Spiritism Before History and the Church

— This work is a refutation of Spiritism from the religious point of view. It is, without contradiction, one of the most complete and best-executed that we know. It is written with moderation and propriety, and is not sullied by the epithets to which most controversies of the same party have accustomed us. Here, no furious declarations, no outrageous personal attacks; it is the very principle that is discussed. One may not agree with the author, may find that the conclusions he draws from his premises are of a questionable logic; one may say that after having demonstrated, for example, with the documents in hand, that the Sun shines at midday, he errs in concluding that it must be night, but one will not reproach him for lack of courtesy in form.

The first part of the work is devoted to the history of Spiritism in Antiquity and in the Middle Ages. This part is rich in documents drawn from sacred and profane authors, which attest to laborious research and a serious study. It is a work that we had proposed to undertake one day, and we are happy that Abbé Poussin has spared us this labor.

In the second part, entitled Doctrinal Part, the author, discussing the facts he has just cited, including present-day facts, concludes, according to the infallibility of the Church and his own arguments, that all magnetic and Spiritist phenomena are the work of the demon. It is an opinion like any other, and respectable when sincere. Now, we believe in the sincerity of Mr. Poussin's convictions, although we do not have the honor of knowing him. What may be censured in him is that he invokes in favor of his thesis only the opinion of the known adversaries of Spiritism, as well as the doctrines and allegations he disapproves of. In vain would one seek in this book any mention of the fundamental works, nor any direct refutation of the answers that have been given to the contradictory allegations. In a word, he does not discuss the doctrine properly speaking; he does not take its arguments in close combat, to crush them under the weight of a more rigorous logic. Moreover, it may seem strange that Abbé Poussin relies, in order to combat Spiritism, on the opinion of men known for their materialist ideas, such as Messrs. Littré and Figuier; especially from the latter, who shone more by his contradictions than by his logic, he takes several expressions. These gentlemen, combating the principle of Spiritism, denying the cause of psychic phenomena, by that very fact deny the principle of spirituality; thus, they undermine the foundation of religion, for which they do not profess, as is known, great sympathy. In invoking their opinion, the choice is not a happy one; one might even say that it is clumsy, for it is to incite the faithful to read writings that are not at all orthodox. Seeing him drink from such sources, one might believe that he did not judge the others sufficiently preponderant. Abbé Poussin does not contest any of the Spiritist phenomena; he virtually proves their existence by the authentic facts he cites, and which he gathers indifferently from sacred history and from pagan history. Bringing them close to one another, he cannot help but recognize their analogy. Now, in sound logic, from the similarity of effects one must conclude the similarity of causes. Nevertheless, Mr. Poussin concludes that the same facts are miraculous, of divine source in certain cases, and diabolical in others.

The men who profess the same beliefs as Mr. Figuier also have two opinions about these same facts: they deny them simply and attribute them to trickery; as for those that are proven, they strive to connect them only to the laws of matter. Ask them what they think of the miracles of Christ: they will tell you that they are legendary facts, tales invented for the needs of the cause, or products of overexcited and delirious imaginations.

It is true that Spiritism does not recognize in psychic phenomena a supernatural character; it explains them by the faculties and attributes of the soul; and since the soul is in Nature, it considers them as natural effects, which are produced by virtue of special laws, hitherto unknown, and which Spiritism makes known. These phenomena being realized before our eyes, under identical conditions, accompanied by the same circumstances and by means of individuals who have nothing exceptional about them, it thence concludes the possibility of those that occurred in more remote times, and this from the same natural cause.

Spiritism does not address itself to persons convinced of the existence of these phenomena, and who are perfectly free to see miracles in them, if such is their opinion, but to those who deny them precisely because of the miraculous character they wish to give them. By proving that these facts have nothing supernatural but the appearance, it makes them accepted by the very ones who rejected them. The Spiritists were recruited, in immense majority, from among the unbelievers and, nevertheless, today there is not a single one who denies the facts performed by Christ. Now, which is worth more: to believe in the existence of these facts, without the supernatural, or not to believe in them at all? Are not those who admit them on any account closer to you than those who reject them completely? Once the fact is admitted, it remains only to prove its miraculous source, which must be easier, if the source is real, than when the fact itself is contested. In combating Spiritism by relying on the authority of those who reject even the spiritual principle, would not Mr. Poussin be one of those who maintain that absolute incredulity is preferable to the faith acquired through Spiritism?

— We cite in full the preface of Mr. Poussin's book, which we shall follow with some reflections:

“Spiritism, it must indeed be recognized, envelops the entire society as in an immense net, and through its prophets, through its oracles, through its books and through its journalism, it strives to secretly undermine the Catholic Church. If it has rendered us the service of overturning the materialist theories of the eighteenth century, it gives us in exchange a new revelation, which undermines at the base the whole edifice of Christian revelation. And yet, by a singular phenomenon, or rather, by force of the ignorance and the fascination that excites curiosity, how many Catholics daily play with Spiritism, without concerning themselves at all about its dangers! It is quite true that the Spiritists are still divided as to the essence and even as to the reality of Spiritism, and it is probably owing to these uncertainties that the greater number think they can form their conscience and use Spiritism as a curious amusement. Nevertheless, in the depths of these timorous and delicate souls a great anxiety manifests itself. How many times have we not heard these incessant questions: ‘Tell us indeed the truth. What is Spiritism? What is its origin? Do you believe in this genealogy that would connect the phenomena of Spiritism to ancient magic? Do you admit the strange facts of magnetism and of turning tables? Do you believe in the intervention of Spirits and in the evocation of souls? in the role of angels and demons? Is it permitted to question the turning tables and to consult the spiritists? What do the theologians, the bishops, think about all these questions?… Has the Roman Church given any decisions? Etc., etc.’ “These questions, which still ring in our ears, inspired the thought of this book, which has for its object to answer them all, within the limits of our powers. Therefore, in order to be more sure and convinced, we never affirm anything without a grave authority, and we decide nothing that the bishops and Rome have not decided. — Among those who have specially studied these matters, some reject en masse all the extraordinary facts that Spiritism attributes to itself. Others, granting a large part to hallucinations and to charlatanism, recognize that it is impossible not to admit certain inexplicable and unexplained phenomena, as irreconcilable with the general teachings of the natural sciences as they are disconcerting to human reason; yet they seek to interpret them, either by certain mysterious laws of physiology, or by the intervention of the great soul of nature, of which ours is a simple emanation, etc. Several Catholic writers, forced to admit the facts, finding the natural solution at times impossible and the pantheist explanation absurd, do not hesitate to recognize in certain facts of Spiritism the direct intervention of the demon. For these, Spiritism is nothing but the continuation of that pagan magic, which appears throughout all History, from the magicians of Pharaoh, to the pythoness of Endor, the oracles of Delphi, to the prophecies of the sibyls and the soothsayers, down to the demonic possessions of the Gospel and to the extraordinary and verified phenomena of contemporary magnetism. The Church has not pronounced on the speculative discussions; it abandons the historical question of the origins of Spiritism and the psychological question of its mysterious agents to the vain dispute of men. Serious theologians, bishops and private doctors have sustained these latter opinions; officially, Rome neither approves nor censures them. But if the Church has prudently kept silence on the theories, it has raised its voice on the practical questions, and in the presence of the uncertainties of reason, it points out dangers for the conscience. A science that is curious and in itself innocent may, by reason of frequent abuses, become a source of dangers; for this reason, Rome has condemned as dangerous to morals, certain practices and certain abuses of magnetism, whose grave inconveniences even the Spiritists do not dissimulate. Still more, bishops have deemed it their duty to forbid their diocesans and in any case, as superstitious and dangerous to morals and to faith, not only the abuses of magnetism, but the habit of questioning the turning tables. “For our part, on the speculative question, placed before those who see the demon everywhere and those who see it nowhere, we wished, keeping ourselves at a distance from the two reefs, to study the historical origins of Spiritism, to examine the certainty of the facts and to discuss impartially the psychological and pantheist systems by which they wish to interpret everything. Evidently, when we refute several of these systems, we do not claim to impose our own thoughts on anyone, although the authorities on which we rely appear to us of the highest gravity. Separating from the free opinions all that is of faith, such as the existence of angels and demons, the demonic possessions and obsessions of the Gospel, the legitimacy and power of exorcisms in the Church, etc., we leave to each one the right, not to deny the voluntary commerce of men with the demon, which, according to Father Perronne, would be rash, and would lead to historical Pyrrhonism ; but we recognize in every Catholic the right not to see in Spiritism the intervention of the demon, if our arguments seem more specious than solid, and if reason and the more attentive study of the facts prove the contrary. “As for the practical question, we do not recognize in ourselves the right to absolve what Rome condemns; and if some souls should still hesitate, we would simply refer them to the Roman decisions, to the episcopal interdictions and even to the theological decisions, which we reproduce in full.

“The plan of this book is very simple. The first part, or historical part, after having given the teaching of the Holy Scriptures and the tradition of all peoples on the existence and the role of Spirits, initiates us into the most salient facts of Spiritism or of magic, from the origin of the world down to our days.

“The second part, or doctrinal part, expounds and discusses the various systems imagined to discover the true agent of Spiritism; after having specified our best teaching of Catholic theology on the general intervention of Spirits, and having given free course to free opinions on the mysterious agent of modern magic, we point out to the faithful the dangers of Spiritism for faith, for morals and even for health or for life.

“May these pages, showing the danger, complete the good that others have begun!… Needless to add that, as docile children of the Church, we condemn in advance all that Rome might disapprove.”

— Abbé Poussin recognizes two things: 1st that Spiritism envelops, as in an immense net, the entire society; 2nd that it has rendered the Church the service of overturning the materialist theories of the eighteenth century. Let us see what consequences flow from these two facts.

As we have said, Spiritism is recruited, in great majority, from among the unbelievers. Indeed, ask nine-tenths of the adherents what they believed in before being Spiritists; they will answer that they believed in nothing or, at least, that they doubted everything; for them the existence of the soul was a hypothesis, no doubt desirable, but uncertain; the future life a chimera; Christ was a myth or, at most, a philosopher; God, if he existed, must be unjust, cruel and partial, hence why they so liked to believe that he did not exist.

Today they believe and their faith is unshakable, because it is founded on evidence and demonstration, and because it satisfies reason; the future is no longer a hope, but a certainty, because they see spiritual life manifest itself before their eyes; they no more doubt of it than they doubt of the rising of the Sun. It is true that they do not believe in demons nor in the eternal flames of hell, but, in compensation, they believe firmly in a God supremely just, good and merciful; they do not believe that evil comes from him, who is the source of all good, nor from demons, but from the very imperfections of man; that man reforms himself and evil will exist no more; to conquer oneself is to conquer the demon. Such is the faith of the Spiritists, and the proof of its strength is that they strive to become better, to subdue their bad inclinations and to put into practice the maxims of Christ, looking upon all men as brothers, without distinction of races, of castes, nor of sects, forgiving their enemies, returning evil with good, after the example of the divine model. Upon whom should Spiritism have had easier access? It is not upon those who had faith and to whom this sufficed, who asked for nothing and needed nothing; but upon those who lacked faith. Like Christ, it went to the sick, and not to those who enjoy health; to those who are hungry, and not to those who are sated. Now, the sick are those who find themselves tortured by the anguish of doubt and incredulity.

And what did it do to bring them to itself? A massive propaganda? Going to preach the doctrine in the public squares? Doing violence to consciences? Absolutely not, for these are the means of weakness; and if it had used them, it would have shown that it doubted of its moral strength. It has as an invariable rule, in conformity with the law of charity, taught by Christ, to constrain no one, to respect all convictions; it contented itself with enunciating its principles, developing in its writings the bases on which its beliefs rest, and let those who wished come to it. If many came, it is because it suited many and many found in it what they had not found elsewhere. If it recruited principally from among the unbelievers, and if in a few years it has encircled the world, it is because the unbelievers and those who are not satisfied with what is given to them are numerous, since one is attracted only to where one finds something better than what one has. We have said hundreds of times: Do you wish to combat Spiritism? Then give better than it.

— You recognize, Abbé, that Spiritism has rendered the Church the service of overturning the materialist theories; no doubt it is a great result, of which it glories. But how did it achieve it? precisely with the aid of those means that you call diabolical, with the material proofs it gives, of the soul and of the future life; it was with the manifestation of the Spirits that it confounded incredulity and that it will definitively triumph. And you say that such a service is the work of Satan? But, then, you should not bear it such ill will, since it itself destroys the barrier that held back those whom it had unduly imprisoned? Remember the answer of Christ to the Pharisees, who spoke to him exactly the same language, accusing him of curing the sick and of casting out demons through demons. Remember, also, in this regard, the words of Monsignor Frayssinous, bishop of Hermopolis, in his conferences on religion: “Certainly, a demon who should seek to destroy the reign of vice in order to establish that of virtue would be a singular demon, for he would destroy himself.” If this result obtained by Spiritism is the work of Satan, how is it that the Church left it the merit and did not obtain it herself? How is it that she let incredulity invade society? Yet she did not lack means of action. Does she not have immense personnel and material resources? the preachings from the capitals down to the smallest villages? the pressure she exerts on consciences through confession? the terror of eternal punishments? the religious instruction that accompanies the child throughout the whole course of its education? the prestige of the ceremonies of worship and of their antiquity? How is it that a doctrine, barely blossomed, which has neither priests, nor temples, nor worship, nor predictions; which is combated rigorously by the Church, slandered, persecuted as the first Christians were, has in so little time brought back to faith and to belief in immortality so great a number of unbelievers? Yet the thing is not very difficult, for it suffices for the majority to read a few books for all doubts to be dissipated. Draw from this the conclusions you wish; but confess that, if this is the work of the devil, he did what you yourselves could not do, and that he discharged your task.

You will certainly say that what testifies against Spiritism is that it does not employ, in order to convince, the same arguments as you, and that, if it triumphs over incredulity, it does not lead completely to you.

But Spiritism does not have the pretension of marching with you, nor with anyone; it does its own work, and as it sees fit. Incredulity was refractory to your arguments; would you in good faith believe that Spiritism would have triumphed by making use of the same ones? If a physician does not cure a patient with a remedy, will another physician cure him by employing the same remedy?

Spiritism does not seek to bring the unbelievers back to the absolute bosom of Catholicism, nor to that of any other worship. By making them accept the bases common to all religions, it destroys the principal obstacle and leads them to do half the way; it is for each one to do the rest, in what concerns it; those that fail give a manifest proof of incapacity.

From the moment that the Church recognizes the existence of all the facts of manifestations on which Spiritism relies; that she claims them for herself, by title of divine miracles; that, between the facts that take place in the two camps, there is a complete analogy, as to the effects, an analogy that Abbé Poussin demonstrates with the utmost evidence and supporting documents, placing them in plain view, the whole question then reduces itself to knowing whether it is God who acts on one side and the devil on the other. It is a personal question. Now, when two persons do exactly the same thing, it is concluded that one is as powerful as the other. The whole argumentation of Mr. Poussin thus ends by demonstrating that the devil is as powerful as God.

Of two things, one: either the effects are identical, or they are not; if they are identical, it is because they proceed from one and the same cause, or from two equivalent causes; if they are not, show in what they differ. In the results? But, then, the comparison would be in favor of Spiritism, because it brings back to God those who did not believe in him.

It is, then, well understood, by formal decision of the competent authorities, that the Spirits who manifest are not, nor can be, anything but demons. Let us agree, however, Abbé, that if these same Spirits, instead of contradicting the Church on certain points, had been in everything of her opinion, if they had come to support all her temporal and spiritual pretensions, to approve without restriction all that she says and does, she would not call them demons, but rather angelic Spirits.

Abbé Poussin wrote his book, he says, with a view to forearming the faithful against the dangers that their faith may run, through the study of Spiritism. It is to show little confidence in the solidity of the bases on which this faith rests, since it can be shaken so easily. Spiritism does not have the same fear. All that they could say and do against it has not made it lose an inch of ground, for it gains ground every day; yet talent was not lacking to more than one of its adversaries. The struggles waged against it, far from weakening it, have fortified it; they have contributed powerfully to spreading it more rapidly than it would have done without this, so much so that this net which, in a few years has enveloped the entire society, is, in great part, the work of its antagonists. Without any of the material means of action, which make for successes in this world, it has propagated itself only by the power of the idea. Since the arguments, with the aid of which they combated it, did not overturn it, it is because, apparently, they judged them less convincing than its own. Do you wish to have the secret of its faith? here it is: it is that before believing, they understand. Spiritism does not fear the light; it calls it upon its doctrines, because it wishes to be accepted freely and by reason. Far from fearing for the faith of the Spiritists the reading of the works that combat it, it says to them: Read everything; the pros and the cons, and choose with full knowledge of the case. It is for this reason that we point out to their attention the work of Abbé Poussin. n

— We give below, without comment, some fragments drawn from the first part:

– Certain Catholics, even pious ones, have singular ideas in matters of faith, the inevitable result of the surrounding skepticism which, in spite of themselves, dominates them and whose deleterious influence they suffer. Speak to them of God, of Jesus Christ, they accept everything immediately; but if you attempt to speak of the demon, and above all of diabolical intervention in human life, they no longer listen to you. Like our contemporary rationalists, they would willingly take the demon for a myth or a fantastic personification of the genius of evil, the ecstasies of the saints for phenomena of catalepsy and the diabolical possessions, even those of the Gospel, if not as epilepsy, at least as parables. Saint Thomas, n in his precise language, answers in two words this dangerous skepticism: “If the readiness to see the demon speak,” he says, “proceeds from ignorance of the laws of Nature and from credulity, the general tendency to see his action nowhere proceeds from irreligion and incredulity.” To deny the demon is to deny Christianity and to deny God.

– The belief in the existence of Spirits and their intervention in the domain of our life, still more, Spiritism itself or the practice of the evocation of Spirits, souls, angels or demons, go back to the highest antiquity, and are as old as the world. — On the existence and the role of the Spirits, let us first interrogate our holy books, the most ancient and the most incontested books of history and, at the same time, the divine code of our faith. The demon seducing under a sensible form Adam and Eve in Paradise; the cherubim who guarded its entrance; the angels who visit Abraham and discuss with him the question of the salvation of Sodom; the angels insulted in the unclean city, snatching Lot from the conflagration; the angel of Isaac, of Jacob, of Moses and of Tobias; the demon who kills the seven husbands of Sarah; the one who tortures the soul and the body of Job; the exterminating angel of the Egyptians under Moses, and of the Israelites under David; the invisible hand that writes the sentence of Belshazzar; the angel who strikes Heliodorus; the angel of the Incarnation, Gabriel, who announces Saint John and Jesus Christ: What more is needed to show the existence of the Spirits, good or bad, in the acts of human life? God made of the Spirits his ambassadors, says the psalmist; they are the ministers of God, says Saint Paul; Saint Peter teaches us that the demons prowl ceaselessly around us, like roaring lions; Saint Paul, tempted by them, declares to us that the air is full of them.

– Let us note here that the pagan traditions are in perfect harmony with the Judaic and Christian traditions. The world, according to Thales and Pythagoras, is full of spiritual substances. All these authors divide them into good and bad Spirits; Empedocles says that the demons are punished for the faults they have committed; Plato speaks of a prince, of a malevolent nature, set over those Spirits expelled by the gods and fallen from heaven, says Plutarch. All the souls, adds Porphyry, which have for their principle the soul of the universe, govern the great countries situated beneath the Moon: they are the good demons (Spirits); and, let us be well convinced, they act only in the interest of those under their administration, whether by the care they take of the animals, or whether they watch over the fruits of the earth, or preside over the rains, the moderate winds, the fair weather. There must also be placed in the category of good demons those who, according to Plato, are charged with bearing to the gods the prayers of men, and who bring to men the warnings, the exhortations, the oracles of the gods.

– The Arabs call Iba the chief of the demons; the Chaldeans filled the air with them; finally, Confucius teaches absolutely the same doctrine: “How sublime are the virtues of the Spirits!” he said; “one looks at them and does not see them; one listens to them and does not hear them; united to the substance of things, they cannot separate themselves from them; they are the cause that all men throughout the Universe purify themselves and clothe themselves in robes of gala to offer sacrifices; they are spread like the waves of the ocean above us, to our left and to our right.”

The cult of the Manitous, spread among the savages of America, is nothing but the cult of the Spirits.

– For their part, the Fathers of the Church admirably interpreted the doctrine of the Scriptures on the existence and the intervention of the Spirits: There is nothing in the visible world that is not ruled and disposed by the invisible creature, says Saint Gregory. In this world every living being has an angel that directs it, adds Saint Augustine. The angels, says Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, are the ministers of the will of God; they have, naturally and by communication, an extraordinary force; they traverse all places and find themselves everywhere, both by the promptness with which they exercise their ministry, and by the lightness of their nature. Some are charged with watching over some part of the Universe, which is marked out for them by God, on whom they depend in all things; others are in the guard of cities and of churches; they aid us in all the good that we do.

– In relation to the fundamental reason, God governs the Universe immediately; but relatively to the execution, there are things that he governs through other intermediaries.

– As for the evocation itself of the Spirits, souls, angels or demons, and all the practices of magic, of which Spiritism is but a form, more or less disguised, of charlatanism, it is a practice as old as the belief in the Spirits themselves.

– Saint Cyprian thus explains the mysteries of pagan Spiritism:

“The demons,” he says, “introduce themselves into the statues and the simulacra that man adores; it is they who animate the fibers of the victims, who inspire with their breath the heart of the soothsayers and give a voice to the oracles. But how can they cure? Laedunt primo, says Tertullian, postque laedere desinunt, et curasse creduntur. First they wound and, ceasing to wound, they pass for curing.”

In India it is the Lamas and the Brahmins who, from the highest antiquity, have the monopoly of these same evocations, which still continue. “They made Heaven communicate with Earth, man with the divinity, absolutely like our present-day mediums. The origin of this privilege seems to go back to the very Genesis of the Hindus and to belong to the priestly caste of these peoples. Issued from the brain of Brahma, the priestly caste must remain closer to the nature of this creator God and enter more easily into communication with him than the warrior caste, born of his arms and, with stronger reason, than the caste of the Pariahs, formed from the dust of his feet.”

– But the most interesting and most authentic fact of History is, without contradiction, the evocation of Samuel through the medium of the pythoness of Endor, who is questioned by Saul: “Samuel had died,” says the Scripture; “all Israel had mourned him, and he had been buried in the city of Ramah, place of his birth. And Saul had expelled the magicians and the soothsayers from his kingdom. Being then assembled, the Philistines came to encamp at Shunem; for his part, Saul gathered all the troops of Israel and came to Gilboa. Having seen the army of the Philistines, he was seized with dismay and fear to the depth of his heart. He consulted the Lord; but the Lord did not answer him, neither in dreams, nor through the priests, nor through the prophets. Then he said to his officers: ‘Find me a woman who has the Spirit of Python, that I may go to her and consult her.’ His servants said to him: ‘There is a woman at Endor who has a Spirit of Python.’ Saul disguised himself, put on other clothes and went off, accompanied only by two men. Night came, they reached the house of this woman and he said to her: ‘Consult for me the Spirit of Python and evoke for me the one I shall tell you.’ The woman answered him: ‘You well know what Saul did and in what manner he exterminated the magicians and the soothsayers from all his lands. Why, then, do you set a snare to destroy me?’ Then Saul swore to her by the Lord, saying: ‘As the Lord lives! No harm shall befall you for this.’ The woman said to him: ‘Whom do you wish to see?’ He answered her: ‘Bring me up Samuel.’ The woman, having seen Samuel, uttered a great cry, and said to Saul: ‘Why have you deceived me? for you are Saul.’ The king said to her: ‘Fear not. What did you see?’ — ‘I saw,’ she said, ‘a god coming up out of the earth.’ Saul said to her: ‘What is his figure like?’ — ‘He is,’ she said, ‘an old man wrapped in a mantle.’ Then Saul recognized that it was Samuel; and he made him a profound reverence, bowing down to the ground. Samuel said to Saul: ‘Why have you disturbed my repose, by having me evoked?’ Saul answered him: ‘I am in great difficulty. The Philistines make war on me and God has withdrawn from me; he would not answer me either through the prophets or in dreams. This is why I had you evoked, in order that you may teach me what I must do.’ Samuel said to him: ‘Why do you turn to me, since the Lord has abandoned you and has passed to your rival? For the Lord will treat you as I said on his behalf. He will tear your kingdom from your hands to give it to David, your son-in-law, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord, nor execute the sentence of his wrath against the Amalekites. It is for this that the Lord sends upon you today that which you suffer. He will even deliver Israel along with you into the hands of the Philistines. Tomorrow you shall be with me, you and your son; and the Lord will abandon to the Philistines the very camp of Israel.’ Suddenly, Saul fell stretched out upon the ground and was seized with great fear because of the words of Samuel; and his strength failed him, for he had not eaten bread all that day and all that night. The sorceress came to him in the distress in which he was and said to him: ‘You see that your handmaid obeyed you, that I exposed my life for you and that I attended to what you desired of me.’ “Behold, for forty years I have made profession of evoking the dead in the service of strangers,” says Philo after this account; “but I have never seen such an apparition. Ecclesiasticus has taken it upon himself to prove to us that it is a true apparition, and not a hallucination of Saul. Samuel, says the Holy Spirit, after his death spoke to the king, predicted the end of his life and, coming up out of the earth, raised his voice to prophesy the ruin of his nation, because of its impiety.”

[1] One vol. in-12; price: 3 fr. Sarlit, bookseller, 25, rue Saint-Sulpice, Paris. [Le Spiritisme devant l’histoire et devant l’église, son origine, sa nature, sa certitude, ses dangers - Google Books.]

[2]

Translator's note: The abbé is not referring to Thomas, apostle of Jesus, but to the theologian Thomas Aquinas.