Example 1 - MR. SANSON.

— This former member of the Spiritist Society of Paris died on April 21, 1862, after a year of dreadful suffering. Foreseeing his death, he had addressed to the president of the SOCIETY a letter with the following passage:

“As it may happen that I am taken by surprise by the separation between my soul and my body, it occurs to me to reiterate to you a request I made to you about a year ago, namely, to evoke my Spirit as soon as possible, so that, as a quite useless member of our SOCIETY, I may be of some service to it after my death, clarifying phase by phase the circumstances ensuing from what the common people call death, and which, for us — the Spiritists — is nothing but a transformation, according to the unfathomable designs of God, but always useful to the end He sets for Himself.

“Besides this request — which is an authorization for you to honor me with this spiritual autopsy, perhaps unprofitable owing to my almost nonexistent advancement, and which your wisdom will not allow to go beyond a certain number of trials — I dare to ask, personally of you as of all my colleagues, that you implore the Almighty for the assistance of good Spirits, 4 and Saint Louis, our spiritual president, in particular, that he guide me in the choice and as to the time of a new incarnation, an idea that has long preoccupied me; I am afraid of trusting too much in my spiritual strength, asking God, too soon and presumptuously, for a bodily state in which I might not be able to justify the divine goodness, in such a way as to harm my own advancement and prolong the sojourn on Earth or anywhere else, should I be shipwrecked.”

To satisfy his desire, evoking him as soon as possible, we went with some members of the SOCIETY to the mortuary chamber, where, in the presence of his body, the following colloquy took place, one hour before his burial.

Our purpose was twofold: we were going to fulfill a last wish and we were going to observe, once more, the situation of a soul at a moment so immediately after death, dealing, moreover, with a man eminently enlightened, intelligent, and deeply convinced of the Spiritist truths. We were going, in short, to gather from his first impressions the proof of how much the deep grasp of these truths can influence the state of the Spirit.

And we were not deceived in our expectation, for Mr. Sanson, fully lucid, described the instant of the transition, seeing himself die and be reborn, which is a quite uncommon circumstance and due only to the elevation of his Spirit. (Mortuary chamber, April 23, 1862.)

Evocation. — I heed your call to fulfill my promise.

My dear Mr. Sanson, in fulfilling a duty, we evoke you with satisfaction as soon as possible after your death, as was your wish. — A. It is a special grace that God grants me so that I may manifest myself; I thank you for your good will, but I am so weak that I tremble.

You suffered so much that we may, I think, ask how you find yourself now… Do you still feel your pains? Comparing your situation today with that of two days ago, what sensations do you experience? — A. My situation is quite blessed; I find myself regenerated, renewed, as you say among yourselves, no longer feeling any of the old pains.

The passage from earthly life to that of the Spirits at first left me in an incomprehensible state, because we are sometimes deprived of lucidity for many days. I had, however, made a request to God to permit me to speak to those I cherish, and God heard me.

After how long did you recover the lucidity of your ideas? — A. After eight hours. God, I repeat, gave me a proof of His goodness, greater than my merit, and I do not know how to thank Him.

Are you quite certain that you no longer belong to our world? If so, how can you prove it? — A. Oh! certainly, I am no longer of that world, yet I will always be at your side to protect and sustain you, so that you may preach charity and abnegation, which were the guides of my life. Afterward, I will teach the true faith, the Spiritist faith, which must elevate the belief of the good and the just; I am strong, robust, in a word transformed; in me you will no longer recognize the old invalid who had to forget everything, fleeing all pleasure and joy.

I am a Spirit and my homeland is Space, my future is God, who reigns in immensity.

I would wish to be able to speak to my children, to teach them the very thing they always disdained to believe.

What effect does your body here beside us produce upon you? — A. My body! poor, wretched remains… returning to dust, while I keep the memory of all who cherished me.

I see this poor decomposed flesh, which was the dwelling of my Spirit, the trial of so many years!

Thank you, wretched body, for you purified my Spirit! My suffering, ten times blessed, gave me a place of great recompense, since I am able so quickly to communicate with you…

Did you keep your ideas until the last instant? — A. Yes. My Spirit kept its faculties, and when I could no longer see, I had a presentiment; 2 my whole existence unfolded in my memory and my last thought, my last prayer, was that I might be able to communicate with you, as I do now; then I asked God to protect you, so that the dream of my life might be fulfilled.

Were you conscious of the moment when the body breathed its last sigh? what happened to you at that moment? what sensation did you experience? — A. Life departs and sight, or rather, the sight of the Spirit is extinguished; one encounters the void, the unknown, and, carried off by I know not what power, one finds oneself in a world of joy and grandeur! I felt nothing, I understood nothing, and yet an ineffable happiness enraptured me with delight, free from the weight of pains.

Are you aware… of what I intend to read over your grave?

No sooner were the first words on the subject pronounced than the Spirit replied without my finishing. He also replied, without any question, to a certain controversy that had arisen among those present, as to whether it would be opportune to read this communication at the cemetery, where persons were present who might not share our opinions.

A. Ah! I know, my friend, and I know, for I saw you yesterday as much as today… How great is my joy! Thank you! Thank you! Speak… Speak so that they may understand me and cherish you; you have nothing to fear, for death is respected… Speak, then, so that the unbelievers may have faith. Farewell; speak; courage, confidence, and may my children be converted to a most sacred belief.

J. SANSON.

During the ceremony at the cemetery, he dictated the following words: “Let not death frighten you, my friends: it is a stage of life, if you know how to live well; it is a happiness, if you deserve it well and better fulfill your trials. I repeat: courage and good will! Place no more than middling value on earthly goods, and you will be rewarded. One cannot enjoy much without taking another's well-being and without doing, morally, a great, an immense evil. May the earth be light upon me.”

II.

(Spiritist Society of Paris, April 25, 1862.)

Evocation. — A. I am near you, my friends.

We consider ourselves fortunate for the interview we had on the day of your burial, and, since you permit it, we shall be more fortunate to complete it for our instruction. — A. I am ready, and I feel happy that you think of me.

The false idea we form of the invisible world is, most often, what leads us to disbelief, and thus, anything that can enlighten us in this regard will be for us of the highest importance. Do not be surprised, therefore, at the questions we may put to you. — A. I expect them and shall not be surprised.

You described luminously the transition to the other life: you said that, at the moment when the body breathes its last breath, life departs and sight is extinguished. And is that moment followed by any painful sensation? — A. But, of course it is, for life is nothing but a continuous series of pains, of which death is the complement. Hence a violent rupture, as if the Spirit had to make a superhuman effort to escape from its envelope, an effort that absorbs the whole being, making it lose the awareness of its destiny.

This case is not general, for experience proves that many Spirits lose consciousness before expiring, just as in those who have attained a certain degree of dematerialization the detachment takes place without effort.

Do you know whether there are Spirits for whom the final moment is more painful? Is it more painful for the materialist, for example? — A. That is certain, because the prepared Spirit has already forgotten suffering, or rather, has grown accustomed to it, and the calm with which it faces death prevents it from suffering twofold, foreseeing what awaits it beyond.

Moral suffering is stronger, and its absence at the time of death is in itself a great relief.

The unbeliever resembles the man condemned to the ultimate penalty, whose thought foresees the blade and the unknown. Between this death and that of the atheist, there is a parity.

Will there be materialists hardened enough to believe, at that moment, that they are going to be cast into nothingness? — A. Yes, they believe in nothingness until the last hour, but, at the moment of separation, the Spirit recoils, doubt seizes and tortures it; it asks itself what it is going to be, it wants to grasp something and can grasp nothing. The detachment cannot be completed without this impression.

On other occasions, a Spirit gave us the following description of the death of the unbeliever: In the last moments they experience the anguish of those terrible nightmares in which they see themselves on the edges of abysses about to swallow them; they want to flee and cannot; they try to grab hold of something, but find no support and feel themselves falling: they want to cry out, to scream, and cannot even articulate a single sound: — then, we see them writhing, clenching their hands, uttering stifled cries, so many symptoms of the nightmare of which they are victims.

In the ordinary nightmare, in dream, the awakening takes away your disquiet and you are relieved by the understanding that you were dreaming; the nightmare of death often prolongs itself for a long time, even for years, and what makes the sensation still more painful for the Spirit is the darkness in which it finds itself immersed.

You said that, at the time of expiring, you saw nothing, but you had a presentiment. It is understandable that you saw nothing corporeally, but what you sensed before the extinction — would it already be the brightness of the world of the Spirits? — A. It is what I said before, the instant of death gives clairvoyance to the Spirit; the eyes do not see, but the Spirit, which possesses a far more profound sight, instantly discovers an unknown world, and the truth, suddenly shining forth, gives it momentarily immense joy or deep grief, according to the state of conscience and the memory of the past life.

This concerns the instant that precedes death, or rather, that in which consciousness is lost — which explains the word momentarily, for the impressions, whether pleasant or painful, whatever they may be, survive the awakening.

Can you tell us what impressed you, what you saw at the moment when your eyes opened to the light? Can you describe to us, if it is possible, the appearance of the things that presented themselves to you? — A. When I was able to come to myself and see what I had before my eyes, I was as if dazzled, unable to understand, for lucidity does not return suddenly. God, however, who gave me an abundant proof of His goodness, permitted me to recover my faculties, and it was then that I saw myself surrounded by numerous, good, and faithful friends.

All the protecting Spirits who assist us surrounded me, smiling; an unparalleled joy radiated from their countenance, and I too, strong and animated, could without effort traverse the spaces. What I saw has no name in the language of men. I will return later to speak to you more fully of my joys, without exceeding, of course, the limit traced by God.

Know that happiness, as you understand it, is nothing but a fiction. Live wisely, holily, through charity and through love, and you will have earned impressions and delights that the greatest of poets could not describe.

Fairy tales are full of absurd things, but who knows whether they do not contain, in some manner and in part, something of what takes place in the world of the Spirits? Mr. Sanson's description recalls, as it were, a man asleep in a hovel, awakening in a splendid palace and surrounded by a brilliant court.

III.

Under what aspect did the Spirits present themselves to you? in human form? — A. Yes, my dear friend; the Spirits teach us, there on Earth, that they keep in the other world the same form that served them as an envelope, and it is the truth.

But what a difference between the shapeless machine, which painfully drags itself about there with its retinue of miseries, and the marvelous fluidity of the spiritual body!

Ugliness no longer exists, because the features have lost the hardness of expression that forms the distinctive character of the human race.

God beatified those graceful bodies that move with all elegances; the language has modulations untranslatable for you and the gaze the range of a star!

Conjecture about what God can produce in His Omnipotence, He, the architect of architects, and you will have formed a faint idea of the form of the Spirits.

As for you, how do you see? Do you recognize in yourself a limited, circumscribed form, even if imponderable? Do you feel in yourself a head, trunk, legs, and arms? — A. The Spirit, keeping its idealized, divinized human form, can, without contradiction, possess all the members of which you speak.

I feel perfectly my hands with their fingers, for we can, at will, appear to you and shake your hands.

I am beside my friends and shake their hands without their perceiving it; 4 as for our fluidity, and thanks to it, we can be everywhere without intercepting space or producing any sensations, if we so wish.

At this moment, between your crossed hands I have mine.

I tell you, for example, that I love you; yet, my body occupies no space, light passes through it, and what you would call — a miracle — if you happened to see it, is for the Spirit nothing but the continual action of every instant.

The sight of the Spirits cannot be compared to the human, since their body too has no real resemblances; for them everything is transformed, in essence as in the whole.

I repeat to you that the Spirit has a divine perspicacity that embraces everything, being able to divine even another's thought; 9 it can also, when opportune, take the form most fitting to make itself known. In reality, however, the Spirit that has ended its trial prefers the form that led it to God.

The Spirits have no sex; but since a few days ago you were a man, we wish to know whether in your new state you have more of the masculine or of the feminine nature? And can the same that occurs with you be applied to the Spirit long disincarnated? — A. We have no reason to be of masculine or feminine nature: the Spirits do not reproduce.

God created them as He willed, and having, according to His marvelous designs, to give them incarnation upon the Earth, He there subjected them to the laws of reproduction of the species, characterized by the joining of the sexes.

But you must feel it, without further explanation, that the Spirits cannot have a sex.

It has always been said that the Spirits have no sex, this being necessary only for the reproduction of bodies. Indeed, since they do not reproduce, sex would be useless to them.

Our question did not aim to confirm the fact, but to know, since Mr. Sanson had recently disincarnated, the impressions he retained of his earthly state.

The pure Spirits perfectly understand their nature, but among the inferior ones, not dematerialized, there are many who believe themselves incarnated upon the Earth, with the same passions and desires. Thus, they think they are still the same as they were, that is, man or woman, and there are some who for this reason suppose they really have a sex.

The contradictions in this regard arise from the gradation of advancement of the Spirits who manifest themselves, the error being less theirs than that of the one who questions them without taking the trouble to delve into the matters.

How does the session appear to you? Is its aspect the same as when you were alive? Do the persons keep for you the same appearance? Is everything as clear and distinct as before? — A. Much clearer, for I can read the thought of all of you, feeling equally happy at the beneficial impression caused in me by the good will of all the Spirits gathered here.

I wish that the same discernment may make itself felt not only in Paris, but in all of France, where there are groups that break apart, envying one another, dominated by turbulent Spirits who take pleasure in discord, when Spiritism ought to instill the complete and absolute forgetting of the self.

You said you could read in our thought: can you explain to us how that transmission takes place? — A. It is not easy. To describe to you, explaining it, this extraordinary prodigy of our vision, I would have to open up to you a whole arsenal of new agents, with which, moreover, you would be no further along, since your faculties are limited by matter.

Patience… Become good and you will obtain everything; 3 at present you can only have what God grants you, but with the hope of progressing continually: later you will be like us.

Strive, however, to die in grace, that you may know much. Curiosity, the stimulus of the man who thinks, will lead you tranquilly toward death, reserving for you the satisfaction of all desires past, present, and future.

While you wait, I will say, to answer, however poorly, your question: the air you breathe, impalpable like us, stereotypes, so to speak, your thought; 6 the breath you exhale is, more or less, the written page of your thoughts, read and commented upon by the Spirits who are constantly with you, messengers of a divine telegraphy that transmits and records everything. [J. SANSON.]

The death of the Just.

Following the first evocation of Mr. Sanson, made at the SOCIETY of Paris, a Spirit gave, under this heading, the following communication:

“The death of that man with whom you are occupying yourselves at this moment was that of a just man, that is, full of hope and calm.

As day naturally follows the dawn, the spiritual life succeeded his earthly life, without rupture or upheaval, and his last sigh was as much as a hymn of gratitude and love.

And how few are those who pass thus through the harsh transition! How few are those who, after the confusion and despair of life, conceive the harmonious rhythm of the spheres!

As a man of perfect health, suddenly mutilated, suffers in the limbs severed from the body, so the soul of the skeptic, separated from the body, is torn apart and, in agony, is hurled into Space, unconscious of itself.

“Pray for those troubled souls; pray for all who suffer, for charity is not restricted to visible Humanity, but must succor and console the inhabitants of Space.

Of this you had evident proof in the sudden conversion of that Spirit¹ touched by the Spiritist prayers over the tomb of the man of good whom you have come to interrogate and who wishes to make you progress on the good path.

Love has no limits; it fills Space and gives and receives mutually its divine consolations.

Likewise the sea unrolls in an infinite perspective, whose spectacle dazzles the spirit, seeming to merge at its limit with the heavens. They are two grandeurs that go to extremes.

Well then; so is love; deeper than the waves, more infinite than Space, it must unite all of you, incarnate and disincarnate, in the holy communion of charity, sublime fusion of the finite and the eternal.” Georges.

[1] Allusion to the Spirit Bernard, who manifested spontaneously on the day of Mr. Sanson's obsequies. (See the Spiritist Review of May 1862)