Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1865

The logic of the adversaries of Spiritism is well known. The summary below signed by David (from Thiais) gives us a sample of that.

“Dear reader, like myself you must have a copy of the little brochure by Mr. Boreau from Niort with the title Why and How I become a Spiritist, with a facsimile of the autograph of direct writing by a familiar Spirit. It is a very curious story of a sincere, devout man, a person with elevated thoughts but that deifies his illusions and incessantly chases his own dreams and believing to become true. Seeking a buried treasure with Jeanne, the somnambulist, in a former battle field in Vendee, he finds malevolent, noisy Spirits instead, bringing upon him and his companion great fear and painful anguish. He suddenly turns into a Spiritist as if the apparitions that obsess him had renovated the miracle of the wonder lamp and, at the same time, provided all the benefits of the soul and the body.

Fiction needs to be one of the greatest needs of the human mind to make such beliefs possible. There are deceiving geniuses making fun there; cruel Spirits that threat and make noise; rude and bad mouthed Spirits that make us ask what are they doing down here since they were not depurated by the crucible of death?

There are also the verses and poems of a good angel that has not opened up the secrets of heavens with her poetry, demonstrating to us how far a preconceived idea may take us on the path of illusions. When it comes to Spiritism Mr. Boreau’s faith is like that of the coalman; he even loves those that bother and bash him. We have nothing to add other than the fact that the brochure contains funny episodes, demonstrating that he can go without other Spirits since his own suits him very well. We only say that the facts that he reports are not form yesterday.

We still remember the commotion that took over the city of Poitiers when the house at Rue St. Paul had its formidable artillery heard. A long procession of curious people surrounded that home haunted by the devil for eight days; the police established its headquarters there stalking the flight of the Spirits, taking their chances to catch the secrets of the other world by surprise but only finding fire. The Spirits only reveal themselves to the believers, making all the noise of the world (Spiritist Review, February, March and May 1864). That is strange, dear reader. It seems that those regions have the monopoly of that noisy and mockery lot.

Gorre, a renowned German doctor deceased in 1836, in the Vol. III of his Mystique, tells the story of Guillaume d’Auvergne, deceased in 1249, bishop of Paris, that in those days reported a rapping Spirit that had moved in to a house in the neighborhood of St. Paul in Poitiers; it was about a Spirit that threw stones and broke glasses.

Pierre Mamoris, professor of theology in our University, author of Flagellum Maleficorum, reports the events that took place in 1447 at St. Paul Rd., at a house in which the Spirit dragged furniture, broke glasses and even gently hit people, without revealing how all that was done.

The story goes that Jean Delorme, priest of St. Paul, a man of great education and regard, visited the theater of those strange events and accompanied by other persons he carried lit candles and sprinkled Gregorian water to exorcize the rooms. But the exorcism proved useless. Not a single demon showed up. The malignant Spirit, however, no longer manifested after that.^[1]

Therefore, with a few centuries of interval, the same Spiritist phenomena take place three times in the same town and neighborhood. What can we conclude from that? Absolutely nothing. In fact, there is not a single important consequence resulting from useless noises, from puerile jokes or regrettable acts of violence that evidently cannot be attributed to Spirits, weightless bodies that float around the world, certainly avoiding human diseases and continuously approaching the light and God’s benevolence.

As a matter of fact this issue is not for discussion. Every person is free to choose their own Spirits and worship them as they wish, give them the virtues they will, a power and a character that are in agreement with their own beliefs. Instead of the geniuses somewhat material of the modern school we prefer the creations that stem out of the old poetry and that shake hands, walking side by side with the human fraternity at the border between the two worlds, bringing them closer to the sources of immortal life and endless happiness. To us no single rapping Spirit is worth these adorable images painted by the genius of Ossian, on the fluid clouds of the North, whose melancholic harps still vibrate the inner most fibers of the heart. It is the flight of the soul relieving its wings from any heavy load.”

We must thank the author of this article for letting us know about this remarkable event that we were not aware of, about the same phenomenon that has been reproduced for centuries in the same place. That could not be unsuspectedly better to our cause since he pretends to use such a repetition as an argument against the manifestations. It seems to us that when a fact is unique and isolated there is no absolute consequence that may be deduced since it may be due to an eventual cause whereas when it repeated in identical circumstances it follows that it must be due to the same cause, that is, a law. The search for such a law is the duty of any serious observer since it may lead to important findings.

It is, up to a certain extent, understandable that despite the duration, the special character and accessory circumstances of the noises in Poitier, some people persisted in the idea that they were originated by malevolence. But then, if that is the third time that they take place, separated by centuries, there is certainly food for thought because if they are not in good faith it is highly unlikely that they would have chosen precisely the same place to occur with such long intervals. Nonetheless, what can we conclude from that?

The author says: absolutely nothing. That is to say, if something happens repeatedly and touches a whole population several times there is nothing to learn from that? That would be a truly singular madness! These are “useless noises, from puerile jokes or regrettable acts of violence that evidently cannot be attributed to Spirits, weightless bodies that flow around the world, certainly avoiding human diseases and continuously approaching the light and God’s benevolence.” Mr. David then believes in the Spirits since he describes their attributes with such accuracy. Where has he taken such knowledge from? Who told him that the Spirits are like that? Has he studied them to solve the issue like that?

He says that “they must escape human diseases.” The bodily illnesses, undoubtedly, but the moral ones as well? Will he believe that the bad person, the murderer, the bandit, the worst of all evils and himself will be on the same level when Spirits? What benefit can they take from being honest in life if they will be the same after death? Considering that the Spirits approach light and God’s benevolence continuously, something that is perhaps truer that the author actually believes, then there was a time when the Spirits were further away because in order to approach an objective one must be distant first. Where was the starting point? This cannot be but in opposition to perfection, that is imperfection. The Spirits that make fun of similar things cannot certainly be perfect but if there are imperfect Spirits where is the surprise with similar actions? Since the float around the world will it follow that they cannot get closer? It would be useless to carry on with this refutations. The arguments of our adversaries, all more or less with the same strength, would not have taken us to transcribe the article if they did not carry a precious teaching, for which we again thank the author.

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[1] See brochure by Mr. Bonsergent, Imperial Library.