Two Skeptical Spirits to their Friends men to their friends on Earth
When the most skeptical and obstinate transpose the portal of the corporeal life, they are forced to acknowledge that they still live; that they are Spirits since they are no longer corporeal; that the Spirits can communicate with humans since they can do it themselves. But their appreciation of the spiritual world varies in proportion to their moral advancement, their knowledge or ignorance, the elevation or misery of their soul. The two Spirits that are mentioned here belonged to the class of men of science and high intelligence. Both were fundamentally skeptical, but eminently skeptical and their skepticism was countered by distinguished moral qualities.
Thus, once in the world of the Spirits they promptly face things from their true standpoint and acknowledge their mistake. In fact, there isn’t anything extraordinary in this and that is not seen every day; if we publish their first impressions it is due to their eminently instructive content. They both died recently. The first one, Mr. M.L… was a surgeon at Hospital B… and brother in-law to Mr. A. Véron, a member of the Spiritist Society of Paris. The second, Mr. Gui…, was a prominent economist, close friend of Mr. Colliez, another member of the Society. Mr. Véron tried, without success, to bring his brother in-law to the spiritualist ideas; after his death he became more accessible to those instructions and below one of the first communications received from him.
Paris, October 5th, 1865 – medium Mr. Desliens
“My dear brother in-law, considering that we enjoy privacy and that I am not taking the place of someone that could be more useful than me, I attend your appeal with pleasure. From starters, do not expect to see me unfolding all my spiritual faculties. I could, no doubt, try to do it and perhaps even more successfully when alive, but my proud presumption is far from me and if I thought a lot of myself on Earth, here I am very small. How many people I disdained and today I am happy to find their protection and teachings! Ignorant people down here are frequently the wise ones up there, and as for our science that pretends to know everything and does not accept anything beyond its own borders, it is illusive and limited! Ah human pride! How long will you still be around on Earth, by the force of habit, where the spirit of routine precludes progress from its unstoppable march? “I don’t know this; it is outside of the limits of my knowledge; hence it does not exist.” That is the way we think down here. If we admitted it, or at least studied that given event, resulting from unknown laws, we would have to renounce to mistaken systems, supported by great names that constitute our glory, and even worse than that, we would have to acknowledge that we were wrong. No, not us, other deniers, we met a universal Galileo that comes to tell us: “I am a Spirit, I am alive, I was a man, and you yourselves were men like me, until through a series of incarnations you are depurate to climb the infinite ladder of the worlds… And we deny!
But, as Galileo said after his backtracks: “And yet, it moves”! Spiritism says: “And yet, the Spirits are here; they manifest, and no denial can destroy a fact.” The brutal fact is true; nothing can be done against it. Time, that great teacher, will do justice by sweeping some and educating others. Be among the educated ones. I was struck down in the prime of my pride and suffered the consequences of my denials. Avoid my fall and may those that imitate my line of thoughts learn from my mistakes, thus avoiding the abyss of darkness from where I was retrieved by your kindness. You can feel my disturbed language. Later I will be able to speak in a more logical way. Be indulgent to my spiritual youth.
M. L.
Before the communication above was read at the Parisian Society, the Spirit communicated spontaneously, dictating the following:
Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, October 20th, 1865 – medium Mr. Desliens
Dear Mr. Allan Kardec, allow this Spirit that, through the studies of your work, was led to consider life, the being and God from its true point of view, allow me a sincere recognition. I ignored your name and your work while on Earth. Had I heard about you I might well have exercised my teasing vein, as I used to do regarding everything that tried to demonstrate the existence of something independent of the body. I was blind then. Forgive me. Today, thanks to you, thanks to the teachings of the Spirits that were spread and promoted by your hand, I am a changed mind, I am aware of myself and I see my destiny. How much don’t I owe you and Spiritism! Anyone that might have known me and today reads the expression of my thoughts will say: “This one cannot be the one we knew, that radical materialistic person that admitted nothing beyond the dense phenomena of nature.” Nonetheless, it is me, undoubtedly.
My dear brother in-law, to whom I have a lot to thank for, you say that I found good feelings in a short time. I thank you for your kindness to me, but it certainly ignores the large number of hours of suffering, resulting from the unconsciousness of one’s very existence! I used to believe in the nothingness and was punished by a fictious void. Feel oneself and not being able to communicate; believing to be spread amongst the sparse rests of matter that formed the body, such was my position for over two months!... two centuries!... Ah, suffering hours are too long and if you did not take the burden of pulling me out of that atmosphere of nihilism, if you had not forced me to come to these gatherings of peace and love, a place that I did not see or understand anything, but where sympathetic fluids acted upon me and gradually woke me up from my heavy spiritual lethargy, where would I be now? My God!... God!... what a sweet name to have pronounced by someone obstinate in denying such a great and good Father! Ah, friends, help me out with moderation, because that is the only thing that I am afraid of today, of becoming fanatic by these beliefs that I would have totally rejected in past, had it come to my attention.
I will say nothing today about your works; I am still too new, too ignorant to dare venture into your shrewd dissertations. I feel it, but I don’t know it. I will only tell you this because this I know: Yes, the fluids do have a huge influence as a heling agent, if not corporeal from which I know nothing, but at least spiritual, because I experienced its action. I already told you and I repeat with joy and recognition: I went to the Spiritist meetings, pushed by an invisible force, undoubtedly by my spiritual guide. I could not see a thing, could not understand anything, however, a fluidic force that I could not understand, cured me spiritually.
I am thankful and in debt to all those that acquired eternal rights to my recognition, pulling me out of the chaos in which I had fallen into, and I beg you, my friends, for your kindness in allowing me to come and quietly attend your wise assemblies, and later on offering my weak scientific lights to your services.
M.L.
Question – Could you tell us, with the help of your guide, how come you so promptly acknowledged your earthly mistakes, while a good number of Spirits that are not spared of spiritual assistance, remain so much longer without understanding the advices given to them?
- Dear Sir, thank you so much for the question that you have kindly addressed to me, and that I believe to be able to respond myself, with the assistance of my guide. You can, no doubt, see an anomaly in my transformation, since, as you say, there are creatures that despite the good feelings that act in their favor, take a long time before they open their eyes. Not wishing to abuse your benevolence I can say this in a few words: The Spirit that resists to the action exerted upon him is new with respect to moral lessons. It can well be an educated individual but totally ignorant with respect to charity and fraternity, in one word, empty of spirituality. Such individual needs to understand the life of the soul that even in the state of Spirit, it was rudimentary to him. To me it was completely different. I can tell you that I am old with respect to our life, although newcomer to eternity. I had notions of moral; I did believe in spirituality that remained latent in me, because one of my capital sins, pride, needed that punishment. I had knowledge of the spiritual life in a previous existence, but I was condemned to be dominated by pried and forget God and the eternal principle that resides in me… Ah, believe me! There is only one kind of cretinism, and the idiot that cannot manifest his intelligence through the soul is, perhaps, less regrettable than the one that enjoys full intelligence, from a scientific point of view, but lost his soul temporarily. It is a truncated but very painful idiotism.
M.L.
The other Spirit, Mr. Gui…, manifested spontaneously at the Society on the special session about the celebration of the dead. Mr. Colliez, that had known him in person, as we said, had listed him among the Spirits recommended to receive our prayers. Although his opinions were completely different from those that he held when alive, Mr. Colliez recognized hm by the form of his language and before his signature was read out loud he had said that it sounded like Mr. Gui…
Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, November 1st, 1865 – medium Mr. Leymarie
Gentlemen… allow me to use this common expression but not much fraternal. I am a newcomer, an unexpected recruit, and my name, undoubtedly, has never reach the ears of keen Spiritists. Yet, it is never too late, and when each family cries for an absent loved one, I come to you to express my much sincere regret. Surrounded by the followers of Voltaire, living and thinking like them, bringing my two cents and my work, according to the necessity for the propagation of liberal and progressive ideas, I believed to be acting correctly, because everybody talks but not all act. I, therefore, acted and I beg you not to forget the people of action. In their sphere they shook off that torpor of so many centuries, that in turn had veiled the future. By tearing off the veil, we had also pushed away the night, which is a lot when the intolerant enemy is looming at the door, ready to paint in black every beam of light. How many times have we sought in ourselves the solution to this question: “Ah, if the dead could speak!” A profound reflection, absorbing, that was killing us at the age of disillusion, when every person apparently marked by chance becomes a beacon of light in the crowd. There is family! Young and candid heads demanding our kisses of hope, and we cannot give anything, we sealed that hope below a very cold stone that we call disbelief. But today I believe, and I come to tell you full of hope and faith: “I hope for the future, I believe in God, and the Spirits of Béranger, de Royer-Collard, de Casimir Perrier… will not belie me.” Those of you that wish progress, that want light, I say: The dead speak, they speak every day, however, you the blind – that we were! – you present the truth without saying it openly. Like Galileo, you tell yourself every night: “Yet, it moves!” but you lower your eyes before the ridicule, before the judgment of things!
All of you that were faithful to me, that weekly spent your afternoons with me, know what I have become. Wise men that investigate the secrets of nature, have you asked the dead leaf, the sprout of the herb, the insect, the matter, what becomes of them in the great concert of the earthly dead? Have you asked them about their functions in death? Were you able to take note about this great law of nature that seems to destroy itself every year, to revive splendid and sovereign, casting the challenge of immortality into your transient and mortal thoughts? Smart doctors that everyday bend your heads onto the mysterious diseases that destroy human bodies in multiple ways, why so much sweat for the future, so much love for the family, so much effort to ensure the honor of a name, the fortune and the morality of your children, so much respect for the virtues of your companions? Men of progress, that work constantly to transform the ideas and make them more beautiful, why so much care, vigilance and deception, if that eternal law of progress absorb all of your skills and have them multiplied by ten, so as to pay tribute to the general movement of harmony and love, before which you bow? Ah, friends, irrespective of who you are on Earth, mechanic, legislators, politicians, artists, or all of you that go by the jargon “economic politics”, believe me, your work defies death; your work rejects it like in a denial, and when through your intelligence and discoveries you leave a trace, a memory, a spotless honor, you defied death, like everything that surrounds you! You offered a sacrifice to the creative power, and like nature, matter and everything else that lives and wants to live, you defeated death. Like me, in former times, like so many others, you fortify yourself in this annihilation of the body, that is life, and get to the Eternal, to defeat eternity! But you will not defeat it because it is your friend. The Spirit is the eternity, the eternal, and I repeat: Everything that dies speaks of life and light. Death speaks to the living one; the dead return to speak. They are the only ones with the key to everything and it is through them that I promise you other explanations.
Gui…
Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, November 17th, 1865 – medium Mr. Leymarie
They fled the epidemy and in that singular panic how many moral bankruptcies, how many shameful defections! This is because death becomes the most violent atonement to all of those that violated the laws of the strictest equity. Death is the unknown to the wavering faith. The multiple religions could not establish themselves, with their paradise and hell, onto those whose abnegation was towards the earthly material things; to them, there was no reference point, no solid foundation. Propagation of the divine teaching; that is not certainty. Therefore, with rare exceptions, what a horror, what a lack of charity, what a selfishness in the general “every man for himself” of the satisfied! Believe in God, study God’s will in intelligent statements, be certain that the laws of life are subordinated to the superior and divine laws that measure everything with justice, giving everyone, in several existences, their share of suffering, joy, work, misery and fortune; but that is what I believe is thought by the great researches and interrogations of humanity. Their certainty, isn’t that the true force in everything? If the exhausted body gives freedom to the soul, so that it can live according to its own fluidic aptitudes, its very essence, if, I say, if that truth becomes tangible, evident like a sun beam; if the laws that mathematically chain the several phases of the terrestrial and extra terrestrial life, or in erraticity, becoming clearly demonstrated to us as an algebraic problem, then isn’t there in your hands the highly desirable secret; the answer to all of your objections: the rational explanation for the weakness of your in-depth studies of economic politics, a horrifying weakness to the theory, for practice destroys in one day the work of an entire life?
That is the reason, friends, that I come to beg you to read The Spirits’ Book. Do not stop at the letter but seek the spirit. Smart researchers, you will find new elements to modify your way of thinking and of those that study you. Convicts of the plurality of the existences, you will see life in a better way; defining it better you will be stronger. Scholars, poor and blessed pleiad, you shall give humanity a as much serious a seed as truthful. And when the wise ones were seeing believing and teaching the strong and reassuring maxims, they will love one another and will no longer flee the supposedly invisible evil; the will of all, powerful homogeneity, will destroy all of those poisoned fermentations, the only source of epidemy. The study of the fluids, from another point of view, with transform science; new lights will illuminate the fertile road of our young students, who will no longer hold the flag of intolerance and ignorance; no more the mockery of Europe, because their beloved dead would give them the faith and the religion of the Spirit that moralizes first to elevate next, in the serene regions of knowledge and charity.
Gui…
