QUESTIONS THAT MAY BE PUT TO THE SPIRITS.

Preliminary observations. — Questions agreeable or disagreeable to the Spirits.

— Questions about the future.

— About past and future existences.

— About moral and material interests.

— About the lot of the Spirits.

— About health.

— About inventions and discoveries.

— About hidden treasures.

— About the other worlds.

Preliminary observations.

— One can never give too much importance to the manner of formulating the questions, and still more, to the nature of the questions. Two things must be considered in those addressed to the Spirits: the form and the substance.

As regards the form, they should be drawn up with clarity and precision, avoiding complex questions.

But there is another point no less important: the order that should govern the arrangement of the questions. When a subject calls for a series of them, it is essential that they be linked methodically, so that they flow naturally one from another. The Spirits, in that case, answer much more easily and more clearly than when the questions follow one another at random, passing, without transition, from one subject to another.

This is the reason why it is always very advisable to prepare them beforehand, reserving the right, during the session, to insert those that circumstances may render necessary. Besides the fact that the wording will be better when done in advance and at one's leisure, this preparatory work constitutes, as we have already said, a kind of anticipated evocation, which the Spirit may have witnessed and which disposes him to answer. It is to be noted that very frequently the Spirit answers in advance some of the questions, which proves that he already knew them.

The substance of the question requires still more serious attention, for it is often the nature of the question that prompts an accurate or a false answer.

There are some to which the Spirits cannot or must not respond, for reasons unknown to us. It will therefore be useless to insist.

But what must be avoided above all are questions put with the aim of testing their perspicacity. When a thing exists, they say, they ought to know it. Now, precisely because you know the thing, or because you have the means of verifying it, they do not take the trouble to answer.

This suspicion vexes them and nothing satisfactory is obtained. Do we not have examples of this every day among ourselves, human creatures? Would superior men, conscious of their worth, care to answer all the foolish questions intended to subject them to an examination, as though they were students?

The desire to make of this or that person an adept does not constitute, for the Spirits, a motive for attending to a vain curiosity. They know that conviction will come, sooner or later, and the means they employ to produce it are not always those we suppose to be the best.

Imagine a grave man, occupied with useful and serious things, ceaselessly importuned by the puerile questions of a child, and you will have an idea of what the superior Spirits must think of all the trifles that are asked of them.

It does not follow from this that useful information cannot be obtained from the Spirits, and above all, good counsel; they answer, however, more or less well, according to the knowledge they possess, the interest they take in us, the affection they have for us, and finally, the end we propose to ourselves and the usefulness they see in what we ask of them.

If, however, we question them solely because we judge them more capable than others of better enlightening us on the things of this world, it is clear that they cannot grant us much sympathy. In that case, their appearances will be brief, and very often, according to the degree of imperfection from which they still suffer, they will display ill humor at having been needlessly troubled.

Some persons think it preferable that everyone abstain from formulating questions, and that one should wait for the teaching of the Spirits without provoking it.

This is an error.

The Spirits do, no doubt, give spontaneous instructions of high import, which it would be erroneous to disdain.

But there are explanations that one would often have to wait a long time for, if they were not solicited. Without the questions we proposed, The Spirits'

Book and The Mediums' Book would still be unwritten, or at least very incomplete, and an immensity of problems of great importance would be without solution.

The questions, far from having any inconvenience, are of the very greatest usefulness, from the point of view of instruction, when the one who proposes them knows how to confine them within the proper limits.

They have yet another advantage: that of contributing to the unmasking of the mystifying Spirits who, more pretentious than wise, rarely withstand the test of questions put with rigorous logic, by means of which the questioner drives them to their last redoubts.

The superior Spirits, having nothing to fear from such an interrogation, are the first to provoke explanations on the obscure points.

The others, on the contrary, fearing they will have to deal with stronger antagonists, carefully avoid them. For that very reason, in general, they recommend to the mediums whom they wish to dominate, and on whom they want to impose their utopias, that they abstain from all controversy concerning their teachings.

Whoever has well understood what we have said up to here in this work can already form an idea of the circle within which the questions to be addressed to the Spirits should be confined. Nevertheless, for greater certainty, we insert below the answers they gave us concerning the principal subjects about which inexperienced persons are in general inclined to question them.

— Questions agreeable or disagreeable to the Spirits.

1st — Do the Spirits answer willingly the questions that are addressed to them?

“According to the questions.

Serious Spirits always answer with pleasure those that have for their object the good and the means of your progress.

They pay no heed to the frivolous ones.”

2nd Is it enough for a question to be serious to obtain a serious answer?

“No; that depends on the Spirit who answers.”

a — But does a serious question not keep away the frivolous Spirits?

“It is not the question that keeps away the frivolous Spirits, it is the character of the one who formulates it.”

3rd Which questions are most disagreeable to the good Spirits?

“All those that are useless, or made out of pure curiosity and to test them. In such cases, they do not answer and they withdraw.”

a — Are there questions that are disagreeable to the imperfect Spirits?

“Only those that may bring to light their ignorance or their deceit, when they seek to deceive; 2 apart from that, they answer everything, without concerning themselves with the truth.”

4th — What should one think of persons who see in the spiritist manifestations only an amusement and a pastime, or a means of obtaining revelations about what interests them?

“Such persons greatly please the inferior Spirits who, like them, enjoy amusing themselves and rejoice when they have mystified them.”

5th — When the Spirits do not answer certain questions, is it because they do not wish to, or because a superior force opposes certain revelations?

“For both these causes.

There are things that cannot be revealed, and others that the Spirit himself does not know.”

a — If one insists strongly, would the Spirit end by answering?

“No; 2 the Spirit who does not wish to answer always has the facility of going away.

That is why it becomes necessary for you to wait, when you are told to do so, 4 and above all, do not persist in wanting to force us to answer.

To insist, in order to obtain an answer that one does not wish to give, is a sure means of being deceived.”

6th — Are all Spirits capable of understanding the questions proposed to them?

“Quite the contrary: the inferior Spirits are incapable of understanding certain questions, which does not prevent them from answering well or badly, as happens among yourselves.”

NOTE. In some cases, and when it is suitable, it frequently happens that an enlightened Spirit comes to the aid of the ignorant Spirit and prompts him as to what he should say. This is easily recognized by the contrast of certain answers, and moreover, because the Spirit himself almost always says so. The fact, however, occurs only with ignorant but well-meaning Spirits; never with those who make a show of false knowledge.

— Questions about the future.

7th — Can the Spirits make the future known to us?

“If man knew the future, he would neglect the present.

This is yet another point on which you always insist, in the desire to obtain a precise answer. There is a great error in this, for the manifestation of the Spirits is not a means of divination.

If you absolutely insist on an answer, you will receive it from a madcap Spirit, as we have said at every moment.” (See The Spirits' Book. Knowledge of the future, no. 868.)

8th — Is it not true, however, that sometimes certain future events are announced spontaneously and truthfully by the Spirits?

“It may happen that a Spirit foresees things that he judges it suitable to reveal, or that he has the mission of making known; 2 but in that field, the deceiving Spirits, who amuse themselves by making predictions, are still more to be feared.

Only the whole of the circumstances permits one to verify the degree of confidence they merit.”

9th Of what kind are the predictions one should most distrust?

“All those that do not have an aim of general usefulness.

Personal predictions can almost always be considered apocryphal.”

10th — What end do the Spirits aim at who announce events that do not come to pass?

“They do it most often to amuse themselves with the credulity, the terror, or the joy they provoke; then they laugh at the disappointment.

These lying predictions sometimes have, however, a serious aim, such as that of testing the one to whom they are made, by an assessment of the manner in which he takes what is told to him and of the good or bad sentiments it awakens in him.”

NOTE. This would happen, for example, with the prediction of something that might flatter vanity or ambition, such as the death of a person, the prospect of an inheritance, etc.

11th — Why, when they give a presentiment of an event, do the serious Spirits ordinarily not determine the date? Is it because they cannot, or because they will not?

“For both reasons.

They can, in certain cases, cause an event to be foreseen: in that hypothesis, it is a warning they give you.

As for specifying the time, frequently they must not do so.

It also frequently happens that they cannot, because they do not know it themselves.

The Spirit may foresee that a fact will occur, but the exact moment may depend on events that have not yet taken place and that God alone knows.

The frivolous Spirits, who have no scruple about deceiving you, determine the days and hours, without concerning themselves whether the predicted fact occurs or not.

That is why every detailed prediction should be suspect to you.

“Once again: our mission consists in making you progress; for that we help you as much as we can.

He who asks the superior Spirits for wisdom will never be deceived;

do not believe, however, that we waste our time listening to your trifles and predicting good fortune to you. We leave that charge to the frivolous Spirits, who amuse themselves with it, like mischievous children.

“Providence has set a limit to the revelations that can be made to man.

The serious Spirits keep silent about all that they are forbidden to reveal.

He who insists on an answer exposes himself to the deceits of the inferior Spirits, always ready to take advantage of the occasions they have to set snares for your credulity.”

NOTE. The Spirits see, or foresee by induction, future events; they see them coming to pass in a time that they do not measure as we do. For them to determine the date, it would be necessary that they identify themselves with our manner of reckoning duration, which they do not always consider necessary. Hence, not rarely, a cause of apparent errors.

12th — Are there not men endowed with a special faculty that makes them glimpse the future?

“There are indeed, those whose soul detaches itself from matter. Then it is the Spirit that sees.

And when it is suitable, God permits them to reveal certain things, for the good.

Yet, even among these, the impostors and charlatans are in greater number.

In times to come, this faculty will become more common.”

13th — What should one think of the Spirits who like to predict to someone the exact day and hour on which he will die?

“They are Spirits of bad taste, of very bad taste indeed, who have no other end than to take pleasure in the fear they cause. No one should concern himself with it.”

14th — How is it, then, that certain persons are warned, by presentiment, of the time when they will die?

“Most often, it is their own Spirit that comes to know of it in its moments of freedom, and they retain, on waking, the intuition of what it glimpsed.

Such persons, being prepared for it, are not frightened nor moved.

They see in that separation of the soul and the body no more than a change of situation, or, if you prefer, and to use a more common language, the exchange of a garment of coarse cloth for one of silk.

The fear of death will go on diminishing, as the spiritist beliefs spread.”

— Questions about past and future existences.

15th — Can the Spirits make our past existences known to us?

“God sometimes permits them to be revealed to you, according to the purpose.

If it is for your edification and instruction, the revelations will be true, and in that case, made almost always spontaneously and in an entirely unforeseen manner.

But He never permits it for the satisfaction of vain curiosity.”

a — Why is it that some Spirits never refuse to make this kind of revelation?

“They are jesting Spirits, who amuse themselves at your expense.

In general, you should consider false, or at least suspect, all revelations of this nature that do not have an eminently serious and useful aim.

The mocking Spirits delight in flattering self-love by means of pretended origins.

There are mediums and believers who accept as good coin what is told to them in this regard, and who do not see that the present state of their Spirits in no way justifies the rank they claim to have occupied; a petty vanity that serves as amusement for the jesting Spirits, as much as for men.

It would be more logical and more in keeping with the progressive march of beings that such persons had risen, instead of having descended, which would undoubtedly be more honorable for them.

For one to be able to give credit to this kind of revelation, it would be necessary that they be made spontaneously, by various mediums unknown to one another and to what had previously been revealed. Then, yes, there would be evident reason to believe.” b — Just as we cannot know our former individuality, does it follow that we also can know nothing of the kind of existence we had, of the social position we occupied, of the virtues and the defects that predominated in us?

“No, that can be revealed, because from those revelations you can draw profit for your improvement.

Moreover, by studying your present, you can yourselves deduce your past.” (See: The Spirits' Book, Forgetfulness of the past, no. 392.)

16th — Can anything be revealed to us about our future existences?

“No; 2 all that some Spirits may tell you in this regard will be nothing but jest, and this is understandable: your future existence cannot be determined in advance, since it will be according as you prepare it by your conduct on Earth and by the resolutions you take when you are Spirits.

The less you have to expiate, the happier it will be.

But to know where and how that existence will pass, we repeat, is impossible, except in the special and rare case of the Spirits who are on Earth only to carry out an important mission, because then the path is, in a certain way, traced out for them in advance.”

— Questions about moral and material interests.

17th — Can one ask counsel of the Spirits?

“Certainly.

The good Spirits never refuse aid to those who invoke them with confidence, principally as concerns the soul.

They reject, however, the hypocrites, those who feign to ask for the light and take pleasure in the darkness.”

18th — Can the Spirits give counsel about matters of private interest?

“Sometimes, according to the motive.

That also depends on those of whom such counsel is asked. Those that relate to private life are given with more accuracy by the familiar Spirits, who are the ones most closely bound to the person who asks them and who take interest in what concerns him;

he is the friend, the confidant of your most secret thoughts. But you so frequently weary them with banal questions that they leave you.

It would be as absurd to question, about intimate matters, Spirits who are strangers to you, as it would be to address yourself, for that, to the first individual you met on your way.

You should never forget that the puerility of the questions is incompatible with the superiority of the Spirits.

It is likewise necessary to take into account the qualities of the familiar Spirit, who may be good or bad, according to his sympathies for the person to whom he attaches himself.

The familiar Spirit of a bad man is a bad Spirit, whose counsels may be pernicious, but who withdraws and yields his place to a better Spirit, if the man himself improves.

Those who resemble one another unite.” 19th — Can the familiar Spirits favor material interests by means of revelations?

“They can, and sometimes they do, according to the circumstances; 2 but be assured that the good Spirits never lend themselves to serving cupidity.

The bad ones make a thousand attractions glitter before your eyes, in order to goad you on and then to mystify you by disappointment.

Know also that, if it is part of your trial to pass through this or that vicissitude, your protecting Spirits may help you to bear it with more resignation, may even, sometimes, soften it; but, in the very interest of your future, it is not permitted to them to exempt you from it.

A good father does not grant his son all that he desires.”

NOTE. Our protecting Spirits can, in many circumstances, point out to us the best path, without, however, leading us by the hand, because, if they did so, we would lose the merit of initiative and would not dare take a step without resorting to them, to the detriment of our improvement.

To progress, man often needs to acquire experience at his own expense.

That is why the judicious Spirits counsel us, but almost always leave us to our own forces, as the skillful educator does with his pupils.

In the ordinary circumstances of life, they counsel us by inspiration, thus leaving us all the merit of the good we do, as well as all the responsibility for the evil we commit.

It would be to abuse the condescension of the familiar Spirits and to be mistaken as to the mission that falls to them, to question them at every instant about the most ordinary things, as certain mediums do.

There are some who, for a yes or a no, take up the pencil and ask counsel for the simplest act.

This mania denotes pettiness in the ideas, at the same time as the presumption of supposing, whoever it may be, that one always has a Spirit servant at one's orders, with nothing else to do but attend to him and his smallest interests.

Besides this, whoever proceeds thus annihilates his own judgment and reduces himself to a passive role, without usefulness for the present life and undoubtedly prejudicial to future advancement.

If there is puerility in our questioning the Spirits about frivolous things, there is no less puerility on the part of the Spirits who occupy themselves spontaneously with what may be called household affairs. In such a case, they may be good, but, unquestionably, they are still very earthly. 20th — If a person, on dying, leaves his affairs in disorder, can one ask his Spirit to help disentangle them? Can one also question him about the amount of the assets he left, supposing that this amount is not known, provided that this be done in the interest of justice?

“You forget that death is the liberation from earthly cares.

Do you then think that the Spirit, happy with the freedom he enjoys, would willingly take up again the chain from which he has freed himself and occupy himself with things that no longer interest him, merely to satisfy the cupidity of his heirs, who perhaps rejoiced at his death, in the hope that it would be profitable to them?

You speak of justice; but, for those heirs, justice lies in the disappointment their greed suffers. It is the beginning of the punishments that God reserves for their avidity for the goods of the Earth.

Moreover, the embarrassments in which the death of a person sometimes leaves his heirs are part of the trials of life, and it is in no Spirit's power to free you from them, because they are comprised in the decrees of God.”

NOTE. The above answer will doubtless disappoint those who imagine that the Spirits have nothing better to do than to serve us as clairvoyant assistants and to help us, not to ascend toward Heaven, but to bind ourselves to the Earth.

Another consideration comes in support of this answer. If a man, through negligence during life, left his affairs in disorder, it is not to be believed that, after death, he has more care for them, for he must feel happy to be free of the vexations that such affairs caused him, and, however little elevated he may be, he will attach still less importance to them as a Spirit than as a man.

As for the unknown assets he may have been able to leave, they give him no motive to take interest in greedy heirs, who probably would no longer think of him, if they did not expect to reap something.

If he is still imbued with human passions, he may even find a malicious pleasure in the disappointment of those who coveted his inheritance.

If, in the interest of justice and of the persons dear to him, a Spirit judges it suitable to make revelations of this kind, he will make them spontaneously, and to obtain them, no one needs to be a medium nor to resort to a medium.

The Spirit himself will give knowledge of the things, by means of fortuitous circumstances, 10 not, however, as an effect of requests made to him, since such requests can in no way change the nature of the trials that the incarnate must undergo. They would constitute rather a manner of aggravating them, because they are almost always an indication of cupidity and show the Spirit that those who formulate them occupy themselves with him only out of interest. (See no. 295.)

— Questions about the lot of the Spirits.

21st — Can one ask the Spirits for information about the situation in which they find themselves in the spiritual world?

“Yes, and they give it willingly, when it is sympathy that dictates the request, or the desire to be useful to them, and not mere curiosity.”

22nd — Can the Spirits describe the nature of their sufferings or of the happiness they enjoy?

“Perfectly, and revelations of this kind are a great teaching for you, for they initiate you into the knowledge of the true nature of the future penalties and rewards.

By destroying the false ideas you may have formed in this regard, they tend to revive your faith and your confidence in the goodness of God.

The good Spirits feel happy to describe to you the happiness of the elect; 4 the bad ones may be constrained to describe their sufferings, in order that repentance may gain hold of them.

In this they sometimes find even a kind of relief: it is the unfortunate one who laments, in the hope of obtaining compassion.

“Do not forget that the essential, exclusive end of Spiritism is your improvement, and that it is in order for you to attain it that the Spirits have permission to initiate you into the future life, offering you examples from it of which you can take advantage.

The more you identify yourselves with the world that awaits you, the less longing you will feel for the one where you now are. Such, in short, is the present end of revelation.” 23rd — In evoking a person whose lot is unknown, can one learn from that person himself whether he still exists?

“Yes, if the uncertainty of his death does not constitute a necessity, or a trial, for those who have an interest in knowing it.”

a — If he is dead, can he make known the circumstances of his death, so that it may be verified?

“If he attaches some importance to it, he will do so. If not, he will trouble himself little about such a fact.”

NOTE. Experience demonstrates that, in such a case, the Spirit is in no way carried away by the motives of interest that the living may have in knowing the circumstances in which his death occurred. If he is keen to reveal them, he will do so of his own accord, whether mediumistically, or by means of visions or apparitions.

In the contrary case, a mystifying Spirit may perfectly well deceive the inquirers and amuse himself by inducing them to undertake useless searches.

It frequently happens that the disappearance of a person, whose death cannot be officially attested, brings embarrassments to the affairs of the family. Only exceptionally, in very rare cases, have we seen the Spirits indicate the track of the truth, in this field, in answer to requests made to them.

If they wished, it is beyond doubt that they could; but, most often, this is not permitted to them, since such embarrassments represent trials for those who long to see them removed.

It is, therefore, to lull oneself with a chimerical hope to expect to succeed, by this means, in coming into possession of inheritances, of which the only positive trace that remains to them is the money spent for such a purpose.

There is no lack of Spirits disposed to feed such hopes, and who have no scruple in inducing those who give them credit to undertake searches, with which those who engage in them should count themselves very fortunate when no more results from them than a little ridicule.

— Questions about health.

24th — Can the Spirits give counsel relating to health?

“Health is a necessary condition for the work that must be carried out on Earth, and therefore the Spirits occupy themselves with it willingly.

But, as there are ignorant ones and learned ones among them, it is fitting that, for this, as for anything else, no one address himself to the first that appears.”

25th — If we address ourselves to the Spirit of a medical celebrity, can we be more certain of obtaining good counsel?

“Earthly celebrities are not infallible and sometimes nurture systematic ideas, which are not always just and from which death does not immediately free them.

Earthly science is very little, beside celestial science.

Only the superior Spirits possess this latter science.

Without making use of names you may know, they can know, about all things, much more than your learned men.

It is not science alone that makes the Spirits superior, and you would be greatly astonished at the rank that some learned men occupy among us.

The Spirit of a learned man may, then, know no more than when he was on Earth, provided he has not progressed as a Spirit.” 26th — Does the learned man, on becoming a Spirit, recognize his scientific errors?

“If he has reached a degree elevated enough to find himself free of his vanity and to understand that his development is not complete, he recognizes them and confesses them without shame.

But if he has not yet sufficiently dematerialized himself, he may retain some of the prejudices with which he was imbued on Earth.”

27th — Could a physician, by evoking the Spirits of his patients who have died, obtain information about what determined their death, about the faults he may perchance have committed in their treatment, and thus acquire an increase of experience?

“He can, and it would be very useful to him, above all if he obtained the assistance of enlightened Spirits, who would supply the lack of knowledge of certain patients.

But, for this, it would be necessary that he carry out this study in a serious, assiduous manner, with a humanitarian aim and not as a means of acquiring, without labor, knowledge and wealth.”

— Questions about inventions and discoveries.

28th — Can the Spirits guide men in scientific research and in discoveries?

“Science is the work of genius; only by labor must it be acquired, for only by labor does man advance on his path.

What merit would he have, if he needed no more than to question the Spirits in order to know everything? At that price, any imbecile could become learned.

The same holds for the inventions and discoveries that concern industry.

There is yet another consideration, and it is that each thing must come in its time and when the ideas are ripe to receive it.

If man had this power, he would subvert the order of things, causing the fruits to sprout before the proper season.

“God said to man: thou shalt draw thy food from the earth, with the sweat of thy brow. An admirable image, which depicts the condition in which he finds himself in this world. He must progress in all things, by effort in labor.

If things were given to him entirely ready-made, of what use would his intelligence be to him? He would be like the student whose tasks another performs.”

29th — Are the learned man and the inventor never assisted, in their research, by the Spirits?

“Oh! that is very different.

When the time of a discovery has come, the Spirits charged with directing its course seek out the man capable of carrying it through and inspire in him the necessary ideas, but in such a way as to leave him the merit of the work, for those ideas it is necessary that he elaborate and put into execution.

The same holds for all the great works of human intelligence.

The Spirits leave each man in his sphere. Of him who is fit only to dig the earth, they will not make a depository of the secrets of God; but they know how to draw out of obscurity the one who is capable of seconding their designs.

Do not let curiosity or ambition, then, drag you along a path that does not correspond to the ends of Spiritism and that would lead you to the most ridiculous mystifications.”

NOTE. The more thorough knowledge of Spiritism has calmed the fever of discoveries which, in the beginning, everyone imagined could be made by means of it. There were even some who went so far as to ask the Spirits for recipes to dye hair and make it grow, to cure corns on the feet, etc. We have known many persons who, convinced that they would thus make their fortune, obtained nothing but more or less ridiculous processes.

The same happens when one seeks, with the aid of the Spirits, to penetrate the mysteries of the origin of things. Some of them have, on these matters, their systems, which are worth no more than those of men and which it is prudent to welcome only with the greatest reserve.

— Questions about hidden treasures.

30th — Can the Spirits cause treasures to be discovered?

“The superior Spirits do not occupy themselves with such things; 2 but the mockers frequently indicate treasures that do not exist, or take pleasure in pointing them out in one place, when they are in the opposite place.

This has its usefulness, to show that true wealth lies in labor.

If Providence destines hidden treasures to someone, he will find them naturally; otherwise, not.”

31st — What should one think of the belief in Spirits who are guardians of hidden treasures?

“The Spirits who are not yet dematerialized cling to things.

Misers, who concealed their treasures, may, after death, watch over them and guard them; and the fear in which they live, that someone may come to snatch them away, constitutes one of their punishments, until they understand the uselessness of this attitude.

There are also the Spirits of the Earth, charged with directing its interior transformations, of whom, by allegory, men have made guardians of the natural riches.”

NOTE. The question of hidden treasures is in the same category as that of unknown inheritances.

Very foolish would be the one who counted on the pretended revelations that the jokers of the invisible world may make to him.

We have already had occasion to say that, when the Spirits will or can make such revelations, they make them spontaneously, without needing mediums for it. Here is an example:

A lady had just lost her husband, after thirty years of conjugal life, and found herself about to be evicted from her dwelling, without any resource, by her stepchildren, toward whom she had played the role of mother. Her despair had reached its height when, one night, her husband appeared to her and told her to accompany him to his study. There he showed her the writing desk, which was still sealed with the judicial seals, and, by an effect of double sight, made her see the interior, indicating to her a secret drawer that she did not know and whose mechanism he explained to her, adding: I foresaw what is happening and wished to assure your lot; in that drawer are my last dispositions. I have left you the usufruct of this house and an income of… Then he disappeared. On the day the seals were lifted, no one could open the drawer. The lady then narrated what had happened to her. She opened it, according to her husband's indications, and there was the will, conformable to what he had announced to her.

— Questions about the other worlds.

32nd — What confidence can be placed in the descriptions that the Spirits give of the different worlds?

“It depends on the degree of real advancement of the Spirits who give these descriptions, 2 for you must well understand that common Spirits are as incapable of informing you in this regard, as an ignorant man among you is of describing all the countries of the Earth.

You often formulate, about these worlds, scientific questions that such Spirits cannot resolve.

If they are of good faith, they will speak of it according to their personal ideas; 5 if they are frivolous Spirits, they will amuse themselves by giving you strange and fantastic descriptions, all the more easily as these Spirits, who in erraticity are no less provided with imagination than on Earth, draw from that faculty the narration of many things that have nothing real about them.

Nevertheless, do not judge it absolutely impossible for you to obtain, about the other worlds, some information.

The good Spirits even take pleasure in describing to you those they inhabit, as a teaching tending to improve you, inducing you to follow the path that will lead you to those worlds.

It is a means of fixing your ideas about the future and not leaving you in uncertainty.” a — How can the accuracy of these descriptions be verified?

“The best verification lies in the concordance there may be among them.

But remember that such descriptions have for their aim your moral improvement, and that, consequently, it is about the moral state of the inhabitants of the other worlds that you can be best informed, and not about the physical or geological state of such globes.

With your present knowledge, you could not even understand it; such a study would be of no use for your progress on Earth, and you will have every possibility of making it when you are on those worlds.”

NOTE. The questions about the physical constitution and the astronomical elements of the worlds are comprised within the field of scientific research, for the realization of which the Spirits should not spare us the labors it demands.

If it were not so, it would be very convenient for an astronomer to ask the Spirits to make his calculations for him, which, nonetheless, he would afterward, no doubt, conceal.

If the Spirits could, by means of revelation, spare a person the labor of a discovery, it is probable that they would do so for a learned man who, being modest enough, would not hesitate to proclaim openly the means by which he had attained it, and not for the proud ones who deny them and to whose self-love, on the contrary, they often spare disappointments.