Mr. Morisson, monomaniac.

Last March, an English newspaper reported the following about Mr. Morisson, who had just died in England, leaving a fortune of a hundred million francs. According to the newspaper, in the last years of his life he was prey to a singular monomania: he imagined himself reduced to extreme poverty and obliged to earn his daily bread by manual labor. His family and his friends had recognized the uselessness of trying to make him change his mind; he was poor, did not possess a cent, and had to work to live: such was his conviction. So they put a hoe in his hands each morning, and sent him to work in his gardens. Soon they came to fetch him, for his task was completed; they paid him a modest wage for the work, and he was content; his spirit was appeased and his mania satisfied. He would have been the most unhappy of men if they had thwarted him.

I ask God Almighty to permit the Spirit Morisson, who has just died in England, leaving a considerable fortune, to communicate with us. Answer. — I am here.

Do you remember the state in which you found yourself during the last two years of your corporeal existence? Answer. — It is always the same.

After death, did your Spirit feel resentment over the aberration of your faculties during life?

Answer. — Yes. (Saint Louis completes the answer, saying spontaneously): “Released from the body, for some time the Spirit feels the compression of its bonds.”

Thus, once dead, did your Spirit not immediately recover the fullness of its faculties?

Answer. — No.

Where are you now?

Answer. — Behind Ermance.

Are you happy or unhappy?

Answer. — Something is lacking to me… I do not know what… I seek… Yes, I suffer.

Why do you suffer?

Answer. — “He suffers for the good he did not do” (Saint Louis).

Whence came that mania of imagining yourself poor with so great a fortune?

Answer. — I was; truly rich is he who has no needs.

What is the origin of that idea that it was necessary to work to live?

Answer. — I was mad and still am.

Where did that madness come from?

Answer. — What does it matter? I had chosen that expiation.

What was the origin of your fortune?

Answer. — What does it matter to you?

Yet the invention you made did not have as its aim the relief of Humanity?

Answer. — And to enrich myself as well.

What use did you make of your fortune when you enjoyed the fullness of reason?

Answer. — None; I believe I enjoyed it.

Why would God have granted you a fortune, since you were not to employ it for the benefit of others?

Answer. — I had chosen the trial.

Is the one who enjoys a fortune acquired by labor not less excusable for becoming attached to it than the one who was born into opulence and never knew need? Answer. — Less so. (Saint Louis adds): “The former knows pain, but does not relieve it.”

Do you remember the existence that preceded the one you have just left?

Answer. — Yes.

What were you, then?

Answer. — A workman.

You said that you were unhappy; do you see a term to your suffering?

Answer. — No. (Saint Louis adds): “It is too early.”

On what does that depend?

Answer. — On me. The one who is there told me so.

Do you know the one who is there?

Answer. — You call him Louis.

Do you know what he was in France in the thirteenth century?

Answer. — No… I know him through you… I thank him for what he has taught me.

Do you believe in a new corporeal existence?

Answer. — Yes.

If you must be reborn into corporeal life, on whom will the social position you enjoy depend?

Answer. — On me, I suppose. I have chosen so many times that it can depend only on me.

Observation. — These words: “I have chosen so many times” are characteristic. His present state proves that, despite the numerous existences, he has progressed little, always having to begin again.

What social position would you choose, if you could begin anew?

Answer. — A lowly one; one advances with more security; one is charged only with oneself.

(To Saint Louis) Is there not a sentiment of egoism in the choice of an inferior position, in which we are charged only with ourselves? Answer. — “Nowhere are we charged only with ourselves; man is responsible for those who surround him, and not only for the souls whose education has been entrusted to him, but also for the others: example does all the harm.”

(To Morisson) We thank you for having answered our questions and we pray to God to give you strength so that you may bear new trials. Answer. — You have relieved me. I have learned.

Observation. — From the answers above one easily recognizes the moral state of this Spirit; they are short and, when not monosyllabic, have something somber and vague about them: a melancholy madman would not speak otherwise. This persistence of the aberration of ideas after death is a notable fact, although it is not constant, and may sometimes present a quite different character. We will have occasion to cite several examples, where the different kinds of madness are studied.