Gontran, the Winner of Chantilly’s Races
The fact below, as well as the song of Henry III that we reported above, is equally published in the Grand Journal of June 4th, 1865, forming one single article signed by Albéric Second.
“Those that give us the honor of reading our material know, no doubt, that we profess a radical skepticism about Spiritism, the Spiritists and the mediums. – Show me the facts, we asked those that struggled to convert us to their theories and doctrines. Since none was given we persisted in the denial and mockery.
Before we start the one that signs these chronicles is a writer in good-faith. Therefore, one does not want to light a lamp and put it under the bowl. Each one must make their own conclusions, and that is not anyone’s problem. Like the president of a court, one should reproduce the facts in a quick and impartial summary, leaving to the readers the work of pronouncing the verdict at will.”
After this preamble of an honest man, as we wished were all of our adversaries, the author tells a story, in a very peculiar and typical way, of one of his friends that was in the house of a medium, then asking the Spirit if he could indicate who was going to be the winner of the races in Chantilly. The lady medium was, according to him, a recently arrived peasant from the mountains of Jura, meaning that she was not much educated and not at all into that kind of sport; she evoked the Spirit of one of our renowned sportsman and obtained, through knocks, the designation of the letters forming the name Gontran.
- Is there a horse with that name among the competitors? Mr. Albéric Second asked.
- To tell you the truth, his friend responded, I don’t know but if there is one you can count on it I will place my bet.
“Well, last Sunday was May 28th. The Derby of Chantilly took place and the winner was Gontran, from the stud of Major Fridolin (pseudo name of Messrs. Charles Laffitte and Nivière).
These facts are widely known by a large number of people in the world of gambling. Mr. Emile T. was generously compensated by the result and his absolute trust in the prediction of the peasant of Jura, and his friends that share his faith made also good profit. When I think that this servant of yours lost such a rare occasion of easily winning 1,000-1,5000 francs that would have been welcomed! Isn’t that stupid?”
Events of that kind are not the best ones to support the cause of Spiritism, first because they are very rare and second because they would deceive its principle, leading people to believe that mediumship is a means of foretelling.
If such an idea deserved credit a multitude of people would be seeing consulting the Spirits, as people do with the cards, and the mediums would be transformed in fortune tellers! That would give others reason to invoke the law of Moses that expels the “foretellers, the enchanters and those that have the Spirit of Piton”. It is for the sake of avoid such serious inconvenient that would tremendously harmful to the doctrine that we always stand against the exploitation of mediumship.
We will not repeat here what has been said hundreds of times and amply developed about the disturbance that the knowledge of the future would cause, a knowledge that is hidden from mankind by the divine wisdom. Spiritism is not destined to reveal it. The Spirits come to make us better and not to reveal or indicate means of making money with certainty and without risks, as the hero of the adventure says, or to get involved in our material interests, placed by the divine Providence under the protection of our own intelligence, prudence, reason and activity. Therefore, all those that by a premediated design, believe to find in Spiritism a new element of speculation, at any given denomination, are mistaken. The ridiculous mystifications, and sometimes bankruptcy instead of fortune, are the fruit of their mistake. That is what every serious Spiritist must strive to propagate, if willing to serve the cause with utility. We have said many times that those that aspire to obtain fortune with the support of the Spirits, under the articulated pretext that the confirmation of such an event would convert everybody into believers, if successful they would throw a mortal blow against the doctrine, exciting greed instead of love for the good. That is why the attempts to achieve that kind of thing, encouraged by mystifying Spirits, have always been followed by frustration.
A few years back someone wrote to us from Hamburg saying that he had lost everything in gambling and that since he was broken he had the idea of asking a Spirit that gave him a number in which he bet his last mark and won, and that helped him out of the hardship. The person asked us to have the fact published in the Spiritist Review, as a proof of the intervention of the Spirits. Supposing the action of a Spirit the person did not see the lesson that was given by the simple fact that he was given the means of going away and be relieved from difficulty. In reality it is a very poor judgment of ourselves or the assumption that we are really stupid to be capable of utilizing similar tactics to promote the doctrine because that would certainly favor the casinos but not Spiritism. It would be interesting to see us making apology of the Spirits favoring gamblers, and in particular deception, because winning with certainty with biased cards or by the indication of someone is a true fraud.
An individual that was not Spiritist, we must promptly say, but that absolutely did not deny the intervention of the Spirits, one day came to us with the following unique proposal:
“The casinos are profoundly immoral; a way of extinguishing them is to demonstrate that one can safely fight them. I found through a new combination an infallible way of destroying them all. When they are ruined and incapable of fighting back they will be forced to close and the world will be free from this ulcer that is the organized crime. But for that we need certain capital that I am far from having. Could you perhaps point me to someone that can help, with the support of the Spirits? Imagine the result of that when everybody finds out that such a great achievement was done with the help of the Spirits! Who could doubt it? The most skeptical and non-believers would give in to evidence. As you see, my objective is honorable, and I would not complain if I had the advice of the Spirits to obtain such combination.”
Without consulting the Spirits, I can tell you their opinion. Here is what they would tell you: “You believe that winning in the casinos is illicit and an organized crime. To remediate the evil, you want an infallible way to get that bad money. In other words, you want to steal from the thieve, and that is not more honorable. We have another means of reaching the same result that you propose: Instead of making the gamblers win let us lead them to bankruptcy, so that they are broken. The disasters caused by that vice would lead to more casinos being closed than one could do with happier gamblers. It is the excess of evilness that opens the eyes and leads to healthy transformation, here as in everything else. To promote the belief in Spiritism we equally have more efficient ways, and particularly more honorable; it is the good that it does, the consolations that it promotes and the courage that it gives to the unfortunate ones. This is what we say to all those that wish the progress of the doctrine: Do you want to be useful to the cause and make a truly positive propaganda? Show that Spiritism made you better; by seeing you as a changed person, let them say: it is a miracle of that doctrine; hence must be a good thing. However, if in addition to your profession of faith, they see you always addicted, ambitions, hateful, greedy, envious and senseless, they will give reason to those that ask what is Spiritism for? The true propaganda of an essentially moral doctrine is done by touching the hearts and not the wallets. That is why we favor some and frustrate the calculations of others.”
Let us return to Gontran. Facts of predictions of that kind, although real, are nonetheless very rare and may be considered exceptional; they are in fact always serendipitous and never the result of a premeditated calculation. When they do happen, they must be seen as isolated events, but someone that would really trust such accomplishment would be mad and truly unwise.
One must not confound that kind of revelation with the predictions that sometimes the Spirits make about great events of the future, whose realization they may make us present in the general interest. That has its utility to keep us vigilant and to lead us to the good path. But predictions with certain dates or with a character of high accuracy must be considered suspicious.
In the case mentioned above the little fact had a utility; it was a means, perhaps the only one capable of calling peoples’ attention to the Spirits and their intervention in the world, much more than through a serious event; that is needed to all characters. Among them some would have said: “That was impressive”. But others may have wanted to scrutinize the thing and would have found the serious side and the one that is really useful. Even if the latter accounted for ten percent of them, these would be new elements of gain and propaganda. As for the others, the idea that was sowed in their souls will germinate one day.
By reporting the fact that had great publicity we only wanted to point out to its consequences, but we would not have done so without comments and simply as an anecdote. Spiritism is an inextinguishable mine of issues, observations and study due to its uncountable application.
The author says in the preamble: “Show us the facts”. He undoubtedly thinks that the Spirits obey our orders and that the phenomena are obtained at will, like the experiments in a laboratory or magic tricks. Well, that is not the case. The one that wishes phenomena must not ask for them but seek them, personally observe them and accept those that are presented to them. Those phenomena are of two kinds: those that are produced by the mediums themselves and that may be provoked, at certain extent, and the spontaneous phenomena. To the skeptical the latter ones have the advantage of not being suspicious of preparation; these occur in large number and in an infinite variety of types, as in: apparitions, visions, presentiments, double sight, strange noises, disturbances, obsessions, etc. The case of Mr. Bach belongs to this category and that of Gontran to the first one. For those that sincerely want to be convinced there is no lack of events and those that request them, perhaps more than once, may have witnessed them unnoticeably; to the majority of people, though, the mistake is in the desire of wanting something to occur their way, at a scheduled time and not to be content with those that the Providence places before their eyes. The uncertainty in the occurrence of the phenomena and the impossibility of provoking them at will are the proofs of their reality, because if they were the product of charlatanism or fraud they would never fail.
It is patience and good will that certain persons lack and not facts when seeking and studying the ones that do occur.
