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.
