ARE THERE SPIRITS?.

Doubt regarding the existence of Spirits has as its primary cause ignorance about their true nature.

Generally, they are pictured as beings apart in creation and whose existence is not shown to be necessary.

Many people, more or less like those who know History only through novels, know them only through the fantastic tales with which they were lulled as children. Without inquiring whether such tales, stripped of their ridiculous trappings, contain some foundation of truth, these people are impressed only by the absurd side they reveal.

Without taking the trouble to remove the bitter shell in order to find the kernel, they reject the whole, as those do, with respect to religion, who, shocked by certain abuses, lump everything together in a single condemnation.

Whatever idea one may form of Spirits, belief in them is necessarily founded on the existence of an intelligent principle outside of matter. This belief is incompatible with the absolute denial of this principle.

We therefore take as our point of departure the existence, the survival, and the individuality of the soul, the existence, survival, and individuality of the soul which have in Spiritualism their theoretical and dogmatic demonstration and, in Spiritism, their positive demonstration.

Let us set aside for a moment the manifestations properly so called and, reasoning by induction, let us see to what consequences we shall arrive.

Since the existence of the soul and its individuality after death are admitted, it is also necessary to admit: 1st, that its nature differs from that of the body, since, separated from the latter, it ceases to have the properties peculiar to the body; 2nd, that it enjoys consciousness of itself, since it is susceptible of joy or of suffering, without which it would be an inert being, in which case possessing it would be of no use to us.

This being admitted, one must admit that this soul goes somewhere. What becomes of it and where does it go? According to common belief, it goes to Heaven or to hell.

But where are Heaven and hell? It was formerly said that Heaven was above and hell below. But what are above and below in the Universe, since the sphericity of the Earth is known, the movement of the heavenly bodies, a movement that makes what at a given instant is above be, twelve hours later, below, and the infinity of space, through which the gaze penetrates, going to considerable distances?

It is true that by lower places one also designates the depths of the Earth. But what are these depths, since Geology has scrutinized them?

What, likewise, has become of the concentric spheres called the heaven of fire, the heaven of the stars, since it has been verified that the Earth is not the center of the worlds, that even our Sun is not unique, that millions of suns shine in Space, each one constituting the center of a planetary whirlwind?

To what has the importance of the Earth been reduced, plunged into that immensity? By what unjustifiable privilege would this almost imperceptible grain of sand, which stands out neither by its volume, nor by its position, nor by the role it has to play, be the only planet peopled with rational beings?

Reason refuses to admit such a nullity of the infinite, and everything tells us that the different worlds are inhabited. Now, if they are peopled, they also furnish their contingents to the world of souls.

But, once again, what will have become of these souls, after Astronomy and Geology destroyed the dwellings that were assigned to them and, above all, after the theory, so rational, of the plurality of worlds multiplied them to infinity?

The doctrine of the localization of souls being unable to harmonize with the data of Science, another, more logical doctrine assigns to them as their domain, not a determined and circumscribed place, but universal space: they form an invisible world, in which we live immersed, which surrounds us and jostles us incessantly. Is there in this any impossibility, anything that is repugnant to reason? By no means; everything, on the contrary, affirms to us that it cannot be otherwise.

But then, what becomes of future penalties and rewards, since the special places where they are carried out are removed from them? Note that incredulity, with respect to such penalties and rewards, generally comes from both being presented under inadmissible conditions.

Say, instead, that souls draw from themselves their happiness or their unhappiness; that their lot is subordinated to their moral state; that the union of those who are devoted to mutual sympathy and are good represents for them a source of felicity; that, according to the degree of purification they have attained, they penetrate and glimpse things that gross souls do not distinguish, and everyone will understand without difficulty.

Say further that souls do not reach the supreme degree except through the efforts they make to improve themselves and after a series of trials suited to their purification; 13 that the angels are souls who have climbed the last degree of the scale, a degree which all can attain, having good will; that the angels are the messengers of God, charged with watching over the execution of His designs throughout the Universe, who feel happy in the performance of these glorious missions, and you will have given to happiness an end more useful and more attractive than by making it consist of a perpetual contemplation, which would be no more than perpetual uselessness.

Say, finally, that the demons are simply the souls of the wicked, not yet purified, but who can, like the others, ascend to the highest summit of perfection, and this will appear more in keeping with the justice and the goodness of God than the doctrine that gives them as created for evil and destined eternally to evil.

Once again: there you have what the most severe reason, the most rigorous logic, good sense, in short, can admit.

Now, these souls that people Space are precisely what are called Spirits. Thus, then, Spirits are nothing but the souls of men, stripped of their corporeal envelope. Their existence would be more hypothetical were they beings apart.

If, however, one admits that there are souls, it will also be necessary to admit that Spirits are simply souls and nothing more. If we admit that souls are everywhere, one will have to admit, in the same way, that Spirits are everywhere. It would not be possible, therefore, to deny the existence of Spirits without denying that of souls.

This is, to be sure, no more than a theory more rational than the other. But it is already much that it should be a theory which neither reason nor science rejects.

Moreover, if facts corroborate it, it has in its favor the sanction of reasoning and of experience. These facts present themselves to us in the phenomenon of Spiritist manifestations, which thus constitute the patent proof of the existence and of the survival of the soul.

There are, however, many people whose belief does not go beyond that point; who admit the existence of souls and, consequently, that of Spirits, but who deny the possibility of our communicating with them, for the reason, they say, that immaterial beings cannot act upon matter.

This doubt rests on ignorance of the true nature of Spirits, of whom they generally form a very false idea, supposing them wrongly to be abstract, vague, and indefinite beings, which is not real.

Let us first picture the Spirit in union with a body. It is the principal being, since it is the being that thinks and survives. The body is no more than an accessory of it, an envelope, a garment, which it leaves when worn out.

Besides this material envelope, the Spirit has a second one, semi-material, which links it to the first. At the time of death, it strips itself of the latter, but not of the other, to which we give the name of perispirit.

This semi-material envelope, which has the human form, constitutes for the Spirit a fluidic, vaporous body, but one which, by the fact of being invisible to us in its normal state, does not cease to have some of the properties of matter.

The Spirit is not, then, a point, an abstraction; it is a limited and circumscribed being, which only lacks being visible and palpable in order to resemble human beings.

Why, then, should it not act upon matter? Because its body is fluidic? But where does man find his most powerful motors if not among the most rarefied fluids, even among those considered imponderable, such as, for example, electricity? Is it not exact that light, imponderable, exercises a chemical action upon ponderable matter?

We do not know the intimate nature of the perispirit. Let us suppose it, however, formed of electric matter, or of another as subtle as this: why, when directed by a will, would it not have a property identical to that of that matter?

The existence of the soul and that of God, the one a consequence of the other, constituting the base of the entire edifice, before we engage in any Spiritist discussion, it matters that we inquire whether our interlocutor admits this base.

If to these questions: do you believe in God? do you believe that you have a soul? do you believe in the survival of the soul after death? he answers negatively, or, even, if he says simply: I do not know; I should wish it were so, but I am not certain of it, which almost always amounts to a polite denial, disguised under a less categorical form, so as not to clash abruptly with what he calls respectable prejudices, it would be as useless to go further as to wish to demonstrate the properties of light to a blind man who did not admit the existence of light.

Because, in short, Spiritist manifestations are no more than effects of the properties of the soul.

With such an interlocutor, if we do not wish to lose time, one will have to follow a very different order of ideas.

Once the base is admitted, not as a mere probability, but as a thing ascertained, incontestable, the existence of Spirits will very naturally follow from it.

There now remains the question of knowing whether the Spirit can communicate with man, that is, whether it can exchange ideas with him. Why not?

What is man but a Spirit imprisoned in a body? Why should not the free Spirit communicate with the captive Spirit, as the free man with the incarcerated one?

Since you admit the survival of the soul, will it be rational that you do not admit the survival of the affections? Since souls are everywhere, will it not be natural for us to believe that the soul of a being who loved us during life draws near to us, desires to communicate with us, and makes use for this of the means at its disposal?

While alive, did it not act upon the matter of its body? Was it not the one who directed its movements? Why, after death, entering into agreement with another Spirit linked to a body, would it be prevented from making use of this living body in order to express its thought, in the same way that a mute person can make use of a person who speaks in order to make himself understood?

Let us set aside for an instant the facts which, in our view, render the reality of this communication incontestable; let us admit it only as a hypothesis.

We ask the incredulous to prove to us, not by mere denials, since their personal opinions cannot constitute law, but by setting forth peremptory reasons, that such a thing cannot occur.

Placing ourselves on the ground on which they place themselves, since they undertake to appraise Spiritist facts with the aid of the laws of matter, let them draw from that arsenal any mathematical, physical, chemical, mechanical, physiological demonstration, and prove by a plus b, always starting from the principle of the existence and the survival of the soul:

1st that the thinking being, which exists in us during life, thinks no more after death;

2nd that, if it continues to think, it is inhibited from thinking of those whom it loved;

3rd that, if it thinks of these, it does not consider communicating with them;

4th that, being able to be everywhere, it cannot be at our side;

5th that, being able to be at our side, it cannot communicate with us;

6th that it cannot, by means of its fluidic envelope, act upon inert matter;

7th that, it being possible for it to act upon inert matter, it cannot act upon an animate being;

8th that, having the possibility of acting upon an animate being, it cannot direct his hand to make him write;

9th that, being able to make him write, it cannot answer his questions, nor transmit to him its thoughts.

When the adversaries of Spiritism prove to us that this is impossible, adducing reasons as patent as those with which Galileo demonstrated that it is not the Sun that revolves around the Earth, then we shall be able to consider their doubts well founded.

Unfortunately, to this day, all the argumentation to which they resort is summed up in these words: — I do not believe, therefore this is impossible.

They will tell us, no doubt, that it falls to us to prove the reality of the manifestations. Now, we give them, through facts and through reasoning, the proof that they are real.

But, if they admit neither the one nor the other thing, if they even go so far as to deny what they see, it falls to them to prove that our reasoning is false and that the facts are impossible.