Punishment of a miser.

François Riquier, a very ordinary man, was an old miserly bachelor, who died in C…, four or five years ago, leaving to his collateral relatives a considerable fortune. He had been the landlord of one of our friends, Mrs. F… This lady had completely forgotten him when her daughter, lately subject to crises of catalepsy followed by spontaneous magnetic sleep, saw, during the sleep, Mr. Riquier, who, she says, wished to speak with her mother. A few days later, the daughter of Mrs. F…, a good writing medium besides, took up the pencil and obtained the following communication, at the end of which Riquier placed his name and full address. Not knowing such an address, Mrs. F… went to verify it and was very surprised to find that the indication was perfectly exact. Here is the communication, which is a new example of the penalties reserved for guilty Spirits. As he had manifested himself spontaneously and had expressed the desire to speak to Mrs. F…, this question was put to him: “What do you want of us?” Answer. – My money, which those wretches took entirely, to divide among themselves. They sold my farms, my houses, to divide everything. They squandered my goods, as if they were not mine. Do me justice, for they do not listen to me, and I do not wish to witness such infamies. They say that I was a usurer, and they keep my money! Why do they not want to give it back to me, if they think it was ill-acquired?

“Q. – But you are dead, man of God! You no longer need money. Ask God for a new, poor existence, in order to expiate the avarice of this one.

Answer. – No; I could not live poor. I need my money to live. Besides, I do not need another life, for I am alive now.

“Q. (The following question was asked with the aim of bringing him back to reality.) – Do you suffer?

Answer. – Oh! yes; I suffer worse tortures than the cruelest disease, since it is my soul that bears these tortures. I always have present in my thought the iniquity of my life, which, for many, was a cause of scandal. I well know that I am a wretch, unworthy of pity; but I suffer so much that I need help to leave this miserable state.

“Q. – We will pray for you.

Answer. – Thank you! Pray that I may forget my earthly riches, without which I could never repent. Farewell, and thank you.

“François Riquier.

“Rue de la Charité, no. 14.”

Remark. – This and many other analogous examples prove that the Spirit can preserve, for many years, the idea that it still belongs to the corporeal world. This illusion is not exclusive to cases of violent death; it seems to be the consequence of the materiality of earthly life. The persistence of the sentiment of such materiality, which cannot be satiated, is a torment for the Spirit. Moreover, here we find proof that the Spirit is a being similar to the corporeal being, although fluidic, because, in order for it to still believe itself in this world, to continue or to believe it continues, one might say, to devote itself to its affairs, it must be that it sees itself in form and in a body as in life. If there remained of it no more than a breath, a vapor, a spark, it could not deceive itself as to its situation. It is thus that the study of Spirits, even common ones, comes to enlighten us as to the real state of the invisible world and to confirm the most important truths. [This communication was transcribed into the book Heaven and Hell: Second part. Chap. IV — Unhappy Spirits.]