An Officer from the Italian Army (2ND CONVERSATION)
Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies July 1st, 1859 (see July 1859 issue)
1. (Evocation) - I am here.
2. You promised to come to us again and we will take the opportunity to request a few complementary explanations from you. - With pleasure.
3. Have you watched some battles after your death? - Yes, the last one.
4. When you witness a combat as a spirit, watching men killing one another, do you have any feeling of horror as we would, if we watched similar images? - Yes, I experienced that, even as a man, but then human respect was based on a feeling not worthy of a soldier.
5. Are there spirits that feel pleasure by watching such blood shedding? - A few.
6. What do the spirits of a superior order feel when witnessing that? - Great compassion; almost disdain. The same that you feel when you see the animals killing one another.
7. When you see a combat and people dying, do you see the separation between the soul and the body? - Yes.
8. At that moment do you then see two individuals, the spirit and the body? - No. What is the body then? - But the body is still there. It must be distinct from the spirit. - A cadaver, yes, but no longer a human being.
9. What is then the appearance of the spirit? - Light.
10. Does the spirit move away immediately from the body? I ask you to kindly explain things as explicitly as possible and how we would see them in case we witnessed them. - There are only a few really instantaneous deaths. The spirit who was hit by a bullet or a grenade, tells oneself most of the time: “I am going to die, let us think of God and heavens. Good-bye beloved land.” After that first feeling the pain extracts him from the body and it is when we can distinguish the spirit, moving around the cadaver. This seems so natural that the sight of the dead body does not produce an unpleasant effect. Since life has been totally transported to the spirit, it is the spirit that calls our attention; it is with the spirit that we talk and command.
OBSERVATION: We can compare this effect to the one that is produced by a group of swimmers. The spectator does not give attention to the clothes that were left at the beach.
11. Generally, when surprised by a violent death, the individual does not consider oneself dead, for some time. How can we explain one’s situation and how can the person has illusions, since one must feel all to well that one’s body is no longer material and resistant? - One knows and has no illusions.
OBSERVATION: This is not exact. We know that there are spirits that in some cases keep that illusion and think that they are not dead.
12. There was a huge thunderstorm at the end of the Battle of Solferino. Was it due to a serendipitous cause or a providential design? - Every serendipitous cause is the result of God’s will.
13. Such a storm had an objective then? What was that? - Yes, for sure: to cease the battle.
14. Was it provoked in the interest of any of the belligerent parts? Which one? - Yes, particularly in the interest of our enemies. - Why? Can you elaborate on that? - You ask me why? Don’t you know that without that storm our artillery would have annihilated the Austrians?
15. If the storm was provoked it must have been done by agents that provoked it. What were those agents? - Electricity.
16. Those is the material agent but are there spirits whose attribution is to drive the elements? - No. God’s will is enough. He does not need such common auxiliaries. (See an article later about the storms)
