Is Spiritism possible?Extracted from the Écho de Sétif, September 18th, 1862
That is the title of a profoundly scientific article signed by Jalabert, published under the epigraph “Mens agitat molem in the Écho de Sétif one of the most respectable newspapers in Algeria. We regret the fact that the extension of the text does not allow us to publish it in full and any interruption would sacrifice the connection between the arguments through which the author discusses from the creation of the body and the spirit by God to the action of the spirit upon matter and later the possibility of communication between the free spirit and the incarnate. His deductions are so logical that unless one denies the existence of God and the soul it is virtually impossible not to say: it cannot be different. We will only cite a few arguments and in particular the conclusion.
-o-
When Fulton exposed his system to Napoleon I about the use of steam power for navigation he promised to demonstrate that since his system was true in theory it could not be less true in practice. What did Napoleon say? That his idea was not feasible in theory and with the objective of denying them upfront without taking into account the experiments already carried out by the notable mechanic, not even those that he had ordered and that were realized, the great Emperor not even heard Fulton and his system up until the day when he saw the first steam boat in the horizons of St. Helen.
Strange thing, particularly in a century of physical observations, of material sciences and positivism! More than once a fact has been denied simply for representing an exception, for being extraordinary, new and unsuspected. That is how we hear serious and educated people laughing at conscious reports of certain witnessed manifestations or manifestations in good faith attested by intelligent persons and then saying: Leave your Spiritism, your manifestations and your mediums! What you are telling us is not possible!
- Not possible, be it! But gracefully oh transcendental geniuses, remember the statement of the former celebrity and before you attack us with your supreme disdain do listen to us. Kindly read these lines in full – seriously and attentively – and then with all your heart dare denying the possibility and rationality of Spiritism!
You say that you cannot understand this mystery. To us, however, as to you, the material movement produced the spiritual movement; matter agitated by the mind; the body driven by the spirit is incomprehensible! Yet, incomprehensible does not mean impossible. Deny such an action; deny such an influence; deny such a communication! There is no creation, no incarnation, no redemption, no distinction between body and soul, there is no variety in the unity! There is no God, no spirit, no religion and no reason. It is still chaos and always chaos or even worse it is pantheism or nihilism.
Summarizing: Philosophically, physiologically and religiously Spiritism is not irrational or absurd. Hence it is possible.
A person acts:
- Upon oneself through the inner self or will power and senses;
- Upon the neighbors through the word and equally through the senses.
Why then would the person not be able to communicate with God, with an angel or with the Spirits through the inner self, in a word with any other incorporeal being by nature or accidently detached from the physical senses?
The spirit is a power, a force that acts upon matter, that is, upon a body that is exterior, inert and unintelligent. However, there are communications between the Creator and the creation, between the angel and man as well as the between the soul of the man with the body of the man and through the body with the exterior world.
What is it that can preclude a reciprocal communication spirit to spirit? If the spirit communicates with beings of a very different nature, it is conceivable that the same spirit cannot communicate with others of the same kind.
- Where does the obstacle come from? From the distance?
- But there is no distance between the Spirits. “The air has plenty of them” said St. Paul when explaining in a certain way that the Spirits enjoy a divine ubiquity.
- Would it come from a hierarchical difference?
- Hierarchy, however, does not play a role. If they are Spirits then their very condition requires that they act and communicate with one another.
- Would it come from their momentary rest when bonded to the body?
- In this case apart from the means of communication it still does occur. My spirit communicates with yours and your spirit, like mine, inhabits a body. A free spirit that is disconnected from matter, be it the spirit of a person or the one of an angel, will have even more reason to be able to communicate.
There is more. Far from precluding such communication everything favors it. “God is love” and everything that is part of the divine takes part in that love. Love lives on communications, on communions. God loves His creatures thus communicates with them: at the Eden through the word; at the Sinai through writing; at the stable of Bethlehem and at the Calvary through the incarnate verb; at the altar through His transubstantiated verb in the Eucharistic bread and wine.
-o-
Make no mistake that the communications from soul to soul, spirit to spirit are even more possible than those between spirit and matter. Now, what is the instrument, the means of communication between the creatures? Between the corporeal beings the communication takes place through motion that is like the verb of the body. Among the purely spiritual creatures it is through their thoughts or their inner words that is like the movement of the Spirits. Now between the spiritual and corporeal beings it happens through the transmission of those thoughts covered by a sign that is simultaneously spiritual and exterior through the word. It is the inner word manifesting exteriorly through a material sign.
-o-
And what is that signal? It is every material object that moves in a given time in a preconceived motion under the direct or indirect influence of the willpower or the inner word of the spirit with whom we want to communicate.
-o-
We recommended this article to Mr. Tony from Rochefort. There you have one of his comrades that says everything contrary to what he says. One says white the other says black. Who is right? There is a difference between the two: one knows, the other do not. We leave that to the reader to judge the logic of the two arguments. The same newspaper published several articles about the same subject from other authors that like this one are characterized by profound observations and serious study. We shall discuss them in due course.
