Siamora, the Druidess

Spiritist ideas abound in a great number of ancient and modern writers, and many contemporary authors would be astonished if we were to prove to them, by their own writings, that they are Spiritists without knowing it. Spiritism can, then, find arguments in its very adversaries, who seem to have been driven, in spite of themselves, to furnish it with weapons. Thus, sacred and profane authors present a field where one must not merely glean, but reap by the handful. This is what we propose to do one day; and then we shall see whether the critics deem it fitting to send to the madhouses those whom they have praised, and whose name, by full right, holds authority in letters, in the arts, in the sciences, in philosophy, or in theology. The author of the booklet we announce is not among those who may be called Spiritists without knowing it; on the contrary, he is a serious and enlightened adept who set out to summarize the fundamental truths of the doctrine in an order less arid than the didactic form, and with the appeal of a semi-historical novel. Indeed, we find in it the dauphin who, later on, became Louis XI, and some figures of his time, with a description of the customs of the era. Siamora, the last offshoot of the ancient druidesses, preserved the traditions of the worship of her forebears, but enlightened by the truths of Christianity. In an article of the Review of the month of April 1858 [Spiritism among the Druids], we saw to what degree the priests of Gaul had arrived with respect to Spiritist philosophy. There is, therefore, no contradiction in placing these very ideas in the mouth of their descendant. On the contrary, it is to make evident a truth very little known and, under this light, the author has deserved well of modern Spiritists. One may judge them by the following quotations. Edda, a young novice, in a moment of ecstasy, addressing Siamora, explains herself thus: “Under the form of my good angel, of my familiar angel, a Spirit appears to me. He offers to guide me through the painful visions of this world below. Men, he tells me, are wicked because they have failed to recognize their spiritual nature; because they have rejected that subtle agent, that divine influx which God had spread abroad for their happiness in the creation, and which made them equal and brothers. In those times men healed because, calling upon that subtle agent of the creation, they drew from it powerful aid.”

“It is at the hour of death that each man appears to me! O sorrow! O grief! What bitter despair! These perverse beings have ceased to love. Siamora, each man carries with him, in dying, his virtues and his vices. Light, or burdened with faults, his soul rises more or less, for it has kept little or much of the subtle agent, love, that substance of God which, according to affinities, draws to itself like substances and repels those which proceed from a contrary principle.

“The soul of the wicked man remains wandering here below, breathing its corrupted essence into all. It has the joy of evil and the pride of vice. We call it demon; in heaven it bears the name of strayed brother. – But from all pious hearts, Siamora, a gentle vapor rises and, in spite of itself, the demon-soul comes to be saturated by it; it is there retempered, casting off in part its corruption… Then it begins to perceive the idea of God, which in the state of soul it could not do. Just as the soul carries with it the exact image, though wholly spiritual, of its body, so too there joins to it this other, impregnated with its vices and imperfections, and the soul grows dense and cannot see.

“In that invisible world, above our own, Siamora, where with effort I rise little by little, shining clouds limit my vision. Thousands of souls, celestial Spirits, enter and leave it; like flakes of snow, lowered, raised, scattered, they run, swept along by the capricious force of the winds. In their spiritual essence, the angels descend to us, saying to some words of peace, insinuating into the hearts of others the divine belief; inspiring this one to the pursuit of science, breathing into that one the instinct of the good and the beautiful; for he was touched by the finger of God who, in his art, brought to it the taste for noble and great things. Every man has his Egeria, his counsel, his magnet; the cord of salvation has been cast to all. It is for us to seize it.”

“And this wicked man, or rather, this demon-soul, whose eyes, at the contact of the pure air, have begun to open, goes weeping over his crime and asking for suffering to expiate it. If he is deprived of aid, what will he do?

“An angel of charity draws near and says to him: Strayed brother, enter with me into life: there is the hell, the place of sufferings, where each of us is regenerated. Come, I will sustain you. Let us try to do there a little good, so that, for you, the balance of good and evil may at last incline toward the good side.

“It is thus, Siamora, that for all men the moment to die arrives. I see them rising more or less in the heavens, entering into life, suffering anew, purifying themselves, dying again, and ascending unceasingly into the most elevated celestial spaces. They do not yet attain the heaven of the one God, but by means of long pilgrimages through other worlds, far more marvelous and perfected than this one, by dint of purifying themselves, they will come to possess it.”

[1] One vol. in-18, price 2 francs. Vannier, bookseller-publisher, rue Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, no. 52 – 1860.