The Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1862

Regarding the questions about the miracles of Spiritism that had been proposed to us and that we discussed in our last issue there is also the following question:


“The martyrs have sealed the truth of Christianity with their blood. Where are the martyrs of Spiritism?”


You are very kin on having the Spiritists burning at the stake or thrown to feed the beasts! This leads to the assumption that you would be willing to do so in case it was possible. You want to sneak Spiritism in on the same level as a religion! Notice, however, that has never been the intent; that it has never pretended to rival Christianity, on the contrary naming itself the child of Christianity; that it combats its cruelest enemies: atheism and materialism.


We attest once more that Spiritism is a philosophy that rests on the fundamental basis of every religion and on the moral of Christ. If Spiritism renegaded Christianity it would be betraying itself, it would be suicidal. It is the enemies of Spiritism that present it as a new sect, giving it priests and a high clergy. They shall scream so many times that Spiritism is a religion that we will end up believing that it is.


Do martyrs require a religion to exist? Haven’t sciences, arts and other disciplines had their own martyrs side by side with their discoveries? When the Spiritists are pointed at as condemned people, people to be avoided, the scum of society, when ignorance is incited against us to the point of subtracting people means of subsistence in the absence of better arguments, aren’t they helping to create martyrs?


Nice victory had them triumphed! However, the seed has been sown and blossoms are everywhere. If uprooted in one place it flourishes in a hundred others. You must then try to harvest the whole planet but allow the Spirits to speak, those on a mission to answer the questions.

I

You have asked for miracles. Today you demand martyrs. You already have the martyrs of Spiritism. Get inside the homes and you will see them. You ask for persecuted. Open the heart of those eager followers of the new idea who fight against the prejudices of the world and even and frequently that of the family! Ah, their broken hearts expand and embrace a father, a mother, a brother or a wife only to find the reciprocity of sarcasm, disdain and neglect. The martyrs of Spiritism are those who hear these insulting words every step of the way: mad, senseless, lunatic! And for a long time they shall have to withstand such attacks of incredulity and other even more bitter sufferings.


Nonetheless, their reward will be beautiful as Christ has prepared a delightful place for the martyrs of Christianity and the one prepared to the martyrs of Spiritism is even more wonderful. The martyrs of the infancy of Christianity marched resigned and courageously to the martyrdom expecting to suffer for only a few days or hours, aspiring for death as the only barrier that separated them from a celestial life.


The martyrs of Spiritism must not even seek death. They must suffer for as much time as it pleases God to have them on Earth and dare not judge themselves worthy of the pure celestial pleasures as soon as they leave life. They pray and wait whispering words of peace, love and forgiveness to those who did them harm, waiting for new incarnations in which they will be able to atone previous faults.


Spiritism will be erected as a superb temple. The first steps will be difficult to climb. Nevertheless, once the first steps are covered the good Spirits will help to overcome the others up until the simple and righteous place that leads to God. Go, go children and preach Spiritism!


Martyrs are requested. You are the first ones marked by God for you have been duly appointed and you are treated as mad and senseless because of the truth! I tell you, however, that the time of light is near when there will no longer be persecuted and persecutors. You shall all be brothers and sisters and the same feast will unite oppressed and oppressors!


Saint Augustine, medium Mr. E. Vézy


II


The progress of times has replaced physical torture by the martyrdom of conception and the birth of new ideas, daughters of the past and mothers of the future. When Christ came to destroy the barbarian costume of sacrifices; when he came to proclaim equality and fraternity between the simple clothes of the worker and the noble outfit the altars were still smoking the blood of the immolated victims; the slaves trembled before the caprices of their master and the peoples ignored God’s justice, forgetting his greatness.


In such a low moral state Jesus’ words would have been impotent and neglected by the crowds if they had not been screamed out of his injuries and become sensitive by the ulcers of the martyrs. In order to be accomplished the mysterious law of similarities required that the blood gushed out of the ideas was rescued by the bloodshed of brutality. Today peaceful people ignore physical torture. It is only their intellectual being that suffers in the struggle between the traditions of the past and the aspiration to new horizons.


Who could describe the anguishes of the present generation, its pungent doubts, uncertainties, impotence and its extreme lassitude? Uneasy presentiments of superior worlds, pains ignored by the material antiquity that only suffered when unable to enjoy; pains that are the modern torture and which will transform in martyrs those inspired by the Spiritist revelation who will believe but will not be believed; they shall speak and be censored; they will march and be repelled.


Have no fear. Your enemies themselves prepare you an award that shall be the more beautiful the more they have sowed in your way.


Lazarus, medium Mrs. Costel

III

As you correctly say, the beliefs have always had martyrs, at all times. However, one must say that fanaticism was frequently on both sides and almost always there was bloodshed. Today, thanks to the moderators of passions, to the philosophers or even with this philosophy that began with the writers of the eighteenth century, fanaticism put its fire out and laid down its weapon down. In our days one can hardly imagine the spade of Mohamed; the gallows of the Middle Ages; the burning at the stake and tortures of all kinds, in the same one that magicians and witches are no longer invoked.


Other times other costumes says a wise proverb. The word costume here is very elastic, as you see, and according to its Latin etiology it means habits, way of life. Well, it is not our costume to cover ourselves in cilice in our century, as it is not our habit to pray hidden in the tombs and dissimulate our prayers to the powerful and to the magistrates of Paris.


Hence Spiritism will not see the axe swinging and the fire devouring its followers. The blow of ideas, books, commentaries, eclecticism and theology now abates people but St. Bartholomew shall not happen again.


Certainly there could be victims in the underdeveloped world but the civilized nations will only see the struggle of ideas and ridicule.


Therefore, no more axes, bundled wood and the boiling oil but to be aware of the badly understood spirit of Voltaire. That is the executioner. It is necessary to prevent it but not defy it. It laughs instead of threatening; it casts ridicule instead of blasphemy and its sufferings are the tortures of the spirit that succumbs when braced by modern sarcasm.


Nonetheless, not displeasing the little Voltaire of our days, the youth will easily understand these three magic words: freedom, equality and fraternity.


As for the sectaries these are more terrible because they are always the same, regardless of time and anything else. They can sometimes do harm but they are lame, masked, old and grumpy. Now you who met the source of youth and whose soul flourish and renew, have no fear for they shall lose to their own fanaticism.

Lamennais, medium Mr. A. Didier

As you see people are now discussing the Spiritist ideas even in courses of theology and the Catholic Review has asserted that current Spiritism is the works of the devil, as one can see in the article entitled “Satanism in Modern Spiritism” in the magazine mentioned above. Ala! Let them speak! Let them act! Spiritism is like steel and all serpents will try to bite it with their fangs.


Nevertheless there is something worth mentioning: it is the fact that in the past they refused to get involved with those who moved tables and chairs whereas in our days they are really involved with those innovators whose ideas and theories are raised to the level of a doctrine. Ah! The fact is that such a doctrine; such a revelation opens cracks in all previous doctrines, in every old philosophy insufficient to satisfy the needs of human reason. Hence, priests, scientists and journalists come down to the arena holding their pens to reject the new idea: progress. Never mind! Isn’t that an undeniable proof of the propagation of our teachings? Well, one cannot discuss and combat but those ideas that are really serious and sufficiently well engrained not to be treated as utopias, like chimeras coming out of sick minds. As a matter of fact, better than anybody else you can see the speed with which Spiritism recruits followers every day and that even in the enlightened military ranks among officers of all arms. Do not be afraid of all these unfortunate people who roar for nothing since they ignore their actual condition. They are embarrassed. Their certainties and probabilities fade away under the lights of Spiritism because from the bottom of their hearts they feel that we are the ones with the truth. I say we because today Spirits and incarnate Spirits we have only one objective: the destruction of the materialistic ideas and the regeneration of the faith in God, to whom we owe everything.

Erastus, medium Mr. d’Ambel

Well done! Bravo my children! Seeing you gathered, eagerly and persistently fighting satisfies me. Courage! Work hard in the field of our Lord for I tell you that time will come when one will have to preach the sacred doctrine of Spiritism beyond closed walls. The flesh has been beaten. It is time to work on the spirit. Truly I tell you that when that happens you will be ready to sing grace in unison and it will be the eve of the day when we will hear the same voice around the world. But I tell you this: before the age of gold and the kingdom of the spirit great suffering will come in tears and teeth grinding.


Persecution has begun. Spiritists! Be firm and stand up. You are marked by the unction of the Lord. You shall be called senseless, mad and visionary. The oil will not boil, the gallows will not be erected and the stake will burn no more but the fire that will be used to lead you to renounce your beliefs will be even more intense and vivid.


Hence, Spiritists, get rid of the old self for it is the old self that they will make suffer. May your new tunics be white! Adorn your own heads with the crowns and be prepared to the struggle. You shall be cursed. Let your brothers show contempt; in turn pray for them and keep away the punishment that Jesus promised to whoever showed contempt towards their brothers and sisters!


Be prepared for the persecutions through the study, prayer and charity. The servants will be expelled from the houses of their masters and treated like mad people but at the door they shall find the Samaritan and although naked and poor they will share their garments and the last piece of bread. Before such a spectacle the masters will ask: “But who are these people who we expelled from our house? They only have a piece of bread for tonight and they still give it away! They only have one house and still share it with a stranger!”


Their doors will then open again for you are the servants of the Lord. But this time they will welcome you and will embrace you. They will ask you to bless them and to teach them to love. They will no longer call you slaves or servants but will say: “Brother, come and seat at the table with me. There is only one and the same family on Earth and there is only one and the same God in heavens.”


Go, go my brothers! Preach and above all be united. Heaves is ready for you.

St. Augustine, medium Mr. Vésy