Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1865

We got this letter from Lyon:

“… Spiritism, this great link that unites all children of God, has opened up such a vast horizon before us that we can look at all these hearts that the circumstances placed from the east to the west, seeing them vibrating before a single appeal from Cárita. I still remember the profound emotion that I felt last year, when the Spiritist Review reported the impression produced by one communication of this excellent Spirit in all corners of Europe. There is no doubt that any thing can be said about Spiritism; it is a proof that it grows because in general people will not attack small things but those that have big impact. Besides, what are these attacks if not just like a child’s rage that throws stones at the ocean to stop its roar? The enemies of Spiritism are oblivious to the fact that when they attack the doctrine it is free propaganda because it excites every reader to get to know this terrible enemy that follows this chant: - there is no salvation but through charity.”

This letter was followed by the communication below, dictated by the Spirit Cárita, the eloquent and gracious beggar so much known by the good hearts:

Lyon, November 8^th, 1865

“It is could, and very windy; open up! I walked a long way through the paths of misery and come back with a semi-dead heart, my shoulders yielding to the weight of so much pain. Open quickly, my beloved one, you that know well that when charity knocks at your door, there is a lot of suffering on the way. Open your heart up to welcome my confidences; open your pocket to dry out the tears of my protégées and listen up with that emotion that is brought to your lips, from you soul, by pain. Oh you the ones that know what is reserved by God, you that frequently cry the tears of love that Jesus called the dew of the celestial life, open up!... Thank you. I am inside.

I left this morning. I was called from all sides, but suffering has such a vibrant voice that one single appeal is enough. My first visitation was with two poor oldies: husband and wife. They lived all these long days of scarce bread, when the sun is hidden, and work lacks to the strong arms. They buried their misery in the crucible of dignity, and nobody could guess they would see the days go by without the daily bread. Then came age, the weakening of the limbs, and the veiled eyes. The employer said: I no longer have work for you. Death did not come, however, and hunger and cold are the frequent visitors of the poor shelter. How can one respond to that misery? Proclaiming it? Oh, no. There are ulcers that cannot be cured by removing the bandages that cover them. What does sooth the heart is a word of consolation said by a friendly voice that guessed it right by the soul, something that was hidden to the eyes. Open-up to that misery.

I then saw a mother sharing her only piece of bread with three little children, and since the piece was small, she kept nothing for herself. I saw no fire in the stove, the bed had no linen; the trembling limbs covered in rags; I saw the husband coming home without finding a job; I finally saw the youngest kid dying without help, because mother and father are Spiritists and suffered humiliation from beneficent institutions.

I saw the full and horrible face of misery; I saw shrinking hearts and dignity vanishing before the rodent germ of need of subsistence. I saw people from God denying their immortal origin because they did not understand their atonement. I finally saw materialism expanding with misery and I uselessly screamed: Open-up! I am charity. I come to you with the warmth of my heart. Cry no more; I come to reassure you. But I was not heard by the hearts of the miserable because their guts were starving!

I then came to you, my good friends, you that listen to me; you who know that Cárita is the beggar to the poor and the one who said: Open-up! I just told you what I saw in my long journey and I beg you to spare one thought to my poor ones, one word, a kind memory, so that at night, at the time of prayer, they will not sleep without thanking God because you sent their your smile from far away. You know that the poor are the touchstone that God sends to Earth to try your hearts. Do not repel them so that one day, when you transpose the portal that leads to the space, God may recognize you by the purity of your hearts and give you shelter in the dwelling of the chosen ones!”

Cárita



We are happy to serve as interpreters to the good Cárita and we hope that she may not have asked this in vain: Open-up! If she is knocking so insistently it is for the fact that the winter, in turn, is also knocking.


Drive in Support of the Poor in Lyon and the Victims of Cholera
Running in the office of the Spiritist Review



This year an addition source of suffering added to the rigors of the winter that walks in strides. There is no doubt that the solicitude of the authorities has never been so intelligent and providential to those affected by this last invasion of a scourge; speed and wise distribution of medical and other resources; nothing was missing in that respect. Justice be done by all in acknowledging that. Thanks to the measures that were taken, the devastation was quickly circumscribed. Nonetheless, it still leaves behind cruel marks on poor families and the most regrettable ones are not those that succumbed. Here is where private charity is really needed. The amount received as well as its distribution are submitted to the control of the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies.

When we say novel, we say works of imagination. The very essence of a novel is to represent a fictitious subject, with respect to the events and characters. But even in that kind of literature there are rules from which common sense does not allow to run away from, and that together with the quality of the style, constitute its merit. If the facts are not true in themselves, they must, at least, be verisimilar and in perfect agreement with the environment where the action takes place.

In historical novels, for example, one must respect the local ambience and there are anachronisms that are not acceptable. The reader must be able to mentally travel in time and to places that must be correctly represented. That is the great talent of Walter Scott. When we read him, we find ourselves right in the Middle Ages. Had he attributed the events and gestures of Francis I to Louis XI, or even had he made the latter and the characters of his court to speak in the times of Renascence, and he could not be forgiven for his mistakes, even if utilizing the most beautiful style.

The same happens to historical novels. Its merit lies in the truthful images because it would be extremely ridiculous to give a Spanish vassal the habits and character of the British.

Novel, to begin with, seems to be the easiest genre. We believe it to be more difficult than history, even though it is less serious. The historian has the picture outlined by the facts from which one must not deviate an inch; the Novelist must create everything; nonetheless, some think that a bit of imagination and style suffice to create a good novel. A serious mistake: one needs a lot of erudition. To write Notre-Dame de Paris, Victor Hugo should know his old and archeological Paris as much as he knew his contemporary Paris. One can write a novel about Spiritism as it can be done about anything else. We even say that when Spiritism is known and understood in its essence, it shall provide arts and literature with an inexhaustible source of poetry. But that would not be the case for those who would only see it in the turning tables, in the ropes of the Davenport brothers or in the art of the charlatans. As in the historical or customs novels, the embroiderer does need to know profoundly the screen that will receive the needlework, does avoiding non-sense that would provide so much ignorance. The same applies to a musician that produces variations of a theme that must be acknowledge through the added fantasy. Anyone who has not studied Spiritism thoroughly, in its spirit, in its tendencies, in its maxims as well as in its material forms, is as unsuitable for making a spiritualist novel of any value as Lesage's to make Gil Blas, if he had not known the history and customs of Spain.



Is it therefore necessary to be a believer and fervent Spiritist for this? Not at all; it is enough to be truthful, and one cannot be truthful without knowing. To make an Arabic novel, it is certainly not necessary to be Muslim, but it is essential to know enough the Muslim religion, its character, its dogmas and its practices, as well as the mores so that one would not make the Africans act and speak like French knights; but there are those who believe that it is enough to give the stamp of the race, to lavish wrongly and plentifully use the name Allah! the names of Fatima and Zulema, because that's about all they know about Islamism. In a word, if one does not need to be a Muslim, one must to get impregnated by the Muslim spirit, as if to make a Spiritist work, even a fantastic one, one must soak up in the spirit of Spiritism; lastly, by reading a Spiritist novel, the Spiritists must be able to recognize themselves, as the Arabs must recognize themselves in an Arabic novel, and be able to say: you got it; but neither will recognize themselves if they are misrepresented, and the author will have done a poor job, as if a painter had painted French ladies in Chinese costumes.

These reflections come to mind in connection with the serial novel that Mr. Théophile Gautier is currently publishing in the Grand Monitor, with the title of Spiritist. We do not have the honor of knowing the author personally; we do not know his convictions or his knowledge regarding Spiritism; his work, which is at the beginning, does not yet allow us to see its conclusion. We will only say that if he only considered his subject from a single point of view, that is of manifestations, while neglecting the philosophical and moral side of the doctrine, he would not cover the general and complex idea embraced by his title, although this name of Spiritist is that of one of his characters. If the facts which he imagines for the need of action, did not fall within the limits drawn by experience; if he presented them as happening in unacceptable conditions, his work would lack truth, and would make one suppose that the Spiritists believe in the marvels of the tales of Arabian Nights. If he lent the Spiritists practices and beliefs which they disown, it would not be impartial, and from this point of view, it would not be a serious piece of literary work.

The Spiritist doctrine is not secret like that of masonry; it has no mysteries for anyone, and spreads out in the broad day light of publicity; it is neither mystical, abstract, nor ambiguous; but clear and within everyone's reach; having nothing allegorical, it can give rise neither to ambiguities nor to false interpretations; it bluntly says what it does admit and what it does not; the phenomena recognized by the doctrine are neither supernatural nor marvelous, but founded on the laws of nature; so that it does neither makes miracles nor wonders. Anyone who does not know it or who misunderstands its tendencies does not want to bother to know it. This clarity and popularization of the Spiritist principles, which have followers in all countries and in all ranks of society, are the most peremptory refutation of the diatribes of their adversaries, for there isn’t a single one of their false allegations that do not find a categorical answer.

Spiritism can therefore only benefit from being known, and that is what those who believe they are ruining it by attacks devoid of any serious argument are unsuspectingly working on. The deviation from convenience in language produce an effect quite opposite to that one would expect; the public analyzes them, and it is not in favor of those who do such a thing; the more violent the aggression, the more it leads people to inquire about the truth, even in the ranks of hostile literature. The calm of the Spiritists before this outcry; the composure and the dignity which they kept in their answers, make with the acrimony of their antagonists a contrast which strikes even the indifferent ones, throwing uncertainty in the opposite ranks, which count today on more than one desertion.

The Spiritist novel can be seen as a transient transaction between negation and affirmation. It takes real courage to face and defy the ridicule that attaches to new ideas, but that courage comes with conviction. Later, we are convinced, serious champions of the doctrine will emerge from the ranks of our adversaries in the press. When the tendencies of the work by M. Théophile Gautier are better defined, we will give our appreciation from the point of view of the Spiritist truth.



The above reflections naturally apply to works of the same genre on magnetism and somnambulism. The phenomenon of double sight recently provided Mr. Élie Berthet with the subject of a very interesting novel published by the Siècle, adding the merit of accuracy to the talents of the author. The author has undoubtedly had to make a serious study of this faculty; to describe it as it does, one must have seen and observed well. However, we could criticize him for a bit of exaggeration in the extension he gives it in some cases. Another mistake, in our view, is to present it as a disease; Now a natural faculty, whatever it is, can coincide with a pathological state, but is not a disease by itself, and the proof is that a large number of people gifted to the highest degree by the double sight, are doing perfectly well.

Here the hero is a young and cataleptic girl: that is her real disease. The faculty that she enjoys caused misfortunes by the misunderstandings that followed, and that is why she deplores the dismal gift that she received; but this gift was only made dismal by ignorance, inexperience and imprudence of those who used it clumsily; from that point of view, there is not one of our faculties which cannot become a lethal gift by the bad use or the false applications that one can make of it.

Having made the reservation above we say that the phenomenon is perfectly described. He describes precisely the vision of a detached soul that knows no distance, that penetrates matter like a beam of light crosses transparent bodies, being a visible and positive demonstration of the existence and independence of the spiritual principle; he also accurately describes the picture of the strange transfiguration that takes place during ecstasy, and the impressive lucidity that confounds for its accuracy in certain cases, and that sometimes causes embarrassing illusions.

To the characters in the drama, it is the true representation of the feelings of believers, non-believers, the skeptical and the scared ones. There is a doctor that oscillates between belief and skepticism, but as a man of wisdom, he does not believe that science has already said the last word. He observes, study and confirms the facts. His behavior, during the crises of the young lady, attest his shrewdness. There is also the discouragement of the exploits, duly repelled in that work.

The author’s job would have been incomplete if he had neglected the moral side of the issue. His objective is not to excite curiosity with extraordinary facts but to deduce their practical and useful consequences. There is one episode, among others, that demonstrates that he understood perfectly well this part in his program. The young clairvoyant lady finds important documents in the underground, documents that can end a serious lawsuit against the family. She describes places and circumstances in detail. The excavations that followed her instructions proved that she saw it very well. They find the papers and the lawsuit is nulled. Notice, in passing, that she made that discovery spontaneously, led by her care for the family and not out of a request. The main piece was a letter in old style that she read textual and completely, and as easily as if she had it before her eyes. It is here, in particular, that we believe her faculty was stretched too far. Later she sees another underground where huge treasures are buried and whose origin she explains. To get there one must cross a cave full of human remains, of numerous victims of the times of feudalism. Up until now nothing that is not likely; what is absolutely unlikely is the fact that the souls of those victims remained locked for centuries and can rise up menacing before those that dare to disturb their somber rest, looking for a treasure. That is the fantastic part. If it were the executioners there would not be anything surprising. We know, from a large number of examples, that it is frequently the temporary punishment of the guilty, condemned to remain in the same place and in the presence of their crimes, until touched by regret they raise their thoughts to God begging for mercy. But in his case it is the innocent victims that would be punished and that is not rational.





The owner of the old castle, the stingy old man, attracted by the discovery of the documents, wants to continue the excavations. These are difficult and dangerous to the workers, but he stops at nothing. The clairvoyant implores him to stop; she predicts that if he persists it will bring disgrace.

-Besides, she says, you will not do it.

-Then, such treasures do not exist, asks the stingy man.

-They do exist as I described them, I guarantee; but once more, you will not get there.

-And who is going to stop me?

-The souls in the cave that must be crossed.

The miser old man, hardened skeptical, admitted the extra corporeal sight of the young lady, although without understanding it very well, because he had just had a proof of that in his loss, since the documents found frustrated his pretensions in the process, but he believed more in the money than in the invisible forces. He then continues:

-How could them oppose? Those treasures belong to me because they are in my property.

-No. They will be found one day by the one that must enjoy them; but they are not destined to you. That is why you will not get there. I insist, if you continue, disgrace will come.

This is the essentially moral, instructive and true side of the report. These words seem to be taken from The Mediums’ Book, in the article about the help of the Spirits in the discovery of treasures: “If the Providence assigns hidden treasures to someone, that person will find them naturally; on the contrary, no.” (Chapter XXVI, No. 295). In fact, there is no example that Spirits, or somnambulists, have facilitated similar discoveries, as with the recovery of inheritances, an all that, by entertaining such a hope, made similar attempts, suffered a lot and spent a lot of money. Said and hard frustration await those that base their hopes of enrichment on similar means. The Spirits are not assigned with the mission of favoring greed and giving us wealth without work, something that would be neither fair nor morally correct.

There is no doubt that the lucid somnambulist sees but she only sees what is allowed to be seen, and the Spirits may, according to the circumstances, and from superior order, obliterate her lucidity, or raise obstacles to the realization of things that are not in the designs of the Providence. In the present example it was allowed to find the papers that would cease the family dispute; it was not that of finding treasures that would only serve to feed greed. That is why the old stingy man perished, victim of his own stubbornness.

The dramatic adventures imagined by Mr. Élie Berthet are not so fantastic as one could believe. They remind us of the more real ones endured by Mr. Borreau, from Niort, in searches of the same kind, and whose touching report is found in his own brochure entitled How and Why I became Spiritist (see our report in the Spiritist Review, December 1864). Another not less important lesson sticks out of the book by Mr. Élie Berthet. The young lady saw positive things, and in another serious case she was mistaken, attributing a crime to an innocent person. How did the author saw the consequence of that? Negation of the faculty? No. No, because despite all that he proves it; but this conclusion, justified by experience, demonstrates that the most attested lucidity is not infallible, and that one must not trust it in absolute terms, without control.

Vision, through the soul, of things that the body cannot see, demonstrates the existence of the soul. That is already a very important achievement. But it is not given for the satisfaction of human passions. Why, then, the emancipated soul does not see always clearly? The reason is that since mankind is still imperfect, the human soul cannot enjoy prerogatives of perfection. Although isolated, it shares the influences of matter until its depuration. That is the same with the discarnate souls or Spirits, and even with more reason those that are still linked to the corporeal life. That is what Spiritism teaches to those that do bother to study it.

One of our correspondents wrote us the following:

“Here is what I sent two years ago to Mr. Nefftzer, director of the Journal Le Temps:

I was a subscriber to your Journal for being sympathetic to its tendencies and opinions. I have regrettably cancelled my subscription. Allow me to explain my reasons. In your June issue you endeavor to ridicule Spiritism and the Spiritists, telling a kind of authentic story, not mentioning names or places, something easy to do. You tried to determine that Spiritism leads to madness, a compulsory theme to the materialists nowadays, that feel greatly bothered by Spiritism. Weak minds, no doubt, having already tendencies for mental diseases, lost their minds on dealing with Spiritism, as they would without it, and as it happens when they get involved with Chemistry, Physics or Astronomy, and even the writers that do not believe in Spirits. I do not deny either that there are impostors that exploit Spiritism, but which science is free from charlatanism? Don’t we find charlatans in the literature, technology, agriculture, in the military, politicians and the latter in particular? But to conclude against Spiritism from that is not much logical or sensible. Before casting an accusation of that sort, one should at least get to know the object that is under scrutiny, but that is frequently the least concern of those that write about it. They cut and decide from top to bottom since that is easier than the study and understanding.

If you have already experienced great disgraces and true pain, believe me Sir, study Spiritism; only through that you will find consolation and the truths that will allow you to withstand suffering, losses and despair, and that alone is more valued than suicide. What can you offer us better than this beautiful and reassuring Christian philosophy? A cult to material things, to the golden calf? ^[1]

This may perhaps be convenient to the temperament of the happy people of these days, but something different is needed for those that no longer wish fanaticism, superstition, and the ridiculous and gross practices of the Middle Ages, the atheism, pantheism and the systematic incredulity of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Allow me, Sir, to advise you to be more judicious in your diatribes against Spiritism for today, in France alone, they address about three hundred or four hundred thousand people.

Blanc de Lalésie, owner near Joncy (Saône-et-Loire).

A few days ago, we learned from the papers about the recent death of Mr. Nefftzer’s only son. I do not know if such a disgrace made him remember my letter. I have just sent Mr. Sr. Émile Aucante, manager of the Univers Illustré journal, the following letter:

I have been a subscriber to the Univers Illustré for eighteen months now and since then there was only a few editions in which your chronicler, by the pseudo name Gérôme, did not bother in occupying himself in making jokes of all sorts about Spiritism and the Spiritists. Up until now, that somewhat tedious entertainment, given its frequency, was very innocent: Spiritism does not do bad because of that. But Mr. Gérôme, undoubtedly noticing that people do not bother with his jokes, changed his tone and in the October 7^th edition he treats the mass of Spiritists as idiots. From jokes he moves into offence, not afraid of insulting thousands of people, as much educated, enlightened and intelligent as himself, just because they believe to have an immortal soul and that this soul, on another life, will be punished or rewarded, according to one’s merits or lack of merits. Mr. Gérôme has no more prejudices. Yikes! He, no doubt, believes that he eats, drinks and reproduces not more or less like his dog or horse. Kudos to him!

If Mr. Gérôme were kind enough to receive a word of advice, I would invite him to speak only about things that he knows and to shut up with respect to those that he does not, or least to study them, something that would be easy for him, given his elevated and incontestable intelligence. He would learn about things that he ignores totally, like for example the fact that Spiritism is not but the developed Christianity and that the manifestation of the Spirits, that has always happened, adds nothing to the doctrine that would exist with or without them.

But why am talking about Spirits to a man that only believes in his own, and that perhaps ignores if he himself as one? Finally, may Mr. Gérôme be surrounded by the flag of materialism, pantheism or paganism – the latter would be better because there, at least, they believed in the existence of the soul and in a future life – never mind! But may he know to respect his readers’ beliefs, by respecting himself. It is obvious that I cannot continue to give my money away to be insulted, and if such calumnies must continue I would feel sorry to have to cease my subscription…”

Mr. … is modest when assessing the number of Spiritists in France as three or four hundred thousands. He could have doubled it without exaggeration and would still be well below the numbers produced by an author that pretended to destroy us and placed the mark in 20 million. As a matter of fact, an accurate census of the Spiritists is impossible given the fact that they are not grouped, do not form a corporation or society whose members are registered and may be counted. Spiritism is a belief. Anyone that believes in the existence and survival of the souls, and in the possibility of communication between mankind and the spiritual world, is Spiritist, and many are intuitively without having ever heard of Spiritism or mediums. One is a Spiritist out of conviction, as others are non-believers, and for that reason one does not absolutely need to be part of a society, and a proof of that is that not even a thousandth part of them attend meetings. There is no ledger to be consulted to have them counted. One would have to enquiry each individual and ask them about their beliefs. Through normal conversations, every day, people are found with sympathetic ideas and for that matter only they are Spiritists, without the need for a certificate or any sort of notarization. This number grows daily. The fact is attested by our adversaries that are terrified to acknowledge that such a belief invades every echelon of society, from top to bottom of the scale. It is, therefore, an opinion that must be taken into account, and that has the particularity of not being restricted to a class, a cast or sect, nor to a nation or political party. It has representatives everywhere, in the literature, arts, sciences, medicine and courts, in the army, in the commerce, etc. The number of subscribers in France, no doubt, is higher than that of signatories of all Parisian journals. It is obvious that the former constitutes a significant part of the latter. It is therefore to these supporters that your paid journalists say grievances. Now, as Mr. Lalésie correctly says, it is not nice to give money away and be ridiculed and belittled at. For that he cancelled the subscription to journals in which he felt mistreated in his belief, and nobody can reproach his attitude.

Does it mean that the journals must adopt the Spiritists ideas to please them? Not at all. They themselves discuss opinions that they do not share all the time but they do not offend those that do. Those writers are not Jewish, however they do not cast anathema and disdain upon them. Why? Because, as they say, one must respect the freedom of conscience. Why, then, such freedom is not granted to the Spiritists? Aren’t them citizens like everybody else? Do they claim exemption or privilege? They ask for one thing only: the right to be able to think as they wish. Would those that wrote in their flag “freedom, equality and fraternity” want to create a class of pariah in France?

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[1] Exodus, 32 (TN)

Young peasant lady, inconscient medium



It is a fact, attested by experience, that the Spirits act upon persons that are totally oblivious to the Spiritist ideas, unsuspectingly. We have already mentioned several examples in this Spiritist Review. We do not know a single genre of mediumship not revealed spontaneously, even that of writing. How can the following event be explained by those that attribute all those manifestations to imagination or charlatanism?

The little village of E…, in the Department of Aube, up until recently had been much favored, in these days of moral epidemic, for being preserved from the disgrace of Spiritism. The very name of this diabolic work had never even reached the ears of its peaceful inhabitants, undoubtedly because the local priest had not yet preached against it. But the one that counts, and misses the guest, counts twice; he should not have counted on the absence of the Spirits that require no license to operate. Here what happens about four months ago.

In the village there is an almost illiterate seventeen-year-old woman, daughter of a poor and honest crop grower with whom she works everyday in the fields. One day, on returning to their hut, she felt totally disturbed; she then felt like writing, something she never did since the days of school. Write what? She knew nothing; she only wanted to write. Another bizarre idea was to look around to find a pencil and a piece of paper, although she knew that there was none in the cabin. While trying to make sense of those ideas she saw an extinguished ember by the fireplace; she felt irresistibly attracted to get that, and then she was guided by an invisible to force to the whitened wall. Her leg was suddenly and mechanically raised and she wrote this, in very legible characters: “Find paper and pens for you will use them to correspond with the Spirits.” Strange thing the fact that although she had never heard about manifestations of Spirits, she was not surprised with what had just happened. She told her father who then discussed with one of his friends, a simple farmworker like him, but a man of great discernment. That friend came to carefully examine the situation; then, like an experienced Spiritist, although as ignorant about the matter as the girl’s father, he questioned the manifesting Spirit and that signed the name of a Russian general. The latter invited them to talk to the Spiritist in Troyes to obtain more information about it, and so they did. Since then the girl is a writing medium and in addition to that she obtains remarkable physical effects. A Spiritist group was formed in the village, and willing or not, that is how Spiritism has been sought after.

The letter from our correspondent that reports the fact, ends by saying this: “Couldn’t we say that the more the jokers endeavor to trick themselves, the more the Providence, as if to confuse them, daily pours manifestations that challenge their denial every interpretation of the skeptical?”

The Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies received the following about the subject matter:



Parisian Society, November 27^th, 1865 – medium Mr. Morin

God’s power is infinite and employs every means to promote a doctrine that is in everything. A double phenomenon took place here as I will try to explain. The young woman was suddenly surrounded by a powerful fluid that led her to temporarily abandon her day to day activities. Before the manifestation of the phenomenon there was a preparation of the patient; she was magnetized and guided, by the will of the Spirit, to find an instrument that was knowingly absent in the house. When she bent over in the fireplace to get the piece of charcoal to replace the pencil, she was only executing a movement driven by the Spirit. It was neither her instinct nor her intelligence acting, but that of the Spirit that utilized the young lady like an adequate instrument to his own fluid. Up until that moment, she was not, say, a medium; it was only after the first written warning that she really became one, and no longer forced by the Spirit that forced her to act. Her mediumship, thereafter, became semi-mechanic, she knew and understood what she was writing but she could not explain it in words. Besides, the physical effects happened in such a powerful way that any idea of prestidigitation must be ruled out.

Before the first effects, there was nothing that indicated her aptitude for that kind of phenomenon. Had those effect been the first ones to reveal her mediumship, they could have been misinterpreted by superstition. The man that, like a seasoned Spiritist, asked questions to the Spirit, he was himself guided by a force of similar nature as the one that impelled the medium to write. That force, whose origin he could not understand, doubled his capacity of evocation, adding his desire to learn to the memories of gatherings for the manifestation of the soul of the dead. It is only a serious study of the principles of the doctrine that teach these newcomers the real, positive and natural side of things, keeping out any interpretation of marvelous and supernatural. These are the two main roles of the event, that unwillingly played their role. They were the more powerful instruments in the event, the more ignorant and exempt of preconceived ideas.

As you can see, my friends, everything concur to cast light and the most illiterate can give lessons to the most knowledgeable ones.

Guide to the medium.

Young peasant lady, inconscient medium



Spiritism has definitely invaded the countryside. The Spirits want to prove their existence taking instruments everywhere, even beyond the circle of followers, destroying any hypothesis of convenience. We have just learned about the arrival of the doctrine in a small village in Aube, amongst humble farmworkers, through spontaneous manifestation. Here we have another event, even more remarkable, from another point of view. Our colleague, Mr. Delanne, wrote the following to us:

“… During the few hours I spent in the village where my son is educated, a villager gave me two brochures that he had published with this title: “Natural and Philosophical Ideas About Existence in General, From the Absolute Principle Until the End of the Ends, From the Primary Cause to Infinity”, by Chevelle (father), from Joinville (Haute-Marne); the first brochure deals with God, the angels, the soul of man, animals or instinctive; the second about the physical forces, the elements, the organization and movement.^[1]

From the pompous title and the serious matters that it embraces you might think that it comes from a man that devoured books his entire life. Make no mistake, this metaphysics philosopher is a humble artisan, a true philosopher on sandals, going around the village to sell vegetables and other produce. Here a few excerpts from his preface:

-I began this work because I believed it to be of some utility to the public. One has duties to one’s fellow human beings; one’s condition is not that of isolation, and society has its own right to demand from everyone the sharing of knowledge; egotism is an intolerable vice.

The work is entirely mine; I was not helped or seconded by anyone; I copied nothing from nobody; it is the result of an entire life of meditation… I had many difficulties to be faced for the execution of my intent, but I did not dissimulate them. To me, misery was the worst of all; it precluded me from acting, not allowing me any free time; I always withstood it without lamentation; I had learned the secret of living happily without wealth and that secret has always been my greatest resource.

… I let my ideas out because I wrote them as they came to me, naturally and spontaneously, through reflection and meditation.



… In Philosophy one cannot demonstrate all the existences through mathematical formulation; we do not measure the Spirits with a measuring tape and they cannot be observed in a microscope.

… One should not expect a high quality or a very brilliant style in my book. I did not do formal courses; I only attend the school in my village. When we learned our prayers in Latin and could recite well the catechism we were considered educated enough.

… In those days we were considered a wise person when able to do the four operations in Math; I was sought after to help to measure the fields. At the age of ten I was the best student in the school and my old father was proud when people sent for me, asking for help in where to plant a milestone or write a message or a receipt.

I then got the right to apologize to the readers for the triviality of my language. I did not learn the rules of rhetoric, I do believe that the title most adequate to my work is: Natural Ideas.

We went to school from the All Saints day to Easter and would be on vacation from Easter to All Saints. But since my father, despite his poverty, was not afraid of spending a few cents to buy me books, I learned much more from them during the break and did not forget them during class season.

Here are few excerpts from the chapter about God:

-God is the only one that can say: I am the one that is. He is one in everything; everything does exist from him, in him and for him, and nothing can exist without him and beyond him. He is one and yet produced the multiple and the divisible, one and the other to infinity… If I could define God well, I would be God but there could not be two.

God is an infinite whole, indivisible, eternal, immutable; there is no limit in the small as in the large… One minute and a hundred thousand years or a hundred thousand centuries are the same to God; eternity cannot be fragmented; to God there is no past or future, it is an eternal present; the past still is and the future is already; God see all times at once; there is no yesterday or tomorrow, and he said, when talking about his son: I generated you today.

Eternity cannot be measured, as the infinity in space; these are two abysses that we can only get to through abstraction and we would get lost there if willing to penetrate it; they are like virgin forests with no trail. And when we get there we are forced to halt.

God cannot stop creating. He would be just an inactive God if he did not, and his glory would be only to himself. Impossible monotony. God creates eternally and the beginning of creation, taken from infinity, must continue to infinity.

… It was necessary to have free intelligences created, for what would be like the life of the thinking beings if they were not given the freedom of thought? Where would God’s glory be if his creatures were not allowed to issue their opinion about him? It would be the same as remaining alone; their rendered worship would be like a chimera, a comedy directed by him and towards him. He would have been the only actor and the only spectator.



To the glory of God, therefore, it was an absolute necessity that the intelligences were created absolutely free, that were given the right to judge their author, to lead themselves, in good as in evil, as they wished. Evil must be allowed so that good exist; one cannot be known if the other cannot be seen. But, at the same time that God gives free-will to the intelligences, they are also given their private self, that intellectual feeling of freedom of thinking, that act of a free spirit that we call conscience, that individual tribunal warning each person about the value of their action. Nobody does evil unknowingly: one can only sin out of free will.



We also have reasons to believe that the Spirits of angels, have some participation in the universal governance, for it has been received as a dogma of faith that we are guarded by angels and that each one of us has their guardian angel.

The intelligences, or Spirits detached from matter, therefore may sometimes have influence upon people’s minds. How many people have had revelations that happened: bear witness Joan of Arc and so many others from whom the history books that I read talk about, and that we can find out! I do not need my memory alone to cite the passages and do not need to go elsewhere but inside myself. When my older sister died of cholera in Midrevay (Vosges), I heard not heard anywhere about cholera in those days. I had no idea she was sick; I saw her healthier than ever and had no reason to worry about her. I saw her in my dreams in my house in Joinville:



“Dear Joseph, I came to tell you that I slept; I know that I always loved you very much and wanted to bring you the news myself, bring you the news about my return to the other world.” The following day the mailman brought me a letter announcing my sister’s death.

When I received the letter with a black stripe, I told my wife: Remember the dream I told you yesterday and that could be true? I was not wrong.



I several times had, not sleeping but well awake and working, visions that I did not bother about when they happened, even long time afterwards. It happened three or four times in the course of my life; I only kept a slight memory, but I am sure they happened. I am not the only one that have mental revelations; others will prove that I am right and that may have already been proved.



The soul of the animals cannot be but individual, and consequently, cannot be decomposable, and consequently the soul of the animal does not die. People thought of that before I did and that gave rise to the doctrine of metempsychosis. If metempsychosis does exist, it could not be but individual of the same species: the vital soul of mammal cannot pass to a tree.



Given the state of human intelligence it is impossible that it passes to the body of an animal. The soul could not act there. The physical constitution of the animal cannot shelter human intelligence, although they say that devils got together and possessed animals. I cannot believe that they can do anything meaningful in such organization; they could not speak; they could not annihilate the instinct that would always act, willing or not; it is one of the laws established by the Creator; they would be unworthy of them if they could breach them, if they could change them. The cluster of nerves, as we said above, the telegraphic stations of those species, cannot be driven by intelligence.



In these last days there is a lot of talk about Spiritism; some people tell me that this chapter has a lot to do with that, but if that is the case is out of pure chance, for I have never read or heard a single phrase about it.



Now, his reflections about the creation:

All the geologists and naturalists are in agreement that God’s days were not like ours, regulated by the Sun. In fact, God’s days in the creation could not be regulated by the Sun because, according to the Sacred Scriptures, the Sun had not been created yet, or was not visible; hence the word that in the Scriptures, in the language that they were written, means time when it says days. The error, therefore, could have been made by the translators that could have said six times instead of six days; besides, why would we want to make God’s days as short as ours if God is eternal?

It is not that I pretend that God could not have created the planet in six days of twenty four hours each, when each of those could last as much as hundreds of thousands of our years. If I wanted to mean that I would be in contradiction with myself, because in the first volume I said that one minute, a hundred thousand years or a hundred thousand centuries are the same thing to God.

Even if God had utilized only one day, as indicated in the book of Genesis, between each of those days there could be millions of years or centuries.

When we examine the layers of Earth and how they were formed, we call those different revolutions of epochs. The physical proof is there, for those layers were not built in 24h.

People want to take the text of the Sacred Scriptures to much literally; they are true but one must know how to understand them. It is not about acting like those Israelis that allowed themselves to be hanged because it was a Saturday; if they wanted to kill me on a Sunday, I would not wait the following Monday to defend myself. It is only to us that the week has seven days. To God it is only one day, and that day has no beginning and no end. For our benefit, God wishes that we take one day off per week, but God never rests or sleep, and God’s action is ceaseless.

Our days are not but the disappearance of one and the surge of another that illuminates us. When the Sun sets for us it rises for other people. Any time at day or night it rises, and shines in its zenith or lies down. And when the rain, the cold and snow send us close to the fireplace, there are other peoples that pick flowers and fruits. Besides, there isn’t only one world, one Sun; all the starts that we see are suns that illuminate planets like ours, and perhaps more perfect than ours. God is the creator of all those worlds and many more that we do not see; the six days of creation, therefore, are six periods that lasted more or less time, and that were called days to facilitate understanding.

We read the two brochures from father Chevelle with interest, and we could certainly contradict him in several points, but the citations that we just made above reveal ideas of elevated philosophical reach, and that do not go without a certain character of originality. His works form a small encyclopedia, because the deals with a little bit of everything, even common things. Later he announces a Manual of the Herbalist, or the Treatment of Diseases by the Use of Indigenous Medicinal Plants.

Where all those ideas of his come from? He read, undoubtedly, but his position did not allow him to read much, and besides, he needed special skills to benefit from that reading and deal with so much abstract subjects. We have seen natural poets coming out of working classes, but it is rarer to see meta-physicists, without previous studies, and even less from farmworkers. Father Chevelle, in his style, presents a phenomenon like those calculating shepherds that defeated science. Isn’t this a serious subject of study? These are facts. Now, since every effect has a cause, have the wise men searched for that cause? No, because one would have had to search in the depth of the soul. But how about the spiritualist philosophers? They lack the only key that could give them the solution.

Here is how skepticism responds to that: bizarre thing of nature; result of neurological organization. Spiritist says: highly developed intelligence in previous lives, and that not having lost anything from that, it is reflected in the present life, serving as basis to new acquisitions. But why those intelligences that must have shined in their social echelons, now return in more inferior classes? Another problem, not less insolvable without the key given by Spiritism. It says that these are voluntary trials or atonements, chosen by those very minds, that given their moral advancement, wanted to reborn in in simple environment, be it out of humility or to acquire practical knowledge that may be useful to them in other existences.”

These events were reported in the Parisian Society and gave rise to the following communication:



Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, November 10^th, 1865 – medium Mrs. Breul

My dear friends, in the text read by your President, with several cases reported by your brother Delanne, you saw a remarkable philosophical work, brought to light by a simple peasant of the Vosges. Isn’t this the place to attest how many prodigies take place at this very moment, to shock disbelief and the scholars of the world; to confuse those persons that believe to have the monopoly of science, admitting nothing beyond the strict limits of their conceptions, limited by matter?

Yes, in these days of preparation for the humanitarian revolution that the Spirits of the Lord must carry out, you can more and more acknowledge these words of Jesus, not much understood by men: “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children”.^[2]

When I refer to the wise I do not speak of those modest men, relentless pioneers of science that make humanity advance, unveiling the wonders that reveal the power and goodness of the Creator, that infatuated by their knowledge, believe that there could not be anything not yet discovered, supported or published by them. Those will be punished in their pride, and God already allows them to be baffled by the superiority of intellectual works produced by the pencil of persons far from wearing the graduation’s ring.

As with the time of Jesus Christ that wanted to honor and raise the worker, by choosing amongst artisans, the angels of the Lord now recruit their supporters among those simple and honest hearts and people of good will with the simplest professions.

You must then understand, friends, that pride is the greatest enemy of your advancement, and that humility and charity are the only virtues that please God and attract to you these good fluids that help you progress and get closer to God.

Louis of France.

---

[1] Two large brochures in-12; price 1 franc each directly with the author in Joinville (Haute-Marne); in Bar-le-Duc, with Numa Rolin. The author informs that the work shall be completed with additional five brochures that will all together form a volume.


[2] Mathews 11:25 (TN)

When the most skeptical and obstinate transpose the portal of the corporeal life, they are forced to acknowledge that they still live; that they are Spirits since they are no longer corporeal; that the Spirits can communicate with humans since they can do it themselves. But their appreciation of the spiritual world varies in proportion to their moral advancement, their knowledge or ignorance, the elevation or misery of their soul. The two Spirits that are mentioned here belonged to the class of men of science and high intelligence. Both were fundamentally skeptical, but eminently skeptical and their skepticism was countered by distinguished moral qualities.

Thus, once in the world of the Spirits they promptly face things from their true standpoint and acknowledge their mistake. In fact, there isn’t anything extraordinary in this and that is not seen every day; if we publish their first impressions it is due to their eminently instructive content. They both died recently. The first one, Mr. M.L… was a surgeon at Hospital B… and brother in-law to Mr. A. Véron, a member of the Spiritist Society of Paris. The second, Mr. Gui…, was a prominent economist, close friend of Mr. Colliez, another member of the Society. Mr. Véron tried, without success, to bring his brother in-law to the spiritualist ideas; after his death he became more accessible to those instructions and below one of the first communications received from him.



Paris, October 5^th, 1865 – medium Mr. Desliens

“My dear brother in-law, considering that we enjoy privacy and that I am not taking the place of someone that could be more useful than me, I attend your appeal with pleasure. From starters, do not expect to see me unfolding all my spiritual faculties. I could, no doubt, try to do it and perhaps even more successfully when alive, but my proud presumption is far from me and if I thought a lot of myself on Earth, here I am very small. How many people I disdained and today I am happy to find their protection and teachings! Ignorant people down here are frequently the wise ones up there, and as for our science that pretends to know everything and does not accept anything beyond its own borders, it is illusive and limited! Ah human pride! How long will you still be around on Earth, by the force of habit, where the spirit of routine precludes progress from its unstoppable march? “I don’t know this; it is outside of the limits of my knowledge; hence it does not exist.” That is the way we think down here. If we admitted it, or at least studied that given event, resulting from unknown laws, we would have to renounce to mistaken systems, supported by great names that constitute our glory, and even worse than that, we would have to acknowledge that we were wrong. No, not us, other deniers, we met a universal Galileo that comes to tell us: “I am a Spirit, I am alive, I was a man, and you yourselves were men like me, until through a series of incarnations you are depurate to climb the infinite ladder of the worlds… And we deny!

But, as Galileo said after his backtracks: “And yet, it moves”! Spiritism says: “And yet, the Spirits are here; they manifest, and no denial can destroy a fact.” The brutal fact is true; nothing can be done against it. Time, that great teacher, will do justice by sweeping some and educating others. Be among the educated ones. I was struck down in the prime of my pride and suffered the consequences of my denials. Avoid my fall and may those that imitate my line of thoughts learn from my mistakes, thus avoiding the abyss of darkness from where I was retrieved by your kindness. You can feel my disturbed language. Later I will be able to speak in a more logical way. Be indulgent to my spiritual youth.

M. L.



Before the communication above was read at the Parisian Society, the Spirit communicated spontaneously, dictating the following:



Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, October 20^th, 1865 – medium Mr. Desliens

Dear Mr. Allan Kardec, allow this Spirit that, through the studies of your work, was led to consider life, the being and God from its true point of view, allow me a sincere recognition. I ignored your name and your work while on Earth. Had I heard about you I might well have exercised my teasing vein, as I used to do regarding everything that tried to demonstrate the existence of something independent of the body. I was blind then. Forgive me. Today, thanks to you, thanks to the teachings of the Spirits that were spread and promoted by your hand, I am a changed mind, I am aware of myself and I see my destiny. How much don’t I owe you and Spiritism! Anyone that might have known me and today reads the expression of my thoughts will say: “This one cannot be the one we knew, that radical materialistic person that admitted nothing beyond the dense phenomena of nature.” Nonetheless, it is me, undoubtedly.

My dear brother in-law, to whom I have a lot to thank for, you say that I found good feelings in a short time. I thank you for your kindness to me, but it certainly ignores the large number of hours of suffering, resulting from the unconsciousness of one’s very existence! I used to believe in the nothingness and was punished by a fictious void. Feel oneself and not being able to communicate; believing to be spread amongst the sparse rests of matter that formed the body, such was my position for over two months!... two centuries!... Ah, suffering hours are too long and if you did not take the burden of pulling me out of that atmosphere of nihilism, if you had not forced me to come to these gatherings of peace and love, a place that I did not see or understand anything, but where sympathetic fluids acted upon me and gradually woke me up from my heavy spiritual lethargy, where would I be now? My God!... God!... what a sweet name to have pronounced by someone obstinate in denying such a great and good Father! Ah, friends, help me out with moderation, because that is the only thing that I am afraid of today, of becoming fanatic by these beliefs that I would have totally rejected in past, had it come to my attention.

I will say nothing today about your works; I am still too new, too ignorant to dare venture into your shrewd dissertations. I feel it, but I don’t know it. I will only tell you this because this I know: Yes, the fluids do have a huge influence as a heling agent, if not corporeal from which I know nothing, but at least spiritual, because I experienced its action. I already told you and I repeat with joy and recognition: I went to the Spiritist meetings, pushed by an invisible force, undoubtedly by my spiritual guide. I could not see a thing, could not understand anything, however, a fluidic force that I could not understand, cured me spiritually.

I am thankful and in debt to all those that acquired eternal rights to my recognition, pulling me out of the chaos in which I had fallen into, and I beg you, my friends, for your kindness in allowing me to come and quietly attend your wise assemblies, and later on offering my weak scientific lights to your services.

M.L.

Question – Could you tell us, with the help of your guide, how come you so promptly acknowledged your earthly mistakes, while a good number of Spirits that are not spared of spiritual assistance, remain so much longer without understanding the advices given to them?

The other Spirit, Mr. Gui…, manifested spontaneously at the Society on the special session about the celebration of the dead. Mr. Colliez, that had known him in person, as we said, had listed him among the Spirits recommended to receive our prayers. Although his opinions were completely different from those that he held when alive, Mr. Colliez recognized hm by the form of his language and before his signature was read out loud he had said that it sounded like Mr. Gui…



Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, November 1^st, 1865 – medium Mr. Leymarie

Gentlemen… allow me to use this common expression but not much fraternal. I am a newcomer, an unexpected recruit, and my name, undoubtedly, has never reach the ears of keen Spiritists. Yet, it is never too late, and when each family cries for an absent loved one, I come to you to express my much sincere regret. Surrounded by the followers of Voltaire, living and thinking like them, bringing my two cents and my work, according to the necessity for the propagation of liberal and progressive ideas, I believed to be acting correctly, because everybody talks but not all act. I, therefore, acted and I beg you not to forget the people of action. In their sphere they shook off that torpor of so many centuries, that in turn had veiled the future. By tearing off the veil, we had also pushed away the night, which is a lot when the intolerant enemy is looming at the door, ready to paint in black every beam of light. How many times have we sought in ourselves the solution to this question: “Ah, if the dead could speak!” A profound reflection, absorbing, that was killing us at the age of disillusion, when every person apparently marked by chance becomes a beacon of light in the crowd. There is family! Young and candid heads demanding our kisses of hope, and we cannot give anything, we sealed that hope below a very cold stone that we call disbelief. But today I believe, and I come to tell you full of hope and faith: “I hope for the future, I believe in God, and the Spirits of Béranger, de Royer-Collard, de Casimir Perrier… will not belie me.” Those of you that wish progress, that want light, I say: The dead speak, they speak every day, however, you the blind – that we were! – you present the truth without saying it openly. Like Galileo, you tell yourself every night: “Yet, it moves!” but you lower your eyes before the ridicule, before the judgment of things!

All of you that were faithful to me, that weekly spent your afternoons with me, know what I have become. Wise men that investigate the secrets of nature, have you asked the dead leaf, the sprout of the herb, the insect, the matter, what becomes of them in the great concert of the earthly dead? Have you asked them about their functions in death? Were you able to take note about this great law of nature that seems to destroy itself every year, to revive splendid and sovereign, casting the challenge of immortality into your transient and mortal thoughts? Smart doctors that everyday bend your heads onto the mysterious diseases that destroy human bodies in multiple ways, why so much sweat for the future, so much love for the family, so much effort to ensure the honor of a name, the fortune and the morality of your children, so much respect for the virtues of your companions? Men of progress, that work constantly to transform the ideas and make them more beautiful, why so much care, vigilance and deception, if that eternal law of progress absorb all of your skills and have them multiplied by ten, so as to pay tribute to the general movement of harmony and love, before which you bow? Ah, friends, irrespective of who you are on Earth, mechanic, legislators, politicians, artists, or all of you that go by the jargon “economic politics”, believe me, your work defies death; your work rejects it like in a denial, and when through your intelligence and discoveries you leave a trace, a memory, a spotless honor, you defied death, like everything that surrounds you! You offered a sacrifice to the creative power, and like nature, matter and everything else that lives and wants to live, you defeated death. Like me, in former times, like so many others, you fortify yourself in this annihilation of the body, that is life, and get to the Eternal, to defeat eternity! But you will not defeat it because it is your friend. The Spirit is the eternity, the eternal, and I repeat: Everything that dies speaks of life and light. Death speaks to the living one; the dead return to speak. They are the only ones with the key to everything and it is through them that I promise you other explanations.

Gui…

Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, November 17^th, 1865 – medium Mr. Leymarie

They fled the epidemy and in that singular panic how many moral bankruptcies, how many shameful defections! This is because death becomes the most violent atonement to all of those that violated the laws of the strictest equity. Death is the unknown to the wavering faith. The multiple religions could not establish themselves, with their paradise and hell, onto those whose abnegation was towards the earthly material things; to them, there was no reference point, no solid foundation. Propagation of the divine teaching; that is not certainty. Therefore, with rare exceptions, what a horror, what a lack of charity, what a selfishness in the general “every man for himself” of the satisfied! Believe in God, study God’s will in intelligent statements, be certain that the laws of life are subordinated to the superior and divine laws that measure everything with justice, giving everyone, in several existences, their share of suffering, joy, work, misery and fortune; but that is what I believe is thought by the great researches and interrogations of humanity. Their certainty, isn’t that the true force in everything? If the exhausted body gives freedom to the soul, so that it can live according to its own fluidic aptitudes, its very essence, if, I say, if that truth becomes tangible, evident like a sun beam; if the laws that mathematically chain the several phases of the terrestrial and extra terrestrial life, or in erraticity, becoming clearly demonstrated to us as an algebraic problem, then isn’t there in your hands the highly desirable secret; the answer to all of your objections: the rational explanation for the weakness of your in-depth studies of economic politics, a horrifying weakness to the theory, for practice destroys in one day the work of an entire life?

That is the reason, friends, that I come to beg you to read The Spirits’ Book. Do not stop at the letter but seek the spirit. Smart researchers, you will find new elements to modify your way of thinking and of those that study you. Convicts of the plurality of the existences, you will see life in a better way; defining it better you will be stronger. Scholars, poor and blessed pleiad, you shall give humanity a as much serious a seed as truthful. And when the wise ones were seeing believing and teaching the strong and reassuring maxims, they will love one another and will no longer flee the supposedly invisible evil; the will of all, powerful homogeneity, will destroy all of those poisoned fermentations, the only source of epidemy. The study of the fluids, from another point of view, with transform science; new lights will illuminate the fertile road of our young students, who will no longer hold the flag of intolerance and ignorance; no more the mockery of Europe, because their beloved dead would give them the faith and the religion of the Spirit that moralizes first to elevate next, in the serene regions of knowledge and charity.

Gui…

Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, October 20^th, 1865

Medium: Sr. Leymarie



When I lived among you, my friends, I used to give serious thoughts to the condition of the women. I always spared some time, from my painstaking studies, to those beloved beings. Every night, before sleeping, I used to pray for those poor, unfortunate and much unknown sisters, begging God for them to see better days, hoping to find ideas to help the miserable ones to progress. I sometimes saw them, in my dreams, dearly, loved, living a legal and morally sound life in society, with a family, surrounded by care and respect; I saw them transfigured and that image was so touching that I used to wake up crying. But, ah, I then saw the dismal and appalling truth of reality, sometimes loosing hope that there would be better days.

Those days have come, my friends. There are only a few among you that do not intuitively perceive woman’s rights; many, in fact, deny them, although internally they do recognize them; but it is not less true that amidst profound misery and disillusion, there is hope and there is joy.

A few days back I overheard a group of distinct ladies, given their beauty, social position and fortune, and said to myself: These are all perfume; loved and spoiled ones. There must be a lot of love! Certainly, good mothers, enchanting wives, respectful daughters! They have a lot of knowledge, love and donate a lot.

What a strange mistake! All those fresh faces were lying, disguised by stereotyped smiles; they talked frivolity, about fabrics, fashion and races. With a charming grace they talked behind the one that was absent, but did not talk about their children, their husbands, or about literary issues, or about our geniuses, or about their country or freedom! Beautiful head, no brain… Charming birds, straighten posture and attitude: it is the etiquette; the intent is to please everyone, touch everything and know nothing. The babbler goes with the wind leaving nothing behind; you are not daughters, wives or mothers. You forget your land, your past, the sufferings and greatness. Your child entrusted to a mercenary. Your inner happiness is a fiction. Shiny butterflies with beautiful wings… but then…

I also overhead a group of young working-class ladies. What did they know? Nothing…like the others… nothing of life, duty or reality! They were envious, that was all. Were they taught to understand one another, to like one another, to respect? Were they taught to understand God, the greatness of God and God’s will? No, a thousand times no… The Church teaches them luxury and luxury knock at the door of their shanty, saying: Let me in! I am the bow, the lace, the silk, the good dishes, and the fine wines. Open and you shall be beautiful, you shall have every bedazzlement, every fantasy! That is why so many of them become the shame of the family!

Kind brains that make fun of Spiritism, can you tell me what is the panacea that you invented to purify and vivify the family? I know you are indulgent when it comes to moral issues; lots of talks, outcries for the falling peoples, for the lack of education of the masses; but to morally lift the woman, what is it that you have done? Nothing… Master of Literature, how many times have you poked the sacred laws of respect to women, that you praise so much? You ignore God and neglect women, the family and the future of a nation.

It is through them that the social problems of the future shall be fixed. Spiritism will do what you cannot do, as you know, given women the robust faith that moves mountains, showing that worth and their power, God’s promise for their kindness, intelligence and powerful will. By understanding the magnificent laws developed in The Spirits’ Book, none of them will consider trading their bodies or their souls; daughter of God, the woman will see in her children the visit of the creating Spirit; she will learn herself to be able to teach; she will love the homeland and her history, initiating her children in the great progressive ideas. They shall be mothers and doctors, counselors and managers; in short, women according to Spiritism, and that is the future, the progress and the greatness of the country in its broadest expression.

Baluze

Continuation – October 27^th, 1865

In my last communication, my friends, I had shown women from two aspects and added that education in some and ignorance in others had produced negative results. Yet, there are serious exceptions that seem to defy the rule. There are young ladies that can study and take advantage of the teachings of their educators. These have no vanity or light-heartedness; they are not permanently distracted by an ornament or a lace! Fed by strong and serious lessons, they enjoy subjects that magnify the Spirit, and soothes their soul, with that calmness of the strong and generous minds.

They foresee a family in marriage; entice a child not to pass on to the care of others but to sacrifice their own life. The new-born is the center of everything; the first thought, the first gesture of love, the fervent prayers and the sleepless nights, the short days in preparation for the full comfort of the newly incarnate. The child is the object of study, it is love in all forms. The husband is all kindness, forgetting the tough endeavors of the earthly life to hold the first steps of the child and give format to the first syllables.

Therefore, respect to these exemplary exceptions that defy temptation and escape pleasures for the devotion of divinely intelligent mothers. Humble and poor workers; ulcered hearts that love their only hope, a child, there is still a lot to say about their abnegation, they profound feeling of duty, their endurance before the troubles of everyday life. Nothing can disturb them from reassuring the little one; he is the work and the strength, the sublime egotism that sacrifices the mother day and night.

But if religion, or better saying, the multiple cults together with education, cannot destroy in the rich as well as in the poor, that general tendency to live mischievously, ignoring the objective of life, it is because of their inability to impress correctly the infancy.



They frequently hear about the interest of the enemies. The parents, fighting the difficulties of life, show the weak hearts a cruel cynicism. Children that just learned the initial words can already show rage, perceiving that their personal interest is in the center of the circle where everybody moves around. Such initial impressions affect them seriously… Religion and education are useless words thereafter, if their only interest is to multiply comfort and fortune at any price!

When we scream at full power the Spiritist idea, an idea that excites every generous passion, leading to a certainty of mathematical precision, we are laughed at! Pretense liberals that climb on the thrones of their falsehood to call us ridicule and ignorant! We cannot write, we have no style! We are the role model of ineptitude, we are mad… good enough to be sent to hospices. And the apostles of the freedom of speech, would gladly instigate the authority, based on the Penal Code, to persecute these enlightened ones that lessen common sense!

Fortunately the opinion of the masses does not belong to a family or to a writer; nobody is more entitled to common sense than anybody else, and in these days that obscure authors try to destroy theologists, philosophers and the geniuses of all kinds, the common sense in its highest expression, each person wants to decide by herself.

They seek people and things that are badly mouthed, and after examining everything, after hearing everything, they keep aside the insolent pamphlets and the malevolent insinuations, finally paying tribute to the truth that touches every heart.

That is why Spiritism grows before your blows. We are accepted and praised by the families. A hard-working father, with a Spiritist son, will not see him leaving home to become a drifter like in the past. This shall not be the one to sell his conscience or deny the sacred laws that protect women and children. He knows that God does exist; he is aware of the laws of the fluids and the Spirit, and the existence of the soul with all their remarkable consequences. A serious, virtuous, fraternal and charitable man, and not a well-educated clown, a traitor of life and God, friends and parents and finally of oneself. Mothers shall be truly mothers, embedded in the Spiritist ideal, they shall be the safeguard of their beloved daughters. They shall teach their children the awareness of their true value, the magnificent role that each one must play.

Everyone rightfully owns their destiny, hence everyone, to accomplish their mission, must learn to be able to dignify the child entrusted by God. Knowledge shall no longer be the corollary of unbounded desires and shameful wishes, but, on the contrary, the complement of dignity and respect to oneself. What could temptation and unruly passions do against such women? God and righteousness shall be their aegis, added by superior additions that come from above. Now, what is a woman if not a family; and what is a family if not a nation? You see the women, and then you see the people. We want to create what you have destroyed by the extremes. The women were diminished by superstition in the Middle Ages. You did the same, illustrious thinkers, by skepticism! Neither one nor the other is good. We free and moralize women to have them educated next. You want to instruct them without moralization. That is why you lose the current generation and the mothers will soon be no exception.

Baluze