Is Spiritism possible?

Such is the title of an erudite and profound article, signed by Jalabert, published under the epigraph Mens agitat molem [Mind that moves matter] by the Écho de Sétif, one of the most respected newspapers in Algeria. We regret that its length does not allow us to transcribe it in full, considering that interruption would harm the chain of arguments by which the author arrives, in an immense sorites, n from the creation of the body and the Spirit by God, at the action of the Spirit upon matter, then at the possibility of communications between the free Spirit and the incarnate one. His deductions are so logical that, unless one denies God and the soul, one cannot help but say: It cannot be otherwise. We shall cite only a few passages, especially the conclusion. When Fulton set forth to Napoleon I his system of applying steam to navigation, he asserted and promised to prove that, his system being true in theory, it would be no less true in practice.

What did Napoleon answer him? — That in theory his idea was not feasible and that he would not accept it a priori, disregarding the experiments already made by the immortal mechanic, including those he asked him to make and which he made. The great Emperor thought no more of Fulton and his system, until the day when the first steamship appeared to him on the horizon of Saint Helena. A singular thing, above all in a century of physical observations, of material sciences and of positivism. Once more, merely because it was extraordinary, unheard of and new, the fact, if one may so put it, was dismissed by a simple exception of right.

Thus it is that, to speak only of the manifestations of Spirits, which recall the term Spiritism, we have heard men, otherwise serious and learned, pour out insults after the conscientious account of certain manifestations seen or attested by intelligent men, convinced and of good faith. Leave us alone, then, with your Spiritism, your manifestations and your mediums! What you relate is impossible! Impossible! Very well, so be it! But for free, O transcendent geniuses! Allow me to recall to you the famous saying of an Ancient and, before striking us with your supreme disdain, listen to us.

Read these lines in their entirety, seriously and attentively; and then, with hand on conscience and sincerity on your lips, dare, dare to deny the possibility, the rationality of Spiritism!

You say: I do not understand this mystery! — But for us, as for you, the material movement produced by spiritual movement, matter stirred by thought, the body moved by the Spirit, is the incomprehensible thing! But the incomprehensible is not the impossible. Deny this action, deny this influence, deny this communication! No creation, no incarnation, no redemption, no distinction between the soul and the body, no diversity in unity; no God, no body, no Spirit, no religion, no reason! Chaos! chaos still and ever, or, what is worse, pantheism or nihilism. Let us summarize. Philosophically, physiologically, religiously, Spiritism is neither irrational nor absurd.

Consequently, it is possible.

Man acts — upon himself by his inner verb or his will and by his senses — upon his fellow men, by his outer verb or his speech and, again, by the senses. Why, then, with his inner verb alone would he not communicate with God, with the angels and with the Spirits, in a word, with any other being incorporeal by nature, or accidentally not embodied, freed from the senses? The Spirit is a force that acts upon matter, that is, upon a being that has nothing in common with it, inert, devoid of intelligence. Nevertheless, there exist relations from the Creator to creation, from the angel to man, as from the soul of man to the body of man and, through it, to the outer world.

Yet, what would prevent an action, a reciprocal communication from Spirit to Spirit? If the Spirit communicates with beings of a nature opposite to its own, it would be inconceivable that it could not communicate with others of identical nature.

Whence would the obstacle come? — From distance? But, among Spirits, there is no distance. “The air is full of them,” said Saint Paul, to make us understand that, in a certain way, they enjoy the divine ubiquity. — From a hierarchical difference? But hierarchy does not matter: since they are Spirits, and their nature demands it, they act and communicate among themselves. — From their momentary sojourn in the bonds of the body? But, in this case, save for the difference in the means of communication, it does not thereby cease to occur. My Spirit communicates with yours and, like mine, your Spirit dwells in a body. With all the more reason will it communicate with a Spirit free or freed from matter, whether it be the Spirit of an angel, or the soul of a man. There is more! Far from any impediment, everything, on the contrary, favors such communication; “God is love” and everything that has something of the divine partakes of love. But love lives on communications, on communions. Because He loves man, God communicates with him: in Eden, by the word; on Sinai, by writing; in the stable of Bethlehem and on Calvary by His incarnate Verb; and on the altar, by His Verb transubstantiated into the eucharistic bread and wine. n Let us hold, then, as certain, that the communications from soul to soul, from Spirit to Spirit are even more possible than those from Spirit to matter.

Now, what will be the instrument, the means of communication of beings among themselves?

Among corporeal beings, such communication operates by movement, which is as it were the verb of the body; among purely spiritual beings, by thought or by the inner word, which is as it were the movement of Spirits; among beings at once spiritual and corporeal, by that same thought clothed in a sign at once corporeal and spiritual, by the outer word; between a spiritual and corporeal being, on the one hand, and a simply spiritual being, on the other, as a rule by the inner word, manifesting itself outwardly by a material sign. And what will this sign be? — Any material object that, at a given moment, is displaced with a previously agreed-upon movement, under the sole influence, direct or indirect, of the will or of the inner word of the Spirit with which we wish to enter into communication.

We recommend this article to Mr. Tony, of Rochefort. Here is one of his colleagues, who says exactly the opposite; one says white, the other says black. Who is right? There is between the two a difference: one knows, the other does not know. We leave to the reader the care of weighing the two logics.

The same newspaper published several articles on the subject, by other writers who, like this one, bear the stamp of profound observation and serious study. We shall speak of them again later.

[1] Sorites: A reasoning composed of an indeterminate number of propositions, arranged in such a way that the attribute of the first becomes the subject of the second, the attribute of the second the subject of the third, and so on until the conclusion, which takes for its subject the subject of the first and for its attribute that of the last.

[2] Translator's note: The last assertion reflects the Catholic thought on the Eucharist, with which the author was probably still imbued.