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The Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1864 > January > Varieties
Varieties
We thank Mr. Flammarion’s kindness for providing us with the information about a letter that was addressed to him with the following passage:
“You probably think dear Sir that you are the first astronomer to deal with Spiritism. You are wrong. About a century and a half ago Fontenelle employed tiptology with the medium Ms. Letard. I was enjoying myself this morning browsing a manual published fifty years ago by Philipon de la Madeleine and found a letter from Ms. Launai, that later became Madam Stael, sent by the Duchess of Maine to the secretary of the Academy of Sciences relatively to an adventure summarized below:
In 1713 a young lady by the mane Letard pretended that she communicated with the Spirits such as Socrates as her demon. Mr. Fontenelle went to see the girl and since in the conversation he showed some doubts about that kind of charlatanism the Lady of Maine that had no doubt about it had Ms. de Launai assigned to write about the fact.”
Philipon de la Madeleine
The following note is found in one edition of the selected works of Fontenelle, published in London 1761:
A young lady by the name Ms. Letard excited the public’s curiosity by a supposed gift in the beginning of the century. Everybody went to see that as did Mr. Fontenelle, advised by the Duke of Orleans. Such was the content of the letter sent by Ms. de Lunai to him, as below:
Ms. Letard’s adventure Sir makes less noisy than your testimony. People are surprised, and perhaps rightly so, that the destructor of the oracles; that the one that took the tripod of the Sybil down was now kneeling before Ms. Letard. Wow! The critics say. The man that was able to clearly unveil the frauds done a thousand miles away and more than two thousand years before his time could not dismiss a trick done before his eyes!
"The adventure of Mademoiselle Letard makes less noise, sir, than the testimony you have given." It is astonishing, and perhaps with some reason, that the destroyer of the oracles, who has overturned the tripod of the sibyls, knelt down before Mademoiselle Letard. What! "Cried the critics," this man who has put on such a fine day tricks made a thousand miles away, and more than two thousand years before him, has not been able to discover a trick that has been hatched before his eyes! The refined pretend that in good Pyrrhonian, finding everything uncertain, you find everything possible. On the other hand, devotees seem very impressed by the homage which you have paid to the devil; they hope that it will go further. From my side, sir, I suspend my judgment until I am better informed."
Reply from Mr. de Fontenelle:
"I shall have the honor, mademoiselle, of replying to you the same as I answered a friend of mine who wrote to me from Marly the day after I had been with the Spirit. I informed him that I had heard sounds of which I did not know the mechanics; to be certain about that it would require a more accurate examination than the one I did and repeat it. I have not changed my language; but because I did not absolutely decide that it was a ploy, I was accused of believing that he was an elf; and since the public does not stop in such a nice way, I was accused of having said what I did not. There is nothing wrong with that. If they have mistakenly attributed to me a speech which I have not given, they have done me the honor of paying attention to me, and one compensates the other. I did not believe that for having discredited the old prophetesses of Delphi it was a commitment to destroy a young and living girl and from whom only good things were heard. If, however, they think that I have failed my duty, on another occasion I shall adopt a more pitiless and more philosophical tone. I have been reproached for my lack of severity for a long time. I must be incorrigible, since the age, experience and injustice of the world do nothing. That, mademoiselle, is all that I can tell you about the Spirit, which has attracted me with a letter which I readily suspected of having been dictated, since I am not far from believing in that. Thus when a familiar demon comes to me, I will tell you with more grace and in a more ingenious tone, but not with more honesty, etc.”
Note:
Note: Fontenelle, as we see, does not pronounce either for or against, and confines himself to ascertaining the fact; it was caution, which most of the deniers of our time are wanting to do, who have to decide what they have not even bothered to observe, at the risk of later receiving the refutation of experience. However, it is evident that he inclines towards the affirmation, something remarkable for a man in his position and in a century of skepticism for excellence. Far from accusing Mademoiselle Letard of charlatanism, he admits that they only talked good about her. Perhaps he was even more convinced than he wished to appear, and was restrained only by the fear of ridicule, so powerful at the time. It was necessary, however, that he should be shaken, not to say frankly, that it was a trick; his opinion on this point is important. The question of charlatanism being excluded, it remains evident that Mademoiselle Letard was a spontaneous medium in the style of the Fox sisters.
“You probably think dear Sir that you are the first astronomer to deal with Spiritism. You are wrong. About a century and a half ago Fontenelle employed tiptology with the medium Ms. Letard. I was enjoying myself this morning browsing a manual published fifty years ago by Philipon de la Madeleine and found a letter from Ms. Launai, that later became Madam Stael, sent by the Duchess of Maine to the secretary of the Academy of Sciences relatively to an adventure summarized below:
In 1713 a young lady by the mane Letard pretended that she communicated with the Spirits such as Socrates as her demon. Mr. Fontenelle went to see the girl and since in the conversation he showed some doubts about that kind of charlatanism the Lady of Maine that had no doubt about it had Ms. de Launai assigned to write about the fact.”
Philipon de la Madeleine
The following note is found in one edition of the selected works of Fontenelle, published in London 1761:
A young lady by the name Ms. Letard excited the public’s curiosity by a supposed gift in the beginning of the century. Everybody went to see that as did Mr. Fontenelle, advised by the Duke of Orleans. Such was the content of the letter sent by Ms. de Lunai to him, as below:
Ms. Letard’s adventure Sir makes less noisy than your testimony. People are surprised, and perhaps rightly so, that the destructor of the oracles; that the one that took the tripod of the Sybil down was now kneeling before Ms. Letard. Wow! The critics say. The man that was able to clearly unveil the frauds done a thousand miles away and more than two thousand years before his time could not dismiss a trick done before his eyes!
"The adventure of Mademoiselle Letard makes less noise, sir, than the testimony you have given." It is astonishing, and perhaps with some reason, that the destroyer of the oracles, who has overturned the tripod of the sibyls, knelt down before Mademoiselle Letard. What! "Cried the critics," this man who has put on such a fine day tricks made a thousand miles away, and more than two thousand years before him, has not been able to discover a trick that has been hatched before his eyes! The refined pretend that in good Pyrrhonian, finding everything uncertain, you find everything possible. On the other hand, devotees seem very impressed by the homage which you have paid to the devil; they hope that it will go further. From my side, sir, I suspend my judgment until I am better informed."
Reply from Mr. de Fontenelle:
"I shall have the honor, mademoiselle, of replying to you the same as I answered a friend of mine who wrote to me from Marly the day after I had been with the Spirit. I informed him that I had heard sounds of which I did not know the mechanics; to be certain about that it would require a more accurate examination than the one I did and repeat it. I have not changed my language; but because I did not absolutely decide that it was a ploy, I was accused of believing that he was an elf; and since the public does not stop in such a nice way, I was accused of having said what I did not. There is nothing wrong with that. If they have mistakenly attributed to me a speech which I have not given, they have done me the honor of paying attention to me, and one compensates the other. I did not believe that for having discredited the old prophetesses of Delphi it was a commitment to destroy a young and living girl and from whom only good things were heard. If, however, they think that I have failed my duty, on another occasion I shall adopt a more pitiless and more philosophical tone. I have been reproached for my lack of severity for a long time. I must be incorrigible, since the age, experience and injustice of the world do nothing. That, mademoiselle, is all that I can tell you about the Spirit, which has attracted me with a letter which I readily suspected of having been dictated, since I am not far from believing in that. Thus when a familiar demon comes to me, I will tell you with more grace and in a more ingenious tone, but not with more honesty, etc.”
Note:
Note: Fontenelle, as we see, does not pronounce either for or against, and confines himself to ascertaining the fact; it was caution, which most of the deniers of our time are wanting to do, who have to decide what they have not even bothered to observe, at the risk of later receiving the refutation of experience. However, it is evident that he inclines towards the affirmation, something remarkable for a man in his position and in a century of skepticism for excellence. Far from accusing Mademoiselle Letard of charlatanism, he admits that they only talked good about her. Perhaps he was even more convinced than he wished to appear, and was restrained only by the fear of ridicule, so powerful at the time. It was necessary, however, that he should be shaken, not to say frankly, that it was a trick; his opinion on this point is important. The question of charlatanism being excluded, it remains evident that Mademoiselle Letard was a spontaneous medium in the style of the Fox sisters.
The following passage from St. Athanasius, patriarch of Alexandria, one of the fathers of the Greek Church, seems to have be written under the inspiration of today’s Spiritist ideas.
“The soul does not die but the body does when away from the soul. The soul is its own motor; life is the movement of the soul. Even when imprisoned by the body and attached to it the soul is not restricted and contained by the limits of the body but frequently when the body is at rest and like inanimate the soul is awaken by its own virtue; despite being still connected to the body the soul conceives and contemplates existences beyond the terrestrial globe; the soul sees the saints freed from their bodies; sees and rises to the angels in the freedom of its pure innocence.
When it is entirely separated from the body and when God decides that it is time to remove the shackles wouldn’t the soul have, I ask you, a much more clear vision of its immortal nature? If right now and under the chains of the flesh the soul already enjoys a life that is completely exterior, it will live much more after the death of the body thanks to God that from the Verb made the soul in that away. The soul understands, absorbs the ideas of eternity and infinity because it is immortal. In the same way that the perishable body can only perceive what is material and perishable, the soul that sees and meditates about immortal things is necessarily immortal and will live forever because the thoughts and images of immortality are always with the soul and are like a living focus that ensures and feeds its own immortality. (Sanct. Athan. Oper., vol. I, page 32, Image of Christian eloquence in the IV Century).”
Isn’t that in fact an accurate image of the external irradiation of the soul during its physical life and its emancipation during the sleep, ecstasy, somnambulism and catalepsy? Spiritism says exactly the same thing and demonstrate it by experience.
The whole modern Spiritist Doctrine can be constituted with the sparse ideas found in the Bible, Gospels, in the Apostles and Fathers of the Church, not to mention the profane writers. The remarks made about those texts were generally from an exclusive point of view and from preconceived ideas and many of them only saw what they wanted to see or they lacked the key to see something else. Spiritism today, however, is the key that gives the true meaning of passages that are poorly understood. Up until now those fragments are collected partially but there will be a day when patient and knowledgeable people whose authority cannot be ignored will turn such a study into the object of a serious and thorough project that will shine light upon all of these questions so that one will have to surrender before the clearly demonstrated evidence.
We believe we can say that such a considerable work will be the endeavor of eminent members of the Church that will be assigned with such a mission because they will understand that religion must be progressive like humanity or else be overcome because there are backward ideas in religion as there are in politics. In that case the price of not advancing is to move backwards.
It is precisely because religion has fallen behind the progressive and scientific movement that there is a surge in disbelief. Religion does even more than that by declaring that such a movement is the works of the devil and by always combating it. It turned out that science that was repelled by religion repelled it in turn.
The result is an antagonism that will not end until religion understands that it must not only march with progress but also be an element of progress. Everybody will believe in God when religion does not present God in contradiction with the laws of nature that is the work of God.
“The soul does not die but the body does when away from the soul. The soul is its own motor; life is the movement of the soul. Even when imprisoned by the body and attached to it the soul is not restricted and contained by the limits of the body but frequently when the body is at rest and like inanimate the soul is awaken by its own virtue; despite being still connected to the body the soul conceives and contemplates existences beyond the terrestrial globe; the soul sees the saints freed from their bodies; sees and rises to the angels in the freedom of its pure innocence.
When it is entirely separated from the body and when God decides that it is time to remove the shackles wouldn’t the soul have, I ask you, a much more clear vision of its immortal nature? If right now and under the chains of the flesh the soul already enjoys a life that is completely exterior, it will live much more after the death of the body thanks to God that from the Verb made the soul in that away. The soul understands, absorbs the ideas of eternity and infinity because it is immortal. In the same way that the perishable body can only perceive what is material and perishable, the soul that sees and meditates about immortal things is necessarily immortal and will live forever because the thoughts and images of immortality are always with the soul and are like a living focus that ensures and feeds its own immortality. (Sanct. Athan. Oper., vol. I, page 32, Image of Christian eloquence in the IV Century).”
Isn’t that in fact an accurate image of the external irradiation of the soul during its physical life and its emancipation during the sleep, ecstasy, somnambulism and catalepsy? Spiritism says exactly the same thing and demonstrate it by experience.
The whole modern Spiritist Doctrine can be constituted with the sparse ideas found in the Bible, Gospels, in the Apostles and Fathers of the Church, not to mention the profane writers. The remarks made about those texts were generally from an exclusive point of view and from preconceived ideas and many of them only saw what they wanted to see or they lacked the key to see something else. Spiritism today, however, is the key that gives the true meaning of passages that are poorly understood. Up until now those fragments are collected partially but there will be a day when patient and knowledgeable people whose authority cannot be ignored will turn such a study into the object of a serious and thorough project that will shine light upon all of these questions so that one will have to surrender before the clearly demonstrated evidence.
We believe we can say that such a considerable work will be the endeavor of eminent members of the Church that will be assigned with such a mission because they will understand that religion must be progressive like humanity or else be overcome because there are backward ideas in religion as there are in politics. In that case the price of not advancing is to move backwards.
It is precisely because religion has fallen behind the progressive and scientific movement that there is a surge in disbelief. Religion does even more than that by declaring that such a movement is the works of the devil and by always combating it. It turned out that science that was repelled by religion repelled it in turn.
The result is an antagonism that will not end until religion understands that it must not only march with progress but also be an element of progress. Everybody will believe in God when religion does not present God in contradiction with the laws of nature that is the work of God.
The following passage is found in a very serious article about Poland signed by Bonneau and published in the National Opinionon November 10th, 1863:
“May Francis Joseph evoke the shadow of his grandmother; request the advice of Maria Teresa, a suffering soul persecuted by the remorse of a dismembered Poland, and light will suddenly shine before his eyes.”
These words dismiss comments. We were right when we mentioned above that the Spiritist idea is found everywhere. People are dragged by that idea and it will soon overflow.
“May Francis Joseph evoke the shadow of his grandmother; request the advice of Maria Teresa, a suffering soul persecuted by the remorse of a dismembered Poland, and light will suddenly shine before his eyes.”
These words dismiss comments. We were right when we mentioned above that the Spiritist idea is found everywhere. People are dragged by that idea and it will soon overflow.
“One reads in the Story of Saint Martial, apostle of the Gaul, and particularly of Aquitaine and Limousin, by R. Bonaventure of Saint-Amable, the barefoot monk, part 3, p. 752:
"In the year 1518, in the month of December, in the house of Pierre Juge, a merchant of Limoges, a Spirit made a great noise for a fortnight, knocking on doors, planks and paving stones, moving utensils from one place to another. Several monks went there to give mass, and to watch the night with lighted candles and holy water, but the Spirit did not speak. A sixteen year old young man, native of Ussel, who served this merchant, confessed that the Spirit had often molested him at home and in several other places, and added that his relative, who had left him heir, had died in the war, and had often appeared to several of his parents, and had spanked his sister, who died three days later. The aforesaid merchant Juge released this young man and all that noise ceased."
Evidently the young man was an unconscious medium of physical effects as there has always been. The knowledge of the laws that govern the relationships between the visible and invisible worlds brings all those supposedly wonderful facts to the domain of natural laws.
Allan Kardec
"In the year 1518, in the month of December, in the house of Pierre Juge, a merchant of Limoges, a Spirit made a great noise for a fortnight, knocking on doors, planks and paving stones, moving utensils from one place to another. Several monks went there to give mass, and to watch the night with lighted candles and holy water, but the Spirit did not speak. A sixteen year old young man, native of Ussel, who served this merchant, confessed that the Spirit had often molested him at home and in several other places, and added that his relative, who had left him heir, had died in the war, and had often appeared to several of his parents, and had spanked his sister, who died three days later. The aforesaid merchant Juge released this young man and all that noise ceased."
Evidently the young man was an unconscious medium of physical effects as there has always been. The knowledge of the laws that govern the relationships between the visible and invisible worlds brings all those supposedly wonderful facts to the domain of natural laws.
Allan Kardec