Introduction.

— The rapidity with which the strange phenomena of Spiritist manifestations have spread throughout all parts of the world is evident proof of the interest they arouse. At first a mere object of curiosity, they did not take long to draw the attention of serious men, who from the very outset glimpsed in them the inevitable influence they would come to have upon the moral state of society. The new ideas that arise from these phenomena become more widely known each day, and nothing can halt their progress, for the simple reason that they are within the reach of everyone, or of nearly everyone, and no human power will prevent them from manifesting. If they are smothered here, they reappear in a hundred other places. Those, then, who might see in them some sort of drawback would be constrained, by the very force of the facts, to suffer their consequences, as commonly happens with new industries which, at their origin, injure private interests, soon to be absorbed, since it could not be otherwise. What has not already been done and said against magnetism! And yet, all the bolts hurled against it, all the weapons with which it was struck, even ridicule, crumbled before reality and served only to place it even more in evidence. This is because magnetism is a natural force, and before the forces of Nature man is a pygmy, like little dogs that bark uselessly against everything that might frighten them. With Spiritist manifestations the same thing happens as with somnambulism: if they are not produced in broad daylight and publicly, no one will prevent them from occurring in private, for every family can discover a medium among its members, from children to the elderly, just as it may find a somnambulist. Who, then, can prevent the first person we meet from being a medium and a somnambulist? Doubtless, those who combat it have not reflected on this. We insist: when a force is in Nature, it can be halted for an instant, but never annihilated! Its course can only be diverted. Now, the force that reveals itself in the phenomenon of manifestations, whatever its cause may be, is in Nature, just as magnetism is, and it can no more be exterminated than electrical force will be. What matters is that it be observed and studied in all its phases, in order to deduce the laws that govern it. If it is an error, an illusion, time will do justice; but if it is true, truth is like steam: the more it is compressed, the greater its force of expansion.

— It rightly causes astonishment that, while in America the United States alone possesses seventeen newspapers devoted to this subject, not counting countless non-periodical writings, France, the country of Europe where such ideas have most rapidly become acclimatized, possesses none. n The usefulness of a special organ cannot be contested—one that keeps the public abreast of the progress of this new Science and forewarns it against the excesses of credulity as well as of skepticism. It is this gap that we propose to fill with the publication of this Review, aiming to offer a means of communication to all who take an interest in these questions, binding together, through a common bond, those who understand the Spiritist Doctrine in its true moral point of view: the practice of good and evangelical charity toward all. Were it merely a matter of a collection of facts, the task would be easy; they multiply everywhere with such rapidity that material would not be lacking; but the facts, by themselves, become monotonous through repetition and, above all, through similarity. What the rational man needs is something that speaks to his intelligence. Few years have passed since the appearance of the first phenomena, and we are already far from the era of the turning and talking tables, which were its initial manifestations. Today it is a science that reveals a whole world of mysteries, making patent the eternal truths that were only sensed by our spirit; it is a sublime doctrine that shows man the path of duty, opening the vastest field ever presented until now to philosophical observation. Our work would therefore be incomplete and barren if we kept ourselves within the narrow limits of an anecdotal review, whose interest would quickly be exhausted. Perhaps the qualification of science, which we give to Spiritism, will be contested. Certainly it would not, in any case, have the characteristics of an exact science, and it is precisely there that lies the error of those who claim to judge and test it like a chemical analysis or a mathematical problem; it is enough that it be a philosophical science. Every science must be based upon facts, but facts, by themselves, do not constitute science; it is born from the coordination and logical deduction of facts: it is the body of laws that govern them. Has Spiritism reached the state of a science? If by this is meant a completed science, it would doubtless be premature to answer in the affirmative; nevertheless, the observations are already today numerous enough to allow us to deduce, at the very least, the general principles, where science begins. The reasoned examination of the facts and of the consequences that flow from them is, therefore, a complement without which our publication would be of mediocre usefulness, offering only a very secondary interest to whoever reflects and wishes to acquaint himself with what he sees. However, since our aim is to arrive at the truth, we shall welcome all the observations addressed to us and shall try, insofar as the state of acquired knowledge permits, to resolve doubts and clarify the points still obscure. Our Review will thus be a free tribune, in which discussion shall never depart from the norms of the strictest propriety. In a word: we shall discuss, but we shall not dispute. Improprieties of language have never been good arguments in the eyes of sensible people; it is the weapon of those who possess nothing better, turning against those who make use of it.

— Although the phenomena with which we occupy ourselves have been produced, in recent times, in a more general manner, everything proves that they have occurred since the most remote ages. There are no natural phenomena in the inventions that accompany the progress of the human spirit; since they are in the order of things, their cause is as old as the world and their effects must have been produced in every epoch. What we witness today, therefore, is not a modern discovery: it is the awakening of Antiquity, freed from the mystical wrapping that engendered superstitions; of Antiquity enlightened by civilization and by progress in positive things.

The capital consequence that emerges from these phenomena is the communication that men can establish with the beings of the incorporeal world and, within certain limits, the knowledge they can acquire about their future state. The fact of communications with the invisible world is found, in unequivocal terms, in the biblical books; but, on the one hand, for certain skeptics, the Bible has not sufficient authority; on the other hand, for believers, they are supernatural facts, brought about by a special favor of the Divinity. There would not be here, for everyone, a proof of the generality of these manifestations, if we did not find them in thousands of other different sources. The existence of Spirits, and their intervention in the corporeal world, is attested and demonstrated no longer as an exceptional fact, but as a general principle, in Saint Augustine, Saint Jerome, Saint John Chrysostom, Saint Gregory Nazianzen, and so many other Fathers of the Church. This belief forms, moreover, the basis of all religious systems. It was admitted by the wisest philosophers of Antiquity: Plato, Zoroaster, Confucius, Apuleius, Pythagoras, Apollonius of Tyana, and so many others. We find it in the mysteries and in the oracles, among the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Hindus, the Chaldeans, the Romans, the Persians, the Chinese. We see it survive all the vicissitudes of peoples, all the persecutions, and defy all the physical and moral revolutions of Humanity. Later we find it among the diviners and sorcerers of the Middle Ages, in the Willis and the Valkyries of the Scandinavians, in the Elves of the Teutons, in the Leschies and the Domeschnios Doughi of the Slavs, in the Ourisks and the Brownies of Scotland, in the Poulpicans and the Tensarpoulicts of the Bretons, in the Cemis of the Caribs, in a word, in the whole phalanx of nymphs, of good and evil genii, in the sylphs, gnomes, fairies and goblins, with which all nations peopled space. We find the practice of evocations among the peoples of Siberia, in Kamchatka, in Iceland, among the natives of North America and the aborigines of Mexico and of Peru, in Polynesia and even among the stupid savages of New Holland. Whatever the absurdities that surround this belief and disfigure it according to the times and the places, one cannot disagree that it proceeds from one and the same principle, more or less distorted. Now, a doctrine does not become universal, does not survive thousands of generations, does not implant itself from one pole to the other, among the most diverse peoples, belonging to every degree of the social scale, if it is not founded upon something positive. What might that something be? It is what the recent manifestations demonstrate to us. To seek the relations that may exist between such manifestations and all these beliefs is to seek the truth. The history of the Spiritist Doctrine is, in a certain way, the history of the human spirit; we shall have to study it in all the sources, which will furnish us with an inexhaustible mine of observations as instructive as they are interesting, on facts generally little known. This part will give us the opportunity to explain the origin of a host of legends and popular beliefs, drawing from them what touches upon truth, allegory, and superstition.

— As regards the present manifestations, we shall give an explanation of all the patent phenomena that we witness or that come to our knowledge, when they seem to us to merit the attention of our readers. We shall do likewise with respect to the spontaneous effects that sometimes occur among persons foreign to Spiritist practices and that reveal either the action of an occult power or the emancipation of the soul; such are visions, apparitions, second sight, presentiments, inner warnings, secret voices, etc. To the narration of the facts we shall add the explanation, as it emerges from the body of principles. In this regard we shall point out that these principles flow from the very teaching given by the Spirits, always setting aside our own ideas. It will not, therefore, be a personal theory that we expound, but the one that has been communicated to us and of which we shall be only mere interpreters. A great space will likewise be reserved for the written or verbal communications of the Spirits, whenever they have a useful aim, as well as for the evocations of ancient or modern personages, known or obscure, without neglecting the private evocations which, very often, are no less instructive; in a word: we shall embrace all the phases of the material and intelligent manifestations of the incorporeal world.

The Spiritist Doctrine offers us, in short, the only possible and rational solution to a multitude of moral and anthropological phenomena, of which we are witnesses daily and for which one would seek, in vain, the explanation in all known doctrines. In this category we shall classify, for example, the simultaneity of thoughts, the anomaly of certain characters, sympathies and antipathies, intuitive knowledge, aptitudes, propensities, the destinies that seem marked by fatality and, in a more general picture, the distinctive character of peoples, their progress or their degeneration, etc. To the citation of the facts we shall add the inquiry into the causes that might have produced them. From the appraisal of these facts there will naturally emerge useful teachings as to the line of conduct most in conformity with sound morality. In their instructions, the Higher Spirits always have as their objective to awaken in men the love of good, through the evangelical precepts; for this very reason they trace for us the thought that must preside over the editing of this collection. Our framework, as may be seen, comprises everything connected with the knowledge of the metaphysical part of man; we shall study it in its present state and in the future, since to study the nature of the Spirits is to study man, considering that he must one day form part of the world of Spirits. This is why we have added, to our principal title, that of journal of psychological studies, in order to make its full importance understood.

— Note: However abundant our personal observations and the sources from which we have gathered them, we do not conceal the difficulties of the task, nor our own insufficiency. To supplement it, we count on the benevolent assistance of all who take an interest in these questions; we shall, therefore, be quite grateful for the communications they may be so good as to transmit to us concerning the various subjects of our studies; in this regard we draw attention to the following points, on which they may furnish documents:

1st Material or intelligent manifestations obtained in the gatherings they attend;

2nd Facts of somnambulistic lucidity and of ecstasy;

3rd Facts of second sight, predictions, presentiments, etc.;

4th Facts relating to the occult power, attributed with or without reason to certain individuals;

5th Legends and popular beliefs;

6th Facts of visions and apparitions;

7th Particular psychological phenomena, which sometimes occur at the instant of death;

8th Moral and psychological problems to be resolved;

9th Moral facts, notable acts of devotion and abnegation, of which it may be useful to propagate the example;

10th Indication of ancient or modern works, French or foreign, in which facts relating to the manifestation of occult intelligences are found, with the designation and, if possible, the citation of the passages. Likewise, with respect to the opinion expressed on the existence of Spirits and their relations with men, by ancient or modern authors whose name and learning may give them authority.

We shall not make known the names of the persons who send us communications, unless we are formally authorized to do so.

[1] Until now there exists in Europe only one newspaper devoted to the Spiritist Doctrine—the Journal de l'âme, published in Geneva by Dr. Boessinger. In America, the only newspaper in French is the Spiritualiste de la Nouvelle Orléans, published by Mr. Barthès.