Spiritism from the Catholic point of view.

— A few sincere pages on Spiritism, written by a man of good faith, could not be useless in this epoch, and perhaps the time has come to render justice and shed light upon a question which, although today counting numerous adherents in the intelligent world, has nonetheless been relegated to the domain of the absurd and the impossible by frivolous, imprudent spirits little concerned with the contradiction that the future may bring upon them.

It would be curious to question today those pretended savants who, from the height of their pride and their ignorance, decreed not long ago, with superb disdain, the madness of those giant men who sought new applications for steam and electricity. Fortunately, death has spared them these humiliations.

To establish our position clearly, we shall make to the reader a profession of faith in a few lines:

Spirite — Google books, Avatar — Google Books, Paul d’Apremont prove to us incontestably the talent of Théophile Gautier, that poet whom the marvelous always attracted;

these charming books are pure imagination, and it would be an error to seek in them anything else; Mr.

Home was a skillful prestidigitator; the Davenport brothers, clumsy mountebanks.

All those who have wished to make of Spiritism a business of speculation are, in our opinion, within the purview of the correctional police or of the court of the jury, and here is why: If Spiritism does not exist, they are impostors liable to the penalty inflicted for breach of trust; on the contrary, if it does exist, it is on the condition of being a sacred thing par excellence, the most majestic manifestation of the divinity. If it were admitted that man, passing over the tomb, could on firm footing penetrate into the other life, correspond with the dead, and thus have the only irrefutable proof — because it would be material — of the immortality of the soul, would it not be a sacrilege to hand over to those street clowns the right to profane the most holy of mysteries and to violate, under the protection of the magistrates, the eternal secret of the tombs? Good sense, morality, the very security of citizens imperiously demand that these new thieves be cast out of the temple, and that our theaters and our public squares be closed to those false prophets who cast into weak spirits the terror of which madness is often the consequence. This being said, let us enter into the very heart of the question.

Seeing the modern schools, which make a tumult around certain fundamental principles and conquered certainties, it is easy to understand that the century of doubt and discouragement in which we live is seized with vertigo and blindness.

Among all these dogmas the most agitated was, without contradiction, that of the immortality of the soul.

In effect, everything is there: it is the question par excellence, it is the whole of man, it is his present, it is his future; it is the sanction of life, it is the hope of death. It is to it that all the great principles of the existence of God, of the soul, of revealed religion come to attach themselves.

This truth admitted, it is no longer life that must trouble us, but the end of life; pleasures fade away to give place to duty; the body is no longer anything, the soul is everything; man disappears and God alone shines forth in His eternal immensity.

Then the great word of life, the only one, is death, or rather, our transformation. Being called to pass over the Earth like phantoms, it is toward that horizon which opens slightly on the other side that we must cast our gaze; travelers of a few days, it is upon departing that it behooves us to inquire about the aim of our pilgrimage; let us ask of life the secret of eternity, let us plant the markers of our path and, passengers from death to life, let us hold with firm hand the thread that crosses the abyss. Pascal said: “The immortality of the soul is a thing which matters to us so much, and which touches us so profoundly, that one must have lost all feeling to be in indifference about knowing what it is. All our actions, all our thoughts must take such different paths, according to whether or not there are eternal goods to hope for, that it is impossible to make efforts with sense and reasoning except by governing oneself by the view of this end, which must be our first object.”

In all epochs man has had as a common patrimony the notion of the immortality of the soul, and he has sought to support this consoling idea with proofs; he believed he found it in the usages, in the customs of the various peoples, in the accounts of the historians, in the songs of the poets; being prior to every priest, to every legislator, to every writer, having come from no sect, from no school, and existing among barbarous peoples as among civilized nations, whence would it come if not from God, who is the truth? Alas! these proofs which the fear of nothingness created are but hopes of a future built upon a doubtful sand-bank, upon shifting sand; and the deductions of the closest logic will never attain the height of a mathematical demonstration.

This material proof, irrefutable, just as a divine principle and as an addition at the same time, is found whole in Spiritism and could not be found elsewhere. Considering it from this elevated point of view, as an anchor of mercy, as the supreme plank of salvation, one easily understands the number of adherents that this new altar, entirely Catholic, has gathered around its steps; for, let there be no mistake, it is there and not elsewhere that one must seek the origin of the success which these new doctrines have created among men who shine in the first rank of eloquence, sacred or profane, and whose names enjoy deserved notoriety in the sciences and in letters. What then is Spiritism?

In its broadest definition, Spiritism is the faculty possessed by certain individuals of entering into relation, by means of an intermediary or medium, who is but an instrument in their hands, with the Spirit of dead persons inhabiting another world. This system which, according to believers, rests upon a great number of witnesses, offers a singular seduction, less still by its results than by its promises.

In this order of ideas, the supernatural is no longer a limit, death is no longer a barrier, the body is no longer an obstacle to the soul, which frees itself from it after life, as during life it frees itself momentarily in dream. In death, the Spirit is free; if it is pure, it rises into the spheres unknown to us; if it is impure, it wanders around the Earth, places itself in communication with man, whom it betrays, deceives, and corrupts. The Spiritists do not believe in good Spirits; the clergy, conforming to the text of the Bible, also believes only in the evil ones, and finds them in this passage: “Take care, for the demon prowls around you and lies in wait for you like a lion seeking its prey, quoerens quem devoret [seeking whom he may devour].” Thus, Spiritism is not a modern discovery. Jesus cast out the demons from the body of the possessed, and Diodorus of Sicily speaks of phantoms; the lares gods of the Romans, their familiar Spirits, what then were they?

But then, why repel with prejudice and without examination a system, certainly dangerous from the point of view of human reason, but full of hopes and of consolations? Brucine, wisely administered, is one of the most powerful remedies; and because it is a violent poison in unskilled hands, is that a reason to proscribe it from the pharmacopoeia?

Mr. Baguenault de Puchesse, a philosopher and a Christian, from whose book I make numerous borrowings, because his ideas are mine, says in his beautiful book Immortality, with respect to Spiritism: “Its practices inaugurate a complete system which comprehends the present and the future, which traces the destinies of man, opens to him the doors of the other life, and introduces him into the supernatural world. The soul survives the body, since it appears and shows itself after the dissolution of the elements which compose it. The spiritual principle detaches itself, persists, and, by its acts, affirms its existence. From then on materialism is condemned by the facts; the life beyond the tomb becomes a certain and, so to speak, palpable fact; the supernatural imposes itself upon Science and, submitting to its examination, no longer permits it to repel it theoretically and to declare it, in principle, impossible.” The book which thus speaks of Spiritism is dedicated to one of the lights of the Church, to one of the masters of the French Academy, to a celebrity of contemporary letters, who answered:

“A beautiful book, on a great subject, published by the president of our Academy of Sainte-Croix, will be an honor to you and to our whole Academy. Perhaps you could not choose a question higher or more important to study at the present hour… Permit me, then, sir and most dear friend, to offer you, for the beautiful book which you dedicate to our Academy and for the good example which you give us, all my felicitations and all my thanks, with the homage of my religious and profound devotion.”

Félix, bishop of Orléans.

Orléans, March 28, 1864.

— The article is signed by Robert de Salles.

Evidently the author knows Spiritism only in an incomplete manner, as certain passages of his article prove; nevertheless, he regards it as a very serious thing and, save a few exceptions, the Spiritists can only applaud the whole of his reflections. He is mistaken chiefly when he says that the Spiritists do not believe in good Spirits, and also in the definition which he gives as the broadest expression of Spiritism; it is, he says, the faculty possessed by certain individuals of entering into relation with the Spirit of dead persons. Mediumship, or the faculty of communicating with the Spirits, does not constitute the foundation of Spiritism, without which, to be a Spiritist, one would have to be a medium; it is but an accessory, a means of observation, and not the science, which lies entirely within the philosophical doctrine. Spiritism is no more subordinate to mediums than Astronomy is to a spyglass; and the proof of this is that one can do Spiritism without mediums, as Astronomy was done long before there were telescopes. The difference consists in that, in the first case, one does theoretical science, whereas mediumship is the instrument which permits the theory to be established upon experience. If Spiritism were circumscribed to the mediumistic faculty, its importance would be singularly diminished and, for many people, would be reduced to facts more or less curious. Reading this article, one asks whether the author believes in Spiritism or not, because he does not expound it, in a certain way, except as a hypothesis, but a hypothesis worthy of the most serious attention. If it is a truth, he says, it is a sacred thing par excellence, which must be treated only with respect, and whose exploitation could not be pursued with too much severity.

It is not the first time that this idea is expressed, even by the adversaries of Spiritism, and it is to be noted that it is always the side by which the critic believed he caught the Doctrine at fault, attacking the abuse of trafficking when he found the occasion; it is that she feels this would be her vulnerable side, and by which she could accuse it of charlatanism. This is why malevolence persists in associating it with charlatans, fortune-tellers, and other exploiters of the same kind, hoping by this means to deceive and to strip it of the character of dignity and gravity which constitutes its strength. The rebellion against the Davenports, who had thought they could expose the Spirits with impunity on the stage, rendered an immense service; in its ignorance as to the true character of Spiritism, the criticism of the time believed it struck it to death, when it discredited only the abuses, against which all sincere Spiritists have always protested. Whatever the belief of the author may be, and in spite of the errors contained in his article, we must congratulate ourselves on seeing in it the question treated with the gravity which the subject permits. The press has rarely been heard to speak of it in so serious a sense; but there is a beginning for everything.

[1] The Voyageur du commerce appears every Sunday. — Editorial office: 3, faubourg Saint-Honoré. Price: 22 francs per year; 12 francs per semester; 6 francs and 50 per trimester.

Because it has published the article which is about to be read, which is the expression of the author’s thought, we prejudge nothing as to his sympathies for Spiritism, since we know it only by this issue, kindly sent to us.

[2] [The Baguenault de Puchesse are a family of Frenchmen from Saint-Hilaire-Saint-Mesmin (Loiret), who had two prefects and many aldermen in the city of Orléans, in the 17th and 18th centuries. Their various branches were ennobled between 1695 and 1750.]

[3] [v.

Félix Dupanloup.]