: – ‘the non-believers are the ones that are most prone to believe in everything’ – The Spirit of darkness uses people as his toy and instrument of his evil intents, using their vanity, credulity and presumption to turn them into promoters and apostles of what they laughed at before, of something that they qualified as chimeric invention and scarecrow of weak souls. No, brothers, the true faith, the doctrine of Christianity, the constant teaching of the Church have always reprimanded the practice of those evocations that lead to believe that people have some power upon the Spirits that only God actually has. ‘It is not in the power of a mortal that souls separated from their bodies after death come to reveal to them secrets that are covered by the veil of the future’ ()”.
Observation: Spiritism also says that it is not given to the Spirits the revelation of the future and formally condemns the use of communications from beyond the grave as a means of foretelling. It says that the Spirits come to instruct us and help us improve and not to read the future to us. Besides, it says that nobody can force the Spirits to come to communicate when they do not wish to do so. It is a malicious deviation of objective to pretend that Spiritism is about necromancy (The Mediums’ Book, chap. XXVI).
“Had the divine wisdom considered useful to the happiness and rest of human beings the instruction about relationships between the world of the Spirits and the corporeal world that would have been revealed to us in such a way that no mortal could have been mistaken in their communications; it would have taught us a means of recognizing the truth or indicating the error and it would not have abandoned us to find such discernment through reason, that is a very weak light to uncover those regions that extend beyond death.”
Observation: If God allows such relationships to take place today – since we must admit that nothing happens without God’s consent – it is because God considers it to be useful to the happiness of mankind, by given proof of a future life in which many no longer believe and because the always rising number of nonbelievers demonstrates that the Church alone is impotent to keep them stable. God sends helpers in the Spirits that manifest. Repealing them is not a proof of submission to God’s will; cursing and mistreating their interpreters is to do the same as the Jewish with respect to the prophets, something that made Jesus cry for the fate of Jerusalem.
“Thus, when a miserable mortal, deviated by imagination, pretends to send us news about the fate of the souls in the other world; when people of short vision dare to want to reveal to humanity and to an individual their indefectible future destiny they steal a power that belongs to God and that is not renounced except if to the good of the peoples, warning or reproaching them through his envoys that, like prophets, carry with them the proof of their mission in the miracles that they carry out and in the constant realization of what they announce.”
Observation: So, you deny the predictions of Jesus since you do not acknowledge his announcements about what happens today. What do these words mean? “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.”[1]
“We can consider as visionaries those that have abandoned the truth and have given attention to fables, willing to have their fantastic dreams and delirious imagination heard as if they were revelations. Writing to Timothy St. Paul forearmed him against all that (I Tim. 4:7).[2] The apostle already foresaw eighteen centuries ago what disbelief would offer in our days to fulfill the hole that is left in a soul that has no faith.”
Observation: In fact, disbelief is the ulcer of our times. It does leave a huge emptiness in one souls. Why the Church does not fight against it then? Why can’t the Church keep the followers in their faith? Yet, it has the material and spiritual means to do so. Doesn’t the Church has immense treasures, a countless army of preachers and the religious education of youth? If its arguments are not successful against disbelief it means that they are not strong enough. Spiritism does not follow those steps. It does what the Church does not. It addresses those that the Church cannot reach and is able to give them faith in God, their own soul and a future life. What to think of a doctor that, incapable of healing his patient, would oppose that the patient accepted the care of another doctor that could save him? It is true that Spiritism does not preconize one cult in detriment of another; that does not cast anathema onto any one otherwise it would be welcome by him whose exclusive cause he would have embraced; but it is precisely because he is the bearer of a rallying word to which all can answer: "there is no salvation but through charity," that Spiritism comes to put an end to the religious antagonisms that have shed more blood than the wars of conquests.
“After having rehearsed fortune telling and animal somnambulism through magnetism, unable to get anywhere beyond the reproach of every sensible person; after having seen discredited the turning tables, they unrooted the infect cadaver of that Spiritism with the absurd of the transmigration of souls, neglecting the articles of our symbol as taught by the Church, trying to replace them by others that destroy them, admitting an immortality of the soul, a purgatory and a hell that are different from what our Catholic faith teaches us.”
Observation: This is very true. Spiritism does not admit a hell where there are flames, tridents, boilers and sharp blades; Spiritism does not admit either that it is a joy to the elected ones to lift the cover of the boilers to find their the condemned ones there, perhaps a father, a mother or a brother; Spiritism does not admit that it is pleasing to God to hear for the whole of eternity the screams of desperation of his creatures, not being touched by the tears of regret, more cruel than that tyrant that had a breather built between the jail cells of his palace and his own bedroom, to have the pleasure of hearing the groaning of his victims; Spiritism does not admit, finally, that supreme happiness consists of a perpetual contemplation that would be a perpetual uselessness, nor that God may have created the souls to enjoy a few years of active existence followed by the eternal punishments or the useless beatitude. If that is the cornerstone of the edifice then the Church is right about fearing the new ideas. Such beliefs are not the ones capable of topping up the huge abyss of disbelief.
“With that and with what was said by the wise Bishop of Alger, everything that the disbelievers were able to do was to change places to entice a number of believers whose simple and not much enlightened faith is easily given to anything that is extraordinary and, at the same time, placing a new obstacle to the conversion of those souls buried in religious indifference that when realized that someone wanted to reduce Christianity to a fabric of superstitions they ended up saying blasphemies against that belief and its author.”
Observation: Here we have something singular! It is Spiritism that preclude the Church from converting the souls buried in religious indifference. Why then hasn’t the Church converted them before the appearance of Spiritism? Is Spiritism more powerful than the Church? If those that are indifferent are more easily attracted to Spiritism it seems that what is given to them is then more convenient.
“To avoid having people of little faith scandalized by what they read in The Spirits’ Book precluding them from believing that those teachings are in harmony with all cults and beliefs, including the Catholic faith as pretended by Allan Kardec, we remind them that the Sacred Scriptures condemn them as madness, saying by the mouth of Ecclesiasts: “Foretelling and dreams are vain things and the heart suffers with such chimeras; be suspicious every time they do not come from the Almighty because our dreams make people sad and those that trust them are abated.” (Ec. XXXVI: 5,7)
Jesus reproaches his disciples for having believed in the apparition of a ghost when they saw him walking on waters and he does not want them to believe that unless through the signs that he provides of himself. (Luke XXIV: 39).
The Church and its saint fathers as interpreters of the divine word have constantly repealed these deceiving practices through which one believes that the Spirits communicate with people and an enlightened reason also repeals them for it realizes that it cannot embrace the truths and all things of the supernatural past without the support of faith. How can someone’s mind, by itself, pretend to reach something that cannot be verified and that took place somewhere and under unforeseeable circumstances? If on other occasions we have raised our voice against this impious materialism and that systematic disbelief that denies the immortality of the soul when separated from the body, in the different states reserved by the divine justice in eternity, today we are forced to protest against that active communication attributed to the evocation of the dead, pretending to reveal things that are only perceptible by the infinite arms of God.
My beloved brothers and children, don’t be carried away by these empty fables that contain the same mistakes and concerns found in barbarian and ignorant peoples and every absurd invention of persons whose souls, weakened by the absence of a true faith and by superstition, abjure the true religion revealed by the son of God, degrades human reason and expels purity from the soul. Far from our well beloved diocesans, and in particular those readers that rightly so are considered enlightened and civilized, far from them to believe in those novels written by dreamers like Allan Kardec, people of exalted and delirious imagination! Far from you then that anti-Christian faith that brings ghosts from the grave, the errant Spirits; far from you that superstition brought into our religion by pagan people converted to Christianity, and whose writings of their supporters were soon expelled.”
Observation: The Spiritists have never ever made ghosts come out of their tombs by the very simple fact that those tombs only contain mortal remains that are destroyed and not resuscitated. The Spirits are everywhere in space, happy for being free and disentangled from the body that made them suffer. That is why they are not attached to their remains, trying on the contrary to be further away than closer. Spiritism has always rejected the idea that such evocations would be easier near the tombs from where something that is not there cannot come out. It is only in theaters that such things are seen.
“Carefully avoid having your children reading such productions and becoming impressed by their figures, carried away by the curiosity of the youth, things that have the effect of clouding the common sense of a large number of people that are now suffering in mental health institutions, victimized by Spiritism. Do everything in your power, my dear brothers and children, to keep pure the doctrine that was taught to us by our divine Teacher. Refer solely to his sacred word when dealing with the future. Knowing that it is only up to the Divine Providence to know how to guide mankind through the vicissitudes of life, trying their faith and reviving their hope and not willing to probe their future fate, make sure that such a fate is ensured through their good works and through that confirming your vocation of sons of God called to share the treasures of our Celestial Father.”
Observation: Instead of trimming the curiosity of kids wouldn’t such a suggestion stimulate that of their parents, and isn’t that what it does? As for mental diseases it is always the same story that is becoming worn out and whose result has not been more successful than the pretense ghosts. Experiments happening everywhere, more in the privacy of families than in public, mediums found everywhere, in all layers of society at all ages, each one knowing well how to position themselves with respect to the veracity of the phenomena. That is why all efforts employed to fantasize Spiritism are fruitless. The number of those deceived by false allegations is very small and many of these find out the truth by themselves. How can one persuade a whole crowd that it is night time when in fact it is daylight and everyone can clearly see that? Such a capacity of practical control given to everyone is one of the special characters of Spiritism and it is what constitutes its strength. That is much different when compared to philosophical doctrines that can be fought against by reason. Spiritism is based on facts and observations that each person incessantly has at their disposal. The whole argumentation of Mr. Bishop of Barcelona is summarized like that: the manifestations of the Spirits are fables imagined by non-believers in order to destroy religion. One must only believe what we say because we are the owners of the truth. Do not analyze anything beyond that because there is the risk of being seduced.
“In order to avoid the dangers that may affect you and considering the divine authority that was given to us to point that out to you and keep you safe according to the mandate that was assigned to us and acknowledged by the Article 3rd of the last agreement, and according to what was foreseen by the saint canons and the rules of the kingdom with respect to the sins that we have indicated and fought against, we condemn The Spirits’ Book translated to Spanish with the title ‘Le Libro de los Espiritus’, by Allan Kardec, as from articles 8 and 9 of the promulgated catalogue given the prescription for that objective by the Council of Trento. We therefore prohibit the reading of such a book by every diocesan of ours, without exception, and command them all to deliver to their respective priests the books that may eventually fall in their hands so that they can be sent to us safe and dry.
Given in our visit to Mataro on July 27th, 1864.”
Pantaleón, Bishop of Barcelona
By the order of SES Monsignor Bishop
Don Lazaro Bauluz, secretary
-o-
The prohibition assigned by the bishop of Barcelona to all of his diocesans, without exception, to get involved with Spiritism is based on that of the bishop of Alger. We strongly doubt that it will be more successful than the other although in Spain because in that country the ideas spread like elsewhere, even under the muzzle that keep them like in a hot greenhouse. The auto-da-fé of Barcelona accelerated its blossom. Apparently the effect produced by that ceremony did not correspond to the expectation since it was not repeated. Yet they now want to execute in private what they no longer dare do in public.
By inviting his diocesans to return all the books that fall in their hands Monsignor Pantaleon certainly does not wish to collect them. He prohibits the evocation of the Spirits and that is his own right but he forgot something of paramount importance: prohibiting the Spirits from entering Spain.
He is surprised by the fact that Spiritism creates roots so easily in the nineteenth century. We must be even more surprised by seeing the resurrection of Middle Ages habits in this century. And what is even more astonishing is to find people, in fact educated people that understand so little the nature and the strength of the idea to believe that one is capable of blocking its path as one does to a parcel of merchandise at customs’ border.
You regret Monsignor that the non-believers and the indifferent ones remain deaf to the voice of the ministers of the Church while they listen to Spiritism. The reason is that they are more touched by the words of charity, encouragement and consolation than those of anathema. Do you believe to lead them by swearing at them like the recent words said by the priest of Villemayor-de-Ladre against a poor schoolmaster that made the mistake of displeasing him?
Here is the canonic formula published by Madrid Correspondence on June 1864 by which the famous imprecation of Camille is almost a sweetness. The poet was able to put it in the mouth of a pagan; he dared not put it in the mouth of a Christian.
“Damned be August Vincent; damned be the clothes that cover him, the ground on which he steps, the bed in which he sleeps and the table at which he eats; damned be the bread and everything else that feeds him, the spring from where he drinks and everything else that he drinks. May earth open up below his feet and bury him at this time; may Lucifer seat on his right hand side. Nobody should talk to him or face excommunication for just saying good-bye to him; damned may also be his fields upon which no rain shall ever fall so that they produce nothing; damned be his horse, his house and all his properties. Damned be also his parents, the children that he may have or will have that will be in small number and bad ones; these shall beg around and nobody will give them the alms but if they get some they must not eat from them. And even more, may his wife widow right now and his children orphan without a father.”
-o-
Was it really in a Christian temple that such horrible words were pronounced? Was it really a minister of the Gospels, a representative of Jesus Christ that pronounced such words? Who would, out of a personal insult, curse a person to the execration of her fellow human beings, to the eternal damnation and to all miseries of life, that person, her parents, current and future children and everything else that belongs to that person? Jesus has never used similar language; he prayed for his executioners and said: “Forgive your enemies”; he makes us daily repeat in the Our Father prayer: “Lord, forgive our offenses as we have forgiven the ones that offended us”. When he reproaches the Scribers and Pharisees does he cast the rage of God upon them? No, he foresees the miseries that may reach them.
And you, Monsignor, you are surprised by the progress of disbelief? You should be surprised, instead, by the fact that right in the nineteenth century Jesus Christ’s religion is so little understood by the very ones that are in charge of teaching it. Don’t be surprised then that God sends His good Spirits to refresh our memories about the true meaning of His law. They do not come to destroy Christianity but to free it from the false interpretations and abuse introduced by humanity.
[1] Joel 2:28
[2]“Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness;”
“You must be convinced of this, dear children and brothers, of the need that mankind has to believe and when the true beliefs are neglected even the false ones are embraced with little enthusiasm. That is why the great Pascal says in one of his thoughts: – ‘the non-believers are the ones that are most prone to believe in everything’ – The Spirit of darkness uses people as his toy and instrument of his evil intents, using their vanity, credulity and presumption to turn them into promoters and apostles of what they laughed at before, of something that they qualified as chimeric invention and scarecrow of weak souls. No, brothers, the true faith, the doctrine of Christianity, the constant teaching of the Church have always reprimanded the practice of those evocations that lead to believe that people have some power upon the Spirits that only God actually has. ‘It is not in the power of a mortal that souls separated from their bodies after death come to reveal to them secrets that are covered by the veil of the future’ ()”.
Observation: Spiritism also says that it is not given to the Spirits the revelation of the future and formally condemns the use of communications from beyond the grave as a means of foretelling. It says that the Spirits come to instruct us and help us improve and not to read the future to us. Besides, it says that nobody can force the Spirits to come to communicate when they do not wish to do so. It is a malicious deviation of objective to pretend that Spiritism is about necromancy (The Mediums’ Book, chap. XXVI).
“Had the divine wisdom considered useful to the happiness and rest of human beings the instruction about relationships between the world of the Spirits and the corporeal world that would have been revealed to us in such a way that no mortal could have been mistaken in their communications; it would have taught us a means of recognizing the truth or indicating the error and it would not have abandoned us to find such discernment through reason, that is a very weak light to uncover those regions that extend beyond death.”
Observation: If God allows such relationships to take place today – since we must admit that nothing happens without God’s consent – it is because God considers it to be useful to the happiness of mankind, by given proof of a future life in which many no longer believe and because the always rising number of nonbelievers demonstrates that the Church alone is impotent to keep them stable. God sends helpers in the Spirits that manifest. Repealing them is not a proof of submission to God’s will; cursing and mistreating their interpreters is to do the same as the Jewish with respect to the prophets, something that made Jesus cry for the fate of Jerusalem.
“Thus, when a miserable mortal, deviated by imagination, pretends to send us news about the fate of the souls in the other world; when people of short vision dare to want to reveal to humanity and to an individual their indefectible future destiny they steal a power that belongs to God and that is not renounced except if to the good of the peoples, warning or reproaching them through his envoys that, like prophets, carry with them the proof of their mission in the miracles that they carry out and in the constant realization of what they announce.”
Observation: So, you deny the predictions of Jesus since you do not acknowledge his announcements about what happens today. What do these words mean? “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.”[1]
“We can consider as visionaries those that have abandoned the truth and have given attention to fables, willing to have their fantastic dreams and delirious imagination heard as if they were revelations. Writing to Timothy St. Paul forearmed him against all that (I Tim. 4:7).[2] The apostle already foresaw eighteen centuries ago what disbelief would offer in our days to fulfill the hole that is left in a soul that has no faith.”
Observation: In fact, disbelief is the ulcer of our times. It does leave a huge emptiness in one souls. Why the Church does not fight against it then? Why can’t the Church keep the followers in their faith? Yet, it has the material and spiritual means to do so. Doesn’t the Church has immense treasures, a countless army of preachers and the religious education of youth? If its arguments are not successful against disbelief it means that they are not strong enough. Spiritism does not follow those steps. It does what the Church does not. It addresses those that the Church cannot reach and is able to give them faith in God, their own soul and a future life. What to think of a doctor that, incapable of healing his patient, would oppose that the patient accepted the care of another doctor that could save him? It is true that Spiritism does not preconize one cult in detriment of another; that does not cast anathema onto any one otherwise it would be welcome by him whose exclusive cause he would have embraced; but it is precisely because he is the bearer of a rallying word to which all can answer: "there is no salvation but through charity," that Spiritism comes to put an end to the religious antagonisms that have shed more blood than the wars of conquests.
“After having rehearsed fortune telling and animal somnambulism through magnetism, unable to get anywhere beyond the reproach of every sensible person; after having seen discredited the turning tables, they unrooted the infect cadaver of that Spiritism with the absurd of the transmigration of souls, neglecting the articles of our symbol as taught by the Church, trying to replace them by others that destroy them, admitting an immortality of the soul, a purgatory and a hell that are different from what our Catholic faith teaches us.”
Observation: This is very true. Spiritism does not admit a hell where there are flames, tridents, boilers and sharp blades; Spiritism does not admit either that it is a joy to the elected ones to lift the cover of the boilers to find their the condemned ones there, perhaps a father, a mother or a brother; Spiritism does not admit that it is pleasing to God to hear for the whole of eternity the screams of desperation of his creatures, not being touched by the tears of regret, more cruel than that tyrant that had a breather built between the jail cells of his palace and his own bedroom, to have the pleasure of hearing the groaning of his victims; Spiritism does not admit, finally, that supreme happiness consists of a perpetual contemplation that would be a perpetual uselessness, nor that God may have created the souls to enjoy a few years of active existence followed by the eternal punishments or the useless beatitude. If that is the cornerstone of the edifice then the Church is right about fearing the new ideas. Such beliefs are not the ones capable of topping up the huge abyss of disbelief.
“With that and with what was said by the wise Bishop of Alger, everything that the disbelievers were able to do was to change places to entice a number of believers whose simple and not much enlightened faith is easily given to anything that is extraordinary and, at the same time, placing a new obstacle to the conversion of those souls buried in religious indifference that when realized that someone wanted to reduce Christianity to a fabric of superstitions they ended up saying blasphemies against that belief and its author.”
Observation: Here we have something singular! It is Spiritism that preclude the Church from converting the souls buried in religious indifference. Why then hasn’t the Church converted them before the appearance of Spiritism? Is Spiritism more powerful than the Church? If those that are indifferent are more easily attracted to Spiritism it seems that what is given to them is then more convenient.
“To avoid having people of little faith scandalized by what they read in The Spirits’ Book precluding them from believing that those teachings are in harmony with all cults and beliefs, including the Catholic faith as pretended by Allan Kardec, we remind them that the Sacred Scriptures condemn them as madness, saying by the mouth of Ecclesiasts: “Foretelling and dreams are vain things and the heart suffers with such chimeras; be suspicious every time they do not come from the Almighty because our dreams make people sad and those that trust them are abated.” (Ec. XXXVI: 5,7)
Jesus reproaches his disciples for having believed in the apparition of a ghost when they saw him walking on waters and he does not want them to believe that unless through the signs that he provides of himself. (Luke XXIV: 39).
The Church and its saint fathers as interpreters of the divine word have constantly repealed these deceiving practices through which one believes that the Spirits communicate with people and an enlightened reason also repeals them for it realizes that it cannot embrace the truths and all things of the supernatural past without the support of faith. How can someone’s mind, by itself, pretend to reach something that cannot be verified and that took place somewhere and under unforeseeable circumstances? If on other occasions we have raised our voice against this impious materialism and that systematic disbelief that denies the immortality of the soul when separated from the body, in the different states reserved by the divine justice in eternity, today we are forced to protest against that active communication attributed to the evocation of the dead, pretending to reveal things that are only perceptible by the infinite arms of God.
My beloved brothers and children, don’t be carried away by these empty fables that contain the same mistakes and concerns found in barbarian and ignorant peoples and every absurd invention of persons whose souls, weakened by the absence of a true faith and by superstition, abjure the true religion revealed by the son of God, degrades human reason and expels purity from the soul. Far from our well beloved diocesans, and in particular those readers that rightly so are considered enlightened and civilized, far from them to believe in those novels written by dreamers like Allan Kardec, people of exalted and delirious imagination! Far from you then that anti-Christian faith that brings ghosts from the grave, the errant Spirits; far from you that superstition brought into our religion by pagan people converted to Christianity, and whose writings of their supporters were soon expelled.”
Observation: The Spiritists have never ever made ghosts come out of their tombs by the very simple fact that those tombs only contain mortal remains that are destroyed and not resuscitated. The Spirits are everywhere in space, happy for being free and disentangled from the body that made them suffer. That is why they are not attached to their remains, trying on the contrary to be further away than closer. Spiritism has always rejected the idea that such evocations would be easier near the tombs from where something that is not there cannot come out. It is only in theaters that such things are seen.
“Carefully avoid having your children reading such productions and becoming impressed by their figures, carried away by the curiosity of the youth, things that have the effect of clouding the common sense of a large number of people that are now suffering in mental health institutions, victimized by Spiritism. Do everything in your power, my dear brothers and children, to keep pure the doctrine that was taught to us by our divine Teacher. Refer solely to his sacred word when dealing with the future. Knowing that it is only up to the Divine Providence to know how to guide mankind through the vicissitudes of life, trying their faith and reviving their hope and not willing to probe their future fate, make sure that such a fate is ensured through their good works and through that confirming your vocation of sons of God called to share the treasures of our Celestial Father.”
Observation: Instead of trimming the curiosity of kids wouldn’t such a suggestion stimulate that of their parents, and isn’t that what it does? As for mental diseases it is always the same story that is becoming worn out and whose result has not been more successful than the pretense ghosts. Experiments happening everywhere, more in the privacy of families than in public, mediums found everywhere, in all layers of society at all ages, each one knowing well how to position themselves with respect to the veracity of the phenomena. That is why all efforts employed to fantasize Spiritism are fruitless. The number of those deceived by false allegations is very small and many of these find out the truth by themselves. How can one persuade a whole crowd that it is night time when in fact it is daylight and everyone can clearly see that? Such a capacity of practical control given to everyone is one of the special characters of Spiritism and it is what constitutes its strength. That is much different when compared to philosophical doctrines that can be fought against by reason. Spiritism is based on facts and observations that each person incessantly has at their disposal. The whole argumentation of Mr. Bishop of Barcelona is summarized like that: the manifestations of the Spirits are fables imagined by non-believers in order to destroy religion. One must only believe what we say because we are the owners of the truth. Do not analyze anything beyond that because there is the risk of being seduced.
“In order to avoid the dangers that may affect you and considering the divine authority that was given to us to point that out to you and keep you safe according to the mandate that was assigned to us and acknowledged by the Article 3rd of the last agreement, and according to what was foreseen by the saint canons and the rules of the kingdom with respect to the sins that we have indicated and fought against, we condemn The Spirits’ Book translated to Spanish with the title ‘Le Libro de los Espiritus’, by Allan Kardec, as from articles 8 and 9 of the promulgated catalogue given the prescription for that objective by the Council of Trento. We therefore prohibit the reading of such a book by every diocesan of ours, without exception, and command them all to deliver to their respective priests the books that may eventually fall in their hands so that they can be sent to us safe and dry.
Given in our visit to Mataro on July 27th, 1864.”
Pantaleón, Bishop of Barcelona
By the order of SES Monsignor Bishop
Don Lazaro Bauluz, secretary
-o-
The prohibition assigned by the bishop of Barcelona to all of his diocesans, without exception, to get involved with Spiritism is based on that of the bishop of Alger. We strongly doubt that it will be more successful than the other although in Spain because in that country the ideas spread like elsewhere, even under the muzzle that keep them like in a hot greenhouse. The auto-da-fé of Barcelona accelerated its blossom. Apparently the effect produced by that ceremony did not correspond to the expectation since it was not repeated. Yet they now want to execute in private what they no longer dare do in public.
By inviting his diocesans to return all the books that fall in their hands Monsignor Pantaleon certainly does not wish to collect them. He prohibits the evocation of the Spirits and that is his own right but he forgot something of paramount importance: prohibiting the Spirits from entering Spain.
He is surprised by the fact that Spiritism creates roots so easily in the nineteenth century. We must be even more surprised by seeing the resurrection of Middle Ages habits in this century. And what is even more astonishing is to find people, in fact educated people that understand so little the nature and the strength of the idea to believe that one is capable of blocking its path as one does to a parcel of merchandise at customs’ border.
You regret Monsignor that the non-believers and the indifferent ones remain deaf to the voice of the ministers of the Church while they listen to Spiritism. The reason is that they are more touched by the words of charity, encouragement and consolation than those of anathema. Do you believe to lead them by swearing at them like the recent words said by the priest of Villemayor-de-Ladre against a poor schoolmaster that made the mistake of displeasing him?
Here is the canonic formula published by Madrid Correspondence on June 1864 by which the famous imprecation of Camille is almost a sweetness. The poet was able to put it in the mouth of a pagan; he dared not put it in the mouth of a Christian.
“Damned be August Vincent; damned be the clothes that cover him, the ground on which he steps, the bed in which he sleeps and the table at which he eats; damned be the bread and everything else that feeds him, the spring from where he drinks and everything else that he drinks. May earth open up below his feet and bury him at this time; may Lucifer seat on his right hand side. Nobody should talk to him or face excommunication for just saying good-bye to him; damned may also be his fields upon which no rain shall ever fall so that they produce nothing; damned be his horse, his house and all his properties. Damned be also his parents, the children that he may have or will have that will be in small number and bad ones; these shall beg around and nobody will give them the alms but if they get some they must not eat from them. And even more, may his wife widow right now and his children orphan without a father.”
-o-
Was it really in a Christian temple that such horrible words were pronounced? Was it really a minister of the Gospels, a representative of Jesus Christ that pronounced such words? Who would, out of a personal insult, curse a person to the execration of her fellow human beings, to the eternal damnation and to all miseries of life, that person, her parents, current and future children and everything else that belongs to that person? Jesus has never used similar language; he prayed for his executioners and said: “Forgive your enemies”; he makes us daily repeat in the Our Father prayer: “Lord, forgive our offenses as we have forgiven the ones that offended us”. When he reproaches the Scribers and Pharisees does he cast the rage of God upon them? No, he foresees the miseries that may reach them.
And you, Monsignor, you are surprised by the progress of disbelief? You should be surprised, instead, by the fact that right in the nineteenth century Jesus Christ’s religion is so little understood by the very ones that are in charge of teaching it. Don’t be surprised then that God sends His good Spirits to refresh our memories about the true meaning of His law. They do not come to destroy Christianity but to free it from the false interpretations and abuse introduced by humanity.
[1] Joel 2:28
[2]“Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness;”
Barcelona, June 13th 1864 – medium Mrs. J…
“I come to you so that you may kindly recommend me to God in your prayers because I suffer and I wish that the charitable incarnate souls may show compassion to a poor Spirit that begs God’s forgiveness. I spent a long time on the wrong path but today I come to alert those that do the same: Stop your iniquities, impure souls, stop your disbelief and your wandering life; stop every wrong doing because God says to the good Spirits: Go and purify those souls that have never known good; evil must stop for the time has come when Earth must progress. For that to happen the stained souls that come to inhabit here must be purified to be able to return good and charitable.” That is what God said to the good Spirits. As for myself, I was one of the worst ones in obsession and now I tell those that do what I did: Stray souls, follow me; ask for God forgiveness and these pure souls that reach out to you; beg and God will forgive you; but you must forgive also and regret. Forgiveness is so soothing! Had you known it and you would not waste any time to move away from the swamp of evilness in which you remain stuck, immediately flying out into the arms of the angels that are near you! Stop, stop brothers, I beg you; stop and follow me; regret!
My friends – allow me to call you so although you do not know me – I am one of those Spirits that did everything but good; but to every sin mercy and since God forgives me and the angels call me brother I hope that you that practices charity may pray for me because I still have very tough trials to endure. But I do deserve them.
- Have you turned to good long ago?
My friends – allow me to call you so although you do not know me – I am one of those Spirits that did everything but good; but to every sin mercy and since God forgives me and the angels call me brother I hope that you that practices charity may pray for me because I still have very tough trials to endure. But I do deserve them.
- Have you turned to good long ago?
- No my friends, it was a short while ago; I am the obsessing Spirit of the girl from Marmande; I am Julio, coming to the charitable souls asking you to pray for me and to tell my former companions: Stop. Do no more evil because God forgives the regretful sinners. Regret and you shall be acquitted. I come to bring you words of peace. Receive from the angel present here the sacred baptism as I have received.
Dear friends, I leave you now requesting that you do not forget me in your prayers.
Good-bye.”
Julio
We then asked if the Spirit of Little Carita, his protecting Spirit, was following him; he answered positively. We asked that good Spirit for some words with respect to obsessions that have been fighting for so long. Here is what the Spirit said:
“My friends, the obsessions that constitute the torment of those poor incarnate souls are very painful, in particular to the mediums that wish to use their faculties to do good and cannot because malevolent Spirits have seized them and do not give them peace; but it is not necessary to wait for those obsessions to come to an end. Pray a lot, ask God, the goodness itself, to abbreviate your suffering and trials. Dear souls, evoke these stray Spirits; pray for them; moralize them; ask for the advice of the good Spirits. You are well surrounded. Don’t you have several of those ethereal souls near you, waking for and protecting you? Those that seek to help you progress and approach God? That is their mission. They work incessantly to prepare the endless path to you. If you are not freed, my dear friends, it is undoubtedly because you are not pure enough for the task that you imposed on yourself. You have freely chosen your trial and you must strive to be successful because the Spirits guide you and sustain you, helping you to lead a sacred life through the depuration of suffering, atonement and charity.
So long, dear friends. I leave you asking God to protect you and these poor obsessed, having them always protected by the purified Spirits of your group (see the Spiritist Review February, March and June 1864: Cure of the obsessed young lady of Marmande).”
Little Carita
“My friends, the obsessions that constitute the torment of those poor incarnate souls are very painful, in particular to the mediums that wish to use their faculties to do good and cannot because malevolent Spirits have seized them and do not give them peace; but it is not necessary to wait for those obsessions to come to an end. Pray a lot, ask God, the goodness itself, to abbreviate your suffering and trials. Dear souls, evoke these stray Spirits; pray for them; moralize them; ask for the advice of the good Spirits. You are well surrounded. Don’t you have several of those ethereal souls near you, waking for and protecting you? Those that seek to help you progress and approach God? That is their mission. They work incessantly to prepare the endless path to you. If you are not freed, my dear friends, it is undoubtedly because you are not pure enough for the task that you imposed on yourself. You have freely chosen your trial and you must strive to be successful because the Spirits guide you and sustain you, helping you to lead a sacred life through the depuration of suffering, atonement and charity.
So long, dear friends. I leave you asking God to protect you and these poor obsessed, having them always protected by the purified Spirits of your group (see the Spiritist Review February, March and June 1864: Cure of the obsessed young lady of Marmande).”
Little Carita
-o-
These are two Spirits that violated the order and crossed the Pyrenees without permission, not taking into account the commandment given by Monsignor Pantaleón and, what is even worse, without been evoked or called. It is true that the order had not been given yet. We shall see now if they will be less daring. One can say that if they were not called in this gathering they were used to call others and that since the door was found open they did as well enter but the time is not far when they will see there, like elsewhere and in Poitiers, for example, such manifestations among those who have not heard about Spiritism and even among the scrupulous observers of the commandment, closing the doors of their homes despite the alguazils.
Considering that the Spirits mentioned here allowed such an outrage we ask Mr. Bishop what is ridiculous about it and where is the disgusting cynicism that in his opinion is the result of Spiritism: a young lady of Marmande that did not think about the Spirits nor her parents, and that perhaps did not even believe in them is committed by a bizarre disease for about a year, a terrible disease that even science fails. Some Spiritists believe to see in such an event the action of a bad Spirit. They try the healing without medication, through prayer and the evocation of that bad Spirit; in five days they not only achieve the cure but return that Spirit to the good path. What is wrong with that?
Where is the absurd? Then the same Spirit comes to Barcelona, without being invited, asking for prayers that he needs for his purification. He puts himself as an example and incites his former companions to renounce to evil. The good Spirit that follows him preaches the evangelical moral. What is disgusting and ridiculous about it? Ridiculous, you say, is to believe in the manifestation of the Spirits. But what are those two creatures that have just communicated? An effect of imagination? No because nobody was thinking about them nor in the event that they just mentioned. When you die, Monsignor, you will see things differently and we beg God to enlighten you as God did to your predecessor, today one of the protectors of Spiritism in Barcelona. Among the communications given by him in the Spiritist Society of Paris this is the first one, already published in the Spiritist Review. We, nonetheless, reproduce it here for the edification of those that do not know it (See the Spiritist Review, August 1862: Death of the Bishop of Barcelona, and with respect to the details of the auto-da-fé the issues of November and December 1861).
“Helped by your Spiritual guide (St. Louis) I was able to come to teach you by my example and say: Do not repeal any of the announced ideas because one day, a day that will have the weight of a century, those collected ideas will shout like the voice of the angel: Cain, what have you done to your brother? What have you done to our power that should console and elevate humanity? The person that voluntarily lives deaf and blind in Spirit, like others are in their bodies, will suffer, atone and reborn to start again the intellectual work that was avoided by their pride and laziness. That terrible voice told me: You burnt the ideas and the ideas will burn you. Pray for me. Pray for the prayer said by the persecuted on behalf of the persecutor pleases God.
The one that was a bishop and now is no more than a penitent.”
The Spirits did not stop in Barcelona, Madrid, Cadiz, Seville, Murcia and many other cities receive their communications to which the auto-da-fe gave a new impulse, increasing the number of followers. Without having the prophetic gift we can say that not a half-century will pass without the whole Spain becoming Spiritist.
-o-
Considering that the Spirits mentioned here allowed such an outrage we ask Mr. Bishop what is ridiculous about it and where is the disgusting cynicism that in his opinion is the result of Spiritism: a young lady of Marmande that did not think about the Spirits nor her parents, and that perhaps did not even believe in them is committed by a bizarre disease for about a year, a terrible disease that even science fails. Some Spiritists believe to see in such an event the action of a bad Spirit. They try the healing without medication, through prayer and the evocation of that bad Spirit; in five days they not only achieve the cure but return that Spirit to the good path. What is wrong with that?
Where is the absurd? Then the same Spirit comes to Barcelona, without being invited, asking for prayers that he needs for his purification. He puts himself as an example and incites his former companions to renounce to evil. The good Spirit that follows him preaches the evangelical moral. What is disgusting and ridiculous about it? Ridiculous, you say, is to believe in the manifestation of the Spirits. But what are those two creatures that have just communicated? An effect of imagination? No because nobody was thinking about them nor in the event that they just mentioned. When you die, Monsignor, you will see things differently and we beg God to enlighten you as God did to your predecessor, today one of the protectors of Spiritism in Barcelona. Among the communications given by him in the Spiritist Society of Paris this is the first one, already published in the Spiritist Review. We, nonetheless, reproduce it here for the edification of those that do not know it (See the Spiritist Review, August 1862: Death of the Bishop of Barcelona, and with respect to the details of the auto-da-fé the issues of November and December 1861).
“Helped by your Spiritual guide (St. Louis) I was able to come to teach you by my example and say: Do not repeal any of the announced ideas because one day, a day that will have the weight of a century, those collected ideas will shout like the voice of the angel: Cain, what have you done to your brother? What have you done to our power that should console and elevate humanity? The person that voluntarily lives deaf and blind in Spirit, like others are in their bodies, will suffer, atone and reborn to start again the intellectual work that was avoided by their pride and laziness. That terrible voice told me: You burnt the ideas and the ideas will burn you. Pray for me. Pray for the prayer said by the persecuted on behalf of the persecutor pleases God.
The one that was a bishop and now is no more than a penitent.”
The Spirits did not stop in Barcelona, Madrid, Cadiz, Seville, Murcia and many other cities receive their communications to which the auto-da-fe gave a new impulse, increasing the number of followers. Without having the prophetic gift we can say that not a half-century will pass without the whole Spain becoming Spiritist.
-o-
Murcia, Spain June 28th, 1864
“Question to a protector Spirit – Can you talk about the state of the incarnate souls in worlds superior to ours? A. – I take a world in comparison to yours that is noticeably more advanced in which the belief in God, the immortality of the soul, the succession of the existences to get to perfection are all truths acknowledged and understood by all and where the communication between the corporeal and the invisible worlds is very easy for that very reason. The beings there are less materialized than those on your Earth and are not subjected to all needs imposed on you. They form the transition between the corporeal and incorporeal. There is no barriers there separating the peoples, nor wars; everybody lives in peace practicing charity and true fraternity with one another; human laws are useless there; each person uses their own conscience as their tribunal. Evil is rare there and even that evil would almost be good for you. Compared to you they would be perfect but they are still far from the perfection of God; they still need several incarnations in several worlds to achieve purification. The one that seems perfect to you on Earth would be considered a rebel and criminal in the world that I am talking about. Your greatest wise men would be the last ignorant there. In the superior worlds the productions of nature have nothing in common with yours. Everything there is adequate to the less material nature of the inhabitants. It is not through the sweat of their faces and physical work that they win their bread. The soil naturally produces what they need. They are inactive though but their occupations are much different when compared to yours. Not having to provide for the body they do provide for the Spirit; since they understand very well why they were created they are positive about their future and work tirelessly for the betterment and purification of their soul. Death there is considered a benefit. The day a soul leaves its material envelope is a day of happiness. The future beyond is known. One moves on first to wait for their parents, friends and sympathetic Spirits that were left behind.
World of peace, happy dwelling where the vicissitudes of material life are unknown, where the tranquility of one’s soul is not disturbed by ambition or greed and where the inhabitants live happily. The achieve the objectives sought for so many centuries; they see, know, understand and rejoice for thinking about the future that awaits and work with greater eagerness to promptly get there.”
A protector Spirit
This communication does not offer anything that had not been said yet about more advanced worlds but it is not less interesting to see the agreement established in the teachings of the Spirits and in the several corners of the globe. With such elements how could it be possible not to have unity in the doctrine?
Since the establishment of the fundamental points of the doctrine the Spirits have little new things to say. They can’t do much more than repeating the same things with new terms, develop and comment the same subjects, and that establishes a certain uniformity in their teachings. Before moving on to new matters they allow time of maturity to those that are already established. But we see them touching a new subject whenever the time is right for that, something that would have been premature if brought up earlier.
“Question to a protector Spirit – Can you talk about the state of the incarnate souls in worlds superior to ours? A. – I take a world in comparison to yours that is noticeably more advanced in which the belief in God, the immortality of the soul, the succession of the existences to get to perfection are all truths acknowledged and understood by all and where the communication between the corporeal and the invisible worlds is very easy for that very reason. The beings there are less materialized than those on your Earth and are not subjected to all needs imposed on you. They form the transition between the corporeal and incorporeal. There is no barriers there separating the peoples, nor wars; everybody lives in peace practicing charity and true fraternity with one another; human laws are useless there; each person uses their own conscience as their tribunal. Evil is rare there and even that evil would almost be good for you. Compared to you they would be perfect but they are still far from the perfection of God; they still need several incarnations in several worlds to achieve purification. The one that seems perfect to you on Earth would be considered a rebel and criminal in the world that I am talking about. Your greatest wise men would be the last ignorant there. In the superior worlds the productions of nature have nothing in common with yours. Everything there is adequate to the less material nature of the inhabitants. It is not through the sweat of their faces and physical work that they win their bread. The soil naturally produces what they need. They are inactive though but their occupations are much different when compared to yours. Not having to provide for the body they do provide for the Spirit; since they understand very well why they were created they are positive about their future and work tirelessly for the betterment and purification of their soul. Death there is considered a benefit. The day a soul leaves its material envelope is a day of happiness. The future beyond is known. One moves on first to wait for their parents, friends and sympathetic Spirits that were left behind.
World of peace, happy dwelling where the vicissitudes of material life are unknown, where the tranquility of one’s soul is not disturbed by ambition or greed and where the inhabitants live happily. The achieve the objectives sought for so many centuries; they see, know, understand and rejoice for thinking about the future that awaits and work with greater eagerness to promptly get there.”
A protector Spirit
This communication does not offer anything that had not been said yet about more advanced worlds but it is not less interesting to see the agreement established in the teachings of the Spirits and in the several corners of the globe. With such elements how could it be possible not to have unity in the doctrine?
Since the establishment of the fundamental points of the doctrine the Spirits have little new things to say. They can’t do much more than repeating the same things with new terms, develop and comment the same subjects, and that establishes a certain uniformity in their teachings. Before moving on to new matters they allow time of maturity to those that are already established. But we see them touching a new subject whenever the time is right for that, something that would have been premature if brought up earlier.
A Spirit that believes to be a medium
Mrs. Gaspard, friends with Mrs. Delanne, was an eager Spiritist; she was sorry for not being a medium; she wanted to be a clairvoyant medium in particular. For a long time she suffered a lot from an aneurism. On the evening of July 2nd last she suddenly died from the rupture of that aneurism. Mrs. Delanne had not been informed yet about the occurrence when during the day she heard several knocks around her bedroom; in the beginning she did not give much attention to them but the persistence of the knocks made her think that it could be a Spirit willing to communicate. Since she is a very good medium she grabbed a pencil and wrote the following:
“Oh my good Mrs. Delanne, you made me wait a lot! I came quickly to tell you about my new faculty: I am a clairvoyant medium now! I saw my dear Emilio, my children, everyone, my mother and Mr. Gaspard’s mom. Oh, he will be really happy when he learns about it! Thank you God for such a great favor!
Q. – Is that really you, Mrs. Gaspard that speaks now? A. – How come? You don’t see me? I have been close to you for a long time. I was impatient because you did not answer me. Come on! You do see me right? It is your turn now. Besides, it will do you good. We will stroll around now that I am feeling good. Oh how nice to see those that we love once again! However that is what healed me. How God is good and how he follows his promises when we are faithful to his commandments! Ah! My Emilio! When I think that my poor father will still say that I am mad! Never mind. I will tell him, anyhow. Let us go now? It is good if we take your mother with us. It will be good for her. Poor woman. She is so nice!
Q. – Let us see, good Mrs. Gaspard, we will leave, I will follow you. Are we really going to your house in Châtillon? Tell me what is it that you see, or even better, what is going on there now? A. – Strange things!”
After these words the Spirit leaves and Mrs. Delanne obtains nothing else.
To better understand the final part of the communication we say that a trip to the country side in Châtillon had been planned some time ago by the two ladies. Surprised by a sudden death Mrs. Gaspard was not aware of her situation and still believes to be alive. Since she sees the Spirits of her beloved ones she believes to have turned into a clairvoyant medium. It is a remarkable particularity of the transition from the corporeal to the spiritual life.
Besides, Mrs. Gaspard believes to be healed since she is free from her suffering and comes to Mrs. Delanne to renew her invitation. Her ideas are confused though since comes to give notice through knocks near her friend, not understanding that she would not be recognized in that way if she were alive.
Mrs. Delanne soon understands the singularity of the situation and to avoid confusing her even further invites her to their trip to Châtillon. The Spirit no doubt is brought to that place by an unforeseen circumstance for she writes: “Strange things” and breaks the communication.
As a matter of fact the delusion did not take long. Starting from the very next day Mrs. Gaspard was completely detached and dictated an excellent communication addressed to her husband and her friends, congratulating them for having learned about Spiritism that had allowed her a death without the anguishes of the separation.
Mrs. Gaspard, friends with Mrs. Delanne, was an eager Spiritist; she was sorry for not being a medium; she wanted to be a clairvoyant medium in particular. For a long time she suffered a lot from an aneurism. On the evening of July 2nd last she suddenly died from the rupture of that aneurism. Mrs. Delanne had not been informed yet about the occurrence when during the day she heard several knocks around her bedroom; in the beginning she did not give much attention to them but the persistence of the knocks made her think that it could be a Spirit willing to communicate. Since she is a very good medium she grabbed a pencil and wrote the following:
“Oh my good Mrs. Delanne, you made me wait a lot! I came quickly to tell you about my new faculty: I am a clairvoyant medium now! I saw my dear Emilio, my children, everyone, my mother and Mr. Gaspard’s mom. Oh, he will be really happy when he learns about it! Thank you God for such a great favor!
Q. – Is that really you, Mrs. Gaspard that speaks now? A. – How come? You don’t see me? I have been close to you for a long time. I was impatient because you did not answer me. Come on! You do see me right? It is your turn now. Besides, it will do you good. We will stroll around now that I am feeling good. Oh how nice to see those that we love once again! However that is what healed me. How God is good and how he follows his promises when we are faithful to his commandments! Ah! My Emilio! When I think that my poor father will still say that I am mad! Never mind. I will tell him, anyhow. Let us go now? It is good if we take your mother with us. It will be good for her. Poor woman. She is so nice!
Q. – Let us see, good Mrs. Gaspard, we will leave, I will follow you. Are we really going to your house in Châtillon? Tell me what is it that you see, or even better, what is going on there now? A. – Strange things!”
After these words the Spirit leaves and Mrs. Delanne obtains nothing else.
To better understand the final part of the communication we say that a trip to the country side in Châtillon had been planned some time ago by the two ladies. Surprised by a sudden death Mrs. Gaspard was not aware of her situation and still believes to be alive. Since she sees the Spirits of her beloved ones she believes to have turned into a clairvoyant medium. It is a remarkable particularity of the transition from the corporeal to the spiritual life.
Besides, Mrs. Gaspard believes to be healed since she is free from her suffering and comes to Mrs. Delanne to renew her invitation. Her ideas are confused though since comes to give notice through knocks near her friend, not understanding that she would not be recognized in that way if she were alive.
Mrs. Delanne soon understands the singularity of the situation and to avoid confusing her even further invites her to their trip to Châtillon. The Spirit no doubt is brought to that place by an unforeseen circumstance for she writes: “Strange things” and breaks the communication.
As a matter of fact the delusion did not take long. Starting from the very next day Mrs. Gaspard was completely detached and dictated an excellent communication addressed to her husband and her friends, congratulating them for having learned about Spiritism that had allowed her a death without the anguishes of the separation.
Letter sent from Brunswick to the Pays:
“A peasant woman from the region of Lutter has just given birth to a child with the full looks of a monkey for the body is almost entirely covered by tuffs of black hair and not even the face escaped the strange covering. Married for twelve years and although remarkably resigned the poor lady has not yet given birth to a single child that does not carry a more or less horrible disease. Her ten-year-old oldest daughter is hunchbacked and her face seems to be a thorough copy of Polichinelo’s. Her second son, a seven-year-old boy is paraplegic. The third girl not yet five years old is deaf-mute and mentally challenged. Finally the fourth one that is only two years old is totally blind. What could be the cause of that strange phenomenon? That is something for science to explain. The father is perfectly healthy and nothing can explain the kind of fatality that has fallen upon that family.”
Monitor, July 29th 1864
“That is something for science to explain”, the newspaper says. There are many other facts about which science remains powerless not to mention the events of Morzine and Poitiers. The reason for that is very simple. Science is adamant in only looking for causes in matter only taking into account the known laws. With respect to certain phenomena science is in the position that it would be if it had never moved on from the physics of Aristotle; if it were still ignorant about the law of gravitation or electricity; where religion was while neglecting the law of movement of the globes; where still today are those that disregard the geological law of formation of the globe.
Two forces share the world: spirit and matter. Spirit and matter have their own laws. Now, since these two forces incessantly act upon one another it follows that certain material phenomena have their causes in the action of the spirit and that some cannot be totally understood if the action of the other are not taken into account. Beyond the tangible laws, therefore, there is another one that has a capital importance in the world, the relationships between the visible and invisible worlds. When science acknowledges the existence of that law it will then find there the solution to an infinite number of problems against which it uselessly crashes.
The monstrosities, like all other congenital diseases, undoubtedly have a physiological cause that belongs to the field of material science. However, supposing that science come to grips with the secret of such deviations of nature, there will still be the problem of the initial cause and the conciliation of the fact with God’s justice. If science says that it is not in its scope religion cannot say the same. When science demonstrates the existence of something it assigns religion with the duty of finding the proof of the sovereign wisdom there. Hasn’t religion ever probed the mystery of those abnormal existences from the point of view of the divine fairness? Or those fatalities that seem to persecute certain families without currently known causes? No because religion feels its own impotence and fears these terrible questions to its absolute dogmas. Up until now people accepted the fact without going further but now they think, ponder and want to know; they question science that seeks the answer in the material fibers and remains mute; question religion that responds: Impenetrable mystery!
Low and behold! Spiritism comes to tear off that mystery and make the dazzling justice of God come out of that. It demonstrates that those disinherited souls since birth in this world have already lived before and that they atone now in misshapen bodies their past faults. It demonstrates the observation, and reason confirms, because one could not admit that they would be punished just when they leave the hands of God and when they had not done anything.
It is okay, they will tell the creature that has just been born like that. But how about the parents? The mother that only gives birth to disgraced creatures; that is precluded from one single child that can make her proud and that she can joyfully show around? Spiritism responds to that: God’s justice, atonement, trial to her maternal kindness because it is a test and a big one to only see deformed kids around her instead of gracious ones. Spiritism then adds: there isn’t a single breach of God’s laws that sooner or later will not have dismal consequences on Earth or in the spiritual world, in this life or in the next one.
For the same reason there isn’t a single vicissitude of life that is not consequence and punishment for a past fault and that is how it is going to be for each one of us while there is no regret, while there is no atonement or reparation of what has been done. One returns to Earth to atone and make amendments. It is up to each one of us to improve significantly down here to avoid returned as a condemned one. God frequently uses the one that must be punished to punish others. That is why the Spirits of those children that must incarnate in deformed bodies for punishment are, regardless of their will, instruments of atonement to the mother that gave birth to them. That distributive justice, proportional to the extension of the wicked actions, is worth more than the eternal, irremissible penalties that forever eliminate the path of regret and reparation.
The fact above was read at the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies as a subject for philosophical studies and a Spirit gave the following explanation:
Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, July 29th 1864
If you could see the hidden benefits that move your world you would understand how things are linked together from the tiniest to the greatest things; you would understand above all the intimate relationship between the physical and the spiritual world, that great law of nature; you would see the multitude of intelligences that preside over everything and utilize them for the accomplishment of our Creator’s designs. Consider for a moment that you are in front of a hive whose bees were invisible. The work that you would be carried out every day would cause you admiration and you would perhaps say: that is a singular effect of chance! Well then! You are really in front of a huge atelier led by uncountable legions of workers that are invisible to you, from which some are manual labor workers that just obey and execute, while others command and lead, each in their own sphere of activities proportional to their development and advancement and from there, step by step, to the supreme will that drives everything.
That is how the action of God is explained in their minimal details. Like the earthly sovereign God has the ministers and these have their subordinates, secondary gears of the great governance of the universe. If in a well administered country the last shanty feels the effects and the solicitude of the chief of state what to think of the infinite wisdom of the Almighty reaching the minimal details of creation!
Do not believe that the woman that you have just mentioned is a victim of chance or of a blind fatality. No. What happens to her has a cause, rest assured. She is punished in her pride; she neglected the weak and the sick; she was tough to the unfortunate people from whom she looked the other way with disgust instead of embracing them with the looks of commiseration; she was proud of the physical beauty of her children in detriment of the least favored mothers; she exhibited them proudly because to her the beauty of the body was more important than the soul; she therefore led them to vices that delayed their progress instead of developing the qualities of the heart. God allowed her to only have disabled children in this present life so that her maternal kindness helped her to overcome her rejection for the miserable ones. To her it is a means of punishment and progress. In such punishment, however, both the justice and benevolence of God shine out incessantly punishing with one hand while the other provides the means of recovery.
A protector Spirit
“A peasant woman from the region of Lutter has just given birth to a child with the full looks of a monkey for the body is almost entirely covered by tuffs of black hair and not even the face escaped the strange covering. Married for twelve years and although remarkably resigned the poor lady has not yet given birth to a single child that does not carry a more or less horrible disease. Her ten-year-old oldest daughter is hunchbacked and her face seems to be a thorough copy of Polichinelo’s. Her second son, a seven-year-old boy is paraplegic. The third girl not yet five years old is deaf-mute and mentally challenged. Finally the fourth one that is only two years old is totally blind. What could be the cause of that strange phenomenon? That is something for science to explain. The father is perfectly healthy and nothing can explain the kind of fatality that has fallen upon that family.”
Monitor, July 29th 1864
“That is something for science to explain”, the newspaper says. There are many other facts about which science remains powerless not to mention the events of Morzine and Poitiers. The reason for that is very simple. Science is adamant in only looking for causes in matter only taking into account the known laws. With respect to certain phenomena science is in the position that it would be if it had never moved on from the physics of Aristotle; if it were still ignorant about the law of gravitation or electricity; where religion was while neglecting the law of movement of the globes; where still today are those that disregard the geological law of formation of the globe.
Two forces share the world: spirit and matter. Spirit and matter have their own laws. Now, since these two forces incessantly act upon one another it follows that certain material phenomena have their causes in the action of the spirit and that some cannot be totally understood if the action of the other are not taken into account. Beyond the tangible laws, therefore, there is another one that has a capital importance in the world, the relationships between the visible and invisible worlds. When science acknowledges the existence of that law it will then find there the solution to an infinite number of problems against which it uselessly crashes.
The monstrosities, like all other congenital diseases, undoubtedly have a physiological cause that belongs to the field of material science. However, supposing that science come to grips with the secret of such deviations of nature, there will still be the problem of the initial cause and the conciliation of the fact with God’s justice. If science says that it is not in its scope religion cannot say the same. When science demonstrates the existence of something it assigns religion with the duty of finding the proof of the sovereign wisdom there. Hasn’t religion ever probed the mystery of those abnormal existences from the point of view of the divine fairness? Or those fatalities that seem to persecute certain families without currently known causes? No because religion feels its own impotence and fears these terrible questions to its absolute dogmas. Up until now people accepted the fact without going further but now they think, ponder and want to know; they question science that seeks the answer in the material fibers and remains mute; question religion that responds: Impenetrable mystery!
Low and behold! Spiritism comes to tear off that mystery and make the dazzling justice of God come out of that. It demonstrates that those disinherited souls since birth in this world have already lived before and that they atone now in misshapen bodies their past faults. It demonstrates the observation, and reason confirms, because one could not admit that they would be punished just when they leave the hands of God and when they had not done anything.
It is okay, they will tell the creature that has just been born like that. But how about the parents? The mother that only gives birth to disgraced creatures; that is precluded from one single child that can make her proud and that she can joyfully show around? Spiritism responds to that: God’s justice, atonement, trial to her maternal kindness because it is a test and a big one to only see deformed kids around her instead of gracious ones. Spiritism then adds: there isn’t a single breach of God’s laws that sooner or later will not have dismal consequences on Earth or in the spiritual world, in this life or in the next one.
For the same reason there isn’t a single vicissitude of life that is not consequence and punishment for a past fault and that is how it is going to be for each one of us while there is no regret, while there is no atonement or reparation of what has been done. One returns to Earth to atone and make amendments. It is up to each one of us to improve significantly down here to avoid returned as a condemned one. God frequently uses the one that must be punished to punish others. That is why the Spirits of those children that must incarnate in deformed bodies for punishment are, regardless of their will, instruments of atonement to the mother that gave birth to them. That distributive justice, proportional to the extension of the wicked actions, is worth more than the eternal, irremissible penalties that forever eliminate the path of regret and reparation.
The fact above was read at the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies as a subject for philosophical studies and a Spirit gave the following explanation:
Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, July 29th 1864
If you could see the hidden benefits that move your world you would understand how things are linked together from the tiniest to the greatest things; you would understand above all the intimate relationship between the physical and the spiritual world, that great law of nature; you would see the multitude of intelligences that preside over everything and utilize them for the accomplishment of our Creator’s designs. Consider for a moment that you are in front of a hive whose bees were invisible. The work that you would be carried out every day would cause you admiration and you would perhaps say: that is a singular effect of chance! Well then! You are really in front of a huge atelier led by uncountable legions of workers that are invisible to you, from which some are manual labor workers that just obey and execute, while others command and lead, each in their own sphere of activities proportional to their development and advancement and from there, step by step, to the supreme will that drives everything.
That is how the action of God is explained in their minimal details. Like the earthly sovereign God has the ministers and these have their subordinates, secondary gears of the great governance of the universe. If in a well administered country the last shanty feels the effects and the solicitude of the chief of state what to think of the infinite wisdom of the Almighty reaching the minimal details of creation!
Do not believe that the woman that you have just mentioned is a victim of chance or of a blind fatality. No. What happens to her has a cause, rest assured. She is punished in her pride; she neglected the weak and the sick; she was tough to the unfortunate people from whom she looked the other way with disgust instead of embracing them with the looks of commiseration; she was proud of the physical beauty of her children in detriment of the least favored mothers; she exhibited them proudly because to her the beauty of the body was more important than the soul; she therefore led them to vices that delayed their progress instead of developing the qualities of the heart. God allowed her to only have disabled children in this present life so that her maternal kindness helped her to overcome her rejection for the miserable ones. To her it is a means of punishment and progress. In such punishment, however, both the justice and benevolence of God shine out incessantly punishing with one hand while the other provides the means of recovery.
A protector Spirit
The Moniteur of August 6th carries the following article reproduced by the Siècle on the following day:
“Yesterday, Thursday at 2 pm a nineteen year old young man, son of a doctor, committed suicide in his house at Chaussée des Martyrs, with a gunshot wound in his mouth. The bullet shattered his head and yet the death was not instantaneous. He kept his mind for a few moments, responding to questions addressed to him saying that with the exception of the pain that he would cause to his father he had no remorse for what he had done. He then became delirious and despite the care that was given to him he died early in the evening after agonizing for five hours. People say that the young man had these ideas of suicide for some time and supposedly, with our without reason, that the study of Spiritism that he was doing had something to do with his fatal resolution.”
-o-
That news will certainly make the circuit of the press like the other case of the supposed four mad men of Lyon, each time repeated with the addition of one zero such is the avidity of our adversaries when they look for the occasion of attacking Spiritism. It does not take long for the truth to be know but what does it matter! People expect that from a good little slander there is always something left. Yes, something remains from that: a stain on the slanderers. As for the Doctrine there has no sign that it is affected by that since it follows its ascending march. We congratulate the director of the Avenir, Mr. d’Ambel, for being so careful in obtaining the information about the true cause of the event. Here is what he said about it in the issue of August 11th, 1864:
“We confess that the news brought us the most profound astonishment. It is impossible not to protest against the carelessness with which the official institution accepted similar accusation. Spiritism is completely foreign to the action of that unfortunate young man. Neighbors of the place where the sinister took place we know perfectly well that the cause of the terrifying suicide was something else. We must indicate the true cause of the catastrophe with great reservation. Nonetheless truth is truth and our Doctrine must not carry such unfair imputation. The man that is presented as someone eager to study Spiritism had long ago failed his baccalaureate exams. Studying was as unpleasant to him as the paternal profession. He would soon be submitted to new exams and it was in consequence of a lively discussion with his father that fearful of another failure he made the decision and executed it. We add the fact that if he had really known Spiritism our Doctrine would have stopped him at the fatal ramp, showing him the whole horror that inspire suicide in us and all of the terrible consequences that it carries along. (See The Spirits’ Book, items 943 to 957).”
“Yesterday, Thursday at 2 pm a nineteen year old young man, son of a doctor, committed suicide in his house at Chaussée des Martyrs, with a gunshot wound in his mouth. The bullet shattered his head and yet the death was not instantaneous. He kept his mind for a few moments, responding to questions addressed to him saying that with the exception of the pain that he would cause to his father he had no remorse for what he had done. He then became delirious and despite the care that was given to him he died early in the evening after agonizing for five hours. People say that the young man had these ideas of suicide for some time and supposedly, with our without reason, that the study of Spiritism that he was doing had something to do with his fatal resolution.”
-o-
That news will certainly make the circuit of the press like the other case of the supposed four mad men of Lyon, each time repeated with the addition of one zero such is the avidity of our adversaries when they look for the occasion of attacking Spiritism. It does not take long for the truth to be know but what does it matter! People expect that from a good little slander there is always something left. Yes, something remains from that: a stain on the slanderers. As for the Doctrine there has no sign that it is affected by that since it follows its ascending march. We congratulate the director of the Avenir, Mr. d’Ambel, for being so careful in obtaining the information about the true cause of the event. Here is what he said about it in the issue of August 11th, 1864:
“We confess that the news brought us the most profound astonishment. It is impossible not to protest against the carelessness with which the official institution accepted similar accusation. Spiritism is completely foreign to the action of that unfortunate young man. Neighbors of the place where the sinister took place we know perfectly well that the cause of the terrifying suicide was something else. We must indicate the true cause of the catastrophe with great reservation. Nonetheless truth is truth and our Doctrine must not carry such unfair imputation. The man that is presented as someone eager to study Spiritism had long ago failed his baccalaureate exams. Studying was as unpleasant to him as the paternal profession. He would soon be submitted to new exams and it was in consequence of a lively discussion with his father that fearful of another failure he made the decision and executed it. We add the fact that if he had really known Spiritism our Doctrine would have stopped him at the fatal ramp, showing him the whole horror that inspire suicide in us and all of the terrible consequences that it carries along. (See The Spirits’ Book, items 943 to 957).”
Our readers remember a brochure with the same title published by Mr. Flammarion that we made reference with a deserved praise in the Spiritist Review of January 1863. The success of the little book led the author to develop the same thesis in a more complete piece of work in which the issue is treated in every angle that it encompasses from the point of view of Astronomy, Physics and natural Philosophy.
He makes abstraction of Spiritism and for that very reason he addresses both the followers as well as the non-believers. However, since the theory of the plurality of the inhabited worlds is intimately linked to the Spiritist Doctrine it is very nice to see it consecrated by science and philosophy. From that point of view the remarkable work of science has its place guaranteed in the libraries of the Spiritists.
It is from the same point of view, abstraction made of the revelation of the Spirits, that the important issue of the plurality of the existences will be handled in a book in preparation, edited by Mr. Didier & Co. The name of the author, known in the scientific world, is a guarantee that his book will be up to the task.
He makes abstraction of Spiritism and for that very reason he addresses both the followers as well as the non-believers. However, since the theory of the plurality of the inhabited worlds is intimately linked to the Spiritist Doctrine it is very nice to see it consecrated by science and philosophy. From that point of view the remarkable work of science has its place guaranteed in the libraries of the Spiritists.
It is from the same point of view, abstraction made of the revelation of the Spirits, that the important issue of the plurality of the existences will be handled in a book in preparation, edited by Mr. Didier & Co. The name of the author, known in the scientific world, is a guarantee that his book will be up to the task.
That is the fourth periodical Spiritist publication that shows up in Bordeaux and that we have the pleasure of including in the assessment we made in our last issue about that kind of publication. We know Mr. Bez since long ago and he is one of the pillars of the cause. His flagship is the same as ours and we have faith in his forethought and moderation. It is then another media that comes to join forces with those that defend the true principles of the Doctrine. We welcome it!
We were told that soon Marseille will also have its Spiritist journal. The multiplication of these special newspapers has given us suggestions of important considerations of your interest that a lack of space forces us to postpone to a next issue.
Allan Kardec
We were told that soon Marseille will also have its Spiritist journal. The multiplication of these special newspapers has given us suggestions of important considerations of your interest that a lack of space forces us to postpone to a next issue.
Allan Kardec
October
Theoretical essays about the magical mirrors
The expression magic mirrors is given to objects that show strong reflections of light such as ice, metallic surfaces, bottles, glass, etc. in which certain persons see images that portray past, present and sometimes future events, allowing them to answer questions about it. The phenomenon is not extremely rare. Strong minds call them superstitious beliefs, effect of imagination, charlatanism, as everything else that they cannot explain by natural laws. The same applies, according to them, to every somnambulistic and mediumistic effect. However, if the fact do exist their opinion should not prevail against the reality and we are strongly inclined to admit the existence of a new law, not yet observed.
Up until now we have not agreed on this subject, despite the numerous reports that were given to us because it is our principle only to affirm what we have understood, always explaining the mode of production and the causes of that thing, meaning that we want to add, as much as possible, and a rational explanation to the report. We mentioned the fact with the testimony of serious and respectable people but on admitting the phenomenon and even its reality we had not yet seen with enough clarity the law that could explain them to be in the condition of providing a solution. That is why we abstained. The reports that were brought to us, as a matter of fact, could be loaded with exaggeration; certain details, in particular, would be necessary to accommodate our thoughts. Now that we saw, observed and studied them we can speak with knowledge of cause. To begin with we will strictly report the facts that were witnessed by us. We do not wish to convince the non-believers; all we want is to try to clarify a still obscure point of the Spiritist science.
During our last year’s trip when we spent some days at the house of Mr. W…, member of the Spiritist Society of Paris, in the canton of Berne, Switzerland, he talked about a worker from the region, a turner by profession, that enjoys the faculty of finding springs and seeing the answers to questions addressed to him on a glass. To find the springs he travels to places and sometimes utilizes the stick typically used for that; on other occasions he provides the necessary indications by the use of glass and without dislocation. Here a remarkable example of his clarity.
In Mr. W… property there was a very long water pipe but due to local circumstances some thought that the water intake should take place at a closer location. In order to possibly avoid unnecessary excavations Mr. W… reached out to the water spring whisperer. Looking at a glass the latter said: “In the path of the water pipe there is another source; it is at an x number of feet deep, below the fourteenth pipe, from a given position.” The spring was found at the position indicated by him. The occasion was too favorable to let it go so that in the interest of general instruction we went to the house of that person followed by Mr. and Mrs. W… and two other persons. At this point it seems useful to provide some information about that person. He is a sixty four year old tall, slim man enjoying some good health although walking with some difficulty. He is protestant, very religious and habitually reads the Bible and books of prayers. His health issue dates from the time when he was thirty years old. That was the time when his skill was revealed. He says that God wanted to give him a compensation. His face is expressive and joyful, his eyes lively, intelligent and penetrating. He only speaks a German dialect from his region and doesn’t understand a word of French. He is married and has a family; he makes his living out of a few lots of land and his personal work so that although not enjoying an easy life he is not in difficulty. When sought for consultation by strange people his first reaction is always mistrust. He kind of probes the actual intention of the visitors and however little favorable the impression he has he responds that he only deals with the springs and that he refuses any experience with his glass. In special he refuses to answer questions originated by greed such as treasure hunting, adventurous speculations or the accomplishment of any bad task, in a word, everything that could harm loyalty and kindness. He says that if he were up to these things God would reclaim his gift. When someone is introduced to him by an acquaintance of his and when that person is sympathetic to him his face opens up and becomes welcoming. If the reason why he is sought is serious and useful he becomes interested and join in the search. If the questions are futile and out of pure curiosity, if he is thought after like a fortune teller, he doesn’t answer. Thanks to the presence of Mr. W… we were very lucky to be in good terms with him and we can only appreciate the opportunity for being welcomed and counting on his good will. That man is completely ignorant with anything related to Spiritism; he has no idea about the mediums or evocations or even the intervention of the Spirits or their fluidic action. To him his faculty is part of his nervous system in a force that he does not understand or that he had never tried to understand because when we wanted him to tell us how he could see things through the glass it seemed to us that it was the first time that he was giving any thought to that. To us it was essential; it was only after a few successive questions that we came to understand his thought. His glass is a common empty glass. It is however always the same and is only used for that. Given the possibility of an accident he had acquired another one that he reserved. When he interrogates the glass he keeps it in the palms of the hands and looks inside the glass; if the glass is maintained on the table he sees nothing. When he looks to the bottom his eyes seem to be veiled for an instant of time and then recover the normal shine; then, looking alternatively to the glass and to his interlocutors he speaks normally, explaining what he sees and responding to the questions in a natural and simple way. In his experiences he makes no evocation, uses no cabalistic signs, and pronounces no formulas or sacramental words. When asked he concentrates his attention and will on the proposed subject matter, looking to the bottom of the glass where images of persons and things relative to theme in question are formed. Regarding persons he describe them physical and morally like a somnambulistic person would do so that there is no doubt about the identity of the person. He also describes with more or less accuracy places that are unknown to him. This destroys the idea that whatever he sees is the product of his imagination. When he told Mr. W… that the water source was a number of feet below the fourteenth pipe he couldn’t get that information from his own brain. To make it more clear he sometimes utilize a piece of chalk to trace points, circles and lines of several lengths, indicating the persons and places that he is talking about, their relative position, etc. so that there would be no need to show them again, saying: it is this one that does this or it is this point where something happens.
One day a lady questioned him about the fate of a girl that had been kidnapped by drunks more than fifteen years ago and since then nobody heard about her. He started from the place where it had happened, like a somnambulistic person, followed the traces of the girl that he said he could see in the glass and that had, according to him, followed the borders of a large body of water that is the sea. He said she was alive and described her situation but without indicating where she lived because according to him the time for having her returned to her mother had not come yet; that certain things that he specified had to happen first and that a fortuitous situation would lead the mother to recognize her daughter. In order to better establish her location he asked to have a geographic map brought to him on another occasion. That map was shown to him on the day of our visit but since he did not have any notion of geography he had to learn about the traces of roads, sea, rivers, cities and the mountains. He then placed his finger on the starting point and indicated the path that would lead to the place in question. Although some time had passed since the first consultation he remembered perfectly well everything that he had said and he was the first one to mention the girl before he was questioned. Since the matter has not been solved yet we cannot prejudge the results of his forecast. The only thing we say about the known circumstances is that he had seen with accuracy. We only mentioned the case to show the way he saw things.
As for what is related to us we could equally attest his lucidity. Without any previous question and even without thinking about the case he spontaneously mentioned an illness that we carry for some time, pointing out to its termination. A remarkable thing is that it coincided with the same indicated by the somnambulist Mrs. Roger that we had consulted about the issue six months prior. He did not know us by name or in person and although difficult for him in his ignorance to understand the nature of our work he indicated the objective, tendencies and the inevitable results of our work through circles, images and expressions. This seemed to interest him greatly since he repeated incessantly that the thing should take place and that we were predestined from birth and that nothing would interrupt that. Out of his own initiative he talked about the person that was supposed to continue our work after our death, about the obstacles that certain persons tried to interpose in our path, the envious rivalries and personal ambitions; he unequivocally designated those that could second us and those that we should distrust, strongly moving from ones to the others; he then entered in a detailed description perfectly accurate, even more remarkable by the fact that they did not result from any interrogation and that all points coincided with revelations sometime made by our spiritual guides for our own awareness.
That kind of subject had nothing to do with the habits and knowledge of that man, as he said himself. He repeated several times: “I say here many things that I would not say to others, because they would not understand me but him (pointing to us) understand me perfectly well.” In fact there were things that were said kind of half-way only understood by ourselves. We saw a special mark of the benevolence of the Spirits in all that wanting to confirm by this new and unexpected means the instructions that they had given on different circumstances, being to us at same matter of observation and study. We then attested that the man was really gifted by a faculty that sees things. Does he always see accurately? That is not the question. As long as he had seen many times that would confirm the existence of the phenomenon. Nobody on this Earth is infallible for the simple fact that there is no absolute perfection here. How is it that he sees? That is the essential point that cannot be deduced if not by observation.
Given his lack of education and the prejudices that abound in the environment in which he has always lived he is biased by certain superstitious ideas that he mixes with the reports. That is how for example he believes in the influence of the planets upon people’s destinies and on their happy as well as miserable days. According to what he had seen about us we should have been born under a given sign; we should avoid undertaking important tasks in certain periods of the moon. We did not try to persuade him for we would not have succeeded and it would have only served to disturb him. But for the simple reasons that he bears some false ideas there is no reason to deny his faculty. For the fact that there are bad grains on a pile of wheat it does not follow that there is no good wheat; and for the reason that a man does not see with accuracy it does not mean that he sees nothing.
When he more or less realized the objective and the results of our own work he very seriously and with a kind of anxiety whispered in the ear of Mr. W… if we had eventually found the sixth book of Moses. Well, there is a popular legend in certain places that Moses had written a sixth book containing new revelations and the explanation of everything that was obscure in the previous five books. According to the same legend that book should be discovered one day. If something is supposed to offer the key to all allegories in the Scriptures that is certainly Spiritism somehow offering the idea of the sixth book of Moses. It is very singular that such a man had made that kind of connection.
A more careful analysis of the facts demonstrates a complete analogy between his skill and the phenomenon designated by the name of “second vision, double sight or awaken somnambulism” described in The Spirits Book, chapter VIII: Emancipation of the soul, and in The Mediums’ Book, chapter XIV. Its principle is in the radiant property of the spiritual fluid that allows the soul, in certain cases, to realize things from a distance, that is, through the emancipation of the soul that is a law of nature. It is not the eyes that see but beams of soul that extends further and exerts its action on a given point without the help of the physical organs of the body. Such a faculty, much more common than supposed, presents itself with very diverse aspects and levels of intensity according to the individuals: in some it manifests by a permanent or accidental perception of distant things, more or less clearly; in others by the simple intuition of those same things and finally in others through telepathy. It is remarkable that many people have that unnoticeably since it is inherent to their own being and hence seems natural to them like their eye sight; they even frequently confuse those two perceptions. When asked how they see most of the time they cannot explain better than they would do with the normal mechanism of the eyes.
The number of people that spontaneously enjoy that faculty is really considerable and that indicates that such a faculty requires any kind of instrument. The glass that this man utilizes is an accessory that it is only useful due to his habit since we attested on several occasions that he would describe things without looking to the glass. As for our own observation he described people using the piece of chalk and by characteristic signs typical of his skills and position. It was through those signs that he seem to see things very well looking at his table that he seemed to see as well as when looking at the glass that he hardly did. Yet the glass seemed to be necessary to him and here the explanation for that.
The image that he observes is formed in the beams of spiritual fluid that transmit the sensation to him. When he looks to the bottom of the glass he drives those beams there and the image very naturally forms there as it would on any other object: a glass of water, a bottle, a piece of paper, a map or an abstract point in space. It is a means of concentration his thoughts and circumscribing them so much so that we are convinced whoever may present such faculty would be able to go without it and see equally well after some exercise and a strong will power.
Admitting what has not been proven yet, however, that the object acts upon certain organizations, like drivers, like provoking the detachment of the spiritual fluid and consequently the isolation of the Spirit, there is a fundamental fact observed by experience: there is no special substance that may show an exclusive property about it. The man in question only sees in an empty glass held in his hand and he cannot see in any other glass that is shown to him or placed elsewhere. If the property were inherent to the substance and form of the object why the same individual would not show the same skill with two objects of the same kind and shape? Why something has an effect on one but not on the other? And why, finally, so many people have the same faculty without the support of any device? As said before the faculty is inherent to the individual and not the glass. The image forms in himself, or better said, in the fluidic beams that emanate from him. The glass only offers the reflex of that image: it is an effect and not the cause. That is the reason that not everyone can see in what was conventionally called magic mirrors. The organic sight is not enough for that but one does need to carry the so called double sight that more accurately should be called spiritual sight. And that is so much true that certain persons see perfectly well with their eyes closed.
Spiritual sight is in reality the sixth sense or spiritual sense that has been much talked about and like the other senses can be more or less obtuse or subtle. Its agent is the spiritual fluid like physical sight has the luminous fluid. In the same way that the irradiation of the luminous fluid carries the image of objects to the retina the irradiation of the spiritual fluid carries certain images and impressions to the soul. Such a fluid has its own effects and sui generis properties.
Since a person is composed by Spirit, perispirits and body during life the perceptions and sensations are simultaneously produced by the physical organs and by the spiritual sense; after death the physical senses are destroyed but since the perispirits remains the Spirit continues to perceive things through the spiritual sense whose subtleness increases in proportion to the detachment of the Spirit. A person that has such a sense developed enjoys therefore and by anticipation of some of the sensations of the free Spirit. Although damped by the prevalence of matter the spiritual sense still produces effects on everybody that are considered extraordinary for a lack of knowledge about the principle.
Since that faculty is part of nature and depend on the nature of the Spirit it has existed in all times; but like every effect whose cause is unknown ignorance attributed it to supernatural causes. Those who had in higher levels and could say, know and do things above the reach of regular persons were either accused of associating with the devil, called witches or burned alive or were beatified for having the gifts of making miracles when, in reality, it was all within the scope of a natural law.
Let us return to the magical mirrors. The word magic that in the past meant the science of the wise, lost its primitive meaning given the abuse of superstition and charlatanism. It has now fallen in discredit and rightly so and we do believe to be difficult to recover that given its connection to cabalistic operations, to gnomes, talismans and a handful of superstitious practices condemned by a lucid reason. Declining any solidarity with those pretense sciences Spiritism must avoid the ownership of words that could misguide the opinion about matters of its own interest.
In the case in question the qualification of magic is as much inappropriate as it would be that of witches attributed to the mediums. The designation of those objects by the name spiritual mirrors seems more adequate to us because it brings up the principle that is the foundation of the effects. To the Spiritist nomenclature then one can add expressions like spiritual vision, spiritual sense and spiritual mirrors.
Considering that the nature, form and substance of those objects are indifferent, one can understand that individuals that are gifted by spiritual vision can see on the coffee sludge, in egg white, in one’s hand, and in cards what others see in a glass of water and that sometimes they say correct things. To them the objects and their combinations have no meaning; it is just a means of fixating their attention, a pretext to speak, a kind of support for it is important to observe that in such a case the individual just look at them, however, if they were not there the person would believe that something was missing; the person would be disoriented like our man in this case if he did not his glass in his hand; he would have difficulty to speak like certain speakers that cannot say anything if they are not located in their habitual place or if they do not have a notebook in their hands that they do not read.
But if there are persons upon whom those objects produce the effect of the magic mirrors there is also a large quantity of people that only see through regular vision but have the language typical of those affected by those signs and abuse of others and themselves; then there is the equally large quantity of charlatans that exploit peoples’ naïveté. It is only superstition that can consecrate the use of such processes as a means of foretelling and a bunch of others that have no more value, attributing virtue to words, significance to material signs and fortuitous combinations that have no necessary connection with the object of the question or the thought.
When we say that certain persons may tell the truth with the help of such processes the intent is not to rehabilitate them before the general opinion but to show that the superstitious ideas sometimes have their origin in a true principle, stained by abuse and ignorance. By unveiling the law that governs the relationships between the visible and invisible worlds Spiritism destroys, for that very reason, the false ideas that had been formed about it, like the law of electricity destroyed not the bolt but the superstitions engineered by the ignorance about the true causes of the bolt.
In short, the spiritual vision is one of the attributes of the Spirit and constitutes one of the perceptions of the spiritual sense. It is then a law of nature. Since a person is an incarnate Spirit that person has the attributes of the Spirit and consequently the perceptions of the spiritual sense. In the vigil state such perceptions are generally vague, fuzzy and sometimes even insensitive and inappreciable since damped by the dominating activity of the material senses. Nonetheless one can say that every extracorporeal perception is due to the action of the spiritual sense that in such a case overcomes the physical resistance. In the natural or induced somnambulistic state of hypnosis, catalepsy, lethargy, ecstasy and even during common sleep, the spiritual sense develops with more freedom due to the momentary benumbing of the corporeal senses. Every exterior cause that tends to numb the physical senses leads for that very reason to the expansion of the activity of the spiritual sense.
The perceptions through the spiritual sense are not exempt from error for the fact that the incarnate Spirit may be more or less advanced, and consequently more or less capable of assessing things correctly and understand them and due to the fact that the Spirit is still under the influence of matter.
A comparison will better clarify what happens in such a case. Someone that has a perfect sight on Earth may be deceived by appearances. People believed in the movement of the sun for a long time. Experience and science were necessary to demonstrate that they were deluded. That is what happens to the more or less advanced Spirits, incarnate or discarnate; they ignore many things from the spiritual world like intelligent people ignore many things on Earth; the spiritual vision only shows them what they already know and that vision is not enough to give them the knowledge that they lack; that is why we encounter so many aberrations in clairvoyants and ecstatic, not to mention the fact that their ignorance places them more than others at the mercy of deceiving Spirits that exploit their credulity and even more their pride. That is why it would be unwise to accept their revelations without control. We cannot lose sight of the fact that we are on Earth, a planet of atonement, where inferior Spirits are all over the place and where really superior Spirits are exceptions. In superior worlds it is the opposite.
Can persons gifted with spiritual sight be considered mediums? Yes and no, according to the circumstances. Mediumship consists on the intervention of the Spirits. What is done by oneself is not a mediumistic act. The one that carries spiritual sight see by her own Spirit and does not require the support of a strange Spirit. That person is not a medium for that fact that she can see but for her relationships with the Spirits. According to her good or bad nature the Spirits that assist her may facilitate or preclude lucidity, make her see true or false things, and that also depends on the objective and utility of certain revelations. Here as in all other types of mediumship curiosity and futile questions, not serious questions, greed and interest attract frivolous Spirits that make fun of very credulous persons and rejoice by mystifying them. Serious Spirits only deal with serious things and the best gifted clairvoyant may not see anything if she is not allowed to respond to what is asked or if disturbed by deluded visions as a punishment to the indiscreet and curious people. Although that person may have the faculty and however strong that may be she does not have the freedom of using it at will. The Spirits frequently guide their application and in the presence of abuse the person may be punished by the intervention of bad Spirits.
There is still remains an important point to clarify: the forecast of future events. One can understand the vision of present things, the vision of the past, but how come the spiritual sight may give certain individuals the knowledge about things that do not exist? To avoid repetition we refer the reader to our article in May, 1864 about the theory of prescience in which the issue is thoroughly analyzed. We only add a few words.
Future, in principle, is hidden to mankind for the reasons that have been exposed so many times. It is only exceptionally revealed and besides it is more presented than forecasted. God has not given mankind any certain means of knowing it. The application of a multitude of processes invented by superstition is therefore useless, processes that are exploited by charlatanism to their own benefit. If there are some readers of luck, professional or not, that have spiritual sight, it is notable the fact that they do see much more in the present and past than in the future. It would therefore be unwise to absolutely trust such predictions and base someone’s behavior on them.
The expression magic mirrors is given to objects that show strong reflections of light such as ice, metallic surfaces, bottles, glass, etc. in which certain persons see images that portray past, present and sometimes future events, allowing them to answer questions about it. The phenomenon is not extremely rare. Strong minds call them superstitious beliefs, effect of imagination, charlatanism, as everything else that they cannot explain by natural laws. The same applies, according to them, to every somnambulistic and mediumistic effect. However, if the fact do exist their opinion should not prevail against the reality and we are strongly inclined to admit the existence of a new law, not yet observed.
Up until now we have not agreed on this subject, despite the numerous reports that were given to us because it is our principle only to affirm what we have understood, always explaining the mode of production and the causes of that thing, meaning that we want to add, as much as possible, and a rational explanation to the report. We mentioned the fact with the testimony of serious and respectable people but on admitting the phenomenon and even its reality we had not yet seen with enough clarity the law that could explain them to be in the condition of providing a solution. That is why we abstained. The reports that were brought to us, as a matter of fact, could be loaded with exaggeration; certain details, in particular, would be necessary to accommodate our thoughts. Now that we saw, observed and studied them we can speak with knowledge of cause. To begin with we will strictly report the facts that were witnessed by us. We do not wish to convince the non-believers; all we want is to try to clarify a still obscure point of the Spiritist science.
During our last year’s trip when we spent some days at the house of Mr. W…, member of the Spiritist Society of Paris, in the canton of Berne, Switzerland, he talked about a worker from the region, a turner by profession, that enjoys the faculty of finding springs and seeing the answers to questions addressed to him on a glass. To find the springs he travels to places and sometimes utilizes the stick typically used for that; on other occasions he provides the necessary indications by the use of glass and without dislocation. Here a remarkable example of his clarity.
In Mr. W… property there was a very long water pipe but due to local circumstances some thought that the water intake should take place at a closer location. In order to possibly avoid unnecessary excavations Mr. W… reached out to the water spring whisperer. Looking at a glass the latter said: “In the path of the water pipe there is another source; it is at an x number of feet deep, below the fourteenth pipe, from a given position.” The spring was found at the position indicated by him. The occasion was too favorable to let it go so that in the interest of general instruction we went to the house of that person followed by Mr. and Mrs. W… and two other persons. At this point it seems useful to provide some information about that person. He is a sixty four year old tall, slim man enjoying some good health although walking with some difficulty. He is protestant, very religious and habitually reads the Bible and books of prayers. His health issue dates from the time when he was thirty years old. That was the time when his skill was revealed. He says that God wanted to give him a compensation. His face is expressive and joyful, his eyes lively, intelligent and penetrating. He only speaks a German dialect from his region and doesn’t understand a word of French. He is married and has a family; he makes his living out of a few lots of land and his personal work so that although not enjoying an easy life he is not in difficulty. When sought for consultation by strange people his first reaction is always mistrust. He kind of probes the actual intention of the visitors and however little favorable the impression he has he responds that he only deals with the springs and that he refuses any experience with his glass. In special he refuses to answer questions originated by greed such as treasure hunting, adventurous speculations or the accomplishment of any bad task, in a word, everything that could harm loyalty and kindness. He says that if he were up to these things God would reclaim his gift. When someone is introduced to him by an acquaintance of his and when that person is sympathetic to him his face opens up and becomes welcoming. If the reason why he is sought is serious and useful he becomes interested and join in the search. If the questions are futile and out of pure curiosity, if he is thought after like a fortune teller, he doesn’t answer. Thanks to the presence of Mr. W… we were very lucky to be in good terms with him and we can only appreciate the opportunity for being welcomed and counting on his good will. That man is completely ignorant with anything related to Spiritism; he has no idea about the mediums or evocations or even the intervention of the Spirits or their fluidic action. To him his faculty is part of his nervous system in a force that he does not understand or that he had never tried to understand because when we wanted him to tell us how he could see things through the glass it seemed to us that it was the first time that he was giving any thought to that. To us it was essential; it was only after a few successive questions that we came to understand his thought. His glass is a common empty glass. It is however always the same and is only used for that. Given the possibility of an accident he had acquired another one that he reserved. When he interrogates the glass he keeps it in the palms of the hands and looks inside the glass; if the glass is maintained on the table he sees nothing. When he looks to the bottom his eyes seem to be veiled for an instant of time and then recover the normal shine; then, looking alternatively to the glass and to his interlocutors he speaks normally, explaining what he sees and responding to the questions in a natural and simple way. In his experiences he makes no evocation, uses no cabalistic signs, and pronounces no formulas or sacramental words. When asked he concentrates his attention and will on the proposed subject matter, looking to the bottom of the glass where images of persons and things relative to theme in question are formed. Regarding persons he describe them physical and morally like a somnambulistic person would do so that there is no doubt about the identity of the person. He also describes with more or less accuracy places that are unknown to him. This destroys the idea that whatever he sees is the product of his imagination. When he told Mr. W… that the water source was a number of feet below the fourteenth pipe he couldn’t get that information from his own brain. To make it more clear he sometimes utilize a piece of chalk to trace points, circles and lines of several lengths, indicating the persons and places that he is talking about, their relative position, etc. so that there would be no need to show them again, saying: it is this one that does this or it is this point where something happens.
One day a lady questioned him about the fate of a girl that had been kidnapped by drunks more than fifteen years ago and since then nobody heard about her. He started from the place where it had happened, like a somnambulistic person, followed the traces of the girl that he said he could see in the glass and that had, according to him, followed the borders of a large body of water that is the sea. He said she was alive and described her situation but without indicating where she lived because according to him the time for having her returned to her mother had not come yet; that certain things that he specified had to happen first and that a fortuitous situation would lead the mother to recognize her daughter. In order to better establish her location he asked to have a geographic map brought to him on another occasion. That map was shown to him on the day of our visit but since he did not have any notion of geography he had to learn about the traces of roads, sea, rivers, cities and the mountains. He then placed his finger on the starting point and indicated the path that would lead to the place in question. Although some time had passed since the first consultation he remembered perfectly well everything that he had said and he was the first one to mention the girl before he was questioned. Since the matter has not been solved yet we cannot prejudge the results of his forecast. The only thing we say about the known circumstances is that he had seen with accuracy. We only mentioned the case to show the way he saw things.
As for what is related to us we could equally attest his lucidity. Without any previous question and even without thinking about the case he spontaneously mentioned an illness that we carry for some time, pointing out to its termination. A remarkable thing is that it coincided with the same indicated by the somnambulist Mrs. Roger that we had consulted about the issue six months prior. He did not know us by name or in person and although difficult for him in his ignorance to understand the nature of our work he indicated the objective, tendencies and the inevitable results of our work through circles, images and expressions. This seemed to interest him greatly since he repeated incessantly that the thing should take place and that we were predestined from birth and that nothing would interrupt that. Out of his own initiative he talked about the person that was supposed to continue our work after our death, about the obstacles that certain persons tried to interpose in our path, the envious rivalries and personal ambitions; he unequivocally designated those that could second us and those that we should distrust, strongly moving from ones to the others; he then entered in a detailed description perfectly accurate, even more remarkable by the fact that they did not result from any interrogation and that all points coincided with revelations sometime made by our spiritual guides for our own awareness.
That kind of subject had nothing to do with the habits and knowledge of that man, as he said himself. He repeated several times: “I say here many things that I would not say to others, because they would not understand me but him (pointing to us) understand me perfectly well.” In fact there were things that were said kind of half-way only understood by ourselves. We saw a special mark of the benevolence of the Spirits in all that wanting to confirm by this new and unexpected means the instructions that they had given on different circumstances, being to us at same matter of observation and study. We then attested that the man was really gifted by a faculty that sees things. Does he always see accurately? That is not the question. As long as he had seen many times that would confirm the existence of the phenomenon. Nobody on this Earth is infallible for the simple fact that there is no absolute perfection here. How is it that he sees? That is the essential point that cannot be deduced if not by observation.
Given his lack of education and the prejudices that abound in the environment in which he has always lived he is biased by certain superstitious ideas that he mixes with the reports. That is how for example he believes in the influence of the planets upon people’s destinies and on their happy as well as miserable days. According to what he had seen about us we should have been born under a given sign; we should avoid undertaking important tasks in certain periods of the moon. We did not try to persuade him for we would not have succeeded and it would have only served to disturb him. But for the simple reasons that he bears some false ideas there is no reason to deny his faculty. For the fact that there are bad grains on a pile of wheat it does not follow that there is no good wheat; and for the reason that a man does not see with accuracy it does not mean that he sees nothing.
When he more or less realized the objective and the results of our own work he very seriously and with a kind of anxiety whispered in the ear of Mr. W… if we had eventually found the sixth book of Moses. Well, there is a popular legend in certain places that Moses had written a sixth book containing new revelations and the explanation of everything that was obscure in the previous five books. According to the same legend that book should be discovered one day. If something is supposed to offer the key to all allegories in the Scriptures that is certainly Spiritism somehow offering the idea of the sixth book of Moses. It is very singular that such a man had made that kind of connection.
A more careful analysis of the facts demonstrates a complete analogy between his skill and the phenomenon designated by the name of “second vision, double sight or awaken somnambulism” described in The Spirits Book, chapter VIII: Emancipation of the soul, and in The Mediums’ Book, chapter XIV. Its principle is in the radiant property of the spiritual fluid that allows the soul, in certain cases, to realize things from a distance, that is, through the emancipation of the soul that is a law of nature. It is not the eyes that see but beams of soul that extends further and exerts its action on a given point without the help of the physical organs of the body. Such a faculty, much more common than supposed, presents itself with very diverse aspects and levels of intensity according to the individuals: in some it manifests by a permanent or accidental perception of distant things, more or less clearly; in others by the simple intuition of those same things and finally in others through telepathy. It is remarkable that many people have that unnoticeably since it is inherent to their own being and hence seems natural to them like their eye sight; they even frequently confuse those two perceptions. When asked how they see most of the time they cannot explain better than they would do with the normal mechanism of the eyes.
The number of people that spontaneously enjoy that faculty is really considerable and that indicates that such a faculty requires any kind of instrument. The glass that this man utilizes is an accessory that it is only useful due to his habit since we attested on several occasions that he would describe things without looking to the glass. As for our own observation he described people using the piece of chalk and by characteristic signs typical of his skills and position. It was through those signs that he seem to see things very well looking at his table that he seemed to see as well as when looking at the glass that he hardly did. Yet the glass seemed to be necessary to him and here the explanation for that.
The image that he observes is formed in the beams of spiritual fluid that transmit the sensation to him. When he looks to the bottom of the glass he drives those beams there and the image very naturally forms there as it would on any other object: a glass of water, a bottle, a piece of paper, a map or an abstract point in space. It is a means of concentration his thoughts and circumscribing them so much so that we are convinced whoever may present such faculty would be able to go without it and see equally well after some exercise and a strong will power.
Admitting what has not been proven yet, however, that the object acts upon certain organizations, like drivers, like provoking the detachment of the spiritual fluid and consequently the isolation of the Spirit, there is a fundamental fact observed by experience: there is no special substance that may show an exclusive property about it. The man in question only sees in an empty glass held in his hand and he cannot see in any other glass that is shown to him or placed elsewhere. If the property were inherent to the substance and form of the object why the same individual would not show the same skill with two objects of the same kind and shape? Why something has an effect on one but not on the other? And why, finally, so many people have the same faculty without the support of any device? As said before the faculty is inherent to the individual and not the glass. The image forms in himself, or better said, in the fluidic beams that emanate from him. The glass only offers the reflex of that image: it is an effect and not the cause. That is the reason that not everyone can see in what was conventionally called magic mirrors. The organic sight is not enough for that but one does need to carry the so called double sight that more accurately should be called spiritual sight. And that is so much true that certain persons see perfectly well with their eyes closed.
Spiritual sight is in reality the sixth sense or spiritual sense that has been much talked about and like the other senses can be more or less obtuse or subtle. Its agent is the spiritual fluid like physical sight has the luminous fluid. In the same way that the irradiation of the luminous fluid carries the image of objects to the retina the irradiation of the spiritual fluid carries certain images and impressions to the soul. Such a fluid has its own effects and sui generis properties.
Since a person is composed by Spirit, perispirits and body during life the perceptions and sensations are simultaneously produced by the physical organs and by the spiritual sense; after death the physical senses are destroyed but since the perispirits remains the Spirit continues to perceive things through the spiritual sense whose subtleness increases in proportion to the detachment of the Spirit. A person that has such a sense developed enjoys therefore and by anticipation of some of the sensations of the free Spirit. Although damped by the prevalence of matter the spiritual sense still produces effects on everybody that are considered extraordinary for a lack of knowledge about the principle.
Since that faculty is part of nature and depend on the nature of the Spirit it has existed in all times; but like every effect whose cause is unknown ignorance attributed it to supernatural causes. Those who had in higher levels and could say, know and do things above the reach of regular persons were either accused of associating with the devil, called witches or burned alive or were beatified for having the gifts of making miracles when, in reality, it was all within the scope of a natural law.
Let us return to the magical mirrors. The word magic that in the past meant the science of the wise, lost its primitive meaning given the abuse of superstition and charlatanism. It has now fallen in discredit and rightly so and we do believe to be difficult to recover that given its connection to cabalistic operations, to gnomes, talismans and a handful of superstitious practices condemned by a lucid reason. Declining any solidarity with those pretense sciences Spiritism must avoid the ownership of words that could misguide the opinion about matters of its own interest.
In the case in question the qualification of magic is as much inappropriate as it would be that of witches attributed to the mediums. The designation of those objects by the name spiritual mirrors seems more adequate to us because it brings up the principle that is the foundation of the effects. To the Spiritist nomenclature then one can add expressions like spiritual vision, spiritual sense and spiritual mirrors.
Considering that the nature, form and substance of those objects are indifferent, one can understand that individuals that are gifted by spiritual vision can see on the coffee sludge, in egg white, in one’s hand, and in cards what others see in a glass of water and that sometimes they say correct things. To them the objects and their combinations have no meaning; it is just a means of fixating their attention, a pretext to speak, a kind of support for it is important to observe that in such a case the individual just look at them, however, if they were not there the person would believe that something was missing; the person would be disoriented like our man in this case if he did not his glass in his hand; he would have difficulty to speak like certain speakers that cannot say anything if they are not located in their habitual place or if they do not have a notebook in their hands that they do not read.
But if there are persons upon whom those objects produce the effect of the magic mirrors there is also a large quantity of people that only see through regular vision but have the language typical of those affected by those signs and abuse of others and themselves; then there is the equally large quantity of charlatans that exploit peoples’ naïveté. It is only superstition that can consecrate the use of such processes as a means of foretelling and a bunch of others that have no more value, attributing virtue to words, significance to material signs and fortuitous combinations that have no necessary connection with the object of the question or the thought.
When we say that certain persons may tell the truth with the help of such processes the intent is not to rehabilitate them before the general opinion but to show that the superstitious ideas sometimes have their origin in a true principle, stained by abuse and ignorance. By unveiling the law that governs the relationships between the visible and invisible worlds Spiritism destroys, for that very reason, the false ideas that had been formed about it, like the law of electricity destroyed not the bolt but the superstitions engineered by the ignorance about the true causes of the bolt.
In short, the spiritual vision is one of the attributes of the Spirit and constitutes one of the perceptions of the spiritual sense. It is then a law of nature. Since a person is an incarnate Spirit that person has the attributes of the Spirit and consequently the perceptions of the spiritual sense. In the vigil state such perceptions are generally vague, fuzzy and sometimes even insensitive and inappreciable since damped by the dominating activity of the material senses. Nonetheless one can say that every extracorporeal perception is due to the action of the spiritual sense that in such a case overcomes the physical resistance. In the natural or induced somnambulistic state of hypnosis, catalepsy, lethargy, ecstasy and even during common sleep, the spiritual sense develops with more freedom due to the momentary benumbing of the corporeal senses. Every exterior cause that tends to numb the physical senses leads for that very reason to the expansion of the activity of the spiritual sense.
The perceptions through the spiritual sense are not exempt from error for the fact that the incarnate Spirit may be more or less advanced, and consequently more or less capable of assessing things correctly and understand them and due to the fact that the Spirit is still under the influence of matter.
A comparison will better clarify what happens in such a case. Someone that has a perfect sight on Earth may be deceived by appearances. People believed in the movement of the sun for a long time. Experience and science were necessary to demonstrate that they were deluded. That is what happens to the more or less advanced Spirits, incarnate or discarnate; they ignore many things from the spiritual world like intelligent people ignore many things on Earth; the spiritual vision only shows them what they already know and that vision is not enough to give them the knowledge that they lack; that is why we encounter so many aberrations in clairvoyants and ecstatic, not to mention the fact that their ignorance places them more than others at the mercy of deceiving Spirits that exploit their credulity and even more their pride. That is why it would be unwise to accept their revelations without control. We cannot lose sight of the fact that we are on Earth, a planet of atonement, where inferior Spirits are all over the place and where really superior Spirits are exceptions. In superior worlds it is the opposite.
Can persons gifted with spiritual sight be considered mediums? Yes and no, according to the circumstances. Mediumship consists on the intervention of the Spirits. What is done by oneself is not a mediumistic act. The one that carries spiritual sight see by her own Spirit and does not require the support of a strange Spirit. That person is not a medium for that fact that she can see but for her relationships with the Spirits. According to her good or bad nature the Spirits that assist her may facilitate or preclude lucidity, make her see true or false things, and that also depends on the objective and utility of certain revelations. Here as in all other types of mediumship curiosity and futile questions, not serious questions, greed and interest attract frivolous Spirits that make fun of very credulous persons and rejoice by mystifying them. Serious Spirits only deal with serious things and the best gifted clairvoyant may not see anything if she is not allowed to respond to what is asked or if disturbed by deluded visions as a punishment to the indiscreet and curious people. Although that person may have the faculty and however strong that may be she does not have the freedom of using it at will. The Spirits frequently guide their application and in the presence of abuse the person may be punished by the intervention of bad Spirits.
There is still remains an important point to clarify: the forecast of future events. One can understand the vision of present things, the vision of the past, but how come the spiritual sight may give certain individuals the knowledge about things that do not exist? To avoid repetition we refer the reader to our article in May, 1864 about the theory of prescience in which the issue is thoroughly analyzed. We only add a few words.
Future, in principle, is hidden to mankind for the reasons that have been exposed so many times. It is only exceptionally revealed and besides it is more presented than forecasted. God has not given mankind any certain means of knowing it. The application of a multitude of processes invented by superstition is therefore useless, processes that are exploited by charlatanism to their own benefit. If there are some readers of luck, professional or not, that have spiritual sight, it is notable the fact that they do see much more in the present and past than in the future. It would therefore be unwise to absolutely trust such predictions and base someone’s behavior on them.
With such a title one reads in the Presse Littéraire from March 15th, 1864 the following article signed by Émile Deschamps:
“If man only believed in what he can understand he would not believe in God, in oneself or in the globes that flow above his head, or not even in the weed that grows below his feet. Miracles, prophecies, visions, ghosts, prognostics, presentiments, supernatural coincidences, etc.… what to think of all that? Strong minds have two words for that: lies or chance. Nothing more convenient. Superstitious people have a good way out or not. I prefer the latter than the former. In fact one does need to have imagination so that it may be sick whereas it is enough to be a voter and subscriber to a couple of technological newspapers to know a lot about that and to believe as little as Voltaire. Besides, I prefer madness to silliness, superstition to incredulity; but what I do prefer above all is truth, light and reason; I seek them with a vivid faith and a sincere heart; I examine everything and takes sides of not taking sides of anything.
Low and behold! The material and visible world is full of impenetrable mysteries, inexplicable phenomena, and wouldn’t we want the intellectual world, the life of the soul that is already a miracle, that it also had its mysteries and miracles? Why a given good thought, an eager prayer, or the other desire wouldn’t have the power of attracting events, blessings or catastrophes? Why wouldn’t there be moral causes, as there are physical causes that go unnoticed by us? And why the seeds of everything wouldn’t be fecund in the soil of hearts and souls to later on blossom out in the form of facts? When God on rare occasions and to some of his children decided to raise the tip of the eternal veil and spread upon their minds the escaping ray of the flame of prescience, let us keep from saying that it is an absurd and from saying blasphemies against the very light and truth. Here is what I have many times thought about: Certain birds and certain animals were given the capacity of foreseeing and announcing storms, floods and earthquakes. The barometers daily tell us what to expect tomorrow; couldn’t man receive sometimes some sort of sign in a dream or a vision from the Providence about some future event that may interest their life, their eternity? Hasn’t the Spirit also its own atmosphere whose variations can be presented? Finally, whatever the misery of the supernatural in this very positive century would there still be enchantment and utility in removing it, if all those that reflect its weak sparks would lead to a common focus all of those divergent rays; if each one, after having consciously interrogated their own memories, wrote in good faith and deposited in the archives the minutes of what had been experienced, of what happened of supernatural and miraculous. One day perhaps someone that would analyze symptoms and events could partially recover a lost science. In any case that person would write a book that would be worth many others.
As for myself I am apparently what is called a subject because I had all that in my life, as a matter of fact an obscure life; I am the first one to deposit my tribute here, persuaded that this internal vision always has a kind of interest. However little the wonderful that I give you is, dear readers, it took place in my real life. Since I learned to read I register everything that is supernatural in paper. These are memories of a singular kind.”
-o-
“If man only believed in what he can understand he would not believe in God, in oneself or in the globes that flow above his head, or not even in the weed that grows below his feet. Miracles, prophecies, visions, ghosts, prognostics, presentiments, supernatural coincidences, etc.… what to think of all that? Strong minds have two words for that: lies or chance. Nothing more convenient. Superstitious people have a good way out or not. I prefer the latter than the former. In fact one does need to have imagination so that it may be sick whereas it is enough to be a voter and subscriber to a couple of technological newspapers to know a lot about that and to believe as little as Voltaire. Besides, I prefer madness to silliness, superstition to incredulity; but what I do prefer above all is truth, light and reason; I seek them with a vivid faith and a sincere heart; I examine everything and takes sides of not taking sides of anything.
Low and behold! The material and visible world is full of impenetrable mysteries, inexplicable phenomena, and wouldn’t we want the intellectual world, the life of the soul that is already a miracle, that it also had its mysteries and miracles? Why a given good thought, an eager prayer, or the other desire wouldn’t have the power of attracting events, blessings or catastrophes? Why wouldn’t there be moral causes, as there are physical causes that go unnoticed by us? And why the seeds of everything wouldn’t be fecund in the soil of hearts and souls to later on blossom out in the form of facts? When God on rare occasions and to some of his children decided to raise the tip of the eternal veil and spread upon their minds the escaping ray of the flame of prescience, let us keep from saying that it is an absurd and from saying blasphemies against the very light and truth. Here is what I have many times thought about: Certain birds and certain animals were given the capacity of foreseeing and announcing storms, floods and earthquakes. The barometers daily tell us what to expect tomorrow; couldn’t man receive sometimes some sort of sign in a dream or a vision from the Providence about some future event that may interest their life, their eternity? Hasn’t the Spirit also its own atmosphere whose variations can be presented? Finally, whatever the misery of the supernatural in this very positive century would there still be enchantment and utility in removing it, if all those that reflect its weak sparks would lead to a common focus all of those divergent rays; if each one, after having consciously interrogated their own memories, wrote in good faith and deposited in the archives the minutes of what had been experienced, of what happened of supernatural and miraculous. One day perhaps someone that would analyze symptoms and events could partially recover a lost science. In any case that person would write a book that would be worth many others.
As for myself I am apparently what is called a subject because I had all that in my life, as a matter of fact an obscure life; I am the first one to deposit my tribute here, persuaded that this internal vision always has a kind of interest. However little the wonderful that I give you is, dear readers, it took place in my real life. Since I learned to read I register everything that is supernatural in paper. These are memories of a singular kind.”
-o-
“I was traveling around France in February 1846. When I got to a rich and large city I strolled around its abundant and beautiful stores. I started raining; I took shelter in an elegant gallery; I suddenly became static; my eyes could not move away from a young lady that stood alone behind a jewelry show window. She was very beautiful but it was not her beauty that attracted me; I don’t know the mysterious interest, the inexplicable bond that dominated and attached my whole being to her. It was a sudden and profound sympathy, beyond any sensual connotation but of an irresistible power, like the unknown in everything. I was mechanically pushed towards the store by a supernatural force. I bought a few little objects and paid saying:
-Thank you Ms. Sara. The young lady looked at me a little bit surprised.
-You are surprised that I know your name, one of your names; but if you want to think about your names I can tell you all of them, without hesitation. Will you do that?
-Yes, Sir, she replied kind of smiley and shaken.
-Well then, I said, and staring at her I said you are Sara, Adèle, and Benjamine N…
- It is right, she said, and after a few seconds of astonishment she laughed out loud and I knew that she thought I might have gotten the information in the neighborhood, and I enjoyed that. But since I knew that it was not reality I was shocked by the instantaneous guess.
On the next and following days I returned to the shop. My guess work renovated every time. I asked her to think about something and almost immediately I read the quiet thought in her mind. I asked her to write a few words with a pencil and hide from me and I would write the words in the same order that she did. I read her mind like an open book but she did not read mine and that gave me the upper hand but she would impose her ideas and emotions. If she seriously thought about an object; if she repeated the words of a text to herself I suddenly guessed everything right. The mystery was between her brain and mine and not between the faculties of intuition and material things. In any case an intimate and pure relationship had been established between us.
One evening I heard a voice shouting to me: Sara is sick, very sick! I went promptly to her house; a doctor was taking care of her, waiting for a crisis. On the eve of that night Sara had returned home with a scorching fever; her delirious state remained the whole night. The doctor called me on the side and said that he was really concerned. From that room I saw Sara’s face and with my intuition overcoming the anxiety I whispered: Doctor, do you want to know what is she thinking about in her feverish sleep? Right now she believes to be in the great opera of Paris where she has never been and a dancer chops a piece of hemlock among other weeds and throw it on her saying: It is for you. The doctor thought I was crazy. A few minutes later the patient woke up with difficulty and her initial words were: Oh the opera is so nice! But why this hemlock thrown by that nymph? The doctor was astonished. Sara was treated for hemlock poison and was healed in a few days.”
-o-
The examples of telepathy are very frequent but perhaps not in such a characteristic way as in the fact above but in other forms. How many phenomena are daily presented to our eyes like conducting wires of the spiritual life and to which, however, science does not give any attention!
Not all of those that repeal it are materialistic; many admit a spiritual life but without a direct relationship with the organic life. The day in which those relationships are recognized as a physiological law an immense progress will be realized because it is only science that will have the key to a number of effects that are apparently mysterious and that it prefers to deny for not having the power of explanation with the means limited to the laws of brute matter.
Intimate relationship between the spiritual and organic life; destruction of organic life and persistence of the spiritual life after death; action of the spiritual fluid upon the body; incessant reaction of the invisible world upon the visible world and vice versa, such is the law that Spiritism comes to demonstrate and that opens up completely new horizons to science and mankind.
Which purely material law of physiology could explain phenomena of the kind referred above? In order to have Dr. Deschamps reading so clearly the thoughts of the lady there would be the need of an intermediary between both, some kind of link. After giving some thought to the article above one will recognize that such link is nothing more than the fluidic radiation that gives the spiritual sight that is not blocked by material bodies.
It is a known fact that the Spirits do not need the spoken language. They understand one another without the use of words, just by the transmission of their thoughts that is the universal language. The same sometimes happens among people because they are incarnate Spirits and for that reason enjoy in a greater or lesser degree the attributes and faculties of the Spirit.
But in that case why the young lady did not read Mr. Deschamp’s mind? Because spiritual sight was developed in one but not in the other. Does it follow that he could see everything, read on the spiritual mirrors, for example, or see from a distance like the somnambulistic? No because his faculty was developed in a special and partial way. Could he equally read everybody’s mind in the same way? He does not say so but it is unlikely because there could be fluidic relationships that facilitate such transmission of thoughts from individual to individual and the same does not exist with respect to another person. We still do know but imperfectly the properties of that universal fluid, a so powerful agent that exerts important role in the phenomena of nature. We know the principle and that is already a lot for us to understand a number of things; the details will come when time is right.
Having the above event communicated to the Parisian Society, a Spirit gave the following instruction:
Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, July 8th 1864
Medium Mr. A. Didier
The ignorant – and there are many – become uneasy and full of doubts when they hear about the Spiritist phenomena. According to them the world is lost, the intimacy of the heart, feelings and the virginity of thoughts are all thrown out there and given away to the first that shows up. In fact, the world would change dramatically and private life would be threatened behind the each one’s personality if everybody were able to read each other’s minds. An ignorant person naively says: however justice, police persecutions, commercial operations, government trades, everything could be significantly revised, corrected, clarified, etc. with the support of such processes. Let us make no mistake. Ignorance has the particularity of completely forgetting the objective of things, throwing the simple mind into a series of contradictions. Jesus was right when said: My kingdom is not of this world – which also means that in this world things are not like in his kingdom. Spiritism, absolutely the spiritualism of Christianity, can equally tell the ambitious and terrorizing ignorance that its objective is not that of providing someone with mountains of gold; of allowing the weak to be dominated by the strong mind, joining weakness and strength in an eternally unavoidable and imminent struggle. No. The satisfactions produced by Spiritism are those of calmness, hope and faith. If it sometimes warns through presentiments, visions in the vigil or sleep state it is for the fact that the Spirits know perfectly well that a charitable and private fact will not transform the surface of the planet. Besides, if we observe the march of the phenomena evil has a minimal contribution there. Dismal science seems to be renegaded to the papyrus of the old alchemists and if Cagliostro returned he certainly wouldn’t come back with the magic wand or the enchanted flask but with his electric power, his flamboyant, spiritualist and somnambustic power that every superior being has and that simultaneously touches brain and heart. Foretelling was the greatest gift of Jesus as I said (the Spirit refers to another communication). Destined to become superiors as Spirits let us ask God for a portion of the enlightenment given to certain privileged beings like myself and that I should have spread out more humbly.
Mesmer
Observation: There isn’t a single God given faculty that cannot be abused by man due to the free-will. It is not the faculty that is bad on its own but the use that is given to that. If people were good none of those would be reason for fear because nobody would use them badly. Given the current state of inferiority of people on Earth if they were allowed to penetrate each other’s mind that would be undoubtedly dangerous since there is a lot to hide and many could abuse. But letting aside the inconveniences if that exist it is a fact that must be accepted in one way or another since one cannot suppress a natural phenomenon. But God that is sovereignly good measures the extension of that faculty by our weakness. God shows that to us from time to time to help us better understand our spiritual essence and warn us to work our betterment to have no fear of that.
-Thank you Ms. Sara. The young lady looked at me a little bit surprised.
-You are surprised that I know your name, one of your names; but if you want to think about your names I can tell you all of them, without hesitation. Will you do that?
-Yes, Sir, she replied kind of smiley and shaken.
-Well then, I said, and staring at her I said you are Sara, Adèle, and Benjamine N…
- It is right, she said, and after a few seconds of astonishment she laughed out loud and I knew that she thought I might have gotten the information in the neighborhood, and I enjoyed that. But since I knew that it was not reality I was shocked by the instantaneous guess.
On the next and following days I returned to the shop. My guess work renovated every time. I asked her to think about something and almost immediately I read the quiet thought in her mind. I asked her to write a few words with a pencil and hide from me and I would write the words in the same order that she did. I read her mind like an open book but she did not read mine and that gave me the upper hand but she would impose her ideas and emotions. If she seriously thought about an object; if she repeated the words of a text to herself I suddenly guessed everything right. The mystery was between her brain and mine and not between the faculties of intuition and material things. In any case an intimate and pure relationship had been established between us.
One evening I heard a voice shouting to me: Sara is sick, very sick! I went promptly to her house; a doctor was taking care of her, waiting for a crisis. On the eve of that night Sara had returned home with a scorching fever; her delirious state remained the whole night. The doctor called me on the side and said that he was really concerned. From that room I saw Sara’s face and with my intuition overcoming the anxiety I whispered: Doctor, do you want to know what is she thinking about in her feverish sleep? Right now she believes to be in the great opera of Paris where she has never been and a dancer chops a piece of hemlock among other weeds and throw it on her saying: It is for you. The doctor thought I was crazy. A few minutes later the patient woke up with difficulty and her initial words were: Oh the opera is so nice! But why this hemlock thrown by that nymph? The doctor was astonished. Sara was treated for hemlock poison and was healed in a few days.”
-o-
The examples of telepathy are very frequent but perhaps not in such a characteristic way as in the fact above but in other forms. How many phenomena are daily presented to our eyes like conducting wires of the spiritual life and to which, however, science does not give any attention!
Not all of those that repeal it are materialistic; many admit a spiritual life but without a direct relationship with the organic life. The day in which those relationships are recognized as a physiological law an immense progress will be realized because it is only science that will have the key to a number of effects that are apparently mysterious and that it prefers to deny for not having the power of explanation with the means limited to the laws of brute matter.
Intimate relationship between the spiritual and organic life; destruction of organic life and persistence of the spiritual life after death; action of the spiritual fluid upon the body; incessant reaction of the invisible world upon the visible world and vice versa, such is the law that Spiritism comes to demonstrate and that opens up completely new horizons to science and mankind.
Which purely material law of physiology could explain phenomena of the kind referred above? In order to have Dr. Deschamps reading so clearly the thoughts of the lady there would be the need of an intermediary between both, some kind of link. After giving some thought to the article above one will recognize that such link is nothing more than the fluidic radiation that gives the spiritual sight that is not blocked by material bodies.
It is a known fact that the Spirits do not need the spoken language. They understand one another without the use of words, just by the transmission of their thoughts that is the universal language. The same sometimes happens among people because they are incarnate Spirits and for that reason enjoy in a greater or lesser degree the attributes and faculties of the Spirit.
But in that case why the young lady did not read Mr. Deschamp’s mind? Because spiritual sight was developed in one but not in the other. Does it follow that he could see everything, read on the spiritual mirrors, for example, or see from a distance like the somnambulistic? No because his faculty was developed in a special and partial way. Could he equally read everybody’s mind in the same way? He does not say so but it is unlikely because there could be fluidic relationships that facilitate such transmission of thoughts from individual to individual and the same does not exist with respect to another person. We still do know but imperfectly the properties of that universal fluid, a so powerful agent that exerts important role in the phenomena of nature. We know the principle and that is already a lot for us to understand a number of things; the details will come when time is right.
Having the above event communicated to the Parisian Society, a Spirit gave the following instruction:
Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, July 8th 1864
Medium Mr. A. Didier
The ignorant – and there are many – become uneasy and full of doubts when they hear about the Spiritist phenomena. According to them the world is lost, the intimacy of the heart, feelings and the virginity of thoughts are all thrown out there and given away to the first that shows up. In fact, the world would change dramatically and private life would be threatened behind the each one’s personality if everybody were able to read each other’s minds. An ignorant person naively says: however justice, police persecutions, commercial operations, government trades, everything could be significantly revised, corrected, clarified, etc. with the support of such processes. Let us make no mistake. Ignorance has the particularity of completely forgetting the objective of things, throwing the simple mind into a series of contradictions. Jesus was right when said: My kingdom is not of this world – which also means that in this world things are not like in his kingdom. Spiritism, absolutely the spiritualism of Christianity, can equally tell the ambitious and terrorizing ignorance that its objective is not that of providing someone with mountains of gold; of allowing the weak to be dominated by the strong mind, joining weakness and strength in an eternally unavoidable and imminent struggle. No. The satisfactions produced by Spiritism are those of calmness, hope and faith. If it sometimes warns through presentiments, visions in the vigil or sleep state it is for the fact that the Spirits know perfectly well that a charitable and private fact will not transform the surface of the planet. Besides, if we observe the march of the phenomena evil has a minimal contribution there. Dismal science seems to be renegaded to the papyrus of the old alchemists and if Cagliostro returned he certainly wouldn’t come back with the magic wand or the enchanted flask but with his electric power, his flamboyant, spiritualist and somnambustic power that every superior being has and that simultaneously touches brain and heart. Foretelling was the greatest gift of Jesus as I said (the Spirit refers to another communication). Destined to become superiors as Spirits let us ask God for a portion of the enlightenment given to certain privileged beings like myself and that I should have spread out more humbly.
Mesmer
Observation: There isn’t a single God given faculty that cannot be abused by man due to the free-will. It is not the faculty that is bad on its own but the use that is given to that. If people were good none of those would be reason for fear because nobody would use them badly. Given the current state of inferiority of people on Earth if they were allowed to penetrate each other’s mind that would be undoubtedly dangerous since there is a lot to hide and many could abuse. But letting aside the inconveniences if that exist it is a fact that must be accepted in one way or another since one cannot suppress a natural phenomenon. But God that is sovereignly good measures the extension of that faculty by our weakness. God shows that to us from time to time to help us better understand our spiritual essence and warn us to work our betterment to have no fear of that.
Following renovated requests from our Spiritist brothers in Brussels and Anvers we paid them a short visit this year and we are pleased to say that we bring the most favorable impression about the development of the Doctrine in that country. We found there a larger than expected number of sincere, devoted and enlightened followers. The warm welcome received in both cities is a memory that will never fade away and we take the moments spent there into the account of the most satisfactory to us. Since we cannot send our thanks to each one in particular we ask for their kindness and accepting them collectively here.
On returning to Paris we found a message from the members of the Spiritist Society of Brussels that touched us profoundly. We will keep and treasure it as a testimony of their sympathy but we count on their understanding for the reasons that preclude us from publishing it in the Spiritist Review. There is, however, a passage in that message that we found to be our duty to bring to the attention of our readers because that fact that does reveal tells us more than lengthy theses about the way certain persons understand Spiritism. Here it is: “To celebrate you trip to Belgium our group decided to sponsor a bed at the St. Josse Tennoode Children’s facility.”
Nothing could be more flattering to us than that kind of testimony. By considering us worth of the foundation of a charitable work in memory of our visitation is a greater demonstration of esteem than the glossiest receptions that can flatter self-love and benefit nobody, not leaving any useful trace.
Anvers is distinguished by a larger number of followers and groups. But there, like in Brussels, and as a matter of fact everywhere, those that attend the kind of official and regulated gatherings are minority. The social relationships and the opinions issued in the conversations demonstrate that the sympathy towards the Doctrine goes beyond the groups per se. If on one hand not everyone is Spiritist there on the other there is no systematic opposition. People talk about it as a very natural thing and do not laugh about it. Since the followers are engaged in high trade our arrival was the novelty in the stock market and was the motive of conversation, with no more importance than the arrival of a cargo ship. Several groups are formed by a limited number of members and are named by a special and characteristic title; hence one is called Fraternity, the other Love and Charity, etc. We must add that such titles are not prosaic denominations to them but flagships that they endure to justify. The group Love and Charity for example has the special objective of material charity not diminishing the importance of the instructions of the Spirits that in a certain ways constitute a parallel activity. Their organization is very simple and leads to excellent results. One of the members has the title “alms giver” that corresponds perfectly well to his activity of delivering help to the homes and the Spirits frequently indicate names and addresses of persons in need. The expression “alms giver” then returned to its primitive significance from which it had moved away. This group has an exceptional medium of typtology that we consider worth of a special article.
We only want to indicate here the excellent elements that allow us to have great expectations with respect to Spiritism in that country where it sowed roots not long ago but that does not mean that there as elsewhere there wasn’t unavoidable perplexities and mistakes when it comes to the establishment of a new idea. It is impossible that at the start of a new Doctrine, in particular with the importance of Spiritism, all of those that declare allegiance understand its reach, seriousness and consequences. One must then expect deviations of route by persons that only see the surface and feeds personal ambitions, for those to whom it is more a means than a truthful belief, not to mention the persons that wear all kinds of masks to sneak in to serve the interest of adversaries and in the same way that the outfit does not make the monk the name of Spiritist does not make the true Spiritist. Sooner or later these frustrated Spiritists whose pride is always there will cause painful disruptions and create obstacles that are overcome with perseverance and firmness.
The homogeneity, the communion of ideas and feelings are the necessary conditions to the stability and vitality of the Spiritist groups as they are to any other group. All efforts must be driven towards that and the smaller the groups the easier it is to attain it. In the large gatherings it is difficult to avoid the influence of outsiders that sooner or later will sow separation; in the small groups in which everybody knows and appreciates one another it is like family, there is more reverence and the intrusion of the ill-minded is more difficult. The diversity of elements that constitute the large gatherings therefore makes them more vulnerable to the quiet attack of the adversaries.
In a given city it would be better to have a hundred groups of ten to twenty followers in which none wants the supremacy than one unique group that congregates everybody. Such partition will in no way harm the unity of principles taking into account that the flag is the same and all march towards the same objective. This must have been perfectly understood by our brothers from Anvers and Brussels. In short our trip to Brussels was fertile in teachings and in the interest of Spiritism by the documents that we collected and that we will make public to the benefit of everybody when the time is right.
Let us not forget one of the most honorable mentions to the Spiritist group of Douai that we visited in passing and in particular the testimony of gratitude by their warm reception to us. It is a familiar Spiritist group where the Evangelical Spiritist Doctrine is practice in its whole purity. They enjoy the most perfect harmony, reciprocal benevolence, charity of thoughts, words and actions; they breathe in an atmosphere of patriarchal fraternity, exempt of harmful fluids, in which the good Spirits must feel as pleased as incarnate persons do. The communications there are also a reflex of that sympathetic environment. The fact that they have never been disturbed by dissensions and difficulties that others had to endure is due to their homogeneity and to the scrupulous care taken in the admissions. All of those that attend that group are heartful Spiritists and none tries to have their personality prevailing. The mediums there are relatively in a large number; all of them consider themselves simple instruments of the Providence; they do not have pride or person pretensions and without feeling hurt humbly submit themselves to the analysis of the communications that they receive, ready to have them destroyed if considered unfit.
A charming poem was received in our intention after our departure. We thank the Spirit that dictated it and to the interpreter. We keep it as precious memory but these are the kind of documents that we cannot publish and that we only accept as a means of encouragement.
We are pleased to say that this group is not the only one in such favorable conditions and we were able to attest that the truly serious gatherings where everyone tries to better oneself, from which curiosity was banned, the only ones that diverse the qualification of Spiritists, these multiply daily. They offer on a lesser or greater scale a pale image of what there could become of society when a well understood and generalized Spiritism forms the bases of mutual relationships. Then nobody will have anything to fear from anyone. Charity will make peace and justice reign among them. Such is the result of the transformation that takes place and whose effects the future generation will begin to feel.
On returning to Paris we found a message from the members of the Spiritist Society of Brussels that touched us profoundly. We will keep and treasure it as a testimony of their sympathy but we count on their understanding for the reasons that preclude us from publishing it in the Spiritist Review. There is, however, a passage in that message that we found to be our duty to bring to the attention of our readers because that fact that does reveal tells us more than lengthy theses about the way certain persons understand Spiritism. Here it is: “To celebrate you trip to Belgium our group decided to sponsor a bed at the St. Josse Tennoode Children’s facility.”
Nothing could be more flattering to us than that kind of testimony. By considering us worth of the foundation of a charitable work in memory of our visitation is a greater demonstration of esteem than the glossiest receptions that can flatter self-love and benefit nobody, not leaving any useful trace.
Anvers is distinguished by a larger number of followers and groups. But there, like in Brussels, and as a matter of fact everywhere, those that attend the kind of official and regulated gatherings are minority. The social relationships and the opinions issued in the conversations demonstrate that the sympathy towards the Doctrine goes beyond the groups per se. If on one hand not everyone is Spiritist there on the other there is no systematic opposition. People talk about it as a very natural thing and do not laugh about it. Since the followers are engaged in high trade our arrival was the novelty in the stock market and was the motive of conversation, with no more importance than the arrival of a cargo ship. Several groups are formed by a limited number of members and are named by a special and characteristic title; hence one is called Fraternity, the other Love and Charity, etc. We must add that such titles are not prosaic denominations to them but flagships that they endure to justify. The group Love and Charity for example has the special objective of material charity not diminishing the importance of the instructions of the Spirits that in a certain ways constitute a parallel activity. Their organization is very simple and leads to excellent results. One of the members has the title “alms giver” that corresponds perfectly well to his activity of delivering help to the homes and the Spirits frequently indicate names and addresses of persons in need. The expression “alms giver” then returned to its primitive significance from which it had moved away. This group has an exceptional medium of typtology that we consider worth of a special article.
We only want to indicate here the excellent elements that allow us to have great expectations with respect to Spiritism in that country where it sowed roots not long ago but that does not mean that there as elsewhere there wasn’t unavoidable perplexities and mistakes when it comes to the establishment of a new idea. It is impossible that at the start of a new Doctrine, in particular with the importance of Spiritism, all of those that declare allegiance understand its reach, seriousness and consequences. One must then expect deviations of route by persons that only see the surface and feeds personal ambitions, for those to whom it is more a means than a truthful belief, not to mention the persons that wear all kinds of masks to sneak in to serve the interest of adversaries and in the same way that the outfit does not make the monk the name of Spiritist does not make the true Spiritist. Sooner or later these frustrated Spiritists whose pride is always there will cause painful disruptions and create obstacles that are overcome with perseverance and firmness.
The homogeneity, the communion of ideas and feelings are the necessary conditions to the stability and vitality of the Spiritist groups as they are to any other group. All efforts must be driven towards that and the smaller the groups the easier it is to attain it. In the large gatherings it is difficult to avoid the influence of outsiders that sooner or later will sow separation; in the small groups in which everybody knows and appreciates one another it is like family, there is more reverence and the intrusion of the ill-minded is more difficult. The diversity of elements that constitute the large gatherings therefore makes them more vulnerable to the quiet attack of the adversaries.
In a given city it would be better to have a hundred groups of ten to twenty followers in which none wants the supremacy than one unique group that congregates everybody. Such partition will in no way harm the unity of principles taking into account that the flag is the same and all march towards the same objective. This must have been perfectly understood by our brothers from Anvers and Brussels. In short our trip to Brussels was fertile in teachings and in the interest of Spiritism by the documents that we collected and that we will make public to the benefit of everybody when the time is right.
Let us not forget one of the most honorable mentions to the Spiritist group of Douai that we visited in passing and in particular the testimony of gratitude by their warm reception to us. It is a familiar Spiritist group where the Evangelical Spiritist Doctrine is practice in its whole purity. They enjoy the most perfect harmony, reciprocal benevolence, charity of thoughts, words and actions; they breathe in an atmosphere of patriarchal fraternity, exempt of harmful fluids, in which the good Spirits must feel as pleased as incarnate persons do. The communications there are also a reflex of that sympathetic environment. The fact that they have never been disturbed by dissensions and difficulties that others had to endure is due to their homogeneity and to the scrupulous care taken in the admissions. All of those that attend that group are heartful Spiritists and none tries to have their personality prevailing. The mediums there are relatively in a large number; all of them consider themselves simple instruments of the Providence; they do not have pride or person pretensions and without feeling hurt humbly submit themselves to the analysis of the communications that they receive, ready to have them destroyed if considered unfit.
A charming poem was received in our intention after our departure. We thank the Spirit that dictated it and to the interpreter. We keep it as precious memory but these are the kind of documents that we cannot publish and that we only accept as a means of encouragement.
We are pleased to say that this group is not the only one in such favorable conditions and we were able to attest that the truly serious gatherings where everyone tries to better oneself, from which curiosity was banned, the only ones that diverse the qualification of Spiritists, these multiply daily. They offer on a lesser or greater scale a pale image of what there could become of society when a well understood and generalized Spiritism forms the bases of mutual relationships. Then nobody will have anything to fear from anyone. Charity will make peace and justice reign among them. Such is the result of the transformation that takes place and whose effects the future generation will begin to feel.
We said that in one of the Spiritist groups in Antwerp has a typtology medium of a special faculty. Here is what it consists of:
The indication of the letters of the alphabet is done through knocks with the foot of the little table but with a speed that is almost like handwriting so much so that those that transcribe it sometimes have difficulty to follow. The knocks succeed like those of the telegraph in action. We saw it doing an essay of twenty lines in less than fifteen minutes. But what is really impressive is that the Spirit almost always dictates that in reverse order, starting from the last letter. Through the same process the medium receives answers to mental questions and in foreign languages. That medium is also a writing medium and in this case he equally writes in reverse order with the same easiness. The first time that the phenomenon was produced the attendees of the meeting did not find sense in the words and thought it was a kind of mystification and it was only after a careful observation that they realized the system utilized by the Spirit. It is no doubt a fantasy of that Spirit but since all of his communications are very serious one must conclude that there must be a serious intention behind that.
Irrespectively of the speed with which the knocks occur the mode by which it happens still abbreviates a lot the operation. They employ a little table with three feet; the alphabet is divided in three series, the first from a to h, the second from i to p and the third from q to z. Each foot of the little table corresponds to a series of letters and knocks the number of times needed to designate the necessary letter, starting from the first letter of the series so that to indicate the letter t, for example, instead of knocking 20 times it only knocks 4 times for that series. Three person seat around the table, one for each foot, indicating the letter that was selected for her own series or alphabet and not paying attention to the other series. Several persons write the letters as they are indicated so that they can control it in case of mistakes. The habit of reading in reverse order frequently help them to guess the whole word or a whole phrase that was initiated as it is done in a normal process. The Spirit confirms if applicable and moves on.
Such division of letters, together with the cooperation among three persons that cannot understand each other and the speed of movement and the reverse order of the letters make fraud something virtually impossible, as much as the reproduction of individual thoughts.
The word reproduction will then be written like this: noitcudorper spelled by three different persons in a few seconds as: n o by the second, t by the third, c by the first, u by the third, d by the first, o by the second, r by the third, p by the second, e by the first and r by the third.
From all of the devices ever imagined to attest the independence of the medium’s mind none is compared to this process. It is true that for that it is necessary the influence of a special medium because the two persons that assist him do not influence the speed of the movement.
This process definitely has no real utility other than help in the belief of certain persons and as a confirmation of a remarkable mediumistic phenomenon because nothing can replace the speed of written communications.
The indication of the letters of the alphabet is done through knocks with the foot of the little table but with a speed that is almost like handwriting so much so that those that transcribe it sometimes have difficulty to follow. The knocks succeed like those of the telegraph in action. We saw it doing an essay of twenty lines in less than fifteen minutes. But what is really impressive is that the Spirit almost always dictates that in reverse order, starting from the last letter. Through the same process the medium receives answers to mental questions and in foreign languages. That medium is also a writing medium and in this case he equally writes in reverse order with the same easiness. The first time that the phenomenon was produced the attendees of the meeting did not find sense in the words and thought it was a kind of mystification and it was only after a careful observation that they realized the system utilized by the Spirit. It is no doubt a fantasy of that Spirit but since all of his communications are very serious one must conclude that there must be a serious intention behind that.
Irrespectively of the speed with which the knocks occur the mode by which it happens still abbreviates a lot the operation. They employ a little table with three feet; the alphabet is divided in three series, the first from a to h, the second from i to p and the third from q to z. Each foot of the little table corresponds to a series of letters and knocks the number of times needed to designate the necessary letter, starting from the first letter of the series so that to indicate the letter t, for example, instead of knocking 20 times it only knocks 4 times for that series. Three person seat around the table, one for each foot, indicating the letter that was selected for her own series or alphabet and not paying attention to the other series. Several persons write the letters as they are indicated so that they can control it in case of mistakes. The habit of reading in reverse order frequently help them to guess the whole word or a whole phrase that was initiated as it is done in a normal process. The Spirit confirms if applicable and moves on.
Such division of letters, together with the cooperation among three persons that cannot understand each other and the speed of movement and the reverse order of the letters make fraud something virtually impossible, as much as the reproduction of individual thoughts.
The word reproduction will then be written like this: noitcudorper spelled by three different persons in a few seconds as: n o by the second, t by the third, c by the first, u by the third, d by the first, o by the second, r by the third, p by the second, e by the first and r by the third.
From all of the devices ever imagined to attest the independence of the medium’s mind none is compared to this process. It is true that for that it is necessary the influence of a special medium because the two persons that assist him do not influence the speed of the movement.
This process definitely has no real utility other than help in the belief of certain persons and as a confirmation of a remarkable mediumistic phenomenon because nothing can replace the speed of written communications.
During our visit with the Spiritists of Brussels the following fact took place in our presence in a private meeting of seven or eight persons on September 13th:
A lady medium was requested to write but without any evocation in particular. She begins to write large characters with an extraordinary agitation, and after having violently scribbled on the paper she writes these words: “I regret, I regret. Latour.”
Surprised by these unexpected and unprovoked words and by the fact that nobody knew the miserable person or heard about his death, a few words of consolation and encouragement were addressed to him. He was then asked this:
A lady medium was requested to write but without any evocation in particular. She begins to write large characters with an extraordinary agitation, and after having violently scribbled on the paper she writes these words: “I regret, I regret. Latour.”
Surprised by these unexpected and unprovoked words and by the fact that nobody knew the miserable person or heard about his death, a few words of consolation and encouragement were addressed to him. He was then asked this:
- What was the reason that made you come here and not elsewhere to communicate since we did not call you?
- I saw that you were good souls and that you would have pity on me whereas others instead evoke me more out of curiosity than true charity or move away from me in horror.
The medium that is also a speaking medium responded out loud:
Then an indescribable scene began that lasted about half an hour. The medium added gestures and expressions of the face to his words, making it clear that the Spirit had identified with him; the tone of despair are sometimes so devastating, he paints his anguishes and sufferings so vividly, his supplications are so strong that all of those around become profoundly touched.
Some were even terrified by the super excitation of the medium but we thought that a Spirit that is regretful and that implores pity cannot offer any danger. It he borrowed the organs of the medium was to paint his situation and provoke more interest to his fate, but not like the obsessing and possessing Spirits that aim at taking the mediums over. That was undoubtedly allowed to him for his own benefit and perhaps for the instruction of those persons that were present.
Some were even terrified by the super excitation of the medium but we thought that a Spirit that is regretful and that implores pity cannot offer any danger. It he borrowed the organs of the medium was to paint his situation and provoke more interest to his fate, but not like the obsessing and possessing Spirits that aim at taking the mediums over. That was undoubtedly allowed to him for his own benefit and perhaps for the instruction of those persons that were present.
The Spirit says:
-“Oh yes, pity! I need pity because you don’t know what I suffer! No, you don’t know; you cannot understand… it is horrible! The guillotine! What is guillotine compared to what I suffer now? Nothing; an instant. This fire that consumes me is worse, it is a continuous torture, a nonstop, endless suffering… And my victims around me… they show me their injuries… their eyes follow me! They are here, right in front of me… I see them all… yes, all… I cannot avoid it! And this sea of blood? How about this gold stained by blood… Everything is always here, before my eyes… Do you feel the smell of blood? Blood, always blood… Look at these poor victims; they begged me but I hurt them mercilessly… I hurt them… blood intoxicates me! I believed that everything would be over after my death and for that reason I faced the ordeal; I defied God and denied him! I there I was, believing that I was annihilated forever and a terrifying awakening takes place; Oh yes, terrible… I was surrounded by cadavers, threatening creatures… I walk on blood… I thought I was dead but I am alive! I live to see all that again! To see incessantly… it is horrific, horrible! More horrifying than all ordeals of Earth! Oh if every person could know what there is beyond life! They would know the price of evilness; there would be no murderer, no criminal, no bad people! I wanted every assassin to be able to see what I see today and suffer today… Oh no more… It is too much to suffer what I suffer today!
I know very well that I deserved that, oh God, because I did not have pity on my victims. I threw their hands away when they reached out, begging for clemency. Yes, I was cruel; I killed them cowardly to take their gold… I was impious; I renegaded them; I said blasphemy against your sacred name… I wanted to get high because I wanted to persuade myself that you did not exist… Oh my God! I am a terrible criminal! Now I understand. Won’t you have pity on me? You are God, that is, mercy and goodness! You are Almighty! Pity on me, Lord! Oh pity! Pity! I beg you not to be inflexible; free me from this hateful vision, those horrible images… that blood… my victims, their looks that trespass my heart like a dagger!
You that are here and hear me, you are good souls, charitable souls; yes, I see you, you will have pity on me, won’t you? Pray for me… Oh I beg you! Do not send me away. You will ask God to remove this horrible spectacle from my sight. He will listen to you because you are good… I beg you do not send me away like I did to the others… Pray for me!”
Touched by his lament the participants addressed him with words of consolation and encouragement. They said:
“God is not inflexible. What he expects from the guilty one is a true regret and the sincere wish to repair the harm that was done. Considering that your heart is not toughened and that you ask for forgiveness for your crimes God will cast his mercy upon you if you keep you good resolutions to repair the bad things you did. You undoubtedly cannot return the life that you subtracted from your victims but if you ask him with fervor God will allow you to meet them again in a new existence in which you will be able to demonstrate as much devotion as your cruelty to them. And when he sees that the reparation is sufficient you will find grace before him.
The duration of your punishment is therefore in your own hands; it is up to you to abbreviate it. We promise you to help with our prayers and request the help of the good Spirits to you. On your behalf we will say the prayer on contained in the Imitation of the Gospel for the suffering and regretful Spirits. We will not say the one for the bad Spirits because you regret, implores the mercy of God and renounces to the practice of evil and to our eyes you are an unhappy but not malevolent Spirit.”
The prayer was said and after a few moments of calmness the Spirit continued:
“Thank you my God! Oh thank you! You had pity of me. Those horrible images move away… Do not abandon me… Send me the good Spirits to help me out… Thank you!
After that and for some time the medium remained prostrated and abated; her limbs were fatigued. In the beginning he kept only a vague memory of what had just happened; then gradually remembers some words that were used and that he had used unwillingly. He felt that it was hot him that spoke.
The next day there is a new meeting and the Spirit communicates again and restarts the previous scene for a few minutes only with the same drama but less violent this time. He then writes through the same medium with a febrile agitation the following words: “Thank you for your prayers. I can feel a noticeable improvement. I prayed to God with such a fervor that he allowed my sufferings to be alleviated for a moment. But I will still see my victims… Here they are… Can you see the blood?”
The prayer of the previous gathering was repeated and the Spirit continues, addressing the medium: “I am sorry to bother you. Thank you for the relief that you brought to my sufferings. I beg for your forgiveness for the harm I caused you but I do need to communicate. It is only you that can… Thank you! Thank you! There has been some relief but my trial is not over. My victims will soon return. That is the punishment. I deserved that, my God but be indulgent. All of you, pray for me, have pity on me.”
Latour
Observation: Although we do not have material identity of the Spirit that communicated we don’t have reasons to doubt either. At any rate that is undoubtedly a very guilty Spirit but a regretful one, horribly unhappy and tortured by remorse. Under that point of view the communication is very instructive because we cannot ignore the profoundness and reach of certain words that it contains; besides it offers the view of punished Spirits however with the presentiment of God’s mercy. The mythological allegory of the Eumenides is not therefore so ridiculous as one might think and the demons, official executioners of the invisible world that replace them in modern beliefs, are less rational with their antlers and tridents than those victims, serving themselves to the punishment of the sinner.
Admitting the identity of this Spirit some perhaps will be surprised by the sudden change in his moral state. The fact is, like we noted on another occasion, that there are frequently more resources in a Spirit that is brutally bad than on another one that is dominated by pride or that hide his vices under the mantle of hypocrisy. The rapid return to better feelings indicates a nature that is more savage than perverse and that only lacked good direction. Comparing his language to another one cited in the July 1864 issue of the Spiritist Review with the title Punished by Light, it is easy to verify which one of the two is more advanced despite the difference in education and social position: one obeyed a natural instinct of ferocity, a kind of super excitation, while the other brought to the actions of crime a calm and cold blood of a slow and perseverant combination, and after his death he still faced punishment with pride; he suffers but does not wish to surrender. The other one is restrained immediately. One can therefore forecast which one will suffer the longest.
-“Oh yes, pity! I need pity because you don’t know what I suffer! No, you don’t know; you cannot understand… it is horrible! The guillotine! What is guillotine compared to what I suffer now? Nothing; an instant. This fire that consumes me is worse, it is a continuous torture, a nonstop, endless suffering… And my victims around me… they show me their injuries… their eyes follow me! They are here, right in front of me… I see them all… yes, all… I cannot avoid it! And this sea of blood? How about this gold stained by blood… Everything is always here, before my eyes… Do you feel the smell of blood? Blood, always blood… Look at these poor victims; they begged me but I hurt them mercilessly… I hurt them… blood intoxicates me! I believed that everything would be over after my death and for that reason I faced the ordeal; I defied God and denied him! I there I was, believing that I was annihilated forever and a terrifying awakening takes place; Oh yes, terrible… I was surrounded by cadavers, threatening creatures… I walk on blood… I thought I was dead but I am alive! I live to see all that again! To see incessantly… it is horrific, horrible! More horrifying than all ordeals of Earth! Oh if every person could know what there is beyond life! They would know the price of evilness; there would be no murderer, no criminal, no bad people! I wanted every assassin to be able to see what I see today and suffer today… Oh no more… It is too much to suffer what I suffer today!
I know very well that I deserved that, oh God, because I did not have pity on my victims. I threw their hands away when they reached out, begging for clemency. Yes, I was cruel; I killed them cowardly to take their gold… I was impious; I renegaded them; I said blasphemy against your sacred name… I wanted to get high because I wanted to persuade myself that you did not exist… Oh my God! I am a terrible criminal! Now I understand. Won’t you have pity on me? You are God, that is, mercy and goodness! You are Almighty! Pity on me, Lord! Oh pity! Pity! I beg you not to be inflexible; free me from this hateful vision, those horrible images… that blood… my victims, their looks that trespass my heart like a dagger!
You that are here and hear me, you are good souls, charitable souls; yes, I see you, you will have pity on me, won’t you? Pray for me… Oh I beg you! Do not send me away. You will ask God to remove this horrible spectacle from my sight. He will listen to you because you are good… I beg you do not send me away like I did to the others… Pray for me!”
Touched by his lament the participants addressed him with words of consolation and encouragement. They said:
“God is not inflexible. What he expects from the guilty one is a true regret and the sincere wish to repair the harm that was done. Considering that your heart is not toughened and that you ask for forgiveness for your crimes God will cast his mercy upon you if you keep you good resolutions to repair the bad things you did. You undoubtedly cannot return the life that you subtracted from your victims but if you ask him with fervor God will allow you to meet them again in a new existence in which you will be able to demonstrate as much devotion as your cruelty to them. And when he sees that the reparation is sufficient you will find grace before him.
The duration of your punishment is therefore in your own hands; it is up to you to abbreviate it. We promise you to help with our prayers and request the help of the good Spirits to you. On your behalf we will say the prayer on contained in the Imitation of the Gospel for the suffering and regretful Spirits. We will not say the one for the bad Spirits because you regret, implores the mercy of God and renounces to the practice of evil and to our eyes you are an unhappy but not malevolent Spirit.”
The prayer was said and after a few moments of calmness the Spirit continued:
“Thank you my God! Oh thank you! You had pity of me. Those horrible images move away… Do not abandon me… Send me the good Spirits to help me out… Thank you!
After that and for some time the medium remained prostrated and abated; her limbs were fatigued. In the beginning he kept only a vague memory of what had just happened; then gradually remembers some words that were used and that he had used unwillingly. He felt that it was hot him that spoke.
The next day there is a new meeting and the Spirit communicates again and restarts the previous scene for a few minutes only with the same drama but less violent this time. He then writes through the same medium with a febrile agitation the following words: “Thank you for your prayers. I can feel a noticeable improvement. I prayed to God with such a fervor that he allowed my sufferings to be alleviated for a moment. But I will still see my victims… Here they are… Can you see the blood?”
The prayer of the previous gathering was repeated and the Spirit continues, addressing the medium: “I am sorry to bother you. Thank you for the relief that you brought to my sufferings. I beg for your forgiveness for the harm I caused you but I do need to communicate. It is only you that can… Thank you! Thank you! There has been some relief but my trial is not over. My victims will soon return. That is the punishment. I deserved that, my God but be indulgent. All of you, pray for me, have pity on me.”
Latour
Observation: Although we do not have material identity of the Spirit that communicated we don’t have reasons to doubt either. At any rate that is undoubtedly a very guilty Spirit but a regretful one, horribly unhappy and tortured by remorse. Under that point of view the communication is very instructive because we cannot ignore the profoundness and reach of certain words that it contains; besides it offers the view of punished Spirits however with the presentiment of God’s mercy. The mythological allegory of the Eumenides is not therefore so ridiculous as one might think and the demons, official executioners of the invisible world that replace them in modern beliefs, are less rational with their antlers and tridents than those victims, serving themselves to the punishment of the sinner.
Admitting the identity of this Spirit some perhaps will be surprised by the sudden change in his moral state. The fact is, like we noted on another occasion, that there are frequently more resources in a Spirit that is brutally bad than on another one that is dominated by pride or that hide his vices under the mantle of hypocrisy. The rapid return to better feelings indicates a nature that is more savage than perverse and that only lacked good direction. Comparing his language to another one cited in the July 1864 issue of the Spiritist Review with the title Punished by Light, it is easy to verify which one of the two is more advanced despite the difference in education and social position: one obeyed a natural instinct of ferocity, a kind of super excitation, while the other brought to the actions of crime a calm and cold blood of a slow and perseverant combination, and after his death he still faced punishment with pride; he suffers but does not wish to surrender. The other one is restrained immediately. One can therefore forecast which one will suffer the longest.
Moral Studies
One can read in the Siècle from June 5th, 1864:
“A person from Berlin, Mr. X…, had a great fortune. His father, on the contrary, as a consequence of setbacks, had fallen into absolute poverty and was forced to reach out to the generosity of his son. The latter repealed violently the old man’s request that to avoid hunger had to appeal to the law. Mr. X… was condemned to provide the father with a food allowance. Mr. X… however had taken his precautions. Presenting that if he refused to pay he could have his resources investigated, he then took the decision to pass his fortune to a fatherly uncle. The miserable father then saw his last hope escaping. He protested that the transfer was fictitious and that his son had used that as a gimmick to avoid the execution of the sentence. But he would have to prove that; the old man, however, did not have the resources to cover for the costs of a process since he lacked the most basic things for survival.
An unforeseen event changed everything. The uncle died suddenly and without a will. Since he had no family the fortune was to be transferred to the closest relative that is his brother. The rest is self-explanatory. Today the roles are reversed. The father is rich the son is poor. What increases the son’s desperation is the fact that he cannot invoke fictitious transfer of resources because that is formally prohibited by law.”
-o-
One can say that it that were always the case with evil the justice of punishment would be better understood; since the guilty one knows why he is punished he would know what is it that needs to be corrected. The examples of immediate punishment are less uncommon than people may think. If we went back to the source of every vicissitude of life we would almost always find the natural conscience of a faulty action. Mankind receives terrible lessons all the time but unfortunately takes little advantage of that. Blinded by passion people do not see the hand of God poking them. Far from acknowledging culpability for one’s own misery they are attributed to fatality and bad luck; people are much more frequently irritated than regretful and we would not be surprised if the son that is mentioned above instead of recognizing his errors towards his father, instead of return to have better feelings towards him he wouldn’t have acted even with more animosity. Now, what is it that God expects from the guilty one? Regret and voluntary reparation.
To motivate mankind towards that God multiplies around them warnings of all kinds during their life; disgraces, deceptions, imminent dangers, in a word everything that proper to make them think. If, despite all that, their pride resists, isn’t that fair that later on they are punished? It is a serious mistake to believe that evil actions sometimes go completely unpunished in the present life. If we only knew everything that happens to a bad person, apparently the wealthiest one, we would be convinced of the truth that there isn’t a single fault in this life, a single bad inclination, and we say more, a single bad thought that does not meet its counterpart. If follows from that that if people took advantage of the warnings; if they regretted and repaired their faults still in this life that would have satisfied God’s justice and there wouldn’t be any more need to atone or repair be it in the spiritual world or in a new life. If there are, however, those that in this life suffer the consequences of their previous life it is because the still have to pay for a debt that has not been done yet. It the son in question dies in penitence he will, in principle, suffer in the world of the Spirits the punishment of remorse; he will suffer morally what he made suffer materially; he will be an unhappy soul because he would have breached the law that says: honor your father and your mother. But God that is simultaneously good and just will allow him to reincarnate to make amends; he will perhaps have the same father and in his goodness will spare him the memory of the past. The guilty person however will bring the intuition of the resolutions that were made and the will to do good instead of bad. It will be the voice of conscience that will dictate the behavior. Later on, when returning to the world of the Spirits God will say: come to me, my child, your faults are erased. But if he fails in this new trial he will have to restart until completely undressed from the old man.
Let us stop, therefore, seeing the miseries that we endure by faults of a previous life as an inexplicable mystery, and let us say that it depend on us to avoid them, deserving forgiveness already from this life. Once our debts are payed God will not make us pay for them again. But if we remain deaf to God’s warnings he will then demand the last cent even after centuries or thousands of years. To achieve that God does not request vain simulations but the true reformation of the heart. The dwelling of the elected ones is only open to purified Spirits. Any stain blocks entrance. It may be sought by all but each and every one must do what is necessary to get there, sooner or later, according to their own efforts and will. Yet God says to nobody: You will not purify yourself!
“A person from Berlin, Mr. X…, had a great fortune. His father, on the contrary, as a consequence of setbacks, had fallen into absolute poverty and was forced to reach out to the generosity of his son. The latter repealed violently the old man’s request that to avoid hunger had to appeal to the law. Mr. X… was condemned to provide the father with a food allowance. Mr. X… however had taken his precautions. Presenting that if he refused to pay he could have his resources investigated, he then took the decision to pass his fortune to a fatherly uncle. The miserable father then saw his last hope escaping. He protested that the transfer was fictitious and that his son had used that as a gimmick to avoid the execution of the sentence. But he would have to prove that; the old man, however, did not have the resources to cover for the costs of a process since he lacked the most basic things for survival.
An unforeseen event changed everything. The uncle died suddenly and without a will. Since he had no family the fortune was to be transferred to the closest relative that is his brother. The rest is self-explanatory. Today the roles are reversed. The father is rich the son is poor. What increases the son’s desperation is the fact that he cannot invoke fictitious transfer of resources because that is formally prohibited by law.”
-o-
One can say that it that were always the case with evil the justice of punishment would be better understood; since the guilty one knows why he is punished he would know what is it that needs to be corrected. The examples of immediate punishment are less uncommon than people may think. If we went back to the source of every vicissitude of life we would almost always find the natural conscience of a faulty action. Mankind receives terrible lessons all the time but unfortunately takes little advantage of that. Blinded by passion people do not see the hand of God poking them. Far from acknowledging culpability for one’s own misery they are attributed to fatality and bad luck; people are much more frequently irritated than regretful and we would not be surprised if the son that is mentioned above instead of recognizing his errors towards his father, instead of return to have better feelings towards him he wouldn’t have acted even with more animosity. Now, what is it that God expects from the guilty one? Regret and voluntary reparation.
To motivate mankind towards that God multiplies around them warnings of all kinds during their life; disgraces, deceptions, imminent dangers, in a word everything that proper to make them think. If, despite all that, their pride resists, isn’t that fair that later on they are punished? It is a serious mistake to believe that evil actions sometimes go completely unpunished in the present life. If we only knew everything that happens to a bad person, apparently the wealthiest one, we would be convinced of the truth that there isn’t a single fault in this life, a single bad inclination, and we say more, a single bad thought that does not meet its counterpart. If follows from that that if people took advantage of the warnings; if they regretted and repaired their faults still in this life that would have satisfied God’s justice and there wouldn’t be any more need to atone or repair be it in the spiritual world or in a new life. If there are, however, those that in this life suffer the consequences of their previous life it is because the still have to pay for a debt that has not been done yet. It the son in question dies in penitence he will, in principle, suffer in the world of the Spirits the punishment of remorse; he will suffer morally what he made suffer materially; he will be an unhappy soul because he would have breached the law that says: honor your father and your mother. But God that is simultaneously good and just will allow him to reincarnate to make amends; he will perhaps have the same father and in his goodness will spare him the memory of the past. The guilty person however will bring the intuition of the resolutions that were made and the will to do good instead of bad. It will be the voice of conscience that will dictate the behavior. Later on, when returning to the world of the Spirits God will say: come to me, my child, your faults are erased. But if he fails in this new trial he will have to restart until completely undressed from the old man.
Let us stop, therefore, seeing the miseries that we endure by faults of a previous life as an inexplicable mystery, and let us say that it depend on us to avoid them, deserving forgiveness already from this life. Once our debts are payed God will not make us pay for them again. But if we remain deaf to God’s warnings he will then demand the last cent even after centuries or thousands of years. To achieve that God does not request vain simulations but the true reformation of the heart. The dwelling of the elected ones is only open to purified Spirits. Any stain blocks entrance. It may be sought by all but each and every one must do what is necessary to get there, sooner or later, according to their own efforts and will. Yet God says to nobody: You will not purify yourself!
This was sent from Marseille:
“One of the most honorable businessmen of our city, Mr. X… that is admired by all, has just wounded the Vicar of Saint-Barnabé with a gun shot. Last Monday Mr. X… learned via an anonymous letter that his wife was having an affair with that priest. He was given the most intimate details that left no doubt about his misery. He got home and questioned his servers: the housemaid, the servant, the gardener, the coachman, etc. and all confessed what they knew. The affair was happening for fifteen months already. Mr. X… was a cause of mockery in the whole neighborhood and he was the only one that knew nothing. It was after that inquiry that he shot the priest (Siècle, June 7th, 1864).”
Who is more to blame in this sad case? Is it the woman, the husband or the priest? Was it the woman that deluded by devout sophisms probably considered herself forgiven by the quality of the accomplice, appeased by the hopes of an easy acquittal? Was it the husband that yielding to a moment of outrage could not control his rage? Or was it the vicar that in cold blood and premeditation violated his own vows, abused his character and deceived trust to cast disorder, despair and disunion upon an honorable family? Public consciousness issued their verdict. But beyond the material fact there are considerations of the highest importance.
A philosophy of elastic conscience could perhaps find an excuse in the fever of passions and just criticize the imprudent vows. Let us admit, if you will, not an excuse but an attenuating circumstance to the material eyes and it will not become less of an abuse of trust and of the ascendant that the guilty one had out of his position; the fascination that he exerted on his victim, under the cover of his sacred cloak. That is the fault, and that is the crime that if not punished by men’s justice it would be by that of God.
Now, fifteen months were more than enough to give him time for reflection and for him to go back to his senses and duties. What did he do in the meantime? Taught the youngsters the truths of religion; preached the virtues of Christ, the chastity of Mary, the eternity of penalties to the sinners; absolved or maintained other people’s faults according to his own judgment. And him, the refractory to God’s commandments that condemn what he did, he was the infallible provider of God’s mercy or punishment! Is it an isolated case? Ah history of all times is here unfortunately to demonstrate otherwise. We here make abstraction of the individual to only see the principle that gives rise to disbelief and quietly undermines the religious element.
The absolute power of the priest, they say, is independent of his moral behavior. Be it! We will not discuss this point although it seems strange that a man that deserves the flames of hell for his actions may open or close the door of paradise to whoever he decides when many times the excesses subtract from him the complete clarity. If the fear of the eternal penalties doesn’t stop those that teach God’s commandments from entering the path of evil and violation it means that they do not believe in them. The first condition to inspire trust is to preach by example.
“One of the most honorable businessmen of our city, Mr. X… that is admired by all, has just wounded the Vicar of Saint-Barnabé with a gun shot. Last Monday Mr. X… learned via an anonymous letter that his wife was having an affair with that priest. He was given the most intimate details that left no doubt about his misery. He got home and questioned his servers: the housemaid, the servant, the gardener, the coachman, etc. and all confessed what they knew. The affair was happening for fifteen months already. Mr. X… was a cause of mockery in the whole neighborhood and he was the only one that knew nothing. It was after that inquiry that he shot the priest (Siècle, June 7th, 1864).”
Who is more to blame in this sad case? Is it the woman, the husband or the priest? Was it the woman that deluded by devout sophisms probably considered herself forgiven by the quality of the accomplice, appeased by the hopes of an easy acquittal? Was it the husband that yielding to a moment of outrage could not control his rage? Or was it the vicar that in cold blood and premeditation violated his own vows, abused his character and deceived trust to cast disorder, despair and disunion upon an honorable family? Public consciousness issued their verdict. But beyond the material fact there are considerations of the highest importance.
A philosophy of elastic conscience could perhaps find an excuse in the fever of passions and just criticize the imprudent vows. Let us admit, if you will, not an excuse but an attenuating circumstance to the material eyes and it will not become less of an abuse of trust and of the ascendant that the guilty one had out of his position; the fascination that he exerted on his victim, under the cover of his sacred cloak. That is the fault, and that is the crime that if not punished by men’s justice it would be by that of God.
Now, fifteen months were more than enough to give him time for reflection and for him to go back to his senses and duties. What did he do in the meantime? Taught the youngsters the truths of religion; preached the virtues of Christ, the chastity of Mary, the eternity of penalties to the sinners; absolved or maintained other people’s faults according to his own judgment. And him, the refractory to God’s commandments that condemn what he did, he was the infallible provider of God’s mercy or punishment! Is it an isolated case? Ah history of all times is here unfortunately to demonstrate otherwise. We here make abstraction of the individual to only see the principle that gives rise to disbelief and quietly undermines the religious element.
The absolute power of the priest, they say, is independent of his moral behavior. Be it! We will not discuss this point although it seems strange that a man that deserves the flames of hell for his actions may open or close the door of paradise to whoever he decides when many times the excesses subtract from him the complete clarity. If the fear of the eternal penalties doesn’t stop those that teach God’s commandments from entering the path of evil and violation it means that they do not believe in them. The first condition to inspire trust is to preach by example.
The following article was published in several French and foreign newspapers:
“The Spiritists have just recruited new followers in Germany. A certain doctor from Zittau called Berthelen, author of a brochure about the turning tables, organized a society that is called: Association of the treasure hunters, whose objective is to excavate the soil in places where it is thought to have hidden treasuries buried. The company’s operations are led by a very lucid somnambulist, Mrs. Louise Ebermann, and began by daily excavations that take place at a determined time amidst a tobacco plantation in which there should be the amount of 400,000 thalers (1,500,000 francs). The society has only seven or eight members and up until now its operations are limited to say collective prayers and to remove, with certain ceremony, the earth removed from the grounds where they hope to find welcome treasures.”
-o-
It is really curious to see the enthusiasm of certain newspapers in reproducing everything that in their opinion may throw discredit onto Spiritism. The least event, happy or ridiculous, to which with or without reason is the word Spiritist connected it is immediately repeated everywhere with more or less ingenious variations with no concern with truth. The absurd, even the most unlikely ones, are accepted with a truly amusing seriousness. With the apparition of ghosts in the theaters everybody gladly repeats that Spirits has wrecked and that its most important ropes were finally unveiled. A charlatan, a mountebank, a fortuneteller considers to be appropriate to take over the name of Spiritist and the adversaries promptly point at them as representatives of the Doctrine. What was the result of all that? Propaganda of the name and from there the desire to get to know it; ridiculous to the mockery that boasts about what they do not know; hate fallen upon the calumniators and in consequence increase in the number of serious followers, the only ones to be counted among the Spiritists.
The article above belongs to the category that we have just mentioned. The author belies himself by saying that the searches are done with the support of a somnambulist of the most lucid. It is not then with the support of the Spirits. What is his basis when he says that it is a Spiritist association? He is based on the fact that the founder wrote a brochure about the turning tables. Can one conclude from that that he is a Spiritist? Not at all because at the time of the turning table we were still living the 101 of the science. As a matter of fact if he knew Spiritism he would know that the Spirits cannot favor any search of such a kind.
Since somnambulism began to be known it has been used in treasure hunting and up until now the only thing that was achieved was money spending with useless excavations, like it happened in the past with those that were looking for the philosophical stone. We predict the same fate to this new company!
When it was learned that the Spirits could communicate a first and very natural thought was that they could come to serve speculations of all kinds but it was soon realized that only mystifications were obtained with that respect. There was a cause for that and it was the Spirits themselves that revealed it. Therefore there isn’t a single enlightened Spirit today that waste any time with such chimeras for they all know that God does not give people similar means of enrichment and that for the same reason God does not allow the Spirits to give revelations of that kind.
Hence it is abusive that the author of the article placed the German association under the sponsorship of Spiritism. The Doctrine does not recruit its followers among those that are servants of ambition, greed and material interests but among those that see it as the needed support for their moral betterment.
For better instruction about it we refer the reader to the Mediums’ Book, chapter XXVI, Questions that may be addressed to the Spirits; #291, Questions about the material and moral interests; #294, Questions about inventions and discoveries and #295, Questions about hidden treasures.
“The Spiritists have just recruited new followers in Germany. A certain doctor from Zittau called Berthelen, author of a brochure about the turning tables, organized a society that is called: Association of the treasure hunters, whose objective is to excavate the soil in places where it is thought to have hidden treasuries buried. The company’s operations are led by a very lucid somnambulist, Mrs. Louise Ebermann, and began by daily excavations that take place at a determined time amidst a tobacco plantation in which there should be the amount of 400,000 thalers (1,500,000 francs). The society has only seven or eight members and up until now its operations are limited to say collective prayers and to remove, with certain ceremony, the earth removed from the grounds where they hope to find welcome treasures.”
-o-
It is really curious to see the enthusiasm of certain newspapers in reproducing everything that in their opinion may throw discredit onto Spiritism. The least event, happy or ridiculous, to which with or without reason is the word Spiritist connected it is immediately repeated everywhere with more or less ingenious variations with no concern with truth. The absurd, even the most unlikely ones, are accepted with a truly amusing seriousness. With the apparition of ghosts in the theaters everybody gladly repeats that Spirits has wrecked and that its most important ropes were finally unveiled. A charlatan, a mountebank, a fortuneteller considers to be appropriate to take over the name of Spiritist and the adversaries promptly point at them as representatives of the Doctrine. What was the result of all that? Propaganda of the name and from there the desire to get to know it; ridiculous to the mockery that boasts about what they do not know; hate fallen upon the calumniators and in consequence increase in the number of serious followers, the only ones to be counted among the Spiritists.
The article above belongs to the category that we have just mentioned. The author belies himself by saying that the searches are done with the support of a somnambulist of the most lucid. It is not then with the support of the Spirits. What is his basis when he says that it is a Spiritist association? He is based on the fact that the founder wrote a brochure about the turning tables. Can one conclude from that that he is a Spiritist? Not at all because at the time of the turning table we were still living the 101 of the science. As a matter of fact if he knew Spiritism he would know that the Spirits cannot favor any search of such a kind.
Since somnambulism began to be known it has been used in treasure hunting and up until now the only thing that was achieved was money spending with useless excavations, like it happened in the past with those that were looking for the philosophical stone. We predict the same fate to this new company!
When it was learned that the Spirits could communicate a first and very natural thought was that they could come to serve speculations of all kinds but it was soon realized that only mystifications were obtained with that respect. There was a cause for that and it was the Spirits themselves that revealed it. Therefore there isn’t a single enlightened Spirit today that waste any time with such chimeras for they all know that God does not give people similar means of enrichment and that for the same reason God does not allow the Spirits to give revelations of that kind.
Hence it is abusive that the author of the article placed the German association under the sponsorship of Spiritism. The Doctrine does not recruit its followers among those that are servants of ambition, greed and material interests but among those that see it as the needed support for their moral betterment.
For better instruction about it we refer the reader to the Mediums’ Book, chapter XXVI, Questions that may be addressed to the Spirits; #291, Questions about the material and moral interests; #294, Questions about inventions and discoveries and #295, Questions about hidden treasures.
During our staying in Antwerp we visited the exhibition of paintings where we saw truly remarkable works of national painters; there we saw with great pleasure two pieces of work from our colleague from the Parisian Society, Mr. Wintz, Rue de Clinchy, 63: the return of the cows and a moonshine. But what has particularly drawn our attention was a study mentioned in the flyer entitled “Scene of the country of Spiritist peasants.” Three individuals wearing flamenco costumes seating around a huge stump upon which they rest their hands with the attitude of those that make the table turn. Their attentive and concentrated looks indicates that they take the thing seriously. Other persons, men, women and children were diversely grouped, some looking in astonishment to the first movement of the huge body, others smiling with an air of skepticism. That painting that certainly has merit in the execution is originally true. With the exception of the Spiritist painting that was shown at Constantinople exhibition (see Spiritist Review, July 1863) it is the first time that Spiritism appears so clearly confessed in works of art. It is the beginning.
Allan Kardec
Allan Kardec
November
Speech given by Mr. Allan Kardec to the
Spiritists of Brussels and Antwerp in 1864
We published this speech by request of several persons that have mentioned to us their desire to preserve it and because it tends to have Spiritism seen from an aspect that is new in a certain way. The Spiritist Review of Antwerp reproduced it in its totality.
Ladies and gentlemen, dear Spiritist brothers and sisters,
I am pleased to give you this title although I do not have the advantage of knowing all the persons attending this meeting, but I want to believe that we are in family and all of us in communion of thoughts and feelings. Even admitting that not everyone is sympathetic to our ideas I would not take them less in the fraternal feeling that must animate the true Spiritists to all mankind, without distinction of opinion. However, it is to our brothers in faith that I address more specially to express to them my satisfaction to be among them and offer them the fraternal Spiritist salutation in the name of the Parisian Society.
I had already been given the proof that Spiritism counts on a large number of serious, devout and enlightened followers in this city, perfectly in sync with the moral and philosophical objective of the Doctrine; I knew I would find sympathetic hearts here and that was the determinant factor for me to correspond to the insistent and kind invitation addressed to me by several of you for a short visit this year. The warm and cordial welcome that I received allow me to take with me the most pleasant memory from the time I spent here.
I would certainly have the right to be proud of the reception that I have in the several centers that I visit if I did not know that such testimonies are much less to the man than to the Doctrine of which I am just a humble representative and must be considered like a profession of faith, an adherence to our principles. That is how I see them as far as I am concerned. As a matter of fact if the trips that I do from time to time only had the objective of personal satisfaction I would consider them useless and would abstain from traveling. However, added to the fact that they contribute to the strengthening of links of fraternity among followers they also have the advantage of providing me with material of observation and study that are never a waste to the Doctrine. Irrespective of the facts that may serve the progress of the science I collect material for the future history of Spiritism; authentic documents about the movement of the Spiritist idea; the more or less favorable elements that the Doctrine finds, according to the places; the strength or weakness and the maneuvers of the adversaries; the means of fighting the latter; the zeal and devotion of its true defenders. Among the latter one must place in the first line all of those that work for the cause with courage, perseverance, abnegation and selflessness, without any personal intention, that seek the triumph of the Doctrine by the Doctrine and not for the satisfaction of their personal self-love, and finally those that prove that the Spiritism moral is not vain by their example, struggling to justify this remarkable statement of a non-believer: “With such a Doctrine one cannot be Spiritist and not be a good person.”
There isn’t a Spiritist center in which I did not find a more or less large number of such pioneers of the cause, of those trail blazers of the terrain, those tireless fighters that sustained by a sincere and enlightened faith, by the conscience of a duty to carry out, do not get discouraged before any difficulty, looking at their devotion as a debt of recognition for the moral benefits received form Spiritism. Is it fair that those that honor the Doctrine have their names lost for our descendants and that they would not be one day inscribed in the Spiritist pantheon?
Unfortunately by their side sometimes there are the naughty boys of the cause, the impatient ones, those that can compromise it by not weighing the reach of their words and actions; those that by a thoughtless zeal, by inopportune and premature ideas unwillingly give ammunition to our adversaries. Then come the others that only consider Spiritism superficially, not being touched in their hearts, giving by their own example a false idea of its results and moral tendencies.
That is, without doubt, the biggest reef found by the sincere propagators of the Doctrine, for they many times see the work that they did being undone by those that should second them. It is a demonstrated fact that Spiritism is more harmed by those that have a limited knowledge of the Doctrine than by those that totally ignore it and even by the declared enemies. And it is noticeable that those that have limited knowledge generally have the pretension of understanding it more than those that acquired experience through serious studies. Such pretension, that reveals pride, is an evident proof of ignorance of the true principles of the Doctrine.
May the Spiritists not be discouraged since this results from a time of transition in which we live! The new ideas cannot be established suddenly and without hindrance. Since it is necessary to brush away the old ideas they forcibly find adversaries that fight against and repeal them and there are those that take those ideas upside down, that see them or want to accommodate them to their personal tastes. But there comes the time when the true principles are known an understood by the majority and the contradictory ideas fall by themselves. You saw what happened to the isolated systems that appeared at the origin of Spiritism. They all fell before a more rigorous observation of the facts, or only find a few followers that cling to their initial ideas not moving a single step forward. The unity was established in the Spiritist belief with much more speed than it was expected. The fact is that the Spirits came to confirm the true principles from all sides, so much so that today there is a predominant idea in the whole world and that if still does not count on an absolute unanimity it incontestably counts on the immense majority from which it follows that the one that wishes to march at the margin of that opinion, finding little or no support, is condemned to isolation. Experience is here to demonstrate that.
To remediate the inconvenient that I have just described, that is, to prevent the consequences of ignorance and false interpretations it is necessary to take care of the propagation of the correct ideas, of forming educated followers whose growing number will neutralize the influence of the wrong ideas.
My visit to the Spiritist center, naturally, have the main objective of helping the brothers in faith in their tasks. I therefore take the opportunity to give them the instructions that they may need as a theoretical development or practical explanation of the Doctrine as much as I can. The objective of such visits is serious and exclusively in the interest of the Doctrine hence I do not seek ovations that I do not particularly like and that are not in my character. My greatest satisfaction is to meet sincere and devout friends with whom we can understand one another without embarrassments and mutually enlighten one another through friendly discussions to which each one of us take their own observations.
In these journeys I do not preach to the nonbelievers and never summon the public to catechize them. In a word, I do not make propaganda. I only attend followers’ meetings in which my advices are sought and may be useful. I give those advices in good will to those that believe to need them and abstain from giving them to those that believe to be enlightened enough to neglect them.
If in such gatherings persons that are only attracted by curiosity exceptionally sneak in they would be disappointed for they would find nothing there that could satisfy them and if animated by a hostile and defamatory feeling the eminently moral, serious and sincere of the assembly and the subject matters discussed there would eliminate any plausible pretext to their malevolence. These are the thoughts that I bring to the many meetings that I am invited to attend so that there is no mistake about my intentions.
I said initially that I was only the representative of the Doctrine. Some explanations about its true character will certainly draw your attention to an essential point that up until now was not sufficiently discussed. Certainly by seeing the speed of progress of this Doctrine there would be more splendor if I said that I was its creator and my self-love would be rewarded there but I must not consider my contribution greater than it really is. Far from being sorry I congratulate myself for that because in such a case the Doctrine would only be an individual conception that could be more or less correct, more or less ingenious, but that for the same reason would lose its authority. It could have followers, perhaps make a school, like many others, but it would not certainly acquired the universal character that distinguishes it.
That is a point of paramount importance, ladies and gentlemen, and that must be proclaimed out loud. No, Spiritism is not an individual conception, the product of imagination; it is not a theory, a system invented for the need of a cause. Spiritism has its source in the facts of nature itself, in positive events that are produced before our eyes all the time but whose origin was not suspected. It is therefore the result of observation, in a word it is a science, the science of the relationships between the visible and the invisible worlds, a still imperfect science but that daily complements itself with new studies and that, I am sure, will take a position side by side with the other positive sciences. I say positive because every science that founds on facts is positive and not purely hypothetical. Spiritism did not invent anything because one cannot invent what is part of nature. Newton did not invent the law of gravitation since that law existed before him; everybody felt its effect and applied it but the law was unknown.
Spiritism in turn comes to demonstrate a new law, a force of nature: the one that resides in the action of the Spirit upon matter, a law that is as universal as the law of gravitation and electricity but still unknown and denied by certain persons, like the other laws were also at the time of their discovery. The reason being that people generally have difficulty in renouncing to their preconceived ideas and because of their self-love it is hard to them to agree that they were wrong or that others were able to find what they did not.
But since this law definitely is based on facts and against facts there isn’t any denial that may prevail, they will have to surrender to the evidence, like the most adamant had to do with respect to the movement of Earth, to the formation of the globe and the effects of steam. However much they call the phenomena ridiculous they cannot bar the existence of what does exist.
Spiritism therefore sought the explanation to a certain order of phenomena that were spontaneously produced at all times. But what in particular favored Spiritism in that research was the capability of producing them and up to a certain extent to provoke them. It found adequate instruments for such effect in the mediums as the physicist found in the battery or in the electric machine the means of reproducing the effects of lightning. Please understand that this is a comparison and I do not intend to establish analogy.
There is here, however, a highly important consideration. It is the fact that Spiritism did not follow the paths of hypothesis as it is accused. It did not suppose the existence of the spiritual world in order to explain the phenomena at hand. It followed the path of analysis and observation. From the facts it was led to the cause and the spiritual element was presented as an active force; Spiritism only proclaimed that principle after having attested it. As a force and as a law of nature the spiritual element opens up, therefore, new horizons to the science, providing the key to a number of misunderstood problems.
But if the discovery of purely material laws has produced material revolutions, the discovery of the spiritual element prepares a moral revolution in the world because it completely change the course of the most rooted ideas and beliefs; it shows life under another aspect; it kills superstition and fanaticism; it elevates thoughts and man instead of dragging oneself in matter, of circumscribing life between birth and death, elevates to infinity; he knows where he is coming from and where he is going to; he sees an objective to his work, to his endeavors, a reason to do good; he knows that anything that is acquired here in knowledge and morality is lost and that his progress continues indefinitely beyond the grave; he knows that there is always a future irrespective of the insufficiency and brevity of the present life, whereas the materialistic idea that restricts life to the current existence gives the void by perspective, that not even the duration of life may be given as compensation and that it is up to nobody to control that since we can fall tomorrow, in one hour and then the fruit of our work, our care, the acquired knowledge, everything will be lost forever, many times even without the proper time to have enjoyed that.
Spiritism, I repeat, changes completely the course of the ideas by demonstrating not by hypothesis but by facts the existence of the invisible world that waits for us; it gives man the moral strength, courage and resignation because one does not work for the present only but for the future; he knows that if he does not enjoy today he will enjoy tomorrow.
Demonstrating the action of the spiritual element upon the material world Spiritism broadens the domain of science and opens, for that very reason, a new path to the material progress. Man will then have a solid foundation for the establishment of a moral order on Earth. He will better understand the solidarity that there exists between the creatures of this world, because that solidarity perpetuates indefinitely; fraternity is no longer an empty word; it kills egotism instead of being killed by that and very naturally driven by these ideas man will accommodate to them his laws and social institutions.
Spiritism inevitably leads to that reform. Hence, by the force of things, there will be a moral revolution that must transform humanity and change the face of the globe, and that simply by the knowledge of a new law of nature the gives another direction to the ideas, a meaning to this life, an objective to future aspirations and allows things to be seen from another point of view.
If the detractors of Spiritism – I here speak of those that work towards social progress, of the writers that preach the emancipation of the peoples, freedom, fraternity and the reform of abuses – knew the true tendencies of Spiritism, its reach and its inevitable results, instead of attacking it, as they do, and instead of incessantly throwing obstacles on its path, they would see in Spiritism the most powerful lever to lead to the destruction of abuses that they fight; instead of being hostile they would welcome it as a providential help. Unfortunately the majority believes more in themselves than in the Providence. But the lever acts without them and despite them and the irresistible power of Spiritism will be the more verified the more there is to combat. One day they will say – and that will not be for their glory – what they say about those that have fought against the movement of Earth and about those that denied the power of steam. Every denial, every persecution did not preclude those natural laws for follow their courses, like all the sarcasm of disbelief will not preclude the action of the spiritual element that is also a law of nature.
Considered in this way Spiritism loses the character of mysticism that is censored by its detractors, at least by those that do not know it. It is no longer the science of the wonderful and supernatural resurrected but the dominion of nature, enriched by a new and fertile law, another proof of the power and wisdom of our Creator. These are, finally, the boundaries of human knowledge pushed further.
That is in summary, ladies and gentlemen, the point of view under which Spiritism must be seen. In that case what was my role? It is not that of an inventor or a creator. I saw, observed, studied the facts with care and perseverance; I coordinated them and deduced their consequences: that is all that I have done. What I did could have been done by someone else in my place. I was only an instrument of the Providence in all that and I thank God and the good Spirits for having wanted to use my service. It is a mission that I accepted with joy and that I endeavor to be trustworthy, asking God to give me the necessary strength to accomplish it according to his will. Such a task is, nonetheless, heavier than people may suppose and if I have any merit in that it is the fact that I am conscious of not having stepped back before any obstacle and any sacrifice; it will be the work of my life up to the last day since before such an important objective all of the material and personal interests fade away like points in infinity.
I end this short discourse, ladies and gentlemen, by giving my sincere congratulations to our brothers of Belgium, present and absent, whose zeal, devotion and perseverance contributed to the implantation of Spiritism in that country. The seeds that were planted in the large population centers like Brussels, Antwerp and others, I am certain, were not thrown onto sterile soil.
Spiritists of Brussels and Antwerp in 1864
We published this speech by request of several persons that have mentioned to us their desire to preserve it and because it tends to have Spiritism seen from an aspect that is new in a certain way. The Spiritist Review of Antwerp reproduced it in its totality.
Ladies and gentlemen, dear Spiritist brothers and sisters,
I am pleased to give you this title although I do not have the advantage of knowing all the persons attending this meeting, but I want to believe that we are in family and all of us in communion of thoughts and feelings. Even admitting that not everyone is sympathetic to our ideas I would not take them less in the fraternal feeling that must animate the true Spiritists to all mankind, without distinction of opinion. However, it is to our brothers in faith that I address more specially to express to them my satisfaction to be among them and offer them the fraternal Spiritist salutation in the name of the Parisian Society.
I had already been given the proof that Spiritism counts on a large number of serious, devout and enlightened followers in this city, perfectly in sync with the moral and philosophical objective of the Doctrine; I knew I would find sympathetic hearts here and that was the determinant factor for me to correspond to the insistent and kind invitation addressed to me by several of you for a short visit this year. The warm and cordial welcome that I received allow me to take with me the most pleasant memory from the time I spent here.
I would certainly have the right to be proud of the reception that I have in the several centers that I visit if I did not know that such testimonies are much less to the man than to the Doctrine of which I am just a humble representative and must be considered like a profession of faith, an adherence to our principles. That is how I see them as far as I am concerned. As a matter of fact if the trips that I do from time to time only had the objective of personal satisfaction I would consider them useless and would abstain from traveling. However, added to the fact that they contribute to the strengthening of links of fraternity among followers they also have the advantage of providing me with material of observation and study that are never a waste to the Doctrine. Irrespective of the facts that may serve the progress of the science I collect material for the future history of Spiritism; authentic documents about the movement of the Spiritist idea; the more or less favorable elements that the Doctrine finds, according to the places; the strength or weakness and the maneuvers of the adversaries; the means of fighting the latter; the zeal and devotion of its true defenders. Among the latter one must place in the first line all of those that work for the cause with courage, perseverance, abnegation and selflessness, without any personal intention, that seek the triumph of the Doctrine by the Doctrine and not for the satisfaction of their personal self-love, and finally those that prove that the Spiritism moral is not vain by their example, struggling to justify this remarkable statement of a non-believer: “With such a Doctrine one cannot be Spiritist and not be a good person.”
There isn’t a Spiritist center in which I did not find a more or less large number of such pioneers of the cause, of those trail blazers of the terrain, those tireless fighters that sustained by a sincere and enlightened faith, by the conscience of a duty to carry out, do not get discouraged before any difficulty, looking at their devotion as a debt of recognition for the moral benefits received form Spiritism. Is it fair that those that honor the Doctrine have their names lost for our descendants and that they would not be one day inscribed in the Spiritist pantheon?
Unfortunately by their side sometimes there are the naughty boys of the cause, the impatient ones, those that can compromise it by not weighing the reach of their words and actions; those that by a thoughtless zeal, by inopportune and premature ideas unwillingly give ammunition to our adversaries. Then come the others that only consider Spiritism superficially, not being touched in their hearts, giving by their own example a false idea of its results and moral tendencies.
That is, without doubt, the biggest reef found by the sincere propagators of the Doctrine, for they many times see the work that they did being undone by those that should second them. It is a demonstrated fact that Spiritism is more harmed by those that have a limited knowledge of the Doctrine than by those that totally ignore it and even by the declared enemies. And it is noticeable that those that have limited knowledge generally have the pretension of understanding it more than those that acquired experience through serious studies. Such pretension, that reveals pride, is an evident proof of ignorance of the true principles of the Doctrine.
May the Spiritists not be discouraged since this results from a time of transition in which we live! The new ideas cannot be established suddenly and without hindrance. Since it is necessary to brush away the old ideas they forcibly find adversaries that fight against and repeal them and there are those that take those ideas upside down, that see them or want to accommodate them to their personal tastes. But there comes the time when the true principles are known an understood by the majority and the contradictory ideas fall by themselves. You saw what happened to the isolated systems that appeared at the origin of Spiritism. They all fell before a more rigorous observation of the facts, or only find a few followers that cling to their initial ideas not moving a single step forward. The unity was established in the Spiritist belief with much more speed than it was expected. The fact is that the Spirits came to confirm the true principles from all sides, so much so that today there is a predominant idea in the whole world and that if still does not count on an absolute unanimity it incontestably counts on the immense majority from which it follows that the one that wishes to march at the margin of that opinion, finding little or no support, is condemned to isolation. Experience is here to demonstrate that.
To remediate the inconvenient that I have just described, that is, to prevent the consequences of ignorance and false interpretations it is necessary to take care of the propagation of the correct ideas, of forming educated followers whose growing number will neutralize the influence of the wrong ideas.
My visit to the Spiritist center, naturally, have the main objective of helping the brothers in faith in their tasks. I therefore take the opportunity to give them the instructions that they may need as a theoretical development or practical explanation of the Doctrine as much as I can. The objective of such visits is serious and exclusively in the interest of the Doctrine hence I do not seek ovations that I do not particularly like and that are not in my character. My greatest satisfaction is to meet sincere and devout friends with whom we can understand one another without embarrassments and mutually enlighten one another through friendly discussions to which each one of us take their own observations.
In these journeys I do not preach to the nonbelievers and never summon the public to catechize them. In a word, I do not make propaganda. I only attend followers’ meetings in which my advices are sought and may be useful. I give those advices in good will to those that believe to need them and abstain from giving them to those that believe to be enlightened enough to neglect them.
If in such gatherings persons that are only attracted by curiosity exceptionally sneak in they would be disappointed for they would find nothing there that could satisfy them and if animated by a hostile and defamatory feeling the eminently moral, serious and sincere of the assembly and the subject matters discussed there would eliminate any plausible pretext to their malevolence. These are the thoughts that I bring to the many meetings that I am invited to attend so that there is no mistake about my intentions.
I said initially that I was only the representative of the Doctrine. Some explanations about its true character will certainly draw your attention to an essential point that up until now was not sufficiently discussed. Certainly by seeing the speed of progress of this Doctrine there would be more splendor if I said that I was its creator and my self-love would be rewarded there but I must not consider my contribution greater than it really is. Far from being sorry I congratulate myself for that because in such a case the Doctrine would only be an individual conception that could be more or less correct, more or less ingenious, but that for the same reason would lose its authority. It could have followers, perhaps make a school, like many others, but it would not certainly acquired the universal character that distinguishes it.
That is a point of paramount importance, ladies and gentlemen, and that must be proclaimed out loud. No, Spiritism is not an individual conception, the product of imagination; it is not a theory, a system invented for the need of a cause. Spiritism has its source in the facts of nature itself, in positive events that are produced before our eyes all the time but whose origin was not suspected. It is therefore the result of observation, in a word it is a science, the science of the relationships between the visible and the invisible worlds, a still imperfect science but that daily complements itself with new studies and that, I am sure, will take a position side by side with the other positive sciences. I say positive because every science that founds on facts is positive and not purely hypothetical. Spiritism did not invent anything because one cannot invent what is part of nature. Newton did not invent the law of gravitation since that law existed before him; everybody felt its effect and applied it but the law was unknown.
Spiritism in turn comes to demonstrate a new law, a force of nature: the one that resides in the action of the Spirit upon matter, a law that is as universal as the law of gravitation and electricity but still unknown and denied by certain persons, like the other laws were also at the time of their discovery. The reason being that people generally have difficulty in renouncing to their preconceived ideas and because of their self-love it is hard to them to agree that they were wrong or that others were able to find what they did not.
But since this law definitely is based on facts and against facts there isn’t any denial that may prevail, they will have to surrender to the evidence, like the most adamant had to do with respect to the movement of Earth, to the formation of the globe and the effects of steam. However much they call the phenomena ridiculous they cannot bar the existence of what does exist.
Spiritism therefore sought the explanation to a certain order of phenomena that were spontaneously produced at all times. But what in particular favored Spiritism in that research was the capability of producing them and up to a certain extent to provoke them. It found adequate instruments for such effect in the mediums as the physicist found in the battery or in the electric machine the means of reproducing the effects of lightning. Please understand that this is a comparison and I do not intend to establish analogy.
There is here, however, a highly important consideration. It is the fact that Spiritism did not follow the paths of hypothesis as it is accused. It did not suppose the existence of the spiritual world in order to explain the phenomena at hand. It followed the path of analysis and observation. From the facts it was led to the cause and the spiritual element was presented as an active force; Spiritism only proclaimed that principle after having attested it. As a force and as a law of nature the spiritual element opens up, therefore, new horizons to the science, providing the key to a number of misunderstood problems.
But if the discovery of purely material laws has produced material revolutions, the discovery of the spiritual element prepares a moral revolution in the world because it completely change the course of the most rooted ideas and beliefs; it shows life under another aspect; it kills superstition and fanaticism; it elevates thoughts and man instead of dragging oneself in matter, of circumscribing life between birth and death, elevates to infinity; he knows where he is coming from and where he is going to; he sees an objective to his work, to his endeavors, a reason to do good; he knows that anything that is acquired here in knowledge and morality is lost and that his progress continues indefinitely beyond the grave; he knows that there is always a future irrespective of the insufficiency and brevity of the present life, whereas the materialistic idea that restricts life to the current existence gives the void by perspective, that not even the duration of life may be given as compensation and that it is up to nobody to control that since we can fall tomorrow, in one hour and then the fruit of our work, our care, the acquired knowledge, everything will be lost forever, many times even without the proper time to have enjoyed that.
Spiritism, I repeat, changes completely the course of the ideas by demonstrating not by hypothesis but by facts the existence of the invisible world that waits for us; it gives man the moral strength, courage and resignation because one does not work for the present only but for the future; he knows that if he does not enjoy today he will enjoy tomorrow.
Demonstrating the action of the spiritual element upon the material world Spiritism broadens the domain of science and opens, for that very reason, a new path to the material progress. Man will then have a solid foundation for the establishment of a moral order on Earth. He will better understand the solidarity that there exists between the creatures of this world, because that solidarity perpetuates indefinitely; fraternity is no longer an empty word; it kills egotism instead of being killed by that and very naturally driven by these ideas man will accommodate to them his laws and social institutions.
Spiritism inevitably leads to that reform. Hence, by the force of things, there will be a moral revolution that must transform humanity and change the face of the globe, and that simply by the knowledge of a new law of nature the gives another direction to the ideas, a meaning to this life, an objective to future aspirations and allows things to be seen from another point of view.
If the detractors of Spiritism – I here speak of those that work towards social progress, of the writers that preach the emancipation of the peoples, freedom, fraternity and the reform of abuses – knew the true tendencies of Spiritism, its reach and its inevitable results, instead of attacking it, as they do, and instead of incessantly throwing obstacles on its path, they would see in Spiritism the most powerful lever to lead to the destruction of abuses that they fight; instead of being hostile they would welcome it as a providential help. Unfortunately the majority believes more in themselves than in the Providence. But the lever acts without them and despite them and the irresistible power of Spiritism will be the more verified the more there is to combat. One day they will say – and that will not be for their glory – what they say about those that have fought against the movement of Earth and about those that denied the power of steam. Every denial, every persecution did not preclude those natural laws for follow their courses, like all the sarcasm of disbelief will not preclude the action of the spiritual element that is also a law of nature.
Considered in this way Spiritism loses the character of mysticism that is censored by its detractors, at least by those that do not know it. It is no longer the science of the wonderful and supernatural resurrected but the dominion of nature, enriched by a new and fertile law, another proof of the power and wisdom of our Creator. These are, finally, the boundaries of human knowledge pushed further.
That is in summary, ladies and gentlemen, the point of view under which Spiritism must be seen. In that case what was my role? It is not that of an inventor or a creator. I saw, observed, studied the facts with care and perseverance; I coordinated them and deduced their consequences: that is all that I have done. What I did could have been done by someone else in my place. I was only an instrument of the Providence in all that and I thank God and the good Spirits for having wanted to use my service. It is a mission that I accepted with joy and that I endeavor to be trustworthy, asking God to give me the necessary strength to accomplish it according to his will. Such a task is, nonetheless, heavier than people may suppose and if I have any merit in that it is the fact that I am conscious of not having stepped back before any obstacle and any sacrifice; it will be the work of my life up to the last day since before such an important objective all of the material and personal interests fade away like points in infinity.
I end this short discourse, ladies and gentlemen, by giving my sincere congratulations to our brothers of Belgium, present and absent, whose zeal, devotion and perseverance contributed to the implantation of Spiritism in that country. The seeds that were planted in the large population centers like Brussels, Antwerp and others, I am certain, were not thrown onto sterile soil.
In a bibliographic article about Méry published in the Journal Littéraire from September 25th, 1864 there is the following passage:
“There are singular theories that for him are convictions. He then believes that he has lived many times; he remembers the minimal details of his preceding lives and describe them with a tone of certainty that is imposed with certain authority. That is how he was friends with Virgilio, Horace and knew Augustus Germanicus and fought the wars of Gallia and Germania.[1] He was a general and commanded the Roman lines when they crossed the Rheine. He recognized placed where he had camped on the mountains and in the vales the battle fields where he fought. He remembers conversations at the house of Mecenas, great object of sorrow. He was called Minius.
One day in his present life he was in Rome visiting the library of Vatican. He was received by young people, novices dressing long black cloaks speaking in the purest Latin. Méry was a good Latinist with respect to the theory and written language but had not yet tried to speak the language of Juvenal. Hearing these modern Romans, admiring that magnificent language much in harmony with the monuments and customs of the time it was used, it seemed that a veil fell out from his eyes; he had the impression that he had spoke that language on other times with friends that also spoke that divine language. Full and impeccable sentences left his mouth; he immediately found the elegance and correction; finally he spoke Latin as he speaks French; His Latin soul was like his French soul. None of that could have happened without learning, and if he had not been a vassal of Augustus, if he had not lived that century of splendors, if he had not improvised a science, impossible of acquiring in a couple of hours.
Another of his passages on Earth took place in India and that is why he knows it very well. That is why none of his readers doubted that he had lived in Asia when he published Guerre du Nizan. His descriptions are lively, his pictures original, and he touches with his finger the minimal details and it is impossible that he had not seen what he tells because it contains the truth. He states that he entered that country with a Muslim expedition in 1035. He lived there for fifty beautiful years and established himself there definitely. He was also a poet there but less educated than in Rome and in Paris. First a fighter then a dreamer he kept the fascinating images of the sacred river and the Hindu rites in his soul. He had several dwellings, in the city and in the country side; he prayed in the temples of the elephants; he knew the advanced civilization of Java and saw standing the splendid ruins that he mentions and that are still much unknown. One needs to hear him saying that poetry for those memories are true poems at the style of Swedenborg. He is very serious, make no mistake about it. This is not a prepared mystification to deceive the listeners, it is a convincing reality.
How about his remarkable doctrines of history! His humor is fine, casting a new light onto everything that he touches. His reports are romances that almost lead us to tears after being almost unable to refrain the laughter. All of that turns Méry into one of the most wonderful men of his time and even of those in which his wandering soul waited its turn to take a body and again have people talking about them in future generations.”
Pierre Dangeau.
The author of the article does not add any thought to that. After having exhalted the great merit of Méry and his great intelligence it would have been inconsequent to define it as madness. If then Méry is a sensible man, of an elevated intellectual value, if the belief of having already lived before is a conviction, if such a conviction is not the product of his own system but the result of a past memory and a material fact, isn’t that something that should draw the attention of any serious person? Let us see the innumerable consequences led by such a simple fact.
Mr. Méry has already lived and that must not be an exception because the laws of nature are the same to all and hence every person must also have lived; if he lived it is not certainly the body that is reborn but the intelligent principle, the soul, the Spirit, we therefore have a soul. Considering that Méry kept the memory of several existences since the places bring him back the memory of what he saw in the past, with the death of the body the soul is not lost in the universal whole. It therefore keeps its individuality, the conscience of its self.
Mr. Méry remembering what he had been two thousand years ago what became of his soul in the interval? Was is lost in the depth of infinity or space? No because it would not have found her past individuality. Then it must have stayed in the earthly atmosphere, living a spiritual life in our environment or in the space that surrounds us until taking a new body. Considering that Méry is not alone in the world there must be a whole invisible and intelligent population around us.
Born again for the corporeal life, after a more or less lengthy interval, does the soul is reborn in its primitive state, in the state of a new soul or does it take advantage of the ideas acquired in its previous existences? The past memory resolves a question from this point of view: if Mr. Méry had lost the acquired knowledge he would not be able to speak that language that he formerly spoke; when looking at places they would not bring back any memory.
But if we have already lived why wouldn’t we live again? Why would this existence be the last one? If we are born with the an already realized intellectual development we are helped by the intuition of the ideas that we bring, like an arsenal that helps us in the acquisition of new ideas, that makes learning easier. If a person is a partial mathematician in one life that person will require less work to become a full mathematician in a next life. It is a logical consequence. If the person became partially good, if corrected some defects, she will need less effort to become even better and so forth. Nothing that we acquire in intelligence, knowledge and morality is lost. Irrespective of dying young or old; irrespective of having had time to enjoy the current life we will harvest the fruits in a next life. The souls that today animate the civilized French could have well been the souls that animated the barbarian Franconians, the Ostrogoths and Visigoths, the savage Galatians, the Roman conquerors, the fanatics of the Middle Ages, but that moved one step ahead in every existence and that will advance even further.
There we have solved the great problem of progress of humanity, a problem that sees the clash of many philosophers. It is resolved by the simple fact of the plurality of the existences. But how many other problems will be resolved by the solution to this problem? How many new horizons are not opened by this? It is a whole revolution in beliefs and ideas.
That is how a serious and thoughtful person will reason. An event is just a starting point from where she finds the consequences. Now, what are the thoughts that Mr. Méry’s case awakens in the writer of the article? He summarizes that in these words: “There are singular theories that for him are convictions.”
But if that author only sees something bizarre in all this, not much worthy of his attention, the same would not apply to everybody else. One person finds a brute diamond on her path but gives no attention because ignores its value; another way will appreciate it and take advantage of that.
The Spiritist ideas are produced in all forms these days; they are at the top of the agenda and the press, not confessing, register them in profusion believing that they are only feeding their columns of mockery. Isn’t that remarkable that every adversary of the idea, without exception, works diligently to its propagation? They would like to mute what they are forced to say by the force of things. That is what the Providence wishes – for those that believe in the Providence.
Some will say that our argumentation is based on an isolated fact that is not a law and that if the plurality of the existences is an inherent condition to humanity why is it that not everybody remembers, like Méry? Here is how we respond: take the burden of studying Spiritism and you will understand. Therefore we will not repeat what has been said a hundred of times about the uselessness of the memory of the past to take advantage of the experience acquired in previous lives and the danger of that memory for the social relationships.
There is, however, another cause of forgetfulness, kind of physiological, due at the same time to the materiality of our body and the identification of our little advanced Spirit with matter. With the depuration of the Spirit the material links are less tenacious and the veil that covers the past is less dense. The faculty of the retrospective memory is then consequence of the development of the Spirit. The fact is rare in our planet because humanity is still too materialistic but it would be a mistake the supposition that Mr. Méry is a unique example. God allows, from time to time, that this happens so as to lead mankind to the knowledge of the great law of the plurality of the existences, the only one that explains the origin of good or bad qualities, shows justice in the miseries that are endured here and traces the path to the future.
The uselessness of the memory to take advantage of the past is what poses more difficulty to those that have studied Spiritism. To the Spiritists it is an elemental question. Avoiding repetition of what has been said about it the following comparison might facilitate understanding.
The schoolboy goes through the series of classes from the eighth to philosophy.[2] What he has learned in the eighth is used to learn what is taught in the seventh. Suppose now that at the end of the eighth he has lost all memory of the time spent in this class, his mind will be no less developed, and furnished with acquired knowledge; only he will not remember where or how he has acquired them, but, because of the progress he has made, he will be able to enjoy the lessons of the seventh. Suppose further that in the eighth he was lazy, angry, and indocile, but that having been chastised and moralized, his character was broken, and that he became laborious, gentle, and obedient, he will bring these qualities into his new class which, for him, will appear to be the first. What good would it do to him if knowing that he was punished for his laziness, if now he is no longer lazy? The bottom line is that he is at the seventh grade better and more capable than he was in the eighth grade. So it will happen from class to class.
So, what does not happen to the schoolboy or the mankind in several periods of present life does happen to him like in a memory of a previous life: that is the whole difference but the result is exactly the same although in much larger scale.
(See another example of memory of the past reported in the Spiritist Review, July 1860)
[1] Roman terms employed to describe Gaullic and Germanic regions in Europe (TN)
[2] Notice that the succession of classes in France goes from highest to lowest number so that 8th comes before 7th and so forth. For example even in modern days the 6h Grade School year in France (or 6ème, age 11) comes before the 5th Grade School year (or 5ème, age 12) (TN)
“There are singular theories that for him are convictions. He then believes that he has lived many times; he remembers the minimal details of his preceding lives and describe them with a tone of certainty that is imposed with certain authority. That is how he was friends with Virgilio, Horace and knew Augustus Germanicus and fought the wars of Gallia and Germania.[1] He was a general and commanded the Roman lines when they crossed the Rheine. He recognized placed where he had camped on the mountains and in the vales the battle fields where he fought. He remembers conversations at the house of Mecenas, great object of sorrow. He was called Minius.
One day in his present life he was in Rome visiting the library of Vatican. He was received by young people, novices dressing long black cloaks speaking in the purest Latin. Méry was a good Latinist with respect to the theory and written language but had not yet tried to speak the language of Juvenal. Hearing these modern Romans, admiring that magnificent language much in harmony with the monuments and customs of the time it was used, it seemed that a veil fell out from his eyes; he had the impression that he had spoke that language on other times with friends that also spoke that divine language. Full and impeccable sentences left his mouth; he immediately found the elegance and correction; finally he spoke Latin as he speaks French; His Latin soul was like his French soul. None of that could have happened without learning, and if he had not been a vassal of Augustus, if he had not lived that century of splendors, if he had not improvised a science, impossible of acquiring in a couple of hours.
Another of his passages on Earth took place in India and that is why he knows it very well. That is why none of his readers doubted that he had lived in Asia when he published Guerre du Nizan. His descriptions are lively, his pictures original, and he touches with his finger the minimal details and it is impossible that he had not seen what he tells because it contains the truth. He states that he entered that country with a Muslim expedition in 1035. He lived there for fifty beautiful years and established himself there definitely. He was also a poet there but less educated than in Rome and in Paris. First a fighter then a dreamer he kept the fascinating images of the sacred river and the Hindu rites in his soul. He had several dwellings, in the city and in the country side; he prayed in the temples of the elephants; he knew the advanced civilization of Java and saw standing the splendid ruins that he mentions and that are still much unknown. One needs to hear him saying that poetry for those memories are true poems at the style of Swedenborg. He is very serious, make no mistake about it. This is not a prepared mystification to deceive the listeners, it is a convincing reality.
How about his remarkable doctrines of history! His humor is fine, casting a new light onto everything that he touches. His reports are romances that almost lead us to tears after being almost unable to refrain the laughter. All of that turns Méry into one of the most wonderful men of his time and even of those in which his wandering soul waited its turn to take a body and again have people talking about them in future generations.”
Pierre Dangeau.
The author of the article does not add any thought to that. After having exhalted the great merit of Méry and his great intelligence it would have been inconsequent to define it as madness. If then Méry is a sensible man, of an elevated intellectual value, if the belief of having already lived before is a conviction, if such a conviction is not the product of his own system but the result of a past memory and a material fact, isn’t that something that should draw the attention of any serious person? Let us see the innumerable consequences led by such a simple fact.
Mr. Méry has already lived and that must not be an exception because the laws of nature are the same to all and hence every person must also have lived; if he lived it is not certainly the body that is reborn but the intelligent principle, the soul, the Spirit, we therefore have a soul. Considering that Méry kept the memory of several existences since the places bring him back the memory of what he saw in the past, with the death of the body the soul is not lost in the universal whole. It therefore keeps its individuality, the conscience of its self.
Mr. Méry remembering what he had been two thousand years ago what became of his soul in the interval? Was is lost in the depth of infinity or space? No because it would not have found her past individuality. Then it must have stayed in the earthly atmosphere, living a spiritual life in our environment or in the space that surrounds us until taking a new body. Considering that Méry is not alone in the world there must be a whole invisible and intelligent population around us.
Born again for the corporeal life, after a more or less lengthy interval, does the soul is reborn in its primitive state, in the state of a new soul or does it take advantage of the ideas acquired in its previous existences? The past memory resolves a question from this point of view: if Mr. Méry had lost the acquired knowledge he would not be able to speak that language that he formerly spoke; when looking at places they would not bring back any memory.
But if we have already lived why wouldn’t we live again? Why would this existence be the last one? If we are born with the an already realized intellectual development we are helped by the intuition of the ideas that we bring, like an arsenal that helps us in the acquisition of new ideas, that makes learning easier. If a person is a partial mathematician in one life that person will require less work to become a full mathematician in a next life. It is a logical consequence. If the person became partially good, if corrected some defects, she will need less effort to become even better and so forth. Nothing that we acquire in intelligence, knowledge and morality is lost. Irrespective of dying young or old; irrespective of having had time to enjoy the current life we will harvest the fruits in a next life. The souls that today animate the civilized French could have well been the souls that animated the barbarian Franconians, the Ostrogoths and Visigoths, the savage Galatians, the Roman conquerors, the fanatics of the Middle Ages, but that moved one step ahead in every existence and that will advance even further.
There we have solved the great problem of progress of humanity, a problem that sees the clash of many philosophers. It is resolved by the simple fact of the plurality of the existences. But how many other problems will be resolved by the solution to this problem? How many new horizons are not opened by this? It is a whole revolution in beliefs and ideas.
That is how a serious and thoughtful person will reason. An event is just a starting point from where she finds the consequences. Now, what are the thoughts that Mr. Méry’s case awakens in the writer of the article? He summarizes that in these words: “There are singular theories that for him are convictions.”
But if that author only sees something bizarre in all this, not much worthy of his attention, the same would not apply to everybody else. One person finds a brute diamond on her path but gives no attention because ignores its value; another way will appreciate it and take advantage of that.
The Spiritist ideas are produced in all forms these days; they are at the top of the agenda and the press, not confessing, register them in profusion believing that they are only feeding their columns of mockery. Isn’t that remarkable that every adversary of the idea, without exception, works diligently to its propagation? They would like to mute what they are forced to say by the force of things. That is what the Providence wishes – for those that believe in the Providence.
Some will say that our argumentation is based on an isolated fact that is not a law and that if the plurality of the existences is an inherent condition to humanity why is it that not everybody remembers, like Méry? Here is how we respond: take the burden of studying Spiritism and you will understand. Therefore we will not repeat what has been said a hundred of times about the uselessness of the memory of the past to take advantage of the experience acquired in previous lives and the danger of that memory for the social relationships.
There is, however, another cause of forgetfulness, kind of physiological, due at the same time to the materiality of our body and the identification of our little advanced Spirit with matter. With the depuration of the Spirit the material links are less tenacious and the veil that covers the past is less dense. The faculty of the retrospective memory is then consequence of the development of the Spirit. The fact is rare in our planet because humanity is still too materialistic but it would be a mistake the supposition that Mr. Méry is a unique example. God allows, from time to time, that this happens so as to lead mankind to the knowledge of the great law of the plurality of the existences, the only one that explains the origin of good or bad qualities, shows justice in the miseries that are endured here and traces the path to the future.
The uselessness of the memory to take advantage of the past is what poses more difficulty to those that have studied Spiritism. To the Spiritists it is an elemental question. Avoiding repetition of what has been said about it the following comparison might facilitate understanding.
The schoolboy goes through the series of classes from the eighth to philosophy.[2] What he has learned in the eighth is used to learn what is taught in the seventh. Suppose now that at the end of the eighth he has lost all memory of the time spent in this class, his mind will be no less developed, and furnished with acquired knowledge; only he will not remember where or how he has acquired them, but, because of the progress he has made, he will be able to enjoy the lessons of the seventh. Suppose further that in the eighth he was lazy, angry, and indocile, but that having been chastised and moralized, his character was broken, and that he became laborious, gentle, and obedient, he will bring these qualities into his new class which, for him, will appear to be the first. What good would it do to him if knowing that he was punished for his laziness, if now he is no longer lazy? The bottom line is that he is at the seventh grade better and more capable than he was in the eighth grade. So it will happen from class to class.
So, what does not happen to the schoolboy or the mankind in several periods of present life does happen to him like in a memory of a previous life: that is the whole difference but the result is exactly the same although in much larger scale.
(See another example of memory of the past reported in the Spiritist Review, July 1860)
[1] Roman terms employed to describe Gaullic and Germanic regions in Europe (TN)
[2] Notice that the succession of classes in France goes from highest to lowest number so that 8th comes before 7th and so forth. For example even in modern days the 6h Grade School year in France (or 6ème, age 11) comes before the 5th Grade School year (or 5ème, age 12) (TN)
Passy, October 4th, 1864 – medium Mr. Rul.
Note: The medium wanted to evoke Latour since the time of the execution. He asked his spiritual guide about it who then answered that he should wait for the appropriate time that would be indicated to him. The authorization was only given on October 3rd after he led the article of the Spiritist Review about the case.
Q. – Have you heard my prayers? A. – Yes, despite my confusion I heard them and thank you for that. I was evoked soon after my death and could not communicate promptly but many frivolous Spirits took my name. I took the opportunity of the presence of the President of the Parisian Society in Brussels and with the permission of superior Spirits I was able to communicate. I will communicate at the Society and will make revelations that will be the beginning of the reparation of my faults and that will serve as teachings to all criminals that read me or think about the report of my sufferings. The discourses about the penalties of hell produce little effect upon the Spirit of the guilty that do not believe in all of those images that are scaring to children to the weak. Well, a big criminal is not a pusillanimous soul and the fear of police has a greater impact on them than the punishments of hell. That is why all of those that read me will be touched by my words, my sufferings that are not suppositions. There isn’t a single priest that can say: “I saw it and I tell you; I saw the sufferings of the condemned.” But when I come to say: This is what happened after the death of my body; that was the size of my disappointment when I saw that I was not dead as I expected, and what I had considered to be the end of my sufferings was just the beginning of tortures that are impossible to describe, then more than one will stop at the edge of the cliff in which they are about to fall. Each miserable one that I can stop like that will serve in the preparation of one of my faults. That is how good comes out of bad and how God’s benevolence manifests everywhere, on Earth as in space. I was freed from the vision of my victims that became my executioners, so that I could communicate with you. When I leave you I will see them again and that simple thought makes me suffer more than I can tell you. I am happy when you evoke me because I then leave my hell behind for a few moments. Always pray for me; ask God to have me freed from the vision of my victims. Yes, let us pray together. Prayer helps so much… I am more relieved; I no longer feel the weight of the burden that crushes me. I see a flash of light sparking in my eyes and full of regret I say: Blessed be the hand of God. His will be done!
J. Latour
The spiritual guide of the medium writes the following:
“Do not take the first screams of a regretful Spirit as an infallible sign of his resolutions. He may have his promises in good faith since the first impression that he had on returning to the spiritual world is so much fulminating that before the first testimony of charity that he receives from an incarnate Spirit he throws himself to the effusions of recognition and regret. But the reaction, sometimes, is like the action and frequently this guilty Spirit that dictated so good words to a medium may return to his perverse nature, to his criminal tendencies. Like a child that tries to walk, he needs help to avoid falling again.”
The Spirit of Latour was evoked on the very next day.
Medium: Instead of asking God to free you from the vision of your victims I invite you to pray with me to ask him to give you strength to withstand such a torturous atonement.
Latour: I would rather be freed from the vision of my victims. If you only knew what I suffer! The most insensitive man would be touched if he could see the sufferings of my soul printed on my face like fire. I will do what you advise me to. I understand that it is a kind of faster way of atonement for my faults. It is like a painful surgery that must bring health back to my very sick body. Ah! If the sinners of Earth could see me how scared they would be with the consequences of their crimes, hidden to the eyes of men, seen by the Spirits! Oh ignorance is so fatal to so many miserable people! What a responsibility of those that deny education to the poor. They believe to be able to prevent crimes with police and guards. Oh How wrong! If they doubled, quadrupled the number of law enforcement the same crimes would be committed because it is necessary that the bad incarnate Spirits commit crimes. I recommend myself to your charity.
Observation: It is no doubt for a rest of earthly prejudice that Latour says: “it is necessary that the bad incarnate Spirits commit crimes”. That would be fatality in the actions of people, a doctrine that would excuse everybody. In fact it is very natural that a Spirit leaving similar existence does not understand moral freedom yet without which mankind would be at the level of the animals. We should be surprised by the fact that he does not say worse things.
The following communication by the same Spirit was obtained spontaneously in Brussels by Mrs. C…, the same medium that served as instrument to the scene report in our October issue.
“Fear nothing from me. I am more appeased but I still suffer. God have mercy on me for he saw my repentance. Now I suffer this regret that shows me the enormity of my faults. Had I been well driven in life I would not have done the harm that I did however my instincts were not repressed and I obeyed them since there was not brake to me! If all mankind gave enough thought to God or at least believed in God similar atrocities would no longer take place. But the justice of men is poorly understood. Sometimes for a slight mistake a person is thrown in jail that is always a place of perversion. She then comes out completely lost by the bad advices and examples collected there. Even if good natured and strong enough to resist to the bad examples when the person leaves prison all doors are closed, all hands retrieved and all honest hearts remain away. What is left? Misery and abandonment. The good resolutions are met by disdain and despair; misery leads to everything. Rejected the person then also despises the neighbor, hates and loses any consciousness of good and bad, despite the previous resolution of becoming honest. To find the necessary the person steals and sometimes kills. Then comes the guillotine!
My God, when my hallucinations are supposed to come back I feel your hand on me; I feel your goodness that surrounds and protect me. Thank you my God! In my next life I will employ my intelligence and all of my efforts to help those miserable ones that have succumbed and to preserve them from the fall.
Thank you all that are not disgusted by communicating with me. Have no fear for you can see I am not bad. When you think of me do not form the image that you have of me but of a poor devastated soul thankful to your indulgence. Good-bye. Evoke me again and pray to God on my behalf.”
Latour
Observation: The Spirit refers to the fear that he inspired on the medium. In addition he says: “I suffer this regret that shows me the enormity of my faults”. There is a lot behind this thought. The Spirit does not really understand the seriousness of the mistakes but when there is true regret. Regret brings sorrow and remorse, this painful feeling that is the transition from bad to good, from moral disease to moral health. It is to escape that the perverse Spirits resist to the voice of their consciences, like those patients that repeal the medicine that can cure them. They try to delude themselves and get intoxicated, persisting on the error. Latour entered the phase in which the hardening ends up yielding and remorse reaches the heart. Then came regret. He understand the reach of what he did, sees his abjection and suffers. That is why he says: “I suffer this regret.” In his preceding life he must have been worse than this because if he had regretted as he did now his life would have been better. His current resolutions will influence his future earthly life. The one that he has just left, however criminal it may have been, marked a stage of his progress. It is more than likely that before initiating that life, in erraticity, he was one of those rebellious bad Spirits obstinate by evil, like many others that we see.
Many people asked what would be the benefit that could be taken from past lives taking into account the fact that we don’t remember what we did or what we were. This question is completely resolved by the fact that if our bad actions are totally erased; if there is no trace in our hearts their memory would be useless since we no longer have to worry about them. As for what we have not completely cured we know that from our current tendencies; there is what we have to put all of our attention. It is enough to know what we are without the need to know what we were.
When we consider in this life the difficulty of rehabilitation of the most regretful criminal, the reproach that he suffers one must thank God for having cast a veil upon the past. If Latour had been condemned in time and even if he had been recovered his antecedents would have him repealed by society. Despite his regret who would have given him a chance in their intimacy? The feelings that as a Spirit he manifests today give us hope that in the next earthly life he will be an honest, esteemed and considered man. But now suppose that he knows that he had been Latour! The reproach will still follow him. The veil thrown onto the past opens up the rehabilitation door to him. He will be able to share the same space with the most decent persons without any embarrassment. How many persons would not like to erase from people’s memories, at any price, certain years of their life?
Where is a doctrine that better harmonizes with the justice and benevolence of God? As a matter of fact this Doctrine is not a theory but the result of observation. It was not the Spiritists that imagined it; they saw and observed the multiple situations presented by the Spirits; they sought the explanations and from that the Doctrine was born. If the Doctrine was accepted it is because it results from the facts and because it seemed more rational to them than all others produced up until now about the future of the soul.
Latour was evoked many times and that was very natural but as it happens in similar cases there was many apocryphal communications and frivolous Spirits did not let this opportunity go. Latour’s situation itself precluded him from manifesting in so many places almost simultaneously since ubiquity is only given to superior Spirits.
Are the communications that we reported more authentic? We believe so and wish the best to that Spirit. In the absence of material proofs that attest the identity in a more absolute way, like many times they do, we at least have the moral proofs that result both from the circumstances in which the manifestations took place and their agreement. From the communications that we know coming from different sources at least three quarter parts are coherent with respect to the bottom line; there are others that do not resist examination such is the amount of errors and in flagrant contradiction with what experience teaches us about the Spirits and the spiritual world.
At any rate one cannot deny an elevated moral teaching in those that we mentioned. The Spirit may have been helped in his thoughts and in particular in the choice of expressions by more advanced Spirits. But in similar cases the latter only help in the form and not in the content and never put the inferior Spirit in contradiction with himself. They were able to give Latour’s regret a poetic form but they would not have led him to express regret against his own will because the Spirit has free-will. They saw in him the embryo of good feelings and for that reason helped him to express them and by that they contributed to have them developed and at the same time attracted people’s commiseration to him.
Is there anything more exciting, more moralizing and more impressive than the image of that regretful criminal, manifesting his desperation and remorse that amidst tortures and persecuted by the permanent eyes of his victims elevates his thoughts to God imploring for mercy? Isn’t that a healthy example to the sinners? Everything in his words is sensible; everything is natural in the situation whereas what is attributed to him in certain communications is ridiculous. We can understand the nature of his anguishes; they are rational, terrible although simple and without any phantasmagoric apparatus. Why wouldn’t he have regretted? Why wouldn’t there be a vibrating cord in him? That is precisely the moral side of his communications; it is his understanding of the situation; his sorrow, his resolution, his projects of reparation that are eminently instructive. What would have been seen as extraordinary if he had sincerely regretted before his death, if he had said before what he said afterwards?
A return to the good path before his death would have felt like an act of weakness to the eyes of his peers. His voice from beyond the grave is the revelation of the future that waits form them. He is absolutely right when he says that his example is more adequate to lead the guilty ones that the flames of hell and even the guillotine. Why then it is not given in prisons? That would lead more than one to think according to many examples that we have. How to believe in the efficacy of words of a dead person when one believes that it is all over after death? One day will come, however, when the truth will be acknowledged: the dead can come to educate the living ones.
Note: The medium wanted to evoke Latour since the time of the execution. He asked his spiritual guide about it who then answered that he should wait for the appropriate time that would be indicated to him. The authorization was only given on October 3rd after he led the article of the Spiritist Review about the case.
Q. – Have you heard my prayers? A. – Yes, despite my confusion I heard them and thank you for that. I was evoked soon after my death and could not communicate promptly but many frivolous Spirits took my name. I took the opportunity of the presence of the President of the Parisian Society in Brussels and with the permission of superior Spirits I was able to communicate. I will communicate at the Society and will make revelations that will be the beginning of the reparation of my faults and that will serve as teachings to all criminals that read me or think about the report of my sufferings. The discourses about the penalties of hell produce little effect upon the Spirit of the guilty that do not believe in all of those images that are scaring to children to the weak. Well, a big criminal is not a pusillanimous soul and the fear of police has a greater impact on them than the punishments of hell. That is why all of those that read me will be touched by my words, my sufferings that are not suppositions. There isn’t a single priest that can say: “I saw it and I tell you; I saw the sufferings of the condemned.” But when I come to say: This is what happened after the death of my body; that was the size of my disappointment when I saw that I was not dead as I expected, and what I had considered to be the end of my sufferings was just the beginning of tortures that are impossible to describe, then more than one will stop at the edge of the cliff in which they are about to fall. Each miserable one that I can stop like that will serve in the preparation of one of my faults. That is how good comes out of bad and how God’s benevolence manifests everywhere, on Earth as in space. I was freed from the vision of my victims that became my executioners, so that I could communicate with you. When I leave you I will see them again and that simple thought makes me suffer more than I can tell you. I am happy when you evoke me because I then leave my hell behind for a few moments. Always pray for me; ask God to have me freed from the vision of my victims. Yes, let us pray together. Prayer helps so much… I am more relieved; I no longer feel the weight of the burden that crushes me. I see a flash of light sparking in my eyes and full of regret I say: Blessed be the hand of God. His will be done!
J. Latour
The spiritual guide of the medium writes the following:
“Do not take the first screams of a regretful Spirit as an infallible sign of his resolutions. He may have his promises in good faith since the first impression that he had on returning to the spiritual world is so much fulminating that before the first testimony of charity that he receives from an incarnate Spirit he throws himself to the effusions of recognition and regret. But the reaction, sometimes, is like the action and frequently this guilty Spirit that dictated so good words to a medium may return to his perverse nature, to his criminal tendencies. Like a child that tries to walk, he needs help to avoid falling again.”
The Spirit of Latour was evoked on the very next day.
Medium: Instead of asking God to free you from the vision of your victims I invite you to pray with me to ask him to give you strength to withstand such a torturous atonement.
Latour: I would rather be freed from the vision of my victims. If you only knew what I suffer! The most insensitive man would be touched if he could see the sufferings of my soul printed on my face like fire. I will do what you advise me to. I understand that it is a kind of faster way of atonement for my faults. It is like a painful surgery that must bring health back to my very sick body. Ah! If the sinners of Earth could see me how scared they would be with the consequences of their crimes, hidden to the eyes of men, seen by the Spirits! Oh ignorance is so fatal to so many miserable people! What a responsibility of those that deny education to the poor. They believe to be able to prevent crimes with police and guards. Oh How wrong! If they doubled, quadrupled the number of law enforcement the same crimes would be committed because it is necessary that the bad incarnate Spirits commit crimes. I recommend myself to your charity.
Observation: It is no doubt for a rest of earthly prejudice that Latour says: “it is necessary that the bad incarnate Spirits commit crimes”. That would be fatality in the actions of people, a doctrine that would excuse everybody. In fact it is very natural that a Spirit leaving similar existence does not understand moral freedom yet without which mankind would be at the level of the animals. We should be surprised by the fact that he does not say worse things.
The following communication by the same Spirit was obtained spontaneously in Brussels by Mrs. C…, the same medium that served as instrument to the scene report in our October issue.
“Fear nothing from me. I am more appeased but I still suffer. God have mercy on me for he saw my repentance. Now I suffer this regret that shows me the enormity of my faults. Had I been well driven in life I would not have done the harm that I did however my instincts were not repressed and I obeyed them since there was not brake to me! If all mankind gave enough thought to God or at least believed in God similar atrocities would no longer take place. But the justice of men is poorly understood. Sometimes for a slight mistake a person is thrown in jail that is always a place of perversion. She then comes out completely lost by the bad advices and examples collected there. Even if good natured and strong enough to resist to the bad examples when the person leaves prison all doors are closed, all hands retrieved and all honest hearts remain away. What is left? Misery and abandonment. The good resolutions are met by disdain and despair; misery leads to everything. Rejected the person then also despises the neighbor, hates and loses any consciousness of good and bad, despite the previous resolution of becoming honest. To find the necessary the person steals and sometimes kills. Then comes the guillotine!
My God, when my hallucinations are supposed to come back I feel your hand on me; I feel your goodness that surrounds and protect me. Thank you my God! In my next life I will employ my intelligence and all of my efforts to help those miserable ones that have succumbed and to preserve them from the fall.
Thank you all that are not disgusted by communicating with me. Have no fear for you can see I am not bad. When you think of me do not form the image that you have of me but of a poor devastated soul thankful to your indulgence. Good-bye. Evoke me again and pray to God on my behalf.”
Latour
Observation: The Spirit refers to the fear that he inspired on the medium. In addition he says: “I suffer this regret that shows me the enormity of my faults”. There is a lot behind this thought. The Spirit does not really understand the seriousness of the mistakes but when there is true regret. Regret brings sorrow and remorse, this painful feeling that is the transition from bad to good, from moral disease to moral health. It is to escape that the perverse Spirits resist to the voice of their consciences, like those patients that repeal the medicine that can cure them. They try to delude themselves and get intoxicated, persisting on the error. Latour entered the phase in which the hardening ends up yielding and remorse reaches the heart. Then came regret. He understand the reach of what he did, sees his abjection and suffers. That is why he says: “I suffer this regret.” In his preceding life he must have been worse than this because if he had regretted as he did now his life would have been better. His current resolutions will influence his future earthly life. The one that he has just left, however criminal it may have been, marked a stage of his progress. It is more than likely that before initiating that life, in erraticity, he was one of those rebellious bad Spirits obstinate by evil, like many others that we see.
Many people asked what would be the benefit that could be taken from past lives taking into account the fact that we don’t remember what we did or what we were. This question is completely resolved by the fact that if our bad actions are totally erased; if there is no trace in our hearts their memory would be useless since we no longer have to worry about them. As for what we have not completely cured we know that from our current tendencies; there is what we have to put all of our attention. It is enough to know what we are without the need to know what we were.
When we consider in this life the difficulty of rehabilitation of the most regretful criminal, the reproach that he suffers one must thank God for having cast a veil upon the past. If Latour had been condemned in time and even if he had been recovered his antecedents would have him repealed by society. Despite his regret who would have given him a chance in their intimacy? The feelings that as a Spirit he manifests today give us hope that in the next earthly life he will be an honest, esteemed and considered man. But now suppose that he knows that he had been Latour! The reproach will still follow him. The veil thrown onto the past opens up the rehabilitation door to him. He will be able to share the same space with the most decent persons without any embarrassment. How many persons would not like to erase from people’s memories, at any price, certain years of their life?
Where is a doctrine that better harmonizes with the justice and benevolence of God? As a matter of fact this Doctrine is not a theory but the result of observation. It was not the Spiritists that imagined it; they saw and observed the multiple situations presented by the Spirits; they sought the explanations and from that the Doctrine was born. If the Doctrine was accepted it is because it results from the facts and because it seemed more rational to them than all others produced up until now about the future of the soul.
Latour was evoked many times and that was very natural but as it happens in similar cases there was many apocryphal communications and frivolous Spirits did not let this opportunity go. Latour’s situation itself precluded him from manifesting in so many places almost simultaneously since ubiquity is only given to superior Spirits.
Are the communications that we reported more authentic? We believe so and wish the best to that Spirit. In the absence of material proofs that attest the identity in a more absolute way, like many times they do, we at least have the moral proofs that result both from the circumstances in which the manifestations took place and their agreement. From the communications that we know coming from different sources at least three quarter parts are coherent with respect to the bottom line; there are others that do not resist examination such is the amount of errors and in flagrant contradiction with what experience teaches us about the Spirits and the spiritual world.
At any rate one cannot deny an elevated moral teaching in those that we mentioned. The Spirit may have been helped in his thoughts and in particular in the choice of expressions by more advanced Spirits. But in similar cases the latter only help in the form and not in the content and never put the inferior Spirit in contradiction with himself. They were able to give Latour’s regret a poetic form but they would not have led him to express regret against his own will because the Spirit has free-will. They saw in him the embryo of good feelings and for that reason helped him to express them and by that they contributed to have them developed and at the same time attracted people’s commiseration to him.
Is there anything more exciting, more moralizing and more impressive than the image of that regretful criminal, manifesting his desperation and remorse that amidst tortures and persecuted by the permanent eyes of his victims elevates his thoughts to God imploring for mercy? Isn’t that a healthy example to the sinners? Everything in his words is sensible; everything is natural in the situation whereas what is attributed to him in certain communications is ridiculous. We can understand the nature of his anguishes; they are rational, terrible although simple and without any phantasmagoric apparatus. Why wouldn’t he have regretted? Why wouldn’t there be a vibrating cord in him? That is precisely the moral side of his communications; it is his understanding of the situation; his sorrow, his resolution, his projects of reparation that are eminently instructive. What would have been seen as extraordinary if he had sincerely regretted before his death, if he had said before what he said afterwards?
A return to the good path before his death would have felt like an act of weakness to the eyes of his peers. His voice from beyond the grave is the revelation of the future that waits form them. He is absolutely right when he says that his example is more adequate to lead the guilty ones that the flames of hell and even the guillotine. Why then it is not given in prisons? That would lead more than one to think according to many examples that we have. How to believe in the efficacy of words of a dead person when one believes that it is all over after death? One day will come, however, when the truth will be acknowledged: the dead can come to educate the living ones.
Family Conversations from Beyond the Grave
Paris, August 16th, 1864 – medium Mrs. DelannePierre Legay was a bit greedy and rich farmer that died two years ago, a relative of Mrs. Delanne. He was known in the region by the nickname of Great Pierrot. The communication below shows us one of the most interesting aspects of the invisible world and that is of the Spirits that believe to be still alive. It was obtained by Mrs. Delanne that transmitted it to the Parisian Society. The Spirit expresses himself exactly as he did when alive; the very triviality of the language is a proof of identity. We had to suppress some rude expressions that were familiar to him.
Mrs. Delanne says:
“For some time we heard some knocks around us. Supposing that it could be a Spirit we asked for the identification. The Spirit soon wrote: Pierre Legay, known as the Great Pierrot.
1. There you are then in Paris, Great Pierrot; you wanted so much to come here! A. – I am here, dear friend; I came because she came without me. I had asked her to tell me though but here I am… I was upset because nobody paid any attention to me.
Observation: The Spirit refers to Mrs. Delanne’s mother that had come to live in Paris some time ago, in the house of her daughter. He calls her by a name that was used in their privacy here replaced by her.
2. Is that you knocking at night? A. – Where did you want me to go? I go not lie down at the door.
3. Are you sleeping in our house then? A. – Certainly. Yesterday I went out with you watching the illumination. I saw everything. Ah that is so nice! Very good. We can say that they did a nice job. I can assure you that I am very happy with that; I do not regret the money I spent.
4. How did you come to Paris? Were you able to leave your lands then? A. – Drat! I cannot excavate and be here. I am very happy for having come. You asked me how I came but I came by train.
5. Who did you come with? A. – Well, I give my word that I did not know them.
6. Who gave you my address? Tell me also why you liked me. A. – When I went to her house (Mrs. Delanne’s mother) and did not find her I asked the policeman where she was. He told me that she was here and I then came. Besides, my friend, I like you because you are a good man. I like your company, you are frank and I like all these kids.
7. Tell me the name of the person that is taking care of my mother-in-law’s house for she has the keys in her pocket. A. – Who I met there? I met father Colbert that told me that she had asked him to watch it.
8. Do you see my father-in-law here, father Didelot? A. – How do you want me to see him? You know well that he is dead.
2nd Conversation, August 18th, 1864
Mr. and Mrs. Delanne went to Chatillon to spend the day and there evoked Pierre Legay
9. Have you come to Chatillon? A. – But I always follow you.
10. How did you come here? – A. You are funny. I came on the chariot.
11. I did not see you buying the ticket. A. – I went there with Mariana and later with your wife. I thought you had paid. I was upstairs. Nobody asked me for anything. Haven’t you paid? Why the conductor did not complain?
12. How much did you pay on the train between Ligny and Paris? A. – The railroad was not the same thing. I walked from Tréveray to Ligny and then I took a bus that obviously was paid to the driver.
13. Was it really the driver that you paid? A. – Who did you want me to have paid? But cousin do you think that I don’t have money? I had separated the money to come here long ago. You should not think that I don’t have money for not having paid for the ticket to come here. Without that I would not have come.
14. But you did not respond how much you spent on the railroad from Nançois-le-Petit to Paris. A. – But b… I paid like the others. I gave 20 francs and got 3.6 francs back. Do the math.
Observation: The amount 16.4 francs is really what shows on the sign post, something that was ignored by Mr. and Mrs. Delanne!
16. Since you have nothing that keeps you here do you want to return soon? A. – After seeing everything since this is why I am here. Besides, they can well get by (the children); they will do as they please. When I am no longer here they will have to go without me. What do you say, cousin?
17. How about the wine and food in Paris? A. – But it does not compare to the wine I made you drink (the Spirit refers to a time when he had Mr. D… drinking a wine bottled twenty years ago); it is not bad though. The food to me is the same. Sometimes I ask for some bread and eat by your side. I don’t like to get the plates dirty. It is not hard when you are used to it. Why ceremony, right?
18. Where are you sleeping? I did not see your bed. A. – When I got here Mariana went to a dark room; I thought it was mine and lied down there. I said that several times to everyone.
19. Aren’t you afraid of being smashed in the streets of Paris, given your age? A. – Well, cousin, that is what upsets me the most, those crazy cars; I never stay away from the sidewalks, though.
20. For how long have you been in Paris? A. – Well, let us see, you know I arrived here last Thursday. It seems 8 days now.
21. Since I did not see your luggage let me know if you need white clothes. A. – I got two shirts and that is enough; when they are dirty I will do something; don’t want to trouble you.
22. Could you tell us what father Colbert told you before your departure to Paris? A. – He is in Mariana’s place. He has been there for a long time. After the sale he wanted to stay there. He said he is not bothered because he takes care of that.
23. Yesterday you said that you had not seen my father-in-law Dedelot because he was dead. How come you see father Colbert so well since he has been dead for at least thirty years also? A. – Well, in reality you ask me what I don’t know. I had not thought of that. It is certain that he is calm but I cannot say anything beyond that.
Observation: Father Colbert is the former owner of the house of Mrs. Delanne’s mother. It seems that he remained in his house since his death, like a guardian, and that he also believe to be alive. These two Spirits, therefore, Colbert and Pierre Legay, see one another and talk as if they were still in this world, both unaware of their situation.
Observation: The amount 16.4 francs is really what shows on the sign post, something that was ignored by Mr. and Mrs. Delanne!
Observation: Father Colbert is the former owner of the house of Mrs. Delanne’s mother. It seems that he remained in his house since his death, like a guardian, and that he also believe to be alive. These two Spirits, therefore, Colbert and Pierre Legay, see one another and talk as if they were still in this world, both unaware of their situation.
3rd Conversation, August 19th, 1864
24. (To the spiritual guide of the medium) – Kindly give us some instructions about the Spirit Legay and let us know if it is time to help him understand his true situation. A. – Yes my children, he was disturbed with yesterday’s questions; he does not realize what he is, everything is confusing now and he still does not invoke the protection of his guardian angel.
25. (To Legay) Are you here? A. – Yes, cousin, but I feel really strange; I don’t know what the meaning of all this is. Don’t go without me Mariana.
26. Have you given any thought to what we asked you yesterday about father Colbert that you saw alive when he is dead? A. – I cannot explain that to you. I just heard some time ago that there were apparitions. Believe me, I think he is one of those. Say what you will but I saw him. But I guarantee I am tired. I need to rest a bit.
27. Do you believe in God and do you do your daily prayers? A. – My word I do; if that does not do good it will not do harm.
28. Do you believe in the immortality of the soul? A. – Ah that is different. I cannot say anything. I doubt it.
29. If I gave you a proof of the immortality of the soul, would you believe? A. – Ah the Parisians know everything. I ask for no more. How can you do that?
30. (To the guide of the medium) Can we evoke father Colbert to demonstrate to him that he is dead? A. – There is no need to go so fast. Bring him smoothly. Besides, this other Spirit would get you really tired tonight.
31. (To Legay) Where are you placed that I cannot see you? A. – You don’t see me? Ah that is too much! Are you blind?
32. Explain how you talk to us because you are making my wife write. A. – Me? My word that I am not!
Several other questions were addressed to the Spirit but remained without answer. The Spirit of his guardian angel was evoked and one of the medium’s guide responded the following:
“My friends, it is me that come to answer because the guardian angel of the poor Spirit is not with him for he will come when he is called and the help of the Lord is requested to give him light. He was still under the domination of matter and did not want to hear the voice of his guardian angel that had moved away since he was adamant in remaining stationary. In reality it was not him that was making you write. He spoke as usual persuaded that you would understand but it was his familiar Spirit that led your hand. From his point of view you wrote while he spoke with your husband and that seemed natural to him. But you last questions and your thoughts led him to Tréveray; he got disturbed; pray for him and evoke him later. He will return right away. Pray for him. We will pray together with you.”
We have seen more than one example of Spirits that believe to be alive. Pierre Legay shows us that phase of the life of the Spirits in a very characteristic way. It seems that those in similar situation are in a much larger number than suspected; instead of being an exception, of presenting us with a variety of punishment, this seems to be almost a rule to Spirits of a certain category. We therefore have around us not only the Spirits that are aware of the spiritual life but also a number of others that in a way live a semi-material life, still believing to be in this world, continuing to wander around or involved with their earthly occupations.
Nonetheless it would be a mistake to compare them to the incarnate in everything because one can notice in their attitudes and ideas something vague and fuzzy that is not proper of a corporeal life. It is an intermediary state that gives us the explanation of certain effects of spontaneous manifestations and certain old and modern beliefs.
A phenomenon that seems to be more original and that brings a smile to the lips of the nonbelievers is the supposed ownership of material objects by these Spirits. We can understand the fact that Pierre Legay is taking the train since this is something real that exists, but his belief in having money and having paid for the tickets is less understandable. This phenomenon finds explanation in the properties of the spiritual fluid and in the theory of the fluidic creations, an important principle that provides the key to many mysteries of the invisible world. Through their will or thoughts the Spirit acts upon the perispiritual fluid that is nothing more than a concentration of the cosmic fluid or the universal element; that leads to a partial transformation that produces the desired object. Such object is to us just an appearance but to the Spirit it is a reality. That is how a recently deceased person showed up in a Spiritist meeting to a clairvoyant medium with a pipe in his mouth, smoking. Responding to the observation made to him that it was not proper, he said: “What do you want? I am so much attached to the habit of smoking that I cannot go without the pipe.” Something even more singular was the fact that the pipe produced smoke to the eyes of the clairvoyant and not to the attendees. Everything in the spiritual world must be in harmony with the material world. To the physical persons material objects are necessary. The Spirit whose body is fluidic requires fluidic objects. Material objects would not serve them more than the fluidic objects would serve incarnate people. Feeling the need to smoke the smoking Spirit created a pipe that to him was as real as an earthly pipe. Legay needed money to pay for the tickets and through his thoughts he created the necessary amount. To him it was really money but incarnate people could not accept money from the Spirits. That is what explain the clothes that they wear at will, the several appearances that they may take, etc.
The healing properties given to the fluid by their will is also explained by that transformation. The modified fluid acts upon the perispirit that is its similar and that perispirits, intermediary between the material and spiritual principle, reacts upon the organization in which it represents an important role, although still unknown to science. There are, consequently, the corporeal and visible world with the material objects and the fluidic, invisible world to us, with the fluidic objects. We must point out that the Spirits of an inferior order and not much enlightened, operate such creations unnoticeably, not aware of how such effects are produced. They cannot understand it like an ignorant person on Earth cannot understand the mechanism of eye sight or a peasant cannot understand the growth of corn. The fluidic formations are linked by a general principle that will later on be an object of a complete development when it is sufficiently elaborated. The state of the Spirits in the situation of Pierre Legay raises several questions. To which category the Spirits that still believe to be alive belong? What is the cause of that? Is it due to a lack of moral and intellectual development? We see much inferior Spirits that are very aware of their state and the majority of those that we see in such situation are not the most delayed ones. Is it a punishment? To some it certainly is like Simon Louvet from The Hague, the suicide from the Tower of Francis I, that for five years lived the expectation of his fall (Spiritist Review, March 1863); but many others are not unhappy and do not suffer as witnessed by Pierre Legay (see the next dissertation as an answer).
“My friends, it is me that come to answer because the guardian angel of the poor Spirit is not with him for he will come when he is called and the help of the Lord is requested to give him light. He was still under the domination of matter and did not want to hear the voice of his guardian angel that had moved away since he was adamant in remaining stationary. In reality it was not him that was making you write. He spoke as usual persuaded that you would understand but it was his familiar Spirit that led your hand. From his point of view you wrote while he spoke with your husband and that seemed natural to him. But you last questions and your thoughts led him to Tréveray; he got disturbed; pray for him and evoke him later. He will return right away. Pray for him. We will pray together with you.”
We have seen more than one example of Spirits that believe to be alive. Pierre Legay shows us that phase of the life of the Spirits in a very characteristic way. It seems that those in similar situation are in a much larger number than suspected; instead of being an exception, of presenting us with a variety of punishment, this seems to be almost a rule to Spirits of a certain category. We therefore have around us not only the Spirits that are aware of the spiritual life but also a number of others that in a way live a semi-material life, still believing to be in this world, continuing to wander around or involved with their earthly occupations.
Nonetheless it would be a mistake to compare them to the incarnate in everything because one can notice in their attitudes and ideas something vague and fuzzy that is not proper of a corporeal life. It is an intermediary state that gives us the explanation of certain effects of spontaneous manifestations and certain old and modern beliefs.
A phenomenon that seems to be more original and that brings a smile to the lips of the nonbelievers is the supposed ownership of material objects by these Spirits. We can understand the fact that Pierre Legay is taking the train since this is something real that exists, but his belief in having money and having paid for the tickets is less understandable. This phenomenon finds explanation in the properties of the spiritual fluid and in the theory of the fluidic creations, an important principle that provides the key to many mysteries of the invisible world. Through their will or thoughts the Spirit acts upon the perispiritual fluid that is nothing more than a concentration of the cosmic fluid or the universal element; that leads to a partial transformation that produces the desired object. Such object is to us just an appearance but to the Spirit it is a reality. That is how a recently deceased person showed up in a Spiritist meeting to a clairvoyant medium with a pipe in his mouth, smoking. Responding to the observation made to him that it was not proper, he said: “What do you want? I am so much attached to the habit of smoking that I cannot go without the pipe.” Something even more singular was the fact that the pipe produced smoke to the eyes of the clairvoyant and not to the attendees. Everything in the spiritual world must be in harmony with the material world. To the physical persons material objects are necessary. The Spirit whose body is fluidic requires fluidic objects. Material objects would not serve them more than the fluidic objects would serve incarnate people. Feeling the need to smoke the smoking Spirit created a pipe that to him was as real as an earthly pipe. Legay needed money to pay for the tickets and through his thoughts he created the necessary amount. To him it was really money but incarnate people could not accept money from the Spirits. That is what explain the clothes that they wear at will, the several appearances that they may take, etc.
The healing properties given to the fluid by their will is also explained by that transformation. The modified fluid acts upon the perispirit that is its similar and that perispirits, intermediary between the material and spiritual principle, reacts upon the organization in which it represents an important role, although still unknown to science. There are, consequently, the corporeal and visible world with the material objects and the fluidic, invisible world to us, with the fluidic objects. We must point out that the Spirits of an inferior order and not much enlightened, operate such creations unnoticeably, not aware of how such effects are produced. They cannot understand it like an ignorant person on Earth cannot understand the mechanism of eye sight or a peasant cannot understand the growth of corn. The fluidic formations are linked by a general principle that will later on be an object of a complete development when it is sufficiently elaborated. The state of the Spirits in the situation of Pierre Legay raises several questions. To which category the Spirits that still believe to be alive belong? What is the cause of that? Is it due to a lack of moral and intellectual development? We see much inferior Spirits that are very aware of their state and the majority of those that we see in such situation are not the most delayed ones. Is it a punishment? To some it certainly is like Simon Louvet from The Hague, the suicide from the Tower of Francis I, that for five years lived the expectation of his fall (Spiritist Review, March 1863); but many others are not unhappy and do not suffer as witnessed by Pierre Legay (see the next dissertation as an answer).
Parisian Society, July 21st, 1864 – medium Mr. Vézy
We have several times mentioned the multiple types of trials and atonements but don’t you discover new ones every day? They are infinite like the humanity’s vices. How can we establish a nomenclature? Nonetheless you mentioned a fact and I will try to instruct you.
Not everything is trial in life. The life of the Spirit continues, as you have been told, from birth to infinity. To some, death is just a simple accident that has no influence upon the destiny of the dead. A falling roof tile, a stroke or a violent death, many times the only thing they do is to separate the Spirit from its material envelope; but the perispiritual envelope maintains, at least partially, the properties of the body that has just fallen. If I could open the eyes that you have but that you cannot use in a day of battle you would see many battles still taking place, many soldiers struggling against one another, defending and attacking trenches; you would even hear them screaming and shouting their slogans of battle amidst the silence and the dismal veil that covers the battlefields. Once the combat is over they go back home to the old mothers and fathers that wait for them. Such a state may last a long time to some; it is a continuity of life on Earth, a dual state between corporeal life and spiritual life. If they were simple and judicious, why would they feel the cold of the tomb? Why would they suddenly pass from life to death, from clarity to darkness? God is not unfair and allows such a pleasure to the poor of spirit, giving them the opportunity to realize their state through their own faculties, and therefore passing calmly from the material life to the life of the Spirit.
Rest assured all of you whose fathers, mothers, brothers and children died without a struggle. They may perhaps be allowed to still believe that their lips approach your foreheads. Dry your tears: your crying is painful to them and they are astonished when they see that; they embrace you and request your smile. Show that smile to the invisible ones and pray for having them replacing their condition of companions to that of guides; for having them unfolding their spiritual wings that will allow them to glide onto infinity and bring you their comforting emanations. Notice that I am not telling you that every dead person suddenly falls into such a state. No, but there isn’t a single one to whom matter does not have to fight the Spirit that is met again. There was a duel, the flesh was broken, the Spirit was obscured at the time of separation, and in erraticity the Spirit acknowledge true life.
I will now tell you a few words about those to whom that state is a trial. Ah how painful that is! They believe to be alive and well alive, believing to have a body capable of feeling and enjoying the pleasures of life, and when their hands want to touch those things they melt; when approaching their lips to a glass or a fruit those lips disappear; they see, they want to touch, but they cannot feel or touch. Paganism offers a beautiful image of that ordeal by showing the hungry and thirsty Tantulus that could never touch the pool of water that whispered in his ears and the fruits that always eluded him. The screams of those unfortunate Spirits are of curse and anathema! What have they done to deserve such suffering? Ask God. It is the law written by God. The one that kills with the sword will die by the sword; the one that dishonored a fellow human being will be dishonored as well. The eye for an eye was in the book of Moses and it is still written in the great book of atonement. Pray therefore incessantly for those in their final hour. Their eyes will be shut and they will sleep in space as they did on Earth and when they wake up they will no longer find a severe judge but a compassionate father assigning them with new tasks and new destinies.
St. Augustine
We have several times mentioned the multiple types of trials and atonements but don’t you discover new ones every day? They are infinite like the humanity’s vices. How can we establish a nomenclature? Nonetheless you mentioned a fact and I will try to instruct you.
Not everything is trial in life. The life of the Spirit continues, as you have been told, from birth to infinity. To some, death is just a simple accident that has no influence upon the destiny of the dead. A falling roof tile, a stroke or a violent death, many times the only thing they do is to separate the Spirit from its material envelope; but the perispiritual envelope maintains, at least partially, the properties of the body that has just fallen. If I could open the eyes that you have but that you cannot use in a day of battle you would see many battles still taking place, many soldiers struggling against one another, defending and attacking trenches; you would even hear them screaming and shouting their slogans of battle amidst the silence and the dismal veil that covers the battlefields. Once the combat is over they go back home to the old mothers and fathers that wait for them. Such a state may last a long time to some; it is a continuity of life on Earth, a dual state between corporeal life and spiritual life. If they were simple and judicious, why would they feel the cold of the tomb? Why would they suddenly pass from life to death, from clarity to darkness? God is not unfair and allows such a pleasure to the poor of spirit, giving them the opportunity to realize their state through their own faculties, and therefore passing calmly from the material life to the life of the Spirit.
Rest assured all of you whose fathers, mothers, brothers and children died without a struggle. They may perhaps be allowed to still believe that their lips approach your foreheads. Dry your tears: your crying is painful to them and they are astonished when they see that; they embrace you and request your smile. Show that smile to the invisible ones and pray for having them replacing their condition of companions to that of guides; for having them unfolding their spiritual wings that will allow them to glide onto infinity and bring you their comforting emanations. Notice that I am not telling you that every dead person suddenly falls into such a state. No, but there isn’t a single one to whom matter does not have to fight the Spirit that is met again. There was a duel, the flesh was broken, the Spirit was obscured at the time of separation, and in erraticity the Spirit acknowledge true life.
I will now tell you a few words about those to whom that state is a trial. Ah how painful that is! They believe to be alive and well alive, believing to have a body capable of feeling and enjoying the pleasures of life, and when their hands want to touch those things they melt; when approaching their lips to a glass or a fruit those lips disappear; they see, they want to touch, but they cannot feel or touch. Paganism offers a beautiful image of that ordeal by showing the hungry and thirsty Tantulus that could never touch the pool of water that whispered in his ears and the fruits that always eluded him. The screams of those unfortunate Spirits are of curse and anathema! What have they done to deserve such suffering? Ask God. It is the law written by God. The one that kills with the sword will die by the sword; the one that dishonored a fellow human being will be dishonored as well. The eye for an eye was in the book of Moses and it is still written in the great book of atonement. Pray therefore incessantly for those in their final hour. Their eyes will be shut and they will sleep in space as they did on Earth and when they wake up they will no longer find a severe judge but a compassionate father assigning them with new tasks and new destinies.
St. Augustine
Varieties
According to the Sémaphore from Marseille dated September 29th several journals were fast to reproduce the following fact:
“The day before yesterday, at night, a house located at Rue Paradis was the stage of a very painful event. An industrialist that has lamp store there killed himself, employing a strong dose of one of the most lethal poisons. Here is how the suicide took place:
The businessman was giving signs of a certain mental disarray for some time already, produced perhaps by the abuse of alcohol but more particularly to the practice of Spiritism, this modern scourge that has already claimed so many victims in the large cities and that now threatens to bring its devastations even to the country side. Despite his clientele that assure him a lucrative work, Mr. X… businesses were not in good shape and sometimes he had difficulties to pay for all his bills. His humor consequently was generally somber and his attitude unpleasant.”
The article attests that he used to abuse strong liquors and that his business was in poor condition, circumstances that many times lead to mental issues and even suicide. The author, however, only admits these causes as possible or accessories in that case whereas he strongly attributes the fact to the practice of Spiritism. The letter below was sent to us from Marseille, solving the issue and pointing out to the good-faith of the editor.
Dear Master,
The Gazette du Midi and the Sémaphore of Marseille from September 29th published an article about the voluntary poisoning of a businessman attributed to the practice of Spiritism. Since I personally knew that miserable man that was from the same Mason Store that I am, I can positively attest that he has never been involved with Spiritism and that he had never read any publication about the subject. You have my authorization to use my name since I am ready to prove the truth about what I am telling you; if needed all my brothers and the best friends of the deceased consider to be their duty to attest the same. Had him had God’s blessing to have known and understood Spiritism and he would have found the necessary strength to resist the dismal inclinations that led him to such an insensible act.
Yours truly,
Chavaux
Doctor in Medicine, Rue du Petit-Saint-Jean, 24
“The day before yesterday, at night, a house located at Rue Paradis was the stage of a very painful event. An industrialist that has lamp store there killed himself, employing a strong dose of one of the most lethal poisons. Here is how the suicide took place:
The businessman was giving signs of a certain mental disarray for some time already, produced perhaps by the abuse of alcohol but more particularly to the practice of Spiritism, this modern scourge that has already claimed so many victims in the large cities and that now threatens to bring its devastations even to the country side. Despite his clientele that assure him a lucrative work, Mr. X… businesses were not in good shape and sometimes he had difficulties to pay for all his bills. His humor consequently was generally somber and his attitude unpleasant.”
The article attests that he used to abuse strong liquors and that his business was in poor condition, circumstances that many times lead to mental issues and even suicide. The author, however, only admits these causes as possible or accessories in that case whereas he strongly attributes the fact to the practice of Spiritism. The letter below was sent to us from Marseille, solving the issue and pointing out to the good-faith of the editor.
Dear Master,
The Gazette du Midi and the Sémaphore of Marseille from September 29th published an article about the voluntary poisoning of a businessman attributed to the practice of Spiritism. Since I personally knew that miserable man that was from the same Mason Store that I am, I can positively attest that he has never been involved with Spiritism and that he had never read any publication about the subject. You have my authorization to use my name since I am ready to prove the truth about what I am telling you; if needed all my brothers and the best friends of the deceased consider to be their duty to attest the same. Had him had God’s blessing to have known and understood Spiritism and he would have found the necessary strength to resist the dismal inclinations that led him to such an insensible act.
Yours truly,
Chavaux
Doctor in Medicine, Rue du Petit-Saint-Jean, 24
We got this from Lyon, sent on October 3rd, 1864:
“You know the reputation of Captain B… It is a man of strong faith, of a demonstrated belief. You have already talked about him in your Spiritist Review. Sometime ago he was by the riverbanks of Saône in company of a Spiritist lawyer, like himself. The extended their walk and finally entered into a restaurant to have lunch and soon saw another pedestrian that entered the same building. The recent guest spoke out loud, ordering in a rude manner, apparently trying to draw the attention of those in the restaurant. Observing the lighthearted person the Captain then addressed a few kind of reproachable words to that person that had just arrived. He was then taken by a sudden sadness. Mr. B… is a hearing medium and distinctly hears the voice of his own son from whom he receives frequent communications whispering in his ear: - the rude man that you see will commit suicide. He came here for his last meal.
The Captain promptly stood up and approached the disturber asking for his forgiveness when said those words out loud. He then took him to the outside of the establishment and said: Sir, you are going to commit suicide. The little old man counting seventy seven years of age was astonished, and then said: Who could have told you similar thing? God, Mr. B… responded. He then started to talk about the immortality of the soul and leading him back to Lyon talked to him about Spiritism and everything that God may inspire in such cases to give encouragement and consolation.
The old man then told him his story. Former Orthopedist he was ruined by an unfaithful partner. He fell sick and spent a long time in hospital but once he was cured he found unemployment, without any resources. He was given shelter by a poor worker, a sublime creature that fed him for months only obliged by her own good heart. The fear of turning into a burden to her he made him seek suicide.
The Captain sought the honorable lady and offered her help and encouragement. But when one has to live money goes fast and yesterday the poor furniture of the lady worker would have been sold if some good Spiritists had not rescued the pieces she had in the only room because after a year feeding the poor old man she had pawned linen, blankets, etc. It was all recovered thanks to the good hearts that were touched by the generous devotion. But that is not all. It is necessary to continue until the old man finds refuge in the Sisters of the Poor. By the way, Carita made me write a communication that I send to you with the expression of all of our recognition, dear Sir that made us Spiritists. As for myself I do not forget that I was invited to return with you when you come back.”
Here is the communication:
“You know the reputation of Captain B… It is a man of strong faith, of a demonstrated belief. You have already talked about him in your Spiritist Review. Sometime ago he was by the riverbanks of Saône in company of a Spiritist lawyer, like himself. The extended their walk and finally entered into a restaurant to have lunch and soon saw another pedestrian that entered the same building. The recent guest spoke out loud, ordering in a rude manner, apparently trying to draw the attention of those in the restaurant. Observing the lighthearted person the Captain then addressed a few kind of reproachable words to that person that had just arrived. He was then taken by a sudden sadness. Mr. B… is a hearing medium and distinctly hears the voice of his own son from whom he receives frequent communications whispering in his ear: - the rude man that you see will commit suicide. He came here for his last meal.
The Captain promptly stood up and approached the disturber asking for his forgiveness when said those words out loud. He then took him to the outside of the establishment and said: Sir, you are going to commit suicide. The little old man counting seventy seven years of age was astonished, and then said: Who could have told you similar thing? God, Mr. B… responded. He then started to talk about the immortality of the soul and leading him back to Lyon talked to him about Spiritism and everything that God may inspire in such cases to give encouragement and consolation.
The old man then told him his story. Former Orthopedist he was ruined by an unfaithful partner. He fell sick and spent a long time in hospital but once he was cured he found unemployment, without any resources. He was given shelter by a poor worker, a sublime creature that fed him for months only obliged by her own good heart. The fear of turning into a burden to her he made him seek suicide.
The Captain sought the honorable lady and offered her help and encouragement. But when one has to live money goes fast and yesterday the poor furniture of the lady worker would have been sold if some good Spiritists had not rescued the pieces she had in the only room because after a year feeding the poor old man she had pawned linen, blankets, etc. It was all recovered thanks to the good hearts that were touched by the generous devotion. But that is not all. It is necessary to continue until the old man finds refuge in the Sisters of the Poor. By the way, Carita made me write a communication that I send to you with the expression of all of our recognition, dear Sir that made us Spiritists. As for myself I do not forget that I was invited to return with you when you come back.”
Here is the communication:
Spiritism, this star of the East, does not come only to open up the doors of science to you. It does more than that: it is a friend that makes you get closer to one another, that teaches you the love to the neighbor and above all charity, but not the degrading alms that seeks the least valued coin in the pocket to give to the poor, but the sweet meekness of Jesus Christ that knew the path of the hidden suffering.
My good friends, I found in my path one of these miseries that is not reported in history but that is kept in the heart when remember the time of such tough trials. It is a poor woman; she is a mother; she has a soon, unemployed for several months; besides, she supports a misery worker like herself. On top of that an old man comes to her place every day at mealtime and when there is enough to eat. But when they lack the necessary the two poor women, remarkable creatures in their charity, give their food to the men, old and young, with the pretext that they had eaten before, despite their hunger. I saw that happening many times. I saw the old man in a moment of desperation selling his last piece of clothing and saw him wishing out of pure madness to say good-bye to life before returning to the invisible world, where God judges everyone.
I saw hunger printing its marks on these disinherited of the social well-being, but the women prayed with eagerness and God listened. He has already brought Spiritist brothers onto their path and when charity calls devoted hearts answer. The tears of desperation are gone. There is only the anguish, the threatening ghost of winter with its entourage of hailstones, ice and snow. I reach out to you on behalf of that misery. The poor, our friends, are God’s envoys. They come to tell us: We suffer; it is God’s wishes; it is our punishment and at the same time an example to our betterment. When you see us so unhappy your hearts are touched, your feelings broaden and you learn to love and be sorry for the unfortunate ones. Help us so that we shall not perish and also to see God’s smile from the heights of his beautiful paradise. That is what the poor says in his hags; that is what your guardian angel tells you and I repeat, a simple messenger of charity, intermediary between heavens and you.
Smile to those in suffering, oh you so gifted by all qualities of the heart. Help me in my mission. Do not allow that sanctuary of your soul to close down, a sanctuary that receives the eyes of God and that one day, when you return to your motherland, with unsure eyes and feeble steps seeking your path through infinity I will wide open the door of the temple to you where everything is love and charity and I will say: Come in, my beloved ones. I know you!”
Carita
Who would they want to convince that this is the language of the devil? Was it the voice of the devil that was heard by the Captain, in the name of his son, warning him that the old man was about to commit suicide and, at the same time, bringing up regret for the strong words that he had used and that could have hurt the man? According to a group that wants to convey the message that it is only the devil that communicates that Captain should have repealed that voice as if coming from the devil; the result of that would have been the suicide of the poor old man and the furniture of the poor workers would have been sold and that they would be starving.
Among the donations that we received for them there is one that we must mention without naming the author. It was followed by this letter:
Dear Sir,
“I heard from a relative that learned from you the report of a beautiful and truly Christian action that was carried out by a poor worker of Lyon on behalf of a poor old man. My relative showed me a very eloquent appeal in favor of that man made by a Spirit that gives herself the kind name Cárita. Responding to your question if we recognize the words of the devil in that I say that our best saints do not speak in a better way. It is my opinion. That is why I took the liberty of requesting a copy from you. Sir, I am a vicar but I send you the widow’s alms in the name of Jesus Christ to that brave and honorable woman. Attached you find the little amount of five francs, apologizing for not being able to give more. Please do not mention my name.
Father X…
My good friends, I found in my path one of these miseries that is not reported in history but that is kept in the heart when remember the time of such tough trials. It is a poor woman; she is a mother; she has a soon, unemployed for several months; besides, she supports a misery worker like herself. On top of that an old man comes to her place every day at mealtime and when there is enough to eat. But when they lack the necessary the two poor women, remarkable creatures in their charity, give their food to the men, old and young, with the pretext that they had eaten before, despite their hunger. I saw that happening many times. I saw the old man in a moment of desperation selling his last piece of clothing and saw him wishing out of pure madness to say good-bye to life before returning to the invisible world, where God judges everyone.
I saw hunger printing its marks on these disinherited of the social well-being, but the women prayed with eagerness and God listened. He has already brought Spiritist brothers onto their path and when charity calls devoted hearts answer. The tears of desperation are gone. There is only the anguish, the threatening ghost of winter with its entourage of hailstones, ice and snow. I reach out to you on behalf of that misery. The poor, our friends, are God’s envoys. They come to tell us: We suffer; it is God’s wishes; it is our punishment and at the same time an example to our betterment. When you see us so unhappy your hearts are touched, your feelings broaden and you learn to love and be sorry for the unfortunate ones. Help us so that we shall not perish and also to see God’s smile from the heights of his beautiful paradise. That is what the poor says in his hags; that is what your guardian angel tells you and I repeat, a simple messenger of charity, intermediary between heavens and you.
Smile to those in suffering, oh you so gifted by all qualities of the heart. Help me in my mission. Do not allow that sanctuary of your soul to close down, a sanctuary that receives the eyes of God and that one day, when you return to your motherland, with unsure eyes and feeble steps seeking your path through infinity I will wide open the door of the temple to you where everything is love and charity and I will say: Come in, my beloved ones. I know you!”
Carita
Who would they want to convince that this is the language of the devil? Was it the voice of the devil that was heard by the Captain, in the name of his son, warning him that the old man was about to commit suicide and, at the same time, bringing up regret for the strong words that he had used and that could have hurt the man? According to a group that wants to convey the message that it is only the devil that communicates that Captain should have repealed that voice as if coming from the devil; the result of that would have been the suicide of the poor old man and the furniture of the poor workers would have been sold and that they would be starving.
Among the donations that we received for them there is one that we must mention without naming the author. It was followed by this letter:
Dear Sir,
“I heard from a relative that learned from you the report of a beautiful and truly Christian action that was carried out by a poor worker of Lyon on behalf of a poor old man. My relative showed me a very eloquent appeal in favor of that man made by a Spirit that gives herself the kind name Cárita. Responding to your question if we recognize the words of the devil in that I say that our best saints do not speak in a better way. It is my opinion. That is why I took the liberty of requesting a copy from you. Sir, I am a vicar but I send you the widow’s alms in the name of Jesus Christ to that brave and honorable woman. Attached you find the little amount of five francs, apologizing for not being able to give more. Please do not mention my name.
Father X…
Its relationship with other special journals
We have frequently heard the desire that people have to see the Spiritist Review published bi-weekly or weekly even to the price of an increase in the subscription. We are very much touched by such testimony of sympathy however for us it is impossible to change the frequency of publication at least for the time being. The first reason is the multiplicity of work that is the consequence of our position whose extension is difficult to imagine. We tell the most absolute truth when say that we do not have a single day of absolute rest and that despite our whole activity it is physically impossible to take care of everything. By doubling or quadrupling our monthly publication we understand that the majority of the subscribers would have time to read but for us this would harm more important work that we still have to do.
The second reason is in the very nature of our Spiritist Review that is less of a journal than the complement and development of our own doctrinaire work. The periodical style allows us to introduce more variety than in a book and to register current affairs. It receives the most interesting facts and refutations according to the opportunities and circumstances; the instructions of the Spirits; it registers the different phases of the progress of the Spiritist science; finally, it brings new arguable theories that can only be accepted after receiving the sanction of the universal control.
In a word, the Spiritist Review is not a personal work whose responsibility we assume entirely and that we cannot and must not see precluded by a strange will. It is conceived according to a determined plan to concur with the objective that we must reach. It would lose its essential character if turned into a bi-weekly brochure. The very nature of our works oppose to our involvement in the details and difficulties of journalism. That is why the Spiritist Review must continue to be what it s. We shall continue as is while its existence is necessary in the present format. As a matter of fact by changing the periodicity it would seem that we want to compete with new journals that are published about the subject, something out of question.
Those journals fulfil the blank space with their more frequent periodicity. Given the diversity of the subject matter that they can handle and that are part of their editorial program; by the number of enlightened and skillful Spiritists that can give contribution to them; finally by the diffusion of the idea in several formats they can do great services to the cause. They are many other champions that work for the Doctrine whose institutions we have the pleasure to see multiplying. We will always support those that frankly march on a useful path; that do not become instruments of little groups or personal ambitions; and those that finally are guided by the great principles of the Spiritist moral. We shall be happy to encourage and help them with our advices if needed. But our cooperation stops there.
We declare not to have any material commitment with any of them, without exception. Therefore none of them is published by us or with our effective sponsorship. We leave each one with the responsibility of their publications. When requests for subscription to those journals come to the Spiritist Review we make sure that they get to their true recipients in the name of good comradery without seeing any interest in that, not even the normal commission attributed to intermediaries, something that we will not accept even if offered.
We believe that we must explain the real situation of things for the enlightenment of those that believe that certain Spiritist journals have links of economic interest with our Spiritist Review. There is no doubt that all have common interest because they tend to the same objective as we do. From that point of view all owe mutual benevolence to each other for otherwise they would belie their qualification of Spiritist journals, but each one within their circle of activity, means and own responsibility. The Doctrine can only gain in credit and with their intendance. At the same time the agreement of views and principles that exist between them and the Spiritist Review would have nothing of extraordinary from the part of those that come from the same source. If another periodical were produced out of our initiative and with our effective support we would have that openly declared.
We have frequently heard the desire that people have to see the Spiritist Review published bi-weekly or weekly even to the price of an increase in the subscription. We are very much touched by such testimony of sympathy however for us it is impossible to change the frequency of publication at least for the time being. The first reason is the multiplicity of work that is the consequence of our position whose extension is difficult to imagine. We tell the most absolute truth when say that we do not have a single day of absolute rest and that despite our whole activity it is physically impossible to take care of everything. By doubling or quadrupling our monthly publication we understand that the majority of the subscribers would have time to read but for us this would harm more important work that we still have to do.
The second reason is in the very nature of our Spiritist Review that is less of a journal than the complement and development of our own doctrinaire work. The periodical style allows us to introduce more variety than in a book and to register current affairs. It receives the most interesting facts and refutations according to the opportunities and circumstances; the instructions of the Spirits; it registers the different phases of the progress of the Spiritist science; finally, it brings new arguable theories that can only be accepted after receiving the sanction of the universal control.
In a word, the Spiritist Review is not a personal work whose responsibility we assume entirely and that we cannot and must not see precluded by a strange will. It is conceived according to a determined plan to concur with the objective that we must reach. It would lose its essential character if turned into a bi-weekly brochure. The very nature of our works oppose to our involvement in the details and difficulties of journalism. That is why the Spiritist Review must continue to be what it s. We shall continue as is while its existence is necessary in the present format. As a matter of fact by changing the periodicity it would seem that we want to compete with new journals that are published about the subject, something out of question.
Those journals fulfil the blank space with their more frequent periodicity. Given the diversity of the subject matter that they can handle and that are part of their editorial program; by the number of enlightened and skillful Spiritists that can give contribution to them; finally by the diffusion of the idea in several formats they can do great services to the cause. They are many other champions that work for the Doctrine whose institutions we have the pleasure to see multiplying. We will always support those that frankly march on a useful path; that do not become instruments of little groups or personal ambitions; and those that finally are guided by the great principles of the Spiritist moral. We shall be happy to encourage and help them with our advices if needed. But our cooperation stops there.
We declare not to have any material commitment with any of them, without exception. Therefore none of them is published by us or with our effective sponsorship. We leave each one with the responsibility of their publications. When requests for subscription to those journals come to the Spiritist Review we make sure that they get to their true recipients in the name of good comradery without seeing any interest in that, not even the normal commission attributed to intermediaries, something that we will not accept even if offered.
We believe that we must explain the real situation of things for the enlightenment of those that believe that certain Spiritist journals have links of economic interest with our Spiritist Review. There is no doubt that all have common interest because they tend to the same objective as we do. From that point of view all owe mutual benevolence to each other for otherwise they would belie their qualification of Spiritist journals, but each one within their circle of activity, means and own responsibility. The Doctrine can only gain in credit and with their intendance. At the same time the agreement of views and principles that exist between them and the Spiritist Review would have nothing of extraordinary from the part of those that come from the same source. If another periodical were produced out of our initiative and with our effective support we would have that openly declared.
December
Tribute to the dead
Note: This issue has a supplement. It contains 52 pages instead of 32, including the general index.
The Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies met for the first time on November 2nd, 1864 with the objective of offering a pious tribute to their deceased Spiritist brothers and colleagues. On the occasion Mr. Allan Kardec developed the principle of communion of thoughts in the following speech:
Dear Spiritist brothers and sisters,
We gathered here on this day dedicated by tradition to the memory of the dead to give those brothers that left Earth a private testimony of sympathy, giving continuity to the relationships of love and fraternity that existed between them and us while they were alive and to attract to them the benevolence of the Almighty.
But why do we gather? Because we deviate from our occupations? Can’t each one do in private what we propose to do in common? Isn’t that what each one does to their loved ones? Can’t it be done every day and every hour of the day? Therefore what is the benefit to get-together on a determined day? I propose to make some considerations about that point, ladies and gentlemen.
The reception that the idea of this meeting had is the first answer to those multiple questions. It is the indication of the need that we have to gather in communion of thoughts.
Communion of thoughts! Do we really understand the reach of such expression? It is allowed to doubt that at least by the majority. Spiritism that teaches us so many things by the laws that it reveals comes still to explain the cause, effects and the power of such condition of the Spirit. Communion of thoughts means common thoughts, unity of intentions, will, desire and aspirations. Nobody can neglect the fact that thought is force. Is it, however, a purely mental and abstract force? No, because otherwise certain effects of thought could not be explained and even less of the communion of thoughts. In order to understand it we need to know the properties and the action of the elements that constitute our spiritual essence and it is Spiritism that teaches us.
Thought is the characteristic attribute of the spiritual being. That is what distinguishes Spirit and matter. Without thought the Spirit would not be Spirit. The will is not a special attribute of the Spirit; it is thought at a certain level of energy; it is thought transformed into driving force. It is through the will that the Spirit transmits movements in a given direction to limbs and body. But if it has the power to act upon physical organs how much must that action be upon the fluidic elements that surround us! Thought acts upon the fluids in the ambient, like sound acts on the air; those fluids bring us the thought like the air brings the sound. One can therefore and positively say that there are waves and rays of thoughts in those fluids that cross one another without mixing up, as there are sound waves and rays in the air.
An assembly is a focus from where diverse thoughts irradiate; it is like an orchestra, a choir of thoughts in which each one produces a note. It results in a large quantity of currents and fluidic emanations from which each person receives impressions by the spiritual sense like in a musical choir the impression is received by the hearing sense. However, in the same way that there are harmonic or discordant sound waves there are also harmonic and discordant thoughts. If the whole is harmonic the impression will be pleasant; if it is discordant the impression will be painful.
For that it is not necessary that the thought be formulated with words since the fluidic radiation does exist be it expressed in words or not. If all thoughts are benevolent the attendees will have a pleasant feeling and at ease. However if some bad thoughts get into the mix they produce the effect of cold air in a warm environment.
That is the cause of the feeling of satisfaction that one experiences in a sympathetic meeting; it is like a healthy atmosphere that prevails, where one can breathe freely and leaves the place renovated because we are impregnated by healthy emanations. That is also the explanation for the undefined anxiety and indisposition that we feel in a hostile environment in which malevolent thoughts provoke, in a way, unhealthy fluidic currents.
The communion of thoughts consequently produces a kind of physical effect that acts upon the moral world. That is what only Spiritism could make understandable. People feel that instinctively and that is why they seek meetings in which they know they are going to find communion; in these homogeneous and sympathetic gatherings they absorb new moral strengths. One can say that they recover their fluidic losses that happen every day by the radiation of thoughts as they recover the loss of physical weight through food. These considerations, ladies and gentlemen, seem to keep us away from the main objective of our meeting, however, they bring us right here. The meetings that have per objective a tribute to the dead are based on a communion of thoughts. In order to understand its utility it would be necessary to define the effects and nature of that communion.
To explain spiritual things I sometimes utilize very material things and perhaps pushing too much for they must not always be taken literally. Nonetheless it is going from the known to the unknown that we realize, at least approximately, what escapes our senses. It is to such comparisons that the Spiritist Doctrine owns to a large extent have been easily understood, even by the most common intelligences, whereas if I had remained in the abstractions of the metaphysics philosophy it would have been only shared, even today, by a few privileged minds. Now, since the beginning it was necessary to have it accepted by the masses because the opinion of the masses exerts a pressure that ends up making the law and succeeding against the more tenacious oppositions. That is why I strived to simplify it and make it clear to have it to the reach of everybody taking the risk of heaving it contested by certain persons with respect to the title of the philosophy because it is not sufficiently abstract and because it has come out of the foggy cloud of classical metaphysics.
To the effects that I have just described with respect to the communion of thoughts I add another one that is its natural consequence and that we must not lose sight of. It is the power that the thought or will acquires by the sum of thoughts or will put together. Since the will is an active force it is multiplied by the number of identical will like the muscular force is multiplied by the number of arms.
That point made one must conceive that in the relationships established between persons and the Spirits there is, in a gathering in which a perfect communion of thoughts reigns, an attractive or repealing force that an isolated force not always has. If up until now the large gatherings are less favorable it is for the difficulty of finding a perfect homogeneity of thoughts, due to the imperfect human nature on Earth.
The larger the meeting the more mixed up the heterogeneous elements that paralyze the action of the good elements and that are like grains of sand in a gear box. That is not what happens in more advanced worlds and that condition will change in our planet, following the betterment of mankind here.
To the Spiritists the communion of thoughts has an even more special result. We have seen the result of such communion from person to person. Spiritism proves that it is not lower between persons and the Spirits and vice versa. In fact if the collective thought acquires strength by quantity, a group of identical thoughts, if the objective is to do good they will have more power to neutralize the action of the bad Spirits. We see that the tactics of the latter is to drive division and isolation. A man alone may succumb but if seconded by the will of others he can resist, according to the axiom: unity is strength, axiom that is true to the physical as well as spiritual world.
On another hand if the action of the malevolent Spirits may be paralyzed by a common thought it is evident that the action of the good ones may be boosted and its healthy influence will not find obstacles; its fluidic emanations will spread onto all attendees since they are not hindered by contrary currents, precisely for the fact that all would have attracted them through their thoughts, not each one to their personal benefit but to the benefit of all, according to the law of charity. Such emanations will fall upon them like tongues of fire to use a remarkable image in the Gospel.
Through the communion of thoughts, therefore, people help one another and at the same time they assist the Spirits and are assisted by them. The relationships between the visible and invisible worlds instead of individual becomes collective and for that very reason more powerful to the benefit of the masses as well as the individuals. In a word, it establishes a solidarity that is the basis of fraternity. Nobody works for oneself but for everyone and working for everyone each finds its own share. That is what selfishness does not understand.
Every religious gathering, irrespective of the cult, are founded on the communion of thoughts; that is where they can and must exert its full power because the objective must be the liberation of thoughts from the constriction of matter. Unfortunately the majority stays away from that principle as much as they turned religion into a question of recipe. This resulted in each person seeking their own recipe and considering to be good with God and their fellow human beings since the formula was practiced. It results still that each person goes to religious gatherings with a personal thought and on their own and in the majority of cases without any feeling of fraternity with respect to the other attendees. That person is in isolation in the multitude and only thinks about heavens for herself. Certainly that was not Jesus’ understanding when he said: “when many of you are gathered in my name I will be with you.” Gathered in my name means: with a common thought but one cannot gather in the name of Jesus without taking into account his principles, his doctrine. But what is the fundamental principle of the doctrine of Jesus? Charity in thoughts, words and actions. The egotist and proud persons lie when believe to be gathering in the name of Jesus because Jesus to not recognize them as his disciples.
Adopting those abuses and deviations some persons deny the utility of religious assemblies and, consequently, the buildings dedicated to that. In their radical view they think that it would be better to build hospitals than temples given that the temple of God is everywhere and that God can be worshiped everywhere; that each person can pray in their home and at any time while the poor and sick require their place of recovery.
But for the reason that they make such mistakes and move away from the right path does it mean that there is no right way and that everything that is abused is bad? Certainly not. This is a misunderstanding of the origin and benefits of the communion of thoughts that must be the essence of the religious assemblies; it is ignorance of the sources that lead to them.
It is understandable that materialistic persons profess such ideas because they make abstraction of the spiritual world in everything but from spiritualists and in particular Spiritists that would be a nonsense. Religious isolation, like social isolation, leads to selfishness. It is possible that certain persons are strong enough by themselves, very heartful so that their faith and charity do not need to be fed by a common focus but that is not the case with the masses that require stimulus without which they would remain indifferent.
Besides, which person can consider oneself enlightened enough to have nothing to learn with respect to her future interest and perfect enough to prescind from the advices to the current life? Is that person always capable of learning by herself? No. The majority lacks direct teachings about religious and moral issues, as well as with respect to the science. There is no doubt that such instructions may be given everywhere, under the dome of the skies as much as under the roof of a temple. But why people would not have special places to meet heavenly things, like there are those for the earthly ones? Why not having religious assemblies like there are others in politics, science and technology? That does not preclude the foundations to the benefit of the unfortunate ones but we say in addition that when humanity better understand their interests in heavens there will be the need for less people in hospitals here.
Speaking generically and without reference to any cult, if the religious assemblies many times move away from their main primitive objective that is the fraternal communion of thoughts; if the teachings there have not always followed the progressive march of humanity it is for the reason that not everyone realize progress simultaneously. What they do not time in period the do in another. As they learn they see the existing blanks in their institutions and fill them out; they understand that what was good at one time, given the level of civilization, becomes insufficient in a more advanced period and they catch up. We know that Spiritism is the great lever of progress in all things. It marks an era of renovation. Let us learn to wait and let us not claim from a time more than it can give. Like with the plants, it is necessary that the ideas mature to have the fruits harvested. We must also make the necessary concessions to the times of transition for nothing in nature happens in a sudden and instantaneous way.
For the reason that we gather here, ladies and gentlemen, I consider to be proper to take the opportunity to develop the subject of the communion of thoughts, from the point of view of Spiritism. Since our objective is to unite in our intention to together offer a private testimony of sympathy to our deceased loved ones it seemed useful to call our attention to the advantages of the meeting. Thanks to Spiritism we understand the power and the effects of collective thoughts and we can better explain the good feeling that we experience in a homogeneous and sympathetic environment, but we equally know that the same applies to the Spirits because they know how to receive the emanations of every benevolent thought that elevates to them like a cloud of perfume. Those that are happy feel an even greater joy in this harmonious concert; those that suffer feel a greater relief with that. Each one of us, in particular, preferably pray for those of their interest or esteem. Let us have it here that all of them may have their share in the prayers that we address to God.
Note: This issue has a supplement. It contains 52 pages instead of 32, including the general index.
The Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies met for the first time on November 2nd, 1864 with the objective of offering a pious tribute to their deceased Spiritist brothers and colleagues. On the occasion Mr. Allan Kardec developed the principle of communion of thoughts in the following speech:
Dear Spiritist brothers and sisters,
We gathered here on this day dedicated by tradition to the memory of the dead to give those brothers that left Earth a private testimony of sympathy, giving continuity to the relationships of love and fraternity that existed between them and us while they were alive and to attract to them the benevolence of the Almighty.
But why do we gather? Because we deviate from our occupations? Can’t each one do in private what we propose to do in common? Isn’t that what each one does to their loved ones? Can’t it be done every day and every hour of the day? Therefore what is the benefit to get-together on a determined day? I propose to make some considerations about that point, ladies and gentlemen.
The reception that the idea of this meeting had is the first answer to those multiple questions. It is the indication of the need that we have to gather in communion of thoughts.
Communion of thoughts! Do we really understand the reach of such expression? It is allowed to doubt that at least by the majority. Spiritism that teaches us so many things by the laws that it reveals comes still to explain the cause, effects and the power of such condition of the Spirit. Communion of thoughts means common thoughts, unity of intentions, will, desire and aspirations. Nobody can neglect the fact that thought is force. Is it, however, a purely mental and abstract force? No, because otherwise certain effects of thought could not be explained and even less of the communion of thoughts. In order to understand it we need to know the properties and the action of the elements that constitute our spiritual essence and it is Spiritism that teaches us.
Thought is the characteristic attribute of the spiritual being. That is what distinguishes Spirit and matter. Without thought the Spirit would not be Spirit. The will is not a special attribute of the Spirit; it is thought at a certain level of energy; it is thought transformed into driving force. It is through the will that the Spirit transmits movements in a given direction to limbs and body. But if it has the power to act upon physical organs how much must that action be upon the fluidic elements that surround us! Thought acts upon the fluids in the ambient, like sound acts on the air; those fluids bring us the thought like the air brings the sound. One can therefore and positively say that there are waves and rays of thoughts in those fluids that cross one another without mixing up, as there are sound waves and rays in the air.
An assembly is a focus from where diverse thoughts irradiate; it is like an orchestra, a choir of thoughts in which each one produces a note. It results in a large quantity of currents and fluidic emanations from which each person receives impressions by the spiritual sense like in a musical choir the impression is received by the hearing sense. However, in the same way that there are harmonic or discordant sound waves there are also harmonic and discordant thoughts. If the whole is harmonic the impression will be pleasant; if it is discordant the impression will be painful.
For that it is not necessary that the thought be formulated with words since the fluidic radiation does exist be it expressed in words or not. If all thoughts are benevolent the attendees will have a pleasant feeling and at ease. However if some bad thoughts get into the mix they produce the effect of cold air in a warm environment.
That is the cause of the feeling of satisfaction that one experiences in a sympathetic meeting; it is like a healthy atmosphere that prevails, where one can breathe freely and leaves the place renovated because we are impregnated by healthy emanations. That is also the explanation for the undefined anxiety and indisposition that we feel in a hostile environment in which malevolent thoughts provoke, in a way, unhealthy fluidic currents.
The communion of thoughts consequently produces a kind of physical effect that acts upon the moral world. That is what only Spiritism could make understandable. People feel that instinctively and that is why they seek meetings in which they know they are going to find communion; in these homogeneous and sympathetic gatherings they absorb new moral strengths. One can say that they recover their fluidic losses that happen every day by the radiation of thoughts as they recover the loss of physical weight through food. These considerations, ladies and gentlemen, seem to keep us away from the main objective of our meeting, however, they bring us right here. The meetings that have per objective a tribute to the dead are based on a communion of thoughts. In order to understand its utility it would be necessary to define the effects and nature of that communion.
To explain spiritual things I sometimes utilize very material things and perhaps pushing too much for they must not always be taken literally. Nonetheless it is going from the known to the unknown that we realize, at least approximately, what escapes our senses. It is to such comparisons that the Spiritist Doctrine owns to a large extent have been easily understood, even by the most common intelligences, whereas if I had remained in the abstractions of the metaphysics philosophy it would have been only shared, even today, by a few privileged minds. Now, since the beginning it was necessary to have it accepted by the masses because the opinion of the masses exerts a pressure that ends up making the law and succeeding against the more tenacious oppositions. That is why I strived to simplify it and make it clear to have it to the reach of everybody taking the risk of heaving it contested by certain persons with respect to the title of the philosophy because it is not sufficiently abstract and because it has come out of the foggy cloud of classical metaphysics.
To the effects that I have just described with respect to the communion of thoughts I add another one that is its natural consequence and that we must not lose sight of. It is the power that the thought or will acquires by the sum of thoughts or will put together. Since the will is an active force it is multiplied by the number of identical will like the muscular force is multiplied by the number of arms.
That point made one must conceive that in the relationships established between persons and the Spirits there is, in a gathering in which a perfect communion of thoughts reigns, an attractive or repealing force that an isolated force not always has. If up until now the large gatherings are less favorable it is for the difficulty of finding a perfect homogeneity of thoughts, due to the imperfect human nature on Earth.
The larger the meeting the more mixed up the heterogeneous elements that paralyze the action of the good elements and that are like grains of sand in a gear box. That is not what happens in more advanced worlds and that condition will change in our planet, following the betterment of mankind here.
To the Spiritists the communion of thoughts has an even more special result. We have seen the result of such communion from person to person. Spiritism proves that it is not lower between persons and the Spirits and vice versa. In fact if the collective thought acquires strength by quantity, a group of identical thoughts, if the objective is to do good they will have more power to neutralize the action of the bad Spirits. We see that the tactics of the latter is to drive division and isolation. A man alone may succumb but if seconded by the will of others he can resist, according to the axiom: unity is strength, axiom that is true to the physical as well as spiritual world.
On another hand if the action of the malevolent Spirits may be paralyzed by a common thought it is evident that the action of the good ones may be boosted and its healthy influence will not find obstacles; its fluidic emanations will spread onto all attendees since they are not hindered by contrary currents, precisely for the fact that all would have attracted them through their thoughts, not each one to their personal benefit but to the benefit of all, according to the law of charity. Such emanations will fall upon them like tongues of fire to use a remarkable image in the Gospel.
Through the communion of thoughts, therefore, people help one another and at the same time they assist the Spirits and are assisted by them. The relationships between the visible and invisible worlds instead of individual becomes collective and for that very reason more powerful to the benefit of the masses as well as the individuals. In a word, it establishes a solidarity that is the basis of fraternity. Nobody works for oneself but for everyone and working for everyone each finds its own share. That is what selfishness does not understand.
Every religious gathering, irrespective of the cult, are founded on the communion of thoughts; that is where they can and must exert its full power because the objective must be the liberation of thoughts from the constriction of matter. Unfortunately the majority stays away from that principle as much as they turned religion into a question of recipe. This resulted in each person seeking their own recipe and considering to be good with God and their fellow human beings since the formula was practiced. It results still that each person goes to religious gatherings with a personal thought and on their own and in the majority of cases without any feeling of fraternity with respect to the other attendees. That person is in isolation in the multitude and only thinks about heavens for herself. Certainly that was not Jesus’ understanding when he said: “when many of you are gathered in my name I will be with you.” Gathered in my name means: with a common thought but one cannot gather in the name of Jesus without taking into account his principles, his doctrine. But what is the fundamental principle of the doctrine of Jesus? Charity in thoughts, words and actions. The egotist and proud persons lie when believe to be gathering in the name of Jesus because Jesus to not recognize them as his disciples.
Adopting those abuses and deviations some persons deny the utility of religious assemblies and, consequently, the buildings dedicated to that. In their radical view they think that it would be better to build hospitals than temples given that the temple of God is everywhere and that God can be worshiped everywhere; that each person can pray in their home and at any time while the poor and sick require their place of recovery.
But for the reason that they make such mistakes and move away from the right path does it mean that there is no right way and that everything that is abused is bad? Certainly not. This is a misunderstanding of the origin and benefits of the communion of thoughts that must be the essence of the religious assemblies; it is ignorance of the sources that lead to them.
It is understandable that materialistic persons profess such ideas because they make abstraction of the spiritual world in everything but from spiritualists and in particular Spiritists that would be a nonsense. Religious isolation, like social isolation, leads to selfishness. It is possible that certain persons are strong enough by themselves, very heartful so that their faith and charity do not need to be fed by a common focus but that is not the case with the masses that require stimulus without which they would remain indifferent.
Besides, which person can consider oneself enlightened enough to have nothing to learn with respect to her future interest and perfect enough to prescind from the advices to the current life? Is that person always capable of learning by herself? No. The majority lacks direct teachings about religious and moral issues, as well as with respect to the science. There is no doubt that such instructions may be given everywhere, under the dome of the skies as much as under the roof of a temple. But why people would not have special places to meet heavenly things, like there are those for the earthly ones? Why not having religious assemblies like there are others in politics, science and technology? That does not preclude the foundations to the benefit of the unfortunate ones but we say in addition that when humanity better understand their interests in heavens there will be the need for less people in hospitals here.
Speaking generically and without reference to any cult, if the religious assemblies many times move away from their main primitive objective that is the fraternal communion of thoughts; if the teachings there have not always followed the progressive march of humanity it is for the reason that not everyone realize progress simultaneously. What they do not time in period the do in another. As they learn they see the existing blanks in their institutions and fill them out; they understand that what was good at one time, given the level of civilization, becomes insufficient in a more advanced period and they catch up. We know that Spiritism is the great lever of progress in all things. It marks an era of renovation. Let us learn to wait and let us not claim from a time more than it can give. Like with the plants, it is necessary that the ideas mature to have the fruits harvested. We must also make the necessary concessions to the times of transition for nothing in nature happens in a sudden and instantaneous way.
For the reason that we gather here, ladies and gentlemen, I consider to be proper to take the opportunity to develop the subject of the communion of thoughts, from the point of view of Spiritism. Since our objective is to unite in our intention to together offer a private testimony of sympathy to our deceased loved ones it seemed useful to call our attention to the advantages of the meeting. Thanks to Spiritism we understand the power and the effects of collective thoughts and we can better explain the good feeling that we experience in a homogeneous and sympathetic environment, but we equally know that the same applies to the Spirits because they know how to receive the emanations of every benevolent thought that elevates to them like a cloud of perfume. Those that are happy feel an even greater joy in this harmonious concert; those that suffer feel a greater relief with that. Each one of us, in particular, preferably pray for those of their interest or esteem. Let us have it here that all of them may have their share in the prayers that we address to God.
First a special prayer for the moment that served the general evocation that operates as introduction to the ordinary sessions. Here how it was said:
“Praise God, the sovereign Lord of all things! Lord, we beg you to spread your sacred blessing over this whole assembly. We glorify your name and thank you for you illuminated our paths with the divine light of Spiritism. Thanks to that light doubt and disbelief disappeared from our souls and will also disappear from this world; future life is a reality and we follow without uncertainty with respect to the future that is reserved to us. We know where we came from, where we are going to and why we are on this Earth. We know the causes of our miseries and know that everything is justice and wisdom in your work. We know that the death of the body does not interrupt the life of the Spirit but that it opens the door to true life; that it does not break any sincere love; that those that are dear to us are not lost and that we shall meet again in the world of the Spirits. We know that while we wait they are by our side; they see and hear us and can continue their relationships with us. Help us God to spread among our brothers on Earth that are still living in ignorance the benefits of this sacred belief because it soothes every pain, consoles those in affliction and gives them courage, resignation and hope in the greatest pains of life. We beg you to extend your mercy on our deceased brothers and on all of those that are recommended to us, irrespective of their beliefs on Earth. Allow our good thoughts to carry relief, consolation and hope to those in suffering.”
The President then addresses the following words to the Spirits:
“Dear Spirits of our former colleagues Jobard, Sanson, Costeau, Hobach and Poudra,
When we invited you to this commemorative meeting our objective is not only that of giving you a testimony of our memory that you know well is very dear to us; we are here in particular to congratulate you for the position that you hold in the spiritual world and to thank you for the excellent instructions that from time to time you come to give us since your departure. The Society rejoices for the assurance that you are happy. It is honored for having counted you among its members and to have you now among its counselors of the invisible world. We have appreciated the wisdom of your communications and we shall be happy every time you kindly come to join our activities. To this testimony of gratitude we add all of those good Spirits that routinely or eventual come to us to bring their lights: John Evangelist, Erastus, Lamennais, Georges, François-Nicolas-Madeleine, St. Augustine, Sonnet, Baluze, Vianney priest d’Ars, Jean Raynaud, Delphine de Girardin, Mesmer as well as those that only use the name Spirit. We owe a particular tribute of acknowledgement to our spiritual president, St. Louis. We thank him for taking our Society under his sponsorship and by the evident proofs of protection that he has given us. He equally beg for his assistance in this circumstance. Our thoughts go out to all of the followers and apostles of our Doctrine that have left Earth and in particular to those that are personally known to us as: N. N…
To all of those that God allows to come and hear us we say:
Dear brothers in belief that have preceded us in the world of the Spirits, we unite in our thoughts to testify our sympathy to you and to ask for the Almighty blessings to you. We thank him for having given you the grace of being enlightened by the lights of truth before you left Earth because those lights guided you on your return to the Spiritual world. The faith and confidence in God that you got from that preserved you from the disturbances and anguishes that follow the separation of those that doubt and are afflicted by disbelief. It gave you courage and resignation in the trials of the earthly life; it showed you the objective and the need for good and the inevitable consequences of evil and now you harvest the fruits. You left Earth without sorrow knowing that you would find assets infinitely more valuable than those that you left behind. You left the planet with the positive certainty that you would meet again those that were object of your love and of being able to return, as a Spirit, to sustain and give consolation to those that you left on Earth. Finally, you are in the world of the Spirits like in a country that you knew in anticipation.
We are very happy for having seen your beliefs confirmed by all of those that among you communicated with us. None came to say that had been eluded in her hopes and that we were eluding ourselves with respect to the future, but on the contrary all of them said that there were indescribable splendors in the world of the Spirits and that her hopes had been surpassed. It is now up to you who enjoys the happiness of having had faith, and that receives the reward for your submission to the law of God, to come to help those, among your brothers on this Earth, that are still in darkness. Be the missionaries of the Spirit of Truth for the progress of mankind and for the accomplishment of the designs of the Almighty.
Our thoughts are not addressed only to our brothers in Spiritism since all human beings are brothers, irrespective of their beliefs. If we were exclusivists we would not be Spiritists nor Christians. That is why we involve in our prayers, exhortations and congratulations all of those Spirits that can benefit from our support, according to their current condition, having or not shared our beliefs.
The knowledge of Spiritism is not indispensable to a future life because it does not has the privilege of making elections. It is a means of arriving more easily and more securely to the objective through a rational faith given by Spiritism and by the charity that it inspires. It illuminates the path so that people march more safely. Good and evil are better understood through Spiritism. It gives more strength to practice one and avoid the other. To please God the only thing we need is to observe his laws, that is, to practice charity that summarizes all others. Well, charity may be practiced by everyone. Detach oneself from all vices and all inclinations that are contrary to charity is then the essential condition to salvation.”
-o-
After those words special prayers were said to each category of Spirits with the proper nomination of each one. They were partially taken from the Imitation of the Gospel. The series of prayers ended with the developed Our Father (see Spiritist Review, August 1864). After that the mediums were ready to serve the Spirits that wanted to communicate. No particular evocation was carried out. We give below the main communications that were received:
I
“Praise God, the sovereign Lord of all things! Lord, we beg you to spread your sacred blessing over this whole assembly. We glorify your name and thank you for you illuminated our paths with the divine light of Spiritism. Thanks to that light doubt and disbelief disappeared from our souls and will also disappear from this world; future life is a reality and we follow without uncertainty with respect to the future that is reserved to us. We know where we came from, where we are going to and why we are on this Earth. We know the causes of our miseries and know that everything is justice and wisdom in your work. We know that the death of the body does not interrupt the life of the Spirit but that it opens the door to true life; that it does not break any sincere love; that those that are dear to us are not lost and that we shall meet again in the world of the Spirits. We know that while we wait they are by our side; they see and hear us and can continue their relationships with us. Help us God to spread among our brothers on Earth that are still living in ignorance the benefits of this sacred belief because it soothes every pain, consoles those in affliction and gives them courage, resignation and hope in the greatest pains of life. We beg you to extend your mercy on our deceased brothers and on all of those that are recommended to us, irrespective of their beliefs on Earth. Allow our good thoughts to carry relief, consolation and hope to those in suffering.”
The President then addresses the following words to the Spirits:
“Dear Spirits of our former colleagues Jobard, Sanson, Costeau, Hobach and Poudra,
When we invited you to this commemorative meeting our objective is not only that of giving you a testimony of our memory that you know well is very dear to us; we are here in particular to congratulate you for the position that you hold in the spiritual world and to thank you for the excellent instructions that from time to time you come to give us since your departure. The Society rejoices for the assurance that you are happy. It is honored for having counted you among its members and to have you now among its counselors of the invisible world. We have appreciated the wisdom of your communications and we shall be happy every time you kindly come to join our activities. To this testimony of gratitude we add all of those good Spirits that routinely or eventual come to us to bring their lights: John Evangelist, Erastus, Lamennais, Georges, François-Nicolas-Madeleine, St. Augustine, Sonnet, Baluze, Vianney priest d’Ars, Jean Raynaud, Delphine de Girardin, Mesmer as well as those that only use the name Spirit. We owe a particular tribute of acknowledgement to our spiritual president, St. Louis. We thank him for taking our Society under his sponsorship and by the evident proofs of protection that he has given us. He equally beg for his assistance in this circumstance. Our thoughts go out to all of the followers and apostles of our Doctrine that have left Earth and in particular to those that are personally known to us as: N. N…
To all of those that God allows to come and hear us we say:
Dear brothers in belief that have preceded us in the world of the Spirits, we unite in our thoughts to testify our sympathy to you and to ask for the Almighty blessings to you. We thank him for having given you the grace of being enlightened by the lights of truth before you left Earth because those lights guided you on your return to the Spiritual world. The faith and confidence in God that you got from that preserved you from the disturbances and anguishes that follow the separation of those that doubt and are afflicted by disbelief. It gave you courage and resignation in the trials of the earthly life; it showed you the objective and the need for good and the inevitable consequences of evil and now you harvest the fruits. You left Earth without sorrow knowing that you would find assets infinitely more valuable than those that you left behind. You left the planet with the positive certainty that you would meet again those that were object of your love and of being able to return, as a Spirit, to sustain and give consolation to those that you left on Earth. Finally, you are in the world of the Spirits like in a country that you knew in anticipation.
We are very happy for having seen your beliefs confirmed by all of those that among you communicated with us. None came to say that had been eluded in her hopes and that we were eluding ourselves with respect to the future, but on the contrary all of them said that there were indescribable splendors in the world of the Spirits and that her hopes had been surpassed. It is now up to you who enjoys the happiness of having had faith, and that receives the reward for your submission to the law of God, to come to help those, among your brothers on this Earth, that are still in darkness. Be the missionaries of the Spirit of Truth for the progress of mankind and for the accomplishment of the designs of the Almighty.
Our thoughts are not addressed only to our brothers in Spiritism since all human beings are brothers, irrespective of their beliefs. If we were exclusivists we would not be Spiritists nor Christians. That is why we involve in our prayers, exhortations and congratulations all of those Spirits that can benefit from our support, according to their current condition, having or not shared our beliefs.
The knowledge of Spiritism is not indispensable to a future life because it does not has the privilege of making elections. It is a means of arriving more easily and more securely to the objective through a rational faith given by Spiritism and by the charity that it inspires. It illuminates the path so that people march more safely. Good and evil are better understood through Spiritism. It gives more strength to practice one and avoid the other. To please God the only thing we need is to observe his laws, that is, to practice charity that summarizes all others. Well, charity may be practiced by everyone. Detach oneself from all vices and all inclinations that are contrary to charity is then the essential condition to salvation.”
-o-
After those words special prayers were said to each category of Spirits with the proper nomination of each one. They were partially taken from the Imitation of the Gospel. The series of prayers ended with the developed Our Father (see Spiritist Review, August 1864). After that the mediums were ready to serve the Spirits that wanted to communicate. No particular evocation was carried out. We give below the main communications that were received:
I
“My children, a strange communion connects the living ones to the dead. Death continues the planned work and does not break the links of the heart. Such a certainly enriches the treasure of love spilled upon creation. Human progress obtained to the price of painful sacrifices and bloody hecatombs approach mankind to the Divine Verb making them spell the sacred word that fell from the lips of Jesus and reanimated a fainting humanity. Love is the law of Spiritism; it dilates the heart and actively extends love to those that disappeared in the vague obscurity of the tomb. Spiritism is not a vain sound, fallen from mortal lips and carried by a blow of wind. It is the powerful and sturdy faith proclaimed by Moses at Mount Sinai, the faith affirmed by the martyrs, intoxicated by hope, the law discussed by the uneasy philosophers that the Spirits finally come to proclaim.
Spiritists! The great name of Jesus must fluctuate like a flag above your teachings. Before you were, the savior carried the revelation in his heart and his carefully measured word indicated each one of the phases that you cover today. The mysteries shall fall before the prophetic breath that opens your intelligences today, like the walls of Jericho in the old days.
Be united in your intentions as you do in this blessed gathering. The warmth that comes out of your hearts covers the distance that separates us, dissipating the fumes of doubt, personality and indifference that frequently obscures the spiritual sight. Love and pray for your works.”
John Evangelist, medium Mrs. Costel
II
Spiritists! The great name of Jesus must fluctuate like a flag above your teachings. Before you were, the savior carried the revelation in his heart and his carefully measured word indicated each one of the phases that you cover today. The mysteries shall fall before the prophetic breath that opens your intelligences today, like the walls of Jericho in the old days.
Be united in your intentions as you do in this blessed gathering. The warmth that comes out of your hearts covers the distance that separates us, dissipating the fumes of doubt, personality and indifference that frequently obscures the spiritual sight. Love and pray for your works.”
John Evangelist, medium Mrs. Costel
II
“My good friends, your prayers and your reverence have attracted numerous Spirits to whom you did a lot of good. A meeting like yours has such a power of attraction that the vibrations of your thoughts reached all corners of space. A multitude of brothers, less advanced or in suffering, followed the superior Spirits. Before hearing you they had no faith; they now wait and believe. Your voices, together with mine, will have them blessed from now on. They know you are strong before your trials. Like you they will be willing to deserve the eternal life, the Godly life.
Forget nobody, dear President. As for myself I am proud to see my name warmly welcomed among former co-workers. I always heard that a curious person behind the door can never hear a praise; nonetheless we are invisible witnesses; our count is infinite; what we hear, contrary to the earthly case, is forgiveness, prayer and benevolence; it is the practice of charity, the noblest flagship. May your example spread like a loving echo so that every Spirit in suffering may hear everywhere words that may guide them to the eternal truths! They say that Paris is a city of noise and obliviousness. The mystic affirm that it is the modern Babylon. I strongly protest since Paris is the city of careful thoughts, of fecund ideas and noble feelings. It is a city that irradiates over the universe; it will always the city that teaches the great principles, the great abnegation and solid virtues. Observe this city well on this day that each one of you carry a tear for the absent loved ones. It left aside its multiple life to seek shelter in the tombs and this human river, circumspect and nonbeliever is taken by respect. They say that Paris is not Spiritist. Look around in the universe to find a city where the most modest grave is more venerated and flowery. The city of the great births feels better the great losses; it cries true tears and does not bother with appearances. Paris is, no doubt, a city of pleasures to certain persons but it is also the city of work and thoughts to the majority. It is not fundamentally materialistic. It is this city that provides the Spiritist light to the universe and that light will come back still more depurated and augmented. All peoples will come to you for the truths of Spiritism, much preferred to the vain and futile pleasures that leave nothing in the minds. There is a rational idea in the air, approved by every progressive person. It is the idea that everyone should be able to read. However beautiful our doctrine is, it finds obstacles in ignorance. Our duty, therefore, of all of us Spiritists, is to diminish the number of ignorant brothers so that The Spirits’ Book may not continue to be dead letter to so many pariah. The work towards a spread in education paves the way to Spiritism and at the same time destroys fanaticism; it diminishes the deviations of ignorance forming persons that will live and die well. Having accomplished this great act of charity you will no longer see delayed Spirits coming back on this day of the dead, requesting incarnation to be able to learn and to accomplish missions now promised to their new skills. These educated Spirits can go to other planets and have their voices heard teaching and giving the bread of life that is knowledge that makes us worthy of God.
Legions of ignorant souls beg around you. They are your dead. Do not forget their asking. Your prayer will be useful to them but your actions are needed to do them an even more essential service.
So long brothers,
Your devout co-disciple,”
Sanson, medium Mr. Leymarie
III
Forget nobody, dear President. As for myself I am proud to see my name warmly welcomed among former co-workers. I always heard that a curious person behind the door can never hear a praise; nonetheless we are invisible witnesses; our count is infinite; what we hear, contrary to the earthly case, is forgiveness, prayer and benevolence; it is the practice of charity, the noblest flagship. May your example spread like a loving echo so that every Spirit in suffering may hear everywhere words that may guide them to the eternal truths! They say that Paris is a city of noise and obliviousness. The mystic affirm that it is the modern Babylon. I strongly protest since Paris is the city of careful thoughts, of fecund ideas and noble feelings. It is a city that irradiates over the universe; it will always the city that teaches the great principles, the great abnegation and solid virtues. Observe this city well on this day that each one of you carry a tear for the absent loved ones. It left aside its multiple life to seek shelter in the tombs and this human river, circumspect and nonbeliever is taken by respect. They say that Paris is not Spiritist. Look around in the universe to find a city where the most modest grave is more venerated and flowery. The city of the great births feels better the great losses; it cries true tears and does not bother with appearances. Paris is, no doubt, a city of pleasures to certain persons but it is also the city of work and thoughts to the majority. It is not fundamentally materialistic. It is this city that provides the Spiritist light to the universe and that light will come back still more depurated and augmented. All peoples will come to you for the truths of Spiritism, much preferred to the vain and futile pleasures that leave nothing in the minds. There is a rational idea in the air, approved by every progressive person. It is the idea that everyone should be able to read. However beautiful our doctrine is, it finds obstacles in ignorance. Our duty, therefore, of all of us Spiritists, is to diminish the number of ignorant brothers so that The Spirits’ Book may not continue to be dead letter to so many pariah. The work towards a spread in education paves the way to Spiritism and at the same time destroys fanaticism; it diminishes the deviations of ignorance forming persons that will live and die well. Having accomplished this great act of charity you will no longer see delayed Spirits coming back on this day of the dead, requesting incarnation to be able to learn and to accomplish missions now promised to their new skills. These educated Spirits can go to other planets and have their voices heard teaching and giving the bread of life that is knowledge that makes us worthy of God.
Legions of ignorant souls beg around you. They are your dead. Do not forget their asking. Your prayer will be useful to them but your actions are needed to do them an even more essential service.
So long brothers,
Your devout co-disciple,”
Sanson, medium Mr. Leymarie
III
“A day of happiness to the Spirits of the Lord that unite to address prayers to God in favor of the Spirits because this sacred communion of thoughts replicates also in superior regions! Oh Yes, happy are the poor disinherited that understand the objective of our prayers said to speed up their progress! Thanks to Spiritism many have already entered the avenue of regret and were able to improve. It is that grace from heavens that opened their hearts to their sorrow and gave them hopes to one day join you. Thank you all Christian Spiritists for having asked God that allowed me to come and say: Courage! The Spirits that came here enjoy and thank you for your good thoughts.
To my good friend Canu in particular I say: Be happy for knowing that your friend Hobach is here in person, surrounded by friendly and protecting Spirits, attracted by sympathy, coming here to elevate their souls to the Creator since everything comes from him and must return to him. Let us then always seek the sincere gatherings so that we can take advantage of the teachings received there and may the invisible ones and the incarnate progress towards infinity, that is, to the Supreme Being that created us for good and towards the progressive march of his works. Yes, a thousand times thank you for I read in every heart the feelings for those that ware particularly loved; but also those that cry may hold their tears because they will meet us in a better world where the law of justice is sovereign and emanates from God.”
Hobach, medium Mrs. Patet
IV
To my good friend Canu in particular I say: Be happy for knowing that your friend Hobach is here in person, surrounded by friendly and protecting Spirits, attracted by sympathy, coming here to elevate their souls to the Creator since everything comes from him and must return to him. Let us then always seek the sincere gatherings so that we can take advantage of the teachings received there and may the invisible ones and the incarnate progress towards infinity, that is, to the Supreme Being that created us for good and towards the progressive march of his works. Yes, a thousand times thank you for I read in every heart the feelings for those that ware particularly loved; but also those that cry may hold their tears because they will meet us in a better world where the law of justice is sovereign and emanates from God.”
Hobach, medium Mrs. Patet
IV
“Brothers and friends in Spiritism, you gathered today to address the Lord with your vows and prayers for the Spirits that are dear to you and that have accomplished their missions here. Many among them, my dear friends, carried out their tasks honorably and received the reward for their work in this life of misery and atonement. Oh my dear Spiritists! They watch you; they protect you and today the join you in your vows and requests that you send to our common Father. Most of them are around you, happy for seeing your reverence at this solemn time. But your thoughts and prayers must be in particular with those that did not understand their mission in the world of transition. Ah those need friendly hearts, compassionate souls that remember them with their prayer but a sincere prayer, a prayer that reaches out to the Eternal. Ah how many of these souls are abandoned and forgotten by those that should think of them and by relatives sometimes very close to them! Those are not Spiritists, dear friends; they do not understand the effect that the prayers may exert on them. No, they do not know charity; they do not believe in another life after this one; they believe that there is nothing after death. How many, in these days of mourning, visit the tombs of their loved ones with their cold and dry hearts? When they go it is out of convenience; their souls have no hope; they do not imagine that the souls that are remembered are there with them, waiting for a prayer from the bottom of their hearts. Oh my friends, do it yourselves, do it with your prayers what is not done by your brothers. The only see the remains in death, forgetting that the soul outlives. Pray for your prayers shall be heard by the Almighty!
A Spirit that also needs a share of your prayers,”
Lalouze, medium Mrs. Lampérière
V
A Spirit that also needs a share of your prayers,”
Lalouze, medium Mrs. Lampérière
V
“Dear friends, how many actions of grace don’t we owe you in exchange for your good and generous prayers! Yes, we are grateful for you devotion and charity. Never before have so warm and enthusiastic prayers been carried on the white wings of pure Spirits to the divine throne. Never before people understood so well the utility of a common prayer whose weight falls onto imperfect Spirits that come here ever in greater numbers feeding from your generous and fraternal environment because there is no separation here; the little ones and the disinherited of Earth are received by you like the great and the princes; you pray for the rich as you do for the poor. Ah divine fraternity, you grow and grow continually until you meet the sublime Regenerator that sends you to bring people back to the right path from which they had moved away so many centuries ago! Ask and it will be given, knock and the door will be opened to you[1] said Jesus. Yes, knock on your passions and the beam of divine clarity will inundate your soul. Ask for the faith and it shall be granted. Ask for patience and that will be given. In a word, ask for every necessary virtue so that you can leave behind the old person that must disappear forever and give place to the new good person. To you I am an unknown Spirit who has taken this hand by the charity of St. Joseph.”
Medium Mr. Lampérière
VI
Medium Mr. Lampérière
VI
“My very dear wife I saw your sighs and tears. Always crying. I also saw your prayers. Let me thank you for them. Now, my dear friend, rest assured. With that you disturb my happiness. Be happy for you are happier than many others; you have brothers around you that love you and rejoice for having you around them. See how blessed you are among many others! I can only praise you my brothers for having welcomed my dear wife among you. I thank you for everything you do for her… and additionally for your charity in inviting me today! I was among the first ones to sustain and propagate with all my heart this sacred doctrine. Ah had I known what I know and see now! Believe, believe! It is all I can tell you. Do whatever you can to spread it and to attract people to your hearts. There is nothing more beautiful, nothing truer than what is found in your books.”
Cousteau, medium Ms. Béguet
VII
Cousteau, medium Ms. Béguet
VII
“Thank you so much beloved brothers for you kind memory and your good prayers. Thanks to you dear President for the fortunate initiative of having a communion of thoughts and ideas, praying for everyone. Yes, we are all here; we happily hear your sincere prayers addressed to our Father of mercy in favor of each one of us. Yes, we are happy because the pray said from the heart reaches God and from God we receive the necessary strength to fight the bad influences that the frivolous Spirits try spill onto those that labor in the sacred work. Those prayers to us are like a solemn appeal and we stand all here by your side. From far away or from nearby we all promptly attended that fortunate appeal. We wish that your example be followed by every serious center because such prayers said with such honesty and selflessness reach God like sacred emanations returning to each one of us. Thank once more my dear friends and although my name had not be mentioned you can see that I am here. This must demonstrate to you that we are happy and in large number. The mother of an honorary member of your Society,”
Aimée Bredard, from Bordeaux, medium Mrs. Delanne
VIII
Aimée Bredard, from Bordeaux, medium Mrs. Delanne
VIII
“My good friends, I would see each one of you leaving with the pious silence that the prayer leaves in your heart, after you have said those prayers and associated yourselves to the group with all of your hearts. You raised your souls to God in favor of all of those that have left Earth; you brought kind memories of the past and in this very moment, don’t you feel stronger? A short while ago, while your souls were lifted into the skies in a common impulse, didn’t you feel the warm breath of other souls mixing up their prayers to yours? Aren’t you impregnated by them? Why haven’t you gone with the quiet aroma from beyond the grave instead of demanding voices? Isn’t that enough happiness to live with the sweet thoughts that emanate from the sacred fluids of prayer? Nonetheless I understand that this mute language is not enough for you. The warm winds are not enough to the loving heart that demands for an echo responding to their voice. I forgive you for such natural desire. Why couldn’t each one of you to enjoy a second benefit that is provided by your new faith; the communication with those that are dear to you through the mediums?
However, how large your assembly is compared to the number of hands that can write! Who among you can say that they are the fortunate ones that will hear their voices? I see a much larger number of Spirits than the number of incarnate souls here. They agglomerate around each one of our intermediaries: Georges, Sanson, Costeau, Jobard, Dauban, Paul, Émile and a hundred more whose names I cannot tell you are here and would like to speak with you. I refrain their impulses and tell them that I shall be the interpreter between them and you. They want that very much but how about you? I will be the fathers to some and the mothers to others; to this one I will be a son, a daughter, a husband, a wife, and to all I will be a friend, a brother that loves you and that would like that all of you united in one single heart form a single thought, a single soul responding to this communication concentrated in my thought and in my soul.
Ah your dear dead did not wait for this day to come to each one of you. Don’t you feel them surrounding you all the time, calling you to the cast and divine secrets of the duty through what you call the voice of your conscience? Don’t you feel them really close at the times of sadness and suffering? They tell you: have courage! And particularly to you, Spiritists, they show you the skies and the innumerable stars that cover the immense blue as a sign of alliance between the Lord and you.
No, my dear friends, they did not leave you behind in their thoughts. To you, mother, your daughter says: I left first, like the branch that is broken by the storm detaches from the trunk, but I still live out of your sap and your love in the vastness, and in this rosary of pearls that my soul carries isn’t there some emeralds that came from you?
Father, I hear your son saying: I left to come back and help you to better love God in your prayers. I left because your forehead did not bow before the great provider of all things; he wanted you to remember him, making you hear the modulations from beyond the grave by the voice of your son. Brother, I hear your brother talking to you about the play time of the old days, your fights, your happiness and your suffering. I left to the beyond before you, he says, but I am not dead. I paved the way for you; there you will find more glory than on Earth. Throw away your purple mantle and dress up with the coat for your trip since the Lord loves more poverty than richness. I hear kind whispering responding to your sighs; the lover responding to the lover; the husband to the wife. What a beautiful harmony!
Rejoice, therefore! How many happy tears! How many touching impulses! Wives, feel your hands pressed by the invisible hands of your husbands. At this time thy come to renovate the eternal vows; they come to tell you what I did myself: that death does not break the links of the heart and that the unions continue beyond the grave. I would like very much to name all of the dear dead here but I cannot. Hear their voices yourselves. Each one of you will acknowledge them in the sacred concert that raises in the skies. Together they sing a song of graces to the Lord.”
St. Augustine, medium Mr. Vézy
IX
However, how large your assembly is compared to the number of hands that can write! Who among you can say that they are the fortunate ones that will hear their voices? I see a much larger number of Spirits than the number of incarnate souls here. They agglomerate around each one of our intermediaries: Georges, Sanson, Costeau, Jobard, Dauban, Paul, Émile and a hundred more whose names I cannot tell you are here and would like to speak with you. I refrain their impulses and tell them that I shall be the interpreter between them and you. They want that very much but how about you? I will be the fathers to some and the mothers to others; to this one I will be a son, a daughter, a husband, a wife, and to all I will be a friend, a brother that loves you and that would like that all of you united in one single heart form a single thought, a single soul responding to this communication concentrated in my thought and in my soul.
Ah your dear dead did not wait for this day to come to each one of you. Don’t you feel them surrounding you all the time, calling you to the cast and divine secrets of the duty through what you call the voice of your conscience? Don’t you feel them really close at the times of sadness and suffering? They tell you: have courage! And particularly to you, Spiritists, they show you the skies and the innumerable stars that cover the immense blue as a sign of alliance between the Lord and you.
No, my dear friends, they did not leave you behind in their thoughts. To you, mother, your daughter says: I left first, like the branch that is broken by the storm detaches from the trunk, but I still live out of your sap and your love in the vastness, and in this rosary of pearls that my soul carries isn’t there some emeralds that came from you?
Father, I hear your son saying: I left to come back and help you to better love God in your prayers. I left because your forehead did not bow before the great provider of all things; he wanted you to remember him, making you hear the modulations from beyond the grave by the voice of your son. Brother, I hear your brother talking to you about the play time of the old days, your fights, your happiness and your suffering. I left to the beyond before you, he says, but I am not dead. I paved the way for you; there you will find more glory than on Earth. Throw away your purple mantle and dress up with the coat for your trip since the Lord loves more poverty than richness. I hear kind whispering responding to your sighs; the lover responding to the lover; the husband to the wife. What a beautiful harmony!
Rejoice, therefore! How many happy tears! How many touching impulses! Wives, feel your hands pressed by the invisible hands of your husbands. At this time thy come to renovate the eternal vows; they come to tell you what I did myself: that death does not break the links of the heart and that the unions continue beyond the grave. I would like very much to name all of the dear dead here but I cannot. Hear their voices yourselves. Each one of you will acknowledge them in the sacred concert that raises in the skies. Together they sing a song of graces to the Lord.”
St. Augustine, medium Mr. Vézy
IX
“Since my medium could not serve all of the Spirits here I come to replace one Spirit that perhaps wanted to communicate. Since it is not out of context in this meeting I want to give you some advices with respect to the proper way of doing things in order to really obtain responses from the Spirits that are evoked.
There are many mediums here and many Spirits that would like to communicate, however, only a few will be able to achieve that because they would not have had time to establish the fluidic communication with them. The identity of communications is something difficult to establish and you may rarely be assured of that identity. However, if you wanted to help the Spirits a little by preparing yourselves previously for the evocations there would be more frequent identification. The fluids must always be similar because without that similarity there is no communication possible. But you, the mediums, you have many diverse fluids and among them some may be used by the Spirits in case they were given time to influence those fluids.
People generally call this one or that one at a short notice, without having called them in their thoughts, without having offered them one’s fluidic instrument, without having given them time to prepare and vibrate in sync with their own thoughts. Do you think this is right? No, because they are forced to utilize the intermediation of your familiar Spirits and you cannot recognize them so positively then, forced to attest thoughts that are sometimes very different from what they had when alive, finding no particularity that may help you confirm identity.
Believe me when you want to evoke someone think for some time about that Spirit that you wish to call and by that you are offering the Spirit much better means of communicating with you in person. I speak in the name of all of those that are friends and familiar to my medium and I wish to thank the President for the words full of energy that he pronounced to all of us. It is certainly pleasant to unite with so many persons with good and benevolent wishes and us, Spirits prone to good and instructor Spirits, we consider our duty to accomplish the missions that have been assigned to us and to all Spiritist hearts.” (See below an observation about the article Spiritist Communication regarding the Imitation of the Gospel).
A Spirit, medium Ms. A.C.
[1] Mathew 7:7
There are many mediums here and many Spirits that would like to communicate, however, only a few will be able to achieve that because they would not have had time to establish the fluidic communication with them. The identity of communications is something difficult to establish and you may rarely be assured of that identity. However, if you wanted to help the Spirits a little by preparing yourselves previously for the evocations there would be more frequent identification. The fluids must always be similar because without that similarity there is no communication possible. But you, the mediums, you have many diverse fluids and among them some may be used by the Spirits in case they were given time to influence those fluids.
People generally call this one or that one at a short notice, without having called them in their thoughts, without having offered them one’s fluidic instrument, without having given them time to prepare and vibrate in sync with their own thoughts. Do you think this is right? No, because they are forced to utilize the intermediation of your familiar Spirits and you cannot recognize them so positively then, forced to attest thoughts that are sometimes very different from what they had when alive, finding no particularity that may help you confirm identity.
Believe me when you want to evoke someone think for some time about that Spirit that you wish to call and by that you are offering the Spirit much better means of communicating with you in person. I speak in the name of all of those that are friends and familiar to my medium and I wish to thank the President for the words full of energy that he pronounced to all of us. It is certainly pleasant to unite with so many persons with good and benevolent wishes and us, Spirits prone to good and instructor Spirits, we consider our duty to accomplish the missions that have been assigned to us and to all Spiritist hearts.” (See below an observation about the article Spiritist Communication regarding the Imitation of the Gospel).
A Spirit, medium Ms. A.C.
[1] Mathew 7:7
Remarkable example of agreement
A somnambulistic medium that pretends to be led to sleep by the Spirit of Mr. Jobard was saying that she had received a communication from him addressed to another medium to whom he would advise to charge consultation to the rich and give them for free to the poor and to the workers. The Spirit described how that person spent her day with no sparing of praises to her eminent skills and her high mission. Since one person raised questions about the authenticity of that communication and knowing that the Spirit of Mr. Jobard frequently communicates at the Society, we were asked to submit it to a critical examination.
To be on the safe side we immediately addressed these simple words to six mediums: “Will you kindly enquiry the Spirit of Mr. Jobard if he dictated a communication to another medium through Ms. X…, a somnambulistic medium, advising that other medium to explore her faculty. I would like to have the answer tomorrow.” We were careful in not telling them about the strategy utilized so that each thought that they were the only ones asked to solve the issue.
We counted on the elevation of the Spirit of Mr. Jobard to attend that circumstance and do not feel offended or become impatient with the question that should be addressed to him almost simultaneously in six different places.
On the next day we got the responses below to which we added a few thoughts.
To be on the safe side we immediately addressed these simple words to six mediums: “Will you kindly enquiry the Spirit of Mr. Jobard if he dictated a communication to another medium through Ms. X…, a somnambulistic medium, advising that other medium to explore her faculty. I would like to have the answer tomorrow.” We were careful in not telling them about the strategy utilized so that each thought that they were the only ones asked to solve the issue.
We counted on the elevation of the Spirit of Mr. Jobard to attend that circumstance and do not feel offended or become impatient with the question that should be addressed to him almost simultaneously in six different places.
On the next day we got the responses below to which we added a few thoughts.
October 20th, 1864 – medium Mr. Leymarie
“How about that my dear friends, my name is then used as an excuse to all kinds of people! I have been used to that kind of shameless plagiarism for a long time that sometimes make me change color like a chameleon; they think I am goofy. Nonetheless my past life, my works and the multiple proofs of identity that I gave to the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies do not allow such mistakes about my feelings. A simple incarnate soul, I was like I am in the state of free Spirit and my mission with you, friends, is that of devotion and above all selflessness. Spiritism is a positive science. The facts upon which it is based are not complete yet but be patient you that know to wait and this science that invented nothing because it is a force of nature will demonstrate to the less clairvoyant its entirely moral objective is the regeneration of humanity and that beyond any speculative science its teaching is the opposite of materialism that is hypothetical.
Proceed with the analysis; establish the facts to go back to the causes; proclaim the spiritual element after attesting its existence such is the clear and without subterfuge ways of Spiritism. It is the straight line, the one that must be followed by every asserted Spiritist. I then separate the weed from the good seed and reject any niggardly interest, half devotions, sickly commitments that are the ulcer of our faith. Since you call yourself Spiritist I have the right to ask you what you are, what you want to be. Low and behold! If you have faith before anything else you are charitable. To your eyes every incarnate soul suffer a trial; as spectators you watch much suffering and in this rude struggle of life in which your brothers seek light your duty of a privileged person that has seen and know is that of give generously what God also gave you generously. Mediums, have no pride because the hand that gives may stay away from you. When a Spirit comes to give consolation, encouragement, instructions through your intermediation you must thank God for that that allows you to be the good source where the thirsty ones will quench their thirst. That water, however, does not belong to you. It provides to all. You cannot sell or pass it on because the owner is not in this world. Would you like to be expelled like the salesmen at the temple? Rich or poor everybody reaches out and requests. Each one has their own secret suffering; the rags of one will turn into the rich mantles of the other and that is why mediumship is not greed. All incarnate creatures are the same before mediumship. Look around you. Are they rich, are they poor the ones that carry that providential gift? They sell the science of the Spirits and the alms that they receive is the gangrene of spiritualism. They did well when they said spiritualism because the Spiritists reproach, you know well, every spiritual sale. It is not for sale. We repeal from our environment every shameful act of exchange that makes the assistants laugh. As for myself dear master, I will respond to those that wish to trade with my name that however stupid I may be I would never be enough to place my signature in counterfeit titles that are presented against your devoted
Jobard
“How about that my dear friends, my name is then used as an excuse to all kinds of people! I have been used to that kind of shameless plagiarism for a long time that sometimes make me change color like a chameleon; they think I am goofy. Nonetheless my past life, my works and the multiple proofs of identity that I gave to the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies do not allow such mistakes about my feelings. A simple incarnate soul, I was like I am in the state of free Spirit and my mission with you, friends, is that of devotion and above all selflessness. Spiritism is a positive science. The facts upon which it is based are not complete yet but be patient you that know to wait and this science that invented nothing because it is a force of nature will demonstrate to the less clairvoyant its entirely moral objective is the regeneration of humanity and that beyond any speculative science its teaching is the opposite of materialism that is hypothetical.
Proceed with the analysis; establish the facts to go back to the causes; proclaim the spiritual element after attesting its existence such is the clear and without subterfuge ways of Spiritism. It is the straight line, the one that must be followed by every asserted Spiritist. I then separate the weed from the good seed and reject any niggardly interest, half devotions, sickly commitments that are the ulcer of our faith. Since you call yourself Spiritist I have the right to ask you what you are, what you want to be. Low and behold! If you have faith before anything else you are charitable. To your eyes every incarnate soul suffer a trial; as spectators you watch much suffering and in this rude struggle of life in which your brothers seek light your duty of a privileged person that has seen and know is that of give generously what God also gave you generously. Mediums, have no pride because the hand that gives may stay away from you. When a Spirit comes to give consolation, encouragement, instructions through your intermediation you must thank God for that that allows you to be the good source where the thirsty ones will quench their thirst. That water, however, does not belong to you. It provides to all. You cannot sell or pass it on because the owner is not in this world. Would you like to be expelled like the salesmen at the temple? Rich or poor everybody reaches out and requests. Each one has their own secret suffering; the rags of one will turn into the rich mantles of the other and that is why mediumship is not greed. All incarnate creatures are the same before mediumship. Look around you. Are they rich, are they poor the ones that carry that providential gift? They sell the science of the Spirits and the alms that they receive is the gangrene of spiritualism. They did well when they said spiritualism because the Spiritists reproach, you know well, every spiritual sale. It is not for sale. We repeal from our environment every shameful act of exchange that makes the assistants laugh. As for myself dear master, I will respond to those that wish to trade with my name that however stupid I may be I would never be enough to place my signature in counterfeit titles that are presented against your devoted
Jobard
Medium Mrs. Costel
“I come to protest and complain about the abuse made of my name. The poor of spirit – and there are many of these among them – have the ugly habit of taking the names that may serve them as passports together with proud and senseless mediums. I would certainly have difficulty to defend the nobility of my poor name, synonym of naïve. However I hope to have place it very high in the judgment of those that met me to fear for having become engaged with the trivialities assigned to my name. It is therefore just out of respect for the truth that I affirm not having made any somnambulist sleep nor have I exalted any medium. I communicate very rarely since I have a lot to learn to serve as a guide and instructor of others.
In principle I reproach the exploitation of mediumship by the simple reason that the medium enjoys the faculty only in an intermittent and uncertain way and cannot prejudge or base anything on that faculty. Therefore poor people make a mistake when they leave their jobs to work with mediumship in the profitable sense of the word. I know that many among them dissimulate the abandonment of their homes with the title mission, homes that are disinherited by petty satisfactions and by the ephemeral importance given by mundane curiosity. I hope such mediums are mistaken in good-faith but they are mistaken, nonetheless.
Mediumship is a sacred and intimate gift that cannot be used as an open office. The mediums that are too poor to dedicate to the work of mediumship must have it subordinated to the work that wins them the bread. Spiritism will not lose anything with that, on the contrary and their dignity, on the contrary, has a lot to gain. I do not wish to discourage anybody or condemn the ones that act with good-will but it is of fundamental importance that our dear Doctrine remains shielded from any malevolent accusation. Ceaser’s wife must not be an object of suspicion and neither the Spiritists. That is what is said and I hope there is no remaining doubt with respect to the words of your friend.”
Jobard
“I come to protest and complain about the abuse made of my name. The poor of spirit – and there are many of these among them – have the ugly habit of taking the names that may serve them as passports together with proud and senseless mediums. I would certainly have difficulty to defend the nobility of my poor name, synonym of naïve. However I hope to have place it very high in the judgment of those that met me to fear for having become engaged with the trivialities assigned to my name. It is therefore just out of respect for the truth that I affirm not having made any somnambulist sleep nor have I exalted any medium. I communicate very rarely since I have a lot to learn to serve as a guide and instructor of others.
In principle I reproach the exploitation of mediumship by the simple reason that the medium enjoys the faculty only in an intermittent and uncertain way and cannot prejudge or base anything on that faculty. Therefore poor people make a mistake when they leave their jobs to work with mediumship in the profitable sense of the word. I know that many among them dissimulate the abandonment of their homes with the title mission, homes that are disinherited by petty satisfactions and by the ephemeral importance given by mundane curiosity. I hope such mediums are mistaken in good-faith but they are mistaken, nonetheless.
Mediumship is a sacred and intimate gift that cannot be used as an open office. The mediums that are too poor to dedicate to the work of mediumship must have it subordinated to the work that wins them the bread. Spiritism will not lose anything with that, on the contrary and their dignity, on the contrary, has a lot to gain. I do not wish to discourage anybody or condemn the ones that act with good-will but it is of fundamental importance that our dear Doctrine remains shielded from any malevolent accusation. Ceaser’s wife must not be an object of suspicion and neither the Spiritists. That is what is said and I hope there is no remaining doubt with respect to the words of your friend.”
Jobard
Medium Mr. Rul…
“How could you expect that the one that has always recommended charity and selflessness in his communications would come to contradict himself today? It is a trial to the somnambulistic medium and I advise her not allow to be seduced by the bad Spirits that want to do a disfavor to the mediums in general through this little speculation, and in particular to this specific medium that is mentioned. I believe I do not need to do my profession of faith again. Similar accusations cannot be attributed to someone that despite being robbed many times had righteousness and loyalty as a rule of conduct. He would be happy if we could apply an identification stamp to the communications from beyond the grave, like it is done to certain merchandises on Earth. You are not sufficiently advanced for that but in the absence of a stamp use your reason. It cannot deceive you and I challenge all the Spirits, irrespective of their number, to try to make me go by someone more stupid than I really am. Good-bye,
Jobard
Medium Sr. Vézy
Why still so much stupidity among those that believe in good faith? Believe me if you put the true principles of things before their eyes they suddenly change and become more skeptical than St. Thomas! Go and tell that kind lady that I have never communicated with her. She will say that it is possible and will agree in your presence. But intimately she will say that you are insensible. As they say, prohibiting a crazy person from doing crazy things is to become even crazier oneself. Nonetheless we need a medicine to cure so many poor Spirits that go their own way persuaded that they are guided by wonders. In reality, my dear President, do you believe I am capable of writing the nonsenses that were given to you? In that case I should have been given the name I had for having dared write such silly things. Spiritism is not taught like that. May the one that cannot take our words to her brothers unless sacrificing their own bread winning activity stay home and continue to use her tools or needles to fight for her survival. But when they behave like the presenter of spectacles they open the guard to the domination of exploiters and charlatans. The one that is poor and has the courage to become an apostle of our doctrine must cover herself with the mantle of her faith and courage and when the time is right the Providence will bring her the bread that is lacking. But do not reach to any effort for we would be the first to shout to her: move away woman and let others do the work. We always find persons of good will to accomplish the tasks that we have for them.
Men or women that leave the loom behind to become a preacher or a medium against a salary are guided by pride. Would you like some glory around your name? The rusting metal shows bad reflexes while true glory is shinier with abnegation. I prefer Malfilatre, Gilbert and Moreau singing their agony in a hospital bed to the beggar poet that sells his own heart to keep some golden fringes around his death bed. The selfless will be better compensated; a lasting happiness waits for them and the power of their names will be in proportion to their own tears and to the works and struggles measured in dust and sweat. That is all I call hell you about that, dear President, and I take the opportunity to shake hands with you and send you my sincere good wishes. You keep yourself strong and determined in the task that you chose. Keep the envious and talkers around you quiet through the firmness and simplicity that falls so well on you. One does need to be positive today. Do not get carried away by the conquest of the Moon when Earth is by your feet and that is the place to finish your work. There is an abundance of material around you. Demonstrate your theory through facts and may your examples not be supported by algebraic theorems that could not be understood by everyone but upon mathematical axioms. A child knows that two plus two is four. Let the long legged ones have a head start; they will have their necks broken and it is useless to follow them in their fall. Let us move in a steadfast way for the world is still young and the time ahead is in our favor for the instruction of mankind. The sun sets in the afternoon because darkness is needed to have its shine understood. Truth sometimes is covered in obscurity to avoid blinding the ones that meet it upfront.
“How could you expect that the one that has always recommended charity and selflessness in his communications would come to contradict himself today? It is a trial to the somnambulistic medium and I advise her not allow to be seduced by the bad Spirits that want to do a disfavor to the mediums in general through this little speculation, and in particular to this specific medium that is mentioned. I believe I do not need to do my profession of faith again. Similar accusations cannot be attributed to someone that despite being robbed many times had righteousness and loyalty as a rule of conduct. He would be happy if we could apply an identification stamp to the communications from beyond the grave, like it is done to certain merchandises on Earth. You are not sufficiently advanced for that but in the absence of a stamp use your reason. It cannot deceive you and I challenge all the Spirits, irrespective of their number, to try to make me go by someone more stupid than I really am. Good-bye,
Jobard
Medium Sr. Vézy
Why still so much stupidity among those that believe in good faith? Believe me if you put the true principles of things before their eyes they suddenly change and become more skeptical than St. Thomas! Go and tell that kind lady that I have never communicated with her. She will say that it is possible and will agree in your presence. But intimately she will say that you are insensible. As they say, prohibiting a crazy person from doing crazy things is to become even crazier oneself. Nonetheless we need a medicine to cure so many poor Spirits that go their own way persuaded that they are guided by wonders. In reality, my dear President, do you believe I am capable of writing the nonsenses that were given to you? In that case I should have been given the name I had for having dared write such silly things. Spiritism is not taught like that. May the one that cannot take our words to her brothers unless sacrificing their own bread winning activity stay home and continue to use her tools or needles to fight for her survival. But when they behave like the presenter of spectacles they open the guard to the domination of exploiters and charlatans. The one that is poor and has the courage to become an apostle of our doctrine must cover herself with the mantle of her faith and courage and when the time is right the Providence will bring her the bread that is lacking. But do not reach to any effort for we would be the first to shout to her: move away woman and let others do the work. We always find persons of good will to accomplish the tasks that we have for them.
Men or women that leave the loom behind to become a preacher or a medium against a salary are guided by pride. Would you like some glory around your name? The rusting metal shows bad reflexes while true glory is shinier with abnegation. I prefer Malfilatre, Gilbert and Moreau singing their agony in a hospital bed to the beggar poet that sells his own heart to keep some golden fringes around his death bed. The selfless will be better compensated; a lasting happiness waits for them and the power of their names will be in proportion to their own tears and to the works and struggles measured in dust and sweat. That is all I call hell you about that, dear President, and I take the opportunity to shake hands with you and send you my sincere good wishes. You keep yourself strong and determined in the task that you chose. Keep the envious and talkers around you quiet through the firmness and simplicity that falls so well on you. One does need to be positive today. Do not get carried away by the conquest of the Moon when Earth is by your feet and that is the place to finish your work. There is an abundance of material around you. Demonstrate your theory through facts and may your examples not be supported by algebraic theorems that could not be understood by everyone but upon mathematical axioms. A child knows that two plus two is four. Let the long legged ones have a head start; they will have their necks broken and it is useless to follow them in their fall. Let us move in a steadfast way for the world is still young and the time ahead is in our favor for the instruction of mankind. The sun sets in the afternoon because darkness is needed to have its shine understood. Truth sometimes is covered in obscurity to avoid blinding the ones that meet it upfront.
- Q. Haven’t you ever communicated with that lady? However, she say you have hypnotized her! A. – Poor woman. She attributes to intelligent people what can only be dictated by foolish ones or some very good and simple words to great oracles. It is a disease that cannot be avoided: it is located in the nerves and it is cured by prudence and cold showers.
JobardMedium Mrs. Delanne
Fraternal greetings to everybody, my good friends, you that work so hard to fecund humanity. You must pay attention because at this very moment an incredible revolution takes place among the discarnate. You also have adversaries here that strive to create obstacles to you but God oversees his creation. He placed a vigilant boss in front of you, one with cold blood, perspicacity and a strong determination to help you overcome the obstacles that are raised by your visible and invisible enemies underneath your feet. Hence he made no mistake when he read this communication. He knew well that Jobard could not speak like that nor could he approve similar language. No, my friends, Spiritism must not be exploited by sincere and righteous Spirits. Preach against the abuse of that kind that cast discredit upon the religion. You cannot practice what you condemn because you keep away those that could be attracted by your selflessness.
Haven’t you ever seriously consider the dismal effect of paid meetings? Understand well that if Allan Kardec gave authorization to similar ideas through his silence or tactical approval in less than two years Spiritism would fall victim of a multitude of exploiters and this sacred thing would fall in discredit by charlatanism. That is my opinion. I therefore repeal today, as always, any idea of speculation under any pretext that may block instead of promoting the doctrine. At this time you must dedicate yourself to the transformation of mankind through your teachings and example. May your selflessness and moderation speak so loud that none of your adversaries may be able to criticize you! Having each one of you place in different positions each must work according to their strengths. God does not ask for the impossible. Have trust in him and allow each thing to come when the time is right. If God wanted Spiritism to march in an even faster pace he would have sent the great incarnate Spirits earlier, Spirits that will appear almost simultaneously in all corners of the globe in the right time. While you wait pave the way with caution and wisdom. Courage, dear President! The harness becomes harder everyday but we are here to support you and God has your back.
Jobard
Medium Mr. D’Ambel
You are surprised! But there are as many fools in the spiritual world as there are among you, no offense; a fool was able to give another one the somnambulistic communication in question. As for the medium, should we worry more than normal? Give time because time is a great reformer. Those that establish a price tag to their mediumistic communications acts like the foretellers that open a deck of card in front of them and say: “I see a man from the city or from the country; a card is coming, it is an ace of diamonds.” Who knows, it could be a return to the past, to former bad habits? Tough luck to those that fall into the same trap! They will not find their profits and will one day feel sorry for having made the wrong decision. All I can tell you is that since I am not absolutely in that business, as you know, I wash my hands and feel sorry for the poor humanity that still resource to such expedients. So long,
Jobard
Fraternal greetings to everybody, my good friends, you that work so hard to fecund humanity. You must pay attention because at this very moment an incredible revolution takes place among the discarnate. You also have adversaries here that strive to create obstacles to you but God oversees his creation. He placed a vigilant boss in front of you, one with cold blood, perspicacity and a strong determination to help you overcome the obstacles that are raised by your visible and invisible enemies underneath your feet. Hence he made no mistake when he read this communication. He knew well that Jobard could not speak like that nor could he approve similar language. No, my friends, Spiritism must not be exploited by sincere and righteous Spirits. Preach against the abuse of that kind that cast discredit upon the religion. You cannot practice what you condemn because you keep away those that could be attracted by your selflessness.
Haven’t you ever seriously consider the dismal effect of paid meetings? Understand well that if Allan Kardec gave authorization to similar ideas through his silence or tactical approval in less than two years Spiritism would fall victim of a multitude of exploiters and this sacred thing would fall in discredit by charlatanism. That is my opinion. I therefore repeal today, as always, any idea of speculation under any pretext that may block instead of promoting the doctrine. At this time you must dedicate yourself to the transformation of mankind through your teachings and example. May your selflessness and moderation speak so loud that none of your adversaries may be able to criticize you! Having each one of you place in different positions each must work according to their strengths. God does not ask for the impossible. Have trust in him and allow each thing to come when the time is right. If God wanted Spiritism to march in an even faster pace he would have sent the great incarnate Spirits earlier, Spirits that will appear almost simultaneously in all corners of the globe in the right time. While you wait pave the way with caution and wisdom. Courage, dear President! The harness becomes harder everyday but we are here to support you and God has your back.
Jobard
Medium Mr. D’Ambel
You are surprised! But there are as many fools in the spiritual world as there are among you, no offense; a fool was able to give another one the somnambulistic communication in question. As for the medium, should we worry more than normal? Give time because time is a great reformer. Those that establish a price tag to their mediumistic communications acts like the foretellers that open a deck of card in front of them and say: “I see a man from the city or from the country; a card is coming, it is an ace of diamonds.” Who knows, it could be a return to the past, to former bad habits? Tough luck to those that fall into the same trap! They will not find their profits and will one day feel sorry for having made the wrong decision. All I can tell you is that since I am not absolutely in that business, as you know, I wash my hands and feel sorry for the poor humanity that still resource to such expedients. So long,
Jobard
The need for the selflessness in mediums became such a principle today that it would be superfluous to publish the fact above if it did not offer, in addition to the central issue, a remarkable example of coincidence and a positive proof of identity from the similarity of thoughts and the level of originality that in general every communication from our former colleague Jobard, to the point that when he communicates spontaneously at the Society it is rare the case when we cannot identify the author from his first initial lines. Therefore there was no question about the authenticity of those that we have just given above whereas the one that we were asked to examine contains striking deception to any one that knows the language and the character of Mr. Jobard, as well as the principles that he constantly professed as a man and now as a Spirit. It would be irrational to admit that he had suddenly changed to have one person benefited materially. It was an awkward charlatanism.
As for the matter of selflessness it would be useful to repeat everything that has already been said about it and that is remarkably well summarized in Mr. Jobard’s answers. We only add an important consideration.
Certain exploiting mediums think to be saving the appearances by only charging the rich or only accepting a voluntary contribution. First we say that the exploitation of sacred things does not make it less of a job with a profit taken from something that one receives for free. When Jesus and the apostles taught and cured people they did not add a price tag to their words or to the care that was given although they did not have resources to live from. On another hand acting in this way gives no guarantee of sincerity and does not eliminate the suspicion of charlatanism. The reason for free consultation offered by certain doctors in the case of philanthropy is well-known as well as in the case of certain dealers that sell things on much lower prices or that even give them away. In certain cases gratuity is a means of attracting a wealthy clientele.
There is, however, an even stronger consideration. How to recognize the one that can pay and the one that cannot? Appearance is sometimes misleading and sometimes a clean outfit may hide a greater need than the worker’s overall. Does the person then need to attest poverty, their titles of charity or provide a certificate of need? Furthermore who can guarantee that the medium, even by admitting honesty on her side, will show the same solicitude to one that pays a lot or that pays something as compared to the one that does not pay at all, and that she will not give each one according to their payment? And that when simultaneously receiving a rich and a poor person she will not give preference to the rich that only wishes to satisfy a futile curiosity whereas the poor person that might need significant consolation will be delayed? Her conscience will be unwillingly tempted by preference. She will be lead to look the one that pays with better eyes even if that rich person would through a golden coin with disdain like to a mercenary whereas she will look at a minimum with indifference the few coins that the ashamed poor person will timidly present.
Are such feelings compatible with Spiritism? Isn’t that the maintenance of the humiliating separation that already does a lot of harm and that must be eliminated by Spiritism, demonstrating the equality between rich and poor before God who does not measure the light rays of his sun by someone’s fortune, and that God would not subordinate the consolations of the heart that are given by his the good Spirits, his messenger, to people based on their fortune?
Honestly, given the choice we would prefer the medium that always charged because in that case there wouldn’t be any hypocrisy; one would immediately know how to consider that medium. Besides, the ever growing multiplicity of mediums in every social branch and in the heart of the majority of families, subtracts from paid mediumship any utility and any meaning. That multiplicity will eliminate exploitation, if not by the disgust that such activity provokes.
We were informed about the termination of the activities of an old and large group in a country town that was led by selfish interests. The leader of that group, as well as his family, had abandoned their professional activities with the deceiving argument of devotion to the cause to which they wanted to dedicate all of their time. The bread winning activities were replaced by the resources that they expected to gain from Spiritism. Fortunately the exploitation of mediumship was so much discredited in the country that in most cities whoever transformed them in profession, even with the most powerful faculties, would not inspire any trust. Speculation did not correspond to the expectation and the leader of that group would have complained to the attendees, we were told, for his precarious situation and had asked for help, and getting the feedback that if he were is such situation it was his own fault; that he had made a mistake by closing his shop to live out of Spiritism and charge for the instructions of the Spirits that he received for free. He responded by blaming the Spirits. In the event out of nine mediums to whom the issue was presented eight received communications reproaching his actions; only one approved it: his wife. Accepting the advice of the Spirits the leader of the group announced that the group was over from that moment on. It would have undoubtedly be wiser from him to have heard earlier the advices that since long ago were given to him by sincere friends of Spiritism. Another group, in more or less identical conditions, was gradually abandoned by the assistants and finally forced to dissolve.
These are, therefore, two groups that disappear by the pressure of public opinion. A letter was sent to us saying that this result is treated in the text of the Imitation of the Gospel in its items #392 and beyond. As a matter of fact it is impossible that a sincere Spiritist that understands the essence and true interests of the Doctrine becomes a defender and gives support to an abuse that would certainly tend to discredit it. We invite you to be suspicious of the traps that the enemies of Spiritism tried to lay with such objective. It is a known fact that in the absence of good reasons to combat Spiritism one of their tactics is to try to ruin it by itself. That is how we see them carefully watching the occasions to catch it at fault or in contradiction with itself. That is why the Spirits continuously ask us to be vigilant and on guard.
As for ourselves, we are aware of the fact that we did not convert into friends those that saw an object of exploitation in Spiritism nor those that supported them. But why bother with the opposition of a few individuals? We defend a true principle and no personal consideration will make us move back before the accomplishment of a duty. Our efforts will always tend to preserve Spiritism from the invasion of commerce. The present time is the most difficult but as the Doctor is better understood such an invasion will be less feared. The opinion of the masses will oppose an insurmountable barrier. The principle of the selflessness that simultaneously satisfies heart and reason will always have the largest number of sympathies and will lead it to victory by the force of things against the principle of speculation.
As for the matter of selflessness it would be useful to repeat everything that has already been said about it and that is remarkably well summarized in Mr. Jobard’s answers. We only add an important consideration.
Certain exploiting mediums think to be saving the appearances by only charging the rich or only accepting a voluntary contribution. First we say that the exploitation of sacred things does not make it less of a job with a profit taken from something that one receives for free. When Jesus and the apostles taught and cured people they did not add a price tag to their words or to the care that was given although they did not have resources to live from. On another hand acting in this way gives no guarantee of sincerity and does not eliminate the suspicion of charlatanism. The reason for free consultation offered by certain doctors in the case of philanthropy is well-known as well as in the case of certain dealers that sell things on much lower prices or that even give them away. In certain cases gratuity is a means of attracting a wealthy clientele.
There is, however, an even stronger consideration. How to recognize the one that can pay and the one that cannot? Appearance is sometimes misleading and sometimes a clean outfit may hide a greater need than the worker’s overall. Does the person then need to attest poverty, their titles of charity or provide a certificate of need? Furthermore who can guarantee that the medium, even by admitting honesty on her side, will show the same solicitude to one that pays a lot or that pays something as compared to the one that does not pay at all, and that she will not give each one according to their payment? And that when simultaneously receiving a rich and a poor person she will not give preference to the rich that only wishes to satisfy a futile curiosity whereas the poor person that might need significant consolation will be delayed? Her conscience will be unwillingly tempted by preference. She will be lead to look the one that pays with better eyes even if that rich person would through a golden coin with disdain like to a mercenary whereas she will look at a minimum with indifference the few coins that the ashamed poor person will timidly present.
Are such feelings compatible with Spiritism? Isn’t that the maintenance of the humiliating separation that already does a lot of harm and that must be eliminated by Spiritism, demonstrating the equality between rich and poor before God who does not measure the light rays of his sun by someone’s fortune, and that God would not subordinate the consolations of the heart that are given by his the good Spirits, his messenger, to people based on their fortune?
Honestly, given the choice we would prefer the medium that always charged because in that case there wouldn’t be any hypocrisy; one would immediately know how to consider that medium. Besides, the ever growing multiplicity of mediums in every social branch and in the heart of the majority of families, subtracts from paid mediumship any utility and any meaning. That multiplicity will eliminate exploitation, if not by the disgust that such activity provokes.
We were informed about the termination of the activities of an old and large group in a country town that was led by selfish interests. The leader of that group, as well as his family, had abandoned their professional activities with the deceiving argument of devotion to the cause to which they wanted to dedicate all of their time. The bread winning activities were replaced by the resources that they expected to gain from Spiritism. Fortunately the exploitation of mediumship was so much discredited in the country that in most cities whoever transformed them in profession, even with the most powerful faculties, would not inspire any trust. Speculation did not correspond to the expectation and the leader of that group would have complained to the attendees, we were told, for his precarious situation and had asked for help, and getting the feedback that if he were is such situation it was his own fault; that he had made a mistake by closing his shop to live out of Spiritism and charge for the instructions of the Spirits that he received for free. He responded by blaming the Spirits. In the event out of nine mediums to whom the issue was presented eight received communications reproaching his actions; only one approved it: his wife. Accepting the advice of the Spirits the leader of the group announced that the group was over from that moment on. It would have undoubtedly be wiser from him to have heard earlier the advices that since long ago were given to him by sincere friends of Spiritism. Another group, in more or less identical conditions, was gradually abandoned by the assistants and finally forced to dissolve.
These are, therefore, two groups that disappear by the pressure of public opinion. A letter was sent to us saying that this result is treated in the text of the Imitation of the Gospel in its items #392 and beyond. As a matter of fact it is impossible that a sincere Spiritist that understands the essence and true interests of the Doctrine becomes a defender and gives support to an abuse that would certainly tend to discredit it. We invite you to be suspicious of the traps that the enemies of Spiritism tried to lay with such objective. It is a known fact that in the absence of good reasons to combat Spiritism one of their tactics is to try to ruin it by itself. That is how we see them carefully watching the occasions to catch it at fault or in contradiction with itself. That is why the Spirits continuously ask us to be vigilant and on guard.
As for ourselves, we are aware of the fact that we did not convert into friends those that saw an object of exploitation in Spiritism nor those that supported them. But why bother with the opposition of a few individuals? We defend a true principle and no personal consideration will make us move back before the accomplishment of a duty. Our efforts will always tend to preserve Spiritism from the invasion of commerce. The present time is the most difficult but as the Doctor is better understood such an invasion will be less feared. The opinion of the masses will oppose an insurmountable barrier. The principle of the selflessness that simultaneously satisfies heart and reason will always have the largest number of sympathies and will lead it to victory by the force of things against the principle of speculation.
Moral study
One can read in the Siècle from October 12th, 1864:
“In a horrible shanty at the passage of St. Pierre, in Clichy, there was a man called Louis-Henri, a sixty four year old that looked like ninety. He had fallen to the last level of the social echelon. People say that before he had been handsome and flamboyant; that he had disturbed many female’s heads and that he had led an agitated life. In fact sometimes he spoke in a way that reminded the refined society and in his house one could see two delicious miniatures representing charming women. The frame of those medallions had been sold long ago and the painting itself was too faded to be of any use. Louis-Henri was a ragman but he was so weak, so broken and frail that he was collecting almost nothing. With the rags on he slept on filthy things that were used as his bed. Other ragmen and almost as poor as him used to chip in to give him some food such as breadcrumbs and leftovers from kitchens that they would have in their baskets. He was covered in ulcers and worms. According to the Opinion Nationale the soldiers from the brigade of Clichy had several times collected money among them to pay for him to have sulphurous baths. He had forgotten his own name and did not know what had happened to his family. The only thing he remembered was the first name Louis-Henri. The leper, as he was called, had not been seen for some days. A terrible smile exhaled from his dwelling, catching the attention of the owners. The police was informed and together with Dr. Massart they came to the place with a locksmith to break in. They found the remains of the ragman among other filthy things, bitten by rats and in decomposition, having died from his sickness and late diseases.”
-o-
It is a said turnaround of fortune and a proof that God’s justice not always waits for a future life to reach the offender. We say offender hypothetically because such a state of degradation cannot be the result but of a vices in their highest degree. The richest and best placed person may fall to the lowest social level but if honor was not abated in the deepest misery he keeps his dignity. Assuming that the life of that man could offer some teaching the Parisian Society resolved that he should be evoked in hopes that it would be at least useful.
Parisian Society, July 28th, 1864 – medium Mr. Vézy
Q. – The details that we read about your life and death seemed of interest first to yourself because all of those that suffer deserve our prayers and second to the benefit of our own instruction. From a moral point of view it would be useful to know how and why you fell into such abjection from a life that seemed to have been brilliant and what is your current situation. We beg a good Spirit to assist you in your communication with us. A. – Haven’t I pay enough during my life of sufferings on Earth to have a couple of hours of lucidity in the beyond the grave? Is my Spirit disturbed because of the worm infected and bitten body? Allow me to recognize myself a bit. I do not need to explain why I have fallen into such disgusting state to you that know the laws of migration of the soul. However, since I am ordered to do that, I will tell you my story… In fact an anecdote will do you good amidst your wise discussions and argumentations. You have an audience here and this will entertain them more than your moral and philosophy. Let us begin then.
Observation: On that day the Society had a general session in which a few strange individuals are admitted. That is what the Spirit makes reference to.
“Why wouldn’t I tell you the name I used and that in my final years, in particular, I had forgotten myself? Haven’t you guessed that the swamp that devoured me was the only cause of my silence about it? I pretended to have forgotten. I remember… but no. I do want to spill filth upon the tuxedos and the silky and velvet dresses of those that were my relatives and friends, with whom I lived in my youth and they still live. I also do not want to see some old ladies that changed from the hairdresser to the oratory to see the medallion that they used to have hanging above their alcove, hidden under the clothes of a gallant and kind gentleman, the miserable abandoned one. To some of them I died in America during the wars that followed the stand up of their peoples; to others I was the last to die in the bloody skirmishes of Vendée, screaming: Save the King! Let us not touch on those laurels on which my heart rests! I have died to them long ago! I also died for her! Ah Let us not talk about that any more… Yes, to you I am very dead! Dead for eternity! However how many hours of ecstasy and intoxication haven’t we spent together? How many times your eyes met mine, my smiles your smile! You still live to show me your wrinkles and your white hair. But when death finally reaches you I will see you no more! No, no! Damn it! I hear voices that shout: Damn it! No, I will not see her again… To hear light and shine, to me night and darkness! I removed the wings of the angel on Earth but her tears will return her purity and God’s forgiveness will present her with the wings of seraphim.
Ah! Why the youth plays with one’s heart like that? Why picking every flower on the way and having them below your feet later? However, when one’s heart speaks the language of the soul to the other soul it is not lying. Why is it necessary that the breath of impure passions rot your body, throwing it into abjection? Let me drop my tears... they are soothing to those that suffer!
How much I would like to live again my life of former times to live better my hours of youth! Oh how much I would like to have my heart again when I was in my twenties! I would give it all to a twin heart. I would give my soul entirely to a sister soul and would ask God to allow us to enjoy the pleasantries of heaven! But it is done. Why my tears and my sorrow? Degraded man, what is your dream? Everything is lost to the one that could not enjoy what was given to him! Everything is lost to the miserable one that did not know how to employ the qualities that he had! Ah all of you that hear me, yes the one that speaks to you was gifted with beautiful faculties. What for? To deceive with astuteness and knowledge of cause! To commit crimes! I then muffled remorse in the orgies, blocking the screams of my conscience. I was a kind man; I handled the word and the sword with audacity and if the women called me a refined man, while caressing my head and my hair in their dressing room, men called me invincible and brave! Pride! Why such memories of those days? Disgrace… Damnation! I see blood around me! Why hasn’t this sword with which I hurt others, why hasn’t it turned against my own chest? Among the dead, do you see this cadaver? It is my son! Oh irony! That is the consequence of the culture of a society in which people laugh at everything. I was the guilty one did I know that it was my son? Did I know that the lover that was abandoned twenty years ago would throw on my path an adulterous fruit that I did not recognize and that would come to fight for a prey with the new D. Juan? And you wanted me not to have forgotten my name after so many mistakes? Ah to me the cup of shame and ignominy! I should have died as I did, in mud. I feel the cold of the tomb! I feel the worms biting me! I feel the filthy coverings! I feel the ulcers around my body! If your father did not give you a name, he erased your world; if he gave you death, he also died in mud. Ah! Open your arms to me! Teaches your father the path to God through forgiveness. What a dismal story! I believed that by taking his hand I would meet the smiles of former times! Attractive! Is it the environment where I am now that penetrates and transforms me? Why have you evoked me? Why have you brought me from darkness to some light and will throw me in darkness again? It is my time to interrogate you. Answer me!
Q. – We called you because we have pity on your suffering and because we want to be useful to you. What can we do for you? A. – Ah, what do I know? It is up to you to enlighten me. Do not throw me back into obscurity… You brought the dead back. I see them in darkness. I am afraid!
Q. – We will pray for you. A. – Ah pray. They say that the prayer is very good to those in suffering.
Q. – Would you like to sign your name? No, no. Pray for me.
A few days later another medium, Mr. Rul from Passy, carried out a private evocation of the same Spirit and obtained the following three communications. We considered superfluous to reproduce the advices given by the medium to the Spirit. Those are of one sincere Spiritist, moved by the true charity towards his brothers in suffering.
II. Yes, pray for me because the prayers of your brothers have already helped me. If you only knew the suffering of a discarnate! If you could read in my spiritual face the traces of the passions that deformed it, you would be taken by pity and your fraternal hand, holding mine, would feel the fever that agitates me. How much I suffer since I was evoked by your President! I know the divine justice. Alone, wandering around the dead I believed to be the only one to be aware of my sufferings and here I am, at the height of publicity, called to make confession of my mistakes! Ah how many mistakes I made because of passions! I did not tell your brother everything because I was stopped by shame; I preferred to hide my confessions and erase these indelible characters that placed me in the pillory of your consciences. But they prayed for me and today I acknowledge the good your charitable hearts did to me and to better deserve your compassion, because you are Spiritists, meaning indulgent and compassionate, I accuse myself for not having stepped back before any fault in order to satisfy my passions. I did not commit any crime punishable by human laws but the vices that your society tolerates and excuses, particularly when one has a name and fortune, those are condemned by God that never let them go unpunished. I atoned them cruelly on Earth; I fell onto the last degree of misery, of degradation and neglect, me that in other times was shiny and reason for envy and jealousy; the punishment chased me beyond the grave. I did not murder like a vile assassin; I did not steal because my pride would cause me to revolt to the simple thought of being confused with criminals. I nonetheless killed but to defend my honor according to the world. I led families to ruin, shame and despair, and I was called the happy and lucky one! How many victims cry for vengeance around me! Ah for how long will I bear the burden of those crimes! Pray for me since I suffer to the point of feeling my soul breaking apart… Thank you, thank you dear brother. I want to call you like you do to me; I thank you for your tears that brought me relief; I thank you for your prayers that have attracted to me Spirits full of glory that tell me: Wait, you that failed so miserably; wait for the mercy of God that forgives all creatures that regret. Persevere in your good resolutions and you shall be stronger to withstand your sufferings. Thank you for taking me from the fog that surrounded me. I hope I can one day demonstrate to you that the recognition of your brother is forever!
III. Remorse chases me; I suffer a lot but I understand the need to suffer; I understand that impurity can only become purity after its transformation by fire. The good Spirits ask me to wait; that I pray and I prayed but I need a friend that reaches out to me to help me out and do not allow me to succumb under this heavy burden. Be such a charitable and devout friend to me. I will hear your advices; I will pray with you; I shall prostrate with you to the feet of the Almighty. How many times have I seen my sword stained in the blood of one of my brothers! I was merciless in my vengeance and when exalted by flesh, vanity, and the desire that execute it upon my rivals I sought victory at any price. Sad victory, stained by the lowest passions! I was cruel when driven by pride. Yes, I was a huge sinner but I want to become a child of the Lord and for that I came to tell you: Be my friend to help me out in purification. Brother, let us pray together.
IV. Thank you, thank you brother. I am under the impression of the words that you have just said. I feel stronger; I see the objective and without measuring the distance that separates me from that I say to myself: I will do it, because I want and because I trust the good Spirits that ask me to wait. When I did bad things on Earth I did not doubt success. How could I doubt now when I want to do good? Thank you brother for your charity, for your good prayers, for your teachings, because I feel that I gain strength and I feel my regret grow. If regret doubles the suffering I know that it is going to last only sometime and that happiness waits for me after depuration. I then want to suffer, suffer a lot to soon deserve the happiness that the radiant Spirits that I see near you experience. So long, brother, since I see that you have another suffering Spirit to console and strengthen in his regret. Think of me and during your nightly prayer I will be near you.
One can read in the Siècle from October 12th, 1864:
“In a horrible shanty at the passage of St. Pierre, in Clichy, there was a man called Louis-Henri, a sixty four year old that looked like ninety. He had fallen to the last level of the social echelon. People say that before he had been handsome and flamboyant; that he had disturbed many female’s heads and that he had led an agitated life. In fact sometimes he spoke in a way that reminded the refined society and in his house one could see two delicious miniatures representing charming women. The frame of those medallions had been sold long ago and the painting itself was too faded to be of any use. Louis-Henri was a ragman but he was so weak, so broken and frail that he was collecting almost nothing. With the rags on he slept on filthy things that were used as his bed. Other ragmen and almost as poor as him used to chip in to give him some food such as breadcrumbs and leftovers from kitchens that they would have in their baskets. He was covered in ulcers and worms. According to the Opinion Nationale the soldiers from the brigade of Clichy had several times collected money among them to pay for him to have sulphurous baths. He had forgotten his own name and did not know what had happened to his family. The only thing he remembered was the first name Louis-Henri. The leper, as he was called, had not been seen for some days. A terrible smile exhaled from his dwelling, catching the attention of the owners. The police was informed and together with Dr. Massart they came to the place with a locksmith to break in. They found the remains of the ragman among other filthy things, bitten by rats and in decomposition, having died from his sickness and late diseases.”
-o-
It is a said turnaround of fortune and a proof that God’s justice not always waits for a future life to reach the offender. We say offender hypothetically because such a state of degradation cannot be the result but of a vices in their highest degree. The richest and best placed person may fall to the lowest social level but if honor was not abated in the deepest misery he keeps his dignity. Assuming that the life of that man could offer some teaching the Parisian Society resolved that he should be evoked in hopes that it would be at least useful.
Parisian Society, July 28th, 1864 – medium Mr. Vézy
Q. – The details that we read about your life and death seemed of interest first to yourself because all of those that suffer deserve our prayers and second to the benefit of our own instruction. From a moral point of view it would be useful to know how and why you fell into such abjection from a life that seemed to have been brilliant and what is your current situation. We beg a good Spirit to assist you in your communication with us. A. – Haven’t I pay enough during my life of sufferings on Earth to have a couple of hours of lucidity in the beyond the grave? Is my Spirit disturbed because of the worm infected and bitten body? Allow me to recognize myself a bit. I do not need to explain why I have fallen into such disgusting state to you that know the laws of migration of the soul. However, since I am ordered to do that, I will tell you my story… In fact an anecdote will do you good amidst your wise discussions and argumentations. You have an audience here and this will entertain them more than your moral and philosophy. Let us begin then.
Observation: On that day the Society had a general session in which a few strange individuals are admitted. That is what the Spirit makes reference to.
“Why wouldn’t I tell you the name I used and that in my final years, in particular, I had forgotten myself? Haven’t you guessed that the swamp that devoured me was the only cause of my silence about it? I pretended to have forgotten. I remember… but no. I do want to spill filth upon the tuxedos and the silky and velvet dresses of those that were my relatives and friends, with whom I lived in my youth and they still live. I also do not want to see some old ladies that changed from the hairdresser to the oratory to see the medallion that they used to have hanging above their alcove, hidden under the clothes of a gallant and kind gentleman, the miserable abandoned one. To some of them I died in America during the wars that followed the stand up of their peoples; to others I was the last to die in the bloody skirmishes of Vendée, screaming: Save the King! Let us not touch on those laurels on which my heart rests! I have died to them long ago! I also died for her! Ah Let us not talk about that any more… Yes, to you I am very dead! Dead for eternity! However how many hours of ecstasy and intoxication haven’t we spent together? How many times your eyes met mine, my smiles your smile! You still live to show me your wrinkles and your white hair. But when death finally reaches you I will see you no more! No, no! Damn it! I hear voices that shout: Damn it! No, I will not see her again… To hear light and shine, to me night and darkness! I removed the wings of the angel on Earth but her tears will return her purity and God’s forgiveness will present her with the wings of seraphim.
Ah! Why the youth plays with one’s heart like that? Why picking every flower on the way and having them below your feet later? However, when one’s heart speaks the language of the soul to the other soul it is not lying. Why is it necessary that the breath of impure passions rot your body, throwing it into abjection? Let me drop my tears... they are soothing to those that suffer!
How much I would like to live again my life of former times to live better my hours of youth! Oh how much I would like to have my heart again when I was in my twenties! I would give it all to a twin heart. I would give my soul entirely to a sister soul and would ask God to allow us to enjoy the pleasantries of heaven! But it is done. Why my tears and my sorrow? Degraded man, what is your dream? Everything is lost to the one that could not enjoy what was given to him! Everything is lost to the miserable one that did not know how to employ the qualities that he had! Ah all of you that hear me, yes the one that speaks to you was gifted with beautiful faculties. What for? To deceive with astuteness and knowledge of cause! To commit crimes! I then muffled remorse in the orgies, blocking the screams of my conscience. I was a kind man; I handled the word and the sword with audacity and if the women called me a refined man, while caressing my head and my hair in their dressing room, men called me invincible and brave! Pride! Why such memories of those days? Disgrace… Damnation! I see blood around me! Why hasn’t this sword with which I hurt others, why hasn’t it turned against my own chest? Among the dead, do you see this cadaver? It is my son! Oh irony! That is the consequence of the culture of a society in which people laugh at everything. I was the guilty one did I know that it was my son? Did I know that the lover that was abandoned twenty years ago would throw on my path an adulterous fruit that I did not recognize and that would come to fight for a prey with the new D. Juan? And you wanted me not to have forgotten my name after so many mistakes? Ah to me the cup of shame and ignominy! I should have died as I did, in mud. I feel the cold of the tomb! I feel the worms biting me! I feel the filthy coverings! I feel the ulcers around my body! If your father did not give you a name, he erased your world; if he gave you death, he also died in mud. Ah! Open your arms to me! Teaches your father the path to God through forgiveness. What a dismal story! I believed that by taking his hand I would meet the smiles of former times! Attractive! Is it the environment where I am now that penetrates and transforms me? Why have you evoked me? Why have you brought me from darkness to some light and will throw me in darkness again? It is my time to interrogate you. Answer me!
Q. – We called you because we have pity on your suffering and because we want to be useful to you. What can we do for you? A. – Ah, what do I know? It is up to you to enlighten me. Do not throw me back into obscurity… You brought the dead back. I see them in darkness. I am afraid!
Q. – We will pray for you. A. – Ah pray. They say that the prayer is very good to those in suffering.
Q. – Would you like to sign your name? No, no. Pray for me.
A few days later another medium, Mr. Rul from Passy, carried out a private evocation of the same Spirit and obtained the following three communications. We considered superfluous to reproduce the advices given by the medium to the Spirit. Those are of one sincere Spiritist, moved by the true charity towards his brothers in suffering.
II. Yes, pray for me because the prayers of your brothers have already helped me. If you only knew the suffering of a discarnate! If you could read in my spiritual face the traces of the passions that deformed it, you would be taken by pity and your fraternal hand, holding mine, would feel the fever that agitates me. How much I suffer since I was evoked by your President! I know the divine justice. Alone, wandering around the dead I believed to be the only one to be aware of my sufferings and here I am, at the height of publicity, called to make confession of my mistakes! Ah how many mistakes I made because of passions! I did not tell your brother everything because I was stopped by shame; I preferred to hide my confessions and erase these indelible characters that placed me in the pillory of your consciences. But they prayed for me and today I acknowledge the good your charitable hearts did to me and to better deserve your compassion, because you are Spiritists, meaning indulgent and compassionate, I accuse myself for not having stepped back before any fault in order to satisfy my passions. I did not commit any crime punishable by human laws but the vices that your society tolerates and excuses, particularly when one has a name and fortune, those are condemned by God that never let them go unpunished. I atoned them cruelly on Earth; I fell onto the last degree of misery, of degradation and neglect, me that in other times was shiny and reason for envy and jealousy; the punishment chased me beyond the grave. I did not murder like a vile assassin; I did not steal because my pride would cause me to revolt to the simple thought of being confused with criminals. I nonetheless killed but to defend my honor according to the world. I led families to ruin, shame and despair, and I was called the happy and lucky one! How many victims cry for vengeance around me! Ah for how long will I bear the burden of those crimes! Pray for me since I suffer to the point of feeling my soul breaking apart… Thank you, thank you dear brother. I want to call you like you do to me; I thank you for your tears that brought me relief; I thank you for your prayers that have attracted to me Spirits full of glory that tell me: Wait, you that failed so miserably; wait for the mercy of God that forgives all creatures that regret. Persevere in your good resolutions and you shall be stronger to withstand your sufferings. Thank you for taking me from the fog that surrounded me. I hope I can one day demonstrate to you that the recognition of your brother is forever!
III. Remorse chases me; I suffer a lot but I understand the need to suffer; I understand that impurity can only become purity after its transformation by fire. The good Spirits ask me to wait; that I pray and I prayed but I need a friend that reaches out to me to help me out and do not allow me to succumb under this heavy burden. Be such a charitable and devout friend to me. I will hear your advices; I will pray with you; I shall prostrate with you to the feet of the Almighty. How many times have I seen my sword stained in the blood of one of my brothers! I was merciless in my vengeance and when exalted by flesh, vanity, and the desire that execute it upon my rivals I sought victory at any price. Sad victory, stained by the lowest passions! I was cruel when driven by pride. Yes, I was a huge sinner but I want to become a child of the Lord and for that I came to tell you: Be my friend to help me out in purification. Brother, let us pray together.
IV. Thank you, thank you brother. I am under the impression of the words that you have just said. I feel stronger; I see the objective and without measuring the distance that separates me from that I say to myself: I will do it, because I want and because I trust the good Spirits that ask me to wait. When I did bad things on Earth I did not doubt success. How could I doubt now when I want to do good? Thank you brother for your charity, for your good prayers, for your teachings, because I feel that I gain strength and I feel my regret grow. If regret doubles the suffering I know that it is going to last only sometime and that happiness waits for me after depuration. I then want to suffer, suffer a lot to soon deserve the happiness that the radiant Spirits that I see near you experience. So long, brother, since I see that you have another suffering Spirit to console and strengthen in his regret. Think of me and during your nightly prayer I will be near you.
It is obvious that this Spirit is in the good direction; we can see that he is fighting the good fight for the only think that he requests is to be enlightened. His ideas, however, are influenced by certain prejudices. Like many others that believe to find an excuse in them, he attains himself to society. But what is it that makes society bad if not the bad persons? There is no doubt that society still has a long way to go with respect to its institutions, but since there are decent people and that law abiding people everyone could do the same for society does not force anyone to act badly. Was it society that forced Louis-Henri to abandon that woman and child? If he did not recognized the child why has he lost sight of him with no concern with respect to his fate? Were the social prejudices that precluded him from giving his name to that woman? No, because his only motivation were his passions. Was it education that he lacked? No because he was part of the high echelons of society. Society is not the one to be blamed in his case; he was not denied anything by society because he was one of its favorites in everything. He was the one to blame with society because he acted freely, voluntarily and with knowledge of cause. Who threw his son onto the excesses? Chance? No. It was the Providence so that it could serve his advancement later on through remorse. The true ulcer of society, the first cause of every disorder, is incredulity. The denial of the spiritual principle, the belief in nothing after death, the materialistic ideas in a word, highly defended by influent people, infiltrates in the formative years that suck it up with milk, as a way of speaking. The person that only believes in the present life wants to enjoy everything to any price and that is consistent since that person believes in nothing beyond the grave. That person expects the nothingness and consequently fears nothing. If Louis-Henri had faith in his soul and in the future he would have understood that the physical life is transient and precarious and would not have established it as his only objective; knowing that nothing that is acquired here is lost he would have been concerned with his future fate whereas he acted here like the one that eats his capital and plays the final hand. How many disorders, how many miseries and how many crimes have their origin in the way people see life! Who are the first to blame? Those that erect it as dogma, belief and that make fun and treat as mad people the ones that believe that not everything is in matter and in the visible world. Louis-Henri was not strong enough to resist to that current of ideas; succumbed, victim of his passions, that found a justification in materialism whereas an unbreakable and reasoned faith would have given opposed him a brake that is more powerful than every repressive law that cannot reach all errors. Spiritism gives that faith and that is why it leads to so many moral transformations. The three last communications confirm the first one obtained by another medium; the bottom line of the ideas is evidently the same. It is possible to observe the progress of the Spirit and several teachings may be collected from them. In the first one, with the confession of his faults, there isn’t serious regret yet nor a resolution is made; he is almost sorry for having been evoked. In the second one he says: “How much I suffer since I was evoked by your President.” Would such words justify the statement of certain persons that believe the evocation disturbs the rest of the dead? Certainly not because first they only come when it is convenient to them; second, because in their majority they testify satisfaction for having been called it is driven by a sympathetic and benevolent feeling. Certain guilty Spirits only come with disgust and in such a case they are not constrained by the evoker but by superior Spirits observing their own advancement. Their rejection is like that of the criminal that is conducted to the court. The evocation of guilty Spirits has the objective of their betterment. The temporary hindrance that they feel works on their advantage because the work towards their regret abbreviates the sufferings that they endure in the spiritual world. Would that then be more charitable to leave them in the abjection in which they are found than to take them out of there? The suffering caused by that is like the one produced by the doctor on the patient to have her cured. If you take a man out of the mud he will complain. The same happens with the Spirits.
In the communications of this Spirit there is a thought similar to what was expressed by Latour about the suffering caused by regret. We explained the cause of such feeling in the Spiritist Review of November 1864; it is the same that leads this one to say: “I suffer since I was evoked”, and “remorse chases me; I suffer a lot.” It is therefore remorse that makes him suffer but it is the very remorse that must save him and it was the evocation that provoked that. But he still adds these remarkable words: “I understand the need for suffering”; “I understand that impurity can only become purity after its transformation by fire”. And later: “If regret doubles the suffering I know that it is going to last only sometime and that happiness waits for me after depuration”.
That certainty makes him say: I then want to suffer, suffer a lot to soon deserve happiness.” After that is there any surprise when a Spirit choses terrible trials in new existences? Isn’t that the case of a patient that resigns to a painful surgery to be cured or the man that exposes himself to all sorts of danger that endures all kinds of miseries, fatigue and deprivations aiming at fortune or glory? Therefore, there is nothing irrational about the principle of the free choice of the trials of life. In order to take advantage of them the condition is not to step back. Not supporting them with courage and resignation is the same as stepping back. What is going to be the fate of Louis-Henri in a new life? Since he atoned cruelly his faults in his last existence; since his regret is sincere in the state of Spirit and his resolutions are serious, it is likely that he is going to be placed in conditions to repair his errors by doing good. But considering that he paid his debts of physical sufferings he will no longer have to go through that kind of vicissitudes. That is our objective given our prayers on his behalf.
In the communications of this Spirit there is a thought similar to what was expressed by Latour about the suffering caused by regret. We explained the cause of such feeling in the Spiritist Review of November 1864; it is the same that leads this one to say: “I suffer since I was evoked”, and “remorse chases me; I suffer a lot.” It is therefore remorse that makes him suffer but it is the very remorse that must save him and it was the evocation that provoked that. But he still adds these remarkable words: “I understand the need for suffering”; “I understand that impurity can only become purity after its transformation by fire”. And later: “If regret doubles the suffering I know that it is going to last only sometime and that happiness waits for me after depuration”.
That certainty makes him say: I then want to suffer, suffer a lot to soon deserve happiness.” After that is there any surprise when a Spirit choses terrible trials in new existences? Isn’t that the case of a patient that resigns to a painful surgery to be cured or the man that exposes himself to all sorts of danger that endures all kinds of miseries, fatigue and deprivations aiming at fortune or glory? Therefore, there is nothing irrational about the principle of the free choice of the trials of life. In order to take advantage of them the condition is not to step back. Not supporting them with courage and resignation is the same as stepping back. What is going to be the fate of Louis-Henri in a new life? Since he atoned cruelly his faults in his last existence; since his regret is sincere in the state of Spirit and his resolutions are serious, it is likely that he is going to be placed in conditions to repair his errors by doing good. But considering that he paid his debts of physical sufferings he will no longer have to go through that kind of vicissitudes. That is our objective given our prayers on his behalf.
The Spiritist Society of Paris has just lost one of its members Mr. Bruneau, deceased on November 13th, 1864 at the age of seventy years old; a death that was announced in the terms below by the Opinion Nationale:
“Death renovates its attacks to the surving members of the Saint-simonianism mission in Egypt. After Mr. Enfantin and Lambert Rey we have today to mourn the loss of Mr. Bruneau, former colonel of the infantry that founded the school of cavalry in Egypt while Mr. Lambert Rey, his son-in-law, organized a Polytechnic School. Mr. Bruneau died as a free man, full of hope in the material, intellectual and moral progress, and full of faith in the religious and social doctrines of his youth.”
Mr. Bruneau was a former student at the Polytechnic School and for several years member of the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies. We ignore the faith that he had in the religious and social doctrines of his youth but we know that he had an absolute confidence in the future of Spiritism of which he was a keen and enlightened follower. He had acquired an unbreakable faith in the future life and in the humanitarian reforms that will be its consequence. We add that his colleagues were able to appreciate his excellent qualities, his extreme modesty, his kindness, benevolence and charity. He communicated at the Society a few days after his death and gave testimony of the elevation of his Spirit by the correction and profoundness of his appreciations. The invisible word had no surprise to him for he understood it beforehand. He then came to confirm everything that the Doctrine teaches us about it. He gladly found his relatives, friends and colleagues that had preceded him and waited for his arrival among them.
The Spiritist Society of Paris was represented in the funerals of Mr. Bruneau by a delegation of twenty members. We considered our duty to express the feelings of the Society but knowing that his family was not sympathetic to our ideas we were forced to abstain from any manifestation. Spiritism does not impose itself. It wants to be freely accepted and for that reason respects every belief and, out of a principle of tolerance and charity, avoids anything that may shock contrary ideas.
As a matter of fact the fair tribute of praises and sorrows that could not have been ostensibly paid before a hostile or indifferent public was done with much more reverence at the heart of the Society. At the session the followed the funerals a speech was given and all of his colleagues united in prayers that were said on his behalf.
At the session dedicated to the memory of Mr. Bruneau, Mr. Allan Kardec offered the following speech:
Ladies and gentlemen, dear Spiritist brothers and sisters,
One of our colleagues has just left Earth to enter the world of the Spirits. By dedicating this session to him we accomplish a duty of fraternity to him in which each one of us, I have no doubt, will associate their heart in a sacred communion of thoughts.
Mr. Bruneau joined the Society on April 1st, 1862. As a member of the committee, as you know, he was very much present at our sessions. All of us were able to appreciate the kindness of his character, his extreme benevolence, his simplicity and charity. There isn’t a single relief run in our Society to which he had not brought his offering. His death revealed an eminent quality in him: modesty. He had never exhibited his titles that recommended him as an enlightened man. By chance I was informed that he had attended the Polytechnic School but we all ignored the fact that he had been a colonel of the artillery and that he had accomplish a superior mission in Egypt, founding a school of cavalry at the same time that his son-in-law, Lambert Bey, founded there a Polytechnic School. We knew him as a sincere Spiritist, devoted and instructed, but if he was quiet about his times he was not about his opinions. These circumstances, ladies and gentlemen, make his memory even more dear to us and we do not doubt that he found a deservedly position in the world of the Spirits. Mr Bruneau was an active member of the Saint-simonianism School, and that was mentioned by the papers that announced his death, but they avoided mentioning that he died as a Spiritist.
This is not the forum to discuss the Saint-simonianism School. However, the beginning of the article of the Opinion Nationale lead us to involuntarily make a comparison. It says: “Death renovates its attacks to the surving members of the Sansimonist mission in Egypt. After Mr. Enfantin and Lambert Rey we have today to mourn the loss of Mr. Bruneau, etc.” Saint-simonianism shined intensely for a few years be it by the originality of the books or by the eminent persons associated to that. It is a fact, however, that the shine was transient. Why then such a short impact if it had the philosophical truth?
Truth sometimes is hard to propagate but when it begins to show up it grows and does not disappear because truth is eternal and it is eternal because it comes from God. Only falsehoods perish because they come from people. Progress is the law of humanity. Humanity will only progress when it discovers the truth. Once the discovery is done it is acquired and unbreakable. Which theory could prevail today against the law of the movement of the globes, of the formation of Earth and so many others? Philosophy is only mutable because it results from systems created by men; it will only have stability when it acquire the accuracy of mathematical truth. If then a system, a theory, any doctrine, philosophical, religious or social, marches towards decline it is a positive proof that it is not with the absolute truth. In all religions, and not excluding Christianity, it is only the divine element that is imperishable; the human element falls if not in agreement with the law of progress. But since progress is endless it results that in the religions the human element must modify or disappear. It is only the divine element that is invariable. You see that in Moses’ law: the two tables of Mount Sinai still stand becoming the code of humanity whereas the rest is already lost in time.
Since absolute truth can only be established onto the ruins of the error it forcibly finds antagonists among those that by living out of the error have interest in fighting truth and for that very reason give rise to a bloodthirsty battle.
But truth soon conquers the sympathy of the selfishness masses. Was it what happened to the Saint-simonianism doctrine? No. It lived like a practice; it only survived as a sympathetic theory and individual belief in the heads of some of its former followers. But like it is attested by the Opinion Nationale, by daily taking away some of its representatives the day in which they will be almost all gone is not far and it will then only live in history, from what we must conclude that it did not had the absolute truth and did not correspond to every aspiration.
Does it mean that every sect and school that disappear are in the absolute false? No. On the contrary. The majority of them have foreseen part of the truth but the summation of the truths that they had was not enough to sustain the fight against progress so that they were not up to the needs of humanity. In fact the sects are very exclusive and for that reason stationaries. It follows that the ones that were able to mark a stage of progress in a given time ended up being left behind and extinguished by the force of things. However, irrespective of the mistakes by which they succumbed their passage was not useless because they agitated the ideas, moved mankind away from numbness, raised new issues that were better elaborated and detached from the spirit of system and exaggeration, and later on received their solution. Among the ideas that they sowed only the good ones bear fruits and are reborn in a different format. Time, experience and reason do justice to the others. The mistake of every social doctrine, presented as panacea of the evils of humanity, is that of be founded exclusively on material interests. It follows that the solidarity that they try to establish among individuals is fragile like the corporeal life; the links of fraternity, without roots in a faith in the future, break to the minimal shock of egotism.
Spiritism presents itself in completely different conditions. Is it with the truth? We believe so but are we better prepared than the others. The reasons that lead us to believe in Spiritism are very simple. They stem simultaneously out of cause and effects. As cause it has in its favor the fact that it is not a human conception, the product of a personal system, and that is of paramount importance. There isn’t a single one of its principles – and here there is no exception – that is not based on the observation of facts. If only one principle of Spiritism were the result of a personal opinion this would be its vulnerable side. But since Spiritism affirms nothing that is not sanctioned by the experience of facts and since facts are the law of nature, it must be immutable like those laws because it will find the sanction and confirmation everywhere and at all times and sooner or later it is necessary that all beliefs bow before the facts.
In fact it responds to every aspiration of the soul; it satisfies at the same time the Spirit, reason and the heart; it fulfills the emptiness left by the doubt; it gives a foundation and a meaning to solidarity, by the connection that it establishes between present and future; finally, it rests on solid foundations the pivot that will receive every serious social reform. Spiritism itself is based on facts and laws of nature, without mixture with human theories, and does not risk to move away from the divine element. Spiritism therefore offers the only spectacle in history of a doctrine that in a few years was implanted in all corners of the globe and grows continuously; that unites every religious beliefs while others are exclusivists and remain circumscribed to limited circle of followers. In a few words these are the reasons why our faith is based on the truth and in the stability of Spiritism. We hope that our former colleague and always brother Bruneau may kindly tell us how he feels about the issue, now that he can see it from a more elevated point of view.
Note: Mr. Bruneau’s communication totally corresponded to our expectation. Like the others that were read at this session it is related to a number of questions that will be dealt with later and that is why we postponed its publication.
“Death renovates its attacks to the surving members of the Saint-simonianism mission in Egypt. After Mr. Enfantin and Lambert Rey we have today to mourn the loss of Mr. Bruneau, former colonel of the infantry that founded the school of cavalry in Egypt while Mr. Lambert Rey, his son-in-law, organized a Polytechnic School. Mr. Bruneau died as a free man, full of hope in the material, intellectual and moral progress, and full of faith in the religious and social doctrines of his youth.”
Mr. Bruneau was a former student at the Polytechnic School and for several years member of the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies. We ignore the faith that he had in the religious and social doctrines of his youth but we know that he had an absolute confidence in the future of Spiritism of which he was a keen and enlightened follower. He had acquired an unbreakable faith in the future life and in the humanitarian reforms that will be its consequence. We add that his colleagues were able to appreciate his excellent qualities, his extreme modesty, his kindness, benevolence and charity. He communicated at the Society a few days after his death and gave testimony of the elevation of his Spirit by the correction and profoundness of his appreciations. The invisible word had no surprise to him for he understood it beforehand. He then came to confirm everything that the Doctrine teaches us about it. He gladly found his relatives, friends and colleagues that had preceded him and waited for his arrival among them.
The Spiritist Society of Paris was represented in the funerals of Mr. Bruneau by a delegation of twenty members. We considered our duty to express the feelings of the Society but knowing that his family was not sympathetic to our ideas we were forced to abstain from any manifestation. Spiritism does not impose itself. It wants to be freely accepted and for that reason respects every belief and, out of a principle of tolerance and charity, avoids anything that may shock contrary ideas.
As a matter of fact the fair tribute of praises and sorrows that could not have been ostensibly paid before a hostile or indifferent public was done with much more reverence at the heart of the Society. At the session the followed the funerals a speech was given and all of his colleagues united in prayers that were said on his behalf.
At the session dedicated to the memory of Mr. Bruneau, Mr. Allan Kardec offered the following speech:
Ladies and gentlemen, dear Spiritist brothers and sisters,
One of our colleagues has just left Earth to enter the world of the Spirits. By dedicating this session to him we accomplish a duty of fraternity to him in which each one of us, I have no doubt, will associate their heart in a sacred communion of thoughts.
Mr. Bruneau joined the Society on April 1st, 1862. As a member of the committee, as you know, he was very much present at our sessions. All of us were able to appreciate the kindness of his character, his extreme benevolence, his simplicity and charity. There isn’t a single relief run in our Society to which he had not brought his offering. His death revealed an eminent quality in him: modesty. He had never exhibited his titles that recommended him as an enlightened man. By chance I was informed that he had attended the Polytechnic School but we all ignored the fact that he had been a colonel of the artillery and that he had accomplish a superior mission in Egypt, founding a school of cavalry at the same time that his son-in-law, Lambert Bey, founded there a Polytechnic School. We knew him as a sincere Spiritist, devoted and instructed, but if he was quiet about his times he was not about his opinions. These circumstances, ladies and gentlemen, make his memory even more dear to us and we do not doubt that he found a deservedly position in the world of the Spirits. Mr Bruneau was an active member of the Saint-simonianism School, and that was mentioned by the papers that announced his death, but they avoided mentioning that he died as a Spiritist.
This is not the forum to discuss the Saint-simonianism School. However, the beginning of the article of the Opinion Nationale lead us to involuntarily make a comparison. It says: “Death renovates its attacks to the surving members of the Sansimonist mission in Egypt. After Mr. Enfantin and Lambert Rey we have today to mourn the loss of Mr. Bruneau, etc.” Saint-simonianism shined intensely for a few years be it by the originality of the books or by the eminent persons associated to that. It is a fact, however, that the shine was transient. Why then such a short impact if it had the philosophical truth?
Truth sometimes is hard to propagate but when it begins to show up it grows and does not disappear because truth is eternal and it is eternal because it comes from God. Only falsehoods perish because they come from people. Progress is the law of humanity. Humanity will only progress when it discovers the truth. Once the discovery is done it is acquired and unbreakable. Which theory could prevail today against the law of the movement of the globes, of the formation of Earth and so many others? Philosophy is only mutable because it results from systems created by men; it will only have stability when it acquire the accuracy of mathematical truth. If then a system, a theory, any doctrine, philosophical, religious or social, marches towards decline it is a positive proof that it is not with the absolute truth. In all religions, and not excluding Christianity, it is only the divine element that is imperishable; the human element falls if not in agreement with the law of progress. But since progress is endless it results that in the religions the human element must modify or disappear. It is only the divine element that is invariable. You see that in Moses’ law: the two tables of Mount Sinai still stand becoming the code of humanity whereas the rest is already lost in time.
Since absolute truth can only be established onto the ruins of the error it forcibly finds antagonists among those that by living out of the error have interest in fighting truth and for that very reason give rise to a bloodthirsty battle.
But truth soon conquers the sympathy of the selfishness masses. Was it what happened to the Saint-simonianism doctrine? No. It lived like a practice; it only survived as a sympathetic theory and individual belief in the heads of some of its former followers. But like it is attested by the Opinion Nationale, by daily taking away some of its representatives the day in which they will be almost all gone is not far and it will then only live in history, from what we must conclude that it did not had the absolute truth and did not correspond to every aspiration.
Does it mean that every sect and school that disappear are in the absolute false? No. On the contrary. The majority of them have foreseen part of the truth but the summation of the truths that they had was not enough to sustain the fight against progress so that they were not up to the needs of humanity. In fact the sects are very exclusive and for that reason stationaries. It follows that the ones that were able to mark a stage of progress in a given time ended up being left behind and extinguished by the force of things. However, irrespective of the mistakes by which they succumbed their passage was not useless because they agitated the ideas, moved mankind away from numbness, raised new issues that were better elaborated and detached from the spirit of system and exaggeration, and later on received their solution. Among the ideas that they sowed only the good ones bear fruits and are reborn in a different format. Time, experience and reason do justice to the others. The mistake of every social doctrine, presented as panacea of the evils of humanity, is that of be founded exclusively on material interests. It follows that the solidarity that they try to establish among individuals is fragile like the corporeal life; the links of fraternity, without roots in a faith in the future, break to the minimal shock of egotism.
Spiritism presents itself in completely different conditions. Is it with the truth? We believe so but are we better prepared than the others. The reasons that lead us to believe in Spiritism are very simple. They stem simultaneously out of cause and effects. As cause it has in its favor the fact that it is not a human conception, the product of a personal system, and that is of paramount importance. There isn’t a single one of its principles – and here there is no exception – that is not based on the observation of facts. If only one principle of Spiritism were the result of a personal opinion this would be its vulnerable side. But since Spiritism affirms nothing that is not sanctioned by the experience of facts and since facts are the law of nature, it must be immutable like those laws because it will find the sanction and confirmation everywhere and at all times and sooner or later it is necessary that all beliefs bow before the facts.
In fact it responds to every aspiration of the soul; it satisfies at the same time the Spirit, reason and the heart; it fulfills the emptiness left by the doubt; it gives a foundation and a meaning to solidarity, by the connection that it establishes between present and future; finally, it rests on solid foundations the pivot that will receive every serious social reform. Spiritism itself is based on facts and laws of nature, without mixture with human theories, and does not risk to move away from the divine element. Spiritism therefore offers the only spectacle in history of a doctrine that in a few years was implanted in all corners of the globe and grows continuously; that unites every religious beliefs while others are exclusivists and remain circumscribed to limited circle of followers. In a few words these are the reasons why our faith is based on the truth and in the stability of Spiritism. We hope that our former colleague and always brother Bruneau may kindly tell us how he feels about the issue, now that he can see it from a more elevated point of view.
Note: Mr. Bruneau’s communication totally corresponded to our expectation. Like the others that were read at this session it is related to a number of questions that will be dealt with later and that is why we postponed its publication.
Antwerp, November 1st, 1864
(End) .ellerutan iol al ed erdro'l snad recalp el ruop lerutanrus te euqitsatnaf erètcarac tuot emsitiripS ua zetô iouqruop tse'c; noitcefrep al: tub emêm el snoviusruop suon ,strom suon te stnaviv suov euq tnemelanif ,eguj niarevuos ua etpmoc udner àjéd snova suon tnod noissim enu erviusruop ed ueiD rap ségrahc te sproc el emmon no'uq ertserret eppolevne ertov snad sénnosirpme erid-à-tse'c ,sénracni stirpsE ,suoV .stirpsE suot semmos suon euq elpmis trof noisulcnoc al à ehcuot no ,emâ'l ed étilatrommi'l ed étatsnoc tiaf el rap ,ro; enirt-cod ettec reruotne à tîalp es no tnod erbmos siofrap te xuellievrem egitserp el eriurtéd à tnemennosiar elpmis el rap evirra no ,ertua'l snas nu'l retejer uo erttemda tiaruas en no'uq ,sepicnirp xued sec ed tnatrap nE .emâ'l ed étilatrommi'l te ueiD nu'd ecnetsixe'l: sétirév sednarg xued dnerppa suov emsitiripS eL (start here).
(End). étirahc ed etca nu'd eéngapmocca erèirp ennob enu (trépassés) idercrem ruop te ,port sap zeugitaf suov en: noitadnammocer erèinred enu ,ritrap ed tnavA (Start here).
.riover uA
-o-
We give above one curious example of reverse typtology (in French) that we mentioned in our last October issue. One can notice that it is not only the words that are written backwards but the whole paragraphs so that we have to start from the last letter of each paragraph. We leave to the readers the effort of the translation.
(End) .ellerutan iol al ed erdro'l snad recalp el ruop lerutanrus te euqitsatnaf erètcarac tuot emsitiripS ua zetô iouqruop tse'c; noitcefrep al: tub emêm el snoviusruop suon ,strom suon te stnaviv suov euq tnemelanif ,eguj niarevuos ua etpmoc udner àjéd snova suon tnod noissim enu erviusruop ed ueiD rap ségrahc te sproc el emmon no'uq ertserret eppolevne ertov snad sénnosirpme erid-à-tse'c ,sénracni stirpsE ,suoV .stirpsE suot semmos suon euq elpmis trof noisulcnoc al à ehcuot no ,emâ'l ed étilatrommi'l ed étatsnoc tiaf el rap ,ro; enirt-cod ettec reruotne à tîalp es no tnod erbmos siofrap te xuellievrem egitserp el eriurtéd à tnemennosiar elpmis el rap evirra no ,ertua'l snas nu'l retejer uo erttemda tiaruas en no'uq ,sepicnirp xued sec ed tnatrap nE .emâ'l ed étilatrommi'l te ueiD nu'd ecnetsixe'l: sétirév sednarg xued dnerppa suov emsitiripS eL (start here).
(End). étirahc ed etca nu'd eéngapmocca erèirp ennob enu (trépassés) idercrem ruop te ,port sap zeugitaf suov en: noitadnammocer erèinred enu ,ritrap ed tnavA (Start here).
.riover uA
-o-
We give above one curious example of reverse typtology (in French) that we mentioned in our last October issue. One can notice that it is not only the words that are written backwards but the whole paragraphs so that we have to start from the last letter of each paragraph. We leave to the readers the effort of the translation.
How and why I became a Spiritist
By J.B. Borreau, from Niort[1]
The author describes how he was led to believe in the existence of the Spirits, in their manifestations and their intervention with the world, and all that before Spiritism came to be. He was led by a series of events when he was not thinking about those things at all. He found the world of the Spirits when carrying out experiments with much different objectives, it is true that by its worst side, but nonetheless it showed up as an active side. Mr. Borreau found it by chance absolutely like those that sought the philosophical stone and found new bodies that they were not looking for and that enriched science if did not enriched themselves.
The detailed report given by Mr. Borreau is at the same time interesting because it is true and very instructive by the teachings that they provide to whoever wants to seek the deductions and consequences that may be taken from the facts and do not stop at the surface of things.
Mr. Borreau is a great magnetizer. For that very reason he had attested the force of the magnetic agent and the remarkable lucidity of certain somnambulists that see from a distance with an accuracy similar that with the eyes but whose sight is not hindered by obscurity or opaque bodies. For him those phenomena were the tangible proof that we have an intelligent principle beyond matter. He had the firm desire to propagate that new science but discouraged by incredulity he thought that he could poke imaginations by a brilliant fact before which all denials and the most adamant doubts would fall.
Considering that the sight of somnambulists penetrate everything, he says, it can also penetrate the layers of Earth. The positive discovery of a buried treasure would make a lot of noise and impose silence to the mockery because nobody would mock a real treasure. That is the story that Mr. Borreau tells in his brochure, painful and dangerous attempts that gave him the impression of victory sometimes but that in fact only led to deceptions and mystifications. One of the most touching episodes was that of the terrible scene that took place when excavating in a field in Vendee on a dark night at the bottom of some druid stones, among somber brooms; when the somnambulist thought that she was touching the objective, in the paroxysm of the ecstasy and excitement, she fell lifeless as if hit by a lightning stroke, not showing any sign of life.
Believing her dead she was transported through the bushes and stone with great difficulty in the dark night. It was only after transposing a few miles that she began to revive without any memory of what had happened. That did not scare the persevering researcher despite a number of other incidents that were not less dramatic and that constantly frustrated him as if to warn him about the uselessness and danger of those attempts.
It was during those experiments that the existence of the Spirits was revealed to him in a positive way through the somnambulist that saw them and dealt with them and by more than fifty cases of direct writing whose origin was unquestionable. Those Spirits sometimes showed up to the medium in a terrifying way provoking terrible crises on the somnambulist that even the hypnotic power of Mr. Borreau could not pacify; on other occasions they came under the appearance of benevolent Spirits that came to encourage him to continue his investigations, always promising success but never indicating the time for that. Persisting on doing that, we must say, was a dangerous game and could lead to serious liability. We must add that the Spirits prescribed a large number of novenas that Mr. Bureau gave up for being too expensive and that led to this thought: the prayers that he said himself could fully efficient and would cost nothing.
Today Spiritism came to clarify all of those issues and each paragraph of his brochure could give rise to an instructive comments but two full issues of the Spiritist Review would hardly suffice. We may perhaps one day take on that task. Meanwhile any person versed in the knowledge of the principles of Spiritism will be able to find their own conclusions. For that matter we refer the reader to the Mediums’ Book, chapter XXVI, specifically items #294 and #295 as well as the considerations that follow the article about the German society of treasure hunters published in our Spiritist Review, October 1864.
Mr. Borreau says that his only objective was to overcome disbelief in human magnetism. However, despite the fact that he was not successful magnetism and somnambulism followed their path. Despite the systematic opposition of some scientists the phenomena of that nature have today passed to the facts accepted by the crowds and by a large number of doctors. Magnetic cures are admitted, even officially; some still contest out of pure spirit of opposition but they no longer laugh at it; what is certain is that whatever is true shall prevail sooner or later.
Hence the success of Mr. Borreau’s attempts was not necessary. He did not reach his objective because an isolated fact cannot turn into law and the nonbelievers would have had plenty of reasons to attribute those facts to anything else but its true cause. We say more: his success would have been damaging to magnetism.
A new principle is only worthy of credit by the multiplicity of events. The possibility of one person finding a treasure would imply that the same would apply to everybody. To be better convinced each person would like to try. Nothing more natural since everyone could promptly get rich and with great easiness! The lazy would have found fortune there as well as the thieves because of this: why would the principle stop before the right of property? Greed, already a scourge, would not need this additional stimulus. Providence did not want that. But since human magnetism is a law of nature it succeeded by the force of things. Its propagation is above all due to its healing power; through that it has a humanitarian purpose and not a selfish one like it is necessary with the interest of profiting. The multiple events of cure that take place daily around the globe did more to its credibility than the discovery of the greatest treasure would have done, or even the most curious experiments because everybody can enjoy that benefit whilst there isn’t enough treasures to all and curiosity itself fades away. Jesus made more proselytes by curing the sick than the miracles of Canaan. It is like with Spiritism. The ratio between those that are brought in by consolation to those that come out of curiosity is 100:1.
Have those attempts, even unsuccessful from a material point of view, gone without benefit to Mr. Borreau? Here is what he says about it.
“All of those thoughts had made me so depressed, me that was always joyful, that I became said for the rest of the trip, I became unfair to the point that I regretted having ever considered that idea that brought me all those tribulations from unknown paths. What did I gain from that? I asked upset with myself. The knowledge, it is true, of an unknown world to me and the possibility of entering in communication with the beings that inhabit it. But after all that world like ours must have good as well as bad Spirits. Who can give me assurance that despite the interest that we have and all of their good and benevolent words, the one that seems to have imposed himself on us only has good intentions and the power, as he says, to lead us to the brilliant success that I dreamed about, and that may have only inspired me to seduce me and induce me in error?”
Doesn’t the confirmation of the invisible world, of something that is of the interest of the future of humanity at the highest level for the whole humanity will get there, aren’t all these things of significance? Isn’t the discovery of the key to all problems that even today puzzle philosophy a huge finding? Isn’t that an honor to be among the first ones called in to that knowledge? Isn’t that a great service done to the cause of magnetism, by chance it is true, for having given a new proof, among a thousand others, of the impossibility of success in similar cases, and that of discouraging those tempted to do similar tests feeding deluded hopes?
That is the kind of result that the laborious researches of Mr. Borreau produced. If he did not find treasures in this life he certainly found another one a thousand times more precious to the other life, because the one that he could have found on Earth he would be forced to leave it here when he died whereas he will take an imperishable one with him. Is he happy about it? We don’t know.
Nevertheless, we cannot go without establishing a correlation between this event and the old man from the fable that told his three sons the field that they would inherit had a hidden treasure. Two of them then started to excavate their portions but found no treasure. The third and wiser one took very good care of the soil, so much so that one year later he got a big profit back. Hence the maxim: “Work, strive; the essential is what lacks the least.” The Spirit did as the old man and in our opinion Mr. Borreau found the true treasure.
Our criticism in no way reaches Mr. Borreau that we know from a long time and that we have in high account in all senses. We only wanted to show the moral teaching behind his experiments to the benefit of the science and each one in particular. From that point of view his brochure is highly instructive and at the same time interesting for the remarkable phenomena that it verifies. That is why we recommend it to our readers.
[1] Brochre 2 francs ─ Niort, all bookstores; Paris, Didier & Co, Quai des Augustins, 35; Ledoyen, Palais-Royal.
By J.B. Borreau, from Niort[1]
The author describes how he was led to believe in the existence of the Spirits, in their manifestations and their intervention with the world, and all that before Spiritism came to be. He was led by a series of events when he was not thinking about those things at all. He found the world of the Spirits when carrying out experiments with much different objectives, it is true that by its worst side, but nonetheless it showed up as an active side. Mr. Borreau found it by chance absolutely like those that sought the philosophical stone and found new bodies that they were not looking for and that enriched science if did not enriched themselves.
The detailed report given by Mr. Borreau is at the same time interesting because it is true and very instructive by the teachings that they provide to whoever wants to seek the deductions and consequences that may be taken from the facts and do not stop at the surface of things.
Mr. Borreau is a great magnetizer. For that very reason he had attested the force of the magnetic agent and the remarkable lucidity of certain somnambulists that see from a distance with an accuracy similar that with the eyes but whose sight is not hindered by obscurity or opaque bodies. For him those phenomena were the tangible proof that we have an intelligent principle beyond matter. He had the firm desire to propagate that new science but discouraged by incredulity he thought that he could poke imaginations by a brilliant fact before which all denials and the most adamant doubts would fall.
Considering that the sight of somnambulists penetrate everything, he says, it can also penetrate the layers of Earth. The positive discovery of a buried treasure would make a lot of noise and impose silence to the mockery because nobody would mock a real treasure. That is the story that Mr. Borreau tells in his brochure, painful and dangerous attempts that gave him the impression of victory sometimes but that in fact only led to deceptions and mystifications. One of the most touching episodes was that of the terrible scene that took place when excavating in a field in Vendee on a dark night at the bottom of some druid stones, among somber brooms; when the somnambulist thought that she was touching the objective, in the paroxysm of the ecstasy and excitement, she fell lifeless as if hit by a lightning stroke, not showing any sign of life.
Believing her dead she was transported through the bushes and stone with great difficulty in the dark night. It was only after transposing a few miles that she began to revive without any memory of what had happened. That did not scare the persevering researcher despite a number of other incidents that were not less dramatic and that constantly frustrated him as if to warn him about the uselessness and danger of those attempts.
It was during those experiments that the existence of the Spirits was revealed to him in a positive way through the somnambulist that saw them and dealt with them and by more than fifty cases of direct writing whose origin was unquestionable. Those Spirits sometimes showed up to the medium in a terrifying way provoking terrible crises on the somnambulist that even the hypnotic power of Mr. Borreau could not pacify; on other occasions they came under the appearance of benevolent Spirits that came to encourage him to continue his investigations, always promising success but never indicating the time for that. Persisting on doing that, we must say, was a dangerous game and could lead to serious liability. We must add that the Spirits prescribed a large number of novenas that Mr. Bureau gave up for being too expensive and that led to this thought: the prayers that he said himself could fully efficient and would cost nothing.
Today Spiritism came to clarify all of those issues and each paragraph of his brochure could give rise to an instructive comments but two full issues of the Spiritist Review would hardly suffice. We may perhaps one day take on that task. Meanwhile any person versed in the knowledge of the principles of Spiritism will be able to find their own conclusions. For that matter we refer the reader to the Mediums’ Book, chapter XXVI, specifically items #294 and #295 as well as the considerations that follow the article about the German society of treasure hunters published in our Spiritist Review, October 1864.
Mr. Borreau says that his only objective was to overcome disbelief in human magnetism. However, despite the fact that he was not successful magnetism and somnambulism followed their path. Despite the systematic opposition of some scientists the phenomena of that nature have today passed to the facts accepted by the crowds and by a large number of doctors. Magnetic cures are admitted, even officially; some still contest out of pure spirit of opposition but they no longer laugh at it; what is certain is that whatever is true shall prevail sooner or later.
Hence the success of Mr. Borreau’s attempts was not necessary. He did not reach his objective because an isolated fact cannot turn into law and the nonbelievers would have had plenty of reasons to attribute those facts to anything else but its true cause. We say more: his success would have been damaging to magnetism.
A new principle is only worthy of credit by the multiplicity of events. The possibility of one person finding a treasure would imply that the same would apply to everybody. To be better convinced each person would like to try. Nothing more natural since everyone could promptly get rich and with great easiness! The lazy would have found fortune there as well as the thieves because of this: why would the principle stop before the right of property? Greed, already a scourge, would not need this additional stimulus. Providence did not want that. But since human magnetism is a law of nature it succeeded by the force of things. Its propagation is above all due to its healing power; through that it has a humanitarian purpose and not a selfish one like it is necessary with the interest of profiting. The multiple events of cure that take place daily around the globe did more to its credibility than the discovery of the greatest treasure would have done, or even the most curious experiments because everybody can enjoy that benefit whilst there isn’t enough treasures to all and curiosity itself fades away. Jesus made more proselytes by curing the sick than the miracles of Canaan. It is like with Spiritism. The ratio between those that are brought in by consolation to those that come out of curiosity is 100:1.
Have those attempts, even unsuccessful from a material point of view, gone without benefit to Mr. Borreau? Here is what he says about it.
“All of those thoughts had made me so depressed, me that was always joyful, that I became said for the rest of the trip, I became unfair to the point that I regretted having ever considered that idea that brought me all those tribulations from unknown paths. What did I gain from that? I asked upset with myself. The knowledge, it is true, of an unknown world to me and the possibility of entering in communication with the beings that inhabit it. But after all that world like ours must have good as well as bad Spirits. Who can give me assurance that despite the interest that we have and all of their good and benevolent words, the one that seems to have imposed himself on us only has good intentions and the power, as he says, to lead us to the brilliant success that I dreamed about, and that may have only inspired me to seduce me and induce me in error?”
Doesn’t the confirmation of the invisible world, of something that is of the interest of the future of humanity at the highest level for the whole humanity will get there, aren’t all these things of significance? Isn’t the discovery of the key to all problems that even today puzzle philosophy a huge finding? Isn’t that an honor to be among the first ones called in to that knowledge? Isn’t that a great service done to the cause of magnetism, by chance it is true, for having given a new proof, among a thousand others, of the impossibility of success in similar cases, and that of discouraging those tempted to do similar tests feeding deluded hopes?
That is the kind of result that the laborious researches of Mr. Borreau produced. If he did not find treasures in this life he certainly found another one a thousand times more precious to the other life, because the one that he could have found on Earth he would be forced to leave it here when he died whereas he will take an imperishable one with him. Is he happy about it? We don’t know.
Nevertheless, we cannot go without establishing a correlation between this event and the old man from the fable that told his three sons the field that they would inherit had a hidden treasure. Two of them then started to excavate their portions but found no treasure. The third and wiser one took very good care of the soil, so much so that one year later he got a big profit back. Hence the maxim: “Work, strive; the essential is what lacks the least.” The Spirit did as the old man and in our opinion Mr. Borreau found the true treasure.
Our criticism in no way reaches Mr. Borreau that we know from a long time and that we have in high account in all senses. We only wanted to show the moral teaching behind his experiments to the benefit of the science and each one in particular. From that point of view his brochure is highly instructive and at the same time interesting for the remarkable phenomena that it verifies. That is why we recommend it to our readers.
[1] Brochre 2 francs ─ Niort, all bookstores; Paris, Didier & Co, Quai des Augustins, 35; Ledoyen, Palais-Royal.
That is the title of a new journal published in Brussels with the format of large newspapers under the direction of Mr. Balibran and Mr. Roselli, names that are simultaneously a program and a recommendation for that kind of media. It is not the Arts part that we would like to appreciate. With that respect we resource to more competent persons that may assess according to their own titles. In fact it could not be confused with those frivolous papers that under the flagship of literature give their readers more baloney than substance and sometimes more blanks than text. The Monde Musical is a serious journal where every issue in its program is treated seriously and by skillful hands. This consideration is important to us. This journal is a first step of the independent press on the path of Spiritism. Without identifying itself as an institution that propagates the Doctrine it brought this judicious reasoning:
“True or false Spiritism occupied a place in the events of actuality that concern public opinion. The storms that it provoke in a certain world demonstrate that it has its importance; its propagations, despite the attacks of the clergy, demonstrates that it is not a fire spark that fades away; by the number of its followers it is already a power with which sooner or later we have to count on. If it is a mistake it will fall on its own; if it is a truth it is inevitably a revolution of the ideas and nothing will be able to oppose it. In both alternatives we must keep our readers aware of the current status of the issue. Between the option of discussing this or something else it would be better, in our opinion, to discuss this subject than to propagate the scandalous chronicles of the saloons. To provide our readers with the foundations of the idea we extracted part of our citations from the writings that give support to the followers of that doctrine; but since we do not want nor wish to force anybody’s opinion, without taking sides, we will admit the controversy as long as it does not move away from civility and honesty in the discussion. By keeping ourselves impartial each one remains free in their own beliefs. The contrary or supporting opinions that could be formulated in certain articles must be considered as personal to their respective writers and in anyway compromise the responsibility of the journal.”
That is the summary that was presented to us and that we can only applaud. It would be desirable that this example was followed by other vehicles in the press; what we criticize in them is not the discussion of our principles but the blind and systematically malevolent criticism that they make without knowing them and that denature those principles in a disloyal way. The papers that frankly enter this path far from losing out they will only gain materially because the Spiritists today form a mass of readers that is increasingly dominating and whose sympathy will naturally tend to their side. From that point of view the Monde Musical deserves encouraging.
Note: the Monde Musical is published on Sundays since October 1st, 1864. Price of subscription: 4 francs per year in Belgium; 10 francs in France. Subscription accept from the first day of each month; In Brussels in the office located at Rue l’Êcuyer, 18 and in Paris at the journals headquarter at Rue de Buffaut, 9.
A society was formed for the administration of this journal with a capital of 60,000 francs divided in 2,400 shares of 25 francs each.
“True or false Spiritism occupied a place in the events of actuality that concern public opinion. The storms that it provoke in a certain world demonstrate that it has its importance; its propagations, despite the attacks of the clergy, demonstrates that it is not a fire spark that fades away; by the number of its followers it is already a power with which sooner or later we have to count on. If it is a mistake it will fall on its own; if it is a truth it is inevitably a revolution of the ideas and nothing will be able to oppose it. In both alternatives we must keep our readers aware of the current status of the issue. Between the option of discussing this or something else it would be better, in our opinion, to discuss this subject than to propagate the scandalous chronicles of the saloons. To provide our readers with the foundations of the idea we extracted part of our citations from the writings that give support to the followers of that doctrine; but since we do not want nor wish to force anybody’s opinion, without taking sides, we will admit the controversy as long as it does not move away from civility and honesty in the discussion. By keeping ourselves impartial each one remains free in their own beliefs. The contrary or supporting opinions that could be formulated in certain articles must be considered as personal to their respective writers and in anyway compromise the responsibility of the journal.”
That is the summary that was presented to us and that we can only applaud. It would be desirable that this example was followed by other vehicles in the press; what we criticize in them is not the discussion of our principles but the blind and systematically malevolent criticism that they make without knowing them and that denature those principles in a disloyal way. The papers that frankly enter this path far from losing out they will only gain materially because the Spiritists today form a mass of readers that is increasingly dominating and whose sympathy will naturally tend to their side. From that point of view the Monde Musical deserves encouraging.
Note: the Monde Musical is published on Sundays since October 1st, 1864. Price of subscription: 4 francs per year in Belgium; 10 francs in France. Subscription accept from the first day of each month; In Brussels in the office located at Rue l’Êcuyer, 18 and in Paris at the journals headquarter at Rue de Buffaut, 9.
A society was formed for the administration of this journal with a capital of 60,000 francs divided in 2,400 shares of 25 francs each.
Photography of a local drawing representing the ceremony of the auto-da-fe of the Spiritists books in Barcelona, with a summary of the minutes handwritten by Mr. Allan Kardec. Price 1.25 francs, exempt from postal fees in France and Algeria; postage and packaging elsewhere 1.5 francs. Available at the office of the Spiritist Review.
Bordeaux, May 1864, Group St. John, medium Mr. Rul.
There is a new book out. It is another shiny light that comes to illuminate your path. Eighteen centuries ago I came to bring God’s word to those of good will by the commandment of my father. That word was forgotten by the majority, and incredulity and materialism came to muffle the grain that I had deposited on your Earth. Today, by the order of the Eternal, the good Spirits, his messengers, come to all corners of the globe make the reverberating trumpet heard. Hear their voices; they are destined to show you the path that leads to our celestial Father. Be submissive to their teachings; the forecasted times have come; all prophecies shall be accomplished. By the fruit you recognize the tree. See the fruits of Spiritism: couples that had replaced peace by discord returned to peace and harmony; persons that succumbed to the weight of their sufferings now awaken by the melodious voices from beyond the grave, understanding that they followed the wrong path and ashamed of their weaknesses regretted and asked the Lord the strength to withstand their trials. Trials and atonement that is the condition of a person on Earth. Atonement of the past, trials to strengthen her against temptation; to develop the Spirit by the struggle in the fight; to get her used to dominating matter and prepare her for the pure pleasures that await in the world of the Spirits.
My father’s house has many rooms, I said eighteen centuries ago. Spiritism came to make these words understood. And you, my beloved ones, workers that face the heat of the day, that believe to have to feel sorry about the unfairness of your fate, praise your sufferings; thank God that gives you means of making up debts of the past; pray not with your lips but with your improved heart to take place in the house of my Father, because the great shall be humiliated, as you know, and the little ones and the humble exalted.
The Spirit of Truth
Observation: It is well-known that we take less responsibility by the names when they belong to more elevated beings. We do not guarantee that signature more than many others, limiting ourselves to give that communication to each enlightened Spiritist. However, we must say that it is not possible to disregard in this one the elevation of thoughts, the nobility and simplicity of the expressions, the soberness of the language and the absence of superficiality. If compared to those inserted in the Imitation of the Gospel (preface and Chap. III: The consoling Christ) and that carry the same signature, although obtained by different mediums and on different occasions, it is possible to detect a markedly analogy among them of tone, style and thoughts, that indicates a unique origin. From our side we say that it can be from the Spirit of Truth because it is worthy of him whereas we have seen many signed with that venerable name or that of Jesus whose prolixity, wordiness, vulgarity, and even sometimes the triviality of the ideas, betraying the apocryphal origin to the eyes of the least clairvoyant. Only a complete fascination can explain the blindness of those that allow to be deceived, added also to the pride of considering themselves infallible and privileged interpreters of pure Spirits, a sooner or later always punished pride by deceptions, ridiculous mystifications and real disgrace in this life. In the presence of such venerable names the first feeling of a humble medium is that of the doubt because such medium does not consider oneself worthy of such a favor.
There is a new book out. It is another shiny light that comes to illuminate your path. Eighteen centuries ago I came to bring God’s word to those of good will by the commandment of my father. That word was forgotten by the majority, and incredulity and materialism came to muffle the grain that I had deposited on your Earth. Today, by the order of the Eternal, the good Spirits, his messengers, come to all corners of the globe make the reverberating trumpet heard. Hear their voices; they are destined to show you the path that leads to our celestial Father. Be submissive to their teachings; the forecasted times have come; all prophecies shall be accomplished. By the fruit you recognize the tree. See the fruits of Spiritism: couples that had replaced peace by discord returned to peace and harmony; persons that succumbed to the weight of their sufferings now awaken by the melodious voices from beyond the grave, understanding that they followed the wrong path and ashamed of their weaknesses regretted and asked the Lord the strength to withstand their trials. Trials and atonement that is the condition of a person on Earth. Atonement of the past, trials to strengthen her against temptation; to develop the Spirit by the struggle in the fight; to get her used to dominating matter and prepare her for the pure pleasures that await in the world of the Spirits.
My father’s house has many rooms, I said eighteen centuries ago. Spiritism came to make these words understood. And you, my beloved ones, workers that face the heat of the day, that believe to have to feel sorry about the unfairness of your fate, praise your sufferings; thank God that gives you means of making up debts of the past; pray not with your lips but with your improved heart to take place in the house of my Father, because the great shall be humiliated, as you know, and the little ones and the humble exalted.
The Spirit of Truth
Observation: It is well-known that we take less responsibility by the names when they belong to more elevated beings. We do not guarantee that signature more than many others, limiting ourselves to give that communication to each enlightened Spiritist. However, we must say that it is not possible to disregard in this one the elevation of thoughts, the nobility and simplicity of the expressions, the soberness of the language and the absence of superficiality. If compared to those inserted in the Imitation of the Gospel (preface and Chap. III: The consoling Christ) and that carry the same signature, although obtained by different mediums and on different occasions, it is possible to detect a markedly analogy among them of tone, style and thoughts, that indicates a unique origin. From our side we say that it can be from the Spirit of Truth because it is worthy of him whereas we have seen many signed with that venerable name or that of Jesus whose prolixity, wordiness, vulgarity, and even sometimes the triviality of the ideas, betraying the apocryphal origin to the eyes of the least clairvoyant. Only a complete fascination can explain the blindness of those that allow to be deceived, added also to the pride of considering themselves infallible and privileged interpreters of pure Spirits, a sooner or later always punished pride by deceptions, ridiculous mystifications and real disgrace in this life. In the presence of such venerable names the first feeling of a humble medium is that of the doubt because such medium does not consider oneself worthy of such a favor.
This subscription ended on December 1st, as announced in our last issue of the Spiritist Review. The proceedings added to 255 francs.
We must inform that due to the vacation of the Society, at the time of the disaster, the subscription could only be initiated at the return and be announced in the Spiritist Review in the month of October. At that time each person had promptly made their own contribution to the several donation centers what explains the small amount that was raised when compared from that of the region of Ruan elevated to 2,833 francs. The almost totality of the donors remained anonymous so that we do not publish a nominal list. However, we mention one that donated 50 francs with the title “product of the journey of a countryside photographer”, with the recommendation of not even mentioning the name of the city. The donation will be delivered in the name of the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies.
Allan Kardec
We must inform that due to the vacation of the Society, at the time of the disaster, the subscription could only be initiated at the return and be announced in the Spiritist Review in the month of October. At that time each person had promptly made their own contribution to the several donation centers what explains the small amount that was raised when compared from that of the region of Ruan elevated to 2,833 francs. The almost totality of the donors remained anonymous so that we do not publish a nominal list. However, we mention one that donated 50 francs with the title “product of the journey of a countryside photographer”, with the recommendation of not even mentioning the name of the city. The donation will be delivered in the name of the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies.
Allan Kardec