Spiritism and the magistracy.

— As we have said many times, Spiritism counts in its ranks more than one magistrate, not only in France, but also in Italy, Spain, Belgium, Germany, and in most foreign countries. The greater part of the doctrine's detractors, who believe they hold the privilege of good sense, treat as fools those who do not share their skepticism regarding spiritual things — we do not say supernatural, because Spiritism does not admit them — and they are astonished that men of intelligence and worth should fall into such an error. Are magistrates not free to have their opinion, their faith, their belief? Are there not among them Catholics, Protestants, free-thinkers, Freemasons? Who, then, could incriminate those who are Spiritists? We are no longer in the time when they would have stripped of office, perhaps burned, the judge who had dared to affirm publicly that it is the Earth that turns. Strange thing! there are people who would like to revive that time for the Spiritists. In the last uprising, did we not see men who called themselves apostles of freedom of thought point them out to the vengeance of the law as malefactors, incite the populations to go in pursuit of them, stigmatize them, and hurl insults in their faces, in the public sheets and in the pamphlets? It was a moment of genuine fury, and not of jest, which, thanks to the time in which we live, vented itself in words. It required all the moral strength with which the Spiritists feel themselves animated, all the moderation that the very principles of the doctrine make a law, to maintain calm and composure in such a circumstance and to abstain from reprisals, which could have been deplorable. This contrast struck all impartial men. Is Spiritism, then, an association, a sinister affiliation, dangerous to society, obedient to a watchword? have its adherents made a pact among themselves? Only ignorance and bad faith can advance such absurdities, since its doctrine has no secrets for anyone and they act in broad daylight. Spiritism is a philosophy like any other, which one freely accepts, if it suits, or rejects, if it does not suit; which rests upon an unalterable faith in God and in the future, and which morally obliges its adherents to only one thing: to regard all men as brothers, without distinction of belief, and to do good, even to those who do us harm. Why, then, could a magistrate not declare himself openly its partisan and pronounce it good, if he judges it good, just as he may declare himself a partisan of the philosophy of Aristotle, of Descartes, or of Leibnitz? Would they fear that his justice would suffer from this? that it would make him too indulgent toward the adherents? Some observations here naturally find their place.

In a country like ours, where opinions and religions are free by law, it would be a monstrosity to persecute an individual because he believes in the Spirits and in their manifestations. If, then, a Spiritist were summoned before the court, it would not be on account of his belief, as was done in other times, but because he would have committed an infraction of the law. It is, then, the offense that would be punished, and not the belief; and if he were guilty he would be liable to the penalties of the law. To incriminate the doctrine, it is necessary to verify whether it contains any principle or maxim that would authorize or justify the offense. If, on the contrary, there were found in it something blameworthy, or instructions in the opposite sense, the doctrine could not be responsible for those who do not understand it or do not practice it. Well then! let them analyze the Spiritist Doctrine with impartiality, and we defy them to find in it a single word upon which one might rely to commit any act reprehensible in the eyes of morality, whether with respect to one's neighbor, or even one that might be interpreted as evil, because everything in it is clear and without ambiguity.

— Whoever conforms to the precepts of the doctrine could not, therefore, be subject to judicial persecutions, unless one persecutes in him the belief itself, which would fall under the persecutions against faith. We still have no knowledge of persecutions of this nature in France, nor even abroad, save the condemnation, followed by the auto-da-fé, of Barcelona, although it was a sentence of the bishop, and not of the civil tribunal, and where only books were burned. [see Remnants of the Middle Ages.] Indeed, under what pretext would they persecute people who preach only order, tranquility, respect for the laws? who practice charity, not only among themselves, as in the exclusive sects, but toward all the world? whose principal objective is to work for their own moral improvement? who, against their enemies, abjure all sentiment of hatred and of vengeance? Men who profess such principles cannot be disturbers of society; certainly it is not they who will lead it into disorder, which made a police commissioner say that if all his subordinates were Spiritists he could close his office.

In such cases, the greater part of the persecutions has for its object the illegal exercise of Medicine, or accusations of charlatanism, sleight of hand, or fraud, by means of mediumship. First we shall say that Spiritism cannot be responsible for individuals who improperly pass themselves off as mediums, just as true science is not responsible for the conjurers who call themselves physicists. A charlatan may, then, say that he operates with the aid of the Spirits, just as a sleight-of-hand artist says that he operates with the help of physics. It is a means like any other of throwing dust in people's eyes; so much the worse for those who let themselves be deceived. In the second place, since Spiritism condemns the exploitation of mediumship as contrary to the principles of the doctrine, from the moral point of view, and moreover demonstrates that it must not, nor can, be a trade or a profession, every medium who draws from his faculty no advantage, direct or indirect, overt or concealed, removes, by that very fact, even the suspicion of fraud or charlatanism; since he is not drawn by any material interest, trickery would make no sense. The medium who understands what is grave and holy in a gift of this nature would judge that he profanes it by making it serve worldly things, for himself and for others, or if he made of it an object of amusement and of curiosity. He respects the Spirits as he would wish to be respected, when he is a Spirit, and he makes no display of them. Moreover, he knows that mediumship cannot be a means of divination; that it cannot make one discover treasures, inheritances, nor facilitate success in matters of chance; he will never be a fortune-teller, neither for money nor for anything; and that is why he will never have altercations with justice. As for healing mediumship, it exists, it is true; but it is subordinated to restrictive conditions, which exclude the possibility of an open consulting room, without suspicions of charlatanism. It is a work of devotion and of sacrifice, and not of speculation. Exercised with disinterestedness, prudence, and discernment, and confined within the limits traced by the doctrine, it cannot fall under the blows of the law. In sum, the medium, according to the designs of Providence and the vision of Spiritism, whether artisan or prince — for there are such in palaces and in hovels — has received a mandate that he fulfills religiously and with dignity; he sees in his faculty only a means to glorify God and serve his neighbor, and not an instrument to serve his interests or satisfy his vanity; he makes himself esteemed and respected by his simplicity, modesty, and abnegation, which does not happen with those who seek to make of it a stepping-stone.

— In punishing with severity the exploiting mediums, those who abuse a real faculty, or simulate a faculty they do not have, justice does not strike the doctrine, but the abuse. Now, true and serious Spiritism, which does not live by abuse, can only gain in consideration thereby, and would not take under its patronage those who merely divert public opinion for their own profit. By taking up the defense for itself, it would assume the responsibility for what they do, because such persons are not truly Spiritists, even when they were really mediums.

— As long as they persecute, in a Spiritist, or in those who pass themselves off as such, only the acts reprehensible in the eyes of the law, the role of the defender is to discuss the act in itself, abstraction made of the belief of the accused; it would be a grave error to seek to justify the act in the name of the doctrine. On the contrary, he must endeavor to demonstrate that it is foreign to it. Then the accused falls under common law.

— An incontestable fact is that, the more extensive and varied the knowledge of a magistrate, the more apt he is to appreciate the facts upon which he is called to pronounce. In a case of legal medicine, for example, it is evident that one who is not entirely a stranger to the science will be better able to judge the value of the arguments of the prosecution and of the defense, than another who is ignorant of its most elementary principles. In a case where Spiritism were in question — and today, when it is the order of the day, it may present itself, incidentally, as principal or as accessory in a number of cases — there is a real interest for the magistrates in knowing at least what it is, without their being, for that reason, taken for Spiritists. In one of the aforementioned cases, they would incontestably know better how to discern the abuse from the truth. As Spiritism infiltrates itself more and more into ideas, and already has a reserved place among the revealed beliefs, the time is not far off when it will no longer be permitted to any enlightened man to be precisely ignorant of what this doctrine is, just as today he cannot be ignorant of the first elements of the sciences. Now, as it touches upon all scientific and moral questions, a number of things that, at first sight, seemed foreign to it, will be better understood. It is thus, for example, that the physician will discover in it the true cause of certain afflictions, that the artist will gather in it numerous themes of inspiration, that it will in many circumstances be a source of light for the magistrate and for the lawyer.

— It is in this sense that it is appreciated by Mr. Jaubert, the honored vice-president of the tribunal of Carcassonne. In him it is more than a knowledge added to those he possesses, it is a matter of conviction, for he understands its moral scope. Although he has never concealed his opinion in this regard, convinced that he is right and of the moralizing force of the doctrine, today, when faith is being extinguished in skepticism, he wished to give it the support of the authority of his name, at the very moment when it was being attacked with the most violence, resolutely confronting the mockery and showing his adversaries the little account he takes of their sarcasms. In his position and given the circumstances, the letter that he asked us to publish, and that we inserted in the issue of last January, is an act of courage, of which all sincere Spiritists will keep a precious remembrance. It will mark in History the establishment of Spiritism.

— The following letter, which we are likewise authorized to publish, has a reserved place beside that of Mr. Jaubert. It is one of those explicit and motivated adhesions, to which the position of the author gives all the more weight in that it is spontaneous, since we did not have the honor of knowing this gentleman. He judges the doctrine solely by the impression of the works, for he had seen nothing. It is the best response to the accusation of ineptitude and of trickery cast indistinctly against Spiritism and its adherents.

November 21, 1865.

“Sir, “Permit me, as a new and fervent adherent, to testify to you all my gratitude for having initiated me, through your writings, into the Spiritist science. Out of curiosity, I read The Spirits' Book; but, after an attentive reading, admiration, then the most complete conviction, succeeded in me to a distrustful incredulity. Indeed, the doctrine that derives from it gives the most logical solution, the most satisfying to reason, of all the questions that have so seriously preoccupied the thinkers of all times, to define the conditions of man's existence on this Earth and to determine his ultimate ends. This admirable doctrine is, incontestably, the sanction of the purest and most fruitful morality, the demonstrated exaltation of the justice, of the goodness of God and of the sublime work of creation, as well as the surest and firmest basis of social order. “I have not witnessed the Spiritist manifestations, but this element of proof, in no way contrary to the teachings of my religion (the Catholic religion), is not necessary to my conviction. Above all, it is enough for me to find in the order of Providence the reason for being of the inequality of conditions on this Earth — in a word, the reason for being of material evil and of moral evil.

“Indeed, my reason fully admits, as justifying the existence of material and moral evil, the soul issuing simple and ignorant from the hands of the Creator, ennobled by free will, progressing through successive trials and expiations, and not attaining sovereign happiness except by acquiring the plenitude of its ethereal essence, through the complete liberation from the constraints of matter, which, altering the conditions of beatitude, must have served for its advancement.

“And, in this order of ideas, what could be more rational than that the Spirits, in the diverse phases of their progressive purification, should communicate among themselves, from one world to another, incarnate or invisible, to enlighten themselves, to help one another mutually, to contribute reciprocally to their advance, to facilitate their trials, and to enter upon the reparatory way of repentance and of the return to God! What could be more rational, I say, than, in such a continuity, such a strengthening of the bonds of family, of friendship, and of charity that, uniting men in their passage through this Earth, must, as a final objective, reunite them one day into a single family in the bosom of God! “What a sublime bond of union: love setting out from heaven, to embrace with its divine breath all of Humanity, peopling the immense Universe, and to lead it back to God to make it share in the eternal beatitude, of which this love is the source! What could be more worthy of the wisdom, of the justice, and of the infinite goodness of the Creator! What a grandiose idea of the work whose harmony and immensity Spiritism reveals, in lifting a corner of the veil that does not yet permit man to penetrate all its secrets! How much had men restricted its immeasurable grandeur, enclosing Humanity in an imperceptible point, lost in space, and granting only to a small number of the elect the eternal happiness reserved for all! Thus, they lowered the divine artificer to the infinitesimal proportions of their perceptions, of the tyrannical, vindictive, and cruel aspirations inherent in their imperfections. “In short, it is enough for my reason to find in this holy doctrine the serenity of the soul, crowning an existence conformed to the providential tribulations of a life honestly fulfilled by the accomplishment of its duties and by the practice of charity, firmness in its faith, through the solution of the doubts that restrict the aspirations toward God, and, finally, this full and complete confidence in the justice, in the goodness, and in the merciful and paternal solicitude of its Creator.

“Deign, sir, to count me in the number of your brothers in Spiritism, and to accept, etc.”

Bonnamy, examining magistrate.

A communication given by the Spirit of Mr. Bonnamy's father provoked the following letter. We do not reproduce that communication because of its intimate and personal character, but we publish below another, which is of general interest.

“Sir and dear master, a thousand times thanks for having had the kindness to evoke my father. It has been so long since I heard that beloved voice! Extinguished for me for so many years, it revives today! Thus is realized the dream of my saddened imagination, a dream conceived under the impression of our painful separation. What a sweet, what a consoling revelation, so full of hopes for me! Yes, I see my father and my mother in the world of the Spirits, watching over me, lavishing upon me the benefit of that anxious solicitude with which they surrounded me on Earth. My holy mother, in her tender concern for the future, penetrating me with her sympathetic effluvium to lead me to God and show me the path of the eternal truths, which for me sparkled in a distant nebulous! How happy I would be if, in accordance with the desire expressed by my father, to communicate anew, his communication could be judged useful to the progress of the Spiritist science, and could enter into the order of the providential teachings reserved for the work! Thus I would find, in your journal, the elements of Spiritist instructions, sometimes mingled with the sweetness of familiar conversations. It is a simple wish, you well understand it, dear master; I take into great account the demands of the mission incumbent upon you, to make of such a wish a prayer.

“I give full authorization for the publication of my letter. Willingly will I bring my grain of sand to the inauguration of the Spiritist edifice; happy if, at the contact of my profound conviction, the doubts of some should be dissipated and if the incredulous should think to reflect more seriously!

“Permit me, dear master, to address to you a few words of sympathy and of encouragement for your arduous labor. Spiritism is a providential beacon, whose dazzling and fruitful light must open all eyes, confound the pride of men, move all consciences; its radiation will be irresistible. And what treasures of consolation, of mercy, and of love, of which you are the distributor!

“Accept, etc.”

Bonnamy.

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[See also by the same author: The reason of Spiritism.]