VISUAL MANIFESTATIONS.

Notions concerning apparitions. — Theoretical essay on apparitions.

— Globule spirits.

— The perispirit: the principle of all manifestations. — Theory of hallucination.

Notions concerning apparitions.

Of all the Spiritist manifestations, the most interesting, beyond any possible dispute, are those by means of which the Spirits make themselves visible.

From the explanation of this phenomenon it will be seen that it is no more supernatural than the others. We shall first present the answers that the Spirits gave on the subject:

1st Can the Spirits make themselves visible?

“They can, above all, during sleep.

Nevertheless some persons see them while awake, though this is rarer.”

NOTE. While the body rests, the Spirit frees itself from the material bonds;

it becomes freer and can more easily see the other Spirits, entering into communication with them.

The dream is nothing but the recollection of that state.

When we remember nothing, it is said that we did not dream, but the soul has not for that reason ceased to see and to enjoy its liberty.

Here we are concerned especially with apparitions in the waking state.

(See, for further particulars on the state of the Spirit during sleep, The Spirits' Book, chapter Emancipation of the soul, no. 409.)

2nd Do the Spirits who manifest themselves by making themselves visible belong more to one category than to another?

“No; they may belong to all classes, both to the most elevated and to the most inferior.”

3rd Is it granted to all Spirits to manifest themselves visibly?

“All can do so; but they do not always have permission to do it, or the will to do it.”

4th What aim do the Spirits who manifest themselves visibly seek?

“That depends; according to their natures, the aim may be good or bad.”

5th How can they be permitted to manifest themselves when it is for a bad end?

“In that case it is to test those to whom they appear.

The intention of the Spirit may be bad and the result good.”

6th What can be the aim that the Spirit who makes himself visible with bad intention has in view?

“To frighten, and very often to take revenge.”

a — What do those who come with good intention aim at?

“To console the persons who keep a longing for them, to prove to them that they exist and are near them; to give counsel and, sometimes, to ask assistance for themselves.”

7th What disadvantage would there be in the possibility of seeing the Spirits being permanent and general among men? Would that not be a means of removing doubt from the most incredulous?

“Man being constantly surrounded by Spirits, to see them at every instant would disturb him, would hamper his acts and would deprive him of initiative in the majority of cases, whereas, believing himself alone, he acts more freely.

As for the incredulous, they have many means at their disposal to convince themselves, if they wish to take advantage of those means and are not blinded by pride.

You know very well that there are persons who have seen and who nevertheless do not believe, for they say that these are illusions. Do not concern yourself with such people; God takes charge of them.”

NOTE. There would be as many disadvantages in our constantly seeing the Spirits as in our seeing the air that surrounds us and the myriads of microscopic animals that swarm upon us and around us.

Whence we must conclude that what God does is well done and that He knows better than we what suits us. 8th Since there is disadvantage in our seeing the Spirits, why, in certain cases, is this permitted?

“To give man a proof that not everything dies with the body, that the soul preserves its individuality after death.

The passing vision suffices for that proof and to attest the presence of friends at your side, and does not present the disadvantages of constant vision.” 9th In worlds more advanced than ours, are the Spirits seen more frequently than among us?

“The more man approaches the spiritual nature, the more easily he places himself in communication with the Spirits.

It is the grossness of your envelope that makes the perception of ethereal beings difficult and rare.”

10th Is it rational to be alarmed at the apparition of a Spirit?

“Whoever reflects must understand that a Spirit, whatever it may be, is less dangerous than a living person.

Moreover, since the Spirits can, as they can, go everywhere, it is not necessary for a person to see them in order to know that some are at his side.

The Spirit who wishes to cause harm can do so, and even with more certainty, without showing himself.

He is not dangerous by the fact of being a Spirit, but rather by the influence that he can exert upon man, turning him away from good and impelling him toward evil.”

NOTE. The persons who, when they find themselves in solitude or in darkness, fill with fear rarely perceive the cause of their terrors. They would not be able to say of what they are afraid.

They should much more fear the encounter with men than with Spirits, since a malefactor is far more dangerous when living than after he is dead.

A lady of our acquaintance had one night, in her room, an apparition so well characterized that she thought a person was in her presence, and her first sensation was one of terror. Having made sure that there was no person, she said: “It seems it is only a Spirit; I can sleep in peace.” 11th Will the one to whom a Spirit appears be able to strike up a conversation with him?

“Perfectly, and it is even what one ought to do in such a case, asking the Spirit who he is, what he desires, and in what one may be useful to him.

If the Spirit is unhappy and suffering, the commiseration shown to him will relieve him.

If he is a kindly Spirit, it may happen that he brings the intention of giving good counsel.” a — How can the Spirit, in that case, answer?

“Sometimes he does it by means of articulated sounds, as a living person would do.

In the majority of cases, however, by the transmission of thoughts.”

12th Do the Spirits who appear with wings really have them, or are those wings merely a symbolic appearance?

“The Spirits have no wings, nor do they need such a thing, since they can go everywhere as Spirits.

They appear in the manner by which they need to impress the person to whom they show themselves.

Thus some will appear in ordinary attire, others wrapped in ample garments, some with wings, as an attribute of the spiritual category to which they belong.” 13th Are the persons whom we see in dream always those whom they seem to be by their aspect?

“Almost always they are indeed those whom your spirits seek, or who come to meet them.”

14th Could not the mocking Spirits take on the appearances of the persons who are dear to us, in order to lead us into error?

“Only to amuse themselves at your expense do they take on fantastic appearances.

There are things, however, with which it is not lawful for them to play.”

15th It is understandable that, being a kind of evocation, thought makes the Spirit of whom one thinks present himself. How is it, however, that often the persons of whom we think most, whom we ardently wish to see again, never present themselves to us in dream, whereas we see others who are indifferent to us and of whom we never think? “The Spirits cannot always manifest themselves visibly, even in dream and in spite of the desire you may have to see them. It may be that causes independent of their will prevent it.

Frequently, it is also a trial, over which the most ardent desire does not succeed in triumphing.

As for the persons who are indifferent to you, if it is true that you do not think of them, it may well happen that they think of you.

Besides, you cannot form an idea of the relations in the world of the Spirits. There you have a multitude of intimate acquaintances, old or recent, of whom you do not suspect when awake.”

NOTE. When we have no means of verifying the reality of visions or apparitions, we may no doubt set them down to hallucination. When, however, events confirm them, no one has the right to attribute them to imagination.

Such, for example, are the apparitions that we have in dream or in the waking state, of persons of whom we were absolutely not thinking and who, producing them at the moment when they die, come, by means of various signs, to reveal the wholly unknown circumstances in which they passed away.

Horses have been seen to rear and refuse to walk forward, by reason of apparitions that frighten the riders who mount them. Although it is admitted that imagination plays some part there when the fact occurs with men, no one, certainly, will deny that it has nothing to do with the case when this happens with animals.

Moreover, if it were exact that the images we see in dream are always the effect of our preoccupations when awake, there would be no way to explain that we never dream, as is frequently verified, of that of which we think most. 16th For what reason do certain visions occur more frequently when one is ill?

“They occur in the same way when you are in perfect health. Simply, in the state of illness, the material bonds loosen; the weakness of the body allows greater liberty to the Spirit, which then places itself more easily in communication with the other Spirits.” 17th Spontaneous apparitions seem more frequent in certain countries. Could it be that some peoples are better endowed than others to receive this kind of manifestation?

“Do you have a historical record of each apparition? Apparitions, like noises and all manifestations, are produced equally at all points of the Earth; 2 they present, however, distinct characters, in conformity with the people in whose midst they are verified.

Among some, for example, where the use of writing is little spread, there are no writing mediums; among others, mediums of this nature abound; 4 among others, the noises and the movements are observed more than the intelligent manifestations, because these are less appreciated and sought.” 18th Why do apparitions occur preferably at night? Does that not indicate that they are an effect of silence and darkness upon the imagination?

“For the same reason that you see, during the night, the stars and do not discern them in broad day.

Great brightness can efface a slight apparition; but it is erroneous to suppose that the night has anything to do with it.

Inquire of those who have had visions and you will verify that those who had them by day are greater in number.”

NOTE. Apparitions are much more frequent and general than is thought; but many persons refrain from making them known, for fear of ridicule, and others attribute them to illusion.

If they seem more numerous among certain peoples, this is owing to the fact that there the traditions, true or false, are preserved with more care, almost always magnified by the power of seduction of the marvelous to which the aspect of the localities more or less lends itself.

Credulity then makes supernatural effects be seen in the most commonplace phenomena: the silence of solitude, the steepness of the ravines, the moaning of the forest, the gusts of the storm, the echo of the mountains, the fantastic form of the clouds, the shadows, the mirages, everything in short lends itself to illusion, for simple and naive imaginations, which in good faith narrate what they saw, or thought they saw.

But beside fiction, there is reality. The serious study of Spiritism leads man precisely to rid himself of all ridiculous superstitions. 19th Is the vision of the Spirits produced in the normal state, or only when the seer is in an ecstatic state?

“It can be produced when he finds himself in perfectly normal conditions.

Nevertheless, the persons who see them find themselves very often in a state near that of ecstasy, a state that grants them a kind of second sight.”

(The Spirits'

Book, no. 447.)

20th Do those who see the Spirits see them with their eyes?

“They think so; but in reality it is the soul that sees, and what proves it is that they can see them with their eyes closed.”

21st How can the Spirit make himself visible?

“The principle is the same as that of all manifestations; it resides in the properties of the perispirit, which can undergo various modifications, at the will of the Spirit.”

22nd Can the Spirit properly speaking make himself visible, or can he do so only with the aid of the perispirit?

“In the material state in which you find yourselves, only with the aid of their semimaterial envelopes can the Spirits manifest themselves.

That envelope is the intermediary by means of which they act upon your senses.

It is under that envelope that they appear, at times, with a human form, or with some other, whether in dreams or in the waking state, both in full light and in darkness.” 23rd Could it be said that it is by the condensation of the fluid of the perispirit that the Spirit becomes visible?

“Condensation is not the term. That word can be used only to establish a comparison, that may enable you to understand the phenomenon, for there is really no condensation.

By the combination of the fluids, the perispirit takes on a special disposition, without analogy for you others, a disposition that makes it perceptible.” 24th Are the Spirits who appear always inapprehensible and imperceptible to the touch?

“In their normal state, they are inapprehensible, as in a dream.

Nevertheless, they can become capable of producing an impression on the touch, of leaving traces of their presence, and even, in certain cases, of becoming momentarily tangible, which proves that there is matter between you and them.” 25th Does everyone have the aptitude to see the Spirits?

“During sleep, all have it; in the waking state, no.

During sleep, the soul sees without intermediary; in the waking state, it always finds itself more or less influenced by the organs.

Hence the conditions are not totally identical in the two cases.”

26th On what does the faculty of seeing the Spirits, in the waking state, depend, for man?

“It depends on the physical organization.

It resides in the greater or lesser facility that the fluid of the seer has to combine with that of the Spirit.

Thus, it is not enough that the Spirit wishes to show himself; it is also necessary that he find the requisite aptitude in the person to whom he wishes to make himself visible.” a — Can that faculty develop through exercise?

“It can, like all the other faculties; 2 but it belongs to the number of those with regard to which it is better to await the natural development than to provoke it, so as not to overexcite the imagination.

That of seeing the Spirits, in general and permanently, constitutes an exceptional faculty and is not within the normal conditions of man.” 27th Can the apparition of the Spirits be provoked?

“That is sometimes possible, but very rarely.

The apparition is almost always spontaneous.

In order for someone to see the Spirits, he needs to be endowed with a special faculty.”

28th Can the Spirits make themselves visible under another appearance than that of the human form?

“The human form is the normal one.

The Spirit can vary its appearance, but always with the human type.”

[See no. 30.]

a — Can they not manifest themselves under the form of a flame?

“They can produce flames, glows, like all the other effects, to attest their presence; but it is not the Spirits themselves who thus appear.

The flame is often nothing more than a mirage, or an emanation of the perispirit.

In any case, it is never more than a portion of it.

The perispirit does not show itself in its entirety in visions.” 29th What should one think of the belief that attributes the will-o'-the-wisps to the presence of souls or Spirits?

“A superstition produced by ignorance. The physical cause of the will-o'-the-wisps is well known.”

a — The blue flame that, according to what is said, appeared over the head of Servius Tullius, when he was a boy, is it a fable, or was it real?

“It was real and produced by a familiar Spirit, who in that way gave a warning to the boy's mother. A seeing medium, that mother perceived an irradiation of the protecting Spirit of her son.

Just as the writing mediums do not all write the same thing, so too, in the seeing mediums, the clairvoyance is not of the same degree in all.

Whereas that mother saw only a flame, another medium might have been able to see the very body of the Spirit.” 30th Could the Spirits present themselves under the form of animals?

“That can occur; but only very inferior Spirits take on those appearances.

In no case, however, will it be more than a momentary appearance.

It would be absurd to believe that any real animal could be the incarnation of a Spirit. Animals are always animals and nothing more than this.”

NOTE. Only superstition can make one believe that certain animals are animated by Spirits. A very complaisant, or very impressed, imagination is needed to see anything supernatural in the somewhat extravagant circumstances in which they sometimes present themselves. Fear often makes one see what does not exist. But it is not in fear alone that this idea has its origin.

We knew a lady, very intelligent moreover, who devoted an inordinate affection to a black cat, because she believed it to be of a super-animal nature. Nevertheless, that lady had never heard of Spiritism. Had she known it, it would have made her understand the ridiculousness of the cause of her predilection for the animal, proving to her the impossibility of such a metamorphosis. Theoretical essay on apparitions.

The most common apparent manifestations occur during sleep; by means of dreams: they are the visions.

The limits of this study do not allow for the examination of all the particularities that dreams may present.

We shall summarize everything by saying that they may be: an actual vision of present things, or of absent ones; a retrospective vision of the past and, in some exceptional cases, a presentiment of the future.

Also they are often allegorical pictures that the Spirits place before our sight, to give us useful warnings and salutary counsel, if they are indeed good Spirits; or to lead us into error and to flatter our passions, if it is imperfect Spirits who present them to us.

The theory that follows applies to dreams, as to all the other cases of apparitions. (See: The Spirits' Book, no. 400 and following.)

We hold that we would do our readers an injury if we set out to demonstrate what there is of absurdity and ridiculousness in what is commonly called the interpretation of dreams.

Apparitions properly speaking occur when the seer finds himself in the waking state and in the enjoyment of the full and entire liberty of his faculties.

They present themselves, in general, under a vaporous and diaphanous form, at times vague and imprecise. At first it is almost always a whitish brightness, whose contours little by little become outlined.

At other times, the forms show themselves clearly accentuated, the smallest traits of the physiognomy being distinguishable, to the point that it becomes possible to make a complete description of the apparition. The bearing, the aspect, are similar to those that the Spirit had when living.

Being able to take on all appearances, the Spirit presents himself under the one that best makes him recognizable, if such is his desire. Thus, although as a Spirit he has no bodily defect, he will show himself maimed, lame, hunchbacked, wounded, with scars, if this is necessary to the proof of his identity.

Aesop, for example, as a Spirit, is not deformed; but if he is evoked as Aesop, even though he may have had many existences after the one in which he was thus called, he will appear ugly and hunchbacked, with his traditional attire.

An interesting thing is that, except in special circumstances, the least accentuated parts are the lower limbs, while the head, the trunk, the arms and the hands are always clearly drawn.

Hence it comes that they are almost never seen walking, but gliding like shadows.

As for the garments, they ordinarily consist of a heap of cloth, ending in a long floating fold.

With an undulating and graceful head of hair the Spirits who keep nothing of earthly things present themselves.

The common Spirits, however, those whom we knew here, appear with the attire that they wore in the last period of their existence.

Frequently, they show characteristic attributes of the elevation they have attained, such as a halo, or wings, those who may be taken for angels, while others bear the signs indicative of their earthly occupations.

Thus, a warrior will appear with his armor, a sage with books, an assassin with a dagger, etc.

The superior Spirits have a beautiful, noble and serene figure; the more inferior denote something ferocious and bestial, it being not rare for them to reveal still the traces of the crimes they committed, or of the torments they suffered.

The question of the attire and the accessory objects with which the Spirits appear is perhaps the one that causes the most astonishment. We shall return to that question in a special chapter, because it is linked to other very important facts. [Chap. VIII.]

We said that apparitions have something vaporous about them.

In certain cases, one could compare them to the image that is reflected in a mirror without backing, which, notwithstanding its clarity, does not prevent the objects behind it from being seen.

Generally, it is thus that the seeing mediums perceive them.

They see them come and go, enter a room, leave it, walk among the living, appearing, at least with regard to the common Spirits, to take an active part in everything that men do around them, to interest themselves in all of this, to hear what humans say.

Frequently they are seen approaching a person, breathing ideas into him, influencing him, consoling him, if they belong to the category of the good ones, mocking him, if they are malignant, showing themselves sad or satisfied with the results they obtain.

In a word: they constitute as it were the lining of the corporeal world.

Such is this hidden world that surrounds us, within which we live without perceiving it, as we also live, without realizing it, in the midst of the myriads of beings of the microscopic world.

The microscope revealed to us the world of the infinitely small, of whose existence we did not suspect; Spiritism, with the aid of the seeing mediums, revealed to us the world of the Spirits, which, for its part, also constitutes one of the active forces of Nature.

With the concurrence of the seeing mediums, it was possible for us to study the invisible world, to know its customs, as a people of blind men might study the visible world with the aid of a few men who enjoyed the faculty of seeing. (See further on, in the chapter referring to mediums, the paragraph that deals with seeing mediums.)

The Spirit, who wishes or is able to make himself visible, sometimes takes on a form still more precise, with all the appearances of a solid body, to the point of causing complete illusion and giving those who observe the apparition to believe that they have before them a corporeal being.

In some cases, finally, and under the sway of certain circumstances, the tangibility can become real, that is, it becomes possible for the observer to touch, to feel, to perceive, in the apparition, the same resistance, the same warmth as in a living body, which does not prevent the tangibility from vanishing with the rapidity of lightning.

In these cases, it is no longer only by the gaze that the presence of the Spirit is noticed, but also by the tactile sense.

Granted that simply visual apparition may be attributed to illusion or to a kind of fascination, the same no longer occurs when one succeeds in seizing it, in feeling it, when it itself seizes the observer and embraces him, circumstances in which no doubt is any longer lawful.

The facts of tangible apparitions are the rarest; but those that have occurred in these latter times, through the influence of some mediums of great power n and absolutely authenticated by irrefutable testimonies, prove and explain what history relates concerning persons who, after they were dead, showed themselves with all the appearances of reality.

Yet, as we have already said, however extraordinary they may be, such phenomena entirely lose all character of the marvelous, when the manner in which they are produced is known and when it is understood that, far from constituting a derogation of the laws of Nature, they are only the effect of an application of those laws.

By its nature and in its normal state, the perispirit is invisible and has this in common with an immensity of fluids that we know to exist, without, however, our having ever seen them.

But, also, in the same way as some of those fluids, it can undergo modifications that make it perceptible to sight, whether by means of a kind of condensation, or by means of a change in the disposition of its molecules. It then appears to us under a vaporous form.

The condensation (it is necessary that this word not be taken in its literal signification; we employ it only for lack of another and by way of comparison), the condensation, we say, can be such that the perispirit acquires the properties of a solid and tangible body, preserving, however, the possibility of instantly resuming its ethereal and invisible state.

We can grasp this effect, attending to vapor, which passes from invisibility to the misty state, then to the liquid state, next to the solid and vice versa.

These different states of the perispirit result from the will of the Spirit and not from an exterior physical cause, as occurs with our gases.

When the Spirit appears to us, it is because he has put his perispirit into the state proper to render it visible.

But, for this, his will is not enough, for the modification of the perispirit operates by means of its combination with the fluid peculiar to the medium.

Now, this combination is not always possible, which explains why the visibility of the Spirits is not generalized.

Thus, it is not enough that the Spirit wishes to show himself; it is likewise not enough that a person wishes to see him; 10 it is necessary that the two fluids be able to combine, that between them there be a kind of affinity 11 and also, perhaps, that the emission of the person's fluid be sufficiently abundant to operate the transformation of the perispirit 12 and, probably, that still other conditions be verified that are unknown to us.

It is necessary, finally, that the Spirit have permission to make himself visible to such a person, which is not always granted to him, or is granted only in certain circumstances, for reasons that we cannot appreciate.

Another property of the perispirit inherent in its ethereal nature is penetrability.

No matter opposes an obstacle to it: it passes through them all, as light passes through transparent bodies.

Hence it comes that there is no barrier capable of obstructing the entry of the Spirits. They visit the prisoner in his dungeon, with the same ease with which they visit a person who is in the open countryside.

Apparitions in the waking state are neither rare nor a novelty.

They have been produced in all times. History records them in great number.

We need not, however, go back to the past, so frequent are they in the days of today, and there are many persons who have seen them and who took them, at the first moment, for what it has been conventionally agreed to call hallucinations.

They are frequent, above all, in the cases of death of absent persons, who come to visit their relatives or friends.

Often, the apparitions do not bring a very determined aim, but it can be said that, in general, the Spirits who thus appear are attracted by sympathy.

Let each one interrogate his recollections and few will there be who do not know some facts of that kind, whose authenticity could not be called into doubt.

[Globule spirits.]

To the preceding considerations we shall add the examination of certain effects of optics, which gave rise to the singular system of the globule spirits.

The limpidity of the air is not always absolute, and there are occasions when the currents of aeriform molecules and the agitation into which heat puts them are perfectly visible. Some persons took this for agglomerations of Spirits agitating themselves in space. It suffices to cite this opinion for it to be at once refuted.

There is, however, another kind of illusion no less strange, against which it is also well to be forewarned.

The aqueous humor of the eye presents almost imperceptible points, which have lost something of their natural transparency. These points are like opaque bodies in suspension in the liquid, whose movements they accompany. They produce in the ambient air and at a distance, by the effect of enlargement and refraction, the appearance of small discs, whose diameters vary from one to ten millimeters and which seem to swim in the atmosphere. We knew persons who took these discs for Spirits that followed them and accompanied them everywhere. These persons, in their enthusiasm, took the hues of the iridescence for figures, which is almost as rational as seeing a figure in the Moon. A simple observation, furnished by these very persons, will lead them back to the ground of reality.

The aforesaid discs or medallions, they say, not only accompany them, but follow all their movements, go to the right, to the left, up, down, or stop, according to the movement that they make with the head. This has nothing surprising about it. Since the seat of the appearance is in the ocular globe, it must accompany all the movements of the eye. If they were Spirits, it would be necessary to admit that they are bound to a role too mechanical for intelligent and free beings, a role quite tedious, even for inferior Spirits and, therefore, with all the more reason, incompatible with the idea that we form of the superior Spirits.

It is true that some take the dark points or amaurotic flies for bad Spirits. These discs, in the same way as the black spots, have an undulatory movement, whose amplitude does not go beyond that of a certain angle, the circumstance that they do not abruptly accompany the movements of the line of sight concurring to the illusion. Quite simple is the reason for this fact. The opaque points of the aqueous humor, the primary cause of the phenomenon, find themselves, as we said, as it were in suspension and always tend to descend. When they rise, it is because they are solicited by the movement of the eyes, from below upward; arrived, however, at a certain height, if the eye becomes fixed, it is noted that the discs descend by themselves and then become immobile. Their mobility is extreme, since an imperceptible movement of the eye suffices to make them change direction and rapidly traverse the entire amplitude of the arc, in the space in which the image is produced. As long as it is not proven that an image has its own movement, spontaneous and intelligent, no one will be able to see in the fact of which we treat more than a simple optical or physiological phenomenon.

The same occurs with the sparks that are produced sometimes in more or less compact clusters, by the contraction of the muscle of the eye, and are due, probably, to the phosphorescent electricity of the iris, since they are generally bound to the circumference of the disc of that organ.

Such illusions cannot come except from an incomplete observation. Whoever has studied the nature of the Spirits, by all the means that practical science affords, will understand all that there is of the puerile about them. In the same way as we combat the adventurous theories with which the manifestations are attacked, when those theories rest on ignorance of the facts, so too must we seek to destroy the false ideas, which indicate more enthusiasm than reflection and which, for that very reason, cause more harm than good, with regard to the incredulous, already in themselves so disposed to seek the ridiculous side. [The perispirit: the principle of all manifestations.]

The perispirit, as is seen, is the principle of all manifestations.

The knowledge of it was the key to the explanation of an immensity of phenomena and permitted the Spiritist science to take a great step, making it set out upon a new path, removing from it all character of the marvelous.

From the Spirits themselves, for note well that it was they who taught us the way, we had the explanation of the action of the Spirit upon matter, of the movement of inert bodies, of the noises and of the apparitions.

There we shall still find that of many other phenomena that we shall examine before passing to the study of the communications properly speaking. We shall understand them all the better, the more knowledgeable we find ourselves of the primary causes.

Whoever has well understood that principle will easily, by himself, apply it to the various facts that may offer themselves to his observation.

We are far from considering as absolute and as being the last word the theory that we present.

New studies will no doubt complete it, or rectify it later; nevertheless, however incomplete or imperfect it may still be today, it can always aid the student to recognize the possibility of the facts, by the effect of causes that have nothing supernatural about them.

If it is a hypothesis, one cannot however deny it the merit of rationality and of probability and, as such, it is worth at least as much as all the explanations that the deniers formulate, to prove that in the Spiritist phenomena there is only illusion, phantasmagoria and subterfuges.

Theory of hallucination.

Those who do not admit the incorporeal and invisible world think they explain everything with the word hallucination.

Everyone knows the definition of this word. It expresses the error, the illusion of a person who thinks he has perceptions that he really does not have.

It originates from the Latin hallucinari, to err, which comes from ad lucem.

But, as far as we know, the learned have not yet presented the physiological reason for that fact. Optics and physiology not having, as it seems, any more secrets for them, how is it that they have not yet explained the nature and the origin of the images that show themselves to the Spirit in given circumstances? They wish to explain everything by the laws of matter; so be it. Let them then furnish, with the aid of those laws, a theory, good or bad, of hallucination. It will always be an explanation.

The cause of dreams science has never explained. It attributes them to an effect of imagination; but it does not tell us what imagination is, nor how it produces the images so clear and so distinct that sometimes appear to us.

This consists in explaining one thing, which is not known, by another that is even less so. The question remains standing.

They say it is a recollection of the preoccupations of the day before. But, even if one admits this solution, which it is not, it would still remain to be known what is the magic mirror that thus preserves the impression of things.

How, above all, will those visions of real things be explained that the person never saw in the waking state and of which he never even thought? Only Spiritism could give us the key to that strange phenomenon, which passes unnoticed, because of its very commonness, as happens with all the marvels of Nature, which we trample underfoot.

The learned have disdained to occupy themselves with hallucination. Whether it is real or not, it constitutes a phenomenon that Physiology must show itself capable of explaining, under penalty of confessing its insufficiency. If, one day, some learned man ventures to give of that phenomenon, not a definition, let us understand each other well, but a physiological explanation, we shall see whether his theory resolves all the cases.

Above all, let him not omit the facts, so common, of apparitions of persons at the moment of dying; let him say whence comes the coincidence of the apparition with the death of the person. If this were an isolated fact, one could attribute it to chance; it is, however, too frequent to be due to chance, which does not have such recurrences.

If, at least, the one who saw the apparition had had his imagination awakened by the idea that the person who appeared to him was going to die, well and good. But almost always, the one who appears is the one of whom the one who sees her was thinking least. Therefore, imagination does not enter there in any way. Even less can the circumstances be explained by imagination, of which no idea is had, in which the death of the person who appears occurred.

The hallucinationists will perhaps say that the soul (if indeed they admit a soul) has moments of overexcitation in which its faculties become exalted. We agree; but when what it sees is real, there is no illusion.

If, in its exaltation, the soul sees a thing that is not present, it is because it transports itself; but, if our soul can transport itself to the side of an absent person, why could the soul of that person not transport itself to our side? Let them deign to take these facts into account, in their theory of hallucination, and let them not forget that a theory to which facts that contradict it can be opposed is necessarily false, or incomplete.

Awaiting the explanation that they may come to offer, we are going to try to emit some ideas on this subject.

The facts prove that there are true apparitions, which the Spiritist theory explains perfectly and which can only be denied by those who admit nothing outside the organism.

But, alongside the real visions, will there be hallucinations, in the sense in which that term is employed? It is beyond doubt. Whence do they originate? The Spirits are the ones who will enlighten us on this, for the explanation, it seems to us, is entirely in the answers given to the following questions:

a — Are visions always real? Are they not, sometimes, an effect of hallucination? When, in dream, or in another manner, one sees, for example, the devil, or other fantastic things, which do not exist, is that not a product of the imagination?

“Yes, sometimes; when one gives much attention to certain readings, or to stories of sorceries, which impress, the person, remembering these things later, thinks he sees what does not exist.

But, also, we have already said that the Spirit, under his semimaterial envelope, can take on all kinds of forms, to manifest himself.

A mocking Spirit can, then, appear with horns and claws, if it so pleases him, to amuse himself at the expense of the credulity of the one who sees him, in the same way that a good Spirit can show himself with wings and with a radiant figure.” b — Could the figures and other images that present themselves to certain persons, when they are half asleep, or when they merely close their eyes, be considered as apparitions?

“From the moment that the senses enter into torpor, the Spirit frees itself and can see far, or near, that which it would not be possible for it to see with the eyes.

Very frequently, such images are visions, but they can also be the effect of the impressions that the sight of certain objects left in the brain, which preserves their traces, as it preserves those of sounds.

Freed, the Spirit sees in its own brain the impressions that fixed themselves there as on a daguerreotype plate. n The variety and the jumbling of the impressions form the strange and fleeting assemblages, which efface themselves almost immediately, even though the greatest efforts are made to retain them.

To an identical cause must be attributed certain fantastic apparitions, which have nothing real about them and which often are produced during an illness.”

It is current that memory is the result of the impressions that the brain preserves. But by what singular phenomenon do those impressions, so varied, so multiple, not become confounded? An impenetrable mystery, but no more astonishing than that of the sonorous undulations that cross one another in the air and that, nevertheless, preserve themselves distinct.

In a healthy and well-organized brain, those impressions reveal themselves distinct and precise; in a less favorable state, they efface themselves and become confounded; hence the loss of memory, or the confusion of ideas. This will seem even less extraordinary, if we admit, as in phrenology, a special destination to each part and, even, to each fiber of the brain.

Thus, then, the images that, through the eyes, reach the brain, leave there an impression, by virtue of which a person remembers a picture, as if he had it before him. Never, however, is there in this more than a question of memory.

Now, in certain states of emancipation, the soul sees what is in the brain, where it finds again those images, above all those that struck it most, according to the nature of the preoccupations, or the dispositions of the spirit.

It is thus that there it finds anew the impression of religious, diabolical, dramatic, worldly scenes, figures of strange animals, that it saw at another time in paintings, or even in narrations, for narratives also leave impressions.

So that the soul really sees; but it sees only an image photographed in the brain.

In the normal state, these images are fleeting, ephemeral, because all the cerebral parts function freely, whereas, in the state of illness, the brain is always more or less weakened, the equilibrium among all the organs ceases to exist, only some preserving their activity, while others find themselves in a certain way paralyzed. Hence the permanence of certain images, which the preoccupations of exterior life no longer succeed in effacing, as occurs in the normal state.

This is the true hallucination and the primary cause of fixed ideas.

As is seen, we explain this anomaly by means of a very well-known wholly physiological law, that of the cerebral impressions. But it was always necessary for us to make the soul intervene.

Now, if the materialists have not yet been able to present, of this phenomenon, a satisfactory explanation, it is because they do not wish to admit the soul.

For that very reason, they will say that our explanation is bad, for the reason that we set up as a principle what is contested. Contested by whom? By them, but admitted by the immense majority of men, ever since there have been men on Earth. Now, the negation of a few cannot constitute a law.

Is our explanation good? We give it for what it may be worth, for lack of another, and, if they wish, by way of a simple hypothesis, until a better one appears.

Such as it is, does it give the reason for being of all the cases of vision? Certainly not.

However, we challenge all the physiologists to present one that embraces all the cases, for they give none, when they pronounce the sacramental words — overexcitation and exaltation.

This being so, since all the theories of hallucination show themselves incapable of explaining the facts, it is because there is something else, other than hallucination properly speaking.

Our theory would be false, if we applied it to all the cases of vision, since some would contradict it. It is legitimate, if restricted to certain effects. [1] Among others, Mr. Home.

[2] [The daguerreotype is a photographic process made without a negative image. It was created by the Frenchman Louis Daguerre in 1837 and announced in 1839. It was declared by the French Government to be public domain. — Source ].