Spiritist Society in the 18th century.

Mister President, "It is not from 1853, the time when the Spirits began to manifest themselves by the movement of the tables and by knocks, that the reestablishment of the evocations dates.

In the history of Spiritism, which we read in your works, you do not mention a Society such as ours, whose existence, to my great surprise, was revealed by Mercier, in his Tableau de Paris — Google Books, edition of 1788, in the chapter entitled Spiritualistes, 12th volume. Here is what he says:

"Why do Theology, Philosophy, and History mention various apparitions of Spirits, of genii, or of demons? The belief of a part of Antiquity was that each man had two Spirits: a good one, which invited to virtue, and a bad one, which incited to evil. "A new sect believes in the return of the Spirits to this world. I have heard several persons who were truly persuaded that there are means to evoke them. We are surrounded by a world that we do not perceive. Around us are beings of whom we have not the least idea; endowed with a superior intellectual nature, they see us. There is no void in the Universe: this is what the adepts of the new science assure. "Thus, the return of the souls of the dead, accepted throughout all Antiquity, at which our philosophy mocked, is today accepted by men who are neither ignorant nor superstitious. All these Spirits, moreover called in Scripture the Princes of the Air, are always under the orders of the Lord of Nature. Aristotle says that the Spirits frequently appear to men because they have need of one another. I refer here only to what the partisans of the existence of the genii tell us. "If we believe in the immortality of the soul, we must admit that this multitude of Spirits can manifest itself after death. Among that immensity of prodigies with which all the countries of the Earth are filled, if a single one should occur, incredulity would be a contradiction. I believe, therefore, that there would be no less temerity in denying than in maintaining the truth of the apparitions. We are in an unknown world." Mercier cannot be accused of incredulity and of ignorance. In the foregoing extract we see that he does not reject a priori the manifestations of the Spirits, although he had no occasion to witness them. However, as a prudent man, he deferred his judgment until further information. In this connection he had already said: "This is so mysterious, so profound, and so unbelievable that we must laugh, or fall to our knees. I do neither one thing nor the other: I observe and wait." It would be interesting to know why these evocations, resumed in 1788, were interrupted until 1853. Did the members of the Society, who occupied themselves with them, perish during the Revolution? It is regrettable that Mercier did not reveal the name of the president of that Society. Receive, etc.

Det…

Titular member of the Society.

Observation. – The fact related by Mercier has a capital importance and a bearing that no one will be able to ignore. It proves, already at that time, that men appreciable for their intelligence occupied themselves seriously with the Spiritist science. As for the cause that led to the extinction of that Society, it is probable that the disturbances that followed had a great role in all this; but it is not exact to say that the evocations were interrupted until 1853. It is true that around that time the manifestations had a greater development, but it is proved that they never ceased.

In 1818 we had in hand a manuscript notice about the Society of the Theosophists, which existed at the beginning of this century and which claimed, through recollection and prayer, to enter into communication with the Spirits;

it was, probably, the continuation of the Society of which Mercier speaks to us.

Since the year 1800 the celebrated Abbé Faria, in accord with a canon, a friend of his, a former missionary in Paraguay, occupied himself with evocation and obtained written communications. Every day we would learn that certain persons obtained them in Paris, long before the Spirits were thought of in America. But it must be said also that before that time all those who possessed such knowledge made a mystery of it; today, when it is in the public domain, it becomes widespread, that is the whole difference. If it were a chimera it would not have established itself in a few years across the five continents; good sense would already have done justice to it, precisely because each one is in a position to see and to understand.

Certainly no one will contest the progress that these ideas make daily, and this in the most enlightened strata of society. Now, an idea that demands reasoning, that grows and reaches its fullness through discussion and through examination, does not have the characteristics of a utopia."