Summary of the law of Spiritist phenomena.

— This instruction is made aiming, above all, at persons who possess no notion of Spiritism, and to whom one wishes to give a succinct idea in a few words. In Spiritist groups or meetings, where novice attendees are found, it can usefully serve as a preamble to the sessions, according to the needs.

— Persons foreign to Spiritism, understanding neither its purpose nor its means, almost always form a completely false idea of it. What they lack, above all, is the knowledge of the principle, the first key to the phenomenon; lacking this, what they see and hear is without benefit and without interest. It is a fact established by experience that the mere sight or the account of the phenomena is not enough to convince. The very one who witnesses facts capable of confounding him remains more astonished than convinced; the more extraordinary the effect appears to him, the more he suspects it. A prior, serious study is the only means of leading to conviction; often even this is enough to entirely change the course of one's ideas. In any case, it is indispensable for the understanding of the simplest phenomena. In the absence of a complete instruction, which cannot be given in a few words, a succinct summary of the law that governs the manifestations will suffice to make those not yet initiated consider the matter in its true light. This is the first marker we set down in the brief instruction that follows. Nevertheless, a prior observation is necessary. In general the incredulous are inclined to suspect the good faith of the mediums and to suppose the use of fraudulent means. Besides being injurious with respect to certain persons, one must, above all, ask what interest these could have in deceiving and in performing, or causing to be performed, a comedy. The best guarantee of sincerity lies in absolute disinterest, for where there is nothing to be gained, charlatanism has no reason to exist.

— As for the reality of the phenomena, each one can verify it, if he places himself under favorable conditions and if he brings to the observation of the facts the patience, the perseverance, and the impartiality required.

— Spiritism is, at the same time, a science of observation and a philosophical doctrine. As a practical science, it consists in the relations that can be established with the Spirits; as a philosophy, it comprises all the moral consequences arising from those relations.

— The Spirits are not, as they are often imagined, beings apart in the Creation; they are the souls of those who have lived on Earth or in other worlds. Souls or Spirits are, therefore, one and the same thing; from which it follows that whoever believes in the existence of the soul, by that very fact believes in that of the Spirits.

— Generally a very false idea is formed of the state of the Spirits; they are not, as some think, vague and indefinite beings, nor flames, like will-o'-the-wisps, nor phantoms as in the tales of apparitions. They are beings similar to us, having a body like ours, but fluidic and invisible in the normal state.

— When the soul is united to the body during life, it has a double envelope: one heavy, gross, and destructible, which is the body; the other fluidic, light, and indestructible, called the perispirit. The perispirit is the bond that unites the soul to the body; it is through its intermediary that the soul makes the body act and perceives the sensations experienced by the body.

— Death is merely the destruction of the gross envelope; the soul abandons this envelope as one leaves a worn-out garment, or as the butterfly leaves its chrysalis. But it preserves its fluidic body, or perispirit.

The union of the soul, the perispirit, and the material body constitutes man; the soul and the perispirit, separated from the body, constitute the being called Spirit.

— The death of the body frees the Spirit from the envelope that bound it to the Earth and made it suffer; once free of that burden, it has only its ethereal body, which enables it to traverse space and cross distances with the rapidity of thought.

— The fluid that composes the perispirit penetrates all bodies and passes through them, as light passes through transparent bodies; no matter constitutes an obstacle to it. It is for this reason that the Spirits penetrate everywhere, into the most hermetically closed places. It is a ridiculous idea to believe that they enter through a small opening, like the hole of a lock or the flue of the chimney.

— The Spirits populate space; they constitute the invisible world that surrounds us, in the midst of which we live, and with which we are in incessant contact.

— The Spirits have all the perceptions they had on Earth, but in a higher degree, because their faculties are not deadened by matter; they have sensations that are unknown to us; they see and hear things that our limited senses do not permit us to see or hear. For them there is no darkness, save for those whose punishment is to remain temporarily in shadows. All our thoughts reverberate in them and they read therein as in an open book, so that what we could conceal from someone while alive, we can no longer conceal, once he is a Spirit.

— The Spirits preserve the serious affections they had on Earth; they take pleasure in seeking those who loved them, above all when attracted by the thought and the affectionate sentiments consecrated to them, whereas they are indifferent to those who devote nothing but indifference to them.

— The Spirits can manifest themselves in many different ways: by sight, hearing, touch, noises, movements of bodies, writing, drawing, music, etc. They manifest themselves through persons endowed with a special aptitude for each kind of manifestation, and who are distinguished under the name of mediums. It is thus that one distinguishes seeing, speaking, hearing, sensitive, physical-effect, drawing, typtological, writing mediums, etc. Among the writing mediums there are numerous varieties, according to the nature of the communications they are apt to receive.

— Although invisible to us in the normal state, the perispirit is nonetheless ethereal matter. In certain cases the Spirit can make it undergo a kind of molecular modification, which renders it visible and even tangible; it is thus that apparitions are produced. This phenomenon is no more extraordinary than that of vapor, invisible when rarefied, and which becomes visible when condensed.

The Spirits who become visible almost always present themselves under the appearance they had in life, which allows them to be recognized.

— It is with the aid of its perispirit that the Spirit acted upon its living body; it is again with that same fluid that it manifests itself, acting upon inert matter, producing noises, movements of tables and other objects, which it raises, overturns, or transports. This phenomenon has nothing surprising about it if one considers that, among us, the most powerful motors are found in the most rarefied and even imponderable fluids, such as air, vapor, and electricity.

It is likewise with the aid of its perispirit that the Spirit makes the mediums write, speak, and draw. Having no tangible body with which to act ostensibly when it wishes to manifest itself, it makes use of the body of the medium, of whose organs it takes hold, making them act as if they were its own body, and this by the fluidic effluvium that it pours upon him.

— It is by the same means that the Spirit acts upon the table, whether to move it without determined significance, or to make it give intelligent raps, indicating the letter of the alphabet, to form words and sentences, a phenomenon designated under the name of typtology. There the table is nothing but an instrument, of which it makes use, as of the pencil to write. It gives it a momentary vitality, by the fluid with which it penetrates it, but it does not identify itself with it. Persons who, moved on seeing a being dear to them manifest itself, kiss the table, commit a ridiculous act, because it is absolutely as if they kissed the stick the friend uses to give raps. The same happens with those who address words to the table, as if the Spirit were enclosed in the wood, or as if this had become Spirit. When communications occur by this means, one must imagine the Spirit, not in the table, but beside it, just as in life and as it would be seen if, at that moment, it became visible. The same occurs in communications by writing; one would see the Spirit beside the medium, directing his hand or transmitting thought to him by a fluidic current.

When the table rises from the ground and floats in space without point of support, the Spirit does not lift it by the force of its arm, but envelops it and penetrates it with a kind of fluidic atmosphere, which neutralizes the action of gravity, as the air does with balloons and paper kites. The fluid with which it is penetrated gives it momentarily a greater specific lightness. When fixed to the ground, it is in the case of the pneumatic bell-jar, under which a vacuum is made. These are merely comparisons, to show the analogy of the effects, and not the absolute similitude of the causes. After this, it is understood that it is no more difficult for the Spirit to lift a person than to raise a table, to transport an object from one place to another, or to throw it anywhere. These phenomena are produced by the same law.

When the table pursues someone, it is not the Spirit that runs, for it can remain tranquilly in the same place, but it gives it the impulse by a fluidic current, with the aid of which it makes it move at will.

When the raps are heard in the table or elsewhere, the Spirit does not strike with its hand, nor with any object whatever; it directs a jet of fluid upon the point from which the noise comes, producing the effect of an electric shock. It modifies the noise, as one can modify the sounds produced by the air.

— From these few words it can be seen that the Spiritist manifestations, of whatever nature they may be, have nothing supernatural or marvelous about them. They are phenomena that are produced by virtue of the law that governs the relations between the visible world and the invisible world, a law as natural as those of electricity, of gravitation, etc. Spiritism is the science that makes that law known to us, as mechanics makes known to us the law of movement and optics that of light. Being in Nature, the Spiritist manifestations have been produced in all epochs. The knowledge of the law that governs them explains an immensity of problems regarded as insoluble. It is the key to a host of phenomena exploited and amplified by superstition.

— The marvelous having been completely set aside, these phenomena have nothing more in them that is repugnant to reason, because they come to take their place alongside the other natural phenomena. In times of ignorance, all effects whose causes were not known were reputed supernatural. The discoveries of Science have successively restricted the circle of the marvelous; the knowledge of this new law comes to reduce it to nothing. Those, then, who accuse Spiritism of resurrecting the marvelous prove, by that very fact, that they speak of what they do not know.

— A more or less general idea among persons who do not know Spiritism is to believe that the Spirits, merely because they are detached from matter, must know everything and possess sovereign wisdom. This is a grave error. On leaving their corporeal envelope, they do not immediately strip themselves of their imperfections; only with time do they purify themselves and improve.

The Spirits being the souls of men, as there are men of all degrees of knowledge and of ignorance, of goodness and of wickedness, so there are also among the Spirits. There are those who are frivolous and jesting; those who are lying, knavish, hypocritical, wicked, and vengeful; others, on the contrary, possess the most sublime virtues and knowledge in a degree unknown on Earth. This diversity in the quality of the Spirits is one of the most important points to consider, for it explains the good or bad nature of the communications that are received. We must apply ourselves to distinguishing them. From this it results that it is not enough to address oneself to any Spirit whatever to obtain a just answer to each question, for the Spirit will answer according to what it knows and, often, will give only its personal opinion, which may be right or wrong. If it is prudent, it will confess its ignorance regarding what it does not know; if frivolous or lying, it will answer everything, without concerning itself with the truth; if proud, it will give its idea as absolute truth. It is for this that Saint John, the Evangelist, says: Believe not every Spirit; but rather test whether the Spirits are of God. n Experience proves the wisdom of this counsel. It would, then, be imprudence and frivolity to accept without control all that comes from the Spirits. The Spirits can only answer regarding what they know and, further, regarding what they are permitted to say, inasmuch as there are things they must not reveal, because it is not yet given to man to know everything.

— The quality of the Spirits is recognized by their language. That of the Spirits truly good and superior is always dignified, noble, logical, free of all triviality, puerility, or contradiction; it exudes wisdom, benevolence, and modesty; it is concise and without useless words. That of the inferior, ignorant, or proud Spirits is devoid of these qualities; the emptiness of the ideas there is almost always compensated by the abundance of words.

— Another point to consider, equally essential, is that the Spirits are free; they communicate when they wish and to whom suits them and, also, when they can, for they have their occupations. They are not at the orders and the caprice of whoever it may be, and to no one is it given to make them come against their will, nor to say what they wish to keep silent. Hence it is that no one can affirm that any Spirit whatever will come at his call at a given moment, or will answer this or that question. To say the contrary is to prove absolute ignorance of the most elementary principles of Spiritism. Only charlatanism has infallible sources.

— The Spirits are attracted by sympathy, by the similitude of tastes and characters, by the intention that makes their presence desired. The superior Spirits do not go to futile gatherings, just as a scientist of the Earth would not go to an assembly of giddy young people. Simple good sense says that it cannot be otherwise; or, if at times they do go there, it is to give salutary counsel, to combat the vices, to try to lead them back to the good path; if they are not heeded, they withdraw. It would be forming a completely false idea to think that serious Spirits take pleasure in answering trifles, idle questions, which prove neither affection nor respect for them, nor sincere desire to instruct oneself, and still less that they could come to put on a spectacle to amuse the curious. If they did not do so in life, they will not do so after death.

— From what precedes, it results that every Spiritist meeting, in order to be profitable, must, as a first condition, be serious and recollected; that everything there must take place respectfully, religiously, and with dignity, if one wishes to obtain the habitual cooperation of the good Spirits. It must not be forgotten that if those same Spirits had presented themselves there when alive, one would have had for them considerations to which they have still more right after death.

In vain do they allege the usefulness of certain curious, frivolous, and amusing experiments, to convert the incredulous: the result is completely opposite to what is expected. The incredulous one, already disposed to mock the most sacred beliefs, cannot see a serious thing in that of which they make a joke; he cannot be led to respect that which is not presented to him in a respectable manner. Thus, from futile and frivolous gatherings, those where there is neither order, nor seriousness, nor recollection, he always carries away a bad impression. What, above all, can convince him is the proof of the presence of beings whose memory is dear to him; it is before their grave and solemn words, before intimate revelations, that we see him grow pale and become moved. But, precisely because there must be more respect, veneration, affection for the person whose soul presents itself to him, he is shocked, scandalized to see it appear at an irreverent assembly, amid dancing tables and the jests of frivolous Spirits. However incredulous he may be, his conscience repels that alliance between the serious and the frivolous, the religious and the profane, which is why he brands everything as hypocrisy, leaving, often, less convinced than when he had entered. Gatherings of this nature always do more harm than good, because they drive away from the doctrine more persons than they attract, not to mention that they expose themselves to the criticism of the detractors, who find therein well-founded motives for mockery.

— It is an error to make of the physical manifestations a diversion. If they do not have the importance of philosophical teaching, they have their usefulness, from the point of view of the phenomena, because they are the ABC of the science, of which they gave the key. Although less necessary today, they still aid the conviction of certain persons. But they do not at all exclude order and moderation in the meetings where experiments are made. If they were always practiced in a suitable manner, they would convince more easily and would produce, in all respects, far better results.

— Without doubt these explanations are very incomplete and, necessarily, may provoke numerous questions. But one must not lose sight of the fact that this is not a course in Spiritism. Such as they are, they suffice to show the basis upon which it rests, the character of the manifestations, and the degree of confidence they can inspire, according to the circumstances.

As for the usefulness of the manifestations, it is immense, by its consequences. But, even if they had as their only result the making known of a new law of Nature, the demonstrating materially of the existence of the soul and its immortality, it would already be much, because it would open a wide path to philosophy.

[1] Translator's note: See I John, 4:1.