Example 3 - BENOIST.

A Spirit presents himself spontaneously to the medium, under the name of Benoist, saying that he died in 1704 and suffers horrible sufferings.

What were you on Earth? — A. A friar without faith.

Was disbelief your only fault? — A. It alone is enough to bring about others.

Could you give us some particulars about your life? The sincerity of the confession will be counted in your favor. — A. Poor and indolent, I took orders in order to have a position, without inclination, moreover, for such a charge.

Being intelligent, I obtained that position; being influential, I abused my power; being vicious, I corrupted those whom I had the mission to save; being cruel, I persecuted those who seemed to me to wish to reproach my excesses; the peaceable were disturbed by me.

The tortures of hunger of many victims were often extinguished by violence.

Now, I suffer all the tortures of hell, the victims kindling in me the fire that devours me.

Insatiable lust and hunger pursue me; thirst scorches my burning lips, without a drop falling upon them for refreshment. Pray for my Spirit.

Are the prayers made for the dead to be attributed to you as to the others? — A. You believe that they are quite edifying.

They have for me the value of those that I pretended to make. I did not perform my work, and so, I receive the wage.

Did you never repent? — A. Long ago; but it came only after the suffering.

And as I was deaf to the cry of innocent victims, the Lord too is deaf to my cries. Justice!

You recognize the Justice of the Lord; well then, trust in His goodness and avail yourself of His aid. — A. The demons bellow louder than I; their cries stifle me; they fill my mouth with boiling pitch!…

I did it, great… (The Spirit could not write the word God.)

Are you not sufficiently freed from earthly ideas so as to understand that these tortures are all moral? — A. I suffer them… I feel them… I see my executioners, who all have a known face, a name that reverberates in my brain.

But what could have impelled you to the commission of so many infamies? — A. The vices with which I was saturated, the brutality of the passions.

Did you never implore the assistance of the good Spirits to help you emerge from this contingency? — A. I see only the demons of hell.

And when you were on Earth did you fear those demons? — A. No, not at all, since I believed only in nothingness. Pleasures at all costs constituted my cult.

And, since I consecrated my life to them, the divinities of hell have not abandoned me again, nor will they!

Then you glimpse no end to these sufferings? — A. The infinite has no end.

But God is infinite in His mercy, and everything can have an end when it pleases Him. — A. If only He willed it!

Why did you come to inscribe yourself here? — A. I do not even know how, but I wished to speak and to cry out that I might be relieved.

And do these demons not inhibit you from writing? — A. No, but they remain before me, and they await me… Also for this reason, I would wish not to finish.

Is it the first time that you write in this manner? — A. Yes. 2 — And did you know that Spirits could thus approach men? — A. No. 3 — How, then, did you perceive it? — A. I do not know.

What sensations did you experience on approaching me? — A. A kind of numbness of my terrors.

How did you perceive your presence here? — A. As when one awakens.

How did you proceed to communicate with me? — A. I cannot understand it, but did you not feel it too?

It is not a matter of me, but of you… Try to assure yourself of what you are doing while I write. — A. You are my thought, that is all.

Did you not, then, have the desire to make me write? — A. No, 2 it is I who write, and you think for me.

Try to assure yourself of your state, because the good Spirits who surround you will help you. — A. No, for the angels do not come to hell. Are you not alone? 2 — Look around you. — A. I feel that they help me to act upon you… your hand obeys me… I do not touch you, moreover, and I hold you… How? I do not know…

Implore the assistance of your protectors. Let us both ask. — A. Do you wish to leave me? Stay with me, because they are going to take possession of me again. I beg you of it… Stay! Stay!…

I cannot tarry any longer. Return daily that we may pray together and the good Spirits will help you. — A. Yes, I desire forgiveness. Pray for me, for I cannot do it.

— The medium’s guide. Courage, my son, for what you ask will be granted him, although the end of the expiation is still far off.

The atrocities committed by him are without number or count, and his guilt is the greater because he possessed intelligence, instruction, and enlightenment to guide himself.

Having failed with full knowledge of the cause, the more terrible are his sufferings; 4 which, nevertheless, will be softened with the aid and the example of prayer, so that he may see the end of them, comforted by hope.

God sees him on the path of repentance, and has already granted him the grace of being able to communicate in order to be encouraged and comforted.

Think of him often, for we entrust him to you that he may be strengthened in the good resolutions that may come to him from your counsels.

His repentance will be followed by the desire for reparation, and he will then ask for a new existence in order to practice good as compensation for the evil he did; 8 and when God is satisfied concerning him and sees him resolute and firm, He will let him glimpse the divine lights that are to lead him to salvation, receiving him into His bosom as a father the prodigal son.

Have faith, and we will help you to complete your work. Paulin.

We place this Spirit among the criminals, although he was not reached by human justice, because crime is contained in the acts, and not in the punishment inflicted by men. The same holds for what follows.