A Spirit that does not acknowledge his death
One of our subscribers from the Department of Loire, an excellent
psychographic medium, writes the following with respect to several
apparitions that he witnessed:
“Not willing to forget any of the facts that come to support the Spiritist
Doctrine, I wish to communicate the new phenomena which I have witnessed
and served as medium, and as you will recognize, are in perfect
agreement with everything that you have published in your Review, with
respect to the state of the spirit after separation from the body.”
“About six months ago I was receiving communications from the
spirits together with a few persons when I had the idea of asking if there
was any clairvoyant medium among the attendees. The spirit responded
positively, indicating me and adding: “You are already one but in a small
degree and only during the sleep. Later your temperament will modify in
such a way that you will become an excellent clairvoyant medium, but
gradually, and during the sleep only in the beginning.”
“During this year we endured the pain of losing three of our relatives.
One of them, my uncle, appeared to me in my sleep, just after his
death. We had a long conversation and he conducted me to his dwelling,
saying that it was the last degree of the Earthly happiness. It was my intention
to provide you with the description of what I had admired in that incomparable home but having consulted with my guardian spirit he said:
“Your joy and happiness could influence the description of the wonderful
beauties that you admired, and your imagination could create non-existing
things. Wait until your spirit is soother.” I then stopped, obeying my
guide, only reporting two other more positive visions. I will only mention
my uncle’s last words. When I had admired what I was allowed to see, he
said: “You are now returning to Earth.” I asked him to allow me to stay
for a few moments more, to which he said: “No; it is five o’clock and you
have to retake the course of your existence.” I immediately woke up. My
clock indicated 5 am sharp.”
“My second vision was with one of the other deceased relatives in the
year. He was a virtuous man, a loving, good father, and family man, good
Christian, who although had been sick for a long time, died almost suddenly
and perhaps unexpectedly. His face showed an indefinable, serious,
sad and, at the same time, happy looks. He told me: “I atone my faults
but I have a consolation: to protect my family. I still live with my wife and
children inspiring them with good thoughts. Pray for me.”
“The third vision is more characteristic and I had the confirmation
by a material fact. It is from the third deceased relative. He was an excellent
man, but lively, passionate, imperious with the servants, and above
all, attached to the material things of the world. Besides, he was skeptical,
much more concerned with things of this life than with those of the future.
Sometime after his death he came at night, impatiently pulling the
curtains, as if willing to wake me up. Then I asked: - is that you?”
“He said:
• Yes, I came to you because you are the only person that can answer
me. My wife and children left to Orleans. I wanted to join
but nobody obeys me. I asked Peter to pack up for me but he
cannot hear me. Nobody gives me any attention. If you just could
come with me and tie the horses onto the other coach and pack
up for me you would do me a great favor, for I could then join my
wife in Orleans.
• But can’t you do that?
• No. I cannot lift anything. I changed after the sleep during my
illness. I no longer know where I am. I feel like I am living a
nightmare.
• Where are you coming from?
• From B…
• From the castle?
• No! He screamed in horror, taking his hand to his forehead. I
come from the cemetery.
After a gesture indicating desperation, he added:
• Look, my dear friend, ask all of our relatives to pray for me; I am
very unfortunate!
He then left, disappeared and I lost sight of him. When he
first came, impatiently pulling the curtains, his expression was of
hallucination. When asked how he could pull the curtains since
he had said that he couldn’t lift anything, he bluntly said: “I used
my breath.”
“I learned the day after that his wife and children had actually
left to Orleans.”
This last apparition is remarkable, particularly by the illusion
shown by certain spirits who believe that they are still alive,
and that has prolonged much longer in this case than others in
analogous situations. Such an illusion commonly lasts only a few
days whereas he still considered himself alive after three months.
As a matter of fact, the situation is identical to what we have
observed a number of times. He sees everything as he did when
alive. He wants to speak and is caught by surprise for not being
heard. He gets involved, or thinks to be involved, with his customary
businesses. The existence of the perispirit is demonstrated
here in a remarkable way, abstraction made of the vision. Once he considers himself alive, he sees with a body similar to the one he
left behind. He acts with that body similarly to what he would do
with the other one. To him, nothing has changed. He just hasn’t
investigated yet the properties of his new body. He considers it
dense and material as before, surprised by the fact that he cannot
lift anything. Nonetheless, he finds his situation somehow
strange, incomprehensible. He supposedly thinks that he is living
a nightmare, taking death by the sleep. It is a mixed state between
the corporeal and spiritual life, always painful and full of anxiety,
which has something of both worlds. As we have said, this is what
more or less frequently happens in cases of sudden death, such as
those of suicide, apoplexy, execution, combat, etc.
We know that the separation between body and perispirit
takes place gradually, and not suddenly. It starts before death,
when this occurs due to the natural extinction of the vital forces,
be it by age, illnesses or, particularly, in those people who still
alive have the presentiment of their end, identifying themselves
through their thoughts with the future existence, in such a way
that when exhaling their last breath, the separation is more or
less complete. When a lively body is caught by surprise by death,
the separation starts at that very moment, taking some time to
complete. While there is a link between the body and the spirit,
the spirit will remain perturbed. If the spirit suddenly enters the
spiritual world he will be alarmed, not promptly recognizing the
situation or the properties of his new body. There is the need to
move around, somehow, and that is what makes him think that
he is still in this world.
Beyond the circumstances of violent death, there are others
that make the link between the body and the spirit even stronger,
for the illusion that we mentioned is equally observed in certain
cases of natural death. That is when the person has lived much
more the material than the moral life. It is understandable that
his attachment to matter may retain him even longer, after death, putting off even more the idea that nothing has changed. That is
the case of the person that we have just talked about.
Let us observe the difference between his situation and the
other of the second relative. One still wants to control, thinks
that he still need his suitcases, horses, and carriages, to meet his
wife. He still doesn’t know that, as a spirit, he can do it instantaneously,
but his perispirit is still so materialized that finds himself
submitted to all bodily needs. The other one who has lived the
moral life; that had religious feelings; that had identified himself
with the future life, although more suddenly surprised than the
first relative, he is already detached. He says that he lives among
his loved ones but he knows that he is a spirit. He speaks with his
wife and children but he knows that it is through the mind. In
short, he no longer has illusions whereas the first one is perturbed
and anxious; his feeling of a real life is so real that he saw the wife
and children leaving, as they really did on the very day he indicated,
a fact that was ignored by the relative to whom he showed up.
Let us note also a characteristic expression that shows his position
very well. Responding to the question: Where are you coming
from? He answered, indicating the place where he was living.
Following the question: From the castle? He answered in horror:
“No. I come from the cemetery.” Well, this proves one thing:
because the detachment was not complete there was a kind of
attraction between the spirit and the body, which led him to say
that he was coming from the cemetery. But as it seems, he started
to understand the truth at that point. The question itself seemed
to have given him the lead, calling his attention to his remains,
being that the reason why he answered in horror.
There is large number of examples of that kind. One of the most
expressive ones is that of the suicide of the Samaritan baths, reported in our June 1858 issue. Evoked a few days after his death
he also asserted that he was alive, saying: “I feel the worms devouring
me”. As indicated in our report, it was not a memory,
since he was not devoured by the worms when alive. It was then
a present feeling, a kind of repercussion transmitted by the body
to the spirit, through the fluidic communication still existing between
them.
Such communications are not always translated in the same
way, although they are always more or less painful and operate as
a first punishment to those who, when alive, were strongly identified
with material things.
What a difference form the calm, serenity, smooth quietness
of those who die without remorse, conscious of having employed
well their time on Earth; of those who were not dominated by
their passions!
The transition is short and sweet, as death to them is a departure
from exile, a return to the true homeland. Is there a theory
in this, a system? No. It is the picture that is daily offered to us by
the communications from beyond the grave, whose aspects vary
infinitely, from which everyone can take a useful teaching, finding
examples that can be used, as long as one takes the burden
of examining them. They constitute a mirror that can be used by
anyone who is not blindfolded by pride.
