The Rapping Spirit of AubeOne of our subscribers sent us some very interesting details about
manifestations that have occurred and still do in a town located in
the Aube region. We will hide the name of the person involved to protect
their anonymity in order to avoid being surrounded by flocks of curious
visitors who might destroy his peace of mind. These noisy manifestations
have already attracted more than an inconvenience; moreover, our correspondent
tells us what he has seen and we do know him well enough
to trust his testimony. The reader will find below the most interesting
passages of his report:
“Four years ago (in 1856), in the town where I live, at the house of
Mr. R… there were manifestations that up to a certain degree were
similar to those of Bergzabern. At that time I did not know that
gentleman; it was only later that we became acquainted and that is
how I learned about the facts that had already occurred. The manifestations
had stopped long ago and Mr. R… thought that he was
free from them when all of a sudden they started again, the same as
before. I was then able to witness them for several consecutive days. I
will tell you what I saw with my own eyes.”
“The person who is the target of these manifestations is Mr.
R’s…sixteen year old son, who was therefore only twelve when they occurred for the first time. The boy is mentally challenged; he cannot
read or write and rarely leaves his home. As for the manifestations
that occurred before my eyes, with the exception of the rocking bed
and the magnetic levitation, the spirit more or less reproduced everything
that happened in Bergzabern: the knocks and scratches were
the same; he whistled, imitating the sound of a tree being sawed, and
threw pieces of charcoal that would come from who knows where
into the bedroom, since there was no coal to be found anywhere else
in the house. The phenomenon starts when the boy lies down and
begins to fall asleep. During his sleep, he speaks to a spirit with authority,
assuming the perfect voice of command of a superior officer,
despite the fact that he had never watched any military exercises.
He then simulates a combat, commands the maneuvers, conquering
victoriously and believing that he has risen to the rank of general on
the battlefield. When he commands the spirit to knock a few times
it sometimes happens that the spirit knocks more than requested.
The boy then asks: - How do you intend to remove the additional
knocks? The spirit then starts to scratch, as if erasing something.
When the boy commands the spirit, he seems very agitated and sometimes
screams so much that his voice trails off into a sort of groaning
sound. Following the command, the spirit then knocks every French
or foreign military march, even Chinese ones. I could not attest their
accuracy since I don’t know them. But the boy often said: - That is
not right. Start all over again. And the spirit obeyed. I must say and
in-passing that the boy sounds really rude during his sleep and when
commanding.”
“One evening I was watching these things; Mr. R’s…son was
in great agitation for about five hours. I tried to calm him down
through magnetic passes. He soon became furious and made a mess
in his bed. The next day he lied down on my arrival and as usual he
soon fell asleep. The knocks and raps began again. He suddenly ordered
the spirit: - Come here. I will make you sleep. And to our great
surprise he magnetized the spirit, despite his resistance and refusal, as we gathered from the conversation that followed. He then woke the
spirit up, demagnetizing him like a professional magnetizer would
have done. I then noticed that he seemed to have retrieved too much
magnetic fluid, kind of throwing it towards me, causing me harm.
When he woke up he had no memory of the event.”
“Far from calm, the facts became more serious and more afflictive
each day in a distressing manner by the exasperation of the
spirit, who is certainly afraid of losing his dominance upon the boy.
I wanted to ask his name and background, but only got lies and
blasphemies as an answer. I must let you know at this point that the
spirit speaks through the boy’s mouth, who serves him as a speaking
medium. I unsuccessfully tried to excite good feelings in him through
good words. He answered that the prayers were nothing to him; that
he tried to approach God only finding ice and fog. He calls me a
bigot and whenever I pray in silence I notice that he gets angry and
raps with double intensity. He brings heavy objects every day, iron,
copper, etc. When I ask him where he finds them he says that he takes
them from dishonest people. If I preach morality to him, he becomes
furious. One evening he said that if I continued to come, he would
break everything and that he would not leave before Easter. He then
spat on my face. Once asked about the reason why he was attached
to the young Mr. R… in such a way he said: - if it was not him it
would be someone else. The father himself is not free from attacks
of that malevolent spirit. He is often interrupted in his work by the
rapping spirit, who pulls his clothes and pinches him to the point of
bleeding. I did what was possible but I am out of resources. Besides,
it is very difficult to obtain good results considering that Mr. and
Mrs. R… don’t help due to their inconsistent faith, despite their
desire to get rid of the spirit and the true losses and prejudices they
suffer due to their son.”
Several details were omitted for they would only reinforce the report.
However, we showed enough to demonstrate that one can say that like certain wrongdoers, this spirit is of the worse kind. We addressed the following
questions to St. Louis in the session of the Society on November
9th:
1. Could you kindly tell us something about the spirit that obsesses
the young R…? – A. The boy’s intelligence is of the weakest kind
and when the spirit takes over he becomes completely hallucinated,
and even more so when his body is deeply asleep. Thus,
reason has no domain over his brain that is dominated by this
tempestuous spirit.
2. Can a relatively superior spirit exert a magnetic action and paralyze
his faculties? – A. A good spirit can only act upon another
morally, not physically. In order to paralyze through the magnetic
fluid it is necessary to use matter and the spirit is not matter like
a human being.
3. How come the young R… pretends to magnetize and lead the
spirit to sleep? – A. He believes it and the spirit gives him that
illusion.
4. The father wants to know if there is any means of getting rid of
that unwelcome guest; if his son will remain under this influence
for a long time... – A. When the young man is awake one must
evoke the good spirits, together with him, so that he can be in
touch with them and through that he can keep the bad spirits
who obsess him in his sleep away.
5. Could we help from here, evoking that spirit in order to moralize
him, or perhaps the spirit of the boy himself? – A. It might not
be possible at the moment. They are both too much materialized.
It is necessary to act directly upon the body of the living one,
through the presence of good spirits who will come to him.
6. We don’t understand your response very well. – A. I said that it
is necessary to request the support of the good spirits who will
help to make the boy less accessible to the impressions of the bad
spirit.
7. What can we do for him? – A. The bad spirit that obsesses him
will not let him go easily, since he is not strongly pushed away by
anyone. Your prayers and evocations are a weak weapon against
him. It would be necessary to act physically on the person that
is tormented by him. You can pray since it is always beneficial.
You will not succeed, however, if not supported by those directly
involved in the case, the father and mother. They unfortunately
don’t have the faith in God that multiplies their strength a hundred
times, and God does not hear but those who address Him
with faith. Thus, they cannot complain about an evil against
which they do nothing to eliminate.
8. How can we win over the subjection of this young man to the
empire of such an evil spirit, with the authority that the boy has
over the spirit, once it seems that he commands and the spirit
obeys? – A. The spirit of that young man is not very advanced
spiritually but it is more advanced than you think in terms of
intelligence. He abused that intelligence in other existences, not
directing it to a moral objective, but on the contrary to ambitious
objectives. He is facing punishment now in a body that does
not allow free access to his intelligence and the bad spirit takes
advantage of such weakness. He allows to be driven in questions
of minor importance because he knows that the boy is incapable
of commanding serious things. He gets a kick out of that. Earth
has swarms of spirits like this, punished in human bodies. That is
why there are so many diseases of all kinds.
OBSERVATION: The observation of the facts confirms the explanation.
During the sleep the boy shows intelligence incontestably
superior to that in his normal state, demonstrating a previous
development, but reduced to a latent state in the rough covering
of the body. It is only at the times of emancipation of the soul in
which there isn’t much influence of matter that his intelligence
expands, in which he also exerts authority upon the creature that subjugates him. However, returning to his waking state his faculties
are annihilated by the limited body that compresses them.
Isn’t that a moral teaching of practical reach?
We thought of evoking the spirit but none of the mediums present
at the meeting showed interest to serve as interpreter. Ms.
Eugenie who also showed disgust, suddenly took the pencil and
in an involuntary movement wrote:
1. You don’t want it? Ah! You will write. Oh you think that I will
not dominate you? Well, then! I am here but don’t be so scared. I
will make you feel my force.
NOTE: The spirit then made the medium swing a strong punch
on the table, breaking several pencils.
2. Since you are here, tell us why you have attached yourself to Mr.
R... – A. Do you really believe that I would have to confide in
you! For starters, know that I have a great need to torment somebody.
A medium who can think would reject me. I attach myself
to an idiot who opposes no resistance.
3. Note: Someone thought that despite the cowardly act the spirit is
still intelligent. He then answers without having the question directly
asked to him: – A. A little bit. I am not as silly as you think.
4. What did you do when alive? – A. I didn’t do much. A man that
did more evil things than good, for what he is punished even more.
5. Considering that you are punished for having practiced bad things,
you must understand the need to do good. Don’t you want to improve?
– A. If you wanted to help me I would waste less time.
6. We don’t ask more than that, but it is necessary that you show the
will. Pray with us. This will help you.
(Here the spirit answers with blasphemy)
7. That is it! We will hear no more. We hoped that we could awake
some good feelings in you. That is why we called you. However,
since you respond to our benevolence with rude words, you
might as well leave. – A. Ah your charity ends here! Just because
I was able to resist a little I can see that your charity ends soon.
It is because you are not much better than I am. Yes, you could
enlighten me more than you think if you behaved accordingly,
to begin with, in the interest of this suffering idiot, in his father’s
interest who is scared of me too and in my own, if that pleases
you.
8. Tell us your name so that we can call you. – A. Why bother with
my name! Call me the spirit of the young idiot, if you like.
9. If we wanted to stop you it was for the fact that you used blasphemy.
– A. Ah! Ah! You were shocked. To know what is in the
mud you have to move it.
10. Someone said: - This image is compatible with the spirit. It is
despicable. – A. Would you like poetry, Sir? To get to know the
rose’s perfume one needs to smell it.
11. Since you said that we could be of some help, one of the participants
is offering to instruct you. Would you like to attend his
evocations? – A. I want to see if it is convenient first. (After a few
moments of reflection he adds: ) Yes; I will.
12. Why would Mr. R’s… son get mad when Mr. L… wanted to
magnetize him? – A. It was not him that got mad but me.
13. Why? – A. I have no power over that man, who is above me, that
is why I cannot stand him. He wants to take my domain away
from me and I cannot accept that.
14. You must see happier spirits around you. Do you know why? – A.
Yes, I do. They are better than I am.
15. Would you then understand that if instead of doing bad things
you did good ones you could also be happier like them? – A. I
wanted nothing more than that but it is difficult to be good.
16. Perhaps difficult for you but not impossible. Do you understand
that prayer can have a great influence upon your improvement? –
A. I don’t say no. I will think about that. Call me again.
OBSERVATION: As seen above, the spirit did not deny his character.
However, he seemed less unwilling towards the end, and that is a proof
that he is not entirely impervious to reason. There is remedy for him but
to have him entirely dominated he needs the support of people who are
not helping at this moment. This should be a lesson to those who may
be going through similar situations. There is no doubt that this is a very
bad spirit, belonging to the dregs of the spiritual world. One can say that
he is brutally bad but that there are more resources against spirits in that
category than to the hypocrites. There is no doubt that they are much
less dangerous than the fascinating spirits, with the support of a certain
amount of intelligence and a false appearance of virtue, they know how
to inspire a blind confidence in certain people, a confidence that sooner
or later will victimize them, since those spirits never act for the good of
anybody. They always have a second intention.
The result of The Mediums’ Book – so we hope – will be to guard us
against their suggestions, something that certainly will not please them.
As it can be seen, however, we are as much affected by their bad influence
as we are from that of incarnated spirits, which they can incite against us.
The bad spirits, as much as men, do not see with pleasure those who, upon
unmasking their wickedness, deprives them of the means to harm.
