The Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1862

Study of Spiritists customs

We found this timely letter related to the preceding article among our old correspondence.

“Paris, July 29^th 1980

Dear Sir,

I take the liberty of communicating to you some thoughts about two events that I have observed and, that with good reason, could be qualified as studies of Spiritist customs. You will see here that I give high importance to moral phenomena.

Since I began studying Spiritism it seems that I now see a hundred more things than before. This is something that makes me think and that I would not give any importance in the past. I find myself

– one could say – before an endless spectacle in which each individual plays a role providing me with an enigma to be deciphered. It is true that with the key provided by Spiritism some of them are so simple that there is no merit in discussing.

Others offer more interest because with Spiritism we feel like we are in a country where we do not speak the language. That turned me into a thoughtful person and an observer since now everything has a cause to me. A thousand and one facts that in past seemed to me to be the result of chance and would go unnoticed but now have a reason and utility. Something of no importance in moral terms now attracts my attention and teaches me something. But I almost forgot that it is about a lesson that I want to talk to you.

I teach piano. Some time ago when visiting the house of one of my pupils from a high society family, I found myself at the entrance hall. There was an impressive looking lady at the corner with her fists on the waist. I saw her reproaching her daughter for her behavior, a fifteen-year-old girl whose manners showed shocking contrasts as compared to her mother’s.

- What has Ms. Justina done – I asked – to make you angry like that?
- You won’t believe, Sir, this little lady pretended to act like a duchess! She does not like to wash the dishes believing that it will spoil her little hands and make them smell bad; and if you think that she was raised with the cows in her grandmother’s house. She is afraid of harming her nails and needs perfume for her scarf! I will show you the perfume! I… then she slapped her on the face making her move back a few steps.
- Ah! My dear Sir one needs to correct the kids while they are little. I never spoiled mine. All my kids are good workers and I want this little one to get out of this posture of a great madam.

After having given some advice of kindness to the mother and submission to the daughter I went upstairs to give a lesson to my student, not worrying any more about the family issue that I had observed.

I then saw the counterpart of that scene and by coincidence. The mother who was an educated and good mannered lady was reproaching her daughter for a different reason.

- Behave, Sofia – she said – you do look like a cook. I am not surprised. You have some sort of preference for the kitchen where you feel better than in the living room. I guarantee that the porter’s daughter, Justina, would feel ashamed for you. One can say that you swapped the cradle.

I had never noticed those particularities. I needed the two events together to notice it. Ms. Sofia, my student, is a young eighteen-year-old lady who is nice but that shows some vulgar features; she shows commonly manners, without distinction; her posture and her movements are heavy and awkward. I was not aware of her inclination towards the kitchen. I then started comparing her to the little Justine of aristocratic instincts and asked myself if that was not a remarkable example of innate inclination given the fact that education alone was powerless to modify the two girls. Why one of them educated in a wealthy family has vulgar tastes and manner while the other that has lived in rough conditions since her early days presents a sense of distinction and a fine taste despite her mother reprimands to fix her? The philosophers who wish to probe the innermost secrets of the human heart should explain these phenomena without the previous existences. To me it is evident that the two young ladies have the instinct of what they were in the past. What do you think about it my dear master?

We believe that Ms. Justine, the porter, could well be a variant of what Charles Fourier says: “many beggars that knock at the doors of castles asking for a charitable hand were their very owners in the past.” Who knows if Ms. Justine was not the lady of that palace and Ms. Sofia who is now the great lady would have been her porter?

Such idea revolts certain people who would not accept the idea or having been less than they are now or to have been the servant of their servant. Therefore, what becomes of the pure blood races that some people were so careful in not to mix? Console yourself. Your forefathers blood runs in your veins for the body comes from the body. As for the spirit, though, it is different. What can one do if things are as they are? For the simple fact that a person is irritated by the rain, he shall not avert rain. There is no doubt that it is humiliating to think that one has changed from a master to a servant and from rich to a beggar but there isn’t anything easier than avoiding such a situation. Leave pride and vanity aside and you shall not be downgraded; be good and generous so that you are not reduced to beg for what you denied others. To be punished for what one’s bad action, isn’t that the most just of the justices? Yes, from great we can become little but when one is good one cannot come back bad. Now, isn’t that better to be an honest worker than a vicious rich?