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HEAVEN AND HELL OR THE DIVINE JUSTICE ACCORDING TO SPIRITISM
HEAVEN AND HELL OR THE DIVINE JUSTICE ACCORDING TO SPIRITISM
HEAVEN AND HELL
DIVINE JUSTICE ACCORDING TO SPIRITISM
A COMPARATIVE EXAMINATION OF DOCTRINES CONCERNING THE PASSAGE FROM CORPOREAL LIFE TO SPIRIT LIFE. CONCERNING FUTURE PUNISHMENT AND REWARD, CONCERNING ANGELS AND DEMONS, CONCERNING SUFFERING, ETC., FOLLOWED BY SEVERAL EXAMPLES REGARING THE TRUE SITUATION OF THE SOUL DURING AND AFTER DEATH
By
Allan Kardec
“Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel?’”
PART FIRST – DOCTRINE
Chapter I - FUTURE LIFE AND ANNIHILATION
1. It is certain that we live, think, and act; it is not less certain that we shall die. But, on leaving Earth, where shall we go? What will become of us? Shall we be better off, or shall we be worse off? Shall we continue to exist, or shall we cease to exist? “To be, or not to be,” is the alternative presented to us; it will be for always, or not at all; it will be everything, or nothing; we shall live on eternally, or we shall cease to live, once and forever. The alternative is well worth the consideration.
Everyone feels a need to live, to love, and be happy. Announce, to one who believes himself to be at the point of death, that his life is to be prolonged, that the hour of death is delayed—announce to him, moreover, that he is going to be happier than he has ever been—and his heart will beat high with joy and hope. But to what end does the human heart thus instinctively aspire after happiness, if an ill wind suffices to scatter its aspirations?
Can anything be more agonizing than the idea that we are doomed to utter and absolute destruction, that our dearest affections, our intelligence, our knowledge so laboriously acquired, are all to be dissolved, thrown away, and lost forever? Why should we strive to become wiser or better? Why should we apply restraints to our passions? Why should we exhaust ourselves with effort and study, if our exertions are to bear no fruit? If, before very long, perhaps tomorrow, all that we have done is to be of no further use to us? Were such really our doom, the lot of humankind would be a thousand times worse than that of the brutes; for the brute lives thoroughly in the present, in the gratification of its bodily appetites, with no torturing anxiety, no tormenting aspiration, to impair its enjoyment of the passing hour. But a secret and invincible intuition tells us that such cannot be our destiny.
Everyone feels a need to live, to love, and be happy. Announce, to one who believes himself to be at the point of death, that his life is to be prolonged, that the hour of death is delayed—announce to him, moreover, that he is going to be happier than he has ever been—and his heart will beat high with joy and hope. But to what end does the human heart thus instinctively aspire after happiness, if an ill wind suffices to scatter its aspirations?
Can anything be more agonizing than the idea that we are doomed to utter and absolute destruction, that our dearest affections, our intelligence, our knowledge so laboriously acquired, are all to be dissolved, thrown away, and lost forever? Why should we strive to become wiser or better? Why should we apply restraints to our passions? Why should we exhaust ourselves with effort and study, if our exertions are to bear no fruit? If, before very long, perhaps tomorrow, all that we have done is to be of no further use to us? Were such really our doom, the lot of humankind would be a thousand times worse than that of the brutes; for the brute lives thoroughly in the present, in the gratification of its bodily appetites, with no torturing anxiety, no tormenting aspiration, to impair its enjoyment of the passing hour. But a secret and invincible intuition tells us that such cannot be our destiny.
2. The belief in annihilation necessarily leads human beings to concentrate all their thoughts on their present life; for what, in fact, could be more illogical than to trouble ourselves about a future which we do not believe will have any existence? And as those whose attention is thus exclusively directed to their present life naturally places their own interests above those of others, this belief is the most powerful stimulant to selfishness, and they who hold it are perfectly consistent with themselves in saying: “Let us get the greatest possible amount of enjoyment out of this world while we are in it; let us secure all the pleasures which the present can offer, seeing that, after death, everything will be over with us; and let us hasten to make sure of our own enjoyment, for we know not how long our life may last.” Such as these are, moreover, equally consistent in arriving at this further conclusion—most dangerous to the well- being of society—”Let us make sure of our enjoyment, no matter by what means; let our motto be: ‘Each for himself;’ the good things in life are prizes for the most adroit.”
If a few are restrained, by respect for public opinion, from carrying out this program to its full extent, what restraint is there for those who stand in no such awe of their neighbors, who regard human law as a tyranny that is exercised only over those who are sufficiently wanting in cleverness to bring themselves within its reach, and who consequently apply all their ingenuity to evading alike its requirements and its penalties? If any doctrine merits the qualifications of pernicious and anti-social, it is assuredly that of annihilation, because it destroys the sentiments of solidarity and fraternity, which are the sole basis for social relations.
If a few are restrained, by respect for public opinion, from carrying out this program to its full extent, what restraint is there for those who stand in no such awe of their neighbors, who regard human law as a tyranny that is exercised only over those who are sufficiently wanting in cleverness to bring themselves within its reach, and who consequently apply all their ingenuity to evading alike its requirements and its penalties? If any doctrine merits the qualifications of pernicious and anti-social, it is assuredly that of annihilation, because it destroys the sentiments of solidarity and fraternity, which are the sole basis for social relations.
3. Let us suppose that an entire nation has acquired, in some way or other, the certainty that, at the end of a week, a month, or a year, it will be utterly destroyed, that not a single individual of its people will be left alive, that they will all be utterly annihilated, and that not a trace of their existence will remain; what, in such a case, would be the line of conduct adopted by the people thus doomed to a certain and foreseen destruction, during the short time which they would still have to exist? Would they work for their moral improvement, or for their instruction? Would they continue to work for their living? Would they scrupulously respect the rights, the property, and the life, of their neighbors? Would they submit to the laws of their country, or to any ascendancy, even to that of parental authority, the most legitimate of all? Would they recognize the existence of any duty? Assuredly not. Well, —the social ruin which we have imagined, by the way of illustration, as overtaking an entire nation, is being effected, individually, from day to day, by the doctrine of annihilation. If the practical consequences of this doctrine are not so disastrous to society as they might be, it is because, in the first place, there is, among the greater number of those whose vanity is flattered by the title of “free- thinker,” more of braggadocio than of absolute unbelief, more doubt than conviction, and more dread of annihilation than they care to show; and, in the second place, because those who really believe in annihilation are a very small minority, and are consequently influenced, in spite of themselves, by the contrary opinion, and held in check by the resistant forces of society and of the State: but, should absolute disbelief in a future existence ever be arrived at by the majority of humankind, the dissolution of society would necessarily follow. The propagation of the doctrine of annihilation would lead, inevitably, to this result.
But * whatever may be the consequences of the doctrine of annihilation, if that doctrine were true, it would have to be accepted; for, if annihilation were our destiny, neither opposing systems of philosophy, nor the moral and social ills that would result from our knowledge that such a destiny was awaiting us, could prevent our being annihilated. And it is useless to attempt to disguise from ourselves that skepticism, doubt, and indifference, are gaining ground every day, notwithstanding the efforts of the various religious bodies to the contrary. But if the religious systems of the day are powerless against skepticism, it is because they lack the weapons necessary for combating the enemy; so that, if their teaching were allowed to remain in a state of immobility, they would, soon, be inevitably defeated in the struggle. What is lacking to those systems—in this age of positivism, when men demand to understand before believing—is the confirmation of their doctrines by facts and by their concordance with the discoveries of Positive Science. If theoretic systems say white where facts say black, we must choose between an enlightened appreciation of evidence and a blind acceptance of arbitrary statements.
But * whatever may be the consequences of the doctrine of annihilation, if that doctrine were true, it would have to be accepted; for, if annihilation were our destiny, neither opposing systems of philosophy, nor the moral and social ills that would result from our knowledge that such a destiny was awaiting us, could prevent our being annihilated. And it is useless to attempt to disguise from ourselves that skepticism, doubt, and indifference, are gaining ground every day, notwithstanding the efforts of the various religious bodies to the contrary. But if the religious systems of the day are powerless against skepticism, it is because they lack the weapons necessary for combating the enemy; so that, if their teaching were allowed to remain in a state of immobility, they would, soon, be inevitably defeated in the struggle. What is lacking to those systems—in this age of positivism, when men demand to understand before believing—is the confirmation of their doctrines by facts and by their concordance with the discoveries of Positive Science. If theoretic systems say white where facts say black, we must choose between an enlightened appreciation of evidence and a blind acceptance of arbitrary statements.
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* We knew a young man of eighteen, who was attacked by a disease of the heart, pronounced by the faculty to be incurable. His physicians had declared that he might die in a week, or might live on for a couple of years, but that his life could not possibly be prolonged beyond that period. The young man, on becoming aware of the fate that awaited him, immediately broke off his studies and gave himself up to every sort of debauchery. To the arguments addressed to him upon the dangers of such a life of disorder to someone in his state of health, he invariably replied: “What does it matter, seeing that I have only two years to live? What would be the use of fatiguing myself with study? I am making the most of the remnant of life that is left to me, and am determined to enjoy myself while it lasts.” Such is the logical consequence of a belief in annihilation.
If this young man had been a Spiritist, he would have said to himself: “Death will only destroy my body, which I shall throw aside like a worn-out garment; but my spirit will live forever. I shall be, in my next phase of existence, just what I shall have made of myself by my present life. Nothing that I shall have acquired, in morality or in knowledge, will be lost to me, for every new acquisition I shall have made will be so much added to my advancement. The cure of every imperfection, of which I may have been able to rid myself during my present existence, will take me a step further on my road to felicity; my future happiness or unhappiness will be the result of the good or bad use I shall have made of the life which I am now living. It is, therefore, of the utmost importance for me to make the most of the short time still remaining to me, and to avoid whatever would tend to diminish my strength.”
Which of the two doctrines we are comparing is the preferable one?
* We knew a young man of eighteen, who was attacked by a disease of the heart, pronounced by the faculty to be incurable. His physicians had declared that he might die in a week, or might live on for a couple of years, but that his life could not possibly be prolonged beyond that period. The young man, on becoming aware of the fate that awaited him, immediately broke off his studies and gave himself up to every sort of debauchery. To the arguments addressed to him upon the dangers of such a life of disorder to someone in his state of health, he invariably replied: “What does it matter, seeing that I have only two years to live? What would be the use of fatiguing myself with study? I am making the most of the remnant of life that is left to me, and am determined to enjoy myself while it lasts.” Such is the logical consequence of a belief in annihilation.
If this young man had been a Spiritist, he would have said to himself: “Death will only destroy my body, which I shall throw aside like a worn-out garment; but my spirit will live forever. I shall be, in my next phase of existence, just what I shall have made of myself by my present life. Nothing that I shall have acquired, in morality or in knowledge, will be lost to me, for every new acquisition I shall have made will be so much added to my advancement. The cure of every imperfection, of which I may have been able to rid myself during my present existence, will take me a step further on my road to felicity; my future happiness or unhappiness will be the result of the good or bad use I shall have made of the life which I am now living. It is, therefore, of the utmost importance for me to make the most of the short time still remaining to me, and to avoid whatever would tend to diminish my strength.”
Which of the two doctrines we are comparing is the preferable one?
4. It is in this state of things that the phenomena of Spiritism are spontaneously developed in the order of Providence, and oppose a barrier against the invasion of skepticism, not only by argument, or by the prospect of the dangers which it reveals, but also by the production of physical facts which render the existence of the soul, and the reality of a future life, both palpable and visible.
Each human being is, undoubtedly, free to believe anything, or to believe nothing; but those who employ the ascendancy of their knowledge and position in propagating, among the masses, and especially among the rising generation, the negation of a future life, are sowing wide the seeds of social confusion and dissolution, and are incurring a heavy responsibility by doing so.
Each human being is, undoubtedly, free to believe anything, or to believe nothing; but those who employ the ascendancy of their knowledge and position in propagating, among the masses, and especially among the rising generation, the negation of a future life, are sowing wide the seeds of social confusion and dissolution, and are incurring a heavy responsibility by doing so.
5. There is another doctrine that repudiates the qualification of “Materialist,” because it admits the existence of a principle distinct from matter; we allude to that which asserts that each individual soul is to be absorbed in the Universal Whole. According to this doctrine, all human beings assimilate, at birth, a particle of this principle, which constitutes their souls and gives them life, intelligence and feeling. At death, their souls return to the common source, and are merged in infinity as a drop of water is merged in the ocean.
This doctrine is, undoubtedly, an improvement over that of pure and simple Materialism, in as much as it admits something more than matter; but its consequences are precisely the same. Whether individuals, after death, are dissolved into nothingness, or plunged into a general reservoir, is all one, as far as they themselves are concerned; for if, in the one case, they are annihilated, in the other, they lose their individuality, which is, for them, exactly the same thing as though they ceased to exist: in either case, all social relations are destroyed forever. What is essential for every human being is the preservation of the essential self; without that, what does it matter to them whether they exist, or do not exist? In either case, for them, the future is nil, and the present life is the only thing of any importance to them. As regards its moral consequences, this doctrine is, therefore, just as pernicious, just as devoid of hope, just as powerful a stimulus to selfishness, as materialism properly so called.
This doctrine is, undoubtedly, an improvement over that of pure and simple Materialism, in as much as it admits something more than matter; but its consequences are precisely the same. Whether individuals, after death, are dissolved into nothingness, or plunged into a general reservoir, is all one, as far as they themselves are concerned; for if, in the one case, they are annihilated, in the other, they lose their individuality, which is, for them, exactly the same thing as though they ceased to exist: in either case, all social relations are destroyed forever. What is essential for every human being is the preservation of the essential self; without that, what does it matter to them whether they exist, or do not exist? In either case, for them, the future is nil, and the present life is the only thing of any importance to them. As regards its moral consequences, this doctrine is, therefore, just as pernicious, just as devoid of hope, just as powerful a stimulus to selfishness, as materialism properly so called.
6. The doctrine we have been considering is open, moreover, to the following objection. All the drops of water contained in the ocean resemble one another exactly and possess identically the same properties, as must necessarily be the case with the several parts of any homogeneous Whole; how is it, then, that the souls of the human race, if they are only so many drops taken out of a great ocean of intelligence, are so unlike one another? Why do we find genius side by side with stupidity? The most sublime virtues, side by side with the most ignoble vices? Kindness, gentleness, forbearance, side by side with cruelty, violence, and barbarity? How can the parts of a homogenous Whole be so different from one another? Will it be said that they are modified by education? But, if so, whence come the various qualities which they bring with them at birth, the precocious intelligence of some, the good or bad instinct of others, that are not only independent of education, but often altogether out of harmony with the surrounding amidst which they are found?
Education, most undoubtedly, does modify the intellectual and moral qualities of the soul; but here another difficulty presents itself. Who is it that gives, to each soul, the education that causes it to progress? Other souls, who—according to the doctrine that makes them out to be drops of a homogenous ocean of soul—could be no more advanced than themselves! On the other hand, if the soul, after having thus progressed during its life, returns to the Universal Whole from which it came, it gives back an improved element to that Whole; and it would therefore follow that the general Whole will be, in course of time, profoundly modified, and improved, by this educational modification of its parts. How is it, in that case, that ignorant and perverse souls are constantly being produced from it?
Education, most undoubtedly, does modify the intellectual and moral qualities of the soul; but here another difficulty presents itself. Who is it that gives, to each soul, the education that causes it to progress? Other souls, who—according to the doctrine that makes them out to be drops of a homogenous ocean of soul—could be no more advanced than themselves! On the other hand, if the soul, after having thus progressed during its life, returns to the Universal Whole from which it came, it gives back an improved element to that Whole; and it would therefore follow that the general Whole will be, in course of time, profoundly modified, and improved, by this educational modification of its parts. How is it, in that case, that ignorant and perverse souls are constantly being produced from it?
7. According to this doctrine, the universal source of intelligence, from which souls are produced, is distinct from the Divinity; it is, therefore, not quite the same as Pantheism. Pantheism, properly so called, differs from this doctrine in as much as it considers the universal principle of life and intelligence as constituting the Divinity. God, according to Pantheism, is both spirit and matter; all the beings, all the bodies of nature, compose the Divinity, of which they are molecules, the constituent elements. God is the total of all that is; each individual, being a part of this total, is himself, or herself, God; the total is not ruled over by any commanding and superior being; the universe is an immense republic without a chief, or, rather, in which each of its members is a chief, endowed with absolute power.
8. This system is open to a variety of objections, of which the principal are the following: — It being impossible to conceive Divinity without the infinitude of God’s perfections, how can a Perfect Whole be formed of parts so imperfect as we see them to be, and having so great a need of progression? These parts being subjected to the law of progress, it follows that God must also progress incessantly; and, if God has been progressing from all eternity, it also follows that God must formerly have been very imperfect. But how is it possible that an imperfect being, made up of wills and ideas so widely divergent from one another, should have been able to conceive the harmonious laws, so admirable in their unity, wisdom, and forethought, that govern the universe? If all souls are portions of the Divinity, all of them must have concurred in establishing the laws of nature; how comes it, then, that they are perpetually murmuring against those laws which, according to this doctrine, are of their own inventing? No theory can be accepted as true unless it can both satisfy our reason and furnish a rational explanation of all the facts with which it deals; if it is belied by a single one of those facts, it cannot be true.
9. Examined from the point of view of its moral consequences, Pantheism is seen to be as unsatisfactory as it is intellectually absurd. In the first place, the destiny of each soul, according to this system, is, as in the system previously examined, its absorption in a general Whole, with the consequent loss of its individuality. If, on the contrary, it were admitted, according to the opinion of certain pantheists, that souls preserve their individuality, then God can have no unitary will, but is an amalgam of myriads of divergent individualities. Besides, each soul being an integral part of the Divinity, no soul is subjected to the sway of any power superior to itself; consequently, no soul incurs any responsibility for its actions, whether good or bad, no soul has any motive for doing right, and each soul is free to do all the wrong it pleases, with perfect impunity, seeing that each soul is the sovereign ruler of the universe.
10. The theories we have been examining not only fail to satisfy either the reason or the aspirations of humankind, but they present to the mind a succession of insurmountable difficulties, of questions in regard to matters of fact, which they are utterly incapable of answering. We have to choose between three theoretic alternatives: annihilation, absorption, and the individuality of the soul before and after death. It is to this last belief that we are led by reason; and it is this belief that has constituted the basis of all religions in all the ages of the world.
If reason leads us to the conviction of the persistence of the soul’s individuality, it also leads us to the admission of the consequence of that persistence, viz., that the fate of each soul must depend on its own personal qualities; for it would be irrational to assume that the backward souls of the savage and the evil-minded are at the same level as those of the scientific and the benevolent. Justice demands that each soul should be responsible for its own actions; but, in order for souls to be thus responsible, they must be free to choose between good and evil. Unless we admit the freedom of the will, we must necessarily assume the existence of fate; and responsibility cannot co-exist with fatalism.
If reason leads us to the conviction of the persistence of the soul’s individuality, it also leads us to the admission of the consequence of that persistence, viz., that the fate of each soul must depend on its own personal qualities; for it would be irrational to assume that the backward souls of the savage and the evil-minded are at the same level as those of the scientific and the benevolent. Justice demands that each soul should be responsible for its own actions; but, in order for souls to be thus responsible, they must be free to choose between good and evil. Unless we admit the freedom of the will, we must necessarily assume the existence of fate; and responsibility cannot co-exist with fatalism.
11. All religions have proclaimed the principle of the happiness or unhappiness of the soul after death, in other words, the principle of future rewards and punishments, summed up in the doctrinal idea of “Heaven” and “Hell”, which is common to them all. But those religions differ radically as to the nature of the rewards and punishments of the future, and especially as to the conditions upon which they depend. Hence, there have arisen contradictory beliefs, which have produced various forms of worship, and have led to the imposition of special practices by each of them as a method of honoring God, and thus of gaining admission to “Heaven” and avoiding “Hell.”
12. All the religions of the world were necessarily, at their origin, in harmony with the degree of moral and intellectual advancement of the peoples among whom they emerged, and who, — being still too deeply sunk in materiality to conceive of things purely spiritual — made the greater part of their religious duties to consist in the accomplishment of certain external forms. For a time, forms suffice to satisfy the mind; at a later period, when human beings acquire more light, they feel the emptiness of those forms, and, if the doctrines of their faith do not suffice to supply the void left by the collapse of its forms, they abandon their religion and become philosophers.
13. If that primitive formula had always kept pace with the accessional movement of the human mind, the same harmony would always have existed between them, and there would never have been any unbelievers, because the need of believing is natural to the human heart, and human beings will believe if they are presented with religious ideas in harmony with their intellectual needs. Humanity would joyfully know whence it comes and whither it is going; but if that which is set before men and women as the object of life does not correspond either to their aspirations, to the idea that they have formed to themselves of God, or to the data of physical science, —if, moreover, it is sought to impose on them, as necessary to the attainment of that object, conditions of which the utility is not perceived by their reason, — they naturally reject the whole. Those who embrace Materialism and Pantheism appear to them more rational simply because they reason and discuss. Their reasoning is false, but, at all events, they reason; and those who value rational thinking would rather reason falsely than not reason at all.
But let the doctrine of a future life be presented to them under an aspect that is, at once, satisfactory to their reason, and worthy, in all respects, of the greatness, the justice, and the infinite goodness of God, and they will renounce both Materialism and Pantheism, of which every person feels the hollowness in his or her secret soul, and which are only accepted for lack of something better; and, as Spiritism gives something very much better than those empty and comfortless theories, it is eagerly welcomed by all those who do not find, in the common beliefs and philosophies of the day, the certainty for which they long, and who are consequently undergoing the tortures of doubt. The Spiritist theory is confirmed both by argument and by facts; and it therefore furnishes the broad and solid basis of belief that no other theory is able to supply.
But let the doctrine of a future life be presented to them under an aspect that is, at once, satisfactory to their reason, and worthy, in all respects, of the greatness, the justice, and the infinite goodness of God, and they will renounce both Materialism and Pantheism, of which every person feels the hollowness in his or her secret soul, and which are only accepted for lack of something better; and, as Spiritism gives something very much better than those empty and comfortless theories, it is eagerly welcomed by all those who do not find, in the common beliefs and philosophies of the day, the certainty for which they long, and who are consequently undergoing the tortures of doubt. The Spiritist theory is confirmed both by argument and by facts; and it therefore furnishes the broad and solid basis of belief that no other theory is able to supply.
14. The belief in a future life is instinctive in the human mind; but, as human beings have hitherto possessed no clear and sufficient ground for this belief, their imagination has engendered the various religious systems that have given rise to the wide diversities of human worship. As the Spiritist Doctrine of the future life is not a work of imagination more or less ingeniously conceived, but is, on the contrary, deduced from, and confirmed by, the observation of physical facts that are now occurring in front of our eyes, it will continue to attract, as it has hitherto done, those whose convictions, on this most momentous of subjects, are divergent or unsettled, and will gradually establish a unitary belief in regard to it; a belief that will be based, no longer on a mere hypothesis, but on a certainty. This unification of human conviction, in regard to the future existence of the soul, will be the first step towards the unification of the forms of worship; it will thus exercise a most important and decisive influence on all the various religions of the world, and will lead, first, to their mutual tolerance, and, eventually, to their fusion.
Chapter II - FEAR OF DEATH
Causes of the fear of death
1. Human beings, to whatever degree of the scale to which they belong, from the savage state upwards, have an innate presentiment about a future life; they feel an intuitive urging that death is not the end of existence, and that those whose demise they regret are not lost to them forever. This spontaneous belief in a future state is vastly more general than the belief in annihilation. How is it, then, that we find among those who do believe in the immortality of the soul, so strong an attachment to the earthly life and so great a dread of death?
2. The fear of death is at once a proof of the wisdom of Providence and a consequence of the instinct of self-preservation that is common to all living creatures. It is, moreover, essential to the well-being of the human race, so long as men and women are insufficiently enlightened in regard to the conditions of their future life. It serves as a counterpoise to the discouragement which, if not for this fear, would too often lead them to make a voluntary renunciation of their terrestrial existence, and to shirk the labors of this lower sphere, which are necessary to their advancement.
We accordingly see that, among primitive peoples the intuition of a future life is extremely vague, and that it is only in proportion as people advance that this intuition gradually becomes, at first, a mere hope and later, in the fullness of time, a certainty, but still counter balanced by an instinctive attachment to corporeal life.
We accordingly see that, among primitive peoples the intuition of a future life is extremely vague, and that it is only in proportion as people advance that this intuition gradually becomes, at first, a mere hope and later, in the fullness of time, a certainty, but still counter balanced by an instinctive attachment to corporeal life.
3. As human beings arrive at a true understanding of a future state, their fear of death diminishes; but at the same time, they also comprehend more clearly the purposes for an earthly life, and they await its ending calmly, without impatience or regret. The certainty of a future life gives another direction to their thoughts, another aim to their activities. Before acquiring this certainty they labored only for the things of the present life; having acquired this certainty they labor for the life to come, yet without neglecting the duties and interests of their present life, because they know that the character of their future lives will be decided by the use they will have made of their present existence. The certainty of again meeting the friends whom they have lost by death, of preserving the relationships they have formed upon the Earth, of not losing the fruit of any effort, of continuing, forever, to grow in intelligence and in goodness, gives them patience to await the appointed term of their earthly sojourn and courage to bear, without complaint, the momentary fatigues and disappointments of terrestrial life. The solidarity which they perceive to exist among spirits and humankind show them the union which ought to exist among all people of the Earth. Thus, they perceive the true basis of human fraternity and the true objective of charity in the present and in the future.
4. In order to free ourselves from the fear of death, we must be able to look at it from the right point of view; that is to say, we must have penetrated the spirit world in thought. We must have formed to ourselves an idea of that world, as exact as can be obtained at the present time: a power of discernment denoting, on the part of our incarnate spirits, a certain amount of intellectual and moral development, and a certain aptitude for freeing ourselves from materiality. Among those who are not sufficiently advanced for the acquisition of this knowledge, the physical life takes precedence over the spiritual life.
The real life of humankind is in the soul; but while humans remain attached to external values, they see life only in the body; and therefore, when the body is deprived of life, they fancy that all is over and abandon themselves to despair. If, instead of concentrating their thoughts on the outer garment of life, they directed their thoughts to the source of life, to the soul which is the real being, and which survives the change of its outer clothing, they would feel less regret at the idea of losing their bodies, the instruments of so much trouble and suffering; but for this, humanity needs a moral strength which is only acquired gradually, and in proportion to its advancement towards maturity.
The fear of death, therefore, results from an insufficient knowledge of the future life. It also denotes aspirations for the continuance of existence, and anxiety lest the destruction of the body should be the end. It is, therefore, evident that it is due to a secret desire for survival which really exists in the soul, although partially hidden under the veil of uncertainty.
The fear of death diminishes in proportion as we obtain a clearer anticipation of the future life; it disappears entirely when that anticipation has become a certainty.
The wisdom of Providence is seen in the progressive march of human convictions with regard to the continuation of life beyond the grave. If the certainty of a future life had been permitted to men and women before their mental vision was prepared for such a prospect, they would have been dazzled thereby. And the seductions of such a certainty, too clearly seen, would lead them to neglect the present life, their diligent use of which is the condition for physical and moral advancement.
The real life of humankind is in the soul; but while humans remain attached to external values, they see life only in the body; and therefore, when the body is deprived of life, they fancy that all is over and abandon themselves to despair. If, instead of concentrating their thoughts on the outer garment of life, they directed their thoughts to the source of life, to the soul which is the real being, and which survives the change of its outer clothing, they would feel less regret at the idea of losing their bodies, the instruments of so much trouble and suffering; but for this, humanity needs a moral strength which is only acquired gradually, and in proportion to its advancement towards maturity.
The fear of death, therefore, results from an insufficient knowledge of the future life. It also denotes aspirations for the continuance of existence, and anxiety lest the destruction of the body should be the end. It is, therefore, evident that it is due to a secret desire for survival which really exists in the soul, although partially hidden under the veil of uncertainty.
The fear of death diminishes in proportion as we obtain a clearer anticipation of the future life; it disappears entirely when that anticipation has become a certainty.
The wisdom of Providence is seen in the progressive march of human convictions with regard to the continuation of life beyond the grave. If the certainty of a future life had been permitted to men and women before their mental vision was prepared for such a prospect, they would have been dazzled thereby. And the seductions of such a certainty, too clearly seen, would lead them to neglect the present life, their diligent use of which is the condition for physical and moral advancement.
5. The fear of death has also been maintained for merely human reasons which will disappear with the progress of the race. The first of these is the aspect under which the idea of the future life has hitherto been presented. This viewpoint sufficed for minds of slight advancement, but could not satisfy the mental requirements of intellects that have learned to reason on the subject. The presentation, as absolute truth, of statements that are both irrational in themselves and opposed to the data of physical science, has necessarily led reasoning minds to the conclusion that such a presentation must be unfounded and erroneous. Hence, there has resulted, in the minds of many, utter skepticism in relation to the reality of a future existence that has been presented under an unacceptable aspect, and in the minds of a yet greater number, a half-belief, so strongly plagued by doubts, that it differs only slightly from utter disbelief. For the latter the idea of a future life is, at best, a vague hypothesis, a probability rather than a certainty. They wish that it may be so and yet notwithstanding that desire, they say to themselves, “But what if, after all, there should be nothing beyond the grave! We are sure of the present, so let us busy ourselves with that. There will be time enough to think of a future life when we have found out whether that future life really exists!”
“And besides,” say the doubters, “what in fact, is the soul? Is it a mathematical point, an atom, a spark, a flame? How does the ‘soul’ feel? How does it see? How and what does it perceive?” The soul, for most people, is not a positive and active reality but a mere abstraction. Those whom they have loved, but from whom they have been separated by death, being reduced, in their thought to the state of atoms, of a spark, or of gas, seem to be separated from them forever and to have lost all the qualities for which they formerly loved them. Most people find it difficult to consider “an atom,” “a spark,” or “a gas” as an object of affection. They fail to derive satisfaction from the prospect of being, themselves, converted into “monads,” and they try to avoid contemplations that are so vague and cheerless, by restricting their thoughts to the interests, pursuits, and enjoyments of terrestrial life, which offers them, at least, the appearance of something real and substantial. The number of those who are swayed by considerations of this kind is very great.
“And besides,” say the doubters, “what in fact, is the soul? Is it a mathematical point, an atom, a spark, a flame? How does the ‘soul’ feel? How does it see? How and what does it perceive?” The soul, for most people, is not a positive and active reality but a mere abstraction. Those whom they have loved, but from whom they have been separated by death, being reduced, in their thought to the state of atoms, of a spark, or of gas, seem to be separated from them forever and to have lost all the qualities for which they formerly loved them. Most people find it difficult to consider “an atom,” “a spark,” or “a gas” as an object of affection. They fail to derive satisfaction from the prospect of being, themselves, converted into “monads,” and they try to avoid contemplations that are so vague and cheerless, by restricting their thoughts to the interests, pursuits, and enjoyments of terrestrial life, which offers them, at least, the appearance of something real and substantial. The number of those who are swayed by considerations of this kind is very great.
6. Attachment to the things of the earthly life is also kept up, even in the minds of many of those who believe most firmly in the reality of a future life, by the impressions they have retained of the teachings to which they were subjected in their childhood.
The pictures of the future life presented by the Church are not, it must be confessed, either attractive or consoling. On the one hand, we are shown the contortions of the damned, who expiate, in endless tortures and unquenchable flames their momentary errors; ages after ages passing over them without hope of deliverance or pity, and (what is even more incredible,) repentance itself being of no avail in their case. On the other hand, we see the sufferings of the souls who are languishing in purgatory, and who are awaiting their deliverance, not from their own efforts for improvement, but from the compassionate efforts of the living who pray for them or have them prayed for by others.
These two classes are represented as constituting the immense majority of the population of the other world; and above them hovers the very small minority of the elect, absorbed, throughout eternity, in contemplative beatitude. It is an eternal uselessness which—though undoubtedly preferable to annihilation—is nevertheless, only wearisome monotony and, accordingly, in the paintings which represent the blessedness of the elect, the faces of the latter usually wear an expression much more suggestive of dullness than of happiness.
Such a view of the future life corresponds neither to our aspirations, nor to the idea of progressiveness that we instinctively regard as a necessary element of happiness. It is difficult to imagine that ignorant savages, whose moral sense is as yet undeveloped, should find themselves, simply because they have received baptism, on a level with those who, through long years of effort have raised themselves to a high degree of knowledge and of practical morality. Still less conceivable is it that the child who has died in infancy, before acquiring the consciousness of itself and of its actions, should enjoy the same privileges simply as the result of its having undergone a ceremony in which its will took no part. Considerations of this nature cause uneasiness in the minds even of fervent believers, whenever they reflect seriously on the doctrines which, as children, they were drilled into accepting.
The pictures of the future life presented by the Church are not, it must be confessed, either attractive or consoling. On the one hand, we are shown the contortions of the damned, who expiate, in endless tortures and unquenchable flames their momentary errors; ages after ages passing over them without hope of deliverance or pity, and (what is even more incredible,) repentance itself being of no avail in their case. On the other hand, we see the sufferings of the souls who are languishing in purgatory, and who are awaiting their deliverance, not from their own efforts for improvement, but from the compassionate efforts of the living who pray for them or have them prayed for by others.
These two classes are represented as constituting the immense majority of the population of the other world; and above them hovers the very small minority of the elect, absorbed, throughout eternity, in contemplative beatitude. It is an eternal uselessness which—though undoubtedly preferable to annihilation—is nevertheless, only wearisome monotony and, accordingly, in the paintings which represent the blessedness of the elect, the faces of the latter usually wear an expression much more suggestive of dullness than of happiness.
Such a view of the future life corresponds neither to our aspirations, nor to the idea of progressiveness that we instinctively regard as a necessary element of happiness. It is difficult to imagine that ignorant savages, whose moral sense is as yet undeveloped, should find themselves, simply because they have received baptism, on a level with those who, through long years of effort have raised themselves to a high degree of knowledge and of practical morality. Still less conceivable is it that the child who has died in infancy, before acquiring the consciousness of itself and of its actions, should enjoy the same privileges simply as the result of its having undergone a ceremony in which its will took no part. Considerations of this nature cause uneasiness in the minds even of fervent believers, whenever they reflect seriously on the doctrines which, as children, they were drilled into accepting.
7. If the progress which human beings so laboriously accomplish in the earthly life has nothing to do with their future happiness, then the belief that they can easily secure that happiness by means of ceremonies and outward observances—and that they can even purchase their future happiness with money, without any thorough transformation of their character and habits—tends to attach them still more strongly to worldly pleasures. Many who believe in a future life under the guise we are now considering, say to themselves in their secret hearts that, because their future welfare can be secured by observing certain forms or by making bequests that entail no privation during their life time, it would be unnecessary to impose upon themselves any sacrifice for the sake of others, and that the true plan is for the individual, thus they should ensure their own salvation and secure for themselves at the same time, the largest possible share of the good things of the present life.
Assuredly such is not the thought of all people, for there are many grand and noble exceptions to the common rule. However it cannot be denied that such is the thought of the majority of humankind, especially among the unenlightened masses, and that the idea commonly entertained in regard to the conditions of happiness in the other world, tends to keep up the attachment to the things of the present one, and consequently acts as a powerful stimulus to selfishness.
Assuredly such is not the thought of all people, for there are many grand and noble exceptions to the common rule. However it cannot be denied that such is the thought of the majority of humankind, especially among the unenlightened masses, and that the idea commonly entertained in regard to the conditions of happiness in the other world, tends to keep up the attachment to the things of the present one, and consequently acts as a powerful stimulus to selfishness.
8. It is to be remarked yet further, that all our social usages concur to make people cling to the earthly life, and to cower before the path that leads from this world to the next. Death is surrounded by somber ceremonies, which are far more suggestive of sorrow than of hope. It is always portrayed in a negative light, never as a state of transition. All the symbolism employed to describe it makes reference to the destruction of the body, and portrays it as a hideous fleshless specter; none of the symbols employed for this purpose represent death as the deliverance of the soul, joyous and radiant, from terrestrial bondage. The departure for a happier state of existence is accompanied only by the lamentations of the survivors, as though the greatest possible misfortune had befallen those who are gone before us. Their weeping friends bid them an eternal farewell, as though they would never again be able to behold them, and are filled with grief at the thought that they are deprived of the joys of this lower sphere, as though the other life did not offer enjoyments far greater than those of Earth. “What a misfortune,” it is often said, “to have died when those who were taken were young, rich, happy, and with a brilliant future before them!” The idea that the departed can gain more by the change scarcely crosses the mind of any of those whom they have left, so vague, misty, gloomy, and void of hopefulness is the idea generally entertained in regard to the world of souls. Humanity will doubtless be slow in getting rid of their prejudices concerning death; but they will succeed in doing so as their knowledge of the spirit-life becomes clearer, firmer, and more enlightened.
9. The common belief, moreover, places souls in imaginary regions, scarcely accessible to human thought, where they become strangers to those they have left behind on Earth; the Church itself places an impassable barrier between them and the latter, for it declares that all connections between them have ended, and that all communication between them is impossible. If they are in Hell, all hope of seeing them again is lost forever, unless indeed, for those among the latter who incur the same doom. If they are among the elect, they are entirely absorbed in their own contemplative beatitude. All these suppositions make so wide a separation between the dead and the living that the severance between them seems to be complete and forever; and people would therefore prefer to keep those whom they love beside them on Earth, even though in a state of suffering, rather than see them go away, even though to “Heaven!” Besides, is it conceivable that the “elect” can be truly happy even in “Heaven,” if they have to see their own child, father, mother, or friend, burning forever in unquenchable fire?
WHY SPIRITISTS ARE NOT AFRAID OF DEATH
10. The Spiritist Doctrine changes entirely our views of the future. The life to come is no longer a hypothesis, but a fact. The state of the soul after death is no longer a matter of theory, but a result of observation. The veil is lifted, and the spirit-world appears to us in all its activity and reality. It is not humankind who have discovered that world, through some ingenious conception of their imagination; it is the inhabitants of that world who come in person to describe to us the state of being in which they find themselves! We see them at every degree of spirit-life, in every phase of happiness or of unhappiness. We contemplate all the incidents of the life beyond the grave. It is this knowledge of the nature and details of life in the spirit-world that enables Spiritists to see death with calmness and gives serenity to their last moments upon the Earth. What sustains them is not a mere hope, but a certainty; they know that the future life is only a continuation of the present life, but under more favorable conditions. And they look forward to it with as much confidence as that with which they look forward to a new sunrise after a dark and stormy night. This confidence of Spiritists is a result of the facts that they have witnessed, and of the accordance of those facts with reason, with the justice and goodness of God, and with the deepest inspirations of the human mind.
For Spiritists the soul is not an abstraction for they know that it possesses an ethereal body, which makes of it a real and definite being, susceptible of being conceived of as such by our thought. This knowledge suffices to correct our ideas in regard to its individuality, aptitudes and perceptions. Our remembrances of those who are dear to us rest, henceforth, upon something real. We no longer represent them to ourselves as so many flickering flames offering nothing of their former personality to our thought. On the contrary, we see them under a concrete form, which shows them to belong to the category of living beings. Moreover, instead of regarding them as being lost to view, as formerly, in the depths of space, Spiritists know that they are beside us and around us; for they have learned that the corporeal world and the spiritual world are in close and perpetual connection. Doubt in relation to the future life being no longer possible to them, they have no longer any reason to be afraid of death. They behold its approach with perfect equanimity; for they know that the dissolution of their fleshly bodies will be for them a deliverance, the opening of a door through which they will pass, not into the yawning abyss of annihilation, but into a higher and happier state of existence.
For Spiritists the soul is not an abstraction for they know that it possesses an ethereal body, which makes of it a real and definite being, susceptible of being conceived of as such by our thought. This knowledge suffices to correct our ideas in regard to its individuality, aptitudes and perceptions. Our remembrances of those who are dear to us rest, henceforth, upon something real. We no longer represent them to ourselves as so many flickering flames offering nothing of their former personality to our thought. On the contrary, we see them under a concrete form, which shows them to belong to the category of living beings. Moreover, instead of regarding them as being lost to view, as formerly, in the depths of space, Spiritists know that they are beside us and around us; for they have learned that the corporeal world and the spiritual world are in close and perpetual connection. Doubt in relation to the future life being no longer possible to them, they have no longer any reason to be afraid of death. They behold its approach with perfect equanimity; for they know that the dissolution of their fleshly bodies will be for them a deliverance, the opening of a door through which they will pass, not into the yawning abyss of annihilation, but into a higher and happier state of existence.
Chapter III - HEAVEN
1. The term heaven is employed, in a general sense, to designate the boundless expanse of space that surrounds the Earth, and, more specifically, that part of the expanse which is above our horizon. The Latin name for that space, coelum (derived from the Greek coilos, hollow, concave), was given to it by the ancients, because heaven, or the sky, appeared to them to be an immense concavity. The Ancients believed in the existence of several “heavens”, placed one above the other, composed of a solid, transparent matter, and forming a succession of hollow, concentric spheres, at the center of which, immovable, stood the Earth. These spheres, turning around the Earth, carried with them the stars that were placed within their several circuits.
This belief, due to the paucity of astronomic knowledge, was the basis of the various theologies that represent those concentric “heavens” thus superposed on one another, as localization of progressively increasing degrees of beatitude, the topmost one being the region of supreme felicity. According to the general opinion, there were seven of these “heavens;” hence the saying, “to be in seventh heaven,” as the expression of the most perfect happiness. Muslims admit nine “heavens,” in each of which the happiness of the true believer is successively increased. The astronomer Ptolemy (who lived in Alexandria, in the second century of the Christian Era), counted eleven of these “heavens”; the uppermost being styled “The Empyrean” (from the Greek word, pur, or pyr, fire), on account of the brilliant light with which it was supposed to be filled: and the term is still employed as the poetic designation of the realm of eternal glory. Christian Theology assumes the existence of three “heavens;” the first is the region of the terrestrial atmosphere and the clouds; the second is the space in which the stars perform their revolutions; the third, above the region occupied by the stars, is the dwelling-place of the Most High, and the abode of the elect, who behold the Almighty “face to face.” It is in accordance with this classification that St. Paul is said to have been “caught up into the third heaven.”
This belief, due to the paucity of astronomic knowledge, was the basis of the various theologies that represent those concentric “heavens” thus superposed on one another, as localization of progressively increasing degrees of beatitude, the topmost one being the region of supreme felicity. According to the general opinion, there were seven of these “heavens;” hence the saying, “to be in seventh heaven,” as the expression of the most perfect happiness. Muslims admit nine “heavens,” in each of which the happiness of the true believer is successively increased. The astronomer Ptolemy (who lived in Alexandria, in the second century of the Christian Era), counted eleven of these “heavens”; the uppermost being styled “The Empyrean” (from the Greek word, pur, or pyr, fire), on account of the brilliant light with which it was supposed to be filled: and the term is still employed as the poetic designation of the realm of eternal glory. Christian Theology assumes the existence of three “heavens;” the first is the region of the terrestrial atmosphere and the clouds; the second is the space in which the stars perform their revolutions; the third, above the region occupied by the stars, is the dwelling-place of the Most High, and the abode of the elect, who behold the Almighty “face to face.” It is in accordance with this classification that St. Paul is said to have been “caught up into the third heaven.”
2. These different doctrines, respecting the abode of the blest, are based on two erroneous assumptions, viz.: — first, that the Earth is the center of the universe; and second, that the region of stars is limited. And it is beyond the imaginary limit thus assigned to the starry region, that all those doctrines have placed the blissful realm that is supposed to be the dwelling place of the Almighty. But what a strange anomaly is that which relegates to the outskirts of creation the Author and Ruler of all that is, instead of assigning to Him, at least, a position in the center of the universe, whence His thought might radiate in all directions!
3. Physical science, with the inexorable logic of facts and observations, has carried its torch into the depths of the expanse of space around us, and has shown the emptiness of all these theories. The Earth has been proven to be, not the pivot of the universe, but one of the smallest of the bodies that circle through immensity, and our sun itself is now known to be only the center of our planetary system; every star that shines in the boundless expanse of the sky is ascertained to be itself a sun, the center of a system of dependent worlds; and innumerable systems thus revealed to us as moving in an orderly interdependence throughout the boundless regions of infinity are found to be separated by distances incommensurable by our thought, though, to our eyes, they seem almost to touch one another. In this view of the universe, governed by eternal laws that proclaim the wisdom and omnipotence of the Creator, the Earth is seen to be only an almost imperceptible speck, and one of the least favored — as regards its physical characteristics and its adaptations to human life. Such being the case, the question naturally arises as to why the Almighty should have made it the sole seat of life, the sole habitation of the most favored of God’s creatures? Everything, on the contrary, tends to show that life is everywhere, and that the human family is as infinite as the universe. Science has proven the existence of worlds similar to ours; as God cannot be supposed to have made everything without a purpose, God must necessarily have peopled those worlds with beings capable of administering them.
4. The opinions of human beings are always proportioned to their knowledge; and the discovery of the constitution of the world around them, like all the other great discoveries of the human mind, has necessarily given a new direction to their ideas. It was inevitable that, through the action of their newly-acquired knowledge, their primitive creeds should undergo considerable modification: “heaven” has been displaced from its former position, for the region of stars, being boundless, can no longer be assigned as its locality. Where, then, is “heaven”? To this question none of the religions of the world can furnish an answer.
Spiritism has come to resolve this enigma, showing us the true destiny of human beings. Starting with the nature of humans and the attributes of God, we arrive at the conclusion: that is to say, starting with the known we arrive at the unknown, via logical deduction, without mentioning the direct observations that Spiritism permits us to realize.
Spiritism has come to resolve this enigma, showing us the true destiny of human beings. Starting with the nature of humans and the attributes of God, we arrive at the conclusion: that is to say, starting with the known we arrive at the unknown, via logical deduction, without mentioning the direct observations that Spiritism permits us to realize.
5. With the aid of the knowledge thus derived, we have ascertained that humans are compound beings, consisting of a body and a spirit; that the spirit is the principal element of this compound existence, its reasoning and intelligent element; that the body is merely a material envelope which is temporarily assumed by the spirit for the accomplishment of its mission upon the Earth and the execution of the labors that are necessary for its advancement. The body, eventually wearing out, is destroyed, and the spirit outlives its destruction. Without the spirit, the body is only a mass of inert matter, like an instrument deprived of the arm that made it act. Without the body, the spirit is still itself; that is to say, the essential element of the compound being called man, viz., life and intelligence. On quitting its material envelope the spirit returns to the spirit-world, which it had quitted in order to incarnate itself in a corporeal body.
There is, then, the corporeal world, composed of spirits incarnated in corporeal bodies, and the spirit-world, composed of spirits who have put off their corporeal body. The beings of the corporeal world, in virtue of their material envelope, are attached to the Earth or to some similar globe; the spirit world is everywhere, around us and in space, and has no boundaries or limits of any kind. In virtue of the fluidic nature of their bodily envelope, the beings that compose that world, instead of creeping laboriously upon the ground, transport themselves through space with the rapidity of thought. The death of the body is the rupture of the bonds that held them captive.
There is, then, the corporeal world, composed of spirits incarnated in corporeal bodies, and the spirit-world, composed of spirits who have put off their corporeal body. The beings of the corporeal world, in virtue of their material envelope, are attached to the Earth or to some similar globe; the spirit world is everywhere, around us and in space, and has no boundaries or limits of any kind. In virtue of the fluidic nature of their bodily envelope, the beings that compose that world, instead of creeping laboriously upon the ground, transport themselves through space with the rapidity of thought. The death of the body is the rupture of the bonds that held them captive.
6. Spirits are created simple and ignorant, but with the aptitude for acquiring all knowledge, and for progressing in every direction, through the exercise of their free will. Through the progress achieved by them, they acquire new knowledge, new faculties, new perceptions, and, as a consequence of these, new enjoyments unknown to spirits of less advancement; they see, hear, feel, and comprehend what more backward spirits can neither see, hear, feel, nor comprehend. The happiness of each spirit is in proportion to the amount of progress accomplished by it; so that, of two spirits, one may be more or less happy than the other, simply as a consequence of its greater or lesser degree of moral and intellectual advancement, and this, without their being in two different places. They may be close to one another, and yet one of them may be in utter darkness, while the other is in the midst of resplendent light; just as a blind man and one who sees may be in the same place, and yet the former will be unconscious of the splendors seen by the latter, who perceives the objects which are invisible for the former. The happiness or unhappiness of spirits being inherent in the qualities possessed by them, they find that happiness or unhappiness wherever they may be, on the surface of the Earth, in the midst of incarnates, or in space.
A commonplace comparison will render this difference of situation more comprehensible. If, of two men who are at a concert, one is a trained musician possessing a good ear for music, while the other knows nothing of music and has only a defective ear, the first will derive enjoyment from the concert, while the other will remain unmoved, simply because one of them perceives and understands that which makes no impression upon the perceptions of the other. It is thus with all the enjoyments experienced by spirits, those enjoyments being proportioned to their aptitude for perceiving them. The spirit-world is full of splendors, harmonies, and sensations that spirits of low degree, who are still under the influence of materiality, do not perceive, and which are only perceptible, and accessible, to spirits of greater purity.
A commonplace comparison will render this difference of situation more comprehensible. If, of two men who are at a concert, one is a trained musician possessing a good ear for music, while the other knows nothing of music and has only a defective ear, the first will derive enjoyment from the concert, while the other will remain unmoved, simply because one of them perceives and understands that which makes no impression upon the perceptions of the other. It is thus with all the enjoyments experienced by spirits, those enjoyments being proportioned to their aptitude for perceiving them. The spirit-world is full of splendors, harmonies, and sensations that spirits of low degree, who are still under the influence of materiality, do not perceive, and which are only perceptible, and accessible, to spirits of greater purity.
7. Progress, among spirits, is only achieved as the fruit of their own labor; but, as they have their free will, they labor more or less actively for their own advancement, according to their will; they thus hasten or retard their own progress, and, consequently, their own happiness. While some of them advance quickly, others stagnate for long ages in the lower ranks. Thus, spirits are always the artisans of their own situation, whether happy or unhappy, according to the words of Christ, “to each according to his works.” Spirits who remain behind have, therefore, only themselves to thank for their backwardness; in the same way, those who advance have all the merit of their advancement and the happiness they have conquered appears to them all the greater in consequence.
Perfect happiness is the lot only of the spirits who have attained to perfect purity, in other words, of those whom we designate as Pure-Spirits.3 Happiness is only obtained by spirits in proportion as they progress in intelligence and morality. Intellectual progress and moral progress are rarely achieved together, and at the same time; but what a spirit fails to accomplish in one lifetime it accomplishes in another, so that its advancement in each of those two branches of progress is equalized in the long run. It is for this reason that we so often find highly intelligent human beings who are but slightly advanced in morality, and vice versa.
Perfect happiness is the lot only of the spirits who have attained to perfect purity, in other words, of those whom we designate as Pure-Spirits.3 Happiness is only obtained by spirits in proportion as they progress in intelligence and morality. Intellectual progress and moral progress are rarely achieved together, and at the same time; but what a spirit fails to accomplish in one lifetime it accomplishes in another, so that its advancement in each of those two branches of progress is equalized in the long run. It is for this reason that we so often find highly intelligent human beings who are but slightly advanced in morality, and vice versa.
8. Incarnation is necessary to the double progress, intellectual and moral, that has to be accomplished by a spirit; it ensures its intellectual progress by compelling it to employ its activity in the various pursuits of the earthly life, and it ensures its moral progress by making it feel the need which human beings have for one another. Social life is the touchstone that reveals the good or bad qualities of a spirit. Kindness, malevolence, gentleness, violence, charity, selfishness, generosity, avarice, humility, pride, sincerity, hypocrisy, loyalty, and treachery — in a word, all that constitutes human goodness and human badness — find their motive, aim, and stimulus, in the relations of each human being with his or her fellows. If it were possible for a human being to live alone, he or she would have neither vices nor virtues; for, though isolation may preserve from evil, it also annuls the possibility of goodness.
9. A single corporeal existence is manifestly insufficient to enable a spirit to acquire all the goodness it lacks, and rid itself of all the evil that is within it. Would it be possible, for an instant, for a savage to attain, in a single incarnation, to the intellectual and moral level of the most advanced European? It is physically impossible for the savage to do so. Must such a one as this, then, remain eternally in ignorance and barbarism, deprived of the enjoyments that can only be reached through the development of the intellectual and moral faculties? The simplest common sense suffices to show us that such a supposition would be the negation, both of the justice and goodness of God and of the law of progress, which is the law of nature. And it is for this reason that God, being supremely just and good, grants to the spirit of each human being as many successive existences as are needed for attaining to the perfection which is the aim of all.
In each new existence, a spirit brings with it, under the form of natural aptitudes, of intuitive knowledge, of intelligence, and of morality, all the gains that have been made by it in its previous existences. Thus each new existence takes it a step further upon the road of progress. *
Incarnation is inherent to the inferior condition of the spirit. It is no longer necessary when inferiority is overcome and there is continued progress in the spiritual state or in the physical existences of more advanced worlds that do not maintain earthly materialization.
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* See footnote, Chap. I., no. 2
In each new existence, a spirit brings with it, under the form of natural aptitudes, of intuitive knowledge, of intelligence, and of morality, all the gains that have been made by it in its previous existences. Thus each new existence takes it a step further upon the road of progress. *
Incarnation is inherent to the inferior condition of the spirit. It is no longer necessary when inferiority is overcome and there is continued progress in the spiritual state or in the physical existences of more advanced worlds that do not maintain earthly materialization.
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* See footnote, Chap. I., no. 2
10. In the intervals between its successive incarnations, a spirit returns, for a longer or shorter time, into the spirit-world, where it is happy, or unhappy, according to the good or the evil it has done in its previous lives. The life of the spirit-world is the normal state of the spirit, the definitive state towards which it is tending; for it is its spirit that is undying, while the state of incarnation is one of transition and of passage. It is especially in the spirit-state that the spirit reaps the fruit of the progress accomplished during incarnation; it is also in that state that it prepares for a new struggle with ignorance and evil, and forms the resolutions which it will strive to put into practice in its next return to the discipline of human life.
The spirit progresses also in erraticity,5 in which state it acquires special knowledge that it could not acquire upon the Earth, and modifies the ideas acquired by the spirit through its subjection to the actions of matter. The state of incarnation and the spirit-state are for the spirit the source of two kinds of progress, interdependent one of the other; this is why it passes alternatingly between these two modes of existence.
The spirit progresses also in erraticity,5 in which state it acquires special knowledge that it could not acquire upon the Earth, and modifies the ideas acquired by the spirit through its subjection to the actions of matter. The state of incarnation and the spirit-state are for the spirit the source of two kinds of progress, interdependent one of the other; this is why it passes alternatingly between these two modes of existence.
11. A spirit may be reincarnated upon the Earth or in other material worlds. Among the latter, there are some which are further advanced than others, and in which the conditions of existence, both physical and moral, are less painful than upon the Earth; but, into those happier worlds, only such spirits are admitted as have arrived at a degree of advancement in harmony with that of those worlds.
Incarnation in worlds of higher degree is, of itself, a reward for the spirits whose efforts have fitted them to share the life of those worlds, wherein the inhabitants are exempted from the ills and the vicissitudes to which we are exposed upon the Earth. Their bodies, being more fluidic, are free from the grossness of earthly flesh, and are not subject to diseases, infirmities, or even to the needs of our present bodily state. Spirits of low degree being excluded from those worlds, their people live together in peace, with no other care than that of effecting their advancement by their intellectual activity. True fraternity reigns in those worlds, because selfishness has no existence within them; true equality reigns in them, because no proud or vainglorious spirit could obtain admission; and true liberty reigns in them because there are no disorders to be repressed, no ambitious tyrants seeking to oppress their weaker brothers. In comparison with the Earth, such worlds are paradises, although they are but the temporary resting-places of the spirit, on the road of progress that is leading it up to the attainment of yet higher modes of existence that constitute the true, definitive life of the soul. On Earth, being as yet a world of low degree, and destined to serve as a place of purification for imperfect spirits, evil necessarily predominates, and will continue to do so until the Divine ordering shall make it the abode of spirits of greater advancement than those who are now incarnated in it. It is thus that each spirit, progressing gradually in proportion as it accomplishes its development, arrives at length at the apogee of happiness; but, before attaining to the highest point of perfection, it enjoys increasing degrees of happiness, proportioned to each successive degree of its advancement. It is with the spirit, in this respect, as with a child; in its infancy, the spirit shares the pleasures of childhood, in its youth, those that belong to adolescence, and, when it has attained to adulthood, the riper satisfactions of mature human beings.
Incarnation in worlds of higher degree is, of itself, a reward for the spirits whose efforts have fitted them to share the life of those worlds, wherein the inhabitants are exempted from the ills and the vicissitudes to which we are exposed upon the Earth. Their bodies, being more fluidic, are free from the grossness of earthly flesh, and are not subject to diseases, infirmities, or even to the needs of our present bodily state. Spirits of low degree being excluded from those worlds, their people live together in peace, with no other care than that of effecting their advancement by their intellectual activity. True fraternity reigns in those worlds, because selfishness has no existence within them; true equality reigns in them, because no proud or vainglorious spirit could obtain admission; and true liberty reigns in them because there are no disorders to be repressed, no ambitious tyrants seeking to oppress their weaker brothers. In comparison with the Earth, such worlds are paradises, although they are but the temporary resting-places of the spirit, on the road of progress that is leading it up to the attainment of yet higher modes of existence that constitute the true, definitive life of the soul. On Earth, being as yet a world of low degree, and destined to serve as a place of purification for imperfect spirits, evil necessarily predominates, and will continue to do so until the Divine ordering shall make it the abode of spirits of greater advancement than those who are now incarnated in it. It is thus that each spirit, progressing gradually in proportion as it accomplishes its development, arrives at length at the apogee of happiness; but, before attaining to the highest point of perfection, it enjoys increasing degrees of happiness, proportioned to each successive degree of its advancement. It is with the spirit, in this respect, as with a child; in its infancy, the spirit shares the pleasures of childhood, in its youth, those that belong to adolescence, and, when it has attained to adulthood, the riper satisfactions of mature human beings.
12. The happiness of the perfected spirits is not a state of idle contemplation, which would be, as has frequently been pointed out, merely a state of eternal and wearisome uselessness. Spirit-life, at every degree, is, on the contrary, a state of constant activity, though an activity exempt from fatigue. The most perfect felicity of that life consists in the enjoyment of all the splendors of the creation, which human language is incapable of describing, and of which the most exuberant human imagination would fail to form the remotest conception; —in the knowledge and comprehension of all things; in the absence of every sort of suffering, physical and moral, in an interior satisfaction, a serenity of soul that nothing can disturb; in the pure and perfect affection which unites all beings who, through the absence of evil and inferior spirits, are beyond the reach of disappointment or annoyance; and, above all, in the vision of God and in the understanding of the sublime mysteries of existence that are unveiled only to those who have rendered themselves worthy of such initiation. The happiness of fully purified spirits consists also in the joyful exercise of the functions with which they have been charged. They are the Messiahs, the Messengers of God, for the transmission and the execution of God’s volitions; they accomplish great missions, preside over the formation of worlds and the maintenance of the general harmony of the universe, glorious posts at which spirits only arrive as the direct result of their perfection. Only those who have reached the highest grade of perfectibility are admitted to have knowledge of the secrets of God, and receive the direct inspiration of God’s thought, of which they are the immediate representatives.
13. The employments of spirits are proportioned to their advancement, to the knowledge they possess, to their capacities, to their experience, and to the degree of confidence reposed in them by the sovereign Master. In the spirit-world, there is no privilege, no favor that is not the consequence of personal merit; all the arrangements of that higher world are weighed in the scales of absolute justice. The most important missions are confided only to those who are known by God to be, at once, able to fulfill them worthily, and incapable of betraying them or of failing in the accomplishment of the tasks committed to them. While, under the very eye of God, the most worthy that compose the Supreme Council of the Universe are charged with the direction of the various solar systems, and others are charged with the direction of a single planet. After these, in the order of their personal advancement and hierarchical rank, are the spirits who are entrusted with the direction of a single nation, of a single family, of a single individual, are charged to push forward some special branch of progress, or to supervise the various operations of nature, all of which are carried out, to the minutest details, in the work of creation. In the vast and harmonious unity of creation, there are occupations for all varieties and degrees of capacity, of aptitude, of devotion; occupations that are solicited with ardent desire and accepted with joy and gratitude, because devotion and service are means of advancement for the spirits who aspire to the ineffable felicity of the supreme degree.
14. Besides the great missions that are confided only to spirits of the higher degrees, there are others, of every degree of importance, which are entrusted to spirits of corresponding degrees of advancement; so that every spirit, even those who are incarnate, may be said to have its own—that is to say, certain duties to perform for the benefit of its fellows—from the parents of a family, on whom is laid the task of bringing forward their children, to the woman or man of genius who endows society with new elements of progress. It is among the spirits who are charged with these missions of secondary importance that weakness, unfaithfulness, and withdrawals often occur, failures in duty that delay the advancement of the individual who is guilty of them, but that have no disturbing effect on the general course of events.
15. Thus all the intelligent beings of the creation assist in carrying on the general work of the universe, whatever the degree of development at which they have arrived, and each of them according to its possibilities; some of them in the state of incarnation, others in the spirit-state. There is activity everywhere; from the bottom of the ladder to the top, all are learning, aiding one another, mutually supporting each other, and holding out a helping hand to assist each other in reaching the summit.
Solidarity is thus established between the spirit-world and the corporeal world, in other words, between spirits and human beings, between spirits in freedom and spirits in the captivity of the flesh. And thus, too, all true sympathies, all pure and sincere affections are perpetuated, strengthened, and ennobled, through the purification and continuation of the affectionate relationships of spirits.
Life and movement exist everywhere in the Universe. There is no corner in the infinite where someone does not exist; no region that is not constantly traveled by innumerable legions of radiant invisible souls, who are unseen by our coarse senses, but quite visible to those souls who are liberated from the influence of the physical body, and whose sight marvels with overflowing happiness. Everywhere, throughout the universe, there is happiness proportioned to the degree of progress achieved, to the greatness of the tasks accomplished; for each spirit carries within itself the elements of its happiness, according to the category in which it is placed by its degree of advancement.
The happiness of spirits depending on their own personal qualities and not on any physical surroundings, it exists wherever there are spirits who are capable of being happy; but there is not, throughout the universe, any fixed and circumscribed region of happiness. Wherever they may be, the pure spirits are always able to contemplate the Divine Majesty, because God is everywhere.
Solidarity is thus established between the spirit-world and the corporeal world, in other words, between spirits and human beings, between spirits in freedom and spirits in the captivity of the flesh. And thus, too, all true sympathies, all pure and sincere affections are perpetuated, strengthened, and ennobled, through the purification and continuation of the affectionate relationships of spirits.
Life and movement exist everywhere in the Universe. There is no corner in the infinite where someone does not exist; no region that is not constantly traveled by innumerable legions of radiant invisible souls, who are unseen by our coarse senses, but quite visible to those souls who are liberated from the influence of the physical body, and whose sight marvels with overflowing happiness. Everywhere, throughout the universe, there is happiness proportioned to the degree of progress achieved, to the greatness of the tasks accomplished; for each spirit carries within itself the elements of its happiness, according to the category in which it is placed by its degree of advancement.
The happiness of spirits depending on their own personal qualities and not on any physical surroundings, it exists wherever there are spirits who are capable of being happy; but there is not, throughout the universe, any fixed and circumscribed region of happiness. Wherever they may be, the pure spirits are always able to contemplate the Divine Majesty, because God is everywhere.
16. Happiness, nevertheless, is not simply a matter of personal feeling, for, if it were merely individual, if it could not be shared with others, it would be selfish and incomplete; to be perfect, it requires communion of thought and feeling on the part of those who are able to understand and sympathize with one another. The higher spirits, attracted to each other by similitude of ideas, tastes, and sentiments, form vast homogenous groups, or families, in which each individual radiates his or her own qualities and receives the serene and beneficent emanations of all the other individuals in the group, whose members sometimes disperse, to occupy themselves with the missions entrusted to them, sometimes assemble at some given point of space, to inform each other of the result of their labors, sometimes gather round a spirit of higher degree, to receive its counsels or its direction.
17. Although spirits are everywhere, the globes of the universe are centers in which they assemble by preference, according to the similarity existing between themselves and those by whom they are inhabited. Globes of great advancement are surrounded by the shining hosts of the higher spirits; around globes of low degree, low and backward spirits swarm in crowds. The Earth is still one of the latter. Each globe has, so to say, its own population of incarnate and discarnate spirits, supplied, for the most part, by the incarnation and discarnation of the same spirits. The population of the various globes is more stable in proportion to their backwardness, because, the lower the globe, the more closely are its spirits attached to matter; whereas in the globes of higher degree the inhabitants are more freely floating. But the higher spirits voluntarily quit the splendid worlds which are foci of light and joy, and go to worlds of lower degree, in order to sow therein the germs of progress, to bring consolation and hope to the spirits incarnated in them, to raise the courage of those who are sinking under the trials and struggles of corporeal life; — and they sometimes incarnate themselves in the world whose improvement they wish to help forward, in order to accomplish their undertaking with greater efficiency and success.
18. In the boundless immensity around us, where, then, is “Heaven”? “Heaven” is everywhere; it has no fixed site, nor place, nor circumscribing limits; the globes of high degree are the last stations on the road which leads to it; virtue opens the gates of that supreme abode; vice bars its entrance.
In contrast with this grand and magnificent view of the universe, which shows us its remotest regions peopled with intelligent inhabitants, which assigns to all the objects of creation a meaning, a purpose, and an aim, how mean, how petty, is the doctrine that limits the human race to an imperceptible point of space, which represents humankind as beginning at a given time, within the world which it inhabits, the career of the race embracing but a moment in eternity! How sad, dark, and chilling is the doctrine that represents the rest of the universe, before, during, and after, the brief episode of the career of the human race, as devoid of life and movement, an incommensurable desert plunged in eternal silence! How prolific of despair is such a doctrine, presenting to the mind a picture of the small group of the elect, absorbed in perpetual contemplation, while the great majority of God’s created beings, in all the immensity of the universe, are condemned to endless torments! How cruel, for all loving hearts, is such a doctrine, interposing an impassable barrier between the living and the dead! The souls of the elect, in their selfish happiness, think only of their own beatitude; the souls of the damned, in their hopeless eternity of misery, think only of their own despair. Is it strange that selfishness should be rife upon the Earth, when it is presented to mankind as reigning supreme in “Heaven”? And how narrow, how degrading is the idea given by such a doctrine, of the power, the wisdom, and the goodness of God!
How grand, how sublime, on the contrary, is the idea that is given to us by Spiritism! What vast horizons does its doctrine open out to the mind! But what proves it to be true? It is authenticated by reason, in the first place, revelation, in the second place, and, lastly, its accordance with the scientific progress of the day. Between two doctrines, one which debases, while the other exalts our idea of the attributes of God; — one of which is in contradiction, and the other in harmony with the law of progress that is visible in every department of existence; — one of which remains stationary while the other leads us unceasingly forwards, — common sense suffices to show us which is nearest to the truth. In the presence of two doctrines thus diametrically opposed to each other, let all inquirers interrogate their own consciousness, their own aspirations, and an inner voice will reply to their inquiry as to which is the true one. The aspirations of humankind are the voice of God and cannot deceive us.
In contrast with this grand and magnificent view of the universe, which shows us its remotest regions peopled with intelligent inhabitants, which assigns to all the objects of creation a meaning, a purpose, and an aim, how mean, how petty, is the doctrine that limits the human race to an imperceptible point of space, which represents humankind as beginning at a given time, within the world which it inhabits, the career of the race embracing but a moment in eternity! How sad, dark, and chilling is the doctrine that represents the rest of the universe, before, during, and after, the brief episode of the career of the human race, as devoid of life and movement, an incommensurable desert plunged in eternal silence! How prolific of despair is such a doctrine, presenting to the mind a picture of the small group of the elect, absorbed in perpetual contemplation, while the great majority of God’s created beings, in all the immensity of the universe, are condemned to endless torments! How cruel, for all loving hearts, is such a doctrine, interposing an impassable barrier between the living and the dead! The souls of the elect, in their selfish happiness, think only of their own beatitude; the souls of the damned, in their hopeless eternity of misery, think only of their own despair. Is it strange that selfishness should be rife upon the Earth, when it is presented to mankind as reigning supreme in “Heaven”? And how narrow, how degrading is the idea given by such a doctrine, of the power, the wisdom, and the goodness of God!
How grand, how sublime, on the contrary, is the idea that is given to us by Spiritism! What vast horizons does its doctrine open out to the mind! But what proves it to be true? It is authenticated by reason, in the first place, revelation, in the second place, and, lastly, its accordance with the scientific progress of the day. Between two doctrines, one which debases, while the other exalts our idea of the attributes of God; — one of which is in contradiction, and the other in harmony with the law of progress that is visible in every department of existence; — one of which remains stationary while the other leads us unceasingly forwards, — common sense suffices to show us which is nearest to the truth. In the presence of two doctrines thus diametrically opposed to each other, let all inquirers interrogate their own consciousness, their own aspirations, and an inner voice will reply to their inquiry as to which is the true one. The aspirations of humankind are the voice of God and cannot deceive us.
19. But why, then, it may be asked, has God not revealed all truth to humankind, from the beginning? It is due to the same reason which renders it impossible to impart to an infant, the knowledge that is imparted to an adult. The restricted revelation of former ages was sufficient for the needs of the human race in the period for which it was intended; the Divine revelations are always proportioned to the mental and moral capacities of the spirits to whom they are made. Those who, at the present day, are receiving a fuller revelation are the same spirits who received the more restricted revelation of the earlier ages, but who, since that earlier period, have increased in intelligence.
Before physical science had revealed to humankind the existence of the living forces of nature, the mechanism of the heavens, the true nature and mode of formation of the Earth, could human beings have understood the immensity of space and the plurality of the worlds of the universe? Before geology had shown them the constitution of the Earth, could they have dislodged “hell” from its depths, or understood the allegorical meaning of the six days of creation? Before astronomy had discovered the laws which regulate the universe, could they have seen the sky is neither “high” nor “low” within the framework of the cosmos, and that the sky is neither above the clouds nor bounded by the stars? Before psychological science had come into existence, could they have identified themselves with spiritual life, or have formed to themselves a conception of an existence after death, whether happy or unhappy, otherwise than in connection with some fixed locality and under some physical form? No; comprehending through the senses rather than by thought, the idea of an illimitable universe was too vast for their intelligence; it was needful to reduce the idea of the universe to narrower proportions, in order to bring it within their sphere of vision, deferring its broader presentation to a later period. A partial revelation was useful in the past, and the wisdom of the Providential ordering is shown in this proportioning of its teachings to the needs and capacities of the time in which it was made; but it is insufficient in the present day, and they are wrong who, not taking into account the progress of ideas, imagine that they can hold women and men of mature age in the lead strings of infancy (Vide The Gospel According to Spiritism, Chap. III)
Before physical science had revealed to humankind the existence of the living forces of nature, the mechanism of the heavens, the true nature and mode of formation of the Earth, could human beings have understood the immensity of space and the plurality of the worlds of the universe? Before geology had shown them the constitution of the Earth, could they have dislodged “hell” from its depths, or understood the allegorical meaning of the six days of creation? Before astronomy had discovered the laws which regulate the universe, could they have seen the sky is neither “high” nor “low” within the framework of the cosmos, and that the sky is neither above the clouds nor bounded by the stars? Before psychological science had come into existence, could they have identified themselves with spiritual life, or have formed to themselves a conception of an existence after death, whether happy or unhappy, otherwise than in connection with some fixed locality and under some physical form? No; comprehending through the senses rather than by thought, the idea of an illimitable universe was too vast for their intelligence; it was needful to reduce the idea of the universe to narrower proportions, in order to bring it within their sphere of vision, deferring its broader presentation to a later period. A partial revelation was useful in the past, and the wisdom of the Providential ordering is shown in this proportioning of its teachings to the needs and capacities of the time in which it was made; but it is insufficient in the present day, and they are wrong who, not taking into account the progress of ideas, imagine that they can hold women and men of mature age in the lead strings of infancy (Vide The Gospel According to Spiritism, Chap. III)
CHAPTER IV - HELL
INTUITION OF FUTURE PUNISHMENTS
1. In all ages, human beings have intuitively believed that their future lives will be happy or unhappy according to the good or the evil done by them in the earthly life; but the idea they form to themselves of that future state of existence is always in keeping with the development of their moral sense and with more or less enlightened views of right and wrong at which they have arrived. Thus their idea of the rewards and punishments of the future is always the reflex of their predominant tendencies. Warlike nations make the supreme felicity to consist in the honors done to valor; tribes who live by hunting, in an abundance of game; peoples addicted to sensuality, in voluptuous pleasures. While human beings remain under the domination of materiality, they can have only an imperfect comprehension of spirit life; they suppose that they will eat and drink, in the other world, as they do in this one, but of better quality. * At a later period, we find in the beliefs of humankind concerning the future a mixture of spirituality and materiality; and accordingly, juxtaposed with a heaven of contemplative beatitude, humans then place a hell with its array of physical tortures.
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* A little Savoyard, to whom the village priest was describing the delights of the future life, asked him whether everybody “eat white bread there, as they do in Paris?”
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* A little Savoyard, to whom the village priest was describing the delights of the future life, asked him whether everybody “eat white bread there, as they do in Paris?”
2. Being unable to conceive of anything that they do not see, the humans of the primitive period naturally formed their notion of the future based on the present; in order to comprehend the possibility of other modes of existence than those which they saw around them, they would have needed an intellectual development which they could only have acquired in the course of ages. The picture that they imagined to themselves of the chastisements of the future life was, therefore, only a reflex of the ills of human existence, but deepened and intensified. They brought together, into that picture, all the tortures, all the sufferings, all the afflictions that they saw upon the Earth; in hot climates, they imagined a hell of fire, and, in the cold ones, a hell of ice. The special sense which, at a later period, enabled them to comprehend the spiritual world, not being yet developed, they could only conceive of physical penalties; and for this reason, with the exception of some slight differences of form, the “hell” of all religions is the same.
THE CHRISTIAN HELL AN IMITATION OF THE HELL OF THE PAGANS
3. The “Hell” of the Pagans, described and dramatized by the poets of antiquity, is the grandest of the forms that have been assumed by the idea of a place of punishments for the souls of humanity, although its principal features have been perpetuated in the “Hell” of the Christians, which, also, has been sung by their poets. On comparing these two conceptions of the infernal regions, we find them to be closely allied, notwithstanding their differences of names and details; in both, physical fire is the basis of the tortures of the damned, because it is the cause of the most excruciating suffering. But, strange to say, Christians have made their hell, in many respects, still more horrible than that of the Pagans. The latter had their hell in the Sieve of the Danaides, Ixion’s Wheel, the Stone of Sisyphus, etc.; but these were merely torments of individuals, whereas the Christian hell has its boiling cauldrons for the vast majority of the human race, and the Christian “angels” lift up the covers of those receptacles to feast their eyes upon the contortions of the damned, * which are also watched by the “elect” with lively satisfaction, ** while their God hears, unmoved, the groans that will ascend, throughout eternity, from the bottomless pit! The Pagans never depicted the dwellers in the Elysian Fields as gloating over the horrors of Tartarus.
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* A sermon preached, in 1860, by an eminent Catholic divine, at Montpellier, seat of a University Faculty.
** 8 “The blessed, without quitting the place they occupy, will yet quit it in a certain manner—through the intelligence and the distinctness of vision with which they are endowed—in order to contemplate the tortures of the damned; and, on seeing these, they will not only not feel any sorrow, but they will be overwhelmed with joy and will give thanks to God for their own happiness in witnessing the unutterable misery of the impious.”—SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS.
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* A sermon preached, in 1860, by an eminent Catholic divine, at Montpellier, seat of a University Faculty.
** 8 “The blessed, without quitting the place they occupy, will yet quit it in a certain manner—through the intelligence and the distinctness of vision with which they are endowed—in order to contemplate the tortures of the damned; and, on seeing these, they will not only not feel any sorrow, but they will be overwhelmed with joy and will give thanks to God for their own happiness in witnessing the unutterable misery of the impious.”—SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS.
4. Like the Pagans, the Christians have their king of the Infernal Regions, Satan; with this difference, viz., that Pluto, while governing the gloomy realm which had fallen to his share, was not malicious; he retained as captives those who had done wickedly, because it was his mission to do so; but he did not seek to draw humans into evil in order to give himself the pleasure of seeing them suffer; whereas Satan recruits his victims everywhere, and takes pleasure in having them tortured by his legions of demons, who are armed with pitchforks for the purpose of stirring them about in the fire. Christian theologians have gravely discussed the nature of the “fire,” which burns the damned incessantly, and yet does not consume them; some of them have even gone so far as to inquire whether that fire may not perhaps be of bitumen.* The Christian hell is, therefore, in no respect less horrible than the Pagan hell.
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* In a sermon preached in Paris in 1861.
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* In a sermon preached in Paris in 1861.
5. The same considerations which led the Ancients to localize the realm of felicity led them also to imagine a place of torment, like the former, fixed, localized, and circumscribed; and, having placed their heaven “on high,” they naturally placed their hell “down below,” that is to say, in the center of the Earth, of which certain dark and gloomy caverns were supposed to be the entrance. The Christians, also, for a long time, placed the region of perdition in the center of the Earth. Nor were these the only analogies between the Pagan and the Christian conceptions of hell.
The hell of the pagans contained, on the one hand, the Elysian Fields, on the other, Tartarus; Olympus, the dwelling-place of the gods and of deified men, was in the “upper regions.” According to the letter of the Gospels, Jesus descended into Hell, into a region below the surface of the Earth, on a mission to rescue the souls who were awaiting his coming. The hell of the Christians, like that of the Pagans, was, therefore, in the beginning, not simply a place of torment, but, like the latter, included “the lower regions.” And the Christian heaven, the abode of the angels and the saints, was also, like the Pagan Olympus, up “on high,” somewhere beyond the region of the stars, which, as previously remarked, was supposed to be limited.
The hell of the pagans contained, on the one hand, the Elysian Fields, on the other, Tartarus; Olympus, the dwelling-place of the gods and of deified men, was in the “upper regions.” According to the letter of the Gospels, Jesus descended into Hell, into a region below the surface of the Earth, on a mission to rescue the souls who were awaiting his coming. The hell of the Christians, like that of the Pagans, was, therefore, in the beginning, not simply a place of torment, but, like the latter, included “the lower regions.” And the Christian heaven, the abode of the angels and the saints, was also, like the Pagan Olympus, up “on high,” somewhere beyond the region of the stars, which, as previously remarked, was supposed to be limited.
6. This mixture of Pagan and Christian ideas should cause us no surprise. Jesus could not, at once, destroy beliefs that had taken firm root in the human mind. The people of this day lacked the scientific knowledge that alone could enable them to conceive of the infinity of space and the infinity of worlds. The Earth was, for them, the center of the universe. They knew nothing of its form or of its internal structure; for them, the universe was limited to what they saw around them, and their notions, in regard to the future, could not extend beyond the narrow circle of their knowledge. It was, consequently, impossible for Jesus to initiate them into the truth of things; and being unwilling, on the other hand, to give the sanction of his authority to the prejudices of his hearers, he abstained from touching on subjects for which they were unprepared. Leaving to time the work of rectifying their ideas, he confined himself to vague allusions to the future happiness of the good, and to the punishments that await the wicked; but we nowhere find, in his teachings, the distinct pictures of corporeal tortures which the Christians churches have made an article of their creed.
We have seen how it is that the ideas of the Pagan hell have been perpetuated to the present day. The diffusion of knowledge, which is the characteristic of modern times, and the general development of human intelligence, were indispensable to the clearing away of those ideas. But as, up to this time, no sound and rational basis of belief has been substituted in place of those old ideas, the long period of blind belief has been followed by a transitional period of unbelief, to which the new revelation is destined to put an end. It was necessary to demolish the old belief before bringing in the new; for true ideas are more readily accepted by those who have no belief and who feel the need of some sound basis of conviction, than by those who cherish a robust belief in absurdities.
We have seen how it is that the ideas of the Pagan hell have been perpetuated to the present day. The diffusion of knowledge, which is the characteristic of modern times, and the general development of human intelligence, were indispensable to the clearing away of those ideas. But as, up to this time, no sound and rational basis of belief has been substituted in place of those old ideas, the long period of blind belief has been followed by a transitional period of unbelief, to which the new revelation is destined to put an end. It was necessary to demolish the old belief before bringing in the new; for true ideas are more readily accepted by those who have no belief and who feel the need of some sound basis of conviction, than by those who cherish a robust belief in absurdities.
7. Owing to their having localized their idea of “Heaven” and of “Hell,” the various Christian sects have been led to admit the existence of only two situations for the souls of the departed—viz., perfect happiness and utter misery. Purgatory, according to the Catholic dogma, is only a temporary and intermediate position, where the soul goes without any other transition into the abode of the Blest. It could not do otherwise, according to the belief that assumes that the fate of the soul is decided forever at death. If there are but two abodes for souls, —viz., that of the elect and that of the damned, —and if the fate of the soul, as belonging to the one or the other category, is definitely settled at death it is impossible to admit the existence of degrees in either of those abodes; for, if such degrees existed, it must be possible for the soul to pass through them, and, consequently, to progress: but, if the soul can progress after death, its state, on dying, is not definitive, since, if it were definitive, progress would be impossible. Jesus settled this weighty question when he said, “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” *
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* Vide “The Gospel According to Spiritism,” chap. III
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* Vide “The Gospel According to Spiritism,” chap. III
LIMBO
8. The Catholic Church admits, it is true, a special position of the soul in certain special cases. Children who have died in infancy, having committed no sin, cannot be condemned to eternal burning; on the other hand, having done nothing good, they have no right to the supreme felicity. They are, therefore, according to the doctrine of that Church, in Limbo, which is a mixed state (that has never been clearly defined), in which, although they do not suffer, they still do not enjoy perfect happiness. But, since their fate is irrevocably fixed at death, they are excluded from the enjoyment of perfect happiness to all eternity; and, consequently, this privation, though incurred through no fault of theirs, practically amounts to the undeserved infliction of an eternal punishment. It is the same with savages, who, having received neither the grace of baptism nor the light of religion, go wrong through ignorance, and through obeying their natural instincts, and who, consequently, can neither have incurred the guilt, nor acquired the merit of those who have acted with a clear discernment of right and wrong. The simplest effort of reasoning suffices to repel such a doctrine as contrary to the justice of God. The justice of God is, in fact, summed up entirely in the words of Christ, “To each, according to the deeds done in the body;” but this law must be understood as referring to deeds whether good or evil, that have been done freely and voluntarily; those being the only ones for which we can justly be held responsible. There can be no responsibility on the part of a child, a savage, or anyone else who, through no fault of his own, has failed to obtain enlightenment.
PICTURE OF THE PAGAN HELL
9. We know little of the Pagan Hell except through the recitals of the ancient poets; the descriptions given by Homer and Virgil are the most complete, but, in these, we have to make allowance for the necessities imposed by the poetic form. On the contrary, the description of the infernal regions given by Fénélon, in his Telemachus—though drawn, as regards the fundamental beliefs of the Ancients, from the same sources—has the greater simplicity and precision of prose. Even while describing the bleak and cheerless aspect of those regions, he takes care to show the kind of suffering endured by the guilty; and, if he gives special prominence to the fate of bad kings, he does so for the sake of impressing the mind of his royal pupil with the gravity of the responsibility that will one day rest upon him. However popular the work referred to, there are doubtless many who have not retained any clear remembrance of its details, or who have not reflected on them with sufficient attention to establish a comparison between the idea of “Hell” thus presented and the “Hell” of the Christians; and we therefore think it useful to reproduce portions of the work referred to which treat directly of the subject we are considering, that is to say, of the punishment of the individuals in the other life.
10. On entering, Telemachus heard the groans of a shade who appeared to be inconsolable. ‘What,’ he inquired, ‘is the cause of you unhappiness? Who were you when upon the Earth?’
‘I was Nabopharzan, king of proud Babylon,’ replied the shade; ‘all the people of the East trembled at the mere sound of my name. I caused myself to be adored by the Babylonians in a marble temple wherein I was represented by a statue of gold, before which were burned, night and day, the most precious perfumes of Ethiopia. Whoever dared to contradict me was immediately punished; and my servants invented new pleasures each day in order to render my life more and more delightful. I was still young and robust; alas! How many kinds of prosperity still remained for me to enjoy upon the throne! But a woman whom I loved, and who did not love me, has shown me very plainly that I was not a god; she has poisoned me; and I am reduced to nothingness. My ashes were placed, with great pomp, yesterday, in a golden urn; the people wept, and tore their hair; they made a pretense of longing to throw themselves into the flame of my funeral pyre, in order to die with me. They will come in crowds to groan and lament at the foot of the superb tomb in which my ashes have been deposited; but no one regrets my death; my memory is detested, even by my own family, and, down here, I am already undergoing horrible treatment.’
Telemachus, touched by this spectacle, asked the shade: ‘Were you really happy during your reign? Did you feel the inner peace without which the heart remains oppressed and blighted in the midst of pleasures?’
‘No,’ replied the Babylonian; ‘I know nothing of the sentiment of which you speak. The sages praise this peace as the only good; but I never felt it; my heart was incessantly agitated by new desires, new fears, and new hopes. I sought to stun myself with the shock of my passions, and I did my utmost to render this sort of intoxication perpetual. The shortest interval of calm reason would have been too bitter an awakening. Such is the only peace I ever enjoyed; any other seems to me to be only a fable and a dream; such are the pleasures I regret.’
While speaking thus, the Babylonian wept like a craven, who, weakened by prosperity, has not accustomed himself to support misfortune with equanimity. Near him were several slaves who had been put to death to honor his funeral; Mercury had delivered them over to Charon with their king, and had given them absolute power over this sovereign whom they had served upon the Earth. These shades of slaves no longer feared the shade of Nabopharzan; they kept him in chains, and wreaked upon him the most galling insults. One of them said to him, ‘Were we not men just as you? How could you be so insensate as to fancy yourself a god, and ought you not to have remembered that you were of the same race as other men?’ Another, to mortify him, said to him, ‘You were right in trying to make people believe that you were not a man; for you were a monster, with nothing human about you!’ A third scornfully asked him, ‘Where are now your flatterers? Wretch! You have no longer anything to give. You can no longer do harm to anyone. You have become the slave of your former slaves. The gods are slow to punish; but they punish at last!’
At these cruel words, Nabopharzan threw himself down with his face upon the ground, tearing his hair in a fit of rage and despair. But Charon said to the slaves, ‘Pull him up by his chain; make him stand up in spite of himself; he shall not even have the satisfaction of hiding his shame. All the shades on the banks of the Styx must witness his punishment in order that they may recognize the justice of the gods, who allowed this impious mortal to reign so long upon the Earth.’
“Soon afterwards Telemachus perceived, near at hand, the gloomy realm of Tartarus that exhaled a thick black smoke, the pestiferous smell of which would have caused death, had it penetrated into the abode of the living. This smoke rose from a river of fire, and was full of masses of flame, the roar of which, like that of the most impetuous torrents when they leap from the summit of the highest rocks into the deepest abysses, rendered it impossible to hear anything distinctly in the dreary place.
Telemachus, secretly urged on by Minerva, entered fearlessly into the yawning gulf. He at once perceived in it a great number of men who had lived on Earth in low conditions, and who were being punished for having sought to obtain wealth through frauds, treasons, and cruelties. He remarked there many impious hypocrites who, feigning to love religion, had made their pretended piety a pretext for serving their ambition and deceiving the credulous; these men, who had thus insulted virtue itself, the greatest gift of the gods, were punished as being the very worst of criminals. Children who had murdered their parents, husbands who had killed their wives, traitors who, breaking their vows, had betrayed their country, underwent punishments less severe than those that were meted out to these hypocrites. The three judges of the infernal regions had thus ordered it, and for this reason, viz., that hypocrites are not satisfied with being wicked, like other impious people, but also seek to pass themselves off as being good, and thus, by their false virtue, make it impossible for men to trust the truest virtue. The gods, whom they have mocked, take pleasure in employing all their power to avenge the insults of these wretches.
Near to these were the shades of other men whom the vulgar scarcely regard as guilty, but who are pitilessly pursued by the Divine vengeance, viz., those who are ungrateful, liars, flatterers of vice, malicious critics who have sought to malign the good, and those who have rashly pronounced judgment on matters of which they had no clear and thorough knowledge, and who have thus injured the reputation of innocent persons.
Telemachus, seeing the three judges seated at their tribunal, in the act of passing sentence on a man, ventured to inquire of them what crimes he had committed, when the condemned immediately exclaimed, ‘I have never done anything wrong; all my pleasure was in doing good. I was magnificent, liberal, just, and compassionate; with what then can I be reproached?’ But Minus replied, ‘You are not reproached with any wrongdoing as regards to men; but did you not owe yet more to the gods than to men? What is the justice of which you boast? You have not failed in any of your duties towards men, who are nothing; you were virtuous, but you took all the credit of your virtue to yourself, instead of attributing it to the gods, who had given it to you, for you wished to enjoy the fruit of your virtue as something of your own and you thus shut yourself up in yourself; you were your own divinity. But the gods, who are the authors of all things, and to whom the honor of all things should revert, cannot renounce their rights; you forgot them, they will now forget you. They now give you over to yourself, since you chose to live for yourself instead of living for them. You must now find your happiness, if you can, in your own heart. You are separated, forever, from those whom you sought to please, and you are left alone with yourself, the self which was your idol; for you have now to learn that there can be no true virtue without the respect and love of the gods, to whom all things are due. Your false virtue, which has so long deceived men, who are easily taken in, will now be seen in its true light. Men, judging of vices and virtues only according to the convenience or inconvenience caused to them thereby, are blind to the real nature of good and of evil. Here, all their superficial judgments are overthrown by the Divine light, for that light often condemns what is admired by men, and shows the excellence of what is condemned by them.’
At these words, the vainglorious philosopher was struck, as though by the thunderbolt, with horror of himself. The pleasure that he had formerly felt contemplating his own moderation, his courage, and his generous tendencies, was changed into despair. The sight of his own heart, as an enemy of the gods, became a torture for him; he saw himself as a spectacle of which he could never escape the sight; he saw the worthlessness of the judgment of men, whose approbation had been the aim and motive of all his actions. An entire revolution took place in his inner being, as though his very entrails had been overturned. He seemed to himself to be no longer the same; his heart failed him; and his conscience—whose flatteries had hitherto been so agreeable to him—now raised its voice against him, reproaching him bitterly with the unsound and illusory nature of his imaginary virtues, that had not had the worship of the Divinity for their motive and aim: he was overwhelmed with confusion, consternation, shame, remorse, and despair. The Furies exercised no torments upon him, because it sufficed, for his punishment, to abandon him to himself, and because the action of his own heart was all that was needed to avenge the gods, whom he had forgotten. He tried to find some dark recess in which to hide himself, at least, from the shades about him, since he could no longer hide himself from himself. He sought for darkness, but could not find it, for an unwelcome and persistent light incessantly accompanied him; wherever he went, the piercing rays of truth went with him, avenging the truth that he had neglected to follow. * All that he had formerly loved became odious to him, as being the source of his misery; —a misery that would have no end!
‘Insensate fool that I have been!’ he cried aloud, speaking to himself; ‘I see that I have never truly known either the gods, my fellow-men, or myself! No, I have never truly known anything, since I did not set my affections on the only real good! Every step of my life was but a wandering out of the right road; my wisdom was only folly; my virtue was only a blind and impious pride; I was my own idol!’
Telemachus next perceived the Kings who had been condemned for having made a bad use of their power. On the one hand, an avenging Fury held up before them a mirror that showed them all the deformity of their vices; they saw, and could not help seeing, their gross vanity and their avidity for the most ridiculous praises; their hardness towards their fellow-men, whose happiness they ought to have ensured; their indifference for the virtuous; their unwillingness to hear the truth; their preference for base and cowardly flatterers; their want of application; their indolence and idleness; their unjust suspicions; their pomp and magnificence based on the ruin of their peoples; their ambition, which caused them to purchase a little empty glory with the blood of their subjects; their cruelty, which sought, each day, for new delights in the tears and despair of their innumerable victims. They beheld themselves incessantly in this mirror; they saw themselves to be more horrible and monstrous than was the Chimaera, vanquished by Bellerophon, or the Hydra destroyed by Hercules, or even Cerberus himself, though, from his three yawning mouths, he vomits streams of black and venomous blood that would poison the whole race of mortals living upon the Earth.
At the same time, on the other hand, another Fury repeated, insultingly, all the praises that had been offered to them by their flatterers during their life, and held up to them a second mirror, in which they beheld themselves as they had been depicted by these flatterers. The contrast between these pictures was torture for their vanity, and all the more excruciating because the kings on whom the most magnificent encomiums are lavished during their life, are usually those who are the most wicked of all; for wicked kings are always more feared than the good ones, and have no scruple in exacting base adulation from the poets and orators of their day.
The groans of these wretches resound through the thick darkness by which they are surrounded, and which allows them to perceive only the insults and mockeries they are condemned to endure. Everything around them repels, contradicts, and confounds them, whereas, when they lived upon the Earth, they sported with the lives of men and imagined that everything existed for their service. In Tartarus, they are abandoned to the caprices of their former slaves, who, in their turn, cause them to feel all the bitterness of slavery; they serve these tormentors in pain and suffering, and without any hope of a mitigation of their misery, for they are subjected to the blows and ill-treatment of their former victims, as completely as is the anvil to the strokes of the hammer of the Cyclops, when Vulcan urges them to their tasks in the fiery furnaces of Etna.
Pale, hideous, filled with consternation, were the countenances of the criminals seen by Telemachus in that abode of retribution. Gnawed by despair, they are objects of horror to themselves, and can no more shake off this sense of self-loathing than they can shake off their own nature; they need no other chastisement, for their former crimes, than those crimes themselves, which are beheld by them incessantly, in all their deformity, glowering on them, and pursuing them, like so many horrible specters. To escape from them, they seek for a death that shall be more potent than that which has separated them from their body. In their despair, they would call to their help a death that should extinguish in them all feeling and all consciousness; they call upon the abyss to swallow them up and hide them from the avenging rays of truth that pierce them like arrows, but they are condemned to suffer the vengeance that falls slowly upon them, drop by drop, as from a spring that will never be dried up. Truth, which they formerly shunned, is now their torment; they see it, and it alone, always standing before them as an accusation: a sight that pierces them through and through, that rends them, as it were, limb from limb, and tears them from themselves. For Truth is like lightning; without destroying them outwardly, it penetrates the most hidden recesses of their being.
Among these woeful spectacles, which caused the hair of his head to stand on end, Telemachus beheld the fate of several of the ancient kings of Lydia, punished for having preferred the pleasures of an idle and luxurious life to nobly laboring for the amelioration of the condition of the mass of their subjects, which is an aspiration that should be inseparable from the concept of royalty.
Those kings reproached each other with their former blindness. One of them, addressing the other, who had been his son, exclaimed, ‘Did I not urge you, repeatedly, in my old age, and before my death, to repair the evils that I had caused by my negligence?’ ‘Ah! Wretched father!’ returned the son, ‘it is you who have been my ruin! It was your example that inspired me with the love of vainglorious pomp and voluptuous delights, with pride, and hard-heartedness for the rest of mankind! It was through seeing you reign with such luxurious indolence and surrounded by base flatterers, that I acquired the love of pleasure and of flattery. I thought that all other men, in relation to kings, were only what horses and other beasts of burden are in relation to men; that is to say, animals valued only for the services they render and the uses they sub-serve. I believed this, because you made me believe it; and now I suffer all this misery for having followed your example!’ To these reciprocal reproaches they added the most frightful curses, and manifested such violent rage against one another that they seemed to be about to tear each other to pieces.
Around these unfaithful kings there hovered, like so many birds of the night, the cruel suspicions, the baseless terrors and mistrust, which avenge, upon them, the sufferings caused to their subjects by their hard-heartedness; —the insatiable thirst for riches, the tyrannous desire for false glory, and the base indolence that intensifies every suffering, and fails to yield any solid satisfaction.
Many of these kings were seen undergoing severe punishment, not for any evil that they had done, but for not having done the good that they might have done. All the wrongdoing, on the part of their subjects, caused by their lax administration of the laws, was laid to the charge of the kings, who only reign in order that the laws may reign through their instrumentality. All the disorders that result from the display of pomp, luxury, and all the other excesses that tempt men to violate the laws in their haste to be rich, were imputed to these unfaithful kings. And those kings, who, instead of being the kind and watchful shepherds of their people, had only sought to devour them, like hungry wolves, were the most severely punished of them all.
But what most astounded Telemachus was to see, in this abyss of darkness and of suffering, a great number of kings who, although they had been reputed, upon the Earth as tolerably good, had been condemned to the sufferings of Tartarus for having allowed themselves to be governed by wicked and artful counselors. They were punished by the evils that they had allowed to be done under their authority. Moreover, the greater number of these kings had been neither good nor bad, weakness having been their distinguishing characteristic. They had never had any desire to know the truth; they had never had any aspirations after virtue; and they had never taken any pleasure in doing good.
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* Vide Chap. VII, “The Punishment of Light.”
‘I was Nabopharzan, king of proud Babylon,’ replied the shade; ‘all the people of the East trembled at the mere sound of my name. I caused myself to be adored by the Babylonians in a marble temple wherein I was represented by a statue of gold, before which were burned, night and day, the most precious perfumes of Ethiopia. Whoever dared to contradict me was immediately punished; and my servants invented new pleasures each day in order to render my life more and more delightful. I was still young and robust; alas! How many kinds of prosperity still remained for me to enjoy upon the throne! But a woman whom I loved, and who did not love me, has shown me very plainly that I was not a god; she has poisoned me; and I am reduced to nothingness. My ashes were placed, with great pomp, yesterday, in a golden urn; the people wept, and tore their hair; they made a pretense of longing to throw themselves into the flame of my funeral pyre, in order to die with me. They will come in crowds to groan and lament at the foot of the superb tomb in which my ashes have been deposited; but no one regrets my death; my memory is detested, even by my own family, and, down here, I am already undergoing horrible treatment.’
Telemachus, touched by this spectacle, asked the shade: ‘Were you really happy during your reign? Did you feel the inner peace without which the heart remains oppressed and blighted in the midst of pleasures?’
‘No,’ replied the Babylonian; ‘I know nothing of the sentiment of which you speak. The sages praise this peace as the only good; but I never felt it; my heart was incessantly agitated by new desires, new fears, and new hopes. I sought to stun myself with the shock of my passions, and I did my utmost to render this sort of intoxication perpetual. The shortest interval of calm reason would have been too bitter an awakening. Such is the only peace I ever enjoyed; any other seems to me to be only a fable and a dream; such are the pleasures I regret.’
While speaking thus, the Babylonian wept like a craven, who, weakened by prosperity, has not accustomed himself to support misfortune with equanimity. Near him were several slaves who had been put to death to honor his funeral; Mercury had delivered them over to Charon with their king, and had given them absolute power over this sovereign whom they had served upon the Earth. These shades of slaves no longer feared the shade of Nabopharzan; they kept him in chains, and wreaked upon him the most galling insults. One of them said to him, ‘Were we not men just as you? How could you be so insensate as to fancy yourself a god, and ought you not to have remembered that you were of the same race as other men?’ Another, to mortify him, said to him, ‘You were right in trying to make people believe that you were not a man; for you were a monster, with nothing human about you!’ A third scornfully asked him, ‘Where are now your flatterers? Wretch! You have no longer anything to give. You can no longer do harm to anyone. You have become the slave of your former slaves. The gods are slow to punish; but they punish at last!’
At these cruel words, Nabopharzan threw himself down with his face upon the ground, tearing his hair in a fit of rage and despair. But Charon said to the slaves, ‘Pull him up by his chain; make him stand up in spite of himself; he shall not even have the satisfaction of hiding his shame. All the shades on the banks of the Styx must witness his punishment in order that they may recognize the justice of the gods, who allowed this impious mortal to reign so long upon the Earth.’
“Soon afterwards Telemachus perceived, near at hand, the gloomy realm of Tartarus that exhaled a thick black smoke, the pestiferous smell of which would have caused death, had it penetrated into the abode of the living. This smoke rose from a river of fire, and was full of masses of flame, the roar of which, like that of the most impetuous torrents when they leap from the summit of the highest rocks into the deepest abysses, rendered it impossible to hear anything distinctly in the dreary place.
Telemachus, secretly urged on by Minerva, entered fearlessly into the yawning gulf. He at once perceived in it a great number of men who had lived on Earth in low conditions, and who were being punished for having sought to obtain wealth through frauds, treasons, and cruelties. He remarked there many impious hypocrites who, feigning to love religion, had made their pretended piety a pretext for serving their ambition and deceiving the credulous; these men, who had thus insulted virtue itself, the greatest gift of the gods, were punished as being the very worst of criminals. Children who had murdered their parents, husbands who had killed their wives, traitors who, breaking their vows, had betrayed their country, underwent punishments less severe than those that were meted out to these hypocrites. The three judges of the infernal regions had thus ordered it, and for this reason, viz., that hypocrites are not satisfied with being wicked, like other impious people, but also seek to pass themselves off as being good, and thus, by their false virtue, make it impossible for men to trust the truest virtue. The gods, whom they have mocked, take pleasure in employing all their power to avenge the insults of these wretches.
Near to these were the shades of other men whom the vulgar scarcely regard as guilty, but who are pitilessly pursued by the Divine vengeance, viz., those who are ungrateful, liars, flatterers of vice, malicious critics who have sought to malign the good, and those who have rashly pronounced judgment on matters of which they had no clear and thorough knowledge, and who have thus injured the reputation of innocent persons.
Telemachus, seeing the three judges seated at their tribunal, in the act of passing sentence on a man, ventured to inquire of them what crimes he had committed, when the condemned immediately exclaimed, ‘I have never done anything wrong; all my pleasure was in doing good. I was magnificent, liberal, just, and compassionate; with what then can I be reproached?’ But Minus replied, ‘You are not reproached with any wrongdoing as regards to men; but did you not owe yet more to the gods than to men? What is the justice of which you boast? You have not failed in any of your duties towards men, who are nothing; you were virtuous, but you took all the credit of your virtue to yourself, instead of attributing it to the gods, who had given it to you, for you wished to enjoy the fruit of your virtue as something of your own and you thus shut yourself up in yourself; you were your own divinity. But the gods, who are the authors of all things, and to whom the honor of all things should revert, cannot renounce their rights; you forgot them, they will now forget you. They now give you over to yourself, since you chose to live for yourself instead of living for them. You must now find your happiness, if you can, in your own heart. You are separated, forever, from those whom you sought to please, and you are left alone with yourself, the self which was your idol; for you have now to learn that there can be no true virtue without the respect and love of the gods, to whom all things are due. Your false virtue, which has so long deceived men, who are easily taken in, will now be seen in its true light. Men, judging of vices and virtues only according to the convenience or inconvenience caused to them thereby, are blind to the real nature of good and of evil. Here, all their superficial judgments are overthrown by the Divine light, for that light often condemns what is admired by men, and shows the excellence of what is condemned by them.’
At these words, the vainglorious philosopher was struck, as though by the thunderbolt, with horror of himself. The pleasure that he had formerly felt contemplating his own moderation, his courage, and his generous tendencies, was changed into despair. The sight of his own heart, as an enemy of the gods, became a torture for him; he saw himself as a spectacle of which he could never escape the sight; he saw the worthlessness of the judgment of men, whose approbation had been the aim and motive of all his actions. An entire revolution took place in his inner being, as though his very entrails had been overturned. He seemed to himself to be no longer the same; his heart failed him; and his conscience—whose flatteries had hitherto been so agreeable to him—now raised its voice against him, reproaching him bitterly with the unsound and illusory nature of his imaginary virtues, that had not had the worship of the Divinity for their motive and aim: he was overwhelmed with confusion, consternation, shame, remorse, and despair. The Furies exercised no torments upon him, because it sufficed, for his punishment, to abandon him to himself, and because the action of his own heart was all that was needed to avenge the gods, whom he had forgotten. He tried to find some dark recess in which to hide himself, at least, from the shades about him, since he could no longer hide himself from himself. He sought for darkness, but could not find it, for an unwelcome and persistent light incessantly accompanied him; wherever he went, the piercing rays of truth went with him, avenging the truth that he had neglected to follow. * All that he had formerly loved became odious to him, as being the source of his misery; —a misery that would have no end!
‘Insensate fool that I have been!’ he cried aloud, speaking to himself; ‘I see that I have never truly known either the gods, my fellow-men, or myself! No, I have never truly known anything, since I did not set my affections on the only real good! Every step of my life was but a wandering out of the right road; my wisdom was only folly; my virtue was only a blind and impious pride; I was my own idol!’
Telemachus next perceived the Kings who had been condemned for having made a bad use of their power. On the one hand, an avenging Fury held up before them a mirror that showed them all the deformity of their vices; they saw, and could not help seeing, their gross vanity and their avidity for the most ridiculous praises; their hardness towards their fellow-men, whose happiness they ought to have ensured; their indifference for the virtuous; their unwillingness to hear the truth; their preference for base and cowardly flatterers; their want of application; their indolence and idleness; their unjust suspicions; their pomp and magnificence based on the ruin of their peoples; their ambition, which caused them to purchase a little empty glory with the blood of their subjects; their cruelty, which sought, each day, for new delights in the tears and despair of their innumerable victims. They beheld themselves incessantly in this mirror; they saw themselves to be more horrible and monstrous than was the Chimaera, vanquished by Bellerophon, or the Hydra destroyed by Hercules, or even Cerberus himself, though, from his three yawning mouths, he vomits streams of black and venomous blood that would poison the whole race of mortals living upon the Earth.
At the same time, on the other hand, another Fury repeated, insultingly, all the praises that had been offered to them by their flatterers during their life, and held up to them a second mirror, in which they beheld themselves as they had been depicted by these flatterers. The contrast between these pictures was torture for their vanity, and all the more excruciating because the kings on whom the most magnificent encomiums are lavished during their life, are usually those who are the most wicked of all; for wicked kings are always more feared than the good ones, and have no scruple in exacting base adulation from the poets and orators of their day.
The groans of these wretches resound through the thick darkness by which they are surrounded, and which allows them to perceive only the insults and mockeries they are condemned to endure. Everything around them repels, contradicts, and confounds them, whereas, when they lived upon the Earth, they sported with the lives of men and imagined that everything existed for their service. In Tartarus, they are abandoned to the caprices of their former slaves, who, in their turn, cause them to feel all the bitterness of slavery; they serve these tormentors in pain and suffering, and without any hope of a mitigation of their misery, for they are subjected to the blows and ill-treatment of their former victims, as completely as is the anvil to the strokes of the hammer of the Cyclops, when Vulcan urges them to their tasks in the fiery furnaces of Etna.
Pale, hideous, filled with consternation, were the countenances of the criminals seen by Telemachus in that abode of retribution. Gnawed by despair, they are objects of horror to themselves, and can no more shake off this sense of self-loathing than they can shake off their own nature; they need no other chastisement, for their former crimes, than those crimes themselves, which are beheld by them incessantly, in all their deformity, glowering on them, and pursuing them, like so many horrible specters. To escape from them, they seek for a death that shall be more potent than that which has separated them from their body. In their despair, they would call to their help a death that should extinguish in them all feeling and all consciousness; they call upon the abyss to swallow them up and hide them from the avenging rays of truth that pierce them like arrows, but they are condemned to suffer the vengeance that falls slowly upon them, drop by drop, as from a spring that will never be dried up. Truth, which they formerly shunned, is now their torment; they see it, and it alone, always standing before them as an accusation: a sight that pierces them through and through, that rends them, as it were, limb from limb, and tears them from themselves. For Truth is like lightning; without destroying them outwardly, it penetrates the most hidden recesses of their being.
Among these woeful spectacles, which caused the hair of his head to stand on end, Telemachus beheld the fate of several of the ancient kings of Lydia, punished for having preferred the pleasures of an idle and luxurious life to nobly laboring for the amelioration of the condition of the mass of their subjects, which is an aspiration that should be inseparable from the concept of royalty.
Those kings reproached each other with their former blindness. One of them, addressing the other, who had been his son, exclaimed, ‘Did I not urge you, repeatedly, in my old age, and before my death, to repair the evils that I had caused by my negligence?’ ‘Ah! Wretched father!’ returned the son, ‘it is you who have been my ruin! It was your example that inspired me with the love of vainglorious pomp and voluptuous delights, with pride, and hard-heartedness for the rest of mankind! It was through seeing you reign with such luxurious indolence and surrounded by base flatterers, that I acquired the love of pleasure and of flattery. I thought that all other men, in relation to kings, were only what horses and other beasts of burden are in relation to men; that is to say, animals valued only for the services they render and the uses they sub-serve. I believed this, because you made me believe it; and now I suffer all this misery for having followed your example!’ To these reciprocal reproaches they added the most frightful curses, and manifested such violent rage against one another that they seemed to be about to tear each other to pieces.
Around these unfaithful kings there hovered, like so many birds of the night, the cruel suspicions, the baseless terrors and mistrust, which avenge, upon them, the sufferings caused to their subjects by their hard-heartedness; —the insatiable thirst for riches, the tyrannous desire for false glory, and the base indolence that intensifies every suffering, and fails to yield any solid satisfaction.
Many of these kings were seen undergoing severe punishment, not for any evil that they had done, but for not having done the good that they might have done. All the wrongdoing, on the part of their subjects, caused by their lax administration of the laws, was laid to the charge of the kings, who only reign in order that the laws may reign through their instrumentality. All the disorders that result from the display of pomp, luxury, and all the other excesses that tempt men to violate the laws in their haste to be rich, were imputed to these unfaithful kings. And those kings, who, instead of being the kind and watchful shepherds of their people, had only sought to devour them, like hungry wolves, were the most severely punished of them all.
But what most astounded Telemachus was to see, in this abyss of darkness and of suffering, a great number of kings who, although they had been reputed, upon the Earth as tolerably good, had been condemned to the sufferings of Tartarus for having allowed themselves to be governed by wicked and artful counselors. They were punished by the evils that they had allowed to be done under their authority. Moreover, the greater number of these kings had been neither good nor bad, weakness having been their distinguishing characteristic. They had never had any desire to know the truth; they had never had any aspirations after virtue; and they had never taken any pleasure in doing good.
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* Vide Chap. VII, “The Punishment of Light.”
PICTURE OF THE CHRISTIAN HELL
11. The opinion of Christian theologians in regard to Hell is summed up in the following quotations. * This description, derived from the writings of the Fathers of the Church and the Lives of Saints, may be presented with all the more confidence as conveying a correct idea of the orthodox belief in regard to the subject we are considering, because it is perpetually set forth, with some slight variations only, in the sermons of Protestant divines, as well as in the pastoral teachings of Catholic priests.
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* Vide “L’Enfer,” by AUG. CALLET.
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* Vide “L’Enfer,” by AUG. CALLET.
12. “Demons are purely spiritual beings, and the damned, who are now in hell, may also be considered as purely spiritual beings, because it is only their soul that is in hell, for their bones, returned to dust, are being incessantly transformed into grass, plants, fruit, minerals, and liquids, undergoing, unconsciously, the continual metamorphoses of matter. But the damned, like the Saints, will be resuscitated at the Last Day, and will again put on, nevermore to be cast off, a fleshly body, the same body by which they were known during their earthly life. What will distinguish the one class from the other is that the elect will be raised with a purified radiant body, and the damned, with a body degraded and deformed by sin. There will then be no longer in hell purely spiritual beings only; for there will be in it men, such as we now are. Hell is, therefore, a place, physical, geographical, material, since it will be peopled with terrestrial creatures, having feet, hands, a mouth, a tongue, teeth, ears, eyes, like ours, and veins with blood in them, and nerves capable of feeling pain.
“Where is hell situated? Certain doctors of the Church have placed it in the entrails of the Earth itself; others, in some planet; but the question has never been decided by any Council. We are, therefore, in regard to this point, reduced to conjectures; the only thing that is affirmed in regard to it is that hell, whatever the part of the universe in which it is situated, is a world composed of material elements, but a world without sun, without moon, without stars; more gloomy, more inhospitable, more utterly devoid of every germ and appearance of good, than are the most inhospitable regions of the world in which men are now sinning.
“Christian theologians prudently abstain from painting, after the fashion of the Egyptians, the Hindus, and the Greeks, all the horrors of that abode; they confine themselves to showing us, as a sample, the little that the Scriptures unveiled to us in regard to it; the lake of fire and brimstone of the Apocalypse; the worms of Isaiah, that are forever writhing on the carcasses of Tophel; demons, tormenting the men they have brought to perdition; and men, weeping and gnashing their teeth, according to the statements of the Evangelists.
“Saint Augustine does not admit that these miseries can be regarded as merely physical images of moral sufferings; he sees, in a real lake of sulfur, real worms and real scorpions attacking every part of the bodies of the damned and adding their stings to those of the fire. He asserts, basing this assertion on a verse of Saint Mark, that this wondrous fire, although as material in its nature as the fire we know upon the Earth, and although it will act forever upon material bodies, will preserve the bodies of its victims as salt preserves flesh. But the damned, perpetually sacrificed and yet perpetually living, will feel the agony of this fire that burns without destroying; it will penetrate under their skin; they will be soaked and saturated with it in all their limbs, and in the marrow of their bones, and in the pupils of their eyes, and in the most secret and sensitive fibers of their being. The crater of a volcano, could they throw themselves into it, would be for them, in comparison with the fire of hell, a cool and refreshing resting place.
“Thus speak, with the fullest confidence, the most timid, most discreet, and the most reserved theologians. They do not deny that hell has other kinds of corporeal torments; they only say that they have not a sufficient kind of knowledge of these to warrant their speaking of them, or, at least, as positively as they are able to do in regard to the horrible torture of fire and the disgusting torture of worms. But there are other theologians, bolder, or more enlightened, who give, in regard to hell, descriptions that are more detailed, more varied, and more complete; and, although it is not known in what region of space hell is situated, there are saints who have seen it. They did not enter its gloomy portals carrying a lyre in their hands, like Orpheus, or a sword, like Ulysses; they were transported thither in spirit. Saint Theresa is one of those who have thus beheld it.
“It would seem, according to the recital of that Saint, that there are cities in hell; at all events, she saw a sort of narrow alley, such as those which are so often found in old towns. She entered this alley, stepping, with horror and loathing, upon the muddy, filthy, and stinking ground, covered with monstrous reptiles; but her progress was speedily arrested by a wall which barred the alley, and in this wall was a niche, in which Saint Theresa placed herself, without quite understanding why, or how, she did so. It was, she said, the place reserved for her, if she made ill use, during her earthly life, of the grace so abundantly shed by God, on her cell at Avila. Although she had entered, with wonderful facility, into this niche, she could neither sit, nor lie, nor stand upright in it; still less could she get out of it: the horrible walls had closed in upon her on all sides, enveloping her whole person in a stony shroud, and pressing in upon her, as though they were alive. It was as though she were being stifled, strangled, and, at the same time, flayed alive, and chopped into pieces; she felt as though she were being burned, and experienced, at once, every species of torture and anguish. As for obtaining any help, none was to be hoped for; around her there was nothing but thick darkness, and nevertheless, through this darkness she still, to her utter amazement, beheld the hideous alley in which she was kept a prisoner, and all the vile and filthy creatures about her; a spectacle fully as intolerable for her as the pressure of her prison walls. *
“The alley thus seen was, doubtless, only a little corner of Hell. Other spiritual travelers have been favored with wider views of it, and have seen within its precincts, vast cities all on fire; Babylon, and Nineveh, and Rome itself, with their palaces and temples, wrapped in flames, and all their inhabitants chained, each to his place, in the midst of the burning; the dealer at his counter, priests and courtesans in the halls of festivity, shrieking on the seats from which they could never again get loose, and lifting to their lips, to quench their torturing thirst, wine cups that vomited flames; lackeys on their knees in burning sewers, and princes, upon whom there flowed, from the hands of those lackeys, a devouring lava-stream of molten gold. Others have beheld, in Hell, enormous plains that were being dug and sown by armies of famishing peasants, and as these plains, steaming with their sweat, and this sterile seed produced nothing, the starving peasants devoured one another, after which, as numerous, lean, and famishing as before, they wandered off in bands, towards every part of the horizon, seeking in vain for some more favored region, while their places were taken, at once, by other wandering columns of the damned. Other saints, again, have seen, in Hell, mountains full of precipices, groaning forests, wells without water and fountains fed with tears, rivers of blood, whirlwinds of snow in deserts of ice, boats full of shipwrecked wretches blown hopelessly about, on shoreless seas. In short, all these seers have seen, in Hell, all that the Pagans formerly saw in it, viz., an exaggeratedly dismal reflex of the Earth, a shadow, incommensurably magnified of its miseries, with its natural sufferings rendered infinite and eternal, even to its dungeons and its gallows, and all the instruments of torture that our own hands have forged.
“There are, moreover, in Hell, demons who, in order to more thoroughly torture the fleshly bodies of the damned, take upon themselves bodies of flesh. Some of these have wings like bats, horns, scaled, sharp claws, and pointed teeth; they are described to us as being armed with swords, pitchforks, pincers, red-hot nippers, saws, gridirons, bellows, and clubs, and as discharging throughout eternity the functions of cooks and of butchers of human flesh; others, transformed into enormous lions or vipers, incessantly drag their human prey about in solitary caverns; others, again, changing themselves into crows, peck out, forever, the eyes of some of the guilty, or, taking the form of winged dragons, carry them away upon their backs, terrified, bleeding, shrieking, athwart vast wastes of darkness and then shake them off into the lake of brimstone. Some of these demons present the appearance of clouds of gigantic grasshoppers and scorpions of which the sight causes shuddering, the smell, the nausea, the slightest touch, convulsions; others assume the form of many-headed open- throated voracious monsters, whose hideous faces are surmounted by manes of snakes, that crunch the reprobate in their gory jaws and them vomit them out again crushed and formless, but living, because they are immortal.
“These demons, with forms perceptible to the senses, and that so nearly resemble the gods of the Amenthi, and of Tartarus, and the idols worshipped by Phoenicians, the Moabites, and the other Gentiles around Judea, do not act from their own caprice; each of them has his own function and his own work, and the tortures they inflict in Hell are in close connection with the crimes they have inspired, and caused to be committed upon the Earth. ** The damned are punished in all their senses and in all their organs, because they have offended God by all their senses and by all their organs; they are punished in different ways according to the nature of their sins, they are punished as gluttons by the demons of gluttony, as lazy by the demons of laziness, as fornicators by the demons of fornication, and in as many other ways as there are different ways of sinning. They will freeze in burning and burn in freezing; they will hunger for rest while hungering for movement; they will be always hungry, always thirsty, a thousand-fold more weary than the weariest slave at the close of day, more diseased than the dying, more broken, more bruised, more covered with wounds than the martyrs, and they will continue to exist forever and ever.
“No demon ever yet tired, or ever will tire of his hideous task. All the demons are, in regard to the work appointed to them, thoroughly disciplined and faithful in executing the avenging orders they have received. Were it otherwise, what would become of hell? The victims would obtain relief if their executioners quarreled among themselves or wearied of their work. But there is no relief for the former because there is no quarreling among the latter; however wicked they are, however innumerable, the demons have a perfect understanding with one another throughout the length and breadth of the abyss, and there have never been seen, upon the earth, nations more docile to their princes, armies more obedient to their chiefs, monastic communities more humbly submissive to their superiors, than are the demons to their rulers, from one end of hell to the other. ***
“We know, however, but little of the populace of demons, of the vile spirits who make up the legions of vampires, ghouls, toads, scorpions, crows, hydras, salamanders, and other beasts that have no name for us, and that constitute the fauna of the infernal regions; but we know and have the names of many of the princes who command those legions, among others, Belphegor, the Demon of lust; Abaddon or Apollyon, the Demon of murder; Beelzebub, the Demon of impure desires, Master of the flies that engender corruption; Mammon, the demon of avarice; and Moloch, and Belial, and Baalgad, and Astaroth, and many others; and, above these, their universal chief, the somber archangel who bore, in Heaven, the name of Lucifer, and who bears, in Hell the name of Satan.
“Such, in brief, is the idea which is given us of hell, considered from the point of view of its physical nature and of the physical sufferings of which it is the theater. Open the writings of the Fathers and the ancient Doctors of the Church; interrogate our pious legends; examine the carvings and the paintings of our churches; listen to what is said in our pulpits, and you will learn many particulars in regard to it.”
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* This vision presents, so distinctly, all the characteristics of nightmare, that Saint Theresa’s experience may doubtless be regarded as of that nature.
** A strange sort of punishment, in sooth, which consists in enabling these demons to continue, upon a wider scale, the evil done by them upon the Earth! It would be more reasonable for them to be made to suffer themselves the consequences of that evil than to be allowed to gratify themselves by inflicting suffering on those whom they have led astray.
*** Those demons, rebellious to God’s goodness, present an exemplary mildness to practice evil. None of them display ill will throughout eternity. What a strange metamorphosis took place. They were created pure and as perfect as angels! Is it not odd for the demons to be examples of perfect harmony, comprehension and unalterable agreement, while humans do not know how to live in peace and mutually tear each other apart? Viewing the amount of punishment reserved for the condemned and comparing their situation, which are more deserving of compassion more our pity, the criminals or their victims?
“Where is hell situated? Certain doctors of the Church have placed it in the entrails of the Earth itself; others, in some planet; but the question has never been decided by any Council. We are, therefore, in regard to this point, reduced to conjectures; the only thing that is affirmed in regard to it is that hell, whatever the part of the universe in which it is situated, is a world composed of material elements, but a world without sun, without moon, without stars; more gloomy, more inhospitable, more utterly devoid of every germ and appearance of good, than are the most inhospitable regions of the world in which men are now sinning.
“Christian theologians prudently abstain from painting, after the fashion of the Egyptians, the Hindus, and the Greeks, all the horrors of that abode; they confine themselves to showing us, as a sample, the little that the Scriptures unveiled to us in regard to it; the lake of fire and brimstone of the Apocalypse; the worms of Isaiah, that are forever writhing on the carcasses of Tophel; demons, tormenting the men they have brought to perdition; and men, weeping and gnashing their teeth, according to the statements of the Evangelists.
“Saint Augustine does not admit that these miseries can be regarded as merely physical images of moral sufferings; he sees, in a real lake of sulfur, real worms and real scorpions attacking every part of the bodies of the damned and adding their stings to those of the fire. He asserts, basing this assertion on a verse of Saint Mark, that this wondrous fire, although as material in its nature as the fire we know upon the Earth, and although it will act forever upon material bodies, will preserve the bodies of its victims as salt preserves flesh. But the damned, perpetually sacrificed and yet perpetually living, will feel the agony of this fire that burns without destroying; it will penetrate under their skin; they will be soaked and saturated with it in all their limbs, and in the marrow of their bones, and in the pupils of their eyes, and in the most secret and sensitive fibers of their being. The crater of a volcano, could they throw themselves into it, would be for them, in comparison with the fire of hell, a cool and refreshing resting place.
“Thus speak, with the fullest confidence, the most timid, most discreet, and the most reserved theologians. They do not deny that hell has other kinds of corporeal torments; they only say that they have not a sufficient kind of knowledge of these to warrant their speaking of them, or, at least, as positively as they are able to do in regard to the horrible torture of fire and the disgusting torture of worms. But there are other theologians, bolder, or more enlightened, who give, in regard to hell, descriptions that are more detailed, more varied, and more complete; and, although it is not known in what region of space hell is situated, there are saints who have seen it. They did not enter its gloomy portals carrying a lyre in their hands, like Orpheus, or a sword, like Ulysses; they were transported thither in spirit. Saint Theresa is one of those who have thus beheld it.
“It would seem, according to the recital of that Saint, that there are cities in hell; at all events, she saw a sort of narrow alley, such as those which are so often found in old towns. She entered this alley, stepping, with horror and loathing, upon the muddy, filthy, and stinking ground, covered with monstrous reptiles; but her progress was speedily arrested by a wall which barred the alley, and in this wall was a niche, in which Saint Theresa placed herself, without quite understanding why, or how, she did so. It was, she said, the place reserved for her, if she made ill use, during her earthly life, of the grace so abundantly shed by God, on her cell at Avila. Although she had entered, with wonderful facility, into this niche, she could neither sit, nor lie, nor stand upright in it; still less could she get out of it: the horrible walls had closed in upon her on all sides, enveloping her whole person in a stony shroud, and pressing in upon her, as though they were alive. It was as though she were being stifled, strangled, and, at the same time, flayed alive, and chopped into pieces; she felt as though she were being burned, and experienced, at once, every species of torture and anguish. As for obtaining any help, none was to be hoped for; around her there was nothing but thick darkness, and nevertheless, through this darkness she still, to her utter amazement, beheld the hideous alley in which she was kept a prisoner, and all the vile and filthy creatures about her; a spectacle fully as intolerable for her as the pressure of her prison walls. *
“The alley thus seen was, doubtless, only a little corner of Hell. Other spiritual travelers have been favored with wider views of it, and have seen within its precincts, vast cities all on fire; Babylon, and Nineveh, and Rome itself, with their palaces and temples, wrapped in flames, and all their inhabitants chained, each to his place, in the midst of the burning; the dealer at his counter, priests and courtesans in the halls of festivity, shrieking on the seats from which they could never again get loose, and lifting to their lips, to quench their torturing thirst, wine cups that vomited flames; lackeys on their knees in burning sewers, and princes, upon whom there flowed, from the hands of those lackeys, a devouring lava-stream of molten gold. Others have beheld, in Hell, enormous plains that were being dug and sown by armies of famishing peasants, and as these plains, steaming with their sweat, and this sterile seed produced nothing, the starving peasants devoured one another, after which, as numerous, lean, and famishing as before, they wandered off in bands, towards every part of the horizon, seeking in vain for some more favored region, while their places were taken, at once, by other wandering columns of the damned. Other saints, again, have seen, in Hell, mountains full of precipices, groaning forests, wells without water and fountains fed with tears, rivers of blood, whirlwinds of snow in deserts of ice, boats full of shipwrecked wretches blown hopelessly about, on shoreless seas. In short, all these seers have seen, in Hell, all that the Pagans formerly saw in it, viz., an exaggeratedly dismal reflex of the Earth, a shadow, incommensurably magnified of its miseries, with its natural sufferings rendered infinite and eternal, even to its dungeons and its gallows, and all the instruments of torture that our own hands have forged.
“There are, moreover, in Hell, demons who, in order to more thoroughly torture the fleshly bodies of the damned, take upon themselves bodies of flesh. Some of these have wings like bats, horns, scaled, sharp claws, and pointed teeth; they are described to us as being armed with swords, pitchforks, pincers, red-hot nippers, saws, gridirons, bellows, and clubs, and as discharging throughout eternity the functions of cooks and of butchers of human flesh; others, transformed into enormous lions or vipers, incessantly drag their human prey about in solitary caverns; others, again, changing themselves into crows, peck out, forever, the eyes of some of the guilty, or, taking the form of winged dragons, carry them away upon their backs, terrified, bleeding, shrieking, athwart vast wastes of darkness and then shake them off into the lake of brimstone. Some of these demons present the appearance of clouds of gigantic grasshoppers and scorpions of which the sight causes shuddering, the smell, the nausea, the slightest touch, convulsions; others assume the form of many-headed open- throated voracious monsters, whose hideous faces are surmounted by manes of snakes, that crunch the reprobate in their gory jaws and them vomit them out again crushed and formless, but living, because they are immortal.
“These demons, with forms perceptible to the senses, and that so nearly resemble the gods of the Amenthi, and of Tartarus, and the idols worshipped by Phoenicians, the Moabites, and the other Gentiles around Judea, do not act from their own caprice; each of them has his own function and his own work, and the tortures they inflict in Hell are in close connection with the crimes they have inspired, and caused to be committed upon the Earth. ** The damned are punished in all their senses and in all their organs, because they have offended God by all their senses and by all their organs; they are punished in different ways according to the nature of their sins, they are punished as gluttons by the demons of gluttony, as lazy by the demons of laziness, as fornicators by the demons of fornication, and in as many other ways as there are different ways of sinning. They will freeze in burning and burn in freezing; they will hunger for rest while hungering for movement; they will be always hungry, always thirsty, a thousand-fold more weary than the weariest slave at the close of day, more diseased than the dying, more broken, more bruised, more covered with wounds than the martyrs, and they will continue to exist forever and ever.
“No demon ever yet tired, or ever will tire of his hideous task. All the demons are, in regard to the work appointed to them, thoroughly disciplined and faithful in executing the avenging orders they have received. Were it otherwise, what would become of hell? The victims would obtain relief if their executioners quarreled among themselves or wearied of their work. But there is no relief for the former because there is no quarreling among the latter; however wicked they are, however innumerable, the demons have a perfect understanding with one another throughout the length and breadth of the abyss, and there have never been seen, upon the earth, nations more docile to their princes, armies more obedient to their chiefs, monastic communities more humbly submissive to their superiors, than are the demons to their rulers, from one end of hell to the other. ***
“We know, however, but little of the populace of demons, of the vile spirits who make up the legions of vampires, ghouls, toads, scorpions, crows, hydras, salamanders, and other beasts that have no name for us, and that constitute the fauna of the infernal regions; but we know and have the names of many of the princes who command those legions, among others, Belphegor, the Demon of lust; Abaddon or Apollyon, the Demon of murder; Beelzebub, the Demon of impure desires, Master of the flies that engender corruption; Mammon, the demon of avarice; and Moloch, and Belial, and Baalgad, and Astaroth, and many others; and, above these, their universal chief, the somber archangel who bore, in Heaven, the name of Lucifer, and who bears, in Hell the name of Satan.
“Such, in brief, is the idea which is given us of hell, considered from the point of view of its physical nature and of the physical sufferings of which it is the theater. Open the writings of the Fathers and the ancient Doctors of the Church; interrogate our pious legends; examine the carvings and the paintings of our churches; listen to what is said in our pulpits, and you will learn many particulars in regard to it.”
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* This vision presents, so distinctly, all the characteristics of nightmare, that Saint Theresa’s experience may doubtless be regarded as of that nature.
** A strange sort of punishment, in sooth, which consists in enabling these demons to continue, upon a wider scale, the evil done by them upon the Earth! It would be more reasonable for them to be made to suffer themselves the consequences of that evil than to be allowed to gratify themselves by inflicting suffering on those whom they have led astray.
*** Those demons, rebellious to God’s goodness, present an exemplary mildness to practice evil. None of them display ill will throughout eternity. What a strange metamorphosis took place. They were created pure and as perfect as angels! Is it not odd for the demons to be examples of perfect harmony, comprehension and unalterable agreement, while humans do not know how to live in peace and mutually tear each other apart? Viewing the amount of punishment reserved for the condemned and comparing their situation, which are more deserving of compassion more our pity, the criminals or their victims?
13. The author from whom we are quoting follows up the foregoing picture with the following reflections, the importance of which will be easily perceived by the reader:
“The resurrection of the body is in itself a miracle; but God will work a second miracle in giving to the mortal bodies thus raised—bodies that have already been worn out by the passing trials of life, that have already been annihilated—the power to subsist, without dissolving in a furnace in which all the metals would be converted to vapor. If it be urged that the soul is its own executioner, that God does not persecute the sinner but abandons him to the state of misery he has brought upon himself by his own choice, that statement may be admitted as true, although the eternal abandonment of a lost and suffering being would seem to be but little in conformity with the goodness of the Creator; but what may be admissible in regard to the soul and to spiritual sufferings cannot be, in any degree, admissible in regard to the resuscitated bodies and corporeal suffering of the damned. In order that these sufferings may be perpetuated throughout eternity, it is not enough that God should withdraw His hand; it is necessary, on the contrary, that He should show His hand that He should intervene, that He should act; for, without the constant action of His power in maintaining their existence, those bodies would be immediately destroyed.
“Theologians, therefore, assume that God operates, after the resurrection, the second miracle to which we have just referred. He draws, in the first place, from the sepulcher that has devoured them, our bodies of clay. He raises them, from the grave, such as they were when they were committed to its keeping, with all their original infirmities and all the degradations they have successively undergone from age, vice, and disease; He gives them back to us in that state, decrepit, shivering, gouty, full of physical needs, sensitive to the sting of the minutest insect, covered with the ignoble stains that our life and our death have left in them; this is the first miracle. Next, to these weak wretched bodies, ready to crumble away into the dust from which they have been taken, He imparts a property that they never before possessed; and this is the second miracle: that is to say, He inflicts upon them the gift of immortality, that same gift which, in His anger—or, should we not rather say, in His mercy? — He withdrew from Adam when the latter was driven out of Eden.
“While Adam remained immortal, he was invulnerable; and, when he ceased to be invulnerable, he became mortal: death followed close upon the heels of pain.
“The resurrection, then, does not restore to us either the physical conditions of the innocent man or the physical conditions of the guilty man; it is a resurrection only of our miseries, but with the addition of new miseries infinitely more horrible; it is, in fact, and as regards the immortality of the bodies thus raised, a new creation, and the most malicious act the human imagination has ever dared to conceive of. God alters His mind and, in order to add to the spiritual torments of sinners fleshly torments that shall endure forever, He suddenly changes by an act of His power, the laws and properties that He Himself assigned in the beginning, to all bodies formed from matter: He resuscitates diseased and rotten flesh, and joining in an indestructible union, the material elements which tend spontaneously to separate from each other, He maintains and perpetuates this living rottenness; He throws it into the fire, not in order to purify it, but to preserve it just as it is, sensitive, suffering, burning, horrible, and in this state by His will, He renders it immortal.
“By attributing such a miracle to God, Christian theologians represent Him as one of the executioners of Hell; for, although the damned can only attribute their spiritual sufferings to themselves, they can only attribute their fleshly sufferings to a direct exercise of His power. It is not enough, apparently, for God to abandon the souls of the guilty, after their death, to sorrow, to remorse, to the anguish of knowing that they have shut themselves out from happiness forever; His power, according to theologians, pursues them through the darkest recesses of this abyss of horror, seeks them out from this night of misery and drags them back, for a moment, to the light of day, not to console them, but to clothe them with a hideous, putrid, flaming, but imperishable body, more pestiferous than the robe of Dejanira; and it is only then that He abandons them to their fate.
“But, no; He does not, even then, simply leave them to their fate; for Hell only subsists, like the Earth, like Heaven, in virtue of a permanent action of His will, and, like them, would vanish into nothingness if He ceased to sustain its existence. His hand will therefore be laid upon the damned, throughout eternity, to prevent their fire from burning itself out and their bodies from being consumed; and He will do this, incessantly, in order that the sight of the perennial tortures of these wretched beings, thus cursed by Him with immortality, may intensify the happiness of the elect.”
“The resurrection of the body is in itself a miracle; but God will work a second miracle in giving to the mortal bodies thus raised—bodies that have already been worn out by the passing trials of life, that have already been annihilated—the power to subsist, without dissolving in a furnace in which all the metals would be converted to vapor. If it be urged that the soul is its own executioner, that God does not persecute the sinner but abandons him to the state of misery he has brought upon himself by his own choice, that statement may be admitted as true, although the eternal abandonment of a lost and suffering being would seem to be but little in conformity with the goodness of the Creator; but what may be admissible in regard to the soul and to spiritual sufferings cannot be, in any degree, admissible in regard to the resuscitated bodies and corporeal suffering of the damned. In order that these sufferings may be perpetuated throughout eternity, it is not enough that God should withdraw His hand; it is necessary, on the contrary, that He should show His hand that He should intervene, that He should act; for, without the constant action of His power in maintaining their existence, those bodies would be immediately destroyed.
“Theologians, therefore, assume that God operates, after the resurrection, the second miracle to which we have just referred. He draws, in the first place, from the sepulcher that has devoured them, our bodies of clay. He raises them, from the grave, such as they were when they were committed to its keeping, with all their original infirmities and all the degradations they have successively undergone from age, vice, and disease; He gives them back to us in that state, decrepit, shivering, gouty, full of physical needs, sensitive to the sting of the minutest insect, covered with the ignoble stains that our life and our death have left in them; this is the first miracle. Next, to these weak wretched bodies, ready to crumble away into the dust from which they have been taken, He imparts a property that they never before possessed; and this is the second miracle: that is to say, He inflicts upon them the gift of immortality, that same gift which, in His anger—or, should we not rather say, in His mercy? — He withdrew from Adam when the latter was driven out of Eden.
“While Adam remained immortal, he was invulnerable; and, when he ceased to be invulnerable, he became mortal: death followed close upon the heels of pain.
“The resurrection, then, does not restore to us either the physical conditions of the innocent man or the physical conditions of the guilty man; it is a resurrection only of our miseries, but with the addition of new miseries infinitely more horrible; it is, in fact, and as regards the immortality of the bodies thus raised, a new creation, and the most malicious act the human imagination has ever dared to conceive of. God alters His mind and, in order to add to the spiritual torments of sinners fleshly torments that shall endure forever, He suddenly changes by an act of His power, the laws and properties that He Himself assigned in the beginning, to all bodies formed from matter: He resuscitates diseased and rotten flesh, and joining in an indestructible union, the material elements which tend spontaneously to separate from each other, He maintains and perpetuates this living rottenness; He throws it into the fire, not in order to purify it, but to preserve it just as it is, sensitive, suffering, burning, horrible, and in this state by His will, He renders it immortal.
“By attributing such a miracle to God, Christian theologians represent Him as one of the executioners of Hell; for, although the damned can only attribute their spiritual sufferings to themselves, they can only attribute their fleshly sufferings to a direct exercise of His power. It is not enough, apparently, for God to abandon the souls of the guilty, after their death, to sorrow, to remorse, to the anguish of knowing that they have shut themselves out from happiness forever; His power, according to theologians, pursues them through the darkest recesses of this abyss of horror, seeks them out from this night of misery and drags them back, for a moment, to the light of day, not to console them, but to clothe them with a hideous, putrid, flaming, but imperishable body, more pestiferous than the robe of Dejanira; and it is only then that He abandons them to their fate.
“But, no; He does not, even then, simply leave them to their fate; for Hell only subsists, like the Earth, like Heaven, in virtue of a permanent action of His will, and, like them, would vanish into nothingness if He ceased to sustain its existence. His hand will therefore be laid upon the damned, throughout eternity, to prevent their fire from burning itself out and their bodies from being consumed; and He will do this, incessantly, in order that the sight of the perennial tortures of these wretched beings, thus cursed by Him with immortality, may intensify the happiness of the elect.”
14. We have said, and with truth, that the Hell of the Christians is more hideous than that of the Pagans. In Tartarus, we see the souls of the guilty, tortured by remorse, perpetually confronted with their crimes and their victims; we see them fleeing from the light which transpierces them, and seeking in vain to hide themselves from the sight of those whose glance follows them wherever they go. Their pride is abased and mortified; each of them bears the stigma of his past; each is punished by the recoil of his own evil deeds, and so certainly that for a great number of them, it is judged to be quite enough to leave them to themselves, without adding any other chastisements. But they are shades, that is to say, souls clothed with their fluidic bodies only, images of their terrestrial existence; we do not see, in the Pagan Hell, men re-clothed with their fleshly body, in order that they may be harrowed with the additional misery of physical suffering, nor any material fire “penetrating under their skin and saturating them with physical agony to the very marrow of their bones,” nor the lavish variety and ingenious refinements of the tortures that constitute the basis of the Christian Hell. We find, in Tartarus, judges who are inflexible but just, and who apportion the severity of the punishment to the degree of the faultiness for which it is inflicted; whereas, in the empire of Satan, all are subjected to the same tortures, and all these tortures are based on physical suffering; everything else is banished, including equity.
Undoubtedly there are, at the present day, and even in the churches themselves, many sensible men who do not accept these descriptions of Hell as literally true, and who regard them as being only allegories which are to be interpreted in a spiritual sense; but the opinion of such persons is merely individual, and is not the rule. The belief in a physical Hell, with all the consequences implied in that belief, is nonetheless, even at the present day, an article of the Christian creed.
Undoubtedly there are, at the present day, and even in the churches themselves, many sensible men who do not accept these descriptions of Hell as literally true, and who regard them as being only allegories which are to be interpreted in a spiritual sense; but the opinion of such persons is merely individual, and is not the rule. The belief in a physical Hell, with all the consequences implied in that belief, is nonetheless, even at the present day, an article of the Christian creed.
15. It may be asked, “If these horrors do not really exist, how can they have been seen by ecstatics, even in a state of trance?” This is not the place for explaining the source of the fantastic images that are sometimes produced to the consciousness of the spirit, with all the appearances of reality. * We can here only remark that the fact of their production proves the truth of the principle laid down by us,** viz., that trance is the least reliable of all the modes of revelation, because this state of super-excitement is not always the result of a complete disengagement of the soul from the body, but is often complicated with reflexes of the subjects with which the mind of the seer has been busied in his waking state. The ideas that have been assimilated by the spirit of the seer, and of which his physical brain, or, rather, the perispiritual envelope corresponding to the brain has preserved the impress, are reproduced in trance but distorted as though in a mirage under vaporous and shadowy forms that cross each other, blend together, and make up unreal and fantastic pictures. The visions of ecstatics of all religions are always conformed to the religious belief with which they are imbued; and it is therefore not surprising that those who, like Saint Theresa, are strongly imbued with theological ideas of Hell, as conveyed by verbal or written descriptions and by paintings, should have visions which are, properly speaking, only the reproduction of these ideas and which partake of the nature of nightmare. A Pagan ecstatic, if he believed in the creed of his day would have seen in trance Tartarus and its Furies, just as in a vision of Olympus he would have seen Jupiter holding the thunderbolts in his hand.
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* Vide “The Mediums’ Book,” No. 113. – Tr. 17
** Vide “The Spirits’ Book,” Nos. 443, 444.
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* Vide “The Mediums’ Book,” No. 113. – Tr. 17
** Vide “The Spirits’ Book,” Nos. 443, 444.
CHAPTER V - PURGATORY
1. The Gospels make no mention of Purgatory, which was not admitted by the Church until the year 593 of our era. The idea of Purgatory is certainly more rational and more in conformity with the justice of God, since it established a penal code of less severity, and provides for the redemption of the minor sorts of wrongdoing.
The idea of Purgatory is, therefore, based on the principle of equity; it is, in the sphere of spirit- life, what temporary imprisonment is in the earthly life, in comparison with perpetual imprisonment. What would be thought of the justice of a code that should punish the greatest crimes and the slightest transgressions, indiscriminately, with the penalty of death? Unless there is a Purgatory, there can be only two alternatives for all souls; supreme happiness, or eternal torment. What, according to this hypothesis, becomes of the souls who have only been guilty of minor transgressions? They must either share the happiness of the elect without having attained perfection, or they must suffer the same punishment as the very greatest criminals without having done anything terribly wrong, which would be neither just nor reasonable.
The idea of Purgatory is, therefore, based on the principle of equity; it is, in the sphere of spirit- life, what temporary imprisonment is in the earthly life, in comparison with perpetual imprisonment. What would be thought of the justice of a code that should punish the greatest crimes and the slightest transgressions, indiscriminately, with the penalty of death? Unless there is a Purgatory, there can be only two alternatives for all souls; supreme happiness, or eternal torment. What, according to this hypothesis, becomes of the souls who have only been guilty of minor transgressions? They must either share the happiness of the elect without having attained perfection, or they must suffer the same punishment as the very greatest criminals without having done anything terribly wrong, which would be neither just nor reasonable.
2. But the notion of Purgatory was necessarily incomplete when it gained importance, for humanity at that time had no other idea of Hell than that of fire and they therefore naturally conceived of Purgatory as a lesser and shorter Hell; they supposed that souls were burned there, but with a burning less intense. And as the idea of progress is irreconcilable with the dogma of eternal punishment, they held that souls are delivered from Purgatory not as a consequence of their own moral improvement, but as an effect of the prayers that are said or paid for, by their friends on Earth for their deliverance.
The primary idea of Purgatory was true and good; but the same cannot be said of the consequences deduced from it, and the abuses of which it has thus become the source. Through the custom of paying for prayers on behalf of the souls in Purgatory, this doctrine has become a mine even more productive to those who work it than that of Hell. *
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* The doctrine of Purgatory has also given rise to the scandalous sale of indulgences, which pretend to enable people to purchase, with money, their entrance into Heaven. This gross abuse was the determining cause of the Reformation, and led to the rejection of the idea of Purgatory by Luther.
The primary idea of Purgatory was true and good; but the same cannot be said of the consequences deduced from it, and the abuses of which it has thus become the source. Through the custom of paying for prayers on behalf of the souls in Purgatory, this doctrine has become a mine even more productive to those who work it than that of Hell. *
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* The doctrine of Purgatory has also given rise to the scandalous sale of indulgences, which pretend to enable people to purchase, with money, their entrance into Heaven. This gross abuse was the determining cause of the Reformation, and led to the rejection of the idea of Purgatory by Luther.
3. The site of Purgatory has never been determined, nor has the nature of the punishment endured therein ever been clearly defined. It was reserved for the new revelation to supply this lack by explaining the causes of the miseries of human life, the justice and aim of which can only be shown by the light that is thrown on the subject by the plurality of our existences.
Those miseries are necessarily a consequence of the imperfections of the soul; for, if the soul were perfect it would not do wrong, and would not have to undergo the sufferings which are the consequence of wrongdoing. Those, who, for instance, should be sober and moderate in all things, would not fall a prey to the maladies that are engendered by excess. Those who are unhappy are so, usually, through their own fault; but their imperfections are evidently a quality that they brought with them at birth, and which they must therefore have possessed before they came into the earthly life; they have, consequently, to expiate not only the faults they commit in their present life, but also the faults of their anterior lives for which they have not yet made reparation; they endure, in a life of troubles and trials, the wrongs they have caused others to endure in some previous existence. The vicissitudes that they undergo are for them, both a temporary punishment and a warning against the imperfections of which they must cure themselves, if they would avoid having to undergo similar vicissitudes in the future and advance on the road to perfection. The troubles of human life are so many lessons for the soul; lessons often hard to bear but that are all the more profitable for its future, in proportion to the depth of the impression left by them: they give rise to incessant struggles that develop its moral and intellectual faculties and strengthen it in the pursuit of goodness, and from which it always emerges victorious if it has had the courage to persevere in its efforts to the end. It reaps the reward of its victory in the spirit-life, into which it enters radiant and triumphant, like the soldier who returns from the battlefield to receive the conqueror’s palm.
Those miseries are necessarily a consequence of the imperfections of the soul; for, if the soul were perfect it would not do wrong, and would not have to undergo the sufferings which are the consequence of wrongdoing. Those, who, for instance, should be sober and moderate in all things, would not fall a prey to the maladies that are engendered by excess. Those who are unhappy are so, usually, through their own fault; but their imperfections are evidently a quality that they brought with them at birth, and which they must therefore have possessed before they came into the earthly life; they have, consequently, to expiate not only the faults they commit in their present life, but also the faults of their anterior lives for which they have not yet made reparation; they endure, in a life of troubles and trials, the wrongs they have caused others to endure in some previous existence. The vicissitudes that they undergo are for them, both a temporary punishment and a warning against the imperfections of which they must cure themselves, if they would avoid having to undergo similar vicissitudes in the future and advance on the road to perfection. The troubles of human life are so many lessons for the soul; lessons often hard to bear but that are all the more profitable for its future, in proportion to the depth of the impression left by them: they give rise to incessant struggles that develop its moral and intellectual faculties and strengthen it in the pursuit of goodness, and from which it always emerges victorious if it has had the courage to persevere in its efforts to the end. It reaps the reward of its victory in the spirit-life, into which it enters radiant and triumphant, like the soldier who returns from the battlefield to receive the conqueror’s palm.
4. Each successive existence affords the soul an opportunity of advancing a step on the road of progress; the length of the step thus accomplished depends on its own will, for it may make a considerable advance or it may remain stationary. In the latter case, its sufferings will have been sterile; and, as each soul must pay its debt sooner or later, it will have to begin a new existence under conditions still more painful, because, to the stain of its previous lives, which it has failed to efface, it has added a new stain.
It is, therefore, by means of its successive incarnations that the soul gradually works itself clear of its imperfections, that it purges itself from them, so to say, until it is sufficiently purified to have acquired the right to quit the world of expiation and to incarnate itself in worlds of a progressively happier nature, each of which it will subsequently quit so that, eventually, it may enter into the regions of supreme happiness.
Purgatory, when thus explained, is no longer a vague and uncertain hypothesis; it is a physical reality which we see and touch, and to which we are, even now, subjected; for Purgatory is nothing else than the worlds of expiation and the Earth, as yet, is one of those worlds; worlds in which human beings expiate their past and their present, for the advancement of their future happiness. But, contrary to the idea usually entertained in regard to Purgatory, each of us can abridge or prolong our stay in it, according to the degree of progress and purification to which we have attained as the result of our efforts at self-improvement; and we come out of it, not because we have finished our time or through the merits of somebody else, but as the reward of our own individual merits, in virtue of the principle set forth in the declaration of Christ: — “To each, according to his works;” a declaration which sums up the entire code of the Divine justice.
It is, therefore, by means of its successive incarnations that the soul gradually works itself clear of its imperfections, that it purges itself from them, so to say, until it is sufficiently purified to have acquired the right to quit the world of expiation and to incarnate itself in worlds of a progressively happier nature, each of which it will subsequently quit so that, eventually, it may enter into the regions of supreme happiness.
Purgatory, when thus explained, is no longer a vague and uncertain hypothesis; it is a physical reality which we see and touch, and to which we are, even now, subjected; for Purgatory is nothing else than the worlds of expiation and the Earth, as yet, is one of those worlds; worlds in which human beings expiate their past and their present, for the advancement of their future happiness. But, contrary to the idea usually entertained in regard to Purgatory, each of us can abridge or prolong our stay in it, according to the degree of progress and purification to which we have attained as the result of our efforts at self-improvement; and we come out of it, not because we have finished our time or through the merits of somebody else, but as the reward of our own individual merits, in virtue of the principle set forth in the declaration of Christ: — “To each, according to his works;” a declaration which sums up the entire code of the Divine justice.
5. Those who suffer in the present life should therefore say to themselves that they suffer because they failed to purify themselves thoroughly in their preceding existence, and that, if they fail to accomplish their purification in their present life, they will suffer again in their next existence. And this is both just and reasonable. Suffering being inherent in imperfection, we suffer as long as we remain imperfect; just as we suffer from disease until we are cured of it. Thus, so long as human beings remain proud, so long will they suffer from the consequences of their pride; so long as they remain selfish, so long will they suffer from the consequences of their selfishness.
6. The guilty spirit suffers, first, in the spirit-life, in proportion to the degree of its imperfections; and, next, in the return to terrestrial life which is granted to it as a means of repairing its past wrongdoing; and it is to this end that it finds itself thrown into the society of those whom it has wronged, or placed in the midst of surroundings similar to those in which it did the wrongdoing that it has to expiate, or in a situation which is its opposite: as, for example, in a state of poverty, if the spirit has made a bad use of riches, or in a humble position, if it has been proud.
As previously remarked, the spirit’s expiation of wrongdoing is effected both in the spirit-world and also upon the Earth; the expiation of the earthly life is only the continuation and complement of the expiation which had been previously begun by it in the spirit-world, and is imposed on it in order to help forward its improvement, by giving it the opportunity of putting into practice the lessons it has learned; it is for the spirit to profit by the opportunity thus afforded it. Is it not better for it to come back to Earth, with the possibility of eventually winning entrance into Heaven, than to be condemned to everlasting misery, on quitting the earthly life? The new opportunity thus given to the spirit of working out its own purification, and consequent happiness, is a proof of the wisdom, the goodness, and the justice of God, who wills that each spirit incarnated in a human body should owe everything to its own efforts, and should be the artificer of its future; if it be unhappy, for a longer or shorter period, it has only itself to blame for it, and, whatever may be the intensity or duration of the suffering it may have brought upon itself, the door of repentance, amendment, and rehabilitation is always open for it.
As previously remarked, the spirit’s expiation of wrongdoing is effected both in the spirit-world and also upon the Earth; the expiation of the earthly life is only the continuation and complement of the expiation which had been previously begun by it in the spirit-world, and is imposed on it in order to help forward its improvement, by giving it the opportunity of putting into practice the lessons it has learned; it is for the spirit to profit by the opportunity thus afforded it. Is it not better for it to come back to Earth, with the possibility of eventually winning entrance into Heaven, than to be condemned to everlasting misery, on quitting the earthly life? The new opportunity thus given to the spirit of working out its own purification, and consequent happiness, is a proof of the wisdom, the goodness, and the justice of God, who wills that each spirit incarnated in a human body should owe everything to its own efforts, and should be the artificer of its future; if it be unhappy, for a longer or shorter period, it has only itself to blame for it, and, whatever may be the intensity or duration of the suffering it may have brought upon itself, the door of repentance, amendment, and rehabilitation is always open for it.
7. On considering how great is the suffering of certain guilty spirits in the invisible world, how terrible is the situation of some of them, to what harrowing anxieties they are a prey, and how much their sufferings are intensified by their inability to foresee the end of them, we might well apply the term Hell to express the abyss of suffering and horror in which they find themselves, were it not that this word has been adopted as implying the idea of an eternal and physical punishment. Thanks to the light that has been thrown on this subject by the higher spirits, and to the examples that they placed before us by the ostensible communication now being generalized between incarnate and discarnate souls, we know that the duration of expiation is subordinate to the amendment of the wrongdoer.
8. Spiritism, therefore, does not deny the doctrine of the future punishment of the guilty; on the contrary, it asserts, explains, and justifies that doctrine. What Spiritism denies and destroys is the idea of a localized, physical Hell, with its fires and pitchforks, of unpardonable sins and eternal punishment. It does not deny the reality of Purgatory, for it proves that the world in which we now find ourselves is, in fact, a Purgatory, that is to say, a place of punishment and discipline; and, by the explanation it thus furnishes of the sorrows and trials of the earthly life, it defines and gives precision to the vague idea that has been previously put forth in regard to Purgatory, and, by so doing, renders it credible and acceptable to those by whom it was formerly rejected.
Does Spiritism reject the idea of praying for the dead? It does just the contrary, since the suffering spirits earnestly implore of us to pray for them; it shows us that to do so is one of the duties imposed on us by charity, and it also shows us the effectiveness of prayer as a means of bringing them back to goodness, and, thus, of shortening their sufferings. * Addressing its doctrines to our human intelligence, Spiritism gives religious belief to the unbelieving; it proves the value of prayer to those who formerly mocked at it. But Spiritism also shows that the effectiveness of prayer is in the thought it embodies and not in the words in which it is clothed, that the most efficacious prayers are those of the heart and not of the lips, those which are offered of our own volition, and not those which we cause to be said by others for money.
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* Vide “The Gospel According to Spiritism,” chap. XXVII, Action of Prayer.
Does Spiritism reject the idea of praying for the dead? It does just the contrary, since the suffering spirits earnestly implore of us to pray for them; it shows us that to do so is one of the duties imposed on us by charity, and it also shows us the effectiveness of prayer as a means of bringing them back to goodness, and, thus, of shortening their sufferings. * Addressing its doctrines to our human intelligence, Spiritism gives religious belief to the unbelieving; it proves the value of prayer to those who formerly mocked at it. But Spiritism also shows that the effectiveness of prayer is in the thought it embodies and not in the words in which it is clothed, that the most efficacious prayers are those of the heart and not of the lips, those which are offered of our own volition, and not those which we cause to be said by others for money.
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* Vide “The Gospel According to Spiritism,” chap. XXVII, Action of Prayer.
9. Whether the chastisement of the guilty takes place in spirit-life or upon the Earth, and whatever its duration, it has always a term, more or less near, more or less distant. There are, therefore, for a spirit, only two alternatives, viz., temporary punishment, proportioned to the degree of culpability, and reward, proportioned to merit. Spiritism rejects the third alternative, viz., that of eternal damnation. It regards hell as a symbol of the severest forms of suffering endured by certain spirits, and of which the termination is unforeseen by them; but it regards Purgatory as a reality.
The word Purgatory suggests the idea of a circumscribed locality, and it is therefore more appropriately applied to Earth, considered as a place of expiation, than to the infinity of space in which suffering spirits undergo the expiations of the discarnate state; moreover, the earthly life is, by its very nature, a veritable expiation.
When human beings shall have grown better, they will furnish only good spirits to the invisible world; and these spirits, on incarnating themselves on Earth, will furnish only improved elements to the human race. Earth will then cease to be a world of expiation, and its human inhabitants will no longer have to endure the miseries that are the consequence of their present imperfection. This transformation is being effected at the present day; its accomplishment will raise the Earth to a higher rank in the hierarchy of worlds. (Vide “The Gospel According to Spiritism,” chap. III.)
The word Purgatory suggests the idea of a circumscribed locality, and it is therefore more appropriately applied to Earth, considered as a place of expiation, than to the infinity of space in which suffering spirits undergo the expiations of the discarnate state; moreover, the earthly life is, by its very nature, a veritable expiation.
When human beings shall have grown better, they will furnish only good spirits to the invisible world; and these spirits, on incarnating themselves on Earth, will furnish only improved elements to the human race. Earth will then cease to be a world of expiation, and its human inhabitants will no longer have to endure the miseries that are the consequence of their present imperfection. This transformation is being effected at the present day; its accomplishment will raise the Earth to a higher rank in the hierarchy of worlds. (Vide “The Gospel According to Spiritism,” chap. III.)
10. Why did Christ not speak of Purgatory? Because, the idea of Purgatory had not then been conceived by the human mind, and there was, consequently, no word by which to express it. He employed the word hell, the only one then in use, as a generic term, to designate the entire subject of future punishment in general, without reference to details. If, in contradistinction to the word hell he had employed another word equivalent to purgatory, he would have been unable to define its precise meaning without opening up a question that was reserved for the future; and he would also have appeared to declare the existence of two regions especially devoted to punishment. The word hell, in its general acceptation, suggestive of the idea of punishment, necessarily implied the idea of purgatory, which is only one of the modes of penalty. The future, being destined to enlighten humankind in regard to the nature of future punishment, was also destined, in so doing, to reduce the idea of hell to its true proportions.
The fact that the Church, after the lapse of six centuries, considered it necessary to supplement the teaching of Jesus by asserting the existence of Purgatory is an admission, on the part of theologians, that he did not reveal everything during his sojourn upon the Earth. Why, then, should not his teachings be progressively supplemented in regard to other points?
The fact that the Church, after the lapse of six centuries, considered it necessary to supplement the teaching of Jesus by asserting the existence of Purgatory is an admission, on the part of theologians, that he did not reveal everything during his sojourn upon the Earth. Why, then, should not his teachings be progressively supplemented in regard to other points?
CHAPTER VI - DOCTRINE OF ETERNAL PUNISHMENT
ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE OF ETERNAL PUNISHMENT
1. The belief in eternal punishment is losing ground so rapidly, from day to day, that the gift of prophecy is not needed to enable us to foresee its extinction at no distant time. It has been combated by arguments so powerful and so unanswerable that it seems almost superfluous to trouble ourselves with disproving a fallacy that is dying out of itself. Nevertheless, we cannot close our eyes to the fact that this doctrine, in spite of its declining influence, is still the rallying-point of the adversaries of progress, the article of their creed which they defend most obstinately, precisely because they feel it to be its most vulnerable aspect, and because they perceive how dangerous a breach its fall will make in the theological edifice. Regarded from this point of view, the doctrine in question may still be held to merit serious examination.
2. The doctrine of eternal punishment, like that of a physical Hell, was useful while the intellectual and moral backwardness of humankind required that they should be held in check by the fear of incurring the doom thus held up before their imagination. While they remained at too low a point of advancement to be efficaciously acted upon by the prospect of merely moral suffering, it is evident that they would have been as little restrained by the idea of any merely temporary punishment; and it is equally evident that they would have been incapable of comprehending the justice of graduated and proportionate penalties, because they could not have appreciated the various shades of right or wrong action, or the relative importance of either extenuating or aggravating circumstances.
3. The nearer humans are to the primitive state, the more closely they are allied to materiality; for the moral sense is precisely the faculty of the human mind, which is the last developed. For this reason, they could only form to themselves a very imperfect idea of God and of God’s attributes, and an equally vague conception of the future life. They molded their idea of the Deity upon themselves. For them, God was an absolute sovereign, all the more formidable because invisible, like a despotic monarch who, hidden within his palace, never allows himself to be seen by his subjects. Having no conception of moral force, they could only conceive of God’s power as being of a physical nature; they imagined God wielding the thunderbolt, moving in the midst of lightning and tempests, and scattering ruin and desolation around Him after the fashion of earthly conquerors. A God of love and of mercy would not have seemed to them to be a God, but a feeble being unable to secure obedience. On the contrary, implacable vengeance, chastisements the most terrific and unending were quite in harmony with the idea they had thus formed to themselves of the Divinity, and offered nothing repugnant to their minds. Being, themselves, implacable in their resentments, cruel to their enemies, pitiless for the vanquished, it appeared to them perfectly natural that God, whose power was superior to their own, should be still more implacable, cruel and pitiless than themselves.
For the influencing of such human beings, a religious belief in harmony with their rude and violent nature was necessary. A religion of spirituality, of love and of charity, would have been impossible with the brutality of their usages and passions. The Draconian legislation of Moses, which represented the Divine Being as a jealous and revengeful God, scarcely sufficed to keep within bounds a stiff-necked people committed to his charge; the gentle doctrine of Jesus would have awakened no echo in their hearts and would have been powerless to influence their action.
For the influencing of such human beings, a religious belief in harmony with their rude and violent nature was necessary. A religion of spirituality, of love and of charity, would have been impossible with the brutality of their usages and passions. The Draconian legislation of Moses, which represented the Divine Being as a jealous and revengeful God, scarcely sufficed to keep within bounds a stiff-necked people committed to his charge; the gentle doctrine of Jesus would have awakened no echo in their hearts and would have been powerless to influence their action.
4. In proportion as the spiritual sense of humankind has become developed, the veil of materiality has become less opaque, and human beings have become better fitted to understand spiritual things; but this change has only taken place very gradually. At the time when Jesus came among them, it was possible for him to proclaim a merciful God, to speak of his “kingdom” as not being “of this world,” to say to men and women, “Love one another,” and “Return good for evil;” whereas, under the Mosaic Law, God was represented as sanctioning the principle of revenge summed up in the dictum, “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”
What, then, was the state of the souls who were living upon the Earth at the time of Jesus? Were they souls who had been newly created and were then incarnated for the first time? If so, God must have created in the time of Jesus, souls of better quality than those that God created in the time of Moses. But, if that were the case, what has become of those earlier-created souls? Have they been condemned to languish forever in the brutishness of the primitive era? Simple common sense suffices to show us that such a supposition is untenable. No; the souls incarnated upon the Earth, in the time of Jesus, were the same souls who, after having lived here under the empire of the Law of Moses, had gradually acquired, in successive existences posterior to that period, a degree of development sufficient to enable them to understand a teaching of a higher nature, and who, at the present day, are sufficiently advanced to be able to receive the still higher teaching now being given by Christ’s command, in fulfillment of his promise.
What, then, was the state of the souls who were living upon the Earth at the time of Jesus? Were they souls who had been newly created and were then incarnated for the first time? If so, God must have created in the time of Jesus, souls of better quality than those that God created in the time of Moses. But, if that were the case, what has become of those earlier-created souls? Have they been condemned to languish forever in the brutishness of the primitive era? Simple common sense suffices to show us that such a supposition is untenable. No; the souls incarnated upon the Earth, in the time of Jesus, were the same souls who, after having lived here under the empire of the Law of Moses, had gradually acquired, in successive existences posterior to that period, a degree of development sufficient to enable them to understand a teaching of a higher nature, and who, at the present day, are sufficiently advanced to be able to receive the still higher teaching now being given by Christ’s command, in fulfillment of his promise.
5. At the time of Christ’s appearance, it was impossible for him to reveal to humanity all the truth in regard to their future. He says, expressly, “I have many things to tell you, but you could not understand them; and I am therefore compelled to speak to you in parables.” In regard to all points of morality, that is to say, all the duties of all human beings to their fellows, his teaching was explicit, because, as those duties refer to the relations of daily life, he knew that men and women would be able to understand him; in regard to all other matters, he confined himself to sowing, under the form of allegory, the germs of the truths that were destined to be developed at a later period.
The nature of future rewards and punishments was one of those points which were thus left by him in abeyance. He could not inculcate, especially in regard to future punishment, ideas so diametrically opposed to those held by men and women of his time. He came to trace out new duties for the human race, to inculcate charity and the love of one’s neighbor in place of the spirit of hatred and of vengeance, to substitute abnegation for selfishness, and such a change was, in itself, immense; he could not have gone farther without weakening the dread of the punishment in store for wrongdoing, because it would have weakened the sanction of duty in the minds of his hearers. He promised the Kingdom of Heaven to the righteous; that kingdom was, consequently, closed to the wicked. Whither, then, did the wicked go? It was necessary to suggest an antithesis to the idea of “Heaven” of a nature capable of impressing a salutary terror on minds still too much under the influence of materiality to be able to assimilate the idea of spirit-life; for it should not be forgotten that Jesus addressed his teachings to the multitude, to the least enlightened portion of the society of his day, and that, in order to act upon the minds of those around him, it was necessary to present to them images that should be palpable and not subtle. He therefore abstained from going into details that could not have been appreciated in his day; he contented himself with holding up the opposite prospects of reward and of punishment; and this was all that he could usefully do at that period.
The nature of future rewards and punishments was one of those points which were thus left by him in abeyance. He could not inculcate, especially in regard to future punishment, ideas so diametrically opposed to those held by men and women of his time. He came to trace out new duties for the human race, to inculcate charity and the love of one’s neighbor in place of the spirit of hatred and of vengeance, to substitute abnegation for selfishness, and such a change was, in itself, immense; he could not have gone farther without weakening the dread of the punishment in store for wrongdoing, because it would have weakened the sanction of duty in the minds of his hearers. He promised the Kingdom of Heaven to the righteous; that kingdom was, consequently, closed to the wicked. Whither, then, did the wicked go? It was necessary to suggest an antithesis to the idea of “Heaven” of a nature capable of impressing a salutary terror on minds still too much under the influence of materiality to be able to assimilate the idea of spirit-life; for it should not be forgotten that Jesus addressed his teachings to the multitude, to the least enlightened portion of the society of his day, and that, in order to act upon the minds of those around him, it was necessary to present to them images that should be palpable and not subtle. He therefore abstained from going into details that could not have been appreciated in his day; he contented himself with holding up the opposite prospects of reward and of punishment; and this was all that he could usefully do at that period.
6. While Jesus threatened the wicked with “everlasting fire,” he also threatened them with being thrown into “Gehenna;” but what was “Gehenna?” A place in the outskirts of Jerusalem, into which all the filth and rubbish of the city was habitually thrown. If we take the statement of “everlasting fire” as being a literal truth, why should we not also take the statement about being thrown “into Gehenna” as equally literal? No one has ever supposed the latter statement to be anything else than one of the energetic figures employed by Jesus to strike the imagination of the populace; why should we give a different interpretation to the “fire” with which he threatens the guilty? If he had intended to represent their subjection to that “fire” as eternal, he would have been in contradiction with himself in exalting the goodness and the mercy of God; for mercy and inexorability are contraries that mutually annul each other. The whole teaching of Jesus is a proclamation of the goodness and mercy of the Creator; and it is therefore evident that it is only through an entire misinterpretation of his utterances that the latter can be held to sanction the dogma of eternal punishment.
In The Lord’s Prayer, he tells us to say, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us;” but, if the trespasser against the Divine law had no forgiveness to hope for, it would be useless for him or her to ask for it. But is the forgiveness thus alluded to by Jesus as a certainty, unconditional? Is it an act of grace on the part of God, a pure and simple remission of the penalty incurred by the transgressor? No; for the obtaining of this forgiveness by us is made conditional on our having forgiven; in other words, if we do not forgive, we shall not be forgiven. Since God makes our forgiveness of trespasses against ourselves the absolute condition of God’s forgiveness of our trespasses against God, God could not demand of weak humankind to do that which God, with God’s almighty power, refused to do; and the teaching of The Lord’s Prayer is therefore a standing protest against the doctrine which attributes eternal and implacable vengeance to God.
In The Lord’s Prayer, he tells us to say, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us;” but, if the trespasser against the Divine law had no forgiveness to hope for, it would be useless for him or her to ask for it. But is the forgiveness thus alluded to by Jesus as a certainty, unconditional? Is it an act of grace on the part of God, a pure and simple remission of the penalty incurred by the transgressor? No; for the obtaining of this forgiveness by us is made conditional on our having forgiven; in other words, if we do not forgive, we shall not be forgiven. Since God makes our forgiveness of trespasses against ourselves the absolute condition of God’s forgiveness of our trespasses against God, God could not demand of weak humankind to do that which God, with God’s almighty power, refused to do; and the teaching of The Lord’s Prayer is therefore a standing protest against the doctrine which attributes eternal and implacable vengeance to God.
7. For men and women who had but a confused notion of the spiritual nature of the soul, there was nothing absurd in the idea of a region of physical fire, especially as there was a common belief in a Pagan Hell, universally divulged; nor was there, in the idea of punishment prolonged throughout eternity, anything calculated to shock the feelings of those who had been subjected, for centuries, to the penal code of stern and terrible Jehovah. As employed by Jesus, the threat of “everlasting fire” could only be metaphorical. What did it matter that this metaphor would be understood literally, for a time, if it was useful as a curb? He foresaw that time and progress would bring humankind on towards a comprehension of the true meaning of this allegory, and according to his prediction, “The Spirit of Truth” should come to enlighten humankind respecting “all things.”
The essential characteristic of irrevocable condemnation is its implication of the inefficacy of repentance; but Jesus never said that repentance could fail to find favor in the sight of God. On the contrary, he always represents God as clement, merciful, and ready to welcome back the returning prodigal to the spiritual home. He never shows God as inflexible excepting to the unrepentant sinner; but even while insisting on the certainty of the punishment that awaits the guilty, he holds out the prospect of forgiveness as soon as the wrongdoer shall have returned to the path of duty. Such, assuredly, is not the portrait of a pitiless God; and it should never be forgotten that Jesus never pronounced an irremissible sentence against anyone, not even against the most wicked.
The essential characteristic of irrevocable condemnation is its implication of the inefficacy of repentance; but Jesus never said that repentance could fail to find favor in the sight of God. On the contrary, he always represents God as clement, merciful, and ready to welcome back the returning prodigal to the spiritual home. He never shows God as inflexible excepting to the unrepentant sinner; but even while insisting on the certainty of the punishment that awaits the guilty, he holds out the prospect of forgiveness as soon as the wrongdoer shall have returned to the path of duty. Such, assuredly, is not the portrait of a pitiless God; and it should never be forgotten that Jesus never pronounced an irremissible sentence against anyone, not even against the most wicked.
8. All the primitive religions, in accordance with the character of the peoples among whom they took their rise, have made to themselves warrior-gods whom they supposed to fight for them at the head of their armies. The Jehovah of the Hebrews furnished the “chosen people,” on innumerable occasions, with the means of exterminating their enemies; Jehovah rewarded them by giving them victories and punished them by allowing them to undergo defeat. Conformably with their idea of God, the primitive nations imagined that such a God was to be honored and appeased by the blood of animals or of human beings; hence the sanguinary sacrifices that have played so prominent a part in so many of the religions of antiquity. The Jews had abolished human sacrifices; the Christians, notwithstanding the teachings of Christ, believed, for many centuries, that they honored the Creator by giving up thousands, of those whom they styled heretics to tortures and to the stake, thus continuing, under another form, the traditions of human sacrifices, for such were really the atrocities in question, since, according to the received formula, they were perpetrated “for the greater glory of God,” and with an accompaniment of solemn religious ceremony. Even at the present day, nations that call themselves “Christian” invoke “the God of Armies” before the battles and glorify this God after their victories; and they do this even when the purpose of their fighting is as unjust and as antichristian as possible.
9. How slow is humankind in getting rid of its prejudices, of its habits, of its early ideas! We are separated from Moses by forty centuries, and yet our Christian generation stills retains traces of the usages of his barbarian time, consecrated, or, at least, approved, by the religions of our day! To put an end to the use of the stake, and to give currency to a more just idea of the true greatness of God, has required all the force of the opinions of the non-orthodox, of those who are considered as heretics by the Church. But although the stake has been abolished, social and moral persecutions are still in full vigor, so deeply rooted in the human mind is the idea of a cruel God. Filled with the notions that have been instilled into them from their infancy, men and women naturally see nothing strange in the statement that God, who is represented to them as being honored by barbarous deeds, should condemn human beings to eternal tortures, and behold, without pity, the sufferings of the damned.
Yes, it is the philosophers, those who are qualified as “impious” by the Church, who have been scandalized at seeing the name of God profaned by being associated with deeds unworthy of God’s goodness; it is they who have presented to humanity a nobler idea of the greatness of the Divine Being, by stripping away from that idea the passions and pettiness attributed to God by the unenlightened beliefs of the primitive ages. The religious sentiment has thereby gained in dignity what it has lost in external show; for, while there are fewer devotees of ecclesiastical formalities, there are a greater number of men and women who are sincerely religious in heart and feeling.
But, besides the latter, how many are there who, going no deeper than the surface, have been led to negation of the idea of Providential action! Through its failure to harmonize its doctrines with the progress of the human mind, the Church has driven some to Deism, others, to absolute unbelief, others, again, to Pantheism; in other words, it has driven humankind to make gods of themselves, for lack of any higher ideal.
Yes, it is the philosophers, those who are qualified as “impious” by the Church, who have been scandalized at seeing the name of God profaned by being associated with deeds unworthy of God’s goodness; it is they who have presented to humanity a nobler idea of the greatness of the Divine Being, by stripping away from that idea the passions and pettiness attributed to God by the unenlightened beliefs of the primitive ages. The religious sentiment has thereby gained in dignity what it has lost in external show; for, while there are fewer devotees of ecclesiastical formalities, there are a greater number of men and women who are sincerely religious in heart and feeling.
But, besides the latter, how many are there who, going no deeper than the surface, have been led to negation of the idea of Providential action! Through its failure to harmonize its doctrines with the progress of the human mind, the Church has driven some to Deism, others, to absolute unbelief, others, again, to Pantheism; in other words, it has driven humankind to make gods of themselves, for lack of any higher ideal.
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT OF THE DOCTRINE OF ETERNAL PUNISHMENT
10. To return to the dogma of eternal punishment, the principal argument invoked in its favor is the following:
It is admitted, among humankind, that the heinousness of an offence is proportioned to the quality of the offended party. An offence committed against a sovereign, being considered as more heinous than it would be if committed against a private person, is therefore punished more severely. God is greater than any earthly sovereign; since God is infinite, an offence against God is infinite also, and must consequently incur an infinite (that is to say, an eternal) punishment.
Refutation. The refutation of any argument is a reasoning that must have a definite starting- point, a basis on which it rests, in a word, a clear and stable premise. We take, as our premise the necessary attributes of God, that is to say, the attributes without which God could not be God.
God is unique, eternal, immutable, immaterial, all-powerful, sovereignly just and good, infinite in all God’ s perfections.
It is impossible to conceive of God otherwise than as possessing the infinity of God’s perfections; were God otherwise, God would not be God, for there might be some other Being possessing the quality, which God lacked. In order for God to be above all other beings, God must necessarily be such that no other being can surpass or even equal God in any respect. Consequently God must be infinite in all God’s attributes.
The attributes of God, being infinite, are not susceptible of increase or of diminution; otherwise, they would not be infinite, and God would not be perfect. If the smallest particle were taken from any of God’s attributes, God would no longer be God, for there might be some other being more perfect than God.
The infinity of a quality excludes the possibility of the existence of any quality that is contrary to it, and which would be capable of annulling or of lessening it. A being that is infinitely good cannot possess the smallest particle of wickedness, any more than a being that was infinitely bad could possess the smallest particle of goodness; just as no object could be absolutely black if it had the slightest tint of white, or absolutely white, if it had the smallest speck of black.
This basis and starting point being laid down, we oppose, to the proposition brought forward above, the following arguments:
It is admitted, among humankind, that the heinousness of an offence is proportioned to the quality of the offended party. An offence committed against a sovereign, being considered as more heinous than it would be if committed against a private person, is therefore punished more severely. God is greater than any earthly sovereign; since God is infinite, an offence against God is infinite also, and must consequently incur an infinite (that is to say, an eternal) punishment.
Refutation. The refutation of any argument is a reasoning that must have a definite starting- point, a basis on which it rests, in a word, a clear and stable premise. We take, as our premise the necessary attributes of God, that is to say, the attributes without which God could not be God.
God is unique, eternal, immutable, immaterial, all-powerful, sovereignly just and good, infinite in all God’ s perfections.
It is impossible to conceive of God otherwise than as possessing the infinity of God’s perfections; were God otherwise, God would not be God, for there might be some other Being possessing the quality, which God lacked. In order for God to be above all other beings, God must necessarily be such that no other being can surpass or even equal God in any respect. Consequently God must be infinite in all God’s attributes.
The attributes of God, being infinite, are not susceptible of increase or of diminution; otherwise, they would not be infinite, and God would not be perfect. If the smallest particle were taken from any of God’s attributes, God would no longer be God, for there might be some other being more perfect than God.
The infinity of a quality excludes the possibility of the existence of any quality that is contrary to it, and which would be capable of annulling or of lessening it. A being that is infinitely good cannot possess the smallest particle of wickedness, any more than a being that was infinitely bad could possess the smallest particle of goodness; just as no object could be absolutely black if it had the slightest tint of white, or absolutely white, if it had the smallest speck of black.
This basis and starting point being laid down, we oppose, to the proposition brought forward above, the following arguments:
11. It is only an infinite being that can do anything infinite. Humankind, being limited in its virtues, in its knowledge, in its power, in its aptitudes, in its terrestrial existence, can produce only that which is limited.
If humankind could be infinite in what it does amiss, it could also be infinite in what it does aright, and, in that case, it would be equal to God. But, if humankind were infinite in what it does aright, it would do nothing wrong, for absolute goodness is the exclusion of all evil.
On the other hand, even if it were possible to admit that a temporary offence against the Divinity could be infinite, God, if God sought revenge by the infliction of an infinite punishment, would be infinitely vindictive; if God were infinitely vindictive, God could not be infinitely good and merciful, for the former attribute is the negation of the others. If God were not infinitely good, God would not be perfect; and, if God were not perfect, God would not be God.
If God were inexorable towards the repentant sinner, God would not be merciful; if God were not merciful, God would not be infinitely good.
Why would God impose on humankind the law of forgiveness, if God did not also forgive? If such were the case, it would follow that men and women who forgave their enemies and returned good for evil would be better than God, who remains deaf to the repentance of the weak creatures that have sinned against God, and who refuses to grant to those creatures, throughout eternity, the slightest mitigation of the torments which their weakness and their inexperience have brought upon them!
God, who is everywhere and sees everything, must see the tortures of the damned. If God remained insensitive to their groans throughout eternity, God would be eternally devoid of pity; if God were devoid of pity, God would not be infinitely good.
If humankind could be infinite in what it does amiss, it could also be infinite in what it does aright, and, in that case, it would be equal to God. But, if humankind were infinite in what it does aright, it would do nothing wrong, for absolute goodness is the exclusion of all evil.
On the other hand, even if it were possible to admit that a temporary offence against the Divinity could be infinite, God, if God sought revenge by the infliction of an infinite punishment, would be infinitely vindictive; if God were infinitely vindictive, God could not be infinitely good and merciful, for the former attribute is the negation of the others. If God were not infinitely good, God would not be perfect; and, if God were not perfect, God would not be God.
If God were inexorable towards the repentant sinner, God would not be merciful; if God were not merciful, God would not be infinitely good.
Why would God impose on humankind the law of forgiveness, if God did not also forgive? If such were the case, it would follow that men and women who forgave their enemies and returned good for evil would be better than God, who remains deaf to the repentance of the weak creatures that have sinned against God, and who refuses to grant to those creatures, throughout eternity, the slightest mitigation of the torments which their weakness and their inexperience have brought upon them!
God, who is everywhere and sees everything, must see the tortures of the damned. If God remained insensitive to their groans throughout eternity, God would be eternally devoid of pity; if God were devoid of pity, God would not be infinitely good.
12. To this argument it is replied that the sinner who repents before dying experiences the pity of God, and that, consequently, the very greatest sinner may find favor in God’s sight.
This is admitted on all hands, and it is but reasonable to assume that God forgives only those who repent and that God remains inflexible towards the unrepentant; but, if God is full of pity for the souls who repent before quitting their fleshly bodies, why should God cease to be so for those who repent after death? Why should repentance be efficacious only during an earthly lifetime, which is but an instant, and inefficacious throughout eternity, which has no end? If the goodness and mercy of God are circumscribed within a fixed time, they are not infinite, and, if such is the case, God is not infinitely good.
This is admitted on all hands, and it is but reasonable to assume that God forgives only those who repent and that God remains inflexible towards the unrepentant; but, if God is full of pity for the souls who repent before quitting their fleshly bodies, why should God cease to be so for those who repent after death? Why should repentance be efficacious only during an earthly lifetime, which is but an instant, and inefficacious throughout eternity, which has no end? If the goodness and mercy of God are circumscribed within a fixed time, they are not infinite, and, if such is the case, God is not infinitely good.
13. God is supremely just. The most perfect justice is neither that which is utterly inexorable, nor that which leaves wrongdoing uncorrected; it is that which keeps the most exact account of good and evil, which rewards the one and chastises the other with the most perfect equity, and which never makes the slightest mistake.
If, for a temporary fault – which is, always, a result of the imperfection of human nature, and, often, of the surroundings in which the wrongdoer has been placed – the soul were to be castigated eternally, without hope of forgiveness or of any diminution of suffering, there would be no proportion between the fault and its chastisement, and, consequently, no justice in the chastisements of the future.
If those who have committed evil retrace their steps, repent, and demand of God to be allowed to make reparation for their evil deeds, this change of mind constitutes a return to virtue, to rectitude of feeling. But if the castigation of the other life were irrevocable, such a return to virtuous sentiments would remain sterile; and as, in that case, God would take no account of their desire for amendment, God would not be just. Among human beings, convicts who repent and amend obtain a commutation of their punishment, or, sometimes, even a full pardon; so that there would be more equity in human jurisprudence than in the penal code of the Divinity!
If the sentence passed on the sinner were irrevocable, repentance would be useless, and the sinner, being shut out forever from virtue, would be forcibly doomed to remain in evil; so that God would not only condemn the sinner to suffer forever, but would also compel such a one to remain forever in wickedness. But, in that case, God would be neither just nor good; in other words, God would not be God.
If, for a temporary fault – which is, always, a result of the imperfection of human nature, and, often, of the surroundings in which the wrongdoer has been placed – the soul were to be castigated eternally, without hope of forgiveness or of any diminution of suffering, there would be no proportion between the fault and its chastisement, and, consequently, no justice in the chastisements of the future.
If those who have committed evil retrace their steps, repent, and demand of God to be allowed to make reparation for their evil deeds, this change of mind constitutes a return to virtue, to rectitude of feeling. But if the castigation of the other life were irrevocable, such a return to virtuous sentiments would remain sterile; and as, in that case, God would take no account of their desire for amendment, God would not be just. Among human beings, convicts who repent and amend obtain a commutation of their punishment, or, sometimes, even a full pardon; so that there would be more equity in human jurisprudence than in the penal code of the Divinity!
If the sentence passed on the sinner were irrevocable, repentance would be useless, and the sinner, being shut out forever from virtue, would be forcibly doomed to remain in evil; so that God would not only condemn the sinner to suffer forever, but would also compel such a one to remain forever in wickedness. But, in that case, God would be neither just nor good; in other words, God would not be God.
14. Being infinite in all things, God must know all things, past, present, and future; and God must therefore know, at the very moment when God creates a soul, whether or not that soul will go widely enough astray to incur eternal damnation. If God does not know, God’s knowledge is not infinite, in which case God is not God; if God knows, and voluntarily creates a being that God foresees to be doomed, from its beginning, to the endurance of eternal misery, God is not good.
If God can be touched by the repentance of the soul that has incurred the penalty of its wrongdoing, and can extend pity to that soul and take it out of Hell, there is no such thing as eternal damnation, and the doctrine which inculcates that idea must be admitted to be of human invention.
If God can be touched by the repentance of the soul that has incurred the penalty of its wrongdoing, and can extend pity to that soul and take it out of Hell, there is no such thing as eternal damnation, and the doctrine which inculcates that idea must be admitted to be of human invention.
15. The doctrine of eternal damnation, therefore, leads inevitably to the negation or the lessening of some of the attributes of God; it is irreconcilable with the infinity and perfection of those attributes, and we are, consequently, forced to the following conclusion:
If God is perfect, there can be no such thing as eternal punishment; if eternal punishment exists, God is not perfect.
If God is perfect, there can be no such thing as eternal punishment; if eternal punishment exists, God is not perfect.
16. The advocates of eternal punishment bring forward the following argument:
“The rewards accorded to the good, being eternal, must have their counterpart in an eternity of punishment. Justice demands that the degree of punishment should be proportioned to a similar degree of reward.”
Refutation. — Does God create a soul with a view to rendering it happy or to rendering it unhappy? Evidently, the happiness of the creature must be the aim of its creation, as, were it otherwise, God would not be good. The soul attains to happiness as the consequence of its own worthiness; that worthiness once acquired, its fruition can never be lost by the soul, for such a loss would imply degeneracy on its part, and the soul that has become intrinsically good, being incapable of evil, cannot degenerate. The eternity of happiness of the purified soul is therefore implied in its immortality.
But, before attaining to perfection, the soul has to wage a long struggle, to fight many a battle with its evil passions. God having created the soul, not perfect – but susceptible of becoming such, in order that it may possess the merits of its labors – the soul may err. Its lapses from the right road are the consequence of its natural weakness. If, for a single error, the soul is to be punished eternally, it might fairly be asked why God did not create it strong to begin with? The chastisement that the soul brings upon itself, by its wrongdoing, gives it notice that it has done wrong, and should have for effect to bring it back to the path of duty. If its punishment were irremissible, any desire on its part to do better would be superfluous; and, in that case, the Providential aim of creation would be unattainable, since, although there would be some beings predestined to happiness, there would be other beings predestined to misery. But if we admit that a guilty soul can repent, we must also admit that it can become good; if it can become good, it may aspire to happiness: would God be just if God denied to it the means of rehabilitation?
Good being the final aim of creation, happiness, which is the result and reward of goodness, must, in the nature of things, be eternal; but chastisement, which is only a means for leading the soul to goodness and to happiness, must be only temporary. The most elementary notion of justice, even among humankind, suffices to show us that it would be unjust to inflict perpetual punishment on one who had the desire and the determination to amend.
“The rewards accorded to the good, being eternal, must have their counterpart in an eternity of punishment. Justice demands that the degree of punishment should be proportioned to a similar degree of reward.”
Refutation. — Does God create a soul with a view to rendering it happy or to rendering it unhappy? Evidently, the happiness of the creature must be the aim of its creation, as, were it otherwise, God would not be good. The soul attains to happiness as the consequence of its own worthiness; that worthiness once acquired, its fruition can never be lost by the soul, for such a loss would imply degeneracy on its part, and the soul that has become intrinsically good, being incapable of evil, cannot degenerate. The eternity of happiness of the purified soul is therefore implied in its immortality.
But, before attaining to perfection, the soul has to wage a long struggle, to fight many a battle with its evil passions. God having created the soul, not perfect – but susceptible of becoming such, in order that it may possess the merits of its labors – the soul may err. Its lapses from the right road are the consequence of its natural weakness. If, for a single error, the soul is to be punished eternally, it might fairly be asked why God did not create it strong to begin with? The chastisement that the soul brings upon itself, by its wrongdoing, gives it notice that it has done wrong, and should have for effect to bring it back to the path of duty. If its punishment were irremissible, any desire on its part to do better would be superfluous; and, in that case, the Providential aim of creation would be unattainable, since, although there would be some beings predestined to happiness, there would be other beings predestined to misery. But if we admit that a guilty soul can repent, we must also admit that it can become good; if it can become good, it may aspire to happiness: would God be just if God denied to it the means of rehabilitation?
Good being the final aim of creation, happiness, which is the result and reward of goodness, must, in the nature of things, be eternal; but chastisement, which is only a means for leading the soul to goodness and to happiness, must be only temporary. The most elementary notion of justice, even among humankind, suffices to show us that it would be unjust to inflict perpetual punishment on one who had the desire and the determination to amend.
17. Another argument in favor of eternal punishment is the following:
“The fear of eternal punishment is a curb; if that fear were done away with, human beings would give free course to all their evil tendencies.”
Refutation — This reasoning would be justified if the non-eternal sins implied the elimination of any penal sanction. If the happy or unhappy situation in a future life were a rigorous consequence of Divine Justice, and the future situation of a good individual and a perverse one were equal, there would be no justice even though it was not eternal; the punishment would, nonetheless, be a torment. Moreover, the prospect of future punishment and this reality will necessarily be believed in, and consequently dreaded, in proportion to the reasonableness of the aspect under which it is presented. The threat of a penalty, in the reality of which human beings do not believe, has no restraining effect on their action; and the threat of eternal punishment is of this nature.
The doctrine of eternal punishment, as previously remarked, was natural and useful in the past; at the present day, it is not only inefficacious to restrain humanity from wrongdoing, but it causes them to disbelieve. Before holding up that doctrine before the eyes of men and women as a necessity, its advocates should demonstrate its reality, and they should also, as the most conclusive argument in its favor, show that it exercises a moralizing effect on those who hold it and who endeavor to uphold it. If it is powerless to restrain from wrongdoing those who say that they believe in it, what action can it exert over those who do not believe in it?
“The fear of eternal punishment is a curb; if that fear were done away with, human beings would give free course to all their evil tendencies.”
Refutation — This reasoning would be justified if the non-eternal sins implied the elimination of any penal sanction. If the happy or unhappy situation in a future life were a rigorous consequence of Divine Justice, and the future situation of a good individual and a perverse one were equal, there would be no justice even though it was not eternal; the punishment would, nonetheless, be a torment. Moreover, the prospect of future punishment and this reality will necessarily be believed in, and consequently dreaded, in proportion to the reasonableness of the aspect under which it is presented. The threat of a penalty, in the reality of which human beings do not believe, has no restraining effect on their action; and the threat of eternal punishment is of this nature.
The doctrine of eternal punishment, as previously remarked, was natural and useful in the past; at the present day, it is not only inefficacious to restrain humanity from wrongdoing, but it causes them to disbelieve. Before holding up that doctrine before the eyes of men and women as a necessity, its advocates should demonstrate its reality, and they should also, as the most conclusive argument in its favor, show that it exercises a moralizing effect on those who hold it and who endeavor to uphold it. If it is powerless to restrain from wrongdoing those who say that they believe in it, what action can it exert over those who do not believe in it?
PHYSICAL IMPOSSIBILITY OF ETERNAL PUNISHMENT
18. We have hitherto combated the dogma of eternal punishment by argument only; we shall now show that it is in contradiction with positive facts that we have before our eyes, and that it is, consequently, impossible that it can be true.
According to the dogma we are considering, the fate of the soul is irrevocably fixed at death, so that death constitutes an absolute barrier to progress. The one question, therefore, which has to be decided, is this; – Is the soul capable of progress, or is it not capable of progress? On this question the whole subject must be rested; for, if the soul is capable of progress, eternal punishment is impossible.
And how can we doubt that the soul has such a capability, when we behold the immense variety of moral and intellectual aptitudes existing among the peoples of the Earth, from that of the most savage to that of the most civilized, and when we reflect upon the differences presented by the same people in successive periods of history? If we assume that the souls of a given people, at those successive periods, are not the same souls, we must also assume that God creates souls at every degree of advancement, according to some differences of times and places, thus favoring some, while condemning others to perpetual inferiority; but such an assumption is incompatible with the Divine justice, which must be the same for all the creatures of the universe.
According to the dogma we are considering, the fate of the soul is irrevocably fixed at death, so that death constitutes an absolute barrier to progress. The one question, therefore, which has to be decided, is this; – Is the soul capable of progress, or is it not capable of progress? On this question the whole subject must be rested; for, if the soul is capable of progress, eternal punishment is impossible.
And how can we doubt that the soul has such a capability, when we behold the immense variety of moral and intellectual aptitudes existing among the peoples of the Earth, from that of the most savage to that of the most civilized, and when we reflect upon the differences presented by the same people in successive periods of history? If we assume that the souls of a given people, at those successive periods, are not the same souls, we must also assume that God creates souls at every degree of advancement, according to some differences of times and places, thus favoring some, while condemning others to perpetual inferiority; but such an assumption is incompatible with the Divine justice, which must be the same for all the creatures of the universe.
19. It is incontestable that the soul, in the state of intellectual and moral backwardness that characterizes the peoples that have not emerged from barbarism, cannot possess the same aptitudes for enjoying the splendors of infinity as are possessed by the soul whose intellectual and moral faculties are more largely developed. Therefore, if the souls of barbarians do not progress, those souls can never, throughout eternity, and even while influenced by the most favorable conditions, enjoy anything more than the low and negative happiness of the barbarian degree. The conclusion is consequently forced upon us (if we admit the justice of God), that the souls of the most advanced peoples are the very same souls that were formerly at the barbarian degree of backwardness, but that have since progressed; and we are thus brought face to face with the great question of the plurality of existences, as the only rational solution of the difficulty. We will, however, for the time being, set that solution aside, and consider the soul in a single lifetime.
20. Let us suppose – what is so often seen – a young man of twenty, ignorant, vicious, denying alike the existence of God and of the soul, and giving himself up to wickedness of every kind, until he finds himself placed among new circumstances, and influences, that exercise a beneficial effect upon his mind. He, then, relinquishes his former habits, enters upon a course of useful study, gradually surmounts his evil tendencies, and becomes, at length, an enlightened, virtuous, and useful member of society. Is not the fact of such a reformation – and we witness such reformations every day – a positive proof of the progress of the soul during an earthly lifetime? The reformed rake, whose moral advancement we are supposing, dies, at length, full of years and of honors, and no one has the slightest doubt of his salvation. But what would have been his fate if some accident had caused his death some forty or fifty years before? At that time he was, in all respects, just in the right condition for being damned, and all possibility of progress would have been over for him. So that, in such a case, a man, who, according to the doctrine of eternal punishment, would have been lost forever if he had died when he was young – which might have happened as the result of some casualty – is saved, simply because his life has been prolonged. But, as his soul was able to progress during his earthly lifetime, why might it not have achieved an equal amount of progress in the same length of time after his death if some cause, independent of his will, had prevented him from achieving that progress at a later period in his earthly life? Why, then, should God have refused to such a soul the means of progressing after death? Repentance, though tardy, would have been awakened in this individual in the course of time; but if, at the very instant of death, his soul had been met by an irrevocable condemnation, its repentance would have remained sterile throughout eternity, and its aptitude for progressing would have been neutralized forever.
21. The dogma of eternal punishment is therefore irreconcilable with the doctrine of the progress of the soul, to which it would constitute an insuperable obstacle. These two doctrines mutually annihilate each other; if either one of them be true, the other must necessarily be a fiction. Which of them is the true one? That progress is a law of nature, divine, incontrovertible, and not a mere theory, is evident; for progress is a fact, the reality of which is attested by experience; and since, on the one hand, progress exists, while, on the other hand, its existence is irreconcilable with the dogma of eternal punishment, we are compelled to admit that this dogma is false, and that eternal punishment has no existence. Moreover, the utter absurdity of such a dogma becomes at once apparent when we reflect that Saint Paul, Saint Augustine, and half the saints of the ecclesiastical calendar, would never, if that dogma were true, have been admitted into “heaven,” if they had happened to die before the occurrence of the various incidents which led to their conversion!
To this last remark it will be replied by some that the conversion of those saintly personages was a result, not of any progress due to the spontaneous action of their soul, but of divine “grace,” accorded to them from on high, and by which their conscience was miraculously touched.
But such a reply is a mere trifling with words. If they began by doing wrong, and, afterwards, took to doing right, their change of action shows that they had become better, in other words, that they had progressed. Why should such a favor have been granted to them and not granted to everyone else? Why should we attribute to God a favoritism incompatible with God’s justice, and with the equal love, which, being just, God necessarily bears to all God’s creatures?
Spiritism, in accordance with the express teachings of the Gospel, with reason, and with justice, shows us that each soul is the artisan of its fortunes, both during life and after death; that it owes its progress and happiness to its own efforts, and not to any favoritism; that God rewards its endeavors to advance in the path of progress, and chastises its negligence as long as it continues to be negligent.
To this last remark it will be replied by some that the conversion of those saintly personages was a result, not of any progress due to the spontaneous action of their soul, but of divine “grace,” accorded to them from on high, and by which their conscience was miraculously touched.
But such a reply is a mere trifling with words. If they began by doing wrong, and, afterwards, took to doing right, their change of action shows that they had become better, in other words, that they had progressed. Why should such a favor have been granted to them and not granted to everyone else? Why should we attribute to God a favoritism incompatible with God’s justice, and with the equal love, which, being just, God necessarily bears to all God’s creatures?
Spiritism, in accordance with the express teachings of the Gospel, with reason, and with justice, shows us that each soul is the artisan of its fortunes, both during life and after death; that it owes its progress and happiness to its own efforts, and not to any favoritism; that God rewards its endeavors to advance in the path of progress, and chastises its negligence as long as it continues to be negligent.
THE DOCTRINE OF ETERNAL PUNISHMENT IS A THING OF THE PAST
22. The belief in the physical nature and eternal duration of the future punishment of the wicked has maintained its hold on the human mind, as a salutary restraint, during the ages in which men and women were still too backward to comprehend the force of moral considerations. It has been with the world, in regard to this belief, as with children, who are held in check, for a few years, by the chimerical terrors which are brought to bear on them; but there comes a time when the minds of children has outgrown the empty tales that formerly frightened them, and when it would be simply absurd on the part of those about them to attempt any longer to influence them by any such means, and when, if their parents or guardians pretended that those tales were true and were to be accepted and respected as such, they would necessarily forfeit the confidence of their children.
It is thus with the convictions of humankind at the present day. The human race is passing out of its childhood and shaking itself free of the leading strings of the past. People are no longer either mere tools, yielding passively to the pressure of physical force, or credulous children, believing implicitly whatever is told them.
It is thus with the convictions of humankind at the present day. The human race is passing out of its childhood and shaking itself free of the leading strings of the past. People are no longer either mere tools, yielding passively to the pressure of physical force, or credulous children, believing implicitly whatever is told them.
23. Belief, at the present day, must be based on reason; consequently, no doctrine that is contrary to reason can continue to maintain its hold on the human mind. The doctrine of eternal punishment may have been not only harmless, but also even useful, at a given period of human development; but it has become positively dangerous, now that the period of its usefulness has passed. When the human mind has acquired the power and habit of reasoning, the attempt to impose upon it, as the absolute truth, something that is contrary to reason, must necessarily lead to one of two alternatives; either those whose minds are thus brought face to face with an absurdity wish to believe, and seek out for themselves a more rational conception – in which case they break loose from their official teachers – or they throw the very idea of belief overboard, and become skeptics or atheists. For all who have calmly studied this aspect of the question, it is evident that, at the present day, the dogma of eternal punishment has made more materialists and atheists than the arguments of all the so- called philosophers put together.
The course of human thought is always onward. Humanity can only be led by considerations in harmony with this progressive movement of human ideas; the attempt to arrest this movement or turn it back, or merely to fall into its rear, while the current continues to flow on, must necessarily be fatal to the influence of those who make the attempt. To follow, or not to follow, this onward movement of the human mind is a question of life or death, for creeds as for governments. Is this to be regretted or to be rejoiced in? Assuredly, it must appear regrettable to those who, living upon the past, see the past slipping from under them; but, for those whose eyes are turned towards the future, it is the law of progress, the law of God, against which all resistance is in vain, for those who fight against the Divine Will won’t succeed.
But why should any person be determined to uphold, by main force, a belief that is not only dying out from the convictions of humankind, but which, in point of fact, is far more injurious than useful to the cause of religion? Alas! It is sad to have to make such a confession, but the fact is that, in the desperate efforts now being made to keep up the doctrine we are considering, the question of religion is subordinated to the question of pecuniary gain. The belief in eternal punishment has been made a source of large revenue to those who have inculcated it, because there has been craftily interwoven with it the idea that men, through the giving of money, can procure for themselves admission into Heaven, and thus preserve themselves from Hell. The sums that this doctrine has brought, and still brings, defy all calculation; it is a tax levied on the fear of eternity. This tax being a voluntary one, its amount proportioned to the degree of belief accorded to the doctrine on which it is based; if that belief should cease to exist, the tax to which it gives rise would also cease to exist. The little child, who believes in the existence of the werewolf, willingly gives his cake to the bigger boy who promises to drive the dreaded visitant away; but when the child has ceased to believe in werewolves, he keeps the cake for himself.
The course of human thought is always onward. Humanity can only be led by considerations in harmony with this progressive movement of human ideas; the attempt to arrest this movement or turn it back, or merely to fall into its rear, while the current continues to flow on, must necessarily be fatal to the influence of those who make the attempt. To follow, or not to follow, this onward movement of the human mind is a question of life or death, for creeds as for governments. Is this to be regretted or to be rejoiced in? Assuredly, it must appear regrettable to those who, living upon the past, see the past slipping from under them; but, for those whose eyes are turned towards the future, it is the law of progress, the law of God, against which all resistance is in vain, for those who fight against the Divine Will won’t succeed.
But why should any person be determined to uphold, by main force, a belief that is not only dying out from the convictions of humankind, but which, in point of fact, is far more injurious than useful to the cause of religion? Alas! It is sad to have to make such a confession, but the fact is that, in the desperate efforts now being made to keep up the doctrine we are considering, the question of religion is subordinated to the question of pecuniary gain. The belief in eternal punishment has been made a source of large revenue to those who have inculcated it, because there has been craftily interwoven with it the idea that men, through the giving of money, can procure for themselves admission into Heaven, and thus preserve themselves from Hell. The sums that this doctrine has brought, and still brings, defy all calculation; it is a tax levied on the fear of eternity. This tax being a voluntary one, its amount proportioned to the degree of belief accorded to the doctrine on which it is based; if that belief should cease to exist, the tax to which it gives rise would also cease to exist. The little child, who believes in the existence of the werewolf, willingly gives his cake to the bigger boy who promises to drive the dreaded visitant away; but when the child has ceased to believe in werewolves, he keeps the cake for himself.
24. As the new revelation, inculcating more rational ideas in regard to the future life, has made clear that each soul must work out its own salvation through its own efforts, it has naturally excited an opposition that is all the more bitter in proportion to the importance of the source of pecuniary gain which it destroys. The same angry opposition is always excited by every new discovery or invention that threatens to change the habits of humankind. All those who have been accustomed to gain their living by the old costly ways of the past, cry out in the same voice, and decry the innovations. Is it supposable, for instance, that the art of printing, notwithstanding the immense services it was evidently destined to render to the human race, could have been welcomed, at its commencement, by the enthusiastic acclamations of the numerous body of copyists? Assuredly not; on the contrary, they would naturally receive the new invention with curses. All kinds of laborsaving machinery, railways, and the thousands of other inventions have met with similar opposition.
By the skeptic, the doctrine of eternal punishment is regarded as an absurdity that would be impossible to discuss without a smile; while, in the eyes of the philosophers, it constitutes, through the falsities it implies and the abuses to which it leads, a serious danger for society: the sincerely religious man desires, for the honor of religion and the well-being of society, to see those abuses disappear through the sweeping away of the unfounded and irrational assumption that is their cause.
By the skeptic, the doctrine of eternal punishment is regarded as an absurdity that would be impossible to discuss without a smile; while, in the eyes of the philosophers, it constitutes, through the falsities it implies and the abuses to which it leads, a serious danger for society: the sincerely religious man desires, for the honor of religion and the well-being of society, to see those abuses disappear through the sweeping away of the unfounded and irrational assumption that is their cause.
THE TESTIMONY OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL AGAINST THE DOCTRINES OF ETERNAL PUNISHMENT AND ORIGINAL SIN
25. To those who bring forward, in support of the doctrine of eternal punishment, certain Bible- texts that may seem, at first sight, to favor that doctrine, we reply that the Bible contains other texts, of a contrary character, and that are more clearly and decidedly condemnatory of that doctrine. For example, the following passages from Ezekiel are an explicit denial, not only of eternal punishment, but also of the condemnation supposed to have been entailed, by the sin of the father of the human race, on his descendants:
1. The Lord spoke to me again, and said: — 2. How is it that you have among you this parable, and that you have made of it a proverb in Israel, saying: —”The fathers have eaten unripe grapes, and the children’s teeth have thereby been set on edge?” – 3. I swear by myself, said the Lord God, that this parable shall no longer pass among you as a proverb in Israel; — 4. For all souls are mine; the soul of the son is mine as is the soul of the father; the soul that has sinned, that soul, itself, shall die.
5. If a man is righteous, if he acts according to equity and justice; – 7. If he neither grieves nor opposes anyone; if he gives back to his debtor the pledge he had received from him; if he takes nothing from others by violence; if he gives of his bread to the hungry; if he covers with garments those who are naked; – 8. If he does not lend on usury and receives no more than he gave; if he turns away his hand from iniquity, and if he renders a just verdict between two men who plead against one another; – 9. If he walks in the path of my precepts and keeps my commandments, so that he acts according to the truth: he is righteous, and he shall surely live, said the Lord God. 10. If this man has a son who is a robber, and who sheds blood, or who does any evil deeds, – 13. This son shall surely die, because he has done that which is detestable, and his blood shall be on his own hand. – 14. But if this wicked son has a son who, seeing the evil deeds that his father has done, is seized with fear and takes good care not to imitate his wrongdoing, – 17. This son shall not die for the iniquity of his father, but shall surely live. – 18. His father, who had oppressed others by his calumnies, and who had done evil deeds in the midst of his people, is put to death for his own iniquity.
19. If you say: “Why has not the son borne the iniquity of his father?”, it is because the son has acted according to equity and justice; because he has kept all my precepts and has practiced them; for which reason he shall surely live.
20. The soul that has sinned, that soul, itself, shall die: The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, and the father shall not bear the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the righteous man shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked man shall be upon him.
21. If the wicked man repents of all the sins he has committed; if he keeps all my precepts, and if he acts according to equity and justice, he shall surely live and shall not die. – 22. I will no longer remember the iniquity he had committed; he shall live in the deeds of righteousness that he has done.
23. Do I desire the death of the wicked? Said the Lord God; and do I not, on the contrary, desire that he should be converted, and that he should turn from his evil path, and that he should live? – (Ezekiel, chap. XXXIII v. 11, and on)
1. The Lord spoke to me again, and said: — 2. How is it that you have among you this parable, and that you have made of it a proverb in Israel, saying: —”The fathers have eaten unripe grapes, and the children’s teeth have thereby been set on edge?” – 3. I swear by myself, said the Lord God, that this parable shall no longer pass among you as a proverb in Israel; — 4. For all souls are mine; the soul of the son is mine as is the soul of the father; the soul that has sinned, that soul, itself, shall die.
5. If a man is righteous, if he acts according to equity and justice; – 7. If he neither grieves nor opposes anyone; if he gives back to his debtor the pledge he had received from him; if he takes nothing from others by violence; if he gives of his bread to the hungry; if he covers with garments those who are naked; – 8. If he does not lend on usury and receives no more than he gave; if he turns away his hand from iniquity, and if he renders a just verdict between two men who plead against one another; – 9. If he walks in the path of my precepts and keeps my commandments, so that he acts according to the truth: he is righteous, and he shall surely live, said the Lord God. 10. If this man has a son who is a robber, and who sheds blood, or who does any evil deeds, – 13. This son shall surely die, because he has done that which is detestable, and his blood shall be on his own hand. – 14. But if this wicked son has a son who, seeing the evil deeds that his father has done, is seized with fear and takes good care not to imitate his wrongdoing, – 17. This son shall not die for the iniquity of his father, but shall surely live. – 18. His father, who had oppressed others by his calumnies, and who had done evil deeds in the midst of his people, is put to death for his own iniquity.
19. If you say: “Why has not the son borne the iniquity of his father?”, it is because the son has acted according to equity and justice; because he has kept all my precepts and has practiced them; for which reason he shall surely live.
20. The soul that has sinned, that soul, itself, shall die: The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, and the father shall not bear the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the righteous man shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked man shall be upon him.
21. If the wicked man repents of all the sins he has committed; if he keeps all my precepts, and if he acts according to equity and justice, he shall surely live and shall not die. – 22. I will no longer remember the iniquity he had committed; he shall live in the deeds of righteousness that he has done.
23. Do I desire the death of the wicked? Said the Lord God; and do I not, on the contrary, desire that he should be converted, and that he should turn from his evil path, and that he should live? – (Ezekiel, chap. XXXIII v. 11, and on)
CHAPTER VII - THE SPIRITIST VIEW OF FUTURE PUNISHMENT
THE FLESH IS WEAK
Among the vicious tendencies of humankind, there are some that are evidently inherent in the soul, because they originate from the moral, rather than from the physical nature; others – such as the predisposition to anger, laziness, sensuality, etc. – appear, rather, to be results of the human organization, and, for this reason, human beings are apt to regard them as something for which they are less responsible.
It is fully admitted, at the present day, by the philosophers of the spiritualist school, that the cerebral organs, which correspond to the various mental aptitudes, owe their development to the activity of the soul, and that, consequently, this development is an effect and not a cause. For instance, a man is not a musician because he has the “bump” of music, but he has the “bump” of music simply because his spirit is already a musician. And this is the reality behind all the other “bumps” and faculties.
If the activity of the human spirit reacts upon the brain with which an individual is associated during earthly life, it must also react upon all the other parts of that individual’s organism. The spirit is thus the artisan of its physical body, which it fashions, so to say, for itself, in order to fit it to its needs and to the manifestation of its tendencies. This fact being admitted, we see that the improved bodies of the more advanced races are not the product of distinct creations, but are a result of the more enlightened action of the spirits incarnated in them, who improve their tools and their methods of working in proportion as they develop their moral and intellectual faculties.
As a natural consequence of the principle alluded to, the moral qualities of each incarnated spirit must modify the qualities of its blood and of all its other secretions, causing them to be produced in more or less abundance, giving them more or less activity, etc. It is thus, for instance, that the sight of a tempting dish brings a flow of saliva to the mouth of the lover of good cheer. In this case, it is not the food that excites the organ of taste, for there is no contact between the food and the palate; the flow of saliva is therefore caused by the direct action of the spirit whose sensuality is thus roused, and who, by its thought, influences its palate, whereas the sight of the very same dainty produces, on some other organism, no effect whatever. It is for the same reason that a person of a sensitive nature is quick to shed tears; it is not the abundance of lachrymal fluid that renders a person sensitive, but the sensitivity of its spirit that causes the abundant secretion of tears. Under the action of sensibility, the organism, in the latter case, has molded itself upon the normal characteristic of the spirit, just as, in the former case, it has molded itself on the spirit’s love of eating.
By following this train of thought, we understand how it is that an irascible spirit naturally produces for itself a bilious temperament of body; whence it follows that human beings are not passionate because they are bilious, but that they are bilious because they are passionate. It is the same with all the other instinctive tendencies; weak and indolent spirits will leave their organism in a state of weakness corresponding to their character, while energetic and active spirits will give to their blood, their nerves, etc., qualities in harmony with the energy and activity of their nature. The action of the spirit upon its physical envelope is so evident as to be incontestable, for we often see the most serious organic disorders produced as the effect of some violent moral turmoil. The common remark, “The shock turned his blood,” is by no means so void of truth, as is sometimes supposed; but what, in such a case, has “turned” the man’s blood, if not the moral state of his spirit?
We must therefore admit that the temperament of each individual is determined, at least in part, by the nature of his or her spirit, which is thus seen to be a cause and not an effect. We say, in part, because there are cases in which the physical nature evidently exercises an influence on the moral being; as, for instance, when a morbid or abnormal state of the latter is determined by some external or accidental cause, independent of the spirit’s will, such as the temperature of the air, climate, inherited tendencies to certain diseases, temporary illness, etc. In such cases, the moral state of a spirit may be affected by the pathologic conditions of its body, without its intrinsic nature being in any degree modified thereby.
To excuse ourselves by throwing the blame of our wrongdoing on the weakness of the flesh is, therefore, only an evasive attempt to escape the responsibility of our own misdeeds. The flesh is only weak because the spirit is weak, a proposition that places the question on its true ground, and leaves the spirit responsible for all its deeds during its earthly lifetime. The flesh, which has neither thought nor will, has no mastery over the spirit, which is the being that thinks and wills; it is the spirit that gives to the flesh the various qualities corresponding to its own instinctive tendencies, as the artist stamps the imprint of her genius on her work. The spirit, who has freed itself from the instincts of bestiality, fashions for itself a human body which opposes no tyrannous obstacles to the aspirations of its spiritual nature; a human being thus incarnated, for instance, will eat to live, but will certainly not live to eat.
All human beings are thus seen to be fully responsible for all the actions of their life; but reason tells us that the consequences of this responsibility must necessarily be proportioned to the intellectual development of the spirit of each individual. The more enlightened is the spirit, the less excusable will it be if it goes amiss, because, with the development of the intellect and of the moral sense, the ideas of good and evil, as well as of right and wrong, also become developed in the mind of a human being.
The action of the incarnated spirit upon its fleshly envelope explains the powerlessness of medicine in certain maladies. The physical temperament being an effect and not a cause, it is evident that, in many cases, the efforts made to modify it will be paralyzed by the moral state of the patient, which interposes an unsuspected obstacle to medical treatment and paralyzes the action of the remedies employed. It is, therefore, on the primary cause of a morbid physical state that we should act. For example; if we could give courage to a coward, we should witness the immediate disappearance of the physiological effects of fear; a consideration which shows us how necessary it is that those who devote themselves to the healing art should take account of the action of the spiritual element on the physical organization.
It is fully admitted, at the present day, by the philosophers of the spiritualist school, that the cerebral organs, which correspond to the various mental aptitudes, owe their development to the activity of the soul, and that, consequently, this development is an effect and not a cause. For instance, a man is not a musician because he has the “bump” of music, but he has the “bump” of music simply because his spirit is already a musician. And this is the reality behind all the other “bumps” and faculties.
If the activity of the human spirit reacts upon the brain with which an individual is associated during earthly life, it must also react upon all the other parts of that individual’s organism. The spirit is thus the artisan of its physical body, which it fashions, so to say, for itself, in order to fit it to its needs and to the manifestation of its tendencies. This fact being admitted, we see that the improved bodies of the more advanced races are not the product of distinct creations, but are a result of the more enlightened action of the spirits incarnated in them, who improve their tools and their methods of working in proportion as they develop their moral and intellectual faculties.
As a natural consequence of the principle alluded to, the moral qualities of each incarnated spirit must modify the qualities of its blood and of all its other secretions, causing them to be produced in more or less abundance, giving them more or less activity, etc. It is thus, for instance, that the sight of a tempting dish brings a flow of saliva to the mouth of the lover of good cheer. In this case, it is not the food that excites the organ of taste, for there is no contact between the food and the palate; the flow of saliva is therefore caused by the direct action of the spirit whose sensuality is thus roused, and who, by its thought, influences its palate, whereas the sight of the very same dainty produces, on some other organism, no effect whatever. It is for the same reason that a person of a sensitive nature is quick to shed tears; it is not the abundance of lachrymal fluid that renders a person sensitive, but the sensitivity of its spirit that causes the abundant secretion of tears. Under the action of sensibility, the organism, in the latter case, has molded itself upon the normal characteristic of the spirit, just as, in the former case, it has molded itself on the spirit’s love of eating.
By following this train of thought, we understand how it is that an irascible spirit naturally produces for itself a bilious temperament of body; whence it follows that human beings are not passionate because they are bilious, but that they are bilious because they are passionate. It is the same with all the other instinctive tendencies; weak and indolent spirits will leave their organism in a state of weakness corresponding to their character, while energetic and active spirits will give to their blood, their nerves, etc., qualities in harmony with the energy and activity of their nature. The action of the spirit upon its physical envelope is so evident as to be incontestable, for we often see the most serious organic disorders produced as the effect of some violent moral turmoil. The common remark, “The shock turned his blood,” is by no means so void of truth, as is sometimes supposed; but what, in such a case, has “turned” the man’s blood, if not the moral state of his spirit?
We must therefore admit that the temperament of each individual is determined, at least in part, by the nature of his or her spirit, which is thus seen to be a cause and not an effect. We say, in part, because there are cases in which the physical nature evidently exercises an influence on the moral being; as, for instance, when a morbid or abnormal state of the latter is determined by some external or accidental cause, independent of the spirit’s will, such as the temperature of the air, climate, inherited tendencies to certain diseases, temporary illness, etc. In such cases, the moral state of a spirit may be affected by the pathologic conditions of its body, without its intrinsic nature being in any degree modified thereby.
To excuse ourselves by throwing the blame of our wrongdoing on the weakness of the flesh is, therefore, only an evasive attempt to escape the responsibility of our own misdeeds. The flesh is only weak because the spirit is weak, a proposition that places the question on its true ground, and leaves the spirit responsible for all its deeds during its earthly lifetime. The flesh, which has neither thought nor will, has no mastery over the spirit, which is the being that thinks and wills; it is the spirit that gives to the flesh the various qualities corresponding to its own instinctive tendencies, as the artist stamps the imprint of her genius on her work. The spirit, who has freed itself from the instincts of bestiality, fashions for itself a human body which opposes no tyrannous obstacles to the aspirations of its spiritual nature; a human being thus incarnated, for instance, will eat to live, but will certainly not live to eat.
All human beings are thus seen to be fully responsible for all the actions of their life; but reason tells us that the consequences of this responsibility must necessarily be proportioned to the intellectual development of the spirit of each individual. The more enlightened is the spirit, the less excusable will it be if it goes amiss, because, with the development of the intellect and of the moral sense, the ideas of good and evil, as well as of right and wrong, also become developed in the mind of a human being.
The action of the incarnated spirit upon its fleshly envelope explains the powerlessness of medicine in certain maladies. The physical temperament being an effect and not a cause, it is evident that, in many cases, the efforts made to modify it will be paralyzed by the moral state of the patient, which interposes an unsuspected obstacle to medical treatment and paralyzes the action of the remedies employed. It is, therefore, on the primary cause of a morbid physical state that we should act. For example; if we could give courage to a coward, we should witness the immediate disappearance of the physiological effects of fear; a consideration which shows us how necessary it is that those who devote themselves to the healing art should take account of the action of the spiritual element on the physical organization.
SOURCES OF THE SPIRITIST DOCTRINE OF FUTURE PUNISHMENT
The Spiritist Doctrine, in regard to the future punishment of wrongdoing, is no more founded on a pre-conceived theory than are the other elements of that doctrine. Spiritism in all its proportions is based on observation, and it is this fact which constitutes its certainty and its irrefragability. No one had assumed, a priori, that the souls of men, after death, found themselves in such and such a situation; it is those souls themselves, who, having quitted the earthly life, are now entering into communication with us, in order to initiate us into the mysteries of the life beyond the grave, to describe to us the happiness or unhappiness of their present state of existence, their impressions, and the transformation undergone by them at the death of their body; in short, to complete, in regard to this matter, the teachings of Christ.
The information thus arrived at has not been derived from the statements of a single spirit, who might have observed the things of the other life solely from its own point of view under one and the same aspect, or who might still have been under the sway of its earthly prejudices and prepossessions; neither is it derived from a revelation made to a single individual, who might have been deceived by appearances, nor from the visions of an ecstatic which are always more or less illusory, and are often only the mirage of an excited imagination: * It is derived from the observation, and statements, of innumerable spirits, of every category, from the highest to the lowest,32 with the aid of innumerable intermediaries scattered over the entire globe. The new revelation, therefore, is not being made exclusively through any one channel; all inquirers may see, and observe, for themselves; and no one is obliged to base his or her belief on the statements of others.
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* Vide chap. VI, No. 7, “The Spirits’ Book,” Nos. 443, 444
The information thus arrived at has not been derived from the statements of a single spirit, who might have observed the things of the other life solely from its own point of view under one and the same aspect, or who might still have been under the sway of its earthly prejudices and prepossessions; neither is it derived from a revelation made to a single individual, who might have been deceived by appearances, nor from the visions of an ecstatic which are always more or less illusory, and are often only the mirage of an excited imagination: * It is derived from the observation, and statements, of innumerable spirits, of every category, from the highest to the lowest,32 with the aid of innumerable intermediaries scattered over the entire globe. The new revelation, therefore, is not being made exclusively through any one channel; all inquirers may see, and observe, for themselves; and no one is obliged to base his or her belief on the statements of others.
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* Vide chap. VI, No. 7, “The Spirits’ Book,” Nos. 443, 444
PENAL CODE OF LIFE TO COME
The spiritist doctrine, in regard to the consequences that await those who violate the divine laws, in the life to come, is therefore no arbitrary or fanciful theory, but is a logical deduction from the observation of facts made known to us by the statements of innumerable spirits; its principle points may be summed up as follows:
1. Each discarnate spirit undergoes, in the spirit world, the consequences of the various imperfections of which it has failed to cure itself during its earthly life. Its state in that world, whether happy or unhappy, is the direct consequence of, and inherent in, the degree of its advancement or of its imperfection.
2. Perfect happiness belongs, exclusively, to the state of perfection, that is to say, of the spirit’s complete purification. Every imperfection is at once a source of suffering and the privation of an enjoyment; and every acquisition of knowledge or of goodness brings with it an increase of enjoyment and diminishes the sources of suffering.
3. Every imperfection of the soul produces its own inevitable share of suffering; and every good quality produces, in virtue of the same law, its own natural, certain, share of happiness. The amount of a spirit’s suffering is thus exactly proportioned to the degree of its imperfection; and the amount of a spirit’s happiness is exactly proportioned to the degree of its intellectual and moral advancement.
A spirit who has still, say, ten imperfections to get rid of, suffers proportionately more than one who has only three or four; when it has succeeded in ridding itself of a quarter, or half, of those imperfections, it suffers proportionately less, and, when it has rid itself of the whole of them, the spirit has got rid of every source of suffering, and is perfectly happy. It is just as it is upon the Earth with our bodily ailments and imperfections; a person who has a complication of diseases suffers more than another person who has but one disease; and if a person were perfectly healthy, it is evident that such an individual would suffer no physical pain whatever. In the same way, the spirit who has acquired ten good qualities has a proportionally greater amount of happiness than one who possesses fewer good qualities.
4. In virtue of the law of progress – each spirit having the power to acquire the good qualities which it lacks and to rid itself of its bad ones, according to the spirit’s force of will and the amount of effort it makes for that purpose – the gate of hope and happiness is open to every creature. God repudiates none of God’s children; God receives them all into favor as they attain to the perfection of their being, thus leaving to all of them the merit of their deeds.
5. Suffering being indissolubly connected with imperfection, and enjoyment with excellence, the soul finds its own chastisement in itself, wherever it may be, and needs no circumscribed place as the scene of its suffering. “Hell” is, consequently, wherever there are souls that suffer, as “Heaven” is, wherever there are souls that are happy.
6. The good, or the evil, that we do is the result of the good or evil qualities possessed by our spirit. Not to do all the good which we have the power to do is evidently the result of imperfection on our part; and, consequently, as every imperfection is a source of suffering, a spirit suffers, not only for all the evil it has done, but also for the good which it might have done, but did not do, during its earthly life.
7. A spirit suffers through the evil that it has done, in order that, its attention being concentrated on the consequences of that evil, the spirit may better understand its disastrous nature, and be led to amend itself.
8. The justice of God being infinite, an exact account is kept, for each soul, of the good and the evil done by it in the course of its earthly life. No evil deed, no evil thought, however slight, fails to produce its own appropriate correction; but also, no good deed, however minute, no right feeling, however fugitive, no virtuous aspiration, however faint, is ever overlooked, or ever remains sterile, even in the case of the most depraved spirits; for they are the foundation of its reformation and progress.
9. Every fault committed, every evil deed accomplished, is a debt that must be paid; if it be not paid in the present earthly life it will be paid in the next one or in subsequent ones, because all the lives of a spirit form a consecutive series, a whole, all the phases of which are a part and parcel of each other. A spirit who pays its debt in the present life will not have to pay it in any future one.
10. A spirit undergoes the penalty of its defects both in the spirit world and in the life of the flesh. All the tribulations, all the miseries, which we suffer in the earthly life are at once the consequences of our own defects and expiations of faults that have been committed by us, either in our present life or in some of our former existences.
By the nature of the sufferings and vicissitudes that we have to undergo in our present life, we can judge of the nature of the faults committed by us in a preceding life, and of the imperfections to which those faults were due.
11. The expiation of wrongdoing varies according to the nature and the gravity of the offences committed; consequently, the same offence may entail different kinds and degrees of expiation in different cases, according as it may have been attenuated, or aggravated, by the circumstances under which it was committed.
12. In regard to the nature and duration of future correction, there is no absolute and uniform rule; the only general law is this, viz., that every misdeed shall receive its just and appropriate correction, and that every good deed shall receive its just and appropriate reward, exactly proportioned to the action of which it is the consequence.
13. The duration of correction depends entirely on the more or less rapid self-amendment of the spirit by whom it has been incurred. No spirit is ever condemned to any fixed term of correction. The only conditions required by Providence, for the releasing of a guilty spirit from the sufferings of expiation, are the spirit’s sincere return to a better mind, and its hearty determination to labor steadfastly for the acquisition of wisdom and goodness.
Each spirit is thus, and always, the sole arbiter of its own condition; the spirit may prolong its sufferings by hardening itself in evil, it may lessen them, or may put an end to them by its efforts to advance in the path of rectitude.
The sentencing of spirits to any fixed term of correction would be open to the double objection of prolonging, in some cases, the correction of a spirit after it has entered on a course of amendment, and, in other cases, of relieving a spirit from punishment before it has entered on that course. God, being just, corrects evil only so long as it continues to exist; God ceases to correct when the evil, that had necessitated correction, has ceased to exist. * In other words, moral turpitude being, itself, the cause of a spirit’s suffering, that suffering necessarily lasts as long as the moral turpitude, which is its cause, continues to exist, but, as necessarily, diminishes its intensity as the spirit’s moral state improves.
14. The duration of a spirit’s correction depending solely on its own delay in working out its own inner reform, it follows that, if a spirit persisted forever in remaining wicked, it would remain forever in a state of suffering, and that, consequently, in such a case, the spirit’s correction would be eternal.
15. One of the conditions inherent in a spirit’s moral inferiority is the inability to foresee the end of its suffering, and this inability leads the spirit to believe that it will last forever. Accordingly, guilty spirits are always found to be possessed with the idea that the chastisement they are undergoing will be eternal. **
16. Repentance is the first step towards improvement; but repentance, alone, is not sufficient to deliver the wrongdoer from the consequences of his or her wrongdoing; to effect this result, expiation and reparation are also necessary.
Repentance, expiation, and reparation are the three conditions necessary for the effacing of a fault and the suppression of its consequences.
Repentance mitigates the sufferings of expiation, because it opens the door to hope and paves the way to rehabilitation; but it is only reparation that, by destroying the cause of our suffering, can annul the suffering which is its effect; the granting of a free pardon to the wrong-doer would be merely the granting of a favor and not an annulling of the cause and consequences of the person’s wrong-doing.
17. Repentance may begin in the spirit-life or in the life of the flesh, and at any period; if a spirit’s repentance is tardy, it suffers for a longer time.
Expiation consists in the sufferings, both physical and moral, that are the results of a spirit’s wrong-doing – whether in the course of the same earthly life in which it has done wrong, or in the phase of spirit-life succeeding it, or in a new earthly life – until all traces of the spirit’s wrong-doing have been effaced.
Reparation consists in doing good to those whom we have wronged. Those who, through lack of power or of will, do not make reparation, in a given life, for the wrongs they have done in that life, will be brought again, in a new earthly life, into contact with the parties they have wronged in that former life, and under conditions which they will themselves have chosen beforehand, and which will have been contrived in such a way as to give them the opportunity of proving their devotion to them, and of enabling them to do them as much good as they formerly did them harm.
There are faults of which individuals may be guilty, but which do not cause any direct and personal injury to other people; in such cases, the reparation of a fault is accomplished in one or other of the following ways: – by doing, in a subsequent incarnation, what they ought to have done, but did not do, in a former one, whether by discharging duties which they neglected or did not see to be incumbent on them, or by fulfilling missions which they failed to fulfill in that former life, or by practicing the virtues which are the opposites of the vice in which they then indulged; that is to say, by being humble if they have been haughty; gentle, if they have been harsh; kindly, if they have been unkind; hardworking, if they have been idle; helpful, if they have been useless; temperate, if they have been dissolute; setting a good example, if they have set a bad one; and so on. It is thus that a spirit progresses by turning to profitable account the experiences and the lessons of his past existences ***
18. Spirits of slight advancement are excluded from the happier worlds whose harmony would be impaired by their presence; they therefore remain in worlds of correspondingly low degree – where they expiate their faults, and purify themselves from their imperfections – until they have acquired the moral qualities which enable them to incarnate themselves in worlds of higher moral and physical development.
The conception of a circumscribed place of correction is admissible only as referring to the worlds whose low degree of physical advancement places them, for the time being, in the category of worlds of expiation, around which swarms of discarnate spirits of low degree are always found, awaiting the new existences that will allow them to repair the evil they have done and will help them to advance.
19. A spirit always possesses his free-will, and its improvement is therefore sometimes slow and its persistence in evil very tenacious. The spirit may, if it wills, persist in its wickedness for years or for centuries; but a moment always comes when that spirit’s obstinacy in defying the Divine justice breaks down under the continuance of suffering, and when, despite its foolhardiness, the spirit confesses that the power which masters it is greater than its own. With the first glimmerings of its repentance, a gleam of hope is sent, by the Divine pity, to console and encourage the returning prodigal.
No spirit ever finds itself in the condition of being permanently incapable of improvement; were it otherwise, some spirits would be fatally doomed to remain forever in a state of inferiority, and would thus escape the action of the law of progress that regulates the destiny providentially imposed on all the beings of Creation.
20. Whatever may be a spirit’s inferiority and perversity, God never abandons it. Every spirit has its guardian angel who watches over it, takes note of every movement of its soul, and endeavors to awaken in that spirit’s mind good thoughts and the desire to progress and to make reparation, in a new existence, for the evil it has done. But this protecting guardian usually proceeds in its task occultly, without bringing any pressure to bear on its ward. A spirit must work out its own betterment through the action of its own will, and not as a consequence of any external constraint. The spirit does right, or does wrong, of its free choice, and without its choice being decisively influenced either for good or for evil. If the spirit takes the path of evil, it undergoes the consequences of its error as long as it continues to follow the wrong road; as soon as that spirit takes a single step in the opposite direction, it begins, at once, to experience the beneficial effect of its change of course.
Observation - It would be a mistake to imagine that the certainty of arriving, sooner or later, at the state of perfection and happiness for which all spirits have been created, could encourage any spirit to persevere in evil, with the idea of repenting at some future period, in the first place, because a spirit of low degree is unable to foresee any termination of its present situation, and, in the second place, because each spirit, being the artificer of its own unhappiness, always comes to perceive in the long run, that it depends on itself to procure its cessation, that the longer it persists in evil the longer it will remain unhappy, and that, consequently, its suffering will endure forever unless the spirit, itself, puts an end to it. To go on sinning is, on the part of a spirit, to condemn itself, consciously and willfully, to a continuance of suffering. But if, on the contrary, the gate of hope were irrevocably closed, according to the doctrine of eternal punishment, against the suffering spirit, it would have no motive for repenting and amending, which could be of no avail for it.
The law we are considering triumphantly refutes the objection that the Divine prescience, in creating the souls that subsequently go wrong, cannot be allied to goodness. God, in creating a soul, necessarily foresees whether, in virtue of its free will, it will take the right or the wrong road; God knows that it will incur correction if it goes wrong; but God also knows that this temporary chastisement is only a means for enabling it to understand its error, and for leading it into the right road, by which, sooner or later, it will reach the goal. According to the doctrine of eternal punishment, God, having known beforehand that such and such a soul would go wrong, created it with the knowledge that, by calling it into being, God was condemning it, beforehand, to endless tortures.
21. Each spirit is responsible only for its own wrong-doing; no spirit is punished for the wrong- doing of others, unless that spirit has been the cause of their doing wrong, either by leading them astray, through its evil counsels or example, or by not helping them to do right when the spirit had the opportunity of influencing them for their good.
For instance, those who commit suicide are always chastised for so doing; but those who, by their unkindness, drive their fellow- creatures to despair and to self-destruction, incur chastisement still more severe.
22. Although the chastisements of the spirit-world are infinitely various, there are some which are inherent in the backwardness of the spirits, and which, being the consequences of that state of inferiority, are, in the main, the same for all spirits of that degree.
The correction which is first experienced, especially among those who have attached themselves too closely to the earthly life while neglecting the interests of their spiritual advancement, consists in the slowness with which their soul effects its separation from the body, in the anguish which they feel on dying and which accompanies their awakening in the other life, and in the prolongation of the mental confusion so often attendant on dissolution, and which may continue for months and even for years. In the case of those, on the contrary, whose conscience is clear, who, during their earthly life, have identified themselves with the spiritual life and have detached their interests and affections from the things of this world, the separation of the soul and the body is effected rapidly and without painful shocks, the awakening into the other life is peaceful, and the mental confusion almost null.
23. Spirits of low moral advancement frequently fancy themselves to be still living the earthly life; and this illusion may last for many years, during which they experience all the wants, all the torments, and all the perplexities, incident to life in the flesh.
24. For criminals, the incessant sight of their victims, and of the places and circumstances of their crimes, is the most harrowing of tortures.
25. Some spirits are plunged in utter darkness; others are in a state of complete isolation, alone in the midst of immensity, tormented by the ignorance in which they find themselves with regard to their whereabouts and the fate that may be awaiting them. Those who are the guiltiest are the prey of torments that are all the more overwhelming from their being unable to foresee any termination of their misery. Many are chastised by being deprived of the sight of those they love. All, as a general rule, endure the sufferings they have caused others to endure, and with an intensity proportionate to the intensity of the suffering they have caused; and they continue to endure this retributive suffering until, through repentance and the desire to make reparation for the wrongs they have done, they obtain the relief which comes of their growing perception of the possibility of putting an end, through their own efforts, to the suffering they have brought upon themselves.
26. The torture of the proud is to see above them, surrounded and welcomed by the glorious spirits of the higher spheres, those whose superiority they failed to see, and whose humbler position they despised, when upon the Earth, while they find themselves relegated to the lowest rank; that of hypocrites is to see themselves pierced through and through by the light which lays bare their most secret thoughts, so that all may read them, without their having any means of hiding themselves, or their real quality, from other eyes; that of sensualists is to experience all the temptations, all the desires, without the possibility of satisfying them; that of misers is to see their hoards wasted and scattered, and to be unable to do anything to retain their hold on them; that of the selfish is to be neglected by all about them and to suffer all the hardships and mortifications they have caused to others; they will be thirsty, and no one will give them to drink, they will be hungry, and no one will give them food; no friendly hand will meet theirs, no compassionate voice will console them in their loneliness: they thought only of themselves during their earthly life; no one will think of them, or commiserate them, after their death.
27. The only way to avoid, or to lessen, the painful consequences that our defects may entail upon us in our future life, is to free ourselves from those defects, as far as possible, in our present life; and we must also make reparation now, if we would not have to make that reparation by and by, and in some way that will be far harder to bear for having been delayed. The longer we put off the work of getting rid of our defects and of making reparation for whatever wrongs we have done to others, the more painful will be the consequences of the former, and the more severely shall we have to suffer in accomplishing the latter.
28. The situation in which a spirit finds itself on its entrance into spirit-life is exactly what it has made for itself by its action in the earthly life it has quitted. After a time, another incarnation is granted to it in order that it may expiate and make reparation for the past by undergoing again the trials of the life in flesh; and that spirit will derive more or less profit from this new incarnation, according to the use it makes in it of its free-will. If it fails to make a good use of its new existence, it will have to begin the trial over again, under conditions more and more difficult and painful; so that the spirit who suffers much in the present life may be very sure that it has much to expiate, and, on the other hand, those who enjoy a seemingly prosperous life, notwithstanding their vices and their uselessness, may be equally sure that they will have to pay dear for their defects and their wrong-doing in a future existence. It was to the purifying and reparative effects of the earthly life that Jesus alluded to when he said, “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.”
29. The mercy of God is, undoubtedly, infinite; but it is not blind. The guilty ones whom God forgives are not exonerated from the necessity of making reparation for their evil deeds; and, until they have paid their debt to justice, they continue to undergo the consequences of those misdeeds. The assertion that the mercy of God is infinite must be understood as meaning that the Divine justice is not inexorable, and that it always leaves the door open to the prodigal who has returned into the homeward road.
30. The Providential corrections of wrong-doing being temporary and subordinated to the repentance and reparation which depend on the free-will of the wrong-doer, those corrections are at once the chastisement of wrong-doing and the medicines which will cure the moral malady to which that wrong-doing is due. The spirits who, in the spirit-life or in their new subjection to the trials of the life in flesh, are made to undergo those chastisements, are, therefore, not like galley-slaves, condemned to a fixed term of punishment, but rather like patients in a hospital, who suffer both from the malady they have contracted and also from the course of treatment required for their cure (and which is often extremely painful), but who have the hope of being cured, and whose cure will be all the more rapid in proportion to the fidelity with which they follow the prescriptions of the physician who watches over them with enlightened solicitude. If, from negligence or obstinacy, they prolong their malady, they will also prolong the period of their suffering; but, in that case, this prolongation is not the fault of their physician but their own.
31. To the sufferings of the spirit-world, which wrong-doing brings upon spirits on their return to that world, succeed the sufferings of the life in flesh; sufferings which are, at once, the consequence of humankind’s imperfections, of their passions, of the bad use they make of their faculties, and the expiations of the faults committed by them in their present life and in the past. It is always in the life of flesh that a spirit repairs the evil it has done in its former corporeal existences, and that it puts in practice the resolutions it has formed in the spirit-life; a fact which explains and justifies the sorrows and troubles of human life which, at first sight, seem to be undeserved and uncalled for, but which are seen to be just and necessary, when we have learned that they are both payments of debts contracted by us in the past and the indispensable condition and means of our future advancement. ****
32. “But would not God,” it is sometimes asked, “have given proof of greater love for God’s creatures, if God had created them perfect, and consequently exempted them from the sufferings attendant on imperfection?”
To this query we reply that, in order to have exempted the beings of the universe from suffering, God must have created them perfect to begin with, having nothing to acquire in knowledge or in goodness. Undoubtedly, God could have done so; if God did not do so, it is because, in God’s wisdom, God has willed that the law of progress should be the law of creation.
Human beings are imperfect and, as such, are subject to vicissitudes more or less painful; this is a fact that we must accept, because it exists. But to infer from this that God is neither good nor just, would be to rebel against God.
It would evidently have been unjust to create some beings more favored than others, endowed with privileges denied to those others, and enjoying, without their having worked for it, and as a free gift on God’s part, a degree of happiness that those other beings could only acquire through long and painful effort, or, perhaps, could never acquire at all. But the justice of God is triumphantly vindicated by the explanation of God’s Providential action, which shows us that all spirits are created on a footing of entire and absolute equality; that they all have the same starting-point; that no spirit, at its formation, is more favored than others; that the upward march, which has to be accomplished by all spirits, is not rendered exceptionally easy for any of them; and that the spirits who have reached the highest degree have passed upwards, as all the others are now passing, from the same point of initial imperfection, by the same path of trial and effort.
This view of creation once admitted, what could be more perfectly just than the freedom of action that is accorded to each spirit? The road of happiness is equally open to all; the goals to be reached, and the conditions for reaching it, are the same for all. God has ordained that happiness shall be the result of effort, and not of favor, in order that each may obtain it as the result of his or her own individual merits; each is free to labor diligently, or to do nothing, for his or her own advancement; those who work hard and quickly gain their wage sooner; those who misemploy their energies, or lose their time, are longer in gaining the promised reward, but have only themselves to thank for the delay. The choice between good and evil is free to all; gifted with free will, human beings are not fatally drawn to either.
33. Notwithstanding the diversity of the kinds and degrees of suffering which imperfect spirits undergoes, the penal code of the future life may be summed up in the three following propositions:
1. Suffering is a condition of imperfection.
2. All our imperfections and all our misdeeds (which are the practical outcome of those imperfections) find their appropriate and necessary adjustment in their own natural and inevitable consequences – just as every excess is corrected by the malady which is caused by it, and as idleness is corrected by the disgust of life to which it leads – without the need of any special sentence being passed on each particular fault of each individual.
3. All human beings have the power of freeing themselves from their imperfections through the exertion of their individual wills; all human beings, therefore, are able to avoid the sufferings that are the consequence of those imperfections and to ensure their future happiness.
Such is the law of the Divine justice; “To each, according to the deeds done by his body:” a sentence which receives its execution both in the spirit-world and upon the Earth.
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* Vide chap. VI, No. 25, the quotation from Ezekiel on this point.
** The word eternal is synonymous with perpetual, and both words mean, not an endless duration, but merely a duration of which the end is not foreseen. We say “the region of eternal (or perpetual) snows,” “the eternal (or perpetual) ice of the Poles;” we also say “The Perpetual Secretary of the French Academy,” which does not mean that the scientist occupying that post will continue to occupy it forever, but merely that he has been appointed to it for an unlimited period. The words eternal and perpetual are therefore employed to express the idea of indefinite, undetermined. Thus explained, the future punishment of the wicked may be said to be “eternal” in as much as the punishment has no fixed and defined duration, so that it appears to be “eternal” to the spirit who is undergoing it, and who does not foresee any termination of his suffering. – Vide “The Spirits’ Book,” Nos. 973, 1009.
*** The requiring of the wrongdoer to make reparation for the evil it has done is so evidently just in principle that it may be safely accepted as the true law of moral rehabilitation. Yet the necessity of this reparation has never been proclaimed, as a doctrine, by any of the religions of the world.
The spiritist announcement of this necessity, as a providential law, has met with opposition on the part of persons who think it would be more agreeable to do away with our misdeeds by the mere profession of repentance, at the cost only of a few words and with the aid of certain formulae. Such persons are free to imagine themselves to be able to escape, thus cheaply, the consequences of wrong-doing; they will see, by and by, whether the Divine Justice is satisfied by the mere admission, on the part of the wrong-doer, of having done wrong. Those who reject the spiritist doctrine of expiation should ask themselves whether the principle of expiation is not admitted, and rightly so, by human legislation, and whether the justice of God can be less than that of humankind? They should ask themselves whether they would be satisfied with the person who, having ruined them by a betrayal of their confidence, should simply tell them that he or she is sorry to have ruined them. Why should any one who has wronged another draw back from the obligation – fully accepted as a duty by all honest people – of repairing the wrong that has been done, to the very utmost of his or her power?
When the certainty of having to make reparation for everything we have done amiss shall have become established in the minds of all human beings, it will prove to be a rein far more effectual than the threat of hell-fire and of eternal punishment, both because the idea of Providential retribution, when thus presented, is seen to be altogether just and rational, and also because it explains the painful circumstances in which we find ourselves as being the result of our own wrong-doing, in our present life, or in a former existence.
**** Vide chap, VI. Purgatory, No. 3 and on; and Chap. XX. Instances of earthly expiation: “The Gospel According to Spiritism,” Chap. V, Blessed are they that mourn.
1. Each discarnate spirit undergoes, in the spirit world, the consequences of the various imperfections of which it has failed to cure itself during its earthly life. Its state in that world, whether happy or unhappy, is the direct consequence of, and inherent in, the degree of its advancement or of its imperfection.
2. Perfect happiness belongs, exclusively, to the state of perfection, that is to say, of the spirit’s complete purification. Every imperfection is at once a source of suffering and the privation of an enjoyment; and every acquisition of knowledge or of goodness brings with it an increase of enjoyment and diminishes the sources of suffering.
3. Every imperfection of the soul produces its own inevitable share of suffering; and every good quality produces, in virtue of the same law, its own natural, certain, share of happiness. The amount of a spirit’s suffering is thus exactly proportioned to the degree of its imperfection; and the amount of a spirit’s happiness is exactly proportioned to the degree of its intellectual and moral advancement.
A spirit who has still, say, ten imperfections to get rid of, suffers proportionately more than one who has only three or four; when it has succeeded in ridding itself of a quarter, or half, of those imperfections, it suffers proportionately less, and, when it has rid itself of the whole of them, the spirit has got rid of every source of suffering, and is perfectly happy. It is just as it is upon the Earth with our bodily ailments and imperfections; a person who has a complication of diseases suffers more than another person who has but one disease; and if a person were perfectly healthy, it is evident that such an individual would suffer no physical pain whatever. In the same way, the spirit who has acquired ten good qualities has a proportionally greater amount of happiness than one who possesses fewer good qualities.
4. In virtue of the law of progress – each spirit having the power to acquire the good qualities which it lacks and to rid itself of its bad ones, according to the spirit’s force of will and the amount of effort it makes for that purpose – the gate of hope and happiness is open to every creature. God repudiates none of God’s children; God receives them all into favor as they attain to the perfection of their being, thus leaving to all of them the merit of their deeds.
5. Suffering being indissolubly connected with imperfection, and enjoyment with excellence, the soul finds its own chastisement in itself, wherever it may be, and needs no circumscribed place as the scene of its suffering. “Hell” is, consequently, wherever there are souls that suffer, as “Heaven” is, wherever there are souls that are happy.
6. The good, or the evil, that we do is the result of the good or evil qualities possessed by our spirit. Not to do all the good which we have the power to do is evidently the result of imperfection on our part; and, consequently, as every imperfection is a source of suffering, a spirit suffers, not only for all the evil it has done, but also for the good which it might have done, but did not do, during its earthly life.
7. A spirit suffers through the evil that it has done, in order that, its attention being concentrated on the consequences of that evil, the spirit may better understand its disastrous nature, and be led to amend itself.
8. The justice of God being infinite, an exact account is kept, for each soul, of the good and the evil done by it in the course of its earthly life. No evil deed, no evil thought, however slight, fails to produce its own appropriate correction; but also, no good deed, however minute, no right feeling, however fugitive, no virtuous aspiration, however faint, is ever overlooked, or ever remains sterile, even in the case of the most depraved spirits; for they are the foundation of its reformation and progress.
9. Every fault committed, every evil deed accomplished, is a debt that must be paid; if it be not paid in the present earthly life it will be paid in the next one or in subsequent ones, because all the lives of a spirit form a consecutive series, a whole, all the phases of which are a part and parcel of each other. A spirit who pays its debt in the present life will not have to pay it in any future one.
10. A spirit undergoes the penalty of its defects both in the spirit world and in the life of the flesh. All the tribulations, all the miseries, which we suffer in the earthly life are at once the consequences of our own defects and expiations of faults that have been committed by us, either in our present life or in some of our former existences.
By the nature of the sufferings and vicissitudes that we have to undergo in our present life, we can judge of the nature of the faults committed by us in a preceding life, and of the imperfections to which those faults were due.
11. The expiation of wrongdoing varies according to the nature and the gravity of the offences committed; consequently, the same offence may entail different kinds and degrees of expiation in different cases, according as it may have been attenuated, or aggravated, by the circumstances under which it was committed.
12. In regard to the nature and duration of future correction, there is no absolute and uniform rule; the only general law is this, viz., that every misdeed shall receive its just and appropriate correction, and that every good deed shall receive its just and appropriate reward, exactly proportioned to the action of which it is the consequence.
13. The duration of correction depends entirely on the more or less rapid self-amendment of the spirit by whom it has been incurred. No spirit is ever condemned to any fixed term of correction. The only conditions required by Providence, for the releasing of a guilty spirit from the sufferings of expiation, are the spirit’s sincere return to a better mind, and its hearty determination to labor steadfastly for the acquisition of wisdom and goodness.
Each spirit is thus, and always, the sole arbiter of its own condition; the spirit may prolong its sufferings by hardening itself in evil, it may lessen them, or may put an end to them by its efforts to advance in the path of rectitude.
The sentencing of spirits to any fixed term of correction would be open to the double objection of prolonging, in some cases, the correction of a spirit after it has entered on a course of amendment, and, in other cases, of relieving a spirit from punishment before it has entered on that course. God, being just, corrects evil only so long as it continues to exist; God ceases to correct when the evil, that had necessitated correction, has ceased to exist. * In other words, moral turpitude being, itself, the cause of a spirit’s suffering, that suffering necessarily lasts as long as the moral turpitude, which is its cause, continues to exist, but, as necessarily, diminishes its intensity as the spirit’s moral state improves.
14. The duration of a spirit’s correction depending solely on its own delay in working out its own inner reform, it follows that, if a spirit persisted forever in remaining wicked, it would remain forever in a state of suffering, and that, consequently, in such a case, the spirit’s correction would be eternal.
15. One of the conditions inherent in a spirit’s moral inferiority is the inability to foresee the end of its suffering, and this inability leads the spirit to believe that it will last forever. Accordingly, guilty spirits are always found to be possessed with the idea that the chastisement they are undergoing will be eternal. **
16. Repentance is the first step towards improvement; but repentance, alone, is not sufficient to deliver the wrongdoer from the consequences of his or her wrongdoing; to effect this result, expiation and reparation are also necessary.
Repentance, expiation, and reparation are the three conditions necessary for the effacing of a fault and the suppression of its consequences.
Repentance mitigates the sufferings of expiation, because it opens the door to hope and paves the way to rehabilitation; but it is only reparation that, by destroying the cause of our suffering, can annul the suffering which is its effect; the granting of a free pardon to the wrong-doer would be merely the granting of a favor and not an annulling of the cause and consequences of the person’s wrong-doing.
17. Repentance may begin in the spirit-life or in the life of the flesh, and at any period; if a spirit’s repentance is tardy, it suffers for a longer time.
Expiation consists in the sufferings, both physical and moral, that are the results of a spirit’s wrong-doing – whether in the course of the same earthly life in which it has done wrong, or in the phase of spirit-life succeeding it, or in a new earthly life – until all traces of the spirit’s wrong-doing have been effaced.
Reparation consists in doing good to those whom we have wronged. Those who, through lack of power or of will, do not make reparation, in a given life, for the wrongs they have done in that life, will be brought again, in a new earthly life, into contact with the parties they have wronged in that former life, and under conditions which they will themselves have chosen beforehand, and which will have been contrived in such a way as to give them the opportunity of proving their devotion to them, and of enabling them to do them as much good as they formerly did them harm.
There are faults of which individuals may be guilty, but which do not cause any direct and personal injury to other people; in such cases, the reparation of a fault is accomplished in one or other of the following ways: – by doing, in a subsequent incarnation, what they ought to have done, but did not do, in a former one, whether by discharging duties which they neglected or did not see to be incumbent on them, or by fulfilling missions which they failed to fulfill in that former life, or by practicing the virtues which are the opposites of the vice in which they then indulged; that is to say, by being humble if they have been haughty; gentle, if they have been harsh; kindly, if they have been unkind; hardworking, if they have been idle; helpful, if they have been useless; temperate, if they have been dissolute; setting a good example, if they have set a bad one; and so on. It is thus that a spirit progresses by turning to profitable account the experiences and the lessons of his past existences ***
18. Spirits of slight advancement are excluded from the happier worlds whose harmony would be impaired by their presence; they therefore remain in worlds of correspondingly low degree – where they expiate their faults, and purify themselves from their imperfections – until they have acquired the moral qualities which enable them to incarnate themselves in worlds of higher moral and physical development.
The conception of a circumscribed place of correction is admissible only as referring to the worlds whose low degree of physical advancement places them, for the time being, in the category of worlds of expiation, around which swarms of discarnate spirits of low degree are always found, awaiting the new existences that will allow them to repair the evil they have done and will help them to advance.
19. A spirit always possesses his free-will, and its improvement is therefore sometimes slow and its persistence in evil very tenacious. The spirit may, if it wills, persist in its wickedness for years or for centuries; but a moment always comes when that spirit’s obstinacy in defying the Divine justice breaks down under the continuance of suffering, and when, despite its foolhardiness, the spirit confesses that the power which masters it is greater than its own. With the first glimmerings of its repentance, a gleam of hope is sent, by the Divine pity, to console and encourage the returning prodigal.
No spirit ever finds itself in the condition of being permanently incapable of improvement; were it otherwise, some spirits would be fatally doomed to remain forever in a state of inferiority, and would thus escape the action of the law of progress that regulates the destiny providentially imposed on all the beings of Creation.
20. Whatever may be a spirit’s inferiority and perversity, God never abandons it. Every spirit has its guardian angel who watches over it, takes note of every movement of its soul, and endeavors to awaken in that spirit’s mind good thoughts and the desire to progress and to make reparation, in a new existence, for the evil it has done. But this protecting guardian usually proceeds in its task occultly, without bringing any pressure to bear on its ward. A spirit must work out its own betterment through the action of its own will, and not as a consequence of any external constraint. The spirit does right, or does wrong, of its free choice, and without its choice being decisively influenced either for good or for evil. If the spirit takes the path of evil, it undergoes the consequences of its error as long as it continues to follow the wrong road; as soon as that spirit takes a single step in the opposite direction, it begins, at once, to experience the beneficial effect of its change of course.
Observation - It would be a mistake to imagine that the certainty of arriving, sooner or later, at the state of perfection and happiness for which all spirits have been created, could encourage any spirit to persevere in evil, with the idea of repenting at some future period, in the first place, because a spirit of low degree is unable to foresee any termination of its present situation, and, in the second place, because each spirit, being the artificer of its own unhappiness, always comes to perceive in the long run, that it depends on itself to procure its cessation, that the longer it persists in evil the longer it will remain unhappy, and that, consequently, its suffering will endure forever unless the spirit, itself, puts an end to it. To go on sinning is, on the part of a spirit, to condemn itself, consciously and willfully, to a continuance of suffering. But if, on the contrary, the gate of hope were irrevocably closed, according to the doctrine of eternal punishment, against the suffering spirit, it would have no motive for repenting and amending, which could be of no avail for it.
The law we are considering triumphantly refutes the objection that the Divine prescience, in creating the souls that subsequently go wrong, cannot be allied to goodness. God, in creating a soul, necessarily foresees whether, in virtue of its free will, it will take the right or the wrong road; God knows that it will incur correction if it goes wrong; but God also knows that this temporary chastisement is only a means for enabling it to understand its error, and for leading it into the right road, by which, sooner or later, it will reach the goal. According to the doctrine of eternal punishment, God, having known beforehand that such and such a soul would go wrong, created it with the knowledge that, by calling it into being, God was condemning it, beforehand, to endless tortures.
21. Each spirit is responsible only for its own wrong-doing; no spirit is punished for the wrong- doing of others, unless that spirit has been the cause of their doing wrong, either by leading them astray, through its evil counsels or example, or by not helping them to do right when the spirit had the opportunity of influencing them for their good.
For instance, those who commit suicide are always chastised for so doing; but those who, by their unkindness, drive their fellow- creatures to despair and to self-destruction, incur chastisement still more severe.
22. Although the chastisements of the spirit-world are infinitely various, there are some which are inherent in the backwardness of the spirits, and which, being the consequences of that state of inferiority, are, in the main, the same for all spirits of that degree.
The correction which is first experienced, especially among those who have attached themselves too closely to the earthly life while neglecting the interests of their spiritual advancement, consists in the slowness with which their soul effects its separation from the body, in the anguish which they feel on dying and which accompanies their awakening in the other life, and in the prolongation of the mental confusion so often attendant on dissolution, and which may continue for months and even for years. In the case of those, on the contrary, whose conscience is clear, who, during their earthly life, have identified themselves with the spiritual life and have detached their interests and affections from the things of this world, the separation of the soul and the body is effected rapidly and without painful shocks, the awakening into the other life is peaceful, and the mental confusion almost null.
23. Spirits of low moral advancement frequently fancy themselves to be still living the earthly life; and this illusion may last for many years, during which they experience all the wants, all the torments, and all the perplexities, incident to life in the flesh.
24. For criminals, the incessant sight of their victims, and of the places and circumstances of their crimes, is the most harrowing of tortures.
25. Some spirits are plunged in utter darkness; others are in a state of complete isolation, alone in the midst of immensity, tormented by the ignorance in which they find themselves with regard to their whereabouts and the fate that may be awaiting them. Those who are the guiltiest are the prey of torments that are all the more overwhelming from their being unable to foresee any termination of their misery. Many are chastised by being deprived of the sight of those they love. All, as a general rule, endure the sufferings they have caused others to endure, and with an intensity proportionate to the intensity of the suffering they have caused; and they continue to endure this retributive suffering until, through repentance and the desire to make reparation for the wrongs they have done, they obtain the relief which comes of their growing perception of the possibility of putting an end, through their own efforts, to the suffering they have brought upon themselves.
26. The torture of the proud is to see above them, surrounded and welcomed by the glorious spirits of the higher spheres, those whose superiority they failed to see, and whose humbler position they despised, when upon the Earth, while they find themselves relegated to the lowest rank; that of hypocrites is to see themselves pierced through and through by the light which lays bare their most secret thoughts, so that all may read them, without their having any means of hiding themselves, or their real quality, from other eyes; that of sensualists is to experience all the temptations, all the desires, without the possibility of satisfying them; that of misers is to see their hoards wasted and scattered, and to be unable to do anything to retain their hold on them; that of the selfish is to be neglected by all about them and to suffer all the hardships and mortifications they have caused to others; they will be thirsty, and no one will give them to drink, they will be hungry, and no one will give them food; no friendly hand will meet theirs, no compassionate voice will console them in their loneliness: they thought only of themselves during their earthly life; no one will think of them, or commiserate them, after their death.
27. The only way to avoid, or to lessen, the painful consequences that our defects may entail upon us in our future life, is to free ourselves from those defects, as far as possible, in our present life; and we must also make reparation now, if we would not have to make that reparation by and by, and in some way that will be far harder to bear for having been delayed. The longer we put off the work of getting rid of our defects and of making reparation for whatever wrongs we have done to others, the more painful will be the consequences of the former, and the more severely shall we have to suffer in accomplishing the latter.
28. The situation in which a spirit finds itself on its entrance into spirit-life is exactly what it has made for itself by its action in the earthly life it has quitted. After a time, another incarnation is granted to it in order that it may expiate and make reparation for the past by undergoing again the trials of the life in flesh; and that spirit will derive more or less profit from this new incarnation, according to the use it makes in it of its free-will. If it fails to make a good use of its new existence, it will have to begin the trial over again, under conditions more and more difficult and painful; so that the spirit who suffers much in the present life may be very sure that it has much to expiate, and, on the other hand, those who enjoy a seemingly prosperous life, notwithstanding their vices and their uselessness, may be equally sure that they will have to pay dear for their defects and their wrong-doing in a future existence. It was to the purifying and reparative effects of the earthly life that Jesus alluded to when he said, “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.”
29. The mercy of God is, undoubtedly, infinite; but it is not blind. The guilty ones whom God forgives are not exonerated from the necessity of making reparation for their evil deeds; and, until they have paid their debt to justice, they continue to undergo the consequences of those misdeeds. The assertion that the mercy of God is infinite must be understood as meaning that the Divine justice is not inexorable, and that it always leaves the door open to the prodigal who has returned into the homeward road.
30. The Providential corrections of wrong-doing being temporary and subordinated to the repentance and reparation which depend on the free-will of the wrong-doer, those corrections are at once the chastisement of wrong-doing and the medicines which will cure the moral malady to which that wrong-doing is due. The spirits who, in the spirit-life or in their new subjection to the trials of the life in flesh, are made to undergo those chastisements, are, therefore, not like galley-slaves, condemned to a fixed term of punishment, but rather like patients in a hospital, who suffer both from the malady they have contracted and also from the course of treatment required for their cure (and which is often extremely painful), but who have the hope of being cured, and whose cure will be all the more rapid in proportion to the fidelity with which they follow the prescriptions of the physician who watches over them with enlightened solicitude. If, from negligence or obstinacy, they prolong their malady, they will also prolong the period of their suffering; but, in that case, this prolongation is not the fault of their physician but their own.
31. To the sufferings of the spirit-world, which wrong-doing brings upon spirits on their return to that world, succeed the sufferings of the life in flesh; sufferings which are, at once, the consequence of humankind’s imperfections, of their passions, of the bad use they make of their faculties, and the expiations of the faults committed by them in their present life and in the past. It is always in the life of flesh that a spirit repairs the evil it has done in its former corporeal existences, and that it puts in practice the resolutions it has formed in the spirit-life; a fact which explains and justifies the sorrows and troubles of human life which, at first sight, seem to be undeserved and uncalled for, but which are seen to be just and necessary, when we have learned that they are both payments of debts contracted by us in the past and the indispensable condition and means of our future advancement. ****
32. “But would not God,” it is sometimes asked, “have given proof of greater love for God’s creatures, if God had created them perfect, and consequently exempted them from the sufferings attendant on imperfection?”
To this query we reply that, in order to have exempted the beings of the universe from suffering, God must have created them perfect to begin with, having nothing to acquire in knowledge or in goodness. Undoubtedly, God could have done so; if God did not do so, it is because, in God’s wisdom, God has willed that the law of progress should be the law of creation.
Human beings are imperfect and, as such, are subject to vicissitudes more or less painful; this is a fact that we must accept, because it exists. But to infer from this that God is neither good nor just, would be to rebel against God.
It would evidently have been unjust to create some beings more favored than others, endowed with privileges denied to those others, and enjoying, without their having worked for it, and as a free gift on God’s part, a degree of happiness that those other beings could only acquire through long and painful effort, or, perhaps, could never acquire at all. But the justice of God is triumphantly vindicated by the explanation of God’s Providential action, which shows us that all spirits are created on a footing of entire and absolute equality; that they all have the same starting-point; that no spirit, at its formation, is more favored than others; that the upward march, which has to be accomplished by all spirits, is not rendered exceptionally easy for any of them; and that the spirits who have reached the highest degree have passed upwards, as all the others are now passing, from the same point of initial imperfection, by the same path of trial and effort.
This view of creation once admitted, what could be more perfectly just than the freedom of action that is accorded to each spirit? The road of happiness is equally open to all; the goals to be reached, and the conditions for reaching it, are the same for all. God has ordained that happiness shall be the result of effort, and not of favor, in order that each may obtain it as the result of his or her own individual merits; each is free to labor diligently, or to do nothing, for his or her own advancement; those who work hard and quickly gain their wage sooner; those who misemploy their energies, or lose their time, are longer in gaining the promised reward, but have only themselves to thank for the delay. The choice between good and evil is free to all; gifted with free will, human beings are not fatally drawn to either.
33. Notwithstanding the diversity of the kinds and degrees of suffering which imperfect spirits undergoes, the penal code of the future life may be summed up in the three following propositions:
1. Suffering is a condition of imperfection.
2. All our imperfections and all our misdeeds (which are the practical outcome of those imperfections) find their appropriate and necessary adjustment in their own natural and inevitable consequences – just as every excess is corrected by the malady which is caused by it, and as idleness is corrected by the disgust of life to which it leads – without the need of any special sentence being passed on each particular fault of each individual.
3. All human beings have the power of freeing themselves from their imperfections through the exertion of their individual wills; all human beings, therefore, are able to avoid the sufferings that are the consequence of those imperfections and to ensure their future happiness.
Such is the law of the Divine justice; “To each, according to the deeds done by his body:” a sentence which receives its execution both in the spirit-world and upon the Earth.
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* Vide chap. VI, No. 25, the quotation from Ezekiel on this point.
** The word eternal is synonymous with perpetual, and both words mean, not an endless duration, but merely a duration of which the end is not foreseen. We say “the region of eternal (or perpetual) snows,” “the eternal (or perpetual) ice of the Poles;” we also say “The Perpetual Secretary of the French Academy,” which does not mean that the scientist occupying that post will continue to occupy it forever, but merely that he has been appointed to it for an unlimited period. The words eternal and perpetual are therefore employed to express the idea of indefinite, undetermined. Thus explained, the future punishment of the wicked may be said to be “eternal” in as much as the punishment has no fixed and defined duration, so that it appears to be “eternal” to the spirit who is undergoing it, and who does not foresee any termination of his suffering. – Vide “The Spirits’ Book,” Nos. 973, 1009.
*** The requiring of the wrongdoer to make reparation for the evil it has done is so evidently just in principle that it may be safely accepted as the true law of moral rehabilitation. Yet the necessity of this reparation has never been proclaimed, as a doctrine, by any of the religions of the world.
The spiritist announcement of this necessity, as a providential law, has met with opposition on the part of persons who think it would be more agreeable to do away with our misdeeds by the mere profession of repentance, at the cost only of a few words and with the aid of certain formulae. Such persons are free to imagine themselves to be able to escape, thus cheaply, the consequences of wrong-doing; they will see, by and by, whether the Divine Justice is satisfied by the mere admission, on the part of the wrong-doer, of having done wrong. Those who reject the spiritist doctrine of expiation should ask themselves whether the principle of expiation is not admitted, and rightly so, by human legislation, and whether the justice of God can be less than that of humankind? They should ask themselves whether they would be satisfied with the person who, having ruined them by a betrayal of their confidence, should simply tell them that he or she is sorry to have ruined them. Why should any one who has wronged another draw back from the obligation – fully accepted as a duty by all honest people – of repairing the wrong that has been done, to the very utmost of his or her power?
When the certainty of having to make reparation for everything we have done amiss shall have become established in the minds of all human beings, it will prove to be a rein far more effectual than the threat of hell-fire and of eternal punishment, both because the idea of Providential retribution, when thus presented, is seen to be altogether just and rational, and also because it explains the painful circumstances in which we find ourselves as being the result of our own wrong-doing, in our present life, or in a former existence.
**** Vide chap, VI. Purgatory, No. 3 and on; and Chap. XX. Instances of earthly expiation: “The Gospel According to Spiritism,” Chap. V, Blessed are they that mourn.
CHAPTER VIII - ANGELS
Angels According to the Church
1. Materialism, denying the existence of spirit and admitting no other life than that of the physical organism, has naturally relegated the idea of angels into the category of fiction and allegories. But all religions of the world have proclaimed, under various names, the existence of angels, that is to say, of beings superior to the human race, intermediate between God and humankind. The belief in those beings forms an essential part of the creed of the Christian Church, whose doctrine, in regard to their nature, is summed up in the following statement: *
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* The statement quoted in the text is taken from the Lenten Pastoral of the Cardinal-Archbishop of Rheims, Cardinal Gousset, for 1864; but, as the doctrine of the various Christian sects is identical in regard to the nature both of angels and of devils, it may be regarded – like the statement in regard to the latter, drawn from the same source and quoted in our next chapter – as being a summary of the belief of all the Christian sects in reference to the subject we are considering.
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* The statement quoted in the text is taken from the Lenten Pastoral of the Cardinal-Archbishop of Rheims, Cardinal Gousset, for 1864; but, as the doctrine of the various Christian sects is identical in regard to the nature both of angels and of devils, it may be regarded – like the statement in regard to the latter, drawn from the same source and quoted in our next chapter – as being a summary of the belief of all the Christian sects in reference to the subject we are considering.
2. “We firmly believe,” is the declaration of the Lateran Council, “that there is one sole and only God, eternal and infinite, who, in the beginning of time, drew both together, out of nothing, the two orders of creatures, viz., the Spiritual and Corporeal, the Angelic and the Physical, and who afterwards formed, as a mean between the two, the Human Order composed of body and spirit.”
“Such,” continues the Pastoral from which we are quoting, “is the divine plan in the work of creation; a plan at once majestic and complete, as befits the eternal wisdom. Thus conceived, this plan presents to our mind the beings of the universe at every degree and in all conditions. In the highest sphere appear existence and life of a purely spiritual nature; in the lowest rank appear existence and life of a purely physical nature: and, in the interval which separates the two, a marvelous union of those two substances, a life which is shared by an intelligent spirit and an organized body.
“Our soul is in its nature simple and indivisible; but its faculties are limited. The idea we have of perfection enables us to comprehend that there may be other beings simple and indivisible like our soul, yet superior to it in qualities and in privileges. Our soul is great and noble, but it is associated with matter, served by frail organs, limited in its action and in its power. Why should there not be other natures still nobler, free from this slavery and from these obstacles, gifted with strength and activities incomparably greater? Before God placed human beings upon the Earth to know God, to love God, and to serve God, must God not already have called other creatures into being, to form God’s celestial court and to adore God in the dwelling place of God’s glory? It is from the hands of human beings that God receives the tribute of honor and the homage of the universe; is it strange that God should receive, from the hands of angels, the incense and the prayers of humanity? If the angels did not exist, the grand work of the Creator would lack the crowning perfection of which it is susceptible; this world, which attests the infinity of God’s power, would not be the master-piece of God’s wisdom; our mere human reason, weak and feeble though it may be, might easily conceive of something better and more complete.
“At every page of the sacred books of the Old and New Testaments, mention is made of these sublime intelligences, in pious evocations, or in its historical incidents. Their intervention is manifestly shown in the lives of the patriarchs and the prophets. God employs their ministry, sometimes for the intimation of God’s will, sometimes for the announcement of events to come; God makes them, in almost every case, the organs of God’s justice or of God’s mercy. Their presence is seen in the various circumstances of the birth, the life, and the passion of the Savior; their memory is inseparable from that of the great men and women, and the most important facts of the earliest epochs of the ancient religiosity. It is found even in the bosom of polytheism, and under the fables of mythology; for the belief in their existence is as old and as universal as the world, and the worship paid by the Pagans to good and evil genii was only a false application of a truth, a degenerate reflex of the primitive dogma.
“The declarations of the holy Lateran Council contain a fundamental distinction between the angels and human beings. They teach us that the former are pure spirits, while the latter are composed of a soul and a body; that is to say, that the angelic nature is self-sustained, not only without any intermixture, but also without the possibility of any real association, with matter, no matter how light and how subtle we may suppose the latter to be, while our human soul, though also spiritual in nature, is associated with a material body in such a manner as to constitute, with that body, only a single person; and they teach us that such is essentially the destiny of the human soul.
“As long as this intimate union continues to exist between the soul and the body, these two substances have a common life and exercise a reciprocal influence on each other; the soul cannot disenfranchise itself entirely from the state of imperfection imposed upon it by this union: its ideas reach it through the senses, from the comparison of external objects, and always under images more or less apparent. Hence the impossibility, for the soul, of conceiving of itself or of God otherwise than under the guise of some visible and palpable form. For the same reasons the angels, in order to render themselves visible to the Saints and the Prophets, have necessarily assumed the appearance of corporeality; but these appearances were only aerial bodies which they moved without identifying themselves with them, or symbolical representations in harmony with the mission which they were charged to fulfill.
“Their existence and movements are not localized and circumscribed in any fixed and limited point of space. Not being attached to a body, they cannot be stopped and bounded as we are by other bodies; they occupy no space and fill no void; but, just as our soul is entirely present in our whole body and in each of its parts, so they are in their entirety, and almost simultaneously, on all points and in all parts of the world; more rapid than thought, they can operate themselves everywhere in an instant and can operate of themselves, without any other obstacle to their designs than the will of God and the resistance of human liberty.
“While we are reduced to see, only little by little and within certain limits, the things which are outside of us, and while the verities of the supernatural order appear to us as an enigma and as though seen in a mirror, according to the expression of the Apostle Paul, they see, without effort, everything that they need to know, and are in immediate relationship with the object of their thought. Their knowledge is the result, not of induction and reasoning, but of the clear and profound intuition which embraces at once the principles and the species it contains, the principle and the consequences which flow from it.
“Distances of time, differences of place, multiplicity of objects, can produce no confusion in their minds.
The Divine Essence, being infinite, is incomprehensible; it contains mysteries and abysses that the angels cannot fathom. The private designs of Providence are hidden from them; but the secret of those designs is revealed to them by God, when, under certain circumstances, they are called by God to announce them to humankind.
“The communications of God to the angels, and of the angels to one another are not made, as among us, by means of articulate sounds and other signs perceptible by the senses. Pure intelligences have no need of eyes to see, or of ears to hear, nor have they any vocal organ for manifesting their thought, this habitual intermediary of our communications not being needed by them; but they communicate their sentiments to one another in a way that is peculiar to themselves and altogether spiritual. In order to make themselves understood by one another, an act of their will suffices.
“God alone knows the number of angels. This number, undoubtedly, is not, and could not be, infinite; but, according to the sacred writers and doctors of the Church, it is prodigiously great. If it were natural to proportion the number of inhabitants of a city to its grandeur and extent, we must naturally conclude that, the Earth being only an atom in comparison with the firmament and the immense regions of space, the number of the inhabitants of Heaven and of the air are vastly greater than that of humankind.
“Since the majesty of kings derives its splendor from the number of their subjects, of their officers, and of their servants, what could give us a more fitting idea of the majesty of the King of kings than this innumerable multitude of angels that people Heaven and Earth, the sea and the abysses, and the dignity of those glorious beings who remain forever bowed down, or erect, about God’s throne?
“The Elders of the Church and the theologians teach, in general terms, that the angels are classed in three grand hierarchies or principalities, and each of these hierarchies, in three companies or choirs.
“Those of the first and highest hierarchy are designated according to their functions which they discharge in Heaven. Some of them are called Seraphim, because they burn, so to say, with the flame of charity kindled in their being by their contemplation of the love of God; others are called Cherubim, because they are the luminous reflex of God’s wisdom; others, again, are called Thrones, because they proclaim God’s greatness and are the manifestations of splendor.
“Those of the second hierarchy receive their names from the functions they exercise in the general government of the universe; they are, the Dominations, who assign their various missions and occupations to the angels of the lower degrees; the Virtues, who accomplish the prodigies required by the general interests of the Church and of the human race; and the Powers, who protect, by their strength and their vigilance, the laws which rule the physical and moral worlds.
“To those of the third hierarchy are entrusted the guidance of societies and of persons; they are styled Principalities, the managers of kingdoms, provinces, and dioceses; Archangels, who transmit to the world messages of high importance; and Guardian Angels, who accompany each of us throughout our earthly life, watch over our safety, and aid us in achieving our purification.”
“Such,” continues the Pastoral from which we are quoting, “is the divine plan in the work of creation; a plan at once majestic and complete, as befits the eternal wisdom. Thus conceived, this plan presents to our mind the beings of the universe at every degree and in all conditions. In the highest sphere appear existence and life of a purely spiritual nature; in the lowest rank appear existence and life of a purely physical nature: and, in the interval which separates the two, a marvelous union of those two substances, a life which is shared by an intelligent spirit and an organized body.
“Our soul is in its nature simple and indivisible; but its faculties are limited. The idea we have of perfection enables us to comprehend that there may be other beings simple and indivisible like our soul, yet superior to it in qualities and in privileges. Our soul is great and noble, but it is associated with matter, served by frail organs, limited in its action and in its power. Why should there not be other natures still nobler, free from this slavery and from these obstacles, gifted with strength and activities incomparably greater? Before God placed human beings upon the Earth to know God, to love God, and to serve God, must God not already have called other creatures into being, to form God’s celestial court and to adore God in the dwelling place of God’s glory? It is from the hands of human beings that God receives the tribute of honor and the homage of the universe; is it strange that God should receive, from the hands of angels, the incense and the prayers of humanity? If the angels did not exist, the grand work of the Creator would lack the crowning perfection of which it is susceptible; this world, which attests the infinity of God’s power, would not be the master-piece of God’s wisdom; our mere human reason, weak and feeble though it may be, might easily conceive of something better and more complete.
“At every page of the sacred books of the Old and New Testaments, mention is made of these sublime intelligences, in pious evocations, or in its historical incidents. Their intervention is manifestly shown in the lives of the patriarchs and the prophets. God employs their ministry, sometimes for the intimation of God’s will, sometimes for the announcement of events to come; God makes them, in almost every case, the organs of God’s justice or of God’s mercy. Their presence is seen in the various circumstances of the birth, the life, and the passion of the Savior; their memory is inseparable from that of the great men and women, and the most important facts of the earliest epochs of the ancient religiosity. It is found even in the bosom of polytheism, and under the fables of mythology; for the belief in their existence is as old and as universal as the world, and the worship paid by the Pagans to good and evil genii was only a false application of a truth, a degenerate reflex of the primitive dogma.
“The declarations of the holy Lateran Council contain a fundamental distinction between the angels and human beings. They teach us that the former are pure spirits, while the latter are composed of a soul and a body; that is to say, that the angelic nature is self-sustained, not only without any intermixture, but also without the possibility of any real association, with matter, no matter how light and how subtle we may suppose the latter to be, while our human soul, though also spiritual in nature, is associated with a material body in such a manner as to constitute, with that body, only a single person; and they teach us that such is essentially the destiny of the human soul.
“As long as this intimate union continues to exist between the soul and the body, these two substances have a common life and exercise a reciprocal influence on each other; the soul cannot disenfranchise itself entirely from the state of imperfection imposed upon it by this union: its ideas reach it through the senses, from the comparison of external objects, and always under images more or less apparent. Hence the impossibility, for the soul, of conceiving of itself or of God otherwise than under the guise of some visible and palpable form. For the same reasons the angels, in order to render themselves visible to the Saints and the Prophets, have necessarily assumed the appearance of corporeality; but these appearances were only aerial bodies which they moved without identifying themselves with them, or symbolical representations in harmony with the mission which they were charged to fulfill.
“Their existence and movements are not localized and circumscribed in any fixed and limited point of space. Not being attached to a body, they cannot be stopped and bounded as we are by other bodies; they occupy no space and fill no void; but, just as our soul is entirely present in our whole body and in each of its parts, so they are in their entirety, and almost simultaneously, on all points and in all parts of the world; more rapid than thought, they can operate themselves everywhere in an instant and can operate of themselves, without any other obstacle to their designs than the will of God and the resistance of human liberty.
“While we are reduced to see, only little by little and within certain limits, the things which are outside of us, and while the verities of the supernatural order appear to us as an enigma and as though seen in a mirror, according to the expression of the Apostle Paul, they see, without effort, everything that they need to know, and are in immediate relationship with the object of their thought. Their knowledge is the result, not of induction and reasoning, but of the clear and profound intuition which embraces at once the principles and the species it contains, the principle and the consequences which flow from it.
“Distances of time, differences of place, multiplicity of objects, can produce no confusion in their minds.
The Divine Essence, being infinite, is incomprehensible; it contains mysteries and abysses that the angels cannot fathom. The private designs of Providence are hidden from them; but the secret of those designs is revealed to them by God, when, under certain circumstances, they are called by God to announce them to humankind.
“The communications of God to the angels, and of the angels to one another are not made, as among us, by means of articulate sounds and other signs perceptible by the senses. Pure intelligences have no need of eyes to see, or of ears to hear, nor have they any vocal organ for manifesting their thought, this habitual intermediary of our communications not being needed by them; but they communicate their sentiments to one another in a way that is peculiar to themselves and altogether spiritual. In order to make themselves understood by one another, an act of their will suffices.
“God alone knows the number of angels. This number, undoubtedly, is not, and could not be, infinite; but, according to the sacred writers and doctors of the Church, it is prodigiously great. If it were natural to proportion the number of inhabitants of a city to its grandeur and extent, we must naturally conclude that, the Earth being only an atom in comparison with the firmament and the immense regions of space, the number of the inhabitants of Heaven and of the air are vastly greater than that of humankind.
“Since the majesty of kings derives its splendor from the number of their subjects, of their officers, and of their servants, what could give us a more fitting idea of the majesty of the King of kings than this innumerable multitude of angels that people Heaven and Earth, the sea and the abysses, and the dignity of those glorious beings who remain forever bowed down, or erect, about God’s throne?
“The Elders of the Church and the theologians teach, in general terms, that the angels are classed in three grand hierarchies or principalities, and each of these hierarchies, in three companies or choirs.
“Those of the first and highest hierarchy are designated according to their functions which they discharge in Heaven. Some of them are called Seraphim, because they burn, so to say, with the flame of charity kindled in their being by their contemplation of the love of God; others are called Cherubim, because they are the luminous reflex of God’s wisdom; others, again, are called Thrones, because they proclaim God’s greatness and are the manifestations of splendor.
“Those of the second hierarchy receive their names from the functions they exercise in the general government of the universe; they are, the Dominations, who assign their various missions and occupations to the angels of the lower degrees; the Virtues, who accomplish the prodigies required by the general interests of the Church and of the human race; and the Powers, who protect, by their strength and their vigilance, the laws which rule the physical and moral worlds.
“To those of the third hierarchy are entrusted the guidance of societies and of persons; they are styled Principalities, the managers of kingdoms, provinces, and dioceses; Archangels, who transmit to the world messages of high importance; and Guardian Angels, who accompany each of us throughout our earthly life, watch over our safety, and aid us in achieving our purification.”
REFUTATION
3. The fundamental assumption of the doctrine set forth in the preceding quotation is that the angels are beings purely spiritual, anterior, and superior, to the human race; privileged creatures destined from their formation to absolute and eternal happiness, and endowed by their very nature with the plentitude of virtue and of knowledge, without having done anything to acquire either the one or the other. They constitute the highest rank of the creation, the lowest rank being purely physical life; and between the two, is the human race, composed of souls, that is to say, of beings of a spiritual nature but inferior to the angels, united to physical bodies.
This theory is open to several very serious objections. What, in the first place, is the “purely physical life” referred to? Is it that of inanimate matter? But inanimate matter has no life of its own. Is it that of the plants and animals? But this would be to add a fourth order to the divisions of the creation already established, for it is indisputable that there is, in the intelligent animal, something that there is not in the plant, and equally indisputable that there is in the plant, something that there is not in stone. As for the human soul, it is in direct and immediate union with a body that is merely brute matter, for without a soul, the body has no more life than a clod of earth.
Such a division evidently lacks clearness and does not accord with the results of observation; it resembles the theory of the four elements that has been upset by the progress of physical science. But admitting, nevertheless, the three orders of beings assumed by the theory we are considering, viz., the spiritual, the human, and the physical, we have first to remark that there is no necessary union between these three orders, for they constitute three distinct and successive creations between each of which there is a solution of continuity; whereas everything in nature reveals the existence of an admirable law of unity, the elements of all entities being only transformations of one another, and everything being linked together into a continuous chain. The theory in question is true as regards the existence of the three orders of beings on which it is based, but it is incomplete; for it takes no note of the points of contact between them, as we are about to show.
This theory is open to several very serious objections. What, in the first place, is the “purely physical life” referred to? Is it that of inanimate matter? But inanimate matter has no life of its own. Is it that of the plants and animals? But this would be to add a fourth order to the divisions of the creation already established, for it is indisputable that there is, in the intelligent animal, something that there is not in the plant, and equally indisputable that there is in the plant, something that there is not in stone. As for the human soul, it is in direct and immediate union with a body that is merely brute matter, for without a soul, the body has no more life than a clod of earth.
Such a division evidently lacks clearness and does not accord with the results of observation; it resembles the theory of the four elements that has been upset by the progress of physical science. But admitting, nevertheless, the three orders of beings assumed by the theory we are considering, viz., the spiritual, the human, and the physical, we have first to remark that there is no necessary union between these three orders, for they constitute three distinct and successive creations between each of which there is a solution of continuity; whereas everything in nature reveals the existence of an admirable law of unity, the elements of all entities being only transformations of one another, and everything being linked together into a continuous chain. The theory in question is true as regards the existence of the three orders of beings on which it is based, but it is incomplete; for it takes no note of the points of contact between them, as we are about to show.
4. The three orders of created beings are necessary, according to the declaration of the Church, to the harmony of the universe; to suppress any one of them would be to render the work of the Creator incomplete, and to contravene the plan of the eternal wisdom. Nevertheless, one of the fundamental dogmas of the Church declares that the Earth, the animals, the plants, the sun, moon, and stars, and light itself, were created, drawn forth out of nothing, six thousand years ago. Consequently, before that epoch, there existed neither human beings nor any purely physical beings; so that, throughout the whole of the eternity of the past, the work of the Divinity had remained incomplete. The creation of the universe six thousand years ago is so strictly an article of faith among orthodox believers that, only a few years ago, science was anathematized because it had upset the chronology of the Bible by demonstrating the immense antiquity of the Earth and of its inhabitants.
Again; the Lateran Council – an Ecumenical Council whose decisions are accepted as law by the orthodox – says expressly: – “We firmly believe that there is but one sole true God, eternal and infinite, who, in the beginning of time, drew forward together, out of nothing, both orders of creatures, viz., the spiritual and the corporeal.” “The beginning of time” can only be understood, as referring to some epoch in the past, for time is infinite, like space; and “the beginning of time” is therefore merely a figure of speech implying some undefined anteriority. The Lateran Council, then, “firmly believes” that the spiritual and corporeal beings were created simultaneously, and that they “were drawn forth together, out of nothing,” at some undetermined epoch in the past. But, in that case, what becomes of the text of the Bible, which fixes the date of this creation at six thousand (of our) years ago? Even if we admit that date as the beginning of the visible universe, it certainly could not be “the beginning of time.” Which of these two statements are we to believe, that of the Council, or that of the Bible?
Again; the Lateran Council – an Ecumenical Council whose decisions are accepted as law by the orthodox – says expressly: – “We firmly believe that there is but one sole true God, eternal and infinite, who, in the beginning of time, drew forward together, out of nothing, both orders of creatures, viz., the spiritual and the corporeal.” “The beginning of time” can only be understood, as referring to some epoch in the past, for time is infinite, like space; and “the beginning of time” is therefore merely a figure of speech implying some undefined anteriority. The Lateran Council, then, “firmly believes” that the spiritual and corporeal beings were created simultaneously, and that they “were drawn forth together, out of nothing,” at some undetermined epoch in the past. But, in that case, what becomes of the text of the Bible, which fixes the date of this creation at six thousand (of our) years ago? Even if we admit that date as the beginning of the visible universe, it certainly could not be “the beginning of time.” Which of these two statements are we to believe, that of the Council, or that of the Bible?
5. The same Council, moreover, laid down the following strange proposition: “Our soul,” says the ecclesiastical authority referred to, “equally spiritual (i.e., of a nature equally spiritual as the nature of the angels), is associated with the body in such a manner as to form with it only one and the same person, and such is essentially its destination.” If the soul’s essential destiny is to be united to the body, this union constitutes its normal state, its aim, its end, since such is its “destination.” But the soul is immortal and the body is mortal; its union with the body takes place according to the Church, but once, and even if it were prolonged for a century, what is such a span of time in comparison with eternity? For a great number of human beings, the union of the soul and body is only of a few hours; of what use can so ephemeral a union be to the soul? If, in comparison with eternity, the longest duration of the union of soul and body is a mere nothing, can it be correct to say that its essential destination is to be united with the body? The truth is that the union of the soul and body is but an incident, a speck, in the life of the soul, and not its “essential” state.
If it were the essential destination of the soul to be united to a material body; – if, in virtue of its nature and in accordance with the aim of Providence in its creation, this union is necessary to the manifestation of its faculties – it follows that, without the body, the human soul is an incomplete being; consequently, in order for the soul to remain what it is destined to be, it must necessarily, on quitting its material body, take another body of the same nature, which leads us inevitably to the doctrine of the plurality of existences, in other words, to the doctrine of the reincarnation of the soul, forever, in a succession of material bodies. It is really strange that a Council which is considered to be one of the lights of the Church should have so completely mixed up the spiritual being with the material being that the one cannot be conceived of as existing without the other, since the “essential” condition of their creation is to be united.
If it were the essential destination of the soul to be united to a material body; – if, in virtue of its nature and in accordance with the aim of Providence in its creation, this union is necessary to the manifestation of its faculties – it follows that, without the body, the human soul is an incomplete being; consequently, in order for the soul to remain what it is destined to be, it must necessarily, on quitting its material body, take another body of the same nature, which leads us inevitably to the doctrine of the plurality of existences, in other words, to the doctrine of the reincarnation of the soul, forever, in a succession of material bodies. It is really strange that a Council which is considered to be one of the lights of the Church should have so completely mixed up the spiritual being with the material being that the one cannot be conceived of as existing without the other, since the “essential” condition of their creation is to be united.
6. The hierarchical picture of the angels, informs us that several orders of those beings are charged, in virtue of their attributes, with the government of the physical universe and of the human race, and that they were created for the purpose of doing this work. But, according to the Book of Genesis, the material world and the human race have only been in existence for six thousand years; what then, did the angels do before that epoch, through the eternity of the Past, seeing that the object for which they were created was not in existence? Have the angels existed from all eternity? It is to be supposed so, since we are assured by the Church that they serve for the glorification of the Almighty; for, if they were created at any given epoch in the past, God must have remained, previously to that epoch – that is to say, throughout an eternity – without worshippers.
7. Further on, we find, in the Pastoral referred to, these words: “As long as this intimate union of soul and body lasts.” Does there come, then, a moment when this union exists no longer? But this admission contradicts the declaration of the Lateran Council that this union is the “essential destination” of the soul.
The Prelate, summing up the views of the Christian Church, asserts, still further: “Ideas reach the soul through the senses, by the comparison of external objects.” This is a philosophic doctrine that is true to a certain extent, but not absolutely. According to the eminent theologian, it is a condition inherent in the nature of the soul not to receive any ideas otherwise than through the senses; he forgets the innate ideas, the faculties in some cases so transcendently developed, the intuitive knowledge of certain things, which some children bring with them at birth, and which they manifest without having received any instruction in regard to them. By which of the senses is it that children, who have exhibited the ability of natural arithmeticians and algebraists, and who have excited the wonder of the learned world, acquired the ideas necessary for the almost instantaneous solution of the most complicated problems? The same query has to be answered in regard to the various youthful musicians, painters, and linguists.
“The knowledge possessed by the angels,” says the Pastoral in question, “is not the result of induction and reasoning;” they know because they are angels, without having had any need of learning; God created them like this: the human soul, on the contrary, has to learn. If the soul receives ideas only through the bodily organs, what ideas can be possessed by the soul of an infant who died after a few days of life, if we suppose, with the Church, that he or she will not be born again into the earthly life?
The Prelate, summing up the views of the Christian Church, asserts, still further: “Ideas reach the soul through the senses, by the comparison of external objects.” This is a philosophic doctrine that is true to a certain extent, but not absolutely. According to the eminent theologian, it is a condition inherent in the nature of the soul not to receive any ideas otherwise than through the senses; he forgets the innate ideas, the faculties in some cases so transcendently developed, the intuitive knowledge of certain things, which some children bring with them at birth, and which they manifest without having received any instruction in regard to them. By which of the senses is it that children, who have exhibited the ability of natural arithmeticians and algebraists, and who have excited the wonder of the learned world, acquired the ideas necessary for the almost instantaneous solution of the most complicated problems? The same query has to be answered in regard to the various youthful musicians, painters, and linguists.
“The knowledge possessed by the angels,” says the Pastoral in question, “is not the result of induction and reasoning;” they know because they are angels, without having had any need of learning; God created them like this: the human soul, on the contrary, has to learn. If the soul receives ideas only through the bodily organs, what ideas can be possessed by the soul of an infant who died after a few days of life, if we suppose, with the Church, that he or she will not be born again into the earthly life?
8. We have here to consider a question of vital importance: – Does the soul acquire ideas and knowledge after the death of the body? If the soul can acquire nothing when separated from the body, that of the child, the savage, the idiot, the ignorant, will remain forever just what it was at death; in which case it is condemned to nullity throughout eternity.
If, on the contrary, it acquires knowledge after the close of the earthly life, it is evident that it can progress when separated from the body. The denial of the possibility of the soul’s progress after death leads to absurd consequences; the admission of the soul’s progress after death is the negation of all the dogmas based on the assumption of its stationary condition, of irrevocable condemnation, of eternal punishment, etc. But, if the soul can progress at all after death, what limit is there to its possibilities of progress? If it can go forward a single step, there is no reason why it should not continue to progress until it reaches the degree of angels or Pure Spirits. If the human soul can thus attain to the rank of angelhood, there was no need to create special beings to fill that rank, beings distinguished by special privileges, exempted from all labor, and enjoying eternal happiness without having done anything to earn it, while other beings, less favored only obtain the supreme felicity through long and cruel sufferings, and as the result of heavy trials. God could, doubtless, have created such privileged beings had God chosen to do so; but if we admit the infinity of God’s perfections, without which God would not be God, we must also admit that God does nothing useless, nothing that would contradict God’s sovereign justice and God’s sovereign goodness.
If, on the contrary, it acquires knowledge after the close of the earthly life, it is evident that it can progress when separated from the body. The denial of the possibility of the soul’s progress after death leads to absurd consequences; the admission of the soul’s progress after death is the negation of all the dogmas based on the assumption of its stationary condition, of irrevocable condemnation, of eternal punishment, etc. But, if the soul can progress at all after death, what limit is there to its possibilities of progress? If it can go forward a single step, there is no reason why it should not continue to progress until it reaches the degree of angels or Pure Spirits. If the human soul can thus attain to the rank of angelhood, there was no need to create special beings to fill that rank, beings distinguished by special privileges, exempted from all labor, and enjoying eternal happiness without having done anything to earn it, while other beings, less favored only obtain the supreme felicity through long and cruel sufferings, and as the result of heavy trials. God could, doubtless, have created such privileged beings had God chosen to do so; but if we admit the infinity of God’s perfections, without which God would not be God, we must also admit that God does nothing useless, nothing that would contradict God’s sovereign justice and God’s sovereign goodness.
9. “Since the majesty of kings,” continues the Prelate, “derives its splendor from the number of their subjects, of their officers, and of their servants, what could give us a more fitting idea of the majesty of the King of kings than this innumerable multitude of angels that people Heaven and Earth, the sea and the abysses, and the dignity of those glorious beings who remain, forever, bowed down, or erect, about God’ s throne?”
But do we not abase the Divinity by thus assimilating God’s glory to the pomp of earthly sovereigns? The inculcation of such an idea in the ignorant minds of the masses gives them an utterly false impression in regard to God’s greatness; while, to represent that Being as requiring to have millions of worshipers remaining “forever, bowed down, or erect, about God’s throne,” is to attribute to God the weakness, vanity, and haughtiness of Oriental despots. And what is it, in point of fact, that renders even earthly sovereigns veritably great? Is it the number and splendor of their courtiers? No; it is their goodness, their justice, their devotion to the interests of their subjects; it is to earn the title of “Father of their country.” We are asked whether anything “can give us a more fitting idea of the majesty of God, than the multitude of angels composing God’s court?” We reply, Yes, certainly, there is something much better calculated to do so; it is to represent the Divine Being as supremely good, just, and merciful for all God’s creatures, instead of representing God as an angry, jealous, vindictive, inexorable, exterminating, and partial God, creating, for God’s own personal glory one set of creatures whom God loads with the most splendid privileges and favors in every possible way, bestowing on them eternal felicity as their birthright, while God creates another set of creatures under diametrically opposite conditions, compelling them to purchase their eventual happiness at the cost of long and terrible sufferings, and punishing a momentary error on their part with an eternity of torture!
But do we not abase the Divinity by thus assimilating God’s glory to the pomp of earthly sovereigns? The inculcation of such an idea in the ignorant minds of the masses gives them an utterly false impression in regard to God’s greatness; while, to represent that Being as requiring to have millions of worshipers remaining “forever, bowed down, or erect, about God’s throne,” is to attribute to God the weakness, vanity, and haughtiness of Oriental despots. And what is it, in point of fact, that renders even earthly sovereigns veritably great? Is it the number and splendor of their courtiers? No; it is their goodness, their justice, their devotion to the interests of their subjects; it is to earn the title of “Father of their country.” We are asked whether anything “can give us a more fitting idea of the majesty of God, than the multitude of angels composing God’s court?” We reply, Yes, certainly, there is something much better calculated to do so; it is to represent the Divine Being as supremely good, just, and merciful for all God’s creatures, instead of representing God as an angry, jealous, vindictive, inexorable, exterminating, and partial God, creating, for God’s own personal glory one set of creatures whom God loads with the most splendid privileges and favors in every possible way, bestowing on them eternal felicity as their birthright, while God creates another set of creatures under diametrically opposite conditions, compelling them to purchase their eventual happiness at the cost of long and terrible sufferings, and punishing a momentary error on their part with an eternity of torture!
10. Spiritism professes, in regard to the union of the soul and body, a doctrine that is infinitely more spiritualistic, not to say, less materialistic, a doctrine which has, moreover, the merit of being in conformity with what observation has shown us to be the destiny of the soul. According to this doctrine, the soul is independent of the body, which is only its temporary garment; its essence is spirituality; its normal life is the life of the spirit-world. The body is merely an instrument for the exercise of its faculties in connection with the material world; but, when separated from the body, it uses its faculties with greater freedom and wider scope.
11. The union of the soul with a material body, though necessary to its progress in the early stages of its development, only takes place during the period which may be termed its infancy and youth; when it has attained to a certain degree of purification and dematerialization, this union is no longer needed by the soul, which thenceforth continues to progress in spirit-life. However numerous may be the corporeal existences of the soul, those existences are necessarily limited to the life of its successive bodies; and the sum total of those existences only comprises in any case an imperceptible fraction of the life of the soul, which is without end.
ANGELS ACCORDING TO SPIRITISM
12. That there are beings endowed with all the qualities commonly attributed to angels cannot be, for those who admit the existence and progress of the soul, a matter of doubt. The spiritist revelation confirms on this point the belief of all peoples; but it also shows us the nature and origin of those beings.
Souls, or spirits, are created simple and ignorant, that is to say, without knowledge and without the consciousness of good and evil, but with the aptitude of acquiring, in knowledge and in morality, all that they lack, and which they will acquire through effort and labor. The aim of their creation – which is the attainment of perfection – is the same for all; but they attain this aim more or less quickly, in virtue of their free will and in proportion to the amount of their personal effort. All souls have the same degrees to pass through, the same task to accomplish. God does not grant larger means or an easier task to some than to others, because all of them are God’s children, and because, being just, God has no preference for any of them. God says to them all: – “I have established a law that is to be your rule of action; it, alone, can lead you to the aim of your being. Whatever is in conformity with this law is good; whatever is contrary to this law is evil. You are free to obey this law or to violate it; and you will thus be the arbiters of your own fate.” It is not God who has created evil; all God’s laws tend to ensure the happiness of God’s creatures: it is human beings, themselves, who create evil by infringing the laws of God; if they scrupulously obeyed those laws, they would never deviate from the path of rectitude and of happiness.
Souls, or spirits, are created simple and ignorant, that is to say, without knowledge and without the consciousness of good and evil, but with the aptitude of acquiring, in knowledge and in morality, all that they lack, and which they will acquire through effort and labor. The aim of their creation – which is the attainment of perfection – is the same for all; but they attain this aim more or less quickly, in virtue of their free will and in proportion to the amount of their personal effort. All souls have the same degrees to pass through, the same task to accomplish. God does not grant larger means or an easier task to some than to others, because all of them are God’s children, and because, being just, God has no preference for any of them. God says to them all: – “I have established a law that is to be your rule of action; it, alone, can lead you to the aim of your being. Whatever is in conformity with this law is good; whatever is contrary to this law is evil. You are free to obey this law or to violate it; and you will thus be the arbiters of your own fate.” It is not God who has created evil; all God’s laws tend to ensure the happiness of God’s creatures: it is human beings, themselves, who create evil by infringing the laws of God; if they scrupulously obeyed those laws, they would never deviate from the path of rectitude and of happiness.
13. But the soul, in the early phases of its existence, is like a child, lacking experience; it is, therefore, subject to error. God does not give the soul experience, but God gives it the means of acquiring experience; every false step taken by the soul on the road of evil, keeps it back; it undergoes the consequences of this delay, but it is by means of those consequences that it learns, at its own expense, what it must avoid. It is thus that, little by little, the soul acquires development, effects its own improvement, and advances in the spiritual hierarchy, until it has reached the state of fully purified Spirit or Angel. The angels, then, are the souls of human beings who have reached the highest degree of perfection attainable by created existences, and who have entered upon the full enjoyment of the felicity for which they were created. Before attaining to the supreme degree, they enjoy degrees of happiness proportioned to their degree of advancement, but their happiness is never that of idleness, as it consists in the functions to which they are called by the Almighty and which they rejoice to discharge, because the occupations of spirits are, for them, a means of progressing.
14. The human race is not restricted to the Earth; it occupies the innumerable globes that revolve in space. It has occupied those that have already disappeared in the eternity of the past; it will occupy those that will come into existence in the eternity of the future. God has always created, creates incessantly, and will always continue to create. Consequently, long before the Earth existed, however ancient we may suppose it to be, other spirits had already been incarnated on other globes, had accomplished the same stages of development that we, spirits of a later formation, are now accomplishing, and had thus reached the supreme degree before we had issued from the hands of the Creator. From all eternity, therefore, there have always been “angels” or fully purified spirits; but, as the human phase of their development is lost in the night of ages, it seems to us as though they had always been “angels.”
15. Thus the grand law of the unity of the Creation is maintained inviolate. As God has never been inactive, there have always been fully-purified spirits who had already reached the “angelic” degree through trial, effort, and enlightenment, and had thus become fitted to transmit the volitions of the Almighty for the administration of every department of the universe, from the government of worlds to the management of the minutest details of their economy. There was, consequently, no need to create a class of privileged beings, exempted from the vicissitudes, necessities, and occupations imposed upon all the others; all the beings of the universe have won their respective grades through struggle and as the reward of their own merits; finally, all of them, from the oldest to the youngest, are the artisans of their own destiny. Thus is achieved the sovereign justice of God.
CHAPTER IX - DEMONS
ORIGIN OF THE BELIEF IN DEMONS
1. Demons have played, in all ages, a conspicuous part in the various theogonies; and, although their hold on the general imagination is somewhat loosened at the present day, the influence which so many people still attribute to them suffices to render the question of their existence and nature one of no little importance, because it touches the very groundwork of religious belief; for which reason it behooves us to examine this question with all the carefulness demanded by its scope and bearing.
The belief in a power superior to itself is instinctive in the human mind, and it is consequently found under different forms in all ages of the world. But if, notwithstanding the higher degree of intellectual advancement which men have reached at the present day, they are still disputing about the nature and attributes of that power, how much more imperfect must have been their notions concerning it in the infancy of the human race!
The belief in a power superior to itself is instinctive in the human mind, and it is consequently found under different forms in all ages of the world. But if, notwithstanding the higher degree of intellectual advancement which men have reached at the present day, they are still disputing about the nature and attributes of that power, how much more imperfect must have been their notions concerning it in the infancy of the human race!
2. The picture that has been drawn of the innocence of the primitive peoples of the globe, absorbed in appreciative contemplation of the beauties of nature, is undoubtedly very poetic, but it lacks truthfulness.
The nearer human beings are to the state of nature, the more completely are they under the sway of instinct, as is still the case with savages and barbarians of the present day; what interests such individuals most, or rather, what interests them exclusively, is the satisfaction of their physical needs, for they have no others. The special sense which alone can render them susceptible of mental pleasures is only developed gradually and in the course of time; the soul has its infancy, its youth, and its maturity, like the human body; but, in order to attain to the maturity which fits it for the comprehension of things of an abstract nature, how many evolutions must it accomplish in the human form! Through how many existences must it work out its progressive development!
Without going back to the earliest ages, we have only to look around us upon the rustics of our rural regions, in order to satisfy ourselves as to the amount of admiration awakened in their minds by the splendors of sunrise, the sublimity of the starry sky, the warbling of the birds, the murmur of the brook, the beauty of the meadows enameled with flowers! Their only thought about the rising of the sun is that it rises because it is in the habit of doing so, and, provided it gives heat enough to ripen the crops and not enough to burn them up, that is all they think about the matter. If they look up in the sky, it is to see what sort of weather they are likely to have on the morrow; whether the birds sing or not is all one to them, so long as they do not devour their grain; they prefer the clucking of their hens and the grunting of their pigs to the song of the nightingale; all they ask of the brook, be it clear or muddy, is not to dry up and not to overflow their fields, and, if these only yield good grass for their cattle and sheep, they care nothing whatever about the flowers; the success of their farming operations is all they ask – it is all they understand – of Nature; and yet they are already very far above the level of the primitive races!
The nearer human beings are to the state of nature, the more completely are they under the sway of instinct, as is still the case with savages and barbarians of the present day; what interests such individuals most, or rather, what interests them exclusively, is the satisfaction of their physical needs, for they have no others. The special sense which alone can render them susceptible of mental pleasures is only developed gradually and in the course of time; the soul has its infancy, its youth, and its maturity, like the human body; but, in order to attain to the maturity which fits it for the comprehension of things of an abstract nature, how many evolutions must it accomplish in the human form! Through how many existences must it work out its progressive development!
Without going back to the earliest ages, we have only to look around us upon the rustics of our rural regions, in order to satisfy ourselves as to the amount of admiration awakened in their minds by the splendors of sunrise, the sublimity of the starry sky, the warbling of the birds, the murmur of the brook, the beauty of the meadows enameled with flowers! Their only thought about the rising of the sun is that it rises because it is in the habit of doing so, and, provided it gives heat enough to ripen the crops and not enough to burn them up, that is all they think about the matter. If they look up in the sky, it is to see what sort of weather they are likely to have on the morrow; whether the birds sing or not is all one to them, so long as they do not devour their grain; they prefer the clucking of their hens and the grunting of their pigs to the song of the nightingale; all they ask of the brook, be it clear or muddy, is not to dry up and not to overflow their fields, and, if these only yield good grass for their cattle and sheep, they care nothing whatever about the flowers; the success of their farming operations is all they ask – it is all they understand – of Nature; and yet they are already very far above the level of the primitive races!
3. If we carry back our thought to the latter, we find them still more exclusively absorbed in the satisfying of their physical wants; what sub-serves this end, and what contravenes it, constitutes for them the entire sum of “good” and of “evil.” They believe in the existence of a superhuman power; but, as they are most impressed by whatever causes them some physical or worldly injury, they attribute all such occurrences to that power, of which, nevertheless, they have only a very vague idea.
Not being yet capable of conceiving of anything beyond the visible and tangible world, they imagine that power to reside in the beings and the things that are injurious to them. They therefore, regard ferocious or mischievous animals as being the direct and natural representatives of the occult power that they recognize without understanding it. For the same reason, whatever is useful to them is regarded as being the personification of a beneficent power; hence the worship rendered to certain animals, to certain plants, and even to inanimate objects. But humankind, as a general rule, are more keenly alive to evil than good; whatever is beneficial seems to them to be perfectly natural, whereas what is injurious seems to them abnormal and consequently affects them more sensibly. For this reason we find, in all the primitive forms of worship, that the ceremonies in honor of the maleficent power are much more numerous than those which are performed in honor of the beneficent one, the empire of fear in the primitive mind, being much stronger than that of gratitude.
For a long time, the human race knew nothing of “good” or “evil” excepting as connected with physical conditions; the awakening of the perception of moral good and moral evil marked the attainment of a new degree of progress by the human intellect. It was only when this step had been made that the human mind obtained a glimpse of spirituality, and began to understand that the superhuman power does not reside in any of the objects of the material universe, but exists outside the boundaries of the visible and the tangible. This conviction was arrived at by the most advanced intelligences of the ancient world; but even those intelligences were unable to carry their speculations and inductions beyond certain narrow limits.
Not being yet capable of conceiving of anything beyond the visible and tangible world, they imagine that power to reside in the beings and the things that are injurious to them. They therefore, regard ferocious or mischievous animals as being the direct and natural representatives of the occult power that they recognize without understanding it. For the same reason, whatever is useful to them is regarded as being the personification of a beneficent power; hence the worship rendered to certain animals, to certain plants, and even to inanimate objects. But humankind, as a general rule, are more keenly alive to evil than good; whatever is beneficial seems to them to be perfectly natural, whereas what is injurious seems to them abnormal and consequently affects them more sensibly. For this reason we find, in all the primitive forms of worship, that the ceremonies in honor of the maleficent power are much more numerous than those which are performed in honor of the beneficent one, the empire of fear in the primitive mind, being much stronger than that of gratitude.
For a long time, the human race knew nothing of “good” or “evil” excepting as connected with physical conditions; the awakening of the perception of moral good and moral evil marked the attainment of a new degree of progress by the human intellect. It was only when this step had been made that the human mind obtained a glimpse of spirituality, and began to understand that the superhuman power does not reside in any of the objects of the material universe, but exists outside the boundaries of the visible and the tangible. This conviction was arrived at by the most advanced intelligences of the ancient world; but even those intelligences were unable to carry their speculations and inductions beyond certain narrow limits.
4. As, on the other hand, human beings perceived the fact of an incessant struggle between good and evil and saw that the latter frequently triumphed over the former, and as, on the other hand, they could not rationally admit that evil was the work of a beneficent power, they naturally concluded that there were two rival powers, sharing between them the government of the world. Thence arose the doctrine of the two principles, that of good and that of evil; a doctrine reasonable for the period in which it took its rise, for the human mind had not then acquired the capacity of conceiving of anything higher, and of divining the existence of the Supreme Being as beyond, and above, the strife of opposing principles. How could such primitive humans have possibly understood that evil is only a passing phase from which a greater good is to be developed, and that the evils which afflict the human race must necessarily lead it on to happiness, by compelling it to move forward on the path of progress? The narrowness of their mental horizons prevented them seeing anything beyond their present lives, either before or behind them; they could neither comprehend that they had already progressed nor that they would continue to progress; still less could they see that the vicissitudes of life are the result of the imperfections of the spiritual being which animates the body, which is pre- existent to and survives the external form, and that it is the destiny of this being to refine itself by passing through a series of successive existences until it has attained to the state of perfect purity. In order to comprehend that good can be brought out of evil, it is necessary to see more than a single existence and to contemplate the career of the soul in its totality; for it is only this broad view of the matter that can enable us to comprehend the causes and the effects of the vicissitudes of human existence.
5. The recognition of the two principles of good and evil constituted, during many ages and under different names, the basis of all the religious creeds of the world. These two principles were personified under various names, as Oromaze and Ahriman among the Persians, Jehovah and Satan among the Hebrews, etc. But, as every sovereign must have his Ministers, all those creeds admitted the existence of secondary powers, or genii, of which some were supposed to be good and others to be evil. The Pagans personified these genii in an innumerable multitude of individualities, each of whom possessed special attributes of vice or of virtue, and all of whom were classed under the generic name of “gods.” The Hebrews personified these secondary powers under the designations of “angels” and “devils,” which have been subsequently borrowed from them by the Christians and Muslims.
6. The doctrine of devils or demons, then, has grown out of the ancient belief in the two principles of good and evil. We will examine that doctrine only from the Christian point of view, and inquire whether, as embodied in the creed of Christendom, that doctrine is conformable with the clearer knowledge that, at the present day, we have acquired in relation to the attributes of the Divine Being.
The idea which we form to ourselves of those attributes is necessarily the starting-point, the basis, of our religious belief; dogmas, modes of worship, ceremonies, usages, codes of morality, all are shaped by the idea, more or less true, more or less lofty, which we make to ourselves of God, from the lowest form of fetishism to the purest conception of Christianity. Although the essential nature of the Divine Being is still a mystery unfathomable to our human intelligence, it is nonetheless true that, thanks to the teachings of Christ, we are able to form for ourselves a clearer conception of the moral attributes of that Being than was possible in the earlier period of the world’s development. Those teachings, in accordance with the inductions of reason, assure us that: –
God is one, unique, eternal, unchangeable, non-material, almighty, sovereignly just and good, infinite in His perfections.
As we have shown elsewhere (chap. VI. Eternal Punishment, Item 10), “The attributes of God, being infinite, are not susceptible of increasing or of diminishing; otherwise, they would not be infinite, and God would not be perfect. If the smallest particle were taken from any one of God’s attributes, God would no longer be God, for there might be some other being more perfect than the one we call God.” These attributes, in their most complete and absolute plentitude, are therefore the criteria of all religions, the test of the truth of each of the doctrines taught by them. No doctrine of any religious creed can be true if it were in contradiction with any of the perfections of God. Let us see whether the doctrine of demons, as commonly taught by the various churches of Christendom, can stand the application of this test.
The idea which we form to ourselves of those attributes is necessarily the starting-point, the basis, of our religious belief; dogmas, modes of worship, ceremonies, usages, codes of morality, all are shaped by the idea, more or less true, more or less lofty, which we make to ourselves of God, from the lowest form of fetishism to the purest conception of Christianity. Although the essential nature of the Divine Being is still a mystery unfathomable to our human intelligence, it is nonetheless true that, thanks to the teachings of Christ, we are able to form for ourselves a clearer conception of the moral attributes of that Being than was possible in the earlier period of the world’s development. Those teachings, in accordance with the inductions of reason, assure us that: –
God is one, unique, eternal, unchangeable, non-material, almighty, sovereignly just and good, infinite in His perfections.
As we have shown elsewhere (chap. VI. Eternal Punishment, Item 10), “The attributes of God, being infinite, are not susceptible of increasing or of diminishing; otherwise, they would not be infinite, and God would not be perfect. If the smallest particle were taken from any one of God’s attributes, God would no longer be God, for there might be some other being more perfect than the one we call God.” These attributes, in their most complete and absolute plentitude, are therefore the criteria of all religions, the test of the truth of each of the doctrines taught by them. No doctrine of any religious creed can be true if it were in contradiction with any of the perfections of God. Let us see whether the doctrine of demons, as commonly taught by the various churches of Christendom, can stand the application of this test.
DEMONS ACCORDING TO THE CHURCH
7. According to the Church, Satan, the Chief or King of the Demons (or Devils) is not an allegorical personification of the principle of evil, but is, on the contrary, a real being doing nothing but evil, while God, on the other hand, does nothing but good. Let us, therefore, examine the being thus presented to us, with the characteristics attributed to him by those who represent him as a real, living, active personality. Has Satan existed from all eternity, like God, or is he posterior to God? If he has existed from all eternity, he is increate, i.e. not created, and is consequently equal with God. In that case, God is no longer one, unique; there is the God of Good and the God of Evil.
Is he posterior to God? If so, he is a creature of God, in which case, as he does nothing but evil and is incapable of doing good or of repenting, God has voluntarily created a being doomed to do evil for all eternity. Even admitting that evil is not the work of God, yet, if it be the work of one of God’s creatures who has been predetermined by God to do evil, God is nonetheless the author of evil, and, if so, God is not infinitely good. The same reasoning holds true in relation to all the evil beings designated as “devils” or “demons.”
Is he posterior to God? If so, he is a creature of God, in which case, as he does nothing but evil and is incapable of doing good or of repenting, God has voluntarily created a being doomed to do evil for all eternity. Even admitting that evil is not the work of God, yet, if it be the work of one of God’s creatures who has been predetermined by God to do evil, God is nonetheless the author of evil, and, if so, God is not infinitely good. The same reasoning holds true in relation to all the evil beings designated as “devils” or “demons.”
8. The view of the nature of Satan and his servants just examined was, for a long time, the belief inculcated by the Church in regard to them. At the present day, the belief in regard to demons is as follows: *
“God, being essential goodness and essential holiness, did not create them evil and maleficent. God’s beneficent hand, whose pleasure it is to bestow on its entire works a reflex of God’s infinite perfections, had originally laden them with the most magnificent gifts. To the super eminent qualities of their nature, God added munificence of God’s favor. God made them in all respects similar to the sublime spirits who inhabit the region of glory and felicity; disseminated among all the orders of those glorious spirits and mingled with all their ranks, they were called to the same aim and the same destiny; their Chief was the most beautiful of the archangels. They might all have merited remaining forever in the path of righteousness, and might thus have obtained admission to the enjoyment of the eternal happiness of Heaven. This last favor would have been the crown of all the other favors of which they had been the objects; but it was to be the reward of their docility, and they rendered themselves unworthy of it, and lost it by a revolt equally audacious and insensate.
“What was the rock on which their perseverance was wrecked? Of what truth did they lose sight? What act of faith or of adoration did they refuse to God? The Church and the annals of Sacred History do not enlighten us explicitly in regard to these points; but it appears certain that they failed to acquiesce in the meditation of the Son of God for themselves, and in the exaltation of the human nature of Jesus Christ.
“The Divine Word, by whom all things were made, is also the sole Mediator and Savior in Heaven and upon the Earth. The supernatural destiny of an eternal existence has only been granted to angels and to human beings in view of the incarnation and merits of the Divine Word; for there is no proportion between the merits of the most eminent spirits and the recompense of eternal life, which is a sharing of the attributes of God Himself; no creature could have attained to such an exaltation but for the intervention of this marvelous and sublime charity of the Son of God. But, in order that the latter should bridge over the infinite distance which separates the Divine Essence from the creatures which are the works of its hands, it was necessary that the Word should unite in His own person the two extremes, that He should associate His Divinity with the nature of the angels or with the nature of men; and He chose the latter.
“This intention, conceived from all eternity, was revealed to the angels long before its accomplishment; the God-Man was shown to them in the future as He who was to confirm them in grace and to introduce them into glory, on condition that they should adore Him on the Earth during His mission, and in Heaven throughout the ages of eternity. An unhoped-for Revelation, a wonderful Vision, ravishingly delightful for all generous and grateful hearts; but a profound mystery, overwhelming for the pride of arrogant and haughty spirits! The supernatural endowment, the immense weight of glory, thus offered to their acceptance, was not, then, to be simply and solely the recompense of their personal merits! They could never, throughout eternity, attribute to themselves the title and the possession of this immense and magnificent endowment! A Mediator between them and God! What an insult to their dignity! ,What an injustice to themselves! What an infringement of their rights that this preference was gratuitously accorded to the human race! Were they, one day, to behold the human nature, so inferior to their own, deified by its union with the Word, and seated at the right hand of God, on a throne of resplendent glory? Should they consent to offer eternally, to that lower nature their homage and their adoration?
“Lucifer and the third part of the angels succumbed to these proud and jealous thoughts. Saint Michael, and with him the greater number of angels, exclaimed, ‘who is like unto God? God is the Master of God’s gifts, and the Sovereign Lord of all things! Glory to God and to the Lamb that is to be slain for the salvation of the world!’ But the Chief of the rebels, forgetting that it was to his Creator he owed his nobility and his prerogatives, listened only to his own rash anger, and cried, ‘It is I, myself, who will ascend into Heaven; I will establish my dwelling above the stars; I will seat myself on the Mount of Alliance, on the flanks of the North wind; I will rise above the highest clouds, and I will be as the Almighty!’ Those who shared his sentiments received his words with a murmur of applause; he found sympathizers in every rank of the hierarchy; but their numbers did not screen them from the chastisement they had incurred by their rebellion.”
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* The following quotations are taken from the Lenten-Pastoral of Cardinal Gousset, Archbishop of Rheims, for 1865. From the personal worth and exalted position of the author here quoted, these extracts may be regarded as expressing the latest opinion of the Catholic Church upon the subject of demons; an opinion shared by all the orthodox churches of Christendom.
“God, being essential goodness and essential holiness, did not create them evil and maleficent. God’s beneficent hand, whose pleasure it is to bestow on its entire works a reflex of God’s infinite perfections, had originally laden them with the most magnificent gifts. To the super eminent qualities of their nature, God added munificence of God’s favor. God made them in all respects similar to the sublime spirits who inhabit the region of glory and felicity; disseminated among all the orders of those glorious spirits and mingled with all their ranks, they were called to the same aim and the same destiny; their Chief was the most beautiful of the archangels. They might all have merited remaining forever in the path of righteousness, and might thus have obtained admission to the enjoyment of the eternal happiness of Heaven. This last favor would have been the crown of all the other favors of which they had been the objects; but it was to be the reward of their docility, and they rendered themselves unworthy of it, and lost it by a revolt equally audacious and insensate.
“What was the rock on which their perseverance was wrecked? Of what truth did they lose sight? What act of faith or of adoration did they refuse to God? The Church and the annals of Sacred History do not enlighten us explicitly in regard to these points; but it appears certain that they failed to acquiesce in the meditation of the Son of God for themselves, and in the exaltation of the human nature of Jesus Christ.
“The Divine Word, by whom all things were made, is also the sole Mediator and Savior in Heaven and upon the Earth. The supernatural destiny of an eternal existence has only been granted to angels and to human beings in view of the incarnation and merits of the Divine Word; for there is no proportion between the merits of the most eminent spirits and the recompense of eternal life, which is a sharing of the attributes of God Himself; no creature could have attained to such an exaltation but for the intervention of this marvelous and sublime charity of the Son of God. But, in order that the latter should bridge over the infinite distance which separates the Divine Essence from the creatures which are the works of its hands, it was necessary that the Word should unite in His own person the two extremes, that He should associate His Divinity with the nature of the angels or with the nature of men; and He chose the latter.
“This intention, conceived from all eternity, was revealed to the angels long before its accomplishment; the God-Man was shown to them in the future as He who was to confirm them in grace and to introduce them into glory, on condition that they should adore Him on the Earth during His mission, and in Heaven throughout the ages of eternity. An unhoped-for Revelation, a wonderful Vision, ravishingly delightful for all generous and grateful hearts; but a profound mystery, overwhelming for the pride of arrogant and haughty spirits! The supernatural endowment, the immense weight of glory, thus offered to their acceptance, was not, then, to be simply and solely the recompense of their personal merits! They could never, throughout eternity, attribute to themselves the title and the possession of this immense and magnificent endowment! A Mediator between them and God! What an insult to their dignity! ,What an injustice to themselves! What an infringement of their rights that this preference was gratuitously accorded to the human race! Were they, one day, to behold the human nature, so inferior to their own, deified by its union with the Word, and seated at the right hand of God, on a throne of resplendent glory? Should they consent to offer eternally, to that lower nature their homage and their adoration?
“Lucifer and the third part of the angels succumbed to these proud and jealous thoughts. Saint Michael, and with him the greater number of angels, exclaimed, ‘who is like unto God? God is the Master of God’s gifts, and the Sovereign Lord of all things! Glory to God and to the Lamb that is to be slain for the salvation of the world!’ But the Chief of the rebels, forgetting that it was to his Creator he owed his nobility and his prerogatives, listened only to his own rash anger, and cried, ‘It is I, myself, who will ascend into Heaven; I will establish my dwelling above the stars; I will seat myself on the Mount of Alliance, on the flanks of the North wind; I will rise above the highest clouds, and I will be as the Almighty!’ Those who shared his sentiments received his words with a murmur of applause; he found sympathizers in every rank of the hierarchy; but their numbers did not screen them from the chastisement they had incurred by their rebellion.”
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* The following quotations are taken from the Lenten-Pastoral of Cardinal Gousset, Archbishop of Rheims, for 1865. From the personal worth and exalted position of the author here quoted, these extracts may be regarded as expressing the latest opinion of the Catholic Church upon the subject of demons; an opinion shared by all the orthodox churches of Christendom.
9. The doctrine thus set forth is open to several objections.
1st. If Satan and the other demons were angels, they must have been perfect; but how, being perfect, could they fail in their allegiance to God and set at naught God’s authority, standing as they did, in virtue of their perfection, in God’s very presence? If they had only reached the supreme degree gradually, and after having passed up through the successive stages of imperfection and of improvement, we might imagine the possibility of a backsliding on their part; but what renders the statement absolutely incomprehensible is that it represents them as having been created perfect.
The consequence of this theory is the following: – God must have supposed, when God created them, that God had created perfect beings, since God lavished upon them all the most splendid of God’s gifts, but God was mistaken; so that, according to the Church, God is not infallible. *
2nd. As neither “the Church” nor “the annals of Sacred History” give us any explanation of the cause which led to the revolt of the angels against God, and as it only “appears to be certain” that this cause was their refusal to acquiesce in the future mission of Christ, what value can we attach to the description, so precise and so detailed, of the scene which is represented as having taken place on that occasion? From what source have been obtained the words so distinctly reported as having been then pronounced, and the knowledge of even the “murmurs” of the host of rebellious angels? Either the scene so minutely described is true, or, it is not true. If it were true there can be no uncertainty as to the cause of the angelic rebellion, and, in that case, why does the Church not settle the question once and for all? If, on the other hand, the Church and the Sacred History are silent on the subject, if it only “appears to be certain” that the cause of that revolt was what it is stated to be, the explanation thus given is only a supposition, and the description of the scene is merely a work of imagination. **
3rd. The words attributed to Lucifer betray a degree of ignorance altogether surprising on the part of an archangel who, in virtue of his nature and the rank assigned to him, ought not to share the errors and prejudices that were common to humankind before science had enlightened them in regard to the nature of the universe. How could so exalted a being give utterance to the declaration “I will establish my dwelling above the stars, I will ascend above the highest clouds?” Such a declaration implies the old belief that the Earth is the center of the universe, that the region of the clouds extends to the stars, that the stars occupy a limited region forming a vault above our heads, whereas astronomy shows us that there is an infinity of stars, sown broadcast over the infinity of space. It is well known, at the present day, that the region of the clouds does not extend farther than a couple of leagues from the surface of the Earth; consequently, to talk of “ascending above the highest clouds” and “the mountains” implies that the speaker is upon the surface of the Earth, and, still further, that the surface of the Earth is the dwelling-place of the angels; for, if they inhabited the higher regions, it would have been superfluous for him to declare that he was going to “ascend above the clouds.” To attribute statements bearing the stamp of ignorance to the angels is equivalent to asserting that human beings, at the present day, know more than angels. The Church has always made the mistake of ignoring the progress of natural science.
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* This monstrous doctrine is affirmed by Moses when he says (Genesis, Chap. VI. 6 and 7), “And the Lord repented that He had made man upon the earth. And, being grieved to the bottom of His heart, He said, ‘I will exterminate man whom I have created from off the face of the earth; I will exterminate every thing, from man to the beasts, every creeping thing, and the birds of the air, for I repent of having made them.’”
And God who “repents” of what he has done is neither perfect nor infallible, and, consequently, is not God. Yet this statement is declared by the Church to be a sacred verity. Moreover, it is not easy to see what the animals had to do with the perversity of mankind, or in what way they could have deserved extermination.
** We find in Isaiah, chap. xiv, 11 and the following verses, this passage: – “All your pomp has been brought down to the grave, along with the noise of your harps; maggots are spread out beneath you and worms cover you. How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! You said in your heart, “I will ascend to the heavens;
I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.” But you are brought down to the realm of the dead, to the depths of the pit. Those who see you stare at you, they ponder your fate: “Is this the man who shook the earth and made kingdoms tremble, the man who made the world a wilderness, who overthrew its cities and would not let his captives go home?””
These words of the prophet do not refer to any revolt of the angels, but are an allusion to the pride and the fall of the king of Babylon who had kept the Jews in captivity, as is shown by the concluding verses. The king of Babylon is designated, figuratively, as Lucifer; but no mention is made of the scene described above. The utterances put into his mouth are those of the king who, in the pride of his heart, placed himself above God, whose “peculiar people” he held in captivity. The prediction of the deliverance of the latter, of the ruin of Babylon and the defeat of the Assyrians, is the only subject treated of in the whole of this chapter.
1st. If Satan and the other demons were angels, they must have been perfect; but how, being perfect, could they fail in their allegiance to God and set at naught God’s authority, standing as they did, in virtue of their perfection, in God’s very presence? If they had only reached the supreme degree gradually, and after having passed up through the successive stages of imperfection and of improvement, we might imagine the possibility of a backsliding on their part; but what renders the statement absolutely incomprehensible is that it represents them as having been created perfect.
The consequence of this theory is the following: – God must have supposed, when God created them, that God had created perfect beings, since God lavished upon them all the most splendid of God’s gifts, but God was mistaken; so that, according to the Church, God is not infallible. *
2nd. As neither “the Church” nor “the annals of Sacred History” give us any explanation of the cause which led to the revolt of the angels against God, and as it only “appears to be certain” that this cause was their refusal to acquiesce in the future mission of Christ, what value can we attach to the description, so precise and so detailed, of the scene which is represented as having taken place on that occasion? From what source have been obtained the words so distinctly reported as having been then pronounced, and the knowledge of even the “murmurs” of the host of rebellious angels? Either the scene so minutely described is true, or, it is not true. If it were true there can be no uncertainty as to the cause of the angelic rebellion, and, in that case, why does the Church not settle the question once and for all? If, on the other hand, the Church and the Sacred History are silent on the subject, if it only “appears to be certain” that the cause of that revolt was what it is stated to be, the explanation thus given is only a supposition, and the description of the scene is merely a work of imagination. **
3rd. The words attributed to Lucifer betray a degree of ignorance altogether surprising on the part of an archangel who, in virtue of his nature and the rank assigned to him, ought not to share the errors and prejudices that were common to humankind before science had enlightened them in regard to the nature of the universe. How could so exalted a being give utterance to the declaration “I will establish my dwelling above the stars, I will ascend above the highest clouds?” Such a declaration implies the old belief that the Earth is the center of the universe, that the region of the clouds extends to the stars, that the stars occupy a limited region forming a vault above our heads, whereas astronomy shows us that there is an infinity of stars, sown broadcast over the infinity of space. It is well known, at the present day, that the region of the clouds does not extend farther than a couple of leagues from the surface of the Earth; consequently, to talk of “ascending above the highest clouds” and “the mountains” implies that the speaker is upon the surface of the Earth, and, still further, that the surface of the Earth is the dwelling-place of the angels; for, if they inhabited the higher regions, it would have been superfluous for him to declare that he was going to “ascend above the clouds.” To attribute statements bearing the stamp of ignorance to the angels is equivalent to asserting that human beings, at the present day, know more than angels. The Church has always made the mistake of ignoring the progress of natural science.
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* This monstrous doctrine is affirmed by Moses when he says (Genesis, Chap. VI. 6 and 7), “And the Lord repented that He had made man upon the earth. And, being grieved to the bottom of His heart, He said, ‘I will exterminate man whom I have created from off the face of the earth; I will exterminate every thing, from man to the beasts, every creeping thing, and the birds of the air, for I repent of having made them.’”
And God who “repents” of what he has done is neither perfect nor infallible, and, consequently, is not God. Yet this statement is declared by the Church to be a sacred verity. Moreover, it is not easy to see what the animals had to do with the perversity of mankind, or in what way they could have deserved extermination.
** We find in Isaiah, chap. xiv, 11 and the following verses, this passage: – “All your pomp has been brought down to the grave, along with the noise of your harps; maggots are spread out beneath you and worms cover you. How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! You said in your heart, “I will ascend to the heavens;
I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.” But you are brought down to the realm of the dead, to the depths of the pit. Those who see you stare at you, they ponder your fate: “Is this the man who shook the earth and made kingdoms tremble, the man who made the world a wilderness, who overthrew its cities and would not let his captives go home?””
These words of the prophet do not refer to any revolt of the angels, but are an allusion to the pride and the fall of the king of Babylon who had kept the Jews in captivity, as is shown by the concluding verses. The king of Babylon is designated, figuratively, as Lucifer; but no mention is made of the scene described above. The utterances put into his mouth are those of the king who, in the pride of his heart, placed himself above God, whose “peculiar people” he held in captivity. The prediction of the deliverance of the latter, of the ruin of Babylon and the defeat of the Assyrians, is the only subject treated of in the whole of this chapter.
10. To the first of these objections, the supporters of the legendary assumption we are examining oppose the explanation contained in the following passage of the Pastoral from which we have already quoted: – “Scripture and tradition give the name of ‘Heaven’ to the region in which the angels were placed at the moment of their creation. But this region was not the Heaven of Heavens, the Heaven of the Beatific Vision, in which God shows God’s true nature, face to face, to the elect, and in which the elect behold God without effort and without clouds; for, in that supreme abode, there is neither the danger nor the possibility of sinning; temptation and weakness are therein unknown; righteousness, joy, and peace reign there in absolute security; holiness and glory are native to that clime. Evidently, then, the angels were placed in another celestial region, a luminous and happy sphere, in which these noble creatures, so largely favored with divine communications, were to receive and to hold fast to the intimations of the Divine Will in the humility of faith, before being admitted to behold their full reality in the very essence of God.”
From this quotation it appears that the fallen angels belonged to a category of beings of a less elevated nature than the inhabitants of the supreme abode; that they were less perfect than these, and that they had not yet attained to the supreme degree of perfection in which faultiness is impossible. Granted; but, in that case the assumption we are examining is seen to involve a contradiction, for we are explicitly told, in the preceding quotations, that “God, had created them, in all respects, similar to the sublime spirits;” that, disseminated among all the orders of those glorious spirits and mingled with all their ranks, they were called to the same aim and the same destiny; that their Chief was the most beautiful of the archangels. But if the angels who fell were in all respects similar to the others, they could not have been of a nature inferior to those others; if they were mingled with all the ranks of the other spirits, they could not have been placed in any special region. Our objection, therefore, subsists in all its force.
From this quotation it appears that the fallen angels belonged to a category of beings of a less elevated nature than the inhabitants of the supreme abode; that they were less perfect than these, and that they had not yet attained to the supreme degree of perfection in which faultiness is impossible. Granted; but, in that case the assumption we are examining is seen to involve a contradiction, for we are explicitly told, in the preceding quotations, that “God, had created them, in all respects, similar to the sublime spirits;” that, disseminated among all the orders of those glorious spirits and mingled with all their ranks, they were called to the same aim and the same destiny; that their Chief was the most beautiful of the archangels. But if the angels who fell were in all respects similar to the others, they could not have been of a nature inferior to those others; if they were mingled with all the ranks of the other spirits, they could not have been placed in any special region. Our objection, therefore, subsists in all its force.
11. There is, however, another point asserted in the statement we are considering, which is of still greater seriousness and importance.
We are told: “This design (the meditation of Christ), conceived from all eternity, was manifested to the angels long before its accomplishment.” God knew, then, from all eternity, that the angels, as well as human beings, would stand in need of this mediation. God did, or did not, know that some of the angels would fall; that this fall would cause them to be damned to all eternity without any hope of rehabilitation; that they would be destined to tempt human beings to evil, and that those among the latter who allowed themselves to be seduced by their tempting would share the same fate. If God knew this, it follows that God created these angels on purpose that they might bring irreparable ruin upon themselves and upon the greater part of the human race. Let the advocates of this doctrine twist the matter as they will; it is impossible to reconcile the creation of these angels for a fate of misery thus foreseen, with the sovereign goodness. On the other hand, if God did not foreknow the consequences of God’s creative action, God is neither all wise nor all-powerful. In either case, such action on the part of the Deity would be a negation of two of the attributes without which, in their plentitude, God would not be God.
We are told: “This design (the meditation of Christ), conceived from all eternity, was manifested to the angels long before its accomplishment.” God knew, then, from all eternity, that the angels, as well as human beings, would stand in need of this mediation. God did, or did not, know that some of the angels would fall; that this fall would cause them to be damned to all eternity without any hope of rehabilitation; that they would be destined to tempt human beings to evil, and that those among the latter who allowed themselves to be seduced by their tempting would share the same fate. If God knew this, it follows that God created these angels on purpose that they might bring irreparable ruin upon themselves and upon the greater part of the human race. Let the advocates of this doctrine twist the matter as they will; it is impossible to reconcile the creation of these angels for a fate of misery thus foreseen, with the sovereign goodness. On the other hand, if God did not foreknow the consequences of God’s creative action, God is neither all wise nor all-powerful. In either case, such action on the part of the Deity would be a negation of two of the attributes without which, in their plentitude, God would not be God.
12. If we admit the fallibility of the angels, as well as that of humankind, we can understand their fall as being the consequence of their imperfection, and their punishment as being the just and natural consequence of their wrong-doing; and if we admit, at the same time, the possibility of their redeeming this wrong-doing by a return to rectitude, and their regaining the favor of God through repentance and expiation, there is nothing in such a supposition in any way opposed to the goodness of the Creator. In that case, God knew that they would fail, and that they would thereby incur punishment; but God also knew that the temporary chastisement they would bring upon themselves would be the means of making them understand their fault, and that it would thus turn their advantage, in accordance with the declaration of the prophet Ezekiel: – “God wills not the death of the sinner, but his salvation.” * But the inutility of repentance and the impossibility of a return to the right path would be the negation of this goodness; and, if such a hypothesis were admitted, it would be strictly true to say: – “Since God could not be ignorant of the fate awaiting them, these angels were doomed from their very creation, to do evil forever, and were predestined to become devils and to draw men into evil.”
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* See above, Chap. VII, No. 20.
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* See above, Chap. VII, No. 20.
13. Let us now inquire what the fate of these beings is and what they are doing.
“Scarcely had their revolt broken out in the language of spirits, that is to say, in the outgoings of their thoughts, than they were banished irrevocably from the Celestial City and hurled down into the abyss.
“By these words, we mean that they were driven into a place of torment, in which they undergo the punishment of fire, according to these words which are given in the Gospel as having been spoken by Christ Himself: – ‘Go away, ye accursed, into the everlasting fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels.’ Saint Peter says expressly that ‘God has given them up to the chains and tortures of hell,’ but all of them will not remain in it forever; it is only at the end of the world that they will be shut up in it forever, with the reprobate. At the present time, they are still permitted by God to occupy a place in the creation to which they belong, in the order of things to which their existence is attached, and in the relations with men, of which they make a most pernicious misuse. While some of them are in their dark abode, where they serve as instruments of the Divine justice against the unhappy souls that have been seduced by them, there is a multitude of others forming invisible legions under the command of their chiefs, which reside in the lower strata of our atmosphere and move about in every direction throughout the globe. They busy themselves with everything that goes on down here, and take a very active part in almost all the concerns of men.”
Of the words of Christ concerning “everlasting fire,” we have already treated in the Fourth Chapter of the present work, in connection with the question of “Hell.”
“Scarcely had their revolt broken out in the language of spirits, that is to say, in the outgoings of their thoughts, than they were banished irrevocably from the Celestial City and hurled down into the abyss.
“By these words, we mean that they were driven into a place of torment, in which they undergo the punishment of fire, according to these words which are given in the Gospel as having been spoken by Christ Himself: – ‘Go away, ye accursed, into the everlasting fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels.’ Saint Peter says expressly that ‘God has given them up to the chains and tortures of hell,’ but all of them will not remain in it forever; it is only at the end of the world that they will be shut up in it forever, with the reprobate. At the present time, they are still permitted by God to occupy a place in the creation to which they belong, in the order of things to which their existence is attached, and in the relations with men, of which they make a most pernicious misuse. While some of them are in their dark abode, where they serve as instruments of the Divine justice against the unhappy souls that have been seduced by them, there is a multitude of others forming invisible legions under the command of their chiefs, which reside in the lower strata of our atmosphere and move about in every direction throughout the globe. They busy themselves with everything that goes on down here, and take a very active part in almost all the concerns of men.”
Of the words of Christ concerning “everlasting fire,” we have already treated in the Fourth Chapter of the present work, in connection with the question of “Hell.”
14. According to the doctrine we are examining, only a part of the devils are in Hell; the rest of them are roving about in freedom, intermeddling with all that is going on upon the Earth, and gratifying themselves by doing evil; and they will continue to do so until the end of the world, which period, as yet indeterminate, is probably not destined to arrive very speedily. Why this difference in the fate of these two divisions of the race of demons? Is it the least wicked of them that are thus left at liberty to roam through the world of men? Judging from the quality of the actions of those who are left at liberty, this would hardly be the case. Perhaps, however, the two divisions are let out into the world alternately, each in its turn; an arrangement that would seem to be implied in the words “While some of them are in their dark abode, where they serve as instruments of the Divine justice against the unhappy souls that have been seduced by them.”
It appears, therefore, that the appointed function of these fallen angels is to torment the souls they have seduced. They are not charged to punish those who are guilty of faults freely and voluntarily committed, but only those who have done wrong in consequence of the incitements to wrongdoing that they themselves (the devils) have brought to bear on them! They are thus, at once, the cause and the chastisers of the sins of their victims, and moreover – what human jurisprudence, imperfect though it be, would never sanction – the victim who succumbs, through weakness, to the temptation which these devils contrive to throw in his way for the express purpose of leading him astray, is punished as severely as the tempter who employs his or her superior cunning and clearness in inducing the unfortunate individual to do wrong; in fact, the victim of superior cunning and malignity is punished more severely than the tempter who misled that victim, for on quitting the Earth that individual is sent straight to Hell, from which he or she will never be let out for a single minute, and where the victim is made to suffer in its fires without a moment’s relaxation of that individual’s tortures, through all time as well as through all eternity, while the devils, who were the original cause of this person’s wrong- doing, enjoy a respite from punishment, and full liberty to go on in the enjoyment of their evil doings until the end of the world! Is the justice of God, then, still more defective than that of human beings?
It appears, therefore, that the appointed function of these fallen angels is to torment the souls they have seduced. They are not charged to punish those who are guilty of faults freely and voluntarily committed, but only those who have done wrong in consequence of the incitements to wrongdoing that they themselves (the devils) have brought to bear on them! They are thus, at once, the cause and the chastisers of the sins of their victims, and moreover – what human jurisprudence, imperfect though it be, would never sanction – the victim who succumbs, through weakness, to the temptation which these devils contrive to throw in his way for the express purpose of leading him astray, is punished as severely as the tempter who employs his or her superior cunning and clearness in inducing the unfortunate individual to do wrong; in fact, the victim of superior cunning and malignity is punished more severely than the tempter who misled that victim, for on quitting the Earth that individual is sent straight to Hell, from which he or she will never be let out for a single minute, and where the victim is made to suffer in its fires without a moment’s relaxation of that individual’s tortures, through all time as well as through all eternity, while the devils, who were the original cause of this person’s wrong- doing, enjoy a respite from punishment, and full liberty to go on in the enjoyment of their evil doings until the end of the world! Is the justice of God, then, still more defective than that of human beings?
15. Nor is this all. We are told that the devils “are still permitted by God to occupy a place in creation to which they belong, and in the relations which they were intended to have with humankind, relations of which they make a most pernicious misuse.” But could God be unaware of the misuse that they would make of the liberty God grants to them? If God foresaw this misuse of their liberty, why did God grant them such liberty? Are we to believe that being fully aware of what God was doing, God abandoned God’s creatures beforehand to the mercy of devils, knowing, in virtue of God’s infinite prescience, that those creatures in their weakness and inexperience would succumb to the temptings of the devils and incur their doom? Must God not have foreknown that their own weakness would be quite enough for God’s creatures to have to struggle against, without God allowing them to be incited to the commission of evil by a foreign enemy, and one that would be all the more dangerous because he or she is invisible? Such an abandonment would be cruel enough, even if the chastisement to which it led were only temporary, and if the wrong-doers could obtain their release by repenting and making reparation for their misdeeds. But, no; they are condemned to all eternity; their repentance, their return to right sentiments, their remorse, and their regrets, all are absolutely unavailing!
According to this doctrine, demons, or devils, are agents specially predestined to recruit souls for Hell, and this, with the permission of God, who foreknew in creating these souls the doom which awaited them. What would be thought, upon the Earth, of a judge who should resort to such an expedient for filling the prisons? And does not such a doctrine give a strange idea of the Divinity of a God whose essential attributes are infinite justice and infinite goodness? And it is in the name of Jesus Christ, of him whose teachings breathed only love, charity, and forgiveness that such a doctrine is proclaimed! There was a time when such an anomaly might pass unnoticed; the contradiction of such a doctrine with the attributes of the Divinity was not understood, and, consequently, not felt as such; men and women, bowed beneath the yoke of despotism, submitted blindly, abdicating their reason; but, at the present day, the era of emancipation has come; the human race has acquired the notion of justice, demanding justice during life and after death; and therefore replies, when this doctrine is set before them, “It is not true, it cannot be true, or God would not be God!”
According to this doctrine, demons, or devils, are agents specially predestined to recruit souls for Hell, and this, with the permission of God, who foreknew in creating these souls the doom which awaited them. What would be thought, upon the Earth, of a judge who should resort to such an expedient for filling the prisons? And does not such a doctrine give a strange idea of the Divinity of a God whose essential attributes are infinite justice and infinite goodness? And it is in the name of Jesus Christ, of him whose teachings breathed only love, charity, and forgiveness that such a doctrine is proclaimed! There was a time when such an anomaly might pass unnoticed; the contradiction of such a doctrine with the attributes of the Divinity was not understood, and, consequently, not felt as such; men and women, bowed beneath the yoke of despotism, submitted blindly, abdicating their reason; but, at the present day, the era of emancipation has come; the human race has acquired the notion of justice, demanding justice during life and after death; and therefore replies, when this doctrine is set before them, “It is not true, it cannot be true, or God would not be God!”
16. “Chastisement everywhere pursues these fallen and accursed beings; wherever they go, they carry their Hell with them; they know neither peace nor rest; the sweetness of hope is changed for them into bitterness; it is odious to them. The hand of God has smitten them in the very instant of their fault, and their will has hardened itself in evil. Having become perverted, they refuse to cease to be such, and such they will persist in being forever.
“They are, since their fall, such as humanity is after death; their rehabilitation is therefore impossible; their state of perdition is irrevocable, and they persevere in their haughtiness towards God, in their hatred against His Christ, and in their jealousy of the human race.
“Not having been able to take possession of the glory of Heaven through their vaulting ambition, they do their utmost to establish their empire upon the Earth and to banish thence the reign of God. The word made flesh has accomplished, in spite of them, God’s designs for the salvation and the glory of the human race; all their means of action are therefore consecrated to the work of robbing him of the souls he has brought back; cunning and importunity, lies and seduction, they bring them all into play to draw men and women into evil and to consummate their ruin.
“With such enemies, the life of humans, from cradle to grave, can be, alas, nothing but a perpetual struggle, for they are powerful and unwearying in their attacks.
“These enemies, in fact, are the same who, after having introduced evil into the world, have succeeded in covering the Earth with the thick darkness of error and of vice; the same who, during their long ages in the past, caused themselves to be worshipped as gods, and who reigned as masters over the peoples of antiquity; the same who, finally, still hold tyrannous sway over the regions of the Earth that are a prey to idolatry, and who foment discord and scandal even in the bosom of Christian communities.
“To comprehend the vastness of the resources possessed by them for the carrying out of their wickedness, it is sufficient to bear in mind that they have lost nothing of the prodigious faculties which are part and parcel of the angelic nature. Undoubtedly, the future and especially the things of the supernatural order, have mysteries which God keeps to Himself, and that they are unable to discover; but their intelligence is very superior to ours, because they perceive, at a glance, effects of their causes, and causes in their effects. This penetration permits them to announce, beforehand, events which are beyond the reach of our conjectures. Distance and the diversity of places are annihilated by their agility. More prompt than lightning, more rapid than thought, they may almost be said to be present at various points of the surface of the globe at the same time, and they are able to describe things that are taking place at a great distance, but which are seen by them, at the very time of their occurrence.
“The general laws by which God rules and governs this universe are not of their domain; they cannot contravene those laws, and consequently can neither make true predictions nor work real miracles; but they possess the art of imitating, and counterfeiting, within certain limits, the works of God. They know what phenomena result from the combinations of the elements, and they predict with certainty those that occur naturally, as well as those that they have the power of producing by their own action. Hence, the numerous oracles, the extraordinary occurrences, of which history, both sacred and profane, has preserved the remembrance and which have furnished the basis and the sustenance of all superstitions.
“Their simple and immaterial substance renders them invisible to us; they are at our side without being perceived by us; they strike on our soul without striking on our ears; we imagine ourselves to be obeying our own idea, while we are undergoing their temptations and yielding to their fatal influence. Our dispositions, on the contrary, are known to them through the impressions that are made upon us by their wiles; and they usually attack us on our weak side. In order to seduce us more surely, they are accustomed to present to us temptations and suggestions adapted to our individual tendencies. They modify their action according to circumstances and to the special characteristics of each temperament. But their favorite arms are lying and hypocrisy.”
“They are, since their fall, such as humanity is after death; their rehabilitation is therefore impossible; their state of perdition is irrevocable, and they persevere in their haughtiness towards God, in their hatred against His Christ, and in their jealousy of the human race.
“Not having been able to take possession of the glory of Heaven through their vaulting ambition, they do their utmost to establish their empire upon the Earth and to banish thence the reign of God. The word made flesh has accomplished, in spite of them, God’s designs for the salvation and the glory of the human race; all their means of action are therefore consecrated to the work of robbing him of the souls he has brought back; cunning and importunity, lies and seduction, they bring them all into play to draw men and women into evil and to consummate their ruin.
“With such enemies, the life of humans, from cradle to grave, can be, alas, nothing but a perpetual struggle, for they are powerful and unwearying in their attacks.
“These enemies, in fact, are the same who, after having introduced evil into the world, have succeeded in covering the Earth with the thick darkness of error and of vice; the same who, during their long ages in the past, caused themselves to be worshipped as gods, and who reigned as masters over the peoples of antiquity; the same who, finally, still hold tyrannous sway over the regions of the Earth that are a prey to idolatry, and who foment discord and scandal even in the bosom of Christian communities.
“To comprehend the vastness of the resources possessed by them for the carrying out of their wickedness, it is sufficient to bear in mind that they have lost nothing of the prodigious faculties which are part and parcel of the angelic nature. Undoubtedly, the future and especially the things of the supernatural order, have mysteries which God keeps to Himself, and that they are unable to discover; but their intelligence is very superior to ours, because they perceive, at a glance, effects of their causes, and causes in their effects. This penetration permits them to announce, beforehand, events which are beyond the reach of our conjectures. Distance and the diversity of places are annihilated by their agility. More prompt than lightning, more rapid than thought, they may almost be said to be present at various points of the surface of the globe at the same time, and they are able to describe things that are taking place at a great distance, but which are seen by them, at the very time of their occurrence.
“The general laws by which God rules and governs this universe are not of their domain; they cannot contravene those laws, and consequently can neither make true predictions nor work real miracles; but they possess the art of imitating, and counterfeiting, within certain limits, the works of God. They know what phenomena result from the combinations of the elements, and they predict with certainty those that occur naturally, as well as those that they have the power of producing by their own action. Hence, the numerous oracles, the extraordinary occurrences, of which history, both sacred and profane, has preserved the remembrance and which have furnished the basis and the sustenance of all superstitions.
“Their simple and immaterial substance renders them invisible to us; they are at our side without being perceived by us; they strike on our soul without striking on our ears; we imagine ourselves to be obeying our own idea, while we are undergoing their temptations and yielding to their fatal influence. Our dispositions, on the contrary, are known to them through the impressions that are made upon us by their wiles; and they usually attack us on our weak side. In order to seduce us more surely, they are accustomed to present to us temptations and suggestions adapted to our individual tendencies. They modify their action according to circumstances and to the special characteristics of each temperament. But their favorite arms are lying and hypocrisy.”
17. “Chastisement,” we are told, “follows them everywhere; they have neither peace nor rest.” But this assertion does not invalidate our observation in regard to the respite enjoyed by those who are not in Hell, respite all the less justifiable because, being out of Hell, they do all the more harm. Undoubtedly, they are not represented as being happy, as are the good angels; but can we count for nothing the liberty they enjoy? Although they have not the moral happiness that results from virtue, they are incontestably less miserable than their accomplices who are given over to the flames of Hell. And besides, for the wicked, there is a sort of enjoyment in doing ill in full liberty. Ask any criminal whether it is all the same to him to be shut up in prison or to be scouring the country and perpetrating every sort of criminal mayhem at his ease? The position of the demons is exactly the same.
“Remorse,” we are told, “pursues them without truce and without mercy.” But the advocates of the doctrine in question forget that remorse is the immediate precursor of repentance, and is, in fact, the beginning of repentance itself; yet the Pastoral on which we are commenting declares, “Having become perverted, they refuse to cease to be such, and such they will persist in being, forever.” But if they refuse to cease to be perverted, it is impossible that they should feel remorse; if they felt the slightest regret for having done evil, they would cease to do it, and would beg for pardon. Consequently, remorse is not any part of their chastisement.
“Remorse,” we are told, “pursues them without truce and without mercy.” But the advocates of the doctrine in question forget that remorse is the immediate precursor of repentance, and is, in fact, the beginning of repentance itself; yet the Pastoral on which we are commenting declares, “Having become perverted, they refuse to cease to be such, and such they will persist in being, forever.” But if they refuse to cease to be perverted, it is impossible that they should feel remorse; if they felt the slightest regret for having done evil, they would cease to do it, and would beg for pardon. Consequently, remorse is not any part of their chastisement.
18. “They are, since their fall, such as the human race is after death; their rehabilitation is therefore impossible.” Whence comes this impossibility? It is difficult to understand how it should be a consequence of their similarity to the human race after death, a proposition that, moreover, is not very clear. Is this impossibility a result of their having willed it so, or is it due to the will of God? If it be a result of their own will, such a determination on their part would imply their being utterly and absolutely depraved and hardened in evil; but, if so, it is impossible to understand how beings so entirely and thoroughly bad could ever have been angels of virtue, or how, throughout the eternity during which they were “mingled with all the ranks” of the good angels, they should never have betrayed the least symptom of their horrible nature. If, on the contrary, this impossibility is a result of the will of God, it is still less comprehensible that the Sovereign Goodness should inflict upon them, as a punishment, this impossibility of a return to virtue, after a single fault. The Gospel says nothing of the kind.
19. “Their state of perdition,” it is added, “is henceforth irrevocable, and they persevere in their haughtiness towards God.” But where would be the use of their not persevering in that haughty attitude, since repentance is altogether useless to them? If they had any hope of rehabilitation, no matter at what cost, they would have a motive for returning into the path of virtue; but, that being impossible, they have no motive for reforming. If, then, they persevere in evil, it is because the door of hope is closed against them. But why has God closed that door against them? we are told that this door was closed in order to avenge the offence against God, of which they have been guilty due to their want of submission. Thus, in order to glut God’s resentment against some of God’s creatures who have done wrong, God prefers to see them, not only plunged into horrible sufferings, but doing evil rather than doing good, leading astray and driving into everlasting perdition the majority of God’s creatures of the human race, when a simple act of clemency would have sufficed to prevent this great disaster, a disaster, that was foreseen by God from all eternity!
Does an act of clemency, imply a grant of forgiveness, pure and simple, which might be considered as offering an encouragement to wrongdoing? No, such an act only implies the granting of a conditional pardon, subordinated to a sincere return to virtue. But, instead of a word of hope and mercy, God is represented as saying: – “Perish the entire race of humankind rather than my vengeance!” And those who uphold such a doctrine are astonished that there should be skeptics and atheists! Is it thus that Jesus represents to us his Father? He who expressly lays it down as a law that we must forgive all those who offend us, who tells us to return good for evil, who places the love of our enemies in the first rank of the virtues by which alone we can merit the happiness of Heaven, would he require of humanity to be better, more just, more compassionate, than God Himself?
Does an act of clemency, imply a grant of forgiveness, pure and simple, which might be considered as offering an encouragement to wrongdoing? No, such an act only implies the granting of a conditional pardon, subordinated to a sincere return to virtue. But, instead of a word of hope and mercy, God is represented as saying: – “Perish the entire race of humankind rather than my vengeance!” And those who uphold such a doctrine are astonished that there should be skeptics and atheists! Is it thus that Jesus represents to us his Father? He who expressly lays it down as a law that we must forgive all those who offend us, who tells us to return good for evil, who places the love of our enemies in the first rank of the virtues by which alone we can merit the happiness of Heaven, would he require of humanity to be better, more just, more compassionate, than God Himself?
DEMONS ACCORDING TO SPIRITISM
20. According to the Spiritist doctrine, neither “angels” nor “devils” are beings apart from the rest of the creation; all the intelligent beings of the universe are of one and the same nature. United to material bodies, they constitute the human race which populates the Earth and other inhabited worlds of the universe; freed from those bodies, they constitute the spirit-world, or the spirits who people space. God has created them perfectible; God has given them an aim, viz., the attainment of perfection and of the happiness that is the consequence of perfection; but God has not given them perfection; God has willed that they should owe it to their own personal efforts, so that they might have all the merit of its acquisition. From the first moment of their creation, they progress incessantly, either in the state of incarnation or in the life of the spirit-world; once arrived at the culminating point of their purification they become pure spirits, or angels, according to the common expression; so that, from the embryo of the intelligent being to the angel, there is an uninterrupted chain, each link of which marks a degree in the scale of progress.
It follows, therefore, that there are spirits at every degree of moral and intellectual advancement, according as they are at the top, the bottom, or the middle, of the ladder; and that, consequently, there are, among them, spirits of every degree of knowledge and ignorance, of goodness and of badness. In the lower ranks of spirits there are some who are still deeply imbued with the love of evil and who take pleasure in doing wrong; spirits who may perfectly well be called demons, for they are capable of all the misdeeds attributed to the latter. If Spiritism abstains from giving them that name, it is because the world has attached to it the idea of beings distinct from the human race, of a nature essentially bad, doomed to evil for all eternity, and incapable of progressing in goodness.
It follows, therefore, that there are spirits at every degree of moral and intellectual advancement, according as they are at the top, the bottom, or the middle, of the ladder; and that, consequently, there are, among them, spirits of every degree of knowledge and ignorance, of goodness and of badness. In the lower ranks of spirits there are some who are still deeply imbued with the love of evil and who take pleasure in doing wrong; spirits who may perfectly well be called demons, for they are capable of all the misdeeds attributed to the latter. If Spiritism abstains from giving them that name, it is because the world has attached to it the idea of beings distinct from the human race, of a nature essentially bad, doomed to evil for all eternity, and incapable of progressing in goodness.
21. According to the doctrine of the Church, the demons were created good, and have become bad through their disobedience are “fallen angels;” they were placed by God at the top of the ladder, and they have fallen from that elevation. According to Spiritism, they are imperfect spirits who will grow better in the course of time; they are still at the foot of the ladder, but they will reach the top sooner or later.
Those who, through their carelessness, their obstinacy, or their perversity, remain longer in the lower ranks, incur the penalty of their persistence in evil, for the habit of wrong- doing renders their return to goodness all the more difficult; but there comes a time when they grow weary of the misery of such an existence and of the suffering which is its consequence; they begin to compare their own existence with that of the good spirits, they understand that it is in their own interest to return to the path of rectitude, and they endeavor to become better; but they do this of their own free will, and without being constrained to do so. They are placed under the law of progress by the fact of their being capable of progressing, but they are not compelled to progress in spite of themselves. God furnishes them unceasingly with the means of progressing; but they are free to use or not use the means thus furnished. If progress were obligatory, there would be no merit in progressing, and God wills that each should have the merit of his or her actions; God does not place any one of them on the front rank as a matter of privilege, but that highest rank is open to all, and no one reaches it otherwise than through his or her own efforts. The highest angels have won their grade, like all others, and have traveled up to their present elevation by the same road.
Those who, through their carelessness, their obstinacy, or their perversity, remain longer in the lower ranks, incur the penalty of their persistence in evil, for the habit of wrong- doing renders their return to goodness all the more difficult; but there comes a time when they grow weary of the misery of such an existence and of the suffering which is its consequence; they begin to compare their own existence with that of the good spirits, they understand that it is in their own interest to return to the path of rectitude, and they endeavor to become better; but they do this of their own free will, and without being constrained to do so. They are placed under the law of progress by the fact of their being capable of progressing, but they are not compelled to progress in spite of themselves. God furnishes them unceasingly with the means of progressing; but they are free to use or not use the means thus furnished. If progress were obligatory, there would be no merit in progressing, and God wills that each should have the merit of his or her actions; God does not place any one of them on the front rank as a matter of privilege, but that highest rank is open to all, and no one reaches it otherwise than through his or her own efforts. The highest angels have won their grade, like all others, and have traveled up to their present elevation by the same road.
22. Spirits, when they have reached a certain degree of purification, are entrusted with missions proportioned to their advancement; they fulfill all those that have been attributed to angels of different orders. God having created from all eternity, it follows that there have been, from all eternity, spirits competent to the discharge of all the duties involved in the government of the universe. A single species of intelligent beings, all alike submitted to the law of progress, suffices to produce the infinite variety of attainment, aptitude, and usefulness. This unity of the creation – in virtue of which all beings have the same starting-point, follow the same road, and raise themselves to higher and higher elevations as the result of their own merits – is far more in accordance with the justice of God than the creation of different species of beings, more or less favored in the way of natural gifts, which would, practically speaking, be the creation of so many privileges.
23. The common doctrine concerning the nature of angels, demons, and the human soul, not admitting the existence of the law of progress, and observation having shown the existence of beings at different degrees of elevation, human beings have been led to conclude that these differences were the product of so many different creations. This view of the subject portrays God as an unjust and partial father, bestowing all his favors on some of his children, while imposing the hardest labors and privations on the others. It is not strange that during a long period the human race should have seen nothing objectionable in these assumed preferences, for they were guilty of the same injustice through their enforcement of the laws of entitlement and the various privileges accorded to so-called noble birth; could they believe they were capable of committing more errors than God? But, at the present day, the circle of ideas has become wider; human beings see more clearly; they have sounder notions of justice, they demand it for themselves, and, although they do not always find it upon the Earth, they hope, at least, to obtain it in Heaven; and, consequently, any doctrine, which does not show the Divine Justice in all its resplendent purity, is rejected by the human mind as repugnant to both conscience and reason.
CHAPTER X - INTERVENTION OF DEMONS IN THE SPIRIT MANIFESTATIONS OF THE PRESENT DAY
1. The modern spirit-phenomena have called attention to the facts of a similar character that have taken place at all epochs, and never has history been so thoroughly ransacked in search of those facts, as during the last few years. From the similarity of effects, men and women have inferred the action of one and the same cause. With regard to all extraordinary facts of which the cause is unknown, ignorance has assumed the supernatural nature of the phenomena referred to, and superstition has amplified them by the addition of various absurdities; hence the mass of legends which, for the most part, are a mixture of a small amount of truth with a much larger amount of falsehood.
2. The doctrines concerning the devil, which have held sway for so long a period over the minds of human beings, so enormously exaggerated the power he was supposed to possess, that they caused humankind to lose sight of God; for which reason, human beings gave the devil the credit for anything that seemed to surpass the possibilities of human power. People saw the hand of Satan in everything; the most excellent innovations, the most useful discoveries, and especially those that tended to draw people out of their ignorance and to enlarge the circle of their ideas, have often been regarded as diabolical. Spirit phenomena, being at once of more frequent occurrence at the present day, and also – with the aid of sharper reason and increased scientific knowledge – more intelligently observed than was the case in former times, have confirmed, it is true, the belief in the intervention of occult intelligences in the affairs of human life, but they have shown us that these intelligences always act within the limits of the laws of nature and reveal, by their action, the existence of a force and of laws hitherto unknown to us. The question is therefore narrowed to the ascertainment of the order to which these intelligences belong.
While men and women possessed only vague or empirical notions regarding the spirit-world, error, as to the nature of that world, was inevitable; but now that careful observation and experimental investigation have thrown new light on the nature of spirits, on their origin and destiny, on the part played by them in the universe, and on their mode of action, the question of their nature is answered by facts, and we know with certainty, that spirits are simply the souls of those who have lived upon the Earth. We also know that the various categories of good and evil spirits are not composed of beings of different species, but of spirits at various degrees of advancement. According to the rank which they occupy in virtue of their intellectual and moral development, those who manifest themselves do so under widely different aspects; but this does not prevent their having all issued from the great human family, as is the case with the savages, the barbarians, and the most highly civilized nations of the Earth.
While men and women possessed only vague or empirical notions regarding the spirit-world, error, as to the nature of that world, was inevitable; but now that careful observation and experimental investigation have thrown new light on the nature of spirits, on their origin and destiny, on the part played by them in the universe, and on their mode of action, the question of their nature is answered by facts, and we know with certainty, that spirits are simply the souls of those who have lived upon the Earth. We also know that the various categories of good and evil spirits are not composed of beings of different species, but of spirits at various degrees of advancement. According to the rank which they occupy in virtue of their intellectual and moral development, those who manifest themselves do so under widely different aspects; but this does not prevent their having all issued from the great human family, as is the case with the savages, the barbarians, and the most highly civilized nations of the Earth.
3. Upon this point, as upon so many others, the Church maintains her ancient beliefs, in regard to demons. As we have already remarked, the mistake of the Church is precisely that of taking no account of the progress of human ideas, and of supposing God to be so deficient in wisdom as to fail to proportion revelation to the development of intelligence, and to continue to address, to the more advanced minds of the present day, the same language as that in which He spoke to the humans of the primitive periods. If, while the human mind is marching onwards, the ministers of religion cling obstinately to past errors, in regard to spiritual matters as in regard to physical science, there necessarily comes a time when they are overwhelmed by the rising flood of incredulity.
4. We have now to see how the Church explains its assertion that the modern spirit- manifestations are exclusively due to the intervention of demons. *
“In their intervention in the things of the outer world, the demons are no less careful to dissimulate their presence, in order to avoid rousing the suspicion of those to whom they address themselves. Always cunning and perfidious, they draw men and women into their snares before binding them in the chains of oppression and servitude. Here, they awaken curiosity by puerile phenomena and feats of little moment; there, they strike with astonishment and subjugate the mind by the attraction of the marvelous. If the supernatural quality of their action betrays itself, if the nature of their power is unmasked, they calm alarm and appease apprehension, solicit confidence and invite familiarity. ,They will, on occasion, pass themselves off as divinities and good genii; and sometimes, they borrow the names and even the traits of those of the dead who have retained a place in the memory of the living. With the aid of these frauds, worthy of the serpent of old, they speak, and are listened to; they dogmatize and are believed; they mingle a few truths with their falsehoods and cause every form of error to be accepted by their victims. This is the aim of the pretended revelations from beyond the grave; it is to obtain this result that wood, stone, forests and fountains, the sanctuary of idols, the legs of tables, the hands of children, deliver oracles; it is for this that the pythoness prophesies in her delirium, and that the ignorant, in his mysterious sleep, is suddenly transformed into a doctor of science. To deceive and to pervert – such is, in all places and at all epochs, the sole aim of these strange manifestations.
“Since it is impossible that the surprising results of these observances or actions, which are, for the most part, eccentric and absurd, should be due either to any intrinsic virtue of their own or to the order established by God, they can only be produced with the help of occult powers. Such are, especially, the extraordinary phenomena obtained, at the present day, through the processes, seemingly inoffensive, of mesmerism and the intelligent organ of talking tables. By means of these operations of modern magic, we now witness the reproduction, among ourselves, of the evocations, oracles, consultations, cures, and other prodigies that formerly gave renown to the temples of idols and the dens of Sybils. As in ancient times, human beings impose their commands on wood, and the wood obeys them; they question it, and it replies to their queries in every tongue and on every subject; they find themselves in the presence of invisible beings who usurp the names of the dead, and whose pretended revelations bear the stamp of contradiction and falsehood; vaporous forms without consistency suddenly appear and show themselves to be endowed with superhuman force.
“What are the secret agents of these phenomena and the real actors in the inexplicable scenes? The angels would not play a part so unworthy, nor lend themselves to the caprices of a vain curiosity. The souls of the dead, whom God has forbidden us to consult, are in the realm of sojourn assigned to them by His justice, and cannot, without God’s permission, subjugate themselves to the commands of the living. The mysterious beings who thus respond to the call of the heretical and the impious as readily as to that of the faithful, and of the criminal as of the innocent, are neither envoys of God nor the apostles of truth and of salvation, but are the tools of error and of Hell. Despite the pains they take to hide their real nature under the most venerable names, they betray themselves by the hollowness of their doctrines, no less than by the baseness of their doings and the incoherence of their utterances. They strive to efface from the sum of religious belief, the dogmas of original sin, of the resurrection of the body, of eternal punishment, and of the Divinity of the Sacred Scriptures, in order to deprive the law of its sanction, and to open the gates to the influx of every vice. If it were possible for their suggestions to obtain the upper hand, they would form a convenient religion, just the thing for socialism and for all those who feel the notion of duty and conscience to be troublesome. The incredulity of our age has prepared the way for this new creed. May all Christian peoples, by a sincere return to the Catholic faith, escape the danger of this new and formidable invasion!”
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* The quotations of the present chapter are taken from the same Pastoral from which we have taken those of the preceding chapters.
“In their intervention in the things of the outer world, the demons are no less careful to dissimulate their presence, in order to avoid rousing the suspicion of those to whom they address themselves. Always cunning and perfidious, they draw men and women into their snares before binding them in the chains of oppression and servitude. Here, they awaken curiosity by puerile phenomena and feats of little moment; there, they strike with astonishment and subjugate the mind by the attraction of the marvelous. If the supernatural quality of their action betrays itself, if the nature of their power is unmasked, they calm alarm and appease apprehension, solicit confidence and invite familiarity. ,They will, on occasion, pass themselves off as divinities and good genii; and sometimes, they borrow the names and even the traits of those of the dead who have retained a place in the memory of the living. With the aid of these frauds, worthy of the serpent of old, they speak, and are listened to; they dogmatize and are believed; they mingle a few truths with their falsehoods and cause every form of error to be accepted by their victims. This is the aim of the pretended revelations from beyond the grave; it is to obtain this result that wood, stone, forests and fountains, the sanctuary of idols, the legs of tables, the hands of children, deliver oracles; it is for this that the pythoness prophesies in her delirium, and that the ignorant, in his mysterious sleep, is suddenly transformed into a doctor of science. To deceive and to pervert – such is, in all places and at all epochs, the sole aim of these strange manifestations.
“Since it is impossible that the surprising results of these observances or actions, which are, for the most part, eccentric and absurd, should be due either to any intrinsic virtue of their own or to the order established by God, they can only be produced with the help of occult powers. Such are, especially, the extraordinary phenomena obtained, at the present day, through the processes, seemingly inoffensive, of mesmerism and the intelligent organ of talking tables. By means of these operations of modern magic, we now witness the reproduction, among ourselves, of the evocations, oracles, consultations, cures, and other prodigies that formerly gave renown to the temples of idols and the dens of Sybils. As in ancient times, human beings impose their commands on wood, and the wood obeys them; they question it, and it replies to their queries in every tongue and on every subject; they find themselves in the presence of invisible beings who usurp the names of the dead, and whose pretended revelations bear the stamp of contradiction and falsehood; vaporous forms without consistency suddenly appear and show themselves to be endowed with superhuman force.
“What are the secret agents of these phenomena and the real actors in the inexplicable scenes? The angels would not play a part so unworthy, nor lend themselves to the caprices of a vain curiosity. The souls of the dead, whom God has forbidden us to consult, are in the realm of sojourn assigned to them by His justice, and cannot, without God’s permission, subjugate themselves to the commands of the living. The mysterious beings who thus respond to the call of the heretical and the impious as readily as to that of the faithful, and of the criminal as of the innocent, are neither envoys of God nor the apostles of truth and of salvation, but are the tools of error and of Hell. Despite the pains they take to hide their real nature under the most venerable names, they betray themselves by the hollowness of their doctrines, no less than by the baseness of their doings and the incoherence of their utterances. They strive to efface from the sum of religious belief, the dogmas of original sin, of the resurrection of the body, of eternal punishment, and of the Divinity of the Sacred Scriptures, in order to deprive the law of its sanction, and to open the gates to the influx of every vice. If it were possible for their suggestions to obtain the upper hand, they would form a convenient religion, just the thing for socialism and for all those who feel the notion of duty and conscience to be troublesome. The incredulity of our age has prepared the way for this new creed. May all Christian peoples, by a sincere return to the Catholic faith, escape the danger of this new and formidable invasion!”
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* The quotations of the present chapter are taken from the same Pastoral from which we have taken those of the preceding chapters.
5. This explanation of the spirit-phenomena of the present day is based entirely on the assumption that angels and demons are beings distinct from the souls of men, and that the latter are the product of a special creation, inferior, even to the demons, in intelligence, knowledge, and faculties of all kinds; and it attributes, to the exclusive intervention of the “fallen angels,” all the manifestations, both ancient and modern, that spiritists attribute to the souls of the dead.
The possibility for the souls of the departed of entering into communication with the living is a question of fact, and one that is to be decided by observation and experience. Having fully treated of this question elsewhere, we shall not discuss it in this place. But admitting, for argument’s sake, the assumption that constitutes the basis of the argument just quoted, let us see whether it does not destroy itself with its own weapons.
The possibility for the souls of the departed of entering into communication with the living is a question of fact, and one that is to be decided by observation and experience. Having fully treated of this question elsewhere, we shall not discuss it in this place. But admitting, for argument’s sake, the assumption that constitutes the basis of the argument just quoted, let us see whether it does not destroy itself with its own weapons.
6. Of the three categories of angels, according to the Church, one occupies itself exclusively with Heaven; to another is confided the government of the universe; the third takes charge of the Earth, and in its ranks are found the guardian-angels appointed to the protection of each human being. A portion, only, of the angels of this category took part in the revolt and was changed into demons. If God has granted permission to the latter to urge humanity on to their perdition by suggestions of all kinds and the facts of spirit-manifestation, why, since God is supremely just and good, should God have accorded to these tempters the immense power they possess and a freedom of action of which they make so pernicious a misuse, without also granting permission to the good angels to act as a counterpoise to the evil ones, by means of manifestations of the same kind, directed towards a good end? Admitting that God had given an equal amount of power to the good angels and to the bad ones – which, of itself, would constitute an enormous favor to the latter – human beings would, at least, have been free to choose between them; but, to give to the bad angels the monopoly of temptation, with the faculty of simulating goodness so perfectly as to deceive the most wary, in order the more surely to seduce those whom they seek to influence, would be to lay a snare for human weakness, inexperience, and trustfulness; in addition, it would be to betray humanity’s confidence in God. Reason refutes to admit, on the part of the Divine Being, such a partiality towards evil. Let us look into the facts of the case.
7. The Church attributes to demons the possession of transcendent faculties; “they have lost nothing of their angelic nature;” they possess the knowledge, perspicacity, foresight, clear vision of the angels, and, moreover, keenness, cleverness, and cunning in the highest degree. Their aim is to turn humankind from goodness, and especially to draw them away from God and to draw them down into Hell, of which they are the purveyors and recruiters.
We can understand that the demons should address themselves to those who are pursuing the upward path and who will be lost to them if they continue to follow it; we can understand that the demons should address themselves to such, and that they should employ every imaginable seduction and even the false veneer of goodness to draw them into their nets; but what we cannot understand is that these invisible agents should address themselves to those who are already given up, body and soul, to evil, and should urge them to return to God and to goodness. Can any human beings be more completely and thoroughly within the grip of the Devil’s claw than those who deny and blaspheme God, and who have plunged, headlong, into all the vices and disorders of unbridled passions? Are not such already on the high road to Hell? Is it comprehensible that the demons, when sure of their prey, should incite the latter to pray to God, to submit themselves to God’s will, to renounce evil; that they should hold up before them the delights that await the virtuous in the other life, and should horrify them with frightful pictures of the miseries that await the wicked? Who ever saw a tradesman praising up the wares of his rival to the disparagement of his own and urging his customers to go to that rival’s shop? Who ever heard a recruiting-sergeant lecturing on the hardships of a soldier’s life and the charms of domestic happiness, telling the recruits that, if they enlist, they will have a life of fatigue and privation, and that, ten chances to one they will be killed, or have a leg or an arm shot away in their first battle?
Such, however, is the stupid part which our adversaries make the demons play, by attributing to their intervention the spirit-manifestations of our time, for it is a well-known fact that, every day, through the instructions emanating from the invisible world, skeptics and atheists are brought back to belief in God, those who never prayed before are seen to pray with fervor, and the most vicious are induced to work ardently for their own moral improvement. To say that all this is a piece of cunning on the part of the devil is to make him out to be a conglomeration of multiple idiocies. And as the cases we instance are not suppositions but facts, and as no denial can undo the reality of a fact, we are compelled to conclude, either that the demons are the stupidest of bunglers – in which case they are neither so cunning nor so clever as they are said to be, and, consequently, not so much to be feared as is pretended, seeing that they are working against their own interests – or else that all the manifestations alluded to are not of their producing.
We can understand that the demons should address themselves to those who are pursuing the upward path and who will be lost to them if they continue to follow it; we can understand that the demons should address themselves to such, and that they should employ every imaginable seduction and even the false veneer of goodness to draw them into their nets; but what we cannot understand is that these invisible agents should address themselves to those who are already given up, body and soul, to evil, and should urge them to return to God and to goodness. Can any human beings be more completely and thoroughly within the grip of the Devil’s claw than those who deny and blaspheme God, and who have plunged, headlong, into all the vices and disorders of unbridled passions? Are not such already on the high road to Hell? Is it comprehensible that the demons, when sure of their prey, should incite the latter to pray to God, to submit themselves to God’s will, to renounce evil; that they should hold up before them the delights that await the virtuous in the other life, and should horrify them with frightful pictures of the miseries that await the wicked? Who ever saw a tradesman praising up the wares of his rival to the disparagement of his own and urging his customers to go to that rival’s shop? Who ever heard a recruiting-sergeant lecturing on the hardships of a soldier’s life and the charms of domestic happiness, telling the recruits that, if they enlist, they will have a life of fatigue and privation, and that, ten chances to one they will be killed, or have a leg or an arm shot away in their first battle?
Such, however, is the stupid part which our adversaries make the demons play, by attributing to their intervention the spirit-manifestations of our time, for it is a well-known fact that, every day, through the instructions emanating from the invisible world, skeptics and atheists are brought back to belief in God, those who never prayed before are seen to pray with fervor, and the most vicious are induced to work ardently for their own moral improvement. To say that all this is a piece of cunning on the part of the devil is to make him out to be a conglomeration of multiple idiocies. And as the cases we instance are not suppositions but facts, and as no denial can undo the reality of a fact, we are compelled to conclude, either that the demons are the stupidest of bunglers – in which case they are neither so cunning nor so clever as they are said to be, and, consequently, not so much to be feared as is pretended, seeing that they are working against their own interests – or else that all the manifestations alluded to are not of their producing.
8. “They cause every form of error to be accepted; it is to obtain this result that wood, stone, forests and fountains, the sanctuary of idols, the legs of tables, the hands of children, deliver oracles.” But, if this were so, what weight can be attached to these words of the prophet Joel, quoted in the Acts of the Apostles, chap. II. 17 and 18: – “I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy; your young men shall have visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. In those days I will pour out my spirit on my servants and on my hand-maidens; and they shall prophesy.” Are not these words the prediction of the bestowal of the gift of mediumship upon all, even upon children, a prediction that is being fulfilled at the present time? Did the Apostles hurl an anathema against this faculty? No, they announced its generalization as a favor from God, and not as the work of the Devil. Do the theologians of our day know less of this matter than was known by the Apostles? Should they not recognize the finger of God in the accomplishment of this prediction?
9. “By means of these operations of modern magic, we witness the reproduction among ourselves of the evocations, oracles, consultations, cures, and other prodigies that formerly gave renown to the temples of idols and the dens of sibyls.” What operations of magic are to be found in spiritist evocations? There was a time when certain magical formulae, signs, and modes of proceeding were supposed to possess special efficacy in evoking spirits, but these are now regarded as ridiculous; nobody believes in their supposed power to conjure and control, and Spiritism condemns them. At the period during which magic flourished, the world had but a very imperfect idea of the nature of spirits, who were regarded as beings endowed with superhuman power; they were never evoked excepting by those who wished to obtain from them, were it even at the price of their souls, the favors of fortune, the discovery of hidden treasures, the foreknowledge of future events, or love potions. Magic was supposed to furnish, through its cabalistic signs, formulae, and operations, the means of working prodigies by constraining spirits to put themselves under the orders of human beings and to satisfy their desires. At the present day, we know that spirits are nothing but the souls of men and women; and they are evoked by us only for the sake of obtaining counsel from them, if they are good, for the purpose of moralizing them, if they are ignorant or vicious, or in the interest of continuing our relationship with the souls of those whom we have loved in the earthly life. The following quotations leave no doubt as to the teachings of Spiritism in regard to evocation and the communication between humankind and spirits.
10. It is not possible to compel a spirit to present itself against its will, if the spirit is your superior, or even your equal, in morality, because you have no authority over such a one; but, if that same spirit is your inferior in morality you can constrain it, provided your evocation is intended to promote its welfare, for, in that case, your action will be seconded by other spirits. (“The Mediums’ Book,” Part II, chap. XXV, No. 10)
– The most essential of all states of feeling, when you wish to communicate with spirits of higher degree, is seriousness and concentration of purpose. Faith in God and the aspiration after goodness are the most powerful of all evocations as regards superior spirits. By raising the soul towards the higher spheres, through a few moments of serious thought, before evoking, you identify yourselves with spirits of correspondingly higher degrees, and thus dispose them to come to you. (Idem, No. 12)
– No talisman has the property of attracting or repelling spirits, for matter has no influence over them. Be sure that no good spirit ever inculcated any such absurdity, and that the virtue of talismans has never existed, except in the imagination of the credulous. (Idem, No. 17)
– There is no special formula for the evocation of spirits; and whoever should pretend to give such a formula may be safely charged with charlatanism, for forms are nothing to spirits. But we hold, nevertheless, that evocations should always be made with seriousness and in the name of God. (Idem, chap. XVII)
– Spirits who make appointments in lugubrious places and at unseasonable hours amuse themselves at the expense of those who listen to them. It is always useless, and often dangerous, to conform to such suggestions; useless, because you gain absolutely nothing by so doing, except being hoaxed; dangerous, not from any harm the spirits may do you, but from the effect they may have upon your own weak brains. (Idem, No. 18)
– No days or hours are more propitious than others for evocations. Physical conditions are not considered to be of any importance to spirits, and to believe in the influence of days and hours is mere superstition. The most propitious time is that in which the thought of the evoker is least preoccupied with his daily affairs, and in which he enjoys the greatest calmness of mind and of body. (Idem. No. 19)
– Malevolence has taken pleasure in representing the modern communication of humanity with spirits as being surrounded with the ridiculous and superstitious practices of magic and necromancy. If those who speak thus of Spiritism without understanding it had given themselves the trouble to study the subject before talking about it, they might have spared themselves their outlay of imagination and of allegations which prove only their ignorance or ill-will. For the edification of those who are unacquainted with the subject, we declare that, for communicating with spirits, no days, hours, or places are specially favorable; that, for evoking them, no special formulae, no cabalistic or consecrated signs, no initiation or preparation, are needed; that the employment of any outward sign or material object is powerless to attract or to drive them away, and that, for evoking them, the action of our thought suffices; and, finally, that mediums receive the verbal communications of spirits without quitting their normal state, and as simply and naturally as though they were dictated by a living person. Charlatanism alone could affect, in regard to these communications, to assume airs of eccentricity or to accompany their reception with nonsensical accessories. (“What is Spiritism?” Chap. II, No. 49)
– As a general rule, the future is hidden from human beings; it is only in rare and exceptional cases that God allows it to be foretold. If people knew what the future is destined to bring forth, they would neglect the present, and, moreover, would not act with the same freedom because they would be influenced by the idea that, if a thing is fated to happen, there is no need for them to take any trouble about it, or they would seek to prevent its happening. God has willed that this should not be the case, in order that each may concur in the working out of His designs, even of those that they would have opposed if they had known of them beforehand. God permits the revelation of the future when this foreknowledge will facilitate the accomplishment of a given event instead of hindering it, by leading those, who are to bring it about, to act in some other way than that in which they would otherwise have acted. (“The Spirits’ Book,” Parts I, III, chap. X)
– Spirits cannot guide us, ostensibly, in the work of scientific research and discovery. The ascertainment of scientific truth is the work of genius; knowledge can only be obtained through labor and effort, for it is through work alone that the human race advances on its way. Where would be the merit if they had only to interrogate spirits in order to arrive at the possession of knowledge? Every fool, in that case, might become a beacon of science at small cost to him or herself. It is the same with regard to industrial discoveries and inventions.
When the time for a discovery has come, the spirits charged with the direction of human progress seek out a person capable of seconding their action, and suggest to that individual’s mind the necessary ideas for bringing that discovery to light, but in such a way as to leave to him or her all the merit of the achievement; for it is this person who must elaborate, and bring to bear, the ideas thus suggested. All the great achievements of the human intelligence have been suggested in this way. But spirits leave each human being in his or her own sphere. They do not impart divine secrets to one who is only fit to till the ground; but they draw out of obscurity the one who is capable of seconding the divine designs. You should not allow yourselves to be tempted, by curiosity or ambition, into inquiries that are foreign to the purpose of Spiritism, and that can only lead to mystifications and disappointments. (“The Mediums’ Book,” Part II, chap. XXVI)
– Spirits cannot enable us to discover hidden treasures. Spirits of high degree take no interest in such matters; but mocking spirits often pretend to indicate treasures which do not exist, or which are in some other place than that in which they cause you to see them. Such deceptions, however, are sometimes useful, by showing you that the true source of fortune is work. If Providence designs a hidden treasure to be found by someone, it will be found by that someone in what will appear to him or her as a natural way; otherwise, it will not be found at all. (Idem, chap. XXVI, No. 30)
– Spiritism, by enlightening us in regard to the properties of the fluids that are the agents and means of action of the invisible world, gives us the key to a host of things hitherto unexplained, and that are inexplicable by any other theory; things which in the olden times have passed for prodigies. Spiritism, like magnetism, reveals to us a law which, though not wholly unknown, has been hitherto imperfectly understood; a law of which, while its effects were known, the world was ignorant, and the ignorance of which engendered superstition. This law being known, the marvelous disappears; and phenomena, formerly regarded as miraculous or supernatural, are brought into the category of natural things. Spiritists no more perform miracles by causing a table to rap, or the so-called dead to write, than does a physician when he restores a sick man to health, or the electrician, when he produces artificial lighting. Whoever should pretend to perform miracles by the aid of Spiritism would prove him or herself an ignoramus or a charlatan by the mere fact of such a pretension. (Idem, Part I, chap. II, No. 15)
– Among the many who have formed a very false idea of evocations, there are some who fancy that they consist in bringing back the dead, with all the lugubrious accessories of the grave! But it is only in romances, in fantastic ghost stories, and upon the stage, that the skeletons of the dead are seen coming out of their sepulchers, draped in their winding-sheets, and rattling their fleshless bones. Spiritism, which has never worked miracles, has never brought a dead body to life; when the body is once placed in the grave, there it definitively remains; but the spiritual being, fluidic and intelligent, was not buried with its gross outer envelope; it separated from that envelope at the moment of death, and when once that separation has been effected, it has no further connection with it. (“What is Spiritism?” Chap. II, No. 48)
– The most essential of all states of feeling, when you wish to communicate with spirits of higher degree, is seriousness and concentration of purpose. Faith in God and the aspiration after goodness are the most powerful of all evocations as regards superior spirits. By raising the soul towards the higher spheres, through a few moments of serious thought, before evoking, you identify yourselves with spirits of correspondingly higher degrees, and thus dispose them to come to you. (Idem, No. 12)
– No talisman has the property of attracting or repelling spirits, for matter has no influence over them. Be sure that no good spirit ever inculcated any such absurdity, and that the virtue of talismans has never existed, except in the imagination of the credulous. (Idem, No. 17)
– There is no special formula for the evocation of spirits; and whoever should pretend to give such a formula may be safely charged with charlatanism, for forms are nothing to spirits. But we hold, nevertheless, that evocations should always be made with seriousness and in the name of God. (Idem, chap. XVII)
– Spirits who make appointments in lugubrious places and at unseasonable hours amuse themselves at the expense of those who listen to them. It is always useless, and often dangerous, to conform to such suggestions; useless, because you gain absolutely nothing by so doing, except being hoaxed; dangerous, not from any harm the spirits may do you, but from the effect they may have upon your own weak brains. (Idem, No. 18)
– No days or hours are more propitious than others for evocations. Physical conditions are not considered to be of any importance to spirits, and to believe in the influence of days and hours is mere superstition. The most propitious time is that in which the thought of the evoker is least preoccupied with his daily affairs, and in which he enjoys the greatest calmness of mind and of body. (Idem. No. 19)
– Malevolence has taken pleasure in representing the modern communication of humanity with spirits as being surrounded with the ridiculous and superstitious practices of magic and necromancy. If those who speak thus of Spiritism without understanding it had given themselves the trouble to study the subject before talking about it, they might have spared themselves their outlay of imagination and of allegations which prove only their ignorance or ill-will. For the edification of those who are unacquainted with the subject, we declare that, for communicating with spirits, no days, hours, or places are specially favorable; that, for evoking them, no special formulae, no cabalistic or consecrated signs, no initiation or preparation, are needed; that the employment of any outward sign or material object is powerless to attract or to drive them away, and that, for evoking them, the action of our thought suffices; and, finally, that mediums receive the verbal communications of spirits without quitting their normal state, and as simply and naturally as though they were dictated by a living person. Charlatanism alone could affect, in regard to these communications, to assume airs of eccentricity or to accompany their reception with nonsensical accessories. (“What is Spiritism?” Chap. II, No. 49)
– As a general rule, the future is hidden from human beings; it is only in rare and exceptional cases that God allows it to be foretold. If people knew what the future is destined to bring forth, they would neglect the present, and, moreover, would not act with the same freedom because they would be influenced by the idea that, if a thing is fated to happen, there is no need for them to take any trouble about it, or they would seek to prevent its happening. God has willed that this should not be the case, in order that each may concur in the working out of His designs, even of those that they would have opposed if they had known of them beforehand. God permits the revelation of the future when this foreknowledge will facilitate the accomplishment of a given event instead of hindering it, by leading those, who are to bring it about, to act in some other way than that in which they would otherwise have acted. (“The Spirits’ Book,” Parts I, III, chap. X)
– Spirits cannot guide us, ostensibly, in the work of scientific research and discovery. The ascertainment of scientific truth is the work of genius; knowledge can only be obtained through labor and effort, for it is through work alone that the human race advances on its way. Where would be the merit if they had only to interrogate spirits in order to arrive at the possession of knowledge? Every fool, in that case, might become a beacon of science at small cost to him or herself. It is the same with regard to industrial discoveries and inventions.
When the time for a discovery has come, the spirits charged with the direction of human progress seek out a person capable of seconding their action, and suggest to that individual’s mind the necessary ideas for bringing that discovery to light, but in such a way as to leave to him or her all the merit of the achievement; for it is this person who must elaborate, and bring to bear, the ideas thus suggested. All the great achievements of the human intelligence have been suggested in this way. But spirits leave each human being in his or her own sphere. They do not impart divine secrets to one who is only fit to till the ground; but they draw out of obscurity the one who is capable of seconding the divine designs. You should not allow yourselves to be tempted, by curiosity or ambition, into inquiries that are foreign to the purpose of Spiritism, and that can only lead to mystifications and disappointments. (“The Mediums’ Book,” Part II, chap. XXVI)
– Spirits cannot enable us to discover hidden treasures. Spirits of high degree take no interest in such matters; but mocking spirits often pretend to indicate treasures which do not exist, or which are in some other place than that in which they cause you to see them. Such deceptions, however, are sometimes useful, by showing you that the true source of fortune is work. If Providence designs a hidden treasure to be found by someone, it will be found by that someone in what will appear to him or her as a natural way; otherwise, it will not be found at all. (Idem, chap. XXVI, No. 30)
– Spiritism, by enlightening us in regard to the properties of the fluids that are the agents and means of action of the invisible world, gives us the key to a host of things hitherto unexplained, and that are inexplicable by any other theory; things which in the olden times have passed for prodigies. Spiritism, like magnetism, reveals to us a law which, though not wholly unknown, has been hitherto imperfectly understood; a law of which, while its effects were known, the world was ignorant, and the ignorance of which engendered superstition. This law being known, the marvelous disappears; and phenomena, formerly regarded as miraculous or supernatural, are brought into the category of natural things. Spiritists no more perform miracles by causing a table to rap, or the so-called dead to write, than does a physician when he restores a sick man to health, or the electrician, when he produces artificial lighting. Whoever should pretend to perform miracles by the aid of Spiritism would prove him or herself an ignoramus or a charlatan by the mere fact of such a pretension. (Idem, Part I, chap. II, No. 15)
– Among the many who have formed a very false idea of evocations, there are some who fancy that they consist in bringing back the dead, with all the lugubrious accessories of the grave! But it is only in romances, in fantastic ghost stories, and upon the stage, that the skeletons of the dead are seen coming out of their sepulchers, draped in their winding-sheets, and rattling their fleshless bones. Spiritism, which has never worked miracles, has never brought a dead body to life; when the body is once placed in the grave, there it definitively remains; but the spiritual being, fluidic and intelligent, was not buried with its gross outer envelope; it separated from that envelope at the moment of death, and when once that separation has been effected, it has no further connection with it. (“What is Spiritism?” Chap. II, No. 48)
11. We have multiplied our quotations in order to show that the principles of Spiritism have nothing in common with those of magic. In Spiritism, there are no spirits under the command human beings, no means of constraining them to come to us, no cabalistic signs or formulae, no discoveries of treasures or of means of enriching ourselves, no miracles or prodigies, no divination or fantastic apparitions, nothing, in short, of what constitutes the essential elements and aim of magic. Spiritism not only keeps clear of all these things, but it shows them to be both inefficacious and impossible. There is, then, no analogy whatever between the methods and aim of magic and those of Spiritism; to represent them as similar can only be attempted from ignorance or malevolence; and as there is nothing secret about the principles of Spiritism, which are formulated in terms that are perfectly clear and unambiguous, such misrepresentations can only be short-lived.
As to the cures affected by spirit aid, and acknowledged to be real in the Pastoral that we have been examining, they are ill chosen as evidence of the evils resulting from communication with spirits! The restoration of health is, perhaps, of all the blessings of life, the one which touches us all most nearly, the one which each of us is best able to appreciate at its true value; and very few would be disposed to renounce such a benefit (especially if obtained after all other means of cure have been employed without success), from the fear of being cured by the devil; in fact, most people would rather be inclined to say that, if the devil has cured them, he has done a good deed! *
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* By the endeavor to persuade those who have been cured by spirits that they have been cured by the Devil, a great many persons, who had previously no intention of leaving the Church, have been led to withdraw entirely from it.
As to the cures affected by spirit aid, and acknowledged to be real in the Pastoral that we have been examining, they are ill chosen as evidence of the evils resulting from communication with spirits! The restoration of health is, perhaps, of all the blessings of life, the one which touches us all most nearly, the one which each of us is best able to appreciate at its true value; and very few would be disposed to renounce such a benefit (especially if obtained after all other means of cure have been employed without success), from the fear of being cured by the devil; in fact, most people would rather be inclined to say that, if the devil has cured them, he has done a good deed! *
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* By the endeavor to persuade those who have been cured by spirits that they have been cured by the Devil, a great many persons, who had previously no intention of leaving the Church, have been led to withdraw entirely from it.
12. “What,” asks the author of the Pastoral in question, “are the secret agents of these phenomena and the real actors in these inexplicable scenes? The angels would not play a part so unworthy, nor lend themselves to the caprices of a vain curiosity.”
The author here alludes to the physical manifestations of spirits; among these, there are undoubtedly many that would be but little worthy of spirits of high degree; and if, instead of the word angels, we substitute the term pure spirits, or superior spirits, his assertion is exactly identical with the statements of Spiritism in regard to this point. But it is impossible to place such manifestations on the same level with intelligent communications, made by writing, speaking, or hearing mediums, and which are no more unworthy of good spirits than of eminent men, since these apparitions, cures, and a host of other manifestations of spirit-power are precisely analogous to those which are met with in profusion in Holy Writ, and asserted, therein, to be due to the intervention of “angels” or of “saints.” And if “angels” and “saints” have produced, in former times, phenomena of this character, why should they not produce similar phenomena at the present day? Why should certain facts, occurring at the present day and through the intermediary of certain persons, be set down as being the work of the Devil, when the same facts occurring through the intermediary of other persons are cried up as holy miracles? To sustain such a thesis is to bid defiance to all the rules of logical reasoning.
The author of the Pastoral makes a great mistake in qualifying the phenomena in question as “inexplicable”; at the present day they are, on the contrary, perfectly explicable, and it is for this very reason that they have ceased to be regarded as miraculous or supernatural; but even if they were still unexplained, it would be no more reasonable to attribute them to the devil, than it was, formerly, to do him the honor of attributing to him all the natural phenomena of which science had not yet discovered the cause.
By an “unworthy part” must be understood any absurd or mischievous action on the part of spirits; but such action cannot be attributed to spirits who do good and who bring men and women back to God and to virtue. Spiritism declares expressly that no low or unworthy action can be attributed to spirits of high degree, and presents the following statements as proof:
The author here alludes to the physical manifestations of spirits; among these, there are undoubtedly many that would be but little worthy of spirits of high degree; and if, instead of the word angels, we substitute the term pure spirits, or superior spirits, his assertion is exactly identical with the statements of Spiritism in regard to this point. But it is impossible to place such manifestations on the same level with intelligent communications, made by writing, speaking, or hearing mediums, and which are no more unworthy of good spirits than of eminent men, since these apparitions, cures, and a host of other manifestations of spirit-power are precisely analogous to those which are met with in profusion in Holy Writ, and asserted, therein, to be due to the intervention of “angels” or of “saints.” And if “angels” and “saints” have produced, in former times, phenomena of this character, why should they not produce similar phenomena at the present day? Why should certain facts, occurring at the present day and through the intermediary of certain persons, be set down as being the work of the Devil, when the same facts occurring through the intermediary of other persons are cried up as holy miracles? To sustain such a thesis is to bid defiance to all the rules of logical reasoning.
The author of the Pastoral makes a great mistake in qualifying the phenomena in question as “inexplicable”; at the present day they are, on the contrary, perfectly explicable, and it is for this very reason that they have ceased to be regarded as miraculous or supernatural; but even if they were still unexplained, it would be no more reasonable to attribute them to the devil, than it was, formerly, to do him the honor of attributing to him all the natural phenomena of which science had not yet discovered the cause.
By an “unworthy part” must be understood any absurd or mischievous action on the part of spirits; but such action cannot be attributed to spirits who do good and who bring men and women back to God and to virtue. Spiritism declares expressly that no low or unworthy action can be attributed to spirits of high degree, and presents the following statements as proof:
13. The quality of spirits is known from their language; that of spirits who are truly good and of superior degree is always dignified, noble, logical, free from contradictions; it breathes wisdom, benevolence, modesty, and the purest morality; it is concise and without verbiage. Among inferior, ignorant, and pretentious spirits, the dearth of ideas is almost always accompanied by a superabundance of words. Every false statement, every maxim at variance with true morality, every piece of unwise advice, every gross, trivial, or merely frivolous expression, and, finally, every trace of malevolence, presumption, or arrogance, are incontestable signs of inferiority on the part of the communicating spirit.
Spirits of high degree confine their action to the giving of intelligent communications with a view to our instruction; physical manifestations are more especially the work of spirits of lower degree, commonly designated as rapping spirits; just as, among ourselves, feats of muscular strength and agility are performed by tumblers rather than by scientific men. It would be absurd to suppose that spirits possessing a high degree of elevation would spend their time in performances of that kind. (What is Spiritism? Chap. II, Nos. 37, 38, 39, 40, 60. “The Spirits’ Book,” Book Second, Chap. I, Different Orders of Spirits; Spirit Hierarchy. “The Mediums’ Book,” Part Second, Chap. XXXIV; Identity of Spirits; Distinguishing between Good and Evil Spirits)
What fair-minded man could see in these statements any shred of logic attributing an “unworthy part” to spirits of elevated degree? Spiritism not only does not confound the various ranks of spirit- elevation, but, moreover – while the Church attributes to demons a degree of intelligence equal to that of the angels – it has ascertained from the observation of facts, that the lower orders of spirits are stupid and ignorant, that their moral horizon is narrow, their mental acuity slight, their idea of the economy of things false and incomplete, so that they are incapable of solving certain problems; and that they are consequently unable to perform the marvels with which demons are credited by the Church and by common belief.
Spirits of high degree confine their action to the giving of intelligent communications with a view to our instruction; physical manifestations are more especially the work of spirits of lower degree, commonly designated as rapping spirits; just as, among ourselves, feats of muscular strength and agility are performed by tumblers rather than by scientific men. It would be absurd to suppose that spirits possessing a high degree of elevation would spend their time in performances of that kind. (What is Spiritism? Chap. II, Nos. 37, 38, 39, 40, 60. “The Spirits’ Book,” Book Second, Chap. I, Different Orders of Spirits; Spirit Hierarchy. “The Mediums’ Book,” Part Second, Chap. XXXIV; Identity of Spirits; Distinguishing between Good and Evil Spirits)
What fair-minded man could see in these statements any shred of logic attributing an “unworthy part” to spirits of elevated degree? Spiritism not only does not confound the various ranks of spirit- elevation, but, moreover – while the Church attributes to demons a degree of intelligence equal to that of the angels – it has ascertained from the observation of facts, that the lower orders of spirits are stupid and ignorant, that their moral horizon is narrow, their mental acuity slight, their idea of the economy of things false and incomplete, so that they are incapable of solving certain problems; and that they are consequently unable to perform the marvels with which demons are credited by the Church and by common belief.
14. “The souls of the dead, whom God has forbidden us to consult, are in the realm of sojourn assigned to them by God’s justice, and cannot without God’s permission place themselves at the order of the living.”
Spiritism fully admits that they cannot come without the permission of God; but it goes still further, for – while the Church attributes to the demons the power of doing without that permission – it asserts that no spirit, whether good or bad, can come without having received it, and that, even when spirits are thus permitted to respond to the call of the living, it is not “to place themselves at their orders.”
When a spirit is evoked, does it come voluntarily, or is it constrained to do so? It obeys the will of God, that is to say, the general laws that govern the universe; it judges whether it is useful to come, and, in so doing, exercises its free will. A superior spirit always comes when it is called for a useful purpose; it only refuses to answer those who evoke it as an amusement. (“The Mediums’ Book,” Part Second, chap. XXV)
Can a spirit refuse to come when evoked? Certainly it can; where would be its freewill if it could not? Do you suppose that all the beings of the universe are at your orders? Would you consider yourself bound to reply to everyone who should pronounce your name? When I say that a spirit can refuse to come, I mean, at the demand of the evoker; for an inferior spirit may be constrained by a superior spirit to present itself. (Idem, No. 9)
Spiritists are so fully convinced that they have no direct power over spirits and can obtain nothing from them without the divine permission, that when they desire to make a general evocation, they do so in some such terms as the following: – “I pray Almighty God to permit a good spirit to communicate with me by writing (or otherwise, as the case may be), and I also beg my Guardian- Angel to assist me, and to keep away evil or troublesome spirits;” or, if they wished to evoke a given spirit, fixed on beforehand, they employ some such words as these: – “In the name of Almighty God, I beg the spirit of So-and-so to communicate with me;” or, “I pray Almighty God to permit the Spirit of So-and-so to communicate with me.” (Idem, Part Second, chap. XVII. 203)
Spiritism fully admits that they cannot come without the permission of God; but it goes still further, for – while the Church attributes to the demons the power of doing without that permission – it asserts that no spirit, whether good or bad, can come without having received it, and that, even when spirits are thus permitted to respond to the call of the living, it is not “to place themselves at their orders.”
When a spirit is evoked, does it come voluntarily, or is it constrained to do so? It obeys the will of God, that is to say, the general laws that govern the universe; it judges whether it is useful to come, and, in so doing, exercises its free will. A superior spirit always comes when it is called for a useful purpose; it only refuses to answer those who evoke it as an amusement. (“The Mediums’ Book,” Part Second, chap. XXV)
Can a spirit refuse to come when evoked? Certainly it can; where would be its freewill if it could not? Do you suppose that all the beings of the universe are at your orders? Would you consider yourself bound to reply to everyone who should pronounce your name? When I say that a spirit can refuse to come, I mean, at the demand of the evoker; for an inferior spirit may be constrained by a superior spirit to present itself. (Idem, No. 9)
Spiritists are so fully convinced that they have no direct power over spirits and can obtain nothing from them without the divine permission, that when they desire to make a general evocation, they do so in some such terms as the following: – “I pray Almighty God to permit a good spirit to communicate with me by writing (or otherwise, as the case may be), and I also beg my Guardian- Angel to assist me, and to keep away evil or troublesome spirits;” or, if they wished to evoke a given spirit, fixed on beforehand, they employ some such words as these: – “In the name of Almighty God, I beg the spirit of So-and-so to communicate with me;” or, “I pray Almighty God to permit the Spirit of So-and-so to communicate with me.” (Idem, Part Second, chap. XVII. 203)
15. The accusations hurled by the Church against the practice of evocation do not touch Spiritism, since they are mainly directed against the operations of magic, with which spiritist evocations have nothing in common. Spiritism is in accordance with the Church in condemning those operations and whatever would seem to imply the attributing to superior spirits of a part unworthy of them; and it declares, moreover, that nothing is to be asked, or can be obtained, without the permission of God.
Undoubtedly, there may be those who misuse evocation, who make an amusement of it, who turn it from its Providential aim to serve their own personal ends, and who, through ignorance, frivolity, vanity, or cupidity, depart from the true principles of spiritist doctrine; but true Spiritism disowns them, just as true religion disowns the excesses of bigots and fanatics. It is therefore neither fair nor reasonable to impute to Spiritism the abuses that it condemns, or the misdeeds of those who do not rightly understand its teachings. Before bringing forward an accusation, the accusers should be quite sure that their accusation is just. The blame of the Church is directed against charlatanism, mercenary mediumship, and the practices of magic and sorcery; and in this the church is in the right. When criticism, whether religious or skeptical, condemns abuses and stigmatizes charlatanism, it renders a service to the doctrine that it helps rid of its impurities; by so doing it aids us in the fulfillment of our task. But criticism ceases to be legitimate when it confounds the good with the bad, the thing itself with the improper use that may be made of it, as is done by some from ignorance of the subject criticized, by others, from dishonesty; but this distinction, though the critic may ignore it, is made, in the long run, by the public. Nevertheless, this criticism, which is embraced by every sincere spiritist if applied to evil, cannot harm the doctrine.
Undoubtedly, there may be those who misuse evocation, who make an amusement of it, who turn it from its Providential aim to serve their own personal ends, and who, through ignorance, frivolity, vanity, or cupidity, depart from the true principles of spiritist doctrine; but true Spiritism disowns them, just as true religion disowns the excesses of bigots and fanatics. It is therefore neither fair nor reasonable to impute to Spiritism the abuses that it condemns, or the misdeeds of those who do not rightly understand its teachings. Before bringing forward an accusation, the accusers should be quite sure that their accusation is just. The blame of the Church is directed against charlatanism, mercenary mediumship, and the practices of magic and sorcery; and in this the church is in the right. When criticism, whether religious or skeptical, condemns abuses and stigmatizes charlatanism, it renders a service to the doctrine that it helps rid of its impurities; by so doing it aids us in the fulfillment of our task. But criticism ceases to be legitimate when it confounds the good with the bad, the thing itself with the improper use that may be made of it, as is done by some from ignorance of the subject criticized, by others, from dishonesty; but this distinction, though the critic may ignore it, is made, in the long run, by the public. Nevertheless, this criticism, which is embraced by every sincere spiritist if applied to evil, cannot harm the doctrine.
16. “The mysterious beings who thus respond to the first call of the heretical and the impious as readily as to that of the faithful, of the criminal as of the innocent, are neither envoys of God nor apostles of truth and salvation, but are the tools of error and of Hell.”
Thus, according to the Church, God does not permit good spirits to approach the heretical, the impious, and the criminal, to win them back from their error and to save them from everlasting perdition! God only sends to them “the tools of Hell,” to drag them down and yet more deeply into the mire of damnation! Furthermore, God sends only the most degraded and malicious of beings to the innocent, to pervert them! But are there, then, among the “Angels,” who are the privileged favorites of the Creator, none who are compassionate enough to come to the assistance of the souls thus being drawn to perdition? What is the use of the brilliant qualities with which they are endowed, if those qualities serve only to secure their own personal enjoyment? Can they really be as good as they are declared to be, if, while immersed in the delights of contemplation, they see all these souls on the road to Hell without hastening to lead them into the road to salvation? Are they not, rather, like the wealthy egotist who, possessing all the elements of physical comfort in abundance, leaves the beggar to die of starvation, without pity, at his door? And is not such a doctrine the exaltation of selfishness into a virtue, and a placing of it, as such, at the very feet of the Eternal?
You are astonished that good spirits should come to seek out the “heretical” and the “impious;” but, if so, you must have forgotten the saying of Christ: – “It is not they who are whole that need the physician, but they who are sick.” Your point of view, then, is no higher than that of the Pharisees of his day? And you, yourselves, if a repentant criminal solicited your assistance, would you refuse to aid him in returning into the path of virtue?
Good spirits only do what is done by the ministers of religion and by all good men and women, who go to the victims of impiety to move them with the eloquence of truth and kindness. Instead of anathematizing the communications from beyond the grave, you should gratefully recognize the channels thus opened by the Providence of the Almighty and should admire this new evidence of God’s infinite power and God’s inexhaustible goodness!
Thus, according to the Church, God does not permit good spirits to approach the heretical, the impious, and the criminal, to win them back from their error and to save them from everlasting perdition! God only sends to them “the tools of Hell,” to drag them down and yet more deeply into the mire of damnation! Furthermore, God sends only the most degraded and malicious of beings to the innocent, to pervert them! But are there, then, among the “Angels,” who are the privileged favorites of the Creator, none who are compassionate enough to come to the assistance of the souls thus being drawn to perdition? What is the use of the brilliant qualities with which they are endowed, if those qualities serve only to secure their own personal enjoyment? Can they really be as good as they are declared to be, if, while immersed in the delights of contemplation, they see all these souls on the road to Hell without hastening to lead them into the road to salvation? Are they not, rather, like the wealthy egotist who, possessing all the elements of physical comfort in abundance, leaves the beggar to die of starvation, without pity, at his door? And is not such a doctrine the exaltation of selfishness into a virtue, and a placing of it, as such, at the very feet of the Eternal?
You are astonished that good spirits should come to seek out the “heretical” and the “impious;” but, if so, you must have forgotten the saying of Christ: – “It is not they who are whole that need the physician, but they who are sick.” Your point of view, then, is no higher than that of the Pharisees of his day? And you, yourselves, if a repentant criminal solicited your assistance, would you refuse to aid him in returning into the path of virtue?
Good spirits only do what is done by the ministers of religion and by all good men and women, who go to the victims of impiety to move them with the eloquence of truth and kindness. Instead of anathematizing the communications from beyond the grave, you should gratefully recognize the channels thus opened by the Providence of the Almighty and should admire this new evidence of God’s infinite power and God’s inexhaustible goodness!
17. The Church admits the existence of Guardian Angels; but, when these angelic guardians are unable to influence their human wards through the mysterious voice of conscience or of inspiration, why should they not make use of other means of action, more direct and more physically capable of striking the senses, since such means exist? Is it credible that God restricts the employment of these means, which are God’s work, – since everything is of God and nothing can happen without God’s permission, – exclusively to evil spirits, refusing to allow good spirits to employ them also? If such were the case, we should be forced to conclude that God gives greater facilities to the demons for compassing the perdition of humankind, than God gives to their Guardian-Angels for securing their salvation!
And, strange to say! What the Guardian-Angels of humankind, according to the Church, are unable to do, the “demons” do for them; for, with the aid of these communications, denounced by the Church as infernal, they bring back to the worship of God those who denied God, to the practice of virtue those who were plunged in vice; and they thus present to us the amazing spectacle of millions of men and women who have been led to believe in God through the power of the Devil, when the Church had proved itself powerless to effect their conversion! How many, as already remarked, who formerly never prayed, now pray with faith and fervor, thanks to the teachings of these same “demons!” How many, who were formerly proud, selfish, and dissolute, have thus been rendered humble, charitable, and less sensual! And we are to be told that this is the work of demons! If this were so, it would have to be admitted that the Devil had rendered them a much greater service, and had given them much more effectual help than the Angels. But those who can imagine that such an idea could be blindly accepted, at the present day, must have a poor opinion of the judgment of humankind in this century. A religion that makes such a doctrine its cornerstone, which declares its foundations to be undermined if it is deprived of its demons, its Hell, its eternal punishment, and its pitiless God, is a religion that is committing suicide.
And, strange to say! What the Guardian-Angels of humankind, according to the Church, are unable to do, the “demons” do for them; for, with the aid of these communications, denounced by the Church as infernal, they bring back to the worship of God those who denied God, to the practice of virtue those who were plunged in vice; and they thus present to us the amazing spectacle of millions of men and women who have been led to believe in God through the power of the Devil, when the Church had proved itself powerless to effect their conversion! How many, as already remarked, who formerly never prayed, now pray with faith and fervor, thanks to the teachings of these same “demons!” How many, who were formerly proud, selfish, and dissolute, have thus been rendered humble, charitable, and less sensual! And we are to be told that this is the work of demons! If this were so, it would have to be admitted that the Devil had rendered them a much greater service, and had given them much more effectual help than the Angels. But those who can imagine that such an idea could be blindly accepted, at the present day, must have a poor opinion of the judgment of humankind in this century. A religion that makes such a doctrine its cornerstone, which declares its foundations to be undermined if it is deprived of its demons, its Hell, its eternal punishment, and its pitiless God, is a religion that is committing suicide.
18. “But, since God has sent Christ to save humankind,” it is asked, “has God not proved God’s love for them, and has God left them without protection?” Undoubtedly, Christ is the Divine Messiah, sent to teach the truth to humankind and to show them their true path; but if we consider only the period of time that has elapsed since his day, counting up the number of those who have died and of those who will die in the future without knowing anything of those teachings; and even considering those who have heard his message, how many are there who have actually put his precepts into practice? Why should not God, out of solicitude for the well-being of God’s children, send them other messengers to come upon the Earth, entering the humblest abodes, going among the rich and the poor, the learned and the ignorant, the skeptical and the believer, to teach the truth to those who know it not, to explain it to those who do not understand it, to make up by their direct and multiple teaching for the insufficiency of the propagation of the Gospel, and thereby to hasten the coming of the kingdom of heaven? And when these messengers are arriving among us in vast numbers, opening the eyes of the blind, converting the irreligious, healing the sick, and consoling the afflicted, after the example of Jesus, you repulse them, you repudiate the good they are doing, and you say they are demons! Such was also the language of the Pharisees in regard to Jesus, for they, too, said that he performed good works through the power of the devil. But what did Jesus reply to their denunciations? “Judge the tree by its fruit; a bad tree cannot bring forth good fruit.”
But, in the estimation of the Pharisees of his day, the fruit produced by Jesus was bad, because he came to destroy abuses and to proclaim the principle of human freedom that was destined to put an end to their authority; had he come to flatter their pride, to sanction their prevarications and to sustain their power, he would have been accepted by them as the Messiah so long awaited by the Jews. He was alone, poor, and defenseless; they killed him and thought they had also killed his message; but his message was divine and has survived him. Nevertheless, that message has been propagated but slowly; after the lapse of eighteen centuries it has become known to scarcely a tenth part of the human family and numerous schisms have broken out among those who call themselves his disciples. It is in this state of things that God mercifully sends spirits to confirm and to complete the message brought by Jesus, to bring it within reach of all, and to spread it abroad over the whole Earth. But the message thus repeated is not incarnated in one single man, whose voice would have reached only to a comparatively short distance; the messengers now being sent to the Earth are innumerable, they go everywhere, and no one can seize them; for which reason their teaching is spreading with the rapidity of lightning; they address themselves to the heart and to the reason, and they are therefore understood by the humblest minds.
But, in the estimation of the Pharisees of his day, the fruit produced by Jesus was bad, because he came to destroy abuses and to proclaim the principle of human freedom that was destined to put an end to their authority; had he come to flatter their pride, to sanction their prevarications and to sustain their power, he would have been accepted by them as the Messiah so long awaited by the Jews. He was alone, poor, and defenseless; they killed him and thought they had also killed his message; but his message was divine and has survived him. Nevertheless, that message has been propagated but slowly; after the lapse of eighteen centuries it has become known to scarcely a tenth part of the human family and numerous schisms have broken out among those who call themselves his disciples. It is in this state of things that God mercifully sends spirits to confirm and to complete the message brought by Jesus, to bring it within reach of all, and to spread it abroad over the whole Earth. But the message thus repeated is not incarnated in one single man, whose voice would have reached only to a comparatively short distance; the messengers now being sent to the Earth are innumerable, they go everywhere, and no one can seize them; for which reason their teaching is spreading with the rapidity of lightning; they address themselves to the heart and to the reason, and they are therefore understood by the humblest minds.
19. “But is it not unworthy of celestial messengers,” some will say, “to transmit their teachings, by means of a vehicle so common-place as “talking tables?” Is it not an outrage to their dignity to suppose that they would occupy themselves with trivialities, and that they would leave their brilliant dwelling place to themselves at the disposal of the first person that comes in their way?
Did not Jesus leave the dwelling of his Father to be cradled in a manger? And when has Spiritism ever been known to attribute trivialities to spirits of superior degree? Spiritism asserts, on the contrary, that trivialities can only be the product of trivial spirits. But, by their very simplicity, certain spirit-manifestations have exercised a powerful influence over the minds of a certain class; and, moreover, they have served, while proving the existence of the spirit-world, to show that it is altogether different from what it had hitherto been supposed to be. The phenomena produced with the aid of tables were only the beginning of the great spiritist-movement of our day; this beginning was simple and small, like all beginnings; but though the shoot is small when it issues from the acorn, the oak, nonetheless, sends out its branches widely in course of time. Who would have thought that from the humble manger of Bethlehem would go forth a voice that should shake the world?
Yes; Christ is the Divine Messiah; his word is truth, and the religion founded on that word will be immoveable, provided that those who claim to be Christians follow and practice its sublime teachings, and do not make of the just and good God revealed to us in those teachings, a God who is unjust, vindictive, and without pity.
Did not Jesus leave the dwelling of his Father to be cradled in a manger? And when has Spiritism ever been known to attribute trivialities to spirits of superior degree? Spiritism asserts, on the contrary, that trivialities can only be the product of trivial spirits. But, by their very simplicity, certain spirit-manifestations have exercised a powerful influence over the minds of a certain class; and, moreover, they have served, while proving the existence of the spirit-world, to show that it is altogether different from what it had hitherto been supposed to be. The phenomena produced with the aid of tables were only the beginning of the great spiritist-movement of our day; this beginning was simple and small, like all beginnings; but though the shoot is small when it issues from the acorn, the oak, nonetheless, sends out its branches widely in course of time. Who would have thought that from the humble manger of Bethlehem would go forth a voice that should shake the world?
Yes; Christ is the Divine Messiah; his word is truth, and the religion founded on that word will be immoveable, provided that those who claim to be Christians follow and practice its sublime teachings, and do not make of the just and good God revealed to us in those teachings, a God who is unjust, vindictive, and without pity.
CHAPTER XI - THE PROHIBITION TO EVOKE THE DEAD
1. The Church does not deny the facts of spirit- manifestation; on the contrary, it admits their reality, as is shown by the quotations examined in the preceding chapter, but it attributes them entirely to the influence of demons. It has been said that the Gospel forbids our entering into communication with the spirits of the departed, but this is a mistake, for the Gospel says nothing upon the subject. The main argument against it, purported to be taken from the Bible, is derived from the laws of Moses. We will continue to quote, for the examination of this branch of our subject, the statements of the same Pastoral in regard to this prohibition:
“It is not allowable to enter into relations with them (the spirits), either directly, or through the intermediary of those who invoke and interrogate them. The Mosaic Law punished with death these detestable practices, in use among the Gentiles. ‘Go not to seek the Magicians,’ it is said in the Book of Leviticus, ‘and ask no question of the diviners, lest you should incur uncleanness by addressing yourselves to them.’ (Chap. XIX, 31) – ‘If a man or a woman has a spirit of Python or of divination, let them be punished with death; they shall be stoned, and their blood shall fall on their own heads’ (Chap. XX, 27). And in “Deuteronomy” it is written: “Let there be no one among you who consults diviners, or observes dreams and auguries, or makes use of witchcraft, sorceries, or enchantments, or consults those that have the spirit of Python, or practice divination, or interrogate the dead to learn truth; for the Lord has all these things in abomination, and He will destroy, at your coming, the nations which commit those crimes.” (Chap. XVIII, 10, 11, 12)
“It is not allowable to enter into relations with them (the spirits), either directly, or through the intermediary of those who invoke and interrogate them. The Mosaic Law punished with death these detestable practices, in use among the Gentiles. ‘Go not to seek the Magicians,’ it is said in the Book of Leviticus, ‘and ask no question of the diviners, lest you should incur uncleanness by addressing yourselves to them.’ (Chap. XIX, 31) – ‘If a man or a woman has a spirit of Python or of divination, let them be punished with death; they shall be stoned, and their blood shall fall on their own heads’ (Chap. XX, 27). And in “Deuteronomy” it is written: “Let there be no one among you who consults diviners, or observes dreams and auguries, or makes use of witchcraft, sorceries, or enchantments, or consults those that have the spirit of Python, or practice divination, or interrogate the dead to learn truth; for the Lord has all these things in abomination, and He will destroy, at your coming, the nations which commit those crimes.” (Chap. XVIII, 10, 11, 12)
2. It is needful, in order to ascertain the real meaning of these words of Moses, to recall the full texts of the passages from which they are taken, abridged on the foregoing quotations.
“Turn yourselves not away from your God, and go not to seek after magicians, lest you should incur uncleanness by addressing yourselves to them. I am the Lord your God.” (“Leviticus,” chap. XIX, 31)
“If a man or a woman has a spirit of Python, or a spirit of divination, let them be punished with death; they shall be stoned, and their blood shall fall on their own heads’ (Idem, chap. XX, 27)
“When you shall have entered into the land which the Lord your God will give you, take good care not to wish to imitate the abominations of those peoples; and let no one among you pretend to purify his son or his daughter by making them pass through fire, or consult diviners, or observe dreams and auguries, or make use of witchcraft, sorceries, or enchantments, or consult those that have the spirit of Python, or busy themselves with divination, or interrogate the dead to learn the truth; for the Lord has all these things in abomination, and He will destroy, at your coming, the nations who commit those crimes.” (“Deuteronomy,” chap. XVIII, 9, 10, 11, 12)
“Turn yourselves not away from your God, and go not to seek after magicians, lest you should incur uncleanness by addressing yourselves to them. I am the Lord your God.” (“Leviticus,” chap. XIX, 31)
“If a man or a woman has a spirit of Python, or a spirit of divination, let them be punished with death; they shall be stoned, and their blood shall fall on their own heads’ (Idem, chap. XX, 27)
“When you shall have entered into the land which the Lord your God will give you, take good care not to wish to imitate the abominations of those peoples; and let no one among you pretend to purify his son or his daughter by making them pass through fire, or consult diviners, or observe dreams and auguries, or make use of witchcraft, sorceries, or enchantments, or consult those that have the spirit of Python, or busy themselves with divination, or interrogate the dead to learn the truth; for the Lord has all these things in abomination, and He will destroy, at your coming, the nations who commit those crimes.” (“Deuteronomy,” chap. XVIII, 9, 10, 11, 12)
3. To those who bring forward these articles of that Mosaic law as obligatory, we reply in the first place, that, if this law is to be rigorously observed in regard to this particular point, it must be held to be equally binding in regard to all other points; for why should its provisions be regarded as good in what concerns evocations and bad in what concerns other matters? We must be consistent; and, if the common sense of Christendom has decided that the legislation of Moses, in many of its provisions, is no longer in harmony with the ideas and the habits of humankind, there is no reason for not admitting that it may be the same in regard to the prohibition we are now considering.
We have in the next place to remark that in regard to the prohibition in question, we must take into account the motives that prompted it, motives which had their weight in the days of Moses, but which, assuredly, are without importance at the present day. The Hebrew legislator wished to make his people break with all the customs acquired by them in Egypt, where the habit of evoking was carried to excess, as is shown by these words of Isaiah: – “The spirit of Egypt shall be annihilated in her, and I will overthrow her prudence; they shall consult their idols, their diviners, their pythons, and their magicians.” (Chap. XIX, 3)
Moreover, the Israelites were not to contract any alliance with the nations around them; and therefore, as they would have found these customs among the nations on whose territories they were about to enter and with whom they were about to fight, Moses found it necessary, for the carrying out of his plans, to instill into the minds of his people a profound aversion for all the customs which, if adopted by them, would have constituted so many points of contact between them and their neighbors. In order to furnish a plausible basis for this aversion, it was necessary to represent those customs as being condemned by God; hence the assertion, “The Lord has all these things in abomination, and He will destroy, at your coming, the nations which commit those crimes.”
We have in the next place to remark that in regard to the prohibition in question, we must take into account the motives that prompted it, motives which had their weight in the days of Moses, but which, assuredly, are without importance at the present day. The Hebrew legislator wished to make his people break with all the customs acquired by them in Egypt, where the habit of evoking was carried to excess, as is shown by these words of Isaiah: – “The spirit of Egypt shall be annihilated in her, and I will overthrow her prudence; they shall consult their idols, their diviners, their pythons, and their magicians.” (Chap. XIX, 3)
Moreover, the Israelites were not to contract any alliance with the nations around them; and therefore, as they would have found these customs among the nations on whose territories they were about to enter and with whom they were about to fight, Moses found it necessary, for the carrying out of his plans, to instill into the minds of his people a profound aversion for all the customs which, if adopted by them, would have constituted so many points of contact between them and their neighbors. In order to furnish a plausible basis for this aversion, it was necessary to represent those customs as being condemned by God; hence the assertion, “The Lord has all these things in abomination, and He will destroy, at your coming, the nations which commit those crimes.”
4. Moses was all the more justified in inscribing this prohibition among his laws, because the evocations which he forbade were neither prompted by respect or affection for the souls of the departed, nor inspired by any sentiment of piety; they were resorted to simply as a means of divination, and placed on the same footing as the auguries and portents habitually traded in by charlatanism and superstition: an assertion that is justified by the fact that, despite all his efforts, he was unable to root out a habit which had become a matter of traffic, as is shown by the following quotations from the same prophet: –
“And when they say to you, ‘Consult the magicians and the diviners who pronounce their enchantment in whispers,’ reply to them: – ‘Does not each people consult its own God? And do people speak with the dead concerning the affairs of the living?” (Isaiah,” chap. VIII, 19)
“It is I who make manifest the falseness of the prodigies of magic; who sent madness upon those who take upon themselves to divine; who overthrow the minds of the sages and convict of foolishness their useless science.” (Idem, Chap. XLIV, 25)
“Let them come, the augurs who study the sky, who contemplate the stars, and who calculate the months to draw from them the predictions which they profess to give you concerning the future; let them come now, and let them save you. They have become like straw, the fire has devoured them; they will not be able to deliver their souls from the consuming flames; there will not even remain, from their burning, coals at which one can warm oneself, nor a fire by which one can sit. See what will become of all those things about which you have busied yourselves with so much labor! These merchants who have traded with you from your youth up will all flee away from you, some on the one hand, some on the other, without one of them being left to take you out of your troubles.” (Idem, Chap. XLVII, 13, 14, 15)
In this chapter, Isaiah addresses the Babylonians, under the allegorical figure of “the virgin daughter of Babylon, daughter of the Chaldeans.” (v. 1.) He tells them that the enchanters will not prevent the ruin of their monarchy. In the following chapter, he addresses himself directly to the Israelites.
“Come hither, ye children of a sorceress, race born of an adulterer and a prostitute! Whom have you made a mock of? Against whom have you opened your mouths and lashed out with your sharp tongues? Are you not perfidious children and bastard shoots, you who seek your consolation in your gods under every thick tree, who sacrifice your young children in the torrents under the jutting rocks? You have put your confidence in the stones of the torrents; you have poured out drink-offerings in their honor; you have offered sacrifices to them. After this, shall not my indignation be kindled against you?” (Idem, Chap LVII, 3, 4, 5, 6)
These words are clear and explicit; they prove that at the time when they were written evocations were made for purposes of divination, and as a matter of traffic; they were associated with magic and sorcery, and were even accompanied by human sacrifices. Moses was therefore right in forbidding usages of such a character, and in saying that God had them in abomination. Those superstitious practices were perpetuated until the Middle Ages; but, at the present day, human reason has condemned them, and Spiritism has come to show us that the aim of the relations of humankind with the world beyond the grave is exclusively moral, consolatory, and religious. As spiritists neither sacrifice young children nor pour out drink-offerings in honor of heathen gods; as they neither interrogate the stars, nor the dead, nor augurs, to learn the things of the future which God, in God’s wisdom has hidden from humanity; as they repudiate all trafficking in the faculty possessed by some of them of communicating with spirits; as they are prompted neither by curiosity, nor by cupidity, but by a sentiment of piety and by the desire to obtain instruction for themselves and to moralize and relieve the souls who are suffering in the other life, the Mosaic prohibition does not in any way apply to them: a fact which would have been apparent to those who invoke this prohibition against them, if they had acquainted themselves more correctly with the views and the actions of spiritists, on the one hand, and had given a more careful study to the Mosaic prohibition, on the other. They would have seen that there is no analogy between what took place among the ancient Jews and the principles and practice of Spiritism. Furthermore, they would have seen that Spiritism condemns precisely the very things that prompted the Mosaic prohibition; but, blinded by the desire to find an argument against the new ideas, they not have seen how completely their argument misses the mark.
The civil laws of the present day punish all the abuses that Moses aimed at repressing. If Moses pronounced the penalty of death upon the delinquents of his time, it was because rigorous measures were needed for governing the undisciplined people with whom he had to deal, and, consequently, that penalty was lavishly introduced into his code. It should also be remembered that he had no great choice in the means of repression to be employed by him, for in the midst of the desert he had neither prisons nor reformatories, and besides, his people were not of a character that would have been amenable to the threat of merely disciplinary punishment: consequently, it was impossible for him to graduate his punishments as is done at the present day. It is, therefore, a great mistake to insist upon the severity of the chastisement as proving the degree of guilt attributed by the Hebrew lawgiver to the evocation of the dead. Would those who invoke the Mosaic prohibition as condemnatory of spiritist evocation maintain, out of respect for Moses, the application of the penalty of death in all the other cases in which Moses applied it? Why, for instance, do those who manifest so strong a desire to revive this particular provision of the laws of Moses pass over in silence the beginning of the chapter, which forbids priests to possess property and to take any share of any inheritance, “because the Lord Himself is their inheritance?” (“Deuteronomy,” Chap. XXVIII, 1, 2)
“And when they say to you, ‘Consult the magicians and the diviners who pronounce their enchantment in whispers,’ reply to them: – ‘Does not each people consult its own God? And do people speak with the dead concerning the affairs of the living?” (Isaiah,” chap. VIII, 19)
“It is I who make manifest the falseness of the prodigies of magic; who sent madness upon those who take upon themselves to divine; who overthrow the minds of the sages and convict of foolishness their useless science.” (Idem, Chap. XLIV, 25)
“Let them come, the augurs who study the sky, who contemplate the stars, and who calculate the months to draw from them the predictions which they profess to give you concerning the future; let them come now, and let them save you. They have become like straw, the fire has devoured them; they will not be able to deliver their souls from the consuming flames; there will not even remain, from their burning, coals at which one can warm oneself, nor a fire by which one can sit. See what will become of all those things about which you have busied yourselves with so much labor! These merchants who have traded with you from your youth up will all flee away from you, some on the one hand, some on the other, without one of them being left to take you out of your troubles.” (Idem, Chap. XLVII, 13, 14, 15)
In this chapter, Isaiah addresses the Babylonians, under the allegorical figure of “the virgin daughter of Babylon, daughter of the Chaldeans.” (v. 1.) He tells them that the enchanters will not prevent the ruin of their monarchy. In the following chapter, he addresses himself directly to the Israelites.
“Come hither, ye children of a sorceress, race born of an adulterer and a prostitute! Whom have you made a mock of? Against whom have you opened your mouths and lashed out with your sharp tongues? Are you not perfidious children and bastard shoots, you who seek your consolation in your gods under every thick tree, who sacrifice your young children in the torrents under the jutting rocks? You have put your confidence in the stones of the torrents; you have poured out drink-offerings in their honor; you have offered sacrifices to them. After this, shall not my indignation be kindled against you?” (Idem, Chap LVII, 3, 4, 5, 6)
These words are clear and explicit; they prove that at the time when they were written evocations were made for purposes of divination, and as a matter of traffic; they were associated with magic and sorcery, and were even accompanied by human sacrifices. Moses was therefore right in forbidding usages of such a character, and in saying that God had them in abomination. Those superstitious practices were perpetuated until the Middle Ages; but, at the present day, human reason has condemned them, and Spiritism has come to show us that the aim of the relations of humankind with the world beyond the grave is exclusively moral, consolatory, and religious. As spiritists neither sacrifice young children nor pour out drink-offerings in honor of heathen gods; as they neither interrogate the stars, nor the dead, nor augurs, to learn the things of the future which God, in God’s wisdom has hidden from humanity; as they repudiate all trafficking in the faculty possessed by some of them of communicating with spirits; as they are prompted neither by curiosity, nor by cupidity, but by a sentiment of piety and by the desire to obtain instruction for themselves and to moralize and relieve the souls who are suffering in the other life, the Mosaic prohibition does not in any way apply to them: a fact which would have been apparent to those who invoke this prohibition against them, if they had acquainted themselves more correctly with the views and the actions of spiritists, on the one hand, and had given a more careful study to the Mosaic prohibition, on the other. They would have seen that there is no analogy between what took place among the ancient Jews and the principles and practice of Spiritism. Furthermore, they would have seen that Spiritism condemns precisely the very things that prompted the Mosaic prohibition; but, blinded by the desire to find an argument against the new ideas, they not have seen how completely their argument misses the mark.
The civil laws of the present day punish all the abuses that Moses aimed at repressing. If Moses pronounced the penalty of death upon the delinquents of his time, it was because rigorous measures were needed for governing the undisciplined people with whom he had to deal, and, consequently, that penalty was lavishly introduced into his code. It should also be remembered that he had no great choice in the means of repression to be employed by him, for in the midst of the desert he had neither prisons nor reformatories, and besides, his people were not of a character that would have been amenable to the threat of merely disciplinary punishment: consequently, it was impossible for him to graduate his punishments as is done at the present day. It is, therefore, a great mistake to insist upon the severity of the chastisement as proving the degree of guilt attributed by the Hebrew lawgiver to the evocation of the dead. Would those who invoke the Mosaic prohibition as condemnatory of spiritist evocation maintain, out of respect for Moses, the application of the penalty of death in all the other cases in which Moses applied it? Why, for instance, do those who manifest so strong a desire to revive this particular provision of the laws of Moses pass over in silence the beginning of the chapter, which forbids priests to possess property and to take any share of any inheritance, “because the Lord Himself is their inheritance?” (“Deuteronomy,” Chap. XXVIII, 1, 2)
5. The law of Moses consists of two distinct parts, viz., the Law of God, properly so called and applicable to all times and to all peoples; and the Civil or Disciplinary Law, adapted to the habits and character of the Hebrew people at the period of its promulgation. The first of these is universal and unchangeable; the other is susceptible of modification, according to the changes which take place in the views and habits of humankind, in the various phases of their development: and it could no more enter into the head of any one to suppose that men and women could be governed, at the present day, by the same regulations as the Hebrews in the desert, than to suppose that the Capitularies of Charlemagne could be put in practice in the France of the nineteenth century. Who would dream, for instance, of reviving at the present time this article of the Mosaic Law: – “If an ox strikes a man or a woman with its horn and they die of the blow, the ox shall be stoned, and no one shall eat of its flesh; but the master of the ox shall be held guiltless.” (“Exodus,” Chap. XXI, 28, 29) Yet this enactment, which seems absurd to us, was really well adapted to the circumstances of the case in the time of Moses; for its aim was not to punish the ox while acquitting its master, but to punish the owner by the confiscation of the animal that had caused the accident, and thereby to compel him to exercise more effectual oversight over his beasts in the future. The loss of the ox was the punishment of its master’s neglect, a punishment which, among a pastoral people, would be sufficiently severe to dispense with the need of supplementing it by the infliction of any additional penalty; but it was necessary that this punishment should not become a source of gain to anyone, and therefore it was forbidden to eat the flesh of the ox. Other articles of the law defined the cases in which the owner of an animal was responsible for injuries caused by it.
There was a reason for every provision of the civil law of Moses, even in its minutest details; but that law, in substance as well as in form, was only adapted to the special circumstances of the time and the people for which it was enacted. Assuredly, if Moses came back to the Earth at the present day and had to frame a code for one of the civilized nations in Europe, he would not give it the same laws that he gave to the Hebrews.
There was a reason for every provision of the civil law of Moses, even in its minutest details; but that law, in substance as well as in form, was only adapted to the special circumstances of the time and the people for which it was enacted. Assuredly, if Moses came back to the Earth at the present day and had to frame a code for one of the civilized nations in Europe, he would not give it the same laws that he gave to the Hebrews.
6. To this view of the matter there are persons who urge as an objection that all the laws of Moses were proclaimed in the name of God; those that refer to the common affairs of everyday life, as well as the law given on Mount Sinai. But, if all the enactments of Moses are believed to emanate from a divine source, why are “The Commandments” limited to the Decalogue? If all the laws of Moses are equally binding, why are they not all equally obeyed? Why, for instance, do not the sticklers for the laws of Moses practice circumcision, a rite to which Jesus was submitted and which he did not abolish? Our antagonists forget that all the ancient legislators, in order to render their laws more authoritative, asserted that they had received them from a divinity. More than any other ruler, Moses needed this sort of sanction for his code on account of the peculiarly obstinate character of the Jews; if, in spite of that sanction he found it so difficult to secure their obedience, he would have found it still more difficult, had he promulgated his laws in his own name.
Did not Jesus come to modify the Mosaic Law, and is it not his law that constitutes the code of the Christian? Did he not say, “You know that so and so was said by them of the old times, but I tell you otherwise?” But has he abrogated the law of Sinai? Not at all; on the contrary, he has given that law his sanction, and his own moral law is only the development of that earlier code. But he nowhere speaks of the prohibition to evoke the souls of the dead; yet it is a matter quite too serious to have been omitted in his instructions if he had intended to endorse it, for he has treated explicitly of points of much less importance.
Did not Jesus come to modify the Mosaic Law, and is it not his law that constitutes the code of the Christian? Did he not say, “You know that so and so was said by them of the old times, but I tell you otherwise?” But has he abrogated the law of Sinai? Not at all; on the contrary, he has given that law his sanction, and his own moral law is only the development of that earlier code. But he nowhere speaks of the prohibition to evoke the souls of the dead; yet it is a matter quite too serious to have been omitted in his instructions if he had intended to endorse it, for he has treated explicitly of points of much less importance.
7. To sum up: – the question is, whether the Church puts the Mosaic law above the Evangelical law, in other words, whether the Church is more Jewish than Christian? It is worthy of note that the Jewish religion is the one, of all others, that has made the least opposition to Spiritism, and that the Jews have not invoked, against the lawfulness of entering into communication with the dead, the enactment of Moses on which the Christian sects habitually base their opposition to evocation.
8. Another contradiction has to be pointed out. If Moses forbade the evocation of the spirits of the dead, those spirits must be able to come to us when we evoke them, as otherwise his prohibition would have been superfluous. If they could respond to the call of the living in the time of Moses, they can do so at the present time; and, if those who respond to our evocation are the souls of the dead, it is evident that this response does not emanate exclusively from demons. Besides, Moses makes no mention whatever of the latter.
It is clear, therefore, that the opponents of evocation cannot logically base their opposition on the Law of Moses, and this for two reasons, viz., 1. Because the Mosaic Law is not the law of Christianity, 2. Because it is not adapted to the usages of our epoch. But, even if the Law of Moses were as binding on Christendom as some persons seem to imagine it to be, that law would still be inapplicable to Spiritism.
Moses, it is true, includes the interrogation of the dead in his prohibition; but only as secondary to and as an accessory of, the practice of sorcery. The very expression “to interrogate,” coupled with “diviners” and “augurs,” proves that, among the Hebrews evocations were employed as a means of divination; but spiritists evoke the dead not to obtain from them unlawful revelations, but to receive from them wise counsels and to assist those among them who suffer to obtain relief. Assuredly, if the Hebrews had only employed the power of communicating with spirits for such purposes, Moses, so far from forbidding evocations, would have encouraged them because they would have rendered his people more tractable.
It is clear, therefore, that the opponents of evocation cannot logically base their opposition on the Law of Moses, and this for two reasons, viz., 1. Because the Mosaic Law is not the law of Christianity, 2. Because it is not adapted to the usages of our epoch. But, even if the Law of Moses were as binding on Christendom as some persons seem to imagine it to be, that law would still be inapplicable to Spiritism.
Moses, it is true, includes the interrogation of the dead in his prohibition; but only as secondary to and as an accessory of, the practice of sorcery. The very expression “to interrogate,” coupled with “diviners” and “augurs,” proves that, among the Hebrews evocations were employed as a means of divination; but spiritists evoke the dead not to obtain from them unlawful revelations, but to receive from them wise counsels and to assist those among them who suffer to obtain relief. Assuredly, if the Hebrews had only employed the power of communicating with spirits for such purposes, Moses, so far from forbidding evocations, would have encouraged them because they would have rendered his people more tractable.
9. If facetious or malevolent critics have thought proper to represent gatherings as assemblies of sorcerers and necromancers, and mediums as fortune-tellers, – if charlatans have sometimes mixed up the name of Spiritism with ridiculous practices which true Spiritism repudiates, – there are plenty of people who are too fully aware of the thoroughly serious and moral character of the latter, and its doctrine, propounded for the whole human race, which protests too strongly against abuses of every kind, for such a calumny not to fall eventually on the right shoulders.
10. “Evocation,” it is sometimes said, “is disrespectful towards the dead, whose ashes we ought not to disturb.” Who brings this objection forward? The adversaries who do so are of two opposing camps, united in their hatred of Spiritism: – the skeptics, who do not believe in the existence of spirits; and those who, though admitting that spirits exist, assert that they cannot come to us, and that the devil is the only agent in the production of the manifestations in question.
When evocation is conducted in a religious frame of mind and with seriousness of purpose, – when spirits are invited to hold communion with us, not for the gratification of curiosity, but from a sentiment of affection and sympathy and a sincere desire to learn, and to become better – it is difficult to see why it should be more disrespectful on our part, towards the spirits whom we thus evoke, to address ourselves to them after their death, than it would have been to address ourselves to them during their life. But there is yet another reply to this objection, – and one that is perfectly unanswerable – viz., that the spirits come to us freely and not from constraint, that, in innumerable cases they present themselves spontaneously, without being called; that they never fail to testify their satisfaction at being able to communicate with us, or to complain of having been forgotten by those whom they have left behind them upon the Earth, as the case may be. If their quiet were disturbed by our evocation, or if they were displeased by our calling them, they would tell us so, or they would not come at all. Being perfectly free to come or not to come, the fact that they respond to our evocation by coming proves that they come willingly.
When evocation is conducted in a religious frame of mind and with seriousness of purpose, – when spirits are invited to hold communion with us, not for the gratification of curiosity, but from a sentiment of affection and sympathy and a sincere desire to learn, and to become better – it is difficult to see why it should be more disrespectful on our part, towards the spirits whom we thus evoke, to address ourselves to them after their death, than it would have been to address ourselves to them during their life. But there is yet another reply to this objection, – and one that is perfectly unanswerable – viz., that the spirits come to us freely and not from constraint, that, in innumerable cases they present themselves spontaneously, without being called; that they never fail to testify their satisfaction at being able to communicate with us, or to complain of having been forgotten by those whom they have left behind them upon the Earth, as the case may be. If their quiet were disturbed by our evocation, or if they were displeased by our calling them, they would tell us so, or they would not come at all. Being perfectly free to come or not to come, the fact that they respond to our evocation by coming proves that they come willingly.
11. Our adversaries bring forward yet another objection to the practice of evocation: – “The souls of the dead, they say, are in the realm of sojourn assigned to them by the justice of God,” that is to say, in Hell or in Paradise. According to this view of the matter, those who are in Hell cannot get out of their place of torment, although full liberty is granted to the demons in this respect; and those who are in Paradise – being entirely absorbed in their own beatitude, and being raised too high above mortals to take thought for them – are too happy to care to come back to this valley of tears for the sake of the relatives and friends they have left behind them! Are they like rich people who turn their eyes away from the sight of the poor, for fear lest the spectacle of their hungry fellow-mortals should spoil their digestion? But, if such were their sentiments, they would hardly be worthy of their happiness, which in such a case would be the reward of selfishness. As for the souls in Purgatory, they are supposed to be occupied with their own sufferings and to have enough to do to look after their own salvation. Therefore, since everyone is fully employed, it is only the devil who can answer the call of the evoker, and, as no one else is able to come, it is evident that we run no risk of disturbing the souls of the dead!
12. But we have here to point out another contradiction. If the souls who are in Paradise are unable to leave that fortunate abode to bring help to mortals, why do the rituals of the most considerable churches of Christendom invoke the assistance of the “Saints,” who must be in the enjoyment of a still greater degree of beatitude? Why do those churches prescribe to their members to invoke these “Saints,” in sickness and affliction, and to preserve them from misfortunes and from dangers? Why do those churches declare that the “Saints,” and the Virgin Mary herself, render themselves visible to human beings and work miracles in their favor? For, to do this, they must necessarily come out of “Heaven,” and come down to Earth. If those who are at the very summit of celestial glory can thus come down among men and women, why should not those who are less exalted be able to come also?
13. That the skeptic and the materialist should deny the possibility of spirit-manifestations is perfectly natural, for they disbelieve in the existence of the soul; but what is strange is to see those, whose belief is based on the existence and future destiny of the soul, setting themselves angrily against the very means of proving that it exists, and doing their utmost to demonstrate that such proof is impossible. It would seem only natural, on the contrary, that those who are most interested in its existence should joyfully welcome as a boon bestowed by Providence the means of confounding, by positive proof that admits of no gainsaying, the basis of this denial, especially as the denial of this principle implies the denial of the very foundations of all religion. They incessantly deplore the invasion of the unbelief that is decimating the flock of the faithful; and yet, when the most effectual means are presented of combating that unbelief they repel those means with more obstinacy than do the skeptics themselves! And when the proofs of spirit-action are multiplied, on every hand, so abundantly as to leave no doubt concerning its reality, they have recourse as an unanswerable argument against it, to the Mosaic prohibition of interchange with the dead, and, in order to justify this prohibition, they rake up a provision of the Hebrew legislator which everybody had forgotten, and in which they are determined, “by hook, or by crook,” to find an applicability which does not exist. Moreover, our adversaries are so delighted with this discovery that they fail to perceive the testimony it furnishes to the truth of the Spiritist Doctrine.
14. None of the arguments brought forward against communication with spirits can withstand examination; on the other hand, the angry persistence displayed by our adversaries is sufficient evidence of the importance of the subject, for, if only a handful of people were interested in Spiritism, our opponents would hardly give themselves so much trouble about it. To see the crusade undertaken by all the sects against the manifestations in question, one would think they were afraid of them, and that the real motive of their onslaught is fear lest spirits, with their clearer knowledge of the other world, should give men too much light in regard to points which the various churches prefer to leave in obscurity, and should inform them too exactly as to the nature of that other world and the conditions which ensure the happiness or the unhappiness of those by whom it is inhabited. Just as people say to a child, “Don’t go into such and such a place; the Bugaboo is there!” so the churches say to people, “Don’t evoke spirits; it is the devil who answers!” But all such efforts are doomed to fail of their object. Even if it were possible to prevent human beings from evoking spirits, it would be impossible to prevent spirits from presenting themselves spontaneously to them, and bringing the candle out from beneath the bushel under which human prejudice and short-sightedness are striving to hide it.
No true creed has anything to fear from the light; for light only brings out truth into clearer relief, and the superstitious dread of “the devil” will not prevail against truth and reality.
No true creed has anything to fear from the light; for light only brings out truth into clearer relief, and the superstitious dread of “the devil” will not prevail against truth and reality.
15. To repel communication with the world beyond the grave is to reject the admirable means of instruction that are furnished to each of us by this initiation into the future life and by the examples thus offered to our consideration. And, moreover, as experience has also shown us the good we may accomplish by turning imperfect spirits from the path of evil, and by aiding those who suffer to disengage themselves from the bonds of matter and to advance their self-improvement, to interdict those communications is to deprive the souls who are unhappy in the other life of the assistance which it is in our power to give them. The following extract, from a communication given by a spirit in reference to this point, sums up admirably the effect of evocation when practiced with a charitable aim: –
“Every suffering and sorrowful spirit who comes to you will recount to you the cause of its failure and the evil tendencies to which it succumbed; such a spirit will tell you of its hopes, its combats, its terrors; the spirit will confide to you its remorse, its sorrows, and its despair; it will show you God, justly irritated against the wrongdoer and chastising such a one with all the severity of God’s justice. As you listen to the spirit, you will be moved with compassion for it and with fear for yourselves. But as you follow the outpouring of its experiences, you will behold the God of justice keeping the spirit in view, awaiting the repentance of the sinner, offering help to the spirit as soon as it tries to advance towards God. You will witness the progress of the repentant soul, to which you will have had the happiness and glory of contributing; you will watch its advancement with the solicitude of the surgeon who has dressed, day by day, the wounds of a patient, and with the joy that surgeon feels while witnessing the completion of the cure.” (The Spiritist Society of Bordeaux, 1861)
“Every suffering and sorrowful spirit who comes to you will recount to you the cause of its failure and the evil tendencies to which it succumbed; such a spirit will tell you of its hopes, its combats, its terrors; the spirit will confide to you its remorse, its sorrows, and its despair; it will show you God, justly irritated against the wrongdoer and chastising such a one with all the severity of God’s justice. As you listen to the spirit, you will be moved with compassion for it and with fear for yourselves. But as you follow the outpouring of its experiences, you will behold the God of justice keeping the spirit in view, awaiting the repentance of the sinner, offering help to the spirit as soon as it tries to advance towards God. You will witness the progress of the repentant soul, to which you will have had the happiness and glory of contributing; you will watch its advancement with the solicitude of the surgeon who has dressed, day by day, the wounds of a patient, and with the joy that surgeon feels while witnessing the completion of the cure.” (The Spiritist Society of Bordeaux, 1861)
PART SECOND - EXAMPLES
CHAPTER I - THE PASSAGE
1. Confidence in the reality of a future life does not exclude apprehension in regard to the passage from this present life to the other one. Many persons do not dread death in itself; what they dread is the instant of transition. Do we, or do we not, suffer in the crossing of the boundary? This is the query that disturbs one’s equanimity, and which is all the more worthy of consideration because it refers to something from which no one among us can possibly escape. We may decline to take a journey upon the Earth; but the journey we are contemplating is one that must be taken alike by rich and poor, and if it were a painful one, neither rank nor fortune can do away with its painfulness.
2. When we see the peacefulness of some deaths and the terrible convulsions that accompany others, we naturally infer that the sensations attendant on dissolution are not the same in all cases; but who can enlighten us upon this point? Who will describe for us the physiological phenomenon of the separation of the soul and body? Who will recount to us the impressions of that solemn moment? Science and religion are equally silent in reference to this matter.
Why are they silent? Because both are equally ignorant of the laws that govern the relations of spirits and matter; because the one stops short at the threshold of spirit-life, and the other, at the threshold of physical life. Spiritism is the connecting link between the two, and furnishes us with the needed information respecting the transition from one state of being to the other; first, through the more precise ideas it gives concerning the nature of the soul, and second, through the recitals of those who have quitted the earthly life. The knowledge of the fluidic link that unites the soul and the body is the key to this phenomenon, as to many others.
Why are they silent? Because both are equally ignorant of the laws that govern the relations of spirits and matter; because the one stops short at the threshold of spirit-life, and the other, at the threshold of physical life. Spiritism is the connecting link between the two, and furnishes us with the needed information respecting the transition from one state of being to the other; first, through the more precise ideas it gives concerning the nature of the soul, and second, through the recitals of those who have quitted the earthly life. The knowledge of the fluidic link that unites the soul and the body is the key to this phenomenon, as to many others.
3. That inert matter is insensible is a fact of which we are certain; it is only the soul that perceives the sensations of pleasure and pain. During life, the desegregation of any portion of its physical envelope is perceived by the soul, which experiences, as a consequence, an impression more or less painful. It is the soul that suffers, and not the body; the latter is only the instrument of suffering; the soul is the patient. After death, the body, being separated from the soul, may be mutilated with impunity, for it has no feeling; the soul, being isolated from the body, receives no impression from the disorganization of the latter; it has its own perceptions, the source of which is entirely distinct from tangible matter.
The perispirit is the fluidic envelope of the soul, from which it is never separated, either before or after death, and with which it forms, so to say, but a single being, for neither of them can be conceived of without the other. During the earthly life, the perispiritual fluid penetrates every part of the body and constitutes the vehicle by which physical sensations are transmitted to the soul; it is also by means of this intermediary that the soul acts upon the body and directs its movements.
The perispirit is the fluidic envelope of the soul, from which it is never separated, either before or after death, and with which it forms, so to say, but a single being, for neither of them can be conceived of without the other. During the earthly life, the perispiritual fluid penetrates every part of the body and constitutes the vehicle by which physical sensations are transmitted to the soul; it is also by means of this intermediary that the soul acts upon the body and directs its movements.
4. The extinction of the organic life causes the separation of the soul from the body by determining the rupture of the fluidic link that unites them together; but this separation never takes place abruptly: the perispiritual fluid is gradually disengaged from all the organs of the body, so that the separation is only absolute and complete when not a single particle of the perispirit remains united to a single molecule of the body. The pain experienced, by the soul, at the moment of death, is in direct proportion to the number of points of contact existing between the body and the perispirit, and the greater or less amount of difficulty and slowness with which the separation takes place. We must, therefore, not disguise from ourselves the fact that death may be more or less painful, according to the circumstances that we have now to examine.
5. Let us begin by examining, as our starting-point, the four following cases, which may be regarded as summing up the main varieties of the process of dissolution, between which, however, there are a multitude of gradations:
1° The disengagement of the perispirit may be completely effected when the organic life ceases; in that case, the soul feels absolutely nothing. 2° The cohesion between the perispirit and the body may be in full force at the moment of death; in that case, a sort of wrenching asunder of the two takes place, producing a painful reaction in the perceptions of the soul. 3° The cohesion between the body and the perispirit may be weak; in which case, their separation is effected easily and without shocks. 4° Numerous points of contact between the body and the perispirit may exist after the cessation of the organic life; in which case the soul will feel the effects of the decomposition of the body until the links between the two are entirely broken.
From these facts it follows that the suffering, which is so often attendant on death, depends on the strength of the adherence between the body and the perispirit; that whatever tends to diminish this adherence, and to hasten the disengagement of the perispirit from the body, renders its passage less painful; and lastly that if the disengagement is effected without difficulty, the soul experiences no disagreeable sensation whatever.
1° The disengagement of the perispirit may be completely effected when the organic life ceases; in that case, the soul feels absolutely nothing. 2° The cohesion between the perispirit and the body may be in full force at the moment of death; in that case, a sort of wrenching asunder of the two takes place, producing a painful reaction in the perceptions of the soul. 3° The cohesion between the body and the perispirit may be weak; in which case, their separation is effected easily and without shocks. 4° Numerous points of contact between the body and the perispirit may exist after the cessation of the organic life; in which case the soul will feel the effects of the decomposition of the body until the links between the two are entirely broken.
From these facts it follows that the suffering, which is so often attendant on death, depends on the strength of the adherence between the body and the perispirit; that whatever tends to diminish this adherence, and to hasten the disengagement of the perispirit from the body, renders its passage less painful; and lastly that if the disengagement is effected without difficulty, the soul experiences no disagreeable sensation whatever.
6. In examining the passage from the earthly life to the spirit-life, another point, and one of the greatest importance, has to be noted, viz., the mental confusion which accompanies the separation of the soul from the body. At the moment when this separation is taking place, the soul is seized with a sort of torpor that paralyzes its faculties, and at least to a certain extent, neutralizes its sensations; it is in a state resembling catalepsy, so that it is rarely conscious of the termination of the process of dying. We say very rarely, because there is a case in which the soul may preserve its self-consciousness to the very last, as we will presently see. The state of confusion may therefore be considered as the normal condition of the soul at the moment of death; its duration differs in different cases and may vary from a few hours to many years. When this confusion dissipates, the soul finds itself in a position of one who is waking out of a deep sleep; its ideas are muddled, vague, and clouded; it sees, so to say, through a fog; but, little by little, its sight becomes clearer, its memory comes back, and it regains the consciousness of itself. But this awakening is very different, according to the character of the individual; with some, it is calm and accompanied with delightful sensations; with others, it is full of terror and anxiety, and is like a hideous nightmare.
7. The moment when the body heaves the last sigh is, consequently, not the most painful, because in general, the soul is then in a state of unconsciousness; the suffering attendant on dying is undergone either before, or after the moment of dissolution. The suffering that precedes death is due to the convulsions that accompany the desegregation of the physical body; that which follows death results from the distress occasioned by the state of confusion. Let us hasten to say, however, that this suffering is not usual. As we have already remarked, the intensity and duration of the suffering that may accompany death is in exact proportion to the affinity which exists between the body and the perispirit; the closer is this affinity, the longer and the more painful will be the spirit’s efforts to free himself from the links by which it is held to the body; but there are persons in whose case the cohesion is so slight that the disengagement of the perispirit is effected spontaneously and naturally, and without any conscious effort on the part of the spirit. In such cases, the fleshly body drops away from the spirit as gently and easily as the ripe fruit drops from the tree; and a serene awakening follows this peaceful death.
8. The moral state of the soul is the condition that determines the ease, or the difficulty, with which the spirit disengages itself from its terrestrial envelope. The strength of the affinity between the body and the perispirit is in the exact ratio of the spirit’s attachment to materiality; it is, consequently, at the maximum in the case of those whose thoughts and interests are concentrated on the earthly life and the enjoyment of material pleasures; it is almost nil in the case of an individual whose soul has identified itself, beforehand, with the spirit-life. The slowness and difficulty of the separation depends entirely on the degree of the soul’s purification and dematerialization. It is in the power of each of us to render our passage, from the life of the Earth to that of the spirit-world, more or less easy or difficult, pleasant or painful.
This point being laid down, both as a theoretic principle and as a result of observation, we have now to examine the influence exercised by the various kinds of death, on the sensations of the soul at the moment of dissolution.
This point being laid down, both as a theoretic principle and as a result of observation, we have now to examine the influence exercised by the various kinds of death, on the sensations of the soul at the moment of dissolution.
9. In all cases of natural death, that is to say, of death resulting from the extinction of the vital forces by age or disease, the separation is effected gradually; in the case of those whose soul is dematerialized and whose thoughts are detached from earthly things, the disengagement of the spirit is almost complete before death takes place; the body is still vitalized by the organic life, when the soul has already entered upon the life of the spirit-world, and is only held to the body by a link so slight that it breaks of itself and without effort with the last beat of the heart. A spirit in this situation may have already recovered its mental lucidity, and may therefore be the conscious witness of the extinction of the life of the body from which it rejoices to be freed; for such a one, confusion scarcely exists; death, for this spirit, is only a moment of peaceful sleep, from which it emerges with an indescribable impression of happiness and hope.
In the case of the worldly-minded and the sensual, of those who have lived with the life of the body rather than with that of the spirit, and for whom the spiritual life is nothing – not even a reality in their minds – everything in their earthly life has helped to tighten the links that bind them to matter; nothing, through all their earthly career, has tended to relax, beforehand, the links which have to be severed abruptly when the hour of their departure has come. As death approaches, the soul, in these cases also, effects its disengagement by degrees, but through a series of continuous and painful efforts. The convulsions of the process of dying, under the conditions we are now considering, are the index of the conflict undergone by the spirit, who, at one moment, tries to break the bonds that resist its efforts to get itself free, and, at another moment, clutches at the body of which it would fain regain possession, but from which it is violently torn away, bit by bit, by an irresistible force.
In the case of the worldly-minded and the sensual, of those who have lived with the life of the body rather than with that of the spirit, and for whom the spiritual life is nothing – not even a reality in their minds – everything in their earthly life has helped to tighten the links that bind them to matter; nothing, through all their earthly career, has tended to relax, beforehand, the links which have to be severed abruptly when the hour of their departure has come. As death approaches, the soul, in these cases also, effects its disengagement by degrees, but through a series of continuous and painful efforts. The convulsions of the process of dying, under the conditions we are now considering, are the index of the conflict undergone by the spirit, who, at one moment, tries to break the bonds that resist its efforts to get itself free, and, at another moment, clutches at the body of which it would fain regain possession, but from which it is violently torn away, bit by bit, by an irresistible force.
10. A spirit attaches itself all the more strongly to the life of the body, in proportion to its inability to see anything beyond it; it feels that the organic life is escaping it, and it does its utmost to retain it within its grasp. Instead of yielding itself up to the movement that is drawing it away, the spirit resists it with all its might; and, in some instances, the struggle is thus prolonged for days, for weeks, or for months. Undoubtedly, in such cases, the spirit is no longer in possession of its usual lucidity; the confusion attendant on dissolution has begun, for such a spirit, long before death actually occurs; but its suffering is nonetheless severe, and the state of vagueness and doubt in which the spirit finds itself, its uncertainty as to what will become of it, add poignancy to its trouble. Death at length takes place, but the spirit’s misery is not ended. Its mental confusion still continues; it feels that it is alive, but the spirit knows not whether it is living with the fleshly life or with spirit-life; and its struggles are prolonged until the last links between its perispirit and its body are completely broken. In such a case, death has put a term to the disease which has killed the body, but it has not arrested the repercussion of the physical effects of the corporeal dissolution in the consciousness of the spirit; so long as any points of contact exist between the body and the perispirit, the spirit feels, and suffers from the process of decay that is transpiring in the former.
11. Quite different is the position of the spirit who has become dematerialized during its earthly life, even in cases in which death occurred by the most painful maladies. The fluidic links which unite its body with its perispirit, being already weakened, break without any shock; the spirit’s confidence in the future, which it foresees in thought and sometimes even in reality, causes it to regard death as a deliverance and its suffering as a trial; hence there results for the spirit a calmness and resignation that soften the severest suffering. When death has taken place, the links that connected the spirit with its fleshly body being instantly broken, no painful reaction takes place in its consciousness; the spirit feels, on awakening in the spirit-world, free, lively, relieved of a heavy burden, and thoroughly happy in its complete deliverance from physical pain.
12. In cases of violent death, the conditions that bring about the process of separation are not exactly the same. When even a partial desegregation of the elements of an individual’s personality has not been previously initiated to begin the process of separating the body and the perispirit, the organic life is suddenly arrested when in full force; in such a case, the disengagement of the perispirit only begins to be effected after death has occurred, and as in other cases, it cannot be effected immediately. The spirit, unexpectedly seized upon by death, is, as it were, stunned by the suddenness of the event; but, as it feels and thinks, it supposes itself to be still living the earthly life, and it retains this illusion until it has come to understand its real position. This intermediate state between the life of the flesh and the life of the spirit-world is one of the most interesting subjects of study that is offered to us, because it presents the curious spectacle of a spirit who mistakes its fluidic body for its fleshly body, and who experiences all the sensations of organic life. It offers an infinite variety of shades, according to the character, the knowledge, and the degree of moral advancement of each spirit. It is of short duration for those whose soul is purified, because in their case, there has already been a commencement of the liberating process, of which death even the most sudden has only hastened the completion; but for others, it may be prolonged for years. This state is very frequent, even in the cases of ordinary death, but for some it presents nothing painful, because of the qualities of the Spirit; but for others, this situation is a terrible one. It is especially painful in the case of those who have committed suicide. Because the body adheres to the perispirit by every fiber, all the convulsions of the former are repeated via repercussions in the soul, which thus undergoes the most horrible sufferings.
13. The various states of the spirit at the moment of death may be summed up as follows: The more slowly a spirit’s disengagement is effected, the more severely does it suffer; the rapidity with which its disengagement is effected is in proportion to the degree of its moral advancement: for the spirit whose soul is already dematerialized, whose conscience is pure, death is but a momentary sleep, void of suffering, and the awakening from which is unspeakably delightful.
14. In order that human beings may be induced to labor diligently to effect their own purification, to repress their evil tendencies, and to vanquish their worldly passions, they must see the advantages that such a line of action will secure to them in the future life; so that they may be able to identify themselves with that future life, to concentrate their aspirations upon it, and to prefer it to the life of the Earth, they must not only believe in its existence, but must also understand it; they must be able to contemplate it under an aspect that shall be in harmony with their reason and their common sense, and with their highest idea of the greatness, goodness, and justice of God. Of all the philosophic doctrines hitherto presented to the human mind, Spiritism is the one that exercises, in this respect, the most powerful influence, through the immovable faith that it gives to those who really comprehend its scope and teachings.
Enlightened spiritists do not begin by believing; They believe because they understand, and they understand because the principles of Spiritism approve themselves to their judgment. The future life is a reality that is displayed incessantly before their eyes, and which they see and touch, so to say, every moment; consequently, no doubt in regard to it can enter their souls. The short span of their present lives seems as nothing to them in comparison with the spirit-life of eternity, which they see to be their veritable life; and they therefore attach but little importance to the incidents of the road and they meet with resignation the vicissitudes of which they comprehend both the cause and the utility. Their souls are raised above the trials and troubles of their earthly existence by the direct relationships that they cultivate with the invisible world around us; the fluidic links that connect them with matter are thus gradually weakened, and a partial loosening of those links, effected during the course of their present existence, facilitates their passage from the life of the Earth to the life of the spirit-world. The mental clouding inseparable from the transition, is of brief duration in their case, because as soon as they have crossed the threshold of the spirit-world, they know where they are; nothing in that world seems foreign to them; they perfectly understand the situation in which they find themselves.
Enlightened spiritists do not begin by believing; They believe because they understand, and they understand because the principles of Spiritism approve themselves to their judgment. The future life is a reality that is displayed incessantly before their eyes, and which they see and touch, so to say, every moment; consequently, no doubt in regard to it can enter their souls. The short span of their present lives seems as nothing to them in comparison with the spirit-life of eternity, which they see to be their veritable life; and they therefore attach but little importance to the incidents of the road and they meet with resignation the vicissitudes of which they comprehend both the cause and the utility. Their souls are raised above the trials and troubles of their earthly existence by the direct relationships that they cultivate with the invisible world around us; the fluidic links that connect them with matter are thus gradually weakened, and a partial loosening of those links, effected during the course of their present existence, facilitates their passage from the life of the Earth to the life of the spirit-world. The mental clouding inseparable from the transition, is of brief duration in their case, because as soon as they have crossed the threshold of the spirit-world, they know where they are; nothing in that world seems foreign to them; they perfectly understand the situation in which they find themselves.
15. Spiritism, assuredly, is not indispensable to the obtaining of this result, and it has no pretension to be the sole agent for securing the well-being of the soul in the other life; but it facilitates the attainment of that well-being through the knowledge it gives us, through the sentiments it inspires, and through the determination which it awakens, in the minds of all who have sincerely accepted its principles, to labor unremittingly for their mental and moral advancement. It also gives, to everyone, the means of facilitating the disengagement of other spirits at the moment when they are quitting their terrestrial envelope, and of shortening their subsequent period of confusion, by prayer and evocation. By sincere prayer, which is a spiritual magnetization, we assist the spirit who is passing away to obtain a more rapid desegregation of the perispiritual fluid; by evocation, conducted wisely and prudently, and by addressing the spirit in words of kindness and encouragement, we rouse the spirit out of the state of torpor in which it finds itself, and we help the spirit to recover its self-consciousness more quickly; if the spirit is in a state of distress, we urge it to the repentance which alone can shorten its sufferings. *
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* In the examples we are about to adduce, the happiness and unhappiness of spirit-life are illustrated by the narratives of the spirits themselves, who thus initiated us into the various phases of their realm of existence. We have not sought to bring before the reader the illustrious personages of antiquity, whose position may have undergone considerable change since the existence by which they are known to us, and concerning whom it would be impossible to obtain sufficient proofs of identity. We have, on the contrary, selected the experiences of those whose earthly existence was undergone amidst the ordinary circumstances of the life of our own day, because it is from these that the greatest sum of instruction can be drawn. The more nearly the terrestrial existence of a spirit relates to our own, through its social position, its employments, its relationships, etc., the more closely does the narration of that spirit’s experiences in the spirit-world come home to us, and the easier it is for us to obtain a reasonable probability of the identity of the narrator. The positions of common life are those of the greater number, for which reason the experiences of spirits whose earthly existence was passed in those positions are of more general applicability; exceptional positions are less interesting to the greater number, because they go beyond the sphere of their thoughts and habits. We have, therefore, not sought to bring forward illustrious names; if among those whose statements we have selected, some few are well known, the greater number are altogether obscure. To have paraded renowned names would have added nothing to the instructiveness of these recitals, and would probably have roused the ill will of the friends and connections of those who bore them. We address ourselves neither to the inquisitive nor to the lovers of scandal, but to those who sincerely desire light on the subject of the future life towards which we are tending.
We might have multiplied these examples ad infinitum; but, being compelled to restrict their number, we have chosen those that convey the greatest amount of information in regard to the state of the spirit-world, through the position of the spirit itself, or through the explanation it is able to give us. The greater part of them are as yet unpublished; some few of them, only, have been published in “The Spiritist Review;” of these, we have suppressed all details not bearing directly on the aim of the present work, and we have added the complementary explanations that have subsequently been given in regard to them by our spirit-guides.
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* In the examples we are about to adduce, the happiness and unhappiness of spirit-life are illustrated by the narratives of the spirits themselves, who thus initiated us into the various phases of their realm of existence. We have not sought to bring before the reader the illustrious personages of antiquity, whose position may have undergone considerable change since the existence by which they are known to us, and concerning whom it would be impossible to obtain sufficient proofs of identity. We have, on the contrary, selected the experiences of those whose earthly existence was undergone amidst the ordinary circumstances of the life of our own day, because it is from these that the greatest sum of instruction can be drawn. The more nearly the terrestrial existence of a spirit relates to our own, through its social position, its employments, its relationships, etc., the more closely does the narration of that spirit’s experiences in the spirit-world come home to us, and the easier it is for us to obtain a reasonable probability of the identity of the narrator. The positions of common life are those of the greater number, for which reason the experiences of spirits whose earthly existence was passed in those positions are of more general applicability; exceptional positions are less interesting to the greater number, because they go beyond the sphere of their thoughts and habits. We have, therefore, not sought to bring forward illustrious names; if among those whose statements we have selected, some few are well known, the greater number are altogether obscure. To have paraded renowned names would have added nothing to the instructiveness of these recitals, and would probably have roused the ill will of the friends and connections of those who bore them. We address ourselves neither to the inquisitive nor to the lovers of scandal, but to those who sincerely desire light on the subject of the future life towards which we are tending.
We might have multiplied these examples ad infinitum; but, being compelled to restrict their number, we have chosen those that convey the greatest amount of information in regard to the state of the spirit-world, through the position of the spirit itself, or through the explanation it is able to give us. The greater part of them are as yet unpublished; some few of them, only, have been published in “The Spiritist Review;” of these, we have suppressed all details not bearing directly on the aim of the present work, and we have added the complementary explanations that have subsequently been given in regard to them by our spirit-guides.
CHAPTER II - HAPPY SPIRITS
BERNARDIN
Bordeaux, April 1862
I am a spirit who has been forgotten for many centuries; I lived upon the Earth in poverty and opprobrium. I toiled unremittingly to earn, each day, a morsel of bread for my family; but I loved Him whom I regarded as my veritable Master, and when my load of suffering was added to by him who was my master upon the Earth, I used to say, “My God, give me the strength to bear up under this load without complaining!” I was thus expiating an evil past; but, when I came forth from this great trial, my true Master received me into His peace; and now my most earnest desire is to say to you all: “Humanity, my sisters and brothers! Whatever price you have to pay for your purification, the happiness that awaits you will amply overpay it!”
I had no regular trade. I was one of a numerous family of children, and I was at the service of anyone who could help me to get my livelihood. Born at a period in which all servants were hardly and cruelly treated, I endured all the injustice, all the enforced labor, all the grinding and robbing, that the subalterns of my owner chose to inflict upon me. I saw my wife outraged, my daughters carried away and then cast off, without being able to utter a complaint; I saw my sons torn from me and forced to fight in wars for pillage and for every crime, and hung for offenses they had not committed! Ah, Friends! If you only knew what I had to endure in that long and wretched life! But I was sustained by the hope of a happiness not of the Earth; and my hope was fulfilled. I have a right to say to you, “Brothers and sisters! Courage, patience, resignation!”
My child (to the medium), preserve what I have written; it is a practical teaching. Those who preach are much more attentively listened to when they can say: – “I have borne more than you have to bear; and I have borne without complaining!”
Q. At what period did you live down here?
A. From 1400 to 1460.
I am a spirit who has been forgotten for many centuries; I lived upon the Earth in poverty and opprobrium. I toiled unremittingly to earn, each day, a morsel of bread for my family; but I loved Him whom I regarded as my veritable Master, and when my load of suffering was added to by him who was my master upon the Earth, I used to say, “My God, give me the strength to bear up under this load without complaining!” I was thus expiating an evil past; but, when I came forth from this great trial, my true Master received me into His peace; and now my most earnest desire is to say to you all: “Humanity, my sisters and brothers! Whatever price you have to pay for your purification, the happiness that awaits you will amply overpay it!”
I had no regular trade. I was one of a numerous family of children, and I was at the service of anyone who could help me to get my livelihood. Born at a period in which all servants were hardly and cruelly treated, I endured all the injustice, all the enforced labor, all the grinding and robbing, that the subalterns of my owner chose to inflict upon me. I saw my wife outraged, my daughters carried away and then cast off, without being able to utter a complaint; I saw my sons torn from me and forced to fight in wars for pillage and for every crime, and hung for offenses they had not committed! Ah, Friends! If you only knew what I had to endure in that long and wretched life! But I was sustained by the hope of a happiness not of the Earth; and my hope was fulfilled. I have a right to say to you, “Brothers and sisters! Courage, patience, resignation!”
My child (to the medium), preserve what I have written; it is a practical teaching. Those who preach are much more attentively listened to when they can say: – “I have borne more than you have to bear; and I have borne without complaining!”
Q. At what period did you live down here?
A. From 1400 to 1460.
Q. Have you had another earthly existence since then?
A. Yes, I have lived among you as a missionary, a missionary of the faith; of the true and pure faith, of the faith that comes from God, not that which human beings have made for you.
Q. Have you, as a spirit, any occupations?
A. Can you imagine that spirits remain inactive? Inaction, uselessness, would be torture for them. My mission is to lead the workers of the great industrial centers to Spiritism. I inspire them with good thoughts and endeavor to neutralize those that backward spirits try to suggest to them. BERNARDIN
A. Yes, I have lived among you as a missionary, a missionary of the faith; of the true and pure faith, of the faith that comes from God, not that which human beings have made for you.
Q. Have you, as a spirit, any occupations?
A. Can you imagine that spirits remain inactive? Inaction, uselessness, would be torture for them. My mission is to lead the workers of the great industrial centers to Spiritism. I inspire them with good thoughts and endeavor to neutralize those that backward spirits try to suggest to them. BERNARDIN
MAURICE GONTRAN
He was an only son, who died, at the age of eighteen, of tuberculosis. Gifted with rare intelligence, reasoning powers beyond his years, a great love of study, gentle, affectionate, sympathetic, he possessed all the qualities that give the fairest promise of a brilliant future. Having successfully finished his preliminary studies, he was diligently preparing for admission to the Polytechnic School. His death was a terrible blow to his parents, and was felt by them all the more acutely because, as his health had always been delicate, they attributed his premature decease to the assiduous study in which they had encouraged him to persevere, and they therefore reproached themselves bitterly with his loss, as though it had resulted from a crime on their part. “Of what use will all his studies be to him now?” they despondently asked themselves; “It would have been far better had he remained ignorant, for he had no need of all this learning to make him live. If he had not studied so hard, he would doubtless be still with us, and he would have been the joy and the consolation of our old age!” Had they been spiritists, they would have reasoned otherwise. At a later period, they became acquainted with the spiritist theory of life and obtained from it the true and only consolation for such a loss. The following communication was made, by their son, to one of their friends, a few months after his death:
Q. My dear Maurice, I cannot doubt that your warm attachment to your parents will give you the desire to raise their spirits, if it is possible for you to do so. The grief, I may say, the despair, in which they have been plunged by your death, has impaired their health and has made them feel disgust toward life. A few affectionate words from you may perhaps awaken hope in their hearts.
A. Dear old friend! I have been waiting impatiently for the opportunity you now offer me of communicating with them. My parents’ grief distresses me; but it will be softened when they come to know that I am not lost to them. You must direct your efforts to convincing them of this certainty, and I foresee that you will succeed in doing so. They needed this event to lead them to a belief that will give them happiness, for it will prevent their murmuring against the decree of Providence. My father, as you know, is very skeptical in regard to a future life; this affliction has been allowed by God to befall him in order to draw him out of his error.
We shall meet again, in this other world in which we no longer undergo the sufferings of human life, and into which I have gone before them; but tell them the satisfaction of seeing me will be refused them, as a means of correction, if they lack confidence in the goodness of God. Such a state of mind, on their part, would even lead to my being forbidden to hold communication with them, henceforth, through the rest of their earthly lives. Despair is a revolt against the will of the Almighty, and, as such, is always punished by the prolongation of the cause that has produced this despair, until the sufferer has submitted to the trial imposed upon him. Despair is a form of suicide, for it undermines the health of the body, and those who shorten their days, in the hope of escaping more quickly from the grip of their sorrows, prepare for themselves a terrible disappointment; they ought, on the contrary, to do their best to keep up their bodily strength, in order that they may more easily bear the weight of their trials.
My beloved parents! It is to you that I now address myself. From the time when I quitted my mortal body, I never ceased to be near you, and I am with you more frequently than when I was upon the Earth. Be consoled, then, for I am not dead! I am more alive than you are; it is only my body that is dead, for my soul is still living! I am free, happy, out of reach of diseases, infirmities, and pain. Instead of being afflicted by my departure, you should rejoice to know that I am in a region exempt from cares and anxieties, and in which the heart is filled to overflowing with pure and unmixed happiness.
Ah, my friends! Lament not for those who die young! It is a favor granted by Providence to those who no longer need to experience the tribulations of life. My last existence upon the Earth was not intended to be prolonged any further; for I acquired all that I needed to acquire, as a preparation for a more important mission that I shall have to discharge in due course of time. Had I remained longer upon the Earth, who knows whether I might not have been exposed to dangerous temptations? Who knows whether, being as yet insufficiently strong to resist the seductions of the world, I might not have succumbed to them and have thus delayed my advancement for hundreds of years? Why should those who love me regret what is, for me, so great a blessing? An inconsolable grief, in such a case, implies a want of faith that is reasonable only to those who believe in annihilation. Indeed, those who hold a belief so prolific of despair are to be greatly pitied; for them, there is no possible consolation; the beings they love are lost to them forever; the grave has robbed them of their last hope!
Q. Was your death painful?
A. No, I only suffered before dying from the disease that carried me off; but that suffering diminished as the last moments drew near; then, one day, I fell asleep without any thought of death. I began to dream, such a delightful dream! I dreamt that I was cured; I felt no more pain; I breathed in, with sound lungs and with inexpressible enjoyment, a fragrant and life-giving air! I felt myself transported through space by an unknown force; I was in the midst of light that dazzled me with its splendor and yet did not fatigue my sight. I saw my grandfather; his face was no longer thin and worn, but was fresh and youthful; he held out his arms to me and clasped me joyfully to his bosom. A crowd of people came with him, all smiling as they met me, and welcoming me with kindness and satisfaction; I seemed to remember them, I rejoiced to see them again, and we exchanged cordial greetings and expressions of friendship. Well! What I took to be a dream was a reality; I was never again to awaken upon the Earth; I had awakened in the spirit-world!
Q. Was your illness caused by excess of study?
A. No, be very sure that it was not. The length of time that I was to live upon the Earth had been marked out beforehand, and nothing could have kept me there any longer. My spirit, in its hours of disengagement, was perfectly aware of this, and rejoiced in the knowledge of its approaching deliverance. But the time I passed upon the Earth was not unprofitable to me, and I now congratulate myself for having spent it well. The studies, which I followed up so thoroughly, have strengthened my soul and increased my knowledge; it is not so much lost but, rather, so much gained; and if I have not been able to turn this knowledge to practical account during my short stay among you, I shall do so, all the more efficiently, in a future existence.
Farewell, dear friend; I am going to visit my parents, to try to prepare them for receiving this communication. MAURICE
Q. My dear Maurice, I cannot doubt that your warm attachment to your parents will give you the desire to raise their spirits, if it is possible for you to do so. The grief, I may say, the despair, in which they have been plunged by your death, has impaired their health and has made them feel disgust toward life. A few affectionate words from you may perhaps awaken hope in their hearts.
A. Dear old friend! I have been waiting impatiently for the opportunity you now offer me of communicating with them. My parents’ grief distresses me; but it will be softened when they come to know that I am not lost to them. You must direct your efforts to convincing them of this certainty, and I foresee that you will succeed in doing so. They needed this event to lead them to a belief that will give them happiness, for it will prevent their murmuring against the decree of Providence. My father, as you know, is very skeptical in regard to a future life; this affliction has been allowed by God to befall him in order to draw him out of his error.
We shall meet again, in this other world in which we no longer undergo the sufferings of human life, and into which I have gone before them; but tell them the satisfaction of seeing me will be refused them, as a means of correction, if they lack confidence in the goodness of God. Such a state of mind, on their part, would even lead to my being forbidden to hold communication with them, henceforth, through the rest of their earthly lives. Despair is a revolt against the will of the Almighty, and, as such, is always punished by the prolongation of the cause that has produced this despair, until the sufferer has submitted to the trial imposed upon him. Despair is a form of suicide, for it undermines the health of the body, and those who shorten their days, in the hope of escaping more quickly from the grip of their sorrows, prepare for themselves a terrible disappointment; they ought, on the contrary, to do their best to keep up their bodily strength, in order that they may more easily bear the weight of their trials.
My beloved parents! It is to you that I now address myself. From the time when I quitted my mortal body, I never ceased to be near you, and I am with you more frequently than when I was upon the Earth. Be consoled, then, for I am not dead! I am more alive than you are; it is only my body that is dead, for my soul is still living! I am free, happy, out of reach of diseases, infirmities, and pain. Instead of being afflicted by my departure, you should rejoice to know that I am in a region exempt from cares and anxieties, and in which the heart is filled to overflowing with pure and unmixed happiness.
Ah, my friends! Lament not for those who die young! It is a favor granted by Providence to those who no longer need to experience the tribulations of life. My last existence upon the Earth was not intended to be prolonged any further; for I acquired all that I needed to acquire, as a preparation for a more important mission that I shall have to discharge in due course of time. Had I remained longer upon the Earth, who knows whether I might not have been exposed to dangerous temptations? Who knows whether, being as yet insufficiently strong to resist the seductions of the world, I might not have succumbed to them and have thus delayed my advancement for hundreds of years? Why should those who love me regret what is, for me, so great a blessing? An inconsolable grief, in such a case, implies a want of faith that is reasonable only to those who believe in annihilation. Indeed, those who hold a belief so prolific of despair are to be greatly pitied; for them, there is no possible consolation; the beings they love are lost to them forever; the grave has robbed them of their last hope!
Q. Was your death painful?
A. No, I only suffered before dying from the disease that carried me off; but that suffering diminished as the last moments drew near; then, one day, I fell asleep without any thought of death. I began to dream, such a delightful dream! I dreamt that I was cured; I felt no more pain; I breathed in, with sound lungs and with inexpressible enjoyment, a fragrant and life-giving air! I felt myself transported through space by an unknown force; I was in the midst of light that dazzled me with its splendor and yet did not fatigue my sight. I saw my grandfather; his face was no longer thin and worn, but was fresh and youthful; he held out his arms to me and clasped me joyfully to his bosom. A crowd of people came with him, all smiling as they met me, and welcoming me with kindness and satisfaction; I seemed to remember them, I rejoiced to see them again, and we exchanged cordial greetings and expressions of friendship. Well! What I took to be a dream was a reality; I was never again to awaken upon the Earth; I had awakened in the spirit-world!
Q. Was your illness caused by excess of study?
A. No, be very sure that it was not. The length of time that I was to live upon the Earth had been marked out beforehand, and nothing could have kept me there any longer. My spirit, in its hours of disengagement, was perfectly aware of this, and rejoiced in the knowledge of its approaching deliverance. But the time I passed upon the Earth was not unprofitable to me, and I now congratulate myself for having spent it well. The studies, which I followed up so thoroughly, have strengthened my soul and increased my knowledge; it is not so much lost but, rather, so much gained; and if I have not been able to turn this knowledge to practical account during my short stay among you, I shall do so, all the more efficiently, in a future existence.
Farewell, dear friend; I am going to visit my parents, to try to prepare them for receiving this communication. MAURICE
MADAME ANAIS GOURDON
A very young woman, remarkable for her sweetness of temper and her eminent moral qualities, died in November of 1860. She belonged to a family of miners, employed in the coal mines near St. Etienne, a circumstance that has to be borne in mind in estimating her position as a spirit.
(Evocation.) – Here I am.
Q. Your husband and father have requested us to evoke you; they will be very glad to receive a communication from you.
A. I am as glad to give it, as they will be to receive it.
Q. Why were you taken away from your family at such a young age?
A. Because I had completed my terrestrial trial.
Q. Do you sometimes go to see them?
A. I am very often with them.
Q. Are you happy as a spirit?
A. I am very happy. I wait patiently, filled with confidence and love. The spirit world has no terrors for me, and I wait for the budding of my white wings.
Q. What do you mean by “wings”?
A. I mean, by this expression, that I wait to become a fully purified and resplendent spirit, like the celestial messengers whose brightness dazzles me when I obtain a sight of them.
Remark – The “wings” of angels, archangels, seraphim, that is to say, of the pure spirits, are evidently only an attribute imagined by men, to indicate the rapidity with which they transport themselves through space; for the ethereality of their nature enables them to dispense with anything like a support in moving from one point to another. They may, however, show themselves to men with such accessories, in order to conform to human notions in regard to them, just as other spirits take the appearance they had upon the Earth, to ensure recognition.
Q. Is there anything you would like to have done by your relatives?
A. I should like them, whom I love so dearly, to cease distressing me with the spectacle of their grief, since they know that I am not lost to them, and try to think of me with cheerfulness and hope, so that their remembrance of me may be light and fragrant in their hearts. I passed away from Earth like a flower; my rapid passage should leave behind it no trace of sadness.
Q. How is it that your language is so poetic, so little in keeping with the position you occupied upon the Earth?
A. It is because it is my soul that is speaking to you. I had acquired much in my previous incarnations. Refined spirits are often made to incarnate themselves among the roughest people, in order to give them a glimmering of the refinements that they will acquire and understand at a later period of their existence.
Without this explanation – so reasonable and so entirely in harmony with the solicitude of the Creator for His creatures – it would be impossible to account for the elegant and poetic expressions employed by the spirit of one who had been brought up in the midst of the most prosaic surroundings. We often encounter this anomaly in life, where we see spirits of evident advancement incarnated among persons who are in every way inferior to them, in order to aid the latter to advance. We also see its opposite when backward spirits are incarnated among persons superior to them in order that they may be brought more quickly forward. An additional benefit to superior spirits who are incarnated among inferior persons is that their contact with lower natures also serves as a useful trial. What other theory than that of our successive existences can solve the problems presented by these anomalies?
VICTOR LEBUFLE
A young man, employed as a laborer on the wharf, in the port of Havre, deceased at the age of twenty years. He lived with his mother, who kept a poor little shop, lavishing upon her the most tender and affectionate care, and supporting her with the slender gains of his hard and laborious work. He was never seen to enter a wine-shop or to take part in any of the excesses so common in his profession; for he would never take the least part from his earnings, wholly consecrated as they were to the assistance of his mother. Every moment of his time that was not taken up by his regular work was employed by him in helping her and in saving her fatigue. Attacked, long before, with a disease that he knew must be fatal, he hid his sufferings from his mother, fearing that, if she understood his state of health, she would be uneasy about him and would do, for herself, the work he always did for her. That so young a man should have constantly resisted the pernicious examples and temptations of the surroundings amidst which he lived, shows him to have possessed a very large stock of good qualities and a very strong force of will. He was sincerely pious; and his death was most calm and beautiful.
The night before he died, he insisted on his mother’s taking a little rest, saying that he himself felt sleepy. The mother, during her short rest, had a vision. She found herself, she said, in the hold of a great ship, in total darkness; presently, she saw a speck of light that increased, in size and brilliance, until the hold was completely illuminated with a splendid radiance, in the midst of which she saw her son, looking wonderfully handsome and happy, and floating upwards into the air. She understood the vision as a sign that his end was near; and in fact, his noble spirit quitted the Earth on the following day, while his lips were yet breathing forth a prayer.
A spiritist family who knew of his exemplary life and took a warm interest in his poor mother – left, by his death, alone in the world – had intended to evoke him, shortly after his death; but he came to them spontaneously and dictated the following communication:
“You wish to know how it is with me now; I am happy, oh, wonderfully happy! You should look upon suffering and distress as something not to be regretted, for they are the source of blessings and of happiness beyond the grave. Happiness! You cannot understand what that word means! The happiness of the Earth is so far from what we feel. When we return towards the Master with a clear conscience, with the confidence of the servant who has faithfully done his duty, and who joyfully awaits the approval of God who is all in all!
“Oh, Friends! Life is painful and difficult, if you do not look beyond its end; but I tell you, truly, when you come among us, if you have lived according to the law of God, you will be awarded far beyond your sufferings and any claim that you may think your merits may have won for you! Be kind, be charitable, with the charity that is unknown to so many upon the Earth, and that is called benevolence. Be helpful to your fellow beings; do for them even more than you would wish them to do for you; for you know your own miseries, but you do not know what they may be suffering in silence. Be kind to my mother, my poor mother, my sole regret in leaving Earth! She has other trials still to undergo, for she has to win her way to Heaven. Farewell, I am going to her.” VICTOR.
The Mediums’ Guide – The sufferings endured in a terrestrial incarnation are not always a punishment. The spirits who, by the Divine ordering, come to accomplish a mission upon the Earth, like he who has just communicated with you, endure, voluntarily, the sorrows that in other cases are an expiation. Sleep enables them to return, for the regaining of fresh vigor, to the presence of the Almighty, and gives them the strength to bear all things for the glory of God’s name. The mission of this spirit, in his last existence, was not a brilliant one; but, though it was obscure, it was all the more meritorious for having been devoid of any access to the sentiment of pride as a means of sustaining his courage. He had, in the first place, a duty to discharge towards the spirit who was his mother; he had, in the second place, to show that amidst the very worst surroundings souls may remain pure and be filled with noble and elevated sentiments, and that a resolute will may resist every sort of temptation to evil. Such a life is a proof that a person’s qualities have a cause anterior to his or her present existence; and such an example as that which has been set by the spirit of him with whom you have been communicating will not be sterile.
Choice of he vs. him explained – “He” communicated with you. You communicated with “him”.
The night before he died, he insisted on his mother’s taking a little rest, saying that he himself felt sleepy. The mother, during her short rest, had a vision. She found herself, she said, in the hold of a great ship, in total darkness; presently, she saw a speck of light that increased, in size and brilliance, until the hold was completely illuminated with a splendid radiance, in the midst of which she saw her son, looking wonderfully handsome and happy, and floating upwards into the air. She understood the vision as a sign that his end was near; and in fact, his noble spirit quitted the Earth on the following day, while his lips were yet breathing forth a prayer.
A spiritist family who knew of his exemplary life and took a warm interest in his poor mother – left, by his death, alone in the world – had intended to evoke him, shortly after his death; but he came to them spontaneously and dictated the following communication:
“You wish to know how it is with me now; I am happy, oh, wonderfully happy! You should look upon suffering and distress as something not to be regretted, for they are the source of blessings and of happiness beyond the grave. Happiness! You cannot understand what that word means! The happiness of the Earth is so far from what we feel. When we return towards the Master with a clear conscience, with the confidence of the servant who has faithfully done his duty, and who joyfully awaits the approval of God who is all in all!
“Oh, Friends! Life is painful and difficult, if you do not look beyond its end; but I tell you, truly, when you come among us, if you have lived according to the law of God, you will be awarded far beyond your sufferings and any claim that you may think your merits may have won for you! Be kind, be charitable, with the charity that is unknown to so many upon the Earth, and that is called benevolence. Be helpful to your fellow beings; do for them even more than you would wish them to do for you; for you know your own miseries, but you do not know what they may be suffering in silence. Be kind to my mother, my poor mother, my sole regret in leaving Earth! She has other trials still to undergo, for she has to win her way to Heaven. Farewell, I am going to her.” VICTOR.
The Mediums’ Guide – The sufferings endured in a terrestrial incarnation are not always a punishment. The spirits who, by the Divine ordering, come to accomplish a mission upon the Earth, like he who has just communicated with you, endure, voluntarily, the sorrows that in other cases are an expiation. Sleep enables them to return, for the regaining of fresh vigor, to the presence of the Almighty, and gives them the strength to bear all things for the glory of God’s name. The mission of this spirit, in his last existence, was not a brilliant one; but, though it was obscure, it was all the more meritorious for having been devoid of any access to the sentiment of pride as a means of sustaining his courage. He had, in the first place, a duty to discharge towards the spirit who was his mother; he had, in the second place, to show that amidst the very worst surroundings souls may remain pure and be filled with noble and elevated sentiments, and that a resolute will may resist every sort of temptation to evil. Such a life is a proof that a person’s qualities have a cause anterior to his or her present existence; and such an example as that which has been set by the spirit of him with whom you have been communicating will not be sterile.
Choice of he vs. him explained – “He” communicated with you. You communicated with “him”.
DR. VIGNAL
One of the early members of the Spiritist Society of Paris, who died March 27th, 1865. The day before his funeral, a somnambulist, who is very lucid and sees spirits very clearly, having been requested to go to him and to state what he saw, replied as follows:
“I see a corpse in which a most wonderful work is taking place; there is a mass, of which every atom is in motion, and from which something seems to be trying to detach itself, but has hard work in overcoming the resistance opposed to its efforts by the mass with which it is connected. I cannot distinguish any clearly-defined spirit-form.”
The Paris Society evoked him on the 31st of March.
Q. Dear Dr. Vignal, all your old colleagues of the Society of Paris in general, and I in particular, have the kindest remembrance of you; and we shall be very much pleased if you can, and will, come and converse with us.
A. Dear Friends and you my dear and worthy Teacher, your remembrance and sympathy are very pleasant to me. If I am able to come to you today, and to take part, free of corporeal fetters, in this meeting of our spiritist friends, it is thanks to your kindly thought of me and the assistance brought to me by your prayers. As my young secretary remarked just now, I have been so impatient to communicate with you, all through the evening, that I have had to exercise much self-control in abstaining from giving free rein to this desire, although the questions you have been discussing have greatly interested me and have rendered the delay less tiresome. Forgive this impatience, dear Friends; but my gratitude would fain have manifested itself at once! (I love this old-fashioned phrase, but if you wish to modernize it you could say “but I was eager to express my gratitude at once.”)
Q. Be good enough to tell us how you find yourself in the spirit-world. Describe to us the process of separation and your sensations at the moment when it took place; and tell us also how long it was before you regained your consciousness.
A. I am happy to tell you that my experience has fully confirmed the teachings of our luminous and consoling doctrine. I am happy! Yes I am, because now, without any obstacle, I can see develop before me the future of science and the Spiritist philosophy.
However, let us discard for today these inopportune digressions. I will return at another time to speak to you on these subjects, knowing that my presence will be as great a pleasure for you as it is for me when I visit you.
The wrenching asunder, in my case, was quickly accomplished; more quickly than I could have hoped for, seeing how slight my merits are. I was greatly aided in this effort by your prayers; and your somnambulist has given you so correct a description of the phenomena associated with the separation that I have little to add in regard to it. It was a sort of fitful oscillation, a kind of drawing, in two opposite directions; the spirit triumphed at last; for here I am! I only succeeded in freeing myself entirely from my body, at the moment when the latter was lowered into the grave; and I came back with you.
Q. What do you think of the funeral ceremonies that have occurred?
A. I have considered it to be an obligation to attend to them.
Q. At that moment, were you sufficiently separated from your body in order to observe
them? The prayers that I pronounced with the intent of being of help, (not out loud, logically), did they reach you?
I came back from the cemetery with all of you, leaving behind me my old chrysalis completely disjoined from me. You know that I did not care much for the things of the Earth; I thought mainly of my spirit being and of God.
Q. Do you remember that, at your own request, five years ago, in the month of February 1860, when you were still among the living, we took you as the subject of an experiment? * At that time, your spirit disengaged itself from your body, and came and conversed with us. Will you have the kindness to define for us, as nearly as you can, the difference between your present disengagement and that which you effected at the time referred to?
A. Most certainly, I remember that experiment; but what a difference is there between my state on that occasion and my present state! At that time, the rigid network of matter held me in; I longed to detach myself more completely from my body, but was unable to do so. Now, I am altogether free; a vast field, that of the unknown, opens before me; and I hope that with your help and that of the good Spirits, to whom I commend myself, to advance and to instill, as soon as possible, the sentiments that we should possess, and the actions that we must practice in order to successfully navigate the narrow path of our Earthly trials and be worthy of a wealth of compensations in the spirit world. What majesty! What grandeur! It is a sentiment almost of awe that takes possession of us, when, weak as we are, we try to fix our eyes on the sublime splendors before us!
Q. Once again I say that we will be very satisfied in being able to continue this conversation, when you feel that you wish to be with us.
A. I have done my best to reply to your questions; but do not ask too much, at first, of your faithful disciple! I am not yet entirely free of earthly influences. I should be delighted to go on talking with you; but my guide tries to moderate my enthusiasm, and I am too well convinced of his wisdom and kindness not to follow his counsel, however much I may regret having to break off this conversation. I feel comforted when I think that I will be able to return, incognito, to your spiritual reunions, often. I love you, and I shall come back to you; but now I give up my place to the other spirits, more advanced than myself, who have kindly allowed me to pour out the torrent of thoughts I was longing to utter.
I withdraw for the present; thanking you who have called me hither, and thanking also the spirit who has kindly allowed me to take his place, and who, when on Earth, bore the illustrious name of Pascal.
He who was, and will always be, the most devoted of your disciples. DR. VIGNAL
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* Vide: “Revue Spirite” of March 1860.
“I see a corpse in which a most wonderful work is taking place; there is a mass, of which every atom is in motion, and from which something seems to be trying to detach itself, but has hard work in overcoming the resistance opposed to its efforts by the mass with which it is connected. I cannot distinguish any clearly-defined spirit-form.”
The Paris Society evoked him on the 31st of March.
Q. Dear Dr. Vignal, all your old colleagues of the Society of Paris in general, and I in particular, have the kindest remembrance of you; and we shall be very much pleased if you can, and will, come and converse with us.
A. Dear Friends and you my dear and worthy Teacher, your remembrance and sympathy are very pleasant to me. If I am able to come to you today, and to take part, free of corporeal fetters, in this meeting of our spiritist friends, it is thanks to your kindly thought of me and the assistance brought to me by your prayers. As my young secretary remarked just now, I have been so impatient to communicate with you, all through the evening, that I have had to exercise much self-control in abstaining from giving free rein to this desire, although the questions you have been discussing have greatly interested me and have rendered the delay less tiresome. Forgive this impatience, dear Friends; but my gratitude would fain have manifested itself at once! (I love this old-fashioned phrase, but if you wish to modernize it you could say “but I was eager to express my gratitude at once.”)
Q. Be good enough to tell us how you find yourself in the spirit-world. Describe to us the process of separation and your sensations at the moment when it took place; and tell us also how long it was before you regained your consciousness.
A. I am happy to tell you that my experience has fully confirmed the teachings of our luminous and consoling doctrine. I am happy! Yes I am, because now, without any obstacle, I can see develop before me the future of science and the Spiritist philosophy.
However, let us discard for today these inopportune digressions. I will return at another time to speak to you on these subjects, knowing that my presence will be as great a pleasure for you as it is for me when I visit you.
The wrenching asunder, in my case, was quickly accomplished; more quickly than I could have hoped for, seeing how slight my merits are. I was greatly aided in this effort by your prayers; and your somnambulist has given you so correct a description of the phenomena associated with the separation that I have little to add in regard to it. It was a sort of fitful oscillation, a kind of drawing, in two opposite directions; the spirit triumphed at last; for here I am! I only succeeded in freeing myself entirely from my body, at the moment when the latter was lowered into the grave; and I came back with you.
Q. What do you think of the funeral ceremonies that have occurred?
A. I have considered it to be an obligation to attend to them.
Q. At that moment, were you sufficiently separated from your body in order to observe
them? The prayers that I pronounced with the intent of being of help, (not out loud, logically), did they reach you?
I came back from the cemetery with all of you, leaving behind me my old chrysalis completely disjoined from me. You know that I did not care much for the things of the Earth; I thought mainly of my spirit being and of God.
Q. Do you remember that, at your own request, five years ago, in the month of February 1860, when you were still among the living, we took you as the subject of an experiment? * At that time, your spirit disengaged itself from your body, and came and conversed with us. Will you have the kindness to define for us, as nearly as you can, the difference between your present disengagement and that which you effected at the time referred to?
A. Most certainly, I remember that experiment; but what a difference is there between my state on that occasion and my present state! At that time, the rigid network of matter held me in; I longed to detach myself more completely from my body, but was unable to do so. Now, I am altogether free; a vast field, that of the unknown, opens before me; and I hope that with your help and that of the good Spirits, to whom I commend myself, to advance and to instill, as soon as possible, the sentiments that we should possess, and the actions that we must practice in order to successfully navigate the narrow path of our Earthly trials and be worthy of a wealth of compensations in the spirit world. What majesty! What grandeur! It is a sentiment almost of awe that takes possession of us, when, weak as we are, we try to fix our eyes on the sublime splendors before us!
Q. Once again I say that we will be very satisfied in being able to continue this conversation, when you feel that you wish to be with us.
A. I have done my best to reply to your questions; but do not ask too much, at first, of your faithful disciple! I am not yet entirely free of earthly influences. I should be delighted to go on talking with you; but my guide tries to moderate my enthusiasm, and I am too well convinced of his wisdom and kindness not to follow his counsel, however much I may regret having to break off this conversation. I feel comforted when I think that I will be able to return, incognito, to your spiritual reunions, often. I love you, and I shall come back to you; but now I give up my place to the other spirits, more advanced than myself, who have kindly allowed me to pour out the torrent of thoughts I was longing to utter.
I withdraw for the present; thanking you who have called me hither, and thanking also the spirit who has kindly allowed me to take his place, and who, when on Earth, bore the illustrious name of Pascal.
He who was, and will always be, the most devoted of your disciples. DR. VIGNAL
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* Vide: “Revue Spirite” of March 1860.
MADEMOISELLE EMMA *
A lovely and charming young girl who died from the effects of an accident caused by fire, after excruciating suffering. One of the members of the Society had conceived the desire of evoking her at a meeting of the Spiritist Society of Paris, when she spontaneously presented herself July 31st, 1863, a short time after her death.
“Here I am again, on the stage of the world, I who thought myself buried forever, wrapped in my veil of youth and innocence! ‘The fire of Earth will save me from the fire of Hell,’ I said to myself, according to my Catholic belief; and although I did not venture to hope for the splendors of Paradise, my soul, amidst the horrible sufferings I underwent from my accident, took refuge in the thought that I was bearing, beforehand, the expiations of Purgatory, and I prayed, suffered, and wept, with patience and resignation. But who gave to my weakness the strength to bear such anguish? Who, in my long nights of sleepless and feverish torture, bent over the couch on which I underwent my martyrdom? Who cooled my parched lips? It was you, my Guardian Angel! You, whose shining whiteness enveloped me in blessing; it was you, also, dear Spirit-Friends, who came about me, murmuring in my ear your gentle words of hope and love!
“The flame which consumed my slight, earthly body burnt away from my soul all sense of attachment to the things that pass; thus, when I died, I was already living the true life of the soul. I felt nothing of the confusion that usually accompanies dissolution, and I entered at once, serene and self- conscious, into the radiant daylight that surrounds those who, amidst suffering and trial, have held fast their confidence and hope. The thought of my mother, my beloved mother, was the last terrestrial image that vibrated in my soul. How fervently I wished she might become a spiritist!
“I dropped from the tree of the earthly life like a fruit ripened before its time. I had scarcely felt the touch of the demon of vanity, so fatal to those who allow themselves to be carried away by the glitter of success and the intoxications of youth and beauty! I bless the flame; I bless my sufferings; I bless the trial that was an expiation. Like the filmy gossamer-threads of autumn, I float, as light and as shining as they, borne upon the luminous currents of the ether around me; and the jewels that adorn my brow are no longer composed of the inert diamonds of your lower sphere, but are the splendid and living scintillations of the purified soul.”
EMMA
In the spiritist center at Havre, the same spirit also gave, spontaneously, the following communication, on the 30th of July, 1863:
“Those who suffer upon the Earth are rewarded in the other life; for God is all justice and mercy for those who suffer on Earth. The happiness granted to them in the spirit-world is so pure, their felicity is so perfect, that none would shrink from suffering or from death, if it were possible for them to penetrate the designs of the Creator! The Earth is the scene of trials that are often very severe, and of sorrows that are often terribly intense; but let those who are thus tried be resigned to the infliction of this suffering; let them bow before the will of God, who mercifully calls upon them to bear a heavy load! When they are summoned back into God’s presence after great suffering, they will see, in this other life, how insignificant were those pains and troubles of the earthly life, in comparison with the reward which is reserved for them, if no complaint, no murmuring, have found access to their hearts! Very young have I quitted the Earth; God has forgiven me, and has granted me the life of those who have respected God’s ordination. Adore God in all things; love God with all your heart; and, above all, pray to God with unwavering confidence; for prayer, in your material life of suffering upon the Earth, is your true support, your hope, and your safety. EMMA
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* Mademoiselle Emma Livry,
“Here I am again, on the stage of the world, I who thought myself buried forever, wrapped in my veil of youth and innocence! ‘The fire of Earth will save me from the fire of Hell,’ I said to myself, according to my Catholic belief; and although I did not venture to hope for the splendors of Paradise, my soul, amidst the horrible sufferings I underwent from my accident, took refuge in the thought that I was bearing, beforehand, the expiations of Purgatory, and I prayed, suffered, and wept, with patience and resignation. But who gave to my weakness the strength to bear such anguish? Who, in my long nights of sleepless and feverish torture, bent over the couch on which I underwent my martyrdom? Who cooled my parched lips? It was you, my Guardian Angel! You, whose shining whiteness enveloped me in blessing; it was you, also, dear Spirit-Friends, who came about me, murmuring in my ear your gentle words of hope and love!
“The flame which consumed my slight, earthly body burnt away from my soul all sense of attachment to the things that pass; thus, when I died, I was already living the true life of the soul. I felt nothing of the confusion that usually accompanies dissolution, and I entered at once, serene and self- conscious, into the radiant daylight that surrounds those who, amidst suffering and trial, have held fast their confidence and hope. The thought of my mother, my beloved mother, was the last terrestrial image that vibrated in my soul. How fervently I wished she might become a spiritist!
“I dropped from the tree of the earthly life like a fruit ripened before its time. I had scarcely felt the touch of the demon of vanity, so fatal to those who allow themselves to be carried away by the glitter of success and the intoxications of youth and beauty! I bless the flame; I bless my sufferings; I bless the trial that was an expiation. Like the filmy gossamer-threads of autumn, I float, as light and as shining as they, borne upon the luminous currents of the ether around me; and the jewels that adorn my brow are no longer composed of the inert diamonds of your lower sphere, but are the splendid and living scintillations of the purified soul.”
EMMA
In the spiritist center at Havre, the same spirit also gave, spontaneously, the following communication, on the 30th of July, 1863:
“Those who suffer upon the Earth are rewarded in the other life; for God is all justice and mercy for those who suffer on Earth. The happiness granted to them in the spirit-world is so pure, their felicity is so perfect, that none would shrink from suffering or from death, if it were possible for them to penetrate the designs of the Creator! The Earth is the scene of trials that are often very severe, and of sorrows that are often terribly intense; but let those who are thus tried be resigned to the infliction of this suffering; let them bow before the will of God, who mercifully calls upon them to bear a heavy load! When they are summoned back into God’s presence after great suffering, they will see, in this other life, how insignificant were those pains and troubles of the earthly life, in comparison with the reward which is reserved for them, if no complaint, no murmuring, have found access to their hearts! Very young have I quitted the Earth; God has forgiven me, and has granted me the life of those who have respected God’s ordination. Adore God in all things; love God with all your heart; and, above all, pray to God with unwavering confidence; for prayer, in your material life of suffering upon the Earth, is your true support, your hope, and your safety. EMMA
____________________________________
* Mademoiselle Emma Livry,
ANTOINE COSTEAU
Member of the Spiritist Society of Paris buried September 12th, 1863, in the Cemetery of Montmartre, in the Paupers’ Grave.He was a thoroughly good-hearted person, who had been brought to the love of God and of all humanity through Spiritism, and whose belief in a future life was entire, sincere, and profound. A street worker with but a meager salary, he practiced charity in thought, word, and deed, to the utmost of his slender means; and, in spite of how little he possessed, he always contrived to assist those who had still less than himself. If the Spiritist Society abstained from purchasing a separate grave for him, it was simply because there were other and more pressing demands on resources which it was deemed better to employ in assisting the living, rather than in providing a sterile compliment for the dead; for all spiritists know that the “Paupers’ Grave” is a gate that leads as directly to a happier world as does even the most costly mausoleum.
Mr. Canu, Secretary of the Society, formerly a thorough materialist, made the following address at the grave:
“Dear brother Costeau! But a few years ago, many of us – and, I confess, myself especially – would have seen, in this open grave, only the end of human troubles, and, beyond it, nothing, hideous annihilation; that is to say, no soul to reap either reward or punishment, and, consequently, no God to reward, to punish, or to pardon. Today, thanks to our divine doctrine, we see in it the end of a trial, and, for you, dear brother, whose mortal remains we now give back to the Earth, the triumph of your efforts and the beginning of the reward you have so nobly earned by your courage, your resignation, your charity, in a word, by your many virtues, and, above all, the glorification of a wise, all-powerful, just, and merciful God. Offer, for us, dear brother, our grateful acknowledgments to the Eternal, who has mercifully dissipated the darkness of error and incredulity in which we were enveloped; for, but a short time ago, we should have said to you, on this occasion, with bowed heads and despairing hearts, ‘Farewell, friend; farewell, forever!’ Whereas, today, we say to you, with heads erect in the sunshine of confidence and hope, and hearts filled with courage and with love, ‘Dear brother, may the blessing of the Almighty be with you until we meet again! Be happy, brother, and pray for us!” *
One of the mediums of the Society obtained, after the delivery of the preceding address, by the side of the open grave, the following communication, to the reading of which everyone present, including the grave-diggers themselves, listened with uncovered head and deep emotion. It was, in truth, to most of them, a new and startling experience to hear the words uttered by a dead man at the grave of his body.
“Thanks, Friends, thanks! My grave is not yet closed, but, a few moments hence, and the Earth will cover my mortal remains. But you well know that my soul will not be buried beneath this dust; it will mount aloft into space, rising towards God!
“And what a consolation is it to be able still to say, notwithstanding the bursting asunder of our mortal envelope; – ‘Oh, no; I am not dead! I am living with the true life, the eternal life!’
“The funerals of the poor are not followed by the crowd; no vainglorious display takes place at their graves; and yet, friends, believe me, an immense crowd is gathered about you, for good spirits have accompanied, to this humble resting place, the body enclosed in the coffin that lies here before you. For you all believe in God and adore His goodness.
“Oh, most certainly, we do not die, my beloved wife, simply because our body breaks down! Henceforth I shall always be near you, to console you, and to aid you in bearing the trial of my departure. Life will be hard for you; but, with your heart filled with the idea of eternity and the love of our Creator, of how little account will life’s sorrows appear to you!
“Relatives, who surround the dearly-loved companion of my life, give her your affection and respect; be for her so many brothers and sisters. Do not forget that you must give assistance to one another in the earthly life, if you would enter into the peace of the spirit-world!
“And you, spiritists, friends, brothers, thanks for coming to bid me farewell in this abode of dust and of mud; you know that my soul is immortal, that it still lives, and that it will often come to ask for your prayers, which you will not refuse to me, to aid me to go forward on the magnificent road that you have opened to me during my earthly life.”
“Farewell, all you who are present here; we shall meet elsewhere than beside this grave! Happy spirits are calling to me to come away with them! Farewell! Pray for all who suffer!”
_____________________________________________
* For further details and additional speeches refer to the Revue Spirite of October 1863 page 297.
COSTEAU
Three days afterwards, the spirit of Mr. Costeau, evoked in a private circle, dictated the following, through the intermediary of another medium:
“Death is life; I am only repeating what has already been said; but, for you, there is nothing else to be said, no matter what may be the denials of the materialists, who are bent on remaining blind. Oh, friends! What a glorious sight is the unfolding of the spiritist banner on your Earth! Herald the vast revelation of which you have, as of yet, but the faint beginnings, what splendid brightness does it bring to those who are willing to be enlightened, to those who have broken the chains of pride, and dare to proclaim, boldly, their belief in God! Pray, dear brothers, thank God for all the blessings with which we are provided. Poor human race! If only it were given thee to comprehend! But no; the time has not yet come when the mercy of the Almighty is to be spread abroad upon all humanity, that they may understand the divine will, and submit to its orderings!
“It is with the aid of thy luminous rays, O Science of Sciences! that men and women will arrive at this understanding; it is at thy divine fire that they will warm their hearts and rekindle the consoling flame of faith and hope; it is through the beneficent influence of thy revelations that the master and the worker will be brought into familial sympathy and union; for it is through your explanations of human life that they will comprehend the fraternal charity preached by the Divine Messiah.
“Reflect, O my brothers and sisters, on the immense happiness which has been granted to you, by your having been the first to be initiated into the work of regeneration. Honor to you, friends! Continue your labors, and like me, one day, on coming into the land of spirits, you will say: – Death is life; or, rather, it is a dream, a sort of nightmare that lasts the space of a minute, and from which you emerge to see yourself surrounded by friends who facilitate you on your arrival and hold out to you welcoming arms. My happiness was so great that I could not believe God would have granted me so many favors for the little I had done upon the Earth. I seemed to myself to be dreaming, and as it had sometimes happened to me to dream that I was dead, I was afraid, for a few moments, that I might be obliged to go back to the wretched body I had quitted, but I soon came to perceive how it really was with me, and I blessed the sovereign Master who had enabled me to discharge, upon the Earth, the duties incumbent on those who desire to prepare for a future life. Yes, indeed; I blessed and thanked God for this great blessing: for The Spirits’ Book had awakened in my soul the sentiment of love for my Creator.
“Thanks, friends, for having attracted me to you. Tell our brothers and sisters that I am often with our friend Sanson. Courage! The victory is assured to our doctrine! Happy will be those who have taken part in the combat!”
Mr. Costeau has frequently manifested himself since the giving of this message, both at the meetings of the Society and elsewhere; and he has always given proof of the elevation of thought that is the distinguishing characteristic of advanced spirits.
Mr. Canu, Secretary of the Society, formerly a thorough materialist, made the following address at the grave:
“Dear brother Costeau! But a few years ago, many of us – and, I confess, myself especially – would have seen, in this open grave, only the end of human troubles, and, beyond it, nothing, hideous annihilation; that is to say, no soul to reap either reward or punishment, and, consequently, no God to reward, to punish, or to pardon. Today, thanks to our divine doctrine, we see in it the end of a trial, and, for you, dear brother, whose mortal remains we now give back to the Earth, the triumph of your efforts and the beginning of the reward you have so nobly earned by your courage, your resignation, your charity, in a word, by your many virtues, and, above all, the glorification of a wise, all-powerful, just, and merciful God. Offer, for us, dear brother, our grateful acknowledgments to the Eternal, who has mercifully dissipated the darkness of error and incredulity in which we were enveloped; for, but a short time ago, we should have said to you, on this occasion, with bowed heads and despairing hearts, ‘Farewell, friend; farewell, forever!’ Whereas, today, we say to you, with heads erect in the sunshine of confidence and hope, and hearts filled with courage and with love, ‘Dear brother, may the blessing of the Almighty be with you until we meet again! Be happy, brother, and pray for us!” *
One of the mediums of the Society obtained, after the delivery of the preceding address, by the side of the open grave, the following communication, to the reading of which everyone present, including the grave-diggers themselves, listened with uncovered head and deep emotion. It was, in truth, to most of them, a new and startling experience to hear the words uttered by a dead man at the grave of his body.
“Thanks, Friends, thanks! My grave is not yet closed, but, a few moments hence, and the Earth will cover my mortal remains. But you well know that my soul will not be buried beneath this dust; it will mount aloft into space, rising towards God!
“And what a consolation is it to be able still to say, notwithstanding the bursting asunder of our mortal envelope; – ‘Oh, no; I am not dead! I am living with the true life, the eternal life!’
“The funerals of the poor are not followed by the crowd; no vainglorious display takes place at their graves; and yet, friends, believe me, an immense crowd is gathered about you, for good spirits have accompanied, to this humble resting place, the body enclosed in the coffin that lies here before you. For you all believe in God and adore His goodness.
“Oh, most certainly, we do not die, my beloved wife, simply because our body breaks down! Henceforth I shall always be near you, to console you, and to aid you in bearing the trial of my departure. Life will be hard for you; but, with your heart filled with the idea of eternity and the love of our Creator, of how little account will life’s sorrows appear to you!
“Relatives, who surround the dearly-loved companion of my life, give her your affection and respect; be for her so many brothers and sisters. Do not forget that you must give assistance to one another in the earthly life, if you would enter into the peace of the spirit-world!
“And you, spiritists, friends, brothers, thanks for coming to bid me farewell in this abode of dust and of mud; you know that my soul is immortal, that it still lives, and that it will often come to ask for your prayers, which you will not refuse to me, to aid me to go forward on the magnificent road that you have opened to me during my earthly life.”
“Farewell, all you who are present here; we shall meet elsewhere than beside this grave! Happy spirits are calling to me to come away with them! Farewell! Pray for all who suffer!”
_____________________________________________
* For further details and additional speeches refer to the Revue Spirite of October 1863 page 297.
COSTEAU
Three days afterwards, the spirit of Mr. Costeau, evoked in a private circle, dictated the following, through the intermediary of another medium:
“Death is life; I am only repeating what has already been said; but, for you, there is nothing else to be said, no matter what may be the denials of the materialists, who are bent on remaining blind. Oh, friends! What a glorious sight is the unfolding of the spiritist banner on your Earth! Herald the vast revelation of which you have, as of yet, but the faint beginnings, what splendid brightness does it bring to those who are willing to be enlightened, to those who have broken the chains of pride, and dare to proclaim, boldly, their belief in God! Pray, dear brothers, thank God for all the blessings with which we are provided. Poor human race! If only it were given thee to comprehend! But no; the time has not yet come when the mercy of the Almighty is to be spread abroad upon all humanity, that they may understand the divine will, and submit to its orderings!
“It is with the aid of thy luminous rays, O Science of Sciences! that men and women will arrive at this understanding; it is at thy divine fire that they will warm their hearts and rekindle the consoling flame of faith and hope; it is through the beneficent influence of thy revelations that the master and the worker will be brought into familial sympathy and union; for it is through your explanations of human life that they will comprehend the fraternal charity preached by the Divine Messiah.
“Reflect, O my brothers and sisters, on the immense happiness which has been granted to you, by your having been the first to be initiated into the work of regeneration. Honor to you, friends! Continue your labors, and like me, one day, on coming into the land of spirits, you will say: – Death is life; or, rather, it is a dream, a sort of nightmare that lasts the space of a minute, and from which you emerge to see yourself surrounded by friends who facilitate you on your arrival and hold out to you welcoming arms. My happiness was so great that I could not believe God would have granted me so many favors for the little I had done upon the Earth. I seemed to myself to be dreaming, and as it had sometimes happened to me to dream that I was dead, I was afraid, for a few moments, that I might be obliged to go back to the wretched body I had quitted, but I soon came to perceive how it really was with me, and I blessed the sovereign Master who had enabled me to discharge, upon the Earth, the duties incumbent on those who desire to prepare for a future life. Yes, indeed; I blessed and thanked God for this great blessing: for The Spirits’ Book had awakened in my soul the sentiment of love for my Creator.
“Thanks, friends, for having attracted me to you. Tell our brothers and sisters that I am often with our friend Sanson. Courage! The victory is assured to our doctrine! Happy will be those who have taken part in the combat!”
Mr. Costeau has frequently manifested himself since the giving of this message, both at the meetings of the Society and elsewhere; and he has always given proof of the elevation of thought that is the distinguishing characteristic of advanced spirits.
JEAN REYNAUD
(Spiritist Society of Paris; spontaneous communication.)
My friends, how magnificent is this new life! Like a luminous torrent, it draws with it, on its way, the souls who are athirst for the infinite! After the rupture of the fleshly links that held me to the Earth, my eyes opened upon the magnificent horizons that surrounded me and I reveled in the splendid wonders of boundless space. I passed from the shadows of matter to the resplendent dawn that heralds the Almighty. I am in a state of bliss, not through any merit of my deeds, but through the knowledge of the eternal principle which enabled me to avoid the stains which the hapless members of the human race contract through ignorance. My death was most peaceful. My biographers will regard it as premature; blind judges! They will regret a few writings born of dust, and they will not understand how useful, to the holy cause of Spiritism, will be the attention excited by my death! My work was done; those who are destined to outstrip me were already pressing forward upon the road; I had reached the culminating point at which a man has produced his best, and, after which, whatever he does is but the repetition of what he has already done. My death will re-awaken the attention of the learned and bring them back to my principal work, which touches upon the great spiritist question,67 and which they affect to ignore. Nevertheless, it will soon catch them in its net. Glory to God! Aided by the spirits of high degree who are directing the propagation of the new doctrine, I shall be one of the torchbearers stationed at intervals along your road, to light and to guide you on your way. JEAN REYNAUD
(Paris; at a family party of relatives of the deceased. Another spontaneous communication)
The spirit is replying to a remark made by those present concerning his early death, which had caused such general surprise.
“How do you know that my death will not be an advantage to the future of Spiritism, to the development of the consequences to which it leads? Have you considered the path that is being taken by Providence for the establishment of the spiritist faith? God has given physical proof of the action of an invisible force, “the turning tables,” raps, and all sorts of physical phenomena; this was done to excite inquiry; it was an amusing preface, intended to attract attention to the book. At present, it is quite another thing! After striking the senses of humankind by physical facts, Providence addresses their intelligence, their common sense, their judgment; it no longer appeals to them by feats and prodigies, but by trains of reasoning that should convince the most skeptical and rally to the new doctrine the most obstinate unbelievers. And all this is only the beginning of the movement. Remember what I now tell you; viz., that an entire series of intelligent facts, absolutely undeniable, are about to follow one another, and that the number of followers of the spiritist philosophy, already so numerous, will be greatly increased. The Divine action will be brought to bear on the noblest intellects, on the highest minds, on those who are most eminent for talent and knowledge. It will be a flood of light that will spread over the Earth with the irresistible force of the magnetic fluid, compelling the most reluctant to seek after the infinite, to study this admirable unfolding which furnishes us with principles of action so sublime. All the masterminds of the Earth will join your group, and, indifferent to the honors paid to their genius, will become as little children in their desire to acquire knowledge of the truths of the spiritist faith. And when, with the humility of the sage, they have acquired this knowledge, they will employ their science and the authority of their name in carrying on, still further, the inquiry upon which you have entered, and the endeavor to reach the aim set before you by Spiritism, that is to say, the regeneration of the human race through the rational and enlightened explanation of the reality of our past and future existences.”
(BORDEAUX)
(In answer to evocation) – I come with pleasure, responding to your call. You are right; the mental confusion of the passage scarcely existed in my case (this remark was in answer to the medium’s thought.) A voluntary exile upon your Earth, in which I had undertaken to scatter abroad the first seeds of the great truths that are overshadowing the world at the present day, I had always preserved the remembrance of the country I had left, and I speedily felt myself at home on arriving in the midst of my brothers and sisters.
Q. Thanks for your kindness in coming to me; I hardly ventured to hope that my desire to converse with you could have any influence upon you. There must necessarily be so great a difference between us that I can only think of you with reverence!
A. Whatever the distance created between spirits by the greater or less degree of promptitude and of success with which they accomplish their series of trials, there is always a link that unites them; that of sympathy: and this sympathy, in our case, has been rendered all the closer by your constant thought of me.
Q. A good many spirits have already described to us their first sensations on awakening in the other life; will you have the kindness to tell me what you felt on regaining your consciousness, and how the separation of your soul and body was effected?
A. As it is in all cases, I felt that the moment of deliverance was approaching; but happier in this respect than most others, that approach caused me no uneasiness, because I knew what would be the results of my deliverance, although these were still greater than I had anticipated. The body is an obstacle upon the action of the soul; and, no matter what may be the faculties it has brought with it; they are always more or less stifled by contact with matter. I fell asleep, hoping for a happy awakening; my sleep was short; my admiration, on awaking, was immense! The celestial splendors, spread out in all their majesty before me, were shining in all their brightness. My sight, with wondering admiration, was drawn into this immensity, filled with the worlds that I had affirmed to be not only infinite in number but also inhabited. It seemed as though I was gazing upon a mirage, and yet it confirmed the truth of the convictions I had proclaimed when upon the Earth. However sure a man may think himself, when he speaks, there are moments when, in his heart, he is conscious of doubt, of uncertainty; he has misgivings, if not in regard to the truth he proclaims, at least, in regard to the imperfection of the demonstration he is obliged to employ for proving it. Convinced of the truth of the doctrine I was endeavoring to inculcate, I often had to fight against myself, against the discouragement of seeing and touching the truth, so to say, without being able to render it palpable for those who have so great a need of believing it, in order to walk steadily upon the path that has been appointed to them.
Q. Did you, during your life, profess yourself a spiritist?
A. There is a wide difference between professing and practicing. Many profess a doctrine and yet do not practice it. I, on the other hand, practiced it without professing it. Just as every man is a Christian who follows the law of Christ, even though he knows not of its existence, so all human beings may be said to be spiritists, if they believe in the immortality of the soul, its pre-existences, its incessant progression, and the disciplinary nature of the earthly life, as ablutions necessary to their purification; I believed all this; and I may therefore be said to have been a spiritist. I had an intuitive comprehension of the state of erraticity, the intermediate link between our incarnations, the purgatory in which guilty spirits divest themselves of their soiled garments in order to put on others, and in which progressing spirits weave with care the robe they will have to wear, and which they desire to keep clean for the next stage of their journey. As I have already told you, I had an intuitive comprehension of all this, and, without professing Spiritism, I constantly practiced it.
Remark. – These three communications were obtained by three different mediums entirely unknown to one another. From the similarity of the thoughts expressed in them and of their style, we may fairly admit the strong probability of their having been dictated by the illustrious thinker whose name they bear. The expression, “weave with care the robe that they will have to wear,” is a charming figure that well depicts the solicitude with which advanced spirits prepare, beforehand, the conditions of the new existence that is to lead them yet farther on their upward way. Backward spirits take fewer precautions for their return to the earthly life, and they consequently make, too often, an unfortunate choice of their new trial, and have to begin that trial over again.
My friends, how magnificent is this new life! Like a luminous torrent, it draws with it, on its way, the souls who are athirst for the infinite! After the rupture of the fleshly links that held me to the Earth, my eyes opened upon the magnificent horizons that surrounded me and I reveled in the splendid wonders of boundless space. I passed from the shadows of matter to the resplendent dawn that heralds the Almighty. I am in a state of bliss, not through any merit of my deeds, but through the knowledge of the eternal principle which enabled me to avoid the stains which the hapless members of the human race contract through ignorance. My death was most peaceful. My biographers will regard it as premature; blind judges! They will regret a few writings born of dust, and they will not understand how useful, to the holy cause of Spiritism, will be the attention excited by my death! My work was done; those who are destined to outstrip me were already pressing forward upon the road; I had reached the culminating point at which a man has produced his best, and, after which, whatever he does is but the repetition of what he has already done. My death will re-awaken the attention of the learned and bring them back to my principal work, which touches upon the great spiritist question,67 and which they affect to ignore. Nevertheless, it will soon catch them in its net. Glory to God! Aided by the spirits of high degree who are directing the propagation of the new doctrine, I shall be one of the torchbearers stationed at intervals along your road, to light and to guide you on your way. JEAN REYNAUD
(Paris; at a family party of relatives of the deceased. Another spontaneous communication)
The spirit is replying to a remark made by those present concerning his early death, which had caused such general surprise.
“How do you know that my death will not be an advantage to the future of Spiritism, to the development of the consequences to which it leads? Have you considered the path that is being taken by Providence for the establishment of the spiritist faith? God has given physical proof of the action of an invisible force, “the turning tables,” raps, and all sorts of physical phenomena; this was done to excite inquiry; it was an amusing preface, intended to attract attention to the book. At present, it is quite another thing! After striking the senses of humankind by physical facts, Providence addresses their intelligence, their common sense, their judgment; it no longer appeals to them by feats and prodigies, but by trains of reasoning that should convince the most skeptical and rally to the new doctrine the most obstinate unbelievers. And all this is only the beginning of the movement. Remember what I now tell you; viz., that an entire series of intelligent facts, absolutely undeniable, are about to follow one another, and that the number of followers of the spiritist philosophy, already so numerous, will be greatly increased. The Divine action will be brought to bear on the noblest intellects, on the highest minds, on those who are most eminent for talent and knowledge. It will be a flood of light that will spread over the Earth with the irresistible force of the magnetic fluid, compelling the most reluctant to seek after the infinite, to study this admirable unfolding which furnishes us with principles of action so sublime. All the masterminds of the Earth will join your group, and, indifferent to the honors paid to their genius, will become as little children in their desire to acquire knowledge of the truths of the spiritist faith. And when, with the humility of the sage, they have acquired this knowledge, they will employ their science and the authority of their name in carrying on, still further, the inquiry upon which you have entered, and the endeavor to reach the aim set before you by Spiritism, that is to say, the regeneration of the human race through the rational and enlightened explanation of the reality of our past and future existences.”
(BORDEAUX)
(In answer to evocation) – I come with pleasure, responding to your call. You are right; the mental confusion of the passage scarcely existed in my case (this remark was in answer to the medium’s thought.) A voluntary exile upon your Earth, in which I had undertaken to scatter abroad the first seeds of the great truths that are overshadowing the world at the present day, I had always preserved the remembrance of the country I had left, and I speedily felt myself at home on arriving in the midst of my brothers and sisters.
Q. Thanks for your kindness in coming to me; I hardly ventured to hope that my desire to converse with you could have any influence upon you. There must necessarily be so great a difference between us that I can only think of you with reverence!
A. Whatever the distance created between spirits by the greater or less degree of promptitude and of success with which they accomplish their series of trials, there is always a link that unites them; that of sympathy: and this sympathy, in our case, has been rendered all the closer by your constant thought of me.
Q. A good many spirits have already described to us their first sensations on awakening in the other life; will you have the kindness to tell me what you felt on regaining your consciousness, and how the separation of your soul and body was effected?
A. As it is in all cases, I felt that the moment of deliverance was approaching; but happier in this respect than most others, that approach caused me no uneasiness, because I knew what would be the results of my deliverance, although these were still greater than I had anticipated. The body is an obstacle upon the action of the soul; and, no matter what may be the faculties it has brought with it; they are always more or less stifled by contact with matter. I fell asleep, hoping for a happy awakening; my sleep was short; my admiration, on awaking, was immense! The celestial splendors, spread out in all their majesty before me, were shining in all their brightness. My sight, with wondering admiration, was drawn into this immensity, filled with the worlds that I had affirmed to be not only infinite in number but also inhabited. It seemed as though I was gazing upon a mirage, and yet it confirmed the truth of the convictions I had proclaimed when upon the Earth. However sure a man may think himself, when he speaks, there are moments when, in his heart, he is conscious of doubt, of uncertainty; he has misgivings, if not in regard to the truth he proclaims, at least, in regard to the imperfection of the demonstration he is obliged to employ for proving it. Convinced of the truth of the doctrine I was endeavoring to inculcate, I often had to fight against myself, against the discouragement of seeing and touching the truth, so to say, without being able to render it palpable for those who have so great a need of believing it, in order to walk steadily upon the path that has been appointed to them.
Q. Did you, during your life, profess yourself a spiritist?
A. There is a wide difference between professing and practicing. Many profess a doctrine and yet do not practice it. I, on the other hand, practiced it without professing it. Just as every man is a Christian who follows the law of Christ, even though he knows not of its existence, so all human beings may be said to be spiritists, if they believe in the immortality of the soul, its pre-existences, its incessant progression, and the disciplinary nature of the earthly life, as ablutions necessary to their purification; I believed all this; and I may therefore be said to have been a spiritist. I had an intuitive comprehension of the state of erraticity, the intermediate link between our incarnations, the purgatory in which guilty spirits divest themselves of their soiled garments in order to put on others, and in which progressing spirits weave with care the robe they will have to wear, and which they desire to keep clean for the next stage of their journey. As I have already told you, I had an intuitive comprehension of all this, and, without professing Spiritism, I constantly practiced it.
Remark. – These three communications were obtained by three different mediums entirely unknown to one another. From the similarity of the thoughts expressed in them and of their style, we may fairly admit the strong probability of their having been dictated by the illustrious thinker whose name they bear. The expression, “weave with care the robe that they will have to wear,” is a charming figure that well depicts the solicitude with which advanced spirits prepare, beforehand, the conditions of the new existence that is to lead them yet farther on their upward way. Backward spirits take fewer precautions for their return to the earthly life, and they consequently make, too often, an unfortunate choice of their new trial, and have to begin that trial over again.
COUNTESS PAULA
She was young, beautiful, and rich; of a birth such as the world calls illustrious; and, moreover, a shining example of the noblest qualities of heart and of mind. She died in 1851 at the age of thirty- six. She was one of those whose funeral oration is summed up in the words, in every one’s mouth, “Why are such people called away from the Earth?” Happy are they whose memory is thus framed in blessing! She was good, gentle, and indulgent toward everyone; always ready to excuse or to attenuate evil, instead of envenoming it; never did a slander pollute her lips. Without pride or haughtiness, she treated her inferiors with a kindness equally exempt from vulgar familiarity and humiliating condescension. Knowing that those who live by their labor, or by trade, need prompt payment of whatever is due to them, she kept no one waiting for wages or for pay. The thought that any such delay, on her part, had caused suffering or inconvenience to a fellow-creature, would have filled her with remorse. She was never one of those who always have plenty of money for the gratification of their caprices, but who never have money in hand for the payment of a bill; she could not have imagined that it was in good taste for one who is rich to be in debt; and she would have felt herself disgraced if it could have been said of her that her trades-people were obliged to give her credit. For that reason, her death provoked so much lamentation and pain, and no complains.
Her beneficence was inexhaustible, but it was not the beneficence that makes a parade of its exercise; her charities were prompted by kindness, not by ostentation. God only knows the tears she dried, the despairing hearts she calmed and strengthened; for her good deeds had no other witnesses than those who were the recipients of her goodness. She had the gift of finding out the cases of distress – the most poignant of all! – in which the sufferers strive to hide their misery from the world; and she assisted such sufferers with a delicacy that raised the self-respect of those she aided, instead of humiliating them.
Her rank, and the high official position occupied by her husband, obliged her to keep up the style of living obligatory under such circumstances; but while providing largely for the necessities of her social condition, she managed her household expenses with so much order and judgment, and so carefully avoided all waste and all unnecessary outlay, that she spent scarcely the half of what would have been spent, without making any better show, by most people in her position.
Through this judicious management of her fortune, she was able to devote a large portion of her means to the relief of the needy. She had begun her married life by setting apart a considerable portion of her capital, the interest of which was exclusively devoted by her to this purpose, sacred in her eyes; and she thenceforth regarded herself as having so much the less to spend on herself and her household. In this way, she succeeded in reconciling the duties she owed to her position and to society, with the unwearied activity in doing good, imposed on her equally by her heart and by her conscience. *
Evoked, twelve years after her death, by a relative of hers who had become a spiritist, she gave the following communication in answer to the various questions addressed to her. **
“You are right, my Friend, in supposing me to be happy; I am happy beyond the power of words to express, and yet I am still a long way from the top of the ladder! I am incomparably happier than I was upon the Earth, although I was one of the most fortunate of mortals, for I do not remember ever having felt, through all my life, a real sorrow. I had youth, health, fortune, the homage of all around me, everything that is considered by you as constituting felicity; but what are these in comparison with the happiness we enjoy here? What are your most splendid festivities, in which the guests display their richest attire, in comparison with the gatherings of spirits, clad in resplendent brightness of which your eyes could not bear the dazzling luster, but which is the natural endowment of purity? What are your palaces with their gilded drawing rooms, your loveliest gardens, in comparison with the aerial dwellings, the vast fields of space, variegated with colors that would make the rainbow seem pale and dim? What are your slow walks and journeying to our flights through immensity, more rapid than the lightning? What are your narrow and cloudy horizons to the grand spectacle of the infinity of worlds, moving through the boundless immensity of the universe, under the guiding hand of the Almighty? How harsh and meaningless are your most melodious concerts in comparison with the delightful harmony that sets in vibration all the fluids of the ether and all the fibers of the soul? How dull and insipid are your greatest joys, compared with the ineffable sense of happiness with which our whole being is constantly pervaded as with a beneficent effluvium, without the intermixture of the slightest uneasiness, the slightest apprehension, the slightest suffering? Here, everything breathes love, trust, and sincerity; everywhere we find loving hearts, everywhere we meet with friends, nowhere do we encounter anything like envy or jealousy. Such, my Friend, is the world in which I dwell, and which you will infallibly reach, if you follow the right road.
But happiness, however delightful, would soon become wearisome if it were monotonous. Do not imagine that ours is without change; it is neither a perpetual concert, nor an endless festival, nor a vapid state of eternal contemplation: no, it is filled with movement, life, and activity! Our occupations, though exempt from fatigue, impart an inexhaustible variety of aspects and of emotions to our existence, through the countless incidents to which they give rise. Each of us has a mission to fulfill, wards to assist, friends to visit upon the earth, some portion of the wheelwork of nature to direct, suffering spirits of lower degree to console; we come and go, not from one street to another, but from one world to another; we assemble, we separate, to come together again; we arrange to meet at some given point, we recount what we have done, and we congratulate one another on the success of our various efforts; we coordinate together, and we aid one another reciprocally, in cases of difficulty; no one, I assure you, has leisure to feel dull for a second!
At the present time, our great subject of interest is the Earth. What a movement is now going on among spirits, what numerous troops are hastening from every point, to take part in the work of its transformation! They are like an army of laborers, busy with the reclaiming of a forest, under the orders of experienced chiefs. Some are knocking down the old trees and grubbing up the deep roots; others are clearing the ground of stones and rubbish; others, again, are plowing, digging, sowing, and planting. Meanwhile, the chiefs hold council together, and send out messengers, who carry their orders in every direction. The Earth is to be regenerated by a certain fixed time; the designs of Providence must be accomplished; and everyone else is therefore hard at work. You must not suppose that I look on, as a mere spectator, while everyone is busy; on the contrary, an important post is confided to me, and I am doing my utmost to discharge its duties worthily.
I have not reached my present rank in the spirit-world without many struggles; believe me, my last earthly life, alone, whatever may have been its merits, would not have sufficed to give me this elevation. During many previous existences, I had passed through the trials of labor and of poverty that I had voluntarily chosen in order to strengthen and purify my soul. I experienced the happiness of emerging victorious from those trials; but I had still one more trial to undergo – the most perilous of all! – viz., that of earthly fortune and happiness, without any mixture of grief or disappointment. There was my danger! Before subjecting myself to this severest of all trials, I desired to be strong enough to avoid all danger of succumbing to its temptations. The Divine Master took account of my good intentions and granted me the needed help in carrying them out. A great many spirits, seduced by appearances, hasten to choose the dangerous test of earthly prosperity; too weak and inexperienced to withstand its dangers, they are vanquished by the temptations of the lot they have unwisely chosen.
Workers! I have lived in your ranks; I, the noble lady, have earned my bread, like you, with the sweat of my brow. I have borne all kinds of privation and suffered from all the inclemency of the weather; and it is those sufferings that developed the virile strength of my soul; without them, I should probably have failed under my last trial, and that failure would have thrown me back a long way.65 Like me, you will all, in your turn, have to undergo the trial of worldly prosperity, but do not be in haste to ask for it, lest you should attempt it too soon; and you who are rich, remember, at all times, that the true, imperishable fortune is not to be found upon the Earth, and understand in what way you can earn the blessing of the Most High.
PAULA, Upon the Earth, Countess of ____”
_________________________________________
* It can be said that this lady was the living example of the charitable lady referred to in “The Gospel According to Spiritism.”
** We give, of this communication – written in German – only the portions of general interest, omitting those that referred to family matters.
Her beneficence was inexhaustible, but it was not the beneficence that makes a parade of its exercise; her charities were prompted by kindness, not by ostentation. God only knows the tears she dried, the despairing hearts she calmed and strengthened; for her good deeds had no other witnesses than those who were the recipients of her goodness. She had the gift of finding out the cases of distress – the most poignant of all! – in which the sufferers strive to hide their misery from the world; and she assisted such sufferers with a delicacy that raised the self-respect of those she aided, instead of humiliating them.
Her rank, and the high official position occupied by her husband, obliged her to keep up the style of living obligatory under such circumstances; but while providing largely for the necessities of her social condition, she managed her household expenses with so much order and judgment, and so carefully avoided all waste and all unnecessary outlay, that she spent scarcely the half of what would have been spent, without making any better show, by most people in her position.
Through this judicious management of her fortune, she was able to devote a large portion of her means to the relief of the needy. She had begun her married life by setting apart a considerable portion of her capital, the interest of which was exclusively devoted by her to this purpose, sacred in her eyes; and she thenceforth regarded herself as having so much the less to spend on herself and her household. In this way, she succeeded in reconciling the duties she owed to her position and to society, with the unwearied activity in doing good, imposed on her equally by her heart and by her conscience. *
Evoked, twelve years after her death, by a relative of hers who had become a spiritist, she gave the following communication in answer to the various questions addressed to her. **
“You are right, my Friend, in supposing me to be happy; I am happy beyond the power of words to express, and yet I am still a long way from the top of the ladder! I am incomparably happier than I was upon the Earth, although I was one of the most fortunate of mortals, for I do not remember ever having felt, through all my life, a real sorrow. I had youth, health, fortune, the homage of all around me, everything that is considered by you as constituting felicity; but what are these in comparison with the happiness we enjoy here? What are your most splendid festivities, in which the guests display their richest attire, in comparison with the gatherings of spirits, clad in resplendent brightness of which your eyes could not bear the dazzling luster, but which is the natural endowment of purity? What are your palaces with their gilded drawing rooms, your loveliest gardens, in comparison with the aerial dwellings, the vast fields of space, variegated with colors that would make the rainbow seem pale and dim? What are your slow walks and journeying to our flights through immensity, more rapid than the lightning? What are your narrow and cloudy horizons to the grand spectacle of the infinity of worlds, moving through the boundless immensity of the universe, under the guiding hand of the Almighty? How harsh and meaningless are your most melodious concerts in comparison with the delightful harmony that sets in vibration all the fluids of the ether and all the fibers of the soul? How dull and insipid are your greatest joys, compared with the ineffable sense of happiness with which our whole being is constantly pervaded as with a beneficent effluvium, without the intermixture of the slightest uneasiness, the slightest apprehension, the slightest suffering? Here, everything breathes love, trust, and sincerity; everywhere we find loving hearts, everywhere we meet with friends, nowhere do we encounter anything like envy or jealousy. Such, my Friend, is the world in which I dwell, and which you will infallibly reach, if you follow the right road.
But happiness, however delightful, would soon become wearisome if it were monotonous. Do not imagine that ours is without change; it is neither a perpetual concert, nor an endless festival, nor a vapid state of eternal contemplation: no, it is filled with movement, life, and activity! Our occupations, though exempt from fatigue, impart an inexhaustible variety of aspects and of emotions to our existence, through the countless incidents to which they give rise. Each of us has a mission to fulfill, wards to assist, friends to visit upon the earth, some portion of the wheelwork of nature to direct, suffering spirits of lower degree to console; we come and go, not from one street to another, but from one world to another; we assemble, we separate, to come together again; we arrange to meet at some given point, we recount what we have done, and we congratulate one another on the success of our various efforts; we coordinate together, and we aid one another reciprocally, in cases of difficulty; no one, I assure you, has leisure to feel dull for a second!
At the present time, our great subject of interest is the Earth. What a movement is now going on among spirits, what numerous troops are hastening from every point, to take part in the work of its transformation! They are like an army of laborers, busy with the reclaiming of a forest, under the orders of experienced chiefs. Some are knocking down the old trees and grubbing up the deep roots; others are clearing the ground of stones and rubbish; others, again, are plowing, digging, sowing, and planting. Meanwhile, the chiefs hold council together, and send out messengers, who carry their orders in every direction. The Earth is to be regenerated by a certain fixed time; the designs of Providence must be accomplished; and everyone else is therefore hard at work. You must not suppose that I look on, as a mere spectator, while everyone is busy; on the contrary, an important post is confided to me, and I am doing my utmost to discharge its duties worthily.
I have not reached my present rank in the spirit-world without many struggles; believe me, my last earthly life, alone, whatever may have been its merits, would not have sufficed to give me this elevation. During many previous existences, I had passed through the trials of labor and of poverty that I had voluntarily chosen in order to strengthen and purify my soul. I experienced the happiness of emerging victorious from those trials; but I had still one more trial to undergo – the most perilous of all! – viz., that of earthly fortune and happiness, without any mixture of grief or disappointment. There was my danger! Before subjecting myself to this severest of all trials, I desired to be strong enough to avoid all danger of succumbing to its temptations. The Divine Master took account of my good intentions and granted me the needed help in carrying them out. A great many spirits, seduced by appearances, hasten to choose the dangerous test of earthly prosperity; too weak and inexperienced to withstand its dangers, they are vanquished by the temptations of the lot they have unwisely chosen.
Workers! I have lived in your ranks; I, the noble lady, have earned my bread, like you, with the sweat of my brow. I have borne all kinds of privation and suffered from all the inclemency of the weather; and it is those sufferings that developed the virile strength of my soul; without them, I should probably have failed under my last trial, and that failure would have thrown me back a long way.65 Like me, you will all, in your turn, have to undergo the trial of worldly prosperity, but do not be in haste to ask for it, lest you should attempt it too soon; and you who are rich, remember, at all times, that the true, imperishable fortune is not to be found upon the Earth, and understand in what way you can earn the blessing of the Most High.
PAULA, Upon the Earth, Countess of ____”
_________________________________________
* It can be said that this lady was the living example of the charitable lady referred to in “The Gospel According to Spiritism.”
** We give, of this communication – written in German – only the portions of general interest, omitting those that referred to family matters.
MR. SANSON
MR. SANSON, one of the earliest members of the Spiritist Society of Paris, died April 21st, 1862, after a year of intense suffering. Foreseeing his end, he had addressed, to the President of the Society, a letter containing the following passage:
“In view of the possibility of a sudden separation of my soul and body, I repeat the request that I made to you a year ago; viz., that you will evoke my spirit as quickly as you possibly can after my decease, and as often as you may think fit to do so, in order that I, who have been but a somewhat useless member of our Society during my sojourn upon the Earth, may be of some use to it on the other side of the grave, by enabling it to study, phase by phase, through evocation, the various incidents that follow what is commonly called death, but which, for us Spiritists, is only transformation, according to the impenetrable designs of God, and is always useful for carrying out those designs.
Besides this authorization and request that you will do me the honor to perform upon me this sort of spiritual autopsy which my slight advancement will perhaps render sterile, in which case your own good sense will decide you to cut short the experiment, I venture to beg of you personally, and also of all my colleagues, to pray the Almighty to permit the good spirits, and especially our Spiritual- President, Saint Louis, to assist me with their kindly counsels, and to guide me in deciding on the choice and the epoch of my next incarnation; for I am already much exercised in mind about this matter. I tremble lest, overrating my own spiritual powers, I should ask of God, too soon and too presumptuously, a corporeal trial above my strength, which, instead of aiding my advancement, would prolong my stay upon this Earth, or in some other one.”
In order to conform to our friend’s desire to be evoked as quickly as possible after his decease, we went to his house, with a few members of the Society, and there, in the presence of the corpse, held the following conversation with his spirit, an hour before the appointed time for the funeral. In so doing, we had a double end in view; first, to gratify the wish of the deceased and next, to observe, once more, the situation of the soul at a period so near to death; an observation especially interesting in the case of one so eminently intelligent and enlightened, and so deeply imbued by spiritist truths. We desired to ascertain the influence of his belief on the state of his spirit, and to seize his first impressions of the other life. We were not disappointed. Mr. Sanson was able to describe the moment of transition with perfect clarity; he had watched himself die and he had watched his coming to life again in the spirit-world; a circumstance of rare occurrence, due to the elevation already attained by his spirit.
I
In the death-chamber, April 23rd, 1862.
After having evoked the spirit in the usual terms, the following conversation took place:
“In view of the possibility of a sudden separation of my soul and body, I repeat the request that I made to you a year ago; viz., that you will evoke my spirit as quickly as you possibly can after my decease, and as often as you may think fit to do so, in order that I, who have been but a somewhat useless member of our Society during my sojourn upon the Earth, may be of some use to it on the other side of the grave, by enabling it to study, phase by phase, through evocation, the various incidents that follow what is commonly called death, but which, for us Spiritists, is only transformation, according to the impenetrable designs of God, and is always useful for carrying out those designs.
Besides this authorization and request that you will do me the honor to perform upon me this sort of spiritual autopsy which my slight advancement will perhaps render sterile, in which case your own good sense will decide you to cut short the experiment, I venture to beg of you personally, and also of all my colleagues, to pray the Almighty to permit the good spirits, and especially our Spiritual- President, Saint Louis, to assist me with their kindly counsels, and to guide me in deciding on the choice and the epoch of my next incarnation; for I am already much exercised in mind about this matter. I tremble lest, overrating my own spiritual powers, I should ask of God, too soon and too presumptuously, a corporeal trial above my strength, which, instead of aiding my advancement, would prolong my stay upon this Earth, or in some other one.”
In order to conform to our friend’s desire to be evoked as quickly as possible after his decease, we went to his house, with a few members of the Society, and there, in the presence of the corpse, held the following conversation with his spirit, an hour before the appointed time for the funeral. In so doing, we had a double end in view; first, to gratify the wish of the deceased and next, to observe, once more, the situation of the soul at a period so near to death; an observation especially interesting in the case of one so eminently intelligent and enlightened, and so deeply imbued by spiritist truths. We desired to ascertain the influence of his belief on the state of his spirit, and to seize his first impressions of the other life. We were not disappointed. Mr. Sanson was able to describe the moment of transition with perfect clarity; he had watched himself die and he had watched his coming to life again in the spirit-world; a circumstance of rare occurrence, due to the elevation already attained by his spirit.
I
In the death-chamber, April 23rd, 1862.
After having evoked the spirit in the usual terms, the following conversation took place:
1. Evocation. – I respond to your call in order to fulfill my promise.
2. Dear Mr. Sanson, it is for us both a duty and a pleasure to evoke you at once after your death, as you wished us to do.
A. I thank God for permitting my spirit to hold communication with you, and I thank you for your kindness. But I feel weak, and I tremble.
3. You suffered so much before your departure that I think we may fairly ask how you are. Do you still feel the pains that racked you so terribly? How does your present state compare with the state in which you were two days ago?
A. My state is a very happy one, for I no longer feel anything of my former pains; I am regenerated, made quite new, so to say. The transition from the terrestrial life to the spirit-life was, at first, something that I could not understand, and everything seemed incomprehensible to me; for we sometimes remain for several days without recovering our clarity of thought; but, before I died, I prayed that God would give me the power of speaking to those I love, and my prayer was granted.
4. How long was it before you regained clarity of thought?
2. Dear Mr. Sanson, it is for us both a duty and a pleasure to evoke you at once after your death, as you wished us to do.
A. I thank God for permitting my spirit to hold communication with you, and I thank you for your kindness. But I feel weak, and I tremble.
3. You suffered so much before your departure that I think we may fairly ask how you are. Do you still feel the pains that racked you so terribly? How does your present state compare with the state in which you were two days ago?
A. My state is a very happy one, for I no longer feel anything of my former pains; I am regenerated, made quite new, so to say. The transition from the terrestrial life to the spirit-life was, at first, something that I could not understand, and everything seemed incomprehensible to me; for we sometimes remain for several days without recovering our clarity of thought; but, before I died, I prayed that God would give me the power of speaking to those I love, and my prayer was granted.
4. How long was it before you regained clarity of thought?
A. About eight hours. I cannot be sufficiently grateful to the Almighty for granting my prayer.
5. Are you quite sure that you are no longer in our world? And, if so, how do you know
it?
A. Oh, most certainly, I am no longer in your world! But I shall always be near you, to protect
and sustain you in inculcating the charity and abnegation that were the rule of my life; and I shall help to spread the true faith, the faith of Spiritism, which is destined to rekindle the belief in truth and goodness. I am well and strong; I am, in short, completely transformed. You could not recognize me as the infirm old man whose memory was leaving him, after he had left far behind him all the pleasure and joy of life! I am a denizen of the spirit-world, freed from the bondage of flesh; my country is the illimitable space, and my future is God, whose power and glory radiate through immensity! I wish I could speak with my children that I might urge upon them what they have always been unwilling to believe!
6. What effect does the sight of your body, lying here beside us, produce on your mind?
A. My body, poor, paltry relic, will return to dust; but I shall continue to cherish the welcome remembrance of all those to whose esteem you served as my passport! Poor, decaying form, dwelling- place of my spirit, instrument of my trial through so many weary years of pain, I look upon you, and I thank you, my poor body! for you have purified my spirit, and the suffering, ten times blessed! which you caused me to endure, has aided me to win the place I now occupy, and to earn the privilege of speaking with these friends, without delay!
7. Did you retain your consciousness to the last?
A. Yes, my spirit retained the use of all its faculties. I no longer saw, but I foresaw. The whole of my earthly life, too, passed before my mind; and my last thought, my last prayer, was that I might be enabled to speak with you as I am now doing, and I asked God that help might be given to you also in this matter, so that the desire of my life might be fulfilled.
8. Were you conscious of the moment when your body drew its last breath? What took place, in your being, at that moment? What sensation did you experience?
A. At the moment of separation, life seems to break down, and the sight of the spirit is extinguished. We seem to be in a great void, in the unknown; and then, carried away, as though by a wonderful current of surprise, we find ourselves in a world where all is joy and grandeur. I had no longer any feeling, all sense of suffering was lost; I no longer understood anything that was going on in me or about me; and yet, at the same time, I was filled with ineffable joy.
9. Do you know... (what I am intending to read at your grave?)
The first words of this question had hardly been uttered, when the spirit replied to it, without leaving me the time to finish it, replying, also, and without the subject having been mentioned, to a discussion that had taken place between the friends who were present, as to the propriety of reading what I had written at the grave, where there would probably be persons who might share or not our opinions.
A. Oh yes, my friend, I know all about it, for I saw you yesterday, and I see you again today, to my great satisfaction! Thank you! Thank you! Speak, that those who are about my grave may understand my views, and that you may arrest their attention. Have no hesitation on that score; the presence of the dead imposes respect. Speak, that the skeptical may be led to believe. Good-bye; speak; courage, confidence, and may my children convert to our revered belief!
J. SANSON.
During the ceremony at the grave, he dictated these words:
“Let death have no terrors for you, my friends; it marks the accomplishment of a stage of our journey, and if we have lived right, labored worthily and borne our trials patiently it is an immense happiness. Again I say to you, courage and good-will! Attach only slight value to the things of the Earth; your abnegation will meet its reward. Remember that you cannot enjoy too many earthly blessings without appropriating to yourselves a portion of the well-being of others, and thus inflicting on yourselves immense moral injury.
“May the Earth be light above me!”
II
(Spiritist Society of Paris, April 25th, 1862; after evoking the spirit of Mr. Sanson in the usual manner)
1. Friends, I am here.
2. We are much pleased with the conversation we had with you on the day of your funeral; and as you permit us to talk with you, we shall be very glad to continue our conversation, that we may obtain all the information you are able to give us.
A. I am quite ready to converse with you and I am happy to see that you think of me.
3. Whatever can help to enlighten us in regard to the nature of the invisible world is of the utmost importance, both to us, and to all; for it is the false idea which men form to themselves of the other life that usually leads them to skepticism. Therefore you must not be astonished at the numerous questions that we shall have to ask you.
A. I shall not be astonished; and I am waiting to know what you wish to ask me.
4. You have described with luminous clarity, the passage from life to death; you have told us that, at the moment when the body breathes its last, life breaks down, and the sight of the spirit is extinguished. Is this moment a painful one? Is it attended with any suffering?
A. Undoubtedly it is, for life is a succession of sufferings, and death is the complement of them all. For that reason we feel a violent wrench, as though the spirit had to make a superhuman effort to free itself from its fleshly envelope; it is this effort that absorbs our whole being and makes us lose the consciousness of what we are becoming.
This is not the case in general. Experience shows us that many spirits lose consciousness before death occurs; and that, with those who have reached a certain degree of dematerialization, the separation takes place without any effort.
5. Do you know whether the moment of death is more painful for some spirits than for others? Is it more painful, for instance, in the case of the materialist, who believes that everything will be ended with the death of the body?
A. Certainly. The spirit who is prepared for death has already forgotten its suffering, or, rather, it is accustomed to it; and the mental quietness with which it sees the approach of death prevents it from suffering doubly, as the spirit would otherwise do, because it knows what is awaiting it. Moral suffering is the most painful of all; and its absence, at the moment of death, diminishes immensely the pain of the separation. Those who do not believe in a future life are like prisoners under sentence of death, whose thoughts behold both the gibbet and the unknown. There is a similitude between this death and that of the atheist.
6. Are there materialists so rooted in their denial of immortality as really to believe, in this solemn moment, that they are about to be plunged into annihilation?
A. There are, undoubtedly, some who believe in annihilation up to their last hour; but, at the moment of separation, an entire change comes over the spirit’s mind. It is tortured by doubt, and anxiously asks itself what is going to become of it; The spirit seeks for something to cling to, and finds nothing. The separation, in such a case, cannot take place without causing this impression.
A spirit gave us, on another occasion, the following description of the end of the unbeliever:
“The spirit of a confirmed unbeliever experiences, in its last moments, all the anguish of the horrible nightmare in which the sleeper seems to be at the edge of a precipice, on the point of falling into the abyss beneath it. Such a one makes the most agonizing effort to fly from the danger, and is unable to move; it seeks in vain for something to stay it, some fixed point by which to keep itself out of the terrible void into which the spirit feels itself to be slipping; it tries to call for help and is unable to make any sound. It is under the pressure of this frightful agony that the dying are seen to writhe in convulsion of the death-throes, wringing their hands, and gasping out stifled and inarticulate cries, all of which are the certain indications of the nightmare from which they are suffering. In an ordinary nightmare, your wakening relieves you of the despair that was oppressing you, and you rejoice to perceive that you have only been dreaming; but the nightmare of death often lasts for a very long time, even for many years, after the separation has taken place; and the suffering thus caused to the spirit is sometimes rendered still more severe by the thick darkness in which that spirit finds itself.”
7. You have told us that, at the moment of death, you no longer saw, but that you foresaw. By this, we understand you to mean that you no longer saw with your bodily eyes, which is perfectly comprehensible; but we should like to know whether, before the life of your body was entirely extinct, you obtained a glimpse of the spirit-world?
A. That was what I meant to say. The instant of death restores to the spirit its normal clairvoyance; the bodily eyes no longer see, but the spirit, whose sight is far more penetrating, immediately discovers around itself an unknown world, and this reality, becoming suddenly visible to it, gives it – though only momentarily, it is true – a sense of intense delight, or of inexpressible distress, according to the state of the spirit’s conscience and the remembrance of its past existence.
The spirit here is alluding to the instant preceding the loss of consciousness, which explains its saying “though only momentarily,” for the same agreeable or disagreeable impressions are again perceived by the spirit upon awakening in the other life.
8. Be kind enough to tell us what you saw at the moment when your spirit-eyes were opened to the light of the other world. Describe to us, if possible, the aspect of the objects that then presented themselves to your sight.
A. When I came to myself and was able to look about me, I was dazzled, and could not understand what I saw, for the mind does not regain clarity instantaneously. But God, who gave me a profound proof of His goodness, allowed me to recover soon the use of my faculties. I perceived that I was surrounded by a numerous company of friends, among whom were all the spirit-protectors who are in the habit of coming to our séances; they were rejoicing in my arrival, and welcomed me with smiles. I felt myself to be fully immersed in the enjoyment of the plentitude of health and strength, and was able to accompany them, joyously and without effort, through the vast expanse of space around me. But what I saw, in my journey through immensity, cannot be described in human speech.
I shall come to you again, nevertheless, to speak with you more at length of my happiness, within the limits of what it is permissible by God for us to say. Be quite sure of one thing, viz., that what you understand to be happiness, in your world, is a fiction. Live wisely, innocently, in the spirit of charity and of loving-kindness; and you will have prepared for yourselves impressions that your greatest poets would be powerless to describe.
Fairy tales are, undoubtedly, full of absurdities; but isn’t it possible that they may be, in some of their details, an imperfect reflex of what goes on in the world of spirits? Does not Mr. Sanson’s recital of his experiences resemble the story of the beggar who, having gone to sleep in a poor and dingy hut, finds himself, upon awakening, in a splendid palace and surrounded by a brilliant court? (Suggestion - Put the last paragraph in italics, to differentiate from the response of the spirit.)
III
9. Under what aspect did the spirits appear to you? Was it in human form?
A. Yes, my dear friend, our spirit-friends have always told us, upon the Earth, that they retain in the spirit-world the transitory form that they wore in their last earthly life; and this is true. But what a difference between the clumsy human machines, that drag themselves along so heavily upon the Earth, with their load of sorrows and trials, and the wondrous fluidity of the spirit-bodies! There is no ugliness among them, for their features have lost the expression of harshness that is characteristic of the human race. God has blessed all those gracious bodies so that they comport themselves with perfect elegance. Their beauty may truly be termed beatific, and their movements are the perfection of elegance and grace. The language of the spirits has intonations unknown to human speech; and their glances have the depth and brilliance of a star. Try to imagine all the beauty that can be built up by the power of the Supreme Architect, and you will have formed to yourselves some faint idea of the appearance of spirits.
10. How do you appear to yourself? Do you seem to yourself to possess a form that is limited and circumscribed, although fluidic? Do you feel that you have a head, a trunk, arms, and legs?
A. Spirits, having preserved a form which resembles that of humans, but idealized, divinized, have undoubtedly, all the members of which you speak. I feel myself to be perfectly in possession of a fully realized human form, for we can by our will, render ourselves visible to you, or press your hands. I am close to you, and I have pressed the hand of each one of you, without your being aware of my doing so; our fluidity enables us to be everywhere without occupying any point of space, without causing you any sensation, if such be our desire. At this very moment, your hands are folded, and my hands are in yours. I say to you, “I love you!” yet my body takes up no place, the light passes through it; and what would seem to you to be a miracle, if you could see it, is, for spirits, the continuous action of every instant.
Spirit-sight has no relation to human sight, just as the spirit-body has no real likeness to the human body, for it is, in general and in details, absolutely different from the latter. The perspicacity of a spirit may be called divine, in this sense, viz., that it extends to everything, even to the divining of your thoughts; and its form is so completely under its control that it can, when it chooses to do so, assume the appearance best calculated to recall it to your remembrance; but in point of fact, the advanced spirit, who has finished with the trials of an earthly life, has an affection for the form that can lead it closer to God.
11. Spirits are of no sex; but as, only a few days ago, you were a man, is there in your present state more of the masculine nature than of the feminine? And how is it, in this respect, with spirits who have been separated for a longer time from their earthly body?
A. For us, there is neither “masculine” nor “feminine;” there is no procreation among spirits. Spirits are created by God; since, for the carrying out of God’s marvelous designs, God has willed that they should reincarnate themselves upon the Earth, it was necessary to provide them with the means of effecting the reproduction of fleshly bodies through the agency of males and females. But you can understand, without it being necessary to enter into any explanation of the matter, that there can be no sex in spirits.
It has always been asserted by spirits that they are of no sex, because the sexes are only needed for the reproduction of bodies, and as spirits do not reproduce themselves, sex would be useless to them. Our question was intended, not to draw forth a fresh assertion of this fact, but to ascertain whether, after a death so recent as that of Mr. Sanson, the spirit retained, in this respect, any impression of its terrestrial state. Spirits who have reached a certain degree of purity are perfectly aware of their non-sexual nature; but, among those of lower degree, who are not yet dematerialized, there are many who believe themselves to be still what they were upon the Earth, that have preserved the same passions and the same desires, and imagine themselves to be still men or women; hence it is that some of them have declared that spirits are of one or other sex. The contradictions observable in the statement of spirits are due to the different degrees of advancement at which they have arrived; the error does not come from the Spirits, but from the want of careful examination, on the part of those who question them. (Suggestion -Put the last paragraph in italics, to differentiate from the response of the spirit.)
12. How does our present séance appear to you? Do we appear to your new perceptions the same as we did when you were among us? Can you see each of us as clearly, as distinctly, as formerly?
A. Much more clearly, for I can read the thoughts of each, and I am delighted with the excellent impression that has been given to me by the good intentions of all those who are here assembled. I wish that the same cordial understanding could be arrived at, not only in Paris, by the union of all the spiritist circles, but also throughout the whole of France, where too many of its spiritist societies are separated by jealousy, excited by the machinations of quarrelsome spirits who take pleasure in discord and disunion, whereas Spiritism should be synonymous with the complete and absolute forgetfulness of the focus upon the self. .
13. You say you read our thoughts; can you explain to us the way in which this perception of thought is effected?
A. It is not easy to do so; to explain to you the prodigious faculty of the spirit-sight, it would be necessary to begin by giving you the knowledge of a whole arsenal of agents unknown to you, and by rendering you as learned as we are, which could not be done, because your faculties are limited by your physical organism. Patience! Try to become good, and you will attain this knowledge. As of yet, you have only the amount of knowledge that corresponds to your degree of advancement; in course of time, you will be as we are. Try to die the death of the righteous, so that you may be able to learn much in the other life. Let curiosity – which is the stimulus of the reflective mind – lead you on gently to the passage that will procure for you the satisfaction of all your desires for knowledge, past, present, and future! Meanwhile, let me say by way of replying, as well as I can, to the question you have just addressed to me, that the air by which you are surrounded, impalpable as we are, takes the impress of your thought; every breath you exhale is, so to say, a page on which your thought is written; and all those pages are read, and commented upon, by the spirits who are incessantly about you, messengers of a divine telegraphy which nothing escapes.
THE DEATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS
After the first evocation of the spirit of Mr. Sanson, at a séance of the Spiritist Society of Paris, another spirit made, spontaneously, under the above heading, the following communication:
“The death of the worthy and intelligent man, with whose spirit you have been conversing, was ‘the death of the righteous;’ that is to say, accompanied with calmness and hope. As daylight follows the dawn, so the spirit-life in his case succeeded to the earthly life; and his last sigh was exhaled in a hymn of thankfulness and love. How few accomplish, in this fashion, the rough passage to the spirit- world! How few, after the intoxications and the despondencies of life, can thus perceive the harmonious rhythm of the higher spheres! As one who, having been mutilated by a shot, still suffers, after his cure, in the limb he has lost; so the soul of the man who dies without faith and without hope issues, torn and palpitating, from his body, and falls, unconscious, into the abyss of space.
Pray for these souls in trouble; pray for all who suffer. The action of charity is not restricted to those who are visible to the fleshly eye; it aids and consoles those, who also inhabit space. You had a touching proof of this truth in the sudden conversion of the spirit who was so deeply affected by the spiritist prayers offered up at the grave of this excellent man, whom you do well to question, and who desires to aid your advancement.” *
_____________________________________
* Vide “The Spiritist Review,” May 1862, pp. 132 & 133.
A RUSSIAN PHYSICIAN
Dr. P. was a physician from Moscow, equally remarkable for his eminent virtues and for his knowledge. The person who evoked him had known him only by reputation, and had never had any direct communication with him. The following communication was made in Russian:
Q. (After the evocation) Are you there?
A. Yes. On the day of my death, I pursued you with my presence, but you resisted all my attempts to make you write. I had heard what you said about me, and this had made me acquainted with you, and had given me a wish to speak with you, and to be of use to you.
Q. Why was it that you, who were so good, had to undergo so much suffering during your life?
A. My suffering was a favor granted to me by Providence, in order that I might the more fully appreciate my deliverance, and also to make me advance as much as possible while on Earth.
Q. Did the thought of death cause you any terror?
A. No;I had too much faith in God for that.
Q. (After the evocation) Are you there?
A. Yes. On the day of my death, I pursued you with my presence, but you resisted all my attempts to make you write. I had heard what you said about me, and this had made me acquainted with you, and had given me a wish to speak with you, and to be of use to you.
Q. Why was it that you, who were so good, had to undergo so much suffering during your life?
A. My suffering was a favor granted to me by Providence, in order that I might the more fully appreciate my deliverance, and also to make me advance as much as possible while on Earth.
Q. Did the thought of death cause you any terror?
A. No;I had too much faith in God for that.
Q. Was the separation painful?
A. No. What you call “the last moment” is nothing at all; I felt only a very short crack, and
then, very soon afterwards, I found myself, to my great joy, delivered from my miserable carcass.
Q. What happened then?
A. I saw, to my delight, a great number of friends who had come to meet and to welcome me; among them were many of those whom I had had the satisfaction of helping on Earth.
Q. What region do you inhabit? Is it on a planet?
A. Whatever is not a planet is what you call “space;” it is there that I am. But how many degrees are there in this immensity of which human beings can form no idea! How many rungs to this “Jacob’s ladder,” that reaches from the Earth to heaven, that is to say, from the debasement of incarnation on a low Earth like yours, to the complete purification of the soul! Where I am, we only arrive after many trials; in other words, after many incarnations.
Q. In that case, you must have had many existences?
A. How could it be otherwise? Nothing is exceptional in the immutable order established by God. The reward can only be given after the victory has been won through struggle; therefore, when the reward is great, the struggle must necessarily have been severe. The lives of human beings are so short that the struggle is only fulfilled in stages with intervals, and these intervals are the different successive existences; and as I have already reached a rung that is a good way up, it is certain that I must have attained to this happiness through a succession of struggles in which, with the help of God, I have succeeded in gaining the victory.
Q. In what does your happiness consist?
A. That is something that would be very difficult to make you understand. The happiness I enjoy may be described as a sense of intimate satisfaction with myself; not with my own merits, for that would be pride, which is characteristic of reprobate spirits, but, rather, a self-contentment merged, so to say, with love of God, in gratitude for God’s infinite goodness; it is the profound joy of seeing myself to be in unison with what is good and right; of saying to myself, “Perhaps I have contributed to the elevation of some of those who have raised themselves towards the Lord.” It is the feeling of having identified one’s self with the current of the Divine Order; it is a sort of conscious fusion of the mind with the Divine Goodness. We have also the gift of seeing the fully purified spirits above us, of comprehending them in the missions they discharge, and of knowing that we shall reach the same elevation; we obtain glimpses, in the incommensurableness of infinity, of regions so effulgent with the divine fire, that we are dazzled by the contemplation of them, even through the veil with which they are still covered. But what am I telling you? Can you understand my words? Do you imagine, for instance, that this fire of which I speak to you is similar to the sun? No, no; it is something absolutely indescribable to humankind, because words express only objects, things, physical or metaphysical, of which human beings have knowledge from memory or from soul-intuition; but, as they cannot have this remembrance of what is absolutely unknown to them, there are no terms that can give them a perception of it. But, remember that there is an immensity of happiness merely in knowing that we can raise ourselves higher and higher forever.
Q. You have been so kind as to say that you wished to be of use to me; please tell me, in what way can you help me?
A. I can aid you in your moments of discouragement, sustain you in your hours of weakness, and console you in your hours of grief. If your faith, shaken by some shock, should waver, call me; the inspiration from on high will enable me to suggest to your mind the train of thought that will lead you back to the calmness of an assured belief. If you feel the danger of succumbing to tendencies that you know are incorrect, call me; I will assist you to bear your cross, just as Jesus was assisted in carrying His, the one he bore with such dignity, and through which he proclaimed his message of truth and charity. If you stagger under the weight of your troubles, if despair takes hold of you, call me; I will draw you from the abyss by speaking to your spirit, and will recall you to the duties that are laid upon you, not by social considerations, but by the attraction of the love which you will feel in me, and which will rekindle the flame of the divine life in you.
You have, without a doubt, friends on Earth. Perhaps they share your pains and perhaps they have been able to help you. During your afflictions you will communicate your tears and laments to them, and they will offer you in return the proof of their affection and their good advice, their attention and their help. Well then, don’t you think that a friend from here will be equally loving and supportive? Is it not a consolation to be able to say: “when I die, my friends from Earth will be crying and praying for me, but my friends from space will be on the other side of life, joyfully celebrating our reunion and happily conducting me to the place that I may have merited due to my virtues?
Q. How can I have deserved the protection you are kind enough to offer me?
A. I will tell you how it came to pass that I have felt an attachment to you since the day of my death. I saw that you were a sincere and enlightened spiritist and a good medium; among those I have left below, you were the first whom I perceived; and I at once resolved to come to you and to help you to advance, for your own sake, and, still more, for the sake of the many whom you will help to bring to the truth. You can see the depth of God’s love for having conferred upon you the rank of missionary; little by little, you are leading all about you to share your belief. Do not weary in the good work; in time, the most obstinate will be with you. Go forward steadily, unmindful of the stones in the road; and when you grow tired, take me as a staff to help you on your way.
Q. I cannot venture to think that I deserve so great a favor?
A. You are still, undoubtedly, far from perfection; but your ardor in propagating the truth, in sustaining the faith of those who listen to you, and in proclaiming the necessity of charity, kindness, benevolence, even in return for ill usage; – your resistance to indulging in the anger which is natural to you, and which you could so easily gratify against those who afflict you or misunderstand you – form a counterpoise to the defects of which you have not yet rid yourself; for the forgiveness of others is the first condition of forgiveness for one’s self.
God enfolds you with divine graces through the faculties with which God endowed you. It is now up to you to develop them through focusing your efforts on working efficiently for the salvation of your fellow human beings. I leave you now; but you may count upon my help. Try to live each and every moment less for the things of the earthly life, and more and more for the interests of the life to come.
A. No. What you call “the last moment” is nothing at all; I felt only a very short crack, and
then, very soon afterwards, I found myself, to my great joy, delivered from my miserable carcass.
Q. What happened then?
A. I saw, to my delight, a great number of friends who had come to meet and to welcome me; among them were many of those whom I had had the satisfaction of helping on Earth.
Q. What region do you inhabit? Is it on a planet?
A. Whatever is not a planet is what you call “space;” it is there that I am. But how many degrees are there in this immensity of which human beings can form no idea! How many rungs to this “Jacob’s ladder,” that reaches from the Earth to heaven, that is to say, from the debasement of incarnation on a low Earth like yours, to the complete purification of the soul! Where I am, we only arrive after many trials; in other words, after many incarnations.
Q. In that case, you must have had many existences?
A. How could it be otherwise? Nothing is exceptional in the immutable order established by God. The reward can only be given after the victory has been won through struggle; therefore, when the reward is great, the struggle must necessarily have been severe. The lives of human beings are so short that the struggle is only fulfilled in stages with intervals, and these intervals are the different successive existences; and as I have already reached a rung that is a good way up, it is certain that I must have attained to this happiness through a succession of struggles in which, with the help of God, I have succeeded in gaining the victory.
Q. In what does your happiness consist?
A. That is something that would be very difficult to make you understand. The happiness I enjoy may be described as a sense of intimate satisfaction with myself; not with my own merits, for that would be pride, which is characteristic of reprobate spirits, but, rather, a self-contentment merged, so to say, with love of God, in gratitude for God’s infinite goodness; it is the profound joy of seeing myself to be in unison with what is good and right; of saying to myself, “Perhaps I have contributed to the elevation of some of those who have raised themselves towards the Lord.” It is the feeling of having identified one’s self with the current of the Divine Order; it is a sort of conscious fusion of the mind with the Divine Goodness. We have also the gift of seeing the fully purified spirits above us, of comprehending them in the missions they discharge, and of knowing that we shall reach the same elevation; we obtain glimpses, in the incommensurableness of infinity, of regions so effulgent with the divine fire, that we are dazzled by the contemplation of them, even through the veil with which they are still covered. But what am I telling you? Can you understand my words? Do you imagine, for instance, that this fire of which I speak to you is similar to the sun? No, no; it is something absolutely indescribable to humankind, because words express only objects, things, physical or metaphysical, of which human beings have knowledge from memory or from soul-intuition; but, as they cannot have this remembrance of what is absolutely unknown to them, there are no terms that can give them a perception of it. But, remember that there is an immensity of happiness merely in knowing that we can raise ourselves higher and higher forever.
Q. You have been so kind as to say that you wished to be of use to me; please tell me, in what way can you help me?
A. I can aid you in your moments of discouragement, sustain you in your hours of weakness, and console you in your hours of grief. If your faith, shaken by some shock, should waver, call me; the inspiration from on high will enable me to suggest to your mind the train of thought that will lead you back to the calmness of an assured belief. If you feel the danger of succumbing to tendencies that you know are incorrect, call me; I will assist you to bear your cross, just as Jesus was assisted in carrying His, the one he bore with such dignity, and through which he proclaimed his message of truth and charity. If you stagger under the weight of your troubles, if despair takes hold of you, call me; I will draw you from the abyss by speaking to your spirit, and will recall you to the duties that are laid upon you, not by social considerations, but by the attraction of the love which you will feel in me, and which will rekindle the flame of the divine life in you.
You have, without a doubt, friends on Earth. Perhaps they share your pains and perhaps they have been able to help you. During your afflictions you will communicate your tears and laments to them, and they will offer you in return the proof of their affection and their good advice, their attention and their help. Well then, don’t you think that a friend from here will be equally loving and supportive? Is it not a consolation to be able to say: “when I die, my friends from Earth will be crying and praying for me, but my friends from space will be on the other side of life, joyfully celebrating our reunion and happily conducting me to the place that I may have merited due to my virtues?
Q. How can I have deserved the protection you are kind enough to offer me?
A. I will tell you how it came to pass that I have felt an attachment to you since the day of my death. I saw that you were a sincere and enlightened spiritist and a good medium; among those I have left below, you were the first whom I perceived; and I at once resolved to come to you and to help you to advance, for your own sake, and, still more, for the sake of the many whom you will help to bring to the truth. You can see the depth of God’s love for having conferred upon you the rank of missionary; little by little, you are leading all about you to share your belief. Do not weary in the good work; in time, the most obstinate will be with you. Go forward steadily, unmindful of the stones in the road; and when you grow tired, take me as a staff to help you on your way.
Q. I cannot venture to think that I deserve so great a favor?
A. You are still, undoubtedly, far from perfection; but your ardor in propagating the truth, in sustaining the faith of those who listen to you, and in proclaiming the necessity of charity, kindness, benevolence, even in return for ill usage; – your resistance to indulging in the anger which is natural to you, and which you could so easily gratify against those who afflict you or misunderstand you – form a counterpoise to the defects of which you have not yet rid yourself; for the forgiveness of others is the first condition of forgiveness for one’s self.
God enfolds you with divine graces through the faculties with which God endowed you. It is now up to you to develop them through focusing your efforts on working efficiently for the salvation of your fellow human beings. I leave you now; but you may count upon my help. Try to live each and every moment less for the things of the earthly life, and more and more for the interests of the life to come.
MADAME FOULON, BORN WOLLIS
Madame Foulon, who died at Antibes, February 3rd, 1865, had formerly resided for many years at Havre, where she enjoyed considerable reputation as a miniature painter. Her very remarkable proficiency had been, in her youth, merely a source of personal gratification; but, at a later period, a series of misfortunes compelled her to seek, in the exercise of her talent, for the means of support. What, especially, won for her the affection and respect of all who knew her and has rendered her memory dear to them, was the greatness of her character, and the admirable qualities which gave, to her private life, a charm that only those who knew her intimately could fully appreciate; for, as is the case with all those in whom it is innate, she made no display of her goodness, of which she seemed to be altogether unconscious. If ever any human being were absolutely without selfishness, it was she; no one ever carried further the sentiment of abnegation; she was always ready to sacrifice her ease, her health, her interests, for those to whom it was in her power to be useful. Her life, from her youth onwards, was one long succession of acts of devotedness, as it was, also, a long sequence of hard and severe trials, under which her resignation and perseverance never failed her. But, alas! Her eyesight, worn out by the long exercise of her art, had been growing weaker from day to day; it was but too evident that soon the blindness which had been gradually coming on for many years would have been complete.
When Madame Foulon first became acquainted with Spiritism, it was for her a ray of light; it seemed to her as though a veil had been withdrawn from something which had not been unknown to her, but of which she had harbored only a vague intuition; she accordingly studied its doctrine with ardor, but, at the same time, with the clearness of mind and the correctness of judgment which were natural to her lofty intelligence. Only those who knew the anxieties of her life – anxieties which were always prompted, not by her own position, but by that of those who were dear to her – can understand the value she attached to the sublime revelation which gave her the consolation of an immovable faith in the future, based on its explanation of the sorrows of the present life, and its demonstration of the insignificance of terrestrial things. Her death was worthy of her life. She watched its approach without apprehension; it was, for her, a deliverance from terrestrial bondage, an introduction to the happier life with which she had already identified herself by the study of Spiritism. She died calmly, because she was conscious of having accomplished the mission which she had accepted on coming back to the Earth, having scrupulously fulfilled all the duties of a wife and mother, and also because she had, during her whole life, abjured all feeling of resentment against those who had wronged her and repaid her kindness with ingratitude, and to whom she had always returned good for evil. She passed out of this sphere of being with no other feeling than that of forgiveness towards all those of whom she might justly have complained, trusting that the pardon she so freely accorded to others would be accorded to her by the Judge before whom she was about to appear. She died, in short, with the serenity imparted by a clear conscience and the certainty that she would, in the spirit-world, be less separated from her children than in the life of the flesh, since she could, thenceforward, be with them, as a spirit, at whatever point of the Earth’s surface they might be, to aid them with her counsels and to shield them with her protection.
Having received the news of her death, our first thought was to enter into communication with her. The intimate and sympathetic friendship that had grown up between us, based on her devotion to the spiritist philosophy, explains the freedom and familiarity of her messages.
I
Paris, February 6th, 1865; three days after her death
I was sure that you would have the idea of evoking me at once, after my deliverance, and I held myself ready to reply to you, for I felt no confusion during the separation; it is only those who dread death that find themselves in its darkness.
How happy I am! These poor eyes, that had grown so weak, and that showed me only the remembrance of the prisms that had colored my youth with their resplendent hues, have re-opened to the light amidst the splendid horizons that are faintly represented by a few of your greatest artists, but of which the majestic reality is pervaded by a subtle charm that no earthly pencil could render!
It is but three days since I died, and I still feel as an artist; my aspirations, after the ideal of beauty in art, were the intuition of faculties that I had acquired, and studies that I had carried on, in anterior existences, and that I developed still further in my last. But what progress I should have to make, in order to portray the magnificent spectacle that greets the spirit on arriving in this realm of light! Give me a palette, give me brushes, and I would prove to the world that spiritist art is the crown of pagan art, of Christian art now in its decline; and that it is reserved for Spiritism alone to re-kindle the glory of art in your world.
But enough of the artist, – now, for the friend:
“Why, my dear Madame Kardec, should you be so much affected by my death? You, especially, who knew how full of pain and disappointment was my life, should rather rejoice to see that I have no longer to drink from the bitter cup of terrestrial sorrows which I was compelled to drain to the very dregs! Believe me, the dead are happier than the living; to weep for them is to doubt the truth of Spiritism. You will see me again; be sure of that. I have gone first, because my task in your world was finished; and, when yours is done, you will come and take a rest near me, to begin a new task afterwards, for it is not in keeping with our nature to remain inactive. Each has his tendencies, and follows their lead, a law that proves the power of our freewill. Therefore, my dear, cultivate indulgence and charity; we all need them, in the visible world and in the invisible world; with this motto for our guide, all goes on well.
You will not tell me to stop, though I am talking on a long while for a first attempt! So I leave you, to converse with my excellent friend, Mr. Kardec, whom I have to thank for the affectionate words he has addressed to the friend who has gone before him to the world to which we came very near going together! (alluding to the illness spoken of by Dr. Demeure). What would she have said to that – the beloved companion of your life – if your good spirit-friends had not taken you in hand? It is then that she would have wept and groaned; and I can quite understand the grief in which it would have plunged her! But she must see to it that you do not again expose yourself to the danger of returning too quickly among us, and of leaving unfinished the work of initiating the spiritist movement; without that caution, you run the risk of arriving here among us, much too soon, and will not be able to see, as did Moses, the “Promised Land”, except from afar. Therefore, be on your guard; it is a friend who utters this word of warning.
And now I leave you; I must return to my children; after that, I shall go and look after my wandering sheep, to see if she has reached the port safely, or if she is still the sport of the tempest (one of her daughters, who had gone to America.) May the good spirits protect her! I shall join them. Soon, I shall come back to have a chat with you; you know I was always an indefatigable talker! V. FOULON.
II
(February 8th, 1865)
Q. Dear Madame Foulon, I was most happy to get the communication from you, the other day, and to receive your promise to come and talk with us again. I perfectly recognized you in your message; for you alluded to matters that were quite unknown to the medium, and which could only have been spoken of by you; and your affectionate language, to us, is the true utterance of your good and loving nature. But there is, in what you said, a degree of certainty, firmness, and boldness that I never knew you to display while you were in this world. You may remember that, in regard to this point, I more than once ventured to admonish you.
A. That is true; but, from the time I found myself seriously ill, I regained my strength of mind, which had been shaken by the sorrows and troubles that had rendered me timid. I said to myself: – “You are a spiritist; forget the Earth; prepare for the transformation of your being; fix your eyes, in thought, on the shining path that your spirit will follow on quitting your body, and which will lead you, happy and released from earthly sorrows, to the celestial spheres in which you will thenceforth dwell.”
You will perhaps tell me that it was somewhat presumptuous, on my part, to count on attaining to perfect happiness on leaving the Earth; but I had suffered so much that it seemed to me I must have expiated the faults of that life and of all my previous lives. This intuition did not deceive me. It gave me back my courage and rendered me calm and firm in my last moments; and this firmness has naturally increased, since I have seen my hopes fulfilled.
Q. Can you please describe to us your passage, your awakening, and the first impression caused by the sight of the world in which you are?
A. I suffered much in passing away, but my spirit was superior to the physical suffering caused by the effort of disengagement. I found myself, after the last sigh, in a state similar to a fainting fit, having no consciousness of my position, thinking of nothing, and plunged in a vague somnolence that was neither the sleep of the body nor the waking of the soul. I remained for a considerable time in this state; then, as though coming out of a long sleep, I awakened in the midst of a company of friends whom I did not know, but who were surrounding me with affectionate attentions and caresses, and who pointed to a shining speck, far off in space, that looked like a brilliant star, and said to me, “That is where you are going to, with us; you have ceased to belong to the Earth!” As they spoke, my memory came back to me; supported by them, I accompanied the graceful group of friends in their flight towards the unknown region to which they had directed my glance; and we continued to rise up, a conviction of coming happiness filling my whole being, and the beautiful star growing larger and larger as we approached it. It was a high and happy world, in which your old friend will, at last, enjoy repose; The repose of which I speak is rest from the bodily fatigues and wearing vicissitudes that for so long I had to endure in the earthly life, but this rest is not indolence, for activity is a source of enjoyment for spirits.
Q. Have you definitively quitted the Earth?
A. I have left upon the Earth too many of those I love to be able to quit it definitively at present; I shall come back to it as a spirit, for I have a mission to fulfill to my grandchildren. You know already that there is nothing to prevent a spirit, who is staying in a higher world than the Earth, from coming to visit those who are incarnated in it.
Q. But will not your present elevation weaken the tie between you and those you have left down here?
A. No; affection keeps souls together. Believe me, it is far more possible for those who are upon the Earth to be in close proximity to the spirits of those who have reached a very high degree of advancement, than it is to be near those whose inferiority and selfishness keep them circling round the terrestrial globe. Love and charity are two motors of immense attractive force. They are the links that maintain union between souls who are attached to each other, notwithstanding distances of place and time. Distance only exists for bodies; there is no distance for spirits.
Q. What is now your opinion concerning my efforts to establish and develop Spiritism?
A. I see that your mission is one of the most serious importance and that your burden is a heavy one; but I see the end for which you are working, and I see also that you will attain it. I will help you, if I can, with my counsels, that you may overcome the difficulties that will be thrown in your way, and that you may be led to adopt certain measures calculated to quicken, during your lifetime, the renovating movement that is the aim of Spiritism. Your friend Demeure, along with the Spirit of Truth, will provide you with a greater helping hand, as he is more wise and clear headed than I; but, as I know that it is the assistance of the good Spirits which sustains you in your work, you may be sure that what help I can give you will always be at your service.
Q. It would seem, from what you say that you will not take any active personal share in the establishment of Spiritism?
A. You are mistaken; but I see so many spirits who are better able than I am to treat of this immense subject, that a feeling of timidity prevents my replying to you, at this time, as you would wish. By and by I may feel more confidence in my power to help; but I must first have time to look about me. It is only four days since I died; I am still dazzled by the splendor of everything around me; can you not understand that dear Friend? I am unable to describe the new sensations that I experience. I have had to do violence to myself in order to tear my mind away from the fascination exercised upon it by the marvels it admires. I can only bless and adore the Almighty, whose works fill me with awe. But this state of excitement will pass; my spirit-friends assure me that I shall soon become accustomed to all this magnificence, and that I shall then be able, with clearness of thought, to treat of all that relates to the renovation of the Earth. And, besides, you must remember that I have, still, a whole family to visit and to console.
Farewell for the present; I shall soon come to you again; for your friend loves and will always love you, as the teacher to whom she owes the only true and lasting consolation she enjoyed upon the Earth. V. FOULON
III
The following communication was received from her, for her children, on February 9th: –
My beloved children, God has called me away from you; but the reward God has deigned to grant me is great indeed, in comparison with the little I was able to do when upon the Earth. Be resigned, my dear children, to the will of the Highest, and from all that God has permitted you to receive, draw strength to support the trials of life. Keep firm, in your hearts, the belief that so greatly facilitated my passage from the earthly life to the life that awaits us all on our exit from your lower sphere. God extended to me, upon my death, the same inexhaustible kindness that was given while I was still on Earth. Be grateful for all the benefits that were conceded to you. Bless God my children. Bless God always and in every instant. Never lose sight of the aim that has been given you to see, nor of the road that you have to follow; make good use of the time that God grants to you upon the Earth. It is thus, my beloved ones that you will be happy; happy in each other, happy in your children, if you bring them up to follow the road upon which you have been permitted to enter.
Though you can no longer see me, be quite sure that the bond which united us in the earthly life is not severed by the death of the body, for it was not by the envelope of the soul that we were united, but by the soul itself; and it is through this union, my darlings, that I shall still, through the bounty of God, be able to guide you and to encourage you in your march to this other life, in which we shall all be reunited by and by.
Weep not, my children; let the communication between us, which we are permitted to maintain, strengthen your faith and your love of God, who has bestowed so many blessings upon you, who has so often sent help to your mother. Pray to God, bless God, love God; and conform your lives to the teachings that I followed with so much ardor.
I shall return to you, my dear ones; but I must now go to your poor sister, who is so much in need of my presence. Put your trust in the Almighty, to whom I pray for you. Prayer is the great fortifier. WIDOW FOULON
Remark – The enlightened spiritist will readily grasp, from these communications, the teachings they convey; we will therefore draw particular attention only to two points. The first of these is the proof furnished by this example that a spirit may finish its incarnation in this world and go hence to a higher one, without being thereby separated from the beings whom that spirit has loved down here. Those who dread reincarnation in this world, on account of the miseries of human life, may therefore escape from that necessity by doing, in their present life, all that they ought to do, that is to say, in working out their own improvement. Therefore, in this matter, as in all others; he or she who would rise from a lower grade to a higher one must study and work to that end, instead of idly vegetating in his inferior position.
The second point is the confirmation of the truth that, after death, we are less separated from those we love than we are during life. Madame Foulon, kept by age and infirmity in a little town in the south of France, had only a part of her family near her; most of her children and friends were dispersed in various directions, and various obstacles prevented her seeing them as often as she, and they, would have wished. The great distance that separated some of them from her rendered even epistolary correspondence between them rare and difficult. But scarcely was she freed from the encumbrance of the flesh than, light as the breeze, she hastened to each of them, traversing wide distances without fatigue and with the rapidity of electricity, to see them, to take part in their most intimate expressions of familial affection, surrounding them with her protection, and able, by means of the mediumistic faculty, to converse with them at any moment, as though she were still in the flesh. And to think that there are people who prefer, to such a consoling possibility, the idea of an indefinite period of separation!
When Madame Foulon first became acquainted with Spiritism, it was for her a ray of light; it seemed to her as though a veil had been withdrawn from something which had not been unknown to her, but of which she had harbored only a vague intuition; she accordingly studied its doctrine with ardor, but, at the same time, with the clearness of mind and the correctness of judgment which were natural to her lofty intelligence. Only those who knew the anxieties of her life – anxieties which were always prompted, not by her own position, but by that of those who were dear to her – can understand the value she attached to the sublime revelation which gave her the consolation of an immovable faith in the future, based on its explanation of the sorrows of the present life, and its demonstration of the insignificance of terrestrial things. Her death was worthy of her life. She watched its approach without apprehension; it was, for her, a deliverance from terrestrial bondage, an introduction to the happier life with which she had already identified herself by the study of Spiritism. She died calmly, because she was conscious of having accomplished the mission which she had accepted on coming back to the Earth, having scrupulously fulfilled all the duties of a wife and mother, and also because she had, during her whole life, abjured all feeling of resentment against those who had wronged her and repaid her kindness with ingratitude, and to whom she had always returned good for evil. She passed out of this sphere of being with no other feeling than that of forgiveness towards all those of whom she might justly have complained, trusting that the pardon she so freely accorded to others would be accorded to her by the Judge before whom she was about to appear. She died, in short, with the serenity imparted by a clear conscience and the certainty that she would, in the spirit-world, be less separated from her children than in the life of the flesh, since she could, thenceforward, be with them, as a spirit, at whatever point of the Earth’s surface they might be, to aid them with her counsels and to shield them with her protection.
Having received the news of her death, our first thought was to enter into communication with her. The intimate and sympathetic friendship that had grown up between us, based on her devotion to the spiritist philosophy, explains the freedom and familiarity of her messages.
I
Paris, February 6th, 1865; three days after her death
I was sure that you would have the idea of evoking me at once, after my deliverance, and I held myself ready to reply to you, for I felt no confusion during the separation; it is only those who dread death that find themselves in its darkness.
How happy I am! These poor eyes, that had grown so weak, and that showed me only the remembrance of the prisms that had colored my youth with their resplendent hues, have re-opened to the light amidst the splendid horizons that are faintly represented by a few of your greatest artists, but of which the majestic reality is pervaded by a subtle charm that no earthly pencil could render!
It is but three days since I died, and I still feel as an artist; my aspirations, after the ideal of beauty in art, were the intuition of faculties that I had acquired, and studies that I had carried on, in anterior existences, and that I developed still further in my last. But what progress I should have to make, in order to portray the magnificent spectacle that greets the spirit on arriving in this realm of light! Give me a palette, give me brushes, and I would prove to the world that spiritist art is the crown of pagan art, of Christian art now in its decline; and that it is reserved for Spiritism alone to re-kindle the glory of art in your world.
But enough of the artist, – now, for the friend:
“Why, my dear Madame Kardec, should you be so much affected by my death? You, especially, who knew how full of pain and disappointment was my life, should rather rejoice to see that I have no longer to drink from the bitter cup of terrestrial sorrows which I was compelled to drain to the very dregs! Believe me, the dead are happier than the living; to weep for them is to doubt the truth of Spiritism. You will see me again; be sure of that. I have gone first, because my task in your world was finished; and, when yours is done, you will come and take a rest near me, to begin a new task afterwards, for it is not in keeping with our nature to remain inactive. Each has his tendencies, and follows their lead, a law that proves the power of our freewill. Therefore, my dear, cultivate indulgence and charity; we all need them, in the visible world and in the invisible world; with this motto for our guide, all goes on well.
You will not tell me to stop, though I am talking on a long while for a first attempt! So I leave you, to converse with my excellent friend, Mr. Kardec, whom I have to thank for the affectionate words he has addressed to the friend who has gone before him to the world to which we came very near going together! (alluding to the illness spoken of by Dr. Demeure). What would she have said to that – the beloved companion of your life – if your good spirit-friends had not taken you in hand? It is then that she would have wept and groaned; and I can quite understand the grief in which it would have plunged her! But she must see to it that you do not again expose yourself to the danger of returning too quickly among us, and of leaving unfinished the work of initiating the spiritist movement; without that caution, you run the risk of arriving here among us, much too soon, and will not be able to see, as did Moses, the “Promised Land”, except from afar. Therefore, be on your guard; it is a friend who utters this word of warning.
And now I leave you; I must return to my children; after that, I shall go and look after my wandering sheep, to see if she has reached the port safely, or if she is still the sport of the tempest (one of her daughters, who had gone to America.) May the good spirits protect her! I shall join them. Soon, I shall come back to have a chat with you; you know I was always an indefatigable talker! V. FOULON.
II
(February 8th, 1865)
Q. Dear Madame Foulon, I was most happy to get the communication from you, the other day, and to receive your promise to come and talk with us again. I perfectly recognized you in your message; for you alluded to matters that were quite unknown to the medium, and which could only have been spoken of by you; and your affectionate language, to us, is the true utterance of your good and loving nature. But there is, in what you said, a degree of certainty, firmness, and boldness that I never knew you to display while you were in this world. You may remember that, in regard to this point, I more than once ventured to admonish you.
A. That is true; but, from the time I found myself seriously ill, I regained my strength of mind, which had been shaken by the sorrows and troubles that had rendered me timid. I said to myself: – “You are a spiritist; forget the Earth; prepare for the transformation of your being; fix your eyes, in thought, on the shining path that your spirit will follow on quitting your body, and which will lead you, happy and released from earthly sorrows, to the celestial spheres in which you will thenceforth dwell.”
You will perhaps tell me that it was somewhat presumptuous, on my part, to count on attaining to perfect happiness on leaving the Earth; but I had suffered so much that it seemed to me I must have expiated the faults of that life and of all my previous lives. This intuition did not deceive me. It gave me back my courage and rendered me calm and firm in my last moments; and this firmness has naturally increased, since I have seen my hopes fulfilled.
Q. Can you please describe to us your passage, your awakening, and the first impression caused by the sight of the world in which you are?
A. I suffered much in passing away, but my spirit was superior to the physical suffering caused by the effort of disengagement. I found myself, after the last sigh, in a state similar to a fainting fit, having no consciousness of my position, thinking of nothing, and plunged in a vague somnolence that was neither the sleep of the body nor the waking of the soul. I remained for a considerable time in this state; then, as though coming out of a long sleep, I awakened in the midst of a company of friends whom I did not know, but who were surrounding me with affectionate attentions and caresses, and who pointed to a shining speck, far off in space, that looked like a brilliant star, and said to me, “That is where you are going to, with us; you have ceased to belong to the Earth!” As they spoke, my memory came back to me; supported by them, I accompanied the graceful group of friends in their flight towards the unknown region to which they had directed my glance; and we continued to rise up, a conviction of coming happiness filling my whole being, and the beautiful star growing larger and larger as we approached it. It was a high and happy world, in which your old friend will, at last, enjoy repose; The repose of which I speak is rest from the bodily fatigues and wearing vicissitudes that for so long I had to endure in the earthly life, but this rest is not indolence, for activity is a source of enjoyment for spirits.
Q. Have you definitively quitted the Earth?
A. I have left upon the Earth too many of those I love to be able to quit it definitively at present; I shall come back to it as a spirit, for I have a mission to fulfill to my grandchildren. You know already that there is nothing to prevent a spirit, who is staying in a higher world than the Earth, from coming to visit those who are incarnated in it.
Q. But will not your present elevation weaken the tie between you and those you have left down here?
A. No; affection keeps souls together. Believe me, it is far more possible for those who are upon the Earth to be in close proximity to the spirits of those who have reached a very high degree of advancement, than it is to be near those whose inferiority and selfishness keep them circling round the terrestrial globe. Love and charity are two motors of immense attractive force. They are the links that maintain union between souls who are attached to each other, notwithstanding distances of place and time. Distance only exists for bodies; there is no distance for spirits.
Q. What is now your opinion concerning my efforts to establish and develop Spiritism?
A. I see that your mission is one of the most serious importance and that your burden is a heavy one; but I see the end for which you are working, and I see also that you will attain it. I will help you, if I can, with my counsels, that you may overcome the difficulties that will be thrown in your way, and that you may be led to adopt certain measures calculated to quicken, during your lifetime, the renovating movement that is the aim of Spiritism. Your friend Demeure, along with the Spirit of Truth, will provide you with a greater helping hand, as he is more wise and clear headed than I; but, as I know that it is the assistance of the good Spirits which sustains you in your work, you may be sure that what help I can give you will always be at your service.
Q. It would seem, from what you say that you will not take any active personal share in the establishment of Spiritism?
A. You are mistaken; but I see so many spirits who are better able than I am to treat of this immense subject, that a feeling of timidity prevents my replying to you, at this time, as you would wish. By and by I may feel more confidence in my power to help; but I must first have time to look about me. It is only four days since I died; I am still dazzled by the splendor of everything around me; can you not understand that dear Friend? I am unable to describe the new sensations that I experience. I have had to do violence to myself in order to tear my mind away from the fascination exercised upon it by the marvels it admires. I can only bless and adore the Almighty, whose works fill me with awe. But this state of excitement will pass; my spirit-friends assure me that I shall soon become accustomed to all this magnificence, and that I shall then be able, with clearness of thought, to treat of all that relates to the renovation of the Earth. And, besides, you must remember that I have, still, a whole family to visit and to console.
Farewell for the present; I shall soon come to you again; for your friend loves and will always love you, as the teacher to whom she owes the only true and lasting consolation she enjoyed upon the Earth. V. FOULON
III
The following communication was received from her, for her children, on February 9th: –
My beloved children, God has called me away from you; but the reward God has deigned to grant me is great indeed, in comparison with the little I was able to do when upon the Earth. Be resigned, my dear children, to the will of the Highest, and from all that God has permitted you to receive, draw strength to support the trials of life. Keep firm, in your hearts, the belief that so greatly facilitated my passage from the earthly life to the life that awaits us all on our exit from your lower sphere. God extended to me, upon my death, the same inexhaustible kindness that was given while I was still on Earth. Be grateful for all the benefits that were conceded to you. Bless God my children. Bless God always and in every instant. Never lose sight of the aim that has been given you to see, nor of the road that you have to follow; make good use of the time that God grants to you upon the Earth. It is thus, my beloved ones that you will be happy; happy in each other, happy in your children, if you bring them up to follow the road upon which you have been permitted to enter.
Though you can no longer see me, be quite sure that the bond which united us in the earthly life is not severed by the death of the body, for it was not by the envelope of the soul that we were united, but by the soul itself; and it is through this union, my darlings, that I shall still, through the bounty of God, be able to guide you and to encourage you in your march to this other life, in which we shall all be reunited by and by.
Weep not, my children; let the communication between us, which we are permitted to maintain, strengthen your faith and your love of God, who has bestowed so many blessings upon you, who has so often sent help to your mother. Pray to God, bless God, love God; and conform your lives to the teachings that I followed with so much ardor.
I shall return to you, my dear ones; but I must now go to your poor sister, who is so much in need of my presence. Put your trust in the Almighty, to whom I pray for you. Prayer is the great fortifier. WIDOW FOULON
Remark – The enlightened spiritist will readily grasp, from these communications, the teachings they convey; we will therefore draw particular attention only to two points. The first of these is the proof furnished by this example that a spirit may finish its incarnation in this world and go hence to a higher one, without being thereby separated from the beings whom that spirit has loved down here. Those who dread reincarnation in this world, on account of the miseries of human life, may therefore escape from that necessity by doing, in their present life, all that they ought to do, that is to say, in working out their own improvement. Therefore, in this matter, as in all others; he or she who would rise from a lower grade to a higher one must study and work to that end, instead of idly vegetating in his inferior position.
The second point is the confirmation of the truth that, after death, we are less separated from those we love than we are during life. Madame Foulon, kept by age and infirmity in a little town in the south of France, had only a part of her family near her; most of her children and friends were dispersed in various directions, and various obstacles prevented her seeing them as often as she, and they, would have wished. The great distance that separated some of them from her rendered even epistolary correspondence between them rare and difficult. But scarcely was she freed from the encumbrance of the flesh than, light as the breeze, she hastened to each of them, traversing wide distances without fatigue and with the rapidity of electricity, to see them, to take part in their most intimate expressions of familial affection, surrounding them with her protection, and able, by means of the mediumistic faculty, to converse with them at any moment, as though she were still in the flesh. And to think that there are people who prefer, to such a consoling possibility, the idea of an indefinite period of separation!
DR. DEMEURE
Died at Albi (Tarn) January 25th, 1865
Dr. Demeure was a distinguished homeopath physician of Albi. His moral excellence, as well as his great learning, had won for him the esteem and veneration of his fellow-townsmen. His kindness and charity were inexhaustible; and, notwithstanding his great age, he thought nothing of his fatigue when called upon to prescribe for the poor. His fees were the last thing he thought of; and he was even more ready to hasten to the bedside of the destitute than to those who were able to pay for his visits; “because the latter (he would often say), if he did not go to them, could always secure the aid of some other physician.” To the poor, he not only gave the requisite medicines gratuitously, but frequently left them money for their daily needs, a species of help that is often the most beneficial of medicines. His benevolence was such that he might be fairly called The Curate of Arts of the medical profession.
Dr. Demeure had embraced, with ardor, the theory of Spiritism, because it gave him the key to solving the grave problems for which he had vainly sought the solution in science and in the various systems of philosophy. His profound and investigating mind had shown him, at once, the vastness of its scope, and he had consequently become one of its earliest and most zealous proponents. Relations of lively and mutual sympathy were established between him and ourselves through the correspondence that we had kept up for several years.
We were informed of his death on the 30th of January, and our first thought was to converse with him. Here is the communication we received from him on that day:
“I am here. I had promised myself, while alive, that, as soon as I was dead, I would come, if possible, to shake hands with my beloved teacher and friend, Allan Kardec.
“Death plunged my soul into the heavy sleep that we call lethargy; but my thought kept watch. I shook off the injurious torpor which prolongs the confusion that follows death. I roused myself to wakefulness and, with a single bound, I accomplished the journey!
“How happy I am! I am no longer old nor infirm. My earthly body was only an imposed disguise. I am young and handsome, embellished by the eternal youth of the spirit, whose face is never furrowed by wrinkles, whose hair is never whitened by the lapse of time. I am as light as the bird that traverses, on rapid wing, your cloudy sky; and I admire, contemplate, bless, love and adore – I, who am but an atom before the grandeur, wisdom, and science of our Creator, and all the marvels by which I am surrounded.
“I am happy! I am in glory! Oh! What language could ever recount the splendid beauties of the Land of the Purified? The skies, the worlds, the suns, and the part played by them in the great convergence of universal harmony! Yet this will I try to do, O Friend and Teacher! I will make a study of this grand theme, and I will bring you the results of my spirit-labors, which I dedicate to you beforehand. I shall soon return.”
DEMEURE The two following communications, received on the 1st and the 2nd of February, relate to the illness from which we were suffering at the moment. Although personal to ourselves, we give them here, because they show that the spirit of the excellent physician is as actively helpful in his present
life as in his last one.
“My dear friend – Have confidence in us, and keep up your courage; this attack, though
fatiguing and painful; will not last long, and you will be able, if you adopt the precautions we have suggested, to complete the work which is the principal aim of your present existence. I am always at your side with the Spirit of Truth, who allows me to speak in his name, as the last of your former friends that has arrived in the world of the Spirits. They are doing the honors of the reception. Dear Teacher, how glad I am to have died in time to be with you in this emergency! If I had died a little sooner, I might, perhaps, have been able to ward off this attack, which I did not foresee, having been too recently disincarnated to be able to occupy myself with the things of your sphere. But now I shall always watch over you, and shall be with you constantly through this illness; but you know the proverb: “Heaven helps those who help themselves.” You must help your spirit-friends to be useful to you, by conforming strictly to their prescriptions.
It is too warm in this room; and your coal-fire oppresses you. While this attack lasts, do not burn coal; the gas with which the room is filled is very injurious, and adds to your difficulty in breathing. – Your friend,
Demeure”
“It is I, Demeure, the friend and disciple of Allan Kardec. I have come to tell that I was beside him when the accident occurred; its effects would have been far more serious, but for the efficacious intervention in which I was so happy to take part. From my own observations, as well as from the information I have obtained from higher spirits, I am quite aware that the sooner his discarnation takes place, the sooner will he be able to reincarnate himself, as he has to do, for the accomplishment of his task; nevertheless, he has still to finish the works which will complete the doctrinal initiation confided to him; and he will be guilty of voluntary homicide if he continues, by overwork, to increase the defectiveness of his organism, which threatens him with a sudden departure for the other world. There must be no hesitation in telling him the truth about himself, so that he may be on his guard and may follow our prescriptions to the very letter.”
DEMEURE
The following communication was obtained at Montauban, in January 26th, the day after his death by the Spiritist Society of that town.
Antoine Demeure
“I am not dead for you, dear Friends, but for those who, unlike you, are unacquainted with the admirable doctrine which reunites those who have loved one another upon the Earth, and who have shared the same sentiments of kindness and charity.
“I am happy; happier than I could have hoped to be; for I enjoy a degree of lucidity that is rare among spirits who have only been disengaged from matter for so short a time. I shall often be near you, and I shall not fail to give you information in regard to many things of which we are unaware while we are attached to the paltry material body that shuts us out from so much magnificence and so many enjoyments. Pray for those who are deprived of the happiness of obtaining this knowledge. They little know how much they lose by their indifference to the light.
“I shall not remain long with you today; but I simply must tell you that I do not feel myself to be, in any way, a stranger in the world that is invisible to you. It seems to me that I have always inhabited it. I am very happy here; for I see my friends on the Earth and can communicate with them whenever I wish to do so.
“Do not weep for me, my Friends; you would make me regret that I have known you! Let time do its work and you will be led on to this sojourn where we shall be reunited by and by. Good night, dear Friends; be consoled for my departure, for I am still near you.”
DEMEURE.
Another letter from Montauban contained the following narrative: –
“We had kept the knowledge of Dr. Demeure’s death from Madame G. (a seeing medium and very lucid somnambulist), in order not to excite her extreme sensitiveness; and the worthy doctor, no doubt appreciating our intentions, had avoided showing himself to her. On the 10th February last, we had assembled at the invitation of our guides, who, they told us, wished to relieve Madame G. of a sprained ankle, from which she had been suffering excruciatingly since the preceding day. This was all we knew of the matter, and we were far indeed from anticipating the surprise they had in store for us. Madame G. had no sooner passed into the state of somnambulism than she began to scream violently, pointing, meantime, to her foot.
“Madame G., as we later learned, perceived a spirit bending over her leg. His face was hidden from her view, as he energetically worked over her injured limb, appearing to rub and to massage it, utilizing a longitudinal drawing or pulling motion, exactly as would have been done by a physician in the flesh. The treatment was so painful that the patient uttered a succession of shrieks, writhing in her chair, in great agony. But the crisis was of short duration; in the course of ten minutes, every trace of the sprain had disappeared; the swelling of the ankle had subsided, and the foot had regained its normal appearance; Madame G. was perfectly cured.
“The spirit, however, was still unrecognized by the medium, and persisted in not allowing her to see his face; he even seemed to be going away, when Madame G., who, a few minutes before, could not have taken a single step, sprang to the middle of the room, determined to shake hands with her spirit-doctor and to thank him for curing her. As she did so, the latter again turned his head aside, while leaving his hand in hers, when Madame G. uttered a loud cry, and fell, unconscious, on the floor. She had caught sight of her doctor’s face, and instantly fainted away. While she remained in this state of unconsciousness, she was carefully tended by a group of sympathetic spirits; and her lucidity having presently returned, she conversed aloud with them, shaking hands with them, and exchanging with them tokens of the most cordial friendship, especially with the spirit of the doctor, who responded warmly to her expressions of affection, and restored her to her ordinary calmness by surrounding her with an atmosphere of health-giving fluids.
“Is not this little scene at once most natural and most dramatic, and do not the various actors who took part in it seem as though they were enacting an incident of the earthly life? Is it not a fresh proof, added to the thousand proofs of the fact which we possess already, that the spirits who people space are beings as real as we are, possessing bodies, and acting as they did when upon the Earth? We were delighted to find ourselves again with our valued friend, and to know that he retained, in his spirit-state, his excellent heart and his delicate solicitude. He had been, in life, the physician of the medium; he knew how extremely sensitive she was, and he endeavored to spare her feelings as carefully as though she had been his own child. And is not this proof of identity, given by the spirit to persons whom he loved when alive, a striking confirmation of the truth of the spiritist theory, and well calculated to lead us to regard the future under a most consoling aspect?”
Remark – The situation of Dr. Demeure, as a spirit, is precisely what his earthly life, so nobly and so usefully employed, might have led us to expect; but another indication, no less instructive, is furnished by the incident just narrated, viz., the activity which he employs, almost immediately after his death, in doing good. In virtue of his great intelligence and his eminent moral qualities, he belongs to a very advanced class of spirits; he is happy, but his happiness is not inaction. A few days before, he was attending to the sick, as a human physician; and, no sooner had he thrown off the coil of mortality, than he hastened to attend them as a spirit. “What advantage, then, shall we find in the other world,” some people will ask, “if we are to have no rest when we get there?” To this question we reply by asking the questioners whether they count it nothing to be delivered from the cares, needs, and infirmities of human life, to be free of its limitations, and to be able to travel through space, without fatigue and with the rapidity of thought, and to have the power of visiting one’s friends, instantaneously, at any time, no matter where they may be? And, having asked this, we add: – When you are in the other world, you will not be obliged to do anything whatever; you will be perfectly free to remain idle as long as it may please you to do so: but you will soon grow weary of so selfish a repose, and you will beg, of your own accord, for something to do. You will then be told that, if you are tired of doing nothing, you must look about you, and choose, for yourselves, what you would like to do; opportunities for being useful are not lacking, in the world of spirits, any more than in the world of human beings. Thus the activity of spirits is not a result of constraint; on the contrary, activity is, for them, a need and a satisfaction, because their avocations are chosen by themselves, according to their tastes and their aptitudes, and also, and especially, with a view to hastening their advancement.
Dr. Demeure was a distinguished homeopath physician of Albi. His moral excellence, as well as his great learning, had won for him the esteem and veneration of his fellow-townsmen. His kindness and charity were inexhaustible; and, notwithstanding his great age, he thought nothing of his fatigue when called upon to prescribe for the poor. His fees were the last thing he thought of; and he was even more ready to hasten to the bedside of the destitute than to those who were able to pay for his visits; “because the latter (he would often say), if he did not go to them, could always secure the aid of some other physician.” To the poor, he not only gave the requisite medicines gratuitously, but frequently left them money for their daily needs, a species of help that is often the most beneficial of medicines. His benevolence was such that he might be fairly called The Curate of Arts of the medical profession.
Dr. Demeure had embraced, with ardor, the theory of Spiritism, because it gave him the key to solving the grave problems for which he had vainly sought the solution in science and in the various systems of philosophy. His profound and investigating mind had shown him, at once, the vastness of its scope, and he had consequently become one of its earliest and most zealous proponents. Relations of lively and mutual sympathy were established between him and ourselves through the correspondence that we had kept up for several years.
We were informed of his death on the 30th of January, and our first thought was to converse with him. Here is the communication we received from him on that day:
“I am here. I had promised myself, while alive, that, as soon as I was dead, I would come, if possible, to shake hands with my beloved teacher and friend, Allan Kardec.
“Death plunged my soul into the heavy sleep that we call lethargy; but my thought kept watch. I shook off the injurious torpor which prolongs the confusion that follows death. I roused myself to wakefulness and, with a single bound, I accomplished the journey!
“How happy I am! I am no longer old nor infirm. My earthly body was only an imposed disguise. I am young and handsome, embellished by the eternal youth of the spirit, whose face is never furrowed by wrinkles, whose hair is never whitened by the lapse of time. I am as light as the bird that traverses, on rapid wing, your cloudy sky; and I admire, contemplate, bless, love and adore – I, who am but an atom before the grandeur, wisdom, and science of our Creator, and all the marvels by which I am surrounded.
“I am happy! I am in glory! Oh! What language could ever recount the splendid beauties of the Land of the Purified? The skies, the worlds, the suns, and the part played by them in the great convergence of universal harmony! Yet this will I try to do, O Friend and Teacher! I will make a study of this grand theme, and I will bring you the results of my spirit-labors, which I dedicate to you beforehand. I shall soon return.”
DEMEURE The two following communications, received on the 1st and the 2nd of February, relate to the illness from which we were suffering at the moment. Although personal to ourselves, we give them here, because they show that the spirit of the excellent physician is as actively helpful in his present
life as in his last one.
“My dear friend – Have confidence in us, and keep up your courage; this attack, though
fatiguing and painful; will not last long, and you will be able, if you adopt the precautions we have suggested, to complete the work which is the principal aim of your present existence. I am always at your side with the Spirit of Truth, who allows me to speak in his name, as the last of your former friends that has arrived in the world of the Spirits. They are doing the honors of the reception. Dear Teacher, how glad I am to have died in time to be with you in this emergency! If I had died a little sooner, I might, perhaps, have been able to ward off this attack, which I did not foresee, having been too recently disincarnated to be able to occupy myself with the things of your sphere. But now I shall always watch over you, and shall be with you constantly through this illness; but you know the proverb: “Heaven helps those who help themselves.” You must help your spirit-friends to be useful to you, by conforming strictly to their prescriptions.
It is too warm in this room; and your coal-fire oppresses you. While this attack lasts, do not burn coal; the gas with which the room is filled is very injurious, and adds to your difficulty in breathing. – Your friend,
Demeure”
“It is I, Demeure, the friend and disciple of Allan Kardec. I have come to tell that I was beside him when the accident occurred; its effects would have been far more serious, but for the efficacious intervention in which I was so happy to take part. From my own observations, as well as from the information I have obtained from higher spirits, I am quite aware that the sooner his discarnation takes place, the sooner will he be able to reincarnate himself, as he has to do, for the accomplishment of his task; nevertheless, he has still to finish the works which will complete the doctrinal initiation confided to him; and he will be guilty of voluntary homicide if he continues, by overwork, to increase the defectiveness of his organism, which threatens him with a sudden departure for the other world. There must be no hesitation in telling him the truth about himself, so that he may be on his guard and may follow our prescriptions to the very letter.”
DEMEURE
The following communication was obtained at Montauban, in January 26th, the day after his death by the Spiritist Society of that town.
Antoine Demeure
“I am not dead for you, dear Friends, but for those who, unlike you, are unacquainted with the admirable doctrine which reunites those who have loved one another upon the Earth, and who have shared the same sentiments of kindness and charity.
“I am happy; happier than I could have hoped to be; for I enjoy a degree of lucidity that is rare among spirits who have only been disengaged from matter for so short a time. I shall often be near you, and I shall not fail to give you information in regard to many things of which we are unaware while we are attached to the paltry material body that shuts us out from so much magnificence and so many enjoyments. Pray for those who are deprived of the happiness of obtaining this knowledge. They little know how much they lose by their indifference to the light.
“I shall not remain long with you today; but I simply must tell you that I do not feel myself to be, in any way, a stranger in the world that is invisible to you. It seems to me that I have always inhabited it. I am very happy here; for I see my friends on the Earth and can communicate with them whenever I wish to do so.
“Do not weep for me, my Friends; you would make me regret that I have known you! Let time do its work and you will be led on to this sojourn where we shall be reunited by and by. Good night, dear Friends; be consoled for my departure, for I am still near you.”
DEMEURE.
Another letter from Montauban contained the following narrative: –
“We had kept the knowledge of Dr. Demeure’s death from Madame G. (a seeing medium and very lucid somnambulist), in order not to excite her extreme sensitiveness; and the worthy doctor, no doubt appreciating our intentions, had avoided showing himself to her. On the 10th February last, we had assembled at the invitation of our guides, who, they told us, wished to relieve Madame G. of a sprained ankle, from which she had been suffering excruciatingly since the preceding day. This was all we knew of the matter, and we were far indeed from anticipating the surprise they had in store for us. Madame G. had no sooner passed into the state of somnambulism than she began to scream violently, pointing, meantime, to her foot.
“Madame G., as we later learned, perceived a spirit bending over her leg. His face was hidden from her view, as he energetically worked over her injured limb, appearing to rub and to massage it, utilizing a longitudinal drawing or pulling motion, exactly as would have been done by a physician in the flesh. The treatment was so painful that the patient uttered a succession of shrieks, writhing in her chair, in great agony. But the crisis was of short duration; in the course of ten minutes, every trace of the sprain had disappeared; the swelling of the ankle had subsided, and the foot had regained its normal appearance; Madame G. was perfectly cured.
“The spirit, however, was still unrecognized by the medium, and persisted in not allowing her to see his face; he even seemed to be going away, when Madame G., who, a few minutes before, could not have taken a single step, sprang to the middle of the room, determined to shake hands with her spirit-doctor and to thank him for curing her. As she did so, the latter again turned his head aside, while leaving his hand in hers, when Madame G. uttered a loud cry, and fell, unconscious, on the floor. She had caught sight of her doctor’s face, and instantly fainted away. While she remained in this state of unconsciousness, she was carefully tended by a group of sympathetic spirits; and her lucidity having presently returned, she conversed aloud with them, shaking hands with them, and exchanging with them tokens of the most cordial friendship, especially with the spirit of the doctor, who responded warmly to her expressions of affection, and restored her to her ordinary calmness by surrounding her with an atmosphere of health-giving fluids.
“Is not this little scene at once most natural and most dramatic, and do not the various actors who took part in it seem as though they were enacting an incident of the earthly life? Is it not a fresh proof, added to the thousand proofs of the fact which we possess already, that the spirits who people space are beings as real as we are, possessing bodies, and acting as they did when upon the Earth? We were delighted to find ourselves again with our valued friend, and to know that he retained, in his spirit-state, his excellent heart and his delicate solicitude. He had been, in life, the physician of the medium; he knew how extremely sensitive she was, and he endeavored to spare her feelings as carefully as though she had been his own child. And is not this proof of identity, given by the spirit to persons whom he loved when alive, a striking confirmation of the truth of the spiritist theory, and well calculated to lead us to regard the future under a most consoling aspect?”
Remark – The situation of Dr. Demeure, as a spirit, is precisely what his earthly life, so nobly and so usefully employed, might have led us to expect; but another indication, no less instructive, is furnished by the incident just narrated, viz., the activity which he employs, almost immediately after his death, in doing good. In virtue of his great intelligence and his eminent moral qualities, he belongs to a very advanced class of spirits; he is happy, but his happiness is not inaction. A few days before, he was attending to the sick, as a human physician; and, no sooner had he thrown off the coil of mortality, than he hastened to attend them as a spirit. “What advantage, then, shall we find in the other world,” some people will ask, “if we are to have no rest when we get there?” To this question we reply by asking the questioners whether they count it nothing to be delivered from the cares, needs, and infirmities of human life, to be free of its limitations, and to be able to travel through space, without fatigue and with the rapidity of thought, and to have the power of visiting one’s friends, instantaneously, at any time, no matter where they may be? And, having asked this, we add: – When you are in the other world, you will not be obliged to do anything whatever; you will be perfectly free to remain idle as long as it may please you to do so: but you will soon grow weary of so selfish a repose, and you will beg, of your own accord, for something to do. You will then be told that, if you are tired of doing nothing, you must look about you, and choose, for yourselves, what you would like to do; opportunities for being useful are not lacking, in the world of spirits, any more than in the world of human beings. Thus the activity of spirits is not a result of constraint; on the contrary, activity is, for them, a need and a satisfaction, because their avocations are chosen by themselves, according to their tastes and their aptitudes, and also, and especially, with a view to hastening their advancement.
SIXDENIERS
An excellent man, who was killed in an accident, and who had been known to the medium during his life – Bordeaux, February 11th, 1861
Q. Can you give me any details concerning your death?
A. After the drowning, yes.
Q. Can you give me any details concerning your death?
A. After the drowning, yes.
Q. Why not before?
A. You know all those details already. (This was the case.)
A. You know all those details already. (This was the case.)
Q. Have the kindness to describe to me what you felt after your death.
A. It was long before I recovered my consciousness; but, with the grace of God and the help of the friends about me, when at length the light became visible, I was inundated by it. Be hopeful! You are sure to find, on coming here, more than you had looked for! Nothing of matter; everything is perceived by senses that are hidden from you during the life of the flesh; what can neither be seen by the eye nor touched by the hand; do you understand what I mean? It is an admiration of the spirit- being that surpasses your power of understanding, for there are no words that can explain it; it is something that can only be felt by the soul.
My awakening was very happy. The life of the Earth is one of those dreams that, notwithstanding the grotesqueness that you attach to the word, I can only speak of as a nightmare. Suppose you dream that you are in a filthy dungeon; that your body – devoured by worms which gnaw into the very marrow of your bones – is suspended above a fiery furnace; that your mouth, parched with thirst, finds not even a breath of air for refreshment; that your spirit, horror-stricken, sees around you only monsters ready to devour you; figure to yourself, in short, all the most hideous, most horrible fancies that the most fantastic dream can bring together for your torment, and then imagine yourself transported, all at once, into an Eden of delight! Imagine yourself to awaken from your nightmare, and to find yourself surrounded by all those whom you have loved, whose loss you have lamented, and whose beloved faces you see about you, looking upon you with joyous smiles; that you inhale the most exquisite perfumes and cool your parched throat at a spring of living water; that you are borne upwards, into the infinity of space, as lightly as the flower that the breeze carries off from the tree; that you feel yourself to be enveloped in an Infinite Love as the baby is enveloped in the love of its mother; fancy all this, and you will still have formed to yourself only a dim and faint idea of the nature of this transition! I have tried, by these similarities, to explain to you the happiness of the life that awaits humankind after the death of the body; but it is something that cannot be explained. Can the infinity of the sky be explained to the blind cripple whose eyes are closed to the light, and whose limbs have never been able to overstep the circle of powerlessness in which they are imprisoned? To give you an idea of the happiness of eternity, I would say to you, “Love!” for only love can show you a fore glimpse of that happiness; and love implies absence of selfishness.
Q. Was your situation a happy one, at once, on your entrance into the spirit-world?
A. A. No, I had to pay the debt of my human life. Through my heart, I had divined the existence of a future life for the spirit, but I had no active faith in the future. I had therefore to expiate my indifference towards my Creator; but God’s mercy took account of the little good I had been able to do, the sorrows I had endured with resignation, notwithstanding the suffering they had caused me: and the Divine Justice, which holds the scales according to a rule that humankind cannot understand, weighed my merits with so much love and kindness, that my shortcomings were speedily effaced.
Q. Will you give me news of your daughter? (Deceased four or five years before her father)
A. She is fulfilling a mission upon your Earth.
A. It was long before I recovered my consciousness; but, with the grace of God and the help of the friends about me, when at length the light became visible, I was inundated by it. Be hopeful! You are sure to find, on coming here, more than you had looked for! Nothing of matter; everything is perceived by senses that are hidden from you during the life of the flesh; what can neither be seen by the eye nor touched by the hand; do you understand what I mean? It is an admiration of the spirit- being that surpasses your power of understanding, for there are no words that can explain it; it is something that can only be felt by the soul.
My awakening was very happy. The life of the Earth is one of those dreams that, notwithstanding the grotesqueness that you attach to the word, I can only speak of as a nightmare. Suppose you dream that you are in a filthy dungeon; that your body – devoured by worms which gnaw into the very marrow of your bones – is suspended above a fiery furnace; that your mouth, parched with thirst, finds not even a breath of air for refreshment; that your spirit, horror-stricken, sees around you only monsters ready to devour you; figure to yourself, in short, all the most hideous, most horrible fancies that the most fantastic dream can bring together for your torment, and then imagine yourself transported, all at once, into an Eden of delight! Imagine yourself to awaken from your nightmare, and to find yourself surrounded by all those whom you have loved, whose loss you have lamented, and whose beloved faces you see about you, looking upon you with joyous smiles; that you inhale the most exquisite perfumes and cool your parched throat at a spring of living water; that you are borne upwards, into the infinity of space, as lightly as the flower that the breeze carries off from the tree; that you feel yourself to be enveloped in an Infinite Love as the baby is enveloped in the love of its mother; fancy all this, and you will still have formed to yourself only a dim and faint idea of the nature of this transition! I have tried, by these similarities, to explain to you the happiness of the life that awaits humankind after the death of the body; but it is something that cannot be explained. Can the infinity of the sky be explained to the blind cripple whose eyes are closed to the light, and whose limbs have never been able to overstep the circle of powerlessness in which they are imprisoned? To give you an idea of the happiness of eternity, I would say to you, “Love!” for only love can show you a fore glimpse of that happiness; and love implies absence of selfishness.
Q. Was your situation a happy one, at once, on your entrance into the spirit-world?
A. A. No, I had to pay the debt of my human life. Through my heart, I had divined the existence of a future life for the spirit, but I had no active faith in the future. I had therefore to expiate my indifference towards my Creator; but God’s mercy took account of the little good I had been able to do, the sorrows I had endured with resignation, notwithstanding the suffering they had caused me: and the Divine Justice, which holds the scales according to a rule that humankind cannot understand, weighed my merits with so much love and kindness, that my shortcomings were speedily effaced.
Q. Will you give me news of your daughter? (Deceased four or five years before her father)
A. She is fulfilling a mission upon your Earth.
Q. Is she happy in this reincarnation? I hope my question is not indiscreet?
A. I could not regard it as being such; do I not see your thought like a picture, before my eyes? No, her human life is not a happy one, but the opposite; she has to undergo all the troubles of your world, but she will illustrate, by her example, all the noble virtues about which men make so many fine phrases. I shall aid her; she will not have much difficulty in surmounting the obstacles in her path; her present life is not an expiation, but a mission. Be easy about her; and accept my thanks for your kind remembrance.
(At this moment, the medium found a difficulty in writing, and said: – “If it be a suffering spirit that is trying to take possession of my hand, I beg him to write his name.”)
A. One who is very unhappy.
A. I could not regard it as being such; do I not see your thought like a picture, before my eyes? No, her human life is not a happy one, but the opposite; she has to undergo all the troubles of your world, but she will illustrate, by her example, all the noble virtues about which men make so many fine phrases. I shall aid her; she will not have much difficulty in surmounting the obstacles in her path; her present life is not an expiation, but a mission. Be easy about her; and accept my thanks for your kind remembrance.
(At this moment, the medium found a difficulty in writing, and said: – “If it be a suffering spirit that is trying to take possession of my hand, I beg him to write his name.”)
A. One who is very unhappy.
Q. Be kind enough to tell me your name.
A. Valeria.
A. Valeria.
Q. Will you tell me what has brought your punishment upon you?
A. No.
A. No.
Q. Do you repent of your wrongdoing?
A. You see that I do.
A. You see that I do.
Q. Who brought you here?
A. Sixdeniers.
A. Sixdeniers.
Q. For what purpose did he bring you here?
A. That you may help me?
A. That you may help me?
Q. Was it you who hindered me from writing, just now?
A. He put me in his place.
A. He put me in his place.
Q. What connection is there between you?
A. He guides me.
A. He guides me.
Q. Ask him to join in the prayer we are going to offer up for you.
(After the prayer, Sixdeniers, taking possession of the medium’s hand, wrote: – Thanks for her;
you have understood what she needs; think of her.)
Q. (To Sixdeniers) Have you many suffering spirits to guide?
A. No, but, as soon as we have brought one back to the right road, we take in hand another; without, however, losing sight of those we formerly assisted.
Q. How can you suffice for exercising an oversight that must be multiplied to infinity in the course of time?
A. Those whom we bring back to virtue become purified and progress; they then give us less trouble; and besides, in raising them, we raise ourselves also, and, as we go up, our faculties progress, and our power radiates more widely in proportion to our purity.
Remark – Inferior spirits, then, are assisted by higher spirits, whose mission it is to help them to progress; this task is therefore not exclusively committed to incarnates, though they too should take part in it, because it is for them also a means of advancement. When a spirit of lower degree impedes a communication, as in the present case, it is not always from a good motive; but the higher spirits permit the interruption, either as a trial for the medium’s patience, or in order that he may labor for the amelioration of the interrupter. The persistence of the latter may sometimes, undoubtedly, degenerate into obsession; but the more tenacious the obsession, the greater, and the more evident, is the obsessor’s need of assistance. It is therefore a mistake to repel such a spirit; we ought, on the contrary, to regard this spirit as a mendicant who needs our charity. We should say to ourselves: – “Here is an unhappy spirit who has been sent to me by spirits of higher degree that I may carry on his or her education. If I succeed, I shall rejoice to have led back an erring soul to goodness, and to have shortened its sufferings. The task is often a painful one; it would, no doubt, be more agreeable to receive only high and beautiful communications, and to converse only with the spirits of our choice; but it is not by the exclusive seeking of our own satisfaction, and by turning away from the opportunities presented to us of doing good, that we shall merit the protection of spirits of high degree.
(After the prayer, Sixdeniers, taking possession of the medium’s hand, wrote: – Thanks for her;
you have understood what she needs; think of her.)
Q. (To Sixdeniers) Have you many suffering spirits to guide?
A. No, but, as soon as we have brought one back to the right road, we take in hand another; without, however, losing sight of those we formerly assisted.
Q. How can you suffice for exercising an oversight that must be multiplied to infinity in the course of time?
A. Those whom we bring back to virtue become purified and progress; they then give us less trouble; and besides, in raising them, we raise ourselves also, and, as we go up, our faculties progress, and our power radiates more widely in proportion to our purity.
Remark – Inferior spirits, then, are assisted by higher spirits, whose mission it is to help them to progress; this task is therefore not exclusively committed to incarnates, though they too should take part in it, because it is for them also a means of advancement. When a spirit of lower degree impedes a communication, as in the present case, it is not always from a good motive; but the higher spirits permit the interruption, either as a trial for the medium’s patience, or in order that he may labor for the amelioration of the interrupter. The persistence of the latter may sometimes, undoubtedly, degenerate into obsession; but the more tenacious the obsession, the greater, and the more evident, is the obsessor’s need of assistance. It is therefore a mistake to repel such a spirit; we ought, on the contrary, to regard this spirit as a mendicant who needs our charity. We should say to ourselves: – “Here is an unhappy spirit who has been sent to me by spirits of higher degree that I may carry on his or her education. If I succeed, I shall rejoice to have led back an erring soul to goodness, and to have shortened its sufferings. The task is often a painful one; it would, no doubt, be more agreeable to receive only high and beautiful communications, and to converse only with the spirits of our choice; but it is not by the exclusive seeking of our own satisfaction, and by turning away from the opportunities presented to us of doing good, that we shall merit the protection of spirits of high degree.
MR. VAN DURST
Formerly employed in a Government office; died at Antwerp, in 1863, at eighty years of age.
A medium having inquired of his spirit-guide, a short time after this gentlemen’s decease, whether he could be evoked, received the following reply:
“This spirit is passing very slowly out of the state of confusion; it would be possible for him to answer your call, but it would be difficult and fatiguing for him to do so. You had better wait four days longer, when he will be ready to reply to you. Between this and that, he will have become aware of the kindly interest you have expressed for him, and he will come to you gratefully, and as a friend.”
Four days afterwards, the spirit in question dictated this communication:
A medium having inquired of his spirit-guide, a short time after this gentlemen’s decease, whether he could be evoked, received the following reply:
“This spirit is passing very slowly out of the state of confusion; it would be possible for him to answer your call, but it would be difficult and fatiguing for him to do so. You had better wait four days longer, when he will be ready to reply to you. Between this and that, he will have become aware of the kindly interest you have expressed for him, and he will come to you gratefully, and as a friend.”
Four days afterwards, the spirit in question dictated this communication:
Dear Friend, my earthly life was of slight importance, weighed in the scales of eternity; nevertheless, I am far from being unhappy. I am in the modest, but comparatively happy, position of one who, in the earthly life, did little wrong, and yet did not sufficiently aim at perfection. If people can be happy in a narrow sphere, I am of that number. I regret only one thing, which is, that I did not know what you know; my state of confusion would have been shorter and less painful. As it was, it caused me great suffering. Think what it must be to live, and yet not to live; to see your fleshly body, to be strongly bound to it, and yet to be unable to make use of it; to see those you love, and to feel that the mental action which unites you to them is becoming extinct – oh, what a terrible moment! How terrible to feel yourself stunned by an indefinable sensation that seizes and strangles you and, an instant afterwards, darkness! To be alive, and, the next moment, to feel yourself annihilated! You strive to regain the consciousness of your individual self, and you cannot grasp it; you no longer exist, and yet you feel that, nevertheless, you do exist, but in an abyss of confusion! And presently, after a lapse of time that you are unable to measure, a time of latent distress – for you no longer have the strength to feel it understandingly – after this lapse of time which seems to you interminable, to be slowly reborn into existence, to wake up in a new world! To no longer possess a material body, to no longer have part or lot in the earthly life; to feel that you are living the life of immortality! No longer to see about you men and women in heavy bodies of flesh, but to find yourself surrounded with the light and active forms of spirits, gliding beside you, and around you, in every direction, and in such numbers that your glance is unable to take them in; for they seem to fill the infinity of space in which they float! To see this infinity spread out before you, and to be able to transport yourself through it by the mere action of your will; to hold communion, by the mere action of your thought! Oh, friends, what a different life from that of the Earth! What a brilliant life! What a life of delight! Hail, hail to thee, Eternity that hast received me into thy bosom! Adieu, Earth that hast held me back so long from the native element of my soul! No, I want nothing more of thee, for thou art a land of exile, and thy greatest happiness is – nothing!
But if, before quitting the Earth, I had known what you know, how much easier and more pleasant would have been my initiation into this other life! I should have known, before dying, what I had to learn afterwards, at the moment of separation; and my soul would have accomplished its disengagement much more easily. You are on the right road, but never, no, never upon the Earth, can you fully understand to what that road is leading you! Say this to my son; but say it to him so often that he may be brought to believe it, and to learn; let him do this, and, when he comes into the world in which I am, we shall not be separated.
Farewell, friends, farewell to you all; I await your arrival here, and, while you remain upon the Earth, I shall often come to your meetings for enlightenment; for I do not yet know as much as is known by many among you. But I shall learn rapidly in this world where I have no longer any ties to hold me back, and where old age no longer weakens my faculties. Here, we live, and advance, largely and rapidly; for horizons ahead of us are so magnificent that we are impatient to reach them! And now I leave you my friends. Farewell, farewell! VAN DURST.
Farewell, friends, farewell to you all; I await your arrival here, and, while you remain upon the Earth, I shall often come to your meetings for enlightenment; for I do not yet know as much as is known by many among you. But I shall learn rapidly in this world where I have no longer any ties to hold me back, and where old age no longer weakens my faculties. Here, we live, and advance, largely and rapidly; for horizons ahead of us are so magnificent that we are impatient to reach them! And now I leave you my friends. Farewell, farewell! VAN DURST.
SAMUEL PHILIPPE
Samuel Philippe was an upright man, in the fullest acceptation of the term. He was never known to do a wicked thing or to have willingly injured any human being. His devotion to his friends was unbounded; whoever needed his aid was sure to obtain it, even though at a loss to himself. Trouble, fatigue, sacrifices of all kinds, he willingly underwent for the sake of being useful to others; and he did this naturally, without ostentation, and was astonished that anyone should give him credit for so doing. So far from showing resentment against those who wronged him, he was just as ready to oblige them as though they had only done him good. When people repaid his kindness with ingratitude, he would say, “It is not I who am to be pitied, but they.” Though extremely intelligent and gifted with much natural talent, his life was laborious and full of heavy trials. His was one of those rare natures that flower in the shade, of whom the world takes no note, and the splendor of whose goodness is not recognized by human eyes. He had derived, from his knowledge of Spiritism, an ardent faith in the future life and great resignation in hearing the ills of the present one. He died in December 1862, at the age of fifty, after a long and painful illness, sincerely regretted by his family and friends. Evoked several months after his death, he responded to our call in the following conversation:
Q. Have you a clear remembrance of your last instants upon the Earth?
A. Perfectly so, this remembrance came back to me little by little, for, at the moment of my departure, my ideas were confused.
Q. Will you kindly tell us, both for our instruction and for the interest we feel in your exemplary life, how the passage from the earthly life to the spirit-life happened in your case, and the situation in which you now find yourself?
A. Willingly; this narrative will be useful, not to you only, but also to me. By turning my thoughts back to the Earth, the comparison will cause me to appreciate more correctly the goodness of the Creator.
You know how full of sorrows was my life; – thank God my courage never failed me under adversity, and now I rejoice to have borne my troubles courageously. How much I should have missed had I yielded to discouragement! I shudder to think that, through giving way to weakness, I might have lost the benefit of all that I had endured, and have had to begin the lesson over again. Oh Friends! May you be thoroughly persuaded of this truth; upon it depends your future happiness. No, it is not too much to pay for this happiness with a few years of sufferings. If you could but feel how small a matter are a few short years in comparison with eternity!
If the last of my existences appears to you to have been in some degree meritorious, you would not have said as much of those that preceded it. It is only through continuous struggles with my evil tendencies that I have made myself what I now am. To efface the last traces of my former faults, it was necessary for me to undergo these last trials, which I had voluntarily accepted. The firmness of my resolution gave me the strength to bear them without murmuring. I now bless those trials; through them I have broken with the past, which is now, for me, only a remembrance; and I can contemplate, with legitimate satisfaction, the headway I have already made.
Oh! You who made me suffer when I was upon the Earth, who were harsh and unkind to me, who humiliated me and filled my cup with bitterness, whose treachery often reduced me to the hardest privations, I not only forgive you, I thank you, for all you did! You little thought that, intending to do me harm, you were really doing me so much good! It is to you that I owe, in great measure, the happiness I enjoy; for you gave me the opportunity of forgiving and of returning good for evil. The Divine Providence placed you upon my road in order to try my patience and to exercise me in the practice of the most difficult branch of charity – the love of our enemies.
Do not be impatient at this digression; I now come to the questions you have addressed to me.
Although I had suffered horribly during my last illness, I underwent no death-struggle; death came upon me like a sleep, without effort, without any shock. Having no fear of the future, I did not seek to retain my hold upon life, and I had, consequently, no need to struggle against the action of desegregation. The separation took place without effort, without pain, and even without my knowledge.
I am not aware how long this sort of sleep lasted, but it was only for a short time. My waking was a calm that offered a delightful contrast to my previous state; I had no longer felt any pain, and I rejoiced in this deliverance; I wished to get up, and to walk about; but a torpor, that was not at all disagreeable – that was, on the contrary, rather pleasant – held me motionless, and I gave myself up to it with a sort of enjoyment, without trying to understand my situation, however, without doubting that I had left the Earth; everything about me seemed to me like a dream. I saw my wife and several friends on their knees in the room, and weeping; and I said to myself that they, no doubt, thought I was dead. I wished to tell them they were mistaken, but I could not articulate a single word, from which I concluded that I really must have been dreaming. And I was still further confirmed in this idea because I saw myself surrounded by various persons whom I loved, but who had long been dead, and also by others whom I did not recognize at first, and who seemed to be watching over me, and awaiting my awakening.
This state was made up of alterations of lucidity and of somnolence, in which I alternately recovered, and lost, the consciousness of my individual self. Gradually, my ideas acquired more distinctness; the light that I had seemed to see, as it were, through a fog, became brighter; I began to recover my consciousness, and I presently comprehended that I no longer belonged to the terrestrial world. If I had not had knowledge of Spiritism, my illusion would, doubtless, have lasted much longer.
My mortal envelope was not yet buried; I looked upon it with a sort of pitying contempt, congratulating myself on being rid of it. I was so glad to be free! I breathed at ease, like one who has escaped from a foul and stinking atmosphere; an indescribable feeling of happiness pervaded my whole being; the presence of those I had formerly loved filled me with joy; I was not in the least surprised to see them, it appeared to me perfectly natural to do so, but I seemed to have found them again, after a long journey. One thing surprised me much, at first, viz., that we understood one another without pronouncing a word; our thoughts were transmitted in a single glance, and as though by a sort of fluidic interpenetration.
Nevertheless, I was not yet entirely disenfranchised from terrestrial ideas; the remembrance of all that I had suffered came back, from time to time, to my mind, as though to make me more fully appreciate the happiness of my new position. I had suffered much corporeally; but I had suffered still more morally: I had been the object of malevolence, a prey to the thousand perplexities that sometimes cause more annoyance than do more serious misfortunes, because they keep us in a constant state of anxiety. The impression left by those worries was so far from having entirely disappeared, that I sometimes asked myself if I were really freed from them; it seemed to me, at times, that I still heard certain disagreeable voices; I feared a return of the troubles by which I was formerly so often tormented, and, in spite of myself, I trembled: I touched myself, so to say, to make sure that I was not dreaming; and when, at length, I acquired the certainty that I was really delivered from the troubles of the earthly life, I seemed to have thrown off an enormous load. “It is, then, really true,” I exclaimed, “that I am at last delivered from the cares that are the torment of human life!” and I thanked God for this deliverance with the deepest gratitude. I felt like a poverty-stricken mortal who, having suddenly inherited an immense fortune, cannot, at first, realize the change in his position, and continues, for a while, to dread the torments of want. Ah! If human beings could but understand the nature of the future life, what strength, what courage they would derive in adversity, from their conviction of its reality! What would they not do, while they are upon Earth, to secure for themselves the happiness that God has prepared for those of God’s children who have been obedient to God’s laws! They would see how worthless are the earthly enjoyments by which they are tempted, in comparison with the enjoyments of the life to come, of which they think so little!
Q. Has the spirit-world, – which seems so new to you, and in comparison with which our world seems to you of so little importance – and the numerous friends you have found there, caused you to lose sight of the family and friends you have left behind you upon the Earth?
A. If I could forget them, I should be unworthy of the happiness I am enjoying. God does not reward selfishness, but punishes it. The world in which I now find myself may make me indifferent to the Earth, but not to the spirits who are incarnated upon it. It is only among humankind that the prosperous forget their companions in misfortune. I often come back to visit those with whom I was connected in my earthly life; I rejoice in their affectionate remembrance of me; their thinking of me attracts me to them; I join them when they confer together; I share their joys and am saddened by their sorrows, but my sympathy for them is not the anxious distress of human sadness, because I see that their troubles are only temporary and for their own good. I rejoice in the thought that they will all arrive, sooner or later, in this happy abode, in which suffering is unknown. I apply myself, especially, to aiding them to become worthy of this abode; I endeavor, by every means in my power, to suggest good thoughts to their minds, and, above all, to fortify them in their resignation to the Divine will. My greatest grief is to see them retarding their own happiness by their want of courage, by murmuring, by doubts concerning the future, or by any reprehensible action. I try to turn them aside from the evil road; if I succeed, it is a great pleasure to me and to all our friends here; if I fail, I say to myself with regret: – “This is a new delay for them!” but I console myself with remembering that it is not forever, and that they will all reach the goal in time.
Q. Have you a clear remembrance of your last instants upon the Earth?
A. Perfectly so, this remembrance came back to me little by little, for, at the moment of my departure, my ideas were confused.
Q. Will you kindly tell us, both for our instruction and for the interest we feel in your exemplary life, how the passage from the earthly life to the spirit-life happened in your case, and the situation in which you now find yourself?
A. Willingly; this narrative will be useful, not to you only, but also to me. By turning my thoughts back to the Earth, the comparison will cause me to appreciate more correctly the goodness of the Creator.
You know how full of sorrows was my life; – thank God my courage never failed me under adversity, and now I rejoice to have borne my troubles courageously. How much I should have missed had I yielded to discouragement! I shudder to think that, through giving way to weakness, I might have lost the benefit of all that I had endured, and have had to begin the lesson over again. Oh Friends! May you be thoroughly persuaded of this truth; upon it depends your future happiness. No, it is not too much to pay for this happiness with a few years of sufferings. If you could but feel how small a matter are a few short years in comparison with eternity!
If the last of my existences appears to you to have been in some degree meritorious, you would not have said as much of those that preceded it. It is only through continuous struggles with my evil tendencies that I have made myself what I now am. To efface the last traces of my former faults, it was necessary for me to undergo these last trials, which I had voluntarily accepted. The firmness of my resolution gave me the strength to bear them without murmuring. I now bless those trials; through them I have broken with the past, which is now, for me, only a remembrance; and I can contemplate, with legitimate satisfaction, the headway I have already made.
Oh! You who made me suffer when I was upon the Earth, who were harsh and unkind to me, who humiliated me and filled my cup with bitterness, whose treachery often reduced me to the hardest privations, I not only forgive you, I thank you, for all you did! You little thought that, intending to do me harm, you were really doing me so much good! It is to you that I owe, in great measure, the happiness I enjoy; for you gave me the opportunity of forgiving and of returning good for evil. The Divine Providence placed you upon my road in order to try my patience and to exercise me in the practice of the most difficult branch of charity – the love of our enemies.
Do not be impatient at this digression; I now come to the questions you have addressed to me.
Although I had suffered horribly during my last illness, I underwent no death-struggle; death came upon me like a sleep, without effort, without any shock. Having no fear of the future, I did not seek to retain my hold upon life, and I had, consequently, no need to struggle against the action of desegregation. The separation took place without effort, without pain, and even without my knowledge.
I am not aware how long this sort of sleep lasted, but it was only for a short time. My waking was a calm that offered a delightful contrast to my previous state; I had no longer felt any pain, and I rejoiced in this deliverance; I wished to get up, and to walk about; but a torpor, that was not at all disagreeable – that was, on the contrary, rather pleasant – held me motionless, and I gave myself up to it with a sort of enjoyment, without trying to understand my situation, however, without doubting that I had left the Earth; everything about me seemed to me like a dream. I saw my wife and several friends on their knees in the room, and weeping; and I said to myself that they, no doubt, thought I was dead. I wished to tell them they were mistaken, but I could not articulate a single word, from which I concluded that I really must have been dreaming. And I was still further confirmed in this idea because I saw myself surrounded by various persons whom I loved, but who had long been dead, and also by others whom I did not recognize at first, and who seemed to be watching over me, and awaiting my awakening.
This state was made up of alterations of lucidity and of somnolence, in which I alternately recovered, and lost, the consciousness of my individual self. Gradually, my ideas acquired more distinctness; the light that I had seemed to see, as it were, through a fog, became brighter; I began to recover my consciousness, and I presently comprehended that I no longer belonged to the terrestrial world. If I had not had knowledge of Spiritism, my illusion would, doubtless, have lasted much longer.
My mortal envelope was not yet buried; I looked upon it with a sort of pitying contempt, congratulating myself on being rid of it. I was so glad to be free! I breathed at ease, like one who has escaped from a foul and stinking atmosphere; an indescribable feeling of happiness pervaded my whole being; the presence of those I had formerly loved filled me with joy; I was not in the least surprised to see them, it appeared to me perfectly natural to do so, but I seemed to have found them again, after a long journey. One thing surprised me much, at first, viz., that we understood one another without pronouncing a word; our thoughts were transmitted in a single glance, and as though by a sort of fluidic interpenetration.
Nevertheless, I was not yet entirely disenfranchised from terrestrial ideas; the remembrance of all that I had suffered came back, from time to time, to my mind, as though to make me more fully appreciate the happiness of my new position. I had suffered much corporeally; but I had suffered still more morally: I had been the object of malevolence, a prey to the thousand perplexities that sometimes cause more annoyance than do more serious misfortunes, because they keep us in a constant state of anxiety. The impression left by those worries was so far from having entirely disappeared, that I sometimes asked myself if I were really freed from them; it seemed to me, at times, that I still heard certain disagreeable voices; I feared a return of the troubles by which I was formerly so often tormented, and, in spite of myself, I trembled: I touched myself, so to say, to make sure that I was not dreaming; and when, at length, I acquired the certainty that I was really delivered from the troubles of the earthly life, I seemed to have thrown off an enormous load. “It is, then, really true,” I exclaimed, “that I am at last delivered from the cares that are the torment of human life!” and I thanked God for this deliverance with the deepest gratitude. I felt like a poverty-stricken mortal who, having suddenly inherited an immense fortune, cannot, at first, realize the change in his position, and continues, for a while, to dread the torments of want. Ah! If human beings could but understand the nature of the future life, what strength, what courage they would derive in adversity, from their conviction of its reality! What would they not do, while they are upon Earth, to secure for themselves the happiness that God has prepared for those of God’s children who have been obedient to God’s laws! They would see how worthless are the earthly enjoyments by which they are tempted, in comparison with the enjoyments of the life to come, of which they think so little!
Q. Has the spirit-world, – which seems so new to you, and in comparison with which our world seems to you of so little importance – and the numerous friends you have found there, caused you to lose sight of the family and friends you have left behind you upon the Earth?
A. If I could forget them, I should be unworthy of the happiness I am enjoying. God does not reward selfishness, but punishes it. The world in which I now find myself may make me indifferent to the Earth, but not to the spirits who are incarnated upon it. It is only among humankind that the prosperous forget their companions in misfortune. I often come back to visit those with whom I was connected in my earthly life; I rejoice in their affectionate remembrance of me; their thinking of me attracts me to them; I join them when they confer together; I share their joys and am saddened by their sorrows, but my sympathy for them is not the anxious distress of human sadness, because I see that their troubles are only temporary and for their own good. I rejoice in the thought that they will all arrive, sooner or later, in this happy abode, in which suffering is unknown. I apply myself, especially, to aiding them to become worthy of this abode; I endeavor, by every means in my power, to suggest good thoughts to their minds, and, above all, to fortify them in their resignation to the Divine will. My greatest grief is to see them retarding their own happiness by their want of courage, by murmuring, by doubts concerning the future, or by any reprehensible action. I try to turn them aside from the evil road; if I succeed, it is a great pleasure to me and to all our friends here; if I fail, I say to myself with regret: – “This is a new delay for them!” but I console myself with remembering that it is not forever, and that they will all reach the goal in time.
MR. JOBARD
Director of the Industrial Museum of Brussels; born in Baissey (Haute Marne), he died, in the city of Brussels, of apoplexy, October 27th, 1861, at the age of sixty-nine.
I
Mr. Jobard was one of the Honorary Presidents of the Spiritist Society of Paris. It had been intended to evoke him at the séance of November 8th, when he forestalled this intention by making, spontaneously, the following communication:
“I am here, I whom you were going to evoke, and who desire, first of all, to communicate through this medium, whom I have been trying in vain to induce to write for me until now.
“I wish to tell you of my impression at the moment of the separation of my soul from my body. I felt an indescribable shaking of my whole being; my entire life, my birth, youth, and manhood, came back all at once to my memory, which showed me every incident of my career with wonderful clearness. I was conscious of no other desire than that of finding myself again in the regions revealed to us by our beloved belief; and then all this tumult died away. I was free, and my body was lying lifeless beside me. Ah! Dear friends, what an intoxicating happiness it is, this stripping away of the burden of the earthly body! What an unspeakable joy to take in the view of the glorious immensity around us! But you must not fancy that I found myself all at once at the summit of felicity; no, I am among those who, though they have learned something, have yet a great deal more to learn. I was not long in remembering you, my brothers in exile; my sympathies, my good wishes, are with you!
“Do you care to know who the spirits were that received me on my return to the other life, and what were my first impressions on crossing its threshold? Those friends included all whom we have evoked, all our spirit-brothers who have shared our labors. What I saw was a splendor that cannot be described. I have set myself to discerning what is true in the communications that have been received by us, and I am ready to correct any erroneous statements; ready, in fact, to be the knight-errant of truth in the other world, as I was, when in your world.” JOBARD
1. During your lifetime, you requested us to call you when you should have quitted the Earth; we therefore do so, not only in order to comply with your wish, but also, and especially, to renew to you the expression of our sincere and lively affection, and in the hope of learning from you; for you, more than any other, will be able to give us precise information respecting the world in which you now are. We shall therefore be very glad if you will have the kindness to reply to our questions.
A. What has now to be done is to assist you in acquiring a knowledge of the spirit-life. As for your sympathy, I see it; I no longer merely receive the expression of it through the ears, which is a great step in advancement.
2. To fix our ideas, so as not to talk vaguely, we begin by asking you in what part of the room you are, and how you would appear to us, if we could see you?
A. I am close to the medium; you would see me under the appearance of the Jobard who has so often been seated at this table, for your mortal eyes, not yet unsealed, can see spirits only under their mortal form.
3. Would it be possible for you to render yourself visible to us, and, if not, what is the obstacle that prevents your doing so?
A. Your own personal condition. A seeing medium would see me; no others could see me.
4. The seat you occupy is that which you used to occupy when you were with us, during your life, and which we had kept for you this evening. Those who have seen you there, then, may imagine you to be with us, just as you were on those occasions. If you are not there with your material body, you are there with your fluidic body, which has the same form; if we do not see you with our bodily eyes, we see you with the eyes of our thought; if we can no longer hold communion with you by word of mouth, we can do so by writing, with the aid of an intermediary; our connection with you is therefore in no way interrupted by your death, and we can converse with you as easily and as completely as before. Is this a true description of the state of the case?
A. Yes; you have known all this for a long time. As for this seat, I shall often occupy it, even when you do not notice it, for my spirit will reside among you.
We invite attention to these last words: “My spirit will reside among you.”
In the present case the statement is not figurative, but expresses a reality. Through the knowledge that is given us by Spiritism of the nature of spirits, we know that a spirit may be among us, not merely in thought, but also in person, with the aid of his or her ethereal body, which makes the spirit a distinct personality. A spirit, then, may reside among us after death, as certainly as during the life of its body; and, what is more, a spirit can come and go when it pleases. We thus have around us, in our houses, a crowd of invisible inmates, some of whom regard us with indifference, while others are attached to us by affection. It is of these latter, especially, that it may be said, “They reside among us;” a statement that is to be understood as meaning, “They habitually assist, inspire, and protect us.”
5. It is not very long since you were seated in the place you are occupying at present; do the conditions in which you now find yourself seem to you to be changed? What effect does this change produce in you?
A. The conditions do not seem to me changed; but my spirit enjoys a clearness and distinctness of perception that leaves no shadow about the questions to which I direct my thought.
6. Can you remember whether you had been in the same state before your last existence and do you find yourself changed since then?
A. I remember my anterior existences, and I perceive that I have improved. I see, and I assimilate what I see. After my former incarnations, my spirit was in a state of confusion, and I perceived nothing but my terrestrial gaps.
7. Do you remember your last incarnation but one, that which preceded your existence as Mr. Jobard?
A. In my last existence but one I was a working mechanic, devoured by poverty and by the desire to perfect my work. I have realized, in my life as Jobard, the dreams of the poverty-stricken workman, and I praise God, whose infinite goodness has caused the plant, of which He had sown the seed in my brain, to grow and fructify.
8. Have you already given any communications elsewhere?
A. I have, as of yet, given very few communications. In many places, another spirit has taken my name. In some cases I was near this spirit, but was not able to communicate; my death is so recent that I am still affected by certain terrestrial influences. I can only express my thoughts where I find perfect sympathy. Before long, I shall be able to act with entire freedom; but I cannot do so yet. When a man who dies is widely known, he is evoked on all sides; a thousand spirits are prompt to assume his name; this has already happened to me in several instances. I assure you that few spirits are able to communicate directly after their deliverance, even with the aid of their favorite medium.
9. Do you see the spirits who are with us this evening?
A. I see, close to you, Lazarus and Erastus; a little farther off, hovering in space, the Spirit of Truth; besides these spirits of greater advancement, I see a crowd of spirit-friends who surround the assembly, taking an active and benevolent part in the proceedings. You may esteem yourselves happy, dear Friends, for good influences are about you, warding off the suggestions that would lead you into error.
10. During your life, you shared the opinion of those who suppose the Earth to have been formed by the agglomeration of four planets. Do you still hold this opinion?
A. That opinion is erroneous. The recent discoveries of geology prove the convulsions that have occurred in the history of the Earth and the successive eras of its formation. The Earth, like the other planets, has had its own life; and God had no need of so disorderly a cataclysm as is implied in such an aggregation of planets. Water and fire are the only organic elements of the Earth.
11. You also believed that men might remain for an unlimited period in a state of catalepsy, and that the human race has been brought, in this state, to the Earth. Is this still your opinion?
A. All that was a mere illusion of my imagination, always apt to go too far. The state of catalepsy may last for a long time, but not indefinitely. My idea was derived from the exaggerations of Eastern legends. Believe me, I have already suffered not a little in recalling the illusions to which I was too prompt to attach credence; do not lose sight of this fact. I had already acquired considerable knowledge; and my intelligence being prompt (I may say so without vanity,) to apply the wide and varied researches of my anterior career, I had retained, from my preceding incarnation, the love of the marvelous and the complex acquired in my study of the figments of the popular fancy.
I have not, as of yet, given so much attention to purely intellectual subjects, such as those in which you are interested. How could I do so, dazzled, carried away, as I am, by the wondrous spectacle that I see around me? The tie of our common spiritist belief, a tie far more powerful than you, human beings, can imagine, is the only thing that could attract me to this Earth that I abandon – not with joy, for that would be irreverent towards the Creator – but with a profound thankfulness for my deliverance.
A subscription having been set on foot, by the Spiritist Society, in February 1862, for the distressed operatives of Lyons, one of the members subscribed 25 francs in his own name, and 25 francs in the name of Mr. Jobard, who dictated, in reference to this incident, the following message:
I am pleased and grateful to find that my spiritist brethren do not forget me. Thanks to the generous heart that has conveyed to you the offering that I should have made, if I had still been a dweller in your world! In the one that I now inhabit, we have no need of money; it was therefore necessary for me to draw upon a friendly purse in order to give you a tangible proof of my sympathy for the misfortune of my brothers in Lyons. Brave workmen! You see that charity is not an empty word, since rich and poor have shown their fraternal sympathy in your distress! You are thus upon the broad, humanitarian road of progress; may God preserve you therein, and may more fortunate times be in store for you; our spirit-friends will sustain you and aid you to triumph over the difficulties of your lot!
I am beginning to live more peacefully, less disturbed by the evocations from every quarter that pursued me, for a time, thick as hail. Spirits are not exempted, it seems, from the tyranny of fashion; when the fashion of evoking Jobard shall have been supplanted by some other; I shall pass into the region of human forgetfulness; and I beg that, when this is the case, my sincere and serious friends will continue to evoke me, that we may resume our study of questions which have hitherto been treated of too superficially, and that thus your friend Jobard, completely transfigured, may be enabled to be of use to you, as he desires to be, from the very bottom of his heart.
JOBARD Having given a sufficient time to communicating with his earthly friends, Mr. Jobard joined the ranks of the spirits who are most actively pushing forward the social renovation of the Earth, while awaiting his approaching reincarnation in this world, when he will take a still more direct part in the work of its reformation. Since that time, he has frequently given to the Paris Society – among whose members he insists upon being still enrolled – communications of superior import, whose seriousness of purpose has not excluded the originality of style, and the witty sallies, by which his writings were characterized during his life, and which reveal the authorship of his messages before he has signed them.
I
Mr. Jobard was one of the Honorary Presidents of the Spiritist Society of Paris. It had been intended to evoke him at the séance of November 8th, when he forestalled this intention by making, spontaneously, the following communication:
“I am here, I whom you were going to evoke, and who desire, first of all, to communicate through this medium, whom I have been trying in vain to induce to write for me until now.
“I wish to tell you of my impression at the moment of the separation of my soul from my body. I felt an indescribable shaking of my whole being; my entire life, my birth, youth, and manhood, came back all at once to my memory, which showed me every incident of my career with wonderful clearness. I was conscious of no other desire than that of finding myself again in the regions revealed to us by our beloved belief; and then all this tumult died away. I was free, and my body was lying lifeless beside me. Ah! Dear friends, what an intoxicating happiness it is, this stripping away of the burden of the earthly body! What an unspeakable joy to take in the view of the glorious immensity around us! But you must not fancy that I found myself all at once at the summit of felicity; no, I am among those who, though they have learned something, have yet a great deal more to learn. I was not long in remembering you, my brothers in exile; my sympathies, my good wishes, are with you!
“Do you care to know who the spirits were that received me on my return to the other life, and what were my first impressions on crossing its threshold? Those friends included all whom we have evoked, all our spirit-brothers who have shared our labors. What I saw was a splendor that cannot be described. I have set myself to discerning what is true in the communications that have been received by us, and I am ready to correct any erroneous statements; ready, in fact, to be the knight-errant of truth in the other world, as I was, when in your world.” JOBARD
1. During your lifetime, you requested us to call you when you should have quitted the Earth; we therefore do so, not only in order to comply with your wish, but also, and especially, to renew to you the expression of our sincere and lively affection, and in the hope of learning from you; for you, more than any other, will be able to give us precise information respecting the world in which you now are. We shall therefore be very glad if you will have the kindness to reply to our questions.
A. What has now to be done is to assist you in acquiring a knowledge of the spirit-life. As for your sympathy, I see it; I no longer merely receive the expression of it through the ears, which is a great step in advancement.
2. To fix our ideas, so as not to talk vaguely, we begin by asking you in what part of the room you are, and how you would appear to us, if we could see you?
A. I am close to the medium; you would see me under the appearance of the Jobard who has so often been seated at this table, for your mortal eyes, not yet unsealed, can see spirits only under their mortal form.
3. Would it be possible for you to render yourself visible to us, and, if not, what is the obstacle that prevents your doing so?
A. Your own personal condition. A seeing medium would see me; no others could see me.
4. The seat you occupy is that which you used to occupy when you were with us, during your life, and which we had kept for you this evening. Those who have seen you there, then, may imagine you to be with us, just as you were on those occasions. If you are not there with your material body, you are there with your fluidic body, which has the same form; if we do not see you with our bodily eyes, we see you with the eyes of our thought; if we can no longer hold communion with you by word of mouth, we can do so by writing, with the aid of an intermediary; our connection with you is therefore in no way interrupted by your death, and we can converse with you as easily and as completely as before. Is this a true description of the state of the case?
A. Yes; you have known all this for a long time. As for this seat, I shall often occupy it, even when you do not notice it, for my spirit will reside among you.
We invite attention to these last words: “My spirit will reside among you.”
In the present case the statement is not figurative, but expresses a reality. Through the knowledge that is given us by Spiritism of the nature of spirits, we know that a spirit may be among us, not merely in thought, but also in person, with the aid of his or her ethereal body, which makes the spirit a distinct personality. A spirit, then, may reside among us after death, as certainly as during the life of its body; and, what is more, a spirit can come and go when it pleases. We thus have around us, in our houses, a crowd of invisible inmates, some of whom regard us with indifference, while others are attached to us by affection. It is of these latter, especially, that it may be said, “They reside among us;” a statement that is to be understood as meaning, “They habitually assist, inspire, and protect us.”
5. It is not very long since you were seated in the place you are occupying at present; do the conditions in which you now find yourself seem to you to be changed? What effect does this change produce in you?
A. The conditions do not seem to me changed; but my spirit enjoys a clearness and distinctness of perception that leaves no shadow about the questions to which I direct my thought.
6. Can you remember whether you had been in the same state before your last existence and do you find yourself changed since then?
A. I remember my anterior existences, and I perceive that I have improved. I see, and I assimilate what I see. After my former incarnations, my spirit was in a state of confusion, and I perceived nothing but my terrestrial gaps.
7. Do you remember your last incarnation but one, that which preceded your existence as Mr. Jobard?
A. In my last existence but one I was a working mechanic, devoured by poverty and by the desire to perfect my work. I have realized, in my life as Jobard, the dreams of the poverty-stricken workman, and I praise God, whose infinite goodness has caused the plant, of which He had sown the seed in my brain, to grow and fructify.
8. Have you already given any communications elsewhere?
A. I have, as of yet, given very few communications. In many places, another spirit has taken my name. In some cases I was near this spirit, but was not able to communicate; my death is so recent that I am still affected by certain terrestrial influences. I can only express my thoughts where I find perfect sympathy. Before long, I shall be able to act with entire freedom; but I cannot do so yet. When a man who dies is widely known, he is evoked on all sides; a thousand spirits are prompt to assume his name; this has already happened to me in several instances. I assure you that few spirits are able to communicate directly after their deliverance, even with the aid of their favorite medium.
9. Do you see the spirits who are with us this evening?
A. I see, close to you, Lazarus and Erastus; a little farther off, hovering in space, the Spirit of Truth; besides these spirits of greater advancement, I see a crowd of spirit-friends who surround the assembly, taking an active and benevolent part in the proceedings. You may esteem yourselves happy, dear Friends, for good influences are about you, warding off the suggestions that would lead you into error.
10. During your life, you shared the opinion of those who suppose the Earth to have been formed by the agglomeration of four planets. Do you still hold this opinion?
A. That opinion is erroneous. The recent discoveries of geology prove the convulsions that have occurred in the history of the Earth and the successive eras of its formation. The Earth, like the other planets, has had its own life; and God had no need of so disorderly a cataclysm as is implied in such an aggregation of planets. Water and fire are the only organic elements of the Earth.
11. You also believed that men might remain for an unlimited period in a state of catalepsy, and that the human race has been brought, in this state, to the Earth. Is this still your opinion?
A. All that was a mere illusion of my imagination, always apt to go too far. The state of catalepsy may last for a long time, but not indefinitely. My idea was derived from the exaggerations of Eastern legends. Believe me, I have already suffered not a little in recalling the illusions to which I was too prompt to attach credence; do not lose sight of this fact. I had already acquired considerable knowledge; and my intelligence being prompt (I may say so without vanity,) to apply the wide and varied researches of my anterior career, I had retained, from my preceding incarnation, the love of the marvelous and the complex acquired in my study of the figments of the popular fancy.
I have not, as of yet, given so much attention to purely intellectual subjects, such as those in which you are interested. How could I do so, dazzled, carried away, as I am, by the wondrous spectacle that I see around me? The tie of our common spiritist belief, a tie far more powerful than you, human beings, can imagine, is the only thing that could attract me to this Earth that I abandon – not with joy, for that would be irreverent towards the Creator – but with a profound thankfulness for my deliverance.
A subscription having been set on foot, by the Spiritist Society, in February 1862, for the distressed operatives of Lyons, one of the members subscribed 25 francs in his own name, and 25 francs in the name of Mr. Jobard, who dictated, in reference to this incident, the following message:
I am pleased and grateful to find that my spiritist brethren do not forget me. Thanks to the generous heart that has conveyed to you the offering that I should have made, if I had still been a dweller in your world! In the one that I now inhabit, we have no need of money; it was therefore necessary for me to draw upon a friendly purse in order to give you a tangible proof of my sympathy for the misfortune of my brothers in Lyons. Brave workmen! You see that charity is not an empty word, since rich and poor have shown their fraternal sympathy in your distress! You are thus upon the broad, humanitarian road of progress; may God preserve you therein, and may more fortunate times be in store for you; our spirit-friends will sustain you and aid you to triumph over the difficulties of your lot!
I am beginning to live more peacefully, less disturbed by the evocations from every quarter that pursued me, for a time, thick as hail. Spirits are not exempted, it seems, from the tyranny of fashion; when the fashion of evoking Jobard shall have been supplanted by some other; I shall pass into the region of human forgetfulness; and I beg that, when this is the case, my sincere and serious friends will continue to evoke me, that we may resume our study of questions which have hitherto been treated of too superficially, and that thus your friend Jobard, completely transfigured, may be enabled to be of use to you, as he desires to be, from the very bottom of his heart.
JOBARD Having given a sufficient time to communicating with his earthly friends, Mr. Jobard joined the ranks of the spirits who are most actively pushing forward the social renovation of the Earth, while awaiting his approaching reincarnation in this world, when he will take a still more direct part in the work of its reformation. Since that time, he has frequently given to the Paris Society – among whose members he insists upon being still enrolled – communications of superior import, whose seriousness of purpose has not excluded the originality of style, and the witty sallies, by which his writings were characterized during his life, and which reveal the authorship of his messages before he has signed them.
Chapter III - SPIRITS IN A MIDDLING CONDITION
JOSEPH BRE
Died in 1840; evoked at Bordeaux, in 1862, by his granddaughter.
Uprightness in the sight of God, and uprightness according to the judgment of humanity.
1. Dear grandfather, will you tell me how you are situated in the spirit-world, and give me such details concerning your present life as may be useful for our advancement?
A. Most willingly, my dear child. I am expiating my want of faith; but the mercy of God is great, and makes allowance for circumstances. I suffer; not as you understand suffering, but from regret that I did not make a better use of my time upon the Earth.
2. How can you say that you did not make a good use of it? You always lived the life of an upright man.
A. Yes, as human beings judge of uprightness; but there is an abyss between what passes for uprightness amongst humanity, and the uprightness that is approved as such by God. I will try, for your instruction, to make you understand the difference between them.
Among you, human beings are looked upon as upright if they respect the laws of their country (although this respect is, with many, extremely elastic), and if they abstain from robbing their neighbors of their property, although these same individuals may rob them of their honor, of their happiness, provided these vile hypocrites do so in ways that escape the action of the law and of public opinion. Once the long list of praises and apparent virtues are engraved on the flat stone, they believe that they have paid their debt to humanity. What a mistake! To be upright in the sight of Heaven, it is not enough to have abstained from transgressing the laws of humanity; it is necessary, above all, not to have transgressed the laws of God!
Those who are upright in the sight of God are those who, filled with devotion and charity, spend their lives in doing good, in helping forward the progress of their fellow-creatures; individuals who, being animated with a zeal that is kindled by the foresight of the end to be obtained, are perpetually active in all the business of life; active in fulfilling the duties imposed upon them by their worldly positions, for they should inculcate the love of labor among their brothers and sisters; active in every good work, for they must not forget that they are servants of whom the Master will by-and-by demand an account of the way in which they have spent their lives, inculcating by their example the love of God and of neighbor. Those who would be upright in the sight of God must carefully avoid cutting remarks, and insidious suggestions, which destroy reputations and ruin positions, by dishonoring their victims or by making them objects of ridicule. The hearts of those who would be judged upright by God must be free from the least taint of pride, envy, and ambition. Such individuals must be patient and gentle with those who attack them; they must forgive, from the very depths of their hearts, without effort and without ostentation, all those who have wronged them; They must love the Creator in all God’s creatures; They must, in short, put in practice the summary of human duties – so concise and yet so complete! – “Thou shalt love God above all things and thy neighbor as thyself.”
Such, dear granddaughter, is an imperfect outline of what constitutes uprightness in the sight of God. I ask you; candidly, did I fulfill all these conditions? No, I was very far from doing so; I confess the fact without hesitation. I was not active in all good works, as I ought to have been; my forgetfulness of God led me into other sorts of forgetfulness which, though not punishable by human laws, are nonetheless offences against the law of God. I suffered much when I came to perceive this fact; and therefore I am able now to hope, with the consoling hope that is born of faith in the mercy of God, who sees my repentance. Tell this to others, my dear child; repeat it to all those who are burdened by a heavy conscience. Let them atone for past remissness by doing good to the very utmost of their power; and the Divine pity will accept their expiations and wipe out the memory of their faults.
Uprightness in the sight of God, and uprightness according to the judgment of humanity.
1. Dear grandfather, will you tell me how you are situated in the spirit-world, and give me such details concerning your present life as may be useful for our advancement?
A. Most willingly, my dear child. I am expiating my want of faith; but the mercy of God is great, and makes allowance for circumstances. I suffer; not as you understand suffering, but from regret that I did not make a better use of my time upon the Earth.
2. How can you say that you did not make a good use of it? You always lived the life of an upright man.
A. Yes, as human beings judge of uprightness; but there is an abyss between what passes for uprightness amongst humanity, and the uprightness that is approved as such by God. I will try, for your instruction, to make you understand the difference between them.
Among you, human beings are looked upon as upright if they respect the laws of their country (although this respect is, with many, extremely elastic), and if they abstain from robbing their neighbors of their property, although these same individuals may rob them of their honor, of their happiness, provided these vile hypocrites do so in ways that escape the action of the law and of public opinion. Once the long list of praises and apparent virtues are engraved on the flat stone, they believe that they have paid their debt to humanity. What a mistake! To be upright in the sight of Heaven, it is not enough to have abstained from transgressing the laws of humanity; it is necessary, above all, not to have transgressed the laws of God!
Those who are upright in the sight of God are those who, filled with devotion and charity, spend their lives in doing good, in helping forward the progress of their fellow-creatures; individuals who, being animated with a zeal that is kindled by the foresight of the end to be obtained, are perpetually active in all the business of life; active in fulfilling the duties imposed upon them by their worldly positions, for they should inculcate the love of labor among their brothers and sisters; active in every good work, for they must not forget that they are servants of whom the Master will by-and-by demand an account of the way in which they have spent their lives, inculcating by their example the love of God and of neighbor. Those who would be upright in the sight of God must carefully avoid cutting remarks, and insidious suggestions, which destroy reputations and ruin positions, by dishonoring their victims or by making them objects of ridicule. The hearts of those who would be judged upright by God must be free from the least taint of pride, envy, and ambition. Such individuals must be patient and gentle with those who attack them; they must forgive, from the very depths of their hearts, without effort and without ostentation, all those who have wronged them; They must love the Creator in all God’s creatures; They must, in short, put in practice the summary of human duties – so concise and yet so complete! – “Thou shalt love God above all things and thy neighbor as thyself.”
Such, dear granddaughter, is an imperfect outline of what constitutes uprightness in the sight of God. I ask you; candidly, did I fulfill all these conditions? No, I was very far from doing so; I confess the fact without hesitation. I was not active in all good works, as I ought to have been; my forgetfulness of God led me into other sorts of forgetfulness which, though not punishable by human laws, are nonetheless offences against the law of God. I suffered much when I came to perceive this fact; and therefore I am able now to hope, with the consoling hope that is born of faith in the mercy of God, who sees my repentance. Tell this to others, my dear child; repeat it to all those who are burdened by a heavy conscience. Let them atone for past remissness by doing good to the very utmost of their power; and the Divine pity will accept their expiations and wipe out the memory of their faults.
MRS. HELEN MICHEL
She died suddenly, in her home, at the age of twenty-five, without pain, from some cause not ascertainable by science. She was rich, rather frivolous, and, owing to the frivolity of her disposition, more intent on the trifles of life than on more serious matters; yet, notwithstanding this defect, she was good-hearted, gentle, benevolent, and charitable.
Evoked, three days after her death, by people who had known her, she expressed herself as follows: –
“I don’t know where I am!...What a state of confusion I am in!...You have called me, and I come...but I cannot understand why I am not in my home. They are weeping for my absence, and yet I am among them, but I cannot make any of them see me! My body no longer belongs to me, and yet I feel it cold and icy. I try to get away from it, and yet I am riveted to it. I keep coming back to it. I am two persons...Oh, when shall I be able to understand what has happened to me? I must go there! My other ME, what would become of it, if I stayed away?....Farewell!”
The feeling of duality, which has not yet been destroyed by complete separation, is very evident here. Her naturally frivolous disposition had been rendered still more frivolous by her wealth, which had enabled her to gratify her caprices. It is therefore not strange that the separation, in her case, should have been slow, and that, three days after her death, she should still feel herself linked to her physical body. But, as she had no vice and was overall a good woman her situation was not a very painful one and did not last for very long. Evoked again, a few days later, her ideas were found to have changed very considerably. Here is what she said: –
“Thank you for praying for me. I recognize the goodness of God in sparing me all suffering and apprehension at the moment of the separation of my body and soul. My poor mother will find it very difficult to be resigned to my loss; but she will be sustained, and what, to her eyes, appears as a terrible misfortune, was indispensable to her good, in order that the things of the other life might be seen by her in their true light, as the only things of real worth. I shall be near her until the end of her earthly trial, and I shall help her to bear it. I am not unhappy; but I have still much to do in order to raise myself towards the sojourn of the blessed. I shall pray to be permitted to return upon this Earth, for I shall have to make up for the time I wasted in my last existence. Let your faith sustain you, my friends; have confidence in the efficacy of prayer, when it truly comes from the heart: God is kind.”
Q. Were you long in recovering your consciousness?
A. I came to understood that I was dead,on the day you prayed forme.
Q. Was your state of confusion a painful one?
A. No, I did not suffer, I thought I was dreaming, and I expected to awaken. My life was not exempt from pain; all who are incarnated on Earth must suffer: I was resigned to the will of God, and He has counted it in my favor. I am grateful to you for the prayers that helped me to regain consciousness. Thanks; I shall always come to you with pleasure. Farewell. HÉLÈNE”
Evoked, three days after her death, by people who had known her, she expressed herself as follows: –
“I don’t know where I am!...What a state of confusion I am in!...You have called me, and I come...but I cannot understand why I am not in my home. They are weeping for my absence, and yet I am among them, but I cannot make any of them see me! My body no longer belongs to me, and yet I feel it cold and icy. I try to get away from it, and yet I am riveted to it. I keep coming back to it. I am two persons...Oh, when shall I be able to understand what has happened to me? I must go there! My other ME, what would become of it, if I stayed away?....Farewell!”
The feeling of duality, which has not yet been destroyed by complete separation, is very evident here. Her naturally frivolous disposition had been rendered still more frivolous by her wealth, which had enabled her to gratify her caprices. It is therefore not strange that the separation, in her case, should have been slow, and that, three days after her death, she should still feel herself linked to her physical body. But, as she had no vice and was overall a good woman her situation was not a very painful one and did not last for very long. Evoked again, a few days later, her ideas were found to have changed very considerably. Here is what she said: –
“Thank you for praying for me. I recognize the goodness of God in sparing me all suffering and apprehension at the moment of the separation of my body and soul. My poor mother will find it very difficult to be resigned to my loss; but she will be sustained, and what, to her eyes, appears as a terrible misfortune, was indispensable to her good, in order that the things of the other life might be seen by her in their true light, as the only things of real worth. I shall be near her until the end of her earthly trial, and I shall help her to bear it. I am not unhappy; but I have still much to do in order to raise myself towards the sojourn of the blessed. I shall pray to be permitted to return upon this Earth, for I shall have to make up for the time I wasted in my last existence. Let your faith sustain you, my friends; have confidence in the efficacy of prayer, when it truly comes from the heart: God is kind.”
Q. Were you long in recovering your consciousness?
A. I came to understood that I was dead,on the day you prayed forme.
Q. Was your state of confusion a painful one?
A. No, I did not suffer, I thought I was dreaming, and I expected to awaken. My life was not exempt from pain; all who are incarnated on Earth must suffer: I was resigned to the will of God, and He has counted it in my favor. I am grateful to you for the prayers that helped me to regain consciousness. Thanks; I shall always come to you with pleasure. Farewell. HÉLÈNE”
THE MARQUIS OF SAINT-PAUL
Died in 1860, evoked, at the request of his sister, a member of the Paris Society, the 16th of May, 1861
1. (Evocation.) – A. Here I am.
2. Your sister has asked us to evoke you; although a medium, she is not sufficiently developed to have confidence in herself.
A. I will do my best to reply to you.
3. She wishes, in the first place, to know whether you are happy.
A. I am in erraticity; and in that state I am neither very happy nor very unhappy.
3. Were you long in recovering consciousness?
A. I remained for a considerable time in a state of confusion; and I only emerged from it to bless the charity of those who had not forgotten me, and who had prayed for me.
Q. Can you say how long the confusion lasted in your case?
A. No.
5. Who were the spirits first recognized by you?
A. My father and mother, both of whom received me on my waking and initiated me into the new life.
6. How was it that, at the end of your illness, you seemed to be conversing with those whom you had most loved during your life?
A. The world I was about to enter was revealed to me before my death. I became clairvoyant before I died; but my spirit-sight was clouded at the moment of my definitive separation from the body, because the links between my body and soul were still very vigorous.
7. Why were your remembrances mainly those of your childhood?
A. Because the beginning of a life is nearer to its end than is the middle of it.
Q. What do you mean by that statement?
A. I mean that the dying recall, and see, in a sort of consoling mirage, the innocent years of their childhood.
It is probably through a Providential ordaining of a similar nature that the old, as they near the end of their life, regain so clear a remembrance of the smallest details of their early days.
8. Why, in speaking of your body, did you always allude to it in the third person?
A. Because, being clairvoyant, as I told you just now, I had a clear perception of the duality of my physical and moral being; the difference between these, though lost sight of by us while they are united by the vital fluid, is distinctly visible for those who, in dying, become clairvoyant.
The perception of duality, here alluded to, was very marked in the case of this gentleman. In his last moments, he invariably said: – “He is thirsty; give him something to drink.” “He is cold, warm him.” “He is suffering in such and such a part,” and so on. And when those about him remarked, “But it is you who are thirsty,” or” It is you who want something warm,” etc., he always replied, “No, it is he.” In this case, the two existences were clearly defined. The thinking me is in the spirit and not in the body; the spirit, already partly disengaged from the body, saw the latter as another individual, as something that was not really himself; and consequently it was not to him, the spirit, but to his body, that drink was to be given. This same perception of the duality of the soul and body is frequently manifested by somnambulists.
9. What you have said of being in erraticity, and of the prolongation of your state of confusion, would seem to imply that you are not happy; yet your many excellent qualities would have led us to infer the contrary. It is true that, among errant spirits, some are happy, while others are unhappy.
A. I am in a state of transition; what are considered as virtues among human beings, are appraised, in this world, at their true value. My present state is a thousand times preferable to that of terrestrial incarnation; but, as I have always aspired after the highest truth and the highest beauty, my soul will not be satiated until it has reached the feet of the Creator.
1. (Evocation.) – A. Here I am.
2. Your sister has asked us to evoke you; although a medium, she is not sufficiently developed to have confidence in herself.
A. I will do my best to reply to you.
3. She wishes, in the first place, to know whether you are happy.
A. I am in erraticity; and in that state I am neither very happy nor very unhappy.
3. Were you long in recovering consciousness?
A. I remained for a considerable time in a state of confusion; and I only emerged from it to bless the charity of those who had not forgotten me, and who had prayed for me.
Q. Can you say how long the confusion lasted in your case?
A. No.
5. Who were the spirits first recognized by you?
A. My father and mother, both of whom received me on my waking and initiated me into the new life.
6. How was it that, at the end of your illness, you seemed to be conversing with those whom you had most loved during your life?
A. The world I was about to enter was revealed to me before my death. I became clairvoyant before I died; but my spirit-sight was clouded at the moment of my definitive separation from the body, because the links between my body and soul were still very vigorous.
7. Why were your remembrances mainly those of your childhood?
A. Because the beginning of a life is nearer to its end than is the middle of it.
Q. What do you mean by that statement?
A. I mean that the dying recall, and see, in a sort of consoling mirage, the innocent years of their childhood.
It is probably through a Providential ordaining of a similar nature that the old, as they near the end of their life, regain so clear a remembrance of the smallest details of their early days.
8. Why, in speaking of your body, did you always allude to it in the third person?
A. Because, being clairvoyant, as I told you just now, I had a clear perception of the duality of my physical and moral being; the difference between these, though lost sight of by us while they are united by the vital fluid, is distinctly visible for those who, in dying, become clairvoyant.
The perception of duality, here alluded to, was very marked in the case of this gentleman. In his last moments, he invariably said: – “He is thirsty; give him something to drink.” “He is cold, warm him.” “He is suffering in such and such a part,” and so on. And when those about him remarked, “But it is you who are thirsty,” or” It is you who want something warm,” etc., he always replied, “No, it is he.” In this case, the two existences were clearly defined. The thinking me is in the spirit and not in the body; the spirit, already partly disengaged from the body, saw the latter as another individual, as something that was not really himself; and consequently it was not to him, the spirit, but to his body, that drink was to be given. This same perception of the duality of the soul and body is frequently manifested by somnambulists.
9. What you have said of being in erraticity, and of the prolongation of your state of confusion, would seem to imply that you are not happy; yet your many excellent qualities would have led us to infer the contrary. It is true that, among errant spirits, some are happy, while others are unhappy.
A. I am in a state of transition; what are considered as virtues among human beings, are appraised, in this world, at their true value. My present state is a thousand times preferable to that of terrestrial incarnation; but, as I have always aspired after the highest truth and the highest beauty, my soul will not be satiated until it has reached the feet of the Creator.
DR. CARDON, DOCTOR
Dr. Cardon had passed a good many years on board of a whaling-vessel, to which he was attached in his medical capacity; and he had acquired, in that rough and adventurous existence, ideas and habits savoring strongly of materiality. Having retired from the seafaring life, he settled in the village of J...., where he exercised the modest profession of a country doctor. In course of time, he became aware that he was attacked with hypertrophy of the heart; knowing this disease to be incurable, the idea of death preyed upon his mind and plunged him into a state of gloomy depression from which nothing could rouse him. Two months before he died, he predicted the day of his death; and, when that day arrived, he called all his family around him to bid him farewell. His wife, his mother, his three children, and a few other relatives, were all assembled at his bedside. At the moment when his wife attempted to raise him from his pillow, he sank on one side, his face became blue and livid, his eyes closed, and he appeared to be dead; his wife placed herself before him, to hide the painful spectacle from their children. But, in the course of a few minutes, he opened his eyes; his face became illuminated, so to say, with an expression of radiant beatitude, and he exclaimed: “Oh, my children, how beautiful it is! How sublime! Oh, death! What a blessing! What a delight! I was dead; and I felt my soul rising up very high; but I am permitted to come back to say to you, ‘Have no fear of death; death is deliverance.’ Would that I could depict for you the magnificence that I have seen and the impressions that have spread throughout my entire being! But you could not understand them. ...Oh, my children! Conduct yourselves always in such a way as to deserve this ineffable felicity, reserved for those who have become good; conform your lives to the dictates of charity; of whatever you possess, give a part to those who are in want...My dear wife! I leave you in a position that is far from what I could have wished. A good deal of money is owing to us, but I entreat of you, do not worry those who owe it. Many of them are straitened, themselves; wait until they are able to pay, and, in the case of those who cannot do so, make the sacrifice of the claim; God will reward you! You, my son, must work hard to support your mother; be always honest and upright! And take care to do nothing that could dishonor our family. Take this cross, which was my mother’s; never lay it aside; and may it always remind you of my last words to you...My children! Aid and sustain one another. Let there be always harmony between you. Be neither vain, nor proud. Forgive your enemies, if you would obtain forgiveness from God.”...Then, having signed to his children to come closer to him, he extended his hands towards them, saying: “My children! I give you my blessing!” As he uttered these words, his eyes closed again; and, this time, it was forever. But his face preserved an expression so imposingly beautiful that, up to the moment of his funeral, crowds of people came to see the corpse, contemplating it with admiration.
These interesting details having been communicated to us by a friend of the family, we thought that an evocation of the deceased might be instructive for us, as well as useful to the spirit himself.
1. (Evocation.) – A. I am near you.
2. We have been informed of the circumstances attending your death and we have been
greatly interested by those details. Will you have the kindness to describe to us, as fully as may be, what you saw in the interval between what may be called your two deaths?
A. What I saw, could you comprehend? I know not; but I could not find words capable of rendering comprehensible, for you, what I beheld in the few moments during which it was possible for me to quit my mortal envelope.
3. Can you tell where you went? Was it far from the Earth? Was it in some other planet? Or was it in space?
A. The spirit does not measure distances as you do. Carried away by some wonderful current, I beheld the splendors of a sky such as not the most ecstatic dream could foreshadow. This journey through infinity was accomplished so rapidly that I cannot tell how many moments were thus employed by my spirit.
4. Are you now in the enjoyment of all the happiness of which you obtained a glimpse?
A. No, I should be rejoiced indeed if such were my present lot; but God could not grant me a reward so far above my merits. I rebelled too often against the wise suggestions made to my mind, for death seemed to me to be an injustice. A skeptical physician, I had imbibed, from the exercise of the healing art, an aversion to the idea of the second nature which is our intelligent and divinely-given motor; I regarded the immortality of the soul as a fiction fit for minds of little elevation; nevertheless, the prospect of annihilation filled me with horror, for the mysterious agent, that I had so often cursed, continued to knock at the door of my heart. But the vain philosophy, to which I had accorded my confidence, had failed to show me the greatness of the Eternal, whose wisdom distributes joy and sorrow for the improvement of mankind.
5. When your death had really occurred, did you recover your consciousness immediately?
A. I had recovered my consciousness during the transition undergone by my soul in order to visit the ethereal regions; but, after my real death, it was several days before I awakened to consciousness.
God had granted me a favor; I will tell you why.
My former incredulity no longer existed; I had begun to believe, before my death; for, after having scientifically probed the dangerous illness which was killing me, I could assign no other reason for it than the decree of a power superior to nature; this conviction had inspired and consoled me, and had given me a courage that was stronger than my suffering. I blessed what I had formerly cursed; the end, which was approaching, appeared to me as deliverance. The thought of God is as vast as the universe! Ah! What admirable consolation do we find in the ineffable influences of prayer! The instinct of prayer is the surest element of our immaterial nature. Through prayer I had comprehended; I had arrived at a firm, unwavering conviction; and it was for this reason that God, weighing my actions, granted me this reward before the end of my incarnation.
6. Would it be correct to say that, during your absence from your body, you were already dead?
A. Yes, and no; the spirit having left the body, the life of the flesh was necessarily becoming extinguished; but, when I again took possession of my terrestrial dwelling, life came back to the body, which had undergone a transition, a sleep.
7. Did you, at that moment, feel the links that connected you with your body?
A. Undoubtedly; those links are hard to break; the spirit has to wait for the last shudder of the flesh, before it can return to its normal life.
8. How was it that, at the time of your apparent death and for some minutes afterwards, your spirit was able to disengage itself instantaneously and without confusion, while your real death was followed by a period of confusion extending over several days? It would seem that, as the links between soul and body were stronger in the former case than in the latter, your disengagement ought to have been slower; yet it is the contrary that occurred.
A. You have often evoked incarnate spirits, and you have received replies that were really made by them.76 I was in the position of those spirits. God called me; His servants said, “Come!” I obeyed the call; and I thank God for the special favor accorded to me, and which enabled me to see and to understand the infinity of His greatness. I also thank the spirits who, before my real death, assisted me to give my last counsels to my children, and to urge them to goodness and rectitude during their present incarnation.
9. What prompted those good and beautiful counsels that, on returning to the earthly life, you addressed to your family?
A. They were the reflexes of what I had seen and heard during my absence from the body. My spirit-friends inspired my voice and influenced my countenance.
10. What impression do you believe your statements made upon your family and your children in particular?
A. They were all profoundly affected by them. The assertions of a dying man cannot be suspected of deceit; and his children, even the most ungrateful, respect the voice of the parent who is passing away. If you could scrutinize the hearts of children, beside the open grave of a parent, you would see that they are only moved, at such a moment, by true and worthy feelings, excited in their minds by the occult action of the good spirits about them, who say, in whispers addressed to their thought: – “Tremble, if you have not a clear conscience. Death is either a reward, or a punishment; for God is just!” I can assure you that, notwithstanding the incredulity too general in the world, my family and my friends will retain their belief in the statements I made to them before I died. I was the mouthpiece of the other world.
11. You say that you are not yet in the enjoyment of all the happiness of which you had a glimpsed; do you mean to say that you are unhappy?
A. No, for I believed before dying, sincerely and deeply. Pain, so hard to bear, in the earthly life, adds to our advancement in the spirit-world. The Divine Judge has taken account of my prayers and my entire confidence in His goodness; I am on the road to perfection, and I shall reach, in time, the goal of which I was permitted to obtain a glimpse. Pray, my Friends, for you thus render more operative your union with the beings of this other world who preside over the destinies of the Earth. Prayer is a force that brings the spirits of all worlds into communion with one another.
12. Would you like to send a few words to your wife and children?
A. I beseech all those who love me to believe in God, the all-powerful, just, unchangeable; in prayer, which consoles and relieves; in charity, which is the holiest product of human incarnation. Let them remember that even the poorest can find something to give, and that the mite of the poor is the most noble of all gifts in the sight of God, who knows that the poor give much in giving little, and that the rich can only equal the charitableness of the poor by giving very largely, and very often.
The happiness of the future is contained in charity, in universal benevolence, in the conviction that all human beings are brothers and sisters, in the absence of all selfishness and childish vanity.
My beloved family! You will have to undergo heavy trials; but draw courage, for bearing them, from the thought that God takes note of your resignation.
Repeat, often, this prayer: – God of love and of goodness, Eternal Giver! Give us firmness so that we do not draw back from confronting any sorrow; make us kind, gentle, charitable; if we are but little, in point of fortune, make us great in the qualities of our hearts. May we be thoroughly enlightened by the truths of Spiritism during our earthly life, so that we may be better able to understand and to love Thee in the spirit-world. May Thy name, O God! Emblem of freedom, be the consoling aim of all those who feel the need of loving, forgiving, and believing.
1. (Evocation.) – A. I am near you.
2. We have been informed of the circumstances attending your death and we have been
greatly interested by those details. Will you have the kindness to describe to us, as fully as may be, what you saw in the interval between what may be called your two deaths?
A. What I saw, could you comprehend? I know not; but I could not find words capable of rendering comprehensible, for you, what I beheld in the few moments during which it was possible for me to quit my mortal envelope.
3. Can you tell where you went? Was it far from the Earth? Was it in some other planet? Or was it in space?
A. The spirit does not measure distances as you do. Carried away by some wonderful current, I beheld the splendors of a sky such as not the most ecstatic dream could foreshadow. This journey through infinity was accomplished so rapidly that I cannot tell how many moments were thus employed by my spirit.
4. Are you now in the enjoyment of all the happiness of which you obtained a glimpse?
A. No, I should be rejoiced indeed if such were my present lot; but God could not grant me a reward so far above my merits. I rebelled too often against the wise suggestions made to my mind, for death seemed to me to be an injustice. A skeptical physician, I had imbibed, from the exercise of the healing art, an aversion to the idea of the second nature which is our intelligent and divinely-given motor; I regarded the immortality of the soul as a fiction fit for minds of little elevation; nevertheless, the prospect of annihilation filled me with horror, for the mysterious agent, that I had so often cursed, continued to knock at the door of my heart. But the vain philosophy, to which I had accorded my confidence, had failed to show me the greatness of the Eternal, whose wisdom distributes joy and sorrow for the improvement of mankind.
5. When your death had really occurred, did you recover your consciousness immediately?
A. I had recovered my consciousness during the transition undergone by my soul in order to visit the ethereal regions; but, after my real death, it was several days before I awakened to consciousness.
God had granted me a favor; I will tell you why.
My former incredulity no longer existed; I had begun to believe, before my death; for, after having scientifically probed the dangerous illness which was killing me, I could assign no other reason for it than the decree of a power superior to nature; this conviction had inspired and consoled me, and had given me a courage that was stronger than my suffering. I blessed what I had formerly cursed; the end, which was approaching, appeared to me as deliverance. The thought of God is as vast as the universe! Ah! What admirable consolation do we find in the ineffable influences of prayer! The instinct of prayer is the surest element of our immaterial nature. Through prayer I had comprehended; I had arrived at a firm, unwavering conviction; and it was for this reason that God, weighing my actions, granted me this reward before the end of my incarnation.
6. Would it be correct to say that, during your absence from your body, you were already dead?
A. Yes, and no; the spirit having left the body, the life of the flesh was necessarily becoming extinguished; but, when I again took possession of my terrestrial dwelling, life came back to the body, which had undergone a transition, a sleep.
7. Did you, at that moment, feel the links that connected you with your body?
A. Undoubtedly; those links are hard to break; the spirit has to wait for the last shudder of the flesh, before it can return to its normal life.
8. How was it that, at the time of your apparent death and for some minutes afterwards, your spirit was able to disengage itself instantaneously and without confusion, while your real death was followed by a period of confusion extending over several days? It would seem that, as the links between soul and body were stronger in the former case than in the latter, your disengagement ought to have been slower; yet it is the contrary that occurred.
A. You have often evoked incarnate spirits, and you have received replies that were really made by them.76 I was in the position of those spirits. God called me; His servants said, “Come!” I obeyed the call; and I thank God for the special favor accorded to me, and which enabled me to see and to understand the infinity of His greatness. I also thank the spirits who, before my real death, assisted me to give my last counsels to my children, and to urge them to goodness and rectitude during their present incarnation.
9. What prompted those good and beautiful counsels that, on returning to the earthly life, you addressed to your family?
A. They were the reflexes of what I had seen and heard during my absence from the body. My spirit-friends inspired my voice and influenced my countenance.
10. What impression do you believe your statements made upon your family and your children in particular?
A. They were all profoundly affected by them. The assertions of a dying man cannot be suspected of deceit; and his children, even the most ungrateful, respect the voice of the parent who is passing away. If you could scrutinize the hearts of children, beside the open grave of a parent, you would see that they are only moved, at such a moment, by true and worthy feelings, excited in their minds by the occult action of the good spirits about them, who say, in whispers addressed to their thought: – “Tremble, if you have not a clear conscience. Death is either a reward, or a punishment; for God is just!” I can assure you that, notwithstanding the incredulity too general in the world, my family and my friends will retain their belief in the statements I made to them before I died. I was the mouthpiece of the other world.
11. You say that you are not yet in the enjoyment of all the happiness of which you had a glimpsed; do you mean to say that you are unhappy?
A. No, for I believed before dying, sincerely and deeply. Pain, so hard to bear, in the earthly life, adds to our advancement in the spirit-world. The Divine Judge has taken account of my prayers and my entire confidence in His goodness; I am on the road to perfection, and I shall reach, in time, the goal of which I was permitted to obtain a glimpse. Pray, my Friends, for you thus render more operative your union with the beings of this other world who preside over the destinies of the Earth. Prayer is a force that brings the spirits of all worlds into communion with one another.
12. Would you like to send a few words to your wife and children?
A. I beseech all those who love me to believe in God, the all-powerful, just, unchangeable; in prayer, which consoles and relieves; in charity, which is the holiest product of human incarnation. Let them remember that even the poorest can find something to give, and that the mite of the poor is the most noble of all gifts in the sight of God, who knows that the poor give much in giving little, and that the rich can only equal the charitableness of the poor by giving very largely, and very often.
The happiness of the future is contained in charity, in universal benevolence, in the conviction that all human beings are brothers and sisters, in the absence of all selfishness and childish vanity.
My beloved family! You will have to undergo heavy trials; but draw courage, for bearing them, from the thought that God takes note of your resignation.
Repeat, often, this prayer: – God of love and of goodness, Eternal Giver! Give us firmness so that we do not draw back from confronting any sorrow; make us kind, gentle, charitable; if we are but little, in point of fortune, make us great in the qualities of our hearts. May we be thoroughly enlightened by the truths of Spiritism during our earthly life, so that we may be better able to understand and to love Thee in the spirit-world. May Thy name, O God! Emblem of freedom, be the consoling aim of all those who feel the need of loving, forgiving, and believing.
CARDON”
ERIC STANILAS
Spontaneous communication; Spiritist Society of Paris; August 1863:
“How much happiness do we derive from the communicated emotions of kindly hearts! Beautiful principles that open a path of salvation for all that lives, for all that breathes, physically and spiritually, may your balmy influences be largely spread abroad over the people of the Earth, and over us, in the spirit-world! What words, dear friends, could express the delight of your brothers beyond the grave, in witnessing the unselfish affection by which you are all united?
Ah! Brothers and sisters, of how much good, of how much elevated conviction, is your doctrine destined to sow the seed! And what a harvest of blessing will you reap, even for yourselves, from the good you will thus have accomplished!
I have been with you all the evening; I have listened, I have comprehended, and I shall now be able, in my turn, to do my duty in giving instructions to imperfect spirits in the other life.
Listen: – I was far from being happy; lost in the vastness of immensity, of infinity, my sufferings were all the more acute because I could not exactly understand their nature. God be thanked! God’s goodness has permitted me to enter a sanctuary that cannot be approached with impunity by the wicked. How grateful I feel to you, my friends! How much strength I have gained from you!
Meet often, you who are animated by hope and charity; for you cannot imagine how fruitful of good are the earnest and serious meetings that take place among you. Spirits who have still much to learn, those who have remained voluntarily inactive, idle, and forgetful of their duties, may be brought fortuitously, or otherwise, among you; struck by a terrible shock, they may be led (and this often happens) to fall back upon themselves, to perceive their own state, to see the aim which they have to attain, and, strengthened by the example which you set them, many seek the means of deliverance from the painful state in which they find themselves. I am very happy to serve as the spokesperson of those suffering souls; for I am speaking to women and men who have hearts, and I know that I shall not be repelled by them.
Once more, then, O generous humanity! Let me assure you of my own personal gratitude, and that of all your friends in this other life, to whom you have done so much good, of which, perhaps, you have not been aware. ERIC STANISLAS”
The Medium’s Guide. – My children, the spirit who dictated the message you have just received was, in the past, very unhappy, because he remained for a long time on the wrong road. He has now understood his mistake, repented of his wrongdoing, and, at length, turned towards God, from whom he had turned away. His position is not yet a happy one; but he aspires to happiness, and he no longer suffers. He is now permitted to come and listen to the instructions that are given to you by your spirit-friends; and he will soon be allowed to enter into a lower sphere, in which he will instruct, and help forward, other spirits who, like him, have transgressed the laws of the Eternal; this is the reparation demanded of him. He will now be able to win happiness, because he has now the will to do so.
“How much happiness do we derive from the communicated emotions of kindly hearts! Beautiful principles that open a path of salvation for all that lives, for all that breathes, physically and spiritually, may your balmy influences be largely spread abroad over the people of the Earth, and over us, in the spirit-world! What words, dear friends, could express the delight of your brothers beyond the grave, in witnessing the unselfish affection by which you are all united?
Ah! Brothers and sisters, of how much good, of how much elevated conviction, is your doctrine destined to sow the seed! And what a harvest of blessing will you reap, even for yourselves, from the good you will thus have accomplished!
I have been with you all the evening; I have listened, I have comprehended, and I shall now be able, in my turn, to do my duty in giving instructions to imperfect spirits in the other life.
Listen: – I was far from being happy; lost in the vastness of immensity, of infinity, my sufferings were all the more acute because I could not exactly understand their nature. God be thanked! God’s goodness has permitted me to enter a sanctuary that cannot be approached with impunity by the wicked. How grateful I feel to you, my friends! How much strength I have gained from you!
Meet often, you who are animated by hope and charity; for you cannot imagine how fruitful of good are the earnest and serious meetings that take place among you. Spirits who have still much to learn, those who have remained voluntarily inactive, idle, and forgetful of their duties, may be brought fortuitously, or otherwise, among you; struck by a terrible shock, they may be led (and this often happens) to fall back upon themselves, to perceive their own state, to see the aim which they have to attain, and, strengthened by the example which you set them, many seek the means of deliverance from the painful state in which they find themselves. I am very happy to serve as the spokesperson of those suffering souls; for I am speaking to women and men who have hearts, and I know that I shall not be repelled by them.
Once more, then, O generous humanity! Let me assure you of my own personal gratitude, and that of all your friends in this other life, to whom you have done so much good, of which, perhaps, you have not been aware. ERIC STANISLAS”
The Medium’s Guide. – My children, the spirit who dictated the message you have just received was, in the past, very unhappy, because he remained for a long time on the wrong road. He has now understood his mistake, repented of his wrongdoing, and, at length, turned towards God, from whom he had turned away. His position is not yet a happy one; but he aspires to happiness, and he no longer suffers. He is now permitted to come and listen to the instructions that are given to you by your spirit-friends; and he will soon be allowed to enter into a lower sphere, in which he will instruct, and help forward, other spirits who, like him, have transgressed the laws of the Eternal; this is the reparation demanded of him. He will now be able to win happiness, because he has now the will to do so.
MADAME ANNA BELLEVILLE
She died at the age of thirty-five, after a long and very painful illness. Vivacious, witty, endowed with rare intelligence, of clear judgment, and high moral excellence, a devoted wife and mother, she also possessed uncommon strength of character, and a mind so fertile in resources that she was never at a loss to decide as to what was the best to be done in the most critical moments of her life. Without rancor toward those of whom she had the most cause to complain, she was always ready to render service to them. Having been intimately acquainted with her for many years, we had followed with interest all the phases of her life and all the incidents of its close.
An accident led to the terrible disease that carried her off, after keeping her for three years confined to her bed, a prey to the most frightful sufferings, which she bore, to the last, with heroic courage, and in the midst of which her natural cheerfulness never abandoned her. She believed firmly in the existence of the soul and of the future life; but she did not think much about them; all her thoughts were concentrated on the present life, to which she was strongly attached, without, however, having any dread of death, and without caring for material enjoyments, but, on the contrary, living very simply, and easily doing without whatever she had not the means of procuring; but she had an instinctive taste for the commodious and the beautiful and she displayed this taste in the smallest details. She longed to live, less for herself than for her children, to whom she felt herself to be necessary; for their sake, she clung to life with extraordinary tenacity. She knew something of Spiritism, but without having made it a subject of study; she took a certain amount of interest in its postulates and yet it failed to give her a fixed basis of conviction concerning the future. She regarded it as being true, but it made no deep impression on her mind. The good that she did was prompted by a natural, spontaneous tendency on her part, and not by any thought of the rewards and penalties of the future.
Her life had been, for a long time, despaired of, and those about her were prepared to witness her departure at any moment; she herself no longer cherished any illusion in regard to her state of health. One day, her husband being absent, she felt her strength leaving her, and understood that her hour had come; her sight became clouded, her mind became confused, and she experienced all the distress of the separation. But the idea of dying before her husband returned was very painful to her. Rousing all the energy she could muster, she said to herself, “No, I will not die.” As she formed this resolution, she felt her life coming back to her, and she recovered the full possession of her faculties. When her husband returned, she said to him, “I was dying, but I determined to wait until you came back to me, for I have still a good many things to say to you.” This struggle between life and death was kept up by her for three months, which lapse of time was, in her case, only a prolonged and most painful dying.
(Evocation: the day after her death)
Thanks, dear friends, for thinking of me; but you have always been to me like parents. Rejoice with me, for I am happy. Assure my poor husband of this, and watch over my children. I went to them as soon as my deliverance had taken place.
Q. It would appear that the confusion has not lasted long in your case, since you reply to us with so much clearness.
A. You know how much I suffered, and that I bore my sufferings with resignation. My trial is ended. I cannot say that I am, as of yet, completely disengaged; but I no longer suffer, and this is for me such an immense relief! This time, I am, indeed, thoroughly cured; but I still need the help of your prayers, that I may be able, afterwards, to come and work with you.
Q. What could have been the cause of your long sufferings?
A. Aterriblepast.
Q. Can you tell us about that past?
A. Oh,letmeforgetitforawhile;Ihavepaidsuchaheavypriceforit!
(A MONTH AFTER HER DEATH)
Q. As you must now be completely free and better able to describe your situation, we should be very glad to receive some more explicit statement from you. Can you tell us what was the cause of your prolonged death-agony? For you were, for three months, between life and death.
A. Thanks, dear friends, for your remembrance and your prayers! How much good they have done me, and how powerfully they contributed to my release! I still need to be supported; continue to pray for me. You understand what prayer should be! Your prayers are no commonplace forms, like those of so many who know nothing of the effect of a true prayer. My sufferings were great; but they are amply rewarded; and I am permitted to be often with my children, whom I quitted with so much regret!
I prolonged my sufferings by my own determined wish to live; my ardent desire to remain with my children caused me to cling to matter with the clutch of a drowning man; I stiffened myself in my determination and I would not abandon the unhappy body from which it was, nevertheless, necessary for me to tear myself away, and which was for me the instrument of such dreadful torture. Such was the true cause of my long death-struggle. My illness, and the sufferings I endured, was an expiation of the past, one more debt paid off and done with.
Ah, dear friends, if I had hearkened to you, how very different would be my present life! What consolation I should have had in my last moments, and how much easier this separation would have been to me, if, instead of opposing it, I had given myself up, confiding in the will of God, to the current that was carrying me away! But, instead of looking forward to the future that was awaiting me, I looked only to the present that I was quitting!
When I come back upon the Earth, I promise you I shall be a spiritist! What an immense unfolding! I often come to your meetings, to listen to the instructions that are given by you. If I could have understood all this while I was upon the Earth, my sufferings would have been greatly lessened; but my hour had not come. I now comprehend the goodness of God and His justice; but I am not yet sufficiently advanced to refrain from occupying myself with the things of the earthly life; my children, especially, draw me back to the Earth, no longer with the desire to spoil them, but to watch over them and to lead them to follow the road traced out by Spiritism. Yes, my friends; I still have serious anxieties; one especially, for my children’s future depends on it.
Q. Can you tell us anything of the past that you deplore?
A. I am quite ready to make my confession! I was once, in a former life, so indifferent to suffering that I was perfectly capable of watching my mother suffer without feeling any pity for her; I treated her sufferings as only imaginary. As she was not obliged to keep her bed, I fancied that she did not really suffer, and I laughed at her misery. You see how Providence enacts correction!
(SIX MONTHS AFTER HER DEATH)
Q. Now that a tolerably long time has elapsed since you quitted your terrestrial envelope, be kind enough to depict to us your situation and your occupations in the spirit-world.
A. During my terrestrial life, I was what was considered, in a general way, a good woman; but I prized my own comfort above everything else. Although I was naturally compassionate, I am sure that I should have been capable of making any painful sacrifice to relieve another’s misfortune. At present, all that is changed; I am still myself, but the person I was in former days has undergone modifications. I have still made some gains; I see that there are no other differences of rank and condition, in the spirit-world, than those of personal merit, where the charitable, though poor, are above the haughty rich who humiliated them in giving them alms. I watch especially over those who are afflicted with family-troubles, the loss of relatives, or of fortune; my mission is to console and to encourage them, and I am happy to be doing so.
An accident led to the terrible disease that carried her off, after keeping her for three years confined to her bed, a prey to the most frightful sufferings, which she bore, to the last, with heroic courage, and in the midst of which her natural cheerfulness never abandoned her. She believed firmly in the existence of the soul and of the future life; but she did not think much about them; all her thoughts were concentrated on the present life, to which she was strongly attached, without, however, having any dread of death, and without caring for material enjoyments, but, on the contrary, living very simply, and easily doing without whatever she had not the means of procuring; but she had an instinctive taste for the commodious and the beautiful and she displayed this taste in the smallest details. She longed to live, less for herself than for her children, to whom she felt herself to be necessary; for their sake, she clung to life with extraordinary tenacity. She knew something of Spiritism, but without having made it a subject of study; she took a certain amount of interest in its postulates and yet it failed to give her a fixed basis of conviction concerning the future. She regarded it as being true, but it made no deep impression on her mind. The good that she did was prompted by a natural, spontaneous tendency on her part, and not by any thought of the rewards and penalties of the future.
Her life had been, for a long time, despaired of, and those about her were prepared to witness her departure at any moment; she herself no longer cherished any illusion in regard to her state of health. One day, her husband being absent, she felt her strength leaving her, and understood that her hour had come; her sight became clouded, her mind became confused, and she experienced all the distress of the separation. But the idea of dying before her husband returned was very painful to her. Rousing all the energy she could muster, she said to herself, “No, I will not die.” As she formed this resolution, she felt her life coming back to her, and she recovered the full possession of her faculties. When her husband returned, she said to him, “I was dying, but I determined to wait until you came back to me, for I have still a good many things to say to you.” This struggle between life and death was kept up by her for three months, which lapse of time was, in her case, only a prolonged and most painful dying.
(Evocation: the day after her death)
Thanks, dear friends, for thinking of me; but you have always been to me like parents. Rejoice with me, for I am happy. Assure my poor husband of this, and watch over my children. I went to them as soon as my deliverance had taken place.
Q. It would appear that the confusion has not lasted long in your case, since you reply to us with so much clearness.
A. You know how much I suffered, and that I bore my sufferings with resignation. My trial is ended. I cannot say that I am, as of yet, completely disengaged; but I no longer suffer, and this is for me such an immense relief! This time, I am, indeed, thoroughly cured; but I still need the help of your prayers, that I may be able, afterwards, to come and work with you.
Q. What could have been the cause of your long sufferings?
A. Aterriblepast.
Q. Can you tell us about that past?
A. Oh,letmeforgetitforawhile;Ihavepaidsuchaheavypriceforit!
(A MONTH AFTER HER DEATH)
Q. As you must now be completely free and better able to describe your situation, we should be very glad to receive some more explicit statement from you. Can you tell us what was the cause of your prolonged death-agony? For you were, for three months, between life and death.
A. Thanks, dear friends, for your remembrance and your prayers! How much good they have done me, and how powerfully they contributed to my release! I still need to be supported; continue to pray for me. You understand what prayer should be! Your prayers are no commonplace forms, like those of so many who know nothing of the effect of a true prayer. My sufferings were great; but they are amply rewarded; and I am permitted to be often with my children, whom I quitted with so much regret!
I prolonged my sufferings by my own determined wish to live; my ardent desire to remain with my children caused me to cling to matter with the clutch of a drowning man; I stiffened myself in my determination and I would not abandon the unhappy body from which it was, nevertheless, necessary for me to tear myself away, and which was for me the instrument of such dreadful torture. Such was the true cause of my long death-struggle. My illness, and the sufferings I endured, was an expiation of the past, one more debt paid off and done with.
Ah, dear friends, if I had hearkened to you, how very different would be my present life! What consolation I should have had in my last moments, and how much easier this separation would have been to me, if, instead of opposing it, I had given myself up, confiding in the will of God, to the current that was carrying me away! But, instead of looking forward to the future that was awaiting me, I looked only to the present that I was quitting!
When I come back upon the Earth, I promise you I shall be a spiritist! What an immense unfolding! I often come to your meetings, to listen to the instructions that are given by you. If I could have understood all this while I was upon the Earth, my sufferings would have been greatly lessened; but my hour had not come. I now comprehend the goodness of God and His justice; but I am not yet sufficiently advanced to refrain from occupying myself with the things of the earthly life; my children, especially, draw me back to the Earth, no longer with the desire to spoil them, but to watch over them and to lead them to follow the road traced out by Spiritism. Yes, my friends; I still have serious anxieties; one especially, for my children’s future depends on it.
Q. Can you tell us anything of the past that you deplore?
A. I am quite ready to make my confession! I was once, in a former life, so indifferent to suffering that I was perfectly capable of watching my mother suffer without feeling any pity for her; I treated her sufferings as only imaginary. As she was not obliged to keep her bed, I fancied that she did not really suffer, and I laughed at her misery. You see how Providence enacts correction!
(SIX MONTHS AFTER HER DEATH)
Q. Now that a tolerably long time has elapsed since you quitted your terrestrial envelope, be kind enough to depict to us your situation and your occupations in the spirit-world.
A. During my terrestrial life, I was what was considered, in a general way, a good woman; but I prized my own comfort above everything else. Although I was naturally compassionate, I am sure that I should have been capable of making any painful sacrifice to relieve another’s misfortune. At present, all that is changed; I am still myself, but the person I was in former days has undergone modifications. I have still made some gains; I see that there are no other differences of rank and condition, in the spirit-world, than those of personal merit, where the charitable, though poor, are above the haughty rich who humiliated them in giving them alms. I watch especially over those who are afflicted with family-troubles, the loss of relatives, or of fortune; my mission is to console and to encourage them, and I am happy to be doing so.
ANNA”
An important question is suggested by the foregoing facts: can a human being, by an effort of the will, delay the definitive separation of the soul and the body?
Reply of the spirit of Saint Louis:
This question, if replied to in the affirmative and without restriction, might give rise to erroneous suppositions. An incarnated spirit may, under certain circumstances, prolong its corporeal existence in order to finish the giving of some directions which it considers to be absolutely necessary; such a one may be allowed to do so, as in the case referred to, and in many others. But this prolongation could only be, in any case, of short duration, for no one can be allowed to invert the order of nature, or to effect a real return to the earthly life, when the latter has reached its appointed term. Moreover, you must not infer, from the possibility of such an action, that it could be general, or that every individual spirit would be able to prolong its own corporeal existence in this way. As a trial for the spirit, or in the interest of a mission to be accomplished, the worn-out organs may receive a supplement of vital fluid that allows of their adding a few instants to the corporeal manifestation of thought; but such cases are the exceptions and not the rule. You must regard such a momentary prolongation of life not as a derogation from the unchangeableness of the laws of God, but as a consequence of the freedom of the human soul, which, at the last moment, is conscious of the mission that has been imposed upon it, and fervently desires, in defiance of death, to accomplish what it has not been able to finish. It may also be, in some cases, a correction imposed on a spirit who doubts the fact of a future life; such a prolonging of vitality bringing with it a prolongation of suffering.
SAINT LOUIS
Some surprise may be felt at the rapidity with which the disengagement of this spirit was effected, notwithstanding her attachment to the earthly life; but it must be remarked that this attachment was neither sensual nor material; it was even, in some sense, a virtuous feeling, for it was prompted by anxiety for the welfare of her children, who were very young. The lady in question, it must also be remembered, was a spirit of considerable advancement both in intelligence and in morality; one degree more and she would have been among the “happy spirits.” In her case, therefore, the perispiritual links had nothing of the tenacity which results from the spirit’s self-identification with material things; it may be said, moreover, that, her physical life being weakened by her long illness, her soul was only held to the body by a few threads; it was these threads that she tried to prevent from breaking. But she was repaid for this resistance by the prolongation of her sufferings, which were due to the nature of her illness and not to any difficulty of disengagement; and therefore, when the latter had taken place, the mental confusion was of short duration.
Another point, equally important, that is rendered evident by the results of this evocation – as in the greater number of evocations of any given spirit, made at various times, more or less distant from the moment of death – is the change which gradually takes place in the ideas of the spirit, and of which we are able to follow the progress; in the case now under notice, this change is shown, not by the awakening of better feelings, but by more correct appreciation of the facts of existence. The progress of the soul after death is, therefore, a fact proven by experience; life in the flesh is the practical application of the progress thus made by the soul in the other world, the test of its new resolves, the arena in which it accomplishes a new degree of its purification.
If the soul progresses after death, it is clear that its fate is not irrevocably fixed at death, for the fixation of its fate would be, as we have already shown, the negation of progress. It being impossible that fixation and progress can exist simultaneously, we must accept, of these two alternatives, the one that has the double sanction of reason and of experience.
An important question is suggested by the foregoing facts: can a human being, by an effort of the will, delay the definitive separation of the soul and the body?
Reply of the spirit of Saint Louis:
This question, if replied to in the affirmative and without restriction, might give rise to erroneous suppositions. An incarnated spirit may, under certain circumstances, prolong its corporeal existence in order to finish the giving of some directions which it considers to be absolutely necessary; such a one may be allowed to do so, as in the case referred to, and in many others. But this prolongation could only be, in any case, of short duration, for no one can be allowed to invert the order of nature, or to effect a real return to the earthly life, when the latter has reached its appointed term. Moreover, you must not infer, from the possibility of such an action, that it could be general, or that every individual spirit would be able to prolong its own corporeal existence in this way. As a trial for the spirit, or in the interest of a mission to be accomplished, the worn-out organs may receive a supplement of vital fluid that allows of their adding a few instants to the corporeal manifestation of thought; but such cases are the exceptions and not the rule. You must regard such a momentary prolongation of life not as a derogation from the unchangeableness of the laws of God, but as a consequence of the freedom of the human soul, which, at the last moment, is conscious of the mission that has been imposed upon it, and fervently desires, in defiance of death, to accomplish what it has not been able to finish. It may also be, in some cases, a correction imposed on a spirit who doubts the fact of a future life; such a prolonging of vitality bringing with it a prolongation of suffering.
SAINT LOUIS
Some surprise may be felt at the rapidity with which the disengagement of this spirit was effected, notwithstanding her attachment to the earthly life; but it must be remarked that this attachment was neither sensual nor material; it was even, in some sense, a virtuous feeling, for it was prompted by anxiety for the welfare of her children, who were very young. The lady in question, it must also be remembered, was a spirit of considerable advancement both in intelligence and in morality; one degree more and she would have been among the “happy spirits.” In her case, therefore, the perispiritual links had nothing of the tenacity which results from the spirit’s self-identification with material things; it may be said, moreover, that, her physical life being weakened by her long illness, her soul was only held to the body by a few threads; it was these threads that she tried to prevent from breaking. But she was repaid for this resistance by the prolongation of her sufferings, which were due to the nature of her illness and not to any difficulty of disengagement; and therefore, when the latter had taken place, the mental confusion was of short duration.
Another point, equally important, that is rendered evident by the results of this evocation – as in the greater number of evocations of any given spirit, made at various times, more or less distant from the moment of death – is the change which gradually takes place in the ideas of the spirit, and of which we are able to follow the progress; in the case now under notice, this change is shown, not by the awakening of better feelings, but by more correct appreciation of the facts of existence. The progress of the soul after death is, therefore, a fact proven by experience; life in the flesh is the practical application of the progress thus made by the soul in the other world, the test of its new resolves, the arena in which it accomplishes a new degree of its purification.
If the soul progresses after death, it is clear that its fate is not irrevocably fixed at death, for the fixation of its fate would be, as we have already shown, the negation of progress. It being impossible that fixation and progress can exist simultaneously, we must accept, of these two alternatives, the one that has the double sanction of reason and of experience.
Chapter IV - SUFFERING SPIRITS
PUNISHMENT
General description of the state of the guilty on their return to the spirit-world dictated at a meeting of the Spiritist Society of Paris, October 1860.
“Wicked, selfish, obstinate spirits are given over immediately after death to harrowing doubts in regard to their present and future destiny. They look around them, and as they do not at once perceive any object on which to wreak their evil tendencies, they are seized with despair, for isolation and inaction are intolerable to evil spirits, they do not elevate their sight to the areas inhabited by the pure spirits. They next begin to examine more carefully the surroundings amidst which they find themselves; they soon perceive the prostration of the weaker spirits who are undergoing punishment, and they attach themselves to these as to a prey, arming themselves against them with the memory of their past misdeeds, of which they remind them incessantly by mocking gestures. This derisory pantomime not sufficing for their malice, they swoop down upon the Earth like famished vultures. They seek out, among mankind, the souls they think most likely to offer an easy road to their temptations, they take possession of such, stimulating their cupidity, striving to extinguish their faith in God, until, having obtained the mastery of their conscience, they draw them into every sort of evil.
The backward spirit who is thus able to exercise his malice is almost happy; he only suffers when he is unable to act, or when his efforts are frustrated by the action of superior spirits.
Meantime, centuries succeed centuries; the evil spirit, at length, finds himself suddenly invaded by darkness. His circle of action closes around him like a prison; his conscience, hitherto passive, pierces him with its torturing stings. Inactive, and carried away by the whirlwind of regrets and apprehensions, he wanders aimlessly, with hair bristling from fright, as per the scriptures. Presently, a sense of emptiness penetrates his being; a frightful void seems to yawn around him; the moment for commencing his expiation has come. Reincarnation stares him in the face, with all its horrors; he beholds, as in a mirage, the terrible trials to which he is about to be subjected; he would fain shrink back, but he is drawn onwards by a force superior to his own. Hurled down into the yawning abyss of fleshly life, he sinks through the horror of emptiness until the vale of oblivion envelopes him like a shroud.
Born again on Earth, he lives, he acts, he is again guilty of evil deeds; he is tormented by vague reminiscences that he cannot account for, by fitful presentiments that make him tremble, but that do not yet suffice to induce him to quit the path of evil. Extended on a prison couch, or on a luxurious bed (what does it matter?), the dying reprobate becomes aware, under his seeming unconsciousness, of a whole world of forgotten thoughts and sensations that are coming to life and moving within him. Under his closed eyelids, he sees a light that is not of earth; he hears strange sounds; his soul, about to quit his body, is uneasy and agitated, his stiffened hands clutch vainly at the coverings under which he is lying. He tries to speak; he would fain shriek, to those about him, “Hold me back! I see chastisement!” But the power of speech no longer exists for him; death settles on his pale lips; and those about him whisper “He is at rest! Georges”
A truer, more eloquent, more terrible picture of the fate of the evildoer was never drawn. Is there any need of adding, to the horrible sufferings thus portrayed, the phantasmagoria of material flames and physical tortures?
“Wicked, selfish, obstinate spirits are given over immediately after death to harrowing doubts in regard to their present and future destiny. They look around them, and as they do not at once perceive any object on which to wreak their evil tendencies, they are seized with despair, for isolation and inaction are intolerable to evil spirits, they do not elevate their sight to the areas inhabited by the pure spirits. They next begin to examine more carefully the surroundings amidst which they find themselves; they soon perceive the prostration of the weaker spirits who are undergoing punishment, and they attach themselves to these as to a prey, arming themselves against them with the memory of their past misdeeds, of which they remind them incessantly by mocking gestures. This derisory pantomime not sufficing for their malice, they swoop down upon the Earth like famished vultures. They seek out, among mankind, the souls they think most likely to offer an easy road to their temptations, they take possession of such, stimulating their cupidity, striving to extinguish their faith in God, until, having obtained the mastery of their conscience, they draw them into every sort of evil.
The backward spirit who is thus able to exercise his malice is almost happy; he only suffers when he is unable to act, or when his efforts are frustrated by the action of superior spirits.
Meantime, centuries succeed centuries; the evil spirit, at length, finds himself suddenly invaded by darkness. His circle of action closes around him like a prison; his conscience, hitherto passive, pierces him with its torturing stings. Inactive, and carried away by the whirlwind of regrets and apprehensions, he wanders aimlessly, with hair bristling from fright, as per the scriptures. Presently, a sense of emptiness penetrates his being; a frightful void seems to yawn around him; the moment for commencing his expiation has come. Reincarnation stares him in the face, with all its horrors; he beholds, as in a mirage, the terrible trials to which he is about to be subjected; he would fain shrink back, but he is drawn onwards by a force superior to his own. Hurled down into the yawning abyss of fleshly life, he sinks through the horror of emptiness until the vale of oblivion envelopes him like a shroud.
Born again on Earth, he lives, he acts, he is again guilty of evil deeds; he is tormented by vague reminiscences that he cannot account for, by fitful presentiments that make him tremble, but that do not yet suffice to induce him to quit the path of evil. Extended on a prison couch, or on a luxurious bed (what does it matter?), the dying reprobate becomes aware, under his seeming unconsciousness, of a whole world of forgotten thoughts and sensations that are coming to life and moving within him. Under his closed eyelids, he sees a light that is not of earth; he hears strange sounds; his soul, about to quit his body, is uneasy and agitated, his stiffened hands clutch vainly at the coverings under which he is lying. He tries to speak; he would fain shriek, to those about him, “Hold me back! I see chastisement!” But the power of speech no longer exists for him; death settles on his pale lips; and those about him whisper “He is at rest! Georges”
A truer, more eloquent, more terrible picture of the fate of the evildoer was never drawn. Is there any need of adding, to the horrible sufferings thus portrayed, the phantasmagoria of material flames and physical tortures?
NOVEL
(The spirit is addressing the medium who knew him during his earthly life)
“I am going to tell you what I went through with in dying. My spirit, held to my body by the bonds of materiality, had great difficulty in getting free; this was a first and very severe distress. The physical life, which I had quitted at the age of twenty-four, was still so strong in me that I had no idea I had been withdrawn from it. I searched about for my body, and was both astonished and alarmed at finding myself lost in the midst of a crowd of shadows. At length, I was suddenly struck with the consciousness of my state and remembrance of the misdeeds done by me in all my incarnations; a pitiless light illuminated the most secret recesses of my soul, which, feeling itself naked, was seized with overwhelming shame. I sought to escape from this misery by directing my attention to the objects – new and yet known to me – with which I was surrounded. Radiant spirits, floating through the ether, showed me happiness to which I could not aspire; dark and frightful forms – some of them plunged in gloomy despair, others mocking or furious – were gliding about me, and upon the Earth to which I remained attached. I saw the movements of the people in the world, and I envied their ignorance of the other life with which they are in unconscious relationship; a whole order of sensations, unknown, or rather, recovered, suddenly invaded my being. Involved by an irresistible force, trying to flee from the tortures that beset me, I rushed madly forward, regardless of the elements, regardless of the physical obstacles; and neither the beauties of nature nor the splendors of the celestial regions could calm, for a single instant, the torments of my conscience and the terror caused me by the revelation of eternity. A mortal may form some idea of physical tortures from the shuddering of the flesh; but your fragile sorrows – softened by hope, tempered by the incidents of your earthly life, put an end to by forgetfulness – cannot give you the faintest notion of the anguish of a soul that suffers without cessation, without hope, without repentance! I remained, for a length of time that I am unable to measure, envying the happy spirits of whose splendors I sometimes obtained glimpses, detesting the evil spirits who pursued me with their mocking, despising the human beings whose turpitudes I witnessed, passing from the deepest prostration to insensate revolt.
At last, you called me; and, for the first time, a feeling of gentleness and tenderness appeased my suffering. I listened to the teachings given you by your guides; my eyes were opened to the truth; I prayed, and God heard me! He has now revealed Himself to me by His mercy, as He had previously revealed Himself to me by His justice.
“I am going to tell you what I went through with in dying. My spirit, held to my body by the bonds of materiality, had great difficulty in getting free; this was a first and very severe distress. The physical life, which I had quitted at the age of twenty-four, was still so strong in me that I had no idea I had been withdrawn from it. I searched about for my body, and was both astonished and alarmed at finding myself lost in the midst of a crowd of shadows. At length, I was suddenly struck with the consciousness of my state and remembrance of the misdeeds done by me in all my incarnations; a pitiless light illuminated the most secret recesses of my soul, which, feeling itself naked, was seized with overwhelming shame. I sought to escape from this misery by directing my attention to the objects – new and yet known to me – with which I was surrounded. Radiant spirits, floating through the ether, showed me happiness to which I could not aspire; dark and frightful forms – some of them plunged in gloomy despair, others mocking or furious – were gliding about me, and upon the Earth to which I remained attached. I saw the movements of the people in the world, and I envied their ignorance of the other life with which they are in unconscious relationship; a whole order of sensations, unknown, or rather, recovered, suddenly invaded my being. Involved by an irresistible force, trying to flee from the tortures that beset me, I rushed madly forward, regardless of the elements, regardless of the physical obstacles; and neither the beauties of nature nor the splendors of the celestial regions could calm, for a single instant, the torments of my conscience and the terror caused me by the revelation of eternity. A mortal may form some idea of physical tortures from the shuddering of the flesh; but your fragile sorrows – softened by hope, tempered by the incidents of your earthly life, put an end to by forgetfulness – cannot give you the faintest notion of the anguish of a soul that suffers without cessation, without hope, without repentance! I remained, for a length of time that I am unable to measure, envying the happy spirits of whose splendors I sometimes obtained glimpses, detesting the evil spirits who pursued me with their mocking, despising the human beings whose turpitudes I witnessed, passing from the deepest prostration to insensate revolt.
At last, you called me; and, for the first time, a feeling of gentleness and tenderness appeased my suffering. I listened to the teachings given you by your guides; my eyes were opened to the truth; I prayed, and God heard me! He has now revealed Himself to me by His mercy, as He had previously revealed Himself to me by His justice.
AUGUSTE MICHEL
(Le Havre, March 1863)
He was young, wealthy, dissipated, and absorbed in sensual pleasures. Although intelligent, he was utterly careless of serious things. Kindhearted, rather good than bad, he was a favorite with the companions of his pleasures and much sought after, in fashionable circles, for his gentle manners and agreeable talents; but, though he committed no crimes, he did no good. He died from the effects of an accident, being thrown from a carriage when taking a drive. Evoked a few days after his death by a medium that knew of him through other parties, he gave, successively, the following messages: –
March 8th, 1863. – I am scarcely disengaged from my body; it is therefore difficult for me to speak to you. The terrible fall, that killed my body, has thrown my spirit into great confusion. I am anxious as to what is going to become of me; my uncertainty in regard to this point is most painful. The frightful suffering experienced by my body is nothing in comparison with the dreadful state of confusion in which I now am. Pray for me, that God may forgive me! Oh, what misery! O God, have pity on me! What misery! Farewell!
March 18th – I came to you the other day, but I could only speak with difficulty. Even now, I find it hard work to do so. You are the only medium whom I can ask to pray for me, that God’s mercy may deliver me from the confusion in which I find myself. Why do I still suffer, when my body suffers no longer? Why does this horrible pain, this terrible anguish, still beset me? Pray, oh; pray for me, that God may grant me rest! Oh, what a frightful uncertainty! I am still attached to my body. I cannot make out where I am! My body is there; why am I there still? Come and pray over it, that I may be released from its cruel grip. Surely, God will grant me forgiveness! I see spirits who are near you; it is with their help that I am able to speak to you. Pray for me!
April 6th – It is I, who come again to entreat you to pray for me! You should have come to the place where my body is lying, to beseech the Almighty to calm my sufferings! How I suffer! Oh, how I suffer! Go to my grave; you must go and pray to God, there, to grant me forgiveness. If you do this, I shall be quieter; for I am constantly drawn back to the spot where what was I has been laid.
The medium, not understanding the spirit’s desire to get him to go and pray at his grave, had neglected to do so. He afterwards went, and received, there, the following communication:
May 11th – I was waiting for you. I have been longing for the moment when you should come to the place where my spirit seems to be riveted to its envelope, to implore of the God of mercy to calm my sufferings. You can do me good by your prayers; do not, I beseech you, relax your prayers on my behalf! I see how opposite was my life to what it ought to have been. I see the faults I committed. I was of no use while I was in the world; I turned my faculties to no account; my fortune only served to satisfy my passions, my taste for luxury, and my vanity. I thought only of sensual enjoyments, and not of my soul. Will the pity of God ever descend upon me, an unhappy spirit still suffering for the faults of his earthly life? Pray that He may forgive me, and that I may be delivered from the pains I am still feeling. Thank you for coming here to pray over me!
June 8th – I am able to speak to you, and I thank God for permitting me to do so. I see my faults; and I hope that God will forgive me. Follow, all your life, the belief with which you are animated; for you will thus win a rest that I have not yet obtained! Thanks for your prayers. I shall come to you again.”
The persistence of this spirit, in insisting upon being prayed for at the grave of his body, is a noteworthy peculiarity of his case, and one which is explained by the tenacity of the links that kept him attached to his body, and by the consequent slowness and difficulty of his separation from the latter, owing to his indulgence in the pleasures of sense. It is quite possible that, when offered up close beside the body, prayer may have a more powerful magnetic action, and this aid the spirit more effectually in effecting his disengagement. May not the general habit of praying beside the body of those who have passed away be due to an unreasoning intuition of this fact? The efficacy of prayer, in such a case, would be at once moral and physical.
March 8th, 1863. – I am scarcely disengaged from my body; it is therefore difficult for me to speak to you. The terrible fall, that killed my body, has thrown my spirit into great confusion. I am anxious as to what is going to become of me; my uncertainty in regard to this point is most painful. The frightful suffering experienced by my body is nothing in comparison with the dreadful state of confusion in which I now am. Pray for me, that God may forgive me! Oh, what misery! O God, have pity on me! What misery! Farewell!
March 18th – I came to you the other day, but I could only speak with difficulty. Even now, I find it hard work to do so. You are the only medium whom I can ask to pray for me, that God’s mercy may deliver me from the confusion in which I find myself. Why do I still suffer, when my body suffers no longer? Why does this horrible pain, this terrible anguish, still beset me? Pray, oh; pray for me, that God may grant me rest! Oh, what a frightful uncertainty! I am still attached to my body. I cannot make out where I am! My body is there; why am I there still? Come and pray over it, that I may be released from its cruel grip. Surely, God will grant me forgiveness! I see spirits who are near you; it is with their help that I am able to speak to you. Pray for me!
April 6th – It is I, who come again to entreat you to pray for me! You should have come to the place where my body is lying, to beseech the Almighty to calm my sufferings! How I suffer! Oh, how I suffer! Go to my grave; you must go and pray to God, there, to grant me forgiveness. If you do this, I shall be quieter; for I am constantly drawn back to the spot where what was I has been laid.
The medium, not understanding the spirit’s desire to get him to go and pray at his grave, had neglected to do so. He afterwards went, and received, there, the following communication:
May 11th – I was waiting for you. I have been longing for the moment when you should come to the place where my spirit seems to be riveted to its envelope, to implore of the God of mercy to calm my sufferings. You can do me good by your prayers; do not, I beseech you, relax your prayers on my behalf! I see how opposite was my life to what it ought to have been. I see the faults I committed. I was of no use while I was in the world; I turned my faculties to no account; my fortune only served to satisfy my passions, my taste for luxury, and my vanity. I thought only of sensual enjoyments, and not of my soul. Will the pity of God ever descend upon me, an unhappy spirit still suffering for the faults of his earthly life? Pray that He may forgive me, and that I may be delivered from the pains I am still feeling. Thank you for coming here to pray over me!
June 8th – I am able to speak to you, and I thank God for permitting me to do so. I see my faults; and I hope that God will forgive me. Follow, all your life, the belief with which you are animated; for you will thus win a rest that I have not yet obtained! Thanks for your prayers. I shall come to you again.”
The persistence of this spirit, in insisting upon being prayed for at the grave of his body, is a noteworthy peculiarity of his case, and one which is explained by the tenacity of the links that kept him attached to his body, and by the consequent slowness and difficulty of his separation from the latter, owing to his indulgence in the pleasures of sense. It is quite possible that, when offered up close beside the body, prayer may have a more powerful magnetic action, and this aid the spirit more effectually in effecting his disengagement. May not the general habit of praying beside the body of those who have passed away be due to an unreasoning intuition of this fact? The efficacy of prayer, in such a case, would be at once moral and physical.
REGRETS OF ONE WHO HAD INDULGED IN HIGH LIVING
(Bordeaux, April 19th, 1862)
July 30th – I am now less unhappy, for I no longer feel the chain that held me to my body. I am free, at last; but I have not completed my expiation; I must make up for lost time, if I would not prolong my sufferings. I trust that God will see the sincerity of my repentance and grant me His forgiveness. Pray for me still, I beg of you.
Men, my brothers! I lived only for myself; now I am expiating this wickedness, and I suffer! May God give you the grace to avoid the thorns by which I am torn! Walk in the broad road of holiness and pray for me; for I made a bad use of the possessions that God lends to His creatures!
He who sacrifices his intelligence and his higher sentiments to his animal instincts assimilates himself to the animals. Man should use with sobriety the property of which he is only the depository; he should accustom himself to live exclusively for the eternity that is awaiting him, and he should consequently detach himself from material enjoyments. His food should have no other aim than that of sustaining his vitality; his luxury should be strictly subordinated to the necessities of his position; his tastes, and even his natural tendencies, should be regulated by his reason; for, without this mastery of his animal nature, he debases instead of purifying himself. Human passions are a narrow bond that cuts into the flesh; be careful, therefore, not to tighten it. Live, but be not high livers. You know not what such abuses cost when we return to the native land of the soul! Terrestrial passions strip us of everything before they leave us, and we arrive in the presence of God naked, entirely naked. Rid yourselves, therefore, of those passions, and clothe yourselves with good deeds; they will aid you to cross the space that separates you from eternity. They will hide your human weaknesses with a shining mantle. Clothe yourselves with charity and love, divine garments of which nothing can deprive you!”
COMMENTARY BY THE MEDIUM’S GUIDE
This spirit is on the right road, since, to his repentance, he adds the giving of good advice in regard to the dangers of the evil road he formerly followed. To acknowledge one’s faults is, in itself, meritorious, and is a first step on the road to reformation; and for this reason, his situation, though not one of happiness, is no longer that of a “suffering spirit.” He repents; and he is therefore becoming fitted to make the reparation that he will accomplish in another life of trial. Would you know what, before reaching that point, is the situation of the spirits of those whose earthly life, altogether sensual, has failed to excite their spirit to any other activity than that of incessantly inventing new pleasures of the sensual order? The influence of matter follows them beyond the grave; their appetites are left intact by death, but, their range of vision being as narrow as upon the Earth, they seek in vain for the means of satisfying them. Never having cultivated mental and moral pleasures, their soul wanders through space – which is a void for them – without aim, without hope, a prey to the anxiety of one who sees before him no other perspective than that of an illimitable desert. The nullity of their intellectual occupations during the life of the body has its natural result in the nullity of the working of their spirit after death. Unable any longer to satisfy their body, they are incapable of procuring any satisfaction for their soul; hence arises, for them, a crushing weariness of which they cannot foresee any termination, and to escape from which they would gladly accept annihilation. But there is no annihilation; they have been able to kill their body, but they cannot kill their soul: they are therefore obliged to live on, undergoing all this mental torture, until, vanquished by lassitude, they at length determine to turn towards God.
July 30th – I am now less unhappy, for I no longer feel the chain that held me to my body. I am free, at last; but I have not completed my expiation; I must make up for lost time, if I would not prolong my sufferings. I trust that God will see the sincerity of my repentance and grant me His forgiveness. Pray for me still, I beg of you.
Men, my brothers! I lived only for myself; now I am expiating this wickedness, and I suffer! May God give you the grace to avoid the thorns by which I am torn! Walk in the broad road of holiness and pray for me; for I made a bad use of the possessions that God lends to His creatures!
He who sacrifices his intelligence and his higher sentiments to his animal instincts assimilates himself to the animals. Man should use with sobriety the property of which he is only the depository; he should accustom himself to live exclusively for the eternity that is awaiting him, and he should consequently detach himself from material enjoyments. His food should have no other aim than that of sustaining his vitality; his luxury should be strictly subordinated to the necessities of his position; his tastes, and even his natural tendencies, should be regulated by his reason; for, without this mastery of his animal nature, he debases instead of purifying himself. Human passions are a narrow bond that cuts into the flesh; be careful, therefore, not to tighten it. Live, but be not high livers. You know not what such abuses cost when we return to the native land of the soul! Terrestrial passions strip us of everything before they leave us, and we arrive in the presence of God naked, entirely naked. Rid yourselves, therefore, of those passions, and clothe yourselves with good deeds; they will aid you to cross the space that separates you from eternity. They will hide your human weaknesses with a shining mantle. Clothe yourselves with charity and love, divine garments of which nothing can deprive you!”
COMMENTARY BY THE MEDIUM’S GUIDE
This spirit is on the right road, since, to his repentance, he adds the giving of good advice in regard to the dangers of the evil road he formerly followed. To acknowledge one’s faults is, in itself, meritorious, and is a first step on the road to reformation; and for this reason, his situation, though not one of happiness, is no longer that of a “suffering spirit.” He repents; and he is therefore becoming fitted to make the reparation that he will accomplish in another life of trial. Would you know what, before reaching that point, is the situation of the spirits of those whose earthly life, altogether sensual, has failed to excite their spirit to any other activity than that of incessantly inventing new pleasures of the sensual order? The influence of matter follows them beyond the grave; their appetites are left intact by death, but, their range of vision being as narrow as upon the Earth, they seek in vain for the means of satisfying them. Never having cultivated mental and moral pleasures, their soul wanders through space – which is a void for them – without aim, without hope, a prey to the anxiety of one who sees before him no other perspective than that of an illimitable desert. The nullity of their intellectual occupations during the life of the body has its natural result in the nullity of the working of their spirit after death. Unable any longer to satisfy their body, they are incapable of procuring any satisfaction for their soul; hence arises, for them, a crushing weariness of which they cannot foresee any termination, and to escape from which they would gladly accept annihilation. But there is no annihilation; they have been able to kill their body, but they cannot kill their soul: they are therefore obliged to live on, undergoing all this mental torture, until, vanquished by lassitude, they at length determine to turn towards God.
LISBETH
(Bordeaux, February 13th, 1862)
A suffering spirit who came to the medium spontaneously, under the name of Lisbeth.
1. Will you tell us something about your position and the cause of your suffering?
A. Be humble-minded, resigned to the will of God, patient under trial, charitable to the poor, encouraging for the weak, warm-hearted for all who suffer, and you will not have to undergo the tortures I am enduring!
2. If you were carried away by the vices that are the opposites of the virtues you point out, you appear, at least, to regret your wrongdoing. Surely, your repentance must have brought you relief?
A. No, repentance is sterile when it is a consequence of suffering. Productive repentance is that which springs from regret for having offended God and from an ardent desire to make reparation for that offence. Unhappily for me, I have not yet reached that standpoint. Speak for me to those who consecrate themselves to the help of the suffering; I am in sad need of their prayers.
This is a great truth. Suffering sometimes drags from the sufferer a cry of repentance which is not the expression of a sincere regret for having done wrong, for, if he no longer suffered, he would be ready to repeat his wrongdoing. Mere repentance, therefore, does not always procure the sufferer’s deliverance; it prepares the way for deliverance, but that is all. Before the wrongdoer can be delivered from the results of his wrongdoing, he must prove the sincerity and the thoroughness of his good resolutions by undergoing new trials that will give him the means of making reparation for the evil he has done. If the reader carefully ponders over the various examples we have brought forth in the present material, he will find useful instruction in the statements of even the most backward spirits because they illuminate us in the most intimate details of the spiritual life. While the superficial reader sees, in these examples, only histories more or less picturesque, reflective minds will find in them an abundant stock of subjects for serious study.
3. I will do what you ask. Will you give me some details concerning your last existence? Such details may be instructive for us; and you will thus render your repentance productive.
(The spirit manifested a good deal of hesitation in replying to this question, and also to several of the subsequent ones.)
A. I was born in a high position. I had everything that men regard as conducive to happiness. Rich, I was selfish; handsome, I was coquettish; cold-hearted, and deceitful; of noble rank, I was ambitious. With my power, I crushed those who did not prostrate themselves sufficiently low before me; I crushed even those who threw themselves under my feet, without reflecting that the Lord also crushes, sooner or later, the haughtiest brows.
4. At what period did you live?
A. Onehundredandfiftyyearsago,inPrussia.
5. Have you, in that time, made no progress as a spirit?
A. No, the influence of matter has kept me in a state of constant revolt. You cannot comprehend the influence exerted by matter upon the spirit, notwithstanding the separation of the latter from the body. Pride winds around the soul its chains of brass, whose links grow tighter and tighter about the wretch who has abandoned his heart to its action. Pride! The hydra whose hundred heads – perpetually renewed – have the art of modulating their poisoned hisses so cunningly that its victims mistake them for celestial music! Pride! The Protean demon who lends himself in the deepest recesses of your heart, who penetrates into your veins, envelops your being, absorbs you, and draws you after him into the darkness of the eternal Gehenna!...Yes, eternal!
The spirit denies having made any progress; doubtless, because still in a painful situation; but the description given of pride and the horror expressed of the consequences of that vice, are incontestable proofs of progress; for, during life, she would certainly not have reasoned thus. The understanding of evil is the first step towards amendment; the will and the power to avoid evil comes afterwards.
6. God is too good to condemn His creatures to eternal punishment; you should hope in His mercy.
A. There may be an end to suffering; it is said that there is, but when? Where? I have sought it long; but I see only suffering, everywhere and forever! Forever! Forever!
7. What brought you here today?
A. Aspirit,whooftenfollowsme,broughtmehere.
Q. Since when have you seen that spirit?
A. Notverylong.
Q. And since when have you begun to repent of your faults?
A. (Afterreflectingsomeminutes)Yes;youareright;itwasthenthatIbegantoseehim.
8. Do you not understand the connection that exists between your repentance and the visible aid given you by your spirit-guardian? You should see, as the origin of this aid, the love of God, and, as its aim, the forgiveness that His infinite mercy is waiting to accord you.
A. Oh,howmuchIwishitmightbeso!
Q. I think I can promise you this forgiveness in the sacred name of Him who is never deaf to the cry of His children in distress. Call to Him from the depths of your repentance; He will hear you.
A. Icannot!Iamafraid.
9. Let us pray together; He shall certainly hear us. (After the prayer) Are you still here? A. Yes; thanks; do not forget me!
10. Come to me, and write your name, everyday.
A. Yes,yes;Iwillcomeeveryday.
The Medium’s Guide. – Never forget the teachings you derive from the sufferings of those whom you assist, especially as regards the causes of those sufferings; let them serve to preserve you from the same dangers and the same chastisements. Purify your hearts, be humble, love one another, be helpful and may your grateful heart never forget the fountain of all grace, an inexhaustible fountain where each one of you can drink abundantly; a living fountain which satisfies thirst and nurtures at the same time. A fountain of life and of eternal pleasures. Go to it, my beloved, and drink from it with faith. Throw your nets into it and from its waves will come a great quantity of blessings. Advise your brothers to imitate you and remind them of the dangers they can meet. Spread the blessings of the Father, as they are incessantly reborn; the more that you spread them around you, the more they will multiply. Point out to your brothers the dangers of the way; show them, by your example, how to avoid them; and the blessing of the Highest will be with you, and with those who listen to you.
A suffering spirit who came to the medium spontaneously, under the name of Lisbeth.
1. Will you tell us something about your position and the cause of your suffering?
A. Be humble-minded, resigned to the will of God, patient under trial, charitable to the poor, encouraging for the weak, warm-hearted for all who suffer, and you will not have to undergo the tortures I am enduring!
2. If you were carried away by the vices that are the opposites of the virtues you point out, you appear, at least, to regret your wrongdoing. Surely, your repentance must have brought you relief?
A. No, repentance is sterile when it is a consequence of suffering. Productive repentance is that which springs from regret for having offended God and from an ardent desire to make reparation for that offence. Unhappily for me, I have not yet reached that standpoint. Speak for me to those who consecrate themselves to the help of the suffering; I am in sad need of their prayers.
This is a great truth. Suffering sometimes drags from the sufferer a cry of repentance which is not the expression of a sincere regret for having done wrong, for, if he no longer suffered, he would be ready to repeat his wrongdoing. Mere repentance, therefore, does not always procure the sufferer’s deliverance; it prepares the way for deliverance, but that is all. Before the wrongdoer can be delivered from the results of his wrongdoing, he must prove the sincerity and the thoroughness of his good resolutions by undergoing new trials that will give him the means of making reparation for the evil he has done. If the reader carefully ponders over the various examples we have brought forth in the present material, he will find useful instruction in the statements of even the most backward spirits because they illuminate us in the most intimate details of the spiritual life. While the superficial reader sees, in these examples, only histories more or less picturesque, reflective minds will find in them an abundant stock of subjects for serious study.
3. I will do what you ask. Will you give me some details concerning your last existence? Such details may be instructive for us; and you will thus render your repentance productive.
(The spirit manifested a good deal of hesitation in replying to this question, and also to several of the subsequent ones.)
A. I was born in a high position. I had everything that men regard as conducive to happiness. Rich, I was selfish; handsome, I was coquettish; cold-hearted, and deceitful; of noble rank, I was ambitious. With my power, I crushed those who did not prostrate themselves sufficiently low before me; I crushed even those who threw themselves under my feet, without reflecting that the Lord also crushes, sooner or later, the haughtiest brows.
4. At what period did you live?
A. Onehundredandfiftyyearsago,inPrussia.
5. Have you, in that time, made no progress as a spirit?
A. No, the influence of matter has kept me in a state of constant revolt. You cannot comprehend the influence exerted by matter upon the spirit, notwithstanding the separation of the latter from the body. Pride winds around the soul its chains of brass, whose links grow tighter and tighter about the wretch who has abandoned his heart to its action. Pride! The hydra whose hundred heads – perpetually renewed – have the art of modulating their poisoned hisses so cunningly that its victims mistake them for celestial music! Pride! The Protean demon who lends himself in the deepest recesses of your heart, who penetrates into your veins, envelops your being, absorbs you, and draws you after him into the darkness of the eternal Gehenna!...Yes, eternal!
The spirit denies having made any progress; doubtless, because still in a painful situation; but the description given of pride and the horror expressed of the consequences of that vice, are incontestable proofs of progress; for, during life, she would certainly not have reasoned thus. The understanding of evil is the first step towards amendment; the will and the power to avoid evil comes afterwards.
6. God is too good to condemn His creatures to eternal punishment; you should hope in His mercy.
A. There may be an end to suffering; it is said that there is, but when? Where? I have sought it long; but I see only suffering, everywhere and forever! Forever! Forever!
7. What brought you here today?
A. Aspirit,whooftenfollowsme,broughtmehere.
Q. Since when have you seen that spirit?
A. Notverylong.
Q. And since when have you begun to repent of your faults?
A. (Afterreflectingsomeminutes)Yes;youareright;itwasthenthatIbegantoseehim.
8. Do you not understand the connection that exists between your repentance and the visible aid given you by your spirit-guardian? You should see, as the origin of this aid, the love of God, and, as its aim, the forgiveness that His infinite mercy is waiting to accord you.
A. Oh,howmuchIwishitmightbeso!
Q. I think I can promise you this forgiveness in the sacred name of Him who is never deaf to the cry of His children in distress. Call to Him from the depths of your repentance; He will hear you.
A. Icannot!Iamafraid.
9. Let us pray together; He shall certainly hear us. (After the prayer) Are you still here? A. Yes; thanks; do not forget me!
10. Come to me, and write your name, everyday.
A. Yes,yes;Iwillcomeeveryday.
The Medium’s Guide. – Never forget the teachings you derive from the sufferings of those whom you assist, especially as regards the causes of those sufferings; let them serve to preserve you from the same dangers and the same chastisements. Purify your hearts, be humble, love one another, be helpful and may your grateful heart never forget the fountain of all grace, an inexhaustible fountain where each one of you can drink abundantly; a living fountain which satisfies thirst and nurtures at the same time. A fountain of life and of eternal pleasures. Go to it, my beloved, and drink from it with faith. Throw your nets into it and from its waves will come a great quantity of blessings. Advise your brothers to imitate you and remind them of the dangers they can meet. Spread the blessings of the Father, as they are incessantly reborn; the more that you spread them around you, the more they will multiply. Point out to your brothers the dangers of the way; show them, by your example, how to avoid them; and the blessing of the Highest will be with you, and with those who listen to you.
PRINCE OURAN
(Bordeaux, 1862)
A suffering spirit who announces himself, spontaneously, as “Ouran, formerly a Russian Prince.”
Q. Will you give us some details of your situation?
A. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven!
Pray for me. Happy are they who, in humility of heart, choose, for the undergoing of their trials, a modest position! You know not, you who are devoured with envy, to what a state those are reduced whom you regard as the favorites of Fortune! You see not the coals of fire they heap upon their own heads; you know not what sacrifices riches impose upon those who would make them profitable to their advancement in the spirit-world! May the Lord permit me, the proud despot, to come back and to expiate, among those whom I crushed by my tyranny, the crimes which pride caused me to commit! Pride! Repeat that word incessantly, and never forget that pride is the source of all our sufferings! Yes, I misused the power and favor I enjoyed; I was harsh and cruel to my inferiors, whom I forced to yield to all my caprices, to satisfy all my depravities. I had elected to possess rank, honors, fortune; and I succumbed under the weight of a trial beyond my strength.
Spirits who have succumbed under a trial are very apt to say that it was beyond their strength; but this is a way of excusing their failure and is generally prompted by pride, which makes them unwilling to confess that they failed through their own fault. The Divine Providence imposes on no one more than he can bear; but spirits have their free will; and, if they bring their will to the task, there is no evil tendency that they cannot vanquish. Unfortunately, it too often happens that, the more strongly a spirit is naturally drawn to any given vice, the less does he, when incarnated as a man, exert himself to combat that tendency; consequently, if he fails to surmount it, he has only his own want of will to thank for his failure.
Q. You are conscious of your faults; this is a first step towards amendment.
A. This consciousness is an additional suffering. For many spirits, suffering is almost physical, because, being still influenced by the materiality of their last existence, they have no perception of moral sensations. My spirit is now quite free from the influence of matter; but my moral perception has acquired all the honor of the sensations that are supposed to be physical.
Q. Do you foresee the end of your sufferings?
A. I know that they will not be eternal; but I do not yet foresee their end; for that, I must undergo a new trial.
Q. Are you expecting to start, once again, soon?
A. Istilldonotknow.
Q. Do you remember anything of your preceding existences? I ask you this for the purpose of instruction.
A. Yes. Your guides are here and they know what is best for you. I have lived at the time of
Marcus Aurelius; in that life, also, I was in possession of power; and I succumbed to pride, the cause of all our failures. After having wandered for many centuries, I determined to try a life of obscurity. As a poor student, I begged my bread; but my innate pride was still with me; my spirit gained in knowledge, but not in virtue. Learned and ambitious, I sold myself to those who bid highest for my services, ministering to every hatred, to every revenge. I felt my wickedness; but the thirst of honors and of riches rendered me deaf to the voice of my conscience. The expiation of that life was long and terrible. At length I determined to undergo, anew, in my last incarnation, the temptations of luxury and power. Thinking myself strong enough to overcome the dangers of such a life, I refused to listen to the counsels of those who sought to dissuade me from the attempt. Pride led me once more to trust my own judgment, instead of following the advice of the protecting friends who never cease to watch over us. You know the result of that last attempt.
I have at last come to my sense of my weakness and folly, and I place my hope in the help of the Almighty. I have laid down at His feet my miserable pride, and have besought Him to place on my shoulders the heaviest load of humility; with His help, that load will seem to me light. Pray with me and for me; pray also for yourselves that the demon of pride may never gain power over your minds. Brothers in suffering! Let my example enlighten you. Forget not that pride is the enemy of happiness; for it is pride that causes all the ills that assail the human race and pursue it even in the spirit-world!”
The Medium’s Guide. – You have felt some doubt as to the sincerity of this spirit, because his language did not seem to you in harmony with the backwardness implied in his state of suffering. Be at ease on that score; what he has stated is true. However great his suffering, he is sufficiently advanced in intelligence to speak as he has done. All he has lacked has been the humility without which no spirit can ascend towards God. He has now achieved that humility; and we hope that, through perseverance in his new resolutions, he will leave triumphant, from his next trial.
Our Heavenly Father is all justice and wisdom. He takes into account every effort achieved by man to overcome his evil instincts. Every victory gained over ourselves takes us up another step of the ladder, on which one end is on Earth and the other end is before the feet of the Supreme Judge. Climb that ladder bravely; its steps are of easy access to he whose will is in the work: Always look toward the heights for encouragement, as unfortunate shall be he who delays and turns his head. In this case, the emptiness that surrounds him will be bewildering. He will find himself powerless and say: “What is the use of advancing further. I have profited so little.” No, my dear friends, don’t turn your head away. Pride is deep in the human heart; make this sentiment serve to give you strength and courage for your ascension! Employ your time overcoming your weaknesses and climb the summit of the eternal mountain.
A suffering spirit who announces himself, spontaneously, as “Ouran, formerly a Russian Prince.”
Q. Will you give us some details of your situation?
A. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven!
Pray for me. Happy are they who, in humility of heart, choose, for the undergoing of their trials, a modest position! You know not, you who are devoured with envy, to what a state those are reduced whom you regard as the favorites of Fortune! You see not the coals of fire they heap upon their own heads; you know not what sacrifices riches impose upon those who would make them profitable to their advancement in the spirit-world! May the Lord permit me, the proud despot, to come back and to expiate, among those whom I crushed by my tyranny, the crimes which pride caused me to commit! Pride! Repeat that word incessantly, and never forget that pride is the source of all our sufferings! Yes, I misused the power and favor I enjoyed; I was harsh and cruel to my inferiors, whom I forced to yield to all my caprices, to satisfy all my depravities. I had elected to possess rank, honors, fortune; and I succumbed under the weight of a trial beyond my strength.
Spirits who have succumbed under a trial are very apt to say that it was beyond their strength; but this is a way of excusing their failure and is generally prompted by pride, which makes them unwilling to confess that they failed through their own fault. The Divine Providence imposes on no one more than he can bear; but spirits have their free will; and, if they bring their will to the task, there is no evil tendency that they cannot vanquish. Unfortunately, it too often happens that, the more strongly a spirit is naturally drawn to any given vice, the less does he, when incarnated as a man, exert himself to combat that tendency; consequently, if he fails to surmount it, he has only his own want of will to thank for his failure.
Q. You are conscious of your faults; this is a first step towards amendment.
A. This consciousness is an additional suffering. For many spirits, suffering is almost physical, because, being still influenced by the materiality of their last existence, they have no perception of moral sensations. My spirit is now quite free from the influence of matter; but my moral perception has acquired all the honor of the sensations that are supposed to be physical.
Q. Do you foresee the end of your sufferings?
A. I know that they will not be eternal; but I do not yet foresee their end; for that, I must undergo a new trial.
Q. Are you expecting to start, once again, soon?
A. Istilldonotknow.
Q. Do you remember anything of your preceding existences? I ask you this for the purpose of instruction.
A. Yes. Your guides are here and they know what is best for you. I have lived at the time of
Marcus Aurelius; in that life, also, I was in possession of power; and I succumbed to pride, the cause of all our failures. After having wandered for many centuries, I determined to try a life of obscurity. As a poor student, I begged my bread; but my innate pride was still with me; my spirit gained in knowledge, but not in virtue. Learned and ambitious, I sold myself to those who bid highest for my services, ministering to every hatred, to every revenge. I felt my wickedness; but the thirst of honors and of riches rendered me deaf to the voice of my conscience. The expiation of that life was long and terrible. At length I determined to undergo, anew, in my last incarnation, the temptations of luxury and power. Thinking myself strong enough to overcome the dangers of such a life, I refused to listen to the counsels of those who sought to dissuade me from the attempt. Pride led me once more to trust my own judgment, instead of following the advice of the protecting friends who never cease to watch over us. You know the result of that last attempt.
I have at last come to my sense of my weakness and folly, and I place my hope in the help of the Almighty. I have laid down at His feet my miserable pride, and have besought Him to place on my shoulders the heaviest load of humility; with His help, that load will seem to me light. Pray with me and for me; pray also for yourselves that the demon of pride may never gain power over your minds. Brothers in suffering! Let my example enlighten you. Forget not that pride is the enemy of happiness; for it is pride that causes all the ills that assail the human race and pursue it even in the spirit-world!”
The Medium’s Guide. – You have felt some doubt as to the sincerity of this spirit, because his language did not seem to you in harmony with the backwardness implied in his state of suffering. Be at ease on that score; what he has stated is true. However great his suffering, he is sufficiently advanced in intelligence to speak as he has done. All he has lacked has been the humility without which no spirit can ascend towards God. He has now achieved that humility; and we hope that, through perseverance in his new resolutions, he will leave triumphant, from his next trial.
Our Heavenly Father is all justice and wisdom. He takes into account every effort achieved by man to overcome his evil instincts. Every victory gained over ourselves takes us up another step of the ladder, on which one end is on Earth and the other end is before the feet of the Supreme Judge. Climb that ladder bravely; its steps are of easy access to he whose will is in the work: Always look toward the heights for encouragement, as unfortunate shall be he who delays and turns his head. In this case, the emptiness that surrounds him will be bewildering. He will find himself powerless and say: “What is the use of advancing further. I have profited so little.” No, my dear friends, don’t turn your head away. Pride is deep in the human heart; make this sentiment serve to give you strength and courage for your ascension! Employ your time overcoming your weaknesses and climb the summit of the eternal mountain.
PASCAL LAVIC
(Le Havre, August 9th, 1863)
The spirit addressed himself spontaneously to the medium, who knew nothing whatever about him, and had never even heard his name.
“I believe in the goodness of God, and hope that He will take pity on my poor spirit. I have suffered dreadfully; my body perished at sea. My spirit remained fastened to my body; for a long time, it floated about upon the waves. God...”
(Here the communication suddenly broke off. On the following day the spirit resumed his message.)
“...has kindly permitted me to be taken out of the state of confusion and perplexity in which my spirit was plunged, by the prayers of those I had left behind me on the Earth. They waited for me a long time; at last, they found my body. It is now at rest; and my spirit, which had so much trouble in getting loose from it, sees the faults he has committed. When the trial is ended, God judges justly, and His goodness is extended to those who repent.
“If my spirit was tossed about so long with my body, it was because I had to expiate. Follow the straight road, if you would wish your spirit to get quickly free from your body of flesh. Live in the love of God; pray, and death, so horrible for some, will be softened for you, because you will know the life which awaits you. I died at sea; they waited for me a long time. Not to be able to get free from my body was a terrible trial for me; this is the reason that I need your prayers, as your belief is the one who can give the salvation. You can pray to God in my behalf in the correct manner. I repent; I hope God will forgive me! It was on August 6 that my body was found. I was a poor seafaring man, and I perished a long time ago. Pray for me!” PASCAL LAVIC
Q. Where was your body found?
A. Nearhere.
The Journal du Havre of August 11th, 1863, contained the following paragraph, of which the medium could know nothing: –
(Le Havre, August 9th, 1863)
The spirit addressed himself spontaneously to the medium, who knew nothing whatever about him, and had never even heard his name.
“I believe in the goodness of God, and hope that He will take pity on my poor spirit. I have suffered dreadfully; my body perished at sea. My spirit remained fastened to my body; for a long time, it floated about upon the waves. God...”
(Here the communication suddenly broke off. On the following day the spirit resumed his message.)
“...has kindly permitted me to be taken out of the state of confusion and perplexity in which my spirit was plunged, by the prayers of those I had left behind me on the Earth. They waited for me a long time; at last, they found my body. It is now at rest; and my spirit, which had so much trouble in getting loose from it, sees the faults he has committed. When the trial is ended, God judges justly, and His goodness is extended to those who repent.
“If my spirit was tossed about so long with my body, it was because I had to expiate. Follow the straight road, if you would wish your spirit to get quickly free from your body of flesh. Live in the love of God; pray, and death, so horrible for some, will be softened for you, because you will know the life which awaits you. I died at sea; they waited for me a long time. Not to be able to get free from my body was a terrible trial for me; this is the reason that I need your prayers, as your belief is the one who can give the salvation. You can pray to God in my behalf in the correct manner. I repent; I hope God will forgive me! It was on August 6 that my body was found. I was a poor seafaring man, and I perished a long time ago. Pray for me!” PASCAL LAVIC
Q. Where was your body found?
A. Nearhere.
The Journal du Havre of August 11th, 1863, contained the following paragraph, of which the medium could know nothing: –
“We have announced that there was found, on the 6th of this month, a portion of a human body, which had been washed ashore between Bleville and Le Havre. The head, arms, and bust, were missing; nevertheless, the identity of the corpse has been ascertained from the boots that were still attached to the feet. It has since been proved that the body was a fisherman, named Lavic, who perished on December 11th, being washed overboard from the fishing-smack, L’Alerte, in a storm, off Trouville. Lavic, born at Calais, was forty-nine years old. His identity was proved by his widow.”
On August 12th, as this incident was being discussed among the members of the circle in which the spirit had previously manifested himself, he made, spontaneously, the following communication: –
“I am really Pascal Lavic; and I need your prayers. You can do me good; for the trial I have been through was very terrible. The separation of my spirit from my body only took place when I had remembered my faults; and even then I was not separated entirely from my body, but followed it for a long time, as it was washed about by the waves. Beg God to forgive me! Beg Him to give me rest! Pray for me, I entreat of you! Let this terrible end of an unhappy existence be a great lesson for you all! You should think of the life to come and not fail to ask God to take pity on you. Pray for me; pray that God may take pity on me!” PASCAL LAVIC
On August 12th, as this incident was being discussed among the members of the circle in which the spirit had previously manifested himself, he made, spontaneously, the following communication: –
“I am really Pascal Lavic; and I need your prayers. You can do me good; for the trial I have been through was very terrible. The separation of my spirit from my body only took place when I had remembered my faults; and even then I was not separated entirely from my body, but followed it for a long time, as it was washed about by the waves. Beg God to forgive me! Beg Him to give me rest! Pray for me, I entreat of you! Let this terrible end of an unhappy existence be a great lesson for you all! You should think of the life to come and not fail to ask God to take pity on you. Pray for me; pray that God may take pity on me!” PASCAL LAVIC
FERDINAND BERTIN
A medium, which lived at Le Havre, having evoked the spirit of a person whom he had known, the latter replied:
“I should like to communicate with you; but I cannot vanquish the obstacle between us; I am obliged to let these unhappy and suffering spirits come to you.”
The following communication was then spontaneously dictated:—
“I am in a horrible abyss! Help me!...O my God! who will take me out of this whirlpool? Who will lend a helping hand to the miserable wretch who is being sucked in by the sea?...The night is so dark that I am full of terror...Everywhere, the roaring of the waves, and no friendly world to console me and to aid me in this fearful hour; for this dark night is death, death in all its horror, and I will not die!...O God! it is not coming death; it is death that is past!...I am separated forever from those I love...I see my body; and what I felt a moment ago, was only the remembrance of the frightful anguish of the separation...Have pity on me, you who know of my sufferings; pray for me, for I would not feel again, as I have been doing ever since that fatal night, the struggles of the death-agony!...But that is my punishment; I know it beforehand...Pray for me, I conjure you!...Oh, the sea...the cold...I am being swallowed up!...Help! help!...Ah, take pity on me; do not repel me!...There is room for two of us on this spar!...Oh! I am choking!...The waves are covering me, and those who belong to me will not even have the melancholy consolation of finding my corpse!...But no, I see that my body is no longer tossed about by the waves... My mother’s prayers have been heard...My poor mother! If she could but see how miserable is her son, she would pray all the harder; but she thinks that the cause of my death has sanctified the past! She weeps for me as a martyr, instead of the wretched and chastised criminal that I am! Oh, you who know of my misery, will you remain without pity? No, no; you will pray for me!” FERDINAND BERTIN
As this name was entirely unknown to the medium, he supposed the message just given to be from the spirit of some hapless victim of shipwreck who had spontaneously come to him, as had already happened to him on several occasions. He subsequently learned that it was that of one of the victims of a terrible disaster that had occurred off the coast of that region, December 2nd, 1863. The communication was given on the 8th of the same month, six days after the occurrence of the catastrophe. The individual had perished in making superhuman efforts to save the crew of the lost vessel, and at the moment when his own safety seemed to be secured.
The individual in question was not connected with the medium by any tie of relationship, or even of acquaintanceship; why, then, it may be asked, should he has manifested himself to him rather than to some one of his own family? It must be remembered that spirits do not find, in everyone, the fluidic conditions necessary for their manifestation; moreover, in the state of confusion in which this spirit then was, he could have little freedom of choice. He was instinctively attracted towards this particular medium, who was gifted, apparently, with a special aptitude for receiving spontaneous communications of this kind; and he no doubt had a presentiment of the special sympathy he would meet with from him, as had been the case with many others in similar circumstances. His family, knowing nothing of Spiritism, possibly opposed to it, would not have received his revelation, as did this medium.
Although his death had taken place several days before, the spirit was still undergoing all its anguish. It is evident that he did not understand his own situation. He believed himself to be still alive and struggling with the waves, and, at the same time, he speaks of his body as though he were separated from it; he shouts for help, and, a moment afterwards, he speaks of the cause of his death, which he recognizes as having been a punishment: all this denotes the confusion of ideas which usually follows violent death.
Two months afterwards, February 2nd, 1864, he again communicated, spontaneously, through the same medium, and dictated the following message: –
“The pity you showed for my horrible sufferings has given me relief. I begin to hope; I look forward to forgiveness, but after the punishment of my crime. I still suffer; and if I am permitted, for a few moments, to foresee the end of my affliction, it is only to the prayers of charitable hearts, who feel for my misery, that I owe this consolation. O Hope, heavenly ray, how do I bless thee when thou shiniest into my soul!... But, alas! the abyss yawns again around me; terror and agony extinguish this gleam of pity...Night; always night!...the water, the waves that have swallowed up my body, are but a feeble image of the horror that surrounds my unhappy spirit...I am calmer when I am near you; for, as a terrible secret, when confided to a friendly breast, is lightened of half its weight, so your pity for my misery calms my pain and gives me rest. Your prayers do me good; do not refuse them to me! I do not want to fall back into the hideous dream that becomes a reality when I see it.... Hold the pencil more often; it does me so much good to communicate through you!”
A few days afterwards, the same spirit having been evoked on Paris, the following questions were addressed to him, and he replied to them in a single communication, through another medium.
Q. What led you to manifest yourself spontaneously to the first medium through whom you communicated? How long had you been dead when you thus manifested?
At that time, you seemed uncertain as to whether you were dead or alive, and you were feeling all the anguish of a terrible death; do you now understand your situation more clearly? You have stated that your death was an expiation; tell us what was its cause; it will be instructive for us, and a relief to you. By a sincere avowal, you will attract the Divine mercy that we solicit for you in our prayers.
A. It seems impossible, at first sight that any creature can suffer so horribly! How dreadful, to see yourself constantly in the midst of furious waves, to feel incessantly this bitterness, this icy cold that creeps up over you and seems to crush your stomach as in a vice! But what is the use of showing you always the same horrid spectacle? Ought I not rather to begin by thanking you for the interest you so kindly take in my torments? You ask me how long I had been dead when I first communicated. It is difficult for me to answer this question. Remember, in what a horrible condition I was and still am! But I think I must have been led to the medium by a will superior to my own; and – a thing I find it impossible to understand – I used his arms as easily as I am now using yours, persuaded that it is my own! At this moment, I feel great joy, a wonderful lightening of my trouble; but this, alas! will soon cease. I know that I ought to make a confession; shall I have the strength to make it?
After much encouragement, the spirit added:
I have been very guilty! What distresses me most is that people should regard me as a martyr; for I am nothing of the kind...In a preceding existence, I caused several victims to be sewed up in a sack and thrown into the sea...Pray for me!
COMMENT OF SAINT LOUIS ON THE FOREGOING: –
This confession will be a great relief to the spirit. Yes, he has been very guilty! But the existence he has just quitted was an honorable one. He was liked and esteemed by his employers, an amendment which was the fruit of his repentance and of the good resolutions formed by him before returning to the Earth, where he had determined to be as humane as he had formerly been cruel. The devotion that cost him his life was a reparation, but it was necessary for him to redeem his past misdeeds by a final expiation; that of the terrible death he has just endured. He had asked to be allowed to purify himself by undergoing the same tortures that he had caused to be undergone by others; and as you perceive, what he regrets the most is to see that people mistake him for a martyr. You may rely upon it that he will be rewarded for this humility. He will now quit the path of expiation and will enter upon that of rehabilitation; by your prayers, you may sustain him on that path and aid him to pursue his way with a stronger and surer step.
The following communication was then spontaneously dictated:—
“I am in a horrible abyss! Help me!...O my God! who will take me out of this whirlpool? Who will lend a helping hand to the miserable wretch who is being sucked in by the sea?...The night is so dark that I am full of terror...Everywhere, the roaring of the waves, and no friendly world to console me and to aid me in this fearful hour; for this dark night is death, death in all its horror, and I will not die!...O God! it is not coming death; it is death that is past!...I am separated forever from those I love...I see my body; and what I felt a moment ago, was only the remembrance of the frightful anguish of the separation...Have pity on me, you who know of my sufferings; pray for me, for I would not feel again, as I have been doing ever since that fatal night, the struggles of the death-agony!...But that is my punishment; I know it beforehand...Pray for me, I conjure you!...Oh, the sea...the cold...I am being swallowed up!...Help! help!...Ah, take pity on me; do not repel me!...There is room for two of us on this spar!...Oh! I am choking!...The waves are covering me, and those who belong to me will not even have the melancholy consolation of finding my corpse!...But no, I see that my body is no longer tossed about by the waves... My mother’s prayers have been heard...My poor mother! If she could but see how miserable is her son, she would pray all the harder; but she thinks that the cause of my death has sanctified the past! She weeps for me as a martyr, instead of the wretched and chastised criminal that I am! Oh, you who know of my misery, will you remain without pity? No, no; you will pray for me!” FERDINAND BERTIN
As this name was entirely unknown to the medium, he supposed the message just given to be from the spirit of some hapless victim of shipwreck who had spontaneously come to him, as had already happened to him on several occasions. He subsequently learned that it was that of one of the victims of a terrible disaster that had occurred off the coast of that region, December 2nd, 1863. The communication was given on the 8th of the same month, six days after the occurrence of the catastrophe. The individual had perished in making superhuman efforts to save the crew of the lost vessel, and at the moment when his own safety seemed to be secured.
The individual in question was not connected with the medium by any tie of relationship, or even of acquaintanceship; why, then, it may be asked, should he has manifested himself to him rather than to some one of his own family? It must be remembered that spirits do not find, in everyone, the fluidic conditions necessary for their manifestation; moreover, in the state of confusion in which this spirit then was, he could have little freedom of choice. He was instinctively attracted towards this particular medium, who was gifted, apparently, with a special aptitude for receiving spontaneous communications of this kind; and he no doubt had a presentiment of the special sympathy he would meet with from him, as had been the case with many others in similar circumstances. His family, knowing nothing of Spiritism, possibly opposed to it, would not have received his revelation, as did this medium.
Although his death had taken place several days before, the spirit was still undergoing all its anguish. It is evident that he did not understand his own situation. He believed himself to be still alive and struggling with the waves, and, at the same time, he speaks of his body as though he were separated from it; he shouts for help, and, a moment afterwards, he speaks of the cause of his death, which he recognizes as having been a punishment: all this denotes the confusion of ideas which usually follows violent death.
Two months afterwards, February 2nd, 1864, he again communicated, spontaneously, through the same medium, and dictated the following message: –
“The pity you showed for my horrible sufferings has given me relief. I begin to hope; I look forward to forgiveness, but after the punishment of my crime. I still suffer; and if I am permitted, for a few moments, to foresee the end of my affliction, it is only to the prayers of charitable hearts, who feel for my misery, that I owe this consolation. O Hope, heavenly ray, how do I bless thee when thou shiniest into my soul!... But, alas! the abyss yawns again around me; terror and agony extinguish this gleam of pity...Night; always night!...the water, the waves that have swallowed up my body, are but a feeble image of the horror that surrounds my unhappy spirit...I am calmer when I am near you; for, as a terrible secret, when confided to a friendly breast, is lightened of half its weight, so your pity for my misery calms my pain and gives me rest. Your prayers do me good; do not refuse them to me! I do not want to fall back into the hideous dream that becomes a reality when I see it.... Hold the pencil more often; it does me so much good to communicate through you!”
A few days afterwards, the same spirit having been evoked on Paris, the following questions were addressed to him, and he replied to them in a single communication, through another medium.
Q. What led you to manifest yourself spontaneously to the first medium through whom you communicated? How long had you been dead when you thus manifested?
At that time, you seemed uncertain as to whether you were dead or alive, and you were feeling all the anguish of a terrible death; do you now understand your situation more clearly? You have stated that your death was an expiation; tell us what was its cause; it will be instructive for us, and a relief to you. By a sincere avowal, you will attract the Divine mercy that we solicit for you in our prayers.
A. It seems impossible, at first sight that any creature can suffer so horribly! How dreadful, to see yourself constantly in the midst of furious waves, to feel incessantly this bitterness, this icy cold that creeps up over you and seems to crush your stomach as in a vice! But what is the use of showing you always the same horrid spectacle? Ought I not rather to begin by thanking you for the interest you so kindly take in my torments? You ask me how long I had been dead when I first communicated. It is difficult for me to answer this question. Remember, in what a horrible condition I was and still am! But I think I must have been led to the medium by a will superior to my own; and – a thing I find it impossible to understand – I used his arms as easily as I am now using yours, persuaded that it is my own! At this moment, I feel great joy, a wonderful lightening of my trouble; but this, alas! will soon cease. I know that I ought to make a confession; shall I have the strength to make it?
After much encouragement, the spirit added:
I have been very guilty! What distresses me most is that people should regard me as a martyr; for I am nothing of the kind...In a preceding existence, I caused several victims to be sewed up in a sack and thrown into the sea...Pray for me!
COMMENT OF SAINT LOUIS ON THE FOREGOING: –
This confession will be a great relief to the spirit. Yes, he has been very guilty! But the existence he has just quitted was an honorable one. He was liked and esteemed by his employers, an amendment which was the fruit of his repentance and of the good resolutions formed by him before returning to the Earth, where he had determined to be as humane as he had formerly been cruel. The devotion that cost him his life was a reparation, but it was necessary for him to redeem his past misdeeds by a final expiation; that of the terrible death he has just endured. He had asked to be allowed to purify himself by undergoing the same tortures that he had caused to be undergone by others; and as you perceive, what he regrets the most is to see that people mistake him for a martyr. You may rely upon it that he will be rewarded for this humility. He will now quit the path of expiation and will enter upon that of rehabilitation; by your prayers, you may sustain him on that path and aid him to pursue his way with a stronger and surer step.
FRANÇOIS RIQUIER
François Riquier, a very commonplace person, an old miser and an old bachelor, died at C—— in 1857, leaving a considerable fortune to distant relations. He had formerly been the landlord of a lady who had quite forgotten him, and who did not even know whether he was alive or dead. In 1862, this lady’s daughter, who is subject to attacks of catalepsy followed by spontaneous magnetic sleep, and who is besides a very good writing medium, saw, when in this sleep, Mr. Riquier, who wished, she said, to say something to her mother. A few days afterwards, having been evoked for the purpose of enabling him to satisfy this wish by speaking with the lady, the following conversation occurred between them:
Q. What do you want of me?
A. My money, of which they have taken the whole, the wretches! Sharing it between them. They have sold off my farms, my houses, and all my property, to divide it among themselves! They have broken up my fortune, as though it did not belong to me. Make them give me my rights, for they will not listen to me, and I will not put up with such an infamous robbery. They call me a usurer, and they keep my money from me! Why do they not give it back to me, since they say it was ill gotten?
Q. But you are dead, my good man; you no longer need money! Ask of God to grant you a new existence, a life of poverty, that so you may expiate the avarice of your last one.
A. No, I could not live if I were poor. I must have my money to be able to live. Besides, I don’t need any other life, since I am living now.
Q. (The following question was put, in order to bring him to a sense of the reality of his position.) Do you suffer?
A. Oh yes! I am suffering tortures that are worse than the most painful disease, for it is my soul that endures them! I have constantly presented to my mind the thought of the iniquity of my life, which was a subject of scandal to many. I know that I am a miserable wretch unworthy of pity; but I suffer so much that you must help me to come out of this dreadful state.
Q. We will pray for you.
A. Thank you! Pray that I may forget my earthly riches, unless I do that, I shall never be able to repent. Farewell; thanks.
FRANÇOIS RIQUIER NO. 14 RUE DE LA CHARITÉ.
It is curious to see the spirit giving his address, as though he were still alive. The lady, who had no idea where he had lived, went to the house indicated and found, to her surprise that it was really the last one in which he had lived. Thus, five years after his death, he did not know that he was dead and was still undergoing all the anxiety, terrible for a miser, of seeing his property divided among his heirs. The evocation, suggested, no doubt, by some friendly spirit, had the effect of making him understand his real position and of leading him to repentance.
Q. What do you want of me?
A. My money, of which they have taken the whole, the wretches! Sharing it between them. They have sold off my farms, my houses, and all my property, to divide it among themselves! They have broken up my fortune, as though it did not belong to me. Make them give me my rights, for they will not listen to me, and I will not put up with such an infamous robbery. They call me a usurer, and they keep my money from me! Why do they not give it back to me, since they say it was ill gotten?
Q. But you are dead, my good man; you no longer need money! Ask of God to grant you a new existence, a life of poverty, that so you may expiate the avarice of your last one.
A. No, I could not live if I were poor. I must have my money to be able to live. Besides, I don’t need any other life, since I am living now.
Q. (The following question was put, in order to bring him to a sense of the reality of his position.) Do you suffer?
A. Oh yes! I am suffering tortures that are worse than the most painful disease, for it is my soul that endures them! I have constantly presented to my mind the thought of the iniquity of my life, which was a subject of scandal to many. I know that I am a miserable wretch unworthy of pity; but I suffer so much that you must help me to come out of this dreadful state.
Q. We will pray for you.
A. Thank you! Pray that I may forget my earthly riches, unless I do that, I shall never be able to repent. Farewell; thanks.
FRANÇOIS RIQUIER NO. 14 RUE DE LA CHARITÉ.
It is curious to see the spirit giving his address, as though he were still alive. The lady, who had no idea where he had lived, went to the house indicated and found, to her surprise that it was really the last one in which he had lived. Thus, five years after his death, he did not know that he was dead and was still undergoing all the anxiety, terrible for a miser, of seeing his property divided among his heirs. The evocation, suggested, no doubt, by some friendly spirit, had the effect of making him understand his real position and of leading him to repentance.
CLAIRE
(Paris Society, 1861)
The spirit who dictated the following communications is that of a woman who was known to the medium when alive, and whose conduct fully accounted for the torments that she endured after death. Her selfishness and personality are strongly reflected, in her third communication, in which she insists that the medium should attend only to her. These communications were obtained at different periods; the last three show an evident progress on the part of the spirit, thanks to the efforts of the medium who had undertaken her moral education.
I. Here I am, I, unhappy Claire! What can I say to you? You speak of resignation and hope; but they are mere words for one who knows that, innumerable as the pebbles on the shore, her sufferings will last throughout the succession of interminable ages. I can lessen them, say you? What a senseless assertion! Where am I to find the courage, the hope, for doing that? Try, with your narrow brain, to imagine what must be a day that never comes to an end! It is a day, a year, a century? How do I know? It is not divided by hours; it is not varied by seasons; eternal, slow, like the ceaseless dripping of water from a rock, the day that I execrate, that I curse, weighs on me like a leaden pall! ... I suffer! ... I see nothing around me but shadows, silent, and caring nothing.... I suffer!
I know, nevertheless, that God reigns above this misery; God, the Father, the Master; He towards whom everything tends. I will think of Him; I will implore His pity....
I struggle.... I drag myself painfully along, like some lame creature crawling by the wayside. A power –– I know not what –– draws me to you; perhaps you will help my deliverance? When I leave you, I am a little calmer, a little warmer; as a shivering wretch that is comforted by a ray of sunshine, so my frozen soul gains new life when it approaches you.
II. My misery deepens every day, in proportion as the knowledge of eternity is developed in my mind. Oh, the wretched mistake of my past! How I curse you, guilty hours of selfishness and folly, in which, forgetful of charity, of devotion, I thought only of my own enjoyment! I curse you, short- sighted arrangements of human life! Idle anxieties about physical and worldly interests! I curse you, for you blinded me and led me on to my ruin! I am gnawed by the ceaseless regret of my wasted time! What can I say to you who are listening to me? Watch constantly over yourself; think more of others than of yourself; linger not in the paths of sensual enjoyment; do not pamper your body at the expense of your soul; “Watch!” as said the Savior to His disciples. Do not thank me for these counsels; my intelligence appreciates them, but my heart has never listened to them. Like a whipped dog, fear makes me crouch; but I have not yet attained to the freedom of the love of duty. The divine dawn has not yet risen for me! Pray for my parched and miserable soul!
III. I have come to seek you, since you forget me. You believe, then, that a few prayers, now and then, the pronouncing of my name, can suffice to relieve such suffering as mine? Undeceive yourself. I roar with pain; I wander without rest, without refuge, without hope, feeling the dart of chastisement piercing ever deeper and deeper into my rebellious soul! I laugh when I hear your complaints, when I see you sad! What are your weak sorrows? What are your tears? What are the torments of your life, on which sleep imposes a truce? Do I sleep? I demand –do you hear? –I demand of you to put aside your philosophic dissertations, to attend to me, and to make others attend to me. I have no words to express the anguish of this time that flows on and on, forever, with no succession of hours to mark its periods. It is as much as I can do to detect a faint ray of hope; and this hope it is you who have given it me: do not abandon me!
IV. (Remark of St. Louis) – This picture is but too true, for it is not at all overcharged. It may be asked, “What has this woman done to be so miserable? Has she committed some horrible crime? Has she robbed, or assassinated?” No, she has done nothing that falls under the stroke of human law. On the contrary, her life was filled with what, upon the Earth, you consider as happiness; she had beauty, fortune, adulation; everything seemed to smile on her; nothing was lacking to her; and people said, on seeing her, “What a happy woman!” And they envied her position. “What has she done?” She was selfish; she had everything, excepting a kindly heart. Though she violated no human law, her life was a continuous violation of the law of God; for she neglected charity, the first and greatest of human virtues. She loved only herself; now, no one loves her. She gave nothing to others; no one now gives to her. She is alone, neglected, abandoned, lost in space, where no one thinks of her or takes any notice of her; and this isolation constitutes her torment. As she sought only worldly enjoyments, and as those enjoyments no longer exist for her, she has an empty void all around her; she sees only nothingness; and nothingness seems to her to be her eternal portion. She has no physical tortures to undergo; no devils come to torment her; but she has no need of them, she is her own tormentor, and she suffers all the more on the account, for devils would be creatures, and would be thinking of her. Selfishness was her delight on Earth; now it pursues her; it is a worm that gnaws into her heart; it is her demon. SAINT LOUIS
V. I would speak to you of the important differences between the Divine morality and human morality. The first has pity for the abandonment of the woman taken in adultery and says to the sinner, “Repent! And the Kingdom of Heaven shall be opened to you.” The Divine morality accepts all repentance and forgives all faults that are acknowledged; while human morality repels the latter and smilingly pardons faults if they are only hidden. The one has the grace of forgiveness, the other, hypocrisy. Choose, you who are eager for truth, choose between the opening of the heavens to repentance, and the tolerance that winks at the wrongdoing which does not disturb its selfishness and its deceitful arrangements, while repelling the passionate sobbing of the remorse that makes its confession in the light of day! Repent, all you who have sinned; renounce your evil ways; but, above all, renounce your hypocrisy which hides the ugliness of evil under the smiling and deceptive mask of conventional forms!
VI. I have become calm and resigned to the expiation of my faults. The evil from which I suffer is in me, and not outside of me; therefore, it is I who must change, and not exterior things. We carry within ourselves our heaven and our hell; our faults, graven on our conscience, are legible by all when we enter the spirit-world, and we are thus our own judges, since it is the state of our soul that raises us up or casts us down. Let me explain what I mean: – a spirit soiled and weighed by his faults can neither desire nor imagine an elevation to which he is unequal. Be sure of this: – just as each of the different species of beings lives in the sphere which is proper to it, so spirits, according to the degree of their advancement, find themselves in the surroundings which are in harmony with their faculties; and they can only conceive of anything beyond these when progress, the slow agent of the transformation of souls, clears them of their base tendencies and strips them of the chrysalis of sinfulness, that so they may be able to try their wings, before taking their flight, swift as the arrow, towards the Divine Being, as their sole aim and desire. Alas! I still crawl on the ground; but I no longer hate, and I begin to form to myself some faint conception of the ineffable happiness of loving God. Therefore, continue to pray for me, who hope and wait.
In the next communication, Claire speaks of her husband, who gave her a good deal of trouble during his life, and of his present position in the world of spirits. This picture, which she was unable to finish, was completed by the medium’s spirit-guide.
VII. I come to you who have so long forgotten me; but I have become patient and am no longer despairing. You wish to know what poor Felix’s situation is; he is wandering in darkness, a prey to utter spiritual destitution. Of a superficial and frivolous nature, soiled by carnal passions, he has never known either love or friendship; even passion failed to light up his futility with its somber gleams. His present state is that of a child who, incapable of looking after the things of its physical life, is deprived of the help of those about him. Felix wanders in terror through this world, so strange to him, in that everything reflects the splendor of the God whose existence he denied....
VIII. (The Medium’s Guide) — Claire cannot continue the analysis of her husband’s sufferings without feeling them in her own person; I will therefore speak for her.
Felix, who was as superficial in mind as in sentiment, violent because he was weak, debauched because he was unloving, has returned into the world of spirits as naked, morally, as physically. During his terrestrial life, he acquired nothing; and he has, consequently, to begin everything over again. Like a man who wakens out of a long dream and perceives how useless has been the excitement of his nerves, this pitiable being, on coming out of the confusion of the separation, will see that he has been living with chimeras that have led him astray; he will curse the materialism that caused him to embrace emptiness when he fancied he was grasping a reality; he will curse the positivism that led him to regard the idea of a future life as an empty fantasy, to look upon aspiration as folly, and to condemn belief in God as weakness. This unhappy spirit, on waking, will see that these words, scoffed at by him, were formulas of truth, and that, reversing the fable, the pursuit of what he believed to be a “reality” has been less profitable than would have been that of what he scorned as a “shadow.” GEORGES
REMARKS ON CLAIRE’S COMMUNICATIONS
These communications are especially instructive because they show us one of the most common aspects of life - selfishness. They do not startle us with the great crimes that fill even the wicked themselves with horror; they paint the condition of a mass of people who live in society, honored and sought after, because they possess the varnish of good-breeding, and because they do not bring themselves under the ban of social law. Neither do they show us, in the spirit-world, any of the exceptional punishments the picture of which makes us shudder; they show us a situation which is the simple and natural consequence of the habits of life, and of the state of the soul, and in which isolation, neglect, abandonment, are the punishment of him who has lived only for himself. Claire, as we have seen, was intelligent but utterly selfish. When upon the Earth, her social position, her fortune, her physical advantages, attracted to her the homage that flattered her vanity and satisfied her desires. But, in the other life, she meets only with indifference, and an empty void surrounds her; a punishment more poignant, for her, than actual pain, because it is mortifying; whereas pain inspires pity and compassion, attracts attention, and causes others to take an interest in the sufferer.
The sixth communication contains an idea that is perfectly true, and that explains the persistence of certain spirits in evil. We are often astonished at finding how indifferent some of them are to the thought, and even to the sight, of the happiness enjoyed by those of the higher ranks. But they are exactly in the position of degraded men who take pleasure in filth and in gross sensualities. Such people feel themselves at home in evil surroundings, and have no idea of satisfactions of a more refined character. They prefer their sordid rags to the cleanest and handsomest garments, because they are more at their ease in them; and, for a similar reason, they prefer their low orgies to the pleasures of refined society. They have identified themselves so thoroughly with their kind of life that it has become for them a second nature; they seem to themselves to be incapable of rising above their present sphere, and they accordingly remain in it until a transformation of their nature has opened their intelligence and developed their moral sense, and had thus rendered them susceptible of more subtle sensations.
Such spirits, when disincarnated, cannot acquire delicacy of sentiment all at once; and, during a longer or shorter period, they occupy the lower regions of the spirit-world; but, in the long run, with the aid of the experience, tribulations, and miseries of successive incarnations, they begin to conceive of the possibility of something better than their way of life; their aspirations point to a higher state; they begin to understand what is wanting to them, and they then exert themselves to acquire and to go up. When once they have entered on this path, they move on rapidly, because they have obtained glimpses of satisfactions which appear to them to be greatly superior to those in which they formerly wallowed, and which, being only gross sensations, finished by causing them repugnance and disgust.
(QUESTION ADDRESSED TO SAINT LOUIS)
Q. What are we to understand by the “darkness” in which some of the suffering spirits say they are plunged? Could this darkness be the same as the one referred to in the Scripture?
A. The darkness in question is precisely that which is alluded to by Jesus and the prophets, in speaking of the punishment of the wicked. But this should not be understood except as a figure destined to injure the material senses of his contemporaries, who would not have been able to understand punishment in an elusive spiritual manner. Certain spirits are really plunged in a thick darkness, an obscuration of the soul which constitutes for it a darkness like that of night, a mental obscurity like that which darkens the intelligence of a mentally disabled. It is not spirit-madness; it is, on the part of the spirit, an unconsciousness of himself and of all that is around him which subsists as densely, in presence of light as in its absence. This darkness is especially the punishment of those who, in the earthly life, have doubted the fact of a future existence. They have believed in nothingness, and this semblance of nothingness becomes their torture, until their soul, making, at length, a resolute effort, breaks through the network of moral enervation by that it has been seized; just as an instant comes when one who has been attacked with nightmare struggles, with all his might, against the terror and oppression by which he has been momentarily overcome. This temporary reducing of the soul to a fictitious nothingness, while preserving the perception of its own existence, is a much more painful form of suffering than might be supposed, because of the appearance of repose which it presents; it is precisely this enforced repose, thus nullity of its being, this uncertainty, that constitutes its torture; it is the utter weariness with which it is overwhelmed that constitutes its most terrible chastisement, for it perceives nothing around it, neither things nor beings; it is, for the soul, a real and absolute darkness. SAINT LOUIS
(Claire) I am here. I, also, am able to reply to the question concerning the darkness of the spirit- world, for I wandered and suffered for a long period in the vague limbo where all is weeping and misery. Yes, the darkness visible of which the Scriptures speak does really exist; and the wretches who, having terminated their earthly trial, quit the world of men in a state of ignorance or of guilt, are plunged into that icy region, understanding nothing of themselves or of their destiny. They suppose that their state will be forever the same; they still murmur the words which misled them during life; they are amazed and terrified at their utter solitude; darkness, in truth, it is his region at once empty and peopled, this space in which, carried forward by a power they do not understand, they wander, pallid and groaning, without consolation, without affections, without help of any kind. To whom shall they apply for aid? They feel the weight of eternity pressing heavily upon them; they tremble; they regret the trumpery interests which, at least, marked the passage of the hours on Earth; they regret the night which, following the day, often consoled them for the anxieties of the latter by a pleasant dream. Spirit-darkness is ignorance, emptiness, and dread of the unknown... I cannot continue... CLAIRE
Another spirit gave the following explanation of the darkness in question:
“The perispirit possesses, in virtue of its nature, a luminous property which is developed by the exercise of the purified activities of the soul. It may be said that the exercise of those activities acts, upon the perispiritual fluid, as does friction upon phosphorus. The brightness of this luminosity is proportioned to the purity of the spirit; the slightest moral imperfection dims and weakens it. The light radiated by a spirit is so much the more brilliant as he is more advanced.77 Each spirit being, so to say, his own light-bearer, he sees more or less distinctly according to the degree of intensity of the light he produces; whence it follows that those who produce no light are in darkness.”78
This theory is perfectly correct as regards the radiation of the luminous fluid by spirits of high degree, which is proved by observation; but this does not appear to be the true cause or, at least, the only cause, of the phenomenon we are considering, because: 1. All the lower spirits are not in the darkness, 2. Because the same spirit may be alternately in light and in darkness, 3. Because darkness is a punishment for some of the imperfect spirits. If the darkness in which some spirits are plunged were inherent in their person, it would be permanent and general for all bad spirits, which is not the case, since spirits of the most utter depravity see perfectly, while others, who cannot justly be termed depraved, are temporarily in profound darkness. Everything proves that, besides the light from an external source, of which they are deprived under certain circumstances; from where it could be concluded that this darkness depends on a cause, or a will, foreign to themselves and that it constitutes a special punishment, appointed, in certain cases, by the Divine Justice.
Q. (To Saint Louis, at a meeting of the Paris Society)
How is it that the moral education of discarnate spirits is easier than that of incarnate ones?
The relations established by Spiritism between men and spirits have led us to observe that the latter are moralized more quickly, by the influence of good advice, than those who are incarnate, as is shown by the cure of obsessions.
A. The incarnate, by his very nature, is in a state of ceaseless fight through the opposing elements of which his personality is composed, and which are intended to lead him onto his providentially appointed aim by reacting upon one another. Matter is easily influenced by an external fluid; if the soul do not react against such an influence with all the moral strength it can muster, it allows itself to be dominated by the intermediary of its body, and follows the impulsion of the evil influences by which it is surrounded; and it does this all the more readily because the invisible beings who beset it, attacking it purposely on its weakest side, take advantage of its tendency towards some dominant passion, which they make use of as a lever in acting upon it.
With the discarnate spirit the case is very different. He is still, it is true, under an influence that is of a semi-material nature; but this state cannot be compared in any way to that of an incarnate. Respect for the opinions of other people, so preponderant in the human mind, is null for him; and he is therefore not tempted, by any false shame, to keep up a resistance to reasoning which his own interest show him to be good. He may struggle against good influences, and, in fact, he usually does so, more violently than the incarnate, because his liberty is greater; but no paltry motive of material interest or of social position interferes to warp his judgment. He struggles from mere love of evil; but he soon acquires the consciousness of his powerlessness against the moral superiority that dominates him. The mirage of a happier future has more influence over him, because he is in the very world in which that future is awaiting him, and because that perspective is not erased by the swirl of human pleasures; in a word, his improvement is easier because he is no longer under the influence of the flesh, especially when he has acquired a certain amount of development through the trials he has undergone. A primitive spirit would be but slightly accessible to reasoning; but it is otherwise with one who has already undergone the experience of life. Moreover, in the case of the incarnate as of the discarnate, it is through the soul, through the sentiments, that he must be influenced. The action of physical causes may momentarily suspend the sufferings of a vicious man, but it cannot destroy the morbid principle that is in his soul; and no action can deliver the soul from suffering, unless it improves its moral state.
The spirit who dictated the following communications is that of a woman who was known to the medium when alive, and whose conduct fully accounted for the torments that she endured after death. Her selfishness and personality are strongly reflected, in her third communication, in which she insists that the medium should attend only to her. These communications were obtained at different periods; the last three show an evident progress on the part of the spirit, thanks to the efforts of the medium who had undertaken her moral education.
I. Here I am, I, unhappy Claire! What can I say to you? You speak of resignation and hope; but they are mere words for one who knows that, innumerable as the pebbles on the shore, her sufferings will last throughout the succession of interminable ages. I can lessen them, say you? What a senseless assertion! Where am I to find the courage, the hope, for doing that? Try, with your narrow brain, to imagine what must be a day that never comes to an end! It is a day, a year, a century? How do I know? It is not divided by hours; it is not varied by seasons; eternal, slow, like the ceaseless dripping of water from a rock, the day that I execrate, that I curse, weighs on me like a leaden pall! ... I suffer! ... I see nothing around me but shadows, silent, and caring nothing.... I suffer!
I know, nevertheless, that God reigns above this misery; God, the Father, the Master; He towards whom everything tends. I will think of Him; I will implore His pity....
I struggle.... I drag myself painfully along, like some lame creature crawling by the wayside. A power –– I know not what –– draws me to you; perhaps you will help my deliverance? When I leave you, I am a little calmer, a little warmer; as a shivering wretch that is comforted by a ray of sunshine, so my frozen soul gains new life when it approaches you.
II. My misery deepens every day, in proportion as the knowledge of eternity is developed in my mind. Oh, the wretched mistake of my past! How I curse you, guilty hours of selfishness and folly, in which, forgetful of charity, of devotion, I thought only of my own enjoyment! I curse you, short- sighted arrangements of human life! Idle anxieties about physical and worldly interests! I curse you, for you blinded me and led me on to my ruin! I am gnawed by the ceaseless regret of my wasted time! What can I say to you who are listening to me? Watch constantly over yourself; think more of others than of yourself; linger not in the paths of sensual enjoyment; do not pamper your body at the expense of your soul; “Watch!” as said the Savior to His disciples. Do not thank me for these counsels; my intelligence appreciates them, but my heart has never listened to them. Like a whipped dog, fear makes me crouch; but I have not yet attained to the freedom of the love of duty. The divine dawn has not yet risen for me! Pray for my parched and miserable soul!
III. I have come to seek you, since you forget me. You believe, then, that a few prayers, now and then, the pronouncing of my name, can suffice to relieve such suffering as mine? Undeceive yourself. I roar with pain; I wander without rest, without refuge, without hope, feeling the dart of chastisement piercing ever deeper and deeper into my rebellious soul! I laugh when I hear your complaints, when I see you sad! What are your weak sorrows? What are your tears? What are the torments of your life, on which sleep imposes a truce? Do I sleep? I demand –do you hear? –I demand of you to put aside your philosophic dissertations, to attend to me, and to make others attend to me. I have no words to express the anguish of this time that flows on and on, forever, with no succession of hours to mark its periods. It is as much as I can do to detect a faint ray of hope; and this hope it is you who have given it me: do not abandon me!
IV. (Remark of St. Louis) – This picture is but too true, for it is not at all overcharged. It may be asked, “What has this woman done to be so miserable? Has she committed some horrible crime? Has she robbed, or assassinated?” No, she has done nothing that falls under the stroke of human law. On the contrary, her life was filled with what, upon the Earth, you consider as happiness; she had beauty, fortune, adulation; everything seemed to smile on her; nothing was lacking to her; and people said, on seeing her, “What a happy woman!” And they envied her position. “What has she done?” She was selfish; she had everything, excepting a kindly heart. Though she violated no human law, her life was a continuous violation of the law of God; for she neglected charity, the first and greatest of human virtues. She loved only herself; now, no one loves her. She gave nothing to others; no one now gives to her. She is alone, neglected, abandoned, lost in space, where no one thinks of her or takes any notice of her; and this isolation constitutes her torment. As she sought only worldly enjoyments, and as those enjoyments no longer exist for her, she has an empty void all around her; she sees only nothingness; and nothingness seems to her to be her eternal portion. She has no physical tortures to undergo; no devils come to torment her; but she has no need of them, she is her own tormentor, and she suffers all the more on the account, for devils would be creatures, and would be thinking of her. Selfishness was her delight on Earth; now it pursues her; it is a worm that gnaws into her heart; it is her demon. SAINT LOUIS
V. I would speak to you of the important differences between the Divine morality and human morality. The first has pity for the abandonment of the woman taken in adultery and says to the sinner, “Repent! And the Kingdom of Heaven shall be opened to you.” The Divine morality accepts all repentance and forgives all faults that are acknowledged; while human morality repels the latter and smilingly pardons faults if they are only hidden. The one has the grace of forgiveness, the other, hypocrisy. Choose, you who are eager for truth, choose between the opening of the heavens to repentance, and the tolerance that winks at the wrongdoing which does not disturb its selfishness and its deceitful arrangements, while repelling the passionate sobbing of the remorse that makes its confession in the light of day! Repent, all you who have sinned; renounce your evil ways; but, above all, renounce your hypocrisy which hides the ugliness of evil under the smiling and deceptive mask of conventional forms!
VI. I have become calm and resigned to the expiation of my faults. The evil from which I suffer is in me, and not outside of me; therefore, it is I who must change, and not exterior things. We carry within ourselves our heaven and our hell; our faults, graven on our conscience, are legible by all when we enter the spirit-world, and we are thus our own judges, since it is the state of our soul that raises us up or casts us down. Let me explain what I mean: – a spirit soiled and weighed by his faults can neither desire nor imagine an elevation to which he is unequal. Be sure of this: – just as each of the different species of beings lives in the sphere which is proper to it, so spirits, according to the degree of their advancement, find themselves in the surroundings which are in harmony with their faculties; and they can only conceive of anything beyond these when progress, the slow agent of the transformation of souls, clears them of their base tendencies and strips them of the chrysalis of sinfulness, that so they may be able to try their wings, before taking their flight, swift as the arrow, towards the Divine Being, as their sole aim and desire. Alas! I still crawl on the ground; but I no longer hate, and I begin to form to myself some faint conception of the ineffable happiness of loving God. Therefore, continue to pray for me, who hope and wait.
In the next communication, Claire speaks of her husband, who gave her a good deal of trouble during his life, and of his present position in the world of spirits. This picture, which she was unable to finish, was completed by the medium’s spirit-guide.
VII. I come to you who have so long forgotten me; but I have become patient and am no longer despairing. You wish to know what poor Felix’s situation is; he is wandering in darkness, a prey to utter spiritual destitution. Of a superficial and frivolous nature, soiled by carnal passions, he has never known either love or friendship; even passion failed to light up his futility with its somber gleams. His present state is that of a child who, incapable of looking after the things of its physical life, is deprived of the help of those about him. Felix wanders in terror through this world, so strange to him, in that everything reflects the splendor of the God whose existence he denied....
VIII. (The Medium’s Guide) — Claire cannot continue the analysis of her husband’s sufferings without feeling them in her own person; I will therefore speak for her.
Felix, who was as superficial in mind as in sentiment, violent because he was weak, debauched because he was unloving, has returned into the world of spirits as naked, morally, as physically. During his terrestrial life, he acquired nothing; and he has, consequently, to begin everything over again. Like a man who wakens out of a long dream and perceives how useless has been the excitement of his nerves, this pitiable being, on coming out of the confusion of the separation, will see that he has been living with chimeras that have led him astray; he will curse the materialism that caused him to embrace emptiness when he fancied he was grasping a reality; he will curse the positivism that led him to regard the idea of a future life as an empty fantasy, to look upon aspiration as folly, and to condemn belief in God as weakness. This unhappy spirit, on waking, will see that these words, scoffed at by him, were formulas of truth, and that, reversing the fable, the pursuit of what he believed to be a “reality” has been less profitable than would have been that of what he scorned as a “shadow.” GEORGES
REMARKS ON CLAIRE’S COMMUNICATIONS
These communications are especially instructive because they show us one of the most common aspects of life - selfishness. They do not startle us with the great crimes that fill even the wicked themselves with horror; they paint the condition of a mass of people who live in society, honored and sought after, because they possess the varnish of good-breeding, and because they do not bring themselves under the ban of social law. Neither do they show us, in the spirit-world, any of the exceptional punishments the picture of which makes us shudder; they show us a situation which is the simple and natural consequence of the habits of life, and of the state of the soul, and in which isolation, neglect, abandonment, are the punishment of him who has lived only for himself. Claire, as we have seen, was intelligent but utterly selfish. When upon the Earth, her social position, her fortune, her physical advantages, attracted to her the homage that flattered her vanity and satisfied her desires. But, in the other life, she meets only with indifference, and an empty void surrounds her; a punishment more poignant, for her, than actual pain, because it is mortifying; whereas pain inspires pity and compassion, attracts attention, and causes others to take an interest in the sufferer.
The sixth communication contains an idea that is perfectly true, and that explains the persistence of certain spirits in evil. We are often astonished at finding how indifferent some of them are to the thought, and even to the sight, of the happiness enjoyed by those of the higher ranks. But they are exactly in the position of degraded men who take pleasure in filth and in gross sensualities. Such people feel themselves at home in evil surroundings, and have no idea of satisfactions of a more refined character. They prefer their sordid rags to the cleanest and handsomest garments, because they are more at their ease in them; and, for a similar reason, they prefer their low orgies to the pleasures of refined society. They have identified themselves so thoroughly with their kind of life that it has become for them a second nature; they seem to themselves to be incapable of rising above their present sphere, and they accordingly remain in it until a transformation of their nature has opened their intelligence and developed their moral sense, and had thus rendered them susceptible of more subtle sensations.
Such spirits, when disincarnated, cannot acquire delicacy of sentiment all at once; and, during a longer or shorter period, they occupy the lower regions of the spirit-world; but, in the long run, with the aid of the experience, tribulations, and miseries of successive incarnations, they begin to conceive of the possibility of something better than their way of life; their aspirations point to a higher state; they begin to understand what is wanting to them, and they then exert themselves to acquire and to go up. When once they have entered on this path, they move on rapidly, because they have obtained glimpses of satisfactions which appear to them to be greatly superior to those in which they formerly wallowed, and which, being only gross sensations, finished by causing them repugnance and disgust.
(QUESTION ADDRESSED TO SAINT LOUIS)
Q. What are we to understand by the “darkness” in which some of the suffering spirits say they are plunged? Could this darkness be the same as the one referred to in the Scripture?
A. The darkness in question is precisely that which is alluded to by Jesus and the prophets, in speaking of the punishment of the wicked. But this should not be understood except as a figure destined to injure the material senses of his contemporaries, who would not have been able to understand punishment in an elusive spiritual manner. Certain spirits are really plunged in a thick darkness, an obscuration of the soul which constitutes for it a darkness like that of night, a mental obscurity like that which darkens the intelligence of a mentally disabled. It is not spirit-madness; it is, on the part of the spirit, an unconsciousness of himself and of all that is around him which subsists as densely, in presence of light as in its absence. This darkness is especially the punishment of those who, in the earthly life, have doubted the fact of a future existence. They have believed in nothingness, and this semblance of nothingness becomes their torture, until their soul, making, at length, a resolute effort, breaks through the network of moral enervation by that it has been seized; just as an instant comes when one who has been attacked with nightmare struggles, with all his might, against the terror and oppression by which he has been momentarily overcome. This temporary reducing of the soul to a fictitious nothingness, while preserving the perception of its own existence, is a much more painful form of suffering than might be supposed, because of the appearance of repose which it presents; it is precisely this enforced repose, thus nullity of its being, this uncertainty, that constitutes its torture; it is the utter weariness with which it is overwhelmed that constitutes its most terrible chastisement, for it perceives nothing around it, neither things nor beings; it is, for the soul, a real and absolute darkness. SAINT LOUIS
(Claire) I am here. I, also, am able to reply to the question concerning the darkness of the spirit- world, for I wandered and suffered for a long period in the vague limbo where all is weeping and misery. Yes, the darkness visible of which the Scriptures speak does really exist; and the wretches who, having terminated their earthly trial, quit the world of men in a state of ignorance or of guilt, are plunged into that icy region, understanding nothing of themselves or of their destiny. They suppose that their state will be forever the same; they still murmur the words which misled them during life; they are amazed and terrified at their utter solitude; darkness, in truth, it is his region at once empty and peopled, this space in which, carried forward by a power they do not understand, they wander, pallid and groaning, without consolation, without affections, without help of any kind. To whom shall they apply for aid? They feel the weight of eternity pressing heavily upon them; they tremble; they regret the trumpery interests which, at least, marked the passage of the hours on Earth; they regret the night which, following the day, often consoled them for the anxieties of the latter by a pleasant dream. Spirit-darkness is ignorance, emptiness, and dread of the unknown... I cannot continue... CLAIRE
Another spirit gave the following explanation of the darkness in question:
“The perispirit possesses, in virtue of its nature, a luminous property which is developed by the exercise of the purified activities of the soul. It may be said that the exercise of those activities acts, upon the perispiritual fluid, as does friction upon phosphorus. The brightness of this luminosity is proportioned to the purity of the spirit; the slightest moral imperfection dims and weakens it. The light radiated by a spirit is so much the more brilliant as he is more advanced.77 Each spirit being, so to say, his own light-bearer, he sees more or less distinctly according to the degree of intensity of the light he produces; whence it follows that those who produce no light are in darkness.”78
This theory is perfectly correct as regards the radiation of the luminous fluid by spirits of high degree, which is proved by observation; but this does not appear to be the true cause or, at least, the only cause, of the phenomenon we are considering, because: 1. All the lower spirits are not in the darkness, 2. Because the same spirit may be alternately in light and in darkness, 3. Because darkness is a punishment for some of the imperfect spirits. If the darkness in which some spirits are plunged were inherent in their person, it would be permanent and general for all bad spirits, which is not the case, since spirits of the most utter depravity see perfectly, while others, who cannot justly be termed depraved, are temporarily in profound darkness. Everything proves that, besides the light from an external source, of which they are deprived under certain circumstances; from where it could be concluded that this darkness depends on a cause, or a will, foreign to themselves and that it constitutes a special punishment, appointed, in certain cases, by the Divine Justice.
Q. (To Saint Louis, at a meeting of the Paris Society)
How is it that the moral education of discarnate spirits is easier than that of incarnate ones?
The relations established by Spiritism between men and spirits have led us to observe that the latter are moralized more quickly, by the influence of good advice, than those who are incarnate, as is shown by the cure of obsessions.
A. The incarnate, by his very nature, is in a state of ceaseless fight through the opposing elements of which his personality is composed, and which are intended to lead him onto his providentially appointed aim by reacting upon one another. Matter is easily influenced by an external fluid; if the soul do not react against such an influence with all the moral strength it can muster, it allows itself to be dominated by the intermediary of its body, and follows the impulsion of the evil influences by which it is surrounded; and it does this all the more readily because the invisible beings who beset it, attacking it purposely on its weakest side, take advantage of its tendency towards some dominant passion, which they make use of as a lever in acting upon it.
With the discarnate spirit the case is very different. He is still, it is true, under an influence that is of a semi-material nature; but this state cannot be compared in any way to that of an incarnate. Respect for the opinions of other people, so preponderant in the human mind, is null for him; and he is therefore not tempted, by any false shame, to keep up a resistance to reasoning which his own interest show him to be good. He may struggle against good influences, and, in fact, he usually does so, more violently than the incarnate, because his liberty is greater; but no paltry motive of material interest or of social position interferes to warp his judgment. He struggles from mere love of evil; but he soon acquires the consciousness of his powerlessness against the moral superiority that dominates him. The mirage of a happier future has more influence over him, because he is in the very world in which that future is awaiting him, and because that perspective is not erased by the swirl of human pleasures; in a word, his improvement is easier because he is no longer under the influence of the flesh, especially when he has acquired a certain amount of development through the trials he has undergone. A primitive spirit would be but slightly accessible to reasoning; but it is otherwise with one who has already undergone the experience of life. Moreover, in the case of the incarnate as of the discarnate, it is through the soul, through the sentiments, that he must be influenced. The action of physical causes may momentarily suspend the sufferings of a vicious man, but it cannot destroy the morbid principle that is in his soul; and no action can deliver the soul from suffering, unless it improves its moral state.
SAINT LOUIS
Chapter V - SUICIDES
THE SUICIDE AT THE SAMARITAINE
On the 7th April, 1858, about seven o’clock in the evening, a man of some fifty years of age, respectably dressed, entered the great bathing establishment of the Samaritaine, in Paris, and ordered a bath. The waiter on duty, after an interval of a couple of hours, finding that the individual in question did not ring for him, determined to enter his bathroom, to see if he were ill. On doing this, he beheld a hideous spectacle; the unhappy stranger had cut his throat with a razor, and his blood had mingled with the water of his bath. The identity of the stranger not having been established, the corpse was conveyed to the Morgue.
The spirit of this man, evoked six days afterwards at a meeting of the Paris Society, replied as follows: –
1. Evocation – (The Medium’s Guide) Wait a moment; he is here.
2. Where are you now?
A. I don’t know. Tell me where I am.
3. You are in an assembly of persons who take part in investigations about spirits, and who feel kindly towards you.
A. Tell me if I am alive…I am stifled in this coffin!
His soul, though separated from the body, is still entirely plunged in what may be termed the vortex of corporeal matter; his terrestrial ideas are still strong; he does not suppose himself to be dead.
4. Who advised you to come to us?
A. I felt that I should be relieved by coming.
5. What motive led you to commit suicide?
A. Am I dead?…Not at all!…I inhabit my body…You cannot imagine how much I suffer!…I am stifling…Oh, that some compassionate hand would finish killing me!
6. Why did you not leave some indication to show whom you were?
A. I was abandon by everybody; I fled from suffering to find torture!
7. Have you still the same motives for remaining unknown?
A. Yes, do not force the red-hot iron into a bleeding wound!
8. Will you tell us your name, your age, your profession, your residence?
A. No, nothing.
9. Had you a family, a wife, children?
A. I was abandon by all; no one loved me.
10. What had you done, that no one loved you?
A. How many are like me! A man may be abandoned in the midst of his family, if no one cares for him.
11. At the moment when you committed suicide, did you feel no hesitation?
A. I thirsted for death…I expected to find myself at rest.
12. How could the thought of the future have failed to turn you from your project?
A. I had ceased to believe in a future; I was without hope. Belief in a future means hope!
13. What reflections passed through your mind at the moment when you found your life becoming extinct?
A. I did not reflect; I only felt…But my life is not extinct…My soul is linked to my body…I feel the worms that are devouring me.
14. What feeling did you experience at the moment when your death had taken place?
A. Has it done so?
15. Did you suffer pain at the moment when your life became extinct?
A. Less than I suffered afterwards. It was the body only that suffered at that moment.
16. (To the spirit of Saint Louis.) What does he mean by saying that the moment of his death was less painful than afterwards?
A. The spirit was throwing off a load of which he was weary; the pain he suffered in doing so was therefore a source of satisfaction to him.
17. Does suicide always lead to such a state as that in which he is?
A. Yes, he who commits suicide is linked to his body to the end of the period appointed for his earthly life. Natural death is the freeing of the soul from the bonds of the earthly life; suicide leaves the links between the soul and body intact.
18. Is this state the same in cases of accidental death, from causes independent of the will that shorten the natural duration of a life?
A. No. Such deaths are very different from suicide. The spirit is only responsible for his
voluntary actions.
This doubt concerning the fact of their death is very common among those whose decease is recent, especially if, during life, they have not raised their affections above material things. This phenomenon appears strange at first sight, but is easily explained. When a subject is thrown, for the first time, into the somnambulistic state, he almost always, on being asked whether he is asleep, reply “No,” and his reply is perfectly natural; the seeming error is with the questioner, who has employed a wrong term in putting his question. The term sleep, in ordinary parlance, implies the suspension of all the sensitive faculties; consequently, the somnambulist, who thinks, sees, feels, and has the consciousness of his moral freedom, does not suppose himself to be asleep, and, in fact, he is not asleep in the usual acceptation of that term. He therefore replies by a negative until he has become familiarized with the special use of the term in question. It is the same with one who has recently died. For him, death means the annihilation of his being; but, like the somnambulist, h
The spirit of this man, evoked six days afterwards at a meeting of the Paris Society, replied as follows: –
1. Evocation – (The Medium’s Guide) Wait a moment; he is here.
2. Where are you now?
A. I don’t know. Tell me where I am.
3. You are in an assembly of persons who take part in investigations about spirits, and who feel kindly towards you.
A. Tell me if I am alive…I am stifled in this coffin!
His soul, though separated from the body, is still entirely plunged in what may be termed the vortex of corporeal matter; his terrestrial ideas are still strong; he does not suppose himself to be dead.
4. Who advised you to come to us?
A. I felt that I should be relieved by coming.
5. What motive led you to commit suicide?
A. Am I dead?…Not at all!…I inhabit my body…You cannot imagine how much I suffer!…I am stifling…Oh, that some compassionate hand would finish killing me!
6. Why did you not leave some indication to show whom you were?
A. I was abandon by everybody; I fled from suffering to find torture!
7. Have you still the same motives for remaining unknown?
A. Yes, do not force the red-hot iron into a bleeding wound!
8. Will you tell us your name, your age, your profession, your residence?
A. No, nothing.
9. Had you a family, a wife, children?
A. I was abandon by all; no one loved me.
10. What had you done, that no one loved you?
A. How many are like me! A man may be abandoned in the midst of his family, if no one cares for him.
11. At the moment when you committed suicide, did you feel no hesitation?
A. I thirsted for death…I expected to find myself at rest.
12. How could the thought of the future have failed to turn you from your project?
A. I had ceased to believe in a future; I was without hope. Belief in a future means hope!
13. What reflections passed through your mind at the moment when you found your life becoming extinct?
A. I did not reflect; I only felt…But my life is not extinct…My soul is linked to my body…I feel the worms that are devouring me.
14. What feeling did you experience at the moment when your death had taken place?
A. Has it done so?
15. Did you suffer pain at the moment when your life became extinct?
A. Less than I suffered afterwards. It was the body only that suffered at that moment.
16. (To the spirit of Saint Louis.) What does he mean by saying that the moment of his death was less painful than afterwards?
A. The spirit was throwing off a load of which he was weary; the pain he suffered in doing so was therefore a source of satisfaction to him.
17. Does suicide always lead to such a state as that in which he is?
A. Yes, he who commits suicide is linked to his body to the end of the period appointed for his earthly life. Natural death is the freeing of the soul from the bonds of the earthly life; suicide leaves the links between the soul and body intact.
18. Is this state the same in cases of accidental death, from causes independent of the will that shorten the natural duration of a life?
A. No. Such deaths are very different from suicide. The spirit is only responsible for his
voluntary actions.
This doubt concerning the fact of their death is very common among those whose decease is recent, especially if, during life, they have not raised their affections above material things. This phenomenon appears strange at first sight, but is easily explained. When a subject is thrown, for the first time, into the somnambulistic state, he almost always, on being asked whether he is asleep, reply “No,” and his reply is perfectly natural; the seeming error is with the questioner, who has employed a wrong term in putting his question. The term sleep, in ordinary parlance, implies the suspension of all the sensitive faculties; consequently, the somnambulist, who thinks, sees, feels, and has the consciousness of his moral freedom, does not suppose himself to be asleep, and, in fact, he is not asleep in the usual acceptation of that term. He therefore replies by a negative until he has become familiarized with the special use of the term in question. It is the same with one who has recently died. For him, death means the annihilation of his being; but, like the somnambulist, h