Death of a Spiritist.

M. J…, a merchant of the department of Sarthe, who died on June 15, 1859, was in every respect a good man and of a boundless charity. He had made a serious study of Spiritism, of which he was a fervent adherent. As a subscriber to the Spiritist Review, he was in indirect contact with us, although we had never seen each other. In evoking him, our aim was not only to fulfill the wish of his relatives and friends, but to testify to him personally our sympathy and to thank him for the kindnesses he had been pleased to say and think of us. Moreover, for us it was a subject of interesting study, from the standpoint of the influence that a deep knowledge of Spiritism can have on the state of the soul after death.

Evocation.

Answer. – I have been here a long while.

I never had the pleasure of seeing you. Yet do you recognize me?

Ans. – I recognize you all the better in that I often visited you and had more than one conversation with you, as a Spirit, during my life.

Observation. – This confirms the very important fact, of which we have had numerous examples, of the communications that men have among themselves, in spite of themselves, during life. Thus, during the sleep of the body, the Spirits travel and visit one another reciprocally. On waking they retain an intuition of the ideas that sprang up in these hidden conversations, but whose source they are unaware of. In a certain manner, during life we have a double existence:

the bodily one, which gives us the life of outward relations, and the spirit one, which gives us the life of hidden relations.

Are you happier than on Earth?

Answer. – And it is you who ask?

I conceive it. Nevertheless, you enjoyed a fortune honorably acquired, which afforded you the pleasures of life. You had the esteem and the consideration earned by your kindness and your benevolence. Could you tell us in what the superiority of your present happiness consists? Answer. – It consists naturally in the satisfaction that the remembrance of the little good I did affords me, and in the certainty of the future it promises me. And do you count as nothing the absence of anxieties and the vexations of life? The bodily sufferings and all the torments we create to satisfy the needs of the body? During life, the agitation, the anxiety, the incessant anguish, even amid fortune; here, tranquility and repose: it is the calm after the storm.

Six weeks before dying you asserted that you still had five years to live. Whence came that illusion, while so many persons sense the approach of death?

Answer. – A benevolent Spirit wished to remove from my mind that moment which, though without confessing it, out of weakness I feared, notwithstanding what I already knew about the future of the Spirit.

You had gone deeply and seriously into spirit science. Could you tell us whether, on entering the world of the Spirits, you found things such as they appeared to you?

Answer. – Nearly the same thing, except for a few matters of detail, which I had understood poorly.

Did the attentive reading you did of the Spiritist Review and of The Spirits' Book help you much in this?

Answer. – Incontestably. It was above all what prepared my entry into the true life.

Did you experience any start when you found yourself in the world of the Spirits?

Answer. – Impossible that it should have been otherwise; but start is not quite the term: admiration, rather. It is so difficult to form an idea of what it can be!

Observation. – He who, before going to dwell in a country, has studied it in books, has familiarized himself with the customs of its inhabitants, their configuration, their appearance, by means of drawings, of maps and of descriptions, doubtless is less surprised than he who possesses no idea at all. Nevertheless, reality shows him a host of details that he had not foreseen and that strike him. The same must occur in the world of the Spirits, whose marvels we cannot comprehend, inasmuch as there are things that surpass our understanding.

On leaving the body, did you see and recognize immediately the Spirits who surrounded you?

Answer. – Yes, and dear Spirits. n

What do you now think of the future of Spiritism?

Answer. – A future even more beautiful than you imagine, despite your faith and your desire.

Your knowledge concerning spirit matters will doubtless allow you to answer with precision a few questions. Could you describe clearly what took place within you at the instant when your body drew its last breath and your Spirit found itself free? Answer. – Personally I find it very difficult to find a means of making you comprehend in any other way what has already been done, by comparing it with the sensation we experience on waking from a deep sleep. That waking is more or less slow and difficult, in direct ratio to the moral situation of the Spirit, and it never fails to be strongly influenced by the circumstances that accompany death. Observation. – This agrees with all the observations that have been made on the state of the Spirit at the moment of separating from the body. We have always seen the moral and material circumstances that accompany death react powerfully upon the state of the Spirit in the first moments.

Did your Spirit retain consciousness of its existence until the last moment and recover it immediately? Was there an instant of lack of lucidity? What was its duration?

Answer. – There was an instant of perturbation, but almost imperceptible to me.

Did the moment of waking have anything painful about it?

Answer. – No; on the contrary. I felt myself glad and disposed, if I may so speak, as if I had breathed pure air on leaving a smoke-filled room.

Observation. – An ingenious comparison and one that can be nothing but the expression of truth.

Do you remember the existence you had before the one you have just left? What was it?

Answer. – I could not remember it better. I was a good servant alongside a good master, who received me at the same time, in the company of others, on my entry into this blessed world.

I believe your brother occupies himself less with spirit matters than you used to.

Answer. – Yes; I shall make him take more interest, if that is permitted me. If he knew what we gain by it, he would give it more importance.

Your brother charged Mr. B… with communicating your death to me. Both await, impatient, the result of our conversation; but they will be still more touched by a direct remembrance on your part if you would charge me to say a few words to them, for them and for other persons who mourn you. Answer. – I shall say to them, through your intermediary, what I myself would have said to them, but I greatly fear I no longer have as much influence with some of them as formerly. Nevertheless I conjure them, in my name and in the name of their friends, whom I see, to reflect and study seriously this grave question of Spiritism, were it only for the help it brings in passing through that moment so dreaded by most, and so little frightening for him who has prepared himself beforehand by the study of the future and by the practice of good. Tell them that I am always with them, in their midst, that I see them and that I shall be happy if their dispositions can assure them, in the world in which I find myself, a place at which they will have only to rejoice. Tell it above all to my brother, whose happiness is my dearest wish, which I do not forget, although I am happier.

The sympathy you had the kindness to testify to me in life, even without ever having seen me, makes me hope that we shall meet easily when I am among you. And until then I shall be happy if you would deign to assist me in the labors that remain for me to do to complete my task. Answer. – You judge me with excessive benevolence; nevertheless, be convinced that, if I can be of any use to you, I shall not fail to do so, perhaps even without your suspecting it.

We thank you for having answered our call, and for the instructive explanations you have given us.

Answer. – At your disposal. I shall be with you many times.

Observation. – Incontestably this communication is one of those that describe spirit life with the greatest clarity. It offers a powerful teaching with respect to the influence that spirit ideas exert upon our situation after death.

[Second talk with the Spirit of Mr. J…]

This conversation seems to have left something to be desired for the friend who informed us of the death of Mr. J… “The latter,” he replied, “did not retain in his language the stamp of originality that he had with us. He maintains a reserve that he did not observe with anyone; his style, incorrect and faltering, affected inspiration. Among us he dared everything; he defeated whoever formulated an objection against his beliefs. He tore us to pieces to convince us. In his psychological apparition he reveals no particularity of the numerous relations he had with a host of persons whom he frequented. We should all have liked to see ourselves cited by him, not to satisfy curiosity, but for our instruction. We should have liked him to speak to us clearly of some ideas put forth by us in his presence, in our conversations. To me personally, he could have said whether or not I was right to dwell on this or that consideration; whether what I had said to him was true or false. He in no way spoke to us of his sister, still living and so worthy of interest.” In accordance with this letter we again evoked Mr. J…, addressing to him the following questions:

Did you take cognizance of the letter I received in reply to the one that referred to your evocation?

Answer. – Yes; I saw it as they were writing it.

Would you have the kindness to give some explanations on certain passages of that letter, and that, as you well understand, with an instructive aim, solely to furnish me elements for a reply? Answer. – If you consider it useful, yes.

They found it strange that your language did not retain the stamp of originality. It seems that in life you were severe in discussion.

Answer. – Yes, but Heaven and Earth are very different, and here I have found masters. What would you? They made me impatient with their extravagant objections; I showed them the Sun and they would not see it. How keep one's cool? Here we have nothing to discuss; we all understand one another.

These gentlemen are astonished that you did not call upon them by name to refute them, as you did in life.

Answer. – Let them be astonished! I await them. When they come to join me, they will see which of us was right. It will be necessary for them to come here, whether they wish it or not, and some sooner than they imagine. Their boasting will fall like the dust laid by the rain; their bragging… (here the Spirit stops and refuses to finish the sentence).

They infer that you do not show them all the interest they thought to expect of you.

Answer. – I wish them well, but I can do nothing against their will.

They are surprised, likewise, that you said nothing about your sister.

Answer. – Are they perchance between her and me?

Mr. B… would have liked you to say something of what you told him in intimacy; for him and for the others it would have been a means of enlightenment.

Answer. – Of what use would it be to repeat what he already knows? Does he think I have nothing else to do? Do they not have the same means of enlightenment that I had? Let them make use of them! I assure them they will feel the better for it. As for me, I bless heaven for having sent the light that opened to me the path of happiness.

But it is precisely that light they desire and that they would be happy to receive from you.

Answer. – The light shines for all; blind is he who will not see: he will fall into the precipice and will curse his blindness.

Your language seems to me marked by great severity.

Answer. – Did they not find me too gentle?

We thank you for having come and for the clarifications you have given us.

Answer. – Always at your disposal, for I know it is for the good.

[1] [Correction: There is no number 9 in the original; the numerical sequence was corrected by the compiler.]