SPIRITIST MANIFESTATIONS.

Hidden action. — Manifest manifestations — Physical manifestations.

— Intelligent manifestations.

— Apparent manifestations.

— Spontaneous manifestations.

Hidden Action.

Often the Spirits act upon our thought without our knowledge. They prompt us to do this or that thing. We believe we are acting of our own accord, when in fact we are merely yielding to an outside suggestion.

From this it must not be inferred that we are lacking in initiative; far from it: the incarnate spirit always has its free will. In the end, it does only what it wills and, very often, follows its own personal impulse. To understand the manner in which these things take place, one must picture our soul released from its bonds by emancipation, which always occurs during sleep, whether or not there is a dream; every time there is a numbing of the senses and, at times, even during waking. It then enters into communication with the other Spirits, like someone who leaves his house to go to the houses of his neighbors (allow us this familiar comparison). A kind of conversation is then established between them, or, to speak more exactly, an exchange of thoughts. The influence of the outside Spirit is not a constraint, but a sort of counsel that it gives to our soul, counsel that may be more or less sensible according to the nature of the Spirit, and which the soul is free to follow or to reject, but which it can appraise better when it is no longer under the dominion of the ideas prompted by the life of relations. This is why it is said that night is a good counselor. It is not always easy to distinguish the suggested thought from the personal thought, since they frequently merge together. Nevertheless, it is presumed that it comes to us from an outside source when it is spontaneous, when it arises in us like an inspiration and is in opposition with our way of seeing. Our judgment and our conscience make known to us whether it is good or bad.

Manifest Manifestations.

Manifest manifestations differ from hidden manifestations in that they are perceptible to our senses. They constitute, properly speaking, all the spiritist phenomena that present themselves to us under the most varied forms.

Physical Manifestations.

So called are the manifestations that are limited to material phenomena, such as noises, movements, and displacements of objects. Most of the time they involve no direct intention; their purpose is to draw our attention to something and to convince us of the presence of a force superior to man. For many people, these kinds of manifestations are no more than an object of curiosity; for the careful observer they represent, at the very least, the revelation of an unknown power, worthy, in any case, of serious study.

The simplest effects of this kind are the raps without any known ostensible cause, and the circular movement of a table or of any object, with or without the laying on of hands. However, they can take on much stranger proportions: at times the raps are heard on all sides and with such intensity that it degenerates into a veritable uproar; the furniture changes place, is overturned, raised from the floor; objects are transported from one place to another, in plain sight of all, the curtains drawn, the bedcovers torn off, the bells set ringing. It is understandable that when such phenomena are produced, certain people attribute to them a diabolical origin. An attentive study has overthrown this superstitious belief. We shall return to it later. Intelligent Manifestations.

If the phenomena we have just spoken of had been limited to material effects, there is no doubt that they could have been attributed to a purely physical cause, to the action of some fluid whose properties are still unknown to us. The same cannot be said when they give incontestable signs of intelligence. Now, if every effect has a cause, every intelligent effect must have an intelligent cause. It is easy to distinguish, in an object that moves, a simply mechanical movement from an intentional movement. If this object, by the noise or by the movement, makes a sign, it is evident that there is the intervention of an intelligence. Since reason tells us that the material object itself is not intelligent, we conclude that it is moved by an outside intelligent cause. Such is the case with the phenomena that occupy us. If the purely physical manifestations we have just spoken of are capable of captivating our interest, with all the more reason will this be so when they reveal to us the presence of a hidden intelligence, because then it is no longer simply an inert body that we have before us, but a being capable of understanding us and with which we can exchange thoughts. It is understood then that the method of experimentation must be entirely different when it is a matter of an essentially material phenomenon, and that our laboratory procedures are powerless to explain facts that belong to the intellectual order.

Here one cannot conceive of analyses, nor of mathematical calculations of forces. Now, this is precisely the error into which the greater part of scientists have fallen. They believed themselves in the presence of one of those phenomena that Science reproduces at will and upon which one can operate, as upon a salt or a gas. This takes nothing away from their knowledge; we say only that they were mistaken in believing they could place the Spirits in a retort, like the spirit of wine, and that spiritist phenomena, as much as questions of Theology or of metaphysics, are not within the province of the exact sciences.

Apparent Manifestations.

The most common apparent manifestations occur during sleep, through dreams: they are the visions. Dreams have never been explained by Science; it imagines it has said everything, attributing them to an effect of the imagination. But it does not tell us what the imagination is, nor how it produces those images so clear and so distinct that at times appear to us; it amounts to explaining a thing that is not known, by another that is no more so. The question, therefore, still remains to be resolved.

It is said that the dream is a recollection of the preoccupations of the day before. Yet, even admitting this solution, which explains nothing, it would still remain to be known in what this magic mirror consists that thus preserves the impression of things. How, above all, to explain those visions of real things, which we have never seen while awake and of which we have never thought? Only Spiritism could give us the key to this bizarre phenomenon, which passes unnoticed by reason of its very commonness, like all the marvels of Nature that we trample underfoot. n It cannot enter into our consideration to examine all the particularities that dreams present. In summary, we say that they can be: a present vision of things present or absent; a retrospective vision of the past and, in some exceptional cases, a presentiment of the future. Often they are allegorical pictures that the Spirits make pass before our eyes to give us useful warnings and salutary counsels, if they are good Spirits, or to lead us into error and flatter our passions, if they are imperfect Spirits. The persons we see in dreams are, therefore, true visions. If we dream more frequently of those who preoccupy our thought, it is because thought is a mode of evocation and by it we call to us the Spirit of those persons, whether they be dead or living.

We deem that it would be an affront to the good sense of our readers to refute all that is absurd and ridiculous in what is commonly called the interpretation of dreams.

Apparitions properly so called occur in the waking state, when we then enjoy the fullness and the entire freedom of our faculties. It is, without contradiction, the kind of manifestation most apt to excite curiosity, but it is also the least easy to obtain. The Spirits can manifest themselves ostensibly in various ways. Sometimes they do so in the form of light flames or of glimmers more or less brilliant, which have no analogy, either in their aspect or in the circumstances in which they are produced, with the will-o'-the-wisps and other physical phenomena, whose cause is perfectly demonstrated. At other times, they take on the features of a known or unknown person, regarding whose individuality we may deceive ourselves, according to the ideas with which we are imbued. It is, then, a vaporous, ethereal image, which finds no obstacle in solid bodies. Facts of this kind are numerous; but, before attributing them to imagination or to superstition, one must take into account the circumstances in which they were produced, the position and, above all, the character of the narrator. In certain cases the apparition becomes tangible, that is, it acquires momentarily, under the influence of certain circumstances, the properties of solid matter. It is then no longer by the eyes that its reality is verified, but by touch. If we can attribute to illusion or to a kind of fascination the apparition that is simply visual, doubt is not permitted when one can touch it, take hold of it, seize it, feel it; when it itself takes hold of you and grips you. n Spontaneous Manifestations.

The majority of the phenomena we have just spoken of, principally those that belong to the kind of physical and apparent manifestations, can be produced spontaneously, that is, without the will having any part in it. In other circumstances, they can be provoked by the will of persons called mediums, endowed for this purpose with a special power.

Spontaneous manifestations are neither rare nor new. Few are the local chronicles that do not contain some story of this kind. Fear, no doubt, has often exaggerated the facts, which have taken on gigantic, ridiculous proportions, as they passed from mouth to mouth. With the aid of superstition the houses where they took place gained the reputation of being haunted by the devil, thence generating all the marvelous or terrible tales of souls from the other world. For its part, knavery did not let so fine an occasion escape to exploit credulity, and this often to the profit of personal interests. Moreover, one can imagine the impression that facts of this kind, even reduced to reality, can produce on weak characters predisposed by their upbringing to superstitious ideas. The surest means of preventing the drawbacks they might have, since we cannot prevent them, is to make the truth known. The simplest things become frightful when their cause is unknown. When we have become familiar with the Spirits, and those to whom they manifest themselves no longer believe they have a legion of demons on their backs, fear will lose its reason for being. It is a rarity for spontaneous manifestations to occur in isolated places; they are produced almost always in inhabited houses, by reason of the presence of certain persons who, in spite of themselves, exert some influence. These persons are true mediums, whose gift they are unaware of and whom we shall call, for this reason, natural mediums. They are, in relation to the other mediums, what natural somnambulists are in relation to magnetic somnambulists, and equally curious to observe. This is why we urge the persons who occupy themselves with spiritist phenomena to gather all the facts that come to their knowledge, and, above all, to verify their reality carefully, in order to avoid becoming victims of an illusion or of a deception, which they will avoid by means of attentive observation. We must guard ourselves not only against accounts that may be tainted with errors, however minimal, but also against our own impressions, by not attributing a hidden origin to that which we do not understand. An infinity of very simple and very natural causes can produce effects that are strange at first sight, and it would be true superstition to see everywhere Spirits occupied in overturning furniture, breaking crockery, in short, in stirring up a thousand and one domestic annoyances. It is more rational that all this be set to the account of stupidity.

What must be done in such an eventuality is to seek out the cause, and one may wager that, in ninety-nine percent of cases, a very simple one will be discovered, precisely there where we thought it was a matter of a disturbing Spirit. When an unexplained phenomenon is produced, the first thought we should have is that it is due to a material cause, because that is the most probable, and not to admit the intervention of the Spirits except with full knowledge of the cause. He, for example, who receives a slap or a blow on the back, without anyone having approached him, cannot doubt the presence of an invisible being.

Of all the spiritist manifestations, the simplest and the most frequent are noises and raps. And here, above all, it is that one must fear illusion, since a number of natural causes can produce it: the wind that whistles or stirs an object, a body that we ourselves move without perceiving it, an acoustic effect, a hidden animal, an insect, etc., even the pranks of a joker. Spiritist noises have, moreover, a particular character, having a very varied timbre and intensity, which make them easily recognizable and do not permit them to be confused with the crack of the swaying boughs, the crackling of the fire, or the monotonous tick-tock of a wall clock. They are raps now muffled, weak, light; now clear, distinct, at times noisy, which change place and are repeated without mechanical regularity. Of all the means of verification, the most effective, the one that can leave no doubt as to the origin of the manifestations, is their obedience to the will of the experimenter. If the raps make themselves heard in the designated place; if they answer the thought by their number or intensity, one cannot deny them an intelligent cause. However, the lack of obedience is not always proof to the contrary. Let us now admit that, by a minute investigation, the certainty is acquired that the noises or any other effects whatever are real manifestations. Would it be rational to be frightened? Certainly not, since in none of them can there be the slightest danger. Only those persons will let themselves be impressed in a lamentable manner who are persuaded that it is only the devil that motivates them, like the children who are made afraid with the werewolf or with the bogeyman. These manifestations acquire, in certain circumstances, disagreeable proportions and persistence, and the desire to rid ourselves of them is very natural. An explanation in this regard becomes necessary.

We have said that physical manifestations have for their purpose to awaken our attention to something and to convince us of the presence of a power superior to that of man. We have also said that the elevated Spirits do not occupy themselves with this kind of manifestations. They make use of the inferior Spirits to produce them, as we make use of our employees for the heaviest labors, and this with the object we have just indicated. Once this object is attained, the material manifestation ceases, as it is no longer necessary.

One or two examples will make the process better understood. At the beginning of my studies on Spiritism, being occupied, one evening, with a work on this matter, raps made themselves heard around me for four consecutive hours. It was the first time such a thing had happened to me. I verified that they had no accidental cause, but, at the moment, I could learn nothing more. At that time I had the opportunity to meet, frequently, an excellent writing medium. The very next day, I questioned the Spirit who communicated through his intermediary regarding the cause of the raps. I was answered: It was your familiar Spirit who wished to speak with you. — And what did it wish to say to me? Answer — You may ask it yourself, for it is here. Having questioned this Spirit, it identified itself under an allegorical name (I learned afterward, from other Spirits, that it was that of an illustrious philosopher of Antiquity). It pointed out to me errors in my work, indicating the lines where they were found; it gave me useful and wise counsels, and added that it would always be with me and would answer my call every time I wished to question it. Indeed, from that time this Spirit never abandoned me. It gave me innumerable proofs of great superiority, and its beneficent and effective intervention manifested itself in my favor, both as regards the affairs of material life and as regards metaphysical questions. But, from our first conversation, the raps ceased. What did it really desire? To enter into regular communication with me. For this it was necessary to give me notice. Certainly it was not the one who came, in person, to rap in my house. It probably charged an emissary at its orders for this. The notice having been given, the fact explained, the regular relations established, the raps became useless, which is why they ceased. The drum is no longer beaten to awaken the soldiers, once they are on their feet. A more or less similar fact happened to one of our friends. For some time various noises had been resounding in his room that were becoming very wearisome. An occasion having presented itself to question the Spirit of his father, through a writing medium, he learned what was desired of him, did what was recommended to him, and, from that time, heard nothing more. It is notable that the persons who have with the Spirits a regular and easy means of communication only much more rarely obtain manifestations of this kind, which is understandable.

The Spirits who manifest themselves in this way can, equally, act on their own account. They are, very often, suffering Spirits who ask for moral assistance (See Prayer in the "Spiritist Vocabulary"). When they are capable of translating their thought in a more intelligible manner, they ask for such assistance according to the form that was familiar to them in life, or that is in the ideas and habits of those to whom they address themselves, for this form matters little, provided the intention proceeds from the heart.

In summary, the means of making inopportune manifestations cease is to seek to enter into intelligent communication with the Spirit that comes to disturb us, in order to know who it is and what it desires. Its desire satisfied, it leaves us in peace. It is like someone who knocks at a door until it has been opened to him.

But, it will be said, what is to be done when one has no medium at one's disposal? — What does a sick person do who has no doctor at his disposal? He goes without one. — Here we have another recourse. The sick person cannot make himself a doctor, but among ten persons, there are nine who can be writing mediums. If there are no mediums among the persons of his acquaintance, the interested party must seek to become one of them. For lack of a writing medium, one can still question directly the Spirit who raps and who can answer using the same means, that is, by agreed-upon raps. We shall return to this subject in the following chapters.

[1] See the word dreams in the "Spiritist Vocabulary".

[2] See in the Spiritist Review, the months of March, April, and May of 1858, the account and the explanation of manifestations of this kind. (See also the more recent works of spiritist writers and their abundant documentation — Publisher's Note.)