FIRST REVELATION OF MY MISSION.

For some time I had been attending the sessions that took place at Mr. Roustan's house, and I had begun there the revision of my work, which would later form The Spirits' Book. (See the Introduction.) At one of these sessions, very intimate, attended by only seven or eight persons, they were speaking of various things relating to the events capable of bringing about a social transformation, when the medium, taking up the basket, spontaneously wrote this:

“When the staff sounds, you shall abandon it; you shall only relieve your fellow man; you shall magnetize him individually, in order to cure him. Then, each one at the post that has been prepared for him, for everything will be needed, since everything will be destroyed, at least temporarily. There will cease to be a religion, and one will become necessary, but a true one, great, beautiful, and worthy of the Creator… Its first foundations have already been laid… As for you, Rivail, your mission is there. (Free, the basket turned rapidly toward my side, as a person would have done in pointing at me with a finger.) To you, M…, the sword that does not wound, yet kills; against all that exists, you shall be the first to come. He, Rivail, will come in second place: he is the workman who rebuilds what was demolished.” NOTE. — That was the first positive revelation of my mission, and I confess that, when I saw the basket turn abruptly toward my side and designate me by name, I could not keep myself from a certain emotion.

Mr. M…, who attended that meeting, was a young man of the most radical opinions, involved in political affairs and obliged not to place himself too much in evidence. Believing that it concerned an imminent upheaval, he prepared himself to take part in it and to arrange plans of reform. He was, moreover, a mild and inoffensive man.