Spiritist dissertations
All Saints
I
Paris, November 1st 1862 – medium Mr. Perchet, Sargent of the 40th line of the casern of Prince Eugene, member of the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies).
My dear brother, in this day of celebration of the dead I fell happy for being able to communicate with you. You cannot imagine the pleasure that it gives me. Call me more frequently for our mutual benefit. I cannot always come here since I am frequently with my sisters and especially with my little daughter that I have asked the mission to follow closely. Yet, I can often respond to your calls and it will always be a real pleasure to help you with my advices.
Let us talk about today’s celebration. There is plenty of reverence in the approximation of the invisible to the visible world and there is joy and sadness. There is joy due to the devout feeling that unites the disperse members of the same family. On this day the child comes close to her tomb to meet her mother that waters the sepulchral vault with her tears. The little angel blesses her and blends thoughts and wishes into the drops that roll over on the face of the beloved mother. Ah! Praise the Lord with these pure prayers, seasoned by faith and absence! May these prayers reach the feet of the Eternal like the subtle perfume of flowers and from up there in heavens may God cast his merciful eyes upon this corner of Earth and send one of His good Spirits to console this suffering soul by saying: “No more suffering good mother. Your beloved son is in the mansion of the blessed ones; he loves you and waits.”
I said: Day of happiness – and I repeat that because through the religion of the missed ones they pray and do know that the prayer is not useless and that one day they will see the loved ones again from whom they are just momentarily separated. Day of happiness because the Spirits see with joy and tenderness the dear ones soon deserving to share their happiness for their confidence in God.
On this day of all saints the dead who courageously endured all trials imposed by life, who got rid of the mundane things and educated their children in the faith and charity willfully come to join in, I repeat, in the prayers from those who were left behind, inspiring in them perseverance in walking the good path. Children, parents and friends kneeling by the graves experience intimate satisfaction since they know that the remains under the gravestone are just a memory of the beings that inhabited them and who are now free from the human miseries. These are the happy ones my dear brother. So long.
II
My dear friend here I am faithful to my promise to you. As I told you last night, I went for a visit to the cemetery. I examined the several suffering Spirits. I feel sorry for them. The shocking spectacle would bring tears to the eyes of the toughest heart. Those souls, however, are relieved in large numbers by the living ones and by the assistance of the good Spirits, particularly when regretting their earthly faults and striving to get rid of their imperfections that constitute the sole reason of their sufferings. They now understand the wisdom, benevolence and greatness of God and ask for the favor of new trials to satisfy the divine justice while atoning their faults and building a new and better future.
Therefore, my dear friends, pray from the bottom of your hearts for those repented Spirits that have just been clarified by a spark of light. Until now they never believed the eternal joy for in their punishment it was too much of punishment if they had to wait. You can imagine their delight when the veil was torn apart and the angel of the Lord opened their eyes up, eyes that were blind to the light of faith.
Nonetheless they feel happy now but without illusions as for the future. Many among them do know that they will have to endure terrible trials. Hence they constantly claim the prayers from the living ones and the assistance of the good Spirits so that they can withstand the tough task to be imposed on them with resignation. I tell you once again and this is never too much to repeat to have you convinced about this great truth; pray from the bottom of your heart for all the Spirits that suffer, without distinction of social position or belief because we are all brothers and sisters who deserve mutual support.
Fervent Spiritists, in particular, who know the situation of the suffering Spirits and understand the phases of life; who understand the difficulties in their paths, please come to help them. It is a nice act of charity to pray for the unknown brothers and sisters that are frequently forgotten and whose acknowledgement you cannot assess when they find help. Prayer does to them what the drizzle does to earth punished by heat.
Watch a stranger fallen in a dark night on any obscure stretch of the way. The feet bleeding after the long walk. He feels the pain of starvation and thirst. A moral torture adds up to the physical suffering. Desperation lies ahead. His painful screams are heard all over the place but no friendly echo responds to his desperate appeal. Now imagine that at the very moment when this miserable being gets to the extreme suffering a compassionate hand kindly rests on his shoulder, bringing him the help that the situation claims. If possible try to imagine the happiness of that man and you will have a slight idea of the relief brought upon the unfortunate Spirits by prayer, Spirits who live the anguish of punishment and isolation. They shall be eternally grateful to you and rest assured that in the spiritual world there aren’t ungrateful Spirits as there are humans on your Earth.
I told you that All Saints is a solemnity that arises from sadness, a really great sadness, since it also draws the attention of those Spirits devoted to materialism and selfishness in their earthly existences; Spirits that had no other gods but the miserable vanity of their own worlds; Spirits who fearlessly employed every means of boosting their wealth and frequently throwing honest people in the gutter of misery.
My dear brother how horrible torment to those! It is exactly as it is in the Scriptures: “There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth”. They shall dive into the deep abyss of darkness. These miserable are vulgarly called the “damned” ones and although it would be more precise to call them the “punished” ones they suffer no less the terrible tortures assigned to the damned amidst the flames. Surrounded by the thickest darkness of a chasm that seems unfathomable to them since it is not circumscribed as you are taught, they experience indescribable moral sufferings until they open their heart to regret.
Oftentimes some remain in such a state for centuries incapable of foreseeing the end of their torments, thinking of themselves as eternally condemned. Such a wrong opinion has found dwelling among you for a long time. It is a serious mistake for sooner or later those Spirits open their hearts to regret and then God have mercy on their disgrace and send them an angel with reassuring words opening before them a path that is the wider the more prayers they have received at the feet of the Eternal.
Brothers and sisters, you can see that your prayers are always useful to the guilty one and although they cannot alter the immutable designs of God they nonetheless provide relief to the suffering Spirits by bringing them the kind thought of being in the memory of charitable souls. It is like the excitement of the prisoner when he sees through the bars in his cell the face of a friend or a relative that has not forgotten his misery. If the suffering spirit is too hardened, too material so that the prayer may reach his soul, a pure spirit collects it like a precious aroma that is deposited in a celestial amphora until the day they can serve the spirit.
To have the prayer bearing fruits it is not good enough to mumble the words as the majority of people do. The only prayer that pleases God is the one that comes from the heart, the only that is taken into account and that alleviate the suffering Spirits.
From the sister that loves you,
Marguerite
Question asked at the Society:
How can we interpret this passage from the communication: “…rest assured that in the spiritual world there aren’t ungrateful Spirits as there are humans on your Earth”? Since the human souls are incarnate Spirits they carry along their vices and virtues. Human imperfection comes from the imperfections of the Spirits as the acquired qualities do. Given that and considering that the most ignoble vices are found in the Spirits one cannot understand the fact that in the spiritual world there isn’t ungratefulness as it is found on Earth.
Answer through Mr. Perchet:
No doubt that there are ungrateful Spirits in the spiritual world and you can single out the malicious and obsessing Spirits that do everything in their power to give you their perverse thoughts despite your good deeds through your prayers in their favor. Their ungratefulness is, however, just momentary because the time of regret will sooner or later come to them. Then their eyes open to light and their hearts also open to regret forever. That is not the case in your planet as all the time you find people that despite the good that you do to them their only payback is the darkest ingratitude. The passage that provoked this observation is only obscure because it lacks elaboration. I was only looking at the issue from the point of view of the Spirits open to regret and able for that very reason to immediately collect the fruits of prayer. Since those Spirits are committed with the good path and since they cannot retrograde it is clear that acknowledgement could not be extinguished in them. To avoid confusion, I will then re-write the phrase that caused the observation as: “They will be eternally grateful to you for rest assured that those among the Spirits to whom you have guided to the good path could not be ungrateful.”
Marguerite
Observation: These two communications as many others of high morality were obtained by Mr. Perchet in his casern where he counts on several comrades who share the Spiritist beliefs to which they accommodate their conduct. We ask the detractors of Spiritism if the military could receive better moral advices in the cabaret. If that is the language of Satan, he became an eremite. It is true that he is too old!
We take the opportunity to ask Mr. Tony the witty and particularly very logical journalist from Rochefort that believes Spiritism to be one of the evils that came out of Pandora box and one of those evil things studied by moral and public hygiene, we ask him as we were saying what is wrong and contrary to hygiene in this communication and if the military have lost moral support and health by renouncing to bad places in favor of prayer.
