CHAPTER XV
THE MIRACLES OF THE GOSPEL
Superiority of the Nature of Jesus — Dreams — The Star of the Wise Men of the
East — Second Sight — Cures — Possessed Persons — Resurrections — Jesus
Walks upon the Water — Transfiguration — The Tempest Stilled — Marriage at
Cana — Making of the Loaves of Bread — Temptation of Jesus — Wonderful
Things at the Death of Jesus — Appearance of Jesus After his Death —
Disappearance of the Body of Jesus.
Superiority of the Nature of Jesus
1. The facts reported in the Gospels, and which have been considered until recently
miraculous, belong for the most part to the order of psychic phenomena, — those which arise
from the faculties and attributes of the soul. By comparing them with those which have been
described and explained in the preceding chapter, one recognizes between them an identity of
cause and effect. History shows analogous instances in all times and among all nations, for the
reason that, ever since souls have been incarnated and discarnated, the same effects must have
been produced. One can, it is true, contest the veracity of history upon this point; but now they
are produced under our eyes, as it were, by will-power, and by individuals who have nothing
exceptional about them. The fact alone of the reproduction of a phenomenon in identical
conditions suffices to prove that it is possible, and governed by a law of nature, and that it
therefore is not miraculous.
The principle of the psychic phenomena reposes, as has been seen, upon the properties of
the perispiritual fluid, which constitutes the magnetic agent upon the manifestations of the
spiritual life during life and after death, — in short, upon the constitutive state of the spirits and
their role as the active force of nature. These elements known, and their effects ascertained, the
result is, that certain facts must be admitted as such which were formerly rejected when
attributed to a supernatural origin.
2. Without prejudging anything of the nature of Christ, which is not in the compass of
this book, let us consider him