Obsequies of Mr. Sanson.

One of our colleagues, Mr. Sanson, passed away on April 21, 1862, after more than a year of cruel sufferings. Foreseeing death, he had sent a letter to the Society, dated August 27, 1860, from which we extract the following passage:

“Dear and distinguished President, “In case of being taken by surprise by the disaggregation of my soul and my body, I have the honor of reminding you of a request made about a year ago: that of evoking my Spirit as immediately as possible and as many times as you may judge fitting, so that, having been a useless member of our Society during my presence on Earth, I may be of some use to it beyond the grave, by giving it the means of studying, in these evocations, phase by phase, the various circumstances that follow what the common people call death, but which for us, Spiritists, is no more than a transformation, according to the impenetrable views of God, yet always useful to the purpose for which it is intended. “Beyond this authorization and request to grant me the honor of this kind of spiritual necropsy, which my insignificant advancement as a Spirit may perhaps render sterile—in which case your wisdom will certainly lead you not to pursue the trials beyond a certain number—I dare to ask you, personally, as well as all my colleagues, to beseech the Almighty to permit the good Spirits to assist me with their benevolent counsels, in particular Saint Louis, our spiritual president, with a view to guiding me in the choice and in the moment of a reincarnation; for, even now, this concerns me greatly. I tremble lest I be mistaken as to my spiritual strength and ask God, too soon and too presumptuously, for a corporeal state in which I could not justify the divine goodness, which, instead of serving my advancement, would prolong my stay on Earth or elsewhere, should I fail. “Nevertheless, having every confidence in the gentleness and indulgent equity of our Creator and of his divine Son, and, finally, hoping to suffer with humility and resignation the expiation of my faults—save those that the mercy of the Eternal may see fit to forgive me—I repeat: my great concern is the poignant fear of being mistaken in the choice of a reincarnation, were I not aided and guided by the holy and benevolent Spirits, who might judge me unworthy of their intervention if they were solicited to it by me alone; however, the compassion of those benefactors might be awakened provided that, through Christian charity, they were invoked by all of you on my behalf. Thus, I take the liberty of recurring to your protection, dear President, and to that of all my honored colleagues of the Spiritist Society of Paris.”

In order to correspond to the wish of our colleague, to be evoked as soon as possible after death, we went to the funeral chamber with some members of the Society and, in the presence of the body, the following conversation was established, one hour before the interment. We were moved by a twofold purpose:

that of satisfying his last will and of once more observing the situation of the soul at a moment so near to death, and this in a man eminently intelligent and enlightened, deeply penetrated with Spiritist truths.

We wished to ascertain the influence of such beliefs upon the state of the Spirit, in order to gather his first impressions. Our expectation, as will be seen, was not in vain; each one will surely find, as we did, an elevated teaching in the description he gives of the very instant of the transition. We add, however, that not all Spirits would be capable of describing this phenomenon with as much lucidity as he did. Mr. Sanson became aware of his death and of his rebirth, a circumstance not very common and which was due to the elevation of his Spirit.

Evocation.

Answer. – I hasten to your appeal to fulfill my promise.

My dear Mr. Sanson: we fulfill a duty, which is also a pleasure, of evoking you as soon as possible after your death, as you had desired.

Answer. – It is a special grace of God, who permits my Spirit to be able to communicate. I thank you for your good will; but I am weak and I tremble.

You were so ill that only now did we judge it possible to ask how you feel. Do you still complain of pains? What sensation do you experience, comparing your present situation with that of two days ago?

Answer. – My position is quite happy, since I no longer feel any of my former pains; I am regenerated and in a new state, as you say. The transition from earthly life to the life of the Spirits had at first left everything incomprehensible to me, because, at times, we remain some days without recovering lucidity. But, before dying, I made a prayer to God, asking him to be able to speak to those whom I love, and God heard me.

After how long did you recover lucidity?

Answer. – At the end of eight hours. God—I repeat it to you—had given me a proof of his goodness; he had judged me worthy and I shall never be sufficiently grateful to him for it.

Are you quite certain that you no longer belong to our world? How do you ascertain it?

Answer. – Oh! certainly. No; I am no longer of your world; but I shall always be near you, to protect and sustain you, in order to preach the charity and the abnegation that were the guides of my life; and, then, I shall teach the true faith, the Spiritist faith, which should exalt the belief of the just and the good. I am strong, very strong; in a word: transformed. You would no longer recognize the old invalid, who had to forget everything, leaving far from himself all pleasures, all joy. I am Spirit: my homeland is space and my future is God, radiating in immensity. I would very much like to be able to speak to my children, for I would teach them that which they always had ill will to believe.

What sensation did your body, here beside us, produce in you?

Answer. – Poor body of mine, lowly remains, you must return to the dust! As for me, I keep a good remembrance of all who esteemed me. I look upon this poor deformed flesh, dwelling of my Spirit, trial of so many years! Thank you, my poor body; you purified my Spirit, and the suffering, ten times holy, gave me a well-deserved place, since I immediately recover the faculty of speaking to you.

Did you keep your judgment until the last instant?

Answer. – Yes, my Spirit kept its faculties. I no longer saw, but I sensed beforehand; all my life unfolded before my remembrance, and my last thought, my last prayer was to speak to you, which I now do. Then, I asked God to protect you, so that the dream of my life might be realized.

Were you conscious of the moment in which your body breathed its last sigh? What happened to you at that moment? What sensation did you experience?

Answer. – Life breaks apart and the sight, or rather, the vision of the Spirit is extinguished; we encounter the void, the unknown and, carried I know not by what sorcery, we find ourselves in a world where all is joy and grandeur. I no longer felt, I was not aware, and yet, an ineffable happiness filled me. I no longer suffered the oppression of pain.

Have you any idea… of what I intend to read beside your grave?

Observation. — The first words of the question were scarcely uttered when the Spirit answered, without letting the query be completed.

And he answered further, without being asked, a question that had been established among those present, regarding the appropriateness of reading this communication at the cemetery, in view of certain persons who might not share such opinions.

Answer. – Oh! my friend, I know, for I saw you yesterday and I see you today, and my satisfaction is very great. Thank you! thank you! Speak, so that they may understand me and esteem you. Fear nothing, for they respect death. Speak, then, so that the unbelievers may have faith. Farewell. Speak. Courage, confidence, and may my children be able to convert to a respectable belief.

Farewell.

J. Sanson.

During the ceremony at the cemetery he dictated the following words:

“May death not terrify you, my friends; it is a stage for you, if you have known how to live well; a happiness, if you have worthily merited your trials and have fulfilled them fittingly. I repeat: Courage and good will! Attach to the goods of the Earth only a mediocre value and you will be rewarded; one cannot enjoy much without offending the well-being of others, and without causing oneself an immense moral harm. May the earth be light upon me!”

Note. – After the ceremony, some members of the Society gathered and spontaneously received the following communication, which they were far from expecting:

“My name is Bernard and I lived in 96,[1] in Passy, then a hamlet. I was a poor wretch. I taught and only God knows the troubles I had to endure. What a prolonged torment! whole years of worries and sufferings! and I cursed God, the devil, men in general and women in particular; among the latter, none came to say to me: Courage, patience! I had to live alone, always alone, and wickedness made me wicked. Ever since, I wander through the places where I lived, where I died. “I heard you speak today. Your prayers moved me deeply. You accompanied a good and worthy Spirit, and all that you said and did stirred me. I was in numerous company and, in common, we prayed for all of you, for the future of your holy beliefs. Pray for us, who need succor. The Spirit of Sanson, who accompanied us, promised that you would think of us. I desire to re-incarcerate[2] myself, so that my trial may be useful and fitting to my future in the world of Spirits. Farewell my friends; I speak thus because you love those who suffer. For you: good thoughts, a happy future.” As this episode is connected to the evocation of Mr. Sanson, we judged it well to mention it, because it contains an eminent subject of instruction. We believe we fulfill a duty in recommending this Spirit to the prayers of all true Spiritists; they can only strengthen him in his good resolutions.

The conversation with Mr. Sanson was resumed at the session of the Society, on the Friday following April 25, and is to be continued. We took advantage of his good will and his enlightenment to obtain new clarifications, as precise as possible, about the invisible world, compared with the visible one, principally about the transition from one to the other, which interests everyone, considering that all creatures, without exception, will have to pass through it. Mr. Sanson lent himself with his habitual benevolence. Moreover, as was seen, it was his wish before dying. His answers form a very instructive whole and one of an interest all the greater as they emanate from an eyewitness, who himself analyzes his own sensations, expressing himself at the same time with elegance, clarity, and depth. We shall publish the continuation in our next issue. An important fact to be highlighted is that Mr. Leymarie, the medium who served as intermediary on the day of the burial and on the subsequent days, had never seen Mr. Sanson and did not know his character, nor his position, nor his habits. He did not know whether he had children and, still less, whether these shared or not his ideas about Spiritism. It is, therefore, in an entirely spontaneous manner that Mr. Leymarie speaks of the matter, the character of the dead man revealing itself through the medium’s pencil, without the imagination of the latter being able to influence anything whatsoever. A fact no less curious, and which proves that communications are not the reflection of thought, is that of Bernard, of whom none of those present could have thought, because, the moment the medium took up the pencil, it was supposed that it would probably be one of those habitual Spirits, Baluze or Sonnet. In this case, one would have to ask: of whose thought would that communication be the reflection?

ADDRESS OF MR. ALLAN KARDEC AT THE BURIAL OF MR. SANSON.

Gentlemen and dear colleagues of the Spiritist Society of Paris, It is the first time that we conduct one of our colleagues to his last dwelling. This one, to whom we come to bid farewell, you knew and were able to appreciate his eminent qualities. In recalling them here I would say only what you all already know: a heart eminently upright, of a loyalty proof against all, his life was that of a man of worth in every acceptation of the term; I think no one will protest against this testimony. These qualities were further heightened by a great kindness and an extreme benevolence. Would there be need to have performed brilliant deeds and to leave a name to posterity? Surely this would not give him a better place in the world where he now finds himself. If, then, upon his tomb we are not going to lay a crown of laurels, all those who knew him here deposit, in the sincerity of their soul, crowns more precious still: those of esteem and affection. As you know, gentlemen, Mr. Sanson was endowed with an uncommon intelligence and a great accuracy of appreciation, further developed by an instruction, at once varied and profound. Of a patriarchal simplicity in his manner of living, he drew, from the resources of his own mind, the elements of an incessant intellectual activity that he applied to research, to inventions, no doubt very ingenious, but which, unfortunately, brought him no result. He was one of those men who are never bored, because they are always thinking of something serious. Although his position had deprived him of that which makes the delights of life, his good humor was never altered. I believe I do not exaggerate in saying that he was the type of the true philosopher, not of the cynical philosopher, but of him who is always content with what he has, without ever tormenting himself over what he does not possess. These sentiments certainly constituted the foundation of his character, but, in his last years, they were singularly strengthened by his Spiritist beliefs; they helped him to bear long and cruel sufferings with a patience and a resignation truly Christian. There is not one among us who, having seen him on his bed of pain, was not edified by his calm and by his unalterable serenity. For a long time he had foreseen his end, but, far from being frightened, he awaited it as the hour of deliverance. Ah! it is that the Spiritist faith provides, in those supreme moments, a strength of which only he who possesses it is aware, and that strength Mr. Sanson possessed in the supreme degree. What, then, is the Spiritist faith? some of those who hear me may perhaps ask. — The Spiritist faith consists in the intimate conviction that we have a soul; that this soul, or Spirit, which is the same thing, survives the body; that it is happy or unhappy, according to the good or the evil it did during life. They will say that this is known to all. Yes, except to those who believe that everything ends when we die, and these are more numerous than is thought in this century. Thus, according to these latter, the mortal remains we have before our eyes and which will be, within a few days, reduced to dust, will be all that would remain of him whom we mourn. Thus, we have come to pay homage to whom? to a corpse; for of his intelligence, of his thought, of the qualities that made him loved, nothing will remain, all will be annihilated, as will happen to us, when we die! Does not this idea of the nothingness that awaits us have something poignant, something glacial? Who is it that, in the presence of this half-open tomb, does not feel a shudder run through his veins, merely at the thought that tomorrow, perhaps, the same will happen to him and that, after a few shovelfuls of earth, thrown upon his body, all will be ended forever? After all this, who will no longer think, no longer feel and love in a more intense manner? But beside those who deny, there is the still greater number of those who doubt, for not having a positive certainty, and for whom doubt is a torture. All of you who firmly believe that Mr. Sanson had a soul, what do you think it has become? where is it? what does it do? You will say: Ah! if only we could know! never would doubt have entered our heart. Sound well the depths of your thoughts and convince yourselves that it has already happened, to several among you, in speaking of the future life, to say: “And what if it were not so?” And you said this because you did not understand it, because you formed of it an idea that could not be reconciled with your reason. Well then! Spiritism comes to make it understood; it comes, so to speak, to touch it with the finger and to make it seen; it comes to render it so palpable, so evident, that to deny it would be to deny the very light.

What, then, has the soul of our friend become? It is here, at our side, hearing us and penetrating our thought, judging the sentiment that each one harbors in this sad ceremony. This soul is not what is commonly thought: a flame, a spark, something vague and indefinite. You will not see it, according to superstitious ideas, run through the earth at night like a will-o’-the-wisp. No; it has a form, a body as in life; but a fluidic body, vaporous, invisible to our gross senses and which, nevertheless, under certain conditions, can become visible. When this envelope is worn out and can no longer function, it falls, like the rind of a ripe fruit, and the soul abandons it as if leaving an old garment, which is no longer of any use. It is this envelope of the soul of Mr. Sanson, it is this old garment that made him suffer, that is at the bottom of the grave: it is all there is of him; but he has kept the ethereal envelope, indestructible, radiant, which is subject neither to diseases nor to infirmities. It is thus that he is among us. But do not think that he is alone; here are found thousands of them in the same case, who attend the farewells we make to him who departs, and who come to congratulate the newcomer for having freed himself from earthly miseries. So that, if at this moment, the veil that conceals them from our sight could be lifted, we would see a whole multitude jostling us, circulating among us, and in that number we would see Mr. Sanson, no longer powerless and lying on his bed of suffering, but alert, nimble, moving without effort, from one place to another, with the rapidity of thought, without being detained by any obstacle. These souls, or Spirits, constitute the invisible world, in the midst of which we live without perceiving it, so that the relatives and friends we have lost are nearer to us after death than if, in life, they were in a foreign country.

It is the existence of this invisible world that Spiritism demonstrates, by the relations it is possible to establish with it, and because there we find those whom we knew. It is no longer a matter of a vague hope: it is a patent proof. Now, the proof of the invisible world is the proof of the future life. This certainty acquired, ideas change completely, because the importance of earthly life diminishes as that of the future life grows. This was the faith in the invisible world that Mr. Sanson possessed. He saw and understood it so well that, for him, death was only a threshold to cross, in order to pass from a life of pains and miseries to a blessed life. The serenity of his last moments was, then, at the same time, the result of his absolute confidence in the future life, which he already glimpsed, and of an irreproachable conscience, which told him he had nothing to fear. This faith had been drawn from Spiritism, because—it must be acknowledged—before the time when he became acquainted with this consoling doctrine he was skeptical, although he was not a materialist. But his doubts gave way before the evidence of the facts he witnessed; from then on, everything changed for him. Placing himself, in thought, outside of material life, he no longer saw it except as one marvelous day among an infinite number of happy days. Far from lamenting the bitterness of life, he blessed the sufferings as trials that should accelerate his progress.

Dear Mr. Sanson, you are witness to the sincerity of the grief of all of us who knew you and whose affection survives your death. In the name of all my colleagues present and absent, in the name of all your relatives and friends, I bid you farewell, but not an eternal farewell, which would be a blasphemy against Providence and a denial of the future life. We, Spiritists, less than other people, must not pronounce this word.

Until we meet again, then, dear Mr. Sanson. May you be able to enjoy, in the world in which you now find yourself, the happiness you deserve and to come to extend your hand to us, when our turn comes to enter it.

Permit me, gentlemen, to pronounce a short prayer over this tomb, before it is closed:

“Almighty God, may your mercy extend over the soul of Mr. Sanson, whom you have just called. May the trials he suffered on Earth be taken into account for him, and may our prayers soften and shorten the penalties that he may perhaps still have to endure as a Spirit!

“Good Spirits who have come to receive it, and above all you, its guardian angel, assist it, to help it disengage itself from matter; give it light and the consciousness of itself, in order to withdraw it from the perturbation that accompanies the passage from corporeal life to spiritual life. Inspire in it repentance for the faults committed and may the desire to repair them be permitted to it, in order to hasten its progress toward the blessed eternal life. “Soul of Mr. Sanson, who have just entered the world of Spirits, you are present among us; you see and hear us, since between you and us there is only the perishable body, which you left a short while ago and which will soon be reduced to dust.

“That body, instrument of so many pains, is still there, at your side. You see it as the prisoner sees the chains from which he has just freed himself. You have abandoned your gross envelope, subject to vicissitudes and to death, keeping only the ethereal envelope, imperishable and inaccessible to sufferings. If you no longer live by the body, you live the life of the Spirit, and this life is exempt from the miseries that afflict Humanity.

“You no longer have the veil that conceals from our eyes the splendors of the future life; henceforth you will be able to contemplate new marvels, while we are still plunged in darkness.

“You will traverse space and visit the worlds in complete liberty, while we drag ourselves painfully on the Earth, held back by our material body, which is to us like a burden far too heavy.

“The horizon of the infinite is going to unfold before you and, in the presence of such grandeur, you will understand the sterility of our earthly desires, of our worldly ambitions, and of our vain joys, transformed into delights by men.

“Among men death is no more than a material separation that lasts a few instants. From the place of exile, where the will of God still retains us, as well as the duties we must fulfill on Earth, we follow you in thought until the time when it shall be permitted us to reunite with you, as you now reunite with those who preceded you.

“If we cannot go to you, you can come to us. Come, then, among those who love you and whom you loved; sustain them in the trials of life; watch over those who are dear to you; protect them according to your power and soften their sorrows by the thought that you are now happier and by the consoling certainty that one day we shall be reunited in a better world.

“May you, henceforth, for your future happiness, be able to remain inaccessible to earthly resentments! Forgive those who committed faults toward you; as they forgive you those you may have committed toward them.” Amen.

[1] Translator’s note: Might the Spirit be referring to the year 1796?

[2] Translator’s note: Our emphasis. In the original: réincarcérer.