SPIRITIST DISSERTATIONS.

Concerning Spiritism.

— On mediums.

— On Spiritist Meetings.

— Apocryphal communications.

Dissertations: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |

| 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34.

In this chapter we have gathered some spontaneous dictations that complete and confirm the principles set forth in this work. We could have inserted them in far greater number; we limit ourselves, however, to those which, in a more particular way, concern the future of Spiritism, mediums, and meetings. We give them also as instruction and as models of truly serious communications. We close the chapter with some apocryphal communications, followed by notes suited to make them recognizable. Concerning Spiritism.

I.

Trust in the goodness of God and be clear-sighted enough to perceive the preparations of the new life that he destines for you.

It will not be given to you, it is true, to enjoy it in this existence; but will you not be happy, if you come to live again on this globe, in being able to consider from on high that the work you have begun is developing under your eyes?

Armor yourselves with a firm and unshakable faith against the obstacles that, it seems, are to rise up against the edifice whose foundations you are laying.

The bases on which it rests are solid: the first stone was laid by the Christ.

Courage, then, architects of the divine Master! Work, build! God will crown your work.

But remember well that the Christ disowns, as his disciple, everyone who has charity only on his lips.

It is not enough to believe; it is necessary, above all, to give examples of goodness, of tolerance, and of disinterestedness, without which your faith will be sterile.

Saint Augustine.

II.

The Christ himself presides over the labors of every kind that are in course of execution, to open for you the era of renewal and of improvement that your spiritual guides predict to you.

If, indeed, besides the Spiritist manifestations you cast your eyes upon contemporary events, you will recognize, without hesitation, the precursory signs that will prove to you, in an irrefutable manner, that the foretold times have come.

Communications are being established among all peoples. The material barriers being thrown down, the moral obstacles that oppose their union, the political and religious prejudices, will rapidly fade away, and the reign of fraternity will at last be implanted in a solid and lasting form.

Observe that already the sovereigns themselves, impelled by an invisible hand, take — a thing unheard of for you! — the initiative of reforms. And reforms, when they come from above and spontaneously, are much more rapid and lasting than those which come from below and are wrested by force.

I had foreseen, despite the prejudices of childhood and of education, despite the cult of remembrance, the present epoch. I am happy for it, and happier still to come to tell you: Brothers, courage! work for yourselves and for the future of your own; work, above all, to better yourselves personally, and you will enjoy, in your first existence, a happiness of which it is as difficult for you to form an idea as it is for me to make you understand it. Chateaubriand.

III.

I think that Spiritism is a wholly philosophical study of the secret causes of the inner movements of the soul, hitherto not at all or but little defined.

It explains, more than it unveils, new horizons.

Reincarnation and the trials undergone before the Spirit reaches the supreme goal are not revelations, but an important confirmation. The truths that by this means are brought into focus touch me to the quick. I say intentionally — means — for, in my view, Spiritism is a lever that pushes aside the barriers of blindness.

The preoccupation with moral questions is still wholly to be created. Politics, which stirs the general interests, is discussed; particular interests are discussed; the attack or the defense of personalities arouses passion; systems have their partisans and their detractors. Meanwhile, the moral truths, those that are the bread of the soul, the bread of life, remain abandoned beneath the dust that the centuries have accumulated.

In the eyes of the multitudes, all improvements are useful, except that of the soul. Its education, its elevation, are no more than chimeras, fit, at most, to occupy the leisure of priests, of poets, of women, whether as fashion or as teaching.

By resurrecting spiritualism, Spiritism will restore to society the impulse that will give to some inner dignity, to others resignation, to all the need to rise toward the supreme Being, forgotten and unknown by his ungrateful creatures.

J. J. Rousseau.

IV.

If God sends Spirits to instruct men, it is so that these may be enlightened about their duties, and to show them the road by which they will be able to shorten their trials and, consequently, to hasten their progress.

Now, just as the fruit reaches ripeness, so too man will reach perfection.

But, alongside good Spirits, who desire your good, there are likewise imperfect Spirits, who desire your harm. While some impel you forward, others pull you backward.

To know how to distinguish them is what all your attention must be applied to. The means is easy: it is solely a matter of your understanding that what comes from a good Spirit cannot harm anyone whatsoever, and that all that is evil can proceed only from an evil Spirit.

If you do not heed the wise counsels of the Spirits who wish you well, if you take offense at the truths they tell you, it is evident that the Spirits who inspire you are evil.

Only pride can prevent you from seeing yourselves as you really are.

But, if you yourselves do not see it, others see it for you. So that, then, you are censured by men, who laugh at you behind your back, and by the Spirits. A Familiar Spirit.

V.

Your Doctrine is beautiful and holy. The first landmark is planted, and planted solidly. Now, you have only to walk. The road that is open to you is great and majestic.

Happy is he who reaches the port; the more proselytes he has made, the more it will be reckoned to him. But, for this, one must not embrace the Doctrine coldly; it is necessary to do so with ardor, and that ardor will be doubled, for God is with you whenever you do good.

All those whom you attract will be so many sheep that have returned to the fold. Poor sheep, half led astray!

Believe that the most skeptical, the most atheistic, the most incredulous, in short, always has in his heart a little corner that he would wish to be able to hide from himself. It is that little corner that must be sought, that must be found. It is the vulnerable side that must be attacked. It is a little breach that God intentionally leaves open, to provide his creature with the means of returning to his bosom. Saint Benedict.

VI.

Do not be alarmed at certain obstacles, at certain controversies.

Torment no one with any insistence. To the incredulous, persuasion will come only through your disinterestedness, only through your tolerance and through your charity toward all, without exception.

Guard yourselves, above all, from doing violence to opinion, even by words, or by public demonstrations.

The more modest you are, the more you will succeed in making yourselves appreciated. No personal motive will make you act, and you will find in your consciences a force of attraction that only good can provide.

By order of God, the Spirits work for the progress of all, without exception. Do the same, you Spiritists.

Saint Louis.

VII.

What human institution, or even divine one, has not met obstacles to overcome, schisms to struggle against? If you had only a sad and languid existence, no one would attack you, knowing perfectly well that you were bound to succumb from one moment to the next. But, since your vitality is strong and active, since the Spiritist tree has strong roots, they admit that it may live a long time, and they try to strike it with the axe. What will these envious ones achieve? At most, they will lop off some branches, which will grow again with new sap and will be more robust than ever. Channing.

VIII.

I am going to speak to you of the firmness you must possess in your Spiritist labors. A quotation on this point has already been given to you. I advise you to study it with your heart and to apply its spirit to yourselves, for, like Saint Paul, you will be persecuted, not in flesh and bone, but in spirit.

The incredulous, the Pharisees of the epoch, will revile and mock you. Fear nothing: it will be a trial that will strengthen you, if you know how to surrender it to God, and later you will see your efforts crowned with success.

It will be for you a great triumph on the day of eternity, without forgetting that, in this world, it is already a consolation, for those who have lost relatives and friends. To know that these are happy, that one can communicate with them, is a felicity.

Walk forward, then; fulfill the mission that God gives you, and it will be reckoned on the day when you appear before the Omnipotent. Channing.

IX.

I come, I, your Savior and your judge; I come, as once before, to the strayed children of Israel; I come to bring the truth and to dispel the darkness. Hear me. Spiritism, as my word once did, must remind the materialists that above them reigns the immutable truth: the good God, the great God, who makes the plant germinate and who raises the waves.

I revealed the Divine Doctrine; like the reaper, I bound into sheaves the good scattered throughout Humanity, and I said: Come to me, all you who suffer! But, ungrateful, men turned aside from the straight and broad road that leads to the kingdom of my Father, and lost themselves in the rugged paths of impiety.

My Father does not wish to annihilate the human race; he wishes, no more by means of prophets, no more by means of apostles, but rather, that, helping one another, dead and living — that is, dead according to the flesh, for death does not exist — you may succor one another, and that the voice of those who exist no longer may still make itself heard, crying out to you: Pray and believe! because death is the resurrection, and life — the chosen trial, during which, cultivated, your virtues must grow and develop like the cedar.

Believe in the voices that answer you: they are the very souls of those whom you evoke. Only very rarely do I communicate. My friends, those who attended my life and my death are the divine interpreters of the wills of my Father.

Weak men, who believe in the error of your obscure intelligences, do not extinguish the torch that divine clemency places in your hands, to light your road and lead you back, lost children, to the bosom of your Father.

In truth I say to you: believe in the diversity, in the multiplicity of the Spirits that surround you.

I am infinitely touched with compassion for your miseries, for your immense weakness, to fail to stretch out a protecting hand to the unfortunate strayed ones who, seeing Heaven, fall into the abyss of error.

Believe, love, understand the truths that are revealed to you; do not mix the tares with the good grain, the systems with the truths.

Spiritists! love one another, behold the first teaching; instruct yourselves, behold the second.

All the truths are found in Christianity; of human origin are the errors that took root in it.

Behold, from beyond the tomb, which you judge to be nothingness, voices cry out to you: Brothers! nothing perishes; Jesus Christ is the conqueror of evil, be the conquerors of impiety.

[Unsigned.]

NOTE. This communication, obtained by one of the best mediums of the Spiritist Society of Paris, was signed with a name that respect does not permit us to reproduce, except under every reservation, so great would be the signal favor of its authenticity, and because it has too often been overly abused, in communications evidently apocryphal. That name is that of Jesus of Nazareth.

We in no way doubt that he can manifest himself; but, if the truly superior Spirits do so only in exceptional circumstances, reason inhibits us from believing that the Spirit pure par excellence would answer the call of the first comer who appears. In any case, there would be profanation in attributing to him a language unworthy of him. [In The Gospel According to Spiritism this communication, with some differences, both in the original and translated, is signed by the Spirit of Truth.]

For these considerations, it is that we have always abstained from publishing whatever bears this name.

And we judge that no one will be overly circumspect with regard to publications of this kind, which have authenticity only for self-love, and whose least inconvenience is to furnish weapons to the adversaries of Spiritism.

As we have already said, the more elevated the Spirits are in the hierarchy, the more distrust their names must be received with in the dictations.

One would have to be endowed with a very great dose of pride to be able to glory in having the privilege of the communications given by them, and to consider oneself worthy of conferring with them, as with those who are one's equals.

In the communication above we recognize only one thing: it is the incontestable superiority of the language and of the ideas, leaving each one to judge for himself whether he whose name it bears would not disown it.

On mediums.

X.

All men are mediums, all have a Spirit that directs them toward good, when they know how to hear it.

Now, whether some communicate directly with it, availing themselves of a special mediumship, while others hear it only with the heart and with the intelligence, matters little: it does not cease to be a familiar Spirit who counsels them.

Call it spirit, reason, intelligence, it is always a voice that answers your soul, uttering good words. Only, you do not always understand them.

Not all know how to act in accordance with the counsels of reason, not that reason which rather drags and crawls than walks, that reason which loses itself in the tangle of material and gross interests, but that reason which raises man above himself, which transports him to unknown regions, the sacred flame that inspires the artist and the poet, the divine thought that exalts the philosopher, the rapture that carries away individuals and peoples, the reason that the common crowd cannot understand, but which raises man and brings him nearer to God, more than any other creature, the understanding that leads him from the known to the unknown and makes him execute the most sublime things.

Hear that inner voice, that good genius, which incessantly speaks to you, and you will progressively come to hear your guardian angel, who from the height of Heaven stretches out his hands to you.

I repeat: the intimate voice that speaks to the heart is that of the good ones, and it is from this point of view that all men are mediums.

Channing.

XI.

The gift of mediumship is as old as the world. The prophets were mediums. The mysteries of Eleusis were founded on mediumship. The Chaldeans, the Assyrians had mediums.

Socrates was directed by a Spirit who inspired in him the admirable principles of his philosophy; he heard its voice.

All peoples had their mediums, and the inspirations of Joan of Arc were no more than the voices of beneficent Spirits who directed her.

This gift, which is now spreading, had become rare in the medieval centuries; but it never disappeared. Swedenborg and his adherents constituted a numerous school.

The France of the last centuries, mocking and preoccupied with a philosophy which, claiming to extinguish the abuses of religious intolerance, smothered under ridicule all that was ideal — France was bound to push away Spiritism, which progressed without cease in the North.

God had permitted that struggle of the positive ideas against the spiritualist ideas, because fanaticism had constituted itself the weapon of these latter.

Now that the progress of industry and of science has developed the art of living well, to such a point that the material tendencies have become dominant, God wills that the Spirits be led back to the interests of the soul. He wills that the improvement of moral man become what it ought to be, that is, the end and the object of life.

The human Spirit follows a necessary march, the image of the gradation that everything which peoples the visible and invisible Universe experiences.

Every progress comes in its hour: that of moral elevation has sounded for Humanity. It will not yet be effected in your days; but, give thanks to the Lord for having permitted you to attend the blessed dawn.

Pierre Jouty, (father of the medium.)

XII.

God has charged me with carrying out a mission near the believers whom he favors with mediumistic endowment. The more grace they receive from the Most High, the more perils they run, and these perils are all the greater when they originate from the very favors that God grants them.

The faculties that mediums enjoy earn them the praises of men. Felicitations, flatteries — behold, for them, the reef.

They quickly forget the previous incapacity that ought always to be present to their remembrance.

They do more: what they owe only to God they attribute to their own merits. What happens then? The good Spirits abandon them, they become the plaything of the evil ones, and remain without a compass to guide themselves.

The more capable they become, the more they are impelled to attribute to themselves a merit that does not belong to them, until God punishes them, at last, by withdrawing a faculty that, from then on, can be only fatal to them.

I shall never tire of recommending to you that you confide in your guardian angel, so that he may help you to be always on guard against your most cruel enemy, which is pride.

Remember well, you who have the happiness of being interpreters of the Spirits for men, that you will be severely punished, because you were more favored.

I hope that this communication will produce fruits, and I desire that it may help mediums to be on guard against the reef that would make them founder. That reef, I have already said, is pride.

Joan of Arc.

XIII.

When you wish to receive communications from good Spirits, it is important that you prepare yourselves for that favor by recollection, by pure intentions, and by the desire to do good, with a view to the general progress.

Because, remember that egoism is a cause of retardation to all progress.

Remember that if God permits that some among you receive the breath of those of his children who, by their conduct, have known how to make themselves deserving of understanding his infinite goodness, it is that he wills, at our solicitation and in consideration of your good intentions, to give you the means of advancing on the road that leads to him.

So, then, mediums! profit from that faculty which God has seen fit to grant you. Have faith in the meekness of our Master; always put charity into practice; never tire of exercising that sublime virtue, as well as tolerance.

Let your actions always be in harmony with your conscience, and you will have in this a sure means of increasing a hundredfold your happiness in this passing life, and of preparing for yourselves an existence a thousand times still sweeter.

Let the medium among you who does not feel himself with the strength to persevere in the Spiritist teaching abstain; for, not making profitable the light that illumines him, he will be less excusable than any other, and will have to expiate his blindness.

Pascal.

XIV.

I shall speak to you today of disinterestedness, which must be one of the essential qualities of mediums, as much as modesty and devotedness.

God granted them the mediumistic faculty so that they may assist the propagation of the truth, and not that they may traffic with it.

And, speaking of traffic, I refer not only to those who would think to exploit it, as they would do with any gift of the intelligence, to those who would make themselves mediums, as others make themselves dancers or singers, but also to all those who would claim to use it with a view to interests of any kind whatever.

Will it be rational to believe that good Spirits and, still less, superior Spirits, who condemn covetousness, would consent to lend themselves to spectacles and, as supernumeraries, would place themselves at the disposal of an impresario of Spiritist manifestations?

It is not rational to suppose that good Spirits could assist whoever aims to satisfy pride, or ambition. God permits them to communicate with men in order to draw them from the terrestrial mire, and not to serve as instruments to worldly passions. Therefore, He cannot look with favor upon those who divert from its true object the gift that he has granted them, and I assure you that these will be punished, even there in this world, by the most bitter disappointments. Delphine de Girardin.

XV.

All mediums are, incontestably, called to serve the cause of Spiritism, in the measure of their faculties, but there are very few who do not let themselves be caught in the snares of self-love. It is a touchstone, which rarely fails to produce its effect.

Thus it is that, out of a hundred mediums, you will find one, if so many, who, however lowly he may be, has not judged himself, in the first times of his mediumship, destined to obtain superior things and predestined to great missions.

Those who succumb to that vain hope — and great is their number — inevitably become the prey of obsessing Spirits, who do not delay in subjugating them, flattering their pride and catching them by their weak point.

The more they claim to rise, the more ridiculous their fall will be, when it is not disastrous.

The great missions are confided only to men of the elite, and God himself places them, without their seeking it, in the milieu and in the position where they can lend efficacious aid.

It will never be too much for me to recommend to inexperienced mediums that they distrust what certain Spirits may tell them, in relation to the supposed role that they are called to play, for, if they take it seriously, they will gather only disappointments in this world, and, in the other, severe punishment.

Let them be well persuaded that, in the modest and obscure sphere where they are placed, they can render great services, aiding the conversion of the incredulous, lavishing consolation upon the afflicted.

If they are to leave it, they will be led by an invisible hand, which will prepare the ways for them, and they will be put into evidence, so to speak, despite themselves.

Let them always remember these words: He who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.

The Spirit of Truth.

On Spiritist meetings.

NOTE. Of the communications that follow, some were given at the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, or for its intention. Others, which were transmitted to us by various mediums, contain general counsels on the groups, their formation, and the obstacles they may encounter.

XVI.

Why do you not begin your sessions with a general invocation, a kind of prayer, that disposes to recollection?

Because, know it well, without recollection, you will have only frivolous communications; the good Spirits go only where they are called with fervor and sincerity. It is what men still do not sufficiently understand.

It falls to you, then, to give the example, you who, if you wish it, could become one of the columns of the new edifice. We observe your labors with pleasure, and we aid you, but on the condition that you also, on your side, second us and show yourselves equal to the height of the mission you have been called to carry out.

Form, therefore, a sheaf, and you will be strong, and the evil Spirits will not prevail against you.

God loves the simple of spirit, which does not mean the foolish, but those who renounce themselves and who, without pride, make their way toward him.

You can become a focus of light for humanity.

Know, then, how to distinguish the tares from the wheat; sow only the good grain and preserve yourselves from scattering the tares, for these will prevent the former from germinating, and you will be responsible for all the evil that results therefrom; in like manner, you will be responsible for the evil doctrines that you may chance to propagate.

Remember that a day may come when the world will have fixed its eyes upon you. See to it, consequently, that nothing tarnishes the brilliance of the good things that come forth from your midst. It is for this that we recommend to you that you ask God to assist you.

Saint Augustine.

Urged to dictate a formula of general invocation, Saint Augustine answered:

You know that there is no absolute formula. God is infinitely great to give more importance to the words than to the thought.

Now, do not believe that it suffices that you pronounce a few words for the evil Spirits to withdraw.

Flee, above all, from using one of those banal formulas that are recited to ease the conscience. Its efficacy resides in the sincerity of the sentiment that dictates it; it lies, above all, in the unanimity of the intention, for he who does not associate himself with it from the heart will not be able to benefit from it, nor make others benefit.

Draw it up, then, yourselves, and submit it to me, if you wish. I will help you.

NOTE. The following formula of general invocation was drawn up with the concurrence of the Spirit, who completed it in many points:

“Almighty God, we beseech you to send good Spirits to assist us and to keep away those who might lead us into error. Give us the light necessary to distinguish truth from imposture.

“Keep away, likewise, the maleficent Spirits, capable of casting disunion among us, by stirring up in us envy, pride, and jealousy. If any try to introduce themselves here, in your name, Lord, we adjure them to withdraw.

“Good Spirits, who preside over our labors, deign to come instruct us and make us docile to your counsels. Make every personal sentiment be extinguished in us, before the aim of the good of all.

“We ask, particularly, of …, our special protector, that he consent to bring us today his concurrence.”

XVII.

My friends, allow me to give you a counsel, since you are treading a new ground and since, if you follow the route we indicate to you, you will not go astray.

A very true thing has been said to you, which we wish to recall to you: that Spiritism is simply a morality and that it must not depart, neither much nor little, from the limits of philosophy, if it does not wish to fall into the domain of curiosity.

Leave aside the questions of science: the mission of the Spirits is not to resolve them, sparing you the labor of research; but, seek to become better, for it is thus that you will really progress.

Saint Louis.

XVIII.

They have mocked the turning tables, they will never mock the philosophy, the wisdom, and the charity that shine in the serious communications.

The former were the vestibule of the science; there, everyone who enters must leave his prejudices, as he leaves his cloak.

I shall never deem it too much to urge you to make of yours a serious center. Let physical demonstrations be made elsewhere, let observation be made elsewhere, let listening be done elsewhere: among yourselves, let there be understanding and love.

What do you suppose you are, in the eyes of the superior Spirits, when you make a table turn, or rise? Mere schoolboys. Does the scholar pass his time repeating the A-B-C of science? Meanwhile, on seeing you seek the serious communications, they consider you as serious men, in search of the truth.

Saint Louis.

We asking Saint Louis whether, by these words, he had the intent of condemning the physical manifestations, he answered:

I could not condemn the physical manifestations, for if they are produced, it is with God's permission and for a profitable end.

In saying that they were the vestibule of the science, I assign them the category that truly befits them and I prove their utility.

I condemn solely those who make of this an object of amusement and of curiosity, without drawing the instruction that proceeds therefrom.

They are, for the philosophy of Spiritism, what grammar is for literature, and whoever has reached a certain degree of knowledge in a science no longer loses his time going over its elements. XIX.

My friends and faithful believers, happy I feel whenever I can direct you along the path of good. It is a sweet mission that God confides to me and of which I am proud, because to be useful is always a recompense.

Let the spirit of charity unite you, as much the charity that gives as that which loves.

Show yourselves patient before the insults of your detractors; be firm in good and, above all, humble before God. Only humility raises. That is the sole greatness that God recognizes. Only then will the good Spirits come to you; otherwise the spirit of evil would take possession of your soul.

Be blessed in the name of the Creator, and you will grow in the eyes of men, at the same time as in the eyes of God. Saint Louis.

XX.

Union makes strength. Be united, in order to be strong.

Spiritism has germinated, has put down deep roots. It is going to spread over the earth its beneficent foliage.

You must become invulnerable to the poisoned darts of calumny and of the black phalanx of ignorant, egoistic, and hypocritical Spirits.

To attain this it is necessary that a reciprocal indulgence and tolerance preside over your relations; that your defects pass unnoticed; that only your qualities be notorious; that the torch of holy friendship melt, illumine, and warm your hearts. Thus you will resist the impotent attacks of evil, as the unshakable rock resists the furious wave. Saint Vincent de Paul.

XXI.

My friends, you wish to form a Spiritist group, and I approve of it, because the Spirits cannot see with satisfaction that mediums keep themselves in isolation. God did not grant them, for their exclusive use, the sublime faculty they possess, but for the good of all.

By communicating with others, they will have a thousand occasions to enlighten themselves on the merit of the communications they receive, whereas, isolated, they are much more under the dominion of lying Spirits, who are delighted at suffering no scrutiny.

There it is for you and, if pride does not subjugate you, you will understand it and profit. Here now is for the others.

Are you quite certain of what a Spiritist meeting ought to be? No, for, in your zeal, you judge that the best thing you have to do is to gather the greatest possible number of persons, in order to convince them. Undeceive yourselves.

The fewer you are, the more you will obtain.

It is, above all, by the moral ascendancy you exercise that you will attract the incredulous, much more than by the phenomena you obtain.

If you attract only by the phenomena, those who seek you out will do so out of curiosity, and you will encounter curious people who will not believe you and who will laugh at you.

If only persons worthy of esteem are found among you, many perhaps will not believe you, but they will respect you, and respect always inspires confidence.

You are convinced that Spiritism will bring about a moral reform.

Let your group, then, be the first to give the example of the Christian virtues, since, in this epoch of egoism, it is in the Spiritist societies that true charity is to find refuge. n Such must be, my friends, a group of true Spiritists. Another time, I will give you new counsels.

Fénelon.

XXII.

You asked whether the multiplicity of groups, in one and the same locality, would not be apt to generate rivalries prejudicial to the Doctrine. I shall answer that those who are imbued with the true principles of this Doctrine see in all Spiritists only brothers, and not rivals.

Those who showed themselves jealous of other groups would prove that there existed within them a hidden intention, or the sentiment of self-love, and that the love of truth does not guide them. I affirm that, if such persons were found among you, they would soon sow discord and disunion in your group.

True Spiritism has for its device benevolence and charity. It admits no rivalry whatever, save that of the good that all can do.

All the groups that inscribe that device on their banners will stretch out their hands to one another, as good neighbors, who are no less friends for the fact of not dwelling in the same house.

Those who claim that their guides are Spirits better than those of others must prove it, by showing better sentiments. Let there be, then, a struggle among them, but a struggle of greatness of soul, of abnegation, of goodness, and of humility.

He who casts a stone at another will prove, by that simple fact, that he is influenced by evil Spirits.

The nature of the reciprocal sentiments that two men manifest is the touchstone for knowing the nature of the Spirits who assist them.

Fénelon.

XXIII.

Silence and recollection are essential conditions for all serious communications. You will never obtain those conditions if those who are led to your meetings by curiosity alone are present. Invite the curious, then, to seek other places, for their distraction would constitute a cause of disturbance.

No conversation should you tolerate while the Spirits are being questioned.

You receive, at times, communications that require of you a serious reply and answers no less serious on the part of the Spirits evoked, who are much displeased, believe it, by the continual whispering of certain attendants. Thence, in consequence, you obtain nothing complete, nor truly serious.

The medium who writes also experiences distractions very prejudicial to his ministry. Saint Louis.

XXIV.

I shall speak to you of the necessity of observing, in your sessions, the greatest regularity, that is, of avoiding all confusion, all divergence of ideas.

Divergence favors the substitution of the good Spirits by the evil ones, and it is almost always these latter that answer the questions proposed.

On the other hand, in a meeting composed of diverse elements, unknown to one another, by what means are the contradictory ideas, the distraction, or, still worse, a vague mocking indifference, to be avoided? That means I should wish to find efficacious and sure. Perhaps it lies in the concentration of the fluids scattered around the mediums. They alone, but, above all, those who are esteemed, retain the good Spirits in the meeting. But their influence barely suffices to disperse the throng of frivolous Spirits.

The work of examining the communications is excellent. It will never be too much to go deeply into the questions and, principally, the answers. Error is easy, even for the Spirits animated by the best intentions.

The slowness of the writing, during which the Spirit moves away from the subject, which he exhausts as soon as he has conceived it, the mobility and the indifference toward certain agreed-upon forms — all these reasons and many others create for you the duty of extending only limited confidence to what you obtain, subordinating it always to examination, even when it is a matter of the most authentic communications. Georges, (Familiar Spirit.)

XXV.

With what aim, most often, do you ask communications of the Spirits? To have fine passages of prose, which you will show to the persons of your acquaintance as samples of our talent? You preciously preserve them in your portfolios, but, in your hearts, there is no place for them.

Do you perchance judge that it much flatters us to appear at your assemblies, as at a competition, to hold tournaments of eloquence, so that you may say that the session was very interesting? What remains to you, after you have found a communication admirable? Do you suppose that we came in search of your applause? Undeceive yourselves.

It does not please us to entertain you in one way more than in another. There too what there is, in you, is curiosity, which in vain you seek to dissimulate.

Our object is to make you better.

Now, when we verify that our words produce no fruit, that, on your part, everything resolves into a sterile approval, we go in search of more docile souls. We then yield the place to the Spirits who only make a point of speaking, and these are not lacking.

It causes you astonishment that we let them take our names. What does it matter to you, since, for you, there is in it neither more nor less? Know, however, that we do not permit it when it is a matter of those in whom we are really interested, that is, of those with whom our time is not lost. These are the ones we prefer and carefully preserve from falsehood.

If, therefore, you are so frequently deceived, complain only of yourselves.

For us, the serious man is not he who abstains from laughing, but he whose heart our words touch, who meditates them and draws profit from them. (See no. 268, questions 19 and 20.)

Massillon.

XXVI.

Spiritism must be a shield against the spirit of discord and of dissension; but, that spirit, from all times, has been brandishing its torch over humans, because it is jealous of the happiness that peace and union provide. Spiritists! it can, therefore, well penetrate your assemblies, and, doubt it not, it will seek to sow disaffection among you. Impotent, however, will it be against those who have, to animate them, the sentiment of true charity.

Be, then, on guard, and watch incessantly at the door of your heart, as at that of your meetings, so that the enemy may not penetrate it. If your efforts against the one outside are vain, it will always depend on you to prevent its access into your soul.

If dissensions are produced among you, only by evil Spirits can they be aroused.

Let those who are in the highest degree penetrated by the sentiments of the duties imposed on them by urbanity, as much as by true Spiritism, show themselves, consequently, more patient, more dignified, and more conciliatory.

It may happen that, at times, the good Spirits permit these struggles, in order to afford, to the good as well as to the evil sentiments, an occasion to reveal themselves, so that the wheat may be separated from the tares. They, however, will always be on the side where there is more humility and true charity. Saint Vincent de Paul.

XXVII.

Repel pitilessly all those Spirits who claim the exclusivism of their counsels, preaching division and isolation. They are almost always vain and mediocre Spirits, who seek to impose themselves on weak and credulous men, lavishing exaggerated praises upon them, in order to fascinate them and have them under their dominion.

They are generally Spirits hungry for power who, despots, public or private, when alive, still strive, after death, to have victims to tyrannize.

In general, distrust the communications that bear a character of mysticism and of singularity, or that prescribe extravagant ceremonies and acts. There will always be, in those cases, legitimate motive for suspicion.

On the other hand, believe that, when a truth is to be revealed to men, it is communicated, so to speak, instantaneously, to all the serious groups that have serious mediums at their disposal, and not to such or such ones, to the exclusion of all the others.

No one is a perfect medium, if he is obsessed, and there is manifest obsession when a medium shows himself apt to receive the communications only of a determined Spirit, however great the height in which this one seeks to place himself.

Consequently, every medium, every group that judges itself to have the privilege of communications that they alone can receive, and which, on the other hand, are bound to practices that verge on superstition, are undoubtedly under the grip of one of the best characterized obsessions, above all when the dominating Spirit struts about with a name that all of us, Spirits and incarnate, ought to honor and respect and not consent be profaned on any pretext.

It is incontestable that, by submitting to the crucible of reason and of logic all the data and all the communications of the Spirits, it will be easy to discover the absurd and the error.

A medium can be fascinated, as a group can be mystified. But, the severe verification of the other groups, the acquired knowledge and the high moral authority of the directors of groups, the communications of the principal mediums, with a stamp of logic and of authenticity of the best Spirits, will quickly do justice to those lying and crafty dictations, emanating from a throng of deceiving and malignant Spirits. Erastus, (disciple of Saint Paul.)

NOTE. One of the distinctive characters of those Spirits, who seek to impose themselves and to have their extravagant and systematic ideas accepted, is that they claim (it would be well were they the only ones of that opinion) to be right against all the world.

The tactic they use consists in avoiding discussion and, when they see themselves victoriously combated with the irresistible weapons of logic, they disdainfully refuse to answer and prescribe to their mediums that they keep away from the centers where their ideas are not accepted.

That isolation is what is most fatal for the mediums, because, thus, they suffer the yoke of the obsessing Spirits who guide them, like blind men, and frequently lead them onto the evil paths. XXVIII.

The false prophets are not found only among the incarnate; there are, likewise, and in much greater number, among the proud Spirits who, under false appearances of love and charity, sow disunion and retard the work of emancipation of Humanity, casting at it crosswise absurd systems, which they cause to be accepted by their mediums.

And, to better fascinate those whom they have chosen to be deceived, in order to give greater weight to the theories, they do not scruple to make use of names that men pronounce only with much respect: those of saints rightly venerated, those of Jesus, of Mary, even that of God.

It is they who cast the ferment of antagonisms among the groups, who impel them to isolate themselves from one another and to look upon one another with animosity. This alone would suffice to unmask them, for, proceeding thus, they themselves give the most formal contradiction to what they claim to be. Blind, then, are the men who let themselves be caught in so gross a snare.

There are, however, many other means of their being recognized. Spirits of the order to which these say they have ascended must be not only good, but, besides, eminently logical and rational. Well then! submit their systems to the crucible of reason and of good sense, and you will see what will remain.

Agree, therefore, with me that, every time a Spirit indicates, as a remedy for the ills of Humanity, or as means of arriving at its transformation, utopian and impracticable things, puerile and ridiculous measures, when he formulates a system that the most vulgar notions of science contradict, such a Spirit cannot fail to be ignorant and lying.

On the other hand, have the certainty that, if the truth is not always appreciated by individuals, it always is by the good sense of the masses, and in this is offered to you one more criterion for forming an opinion.

If two principles contradict each other, you will have the measure of the intrinsic value of one and the other, by seeking to know which is the one that produces more echo and finds more sympathy. It would be, indeed, illogical that a doctrine, whose number of partisans diminishes gradually, should be truer than another, whose adherents are becoming ever more numerous.

God, then, who wills that the truth reach all, does not confine it to a narrow and restricted circle: he makes it arise at different points, so that everywhere the light may be at the side of the darkness. Erastus.

NOTE. The best guarantee that a principle is the expression of the truth is found in its being taught and revealed by different Spirits, with the concurrence of diverse mediums, unknown to one another and in various places, and in its being, moreover, confirmed by reason and sanctioned by the adhesion of the greatest number.

Only the truth can furnish roots to a doctrine. An erroneous system can, no doubt, gather some adherents; but, as it lacks the first condition of vitality, its existence will be ephemeral. There is, then, no reason for us to be troubled about it. Its own errors kill it, and its fall will be inevitable under the blows of the powerful weapon that is logic. Apocryphal communications.

There are many communications so absurd that, although signed with the most respectable names, common sense suffices to make their falsity patent. There are others, however, in which the error, dissimulated among usable things, comes to delude, sometimes preventing it from being grasped at first sight. These communications, nevertheless, do not withstand a serious examination. We are going, as a sample, to reproduce some here. XXIX.

[Apocryphal message.]

The perpetual and incessant creation of worlds is, for God, a kind of perpetual enjoyment, because he sees incessantly his rays become each day more luminous in felicity. For God, there is no number, just as there is no time. Behold why hundreds or thousands are, for him, neither more nor less the one than the other. He is a father, whose happiness is formed from the collective happiness of his children, and who, at each second of creation, sees a new happiness come to merge into the general happiness. There is no stop, nor suspension, in that perpetual movement, in that great incessant happiness that fecundates the Earth and the Heaven. Of the world, no more than a small fraction is known, and you have brothers who live in latitudes where man has not yet come to penetrate. What do those scorching heats and those mortal colds signify, which arrest the efforts of the most daring? Do you judge, in your simplicity, to have reached the limit of your world, when you can advance no further with the insignificant means at your disposal? Could you then measure your planet exactly? Do not believe it. There are on your planet more places unknown than places known. But, as it is useless that all your evil institutions, all your evil laws, actions and existences be propagated still further, there is a limit that arrests you here and there, and that will arrest you until you have to transport the good seeds that your free will has made. Oh! no, you do not know that world, which you call Earth. You will see in your existence a great beginning of proofs of this communication. Behold, the hour is going to sound when there will be another discovery different from the last one that was made; behold, the circle of your known Earth is going to widen, and, when all the press sings that Hosanna in every tongue, you, poor children, who love God and who seek his voice, will have known it before those very ones who will give a name to the new Earth. “VINCENT DE PAUL.”

NOTE. From the point of view of style, this communication does not withstand criticism. The incorrectnesses, the pleonasms, the faulty turns of phrase leap to the eyes of anyone, however little lettered he may be.

This, however, would prove nothing against the name that signs it, given that such imperfections could proceed from the incapacity of the medium, as we have already demonstrated.

What belongs to the Spirit is the idea.

Now, to say, as he says, that on our planet there are more places unknown than places known, that a new continent is going to be discovered, is, for a Spirit who qualifies himself as superior, to give proof of the most profound ignorance.

No doubt, it is possible that, beyond the glacial regions, some unknown corners of land may be discovered, but to say that those lands are peopled and that God keeps them hidden from men, in order that these may not carry their evil institutions there, is to believe too much in the blind confidence of those to whom such absurdities are administered. XXX.

[Authentic message.]

My children, our material world and the spiritual world, which still very few know, form, as it were, the two pans of the perpetual balance. Up to now, our religions, our laws, our customs, and our passions have so made the pan of evil descend and the pan of good rise, that evil has been seen to reign supremely on Earth. For centuries, it is always the same, the complaint that escapes from the mouth of man, and the fatal conclusion is the injustice of God. There are some who even go as far as the negation of the existence of God. You see everything here and nothing there; you see the superfluous that shocks the necessary, the gold that shines beside the mire; all the most shocking contrasts that ought to prove to you your double nature. Whence comes this? Whose is the fault? Behold what must be investigated with tranquility and with impartiality. When one sincerely desires to find a good remedy, one finds it. Well then! despite that domination of evil over good, by your fault, why do you not see the rest go straight along the line traced by God? Do you see the seasons disarrange themselves? the heats and the colds collide inconsiderately? the light of the Sun forget to illumine the Earth? the earth forget in its bosom the seeds that man deposited there? Do you see the cessation of the thousand perpetual miracles that are produced under our eyes, from the birth of the shrub to the birth of the child, the man of the future? But, everything goes well on God's side, everything goes ill on man's side. What is the remedy for this? It is very simple: that they draw near to God, love one another, unite, understand one another, and follow tranquilly the road whose landmarks are seen with the eyes of faith and of conscience. Vincent de Paul.

NOTE. This communication was obtained in the same circle; but, how it differs from the preceding one, not only in the ideas, but also in the style! Everything in it is just, profound, sensible, and certainly Saint Vincent de Paul would not disdain it, wherefore it can be attributed to him without fear.

XXXI.

[Apocryphal communication.]

Come, children, close your ranks, that is, let good union make your strength. You, who labor at the founding of the great edifice, watch and labor always to consolidate its base; then, you will be able to raise it very high, very high! The progression is immense over our whole globe; an innumerable quantity of proselytes fall into line under our standard; many skeptics and even of the most incredulous also draw near. Go, children; march, with the heart uplifted, full of faith; the road you travel is beautiful; do not lose heart; follow always the straight line, serve as guides to those who come after you. They will be happy, very happy!

Walk, children! You do not need the force of bayonets to sustain your cause, you need nothing but faith. Belief, fraternity, and union, such are your weapons; with them, you are strong, more powerful than all the great potentates of the Universe, united, despite their living forces, their fleets, their cannons, and their grapeshot!

You, who fight for the liberty of peoples and for the regeneration of the great human family, go, children, courage and perseverance. God will help you. Good night; until we meet again.

“NAPOLEON.”

NOTE. Napoleon was, in life, a grave and serious man. Everyone knows his brief and concise style. He would have degenerated singularly if, after death, he had become verbose and burlesque. This communication is perhaps from the Spirit of some soldier who was called Napoleon.

XXXII.

[Apocryphal message.]

No, one cannot change religion, when one does not have one that can, at the same time, satisfy common sense and the intelligence that one has, and that can, above all, give man present consolations. No, one does not change religion, one falls from ineptitude and from domination into wisdom and into liberty. Go, go, our little army! go and fear not the enemy bullets; those that are to kill you have not yet been made, if you are always, from the bottom of the heart, in the path of the Lord, that is, if you wish always to fight peaceably and victoriously for well-being and for liberty. “VINCENT DE PAUL.”

NOTE. Who would recognize Saint Vincent de Paul by this language, by these disjointed thoughts devoid of sense? What do these words signify: No, one does not change religion, one falls from ineptitude and from domination into wisdom and into liberty? With his bullets, which are not yet made, we much suspect that this Spirit is the same one that above signed itself Napoleon.

XXXIII.

[Apocryphal communications of Jesus.]

Children of my faith, Christians of my doctrine forgotten for the interests of the waves of the philosophy of the materialists, follow me on the road of Judea, follow the passion of my life, contemplate my enemies now, see my sufferings, my torments, and my shed blood.

Spiritualist children of my new doctrine, be ready to bear, to confront the waves of adversity, the sarcasms of your enemies. Faith will walk without cease following your star, which will lead you to the road of eternal happiness, just as the star led by faith the Magi of the Orient to the manger. Whatever your adversities may be, whatever your sorrows and the tears you have shed in this sphere of exile, take courage, be persuaded that the joy that will inundate you in the world of the Spirits will be far above the torments of your passing existence. The vale of tears is a vale that is to disappear to give place to the brilliant abode of joy, of fraternity, and of union, where you will arrive by your good obedience to the holy revelation. Life, my dear brothers, in this terrestrial sphere, wholly preparatory, can last only the time necessary to live well prepared for that life which can never end. Love one another, love one another, as I loved you and as I love you still; brothers, courage, brothers! I bless you, in Heaven I await you. “JESUS.”

In these brilliant and luminous regions where human thought can hardly reach, the echo of your words and of mine came to touch my heart.

Oh! with what joy I feel myself inundated, seeing you, the continuers of my doctrine. No, nothing approaches the testimony of your good thoughts! See, children: the regenerating idea cast by me once into the world, persecuted, halted a moment, under the pressure of the tyrants, goes henceforth without obstacles, illuminating the roads to Humanity for so long plunged in the darkness.

Every great and disinterested sacrifice, my children, sooner or later produced fruits. My martyrdom proved it to you; my blood shed for my doctrine will save Humanity and will efface the faults of the great culprits!

Be blessed, you who today take your place in the regenerated family! Go, courage, children!

“JESUS.”

NOTE. Undoubtedly, there is nothing bad in these two communications; but, did the Christ ever have that pretentious, emphatic, and bombastic language? Let the comparison be made with the one we cited above [no. IX], signed by the same name, and it will be seen on which side is the stamp of authenticity.

All these communications were obtained in the same circle. There is noticed, however, a certain familiar tone, identical turns of phrase, the same expressions repeated frequently, as, for example, go, go, children, etc., whence it can be concluded that it is the same Spirit who gave them all, under different names. Nevertheless, in that circle, which was indeed conscientious, though a little too credulous, no evocations were made, nor questions; everything was awaited from the spontaneous communications, which, as is seen, certainly does not constitute a guarantee of identity.

With some questions a little insistent and lined with logic, they would easily have put that Spirit back in its place.

It, however, knew that it had nothing to fear, for nothing was asked of it, and they accepted without verification and with eyes closed all that it said. (See no. 269.)

XXXIV.

[Apocryphal message.]

How beautiful is Nature! How prudent is Providence, in its foresight! But, your blindness and your human passions prevent you from drawing patience from the prudence and the goodness of God. At the least cloud, at the least delay in your forecasts, you lament. Know, impatient doubters, that nothing happens without a motive always foreseen, always premeditated for the profit of all. The reason of what precedes is to reduce to nothing, men of hypocritical fears, all your forecasts of a bad year for your harvests. God frequently inspires in men the disquiet about the future, in order to impel them to foresight; and see how great are the means to give the last touch to your fears intentionally spread, and which, most often, hide avid thoughts, rather than an idea of cautious provisioning, inspired by a sentiment of humanity in favor of the little ones. See the relations of nations to nations that will result therefrom; see what transactions will have to be effected; how many means will come to concur to repress your fears! for, as you know, everything is linked together; therefore, great and small will come to the work. Then, do you not already see in all that movement a source of a certain well-being for the most laborious class of the States, a class truly interesting, which you, the great, the omnipotent of this earth, consider folk to be sheared at will, created for your satisfactions?

Well now, what happens after all that coming and going from one pole to the other? It is that, once well provided, often the weather has changed; the Sun, obeying the thought of its creator, has ripened in a few days your sowings; God has put abundance where your covetousness was meditating on scarcity, and, despite yourselves, the little ones will be able to live; and, without suspecting it, you were, despite yourselves, the cause of an abundance. Meanwhile, it happens — God permits it sometimes — that the evil ones succeed in their covetous projects, but then it is a lesson that God wishes to give to all; it is human foresight that he wishes to stimulate: it is the infinite order that reigns in Nature, it is the courage against events that men must imitate, that they must bear with resignation.

As for those who, by calculation, profit from disasters, believe it, they will be punished. God wills that all his beings live; man must not play with necessity, nor traffic with the superfluous. Just in his benefits, great in his clemency, too good toward our ingratitude, God, in his designs, is impenetrable.

BOSSUET, ALFRED DE MARIGNAC.

NOTE. This communication, certainly, contains nothing bad. It contains even profound philosophical ideas and very prudent counsels, which could lead those little versed in literature to be mistaken regarding the identity of the author. The medium who had obtained it, having submitted it to the examination of the Spiritist Society of Paris, the votes were unanimous in declaring that it could not be from Bossuet.

Saint Louis, consulted, answered: “This communication, in itself, is good; but, do not believe it was Bossuet who dictated it. A Spirit wrote it, perhaps a little under the inspiration of that other one, and put beneath it the name of the great bishop, in order to make it more easily acceptable. This was practiced by the Spirit who placed his name, following that of Bossuet.”

Interrogated about the motive that had led him to proceed thus, that Spirit said: “I wished to write something, in order to make myself remembered by men. Seeing that I am weak, I thought to sponsor my writing with the prestige of a great name. — But, did you not imagine that it would be recognized that the communication was not from Bossuet? — Who knows it, for certain? You could be mistaken. Others less perspicacious would have accepted it.”

In fact, the facility with which some persons accept all that comes from the invisible world, under the mantle of a great name, is what emboldens the imposing Spirits.

To frustrating their impostures is what all must consecrate the utmost attention; but, no one can attain to so much, save with the aid of the experience acquired by means of a serious study.

Hence our repeating incessantly: Study, before you practice, for that is the only means of not acquiring [tolerable] experience at your own cost. [1] We knew a gentleman who was accepted for a position of trust, in an important house, because he was a sincere Spiritist. It was understood that his beliefs were a guarantee of his morality.