The Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1863

Allan Kardec

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Letter about Spiritism Extracted from the Renard, a weekly journal from Bordeaux, published on November 1st, 1862

To Mr. Chief Editor of the Renard:

Mr. Editor,

If the subject that I discuss here is not too trouble, I request the insertion of this letter in the next issue of your esteemed journal.

A few words about Spiritism: It is a very controversial subject that worries many people these days and anything that a loyal and seriously convict man may write about this subject cannot seem useless or ridiculous to anyone. I want to impose my convictions to no one for I don’t have the age or experience or intelligence to be a mentor. I just want to tell all those who only know this theory by name and who are prepared to welcome Spiritism through a joke or a sympathetic disdain: Do as I did. Try, for starters, to get instructed and you will then have the right to disdain or attack.

One month ago, Mr. Editor, I only had a vague idea about Spiritism. I only knew that this discovery or utopia for which new words were invented was based on facts (true or false) so much supernatural that were immediately rejected by all those who don’t believe in anything that cause admiration, who never accept progress unless pig backing the whole century and that, like new Thomas, are only convinced when they can touch something.

Like them, I confess, I was prepared to laugh at this theory and its followers. Before laughing, however, I wanted to know what it was about and introduced myself at a society of Spiritists in the house of Mr. E…B…I must say in-passing that Mr. B… seemed to me to be a righteous, serious and enlightened person, of a conviction strong enough to stop the smile on the lips of a joker for, regardless of what people say, a solid conviction always imposes itself.

At the end of the first session I laughed no more but still had doubts and what I felt above all was a strong desire to learn, a febrile impatience to witness new proofs. That is what I did yesterday, Mr. Editor, and I doubt no more. Not to mention some personal details that were transmitted to me and were ignored by the medium as well as by all members of the Society I saw facts that to me were irrefutable.



Without giving here – and you will understand why – any thoughts about the level of education of the medium I declare to be impossible to anyone unless a Bossuet or a Pascal to respond immediately and so clearly and at a mechanical speed so to speak and in such a concise, elegant and correct style in several pages about questions such as this: How to conciliate free-will with divine prescience? – That is about the most arduous issues of Metaphysics. That is what I saw, Mr. Editor, and much more that I don’t mention in this already long letter. I write it – I repeat – so that it may possibly inspire in some of your readers the desire to learn. Later they may be convinced like I am.

Tibulle Lang, former student of the Polytechnic School



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