A retrospective glance at the Spiritist movement.

— No one doubts, neither the adversaries nor the partisans of Spiritism, that this question, more than ever, stirs minds. Is this movement a flash in the pan, as some pretend to say? But this flash in the pan has already lasted fifteen years and, instead of dying out, its intensity only increases from year to year. Now, this is not the character of ephemeral things that address themselves only to curiosity. The latest uprising with which they hoped to stifle it only revived it, overexciting the attention of the indifferent. The tenacity of this idea has nothing that can surprise whoever has sounded the depth and multiplicity of the roots by which it is bound to the gravest interests of Humanity. Those who are astonished have seen only the surface; the majority know it only by name, but understand neither its object nor its scope. If some combat Spiritism out of ignorance, others do so precisely because they feel all its importance, foresee its future, and see in it a powerful regenerating element. One must be persuaded that certain adversaries are perfectly converted. Were they less convinced of the truths it contains, they would not oppose it so much. They feel that the pledge of its future lies in the good it does. To make this good stand out before their eyes, far from calming them, is to increase the cause of their irritation. Such was, in the fifteenth century, the numerous class of copyist writers, who would gladly have burned Gutenberg and all the printers. It would not have been by demonstrating the benefits of printing, which was to supplant them, that they would have been appeased.

When a thing is right and the time of its emergence has come, it marches on in spite of everything. The force of action of Spiritism is attested by its persistent expansion, despite the few efforts it makes to expand. There is a constant fact: the adversaries of Spiritism have consumed a thousand times more forces to bring it down, without succeeding, than its partisans to propagate it. It advances, so to speak, on its own, like a watercourse that infiltrates through the lands, opens a passage to the right if barred on the left, and little by little undermines the hardest stones, ending by bringing down mountains.

A notorious fact is that, as a whole, the march of Spiritism has suffered no interruption; it could be hindered, repressed, delayed in some localities by contrary influences; but, as we have said, the current, barred at one point, appears at a hundred others; instead of flowing in abundance, it divides into a number of trickles. Meanwhile, at first glance, one would say that its march is less rapid than it was in the first years. Must one conclude that they are abandoning it? that it meets with less sympathy? No; but simply that the work it is accomplishing at this moment is different and, by its nature, less ostensible.

As we have already said, from the beginning Spiritism attached to itself all the men in whom these ideas were, in a certain way, in the state of intuition. It had only to present itself to be understood and accepted. It immediately reaped wherever it found the ground prepared. Once this first harvest was made, there remained the uncultivated grounds, which demanded more labor. It is now through the refractory opinions that the light must be made, and this is the period in which we find ourselves. Like the miner who removes without effort the first layers of loose earth, it has reached the rock that must be blasted and into the heart of which it can penetrate only little by little. But there is no rock, however hard, that resists indefinitely a continuous dissolving action. Its march is, therefore, ostensibly less rapid, but if, in a given time, it does not gather so great a number of frankly avowed adherents, it nonetheless shakes the contrary convictions no less, which fall, not at one blow, but little by little, until the breach is made. This is the work we are witnessing, and which marks the present phase of the doctrine's progress. This phase is characterized by unequivocal signs. Examining the situation, it becomes evident that the idea gains ground daily and acclimatizes itself; it meets with less opposition; people laugh less, and the very ones who do not yet accept it begin to grant it rights of citizenship among opinions. Spiritists are no longer pointed at, as formerly, and regarded as curious animals; this is what is observed above all by those who travel. Everywhere they find more sympathy, or less antipathy, for the thing. It cannot be denied that there is in this a real progress.

— To understand the facilities and the difficulties that Spiritism meets on its way, one must observe the diversity of opinions, through which it must open a passage. Never imposing itself by force or constraint, but only by conviction, it has met with a resistance more or less great, according to the nature of the existing convictions, with which it could assimilate itself more or less easily, being received with open arms by some, and repelled with obstinacy by others.

Two great currents of idea divide present-day society: spiritualism and materialism. Although the latter forms an incontestable minority, it cannot be concealed that it has taken on great extension for some years now. The one and the other are fractioned into a number of shades, which can be summarized in the following principal categories:

1st The fanatics of all forms of worship. – 0.

2nd The satisfied believers, with absolute convictions, strongly decided and without reservations, though without fanaticism, on all points of the form of worship they profess and with which they are satisfied. This category also comprises the sects which, having opened a schism and operated reforms, deem themselves in possession of all the truth and are at times more absolute than the mother religions. – 0.

3rd The ambitious believers, enemies of emancipating ideas, which could make them lose the ascendancy they exercise over ignorance. – 0.

4th The believers by form who, out of interest, simulate a faith they do not have, and almost always show themselves more rigid and more intolerant than the sincere religions. – 0.

5th The materialists by system, who lean on a rational theory and in which many would persist against the evidence, out of pride, so as not to confess that they could have been mistaken; they are, for the most part, as absolute and intolerant in their incredulity as the religious fanatics in their belief. – 0.

6th The sensualists, who repel the spiritualist and Spiritist doctrines, fearful that they may come to disturb them in their material pleasures. They close their eyes so as not to see. – 0.

7th The indifferent, who live only for today, without concerning themselves with the future. For the most part they would not know how to say whether they are spiritualists or materialists. For them the present is the only serious thing. – 0.

8th The pantheists, who admit not a personal divinity, but a universal spiritual principle, in which souls merge, like drops in the ocean, without preserving their individuality. This opinion is a first step toward spirituality and, consequently, a progress over materialism. Although a little less refractory to Spiritist ideas, those who profess it are, in general, very absolute, because with them it is a preconceived and rational system, and many call themselves pantheists only so as not to confess themselves materialists. It is a concession they make to spiritualist ideas to save appearances. – 1.

9th The deists, who admit the personality of a single God, creator and sovereign lord of all things, eternal and infinite in all his perfections, but reject all exterior worship. – 3.

10th The spiritualists without system, who, by conviction, belong to no form of worship, without repelling any, but who have no fixed idea about the future. – 5.

11th The progressive believers, attached to a determined form of worship, but who admit progress in religion and the accord of beliefs with the progress of the sciences. – 5.

12th The dissatisfied believers, in whom faith is undecided or null on the dogmatic points, which do not completely satisfy their reason, tormented by doubt. – 8.

13th The incredulous for want of better, most of whom have passed from faith to incredulity and to the negation of everything, for not having found, in the beliefs with which they were lulled, a satisfactory sanction for their reason, but in whom incredulity leaves a painful void. They would be happy if they could fill it. – 9.

14th The freethinkers, a new denomination by which are designated those who do not submit to anyone's opinion in matters of religion and spirituality, who do not deem themselves harnessed by the form of worship in which birth placed them without their consent, nor obliged to the observance of any religious practices whatsoever. This qualification specifies no determined belief; it can apply to all the shades of rational spiritualism, as much as to the most absolute incredulity. Every eclectic belief belongs to freethinking; every man who is not guided by blind faith is, for that very reason, a freethinker. On this score the Spiritists too are freethinkers.

But for those who may be called the radicals of freethinking, this designation has a more restricted and, properly speaking, exclusive acceptation; for these, to be a freethinker is not merely to believe in what one sees: it is to believe in nothing; it is to free oneself from all restraint, even from the fear of God and of the future; spirituality is a hindrance and they do not want it. Under this symbol of intellectual emancipation, they seek to disguise what the quality of materialist and atheist has that is repulsive to the opinion of the masses, and, a singular thing, it is in the name of that symbol, which seems to be one of tolerance toward all opinions, that they throw stones at whoever does not think as they do. There is, then, an essential distinction to be made among those who call themselves freethinkers, as among those who call themselves philosophers. They divide naturally into: Incredulous freethinkers, who fall into the 5th category – 0; and believing freethinkers, who belong to all the shades of rational spiritualism – 9. 15th The Spiritists by intuition, those in whom Spiritist ideas are innate and who accept them as a thing that is not foreign to them. – 10.

— Such are the layers of ground that Spiritism must traverse. Casting a glance over the different categories above, it is easy to see those alongside which it finds an access more or less easy and those against which it strikes like the pickaxe against granite. It will not triumph over these except with the help of the new elements that the renewal will bring to Humanity: this is the work of Him who directs everything and who brings forth the events from which progress must issue.

The numbers placed after each category indicate approximately the proportion of the number of adherents out of 10 that each one furnishes to Spiritism.

If one admits, on average, numerical equality among these different categories, it will be seen that the refractory part, by its nature, comprises more or less half the population. As it possesses audacity and material force, it does not limit itself to a passive resistance: it is essentially aggressive; hence an inevitable and necessary struggle. But this state of things can have only a time, because the past departs and the future comes; now, Spiritism marches with the future.

It is, then, in the other half that Spiritism must be recruited, and the field to explore is quite vast; it is there that it must concentrate its efforts and that it will see its limits widen. Meanwhile, this half is still far from being entirely sympathetic to it; it there meets with obstinate resistances, but not insuperable ones, as in the first, most of which is due to prejudices that fade as the object and tendencies of the doctrine are better understood, and which disappear with time. If we can be astonished at one thing, it is that, despite the multiplicity of the obstacles it meets, the snares laid for it, it has been able to reach in a few years the point where it finds itself today.

Another progress no less evident is that of the attitude of the opposition. Setting aside the violent attacks launched from time to time by a pleiad of writers, almost always the same, who in everything see only matter for laughter, who would laugh even at God, and whose arguments are limited to saying that Humanity verges on dementia, much surprised that Spiritism should have marched without their permission, it is exceedingly rare to see the doctrine called into question in a serious and sustained polemic. Instead of this, as we have already remarked in a preceding article, Spiritist ideas invade the press, literature, philosophy; they are appropriated without being confessed [see: Review of the press relating to Spiritism], which is why one sees at every instant arise in the newspapers, in books, in sermons, and on the stage thoughts that one would say were drawn from the very source of Spiritism. Certainly their authors would protest against the qualification of Spiritists, but they nonetheless undergo no less the influence of the ideas that circulate and that appear just. It is that the principles on which the doctrine rests are so rational that they ferment in an immensity of brains and show through despite themselves; they touch on so many questions that, properly speaking, it is impossible to enter the path of spirituality without doing Spiritism involuntarily. It is one of the most characteristic facts that marked the year that has just passed.

— Must one conclude from this that the struggle is over? No, certainly; we must, on the contrary and more than ever, keep ourselves on guard, because we shall have to sustain assaults of another kind; but, hoping that the ranks will be reinforced and that the steps forward will likewise be gained. Let us beware of believing that certain adversaries give themselves up as vanquished, and of taking their silence for a tacit adhesion, or even for neutrality. Let us be well persuaded that certain persons, as long as they live, will never accept Spiritism, neither openly nor tacitly, just as there are those who will never accept certain political regimes. All reasonings to lead them to it are powerless, because they do not want it at any price; their aversion for the doctrine grows in proportion to the development it takes. Open attacks become rarer, because they have recognized their uselessness; but they do not lose the hope of triumphing with the aid of tenebrous maneuvers. Far from slumbering in a deceptive security, more than ever it is necessary to distrust the false brothers who insinuate themselves into all the meetings to spy and, thereafter, to distort what is said and done there; who sow surreptitiously elements of disunion; who, under the appearance of an artificial and at times interested zeal, seek to push Spiritism outside the paths of prudence, moderation, and legality; who provoke in its name acts reprehensible in the eyes of the law. Having failed to make it ridiculous, because, by its essence, it is a serious thing, their efforts tend to compromise it, to make it suspect to the authorities and to provoke against it and its adherents rigorous measures. Let us distrust, then, the kisses of Judas and those who would embrace us in order to stifle us. It is necessary to imagine that we are at war and that the enemies are at our door, ready to seize the favorable occasion and who will recruit intelligences in the very place.

What to do in this circumstance? A very simple thing: to enclose oneself within the strict limits of the precepts of the doctrine; to strive to show what it is by one's own example, and to decline all solidarity with whatever might be done in its name and that might be capable of discrediting it, because this would not be the case with serious and convinced adherents. It is not enough to call oneself a Spiritist; he who is one at heart proves it by his acts. The doctrine preaching nothing but good, respect for the laws, charity, tolerance, and benevolence toward all; repudiating all violence done to the conscience of others, all charlatanism, all interested thought concerning relations with the Spirits, and all things contrary to evangelical morality, he who does not depart from the traced line cannot incur well-founded censures, nor legal persecutions; more still: whoever takes the doctrine as a rule of conduct cannot but earn the esteem and consideration of impartial persons. Before the good, even mocking incredulity bows, and calumny cannot soil what is without stain. It is under these conditions that Spiritism will pass through the tempests that will be heaped up on its road and that it will come out triumphant from all the struggles. Nor can Spiritism be held responsible for the faults of those who please themselves to call themselves Spiritists, just as religion is not so for the reprehensible acts of those who have only the appearance of piety. Before, then, letting the censure of such acts fall upon any doctrine, it would be necessary to know whether it contains some maxim, some teaching that can authorize them or even excuse them. If, on the contrary, it formally condemns them, it is evident that the fault is entirely personal and cannot be imputed to the doctrine. But it is a distinction that the adversaries of Spiritism do not take the trouble to make; on the contrary, they feel very happy to find an occasion to discredit it with or without reason, not scrupling to attribute to it what does not belong to it, poisoning the most insignificant things, instead of seeking for them the attenuating causes.

— For some time now the Spiritist meetings have been undergoing a certain transformation. The intimate and family meetings have multiplied considerably in Paris and in the principal cities, by reason of the very facility they found in forming themselves, through the increase in the number of mediums and adherents. In the beginning mediums were rare; a good medium was almost a phenomenon; it was, then, natural that people should group around him. As this faculty developed, the great centers fractioned, like swarms, into a number of small particular groups, which find more facility in gathering, more intimacy and homogeneity in their composition. This result, a consequence of the very force of things, was foreseen. From the origin we had pointed out the reefs that, inevitably, the numerous societies would have to meet, necessarily formed of heterogeneous elements, opening the door to ambitions and, for that very reason, the target of intrigues, cabals, the muffled maneuvers of malevolence, envy, and jealousy, which cannot emanate from a pure source. In the intimate meetings, without official character, one is more master of oneself, one knows one another better, one receives whom one wishes; there the recollection is greater and one knows that the results are more satisfactory. We know a good number of meetings of this kind, whose organization leaves nothing to be desired. There is, then, everything to gain in this transformation.

— Moreover, the year 1866 saw realized the predictions of the Spirits on several interesting points of the doctrine, among others on the extension and the new characters that mediumship is to take on, as well as on the production of phenomena capable of drawing attention to the principle of spirituality, although apparently foreign to Spiritism. Healing mediumship revealed itself in full light, in the circumstances most propitious to making a sensation; it blossoms in many other persons. In certain groups there manifest themselves numerous cases of spontaneous somnambulism, of speaking mediumship, of second sight, and other varieties of the mediumistic faculty that have been able to furnish useful subjects of study. Without being precisely new, these faculties are still in their infancy in a number of individuals; they show themselves only in isolated cases and, so to speak, try themselves out in intimacy; but, with time, they will acquire more intensity and become widespread. It is above all when they reveal themselves spontaneously in persons foreign to Spiritism that they draw attention more strongly, for one cannot suppose connivance nor admit the influence of preconceived ideas. We limit ourselves to pointing out the fact, which everyone can verify, and whose development would require very extensive details. Besides, we will have occasion to return to it, in special articles. In sum, if nothing very resounding marked the march of Spiritism in these latter times, we can say that it proceeds in the normal conditions traced by the Spirits and that we have only to congratulate ourselves on the state of things.

[1] [The numbers that follow each category indicate approximately the proportion of the number of adherents out of 10 that each one furnishes to Spiritism.]