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The Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1863 > August > Jean Reynaud and the Start of Spiritism
We had the opportunity to throw some flowers into the grave of a man that was not only known for his knowledge but for his moral qualities. Jean Reynaud was born in Lyon, in February 1808 and died in Paris, on June 28th, 1863. We could not give a better example of his character than by reproducing the short and touching necrology given by his friend, Mr. Ernest Legouvé, published in the Siècle, on June 30th, 1863:
“Democracy, philosophy, religion and I are not afraid of saying that we have been impacted by a loss : Jean Reynaud died yesterday, after a short illness. From any point of view that his doctrines may be judged, his work as well as his life were eminently religious because both his life as well as his work were an eloquent protest against the great scourge that threatens us: skepticism in all forms and shapes. Nobody believed more strongly in the divine personality; nobody believed more strongly in the human personality; nobody loved more ardently freedom. In his book Terre et Ciel that created a huge groove from the get-go and whose memory will be engraved more and more, in that book there is such a breath of infinite, such a feeling of the divine presence that one may say that God beats in each page there!
How could that be different if the writer of those pages always lived in the presence of God? We know well, all of us who know and love him and whose highest honorary title is that of having been loved by such a man, that he was a continuously flowing source of moral life. Nobody was able to approach him without leaving closer to goodness; his face alone was a lesson of righteousness, honor and devotion. Fallen souls felt uneasy before his clear eyes, as if before the very sight of justice. And all that has gone! He left while still strong when so many useful words, so many great examples could still come out of that mouth, that heart!
We don’t cry for ourselves only, Reynaud. We cry for our whole country.”
E. Legouvé
In the same edition of the journal on July 16th, Mr. Henri Martin gave more details about the life and works of Jean Reynaud. He says:
“Raised in the freedom of the country side by a mother of strong and kind soul, it was there that he discovered the habits of closeness to nature that never abandoned him, developed the robust physical structure that later on allowed him to cover twenty leagues in one breath, jumping from glacier to glacier, from one tip to another through the Alps, through narrow cornices where even the deer hunters would not adventure.
He had a fast and fecund education. He very soon developed a strong interest for literature and arts and initially turned his eyes to science, a fortunate direction that would feed him with the food and instruments of thought by turning the wise man into a faithful server of the philosopher. Coming out of the first class of the Polytechnic School, he graduated in Mining Engineering at the time of the outburst of the July revolution. He returned to Paris where Sansimonism had just started and was engulfed by this great and singular movement that then excite so many minds by the idea of the dogma of the perfectibility of mankind. The school, however, pretended to become a church. Jean Reynaud did not follow that replacing it by democracy. He then rebuilt a group and a center of intellectual action with friends that had moved away from the movement at the same time he did. Pierre Leroux, Carnot and him recovered the Revue Encyclopédique from the hands of Julien (from Paris). It was when Pierre Leroux published his remarkable Essai sur la doctrine du progress continu[1] and Jean Reynaud the very attractive passage about the Infinite des Cieux[2], germ of his great book Terre et Ciel.[3] He then founded the Encyclopédie Nouvelle together with Pierre Leroux, a huge task that was left unfinished. On February 24th he became involved in politics. President of the Commission for High Studies of Science and Literature and after that Sub secretary of State of the Ministry of Public Education, he developed in cooperation with Carnot, one of his oldest and closest friends, plans to raise public education to the level of democratic institutions. Transferred from public education to State Council Jean Reynaud conquered there an authority that originated from his personal character and wisdom and however short his passage there he left in the memory of the most renowned experts an inextinguishable memory.”
Of all the writings from Jean Reynaud, the one that contributed most to his popularity was undoubtedly the book Terre et Ciel, although the abstraction used in the language does not make it reachable by everyone; the depth of the ideas, though, and the logic of deductions made it appreciated by every serious thinker, placing the author in the class of spiritualist philosophers. To the Church that book was a threat to the orthodoxy of faith. It was consequently condemned and listed in the “Index” by the Roman Curia, a fact that gave the book even more importance that it already had and hence increasing the demand for that piece work. Nobody spoke of Spirits when the book was published, around 1840, however Jean Reynaud seemed to have had, like many other modern writers in fact, the intuition and presentiment of Spiritism, from which he was one of the most persuasive precursors. Like Charles Fourier, he admits the indefinite progress of the soul and as a consequence of such progress the need for the plurality of the existences, demonstrated by the multiple states of people on Earth.
Jean Reynaud had seen nothing. Everything was taken out of his profound intuition. Spiritism saw what the philosopher had only presented, thus adding the sanction of experience to the purely speculative theory and the experience naturally led to the discovery of details that could not be foreseen by imagination only, but that comes to complement and corroborate the fundamental points. Like all the great ideas that revolutionized the world, Spiritism was not suddenly born. It germinated in more than one brain, showing up here and there, bit by bit, as if to have people used to the idea. A sudden and complete appearance would have found a too strong resistance and it would have fascinated without convincing.
Incidentally, everything must come at the right time and every plant must germinate and grow before it reaches a complete development. The same happens in politics for there is no revolution that had not been incubated for a long time and anybody guided by experience and the study of the past may safely follow those preliminaries and foresee them unfolding with no need to be a prophet.
That is how the principles of modern Spiritism were partially presented and with different faces, in several occasions: with Swedenborg in the last century; with the doctrine of the theosophist in the beginning of this century, who clearly admitted the communications between the visible and the invisible worlds; with Charles Fourier that admits the progress of the soul through reincarnation; with Jean Reynaud, who admits the same principle, probing infinity with science at hand; in the American manifestations, twelve years ago, which such a great repercussion demonstrating the material relationships between the dead and the living ones and finally with the Spiritist philosophy that consolidated those several elements in a body of doctrine, deducing their moral consequences.
Who could tell that a whole philosophy would stem out of the entertainment with the turning tables? When the philosophy came out who could tell that in a few years it would go around the world, conquering millions of followers? Today, who could tell that it has said the last word? It has certainly not but the foundation is established and there are still many details to be clarified and that will come at the right time.
Besides, the more it advances, the more one can see the multiplicity of interests that it touches, for one can say without exaggeration that this doctrine embraces every issue of the social order. Thus, it is only the future that can unfold all of its consequences, or even better, its consequences will be developed by themselves, by the force of things, because Spiritism contains what was uselessly sought elsewhere. For that reason, one will be forced to acknowledge that only Spiritism can fill out the moral emptiness that daily surrounds people, an emptiness that threats society itself on its foundation and whose fear can be felt already.
At a given time Spiritism will be the lifeline but it was not necessary to wait for that moment in order to throw in the safe rope, as one does not wait for the harvest to sow the seeds. The wisdom of the Providence prepares things slowly. That is why the core idea has had, as we said, many precursors that paved the way and prepared the terrain to receive the seed, some in one direction, others in another, and all the numerous treads that intertwine to arrive at the fundamental idea will one day be recognized. Now, each of those ideas has their own followers resulting from that a natural predisposition to accept the complement of that idea for each of them prepared a portion of the terrain. That is, unequivocally, one of the causes of such a propagation that borders a prodigy without precedent in the history of the philosophical doctrines. The adversaries, in turn, are stunned by the resistance that this doctrine offers to their attacks. They will have to yield later before by force of opinion.
There are a number of contemporary writers that must be added to the roll of precursors of Spiritism whose works are spotted with Spiritist ideas, perhaps unwillingly. One would need to write several books if wanting to collect the innumerable passages that make more or less direct reference to the preexistence and survival of the soul; to their presence amongst the living ones; to their manifestations; to their pilgrimage through progressive worlds; to the plurality of existences, etc. Admitting that it was no more than imagination of the authors, the idea is not less filtered in the heart of the masses where it remains latent up until the time it is demonstrated as a truth. Will there be a more Spiritist thought than that found in the letter of Mr. Victor Hugo about the death of Mrs. Lamartine, and that the majority of the newspapers received with enthusiasm even those that more strongly question the belief in Spirits? Here is the letter that says a lot in a few lines:
“Hauteville-House, May 23rd,
Dear Lamartine,
A great tragedy hurts you. I need to place my heart near yours. I revered the one you loved. Your elevated Spirit sees beyond the horizon. You clearly perceive the future life.
You are not the one to be told: Wait. You are among those who know and wait. She is always your companion, invisible but present. You lost the wife but not the soul.
Dear friend, let us live in the dead.
Victor Hugo.”
It is not only isolated writers that sow some of the ideas here and there but it is science itself that comes to pave the way. Magnetism was the first step towards the knowledge of the perispiritual action, source of every Spiritist phenomenon. Somnambulism was the first isolated manifestation of the soul. Phrenology demonstrated that the brain is a keyboard at the service of the intelligent principle for the expression of multiple skills for contrary to Gall’s intention, its materialistic founder, it served to demonstrate the independence between Spirit and matter. Demonstrating the power of action of the spiritualized matter, homeopathy shows the important role of the perispirit in certain diseases; it attacks the illness in its source, out of the physical organization whose alteration is only a consequence. That is why homeopathy is successful in a number of cases in which ordinary medicine fails: more than the latter, the former takes into account the spiritualist element, so dominating in this matter, thus explaining the facility with which homeopathic doctors accept Spiritism and why the majority of the Spiritist doctors belong to the Hahnemann school. Finally, it was not but until the recent discoveries about the properties of electricity that its contingent was brought to the question of concern to us and that sheds some light onto what could be called the physiology of the Spirits. We could not stop if we wanted to analyze every circumstance, great or small, that has come to open the route to the new philosophy since half a century. We would see the most contradictory doctrines provoking the development of the idea; the political events themselves preparing its introduction in practical terms; but from all causes the most preponderant is the Church that seems fatally predestined to impel it.
Everything comes to support it and if people knew the large number of documents that come to our hands from everywhere; if they could follow, as we do, this providential march in the world, favored by the least expected events and that would seem in contradiction at first sight, they would understand better how irresistible it is and would be less surprised with our unaffectedness. Fact is that we see everyone working towards that, in good will or unwillingly, voluntarily or involuntarily; we see the objective and we know when and how it is going to be achieved; we see the whole advancing and that is why we don’t bother with individualities that march backwards. Thus, Jean Reynaud was a precursor of Spiritism in his writings. He also had his providential mission and was supposed to open a groove. It would benefit him after his death. An eminent Spirit gave the following appreciation about the event:
“This is another circumstance that is going to support Spiritism. Jean Reynaud had done what he was supposed to do in his last existence. People will talk about his death, his life and more than never about his books. Speaking of his works is the same as to step foot into Spiritism’s way. Many intelligences will learn about our belief by studying this philosopher who gained authority. They will understand and see that you are not as mad as those who laugh at you and at your faith pretend that you are. All the works of God is well done, believe me. He will be praised by your detractors and know this that they will unwillingly work to recruit more followers to you. Let them act. Let them scream. It will all be according to the will of God.
Still a bit of patience and the elite of people of intelligence and knowledge will join you and before certain ostensive adhesions criticism will have to lower its voice.”
Saint Augustine
NOTE: See some communications of Jean Reynaud in the Spiritist dissertations below
[1] Essay about the doctrine of continuous progress (T.N.)
[2] Infinite of heavens (T.N.)
[3]Earth and sky (T.N.)
“Democracy, philosophy, religion and I are not afraid of saying that we have been impacted by a loss : Jean Reynaud died yesterday, after a short illness. From any point of view that his doctrines may be judged, his work as well as his life were eminently religious because both his life as well as his work were an eloquent protest against the great scourge that threatens us: skepticism in all forms and shapes. Nobody believed more strongly in the divine personality; nobody believed more strongly in the human personality; nobody loved more ardently freedom. In his book Terre et Ciel that created a huge groove from the get-go and whose memory will be engraved more and more, in that book there is such a breath of infinite, such a feeling of the divine presence that one may say that God beats in each page there!
How could that be different if the writer of those pages always lived in the presence of God? We know well, all of us who know and love him and whose highest honorary title is that of having been loved by such a man, that he was a continuously flowing source of moral life. Nobody was able to approach him without leaving closer to goodness; his face alone was a lesson of righteousness, honor and devotion. Fallen souls felt uneasy before his clear eyes, as if before the very sight of justice. And all that has gone! He left while still strong when so many useful words, so many great examples could still come out of that mouth, that heart!
We don’t cry for ourselves only, Reynaud. We cry for our whole country.”
E. Legouvé
In the same edition of the journal on July 16th, Mr. Henri Martin gave more details about the life and works of Jean Reynaud. He says:
“Raised in the freedom of the country side by a mother of strong and kind soul, it was there that he discovered the habits of closeness to nature that never abandoned him, developed the robust physical structure that later on allowed him to cover twenty leagues in one breath, jumping from glacier to glacier, from one tip to another through the Alps, through narrow cornices where even the deer hunters would not adventure.
He had a fast and fecund education. He very soon developed a strong interest for literature and arts and initially turned his eyes to science, a fortunate direction that would feed him with the food and instruments of thought by turning the wise man into a faithful server of the philosopher. Coming out of the first class of the Polytechnic School, he graduated in Mining Engineering at the time of the outburst of the July revolution. He returned to Paris where Sansimonism had just started and was engulfed by this great and singular movement that then excite so many minds by the idea of the dogma of the perfectibility of mankind. The school, however, pretended to become a church. Jean Reynaud did not follow that replacing it by democracy. He then rebuilt a group and a center of intellectual action with friends that had moved away from the movement at the same time he did. Pierre Leroux, Carnot and him recovered the Revue Encyclopédique from the hands of Julien (from Paris). It was when Pierre Leroux published his remarkable Essai sur la doctrine du progress continu[1] and Jean Reynaud the very attractive passage about the Infinite des Cieux[2], germ of his great book Terre et Ciel.[3] He then founded the Encyclopédie Nouvelle together with Pierre Leroux, a huge task that was left unfinished. On February 24th he became involved in politics. President of the Commission for High Studies of Science and Literature and after that Sub secretary of State of the Ministry of Public Education, he developed in cooperation with Carnot, one of his oldest and closest friends, plans to raise public education to the level of democratic institutions. Transferred from public education to State Council Jean Reynaud conquered there an authority that originated from his personal character and wisdom and however short his passage there he left in the memory of the most renowned experts an inextinguishable memory.”
Of all the writings from Jean Reynaud, the one that contributed most to his popularity was undoubtedly the book Terre et Ciel, although the abstraction used in the language does not make it reachable by everyone; the depth of the ideas, though, and the logic of deductions made it appreciated by every serious thinker, placing the author in the class of spiritualist philosophers. To the Church that book was a threat to the orthodoxy of faith. It was consequently condemned and listed in the “Index” by the Roman Curia, a fact that gave the book even more importance that it already had and hence increasing the demand for that piece work. Nobody spoke of Spirits when the book was published, around 1840, however Jean Reynaud seemed to have had, like many other modern writers in fact, the intuition and presentiment of Spiritism, from which he was one of the most persuasive precursors. Like Charles Fourier, he admits the indefinite progress of the soul and as a consequence of such progress the need for the plurality of the existences, demonstrated by the multiple states of people on Earth.
Jean Reynaud had seen nothing. Everything was taken out of his profound intuition. Spiritism saw what the philosopher had only presented, thus adding the sanction of experience to the purely speculative theory and the experience naturally led to the discovery of details that could not be foreseen by imagination only, but that comes to complement and corroborate the fundamental points. Like all the great ideas that revolutionized the world, Spiritism was not suddenly born. It germinated in more than one brain, showing up here and there, bit by bit, as if to have people used to the idea. A sudden and complete appearance would have found a too strong resistance and it would have fascinated without convincing.
Incidentally, everything must come at the right time and every plant must germinate and grow before it reaches a complete development. The same happens in politics for there is no revolution that had not been incubated for a long time and anybody guided by experience and the study of the past may safely follow those preliminaries and foresee them unfolding with no need to be a prophet.
That is how the principles of modern Spiritism were partially presented and with different faces, in several occasions: with Swedenborg in the last century; with the doctrine of the theosophist in the beginning of this century, who clearly admitted the communications between the visible and the invisible worlds; with Charles Fourier that admits the progress of the soul through reincarnation; with Jean Reynaud, who admits the same principle, probing infinity with science at hand; in the American manifestations, twelve years ago, which such a great repercussion demonstrating the material relationships between the dead and the living ones and finally with the Spiritist philosophy that consolidated those several elements in a body of doctrine, deducing their moral consequences.
Who could tell that a whole philosophy would stem out of the entertainment with the turning tables? When the philosophy came out who could tell that in a few years it would go around the world, conquering millions of followers? Today, who could tell that it has said the last word? It has certainly not but the foundation is established and there are still many details to be clarified and that will come at the right time.
Besides, the more it advances, the more one can see the multiplicity of interests that it touches, for one can say without exaggeration that this doctrine embraces every issue of the social order. Thus, it is only the future that can unfold all of its consequences, or even better, its consequences will be developed by themselves, by the force of things, because Spiritism contains what was uselessly sought elsewhere. For that reason, one will be forced to acknowledge that only Spiritism can fill out the moral emptiness that daily surrounds people, an emptiness that threats society itself on its foundation and whose fear can be felt already.
At a given time Spiritism will be the lifeline but it was not necessary to wait for that moment in order to throw in the safe rope, as one does not wait for the harvest to sow the seeds. The wisdom of the Providence prepares things slowly. That is why the core idea has had, as we said, many precursors that paved the way and prepared the terrain to receive the seed, some in one direction, others in another, and all the numerous treads that intertwine to arrive at the fundamental idea will one day be recognized. Now, each of those ideas has their own followers resulting from that a natural predisposition to accept the complement of that idea for each of them prepared a portion of the terrain. That is, unequivocally, one of the causes of such a propagation that borders a prodigy without precedent in the history of the philosophical doctrines. The adversaries, in turn, are stunned by the resistance that this doctrine offers to their attacks. They will have to yield later before by force of opinion.
There are a number of contemporary writers that must be added to the roll of precursors of Spiritism whose works are spotted with Spiritist ideas, perhaps unwillingly. One would need to write several books if wanting to collect the innumerable passages that make more or less direct reference to the preexistence and survival of the soul; to their presence amongst the living ones; to their manifestations; to their pilgrimage through progressive worlds; to the plurality of existences, etc. Admitting that it was no more than imagination of the authors, the idea is not less filtered in the heart of the masses where it remains latent up until the time it is demonstrated as a truth. Will there be a more Spiritist thought than that found in the letter of Mr. Victor Hugo about the death of Mrs. Lamartine, and that the majority of the newspapers received with enthusiasm even those that more strongly question the belief in Spirits? Here is the letter that says a lot in a few lines:
“Hauteville-House, May 23rd,
Dear Lamartine,
A great tragedy hurts you. I need to place my heart near yours. I revered the one you loved. Your elevated Spirit sees beyond the horizon. You clearly perceive the future life.
You are not the one to be told: Wait. You are among those who know and wait. She is always your companion, invisible but present. You lost the wife but not the soul.
Dear friend, let us live in the dead.
Victor Hugo.”
It is not only isolated writers that sow some of the ideas here and there but it is science itself that comes to pave the way. Magnetism was the first step towards the knowledge of the perispiritual action, source of every Spiritist phenomenon. Somnambulism was the first isolated manifestation of the soul. Phrenology demonstrated that the brain is a keyboard at the service of the intelligent principle for the expression of multiple skills for contrary to Gall’s intention, its materialistic founder, it served to demonstrate the independence between Spirit and matter. Demonstrating the power of action of the spiritualized matter, homeopathy shows the important role of the perispirit in certain diseases; it attacks the illness in its source, out of the physical organization whose alteration is only a consequence. That is why homeopathy is successful in a number of cases in which ordinary medicine fails: more than the latter, the former takes into account the spiritualist element, so dominating in this matter, thus explaining the facility with which homeopathic doctors accept Spiritism and why the majority of the Spiritist doctors belong to the Hahnemann school. Finally, it was not but until the recent discoveries about the properties of electricity that its contingent was brought to the question of concern to us and that sheds some light onto what could be called the physiology of the Spirits. We could not stop if we wanted to analyze every circumstance, great or small, that has come to open the route to the new philosophy since half a century. We would see the most contradictory doctrines provoking the development of the idea; the political events themselves preparing its introduction in practical terms; but from all causes the most preponderant is the Church that seems fatally predestined to impel it.
Everything comes to support it and if people knew the large number of documents that come to our hands from everywhere; if they could follow, as we do, this providential march in the world, favored by the least expected events and that would seem in contradiction at first sight, they would understand better how irresistible it is and would be less surprised with our unaffectedness. Fact is that we see everyone working towards that, in good will or unwillingly, voluntarily or involuntarily; we see the objective and we know when and how it is going to be achieved; we see the whole advancing and that is why we don’t bother with individualities that march backwards. Thus, Jean Reynaud was a precursor of Spiritism in his writings. He also had his providential mission and was supposed to open a groove. It would benefit him after his death. An eminent Spirit gave the following appreciation about the event:
“This is another circumstance that is going to support Spiritism. Jean Reynaud had done what he was supposed to do in his last existence. People will talk about his death, his life and more than never about his books. Speaking of his works is the same as to step foot into Spiritism’s way. Many intelligences will learn about our belief by studying this philosopher who gained authority. They will understand and see that you are not as mad as those who laugh at you and at your faith pretend that you are. All the works of God is well done, believe me. He will be praised by your detractors and know this that they will unwillingly work to recruit more followers to you. Let them act. Let them scream. It will all be according to the will of God.
Still a bit of patience and the elite of people of intelligence and knowledge will join you and before certain ostensive adhesions criticism will have to lower its voice.”
Saint Augustine
NOTE: See some communications of Jean Reynaud in the Spiritist dissertations below
[1] Essay about the doctrine of continuous progress (T.N.)
[2] Infinite of heavens (T.N.)
[3]Earth and sky (T.N.)