Letter sent from Brunswick to the Pays:
“A peasant woman from the region of Lutter has just given birth to a child with the full looks of a monkey for the body is almost entirely covered by tuffs of black hair and not even the face escaped the strange covering. Married for twelve years and although remarkably resigned the poor lady has not yet given birth to a single child that does not carry a more or less horrible disease. Her ten-year-old oldest daughter is hunchbacked and her face seems to be a thorough copy of Polichinelo’s. Her second son, a seven-year-old boy is paraplegic. The third girl not yet five years old is deaf-mute and mentally challenged. Finally the fourth one that is only two years old is totally blind. What could be the cause of that strange phenomenon? That is something for science to explain. The father is perfectly healthy and nothing can explain the kind of fatality that has fallen upon that family.”
Monitor, July 29th 1864
“That is something for science to explain”, the newspaper says. There are many other facts about which science remains powerless not to mention the events of Morzine and Poitiers. The reason for that is very simple. Science is adamant in only looking for causes in matter only taking into account the known laws. With respect to certain phenomena science is in the position that it would be if it had never moved on from the physics of Aristotle; if it were still ignorant about the law of gravitation or electricity; where religion was while neglecting the law of movement of the globes; where still today are those that disregard the geological law of formation of the globe.
Two forces share the world: spirit and matter. Spirit and matter have their own laws. Now, since these two forces incessantly act upon one another it follows that certain material phenomena have their causes in the action of the spirit and that some cannot be totally understood if the action of the other are not taken into account. Beyond the tangible laws, therefore, there is another one that has a capital importance in the world, the relationships between the visible and invisible worlds. When science acknowledges the existence of that law it will then find there the solution to an infinite number of problems against which it uselessly crashes.
The monstrosities, like all other congenital diseases, undoubtedly have a physiological cause that belongs to the field of material science. However, supposing that science come to grips with the secret of such deviations of nature, there will still be the problem of the initial cause and the conciliation of the fact with God’s justice. If science says that it is not in its scope religion cannot say the same. When science demonstrates the existence of something it assigns religion with the duty of finding the proof of the sovereign wisdom there. Hasn’t religion ever probed the mystery of those abnormal existences from the point of view of the divine fairness? Or those fatalities that seem to persecute certain families without currently known causes? No because religion feels its own impotence and fears these terrible questions to its absolute dogmas. Up until now people accepted the fact without going further but now they think, ponder and want to know; they question science that seeks the answer in the material fibers and remains mute; question religion that responds: Impenetrable mystery!
Low and behold! Spiritism comes to tear off that mystery and make the dazzling justice of God come out of that. It demonstrates that those disinherited souls since birth in this world have already lived before and that they atone now in misshapen bodies their past faults. It demonstrates the observation, and reason confirms, because one could not admit that they would be punished just when they leave the hands of God and when they had not done anything.
It is okay, they will tell the creature that has just been born like that. But how about the parents? The mother that only gives birth to disgraced creatures; that is precluded from one single child that can make her proud and that she can joyfully show around? Spiritism responds to that: God’s justice, atonement, trial to her maternal kindness because it is a test and a big one to only see deformed kids around her instead of gracious ones. Spiritism then adds: there isn’t a single breach of God’s laws that sooner or later will not have dismal consequences on Earth or in the spiritual world, in this life or in the next one.
For the same reason there isn’t a single vicissitude of life that is not consequence and punishment for a past fault and that is how it is going to be for each one of us while there is no regret, while there is no atonement or reparation of what has been done. One returns to Earth to atone and make amendments. It is up to each one of us to improve significantly down here to avoid returned as a condemned one. God frequently uses the one that must be punished to punish others. That is why the Spirits of those children that must incarnate in deformed bodies for punishment are, regardless of their will, instruments of atonement to the mother that gave birth to them. That distributive justice, proportional to the extension of the wicked actions, is worth more than the eternal, irremissible penalties that forever eliminate the path of regret and reparation.
The fact above was read at the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies as a subject for philosophical studies and a Spirit gave the following explanation:
Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, July 29th 1864
If you could see the hidden benefits that move your world you would understand how things are linked together from the tiniest to the greatest things; you would understand above all the intimate relationship between the physical and the spiritual world, that great law of nature; you would see the multitude of intelligences that preside over everything and utilize them for the accomplishment of our Creator’s designs. Consider for a moment that you are in front of a hive whose bees were invisible. The work that you would be carried out every day would cause you admiration and you would perhaps say: that is a singular effect of chance! Well then! You are really in front of a huge atelier led by uncountable legions of workers that are invisible to you, from which some are manual labor workers that just obey and execute, while others command and lead, each in their own sphere of activities proportional to their development and advancement and from there, step by step, to the supreme will that drives everything.
That is how the action of God is explained in their minimal details. Like the earthly sovereign God has the ministers and these have their subordinates, secondary gears of the great governance of the universe. If in a well administered country the last shanty feels the effects and the solicitude of the chief of state what to think of the infinite wisdom of the Almighty reaching the minimal details of creation!
Do not believe that the woman that you have just mentioned is a victim of chance or of a blind fatality. No. What happens to her has a cause, rest assured. She is punished in her pride; she neglected the weak and the sick; she was tough to the unfortunate people from whom she looked the other way with disgust instead of embracing them with the looks of commiseration; she was proud of the physical beauty of her children in detriment of the least favored mothers; she exhibited them proudly because to her the beauty of the body was more important than the soul; she therefore led them to vices that delayed their progress instead of developing the qualities of the heart. God allowed her to only have disabled children in this present life so that her maternal kindness helped her to overcome her rejection for the miserable ones. To her it is a means of punishment and progress. In such punishment, however, both the justice and benevolence of God shine out incessantly punishing with one hand while the other provides the means of recovery.
A protector Spirit
