Lacordaire and the turning tables.

— Extracted from a letter of the abbé Lacordaire to Madame Swetchine [Correspondance du R. P. Lacordaire et de Madame Swetchine - Google Books.], dated from Flavigny, June 29, 1853, taken from his correspondence, published in 1865.

n “Have you seen tables turn and heard them speak? – I disdained to see them turn, as a very simple thing, but I have heard them and made them speak. They told me truly remarkable things about the past and the present. However extraordinary this may be, it is for a Christian who believes in Spirits a very common and very poor phenomenon. In all times there have been more or less bizarre ways of communicating with Spirits; only formerly a mystery was made of these processes, as a mystery was made of Chemistry; justice, by means of terrible executions, repressed in the shadows these strange practices. Today, thanks to the freedom of cults and to universal publicity, what was a secret has become a popular formula. Perhaps, too, by this disclosure, God wishes to make the development of spiritual forces correspond to the development of material forces, so that man may not forget, in the presence of the marvels of mechanics, that there are two worlds enclosed one within the other: the world of bodies and the world of Spirits. “It is probable that this parallel development will go on increasing until the end of the world, which will one day bring the reign of the antichrist, where there will be seen, on the one side and the other, for good and for evil, the use of supernatural weapons and of dreadful prodigies. From this I do not conclude that the Antichrist is near, because the operations we witness have nothing, save the publicity, more extraordinary than what was seen formerly. The poor unbelievers must be quite uneasy about their reason; but they have the recourse of believing everything in order to escape the true faith, and they will not fail. O depth of the designs of God!”

— The abbé Lacordaire wrote this in 1853, that is, almost at the beginning of the manifestations, at a time when these phenomena were much more objects of curiosity than subjects of serious meditation. Although they had not yet been constituted, then, either into a science or into a body of doctrine, the abbé had glimpsed their scope and, far from considering them as something ephemeral, foresaw their development in the future. His opinion on the existence and the manifestation of Spirits is categorical. Now, as he is generally regarded by everyone as one of the high intelligences of the century, it seems difficult to place him among the madmen, after having applauded him as a man of great sense and of progress. One can, then, have common sense and believe in Spirits. The turning tables, he says, are “a very common and very poor phenomenon.” Indeed, quite poor as to the means of communication with Spirits, for if no others had been had, Spiritism would scarcely have advanced; then only writing mediums were known and one did not suspect what would come out of this means, apparently so puerile. As to the reign of the Antichrist, Lacordaire does not seem to be much frightened, for he does not see it coming so soon. For him these manifestations are providential; they must disturb and confound the unbelievers; in them he admires the depth of the judgments of God; they are not, then, the work of the devil, who must impel man to deny God, and not to recognize his power.

— The above extract of Lacordaire’s correspondence was read at the Society of Paris, at the session of January 18. At that same session Mr. Morin, one of the habitual writing mediums, fell asleep spontaneously under the magnetic action of the Spirits; it was the third time that this phenomenon was produced in him, for habitually he falls asleep only by ordinary magnetization. During the sleep he spoke on different subjects and of various Spirits present, whose thought he transmitted to us. Among other things he said the following:

“A Spirit whom you all know, and whom I also recognize; a Spirit of great reputation on Earth, elevated in the intellectual scale of the worlds, is here. A Spiritist before Spiritism, I saw him teaching the doctrine, no longer as an incarnate being, but as a Spirit. I saw him preaching with the same eloquence, with the same feeling of intimate conviction as when alive, which he certainly would not have dared to preach openly from the pulpit, but that to which his teachings led. I saw him preach the doctrine to his own, to his family, to all his friends. I saw him grow ardent, though in the spiritual state, when he encountered a refractory brain or an obstinate resistance to the inspirations he breathed; always lively and impetuous, wishing to make conviction penetrate into intelligences, as one makes the chisel, driven by a vigorous hammer-blow, penetrate into the living rock. But the latter does not enter so quickly; nevertheless, his eloquence converted more than one. This Spirit is that of the abbé Lacordaire. “He asks one thing, not out of a spirit of pride, not out of any personal interest, but in the interest of all and for the good of the doctrine: the insertion in the Review of what he wrote thirteen years ago. If I ask this insertion, he says, it is for two reasons: the first, because you will show the world, as you say, that one can not be a fool and believe in Spirits; the second, because the publication of this first citation will lead to the discovery in my writings of other passages that will be pointed out to you, as in agreement with the principles of Spiritism.”

[1] [Correspondance du R.P. Lacordaire et de Madame Swetchine, p. 523 - Google Books.]