11. We have multiplied our quotations in order to show that the principles of Spiritism have nothing in common with those of magic. In Spiritism, there are no spirits under the command human beings, no means of constraining them to come to us, no cabalistic signs or formulae, no discoveries of treasures or of means of enriching ourselves, no miracles or prodigies, no divination or fantastic apparitions, nothing, in short, of what constitutes the essential elements and aim of magic. Spiritism not only keeps clear of all these things, but it shows them to be both inefficacious and impossible. There is, then, no analogy whatever between the methods and aim of magic and those of Spiritism; to represent them as similar can only be attempted from ignorance or malevolence; and as there is nothing secret about the principles of Spiritism, which are formulated in terms that are perfectly clear and unambiguous, such misrepresentations can only be short-lived.
As to the cures affected by spirit aid, and acknowledged to be real in the Pastoral that we have been examining, they are ill chosen as evidence of the evils resulting from communication with spirits! The restoration of health is, perhaps, of all the blessings of life, the one which touches us all most nearly, the one which each of us is best able to appreciate at its true value; and very few would be disposed to renounce such a benefit (especially if obtained after all other means of cure have been employed without success), from the fear of being cured by the devil; in fact, most people would rather be inclined to say that, if the devil has cured them, he has done a good deed! *
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* By the endeavor to persuade those who have been cured by spirits that they have been cured by the Devil, a great many persons, who had previously no intention of leaving the Church, have been led to withdraw entirely from it.
