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Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1866 > December > Varieties
Varieties
Ms. Dumesnil, attractive young girlSeveral newspapers have talked about of a young girl endowed with the singular faculty of attracting furniture, and other objects placed within a certain distance from her, and of lifting, by the simple contact, a chair on which a person is seated. The Petit Journal of November 4th contained the following article on this subject:
“Dinan's white magpie is no more surprising, as a phenomenon, than the magnetic young woman indicated in the following correspondence.
“Sir,
I come to point out to you a fact that could be of great interest to your readers; if you wanted to take the burden of checking it, you would find ample material for many articles.
A young girl, Ms. Dumesnil, aged thirteen, possesses a fluid of extraordinary attractive force, that brings all wooden objects around her to her; thus, the chairs, the tables and all that is made of wood instantaneously come towards her; this faculty was revealed in this young girl about three weeks ago; until now this extraordinary phenomenon, and that we have not yet been able to explain, has only manifested itself to people around this young girl, the neighbors, etc., who have noticed the fact for some days; the surprising faculty of this young girl has spread and I was told that she is in the process of dealing with an entrepreneur that intends to show this phenomenon publicly.
As of yesterday, she contacted a great personage to whom she had been pointed out; publicity will soon take over this event, and I hasten to warn you so that you have the upper hand. This young girl works as a burnisher and lives with her parents, that are poor people.
In hopes that you will explain this inexplicable mystery to us, please receive my sincere greetings.
Brunet, employee, Christofle House, Rue de Bondy 56.”
“I do not know any more than you do, my dear correspondent, in matters of magnetic science, and I regard as a simple curiosity your charmer of oak, beech and mahogany, that I advise not to burn this winter in the fireplace ... only charcoal ... ".
This is certainly a strange phenomenon, well worthy of attention, and that must have a cause. If demonstrated that it is not the result of any trick, that is easy to verify, and if the known laws are powerless to explain it, it is obvious that it reveals the existence of a new force; the discovery of a new principle can lead to fruitful results. What is, at least as surprising as this phenomenon, is to see men of intelligence having only contemptuous indifference and bad taste mockery for such facts. However, there was no question of Spirits or Spiritism.
What belief can be expected from people that have none, who seek none and desire none? What serious study can we hope for? Isn't it a waste of time to try to convince them, to unnecessarily use the forces that one could better use with people of good will, who are not lacking? We have always said it: With biased people, who don't want to see or hear, the best thing to do is to leave them alone and prove to them that we have no need for them. If anything is to succeed over their disbelief, the Spirits will know how to find it, and employ it when the time is right.
Coming back to the young girl, her parents, who are in a precarious position, seeing the sensation she produced and the interest of notable people that she attracted, they said to themselves that there was in it, undoubtedly, a source of fortune for them. We should not blame them, because, ignoring even the name of Spiritism and mediums, they could not understand the consequences of an exploitation of such a kind. Their daughter was a phenomenon for them; they, therefore, resolved to release it on the boulevards, among the other phenomena. They did better; it was taken to the Grand-Hôtel, a more suitable place for the productive aristocracy. But, unfortunately, the golden dreams vanished soon!
The phenomena only occurred at rare intervals and in such an irregular manner that it was necessary to abandon the splendid production almost immediately and return to the studio. So, put on display such a capricious ability, that is lacking just when the spectators, who have paid for their seats, are gathered, and wait to be given for their money! As a matter of fact, it is better, for speculation, to have a child with two heads, because at least he is always there. What to do if they don't have strings to replace the invisible actors? The most honorable act is to retire. It appears, however, from a letter published in a newspaper, that the young girl has not entirely lost her power, but that it is subject to such intermittences that it becomes difficult to seize the favorable moment.
One of our friends, an enlightened Spiritist and a profound observer, was able to witness the phenomenon, and was poorly satisfied with the result. “I believe,” he told us, “in the sincerity of these people, but for unbelievers, the effect is not occurring, at this moment, in conditions that defy all suspicion. Knowing that the thing is possible, I do not deny; I attest my impressions. Since I caught the so-called physical effects mediums in the act of fraud, I realized the maneuvers by which one can simulate certain effects, and abuse people who do not know the conditions of the real effects, so that I only assert with good knowledge of cause, not trusting eyes. In the interest of Spiritism itself, my first care is to examine whether fraud is possible, helped by skills, or whether the effect may be due to a vulgar material cause. Besides, he added, one defends oneself here from being a Spiritist, to act by the Spirits and even to believe in them."
It should be noted that since the misadventure of the Davenport brothers, all exhibitors of extraordinary phenomena reject any participation of the Spirits in their affairs, and they are doing well; Spiritism can only gain by not being involved in these displays. It is one more service rendered by these gentlemen, because it is not by such means that Spiritism will recruit proselytes.
Another observation is that whenever it is a question of some spontaneous manifestation, or of some phenomenon attributed to an occult cause, they generally hire, as experts, people, sometimes scientists, that do not know the basics of what they must observe, and that come with a preconceived idea of denial. Who is in control of deciding whether there is intervention of the Spirits, or a spiritual cause?
Precisely people who deny spirituality, who don't believe in Spirits and don't want them to exist. Their answer is known a priori. They avoid taking the advice of anyone who is simply suspected of believing in Spiritism, because, first, that would be to accredit the thing, and second, that they would fear a solution contrary to the one they want. They do not think that an enlightened Spiritist alone is able to judge the circumstances in which Spiritist phenomena can occur, as a chemist alone is able to know the composition of a body, and that, in this respect, the Spiritists are more skeptic than a lot of people; that far from accrediting an apocryphal phenomenon, out of complacency, they have every interest in signaling it as such, and in unmasking the fraud.
However, a teaching emerges from this: the very irregularity of the events is a proof of sincerity; if they were the result of some artificial means, they would come at the right time. This is the reflection made by a journalist that was invited to go to the Grand-Hotel; there were a few other notable guests that day, and, despite the two hours of waiting, the young girl did not produce the slightest effect. “The poor girl,” said the journalist, “was sorry, and her face betrayed concern. Rest assured, he said, not only does this failure not discourage me, but it leads me to believe your sincere story. If there was any quackery or something in your case, you wouldn't have missed your point. I will come back tomorrow.
He returned, in fact, five times in a row without further results; the sixth time she had left the hotel. "From which I conclude," adds the journalist, "that poor Ms. Dumesnil, after having built beautiful castles at the expense of her electromagnetic virtues, had to resume her place in the polishing workshops of Mr. Ruolz.”
The facts having been established, it is certain that there was a special organic disposition in her, that lent itself to this kind of phenomenon; but, all subterfuge aside, it is certain that if her faculty had depended on her organism alone, she would have had it always at her disposal, as it happens to the electric fish. Since her will, her most ardent desire, were powerless to produce the phenomenon, there was, therefore, in this event, a cause which was foreign to her. What is this cause? Obviously, the one that governs all the mediumistic effects: the assistance of the Spirits, without whom the best endowed mediums obtain nothing. Ms. Dumesnil is an example that they are not at the orders of anyone. Ephemeral as her faculty may have been, she has done more for the conviction of certain people than if she had performed on days and times set at her command, before the public, like in conjuring tricks.
Nothing, it is true, ostensibly attests to the intervention of the Spirits in this circumstance, for there are no intelligent effects, if it is not the helplessness of this young girl to act at will. The faculty, as in all mediumistic effects, is inherent to her; the exercise of the faculty can depend on a foreign will. But, even admitting that the Spirits have nothing to do with that, it is, nonetheless, a phenomenon intended to draw attention to the fluidic forces that govern our organism, and that so many people persist in denying.
If this force were purely electric here, it would however denote an important modification in electricity since it acts on wood, to the exclusion of metals. That alone would be well worth studying.
“Dinan's white magpie is no more surprising, as a phenomenon, than the magnetic young woman indicated in the following correspondence.
“Sir,
I come to point out to you a fact that could be of great interest to your readers; if you wanted to take the burden of checking it, you would find ample material for many articles.
A young girl, Ms. Dumesnil, aged thirteen, possesses a fluid of extraordinary attractive force, that brings all wooden objects around her to her; thus, the chairs, the tables and all that is made of wood instantaneously come towards her; this faculty was revealed in this young girl about three weeks ago; until now this extraordinary phenomenon, and that we have not yet been able to explain, has only manifested itself to people around this young girl, the neighbors, etc., who have noticed the fact for some days; the surprising faculty of this young girl has spread and I was told that she is in the process of dealing with an entrepreneur that intends to show this phenomenon publicly.
As of yesterday, she contacted a great personage to whom she had been pointed out; publicity will soon take over this event, and I hasten to warn you so that you have the upper hand. This young girl works as a burnisher and lives with her parents, that are poor people.
In hopes that you will explain this inexplicable mystery to us, please receive my sincere greetings.
Brunet, employee, Christofle House, Rue de Bondy 56.”
“I do not know any more than you do, my dear correspondent, in matters of magnetic science, and I regard as a simple curiosity your charmer of oak, beech and mahogany, that I advise not to burn this winter in the fireplace ... only charcoal ... ".
This is certainly a strange phenomenon, well worthy of attention, and that must have a cause. If demonstrated that it is not the result of any trick, that is easy to verify, and if the known laws are powerless to explain it, it is obvious that it reveals the existence of a new force; the discovery of a new principle can lead to fruitful results. What is, at least as surprising as this phenomenon, is to see men of intelligence having only contemptuous indifference and bad taste mockery for such facts. However, there was no question of Spirits or Spiritism.
What belief can be expected from people that have none, who seek none and desire none? What serious study can we hope for? Isn't it a waste of time to try to convince them, to unnecessarily use the forces that one could better use with people of good will, who are not lacking? We have always said it: With biased people, who don't want to see or hear, the best thing to do is to leave them alone and prove to them that we have no need for them. If anything is to succeed over their disbelief, the Spirits will know how to find it, and employ it when the time is right.
Coming back to the young girl, her parents, who are in a precarious position, seeing the sensation she produced and the interest of notable people that she attracted, they said to themselves that there was in it, undoubtedly, a source of fortune for them. We should not blame them, because, ignoring even the name of Spiritism and mediums, they could not understand the consequences of an exploitation of such a kind. Their daughter was a phenomenon for them; they, therefore, resolved to release it on the boulevards, among the other phenomena. They did better; it was taken to the Grand-Hôtel, a more suitable place for the productive aristocracy. But, unfortunately, the golden dreams vanished soon!
The phenomena only occurred at rare intervals and in such an irregular manner that it was necessary to abandon the splendid production almost immediately and return to the studio. So, put on display such a capricious ability, that is lacking just when the spectators, who have paid for their seats, are gathered, and wait to be given for their money! As a matter of fact, it is better, for speculation, to have a child with two heads, because at least he is always there. What to do if they don't have strings to replace the invisible actors? The most honorable act is to retire. It appears, however, from a letter published in a newspaper, that the young girl has not entirely lost her power, but that it is subject to such intermittences that it becomes difficult to seize the favorable moment.
One of our friends, an enlightened Spiritist and a profound observer, was able to witness the phenomenon, and was poorly satisfied with the result. “I believe,” he told us, “in the sincerity of these people, but for unbelievers, the effect is not occurring, at this moment, in conditions that defy all suspicion. Knowing that the thing is possible, I do not deny; I attest my impressions. Since I caught the so-called physical effects mediums in the act of fraud, I realized the maneuvers by which one can simulate certain effects, and abuse people who do not know the conditions of the real effects, so that I only assert with good knowledge of cause, not trusting eyes. In the interest of Spiritism itself, my first care is to examine whether fraud is possible, helped by skills, or whether the effect may be due to a vulgar material cause. Besides, he added, one defends oneself here from being a Spiritist, to act by the Spirits and even to believe in them."
It should be noted that since the misadventure of the Davenport brothers, all exhibitors of extraordinary phenomena reject any participation of the Spirits in their affairs, and they are doing well; Spiritism can only gain by not being involved in these displays. It is one more service rendered by these gentlemen, because it is not by such means that Spiritism will recruit proselytes.
Another observation is that whenever it is a question of some spontaneous manifestation, or of some phenomenon attributed to an occult cause, they generally hire, as experts, people, sometimes scientists, that do not know the basics of what they must observe, and that come with a preconceived idea of denial. Who is in control of deciding whether there is intervention of the Spirits, or a spiritual cause?
Precisely people who deny spirituality, who don't believe in Spirits and don't want them to exist. Their answer is known a priori. They avoid taking the advice of anyone who is simply suspected of believing in Spiritism, because, first, that would be to accredit the thing, and second, that they would fear a solution contrary to the one they want. They do not think that an enlightened Spiritist alone is able to judge the circumstances in which Spiritist phenomena can occur, as a chemist alone is able to know the composition of a body, and that, in this respect, the Spiritists are more skeptic than a lot of people; that far from accrediting an apocryphal phenomenon, out of complacency, they have every interest in signaling it as such, and in unmasking the fraud.
However, a teaching emerges from this: the very irregularity of the events is a proof of sincerity; if they were the result of some artificial means, they would come at the right time. This is the reflection made by a journalist that was invited to go to the Grand-Hotel; there were a few other notable guests that day, and, despite the two hours of waiting, the young girl did not produce the slightest effect. “The poor girl,” said the journalist, “was sorry, and her face betrayed concern. Rest assured, he said, not only does this failure not discourage me, but it leads me to believe your sincere story. If there was any quackery or something in your case, you wouldn't have missed your point. I will come back tomorrow.
He returned, in fact, five times in a row without further results; the sixth time she had left the hotel. "From which I conclude," adds the journalist, "that poor Ms. Dumesnil, after having built beautiful castles at the expense of her electromagnetic virtues, had to resume her place in the polishing workshops of Mr. Ruolz.”
The facts having been established, it is certain that there was a special organic disposition in her, that lent itself to this kind of phenomenon; but, all subterfuge aside, it is certain that if her faculty had depended on her organism alone, she would have had it always at her disposal, as it happens to the electric fish. Since her will, her most ardent desire, were powerless to produce the phenomenon, there was, therefore, in this event, a cause which was foreign to her. What is this cause? Obviously, the one that governs all the mediumistic effects: the assistance of the Spirits, without whom the best endowed mediums obtain nothing. Ms. Dumesnil is an example that they are not at the orders of anyone. Ephemeral as her faculty may have been, she has done more for the conviction of certain people than if she had performed on days and times set at her command, before the public, like in conjuring tricks.
Nothing, it is true, ostensibly attests to the intervention of the Spirits in this circumstance, for there are no intelligent effects, if it is not the helplessness of this young girl to act at will. The faculty, as in all mediumistic effects, is inherent to her; the exercise of the faculty can depend on a foreign will. But, even admitting that the Spirits have nothing to do with that, it is, nonetheless, a phenomenon intended to draw attention to the fluidic forces that govern our organism, and that so many people persist in denying.
If this force were purely electric here, it would however denote an important modification in electricity since it acts on wood, to the exclusion of metals. That alone would be well worth studying.
What Does the Press Say About Spiritism?
Whatever one says and whatever one does, the Spiritist ideas are in the air; they come to light in a thousand ways, in the form of novels or in philosophical thoughts, and the press welcomes them, provided the word Spiritism is not pronounced. We couldn’t quote all the thoughts that the press registers every day, thus doing Spiritism without knowing it.
What does it matter the name if the thing is here! One day, these gentlemen will be quite astonished to have done Spiritism, as Mr. Jourdain was to have spoken in prose. Many people rub shoulders with Spiritism without suspecting it; they are on the edge, while they think they are far from it. With the exception of the pure materialists, that are certainly minority, it can be said that the ideas of the Spiritist philosophy run around the world; what many still reject are the mediumistic manifestations, some by system, others for having observed badly, they have experienced disappointments; but since the manifestations are facts, sooner or later they will have to be accepted. They refuse to be Spiritists, only by the false idea that they attach to this word. That those who do not arrive by the wide door may arrive there by a back door, the result is the same; today the impetus has been given, and the movement cannot be stopped.
On the other hand, as announced, a multitude of phenomena occur that seem to deviate from the known laws, and confuse science in which they uselessly seek an explanation; to ignore them when they have a certain notoriety would be difficult; now, these phenomena, that present themselves under the most varied aspects, by the force of multiplying, end up arousing the attention, and little by little, familiarize them with the idea of a spiritual power apart from the material forces. It is always a means of arriving at the goal; the Spirits strike from all sides and in a thousand different ways, so that the blows always strike ones or the others.
Among the Spiritist ideas that we find in various journals, we will cite the following:
In the speech delivered by Mr. d'Eichthal, one of the editors of Le Temps, on November 11th, at the tomb of Mr. Charles Duveyrier, the speaker expressed himself as follows:
“Duveyrier died in a profound calm, full of confidence in God and faith in the eternity of life, proud of his long years devoted to the elaboration and development of a belief that must redeem all men from misery, disorder and ignorance, certain of having paid his debt, of having returned to the generation that followed him more than he had received from the one that had preceded him; he stopped like a valiant worker, his task completed, leaving it to others to continue it. If his mortal remains did not pass through the sacred temples to reach the field of resting, it is not out of an unjust disdain for the immortal beliefs, but it is because none of the formulas that would have been pronounced on his remains would have conveyed the idea he had of the future life. Duveyrier did not desire, did not believe he was going to heaven, to enjoy endless personal bliss, while the majority of men would remain condemned to hopeless sufferings; full of God and alive in God, but linked to humanity, it is in the midst of humanity that he hoped to live again, in order to contribute eternally to this work of progress that is constantly bringing it closer to the divine ideal.“ - (Le Temps, Nov. 14, 1866.)
Mr. Duveyrier had belonged to the Saint-Simonian sect; it is the belief of which we spoke above, and to the development of which he had devoted several years of his life; but his ideas about the future of the soul closely resembled, as we see, those taught by the Spiritist doctrine. However, we should not infer from these words: "It is in the midst of humanity that he hoped to live again," that he believed in reincarnation; he had no firm idea about this point; by this, he meant that the soul, instead of losing itself in the infinite, or of absorbing itself in a useless beatitude, remained in the sphere of humanity, to whose progress it contributed by its influence.
But this idea is also precisely what Spiritism teaches; it is that of the invisible world that surrounds us; souls live among us, as we live among them. Mr. Duveyrier was, therefore, unlike most of his colleagues in the press, not only deeply spiritualist, but three-quarters Spiritist; what did he need to be completely? Probably to have known what Spiritism was, because he possessed the fundamental bases: the belief in God, in the individuality of the soul, its survival and its immortality; in his presence among men after death, and on his action on them. What else does Spiritism say? That these same souls reveal their presence by direct action, and that we are constantly in communion with them; it comes to prove, by facts, what for Mr. Duveyrier and many others, was only in the state of theory and hypothesis
It is understandable that those who believe only in tangible matter, reject everything, but it is more surprising to see spiritualists rejecting the proof of what constitutes the basis of their belief. The one that thus retraced the thoughts of Mr. Duveyrier, on the future of the soul, Mr. d'Eichthal, his friend and his comrade in Saint-Simonism, who probably shared his opinions to a certain extent, he is, nonetheless, a declared opponent of Spiritism; he hardly suspected that what he was saying, in praising Mr. Duveyrier, was quite simply a declaration of Spiritist faith.
The following words, from Mr. Louis Jourdan, of the Siècle, to his son, were reproduced by the Petit Journal, on September 3rd, 1866.
“I feel you alive, of a life superior to mine, my Prosper, and when my last hour strikes, I will console myself for leaving those we have loved together, thinking that I will find you and join you. I know that this consolation will not come to me without effort; I know that it will have to be conquered by working courageously for my own improvement, as for that of others; I will, at least, do everything in my power to deserve the reward I aspire: to find you. Your memory is the lighthouse that guides us, and the fulcrum that supports us through the darkness that surrounds us. We see a luminous point towards which we are walking resolutely; this point is where you live, my son, with all those that I have loved below here, and who left before me for their new life.”
What could be more deeply Spiritist than these sweet and touching words! Mr. Louis Jourdan is even closer to Spiritism than Mr. Duveyrier, because, for a long time, he has believed in the plurality of terrestrial existences, as we could see from the quotation we made in the Spiritist Review of December 1862, page 374.[1] He accepts the Spiritist philosophy, but not the fact of manifestations, that he does not absolutely reject, but on which he is not sufficiently enlightened. It is, however, a rather serious phenomenon, regarding its consequences, since it is the only that can explain so many misunderstood things that happen before our eyes, to deserve to be studied in depth by an observer such as him; for, if the relations between the visible world and the invisible world exist, it is a whole revolution in the ideas, in beliefs, in philosophy; it is light cast onto a multitude of obscure questions; it is the annihilation of materialism; it is, finally, the sanction of his dearest hopes with regard to his son. What elements would the men, that make themselves the champions of progressive and emancipatory ideas, draw from the doctrine, if they knew all that it contains for the future! There will emerge, no doubt, those who will understand the power of this lever and will know how to put it to good use.
The “Événement” of November 4th reported the following anecdote, about the famous composer Glück.
“During the first performance of Iphigénie, on April 19th, 1774, attended by Louis XVI and Queen Marie-Antoinette, she wanted to crown her former music teacher herself. After the performance, Glück, summoned to the king's box, was so moved that he could not utter a word and barely had the strength to thank the Queen with his eyes. On seeing Marie-Antoinette, who was wearing a ruby necklace that evening, Glück straightened up: Great God! he cried, save the Queen! save the Queen! some blood! some blood! - Where? cried people from all sides. - Some blood! some blood! in the neck! cried the musician. Marie-Antoinette was trembling. Quickly a doctor, she said, my poor Glück is going mad. - The musician had fallen into an armchair. Some blood! some blood! he whispered… Save the Archduchess Marie… save the Queen! "The unfortunate maestro takes your necklace for blood," said the King to Marie-Antoinette; he has a fever. - The queen put her hand to her neck; she tore off the necklace, and seized with terror, she threw it away from her. Glück was carried away unconscious.”
The author of the article finishes like this:
“Here, dear reader, is the story that the German musician told me at the Opera, and that I reread the next day in a biography of the immortal author of Alceste. Is it true? Is this fantasy? I do not know. But would it not be possible that men of genius, whose minds, soaring above humanity, had at certain times of inspiration, that mysterious faculty that is called second sight? (Albert Wolff.)”
Mr. Albert Wolff has thrown more than one arrow at Spiritism and the Spiritists, and here he is, of his own accord, admitting the possibility of a second sight, and, what is more, of foresight by second sight. He probably does not suspect the consequences of recognizing such a faculty. Another one that rubs shoulders with Spiritism without realizing it, without perhaps daring to admit it to himself, and who nevertheless throws stones at it. If he were told that he is a Spiritist, he would jump out of indignation and exclaim: Me! believe in the Davenport brothers! because for most of these gentlemen, Spiritism is entirely in the trick of the ropes.
We remember that one of them, to whom a correspondent reproached for speaking about Spiritism, without knowing it, replied in his journal: “You are wrong; I studied Spiritism at the school of the Davenport brothers, and the proof is that it cost me 15 francs.” We believe to have quoted the fact somewhere in the Review. What more can we ask of them? They don't know any more.
Le Siècle of August 27th, 1866 quoted the following words by Mrs. George Sand, about the death of Mr. Ferdinand Pajot:
“The death of Mr. Ferdinand Pajot is a most painful and regrettable fact. This young man, gifted with remarkable beauty and belonging to an excellent family, was also a man of generous heart and ideas. We have been able to appreciate him each time we have invoked his charity for the poor around us. He gave generously, perhaps more than his resources allowed him to do, and he gave spontaneously, with confidence, with joy. He was sincere, independent, good as an angel. Married for a short time to a charming young woman, he will be missed as he deserves. I want to give him, after this cruel death, a tender and maternal blessing: illusion if you will, but I believe that we enter better into the life that follows this one, when we arrive there escorted by esteem and the affection of those we have just left."
Madame Sand is even more explicit in her book “Mademoiselle de la Quintinie.” We read, on page 318: "Monsieur l'Abbé, when you want us to take a step towards your church, start by showing us an assembled council decreeing the hell of eternal punishments, with lies and blasphemy, and you will have the right to cry out to us: “Come to us, all of you who want to know God. "
Page 320: “To ask God to extinguish our senses, to harden our hearts, to make the most sacred bonds to us hateful, is to ask him to deny and destroy his work, to retrace his steps by making us hateful, to come back ourselves, making us retrograde towards lower existences, below the animal, below the plant, perhaps below the mineral.”
Page 323: "However, whatever may be your fate among us, one day you will see clearly beyond the grave, and, as I no more believe in endless punishments, and in trials without fruit, I announce to you that we meet somewhere where we will get along better, and where we will love each other instead of fighting; but, no more than you, I do not believe in the impunity of evil and the efficacy of error. So, I believe that you will atone, for the hardening of your heart, by great heartbreaks in some other existence.”
Alongside these eminently Spiritist thoughts, that only lack the name that is persistently refused, we sometimes still find others, a little less serious, that recall the good time of the somewhat witty mockery, under which they thought to be able to suffocate Spiritism. It can be judged by the following samples, that are like the lost rockets from the fireworks display.
Mr. Ponson de Terrail, in his Dernier mot de Rocambole, serialized in the Figaro, expresses himself as follows:
“However, the English would overcome the Americans when it comes to superstitions. The turning tables, before bringing happiness to a hundred thousand imbeciles, spent several seasons in London and received the most courteous hospitality there. Little by little the gravedigger's tale had circled around Hampstead, a town famous for its donkeys and donkey farmers, and the bigwigs of the place had not hesitated for a single moment to decide that the cottage was haunted by Spirits at night.”
M. Ponson du Terrail, who so generously grants a patent of imbecility to a hundred thousand individuals, naturally thinks he has more wit than them, but he does not believe he has a Spirit in him, otherwise it is probable that he would not send them to the land of donkeys.
But what connection, he will no doubt say, can there be between turning tables and the sublime thoughts you cited earlier? There is, we will answer, the same relation that exists between your body when it waltzes and your mind that makes it waltz; between the frog dancing in the Galvani dish, and the transatlantic telegraph; between the falling apple and the law of gravity that governs the world. If Galvani and Newton had not meditated on these phenomena, so simple and so vulgar, we would not have today all that industry, the arts and the sciences have drawn from them. If a hundred thousand imbeciles had not sought the cause that turns the tables, we would still be ignorant today of the existence and the nature of the invisible world that surrounds us; we would not know where we came from before we are born, and where we are going when we die. Among those hundred thousand fools, many might still believe in horned demons, eternal flames, magic, wizards, and spells. The revolving tables are, to sublime thoughts on the future of the soul, what the germ is to the tree that has sprung from it: they are the rudiments of the science of man.
We read in the Écho d'Oran, of April 24th, 1866:
“Something has just happened in El-Afroun that has painfully affected our population. One of the oldest inhabitants of our village, Mr. Pagès, has just died. You know that he was imbued with the ideas - I was going to say follies - of Mr. Allan Kardec, and that he professed Spiritism. Apart from this extravagance, he was a perfect honest man, esteemed by all who knew him. Also, we were very astonished to learn that the priest refused to bury him, under the pretext that Spiritism is contrary to Christianity. Isn't there in the Gospel: "Return good for evil," and if this poor Mr. Pagès is guilty of having believed in Spiritism, wasn’t that one more reason to pray for him! "
M. Pagès, whom we had known, by correspondence, for a long time, wrote this to us:
“Spiritism has made a whole different man out of me; before knowing it, I was like many others; I believed in nothing, and yet I suffered at the thought that by dying, all is over for us. Sometimes, I was deeply discouraged, and I wondered what the point was of doing good. Spiritism made me feel like the effect of a curtain that rises, to show us a magnificent decoration. Today I see clearly; the future is no longer in doubt, and I am very happy about it; to tell you the happiness I experience is impossible for me; it seems to me that I am like a condemned man, to whom one comes to say that he will not die, and that he is going to leave his prison to go to a beautiful country to live in freedom. Isn't that, dear sir, the effect it should have? Courage came back to me with the certainty of living forever, because I understood that what we gain in good from it is not wasted; I understood the usefulness of doing good; I understood the fraternity and solidarity that unite all men. Under the influence of this thought, I strove to improve myself. Yes, I can tell you without vanity, I have corrected myself of many faults, although I still have many left. I now feel that I will die in peace, because I know that I will only change a bad outfit that bothers me, for a new one in which I will be more comfortable."
Here then is a man who, in the eyes of certain people, was reasonable, sensible when he believed in nothing, and who is accused of madness on the sole fact of having believed in the immortality of his soul through Spiritism; and it is these same people, that believe neither in the soul nor in prayer, that threw stones at him for his beliefs when alive, and that persecute him with their sarcasm until after his death, and that invoke the Gospel against the act of intolerance and the refusal of prayers that he was the object, he who believed in the Gospel and in prayer only through Spiritism!
[1] Kardec refers to the article Charles Fourier, Louis Jourdan and reincarnation, Spiritist Review, December 1862
What does it matter the name if the thing is here! One day, these gentlemen will be quite astonished to have done Spiritism, as Mr. Jourdain was to have spoken in prose. Many people rub shoulders with Spiritism without suspecting it; they are on the edge, while they think they are far from it. With the exception of the pure materialists, that are certainly minority, it can be said that the ideas of the Spiritist philosophy run around the world; what many still reject are the mediumistic manifestations, some by system, others for having observed badly, they have experienced disappointments; but since the manifestations are facts, sooner or later they will have to be accepted. They refuse to be Spiritists, only by the false idea that they attach to this word. That those who do not arrive by the wide door may arrive there by a back door, the result is the same; today the impetus has been given, and the movement cannot be stopped.
On the other hand, as announced, a multitude of phenomena occur that seem to deviate from the known laws, and confuse science in which they uselessly seek an explanation; to ignore them when they have a certain notoriety would be difficult; now, these phenomena, that present themselves under the most varied aspects, by the force of multiplying, end up arousing the attention, and little by little, familiarize them with the idea of a spiritual power apart from the material forces. It is always a means of arriving at the goal; the Spirits strike from all sides and in a thousand different ways, so that the blows always strike ones or the others.
Among the Spiritist ideas that we find in various journals, we will cite the following:
In the speech delivered by Mr. d'Eichthal, one of the editors of Le Temps, on November 11th, at the tomb of Mr. Charles Duveyrier, the speaker expressed himself as follows:
“Duveyrier died in a profound calm, full of confidence in God and faith in the eternity of life, proud of his long years devoted to the elaboration and development of a belief that must redeem all men from misery, disorder and ignorance, certain of having paid his debt, of having returned to the generation that followed him more than he had received from the one that had preceded him; he stopped like a valiant worker, his task completed, leaving it to others to continue it. If his mortal remains did not pass through the sacred temples to reach the field of resting, it is not out of an unjust disdain for the immortal beliefs, but it is because none of the formulas that would have been pronounced on his remains would have conveyed the idea he had of the future life. Duveyrier did not desire, did not believe he was going to heaven, to enjoy endless personal bliss, while the majority of men would remain condemned to hopeless sufferings; full of God and alive in God, but linked to humanity, it is in the midst of humanity that he hoped to live again, in order to contribute eternally to this work of progress that is constantly bringing it closer to the divine ideal.“ - (Le Temps, Nov. 14, 1866.)
Mr. Duveyrier had belonged to the Saint-Simonian sect; it is the belief of which we spoke above, and to the development of which he had devoted several years of his life; but his ideas about the future of the soul closely resembled, as we see, those taught by the Spiritist doctrine. However, we should not infer from these words: "It is in the midst of humanity that he hoped to live again," that he believed in reincarnation; he had no firm idea about this point; by this, he meant that the soul, instead of losing itself in the infinite, or of absorbing itself in a useless beatitude, remained in the sphere of humanity, to whose progress it contributed by its influence.
But this idea is also precisely what Spiritism teaches; it is that of the invisible world that surrounds us; souls live among us, as we live among them. Mr. Duveyrier was, therefore, unlike most of his colleagues in the press, not only deeply spiritualist, but three-quarters Spiritist; what did he need to be completely? Probably to have known what Spiritism was, because he possessed the fundamental bases: the belief in God, in the individuality of the soul, its survival and its immortality; in his presence among men after death, and on his action on them. What else does Spiritism say? That these same souls reveal their presence by direct action, and that we are constantly in communion with them; it comes to prove, by facts, what for Mr. Duveyrier and many others, was only in the state of theory and hypothesis
It is understandable that those who believe only in tangible matter, reject everything, but it is more surprising to see spiritualists rejecting the proof of what constitutes the basis of their belief. The one that thus retraced the thoughts of Mr. Duveyrier, on the future of the soul, Mr. d'Eichthal, his friend and his comrade in Saint-Simonism, who probably shared his opinions to a certain extent, he is, nonetheless, a declared opponent of Spiritism; he hardly suspected that what he was saying, in praising Mr. Duveyrier, was quite simply a declaration of Spiritist faith.
The following words, from Mr. Louis Jourdan, of the Siècle, to his son, were reproduced by the Petit Journal, on September 3rd, 1866.
“I feel you alive, of a life superior to mine, my Prosper, and when my last hour strikes, I will console myself for leaving those we have loved together, thinking that I will find you and join you. I know that this consolation will not come to me without effort; I know that it will have to be conquered by working courageously for my own improvement, as for that of others; I will, at least, do everything in my power to deserve the reward I aspire: to find you. Your memory is the lighthouse that guides us, and the fulcrum that supports us through the darkness that surrounds us. We see a luminous point towards which we are walking resolutely; this point is where you live, my son, with all those that I have loved below here, and who left before me for their new life.”
What could be more deeply Spiritist than these sweet and touching words! Mr. Louis Jourdan is even closer to Spiritism than Mr. Duveyrier, because, for a long time, he has believed in the plurality of terrestrial existences, as we could see from the quotation we made in the Spiritist Review of December 1862, page 374.[1] He accepts the Spiritist philosophy, but not the fact of manifestations, that he does not absolutely reject, but on which he is not sufficiently enlightened. It is, however, a rather serious phenomenon, regarding its consequences, since it is the only that can explain so many misunderstood things that happen before our eyes, to deserve to be studied in depth by an observer such as him; for, if the relations between the visible world and the invisible world exist, it is a whole revolution in the ideas, in beliefs, in philosophy; it is light cast onto a multitude of obscure questions; it is the annihilation of materialism; it is, finally, the sanction of his dearest hopes with regard to his son. What elements would the men, that make themselves the champions of progressive and emancipatory ideas, draw from the doctrine, if they knew all that it contains for the future! There will emerge, no doubt, those who will understand the power of this lever and will know how to put it to good use.
The “Événement” of November 4th reported the following anecdote, about the famous composer Glück.
“During the first performance of Iphigénie, on April 19th, 1774, attended by Louis XVI and Queen Marie-Antoinette, she wanted to crown her former music teacher herself. After the performance, Glück, summoned to the king's box, was so moved that he could not utter a word and barely had the strength to thank the Queen with his eyes. On seeing Marie-Antoinette, who was wearing a ruby necklace that evening, Glück straightened up: Great God! he cried, save the Queen! save the Queen! some blood! some blood! - Where? cried people from all sides. - Some blood! some blood! in the neck! cried the musician. Marie-Antoinette was trembling. Quickly a doctor, she said, my poor Glück is going mad. - The musician had fallen into an armchair. Some blood! some blood! he whispered… Save the Archduchess Marie… save the Queen! "The unfortunate maestro takes your necklace for blood," said the King to Marie-Antoinette; he has a fever. - The queen put her hand to her neck; she tore off the necklace, and seized with terror, she threw it away from her. Glück was carried away unconscious.”
The author of the article finishes like this:
“Here, dear reader, is the story that the German musician told me at the Opera, and that I reread the next day in a biography of the immortal author of Alceste. Is it true? Is this fantasy? I do not know. But would it not be possible that men of genius, whose minds, soaring above humanity, had at certain times of inspiration, that mysterious faculty that is called second sight? (Albert Wolff.)”
Mr. Albert Wolff has thrown more than one arrow at Spiritism and the Spiritists, and here he is, of his own accord, admitting the possibility of a second sight, and, what is more, of foresight by second sight. He probably does not suspect the consequences of recognizing such a faculty. Another one that rubs shoulders with Spiritism without realizing it, without perhaps daring to admit it to himself, and who nevertheless throws stones at it. If he were told that he is a Spiritist, he would jump out of indignation and exclaim: Me! believe in the Davenport brothers! because for most of these gentlemen, Spiritism is entirely in the trick of the ropes.
We remember that one of them, to whom a correspondent reproached for speaking about Spiritism, without knowing it, replied in his journal: “You are wrong; I studied Spiritism at the school of the Davenport brothers, and the proof is that it cost me 15 francs.” We believe to have quoted the fact somewhere in the Review. What more can we ask of them? They don't know any more.
Le Siècle of August 27th, 1866 quoted the following words by Mrs. George Sand, about the death of Mr. Ferdinand Pajot:
“The death of Mr. Ferdinand Pajot is a most painful and regrettable fact. This young man, gifted with remarkable beauty and belonging to an excellent family, was also a man of generous heart and ideas. We have been able to appreciate him each time we have invoked his charity for the poor around us. He gave generously, perhaps more than his resources allowed him to do, and he gave spontaneously, with confidence, with joy. He was sincere, independent, good as an angel. Married for a short time to a charming young woman, he will be missed as he deserves. I want to give him, after this cruel death, a tender and maternal blessing: illusion if you will, but I believe that we enter better into the life that follows this one, when we arrive there escorted by esteem and the affection of those we have just left."
Madame Sand is even more explicit in her book “Mademoiselle de la Quintinie.” We read, on page 318: "Monsieur l'Abbé, when you want us to take a step towards your church, start by showing us an assembled council decreeing the hell of eternal punishments, with lies and blasphemy, and you will have the right to cry out to us: “Come to us, all of you who want to know God. "
Page 320: “To ask God to extinguish our senses, to harden our hearts, to make the most sacred bonds to us hateful, is to ask him to deny and destroy his work, to retrace his steps by making us hateful, to come back ourselves, making us retrograde towards lower existences, below the animal, below the plant, perhaps below the mineral.”
Page 323: "However, whatever may be your fate among us, one day you will see clearly beyond the grave, and, as I no more believe in endless punishments, and in trials without fruit, I announce to you that we meet somewhere where we will get along better, and where we will love each other instead of fighting; but, no more than you, I do not believe in the impunity of evil and the efficacy of error. So, I believe that you will atone, for the hardening of your heart, by great heartbreaks in some other existence.”
Alongside these eminently Spiritist thoughts, that only lack the name that is persistently refused, we sometimes still find others, a little less serious, that recall the good time of the somewhat witty mockery, under which they thought to be able to suffocate Spiritism. It can be judged by the following samples, that are like the lost rockets from the fireworks display.
Mr. Ponson de Terrail, in his Dernier mot de Rocambole, serialized in the Figaro, expresses himself as follows:
“However, the English would overcome the Americans when it comes to superstitions. The turning tables, before bringing happiness to a hundred thousand imbeciles, spent several seasons in London and received the most courteous hospitality there. Little by little the gravedigger's tale had circled around Hampstead, a town famous for its donkeys and donkey farmers, and the bigwigs of the place had not hesitated for a single moment to decide that the cottage was haunted by Spirits at night.”
M. Ponson du Terrail, who so generously grants a patent of imbecility to a hundred thousand individuals, naturally thinks he has more wit than them, but he does not believe he has a Spirit in him, otherwise it is probable that he would not send them to the land of donkeys.
But what connection, he will no doubt say, can there be between turning tables and the sublime thoughts you cited earlier? There is, we will answer, the same relation that exists between your body when it waltzes and your mind that makes it waltz; between the frog dancing in the Galvani dish, and the transatlantic telegraph; between the falling apple and the law of gravity that governs the world. If Galvani and Newton had not meditated on these phenomena, so simple and so vulgar, we would not have today all that industry, the arts and the sciences have drawn from them. If a hundred thousand imbeciles had not sought the cause that turns the tables, we would still be ignorant today of the existence and the nature of the invisible world that surrounds us; we would not know where we came from before we are born, and where we are going when we die. Among those hundred thousand fools, many might still believe in horned demons, eternal flames, magic, wizards, and spells. The revolving tables are, to sublime thoughts on the future of the soul, what the germ is to the tree that has sprung from it: they are the rudiments of the science of man.
We read in the Écho d'Oran, of April 24th, 1866:
“Something has just happened in El-Afroun that has painfully affected our population. One of the oldest inhabitants of our village, Mr. Pagès, has just died. You know that he was imbued with the ideas - I was going to say follies - of Mr. Allan Kardec, and that he professed Spiritism. Apart from this extravagance, he was a perfect honest man, esteemed by all who knew him. Also, we were very astonished to learn that the priest refused to bury him, under the pretext that Spiritism is contrary to Christianity. Isn't there in the Gospel: "Return good for evil," and if this poor Mr. Pagès is guilty of having believed in Spiritism, wasn’t that one more reason to pray for him! "
M. Pagès, whom we had known, by correspondence, for a long time, wrote this to us:
“Spiritism has made a whole different man out of me; before knowing it, I was like many others; I believed in nothing, and yet I suffered at the thought that by dying, all is over for us. Sometimes, I was deeply discouraged, and I wondered what the point was of doing good. Spiritism made me feel like the effect of a curtain that rises, to show us a magnificent decoration. Today I see clearly; the future is no longer in doubt, and I am very happy about it; to tell you the happiness I experience is impossible for me; it seems to me that I am like a condemned man, to whom one comes to say that he will not die, and that he is going to leave his prison to go to a beautiful country to live in freedom. Isn't that, dear sir, the effect it should have? Courage came back to me with the certainty of living forever, because I understood that what we gain in good from it is not wasted; I understood the usefulness of doing good; I understood the fraternity and solidarity that unite all men. Under the influence of this thought, I strove to improve myself. Yes, I can tell you without vanity, I have corrected myself of many faults, although I still have many left. I now feel that I will die in peace, because I know that I will only change a bad outfit that bothers me, for a new one in which I will be more comfortable."
Here then is a man who, in the eyes of certain people, was reasonable, sensible when he believed in nothing, and who is accused of madness on the sole fact of having believed in the immortality of his soul through Spiritism; and it is these same people, that believe neither in the soul nor in prayer, that threw stones at him for his beliefs when alive, and that persecute him with their sarcasm until after his death, and that invoke the Gospel against the act of intolerance and the refusal of prayers that he was the object, he who believed in the Gospel and in prayer only through Spiritism!
[1] Kardec refers to the article Charles Fourier, Louis Jourdan and reincarnation, Spiritist Review, December 1862
Saint Augustine Accused of Cretinism
With the title of Crétinisme, the Vedette du Limbourg, newspaper of Tongres, Belgium, on September 1st, 1866 contains the following article, reproduced from the Gazette of Huy:
“A book given as a prize in a boarding school for nuns, came to our hands. We opened it, and chance made us read, among other curious passages, the following one, well worthy, we believe, to be placed before the eyes of the reader. It is about the role played by the angels. Anyone that reads it will certainly wonder how it is possible that a work containing such absurdities can find a publisher! In our opinion, the one that prints such nonsense is as guilty as the one that writes them. Yes, we are not afraid to affirm it, author and printer must be certified masters in cretinism to dare launch such challenges to reason, to science, what are we saying, to common sense. Here is the passage in question:
According to Saint Augustine, the visible world is ruled by invisible creatures, by pure Spirits, and even there are angels that preside over everything visible, over all species of creatures that are in the world, whether they are animate, or inanimate.
Heavens and the stars have their driving angels; the waters have a particular angel, as it is recorded in the Revelation; the air has its angels that rule the winds, as it is seen in the same book, that further teaches us that the element of fire also has its own. Kingdoms have their angels; the provinces also have theirs, guarding them, as we see in the Genesis, because the angels that appeared to Jacob were the guardians of the provinces through which he passed, etc.
From this sample we can assess the kind of reading that young people educated in the convents do. Is it possible to conceive – allow me the expression – something more profoundly stupid?
To fill the gap, the publisher precedes the work with a warning in which we can read these lines: In his book, that is not less suitable to ecclesiastics than to lay people, the author deploys a power of reasoning and style that enlightens and subdues the mind; from his pen flows an anointing that penetrates and wins the heart. It is the work of a man deeply versed in spirituality.
We say: it is the work of a man gone mad with asceticism, much more to pity than to blame.”
Until now Saint Augustine had been respected even by those that do not share his beliefs. Despite the obvious errors that were due to the state of scientific knowledge of his time, he is universally regarded as one of the geniuses, one of the glories of humanity, and here with a stroke of the pen, an obscure writer, one of these young men that believe themselves to be the light of the world, throws mud on this secular fame, pronounces against him, out of his high reason, the accusation of cretinism, and this because Saint Augustine believed in invisible creatures, in pure Spirits presiding over all visible things. On that account, how many morons are there among the most esteemed contemporary literati! We would not be surprised one day to see Chateaubriand, Lamartine, Victor Hugo, George Sand and so many others accused of cretinism. This is the school that aspires to regenerate society through materialism; thus, it claims that humanity is turning to dementia; but we can relax, for its reign, if it ever happens, will be short-lived. It is well aware of its weakness against the general opinion that rejects it, and that is why it is agitated with a sort of frenzy.
“A book given as a prize in a boarding school for nuns, came to our hands. We opened it, and chance made us read, among other curious passages, the following one, well worthy, we believe, to be placed before the eyes of the reader. It is about the role played by the angels. Anyone that reads it will certainly wonder how it is possible that a work containing such absurdities can find a publisher! In our opinion, the one that prints such nonsense is as guilty as the one that writes them. Yes, we are not afraid to affirm it, author and printer must be certified masters in cretinism to dare launch such challenges to reason, to science, what are we saying, to common sense. Here is the passage in question:
According to Saint Augustine, the visible world is ruled by invisible creatures, by pure Spirits, and even there are angels that preside over everything visible, over all species of creatures that are in the world, whether they are animate, or inanimate.
Heavens and the stars have their driving angels; the waters have a particular angel, as it is recorded in the Revelation; the air has its angels that rule the winds, as it is seen in the same book, that further teaches us that the element of fire also has its own. Kingdoms have their angels; the provinces also have theirs, guarding them, as we see in the Genesis, because the angels that appeared to Jacob were the guardians of the provinces through which he passed, etc.
From this sample we can assess the kind of reading that young people educated in the convents do. Is it possible to conceive – allow me the expression – something more profoundly stupid?
To fill the gap, the publisher precedes the work with a warning in which we can read these lines: In his book, that is not less suitable to ecclesiastics than to lay people, the author deploys a power of reasoning and style that enlightens and subdues the mind; from his pen flows an anointing that penetrates and wins the heart. It is the work of a man deeply versed in spirituality.
We say: it is the work of a man gone mad with asceticism, much more to pity than to blame.”
Until now Saint Augustine had been respected even by those that do not share his beliefs. Despite the obvious errors that were due to the state of scientific knowledge of his time, he is universally regarded as one of the geniuses, one of the glories of humanity, and here with a stroke of the pen, an obscure writer, one of these young men that believe themselves to be the light of the world, throws mud on this secular fame, pronounces against him, out of his high reason, the accusation of cretinism, and this because Saint Augustine believed in invisible creatures, in pure Spirits presiding over all visible things. On that account, how many morons are there among the most esteemed contemporary literati! We would not be surprised one day to see Chateaubriand, Lamartine, Victor Hugo, George Sand and so many others accused of cretinism. This is the school that aspires to regenerate society through materialism; thus, it claims that humanity is turning to dementia; but we can relax, for its reign, if it ever happens, will be short-lived. It is well aware of its weakness against the general opinion that rejects it, and that is why it is agitated with a sort of frenzy.