Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1869

Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1869

January

The Process of Marseille’s Poisoners

The name of Spiritism was incidentally involved in this deplorable affair; one of the accused, the herbalist Joye, said he was involved, and that he was questioning the Spirits; does it prove that he was a Spiritist, and can we infer from that anything against the doctrine? Those who want to decry it will undoubtedly not fail to seek there a pretext for accusation; but if the diatribes of malevolence have hitherto gone without result, it is because they have always been false, and it will be the same here. It is quite simple to know if Spiritism incurs any responsibility in this case: it is to inquire in good faith, not among the adversaries, but from the very source, what is it that he prescribes and what is it that he condemns; there is nothing secret about it; his teachings are out in the open and anyone can control them. If, therefore, the books of the doctrine only contain instructions lead to good; if they explicitly and formally condemn all the actions of this man, the practices in which he has indulged himself, the despicable and ridiculous role he attributes to the Spirits, it is for the fact that he did not collect his inspirations there; there isn’t an impartial man who does not agree and does not declare Spiritism out of the question in this episode.



Spiritism only recognizes as its followers those who put its teachings into practice, that is who work for their own moral improvement, because that is the characteristic sign of the true Spiritist. It is not more responsible for the acts of those who like to call themselves Spiritists than true science is for the charlatanism of the swindlers who call themselves physics teachers, nor the sane religion for the abuses committed in its name.



The prosecution says, about Joye: "A register has been found with him that gives an idea of his character and his occupations." According to him, each page would have been written from the dictation of the Spirits, full of ardent sighs towards Jesus Christ. Every page speaks of God and the saints are invoked. On the side, so to speak, there are notes that can give an idea of the usual operations of the herbalist:



“For Spiritism, 4.25 francs – the sick, 6 francs - letters, 2 francs - Spells, 10 francs - Exorcisms, 4 francs - Divination wand, 10 francs - Hexes for fortune telling, 60 francs" and many other designations, among which we meet with evil spells to satiety, ending with this one: “In January I made 226 francs. The other months were less successful."







Has anyone ever seen in the books of the Spiritist doctrine the apology for such practices, or anything likely to provoke them? Don’t we see, on the contrary, that they repudiate any connection with magic, witchcraft, devils, card drawers, diviners, fortune tellers, and all those who make a living from trading with the Spirits, by claiming to have them at their command at so much per session?



If Joye were a Spiritist, he would have already regarded it as a profanation to bring in the Spirits in such circumstances; he would have known, moreover, that the Spirits are not at the orders of anyone and do not come on command, or by the influence of any cabalistic sign; that the Spirits are the souls of men who have lived on Earth or in other worlds, our parents, our friends, our contemporaries or our ancestors; that they were men like us, and that after our death we will be Spirits like them; that gnome, goblins, leprechauns, demons are creations of pure fantasy and exist only in the imagination; that the Spirits are free, freer than when they were incarnate, and that the claim to submit them to our whims and our will, to make them act and speak as we please for our amusement or our interest, is a chimerical idea; that they come when they want, how they want, and to whom it suits them; that the providential purpose of the communications with the Spirits is our instruction and moral improvement, and not to help us in the material things of life that we can do or find for ourselves, and much less to serve greed; finally, because of their very nature and the respect that we owe to the souls of those who have lived, it is as irrational as it is immoral to hold an office open to consultations or exhibitions of the Spirits. To ignore these things is to ignore the “a b c d” of Spiritism; and when the critic confuses it with fortune telling, chiromancy, exorcisms, the practices of witchcraft, spells, enchantments, etc., it proves that it ignores all of its principles; now, to deny or condemn a doctrine that one does not know is to fail the most elementary logic; it is to lend it or make it say precisely the opposite of what it says; it is slander or partiality.



Since Joye mixed the name of God, Jesus, and the invocation of saints with his procedures, he could just as easily mix the name of Spiritism, that does not prove against the doctrine any more than his simulacrum of devotion proves against the healthy religion. He was therefore no more a Spiritist, because he supposedly questioned the Spirits, than the women Lamberte and Dye were pious, because they burnt candles to the Good Mother, Our Lady of La Guard, for the success of their poisonings. Moreover, if he were a Spiritist, it would not even have occurred to him to use, for the perpetration of evil, a doctrine whose first law is the love of neighbor, and that has for motto: there is no salvation except through charity. If one imputed to Spiritism the incitement to such acts, one could, by the same token, blame religion.



Here are some thoughts on this subject, from the National Opinion, on December 8th:



“The newspaper Le Monde accuses the Siècle, the bad newspapers, the bad meetings, the bad books, of complicity in the affair of the poisoners of Marseilles.



We read, with painful curiosity, the debates on this strange affair; but we have not seen anywhere that the wizard Joye or the witch Lamberte were subscribers to the Siècle, the L’Avenir or the Opinion. We found only one diary at Joye's: it was an issue of the Devil, Diary from Hell. The widows who figure in this amiable trial are far from being free thinkers. They burn candles to the good Virgin, to obtain from Our Lady the grace to calmly poison their husbands. We find in the case all the old paraphernalia of the Middle Ages: bones of corpses collected in the cemetery; disguises that are just spells of the time of Queen Margot. All those ladies were educated, not in the Elisa Lemonnier schools, but with the good nuns. Add to Catholic superstitions the modern superstitions, Spiritism, and charlatanism. It was absurdity that drove those women to crime. Thus, in Spain, near the mouths of the Ebro, one sees in the mountain a chapel erected to Our Lady of the Thieves.



“Sow superstition and you will reap crime. That is why we ask that science be sown. "Enlighten the head of the people," said Victor Hugo, "and you will no longer need to cut it off."

J. Labbé.”





The argument that the accused did not subscribe to certain newspapers lacks in accuracy, because we know that it is not necessary to be a subscriber to a newspaper to read it, especially for that class of people. The National Opinion could therefore have reached some of them, without any conclusion against this newspaper. What would it have said if Joye had claimed to have been inspired by the doctrines of that periodical? It would have replied: read it and see if you find there a single word that might excite bad passions. Father Verger certainly had the Gospel with him; besides, he had to study it, given his condition; can we say that it was the Gospel that prompted him to assassinate the Archbishop of Paris? Was it the Gospel that armed the hands of Ravaillac and Jacques Clément? Who lit the pyres of the Inquisition? And yet, it is in the name of the Gospel that all those crimes were committed.



The author of the article says: “sow superstition, and you will reap crime;” He is right, but what is wrong is to confuse the abuse of something thing with the thing itself; if we wanted to suppress everything that could be abused, very little would escape proscription, without exception to the press. Some modern reformers are like men who would cut down a good tree, because it bears some crooked fruit.



He adds: “That is why we ask that science be sown.” He is right again, for science is an element of progress, but is it sufficient for complete moralization? Don’t we see men putting their knowledge at the service of their bad passions? Wasn't Lapommeraie an educated man, a licensed doctor, enjoying a certain credit, and a man of society? It was the same with Castaing and so many others. One can therefore abuse science; should we conclude that science is a bad thing? And because a doctor has failed, should the fault fall onto the entire medical profession? Why then impute to Spiritism that of a man who liked to call himself a Spiritist, and who was not one? Before passing any judgment whatsoever, one had to first inquire whether he had been able to find in the Spiritist Doctrine maxims capable of justifying his acts. Why the medical science is not supportive of Lapommeraie’s crime? Because the latter could not draw incitement to crime from the principles of that science; he applied for evil the resources that it provides for good; and yet he was more of a doctor than Joye was a Spiritist. This is the case of applying the proverb: "When you want to kill your dog, you say it is mad."



Education is essential, no one disputes that; but without moralization, it is only an instrument, too often unproductive for those who do not know how to regulate it use to good. To educate the masses without moralizing them is to place a tool in their hands without teaching them how to use it, for moralization that is addressed to the heart does not necessarily follow the instruction that is addressed only to the intelligence. Experience is there to prove it. But how to moralize the masses? This is what people have been the least concerned with, and it will certainly not be by nourishing them with the idea that there is no God, nor soul, nor hope, because all the sophisms in the world will not demonstrate that the man who believes that for him everything begins and ends with his body, has more powerful reasons to constrain himself in order to improve, than the one who understands the solidarity that exists between the past, the present and the future. It is, however, this belief in the nothingness that a certain school of the so-called reformers claims to impose on humanity, as the element of moral progress par excellence.



In quoting Victor Hugo, the author forgets, or better, does not suspect, that the latter has openly affirmed his belief in the fundamental principles of Spiritism on many occasions; it is true that it is not Spiritism like that of Joye; but when we don't know, it is easy to get confused.



However regrettable the abuse that was made of the name of Spiritism in this affair, not a single Spiritist was worried with the consequences that could result from that to the doctrine; it is because, in fact, its morality being unassailable, it cannot be affected; experience proves, on the contrary, that there isn’t a single circumstance in which the name of Spiritism was involved that has not turned to its own benefit by an increase in the number of adepts, because the examination that the impact provokes can only be to its advantage.



It should be noted, however, that in this case, with very few exceptions, the press refrained from any comment on Spiritism; a few years ago, it would have opened its columns for two months, and would not have failed to present Joye as one of the highest priests of doctrine. It has also been observed that neither the President of the Court nor the Attorney General in his indictment dwelled on this circumstance and drew no inference from it. It was just Joye's lawyer that did his job as best as he could.

Spiritism Everywhere

Lamartine

Among the oscillations of sky and ship,

Lulled by waves, slow and gigantic,

Man goes around the Cape of Storms,

Passing through lightning and darkness,

The stormy tropic of another humanity!


On May 20th Le Siècle quoted these lines in connection with an article about the commercial crisis. What do they have of Spiritist, people will ask! There is nothing about souls or Spirits. With even more reason one could ask what relationship they have with the substance of the article in which they were framed, dealing with taxation of commodities. They touch much more directly Spiritism, because it is, in another form, the thought expressed by the Spirits on the future that is being prepared; it is in a language both sublime and concise, the announcement of the convulsions that humanity will have to undergo for its regeneration, and that the Spirits make us foresee as imminent, from all sides. Everything is summed up in this deep thought: another humanity, the image of a transformed humanity, of the new moral world replacing the old world that is collapsing. The first indications of those changes are already being felt, which is why the Spirits tell us, in all tones, that the times have come. Mr. Lamartine made a true prophecy here, whose realization we are beginning to see.

Etienne de Jouy (from the French Academy)

We read what follows in the volume XVI of the complete works by Mr. de Jouy, entitled: Mixtures, page 99; it is a dialogue between Mrs. de Staël, deceased, and the living Duc de Broglie.



Mr. de Broglie: What do I see! Can it be?



Mrs. de Staël: My dear Victor, do not be alarmed, and without questioning me about a miracle whose cause no living being can penetrate, enjoy with me for a moment the happiness that this nocturnal apparition gives us both. There are, as you see, bonds that even death cannot break; the sweet harmony of feelings, views, opinions, forms the chain that connects perishable life to immortal life, preventing what has been united for long from being separated forever.



M. de Broglie: I believe I could explain this happy sympathy by intellectual concordance.



Mrs. de Staël: Don't explain anything, please, I have no more time to waste. These relations of love that survive the material organs do not leave me oblivious to the feelings towards the objects of my most tender affections. My children live; they honor and cherish my memory, I know that; but there is where my present connection with Earth ends; the night of the tomb envelops everything else.



In the same volume, page 83 and following, there is another dialogue, where various historical figures are staged, revealing their existence and the role they have played in successive lives. The correspondent who sent us this note adds:



"I believe, like you do, that the best way to bring a good number of recalcitrant to the doctrine that we preach, is to show them that what they see as an ogre ready to devour them, or as a ridiculous buffoonery, is nothing else but only what was hatched by meditation on the destinies of man, in the brains of serious thinkers of all times."



Mr. de Jouy was a writer in the beginning of this century. His complete works were published in 1823, in twenty-seven volumes, by Didot edition.

Silvio Pellico

Extracted from My Prisons, by Silvio Pellico, Chapters XLV and XLVI



“Such a state was a real disease; I don't know if I shouldn't say a sort of somnambulism. It seemed to me that there were two men in me: one who wanted to write continuously, and the other who wanted to do something else ...



“During those horrible nights, my imagination was sometimes excited to such an extent that, while awake, in my prison I thought I heard sometimes moans, sometimes stifled laughter. Since my childhood, I had never believed in wizards or Spirits, and now those laughter and moans terrified me; I did not know how to explain them; I was forced to wonder if I weren’t the plaything of some unknown and evil power.



"Several times I took the light, trembling, and looked to see if anyone was hidden under my bed, making fun of me. When I was at the table, sometimes it seemed to me that someone was pulling me by my coat, sometimes that someone was pushing a book that fell to the ground; sometimes also I thought that a person behind me was blowing my light to put it out. I then stood up hurriedly, I looked around; I walked around with suspicion, asking myself if I were crazy or in my whole sense, for amid all that I was experiencing, I could no longer distinguish reality from illusion, and I cried with anguish: My God, my God, ut quid dereliquisti me?[1]



“Once I got to bed before dawn, and I was perfectly sure that I had placed my handkerchief under my pillow. After a moment of dozing off, I awoke as usual, and it seemed that I was being strangled. I felt my neck tightly wrapped. Strange thing! It was wrapped with my handkerchief, strongly tied by several knots! I could have sworn I hadn't tied those knots; I hadn't even touched my handkerchief since I put it under the pillow. I had to have done it while dreaming or in a fit of delirium, without having kept any memory of that; but I could not believe it, and since that moment I feared to be strangled every night."



If some of these facts can be attributed to an imagination overexcited by suffering, there are others that seem genuinely provoked by invisible agents, and it must be noted that Silvio Pellico did not believe in these things; such a cause could not occur to him, and unable to explain it to himself, he was frightened by what was happening around him. Today that his Spirit is freed from the veil of matter, he realizes not only these facts, but the different events of his life; he acknowledges as fair what previously seemed unfair to him. He explained this in the following communication, requested for this purpose.



Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, October 18th, 1867



“How great and powerful is this God humans have constantly diminished by trying to define him, and how the petty passions that we lend him to understand him are proof of our weakness and our lack of progress! A vengeful God! A God-judge! An executioner God! No; all of this only exists in human imagination, incapable of understanding infinity. What a crazy recklessness to want to define God! He is incomprehensible and indefinable, and we can only bow under his mighty hand, without seeking to understand and analyze his nature. The facts are there to prove to us that he exists! Let us study these facts and through them go back from cause to cause as far as we can go; but let us not tackle the cause of the causes until we fully possess the secondary causes, and when we understand all their effects! ...



Yes, the laws of the Eternal are immutable! Today they strike the culprit, as they have always done, according to the nature of the faults committed and in proportion to those faults. They strike inexorably, and are followed by moral consequences, not fatal, but inevitable. The penalty of retaliation is a fact, and the word of the old law: "Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth," is accomplished in all its rigor. Not only is the proud man humbled, but he is struck in his pride in the same way he struck others. The iniquitous judge is unjustly condemned; the despot becomes oppressed! Yes, I have ruled over men; I made them bend under an iron yoke; I struck them in their affections and their freedom; and later, in my turn, I had to bow under the oppressor, I was deprived of my affections and my freedom!



But how can the oppressor of yesterday become the republican of tomorrow? It is a very simple thing, and the observation of the facts that take place before your eyes should give you the key. Don’t you see, during a single existence, the same personality, alternately dominant and dominated? And isn’t that the case, if it governs despotically in the first case, it is, in the second, one of those who struggle most strongly against despotism?



The same takes place from one life to another. This is certainly not a rule without exception; but generally, those who are apparently the most frenzied liberals, once were the keenest supporters of power, and this is understandable, for it is logical that those who have long been accustomed to reign unchallenged, satisfying their least whims without obstacles, be those who suffer the most from oppression, and the most passionate about throwing off its yoke. Despotism and its excesses, by a remarkable consequence of the laws of God, necessarily drive those who exercise it to an unrestrained love of liberty, and these two excesses, one worn out by the other, inevitably bring calm and moderation.



These are the explanations I believe to be useful to you, regarding the desire you have expressed. I will be pleased if they are such as to satisfy you.

Silvio Pellico.”

[1] Latin expression meaning: why have you forsaken me? (T.N.)

Varieties

The miser of Oven Street

The Petite Presse, November 19th, 1868, transcribed from the le Droit newspaper the following fact:



“In a miserable garret in Oven Street[1], an individual of a certain age, named P… lived in poverty. He did not receive anyone; he prepared his own meals, that were much smaller than those of an anchorite. Covered in sordid clothes, he slept on an even more sordid pallet. Extremely thin, he seemed parched by privations of all sorts, and was generally believed to be in the grip of the most profound destitution.



Meanwhile, a nasty smell had started to spread around the house. It increased in intensity and ended up reaching the establishment of a small caterer, located on the ground floor, to the point that customers complained. The cause of those miasmas was then carefully sought, and they ended up discovering that they came from the accommodation occupied by Mr. P ... The discovery made them think that the man had not been seen for a long time, and fearing that some misfortune had happened to him, they hastened to inform the district police commissioner.



The officer immediately went to the scene and had the door opened by a locksmith; but as soon as they tried to enter the room, they were nearly suffocated and had to move away promptly. It was only after some time when the air in the cubicle was refreshed that it was possible to enter and cautiously proceed to the findings.



A sad spectacle was presented to the police officer and the doctor who accompanied him. Mr. P's body was lying on the bed… in a state of complete putrefaction; it was covered with anthrax flies, and thousands of worms gnawed at the flesh, which fell apart in shreds.



The state of decomposition did not allow to recognize with certainty the cause of death, dating back to a distant time, but the absence of any trace of violence suggested that it must be attributed to a natural cause, such as a stroke or aneurysm. They also found in a piece of furniture a sum of about 35,000 francs, both in cash and in shares, industrial bonds, and various securities.



Following the ordinary formalities, they promptly removed the human remains and disinfected the room. The money and securities were sealed by Justice."





This man was evoked in the Parisian Society and gave the following communication:




Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, November 20th, 1868 – medium Mr. Rul



“You ask me why I let myself starve, being in possession of a treasure; 35,000 francs is a fortune indeed! Alas! Gentlemen, you are too well informed of what is going on around you not to understand that I was undergoing trials, and my end tells you enough that I failed. Indeed, in a previous existence, I had fought strongly against poverty that I had overcome only by prodigies of activity, energy, and perseverance. For twenty times I was on the verge of being deprived of the fruits of my hard labor. Also, I was not kind to the poor that I sent away when they came to my house. I reserved everything I earned for my family, wife, and children.



I chose as a test, in this new existence, to be sober, moderate in my tastes, and to share my fortune with the poor, my disinherited brothers. Have I kept my word? You see the opposite; for I have indeed been sober, moderate, more than moderate; but I was not charitable.



My unhappy ending was only the beginning of my sufferings, harder, more painful now, when I see with the eyes of the Spirit. So, I would not have had the courage to present myself before you, if I had not been assured that you are good, compassionate with misfortune; I come to ask you to pray for me. Alleviate my sufferings, you who know the means of making the sufferings less poignant; pray for your brother who is suffering and who wants to come back and suffer much more still!



Have pity on me, my God! Pity on the weak being who failed; and you, gentlemen, have compassion for your brother, who recommends himself to your prayers.

The miser of Oven Street.”

[1] Rue du Four-Saint-Germain (T.N.)

Suicide by obsession

The Droit reads:



“Mr. Jean-Baptiste Sadoux, manufacturer of canoes in Joinville-Le-Pont, saw yesterday a young man wandering around on a bridge for some time, and later climbed on the parapet and rushed into the Marne. He immediately went to his aid and brought him back after seven minutes. But the asphyxiation was already complete, and all the attempts made to revive the unfortunate man were unsuccessful.



A letter found on him allowed to identify him as Mr. Paul D…, aged twenty-two, living at Sedaine Street, in Paris. The letter, addressed by the suicide man to his father, was extremely touching. He begged for his forgiveness for abandoning him and told him that for two years he had been dominated by a terrible idea, by an irresistible desire to destroy himself. He seemed to hear, he added, a voice beyond life calling on him relentlessly, and despite his best efforts, he could not help but go towards it. In the pocket of his jacket, they also found a new rope with a noose. After the forensic examination, the body was returned to the family."





The obsession is very evident here, and what is not less so is that Spiritism is completely foreign to that, a further proof that this evil is not inherent to the belief. But if Spiritism has nothing to do with the fact, it alone can give its explanation. Here is the instruction given on this subject by one of our usual Spirits, and from which it emerges that, despite the enticement to which this young man yielded for his misfortune, he did not succumb to fate; he had his free-will, and with a stronger will, he could have resisted. If he were a Spiritist, he would have understood that the voice that called him could only be that of an evil Spirit, and the terrible consequences of a moment of weakness.



Paris, Group Desliens, December 20th, 1868 – medium Mr. Nivard



“The voice said: Come! Come! But the voice of the tempter would have been ineffective if I had not felt the direct action of the Spirit. The poor suicide man was called, and he was pushed. Why? His past was the cause of the painful situation he found himself in; he valued life and dreaded death; but, in this incessant call that he heard, had he found, shall I say, the strength? No. He drew on the weakness that lost him. He overcame his fears, because in the end he expected to find rest on the other side of life that this side had denied him. He was deceived: no rest had come. Darkness surrounds him, his conscience reproaches him for his act of weakness, and the Spirit that has drawn him laughs around him, constantly throwing persiflage at him. The blind man does not see him, but he hears the voice repeating to him: Come! come! And then laughs at his tortures.



The cause of this case of obsession is in the past, as I have just said; the obsessing Spirit himself has been driven to suicide by the one he has just knocked down into the abyss. She was his wife in the previous existence, and she had suffered greatly from her husband's debauchery and brutality. Too weak to accept with courage and resignation the situation that was presented to her, she sought refuge for her sufferings in death. She has since avenged herself and you know how. But nevertheless, the act of this unfortunate man was not fatal; he had accepted the risks of temptation; it was necessary for his advancement, for it was the only way to remove the stain that had soiled his previous existence. He had accepted the risks with the hope of being stronger, but he was wrong: he failed. He will do it again later; will he endure? It will depend on him.



Pray to God for him, to give him the calm and resignation that he so badly needs, the courage and the strength so that he does not fail in the tests that he will have to withstand later.



Louis Nivard.”

Spiritist Dissertations

February

Bibliography

History of the Camisards of Cevennes

By Eugène Bonnèmere[1]

The war undertaken under Louis XIV against the Camisards, or the Tremblers of Cevennes, is without a doubt, one of the saddest and most moving episodes in the history of France. Renewing the all-too-common atrocities in the wars of religion, from a purely military point of view it is perhaps less remarkable than by the innumerable cases of spontaneous sleepwalking, ecstasy, double sight, forecasts, and other similar phenomena that occurred throughout the course of that unfortunate crusade. These events, that were then believed to be supernatural, gave courage to the Calvinists, hunted in the mountains like wild beasts, at the same time as they made them be considered as possessed by the devil by some, and as enlightened by others; since these were among the causes that provoked and sustained the persecution, they play a primary and not an ancillary role; but how could historians appreciate them, when they lacked all the necessary elements to shed light onto their nature and reality? They could only distort them and present them from a false standpoint.



The new knowledge provided by magnetism and Spiritism alone could shed light on the question; however, since one cannot speak with truth of what one does not understand, or of what one has an interest in concealing, such knowledge was as necessary to do a complete and unprejudiced work on this subject, as geology and astronomy were to comment on the Genesis.



By demonstrating the true cause of those phenomena, and by proving that they are not outside the natural order, such knowledge has restored their true character. They also give the key to phenomena of the same kind that have occurred in many other circumstances and make it possible to distinguish between the possible from the legendary exaggeration.



Mr. Bonnemère, by combining the talent of the writer, and the knowledge of the historian, with a serious and practical study of Spiritism and magnetism, is in the best conditions to deal with the subject he has undertaken, with full knowledge of the facts and impartiality. The Spiritist idea has more than once been used in works of fantasy, but this is the first time that Spiritism appears nominally and as an element of control in a serious historical work; that is how it gradually takes its place in the world, and the forecasts of the Spirits are fulfilled.







Mr. Bonnemère's book will only come out between February 5th to 10th, but some proofs having been shown to us, from which we extract the following passages that we are happy to be able to reproduce in advance. However, we removed the indicative notes from the supporting documents. We must add that it differs from works on the same subject by new documents that had not yet been published in France, so that it can be considered the most complete.



It is therefore recommended to the attention of our readers by more than one reason, who will be able to judge it by the following fragments:



“The world has never seen anything like this war in the Cevennes. God, men, and demons were on the side; bodies and Spirits joined the struggle, and much differently from the Old Testament, the prophets guided warriors into battle who themselves seemed delighted beyond the ordinary conditions of life.



Skeptics and scorners find it easier to deny; defeated, science fears to compromise itself, looks away and refuses to issue opinion. But since there are no historical facts that are more indisputable than these, as there are none that have been attested by so many witnesses, the mockery, the reasons for not accepting them can no longer be admitted. It was before the serious English people that the statements were legally collected, in the most solemn forms, dictated by refugee Protestants, and they were published in London, in 1707, when the remambrance of all these things was still alive in all memories, and the denials could have crushed them under their number, if they were false.



We want to talk about the Sacred Theatre of the Cevennes, or the Report of the various wonders newly operated in that part of the Languedoc, from which we will make borrow long citations.



The strange phenomena reported there sought neither the shadow nor mystery to occur; they manifested before the intendants, before the generals, before the bishops, as well as before the ignorant and simple-minded. Whoever wanted to, could have witnessed, and studied them.



On September 25th, 1704, Villars wrote to Chamillard:



"I saw in that, things that I would never have believed, if they had not happened before my eyes: an entire city, of which all women, without exception, seemed possessed by the devil. They trembled and prophesied publicly in the streets. I arrested twenty of the wickedest, one of whom had the boldness to tremble and prophesy before me. I had her arrested for the example and confine the others into hospitals.”



Such procedures were required under Louis XIV, and to arrest a poor woman because an unknown force made her say things that did not suit her, before a marshal of France, could then be a way of acting that revolted no one, for it was so simple and natural and in the habits of the time. Today, we must have the courage to face the difficulty and seek less brutal and more convincing solutions.







We don't believe in the wonderful or in the miracles. We will therefore explain naturally, to the best of our ability, this serious historical problem, which has remained unsolved until now. We will do that with the help of the lights that magnetism and Spiritism make available to us today, without pretending to impose these beliefs on anyone.



It is unfortunate that we can only devote a few lines to what we understand would require a whole volume of developments. We will only say, to reassure the timid minds, that this does not offend Christian ideas in any way; as proof, we only need these two verses of the Gospel of St. Matthew:



“But when they deliver you up, do not worry about how or what you should speak. For it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.” (Matthew X, 19-20)



We leave it to the commentators to decide what is, in truth, that spirit of our Father which, at times, replaces us, speaks for us, and inspires us. Perhaps it could be said that every generation that disappears is the father and mother of the one who succeeds it, and that the best among those who seem to be no more, rising rapidly when freed from the shackles of the material body, come to borrow the organs of those of their sons whom they consider worthy to serve as their interpreters, and who will one day atone dearly for the misuse they have made of the precious faculties delegated to them.



Magnetism awakens, overexcites, and develops in some somnambulists the instinct that nature has given to all beings for their healing, and that our incomplete civilization has stifled in us, to have them replaced by the false glimmers of science.



The natural somnambulist puts his dream into action, that's all. He borrows nothing from others, can do nothing for them.



The fluidic somnambulist, on the contrary, the one in whom the contact of the fluid of the magnetizer causes a bizarre state, feels imperiously tormented by the desire to relieve his brothers. He sees the evil or comes to indicate the remedy.



The inspired somnambulist, who can eventually be fluidic at the same time, is the most richly gifted, and in him inspiration is maintained in the high spheres when spontaneously manifested. He one alone is a revealer; it is in him alone that progress resides, because only he is the echo, the docile instrument of a different and more advanced Spirit than his own.



The fluid is a magnet that attracts the beloved dead to those who remain. It emerges abundantly from the inspired ones, awakening the attention of the beings who left first, and who are sympathetic to them. The latter, for their part, purified and enlightened by a better life, judge better, and know better these primitive, honest, passive creatures, who can serve as intermediaries in the order of facts that they believe useful to be revealed to them.



In the previous century they were called ecstatic. Today they are mediums.

Spiritism is the correspondence of souls with one another. According to the followers of that belief, an invisible being puts himself in communication with another, enjoying a particular organization that makes him able to receive the thoughts of those who have lived, and to write them, either by an unconscious, mechanical impulse that drives the hand, or by direct transmission to the intelligence of the mediums.



If, for a moment, one wishes to give some credibility to these ideas, it will be easy to understand that the outraged souls of those martyrs whom the great king immolated every day, by the hundreds, came to watch over their loved ones, from whom they had been violently separated; that they supported them, guided them, consoled them in the midst of their harsh trials, inspired by their spirit; that they had announced to them in advance – something that happened many times – the perils that threatened them.



Only a small number was truly inspired. The fluidic release that came out of them, as from certain superior and privileged beings, acted on that deeply troubled crowd that surrounded them, but without being able to develop, in most of them, anything other than the coarse and largely fallible phenomena of hallucination. Inspired and hallucinated, all claimed to prophesy, but they made a host of mistakes among which one could no longer discern the truths that the Spirit truly whispered to the first ones. That mass of hallucinated reacted in turn on the inspired ones, casting trouble in the middle of their manifestations...



It was necessary, said Father Pluquet, extraordinary resources, prodigies, to sustain the faith of the disperse remnants of Protestantism. They broke out from all sides among the Reformed, during the first four years following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Voices so perfectly like the songs of the psalms, as the Protestants sing them, could not be taken for anything else, in the vicinity of places where there had once been temples, that they could not be mistaken for anything else. That melody was heavenly, and those angelic voices sang the psalms according to the version of Clément Marot and Théodore de Bèze. Those voices were heard in the Béarn, in the Cevennes, in Vassy, etc. Fugitive ministers were escorted by that divine chant, and even the trumpet did not abandon them until after they had crossed the borders of the kingdom. Jurieu carefully collected the testimonies of these wonders and concluded that "God, having made mouths in the middle of the air, it was an indirect reproach that the Providence made to the Protestants of France, for having been silent too easily." He dared to predict that in 1689 Calvinism would be re-established in France... Jurieu said: “The Spirit of the Lord will be with you; he will speak through the mouths of children and women, instead of abandoning you.”



It was more than enough for persecuted Protestants to expect women and children to prophesy.



A man held at home, in a glasswork shop hidden at the top of the mountain of Peyrat, in Dauphiné, a real school of prophecy. He was an old gentleman named Du Serre, born in the village of Dieu-le-Fit. Here the origins are a little obscure. It is said that he was initiated in Geneva into the practices of a mysterious art of which a small number of people passed on the secret. Gathering at home some young boys and some young girls, whose sensitivity and nervous system he had undoubtedly observed, he first subjected them to strict fasting; he acted powerfully on their imagination, stretched out his hands towards them as if to impose on them the Spirit of God, breathed on their foreheads, and made them fall as inanimate before him, eyes closed, asleep, limbs stiffened by catalepsy, insensitive to pain, not seeing or hearing anything of what was happening around them, but seeming to listen to inner voices speaking in them, and seeing splendid spectacles whose wonders they told. In that bizarre state, they spoke, they wrote, and then, returning to their ordinary state, they remembered nothing they had done, what they had said, what they had written.



That is what Brueys says about those 'little sleeping prophets,' as he calls them. There we find the processes, well known today, of magnetism, and whoever wants to do so can reproduce the miracles of the old gentleman glassmaker in many ways...



In 1701 there was a new explosion of prophets. They rained from the sky, they sprouted from the earth, and from the mountains of the Lozère to the shores of the Mediterranean, they counted in the thousands. The Catholics had taken their children away from the Calvinists: God used the children to protest such prodigious iniquity. The government of the great king only knew violence. Those prophet-children were arrested in mass, at random; the smallest were ruthlessly whipped, the bigger ones had the soles of their feet burned. Nothing helped, and there were more than three hundred in the prisons of Uzès, when the Faculty of Montpellier was ordered to move to that city to examine their condition. After careful consideration, the enlightened Faculty declared them "taken by fanaticism."



Such beautiful solution of official science, that even today could not say much more on this issue, did not put an end to the overflowing wave of inspirations. Bâville then issued an ordinance (September 1701) to make parents responsible for the fanaticism of their children.



Soldiers were placed at the discretion of all those who had not been able to divert their children from such dangerous profession, and they were condemned to arbitrary sentences. So, everything followed the complaints and clamors of those unfortunate parents. Violence was carried so far that to eliminate it, there were several people who denounced their own children or handed them over to the intendants and magistrates, telling them: "Here they are, we discharge them, make them lose the wish of prophesying, if possible."



Vain efforts! The body was chained, tortured, but the Spirit remained free, and the prophets multiplied. In November, more than two hundred were removed from the Cévennes, "condemned to serve the king, some in his armies, others on the galleys" (Court de Gébelin). There were capital executions that did not spare even the women. A prophetess of Vivarais was hanged in Montpellier, because blood came out of her nose and eyes, which she called tears of blood, which she wept over the misfortunes of her co-religionists, over the crimes of Rome, and the papists...



A dull irritation, a long-contained stream of anger had long been rumbling in all chests, at the end of those twenty years of intolerable iniquities. The patience of the victims did not stifle the fury of the executioners. Finally, they thought of repelling force by force...



It was undoubtedly," said Brueys, "a very extraordinary and very new spectacle; we saw armed forces marching to fight small armies of prophets" (vol. I, p. 156).



A strange sight, indeed, because the most dangerous among those little prophets defended themselves with stones, refugees on inaccessible heights. But most of the time they weren't even trying to defend their own lives. When the troops advanced to attack them, they boldly marched against them, shouting loudly: “Tartara! Tartara! Back Satan!” They believed, it was said, that the word “tartara” should, like an exorcism, put their enemies on the run, that they themselves were invulnerable, or that they would be resurrected after three days if they were to succumb in the battle. Their illusions were not long-lasting on these various points, and soon they opposed the Catholics with more effective weapons.



In two encounters, on the mountain of Chailaret, and not far from Saint-Genieys, a few hundred were killed, a good number were taken, and the rest seemed to disperse. Bâville judged the prisoners, had some of them hanged, and sent the rest to the galleys; and since none of this seemed to discourage the Reformed, they continued to chase the assemblies of the desert, to mercilessly slaughter those who went there, without them thinking of posing a serious resistance to their executioners still. According to the testimony of a prophetess named Isabeau Charras, recorded in the Sacred Theater of the Cevennes, those unfortunate volunteer martyrs, forewarned by the revelations of the ecstatic, delivered themselves to the fate that awaited them; it reads:



“The man named Jean Héraut, from our neighborhood, and four or five of his children with him, had inspirations. The two youngest were seven years old, the other five and a half years old, when they received the gift; I saw them many times in their ecstasies. Another of our neighbors, named Marliant, also had two sons and three daughters in the same situation. The eldest was married. Being about eight months pregnant, she went to a congregation with her siblings, and had her seven-year-old son with her. She was massacred there with her said child, one of her brothers and one of her sisters. The brother that was not killed, was wounded, but he healed; the youngest of the sisters was unharmed, left for dead with the slain bodies. The other sister was brought back to her father's house, still alive, but she died of the wounds a few days later. I was not in the assembly, but I saw the spectacle of those dead and wounded. What is most notable is that all these martyrs had been warned by the Spirit of what was to happen to them. They had told their father as they took leave of him and asked for his blessing, the same evening they left the house to be in the assembly to be held the following night. When the father saw all those deplorable events, he did not succumb to his pain, but on the contrary, he said with pious resignation: "The Lord has given it, the Lord has taken it away; may the name of the Lord be blessed!" It was from the son-in-law's brother, the two injured children and the whole family that I learned that all this had been predicted.”



Eugène Bonnemère

[1] One volume, in-12, 3.5 francs, by mail 4 francs. Paris, Bookstores Décembre-Allonier.

March

Spiritism Everywhere


Excerpt from English newspapers

One of our correspondents in London sends us the following news:



"The English newspaper The Builder, an organization of architects, highly regarded for its practicality and the correctness of judgment, has incidentally dealt with questions relating to Spiritism on several occasions; in these articles there is even talk of the manifestations of our days, of which the author gives an appreciation from his point of view.



"Spiritism has also been mentioned in some of the last notices of the London Anthropological Review; it states that the fact of the conspicuous intervention of the Spirits, in certain phenomena, is too well proven to be questioned. It speaks of the bodily envelope of man as a coarse garment appropriate to his present state, which is regarded as the lowest echelon of the hominal kingdom; that reign, though the crowning glory of the planet's animality, is only a sketch of the glorious, light, purified, and luminous body that the soul must clothe in the future, as humanity develops and perfects.”



"It is not yet," adds our correspondent, "the homogeneous and coherent doctrine of the French Spiritist school, but it comes very close to it and seemed interesting to me as an indication of the movement of ideas in the Spiritist direction on this side of the channel. But there is a lack of direction; they navigate on an adventure in this new world that opens before humanity, and it is not surprising that we go astray, for lack of a guide. There is no doubt that, if the works of doctrine were translated into English, they would rally many supporters by fixing the still uncertain ideas.

Blackwell.”


Charles Fourier

In a book entitled: Charles Fourier, his life, and his works, by Pellarin, we find a letter from Fourier to M. Muiron, dated December 3rd, 1826, in which he foresees the future phenomena of Spiritism. It is conceived as follows:



"It seems that Messrs. C. and P. have given up their work on magnetism. I would bet that they do not use the fundamental argument: that, if everything is connected in the universe, there must be means of communication between the creatures of the other world and this one; I mean: communication of faculties, temporary and accidental participation of the faculties of ultra-worldly or deceased, and not communication with them. Such participation cannot take place in the waking state, but only in a mixed state, such as sleep or other. Have the magnetizers found this state? I don't know! But, in principle, I know it must exist.”



Fourier wrote this in 1826, about the phenomena of somnambulism; he couldn’t have any idea of the means of direct communication discovered twenty-five years later and only conceived its possibility in a state of detachment, that somehow brought the two worlds closer together; but he was nevertheless convinced of the main fact, that of the existence of these relations.



His belief in another crucial point, that of reincarnation on Earth, is even more precise when he says: a bad rich man canreturn to beg at the door of the castle of which he was the owner. This is the principle of earthly atonement in successive existences, much like what Spiritism teaches from the examples provided by these same relationships between the visible and the invisible worlds. Thanks to these relationships, this principle of justice, that only existed in Fourier's thought in the state of theory or probability, became a positive truth.

Profession of faith of a Fourierist

The following passage is taken from a new book entitled: Letters to my brother about my religious beliefs, by Math. Briancourt:[1]



“I believe in one Almighty, just and good God, having light as his body, as by members the totality of the celestial bodies ordered in hierarchical series. - I believe that God assigns to all members of creation, large and small, a function to be fulfilled in the development of the universal life that is His life, reserving intelligence for those members whom he associates with the government of the world. - I believe that the intelligent beings of the last degree, the humanities, have as their task the management of the worlds they inhabit, and on which they have the mission of establishing order, peace, and justice. I believe that the creatures perform their functions by satisfying their needs, that God provides exactly to the requirements of the functions; and since in his goodness he attaches pleasure to the satisfaction of the needs, I believe that every creature, in carrying out their duty, is as happy as their nature entails, and that the more they deviate from the accomplishment of their tasks, the more their suffering is pronounced.



I believe that earthly humanity will soon have acquired the knowledge and material that are indispensable to fulfill its elevated mission, and that consequently, the day of general happiness here on Earth will not take long to rise. I believe that the intelligence of rational beings has two bodies: one formed of substances visible to our eyes; the other of more subtle, and invisible matters called aromas.



I believe that at the death of their visible body, these beings continue to live in the “aromal” world, where they find the exact compensation for their works, good or bad; then, after a greater or lesser length of time, they take a material body back, to abandon it again to decomposition, and so on. I believe that the intelligences that grow by fulfilling their functions exactly, will animate more and more elevated beings in the divine hierarchy, until they return, at the end of times, to the heart of God from where they came, that unite with his intelligence and share his “aromal” life.”





With such a profession of faith, it is understandable that Fourierists and Spiritists can join hands.

[1] One vol., in-18. Library of social sciences

Varieties

Ms. de Chilly

The Petite Presse on February 11th, 1869, reads:

"Mr. de Chilly, the nice director of the Odeon, so cruelly tried by the almost sudden death of his only daughter, is threatened with a new pain. His niece, Ms. Artus, daughter of the former conductor of the Ambigu-Comique, is currently, so to speak, at the gates of the tomb. In this regard, Le Figaro reports this sad and touching story:

“The dying Ms. de Chilly gave a little ring to her cousin whose life is now so cruelly threatened, and said to her: "Take it, you will bring it back to me! Have these words captured the poor child's imagination? Were they the expression of that double vision attributed to death? Still, a few days after Ms. de Chilly's funeral, her young cousin fell ill.”

What Le Figaro does not say is that in her last moments, the poor dead woman, who clung to life with all the energy of her eighteen beautiful years, shouted from her bed of pain to her cousin, bursting into tears in a corner of the room, the scene of her agony: "No I do not want to die! I don't want to go away alone! You will come with me! I'm waiting for you! I'm waiting for you! You won't get married!”

What a spectacle and what anxieties to that unfortunate Ms. Artus, whose wedding was indeed in preparation at the very moment when Ms. de Chilly fell ill, to not get up again!”



Yes, these words are certainly the expression of the double vision attributed to death, and whose examples are not uncommon. How many people have had such hunches before they died! Will it be said that they played a comedy? Let the Materialists explain these phenomena if they can! If intelligence were only a property of matter, and were to be extinguished with it, how to explain the resurgence of activity of this same intelligence, the new faculties, sometimes transcendent, that so often manifest themselves at the very moment when the organism dissolves, when the last breath will be exhaled? Doesn't this prove that something survives the body? It has been said a hundred times: the independent soul reveals itself at every moment in a thousand forms and in such obvious conditions, that one must voluntarily close one's eyes so as not to see it.

A Will in the United States

“In the state of Maine, in the United States, a lady asked for the nullity her mother’s will. She said that, as a member of a Spiritist society, her mother had written her last wishes by the dictation of a turning table. The judge declared that the law did not prohibit consultations with the turning tables, and the clauses of the will were maintained.”

In Europe, we are not there yet; so, the French newspaper that reports this fact, preceded it with this exclamation: These Americans are strong! Meaning: they are silly!

Whatever the author of this critical reflection thinks, these Americans will be able to question, on certain points, if the old Europe will drag itself for a long time on the path of old prejudices. The progressive movement of humanity started from the East and gradually spread to the West; would it have already crossed the Atlantic and planted its flag in the new continent, leaving Europe behind as Europe left India? Is it a law, and would the cycle of progress have already gone around the world several times? The following fact might suggest that.


Women Emancipation in the United States


We got a letter from Yankton, a city in South Dakota (United States) saying that the legislature of the county has just adopted, by a large majority, a bill by Mr. Enos Stutsman, that grants women the right to vote and to stand for election. (Siècle, January 15th, 1869).

Wednesday, July 29th, Mrs. Alexandrine Bris took a Bachelor of Science exam before the Faculty of Sciences of Paris; she was granted four white balls, a rare success, that earned her congratulations from the president ratified with acclamations by the whole audience.

Le Temps guarantees that Mrs. Bris is to enroll at the Faculty of Medicine, in view of her doctorate (Grand Moniteur, August 6th, 1868).

We were told that Ms. Bris is American. We know two ladies from New York, sisters of Miss B..., members of the Spiritist Society of Paris, who are certified doctors and practice medicine exclusively for women and children. We are not there yet.

Ms. Nichol, medium of transportation



Hotel des Deux-Mondes, at Rue d'Antin, has recently been the scene of supernatural sessions given by the famous medium Nichol, in the presence of only a few initiates.

Ms. Nichol is traveling to Rome to submit her extraordinary faculty to the examination of the Holy Father, which consists in bringing down rains of flowers. This is what is called a medium of transportation (Journal Paris, January 15th, 1869)

Ms. Nichol is from London, where she enjoys a certain reputation as a medium. We witnessed some of her experiments, in a private session more than a year ago, and we admit that they were somewhat disappointing. It is true that we are quite skeptical about certain demonstrations, and somewhat demanding about the conditions under which they occur, not that we question the good faith of that lady; we are only saying that what we saw, to us, did not seem likely to convince the unbelievers.

We wish her good luck with the Holy Father; she will certainly have no trouble convincing him of the reality of the phenomena that today are openly confessed by the clergy (see the book entitled: The Spirits and their relationships with the visible world, by Father Triboulet[1]); but we doubt very much that she will succeed in making him officially recognize that these are not the works of the devil.

Rome is an inhospitable land for mediums who do not perform miracles according to the Church; we recall that in 1864 Mr. Home was going to Rome, not to exercise his faculty, but only to study sculpture, and had to yield to the ban to leave the city within twenty-four hours. (Spiritist Review, February 1864).

[1] One volume, in-8, price 5 francs

Spiritist Dissertations

April

American Spiritist Profession of Faith

We reproduce, according to the New Orleans Salut, the declaration of principles set out in the Fifth National Convention,or Assembly of Delegates of the Spiritists of the various parts of the United States. The comparison of beliefs on these subjects between the so-called American school and the European school is something of great importance, as everyone will be able to convince themselves.

“Statement of Principles.

Spiritualism teaches us:

1. That man has a spiritual nature as well as a corporeal nature; or rather that the true man is a Spirit, having an organic form, composed of sublimated materials, that represents a structure corresponding to that of the material body.

2. That man, like a Spirit, is immortal. Having recognized that he survives this change called death, it can reasonably be assumed that he will survive all future vicissitudes.

3. That there is a spiritual world or state, with its substantial, objective as well as subjective realities.

4. That the process of physical death does not in any way essentially transform the mental constitution or moral character of the one who experiences it, for if it were otherwise, his identity would be destroyed.

5. That happiness or unhappiness, both in the spiritual state and in this one, does not depend on an arbitrary decree or a special law, but on the character, aspirations and degree of harmony or conformity of the individual with the divine and universal law.

6. It follows that the experience and knowledge acquired from this life become the foundations on which the new life begins.

7. Since growth, in some respects, is the law of the human being in the present life, and since what is called death is only the birth to another condition of existence, which retains all the advantages gained in the experience of this life, it can be inferred that growth, development, expansion or progression is the infinite destiny of the human Spirit.

8. That the spiritual world is not far from us, but it is near, that it surrounds us, or that it is intertwined with our present state of existence; and therefore, that we are constantly under the surveillance of spiritual beings.

9. That since individuals constantly move from earthly to spiritual life in all degrees of intellectual and moral development, the spiritual state includes all levels of character, from the lowest to the highest.

10. That, since heaven and hell, or happiness and unhappiness, depend more on intimate feelings than on external circumstances, there are as many gradations for each as there are nuances of characters, each individual gravitating on his own place by a natural law of affinity. They can be divided into seven general degrees or spheres; but these must include the indefinite varieties, or an "infinity of dwellings," corresponding to the diverse characteristics of individuals, each creature enjoying as much happiness as allowed by his character.

11. That the communications of the spiritual world, whether received by mental impression, inspiration, or in any other way, are not, by necessity, infallible truths, but on the contrary they inevitably feel the imperfections of the intelligence from which they emanate and the way by which they come; and that, moreover, they are susceptible to be misinterpreted by those to whom they are addressed.

12. It follows that no inspired communication, in the present time or in the past (whatever claims may or may have been put forward as to its source), has a broader authority than that of representing truth to the individual conscience, the latter being the final standard to which one must refer for the judgment of all inspired or spiritual teachings.

13. That inspiration, or the influx of ideas and suggestions from the spiritual world, is not a miracle of past times, but a perpetual fact, the constant method of the divine organization for the elevation of humanity.

14. That all angelic or diabolical beings who manifested themselves or mingled in the affairs of men in the past, were simply disembodied human Spirits, in different degrees of progression.

15. That all the authentic miracles (so called) of past times, such as the resurrection of those who had died in appearance, the healing of diseases by the laying on of hands or other such simple means, harmless contact with poisons, the movement of material objects without visible support, etc., etc., were produced in harmony with universal laws, and therefore can be repeated at any time under favorable conditions.


16. That the causes of every phenomenon - the sources of life, intelligence, and love – must be sought in the inner and spiritual realm, and not in the outer and material realm.

17. That the chain of causes inevitably tends to rise and advance towards an infinite Spirit, that is not only a formative principle (wisdom), but a source of affection (love), - thus supporting the double relationship of kinship, father, and mother, of all finite intelligences, that are therefore united by filial bonds.

18. That man, as the child of this infinite Father, is his highest representation on this sphere of beings, the perfect man being the most complete personification of the "plenitude of the Father" that we can contemplate, and that every man, by virtue of this kinship, is or has in his intimate folds, a seed of divinity, an incorruptible portion of the divine essence that constantly carries him to the good, and that, over time, will overcome all the imperfections inherent in the rudimentary or earthly condition, and triumph over all evil.

19. That evil is the greater or lesser defect of harmony with that intimate or divine principle; and therefore, be it called Christianity, Spiritualism, Religion, Philosophy; whether one recognizes the "Holy Spirit," the Bible, or spiritual and heavenly inspiration, all that helps man to submit to his inner nature what is most external in him, and to make him harmonious with that, is a means of triumphing over evil.

***

This is the basis of belief of the American Spiritists; if not that of the totality, it is at least that of the majority. Such belief is no more the result of a preconceived system in that country, than Spiritism in Europe; no one imagined it; they saw, observed, and conclusions were drawn. There, no more than here, we did not start from the hypothesis of the Spirits to explain the phenomena; but from the phenomena, as an effect, one arrived by observation at the Spirits as cause. This is a momentous circumstance that the critics persist in ignoring. Because they carry with them, in their thoughts, the idea of not finding the Spirits, they figured that the Spiritists must have taken their starting point from the preconceived idea of the Spirits, and that imagination has made them see them everywhere. How is it then that so many people who did not believe in them have surrendered to the evidence? There are thousands of examples, in America as well as here. Many, on the contrary, went through the hypothesis that Mr. Chevillard believes to have invented, and they did not give it up until they recognized its impotence to explain everything. Again, one only came to the affirmation of the Spirits after trying all the other solutions.

We have already noticed the relationships and differences that exist between the two schools, and for those who are not attached to words, but who go to the bottom line of the ideas, the difference is reduced to very little. Since these two schools have not supported one another, this coincidence is a very remarkable fact. Thus, here we have on both sides of the Atlantic, millions of people who observe a phenomenon, and who arrive at the same result. It is true that Mr. Chevillard had not yet gone there to oppose with his veto and say to those millions of individuals, many of whom do not go by fools: "You have all been wrong; only I have the key to these strange phenomena, and I will give the world the definitive solution.”

To make the comparison easier, we will take the American profession of faith, article by article, and put in parallel what the doctrine of The Spirits’ Book, published in 1857 and developed in other fundamental books, says about each of the proposals formulated there.

A more complete summary can be found in Chapter II of the book What Is Spiritism?

1. Man possesses a soul or Spirit, an intelligent principle, in which the thought, the will, and the moral sense reside, and whose body is only the material envelope. The Spirit is the main being, pre-existing and surviving to the body, which is only a temporary accessory.

The Spirit, either during the bodily life or after leaving it, is clothed with a fluidic body or perispirit, that reproduces the form of the material body.

2. The Spirit is immortal; the body alone is perishable.

3. Spirits, freed from the carnal body, constitute the invisible or spiritual world, that surrounds us and in whose midst we live. Fluidic transformations produce images and objects as real to Spirits, which are themselves fluidic, as are earthly images and objects to men, which are material. Everything is relative in each of these two worlds. (See Genesis according to Spiritism, chapter of fluids and fluidic creations.)

4. The death of the body does not change the nature of the Spirit, that retains the intellectual and moral aptitudes acquired during the earthly life.

5. The Spirit carries within himself the elements of his happiness or unhappiness; he is happy or unhappy due to the degree of his moral depuration; he suffers from his own imperfections, the natural consequences of which he endures, without the punishment being the result of a special and individual condemnation. Man's misfortune on Earth comes from the non-observance of God's laws; when he conforms his actions and social institutions to these laws, he will be as happy as his bodily nature entails.

6. Nothing that man acquires during his earthly life in knowledge and moral perfections is lost for him; he is, in the future life, what he has done in the present life.

7. Progress is the universal law; under this law, the Spirit progresses indefinitely.

8. The Spirits are in our midst; they surround us, see us, hear us, and participate, to some extent, to the actions of men.

9. Since the Spirits are just the souls of men, one finds among them all the degrees of knowledge and ignorance, goodness and perversity that exist on Earth.

10. Heaven and hell, according to vulgar belief, are circumscribed places of rewards and punishments. According to Spiritism, Spirits, carrying within themselves the elements of their bliss or suffering, are happy or unhappy wherever they are; the words heaven and hell are only images that characterize a state of happiness or unhappiness.

There are, so to speak, as many degrees among the Spirits as there are nuances in intellectual and moral aptitudes; nevertheless, if we consider the most clear-cut characters, we can group them into nine main classes or categories that can be infinitely subdivided, without such classification having anything of absolute. (The Spirits’ Book, item 100, Spiritist scale).

As the Spirits advance in perfection, they inhabit worlds that are more and more advanced physically and morally. This is probably what Jesus meant by these words: "There are several dwellings in my father's house." (See Gospel According to Spiritism, chap. III).

11. The Spirits can manifest themselves to men in various ways: through inspiration, speech, sight, writing, etc.

It is a mistake to believe that the Spirits have infused science; their knowledge, in space as on Earth, is subordinated to their degree of advancement, and there are some who, on certain things, know less than men. Their communications are in relation to their knowledge, and by the same token cannot be infallible. The thought of the Spirit can, moreover, be altered by the medium it passes through to manifest itself.

To those who ask what are the communications of the Spirits for, since they know no more than men, we answer that they serve, first of all, to prove that the Spirits exist, and consequently, the immortality of the soul; second, to teach us where they are, what they are, what they do, and under what conditions we are happy or unhappy in a future life; third, to destroy vulgar prejudices about the nature of the Spirits and the state of the souls after death, all things that one would not know without communications with the invisible world.

12. The communications of the Spirits are personal opinions that should not be accepted blindly. Man must not, under any circumstances, sacrifice his judgment and free will. It would be ignorance and lightheartedness to accept all that comes from the Spirits as absolute truths; they say what they know; it is up to us to submit their teachings to the control of logic and reason.

13. Since the manifestations are the consequence of the incessant contact between Spirits and men, they have always happened; they are in the natural order of things and have nothing miraculous, regardless of the form in which they appear. These manifestations, relating the material world and the spiritual world, tend to the elevation of man, proving to him that the Earth for him is neither the beginning nor the end of all things, and that he has other destinies.

14. Beings called angels or demons are not special creations, distinct from humanity; angels are Spirits who have come out of humanity and gotten to perfection; demons are Spirits that are still imperfect but who will improve. It would be contrary to the justice and goodness of God the creation of beings perpetually doomed to evil, unable to return to good, and others privileged, exempt from any work to achieve perfection and happiness. According to Spiritism, God has no favors or privileges for any of His creatures; all Spirits have the same starting point and the same road to travel; through their work, they will arrive at perfection and happiness. Some have already arrived: these are the angels or pure Spirits; the others are still behind: they are the imperfect Spirits. (See Genesis, chapters on Angels and Demons).[1]

15. Spiritism does not admit miracles in the theological sense of the word, for it does not admit anything accomplished outside the laws of nature. Some facts, assuming them to be authentic, were deemed miraculous only because their natural causes were unknown. The character of the miracle is to be exceptional and unusual; when a fact occurs spontaneously or optionally, it is because it is subject to a law, and therefore it is no longer a miracle. The phenomena of double sight, apparitions, prescience, healings by the laying on of hands, and all the effects referred to as physical manifestations are in that case. (See, for the full development of this issue, the second part of Genesis, the miracles, and predictions according to Spiritism).

16. All intellectual and moral faculties have their source in the spiritual principle, and not in the material principle.

17. The Spirit of man, in purifying himself, tends to draw closer to divinity, the principle and end of all things.

18. The human soul, a divine emanation, carries with it the germ or principle of good that is its final goal, and must make it triumph over the imperfections inherent in its state of inferiority on Earth.

19. Everything that tends to elevate man, to free his soul from the shackles of matter, whether in philosophical or religious form, is an element of progress that brings him closer to the good, helping him to triumph over his bad instincts.

All religions lead to this goal, by more or lesser effective and rational means, according to the degree of advancement of the men for whose use they were made.

***

So how does American Spiritism differ from European Spiritism? Could it be because one is called Spiritualism and the other Spiritism? Puerile question of words on which it would be superfluous to insist. On both sides the thing is seen from too high a point for such futility. Perhaps they still differ on some points of form and detail, just as insignificant, and which have more to do with the mores and customs of each country than with the substance of the doctrine. The main thing is that there is agreement on the fundamental points, which is what is evident from the comparison above.

Both recognize the indefinite progress of the soul as the essential law of the future; both admit the plurality of successive existences in increasingly advanced worlds; the only difference is that European Spiritism admits this plurality of existences on earth, until the Spirit has acquired the degree of intellectual and moral advancement that this globe entails, after which he leaves it for other worlds, where he acquires new qualities and new knowledge. Agreeing on the main idea, they only differ on one of the modes of application. Can this be a cause of antagonism between people who pursue a great humanitarian goal?

Besides, the principle of reincarnation on Earth is not unique to European Spiritism; it was a fundamental point of the Druidic doctrine; nowadays, it was proclaimed before Spiritism by illustrious philosophers such as Dupont de Nemours, Charles Fourier, Jean Reynaud, etc. We could make an endless list of writers from all nations, poets, novelists, and others who have affirmed this in their works; in the United States we will quote Benjamin Franklin, and Mrs. Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Therefore, we are neither its creator nor its inventor. Today it tends to take place in modern philosophy, outside of Spiritism, as the only possible and rational solution to a host of psychological and moral problems hitherto inexplicable. This is not the place to discuss this question, whose development we refer to the introduction of The Spirits’ Book, and to chapter IV of the Gospel According to Spiritism. It is one of two things: either this principle is true, or it is not; if it is true, it is a law, and like any law of nature, it is not the contrary opinions of a few men that will prevent it from being a truth and from being accepted.

We have already explained many times the causes that had opposed its introduction into American Spiritism; these causes disappear every day, and we have learned that it already finds many supporters in that country. Moreover, the above program does not mention it; if it is not proclaimed there, it is not contested either; it can even be said that it emerges implicitly, as a forced consequence of certain assertions. In short, as we see, the greatest barrier that separates the Spiritists of the two continents is the Ocean, through which they can perfectly join hands.

What the United States lacked was a center of action to coordinate the principles; there isn’t, strictly speaking, any methodical body of doctrine; there are, as we must acknowledge, very correct ideas of great significance, but without connection. That is the opinion of all Americans that we have had the opportunity to see, and it is confirmed by a report made in of the conventions held in Cleveland, in 1867, from which we extracted the following passages:

“In the opinion of your commission, what is now called Spiritualism is a chaos where the purest truth is constantly mixed with the most gross errors. One of the things that will serve the most in the advancement of the new philosophy will be the habit of using good methods of observation. We recommend to our brothers and sisters a thorough attention, taken to the scruple, in this whole part of Spiritualism. We also urge them to defy appearances and not always take for an ecstatic state or for an agitation from the spiritual world, dispositions of the soul that can originate from a disorder of the organs, and particularly in diseases of the nerves or liver, or in any other excitement completely independent from the action of the Spirits.

Each member of the commission already had a very long experience of these phenomena; for ten to fifteen years, we all had witnessed facts whose extraterrestrial origin could not have been disputed, and that were imposed on reason. But we were all equally convinced that much of what is given to the crowd as spiritualist manifestations, are simply dexterity of hand, to a greater or lesser degree skillfully performed by impostors who use them to exploit public credulity.

The remarks we have just made about juggling qualified as manifestations, apply in their entirety to all the so-called mediums who refuse to experiment anywhere but in a darkroom: the Davenports, Fays, Eddies, Ferrises, Church, Ms. Vanwie and others, who claim to do physically impossible things, portraying themselves as instruments of the Spirits, without providing any evidence to support their operations.

After a careful investigation of the matter, we are obliged to declare that darkness is not an indispensable condition to produce the phenomena; that it is claimed as such only by deceitful people, and that it has no other use than to favor their deceptions. We therefore urge those who deal with Spiritualism to renounce to evoking Spirits in the dark.

By criticizing a practice that can be easily replaced by infinitely more convincing modes of experimentation, we do not intend to inflict blame on mediums who use it in good faith, but to denounce to the public the charlatans who exploit something worthy of every respect. We want to defend the true mediums and spare our glorious cause from the impostors who dishonor it. We believe in physical manifestations; they are indispensable to the progress of Spiritualism. These are simple and clear proofs that strike, from the outset, those who are not blinded by prejudice; they are a starting point for arriving at the understanding of manifestations of a higher order, the path that has led most American spiritualists from atheism or doubt to the knowledge of the immortality of the soul. (Excerpt from the New York Herald, September 10th, 1867).

[1] In the original it says Genesis, but it seems that the correct reference would be Heavens and Hell According to Spiritism

The Electric Child

Several newspapers reproduced the following fact:

The village of Saint-Urban, on the limits of the Loire and the Ardèche, is in turmoil. Strange things are happening there, we are told. Some attribute them to the devil, others see the finger of God in them, marking one of his privileged creatures with the seal of predestination.

In two words, here it is what it is about, says the Loire Memorial:

“About two weeks ago, in this hamlet, a child was born who, as soon as he entered the world, manifested the most astonishing virtues, the most singular properties, as scholars would say. Barely baptized, it became impalpable and intangible! Intangible, not like the sensitive, but like a Leiden jar[1] charged with electricity, which one cannot touch without feeling a sharp concussion. Besides, it is bright! Shiny emanations escape from all its extremities, at times, making it look like a firefly.

"As the baby develops and strengthens, these curious phenomena are produced with more energy and intensity. Even new ones are produced. It is said, for example, that on certain days, when a small object is taken close to the child's hands or feet, such as a spoon, a knife, a cup, even a plate, these utensils are taken by a sudden shudder and vibration that nothing can explain.

It is particularly in the evening and at night that these extraordinary facts are accentuated in the sleep as in the wake state. Sometimes then, - and this is a prodigy, - the cradle seems to be filled with a whitish clarity, like that beautiful phosphorescence in the sea water in the wake of ships, and that science has not completely explained yet.

However, the child does not seem inconvenienced by the manifestations in any form or shape, of which that little person is the mysterious theater. He breast-feeds, sleeps and is doing very well, and he is neither less weeping nor more impatient than his peers. He has two younger brothers aged four to five, who were born and live in the manner of the most common kids.

Let us add that the parents, brave farmers, the husband close to his forties, the wife to her thirties, are the least electric and least luminous couple in the world. They only shine in their honesty, and the care with which they raise their small family.

The parish priest of the neighboring commune was called, who declared, after a long examination, that he did not understand anything at all; then the surgeon who touched, retouched, turned, auscultated, examined, and tapped the patient, not willing to clearly pronounce in the case, but who prepares a scientific report to the Academy, that will be talked about in the medical world.

A rascal man of the region, there are some everywhere, sniffing a good little speculation there, offered to rent the child at the rate of 200 francs per month "to show him off in fairs". It is a great deal to the parents. But the father and mother naturally want to accompany such a precious son - at 2 francs a day - and that condition still precludes the conclusion of the deal.

The correspondent who gives us these strange details certifies 'on his honor' that they are the most accurate truth, and he was careful enough to have his letter signed off by "the four largest owners in the region."

***

No Spiritist, certainly, will see in this fact anything supernatural or miraculous. It is a purely physical phenomenon, a variant in form of that presented by the so-called electric people. It is known that some animals, such as the torpedo and the gymnite, have similar properties.

Here is the instruction given on this subject by one of the instructor guides of the Parisian Society.

“As we have often told you, the most singular phenomena multiply every day to attract the attention of science; the child in question is therefore an instrument, but he was only chosen for this purpose because of the situation that was created in his past. However eccentric it may be in appearance, any phenomenon produced on an incarnate, it always has as its immediate cause the intelligent and moral situation of that incarnate, and a relationship with his past, since all existences are solidary. It is a subject of study, no doubt, for those who witness it, but secondarily. It is a trial or an atonement, especially to the one who is the subject. There is therefore the material fact that is the responsibility of science, and the moral cause that belongs to Spiritism.

But you might say, how can such a state be a trial for a child of such age? For the child certainly not, but for the Spirit who has no age, the trial is certain.

"Finding himself in an exceptional situation while incarnate, surrounded by a physical halo that is only a mask, but that in the eyes of some people may go as a sign of holiness or predestination, the Spirit, released during his sleep, prides himself on the impression that he produces. He was a thaumaturge of a particular kind, who spent his last existence playing a holy character amid the prodigies he had exercised to accomplish, and who wanted to continue his role in this existence. To attract respect and veneration, he wanted to be born, as a child, in exceptional conditions. If he lives, he will be a false prophet of the future, and he will not be alone.

As for the phenomenon itself, it is certain that it will have little duration; science must therefore rush if it wants to study it first-hand; but science will do nothing about it, afraid of encountering embarrassing difficulties; it will be satisfied with considering the child as a human electric-fish.”

Dr. Morel Lavallée.”

[1] The Leyden (or Leiden jar) is a device for storing static electricity, first appearing around 1745. It is large glass bottle, usually lined on both the inside and the outside with some type of metal foil. Some of the early ones had water inside. They allow the experimenter to collect a large amount of charge. They are the first form of electrical storage. These methods are known today as ‘condensers’ or 'capacitors'. Source: Wikipedia (T.N.)

Spiritist Dissertations

Bibliography

The soul, its existence, and its manifestations, by Dyonis[1]

This book has the same goal as the previous one: the demonstration of the soul, of the future life, of the plurality of existences, but in a more didactic, more scientific form, therefore always clear and intelligible to everyone. The refutation of materialism, and in particular the doctrines of Büchner and Maleschott, occupies a large part in it, and it is not the least interesting or the least instructive part, by the irresistible logic of the arguments. The doctrine of these two writers of undeniable talent, and who claim to explain all moral phenomena by the forces of matter alone, has had much resonance in Germany, and by consequence in France; it was naturally enthusiastically acclaimed by the materialists, who were glad to find in it the sanction of their ideas; above all, it has recruited supporters among young students, who use them to free themselves, in the name of the apparent legality of a philosophy, in a break from the belief in God and in immortality.

The author endeavors to reduce to their true value the fallacies on which that philosophy is based; he demonstrates the disastrous consequences that it would have for society, if it were ever to prevail, and its incompatibility with any moral doctrine. Although it is hardly known outside a determined sphere, a somehow popular rebuttal is very useful, to forearm those who might be seduced by the specious arguments that it invokes. We are convinced that, among the people that advocate it, there are some who would back down if they had understood its full extent.

Even if only from this point of view, the work of Mr. Dyonis deserves serious encouragement, because he is an energetic champion for the cause of Spiritualism, and that of Spiritism also to which we see that the author is no stranger. But the task he has imposed on himself is not limited to that; he considers the issue of the soul in a broad and comprehensive manner; he is one of those who admit his indefinite progress, through animality, humanity and beyond humanity. Perhaps, in some points, his book contains some proposals that are a little adventurous, but that it is good to bring to light, so that they are matured by the discussion.

We regret that the lack of space does not allow us to justify our assessment with a few quotations; we will restrict ourselves to the next passage and say that those who read this book will not waste their time.



“If we examine the beings who have succeeded one another in the geological periods, we notice that there is progress in the individuals successively endowed with life, and that the last comer, man, is an irrefutable proof of that moral development, by the gift of the transmissible intelligence that he received first, and the only one of all animals.

This perfectibility of the soul, opposed to the imperfectability of matter, leads us to think that the human soul is not the first expression of the soul, but that it is only its last expression so far. In other words, that the soul has progressed since the first manifestation of life, passing alternately through plants, animalcules, animals, and man, to rise further, by means of creations of a higher order, that our imperfect senses do not allow us to understand, but that the logic of facts leads us to admit. The law of progress, that we follow in the physical developments of successive animals, would therefore also exist, and mainly, in their moral development.”

[1] One volume, in-12, price 3.5 francs.