9.

How can we explain this passage of the Gospel: “There shall be false christs and false prophets who will perform great prodigies and astonishing things, so as to seduce, were it possible, even the elect themselves?” The detractors of Spiritism make of this passage a weapon against the Spiritists and the mediums.

If we were to gather from the Gospels all the passages that constitute a condemnation of the adversaries of Spiritism, we could make a whole volume of them. It is, then, at the very least imprudent of anyone who raises a question that may fall back upon his own head, especially when all the advantages are on the side of Spiritism.

First of all, neither the Spiritists nor the mediums pass themselves off as christs or prophets; they declare that they perform no miracles to impress the senses, and that all the tangible phenomena produced by their influence are effects that fall within the laws of Nature, which is not the character of miracles. Therefore, had they wished to usurp the privileges of the prophets, they would not have been careful to deprive themselves of the most powerful prestige: the gift of miracles. By giving the explanation of these phenomena, which, without it, could pass for supernatural in the eyes of the people, they kill the false ambition that, to their own profit, they could exploit.

Let us suppose that a man attributes to himself the quality of prophet. Now, it will not be by doing what the mediums do that he will prove it, and no enlightened Spiritist will let himself be deceived by it. On this account Mr. Home, had he been a charlatan and an ambitious man, could have given himself the airs of a celestial envoy. What, after all, is the character of the true prophet? The true prophet is an envoy of God to warn or enlighten Humanity. Now, an envoy of God can only be a Superior Spirit and, as a man, a man of good. He will be recognized by his acts, which will bear the stamp of his superiority, and by the great things he will accomplish through good and for good, and which will reveal his mission, above all to future generations, for, often led without knowing it by a superior force, he almost always is unaware of himself. It will not, then, be he who will attribute this quality to himself: it is men who will recognize him as such, most often after his death. If, then, a man wished to pass himself off as the incarnation of such or such a prophet, he would have to prove it by the eminence of his moral qualities, which should in no way be inferior to those of the one whose name he attributes to himself. Now, this role is not easy to sustain and is not always agreeable, since it may impose painful privations and harsh sacrifices, even that of life. There are, at this moment, scattered throughout the world, several would-be Elijahs, Jeremiahs, Ezekiels and others, who would hardly adapt themselves to the life of the desert, and who find it very convenient to live at the expense of their naïve victims, thanks to the name they have unduly taken. There are even several christs, just as there were several Louis XVIIs, who lack but one thing: charity, abnegation, humility, eminent moral superiority; in a word, all the virtues of the Christ. If, like him, they had nowhere to lay their head, but only a cross before them, they would very quickly abdicate a royalty so little advantageous in this world. By the work the workman is recognized; let those, then, who would place themselves above Humanity, show themselves worthy of it, if they do not wish to share the fate of the jay that adorned itself with peacock feathers, or of the ass that put on the lion’s skin. A humiliating fall awaits them in this world and a more terrible vexation in the other, for it is there that he who exalts himself shall be humbled. Let us suppose, now, that a man endowed with great mediumistic or magnetic force wishes to attribute to himself the title of prophet or of Christ. He will perform prodigies so as to seduce even the elect, that is, certain good men of good faith; he will have their appearance, but will he have their virtues? There is the true touchstone.

Spiritism also says: Beware of the false prophets! for it comes to tear off their masks. It must be known that it repudiates all mystifications and covers with its mantle no abuse that may be committed in its name.