The deserters.

If it is true that all great ideas count fervent and devoted apostles, it is no less true that even the best among them have their deserters. Spiritism could not escape the effects of human weakness. It too had its own, and in this regard a few observations will not be useless.

In the early days, many were mistaken about the nature and ends of Spiritism and did not perceive its scope. Above all else, it excited curiosity; many were those who saw in the spirit manifestations no more than a mere object of amusement; they amused themselves with the Spirits, while the latter were willing to amuse them. They constituted a pastime, often an accessory to evening gatherings.

This manner in which the matter at first presented itself was a skillful tactic of the Spirits. Under the form of amusement, the idea penetrated everywhere and sowed seeds, without alarming timorous consciences. They played with the child, but the child was to grow.

When the facetious Spirits were succeeded by the serious, moralizing Spirits; when Spiritism became a science, a philosophy, superficial people ceased to find it amusing; for those who concern themselves above all with material life, it was an importunate and embarrassing censor, on which account not a few set it aside. The existence of these deserters is not to be deplored, for frivolous creatures are but poor auxiliaries in anything whatsoever. Nevertheless, that first phase cannot be considered time lost. Thanks to that disguise, the idea was popularized a hundred times more than if from the first moment it had assumed a severe form, and from those frivolous and careless circles grave thinkers emerged. Brought into fashion by the attraction of curiosity, constituting a lure, the phenomena tempted the cupidity of those who go in search of whatever appears as a novelty, in the hope of finding therein an open door. The manifestations seemed something marvelously exploitable, and there was no lack of those who thought to make of them an auxiliary to their business; for others, they were a variant of the art of divination, a process, perhaps more reliable than cartomancy, palmistry, coffee grounds, etc., etc., for knowing the future and discovering hidden things, since, according to the opinion then current, the Spirits knew everything.

Seeing, at last, that the speculation slipped through their fingers and turned into mystification, that the Spirits did not come to help them grow rich, nor indicate to them numbers that would win in the lotteries, or reveal to them good fortune, or lead them to discover treasures, or to receive inheritances, nor even furnish them with a fruitful invention from which to take out a patent, in short to supply their ignorance and dispense them from intellectual and material labor, these people found that the Spirits were good for nothing and that their manifestations were but illusions. These people lavished praise upon Spiritism during all the time in which they hoped to derive some profit from it, just as much as they denigrated it once disappointment came. More than one of the critics who vituperate it would have raised it to the skies if it had caused them to discover a rich uncle in America, or to win on the Stock Exchange. Of the categories of deserters, this is the most numerous; but it is understood that those who compose it cannot be qualified as Spiritists. This phase too presented its usefulness. By showing what was not to be expected from the assistance of the Spirits, it made known the serious objective of Spiritism and purified the doctrine. The Spirits know that the lessons of experience are the most profitable; if, at the very outset, they had said: Do not ask for this or that, because you will obtain nothing, no one would have given them credit any longer. This is the reason why they let things take the course they took: it was so that from observation the truth might stand out. The disappointments discouraged the exploiters and contributed to diminishing their number. They were parasites, of which the disappointments rid Spiritism, and not sincere adepts. Some individuals, more perceptive than others, glimpsed the man in the child that had just been born and feared it, as Herod feared the child Jesus. Not daring to attack Spiritism head-on, these individuals incited agents charged with embracing it in order to suffocate it; agents who put on masks in order to insinuate themselves everywhere, in order to skillfully provoke disaffection in the centers and to spread within them, with stealthy hand, the poison of calumny, kindling at the same time the torch of discord, inspiring compromising acts, attempting to lead the doctrine astray, in order to render it ridiculous or odious and then to simulate defections. Others are still more cunning: preaching union, they sow separation; deftly they raise irritating and wounding questions; they awaken the jealousy of preponderance among the different groups; they would delight in seeing them stone one another and raise banner against banner, on account of some divergences of opinion on certain questions of form or of substance, most often provoked intentionally. All doctrines have had their Judas; Spiritism could not but have its own, and they have not been wanting to it even yet.

These are contraband Spiritists, but who were also of some usefulness: they taught the true Spiritist to be prudent, circumspect, and not to trust in appearances.

As a principle, one must distrust enthusiasms that are too feverish: they are almost always a flash in the pan, or simulacra, occasional ardors, which supply with an abundance of words the lack of acts. True conviction is calm, considered, motivated; it reveals itself, like true courage, by facts, that is, by firmness, by perseverance, and, above all, by abnegation. Moral and material disinterestedness is the legitimate touchstone of sincerity.

This sincerity has a sui generis stamp; it is exteriorized by nuances often more easily understood than defined; it is felt by the effect of that transmission of thought, whose law Spiritism has regulated, without falsehood ever managing to simulate it completely, since it is not possible for falsehood to change the nature of the fluidic currents it projects from itself. Sincerity considers it an error to give heed to low and servile flattery, which seduces only proud souls, flattery by means of which falsehood precisely betrays itself before elevated souls.

Never can ice imitate heat.

If we pass to the category of Spiritists properly so called, even there we shall encounter certain human weaknesses, over which the doctrine will not triumph immediately. The most difficult to overcome are egoism and pride, the two original passions of man. Among the convinced adepts, there are no desertions, in the legitimate sense of the term, since whoever deserted out of self-interest or any other motive would never have been sincerely a Spiritist; there may, however, be faintings of heart. It may happen that courage and perseverance falter before a disappointment, a frustrated ambition, a pre-eminence not attained, a wound to self-love, a difficult trial. There is the recoil before the sacrifice of well-being, before the fear of compromising material interests, before the dread of “what will they say?”; there is being cast down by a mystification, having as a consequence, not withdrawal, but a cooling; there is wanting to live for oneself and not for others, profiting from the belief, but on condition that it cost nothing. Without doubt, those who act thus may be believers, but, beyond contestation, egoistic believers, in whom faith has not kindled the sacred fire of devotion and abnegation; it costs their souls dearly to detach themselves from matter. They make up the number nominally, but they are not to be counted upon. All the others are Spiritists who in truth merit that qualification. They accept for themselves all the consequences of the doctrine and are recognizable by the efforts they employ to improve themselves. Without despising, beyond the limits of reason, material interests, these are, for them, the accessory and not the principal; they consider terrestrial life only as a passage more or less arduous; they are certain that on the useful or useless employment they give it the future depends; they hold as paltry the enjoyments it affords, in the face of the splendid objective they glimpse in the beyond; they are not intimidated by the obstacles they meet on the way; they see in vicissitudes and disappointments trials that cause them no discouragement, because they know that rest will be the reward of labor. Hence it comes that among them no desertions nor failures are to be found. For this very reason, the good Spirits manifestly protect those who struggle with courage and perseverance, those whose devotion is sincere and without preconceived ideas; they help them to overcome obstacles and soften the trials they cannot avert from them, whereas, no less manifestly, they abandon those who turn away from them and sacrifice the cause of truth to their personal ambitions.

Should we also include among the deserters of Spiritism those who withdraw because our way of seeing does not satisfy them; those who, finding our method too slow or too rapid, claim to reach more quickly and under better conditions the goal at which we aim? Certainly not, if they have for guide sincerity and the desire to propagate the truth. – Yes, if their efforts tend solely to put themselves in evidence and to draw public attention upon themselves, for the satisfaction of self-love and of personal interests!…

You have a way of seeing different from ours, you do not sympathize with the principles we admit! Nothing proves that you are nearer to the truth than we. One may differ in opinion in matters of science; investigate on your side, as we investigate on ours; the future will show which of us is in error or in the right. We do not claim to be the only ones to bring together the conditions outside of which serious and useful studies are not possible; what we have done others can, without doubt, do. Whether intelligent men join us, or congregate far from us, matters little!… If the centers of study multiply, so much the better; it will be a sign of incontestable progress, which we shall applaud with all our strength. As for the rivalries, the attempts they may make to supplant us, we have an infallible means of not fearing them. We work to understand, to enrich our intelligence and our heart; we struggle with others, but we struggle with charity and abnegation. The love of one's neighbor inscribed on our standard is our device; the search for truth, come whence it may, our only objective. With such sentiments, we confront the mockery of our adversaries and the attempts of our competitors. If we err, we shall not have the foolish self-love that leads us to obstinately persist in false ideas; there are, however, principles regarding which we can all be sure of never erring: the love of the good, abnegation, the proscription of every sentiment of envy and of jealousy. These principles are ours; we see in them the bonds that will bind together all men of good will, whatever may be the divergence of their opinions. Only egoism and bad faith raise insurmountable barriers between them. But what will be the consequence of such a state of things? Undoubtedly, the conduct of the false brothers may for the moment bring about some partial disturbances, on which account all efforts must be employed to lead them to failure, as far as possible; these disturbances, however, will necessarily last but a short time and will not be able to be prejudicial to the future: first, because they are mere maneuvers of opposition, doomed to fall by the very force of things; then, say what they may, or do what they will, no one would be capable of depriving the doctrine of its distinctive character, of its rational and logical philosophy, of its consoling and regenerating morality. Today, the bases of Spiritism are laid in an unshakable manner; the books written without ambiguity and placed within reach of all intelligences will always be the clear and exact expression of the teaching of the Spirits and will transmit it intact to those who succeed us. It is urgent not to lose sight of the fact that we are at a moment of transition and that no transition operates without conflict. No one, then, should be astonished that certain passions stir, by the effect of thwarted ambitions, of wounded interests, of frustrated pretensions. Little by little, however, all is extinguished, the fever subsides, men pass and the new ideas remain.

Spiritists, if you wish to be invincible, be benevolent and charitable; the good is a breastplate against which the maneuvers of malevolence will always break!…

Let us fear nothing, then: the future belongs to us. Let us leave our adversaries to struggle, pressed by the truth that dazzles them; any opposition is impotent against the evidence, which inevitably triumphs by the very force of things. The universal popularization of Spiritism is a question of time, and in this century time marches at a giant's pace, under the impulse of progress.

Allan Kardec.

Observation. – As a complement to this article, we publish an instruction which on the same subject Allan Kardec gave, as soon as he returned to the world of the Spirits. It seems to us interesting, for our readers, to join to the eloquent and virile pages that have just been read the present opinion of the organizer par excellence of our philosophy.

(Paris, November 1869.)

When I found myself corporeally among you, I said many times that I was to make a history of Spiritism, which would not be devoid of interest. This is, even now, my view, and the elements I had gathered for that purpose may one day serve toward the realization of my idea. For I was, in effect, better placed than any other to appreciate the curious spectacle which the discovery and the popularization of a great truth provoked. I formerly sensed, today I know, what marvelous order and what inconceivable harmony preside over the concentration of all the documents destined to give birth to the new work. The benevolence, the goodwill, the absolute devotion of some; the bad faith, the hypocrisy, the malicious maneuvers of others, all concur to guarantee the stability of the edifice that is rising. In the hands of the superior powers, which preside over all progress, the unconscious or simulated resistances, the attacks aiming to sow discredit and ridicule, become elements of elaboration. What have they not done! What have they not set in action to suffocate the child in its cradle!

At first charlatanism and superstition wished, now one, now the other, to seize upon our principles, in order to exploit them for their own profit; all the thunderbolts of the press were hurled against us; they jeered at the most respectable things; they attributed to the Spirits of evil the teachings of the Spirits most worthy of universal admiration and veneration; meanwhile, all these combined efforts succeeded in nothing but proclaiming the impotence of our adversaries.

It is within that incessant struggle against established prejudices, against accredited errors, that one learns to know men. I knew, in consecrating myself to the work of my predilection, that I exposed myself to the hatred, the envy and the jealousy of others. The way was strewn with difficulties that continually renewed themselves. Able to do nothing against the doctrine, they threw themselves upon the man; but, on that side, I felt myself strong, because I had renounced my personality. What did the efforts of calumny matter to me; my conscience and the grandeur of the objective made me willingly forget the heaths and the thorns of the road. The testimonies of sympathy and esteem, which I received from those who knew how to appreciate me, constituted the most estimable recompense I had ever ambitioned. But, ah! how many times would I have succumbed beneath the weight of my task, had not the affection and the gratitude of many made me forget the ingratitude and the injustice of some, for, if the attacks directed against me always found me insensible, painfully grieved I felt myself, I must say it, every time I discovered false friends among those upon whom I most counted. If it is just to censure those who have attempted to exploit Spiritism or to denature it in their writings, without having previously studied it, how much more culpable are those who, after having assimilated all its principles, not content to part from its bosom, turned against it all their efforts! It is, above all, for the deserters of this category that we must implore divine mercy, for they voluntarily extinguished the torch that illumined them and with which they could have enlightened others. They, for this reason, soon lose the protection of the good Spirits and, according to the sad experience we have had, very quickly arrive, from fall to fall, at the most critical situations! Since I returned to the world of the Spirits, I have seen again some of these unfortunates! They repent now; they lament the inaction in which they remained and the ill will of which they gave proof, without managing, however, to recover the time lost!… They will soon return to Earth, with the firm resolve to contribute actively to progress, and they will find themselves yet again in struggle with the old tendencies, until they triumph definitively.

One would be inclined to believe that the Spiritists of today, enlightened by these examples, would avoid falling into the same errors. Such, however, is not the case. For a long time yet there will be false brothers and ill-advised friends; but, like their elder brothers, they will not succeed in making Spiritism depart from its course. Although they cause some momentary and purely local disturbances, the doctrine will not for that be imperiled. On the contrary, the Spiritists who have gone astray will very quickly recognize the error into which they fell and will come to collaborate with greater ardor in the work abandoned for an instant and, acting in accord with the superior Spirits who direct the humanitarian transformations, they will march at a rapid pace toward the happy times promised to regenerated Humanity. Allan Kardec.