Letter on Incredulity

FIRST PART.

One of our colleagues, Mr. Canu, formerly much imbued with materialist principles, and whom Spiritism led to a healthier appreciation of things, accused himself of having become a propagandist of doctrines that he today considers subversive of the social order. With the intention of repairing what he considers, with good reason, a fault, and of enlightening those whom he had led astray, he wrote to one of his friends a letter, about which he thought it best to ask our opinion. It seemed to us that it corresponded so well to the aim he had set himself, that we asked his permission to publish it, which will certainly please our readers. Instead of frankly broaching the question of Spiritism, which would have been repelled by people who do not admit the soul to be its basis; above all, if instead of setting before their eyes the strange phenomena that they would have denied, or attributed to ordinary causes, he goes back to its origin. He seeks, rightly, to make them spiritualists before making them Spiritists. By a perfectly logical chaining of ideas, he arrives at the Spiritist idea as a consequence. This course, evidently, is the most rational. The length of this letter obliges us to divide its publication.

Paris, November 10, 1860.

My dear friend, You desire a long letter on Spiritism. I will endeavor to satisfy you as best I can, while awaiting the delivery of an important work on the matter, which is to appear at the end of the year. n I shall be obliged to begin with some general considerations, for which it will be necessary to go back to the origin of man. This will lengthen my letter a little, but it is indispensable for the comprehension of the subject.

— Everything passes! it is generally said.

Yes; everything passes. But in general this expression is also given a meaning very far removed from the one proper to it.

Everything passes, but nothing ends, except the form.

Everything passes, in the sense that everything advances and follows its course; but not a blind course without an aim, although it should never end.

Movement is the great law of the Universe, in the moral order as in the physical order, and the end of movement is progression toward the better. It is an active, incessant, and universal work; it is what we call progress.

Everything is submitted to this law, except God. God is its author; the creature is its instrument and object.

Creation is composed of two distinct natures: the material nature and the intellectual nature. The latter is the active instrument; the former is the passive instrument.

These two instruments are complements of each other, that is, one without the other would be of entirely null employment. Without the intellectual nature, or the intelligent and active spirit, the material nature, that is, unintelligent and inert matter, would be perfectly useless, being able to do nothing by itself. Without inert matter the same would happen with the intelligent spirit.

Even the most perfect instrument would be as if it did not exist, if there were no one to make use of it.

The most skilled workman and the sage of the highest order would be as impotent as the most complete idiot, if they had no instruments to develop their science and make it manifest itself.

Here is the moment and the place to note that the material instrument does not consist only of the joiner's plane, the sculptor's chisel, the painter's palette, the surgeon's scalpel, the astronomer's compass or telescope; it consists also of the hand, the tongue, the eyes, the brain, in a word, of the assembly of all the material organs necessary to the manifestation of thought, which naturally implies the denomination of passive instrument for the very matter upon which intelligence operates, by means of the instrument properly so called. It is thus that a table, a house, and a painting, considered in the elements that compose them, are no less instruments than the saw, the plane, the square, the mason's trowel, and the brush that produced them, than the hand and the eyes that directed them; in short, than the brain that presided over that direction. Now, all this, including the brain, was the complex instrument of which intelligence made use to manifest its thought, its will, which was to produce a form, and that form was either a table, or a house, or a painting, etc. Inert by nature, formless by essence, matter acquires useful properties only through the form that is imprinted upon it, which led a famous physiologist to say that form was more necessary than matter, a proposition perhaps somewhat paradoxical, but which proves the superiority of the role played by form in the modifications of matter. It is in accordance with this law that God himself, if I may so express myself, has incessantly arranged and modified the worlds and the creatures that inhabit them, according to the forms that best suit his purposes for the harmonization of the Universe. And it is always according to that same law that intelligent creatures, acting incessantly upon matter, like God himself, but secondarily, contribute to its continual transformation, a transformation in which each degree, each stage, is a step in progress, at the same time as a manifestation of the intelligence that gave rise to it. It is in this way that everything in creation is in movement and always in progress; that the mission of the intelligent creature is to activate this movement in the direction of progress, which it accomplishes often even without knowing it; that the role of the material creature is to obey this movement and to manifest the progress of the intelligent creature; that Creation, in short, considered in its whole or in its parts, incessantly realizes the designs of God.

How many intelligent creatures (without leaving our planet) fulfill a mission of which they are far from suspecting! And I confess that, for my part, until quite recently I was one of that number. I would not on that account feel embarrassed to leave here a few words about my own history. You will have to forgive me this small digression, which may have its useful side.

— Educated in the school of Catholic dogma, having developed reflection and examination only very late, I was for a long time a fervent and blind believer; you have surely not forgotten it.

But you also know that later I fell into the contrary excess: from the denial of certain principles that my reason could not admit, I concluded with absolute denial. Above all, the dogma of the eternity of punishments revolted me. I could not reconcile the idea of a God, who was said to me to be infinitely merciful, with that of a perpetual chastisement for a passing fault. The picture of hell, its furnaces, its material tortures, seemed to me ridiculous and a parody of the Tartarus of the pagans. I recapitulated my childhood impressions and remembered that, on the occasion of my first communion, we were told that there was no need to pray for the damned, because it would be of no use to them; that whoever did not have faith was doomed to the flames, a single doubt about the infallibility of the Church being enough to be condemned to eternal punishment; that even the good we might do here could not save us, considering that God placed faith above the best human actions. This doctrine had made me pitiless, hardening my heart. I looked upon men with distrust, and, at the slightest fault, I believed I saw at my side a condemned man from whom I had to flee as from the plague, and to whom, in my indignation, I would have refused a glass of water, saying to myself that God would refuse him still more. If there were still stakes, I would have pushed onto them all those who did not have the orthodox faith, were it even my own father. In this state of mind I could not love God: I feared him. Later a number of circumstances, too long to enumerate, came to open my eyes, and I rejected the dogmas that did not reconcile with my reason, because no one had taught me to place morality above form. From religious fanaticism I fell into the fanaticism of incredulity, like so many companions of my childhood.

I will not enter into details, which would lead us too far. I will only add that, after having lost for fifteen years the sweet illusion of the existence of an infinitely good, powerful, and wise God, of the existence and immortality of the soul, today I at last find again, not an illusion, but a certainty as complete as that of my present existence, as that of writing to you at this moment.

Behold, my friend, the great event of our epoch, the great event that it is given us to see realized in our days: the material proof of the existence and immortality of the soul.

Let us return to the fact; but to make you better understand Spiritism, let us go back to the origin of man, without lingering on that subject for long.

— It is evident that the globes that people immensity were not made solely with a view to their ornamentation. They have also a useful purpose, alongside the agreeable one: that of producing and nourishing material living beings, which are appropriate and docile instruments for that infinite multitude of intelligent creatures that people space and which are, definitively, the masterpiece, or rather, the aim of creation, since they alone have the faculty of knowing, admiring, and adoring their author.

Each of the globes scattered through space had its beginning, in relation to its form, at a time more or less remote. As for the age of the matter that composes it, it is a secret that it does not matter for us to know here, since form is everything for the object that occupies us. Indeed, it matters little to us whether matter is eternal, or only of a creation prior to the formation of the heavenly body, or, finally, contemporary with that formation. What it is necessary to know is that the heavenly body was formed to be inhabited. Perhaps it is not amiss to add that these formations are not made in a day, as the Scriptures say; that a globe does not suddenly emerge from nothing already covered with forests, meadows, and inhabitants, as Minerva emerged armed, from head to foot, from the head of Jupiter. No; God proceeds, certainly, with more slowness; everything follows a slow and progressive law, not because He hesitates or has need of slowness, but because these laws are thus and are immutable. Besides, what we, ephemeral beings, call slowness, is not so for God, for whom time represents nothing. Here, then, is a globe in formation or, if you wish, already formed. Many centuries or thousands of centuries must still pass before it is habitable, but at last the moment comes. After numerous and successive modifications on its surface, little by little it begins to cover itself with vegetation (I speak of the Earth, not pretending to make, except by analogy, the history of the other globes, whose end, evidently, is the same, but whose physical modifications may vary). Alongside vegetation appears animal life, both in their greatest simplicity, for these two branches of the organic kingdom being necessary to each other, they fecundate each other mutually, nourish each other reciprocally, elaborating by common accord the inorganic matter, to render it more and more appropriate to the formation of beings ever more perfect, until it has attained the point of being able to produce and nourish the body that is to serve as habitation and instrument to the being par excellence, that is, to the intellectual being that is to make use of it; which, so to speak, awaits it in order to manifest itself, for, without it, it could not do so. Here we have arrived at man! How was he formed? There again is not the problem. He was formed according to the great law of the formation of beings, that is all. By the fact of not being known, this law does not therefore cease to exist. How were the first specimens of each species of plants formed? The first individuals of each species of animal? Each of them was formed in its own manner, according to the same law. What is certain is that God had no need to transform himself into a potter, nor to soil his hands in the clay to form man, nor to tear out a rib from him to form woman. This fable, apparently absurd and ridiculous, may very well be an ingenious figure, concealing a sense penetrable by Spirits more perspicacious than mine; but as I understand nothing of it, I shall stop here. Finally, here is material man inhabiting the Earth, himself inhabited by an immaterial being, of which he is only the instrument. Incapable of anything by himself, like matter in general, he becomes fit for anything only through the intelligence that animates him; but this same intelligence, an imperfect creature like everything that is a creature, that is, like everything that is not God, has need of perfecting itself, and it is precisely in view of that perfecting that the body was given to it, since, without matter, the Spirit could not manifest itself, nor, consequently, improve itself, enlighten itself, and, in short, progress.

Considered collectively, Humanity is comparable to the individual. Ignorant in infancy, it becomes enlightened as the years advance, which is naturally explained by the same state of imperfection in which the Spirits found themselves, for whose advancement Humanity was made. But as for the Spirit, considered individually, it will not be in a single existence that it can acquire the sum of progress that it is called to realize. This is why a more or less great number of corporeal existences are necessary to it, according to the use it has made of each of them. The more it has worked for its advancement in each existence, the fewer existences it will have to endure; and since each corporeal existence is a trial, an expiation, a true purgatory, it has an interest in progressing as rapidly as possible, in order to suffer a lesser number of trials, for the Spirit does not retrograde. For it each progress realized is an assured conquest, which cannot be taken away from it. In accordance with this principle, today demonstrated, it becomes evident that it will reach the aim the sooner, the more quickly it walks. It results from what precedes that each of us is not, today, in his first corporeal existence, however far we may find ourselves removed from the last, because our primitive existences must have taken place in worlds much inferior to the Earth, to which we arrived only when our Spirit attained a state of perfection compatible with this heavenly body. In the same way, as we progress we pass to superior worlds, in all respects much more advanced than the Earth, and this from step to step, advancing ever toward the better. But before leaving a globe, it seems that we pass several existences in it, whose number, however, is not limited, but subordinated to the sum of progress that we have realized.

— I foresee an objection on your lips. You will tell me that all this may be true, but as I remember nothing, the same occurring with others, all that may have taken place in our preceding existences is as if it had not taken place. And, if the same happens in each new existence, it matters little to my Spirit whether it be immortal or die with the body, if, preserving its individuality, it has no consciousness of its identity. Indeed, for us it would be the same thing, but it is not so. We do not lose the memory of the past except during corporeal life, to reacquire it with death, that is, when the Spirit awakens in its true existence, that of a free Spirit, in relation to which the corporeal existences may be compared to what sleep represents for the body. What becomes of the souls of the dead while they await a new reincarnation?

Those that do not leave the Earth remain wandering on its surface, they go no doubt where it pleases them, or, at least, where they can, according to their degree of advancement, but, in general, they keep little away from the living, principally from those to whom they are attached, when they have affection for someone, unless duties to be fulfilled elsewhere are imposed upon them. We are, then, at every moment, surrounded by a multitude of Spirits known and unknown, friends and enemies, who see us, observe us, and hear us; some share in our sorrows, as well as in our joys; others suffer with our pleasures or rejoice with our pains, while others, finally, show themselves indifferent to everything, exactly as happens on the Earth, among mortals, whose affections, antipathies, vices, and virtues are preserved in the other world. The difference is that the good enjoy in the other life a happiness unknown on the Earth, which is very well understood; they have no material needs to satisfy, nor obstacles of the same kind to surmount. If they lived well, that is, if they have nothing or little to reproach themselves with in their last corporeal existence, they enjoy in peace the testimony of their conscience and of the good they did. If they lived badly, if they were wicked, since there they are exposed they can no longer dissimulate under the material envelope, suffering the presence of those whom they offended, despised, and oppressed, as well as the impossibility, in which they find themselves, of withdrawing from the gaze of all. They suffer, finally, from the remorse that gnaws at them, until repentance comes to relieve them, which happens sooner or later, or until a new incarnation removes them, not from the sight of other Spirits, but from their own sight, momentarily taking from them the consciousness of their identity. In this way, losing the memory of the past, they feel relieved. But it is also, for them, the moment when a new trial begins. If they have the good fortune to emerge from it improved, they will enjoy the progress realized; if they do not improve themselves, they will again encounter the same torments, until, finally, they repent or profit from a new existence.

— There is another kind of suffering: that experienced by the worst and most perverse Spirits. Inaccessible to shame and remorse, these do not feel their torments, although their sufferings are even more keen, since, always inclined to evil, but impotent to do it, they suffer from envy on seeing others happier or better than themselves, at the same time suffering the rage of not being able to sate their hatred and give themselves over to all their evil inclinations. Oh! these suffer much, but, as I told you, they will suffer only as long as they do not improve themselves, or, in other terms, until the day when they improve. Often they do not foresee this term; they are so wicked, so blinded by evil, that they do not suspect the existence, or the possibility of the existence, of a better state of things, not imagining, consequently, that their suffering must end one day. It is this that renders them insensible to evil and aggravates their torments. Since, however, they cannot always escape the common lot that God reserves, without exception, to all creatures, there finally comes a moment when it is necessary for them to follow the ordinary route; sometimes that day is nearer than one might suppose on observing their perversity. Some have been seen who converted suddenly, and all at once their sufferings ceased; meanwhile, harsh trials still remain for them to endure on the Earth, in their next incarnation. It is necessary that they purify themselves, expiating their own faults, and this, definitively, is more than just; at least they no longer fear the loss of the progress realized, for they cannot go backward. Behold, my friend, in the clearest and most succinct manner, the exposition of the philosophy of Spiritism, such as it was possible for me to do in a letter. Of it you will find more complete developments, up to this moment, and the most satisfactory, in The Spirits' Book, the source where I drank that which made me what I am.

Let us now pass to practice.

(Conclusion in the next issue.)

[Review of February 1861.]

LETTER ON INCREDULITY.

(Conclusion. – See the issue of January 1861.)

Since man has existed on the Earth, Spirits have existed; and also since then they have manifested themselves to men. History and tradition are replete with proofs to that effect; but, whether because some did not comprehend the phenomena of such manifestations; whether because others did not dare to divulge them, for fear of the chain or of the stake; whether because the facts were put to the account of superstition or of charlatanism by prejudiced persons, or persons interested in keeping the light from being made; whether, finally, because they were put to the account of the demon by another class of interested parties, the certain thing is that, until these latter times, although well established, these phenomena had not yet been explained in a satisfactory manner or, at least, the true theory had not yet fallen into the public domain, probably because Humanity did not find itself ripe for this, as for many other marvelous things that are being realized in our days. There was reserved for our epoch the emergence, in the same half-century, of steam, of electricity, of animal magnetism — at least as applied sciences — and, finally, of Spiritism, the most marvelous of all, not only in the material verification of our immaterial existence and of our immortality, but also in the establishment of relations, so to speak, material and constant, between us and the invisible world. How many incalculable consequences will spring from an event so prodigious! But, to speak only of that which at the moment most impresses the generality of men, of death, for example, do we not see it reduced to its true role of a natural and necessary accident — I would almost say a happy one — thus losing its character of a painful and terrible event? For those who suffer it, it represents the moment of awakening; from the day following the death of a loved one, we, who remain here, will be able to continue our intimate relations as in the past! Only our material relations have changed! We see him no more, we touch him no more, we no longer hear his voice; but we continue to exchange with him our thoughts, as in life, and often even with more profit for us. After this, what remains so painful? And if we add to what precedes the certainty that we are no longer separated from him except by a few years, a few months, perhaps a few days, will it not be enough to transform into a simple useful event that which until today, with rare exceptions, the most resolute could not face without dread, and which represents, certainly, the incessant torment of the whole life of many men? But I am wandering from the subject.

— Before explaining to you the very simple practice of communications, I will try to give you an idea of the physiological theory that I have elaborated for myself. I do not give it as certain, since I have not yet seen it explained by Science; but at least it seems to me that it must be something that approaches it.

The Spirit acts upon matter the more easily the more the latter is disposed in a manner appropriate to receiving its action; hence why it does not act directly upon just any kind of matter, although it could act indirectly if it found between itself and that matter certain substances of a graduated organization, which put the two extremes in contact, that is, the most gross matter with the Spirit. It is thus that the Spirit of a living man displaces heavy blocks of stone, works them, combines them with others, forming with them a whole that we call a house, column, church, palace, etc. Was it the man-body that did all this? Who would dare to say it?… Yes. It was he who did it, as it is my pen that writes this letter. But let us return to the subject, because I still feel myself adrift. How does the Spirit put itself in contact with the heavy block it wishes to displace? By means of the matter graduated between it and the block. The lever puts the block in relation with the hand; the hand puts the lever in relation with the muscles; the muscles put the hand in relation with the nerves; the nerves put the muscles in relation with the brain, and the brain puts the nerves in relation with the Spirit, unless there is a matter still more delicate, a fluid that puts the brain in relation with the Spirit. Be that as it may, one intermediary more or less does not invalidate the theory. Whether the Spirit acts at first or at second hand upon the brain, it always acts from very close, so that, taking up the contacts in the contrary sense, or, rather, in their natural order, here is the Spirit acting upon an extremely delicate matter, organized by the wisdom of the Creator, in a manner appropriate to receive directly, or almost directly, the action of its will. This matter, which is the brain, acts by means of its ramifications, which we call nerves, upon another matter less delicate, but which is still delicate enough to receive the action of these: the muscles; the muscles imprint movement upon the solid parts that are the bones of the arm and the hand, while the other parts of the bony structure, receiving the same action, serve as a point of support or of sustentation. When, by itself, the bony part is not yet sufficiently strong or sufficiently long to act directly, it multiplies its force by making use of the lever, and here is the heavy inert block obeying docilely the will of the Spirit which, without that intermediary hierarchy, would have exercised no action upon it. Proceeding from the more to the less, here the smallest feats of the Spirit are explained, just as, in the contrary sense, one sees how the Spirit can come to transport mountains, dry up lakes, etc. And in all this the body almost disappears amid the multitude of necessary instruments, among which it represents only the first role.

I wish to write a letter. What must I do? Put a sheet of paper in relation with my Spirit, as a little before I put a block of stone. I substitute the pen for the lever and the thing is done. Here is the sheet of paper repeating the thought of my Spirit, as a little while ago the movement imprinted upon the block manifested its will.

If my Spirit wishes to transmit more directly, more instantaneously its thought to yours, and provided that nothing is opposed to it, such as distance or the interposition of a solid body, always by means of the brain and the nerves, it sets in movement the organ of the voice which, striking the air in various ways, produces certain varied and combined sounds, representing thought, which go to reverberate upon your auditory organ, which transmits them to your Spirit by means of your nerves and your brain. And it is always thought manifested and transmitted by a series of material agents graduated and interposed between its principle and its object.

— If the preceding theory is true, nothing is easier now, it seems, than to explain the phenomenon of Spiritist manifestations and, particularly, of mediumistic writing, the only one that occupies us at the moment.

The psychic substance being identical in all Spirits, its mode of action upon matter must be the same for all; only its power can vary in degrees. The matter of the nerves being organized so as to be able to receive the action of one Spirit, there is no reason why it cannot receive the action of another, whose nature does not differ from that of the first; and considering that the substance of all Spirits is of the same nature, all Spirits must be apt to exercise, I will not say the same action, but the same mode of action upon the same substance, whenever they find themselves in conditions of being able to do so. Now, it is this that happens in evocations.

What is evocation?

It is an act by which a Spirit, holder of a body, asks another Spirit, or, very simply, permits it to make use of its own organ, of its own instrument, to manifest its thought or its will.

The holder Spirit does not on that account abandon its body, although it may very well momentarily neutralize its own action upon the organ of transmission, leaving it at the disposal of the evoked Spirit; the latter, however, cannot make use of it except as long as the other permits it, in virtue of the axiom of natural right, that each is master in his own house. It must be said, nevertheless, that in Spiritism, as in human societies, it happens that the right of property is not always scrupulously respected by the Spirit gentlemen, and that several mediums have already been surprised more than once for having given lodging to creatures that were not invited and, even less, desired. But this is one of the thousand insignificant vexations of life, which we must know how to endure, all the more as, in the matter, they always have their useful side, were it only to test us, being, at the same time, the most patent proof of the action of a foreign Spirit upon our organism, making us write things that we were far from imagining, or that we had not the slightest wish to hear. However, this only happens to incipient mediums; when trained, it no longer happens to them or, at least, they no longer let themselves be surprised. Is everyone apt to be a medium? Naturally it should be so, although in different degrees, as is wont to happen with the most diverse aptitudes. This is the opinion of Mr. Kardec. There are writing mediums; seeing mediums; hearing mediums; intuitive mediums; that is, mediums who write — the most numerous and the most useful; mediums who see Spirits; who hear them and converse with them as with the living — these are rare; others receive in their brain the thought of the evoked Spirit and transmit it by speech. Rarely does a medium possess all these faculties at the same time. There exist still mediums of another kind, whose simple presence in any place permits the manifestation of Spirits, whether by means of struck raps, whether by the movement of bodies, such as the displacement of a little three-legged table, n the lifting of a chair, of a table, or of any other object. It was by this means that the Spirits began to manifest themselves and to reveal their existence. You have heard of the turning tables and the dance of the tables; like me, you also laughed at them. And then? They were the first means of which the Spirits made use to draw attention; thus was their presence recognized, after which, with the aid of observation and study, one came to discover in man faculties until then ignored, by means of which he can enter into direct communication with the Spirits. Is all this not marvelous? Yet it is only natural; I only repeat that to our epoch was reserved the discovery and application of this science, as of many other admirable secrets of Nature.

— Now, to put ourselves in relation with the Spirits, or, at least, to see if we are apt to do so by writing, one takes a sheet of paper and a pencil in good condition, positioning oneself to write. It is always good to begin by addressing a prayer to God; then one evokes a Spirit, that is, one asks that it have the goodness to come to communicate with us and to make us write; finally one waits, always in the same position.

There are persons who have the mediumistic faculty so developed that they begin to write right from the start; others, on the contrary, see this faculty develop only with time and perseverance. In the latter case, one repeats the session every day, for which a quarter of an hour suffices; it is useless to spend more time; but, as far as possible, one must repeat it daily, perseverance being one of the first conditions of success. It is also necessary to make one's prayer and one's evocation with fervor; even to repeat it during the exercise; to have a firm will, a great desire to succeed and, above all, no distraction. Once the writing is obtained, these last precautions become useless.

When one is about to write, one generally feels a slight trembling in the hand, sometimes preceded by a slight numbness in the hand and the arm and, even, by a discreet pain in the muscles of the arm and the hand; these are precursory signs and, almost always, indicative that the moment of success is near. Sometimes it is immediate; others, however, make one wait still one or several days, but it never delays too much. Only to arrive at that point it takes more or less time, which can vary from an instant to six months; but, I repeat, a quarter of an hour of exercise a day suffices.

As for the Spirits that may be evoked for such kinds of preparatory exercises, it is preferable to address oneself to our familiar Spirit, which is always near and never leaves us, whereas the others may be there only momentarily, or may not find themselves there at the instant when we evoke them, or, again, may be unable, for any cause, to attend to our appeal, as sometimes happens.

The familiar Spirit, which to a certain extent confirms the Catholic theory of the guardian angel, is not, however, exactly that which the Catholic dogma presents to us. It is simply the Spirit of a mortal, who lived like us, but who is much more advanced than us and, consequently, is infinitely superior to us in goodness and in intelligence; who realizes a mission meritorious for itself, profitable for us, in this way accompanying us in this world and in the other, until it is called to a new incarnation, or until we ourselves, having arrived at a certain degree of superiority, are called to realize, in the other life, a similar mission alongside a mortal less evolved than us.

As you well see, my dear friend, all this enters marvelously into our ideas of universal solidarity. All this, showing us this solidarity established in all times and functioning constantly between us and the invisible world, proves to us certainly that it is not a utopia of human conception, but one of the laws of Nature; that the first thinkers who preached it did not invent it, but only discovered it; that, in short, being in the laws of Nature, it will fatally be called to develop itself in human societies, despite the resistances and obstacles that its blind adversaries may yet oppose to it. n

— It only remains for me to speak of the manner of evoking. It is the simplest thing. For this there is no cabalistic or obligatory formula; you address yourself to the Spirit in the terms that suit you: that is all.

However, to make you better understand the simplicity of the thing, I will give you the formula that I myself employ:

“God, All-Powerful! Permit my good angel (or the Spirit of so-and-so, if one prefers to evoke another Spirit) to communicate with me and to make me write.” Or else: “In the name of God All-Powerful, I beseech my good angel (or the Spirit of…) to communicate with me.”

Now you wish to know the result of my own experience. Here it is:

After approximately six weeks of fruitless exercises, I felt one day my hand tremble, agitate itself, and suddenly trace with the pencil formless characters. In the following exercises these characters, though always unintelligible, became more regular; I wrote lines and pages with the speed of my habitual writing, but always illegible. Other times I traced flourishes of every sort, large, sometimes over the whole paper. Sometimes they were straight lines, now from top to bottom, now transversal. Other times they were circles, now large, now small and so repeated one upon another that the sheet of paper became completely blackened by the pencil.

Finally, after a month of the most varied, but also the most insignificant, exercises, I began to grow bored and asked my familiar Spirit to make me at least trace letters, if it could not make me write words. Then I obtained all the letters of the alphabet, but I obtained no more than that.

Meanwhile, my wife, who had always had the presentiment of not possessing the mediumistic faculty, decided, even so, to make experiments. At the end of a fortnight of waiting, she set to writing fluently and with great ease. She was happier than I, doing it with great correctness and in a manner quite legible.

One of our friends succeeded, from the second exercise, in scribbling like me, but that was all. We did not on that account become discouraged, convinced that it was a trial and that, sooner or later, we would write. It is easy; I only need to have patience.

In another letter I will entertain you with the communications that we obtained by means of my wife and which, however singular they may seem, are very conclusive as to the existence of the Spirits. But for today that is enough; I had to make for you an exposition that, notwithstanding being elementary, could embrace the whole of the Spiritist theory. I hope that this will suffice to excite your curiosity and, above all, to awaken your interest. The reading of the specialized works to which you will give yourself will do the rest.

Awaiting the practical work of which I spoke to you, I will shortly send the philosophical work entitled: The Spirits' Book.

Study, read, reread, experiment, work and, above all, do not become discouraged, for the thing is worth the trouble.

Moreover, pay no attention to those who laugh; there are many who laugh no more, although they are still in possession of all the organs that until recently served them.

To you and until soon.

Canu.

[1] [This letter being dated November 10, 1860 and, since the 2nd edition of THE SPIRITS' BOOK appeared in March 1860 as announced in the Review of March, it is to be presumed that the author refers to the experimental part of the doctrine, THE MEDIUMS' BOOK which after some postponements finally appeared at the beginning of January 1861.]

[2] Translator's note: Guéridon, in the French original.

[3] However little the most natural facts, but not yet explained, lend themselves to the marvelous, everyone knows with what skill cunning seizes upon them, and with what audacity it exploits them. Perhaps there is still in this one of the greatest obstacles to the discovery and, above all, to the vulgarization of the truth.