A SHORT SPIRITIST CONFERENCE - SECOND DIALOGUE. — THE SKEPTIC - Questions 1, 2.

(Summary)

Spiritism and Spiritualism.

— Dissidences.

— Simulated spirit phenomena.

— Impotence of the detractors.

— The marvelous and the supernatural.

— Opposition of Science.

— False explanations of the phenomena.

— It is not enough for unbelievers to see in order to become convinced.

— Good or ill will of the Spirits to convince.

— Origin of the modern spiritist ideas.

— Means of communication.

— Self-interested mediums.

— Mediums and sorcerers.

— Diversity of the Spirits.

— Practical usefulness of the manifestations.

— Madness, suicide, and obsession.

— Elements of conviction.

— Spiritist Society of Paris.

— Interdiction of Spiritism.

The Visitor. — I understand, sir, the usefulness of the preliminary study of which you have just spoken. As a personal predisposition, I will tell you that I am neither for nor against Spiritism, but this subject excites my interest in the highest degree. Among the people of my acquaintance, there are partisans and adversaries of it; I have heard very contradictory arguments on the matter, and I proposed to submit to you some of the objections that were made in my presence and that seem to me of a certain value, at least to me, who confess to you total ignorance on the matter. Allan Kardec. — It will be a pleasure, sir, to answer the questions you may wish to put to me, provided they are made with sincerity and without ulterior motives, although I have no pretension of being able to answer all of them. Spiritism is a science that has just been born and of which there still remains much to learn; it would therefore be great presumption on my part to wish to remove all the difficulties; I can only say what I know.

Spiritism is connected to all the branches of Philosophy, Metaphysics, Psychology, and Morals; it is an immense field that cannot be traversed in a few hours. You will understand, sir, that it would be materially impossible for me to repeat by word of mouth, and to each one in particular, all that I have written on this matter for general use. By doing a prior reading, each individual will find an answer to the greater part of the questions that naturally come to his mind; this reading has the double advantage of avoiding useless repetitions and of proving the sincere desire to instruct oneself. If, after it, there still remain doubts or obscure points, their explanation will become easier, because one already possesses a point of support and need not waste time reviewing the most elementary principles. If you permit, we will limit ourselves, until further notice, to a few general questions.

The Visitor. — Very well; have the kindness to call me to order whenever I stray from it.

Spiritism and Spiritualism.

I ask you, in the first place, what is the necessity of creating new terms: Spiritist and Spiritism, to replace: spiritualist and spiritualism, which exist in common language and are understood by all? I have already heard someone classify such terms as barbarisms.

A. K. — For a long time the word spiritualist has already had a well-determined acceptation; it is the French Academy that gives it to us: Spiritualist, that person, man or woman, whose doctrine is opposed to materialism.

All religions are necessarily founded upon spiritualism. Whoever believes that there exists in us something other than matter is a spiritualist, which does not imply belief in the Spirits and in their manifestations. How could you distinguish him from one who holds this belief? You would be obliged to make use of a periphrasis and say: He is a spiritualist who does or does not believe in the Spirits.

For new things we need new words, in order to avoid ambiguities. If I had given my Review the qualification of spiritualist, I would not have specified its purpose, because, without belying its title, it could well say nothing in it about the Spirits, and even combat them.

Some time ago, I read in a newspaper, with regard to a philosophical work, an article in which it was said that its author had written it from the spiritualist point of view. Now, the partisans of the Spirits would be singularly disappointed if, relying on that indication, they believed they would find some concordance between what it teaches and the ideas admitted by them. If I adopted the terms Spiritist, Spiritism, it is because they express, without ambiguity, the ideas relating to the Spirits. Every Spiritist is necessarily a spiritualist, but not all spiritualists are Spiritists. Even if the Spirits were a chimera, there was usefulness in adopting special terms to designate what refers to them, since false ideas, as well as true ones, must be expressed by proper terms. Moreover, these words are no more barbarous than the others that the sciences, the arts, and industry are daily creating; certainly, they are no more so than the one that Gall imagined for his nomenclature of the faculties, such as: secretiveness, combativeness, alimentiveness, affectionateness, etc. There are people who, out of a spirit of contradiction, criticize everything that does not come from themselves, taking on airs of opposition; those who thus provoke such petty quibbles prove only one thing: the pettiness of their ideas. To cling to such trifles is to demonstrate a lack of good reasons. The words spiritualism, spiritualist are English, and have been employed in the United States since the manifestations of the Spirits began to appear; at the beginning, and for some time, they were also employed in France; soon, however, when the terms Spiritist, Spiritism appeared, their usefulness was understood and they were immediately accepted by the public. Today, their use is so generalized that the adversaries themselves, those who at the beginning classified them as barbarisms, employ no others. The sermons and pastoral letters that thunder against Spiritism and the Spiritists would produce enormous confusion if they were directed at spiritualism and the spiritualists. Barbarous or not, these terms are today included in the usual language and in all the languages of Europe; they are the only ones employed in all the publications, favorable or contrary, made in all countries. They occupy the head of the column of the nomenclature of the new science; to express the special phenomena of this science, we had need of special terms; Spiritism today possesses its nomenclature, just as Chemistry does. n The words spiritualism and spiritualist, applied to the manifestations of the Spirits, are no longer employed today, except by the adepts of the American school.

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N. of A. K.: These words have, moreover, the right of citizenship; they are in the supplement of the Little Dictionary of French Dictionaries, [Petit Dictionnaire des Dictionnaires français;] extracted from Napoléon Landais, a work whose print run reaches 20 thousand copies. There we find the definition and the etymology of the words: erraticity, medianimic, medium, mediumship, perispirit, pneumatography, pneumatophony, psychograph, psychography, psychophony, reincarnation, sematology, Spiritist, Spiritism, spiritist, stereotita, typtology. They are also found in the new edition of the Universal Dictionary, by Maurice Lachâtre, with all the developments they entail.