The Apocryphal Phenomena
The following fact was reported by the Evénement, on August 2nd, 1866:
“A few days ago the inhabitants of the region neighboring Church of Saint-Médard were very shaken by a singular, mysterious event that gave rise to the most dismal reports and commentaries.
Demolitions are taking place around the church; most houses were built in the area of a cemetery associated to the story of supposed miracles, that in the beginning of the eighteenth century motivated a decree by the government, on January 27th, 1733, ordering the closure of that cemetery, that then had the following epigram written on its door the next day:
-By the order of King… God is prohibited of making miracles in this place.
However, the houses respected by the demolishing hammer, were devastated every night by a hail of stones, sometimes very large, that broke the glasses and fell on the roofs that were damaged. Despite the most active researches, nobody found out the origin of the projectiles. It was even said that the dead of the cemetery, disturbed in their rest by the demolitions, thus manifested their discontent. But less credulous people, believing that those stones that continued to fall every night, were thrown by a living creature, demanded the intervention of Mr. Cazeaux, police chief, that established a surveillance by his agents.
While they were exercising it, the stones did not appear, but as soon as they stopped, they fell again, even more abundantly. They did not know what to do to solve that mystery when Mrs. X…, owner of a house at Censier road, declared to the police chief that, for being scared with the event, she had consulted with a somnambulist. She revealed to me, said the woman, that the stones were thrown by a young woman that had an illness on the head. Precisely my maid, the sixteen-year-old Felicia F…, had herps in that part of the body. Although the police chief gave no importance to this indication, he agreed to question Felicia, thus obtaining a full confession. Acting by the inspiration of a Spirit that had appeared to her, she had amassed a large quantity of stones in an attic, and every night she would wake up to throw part of the stones through the window of the attic onto the neighboring houses. On the assumption that the girl could be mentally ill, the police chief had her sent to the Prefecture so that she could be examined by specialized doctors.”
This fact demonstrates that one must avoid attributing all events of this sort to a hidden cause, and when there is a material cause it is always discovered, and that does not prove anything against the possibility of another origin, in certain cases, that can only be assessed by the whole circumstances, like in the case of Poitiers. Unless the hidden cause is demonstrated by evidence, doubt is the wiser party. It is, therefore, convenient to exercise caution.
One must suspect, above all, the traps prepared by malevolence with the objective of enjoying the mystification of the Spiritists. The fixated idea of the majority of the adversaries is that Spiritism is entirely the physical phenomena and that it cannot live without it; that this is the only objective of the Spiritists’ faith, being this the reason why the believe to be able to kill it by discrediting the effects, be it by simulating them or by inventing them in ridiculous conditions. Their ignorance of Spiritism makes them unnoticeably miss the fundamental side of the question, that is the moral and philosophical point of view.
Some, however, know very well this side of the doctrine; but since it is unassailable, they charge onto the other more vulnerable one, and that is more easily prone to charlatanism. They would like to make the Spiritists to be seen as superstitious and credulous admirers of the fantastic, blindly accepting everything. It comes as a great disappointment to them not to see the Spiritists ecstatic before the smallest fact with the appearance of supernatural, and finding them, with respect to certain phenomena, even more skeptical than those that do not know Spiritism. Now, it is precisely because they know it that they are aware of what is possible and what is not, and do not see the action of the Spirits in everything.
In the event mentioned above it is very curious to see the true cause revealed by a somnambulist. It is the consecration of the phenomenon of lucidity. As for the young woman that said to have acted by the impulse of a Spirit, it is certain that it was not her knowledge of Spiritism that gave her such an idea. Where has it come from? It is quite possible that she would be under the domain of an obsession that was taken for madness, as always. It that is so, she will not be cured with medication. We have seen many times, in similar cases, persons speaking spontaneously of Spirits, because they see them, and it is then said that they are hallucinated.
We suppose she is in good faith, because we have no reason to be suspicious of her. Unfortunately, however, there are facts whose nature arouse mistrust. We remember a woman that simulated mental illness when she left a meeting to which she had been admitted, the only one that she had attended. After been immediately taken to a mental hospital, she soon confessed having received fifty francs to represent a comedy. It was the time when they were trying to propagate the idea that mental institutions were overcrowded with Spiritists. This woman allowed herself to be seduced by some money; others may yield to other influences. We do not mean that this is the case of this young woman; we only wanted to show that when one wants to degrade something, all means are good. It is to the Spiritists one more reason to be on guard, observing everything scrupulously. As a matter of fact, if everything that is secretly plotted demonstrates that the struggle has not ended and that is necessary to double vigilance and firmness, it is equally a proof that not everyone looks at Spiritism like a chimera.
Side by side with the deaf war, there is the open warfare, more generally waged by the mocking incredulity. This has evidently changed. The increasing number of events; the adhesions of persons whose good-faith and reason cannot be suspected; the impassibility of the Spiritists, as well as their calm and moderation before the storms raised against them, has given food for thought. The press registers Spiritists facts daily. If there are some true facts among them, there are others evidently invented by the needs of the cause of opposition. It no longer denies the phenomena but tries to make them ridiculous by exaggeration. It is a very inoffensive tactic because today it is not difficult, in certain matters, to play the part of unlikelihood. The American newspapers do not fall behind in the inventions about it, and ours promptly imitate them. That is how most of them repeated the following story in the last month of March:
United States: A man by the name Dr. Hughes, was executed in Cleveland, Ohio, that at the time of his death gave a speech, revealing an extraordinary firmness and sharpness of mind. He took advantage of the occasion to make a dissertation, that lasted less than half an hour, about the utility and justice of the death penalty. Such a maximum penalty, he said, is simply ridiculous. What is the advantage of taking my life? None. It will certainly not be my example that will discourage others of a crime. Do I remember having fired that pistol shot? Today I have absolutely no recollection of that. I can accept that Ohio’s law may reach me fairly, but I say, at the same time, that it is silly and useless. If you pretend that this rope that will be tied around my neck, and tighten until I die, will prevent murder, I say that your thought is silly and vain, because the state of mind of John W. Hughes, when he committed murder, there isn’t any example on this Earth that could have precluded a man from doing what I did, whoever that man is. I bow before the state law, with the thought that taking my life is as useless as it is cruel. I hope that my ordeal does not remain as an example of death penalty, but as an argument that proves its uselessness.
After that, Hughes made an examination of conscience, and elaborated a lot about religion and the immortality of the soul. His theories, in these serious matters, are not positively orthodox, but at least attest a singular cold blood. He also spoke of Spiritualism, or better saying, of Spiritism. He said:
-“I know, from my own experience, that there is an incessant communication between those that leave this life and those that remain. Today I will face the supreme legal penalty, but at the same time, I have the certainty that I will be with you after my execution, as I am now. My judges and my executioners will always see me before their eyes, and you that came here to see me dying, there isn’t a single one of you that will not see me again in flesh and blood, dressed in black, carrying my own premature grief, as much in your sleep as in the hours of your daily occupations. Goodbye, ladies, and gentlemen. I hope none of you will do what I did. If there is, however, someone that is in the same mental state that I was when I committed the crime, it certainly will not be the memory of this day that will preclude that. Goodbye.”
After that screed, the trap door of the gallows fell, and Dr. Hughes hanged. But his words had produced a profound impression upon the audience, that resulted in singular effects. Here is what we found about it in the Herald of Cleveland:
“In the gallows, with the rope around his neck, Dr. Hughes said that he would be with those that heard him, as he was before his death, and we can say that he took his words seriously. Among those persons that had visited him before his execution, there was an honest German butcher. This man cannot take Dr. Hughes out of his mind, since the interview with the prisoner. Day and night, nonstop, he sees prisons, gallows, hanging men. He no longer sleeps or eat and doesn’t take care of his family or his business, and such a vision almost killed him last night. He had just entered the stables to treat the animals when he saw Dr Hughes, standing near his horse, dressed in the same black clothes that he wore when he left our planet, appearing to enjoy perfect health. The poor butcher screamed terrified, a scream from another world, and fell on his back. He was promptly helped and lifted; his eyes were vague, the face livid and the lips trembling, and with a panting voice he asked, after recovering consciousness, if Dr Hughes was still there. He said that he had just seen him, and that if he were no longer in the stables, he could not be far. It took a lot of effort to calm him down and take him home. The sight continued to chase him and the last information we have is that he could not calm down from his agitated state.
But here it is what is even more curious. The butcher is not the only one to whom Dr Hughes appeared after dying. Two days after the execution, all prisoners saw him with their own eyes, entering the prison and walking around the aisles. He looked perfectly fine, dressed in black as in the gallows; he always passed his hand on the neck and produced a guttural sound that vibrated between the teeth. He climbed the stairs that led to his cell, got inside, sat down, and began writing verses. That is what the prisoners said and nothing in this world could convince them that they had been victims of an illusion.”
This case still has its instructive side, by the words of the patient. It is true, with respect to the main subject, but since he thought to be appropriate to speak of Spiritualism or Spiritism in his last speech, the story teller thought appropriate to inflate the report with cases of apparitions that only existed in his pen, except the first one, of the butcher that seems to be real.
Tom, the blind, is not a novel about a ghost, but an incredible phenomenon of intelligence. Tom is a black, seventeen-year-old young man, born blind, supposedly gifted by a wonderful musical instinct. The Harpers Weekly, illustrated newspaper of New York, dedicates a long article to him, from which we extracted the following passages:
“Since less than two years, he translated everything that had reached his years into songs, and the accuracy and easiness with which he captured a melodic fragment was such that he could execute his part just by hearing the first notes of a music. He soon started following with the second voice, although he had never heard, but an instinct told him that he should sing a similar thing. He heard a piano for the first time when he was four years old. When the instrument arrived, he was playing in the back yard as he usually did. The first vibration of the string attracted him to the living room. He was allowed to pass his fingers on the keyboard, just to satisfy his curiosity and do not deny his innocent pleasure of making some noise. Once, after mid-night, he was in the living room where he had learned to enter. The piano had not been closed and the ladies of the house were awakened by the sound of the instrument. To their great surprise, they heard Tom playing one of their pieces, and in the morning, he was still found at the piano. He was then allowed to play as much as he wished. He made such remarkable and speedy progress that the piano became the echo of everything that he heard. He then developed new and prodigious skills, up until then unknown in the musical world, and whose monopoly, it seems, God had reserved to Tom. He was less than five when, after a storm, he composed what he called: “What the wind, the thunder and the rain tell me.”
In Philadelphia, seventy music teachers spontaneously signed off a declaration that ends like this: “In fact, by any kind of musical examination, execution, composition and improvisation, he demonstrated a power and a capacity that put him among the most remarkable phenomena whose memory had been kept by the history of music. The signees believe it to be impossible to explain such prodigious results by any hypothesis that may be given by the laws of Art or Science.”
Today the plays the most difficult music of the great composers with a subtlety of touch, a power and an expression rarely heard. In the next Spring he must go to Europe.”
Here is the explanation given about this through the medium Mr. Morin, in a Spiritist meeting in Paris, in the house of Princess O…, on May 13th, 1866, in which we were present. It may serve as a guide in all similar cases.
“Not so fast in believing in the arrival of the famous blind black musician. His musical skills are much exalted by the great propagators of news, that are not stingy when it comes to imaginary facts, destined to satisfy the curiosity of their subscribers. You must be suspicious of reproductions, and above all the hypothetical or real borrowings from your journalists of their overseas colleagues. Many trial balloons are released with the objective of having the Spiritists falling in the trap, and in hopes of dragging Spiritism and its followers through the domain of ridicule. Therefore, be on your guard and never comment an event without being previously well informed and without having asked for the opinion of your guides.
You cannot imagine all the gimmicks employed by slayers of new ideas, to surprise a misstep, a fault, a palpable absurd made by the Spirits of their too confident proselytes. Traps are lay down to the Spirits everywhere; they are improved every day; young and old alike are on the prowl, and the most beautiful day of their lives would be the one to catch the chief in error, with the hands on the sack of ridicule. They have such self-confidence that they rejoice in anticipation; but there is an old proverb that says: - one must not sell the skin of the bear before killing it. Spiritism, however, their pet peeve, still stands, and could well allow them to wear their shoes off before being reached. It is with their heads down that the will, one day, burn incense before of the altar of truth that will soon be recognized by everybody.
By advising you to keep your reservation, I do not pretend that the deeds and gestures attributed to that blind man are impossible, but you must not believe in them before having seen them, and specially, heard them.”
Ebelmann
Such a prodigy, even giving a lot of room to exaggeration, would be the most eloquent defense in favor of the rehabilitation of the black race, in a country where the prejudice of color is so deeply rooted, and if it cannot be explained by the known laws of science, it would be more clearly and more rationally by reincarnation, not of a black in a black, but of a white in a black, because such an instinctive premature faculty could only be the intuitive memory of knowledge acquired in a previous life.
But then, it will be said, it will be a regression of the Spirit, to pass from the white to the black race? Decline of social position, no doubt, that is seen every day, when a rich person is born poor or a master becomes a servant, but not regression of the Spirit, since the aptitudes and acquisitions would have been preserved. Such a position would be a test or an atonement; perhaps even a mission, demonstrating that that race is not doomed to an absolute inferiority by nature. We reason here on the hypothesis of the reality of the fact and for similar cases that may appear.
The two following facts are from the same factory and do not need another remark in addition to what has just been given. The first, reported by the Soleil on July 19th, is supposedly of American origin; the second, extracted from the Événement of April, is supposed to be Parisian. The Spirits will incontestably be the most hardened unbelievers. As for the others, curiosity could well lead more than one to seek the thing that is said to produce so many wonders.
“The rapping Spirits and others seemed to have settled in Tauton, and that have chosen the house of an unfortunate doctor of that town for theater of their adventures. The basement, the halls, the rooms, the kitchen and even the attic of the professional are haunted at night by the shadows of all those that he sent to a better world. These are screams, moaning, curses, bloody ironies, according to the Spirit of the shadows that sometime does not have a shadow of Spirit.
-Your last potion killed me, says a cavernous voice.
-Allopathic, you are not worth a Homeopathist.
-I am your victim 299, the last one, says another apparition. At least make a cross when you reach 300.
And so forth. The life of the poor doctor is no longer bearable.”
The second anecdote is also witty:
“It is Sunday evening, during this dreadful thunderstorm which yesterday’s newspapers enumerated the devastations. A horse-drawn carriage was descending the avenue de Neuilly through rain and lightning; inside were four people; they had dined together in a very amiable and very hospitable house, near the park of Neuilly, and enlivened by this pleasant evening, the four travelers, heedless of the storm, engaged in a rather light conversation. They talked badly about women, even slandered them somewhat. The name of a young person was brought up, and someone expressed doubts about the nationality of the victim, insinuating that it was certainly not born in Nanterre. Suddenly, a thunderbolt makes the doors shiver, a lightning strike flashes the whole car and the rain lashes the windows, almost shattering them. Illuminated by the lightning, the four travelers then saw, standing in front of them in the car, a fifth traveler - it was a woman, dressed in white, a specter, an angel. The apparition vanished with the lightning, then as if the phantom wanted to protest against the calumny that was directed against the young absent woman, a rain of orange blossoms fell on the four companions of journey and covered them with balmy fog. There was, indeed, a medium among the four travelers.
Nothing forces you to believe this incredible story, and I don't believe a word of it myself. It was one of the four travelers that told me and confirms it to me. It seemed original to me, that's all! "
