Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1867

Several newspapers reproduced the following fact:

“La Sentinelle, from Toulon, talks about a young phenomenon that is admired now, in this city:

“She is a little girl, two years and eleven months old, called Eugénie Colombe. This child already knows how to read and write perfectly, she is also able to take the most serious examination on the principles of the Christian religion, on French grammar, geography, the history of France and the four rules of arithmetic. She knows the compass rose and perfectly supports a scientific discussion on all these subjects. This amazing little girl began to speak very distinctly when she was four months old.

Presented in the salons of the maritime prefecture, Eugénie Colombe, endowed with a charming face, was a magnificent success."

This article had seemed to us, and to many others, carried with such exaggeration that we gave no importance to it. Nevertheless, to know positively what to expect, we asked one of our correspondents, a naval officer in Toulon, to inquire into the fact. Here is what he told us:

“To make sure of the truth, I went to the parents’ house of the little girl, reported by the Sentinelle of Toulon, on November 19^th; I saw this charming child, whose physical development is commensurate with her age; she is only three years old. Her mother is a schoolteacher; it is she that directs her education. She questioned her, in my presence, about catechism, holy history, from the creation of the world to the flood, the first eight kings of France and various circumstances relating to their reign and that of Napoleon I. In geography, the child named the five parts of the world, the capitals of the countries they contain, several capitals of the departments of France. She also answered perfectly well the first notions of French grammar and the metric system. This child did all the above without hesitation, while having fun with the toys she was holding in her hands. Her mother told me that she has been able to read since she was two and a half years old and has assured me that she can answer over five hundred questions in the same way."

Freed from the exaggeration of the newspapers, and reduced to the above proportions, the fact is, nonetheless, remarkable, and important in its consequences. It necessarily calls attention to analogous facts of intellectual precocity and innate knowledge. We involuntarily try to explain them to ourselves, and with the ideas of plurality of existences that circulate, we only manage to find a rational solution in a previous existence. We must classify these phenomena among those that were announced before, confirming, by their multiplicity, the Spiritist beliefs, and contributing to their development.

In this case, memory certainly seems to play an important role. The mother of this child being a teacher, the little girl was undoubtedly usually in the class, and will have learned the lessons taught to the pupils by her mother, while we see some children possessing, by intuition, some kind of innate knowledge, and independent of any teaching. But why, with her rather than with others, this exceptional facility to assimilate what she heard, and that one probably did not dream of teaching her? It was because what she heard only awakened in her the memory what she had known. The precocity of certain children for languages, music, mathematics, etc., all innate ideas, in a word, are also only memories; they remember what they knew, as we see some people remember, more or less vaguely, what they did, or what happened to them. We know a little five-year-old boy that, being at the table, where nothing in the conversation could have provoked an idea on this subject, began saying: "I was married, and I remember it well; I had a wife, small, young and pretty, and I had several children.” We certainly have no means of controlling his assertion, but we wonder where he could have taken such an idea from, when no circumstances could have provoked it.

Should we conclude that children that only learn through hard work have been ignorant or stupid in their previous existence? Certainly not; the faculty of remembering is an aptitude inherent to the psychological state, that is, to the easier release of the soul in some individuals than in others, a sort of retrospective spiritual view that reminds them of the past, while for those that do not have it, this past leaves no apparent trace. The past is like a dream that we remember, more or less exactly, or that we have totally lost the memory of. (See Spiritist Review of July 1860, and November 1864).

At the time of sending for printing, we received a letter, from one of our correspondents in Algeria, that while passing through Toulon, saw the young Eugénie Colombe; it contains the following account that confirms the previous one, and adds details to it that are not without interest:

“This child, of a remarkable beauty, is extremely lively, but angelically sweet. Placed on her mother's lap, she answered more than fifty questions about the Gospel. When asked about geography, she pointed out to me all the capitals of Europe and the various states of America; all the capitals of the French departments and Algeria; she explained to me the decimal system, the metric system. In grammar, verbs, participles, and adjectives. She knows, or at least defines, the first four basic rules. She wrote at my dictation, but with such rapidity that I am inclined to believe that she does a mediumistic writing. In the fifth line she put down her pen; she looked at me fixedly with her big blue eyes, and abruptly said to me: “Sir, that's enough; Then she got down from her seat and ran to her toys. This child is certainly a very advanced Spirit because we see that she answers and quotes without the slightest effort of memory. Her mother told me that, since the age of 12 to 15 months, she dreams at night and seems to be conversing, but in a language that does not allow her to be understood. She is charitable by instinct; she always attracts her mother's attention when she sees a poor person; she cannot bear to see dogs, cats or any animals mistreated. Her father is a shipyard worker.”

Only enlightened Spiritists, like our two correspondents, could appreciate the psychological phenomenon presented by this young child, and investigate its cause; for, just as to judge a mechanism, one needs be a mechanic, to judge Spiritist facts, one must be a Spiritist. Now, who in general is responsible for the observation and explanation of phenomena of this kind? Precisely people that have not studied them, and that denying the first cause, cannot admit the consequences.

We read in the Spiritual Magazine of London:

“The celebrity of Tom, the Blind, that recently appeared in London, had already spread here, and a few years ago an article in the newspaper All year round, described his remarkable abilities and the sensation they had produced in America. The way in which these faculties developed in this black, slave and blind, ignorant and totally illiterate; how, as a child still, one day surprised by the sounds of music in his master's house, he unceremoniously ran to take his place at the piano, reproducing note by note what had just been played, laughing and contorting with joy, by seeing the new world of pleasures he had just discovered; it has all been said so many times that I think it unnecessary to mention it again; but a significant and interesting fact was said to me by a friend that was the first witness and appreciator of Tom's faculty. One day a work by Handel was played to him. Tom immediately played it again, correctly, and when he was done, he rubbed his hands with an expression of indefinable joy, exclaiming: “I see him, he's an old man with a big wig; he played first and I did after.” It is indisputable that Tom had seen Handel and heard him play.

Tom has performed in public several times, and the way he performs the most difficult pieces would almost cast doubt on his disease. He repeats on the piano, without mistake, and necessarily from memory, everything that is played to him, whether old classical sonatas or modern fantasies; well, we would like to see the one who could learn Thalberg's variations in this way, with their eyes closed, as he did. This surprising fact of a blind, ignorant, uneducated man, showing a talent which others are unable to acquire with all the advantages of study, will probably be explained by many in the ordinary way of considering these things, saying: “he is a genius and an exceptional organization”, but it is only Spiritism that can give the key to this phenomenon, in a comprehensible and rational way.”



The reflections we made, about the little girl from Toulon, naturally apply to the blind Tom. Tom must have been a great musician, that only needs to hear to remember what he knew. What makes the phenomenon more extraordinary is that it is presented in a black, slave and blind, a triple cause that was opposed to the cultivation of his native aptitudes, and despite which they manifested themselves at the first favorable opportunity, like a seed that germinates in the rays of sun.

Now, as the black race in general, and especially in a state of slavery, does not shine through the culture of arts, it must be concluded that the Spirit of Tom does not belong to that race; but that he will have incarnated there either as atonement, or as a providential means of rehabilitation of this race in public opinion, by showing what it is capable of. Much has been said and written against slavery and the prejudice of color; everything that has been said is just and moral; but it was only a philosophical thesis. The law of the plurality of existences, and of reincarnation, adds to it the irrefutable sanction of a law of nature, that consecrates the brotherhood of all men. Tom the slave, born and acclaimed in America, is a living protest against the prejudices that still reign in that country. (See the Spiritist Review, April 1862: Perfectibility of the black race. Spiritualist phrenology).

“A few days ago, The Morning Post told the strange story of a dog that allegedly committed suicide. The animal was owned by a Mr. Home, of Frinsbury, near Rochester. It appears that certain circumstances had led to suspect that it was suffering from rabies, and consequently it was avoided and kept away from the house, as much as possible.

It seemed to experience a great deal of annoyance at being treated like this, and for a few days it was noticed that the dog was in a gloomy and grieving mood but showing no symptoms of rage yet. Thursday he was seen leaving his niche and heading towards the residence of a close friend of his master at Upnor, where he was refused to welcome him, which drew a lamentable cry from him.

On Thursday it was seen leaving its niche and heading towards the residence of a close friend of his master, in Upnor, where it was not welcomed, producing a lamentable cry.

After having waited some time in front of the house, not obtaining permission to get inside, the god decided to leave, and was seen going to the side of the river that passes by, descending the bank with a deliberate step, and then, after turning around and sending a sort of farewell howl, entering the river, plunging the head under the water, and after a minute or two, reappearing lifeless on the surface.

This extraordinary act of suicide was said to have been witnessed by many people. The kind of death clearly proves that the animal was not hydrophobic.

This fact seems very extraordinary; it will, no doubt, meet skeptical. Nevertheless, says the Droit, it is not without precedent.

History has preserved us the memory of faithful dogs that threw themselves to voluntary death, so as not to outlive their masters. Montaigne cites two examples borrowed from antiquity: "Hyrcanus, the dog of King Lysimachus, its dead master, remained obstinate in bed, not willing to eat or drink, and the day the body of his master was burned, it ran and threw itself in the fire, where it was burnt; as the dog of a man named Pyrrhus also did, for it did not move from its master's bed since he was dead; and when he was carried away, the dog let itself be taken away with him, and finally threw itself into the fire where the body of his master was burning. (Essays, book II, chap. XII.) We, ourselves, recorde, a few years ago, the tragic end of a dog that, having lost the love of his master, and unable to find consolation, it rushed from the top of a footbridge, in the Saint-Martin canal. The very detailed account that we then gave of this event has never been contradicted and has not given rise to any complaint from the concerned parties."

Petit Journal, May 15^th, 1866



Animal suicide is not without example. The dog, as it was said above, that allows itself to die of starvation, out of sorrow for having lost its master, carries out a real suicide. The scorpion, surrounded by a circle of hot coals, seeing that it cannot get out, kills itself. It is one more analogy to be noted between the Spirit of man and that of animals.

The voluntary death of an animal proves that it is aware of its existence and of its individuality; it understands what life and death are, since it chooses freely between one and the other; it is, therefore, not so much a machine, and does not obey an exclusively blind instinct, as is supposed. Instinct drives the search for means of preservation, and not of its own destruction.