Dom Peyra, Prior of Amilly.

— This evocation was made last year, at the Society, at the request of Mr. Borreau, of Niort, who had forwarded to us the following notice:

“About thirty years ago, we had at the priory of Amilly, very near Mauzé, a priest named Dom Peyra [Dom Joseph Peyra], who left in the region a reputation as a sorcerer. In fact he occupied himself constantly with occult sciences. Things are told of him that seem fabulous, but which, according to the spiritist science, might well have their reason for being. About twelve years ago, while making very interesting experiments with a somnambulist, I found myself in relation with his Spirit. He presented himself as a helper, with whom we could not fail to succeed; nevertheless we failed. Later, in researches of the same nature, I was led to believe that this Spirit must have taken an interest in it. If it be not to abuse your benevolence, I come to ask that you evoke him and that he be asked what were and what are his relations with me. Proceeding from there, perhaps one day I shall have interesting things to communicate to you.”

FIRST CONVERSATION, ON JANUARY 13, 1860.

Evocation.

Answer. – Here I am.

From what did the reputation of sorcerer that you had in life proceed?

Answer. – Gossip of the goodwives; I studied Chemistry.

What was the motive that led you to enter into contact with Mr. Borreau, of Niort?

Answer. – The desire to amuse myself a little, with regard to the power that he believed I had.

He says that you presented yourself as a helper in his researches. Could you tell us what was the nature of those researches?

Answer. – I am not indiscreet enough to betray a secret that he did not see fit to reveal to you. Your question offends me.

We do not wish to insist, but we will point out to you that you could have answered in a more fitting manner persons who interrogate you seriously and with benevolence. Your language is not that of an advanced Spirit.

Answer. – I am what I always was.

Of what nature are the fabulous things that are told about you?

Answer. – As I have already told you, they are gossip. I knew the opinion that they had of me and, far from trying to stifle it, I did what was necessary to favor it.

According to the preceding answer, it seems that you did not progress after death.

Answer. – To tell the truth, I did not seek to do so, for I did not know the means. Nevertheless, I believe that there must be something to do; a little while ago I thought of this.

Your language surprises us, coming from a Spirit who in life was a priest and who, for that very reason, ought to have had ideas of a certain elevation.

Answer. – I believe that I was very little instructed.

Be so kind as to develop your thought.

Answer. – Too little instructed to believe, but enough to know.

Then you were not what is called a good priest?

Answer. – Oh! no!

What are your occupations as a Spirit?

Answer. – Always Chemistry. I believe that I would have done better had I sought God, instead of matter.

How can a Spirit occupy himself with Chemistry?

Answer. – Oh! permit me to say that the question is puerile; do I, perchance, have need of a microscope or of an alembic to study the properties of matter, which you know to be so penetrable to the Spirit?

Are you happy as a Spirit?

Answer. – Upon my word of honor! no. I believe I told you that I had set out upon a false route and I am going to change it, above all if I am fortunate enough to be helped; especially I, who had to pray so much for others, which, I confess, I did not always do for the money received; if, I say, they do not wish to apply to me the law of retaliation.

We thank you for having come and we will do for you what you did not do for others.

Answer. – You are worth more than I.

SECOND CONVERSATION. JUNE 25, 1861.

Mr. Borreau having, through our intermediary, addressed new questions to the Spirit Dom Peyra, the latter was evoked again, through another intermediary, and gave the following answers, from which useful lessons may be drawn, whether as a study of the individualities of the spirit world, or as general instruction.

Evocation.

Answer. – What do you want with me and why do you disturb me?

It was Mr. Borreau, of Niort, who asked us to address some questions to you.

Answer. – What does he still want of me? Is he not content to vex me in Niort? Why is it necessary that they evoke me in Paris, where nothing attracts me? I would much like for him to have the idea of leaving me in peace. He calls me, evokes me and puts me in contact with somnambulists. He has me evoked by third parties. That gentleman is very tiresome.

Yet you must remember that we already evoked you and that you answered in a more courteous manner than today; and we had even promised to pray for you.

Answer. – I remember very well; but to promise and to do are different things. Indeed, you prayed; but what of the others?

Certainly the others also prayed. In short, will you answer Mr. Borreau’s questions?

Answer. – I assure you that, for his sake, I have not the slightest wish to satisfy him, because he is always on my back. Forgive the expression, but it is true, all the more so as between him and me there exists no affinity; but, for you, who piously called down upon me the mercy of On High, I will answer as best I can.

You said a little while ago that they disturbed you. Could you give us an explanation in this regard, for our personal instruction?

Answer. – I say that I am disturbed in the sense that you called my attention and my thought toward you, occupying yourselves with me, and I saw that I would have to answer what you might ask me, were it only out of politeness. I explain myself poorly; my thought was elsewhere, in my studies, my habitual occupation. Your evocation forcibly drew my attention upon you, upon earthly things. Consequently, as it was not in my purpose to occupy myself with you and with the Earth, you disturbed me. Remark. – Spirits are more or less communicative and appear more or less willingly, according to their character. But we may be sure that, like serious men, they do not like those who importune them needlessly. As for frivolous Spirits, it is different: they are always disposed to meddle in everything, even when they are not called.

When you put yourself in contact with Mr. Borreau, did you know his beliefs in the possibility of making his convictions triumph through the realization of a great fact, before which incredulity would be forced to bow?

Answer. – Mr. Borreau wanted me to serve him in an operation half magnetic, half spiritist. But he has not the stature to bring such a work to a good end and I judged that I ought not to grant him my assistance any longer. Besides, I would have done it, if I could. The hour, for that, had not come and is still to come.

Could you see and tell him what were the causes, during his researches in the Vendée, that were responsible for his failure, knocking him down, along with his somnambulist, and two other persons present?

Answer. – My preceding answer can apply to this question. Mr. Borreau was knocked down by the Spirits, who wished to give him a lesson and teach him not to seek what must remain hidden. It was I who pushed them, with the fluid of the magnetizer himself.

Remark. – This explanation agrees perfectly with the theory that was given of physical manifestations. It was not with their hands that the Spirits pushed them, but with the very animated fluid of the persons, combined with that of the Spirit. The dissertation that we offer further on, on the transport of objects, contains, in this regard, developments of the highest interest. A comparison that perhaps might have some analogy seems to justify the Spirit’s expression. When a body, charged with positive electricity, approaches a person, this person becomes charged with contrary electricity; the tension grows until the explosive distance; at that point the two fluids unite violently through the spark and the person receives a shock that, according to the mass of fluid, may knock him down and even strike him dead. In this phenomenon it is always necessary that the person furnish his contingent of fluid. If we were to suppose that the positively electrified body were an intelligent being, acting by its will and aware of the operation, one would say that it combined a part of the person’s fluid with its own. In the case of Mr. Borreau, perhaps things did not happen exactly thus, but one understands that there may be an analogous effect, and that Dom Peyra was logical in saying that he pushed him with his own fluid. One will understand it still better if one refers to what is said in The Spirits’ Book and in The Mediums’ Book, on the universal fluid, which is the principle of the vital fluid, of the electric fluid and of the animal magnetic fluid. n

He says that he made, during his long and dramatic experiments, discoveries much more surprising to him than the solution he was seeking. Do you know them?

Answer. – Yes, but there is something that he has not discovered: it is that Spirits have for their mission to assist men in researches similar to the one he was making. If they could, God could have hidden nothing, and men would neglect the work and the exercise of their faculties in order to run, this one in search of a treasure, that one of an invention, asking the Spirits to serve them all this still hot, in such a way that one would need only to bend down to gather glory and fortune. In truth, we would have much to do if we had to content the ambition of everyone. You see, then, how much disorder there would be in the world of Spirits through the universal belief in Spiritism? We would be called every which way: here to dig the earth and enrich an idler; there to spare an imbecile the labor of solving a problem; over there to heat the furnace of a chemist and, everywhere, to discover the philosopher’s stone. The finest discovery that Mr. Borreau ought to have made is that of knowing that there are always Spirits who amuse themselves by provoking mirages of gold mines, even before the eyes of the most clairvoyant somnambulist, making them appear where they are not and laughing at your expense when you imagine you are laying your hand upon the treasure, and this in order to teach you that wisdom and labor are the true treasures.

Was the object of Mr. Borreau’s researches a treasure?

Answer. – I believe I have already said, when you called me the first time, that I am not indiscreet. If he judged it fitting not to tell you, it is not for me to do so.

Remark. – One sees that the Spirit is discreet; moreover, it is a quality generally found in all of them, even in Spirits little advanced, whence one may conclude that, if a Spirit were to make indiscreet revelations about someone, in all probability it would be to amuse himself and it would be an error to take them seriously.

Could you give him some explanations about the invisible hand that, for a long time, traced numerous writings, which he found on the leaves of the notebook, placed on purpose to receive them?

Answer. – As for the writings, they are not from the Spirits; later he will know their origin, but I must not say it at the moment. The Spirits may have provoked them with the aim to which I referred before, but – I repeat – they have nothing to do with them.

Remark. – Although these two conversations took place eighteen months apart and through different mediums, one recognizes in them a linkage, a sequence and a similitude of language that do not permit one to doubt that it was the same Spirit who answered them. With regard to the identity, this stands out from the following letter, which Mr. Borreau wrote to us, after the dispatch of the second evocation.

JULY 18, 1861.

“Sir, “I come to thank you for the trouble you took and for the promptness in sending me the last evocation of Dom Peyra. As you say, the Spirit of the former prior was not in a good humor, when expressing, energetically, the impatience that this new endeavor caused him. There results from this, sir, a great instruction: the Spirits who play the malevolent game of tormenting us may, in their turn, be paid by us in the same coin. “Ah! gentlemen from beyond the tomb! — and here I refer only to the jesting and frivolous Spirits — no doubt you would delight in the exclusive privilege of importuning us. And behold, a poor earthly Spirit, very peaceable, simply putting himself on guard against your maneuvers and seeking to frustrate them, torments you to the point that you feel it painfully upon your fluidic back! Well now! what shall I say, then, my dear prior, when you confess to having been part of the spirit mob that so cruelly obsessed me and played so many tricks during my excursions in the Vendée? If it is true that you got mixed up in this, you ought to have known that I undertook them only with the object of making the truth triumph through irrefutable facts. It was a great ambition, no doubt, but it was honest, it seems to me; only, as you say, I had not the stature to struggle and you and yours shook us, so much so that we found ourselves obliged to abandon the contest, carrying off our dead, since your fantastic maneuvers, which unleashed a terrible struggle, ended by annihilating my poor somnambulist who, in a swoon that lasted no less than six hours, gave no further sign of life and we already judged her dead. Perhaps our position is easier to understand than to describe, if one considers that it was midnight and that we were in fields bloodied by the wars of the Vendée, a region of savage aspect, surrounded by hills devoid of vegetation, whose echoes came to repeat the piercing cries of the victims. My terror had reached its height, thinking of the terrible responsibility that fell upon me and from which I knew not how to escape… I was distraught! Prayer alone could save me; it saved me. If you call this lessons, you must agree that they are harsh ones! Probably, it was still to give me one of these lessons that, a year later, you called me to Mauzé; but, by then, I was more instructed and already knew to whom to address myself regarding the existence of the Spirits and regarding the acts and gestures of many of them. Besides, the scene was no longer prepared for a drama, as at Châtillon; thus, I was free for a skirmish. “Pardon, sir, if I let myself be carried away with the prior. I return to you to occupy you still, if you deign to permit it. A few days ago I went to the house of a very honorable man, who knew him quite well in his youth, and I told him about the evocation that you sent me. He recognized perfectly the language, the style and the caustic wit of the former prior and told me the following facts: “Finding himself forced to abandon the priory of Surgères in consequence of the Revolution, Dom Peyra bought the small property of Amilly, near Mauzé, where he fixed his residence. There he became known for the fine cures obtained by means of magnetism and electricity, which he employed with success. Seeing, however, that business did not go as well as he wished, he employed charlatanism and, aided by his electrical machine, practiced magic, not delaying to make himself pass for a sorcerer. Far from combating such an opinion, he provoked and stimulated it. There was at Amilly a long tree-lined avenue, by which the clients arrived, often coming from ten to fifteen leagues away. His machine was put in communication with the door-knocker, and when the poor peasants wished to knock, they felt as though struck down. It is easy to imagine what such facts must have produced in creatures little enlightened, above all in that epoch. “We have a proverb that says: “one must not sell the wolf’s skin before killing it.” Alas! I see well that we must change more than once before our bad instincts abandon us. Nevertheless, sir, do not conclude that I wish ill to the prior. No; and the proof of all this is that, following your example, I prayed for him, which I confess, as he told you, not having done until then. “Accept.

J.-B. Borreau.”

— It will be noted that this letter is of July 18, 1861, while the first evocation goes back to the month of January 1860. At that time we did not know all the particulars of Dom Peyra’s life, with which his answers agree perfectly, for he says that he did what was possible to corroborate his reputation as a sorcerer.

What happened to Mr. Borreau has a singular analogy with the low blows that, in life, Dom Peyra dealt to visitors. And we would be much inclined to believe that the latter wished to repeat them. Now, for that there was no need of an electrical machine, since he had at his disposal the great universal machine. One will understand its possibility if we associate this idea with the observation we made above, in question 21. Mr. Borreau finds a kind of compensation for the malices of certain Spirits in the annoyances we can cause them. Nevertheless, we advise him not to rely too much on this, because they have more means of escaping our influence than we have of withdrawing ourselves from theirs. As for the rest, it is evident that, if at that time Mr. Borreau had known Spiritism thoroughly, he would certainly have known what was reasonable to ask of the Spirits and would not have ventured into attempts that Science would demonstrate lead only to a mystification. He is not the first to pay for the consequences of his improvidence. This is why we do not cease to repeat: Study the theory first; it will teach you all the difficulties of practice; thus, you will avoid experiments from which you will feel happy to come out with only a few annoyances. He says that his intention was good, for he wished to prove by a great fact the veracity of Spiritism. But, in similar cases, the Spirits give the proofs they want and when they want, and never when they are asked for them. We know persons who also wished to give these irrefutable proofs through the discovery of colossal fortunes, by means of the Spirits; but what resulted most clearly for them was the spending of their money. We will even add that similar proofs, if by chance they did give a result, would be much more harmful than useful, because they would falsify the opinion about the object of Spiritism, validating the belief that it can serve as a means of divination; only then would Dom Peyra’s answer to question 22 be justified. [1] Translator’s Note: The Spirits’ Book – questions 27, 27-a; 29; 65 and 94; The Mediums’ Book – 1st part: chapter I; 2nd part, chapter IV items 74; 75; 77; 79 to 81; Genesis – chapter XIV (It was not cited by Kardec because it was only published in 1868).