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Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1867 > December > Spiritist Dissertations
Spiritist Dissertations
Scientific MistakesParis, March 20th, 1867 – Group of Mr. Lampérière
“Just as the body has its organs of locomotion, nutrition, respiration, etc., so the Spirit has various faculties that relate respectively to each situation of its being. If the body has its infancy, if the members of this body are weak and feeble, unable to move the loads that they will later be able to lift without difficulty, the Spirit, first of all, possesses faculties that must, like everything else that exists, evolve from childhood to youth and from youth to middle age. Will you ask the child in the cradle to act with the speed, safety, and skill of a grown man? No, that would be madness, wouldn't that? One can only ask of each one what fits within the framework of their strengths and knowledge. To ask someone, who has never touched a book of mathematics or physics, to reason on any branch of the knowledge that depends on these sciences, would be as illogical as to require an exact description of a distant land, from a Parisian, who has never left the walls of his native town, and sometimes of his suburb!
To judge something soundly, it is therefore necessary to have as complete a knowledge of it as possible. It would be absurd to submit to a fluency reading test someone that is just beginning to spell; and yet! ... man, this human-animal endowed with reason, this powerful creature, to whom everything is an obstacle in the book of the worlds, this naughty child that barely stutters the first words of true science, this mystified appearance, claims to read, without hesitation, the most indecipherable pages of the manual that nature presents to him every day. The unknown is born under his feet; it touches him on the side, in front, on the back, everywhere, everything is just problems without solution, or whose known solutions are illogical and irrational, and the grown child turns his eyes away from the book, saying: I know you, on to another! ... Unaware of things, he clings to the causes of these things, and without a compass, he embarks on the stormy sea of preconceived systems, that inevitably leads him to a shipwreck, whose results are doubt and sketicism! Fanaticism, the son of error, holds him under its staff; for, know it well, the fanatic is not the one who believes without proof and who would give his life for a misunderstood faith; there are fanatics of skepticism, as there are fanatics of faith!
The road to truth is narrow, and it is necessary to probe the terrain before advancing, so as not to rush into the abysses, that surrounds it right to left.
Hurry slowly, says the wisdom of the nations, and as always when it agrees with common sense, the wisdom of the nations is right. Do not leave enemies behind you, and only advance when you are sure that you do not have to turn back. God is patient because he is eternal; man, who has eternity before him, can also be patient.
If he judges by appearance, if he is mistaken and admits his error in the future, it is logical; but if he pretends that he cannot be mistaken, if he assigns some limit to human knowledge, the child reappears on the water with his caprices and his helpless anger! ... The young horse has not yet thrown his strings; he gets carried away, he jumps! The burnt blood circulates in his veins! … Leave him, age will know how to calm his passion without destroying him, and he will derive more profit from it by measuring the expenditure more wisely!
At birth, man saw the plains formed by earth and rock stretching without limit under his feet; an azure plains dotted with scintillating fires extended over his head, and seemed to move regularly; he concluded that earth was a wide, rugged plateau, surmounted by a dome, animated by constant movement. Reporting everything to himself, he made himself the center of a system created for him, and the static earth beheld the sun, revolving in the celestial plains. Today, the sun no longer turns and the earth has started to move; the first point would not be perhaps difficult to elucidate according to the Bible, because, if Joshua one day ordered the sun to stop, it is seen nowhere that he commanded it to resume its course.
The human intelligence of today belies the works of the intelligences of a more remote epoch, and thus, from age to age, to the origin; and yet, despite the lessons of the past, although he realizes, through precedents, that yesterday's utopia is often tomorrow’s reality, man persists in saying: No, you won't go further! Who could do more than us? Intelligence is at the top of the scale; after us, one can only go down! … And yet, those who say this are the witnesses, the propagators and the promoters of the wonders accomplished by current science. They made many discoveries that have singularly modified the theories of their predecessors; but what does it matter! … The ego speaks in them higher than reason. Enjoying a royalty for a day, they cannot admit that tomorrow they will be subjected to a power that the future keeps from their sight.
They deny the Spirit, as they denied the movement of the earth! … Let us be sorry for them, and console ourselves for their blindness, by telling us that what is cannot remain eternally hidden; light cannot become shadow; truth cannot become error; darkness disappears before dawn.
O Galileo! ... wherever you are, you rejoice, because it moves ... and we too can rejoice, because our own land, our world, intelligence, the Spirit also has its movement misunderstood, unknown, but that will soon become as obvious as the axioms recognized by science.
François Arago.”
To judge something soundly, it is therefore necessary to have as complete a knowledge of it as possible. It would be absurd to submit to a fluency reading test someone that is just beginning to spell; and yet! ... man, this human-animal endowed with reason, this powerful creature, to whom everything is an obstacle in the book of the worlds, this naughty child that barely stutters the first words of true science, this mystified appearance, claims to read, without hesitation, the most indecipherable pages of the manual that nature presents to him every day. The unknown is born under his feet; it touches him on the side, in front, on the back, everywhere, everything is just problems without solution, or whose known solutions are illogical and irrational, and the grown child turns his eyes away from the book, saying: I know you, on to another! ... Unaware of things, he clings to the causes of these things, and without a compass, he embarks on the stormy sea of preconceived systems, that inevitably leads him to a shipwreck, whose results are doubt and sketicism! Fanaticism, the son of error, holds him under its staff; for, know it well, the fanatic is not the one who believes without proof and who would give his life for a misunderstood faith; there are fanatics of skepticism, as there are fanatics of faith!
The road to truth is narrow, and it is necessary to probe the terrain before advancing, so as not to rush into the abysses, that surrounds it right to left.
Hurry slowly, says the wisdom of the nations, and as always when it agrees with common sense, the wisdom of the nations is right. Do not leave enemies behind you, and only advance when you are sure that you do not have to turn back. God is patient because he is eternal; man, who has eternity before him, can also be patient.
If he judges by appearance, if he is mistaken and admits his error in the future, it is logical; but if he pretends that he cannot be mistaken, if he assigns some limit to human knowledge, the child reappears on the water with his caprices and his helpless anger! ... The young horse has not yet thrown his strings; he gets carried away, he jumps! The burnt blood circulates in his veins! … Leave him, age will know how to calm his passion without destroying him, and he will derive more profit from it by measuring the expenditure more wisely!
At birth, man saw the plains formed by earth and rock stretching without limit under his feet; an azure plains dotted with scintillating fires extended over his head, and seemed to move regularly; he concluded that earth was a wide, rugged plateau, surmounted by a dome, animated by constant movement. Reporting everything to himself, he made himself the center of a system created for him, and the static earth beheld the sun, revolving in the celestial plains. Today, the sun no longer turns and the earth has started to move; the first point would not be perhaps difficult to elucidate according to the Bible, because, if Joshua one day ordered the sun to stop, it is seen nowhere that he commanded it to resume its course.
The human intelligence of today belies the works of the intelligences of a more remote epoch, and thus, from age to age, to the origin; and yet, despite the lessons of the past, although he realizes, through precedents, that yesterday's utopia is often tomorrow’s reality, man persists in saying: No, you won't go further! Who could do more than us? Intelligence is at the top of the scale; after us, one can only go down! … And yet, those who say this are the witnesses, the propagators and the promoters of the wonders accomplished by current science. They made many discoveries that have singularly modified the theories of their predecessors; but what does it matter! … The ego speaks in them higher than reason. Enjoying a royalty for a day, they cannot admit that tomorrow they will be subjected to a power that the future keeps from their sight.
They deny the Spirit, as they denied the movement of the earth! … Let us be sorry for them, and console ourselves for their blindness, by telling us that what is cannot remain eternally hidden; light cannot become shadow; truth cannot become error; darkness disappears before dawn.
O Galileo! ... wherever you are, you rejoice, because it moves ... and we too can rejoice, because our own land, our world, intelligence, the Spirit also has its movement misunderstood, unknown, but that will soon become as obvious as the axioms recognized by science.
François Arago.”
The exhibition
Paris, March 20th, 1867 – Group Desliens, medium Mr. Desliens
“The superficial observer who would cast his eyes on your world at this moment, without worrying too much about a few small spots scattered on its surface, and that seem destined to bring out the splendors of the whole, would say to himself, without a doubt, that humanity has never shown a happier physiognomy.
Gamache's wedding is celebrated everywhere. These are just parties, fun trains, adorned cities, and happy faces. All the great arteries of the globe bring to your narrow capital the diverse crowd, coming from all climates. The Chinese and the Persian greet the Russian and the German on your boulevards; Asia in cashmere shakes hand with Africa in turban; the new world and the old, young America and the citizens of the European world collide, elbow each other, converse in a tone of unalterable friendship.
So, is the world really invited to the feast of peace? Could the French Exhibition of 1867 be the long-awaited signal of universal solidarity? One would be tempted to believe it, if all hostilities were extinguished; if each one, thinking of industrial prosperity and the victory of intelligence over matter, quietly left the engines of death, the instruments of violence and force, sleeping at the bottom of their arsenals, as relics, good to satisfy the curiosity of visitors.
But are you there? Alas! No; The face grimaces under the smile, the eye threatens when the mouth compliments, and we cordially shake hands, at the very moment when each one is pondering the ruin of his neighbor. They laugh, sing, dance; but listen carefully, and you will hear the echo repeating those laughter and songs like sobs and cries of agony!
Joy is in the faces, but worry is in the hearts. They rejoice to be dizzy, and, if we think of tomorrow, we close our eyes so as not to see.
The world is in crisis, and commerce is wondering what it will do when the great hubbub of the Expo has passed. Everyone is thinking about the future, and we feel that at this moment we only live by pawning the future time.
What is missing to all these happy people? Aren’t they today what they were yesterday? Won’t they be tomorrow what they are today? No, the commercial, intellectual, and moral arc stretches more and more, the rope is tightened, the arrow will go off! Where will it take them? This is the secret of the instinctive fear that is reflected on many fronts! They don't see, they don't know, they foresee a don’t know what; a danger is in the air, and each one trembles, each one feels morally oppressed, as when a ready to break out storm acts on the nervous temperaments. Everyone is waiting, and what will happen? A disaster or a happy solution? Neither one nor the other, or rather the two results will coincide.
What is lacking to anxious populations, to hard-pressed intelligences, is the moral sense attacked, macerated, half destroyed by incredulity, positivism, and materialism. They believe in the nothingness, but they fear it; they feel at the threshold of this nothingness, but we tremble! ... The demolishers have done their work; the terrain is cleared. So, build quickly so that the current generation does not remain homeless! So far, the sky has remained starry, but a cloud appears on the horizon; quickly cover your hospital roofs; invite all the guests from the plains and the mountains. The hurricane will soon be striking with vigor, and then, woe to the incautious, confident in the certainty of the good weather. They will have the solution of their vague fears, and if they leave the struggle bruised, torn, defeated, they will only have themselves to blame, their refusal to accept the so generously offered hospitality.
So, hands on; always build as quickly as possible; welcome the traveler that comes to you, but also go and look around, and try to bring to you the one who goes away without knocking at your door, for God knows how much suffering he would be exposed to, before finding any shelter capable of protecting him from the scourge.
Moki.”
Gamache's wedding is celebrated everywhere. These are just parties, fun trains, adorned cities, and happy faces. All the great arteries of the globe bring to your narrow capital the diverse crowd, coming from all climates. The Chinese and the Persian greet the Russian and the German on your boulevards; Asia in cashmere shakes hand with Africa in turban; the new world and the old, young America and the citizens of the European world collide, elbow each other, converse in a tone of unalterable friendship.
So, is the world really invited to the feast of peace? Could the French Exhibition of 1867 be the long-awaited signal of universal solidarity? One would be tempted to believe it, if all hostilities were extinguished; if each one, thinking of industrial prosperity and the victory of intelligence over matter, quietly left the engines of death, the instruments of violence and force, sleeping at the bottom of their arsenals, as relics, good to satisfy the curiosity of visitors.
But are you there? Alas! No; The face grimaces under the smile, the eye threatens when the mouth compliments, and we cordially shake hands, at the very moment when each one is pondering the ruin of his neighbor. They laugh, sing, dance; but listen carefully, and you will hear the echo repeating those laughter and songs like sobs and cries of agony!
Joy is in the faces, but worry is in the hearts. They rejoice to be dizzy, and, if we think of tomorrow, we close our eyes so as not to see.
The world is in crisis, and commerce is wondering what it will do when the great hubbub of the Expo has passed. Everyone is thinking about the future, and we feel that at this moment we only live by pawning the future time.
What is missing to all these happy people? Aren’t they today what they were yesterday? Won’t they be tomorrow what they are today? No, the commercial, intellectual, and moral arc stretches more and more, the rope is tightened, the arrow will go off! Where will it take them? This is the secret of the instinctive fear that is reflected on many fronts! They don't see, they don't know, they foresee a don’t know what; a danger is in the air, and each one trembles, each one feels morally oppressed, as when a ready to break out storm acts on the nervous temperaments. Everyone is waiting, and what will happen? A disaster or a happy solution? Neither one nor the other, or rather the two results will coincide.
What is lacking to anxious populations, to hard-pressed intelligences, is the moral sense attacked, macerated, half destroyed by incredulity, positivism, and materialism. They believe in the nothingness, but they fear it; they feel at the threshold of this nothingness, but we tremble! ... The demolishers have done their work; the terrain is cleared. So, build quickly so that the current generation does not remain homeless! So far, the sky has remained starry, but a cloud appears on the horizon; quickly cover your hospital roofs; invite all the guests from the plains and the mountains. The hurricane will soon be striking with vigor, and then, woe to the incautious, confident in the certainty of the good weather. They will have the solution of their vague fears, and if they leave the struggle bruised, torn, defeated, they will only have themselves to blame, their refusal to accept the so generously offered hospitality.
So, hands on; always build as quickly as possible; welcome the traveler that comes to you, but also go and look around, and try to bring to you the one who goes away without knocking at your door, for God knows how much suffering he would be exposed to, before finding any shelter capable of protecting him from the scourge.
Moki.”