Fantastic Creations of Imagination Visions of Mrs. Cantianille B…
“L’Evenement” from February 19th contains the following article:
“Strange and still inexplicable events took place last year in Auxerre, shaking the population. The followers of Spiritism saw in them manifestations of their doctrine, and the clergy considered them as new examples of possession. They spoke of exorcism, as if returned to the beautiful times of the Ursulines of Loudun. The person in the center of all that uproar was Cantianille B… A priest from the Cathedral of Sens, Father Thorey, authorized by his bishop, witnessed those apparent breaches of the natural laws. Today that priest publishes the result of his observations with the title Marvelous Relationships of Mrs. Cantianille B… with the Supernatural World. He brings us a proof of his work and we gladly point out to a passage that is curious on various aspects.
In the preface, after having exposed the plan of the book, the author adds:
May the reader, after browsing these pages, do not rush their judgement. These facts will undoubtedly seem incredible to you, but I beg you to remember that both, Cantianille and I, have affirmed the truthfulness of these facts under oath. In the report below there is no exaggeration or invented at will; everything there is perfectly accurate. Besides, those events, those prodigious manifestations of the superior world, repeat everyday and every time I wish, and we ask not to be believed based on our simple statement. On the contrary, we insistently ask to have them studied; that competent men may meet with the sole wish of truth and prepared to seek it with loyalty. All these marvelous things will be reproduced before their eyes and as many times are necessary to convince them. We commit ourselves.
May the Spirits with broad ideas consider this book as good news!
In the book Mrs. Cantianille B… tells how she became a member and president of a society of Spirits in 1840, during her passage through a religious monastery: - Ossian, a Spirit of second order, came to pick me up in the monastery, as usual, and I soon saw myself transported to the middle of a meeting. He placed me on a throne where my apparition was welcomed by the nosiest applause. They made me take the ordinary oath: - I swear to offend God through all possible means and do not step back before anything to make hell defeat heavens. I love Satan. I hate God. I want the fall of heavens and the kingdom of hell!...
After that, each one came to congratulate and encourage me, to be strong before the trials that I had to go through. I promised.
Those screams, that uproar, the interest of each one, the music and the rays of light that illuminated the room, everything electrified me, intoxicated me!... I then screamed in a strong voice: - I am ready; I am not afraid of your trials; go and see if I am worthy to be among you.
Soon the noise stopped, the light disappeared. – Go, said a voice. I moved without hesitation through a narrow corridor, for I felt each side as a strong wall, and those walls seemed to get closer and closer. I thought I would be smashed, and I became terrified. I wanted to go back but at the same time I felt on Ossian’s arms. He exerted such a strong pressure upon my whole body that I screamed. – Shut up, he said, or you are dead. Danger brought my courage back… No, I will not shout any more, I will not back down.
And making a superhuman effort I cover that corridor like a bolt, that became narrower and darker at every step. Despite my efforts, my fear redoubled, and I would perhaps flee, when suddenly earth gave way under my feet and I fell on an abyss whose depth I could not appreciate. I was momentarily stunned by that fall, without being discouraged though. An infernal thought had just crossed my mind. – Ah they want to terrify me!... They will see if I am afraid of demons… I then stood up to seek an exit. But then… flames showed up from all sides!... They approached me as if to burn me… and amidst that fire the Spirits screaming, howling, so terrifying!
-What do you want from me? I asked Ossian.
-I want you to be the president of our association… I want you to help us hate God; I want you to swear to be ours, for us and with us, everywhere and forever!
As soon as I promised that, the fire was suddenly out.
-Do not run away from me, he said, I bring you happiness and greatness. Look.
I saw myself surrounded by the associates, in the middle of the room that they had decorated even more in my absence. A sumptuous feast was served. Then, I was given the place of honor, and in the end, when everybody was warmed by the wine and liquors, and super excited by the music, I was appointed president.
The one that had delivered me pointed out, in a few words, the courage that I had shown in those terrible trials, and amidst a thousand bravos, I accepted the fatal title of president. I was, therefore, heading thousands of people that were attentive to the minor signal. I only had one thought: deserve their trust and submission. Unfortunately, I was too successful.”
The author is right when he says that the followers of Spiritism may see manifestations of their doctrine in these facts. That is because, in fact, Spiritism for those that studied it elsewhere, and not in the school of Messrs. Davenport and Robin, is a revelation of a new principle, a new law of nature, that gives us the reason for something that, in the absence of a better explanation, was conventionally attributed to imagination. That principle is in the extra corporeal world, intimately connected with our existence. The one that does not admit the individual soul, and independent from matter, rejecting the a priori cause, cannot understand its effects. However, these effects jump incessantly before our eyes, innumerable and positive.
Following them step by step in their succession, one can get to the source. That is what Spiritism does, always proceeding through observation, going back from the effect to the cause, and never through a preconceived theory.
This is a point of paramount importance, on which we cannot stress enough. Spiritism has not adopted the existence of the Spirits as a starting point, nor that of the invisible world, as a gratuitous supposition, except to proof that existence later, but on the observation of the fact, and from the observed facts it concluded the theory. Such observation led it not only to acknowledge the existence of the soul as a principal being, since the intelligence and sensations reside in it and it survives the body, but also that phenomena of a particular order take place in the sphere of activities of the soul, incarnate or discarnate, beyond the perception of the senses. Since the action of the soul is essentially connected to the action of the organism during life, it is a vast and new field of exploration, open to psychology and physiology, and in which science will find what it uselessly seek for so long.
Spiritism, therefore, found a fecund principle, but it does not follow that it can explain everything. The knowledge of the laws of electricity gave the explanation of the effects of lightning. Nobody treated this matter with more know-how and lucidity than Arago, however, in the so common phenomenon of lightning there are effects that he declares, knowledgeable as he is, that he cannot explain, like for example of the forked lightning. Does he deny them, because of that? No, because he has much common sense, and as a matter of fact, one cannot deny a fact. What does he do? He says: Let us observe and wait to be more advanced. Spiritism does not act differently. It confesses ignorance about something that it does not know, and expecting to know, it seeks and observes.
The visions of Mrs. Cantianille belong to that category of questions about which, in a certain way, one can only, until more ample information, try an explanation. We believe to find it in the principle of the fluidic creations by thought.
When the object of the visions is a positive, real thing, whose existence is verified, its explanation is very simple: the soul sees, by the effect of its radiation, what the eyes of the body cannot see. Had Spiritism explained only this, and it would already have lifted the veil of many mysteries. But the issue gets complicated when the visions, like those of Mrs. Cantianille, are purely fantastic. How can the soul see what does not exist? Where do those images come from that for those that see them, they have the thorough appearance of reality? They say it is the effect of imagination. Be it, but these effects have a cause. What does such a power of imagination consist of? How and upon what does it act? If a fearful person hears the noise of mice at night, she is terrified and imagine to hear the steps of thieves; if she takes a shadow or a vague form by a living being that chases her, there we have the true effects of imagination.
But in the visions of the kind that are handled here, there is something else, because it is no longer just a false idea, it is an image with its forms and colors, so clear and accurate that could be drawn. However, they are no more than delusion! Where does it come from? To understand what happens in such circumstance, it is necessary to move away from our exclusively material point of view and penetrate the incorporeal world through our thought; identify ourselves with its nature and the special phenomena that must take place in an environment that is completely different from ours. Down here we are like the spectator that gets surprised by a scenic effect because he cannot understand its mechanism, but if he goes behind the scenes, everything will be understood. Everything is tangible matter in our world; in the invisible world, everything is intangible matter, if we can say so, that is, intangible to us since we can only perceive through material organs, but tangible to the beings of that world, that perceive through spiritual senses.
Everything is fluidic in that world, people and things, and fluidic things are also real there as the material ones are real to us. This is a first principle.
The second principle is in the modifications that thought imprint onto the fluidic element. We can say that it models it at will, as we model some clay and from that we make a statue. The difference is in the fact that since matter is compact and resistant, to manipulate it one needs a strong instrument, whereas the ethereal matter suffers the action of one’s mind, effortlessly. Under such an action, it is susceptible to take all forms and appearances. That is how we see Spirits that are not much dematerialized presenting themselves with objects in their hands that they had when alive; dressing with the same clothes; wearing the same ornaments and taking the same appearance at will. The Queen of Oude, whose communication we published in the Spiritist Review, March 1858 issue, always saw herself with her jewelry and used to say that they had not left her. One thought is enough for that, and frequently they are not aware of the way it happens, as with the living ones that lots of people walk, see, and hear without being able to say how and why. The same happened to the Zouave of Magenta (Spiritist Review, August 1859), that said to wear the same outfit, and when asked where he had gotten it, since it had been left in the battle field, he answered: that is with my tailor.
We cited many facts of that kind, among them the man with the snuffing box (August 1859), and Pierre Legay (November 1864) that paid for his bus ticket. These fluidic creations may, sometimes, take momentarily visible and tangible appearances to the living ones, because, in reality, they are due to a transformation of the ethereal matter. The principle of the fluidic creations seems to be one of the most important laws of the incorporeal world.
By partially enjoying the faculties of a free Spirit in moments of emancipation, the incarnate soul may produce analogous effects. That could be the cause of the so-called fantastic visions. When the Spirit is strongly focused on an idea, its thought may create a corresponding fluidic image, that for him has all the appearances of reality, as in the case of Pierre Legay’s money, although the thing itself does not exist.
That is, undoubtedly, the case that happened to Mrs. Cantianille. As she worried about the descriptions that she had heard being made about hell, the demons and their temptations, the pacts through which they take over the souls, the tortures of the disgraced ones, her thoughts created a fluidic image that was only real to her. We can place the visions of Sister Elmerich in the same category, when affirmed to have seen all the scenes of the Passion, and found the chalice in which Jesus had drunk, as well as other objects similar to the ones used in the present day mass, that certainly did not exist in those days, and that she provided a detailed description. When she said that she had seen all that, she acted in good faith, because she had really seen them, by the eyes of the soul, but a fluidic image, created by her thought.
All visions have their principle in the perceptions of the soul, as the corporeal sight has its own in the sensitivity of the optical nerve. But they vary in their cause and objective. The more underdeveloped the soul, the more susceptible it is to create delusion about what it sees. Their imperfections make them susceptible to error. The more dematerialized are those whose perceptions are more expanded and accurate. But however imperfect they may be, these faculties are not less useful to the study.
If this explanation does not offer an absolute certainty, at least it has the evident character of probability. It demonstrates one thing, above all, that the Spiritists are not as credulous as their detractors pretend them to be, and do not agree with everything that seems wonderful. All visions are, therefore, far from being articles of faith to them; but irrespective of what they are, delusion or reality, they are effects that cannot be denied. They have them studied and try to understand them, without the pretension of knowing everything, and explaining everything. They only affirm something when it is demonstrated by evidence, for it would be as much inconsequent to accept everything as it would be to deny it.
