Mehemet-Ali, former pasha of Egypt.

What impelled you to answer our call?

Answer. – To instruct you.

Are you annoyed to come to us and answer the questions we wish to put to you?

Answer. – No; those whose aim is your instruction, I consent to.

What proof can we have of your identity, and how can we know whether it is not another Spirit taking your name? Answer. – What purpose would that serve?

We know from experience that inferior Spirits often make use of assumed names; that is why we put this question to you. Answer. – They also make use of proofs; but the Spirit who takes a mask also reveals himself by his own words.

Under what form and in what place are you among us?

Answer. – Under the one bearing the name of Mehemet-Ali; near Ermance.

Would you like us to give you a special place?

Answer. – The empty chair.

Observation. – Nearby there was an empty chair, to which no attention had been paid.

Do you have a precise recollection of your last corporeal existence?

Answer. – I do not yet have it precise; death left me its disturbance.

Are you happy?

Answer. – No; unhappy.

Are you wandering or reincarnated?

Answer. – Wandering.

Do you recall what you were before your last existence?

Answer. – I was poor on Earth; I envied earthly greatnesses: I rose in order to suffer.

If you could be reborn on Earth, what condition would you choose by preference?

Answer. – An obscure one; the duties are too great.

What do you now think of the position you last occupied on Earth?

Answer. – Vanity of nothingness! I wanted to lead men; did I know how to lead myself?

It was said that for some time your reason had been impaired; is that true?

Answer. – No.

Public opinion appreciates what you did for Egyptian civilization, and places you among the greatest princes. Do you feel satisfaction at this? Answer. – What does it matter to me! The opinion of men is the wind of the desert that raises the dust.

Do you see with pleasure your descendants treading the same path? Do you take an interest in their efforts? Answer. – Yes, since they have the common good as their aim.

Yet you are accused of acts of great cruelty: are you ashamed of them now?

Answer. – I expiate them.

Do you see those whom you ordered to be massacred?

Answer. – Yes.

What sentiment do they feel for you?

Answer. – That of hatred and that of pity.

After you left this life did you see the sultan Mahamud again?

Answer. – Yes: in vain do we flee from one another.

What sentiment do you now feel for one another?

Answer. – That of aversion.

What is your present opinion on the penalties and rewards that await us after death?

Answer. – Expiation is just.

What was the greatest obstacle you had to overcome for the achievement of your progressive aims? Answer. – I reigned over slaves.

Do you think that if the people you governed had been Christian, it would have been less rebellious to civilization? Answer. – Yes; the Christian religion elevates the soul; the Mohammedan one speaks only to matter.

When alive, was your faith in the Muslim religion absolute?

Answer. – No; I believed in a greater God.

What do you think of it now?

Answer. – It does not make men.

In your opinion, did Muhammad have a divine mission?

Answer. – Yes, but one which he corrupted.

In what did he corrupt it?

Answer. – He wanted to reign.

What do you think of Jesus?

Answer. – That one came from God.

In your opinion, which of the two, Jesus or Muhammad, did more for the happiness of Humanity? Answer. – Why do you ask it? What people did Muhammad regenerate? The Christian religion came forth pure from the hand of God; the Mohammedan one is the work of man.

Do you believe that one of these two religions is destined to disappear from the face of the Earth? Answer. – Man always progresses; the better one will remain.

What do you think of the polygamy consecrated by the Muslim religion?

Answer. – It is one of the bonds that hold in barbarism the peoples who profess it.

Do you believe that the submission of woman conforms to the designs of God?

Answer. – No; woman is equal to man, since the Spirit has no sex.

It is said that the Arab people can be led only by severity; do you not think that ill-treatment, instead of subduing it, rather brutalizes it the more? Answer. – Yes, it is the destiny of man; he debases himself when he is a slave.

Could you refer back to the times of Antiquity, when Egypt was flourishing, and tell us what were the causes of its moral decadence? Answer. – The corruption of morals.

It seems that you made little account of the historical monuments that cover the soil of Egypt. We cannot understand that indifference on the part of a prince who is a friend of progress. Answer. – What does the past matter! The present would not replace it.

Could you explain yourself more clearly?

Answer. – Yes. It was not necessary to remind the debased Egyptian of a too brilliant past: he would not have understood it. I disdained that which seemed useless to me; could I not have been mistaken?

Did the priests of ancient Egypt have knowledge of the Spiritist Doctrine?

Answer. – It was theirs.

Did they receive manifestations?

Answer. – Yes.

Did the manifestations obtained by the Egyptian priests come from the same source as those received by Moses? Answer. – Yes, he was initiated by them.

Why were the manifestations of Moses more powerful than those received by the Egyptian priests? Answer. – Moses wanted to reveal; the Egyptian priests, only to conceal.

Do you believe that the doctrine of the Egyptian priests had any relation to that of the Indians? Answer. – Yes; all the primitive religions are linked to one another by almost imperceptible bonds; they proceed from one and the same source.

Of these two religions, that of the Egyptians and that of the Indians, which of them is the mother of the other? Answer. – They are sisters.

How is it explained that in life you were so little enlightened on these questions, and now can answer them with such profundity? Answer. – Other existences taught it to me.

In the wandering state in which you now are, do you then have full knowledge of your previous existences? Answer. – Yes, except for the last.

You have, then, lived in the time of the Pharaohs?

Answer. – Yes; three times I lived on Egyptian soil: as a priest, as a beggar, and as a prince.

Under what reign were you a priest?

Answer. – It is so long ago! The prince was your Sesostris.

Accordingly, it seems that you have not progressed, since you now expiate the faults of your last existence. Answer. – Yes, I progressed slowly; was I perchance perfect for having been a priest?

Was it because you were a priest at that time that you could speak with full knowledge of the matter about the ancient religion of the Egyptians? Answer. – Yes; but I am not perfect enough to know everything; others read in the past as in an open book.

Could you give us an explanation about the reason for the construction of the pyramids?

Answer. – It is too late.

(Note: It was nearly eleven o'clock at night.)

We will put only one more question to you; will you deign to have the kindness to answer it? Answer. – No, it is too late; that question would give rise to others.

Could you answer it on another occasion?

Answer. – I do not commit myself to that.

Even so, we thank you for the benevolence with which you answered our questions.

Answer. – Very well! I will return.

[Review of November 1858.]

MEHEMET-ALI.

(Second conversation.)

In the name of Almighty God, I beg the Spirit Mehmet-Ali to consent to communicate with us. Answer. – Yes; I know the reason.

You promised to come to us, in order to instruct us; would you have the kindness to hear us and answer us? Answer. – I do not promise, since I did not commit myself.

So be it; in place of "you promised," let us put that you made us wait.

Answer. – That is, to satisfy your curiosity; no matter! I will lend myself to it a little.

Since you lived in the time of the pharaohs, could you tell us for what purpose the pyramids were constructed? Answer. – They are sepulchers; sepulchers and temples: there great manifestations took place.

Did they also have a scientific purpose?

Answer. – No; the religious interest absorbed everything.

It would be necessary that the Egyptians had been, from that time, very advanced in the mechanical arts to carry out works that required such considerable forces. Could you give us an idea of the means they employed? Answer. – Human masses groaned under the weight of stones that crossed the centuries: man was the machine.

What class of men occupied themselves with these great works?

Answer. – The one you call the people.

Was the people in a state of slavery or did it receive a wage?

Answer. – By force.

Whence came to the Egyptians the taste for colossal things, instead of that for graceful things which distinguished the Greeks, although they had the same origin? Answer. – The Egyptian was touched by the greatness of God; to Him he sought to make himself equal, surpassing his own forces. Always man!

Considering that you were a priest at that time, could you tell us something about the religion of the ancient Egyptians? What was the belief of the people regarding the Divinity? Answer. – Corrupted, they believed in their priests; these were gods to them, before whom they bowed.

What did they think of the soul after death?

Answer. – They believed what the priests told them.

Under the double point of view of God and the soul, did the priests have sounder ideas than the people? Answer. – Yes, they had the light in their hands; concealing it from others, they nonetheless perceived it.

Did the great ones of the State share the belief of the people or that of the priests?

Answer. – They were between the two.

What is the origin of the cult rendered to animals?

Answer. – They wanted to turn man away from God and keep him under their domination, giving him inferior beings as gods.

Up to a certain point the cult of domestic animals is conceivable, but that of the unclean and harmful animals, such as serpents, crocodiles, etc., is not understood! Answer. – Man adores that which he fears. It was a yoke for the people. Could the priests believe in gods come forth from their own hands?

Would it not be a paradox to adore the crocodile and the reptiles and, at the same time, the ichneumon and the ibis, which destroyed them? Answer. – Aberration of the Spirit; man seeks gods everywhere in order to conceal himself from what he is.

— Why was Osiris represented with the head of a hawk and Anubis with that of a dog?

Answer. – The Egyptian liked to personify under the form of clear emblems: Anubis was good; the hawk that rends represented the cruel Osiris.

How is one to reconcile the respect of the Egyptians for the dead with the contempt and horror for those who buried and mummified them? Answer. – The corpse was an instrument of manifestations: according to them the Spirit returned to the body it had animated. As one of the instruments of worship, the corpse was sacred, and contempt pursued whoever dared to violate the sanctity of death.

Did the preservation of bodies give rise to more numerous manifestations?

Answer. – Longer ones, that is, the Spirit returned for a longer time, provided the instrument was docile.

Did the preservation of bodies also aim at salubrity, on account of the inundations of the Nile? Answer. – Yes, for those of the people.

Was initiation into the mysteries carried out in Egypt with practices as rigorous as in Greece? Answer. – More rigorous.

To what end were conditions so difficult to fulfill imposed upon the initiates?

Answer. – So that there should be none but superior souls; these knew how to understand and to keep silent.

Did the teaching given in the mysteries have as its sole aim the revelation of extra-human things, or were the precepts of morality and of love for one's neighbor also taught there? Answer. – All that was thoroughly corrupted. The aim of the priests was to dominate and not to instruct. [1] [see Mehemet-Ali.]

Dynasty of Méhémet Ali.

[2] Ichneumon: The Egyptian mongoose, ichneumon, pharaoh rat, manguço or escalavardo (Herpestes ichneumon) is a mongoose of Europe, Asia, and Africa, esteemed by the ancient Egyptians for being considered a great devourer of crocodile eggs. — The ibises are wading birds with a long neck and a long beak curved downward. In Ancient Egypt, the ibis was an object of religious veneration and associated with the god Thoth.