April
The Spiritist Society of Paris will temporarily hold its sessions in the premises of the bookstore, at rue de Lille, No. 7.
Having recognized the undeniable usefulness of such foundation, and the solidity of the basis on which it is established, we have not hesitated in giving it our moral support.
Here are the terms in which it is announced, at the top of the catalog that we address to our subscribers, with this issue.
"The growing interest in Psychological Studies in general, and particularly the development that the Spiritist ideas have had in recent years, led to the feeling of usefulness of a special house for the concentration of documents concerning these subjects. Apart from the fundamental works of the Spiritist doctrine, there are many books, both ancient and modern, useful for the complement of these studies and that are ignored, or on which there is a lack of information necessary to obtain them. It was to fill that gap that the Spiritist Bookstore was founded.
The Spiritist Bookstore is not a commercial enterprise; it was created by a society of Spiritists for the benefit of the doctrine, renouncing by the contract that binds them, to any personal speculation.
It is administered by a manager, a simple agent, and all the profits recorded by the annual inventories, will be paid by him to the General Fund of Spiritism.
This fund is provisionally administered by the manager of the bookstore, under the supervision of the founding society; accordingly, he shall receive the funds from all sources allocated to that destination, shall take an accurate account of them, and shall invest them until the circumstances determine their use.”
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
Lectures by Mr. Chevillard
(See Spiritist Review, March 1869)
We read the following in the Paris newspaper, March 7th, 1869, about Spiritism:
"We remember the noise made a few years ago in the world about the phenomenon of turning tables. Every family had to have its animated pedestal table, and every group had its familiar Spirits; meetings were scheduled to have the little table turning, as we meet today for a dancing party. A moment of public curiosity (revived by the clergy when scaring the souls, frightened by the abominable specter of Satan), knew no more limits, and the tables cracked, tapped, danced, from the basement to the attic, with the most meritorious obedience.
"Little by little the fever subdued, there was silence, other amusements became fashionable, who knows? The living tables, no doubt.
"But as they walked away, the crowd left some stubborn people motionless, still riveted to those singular manifestations. Unnoticeably a kind of mysterious bond stretched from one to the other. The isolated ones from the day before were counted on the day after; soon, a vast association made a single family of these scattered groups, marching under the motto of a common belief, seeking the truth through Spiritism.
"It seems that at this hour the army has enough seasoned soldiers to be honored with the combat; and Mr. Chevillard, after presenting the DEFINITIVE solution to the Spiritist problem, did not hesitate to move on with his subject in a new lecture: The Illusions of Spiritism.
Mr. Desjardin, on the other hand, after talking about innovators in medicine, threatens to attack the Spiritist theories soon. The believers will undoubtedly respond that the Spirits cannot find a better opportunity to assert themselves. It is therefore an awakening, a struggle that takes place.
The Spiritists count on a larger number today in Europe than it is supposed. They are counted in the millions, not to mention those who believe and do not boast about it. The army recruits new followers every day. What is the surprise? Isn’t there a growing number of those who cry and ask in the communications of a better world, the hope in the future?
It seems that the discussion on this subject must be serious. It is interesting to take some notes from the first day.
Mr. Chevillard is generous; he does not deny the facts; - he affirms the good faith of the mediums with whom he has been put in contact; he has no embarrassment in declaring that he himself has produced the phenomena of which he speaks. The Spiritists, I bet, have never been at such a feast, and they will not fail to take advantage of such concessions - if they can oppose Mr. Chevillard with anything other than the sincerity of their conviction.
It is not up to us to answer, but simply to extract from that set of facts the few magnetic laws that form the speaker's theory. "The vibrations of the table,” he says, “are produced by the voluntary internal thought of the medium, aided by the desire of credulous assistants, always numerous.” That is how the nervous or vital fluid is formally indicated, with which Mr. Chevillard establishes the definitive solution of the Spiritist problem. "Every Spiritist fact," he adds further, "is a succession of movements produced on an inanimate object by an unconscious magnetism."
Finally, summarizing his entire system in an abstract formula, he affirms that "the idea of mechanical voluntary action is transmitted, through the nervous fluid, from the brain to the inanimate object that performs the action, as an organ bound by the fluid to the wanting being, whether the connection is by contact or at a distance; but the being does not have the perception of his act, because he does not perform it by a muscular effort.”
These three examples are sufficient to indicate a theory, which in fact we do not have to discuss, and to which we may have to return later; but, remembering a lesson from M. E. Caro at the Sorbonne, we would naturally reproach Mr. Chevillard for the very title of his lecture. Has he first asked himself whether, in these questions that escape control, the mathematical proof, that can only be judged by deductions - the search for the first causes is not incompatible with the formulas of science?
Spiritism gives too much space to the freedom of reasoning to be able to fall under science properly said. The facts that are observed, wonderful no doubt, but always identical, escape every control, and conviction can only arise from the multiplicity of observations.
The cause, whatever the initiated say, remains a mystery to the man that cold-bloodedly weighs these strange phenomena, and the believers are reduced to making vows that, sooner or later, a fortuitous circumstance will tear this veil that hides the great problems of life from our eyes, and show us the radiant unknown god.
Pagès de Noyez.”
***
We gave our assessment of the reach of Mr. Chevillard's lectures in our previous issue, and it would be superfluous to refute a theory that, as we have said, is nothing new, no matter what the author thinks. That he has his system on the cause of the manifestations is his own right; that he believes it right, it is quite natural; but that he has the pretension to give to himself the definitive solution to the problem, that means that he alone is given the last word of the secrets of nature, and that after him there is nothing more to see, nor anything to discover. Who is the scientist who has ever pronounced the ultimate thing in science? There are things that we can think, but that it is not always clever to say it out loud. Besides, we have not seen any Spiritist concerned with the alleged discovery by Mr. Chevillard; all of them, on the contrary, wish that he continues to apply it to its last limits, without omitting any of the phenomena that could be opposed to that; above all, we would like to see him definitively solving these two questions:
What happens to the Spirits of men after death?
Under what law can these same Spirits, who stirred matter during the life of the body, no longer agitate it after death and manifest themselves to the living?
If Mr. Chevillard admits that the Spirit is distinct from matter, and that this Spirit survives the body, he must admit that the body is the instrument of the Spirit in the various acts of life; that it obeys the will of the Spirit. Since he admits that, through the transmission of electric fluid, tables, pencils, and other objects become appendages of the body and thus obey the thought of the incarnate Spirit, why then, by an analogous electric current, couldn’t they obey the thought of a disembodied Spirit?
Among those who admit the reality of the phenomena, four hypotheses have been put forward on their cause, namely: 1 - The exclusive action of the nervous, electrical, magnetic or any other fluid; 2 - The reflection of the thought of mediums and assistants, in the intelligent manifestations; 3 - The intervention of demons; 4 - The continuity of relations between human Spirits, freed from matter, and the corporeal world.
These four propositions have been, since the origin of Spiritism, advocated and discussed in all forms, in many writings, by men of indisputable worth. There was therefore no shortage of light from the discussion. How come, from those various systems, that of the Spirits has met the most sympathies; that it alone prevailed, and is now the only one admitted by most observers, in all countries of the world; that all the arguments of its opponents, after more than fifteen years, could not surpass it, if they are the expression of the truth?
This is still an interesting question to be resolved.
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.)
A Healing Medium Priest
"For some time, there has been a lot of talk in the Queyras Valley about a parish priest who, without medical studies, cured a crowd of people of various illnesses. He has been acting like this for a long time, and august figures are said to have consulted with him, while he was head of another parish in the Basses-Alpes. His cures made noise, and it is said that, as punishment, he was sent as parish priest to La Chalpe, a neighboring town of Abriès, on the border of the Piedmont. There he continued to be useful to humanity, relieving and healing like in the past.
There is nothing remarkable about it to the Spiritists; if I tell you about it, it is because, in the Queyras Valley as elsewhere, he makes a lot of noise. Like all serious healing mediums, he never accepts anything. S. M. the heir Empress of Russia would have offered him, I was told, several banknotes that he refused, begging her to put them in the donation box if she wanted to give them to his church.
Another individual once slipped a twenty-franc coin with his papers; when he noticed it, he brought him back by the pretext of giving him new indications and returned his money.
Many people talk about these healings in person; others do not believe it; I know about the fact from those that are the least favorable.
The parish priest had been denounced for the illegal practice of medicine; two policemen came to his house to take him to the authority. He said to them, "I will follow you; but give me a moment, please, for I did not eat. Have lunch with me, and you will watch me.” During the meal, he said to one of the policemen:
-You are sick.
-Sick? not now; three months ago, I do not deny.
-Well! I know what you have, and, if you want, I can heal you right away, if you do what I tell you. - They talked and the proposal was accepted.
The parish priest had the policeman suspended by his feet, so that his hands could rest on the ground and support him; he placed under his head a bowl of warm milk and administered what is called a milk fumigation. After a few minutes, a small snake, say some, a large worm according to others, fell into the bowl. The policeman, grateful, had the worm put in a bottle, and led the parish priest to the magistrate to whom he explained his case, after which the parish priest was released. I would like to have seen that parish priest," adds our correspondent, "but the snow in our mountains makes the paths too difficult in this season; I am forced to be satisfied with the information I am giving you. The conclusion of all this is that this faculty is developing and that the examples are multiplying. In the municipality I am quoting to you, and in our valley, this has a great effect. As always, some say: Charlatan; others, demon; others, sorcerer; but the facts are there, and I have not missed the opportunity to express my way of thinking, explaining that facts of such kind have nothing supernatural, nor diabolical, that we have seen thousands of examples since the former times, and that it is a way of manifestation of the power of God, without any breach of his eternal laws.”
Varieties
The miracles of Bois-d’Haines
The insensitivity and rigidity of the limbs have been noted by several doctors. During the crisis, five wounds open in the precise places where those of Christ were, letting true blood emerge. After the crisis the blood stops flowing, the wounds close and heal in 24 hours. During the attacks, says Dr. Beaucourt, author of the article, the Reverend P. Séraphin present at the sessions, thanks to the ascendancy he has on the patient, has the power to wake her up from her ecstasy. He adds: "Every man who is not an atheist must, in order to be logical, admit that he who has established the admirable laws, both physical and physiological, that govern nature, may also, at his discretion, suspend or momentarily change one or more of these laws."
It is, as we see, a miracle in the rules, and a repetition of the miracles of the stigmatized. Since miracles, according to the Church, are not the responsibility of Spiritism, we believe it is superfluous to go further in the search for the causes of the phenomenon; and even more so after another newspaper has since said that the bishop of the diocese had banned all exhibitions.
The Awakening of Mr. Louis
Parisian Society, February 12th, 1869 – medium Mr. Laymarie
“Gentlemen, it is necessary, despite myself, that I open my eyes and ears; I must hear and see. I may deny and declare that you are maniac people, very brave, but very prone to daydreams, illusions, but I confess, despite all my words, I must finally realize that I no longer dream. On this, I am fixed, but completely fixed. I come to your house every Friday, the meeting days, and by hearing repeatedly, I wanted to know if this famous dream would extend indefinitely. Friend Jobard took it upon himself to educate me on the subject, and that with supporting evidence.
I no longer belong to Earth; I am dead; I have seen the mourning of my loved ones, the regrets of friends, the contentment of some envious ones, and now I come to see you. My body did not follow me; it is there alright, in its corner, in the middle of human manure; and, either with or without appeal, I come to you today, no longer with spite, but with the desire and conviction to be enlightened. I discern perfectly well; I see what I have been; I travel immense distances with Jobard: so, I live; I conceive, I combine, I possess my will and my free-will: thus, not everything dies. Therefore, we were not an intelligent aggregation of molecules, and all our chants about the intelligence of matter, were just empty sentences and without consistency.
Ah! believe it, gentlemen, if my eyes open, I glimpse at a new truth, and it is not without suffering, without revolts, without bitter returns!
Hence it is very true! The Spirit remains! An intelligent fluid, it can live its own ethereal life, without matter, and according to your word: semi-material. Sometimes, however, I wonder if the whimsical dream I had been having for more than a month, does not continue with new, unheard-of adventures; but Jobard's cold and impassive reasoning forces my hand, and when I resist, he shouts, he likes to confuse me, and enjoys confusing me with epigrams and happy sayings! No matter how much I rebel and revolt, one must obey the truth.
The Desnoyers of Earth, the author of Jean-Paul Choppard is still alive, and his ardent thought embraces other horizons. He was once liberal and down to earth, whereas now he tackles and handles unknown, wonderful problems; and, in the face of these new assessments, please forgive me, gentlemen, for my somewhat lighthearted remarks, for if I were not completely right, you might well be a little wrong.
I must think, to definitively recognize myself, and if the result of my serious research leads me to your ideas, it is to be hoped, it will no longer be to burn my brains.
See you another time, gentlemen.
Louis Desnoyers.”
The same Spirit spontaneously gave the following communication about Lamartine's death.
(Parisian Society, March 5th, 1869 – medium Mr. Leymarie)
“Yes, gentlemen, we die somewhat forgotten; poor beings, we live proud of the organs that transmit our thoughts. We want life with its exuberances, we plan a multitude of projects. Our design is to have repercussion in this world, and when the last hour comes, all those noises, all that little fuss, our pride, our selfishness, our work, everything is engulfed in the mass. It is a drop of water in the human ocean.
Lamartine was a great and noble Spirit, chivalrous, enthusiastic, a true master in the sense of the word, a very pure, well-cut diamond; he was handsome, tall; he had the gaze, he had the gesture of the predestined; he knew how to think, how to write; he knew how to speak; he was an inspired, a transformer!... A poet, he gave impulse to literature by lending it his prestigious wings; As a man, he ruled a people, a revolution, and his hands came out clean from the contact with power.
No one, more than he, was loved, indulged, blessed, worshipped; and when the white hair came, when discouragement took the handsome old man, the fighter of the great days, he was no longer forgiven for a moment of failure. Even a weakened France slapped the poet, the great man; she wanted to shrink him, the fighter of two revolutions, and oblivion, I repeat, seemed to bury that great and magnanimous figure! He is dead, truly dead, for I welcomed him beyond the grave, with all those who had appreciated and liked him, despite the ostracism used by the youth in schools as a weapon against him.
He was transfigured, yes, gentlemen, transfigured by the pain of having seen those who had loved him so much, denying him the devotion that he never knew how to refuse in former times, while the winners reached out to him. The poet had become a philosopher, and the thinker matured his sore soul for the great trial. He saw better; he sensed everything, everything you hope for, gentlemen, and everything I did not expect.
More than him, I am a defeated; defeated by death, defeated in my lifetime by need, that insatiable enemy that teases us like a rodent; and much more defeated today, for I come to bow before the truth.
Ah! if a great truth is shining for France today; if the France of 89, if the mother of so many disappeared geniuses again begins to feel that one of his dearest children, the good, the noble Lamartine has disappeared, I feel today that nothing is dead for him; his memory is everywhere; the sound waves of so many memories move the world. He was immortal among you, but much more so among us, where he is truly transfigured. His Spirit shines, and God can receive the great unknown. Lamartine can now embrace the widest horizons and sing the grandiose hymns that his big heart had dreamed of. He can prepare your future, my friends, and accelerate with us the humanitarian phases. More than ever, he will be able to see developing in you that ardent love for education, progress, freedom, and association that are the elements of the future. France is an initiator; she knows what she can do: she will want, she will dare, when her powerful mane shakes the anthill that lives at the expense of her virility and greatness.
Will I, like him, be able to earn my halo and become resplendent with happiness, to see myself regenerated by your belief, whose greatness I understand today? Through you, God has marked me as a lost sheep; thank you, gentlemen. In contact with the much-mourned dead, I feel myself alive, and I will soon say with you in the same prayer: Death is the halo; death is life.
Louis Desnoyers.”
Observation: A lady, a member of the Society, who knew Mr. Lamartine particularly well, and had witnessed his last moments, had just said that after his death, his physiognomy had literally transfigured, no longer showing the decay of the old age; it is to this circumstance that the Spirit alludes.
Spiritist Dissertations
Lamartine“A friend, a great poet, wrote to me in a painful circumstance: - ‘She is always your companion, invisible, but present; you have lost the woman, but not the soul! Dear friend, let us live in the dead!’ - A consoling, salutary thought, that comforts in the struggle and makes us think incessantly of this ascending succession of matter, of this unity in the conception of all that is, of that wonderful and incomparable worker who, for the continuity of progress, attaches the Spirit to this matter, spiritualized in turn by the presence of the superior element.
No, my beloved one, I could not lose your soul that lived glorious, sparkling with all the clarities of the invisible world. My life is a living protest to the looming scourge of skepticism, in its many forms. No one has affirmed more energetically than I have the divine personality, and believed in the human personality, defending freedom. If the feeling of infinity was developed in me, if the divine presence pulsates in enthusiastic pages, it is because I had to tame my path; it is that I lived in the presence of God, and that constantly gushing source has always made me believe in the good, the beautiful, the righteousness, the devotion, the honor of the individual, and even more so in the honor of the nation, the condensed individuality. It is that my partner was of an elite nature, strong and tender. Near her, I understood the nature of the soul and its intimate relationship with the statue of flesh, this wonder! Thus, my studies were spiritualized, and consequently fruitful and rapid, constantly turning towards the forms of beauty and the passion for words. I married science with thought, so that philosophy, in my mind, could use these two precious poetic instruments.
My form was sometimes abstract, and it was not within everyone's reach; but serious thinkers adopted it; all the great minds of my time opened their ranks to me. Catholic orthodoxy looked at me like a sheep fleeing the flock of the Roman pastor, especially when, swept away by events, I shared the responsibility for a glorious revolution.
Driven for a moment by popular aspirations, by this powerful breath of compressed ideas, I was no longer the man of great situations; I had finished my journey, and for me the hours of weariness and discouragement had sounded in the clock of time. I saw my ordeal, and while Lamartine was painfully enduring it, the children of this beloved France spat in his face, with no respect for his white hair, the outrage, the challenge, the insult.
Solemn trial, gentlemen, where the soul retempers and rectifies itself, for oblivion is death, and death on Earth is trade with God, the wise dispenser of all forces!
I died as a Christian; I was born into the Church, I departed before it! For a year, I had a deep intuition. I spoke little, but I traveled incessantly in these ethereal plains where everything is remelted under the gaze of the Lord of the worlds; the problem of life unfolded majestically, gloriously. I understood the thought of the Swedenborg and the school of theosophists, Fourier, Jean Reynaud, Henri Martin, Victor Hugo, and the Spiritism that was familiar to me, although in contradiction with my prejudices and my birth, prepared me for the detachment, for the departure. The transition was not painful; like the pollen of a flower, my Spirit, carried away by a whirlwind, found the sister plant. Like you, I call it erraticity; and to make me love such longed-for sister, my mother, my beloved wife, a multitude of friends and invisibles surrounded me with a luminous halo. Immersed in this beneficent fluid, my Spirit relaxed, like the body of the traveler of the desert who, after a long journey under a sky of lead and fire, would find a generous bath for his body, a clear and fresh fountain for his fierce thirst.
Ineffable joys of a boundless heaven, concerts of all harmonies, molecules that echo the chords of divine science, invigorating warmth of its unnamed impressions that the human language cannot decipher, new well-being, rebirth, complete elasticity, electric depth of certainties, similarities of laws, calm full of splendor, spheres that house humanities, oh! welcome, predicted emotions, indefinitely amplified with radiances of infinity!
Exchange your ideas, Spiritists, who believe in us. Study in the always new sources of our teaching; affirm yourselves and let every member of the family be an apostle who speaks, walks, and acts with will, with the certainty that you give nothing to the unknown. Learn a lot so that your intelligence rises. Human science, united with the science of your invisible but luminous auxiliaries, will make you masters of the future; you will cast the shadows out to come to us, that is, to the light, to God.
Alphonse de Lamartine.”
Charles Fourier
Paris, Group Desliens, March 9th, 1869
“Brother Fourier, from the top of the ultra-worldly sphere, if your Spirit can see and hear me, I beg you to communicate with me, to strengthen the conviction that your admirable theory of the four movements has given me on the law of universal harmony, or to discourage me if you had the misfortune of deceiving yourself. - You, whose incomparable genius seems to have lifted the curtain that hid nature, and whose Spirit must be even more lucid than it was in the material world, I beg you to tell me if you acknowledge, in the spiritual world as on Earth, that the natural order established by God is crumbling in our social organization; whether passionate attractions are really the lever that God uses to lead man towards his true destiny; whether analogy is a sure way of discovering the truth.
Please also tell me what you think of the cooperative societies that germinate on all sides on the surface of our globe. If your Spirit can read the mind of the sincere man, you must know that doubt makes him unhappy; that is why I beg you, from your abode beyond the grave, to kindly do whatever depends on you to convince me.
Receive, our brother, the assurance of respect I owe to your memory and of my greatest veneration.
J. G.”
Answer: It is a very serious question, dear brother in belief, to ask a man if he was mistaken, when a certain number of years have passed since he exposed the system that best satisfied his aspirations towards the unknown! Was I wrong?... Who was not mistaken when he wanted to lift the veil that hid the sacred fire, with his own strength! Prometheus made men with that fire, but the law of progress condemned those men to physical and moral struggles. I made a system destined to live a time, like all systems, then to transform, to associate with new, more real elements. As you see, it is ideas as well as men. Since they are born, they do not die, they transform. Coarse at first, wrapped in the mist of language, they successively find craftsmen who cut and polish them more and more, until the shapeless pebble becomes the diamond with a bright shine, the precious stone par excellence.
I searched conscientiously and found a lot. Based on the acquired principles, I advanced the intelligent and regenerative thinking by a few steps. What I discovered was true, in principle; I distorted it, by willing to apply it. I wanted to create the series, to establish harmonies; but these series, these harmonies did not need a creator; they existed since the beginning; and I could only disturb them by wanting to establish them on the small bases of my conception, when God had given them the universe as a gigantic laboratory.
My most serious title, and perhaps the most neglected and ignored, is to have shared with Jean Reynaud, Ballanche, Joseph de Maistre and many others, the presentiment of the truth; it is to have dreamed of this human regeneration by trial, this succession of restorative existences, this communication of the free world and the world chained to matter, that you have the pleasure of touching with your finger. We had foreseen and you are making our dream come true. These are our greatest titles of glory, the only ones that, for my part, I esteem and remember.
You say you doubt, my friend! So much the better, for he who truly doubts seeks, and he who seeks, finds. Seek, therefore, and if it only depends on me to put conviction in your hands, count on my devoted assistance; but listen to a friend's advice that I put into practice in my life and that has always done me good: "If you want a serious demonstration of a universal law, seek its individual application.” Do you want the truth? Seek it in yourself and in observing the facts of your own life. All the evidence is there. Let him who wants to know examine himself, and he will find.
Charles Fourier.”
Bibliography
Is there a future life?For the greatest part, being the future life out of the question, a demonstration becomes somehow superfluous, because it is somehow as if we wanted to prove that the sun rises every morning. However, since there are blind people who do not see the sun rising, it is good to know how one can prove it to them; well, that is the task undertaken by the Ghost, author of this book. This Ghost is an illustrious engineer whom we know by reputation, from other philosophical books that bear his name; but since he did not judge it appropriate to use his name on this one, we do not believe that we have the right to make an indiscretion, although we know for a fact that he makes no secret of his beliefs.
This book proves once again that science does not inevitably lead to materialism, and that a mathematician can be a firm believer in God, in the soul, in the future life and in all its consequences.
It is not a simple profession of faith, but a demonstration worthy of a mathematician by his strict and irresistible logic. Nor is it an arid and dogmatic dissertation, but a guided controversy in the form of a familiar conversation, where the pros and cons are impartially discussed.
The author recounts that attending the funeral of one of his friends, he began to talk with several guests along the way. The circumstance and the emotions of the ceremony lead the conversation to the fate of man after death. It first started with a Nihilist[2] to whom he decided to demonstrate the reality of the future life, by arguments linked with admirable art, and without shocking or offending him, naturally bringing him to his ideas.
By the tomb, two speeches are delivered in a diametrically opposite direction on the question of the future, producing different impressions. On the way back, new interlocutors join the first two; they agree to meet at the house of one of them, and there a serious controversy begins, in which the various opinions put forward the basis that sustain their positions.
This book, of an endearing reading, has all the appeal of a story, and all the depth of a philosophical thesis. We will add that, among the principles he advocates, we have not found a single in contradiction with the Spiritist doctrine by which the author must have been inspired.
The need of reincarnation for progress, its evidence, its agreement with God's justice, the atonement and reparation through the encounter of those who have harmed themselves in a previous existence, are demonstrated with striking clarity. Several cited examples prove that the forgetfulness of the past, in the life of relationship, is a blessing of the Providence, and that this momentary forgetfulness does not prevent us from taking advantage of the past experience, since the soul remembers in the moments of detachment.
Here, in a few words, is one of the facts told by one of the interlocutors and which, he says, is personal to him.
He was an apprentice in a large factory; by his conduct, intelligence, and character, he conquered the esteem and friendship of the boss who later associated him with his house. Several facts of which he did not realize then, prove in him the perception and intuition of things during the sleep; such faculty even served him to prevent an accident that could have disastrous consequences for the factory.
The boss's daughter, a charming eight-year-old child, befriends him and enjoys being with him; but every time she approaches him, he experiences a freezing cold and an instinctive repulsion; her contact displeases him. However, that feeling weakens gradually, and fades away. Later, he married her; she is good, affectionate, considerate and the union is very happy.
One night, he had an awful dream. He saw himself in his previous incarnation; his wife had conducted herself in an undignified manner, and had been the cause of his death, and strange thing! He could not separate the idea of that woman from his present wife; it seemed to him that it was the same person. Upset with that vision, he is sad when he wakes up; pressed by his wife to tell him the cause, he decides to tell her about his nightmare. "It's singular," she says, "I had a similar dream, and I was the culprit." The circumstances led both to recognize that they were not united for the first time; the husband explains the repulsion he had for his wife when she was a child; the woman redoubles her care to erase her past; but she is already forgiven, for reparation has taken place, and the household continues to be prosperous.
Hence the conclusion that these two beings have again found themselves reunited, one to repair, the other to forgive; that if they had had the memory of the past, they would have kept away, and that they would have lost the benefit of reparation to one, and forgiveness to the other.
To give an accurate idea of the interest of this book, it should be quoted almost in full. We shall limit ourselves to the following passage:
“You ask me if I believe in the future life, an old general told me. If we soldiers believe it! And how do you want it to be otherwise unless we're a triple brute? What do you want us to think on the eve of a combat, an assault, when all indications are that it must be deadly?... After saying goodbye, in thoughts, to the loved ones we are threatened with leaving, we instinctvely return to the maternal teachings that showed us a future life where sympathetic beings meet. We draw from those memories a redoubling of courage that makes us face the greatest dangers, according to our temperament, with calm or with a certain enthusiasm, and even more often with an outburst, a cheerfulness, that are the characteristic features of the French army.
"After all, we are the descendants of those brave Gauls whose belief in the future life was so great that they borrowed sums of money to be repaid in another life. I go further, I am convinced that we are still those children of old Gaul, that between the time of Caesar and ours, went through many existences, conquering in each one a higher rank in the earthly phalanges.”
This book will be read fruitfully by the firmest believers, because from that they will draw new arguments to refute their opponents.
[1] One volume, in-12, price 3 francs.
[2] Nihilism: a viewpoint that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded, and that existence is senseless and useless (Merriam-Webster dictionary, T.N.)
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.
Spiritist Societies and Newspapers Abroad
We will also talk about the two new Spiritist newspapers that we limit ourselves to announcing below.
El Spiritism (Spiritism); 12 pages in-4°, published twice a month since March 1st, in Seville, Calle de Genova, 51. - Price, per quarter: Seville, 5 reals; provinces, 6 reals; Abroad, 10 reals.
Il Veggent (The Seer), a weekly newspaper on magnetism-Spiritism; four pages in-4°; published in Florence, Via Pietra Piana, 40. - Price: 4.5 francs per year; 2.5 francs for six months.
Erratum
March 1869 issue, instead of concert of the Spirit, read: concept of the Spirit.[1]
[1] Already incorporated in this translation (T.N.)