Some Refutations

– From various quarters we are pointed to new sermons against Spiritism, all in the same spirit as those of which we have spoken; and since they are almost always nothing but variations on the same thought, in terms more or less well chosen, we deem it superfluous to analyze them. We shall confine ourselves to highlighting certain passages, accompanying them with a few reflections.

“My brothers, it is a Christian who speaks to Christians, and in that capacity we have the right to be astonished at seeing Spiritism grow among us. What is Spiritism, I ask you, if not a mosaic of horrors that only madness could justify?”

To this we have nothing to say, except that all the sermons preached in this city have been incapable of halting the growth of Spiritism, as the orator himself well observes; therefore the arguments opposed to it have less authority than its own; and if the sermons emanate from God and Spiritism proceeds from the devil, then the latter is more powerful than God. Nothing is more brutal than a fact. Now, the propagation of Spiritism, as a very consequence of the sermons, is a notorious fact, and people surely judge that the arguments it gives are more convincing than those of its adversaries. It is a web of horrors. So be it. But you must agree that if these Spirits came to embrace all your ideas, instead of demons you would make saints of them; and, far from condemning evocations, you would encourage them.

– “Our century respects nothing anymore; not even the ashes of the tombs are spared, for fools dare to summon the dead to converse with them. Unfortunately, that is how it is. See to what point this so-called century of enlightenment has come: to converse with the souls of the other world.”

To converse with the dead is not a privilege of this century, since the history of all peoples proves that this has occurred in all ages. The only difference is that today it is done everywhere without the superstitious accessories with which evocations were once surrounded, and with a more religious and more respectful sentiment. It is one of two things: either the thing is possible, or it is not. If it is not, it is an illusory belief; like believing in the ill fate of Friday, in the influence of spilled salt. We do not see, then, that there are so many horrors, or that one is being disrespectful by conversing with beings who no longer belong to this world. If the dead come to converse with us, it can only be by the permission of God, unless one claims that they come without that permission, or against His will, which would imply that God does not care about it, or that those who evoke are more powerful than God. But note the contradictions: on the one hand you say that only the devil communicates, and on the other, that the ashes of the dead are disturbed by summoning them. If it is the devil, they are not the dead; therefore they are neither disturbed nor disrespected. If they are the dead, then it is not the devil. You would need, at least, to agree among yourselves on this capital point. Admitting that they are the dead, we acknowledge that there would be profanation in summoning them frivolously, for futile reasons, above all to make of this a lucrative profession. We condemn all these things and do not take responsibility for those who depart from the principles of serious Spiritism. Do not assume responsibility for false devotees, who have only the mask of religion, who preach what they do not practice or who speculate with holy things. Certainly evocations performed under the burlesque conditions attributed to an eloquent orator whom we cite further on would be a sacrilege; but, thank God, we are not involved in that, and we do not believe that the one by Mr. Viennois, likewise referred to further on [see Mr. Philibert Viennois], is in this case.

– “I myself witnessed these facts and heard morality, charity, preached; it is true. But upon what do this morality and this charity rest? Ah! upon nothing, for one cannot call moral a doctrine that denies the eternal punishments.”

If this morality leads one to do good without the fear of eternal punishments, it is all the more meritorious. Formerly it was thought impossible to maintain discipline in school without the fear of the ruler. Were the students better? No; today it is no longer used and they are no worse: on the contrary. Therefore the present regime is preferable.

One judges the quality of a means by its effects. Besides, to whom is this morality addressed? Precisely to those who do not believe in the eternal punishments, and to whom we give a curb, which they accept, whereas you give them none, since they do not accept yours. Do we prevent those whom it suits from believing in absolute damnation? Not at all. Once again, we do not address ourselves to those who have faith and to whom this suffices, but to those who do not have it or who doubt. Would you prefer that they remain in absolute incredulity? That would be hardly charitable. Do you fear that they will take your sheep from you? It is that you have not much confidence in the power of your means to retain them; it is that you fear they will be drawn by the tender grass of forgiveness and divine mercy. Do you believe, then, that those who waver in uncertainty will prefer the flames of hell? On the other hand, who ought to be more convinced of the eternal punishments than those who are nourished in the bosom of the Church? Now, tell us why this prospect has not held back all the scandals, all the atrocities, all the prevarications against divine and human laws, which swarm in History and reproduce themselves incessantly in our days? Are they crimes or not? If, then, those who make profession of this belief are not restrained in their actions, how can one expect that those who do not believe will be? No; the enlightened man of our days needs another curb: the one that his reason admits. Now, belief in the eternal punishments, perhaps useful in other eras, is outdated; it is dying out day by day, and however much you may do, you will not give life to a corpse, nor will you revive the usages, customs, and ideas of the Middle Ages. If the Catholic Church judges its security compromised by the disappearance of this belief, we must lament that it rests upon so fragile a base, because, if anything torments it, it is the dogma of the eternal punishments.

– “Thus, I appeal to the morality of all honest souls; I appeal to the magistrates, for they are responsible for all the evil that such a heresy draws upon our heads.”

We did not know that in France the magistrates were charged with instituting proceedings against heresies, for if among them there are Catholics, there are also Protestants and Jews; thus the heretics themselves would undertake their own persecution and condemnation. And there are some among the functionaries of the highest category.

– “Yes, the Spiritists – and I do not fear to declare it here openly – are liable not only to the correctional police and to the Imperial Court, but also – pay close attention – to the court of the jury, because they are forgers; they sign communications in the name of persons who certainly would never have signed them in life, persons whom today they make speak so much.”

The Spiritists are truly very content, because Confucius, Socrates, Saint Augustine, Saint Vincent de Paul, Fénelon, and others cannot bring proceedings against them for crimes of forgery of private writing. I do indeed dream of it: they would have a plank of salvation precisely in the courts of the jury to whose jurisdiction they are subject, for there the jurors pronounce according to their conscience. Now, among them there are also Protestants and Jews; there are even – abominable thing! – philosophers, unbelievers, horrible freethinkers who, in view of our detestable modern laws, are to be found everywhere. Thus, if they accuse us of making Saint Augustine say something heterodox, we shall always find jurors who acquit us. O perversity of the century! to say that in our days Voltaire, Diderot, Luther, Calvin, John Huss, Arius would have been jurors by right of birth, that they could have been perfect judges, minister of justice and even of religion! See them, these infernal scoundrels, pronouncing on a question of heresy! Because, to condemn the signature of Fénelon, placed below a supposed heretical communication, one must judge the question of orthodoxy; and who in the jury will be competent?

– “Meanwhile, it would be so easy to interdict such impiety! What would one need to do? Almost nothing; even without doing them the honor of the commissioner’s cloak, you may place a sergeant at the entrance of each group to say: do not enter. I paint the evil and I describe the remedy, only this, for I exempt them from the Inquisition.”

Many thanks, but there is no great merit in offering that which one does not have. Unfortunately for you, you cannot count on the Inquisition, without which it would be doubtful that you would free us from it. What do you not say to the magistrates, with a view to interdicting the entrance of the Jewish and Protestant temples, where dogmas are publicly preached that are not yours? As for the Spiritists, they have neither temples nor priests, but – which for you is the same thing – groups, at the entrance of which it suffices to place a sergeant for everything to be settled. It really is very simple. But you forget that the Spirits ignore any prohibition and enter everywhere without asking permission, even in your house, for you have them at your side, listening to you, without your suspecting it, and, moreover, speaking in your ear. Bring your recollections to mind and you will see that you have had more than one manifestation, even without having sought it.

You seem to be unaware of something it is well that you should know. Spiritist groups are not at all necessary; they are simple gatherings where people who think in the same way are happy to find one another. And the proof of this is that today, in France, there are more than 600,000 Spiritists, 99 percent of whom belong to no group and have never set foot in one; that they do not exist in a number of cities; that neither the groups nor the societies open their doors to the public to preach their doctrines to passersby; that Spiritism preaches itself, by the force of things, because it answers a need of the age; that Spiritist ideas are in the air and are inhaled through all the pores of intelligence; that the contagion lies in the example of those who are happy with these beliefs and who are to be found everywhere, in society, without there being any need to seek them out in the groups. Thus, it is not the groups that carry out the propaganda, for they do not appeal to the first comer; it is done little by little, from individual to individual. If, therefore, we were to admit the interdiction of all gatherings, the Spiritists would be free to gather as a family, as already happens in thousands of places, without Spiritism suffering anything from it; quite the contrary, for we have always condemned the great assemblies, which are more harmful than useful; furthermore, intimacy is recognized as the condition most favorable to the manifestations. Would you interdict family gatherings? Would you place a sergeant at the door of a parlor to watch what goes on at the fireside? This is not done in Spain, nor in Rome, where there are more Spiritists and mediums than you think. That was all that was needed to increase still further the importance of Spiritism. Let us now admit the legal interdiction of the groups. Do you know what these Spiritists whom you accuse of sowing disorder would do? They would say: We respect the law; dura lex, sed lex [The law is hard, but it is the law]. Let us set the example, showing that, if we preach union, peace, and concord, it is not to transform ourselves into promoters of disorder. Organized societies are not necessary to the existence of Spiritism; there is among them no material solidarity that could be broken by their suppression. What the Spirits teach there, they equally teach in a private conversation between two persons, because Spiritism has the incredible privilege of having its focus of teaching everywhere. Its bond of union is the love of God and of one’s neighbor, and to put it into practice there is no need of official gatherings, for it extends as much over friends as over enemies. Anyone can say the same; and has not authority more than once found resistance where it expected to find the greatest submission? If the Spiritists were people as turbulent and as perverted as you claim, why do the functionaries charged with the maintenance of order have less work in the centers where they form a majority? A functionary went so far as to say that if all his administrative charges were Spiritists, his office could be closed. Why are there fewer disciplinary punishments among Spiritist soldiers? And, besides, do you not think that at present there are Spiritists everywhere, from top to bottom on the social scale; that there are gatherings and mediums even in the houses of those whom you invoke against us. See, then, that your means is insufficient; another must be sought. – We have the fulminating condemnation of the pulpit. – Very well; and you use it amply. But do you not see that everywhere you cast your thunderbolts the number of Spiritists increases? – We have the censure of the Church and excommunication. – That is better; but once again you strike at the void. We repeat: Spiritism addresses itself neither to you nor to those who are with you; it does not go to seek them and say to them: leave your religion and follow me; you will be damned if you do not. No; it is more tolerant than that and leaves to each one freedom of conscience. As we have already said, it addresses itself to the innumerable mass of unbelievers, to those who doubt, and to the indifferent; these are not with you, and your censures cannot reach them. They came to you, but you repelled them. What ineptitude! If some of yours follow it, it is because your arguments are not strong enough to retain them, and it is not by severity that you will succeed. Spiritism pleases because it does not impose itself, and is accepted by the will and by free examination. In this it is of our age. It pleases by its gentleness, by the consolations it lavishes in adversities, by the unshakable faith it gives in the future, in the goodness and the mercy of God. Moreover, it rests upon patent, material, irrefutable facts that defy all denial. Such is the secret of its so rapid propagation. What do you oppose to it? Always eternal damnation, a poor expedient for the times that run; then the distortion of its doctrines: you accuse it of preaching abortion, adultery, and all crimes. To whom do you think to impose this? Not to the Spiritists, certainly. To those who do not know it? But among that number many wish to know what this abominable doctrine is; they read, and seeing that it says exactly the contrary of what is attributed to it, they leave you to follow it. And this without its going to seek them out. The position, I know well, is awkward: If we speak against Spiritism – you say – we recruit partisans for it; if we keep silent, it marches along on its own. What, then, is to be done? Formerly it was said: Let the justice of the king pass; now it must be said: Let the justice of God pass.

(To be continued in the next number)

SOME REFUTATIONS.

(2nd article. – See the May number.)

[Review of June 1863.]

Every new idea necessarily encounters opposition, on the part of those whose opinions and interests it contradicts. Some judge that the Church is compromised – we think not, but our opinion does not make law – which is why they attack us in its name with a fury to which only the great executions of the Middle Ages are lacking. Sermons and pastoral instructions cast thunderbolts in all directions; brochures and newspaper articles rain down in great quantity, most of them with a cynicism of expression that is very little evangelical. In several of them it is a frenzy bordering on madness. Why, then, this display of force and so much anger? Because we say that God forgives the creature who repents, and that the punishments would be eternal only for those who never repented, and because we proclaim the goodness and the clemency of God, we are heretics devoted to execration and society is lost. They point us out as disturbers; they challenge authority to persecute us in the name of morality and public order; they allege that authority does not fulfill its duty in leaving us in peace! Here an interesting problem presents itself. One asks why this violence against Spiritism, and not against so many other philosophical or religious theories far less orthodox? Has the Church fulminated against materialism, which denies everything, as it does against Spiritism, which limits itself to the interpretation of a few dogmas? Have these dogmas, and many others, not been so many times denied, discussed, debated in a quantity of writings that it lets pass unnoticed? Have the fundamental principles of faith – God, the soul, and immortality – not been publicly attacked without its being disturbed? Never have Saint-Simonism, Fourierism, the very Church of Father Chatel ⁿ raised so much anger, not to mention other less known sects, such as the Fusionists, whose leader has just died, who have a cult, their own newspaper, and who do not admit the divinity of Christ; the Catholic Apostolics, who do not recognize the pope, who have their married priests and bishops, their churches in Paris and the provinces, where they baptize, marry, and conduct funeral ceremonies. Why, then, does Spiritism, which has neither cult nor church, and whose priests exist only in the imagination, raise so much animosity? A bizarre thing! the religious party and the materialist party, which are the negation of each other, join hands to pulverize us, so they say. Truly the human spirit presents singular caprices when blinded by passion, and the history of Spiritism will have amusing things to record.

– The reply is entirely contained in this conclusion of the brochure of the Rev. Fr. Nampon: ⁿ “In general nothing is more abject, more degrading, more empty of substance and of attraction in form than such publications, whose fabulous success is one of the most alarming symptoms of our age. Destroy them, then, and you will lose nothing by it. With the money spent in Lyon for these inanities, one could easily have created more beds in the asylums for the insane, overcrowded since the invasion of Spiritism. And what shall we do with these pernicious brochures? We shall do the same as the great apostle did at Ephesus; and acting thus we shall preserve among ourselves the empire of reason and of faith, preserving the victims of these lamentable illusions from a host of disappointments in the present life and from the flames of the unhappy eternity.”

– It is this fabulous success that confounds our adversaries. They cannot comprehend the uselessness of all they do to halt this idea that passes over their snares, straightens up under their blows, and continues its ascending march without concerning itself with the stones they hurl at it. This is an indubitable fact, attested many times by adversaries of this or that category, in their sermons and publications. All deplore the incredible progress of this epidemic, which attacks even men of science, physicians, and magistrates. In truth one must return from Texas to say that Spiritism is dead and no one speaks of it anymore. (See the Review of February 1863.)

What do we do to triumph? Do we go and preach Spiritism in the public squares? Do we summon the public to our gatherings? Do we have missionaries of propaganda? Do we count on the support of the press? Have we, in short, all the means of action, overt and secret, that you possess and use with such prodigality? No; to recruit partisans we have a thousand times less work than you have to divert them. We content ourselves with saying: “Read; and if this suits you, come back to us.” We do more, saying: “Read the pros and the cons and compare.” We respond to your attacks without bitterness, without animosity, without acrimony, because we have no anger. Far from lamenting yours, we applaud it, because it serves our cause. Here, among thousands, is a proof of the persuasive force of our adversaries’ arguments. A gentleman who has just written to the Society of Paris, asking to become a member of it, begins his letter thus: “The reading of: The Question of the Supernatural, the Dead and the Living, by Father Matignon; ⁿ The Question of Spirits, by Mr. de Mirville; ⁿ The Rapping Spirit, by Dr. Bronson, and, finally, various articles against Spiritism, did nothing but make me adhere completely to the doctrine set forth in The Spirits’ Book and gave me the most lively desire to become a member of the Spiritist Society of Paris, in order to be able to continue the study of Spiritism in a more sustained and more profitable manner.”

– At times passion blinds, to the point of making one commit singular inconsistencies. In the passage cited above, the Rev. Fr. Nampon says that “nothing is more empty of attraction than these publications, whose fabulous success, etc.” Does he not perceive that these two propositions destroy each other reciprocally; a thing without attraction could have no success, since it will have success only on the condition of having attraction; with all the more reason when the success is fabulous.

He adds that with the money spent in Lyon on these inanities, more beds could easily have been created in the asylums for the insane of that city, overcrowded since the invasion of Spiritism. It is true that thirty to forty thousand beds would be needed, in Lyon alone, since all the Spiritists are mad. On the other hand, since they are inanities, they possess no value. Why, then, give them the honors of so many sermons, pastorals, and brochures? As for the question of the use of money, we know that in Lyon many people, certainly animated by ill sentiments, had said that the two millions furnished by this city to the coffers of Saint Peter would have given more bread to many unfortunate workers during the winter, whereas the reading of the Spiritist books gave them courage and resignation to bear their misery without revolt.

Fr. Nampon is not fortunate in his citations. In a passage of The Spirits’ Book he makes us say: “There is as much distance between the soul of the animal and the soul of man as between the soul of man and the soul of God.” (No. 597). We said: …as between the soul of man and God, which is very different. The soul of God implies a kind of assimilation between God and corporeal creatures. One understands the omission of a word through inadvertence or typographical error; but one does not add a word without intention. Why this addition, which denatures the sense of the thought, if not to give a materialist tone in the eyes of those who content themselves with reading the citation without verifying it in the original? A book that appeared shortly before The Spirits’ Book, and which contains an entire cosmogonic theory, makes of God a being very diversely material, because composed of all the globes of the Universe, molecules of the universal being, who has a stomach, eats and digests, and of whose digestion men are the bad product; yet not a word was said to combat it: all the anger was concentrated upon The Spirits’ Book. Is it, perhaps, because in six years it reached its tenth edition and spread into all the countries of the world? They are not content to criticize: they truncate and denature the maxims in order to increase the horror that this abominable doctrine should inspire and to set us in contradiction with ourselves. It is thus that Fr. Nampon says, citing a phrase from the introduction of The Spirits’ Book, page XXXIII: “Certain persons, you yourselves say, in giving themselves up to these studies have lost their reason.” We thus give the impression of acknowledging that Spiritism leads to madness, whereas, reading the whole of paragraph XV, the accusation falls precisely upon those who make it. It is thus that, taking a fragment of an author’s phrase, we could lead him to the gallows. The most sacred authors would not escape this dissection. It is with such a system that certain critics hope to change the tendencies of Spiritism and to make people believe that it advocates abortion, adultery, suicide, when it peremptorily demonstrates their criminality and the dire consequences for the future.

– Fr. Nampon even goes so far as to appropriate citations made with the aim of refuting certain ideas. “The author – he says – sometimes calls Jesus Christ Man-God; but elsewhere (The Mediums’ Book, page 368), in a dialogue with a medium who, taking the name of Jesus, said to him: ‘I am not God, but I am His son,’ he at once replies: ‘Then you are Jesus? Yes – adds Fr. Nampon – Jesus is called Son of God, but in the Arian acceptation, not being, therefore, consubstantial with the Father.’”

First of all, it was not the medium who passed himself off as Jesus, but a Spirit, which is very different. The citation is made precisely to show the knavery of certain Spirits and to forewarn mediums against their subterfuges. Do you claim that Spiritism denies the divinity of Christ, or have you seen such a proposition formulated as a principle? It is, you say, the consequence of the whole doctrine. Ah! if we enter upon the ground of interpretations, we may go further than you wish. If we were to say, for example, that Christ had not attained perfection, that he had need of the trials of corporeal life in order to progress; that his passion had been necessary to him in order to rise in glory, you would be right, because we would not even make of him a pure Spirit, sent to Earth with a divine mission, but a simple mortal, to whom suffering was necessary, in order to progress. Where do you find that we have said this? Well then! that which we have never said, that which we shall never say, it is you who say it. Lately we have seen, in the parlor of a religious house in Paris, the following inscription, printed in large letters and posted for the instruction of all: “It was necessary that Christ should suffer in order to enter into his glory, and it was only after having drunk in long draughts from the torrent of tribulation and suffering that he was raised to the highest of the heavens.” (Psalm 110, v. 7.) It is the commentary on this verse, whose text is: “He shall drink of the water of the torrent in the way; therefore shall he lift up the head (De torrente in via bibet: propterea exultabit caput [Psalmorum]).” ⁿ If, then, “it was necessary that Christ should suffer in order to enter into his glory; if he could not be raised to the highest of the heavens except through tribulations and through suffering,” it is that beforehand he was neither in glory nor in the highest of the heavens; consequently he was not God. His sufferings, then, did not profit Humanity alone, since they were necessary to his own advancement. To say that Christ had need of suffering in order to elevate himself is to say that he was not perfect before his coming. We know of no more energetic protest against his divinity. If such is the sense of the verse of the psalm that is sung at vespers ⁿ every Sunday, they sing the non-divinity of Christ. With the system of interpretation one goes very far, we were saying. If we wished to cite that of certain councils on this other verse: “The Lord is at your right hand; He shall destroy kings in the day of His wrath,” it would be easy to prove that the justification of regicide was drawn from it.

– Fr. Nampon further says: “Life changes its aspect entirely (with Spiritism). The immortality of the soul is reduced to a material permanence, without moral identity, without consciousness of the past.”

It is an error. Spiritism has never said that the soul remained without consciousness of the past. It momentarily loses its remembrance during corporeal life, but “when the Spirit returns to the previous life (the spirit life), its whole past life unfolds before its eyes. It sees the faults it committed and which were the cause of its suffering, as well as the manner in which it would have avoided them. It recognizes as just the situation in which it finds itself, and then seeks an existence capable of repairing the one that has just elapsed.” (The Spirits’ Book, no. 393.) Since there is remembrance of the past, consciousness of the being, there is then moral identity; since the spiritual life is the normal life of the Spirit, since corporeal existences are but points in the spirit life, immortality is not reduced to a material permanence. As one sees, Spiritism says exactly the contrary. In thus denaturing it, Fr. Nampon does not have the excuse of ignorance, because his citations prove that he has read, but he errs in truncating citations and in making it say the contrary of what it says.

– Spiritism is accused by some of resting upon the grossest materialism, because it admits the perispirit, which has material properties. It is again a false consequence, drawn from a principle incompletely reported. Spiritism has never confused the soul with the perispirit, which is but an envelope, as the body is another. Were it to have ten envelopes, this would take nothing away from its immaterial essence. The same is not the case with the doctrine adopted by the council of Vienne, in the Dauphiné, in its second session, on the 3rd of April 1312. According to that doctrine, “the authority of the Church ordains belief that the soul is but the substantial form of the body; that there are no innate ideas, and declares heretics those who deny the materiality of the soul.” Raoul Fornier, professor of Law, positively teaches the same thing in his academic discourses, printed in Paris in 1619, with the approval and praises of several doctors in theology.

It is probable that the council, basing itself on the facts of numerous visible and tangible Spiritist manifestations, reported in the Scriptures, manifestations which are nonetheless material, since they strike the senses, confused the soul with the fluidic envelope or perispirit, the distinction of which Spiritism demonstrates. Its doctrine is, then, less materialist than that of the council.

– “But let us approach without hesitation the man of France who is the most advanced in these studies. To establish the identity of the Spirit who speaks, one must, says Mr. Allan Kardec, study its language. Well then! So be it! We know from their authentic writings the certain thought and, consequently, the language of Saint John, Saint Paul, Saint Augustine, Fénelon, etc. How, then, in your books, do you dare attribute to these great geniuses thoughts and sentiments entirely contrary to those that remained forever consigned in their works?”

Thus, you admit that these personages were in nothing mistaken; that all they wrote is the expression of truth; that if today they returned corporeally they would have to teach all that they taught formerly; that, coming as Spirits, they must not disavow any of their words. Yet Saint Augustine regarded as heresy the belief in the roundness of the Earth and in the antipodes. He maintained the existence of incubi and succubi and believed in procreation through the commerce of men with Spirits. Do you believe that in this respect, and as a Spirit, he cannot think otherwise than he thought as a man, and that today he would profess these doctrines? If his ideas had to be modified on certain points, they may perfectly well have been changed on others. If he was mistaken, he who is an incontestably superior genius, why would you yourselves not be mistaken? In order to respect orthodoxy, must one deny Augustine the right – rather, the merit – of retracting his errors?

– “You attribute to Saint Louis this ridiculous sentence, above all in his mouth, against the eternity of the punishments: To suppose incurable Spirits is to deny the law of progress.” (The Spirits’ Book, no. 1007.)

That is not how it is formulated. To the question: Are there Spirits who never repent? Saint Louis replied: “There are those of very tardy repentance; but to claim that they will never improve would be to deny the law of progress and to say that the child cannot become a man.” The first form might appear ridiculous. Why, then, always truncate and denature the phrases? Whom do they think to deceive? those who read only these inexact commentaries? But their number is very small, beside those who wish to know the bottom of the things to which you yourselves call attention. Now, the comparison can only favor Spiritism.

Note. – For the edification of all, we recommend the reading of the brochure entitled: On Spiritism, by the Rev. Fr. Nampon [Adrien Nampon], of the Company of Jesus, Girard et Josserand Bookshop, Lyon, place Bellecour, no. 30; Paris, rue Cassette, no.

We also beg that one read in The Spirits’ Book and in The Mediums’ Book the complete texts, cited in summary form or distorted in the brochure referred to above. [See also of Fr. Nampon Catholic doctrine as defined by the Council of Trent - Google Books.]

[1] [L’Eglise Catholique Française de Monseigneur Chatel.]

[2] Discourse preached in the primatial church of Saint John the Baptist, in the presence of His Eminence the cardinal archbishop of Lyon, on the 14th and 21st of December 1862, by the reverend father Nampon, of the Company of Jesus, preacher of Advent. [Du Spiritisme. Par Adrien Nampon - Google Books.]

[3] [La Question du surnaturel ou la grâce, le merveilleux, le …, Ambroise Matignon - Google Books.]

[4] [Question des esprits: ses progrès dans la science…, Jules Eudes Mirville - Google Books.]

[5] Translator’s note: According to the French version of Lemaître de Sacy. [The Lemaître de Sacy version is bilingual (Latin/French). All the chapters of the Divine Testament have a link to the Latin version. The present citation is from the Psalmorum.]

[6] Translator’s note: In the Catholic liturgy, the part of the divine office that occurs in the afternoon, between 3 and 6 p.m. (Our emphasis).