Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1867

Mr. Bonnemère was kind enough to send us details that complete those we have given on this subject in the Spiritist Review, July 1867, on the young Breton mentioned in the preface of the interesting book he published with the title Novel of the future. This new information is of the highest interest, and our readers will be grateful to the author, as we are ourselves, for having made it available to us. We will follow them with a few remarks.



“Sir,

A friend has sent me, much delayed, the Spiritist Review in which you give an account of the Novel of the future that I authored. Let me give you some clarification about a passage in that article where this statement is found: “We were told that when he wrote this book, the author did not know Spiritism; it seems difficult, etc.”



However, this is rigorously true. I admit it in all sincerity and humility, Sir, I was wrong in not offering you this volume; I have never been to your place; I did not even know the title of the Spiritist Review, and my library does not have any book on the issues discussed there; that is why I called my young Breton a natural ecstatic, while to you he is a medium.



I said, in the preface of the Novel of the future, as a result of that strange adventure, that I was a historian in the maturity of my life, and that I was going to become a novelist, after going over fifty years old. The readers have only seen in this one of those familiar processes in which authors spice up their story. I certify on my honor that, with the exception of one detail that does not matter, and that I am not allowed to reveal yet, everything that I affirm in that preface is true, and far from exaggerating, I am not saying everything.



My young Breton explains, in twenty passages of his voluminous manuscripts (nearly 18,000 pages), the causes and effects of this sort of condemnation to forced labor that he suffered for having cursed her.



Every evening, he wrote on August 24^th, 1864, I go to bed very tired after a day's work; I fall asleep; an hour later I wake up; I am sad, a black crepe seems to envelop me; I am speechless, but I do not suffer. Something vague is in my brain; it is under such impression that my eyes sometimes close, with tears in my heart. Then I wake up in the morning with a persistent silence with an intolerable pain on the left side and in the heart, that does not allow me to get back to sleep. I experience an intolerable state of anxiety that forces me to stand up. I am suffocating; there is too much to be relieved. So, I go to my office, and there I am forced to work.





The more I suffer, the more and the better I work. I then have an extreme expansion of imagination. When a work is done, and it only needs to be put on paper, I invent another, without ever looking for it, and always mechanically writing the one that was mature.



When I must serve as an instrument to some of my disappeared friends, their name rings in my ear. When I write that name does not leave me, and I experience, even amidst my sometimes-acute physical pains, especially in the heart, a kind of gentleness in writing what he brings to me. It's like an inspiration, but very involuntary. All the fibers of my psychological being are awakened. So, I feel more keenly; it seems that I am vibrating; all the noises are louder, more perceptible; I experience intellectual and psychological vibrations at the same time.



When I am in this silenced state, I feel like enveloped in a network that establishes a separation between my intellectual being and the mass of material objects or people who surround me. It is an absolute isolation amid the crowd; my word and my mind are elsewhere. The inspiring being who comes to me never leaves me; it's a kind of intimate permeation from him to me; I am like a sponge, soaked in his thoughts. I squeeze it, and it leaves the quintessence of his intelligence, free from all the meanness of our life down here.



Sometimes, even without muteness, whether I'm alone or with others, it doesn't matter, I talk, I laugh, I perceive everything in other people's conversations, and yet I work; ideas accumulate, but fleeting; I am there and am no longer there; I come to myself, and remember nothing; but the state of silence revives the erased images.



If it's a novel I must write, the title comes first to me, then the events happen; it is sometimes a matter of a day or two to compose it all. If it is about more serious things, the title is also dictated to me, then thoughts abound, even when I seem most strongly distracted. The elaboration is done on time until the moment when the accumulation overflows onto the paper.



It has often happened to me, after finishing a long novel, and when I had nothing else ready to transfer to my notebooks, I experienced a strange sensation, as if there was an empty box in my brain. I then suffer a lot more; it's a state of complete atony, until my head fills up with something else.



Usually, that very evening, or in bed, in the morning, I envisage some new plan. Sometimes, however, I get up without thinking about anything that I'm going to do, and without having worked out anything in advance. With my candle lit, I stand in front of the paper. I then hear on the left side, in the left ear, a name, a word, a subject of a novel in two or three words. It's enough; the words follow one another, without interruption; events come to align themselves in the pen, without a moment's pause, until the story is over. When things go like this, it's just a very short novel that will be finished in one session.



There is still a very singular particularity in my condition; it is when I am worried about the health of someone I love. It really becomes an excruciating pain to me, and I think I am suffering more than the person herself. For a few moments, I am seized in the head, in the stomach, in the heart and in the guts, by a pressure full of anguishes that moves on to an extreme pain. There comes a time when the head alone suffers. So, I have one or several names of remedies in my head. I do not want to speak, for I doubt and fear to hurt when I would like to relieve so much! But these words keep coming back; I am defeated, I give in and say them with an effort, or I write them down. So, it's over, I don't think about it anymore, and everything vanishes."



I do not know if I am mistaken, but it seems to me to find there all the characteristics of the possession of the past, and I do believe that many possessed people were burned in the past who were not more wizards than my ecstatic youngster. Obviously, he lives a double life, in which one is not related to other. I saw him often, when one of the people who confided in him came to tell him that she was in pain; with staring eyes, his eyelids open, his pupil dilated, he seemed to be listening, searching. "Yes, Yes! He whispered, as if repeating to himself what an inner voice was telling him. He would then indicate the necessary remedy, talk for a moment about the nature and cause of the illness, then little by little, all this was dissipated, and he was not aware either of the moment when the ecstasy had come, or when it was over. That rapid moment of absence did not exist for him, and we avoided talking to him about it.



“I want and I have to live in the shadows, he wrote elsewhere. I am told: You are in a society that has gone astray because of bad management. The good we do without interest, emanating from a natural source, but a little extraordinary, seems guilty, ridiculous, indiscreet at least. We must not expose ourselves to mockery, sometimes to contempt, for a good deed. There is an old saying: "A confessed fault is half forgiven," it can be said that a hidden good deed is half forgiven. We must, therefore, do good to others without their suspecting it. It is true charity that gives without expecting retribution."



All this does not happen without struggles. Sometimes he rebels against this tyrannical obsession. I saw him resisting, struggling with anger, then tamed by a will greater than his, go to work. He had announced a great and long work about freedom. He declared himself incapable of doing it and protested that he would not. One morning he wrote:



“No, I want to fight today. I feel that the form has not come clear enough yet… When will you give me a break? … I am shattered! … Ah! you call it freedom of thought that you infuse in me! But it is slavery to your thoughts, that should be said! You claim that I have its germ, and that it is doing me an immense service to develop it, by adding what you can give!”



“I will start with this question already dealt with: What is life?"



A sort of program announcement to be completed thus continued for ten pages of his writing and was written in forty minutes. All these things, which seemed very strange to me, will perhaps be less so for you, Sir. In short, I have faith in its mysterious power, because it cured me of more than one illness that might have embarrassed the Faculty. No one is ever sick by his side, without his writing down his little prescription. He often does it despite himself, feeling that his prescriptions will not be considered. One day he ended a consultation with these lines, about a person suffering from chest disease who, in his opinion, was poorly treated and whom he believed he could still save:



“This is what I can say. Let them do what they think fit; these are my observations, that is all. I won't have to blame myself for letting them sleep inside me. Nothing should be done without the advice of the doctor. With natures as they all are, this can only serve as an indication. Let no one ever speak to me about it; that no one thank me. I am not a man, but a soul who awakens to the cry of suffering, and who no longer remembers after relief has arrived."



When he had no sick people on hand, he prescribed general remedies for ailments that official science does not yet know how to cure. What are these prescriptions worth? I do not know. However, what I have seen, what I have been able to experience, leads me to believe that they could perhaps set the stage for new curative processes.



If an individual who has never opened a medical book, prescribes remedies that can cure, without realizing it, in many cases most of the ailments declared incurable today, it seems to me indisputable that these things are revealed to him by an unknown and mysterious power. In the presence of such a fact, the question seems to me settled. We must accept, as demonstrated, that there are sensitive to whom it is granted to serve as intermediaries to the disappeared friends who, having no more organs at the service of their will, come to borrow the voice or the hand of these privileged beings, when they want to heal our body, or strengthen our soul by enlightening it on the things that they are allowed to make known to us.



One can risk an experiment in anima vili, ^[1]on silkworms for example, that are hardly any better than to be thrown to the worms of the grave, so much they are sick. The question is serious, because the losses caused by the illness that affect them adds up to millions of francs annually. The result to be obtained is worth trying this first experiment that, in any case, if it fails, cannot make the situation worse.



There might be a mystery here, but I assert that there is no hoax. If I am mystified, I will always have the hundred and a few novels and short stories of this novelist, without knowing it, the publication of which will pleasantly occupy the leisure time of the last years of my existence, and of which I will leave most to the others after me.



This winter I will publish a new novel by my ecstatic young Breton. In the preface, I will transcribe verbatim everything he wrote on the healing of silkworms; and I will even add, if you will, his prescriptions for preventing and curing cholera and chest diseases.



It doesn't matter if people laugh at me for a few days; but it is very important that these secrets, of which chance has made me the depositary, do not die with me, if they contain something serious, and that it be known whether there are any possible relationships between the higher intelligences of the other side of life and the docile intelligences on this side; and I believe that it would be very important for us to forge more and more sustained relationships with these dead people of goodwill who seem disposed to render us such services.



Yours sincerely,

E. Bonnemère.”



The picture of the impressions of this young man, drawn by himself, is all the more remarkable since, having been written in the absence of any Spiritist knowledge, it cannot be the reflection of ideas drawn from any study that would have sparked his imagination. It is the spontaneous impression of his sensations, from which emerge, with strong evidence, all the characteristics of an unconscious mediumship; the intervention of occult intelligences is expressed there without ambiguity; the resistance that he opposes, the very annoyance that he feels from it, prove abundantly that he is acting under the influence of a will that is not his. This young man is, therefore, a medium in all the acceptance of the word, and moreover endowed with multiple faculties, because he is at the same time a writer, speaking, seeing, auditory, mechanical, intuitive, inspired, impressible, somnambulist, medical medium, literary, philosopher, moralist, etc. But in the described phenomena, there are none of the characteristics of ecstasy; it is, therefore, improperly that Mr. Bonnemère qualifies him as ecstatic, for it is precisely one of the faculties that he lacks. Ecstasy is a specific, well-defined state that did not arise in this case. Neither does he appear to be gifted with physical effect mediumship, nor with healing mediumship.



There are natural mediums, just as there are natural somnambulists, who act spontaneously and unconsciously; in others, where the mediumistic phenomena are provoked by the will, the faculty is developed by exercise, as in some individuals, somnambulism is provoked and developed by magnetic action.



So, there are unconscious mediums and conscious mediums. The first category, to which the young Breton belongs, is the most numerous; it is almost general, and we can say, without exaggeration, that out of 100 individuals there are 90 who are endowed with this aptitude to more or less noticeable degrees; if everyone were to study themselves, we would find in this kind of mediumship, that takes on the most multiple appearances, the reason for a host of effects that cannot be explained by any of the known laws of matter.



These effects, whether material or not, apparent or occult, to have this origin, are nonetheless natural; Spiritism admits nothing supernatural or marvelous; according to it everything is in the order of the laws of nature. When the cause of an effect is unknown, it must be sought in the fulfillment of these laws, and not in their breach, caused by the act of any will, that would be a true miracle; a man invested with the gift of miracles would have the power to suspend the course of the laws that God has established, that is not admissible. But the spiritual element, being one of the active forces of nature, gives rise to special phenomena that only appear supernatural because one persists in seeking the cause in the laws of matter alone. Therefore, the Spiritists do not work miracles and have never claimed to do so. The qualification of miracle workers, that criticism gives them out of irony, proves that they are talking about something of which they do not know the first word, since they call miracle workers even those who come to destroy them.



Another fact that emerges from the explanations given in the letter above, is that the Novel of the future is indeed a mediumistic work of the young Breton, and we can only be grateful to Mr. Bonnemère for having declined its paternity. Such elevated and deep thoughts had nothing to surprise us on his part, and that is why we had not hesitated in attributing them to him, and we only had even more esteem for his character, and for his talent as a writer, that was already known to us; however, they borrow a particular interest from the source from which they emanate; strange as this source may appear, at first glance, it is not surprising to anyone familiar with Spiritism. Facts of this kind are frequently seen, and there isn’t a somewhat enlightened Spiritist who does not fully realize it, without having to recourse to miracles.



Attributing the work, therefore, to Mr. Bonnemère, and finding facts and thoughts there that seem borrowed from the doctrine itself, it seemed difficult to us that the author was foreign to it. As soon as he affirms the opposite, we can easily believe it, and we find in his very ignorance the confirmation of the fact, repeated many times in our writings, that the Spiritist ideas are so much in nature that they germinate outside of the teaching of Spiritism and that a host of people are or become Spiritists without knowing it, and by intuition; all that is lacking in their ideas is the name. Spiritism is like those plants whose seeds are carried by the winds and that grow without cultivating; it arises spontaneously in thought, without prior study. What can, therefore, those who dream of its annihilation do against it, by striking the mother stump?



So, here is a complete, remarkable medium and an observer who does not suspect what Spiritism is, and the observer that comes, by himself, to all consequences of Spiritism, through a logical deduction from what he sees. What he first notices is that the facts he has before him present to him, in the same individual, a double life, of which one has no relation to the other. Obviously these two lives, where divergent thoughts are manifested, are subject to different conditions; they both cannot proceed from matter; it is the recognition of the spiritual life; it is the soul that we see acting outside the organism. This phenomenon is very vulgar; it occurs daily during the sleep of the body, in dreams, in natural or induced somnambulism, in catalepsy, in lethargy, in double sight, in ecstasy. The intelligent principle, isolated from the organism, is a fundamental fact, because it is the proof of its individuality. The existence, independence and individuality of the soul can thus be the result of observation. If, during the life of the body, the soul can act without the co-operation of the material organs, it is because it has an existence of its own; the extinction of the bodily life does not, therefore, necessarily entail that of the spiritual life. We see by this where, from consequence to consequence, we arrive by a logical deduction. Mr. Bonnemere did not arrive at this result by a preconceived theory, but by observation; Spiritism did not proceed otherwise; the study of facts preceded the doctrine, and the principles were formulated, as in all observational sciences, as they were deduced from experience. Mr. Bonnemère has done what any serious observer can do, for the spontaneous phenomena that emerge from the same principle, are numerous and vulgar; Mr. Bonnemère having seen only one point, he could only arrive at a partial conclusion, while Spiritism, having embraced the whole of these phenomena, so complex and so varied, was able to analyze them, compare them, control them one against the others, and find the solution to a greater number of problems. Since Spiritism is a result of observations, whoever has eyes to see, judgment to reason, patience and perseverance to go to the end, could come to constitute Spiritism, just as we could reconstitute all sciences; but the work being done, it is time saved and trouble spared. If we had to always restart, there would be no possible progress. Considering that the Spiritist phenomena are in nature, they have occurred in all times; and precisely because they touch spirituality in a more direct way, they find themselves involved in all theogonies. Spiritism coming in an epoch less accessible to prejudices, enlightened by the progress of the natural sciences, that were lacking to the first men, and by a more developed reason, Spiritism was able to observe better than it was formerly done; today, it comes to bring out what is true from the mixture introduced by superstitious beliefs, daughters of ignorance.



Mr. Bonnemère congratulated himself on the chance that placed the documents provided by the young Breton in his hands. Spiritism does not admit chance any more than the supernatural in the events of life. Chance, that by its nature is blind, would sometimes show itself to be singularly intelligent. Hence, we believe that it was intentionally that these documents came into his possession, after he was able to ascertain their origin. In the hands of the young man, they would have been lost, and that is probably what should not be. Someone, therefore, had to take it up to bring them out of obscurity, and it seems that such a mission was assigned to Mr. Bonnemère.

As for the value of these documents, judging by the sample of thoughts contained in the Novel of the Future, there must surely be some excellent things; are they all good? That's another question. In this respect, their origin is not a guarantee of infallibility, since the Spirits, being only the souls of men, do not have sovereign knowledge. Their advancement being relative, there are some more enlightened than others; if there are some who know more than men, there are also men who know more than certain Spirits. Up to this day, Spirits have been considered as beings outside humanity, and endowed with exceptional faculties; this is a fundamental error that has given rise to so many superstitions and that Spiritism has come to rectify. Spirits are part of humanity, and until they have reached the culmination of perfection, towards which they gravitate, they are liable to be mistaken. Therefore, one should never abnegate one’s free will and one’s judgment, even with regard to what comes from the world of the Spirits; one should never accept anything with one’s eyes closed, and without the strict control of logic. Without prejudging anything about the documents in question, it could therefore be that there were some good and some bad, some true and some false, and that, consequently, there had to be a judicious choice for which the principles of the doctrine can provide useful guidance.



Among these principles, there is one that is important not to lose sight of, that is the providential aim of the manifestation of Spirits; they come to attest to their existence and to prove to man that everything does not end for him with the corporeal life; they come to educate him on his future condition, to encourage him to acquire what is useful for his future and what he can take away, that is to say, the moral qualities, but not to give him the means of enrichment. The care of his fortune and the improvement of his material well-being must be the work of his own intelligence, his activity, his work, and his research. If it were otherwise, the lazy and the ignorant could easily get rich, since it would be enough to turn to the Spirits to obtain a lucrative invention, to discover treasures, to win on the stock exchange or the lottery; therefore, all hopes of fortune founded on the co-operation of Spirits have failed miserably.



This is what inspires in us some doubts about the effectiveness of the process for the silkworms, a process that would have the effect of earning millions, endorsing the idea that the Spirits can provide the means of enrichment, an idea that would pervert the very essence of Spiritism. It would, therefore, be unwise to create chimeras on this subject, because it could be here as with certain recipes that were to make the Pactolus^[2] flow into certain hands, and that have only resulted in ridiculous mystifications. This is not, however, a reason for silencing the process, and for neglecting it; if success is to have a more important and more serious result than fortune, such a revelation may be permitted. But in the face of uncertainty, it is good not to be lulled into hopes that could be disappointed. We then approve of Mr. Bonnemère's plan to publish the recipes that were given to his young Breton, because, among them, there may be some useful, especially for diseases.

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[1] Latin expression meaning - on a subject of little worth (T.N.)


[2] A river near the Aegean coast of Turkey (T.N.)

In the journal Popular Illustrated Exhibition, issue 24, we find in an article entitled: Correspondence about the thaumaturges, an interesting notice about priest Gassner, almost as well known in his time as Prince Hohenlohe for his healing power.



“Gassner (Jean-Joseph) was born on August 20^th, 1727, in Bratz, near Bludens (Swabia); he did his first studies in Innsbruck and in Prague, received ecclesiastical orders and was provided, in 1758 he was appointed priest of Kloesterle, in the region of Graubünden.



After fifteen years of a quiet life, he revealed himself to the world as endowed with an exceptional power, of curing all diseases by the simple laying of the hands, and that without using any medication, and without demanding any compensation. The sick soon flocked in from all sides, and in such numbers that, in order to be in a better condition of helping them, Gassner requested and obtained permission to be absent from his priesthood, and went successively to Wolfegg and Weingarten, in Ravensperg, Detland, Kirchberg, Morspurg and Constance. The sick people followed him; the medical profession revolted against him. Some proclaimed his wonderful cures, others contested him.



The Bishop of Constance embarrassed him with an investigation, carried out by the director of the seminary. Gassner said he never thought of working miracles and constrained himself to applying the power that the ordination confers to all priests to exorcise, in the name of Jesus Christ, the demons who are one of the most common causes of our diseases. He declared to divide all illnesses into natural illnesses or lesions, illnesses of obsessions and complicated illnesses of obsessions. He was, he said, powerless over the former, and failed over those of the third category, when the natural illness was superior to the illness of obsession.



The bishop was not convinced and ordered Gassner to return to his parish, but soon after he authorized him to continue his exorcisms; the priest hastened to take advantage of the authorization and surprised the inhabitants of Elwangen, Sulzbach and Regensburg by the immense crowd of patients that his fame attracted from Switzerland, Germany and France. The Duke of Wurtemberg openly declared to be his admirer and protector; his successes attracted powerful adversaries to him. The famous Haen and the Theatine Sterzingen attacked him with perseverance and passion; several bishops lent their support to the fiery of the Theatin and forbade him from exorcising in their dioceses. Finally, Joseph II issued a decree ordering Gassner to leave Regensburg; but strong by the protection of the prince-bishop of this city, who had conferred him the title of ecclesiastical adviser, with the function of chaplain of the court, he persisted. This resistance lasted until 1777, when Gassner was assigned to the parish of Bondorf, where he retired and died on April 4^th, 1779, at the age of 52.”





Observation: Spiritism protests the qualification of thaumaturge given to healers, because it does not admit anything to be done outside of natural laws. The phenomena that belong to the order of spiritual facts are no more miraculous than the material facts, since the spiritual element is one of the forces of nature, just as well as the material element. Father Gassner, therefore, made no more miracles than the Prince of Hohenlohe and the Zouave Jacob, and we can see singular similarities between what was happening then with him and what is happening today.

We borrow from the same article of the journal mentioned above, the following facts that accompany the notice on the priest Gassner, because Spiritism can draw a useful matter of instruction from that. The author of the article follows them with reflections, worthy of note, in this time of skepticism about extra material causes.



“Gassner had enjoyed great favor with the Empress Marie-Thérèse, who consulted him often, having some faith in his inspirations. It is said (see the Memoirs of Madam Campan) that at the time when the idea of uniting the daughter of Marie-Thérèse to the grandson of Louis XV had been conceived, the great empress called Gassner and asked him: "Will my Antoinette be happy?



Gassner, after thinking for a long time, turned strangely pale and persisted in remaining silent.



Pressed again by the Empress, and then seeking to give a general expression to the idea with which he seemed much occupied, he said: “Madam, there are crosses to all shoulders”.



The marriage took place on May 16^th, 1770; the Dauphin and Marie-Antoinette received the nuptial blessings at the Chapel of Versailles (Marie-Antoinette had arrived in Compiègne on the 14^th); at three o'clock in the afternoon the sky was covered with clouds, torrents of rain flooded Versailles; violent thunder bolts resounded, and the crowd of curious people that filled the garden were obliged to retire



The arrival of Marie-Antoinette at the palace of the kings of France (we read in the Public and private life of Louis XVI, by M. A … e de Salex; Paris, 1814, p. 340), was marked by one of those prognoses that we usually only remember when we see them come true in the course of time.



When this princess entered the courtyards of the Palace of Versailles for the first time, setting foot in the marble courtyard, a violent clap of thunder shook the castle: presage of misfortune, cried Marshal Richelieu.



The evening was sad in the city, and the illuminations had no effect.



Add to this the terrible accident that happened on May 30^th, at the rue Royale, on the day of the feast given by the city of Paris, at Place Louis XV, for the wedding of the Dauphin and the Dauphine. Anquetil estimates in 300 the number of dead on the spot, and of 1,200 the number of those who died in the hospices or at home, a few days later, or who were crippled.



In 1757 (see the Posters of Tours, 25^th year, No. 14, Thursday, April 5^th, 1792), Madame de Pompadour called before Louis XV an astrologer who, after having calculated his birth star chart, said to him: “Sire, your reign is celebrated by great events, the one that follows will be celebrated by great disasters."



On the day of Louis XV's death there was a terrible storm in Versailles. What an accumulation of forecasts!



For eight years the queen's marriage was sterile. A daughter was born on December 19^th, 1778; Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte (later named by her husband’s Madame la Dauphine, Duchess of Angouleme). Three more years and on October 22^nd, 1781 Marie-Antoinette gave an heir to the crown. The city of Paris offered the queen, on this occasion, a feast in which the most sumptuous munificence was displayed.



This feast took place on January 21^st, 1782. Eleven years later the commune of Paris gave the people the spectacle of the King’s death. The Queen was in prison, waiting for Gassner's vision to be fulfilled.



Since we touched on these burning questions, listen again to Ms. Campan's revelations. It was May 1789; the days 4 and 5 had diversely impressed the minds; four candles lit up the Queen's cabinet, that recounted some remarkable accidents that had taken place during the day. “A candle went out on its own; I lit it up again, said Madame Campan; soon the second, then the third also died out; then the Queen, shaking his hand in horror, said to him: “Misfortune can make you superstitious; if this fourth candle goes out like the others, nothing can prevent me from looking at this sign as a sinister omen…”. The fourth candle went out!!! The Queen said that a few nights before she had a dreadful dream that kept her deeply affected.



No doubt, strong minds laugh at all these forecasts, all these prophecies, this gift of an earlier sight. They don't believe it or pretend not to believe it! But why then, in all epochs, there have been figures of some value, of some importance who, without any interest whatsoever, have affirmed facts of this kind that they have declared absolute, positive. Let us mention a few examples:



Théodore-Agrippa d'Aubigné, grandfather of Madam de Maintenon, reports in his Memoirs that he had in his service, in Poitou, a deaf-mute by birth, endowed with the gift of divination. "One day," he said, "the daughters of the house asked him how many more years the King (Henry IV) would live, the time and the circumstances of his death, he replied to them three and a half years, and designated the city, the street and the carriage with the two stab wounds he would receive in the heart."



A few more words on this same Henry IV.



What judgment shall we pass on the dark presentiments only too frequent that this unfortunate prince had of his cruel destiny? - says Sully in his Memoirs, book XXVII. - They are of a singularity that has something frightening about it; I have already reported his reluctance in allowing the queen's coronation ceremony to take place before his departure; the more he saw the moment approaching, the more he felt the fear and horror redoubling in his heart; he came to open it completely to me, in that state of bitterness and overwhelm, that I took back as an unforgivable weakness. His own words will give an entirely different impression than anything I could say: - “Ah! my friend, he said to me, how much this coronation displeases me; I don't know what it is, but my heart tells me that something bad will happen to me.” He was sitting down on a low chair, that I had had made expressly for him, saying these words, and surrendered to all the darkness of his thoughts, his fingers tapping on the case of his glasses, dreaming deeply.



If he came out of this reverie, it was to stand up brusquely, clapping his hands on his thighs and to cry out: “For God sake, I will die in this city, I will never leave it; they will kill me; I can see that they are putting their last resource in my death! Ah! damn crowning, you will be the cause of my death!



My God, sire, I said to him one day, what thoughts are you indulging in there? If it continues, I believe you must cancel this coronation, the journey, and the war; do you want it? It will be done soon.



Yes, he said to me at last, after I had repeated this speech two or three times; yes, break this coronation, and let me hear no more about it; I will, by this means, have my mind cured of the impressions left there by some warnings; I will leave this city and fear nothing. "



By which sign would they recognize this secret and imperious cry of the heart, if they ignored these ones, that he said to me : “I do not want to hide from you, that I was told that I was to be killed at the first magnificence that I would do, and that I would die in a coach, and that's what makes me so fearful of it.”



“It seems, sire, that you have never said that to me,” I replied; I have been astonished several times, hearing you screaming in a coach, seeing you so sensitive before a little danger, after having seen you, so many times, fearless in the midst of cannon and musket shots, and among spears and naked swords; but since this opinion troubles you up to this point, in your place, sire, I would leave tomorrow: I would let the coronation take place without you, or I would postpone it to another time, and for a long time I would not return to Paris, nor take a coach; do you want me to send everything at this hour to Notre-Dame and Saint-Denis, to stop everything and dismiss the workers?



Yes, I do, said the prince to me again, but what will my wife say? She has this coronation in mind as a dream.



She will say what she wants, I said, seeing how much my proposal had pleased the king. But I could not believe that when she finds out how persuaded you are that this must be the cause of so much harm, she will continue with her opinion.



I did not wait for another order to go and have the preparations for the coronation stopped; It is with real regret that I see myself obliged to say that, whatever efforts I made, I have never been able to induce the queen to give this satisfaction to her husband.



I pass over in silence the solicitations, the prayers, and the arguments that I employed for three whole days to try to soften her; the prince had to yield. But Henry, nonetheless, was strongly back to his first apprehensions, that he usually expressed to me with these words, that he often had in his mouth: “Ah! my friend, I will never leave this town; they will kill me here! Oh, doomed coronation, you will be the cause of my death!"



This coronation took place in Saint-Denis, on Thursday, May 13^th, and the queen was to make her entry into Paris on Sunday 16^th, of the same month.



On the 14th, the king wanted to visit Sully, a visit he had announced for Saturday 15^th, in the morning; he took his coach and got out, changing his route several times on the way, etc., etc.



Péréfixe, his historian, observes that "heavens and earth had given too many forecasts of what happened to him."



The Bishop of Rhodez puts, among these forecasts, an eclipse of the sun, the appearance of a terrible comet, earthquakes, monsters born in various regions of France, rains of blood that fell in some places, a great plague that had afflicted Paris in 1606, ghost appearances and several other wonders (see the History of Henry the Great by Hardouin de Péréfixe, bishop of Rhodez, Vie du Duc d'Epernon, French Mercure, Mathieu, l'Estoile, etc.).



Let's stop! we would write a volume, volumes, so many facts abound. But is it then so necessary to have recourse to the stories of others? Let everyone question themselves; that each one appeals to their own memories and respond with loyalty and frankness, and each one will say: There is in me an unknown, who is us, who at the same time commands my material self and obeys it. This stranger, spirit, soul, what is it? how is it? Why is it? Mystery; series of mysteries; inexplicable mystery. Like everything in nature, in the organism, in life, aren’t life and death two impenetrable mysteries? Sleep, this rehearsal of death, isn't it an inexplicable mystery? The assimilation of food, that becomes us: inexplicable, incomprehensible mystery! The Generation: mysterious darkness! This passive obedience of my fingers that trace these lines and obey my will: darkness whose depths God alone probes, and that is illuminated by Him alone, with the light of truth!



Bow your head, children of ignorance and doubt; humiliate this proud woman whom you call reason; free thinkers, submit to the chains that constrain your intelligence; bend the knee: only God knows!"



In these facts, there are two very distinct things to consider: the forebodings and the phenomena regarded as prognoses of future events.



One cannot deny the presentiments of which there are few people who have not had examples. It is one of those phenomena to which matter alone is powerless to explain, because if matter does not think, it cannot have a presentiment either. This is how materialism clashes, at every step, with the most vulgar things that contradict it.



To be warned in an occult way, of what is happening far away, and of which we can only know in a more or less near future, by ordinary means, something must emerge from us, see and hear what we cannot perceive by the eyes and the ears, to bring back the intuition to our brain. This something must be intelligent since it understands, and often from a present fact it foresees future consequences; this is how we, sometimes, have a presentiment of the future. This something is nothing other than us, our spiritual being, that is not confined in the body like a bird in a cage, but that like a captive balloon, momentarily moves away from earth, but still attached to it.



It is especially in the moments when the body is resting, during the sleep, that the Spirit, taking advantage of the break left to it by the care of its envelope, partly recovers its freedom and collects in space, among other incarnate like him or discarnate Spirits, and in what he sees, ideas whose intuition it keeps when wakes up.



This emancipation of the soul often takes place in the waking state; in moments of absorption, meditation and reverie, when the soul seems to be no longer preoccupied with earth; it takes place particularly in a more effective and conspicuous manner, in people endowed with what is called double sight or spiritual sight. Beside the personal intuitions of the Spirit, we must place those suggested to it by other Spirits, either in the wake or in the sleep, by the transmission of thoughts from soul to soul. This is how we are often warned of a danger, asked to take such or such a direction, without the Spirit being precluded from its free will. These are advices, not orders, for the Spirit always remains in control of acting as it pleases.

Presentiments, therefore, have their reason for being, and find their natural explanation in the spiritual life, in which we do not stop living for a moment, because it is the normal life.



It is not the same with the physical phenomena, considered as prognoses of happy or unhappy events. These phenomena, generally, have no connection with the things they seem to predict. They can be the precursors of physical effects, that are their consequences, as a black spot on the horizon can presage a storm to the sailor, or certain clouds announce hail, but the significance of these phenomena for the things of the moral order should be ranked among the superstitious beliefs, that can never be combated with enough energy.



Such belief, that rests absolutely on nothing rational, makes that, when an event occurs, one remembers some phenomenon that preceded it, and to which the affected mind connects, without worrying about the impossibility of relationships that only exist in the imagination. We do not think that the same phenomena are repeated daily, without resulting in anything untoward, and that the same events happen every moment without being preceded by any pretended precursor sign. If it is about events that concern general interests, credulous, or more often unofficial narrators, to exalt their importance in the eyes of posterity, amplify the forecasts that they struggle to make more sinister and more terrible, by adding alleged disturbances of nature, of which earthquakes and eclipses are the obligatory accessories, as the bishop of Rodez did in connection with the death of Henri IV. These fantastic stories, that often had their source in the interests of the parties, were accepted without examination by popular credulity, that saw, or that one wanted to make see, miracles in these strange phenomena.



As for the vulgar events, man himself is most often their first cause; not wanting to admit his own weaknesses, he seeks an excuse by blaming nature for the vicissitudes that are almost always the result of his improvidence and his lack of care. It is in his passions, in his personal faults that we must seek the true prognoses of his miseries, and not in nature that does not deviate from the path that God has traced for it, for the whole eternity.



Spiritism, by explaining by a natural law the true cause of presentiments, demonstrates, by that very fact, what there is of absurd in the belief of prognoses. Far from giving credit to superstition, it takes away its last refuge: the supernatural.

Is Mr. Jacob a charlatan? His material selflessness is a constant fact, and perhaps one of those that has confused criticism the most. How can one accuse of charlatanism a man who asks for nothing and wants nothing, not even thanks?



So, what would be his driver? Self-love, they say. Since the absolute moral selflessness is sublime abnegation, it would be necessary to have the virtue of the angels not to feel a certain satisfaction when one sees the crowd suddenly elbowing around, whereas one was unknown the day before. Now, as Mr. Jacob does not have the pretensions of being an angel, supposing, what we do not know, that he has exalted his own importance a little bit, in his own eyes, we could not turn this into a great crime, and that would not destroy the facts, if there are any. We like to believe that those who attribute this fault to him are too above earthly things to make the slightest reproach in this regard.



But in any case, this feeling could only be consecutive and not preconceived. If Mr. Jacob had premeditated the plan to popularize him by claiming to be an emeritus healer, without being able to prove anything other than his impotence, instead of applause, he would have only received hoots from day one, that would not have been very flattering to him. To be proud of something, one needs a pre-existing cause; he, therefore, had to cure first, before being proud of himself.



He wanted to make people talk about him, they add; so be it; if that was his goal, we must admit that, thanks to the press, he was served as desired. But which newspaper can say that Mr. Jacob went to beg for the smallest advertisement, the smallest article, that he paid for one line only! Has he sought a single journalist? No, it was the journalists who went to him, and who could not always see him so easily. The press spontaneously spoke of him when they saw the crowd, and the crowd only came when there were facts. Has he been flattering great personalities? Has he shown himself to be more accessible, more eager, more considerate to them? Everyone knows that, in that regard, he has pushed his rigor to the excess. His self-esteem, however, would have found more elements of satisfaction in high society than with the obscure needy people.



We must, therefore, logically rule out any imputation of intrigue and charlatanism.











Does he cure all diseases? Not only does he not heal them all, but of two individuals suffering from the same disease, often he will heal one and do nothing on the other. He never knows in advance if he will cure a sick person, that is why he never promises anything; but we know that charlatans are not greedy with promises. Healing is due to fluidic affinities that manifest themselves instantly, like an electric shock, and that cannot be predetermined.



Is he gifted with a supernatural power? Are we back to the time of miracles? Ask him himself, and he will answer you that there is nothing supernatural or miraculous in these healings; that he is endowed with a fluidic power, independent of his will, that manifests itself with more or less energy, according to the circumstances and the environment in which he finds himself; that the fluid he emits cures certain illnesses in some people, without him knowing why or how.



As for those who claim that this faculty is a gift from the devil, we can answer them that, since it is only exercised for good, we must admit that the devil has good moments from which one must take advantage of. We can also ask them what is the difference between the healings of Prince of Hohenlohe and those of Zouave Jacob, so that some are considered holy and miraculous, and others diabolical? Let’s move on from this issue that cannot be taken seriously these days.



The question of charlatanism prejudged all others, and that is why we insisted on it; this question being ruled out, let us see what conclusions can be drawn from the observation.



Mr. Jacob instantly cured diseases deemed incurable, that is a positive fact. The question of the number of cured patients is secondary here; if there were only one in a hundred, the fact would still exist; this fact has a cause.



The healing faculty brought to this degree of power, found in a soldier that, however honest a man he may be, he has neither the character, nor the habits, nor the language, nor the demeanor of the saints; exercised without any mystical form or apparatus, in the most vulgar and prosaic conditions; found, moreover, in varying degrees in a crowd of other people, in heretics as well as in Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, etc., excluding the idea of miracles in the liturgical sense of the word. It is, therefore, a faculty inherent to the individual; and since it is not an isolated fact, it is because it depends on a law like any natural effect.



The cure is obtained without the use of any medicine, therefore it is due to an occult influence; and given that this is an effective, material result, and that nothing cannot produce something, this influence must necessarily be something material; it can, therefore, only be a material fluid, though intangible and invisible. Mr. Jacob not touching the patient, not even applying any magnetic pass, the fluid can only have the will as its motor and propellant; now, since the will is not an attribute of matter, it can only emanate from the Spirit; it is thus the fluid that acts under the impulse of the Spirit. The greater part of the diseases cured by this means are those against which science is powerless, therefore, there are more powerful curative agents than those of ordinary medicine; these phenomena are, consequently, the revelation of laws unknown to science; in the presence of positive facts it is more prudent to doubt than to deny. These are the conclusions to which any impartial observer inevitably arrives. What is the nature of this fluid? Is it electricity or magnetism? There is probably both, and perhaps something else; In any case, this is a modification of them since the effects are different. The magnetic action is evident, although more powerful than that of ordinary magnetism, of which these facts are the confirmation, and at the same time the proof that it has not said the last word.



It is beyond the scope of this article to explain the mode of action of this curative agent, already described in the theory of healing mediumship; it suffices to have demonstrated that the examination of the facts leads to the recognition of the existence of a new principle, and that this principle, however strange its effects, does not go beyond the domain of natural laws.

In the facts concerning Mr. Jacob, Spiritism was hardly mentioned, while all the attention has been focused on magnetism; it had its reason of being and its usefulness. Although the co-operation of the discarnate Spirits, in these kinds of phenomena, is an established fact, their action is not obvious here, and that is why we disregard them. It does not matter whether the facts are explained with or without the intervention of foreign spirits; magnetism and Spiritism go hand in hand; they are two parts of the same whole, two branches of the same science that complement and explain each other. By accrediting magnetism, one is opening the way to Spiritism, and vice versa.



Criticism did not spare Mr. Jacob; for lack of good reasons, it lavished on him, as usual, mockery and gross insults, that he was not at all moved by; he despised both, and sensible people were grateful to him for his moderation.



Some have gone so far as to request his imprisonment as an impostor, abusing public credulity; but an impostor is one who promises and does not keep; however, since Mr. Jacob never promised anything, no one can complain of having been abused. What could one blame him for? How was he in legal violation? He did not practice medicine, not even ostensibly magnetism. What is the law that forbids healing people by watching them?



He was criticized for the fact that the crowd of sick people who came to him hampered movement; but was it he who called the crowd? Did he summon her with announcements? Who is the doctor who would complain if he had a crowd like that on his doorstep? And if one of them had this good fortune, even at the cost of heavily paid ads, what would he say if he were bothered about this fact? It was said that at a rate of fifteen hundred people a day for a month, that would make forty-five thousand sick people who had showed up, and that at that rate, if he had healed them, there should be no more lame nor crippled people in the streets of Paris. It would be superfluous to respond to this singular objection, but we will say that the more we increase the number of patients that, cured or not, crowded into the dead end of the rue de la Roquette, the more we prove how great is the number of those that medicine cannot cure, for it is evident that if these sick people had been cured by the doctors, they would not have come to Mr. Jacob.



Since, despite the denials, there were positive facts of extraordinary cures, they wanted to explain them by saying that Mr. Jacob was acting, by the very bluntness of his words, on the imagination of the sick; so be it, but then if you recognize such a power by the influence of the imagination over paralysis, epilepsies, stiff limbs, why don’t you employ this means, instead of allowing so many unfortunate patients to suffer, or give them drugs that you know are useless?



The proof, it has been said, that Mr. Jacob did not have the power he claimed, is that he refused to go to a hospital to perform cures before the eyes of competent people, to appreciate the reality of the cures.



Two reasons must have motivated this refusal. First, one could not hide that the offer made to him was not dictated by sympathy, but a challenge posed on him. If, in a ward of thirty patients, he had only raised or relieved three or four, they would certainly have said that he proved nothing and that he had failed.



In the second place, it is necessary to consider the circumstances that can favor or paralyze his fluidic action. When he is surrounded by sick people who come to him voluntarily, the confidence they bring predisposes them. Not admitting any stranger attracted by curiosity, he finds himself in a sympathetic environment which predisposes himself; he is his own man; his mind is freely concentrated, and his action has all its power. In a hospital ward, unknown to the patients who are used to the care of their doctors, where believing in anything beyond their medication would be to suspect their skills, under the inquisitive and mocking gazes of prewarned people, interested in the degrading him, instead of aiding him by the concurrence of benevolent intentions, they would fear more than they would wish to see him succeed, because the success of an ignorant Zouave would be a denial given to their knowledge, it is evident that, under such impressions and these antipathetic emanations, his faculty would be neutralized. The mistake of those gentlemen, in this as when dealing with somnambulism, was always to believe that these kinds of phenomena could be operated at will, like an electric battery.



Healings of this kind are spontaneous, unpredictable, and cannot be premeditated or called into competition. Let us add to this that the healing power is not permanent; he who possesses it today can see it cease when he least expects it; these intermittences prove that it depends on a cause independent of the will of the healer, and frustrate the calculations of charlatanism.



Observation: Mr. Jacob has not yet resumed the course of his healings; we do not know why, and it does not appear that there is anything settled as to when he will start them again, if it is to take place. In the meantime, we learn that healing mediumship is spreading in different places, with different abilities.

When the novel Mirette appeared, the Spirits said these remarkable words at the Parisian Society:



“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 pass without seeing the appearance of new publications of the same kind, and more serious still, in the sense that the novel will become philosophy and that philosophy will be made history.” (Spiritist Review, February 1867).”



They had already said previously that several serious works were being prepared on the philosophy of Spiritism, in which the name of the doctrine would not be timidly concealed, but highly avowed and proclaimed, by men whose name and social position would give weight to their opinion; and they added that the first would probably appear towards the end of the present year.



The book we are announcing fully realizes that vision. It is the first publication of its kind where the question is considered in all its parts and with all its greatness; we can, therefore, say that it inaugurates one of the phases of the existence of Spiritism. What characterizes it is that it is not a banal adherence to the principles of the doctrine, a simple profession of faith, but a rigorous demonstration, in which the followers themselves will find new insights. By reading this dense argumentation, if we can say so, to the minutiae, and by a methodical sequence of ideas, we will undoubtedly wonder by which strange extension of the word we could apply to the author the epithet of mad. If it is a madman that argues like this, we could say that madmen sometimes shut the mouths to supposedly wise people. It is a formal plea in which we recognize the lawyer who wants to reduce the reply to its last limits; but we also recognize there the one who studied his cause seriously and scrutinized it in its most minute details. The author does not limit himself to expressing his opinion: he shows its foundation and gives the reason for everything; this is why he has appropriately titled his book: The Reason of Spiritism.



By publishing this work, without covering his personality with the slightest veil, the author proves that he has the true courage of his opinion, and the example he gives is a tribute to the recognition of all Spiritists. The point of view that he took is mainly that of the philosophical, moral, and religious consequences, those that constitute the essential goal of Spiritism and make it a humanitarian work.



Here is how he expresses himself in the preface.



“It is in the vicissitudes of human affairs, or rather it seems fatally reserved for any new idea, to be badly welcomed when it appears. Since, most frequently, its mission is to overturn preceding ideas, it meets great resistance from human understanding.



The man who has lived with prejudices only welcomes the newcomer with suspicion, who tends to modify, to even destroy combinations and ideas established in his mind, to force him, in a word, to put himself back to work, to run after the truth. Besides, he also feels humiliated in his pride for having lived in error.



The repulsion that the new idea inspires is even more accentuated, when it brings along obligations and duties, when it imposes a stricter line of conduct.



Finally, it encounters systematic, ardent, relentless attacks when it threatens established positions, and especially when it is faced with fanaticism or opinions deeply rooted in the tradition of centuries.



The new doctrines, therefore, always have many detractors; they even often have to undergo persecution, that made Fontenelle say: "That if he held all the truths in his hand, he would be careful not to open it."



Such were the disfavor and the perils that awaited Spiritism when it appeared in the world of ideas. Insults, mockery, calumny did not spare it; and, perhaps, the day of persecution will also come. The followers of Spiritism were treated as illuminated, hallucinated, fools, madmen, and to this flow of epithets that seemed to contradict and exclude one another, finally were added those of impostors, charlatans, and finally, Satan's envoys.



The qualification of madman is what seems more especially reserved to any promoter or propagator of new ideas. That is how the first to say that earth revolves around the sun was called a madman.



The famous navigator who discovered a new world was a madman as well. He was still a madman, by the Areopagus of science, the one that found the power of steam; and the enlightened assembly received, with a disdainful smile, Franklin's dissertation on the properties of electricity and the theory of the lightning rod.



Wasn’t the divine regenerator of mankind, also called a madman, the authorized reformer of the law of Moses? Did he not atone, by ignominious torture, the inoculation of earth with the benefits of divine morality?



Didn't Galileo atone, as a heretic, in a cruel sequestration and by the most bitter moral persecutions, the glory of having been the first to have the initiative of the planetary system whose laws Newton was to promulgate?



Saint John the Baptist, the precursor of Christ, had also been sacrificed in the vengeance of the culprits whose crimes he branded.



The apostles, depositaries of the teachings of the divine Messiah, had to seal the holiness of their mission with their blood. And wasn’t the reformed religion persecuted in turn, and after the massacres of Saint Bartholomew, didn’t it have to endure the dragonnades?

Finally, going back to the ostracism inspired by other passions, we see Aristide exiled, and Socrates condemned to drink hemlock.



Without a doubt, thanks to the gentle manners that characterize our century, protected by our institutions and the enlightenment that put a brake on fanatic intolerance, the pyres will no longer be raised to purify the Spiritist doctrines by the flames, whose paternity they intend to take back to Satan. But they too must expect the most hostile outcry and attacks from keen adversaries.



However, this militant state could not weaken the courage of those who are driven by a deep conviction, of those who have the certainty of holding in their hands one of those fruitful truths that constitute, in their development, a great benefit to humanity.



But, whatever may be the antagonism of ideas or doctrines that Spiritism will give rise to; whatever the perils that it must open under the feet of the followers, the Spiritist cannot leave this lamp under the bushel, and refuse to give it all the brilliance it entails, the support of his convictions and the sincere testimony of his conscience.



Spiritism, revealing to man the economy of his organization, initiating him in the knowledge of his destinies, opens an immense field to his mediations. Thus, the Spiritist philosopher, called to focus his investigations onto these new and splendid horizons, has by only limits the infinite. He attends, in a way, the supreme council of the Creator. But enthusiasm is the pitfall that he must avoid, especially when he casts his eyes on the man that has grown so tall, and yet proudly makes himself so small. He is, therefore, only enlightened by the lights of a sensible reason, and by taking a cold and severe logic as guide, that he must direct his peregrinations in the domain of the divine science, whose veil has been lifted by the Spirits.



This book is the result of our own studies and our mediations on this subject that, from the outset, seemed to us of capital importance, and to have consequences of the highest gravity. We acknowledged that these ideas have deep roots, and we saw the dawn of a new era for society in them; the speed with which they spread is an indication of their imminent admission among the accepted beliefs. Because of their very importance, we were not satisfied with the assertions and arguments of the doctrine; not only have we made sure of the reality of the facts, but we have scrutinized, with meticulous attention, the principles that result from them; we have sought their reason with cold impartiality, without neglecting the not less conscientious study of the objections, raised by the antagonists; like a judge who listens to both opposing sides, we have carefully weighed the pros and cons. It is, therefore, after having acquired the conviction that the contrary allegations do not destroy anything; that the doctrine rests on serious bases, on a rigorous logic, and not on chimerical reveries; that it contains the germ of a healthy renewal of the social state, that is quietly undermined by incredulity; that it is, finally, a powerful barrier against the invasion of materialism and demoralization, that we thought we should give our personal appreciation, and the deductions that we have drawn from a careful study.



Having, therefore, found a reason for the principles of this new science that has come to rank among human knowledge, we have named our book: The Reason for Spiritism. This title is justified by the point of view from which we have approached the subject, and those who read us will readily recognize that this work is not the product of thoughtless enthusiasm, but of a carefully and coldly considered examination.



We are convinced that whoever, without the prejudices of a systematic opposition, carry out, as we have done, a conscientious study of the Spiritist doctrine, will regard it as one of the things that concerns the future of humanity in the highest degree.



By giving our support to this doctrine, we are using the right to freedom of conscience that cannot be contested by anyone, whatever their belief; even more so, this freedom must be respected when it has for objective the principles of the highest morality that lead men to the practice of the teachings of Christ, and by that very fact, are the safeguard of the social order.



The writer who devotes his pen to outlining the impression that such teachings have left in the sanctuary of his conscience, must be careful not to confuse the rants hatched in his terrestrial horizon, with the luminous lines that originated from the sky. If there remain obscure or hidden points in his explanations, points that are not yet given to him to know, it is because, in the views of the divine wisdom, they remain reserved to a higher degree in the ascending scale of his progressive purification and perfectibility.



Nevertheless, let us hasten to say this, every convinced and conscientious man, by devoting his meditations to the diffusion of a fruitful truth, for the happiness of humanity, dips his pen in the celestial atmosphere where our globe is immersed, and undoubtedly receives the spark of inspiration.”



The indication of the title of the chapters will reveal the framework embraced by the author.



1. Definition of Spiritism. 2. Principle of good and evil. 3. Union of the soul with the body. 4. Reincarnation. 5. Phrenology. 6. Original sin. 7. Hell. 8. Mission of Christ. 9. Purgatory. 10. Heavens. 11. Plurality of the inhabited globes. 12. Charity. 13. Duties of man. - 14. Perispirit. 15. Necessity of the revelation. 16. Timeliness of revelation. 17. Angels and demons. 18. The predicted times. 19. Prayer. 20. Faith. 21. Response to the scorners. 22. Response to unbelievers, atheists, and materialists. 23. Appeal to the clergy.



We are sorry that the lack of space does not allow us to reproduce as many passages as we would have liked. We will limit ourselves to a few quotes.



Chap. III, page 41. - “The reciprocal and indispensable utility of soul and body, for their respective cooperation, therefore, constitutes the reason of their union. It constitutes, moreover, to the spirit, the militant conditions in the path of progress, where it is called to conquer its intellectual and moral personality.



How do these two principles normally accomplish, in man, the goal of their destination? When the Spirit is faithful to his divine aspirations, he restricts the animal and sensual instincts of the body, and reduces them to their providential action, in the work of the Creator; it develops, it grows. It is the perfection of the work itself that takes place. He arrives at happiness, the last term of which is inherent to the supreme degree of perfectibility.



If, on the contrary, abdicating the sovereignty that he is called to exercise over the body, he yields to the calls of the senses, and if he accepts their conditions of earthly pleasures as the sole goal of his aspirations, he distorts the reason of being of his existence, and far from accomplishing his destinies, he remains stationary; attached to this earthly life that, however, should have been only an accessory condition, since it could not be his end, the Spirit, from the leader that he was, becomes subordinate; he insanely accepts the earthly happiness that his senses experience, and that they propose to satisfy, thus stifling in him the intuition of the true happiness that is reserved. This is his first punishment."





In chapter XII, about hell, page 99, we find this remarkable appreciation of death and the destructive scourges:



Could it be, by enumerating the plagues that bring terror and fear, suffering and death on earth, that one would think that one could give proof of the manifestations of the divine anger?



Know then, reckless evokers of celestial vengeances, that the cataclysms to which you point out, far from having the exclusive character of a punishment inflicted on humanity are, on the contrary, an act of divine mercy, that closes to humanity the abyss into which its disorders precipitated it, and opens for it the avenue of progress that must bring it back to the path she must follow to ensure its regeneration.



What are these cataclysms, if not a new phase in the existence of man, a happy era, marking for peoples and humanity the providential point of their advancement?



Know then that death is not an evil; beacon of the existence of the Spirit, it is always, for it comes from God, the sign of his mercy and his benevolent assistance. Death is only the end of the body, the end of an incarnation, and in the hands of God, it is the annihilation of a corrupting and vicious environment, the interruption of a fatal current, from which, in a solemn moment, the Providence extract man and peoples.



Death is only a break in the earthly trial; far from harming man, or rather the Spirit, it calls him to recollect himself in the invisible world, either to recognize his faults and regret them, or to enlighten and prepare himself, by firm and healthyresolutions, to resume the trial of earthly life.



Death only freezes a man with fear because, being too identified with earth, he has no faith in his grand destiny, of which earth is only the painful workshop where his purification must be accomplished.



Hence, stop believing that death is an instrument of anger and vengeance in the hands of God; know, on the contrary, that it is both the expression of his mercy and his justice, either by stopping the wicked in the path of iniquity, or by shortening the time of trials or exile of the just on Earth.



And you, ministers of Christ, who from the pulpit of truth proclaim the wrath and vengeance of God, and seem, by your eloquent descriptions of the fantastic furnace, to fan its inextinguishable flames to devour the miserable sinner; you who, from your authorized lips, let fall this terrifying epigraph: “Never! - Always! Have you forgotten the instructions of your divine Teacher?”





We will also quote the following passages from the chapter on the original sin:



“Instead of creating the perfect soul, God wanted it to get there only by long and constant efforts, that she should succeed in freeing herself from this state of native inferiority and gravitate towards her august destinies. To achieve these ends, shetherefore must break the links that attach her to matter, resisting the enticement of the senses, with the alternative of her supremacy over the body, or the obsession exerted on her by the animal instincts. It is from these earthly ties that it is important to free herself, and that constitute the very conditions of her inferiority; these are no other than the so-called original sin, the alveolus that veils her divine essence. The original sin thus constitutes the primitive ascendancy that the animal instincts must have first exercised over the aspirations of the soul. Such is the state of man that Genesis wanted to represent, under the naive figure of the tree of the science of good and evil. The intervention of the tempting serpent is no other than the desires of the flesh and the solicitation of the senses; Christianity has blessed this allegory as a real fact, connected to the existence of the first man; and it is on this fact that it based the dogma of redemption.



Seen from this point of view, it must be admitted, the original sin must have been, and indeed was, that of all posterity of the first man, and it will be so for a long series of centuries, until the complete liberation of the Spirit from the constraints of matter; an emancipation that undoubtedly tends to be realized, but that has not yet been achieved in our days.



In a word, the original sin constitutes the conditions of human nature bearing the first elements of its existence, with all the vices it has engendered.



The original sin is selfishness and pride that preside over all acts of man’s life; It is the demon of envy and jealousy that gnaw at his heart; It is the ambition that disturbs his sleep; It is the greed that cannot be satisfied by his voracity for profit; It is the love and thirst for gold, this essential element to satisfy all the demands of luxury, comfort and well-being, that pursues the century with such ardor.



Here is the original sin proclaimed by Genesis, and that man has always concealed in himself; it will not be erased until the day when, aware of his high destinies, man abandons, in accordance with the lesson of the good La Fontaine, the shadow for the prey; the day when he will renounce the mirage of the earthly happiness, to turn all his aspirations towards the real happiness that is reserved for him.



May man, therefore, learn to make himself worthy of his title of leader among all created beings, and of the ethereal essence emanating from the very heart of his creator, and of which he is molded. May he be strong to fight against the tendencies of his earthly envelope, whose instincts are foreign to his divine aspirations, and cannot constitute his spiritual personality; may his sole purpose always be to gravitate towards the perfection of his final end, and the original sin will no longer exist for him."



Mr. Bonnamy is already known to our readers, who were able to appreciate the firmness, the independence of his character, and the elevation of his feelings, by the remarkable letter that we published from him in the Spiritist Review, March 1866, in the article entitled: Spiritism and the magistrature. Today, through a work of great significance, he comes resolutely to lend the support and authority of his name to a cause that, in his conscience, he considers that of humanity.



Among the already numerous followers that Spiritism has in the judiciary, Mr. Jaubert, Vice-President of the Carcassonne Court, and Mr. Bonnamy, investigating judge in Villeneuve-sur-Lot, are the first who have openly displayed the flag; and they did it, not on the day after victory, but at the time of the struggle, when the doctrine is under attack from its adversaries, and when its followers are still under the blow of persecution. The current and future Spiritists will know how to appreciate it and will not forget it. When a doctrine receives the votes of men so highly considered, it is the best response to the diatribes of which it may be the object.



Mr. Bonnamy's work will mark in the archives of Spiritism, not only as the first one of its kind, but above all for its philosophical importance. The author examines the doctrine, he discusses the principles from which he draws the quintessence, completely disregarding any personality, excluding any thought of coterie.

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[1] One volume in-12; price 3 francs, by post 3.5 francs. International bookshop, 15 Boulevard Montmartre in Paris.

No account is taken of letters that are not conspicuously signed, or that go without a firm address when the name is unknown. They are discarded.

This response is also addressed to a series of letters bearing the stamp of Besançon road, coming daily for a certain time. If this notice reaches their author, he will be informed that, for the above reason, and given their length, they were not even read whenthey arrived; the person responsible for taking care of the correspondence put them aside, like all those that are surrounded by mystery, and that, for this reason, are not considered serious enough to take our time, in detriment of work of real importance, and that is barely sufficient.

Allan Kardec