The Spirit of Jean Reynaud.

— My friends, how magnificent this new life is! Like a luminous torrent, it drags in its immense course the souls thirsting for the infinite! After the rupture of the carnal bonds, my eyes embraced the new horizons that surround me and I was able to enjoy the splendid marvels of the infinite. I passed from the shadows of matter to the dazzling dawn that announces the Almighty. I am saved, not by the merit of my works, but by the knowledge of the eternal principle, which made me avoid the stains impressed by ignorance upon Humanity itself. My death was blessed;

my biographers judged it premature. Ah! the blind ones! They will lament some writings born of dust and will not understand how useful, for the holy cause of Spiritism, is the little noise made around my half-closed tomb. My work was finished; my predecessors opened the way; I had reached that culminating point at which man gave the best he had and where he does no more than begin again. My death awakens the attention of the learned upon my capital work, which concerns the great Spiritist question, which they pretend to ignore and which soon will entangle them. Glory to God! Aided by the superior Spirits, who protect the new doctrine, I will be one of the scouts who mark out your road.

[see Jean Reynaud and the precursors of Spiritism.]

(In a family gathering. – Medium: Mr. Charles V…)

— The Spirit responds to this reflection: Your unexpected death, at so little advanced an age, surprised a great many people.

“Who tells me that my death was not a blessing for Spiritism, for its future, for its consequences? Have you noticed, my friend, the march that progress follows, the path that the Spiritist faith takes? God, first of all, gave material proofs: the dancing of tables, raps, and all sorts of phenomena; it was to attract attention; it was an amusing preamble. To believe, men need palpable proofs. Now the matter is completely different. After the material facts, God speaks to the intelligence, to good sense, to cold reason; it is no longer a matter of manifestations of force, but of rational things, which must convince and even win over the most obstinate of the incredulous. And this is only the beginning. Note well what I tell you: a whole series of intelligent, irrefutable facts will follow, and the number of the adepts of the Spiritist faith, already so great, will increase still more. God will conquer the elite intelligences, the summits of spirit, of talent, and of knowledge. It will be a luminous ray spreading over the whole Earth, like an irresistible magnetic fluid, impelling the most recalcitrant to the search for the infinite, to the study of that admirable science, which teaches us such sublime maxims. All will gather around you and, abstraction made of the diploma of genius that had been given them, will make themselves humble and small, so as to learn and to be convinced. Then, later, when they are well instructed and well convinced, they will make use of their authority and of the notoriety of their names to push still farther and to attain the last limits of the goal that you have all proposed to yourselves: the regeneration of the human species through the reasoned and deepened knowledge of past and future existences. Such is my sincere opinion on the present state of Spiritism.” Jean Reynaud. n (Bordeaux.

– Medium: Mrs. C…)

— I yield with pleasure to your appeal, madam. Yes, you are right: to tell the truth, the Spiritist confusion did not exist for me (this responded to the medium's thought). Voluntarily exiled upon your Earth, where I was to cast the first serious seed of the great truths that, at present, envelop the world, I always had consciousness of the homeland and soon recognized myself in the midst of my brothers.

Q. – I thank you for having come. But I did not believe that my desire to converse had any influence over you. There must necessarily be so great a difference between us that I think of it only with respect.

Answer. – Thank you, my daughter, for this good thought. But you should know also that, whatever the distance that may be established between us as to the trials accomplished, more or less promptly, more or less happily, there is always a powerful bond to unite us: sympathy; and this bond you tightened by your constant thought.

Q. – Although many Spirits have explained their first sensations upon awakening, would you have the kindness to tell me what you experienced upon recognizing yourself, and how the separation between the Spirit and the body was effected?

Answer. – As for all. I felt the moment of separation approach; yet, happier than many, it caused me no anguish, since I knew its results, although they were even greater than I thought. The body is an impediment to the spiritual faculties and, whatever lights one may have kept, they are always more or less stifled by the contact of matter. I fell asleep awaiting a happy awakening; the sleep was short, the admiration immense! Unfolded before my eyes, the celestial splendors shone with all their magnificence. My marveling gaze plunged into the immensities of those worlds, whose existence and habitability I had affirmed. It was a mirage that confirmed to me the truth of my sentiments. However sure a man may judge himself when speaking, sometimes he has in the depth of his heart moments of doubt, of uncertainty; he distrusts, if not the truth he proclaims, at least the imperfect means he employs to demonstrate it. Convinced of the truth that I wished to have admitted, many times I had to combat against myself, against the discouragement of seeing, of touching, so to speak, the truth, and of not being able to make it palpable to those who would have so much need to believe in it in order to march with security on the road they must follow.

Q. – In life did you profess Spiritism?

Answer. – Between professing and practicing there is a great difference. Many people profess a doctrine they do not practice; I practiced and did not profess. Just as every man who follows the laws of Christ is a Christian, even though he did not know them, so too every man can be a Spiritist, provided he believes in his immortal soul, in his pre-existences, in his incessant progressive march, in his earthly trials, and in the ablutions necessary to purify himself. I believed in this; I was, then, a Spiritist. I understood erraticity, this intermediary bond between incarnations, that purgatory where the guilty Spirit divests itself of its soiled garments to clothe itself in another, in which the Spirit in progress weaves with care the tunic it will wear again and which it wishes to keep pure. As I told you, I understood and, without professing, I continued to practice. Observation. – These three communications were obtained through three different mediums, completely strangers to one another. We have no material proof of the identity of the Spirit who manifested, but, by the analogy of the thoughts, by the form of the language, we can at least admit the presumption of identity. The expression weaves with care the tunic it will wear again is a charming figure that paints the solicitude with which the Spirit in progress prepares the new existence that is to make it progress further. The backward Spirits are less cautious and, at times, make unhappy choices that force them to begin again. [1]

[see Jean Reynaud.]