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[XVI]

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It remains for us to examine two objections, the only ones that truly merit that name, because they are based on rational theories.

Both admit the reality of all the material and moral phenomena, but exclude the intervention of the Spirits.

According to the first of these theories, all the manifestations attributed to the Spirits would be no more than magnetic effects.

The mediums would be in a state that may be called waking somnambulism, a phenomenon to which all who have studied magnetism can bear witness.

In this state the intellectual faculties acquire an abnormal development; the circle of intuitive perceptions widens beyond the limits of our ordinary conception.

Thus, the medium would draw from himself and through the effect of his lucidity all that he says and all the notions he transmits, even about things that are most foreign to him in his normal state.

It is not we who will contest the power of somnambulism, whose marvels we have observed, studying all its phases.

We agree, indeed, that many Spiritist manifestations can be explained by this means; 9 nevertheless, an attentive and prolonged observation shows a number of facts in which the intervention of the medium, except as a passive instrument, is materially impossible.

To those who share this opinion, we shall say, as to the others: “See and observe, for surely you have not yet seen everything.”

Next, we shall oppose to them two considerations drawn from their own doctrine. Whence came the Spiritist theory? Is it a system imagined by some men to explain the facts? By no means.

Who, then, revealed it? Precisely those same mediums whose lucidity you exalt.

If, then, this lucidity is such as you suppose, why would they have attributed to the Spirits what they drew from within themselves? How would they have given such precise, such logical, and such sublime information about the nature of these extra-human intelligences?

Of two things, one: either they are lucid, or they are not. If they are, and if we have confidence in their truthfulness, we could not, to be consistent, admit that they are not telling the truth.

In the second place, if all the phenomena had their source in the medium, they would be identical in the same individual, and one would not see the same person use heterogeneous language, nor express alternately the most contradictory things.

This lack of unity in the manifestations obtained through the medium proves the diversity of the sources. If, then, we cannot find them all in the medium, we must seek them outside of him.

According to another opinion the medium is the source of the manifestations; but, instead of extracting them from himself, as the partisans of the somnambulistic theory claim, he gathers them from the surrounding environment.

The medium would then be a kind of mirror reflecting all the ideas, all the thoughts, and all the knowledge of the persons surrounding him; he would say nothing that was not known, at least to some of them.

One cannot deny, and this even constitutes a principle of the Doctrine, the influence that those present exert on the nature of the manifestations.

However, this influence is quite different from what is supposed, and from there to the medium being an echo of the thought of those who surround him, there is a great distance, since thousands of facts demonstrate conclusively the contrary.

This is a grave error, which proves, once more, the danger of premature conclusions.

As these persons cannot deny the existence of a phenomenon that common science cannot explain, and not wishing to admit the presence of the Spirits, they explain it in their own way.

The theory they uphold would be seductive if it could embrace all the facts, but that is not what happens.

When it is demonstrated to them, even to the point of evidence, that certain communications of the medium are completely foreign to the thoughts, to the knowledge, and to the very opinions of those present; that these communications are frequently spontaneous and contradict all preconceived ideas, they do not allow themselves to be overcome so easily.

They reply that the radiation goes far beyond the immediate circle that surrounds us; the medium is the reflection of all Humanity, in such a way that, if he does not draw inspiration around himself, he goes to seek it outside, in the city, in the country, throughout the whole terrestrial globe, and even in other spheres.

I do not believe that there is to be found in this theory an explanation simpler and more probable than that of Spiritism, for it presupposes a cause far more marvelous.

The idea that beings who people the spaces and who, in permanent contact with us, communicate their thoughts to us, has nothing that shocks reason more than the supposition of this universal radiation, coming from all points of the Universe to concentrate itself in the brain of a single individual.

Once again, and this is a fundamental point on which we shall never insist enough: the somnambulistic theory and the one that might be called reflective were imagined by some men; they are individual opinions, created to explain a fact, whereas the Doctrine of the Spirits is not of human conception.

It was dictated by the very intelligences that manifest themselves, when no one was thinking of it and general opinion even repelled it.

Now, we ask: where did the mediums gather a doctrine that did not pass through the thought of anyone on Earth? We also ask: By what strange coincidence did thousands of mediums scattered over all points of the globe, and who had never seen one another, agree in saying the same thing? If the first medium that appeared in France underwent the influence of opinions already accepted in America, by what caprice did he go to seek them 2,000 leagues across the sea, in the midst of a people as foreign by its customs as by its language, instead of seeking them around himself?

There is also another circumstance about which not enough thought has been given. The first manifestations, in France as in America, did not occur by means of writing nor of the spoken word, but by raps coinciding with the letters of the alphabet and forming words and sentences.

It was by this means that the intelligences, authors of the manifestations, declared themselves to be Spirits.

If, therefore, we could suppose the intervention of the thought of the mediums in the verbal or written communications, no such thing could be thought with regard to the raps, whose meaning could not be known beforehand.

We could cite countless facts that demonstrate, in the intelligence that manifests itself, an evident individuality and an absolute independence of will.

We recommend, therefore, to the dissidents a careful observation; if they wish to study well, without prejudice and without concluding before having seen everything, they will recognize the incapacity of their theory to explain all the facts.

We shall limit ourselves to proposing the following questions: Why does the intelligence that manifests itself, whatever it may be, refuse to answer certain questions about perfectly known matters, for example, about the name or the age of the interlocutor, about what he has in his hand, what he did the day before, his plans for the following day, etc.?

If the medium were the mirror of the thought of those present, nothing would be easier for him than to answer.

The adversaries retort the argument by inquiring, in their turn, why the Spirits, who must know everything, cannot say things so simple, in accordance with the axiom: He who can do the greater can do the lesser, and from this they conclude that they are not Spirits.

If an ignorant man or a mocker, presenting himself to a learned assembly, were to ask, for example, why it is day at full midday, would it be credible that the assembly should take the trouble to answer seriously? And would it be logical to conclude, from the silence or the mockery with which it answered the interrogator, that its members are nothing but fools?

Now, it is precisely because they are superior that the Spirits do not answer useless and ridiculous questions, nor do they wish to be put on the spot; that is why they remain silent or say that they occupy themselves only with more serious things.

We shall ask, finally, why the Spirits come and go, often, at a given moment, and why, once that moment has passed, there are no requests nor entreaties that make them return?

If the medium acted only by the mental impulsion of those present, it is clear that, in such a circumstance, the concurrence of all the assembled wills should stimulate his clairvoyance.

If, therefore, he does not yield to the desire of the assembly, corroborated by his own will, it is because he obeys an influence foreign to himself and to those who surround him, an influence that, by this simple fact, attests his independence and his individuality. >>>