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The Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1863 > October > Spiritist dissertations
Spiritist dissertations
Bordeaux, medium Mrs. Collignon
NOTE: This communication was given in a Spiritist Center in Bordeaux as a response to the above question. We had written the preceding article before learning about this message about the same subject. We published it despite the coincidence due to the agreement of the ideas. Many others were obtained in several places with the same teaching what demonstrates the agreement among the Spirits about the subject. This objection, not more justifiable than all others that oppose the relationship with the Spirits, will fall by itself.
-o-
Is then man so perfect that it is useless to test one’s strength? Is our intelligence so developed that it can bear the whole light?
When Moses brought a law that could take the Hebrew people from their slavery state, reviving in them the forgotten idea of God, he was force to downplay the light to their capacity of vision and science to their capacity of understanding.
Why don’t you also ask: Why had Jesus allowed himself to remake the law?
Why did Jesus said: “Moses told you: an eye for an eye and I tell you to do good to your enemies; blessed be the ones that curse you; forgive the ones that oppress you”? Why has Jesus said: Moses told you: The one who wants to leave his wife allow her to divorce but I tell you: do not separate what God united.
Why? It is because Jesus was speaking with more advanced Spirits than those incarnate during Moses’ time. It is necessary to adapt the lesson to the comprehension of the pupil. Those who ask and doubt have not yet arrived to the position that they will have and still don’t know what they will one day know.
Why? You should then ask God why he has created the weed that was even used as food by man; why he created trees that only grow in certain climates, in certain latitudes, and that mankind was able to spread and grow everywhere.
Moses told the Hebrews: “Don’t summon the dead”, as we tell the child: don’t play with fire.
Wasn’t the evocation that gradually turned into idolatry among the Egyptians, Chaldeans, Moabs and all peoples of antiquity? They did not have the strength to support science, were burned and the Lord wanted to preserve some people so that they could serve and perpetuate his name and his faith.
People were perverted and prone to dangerous evocations. Moses prevented the worse. Progress should happen among the Spirits, as among men, but the evocation was known and practiced by the princes of the church. Vanity and pride are as old as humanity thus the chiefs of the synagogues used the evocation and frequently used it badly; that is why the rage of the Lord fell upon them sometimes.
That is why Moses said: “Don’t evoke the dead”. But the prohibition itself demonstrates that the evocation was usual among the people and it was the people that he prohibited.
Hence, let those who ask why speak. Open before the eyes the history of the planet that they cover with their little steps and ask them why, after so many cumulated centuries, it is taking them so long to advance so little? Their intelligence is not developed enough; their routine constricts them; they want to keep their eyes closed despite the efforts carried out to have them open.
Ask them: why God is God? Why are they illuminated by the Sun?
Have them study and seek and they will find in the history of antiquity that God wanted that such knowledge vanishes to revive later with more intensity when the Spirits in charge of bringing it were stronger and did not succumb to its weight.
Don’t bother, my friends, with idle questions and meaningless objections made to you. Always do what you have just done: ask and we shall gladly respond. Science is of those who seek it; it then comes to show itself. Light illuminates the ones that open their eyes but darkness thickens out to those who want to keep them closed. The refused are not the ones who ask but those who make objections with the sole objective of extinguish the light or that dare not look at the light. Courage, my friends! We are ready to respond every time that it is needed.
Simeon, for Mathews
NOTE: This communication was given in a Spiritist Center in Bordeaux as a response to the above question. We had written the preceding article before learning about this message about the same subject. We published it despite the coincidence due to the agreement of the ideas. Many others were obtained in several places with the same teaching what demonstrates the agreement among the Spirits about the subject. This objection, not more justifiable than all others that oppose the relationship with the Spirits, will fall by itself.
-o-
Is then man so perfect that it is useless to test one’s strength? Is our intelligence so developed that it can bear the whole light?
When Moses brought a law that could take the Hebrew people from their slavery state, reviving in them the forgotten idea of God, he was force to downplay the light to their capacity of vision and science to their capacity of understanding.
Why don’t you also ask: Why had Jesus allowed himself to remake the law?
Why did Jesus said: “Moses told you: an eye for an eye and I tell you to do good to your enemies; blessed be the ones that curse you; forgive the ones that oppress you”? Why has Jesus said: Moses told you: The one who wants to leave his wife allow her to divorce but I tell you: do not separate what God united.
Why? It is because Jesus was speaking with more advanced Spirits than those incarnate during Moses’ time. It is necessary to adapt the lesson to the comprehension of the pupil. Those who ask and doubt have not yet arrived to the position that they will have and still don’t know what they will one day know.
Why? You should then ask God why he has created the weed that was even used as food by man; why he created trees that only grow in certain climates, in certain latitudes, and that mankind was able to spread and grow everywhere.
Moses told the Hebrews: “Don’t summon the dead”, as we tell the child: don’t play with fire.
Wasn’t the evocation that gradually turned into idolatry among the Egyptians, Chaldeans, Moabs and all peoples of antiquity? They did not have the strength to support science, were burned and the Lord wanted to preserve some people so that they could serve and perpetuate his name and his faith.
People were perverted and prone to dangerous evocations. Moses prevented the worse. Progress should happen among the Spirits, as among men, but the evocation was known and practiced by the princes of the church. Vanity and pride are as old as humanity thus the chiefs of the synagogues used the evocation and frequently used it badly; that is why the rage of the Lord fell upon them sometimes.
That is why Moses said: “Don’t evoke the dead”. But the prohibition itself demonstrates that the evocation was usual among the people and it was the people that he prohibited.
Hence, let those who ask why speak. Open before the eyes the history of the planet that they cover with their little steps and ask them why, after so many cumulated centuries, it is taking them so long to advance so little? Their intelligence is not developed enough; their routine constricts them; they want to keep their eyes closed despite the efforts carried out to have them open.
Ask them: why God is God? Why are they illuminated by the Sun?
Have them study and seek and they will find in the history of antiquity that God wanted that such knowledge vanishes to revive later with more intensity when the Spirits in charge of bringing it were stronger and did not succumb to its weight.
Don’t bother, my friends, with idle questions and meaningless objections made to you. Always do what you have just done: ask and we shall gladly respond. Science is of those who seek it; it then comes to show itself. Light illuminates the ones that open their eyes but darkness thickens out to those who want to keep them closed. The refused are not the ones who ask but those who make objections with the sole objective of extinguish the light or that dare not look at the light. Courage, my friends! We are ready to respond every time that it is needed.
Simeon, for Mathews
Private meeting, March 10th, 1863
Medium Mrs. Costel
My memory has just been evoked by my portrait and my poems; twice touched in my feminine vanity and self-love of poetry, I want to acknowledge your benevolence, sketching in broad traces the silhouette of the false devout that are to religion what the falsely honest woman is to society. The subject is in the picture of my literary studies whose nuance was expressed in Lady Tartufe.
The false devout sacrifice appearance and betray the true; they show a dry heart with humid eyes, their purse is closed and their hand open; they speak of the neighbor with good will, criticizing their actions in a sweet way, exaggerating the bad and diminishing the merit. Eager on the acquisition of mundane things they cling on imaginary treasures that death disperses, neglecting the true values that serve the righteous ones and form the wealth of eternity.
The hypocrite of devotion is the reptile of the moral world. Vis and low they avoid the faults punished by public vendetta, committing criminal acts in the shadow. How many destroyed and spoiled families! How much betrayed trust! How many tears, and even how much blood!
Comedy is the opposite of tragedy. Evil marches behind the buffoon and the false devout have inept creatures by followers, only acting by imitations: like in the mirror they reflect the physiognomy of their neighbors. They take themselves seriously; deceive themselves; ridicule their beliefs in their shyness; exalt what they doubt; show ostentation and light up little hidden candles to which they give much more importance than to the virtue of the sacred host.
The false devout are the true atheist of virtue, of hope, of nature and of God. They deny the true and affirm the false. Meanwhile, death will carry them blotted out of the make-up, and covered with tinsel which disguised them, and throw them panting in full day light.
Delphine de Girardin
Medium Mrs. Costel
My memory has just been evoked by my portrait and my poems; twice touched in my feminine vanity and self-love of poetry, I want to acknowledge your benevolence, sketching in broad traces the silhouette of the false devout that are to religion what the falsely honest woman is to society. The subject is in the picture of my literary studies whose nuance was expressed in Lady Tartufe.
The false devout sacrifice appearance and betray the true; they show a dry heart with humid eyes, their purse is closed and their hand open; they speak of the neighbor with good will, criticizing their actions in a sweet way, exaggerating the bad and diminishing the merit. Eager on the acquisition of mundane things they cling on imaginary treasures that death disperses, neglecting the true values that serve the righteous ones and form the wealth of eternity.
The hypocrite of devotion is the reptile of the moral world. Vis and low they avoid the faults punished by public vendetta, committing criminal acts in the shadow. How many destroyed and spoiled families! How much betrayed trust! How many tears, and even how much blood!
Comedy is the opposite of tragedy. Evil marches behind the buffoon and the false devout have inept creatures by followers, only acting by imitations: like in the mirror they reflect the physiognomy of their neighbors. They take themselves seriously; deceive themselves; ridicule their beliefs in their shyness; exalt what they doubt; show ostentation and light up little hidden candles to which they give much more importance than to the virtue of the sacred host.
The false devout are the true atheist of virtue, of hope, of nature and of God. They deny the true and affirm the false. Meanwhile, death will carry them blotted out of the make-up, and covered with tinsel which disguised them, and throw them panting in full day light.
Delphine de Girardin
What does it matter to you the age of patriarchs in general and that of Methuselah in particular? Nature, know this well, has never been contradictory or shown irregularities and even if the human machine has varied any time it has never repelled the material destruction: death.
As I have already told you the Bible is a magnificent oriental poem in which human passions are divinized like the passions idealized by the Greek like the great colonies of Asia Minor.
There is no need to match concision with emphasis, clarity with diffusion, the coldness of reason and modern logic with the oriental exaltation. The cherubims of the Bible had six wings as you know: almost monsters! The God of the Jewish would bathe in blood; would you like your angels to be the same as those and your sovereignly good and just God to be that one same God?
Hence you must not ally your poetic modern analysis with the lying poetry of the antique Jews or Pagans. The age of the patriarchs is a moral figure and not a reality. The authority, the memory of those great names, of those true shepherds of peoples, enriched by the mystery and legends that radiated around them, existed among those superstitious and nomad worshipers of memories. It is likely that Methuselah had lived for a long time in the hearts of his descendants.
Notice that in the oriental poetry every moral idea is incorporated, incarnate, covered in a brilliant, radiant, splendid form, contrary to modern poetry that discarnate that breaks the shell allowing the idea to rise to heavens. Modern poetry is not only expressed by the color and shine of the image but also by the firm and correct drawing of logic, in a word, by the idea. How would you like to join these two great and contrary principles? When you read the Bible by the rays of the orient, among the golden images, in the endless and diffuse horizons of the deserts, of the steppes, let electricity flow, trespassing the abysses and darkness’s, using your reason to always judge the difference in time, forms and understandings.
Lamennais
Lamennais
Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, July 11th 1862
Medium Mr. Flammarion
Did you hear the confusing sound of the reverberating sea when the northern wind swells the waves or when it breaks with its roaring silver blades on the shore? Did you hear the loud clatter of lightning in the dark clouds or the whisper of the forest under the blast of the evening wind? Have you heard in the depths of the soul that multiple harmony which speaks to the senses only to pass through them and to reach the thinking and loving being? If therefore you have not heard and understood these silent words, you are not children of revelation, and you do not believe yet. To these I will say: "Come out of the city at this silent hour when the starry rays descend from heaven and, gathering in yourselves your inner most thoughts, contemplate the spectacle that surrounds you, and you will arrive before dawn to share the faith of your brethren. To those who already believe in the great voice of nature, I will say, "Children of the new covenant, it is the voice of the Creator and the conservator of beings, who speaks in the turmoil of the waves, in the sound of thunder; It is the voice of God that speaks in the breath of the winds: friends, listen again, listen often, listen for a long time, listen always, and the Lord will receive you with open arms. O you, who have already heard his powerful voice down here, you will understand it better in the other world.
Galileo
Medium Mr. Flammarion
Did you hear the confusing sound of the reverberating sea when the northern wind swells the waves or when it breaks with its roaring silver blades on the shore? Did you hear the loud clatter of lightning in the dark clouds or the whisper of the forest under the blast of the evening wind? Have you heard in the depths of the soul that multiple harmony which speaks to the senses only to pass through them and to reach the thinking and loving being? If therefore you have not heard and understood these silent words, you are not children of revelation, and you do not believe yet. To these I will say: "Come out of the city at this silent hour when the starry rays descend from heaven and, gathering in yourselves your inner most thoughts, contemplate the spectacle that surrounds you, and you will arrive before dawn to share the faith of your brethren. To those who already believe in the great voice of nature, I will say, "Children of the new covenant, it is the voice of the Creator and the conservator of beings, who speaks in the turmoil of the waves, in the sound of thunder; It is the voice of God that speaks in the breath of the winds: friends, listen again, listen often, listen for a long time, listen always, and the Lord will receive you with open arms. O you, who have already heard his powerful voice down here, you will understand it better in the other world.
Galileo
Thionville, January 5th 1863
Medium Dr. R…
There is a great law that dominates everything in the universe: the law of progress. It is due to that law that man, an essentially imperfect creature, must walk through all phases that separate him from perfection. There is no doubt that God knows the time that each will take to get to the end. Since every progress results from the endeavor for its realization, there would be no merit if mankind did not have the freedom of following one path instead of another. In fact, true merit can only result from the actual work done by the Spirit in order to overcome a more or less considerable resistance.
As each of us ignores the number of existences that took part in their moral advancement, nobody can prejudge that great question and it is particularly, in this point, that the infinite benevolence of our Celestial Father shines in a more remarkable way, side by side, with the free-will that we were granted with, sowing landmarks in our paths that illuminate our deviations. Hence, it is due to a remnant predominance of matter that many people persist in remaining deft to the warnings that come from all sides, preferring to spend a life that had been given for the advancement of the Spirit with deceiving and momentary pleasures. One could not affirm without blasphemy that God wanted the unhappiness of his creatures for the unfortunate ones always atone both in a badly lived previous life as well as after their refusal to follow the good path when it had been clearly shown to them. Hence it is up to each one to abbreviate the trial to endure. That is why so many safe guides are provided so that each person is entirely responsible for the refusal to follow the advices and still, in that case, there is a sure means of mitigating a deserved punishment following sincere signs of regret and prayer that is always attended when said with fervor. Thus, free-will does effectively exist in man but with a guide: the conscience. All of you who have access to the great focus of the new science, do not neglect the opportunity to incorporate the eloquent truths that it reveals and the remarkable principles that are its consequence. Follow them faithfully because that is the shining place of your free will. On one side think about the fatal consequences for you if refusing to follow the good path, as well as the wonderful rewards that await in case you obey the instructions of the good Spirits. That is, in turn, the place where the divine prescience will shine.
It is in vain that men seek the truth in all means provided by science. That truth that seems to escape is always on our side and the blind do not notice it.
Wise Spirits from all countries to whom is given to lift the tip of the veil do not neglect the means that the divine Providence his offered you! Provoke our manifestations; allow all your less fortunate brothers to benefit from them; take to all of them the Spiritist world and you will have deserved well because you will have significantly contributed to the realization of the designs of the Providence.
Medium Dr. R…
There is a great law that dominates everything in the universe: the law of progress. It is due to that law that man, an essentially imperfect creature, must walk through all phases that separate him from perfection. There is no doubt that God knows the time that each will take to get to the end. Since every progress results from the endeavor for its realization, there would be no merit if mankind did not have the freedom of following one path instead of another. In fact, true merit can only result from the actual work done by the Spirit in order to overcome a more or less considerable resistance.
As each of us ignores the number of existences that took part in their moral advancement, nobody can prejudge that great question and it is particularly, in this point, that the infinite benevolence of our Celestial Father shines in a more remarkable way, side by side, with the free-will that we were granted with, sowing landmarks in our paths that illuminate our deviations. Hence, it is due to a remnant predominance of matter that many people persist in remaining deft to the warnings that come from all sides, preferring to spend a life that had been given for the advancement of the Spirit with deceiving and momentary pleasures. One could not affirm without blasphemy that God wanted the unhappiness of his creatures for the unfortunate ones always atone both in a badly lived previous life as well as after their refusal to follow the good path when it had been clearly shown to them. Hence it is up to each one to abbreviate the trial to endure. That is why so many safe guides are provided so that each person is entirely responsible for the refusal to follow the advices and still, in that case, there is a sure means of mitigating a deserved punishment following sincere signs of regret and prayer that is always attended when said with fervor. Thus, free-will does effectively exist in man but with a guide: the conscience. All of you who have access to the great focus of the new science, do not neglect the opportunity to incorporate the eloquent truths that it reveals and the remarkable principles that are its consequence. Follow them faithfully because that is the shining place of your free will. On one side think about the fatal consequences for you if refusing to follow the good path, as well as the wonderful rewards that await in case you obey the instructions of the good Spirits. That is, in turn, the place where the divine prescience will shine.
It is in vain that men seek the truth in all means provided by science. That truth that seems to escape is always on our side and the blind do not notice it.
Wise Spirits from all countries to whom is given to lift the tip of the veil do not neglect the means that the divine Providence his offered you! Provoke our manifestations; allow all your less fortunate brothers to benefit from them; take to all of them the Spiritist world and you will have deserved well because you will have significantly contributed to the realization of the designs of the Providence.
Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, medium Mrs. Costel
Pantheism or the incarnation of the Spirit, the idea in the shape, is the first step of Paganism towards the law of love revealed by Jesus. Greedy for pleasures, intoxicated by the exterior beauty, antiquity almost did not see beyond its own eyes. Sensuality and lust made it ignore the melancholies that stem from the uneasiness of doubt and repressed love. Antiquity feared the gods whose smoothed images decorated the living rooms of their homes. Slavery and war corroded it from inside and outside. The outstanding sounds and beauties of nature hopelessly invited mankind to understand its magnificence although nature was also feared or worshiped like the gods. The sacred woods attended the horrors of the oracles and not a single mortal separated the benefits of their solitude from the religious ideas that shook the tree and had the stone shuddered.
It is convenient to study Pantheism from two angles. First the infinite separation of the divine nature divided in all parts of creation, getting together again in the tiniest details as much as in its magnificence, in other words, a flagrant confusion between the work and the worker. Then in second place comes the assimilation of humanity, or even better, its absorption in matter. Former Pantheism had the divinities incarnate; modern Pantheism assimilates mankind to the animal kingdom and give rise to the creating molecules from the ardent oven where vegetation is born, confusing results with the principle.
God is the order that human confusion could not disturb. Everything has its place: sap to the trees, thought to brains. Not a single idea, child of the times, is serendipitously left abandoned. It has its path, a close relationship that finds its meaning connecting to the past and inviting the future. The history of religious beliefs is the proof of this absolute truth for there has not been any idolatry, system or fanaticism that would not have had its imperious and powerful reason of being. They all advanced towards light, all converged to the same objective and they will all come to confound, like the waters of a long river reaching the vast and deep sea of the Spiritist unity. Thus Pantheism the precursor of Catholicism carried the seed of God’s universality. It inspired in people fraternity towards nature, a fraternity that would be taught by Jesus and to be practiced with one another, a sacred fraternity that today is reinforced by Spiritism that victoriously reconnects the earthly creatures to the spiritual world.
I truly say this to you that the law of love slowly and continuously unfolds its infinite spirals. It is that law that in the mysterious rites of Indian religions divinizes the animal, sanctifying it for its weakness and humble services. It was that law that populated the purified homes with familiar gods. It is that law that makes each religion spell out one word of the divine alphabet.
But the proclamation of the universal idea that summarizes them all was reserved to Jesus. The Savior announced love and made it stronger than death. He said to mankind: “Love one another; love in pain, joy and misery; love nature, your first initiator; love the animals, your humble companions; love what begins, love what ends.
The verb of the Eternal is called love and it embraces in an inextinguishable kindness the Earth that you dwell and the Heavens that will receive you purified and triumphant.
Lazarus
Pantheism or the incarnation of the Spirit, the idea in the shape, is the first step of Paganism towards the law of love revealed by Jesus. Greedy for pleasures, intoxicated by the exterior beauty, antiquity almost did not see beyond its own eyes. Sensuality and lust made it ignore the melancholies that stem from the uneasiness of doubt and repressed love. Antiquity feared the gods whose smoothed images decorated the living rooms of their homes. Slavery and war corroded it from inside and outside. The outstanding sounds and beauties of nature hopelessly invited mankind to understand its magnificence although nature was also feared or worshiped like the gods. The sacred woods attended the horrors of the oracles and not a single mortal separated the benefits of their solitude from the religious ideas that shook the tree and had the stone shuddered.
It is convenient to study Pantheism from two angles. First the infinite separation of the divine nature divided in all parts of creation, getting together again in the tiniest details as much as in its magnificence, in other words, a flagrant confusion between the work and the worker. Then in second place comes the assimilation of humanity, or even better, its absorption in matter. Former Pantheism had the divinities incarnate; modern Pantheism assimilates mankind to the animal kingdom and give rise to the creating molecules from the ardent oven where vegetation is born, confusing results with the principle.
God is the order that human confusion could not disturb. Everything has its place: sap to the trees, thought to brains. Not a single idea, child of the times, is serendipitously left abandoned. It has its path, a close relationship that finds its meaning connecting to the past and inviting the future. The history of religious beliefs is the proof of this absolute truth for there has not been any idolatry, system or fanaticism that would not have had its imperious and powerful reason of being. They all advanced towards light, all converged to the same objective and they will all come to confound, like the waters of a long river reaching the vast and deep sea of the Spiritist unity. Thus Pantheism the precursor of Catholicism carried the seed of God’s universality. It inspired in people fraternity towards nature, a fraternity that would be taught by Jesus and to be practiced with one another, a sacred fraternity that today is reinforced by Spiritism that victoriously reconnects the earthly creatures to the spiritual world.
I truly say this to you that the law of love slowly and continuously unfolds its infinite spirals. It is that law that in the mysterious rites of Indian religions divinizes the animal, sanctifying it for its weakness and humble services. It was that law that populated the purified homes with familiar gods. It is that law that makes each religion spell out one word of the divine alphabet.
But the proclamation of the universal idea that summarizes them all was reserved to Jesus. The Savior announced love and made it stronger than death. He said to mankind: “Love one another; love in pain, joy and misery; love nature, your first initiator; love the animals, your humble companions; love what begins, love what ends.
The verb of the Eternal is called love and it embraces in an inextinguishable kindness the Earth that you dwell and the Heavens that will receive you purified and triumphant.
Lazarus