Example 4 - THE SPIRIT OF CASTELNAUDARY.

— Noises and other strange and varied manifestations occurring in a small house near Castelnaudary, caused it to be regarded as inhabited by phantoms, haunted, etc.

Thus the said house was exorcised in 1848, though without result. The owner, Mr. D…, intending to live in it, died suddenly some years later; 3 a son of his, prompted by the same desire, upon entering one of its rooms received a vigorous slap from an unknown hand, and, since he was alone, had not the slightest doubt of a hidden origin, which led him to abandon the house definitively.

In that place there circulated a version according to which a great crime had been committed there.

The Spirit who had given the slap was evoked at the Society of Paris, in 1859, and manifested itself by signs of such violence that all efforts to calm it were fruitless.

Saint Louis, questioned on this matter, replied: “It is a Spirit of the worst kind, a true monster: we made it appear, but in spite of all we said to it, it was not possible to compel it to write; 7 it has its free will, of which the unfortunate one has made sad use.”

Q. Is this Spirit capable of improvement? — A. Why not? are not all so, this one as well as the others?

It is possible, however, that there may be difficulties in this, but the exchange of good for evil will end by touching it.

Pray first of all, and, if you evoke it a month from now, you will see the transformation wrought.

Evoked again later, the Spirit showed itself gentler and, little by little, submissive and repentant.

Later explanations, given not only by it but also by other Spirits, resulted in its becoming known that, in 1608, while living in that house, it had murdered a brother out of terrible jealousy, cutting his throat during his sleep. Some years later, it had also murdered its wife.

Its death occurred in 1659, at the age of 80, without its having answered for these crimes, which aroused little attention in that age of turmoil.

After death, it had never ceased to do evil, provoking various accidents that occurred in that house.

A seeing medium who was present at the first evocation saw it, at the moment when they were trying to force it to write, when it violently shook the medium's arm. Of frightful aspect, it wore a bloodstained shirt, holding a dagger in its hand.

Q. To Saint Louis. Be so kind as to describe to us the kind of torment of this Spirit. — A. It is atrocious, because it is condemned to inhabit the house in which it committed the crime, unable to fix its thought on anything other than the crime, having it always before its eyes and believing in the eternity of such torture.

It is as in the very moment of the crime, because every other recollection has been withdrawn from it, and all communication with any other Spirit is forbidden it; 3 on Earth, it can remain only in that house, and in Space there remain to it only solitude and darkness.

Would there be a means of dislodging it from that house? What would that means be? — A. When one wishes to be rid of obsessions by such Spirits, the means is easy — to pray for them; 2 yet that is precisely what is very often left undone, preferring to intimidate them with formulated exorcisms which, in fact, greatly amuse them.

By suggesting to the interested persons this idea of praying for it, and doing so ourselves as well, would we succeed in dislodging it? — A. Yes, 2 but note that I said to pray and not to have others pray.

Having been in such a situation for two centuries, will it appraise all that time as if it were incarnate, that is, will the time seem to it as long as, or less long than, when on Earth? — A. Longer: 2 sleep does not exist for it.

We have been told that time does not exist for Spirits and that a century, for them, is no more than an instant in eternity. Does this fact actually hold true for all Spirits? — A. No, certainly not, for that occurs only with Spirits who have attained a very high degree of advancement; 2 for the inferior ones, however, time is frequently slow, above all when they suffer.

Whence came this Spirit before its incarnation? — A. It had had an existence among the most ferocious and savage tribes, 2 and, previously, on a planet inferior to Earth.

Severely punished now for this crime, would it be so likewise for those it might perhaps have committed, as is to be supposed, when living among savages? — A. Yes, but not so much, seeing that, being more ignorant, it grasped less the extent of the offense.

Is the state in which this Spirit finds itself that of the beings commonly designated as the damned? — A. Absolutely not, for there are conditions still more horrible.

The sufferings are far from being the same for all, varying according to whether the guilty one is more or less open to repentance.

For this one, that house is its hell; others carry that hell within themselves, through the passions that torment them without their being able to satisfy them.

Despite its inferiority, this Spirit is sensitive to the effects of prayer, which we have also verified with Spirits equally perverse and of the coarsest nature; meanwhile, there are Spirits who, enlightened, of more developed intelligence, demonstrate a complete absence of good sentiments, mocking all that is most sacred; moved by nothing and not even giving respite to their cynicism… — A. Prayer benefits only the Spirit who repents; 2 for those who, carried away by pride, revolt against God and persist in error, even exaggerating it, just as the wretched ones do; for these, prayer avails nothing, nor will it avail until a faint glimmer of repentance begins to germinate in their conscience.

The ineffectiveness of prayer is also a punishment for them.

In short, it relieves only those who are not entirely hardened.

Seeing a Spirit insensible to the action of prayer, will that be a reason to cease praying for it? — A. No, for, sooner or later, prayer may triumph over its hardness, suggesting beneficial thoughts to it.

The same happens with certain sick persons in whom the action of medicine only becomes perceptible after a long time, and vice versa.

By thoroughly convincing ourselves that all Spirits are susceptible of progress, and that none is fatally and eternally condemned, it will be easy for us to understand the efficacy of prayer in any circumstances; however ineffective it may seem to us at first sight, it is certain that it contains within itself germs sufficiently beneficial to dispose the Spirit well, even when they do not affect it immediately.

It would be an error, then, to lose heart because we do not reap an immediate result from it.

When this Spirit reincarnates, what will be its category? — A. That depends on it and on the repentance it shall then have.

Many conversations with this Spirit resulted in a remarkable transformation of its moral character. Here are some of its replies.

To the Spirit. Why could you not write the first time we evoked you? — A. Because I did not want to.

But why? — A. Ignorance and brutishness.

Can you now leave, when it pleases you, the house of Castelnaudary? — A. They permit me to, because I profit from your counsels.

Do you feel some relief? — A. I begin to have hope.

If it were possible for us to see you, what would your appearance be? — A. You would see me with the shirt, but without the dagger. 2 — Q. Why no longer with the dagger? What became of it? — A. Cursing it, God snatched it from my sight.

If Mr. D… the son (the one who had received the slap) returned to that house, what would you do to him? — A. Nothing, because I am repentant. 2 — Q. And if he should still try to defy you? — A. Do not ask me that question! I would not master myself, that is beyond my strength, for I am a wretch.

Do you glimpse an end to your sufferings? — A. Oh! not yet. It is already much to know, thanks to your intercession, that these sufferings will not be eternal.

Be so kind as to describe to us your situation before we evoked you for the first time. We need not add that this request has as its aim to know how to be useful to you, and not simple and futile curiosity. — A. I have already told you that I understood nothing beyond my crime, and that I could not leave the house in which I committed it, except to wander in Space, solitary and obscure; 2 of this I could not give you an idea, because I could never understand what was happening. As soon as I rose into Space, all was blackness and void, or rather, I do not even know what it was…

Today my remorse is much greater, and yet I am not constrained to remain in that fatal house, being permitted to wander over the Earth and to orient myself by observing all that I see there, thus better understanding the enormity of my crimes, 4 and, if I suffer less on the one hand, on the other the tortures of remorse increase… But… it is well that I have hope.

If you had to reincarnate, what existence would you prefer? — A. I have not meditated sufficiently on that.

During your long isolation, which we might almost call captivity, did you experience any remorse? — A. None, and for that reason I suffered so long; 2 only when I felt it did it provoke, without my perceiving it, the circumstances determining your evocation of my Spirit, for the beginning of liberation.

Thanks, then, to you who took pity on me and enlightened me.

— Indeed, we have seen misers suffer at the sight of gold, which for them was no more than a true chimera; 2 the proud, tormented by jealousy of the honors paid to others rather than to themselves; 3 men who dominated on Earth, humbled by the invisible power, constrained to obedience, in the presence of subordinates who no longer bowed before them; 4 atheists astonished by doubt, in the face of immensity, in the most absolute isolation, without a being to enlighten them.

In the world of the Spirits there are compensations for all virtues, but there are also penalties for all faults, and, of these, those that escaped the laws of men are infallibly reached by the laws of God.

We must also note that the same faults, even though committed in identical circumstances, are punished differently, according to the degree of advancement of the offending Spirit.

To the more backward Spirits, of coarser nature, like this one with whom we have just occupied ourselves, are inflicted punishments somewhat more material than moral, whereas the contrary occurs with those whose intelligence and sensibility are more developed.

To the former is imposed the punishment appropriate to the crudeness of their discernment, so that they may understand the error and free themselves from it; 9 thus shame, for example, causing little or no impression on the latter, becomes intolerable for the former.

In this divine penal code, the wisdom, the goodness, the providence of God toward His creatures are revealed even in the smallest particulars, everything being proportioned and concatenated with admirable solicitude to facilitate for the guilty the means of rehabilitation. The least aspirations of the soul are considered and gathered.

According to the dogmas of eternal punishments, on the contrary, in hell the great and small criminals are confounded together, those guilty for a moment and the contumacious recidivists, the hardened and the repentant; everything is calculated to keep them in the depths of the abyss; moreover, no plank of salvation is offered to them; the momentary fault may bring about an eternal condemnation and, what is more, any benefit they may perhaps have done will avail them nothing.

On which side, then, is true justice, true goodness?

This evocation has nothing of the casual; and since it was to benefit that unfortunate one, seeing that he was already beginning to understand the enormity of his crime, behold, the Spirits who were watching judged this efficacious aid opportune and set about facilitating for him the favorable circumstances. This is a fact that we have seen reproduced frequently.

It will be asked what would have become of this Spirit if it had not been evoked, what will become of all the suffering ones who cannot be, as well as of those of whom no one thinks…

We might reply that the means at God's disposal to save His creatures are innumerable, evocation being one among those means, but not the only one, certainly.

God leaves no one forgotten, and besides, upon the Spirits susceptible of repentance, collective prayers must exert some influence.

The lot of the suffering Spirits could not be subordinated by God to human good will and human knowledge.

From the moment men were able to establish regular relations with the invisible world, one of the first consequences of Spiritism was the teaching of the services that, by means of these relations, can be rendered to their disincarnate brothers.

God thus makes manifest the solidarity existing among all the beings of the Universe, while at the same time giving a law of nature as the basis for the principle of fraternity.

God demonstrates to us the true, useful, and serious aspect of evocations, until then diverted from their providential end by ignorance and superstition.

The suffering ones have never lacked succor in any age and, if evocations afford them a new path of salvation, the incarnate benefit still more, perhaps, by being afforded new means of doing good, instructing themselves at the same time about the conditions of the future life. [Under this title, the Review of February 1860 contains further information about the disturbing Spirit of Castelnaudary.]