Spiritist thoughts that go around the worldIn our last issue we reported some of the thoughts that are found here and there in the press, and that Spiritism can claim as integral parts of the doctrine; we will continue to report, from time to time, those that come to our knowledge. These quotes have their useful and instructive side, in that they prove the popularization of the Spiritist ideas.
In the weekly review of the
Siècle of December 2ndnd, Mr. E. Texier, reporting on a new work by Mr. P.-J. Stahl, entitled
Good Parisian Fortunes, expresses himself like this:
“
What distinguishes these Parisian Good Fortunes is the delicacy of touch in the painting of feeling, it is the good smell of the book that we breathe like a breeze. Rarely had this so vast subject been treated, so explored, so hackneyed and always new, love with more true science, more felt observation, more tact and lightness of hand.
It has been said that, in a previous existence, Balzac must have been a woman; one could also say that Stahl was a young girl. All the little secrets of the heart that sprouts in contact with the first passion, he grasps them and fixes them down to their finest nuances. He did better than study his heroines; one would say that he felt all their impressions, all their thrills, all these pretty shocks – of joy or pain - that follow one another, in the feminine soul, filling it out with the first buds of April flowering.”It is not the first time that the idea of previous existences has been expressed outside Spiritism. The author of the article had once spared sarcasm at the new belief, about the Davenport brothers, whom he believed, and perhaps still believes, embodied the doctrine, like most of his colleagues in journalism. While writing these lines, he certainly did not suspect that he was formulating one of its most important principles. Whether he did it seriously or not, it doesn't matter! The thing, nevertheless, proves that the unbelievers themselves find in the plurality of existences, even if only admitted by way of hypothesis, the explanation for the innate aptitudes of the actual existence. This thought, thrown to millions of readers by the wind of publicity, is popularized, infiltrates beliefs; one gets used to it; each one seeks the cause of a host of misunderstood things, of one’s own tendencies: jokingly here, and seriously there; the mother, whose child is somewhat precocious, readily smiles at the idea that he may have been a man of genius. In our century of reasoning, we want to know everything; the majority are loath to see, in the good and bad qualities brought up with birth, a game of chance or a whim of the divinity; the plurality of existences resolves the question by showing that existences are linked and complement each other. From deduction to deduction we manage to find, in this fruitful principle, the key to all the mysteries, to all the apparent anomalies of moral and material life, social inequalities, goods and evils down here; man finally knows where he comes from, where he is going to, why he is on earth, why he is happy or unhappy there, and what he must do to ensure his future happiness.
If we find it rational to admit that we have already lived on earth, it is no less so that we can live there again. Since it is obvious that it is not the body that lives again, it can only be the soul; this soul has therefore retained its individuality; it was not confused in the universal whole; to retain her aptitudes, she must have remained herself. The principle of the plurality of existences alone is, as we see, the negation of materialism and pantheism.
For the soul to be able to accomplish a series of successive existences, in the same environment, it must not get lost in the depths of the infinite; it must remain in the sphere of earthly activity. Here then is the spiritual world that surrounds us, amidst which we live, in which bodily humanity pours out, as the soul itself pours into it. Now, call these souls Spirits, and here we are in full Spiritism.
If Balzac could have been a woman and Stahl a young girl, women can therefore incarnate as men, and, consequently, men can incarnate as women. There is, therefore, between the two sexes only a material difference, accidental and temporary, a difference in bodily clothing; but as to the essential nature of being, that is the same. Now, from the equality of nature and origin, logic concludes that there is equality of social rights. We can see to what consequences the sole principle of the plurality of existences leads. Mr. Texier probably does not believe that he had said so much in the few lines we quoted.
Some may say, however, that Spiritism admits the presence of souls around us, and their relations with the living, and that this is where the absurd lies. On this point, let us listen to Father V…, new parish priest of Saint Vincent de Paul. In his speech, on November 25th, for his installation, he said, praising the patron of the parish: “The Spirit of Saint Vincent de Paul is here, I affirm it, my brothers; yes, he is among us; he hovers over this assembly; he sees us and hears us; I feel him close to me, inspiring me.” What else would a Spiritist have said? If the Spirit of Saint Vincent de Paul is in the assembly, how is the Spirit drawn there, if not by the sympathetic thought of the assistants? This is what Spiritism says. If he is there, other Spirits can also be there: this is the spiritual world that surrounds us. If the priest is influenced by him, he can be influenced by other Spirits, as well as other people. There are, therefore, relations between the spiritual world and the corporeal world. If he speaks by the inspiration of that Spirit, then he is a speaking medium; but if he speaks, he can just as easily write, under the same inspiration, and no doubt he has done so more than once, without realizing it. Here he is then, an inspired, intuitive writing medium. However, if he was told that he preached Spiritism, he would probably defend himself against it with all his strength.
But, with which appearance could the Spirit of Saint Vincent de Paul be in this assembly? If the parish priest does not say it, Saint Paul does: it is with the spiritual or fluidic body, the incorruptible body that covers the soul after death, and to which spiritualism gives the name of perispirit.
The perispirit, one of the constitutive elements of the human organism, attested by Spiritism, had been suspected for a long time. It is impossible to be more explicit, in this respect, than M. Charpignon, in his work on magnetism, published in 1842
[1]. In fact, chap. II, page 355 reads:
“
The psychological considerations, that we have just made, had the result of fixing us on the necessity of admitting, in the composition of human individuality, a true trinity, and of finding in this treble compound an element of an essentially different nature from the other two parts, a perceptible element, rather by its phenomenological faculties, than by its constitutive properties, for the nature of a spiritual being escapes our means of investigation. Man is, therefore, a mixed being, an organism with a double composition, namely: a combination of atoms forming the organs, and an element of a material nature, but indecomposable, dynamic in essence, in a word, an imponderable fluid. So much for the material part. Now, as a characteristic element of the hominal species: it is a simple, intelligent, free, and willful being, that psychologists call soul…”
These quotes, and their following reflections, are intended to show that public opinion is much less distant from the Spiritist ideas than one might think, and that the force of things, and the irresistible logic of facts lead to them by a quite natural inclination. It is, therefore, not a vain presumption to say that the future is ours.
[1] Physiology, medicine and metaphysics of magnetism, by Charpignon, 1 vol. in-8, Paris. Baillière, 17, rue de l'Ecole-de-Médecine. Price: 6 francs.
