MY SPIRITUAL GUIDE.

At that time, I lived on the Rue des Martyrs, no. 8, on the second floor, at the rear. One evening, while I was in my study at work, small raps made themselves heard on the wall that separated me from the neighboring room. At first I paid them no attention; but as they were repeated more loudly, shifting their location, I proceeded to a minute exploration of both sides of the wall, listened to verify whether they came from the other floor, and discovered nothing. What was singular was that, each time I set about investigating, the noise ceased, only to begin again as soon as I resumed my work. My wife came in from the street around ten o'clock; she came to my study and, hearing the raps, asked me what it was. I do not know, I answered her, it has been going on for an hour. We investigated together, with no better success. The noise continued until midnight, when I went to bed. The following day, as there was a session at Mr. Baudin's house, I related the fact and asked that it be explained to me.

Question. — You have no doubt heard the account I have just given; could you tell me what was the cause of those raps that made themselves heard with such persistence?

Answer. — It was your familiar Spirit.

Q. — To what end did it rap in that manner?

A. — It wished to communicate with you.

Q. — Could you tell me who it is?

A. — You may ask it yourself, for it is here.

NOTE. — At that time, no distinction was yet made among the various categories of sympathetic Spirits. They were all given the designation of familiar Spirits.

Q. — My familiar Spirit, whoever you may be, I thank you for having come to visit me. Will you consent to tell me who you are?

A. — For you, I shall call myself The Truth, and every month, here, for a quarter of an hour, I shall be at your disposal.

Q. — Yesterday, when you rapped while I was at work, did you have something particular to say to me?

A. — What I had to say to you concerned the work to which you were applying yourself; what you were writing displeased me, and I wished to make you abandon it.

NOTE. — What I was writing concerned, precisely, the studies I had undertaken regarding the Spirits and their manifestations.

Q. — Did your disapproval refer to the chapter I was writing or to the work as a whole?

A. — To yesterday's chapter; I submit it to your judgment; if you reread it, you will recognize your faults and will correct them.

Q. — I myself was not satisfied with that chapter and redid it today. Is it better?

A. — It is better, but it still does not satisfy. Reread from the 3rd to the 30th line and you will come upon a grave error.

Q. — I tore up what I had written yesterday.

A. — It does not matter! That did not prevent the fault from remaining. Reread and you will see.

Q. — Does the name Truth, which you adopted, constitute an allusion to the truth that I seek?

A. — Perhaps; at the least, it is a guide that will protect and help you.

Q. — May I evoke you in my home?

A. — Yes, to assist you by thought; but as for written answers in your home, you will only be able to obtain them a long time from now.

NOTE. — Indeed, for about a year, I obtained no written communication in my home, and whenever a medium was there with whom I hoped to obtain something, an unforeseen circumstance opposed it. Only outside my home did I manage to receive communications. Q. — Could you come more often and not only from month to month?

A. — Yes, but I promise no more than once a month, until further notice.

Q. — Did you animate on Earth some known personage?

A. — I have already told you that, for you, I am the Truth; this, for you, means discretion; you will learn nothing more about it.

NOTE. — That evening, on returning home, I hastened to reread what I had written. Both in the paper I had thrown into the wastebasket and in the new copy I had made, I came upon, in the 30th line, a grave error, which I was astonished to have committed. From then on, no other manifestation of the same kind as the earlier ones occurred. Having become unnecessary, since my relations with my protecting Spirit had been established, they ceased. The interval of a month, which it had set for its communications, was only rarely maintained, at the beginning. Later, it ceased to be maintained altogether. It had no doubt been a warning that I had to work by myself, and so as not to be constantly resorting to its aid at the least difficulty. April 9, 1856. — (At Mr. Baudin's house; medium: Miss Baudin.)

Question (to the Truth.) — The other day you criticized the work I had done, and you were right. I reread it and found in the 30th line an error against which you protested by means of the raps you made me hear. That led me to discover other defects and to redo the work. Are you now satisfied? Answer. — I find it better, but I advise you to wait a month before divulging it.

Q. — What do you mean, in speaking of divulging it? I have not, as you well know, the intention of publishing it now, if indeed I am to publish it.

A. — I mean: showing it to others. Seek a pretext to refuse this to those who ask you to see it. Between now and then you will improve the work. I make you this recommendation in order to spare you criticism; I am guarding your self-esteem. Q. — You said that you will be for me a guide, who will help and protect me. I understand that protection and its purpose, within a certain order of things; but could you tell me whether that protection also extends to the material things of life? A. — In this world, material life is much to be taken into account; not to help you to live would be not to love you.

NOTE. — The protection of that Spirit, whose superiority I was then far from imagining, never, in fact, failed me. Its solicitude, and that of the good Spirits who acted under its orders, manifested itself in all the circumstances of my life, whether to remove material difficulties for me, or to facilitate the execution of my labors, or, finally, to preserve me from the effects of the malice of my antagonists, who were always reduced to impotence. If the tribulations inherent in the mission it fell to me to fulfill could not be spared me, they were always softened and largely compensated by many most gratifying moral satisfactions.