77. When an object is set in motion, carried away, or raised into the air, the
spirit does not seize it, push it, or lift it, as we do with our hands ; the spirit, so to say,
saturates it with his own fluid combined with that of the medium,
and the object, being thus vivified for the moment, acts as a living being would act,
with this difference, that, not having a will of its own, it follows the impulsion
communicated to it by the will of the spirit.
As the vital fluid, under the action of the spirit, gives an artificial and
momentary life to inert bodies, and as the perispirit is nothing else than this same vital
fluid, it follows that, when the spirit is incarnated, it is the spirit that gives life to the
body by means of the perispirit; and the perispirit remains united to the body, as long as
the organisation of the latter permits; when separated from it, the body dies. If;
therefore, instead of fashioning wood into a table, we should hew it into a statue, and if
we then acted upon this statue as upon a table, we should have a statue moving,
rapping, and responding to our action by movements and raps ,- we should, in short,
have a statue vitalised for the moment with artificial life, and those who have so
perseveringly sharpened their wits upon "talking-tables" might sharpen them upon
talking-statues. But what a flood of light does this theory shed on a host of phenomena
hitherto unexplained! Of how many allegories, how many mysterious legends, does it
give us a rational explanation!
