Doctor Vignal.

Our readers certainly remember the interesting studies on the Spirit of living persons, published in the Review of January and March 1860, and to which the Count of R… and Dr. Vignal had submitted themselves. The latter, having moved away several years ago, died on 27 March 1865. On the eve of the burial, we asked a very lucid somnambulist, who saw Spirits well, whether he could see him. He said: “I see a corpse, in which an extraordinary work is taking place. One would say a mass that stirs, and something like that which makes efforts to free itself from it, but which has difficulty in overcoming the resistance. I do not distinguish a well-determined form of Spirit.” On 31 March Dr. Vignal was evoked at the Society of Paris. The same somnambulist attended the session, asleep, during the evocation. He saw him and described him perfectly, while he was communicating with the medium of his choice. We say of his choice because experience demonstrates the drawback of imposing a medium upon the Spirit, who may not find in him the conditions necessary to communicate freely. When the evocation of a Spirit is made for the first time, it is fitting that all the mediums present place themselves at his disposal and wait for him to manifest through one of them. In this session there were eleven mediums.

Q. – Dear Mr. Vignal, all your former colleagues of the Society of Paris have kept of you the best remembrance, and I, in particular, that of the excellent relations which were never interrupted between us. In calling you to your milieu, we had as our object, above all, to give you a testimony of sympathy; and we shall be very happy if you will or if you can come to converse with us.

Answer. – Dear friend and worthy master, your kind remembrance and your testimonies of sympathy move me greatly. If today I can come to you and attend, free and detached, this gathering of all our good friends and Spiritist brothers, it is thanks to your kind thought and to the assistance that your prayers brought me. As my young secretary said with justice, I was very impatient to communicate; from the beginning of this evening I employed all my spiritual forces to master this desire. Your conversations and the grave questions you discussed, interesting me keenly, made my wait less painful. Forgive me, dear friend, but I needed to express my gratitude. Note. – Since Mr. Vignal was being spoken of, the medium did indeed feel the influence of that Spirit, who wished to communicate through him.

Q. – First of all, tell us how you find yourself in the world of Spirits. At the same time, be so good as to describe the work of separation, your sensations at that moment, and tell us after how long a time you recovered your reason.

Answer. – I am as happy as one can be, when one sees fully confirmed all the secret thoughts one may have voiced about a consoling and reparatory doctrine. I am happy! yes, because now I see unfold before me, without any obstacle, the future of Spiritist science and philosophy.

But let us set aside for today these inopportune digressions. I will come again to entertain you on the subject, knowing that my presence will give you as much pleasure as I myself experience in visiting you.

The release was very rapid; more rapid than my little merit allowed me to hope. I was powerfully aided by your concourse, and your somnambulist gave you so clear an idea of the phenomenon of separation that I shall not insist on the same point. It was a sort of discontinuous oscillation, a kind of being carried away in two opposite directions. The Spirit triumphed, since here I am. I did not leave the body completely except at the moment when it was laid in the ground. I came with you.

Q. – What do you think of the service that was held at your funeral? I deemed it a duty to be present. At that moment were you sufficiently detached to see it, and did the prayers I said for you (not ostensibly, of course) reach you?

Answer. – Yes. As I told you, your assistance did everything in part, and I came with you, completely abandoning my old chrysalis. Material things touch me little; besides, you know it. I thought only of the soul and of God.

Q. – Do you remember that at your request, five years ago, in February 1860, we made a study on you, when you were still alive? At that moment your Spirit detached itself to come and converse with us. Can you describe to us, as far as possible, the difference existing between your present detachment and that of then?

Answer. – Yes, certainly; I remember. But what a difference between my state of then and that of today! then matter still constrained me with its inflexible mesh. I wanted to release myself in a more absolute manner and could not. Today I am free. A vast field, that of the unknown, opens before me and, with your help and that of the good Spirits, to whom I commend myself, I hope to advance and penetrate myself as quickly as possible with the sentiments I must experience and the acts I must accomplish in order to climb the path of trial and merit the world of rewards. What majesty! What grandeur! it is almost a feeling of awe that prevails, since, weak as we are, we want to fix our gaze upon the sublime splendors. Q. – Another time we shall be very glad to continue this conversation, when you wish to return among us.

Answer. – I have answered briefly and without sequence to your various questions. You do not yet demand too much of your faithful disciple, for I am not entirely free. To converse, to converse still would be my happiness; my guide moderates my enthusiasm and I have already been able to appreciate sufficiently his goodness and his justice, to submit myself entirely to his decision, however much regret I feel at being interrupted. I console myself thinking that I shall be able to come many times to attend your meetings incognito. I will speak with you sometimes; I love you and I want to prove it. But other Spirits more advanced than I claim priority and I ought to efface myself before those who saw fit to allow my Spirit to give free course to the torrent of thoughts I had accumulated. I leave you, friends, and I must thank you doubly, not only you, Spiritists, who called me, but also this Spirit who allowed me to take his place and who, in life, bore the illustrious name of Pascal.

He who was and will always be the most devoted of your adherents.

Dr. Vignal.

Note. – Indeed, the Spirit Pascal gave next the communication published further on, under the title of Intellectual progress.