THE INTERVENTION OF DEMONS IN MODERN MANIFESTATIONS.

— The modern phenomena of Spiritism have drawn attention to analogous facts of all ages, and never has History been so consulted in this respect as of late. From the similarity of the effects, the unity of the cause was inferred.

As always happens with regard to extraordinary facts unknown to common sense, the common people saw in the spiritist phenomena a supernatural cause, and superstition completed the error by adding to them absurd beliefs.

From this arises a multitude of legends which, for the most part, are an amalgam of few truths and many lies.

— The doctrines about the demon, prevailing for so long, had so exaggerated his power that they made, so to speak, God be forgotten; everywhere the finger of Satan appeared, it being enough for this that the observed fact exceeded the limits of human power; 2 even the best things, the most useful discoveries, especially those that could shake ignorance and widen the circle of ideas, were many times held to be diabolical works.

The spiritist phenomena of our days, more generalized and better observed in the light of reason and with the aid of Science, have confirmed, it is true, the intervention of hidden intelligences, but acting within natural laws and revealing by their action a new force and laws hitherto unknown. The question is therefore reduced to knowing of what order these intelligences are.

As long as one possessed of the spiritual world notions that were more than uncertain and systematic, the truth could be diverted; but today, when rigorous observations and experimental studies have clarified the nature, origin and destiny of the Spirits, as well as their mode of action and role in the Universe — today, we say, the question is resolved by facts.

We now know that these hidden intelligences are the souls of those who lived on Earth.

We also know that the various categories of good and bad Spirits are not beings of different species, but that they merely represent diverse degrees of advancement.

According to the position they occupy by virtue of intellectual and moral development, the beings that manifest themselves present the deepest contrasts, without our being able on that account to suppose that they have not all come from the great human family, in the same way as the savage, the barbarian and the civilized man.

— On this point, as on many others, the Church maintains the old beliefs concerning demons. It says: “There are principles that have not varied for eighteen centuries, because they are immutable.”

Its error is precisely this of not taking into account the progress of ideas; it is to suppose God insufficiently wise not to proportion revelation to the development of the intelligences; 3 it is, in short, to speak to contemporaries the same language of the past.

Now, with Humanity progressing while the Church entrenches itself systematically in old errors, both in spiritual matters and in scientific ones, incredulity will soon come, overwhelming the Church itself.

— Here is how it explains the exclusive intervention of demons in spiritist manifestations: n

“In their external interventions the demons seek to dissimulate their presence, in order to ward off suspicion. Ever cunning and perfidious, they seduce man with snares before shackling him in oppression and servility. Here they whet his curiosity with phenomena and puerile tricks; there, they awaken his admiration and subjugate him by the charm of the marvelous. If the supernatural appears and unmasks them, then they grow calm, extinguish any apprehensions, solicit confidence and provoke familiarity. Now they present themselves as divinities and good geniuses, now they assume the names and even the traits of remembered dead. With the help of such frauds worthy of the ancient serpent, they speak and are heard; they dogmatize and are believed; they mix some truths with their lies and instill error under all forms. This is what the so-called revelations from beyond the grave signify. And it is for such a result that wood and stone, forests and springs, the sanctuary of idols and the feet of tables and the hands of children become oracles: it is for this reason that the pythoness prophesies in delirium; that the ignorant becomes a scientist in a mysterious sleep. To deceive and pervert, such is, everywhere and in all ages, the supreme aim of these manifestations.

“The surprising results of these practices or acts, ordinarily fantastic and ridiculous, not being able to come from their intrinsic virtue, nor from the order established by God, can only be attributed to the concurrence of the hidden Powers. Such are, notably, the extraordinary phenomena obtained in our days by the apparently harmless processes of magnetism, like those of the talking tables. By means of the operations of modern magic, we see reproduced in the present the evocations, the consultations, the cures and the spells that distinguished the temples of idols and the dens of the sibyls. As of old, wood is questioned and it answers; it is commanded and it obeys; this in all languages and on all subjects; one finds oneself in the presence of invisible beings who usurp the names of the dead, and whose so-called revelations bear the mark of contradiction and falsehood; inconsistent and light forms appear swift and sudden, showing themselves endowed with superhuman force.

“Who are the secret agents of these phenomena, the true actors of these inexplicable scenes? The angels — these would not accept such unworthy roles, nor would they lend themselves to all the whims of curiosity. The souls of the dead, whom God forbids to be evoked — these remain in the place assigned to them by His justice, and cannot, without His permission, place themselves at the orders of the living. Thus, the mysterious beings that come at the first call of the heretic, the impious or the believer — which is to say, of innocence or of crime — are neither envoys of God, nor apostles of truth and salvation, but factors of error and agents of hell. Despite the care with which they conceal themselves under the most venerable names, they betray themselves by the nullity of their doctrines, by the baseness of their acts and the incoherence of their words. They seek to erase from the religious symbol the dogmas of original sin, of the resurrection of the body, of the eternity of punishments, as of all divine revelation, in order to remove from the laws their true sanction and to open all the barriers to vice. If their suggestions could prevail, they would end by forming a comfortable religion for the use of socialism and of all those whom the notion of duty and of conscience importunes. The incredulity of our century has smoothed their way. May Christian societies, by a sincere devotion to the Catholic faith, escape the danger of this new and terrible invasion!”

— This whole theory derives from the principle that angels and demons are beings distinct from human souls, the latter being rather the product of a special creation, inferior, moreover, to the demons in intelligence, in knowledge and in every kind of faculty.

And it is thus that it pronounces in favor of the exclusive intervention of the bad angels, in the ancient as in the modern manifestations of the Spirits.

The possibility of the communication of the dead is a question of fact, it is the result of observations and experiences which there is no occasion to discuss here.

Let us admit, however, as a hypothesis, the doctrine cited above, and let us see whether it does not destroy itself by its own arguments.

— Of the three categories of angels according to the Church, the first occupies itself exclusively with Heaven; the second with the government of the Universe, and the third with the Earth; 2 it is in this last that the guardian angels are found, charged with the protection of each individual. Only a part of the angels, of this last category, is the one that shared in the revolt and was transformed into demons.

If God permitted the latter to incite men to their ruin, by suggestions of every kind and by the fact of ostensible manifestations; if He is supremely just and good, why would He have granted them the immense power they enjoy, leaving them a liberty of which they make such a pernicious use, without permitting the good angels to make a counterweight to it by similar manifestations directed toward good?

Let us admit that God had given an equal share of power to the good and to the bad, which would already be an exorbitant favor to the advantage of the latter — man would at least remain free to choose; but to give them the monopoly of temptation, with the faculty of simulating good, of deceiving in order more surely to seduce, would be a true snare laid for his weakness, his inexperience, his good faith; we say more: it would be to abuse his confidence in God.

Reason refuses to admit so much partiality to the advantage of evil. Let us look at the facts.

— To the demons are granted transcendent faculties: they have lost nothing of the angelic nature; they possess the knowledge, the perspicacity, the foresight and the penetration of the angels, having besides, in addition, cunning, ruse and artifice, all in a higher degree.

The aim that moves them is to divert men from good, to lead them away from God and to drag them to hell, of which they are the purveyors and recruiters.

Thus, one understands that they should address themselves preferably to those who are on the good path and persist in it; one understands the employment of seductions and semblances of good to attract and ruin them; 4 but what one does not understand is that they should address themselves to those who already belong to them body and soul, seeking to lead them back to God and to good; 5 who will be more in the demon's clutches than he who blasphemes against God, given over to vice and the disorder of the passions? Is not such a one on the path of hell?

But then how is one to understand that to such a prey this demon should exhort him to pray to God, to submit to His will, to renounce evil; 7 that he should exalt before his eyes the delightful life of the good Spirits and depict for him the horrible position of the bad?

Never has a merchant been seen to extol to his customers the merchandise of his neighbor to the detriment of his own, advising them to go to the neighbor's house. Never has a recruiter of soldiers been seen to disparage military life, praising the repose of domestic life! Could he tell the recruits that they will have a life of toils and privations with ten chances against one of dying or, at the least, of being left without arms or legs?

Such is, however, the stupid role of the demon, for it is notorious and a fact that the instructions emanating from the invisible world have regenerated unbelievers and atheists, infusing into their soul a fervor and beliefs never before possessed. Furthermore, by the influence of these manifestations, one has seen — and daily sees — obstinate vicious men regenerate themselves, seeking to better themselves.

Now, to attribute to the demon such beneficial propaganda and salutary result is to confer on him a diploma of fool. And since it is not a matter of mere supposition, but of an experimental fact against which there is no argument, we must conclude either that the demon is a bungler of the first order, or that he is not so cunning and bad as is claimed, and consequently as fearsome as is said; or else that not all the manifestations proceed from him.

— They instill error under all forms, and it is to obtain this result that wood, stone, forests, springs, the sanctuaries of idols, the feet of tables and the hands of children become oracles.”

But, if it is so, what is the meaning and value of these words of the Gospel:

— “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh: your sons and daughters shall prophesy; the young shall have visions and the old shall have dreams. In those days I will pour out my Spirit upon all my menservants and maidservants, and they shall prophesy.” (Acts of the Apostles, chapter II, vv. 17 and 18.)

Is there not in these words the tacit prediction of the mediumship of our days granted to all, even to children? And was this faculty anathematized by the apostles? No; they proclaim it as a divine grace and not as a work of the demon.

Will the theologians of today have more authority than the apostles? Why not rather see the finger of God in the fulfillment of those words?

— By means of the operations of modern magic we see reproduced in the present the evocations, the consultations, the cures and the spells that distinguished the temples of idols and the dens of the sibyls.”

We ask: what is there in common between the operations of magic and the spiritist evocations? There was a time when such operations commanded belief and their efficacy was credited, but today they are simply ridiculous. No one takes them seriously, and Spiritism condemns them.

In the epoch when magic flourished, the notion about the nature of the Spirits was imperfect, they being generally held to be beings endowed with superhuman power; 4 at the price of one's own soul, no one evoked them except to obtain favors of luck and fortune, to find treasures, to reveal the future or to obtain potions.

Magic with its signs, formulas and cabalistic practices was charged with furnishing secrets for working prodigies, for constraining Spirits to remain at the orders of men and to satisfy their desires.

Today we know that the Spirits are the souls of the dead and we evoke them only to receive counsels from the good, to moralize the bad and to continue relations with beings who are dear to us. Here is what Spiritism says in this respect:

— You can never compel the presence of a Spirit equal or superior to you in morality, since you lack authority over him; but, in the case of one inferior to you, and being for his benefit, you will obtain it, seeing that other Spirits second you. (The Mediums' Book, Part 2, chapter XXV.)

— The most essential of all dispositions for evoking is collectedness, when we wish to deal with serious Spirits. With faith and the desire for good, the more apt we become to evoke superior Spirits. By elevating our soul for a few moments of concentration at the moment of evoking them, we identify ourselves with the good Spirits, predisposing their coming. (The Mediums' Book, Part 2, chapter XXV.)

— No object, medal or talisman has the property of attracting or repelling Spirits, for matter exerts no action upon them. A good Spirit never counsels such absurdities. The virtue of talismans can exist only in the imagination of simple-minded persons. (The Mediums' Book, Part 2, chapter XXV.)

— There are no sacramental formulas for evoking Spirits. Whoever should claim to establish a formula could be charged with using charlatanism, seeing that for pure Spirits the formula is worth nothing.

The evocation must, however, always be made in the name of God. (The Mediums' Book, Part 2, chapter XVII.)

— The Spirits who set appointments in lugubrious places, and at undue hours, are those who amuse themselves at the expense of those who heed them. It is always useless and often dangerous to yield to such suggestions; useless, because nothing is gained beyond a mystification, and dangerous, not for the harm that the Spirits may do, but for the influence that such facts may exert upon weak brains. (The Mediums' Book, Part 2, chapter XXV.)

— There are no days nor hours more especially propitious to evocations: this, like everything that is material, is completely indifferent to the Spirits, besides the belief in such influences being superstitious. The most favorable moments are those in which the evoker can best abstract himself from his habitual preoccupations, calm of body and of spirit. (The Mediums' Book, Part 2, chapter XXV.)

— Malevolent criticism takes pleasure in representing the spiritist communications clad in the ridiculous and superstitious practices of magic and necromancy.

Meanwhile, if those who speak of Spiritism, without knowing it, sought to study it, they would spare themselves labors of imagination and allegations that serve only to demonstrate their ignorance and ill will. For the edification of persons unacquainted with the science, we will say that there are no hours more propitious, some than others, just as there are no days nor places, for communicating with the Spirits; more: that there are no formulas nor sacramental or cabalistic words to evoke them; that there is no need at all for preparation or initiation;

that the employment of any signs or material objects to attract or repel them is null, thought alone sufficing for this; and, finally, that the mediums receive the communications from them without leaving the normal state, as simply and naturally as if such communications were dictated by a living person. Only charlatanism could lend to the communications eccentric forms, grafting onto them ridiculous accessories. (What Spiritism Is, chapter II, no. 49.)

— The future is, on principle, forbidden to man, and only in the rarest and most exceptional cases does God grant its revelation. If man knew the future, he would surely neglect the present and would not act with the same liberty. Absorbed by the idea of the fatality of an event, we either seek to ward it off or do not concern ourselves with it. God did not permit it to be so, in order that each one might contribute to the realization of the very events that he might perhaps wish to avoid. He permits, however, the revelation of the future, when the prior knowledge of a thing does not hinder, but facilitates its realization, inducing a conduct different from what one would have had without such a circumstance. (The Spirits' Book: Part 3, chapter X.)

— The Spirits cannot guide scientific discoveries or investigations. Science is the work of genius and must be acquired only by labor, for it is by this that man progresses. What merit would we have if, to know everything, it were enough merely to question the Spirits? At that price, every imbecile could become learned. The same holds with regard to the inventions and discoveries of industry.

When the time for a discovery has come, the Spirits charged with its advancement seek out the man capable of bringing it to a good end and inspire in him the necessary ideas, this in such a way as not to take from him the corresponding merit, which lies in the elaboration and execution of those ideas. Thus has it been with all the great works of human intelligence. The Spirits leave each individual in his sphere: of the man fit only to till the earth they do not make depositaries of the secrets of God, but they know how to draw from obscurity him who shows himself capable of seconding their designs.

Do not, therefore, let yourselves be dominated by ambition and by curiosity, in a domain foreign to that of Spiritism, which has no such aims, for with them you will obtain only the most ridiculous mystifications. (The Mediums' Book, Part 2, chapter XXVI.)

— The Spirits cannot contribute to the discovery of hidden treasures.

The superior ones do not occupy themselves with such things, and only the mockers can entertain themselves with them, now indicating treasures that most often do not exist, now pointing out sites diametrically opposite to those in which they really exist. This circumstance has, nevertheless, a usefulness, namely that of showing that true fortune resides in labor. When Providence has destined to someone any hidden riches, that someone will find them naturally; otherwise not, never. (The Mediums' Book, Part 2, chapter XXVI.)

— By enlightening us about the properties of the fluids — agents and means of action of the invisible world, constituting one of the forces and powers of Nature — Spiritism gives us the key to countless facts and things unexplained and inexplicable in any other way, facts and things that passed for prodigies in other ages. In the same way as magnetism, it reveals to us a law, if not unknown, at least misunderstood, or rather, to say it better, effects known in all ages, since they were produced in all ages, but whose law was unknown and from whose ignorance superstition sprang.

Once that law is known, the marvelous disappears and the phenomena enter into the order of natural things. This is why the Spirits do not produce miracles, in making the tables turn or the dead write, just as the doctor performs no miracle in restoring the dying to life, and the physicist in provoking the fall of the lightning bolt. Whoever should claim to perform miracles by Spiritism would be nothing more than an ignoramus, or else a mere conjurer. (The Mediums' Book, Part 1, chapter II.)

— There are persons who form a very false idea of evocations: there are even those who believe that the evoked dead present themselves with all the lugubrious apparatus of the tomb. Such suppositions may be attributed to what we see in the theaters or read in the romances and fantastic tales, where the dead appear shrouded with the rattling of bones. Spiritism, which has never performed miracles, does not perform this one either, since it has never made a dead body live again. The Spirit, fluidic, intelligent, does not descend into the grave with the gross envelope, which remains there definitively. It separates from it at the moment of death, and has nothing more in common with it. (What Spiritism Is, chapter II, no. 48.)

— We have expanded these citations to show that the principles of Spiritism have no relation whatsoever to those of magic.

Thus, neither Spirits at the orders of men; nor means of constraining them; nor cabalistic signs or formulas; nor discoveries of treasures; nor processes for growing rich, and just as little miracles or prodigies, divinations and fantastic apparitions: nothing, in short, of what constitutes the end and the essential elements of magic;

Spiritism not only reproves such things but demonstrates their impossibility and inefficacy.

There is not, we affirm it once again, any analogy between the processes and ends of magic and those of Spiritism; only ignorance and bad faith could confuse them.

In this way, such an error cannot prevail, since the spiritist principles do not shrink from examination, and there they are formulated unequivocally and clearly for all.

As for the cures, recognized as real in the hasty pastoral, the example is poorly selected as a means of avoiding relations with the Spirits.

Indeed, these cures are so many benefits that lead to gratitude and that all can experience; few people will be disposed to renounce them, especially after having exhausted other resources before resorting to the devil; 8 then, if the devil cures, one is forced to confess that he performs a good and meritorious action. n

— Who are the secret agents of such phenomena, the true authors of these inexplicable scenes? The angels — these would not accept unworthy roles, nor would they lend themselves to all the whims of curiosity.”

The author wishes to speak of the physical manifestations of the Spirits, among the number of which there are some evidently little worthy of superior Spirits; we will ask him, nevertheless, to substitute the word angel with that of pure Spirits or superior Spirits, for thus we shall have exactly what Spiritism says.

Unworthy, however, of the good Spirits, one cannot consider a multitude of communications given by writing, by speech, by hearing, etc., for such communications would be and are worthy of the most eminent men of Earth; the same we may say with regard to the cures, apparitions and a countless number of facts that the holy books cite in profusion as the work of angels or of saints.

If, then, the angels and the saints produced similar phenomena of old, why will they not produce them today? Why should identical facts be judged witchcraft in the hands of some, while in the hands of others they are reputed holy miracles? To sustain such a thesis is to abdicate all logic.

The author of the Pastoral labors in error when he affirms that such phenomena are inexplicable. What occurs is precisely the contrary, that is, today these phenomena are perfectly explained, so much so that they are no longer considered marvelous and supernatural; 6 granting, however, for the sake of argument, that it were not so, it would be just as logical to attribute them to the devil as it was logical in other times to give to him the honors of all the natural phenomena whose cause was then unknown.

By unworthy roles we must understand those that aim at evil and the ridiculous, unless we wish to qualify as such the salutary work of the good Spirits, who promote good, guiding men toward God, through virtue.

Now, Spiritism says expressly that unworthy roles do not befit superior Spirits, as is inferred from the following precepts:

— The category of the Spirit is recognized by its language: the truly good and superior ones have it always dignified, noble, logical, immune from any contradiction; it exudes wisdom, modesty, benevolence and the purest morality; besides this it is concise, clear, without useless redundancies.

It is the inferior Spirits, ignorant or proud, who supply the vacuity of ideas with an abundance of phrases.

Every implicitly false thought, every maxim contrary to sound morality, every ridiculous counsel, every coarse, trivial or merely frivolous expression, any sign of malevolence, of presumption or of arrogance, are incontestable indices of the inferiority of a Spirit.

— The superior Spirits occupy themselves only with intelligent communications, aiming to instruct us. The physical or purely material manifestations belong more commonly to the inferior Spirits, commonly designated as rapping Spirits, for the same reason that among us the contests of strength and agility are proper to acrobats and not to the learned. It would be absurd to suppose that a Spirit, however little elevated he may be, should like ostentation and boasting. (What Spiritism Is, chapter II, nos. 37, 38, 39, 40 and 60.

See also: The Spirits' Book, Part 2, chapter I: Different orders of Spirits and the Spiritist Scale; and, The Mediums' Book, Part 2, chapter XXIV — Identity of the Spirits.

Distinction of the good and bad Spirits.)

What man of good faith can glimpse in these precepts attributions incompatible with elevated Spirits? No, Spiritism does not confuse the Spirits, but rather, on the contrary, distinguishes them; but, whereas to the demons is attributed an intelligence equal to that of the angels, Spiritism affirms and confirms, based on the observation of facts, that the inferior Spirits are more or less ignorant, having their moral horizon and perspicacity very limited, in such a way that they have of things a notion that is many times false and incomplete, incapable of resolving certain questions and, consequently, of doing all that is attributed to the demons.

— The souls of the dead, whom God forbids to be evoked — these remain in the place assigned to them by His justice, and cannot, without His permission, place themselves at the disposal of the living.”

Spiritism goes further, it is more rigorous: it does not admit the manifestation of any Spirits, good or bad, without the permission of God, whereas the Church does not give such matters a thought with regard to the demons, who, according to its theory, dispense with such permission.

Spiritism says further that, by means of such permission and corresponding to the call of the living, the Spirits do not place themselves at the disposal of the latter.

Does the evoked Spirit come voluntarily, or is he constrained to manifest himself?

— Obeying the will of God, that is, the law that governs the Universe, he judges of the usefulness or uselessness of his manifestation, which constitutes a prerogative of his free will. The superior Spirit does not fail to come whenever he is evoked for a useful end, refusing to answer only when in a gathering of persons little serious who take the thing in an air of jest. (The Mediums' Book, Part 2, chapter XXV.)

— Can the evoked Spirit refuse to come at the evocation made to him?

Perfectly, seeing that he has his free will. Can you by chance believe that all the beings of the Universe are at your disposal? And do you yourselves consider yourselves obliged to answer all who pronounce your name? But when I say that the Spirit can refuse, I subordinate that negative to the request of the evoker, since an inferior Spirit can be constrained by a superior one to manifest himself. (The Mediums' Book, Part 2, chapter XXV.)

So convinced are the Spiritists that they can do nothing over the Spirits directly, without the permission of God, that they say, when they evoke: “We pray God Almighty to permit a good Spirit to communicate with us, as well as our guardian angels to assist us and to ward off the bad Spirits.” And when it is a matter of the evocation of a determined Spirit: — “We pray God Almighty to permit such Spirit to communicate with us,” etc. (The Mediums' Book, Part 2, chapter XVII, no. 203.)

— The accusations formulated by the Church against evocations do not, therefore, reach Spiritism, but the practices of magic, with which it has nothing in common.

Spiritism condemns the said practices as much as the Church does, while at the same time it does not confer on the superior Spirits a role unworthy of them, nor does it ask or claim to obtain anything without the permission of God.

Certainly, there may be those who abuse the evocations, who make a game of them, who denature their providential character for the benefit of personal interests, or even those who, through ignorance, frivolity, pride or ambition, depart from the true principles of the Doctrine; 4 true Spiritism, serious Spiritism, however, condemns them, as much as true religion condemns hypocritical believers and fanatics.

Therefore, it is neither logical nor reasonable to impute to Spiritism abuses that it is the first to condemn, and the errors of those who do not understand it. Before formulating any accusation, it is fitting to know whether it is just.

Thus, we will say: The censure of the Church falls upon the charlatans, the speculators, the practitioners of magic and sorcery, and rightly so.

When religious or skeptical criticism, dissecting abuses, denounces charlatanism, it does no more than enhance the purity of sound doctrine, aiding it in the purging of bad elements and facilitating our task.

The error of criticism lies in confusing the good and the bad, which often happens through the bad faith of some and the ignorance of the greater number. But the distinction that such criticism does not make, others make.

Finally, the censure applied to evil, and with which every sincere and upright Spiritist associates himself, neither harms nor affects the Doctrine.

— Thus, the mysterious beings that come at the first call of the heretic, the impious or the believer — which is to say: of innocence or of crime — are neither envoys of God, nor apostles of truth and salvation, but factors of error and agents of hell.”

These words persuade one that God does not permit the manifestation of good Spirits who might enlighten and save from eternal perdition the heretic, the impious and the criminal! Only the agents of hell are sent to them, to plunge them further into the mire.

Even more, He sends to innocence none but perverse beings to seduce it! Is there not, then, among the angels, those creatures privileged by God, a being compassionate enough to come to the aid of these lost souls? For what, then, do the brilliant qualities that adorn such beings serve? Is it perhaps solely for their personal enjoyment?

And will they be truly good, when, in ecstasy at the delights of contemplation, they see so many souls on the path of hell without seeking to divert them? But this is precisely the image of the egoism of those potentates who, pitiless in abundant opulence, let the beggar who knocks at their door die of hunger! Is this not egoism itself raised into a virtue and placed at the feet of the Creator!

But you are astonished that good Spirits should come to the heretic and the impious, certainly because you have forgotten this parable of the Christ: — “It is not the healthy man who needs a physician.” Then do you not have a more elevated point of view than that of the Pharisees of that time?

And you yourselves, would you refuse to show the good path to the unbeliever who called upon you? Well then: the good Spirits do what you would do; they address themselves to the impious to give him good counsels.

Oh! instead of anathematizing the communications from beyond the grave, it were better that you blessed the decrees of the Lord, admiring His omnipotence and infinite goodness.

— They say that there are guardian angels; but when they cannot insinuate themselves through the mysterious voice of conscience or of inspiration, why do they not employ more direct and material means of action so as to strike the senses, since such means exist?

And since everything proceeds from God and nothing occurs without His permission, can we admit that He grants such means to the bad Spirits and refuses them to the good?

In that case it is necessary to confess that God affords more powers to the demon, to ruin men, than to the guardian angels to save them!

Well then! what the guardian angels, according to the Church, cannot do, the demons do of themselves: making use of such communications, called infernal, they lead back to God those who denied Him, and back to good those enslaved to evil. These demons do more: they give us the spectacle of millions of men believing in God through the intercession of their diabolical power, whereas the Church was impotent to convert them. Men who never prayed, do so today with fervor, thanks to the instructions of these demons! How many proud, egoistic and dissolute men have become humble, charitable and modest?! And all by the work of the devil!

Ah! but if it be so, it is clear that to all these people the demon has rendered a better service and guard than the angels themselves. It is necessary, however, to form a sad opinion of the human sense of our times, to believe that men accept such ideas blindly.

A religion, however, that makes a cornerstone of such a doctrine, a religion that destroys itself at the base, when one removes from it its demons, its hell, its eternal punishments and its pitiless god; such a religion, we say, is a religion that commits suicide.

— They say that God sent the Christ, His son, to save men, thereby proving to them His love. How, however, is it explained that He afterward left them in abandonment?

There is no doubt that Jesus is the divine messenger sent to men to teach them the truth, and, through it, the path of salvation; but count — and only after his coming — how many were unable to hear from him the word of truth, how many died and will die without knowing it, how many, finally, of those who know it, put it into practice.

Then, why should God, ever solicitous of the salvation of His creatures, not send them other messengers who, descending to all lands, among great and small, ignorant and learned, credulous and skeptical, may come to teach the truth to those who do not know it, to make it comprehensible to those who do not understand it, and to supply, in short, by their direct and manifold teaching, the insufficiency in the propagation of the Gospel, hastening the advent of the divine reign?

But behold, these messengers arrive in innumerable hosts, opening the eyes of the blind, converting the impious, curing the sick, consoling the afflicted, after the example of Jesus! What do you do, and how do you receive them? Ah! you repudiate them, you repel the good they do and you cry out: they are demons!

No other was the language of the Pharisees with regard to the Christ, who, they said, did good by the arts of the devil! And the Nazarene answered them: “Know the tree by its fruit: the bad tree cannot give good fruits.”

For the Pharisees the fruits of Jesus were bad, because he came to destroy abuse and to proclaim the liberty that would ruin their authority. If instead of this Jesus had come to flatter their pride, to sanction their errors and to sustain their power, then, yes, he would be the awaited Messiah of the Jews. But the Christ was alone, poor and weak: they decreed his death, thinking to extinguish his word, and the word survived him because it was divine.

It is fitting, nevertheless, to say that this word spread only slowly, and, after eighteen centuries, is known only to a tenth part of the human race. Moreover, numerous schisms have already burst from the bosom of Christianity.

Well then: now God, in His mercy, sends the Spirits to confirm it, to complete it, to place it within the reach of all and to diffuse it over all the Earth. But the Spirits are not incarnated in a single man whose voice was limited: they are innumerable, they go everywhere and cannot be checked; 9 also for this reason, their teaching spreads with the rapidity of lightning; and because they speak to the heart and to reason, they are by the humble more understood.

— Is it not unworthy of celestial messengers — you say — to transmit their instructions by a means so vulgar as that of the tables? Is it not to outrage them to suppose that they amuse themselves with frivolities, leaving their mansion of light to place themselves at the disposal of the first curious person?”

Jesus too left the mansion of the Father to be born in a stable. And who told you that Spiritism attributes trifles to the superior Spirits? No; Spiritism positively affirms the contrary, that is, that vulgar things are proper to vulgar Spirits.

Nevertheless, from these vulgarities results a benefit, namely that of shaking many imaginations, proving the existence of the spiritual world and demonstrating to satiety that this world is not such, but very different from what was supposed.

These initial manifestations were perhaps simple, as is everything that begins, but it is not because it germinates from a minuscule seed that the tree fails one day to spread its verdant and leafy branches.

Who would believe that from the most wretched manger of Bethlehem could issue the word that was to transform the world? Yes! The Christ is indeed the divine Messiah.

His word is indeed the word of truth, founded upon which religion becomes unshakable, but on condition of practicing the sublime teachings that it contains, and not of making of the just and good God, whom we recognize in it, a factious, vengeful and cruel God.

[1] The citations of this chapter are extracted from the same pastoral indicated in the preceding one, and of which they are corollaries. It is the same source and, consequently, the same authority.

[2] Wishing to persuade the persons cured by Spiritism that they were cured by the devil, a great number of them have separated themselves from the Church, without ever thinking to do so.