Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, February 25th, 1864
NOTE: In this session we thanked the Spirit of Guttenberg asking him to take part in our conversations at any time he thought convenient. The presence of several foreign dignitaries of the Freemasonry Order motivated the following question: Which support can Spiritism find in the French-Freemasonry? Several dissertations were given about the subject as below.
I
Mr. President I thank you for your kind invitation. It is the first time that I have one of my communications read at the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies and I hope this will not be the last one. You may have perhaps found my considerations a bit too extensive about the printing press, some thoughts that you may not approve completely, but considering the difficulties that we have to face to communicate through the mediums and utilize their faculties I beg you to kindly forgive certain expressions or language structures that are not always dominated by us. Electricity will later on makes its mediumistic revelation and since everything will change with respect to the reproduction of the Spirit’s thoughts you will no longer find those sometimes regrettable blanks, particularly when the communications are read in the presence of strangers.
You mentioned the Freemasonry and you are right about the expectation of finding good elements there. What is asked of any initiated Freemason? The belief in the immortality of the soul and in the Divine Architect; that the initiated be benevolent, devoted, sociable, dignified and humble. Equality is practiced there in the highest level. Hence there is a striking affinity between the two societies. The issue of Spiritism has been placed in the order of the day in several Masonic lodges and here the result: several long reports were read about it but they did not study it in depth, leading to discussions about matters that they did not know, judging from what they had heard about more than by reality. Many Masons, however, are Spiritists and work hard for the propagation of that belief. Everyone listens but if habit says no, reason says yes.
You must wait because time is a recruiter like no other. Through time impressions necessarily change in the vast field of the lodges and the Spiritist study will enter as a complement because it is already in the air. It was laughed at and spoken about but now they mediate about it. You will then have a Spiritist allotment in those essential liberal societies. You will enter through them in the second period that must prepare the promised avenues. The intelligent persons of the Masonry will praise you for the moral of the Spirits will give a body to that compromised and feared sect but that does more good than people think. Everything has a difficult beginning, a mysterious affinity and if that is true with respect to things that disturb society it is even more true to things that lead to the moral progress of the peoples.
Guttenberg, medium Mr. Leymarie
II
My dear brother in doctrine (the Spirit addresses one of the French-Masons and Spiritist that was present) I gladly come to respond to the benevolent appeal that you address to the Spirits that loved and founded the French-Freemasonry institutions.
I shed my own blood twice to cement this generous institution; public places of this city were tinted twice by the blood of the poor Jacques de Molay. Dear brothers, would a third time be needed? I will happily answer: No. You have already been told: the more blood the more despotism and the more executioners! A society of brothers, friends, persons full of good will that only wish to get to know the truth to do good! I had not communicated in this assembly yet. While you spoke about the Spiritist science and philosophy I yielded the space to the Spirits that are more capable of giving you advices about those several points and patiently waited knowing that my time would come. There is a time for everything as there is a time to everyone. I then believe that my time has come. I can now give you my opinion about Spiritism and French-Freemasonry.
The Masonic institutions were a path to happiness for society. In times when liberal ideas were considered crime people needed a force that entirely submitted to the rule of law was not less emancipated by their beliefs, institutions and unity of teachings. In those days religion, instead of a consoling mother, was still a despotic force that ordered, hurt and bent everything by the voice of its ministers. It was reason for fear to anyone that wished to act as a free thinker and take some moral relief to those in suffering. United by the hearts, fortune and charity our temples were the only altars where God had not been ignored; where a man could still see oneself as a man; where a child could find protection and the abandoned friends. Several centuries went by and many added flowers to the Masonic crown. Those were martyrs, educated men, legislators that added to their glory by becoming its defenders and preservers.
In the nineteenth century Spiritism comes with its luminous beam reaching out to the commanders, to the Rosicrucian, and with a thunderous voice say: Let us go, brothers! I am truly the voice that is heard in the orient and to which the occident responds: Glory, honor, victory to the children of men! Still a few days and Spiritism will have transposed the wall that separates the majority from the room of the secrets in the temple and on that very day society will see the most beautiful Spiritist flower sprout in its heart, providing from its falling petals a regenerating seed of the true freedom. Spiritism has made progresses but when it walk hand in hand with the French-Freemasonry all difficulties will be overcome; every obstacle shall be removed; truth will shiny and the greatest moral progress shall be achieved. It will have transposed the first steps of the throne where it will soon reign.
My fraternal and friendly greetings to all.
Jacques de Molay, medium Ms. Béguet
III
I was really glad to mention my participation in this so spiritualistic center and return thanks to Guttenberg as I was attracted by Jacquard the other day. Most of the dissertation given by the great typographer handled the issue from the profession stand point and he did not see in that invention but its practical, material and utilitarian side. Let us broaden the debate and look at the issue from a higher perspective.
It would be a mistake to believe that the printing press came to replace architecture as this one will remain to continue its historical role through characteristic monuments marked by the Spirit of each century, each generation, and each humanitarian revolution. We say out loud that no, the printing press is not here to knock anything down. It came to complement through its great, special and emancipating mission. It came at its right time like all other discoveries that are providentially born here on Earth. Contemporary of the monk that discovered the gun powder, changing the art of war with that, Guttenberg brought a new lever to the expression of ideas. Let us not forget this: the printing press would not have real meaning without the emancipation of the masses and by the intellectual development of individuals. Without that need to satisfy and that engine to fuel, that spiritual manna to distribute, the printing press would remain idle for a long time fighting in the void and would not be considered by a mad dream or a useless utopia. Wasn’t that the case with the first inventors, or even better, with first ones that discovered the properties of steam? Have Guttenberg been born in the Andaman Islands and the printing press would have certainly been aborted. Hence the idea is the essential lever to consider. Without the idea, without the fertilizing work of thinkers and philosophers alike and even those of the dreamer monks of the middle ages, the printing press would have turned into dead word. Guttenberg then lit more than one candle in tribute to the dialectic school that made the idea flourish and depurated intelligences.
The fervent idea around a plastic image in the human brain is and will always be the greatest engine of discoveries and inventions. The creation of a new need at the heart of modern society is like opening a new path to the eternally innovative idea; it is like pushing intelligence to search for the satisfaction of that new necessity of humanity. That is why all over the place where the idea reigns sovereign, where it is received with respect, and where finally the thinkers are honored there is assurance of progress towards God.
The so much bashed French-Freemasonry, against which the Roman Church did not have enough anathemas and still survived, French-Freemasonry had the doors of its temples wide open to the emancipating cult of ideas. All of the most serious issues were discussed in its very heart and before Spiritism had even showed up the venerable and grand-masters knew and professed that the soul was immortal and that the visible and invisible worlds communicated with one another. It was there in the sanctuaries that do not admit the profane that Swedenborg, Pasquali and Saint-Martin obtained striking results. It was there that the great Sofia, that ethereal inspiration, came to teach the firstborn of humanity the liberating dogmas whose generous principles were given in 1789. It was there and much earlier than your contemporary mediums that precursors of your mediumship, unknown persons, had evoked and made appear wise people of antiquity and from the first centuries of this era. It was there… I stop here. The restricted schedule of your sessions do not allow me to elaborate more about this interesting matter as I would like to do. We shall return to that later. All I will say now is that Spiritism will find at the heart of the Mason Lodges a compact phalanx of believers, not ephemeral but serious, resolved and unbreakable believers in their faith.
Spiritism carries out all of the generous and charitable aspirations of the French-Masonry; sanctions the beliefs of the latter by giving irrefutable proofs of the immortality of the soul; leads humanity to the objective that it proposes: union, peace and universal fraternity by the faith in God and in the future.
Wouldn’t that be the case that every sincere Spiritist of all nations, cults and classes look at one another like brothers? Isn’t that a French-Masonry between them with the exception that instead of being secret it is practiced openly? Enlightened men, like the ones it congregates that put their education above the prejudices of cast and silos, they cannot show indifference to the movement produced by this essentially liberating doctrine in the world. Repudiating such a powerful element of moral progress would be like denying their own principles and stand side by side with the retrograde. No, I am certain that they will not allow themselves to veer off and will take care of this serious issue with our influence.
Spiritism is an irresistible chain of ideas that must reach the whole world. It is a matter of time. Well, one would acknowledge ignorance with respect to the character of Masonry by believing that it would represent a negative role in the movement that impels humanity forward; believe that it would extinguish the flame as if it were afraid of light. It must be clear that I speak of the high French-Masonry and not of those lodges created for the illusion where people gather to eat and drink and to make fun of the rookies before their trials rather than discuss moral and philosophical issues. It was even necessary to the French-Masonry to accomplish its mission that from time to time and from place to place temples outside the temple, profane places outside sacred ones, false tabernacles outside the arc. It is in those places that the followers of Spiritism have uselessly tried to make themselves understood.
In short, French-Masonry taught the dogma that precedes yours and secretly professed what you proclaim out loud. I said I would return to this subject if the elevated Spirits that preside over your works allow me. While I wait I attest that the Spiritist Doctrine can perfectly mix with the great Lodges of the Orient.
Now, glory to the Great Architect.
A former French-Mason, Vaucanson, medium Mr. D’Ambel
