Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1867

In an article in our last issue entitled: A retrospective look at the Spiritism movement, we made two distinct classes of free thinkers: unbelievers and believers, and said that, for the former, to be free thinker is not only believing in what one wants, but not believing in anything; it is to free oneself from all restraints, even from the fear of God and of the future; for the latter, it is to subordinate belief to reason and to free oneself from the yoke of blind faith. The latter have the Free Conscience, as a means of advertisement, a significant title; the others, the journal Free Thought, a more vague qualification, but that specializes in the opinions expressed, and that corroborates the distinction we made in all points. We read in its number 2 of October 28th, 1866:

“Questions of origin and end have so far preoccupied humanity, to the point of often troubling their sanity. These problems, which have been qualified as formidable, and that we believe to be of secondary importance, are not the immediate domain of science. Their scientific solution can only offer half-certainty. For us, it is sufficient as is, and we will not try to complete it with metaphysical quibbles. Our goal is, moreover, to deal only with subjects that are covered by observation. We intend to keep our feet on the ground. If, sometimes, we move away from it, to respond to the attacks of those that do not think like us, the excursion outside the real will be short-lived. We will always have in mind this wise advice from Helvetius: "One must have the courage to ignore what we cannot know."

A new journal, the Free Conscience, our brother a few days older, as it notices, welcomes us in its first number. We thank the courteous way by which they used their elderly right. Our comrade believes that, despite the analogy of titles, we shall not always be in “complete affinity of ideas.” After reading their first issue, we are certain of that; besides, we do not understand free conscience and free thought with a previously established dogmatic boundary. When someone clearly declares to be a disciple of science, and champion of free conscience, it is irrational, in our opinion, to have it followed by any belief as a dogma, impossible to be demonstrated scientifically. Limited freedom like this is not freedom. From our part, we welcome Free Conscience and we are prepared to see an ally in them, since it declares its wishes to fight in favor of all freedoms… except one.”



It is strange to see the origin and end of humanity being considered as secondary issues, proper to disturb reason. What to say of a man that, only earning the necessary for his survival, were not worried about tomorrow? Would he be considered sensible? What would we think of someone that, having a wife, children, and friends, said: I don’t care if they are going to be dead or alive tomorrow! Well, the tomorrow of the dead is long, therefore, one should not be surprised that so many people are concerned with that.

If we do the statistics of all those that lose their minds, we will see that the larger number is precisely on the side of those that do not believe in that tomorrow, or that doubt it, and that for the very simple reason that the great majority of the cases of madness is produced by despair, and lack of moral courage, that allows to endure the miseries of life, while the certainty of that tomorrow makes the vicissitudes of the present less bitter, considering them as transient incidents, reason why the morale is only slightly affected, or not affected at all. Their confidence in the future gives them a strength that will never be held by the one that only has the void by perspective. He is in the position of a man that, ruined today, he is certain that tomorrow he is going to have a fortune greater than the one he has just lost. In this case, he then takes a decision and remains calm. If, on the contrary, he expects nothing, he gets desperate and his reason may suffer with that.

Nobody will dispute the fact that, knowing where we came from and where we are going to, what we did yesterday and what we are going to do tomorrow, is not something necessary to regulate the businesses of life, and that this does not influence our personal behavior. Certainly, the soldier that knows where he is led to, that sees his objective, marches more firmly, with more eagerness, with more enthusiasm than if he were led blindly. That is how it is with small things, as well as great things, with individuals and with groups. Knowing where one comes from and where one is going to is not less necessary to rule the businesses of the collective life of humanity. The day the whole humanity was assured that death was certain, we would see general confusion, and men throwing at one another saying: if we have to live one life only, let us live the best we can, and doesn’t matter who pays!

The journal Free Thought declares that they intend to keep their feet on the ground, and if they eventually move away from that, it is to refute those that think differently, but that such excursions will be short lived. We would understand it to be like so for a journal that is exclusively scientific, dealing with special subject matters. It is evident that it would be inopportune to speak of spirituality, psychology or theology regarding mechanics, chemistry, physics, calculus, commerce or industry; but, since it includes philosophy in its program, it could not be accomplished without dealing with metaphysical issues. Although the word philosophy is too elastic, and was singularly deviated from its etymological definition, it implies, in its very essence, research and studies that are not exclusively material.

Helvetius’ advice: "One must have the courage to ignore what we cannot know" is very wise and is, above all, directed to the presumptuous sages, that believe that nothing can be hidden from man, and that what they don’t know or don’t understand must not exist. However, it would be fairer to say: “One must have the courage to confess one’s own ignorance about what they do not know.” As it is formulated, it could be translated like this: “One must have the courage to preserve one’s ignorance”, with this consequence: “It is useless to try to know what we do not know.” There are things, undoubtedly, that man will never know while on Earth, because humanity is here still in the state of adolescence, however great its presumption. But who would dare establish limits to what he can know? Considering that today he knows infinitely more than primitive men, why couldn’t he know more later, than what he knows now? That is what cannot be understood by those that do not admit the perpetuity and perfectibility of the spiritual being. Many say to themselves: I am at the top of the intellectual ladder; what I cannot see, and I do not understand, nobody can see or understand.

In the paragraph above, about the journal Free Conscience, it says: “We do not understand free conscience and free thought with a previously established dogmatic boundary. When someone clearly declares to be a disciple of science, and champion of free conscience, it is irrational, in our opinion, to have it followed by any belief as a dogma, impossible to be demonstrated scientifically. Limited freedom like this is not freedom.”

The whole doctrine is in these words; the profession of faith is clear and categorical. Thus, since God cannot be demonstrated by an algebraic equation and the soul is not perceptible with the support of a reactive, it is absurd to believe in God and in the soul. Every disciple of science must, therefore, be atheist and materialist. But, to stay within materiality, is science always infallible in its demonstrations? Haven’t we seen it many times give as absolute truths what later was recognized as a mistake, and vice-versa? Wasn’t that in the name of science that Fulton’s system was declared to be a chimera? Before knowing the law of gravity, hasn’t science demonstrated that there could not be antipodes? Before knowing electricity, hasn’t it demonstrated by a + b that there wasn’t any speed capable of transmitting a telegram five hundred leagues in a few minutes?

Many experiments had been carried out with light, however, just a few years back, who would imagine the prodigies of photography? However, it was not the official scientists that made such prodigious discovery, neither the electric telegraph nor the steam engine. Does science know all laws of nature, in our days? Is it only science that knows all the resources that can be taken from the known laws? Who would dare say it? Isn’t that possible that, one day, the knowledge of new laws makes the extra-corporeal life so evident, so rational, so intelligible as that of the antipodes? Would then such a result, after ruling out the uncertainties, be prone to be disdained? Would that be less important to humanity, than the discovery of a new continent, a new planet, a new engine of destruction? Well! Such a hypothesis became reality; we owe it to Spiritism, and it is thanks to it that so many people that believed to live only once and die forever, now are certain to live forever.

We have spoken of the force of gravity, of this force that governs the universe, from the grain of sand to the worlds; but who has seen it, who has been able to follow it, analyze it? What does it consist of? What is its nature, its primary cause? No one knows it, and yet no one doubts it today. How did we recognize it? By its effects; from the effects one has concluded the cause; we did more: by calculating the power of the effects, we calculated the power of the cause that we have never seen.

It is the same with God and the spiritual life, also judged by their effects, according to this axiom: "Every effect has a cause. Every intelligent effect has an intelligent cause. The power of the intelligent cause is proportional to the magnitude of the effect.” To believe in God and in the spiritual life, therefore, is not a purely gratuitous belief, but a result of observations, just as positive as the one that allowed us to believe in the force of gravity.

Then, in the absence of material evidence, or concurrently therewith, doesn’t philosophy admit the moral proofs that sometimes have much more value than others? You, who hold true only what is proven physically, how about if you are unjustly accused of a crime in which all appearances are against you, as it is often seen in court, wouldn’t the judges take into account moral evidence that would be in your favor? Wouldn’t you bet the first to invoke them, to assert their predominance upon purely material effects that can deceive, to prove that the senses can deceive the most clairvoyant? If, then, you admit that moral proofs must weigh in the balance of a judgment, you would not be consistent with yourself in denying its value, when it is a question of forming an opinion on the things that, by their nature, are beyond materiality.

What could be freer, more independent, less graspable by its very essence, than thought? And yet, here is a school that claims to emancipate it by linking it to matter; that sustains, in the name of reason, that thought circumscribed on earthly things is freer than that which soars into infinity, and wants to see beyond the material horizon! One might as well say that the prisoner that can only take a few steps in his dungeon is freer than the one that runs in the fields. If, to believe in the things of the spiritual world that is infinite, it is not to be free, you are a hundred times less so, you who circumscribe yourselves within the narrow limit of the tangible, who say to the thought: You will not go out of the circle that we are tracing for you, and if you leave it, we declare that you are no longer a sound thought, but madness, foolishness, unreason, because it is up to us alone to distinguish the false from the true.

Spiritualism responds to this: We form the immense majority of men, of which you are barely the millionth part; by what right do you attribute to yourself the monopoly of reason? Do you want to emancipate our ideas by imposing yours on us? But you don't teach us anything; we know what you know; we believe, without restriction, in everything you believe: in matter, and the value of hard evidence, and more than you: in something outside matter; in an intelligent power greater than humanity; in causes inappreciable by the senses, but perceptible to thought; in the perpetuity of the spiritual life that you limit to the length of the life of the body. Our ideas are, therefore, infinitely broader than yours; while you circumscribe your point of view, ours embraces boundless horizons. How can he who concentrates his thought on a determined order of facts, thus posing a stopping point to his intellectual movements, to his investigations, can claim to emancipate the one that moves unhindered, and whose thought probes the depths of infinity? To restrict the field of exploration of thought is to restrict its freedom, and that is what you are doing.

You still say that you want to take the world from the yoke of dogmatic beliefs; do you, at least, make a distinction between these beliefs? No, because you confuse in the same reprobation all that is not the exclusive domain of science, all that cannot be seen by the eyes of the body, in a word, all that is of spiritual essence, consequently God, the soul and the future life. But, if every spiritual belief is an obstacle to the freedom to think, so is all material belief; whoever believes that something is red, because he sees it red, is not free to believe it is green. As soon as thought is stopped by any conviction, it is no longer free; to be consistent with your theory, absolute freedom would consist in believing nothing at all, not even in one's own existence, for that would still be a restriction; but then what would become of thought?

Seen from this point of view, free thought would be nonsense. It must be understood in a broader and truer sense; that is to say, of the free use that one makes of the faculty of thinking, and not of its application to any order of ideas. It consists, not in believing one thing rather than another, nor in excluding this or that belief, but in the absolute freedom of the choice of beliefs. It is, therefore, improperly that some apply it exclusively to anti-spiritualist ideas. Any reasoned opinion, that is neither imposed nor blindly chained to that of others, but that is voluntarily adopted by virtue of the exercise of personal judgment, is free thought, whether religious, political or philosophical.

Free thought, in its broadest sense, means: free examination, freedom of conscience, reasoned faith; it symbolizes intellectual emancipation, moral independence, complementing physical independence; it does not want slaves of thought any more than slaves of the body, for what characterizes the free thinker is that he thinks for himself, and not for others, in other words, his opinion belongs to him. So, there can be free thinkers in all opinions and beliefs. In this sense, free thought raises the dignity of man; it makes him an active, intelligent being, instead of a believing machine.

In the exclusive sense that some give it, instead of emancipating the mind, it restricts its activity, it makes it the slave of matter. Fanatics of disbelief do, in one way, what fanatics of blind faith do in another; while the latter say: To be according to God you must believe in all that we believe; outside our faith there is no salvation, the others say: To be according to reason, you must think like us, believe only what we believe; outside the limits that we trace for belief, there is neither freedom nor common sense, a doctrine that is formulated by this paradox: Your mind is free only on the condition of not believing what it wants , which amounts to saying to an individual: You are the freest of all men, on condition that you do not go further than the end of the rope, to which we are attaching you.

We, certainly, do not contest the right of unbelievers to believe in nothing other than matter, but they will agree that there are singular contradictions in their claim to hold the monopoly of freedom of thought.

We have said that, by the quality of free thinker, certain people seek to attenuate what the absolute incredulity has of repellent to the opinion of the masses; suppose, in fact, that a journal is openly titled; the Atheist, the Incredulous or the Materialist; one can judge the impression that such title would have on the public; but if it shelters these same doctrines under the cover name of free thinker, with this label, one says: It is the flag of the moral emancipation; it must be that of freedom of conscience, and above all, of tolerance; let's see. We see that it is not always necessary to refer to the label.

It would be wrong, moreover, to be excessively frightened by the consequences of certain doctrines; they may, momentarily, seduce a few individuals, but they will never seduce the masses, that are opposed to them, out of instinct and necessity. It helps that all systems come to light, so that everyone can judge their strength and the weakness, and by the right of free examination, can knowingly adopt or reject them. When utopias have been seen in action, and their powerlessness proven, they will fall and never get up again. By their very exaggeration, they stirred up society and prepared the renovation. This is, again, a sign of the times.

Is Spiritism, as some think, a new blind faith substituted by another blind faith? In other words, is it a new slavery of thought in a new form? To believe it, one must ignore the first elements. Indeed, Spiritism establishes, as a principle, that before believing one must understand; to understand, one must use judgment; that is why it tries to verify everything before admitting anything, namely the why and the how of everything; also, the Spiritists are more skeptical than many others, regarding the phenomena that go beyond the circle of the usual observations. It is not based on any preconceived and hypothetical theory, but on experience and observation of facts; instead of saying, “Believe first, and then you will understand, if you can,” it says, “Understand first, and then you will believe if you will.” It does not impose itself on anyone; it says to everybody: “See, observe, compare and come to us freely if it suits you.” By speaking this way, it puts itself among competitors, and fights a chance with the competition. If many come to it, it is because it satisfies many, but no one accepts it with their eyes closed. To those who do not accept it, it says: “You are free, and I do not hold it against you; all I ask of you is to let me have my freedom, just as I am leaving yours to you. If you are trying to oust me, for fear that I will supplant you, it is because you are not quite sure of yourself."

Spiritism, not seeking to rule out any of the competitors, in the open competition of the ideas that must prevail in the regenerated world, it is in the conditions of true free thought; admitting no theory that is not founded on observation, it is, at the same time, in those of the most rigorous positivism; finally, it has the advantage of tolerance over its adversaries of two extreme opposing opinions.

Note. Some people have criticized us for the theoretical explanations that we have, from the beginning, sought to give about the Spiritist phenomena. These explanations, based on careful observation, by tracing the effects to the cause, proved, on the one hand, that we wanted to realize and not believe blindly; on the other hand, that we wanted to make Spiritism a science of reasoning and not of credulity. By these explanations that time has developed, but that it has blessed in principle, for none has been contradicted by experience, the Spiritists believed, because they understood, and there is no doubt that it is to this that the rapid increase in the number of serious followers must be attributed. It is to these explanations that Spiritism owes the fact that it has left the domain of the marvelous, and was connected to the positive sciences; through them, it is shown to the unbelievers that it is not a work of imagination; without them, we would still to understand the phenomena that arise every day. It was urgent, from the onset, to place Spiritism on its real ground. The theory, based on experience, was the brake that prevented superstitious credulity, as well as malevolence, from leading it astray. Why those that accuse us of having taken such initiative, haven’t they taken it themselves?

With this title, Mr. Hippolyte Rodrigues published a book in which he foresees the merger of the three major religions from the Bible. One of the writers of the journal Le Pays provides the following thoughts about it, in the issue of December 10^th, 1866:

"What the three daughters of the Bible? The first is Jewish, the second is Catholic, the third is Muslim.

We see immediately that this is a serious book, and the work of Mr. Hippolyte Rodrigues is especially of interest to serious minds, given to the moral and philosophical meditations about human destiny. The author believes in a future merger of the three great religions, that he calls the three daughters of the Bible, and he works to bring about this result, in which he sees a huge progress. It is from this fusion that the new religion will come, that he considers to be the final religion of humanity.

I do not want to initiate here, with Mr. Hippolyte Rodrigues, an untimely polemic on the religious issue, that has been agitated for so many years in the depths of conscience and in the bowels of society. However, I will allow myself a reflection. He wants to have the new belief accepted by reasoning. Until this day, there has been only the faith that has founded and maintained religions, for this supreme reason that, when we reason, we no longer believe, and only when a people, an era, has ceased believing, one soon sees the collapse of the existing religion, and one does not see the rise of a new religion."

A. de Césena.

This tendency, that is becoming general, to foresee the unification of cults, like everything connected with the fusion of peoples, with the lowering of barriers that separate them, morally and commercially, is also one of the characteristic signs of the times. We will not judge the work of Mr. Rodrigues, since we do not know it, nor do we have examined it, for the moment, by which circumstances might be brought about the result that he hopes for, and that he rightly considers as progress; we only want to comment on the above article.

The author makes a big mistake when he says that “when we reason we no longer believe.” We say, on the contrary, that when we reason our belief, we believe more firmly, because we understand; it is by virtue of this principle that we have said: There is no unshakeable faith except the one that can meet reason, face to face, at all ages of humanity.

The fault of most religions is to have set up the principle of blind faith as an absolute dogma, and to have, thanks to this principle that annihilates the action of intelligence, made people accept, for some time, beliefs that subsequent advances in science have come to contradict. It resulted, for a large number of people, in this prevention that any religious belief cannot withstand free examination, confusing, in a general disapproval, what were only special cases. This way of judging things is no more rational than if we condemned a whole poem, because it would contain some incorrect lines, but it is more convenient for those that do not want to believe in anything, because, by rejecting everything , they believe they are exempt from examining anything.

The author commits another capital error when he says: "When a people, a time has ceased to believe, we soon see the existing religion crumble, we do not see the rise of a new religion.” Where, in history, has he seen a people, a time without religion?

Most religions originated in remote times, when scientific knowledge was very limited or non-existent; they erected erroneous notions into beliefs, which time alone could rectify. Unfortunately, all of them were based on the principle of immutability, and as almost all of them confused, in the same code, the civil law and the religious law, it resulted that, at a given time, having the human spirit advanced, while religions remained stationary, these have no longer found themselves up to the new ideas. Then, they fall by the force of circumstances, as do laws, social mores, and political systems that cannot satisfy new needs. But, since religious beliefs are instinctive in man, and constitute, for the heart and the mind, a need as imperative as civil legislation for the social order, they do not annihilate themselves; they are transformed.

The transition never takes place abruptly, but through the temporary mixing of old and new ideas; it is first a mixed faith that participates in one and another; little by little the old belief is extinguished, the new one grows, until the substitution is complete. The transformation, sometimes, is only partial; these are then sects that separate from the mother religion, by modifying a few points of detail. This is how Christianity succeeded Paganism, Islamism succeeded Arab fetishism, Protestantism, and the Greek religion, separated from Catholicism. Everywhere we see peoples abandoning a belief only to adopt another one, appropriate to their moral and intellectual advancement; but nowhere there is a break in continuity.

It is true that we see absolute incredulity today, erected as a doctrine, and professed by some philosophical sects; but its representatives, that constitute a tiny minority in the intelligent population, make the mistake of believing themselves to be a whole people, a whole era, and because they no longer want religion, they believe that their personal opinion is the closure of the religious time, while it is only a partial transition to another order of ideas.

Extract of a letter from Abbé Lacordaire, to Mrs. Swetchine, dated from Flavigny, June 29^th, 1853, taken from his correspondence, published in 1865.

“Have you seen or heard of the spinning tables? - I disdained to see them turn, like a too simple thing, but I heard and made them speak. They told me some pretty remarkable things, about the past and the present. However extraordinary it may be, it is to a Christian that believes in Spirits, a very vulgar and very poor phenomenon.

At all times there have been more or less bizarre ways of communicating with Spirits; only in the past one would make a mystery of these processes, as one made mystery of chemistry; justice, by means of terrible executions, buried these strange practices in the shadows. Today, thanks to freedom of worship and universal publicity, what was a secret has become a popular formula. Perhaps also, through this disclosure, God wants to harmonize the development of spiritual forces to the development of material forces, so that man does not forget, in the presence of the wonders of mechanics, that there are two worlds, one inserted in the other: the world of the bodies and the world of the Spirits.

It is probable that this parallel development will continue to increase until the end of the world, which will one day bring the reign of the antichrist, where we will see, on both sides, for good or evil, the use of supernatural weapons, and frightening wonders. I do not conclude that the Antichrist is near, because the operations that we are witnessing have nothing more extraordinary than what was seen in the past, except publicity. The poor unbelievers must be quite worried about their reason; but they have the resource of believing everything to escape the true faith, and they will not fail to do so. O depth of the designs of God!”

Abbé Lacordaire wrote this in 1853, meaning, almost at the beginning of the demonstrations, at a time when these phenomena were much more an object of curiosity than a subject of serious meditation. Although, at that time, they had not been formed either as a science or as a body of doctrine, he had glimpsed at their scope, and far from considering them as an ephemeral thing, he foresaw their development in the future. His opinion, on the existence and manifestation of the Spirits, is categorical; now, since he is generally held, by everyone, as one of the great intelligences of this century, it seems difficult to rank him among the mad ones, after having applauded him as a man of great sense and progress. We can, therefore, have common sense and believe in Spirits.

Talking tables, he says, “are a very vulgar and very poor phenomenon;” Very poor indeed, as for the means of communicating with the Spirits, because if we had not had others, Spiritism would not have advanced very much; the writing mediums were hardly know, and one did not suspect what was going to come out of this, apparently, so childish media.

As for the reign of the Antichrist, Lacordaire does not seem to be much afraid of it, because he does not see it coming anytime soon. For him, these manifestations are providential; they must disturb and confuse the unbelievers; he admires the depth of God’s designs in them; they are not, therefore, the work of the devil, who must push to deny God, and not to recognize His power.

The above extract, from Lacordaire's correspondence, was read at the Parisian Society, in the session of January 18^th; in this same session, Mr. Morin, one of his usual writing mediums, fell asleep spontaneously, under the magnetic action of the Spirits; it was the third time that this phenomenon occurred with him, because, usually, he does not fall asleep, except by ordinary magnetization. In his sleep, he spoke about different subjects, and of several Spirits present, whose thoughts he transmitted to us. He said, among other things, the following:

“A Spirit that you all know, and that I also recognize; a Spirit of great earthly reputation, raised in the intellectual ladder of the worlds, is here. Spiritist before Spiritism, I saw him teaching the doctrine, no longer as an incarnate, but as a Spirit. I saw him preaching with the same eloquence, with the same feeling of intimate conviction as in life, which he certainly would not have dared to openly preach in the pulpit, but what his teachings led to.

I saw him preaching the doctrine to his own, to his family, to all his friends. I saw him get carried away, although in a spiritual state, when he encountered a refractory brain, or a stubborn resistance to the inspirations he breathed; always lively and petulant, wanting to make conviction penetrate into the minds, as one makes the chisel penetrate the living rock, pushed by a vigorous blow of a hammer. But it doesn't get in so quickly; however, his eloquence has converted more than one. This Spirit is that of Abbé Lacordaire.

He asks for one thing, not out of pride, not out of any personal interest, but in the interest of all and for the good of the doctrine: the insertion in the Spiritist Review, of what he wrote thirteen years ago. If I ask for this insertion, he said, it is for two reasons; the first is that you will show the world that, as you say, one may not be a fool and believe in Spirits. The second is that the publication of this first quotation will reveal, in my writings, other passages that will be pointed out at, as agreeing with the principles of Spiritism.”

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[1] a member of the French secular clergy in major or minor orders (merriam-webistar.com, T.N.)

In response to the opinion that attributes to a cunning of the devil the moral transformations brought about by the teaching of the Spirits, we have repeatedly said that the devil would not be very clever if, in order to succeed in losing man, he begins by pulling him out of the quagmire of disbelief, and brings him back to God; that it would be the conduct of a fool and naïve. It has been objected to this, that this is precisely the masterpiece of the malice of this enemy of God and of men. We acknowledge that we do not understand the malice.

One of our correspondents sends us, in support of our reasoning, the following words from Monsignor de Freyssinous, bishop of Hermopolis, taken from his Conferences on religion, volume II, page 341; Paris, 1825.

“If Jesus Christ had worked his miracles by virtue of the devil, then the devil would have worked to destroy his empire, and he would have used his power against himself. Certainly, a devil that would seek to destroy the reign of vice to establish that of virtue, would be a strange devil. This is why Jesus, to reject the absurd accusation of the Jews, said to them: “If I work wonders in the name of the devil, then the devil is divided with himself; he therefore seeks to destroy himself, ”- an answer without a replica.”

Thanks to our correspondent for kindly pointing out to this important passage from which our readers will take adequate benefit. Thank you also to all those who pass to us what they find, in their readings, of interest to the doctrine. Nothing is lost.

Many clergymen, as we see, are far from professing opinions as absolute as certain members of the clergy, on the devilish doctrine; Bishop de Hermopolis is, in these matters, an authority whose value they cannot deny. His arguments are, precisely, the same that the Spiritists oppose to those that attribute to the devil, the good advice they receive from the Spirits. What is, in fact, that the Spirits do, if not destroy the reign of vice, to establish that of virtue, bringing back to God those that disregard and deny Him? If this is the work of the devil, he would act like a professional thief that would restore what he stole and engage other thieves to become honest people. Then, he should be congratulated on his transformation. To support the voluntary cooperation of the spirit of evil to produce good, is not only nonsense, but it is also to deny the highest Christian authority: that of Jesus. One could conceive that the Pharisees, in the time of Jesus, believed this, in good faith, because then, one was no more enlightened on the nature of Satan than on that of God, and that it was part of the theogony of the Jews to consider two rival powers. But today, such a doctrine is as inadmissible as the one that attributed to Satan certain technological inventions, such as the press, for example; those that defend it are, perhaps, the last ones to believe in it; it is already becoming ridiculous and frightens no one, and before long, nobody will dare to seriously invoke it.

The Spiritist doctrine does not admit a power rivaling that of God, and even less could it admit that a fallen being, thrown by God into the abyss, could have recovered enough power to counterbalance His designs, removing from God his almighty power. According to this doctrine, Satan is the allegorical personification of evil, as Saturn was, among the Pagans, the personification of time, Mars that of war, Venus of beauty.

The Spirits that manifest themselves are the souls of men, and there are among them, as among men, good and perverse, advanced and tardy; the good ones say good things, give good advice; the perverts say bad things, inspire bad thoughts, and do evil as they did on earth; seeing wickedness, deceit, ingratitude, and the perversity of certain men, one recognizes that they are no better than the worst Spirits; but, incarnate or discarnate, these evil Spirits will, improve one day, when they have been touched by repentance.

Compare the two doctrines and see which one is the most rational, the most respectful to the Divinity.

Several newspapers reproduced the following fact:

“La Sentinelle, from Toulon, talks about a young phenomenon that is admired now, in this city:

“She is a little girl, two years and eleven months old, called Eugénie Colombe. This child already knows how to read and write perfectly, she is also able to take the most serious examination on the principles of the Christian religion, on French grammar, geography, the history of France and the four rules of arithmetic. She knows the compass rose and perfectly supports a scientific discussion on all these subjects. This amazing little girl began to speak very distinctly when she was four months old.

Presented in the salons of the maritime prefecture, Eugénie Colombe, endowed with a charming face, was a magnificent success."

This article had seemed to us, and to many others, carried with such exaggeration that we gave no importance to it. Nevertheless, to know positively what to expect, we asked one of our correspondents, a naval officer in Toulon, to inquire into the fact. Here is what he told us:

“To make sure of the truth, I went to the parents’ house of the little girl, reported by the Sentinelle of Toulon, on November 19th; I saw this charming child, whose physical development is commensurate with her age; she is only three years old. Her mother is a schoolteacher; it is she that directs her education. She questioned her, in my presence, about catechism, holy history, from the creation of the world to the flood, the first eight kings of France and various circumstances relating to their reign and that of Napoleon I. In geography, the child named the five parts of the world, the capitals of the countries they contain, several capitals of the departments of France. She also answered perfectly well the first notions of French grammar and the metric system. This child did all the above without hesitation, while having fun with the toys she was holding in her hands. Her mother told me that she has been able to read since she was two and a half years old and has assured me that she can answer over five hundred questions in the same way."

Freed from the exaggeration of the newspapers, and reduced to the above proportions, the fact is, nonetheless, remarkable, and important in its consequences. It necessarily calls attention to analogous facts of intellectual precocity and innate knowledge. We involuntarily try to explain them to ourselves, and with the ideas of plurality of existences that circulate, we only manage to find a rational solution in a previous existence. We must classify these phenomena among those that were announced before, confirming, by their multiplicity, the Spiritist beliefs, and contributing to their development.

In this case, memory certainly seems to play an important role. The mother of this child being a teacher, the little girl was undoubtedly usually in the class, and will have learned the lessons taught to the pupils by her mother, while we see some children possessing, by intuition, some kind of innate knowledge, and independent of any teaching. But why, with her rather than with others, this exceptional facility to assimilate what she heard, and that one probably did not dream of teaching her? It was because what she heard only awakened in her the memory what she had known. The precocity of certain children for languages, music, mathematics, etc., all innate ideas, in a word, are also only memories; they remember what they knew, as we see some people remember, more or less vaguely, what they did, or what happened to them. We know a little five-year-old boy that, being at the table, where nothing in the conversation could have provoked an idea on this subject, began saying: "I was married, and I remember it well; I had a wife, small, young and pretty, and I had several children.” We certainly have no means of controlling his assertion, but we wonder where he could have taken such an idea from, when no circumstances could have provoked it.

Should we conclude that children that only learn through hard work have been ignorant or stupid in their previous existence? Certainly not; the faculty of remembering is an aptitude inherent to the psychological state, that is, to the easier release of the soul in some individuals than in others, a sort of retrospective spiritual view that reminds them of the past, while for those that do not have it, this past leaves no apparent trace. The past is like a dream that we remember, more or less exactly, or that we have totally lost the memory of. (See Spiritist Review of July 1860, and November 1864).

At the time of sending for printing, we received a letter, from one of our correspondents in Algeria, that while passing through Toulon, saw the young Eugénie Colombe; it contains the following account that confirms the previous one, and adds details to it that are not without interest:

“This child, of a remarkable beauty, is extremely lively, but angelically sweet. Placed on her mother's lap, she answered more than fifty questions about the Gospel. When asked about geography, she pointed out to me all the capitals of Europe and the various states of America; all the capitals of the French departments and Algeria; she explained to me the decimal system, the metric system. In grammar, verbs, participles, and adjectives. She knows, or at least defines, the first four basic rules. She wrote at my dictation, but with such rapidity that I am inclined to believe that she does a mediumistic writing. In the fifth line she put down her pen; she looked at me fixedly with her big blue eyes, and abruptly said to me: “Sir, that's enough; Then she got down from her seat and ran to her toys. This child is certainly a very advanced Spirit because we see that she answers and quotes without the slightest effort of memory. Her mother told me that, since the age of 12 to 15 months, she dreams at night and seems to be conversing, but in a language that does not allow her to be understood. She is charitable by instinct; she always attracts her mother's attention when she sees a poor person; she cannot bear to see dogs, cats or any animals mistreated. Her father is a shipyard worker.”

Only enlightened Spiritists, like our two correspondents, could appreciate the psychological phenomenon presented by this young child, and investigate its cause; for, just as to judge a mechanism, one needs be a mechanic, to judge Spiritist facts, one must be a Spiritist. Now, who in general is responsible for the observation and explanation of phenomena of this kind? Precisely people that have not studied them, and that denying the first cause, cannot admit the consequences.

We read in the Spiritual Magazine of London:

“The celebrity of Tom, the Blind, that recently appeared in London, had already spread here, and a few years ago an article in the newspaper All year round, described his remarkable abilities and the sensation they had produced in America. The way in which these faculties developed in this black, slave and blind, ignorant and totally illiterate; how, as a child still, one day surprised by the sounds of music in his master's house, he unceremoniously ran to take his place at the piano, reproducing note by note what had just been played, laughing and contorting with joy, by seeing the new world of pleasures he had just discovered; it has all been said so many times that I think it unnecessary to mention it again; but a significant and interesting fact was said to me by a friend that was the first witness and appreciator of Tom's faculty. One day a work by Handel was played to him. Tom immediately played it again, correctly, and when he was done, he rubbed his hands with an expression of indefinable joy, exclaiming: “I see him, he's an old man with a big wig; he played first and I did after.” It is indisputable that Tom had seen Handel and heard him play.

Tom has performed in public several times, and the way he performs the most difficult pieces would almost cast doubt on his disease. He repeats on the piano, without mistake, and necessarily from memory, everything that is played to him, whether old classical sonatas or modern fantasies; well, we would like to see the one who could learn Thalberg's variations in this way, with their eyes closed, as he did. This surprising fact of a blind, ignorant, uneducated man, showing a talent which others are unable to acquire with all the advantages of study, will probably be explained by many in the ordinary way of considering these things, saying: “he is a genius and an exceptional organization”, but it is only Spiritism that can give the key to this phenomenon, in a comprehensible and rational way.”



The reflections we made, about the little girl from Toulon, naturally apply to the blind Tom. Tom must have been a great musician, that only needs to hear to remember what he knew. What makes the phenomenon more extraordinary is that it is presented in a black, slave and blind, a triple cause that was opposed to the cultivation of his native aptitudes, and despite which they manifested themselves at the first favorable opportunity, like a seed that germinates in the rays of sun.

Now, as the black race in general, and especially in a state of slavery, does not shine through the culture of arts, it must be concluded that the Spirit of Tom does not belong to that race; but that he will have incarnated there either as atonement, or as a providential means of rehabilitation of this race in public opinion, by showing what it is capable of. Much has been said and written against slavery and the prejudice of color; everything that has been said is just and moral; but it was only a philosophical thesis. The law of the plurality of existences, and of reincarnation, adds to it the irrefutable sanction of a law of nature, that consecrates the brotherhood of all men. Tom the slave, born and acclaimed in America, is a living protest against the prejudices that still reign in that country. (See the Spiritist Review, April 1862: Perfectibility of the black race. Spiritualist phrenology).

“A few days ago, The Morning Post told the strange story of a dog that allegedly committed suicide. The animal was owned by a Mr. Home, of Frinsbury, near Rochester. It appears that certain circumstances had led to suspect that it was suffering from rabies, and consequently it was avoided and kept away from the house, as much as possible.

It seemed to experience a great deal of annoyance at being treated like this, and for a few days it was noticed that the dog was in a gloomy and grieving mood but showing no symptoms of rage yet. Thursday he was seen leaving his niche and heading towards the residence of a close friend of his master at Upnor, where he was refused to welcome him, which drew a lamentable cry from him.

On Thursday it was seen leaving its niche and heading towards the residence of a close friend of his master, in Upnor, where it was not welcomed, producing a lamentable cry.

After having waited some time in front of the house, not obtaining permission to get inside, the god decided to leave, and was seen going to the side of the river that passes by, descending the bank with a deliberate step, and then, after turning around and sending a sort of farewell howl, entering the river, plunging the head under the water, and after a minute or two, reappearing lifeless on the surface.

This extraordinary act of suicide was said to have been witnessed by many people. The kind of death clearly proves that the animal was not hydrophobic.

This fact seems very extraordinary; it will, no doubt, meet skeptical. Nevertheless, says the Droit, it is not without precedent.

History has preserved us the memory of faithful dogs that threw themselves to voluntary death, so as not to outlive their masters. Montaigne cites two examples borrowed from antiquity: "Hyrcanus, the dog of King Lysimachus, its dead master, remained obstinate in bed, not willing to eat or drink, and the day the body of his master was burned, it ran and threw itself in the fire, where it was burnt; as the dog of a man named Pyrrhus also did, for it did not move from its master's bed since he was dead; and when he was carried away, the dog let itself be taken away with him, and finally threw itself into the fire where the body of his master was burning. (Essays, book II, chap. XII.) We, ourselves, recorde, a few years ago, the tragic end of a dog that, having lost the love of his master, and unable to find consolation, it rushed from the top of a footbridge, in the Saint-Martin canal. The very detailed account that we then gave of this event has never been contradicted and has not given rise to any complaint from the concerned parties."

Petit Journal, May 15th, 1866



Animal suicide is not without example. The dog, as it was said above, that allows itself to die of starvation, out of sorrow for having lost its master, carries out a real suicide. The scorpion, surrounded by a circle of hot coals, seeing that it cannot get out, kills itself. It is one more analogy to be noted between the Spirit of man and that of animals.

The voluntary death of an animal proves that it is aware of its existence and of its individuality; it understands what life and death are, since it chooses freely between one and the other; it is, therefore, not so much a machine, and does not obey an exclusively blind instinct, as is supposed. Instinct drives the search for means of preservation, and not of its own destruction.

Paris, October 25^th, 1866 – medium Mr. Desliens

What is man? … A compound of three essential principles: the Spirit, the perispirit and the body. The absence of any one of these three principles would necessarily entail the annihilation of the being in the human state. If the body is no more, there is the Spirit and no longer the man;

if the perispirit is missing or cannot function, the intangible cannot act directly on to matter, and thus being unable to manifest itself, there may be something like the cretin^[1] or the idiot, but there will never be an intelligent being. Finally, if the Spirit is missing, we will have a living embryo of animal life, and not an incarnate Spirit. If we then have the three principles present, these three principles must react one upon the other, and health or disease will follow, depending on whether there is perfect harmony or partial disharmony between them. If the disease or the organic disorder, as one would like to call it, proceeds from the body, the material medicines, wisely employed, will suffice to restore the general harmony. If the disorder comes from the perispirit, if it is a modification of the fluidic principle that composes it, that is altered, it will take a medication corresponding to the nature of the disturbed organ, so that the functions can resume their normal state. If the disease proceeds from the Spirit, nothing can be used to combat it other than spiritual medication. If, finally, as the most general case, and we can even say that it presents itself exclusively, if the disease proceeds from the body, the perispirit and the Spirit, the medication will have to combat all the causes of the disorder, by various means, to obtain cure. But what do doctors generally do? They treat the body, and they heal it; but do they cure the disease? No. Why? Because since the perispirit is a principle above matter, properly, it can become a cause relatively to that; and if it is hampered, the material organs, that are connected with it, will also be affected in their vitality. By healing the body, you destroy the effect; but since the cause resides in the perispirit, the disease will return when the care ceases, until it has been realized that it is necessary to turn the attention elsewhere, by fluidically treating the morbid fluidic principle. If, finally, the disease proceeds from the mind, from the Spirit, the perispirit and the body, placed under its dependence, will be hindered in their functions, and it is neither by treating one nor by treating the other that one will remove the cause. It is therefore not by putting the straitjacket on a madman, or by giving him pills or showers, that we will succeed in putting him back into his normal state; we will only appease his rebellious senses; we will calm his attacks, but we will not destroy the germ unless by fighting it with its similar, by doing homeopathy spiritually and fluidically, as we do materially, by giving the patient, through prayer, an infinitesimal dose of patience, calm, resignation, depending on the case, as he is given an infinitesimal dose of brucine, digitalis or aconite.

To destroy a morbid cause, one must fight it on its ground.

Dr. Morel Lavallée

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[1] With the disease of cretinism (T.N.)

Parisian Society, January 5^th, 1866 – medium Mr. Leymarie



Will you give me hospitality in your first session in 1866? I wish, embracing you fraternally, to offer you friendly greetings; may you have a lot of moral satisfactions, a lot of will and persevering charity.

In this century of lights, what is most lacking is clarity! The half-scientists, the baddie of the press, have valiantly done the work of the spider to obscure, with the help of a so-called liberal fabric, all that is clear, all that illuminates.

Dear Spiritists, have you found, in all social strata, this force of reasoning that is the intelligent hallmark of successful beings? Are you not, on the contrary, certain that the great majority of your brothers are languishing in unhealthy ignorance? Heresies and bad deeds everywhere!

Good intentions, corrupted in its principle, fall one by one, like those beautiful fruits that a worm spoils at the heart and the wind throws to the ground. Clarity in the arguments, in knowledge, would it have made, by chance, the choice of residence in the academies, among the philosophers, the journalists or the pamphleteers? … It seems that one could doubt it, by seeing them, like Diogenes, with a lantern in hand, seeking truth under the sun.

Light, clarity, you are the essence of all intelligent movement! You will soon inundate, with your beneficent rays, the most obscure recesses of this poor humanity; it is you that will bring out of the mire so many dumbfounded, rude, unhappy earthlings that must be cleansed by education, by freedom, above all by the awareness of their spiritual value. Light will drive away tears, sorrows, dark despair, the negation of divine things, all bad will! By besieging materialism, it will force it to no longer take shelter behind this factitious, worm-eaten rampart, from which it awkwardly unleashes its darts against anything that is not its work.



But the masks will be torn off and we will then know whether pleasures, fortune and sensualism are indeed the emblems of life and freedom. Clarity is useful in everything and to everybody; both embryo and man need light! without it everything gropes, and the groping soul seeks the soul.

May an eternal night be made! the harmonious colors will soon disappear from your globe, the flowers will wither, the great trees will be destroyed; the insects, the whole of nature will no longer produce those thousand sounds, the eternal song of God! The streams will bathe desolate shores; the cold will have mummified everything, and life disappeared! ...

It is the same with the Spirit. If you make night around it, it will be sick; the cold will petrify its divine tendencies; man, as in the Middle Ages, will go numb, similar in his soul to the wild and desolate solitudes of boreal regions!

That is why, Spiritists, that you owe yourselves all the clarity. But before you advise and teach, first start by illuminating the smallest folds of your soul. When, purified enough to fear nothing, you can raise your voice, your gaze, your gesture, you will wage an implacable war to the shadows, to sadness, to the absence of life; you will teach the great Spiritist laws to the brothers who know nothing of the role that God assigns to them.

1866, may you, for years to come, be that luminous star that led the wise men to the cradle of a humble child of the people; they came to pay homage to the incarnation that was to represent, in the broadest sense, the Spirit of truth, this beneficent light that transformed humanity. By this child, everything was realized! He is the one that perpetuates grace and simplicity, charity, benevolence, love, and freedom.

Spiritism, also a luminous star, must, like the one, eighteen centuries ago, that torn apart the dark veil of the iron centuries, lead the earthlings to the conquest of the promised truths. Will it be able to extricate itself from the storms, promised to us by human evolution, and the desperate resistance of science at bay? This is what all of you, my friends, and we, your brothers of erraticity^[1], are called upon to better accuse, by flooding this year with the acquired clarity.

To work for this purpose is to be followers of the Child of Bethlehem, it is to be children of God, from whom all light and all clarity emanate.

Sonnez

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[1] Earthly spiritual world (T.N.)

Group Delanne, Paris, January 8^th, 1865 – medium Mrs. Br…



The times have come when this word of the prophet must be fulfilled: “I will pour out, says the Lord, of my Spirit onto all flesh, and your children will prophesy, your elders will have dreams.” Spiritism is this diffusion of the divine Spirit, coming to instruct and moralize all these poor disinherited of spiritual life that, seeing only matter, forgot that man does not live on bread alone.

The body, a material organism at the service of the soul, needs food appropriate to its nature; but the soul, emanation of the Creative Spirit, needs a spiritual nourishment, found only in the contemplation of the celestial beauties, resulting from the harmony of the intelligent faculties in their complete development.

As long as man neglects to cultivate his Spirit, remaining absorbed in the pursuit or possession of material goods, his soul stays somehow stationary, requiring a great number of incarnations before it can, imperceptibly obeying, and as if by force of the inevitable law of progress, arrive at that beginning of intellectual vitality, taking over the direction of the material being to which it is united. That is why, despite the teachings given by Christ to advance humanity, it is still so behind, because egoism did not want to fade away, before the law of charity that must change the face of world, turning it into a place of peace and happiness. But the goodness of God is infinite, it surpasses the indifference and ingratitude of his children; that is why he sends them these divine messengers that come to remind them that God did not create them for the earth, where they are only for a short while, so that, through work, they develop the qualities deposited in their soul as a seed, and that, citizens of heavens should not take pleasure in a station inferior to their ignorance, where they are held back by their faults alone.

Thank the Lord, then, and greet the advent of Spiritism with joy, since it is the fulfillment of prophecies, the shining sign of the goodness of the Father of mercy, and for you a new call to this unravelling of matter, so desirable, since only that can give you real happiness.

Louis of France

Spiritist novel by Mr. Élie Sauvage, member of the Society of Men of Literature.^[1]



The year 1867 started, for Spiritism, with the publication of a work that, in a way, inaugurated the new path opened by the Spiritist doctrine in literature. Mirette is not one of those books in which the Spiritist idea is a mere accessory, as if thrown there, for the sake of effect, by chance of imagination, without the animation or warmth of belief; it is the very idea that forms its fundamental pillar, less for the action than for the general consequences that flow from it.

In Théophile Gautier's Spiritist, the fantastic by far outweighs the real and the possible, from the point of view of the doctrine. It is less a Spiritist novel than the novel of Spiritism, and that the latter cannot accept as a faithful depiction of manifestations; moreover, the philosophical and moral content is almost null there. This work was, nonetheless, very useful to the popularization of the idea, by the authority of the name of the author, who knew how to give it the stamp of his undeniable talent, and by its publication in the official journal. It was also the first work of its kind of real importance, in which the idea was taken seriously.

Mr. Sauvage's work is conceived on a completely different level; it is a painting of real life, where nothing deviates from the possible, and in which Spiritism can accept everything. It is a simple, naive story of continual interest, and even more attractive because everything is natural and plausible in the story; one does not find romantic situations there, but touching scenes, elevated thoughts, characters drawn from nature; we see the noblest and purest feelings there, grappling with selfishness and sordid malice, faith struggling against disbelief. The style is clear, concise, without lengths or unnecessary accessories, without superfluous ornaments, and without pretensions to effect. The author proposed, above all, to write a moral book, and he drew its elements from the Spiritist philosophy and its consequences, much more than from the fact of manifestations; he shows to what elevation of thoughts these beliefs lead. On this point we sum up our opinion by saying that this book can be read with benefit, by the youth of both sexes, that will find beautiful models, good examples, and useful instructions there, without prejudice to benefit and pleasure, that can be taken at any age. We will add that to have written this book, in the way it was done, it is necessary to be deeply embedded in the principles of the doctrine.

The author places his action in 1831; he cannot, therefore, nominally speak of Spiritism, nor of current Spiritist works; so he had to trace his apparent point of departure back to Swedenborg; but everything here is in agreement with the data of modern Spiritism, that he studied carefully.

Here is the subject of the book, in two words:

Count de Rouville, suddenly forced to leave France during the revolution, on leaving for exile, had entrusted a large sum and his family titles to a man, on whose loyalty he believed he could count on. This man, abusing his confidence, misappropriates this sum, with which he enriches himself. When the emigrant returns, the custodian declares not to know him and denies the deposit. Mr. de Rouville, stripped of all his resources by this infidelity, dies of despair, leaving behind a little three-year-old girl, named Mirette.

The child is taken in by a former servant of the family, that brings her up as his daughter. She was barely sixteen when her adoptive father, very poor himself, died. Lucien, a young law student, with a great and noble soul, who had assisted the old man in his last moments, becomes the protector of Mirette, who remained without support and without asylum; he had her admitted to her mother’s house, a rich baker, with a hard and selfish heart. Now, it turns out that Lucien is the son of the spoiler; the latter, on learning later that Mirette is the daughter of the one whose ruin and death he had caused, falls ill and dies, filled with remorse, in convulsions of frightful agony. From there complications, because the young couple love each other, and despite all, end up getting married.

The main characters are: Lucien and Mirette, two elevated souls; Lucien's mother, the perfect type of egoism, greed, narrowness of ideas, struggling with maternal love; Lucien's father, the exact personification of troubled conscience; a basely wicked and jealous bread delivery woman; an old doctor, an excellent man, but incredulous and mocking; a medical student, his pupil, spiritualist, man of heart, and skillful magnetizer; a very lucid somnambulist, and a sister of charity with broad and lofty ideas, a typical character.

We have heard the following criticism of this book:

The action begins, without preamble, with one of those spontaneous manifestations of events, as we often see nowadays, consisting of knocks on the wall. These noises lead to the meeting of the two main characters in the story, Lucien and Mirette, unfolding thereafter. People say that the author should have given an explanation of the phenomenon, for those persons foreign to Spiritism, and who happen to have a point of departure that they do not understand. We do not share this opinion, for the same should be said of scenes of ecstatic visions and somnambulism.

The author did not want, and could not, given that it is a novel, make an educational treatise on Spiritism. Every day writers base their conceptions on scientific, historical or other facts, that they can do no less than assume to be known to their readers, or pay the price of transforming their works into encyclopedias; it is up to those that do not know them to look for them, or to ask for an explanation. Mr. Sauvage, placing his subject in 1831, could not develop theories that were not known until twenty years later. The rapping Spirits, as a matter of fact, have enough resonance in our days, thanks even to the hostile press, that few people had not heard of them. These facts are more vulgar today than many others that are quoted daily. The author seems to us to have, on the contrary, enhanced Spiritism by posing the fact as sufficiently known, to spare explanation.



We do not share either the opinion of those who reproach it for its somewhat familiar and vulgar setting, the few complications of the plot, in a word, for not having made a more masterful literary work, that he was certainly capable of. In our opinion, the work is what it should be, to achieve the proposed goal; it is not a monument that the author wanted to erect, but a simple and graceful little house where the heart can rest. As it is, it is addressed to everyone: large and small, rich and proletarians, but above all, to a class of readers to whom it would have been less suitable, if it had taken a more academic form. We believe that reading can be very beneficial to the working class, and as such we would like it to have the same the popularity of certain writings whose reading is less healthy.

The following two passages can give an idea of the spirit in which the work is conceived. The first is a scene between Lucien and Mirette, at the funeral of her adoptive father:

“My poor father, then I won't see you again!" said Mirette, sobbing.

“Mirette,” Lucien replied in a soft and grave voice, “those who believe in God and in the immortality of the human soul should not be sorry, like the unfortunate people who have no hope. For true Christians there is no such thing as death. Look around us: we are seated amid tombs, in the terrible and funereal place that ignorance and fear call the field of the dead. Well! the sun of May shines here as it does in the happiest fields. Trees, shrubs, and flowers flood the air with the sweetest perfumes; from the bird to the imperceptible insect, each being of creation throws its note in this great symphony that sings to God the sublime hymn of universal life. Isn't that, tell me, a brilliant protest, against nothingness, against death? Death is a transformation for matter; for good and intelligent beings, it is a transfiguration. Your father fulfilled the task that God had entrusted to him: God called him; may our selfish love not envy the palm of the martyr, the crown of the conqueror! … But do not think that he forgets you. Love is the mysterious link that connects all worlds. The father of a family, forced to make a long journey, does he not think of his cherished children? Does he not watch over their happiness from afar? Yes, Mirette, may this thought console you; we are never orphans on earth; to begin with, we have God that allowed us to call him our father, and then the friends that have preceded us in eternal life. - The one you cry, he is there, I see him… he smiles at you with ineffable tenderness, … he speaks with you… listen…

Lucien's face suddenly assumed an ecstatic expression; his fixed gaze, his finger raised in the air, showed something in space; his strained ear seemed to hear mysterious words.

“Child,” he said, with a voice that was no longer his, “why fixate your eyes, veiled with tears, on this corner of the earth, where my mortal remains have been laid? Look up to the sky; it is there that the Spirit, purified by suffering, by love and by prayer, flies towards the object of his sublime aspirations!

What does it matter to the butterfly that spreads its radiant wings in the sun, what does it matter the debris of its coarse envelope? Dust returns to dust; the spark goes back to its divine home. But the Spirit must go through terrible trials before receiving his crown. The earth, on which the human anthill crawls, is a place of atonement and of preparation for the blissful life. Great struggles await you, poor child, but have confidence: God and the good Spirits will not forsake you. Faith, hope, love, let that be your motto. Farewell."

The work ends with the following account of an ecstatic excursion by the two young people, then married:



After a journey that they could not appreciate the duration, these two air navigators approached an unknown and marvelous land, where it was all light, harmony and perfumes, where the vegetation was so beautiful, and differed as much from that of our globe as the flora of the tropics differs from that of Greenland and the southern lands. The beings that inhabited this world, lost amidst the worlds, resembled the idea that we have of angels down here. Their light and transparent bodies had nothing of our coarse earthly envelope, their faces radiated intelligence and love. Some rested in the shade of trees laden with fruits and flowers, others strolled, like those blessed shadows that Virgil shows us, in his lovely description of the Elysian Fields.

The two figures that Lucien had already seen several times, in his previous visions, came forward with outstretched arms towards the two travelers. The smile with which they were embraced, filled them with a heavenly joy. The one that had been Mirette's adoptive father, said to them with ineffable gentleness: “My dear children, your prayers and your good works have found grace with God. He has touched the soul of the guilty, and sends him back to earthly life, to atone for his faults and to purify himself with new trials, for God does not punish eternally, and his justice is always tempered by mercy."

Here is now the opinion of the Spirits about this work, given at the Parisian Society, in the meeting in which it was reported:

(Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, January 4^th, 1867 – medium Sr. Desliens)

“Every day belief detaches an irresolute mind from the adverse ideas; every day new obscure or illustrious followers come to take shelter under its banner; the facts multiply, and the crowd reflects. Then the feeble take their courage in both hands, and cry: Forward! with all the strength of their lungs. Serious men work, and moral or material science, novels, and short stories, allow the new principles to break through in eloquent pages. How many Spiritists, without knowing it, among modern spiritualists! How many publications are missing a single word to be designated, to public attention, as emanating from a Spiritist source!

The year 1866 presents the new philosophy in all its forms; but it is still the green stem that encloses the ear of wheat and waits to show it, until the heat of spring has made it ripen and open. 1866 prepared, 1867 will mature and achieve. The year opens under the auspices of Mirette, and it will not go by without seeing the appearance of new publications of the same kind, and of more serious still, in the sense that the novel will become philosophy, and that philosophy will make history.

Spiritism will not become an ignored belief, and accepted only by a few so-called sick brains; it will be a philosophy admitted to the banquet of intelligence, a new idea having a seat alongside the progressive ideas that mark the second half of the nineteenth century. So, we warmly congratulate the one that was the first to put aside all false human respect, to display his intimate belief frankly and squarely.

Dr. Morel Lavallée”

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[1] 1 vol. in-12. Authors' Bookstore, 10, rue de la Bourse. Price 3 fr. By post, for France and Algeria, 3 fr. 30 c.

Collection of mediumistic poems obtained by Mr. Vavasseur; preceded by a Study on mediumistic poetry, by Mr. Allan Kardec. 1 vol. in-12, price 1 fr. By post, for France and Algeria, 1 fr. 20 c. - Paris, central bookstore, 24, boulevard des Italiens; at the office of the Spiritist Review, and at the author's, 3, rue de la Mairie, in Paris-Montmartre.

This work, of which we spoke in our last issue, and whose printing has been delayed, is for sale.