Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1866

Allan Kardec

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Bibliographic News

New Principles of Medical Philosophy

By Dr. Chauvet, from Tours[1]



In our October issue, we were only able to announce this work, regretting that the extension of the articles, whose publication could not be delayed, prevented us from reporting earlier.

Although, by its specialty, this book seems foreign to the subjects that occupy us, it is, nevertheless, attached to it by the very principle on which it is based, because the author makes the spiritualist principle intervene in the science, most stained with materialism. He does not do mystical spirituality, as some understand it, but, if one can put it that way, positive and scientific spirituality. He endeavors to demonstrate the existence of the spiritual principle that exists in us, its connection with the organism helped by the fluidic link that unites them, the important role that these two elements play in the economy, the inevitable errors into which forcibly fall the physicians that relate everything to matter, and the enlightenment of which they deprive themselves by neglecting the spiritual principle. The following passage sufficiently indicates the point of view from which he considers the question. He says on page 34:

In short, human constitution results:

1. Of a spiritual, independent principle, or immortal soul;

2. Of a permanent fluidic body;

3. Of a material, perishable organism, animated during life by a special fluid.

The temporary union of the first of these constituent elements with the third takes place by the combination of their respective fluids (perispiritual fluid and vital fluid), from which results a mixed fluid that, at the same time, penetrates the whole body, radiates around it, sometimes at great distances and through all obstacles, as the magnetic, somnambulistic and other phenomena demonstrate, that materialism of all colors rejects with proud disdain, with the pretext of supernatural and charlatanism, because they come to contest its unreasonable theories.”

From the action of the fluidic element on the organism, he arrives at the demonstration, mathematically in a way, of the power of action of infinitesimal quantities on the economy. This demonstration seemed new to us, and one of the clearest we have read. We leave to the experts the appreciation of the technical part that we do not discuss; but from the philosophical point of view, this work is one of the first applications of the laws revealed by Spiritism to the positive science, and, as such, it has its marked place in the Spiritist libraries. Although the name of Spiritism is not even pronounced, the author can rest assured that he does not have the approval of people whose principle is to deny anything that relates to spirituality.



[1] Vol. in-12, price 3 francs. Tours, store Guilland-verger. ─ Paris, store Baillère, Rua Hautefeuille, 19


The dogmas of the Church of Christ Explained by Spiritism

By Apolon de Boltinn



The subject of this book presented a dangerous pitfall that the author has prudently avoided, by refraining from dealing with questions that are not on the agenda, and on which Spiritism is not yet called upon to pronounce itself. Spiritism only admits as avowed principles those that have received the sanction of general teaching, and the solutions that can be given on questions not yet elaborated, are only personal opinions of men or Spirits, susceptible to receive later the denial of experience; these premature solutions cannot be the responsibility of the doctrine, but they could lead public opinion astray into believing that the doctrine accepts them. This is what Mr. de Boltinn understood perfectly, and we congratulate him for that. Hence, his book can be admitted by Spiritism and placed among the works called to be of service to the cause. It is written with caution, moderation, method, and clarity. We see that the author has made an in-depth study of the Holy Scriptures and of the theologians of the Latin Church and of the Greek Church, whose words he comments and explains like a man that knows the ground on which he stands. His arguments have the force of facts, logic, and concision. May the book of our brother from Russia be welcome among us. This is how, in the name of Spiritism, all peoples join hands.


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