Nineteen centuries have elapsed since the time of Christ, neneteen centuries of authority for the Church, twelve of them of absolute power. What, at the present time, are the consequences of her teachings? Has Christianity fulfilled its mission of explaining and spreading the teaching of Christ, of forming by them a better and happier state of society? Has this great work been accomplished? "The tree is judged by its fruits," say the Scriptures. Look at the tree of Christianity. Does it bend under the load of fruits of hope and of love?

.   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  

We have seen the consequences, in our country at least,³ of Catholic education. But if it is imcomplete and full of errors, are we to prefer to it lay education? Lay education produces effects opposed to those we have indicated. It gives to man a spirit of independence, it frees him from religious and governmental guardiamship, but at the same time it weakens in him moral discipline, without which no society can be strong. This teaching is not, as its detractors have said of it, without principles; but it has not been able to put anything in the place of the Christian ideal.

The primary, or infant instruction, is too hasty, and too soon abandoned. It is not completed by the indispensable element of moral teaching. It leaves the child, and consequently, the man, ignorant of the most essential things - the great laws of life.

When, at twelve or fourteen years of age, the child leaves the primary school, furnished with his certificate of study, and is thrown into the great social battle, he is wanting in that solid foundation, and knowledge of truth and of duty, which is the great support, the best weapon in the struggle for existence.

All that has been taught him of the duties of man (not too much at best) has been told him at an age when he coul not appreciate its value. It will most likely fade away, leaving no traces behind.

But, it will be said, if the primary instruction is insufficient, and ill-assimilated, later on, in the higher and classical education, the young man will surely find and ample store of principles, of the ideas essential to him in his pursuit of a high end. Well, this again is an illusion. I quote the opinion of the celebrated writer, Francisque Sarcy, who declared, in one of his articles in the "Petit Journal (March 7, 1894). "From my classical studies, from my passage through the philosophy classes, there has remained with me no precise idea on the destinies of mankind." This reminds us of the well-known remark of a gook judge in such matters: Classical philosophy is but the history of the contradictions of the human mind."

Materialism and positivism reign almost exclusively in the upper political spheres, peopled by intelligences moulded by higher education. The influence of these theories must react on political and social life.

If one goes to the bottom of the subject, one is obliged to admit that lay education is impregnated with scepticism, and inspired by the negative philosophies. Hence weakness as a moral agent.

It is true that we hear much of altruism; but altruism is but an empty word, a baseless theory. It is a seed sown on rocky soil, and destined to perish; for it is not enough to sow, we must also prepare the ground. You cannot move to altruistic sentiments men penetrated by the idea that the struggle for the needs and interests of life is the supreme law of existence, men convinced that all hopes, all generous impulses, are destined to end in nothing.

Materialism, that vigorous and inevitable reaction against dogma and superstition, has penetrated all strata of society. Among cultivated people, it is decorated with the name of Positivism, but the results are the same.

Materialism has had its day of triumph. At one time, its theories over-ruled science. But although strong to destroy, it can build up nothing, therefore, those who answer to its call, sooner or later abandon it.

If materialistic ideas have spread from the highest political regions down to the lowest social depths; in the dominions of science, on the other hand, they have lost very much of their influence. The experiments of modern psychology have shown superabundantly that all is not merely matter or force, as Buchner, Carl Vogt, Jules Soury, and others affirmed; it is proved that life is not a property of the body vanishing with it. ⁴ After the experiments of Dr Luys, de Baraduc, de Roches, Meyers, Richet, etc., Carl Vogt would no longer dare to say that "the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile." The secretions of the human body can be weighed, but who has ever weighed thought? Even the theory of atoms has fallen into discredit. The atom, the essential basis of the universe, the materialists tell us, is now considered by chemists as a pure abstraction. As Berthelot says in his "Origins of Chemistry," page 320: "The ether of the physicists and the atom of the chemists are vanishing, to give place to higher conceptions, which tend to explain everything by the phenomena of movement."

W. Oswald, Professor of Physics at the University of Leipsic, in his article entitled, "The Defeat of Atomism," ("Revue Générale des Sciences" of Nov. 1895), expresses himself in these words, on the subject of atoms and the mechanical theory of the universe, which theory embraces celestial mechanics and the phenomena of organic life: "It is a very imperfect invention. The attempt has not even the value of an auxiliary hypothesis. It is an error pure and simple." Oswald believes, with Newton, that there must exist "higher principles" than those yet known. We see from these opinions of these competent men that the materialists have built up the edifice of science on the most narrow possible bais.

Materialism embraces only one side of truth. Without doubt matter is grand if considered in the majestic unity of its laws. But even if we could know it in its essence, matter is not everything. It represents only the lower aspects of the world and of life.

Materialism bases its conclusions wholly on the testimony of the senses, but our senses are limited and insufficient; often they mislead us. It is not with the physical senses, or with instruments of precision, or retorts, that we discover the higher laws and causes. Reason alone can teach the supreme reason of things.

Materialists hoped to penetrate all the secrets of nature by an attentive study of physical forms. They were like the miner who works his vein underground, and who, at every step, discovers treasures and new riches; as, to give them their due, has indeed been the case of the positive scientists also. But as a miner advances, he loses sight of the light of day, of the splendid dominions of life, to go ever deeper into the regions of night, of silence and of death. It is thus that materialism proceeds. Much as science has done for man, we may yet wonder that she has not given him a real knowledge of himself, or of the laws of his destiny. We feel vaguely that she might have done so if instead of confining herself to the study of matter, she had been willing to explore, sincerely and assiduously, the dominions of life itself. Under pressure of the negative doctrines, science has lost herself in analysis, in fragmentary study of physical nature. But the dust of science is not science, and the dust of truth is not truth. Mankind, weary of metaphysical conceptions and tehological solutions, had turned ist eyes and hopes towards science. It asked the secret of existence, a belief, a new faith, to take the place of that of the crumbling Churches. It asked for the solution of those problems of life which dominate, surround and envelop us in their depths. To these repeated calls, science remained deaf. If, in some cases, a solution was suggested, it was the idea of nothingness. From that came the disappointment and irritation of certain thinkers, and the accusations so freely made; but the accusations must be made excldusively against the materialistic and positive schools. Science, as a whole, when she has thrown off her shackles, will attain her goal by higher and more enlightened conceptions.

    .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   

It has always greatly surprised us to find, among the men of liberty who direct the destinies of the Republic, many who think or call themselves, materialists and atheists. How is it that they do not understand that materialism, founded on blind fatality and consecrating the right of might, cannot make free men? The democracy of '89 and '84 had other views. According to materialistic theories, man is but a machine governed by instincts.

Well, for a machine, there can neither be liberty nor responsibility, nor moral laws; for moral law is a law of the spirit. Without moral law, what becomes of the idea of duty? It disappears, and with it all established order. A society can only live and develop by having for a foundation the idea of duty, namely, virtue and justice. These are the sole possible bases for social order. That is why society has never been able to reconcile itself to atheism; for, just as superstition and idolatry lead us to despotism, so atheism and materialism must logically end in the depreciation of the social forces, often in anarchy and nihilism.

With such theories circulating among the masses, materialism has become a real social peril. It has rendered man"s load of misery harder to bear, his outlook on life more; it has diminished human energy, and driven the unhappy to misery and despair.

How can we therefore wonder if marriages become more rare, if infanticides, suicides, and madness multiply rapidly? It is a sign of our times that young people of both sexes, almost children, rush to suicide from the most futile motives. According to statistics, the number of self-inflicted deaths has increased three hundred per cent, during the last fifty years. The crimes committed by quite young men are frequent. The army of vice and of assassination is increasing at a fearful rate.

With the materialistic theories, moral responsibility disappears. Man is not free, we are told by Buchner and his disciples; he is the slave of his surroundings. Crime is explained by avatism and heredity. It is a natural phenomenon, the necessary effect of a cause which is the result of a blind fatality. Therefore, there is neither good nor evil. Thus the gravest faults are excused, consciences are lulled to sleep, and all idea of moral sanction or of justice is ruined. For, truly, if crime is a fatality, if it is involuntary, it is not guilty, or shameful. If passion is irresistible, why try to conquer it? Such views, propagated in all classes, have as a natural consequence the direct excitement of the worst appetites, and the development of sensuality and selfish instincts. In the wealthy classes, many have but one object; to suppress the duties and painful struggles of life, to make of existence a perpetual festival, a kind of intoxication from which the awakening may be terrible.

They deny free-will and the survival of the soul; they deny God, duty, and justice, all the principles on which human society reposes, without taking thought as to what must be the result of these negations.

A literature inspired by this disgust for life has arisen and spread in all directions, a literature which is a menace to all generous impulses and enthusiasms, and carries us straight to the blackest pessimism.

A well-known journalist, Edmond Lepelletier, wrote thus on the subject of the ship-wreck of the Utopia:-

"All the advantages of existence belong to those who are the best armed for triumph in the vital struggle, and the best armed is the most pitiless, the most selfish, the least accessible to sentiments of humanity or even of justice. It is this necessity for struggle, and this inevitable victory by force, in spite of right, of justice, of humanity itself, which secures the vigour of societies and the salvation of civilisations."

"What is good?" ⁵ asks Frederick Nietsche, "Power. What is bad? Weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power is growing, that resistance is overcome. Not contentment, but more power, not peace above all, but war, not virtue, but valour. Perish the weak and the failures. And let us help them to disappear. What is more hurtful than any vice? It is pity for the poor and the feeble."

Such is the tone of materialistic writers and philosophers in the public press. Can they really know what responsibilities they incur? Do they dream of the harvest which such seed will produce? Do they not see that in vulgarising such iniquitous and despairing doctrines, they place in the hands of the unhappy the torch of the incendiary and the weapons of death?

Ah! these doctrines may appear inoffensive to the rich and happy, but what application will those who suffer, and with whom fate has dealt hardly, make of them?

The examples of Vaillant and Emile Henry show us.

Vaillant declared before the Jury of the Seine, in January 1894, that it was the reading of materialistic works that suggested to him the idea of his crime.

Emily Henry held forth in the same strain; "Scientific studies initiated me into the forces of nature; I am a materialist and an atheist."

Oh! materialists, with your inexorable laws of atavism and heredity, you have distilled a subtle poison into the name of GOD, you have told them that earthly joys are the only ones, that all appetites are legitimate, and that life is but the shadow of a moment. And the people have believed you!

Woe be to those who have stilled the voice of conscience, and killed the pure and disinterested ideal, and taught the people that all is matter and death the end.

Woe to those who will not admit that every human creature has a right to existence, and to the light, and even more, to spiritual life; to those who have given and example of immorality, of silfishness and of sensuality.

Against this society which offers to man neither protection, consolation, nor moral aid, a furious storm is preparing. It is not withou danger that the human soul is compressed, that the moral evolution of the world is interfered with, that thought is enclosed in the iron circle of scepticism. A day will come when this thought will recoil with violence, and the foundations of society will be shaken by fearful convulsions.

But lift up thy head, oh man, and hope once more. A new ray of light will descend from space and illumine thy path. All that thou hast been taught hithertois incomplete and sterile.

What matters apparent death, if life is immortal, if the being is imperishable in its essence, if death itself is but a phase of its elevation?

We must not only see the material evolution. That is only one side of things. The destruction of organisms, prove nothing. They are but passing structures; the body is but a clothing. The reality is the psychic being, the spirit which animates these material forms. The spirit remains entire beyond the tomb, with all the qualities acquired and merits accumulated, ready for renewed ascencions. It is clothed in that subtle envelope, the fluidic body, from which it is inseparable, which existed before birth, and now exists in each one of us, and will survive us at death. The existence of this subtle body is demonstrated daily by experiments of separation of the double, of the exteriorisation of sensibility, by the apparitions of phantoms of the living during sleep, as well as of those of the dead.

On other points, the materialistic theories are not more happy. They tell us that all that characterises the human mind, aptitudes, faculties, virtues and vices, is explained by the law of heredity and the influence of surroundings. Look about you, you will see that fact gives the lie to those assertions. Yes, the influence of material conditions is poweful, and bows certain spirits under its yoke.  But how many others, by will, courage, and perseverance, have raised themselves from the most obscure positions, from the inferior ranks to the heights of genius. How many thinkers, learned men, philosophers, born in poverty, have by their own efforts, attained to the front rank. Is it necessary to name them? Let us remember that Copernicus was the son of a baker; Kepler, whose father was a public-house keeper, was himself a waiter in his youth; Alembert, a foundling, picked up one winter's night on the steps of a church, was brought up by the wife of a glazier; Newton and Laplace were the sons of poor peasants; Humphrey Davy, the servant of a druggist; Franklin, a printer's apprentice. All these, and thousands of others were able to overcome the most unfavourable conditions, triumph over the greatest obstacles, and conquer a lasting reputation.

It is therefore neither birth nor conditions that give talent. An illustrious father may have most commonplace children. Two brothers may resemble each other physically, eat the same food, receive the same education, and have neither the same aptitude nor the same talents.

We clearly see that intelligence, genius, virtue, are therefore not the results of material conditions, but of a power higher than these conditions, and which often dominates and governs them.

The will can sometimes assert itself, and overcome the resistance of the flesh amid the most cruel torutures. Do we not see this in the case of those who have suffered and died for a great cause, all those martyrs who have given their lives for the truth? We see Giordano Bruno, preferring torture to retraction; Campanella, who was subjected seven times to torture, and seven times repeated his bitter satires against the inquisitores; Joan of Arc, who died at the stake; Socrates, who saved philosophy and drank the hemlock rather than deny his doctrine. There were Pierre Ramus, Arnauld de Brescia, John Huss, Jerome of Prague, Savonarolo.

In all these great martyrs, we see the triumph of mind over matter. The body, torn by suffering, complains and groans, but the soul asserts its authority and subdues the revolt of the flesh.

This show us of what immense use is that great faculty, the will, the constant and elightened use of which can raise man so high. Will is the weapon which he must be taught to use, to sharpen without ceasing. Those who by their sophistries try to diminish, or weaken it, commit a fatar error.

Is it not a bitter thought that the two doctrines which are the widest spread among us, Catholicism on the one hand, materialism on the other, both concur to annihilate or at least to dwarf the powers hidden in the human being; reason, will, liberty, the powers by which man can accomplish such great things, and create for himself a marvellous future.

    .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .

Humanity is swayed between two errors, one which affirms and one which denies; one says to man, "Believe without understanding," and the other cries to him, "Die without hope."

On one side, idolatry, for He is but an idol, this God who desires more and yet more blood spilt in His name; who rears himself as an obstacle between man and science; who combats progress and liberty; a sombre divinity, to worship whom one must first veil the face of the Christ, and trample under foot reason and conscience.

Un the presente day, there is no moral renovation possible except outside of the dogmatism of the Churches. What our society needs is a religious conception in harmony with the universe and with science, and which shall satisfy human reason. A dogmatic restoration would be fruitless. The people would not be deceived by it. Dogma to them is the Church. And the Church by allying herself to all forms of oppression, has become, as has been well said by J. Jaurés: "one of the forms of exploitation of humanity." Its affirmations have today lost all credit with the masses. The people, today, want the truth, the whole truth.

It is true that Christianity contains germs and principles, long obscure and misunderstood, which require only a new impulse to bring them out, as long-buried seed appears at length on the surface, and grows and bears fruit. Christianity, more than any other religion, brought to the world active love for all who suffer, devotion to humanity carried to the extreme of sacrifice, and the idea of fraternity in life and in death, that appeared in history under the image of the Crucified One, the Christ dying for all men. It is this great idea which has been falsified and distorted by the Church and needs a new impetus from without. This will be role of modern spiritualism.

The new revelation, the teachings of spirits, the proofs they give of survival, of the immortality of the soul and of eternal justice, enable us to distinguish that which is living from that which is dead in Christianity. If men of good faith were willing to convince themselves of the power of these teachings and accept their fruits, they would find in them a renewal of exhausted life and dying ideals. This ideal proclaimed by the Invisible is not different from that of the founders of Christianity. It aims always at realising on earth the "reign of God and His justice," at purifying the human soul of its vices and errors, to raise it after its falls, and by giving it a knowledge of the higher laws and its true destinies, to develop in it that spirit of wisdom and of love without which there is neither social peace nor elevation. Christianity, to be born again and become resplendent, must revivify itself at the spring which quenched the thrist of the first Christians. It must free itself from all that is supernatural and miraculous in character, and become once more simple, clear, and rational, without thereby ceasing to be a bond between man, the invisible world and God. Without this bond, there is no strong belief, no high philosophy, no living religion. Religion must throw off its worn-out forms, and take inspiration from modern discoveries, the laws of nature and the promptings of reason. She must familiarise the human mind with that law of destiny which multiplies its existences, placing it alternately in the two worlds, the material and the fluidic, and permits it thus to complete and develop itself, and to earn its own happiness. She must make it understand that a close fellowship unites all the members of the two humanities, that of earth and that of space; those who live in the flesh and those who aspire by a new birth to continue to work for their own progress and that of their neighbours. She must show it, above all, that law of sovereign justice by virtue of which each one reaps, throughout the ages, all that he has sown of good and of evil. These ideas, these laws, properly understood, will form a new basis of education, a principle of betterment, a religious bond between men. For the bond of solidarity which unites them reaches back through the past, extends to the future, and embraces all centuries and unites all worlds. Members of one great family, united throughout their existences in the vast field of their destinies, starting from the same point to arrive at the same heights, all men are brothers and must help each other, support each other on their journey through the ages towards an ideal of wisdom, knowledge, and virtue.

But, you will object, that will no longer be "our" religion. Doubtless, the new spiritualism is not a religion; but it appears in the world holding a torch in its had and its light shines afar and puts life into all religions. Modern Spiritualism is a belief founded on facts, on tangible realities, a belief which develops and progresses with mankind and can unite all beings, elevating them towards a higher and always higher conception of God, of destiny, and of duty. By it each of us will learn to commune with the supreme Author of all things, the Father of all, who is your God and our God, and of whom, since the beginning of time, all the minds that think and the hearts that love, have been in search.

When humanity is delivered from the superstitions and phantoms of the past, then you will see bursting into blossom the germs of love and of good sown by the Divine hand, and you will know the true religion, which raises itself above all differing beliefs, and anathematises none of them.
   

↑ ³France
↑ 4  See "Après la Mort," by same author, chap. VIII.
↑ 5 "Anti-Christ," by F. Nietsche.

THE new revelation has appeared in unexpected forms, or rather, in forgotten forms, which are nevertheless identical with those of the first manifestations of Christianity.

The latter began by miracles. It is on the material proof of survival that the religion of Christ is found.¹ Modern Spiritualism reveals itself by the aid of phenomena. Miracle and phenomena are two names for ane and the same thing. The different meaning attached to it gives the measure of the progress of the human mind in nineteen centuries. The miracle was supposed to be superior to the natural law, phenomena is subject to it. It is but the effect of a cause, the result of a law. Experience and reason have shown that miracles are impossible. The laws of nature, which are the divine laws, cannot be violated, for they regulate and maintain the harmony of the universe. God cannot give Himself the lie.

The phenomena from beyond the tomb are found as the basis of all the great doctrines of the past. In nearly every age communion has united the invisible world to the visible. But, in India, in Egypt, and in Greece, this study was the privilege of a small number of investigators and initiates, and the results were carefully kept secret.

To render this study possible to all, to make known the true laws which govern the invisible world, to teach men to see in these phenomena, not a supernatural order of things, but an unknown domain of nature and of life, the work of centuries was needed, and all the discoveries of science, all the conquests of the human mind over matter. It was necessary that man should know his true place in the universe, that he should learn to measure the weakness of his own senses, and their incapacity to explore, by themselves and without assistance, all the dominions of living nature.

Science, by her inventions, has remedied somewhat the imperfections of our organs. The telescope has opened up to our view the immensities of space; the microscope has revealed to us the infinitely small. Life has appeared to us everywhere, in the world of the infusoria as well as on the surface of the gigantic globes which move through the heavens. Physics have discovered the laws which govern the transformation of forces, the conservation of energy, and those which maintain the equilibrium of the universe; chemistry has made known to us the combinations of substance. Steam and electricity have revolutionised the surface of the globe, facilitated the relations between peoples and the manifestations of thought, so that it may propagate itself on all points of the therrestrial sphere.

The human mind has been enabled to see deep down into the great Bible of nature, that divine book which surpasses in its majesty all the human bibles. We have read clearly in it the formulas and the laws which preside over the evolutions of life, and the march of the universe.

Today, the study of the invisible world comes to complete this magnificent ascension of thought and of science. The problem of the beyond presents itself to mankind with a power, an authority, an insistence such as has probably never before been displayed in history.

Never has there been seen such a gathering of facts and phenomena, considered at first as impossible, and awakening in the majority of our contemporaries only antipathy and disdain, finally to command attention and the most exhaustive examination by prominent men.

About the middle of the last century, man, disappointed by all the contradictory theories and incomplete systems which had been offered him, was giving way to doubt; he was losing more and more the idea of a future life. It was then that the invisible world came to him and pursued him even into his home. By different means the dead manifested themselves to the living. The voices from beyond the tomb spoke. The mysteries of the oriental sanctuaries, the occult phenomena of the Middle Ages were renewed after a long silence; and spiritualism was born. It was beyond the seas, in a world young, rich in vital energy, in ardent growth, less subject than old Europe to the spirit of routine and to the prejudices of the past; it was in the United States of America that the first manifestations of modern spiritualism took place. From thence they spread over the entire globe. This point of departure was wisely chosen. Free America was the most propitious centre for a work of renovation. Today we find there more than twenty millions of modern spiritualists.

But on one side of the Atlantic as on the other, the phases of progression of the spiritualistic idea have been the same, though differing in intensity.

On the two continents, the study of magnetism and of the fluids had prepared certain minds for the observation of the invisible world.

At first strange things happened; things which were spoken of with bated breath, and in private. Then, little by little the rumours gained in strenght. Men of talent, scientific men, whose names were a guarantee of honour and sincerity, dared to speak aloud of these facts and to affirm them. At first hypnotism and suggestion were spoken of, then came telepathy, cases of levitation and all the phenomena of spiritualism.

Tables began to dance, articles were transported from one spot to another without contact, knocks were heard in the walls and on the furniture.

A whole series of facts were observed, manifestations in appearance vulgar, but perfectly adapted to the exigencies of these earthly surroundings, to the positive and skeptical turn of mind of modern society.

The phenomena spoke to the senses, for the senses are as the openings through which the fact penetrates to the understanding. The impressions produced on the organism awaken surprise, provoke research, lead to conviction. The facts ever increased in number, and the phenomena became more advanced.

After the first material and gross phase, the manifestations took on another character. The knocks regulated themselves and became a means of communication both conscious and intelligente; automatic writing began to spread. The possibility of intercourse between the visible and the invisible worlds appeared as a gigantic fact, upsetting all received ideas, all customary teachings, but opening up a view of the future life which men hesitated to accept, dazzled as they were by the perspectives opening out before them.

At the same time as the rapid spread of spiritualism, numerous oppositions were formed. Like all new ideas, it had to undergo contempt, calumny and moral persecution.

Like the Christian idea in its beginning it had the bitterest insults heaped on it. It was ever thus. Whenever a new aspect of truth presents itself to man, it is invariable met by suspicion and hostility.

This is easily understood. Mankind has exhausted the old forms of thought and belief, and when these unexpected forms of truth appear, they do not seem to answer to the old ideal which is enfeebled, but not dead. It requires a long period of examination, reflection, and incubation, for the new idea to make its way into men's minds. From this come the uncertainties and sufferings to be passed through at the beginning.

Much mockery has been aimed at the forms under which modern spiritualism appeared. But the invisible powers who watch over mankind are better judges than we of the means of action and training required, according to the time and place, to bring man back to a knowledge of his duty and his destiny, and, that, without interfering with his free-will. For that is the essential point, man's liberty must remain entire.

The superior wisdom knew how to adapt to the needs of an epoch and a race the new forms of the eternal vevelation. Thus were raised up thinkers, experimenters, men of science, who indicated the path to be followed and took the first steps. Their work went slowly and steadily on. Weak and imperfect were the firs results, but the idea penetrated little by little into the mind. A movement is sometimes none the less deep and sure for being at first almost unnoticed.

In our time, science has become the sovereign mistress and directing power of the intellectual movement. Weary of metaphysical speculations and religious dogmas, mankind demanded tangible proofs, a solid basis on which to build its convictions. It attached itself to experimental study, to the observation of facts, as to a plank of safety. That is why the revelation took on a scientific character. It was by material facts that the attention of men was attracted, for men had themselves become material.

The mysterious phenomena which we find disseminated throughout the history of the past have been renewed and multiplied around us; they have been produced in a progressive order which seems to indicate a preconceived plan, the execution of a thought, of a will.

For, as the new spiritualism gained ground, the phenomena became transformed. The gross manifestations of the beginning improved and took on a more elevated character. Mediums received by means of writing, mechanically or intuitively, messages and inspirations, from outside sources. Instruments of music were played without being touched. Voices and singing were heard; penetrating melodies which seemed to descend from the heavens, and troubled even the most incredulous. Direct writing was produced on the inner sides of slates which had been fastened together and sealed. The phenomena of incorporation permitted the dead to take possession of the organism of a sleeping subject, and through it to converse with those they had known on earth. Gradually and according to a well calculated development, seeing mediums (clairvoyants), speakin and healing mediums, appeared.

At last, the inhabitants of space, clothing themselves in temporary envelopes, came and mixed with men, living for a moment their material and earthly lives, allowing themselves to be seen, touched, photographed; leaving imprints of their hands, of their faces, and then fading away again to return to their etherial life.

It is thus that for more than half a century a chain of facts has been produced, beginning with the lowest and most trivial, and extending to the most subtle, according to the degree of elevation of the intelligences which intervened; a complete series of manifestations which were spread out before the eyes of attentive observers.

Thus in spite of the difficulties of experimentation, in spite of the cases of imposture and the money-making for which the phenomena have sometimes been the pretext, apprehension and distrust have little by little decreased, and the number of experimenters is ever on the increase.

For more than fifty years, and in all coutries, spirit phenomena have been the object of frequent investigations, undertaken and directed by scientific commissions. Skeptical scientists, celebrated professors, belonging to all the great universities of the world, have passed these facts through most rigorous and searching examinations. Their intentions were always at first to expose what they thought to be trickery or hallucination. But all of them, incredulous as they were at the start, after years of conscientious study and persistent experiment, have abandoned their prejudices and bowed before the reality of the facts.

The more the problem of the proofs of the persistence of the human personality beyond the tomb was examined and scrutinised, the more numerous became the cases of identity. The spirit manifestations noted by thousands in all parts of our globe, have clearly demonstrated that an invisible world surrounds us, in touch with us, a world in which live, in a fluidic state, all those who have preceded us on the earth, who have struggled and suffered here, and now constitute beyond the tomb a second humanity.

The New Spiritualism presents itself today with such a mass of proofs, with such an imposing array of testimony, that doubt is no longer possible for the honest enquirer. Professor Challis of Cambridge University, says: "I have been unable to resist the large amount of testimony to such facts, which has come from so many independent sources, and from a vast number of witnesses. England, France, Germany, the United States of America, with most of the other nations of Christendom, contributed simultanesouly their quota of evidence. In short, the testimony has been so abundant and consistent, that either the facts must be admitted to be such as are reported, or the possibility of certifying facts by human testimony must be given up." ²

Thus, the movement of propagation has become more and more accentuated. At the present moment, we are in the midst of a veritable and general outbreak of the spiritualistic idea. The belief in the invisible world has spread over the whole surface of the earth. Everywhere spiritualism has its societies for experimental research, its popularisers, its journals.

 .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  

To return to an essential point. The error or skepticism of man in regard to the existence of the invisible world comes from one cause only; the incapacity of his organs to furnish him with a complete idea of the forms and the possibilities of life.

We have too much lost sight of the fact that our senses, though refined and developed since the origin of humanity, can yet only perceive the most rudimentary forms of matter; its subtle states escape them absolutely. Hence the general opinion that life is only possible under such forms and organisms as those which meet our eyes. Hence also the false idea that life is everywhere only an imitation, a reproduction of what we see around us.

From the time when, by the aid of powerful optical instruments, the infinitely great and the infinitely small revealed themselves, we were obliged to admit that our senses, left to themselves, could only embrace a very restricted space in the dominions of nature; and that, to be plain, we knew almost nothing of the universal life.

At a much more recent period we knew only the three most elementary states of matter, the solid, the liquid, and the gaseous. We knew nothing of the innumerable transformations of which it is capable.

It is not much over twenty years since the fourth state of matter, the radiant, became known to scientists. Sir W. Crookes, the English scientist, first discovered its existence; and his spiritualistic experiments, continued during three years, were not unconnected with this discovery. He was able to show that matter, rendered invisible, reduced to infinitesimal quantities, acquires energies and incalculable powers, and that these energies augment without ceasing, as matter becomes more rarefied.

More recently, the researches of numerous scientists have confirmed these discoveries. Little by little science has attacked the dominions of the invisible, the intangible, and the imponderable. She has been obliged to admit that the radiant state is not the last which matter can take on; beyond this, it has appeared in aspects more and more subtle, rarefying itself almost indefinitely, without ceasing to be the possible form, the necessary form of life.

What science is only beginning to perceive, spiritualists knew long ago through the revelations of spirits. They had learnt that the visible world was only an infinite atom of the universe, that beyond the range of our senses, matter, force, and life present themselves in various ways, under innumerable aspects. We are surrounded and enveloped by radiations invisible to us on account of the grossness of our organs.

All these things are proved today by scientific experiments. The discovery of the existence of these various kinds of energy and subtle forms of matter, furnish at the same time the rational explanation of spiritualistic phenomena. It is there that the Invisibles find the force they use in their physical manifestations; it is of the elements of imponderable matter that their envelopes and organisms are constituted.

All honest searchers have not been slow to admit this. Since the discovery of radiant matter, science has advanced step by step in this vast empire of the unknown. Each day she confirms, by new experiments, what the human spirit, more clear-sighted than our senses, had long foreseen.

Science had begun by photographing the invisible rays of the solar spectrum, the ultra-violet rays and the infra-red, which do not impress our retina. Then she obtained the reproduction, on the sensitive plate, of a great number of stellar worlds, of far-off stars, lost in the depths of space, at such a distance that their luminous radiantions escape not only our eyes, but sometimes even the telescope.

We know that the sensations of light, like those of sound, and of heat, etc., are produced by a determined quantity of vibrations of the ether.

The retina, our organ of sight, and the most perfect of our organs, perceives the undulations of ether from 400 trillions per second up to 790 trillions, that is to say all that constitutes the scale of colours, from the red, at one end of the solar spectrum, to the violet, at the other end. Beyond that there is no sensation. Professor stokes has nevertheless succeeded in rendering the ultra-violet rays visible, by passing them through a paper saturated in a solution of sulphate of quinine which reduces the number of vibrations. Professor Tyndall likewise rendered visible by means of heat the infra-red rays, which are invisible to the eye in a normal state.

Starting from these premises, we can admit scientifically an uninterrupted series of invisible vibrations, and deduce therefrom that if our organs were susceptible enough to receive the impression, we could distinguish an unimaginable variety of unknown colours, and also innumerable forms, substances and organisms, which do not now appear to us on account of the imperfection of our senses.

Therefore, though beyond those luminous waves perceived by the retina, a great number of vibrations escape us, these vibrations can be received by the photographic plate, which is more sensitive than the human eye. This is what permits us to say that the photographic lens is like an eye open to the invisible. We have a new proof of this in the application of the X-rays, Rontgen's dark rays, to photography. These rays, though invisible, have nevertheless sufficient force to traverse certain opaque bodies, such as cloth, flesh and wood, and to reproduce objects hidden from all eyes, such as the contents of a purse, of a sealed letter, etc. They penetrate throughly the human organism, and not the smallest detail of our anatomy escapes them. The uses of the X-rays are rapidly multiplying, and show us what considerabel advantage the science of the future can derive from the subtle forms of matter, when she learns how to store them up and direct them.

The discovery of luminous matter and its applications is of great importance. Not only does it prove to us that the forms of matter continue indefinitely beyond our senses, some of them perceptible to a menchanical registering apparatus; but also that these forms and rays, as they advance in subtlety, acquire at the same time more force and penetration. We accustom ourselves thus to study nature in her hidden and most powerful aspects.

In these manifestations of energy, still ill-understood, we find the scientific explanation of a mass of phenomena, such as apparitions, and the passage of spirits through solid bodies. The application of the X-rays to photography enables us to understand the double-sight of mediums and the photography of spirits. For, if the plate can be influenced by invisible rays, and by the radiations of imponderable matter which penetrate opaque bodies, how much more readily will the quintessenced fluid which forms the invisible envelope of the spirits impress the medium's retina, which is much more delicate and complex apparatus than a glass plate.

It is thus that spiritualism is each day strengthened by arguments drawn from the discoveries of science, which will eventually overcome even the deepest rooted skepticism.

The photography of the radiations of thought have have opened a new field to investigators.

The Doctors Baraduc, Luys,³ and Lebon, have succeeded in fixing on the sensitive plate the radiations of thought and the vibrations of the will. These experiments we have ourselves engaged in during a number of years, and they prove that there exists in each human being a centre of invisible radiations, a focus of light which escapes our sight, but can impress photographic plates.

Either by contact of the fingers on the gelatine or even on the glass itself, or by holding the plate, in a dark room, near the brain, we obtain on it undulations and vibrations varying in intensity and aspect according to the different mental states of the operator. Uniform and regular in the normal state, the waves form themselves into whirls and spirals under the influence of anger, spread into wide sheets in ecstasy, and rise in majestic columns during prayer, like the vapour of incense.

We have even been able to reproduce on the plate the fluidic double of man, that mysterious double which is the centre of these radiations. Colonel de Rochas, head of the Polytechnic School of France, and Dr. Barlemont obtained the simultaneous photographs of the body of a medium and of its double, momentarily separated.⁴

As a prelude to so many objective proofs which we mention further on, photography has revealed to us the existence of this fluidic body, which lines and sustains our physical body. This subtle envelope forms the luminous and radiant envelope of the spirit, inseparable from it during life as after death.

Photographic plates are not only impressed by the fluidic vibrations of the human body, but also show us the forms belonging to the invisible world, to beings who exist, live and move around us, presiding over a whole series of manifestations which we will rapidly review, and which it has been vainly sought to explain by any other means than by their presence and action.

These beings, freed by death from the needs and miseries of human nature, continue to act by means of their imperishable envelope, the fluidic body; a body formed of these most subtle elements of matter of which we have spoken, and which until now had escaped our senses in their normal condition.

.   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  

The question of the fluidic body, although already treated by us elsewhere,⁵ requires further explanation, for it enables us to understand better the life in space and the action of spirits on matter.

We all know that the molecules of our physical bodies are subject to constant changes. Each day our carnal envelope eliminates a certain number of elements and assimilates new ones. The whole body, from the soft parts of the brain to the hardest parts of the bone structure, is renewed entirely in a certain number of years. In the midst of these constant currents there exists always in us an original fluidic form, compressible and expansible, which maintains and perpetuates itself. It is in it, on the pattern presented by it, though invisible to our senses, that the molecules of gross matter fix and incorporate themselves. The Perispirit is the moud, the fluidic outline of the human body. That is why, when death separates them, the material body immediately falls to pieces and is decomposed. The frame-work has been withdrawn from it.

The perispirit is the permanent envelope of the spirit, whereas the physical body is only a temporary clothing, a borrowed dress which we don for our earthly pilgrimage. The perispirit exists before birth and survives death. It constitutes, in its intimate union with the spirit, the president and essential element of our individuality, throughout the multiple existence which we tranverse. It is the perispirit which automatically directs all the actions pertaining to the keeping up of life; and under the influence of the vital force, it disposes the material molecules according to a predetermined plan or pattern which represents all the apparatus of our organism, respiration, circulation, the nervous system, etc.⁶

It is by the existence of this fluidic body, by its separation, natural or voluntary, from the physical body during sleep, that the apparition of the phantoms of the living is explained, and, consequently that of the spirits of the dead.

It has often been proved that the fluidic double of a living person detaches itself, under certain conditions, from the material body, to appear and manifest itself at a distance. These phenomena are known as telepathic.

Therefore, if during life the fluidic form can act outside of, and independently of the body, it becomes evident that death cannot put an end to its activity.

In the special study of the phenomena of the exteriorisation of sensibility and of motion, Colonel de Rochas, head of the Polytechnic School of France, and with him such celebrated scientists as Prof. Charles Richet and Sabatier, Drs. Ségrad and Dariex, Messrs de Grammont and de Watteville, have attacked the dominion of experimental proofs, from which clearly appears the certitude of the action of the fluidic double at a distance. The English scientists have gone even further. They have ascertained in numerous cases, that the fluidic envelopes of discarnate spirits have become visible, by condensation or rather by materialisation, as a vapour of water contained in a invisible form in the air may, by sucessive transformations, become visible and tangible in the form of ice. The perispirit is invisible to us in its ordinary state, because its subtle essence produces a number of vibrations too great to be perceived by our eyes. In the case of a materialisation the spirit is obliged to borrow from the medium or from other persons present coarser fluids which it assimilates to itself, so as to adapt, and to diminish the number of the vibrations of its envelope to meet the capacity or our vision. The operation is a difficult and delicate one. Nevertheless, the cases of apparitions of spirits are numerous and repose on a considerable volume of testimony.

The most celebrated case is that of the spirit of Katie King, which manifested itself during three years at the home of Sir William Crookes, the English professor, through the aid of the medium Florence Cook. Sir W. Crookes has himself described these experiences in a celebrated work, "Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism," and has lately again endorsed his conclusions, particularly in his speech as President of the British Association. Katie King the spirit, and Florence Cook the medium, were seen side by side. They were of different heights and differed from each other in many ways. The testimony of Sir W. Crookes is confirmed by Doctors Gully and Sexton, by the Prince of Sayn-Wittgenstein, by Harrison, by B. Coleman, by Serjeant Cox, by Varley, the electrical engineer, by Mrs. Florence Marryat, etc., who were all witnesses, at different times and under various circumstances, of these apparitions of Katie.

It has several times been falsely stated that Sir W. Crookes had retracted his statements. He has himself repeatedly denied this report. In April 1897, in passing through Paris, he stated for publication⁷ that not only did he maintain all his statements, but intended shortly to take up again and pursue further his researches into spiritualism.

Another celebrated case is that of the spirit of Abdullah, related by Prof. Aksakof, the Russian Counsellor of State; in his work "Animism and Spiritualism." The spirit was of an oriental type, and more than six feet high, whereas the medium Eglinton was short in stature and of a very pronounced Anglo-Saxon type.

The American scientist, Robert Dale Owen, at one time United States Ambassador to Napolis, worked six years on experimentos of materialisation. He declared that he had seen hundreds of spirit forms. In a séance given at the instigation of the American Society for Psychical Research, and at which the celebrated preacher the Rev. Mr Savage was present, thirty spirits materialised and appeared to the assistants, who recognised deceased friends and relations. These manifestations are frequent in America.⁸

The favourite objection of the incredulous, touching this kind of phenomenon, is that it is produced in the dark, and therefore lends itself to cheating. It must be remarked that darkness is requisite for the luminous apparitions, which are the most numerous. Light exercises a dissolving effect on the fluids, and a number of manifestations can only take place in its absence.

There are nevertheless cases in which spirits have been able to show themselves by a phosphorescent light. Others have dematerialised in full light. Under the glare of three gas-jets Katie King was seen to dissolve little by little, melt away and finally disappear.

To testimony such as this, we must add our own, though of much less importance, in regard to a fact which came under our personal observation.

During ten years we pursued this order of experiment with the assistance of a doctor of Tours, Dr A----, and a Captain of the Archives of the ninth Army Corps. Through one of these gentlemen, who was plunged in a magnetic sleep, the Invisibles had long promised us a materialisation. One evening we three were in the consulting room of our friend, the doors carefully closed and quite sufficient light still coming in through the large window to enable us to see most distinctly the smallest objects, when three raps sounded on a certain spot on the wall. It was the signal agreed on.

We looked in the direction of the sound, and saw, emerging from a blank wall, a human form of middle height. It showed itself in profile, the head and shoulders first appearing. Gradually, the whole body became visible. The upper part was clearly drawn, the outlines sharp and clear. The lower part was more vaporous and formed a confused mass. The apparition glided, not walked. After slowly crossing the room, passing within a step or two of us, it melted into the wall on the opposite side of the room and disappeared. This wall also was quite blank and contained no exit. We were able to gaze at the form for about three minutes, and on comparing our impressions of it, they proved to be identical.

As we have said, the materialisations and apparitions of spirits meet with obstacles which necessarily limit their number. It is otherwise in the case of certain phenomena of a physical order and of great variety, which are multiplied around us continually.

We will examine these facts, in their progressive order, according to the interest they present and the certitude we can derive from them, as to the free life of the spirit.

In the first place come the very common phenomena of haunted houses. They are habitations frequented by spirits of an inferior order, who give themselves up to noisy manifestations. Blows, sounds of all kinds, from the faintest to the loudest, cause the floors, the furniture, and the walls to vibrate. China is displaced and broken, stones are thrown in from the outside in spite of careful watching.

The papers bring us almost daily new tales of these phenomena. Scarcely have they ceased in one spot, before they begin in another, in France and other countries, attracting and holding public attention in suspense. In certain places, as at Valence-en-Brie, at Yzeures, in the department of Indre et Loire, at Ath, in Brabant, at Agen, etc., they lasted many months, in spite of the continuous efforts of the cleverest police and detectives to trace them to human agency.

These facts are explained by the malevolent action of invisible beings who thus satisfy, post-mortem, hatreds born during their earth-life, or requite injuries done by certain families or individuals, who thereby allow these ill-disposed disincarnates to obtain a hold over them.

In spite of the repugnance of science in general to the examination of these facts, each day we see the number of conscientious seekers increasing, who leave the beaten tracks and devote themselves to the patient observation of the invisible world. There is no month, no week indeed, which does not bring the discovery of some new and well authenticated fact in the realm of experimental research.

The phenomena of a physical order, such as the levitation of heavy bodies and their transportation to a distance, without contact, especially occupies the attention of certain scientists.

We have spoken elsewhere⁹ of the experiments made in Naples and at Milan, in 1892, by scientific men of various nations. Official reports drawn up by them recognised the intervention of unknown forces, and the action of will-power in the production of these phenomena. Analogous experiements have been made since in Rome, in Varsovie, at the home of Dr Ochorowicz; on the island of Roubaud, off Marseilles, at the country house of Prof. Ch Richet, Professor at the Academy of Medicine in Paris; at Bordeaux, and also at Agnélas, near Voiron, Isère, at the home of Col. de Rochas, head of the Polytechnic of France.¹⁰

>From everywhere came reports of the displacement of furniture and of instruments of music, without contact; of the levitation of the human body, of the lifting up of chairs with people seated on them. Professor Lombroso, in one of these reports, speaks of a sideboard which "advanced like a pachyderm."

All these manifestations might be more or less explained by strictly material causes, by the action of unconscious forces. The psychic force exteriorised by a human being would suffice, for instance, to explain the movements of tables or other objects at a distance, and even, by stretching a point, of any phenomena which does not show the action of an intelligence other than that of the spectators.

But what renders this explanation quite insufficient, is the fact that in most of the séances to which we refer, there are, besides these movements of things and persons, appearances of luminous hands and of human forms which are not those of the spectators, touches and contacts are felt, tunes are played on locked pianos, voices and songs are heard. Sometimes, as at Rome, in the experiments of Dr Sant Angelo, penetrating and unearthly melodies throw the hearers into almost an ecstasy of enjoyment.

All these phenomena are obtained in the presence of mediums who have become celebrated, among others, Eusapia Paladino. Here, some explanation of the nature and true object of mediumship appears necessary.

.   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  

Our senses, as we said above, only reveal to us a restricted portion of the universe. Nevertheless, the circle of our knowledge has little by little been enlarged, and will widen still more as our modes of perceiving improve. It would suffice for us to have one more sense, one new psychic faculty, for unknown worlds of life to open before us, and to see revealed the marvels of the invisible world.

Well, these new senses, these faculties which will one day belong to all, are possessed even now by some people in varying degrees, who are in consequence called mediums.

As we know, at all times, through all ages, there existed persons possessing, under different forms, special faculties, permitting them to communicate with the Invisible. All history, and the sacred books of every people, mention this on almost every page. The seers of Gaul, the oracles and soothsayers of Greece, the sibyls of the heathen world, the prophets, great and small, of the Jews, were but the mediums of our present day. The higher powers have always used the services of these intermediaries to convey their teachings and exhortations to humanity. The names only change, the facts remain the same, with this difference only that the facts are produced in greater number and in more striking form from time to time, as the hour comes for one of these periodic waves of increase of activity in the upward endeavour of man.

The higher spirits are not the only ones to manifest themselves; spirits of all classes like to get into connection with men when they find the means to do so. Hence the necessity of discrimination, in occult communications, between that which is from above and that which is from below; between that which comes from the spirits of light and that which proceeds from backward spirits. There are spirits of all sorts of character and degrees of elevation; indeed there are naturally around us more of the inferior than the higher ones. It is the former kind who produce the physical phenomena, the noisy manifestations, and everything of a vulgar order, but who nevertheless have their use, as they reveal to us the knowledge of a world we had forgotten.

In these phenomena, the mediums play a passive part, like that of the pile in electricity. They are producers, accumulators of the fluids, and it is from them that the spirits take the force needful to act on matter. This class of medium is found more or less everywhere, even in very unenlightened surroundings. Their help is purely material, their aptitudes are rather a physical privilege than an indication of moral elevation.

Quite different is the part of the medium in the intellectual phenomena. These are the most interesting of all; it is through them that the identity, the individuality of the invisible Intelligence reveals itself, it is through them that we receive the teachings, and revelations which make of spiritualism not only a field for science research, but also, according to the expression of Sir Russel Wallace "a gospel of truth."

We will pass in review a few of the phenomena:-

Direct writing first claims our attention. Under certain circumstances, papers appear covered with writing of non-human origin.¹¹ I have myself been present at the production of several facts of this kind. One day, for instance, at Orange, during a séance of spiritualism we saw descending over our heads, a morsel of paper which seemed to issue from the ceiling, and, fluttering slowly down it rested in my hat, placed on the table near me. Two lines of delicate writing in verse were traced on it. They expressed a warning or prediction concerning me, which has sinced been fulfilled. Generally, this phenomenon is produced between two slates, closed together, sealed and stamped, and between which a fragment of pencil has been placed. The message is traced in the presence of the spectators, often in a foreign language, unknown to the medium or the people present, and in answer to questions put by the latter.

Dr Gibier made a special study of these manifestations, during thirty-three sittings, with the help of the medium Slade.¹² It has been objected that the latter experimented by placing the slates under the table. We will therefore rather cite the case of the medium Eglington, related in the work of Prof. Stainton Moses, of Oxford University, called "Psychography." There, the phenomenon was produced in full light, in the view of all present. In this book there is mention of a séance at which Mr. Gladstone was present. The great English statesman inscribed a question on a slate which he immediately covered by another, putting a morsel of pencil between. The salates were securely tied together and the medium placed on them the tips of his fingers, to establish the fluidic connection. Very soon, the scratching of the pencil was heard. Mr Gladstone's steady gaze was not for an instant diverted from the medium. Under these rigorous conditions, a number of answers were obtained in various languages, several of which were unknown to the medium, answers in perfect accord with the question asked.

Much more common are the phenomena of mediumistic writing. The subject, under occult control, writes on paper communications and messages in which his thought or will have very little or no part. This faculty presents itself under many aspects. It is purely mechanical with certain mediums, who are utterly unconscious, at the moment of writing, of the nature or the meaning of the messages obtained. Indeed many can keep up an animated conversation all the time, or divert their attention and do work in the dark. More frequently it is semi-mechanical, in which case the brain as well as the arm is influenced, and the medium's thought perceives the words as the pencil traces them. Again it may be purely intuitive, and consequently less convincing and more difficult to prove.

The messages obtained by these means offer a great variety of styles and are of very unequal value. The greater number consist of platitudes, but there are many remarkable for their beauty of form and purity of thought, also for the fact that they contain information entirely unknown to the medium, or are written in a language of which he is ignorant, or catian prophecies afterwards realized. Often also, the thoughts expressed are directly opposed to the wishes of the writer.¹³

Perhaps the best case of automatic writing is that in which the book of Charles Dickens, "The mystery of Edwin Drood," wich was interrupted by the death of the novelist, was finished, under his direction, by an uneducated American medium, and in such a manner that it is impossible to decide, on reading the completed work, at what point the living author laid down his pen and the work of the medium began.

The world of spirits being largely composed of souls who have inhabited this earth, and great intelligence being rare in both places, we can readily understand that the greater number of communications from the beyond should be wanting in grandeur and originality. But almost all have an undoubtedly moral tendency and show good intentions. How many grief-stricken ones have thus been enabled to receive consolation and encouragement from those they have loved and believed they had lost! How many hesitating in the difficult path of duty, have been restored, dissuaded from suicide, armed against their passions, by exhortations from the beyond!

Above these manifestations, whose usefulness is so evident, and whose moral effect is so great, we must yet place certain extraordinary messages, signed in simple fashion or in allegorical terms, but animated by a powerful and living breath, and bearing in their form and teaching, the mark of really superior spirits. It is by means of such documents that the doctrine of spiritualism has been constituted. Allan Kardec received many such. Since his time these sources of superhuman thought have nor turn dry; they continue to well forth for the benefit of mankind.

The phenomena of direct and of automatic writing are completed and confirmed by those of materialisation. Here, the spirits do not stop at writing themselves, or at causing writing to be produced, they speak! They speak by the means of the organs of the medium, who, plunged in a magnetic sleep, gives up his material envelope to invisible personalities, who take possession of it to converse with those present. By this means, suggestive conversations take place between the inhabitants of space and the friends and relations they have left on earth.

Even in the manifestations of mechanical writing, the identity of the spirits is established by the form of the handwriting, by the analogy of the signatures, the familiar forms of expression and even the faults of spelling habitually made in bygone times by these spirits and found once more in their messages, all these peculiarities being of course unknown to the mediums. In the cases of materialization this identity is still more evident. By its attitude, gestures, and remarks, the spirit reveals itself to be the same as in earth life. Those who have known the man in his last incarnation recognize him promptly, his individuality reappears in characteristic forms of speech and in sayings and expressions which he was in the habit of using; indeed, in a thousand psychological details which cannot be analyzed and can only be appreciated by those who have made a close study of these phenomena.

What is more touching than to see a mother come back to exhort and encourage the children she left behind her? What more curious than to see spirits of the most varied sorts animate successively the envelope of a medium, and manifest themselves to those present by word and gesture? For each one, the whole countenance of the medium is transformed, the voice changes, the expression of the features is modified. By its language and its attitude, the personality of the spirit reveals itself, before it has even given its name.

In a circle of experimenters over which we presided, we long possessed two materializing mediums. One of them was used by the guardian spirits of our group. When animated by one of these the features took an angelic expression, the voice became soft and melodious. The language became pure, poetical and elevated, far beyond the personal faculties of the subject. The sight seemed to penetrate into the hearts of those present. The spirit read their thoughts, she spoke successively to each of them, giving advice and warnings touching their moral state and their private life, which showed, even at first interview, a perfect knowledge of their character and the state of their conscience. She spoke to them of intimate things, known only to themselves. She awed them all by her air of majesty, as well as by the wisdom and gentleness of her speech. The impression produced was deep. Everything seemed to vibrate and become illuminated around this spirit. After its departure we felt as if something great had passed from our midst.

Almost always, a second spirit, of a certain elevation, but of quite a different character, took immediate possession of the medium. The second spirit's speech was short and strong, his gestures energetic and dominating. His knowledge was vast. He undertook the direction of the philosophical and moral studies of the group and was able to resolve the most difficult problems. We had a great veneration for him and loved to obey him. But, for a new comer, it was a curious spectacle to see, in the frail envelope of a lady of timid manners and modest acquirements, the successive incarnation of two spirits of such elevated though dissimilar characters.

Our second medium was no less interesting. She was a lady of high education and great elegance, the wife of an officer of high rank, and seemed, according to all appearances, to unite all the requisites for phenomena of the highest kinds. It was just the contrary that happened. This lady was generally used by backward spirits, who had occupied on earth very various positions. It was amusing, for instance, to hear an ex-vegetable-seller of Amiens express herself in the Picardy patois, through the lips of a person of refined and distinguished manners, who had never been in Picardy. The language of the medium, always so correct and choice, became confused, thick, full of faults and lapses and local expressions, during her magnetic sleep, when the spirit of "Sophy" came to us. When the vegetable-woman left, other spirits would take her place, filing so to speak one after the other, through the envelope of the medium and showing us a succession of the most varied types; an ex-sacristan, with an unctuous and slow manner, and speaking low, as if in a church; an ex-public-prosecutor, with his imperious gesture, his mocking tone, his hard and cutting speech, etc.

Often most touching scenes took place, which brought tears from the spectators. Friends from beyond the tomb came and recalled to them recollections of childhood, services rendered, faults committed; told of their manner of life in space, spoke of the joys and sufferings felt after death, according to their way of life on earth. We listened to deep conversations between spirits, to dissertations full of logic and grandeur on the mysteries of life and death, on all the great problems of the universe, and each time, our souls were moved and strengthened. This intimate communion with the invisible world opened to us infinite perspectives of thought and influenced our actions; it shed for us a bright light on the dark and tortuous road of life. A day will come when men will understand the value of such teachings and seek after them. On that day, our outlook will indeed be changed.

After passing rapidly in review the principal phenomena which serve as a basis to modern spiritualism, our résumé would be incomplete if we did not mention the objections presented and the opposing theories, by the help of which it has been sought to explain them.

Firstly, there is absolute negation. Spiritualism, it is said, is but a mass of fraud and tricks. All the extraordinary facts on which it is based are simulated.

It is true that impostors have tried to imitate these phenomena, but their tricks have been easily discovered. A few years ago, an American medium was caught red handed in Paris, and it was the spiritualists themselves who unmasked him. Frauds of this sort are revealed by much less rigorous and minute tests than those to which the real phenomena are subjected. In nearly all the cases quoted above - levitations, apparitions, materializations of spirits - the mediums were bound, and attached to their chairs, frequently also their hands and feet were held by the experimenters. Sometimes the mediums were even placed in specially constructed cages, which were locked, and the key placed in the hands of the operators, who stood around the subject. Sometimes in an excess of precaution, the key was hung from the ceiling. It was under such conditions that numerous cases of materialization took place. After all, the impostures have been of small number, and many of the phenomena have never been imitated, because they are beyond imitation.

The phenomena of spiritualism have been observed, verified and testified to, by the most skeptical men of science, who have passed though all the degrees of incredulity, and who have become convinced little by little, under the continued pressure of facts. The scientists were men of the laboratory, well-known physicists and chemists, doctors and magistrates. They possessed all the requisite qualifications, and were eminently capable of unmasking the cleverest frauds, of detecting the sharpest tricks. The facts of spiritualism have been attested by men occupying the highest positions in the sciences, and whose names are among those honored and respected by mankind at large. After these illustrious men, all those who  have studied these phenomena patiently, conscientiously and perseveringly, affirm their reality, while criticism and denial emanate almost entirely from people who have judged superficially given little time or trouble to researches and experiments, and possessing very insufficient knowledge of them.

There has happened to them what so often happens to inconstant observers. They have obtained but feeble results, sometimes none at all, and they have become more skeptical than ever. They forget the essential point, that spiritualistic phenomena are subject to certain laws and conditions which must be observed and known. Their patience gave out too soon. The proofs they require are not obtained in a few days. Sir W. Crookes, Prof. Russel Wallace, Zollner, Aksakof, Dale Owen, Robert Hare and numerous other scientists studied the question for many years. They did not rest content with attending a few more or less well-conducted séances, with more or less good mediums. They took the trouble to hunt up the facts, to group them, to analyze them; they went to the bottom of the questions. Therefore, their perseverance was crowned with success and their methods of investigating may be recommended to all earnest seekers.

Among the theories most often brought forward to explain away the spiritualistic phenomena, that of hallucination holds the foremost place. But this has ceased to have any foundation, in face of the photographs of spirits obtained by Aksakof, Crookes, Volpi, and so many others. A hallucination cannot be photographed.

The Invisibles do not only impress the photographic plate, but also instruments of precision, such as the Marey registering machines, used by English scientists in their experiments. They lift up material objects, they decompose them, and recompose them, they leave the impression of their hands, feet, or faces in hot paraffin wax.

All these are so many proofs against the theory of either individual or collective hallucination.

Certain people accuse the phenomena of vulgarity, of coarseness, of triviality; they consider them ridiculous. These opinions prove their incompetence. The manifestations cannot differ from what they would have been, coming from the same spirit, had he been living on this earth. Death does not change us, and we are only, in the life beyond, what we have made ourselves in this life. This explains the inferiority of so many discarnate spirits.

On the other hand, these trivial or vulgar manifestations have their use, for they more easily attract attention and best reveal the identity of the spirit. They have convinced  numbers of experimenters of the reality of spirit-survival, and have brought them, little by little, to the study of the more elevated phenomena. For, as we have said, the phenomena are like the links of a chain and follow a graduated order, by virtue of a plan which seems to indicate the action of a power, a higher will, which seeks to draw mankind from its indifference and lead it to the study and discovery of its own destiny.

The physical facts, the talking-tables, the haunted houses, were all needed to attract the attention of men, but they are only a preliminary means, a pathway opened to higher realms of knowledge.

For long spiritualism was considered a ridiculous thing, for long spiritualists were laughed at, mocked and accused of madness. But have not all those who have brought forward a new idea, or a new truth, been called madmen? "A madman" was said of Galileo. "Mad," were called Giordano Bruno, Galvani, Watt, Palissy, Salomon de Caus!

The road of progress is often a rough one to its earliest travelers. It is watered by many tears and much blood. Those we have mentioned fought their way through interests banded together against them. They were despised by some, hated and persecuted by others. They fought and suffered, and compared to them, those who are only mocked at today may consider their lot an easy one. Spiritualists of today may console themselves under the sarcasms levelled at them, by the knowledge that they too bring a benefit, a force, a light to mankind.

In each century history corrects her judgments. That which seemed great becomes small, that which appeared small becomes great. Even today people are beginning to understand that the growth of spiritualism is one of the most important events of modern times, in the evolution of thought, and contains the germ of one of the greatest moral revolutions the world has ever seen.

Whatever mockery it has been the object of, it mus be acknowledged that to spiritualism is due the new psychic science of the day; for without it, and the impetus given by it, all the discoveries due to this science would be still in the future.

As regards the study of spirit-manifestations, spiritualists find themselves in good company.

The illustrious names of Russel Wallace, W. Crookes, Robert Hare, Mapes, Zollner, Aksakof, Boutlerof, Wagner, and Flammarion, have often been quoted. We see also scientists like M. Myers, of Cambridge, Prof. William James of Harvard University, Prof. Lodge of Liverpool, Prof. Richet, Col. de Rochas, who do not consider this study unworthy of them. What must we think then of such accusations of ridicule, of madness? What do they prove, but the sad fact that the reign of blind routine is still powerful in certain quarters. Man is too much inclined to judge things by the narrow horizon of his prejudices and his knowledge. He must raise himself higher, carry his view further and measure his feebleness in the face of the universe. He will thus learn to be modest, and neither to reject nor condemn without examination.

.   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  

The attempt has been made to explain all the phenomena of spiritualism by suggestion and double personality. In the experiments, we are told, the medium suggests to himself or obeys the influence of those presente.

Mental suggestion, which is only thought-transference, can, in spite of the difficulties it presents, be understood, and can be established between two organized brains, as, for instance, between the magnetizer and his subject. But can we believe that suggestion can act on a table? Can we admit that inanimate objects should receive and reproduce the impressions of the spectators?

How could we explain on this theory the cases of identity, of revelation of facts, of dates, unknown to the medium and the spectators, such as often occur in these experiments, as well as manifestations contrary to the will of all present.

Often, things yet to happen, as well as facts and details absolutely unknown to every living soul on earth, have been revealed by mediums, and afterwards verified and found to be true. There are some remarkable instances mentioned in Aksakof's book "Animism and Spiritism," and in the work, "Modern Spiritualism," by Prof. Russel Wallace, as also cases of mediumship of very young children, which cannot, any more than the preceding, be explained by suggestion.¹⁴

According to Messrs. Janet and Ferré,¹⁵ the writing medium is to be compared to a hypnotic subject, who has a personality suggested to him during sleep, and on waking has lost all recollection of this suggestion. The subject unconsciously writes a letter, or tale, referring to this imaginary person. That is, they tell us, the origin of all spirit-messages. This is one of the most cherished theories of our adversaries.

All those who have any experience in this matter know that this explanation is an impossible one. The mediums, writing authomaticaly, are not in a hypnotic sleep. They are wide awake and in possession of all their faculties and their own personality, and it is thus that they write under the control of the spirit. In the experiments of M. Janet, there is always a hypnotizer connected by a magnetic tie to the subject. It is quite different in the spiritualistic séances; none of the spectators act on the medium, and all present are absolutely ignorant as to what will be the kind of spirit who will communicate. Very often, questions are put to the spirits by the incredulous, who are much more disposed to combat the manifestations than to facilitate them.

The phenomena do not only consist in the automatic character of the writing, but especially in the intelligent proofs of the identities supplied. M.Janet's experiments give nothing of the kind. The communications suggested to the subject are always utter platitudes, whereas the messages brought us by the spirits give us indications and revelations as to the present and past life of those we have known on earth, our nearest and dearest, all details being quite unknown to the medium and full of distinct characteristics which distinguish them absolutely from the experiences of hypnotism.

It would be impossible, by suggestion, to cause illiterate persons to write or to obtain by means of a table, such poems as those collected by Mr. Jaubert, President of the Court of Carcassonne; or to cause the apparition of hands and of human forms, or the phenomena of the slates which, sealed together, become covered with writing while held in the hands of those who brought them with them, and never, for one moment laid them down.

We must remember that the doctrine of the spirits has come to us through numerous messages, obtained by writing mediums who were absolutely in ignorance of these teachings. Nearly all of them had been brought up from infancy in the teaching of the Churches, and in the ideas of heaven and hell. Their religious beliefs and notions of a future life were in striking contradiction to the views given by the spirits. They had no idea of reincarnation or the successive lives of the soul, nor of the true condition of the spirit after death, all of which things are found in the messages obtained. This is a fatal objection to the theory of suggestion.

It is of course evident that out of the enormous mass collected, there should be some things weak and inconclusive, also that there are some which may be explained by suggestion. In some circles, people too readily accept all that comes, as emanating from the spirits, and are not careful enough to rigorously put aside all doubtful phenomena. But however wide a margin we leave for these, there remains a most imposing array of manifestations, not to be explained by suggestion, the subliminal-self, hallucination or any other such theory.

Critics always proceed in the same way as regards spiritualism. They take only one order of phenomena and purposely avoid all discussion of what they can neither understand nor refute. If they find a possible explanation for some isolated facts, they immediately conclude that all are alike. Almost always, their explanations are most inaccurate and leave out the most startling proofs of the existence of spirits, and of their intervention in human affairs.

Another theory, often brought forward by objectors, is that of the subliminal-self or double consciousness. Many systems, obscure and complicated, have been evolved from this idea.

According to it, two beings exist in us; one conscious, who knows and is in possession of himself; the other unconscious, who is ignorant of himself, as we are ignorant of him, and who, nevertheless, possesses faculties superior to ours, since to him are to be attributed all the phenomena of magnetism as well as of spiritualism. And not only a second self, but a third, a fourth, and even more are admitted, for certain theorists have stated the existence in man of a great number of personalities, and of various consciences. This system is known as the theory of the poly-conscience.

As M. Charles Richet has shown in his splendid book, "L'homme and L'Intelligence, le Somnambulisme provoqué" (Man and Intelligence and induced Somnambulism), what is called the double personality is nothing but the different states of one and the same personality. Thus, the "unconscious" is but a form of memory; its existence is a hypothesis borrowed, for the needs of the materialistic school, from a tortured and deformed physiology.

The theorists of the "unconscious I" try, by this means, to combat the marvelous, and thereby invent a system much more fantastic and complicated than that to which they object.

Not only is their theory unintelligible, but it does not at all explain the phenomena of spiritualism, for we cannot understand how our unconscious selves can produce visible and tangible forms, intelligent communications by sound or raps, and all the other facts attested by experimenters in all lands. Neither does it explain the more simple phenomenon of second sight.

We should also have to admit that our subliminal selves are first-class liars, as the communicating intelligences in every case and all the world over, claim to be the discarnate spirits of those who have lived on earth.

Almost always, the "unconscious I" is confounded with the fluidic double which is not a being, but an organism, or with the familiar spirit, the guardian angel of the Christians, who is told off to watch over every incarnate soul in this world.

We may well ask ourselves by what universal understanding these unconscious selves hidden in man, who are ignorant of each other's existence and even of their own, are so unanimous, in all occult manifestations, in calling themselves the spirits of the dead.

We have ourselves taken part in innumerable experiences, during between thirty and forty years, not only all over France, but in other countries. Never have the invisibles introduced themselves as subliminal selves, or as the superior "ego" of the medium or of those present, but always as different personalities, enjoying the plenitude of their consciousness, as free individuals, having lived on earth, and having been, in most cases, known to the spectators, and presenting all the characteristics of a human being, with the qualities and defects, weaknesses and greatnesses, to be found in everyone, and giving, by the thousand, the most striking proofs of identity.¹⁶

What is most remarkable in all this is the ingenuity displayed by certain thinkers, and their cleverness in constructing the most fantastic theories, to escape from realities which displease them.

Doubtless they have not foreseen the consequences of their systems; they have shut their eyes to the logical results. They have not realized that such fatal doctrines annihilate conscience and personality by dividing them up, and must end in the negation of liberty and responsibility, and consequently, in the destruction of all moral law.

According to this hypothesis, man would be a badly balanced duality or plurality, and each conscience would act independently, without reference to the others. Such a notion would permit, nay, would warrant, all and any excesses.

To resume. - Everything in nature is clear, simple and harmonious. It is the desire for systems which complicates and obscures all things.

From an attentive examination, a constant and profound study of the human being, there results the certainty of the existence in us of three elements: the physical body, the fluidic body, or perispirit, and finally, the soul or spirit. What is called unconscious, or subliminal self, the secondary personality or the higher ego, the poly-conscience, etc., is simply the spirit, which under certain conditions of exteriorisation and of clairvoyance, exhibits a manifestation of hidden powers, an awakening of long-slumbering souvenirs, an assemblage of resources which have been accumulated in previous existences, and which have temporarily been hidden under the veil of flesh.

No, indeed, man has not several egos. The psychical unity of being is the essential condition of his liberty and of his responsibility. But there are in him several states of consciousness. As the spirit disengages itself from matter and frees itself from its carnal envelope, its faculties and perceptions are sharpened, it recollections awake, its personality is enlarged. This is what is sometimes produced in the magnetic sleep. In this state, the thick veil of matter is lifted, and the latent powers reappear. It is these manifestations of the same being, which have led to the belief in a double personality, or plurality of egos.

Nevertheless, this does not suffice to explain the phenomena of spiritualism. In the great majority of cases, the intervention of outside intelligences, of free and untrammeled wills, presents itself as the only rational explanation.

We only mention for the sake of completeness the theory which attributes these manifestations to the devil. This is a very out-of-date argument, for it has been used in all ages and against almost every innovation. "We judge the tree by its fruits," as the scripture tells us. If we measure all the moral good that spiritualism has already done in the world; if we consider how many skeptics and indifferent or sensual people have been guided by it to a higher and purer conception of life, justice and duty, how many atheists have been brought back to a belief in God, we must conclude that the devil, if he is working in the phenomena from beyond the tomb, works against himself, and to the detriment of his own interests. What we have said elsewhere ¹⁷ of hell and the devil render it unnecessary that we should linger on the subject. Satan is only a myth. No created being is eternally given over to evil.

If the great majority of criticisms on spiritualism are unjust and erroneous, we must acknowledge that among them there are some which have a foundation. Many abuses check the advance and development of modern spiritualism. These abuses must be attributed, not to the idea itself, but to the bad application sometimes made of it. Is it not thus in all things human? There is no idea, however holy, however venerable it may be, which has not engendered abuses; it is the inevitable consequence of the inferiority of our world.

In what concerns spiritualism, we must give warning not only against paid mediumship, which sometimes tempts certain subjects to try to imitate the phenomena, but also against the unfortunate practices of some groups which are unprepared, ill-directed, and foolish. Many people make of spiritualism a frivolous game; and by what they call "the dance of the tables," attract to themselves inferior and foolish spirits who do not scruple to play tricks on them, and form a connection with them which sometimes goes as far as an obsession.

Others give themselves up without control to mediumistic writing and obtain an abundance of messages signed with celebrated names though of a very ordinary character, wanting in style and in originality.

In some cases, these practices have given rise to the belief in the intervention of devils, when it was but a case of vulgar and backward spirits. It only requires some experience of these things to the able to distinguish the nature of the invisible beings and guard oneself against the ambushes of backward spirits.

The abuses of which we speak are often pointed out and purposely exaggerated, and have constantly been used to combat modern spiritualism. It is a grave error to see only these inconveniences in spiritualism, and under pretext of avoiding them, seek to deprive humanity of the very real and great advantages which it may enjoy by a serious study and wise practice of mediumship.

As to the dangers presented by spiritualism, they may easily be avoided by banishing from the séances all frivolous thoughts, all interested motives, and making the evocations in a pure and elevated spirit. "Like attracts like," says the proverb. Nothing is more true in occult studies. The silly questions and easy jokes certain people indulge in attract joking spirits. And, on the contrary, serious an earnest thoughts and intentions please the higher intelligences.

It is dangerous to work alone, without verification efficient protection, dangerous to give oneself up alone to the evocation of spirits. To avoid bad influences and vulgar manifestations, it is best to join with a number of enlightened and well-meaning people, under the direction of some one with experience of the subject. Under these circumstances, ask of God to permit a high spirit to give you its help, to keep away the wanderers of the dark, to assist the communication with your group of those you loved and believed you had lost, and ask the superior intelligences to give you their instruction, to guide you in the way of spirit-intercourse. If your sentiments are disinterested, if you seek only in these studies a means of improvement, they will gladly answer to your call.

 .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   . 

It results from our examination that we have arrived at a decisive hour in the history of science.

Experimental science has crossed the boundary which separates the two worlds, the visible and the invisible. She finds herself face to face with a living infinity. Prof. Charles Richet, of the Academy of Medicine of Paris, said, in his report on the spiritualistic séances held in Milan: "A new world is opening before us." During the last half century, slowly but surely, science has been moving from discovery to discovery, towards a knowledge of fluidic life, the life invisible, in perfect accord with the teachings of modern spiritualism; from this accord man draws the most powerful certitude he has ever had of the survival of the soul and its indestructibility.

At the present moment, this question has been decided by the many scientists who have studied it, but not by science as a whole, which still hesitates, but whose affirmative verdict must soon be pronounced. Above the question of private interests, of rivalry between different schools, above sophistry and contradictions, this problem presents itself imperiously before the tribunal of thought.

In the face of the facts of spiritualism, of their persistence, of their incessant recurrence and their prodigious variety, science must pronounce itself and say whether death is annihilation or if there is a human destiny beyond.

All schools are interested in the solution of this problem; and in knowing if, as we maintain, there is objective proof of survival, apart from all mystical character.

The materialistic schools on the one hand and the Churches on the other, are upset and agitated, seeing only a reason for their own decadence and downfall, where on the contrary is the way of reconciliation.

But whatever be the indecision of science, the opposition of the schools, and the obstinacy with which they combat the new idea and the discoveries to which it gives rise, the invisible powers which work in the world display no less energy and tenacity in defending and propagating them; for, above the interests of the schools, theories and systems, there is one thing which must triumph and be recognized by all, and that is truth.

The invisible has encroached little by little on the visible, and in spite of contempt, hostility and resistance, it has become evident that its action will continue to spread more and more and increase, until man comes to know himself, and to discern the law of his life and destiny.

There is here the germ of a revolution which will sweep through the whole domain of human knowledge.

Firstly, from a scientific point of view, these facts open to us a whole world of forces, of influences, of forms of life, in the midst of which we were plunged without ever suspecting their existence, a world whose grandeur, riches, and reserves of force, defy all calculation.

We also learn to see in man the seat of hidden faculties and powers, the use and development of which will raise him to undreamed of heights.

Life appears to us under a double aspect: corporeal and fluidic. The existence of man is alternatively terrestrial and extra-terrestrial. It is accomplished on earth, in the flesh; afterwards in the atmosphere, or in space, always in a human form, but impalpable and imponderable. These two modes of life follow each other in a harmonious rhythm, as day succeeds night, as waking follows sleep, as summer comes after winter.

From a philosophic and moral point of view, the consequences of these phenomena are no less considerable.

For over fifty years past, these facts have been attested. When from the facts we try to reach the causes which produce them, and formulate the laws which governs them, we find ourselves in presence of an order of things which forces on us a new conception of the universe and of life. Not only are we obliged to recognize the existence of of invisible beings who are the spirits of the dead, but we also see that these beings are united by close bonds of brotherhood, and are moving towards a common object, towards ever more and more elevated states.

By this conception, all ideas of law. progress, justice, and duty, have a new light shed upon them. The feeling of moral responsibility is increased. We begin to perceive the remedy we were awaiting, the remedy for the ills, and misery which weighs so heavily on mankind.

For, curiously enough, this revelation comes at the precise moment when all doctrines are sinking under the weight of time, when all religions are crumbling, and man is reduced to seeking his way in the night. It comes in the hour when society is worked upon by immense destructive forces, when, from deep down among the masses, arises to heaven a cry of suffering and of despair.

It is at this moment that messages of peace, of hope and of love, reach us from the powers of space, and the spirits of light who come to minister to a troubled world.

↑ 1 See chapter V.
 ↑ 2 "Miracles and Modern Spiritualism." Sir Russel Wallace, page 101. Edition of 1901.
 ↑ 3 See the communication of Dr Baraduc to the Photographic Congress at Bar; that of Dr Luys to the Society of Biology (June 1897) and the work of Dr Baraduc, "The human Soul, its movements and its lights."
↑ 4 See "Revue Spirite," Nov. 1894, with facsimile, and also the works of Col. de Rochas, "L'Extériorisation de la Sensibilité et de la Motricité." Chaumel. The same results are mentioned in the case of the medium Herrod. Also stated by Judge Carter, in "Animism and Spiritism," by Aksakof; and Mr Glendening, ("Bordeland" for July 1896) and others.
↑ 5 "Aprés la Mort," "After Death," p. 191, by the same author.
↑ 6 For full description, see "Evolution Animique," by Gabrielle Delanne.
 ↑ 7 To the newspaper Le Matin.
 ↑ 8 See "Le Psychisme expérimental," by Erny, p. 184.
 ↑ 9 "Aprés la Mort," latest edition, pp. 182-184.
 ↑ 10 The edition of "Christianisme et Spiritism" from which this translation is made was published several years ago, therefore the enormous mass of more recent confirmatory experiments is not mentioned, - Translator's Note.
 ↑ 11 See "La réalité des Esprits, Ecriture directe," by Baron Guldenstubb.
 ↑ 12 See "Spiritism ou Fakirisme occidental," by Dr Gibier, Director of the Pasteur Institute of New York.
↑ 13 See "Spirit-teachings," by Rev. Stainton Moses.
 ↑ 14 See note 13.
↑ 15 "Automatisme psychologique," by P. Janet.
↑ 16 See note 11.
↑ 17  "Aprés la Mort," pp. 103 and 261

Year by year, the number of experimenters has increased. Investigation has succeeded investigation, and the results have always confirmed previous conclusions. From these observations, multiplied infinitely, has come a certainty, that of the survival of the human being, and more precise ideas on the conditions of the future life.

By the attentive study of the phenomena, by the permanent communication established with the beyond, modern spiritualism has confirmed the great traditions of the past, the teachings of all religions, of all the high philosophies, touching the immortality of the soul and the existence of a great ruling Cause in the universe. What was formerly a hypothesis and a speculative line of thought, has now become a known fact. The future life is shown in all its striking reality; death has lost its terrifying aspect; heaven has come nearer to earth.

Spiritualism has done more than this. From the numerous investigations, from inquiries pursued during more than half a century, from all the facts, and all the revelations which proceed therefrom, it has constituted a new teaching, freed from all symbolism and obscurity, easily accessible even to the humblest, and which, for the erudite and the thinker, opens up vast perspectives of the higher grades of knowledge, and the conception of a superior ideal.

This teaching can give satisfaction to all, to the most refined as to the most uncultured, but it is especially addressed to those who suffer, who are bowed down under a heavy load or painful trials, to all those who need a living vivid faith to support them in their life, their work, their sufferings. It is especially addressed to the people. The masses have become incredulous and suspicious of all dogma, and religious belief, for they feel that they have been misled for centuries past. Nevertheless there exist always in them confused aspirations towards good, an innate desire for progress, liberty and light, which will help the new teaching and its regenerating action.

Modern spiritualism satisfies all those innate needs of the human soul, as no other doctrine has hitherto done. By the law of successive existences, it shows us justice ruling over the destiny of each. There are thus no more special privileges or exemptions, no more redemption by innocent blood, no more disinherited or favored ones.

All the spirits which people infinity, disseminated through space and the material worlds, are the creatures of their own works; all the souls which animate bodies of flesh, or are waiting for new reincarnations, are of the same origin, and destined to the same future. The merits, the acquired virtues, alone distinguish them, but all may rise by their own efforts and travel the path of infinite perfection. All family, subdivided into numerous sympathetic groups, and spiritual associations, of which the human family is but a reflection, a reduction, the members of which follow and assist each other through their many existences, living alternately the earth life and the free life of space, but always, sooner or later, coming together again.

Death thus loses the lugubrious, terrifying character which we have give it. It ceases to be the "king of terrors," but becomes rather a new birth, one of the conditions of the growth and development of life. All our existences are connected and form a whole. Death is only the passage from one to the other; for the sage, for the good man, it is the golden gate which opens into more beautiful regions.

When the prejudices which haunt our brains shall have faded away, man will understand the serene beauty and majesty of death. It is a mistake to think that it separates us from those dear to us. Thanks to spiritualism, we have the consolation of knowing that those who have preceded us in the beyond, watch over us and guide us in the dark ways of life. They are often at our side, invisible, ready to help us in our distress, to succor us in misfortune; and this knowledge gives us calmness and moral strength in time of trial. Their communications, their messages, soften for us the bitterness of the present, the sorrow of a separation which is only apparent. The teachings of the spirits develop our faculties and our knowledge. They tend to make us better, more confiding in the future and in the goodness of God.

Thus is realized and revealed to our eyes the law of fraternity and of solidarity which binds all men and of which humanity has already had an intuition. No more personal salvation, no more inexorable judgment which will fix the soul for ever far away from those who are dear to it, but instead, ever-possible reparation with the assistance of our brothers in space, the union of beings in their collective and eternal ascension.

This revelation gives us a new strength to resist the temptations and evil thoughts which assail us, and which we will avoid more carefully when we know that they cause grief to the members of our spiritual family, to our invisible friends.

In materialism, fraternity is but a word, altruism but a theory without foundation or meaning. Without faith in the future, man perforce devoted his whole attention to the present and to the enjoyments which it offers. In spite of all the exhortations of the theorists and the sophists, he felt little disposed to sacrifice himself, his interests, or his tastes, for the profit of a passing connection formed by ties contracted only yesterday, and which would be broken tomorrow. If death is the end of all things, he thought, why should I impose on myself privations for which I shall not be compensated? What is the good of virtue and of sacrifice, if all ends in nothing?

The inevitable result of such doctrines is the rapid development of selfishness, of the feverish search after riches, the care for exclusively material joys, the letting loose of passions, of violent appetites, of envy. All this is speedily produced. Under the action of this destructive breath, society is shaken to its foundations, and with it all the ideas of morality, of fraternity, of solidarity which the new spiritualism restores and strengthens.

"The belief in immortality," says Plato, "is the bond of every society; break this bond, and society falls to pieces."

In our time, leaning as we do to doubt, to negation, as a result of theological exaggerations, we are losing sight of this salutary idea. Experimental spiritualism gives us back our vanished faith, by placing it on a new and indestructible foundation.

The moral superiority of the doctrine of the spirits appears at every point. With it vanishes the iniquitous idea of the sin of one man borne by all. There is no more collective fall; all responsibilities are personal. Whatever be his condition in this world, be he born into suffering or misery and deprived of physical advantages and brilliant faculties, man knows that he is not experiencing an unmerited fate, but simply the result of his own previous actions. Therefore, wisdom counsels us to accept our fate without murmur, to fulfill our task faithfully, and to prepare ourselves for ever improving conditions.

Thanks to the doctrine of the spirits, man at last understands the object of life; he sees in it the means of education and reparation, he knows the greatness of the part he has to play; he ceases to curse fate and accuse God. He is delivered at one and the same time from the nightmares of annihilation and of hell, and from the illusion of an idle paradise.

The future is not one of useless and beatific contemplation, of the eternal immobility of the elect and the endless tortures of the damned. It is one of gradual evolution; it becomes after the course of trials and transformations, the circle of happiness, but always it is a life active and growing, the acquisition, by work, of an increasing amount of knowledge, of power and of morality; it is the progressive participation in the divine work, under the form of various missions, of devotion and of teaching, in the service of mankind.


Everyone recognizes today the necessity of a moral education, capable of regenerating society and of saving us from the decadence which threatens to end in ruin.

For long the idea prevailed that it sufficed to generalize instruction, but instruction without  moral teaching is powerless and sterile. First of all, we must make a man of the child, a man knowing his duty as well as his rights. It is not enough to develop intelligence, we must form the character, fortify the soul and the conscience. Knowledge must be supplemented by the light which reveals the future and the destiny of each. To make a new society, we need new and better men. Without that, all economic reforms, political combinations, and intellectual progress will be insufficient. The social order will only be as good as we are ourselves.

But this necessary education, on what is it to be based? It is not on negative theories, for they have been partly responsible for the ills of the present. It is not either on worn-out dogmas, on dead doctrines, on superficial beliefs which have no root in the soul.

No, mankind will accept no more symbols, legends, mysteries, veiled truths! It needs the full light, the splendid dawn of truth that the new spiritualism alone can offer him.

It alone can furnish a definite basis to morality and give to modern man the strength necessary to bear worthily his trials, to understand the causes of them, to react against them, to accomplish in all things his duty.

With the new spiritualism, man knows where he is going and his step becomes more firm, more assured. He knows that justice governs the world, that all is linked together, that each of his actions, good or bad, will weigh on him through time. In this thought, he finds strength to resist evil, and a powerful stimulant for good.

The spirit messages, the communion between the living and the dead have shown him the future beyond the tomb in all its living reality; he knows what fate awaits him, what responsibilities belong to him, what qualities he must acquire in order to be happy.

The study of spiritualism teaches us that life is a fight for the light; the struggle and the trial will only cease with the conquest of moral good. This thought fortifies the soul and prepares it for great works, for noble actions. Along with the sense of truth, it awakens in us confidence. Nourished by these principles, we fear neither adversity nor death. With a brave heart, we advance along fearless, without weakness or regret.

The elevating influence of spiritualism penetrates little by little into the most varied centers, from the most cultivated to the most obscure and degraded.

We have a proof of this in the following instance: In 1888, the convicts in the prison of Tarragona sent a most touching address to the International Spiritualist Congress, held at Barcelona, telling of the great moral help the knowledge of spiritualism had brought to them.

We find also in the working centers where spiritualism has spread, a very perceptible improvement in morals and habits, a firmer resistance to all excesses in general, and to anarchist theories in particular. Thanks to the counsels of the spirits, many vicious habits have been conquered, many troubled homes have become peaceful. Their teaching has awakened the lost faith, and with it, those virtues today become so rare.

It is a pleasant sight, for instance, to see, every Sunday, the crowds of spiritualist miners and their families who pour in from all surrounding points to Jumet (Belgium). They gather in a vast building, where, after the accustomed preliminaries, they listen with reverence to the teachings of their invisible guides, through the lips of the sleeping mediums. It is through one of them, a simple, uneducated working miner, who habitually speaks the Wallon patois, that the spirit of Canon Xavier Mouls, a priest of the greatest erudition and nobles character, manifest itself. It is to the Canon that the propagation of spiritualism and magnetism in the "corons" (or habitation of the Belgian miners) is due.

Mouls quitted this earth after having suffered cruel trials and bitter persecutions, but his spirit still watches over his beloved miners. Every Sunday he takes possession of the organs of speech of his favorite medium, and after a quotation from the scriptures, he, with priestly eloquence, discusses before them, for an hour, and in the purest French, the chosen subject, speaking to the hearts and intelligence of his listeners, exhorting them to do their duty, and to submit to the Divine laws. The impression produced on these people is very great, and it is the same wherever spiritualism is practiced in a serious manner by the lowly of the earth.

Sometimes, the spirits of miners known to those present, and how have shared their laborious existence, come and manifest themselves. They are easily recognizable by their language, their familiar expressions, by a thousand psychological details which are proofs of identity. They describe their mode of life in space, their sensations at the moment of death, the moral sufferings resulting from en evil past, from pernicious habits and tendencies to evil speaking and to intemperance, and these descriptions, full of animation and originality, exercise on the audience a great moral effect and produce a vivid and salutary impression, which brings about a distinct improvement in their ideas and habits.

In noting these facts, already very numerous, and daily increasing, we can realize how many unhappy souls have been comforted and benefited by spiritualism. It has saved many despairing ones from suicide, by proving to them the reality of survival, and giving back to them courage and the desire for life.

We certainly do not exaggerate in stating that many thousands of human beings belonging to different religions, Catholic and Protestant, and even the official representatives of those religions, who had been crushed and bruised by the trials of life and the death of their dear ones, deriving no help from their familiar doctrines, have found in the communion with the dead, in place of their vague faith, a firm conviction, an unshakable confidence in immortality.

This is what a Protestant clergyman wrote to Dr. A. Russel Wallace, the English scientist, after having discovered for himself the reality of the phenomena of spiritualism: - "Death appears to me now quite different from what it did in the past; after having suffered from deep depression due to the death of my sons, I am now full of confidence and joy; I am another man."¹ Against these testimonials, so eloquent in their simplicity, there my be objected, it is true, the frauds, the trickery, the charlatanry and mercenary mediumship, in a word, all the abuses arising in certain cases from a wrong practice of experimental spiritualism, of which we have before spoken.

Those who indulge in these practices prove thereby their utter ignorance of spiritualism. If they knew its precepts and its laws, they would understand what a future they are preparing for themselves by acts which are so many profanations. They would realize the risk they run in making of an honorable and sacred rite, which should be approached only in the purest spirit, a means of vulgar gain, of shameless barter.

We shall also be reminded of the influence of evil spirits, the apocryphal communications signed by famous names, and cases of obsession and possession. But these influences have been exercised, these facts have occurred in all ages; men have always been exposed (often without knowing the causes) to the acts of invisibles of an inferior order, and the study of spiritualism comes precisely to furnish us with the means of escaping these influences, of working on the mischievous and evil spirits, and bringing them back to good, by evocation, by prayer, and by teaching.

The beneficent action of spiritualism is not confined to man, it extends to the inhabitants of space. By means of the relations established between the two worlds, enlightened adepts can influence the lower spirits, and by words o consolation and of pity, by wise counsels, redeem them from evil, hatred and despair.

And this is an imperative duty, the duty of every superior being towards his inferior brethren, whether they belong to one world or the other, it is the duty of the man elevated by spiritualism to the dignity of an educator and guide to perverse and backward spirits, sent to him to be helped and ameliorated. At the same time it is the surest way to purify the fluidic approaches to the earth.

It is with this object that every spiritualistic circle of any importance consecrates part of its séances to the instruction and the reformation of guilty souls; and by the interest shown in them, by kindly advice and especially by fervent prayer which brings down on them magnetic influences, the most hardened spirits are frequently brought back to better sentiments, and discontinue the painful obsessions they had been practicing on their victims.

By its erroneous conception of life beyond the tomb, by its doctrine of eternal damnation, the Church has long prevented the accomplishment of this duty. She forbids all communication between men and spirits, and sets a gulf between them. All those who on quitting the earth were considered as damned for their sins, could not look to man for moral help, consolation or prayer. The door was shut.

They met with the same difficulty from the other side, for exalted spirits, from the subtle nature of their envelope, by their ethereal fluids, out of harmony with those of the lower spirits, found more difficulty than men in communicating with them. All the poor wandering souls, torn by anguish, assailed by painful memories of the past, were abandoned to their own devices, without a friendly thought, or ray of sunshine to illumine their darkness. Generally imbued with inveterate prejudices, often convinced, through their mistaken education, of the reality of the eternal torments to which they imagined themselves to be condemned. These horrible ideas of their position often awakened thoughts of rage and fury, and a desire for vengeance which they attempted to satisfy on weak or sinfully inclined men.

The evil influence of these spirits was increased by the solitude in which they were left. Held down by their gross fluids in the atmosphere of the earth, in permanent contact with men, accessible to their influence, and able to exert their own on them, they soon had only one object in view, that of forcing men to share the torments they imagined themselves to be enduring.

That is why, during the Middle Ages, when all relations with the invisible were forbidden, considered culpable and punished by fire, cases of obsession and of possession were constantly on the increase, and the bad influences of evil spirits spread rapidly. In place of endeavoring to convert them by prayer and kindly exhortations, the Church had only anathema and maledictions for them; she used exorcisms, which are worse than useless, for their only result is to irritate the evil spirits, to provoke them to cynical and impious replies and increase the indecent and odious actions they suggested to their victims.

In losing sight of the pure Christian traditions, in stifling the voice of the invisible world by threats of tortures and the stake, the Church has denied the great law of solidarity which unites all God's creatures, and imposes on the more advanced the obligation to work for the instruction and improvement of their brethren. During many centuries she deprived men of the help, the light, the inestimable benefits following on communication with the higher spirits. She deprived them of the loving intercourse with the dear ones who have preceded us to the beyond, an intercourse which is the joy, the supreme consolation of the afflicted, the lonely ones of this earth, of all those who suffer the anguish of separation.

She has deprived mankind of that flood of spiritual life which descends from space, strengthens the soul, and upraises the sad and despairing heart.

Thus darkness settled little by little over men's souls, the most glorious truths became veiled, and odious or childish conceptions grew up. Doubt spread, and the spirit of skepticism and of negation pervaded the world.

The Church, by the mouth of its most accredited theologians, thought herself justified in asserting that no sentiment of pity or of charity remained in the hearts of believers or of the blessed, towards those who had been their relations, their companions, those near and dear to them in this world.

    .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  

CONCLUSION