Suicide falsely attributed to Spiritism.

The ardor of the adversaries in gathering, and above all in distorting, the facts they believe compromise Spiritism is truly incredible, to such a point that soon there will be no accident for which it is not held responsible.

A lamentable fact occurred lately in Tours and could not fail to be exploited by criticism: it is the suicide of two individuals, which many strive to attribute to Spiritism.

The newspaper Le Monde (formerly Univers Religieux), and with it several newspapers, published an article on the subject, from which we extract the following passages:

“A couple of advanced age, Mr. and Mrs. ***, still in good health and enjoying an income that allowed them to live comfortably, had for about two years been giving themselves over to operations of Spiritism. Almost every evening a certain number of workers, men and women, and young people of both sexes, gathered in their house, before whom our two Spiritists made their evocations, or at least pretended to make them.

“We shall not speak of the questions of every sort whose solution was asked of the Spirits in that house. Those who have known the couple for a long time, and their sentiments regarding religion, were never surprised at the scenes produced there. Strangers to every Christian idea, they had thrown themselves into magic, passing for skillful and perfect masters.

“Both of them had been convinced, for some time, that the Spirits were vividly persuading them to leave the Earth, in order to enjoy in another world, the supraterrestrial world, a greater sum of happiness. Indeed, not doubting that it was so, they carried out the double suicide with the greatest coolness, a fact which today constitutes a great scandal in the city of Tours.

“Thus, it is today suicide that we have to record as a result of Spiritism and of its doctrine. Yesterday it was cases of madness, not to mention the domestic disorders and other disorders that Spiritism has so commonly provoked. Is this not enough to make men understand—those who close their ears to the voice of religion—to what dangers they expose themselves by giving themselves over to these stupid and dark practices?”

Let us note, first of all, that if the two individuals pretended to make evocations, it is because they did not really make them; they deceived others or deluded themselves. Therefore, if they did not make real evocations, it was a chimera, and the Spirits could not have given them bad counsel.

Were they Spiritists, that is, Spiritists in heart or in name? The article makes clear that they were strangers to every Christian idea; moreover, that they passed for skillful and perfect masters in magic. Now, it is proven that Spiritism is inseparable from religious ideas, principally Christian ones; that the negation of these is the negation of Spiritism; that it condemns the practices of magic, with which it has nothing in common; that it denounces as superstitious the belief in the virtue of talismans, formulas, cabalistic signs, and sacramental words. Therefore, those persons were not Spiritists, for they were in contradiction with the principles of Spiritism. To pay homage to the truth, we shall say that, from the information obtained, it is concluded that those persons did not occupy themselves with magic and that they certainly wished to take advantage of the circumstance to link that name to Spiritism. Moreover, the article says that in their house questions of every sort were put to the Spirits. Spiritism expressly affirms that one cannot address every kind of question to the Spirits; that they come to instruct us and to make us better, and not to occupy themselves with material interests; that it is to mistake the purpose of the manifestations to see in them a means of knowing the future, discovering treasures or inheritances, making inventions and scientific discoveries in order to distinguish oneself or grow rich without work; in a word, that the Spirits do not come to tell fortunes. Consequently, in putting to the Spirits questions of every sort, which is very real, the individuals proved their ignorance as to the very purpose of Spiritism. The article does not say that they made a profession of it, and indeed they did not. Otherwise, we would recall what has been said hundreds of times concerning that exploitation and its consequences, namely that serious Spiritism cannot assume responsibility for it, legal or otherwise, just as it does not assume responsibility for the eccentricities of those who do not understand it; it does not defend the abuses that might be committed in its name by those who take its form or its mask without assimilating its principles.

Another proof that those individuals were ignorant of one of the fundamental points of the Spiritist Doctrine is that Spiritism demonstrates, not by simple moral theory, but by numerous and considerable examples, that suicide is severely punished; that he who thinks he escapes the miseries of life by a voluntary death anticipated to the designs of God falls into a much more unhappy state. The Spiritist knows, then—and of this he cannot doubt—that, through suicide, one exchanges a passing bad state for another that is worse and that may last a long time. This is what those individuals would have known had they known Spiritism. The author of the article, in advancing that this doctrine leads to suicide, spoke of a thing of which he himself was ignorant. We are not in the least surprised at the result of the noise they made about this event. By presenting it as a consequence of the Spiritist Doctrine, they sharpened curiosity, and each one wished to know that doctrine for himself, on condition of rejecting it if it should prove to be such as they portrayed it. Now, they recognized that it said exactly the contrary of what they claimed it said; thus, then, it can only gain by becoming known, which our adversaries seem to take upon themselves with an ardor for which we can only be grateful to them, save, however, as regards their intention. If by their diatribes they produce a small local and momentary disturbance, this is not slow to be followed by a resurgence in the number of adherents. This is what is seen everywhere. “If, then”—they write to us from Tours—“these individuals resolved to mix the Spirits into their fatal resolution and into their well-known eccentricities, it is evident that they had understood nothing of Spiritism and that no conclusion can be drawn against the doctrine; otherwise, it would be necessary to hold the most serious and most sacred doctrines responsible for the abuses and even crimes committed in their name by poor fools and fanatics. Mrs. F… claimed to be a medium, but all who heard her could never take her seriously. The much-rehashed ideas, the exaggeration, and the eccentricities of the old couple, principally of the woman, caused the doors of the Spiritist circle of Tours to be closed to them, to which they were not admitted to a single session.” The aforementioned newspaper did not provide good information about the true causes of the suicide. We gathered them from authentic documents, registered in a notary's office in Tours, as well as from a letter that Mr. X…, attorney of that city, wrote to us in this regard.

The spouses R…, the wife sixty-two years old and the husband eighty, far from the affluence in which they had lived, were driven to suicide solely by the prospect of misery. They had amassed a small fortune in the textile trade in New Orleans; ruined by bankruptcies, they came to Nantes, then to Tours, with the little that remained to them from the financial shipwreck. A life annuity of 480 fr., which was their principal resource, failed them in 1856, as a consequence of a new bankruptcy. Already three times, and long before there was any thought of Spiritism, they had attempted suicide. In these last times, persecuted by former creditors, an unfortunate lawsuit had ended by ruining them, causing them to lose their courage and their reason. The following letter, written by Mrs. F… before dying, which is found among the documents related above, signed by the president of the tribunal, ne varietur [so that nothing be changed], makes known the true reason for the death. We transcribe it textually, in the original spelling:

“Mr. and Mrs. B…, before going to Heaven I wish to commune with you once more, accept my last farewell, I much hope however that we shall see one another, as I depart before you I am going to keep your place for when the moment comes for me to share with you our project, since our adversities we have nourished in our heart a sorrow that has not been erased, it is more than a vexation, everything becomes a burden to me, I always have my heart full of bitterness, I must tell you that for six years the affair of our house has not ended, perhaps it will be necessary to consume two thousand francs more, as we see that we cannot get out of it except with great privations that must always be begun again without seeing the end, it is necessary to put an end to this, now we are old our strength begins to abandon us, courage fails, the match is no longer equal, it is necessary to put an end to this and we have come to the determination. I ask that you accept my sincere wishes. Wife F…” Today it is known in Tours how to proceed regarding the true causes of this event; and the noise they make about it reverts in favor of Spiritism, for, says our correspondent, it is spoken of everywhere, people want to know for certain what it is, and, since then, the bookshops of the city have sold more Spiritist books than ever.

It is truly curious to see the lamentable tone of some, the furious anger of others, and, in the midst of all this, Spiritism pursuing its ascending march, like a soldier who plans an assault without troubling himself about the grapeshot. Seeing mockery powerless, after having said it was a will-o'-the-wisp, now the adversaries say it is a rabid dog.