Here lies 18 centuries of lights

Mr. Émile, who obtained the communication above and many others equally remarkable, is very young. Besides being an excellent writing medium he is, also, a painting medium, although he has learned neither drawing nor painting. He paints in oil landscapes and various subjects, for which he is led to choose, mix, and combine the necessary colors. From the point of view of art, his pictures are not perfect, although one sees, in certain exhibitions, some canvases worth no more than his. They lack chiefly finish and softness, the tones are vigorous and very accentuated. But when one thinks of the conditions in which they are made, they are no less admirable. Who knows whether, with practice, he will not acquire the skill he lacks and will not become a true painter, like that Bordeaux workman who, barely able to sign his name, writes as a medium and ended by having a fine handwriting for personal use, with no masters other than the Spirits? When we saw Mr. Émile V…, he was completing an allegorical picture, in which one sees a funerary urn upon which was written: Here lies eighteen centuries of lights. We allowed ourselves to criticize such an inscription, from the grammatical point of view and, to begin with, we did not understand the meaning of that allegory, placing eighteen centuries of lights in a coffin, considering that, as we said, thanks above all to Christianity, Humanity is today more enlightened than formerly. The communication above was received by him in the session of the 16th. The Spirit answered our observations, adding what follows.

“Here lies is placed on purpose. The subject is not expressed by the number eighteen, representing centuries; it is a total of centuries, a collective idea, as if there were a lapse of time of eighteen centuries. You may tell your grammarians not to confuse a collective idea with an idea of separation. Do they not themselves say of the crowd, which can be composed of an incalculable number of persons, that it can move itself? That is enough on the subject, because it is the very idea.

“Now let us approach the allegory. Eighteen centuries of lights in a coffin! This idea represents all the efforts made by truth during that time, efforts that were always destroyed by the spirit of party and by egoism. Eighteen centuries of lights in broad daylight would be eighteen centuries of happiness for Humanity, eighteen centuries that are only beginning to germinate in the earth and that would have had their development. The Christ brought truth to the Earth and placed it within reach of all. What happened to it? The terrestrial passions seized it and shut it in a coffin, from which Spiritism comes to draw it out. Behold the allegory.” Léon de Muriane.

[1] Translator’s note: The correct form would be: Here lie eighteen centuries of lights. See the explanation given by the Spirit himself, inserted in the third paragraph.