The Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1863

As it must have been noticed Mr. Constant got to Morzine with the idea that the cause of the disease was purely physical. He could be right for it as it would be absurd to suppose a hidden influence to every effect that had an unknown cause. According to him such a cause was entirely in the conditions of hygiene, physiology and climatic circumstances of the inhabitants. We do not pretend to say that he had arrived with another contrary opinion ready, something that would not be more logical. All we say is that with his preconceived idea he only saw what he wanted to see whilst if he had just admitted the possibility of another cause he would have seen something else.

When a cause is real it must explain all the effects that are produced. If certain effects contradict the cause it means that the cause is false or that it is not the only cause and then it is necessary to look for another one. It is undoubtedly the more logical path.

That is how justice is done in search for the causes of criminality. When looking for the perpetrator of a crime will law enforcement arrive at the crime scene with the preconceived idea that it was done in this or that way by this or that person? No. It is necessary to observe the minor details and rebuild the event from the effects to the causes, setting aside those that are irreconcilable with the observed effects and from deduction to deduction it is rare the case in which truth is not established.

The same occurs to the sciences. When a difficulty presents itself as insoluble, the wisest things to do is to suspend the assessment. From that moment on any hypothesis is allowed to try to solve the issue. However, if the hypothesis does not address all the facets of the problem it means that it is not true. It does not bear the character of an absolute truth if it cannot explain everything.

That is how in Spiritism, for example, leaving aside the material proof, going back from the effects to the causes, arrives at the principle of the plurality of existences as an unavoidable consequence because only this principle can clearly explain what no other has been able to do.

Applying such a method to the facts of Morzine, it is easy to see that the only cause admitted by Mr. Constant is far from explaining everything. He attests, for example, that the crises cease when the patients are away from the region of the commune. If the illness is due to the lymphatic constitution and the bad nutrition of the inhabitants how can it stop its action when the patients transpose the bridge that separate them from the neighboring community? If the nervous breakdowns were not followed by any other symptom there is no doubt that one could attribute them to such a physical state but there are other phenomena that could not be explained exclusively by such a state.

Here Spiritism offers us with a shocking comparison. In the beginning of the manifestations when we saw turning and rapping tables, tables that would rise in space without any support, the first thought was that it was taking place by the action of electricity, magnetism or another unknown field. Such a supposition was not absurd; on the contrary it had all the likelihood. However, when it was found out that the movements were followed by intelligent signs; that followed an intelligent and spontaneous will, the first hypothesis had to be abandoned because it did not solve that part of the phenomena and it was imperative to acknowledge an intelligent cause producing an intelligent effect. Which intelligence was that? It was still through experimentation that one arrived at that cause and not through a preconceived system.

Let us mention another example. When Newton was observing the fall of bodies and that all of them would follow the same direction he searched for a cause and raised a hypothesis. That hypothesis, by resolving all cases of the same kind, became the law of universal gravitation, a purely mechanical law because all the effects were mechanical. However, let us imagine that when observing the fall of an apple the apple had obeyed his will; that his command would make the apple rise up instead of going down; that it would move from left to right; that it would stop or continue its movement; that by any sign it had responded to his thoughts, he would then have been forced to admit that there was something else besides a mechanical law, that since the apple was not intelligent it had to have obeyed an intelligence. That is what happened to the turning tables. That is what happens to the patients of Morzine.

Speaking only about the facts observed by Mr. Constant we would then ask: How come bad nourishment and a lymphatic condition could produce bad feelings against religion in people that are naturally religious and even devout followers? If it were an isolated fact it could be an exception but it is acknowledged as general and that it is one of the features of the disease there and elsewhere. That is an effect. Look for its cause. Don’t you know it? Be it. Confess that you don’t know but don’t say that it is due to the fact that the villagers eat potato and black bread or due to their ignorance and limited intelligence because the same effects will be shown to you on wealthy and educated people. If comfort were enough to cure wickedness we would be stunned by the number of sinners and blasphemous people that are not deprived of anything.

Would hygiene explain better this other not less characteristic and general fact of the feeling of duality unequivocally translated by the patients’ language? Certainly not. It is always a third party speaking. There is always a distinction between the speaker and the young lady, a constant fact on the individuals of the same case irrespective of their social class.

The meds are inefficient for a good reason. They are good to the lady, the corporeal being, but not to the third one, the one that cannot be seen but that nonetheless makes her act, embarrasses her, subjugates her and takes her down and that utilizes her limbs to hit and her mouth to speak.

Dr. Chiara, another doctor who also visited Morzine, published his assessment^[2] attesting the same phenomena and the same symptoms as Dr. Constant. However, to him, as to the latter, the malign Spirits are in the imagination of the patients. We find the following fact about a patient in his work:

“The episode begins by a hiccup and swallowing movements; by the alternative bending and straightening of the head on the trunk; later on, after several contortions that give her nice face a horrible expression she shouts:

Talking about another patient, he says:

“After a few minutes of a mute scene, of a more or less expressive pantomime, our possessed starts to say horrible words. Bubbling of rage she insults us all with an unprecedented fury. However – we must say now – it is not the lady that expresses herself like that but the devil that possesses her and that using her organs speaks in her own name. As for our innocent girl she is just a passive instrument from which the notion of self was completely abolished. When questioned directly she remains dumb. Only Beelzebub responds. Finally, after approximately three minutes that horrible drama suddenly ends, like by magic. The girl B… recovers her very calm and natural appearance as if nothing had happened. She was knitting before so she continues to knit as if the work were not interrupted. I question her. She responds that she does not feel tired at all and remembers nothing. I mention the swear words and insults against us but she seems bothered by that and apologizes. In all those patients general sensitivity is completely abolished. The can be pinched, poked at or burned to feel nothing. I pierced the folded skin of one of them who felt nothing despite the bleeding. I also saw several of those patients away from the trance in Morzine. They were fat and nice young ladies, enjoying a perfect moral and physical health. It would be impossible to suppose any disorder just by looking at them.”

That in contrast to the skinny and painful state that Mr. Constant believes to have found. As for the phenomenon of lack of sensitivity during the episodes that is not the only proximity to facts presented by catalepsy, somnambulism and double vision. Alter all the observations Dr. Chiara came to the following definition of the illness:

“It is a morbid group of different symptoms of a bit of nervous and mental disorders. In short it is a sui generis disease that I will call – not giving importance to names – hystericaldemonia a name that has already been used before.”

It is the case of saying: “whoever has ears, let them hear”. It is a particular illness, formed by different parts whose source is everywhere. That is the same as simply saying: “It is a disease that I don’t understand.” It is a ‘sui generis’ illness, we agree, but what is it that you cannot even give a name to?

We could demonstrate the insufficiency of a purely material cause to explain the illness of Morzine by many other approximations but the readers will do it themselves. I refer them to the preceding articles about the same subject in which we explained the mode by which the action of the obsessing Spirits take place as well as the phenomena that result from that action and the analogy will support the latest evidence.

If to the people of Morzine the third intervening power is the devil it is because they were told so and it all that they knew. As a matter of fact, it is well-known that certain inferior Spirits have fun by taking infernal names in order to terrify people. Replace that name by the word Spirit or even better, bad Spirit, and you shall have the perfect reproduction of every scene of obsession and subjugation that we reported.

There is no doubt that in a region where the idea of Spiritism dominated, in the case of a similar epidemic, the patients would say that they were solicited by bad Spirits whereas in the eyes of other certain people they would be considered mentally insane. They say that it is the devil: it is a nervous disease. That is what would have happened in Morzine had the knowledge of Spiritism preceded the invasion of those Spirits. My adversaries would then have shouted: Help! Get him! But Providence did not want to give them such satisfaction. On the contrary, they wanted to prove their impotence to fight the illness by conventional means. The bottom line is that they sent the patients away to the hospitals of Thonon, Chambery, Lyon, Macon, etc. It was a good solution to them because when all were removed they could boast about the fact that there wasn’t any remaining patient in the region. The measure could have been based on an observation that there was no episode beyond the borders of the commune but as it seems it was based on another observation: the isolation of patients. In fact, Mr. Constant’s opinion is categorical:

“There should be a kind of Lazaretto, he says, where the moral illnesses could be hidden as soon as they were produced and whose contagious characteristic was established, as my old friend Dr. Bouchut said. While there was not a better place, the Lazaretto was found in the asylum of the mentally ill, the only truly convenient for the rational treatment of patients with the type of disease I am dealing with, admitting or not that those patients are taken by some sort of mental alienation. It is necessary to pose a certain level of intimation onto them; occupy their minds leaving the minimum possible time for other concerns; absolutely subtract any meaningless religious influence from them, avoid conversations, advices or observations that can feed back their mistakes that must on the contrary be fought back daily; give them an appropriate regimen and finally force them to take the prescriptions adequate to mental treatments and the means of executing them. Where can one find all those necessary conditions if not in an asylum? Some are afraid of the contact of these patients with the truly alienated ones. Such a contact seemed to have been less harmful than thought and also it would have been easy to have a special pavilion to the patients of Morzine. If the agglomeration had had any inconvenience it would have found compensation in the gathering itself and I am convinced that the name asylum, house of mad people, by itself would have produce more than one cure and that there would not be many devils that would not have run away from the shower.”

We are far from sharing Mr. Constant’s optimism about the harmlessness of the contact with the mentally ill and the efficacy of the showers in similar cases. We are, on the contrary, persuaded that such a regimen may produce true madness where there is only apparent disease. Now, notice that out of the episodic crises the patients have common sense and are mentally and physically healthy; there isn’t more than a transient disturbance without any indication of madness as such. Their brains, necessarily weakened by the frequent attacks, would be even more easily influenced by the vision and by the idea of being among the truly ill patients.

Mr. Constant attributed the development and continuity of the illness within the limitation he understood. He therefore recommended putting them together with the mentally ill or having them in a hospital pavilion. Isn’t that an evident contradiction? Is it what he understood to be a moral treatment?

In our opinion the disease is due to a different cause and requires different healing procedures. Its source is in the unstoppable interaction between the visible and the invisible world that surrounds us and in whose environment we live, that is, among people and Spirits who are nothing more than the souls of those who lived before and among which there are good ones and bad ones. Such interaction is one of the forces of the laws of Nature and produce a number of misunderstood psychological, physiological and moral phenomena because their cause was unknown. Spiritism enlightened us about that law and considering that the effects are submitted to a natural law there is nothing of supernatural about it. We feel the influence of these beings who live in such environment that is not as much immaterial as people imagine it to be, with their fluidic bodies similar to ours. The influence of the good Spirits is healthy and beneficial. That of the bad Spirits is pernicious like the contact with evil people in our Society.

Thus, we say that there is a momentary cloud of such bad and invisible beings upon Morzine as it has happened to several other places and they will not be expelled by juicy food and showers. Some call them devils or demons. We called them just bad or inferior Spirits but that does not imply the absence of a good quality since this has a big difference in terms of consequences for the very idea of demons is that these are a different set of creatures, separated from humanity, whilst in fact they are only the souls of people who were bad on Earth but that will end up improving one day. When they go to such places they do as they would during their lives, that is, the actions of a bunch of evil men. Hence it is necessary to expel them as one would do to the enemy’s troop. It is in the nature of these Spirits to be averse to religion because they fear its power like the criminals who are averse to the law and to the judges who condemn them, expressing their feeling by the mouth of their victims who are truly unconscious mediums absolutely right when they side that they are just echoes. The patient is reduced to passivity as in the situation of a man dominated by a stronger enemy that obliges him to obey. The ‘self’ of the strange Spirit temporarily neutralizes the ‘self’ of the person. There is an obsessive subjugation and not possession.

“What absurd thinking!”, certain doctors will say. It may be absurb but it is still accepted as truth by a large number of doctors. Time will come, and faster than many think, in which the action of the invisible world will be generally accepted and the influence of the bad Spirits identified among the causes of pathologies. The important role of the perispirit in physiology will be taken into account and a new avenue of cure will be open to a large number of diseases considered incurable. If that is the case, people will ask, what is the cause of the inefficacy of exorcism? It demonstrates one thing: exorcism as practiced is worth as much as the meds because its efficacy is not in the exterior act, in the virtue of words or signals but in the moral ascendency exercised upon the bad Spirits.

Were it not the patients who said: “it is not medication that we lack but priests”? And insulted them by saying that they were not saint enough to have ascendency upon the devil. Was it too much potato eating that led them to speak like that? No, but their intuition of truth. The inefficacy of exorcism in similar cases is demonstrated by experience. And why is that? Because it consists of ceremonies and formulas that make the bad Spirits laugh while they yield to the moral ascendency that is imposed on them. They see that people try to dominate them by powerless means and want to show stronger. They are like the wild horse that takes the unable rider down but that is docile to an expert.

“In one of those ceremonies”, Dr. Chiara says, “…all the patients were gathered in one church where there was a terrible riot. All the women had a simultaneous crisis taking the church benches down, breaking them and rolling on the floor, messing with men and children who hopelessly tried to stop them. They say horrible and incredible blasphemies and question the priests with the most insulting words.”

They then stopped public ceremonies of exorcism and started doing it a home, at any time of day or night, and since that did not have better results the stopped that too.

We cited several examples of moral strength is similar cases and in the absence of a large enough number of sufficient proofs it would be enough to remember that of Jesus Christ that only had to ask the demons to leave in order to have them expelled. Compare in possessed of those days in the Gospels to those of our time and you will see a shocking similarity. Jesus cured them by miracles, you will say. Be it but here there is one fact that took place among the schismatic that you will not consider less miraculous.

Mr. A… from Moscow that had not read our report told us a few days back that the inhabitants of a village in his properties were taken by a disease similar in all aspects to that of Morzine. Same crises, same convulsions, same blasphemies, same insults against the priests, same effect of exorcism and same uselessness of medical science. One of his uncles, Mr. R… from Moscow, powerful magnetizer, a good man by excellence and of a very good heart, having come to visit those unfortunate patients stopped the convulsions by a simple imposition of the hands always followed by feverous prayers. He ended up radically curing almost all the patients by the same procedure.

This example is not the only one. How to explain it if not by the influence of magnetism seconded by prayer, a medicine not much used by our materialists because it is not found in the codex of our pharmacies? A powerful medication though when it is said from the bottom of the heart and not with the lips and when supported by a vivid faith and an eager desire for good. Describing obsession in our first articles we explained the fluidic action produced in such circumstances and from there we conclude by analogy that it would have been a powerful support in Morzine. At any rate, it seems that the illness has found its term despite the fact that the conditions of the region remain the same.

Why is that? That is what we are not allowed to say yet. Since it will be later acknowledged it will have served Spiritism more than people think even if only to demonstrate by a great example that those who don’t know them are not shielded against the action of the bad Spirits as well as the impotence of ordinary means employed to have them expelled.

We will end by tranquilizing certain inhabitants of the region under the pretense influence that some of them could have by produced evil actions as they say. The belief in fortune tellers must be relegated to superstition. May they show good hearts and those who are in charge of leading them strive to elevate them morally, that is a safe way of neutralizing the influence of the bad Spirits and must prevent a return to what happened. The bad Spirits only address those that they know can be dominated and not those that are morally superior – we don’t mean intellectually – and are shielded against attacks.

Here a very natural objection is presented that is convenient to analyze. You may perhaps ask why all those who are bad are not reached by possession? We respond that by doing bad they suffer the pernicious influence of the bad spirits in a different way, listening to their advice for which they shall be punished with the more severity the more they act with knowledge of cause. Do not believe in the virtues of any talisman, amulet, sign or any word to keep the bad Spirits away. Purity of heart and intention, the love of God and towards the neighbor that is the talisman because that subtracts from them any domination upon our souls.

Here is the communication that St. Louis gave about it at the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies:

“The possessed of Morzine are really under the influence of bad Spirits attracted to that region by causes that you will one day learn or even better that you will yourself get to know one day. The knowledge of Spiritism will allow the predominance of the good over bad influence, that is, the healing and consoling Spirits attracted by sympathetic fluids will replace the malign and cruel influence that devastates that population. Spiritism is called up to do great services. It will be the healer of such diseases whose cause was formerly unknown and before which science remains powerless. It will probe the moral ulcers and give them the healing balsam. By turning people better it will keep them away from the bad Spirits who are attracted by the vices of humanity. If every person were good the bad Spirits would stay away from them because they would be unable to lead them to doing bad. The presence of good people sends them away as the presence of vicious people attract them whilst the opposite happens to the good Spirits. Therefore, be good if you only want the good Spirits around you.” – Medium Mrs. Costel.

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[1] See the issues of the Spiritist Review December 1862, January, February and April 1863


[2] Les Diables de Morzine, at the Mégret, quai de l’Hôpital 51, Lyon.

From several places we get the indications of new sermons against Spiritism all of them with the same bottom line that we have talked about before. Since they are always variants of the same theme, we find no need to analyze them. We will limit ourselves to point out certain passages followed by a few reflections.

“Brothers, this is a Christian that speaks to Christians and as such we have the right of being stunned by the growth of Spiritism among us. What is Spiritism, I ask you, if not a mixture of horrors that only madness may justify?”

We have nothing to say about this one but that all sermons given in this town were not able to hinder the growth of Spiritism as confirmed by the speaker. Therefore, the arguments offered against it are less valid than his own. Now, if the sermons are from God and Spiritism is from the devil, it means that the devil is stronger than God. Nothing is further from the truth. It is a well-known fact that Spiritism propagates following the sermons for the simple reason that people find the arguments, given by Spiritism, more convincing than those offered by the adversaries. It is a fabric of horrors, may be, but you must agree that if those Spirits were to take over your ideas instead of demons you would see saints and far from condemning the evocations you would encourage them.

“Our century no longer respects anything. Not even the ashes of the graves are respected for insensible people dare to call the dead for their entertainment. Nevertheless, that is what is happening and this is where we got at with this pretense century of lights: talk to the dead.”

Talking to the dead is not something of this century since history of all peoples demonstrates that this has happened at all times. The only difference is that today it happens everywhere without the superstitious accessories that surrounded the evocations in former times; it is done with a more respectful and religious sentiment. It must be one out of two options: it is possible or not. If it is not then it is a deceiving belief like believing in the Friday the 13th or throwing salt over your shoulder for good luck. Hence, we don’t see so much horror and don’t find someone disrespectful when talking to people that are no longer here. If the dead come to talk to us it must be allowed by God unless we admit that they come without such a permission or against His will which would imply that God does not care about it or that the evokers are more powerful than God. Notice, however, the contradictions. On the one side, you say that it is only the devil that communicates, on the other hand that the ashes of the dead are disturbed by calling them. If it is the devil then it is not the dead hence they are not disturbed and there is no lack of respect. If they are the dead then it is not the devil. You must find reconciliation in this capital point. Admitting that it is the dead then we acknowledge that there would be profanation by calling them lightheartedly for futile reasons and particularly to make money out of that. We condemn all these things and take no responsibility for those who stay away from the principles of serious Spiritism as much as you do not take for the false followers that only bear the mask of religion; that preach what they do not practice or that speculate with sacred things. Evocations made in burlesque conditions that were cited by one eloquent speaker that we will mention below would be a sacrilege but thank God, we are not into that and do not believe that the sermon of Mr. Viennois also mentioned below is not in such a case either.

“I witnessed these facts myself and heard them preaching moral and charity, that is true. But what are the basis of that moral and that charity? Ah! None. Can we call moral a doctrine that rejects the eternal penalties?”

If such a moral teaching leads to good without fear of the eternal penalties, it can only have a greater merit. In the past, it was considered impossible to control the students without the support of a teacher. Were they better? No. This is no longer used in our days and they are not worse, much to the contrary. Hence the current method is preferable. The goodness of a given method is evaluated by the effects. As a matter of fact, who are the addressees of that moral teaching? Precisely those who do not believe in the eternal penalties. Do we preclude those who believe in the eternal penalties from believing? Absolutely not. Once more, we do not address those who have faith and to whom their faith suffices but those who don’t have one or that are in doubt.

Would you prefer to see them not believe at all? That would not be as acceptable. Are you afraid of having your sheep stolen? That is because you are not as confident in the power of your means to keep them. You are afraid of having them attracted by the kind herb of forgiveness and by the divine mercy. Would you then believe that those who are not as sure and that fluctuate around you will prefer the flames of hell? On the another hand, who are the ones that must be more convinced than those at the heart of the Church? Well! Tell us why haven’t such a perspective stopped all the atrocities, all the deviations against the divine and human laws plentifully found in history and that incessantly multiply in our days? Are they crimes or are they not?

Then if those who have such a belief by profession are not stopped how can you expect those who do not believe to obey? No, the enlightened person of our times requires a rational leash. The belief in the eternal penalties, perhaps useful in former times, is out of fashion. It extinguishes daily and however much you try you will not give life back to a cadaver as you cannot revive medieval habits, ideas and costumes. If the disappearance of such a belief jeopardizes the Catholic Church security then it is the case to feel sorry to having it based on such a fragile basis because if there is a corroding germen that is the dogma of the eternal penalties.

“Thus I appeal to the morality of every honest soul; I appeal to the magistrates because they are responsible for all evil that similar heresy brings to our minds.”

We did not know that the magistrates in France were in charge of persecuting the heretical because if there are Catholics among them there are also Protestants and Jewish who would then be assigned with their own persecution and condemnation. And there are servants of the highest echelons.

“Yes, the Spiritists, and I am not afraid of openly declaring that, are not only due to be delivered to the police and the imperial court but also, hear me well, are liable before the civil courts because they are deceivers who sign communications in the name of honored people who certainly would not have signed them when alive, people of prominence these days.”

The Spiritists are really fortunate since Confucius, Socrates, Plato, Saint Agostino, Saint Vincent de Paul, Fénelon and others cannot come to sue them for the crime of falsifying their writings. But here is what I think: if there were a lifeline it would be exactly in the courts where they would find justice because there they would have found the jurors who judge according to their consciences. There are Protestants and Jewish among them too; there are even – something terrible! – Philosophers and unbeliever free-thinkers that due to our modern laws are found everywhere. Thus, if we are accused of making Saint Agostino say something heterodox we will also find jurors that will acquit us. Oh! The perversity of this century! If we think that Voltaire, Diderot, Luther,Calvino, John Huss and Arius could have been jurors by birth right, that they could have been judges, mayors, ministers of justice and even the cult ones! You see them, those animals of hell, pronouncing about a question of heresy because in order to have a signature of Fénelon placed in a heretical communication condemned it is necessary to judge the question of heresy and who in the jury will have competence for that?

“However, it would be so easy to stop such harm! What is it that would be necessary to do? The minimal. Even without given them the honor of the chief of police you could have a sergeant at the entrance of each group saying: Nobody is allowed here! I paint the picture of evil and provide the medicine, nothing more nothing less, because I let go the remedy of the inquisition.”

Many thanks but there is no merit in offering what one does not have. Unfortunately, you do not have the inquisition without which it would be doubtful that you would grant us with the indult. Why don’t you ask the magistrates then to bar the entrance of the synagogues and those of the temples of the Protestants where they publicly preach dogmas that are not those of yours? As for the Spiritists they don’t have temples or priests but groups what to you is the same thing and that a sergeant before each one would have it all resolved. It is in fact very simple. But you forgot that the Spirits break any barrier and enter anywhere without permission, even in your house for you have them around you, listening to you unsuspectedly, and even more, speaking to your ears. Analyze your memories and you will see that you had more than one manifestation without soliciting it.

It seems that you ignore something that you should know. The Spiritist groups are not absolutely necessary. They are only gatherings where people feel happy for finding others who share the same beliefs. A proof of that is the fact that in France today there are more than 600,000 Spiritists, 99% of which are not part of any group and have never step foot in any of them; that these groups do not exist in a number of cities; that nor the groups nor the societies open their doors to the public to preach their doctrine to the passerby; that Spiritism preaches itself and by the force of things because it responds to a need of our times; that its contagiousness is in the example of those who are happy with such beliefs and that they are found everywhere, all over the world, without the need to look for them in the groups.

Thus, it is not groups that make the propaganda since they do not welcome the first one that shows up. That happens from neighbor to neighbor, from individual to individual. Admitting the interdiction of every meeting the Spiritists would still be free to gather at home as it does happen in thousands of places without any damage to Spiritism; on the contrary we have always condemned the large assemblies as more harmful than helpful and the intimacy acknowledged as the most favorable condition to the manifestations. Will you stop the family gatherings? Would you place a sergeant at the doorway of each house to watch what happens by the fireplace? That is not done in Spain or in Rome where there are more Spiritists than you think. That would be the last thing needed to promote even more the importance of Spiritism.

Let us now admit the legal interdiction of the groups. Do you know what those Spiritists that you accuse of spreading disorder would do? They would say: “We respect the law; dura lex, sed lex (it is harsh but it is the law). Let us give the example and show that if we preach union, peach and concord that is not to become a factor of disorder. The organized societies are not a necessary condition for the existence of Spiritism. There isn’t any material link among than that can be broken in case they are suppressed. What the Spiritists teach in those groups they also teach from person to person. Spiritism has this incredible privilege of having its focus everywhere. Its sign of connection is the love of God and towards the neighbor and to put it to work there is no need of official meetings. It reaches both friend and foe.

Anyone may say the same; hasn’t authority found resistance where it expected submission? If the Spiritists are such a turbulent and perverted people as you pretend to be, why in places where they are found in larger numbers law enforcement has less difficulty in their work, to the point of one of them saying that if everyone in his region was Spiritist he could close shop? Why in the military there is less disciplinary penalties among the Spiritists? Furthermore, you don’t imagine that nowadays there are Spiritists everywhere from the top to the bottom of the social scale; that there are mediums and gatherings even at the homes of those who you incite against us. Hence you must see that your means is insufficient. It is necessary to find another one.

Spiritism pleases because it does not impose itself. It is accepted by the free-will and free exam. In that it is from our time. It pleases by the kindness, by the consolations given in hard times, by the unbreakable faith in the future that it entails, by the belief in the goodness and mercy of God. Besides, it is based on positive, material and irrefutable facts that defy any denial. That is the secret of such a fast propagation.

What is it that you offer instead? Always the eternal penalties, not so good for the current times; then the deformation of your doctrines. You accuse them of preaching abortion, adultery and every crime. Who do you think you can blame for that? Certainly not the Spiritists. Perhaps those who don’t know Spiritism? But among these there many want to know what this dreadful doctrine is; they read and then learning that it says exactly the opposite to what you accused it of saying they leave you and seek that doctrine, and all that without soliciting.

I know well that the position is embarrassing because you say this: if we speak against Spiritism we recruit followers for it; if we remain quiet, it walks on its own. What to do then? People used to say in former times: allow the justice of the king to follow its course; now one must say: allow the justice of God to follow its course. (To be continued in the next issue).

You had agreed with Mrs. V… that the one that remained alive would have come to me in order to evoke the one who had left. Mrs. V… let me know of the commitment and I am pleased to agree. I know that you were an eager Spiritist with a great heart. Such circumstances can only increase our desire to communicate with you. – A. I can then write to you and approach you to express my good feelings about you. Thank you for all the happiness you gave me dear wife you who made me love the belief, the sacred rule of my final days by your side. I am very happy for being able to pick today all the fruits that were promised by the venerable faith that reveal to us the existence of another life beyond that of Earth. I enjoy a power that is unknown to mankind; the space is ours; I can understand better and love you better. My sensations are no longer obscure and there is something divine in us of extreme simplicity for everything that is great is simple. Greatness is the true element of the Spirit. I am always by your side. From now on you will be happy because I will surround you with my fluid that will strengthen you if needed. I want you to be always courageous, good and Spiritist. With these three elements, you will praise God for having called me because I wait for you, persuaded that thanks to Spiritism God reserves a good place for you among us.

I ask you to kindly describe to us your passage to the world of the Spirits, your impressions and the influence that the Spiritist knowledge had on your elevation. – A. The expected death was not a suffering to me but instead a complete rupture with matter. I saw a new life. The divine future, that awaited hour, came calmly. It is true that I missed my companion that I could not leave behind without pain: it is the last link of the chain that unites the Spirit to matter; once it is broken I suffered little the passage from life to death. My Spirit carried the prayers of my beloved one. All the impressions were extinguished and I woke up in our dominion, the dominion of the Spirits. To the just person, the trip is like the sleep; the rupture is natural but as soon as you wake up, what a surprise! Everything is new, splendid and marvelous! Those who I loved and other Spirits, friends of preceding incarnations, welcomed me and opened the doors to the true existence in this bondless park called Heavens! You cannot understand my impressions neither can I express them. I will try to transmit them to you on another occasion.

When I received a letter form Mrs. V… I sent you an adequate prayer. Can you tell us what your opinion about it is? – A. Thank you for your kindness Mr. Allan Kardec! You could not have done better. Those who cry for the absent ones need the Spirit of God but also the help of other benevolent Spirits and the Spirits must be that. Your prayer touched many lighthearted and unbeliever Spirits who are the invisible witnesses of your sessions (the prayer had been read at the Society after the evocation). Your good words will help your advancement. You frequently do to our world the good that you receive from it. Never neglect the advice of someone smaller than us acknowledging this intimate bond created by God in all creatures.

I wanted to ask you to give me a communication to Mrs. V… but I see that you anticipated my thought. – A. I answered your first question addressing my wife when I should have done it to the Spiritist Society. Forgive me since I was holding a promise made. I know that you attract those who wish to find consolation through persuasion. Those that don’t sacrifice everything for pleasure and gold will find great satisfaction in talking to the beings of the other world. Please let my wife know that she will always count on my presence. We will work together for her spiritual progress. Send my communication to her. I wanted to tell her so many good things but I miss the expressions. May she always love our family so that through her example it can become Spiritist and believe in the eternal life that is the life of God!

Preface

How horrible the idea of the nothingness! It is so unfortunate the idea that the tears for a lost friend are lost in space and find no echo anywhere! Those who believe that everything ends with the body have never found true affections; those who believe that the genius who illuminated the world with a vast intelligence is just a game of matter, that disappear forever like a draft of air; that nothing is left from the dearest creature, a father, a mother or a beloved child, but a hand full of dust that time will dissipate forever! How can a person of heart remain cold before such a thought? How come the idea of the absolute annihilation does not freeze someone in horror and at least does not make one wish for something different? If reason has not been enough so far to take us away from the doubt here is Spiritism dissipating any uncertainty about the future through the material proofs of the survival of the soul and the existence of the beings from beyond the grave. Thus, these proofs are welcomed with joy everywhere and confidence is reborn because from that time on people know that the earthly life is just a short passage that leads to a better life; that the work done here is not lost and that the most sacred affections are not broken hopelessly.

Prayer

Almighty God, please receive the prayer that I send in favor of the Spirit … Make him/her foresee your divine clarities and facilitate his/her path to eternal happiness. Allow the good Spirits to take him/her my words and my thoughts. You that were so dear to me in this world listen to my voice that calls you to give you a new proof of my affection. God wanted you to be freed first. I could not be sorry without being selfish because it would be the same as wishing you the hardships and sufferings of life. I then wait with resignation for the moment of our reunion in the happier world where you preceded me. I know that our separation is just momentary and that however long it may seem to me its duration disappears before the eternal happiness that God promised to the elected ones. May his benevolence impede me from delaying such an expected moment and that He spare me from the pain of not finding you when I leave my earthly captivity! Oh, how sweet and reassuring the certainty that there is only a material veil hiding you from my eyes! That you may well be here by my side, that you can see me and hear me like in the past and even better than in the past; that you don’t forget me as I don’t forget you; that our thoughts mix up constantly and that your thoughts always sustain me!

Story of a little donkey


In a recent sermon given against Spiritism, with a command to have it attacked from all flanks and throw mortal blow, the speaker told the following anecdote:

“A lady lost her husband three weeks ago. A medium showed up to propose a conversation with her dead partner through which she could perhaps see him. The vision did not happen but the dead person explained to the wife, by the hand of the medium, that he was not considered worthy of entering the resting place of the blessed ones and that he was forced to reincarnate immediately in order to atone his serious sins. Guess where? At a place about one kilometer from here in the house of a mill worker, as a little donkey that was beaten with a whip. Imagine the pain of the poor lady that rushes to the mill worker, embraces the poor donkey and tries to buy him immediately. The mill worker was a tough negotiator but finally yielded before a bag of coins. For the last fifteen days, the little donkey occupies a special room in her house surrounded by a care that has never before seen since the time that God decided to create this loving species..”

We doubt that the audience was convinced about the story but as far as we know from eye witnesses the majority thought that it would be better suited to a mocking paper than to the pulpit both for its content and expressions. The speaker undoubtedly ignored the fact that Spiritism unequivocally teaches that the soul or Spirit cannot animate the body of an animal (The Spirits’ Book, #118, 612 and 613).

What is even more astonishing is the ridicule cast upon the pain in general with the support of a funny story and with terms that do not shine for their nobility. Besides, watching a priest treating the works of God with such an insolence by these not much reverent words: “since the time that God decided to create this loving species.”

The matter is as much improper to make fun of as one could object that everything that is the work of God is respectable and that Jesus was not dishonored for having entered Jerusalem riding an individual of that species. If you establish a parallel between the burlesque picture of the lady’s sorrow and that of the true widow whose report we gave above identify which one is more edifying, more in accordance with the true religious feeling and respect for the Divinity; finally, which one would be better placed on the pulpit of truth. Let us admit the story that you told, Mr. Speaker, not the reincarnation in a donkey but the belief of the widow in such a reincarnation.

What have you given her for punishment in substitution? The eternal flames of hell, an even less reassuring perspective because that lady would have said: “I would rather know that my husband is in the skin of a donkey than burning forever in hell.” Suppose she had to choose between your image of unstoppable torture and that given to us by the Spirit of Mr. Viennois above. Do you believe that she would have hesitated? Conscientiously you do not think so because you yourself would not have hesitated.

One of our correspondents from a Southern city writes the following to us:

“Today I will provide you with a new proof that the crusade that I mentioned to you is translated in a thousand ways. Yesterday I attended a meeting in which there was a heated discussion of the pros and cons of Spiritism. One of the attendees said the following: - Mr. Kardec experiences are not better than the ones we have just talked about. In his magazine, Mr. Kardec avoids comments about all the mystifications and tribulations that he faces. You must know, for example, that September last year in a gathering of about thirty people in Mr. Kardec’s house, all the participants were whacked by the Spirits. I was in Paris on the occasion and heard reports from a person that that just attended the meeting and who showed the bruise on his shoulder hit by a violent blow. I did not see the stick, she said, but she felt it.

I would like to know about this type of activity and that I would appreciate any explanation.”

We would not have bothered our readers with such an insignificant case if it would not have some level of instruction which would be useful as we are not able to respond to every one of these absurdities.

Answer: My dear Sr., the fact that you reported is among those things which are possible and about which there is more than one example. By saying that one of them took place in my house is the same as formally accepting the manifestation of the Spirits. The form of the story, however, denotes an intention that does not allow me to agree with the author. He can be a believer but certainly he is not benevolent and forgets the basis of the Spiritist moral: charity. If the reported case had really happened, as stated by this person , I would not let it go quietly because it would be a fact of capital importance about which there would be no doubt it because, as it was said, there was thirty witnesses being bashed by the proof of the existence of the Spirits. Unfortunately, to your story teller, there isn’t a single word that is true in the story. I formally belie him as the other one who said to have attended the session and I challenge both to come to sustain what they say before the Parisian Society as they do two hundred miles away. The story tellers don’t think of everything and fall before their own traps. That is what happens in this case because there is a material impossibility for the fact so positively attested by an eye witness: the fact that the Society interrupts its activities between August 15^th and October 1^st; that since I left Paris towards the end of August, I only returned on October 20^th, consequently that in September I was fully engaged with a trip. As you see this is one of the most authentic alibies.

If the person really carried the marks of walking stick on the shoulder and since there was no meeting in my house that person received them elsewhere and not willing to say where and how she found it interesting to accuse the Spirits, something that was less compromising and avoided any further explanation.

My dear Sir, you really give too much importance to this little story, classifying it as an act of a crusade against Spiritism. There are so many of this kind that it would be necessary to have nothing else to do in order to take the time to respond to them. Hostility is translated by more serious actions and that nonetheless are not less concerning. You take too seriously the diatribes of our adversaries. Hence you must think that the more they agitate to combat Spiritism, the more they demonstrate its importance. If it were a simple myth or dream they would not be so much worried. What does make them so furious and eager against Spiritism is the fact that they see it advancing against the wind and the tides and feel the circle around them closing in more and more. Let the ill-intended ones invent fairytales and the others to throw in the poison of calumny because such gimmicks are a demonstration of their impotence to attack with good arguments. Spiritism has nothing to fear about them. On the contrary, they are the shadows that point out Spiritism’s shine. The liars are worn out by their stories and the slanderers abated by the shame that spills upon them.

Spiritism faces the same attacks as all other new truths that excite the passions of those whose ideas and interests may be hurt. Look and see if all those truths have not prevailed and surpassed all the obstacles that were placed in their way; find one only that has succumbed to the attacks of its enemies. The new ideas that only had a transient light fell on their own because they did not have the vitality that can only be achieved by the truth. These were less attacked because the ones that remained prevailed after more violent attacks.

You must not believe that the war against Spiritism has reached its summit. No. There are still certain things that do need to take place in order to open the eyes of the blind ones. I cannot and I must not say more at this point in time because I should not interfere with the necessary march of the events. I tell you, however, that while we wait: When you hear absurd expression; when you see material acts of hostility from wherever they may come far from being shaken you should applaud them the more they have repercussion. That is one of the announced signs of the forthcoming triumph, soon to take place.

As for the Spiritists these must distinguish themselves by moderation leaving to the antagonists the sad privilege of the defamations and personalities that prove nothing but a lack of skills in the beginning and a lack of good reasons later on. A few more words, if you allow me, about the behavior with respect to the adversaries. It is as much a duty of the good Spiritist to enlighten the ones who seek them in good faith as it is useless to discuss with the ill-faith antagonists or with a pre-conceived idea; they are sometimes more convinced than it seems but do not want to confess. Any polemic is useless with them because there is no objective and cannot change opinion. There are many of good will for us to waste time with the others.

That is the line of conduct that I have always advised and the one that I have invariably followed myself, always abstaining from yielding to provocations with the intent of making me go down to the arena of the controversy. If I occasionally respond to certain attacks and false statements is to show that it is not the possibility of the answer that is missing and to give the Spiritists the means of refutation, if necessary. As a matter of fact, there are some that I spare to later on. Since I am not impatient I observe everything with calm and cold blood. I confidently wait for the right moment that I know will come allowing the adversaries to get to a dead end.

The measure of their aggression has not reached the limit yet. It is necessary that it does. The present prepares the future. Up until now there has been no serious objection that was not refuted in my writings. Hence all I can do is to send it to them to avoid repeating myself incessantly with all those who enjoy speaking of what they don’t know even the first words. Every discussion is superfluous with someone that did not read or, if read, had a preconceived idea. Personal issues disappear before the greatness of the objective and the big picture of the irresistible movement that takes place in the ideas.

Never mind that this one or the other one is against Spiritism when everybody knows that no one can impede the realization of facts. That is what experience confirms every day.

I then say this to every Spiritist: Continue to spread the idea. Spread it through kindness and persuasion and leave it to our adversaries the monopoly of violence and acrimony something that people resource to when there isn’t enough power of reasoning.

Yours sincerely,

A.K.

Many communications were sent to us by different groups be it to request our opinion about the contents or with the hopes of seeing them published in the Spiritist Review. All were sent with prior consent. We examined and classified them but not surprisingly there is a material impossibility of having them all published since there are more than three thousand and six hundred, in addition to the ones that were already published. These ones alone would have occupied five whole years of the Spiritist Review, not counting the number of manuscripts that we will discuss at a later date. The report of the examination will provide us with food for thought that could benefit the readers.

We found some bad ones among them, both in content and format. These ones were due to general misunderstanding, such as ignorant, obsessing, or mystifying Spirits who swear in the name of more or less renowned names that they use. In this case, if they were published, we would be giving ammunition to the critics. A circumstance that sticks out from almost all of these messages is the fact that they come from individuals rather than groups. Only fascination would allow them to be taken seriously, hindering people from seeing their ridiculous side. As it is well-known, isolation favors fascination whereas the meetings find a control in the plurality of the opinions.

We gladly acknowledge, however, that communications of such a nature form a small minority; most of the others contain good thoughts and excellent advices but that does not imply that they are all good for publication for the reasons that we are going to explain.

The good Spirits teach more or less the same things everywhere because in all places there are the same vices to be reformed and the same virtues to be taught and that is one of the distinctive characters of Spiritism; the difference is only in the more or less correctness and elegance of style. In order to assess the communications that are more convenient for publication, one must not look at them from a personal stand point but form the point of view of the general public. We understand the satisfaction that someone feels when obtaining something good, particularly at the beginning, but besides the fact that certain persons may be deceived with respect to the intrinsic merit, one does not think that in certain others places people may also obtain something similar and that what has a powerful meaning to an individual may be ordinary to the masses. Furthermore, it is necessary to consider that, for some time now, the communications have acquired proportions and qualities that in every aspect leave behind those that were obtained years ago; what was well-regarded in those days seems pale and petty now. In the majority of the truly serious centers the teachings of the Spirits grew with the intelligence of Spiritism. Considering that more or less identical communications are received everywhere their publication may only be of interest when presenting something of special quality both in the format as well as in the educational content; it would then be an illusion to believe that every communication would find numerous and enthusiastic readers. In the past, the simplest Spiritist conversation was a novelty and would attract attention; now that the Spiritists and mediums are in large number what was a rarity is now is an almost common and habitual fact, differentiated by the amplitude and reach of the current communications, like the homework of school days are compared to the works of the adult.

We have before our eyes the collection of a journal published at the beginning of the manifestations with the title La Table Parlante (the talking table), a characteristic title in those days. Some say that the journal had about 1,500 to 1,800 subscribers, a huge number for the time; it contained several small family conversations and mediumistic fact that attracted great interest in those days. We unsuccessfully sought something in that journal to publish in our Review; anything that we could choose today would be puerile and uninteresting. If that journal had not disappeared due to circumstances that are not relevant it could only remain with the condition that it would have followed the progress of the Science and in case it would be published again in the same condition in our time it would hardly count on more than fifty subscribers. The Spiritists count on a much larger number today than in those days, it is true, but they are also more enlightened and want a more substantial teaching.

If the communications would come from a single center there is no doubt that the readers would multiply with the number of followers but one must not lose sight of the fact that the focuses that produce them count on thousands and that wherever superior things are obtained there can no longer be interest for weak and mediocre things.

Our intent is not to discourage people from issuing publications, far from that; but in order to show the need of a rigorous choice, a precondition of success, by elevating their teachings the Spirits made us more difficult and even more demanding. Local publications may have an immense utility from two aspects: first to spread to the masses the teaching that is given at the intimacy, second to show the agreement that there is in that teaching about several points. We will always applaud and encourage it every time that they are done in good conditions.

To begin with, it is appropriate to point out everything that is of private interest, only of the interest of a given person; then everything that is vulgar in style and idea or puerile in the subject. Something may be excellent on itself and very good to serve as an individual instruction but whatever is delivered to the public must obey special conditions.

Unfortunately, people are inclined to believe that everything that pleases oneself also pleases others; the most skillful person may be wrong but the key here is that one must be wrong the least. There are Spirits who are happy to feed such an illusion in certain mediums; hence it is never too much to recommend to that they should never trust their own judgment. That is when the groups are useful, by the multiplicity of opinions that may be gathered. The one that in such a case rejected the opinion of the majority by considering oneself more enlightened than the others would be plentifully demonstrating the bad influence that he or she is under.

Applying such principles of eclecticism to the communications that are sent to us, we say that out of those 3,600 there are more than 3,000 that are of a irreproachable nature with excellent content but that out of those there are no more than 300 for publication and only about one hundred of incontestable merit. Considering that those communications came in large number from different places we can infer that the majority of these are more or less of a general nature. Hence the need for not publishing lightheartedly everything that comes from the Spirits if we want to achieve the proposed objective both from a material as well as from a moral point of view and the opinion that those who are indifferent may have about Spiritism.



We still have to say a few words about the manuscripts or lengthy works that were sent to us. Out of thirty, we find five or six of real value. In the invisible world, like on Earth, there is no shortage of writers but the good ones are rare; a given Spirit is good to dictate an isolated communication, to give an excellent private advice but incapable of producing a whole book that is capable of withstanding the examination, whatever it might be; as a matter of fact, their intention and the names that they use do not serve as guarantees; the more elevated the name the more there are obligated to produce. Now, it is easier to take a name than to justify that name. That is why side-by-side, with some good thoughts, we frequently find eccentric ideas and the undisguised signs of the most profound ignorance. It is in this type of mediumistic work that we find more signs of obsession from which one of the most frequent is the order from the part of the Spirit to have the work published and more than one equivocally think that such a demand is enough to find an interested editor willing to go along with that.

It is important that, in similar cases, a scrupulous examination becomes necessary if one does not want to learn the hard way. Besides, it is the best means of keeping the presumptuous and pseudo wise Spirits away that forcibly leave when they do not find docile instruments that can accept their words as articles of faith. The meddling of such Spirits in the communications is – this is a known fact – the greatest obstacle to Spiritism. All the precautions are not enough to avoid regrettable publications; in such cases it is better to fail due to the excess of prudence for the good of the cause.

In short, the publication of worthwhile things is useful. The publication of weak, insignificant or bad material does more harm than good. A not less important consideration is that of the opportunity. There are some whose publications are untimely and for that reason, harmful. Each thing must come at the right time. Several of them that we receive are in this category and despite the fact that they are very good they must be postponed. As for the others, they will find they place according to the circumstances and objective.

Unbeliever and materialist Spirits

Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, March 27^th, 1863



Question: – In the evocation of Mr. Viennois, during the last session, there is the following phrase: “Your prayer touched many unbeliever and lighthearted Spirits.” How can the Spirits be unbelievers? Isn’t their environment mitigate this disbelief? We would like to have this question addressed by the Spirits who wish to communicate in case they find it pertinent.

Answer (medium Mr. d’Ambel): – Isn’t the explanation that you requested written in all your books? You ask why the unbeliever Spirits were touched. Having you said it yourself that the Spirits who entered erraticism did so with all their skills, knowledge and old ways of seeing things? My God! I am still too rooky to solve the hard questions of the doctrine, yet I can, from my somehow recent experience, respond to the questions about facts. In the world that you live, people who used to generally think that death can suddenly change the opinion of those who leave and that the blindness of incredulity is suddenly removed from the eyes of those who denied God while on Earth. That is the mistake because the punishment for those begins exactly in their insistence in having the same uncertainty about the Lord of all things and keep the same doubts as they had on Earth. No, believe me, the obscured sight of human intelligence cannot suddenly discover light. There is as much prudence in erraticism as there is on Earth and there is no focus of light shed upon the eyes of ill people to have them cured.

The passage from earthly life to the spiritual life offers, it is true, a period of disturbance and confusion to the majority of the discarnate. There are some that once disconnected from the material things, realize that transition as easily as a dove floating in space. It is easy for you to identify such a difference by examining the habits of travelers who go aboard to cross the oceans. The journey is a pleasure to some; to some it is a common suffering that lasts until the end of the trip. Well! That is what happens, as to speak, to those who travel from Earth to the spiritual world. Some detach rapidly without suffering and disruption while there are others who suffer the illness of the ethereal crossing. But here is what happens: Like the travelers who recover their senses and health as soon as they get to harbor the Spirits that have also transposed all the obstacles of death arrives at the end, like in their beginning, with a clean and transparent conscience of their individuality. It is then certain, my dear Mr. Kardec, that the unbelievers and absolute materialists keep their opinion beyond the grave up until the moment when by reason or grace a thought of truth hidden in their hearts awakens. Hence the diffusion of ideas and the divergence of communications from the Spirits from beyond the grave. Hence some communications still stained by the idea of atheism and pantheism.

Allow me to go back to personal issues at the end. I thank you for my evocation. That helped me to acknowledge myself. I also thank you for the consolations taken to my wife and I beg you to continue with your good exhortations towards her so as to support her in the tests that wait for her. As for myself I will always be by her side and inspire her.

Viennois



Question: – One can understand disbelief in certain Spirits but one could not understand materialism since its very state is a statement about the absolute reign of matter and the void after death.

Answer: (medium Mr. d’Ambel) – Just one word: Every solid or fluidic body belongs to matter and that is well demonstrated. Those who only admitted one principle in nature during their lives – matter – frequently do not acknowledge anything else but that unique, absolute principle. If you think about the dominant thoughts that they entertained during their entire life you will certainly see them under the domination of the same idea. Before they saw themselves as solid matter; today they recognize their fluidic bodies and that is all. You must recognize that, although they have the vaporous form, this form is bounded and identical to the one they had when on Earth in a material, human state, so that they only see a transformation that they had not considered. It is still, however, the path that will take them to their final destination when sufficiently separated so that it can be dissolved into the great universal whole. Nothing more stubborn than a wise man and they persist in the belief that such an end is the least inevitable. One of the conditions of their moral blindness is that of keeping them more strongly attached to the links of materialism and consequently precluding them from moving away from the terrestrial zones or zones similar to those of Earth. In the same ways as the great majority of the incarnate that are imprisoned by flesh and cannot perceive the vaporous forms of the Spirits that surround them the opacity of the envelope of the materialists block their vision so that they cannot see the spiritual entities that move so graciously and beautifully in the elevated spheres of the celestial empire.

Erastus



Another one: (medium Mr. A. Didier) – Doubt is the cause of the penalties and frequently of the errors of this world. The knowledge of Spiritualism, on the contrary, causes the penalties and errors of the Spirits. Where would the punishment be if the Spirits did not acknowledge their mistakes by the conscience that is the penitentiary reality of the other life? Where would their punishment be if their soul did not feel the weight of the worldly skepticism and the nothingness of matter? The Spirit sees the Spirit as the flesh sees the flesh. The Spirit’s mistake is not that of the flesh and the materialist that doubted here no longer doubts up there. The torment of the materialist is to regret the earthly joys and satisfactions, those that still cannot understand the joys and perfections of the soul. Look at the moral inferiority of these Spirits that live in a complete physical and moral sterility, lamenting the possessions that momentarily where the cause of their happiness and that now are the cause of their torment. It is true that one does not need to be materialist by the earthly satisfactions of their passions but only be in the field of the ideas and soul. That is what people call free-thinkers and these are the ones who dare not analyze profoundly the cause of their existences. These will be equally punished in the other world. They are surrounded by truth without being penetrated by truth. Their abated pride punishes them and they regret those worldly days in which they had at least the freedom of the doubt.

Lamennais

OBSERVATION: At first sight this appreciation seems to be in contradiction with the previous one from Erastus. The latter admits that certain Spirits may preserve their materialist ideas while Lamennais thinks that those ideas are just the regret of material pleasures, but that these Spirits are perfectly aware of their spiritual state. The facts seem to support Erastus opinion. If we see Spirits that even a long time after their deaths still believe to be alive, involved with or believing to be involved with earthly activities, the fact is that they have a complete illusion of their position and are not aware of their spiritual condition. If they do not consider themselves dead it is not surprising that they still keep the idea of the void after death, a death that has not yet come to them. That was undoubtedly the meaning employed by Erastus.

Answer: – They evidently have the idea of the oblivion but that is a matter of time. There comes a time when high and above the veil is broken and the materialist ideas become unacceptable. Erastus’ answer refers to particular and momentary facts. I spoke of general and defined facts.

Lamennais

OBSERVATION: The divergence was only apparent resulting from the standpoint from where each one answered the question. It is obvious that a Spirit cannot remain materialist indefinitely. We asked if such an idea was immediately destroyed after death. Well, both Spirits agree in this point responding negatively. We add that the persistence of the doubt is a punishment to the disbelieving Spirit. It is a torture to the Spirit the more pungent the more they lack the distractions of the earthly concerns.

The Spiritist publication’s multiply and, as we have said, our encouragement has pushed all those that have lately served the cause that we defend. These are so many other voices that rise up to spread the idea under so many different forms. If we did not give our opinion about certain books more or less important that deal with similar issues it is for the reason that we were afraid of having people seeing a sign of partiality in this, then allowing the opinion to be formed on its own. Given our position, we must be sober in the appreciation of similar works particularly when the approval cannot be absolute. By staying neutral, we will not be accused of having exerted an unfavorable pressure and, if the success does not correspond to the expectation, they will not be able to blame us for that.

Amongst the recent publications that we are pleased to recommend without restriction, we remember mainly the two small brochures announced in our last number with the titles Spiritism without the Spirits and The Truth about Experimental Spiritism in the Groups, by a theoretical Spiritist about which we maintain the already given opinion by saying that in a restricted picture the author knew how to summarize the principles of Spiritism with remarkable accuracy and with and attractive style. In the one about the groups, curious and skeptical people will find an excellent lesson about the adequate way of observing what takes place in serious groups. Price: 50 cents each; 60 cents by mail, Dentu Bookstore, Palais-Royal.

We must not forget the journal La Verité, published in Lyon, under the direction of Mr. Edoux that we also announced. The lack of space forces us to say that it is a new champion that seems to be looked at from different angles. It marked its release by a series of articles of elevated reach signed Philolethes, among which these sticks out: Foundations of Spiritism; The Perispirit among the Traditions; The perispirit before Philosophy and History, etc. They indicate an experienced pen supported by a rigorous logic that may, by remaining in this path, give our adversaries a hard time without leaving the line of moderation that seems to be the characteristic of that journal, as it is ours. It is through logic that one must combat and not through personality, injuries and attacks.

Allan Kardec

Bordeaux will soon have its special Review that we will gladly support with our input, as they were adamant about getting it. If it follows the path of wisdom and prudence, something that we do not doubt, it will never cease to have the support of every Spiritist, of those who see the interests of the cause above personal issues or personal interest and of self-love. That is how our sympathies are conquered. The abnegation of personality, moral and material selflessness, the practice of the law of love and charity will always be the distinctive signs of those to whom Spiritism is not only a sterile belief in this life and in the other one, but a fruitful faith.

The journal Courrier de la Moselle, from Metz, dated April 11^th, 1863 brings an excellent and remarkable article signed by A Spiritist of Metz, refuting the cases of madness attributed to Spiritism. We like to see the Spirits who enter the arena, opposing the cold and strict logic of the facts to the diatribes of their adversaries. We shall cite some passages that a lack of space forces us to transfer to the next issue.