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The Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1863 > September > Spiritist dissertations
Spiritist dissertations
Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, July 31st 1863
Medium Mrs. Costel
“There I was still in the theater of the world and saw myself buried forever in the veil of innocence and youth. The fire of Earth saved me from the fire of hell: that is how I used to think in my Catholic faith, daring not to see the splendors of paradise, my soul seeking refuge in the atonement of purgatory and I prayed and cried. But who gave me, in my weakness, the strength to endure the anguishes? Who, in the long nights of insomnia and painful fever, bent over my body of martyr? Who refreshed my dry lips? It was you my guardian angel, whose white light surrounded me; it was you also, dear friendly Spirits, who came to whisper in my ears words of hope and love.
The flame that consumed by fragile body rid me from the attachment to the transient; I then died but already alive in the true life. I did not know about the disturbance and entered serene and in reverence into the shiny day that surrounds the ones that had hope after a lot of suffering. My mother, my dear mother, was the last human vibration at the heart of my soul. Oh how much I would like to see her as a Spiritist!
I separated from the earthly tree like a premature fruit. I had not yet blossomed to the demon of pride that hurts the souls, dragged by the lights of success and wasted by youth. Blessed are the flames, the sufferings, the trials that were an atonement. Like those thinly white treads of autumn I float away, dragged by a luminous current. It is no longer the diamond stars that shiny upon my front by the golden ones from God.”
NOTE: It was our intention to evoke this Spirit at this session for being sympathetic to us. We were led to postpone the evocation for private reasons that we had not mentioned to anyone. The Spirit came spontaneously to give us this delightful communication above and without a doubt attracted by our thoughts and by those of several members of the Society.
Medium Mrs. Costel
“There I was still in the theater of the world and saw myself buried forever in the veil of innocence and youth. The fire of Earth saved me from the fire of hell: that is how I used to think in my Catholic faith, daring not to see the splendors of paradise, my soul seeking refuge in the atonement of purgatory and I prayed and cried. But who gave me, in my weakness, the strength to endure the anguishes? Who, in the long nights of insomnia and painful fever, bent over my body of martyr? Who refreshed my dry lips? It was you my guardian angel, whose white light surrounded me; it was you also, dear friendly Spirits, who came to whisper in my ears words of hope and love.
The flame that consumed by fragile body rid me from the attachment to the transient; I then died but already alive in the true life. I did not know about the disturbance and entered serene and in reverence into the shiny day that surrounds the ones that had hope after a lot of suffering. My mother, my dear mother, was the last human vibration at the heart of my soul. Oh how much I would like to see her as a Spiritist!
I separated from the earthly tree like a premature fruit. I had not yet blossomed to the demon of pride that hurts the souls, dragged by the lights of success and wasted by youth. Blessed are the flames, the sufferings, the trials that were an atonement. Like those thinly white treads of autumn I float away, dragged by a luminous current. It is no longer the diamond stars that shiny upon my front by the golden ones from God.”
NOTE: It was our intention to evoke this Spirit at this session for being sympathetic to us. We were led to postpone the evocation for private reasons that we had not mentioned to anyone. The Spirit came spontaneously to give us this delightful communication above and without a doubt attracted by our thoughts and by those of several members of the Society.
Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, July 31st 1863
Medium Mr. Alfred Didier
“The Catholic religion shows purgatory to us as a place where the soul that suffers terrible punishments alleviate its faults and gradually claims, through pain, its rights to eternal life. Splendid image, the most perfect and truer of the great dogmatic trinity of hell, purgatory and paradise! Despite its desperate severities the Church understood that it needed a mid-ground between the eternal punishment and eternal happiness. The Church confused, however, in that strange setting, the infinite and progressive time, that is only one, with three limited and incomprehensible situations.
Spiritism adds to religion, or even better, to the entirely humanitarian teachings, the means of realizing that ideal humanity. In the philosophical deviations of our times there is more than one Spiritist germ; the skeptical philosophers whose advices are not towards the definite happiness of humanity but to the destruction of every human and divine belief work towards the universal trend of Spiritism more than one may think.
It is a path, however, where there isn’t much of heavens; where there is almost no future life but where there is at least material and egoistic tranquility in this life, clearly understood by the legislator and, if not a saint at least as a humanitarian philanthropist.
Now, it is necessary to know if in its latent state, say in the extracorporeal life that could be called intra-worlds, if the measure of knowledge and clairvoyant sagacity of the superior Spirits and the universal progress are as efficient as it is the earthly one.
Such a fundamental question to Spiritism has been poorly resolved up until now with answers about details. As the Church says it is not only a place of atonement but a universal spot where the souls fear with anguish or accept with hope the existences that unfolds before them. That is just the beginning of purgatory, that important stage of the life of the soul that we believe has not been well explained and not event mentioned by the Catholic dogmas.”
Lamennais
Medium Mr. Alfred Didier
“The Catholic religion shows purgatory to us as a place where the soul that suffers terrible punishments alleviate its faults and gradually claims, through pain, its rights to eternal life. Splendid image, the most perfect and truer of the great dogmatic trinity of hell, purgatory and paradise! Despite its desperate severities the Church understood that it needed a mid-ground between the eternal punishment and eternal happiness. The Church confused, however, in that strange setting, the infinite and progressive time, that is only one, with three limited and incomprehensible situations.
Spiritism adds to religion, or even better, to the entirely humanitarian teachings, the means of realizing that ideal humanity. In the philosophical deviations of our times there is more than one Spiritist germ; the skeptical philosophers whose advices are not towards the definite happiness of humanity but to the destruction of every human and divine belief work towards the universal trend of Spiritism more than one may think.
It is a path, however, where there isn’t much of heavens; where there is almost no future life but where there is at least material and egoistic tranquility in this life, clearly understood by the legislator and, if not a saint at least as a humanitarian philanthropist.
Now, it is necessary to know if in its latent state, say in the extracorporeal life that could be called intra-worlds, if the measure of knowledge and clairvoyant sagacity of the superior Spirits and the universal progress are as efficient as it is the earthly one.
Such a fundamental question to Spiritism has been poorly resolved up until now with answers about details. As the Church says it is not only a place of atonement but a universal spot where the souls fear with anguish or accept with hope the existences that unfolds before them. That is just the beginning of purgatory, that important stage of the life of the soul that we believe has not been well explained and not event mentioned by the Catholic dogmas.”
Lamennais
Group of Orléans, medium Mr. de Monvel
“From all virtues that Jesus gave us the adorable example there isn’t one more indignantly forgotten by humanity than that of chastity. I do not speak of the bodily chastity only that we certainly would not find many examples, but the chastity of the soul that had never conceived a single thought, a single word capable of harming the purity of the virgin or the listening child.
Evil is so widely spread and consists of so many dangerous occasionsthat parents, even the most truly chaste in their actions and words, cannot avoid the painful certainty that regardless their children cannot escape the dismal contact. Irrespective of the rejection to the idea they must resign to open the eyes of those innocent creatures at least to preserve them from the physical danger for it is absolutely impossible to preserve them from the moral danger. Frequently even after having thought that a danger was avoided there comes some obstacle that was unnoticed that shatters the innocent child that their love could not preserve from the dirt of vices.
How many imprudent words even in the most respectful society; how many images and descriptions, even in the most serious books don’t come without their parents’ knowledge to excite, awake and even completely satisfy that keen and feared curiosity of the child that is unaware of the danger! If bad is difficult to avoid even in the most enlightened layers of society what to think of the lower layers? Supposing that a child was fortunate to escape all that in the protection of the home, how to keep her from the inevitable contact with the daily elbowing vices?
There you have a dangerous and profound cancer that every righteous person must feel the imperious need to eliminate from society. Evil is entrenched in our hearts and a long time is still needed to have us pure enough just to suspect their seriousness. Someone who believed that a simple word with double meaning is a serious fault before a child will have pleasure in obscene or trivial jokes when surround by mature people believing that there is no harm in that. That person misses the fact that obscenity is such an immoral evil that it stains everything, even the air with vibrations will carry the blemish further downwind. They say that the walls have ears and if that image was true at least once it is true particularly in this situation.
Pure and sacred chastity will only and definitely establish its kingdom on Earth when every person that thinks and speaks understands that in no circumstance one should write or speak a single word that would blush the purest virgin. You will say that you have no kids at home and for that reason there is no need for the constraint, as you see it. Nonetheless, if you were pure yourselves there would be no need for the constraint. Don’t you have friends listening to you, excited by your example and that before the children that you don’t know may lose the last reservation of scruples that were maintained so far? Furthermore, it is almost always during meals that your mind is dragged by jokes that animate the gues. But can’t you see the servants around you, can’t you see that the neighbors have children? You don’t know the neighbor or the children so you cannot assess the damage that you have done. But evil regardless of its origin will always be punished, rest assured. It is not only the walls that have ears: there are things in the air that you breathe that are unknown to you or that you do not wish to know.
Nobody has the right to demand a virtue from their subordinates that is a virtue that one does not have or does not practice. A simple impure word is enough to break the purity of a child. A single impure child is enough to spread the gangrene around a whole generation of children when introduced in a public school, children that will become adults later on. Is there a single sensible person that can doubt the positive and painful truth in this?
Nobody doubts, nobody ignores the extension of the harm that can be carried by a single word, however, nobody feels obliged to this chastity of the soul that rejects every obscene thought however disguised it might be and even in certain circumstances nobody sees as their strict duty to abstain from jests that could make them blush if they were not proud of not blushing. Said and shameful pride!
It is not only chastity that we should respect in children but also that delicate candor that brings the blood to their faces by the simple idea of falsehood and that virtue is also very rare. We must not be very surprised when observing how elevated the immense majority of our children are. To the majority of the parents the children are not but little dolls, particularly at an early age, with whom they have fun like with a toy. It is their naïve belief that makes them so funny all day long after the little jokes that are considered innocents because they are told without malice and just to have fun as they say. Now in the true meaning of the word, innocent means that it causes no harm. But is there anything more harmful, on the contrary, to the candor of a child than those little and unstoppable abuses of trust before which the child is momentarily innocent but then laugh and have fun to imitate as soon as possible?
It results that the most sincere child learns to deceive as quickly as she learns to speak and that after a short while she is capable of teaching her own masters.
It goes almost unsuspected and particularly in that age when sometimes an insignificant cause may later on give rise to deplorable results. The organs of intelligence, particularly in children at a very early age, are like soft wax, capable of absorbing the form of the weakest touching object. The deformation does occur even in an instant and when the wax that was so fluid earlier on becomes harder the impression will remain unreasonable. One may think that it is covered by others but that is mistake because only the primitive impressions will stay indelible whereas the posterior ones will leave a fading mark only under which the initial one will always show.
That is what just a few young parents are capable of feeling strongly enough to transform it into a rule of conduct with their children and what is necessary to repeat to them continuously.”
Cécile Monvel
“From all virtues that Jesus gave us the adorable example there isn’t one more indignantly forgotten by humanity than that of chastity. I do not speak of the bodily chastity only that we certainly would not find many examples, but the chastity of the soul that had never conceived a single thought, a single word capable of harming the purity of the virgin or the listening child.
Evil is so widely spread and consists of so many dangerous occasionsthat parents, even the most truly chaste in their actions and words, cannot avoid the painful certainty that regardless their children cannot escape the dismal contact. Irrespective of the rejection to the idea they must resign to open the eyes of those innocent creatures at least to preserve them from the physical danger for it is absolutely impossible to preserve them from the moral danger. Frequently even after having thought that a danger was avoided there comes some obstacle that was unnoticed that shatters the innocent child that their love could not preserve from the dirt of vices.
How many imprudent words even in the most respectful society; how many images and descriptions, even in the most serious books don’t come without their parents’ knowledge to excite, awake and even completely satisfy that keen and feared curiosity of the child that is unaware of the danger! If bad is difficult to avoid even in the most enlightened layers of society what to think of the lower layers? Supposing that a child was fortunate to escape all that in the protection of the home, how to keep her from the inevitable contact with the daily elbowing vices?
There you have a dangerous and profound cancer that every righteous person must feel the imperious need to eliminate from society. Evil is entrenched in our hearts and a long time is still needed to have us pure enough just to suspect their seriousness. Someone who believed that a simple word with double meaning is a serious fault before a child will have pleasure in obscene or trivial jokes when surround by mature people believing that there is no harm in that. That person misses the fact that obscenity is such an immoral evil that it stains everything, even the air with vibrations will carry the blemish further downwind. They say that the walls have ears and if that image was true at least once it is true particularly in this situation.
Pure and sacred chastity will only and definitely establish its kingdom on Earth when every person that thinks and speaks understands that in no circumstance one should write or speak a single word that would blush the purest virgin. You will say that you have no kids at home and for that reason there is no need for the constraint, as you see it. Nonetheless, if you were pure yourselves there would be no need for the constraint. Don’t you have friends listening to you, excited by your example and that before the children that you don’t know may lose the last reservation of scruples that were maintained so far? Furthermore, it is almost always during meals that your mind is dragged by jokes that animate the gues. But can’t you see the servants around you, can’t you see that the neighbors have children? You don’t know the neighbor or the children so you cannot assess the damage that you have done. But evil regardless of its origin will always be punished, rest assured. It is not only the walls that have ears: there are things in the air that you breathe that are unknown to you or that you do not wish to know.
Nobody has the right to demand a virtue from their subordinates that is a virtue that one does not have or does not practice. A simple impure word is enough to break the purity of a child. A single impure child is enough to spread the gangrene around a whole generation of children when introduced in a public school, children that will become adults later on. Is there a single sensible person that can doubt the positive and painful truth in this?
Nobody doubts, nobody ignores the extension of the harm that can be carried by a single word, however, nobody feels obliged to this chastity of the soul that rejects every obscene thought however disguised it might be and even in certain circumstances nobody sees as their strict duty to abstain from jests that could make them blush if they were not proud of not blushing. Said and shameful pride!
It is not only chastity that we should respect in children but also that delicate candor that brings the blood to their faces by the simple idea of falsehood and that virtue is also very rare. We must not be very surprised when observing how elevated the immense majority of our children are. To the majority of the parents the children are not but little dolls, particularly at an early age, with whom they have fun like with a toy. It is their naïve belief that makes them so funny all day long after the little jokes that are considered innocents because they are told without malice and just to have fun as they say. Now in the true meaning of the word, innocent means that it causes no harm. But is there anything more harmful, on the contrary, to the candor of a child than those little and unstoppable abuses of trust before which the child is momentarily innocent but then laugh and have fun to imitate as soon as possible?
It results that the most sincere child learns to deceive as quickly as she learns to speak and that after a short while she is capable of teaching her own masters.
It goes almost unsuspected and particularly in that age when sometimes an insignificant cause may later on give rise to deplorable results. The organs of intelligence, particularly in children at a very early age, are like soft wax, capable of absorbing the form of the weakest touching object. The deformation does occur even in an instant and when the wax that was so fluid earlier on becomes harder the impression will remain unreasonable. One may think that it is covered by others but that is mistake because only the primitive impressions will stay indelible whereas the posterior ones will leave a fading mark only under which the initial one will always show.
That is what just a few young parents are capable of feeling strongly enough to transform it into a rule of conduct with their children and what is necessary to repeat to them continuously.”
Cécile Monvel
Thionville, December 25th 1862, medium Dr. R…
“We allowed you to foresee the dawn of human regeneration. You must see the hand of God in that as with the whole march of humanity through the ages. We have said many times that everything that happens down here, as in the whole universe, follows a general law, the law of progress.
Bow before that law, you arrogant and proud ones that pretend to be above the Almighty’s designs! Look around for the cause of your miseries and delights to always find the hand of God.
But then, you will say, the hand of God is fatalism! Ah keep yourself from confounding this impious word with the laws imposed by the Providence, the Providence that gave you the free-will to give you the merit of your actions but seasoned by this so many times ignored voice that warns you of the dangers ahead. Fatalism is the denial of the duty because if our fate is determined previously there is nothing we can do to change it.
What would become of the world with such a horrible theory that leaves mankind to the perfidious suggestions of the worst passions? Where would be the objective of creation? Where the meaning of the remarkable order that reigns in the universe?
The hand of God, on the contrary, is the punishment that is always hanging above the head of the guilty one; it is the remorse that erodes their heart, censoring the crimes at every step of the way; it is the horrible nightmare that tortures the long sleepless nights; it is that bloody impression that follows everywhere as if producing the image of the errors all the time; it is the fever that torments the egotist; the perpetual anguishes of that bad rich that sees pillagers in all those that approach as if prepared to rob a badly acquired asset; it is the pain that they experience at the last hour when feel incapable of carrying along the useless treasures!
The hand of God is the peace of heart reserved to the righteous person; it is the kind perfume that feels your soul after a good deed; it is this sweet pleasure that one feels every time one does good; it is the blessings of the poor that is assisted; it is the kind looks in the face of a child whose tears we stop; it is the fervent prayer of the poor mother that was given the blessing of work to take her away from her misery; in a word, it is to be content with oneself.
The hand of God is finally the serious and austere justice, dressed by mercy! The hand of God is hope that does not leave behind a person in their most cruel sufferings; that always reassures and that allows the worst criminal touched by regret to foresee a corner of the celestial dwellings from which he thought to be expelled forever!”
Familiar Spirit
“We allowed you to foresee the dawn of human regeneration. You must see the hand of God in that as with the whole march of humanity through the ages. We have said many times that everything that happens down here, as in the whole universe, follows a general law, the law of progress.
Bow before that law, you arrogant and proud ones that pretend to be above the Almighty’s designs! Look around for the cause of your miseries and delights to always find the hand of God.
But then, you will say, the hand of God is fatalism! Ah keep yourself from confounding this impious word with the laws imposed by the Providence, the Providence that gave you the free-will to give you the merit of your actions but seasoned by this so many times ignored voice that warns you of the dangers ahead. Fatalism is the denial of the duty because if our fate is determined previously there is nothing we can do to change it.
What would become of the world with such a horrible theory that leaves mankind to the perfidious suggestions of the worst passions? Where would be the objective of creation? Where the meaning of the remarkable order that reigns in the universe?
The hand of God, on the contrary, is the punishment that is always hanging above the head of the guilty one; it is the remorse that erodes their heart, censoring the crimes at every step of the way; it is the horrible nightmare that tortures the long sleepless nights; it is that bloody impression that follows everywhere as if producing the image of the errors all the time; it is the fever that torments the egotist; the perpetual anguishes of that bad rich that sees pillagers in all those that approach as if prepared to rob a badly acquired asset; it is the pain that they experience at the last hour when feel incapable of carrying along the useless treasures!
The hand of God is the peace of heart reserved to the righteous person; it is the kind perfume that feels your soul after a good deed; it is this sweet pleasure that one feels every time one does good; it is the blessings of the poor that is assisted; it is the kind looks in the face of a child whose tears we stop; it is the fervent prayer of the poor mother that was given the blessing of work to take her away from her misery; in a word, it is to be content with oneself.
The hand of God is finally the serious and austere justice, dressed by mercy! The hand of God is hope that does not leave behind a person in their most cruel sufferings; that always reassures and that allows the worst criminal touched by regret to foresee a corner of the celestial dwellings from which he thought to be expelled forever!”
Familiar Spirit
T
hionville, medium Dr. R…
“A poet said: ‘Only truth is beautiful; only truth is delightful.’
Acknowledge in this verse one of the nicest inspirations ever given to mankind. Truth is the straight line; it is the light whose splendor need not be hidden to the righteous whose souls are wonderfully predisposed to understand its huge benefits. Why is it so hard for the majority of people in our present society to notice the light? Why is the teaching of truth surrounded by so many obstacles? The answer is the fact that humanity has not made significant progresses so far since the origin of Christianity. Since Jesus that had to shroud his teachings in the form of allegories and parables, all of those who tried to propagate the truth were not more heard than the divine Master. Humanity had to wisely progress slowly so that the march would be safer. It needed a long period of novice hood to be able to walk on its own.
Rest assured though! Since long ago, the sun of regeneration is in its dawn and it will not be long before its light will shed on you its shiny clarity! The true light will come up and its beneficent influence shall extend over all social classes. How many will then be stunned for not having welcomed such a truth earlier on, a truth that comes from the highest antiquity and that pride made you always go around to not see it!
At least this time you will not have to endure any of those horrible cataclysms that seem like landmarks destined to mark the march of true light through the centuries. Better educated mankind will then understand that the mudslides that leave behind a trail of blood and fire would no longer adapt to our customs today mitigated by the practice of charity. They will finally understand the reach of the sublime words of Jesus Christ: ‘Peace to those of good will!” The only war will be that to destroy the bad passions. Everybody will join forces to send the evil Spirit away whose disastrous kingdom has only detained the advance of civilization for a long time. All will stop before the certainty that the only legitimate conquest is that of true light; the only one to be longed for, the only one that leads to happiness. Hands on then you that sustain the flag of progress! Have no fear for raising it high and strong so that people can join from all corners of the world and seeking its shelter. Ask your celestial Father for strength and energy that are indispensable to this great task and if you cannot enjoy the happiness of seeing it accomplished here on this Earth may you at least take with you after your death the conviction that your present life was useful to all and that the sweetest reward waits for you among us: the joy of having accomplished your mission for the greater glory of God.”
Familiar Spirit
“A poet said: ‘Only truth is beautiful; only truth is delightful.’
Acknowledge in this verse one of the nicest inspirations ever given to mankind. Truth is the straight line; it is the light whose splendor need not be hidden to the righteous whose souls are wonderfully predisposed to understand its huge benefits. Why is it so hard for the majority of people in our present society to notice the light? Why is the teaching of truth surrounded by so many obstacles? The answer is the fact that humanity has not made significant progresses so far since the origin of Christianity. Since Jesus that had to shroud his teachings in the form of allegories and parables, all of those who tried to propagate the truth were not more heard than the divine Master. Humanity had to wisely progress slowly so that the march would be safer. It needed a long period of novice hood to be able to walk on its own.
Rest assured though! Since long ago, the sun of regeneration is in its dawn and it will not be long before its light will shed on you its shiny clarity! The true light will come up and its beneficent influence shall extend over all social classes. How many will then be stunned for not having welcomed such a truth earlier on, a truth that comes from the highest antiquity and that pride made you always go around to not see it!
At least this time you will not have to endure any of those horrible cataclysms that seem like landmarks destined to mark the march of true light through the centuries. Better educated mankind will then understand that the mudslides that leave behind a trail of blood and fire would no longer adapt to our customs today mitigated by the practice of charity. They will finally understand the reach of the sublime words of Jesus Christ: ‘Peace to those of good will!” The only war will be that to destroy the bad passions. Everybody will join forces to send the evil Spirit away whose disastrous kingdom has only detained the advance of civilization for a long time. All will stop before the certainty that the only legitimate conquest is that of true light; the only one to be longed for, the only one that leads to happiness. Hands on then you that sustain the flag of progress! Have no fear for raising it high and strong so that people can join from all corners of the world and seeking its shelter. Ask your celestial Father for strength and energy that are indispensable to this great task and if you cannot enjoy the happiness of seeing it accomplished here on this Earth may you at least take with you after your death the conviction that your present life was useful to all and that the sweetest reward waits for you among us: the joy of having accomplished your mission for the greater glory of God.”
Familiar Spirit