6.

There is something even more harmful to Spiritism than the impassioned attacks of its enemies: it is what its supposed adherents publish in its name. Certain publications are truly lamentable, because they can give of Spiritism nothing but a false idea and expose it to ridicule. One may ask why God permits these things and does not enlighten all men equally. Is there any means of remedying this drawback, which seems to us one of the greatest reefs of the Doctrine?

This question is grave and requires some explanations. To begin, I would say that there is not a single idea, above all when it has a certain importance, that does not encounter obstacles. Was not Christianity itself wounded in the person of its chief, treated as an impostor, and in that of its apostles? And even among its propagators, were there not terrible creatures? Why, then, would Spiritism be privileged?

Next I would observe that what you regard as an evil is, without a shadow of doubt, a good. To understand this, it is not enough to look at the present, but, above all, at the future. Humanity is afflicted by many evils that corrode it and that have their source in pride and selfishness. Do you expect to cure it instantaneously? Do you believe that those passions, which reign sovereignly over it, will allow themselves to be dethroned easily? No; they raise their heads to bite those who come to disturb them in their tranquility. Such is, do not doubt it, the cause of certain oppositions. The morality of Spiritism does not suit everyone; not daring to attack it, they attack its source.

Indeed, Spiritism has worked numerous miracles of moral reform, but to think that this transformation could be sudden and universal would be to fail to know Humanity. Among the believers there are those who, as I said, see only the surface of Spiritism, who do not understand its essential object. Whether through lack of judgment, or through pride, they accept from it only what flatters them, rejecting what humbles them. It is no wonder, then, that some Spiritists take it in the reverse sense. This may be lamentable in the present, but it will have no greater consequences for the future.

You ask why God does not prevent errors. Ask Him why He did not create men perfect at once, instead of leaving them the labor and the merit of perfecting themselves; why He did not make the child be born already an adult, endowed with reasoning, enlightened, instead of letting it acquire experience through living; why the tree only reaches full development after long years and the fruit only ripens when the propitious season has come? Ask Him why Christianity, which is His law and His work, has suffered so many fluctuations since its birth; why He permitted men to make use of His sacred name to commit so many abuses, even crimes, and to shed so much blood? Nothing is done abruptly in Nature; everything moves gradually according to the immutable laws of the Creator, and these laws always lead to the object that He set Himself. Now, Humanity on Earth is still young, despite the pretension of its doctors. Spiritism, too, has scarcely been born; it grows quickly, as you see, and enjoys excellent health. It is necessary, however, that you give it time to reach the age of manhood. I told you also that the deviations of which you complain have their good side; it is the Spirits themselves who come to explain it. Here is a passage from a communication given in this regard: “Enlightened Spiritists should rejoice that the false and contradictory ideas are revealing themselves now, because they are combated, ruin themselves, and exhaust themselves during the period of the infancy of Spiritism. Once purged of all bad things, it will shine with a more vivid brilliance and will march with a firmer step when it has reached its full development.”

To this judicious appraisal, I add that it is like a child who, after committing its mischief, behaves well. But, to judge the effect of these dissidences, it suffices to observe what is happening. On what do they rest? On individual opinions, which may gather a few persons, since there is no idea, however absurd, that does not find partisans. But its value is judged by the preponderance it acquires. Now, where do you see those of which we speak with the least preponderance? Have they formed a school, have they threatened by the number of their adherents the banner that you have adopted? Nowhere; far from it, the divergent ideas see their partisans incessantly diminishing, in order to adhere to the unity that becomes law for the immense majority, when not for unanimity. Of all the systems that arose at the origin of the manifestations, how many remain standing? Among those systems there is one which, in a certain city, had acquired enormous proportions; count its adherents today. Do you believe that if it were true it would not have grown and absorbed its competitors? In such a case, the assent of numbers is an index that cannot deceive. As for me, I declare to you that, if the Doctrine of which I have made myself the propagator were rejected in a unanimous manner; if, instead of growing, I had seen it decline; if another more rational theory had won more sympathies and thus demonstrated, peremptorily, the error of Spiritism, I would regard it as prideful puerility to cling to a false idea, because, before all else, truth cannot be a personal question or one of self-love, and I would be the first to say to you: “My brothers: here is the light; follow it; I give you my own example.” Moreover, error almost always carries within itself the remedy; and its reign cannot be eternal. Sooner or later, dazzled by some ephemeral successes, it is seized by a kind of vertigo and bows before the aberrations that precipitate its fall. This is true, from the greatest to the least. You deplore the eccentricities of certain writings published under the mantle of Spiritism. On the contrary, you ought to bless them, since it is by these very excesses that error loses itself. What is it that shocks you in these writings, that constitutes for you a cause of repulsion and has often prevented you from going to the end, if not what violently offends your good sense? If the falsity of the ideas were not so evident, so shocking, perhaps you would not have perceived it and would not even have let yourselves be caught by them, whereas you were impressed by the manifest errors, which are their antidote.

These errors almost always come from frivolous, systematic, or pseudo-learned Spirits, who take pleasure in seeing their reveries and utopias edited by the men whom they have managed to deceive, to the point of making them accept, with closed eyes, all that they retail to them in favor of a few good grains amid the chaff. But, as these Spirits possess neither true knowledge nor true wisdom, they cannot sustain their role for long, and their ignorance betrays them. God permits to escape from their communications errors so gross, things so absurd and even so ridiculous, ideas in which the most common notions of Science so demonstrate their falsity that, at the same time, they kill the system and the book.

Undoubtedly, it would be preferable that only good books be published; but, since that is not the case, do not fear for the future the influence of these works; they may, momentarily, kindle a fire of straw, but, when they are not supported by rigorous logic, see what they become, at the end of a few years and, often, after a few months. In such a case, the booksellers are an infallible thermometer.

This leads me to say a few words about the publication of mediumistic communications.

Publication may be as useful, if done with discernment, as it is pernicious, in the contrary case. Among the number of these communications there are those which, however good they may be, only interest those who receive them, offering to strange readers nothing but banalities. Others have interest only by the circumstances in which they were given, and without the knowledge of which they are insignificant. This would only bring drawbacks to the publisher's purse. But, alongside this, there are some that are evidently bad, in content and in style, and which, under respectable and apocryphal names, contain absurd or trivial things, which very naturally lends itself to ridicule and gives arms to criticism. It is worse still when, under the protection of these same names, they formulate eccentric systems, or gross scientific heresies. There would be no drawback in publishing these kinds of communications, if they were made to be accompanied by commentaries, whether to refute the errors, or to recall that they are the expression of an individual opinion, for which one does not assume responsibility; they might even have an instructive side, showing to what aberrations of ideas certain Spirits can give themselves over. But to publish them purely and simply is to present them as the expression of truth and to guarantee the authenticity of the signatures, which good sense cannot admit; here is the drawback. As the Spirits have their free will and their opinion about men and things, it will be understood that there are writings that prudence and propriety command to set aside. In the interest of the Doctrine, it is fitting, then, to make a very severe choice in such a case, eliminating with care all that may, for any cause, produce a bad impression. The medium, conforming to this rule, could make a very instructive collection, which would be read with interest, whereas, by publishing all that he receives, without method and without discernment, he could make several detestable volumes, whose least drawback would be that of not being read.

It must be known that serious Spiritism sponsors with satisfaction and zeal every work done in good conditions, come from where it may; but, on the other hand, it repudiates all eccentric publications. All Spiritists who strive that the Doctrine not be compromised should, then, endeavor to condemn them, all the more because, if some of them are made in good faith, others may be made by the very enemies of Spiritism, with a view to discrediting it and being able to motivate accusations against it. This is why, I repeat, it is necessary to know what it accepts, from that which it repudiates.