A question of priority concerning Spiritism.

Mr. Ch. Renard, one of our subscribers from Rambouillet, addressed to us the following letter:

“Sir and worthy brother in Spiritism, I read, or rather I devour with indescribable pleasure the issues of your Review, as I receive them. For my part this is no cause for astonishment, since my relatives were diviners, generation after generation. One of my great-aunts or great-grandmothers had even been condemned to the stake as contumacious in the crime of Vauldrie and a frequenter of the sabbath, escaping death only because she took refuge in the house of one of her sisters, an abbess of cloistered nuns. This caused me to inherit a few crumbs of the occult sciences, which did not prevent me from passing through the belief in materialism, if there be faith therein, and through scepticism. At last, weary and sick of so much denying, the works of the celebrated ecstatic Swedenborg led me to truth and to good. Becoming an ecstatic myself, I became convinced ad vivum of the truths that the materialized Spirits of our globe cannot comprehend. I obtained communications of every kind: phenomena of visibility, tangibility, transport of lost objects, etc. Good brother, would you have the kindness to insert the following note in one of your upcoming issues? It is not a matter of self-love, but of my very condition as a Frenchman.” “At times small causes produce great effects. Around 1840 I had established relations with Mr. Cahagnet, a turner and cabinetmaker, who had come to Rambouillet for reasons of health. I esteemed and initiated this workman, of exceptional intelligence, into human magnetism. I said to him one day: I am almost certain that a lucid somnambulist is able to see the souls of the dead and to enter into conversation with them; he was astonished. I induced him to make such an experiment when he should have a lucid somnambulist at his disposal. He succeeded in it and published a first volume of experiments in necromancy, followed by other volumes and brochures that were translated in America under the title Celestial Telegraph. Some time later, the ecstatic Davis published his visions or excursions through the spirit world. Concerning the dematerialized, Franklin made researches that resulted in manifestations and communications easier than in former times. The first persons he mediumized in the United States were the widow Fox w and her two daughters. There was a rather singular coincidence between that name and mine, considering that the English word fox means raposa (renard). “Long ago the Spirits had told me that we would be able to enter into communication with the Spirits of other globes and to receive from them drawings and descriptions. I laid the matter before Mr. Cahagnet, but he went no further than our satellite.

“I am, etc.

CH. Renard.”

Observation. – The question of priority in matters of Spiritism is, without the slightest doubt, a secondary question; but it is no less remarkable that, since the importation of the American phenomena, a number of authentic facts, unknown to the public, have revealed the production of similar phenomena, whether in France or in other countries of Europe, in a contemporary or earlier period. It is within our knowledge that several persons occupied themselves with spiritist communications long before there was any news of turning tables, and of this we have proofs with certain dates. Mr. Renard appears to be among that number and, according to him, his experiments would not have been unconnected with those that were carried out in America. We record his observation as interesting history of Spiritism and to prove, once more, that this science has its roots in the whole world, which deprives those who would like to oppose a barrier to it of any possibility of success. If they stifle it at one point, it will be reborn stronger in a hundred other places, until, doubt being no longer permitted, it will take its position among the usual beliefs. Then its adversaries, willing or not, will have to take its side. [1] Translator’s note: Our emphasis. A nocturnal gathering of witchcraft.