Unpublished Correspondence of Lavater

Presentation.

— Preamble.

— First Letter: On the state of the soul after death. — 2nd Letter. — Commentary. — Communication from Paul I.

— 3rd Letter.

— 4th Letter.

— Letter from a deceased man to his friend on Earth on the state of disincarnate Spirits.

— 5th Letter.

— Letter from a Blessed Spirit to his friend on Earth on the first vision of the Lord.

— 6th Letter.

— Letter from a deceased man to his friend on the relations existing between Spirits and those whom they loved on Earth.

— Commentary: On the importance of these letters of Lavater.

— Lavater's present opinion on Spiritism.

[PRESENTATION.]

The Spiritists are numerous in St. Petersburg and count among themselves serious and enlightened men, who understand the aim and the lofty humanitarian scope of the doctrine. One of them, whom we did not have the honor of knowing, was good enough to send us a document, all the more precious to the history of Spiritism in that it was unknown and touches upon the highest social regions. Here is what our honored correspondent says, in the letter he sent us:

“The Imperial Library of St. Petersburg published, in 1858, in a small number of copies, a collection of unpublished letters of the famous physiognomist Lavater. These letters, until then unknown in Germany, were addressed to the Empress Maria of Russia, wife of Paul I and grandmother of the reigning emperor. The reading of these letters impressed me by the philosophical ideas, eminently Spiritist, which they contain, on the relations that exist between the visible world and the invisible world, intuitive mediumship, and the influence of the fluids that produce it. “Presuming that these letters, probably unknown in France, might interest the enlightened Spiritists of that country, by showing them that their intimate convictions were shared by the eminent Swiss philosopher and by two crowned heads, I take the liberty, sir, of forwarding to you, enclosed, the almost literal translation of these letters, which you may perhaps judge it opportune to insert in your learned and so interesting monthly publication.

“I take this occasion, sir, to express to you the sentiments of my profound and perfect esteem, shared by the sincere Spiritists of all countries, who know how worthily to appreciate the eminent services that your tireless zeal has rendered to the scientific development and to the propagation of the sublime and so consoling Spiritist Doctrine. This third revelation will have as its consequence the regeneration, the moral progress, and the consolidation of faith in poor Humanity, unfortunately led astray, and which fluctuates between doubt and indifference, in matters of religion and of morality.” W. de F.

We publish in full the manuscript of Mr. de F. Its length obliges us to make of it the subject of three articles.

PREAMBLE.

In the castle of the grand duke of Pawlowsk, situated twenty-four kilometers from Petersburg, where the emperor Paul of Russia passed the happiest years of his life, and which, in consequence, became the favorite residence of the Empress Maria, his august widow, a true benefactress of suffering humanity, there is found a select library, founded by the imperial couple, in which, among many scientific and literary treasures, there is found a packet of letters in Lavater's own hand, which remained unknown to the biographers of the famous physiognomist. These letters are dated from Zurich, in 1798. Sixteen years before, Lavater had had occasion, in that city and in Schaffhausen, to make the acquaintance of the count and countess of the North (the title under which the grand duke of Russia and his wife traveled through Europe), and, from 1796 to 1800, he had sent to Russia, addressed to the Empress Maria, reflections on physiognomy, to which he joined letters, having as their object the description of the state of the soul after death. In these letters, Lavater takes as his point of departure that a soul, having left its body, inspires its ideas to a man of its choice, fit for the light (lichtfaehing), and makes him write letters addressed to a friend who has remained on Earth, in order to instruct him on the state in which it finds itself.

These unpublished letters of Lavater were discovered during a verification in the grand-ducal library, by Doctor Minzloff, librarian of the imperial library of Petersburg, and put in order by him. With the authorization of the present holder of the castle of Pawlowsk, His Imperial Highness the grand duke Constantine, and under the enlightened auspices of the baron de Korff, presently a member of the council of the empire, former chief director of that library, which owes to him its most notable improvements, they were published in 1858, in Petersburg, under the title: Johann-Kaspar Lavater's briefe, an die Kaïserin Maria Feodorowna, gemahlin kaïser Paul I von Russland (Letters of Johann Caspar Lavater to the Empress Maria Feodorovna, wife of the emperor Paul I of Russia). n This letter was printed at the expense of the imperial library and offered in homage to the senate of the University of Jena, on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of its foundation. These letters, six in number, present the highest interest, by positively proving that the Spiritist ideas and, notably, the possibility of the relations between the spiritual world and the material world, were already germinating in Europe quite seventy years ago, and that not only did the famous physiognomist have the conviction of these relations, but he was himself what in Spiritism is called an intuitive medium, that is, a man who received by intuition the ideas of the Spirits and transcribed their communications. The letters of a dead friend, which Lavater had joined to his own, are eminently Spiritist. They develop and clarify, in a manner as ingenious as it is spiritual, the fundamental ideas of Spiritism, and come to support all that this doctrine offers of the most rational, of the most profoundly philosophical, religious, and consoling for Humanity. Persons who do not know Spiritism may suppose that these letters from a Spirit to his friend on Earth are nothing but a poetic form that Lavater gives to his own spiritualist ideas; but those who are initiated into the truths of Spiritism will find in these communications such as they were and still are given by the Spirits, by means of different intuitive mediums—hearing, writing, speaking, ecstatic, etc. It is not natural to suppose that Lavater could have conceived himself, and expounded with such great lucidity and such precision, ideas so abstract and so elevated on the state of the soul after death, and its means of communication with incarnate Spirits, that is, with men. These ideas could only have come from the disincarnate Spirits themselves. It is incontestable that one of them, having kept sentiments of affection for a friend still an inhabitant of the Earth, gave to him, through the intermediary of an intuitive medium (perhaps Lavater himself was that friend), notions on this subject, in order to initiate him into the mysteries of the tomb, in the measure of what it is permitted to a Spirit to unveil to men, and which these may be in a state to understand. We give here the exact translation of the letters of Lavater, written in German, as well as of the communications from beyond the tomb, which he addressed to the Empress Maria, in accordance with the desire she had manifested, to know the ideas of the German philosopher on the state of the soul after the death of the body.

FIRST LETTER.

On the State of the Soul After Death.

GENERAL IDEAS.

Most venerated Maria of Russia!

Deign to grant me permission not to give you the title of majesty, which is due to you on the part of the world, but which does not harmonize with the sanctity of the subject on which you wished me to entertain you, and in order that I may be able to write to you with frankness and entire liberty.

You wish to know some of my ideas on the state of souls after death.

In spite of the little that is given to the most learned among us to know about this, since none of those who have departed for the unknown country has returned from there, the thinking man, the disciple of Him who descended from heaven among us, is, nevertheless, in a condition to say, about this, as much as it is necessary for us to know in order to encourage us, to reassure us, and to make us reflect.

This time I shall limit myself to setting forth to you, in this regard, some of the more general ideas.

I think that there must exist a great difference between the state, the manner of thinking and of feeling of a soul separated from its material body, and the state in which it found itself during its union with the latter. That difference must be, at the least, as great as that which exists between the state of a newborn and that of a child living in the maternal womb.

We are bound to matter, and it is our senses and our organs that give to our soul perceptions and understanding.

According to the difference that exists between the construction of the telescope, of the microscope, and of the spectacles, of which our eyes make use in order to see, the objects that we look at through their intermediary appear to us under a different form. Our senses are the telescopes, the microscopes, and the spectacles necessary to our present life, which is a material life.

I believe that the visible world must disappear for the soul separated from its body, just as it escapes it during sleep. Or else the world, which the soul glimpsed during its corporeal existence, must appear to the dematerialized soul under a completely different aspect.

If, for some time, it could remain without a body, the material world would not exist for it. But if it is, soon after having left its body—which I find very probable—provided with a spiritual body, which it would have drawn from its material body, the new body will indispensably give it a very different perception of things. If, what can easily happen to impure souls, this body remained, for some time, imperfect and little developed, the whole Universe would appear to the soul in a state of disturbance, as if seen through a frosted glass. But if the spiritual body, the conductor and the intermediary of its new impressions, were or became more developed or better organized, the world of the soul would appear to it, according to the nature and the qualities of its harmony and its perfection, more regular and more beautiful.

The organs simplify themselves, acquire harmony among themselves, and are more suited to the nature, the character, the needs, and the forces of the soul, according as it concentrates itself, enriches itself, and purifies itself here on Earth, pursuing a single aim and acting in a determined direction. Existing on Earth, the soul itself perfects the qualities of the spiritual body, of the vehicle in which it will continue to exist after the death of its material body, and which will serve it as an organ for conceiving, feeling, and acting in its new existence. This new body, suited to its intimate nature, will render it pure, loving, lively, and apt for a thousand beautiful sensations, impressions, contemplations, actions, and enjoyments. All that one can, and all that we still cannot say about the state of the soul after death, will always be based on this single axiom, permanent and general: Man reaps what he has sown.

It is difficult to find a principle more simple, more clear, more abundant, and more suited to being applied to all possible cases.

There exists a general law of Nature, closely bound, even identical, to the principle mentioned above, concerning the state of the soul after death, a law equivalent in all worlds, in all possible states, in the material world and in the spiritual world, visible and invisible, namely:

“What is alike tends to unite. All that is identical attracts itself reciprocally, if there exist no obstacles that oppose their union.”

The whole doctrine on the state of the soul after death is based on this simple principle. All that we ordinarily call: prior judgment, compensation, supreme happiness, damnation, can be explained in this manner: “According as you have sown good in yourself, in others, and outside of yourself, you will belong to the society of those who, like you, have sown good in themselves and outside of themselves; you will enjoy the friendship of those whom you have resembled in their manner of sowing good.” Each soul separated from its body, freed from the chains of matter, appears to itself such as it is in reality. All the illusions, all the seductions that prevent it from recognizing itself and from seeing its forces, its weaknesses, and its defects will disappear. It will experience an irresistible tendency to turn toward the souls that resemble it and to draw away from those that are unequal to it. Its own interior weight, as if obeying the law of gravitation, will draw it toward bottomless abysses (at least so it will seem to it); or else, according to the degree of its purity, it will hurl itself into the air, like a spark carried by its lightness, and will pass rapidly through the luminous, fluidic, and ethereal regions. The soul gives to itself a weight that is proper to it, by its interior sense; its state of perfection impels it forward, backward, or to the side; its own character, moral or religious, inspires in it certain particular tendencies. The good will rise toward the good; the need it feels for good will draw it toward them. The bad is forcibly impelled toward the bad. The precipitate fall of coarse, immoral, and irreligious souls toward the souls that resemble them will be also as rapid and inevitable as the fall of an anvil into an abyss, when nothing holds it back. For now this is enough.

Zurich, August 1, 1798.

Johann Caspar Lavater. n (With the permission of God, to be continued weekly.)

SECOND LETTER.

The needs experienced by the human spirit, during its exile in the material body, continue the same, immediately after it has left it. Its happiness will consist in the possibility of being able to satisfy its spiritual needs; its damnation, in the impossibility of being able to satisfy its carnal appetites, in a less material world.

The unsatisfied needs constitute damnation; their satisfaction constitutes supreme happiness.

I would like to say to each man: “Analyze the nature of your needs; give them their true name; ask yourself: are they admissible in a less material world? Can they find their satisfaction there?” And if, truly, they could be contented there, would they be such as an intellectual and immortal Spirit could honestly confess and desire their satisfaction, without feeling a profound shame before other intellectual and immortal beings like himself?

The need that the soul feels to satisfy the spiritual aspirations of other immortal souls; to procure for them the pure delights of life, to inspire in them the assurance of their existence after death, to cooperate thus in the great plan of supreme wisdom and love, the progress acquired by this noble activity, so worthy of man, as well as the disinterested desire for good, give to human souls the aptitude, and, therefore, the right, to be received into the groups and the circles of Spirits more elevated, more pure, more holy. Most venerable empress, when we have the intimate persuasion that the most natural and, nevertheless, very rare need that can be born in an immortal soul—that of God, the need to draw nearer and nearer to Him, in all respects, and to resemble the invisible Father of all creatures—has once become predominant in us, oh! then we must not experience the least apprehension concerning our future state, when death has rid us of our body, that thick wall that concealed God from us. That material body, which separated us from Him, has fallen, and the veil that hid from us the sight of the most holy of holies is torn. The adorable Being, whom we loved above all things, with all His resplendent graces, will then have free access into our soul, which hungers for Him and receives Him with joy and love. As soon as boundless love for God has triumphed in our soul, in consequence of the efforts it has made to draw near to Him and to resemble Him in its vivifying love of Humanity, and by all the means that were in its power, that soul, rid of its body, passing necessarily through many degrees in order to perfect itself ever more, will rise with an astonishing ease and rapidity toward the object of its most profound veneration and its unlimited love, toward the inexhaustible source, the only one sufficient for the satisfaction of all its needs, of all its aspirations. No weak, sick, or veiled eye is in a condition to look at the Sun head-on; in the same way, no Spirit not purified, still wrapped in the coarse fog of an exclusively material life, even at the moment of its separation from the body, would not be in a condition to endure the sight of the purest sun of the Spirits, in its resplendent brightness, its symbol, its focus, from which escape those waves of light, which penetrate even finite beings with the feeling of their infinity. Who better than you, madam, knows that the good are attracted only by the good! That only elevated souls know how to enjoy the presence of other choice souls! Every man who knows life and men, he who has often been obliged to find himself in the company of those dishonest, effeminate flatterers, devoid of character, always eager to reveal and to make much of the most insignificant word, the least allusion of those whose favor they court, or else of those hypocrites, who seek cunningly to penetrate the ideas of others, in order then to interpret them in an absolutely contrary sense—he, I say, must know how much those vile and servile souls suddenly become embarrassed at a simple word pronounced with firmness and dignity; how much a single severe glance confounds them, making them feel profoundly that they are known and judged at their just value! How then it becomes painful for them to endure the presence of an honest man! No crafty and hypocritical soul is happy in contact with an upright and energetic soul, which penetrates it. Each impure soul, having left its body, must, according to its intimate nature, as though impelled by a hidden and invincible force, flee the presence of every pure and luminous being, in order to conceal from it, as much as possible, the sight of its numerous imperfections, which it is not in a state to conceal from itself, nor from others. Even if it had not been written: “No one, without being purified, will be able to see the Lord”; it would be perfectly in the order of things. An impure soul finds itself in an absolute impossibility of entering into any relation with a pure soul, nor of feeling for it the least sympathy. A soul frightened by the light cannot, for that very reason, be attracted toward the source of light. Brightness, deprived of all obscurity, must burn it like a devouring fire. And which are the souls, madam, that we call impure? I think they are those in which the desire to purify themselves, to correct themselves, and to perfect themselves has never predominated. I think they are those that are not submitted to the elevated principle of disinterestedness in all things; those that elect themselves as the sole center of all their desires and of all their ideas; those that look upon themselves as the object of all that is outside of them, that seek only the means of satisfying their passions and their senses; in short, those in which reign egoism, pride, self-love, and personal interest, which wish to serve two masters that contradict each other, and this simultaneously. I think that such souls, after the separation from their bodies, must find themselves in the miserable state of a horrible contemplation of themselves; or else, what amounts to the same, of the profound contempt they feel for themselves, and to be dragged by an irresistible force toward the horrible society of other egoistic souls, condemning themselves incessantly.

It is egoism that produces the impurity of the soul and makes it suffer. It is combated in all human souls by something that is contrary to it, something pure, something divine: the moral sentiment. Without that sentiment, man is not capable of any moral pleasure, of any esteem, of any contempt for himself, understanding neither heaven nor hell. This divine light renders unbearable to him all obscurity that he discovers in himself, and that is the reason why delicate souls, those that possess the moral sense, suffer more cruelly when egoism takes hold of them and subjugates that sentiment. Upon the concordance and the harmony that subsist in man, between himself and his interior law, depend his purity, his aptitude to receive the light, his happiness, his heaven, his God. His God appears to him in his likeness to himself. To him who knows how to love, God appears as the supreme love, under a thousand loving forms. His degree of happiness and his aptitude to make others happy are proportioned to the principle of love that reigns in him. He who loves with disinterestedness remains in incessant harmony with the source of all love and with all those who there drink in love. Let us strive to preserve in us love in all its purity, madam, and we shall always be drawn by it toward the most loving souls. Let us purify ourselves every day, more and more, of the stains of egoism, and then, even though we had to leave this world this very day or tomorrow, returning to the earth our mortal envelope, our soul will take its flight with the rapidity of lightning toward the model of all those who love, and will reunite itself with them with an inexpressible happiness. None of us can know what his soul will become after the death of the body, and yet, I am fully persuaded that purified love must necessarily give to our Spirit, freed from the body, a boundless liberty, a hundredfold existence, a continuous enjoyment of God, and an unlimited power to make happy all those who are apt to enjoy supreme happiness.

Oh! how incomparable is the moral liberty of the Spirit stripped of its body! with what lightness does the soul of the loving being, surrounded by a resplendent light, effect its ascension! How infinite science, how the force of communicating to others, become its appanage! How much light pours forth from itself! What life animates all the atoms of which it is formed! Torrents of enjoyments rush from all sides to meet it, to satisfy its purest and most elevated needs! Innumerable legions of loving beings extend their arms to it! Harmonious voices make themselves heard in those numerous choirs, radiant with joy, and say to it: “Spirit of our Spirit! Heart of our heart! Love drunk at the source of all love! Loving soul, you belong to all of us, and we are all yours! Each of us is yours and you belong to each of us. God is love and God is ours. We are all full of God and love finds its happiness in the happiness of all.” I ardently desire, most venerated empress, that you, your noble and generous spouse, the emperor, both so turned toward the good, and I with you, may never become strangers to the love that is God and man at the same time; that it may be granted to us to prepare ourselves for those enjoyments, by our actions, our prayers, and our sufferings, drawing near to Him who let Himself be nailed to the cross of Golgotha.

Johann Caspar Lavater.

Zurich, August 18, 1798.

(To be continued shortly, if God permits it.)

[COMMENTARY.]

— One can already see in what order of ideas Lavater wrote to the Empress Maria, and to what point he possessed the intuition of the principles of modern Spiritism. One will be able to judge it still better by the complement of this notable correspondence. While awaiting the reflections with which we shall follow it, we believe we ought, from now on, to point out an important fact: it is that in order to sustain a correspondence on such a subject with the empress, it was necessary that she should share these ideas, and several circumstances do not permit one to doubt that the same was the case with the czar, her husband. It was at her request, or rather, at the request of both, that Lavater wrote, and the tone of his letters proves that he addressed himself to convinced persons. As one sees, the Spiritist beliefs, in the high regions, do not date from today. Moreover, one can see, in the Review of April 1866, the account of a tangible apparition of Peter the Great to this same Paul I.

— Read in the Society of Paris, the letters of Lavater provoked a conversation on the subject. Paul I, doubtless attracted by the thought that was being directed toward him on the occasion, manifested himself spontaneously and without evocation, through one of the mediums, to whom he dictated the following communication.

[COMMUNICATION FROM PAUL I.]

(Society of Paris, February 7, 1868 – Medium: Mr. Leymarie.)

Power is a heavy thing, and the vexations it leaves impress our soul painfully! The annoyances are continual; one must conform to habits, to old institutions, to prejudice, and God knows how much resistance is necessary to oppose all the appetites that come to beat upon the throne, like tumultuous waves. Thus, what happiness when, leaving for a moment that tunic of Nessus, called royalty, one can withdraw to a peaceful place, in order to be able to repose in peace, far from the noise and the tumult of ambitions! My dear Maria loved calm. A solid, gentle, resigned, loving nature, she would have preferred the forgetting of greatness in order to devote herself completely to charity, to study the high philosophical questions that were within the reach of her faculties. Like her, I loved those intellectual recreations; they were a balm for my wounds as a sovereign, a new strength to guide me in the labyrinth of European politics.

Lavater, that great heart, that great Spirit, that predestined brother, initiated us into his sublime doctrine; his letters, which you today possess, were awaited by us with feverish anxiety. All that they contain was the mirage of our personal ideals; we read those dear letters with a childlike joy, happy to lay down our crown, its gravity, its etiquette, in order to discuss the rights of the soul, its emancipation, and its divine course toward the eternal.

All these questions, today very ardent, we accepted them seventy years ago; they formed part of our life, of our repose. Many strange effects, apparitions, and noises had fortified our opinion in this respect. The Empress Maria saw and heard the Spirits; through them she had learned of events that had taken place at great distances. A prince Lopoukine, dead in Kiev, several hundred leagues away, had come to announce to us his death, the incidents that had preceded his departure, the expression of his last wishes. The empress had written, dictated by the Spirit of Lopoukine, and only twenty days afterward were all the details we possessed learned at the court. They were for us a resounding confirmation, and also the proof that Lavater and we were initiated into the great truths. Today, we know better, through you, the Doctrine whose base you have enlarged. We shall come to ask of you a few moments and to thank you in advance, if you deign to listen to Maria of Russia and to him who had the privilege of having her for a companion.

Paul I. n [1] [Briefe an die Kaiserin Maria Feodorowna, Gemahlin Kaiser Pauls I. von … Johann Caspar Lavater - Google Books.]

[2] [v.

Johann Gaspar Lavater.]

[3] [v.

Paul I of Russia.]