EVENTS.

Question. — The communication given a few days ago suggests, it would seem, very grave events. Can you give us some explanations in this regard?

Answer. — We cannot specify the facts. What we can say is that there will be much ruin and desolation, for the foretold times of a renewal of Humanity have arrived.

Q. — Who will cause these ruins? Will it be a cataclysm?

A. — There will be no cataclysm of a material order, as you understand it, but scourges of every kind will lay waste the nations; war will decimate the peoples; the ancient institutions will be engulfed in waves of blood. It is necessary that the old world crumble, so that a new era may open to progress. Q. — Will the war then not be confined to one region?

A. — No, it will encompass the Earth.

Q. — Nothing, however, at this moment, seems to presage an approaching storm.

A. — Things are hanging by a spider's thread, half-broken.

Q. — Might one, without indiscretion, ask whence the first spark will issue?

A. — From Italy.

May 12, 1856. — (Personal session at the home of Mr. Baudin.)

EVENTS.

Question (to the Spirit of Truth). — What do you think of M…? Is he a man who will come to influence events?

Answer. — Much noise. He has good ideas; he is a man of action, but he is not a head.

Q. — Should what was said be taken literally, that is, that it falls to him to play the role of destroying what exists?

A. — No; it was merely intended to personify in him the party whose ideas he represents.

Q. — May I maintain relations of friendship with him?

A. — For now, no; you would run useless dangers.

Q. — Having a medium at his disposal, M… says that the course of events was determined for him, so to speak, to a fixed date. Is this true?

A. — Yes, epochs were determined for him, but it was frivolous Spirits who answered him, Spirits who know no more than he does and who exploit his exaltation. You know that we must not specify future things. The foreseen events will certainly take place at a near time, but one that cannot be determined. Q. — The Spirits said that the times have arrived in which such things must happen: in what sense are these words to be taken?

A. — When it is a matter of things of such gravity, what are a few years more or less? They never occur abruptly, like the flash of a lightning bolt; they are long prepared by partial events that serve as their precursors, like the muffled rumblings that precede the eruption of a volcano. One may therefore say that the times have arrived, without that meaning that things will happen tomorrow. It means only that you find yourselves in the period in which they will be verified. Q. — Do you confirm what was said, that is, that there will be no cataclysms?

A. — Without doubt, you have neither a deluge to fear, nor the conflagration of your planet, nor other facts of that kind, for the local disturbances that have been produced in all epochs cannot be called cataclysms. There will only be a cataclysm of a moral nature, of which men will be the instruments.