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Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1866 > October
October
The Times Have ComeThe times established by God have come, we are told from all sides, in which great things are going to happen for the regeneration of humanity. In which sense should these prophetic words be understood? To the unbelievers they have no importance. To their eyes these are just an expression of a puerile belief, without foundation. To most believers it has something of mystic and supernatural, that seems to be a precursor of a collapse of the natural laws. Both interpretations are equally wrong; the first for implying the denial of Providence and because the facts demonstrate the truth of these words; the second because they do not announce the breach of the laws of nature but its realization.
Let us, therefore, seek a more rational meaning.
Everything is harmony in the works of creation; everything reveals a providence that contradicts neither the smallest nor the greatest things. Therefore, to begin with, we must rule out any caprice, for it is irreconcilable with the Divine wisdom; second, if our times are set for the realization of certain things, it is for that fact that they make sense in the general march. Having said that, we say that our globe, as everything that exists, is submitted to the law of progress. It progresses physically by the transformation of the elements that compose it, and morally by the depuration of its inhabiting incarnate and discarnate Spirits. These two progresses follow one another and march in parallel because the perfection of the dwelling is proportional to the inhabitant. The globe has suffered physical transformation, attested by science, and that have made it gradually inhabitable by more perfected beings; morally, humanity progresses by the development of intelligence, moral sense, and softening of social mores. While the globe improves under the domain of material forces, men contribute to that by the efforts of intelligence. They improve inhospitable regions, advance communications, and make the soil more productive.
This doble progress takes place in two ways: one that is slow, gradual, and imperceptible; the other through more sudden changes, with a faster ascending movement taking place in each one, marking by distinct characters the progressive movement of humanity. Such movements, subordinated in the detail to men’s free-will, are, in a way, fatal as a whole, because they are submitted to the laws, as those that yield germination, growth and maturation of plants, given that progress is the objective of humanity, despite the delay of some individualities. That is why the progressive movement is, sometimes, partial, that is, limited to a race or a nation, and other times general.
The progress of humanity, therefore, takes place due to a law. Since all laws of nature are the eternal works of the Divine wisdom and prescience, everything that is the effect of such laws is the result of the will of God, and not the result of an accidental and whimsical will, but that of an immutable will.
Then, when humanity is mature enough to transpose a step, we can say that the times established by God have come, as we can also say that in a given season they have arrived for the maturation and harvest of fruits.
Considering that the progressive movement of humanity is inevitable, because it is part of nature, it does not follow that God is indifferent to that, and that after having established the laws, he had entered a state of inertia, allowing things to go by themselves. His laws are eternal and immutable, no doubt, but since His own will is eternal and constant, and His thought animates everything without interruption, and since His thought, that penetrates everything, is the intelligent and permanent force that keeps everything in harmony, if that thought stopped acting a single moment, the universe would be like a clock without its regulating rocker arm. Thus, God oversees incessantly His laws, and the Spirits that inhabit space are His ministers in charge of the details, according to the assignment compatible with their degree of development.
The universe is, at the same time, an incommensurable mechanism led by a not less incommensurable number of intelligences, and an immense government in which each intelligent being has its part of the action under the sovereign eye of the Lord, whose unique will keeps the unity of the whole. Under the empire of this vast regulating power, everything moves, everything works in a perfect order. What seems disturbance to us, constitute partial and isolated movements that only seem irregular to us because our sight is circumscribed. If we could embrace the whole, we would see that such irregularities are just apparent and that they are in harmony with the whole.
The forecast of progressive movements of humanity is not at all surprising to the dematerialized beings, that see the target to which everything tend, some of whom get the direct thought of God and judge, by the partial movements, the time in which there could be a general movement, as we foresee the time for a tree to bear fruits, and like the astronomers calculate the time for an astronomical phenomenon based on the time that remains for a given globe to complete its revolution.
But all those that announce such phenomena, the authors of almanacs that predict eclipses and tides, are not certainly the ones capable of doing the necessary calculations. They are simple repeaters. Thus, there are secondary Spirits, whose vision is limited, and that just repeat what the superior Spirits thought appropriate to reveal to them.
Humanity has realized incontestable progresses up until now. For its intelligence, mankind has achieved results that had never been done before in terms of sciences, arts, and material comfort. There remains still a grandiose result to be achieved: have charity, fraternity, and solidarity reigning among all, to ensure their moral well-being. Men could not have it done with their beliefs, their broken institutions, remains of former times, good for a certain period, sufficient for a transient state, but that having given what it was capable of, today they would be stagnation. That is what happens to a boy, whose motivations of childhood are powerless when it comes to a mature age. It is no longer just the development of intelligence that is necessary to men, but the elevation of feelings, and for that it is necessary to destroy everything that could super excite pride and selfishness in them.
That is the period that they will enter and that will mark one of the main phases of humanity. That phase, that is currently in preparation, is the necessary complement of the current phase, as the mature age is the complement of youth. It could, therefore, be predicted in anticipation, and that is why we say that the times marked by God have come. Such time is not about a partial change, a limited renovation of a country, a people, or a race. It is the universal movement that takes place in terms of moral progress. A new order of things tends to be established, and those that oppose to that the most, work for that, nevertheless.
Future generation, disentangled from the scum of the old world, and formed by more depurated elements, will be driven by ideas and feelings completely different from the feelings that drive the present generation, moving away at gigantic steps. The old world will die and live in history, like the medieval times today, with their barbaric social mores and superstitious beliefs.
Besides, everyone knows that the present order of things is lacking. After having, in a way, exhausted material comfort, that is a product of intelligence, if follows that the complement of that well-being can only be the moral development. The more one advances, the more one feels what is lacking, without, however, being able to clearly define it; it is the effect of the intimate work that takes place for the regeneration; one has wishes and aspirations that are like the presentiment of a better state.
But such a radical change, like the one that is taking place, cannot happen without commotion; there is inevitable struggle between ideas, and in the struggle, there is the possibility of success or failure. However, since the new ideas are those of progress, and progress is in the laws of nature, they can only overcome the backward-looking ideas. Temporary disruptions will forcibly arise from this conflict, until the terrain is cleared from the obstacles that are opposed to the construction of the new social edifice.
It is, therefore, form the struggle of ideas that the announced grave events will take place, and not from cataclysms and purely material catastrophes. The general cataclysms followed the periods of formation of Earth; today it is no longer the guts of Earth that agitates, but those of humanity.
Humanity is a collective being, in which the moral revolutions that take place are the same as those in each individual, with the difference that some take place year over year, and the others century after century. Following their evolution through times, one can see the life of the several races marked by periods that give each one a particular character.
Side by side with partial movements, there is a general movement that gives the whole humanity an impulse; but the progress of each part of the whole is relative to their degree of advancement. Such would be a family formed by several children, in which the youngest is in the crib and the oldest is ten years old, for example. After ten years, the oldest one will be a twenty-year-old man, and the youngest will be only ten, and although grown, he will still be a child, but in due time he will become a man. That is what happens to the several fractions of humanity; the younger advance, but they could not leap to the same level as the older ones. By becoming adult, humanity has new needs, ampler and more elevated aspirations; it understands the emptiness of the ideas that lulled it, the insufficiency of its institutions for its happiness, no longer finding in such state of things the legitimate satisfactions that it demands, and for that reason humanity shakes the diapers and moves forward, pushed by an irresistible force towards the unknown, seeking new and less limited horizons. And at the time when it finds itself suffocated in its material sphere, when intellectual life thrives, when the feeling of spirituality expands, that certain men, pretense philosophers, expect to fill the emptiness with the doctrines of nihilism and materialism! Strange aberration! These very men that pretend to take it forward, strive to keep it in the narrow circle of matter, from which humanity aspires to leave; they block its vision of an infinite life, and say by pointing at the grave: Nec plus ultra.[1]
The progressive march of humanity occurs in two different ways, as we said: one is gradual, slow, imperceptible, if we consider less remote epochs, translated into successive improvements in social mores, laws, uses, and that we only notice with time, like the changes provoked on the surface of the globe by the currents of water; the other one, by a relatively sudden and fast movement, similar to a torrent breaking the dikes, making it cover in a few years what would otherwise be done in centuries. It is then a moral cataclysm that shortly devours the institutions of the past, succeeded by a new order of things that is established bit by bit, as calm returns and becomes definitive.
To someone that lives enough to embrace the two sides of the new phase, it seems that a new world has come out of the ruins of the old one; the character, the social mores, the uses, everything has changed. It is for the fact that new men, or better saying, regenerated men have arrived. The ideas sustained by the extinguishing generation give rise to the one that stands up.
Humanity has arrived to one of these periods of transformation, or moral growth, if you will. It passes from adolescence to a mature age. Past can no longer suffice to its new aspirations and needs; it can no longer be driven by the same means; it no longer allows elusions and gimmicks. Matured reason requires more substantial food. Present is ephemeral; it feels that its destiny is ampler, that the material life is excessively restricted to completely contain it. That is why it looks back at the bast and forward, to the future, to discover the mystery of its own existence, seeking a reassuring safety net.
Anyone that has meditated about Spiritism and its consequences, and do not restrict it to the production of some phenomena, understands that it opens a new path to humanity, unfolding the horizons of infinity. Initiating in the mysteries of the invisible world, it shows one’s true role in the creation, an eternally active role, both in the spiritual and in the corporeal state. Man no longer walks blindly. He knows where he comes from, where he is going to and why he is on Earth. Future shows him how it truly is, free from the prejudices of ignorance and superstition; to him, it is no longer a hope, it is rather a tangible truth, as certain as the succession of days and nights. He knows that his being is not limited to an existence of a few instants, whose duration is submitted to the whims of chance; that the spiritual life is not interrupted by death; that he has already lived and will live again, and that everything that is acquired in perfection by work is not lost; he finds the reason for what he is today in previous existences, and from what he does today he can conclude what, one day, he is going to be.
With the thought that individual activity and cooperation in the general works of civilization are limited to the present life, and that we were nothing and will be nothing, what does it matter to man the future progress of humanity? What does it matter that peoples are better governed in the future, that they are happier, more enlightened, and better to one another? Considering that there is no benefit to be taken from this, isn’t such progress lost to him? What good does it make to him to work for those that will come afterwards, if he is never going to meet them; if they are new beings, that later will also fall in the void? Under the empire of the denial of an individual future, everything forcibly reduces to the meager proportions of the moment and personality.
But, the certainty of the perpetuity of the spiritual being, on the contrary, what amplitude of thoughts does it give to man! What strength and courage aren’t acquired against the vicissitudes of material life? What more rational, more grandiose, more worth of the Creator than such a law, according to which the spiritual life, and the material life, are two ways of life that alternate for the accomplishment of progress! What more just and reassuring than the idea of beings progressing incessantly, first through the generations in the same world, then from world to world, up to perfection, without solution of continuity!
Every action, therefore, has an objective, for working for everyone one is working for oneself, and vice-versa, so that neither individual progress, nor general progress are ever sterile, because they benefit both future individualities and generations, that are nothing else but the past individualities that have achieved a higher degree of advancement. The spiritual life is the normal and eternal life of the Spirit, and the incarnation is only a temporary form of its existence. Except for the exterior outfit, there is, therefore, identification between the incarnate and discarnate; they are the same individualities in two different forms, one time belonging to the visible world, another to the invisible one, being in one or in another, concurring in both to the same objective with the means that are appropriate to their condition. The consequence of this law is the perpetuity of the relationships among the beings. Death does not separate them and does not end the relationships of sympathy, as it does not end their reciprocal duties. From that, the solidarity of all for one and one for all; from that, also, the fraternity. Men will not live happily on Earth unless both these feelings have been housed in their hearts and social mores, because then their institutions will be subjected to them. This will be one of the main results of the transformation that takes place.
But how to reconcile the duties of solidarity and fraternity with the belief that men become strange to one another forever with death? By the law of perpetuity of relationships of all beings, Spiritism seats this principle on the very laws of nature. It makes it not only a duty, abut a necessity. By the law of plurality of existences, man is connected to what has been done and what is going to be done by the men of past and future; he can no longer say that he has nothing in common with the ones that die, for one and the others are incessantly in this and in the other world, to climb together the ladder of progress and to provide mutual support. Fraternity is no longer restricted to a few individuals, gathered by chance during the ephemeral duration of a life; it is eternal, like the life of the Spirit, universal, like humanity, that constitutes a great family whose members are all in solidarity with one another, irrespective of the period in which they lived.
Such are the ideas that emerge from Spiritism, and that it will arouse among all men when it is universally spread, understood, taught, and practiced. Fraternity, with Spiritism, synonym of the charity preached by Christ, is no longer an empty word. It has its reason of existence. From the feeling of fraternity arises that of reciprocity and social duties from man to man, people to people, race to race. The most beneficial institutions for the well-being of all will inevitably come from these two well understood feelings.
Fraternity must be the cornerstone of the new social order. But there will not be real, solid and effective fraternity if it is not supported by an unshakable foundation, and such foundation is faith, not the faith in this or that particular dogma, that change with time and by which peoples throw stones at one another, and for anathemizing they entertain antagonism, but faith in the fundamental principles that everybody can accept: God, the soul, the future, the indefinite individual progress, the perpetuity of the relationships among the beings. When men are convinced that God is the same to all, that this sovereignly just and good God cannot wish anything unfair, and that evil comes from men and not from Him, they will then see one another as children of the same Father and hold hands. That is the faith given by Spiritism and that will be, from now on, the pivot around which humankind will move, irrespective of their ways of worshiping and their particular beliefs, that Spiritism respects but does not have to deal with. It is only from this faith that the moral progress may come because it is the only one that provides a logical sanction to the legitimate rights and duties. Without it, the right is what is given by force; the duty is a human code imposed by constraint. What is man without that faith? A little bit of matter that dissolves, an ephemeral being that just passes. Without that faith the genius himself is only a spark that shines momentarily, to disappear forever, and certainly this is not much of a praise before his own eyes.
With such a thought, where are really rights and duties? What is the objective of progress? It is only this faith that makes man feel his dignity by the perpetuity and progression of his own being, not a meager future, restricted to his own personality, but grandiose and splendid; his thought raises him above Earth; he feels growing, believing that he has his role to play; that this universe is his domain that he will be able to travel through one day, and that death will not transform him in a nullity or on a useless being to him and to the others.
The intellectual progress carried out until now, in the largest proportions, is a great step and marks the first phase of humanity whose regeneration cannot be achieved by that progress alone; while man is dominated by pride and selfishness, he will utilize his intelligence and knowledge to the benefit of his passions and personal interests, being this the reason why he applies them to the improvement of means of disserving and destroying others. It is only moral progress that can ensure men’s happiness on Earth by breaking the bad passions; it is only that progress that can establish concord, peace, and fraternity among men. That is what is going to destroy the barriers between peoples; that will drop prejudices of cast and shut the antagonisms of sect, teaching men to see one another as brothers, called to help one another and not have some exploiting others. It is still moral progress, here seconded by the progress of intelligence, that will confound men in the same belief, established on the eternal truths, not subjected to discussions, and for that very reason accepted by all. The unity of belief will be the most powerful bond, the most solid foundation of the universal fraternity, broken by religious disputes that have divided peoples and families in all times, that make people see enemies in their fellow citizens, that need to be fought, kept away and exterminated, instead of brothers that need to be loved.
Such a state of things requires a radical change in the feeling of masses, a general progress that could only take place by moving away from the circle of narrow and shallow ideas that stimulate egotism. Noble men have strived to drive humanity through this path, in several periods, but the still too young humanity remained deaf, and their teachings were like the good seed that fell on the rock. Humanity now is more mature to look up higher than it has done, to assimilate ampler ideas and understand what had not been understood.
The generation that disappears will carry along its prejudices and mistakes; the generations that appears, strengthened in a more depurated source, driven by healthier ideas, will impose the ascending movement to the world, regarding the moral progress that must mark a new phase of humanity. Such a phase is already revealed by unequivocal signs, by attempts of useful reforms, by the great and generous ideas that come to light and begin to find echo. That is how we see the foundation of many protecting, civilizing and emancipating institutions, by the impulse of men evidently predestined to the works of regeneration, and the penal laws daily acquire a more humane feeling. The prejudices of race soften out and the peoples begin to see each other as members of a great family. By the uniformity and facility of the means of transportation, they suppress the barriers that divided them in all parts of the world, gathering in universal committees for peaceful tournaments of intelligence. But such reforms lack a basis for its development, complement and consolidation, a more general moral predisposition to fructify and be accepted by the masses. This is not less a characteristic sign of the times, the prelude of what is going to take place in a larger scale, as the time is right.
A not less characteristic sign of the period in that we enter is the evident reaction that takes place in the spiritualist ideas. An instinctive repulsion manifests against the materialistic ideas, whose representatives become less abundant and less absolute. The spirit of incredulity that had taken the masses, ignorant or enlightened, making them reject both the form and substance of any belief, was like a sleep, after which one feels the need to breathe a more vivifying air. Involuntarily, one seeks something, a supporting point, a hope, where it was empty before.
In this great regenerating movement, Spiritism plays a considerable role, not the ridiculous spiritism invented by a mocking critic, but the philosophical Spiritism, that is understood by those that take the burden of finding the almond inside the shell. By the proof that it brings about the fundamental truths, Spiritism fulfills the emptiness that incredulity engineers in the ideas and beliefs; by the certainty that it provides in a future according to the justice of God, that can be admitted by the strictest reason, it alleviates the bitterness of life and prevents the dismal effects of despair. By revealing the new laws of nature, it gives the key of misunderstood phenomena, and unsolved problems, up until now, killing, at the same time, incredulity, and superstition. For Spiritism there is neither the supernatural nor the marvelous; everything happens in the world due to immutable laws.
Far from replacing an exclusivism by another, it stands as the absolute champion of freedom of conscience; it combats fanaticism in all forms and cut it in its root, proclaiming salvation to all good men, and the possibility to the more imperfect ones to arrive at perfection, by their own efforts, atonement and reparation, a perfection that is the only one that leads to supreme happiness. Instead of discouraging the weak, it encourages them, showing the end that can be achieved.
It does not say: There is no salvation outside Spiritism, but says with Christ: There is no salvation outside charity, a principle of union and tolerance, that will unite men in a common feeling of fraternity, instead of dividing them into enemies sects. By this other principle: There is no unshakable faith but the one that can look at reason face to face in all ages of humanity – it destroys the empire of a blind faith, that annihilates reason, and the passive obedience that numbs; it emancipates man’s intelligence and lifts his morale.
By being consistent, it does not impose itself; it says what it is, what it wants, what it gives, and waits for people to come freely, voluntarily; it wants to be accepted by reason and not by force. It respects all sincere beliefs, and only combats incredulity, egotism, pride and hypocrisy, that are the ulcers of society and the most serious obstacles to moral progress; but it does not cast anathema to anyone, not even to its enemies, for it is convinced that the path of good is open to the most imperfect ones that sooner or later will enter it.
If we suppose the majority of men pervaded by such feelings, we can easily imagine the changes that they will bring to social relations: charity, fraternity, benevolence to all, and tolerance with all beliefs, such will be its motto. This is evidently the objective to which humanity tends, the object of its aspirations, its desires, without realizing the means to achieve them; it tries, gropes along, but it is stopped by the active forces of inertia of prejudices, and by beliefs that are stationary and refractory to progress. These are the resistances that need to be overcome and that is the task of the new generation. Those that will follow the natural course of things will acknowledge that everything seems to be predestined to clear the way. Humanity will count on its favor with the double power of the number and the ideas, besides experience.
Thus, the new generation will march towards the realization of all humanitarian ideas, compatible with its own degree of advancement. Spiritism, by seeking the same objective and carrying out its plans, will meet humanity in the same terrain, where instead of competitors they will be collaborators, helping one another. Men of progress will find a powerful lever in the Spiritist ideas, and Spiritism will find in the new men Spirits absolutely prepared to welcome it. In such a state of things, what can those that wish to create obstacles do?
It is not Spiritism that creates the social renovation, it is the maturity of humanity that makes such a renovation a necessity. By its moralizing power, by its progressive tendencies, by the amplitude of its vision, by the generality of questions that it embraces, Spiritism, more than any other doctrine, apt to second the regenerating movement. That is why it is its contemporary. It came when it could be useful, for time has come for Spiritism as well. Earlier on it would have found unsurpassable obstacles; it would have inevitably succumbed, for the fact that men were satisfied with what they had and had not yet felt the need for what Spiritism brings. Today, born with the fermenting movement of the ideas, it finds the terrain ready to receive it. Tired of doubt and uncertainty, terrified by the abyss that opens before their eyes, the minds receive it like the lifeline of salvation, and a supreme consolation.
By saying that humanity is mature for the regeneration, this does not mean that all individuals are on the same level, but many intuitively carry the germ of the new ideas that circumstances will make sprout; they will then appear more advanced that it seemed, enthusiastically following the impulse of the majority. There are, however, those that are fundamentally refractory, even among the most intelligent, that will certainly not join, at least in this existence, some out of good faith and conviction, others out of interest.
Those whose material interests are linked to the present state of things, and that are not sufficiently advanced to free themselves from that, to whom the general well-being touches less than that of their own, those cannot see the tiniest reforming movement without apprehension. Truth to them is a secondary issue, or better saying, the whole truth is in what does not cause them any disturbance; to their eyes, every progressive idea is subversive and that is why they attack them ruthlessly and carry out a bloodthirsty war.
Too intelligent not to see in Spiritism an auxiliar to those ideas and their feared elements of transformation, and since they do not feel to be up to that, they strive to destroy it; if they thought it was worthless and meaningless, they wouldn’t care. We have already said somewhere else: “The bigger an idea, the more adversaries it encounters, and its importance may be measured by the violence of the attacks that it suffers.”
The number of latecomers is, undoubtedly, still large, but what can they do against the growing wave other than throwing stones at it? This wave is the generation that is rising, while they are disappearing everyday with the generation that extinguishes at a fast pace. Until then they will defend the ground, foot by foot. There is, therefore, an inevitable struggle, but an unequal struggle, because it is the decrepit past, that is falling apart, against the youthful future; that of stagnation against progress; that of the individual against the will of God, for their time has come.
Note. - The reflections above are the development of the instructions given by the Spirits on the same subject, in a large number of communications, either to us or to other persons. The one we publish below is the summary of several interviews we had through two of our frequent mediums, in an ecstatic somnambulistic state, and who, upon awakening, do not retain any memory. We methodically coordinated the ideas to give them a better sequence, removing all unnecessary details and accessories. The thoughts have been accurately reproduced, and the words are also as literally as it was possible to capture by hearing them.
[1] Nothing beyond (T.N.)
Let us, therefore, seek a more rational meaning.
Everything is harmony in the works of creation; everything reveals a providence that contradicts neither the smallest nor the greatest things. Therefore, to begin with, we must rule out any caprice, for it is irreconcilable with the Divine wisdom; second, if our times are set for the realization of certain things, it is for that fact that they make sense in the general march. Having said that, we say that our globe, as everything that exists, is submitted to the law of progress. It progresses physically by the transformation of the elements that compose it, and morally by the depuration of its inhabiting incarnate and discarnate Spirits. These two progresses follow one another and march in parallel because the perfection of the dwelling is proportional to the inhabitant. The globe has suffered physical transformation, attested by science, and that have made it gradually inhabitable by more perfected beings; morally, humanity progresses by the development of intelligence, moral sense, and softening of social mores. While the globe improves under the domain of material forces, men contribute to that by the efforts of intelligence. They improve inhospitable regions, advance communications, and make the soil more productive.
This doble progress takes place in two ways: one that is slow, gradual, and imperceptible; the other through more sudden changes, with a faster ascending movement taking place in each one, marking by distinct characters the progressive movement of humanity. Such movements, subordinated in the detail to men’s free-will, are, in a way, fatal as a whole, because they are submitted to the laws, as those that yield germination, growth and maturation of plants, given that progress is the objective of humanity, despite the delay of some individualities. That is why the progressive movement is, sometimes, partial, that is, limited to a race or a nation, and other times general.
The progress of humanity, therefore, takes place due to a law. Since all laws of nature are the eternal works of the Divine wisdom and prescience, everything that is the effect of such laws is the result of the will of God, and not the result of an accidental and whimsical will, but that of an immutable will.
Then, when humanity is mature enough to transpose a step, we can say that the times established by God have come, as we can also say that in a given season they have arrived for the maturation and harvest of fruits.
Considering that the progressive movement of humanity is inevitable, because it is part of nature, it does not follow that God is indifferent to that, and that after having established the laws, he had entered a state of inertia, allowing things to go by themselves. His laws are eternal and immutable, no doubt, but since His own will is eternal and constant, and His thought animates everything without interruption, and since His thought, that penetrates everything, is the intelligent and permanent force that keeps everything in harmony, if that thought stopped acting a single moment, the universe would be like a clock without its regulating rocker arm. Thus, God oversees incessantly His laws, and the Spirits that inhabit space are His ministers in charge of the details, according to the assignment compatible with their degree of development.
The universe is, at the same time, an incommensurable mechanism led by a not less incommensurable number of intelligences, and an immense government in which each intelligent being has its part of the action under the sovereign eye of the Lord, whose unique will keeps the unity of the whole. Under the empire of this vast regulating power, everything moves, everything works in a perfect order. What seems disturbance to us, constitute partial and isolated movements that only seem irregular to us because our sight is circumscribed. If we could embrace the whole, we would see that such irregularities are just apparent and that they are in harmony with the whole.
The forecast of progressive movements of humanity is not at all surprising to the dematerialized beings, that see the target to which everything tend, some of whom get the direct thought of God and judge, by the partial movements, the time in which there could be a general movement, as we foresee the time for a tree to bear fruits, and like the astronomers calculate the time for an astronomical phenomenon based on the time that remains for a given globe to complete its revolution.
But all those that announce such phenomena, the authors of almanacs that predict eclipses and tides, are not certainly the ones capable of doing the necessary calculations. They are simple repeaters. Thus, there are secondary Spirits, whose vision is limited, and that just repeat what the superior Spirits thought appropriate to reveal to them.
Humanity has realized incontestable progresses up until now. For its intelligence, mankind has achieved results that had never been done before in terms of sciences, arts, and material comfort. There remains still a grandiose result to be achieved: have charity, fraternity, and solidarity reigning among all, to ensure their moral well-being. Men could not have it done with their beliefs, their broken institutions, remains of former times, good for a certain period, sufficient for a transient state, but that having given what it was capable of, today they would be stagnation. That is what happens to a boy, whose motivations of childhood are powerless when it comes to a mature age. It is no longer just the development of intelligence that is necessary to men, but the elevation of feelings, and for that it is necessary to destroy everything that could super excite pride and selfishness in them.
That is the period that they will enter and that will mark one of the main phases of humanity. That phase, that is currently in preparation, is the necessary complement of the current phase, as the mature age is the complement of youth. It could, therefore, be predicted in anticipation, and that is why we say that the times marked by God have come. Such time is not about a partial change, a limited renovation of a country, a people, or a race. It is the universal movement that takes place in terms of moral progress. A new order of things tends to be established, and those that oppose to that the most, work for that, nevertheless.
Future generation, disentangled from the scum of the old world, and formed by more depurated elements, will be driven by ideas and feelings completely different from the feelings that drive the present generation, moving away at gigantic steps. The old world will die and live in history, like the medieval times today, with their barbaric social mores and superstitious beliefs.
Besides, everyone knows that the present order of things is lacking. After having, in a way, exhausted material comfort, that is a product of intelligence, if follows that the complement of that well-being can only be the moral development. The more one advances, the more one feels what is lacking, without, however, being able to clearly define it; it is the effect of the intimate work that takes place for the regeneration; one has wishes and aspirations that are like the presentiment of a better state.
But such a radical change, like the one that is taking place, cannot happen without commotion; there is inevitable struggle between ideas, and in the struggle, there is the possibility of success or failure. However, since the new ideas are those of progress, and progress is in the laws of nature, they can only overcome the backward-looking ideas. Temporary disruptions will forcibly arise from this conflict, until the terrain is cleared from the obstacles that are opposed to the construction of the new social edifice.
It is, therefore, form the struggle of ideas that the announced grave events will take place, and not from cataclysms and purely material catastrophes. The general cataclysms followed the periods of formation of Earth; today it is no longer the guts of Earth that agitates, but those of humanity.
Humanity is a collective being, in which the moral revolutions that take place are the same as those in each individual, with the difference that some take place year over year, and the others century after century. Following their evolution through times, one can see the life of the several races marked by periods that give each one a particular character.
Side by side with partial movements, there is a general movement that gives the whole humanity an impulse; but the progress of each part of the whole is relative to their degree of advancement. Such would be a family formed by several children, in which the youngest is in the crib and the oldest is ten years old, for example. After ten years, the oldest one will be a twenty-year-old man, and the youngest will be only ten, and although grown, he will still be a child, but in due time he will become a man. That is what happens to the several fractions of humanity; the younger advance, but they could not leap to the same level as the older ones. By becoming adult, humanity has new needs, ampler and more elevated aspirations; it understands the emptiness of the ideas that lulled it, the insufficiency of its institutions for its happiness, no longer finding in such state of things the legitimate satisfactions that it demands, and for that reason humanity shakes the diapers and moves forward, pushed by an irresistible force towards the unknown, seeking new and less limited horizons. And at the time when it finds itself suffocated in its material sphere, when intellectual life thrives, when the feeling of spirituality expands, that certain men, pretense philosophers, expect to fill the emptiness with the doctrines of nihilism and materialism! Strange aberration! These very men that pretend to take it forward, strive to keep it in the narrow circle of matter, from which humanity aspires to leave; they block its vision of an infinite life, and say by pointing at the grave: Nec plus ultra.[1]
The progressive march of humanity occurs in two different ways, as we said: one is gradual, slow, imperceptible, if we consider less remote epochs, translated into successive improvements in social mores, laws, uses, and that we only notice with time, like the changes provoked on the surface of the globe by the currents of water; the other one, by a relatively sudden and fast movement, similar to a torrent breaking the dikes, making it cover in a few years what would otherwise be done in centuries. It is then a moral cataclysm that shortly devours the institutions of the past, succeeded by a new order of things that is established bit by bit, as calm returns and becomes definitive.
To someone that lives enough to embrace the two sides of the new phase, it seems that a new world has come out of the ruins of the old one; the character, the social mores, the uses, everything has changed. It is for the fact that new men, or better saying, regenerated men have arrived. The ideas sustained by the extinguishing generation give rise to the one that stands up.
Humanity has arrived to one of these periods of transformation, or moral growth, if you will. It passes from adolescence to a mature age. Past can no longer suffice to its new aspirations and needs; it can no longer be driven by the same means; it no longer allows elusions and gimmicks. Matured reason requires more substantial food. Present is ephemeral; it feels that its destiny is ampler, that the material life is excessively restricted to completely contain it. That is why it looks back at the bast and forward, to the future, to discover the mystery of its own existence, seeking a reassuring safety net.
Anyone that has meditated about Spiritism and its consequences, and do not restrict it to the production of some phenomena, understands that it opens a new path to humanity, unfolding the horizons of infinity. Initiating in the mysteries of the invisible world, it shows one’s true role in the creation, an eternally active role, both in the spiritual and in the corporeal state. Man no longer walks blindly. He knows where he comes from, where he is going to and why he is on Earth. Future shows him how it truly is, free from the prejudices of ignorance and superstition; to him, it is no longer a hope, it is rather a tangible truth, as certain as the succession of days and nights. He knows that his being is not limited to an existence of a few instants, whose duration is submitted to the whims of chance; that the spiritual life is not interrupted by death; that he has already lived and will live again, and that everything that is acquired in perfection by work is not lost; he finds the reason for what he is today in previous existences, and from what he does today he can conclude what, one day, he is going to be.
With the thought that individual activity and cooperation in the general works of civilization are limited to the present life, and that we were nothing and will be nothing, what does it matter to man the future progress of humanity? What does it matter that peoples are better governed in the future, that they are happier, more enlightened, and better to one another? Considering that there is no benefit to be taken from this, isn’t such progress lost to him? What good does it make to him to work for those that will come afterwards, if he is never going to meet them; if they are new beings, that later will also fall in the void? Under the empire of the denial of an individual future, everything forcibly reduces to the meager proportions of the moment and personality.
But, the certainty of the perpetuity of the spiritual being, on the contrary, what amplitude of thoughts does it give to man! What strength and courage aren’t acquired against the vicissitudes of material life? What more rational, more grandiose, more worth of the Creator than such a law, according to which the spiritual life, and the material life, are two ways of life that alternate for the accomplishment of progress! What more just and reassuring than the idea of beings progressing incessantly, first through the generations in the same world, then from world to world, up to perfection, without solution of continuity!
Every action, therefore, has an objective, for working for everyone one is working for oneself, and vice-versa, so that neither individual progress, nor general progress are ever sterile, because they benefit both future individualities and generations, that are nothing else but the past individualities that have achieved a higher degree of advancement. The spiritual life is the normal and eternal life of the Spirit, and the incarnation is only a temporary form of its existence. Except for the exterior outfit, there is, therefore, identification between the incarnate and discarnate; they are the same individualities in two different forms, one time belonging to the visible world, another to the invisible one, being in one or in another, concurring in both to the same objective with the means that are appropriate to their condition. The consequence of this law is the perpetuity of the relationships among the beings. Death does not separate them and does not end the relationships of sympathy, as it does not end their reciprocal duties. From that, the solidarity of all for one and one for all; from that, also, the fraternity. Men will not live happily on Earth unless both these feelings have been housed in their hearts and social mores, because then their institutions will be subjected to them. This will be one of the main results of the transformation that takes place.
But how to reconcile the duties of solidarity and fraternity with the belief that men become strange to one another forever with death? By the law of perpetuity of relationships of all beings, Spiritism seats this principle on the very laws of nature. It makes it not only a duty, abut a necessity. By the law of plurality of existences, man is connected to what has been done and what is going to be done by the men of past and future; he can no longer say that he has nothing in common with the ones that die, for one and the others are incessantly in this and in the other world, to climb together the ladder of progress and to provide mutual support. Fraternity is no longer restricted to a few individuals, gathered by chance during the ephemeral duration of a life; it is eternal, like the life of the Spirit, universal, like humanity, that constitutes a great family whose members are all in solidarity with one another, irrespective of the period in which they lived.
Such are the ideas that emerge from Spiritism, and that it will arouse among all men when it is universally spread, understood, taught, and practiced. Fraternity, with Spiritism, synonym of the charity preached by Christ, is no longer an empty word. It has its reason of existence. From the feeling of fraternity arises that of reciprocity and social duties from man to man, people to people, race to race. The most beneficial institutions for the well-being of all will inevitably come from these two well understood feelings.
Fraternity must be the cornerstone of the new social order. But there will not be real, solid and effective fraternity if it is not supported by an unshakable foundation, and such foundation is faith, not the faith in this or that particular dogma, that change with time and by which peoples throw stones at one another, and for anathemizing they entertain antagonism, but faith in the fundamental principles that everybody can accept: God, the soul, the future, the indefinite individual progress, the perpetuity of the relationships among the beings. When men are convinced that God is the same to all, that this sovereignly just and good God cannot wish anything unfair, and that evil comes from men and not from Him, they will then see one another as children of the same Father and hold hands. That is the faith given by Spiritism and that will be, from now on, the pivot around which humankind will move, irrespective of their ways of worshiping and their particular beliefs, that Spiritism respects but does not have to deal with. It is only from this faith that the moral progress may come because it is the only one that provides a logical sanction to the legitimate rights and duties. Without it, the right is what is given by force; the duty is a human code imposed by constraint. What is man without that faith? A little bit of matter that dissolves, an ephemeral being that just passes. Without that faith the genius himself is only a spark that shines momentarily, to disappear forever, and certainly this is not much of a praise before his own eyes.
With such a thought, where are really rights and duties? What is the objective of progress? It is only this faith that makes man feel his dignity by the perpetuity and progression of his own being, not a meager future, restricted to his own personality, but grandiose and splendid; his thought raises him above Earth; he feels growing, believing that he has his role to play; that this universe is his domain that he will be able to travel through one day, and that death will not transform him in a nullity or on a useless being to him and to the others.
The intellectual progress carried out until now, in the largest proportions, is a great step and marks the first phase of humanity whose regeneration cannot be achieved by that progress alone; while man is dominated by pride and selfishness, he will utilize his intelligence and knowledge to the benefit of his passions and personal interests, being this the reason why he applies them to the improvement of means of disserving and destroying others. It is only moral progress that can ensure men’s happiness on Earth by breaking the bad passions; it is only that progress that can establish concord, peace, and fraternity among men. That is what is going to destroy the barriers between peoples; that will drop prejudices of cast and shut the antagonisms of sect, teaching men to see one another as brothers, called to help one another and not have some exploiting others. It is still moral progress, here seconded by the progress of intelligence, that will confound men in the same belief, established on the eternal truths, not subjected to discussions, and for that very reason accepted by all. The unity of belief will be the most powerful bond, the most solid foundation of the universal fraternity, broken by religious disputes that have divided peoples and families in all times, that make people see enemies in their fellow citizens, that need to be fought, kept away and exterminated, instead of brothers that need to be loved.
Such a state of things requires a radical change in the feeling of masses, a general progress that could only take place by moving away from the circle of narrow and shallow ideas that stimulate egotism. Noble men have strived to drive humanity through this path, in several periods, but the still too young humanity remained deaf, and their teachings were like the good seed that fell on the rock. Humanity now is more mature to look up higher than it has done, to assimilate ampler ideas and understand what had not been understood.
The generation that disappears will carry along its prejudices and mistakes; the generations that appears, strengthened in a more depurated source, driven by healthier ideas, will impose the ascending movement to the world, regarding the moral progress that must mark a new phase of humanity. Such a phase is already revealed by unequivocal signs, by attempts of useful reforms, by the great and generous ideas that come to light and begin to find echo. That is how we see the foundation of many protecting, civilizing and emancipating institutions, by the impulse of men evidently predestined to the works of regeneration, and the penal laws daily acquire a more humane feeling. The prejudices of race soften out and the peoples begin to see each other as members of a great family. By the uniformity and facility of the means of transportation, they suppress the barriers that divided them in all parts of the world, gathering in universal committees for peaceful tournaments of intelligence. But such reforms lack a basis for its development, complement and consolidation, a more general moral predisposition to fructify and be accepted by the masses. This is not less a characteristic sign of the times, the prelude of what is going to take place in a larger scale, as the time is right.
A not less characteristic sign of the period in that we enter is the evident reaction that takes place in the spiritualist ideas. An instinctive repulsion manifests against the materialistic ideas, whose representatives become less abundant and less absolute. The spirit of incredulity that had taken the masses, ignorant or enlightened, making them reject both the form and substance of any belief, was like a sleep, after which one feels the need to breathe a more vivifying air. Involuntarily, one seeks something, a supporting point, a hope, where it was empty before.
In this great regenerating movement, Spiritism plays a considerable role, not the ridiculous spiritism invented by a mocking critic, but the philosophical Spiritism, that is understood by those that take the burden of finding the almond inside the shell. By the proof that it brings about the fundamental truths, Spiritism fulfills the emptiness that incredulity engineers in the ideas and beliefs; by the certainty that it provides in a future according to the justice of God, that can be admitted by the strictest reason, it alleviates the bitterness of life and prevents the dismal effects of despair. By revealing the new laws of nature, it gives the key of misunderstood phenomena, and unsolved problems, up until now, killing, at the same time, incredulity, and superstition. For Spiritism there is neither the supernatural nor the marvelous; everything happens in the world due to immutable laws.
Far from replacing an exclusivism by another, it stands as the absolute champion of freedom of conscience; it combats fanaticism in all forms and cut it in its root, proclaiming salvation to all good men, and the possibility to the more imperfect ones to arrive at perfection, by their own efforts, atonement and reparation, a perfection that is the only one that leads to supreme happiness. Instead of discouraging the weak, it encourages them, showing the end that can be achieved.
It does not say: There is no salvation outside Spiritism, but says with Christ: There is no salvation outside charity, a principle of union and tolerance, that will unite men in a common feeling of fraternity, instead of dividing them into enemies sects. By this other principle: There is no unshakable faith but the one that can look at reason face to face in all ages of humanity – it destroys the empire of a blind faith, that annihilates reason, and the passive obedience that numbs; it emancipates man’s intelligence and lifts his morale.
By being consistent, it does not impose itself; it says what it is, what it wants, what it gives, and waits for people to come freely, voluntarily; it wants to be accepted by reason and not by force. It respects all sincere beliefs, and only combats incredulity, egotism, pride and hypocrisy, that are the ulcers of society and the most serious obstacles to moral progress; but it does not cast anathema to anyone, not even to its enemies, for it is convinced that the path of good is open to the most imperfect ones that sooner or later will enter it.
If we suppose the majority of men pervaded by such feelings, we can easily imagine the changes that they will bring to social relations: charity, fraternity, benevolence to all, and tolerance with all beliefs, such will be its motto. This is evidently the objective to which humanity tends, the object of its aspirations, its desires, without realizing the means to achieve them; it tries, gropes along, but it is stopped by the active forces of inertia of prejudices, and by beliefs that are stationary and refractory to progress. These are the resistances that need to be overcome and that is the task of the new generation. Those that will follow the natural course of things will acknowledge that everything seems to be predestined to clear the way. Humanity will count on its favor with the double power of the number and the ideas, besides experience.
Thus, the new generation will march towards the realization of all humanitarian ideas, compatible with its own degree of advancement. Spiritism, by seeking the same objective and carrying out its plans, will meet humanity in the same terrain, where instead of competitors they will be collaborators, helping one another. Men of progress will find a powerful lever in the Spiritist ideas, and Spiritism will find in the new men Spirits absolutely prepared to welcome it. In such a state of things, what can those that wish to create obstacles do?
It is not Spiritism that creates the social renovation, it is the maturity of humanity that makes such a renovation a necessity. By its moralizing power, by its progressive tendencies, by the amplitude of its vision, by the generality of questions that it embraces, Spiritism, more than any other doctrine, apt to second the regenerating movement. That is why it is its contemporary. It came when it could be useful, for time has come for Spiritism as well. Earlier on it would have found unsurpassable obstacles; it would have inevitably succumbed, for the fact that men were satisfied with what they had and had not yet felt the need for what Spiritism brings. Today, born with the fermenting movement of the ideas, it finds the terrain ready to receive it. Tired of doubt and uncertainty, terrified by the abyss that opens before their eyes, the minds receive it like the lifeline of salvation, and a supreme consolation.
By saying that humanity is mature for the regeneration, this does not mean that all individuals are on the same level, but many intuitively carry the germ of the new ideas that circumstances will make sprout; they will then appear more advanced that it seemed, enthusiastically following the impulse of the majority. There are, however, those that are fundamentally refractory, even among the most intelligent, that will certainly not join, at least in this existence, some out of good faith and conviction, others out of interest.
Those whose material interests are linked to the present state of things, and that are not sufficiently advanced to free themselves from that, to whom the general well-being touches less than that of their own, those cannot see the tiniest reforming movement without apprehension. Truth to them is a secondary issue, or better saying, the whole truth is in what does not cause them any disturbance; to their eyes, every progressive idea is subversive and that is why they attack them ruthlessly and carry out a bloodthirsty war.
Too intelligent not to see in Spiritism an auxiliar to those ideas and their feared elements of transformation, and since they do not feel to be up to that, they strive to destroy it; if they thought it was worthless and meaningless, they wouldn’t care. We have already said somewhere else: “The bigger an idea, the more adversaries it encounters, and its importance may be measured by the violence of the attacks that it suffers.”
The number of latecomers is, undoubtedly, still large, but what can they do against the growing wave other than throwing stones at it? This wave is the generation that is rising, while they are disappearing everyday with the generation that extinguishes at a fast pace. Until then they will defend the ground, foot by foot. There is, therefore, an inevitable struggle, but an unequal struggle, because it is the decrepit past, that is falling apart, against the youthful future; that of stagnation against progress; that of the individual against the will of God, for their time has come.
Note. - The reflections above are the development of the instructions given by the Spirits on the same subject, in a large number of communications, either to us or to other persons. The one we publish below is the summary of several interviews we had through two of our frequent mediums, in an ecstatic somnambulistic state, and who, upon awakening, do not retain any memory. We methodically coordinated the ideas to give them a better sequence, removing all unnecessary details and accessories. The thoughts have been accurately reproduced, and the words are also as literally as it was possible to capture by hearing them.
[1] Nothing beyond (T.N.)
Spirits’ Instructions About the Regeneration of Humanity
Paris, April 1866 – Mediums Messrs. M. and T. in somnambulistic state
The events precipitated quickly and therefore we no longer say, as in the past: “the times are close”; now we say: “the times have come”. You must not understand these words as in a new flood, or a cataclysm, or a general collapse. Partial convulsions of the globe have always happened, and still do, for they are related to its constitution, but these are not the signs of the times.
However, everything that is said in the Gospel must take place and it does at this time, as you will acknowledge later. But consider the announced signs as figurative, whose spirit, and not the letter, must be understood. All the Scriptures carry great truths under the veil of allegory; the commentators got confused because they fixated on the letter. They lacked the key to understand their true meaning. That key is in the discoveries of science and in the laws of the invisible world that Spiritism reveals to us. From now on, with the help of that knowledge, what was obscure becomes clear and intelligible.
Everything follows the natural order of things, and the immutable laws of God will not be disturbed. Thus, you will not see miracles or prodigies, nor anything supernatural, in the common meaning attached to these words. Do not look at the sky seeking precursors signs there, since you will not see them, and those that announce it will deceive you, but look around you, among men, and you will find them there.
Don’t you feel a blowing wind on Earth, agitating all the Spirits? The world waits, as if taken by a vague presentiment of the approaching storm. Do not believe, however, in the end of the material world; Earth has progressed since its transformation; it must continue to progress, and not be destroyed. But humanity has arrived at one of its periods of transformation, and Earth will elevate in the hierarchy of the worlds.
It is not, therefore, the end of the material world that is in preparation; it is the old world, the world of prejudices, selfishness, pride, and fanaticism that ruins. Some fragments are carried away every day. All will end with the outgoing generation, and the new generation will erect the edifice that the following generations will consolidate and complement. From a world of atonement, Earth is called to one day become a happy world, and to inhabit it will be a reward, instead of a punishment. The kingdom of good will succeed that of evil there.
For humanity to be happy on Earth it is necessary that it is only populated by good Spirits, incarnate and discarnate, that will only want good. Since this time has come, a great emigration takes place at this moment, among those that inhabit it; those that do evil things by the evil things, and that are not touched by good, for no longer being worthy of the transformed Earth, will be excluded, for they would again bring disturbance and confusion and would be an obstacle to progress. They will atone their hardening in inferior worlds, to where they will take their acquired knowledge with the assigned mission of promoting progress in those worlds. They will be replaced by better Spirits on Earth that will establish the kingdom of justice, peace, and fraternity.
Earth, we have already said, must not be transformed by a cataclysm that would annihilate a generation. The current generation will disappear gradually, and the new one will succeed it, without any change in the natural order of things. Hence, everything will apparently take place as usual, with one difference only, and that difference is paramount: part of the Spirits that incarnate here will no longer do. In a newborn child, instead of a lagging Spirit, devoted to evil, a more advanced and dedicated to good Spirit will incarnate. It is, therefore, much more of a new generation of Spirits than a new corporeal generation.
The current period is that of transition. The elements are confounded in two generations. In an intermediary position you watch the departure of one and the arrival of another, and each one is already marked in the world by the characters that are proper to them. The two generations that succeed one another have completely opposite points of view. By the nature of their moral dispositions, but above all by the intuitive and innate disposition, it is easy to distinguish to which each one belongs.
The new generation, that must establish the era of moral progress, is distinguished by a generally premature intelligence and reason, added to the innate feeling of good and the spiritualist beliefs, that is an undoubtful sign of a certain degree of previous advancement. That generation will not be composed exclusively of eminently superior Spirits, but of those that have already progressed and are prepared to assimilate every progressive idea and apt to second the regenerating movement.
The lagging Spirits, on the contrary, are characterized, to begin with, by a revolt against God through the denial of Providence and of every power above humanity; then, the instinctive tendency to degrading passions, to feelings of egotism, pride, hatred, jealousy, greed, and finally the predominance of the attachment to everything that is material.
These are the vices that must be purged from Earth by the removal of those that refuse to mend, because they are incompatible with the rule of fraternity and for the fact that good men will always suffer with their contact. Earth will be free from them and men will march towards a better future without obstacles, a future that is reserved to them down here, as a reward for their efforts and perseverance, while they wait for an even more complete depuration to open the door to superior worlds.
By such migration of Spirits, one must not understand that all those that have fallen behind will be expelled from Earth and relegated to inferior worlds. On the contrary, many will come back here because many have gotten carried away by the circumstances and example; their shell was worse than the core. Once subtracted from the influence of matter and the prejudices of the corporeal world, most of them will see things in a completely different way as from when they were alive, from which you have numerous examples. They are helped with this by the benevolent Spirits that are interested in them, striving to enlighten and show them the false path that they had taken. You can contribute to their betterment yourselves, by your prayers and exhortations, because there is a perpetual solidarity between the living and the dead.
Those can then return with the ones that are going to be happy, for this is a reward to them. What does it matter what they had been or done, if they are driven by better feelings! Far from being hostile to progress and society, they will be useful helpers because they will belong to the new generation. Hence, there will only be a definitive exclusion to the fundamentally rebel Spirits, those that become deaf to the voice of good and reason, more by egotism and pride than ignorance. But these ones are not devoted to an eternal inferiority and a day will come when they will repudiate their past and open their eyes to light. Pray, therefore, for these hardened ones, so that they mend while there is time, because the day of atonement is near. Most of them, unfortunately, by neglecting the voice of God, will persist in their blindness, and their resistance will mark the end of their kingdom through terrible struggles. In their raving, they will rush to their own loss, giving rise to destruction that will generate a multitude of scourges and calamities, so that they will unwillingly accelerate the arrival of the era of renovation.
And as if the destruction was not moving fast enough, we will see suicides multiplying in an incredible proportion, even among children. Madness will have never struck a greater number of men that even before death, will be erased from the living. These are the true signs of the times. And all this will be achieved by the sequence of events, as we have said, without any breach of the laws of nature.
However, in the somber cloud that involves you and where the storm roars, notice the appearance of the first rays of light of the new era! Fraternity casts its foundations in all corners of the globe and the peoples reach out to one another; barbarism acquires familiar habits before contact with civilization; prejudices of race and sect, that have shed rivers of blood, disappear; fanaticism and intolerance loose ground, while the freedom of consciousness penetrates the social more, becoming a right. Ideas ferment everywhere; illnesses are faced with remedies, but many wanders around without a compass, lost in utopias. The world lives an immense labor that will last a century. In this still confusing work, one can nonetheless see a dominating tendency towards one objective: the unity and uniformity that predispose fraternity.
These are still the signs of times. But, while the others are those of the agony of the past, the latter are the first gasps to the just born child, the precursors of the dawn that the incoming century will see stand, because then the new generation will be in full power. As much as the appearance of the nineteenth century differs from that of the eighteenth century, on certain points of view, the twentieth century will be different from the nineteenth, from other points of view.
One of the distinctive characters of the new generation will be the innate faith, not the exclusive and blind faith that divides men, but a reasoned faith, that clarifies and strengthens, that unite and confound them in a common feeling of love to God and then neighbor. The last vestiges of incredulity and fanaticism will disappear with the generation that ends, equally contrary to moral and social progress.
Spiritism is the path that leads to the renovation because it destroys the two greatest obstacles that are opposed to that: incredulity and fanaticism. It provides a solid and enlightened faith; it develops all the feelings and ideas that correspond to the views of the new generation, and that is why it is innate and does exist in an intuitive state in the hearts of its representatives. The new era will, therefore, see it grow and prosper by the very force of things. It will constitute the basis of all beliefs, the supporting point of every institution. But until then, how many struggles it will have to face against its two greatest enemies, fanaticism, and incredulity, that strangely enough, join hands to bring it down. They have a presentiment of their future and their own ruin, and that is why they fear it, for they already see it planting the flag that must unite all peoples, on the ruins of the old and selfish world. They read their own condemnation in the Divine maxim: there is no salvation apart from charity because it is the symbol of the new fraternal alliance proclaimed by Christ.[1] These words appear to them as the fateful words of the feast of Baltazar. And yet, they should bless this maxim, because it spares them from all retaliation on the part of those they persecute. But no, a blind force pushes them to reject the only thing that could save them.
But what can they do against the ascendancy of public opinion, that repudiates them? Spiritism will emerge triumphant from the struggle, have no doubt, because it is in the laws of nature, and therefore imperishable. See by what multitude of means the idea spread and penetrates everywhere. Believe further that such means are not fortuitous, but providential, for something that seems to harm it, at first sight, is precisely what helps it spread. It will soon see the rise of champions among the most well positioned and respected men, that will support it with the authority of their name and example, imposing silence to its detractors, because these will dare not treat them as mad people. Those men study it in silence and will show up when time is right. Until then, it is useful that they stay away. You will soon also see the arts getting ideas from it, as from a fertile source, translating the discovered horizons in their thoughts, through paintings, music, poetry, and literature. You have already been told that one day there would be a Spiritist art, as there was the Pagan and Christian art, and that is a great truth, for the greatest geniuses will be inspired by it. You will soon see their first sketches and later it will occupy the place that is adequate.
Spiritists, future is yours and of all those of heart and devotion. Fear not the obstacles since none will be able to block the designs of the Providence. Work tirelessly and thank God for placing you in the frontline of the new phalanx. It is a place of honor that you have requested yourself, and that you must be worthy of by your courage, perseverance, and devotion. Fortunate the ones that succumb in this fight against force; but, in the world of the Spirits, shame on those that succumb for being weak or pusillanimous. As a matter of fact, the struggles are necessary to strengthen the soul; the contact of evil makes us better appreciate the advantages of good. Without the struggles that stimulate the faculties, the Spirit would indulge in an indifference that would be fatal to their own advancement. The struggles against the elements develop physical forces and intelligence; the ones against evil develop moral forces.
Observations:
1st: The way in which the transformation takes place is very simple, and as it is seen, it is thoroughly moral, does not deviate in any way from the laws of nature. Why then the nonbelievers reject these ideas if they have nothing of supernatural? This is because, according to them, the law of vitality ceases with the death of the body, whereas for us it continues, without interruption; they restrict its action and we extend it. That is why we say that the phenomena of spiritual life are not outside of the laws of nature. To them the supernatural begins where the appreciation by the senses ends.
2nd: Whether the Spirits of the new generation are new and better Spirits, or improved old Spirits, the result is the same. As long as they carry better dispositions, it is always a renovation. The incarnate Spirits, therefore, form two categories according to their natural dispositions: that of the lagging Spirits, that leave, and that of progressive Spirits, that arrive. The condition of society and social mores in a people, a race or in the whole world will, therefore, be in proportion to the state of the category that is predominant.
To simplify the issue, let us consider a people, in any given state of advancement, composed of twenty million soul, for example. For the renovation of Spirits in the same proportion of extinctions, isolated or in mass, there was necessarily a time when the generation of lagging Spirits outnumbered that of progressive Spirits, that were only rare representatives, without influence, and whose efforts to make good and progressive ideas dominate were neutralized. Now, since some leave and others arrive, at a given time the two forces are even and their influence counterbalance. Later, the newcomers form majority and their influence become preponderant, although still hindered by the former; these continue to diminish and will end up disappearing, while the others multiply; there will be a time when the influence of the new generation will be exclusive.
We are witnessing this transformation, the conflict which results from the struggle of contrary ideas which seek to establish themselves; some march with the flag of the past, others with that of the future. If we examine the present state of the world, we will recognize that earthly humanity, taken as a whole, is still far from the intermediate point where the forces will be balanced; that peoples, considered separately, are at a great distance from each other in this scale; that a few have touched this point, but none has surpassed it yet. Moreover, the distance that separates them from the extreme points is far from being equal in duration, and once the limit is crossed, the new road will be traveled with all the more speed, as a host of circumstances will smooth it out.
Thus, the transformation of humanity is accomplished. Without emigration, that is without the departure of the lagging Spirits who must not return, or who must return only after they have improved, terrestrial humanity would not therefore remain stationary indefinitely, because the most lagging spirits advance on their side; but it would have taken centuries, and perhaps thousands of years, to achieve the result that half a century will suffice to achieve.
A vulgar comparison will make it easier to understand what happens in this circumstance. Let us suppose a regiment composed in the great majority of tempestuous and undisciplined men. These will constantly create disorder that the severity of the penal law will often have difficulty in repressing. These men are the strongest, because they are in greater number; they support, encourage, and stimulate each other by example. The few good ones have no influence; their advices are overlooked; they are scorned, mistreated by the others, and suffer from this contact. Isn't this the image of today's society?
Suppose that these men are withdrawn from the regiment one by one, ten by ten, one hundred by one hundred, and that they are replaced, as they go, by an equal number of good soldiers, even by those that have been expelled, but who have amended; after a while we will still have the same regiment, but transformed; good order will have succeeded disorder. That is how it is going to be with the regenerated humanity. The great collective departures are not only intended to activate exits, but to transform the minds of the masses more quickly by ridding them of bad influences, and to give more ascendancy to new ideas.
It is because many, despite their imperfections, are ripe for this transformation, that many leave to reinstruct from a purer source. If they remained in the same environment and under the same influences, they would have persisted in their opinions and in their way of seeing things. A stay in the spiritual world is enough to open their eyes because they see there what they could not see on earth. The unbeliever, the fanatic, the absolutist, will therefore be able to come back with innate ideas of faith, tolerance, and freedom. On their return, they will find things changed, and will experience the ascendancy of the new environment in which they will be born. Instead of opposing new ideas, they will be their auxiliaries.
The regeneration of humanity does not therefore absolutely need the complete renewal of Spirits: all that is needed is a modification in their moral dispositions; this modification takes place in all those who are predisposed to it, when they are withdrawn from the pernicious influence of the world. Those who come back then are not always other Spirits, but often the same Spirits thinking and feeling differently.
When this improvement is isolated and individual, it goes unnoticed, and it has no explicit influence on the world. The effect is quite different when it operates simultaneously on large masses; for then, according to the proportions, the ideas of a people or of a race can be profoundly modified in a generation. This is what we almost always notice after great calamities that decimate populations. Destructive scourges destroy only the body, but do not reach the Spirit; they activate the back-and-forth movement between the bodily world and the spiritual world, and consequently the progressive movement of incarnate and discarnate Spirits.
It is one of these general movements that is taking place at this time, and which must bring about the reshuffle of humanity. The multiplicity of the causes of destruction is a characteristic sign of the times, for it must hasten the hatching of new germs. It is the autumn leaves that fall, and to which will succeed new leaves full of life; for humanity has its seasons, just as individuals have their ages. The dead leaves of humanity fall carried away by gusty winds, but to be reborn livelier, under the same breath of life, that does not extinguish, but purifies itself.
For the materialist, destructive plagues are calamities without compensation, without useful results, since, according to them, those calamities annihilate the creatures, without return. But for the one who knows that death destroys only the envelope, calamities do not have the same consequences, and do not cause the slightest fear, because they understand the purpose, and also know that men do not lose more by dying together than in isolation, because in one way or another, it is always necessary to get there.
The nonbelievers will laugh at these things and will treat them as chimeras. But, irrespective of what they say, they will not escape the common law. They will fall, like the others, when it is their turn, but then, what is going to happen to them? Nothing, they say, but despite themselves, they will, one day, be forced to open their eyes.
Note. - The following communication was addressed to us, during the trip we have just made, from one of our dear invisible protectors; although of personal character, it is also connected with the great question that we have just discussed and which it confirms. For that reason, we thought appropriate to place it here, so that people persecuted for their Spiritists beliefs will find useful encouragement in that message.
Paris, September 1st, 1866
“It has been a long time since I have indicated my presence in your meetings by giving a communication signed by my name; believe not, dear master, that it was through indifference or forgetfulness, but I saw no need to manifest myself, and I left it to others, more worthy, to give you useful instructions. However, I was there, and I followed with the greatest interest the progress of this dear doctrine to which I owe the happiness and calmness of the last years of my life. I was there, and my good friend Mr. T… has assured you of this, more than once, during his hours of sleep and ecstasy. He envies my happiness, and he also longs to come to the world I inhabit now, when he contemplates it, shining in the starry sky, and thinks about his tough trials.
I also endured very painful ones; thanks to Spiritism, I supported them without complaint, and I bless them now, since I owe them my advancement. May he be patient; tell him that he will come here one day, but that he must first come back to earth again to help you in the conclusion of your task. But then, how much everything will be changed! You will both think of yourselves in a new world.
My friend, while you can, rest your work-weary mind and brain; amass material strength, for soon you will have a lot to spend on. Events, which will now quickly follow one another, will require your standing; be firm in body and mind, to be in a condition to fight with benefit. It will then be necessary to work tirelessly. But, as you have already been told, you will not be alone to bear the burden; serious helpers will show up when the time is right. So, listen to the advice of the good doctor Demeure, and beware of any unnecessary or premature fatigue. Moreover, we will be there to advise and warn you.
Beware of the two extreme parties which are agitating Spiritism, either to restrict it to the past, or to precipitate its course forward. Appease the harmful ardor, and do not allow yourself to be stopped by the procrastination of the fearful, or, what is more dangerous but unfortunately very true, by the suggestions of enemy envoys.
Walk with a firm and sure step, as you have done so far, not worrying about what is said from right or left, following the inspiration of your guides and your reason, and you will not risk to allow the carriage of Spiritism to derail. Many push this envied chariot, to precipitate its downfall. Blind and presumptuous! It will pass, despite the obstacles, and it will leave in the abyss its enemies and the envious ones only, embarrassed for having served its triumph.
The phenomena arise already and will arise from all sides in the most varied aspects. Healing mediumship, incomprehensible illnesses, physical effects inexplicable by science, everything will come together in the near future to ensure our definitive victory, to which new defenders will contribute.
But how many struggles will still have to be sustained, and how many victims! Not bloody, no doubt, but stricken in their interests and in their affections. More than one will fade under the weight of hostilities, unleashed against all that bear the name of Spiritist. But also, happy the ones who will have been able to maintain their firmness in the face of adversity! They will be well rewarded, even here on earth, materially. The persecutions are the tests of sincerity of their faith, courage, and perseverance. Their trust in God will not be in vain. All the sufferings, all the vexations, all the humiliations they will have endured for the cause will hold value, none of which will be lost; the good Spirits watch over them and count them, and they will know well how to separate sincere from fictitious devotion. If the wheel of fortune momentarily betrays them and plunges them into the dust, soon it will raise them higher than ever, making them public, and destroying the obstacles piled up in their path. Later, they will rejoice for having paid their tribute to the cause, and the greater the tribute, the greater their share.
In these times of trials, you will have to lavish your strength and steadfastness to all; all will also need encouragement and advice. It will also be necessary to close the eyes to the defections of the lukewarm and the cowards. On your own account, you will also have a lot to forgive...
But I will stop here, because if, on one side, I can give you an idea of all the events, I am not allowed to specify anything. All I can tell you is that we will not fall in the struggle. One can surround truth with the shadows of error, but it is impossible to asphyxiate it; its flame is immortal, and it will shine sooner or later.
Widow F…”
Note: We postponed the continuation of our study about Muhammad and Islamism to the next issue due to the sequence of ideas and for the understanding of the deductions it was necessary that the study was preceded by the article above.
[1] See The Gospel According to Spiritism, Chap. XV
However, everything that is said in the Gospel must take place and it does at this time, as you will acknowledge later. But consider the announced signs as figurative, whose spirit, and not the letter, must be understood. All the Scriptures carry great truths under the veil of allegory; the commentators got confused because they fixated on the letter. They lacked the key to understand their true meaning. That key is in the discoveries of science and in the laws of the invisible world that Spiritism reveals to us. From now on, with the help of that knowledge, what was obscure becomes clear and intelligible.
Everything follows the natural order of things, and the immutable laws of God will not be disturbed. Thus, you will not see miracles or prodigies, nor anything supernatural, in the common meaning attached to these words. Do not look at the sky seeking precursors signs there, since you will not see them, and those that announce it will deceive you, but look around you, among men, and you will find them there.
Don’t you feel a blowing wind on Earth, agitating all the Spirits? The world waits, as if taken by a vague presentiment of the approaching storm. Do not believe, however, in the end of the material world; Earth has progressed since its transformation; it must continue to progress, and not be destroyed. But humanity has arrived at one of its periods of transformation, and Earth will elevate in the hierarchy of the worlds.
It is not, therefore, the end of the material world that is in preparation; it is the old world, the world of prejudices, selfishness, pride, and fanaticism that ruins. Some fragments are carried away every day. All will end with the outgoing generation, and the new generation will erect the edifice that the following generations will consolidate and complement. From a world of atonement, Earth is called to one day become a happy world, and to inhabit it will be a reward, instead of a punishment. The kingdom of good will succeed that of evil there.
For humanity to be happy on Earth it is necessary that it is only populated by good Spirits, incarnate and discarnate, that will only want good. Since this time has come, a great emigration takes place at this moment, among those that inhabit it; those that do evil things by the evil things, and that are not touched by good, for no longer being worthy of the transformed Earth, will be excluded, for they would again bring disturbance and confusion and would be an obstacle to progress. They will atone their hardening in inferior worlds, to where they will take their acquired knowledge with the assigned mission of promoting progress in those worlds. They will be replaced by better Spirits on Earth that will establish the kingdom of justice, peace, and fraternity.
Earth, we have already said, must not be transformed by a cataclysm that would annihilate a generation. The current generation will disappear gradually, and the new one will succeed it, without any change in the natural order of things. Hence, everything will apparently take place as usual, with one difference only, and that difference is paramount: part of the Spirits that incarnate here will no longer do. In a newborn child, instead of a lagging Spirit, devoted to evil, a more advanced and dedicated to good Spirit will incarnate. It is, therefore, much more of a new generation of Spirits than a new corporeal generation.
The current period is that of transition. The elements are confounded in two generations. In an intermediary position you watch the departure of one and the arrival of another, and each one is already marked in the world by the characters that are proper to them. The two generations that succeed one another have completely opposite points of view. By the nature of their moral dispositions, but above all by the intuitive and innate disposition, it is easy to distinguish to which each one belongs.
The new generation, that must establish the era of moral progress, is distinguished by a generally premature intelligence and reason, added to the innate feeling of good and the spiritualist beliefs, that is an undoubtful sign of a certain degree of previous advancement. That generation will not be composed exclusively of eminently superior Spirits, but of those that have already progressed and are prepared to assimilate every progressive idea and apt to second the regenerating movement.
The lagging Spirits, on the contrary, are characterized, to begin with, by a revolt against God through the denial of Providence and of every power above humanity; then, the instinctive tendency to degrading passions, to feelings of egotism, pride, hatred, jealousy, greed, and finally the predominance of the attachment to everything that is material.
These are the vices that must be purged from Earth by the removal of those that refuse to mend, because they are incompatible with the rule of fraternity and for the fact that good men will always suffer with their contact. Earth will be free from them and men will march towards a better future without obstacles, a future that is reserved to them down here, as a reward for their efforts and perseverance, while they wait for an even more complete depuration to open the door to superior worlds.
By such migration of Spirits, one must not understand that all those that have fallen behind will be expelled from Earth and relegated to inferior worlds. On the contrary, many will come back here because many have gotten carried away by the circumstances and example; their shell was worse than the core. Once subtracted from the influence of matter and the prejudices of the corporeal world, most of them will see things in a completely different way as from when they were alive, from which you have numerous examples. They are helped with this by the benevolent Spirits that are interested in them, striving to enlighten and show them the false path that they had taken. You can contribute to their betterment yourselves, by your prayers and exhortations, because there is a perpetual solidarity between the living and the dead.
Those can then return with the ones that are going to be happy, for this is a reward to them. What does it matter what they had been or done, if they are driven by better feelings! Far from being hostile to progress and society, they will be useful helpers because they will belong to the new generation. Hence, there will only be a definitive exclusion to the fundamentally rebel Spirits, those that become deaf to the voice of good and reason, more by egotism and pride than ignorance. But these ones are not devoted to an eternal inferiority and a day will come when they will repudiate their past and open their eyes to light. Pray, therefore, for these hardened ones, so that they mend while there is time, because the day of atonement is near. Most of them, unfortunately, by neglecting the voice of God, will persist in their blindness, and their resistance will mark the end of their kingdom through terrible struggles. In their raving, they will rush to their own loss, giving rise to destruction that will generate a multitude of scourges and calamities, so that they will unwillingly accelerate the arrival of the era of renovation.
And as if the destruction was not moving fast enough, we will see suicides multiplying in an incredible proportion, even among children. Madness will have never struck a greater number of men that even before death, will be erased from the living. These are the true signs of the times. And all this will be achieved by the sequence of events, as we have said, without any breach of the laws of nature.
However, in the somber cloud that involves you and where the storm roars, notice the appearance of the first rays of light of the new era! Fraternity casts its foundations in all corners of the globe and the peoples reach out to one another; barbarism acquires familiar habits before contact with civilization; prejudices of race and sect, that have shed rivers of blood, disappear; fanaticism and intolerance loose ground, while the freedom of consciousness penetrates the social more, becoming a right. Ideas ferment everywhere; illnesses are faced with remedies, but many wanders around without a compass, lost in utopias. The world lives an immense labor that will last a century. In this still confusing work, one can nonetheless see a dominating tendency towards one objective: the unity and uniformity that predispose fraternity.
These are still the signs of times. But, while the others are those of the agony of the past, the latter are the first gasps to the just born child, the precursors of the dawn that the incoming century will see stand, because then the new generation will be in full power. As much as the appearance of the nineteenth century differs from that of the eighteenth century, on certain points of view, the twentieth century will be different from the nineteenth, from other points of view.
One of the distinctive characters of the new generation will be the innate faith, not the exclusive and blind faith that divides men, but a reasoned faith, that clarifies and strengthens, that unite and confound them in a common feeling of love to God and then neighbor. The last vestiges of incredulity and fanaticism will disappear with the generation that ends, equally contrary to moral and social progress.
Spiritism is the path that leads to the renovation because it destroys the two greatest obstacles that are opposed to that: incredulity and fanaticism. It provides a solid and enlightened faith; it develops all the feelings and ideas that correspond to the views of the new generation, and that is why it is innate and does exist in an intuitive state in the hearts of its representatives. The new era will, therefore, see it grow and prosper by the very force of things. It will constitute the basis of all beliefs, the supporting point of every institution. But until then, how many struggles it will have to face against its two greatest enemies, fanaticism, and incredulity, that strangely enough, join hands to bring it down. They have a presentiment of their future and their own ruin, and that is why they fear it, for they already see it planting the flag that must unite all peoples, on the ruins of the old and selfish world. They read their own condemnation in the Divine maxim: there is no salvation apart from charity because it is the symbol of the new fraternal alliance proclaimed by Christ.[1] These words appear to them as the fateful words of the feast of Baltazar. And yet, they should bless this maxim, because it spares them from all retaliation on the part of those they persecute. But no, a blind force pushes them to reject the only thing that could save them.
But what can they do against the ascendancy of public opinion, that repudiates them? Spiritism will emerge triumphant from the struggle, have no doubt, because it is in the laws of nature, and therefore imperishable. See by what multitude of means the idea spread and penetrates everywhere. Believe further that such means are not fortuitous, but providential, for something that seems to harm it, at first sight, is precisely what helps it spread. It will soon see the rise of champions among the most well positioned and respected men, that will support it with the authority of their name and example, imposing silence to its detractors, because these will dare not treat them as mad people. Those men study it in silence and will show up when time is right. Until then, it is useful that they stay away. You will soon also see the arts getting ideas from it, as from a fertile source, translating the discovered horizons in their thoughts, through paintings, music, poetry, and literature. You have already been told that one day there would be a Spiritist art, as there was the Pagan and Christian art, and that is a great truth, for the greatest geniuses will be inspired by it. You will soon see their first sketches and later it will occupy the place that is adequate.
Spiritists, future is yours and of all those of heart and devotion. Fear not the obstacles since none will be able to block the designs of the Providence. Work tirelessly and thank God for placing you in the frontline of the new phalanx. It is a place of honor that you have requested yourself, and that you must be worthy of by your courage, perseverance, and devotion. Fortunate the ones that succumb in this fight against force; but, in the world of the Spirits, shame on those that succumb for being weak or pusillanimous. As a matter of fact, the struggles are necessary to strengthen the soul; the contact of evil makes us better appreciate the advantages of good. Without the struggles that stimulate the faculties, the Spirit would indulge in an indifference that would be fatal to their own advancement. The struggles against the elements develop physical forces and intelligence; the ones against evil develop moral forces.
Observations:
1st: The way in which the transformation takes place is very simple, and as it is seen, it is thoroughly moral, does not deviate in any way from the laws of nature. Why then the nonbelievers reject these ideas if they have nothing of supernatural? This is because, according to them, the law of vitality ceases with the death of the body, whereas for us it continues, without interruption; they restrict its action and we extend it. That is why we say that the phenomena of spiritual life are not outside of the laws of nature. To them the supernatural begins where the appreciation by the senses ends.
2nd: Whether the Spirits of the new generation are new and better Spirits, or improved old Spirits, the result is the same. As long as they carry better dispositions, it is always a renovation. The incarnate Spirits, therefore, form two categories according to their natural dispositions: that of the lagging Spirits, that leave, and that of progressive Spirits, that arrive. The condition of society and social mores in a people, a race or in the whole world will, therefore, be in proportion to the state of the category that is predominant.
To simplify the issue, let us consider a people, in any given state of advancement, composed of twenty million soul, for example. For the renovation of Spirits in the same proportion of extinctions, isolated or in mass, there was necessarily a time when the generation of lagging Spirits outnumbered that of progressive Spirits, that were only rare representatives, without influence, and whose efforts to make good and progressive ideas dominate were neutralized. Now, since some leave and others arrive, at a given time the two forces are even and their influence counterbalance. Later, the newcomers form majority and their influence become preponderant, although still hindered by the former; these continue to diminish and will end up disappearing, while the others multiply; there will be a time when the influence of the new generation will be exclusive.
We are witnessing this transformation, the conflict which results from the struggle of contrary ideas which seek to establish themselves; some march with the flag of the past, others with that of the future. If we examine the present state of the world, we will recognize that earthly humanity, taken as a whole, is still far from the intermediate point where the forces will be balanced; that peoples, considered separately, are at a great distance from each other in this scale; that a few have touched this point, but none has surpassed it yet. Moreover, the distance that separates them from the extreme points is far from being equal in duration, and once the limit is crossed, the new road will be traveled with all the more speed, as a host of circumstances will smooth it out.
Thus, the transformation of humanity is accomplished. Without emigration, that is without the departure of the lagging Spirits who must not return, or who must return only after they have improved, terrestrial humanity would not therefore remain stationary indefinitely, because the most lagging spirits advance on their side; but it would have taken centuries, and perhaps thousands of years, to achieve the result that half a century will suffice to achieve.
A vulgar comparison will make it easier to understand what happens in this circumstance. Let us suppose a regiment composed in the great majority of tempestuous and undisciplined men. These will constantly create disorder that the severity of the penal law will often have difficulty in repressing. These men are the strongest, because they are in greater number; they support, encourage, and stimulate each other by example. The few good ones have no influence; their advices are overlooked; they are scorned, mistreated by the others, and suffer from this contact. Isn't this the image of today's society?
Suppose that these men are withdrawn from the regiment one by one, ten by ten, one hundred by one hundred, and that they are replaced, as they go, by an equal number of good soldiers, even by those that have been expelled, but who have amended; after a while we will still have the same regiment, but transformed; good order will have succeeded disorder. That is how it is going to be with the regenerated humanity. The great collective departures are not only intended to activate exits, but to transform the minds of the masses more quickly by ridding them of bad influences, and to give more ascendancy to new ideas.
It is because many, despite their imperfections, are ripe for this transformation, that many leave to reinstruct from a purer source. If they remained in the same environment and under the same influences, they would have persisted in their opinions and in their way of seeing things. A stay in the spiritual world is enough to open their eyes because they see there what they could not see on earth. The unbeliever, the fanatic, the absolutist, will therefore be able to come back with innate ideas of faith, tolerance, and freedom. On their return, they will find things changed, and will experience the ascendancy of the new environment in which they will be born. Instead of opposing new ideas, they will be their auxiliaries.
The regeneration of humanity does not therefore absolutely need the complete renewal of Spirits: all that is needed is a modification in their moral dispositions; this modification takes place in all those who are predisposed to it, when they are withdrawn from the pernicious influence of the world. Those who come back then are not always other Spirits, but often the same Spirits thinking and feeling differently.
When this improvement is isolated and individual, it goes unnoticed, and it has no explicit influence on the world. The effect is quite different when it operates simultaneously on large masses; for then, according to the proportions, the ideas of a people or of a race can be profoundly modified in a generation. This is what we almost always notice after great calamities that decimate populations. Destructive scourges destroy only the body, but do not reach the Spirit; they activate the back-and-forth movement between the bodily world and the spiritual world, and consequently the progressive movement of incarnate and discarnate Spirits.
It is one of these general movements that is taking place at this time, and which must bring about the reshuffle of humanity. The multiplicity of the causes of destruction is a characteristic sign of the times, for it must hasten the hatching of new germs. It is the autumn leaves that fall, and to which will succeed new leaves full of life; for humanity has its seasons, just as individuals have their ages. The dead leaves of humanity fall carried away by gusty winds, but to be reborn livelier, under the same breath of life, that does not extinguish, but purifies itself.
For the materialist, destructive plagues are calamities without compensation, without useful results, since, according to them, those calamities annihilate the creatures, without return. But for the one who knows that death destroys only the envelope, calamities do not have the same consequences, and do not cause the slightest fear, because they understand the purpose, and also know that men do not lose more by dying together than in isolation, because in one way or another, it is always necessary to get there.
The nonbelievers will laugh at these things and will treat them as chimeras. But, irrespective of what they say, they will not escape the common law. They will fall, like the others, when it is their turn, but then, what is going to happen to them? Nothing, they say, but despite themselves, they will, one day, be forced to open their eyes.
Note. - The following communication was addressed to us, during the trip we have just made, from one of our dear invisible protectors; although of personal character, it is also connected with the great question that we have just discussed and which it confirms. For that reason, we thought appropriate to place it here, so that people persecuted for their Spiritists beliefs will find useful encouragement in that message.
Paris, September 1st, 1866
“It has been a long time since I have indicated my presence in your meetings by giving a communication signed by my name; believe not, dear master, that it was through indifference or forgetfulness, but I saw no need to manifest myself, and I left it to others, more worthy, to give you useful instructions. However, I was there, and I followed with the greatest interest the progress of this dear doctrine to which I owe the happiness and calmness of the last years of my life. I was there, and my good friend Mr. T… has assured you of this, more than once, during his hours of sleep and ecstasy. He envies my happiness, and he also longs to come to the world I inhabit now, when he contemplates it, shining in the starry sky, and thinks about his tough trials.
I also endured very painful ones; thanks to Spiritism, I supported them without complaint, and I bless them now, since I owe them my advancement. May he be patient; tell him that he will come here one day, but that he must first come back to earth again to help you in the conclusion of your task. But then, how much everything will be changed! You will both think of yourselves in a new world.
My friend, while you can, rest your work-weary mind and brain; amass material strength, for soon you will have a lot to spend on. Events, which will now quickly follow one another, will require your standing; be firm in body and mind, to be in a condition to fight with benefit. It will then be necessary to work tirelessly. But, as you have already been told, you will not be alone to bear the burden; serious helpers will show up when the time is right. So, listen to the advice of the good doctor Demeure, and beware of any unnecessary or premature fatigue. Moreover, we will be there to advise and warn you.
Beware of the two extreme parties which are agitating Spiritism, either to restrict it to the past, or to precipitate its course forward. Appease the harmful ardor, and do not allow yourself to be stopped by the procrastination of the fearful, or, what is more dangerous but unfortunately very true, by the suggestions of enemy envoys.
Walk with a firm and sure step, as you have done so far, not worrying about what is said from right or left, following the inspiration of your guides and your reason, and you will not risk to allow the carriage of Spiritism to derail. Many push this envied chariot, to precipitate its downfall. Blind and presumptuous! It will pass, despite the obstacles, and it will leave in the abyss its enemies and the envious ones only, embarrassed for having served its triumph.
The phenomena arise already and will arise from all sides in the most varied aspects. Healing mediumship, incomprehensible illnesses, physical effects inexplicable by science, everything will come together in the near future to ensure our definitive victory, to which new defenders will contribute.
But how many struggles will still have to be sustained, and how many victims! Not bloody, no doubt, but stricken in their interests and in their affections. More than one will fade under the weight of hostilities, unleashed against all that bear the name of Spiritist. But also, happy the ones who will have been able to maintain their firmness in the face of adversity! They will be well rewarded, even here on earth, materially. The persecutions are the tests of sincerity of their faith, courage, and perseverance. Their trust in God will not be in vain. All the sufferings, all the vexations, all the humiliations they will have endured for the cause will hold value, none of which will be lost; the good Spirits watch over them and count them, and they will know well how to separate sincere from fictitious devotion. If the wheel of fortune momentarily betrays them and plunges them into the dust, soon it will raise them higher than ever, making them public, and destroying the obstacles piled up in their path. Later, they will rejoice for having paid their tribute to the cause, and the greater the tribute, the greater their share.
In these times of trials, you will have to lavish your strength and steadfastness to all; all will also need encouragement and advice. It will also be necessary to close the eyes to the defections of the lukewarm and the cowards. On your own account, you will also have a lot to forgive...
But I will stop here, because if, on one side, I can give you an idea of all the events, I am not allowed to specify anything. All I can tell you is that we will not fall in the struggle. One can surround truth with the shadows of error, but it is impossible to asphyxiate it; its flame is immortal, and it will shine sooner or later.
Widow F…”
Note: We postponed the continuation of our study about Muhammad and Islamism to the next issue due to the sequence of ideas and for the understanding of the deductions it was necessary that the study was preceded by the article above.
[1] See The Gospel According to Spiritism, Chap. XV
The Healing Zouave of Camp Châlons
The “Écho de l’Aisne”, from August 1st, 1866 reads:
“The only thing that is talked about in the countryside is the wonders produced in Camp Châlons by a young Spiritist Zouave that makes miracles every day. Large convoys of sick persons get to Châlons, and incredible thing, a good number of them return healed. In these last days, a paralytic that came by car, after having been seen by the young Spiritist, found himself completely cured and returned home joyfully on foot.
Explain, if you can, these facts that are quite prodigious; still, they are correct and affirmed by a large number of intelligent and trustworthy people.
Reanud.”
This article was literally reproduced by the “Presse Illustrée”, on Augst 6th. The “Petit Journal”, on August 17th, recounts the facts in the following terms:
“After having been able to visit the imperial quarter, that I believe you have already described to your readers, that is to say the best, and at the same time, the simplest dwelling that a sovereign can have, even if for a few days only, I spent my evening chasing after the magnetizer Zouave. This Zouave, a simple musician, has been the hero of the camp and its surroundings for three months. He is a lean, dark little man with deep-set eyes, with the physiognomy of a whirling dervish[1]. Incredible things are told of him, and I am forced to speak to you only about what is said, because from superior orders he had to interrupt the public sessions he was giving at the Hotel de la Meuse. People came from ten leagues around; he received twenty-five to thirty patients at a time, and at his voice, at his sight, at his touch, at least that is what is said, the deaf suddenly heard, the dumb spoke, and the handicapped went away with the crutches under their arms. Is all this really true? I do not know. I chatted with him for an hour. His name is Jacob, he is simply Burgundian, expresses himself easily, seemed to me to be the most convinced and the most intelligent. He has always refused any kind of remuneration and doesn't even like to be thanked. In addition, he promised me a manuscript which was dictated to him by a Spirit. No need to tell you that I will let you know as soon as it is delivered to me, if the Spirit has any spirit at all.
René de Pont-Jest. "
Finally, the “Écho de l’Aisne”, after having cited the fact in its August 1st issue, comments it on the 4th as below:
“In the last Wednesday's issue, you said that in our regions there was only talks of cures accomplished in the camp of Châlons by a young Spiritist Zouave. I think I am doing the right thing, asking you to cut it off, because a real army of patients is heading towards the camp every day; those that return satisfied engage others to imitate them; those, on the contrary, that have gained nothing, don’t stop the criticism or mockery.
Between these two extreme opinions, there is a cautious reservation that a “good number of patients” must take as a rule of conduct, as a guide to what they can do. There is nothing marvelous, nothing miraculous in these 'marvelous cures', in these 'miracles', as ordinary people call them. At first glance, they cause astonishment because they are not common; but since nothing that is accomplished is done without a cause, we sought what produces such facts, and science has explained them.
Strong psychological impressions have always had the power of acting upon the 'nervous system'; the cures obtained by the Spiritist zouave only relate to diseases of that system. At all times, in antiquity as in modern times, cures have been reported by the sheer force of the influence of imagination, an influence observed in a great number of cases; there is, therefore, nothing extraordinary that today the same causes produce the same results.
It is therefore only patients of the ‘nervous system’ that it is possible to ‘go, see and hope’.
X.”
Before any other comment we will make a quick observation about this last article. The author attests the facts and explains them in his own way. According to him, those cures have nothing of marvelous or miraculous. We are in perfect agreement about this point, for Spiritism clearly states that it does not make miracles; that all facts, without exception, that are produced through mediumistic influence, are due to a natural force and occur as a result of a law that is as natural as the one that allows a telegram to be transmitted from one side of the Atlantic to the other, in a few minutes. Before the discovery of the law of electricity, a similar event would have been taken as the miracle of the miracles. Let us suppose, for a moment, that Franklin, even more initiated than he was in the properties of the electric fluid, had laid a metallic wire through the Atlantic, establishing an instantaneous correspondence between Europe and America, without indicating the process; what would have been thought of him? They would have, incontestably, screamed miracle; they would have attributed a supernatural power to him; to the eyes of many, he would be a witch with the devil under his orders. The knowledge of the law of electricity reduced the supposed prodigy to the proportions of the natural effects. The same happens to many other phenomena.
But, do we know all laws of nature, and the properties of all fluids? Isn’t that possible that an unknown fluid, as the electricity was for a long time, be the cause of unexplained effects, producing results onto the economy that are impossible to science, with the support of the limited means at its disposal? Well! This is the whole secret of the mediumistic cures, or better saying, there is no secret, for Spiritism only has secrets to those that do not take the burden of studying it. These healings are simply based on a fluidic action directed by thought and will, instead of a metallic wire. The key is to know the properties of this fluid, the conditions in which it can act, and to know how to direct it. In addition, there is the need of a human instrument sufficiently provided with this fluid, and capable of giving it sufficient energy.
This faculty is not the privilege of an individual; for the fact that it is in nature, many have it but to very different degrees, as everyone can see, but to a greater or lesser distance. Among those who are endowed with it, a few act knowingly, like the Zouave Jacob; others, without their knowledge, and without realizing what is happening with them; they know they heal, and that's all; ask them how, and they know nothing. If they are superstitious, they will attribute their power to some occult cause, to the virtue of some talisman or amulet which, in fact, is useless. It is so with all unconscious mediums, and the number is large. Many people are themselves the primary cause of effects that surprise them, but that they cannot explain. Among the most obstinate deniers, many are mediums without knowing it.
The newspaper in question says: “the cures obtained by the Spiritist zouave only relate to diseases of that system. At all times, in antiquity as in modern times, cures have been reported by the sheer force of the influence of imagination, an influence observed in a great number of cases; there is, therefore, nothing extraordinary." By saying that Mr. Jacob has cured only nervous affections, the author advances a little lightly, because the facts contradict this assertion. But let us admit that this is the case; these kinds of affections are innumerable, and these are precisely the ones for which science is most often forced to admit its impotence; if by some means it can be overcome, isn't that an important result? If such means is in the influence of the imagination, what does it matter! Why neglect it? Isn't that better to heal by the imagination than not to heal at all?
It seems difficult to us, however, that the imagination alone, even if excited to the highest degree, can make a handicapped walk and straighten a stiff limb. In any case, since, according to the author, cures of nervous diseases have always been achieved by the influence of imagination, doctors are more inexcusable for persisting in using powerless means, when experience shows them others that are effective. The author, unwillingly, puts them on trial.
But, he says, Mr. Jacob doesn't cure everyone. It is possible, and even correct, but what does it prove? That he does not have a universal healing power. The man who would have this power would be the equal of God, and the one who would claim to possess it would be a presumptuous fool. If only four or five patients, out of ten, recognized incurable by science, would be cured, this would suffice to prove the existence of the faculty. Are there many doctors who can do the same? We have known Mr. Jacob personally for a long time as a writing medium, and eager propagator of Spiritism; we knew that he had made some partial attempts at the healing mediumship, but it seems that this faculty took on a rapid and considerable development in him during his stay at the camp at Châlons. One of our colleagues from the Parisian Society, Mr. Boivinet, who lives in the Department of Aisne, kindly sent us a very detailed account of the facts which are of his personal knowledge. His in-depth knowledge of Spiritism, combined with a character free from exaltation and enthusiasm, enabled him to appreciate things in a healthy way. His testimony, therefore, has for us all the value of an honorable, impartial, and enlightened man, and his account has all the desirable authenticity. We therefore take the facts attested by him as true as if we had personally witnessed them. The extent of these documents does not have them published in full in this journal, but we have coordinated them for future use, limiting ourselves, for today, to citing the most essential passages:
“…Wishing to fully justify the confidence you have in me, I inquired, both by myself and by quite honorable and trustworthy people, about the well-established cures operated by Mr. Jacob. These people are not, in fact, Spiritists, which rules out from their testimony any suspicion of partiality in favor of Spiritism.
I reduce by a third the estimates of Mr. Jacob regarding the number of patients received by him; but it seems to me that I am below, perhaps well below the truth, estimating this figure at 4,000, of which a quarter has been cured and three quarters relieved. The crowd was such that the military authority moved in, forbidding visits in the future. I, myself, learned from the station manager that the railroad transported masses of sick people to the camp every day. As to the nature of the diseases over which he has more particularly exercised his influence, it is impossible for me to say. It is mainly the sick that have approached him, and these are, consequently, the ones that account for his satisfied clients; but many other sufferers could present themselves to him successfully.
This is how in Chartères, a village very close to the one I live in, I saw and saw again a man of about fifty years of age who, since 1856, vomited everything that he ate. By the time he went to see the Zouave, he was very ill, and was vomiting at least three times a day. When Mr. Jacob saw him, he said: “You are healed!” And during the session invited him to eat and drink. The poor peasant, overcoming his apprehension, drank and ate and did not feel bad. For more than three weeks he has not experienced the slightest discomfort. The cure was instantaneous. Needless to say that Mr. Jacob did not give him any medication and did not prescribe any treatment. It was only his fluidic action, like an electric shock, that had been sufficient to restore the organs to their normal state.”
Observation: This man is one of those of crude nature, who hardly gets excited. If, then, a single word had sufficed to overexcite his imagination, to the point of instantly curing his chronic gastritis, it would be necessary to agree that the phenomenon would be even more surprising than the cure, and would indeed deserve some attention.
“The daughter of the owner of the Hôtel de la Meuse, in Mourmelon, had a sickness in her breast, and was weak to the point of not being able to leave her bed. The Zouave invited her to get up, which she was able to do immediately; to the amazement of the many spectators, she went downstairs unaided, and went for a walk in the garden with her new doctor. Since that day, this young girl has been doing well. I'm not a doctor, but I don't think that's a nervous disease.
Mr. B ..., manager of a boarding school, who jumps at the idea of the intervention of Spirits in our affairs, told me that a lady, a long time sick of the stomach, had been cured by the Zouave, and had since then noticeably gained about twenty pounds”.
Observation: Would this gentleman, to whom the idea of the intervention of the Spirits exasperates, therefore be very sorry if, when he died, his own Spirit could come to assist the persons that are dear to him, to heal them, and to prove to them that he is not lost to them?
“As for the sick themselves, the results obtained on them are more astounding, because the eye immediately appreciates the result. In Tréloup, a village 7 or 8 kilometers from here, a seventy-year-old man was crippled and could do nothing. Getting out of his chair was almost impossible. The healing was complete and instantaneous. Yesterday I heard about it again. I was told: Well! I saw Father Petit; he was harvesting!
A woman from Mourmelon had her leg crippled, immobilized; her knee was pulled back to his stomach. Now she is walking around and is doing well.
The day the Zouave was banned, a mason walked through Mourmelon in exasperation, and wanted, he said, “to knock out those who prevented the medium from working.” This mason had both wrists drawn towards the inside of his arms. His wrists move like ours today, and he earns two francs more a day.
How many people were carried in and were able to leave alone, having immediately regained the use of their limbs! A five-year-old, brought from Reims, who had never walked, walked straight away.
The following fact was, so to speak, the starting point of the faculty of the medium, or at least of the public exercise of this faculty that became notorious:
Arriving at La Ferté-sous-Jouarre and heading towards the camp, the regiment of Zouaves was gathered in the public square. Before breaking ranks, the band performed a piece. Among the spectators was a little girl in a small stroller pushed by her parents. The Zouave’s attention was drawn to this girl by one of his comrades. When the music finished, he walked towards her, and addressing the parents he said: "So this child is sick?" he asked them.
She cannot walk, he was told; for the past two years she has had her leg clamped in an orthopedic device. So, take this device off, she doesn't need it. This was done, not without some hesitation, and the little girl walked on. So, they went to the cafe, and the father, as if overjoyed, wanted the lemonade man to set up his shop, so that the Zouaves could drink it.
I am now going to tell you how the medium proceeded, that is to say, I will tell you about a session, which I did not attend, but which I was told in detail by different patients.
The Zouave brings in his patients. The size of the room regulates their number. That is why, as it is claimed, he had to move from the Hotel de l'Europe, where he could only admit eighteen people at a time, to the Hotel de la Meuse, where he could admit twenty-five or thirty. They enter. Those who live in more distant regions are usually invited to go first. Some people want to talk: “Silence!”, he says; those who speak, will be kicked out!” After ten to fifteen minutes of silence and general immobility, he addresses a few patients, rarely questions them, but tells them what they are feeling. Then, walking along the large table around which the sick are seated, he speaks to all, but without order; he touches them, but without gestures reminiscent of those of magnetizers; then he sends them away, saying to some: “You are healed, go away;” To others: "You will heal without doing anything; you have only weakness;" To a few, but rarely: "I can do nothing for you.” If they want to thank him, he answers very militarily that he does not need to be thanked and sends them away. Sometimes he says: “Your thanks must be addressed to the Providence.”
On the 7th of August, an order from the marshal interrupted the course of the sessions. As soon as it was banned, and given the enormous influx of patients to Mourmelon, unprecedented means had to be employed regarding the medium. Since he had committed no fault and always observed discipline very precisely, he could not be imprisoned. A personal guard was attached to him, with orders to follow him everywhere and prevent anyone from approaching him. They have, I was told, tolerated all these healings while the word Spiritism was not pronounced, and I do not believe that it was Mr. Jacob that pronounced it. It would be from that moment that they used rigor against him.
So, where does the dread caused by the mere name of Spiritism come from, even when it only does good, consoles the afflicted and relieves suffering humanity? For my part, I believe that some people are afraid that it will do too much good.
In the first days of September, M. Jacob was kind enough to come and spend two days with me, in fulfillment of a possible promise he had made to me at the Châlons camp. The pleasure I had in receiving him was increased tenfold by the services he was able to render to a good number of unfortunate people. Since his departure, I have kept myself informed almost daily of the condition of the patients he treated, and I give you the results of my observations below. To be accurate as in a statistical statement, and with respect to further information, if necessary, I enter them here by name. (there follows a list of 30 and a few names, with designation of age, disease, and outcome.)
Mr. Jacob is sincerely religious. "What I do," he said to me, "does not surprise me. I would do much more amazing things that I wouldn't be more surprised, because I know that God can do whatever He wants. One thing only surprises me, and that is to have had the immense favor of being the instrument that He chose. Today we are surprised with what I do, but who knows if in a month, in a year, there will not be ten, twenty, fifty mediums like me and stronger than me? Mr. Kardec, who seeks and must seek to study facts like those happening here, should have come; today or tomorrow, I can lose my faculty, and it would be a lost study for him; he must make a point of being the historian of such facts.”
Observation:
We would have been happy, no doubt, to be a personal witness of the facts reported above, and we would probably have gone to Camp Châlons if we had had the possibility and if we had been informed in advance. We only learned about it indirectly from the newspapers, while we were traveling, and we admit that we do not have absolute confidence in their stories. We would have a lot to do if we had to go and check for ourselves all that they report of Spiritism, or even all that is brought to our attention in our correspondence. We could only go there with the certainty of not being disappointed, and when M. Boivinet's report reached us, the camp was interdicted. Besides, the observation of these facts would not have taught us anything new, for we believe we understand them; it would therefore have been simply a question of ascertaining the reality of it; but the testimony of a man like M. Boivinet, to whom we had sent a letter for M. Jacob, with a request to inform us of what he would have seen, was completely sufficient for us. We therefore only missed the pleasure of having personally seen M. Jacob at work, which could, we hope, take place elsewhere than at Camp Châlons.
We have therefore only spoken of Mr. Jacob's healings because they are genuine; had they appeared suspicious to us, or tainted with charlatanism and a ridiculous boastfulness that would have made them more harmful than useful to the cause of Spiritism, we would have abstained, despite what could have been said, and as we have done in many other circumstances, not willing to turn ourselves into the editor responsible for some eccentricity, and not supporting the ambitious and interested views which are sometimes hidden under the appearances of devotion. That is why we are cautious in our assessments of people and things, and why our Spiritist Review does not turn into a censer for the benefit of anybody.
But here we deal with something serious, fruitful in results, and fundamental from the double point of view of the fact, and of the fulfillment of one of the forecasts of the Spirits. For a long time, indeed, they announced that the healing mediumship would develop in exceptional proportions, so as to draw the general attention, and we congratulate Mr. Jacob for being one of the first to provide the example; but here, as in all kinds of manifestations, the person, for us, disappears before the main question.
Considering that the gift of healing is not the result of work, study, or acquired talent, the one who possesses it cannot take credit for it. We praise a great artist, a scientist, because they owe what they are to their own efforts; but the best endowed medium is only a passive instrument, that the Spirits use today, and which they can leave tomorrow. What would Mr. Jacob be if he lost his faculty, something that he wisely foresees? What he was before: the musician of the Zouaves; while, whatever happens, the scientist will always have science and the artist, the talent. We are happy to see Mr. Jacob sharing these ideas, therefore it is not to him that these reflections are addressed. He will also be of our opinion, we do not doubt it, when we say that what is a real merit in a medium, what one can and should rightly praise, is the use they make of their faculty; it is the zeal, the devotion, the selflessness with which they place it at the service of those to whom it can be useful; it is again modesty, simplicity, abnegation, benevolence which breathe in their words and that all their actions justify, because these qualities belong to the medium in their own right. Therefore, it is not the medium that must be raised on a pedestal, since tomorrow they can descend from it: it is the good man who knows how to make himself useful without ostentation and without benefit for his vanity.
The development of healing mediumship will inevitably have consequences of a high importance, which will be the subject of a special and in-depth examination in a future article.
[1] See whirling Muslim monks of Istanbul at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gG8YAUqVIs&ab_channel=pavdb092 (T.N.)
“The only thing that is talked about in the countryside is the wonders produced in Camp Châlons by a young Spiritist Zouave that makes miracles every day. Large convoys of sick persons get to Châlons, and incredible thing, a good number of them return healed. In these last days, a paralytic that came by car, after having been seen by the young Spiritist, found himself completely cured and returned home joyfully on foot.
Explain, if you can, these facts that are quite prodigious; still, they are correct and affirmed by a large number of intelligent and trustworthy people.
Reanud.”
This article was literally reproduced by the “Presse Illustrée”, on Augst 6th. The “Petit Journal”, on August 17th, recounts the facts in the following terms:
“After having been able to visit the imperial quarter, that I believe you have already described to your readers, that is to say the best, and at the same time, the simplest dwelling that a sovereign can have, even if for a few days only, I spent my evening chasing after the magnetizer Zouave. This Zouave, a simple musician, has been the hero of the camp and its surroundings for three months. He is a lean, dark little man with deep-set eyes, with the physiognomy of a whirling dervish[1]. Incredible things are told of him, and I am forced to speak to you only about what is said, because from superior orders he had to interrupt the public sessions he was giving at the Hotel de la Meuse. People came from ten leagues around; he received twenty-five to thirty patients at a time, and at his voice, at his sight, at his touch, at least that is what is said, the deaf suddenly heard, the dumb spoke, and the handicapped went away with the crutches under their arms. Is all this really true? I do not know. I chatted with him for an hour. His name is Jacob, he is simply Burgundian, expresses himself easily, seemed to me to be the most convinced and the most intelligent. He has always refused any kind of remuneration and doesn't even like to be thanked. In addition, he promised me a manuscript which was dictated to him by a Spirit. No need to tell you that I will let you know as soon as it is delivered to me, if the Spirit has any spirit at all.
René de Pont-Jest. "
Finally, the “Écho de l’Aisne”, after having cited the fact in its August 1st issue, comments it on the 4th as below:
“In the last Wednesday's issue, you said that in our regions there was only talks of cures accomplished in the camp of Châlons by a young Spiritist Zouave. I think I am doing the right thing, asking you to cut it off, because a real army of patients is heading towards the camp every day; those that return satisfied engage others to imitate them; those, on the contrary, that have gained nothing, don’t stop the criticism or mockery.
Between these two extreme opinions, there is a cautious reservation that a “good number of patients” must take as a rule of conduct, as a guide to what they can do. There is nothing marvelous, nothing miraculous in these 'marvelous cures', in these 'miracles', as ordinary people call them. At first glance, they cause astonishment because they are not common; but since nothing that is accomplished is done without a cause, we sought what produces such facts, and science has explained them.
Strong psychological impressions have always had the power of acting upon the 'nervous system'; the cures obtained by the Spiritist zouave only relate to diseases of that system. At all times, in antiquity as in modern times, cures have been reported by the sheer force of the influence of imagination, an influence observed in a great number of cases; there is, therefore, nothing extraordinary that today the same causes produce the same results.
It is therefore only patients of the ‘nervous system’ that it is possible to ‘go, see and hope’.
X.”
Before any other comment we will make a quick observation about this last article. The author attests the facts and explains them in his own way. According to him, those cures have nothing of marvelous or miraculous. We are in perfect agreement about this point, for Spiritism clearly states that it does not make miracles; that all facts, without exception, that are produced through mediumistic influence, are due to a natural force and occur as a result of a law that is as natural as the one that allows a telegram to be transmitted from one side of the Atlantic to the other, in a few minutes. Before the discovery of the law of electricity, a similar event would have been taken as the miracle of the miracles. Let us suppose, for a moment, that Franklin, even more initiated than he was in the properties of the electric fluid, had laid a metallic wire through the Atlantic, establishing an instantaneous correspondence between Europe and America, without indicating the process; what would have been thought of him? They would have, incontestably, screamed miracle; they would have attributed a supernatural power to him; to the eyes of many, he would be a witch with the devil under his orders. The knowledge of the law of electricity reduced the supposed prodigy to the proportions of the natural effects. The same happens to many other phenomena.
But, do we know all laws of nature, and the properties of all fluids? Isn’t that possible that an unknown fluid, as the electricity was for a long time, be the cause of unexplained effects, producing results onto the economy that are impossible to science, with the support of the limited means at its disposal? Well! This is the whole secret of the mediumistic cures, or better saying, there is no secret, for Spiritism only has secrets to those that do not take the burden of studying it. These healings are simply based on a fluidic action directed by thought and will, instead of a metallic wire. The key is to know the properties of this fluid, the conditions in which it can act, and to know how to direct it. In addition, there is the need of a human instrument sufficiently provided with this fluid, and capable of giving it sufficient energy.
This faculty is not the privilege of an individual; for the fact that it is in nature, many have it but to very different degrees, as everyone can see, but to a greater or lesser distance. Among those who are endowed with it, a few act knowingly, like the Zouave Jacob; others, without their knowledge, and without realizing what is happening with them; they know they heal, and that's all; ask them how, and they know nothing. If they are superstitious, they will attribute their power to some occult cause, to the virtue of some talisman or amulet which, in fact, is useless. It is so with all unconscious mediums, and the number is large. Many people are themselves the primary cause of effects that surprise them, but that they cannot explain. Among the most obstinate deniers, many are mediums without knowing it.
The newspaper in question says: “the cures obtained by the Spiritist zouave only relate to diseases of that system. At all times, in antiquity as in modern times, cures have been reported by the sheer force of the influence of imagination, an influence observed in a great number of cases; there is, therefore, nothing extraordinary." By saying that Mr. Jacob has cured only nervous affections, the author advances a little lightly, because the facts contradict this assertion. But let us admit that this is the case; these kinds of affections are innumerable, and these are precisely the ones for which science is most often forced to admit its impotence; if by some means it can be overcome, isn't that an important result? If such means is in the influence of the imagination, what does it matter! Why neglect it? Isn't that better to heal by the imagination than not to heal at all?
It seems difficult to us, however, that the imagination alone, even if excited to the highest degree, can make a handicapped walk and straighten a stiff limb. In any case, since, according to the author, cures of nervous diseases have always been achieved by the influence of imagination, doctors are more inexcusable for persisting in using powerless means, when experience shows them others that are effective. The author, unwillingly, puts them on trial.
But, he says, Mr. Jacob doesn't cure everyone. It is possible, and even correct, but what does it prove? That he does not have a universal healing power. The man who would have this power would be the equal of God, and the one who would claim to possess it would be a presumptuous fool. If only four or five patients, out of ten, recognized incurable by science, would be cured, this would suffice to prove the existence of the faculty. Are there many doctors who can do the same? We have known Mr. Jacob personally for a long time as a writing medium, and eager propagator of Spiritism; we knew that he had made some partial attempts at the healing mediumship, but it seems that this faculty took on a rapid and considerable development in him during his stay at the camp at Châlons. One of our colleagues from the Parisian Society, Mr. Boivinet, who lives in the Department of Aisne, kindly sent us a very detailed account of the facts which are of his personal knowledge. His in-depth knowledge of Spiritism, combined with a character free from exaltation and enthusiasm, enabled him to appreciate things in a healthy way. His testimony, therefore, has for us all the value of an honorable, impartial, and enlightened man, and his account has all the desirable authenticity. We therefore take the facts attested by him as true as if we had personally witnessed them. The extent of these documents does not have them published in full in this journal, but we have coordinated them for future use, limiting ourselves, for today, to citing the most essential passages:
“…Wishing to fully justify the confidence you have in me, I inquired, both by myself and by quite honorable and trustworthy people, about the well-established cures operated by Mr. Jacob. These people are not, in fact, Spiritists, which rules out from their testimony any suspicion of partiality in favor of Spiritism.
I reduce by a third the estimates of Mr. Jacob regarding the number of patients received by him; but it seems to me that I am below, perhaps well below the truth, estimating this figure at 4,000, of which a quarter has been cured and three quarters relieved. The crowd was such that the military authority moved in, forbidding visits in the future. I, myself, learned from the station manager that the railroad transported masses of sick people to the camp every day. As to the nature of the diseases over which he has more particularly exercised his influence, it is impossible for me to say. It is mainly the sick that have approached him, and these are, consequently, the ones that account for his satisfied clients; but many other sufferers could present themselves to him successfully.
This is how in Chartères, a village very close to the one I live in, I saw and saw again a man of about fifty years of age who, since 1856, vomited everything that he ate. By the time he went to see the Zouave, he was very ill, and was vomiting at least three times a day. When Mr. Jacob saw him, he said: “You are healed!” And during the session invited him to eat and drink. The poor peasant, overcoming his apprehension, drank and ate and did not feel bad. For more than three weeks he has not experienced the slightest discomfort. The cure was instantaneous. Needless to say that Mr. Jacob did not give him any medication and did not prescribe any treatment. It was only his fluidic action, like an electric shock, that had been sufficient to restore the organs to their normal state.”
Observation: This man is one of those of crude nature, who hardly gets excited. If, then, a single word had sufficed to overexcite his imagination, to the point of instantly curing his chronic gastritis, it would be necessary to agree that the phenomenon would be even more surprising than the cure, and would indeed deserve some attention.
“The daughter of the owner of the Hôtel de la Meuse, in Mourmelon, had a sickness in her breast, and was weak to the point of not being able to leave her bed. The Zouave invited her to get up, which she was able to do immediately; to the amazement of the many spectators, she went downstairs unaided, and went for a walk in the garden with her new doctor. Since that day, this young girl has been doing well. I'm not a doctor, but I don't think that's a nervous disease.
Mr. B ..., manager of a boarding school, who jumps at the idea of the intervention of Spirits in our affairs, told me that a lady, a long time sick of the stomach, had been cured by the Zouave, and had since then noticeably gained about twenty pounds”.
Observation: Would this gentleman, to whom the idea of the intervention of the Spirits exasperates, therefore be very sorry if, when he died, his own Spirit could come to assist the persons that are dear to him, to heal them, and to prove to them that he is not lost to them?
“As for the sick themselves, the results obtained on them are more astounding, because the eye immediately appreciates the result. In Tréloup, a village 7 or 8 kilometers from here, a seventy-year-old man was crippled and could do nothing. Getting out of his chair was almost impossible. The healing was complete and instantaneous. Yesterday I heard about it again. I was told: Well! I saw Father Petit; he was harvesting!
A woman from Mourmelon had her leg crippled, immobilized; her knee was pulled back to his stomach. Now she is walking around and is doing well.
The day the Zouave was banned, a mason walked through Mourmelon in exasperation, and wanted, he said, “to knock out those who prevented the medium from working.” This mason had both wrists drawn towards the inside of his arms. His wrists move like ours today, and he earns two francs more a day.
How many people were carried in and were able to leave alone, having immediately regained the use of their limbs! A five-year-old, brought from Reims, who had never walked, walked straight away.
The following fact was, so to speak, the starting point of the faculty of the medium, or at least of the public exercise of this faculty that became notorious:
Arriving at La Ferté-sous-Jouarre and heading towards the camp, the regiment of Zouaves was gathered in the public square. Before breaking ranks, the band performed a piece. Among the spectators was a little girl in a small stroller pushed by her parents. The Zouave’s attention was drawn to this girl by one of his comrades. When the music finished, he walked towards her, and addressing the parents he said: "So this child is sick?" he asked them.
She cannot walk, he was told; for the past two years she has had her leg clamped in an orthopedic device. So, take this device off, she doesn't need it. This was done, not without some hesitation, and the little girl walked on. So, they went to the cafe, and the father, as if overjoyed, wanted the lemonade man to set up his shop, so that the Zouaves could drink it.
I am now going to tell you how the medium proceeded, that is to say, I will tell you about a session, which I did not attend, but which I was told in detail by different patients.
The Zouave brings in his patients. The size of the room regulates their number. That is why, as it is claimed, he had to move from the Hotel de l'Europe, where he could only admit eighteen people at a time, to the Hotel de la Meuse, where he could admit twenty-five or thirty. They enter. Those who live in more distant regions are usually invited to go first. Some people want to talk: “Silence!”, he says; those who speak, will be kicked out!” After ten to fifteen minutes of silence and general immobility, he addresses a few patients, rarely questions them, but tells them what they are feeling. Then, walking along the large table around which the sick are seated, he speaks to all, but without order; he touches them, but without gestures reminiscent of those of magnetizers; then he sends them away, saying to some: “You are healed, go away;” To others: "You will heal without doing anything; you have only weakness;" To a few, but rarely: "I can do nothing for you.” If they want to thank him, he answers very militarily that he does not need to be thanked and sends them away. Sometimes he says: “Your thanks must be addressed to the Providence.”
On the 7th of August, an order from the marshal interrupted the course of the sessions. As soon as it was banned, and given the enormous influx of patients to Mourmelon, unprecedented means had to be employed regarding the medium. Since he had committed no fault and always observed discipline very precisely, he could not be imprisoned. A personal guard was attached to him, with orders to follow him everywhere and prevent anyone from approaching him. They have, I was told, tolerated all these healings while the word Spiritism was not pronounced, and I do not believe that it was Mr. Jacob that pronounced it. It would be from that moment that they used rigor against him.
So, where does the dread caused by the mere name of Spiritism come from, even when it only does good, consoles the afflicted and relieves suffering humanity? For my part, I believe that some people are afraid that it will do too much good.
In the first days of September, M. Jacob was kind enough to come and spend two days with me, in fulfillment of a possible promise he had made to me at the Châlons camp. The pleasure I had in receiving him was increased tenfold by the services he was able to render to a good number of unfortunate people. Since his departure, I have kept myself informed almost daily of the condition of the patients he treated, and I give you the results of my observations below. To be accurate as in a statistical statement, and with respect to further information, if necessary, I enter them here by name. (there follows a list of 30 and a few names, with designation of age, disease, and outcome.)
Mr. Jacob is sincerely religious. "What I do," he said to me, "does not surprise me. I would do much more amazing things that I wouldn't be more surprised, because I know that God can do whatever He wants. One thing only surprises me, and that is to have had the immense favor of being the instrument that He chose. Today we are surprised with what I do, but who knows if in a month, in a year, there will not be ten, twenty, fifty mediums like me and stronger than me? Mr. Kardec, who seeks and must seek to study facts like those happening here, should have come; today or tomorrow, I can lose my faculty, and it would be a lost study for him; he must make a point of being the historian of such facts.”
Observation:
We would have been happy, no doubt, to be a personal witness of the facts reported above, and we would probably have gone to Camp Châlons if we had had the possibility and if we had been informed in advance. We only learned about it indirectly from the newspapers, while we were traveling, and we admit that we do not have absolute confidence in their stories. We would have a lot to do if we had to go and check for ourselves all that they report of Spiritism, or even all that is brought to our attention in our correspondence. We could only go there with the certainty of not being disappointed, and when M. Boivinet's report reached us, the camp was interdicted. Besides, the observation of these facts would not have taught us anything new, for we believe we understand them; it would therefore have been simply a question of ascertaining the reality of it; but the testimony of a man like M. Boivinet, to whom we had sent a letter for M. Jacob, with a request to inform us of what he would have seen, was completely sufficient for us. We therefore only missed the pleasure of having personally seen M. Jacob at work, which could, we hope, take place elsewhere than at Camp Châlons.
We have therefore only spoken of Mr. Jacob's healings because they are genuine; had they appeared suspicious to us, or tainted with charlatanism and a ridiculous boastfulness that would have made them more harmful than useful to the cause of Spiritism, we would have abstained, despite what could have been said, and as we have done in many other circumstances, not willing to turn ourselves into the editor responsible for some eccentricity, and not supporting the ambitious and interested views which are sometimes hidden under the appearances of devotion. That is why we are cautious in our assessments of people and things, and why our Spiritist Review does not turn into a censer for the benefit of anybody.
But here we deal with something serious, fruitful in results, and fundamental from the double point of view of the fact, and of the fulfillment of one of the forecasts of the Spirits. For a long time, indeed, they announced that the healing mediumship would develop in exceptional proportions, so as to draw the general attention, and we congratulate Mr. Jacob for being one of the first to provide the example; but here, as in all kinds of manifestations, the person, for us, disappears before the main question.
Considering that the gift of healing is not the result of work, study, or acquired talent, the one who possesses it cannot take credit for it. We praise a great artist, a scientist, because they owe what they are to their own efforts; but the best endowed medium is only a passive instrument, that the Spirits use today, and which they can leave tomorrow. What would Mr. Jacob be if he lost his faculty, something that he wisely foresees? What he was before: the musician of the Zouaves; while, whatever happens, the scientist will always have science and the artist, the talent. We are happy to see Mr. Jacob sharing these ideas, therefore it is not to him that these reflections are addressed. He will also be of our opinion, we do not doubt it, when we say that what is a real merit in a medium, what one can and should rightly praise, is the use they make of their faculty; it is the zeal, the devotion, the selflessness with which they place it at the service of those to whom it can be useful; it is again modesty, simplicity, abnegation, benevolence which breathe in their words and that all their actions justify, because these qualities belong to the medium in their own right. Therefore, it is not the medium that must be raised on a pedestal, since tomorrow they can descend from it: it is the good man who knows how to make himself useful without ostentation and without benefit for his vanity.
The development of healing mediumship will inevitably have consequences of a high importance, which will be the subject of a special and in-depth examination in a future article.
[1] See whirling Muslim monks of Istanbul at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gG8YAUqVIs&ab_channel=pavdb092 (T.N.)