Mr. Jobard.

— After his death, Mr. Jobard n communicated several times at the Society, in sessions which he says he almost always attends. Before publishing them, we preferred to wait until we had a series of manifestations, forming a whole that would allow them to be better appreciated. We intended to evoke him at the session of November 8 when, informed of our wish, he manifested himself spontaneously. (See his obituary, published in the Spiritist Review of the month of December 1861.)

SPONTANEOUS DICTATION.

(Spiritist Society of Paris, November 8, 1861. – Medium: Mrs. Costel.)

Here I am, I whom you are about to evoke, and I wish to manifest myself, first of all through this medium, whom I have until now solicited in vain.

First of all, I wish to relate my impressions at the moment of the separation of my soul. I felt a strange jolt; suddenly I remembered my birth, my youth, my mature age. My whole life was clearly outlined in my memory. I experienced a pious desire to find myself in the regions revealed by our dear belief; then all that tumult subsided. I was free and my body lay inert. Ah! my dear friends, what a delight to free oneself from the weight of the body! What a delight to embrace space! Yet do not imagine that I have suddenly become one of the Lord's elect; no, I am among the Spirits who, having learned little, must still learn much. I was not slow to remember you, my brothers in exile, and, I assure you, all my sympathy, all my good wishes surrounded you. I soon had the power to communicate and would have done so through this medium, who fears being deceived; but let her be at peace, for we love her. Do you wish to know which Spirits received me? what my impressions were? My friends were all those whom we evoke, all the brothers who shared in our labors. I saw the splendor, but I cannot describe it. I applied myself to distinguishing what was true in the communications, ready to correct all erroneous assertions; in short, ready to be the knight of truth in the other world, as I was in yours. Thus, we shall converse a great deal, and this is but a preamble to show the dear medium my desire to be evoked by her, and to show you my good will in answering the questions you are going to address to me. Jobard.

INTERVIEW.

In life you had recommended that we call upon you when you had left the Earth. We do so not only to comply with your wish, but, above all, to renew to you the testimony of our most lively and sincere sympathy and, also, in the interest of our instruction, since, better than anyone, you are in a position to give us precise teachings about the world in which you find yourself. Thus, we shall be happy if you will deign to answer our questions. Answer. – At this hour, what matters most is your instruction. As for your sympathy, I see it and no longer comprehend it merely through the ears, which constitutes a great progress.

To fix our ideas and not speak vaguely, as well as for the instruction of persons unfamiliar with the Society and present at the session, we shall ask, first of all, in what place you are here and how we would see you, if we could?

Answer. – I am near the medium. You would see me with the appearance of the Jobard who used to sit at your table, because your mortal eyes, not being unsealed, can only see Spirits under their mortal appearance.

Would you have the possibility of making yourself visible to us? If not, what stands in the way of it?

Answer. – A disposition that is entirely personal to you. A seeing medium would see me; the others do not perceive me.

This place is the one you occupied in life, when you attended our sessions, and which we had reserved for you. Those, then, who saw you, must imagine that they see you just as you were then. If you are not there with the material body, you are there with the fluidic body, which has the same form; if we do not see you with the eyes of the body, we see you with those of thought; if you cannot communicate by speech, you can do so by writing with the help of an interpreter. Therefore, our relations with you are not interrupted by your death, and we can converse with you as easily and as fully as before. Is that exactly how things are? Answer. – Yes, and you have known it for a long time. I shall often occupy this place, even without your perceiving it, for my Spirit will dwell among you.

Not long ago, you were seated in this very place. Do the conditions in which you now find yourself seem strange to you? What effect has that change produced upon you?

Answer. – They do not seem strange to me, for I felt no disturbance, and my disincarnated Spirit enjoys a clarity that leaves none of the questions it faces in the shadow.

Do you recall having been in the same conditions before your last existence, and do you find anything changed?

Answer. – I remember my previous existences and find that I am improved. I see and assimilate what I perceive. During my preceding incarnations, a disturbed Spirit, I discerned only terrestrial gaps.

Do you remember your next-to-last existence, the one that preceded Mr. Jobard?

Answer. – In my next-to-last existence I was a mechanic, tormented by poverty and by the desire to perfect my work. As Jobard, I realized the dreams of the poor workman, and I praise God for his infinite goodness in making the plant germinate, whose seed he had deposited in my brain.

(November 11. Private session. – Medium: Mrs. Costel.)

Evocation.

Answer. – I am here, delighted to have the opportunity to speak to you (to the medium) and to you as well.

It seems to us that you have a soft spot for the medium.

Answer. – Do not reproach me, for it was necessary that I become a Spirit to bear witness to it.

Have you already communicated elsewhere?

Answer. – I have communicated little. In many places a Spirit takes my name; sometimes I was near him, but I could not manifest myself directly. My death is so recent that I still suffer certain terrestrial influences. A perfect sympathy is needed in order for me to be able to express thought. In a short time I shall act without distinction; I cannot yet, I repeat. When a somewhat known man dies, he is called upon from all sides; thousands of Spirits hasten to clothe themselves in his individuality; that is what happened to me in many circumstances. I assure you that, shortly after liberation, few Spirits can communicate, even through a medium of their preference.

Have your ideas been modified somewhat since Friday?

Answer. – They are absolutely the same as on Friday. I have occupied myself little with purely intellectual questions, in the sense in which you take them. How could I, dazzled, carried away by the marvelous spectacle that surrounds me? The most powerful bond of Spiritism, which you men cannot conceive, can alone draw my being toward the Earth, which I leave not with joy, for that would be an impiety, but with profound gratitude for the liberation.

Do you see the Spirits who are here with us?

Answer. – I see chiefly Lazarus and Erastus; then, farther off, the Spirit of Truth, hovering in space; farther still, a multitude of friendly Spirits who surround you, eager and benevolent. Be happy, friends, for the good influences vie with one another over you against the calamities of error.

One more question, if you please. Do you know the causes of your death?

Answer. – Do not speak to me of this yet.

Observation. – Mrs. Costel says she received a communication at her home, by which it was announced to her that Mr. Jobard had died because he wished to go beyond the limit currently fixed for Spiritism. Thus, his departure would have been precipitated for this reason [see the spontaneous communication of the Spirit Truth]. Personally, Mr. Jobard has not yet explained himself in this regard. Several other communications seem to corroborate the opinion above. But what stands out from certain facts is a kind of mystery about the causes of his precipitate death which, as they say, will be explained later. (Society, November 22, 1861.)

When alive, you shared the opinion that the formation of the Earth had occurred through the incrustation of four planets, which had become soldered together; do you still hold the same belief?

Answer. – It is an error. The new geological discoveries prove the convulsions of the Earth and its successive formation. Like all planets, the Earth had its own life, and God does not need that great disorder or that aggregation of planets. Water and fire are the only organic elements of the Earth.

You also thought that men could enter into catalepsy for an unlimited time and that, in this way, the human race had been brought to the Earth.

Answer. – An illusion of my imagination, which always went beyond the limits. Catalepsy can be long, but not indefinite. Traditions, legends amplified by the oriental imagination. My friends: I have already suffered much in reviewing the illusions on which my Spirit nourished itself. Be deceived no longer. I had learned much and, I can say it, my intelligence, ready to take possession of its vast and diverse studies, had kept from the last incarnation the love of the marvelous and of the whole drawn from the popular imagination. (Bordeaux, November 24, 1861. – Medium: Mrs. Cazemajoux.)

Evocation.

Answer. – Shall we always have to begin again? Very well! here I am. What do you wish?

We have just learned of your death. As one of the champions of our doctrine, could you answer some of our questions?

Answer. – Look, I do not quite know with whom I am, but the Spirits tell me that this medium received some messages inserted in the Review which pleased me. It is necessary, in my turn, that I give her some. It is not long since I departed from the Earth; within a few years I shall return to it to resume the course of the mission I was to fulfill there, for it was interrupted by the angel of liberation.

You speak of a mission you were to carry out on Earth. Could you make it known?

Answer. – A mission of intellectual and moral progress in the state of a germ. The Spiritist doctrine or science contains the fecund elements that must develop, make grow, and ripen the modern ideas of liberty, of unity, and of fraternity. That is why one must not fear to give it a vigorous impulse, which will make it surmount obstacles with a force that nothing will be able to dominate.

In marching faster than time, is there not a fear of harming the doctrine?

Answer. – You would overthrow the adversaries. Your slowness lets them gain ground. I do not like the slow and heavy step of the tortoise; I prefer the audacious flight of the king of the skies.

Observation. – This is an error. The partisans of Spiritism gain ground daily, while their adversaries lose it. Mr. Jobard is always enthusiastic; he does not understand that, with prudence, the objective is reached more surely, whereas we risk compromising its cause when we hurl ourselves violently against obstacles. A. K.

Then, how to explain the designs of God, in tearing you from the Earth in so sudden a manner, if it had in you the instrument necessary to the rapid march of Humanity toward moral and intellectual progress?

Answer. – Oh! what a lever a portion of the Spiritists with my ideas would be! But no; fear paralyzes them!

Can you explain to us the designs of God in calling you before the end of your mission?

Answer. – I have not been vexed; I see and learn in order to be stronger when the hour of struggle sounds. Redouble your fervor and zeal for the noble and holy cause of Humanity. A single existence is not enough to see the crisis that must transform society come to pass, and many among you, who prepare the ways, will live again after some time to aid once more the holy and blessed work. I believe I have already told you enough for this evening. But I am at your disposal; I shall return, because you are a good and fervent adept. Farewell. This evening I wish to attend the session of our dear master Allan Kardec.

You did not answer the question about the designs of God in calling you before the end of your mission.

Answer. – We are suitable instruments to aid his designs. He bends us to his will and puts us back on the scene when he judges it useful. Let us submit, then, to his designs without seeking to fathom them, for no one has the right to tear the veil that conceals from the Spirits the immutable decrees.

Farewell!

Jobard.

(Passy, December 20, 1861. – Medium: Mrs. Dozon.)

Evocation.

Answer. – I do not know why you evoke me. I am nothing to you; thus, I owe you nothing. Nor shall I answer anything without the Spirit of Truth, who tells me that it was Kardec who asked you to have me come to you. Well then! here I am. What must I say to you?

Indeed, Mr. Allan Kardec asked us to evoke you, with a view to verifying various communications of yours, by comparing them with one another. It is a study, and we hope that you will lend yourself to it, in the interest of the Spiritist science, by describing your situation and your impressions since you left the Earth.

Answer. – I was not certain of everything in terrestrial life; I am beginning to know. As my ideas purify themselves of the disturbance, they arrive at a new clarity and, from now on, I turn back from the errors of my beliefs. This is a grace of the goodness of God, but a little belated. Mr. Allan Kardec did not have a complete sympathy for my Spirit, and so it had to be: he is positive in his faith. Often I dreamed and searched, beside reality. I do not know exactly what I wanted, except a life better than the one I had. Spiritism came to show it to me, and the most enlightened of the Spiritists lifted for me the veil of the life of the Spirits. It was Truth who inspired him; The Spirits' Book made a true revolution in my soul and a good impossible to express. But there were in my Spirit doubts about many things which show themselves to me today under a completely different light. I had already told you at the beginning of this communication: as it disentangles itself from the disturbance, the Spirit shows me what I did not see. The Spirit withdraws; its detachment is not yet complete; nevertheless, it has already communicated several times. But – a bizarre thing, perhaps, to you – it is the change that takes place before the eyes of the evokers in the communications of the Spirit Jobard. Thereupon the same medium received the spontaneous communication:

Jobard was a searching Spirit, wishing to ascend, ever to ascend. The Spiritist ideas seemed to him a panorama too cramped. Jobard represented the spirit of curiosity; he wished to know, ever to know. That need, that thirst impelled him to researches that exceeded the limits of what God wishes you to know. Do not attempt, then, to tear the veil that covers the mysteries of his power! Jobard laid hold of the bow and was struck down. n This is a teaching: seek the Sun, but do not be so audacious as to fix your gaze upon it, for you would be blinded. Does God not give you enough, in sending you the Spirits? Leave, then, to death the power that God granted it: that of lifting the veil for whoever deserves it. Then you will be able to look upon God, Sun of the heavens, without being blinded or struck down by the power that says to you: “Go no farther.” This is what I had to say to you. Truth.

(Society, January 3, 1862. – Medium: Mrs. Costel.)

Note. – Mr. Jobard manifested himself several times at the home of Mr. and Mrs. P…, members of the Society. Once, and without their having thought of him, he showed himself spontaneously to a somnambulist, who described him in a very exact manner and gave his name, although she had never known him. A conversation having been established between him and Mr. P…, through the somnambulist, Mr. Jobard recalled various particulars, so as to leave no doubt as to his identity. One thing, above all, had struck them: it is that, on the only occasion when they saw him at the Society, he had kept his eyes fixed upon them, as if seeking persons known to him, a circumstance they had forgotten and which the Spirit of Mr. Jobard recalled to them, through the somnambulist. Mr. and Mrs. P…, who had never had any contact with him in life, wished to know the reason for the sympathy he seemed to manifest toward them. It was with this purpose that he dictated the following communication: “Incredulous one! you needed that confirmation from the somnambulist in order to believe in my identity! Ingrate! you forgot me for a long time under the pretext that others remember more. But let us leave aside reproaches and speak. Let us approach the subject for which you had me evoked. I can easily explain why my attention had been excited at the sight of that couple who were strangers to me, but whom a kind of instinct, of second sight, of prescience led me to recognize. After my liberation I saw that we had known one another previously, and I came back to them: that is the word. “I am beginning to live spiritually, more tranquil and less disturbed by the evocations through indirect means that rained upon me. Fashion reigns, even among the Spirits. When the Jobard fashion gives way to another and I have entered into the nothingness of human oblivion, then I shall ask the serious friends – and by this I mean the intelligences that do not forget – to evoke me. Then we shall fathom questions treated very superficially, and your Jobard, completely transfigured, will be able to be useful to you, which he desires with all his heart.” Jobard.

(To the medium, Mrs. Costel.) – “I return. You wish to know why I manifest a preference for you. When I was a mechanic, you were a poet, and I knew you in the hospital where you died, madam!

Jobard.

(Montreal.

– Canada, December 19, 1861.)

Mr. Henri Lacroix writes to us from Montreal that he had addressed three letters to Mr. Jobard, but that the latter received only two, for the third arrived too late. Only the first was answered. Having learned of his death from the newspapers, Mr. Lacroix received communications from several Spirits, signed by Voltaire, Volney, Franklin, assuring him that the news was false and that Mr. Jobard was very well. The Spiritist Review has just dispelled his doubts, confirming the event. It was then that the Spirit of Mr. Jobard, on being evoked, gave the following communication, the exactness of which Mr. Lacroix asks us to verify. “My dear master: as you say, I died, but I am not dead, for I speak to you. Those who took it upon themselves to tell you that I had not passed away perhaps wished to play a trick on you. I do not yet know them, but I shall know them and shall learn the reason why they acted thus. Write to Kardec and I shall answer you. I think I shall not be able to answer through the table, but, in any case, try, and I shall do what I can. The two letters I received from you contributed strongly to causing my death. Later you shall learn how.” Jobard.

— Evoked in this regard, on January 10, at the Society of Paris, Mr. Jobard answered that he recognized himself as the author of the communication, but that the supposed portrait, made afterward, was not he, nor of him, which we believe without difficulty, for it does not resemble him in the least.

– How could the two letters you received have contributed to your death?

Answer. – I can and will say here but one thing: the reading of those two letters after the meal determined the congestion that carried me off, or, if you prefer, that liberated me.

Observation. – While the medium was writing this answer, and before it was read, another medium received from his particular guide the following answer:

“A difficult explanation, which he will not give in detail. There are things that Jobard cannot say here.”

– Mr. Lacroix wishes to know for what reason several Spirits came spontaneously to deny the news of your death.

Answer. – If he had paid more attention, he would easily have recognized the deception. How many times must it be repeated that we must distrust, almost in an absolute manner, the spontaneous communications given with regard to a fact, affirming or denying with deliberate intention! The Spirits deceive only those who let themselves be deceived.”

Observation. – During this answer another medium wrote the following:

“Spirits who like to chatter without caring about the truth. There are Spirits who are like men; they take notice of a piece of news, affirming it or denying it with the same ease.”

It is evident that the names that signed the denial of Mr. Jobard's death are apocryphal. To recognize this, it sufficed to consider that Spirits such as Franklin, Volney, and Voltaire have more serious things to occupy themselves with and that such details are incompatible with their character. This alone should already inspire doubt as to their identity and, consequently, as to the truthfulness of the communications. We shall never repeat it too often: only a prior, complete, and attentive study of the Spiritist science can offer the means of frustrating the mystifications of the deceiving Spirits, to which all novices who do not possess the necessary experience are exposed.

– You answered only the first letter of Mr. Lacroix. He wishes to obtain an answer to the last two, above all to the third which, as he says, had a particular character that could be understood only by you.

Answer. – He shall have it later. At the moment I cannot. It would be useless to provoke it; otherwise, he could be sure that it would not be I who would answer.

(Spiritist Society of Paris, February 21, 1862. – Medium:

Miss Estefânia.)

When the Society opened the subscription in favor of the workmen of Lyon, a member deposited 50 francs, of which 25 on his own account and 25 in the name of Mr. Jobard. On this occasion, the latter gave the following communication:

“Once again I am going to answer, my dear Kardec. I am touched and grateful for not having been forgotten among my Spiritist brothers. Thanks to the generous heart that brought you the offering I would have made you if I still dwelt in your world. In the one where I now live there is no need of coin. Thus, it had to be taken from the purse of friendship to give material proofs that I was touched by the misfortune of my brothers of Lyon. Brave workers, who ardently cultivate the vineyard of the Lord, how much you ought to believe that charity is not a vain word, since the small and the great have shown you sympathy and fraternity. You are on the great humanitarian path of progress; may God keep you in it and may you be happier. The friendly Spirits will sustain you and you shall triumph!” Jobard.

SUBSCRIPTION TO ERECT A MONUMENT TO THE MEMORY OF MR. JOBARD.

The newspapers having announced a subscription to erect a monument to Mr. Jobard, Mr. Allan Kardec communicated the fact to the Society at the session of last January 31, adding that he proposed to speak of the matter in the Review, but that he had thought it better to postpone the announcement of that subscription, considering that it would have little possibility of success, after the example of the one in favor of the workmen; and that they should reflect that it would be worth more to give bread to the living than stones to the dead. Questioned about what he thought, Mr. Jobard answered: “Certainly. But reflect: you wish to know whether I like statues. Begin by giving your money to the poor; and if, by chance, some 5-franc coins remain in your pockets, have a statue erected; that will always provide a living for an artist.”

In consequence, the Society will receive the donations made to it for that purpose and will deposit the sums at the office of the newspaper La Propriété industrielle, rue Bergère, 21, where the subscription is open.

[1]

Jean-Baptiste-Ambroise-Marcellin Jobard. Author of Les nouvelles inventions - Google Books.

[2] For the translation of the French text: Jobard a porté les mains sur l’arche, il a été foudroyé; we thought this one better: “Jobard laid his hands upon the ark and was struck down,” which accords more with the spirit of the scriptures.

(2 Samuel 6:6,7.)