Phenomenon of bicorporeity.

— One of the members of the Society informs us of a letter from one of his friends in Boulogne-sur-Mer, dated July 26, 1856, in which the following passage is read:

“Ever since I magnetized him by order of the Spirits, my son has become a very rare medium: at least that is what he revealed to me in the somnambulistic state in which I had placed him, at his own request of last May 14, and four or five times afterward.

To me it is beyond doubt that, when awake, my son converses freely with the Spirits he wishes, through the intermediary of his guide, whom he familiarly calls his friend; that he transports himself at will in Spirit wherever he desires. I am going to relate a fact, the written proofs of which I have in my hands.

Exactly one month ago the two of us were in the dining room. I was reading Mr. Du Potet’s course on magnetism when my son took the book and leafed through it; coming to a certain passage, his guide said in his ear: ‘Read this.’ It was the adventure of a physician in America, whose Spirit had visited a friend who was sleeping fifteen or twenty leagues away. After he had read it, he said: ‘I should very much like to make a little journey like that.’ — ‘Well then!’ said the guide, ‘where do you want to go?’ — ‘To London, to see my friends,’ replied my son, naming those he wished to visit. — ‘Tomorrow is Sunday,’ was the answer, ‘and you are not obliged to rise early to work. You will sleep at eight o’clock and you will travel to London until half past eight. Next Friday you will receive a letter from your friends, reproaching you for having stayed with them such a short time.’ Indeed, on the morning of the following day, at the indicated hour, he fell into a deep sleep. I woke him at half past eight: he remembered nothing; for my part I did not say a single word to him, awaiting events.

The following Friday I was working on one of my machines and, as usual, was smoking, for I had already had lunch; looking at the smoke of the pipe my son says: — ‘Look! There is a letter in the smoke.’ — ‘How do you see a letter in the smoke?’ — ‘You will see it,’ he replies, ‘for here is the postman bringing it.’ Indeed, the postman came to deliver a letter from London, in which my son’s friends reproached him for having spent only a few moments with them, on the preceding Sunday, from eight to half past eight o’clock, with a number of details that would be too long to repeat here, among them the singular fact of his having had lunch with them. As I said, I have the letter, proving that I invented nothing.”

— The above fact having been narrated, one of those present said that History reports several similar facts, and cited Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, canonized before the required time because he had shown himself simultaneously in two distinct places, which passed for a miracle.

Saint Anthony of Padua was in Spain n and, at the moment when he was preaching, his father, accused of murder, was about to be put to death in Padua. At that moment Anthony appears, demonstrating his father’s innocence and revealing the true criminal, who later suffered the punishment. It was verified that at that same instant Saint Anthony was preaching in Spain.

— Having been evoked, we addressed the following questions to Saint Alphonsus de Liguori:

Is the fact for which you were canonized real?

Answer. – Yes.

Is this phenomenon exceptional?

Answer. – No; it can occur in all dematerialized individuals. n

Was it just cause for canonizing you?

Answer. – Yes, since by my virtue I had raised myself up to God; without that I would not have been able to transport myself simultaneously to two different places.

Do all individuals in whom these phenomena occur deserve to be canonized?

Answer. – No, because not all are equally virtuous.

Could you give us the explanation of this phenomenon?

Answer. – Yes. When man, by his virtue, finds himself completely dematerialized, when he has raised his soul up to God, he can appear in two places at the same time, in the following manner: feeling sleep coming on, the incarnate Spirit can ask God to transport itself to any place whatsoever. Its Spirit, or its soul, as you wish to call it, then abandons the body, followed by a part of its perispirit, leaving the impure matter in a state bordering on that of death. I say bordering on death because there remained in the body a bond, linking the perispirit and the soul to matter, and this bond cannot be defined. The body then appears in the desired place. I believe this is all you wish to know.

This does not give us the explanation of the visibility and tangibility of the perispirit.

Answer. – The Spirit, finding itself detached from matter, can, according to its degree of elevation, become tangible to matter.

However, certain tangible apparitions of hands and of other parts of the body evidently belong to Spirits of an inferior order.

Answer. – They are superior Spirits who make use of the inferior ones in order to prove the phenomenon.

Is the sleep of the body indispensable for the Spirit to appear in other places?

Answer. – The soul can divide itself when it feels itself transported to a place different from that where its body is. n

Being plunged into deep sleep, while his Spirit appears elsewhere, what would happen to a man who were suddenly awakened?

Answer. – That would not occur, because if someone had the intention of waking him, the Spirit would return to the body, for, reading the thought, it would know how to foresee that situation.

— Tacitus reports an analogous fact: n During the months that Vespasian spent in Alexandria, awaiting the return of the summer winds and of the season in which the sea offers safety, many prodigies occurred, by which were manifested the protection of heaven and the interest that the gods took in that prince…

These prodigies redoubled the desire, which Vespasian harbored, of visiting the sacred dwelling of the god, in order to consult him about the affairs of the Empire. He ordered that the temple be kept closed to whomsoever it might be and, having entered it, he was wholly attentive to what the oracle was going to say, when he perceived, behind him, one of the most eminent Egyptians, named Basilides, whom he knew to be ill, in a place many days distant from Alexandria. He inquired of the priests whether Basilides had come to the temple that day; he inquired of the passersby whether they had seen him in the city; finally, he dispatched some men on horseback to find out about Basilides and came to ascertain that, at the moment when the latter had appeared to him, he was eighty miles away. From then on, he no longer doubted that the vision had been supernatural, and the name of Basilides remained for him as good as an oracle. (Tacitus: Histories, book IV, chaps. 81 and 82. Translation by Burnouf). n Since this communication was made to us, several facts of the same kind, whose source is authentic, have been related to us and, among them, there are some very recent ones, which so to speak occurred in our midst and presented themselves in the most singular circumstances. The explanations to which they gave rise have broadened the field of psychological observations in an extraordinary manner.

The question of double men, formerly relegated among fantastic tales, thus seems to have a foundation of truth. We will return to it shortly.

[1] Translator’s note: In truth, Saint Anthony was preaching in Italy, at the moment when his Father was about to be put to death in Portugal (Lisbon).

[2] [Note to questions no. 2, 3 and 4] From the questions asked by Allan Kardec and the answers of Saint Alphonsus de Liguori an apparent contradiction may be supposed; they show, however, that the phenomenon of bicorporeity could occur with creatures devoid of virtues but who were not too attached to matter (otherwise Kardec would not have asked question no. 4, answered accordingly); nevertheless, it was the virtues of Saint Alphonsus de Liguori and Saint Anthony of Padua that allowed them such a phenomenon. [3] [This answer is clarified by a note of Allan Kardec, transcribed from The Mediums’ Book, part 2, chapter 7: “The soul does not divide itself, in the literal sense of the term: it radiates in various directions and can thus manifest itself at many points, without having been fractioned. What happens is what happens with light, which can be reflected simultaneously in many mirrors.”]

[4] Translator’s note: See The Mediums’ Book — Second Part — chapter VII — item 120.

[5]

[Tacite — Histoires — Livre IV.]