The Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1862

1. Evocation. - A. My friends, I am close to you.

2. We are pleased with the conversation we had with you on the day of your funeral and with your permission we would like to complement it for our continuing education. - A. I am ready and feel happy that you thought of me.

3. Anything that can shed light on the invisible world and help us to understand is a great opportunity because it is the misconception that people have of that world that generally leads to disbelief. Hence do not feel surprised with the questions that we will ask you. - A. I will not be and I look forward to your questions.

4. You described with extreme clarity the transition from life to death; you said that when the body breathes the last breath life is broken and the vision of the Spirit extinguishes. Is such a moment followed by a painful sensation? - A. No doubt because life is a continual succession of pain and death is the complement of all that pain; thus a violent rupture as if the spirit had to make a superhuman effort to escape from its envelope. It is that effort that absorbs all energy and makes the spirit lose the knowledge of what it becomes.

OBSERVATION - This is not the general case. The separation can take place with some effort, but experience shows that not all Spirits are aware of that because many lose consciousness before expiring. The convulsions of agony are usually purely physical. Mr. Sanson presented a very rare phenomenon in which the spirit witnesses his last breath.

5. Do you know if there are Spirits to whom such a moment is more painful? Is it more difficult, for example, to the materialist, for those who believe that everything ends at that time for them? - A. That is correct considering that the prepared spirit has already forgotten the suffering, or rather is used to this experience and he knows what is ahead. Moral suffering is the strongest and its absence at the time of death is a great relief. He who does not believe is like the prisoner condemned to death row and whose thoughts are only the knife and the unknown. There are similarities between this death and that of the atheist.

6. Are there materialists who believe that at this supreme moment they will be plunged into the abyss? - A. There is no doubt that some believe in the void up until the last hour; but at the time of separation, the spirit goes through a deep return; doubt seizes him and tortures him as he wonders what is going to happen; he wants to grab something and cannot. The separation cannot be done without this impression.

OBSERVATION - A spirit has given us, in other circumstances, the following description about the end of the non-believer: "In the last moments the devote non-believer experiences anxieties of those terrible nightmares where you can see the edge of a precipice and you are about to fall into the abyss; useless effort is made to escape without being able to walk; you want to hold on to something, grab a foothold but you feel slipping; you want to call someone but you cannot articulate a sound; that's when you see the moribund twisting, tense hands and muffled cries, sure signs of the living nightmare. In the ordinary nightmare you are brought back when you wake up and you feel happy to recognize that it was just a dream; but the nightmare of death often extends for a long time, sometimes years even after death, and what makes the sensation even more painful is the darkness in which the spirit is sometimes plunged.” We were even able to observe a number of similar cases what demonstrates that this description is no exaggeration.

7. You said that at the time of death you did not see but rather you perceived. It is understandable that you could not see but were you able to anticipate the clarity of the spiritual world before life was extinguished? - A. That's what I said earlier. The moment of death gives foresight to the spirit; the eyes see no more, but the spirit that has a much deeper vision and immediately discovers that unknown world. At that time, the spirit sees the truth and momentarily gives the spirit an ineffable joy or an indescribable sorrow, according to the state of his conscience and the memory of his past life.

OBSERVATION - It's about this time when the spirit loses consciousness, which explains the use of the word momentarily. These same pleasant or painful impressions continue when the spirit wakes up.

8. Can you tell us what was it that you saw when your eyes reopened to light? Could you describe the appearance of things that were offered to you? - A. When I could see myself and see what I had before my eyes I was dazzle. I did not understand it well because lucidity had not immediately recovered. But God, who gave me a deep sign of his goodness, allowed me to recover my faculties. I saw myself surrounded by many loyal friends. All the protective Spirits that assist us surrounded me with a smile; an unparalleled joy animated them and me, feeling strong and healthy, I could effortlessly carry myself through space. What I saw has no words to describe in human language. In fact I will come back to speak more broadly of my whole happiness, without moving beyond the limits established by God. Know this that happiness as you see it is a fiction. You ought to live wisely, saintly, and with the spirit of charity and love, and you will be prepared to receive impressions that even your greatest poets could not express.