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)
