The Reason of Spiritism.

Examining magistrate; member of the scientific congresses of France; former member of the general council of Tarn-et-Garonne.

(Summary)

Allan Kardec's appraisal of Mr. Bonnamy's work: It is the first publication of this kind [Spiritist philosophy] in which the question is regarded in all its parts and in all its grandeur (…) The standpoint he has taken is principally that of the philosophical, moral, and religious consequences, which constitute the essential aim of Spiritism and make of it a humanitarian work.

Samples of the author's thought contained in the preface of The Reason of Spiritism, where he compares the persecution of Spiritists to those suffered by all the propagators of new ideas, whom he recalls, and also gives the reason why he wrote this book.

Mr. Michel Bonnamy's Spiritist profession of faith: In giving our adherence to this doctrine, we exercise the right of freedom of conscience, which can be contested in no one, whatever his belief may be. With all the more reason must this freedom be respected when it has as its object principles of the highest morality, which lead men to the practice of the teachings of Christ and, for that very reason, are the safeguard of social order.

Titles of the chapters of the book The Reason of Spiritism.

Quotations from Mr. Bonnamy's book where he treats of the union of the soul and the body; of the dragging away by the senses; of death and of destructive scourges, and an eloquent treatment of original sin.

Kardec speaks of the adherents that Spiritism counts in the magistracy, among them Mr. Jaubert, vice-president of the court of Carcassonne, and Mr. Bonnamy, examining magistrate at Villeneuve-sur-Lot, as the first who openly raised their banner.

— When the novel Mireta appeared, the Spirits spoke these notable words at the Society of Paris:

“The year 1866 presents the new philosophy under all its forms; but it is still the green stalk that encloses the ear of wheat and, to show it, it waits for the warmth of spring to have ripened and made it burst forth. 1866 prepared, 1867 will ripen and accomplish. The year opens under the auspices of Mireta and will not pass away without seeing the appearance of new publications of the same kind, and more serious still, in the sense that the novel will become philosophy and philosophy will become history.” (Review of February 1867). Previously they had already said that various serious works on the philosophy of Spiritism were being prepared, in which the name of the doctrine would not be timidly disguised, but confessed and proclaimed aloud by men whose name and social position would lend weight to their opinion; and they added that the first would probably appear toward the end of the present year.

The work we announce completely fulfills this prediction. It is the first publication of this kind in which the question is regarded in all its parts and in all its grandeur. One may, then, say that it inaugurates one of the phases of the existence of Spiritism. What characterizes it is that it is not a banal adherence to the principles of the doctrine, a simple profession of faith, but a rigorous demonstration, in which the adherents themselves will find new ideas. Reading this close argumentation, carried, so to speak, even to minutiae, and by a logical concatenation of ideas, one will doubtless ask by what singular extension of the term one could apply to the author the epithet of madman. If it is a madman who argues thus, one might say that sometimes madmen shut the mouths of people who call themselves sensible. It is an exemplary defense, in which one recognizes the advocate who wishes to reduce the rejoinder to its utmost limits; but in it one also recognizes the man who studied the cause seriously and scrutinized it in its most minute details. The author does not limit himself to giving his opinion: he motivates it and gives the rationale of each thing. That is why, with all justice, he entitled his book The Reason of Spiritism. In publishing this work without covering his personality with the slightest veil, the author proves that he has the true courage of his opinion, and the example he sets is a claim to the gratitude of all Spiritists. The standpoint he has taken is principally that of the philosophical, moral, and religious consequences, which constitute the essential aim of Spiritism and make of it a humanitarian work. Moreover, here is how he expresses himself in the preface.

— “It lies in the vicissitudes of human things, or, better said, it seems fatally reserved for every new idea to be ill received at its appearance. Since, most often, it has as its mission to overthrow ideas that preceded it, it meets very great resistance on the part of the human understanding.

“The man who has lived with prejudices welcomes only with mistrust the newcomer, which tends to modify, even to destroy, combinations and ideas fixed in his mind, to force him, in a word, to set to work, to run after the truth. Besides, he feels humiliated in his pride at having lived in error.

“The repugnance that the new idea inspires is much more accentuated still when it brings with it obligations, duties; when it imposes a more severe line of conduct.

“It encounters, finally, systematic, ardent, obstinate attacks when it threatens conquered positions, and above all when it confronts fanaticism or opinions deeply rooted in the tradition of the ages.

“New doctrines, then, always have numerous detractors; often they even have to suffer persecution, which led Fontenelle to say: ‘That if he held all the truths in his hand, he would take care not to open it.’ “Such were the disfavor and the dangers that awaited Spiritism at its appearance in the world of ideas. Insults, mockery, calumny were not spared it; and, perhaps, the day of persecution will also come. The adherents of Spiritism have been called illuminated, hallucinated, fools, and madmen, and to this flood of epithets which, nevertheless, seemed to contradict and exclude one another, they added those of impostors, charlatans, and, finally, partisans of Satan. “The qualification of madman is the one that seems most especially reserved for every promoter or propagator of new ideas. It is thus that they called a madman the first who dared to say that the Earth revolved around the Sun.

“A madman, too, was the celebrated navigator who discovered a new world. Still a madman, for the areopagus of Science, was he who discovered the force of steam. And the learned assembly received, with a disdainful smile, Franklin's wise dissertation on the properties of electricity and the theory of the lightning rod.

“He too, the divine regenerator of Humanity, the authorized reformer of the law of Moses, was he not called a madman? Did he not expiate by an ignominious torment the propagation of the benefits of divine morality on Earth?

“Did not Galileo expiate as a heretic, in a cruel sequestration and in bitter moral persecutions, the glory of having been the first to take the initiative of the planetary system whose laws Newton was to promulgate?

“Saint John the Baptist, the precursor of Christ, had also been sacrificed to the vengeance of the guilty, whose crimes he had condemned.

“The apostles, depositaries of the teachings of the divine Messiah, had to seal with blood the holiness of their mission. And was not the reformed religion in its turn persecuted, and, after the massacres of Saint Bartholomew, did it not have to suffer the dragonnades?

“Finally, going back to the ostracism inspired by other passions, we see Aristides exiled and Socrates condemned to drink the hemlock.

“Doubtless, thanks to the mild manners that characterize our century, under the sway of our institutions and of the enlightenment that puts a curb on fanatical intolerance, the stakes will no longer be raised to purify with their flames the Spiritist doctrines, whose paternity they claim to trace back to Satan. But they too must expect an uprising of the most hostile, and the attack of ardent adversaries. “Nevertheless, this militant state could not weaken the courage of those who are animated by a profound conviction, of those who have the certainty of holding in their hands one of those fruitful truths which constitute, in their unfoldings, a great benefit for Humanity.

“But, whatever may be the antagonism of ideas or doctrines that Spiritism may arouse; whatever may be the dangers it may open beneath the steps of the adherents, the Spiritist could not leave this light under the bushel and refuse to give it all the brilliance it comprises, the support of his convictions and the sincere testimony of his conscience.

“Spiritism, in revealing to man the economy of his organization, in initiating him into the knowledge of his destinies, opens an immense field to his meditations. Thus the Spiritist philosopher, called to carry his investigations into these new and splendid horizons, has for limits only the infinite. He is present, in a certain manner, at the supreme council of the Creator. But enthusiasm is the reef he must avoid, above all when he casts his views upon man, made so great and who, nevertheless, through pride makes himself so small. It is only when enlightened by the lights of a prudent reason, and taking for his guide cold and severe logic, that he must direct his peregrinations in the domain of divine science, whose veil has been lifted by the Spirits. “This book is the result of our own studies and of our meditations on this subject, which, from the beginning, appeared to us of capital importance and to have consequences of the highest gravity. We recognized that these ideas have deep roots, and in them we glimpsed the dawn of a new era for society. The rapidity with which they spread is an indication of their approaching admission into the number of accepted beliefs. By reason of their very importance, we did not content ourselves with the affirmations and arguments of the doctrine; not only did we assure ourselves of the reality of the facts, but we scrutinized with minute attention the principles derived from them; we sought their reason with cold impartiality, without neglecting the no less conscientious study of the objections that the antagonists raise; like a judge who listens to the two opposing parties, we weighed maturely the pros and cons. Only after having acquired the conviction that the contrary allegations destroy nothing; that the doctrine rests on serious bases, on a rigorous logic, and not on chimerical reveries; that it contains the germ of a salutary renewal of the social state, secretly undermined by incredulity; that it is, finally, a powerful barrier against the invasion of materialism and demoralization, did we deem it our duty to give our personal appraisal, and the deductions we drew from an attentive study. “Thus, having found a rationale in the principles of this new science, which has a place reserved among human knowledge, we entitled our book The Reason of Spiritism. This title is justified by the standpoint under which we regard the subject, and those who read us will recognize without difficulty that this work is not the product of a frivolous enthusiasm, but of a maturely and coldly reflective examination. “We are convinced that whoever, without a preconceived bias of systematic opposition, makes, as we have done, a conscientious study of the Spiritist Doctrine, will consider it as one of the things that interest in the highest degree the future of Humanity.

“In giving our adherence to this doctrine, we exercise the right of freedom of conscience, which can be contested in no one, whatever his belief may be. With all the more reason must this freedom be respected when it has as its object principles of the highest morality, which lead men to the practice of the teachings of Christ and, for that very reason, are the safeguard of social order. “The writer who consecrates his pen to fixing in the mind the impression that such teachings have left in the sanctuary of his conscience must take good care not to confound the lucubrations sprung from his terrestrial horizon with the luminous rays come from heaven. If there remain points obscure or hidden from his explanations, points that it is not yet given him to know, it is that, in the eyes of divine wisdom, they remain reserved for a higher degree on the ascending scale of his progressive purification and of his perfectibility. “Nevertheless, let us hasten to say it, every convinced and conscientious man, consecrating his meditations to the diffusion of a truth fruitful for the happiness of Humanity, dips his pen in the celestial atmosphere in which our globe is immersed, and incontestably receives the spark of inspiration.”

— The indication of the titles of the chapters will make known the scope encompassed by the author.

Definition of Spiritism. – 2. Principle of good and evil. – 3. Union of the soul with the body. – 4. Reincarnation. – 5. Phrenology. – 6. Original sin. – 7. Hell. – 8. Mission of Christ. – 9. Purgatory. – 10. Heaven. – 11. Plurality of inhabited globes. – 12. – Charity. – 13. – Duties of man. – 14. Perispirit. – 15. Necessity of revelation. – 16. Timeliness of revelation. – 17. Angels and demons. – 18. The foretold times. – 19. Prayer. – 20. Faith. – 21. Reply to the insulters. – 22. Reply to the incredulous, atheists, or materialists. – 23. Appeal to the clergy.

— We regret that the lack of space does not permit us to reproduce as many passages as we would wish. We shall limit ourselves to a few quotations.

Chap. III, p. 41. – “The reciprocal and indispensable utility of the soul and the body for their respective cooperation constitutes, then, the rationale of their union. It constitutes, moreover, for the Spirit, the militant conditions on the path of progress, where he is called to conquer his intellectual and moral personality.

“How do these two principles normally realize, in man, the end of his destination? When the Spirit is faithful to his divine aspirations, he restrains the animal and sensual instincts of the body and reduces them to their providential action in the work of the Creator; he develops, he grows. It is the very perfection of the work being realized. He attains happiness, whose ultimate term is inherent in the supreme degree of perfectibility. “If, on the contrary, abdicating the sovereignty he is called to exercise over the body, he yields to the dragging away by the senses, and if he accepts its conditions of terrestrial pleasures as the sole object of his aspirations, he falsifies the rationale of his existence and, far from realizing his destinies, remains stationary; bound to this terrestrial life which, however, ought to have been for him only an accessory condition, since it could not be his end, the Spirit, from chief that he was, becomes subordinate; like a fool, he accepts the earthly happiness that the senses make him experience and that they propose to satisfy, thus stifling in him the intuition of the true happiness reserved for him. Behold his first punishment.” In chapter XII, on hell, p. 99, we find this notable appraisal of death and of destructive scourges:

“Would it be by enumerating the scourges that spread over the Earth terror and panic, suffering and death, that they would believe they could give the proof of the manifestations of divine wrath?

“Know, then, rash evokers of celestial vengeances, that the cataclysms you point out, far from having the exclusive character of a punishment inflicted upon Humanity, are, on the contrary, an act of divine mercy, which closes to it the abyss into which its disorders were precipitating it, and opens to it the ways of progress, which will lead it to the path it must follow to assure its regeneration. “What are these cataclysms but a new phase in the existence of man, a happy era, marking for the peoples and for all Humanity the providential point of their advancement?

“Know, then, that death is not an evil. Beacon of the existence of the Spirit, it is always, when it comes from God, the sign of His mercy and of His beneficent assistance. Death is only the end of the body, the term of an incarnation and, in the hands of God, it is the annihilation of a corrupting and vicious milieu, the interruption of a fatal current, from which, at a solemn moment, Providence wrests man and the peoples. “Death is only an interruption in the terrestrial trial. Far from harming man, or rather the Spirit, it calls him to withdraw into the invisible world, whether to recognize his faults and to lament them, or to enlighten himself and to prepare himself, by firm and salutary resolutions, to resume the trial of terrestrial life.

“Death only freezes man with dread because, too identified with the Earth, he has no faith in his august destiny, of which this globe is but a painful workshop in which his purification must be realized.

“Cease, then, to believe that death is an instrument of wrath and of vengeance in the hands of God; know, on the contrary, that it is at once the expression of His mercy and of His justice, whether in stopping the wicked man in the life of iniquity, or in shortening the time of trials or of exile of the just upon the Earth.

“And you, ministers of Christ, who from the height of the pulpit of truth proclaim the wrath and the vengeance of God, and seem, by your eloquent descriptions of the fantastic furnace, to stir up the inextinguishable flames to devour the unhappy sinner; you who, from your so authorized lips, let fall this terrifying epigraph: ‘Never! — Always!’ have you then forgotten the instructions of your divine Master? We shall further quote the following passages, taken from the chapter on original sin.

“Instead of creating the soul perfect, God willed that it should be only by long and constant efforts that it would come to free itself from this state of native inferiority and gravitate toward its august destinies.

“To reach these ends, it must, then, break the bonds that bind it to matter, resist the dragging away by the senses, with the alternative of its supremacy over the body, or of the obsession exercised over it by the animal instincts.

“It is from these terrestrial bonds that it is important for it to free itself and that constitute in it the very conditions of its inferiority; they are none other than the supposed original sin, the shell that covers its divine essence. Original sin thus constitutes the primitive ascendancy that the animal instincts must have exercised, initially, over the aspirations of the soul. Such is the state of man that Genesis wished to represent under the simple figure of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The intervention of the tempting serpent is nothing other than the desires of the flesh and the solicitation of the senses; Christianity consecrated this allegory as a real fact, attaching it to the existence of the first man; and it is upon this fact that it founded the dogma of redemption. “Placed from this point of view, it must be recognized, original sin must have been, in effect, and really was, that of all the posterity of the first man, and so it will be during a long succession of ages, until the complete liberation of the Spirit from the oppressions of matter, a liberation which, doubtless, tends to be realized, but which has not yet come about in our days. “In a word, original sin constitutes the conditions of human nature, bringing the first elements of its existence, with all the vices it engendered.

“Original sin is the egoism, is the pride that preside over all the acts of the life of man;

“It is the demon of envy and of jealousy that gnaw at his heart;

“It is the ambition that troubles his sleep;

“It is the cupidity that cannot sate the avidity for gain;

“It is the love and the thirst for gold, that element indispensable for giving satisfaction to all the demands of luxury, of comfort, and of well-being, which the century pursues with such ardor.

“Behold the original sin proclaimed by Genesis, and which man has always concealed within himself; it will be effaced only on the day when, imbued with his lofty destinies, man abandons, according to the lesson of the good La Fontaine, the shadow for the prey; the day when he renounces the mirage of earthly happiness, to turn all his aspirations toward the real happiness reserved for him. “Let man learn, then, to make himself worthy of his title of chief among all created beings, and of the ethereal essence emanated from the very bosom of his Creator and with which he is filled. Let him be strong to struggle against the tendencies of his terrestrial envelope, whose instincts are foreign to his divine aspirations and could not constitute his spiritual personality; let his sole aim be always to gravitate toward the perfection of his ultimate end, and original sin will exist no more for him.”

— Mr. Bonnamy is already known to our readers, who were able to appreciate the firmness, the independence of his character, and the elevation of his sentiments, by the notable letter we published in the Review of March 1866, in the article entitled: Spiritism and the Magistracy. He comes today, by a work of high import, resolutely to lend the support and the authority of his name to a cause which, in his conscience, he considers as that of Humanity. Among the already numerous adherents that Spiritism counts in the magistracy, Mr. Jaubert, vice-president of the court of Carcassonne, and Mr. Bonnamy, examining magistrate at Villeneuve-sur-Lot, are the first who openly raised the banner. And they did so, not on the morrow of the victory, but in the moment of the struggle, when the doctrine is the target of the attacks of its adversaries, and when its adherents are still under the blow of persecution. The Spiritists of today and those of the future will know how to appreciate it and will not forget it. When a doctrine receives the suffrages of men so justly considered, it is the best reply to the diatribes of which it may be the object. Mr. Bonnamy's work will mark in the annals of Spiritism, not only as the first in date of its kind, but, above all, by its philosophical importance. The author there examines the doctrine in itself, discusses its principles, from which he draws the quintessence, making complete abstraction of all personalism, which excludes any corporatist thought.

[1] One volume in-12. Price: 3 francs; by post: 3 fr. 35 c. Librairie internationale, 15, boulevard Montmartre, Paris. [La Raison du Spiritisme - Google Books.]

[2] [the economy of his organization: the constitution of his organism, that is: Spirit, perispirit, and carnal body.]