Comments on the messiahs of Spiritism.

As several questions have been addressed to us concerning the communications about the messiahs, published in the last issue of the Review, we have judged it our duty to complete them with a few developments, which will make their meaning and their scope better understood.

— As the first of these communications recommended keeping the matter secret until further notice, even though the same thing was being taught in different regions, if not in the form and the circumstances of detail, at least in the substance of the idea, we were asked whether the Spirits, in a general consent, had recognized the urgency of this publication, which would have a meaning of a certain gravity.

The opinion of the majority of the Spirits is a powerful check on the value of the principles of the Doctrine, but it does not exclude judgment and reason, whose serious use all the Spirits recommend. When teaching becomes generalized spontaneously on a question, in a particular sense, it is a sure indication that this question has reached its time; but the timeliness, in the case in question, is not a matter of principle, and we have judged that we should not wait for the counsel of the majority for this publication, since its usefulness had been demonstrated to us. It would be puerile to believe that, by making an abnegation of our initiative, we obeyed nothing, as a passive instrument, but a thought that imposed itself upon us. The idea of the coming of one or of several messiahs was more or less general, but viewed from points of view more or less erroneous, by force of the circumstances of detail contained in certain communications, and of an interpretation too literal, on the part of some, with the words of the Gospel on the same subject. These errors could have material drawbacks, whose symptoms were already making themselves felt; it was important, therefore, not to let them spread. This is why we judged it useful to make known the true sense in which this prediction was understood by the majority of the Spirits, thus rectifying, by general teaching, what isolated teaching might have had that was partially defective.

— It was said that the messiahs of Spiritism, coming after its constitution, would have only a secondary role, and people asked whether this was indeed the character of the messiahs. Can the one whom God charges with a mission come usefully when the object of his mission is accomplished? Would it not be as if the Christ had come after the establishment of Christianity, or as if the architect charged with the construction of a house arrived when it was already built?

The spiritist revelation was to be accomplished under conditions different from those of its elder sisters, because the conditions of Humanity are not the same. Without returning to what was said concerning the characteristics of this revelation, we recall that instead of being individual, it was to be collective and, at the same time, the product of the teaching of the Spirits and of the intelligent work of man; it was not to be localized, but to take root simultaneously at every point of the globe. This work is accomplished under the direction of the great Spirits, who have received the mission of presiding over the regeneration of Humanity. If they do not cooperate in the work as incarnates, they do not on that account cease to direct the works as Spirits, as we have proofs of it. Their role as messiahs, therefore, has not been effaced, for they carry it out before their incarnation, and it is only greater. Their action, as Spirits, is even more efficacious, because they can extend it everywhere, whereas, as incarnates, it is necessarily circumscribed. Today they do, as Spirits, what the Christ did as a man: they teach, but through the thousand voices of mediumship; afterward they will come to do, as men, what the Christ could not do: to install his doctrine. The installation of a doctrine called to regenerate the world cannot be the work of a day, and the life of one man would not suffice for it. First the principles must be elaborated or, if one prefers, the instrument must be fashioned; then the ground must be cleared of obstacles and the first foundations laid. What would these Spirits do on Earth during the work, in a certain sense material, of clearing? Their life would be consumed in this struggle. Thus, they will come more usefully when the work is elaborated and the ground prepared; to them, then, it will fall to put the final touch to the edifice and to consolidate it; in a word, to make the tree that has been planted bear fruit. But, while they wait, they are not inactive: they direct the workers. Incarnation, therefore, will be only one phase of their mission. Spiritism alone could make understood the cooperation of the Spirits of erraticity in an earthly work.

— Moreover, people asked whether it was not to be feared that the announcement of these messiahs might tempt certain ambitious persons, who would attribute to themselves pretended missions, and would fulfill this prediction: There shall be false christs and false prophets?

The answer to this is very simple; it is entirely contained in chapter XXI of The Gospel According to Spiritism. In reading this chapter, it will be seen that the role of the false christ is not as easy as one might suppose, because here is the case to say that the habit does not make the monk. In all times there have been intriguers who wished to pass themselves off as that which they were not; without doubt they may imitate the outward form, but, when it comes to justifying the substance, it befalls them what befalls the ass clothed in the lion's skin.

Good sense says that God cannot choose his messiahs from among the common Spirits, but from among those whom he knows to be capable of accomplishing his designs. The one who claimed to have received such a favor would have, then, to justify it by the eminence of his capacities and of his virtues, and his presumption would be the first contradiction given to those very virtues. What would be said of a versifier who passed himself off as the prince of poets? To pass oneself off as christ or messiah would be to declare oneself the most virtuous man in the Universe, and one is not virtuous when one is not modest. It is true that virtue is simulated by hypocrisy; but there is one thing that defies all imitation: it is genius, because it must affirm itself by positive works; as for façade virtue, it is a comedy that one cannot perform for long without betraying oneself. In the first rank of the moral qualities that distinguish the true missionary of God, one must place sincere humility, devotion without limits and without ulterior motives, absolute material and moral disinterestedness, the abnegation of personality, virtues by which neither the ambitious nor the charlatans shine, who, above all, seek glory or profit. They may have intelligence, and they need it in order to triumph by intrigue; but it is not that intelligence which places man above earthly Humanity. If the Christ were to incarnate again on Earth, he would come with all his virtues. If, then, someone passed himself off as him, he would have to equal him in everything. A single quality lacking would suffice to unmask the imposture. Just as one recognizes the quality of the tree by its fruit, the true messiah will be recognized by the quality of his works, and not by his pretensions. It is not those who proclaim themselves, because, perhaps, they themselves are unaware of it; several will be on Earth without having been recognized. It is by seeing what they will have been and what they will have done that men will say, as they said of the Christ: That one must have been a messiah.

There are a hundred touchstones for recognizing the smuggled messiahs and prophets. The definition of the character of those who are true is made rather to discourage the counterfeiters than to incite them to play a role that they have not the strength to perform, and which would bring them only vexations. It is, at the same time, to give to those who might attempt to deceive the means of avoiding being victims of their own knavery.

— It seems that some persons feared that the qualification of messiah might cast over the Doctrine a varnish of mysticism.

For whoever knows the Doctrine, it is, from one end to the other, a protest against mysticism, for it tends to lead all beliefs back to the positive ground of the laws of Nature. But, among those who do not know it, there are persons for whom everything that proceeds from tangible humanity is mystical. We need not concern ourselves with their opinion.

The word messiah is employed by Spiritism in its literal acceptation of messenger, envoy, abstraction made of the idea of redemption and of mystery, particular to the Christian cults. Spiritism has not to discuss these dogmas, which are not within its province; it states the sense in which it employs this word, in order to avoid any misunderstanding, leaving each one to believe according to his conscience, which it does not seek to disturb.

Thus, for Spiritism, every Spirit incarnated to fulfill a special mission among Humanity is a messiah, in the general acceptation of the word, that is to say, a missionary or envoy, with the difference, however, that the term messiah implies more particularly the idea of a mission direct from the divinity and, consequently, that of the superiority of the Spirit and of the importance of the mission. From this it follows that there is a distinction to be made between the messiahs properly so called, and the Spirits who are simple missionaries. What distinguishes them is that, for some, the mission is still a trial, because they may fail, while for the others it is an attribute of their superiority. From the point of view of corporeal life, the messiahs enter into the category of the ordinary incarnations of Spirits, and the word has no character of mysticism whatever. All the great epochs of renewal have seen messiahs appear, charged with giving impulse to the regenerating movement and directing it. The present epoch being one of the greatest transformations of Humanity, it will also have its messiahs, who already preside over it as Spirits, and will conclude their mission as incarnates. Their coming will be marked by no prodigy, and God, in order to make them known, will not disturb the order of the laws of Nature: No extraordinary sign will appear in the sky, nor on the Earth, and they will not be seen descending from the clouds, accompanied by angels. They will be born, will live and will die like the common run of men, and their death will not be announced to the world either by earthquakes or by the darkening of the Sun; no external sign will distinguish them, just as the Christ, in life, did not distinguish himself from other men. Nothing, therefore, will mark them out to public attention, except the grandeur of their works, the sublimity of their virtues, and the active and fruitful part that they will take in the founding of the new order of things. Pagan antiquity made gods of them; History will place them in the Pantheon of great men, of men of genius, but, above all, among the men of good, whose memory will be honored by posterity. Such will be the messiahs of Spiritism; great men among men, great Spirits among Spirits, they will mark their passage by prodigies of intelligence and of virtue, which attest true superiority, much more than the production of material effects which anyone can accomplish. This somewhat prosaic picture will perhaps cause some illusions to fall; but it is thus that things will come to pass, quite naturally, and their results will be no less important for not being surrounded by the ideal and somewhat marvelous forms with which certain imaginations take pleasure in surrounding them.

We said the messiahs because, in fact, the predictions of the Spirits announce that there will be several, which has nothing admirable about it, according to the sense attached to this word, and by reason of the grandeur of the task, for it concerns, not the advancement of a people or of a race, but the regeneration of all Humanity. How many will there be? Some say three, others more, others fewer, which proves that the thing is among the secrets of God. Will one of them have supremacy? That again matters little, and it would even be dangerous to know it in advance.

The coming of the Messiah, as a general fact, is announced, because it was useful that one should be forewarned of it; it is a guarantee of the future and a motive for tranquility, but the individualities must not reveal themselves except by their acts. If someone is to shelter the infancy of one of them, he will do so unconsciously, as for the first comer; he will assist him and protect him out of pure charity, without being solicited to it by a sentiment of pride, from which perhaps he could not defend himself, which in spite of himself would slip into the heart and would make him lose the fruit of his action. His devotion would perhaps not be as morally disinterested as he himself imagined. Moreover, the safety of the predestined one requires that he be covered by an impenetrable veil, because he will have his Herods. Now, a secret is well kept only when no one knows it. Therefore, no one is to know his family, nor the place of his birth, and even the common Spirits do not know it. No angel will come to announce his coming to his mother, because she is not to make a difference between him and her other children; magi will not come to adore him in his cradle and offer him gold and incense, because he is not to be saluted except when he shall have given his proofs. He will be protected by the invisible ones, charged with watching over him, and led to the door at which he is to knock, and the master of the house will not recognize the one whom he receives into his home. Speaking of the new Messiah, Jesus said: “If anyone says to you: the Christ is here, or he is there, do not go there, because he will not be there.” One must, then, distrust the false indications that have for their aim to deceive, with a view to making him sought where he is not. Since the Spirits are not permitted to reveal what is to remain secret, every circumstantial communication on this point must be held as suspect, or as a trial for the one who receives it.

It matters little, then, the number of the messiahs; God alone knows what is necessary. But what is indubitable is that beside the messiahs properly so called, superior Spirits, in unlimited number, will incarnate, or are already incarnated, with special missions, to second them. They will arise in all classes, in all social positions, in all sects and among all peoples. There will be some in the sciences, in the arts, in literature, in politics, among the heads of state, in short everywhere where their influence may be useful to the diffusion of the new ideas and to the reforms that will be their consequence. The authority of their word will be greater still, because founded on the esteem and the consideration with which they will be surrounded. But, it will be asked, in this multitude of missionaries of all categories, how is one to distinguish the messiahs? What does it matter whether one distinguishes them or not? They do not come to Earth to have themselves adored there, nor to receive the homages of men. They will bear, then, no sign on the forehead; but, just as by the work one recognizes the craftsman, people will say after their departure: The one who did the greatest share of good must be the greatest.

Spiritism being the principal regenerating element, it was important that the instrument should be ready when those who are to make use of it come. It is the work that is accomplished at this moment, and that precedes them by little; but, first, the harrow must have passed over the earth to purge it of the parasitic weeds that would smother the good grain.

It is above all the twentieth century that will see the great apostles of Spiritism flourish, and that may be called the century of the messiahs. Then the old generation will have disappeared and the new will be in all its vigor; Humanity, freed from its convulsions and formed of new or regenerated elements, will enter definitively and peacefully into the phase of moral progress, which is to elevate the Earth in the hierarchy of worlds. [See the article Yesterday, today and tomorrow.]

[1] [See the prediction of Saint Francis of Paula.]

[2] [“Predestined”:

see in the article Honorary Members of the Society of Paris the prediction of the appearance of more than one missionary in the propagation of Spiritism; and item

of the 1st article of the Spiritist Review of January 1865. See also Ezekiel 34.22-24; 37.24-28;

Ps 89.20-38;

Hosea 3.5 and an interesting prophecy of Zechariah about a great flying scroll that would appear at the end of times.]