Superstition.

One reads in the Siècle, of April 6, 1860:

“Mr. Félix N…, a gardener of the environs of Orléans, passed for having the skill to exempt conscripts from the draw, that is, to make them obtain a good number. He promised Mr. Frédéric Vincent P…, a young vine-grower of St. Jean-de-Braye, to make him draw whatever number he wished, for the sum of 60 francs, thirty of them in advance and the remainder after the draw. The secret consisted in reciting three Paters and three Aves during nine days. Moreover, the sorcerer affirmed that, thanks to what he did on his part, the thing would benefit the conscript and would prevent him from sleeping during the last night, but that he would be exempted. Unfortunately the charm did not work; the conscript slept as usual and drew the number 31, which made him a soldier. Repeated twice more, these facts could not be kept secret and the sorcerer Félix was brought to justice.”

The adversaries of Spiritism accuse it of awakening superstitious ideas. But, what can there be in common between the doctrine that teaches the existence of the invisible world, communicating with the visible world, and facts of the nature of those we have related, which are the true types of superstition? Where has it ever been seen that Spiritism has taught such absurdities? If those who attack it on such a score would take the trouble to study it, before judging it so lightly, they would not only know that it condemns all divinatory practices, but it demonstrates to them their uselessness. Therefore, as we have said many times, the serious study of Spiritism tends to destroy beliefs that are truly superstitious. In the majority of popular beliefs there is, almost always, a foundation of truth, although denatured and amplified. It is the accessories, the false applications that, properly speaking, constitute superstition. Thus it is that the tales of fairies and of genies repose upon the existence of Spirits good or bad, protective or malevolent; that all the stories of phantoms have their origin in the very real phenomenon of the spirit manifestations, visible and even tangible. Such a phenomenon, today completely proven and explained, enters into the category of natural phenomena, which are a consequence of the eternal laws of creation. But man rarely contents himself with the truth that seems to him too simple; through the imagination he clothes it with all sorts of chimeras and it is then that he falls into the absurd. There come afterward those who have an interest in exploiting these same beliefs, to which they add a fantastic prestige, fit to serve their interests. Hence that throng of diviners, of sorcerers, of fortune-tellers, against whom the law imposes the rigor of justice. True, rational Spiritism is, then, no more responsible for the abuses committed in its name, than Medicine is for the ridiculous formulas and the practices employed by charlatans or ignorant persons. Once again: Before judging it, take the trouble to study it. One conceives a foundation of truth in certain beliefs, but perhaps one will ask upon what may repose the one that gave rise to the fact above, a belief very widespread in our countryside, as is known. It seems to us that it has its principle in the intuitive sentiment of the invisible beings, to whom one is led to attribute a power that they often do not possess. The existence of the deceiving Spirits that swarm around us, in consequence of the inferiority of our globe, like harmful insects in a swamp, and who amuse themselves at the expense of credulous persons, predicting to them a chimerical future, always fit to flatter their tastes and desires, is a fact whose proof is given to us daily by present-day mediums. What takes place before our eyes has occurred in every epoch, by the means of communication in use according to the time and the places; this is the reality. With the aid of charlatanism and cupidity, the reality passed into the state of a superstitious belief.