History of Spiritism.

(Summary)

The first manifestations in the USA.

The turning tables or dancing of the tables.

What was the nature of the intelligence that produced these strange phenomena?

The spread of the phenomenon of the turning tables to France and the rest of Europe.

The first criticisms of the reality of the unusual phenomena.

The evolution from communication by raps (Typtology) to communications through writing mediums (psychography).

The discovery of a new world: the world of the invisible ones.

What are the Spirits?

What role do they play in the universe?

With what purpose do they communicate with mortals?

The three essential parts constituting man: the soul or Spirit, the body, and the perispirit.

Death.

The body dies, the Spirit does not; the death of the body frees it from its bonds; it liberates itself and recovers its freedom.

The means that the Spirits employ to attest to their presence and to draw attention to themselves.

On the quality of the Spirits and their communications.

Spiritism: a doctrine founded on the existence, the manifestations, and the teaching of the Spirits.

Spiritism before the emergence of the Spiritist Doctrine, modern Spiritism.

If it is not new, what does Spiritism come to do?

Why Spiritism represents the promised Comforter.

Spiritism from the religious point of view. Its universality.

Can a Spiritist define himself as Catholic, Greek or Roman, Protestant, Jewish, or Muslim?

Why the denomination Christian Spiritism.

To whom the Spiritist belief is addressed.

Spiritism and the dogmas of the eternity of punishments, of the material fire of hell, and of the personality of the devil.

Can the souls of those who have died communicate with the living?

— In the United States of America, around 1850, public attention was drawn to various strange phenomena, consisting of noises, raps, and movements of objects, with no known cause. These phenomena often occurred spontaneously, with singular persistence and intensity; but it was also observed that they took place more particularly under the influence of certain persons, who were designated by the name of mediums and who, in some way, could provoke them at will, which allowed the repetition of the experiments.

For this purpose the experimenters made use above all of tables, not because that object was more favorable than any other, but solely because it is movable, more convenient, and because people sit more easily and naturally around a table than around any other piece of furniture. In this manner the rotation of the table was obtained, then movements in all directions, leaps, overturnings, violent raps, etc. At first this phenomenon was designated under the name of turning tables or dancing of the tables. n Up to then the phenomenon could be perfectly explained by an electric or magnetic current, or by the action of an unknown fluid, and this was indeed the first opinion that was formed. It was not long, however, before intelligent effects were recognized in these phenomena. It was seen that the movement obeyed a will; the table moved to the right, to the left, toward a designated person and, on command, raised itself upon one or two legs, struck the requested number of raps, beat time, etc. From then on it became evident that the cause was not purely physical and, in accordance with the axiom according to which, if every effect has a cause, every intelligent effect must have an intelligent cause, it was concluded that the cause of that phenomenon must be an intelligence.

— What would be the nature of such an intelligence? That is the question. The first idea that arose was that it might be a reflection of the intelligence of the medium or of those present, but experience very quickly demonstrated its impossibility, because things were obtained that were completely foreign to the thought and knowledge of the persons present, and even in contradiction with their ideas, their will, and their desire; the intelligence, therefore, could only belong to an invisible being. The means of making sure of the fact was very simple: it was a matter of entering into conversation with this being, which was done by means of a certain conventional number of raps signifying yes or no, or designating the letters of the alphabet. In this way answers were obtained to the various questions formulated, and this phenomenon was designated under the name of talking tables.

All the beings who communicated in this manner, when questioned about their nature, declared themselves to be Spirits and to belong to the invisible world. As the same effects were reproduced in a great number of localities, through the intermediary of various persons, and, moreover, observed by very serious and very enlightened men, it was not possible that all of them were victims of an illusion.

— From America the phenomenon passed to France and to the rest of Europe, where, for some years, the turning and talking tables were in fashion and became the amusement of the drawing rooms; then, when people grew tired of them, they set them aside, in search of some other distraction.

The phenomenon did not take long to present itself under a new aspect, drawing it out of the domain of mere curiosity. The limits of this compendium do not allow us to follow it through all its phases, so that we shall address, without transition, what it offers that is most characteristic, what chiefly captured the attention of serious persons.

— To begin with, let us say, in passing, that the reality of the phenomenon encountered numerous contradictors. Some, without taking into account the disinterestedness and honesty of the experimenters, saw in it nothing more than a trick, a clever sleight of hand. Those who admit nothing outside of matter, who believe only in the visible world, who think that everything dies with the body, the materialists, in a word those who qualify themselves as strong minds, cast the existence of invisible Spirits into the category of absurd fables, branded as madmen those who took the matter seriously, and loaded them with sarcasm and mockery.

Others, unable to deny the facts, and under the sway of a certain order of ideas, attributed the phenomena to the exclusive influence of the devil, seeking, by this means, to frighten the timid. Today the fear of the devil has singularly lost its prestige; so much has been said of him, he has been painted in so many ways, that everyone has become familiar with this idea, and many judged that they should take the opportunity to verify what the devil really was. From this it resulted that, save for a small number of timorous women, the news of the arrival of the true devil had something attractive about it for those who had only seen him in painting or in the theater; for many people such news was a strong stimulant, so that those who attempted, by this means, to set up a barrier against the new ideas, worked against their own purpose and, without wishing it, became its propagandist agents, and all the more effective the louder they shouted. The other critics achieved no greater success, for, to the established facts, to the categorical reasonings, they could oppose only denials. Read what they published and everywhere you will find proof of ignorance and of the lack of serious observation of the facts, and nowhere a peremptory demonstration of its impossibility. The whole argument they made use of comes down to this: “I do not believe; therefore, it is not true. All who believe are mad; we alone have the privilege of reason and good sense.” The number of adherents made by serious or jesting criticism is incalculable, because everywhere one finds nothing but personal opinions, devoid of contrary proofs. But let us continue our exposition.

— Communications by means of raps were slow and incomplete. It was recognized that, by adapting a pencil to a movable object: a basket, a small board, or another, upon which the fingers were placed, this object set itself in motion and traced characters. Later it was recognized that such objects were no more than accessories, perfectly dispensable. Experience demonstrated that the Spirit, acting upon an inert body to direct it at will, could in the same way act upon the arm or the hand to guide the pencil. Then arose the writing mediums, that is, persons who wrote, involuntarily, under the impulsion of the Spirits, to whom they thus served as instruments and interpreters. From then on, communications had no more limits and the exchange of thoughts could be effected with as much rapidity and development as among the living. It was a vast field opened to exploration, the discovery of a new world: the world of the invisible ones, just as the microscope had discovered the world of the infinitely small.

— What are these Spirits? What role do they play in the Universe? With what aim do they present themselves to mortals? Such were the first questions that one set out to resolve. It was soon learned, from them themselves, that they are not beings apart in creation, but the very souls of those who lived on Earth or in other worlds; that these souls, after having divested themselves of their corporeal envelope, populate and traverse space. One can no longer doubt this, when many recognize relatives and friends among these souls and have been able to converse with them; when those who come to give proof of their existence demonstrate that only their bodies have died, but that their soul or Spirit lives always, that they are near us, seeing us and observing us as when alive, surrounding with care those whom they loved, whose remembrance is, for them, a sweet satisfaction. Generally one forms a completely false idea of the Spirits. They are not, as many imagine, abstract, vague, and indefinite beings, nor something resembling a glow, a spark. They are, on the contrary, real beings, having their individuality and a determined form. One can form an approximate idea of them by the following explanation:

— There are in man three essential things: 1st) the soul or Spirit, an intelligent principle in which reside thought, will, and the moral sense; 2nd) the body, a material envelope, heavy and gross, which puts the Spirit in relation with the exterior world; 3rd) the perispirit, a fluidic envelope, extremely subtle, serving as a bond and intermediary between the Spirit and the body. When the exterior envelope is worn out and can no longer function, it falls and the Spirit detaches itself from it, as the fruit and the tree shed their husks; in a word, as we leave off an old, useless garment. This is what is called death.

— Death, therefore, is no more than the destruction of the gross envelope of the Spirit. Only the body dies, not the Spirit. During life the Spirit finds itself, in a certain way, compressed by the bonds of the matter to which it is united and which often paralyzes its faculties. The death of the body frees it from these bonds. The Spirit detaches itself from them and recovers its freedom, like the butterfly emerging from the chrysalis; but it leaves only the material body, retaining the perispirit, which constitutes for it a kind of ethereal body, vaporous, imponderable to us and of human form, which seems to be the standard form. In its normal state, the perispirit is invisible, but the Spirit can make it undergo certain modifications that render it momentarily accessible to the sight and even to the touch of man, as happens with condensed vapor. It is thus that they can sometimes show themselves to us in apparitions. It is by means of the perispirit that the Spirit acts upon inert matter and produces the various phenomena of noise, of movements, of writing, etc.

— For the Spirits, raps and movements are means by which they attest to their presence and draw attention to themselves, exactly as a person does who knocks to give notice that someone is there. There are those who do not limit themselves to moderate noises, going to the extreme of producing a din resembling that of crockery being broken, of doors opening and closing, or of furniture being overturned.

By means of conventional raps and movements, they were able to express their thoughts, but writing offers them the most complete, the most rapid, and the most convenient means, which is why they prefer it. Just as they can form characters, they can guide the hand to trace drawings, to write music, to execute a musical piece on an instrument. In short, in the absence of their own body, which they no longer possess, they make use of the medium to manifest themselves to men in a perceptible manner.

The Spirits can also manifest themselves in various ways, among others by sight and by hearing. Certain persons, called auditive mediums, have the faculty of hearing them, being thus able to converse with them; others see them: these are the seeing mediums. The Spirits who manifest themselves to sight generally present themselves under a form analogous to that which they had in life, but vaporous; at other times this form takes on all the appearances of a living being, to the point of causing an illusion so complete that they are sometimes taken for individuals of flesh and bone, with whom one can converse and exchange handshakes, without suspecting that they are Spirits, until these suddenly disappear. The permanent and general vision of Spirits is very rare, but individual apparitions are quite frequent, especially at the moment of death; it is as if the recently detached Spirit hastened to see its relatives and friends again, as if to advise them that it has just left the Earth and to tell them that it continues to live. Whoever gathers his recollections will see how many authentic facts of this kind, of which he took no account, occur to him not only at night during sleep, but in broad daylight, in the most complete state of wakefulness. Formerly these facts were regarded as supernatural and marvelous and were attributed to magic and sorcery; today, the incredulous put them down to the imagination. But, ever since spiritist science has given the explanation of them, it is known how they are produced and that they do not escape the order of natural phenomena.

— There are still those who believe that the Spirits, by the simple fact of being Spirits, must possess sovereign science and supreme wisdom. It is an error that experience did not take long to demonstrate. Among the communications given by the Spirits, some are sublime in their profundity, their eloquence, their wisdom, their morality, and which exhale nothing but goodness and benevolence; but, alongside these, there are others that are very vulgar, frivolous, trivial, even coarse, by which the Spirit reveals the most perverse instincts. It is, then, evident that they cannot emanate from the same source and that, if there are good Spirits, there are also bad ones. The Spirits being no more than the souls of men, they naturally cannot become perfect merely because they have left their bodies. So long as they have not progressed, they retain the imperfections of corporeal life, which is why they present themselves to us in all degrees of goodness and of wickedness, of knowledge and of ignorance. Generally the Spirits take pleasure in communicating with us. For them it is a satisfaction to ascertain that they have not been forgotten; they willingly describe their impressions on leaving the Earth, their new situation, the nature of their joys and sufferings in the world in which they find themselves: some are very happy, others wretched, some even suffer horrible torments, according to the manner in which they lived and the good or bad, useful or useless use they made of life. Observing them in all the phases of their new existence, according to the position they occupied on Earth, the manner of their death, their characters and habits as men, one arrives at a knowledge, if not complete, at least very precise, of the invisible world, so as to give us an account of our future state and to have a presentiment of the happy or wretched lot that awaits us.

— The instructions given by the Spirits of an elevated order on all the subjects that concern Humanity, the answers they gave to the questions that were put to them, carefully collected and coordinated, constitute a whole science, a whole moral and philosophical doctrine, under the name of Spiritism. Spiritism is, then, the doctrine founded on the existence, the manifestations, and the teachings of the Spirits. This doctrine is set forth in a complete manner in The Spirits' Book, as to the philosophical part, and in The Mediums' Book, as to the practical and experimental part. By the analysis that we shall make below of these works, one can judge the variety, the extent, and the importance of the matters they contain. We have already seen that Spiritism had its point of departure in the common phenomenon of the turning tables. Since, however, these facts speak more to the eyes than to the intelligence and awaken curiosity more than feeling, once that was satisfied, interest in them diminished, all the more so as they were not understood. The reaction was otherwise when theory came to explain their cause to them, especially when people perceived that from the turning tables, with which for some time they had amused themselves, there arose a whole moral doctrine that speaks to the soul, dissipating the anguish of doubt, satisfying all the aspirations left in uncertainty by an incomplete teaching concerning the future of Humanity; serious persons welcomed the new doctrine as a benefit and, from then on, far from declining, it grew with incredible rapidity. In the space of three or four years, it gathered, in all the countries of the world, especially within the enlightened classes, innumerable partisans, who increase daily in an extraordinary proportion, so much so that today one can say that Spiritism has won the right of citizenship. It rests upon foundations that defy the efforts of its adversaries, more or less interested in combating it; and the proof of this is that the attacks and criticisms have not retarded its march for a single instant: this is a fact attested by experience and for which the antagonists have never been able to find an explanation. The Spiritists say simply that, if it spreads, in spite of criticism, it is because they find it good and prefer its reasoning to that of its contradictors.

— Nevertheless, Spiritism is not a modern discovery. The facts and the principles upon which it rests are lost in the night of time, for traces of them are found in the beliefs of all peoples, in all religions, in the majority of sacred and profane writers; only the facts, incompletely observed, were often interpreted in accordance with the superstitious ideas of ignorance, and no one had deduced all their consequences.

Indeed, Spiritism is founded on the existence of the Spirits; but, the Spirits being no more than the souls of men, since there have been men there have been Spirits. Spiritism neither discovered them nor invented them. If souls or Spirits can manifest themselves to the living, it is because this is in Nature and, thus, since all times they have been able to do so. That is why in all times and everywhere one finds the proof of these manifestations, abundant especially in the biblical narratives. What is modern is the logical explanation of the facts, the more complete knowledge of the nature of the Spirits, their role and their mode of action, the revelation of our future state; in short, their constitution into a body of science and of doctrine, with its various applications. The Ancients knew the principles, the Moderns know the details. In Antiquity, the study of these phenomena was the privilege of certain castes, who revealed them only to those initiated in their mysteries. In the Middle Ages, those who occupied themselves with them openly were held to be sorcerers and burned; but, today, there are mysteries for no one and people are no longer burned. Everything takes place in full light and everyone can enlighten themselves and practice, since there are mediums everywhere. The Doctrine itself that the Spirits teach today has nothing new about it. We find it fragmented in the majority of the philosophers of India, of Egypt, and of Greece, and entire in the teachings of the Christ.

— What, then, does Spiritism come to do? It comes to confirm, by means of new testimonies, to demonstrate, by facts, truths that are unknown or ill understood, to reestablish the true meaning of those that have been ill interpreted.

It is true that Spiritism teaches nothing new. But, will it not be something to prove, in a patent, irrefutable manner, the existence of the soul, its survival of the body, its individuality after death, its immortality, the future punishments and rewards? How many people believe in these things, but with a vague feeling of uncertainty, saying in their inmost being: “What if, after all, it were not so?” How many have been led to incredulity because the future was presented to them under an aspect that their reason could not admit? Will it be of no value to the wavering believer to be able to say to himself: “Now I am certain”? and to the blind man to affirm: “Now I see the light”? By the facts and by its logic, Spiritism comes to dissipate the anxiety of doubt and to lead back to faith those who have strayed from it. Revealing to us the existence of the invisible world that surrounds us and in the midst of which we live without suspecting it, it makes known to us, by the example of those who have lived, the conditions of our future happiness or our future misfortune; it explains the cause of our sufferings on Earth and the manner of softening them. Its propagation will have as its inevitable effect the destruction of the materialist doctrines, which cannot resist the evidence. Man, convinced of the grandeur and the importance of his future existence, which is eternal, compares it with the uncertainty of earthly life, which is so short, and rises in thought above the petty human considerations. Knowing the cause and the aim of his miseries, he bears them with patience and resignation, because he knows that they are the means of arriving at a better state. The example of those who come from beyond the tomb to describe their joys or their sorrows, proving the reality of the future life, proves, at the same time, that the justice of God leaves no vice without punishment and no virtue without reward.

— Let us add, finally, that communications with the beloved beings whom we have lost afford a sweet consolation, proving not only that they exist, but also that we are less separated from them than if they were alive and in a foreign country.

In sum, Spiritism softens the bitterness of the afflictions of life; it calms the despairs and the agitations of the soul, dissipates the uncertainties or the terrors of the future, restrains the thought of cutting life short by suicide. For this very reason, it makes happy those who become imbued with it, and this is the great secret of its rapid propagation.

— From the religious point of view, Spiritism has as its basis the fundamental truths of all religions: God, the soul, immortality, the future punishments and rewards, independent of any particular form of worship. Its aim is to prove, to those who deny or doubt, that the soul exists, that it survives the body and experiences after death the consequences of the good or the evil it has done during corporeal life. Now, this belongs to all religions. As a belief in the Spirits, it likewise belongs to all religions, as it belongs to all peoples, since, wherever there are men, there are souls or Spirits; and since the manifestations are of all times, the accounts of them being found in all religions, without exception. One can, therefore, be Catholic, Greek or Roman, Protestant, Jewish, or Muslim, and believe in the manifestations of the Spirits; consequently, be a Spiritist. The proof of this is that Spiritism has adherents in all the sects. As to morality, it is essentially Christian, for that which it teaches is no more than the development and the application of that of the Christ, the purest of all, whose superiority is contested by no one, evident proof that it is the law of God. Now, morality is for the use of all the world. Independent of any form of worship, prescribing none and not occupying itself with the particular dogmas, Spiritism is not a special religion, since it has neither priests nor temples. To those who ask it whether they do well to follow such or such a practice, it answers: “If you believe that your conscience requires it, do it; God always takes the intention into account. In a word, it imposes itself upon no one; it does not address itself to those who have faith and to whom this faith suffices, but to the numerous category of the undecided and the incredulous; these, it does not snatch away from the Church, since, in whole or in part, they have already separated themselves from it morally; it merely leads them to travel three-quarters of the way, in order to enter it, leaving to it to do the rest.” n

— It is true that Spiritism combats certain beliefs, such as the eternity of punishments, the material fire of hell, the personality of the devil, etc. But it is also certain that these beliefs, imposed as absolute, have only generated incredulous ones, in all times and still today. By giving to these dogmas and some others a rational interpretation, Spiritism leads back to faith those who have strayed from it, thus rendering a service to religion. That is why a venerable ecclesiastic said in this regard: “Spiritism makes one believe in something; now, it is better to believe in something than to believe in absolutely nothing.”

— The Spirits being no more than the souls of men, one cannot deny the Spirits without denying the soul. Souls or Spirits being admitted, the question, reduced to its simplest expression, is this: “Can the souls of those who have died communicate with the living?” Spiritism answers in the affirmative and proves it by material facts. What proof can be given that this is not possible? If it is so, all the denials in the world will not prevent it from being so, since it is a matter neither of a system nor of a theory, but of a law of Nature. Now, against the laws of Nature the will of man is impotent. Whether one wishes it or not, there is no way to avoid accepting its consequences and conforming our beliefs and habits to them. [1]

[See The Mediums' Book.]

[2] Translator's note: Concerning this passage, Allan Kardec makes his thought even clearer in this excerpt: “Spiritism does not address itself to those who have some faith and to whom this faith suffices, but to those who have none or who doubt, and it gives them the belief that they lack, no longer more particularly that of Catholicism, of Protestantism, of Judaism, or of Islam, but the fundamental belief, the indispensable basis of all religion. There its role ends. This basis being established, each one is free to follow the route that best satisfies his reason.” (See the final excerpt of footnote no. 3 of the Spiritist Review of September 1867. In the book printed by FEB, footnote no. 18, on p. 120 of the book.)