Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1868

The following letter was sent to us from Marennes, last January:



“Mr. Allan-Kardec,



I would have thought I was failing in my duty if, at the beginning of this year, I had not come to thank you for the good memories you have kindly kept of me, by addressing new prayers to God for my recovery. Yes, Sir, they have been beneficial to me, and I recognize your good influence there, as well as that of the good Spirits that surround you; for, since May 14^th, I had to stay in bed, from time to time, due to bad fevers that put me in a very sad state. For a month, I have been better; I thank you a thousand times, asking you to thank, in my name, all our brothers of the Society of Paris who have kindly joined their prayers to yours.



I have often had manifestations, as you know; but one of the most striking is that of the fact that I am going to report to you.



Last May, my father came to Marennes to spend a few days with us; As soon as he arrived, he fell ill and died at the end of a week. His death caused me even more pain since I had been warned six months in advance, but I had not believed it. Here is the fact:



In the previous December, knowing that he was to come, I had furnished a small room for him, and my desire was that no one slept there before him. From the moment I expressed this thought, I had the intuition that whoever slept in this bed would die there, and this thought, that haunted me relentlessly, gripped my heart so much that I no longer dared to go to that room. However, hoping to get rid of that, I went to pray by the bed. I thought I saw a buried body there; to reassure myself, I lifted the blanket and saw nothing; I then told myself that all those premonitions were only illusions or the results of obsessions. At that very moment, I heard sighs as from a dying person, then I felt my right hand pressed hard by a warm and wet hand. I left the room and dared not go back alone. For six months I was tormented by that sad warning, and no one slept there before my father arrived. It was there that he died; his last sighs were the same ones I had heard, and before he died, without my asking him, he took my right hand and squeezed it the same way I had felt six months earlier; his had the lukewarm sweat that I had also noticed. I, therefore, cannot doubt that this was a warning that had been given to me.


I have had many other proofs of the intervention of the Spirits, but it would take too long to detail in a letter to you; I will only recall the event of a four hour discussion I had, last August, with two priests, and during which I felt really inspired, and forced to speak with an ease that surprised myself. I regret that I cannot report that conversation to you; that would not surprise you but would amuse you.



Yours sincerely,

Angelina de Ogé.”





There is quite a study to be done on this letter. We see first an encouragement to pray for the sick, and then a new proof of the assistance of the Spirits, by the inspiration of the words that one must speak in circumstances where one would be very embarrassed to speak if left to our own strength. It is perhaps one of the most common kinds of mediumship, and that confirms the principle that everyone is somewhat medium, without realizing it. Certainly, if each one referred to the various circumstances of his life, observed with care the effects that he feels or that he has witnessed, there is no one who would not recognize having some effects of unconscious mediumship.



But the most noticeable fact is that of the warning of the death of Mrs. de Ogé's father, and of the premonition that pursued her for six months. No doubt, when she went to pray in that room, and thought she saw a body in the bed that she attested to be empty, one could, with some likelihood, admit the effect of a troubled imagination. The same could apply to the sighs she heard. The pressure of the hand could also be attributed to a nervous effect, caused by the over-excitation of her mind. But how to explain the coincidence of all these facts, with what happened in the death of her father? Skepticism will say: pure effect of chance; Spiritism says: natural phenomenon due to the action of fluids whose properties have been unknown until now, subjected to the law that governs the relationship between the spiritual world and the corporeal world.



By attaching most of the phenomena reputed to be supernatural to the laws of nature, Spiritism precisely combats fanaticism and the marvelous that it is accused of wanting to revive; it gives a rational explanation to those that are possible, and demonstrates the impossibility of those that would be a derogation of the laws of nature. The cause of a multitude of phenomena is in the spiritual principle whose existence it proves; but how can those who deny this principle admit its consequences? He who denies the soul and extra-corporeal life cannot recognize its effects.


For the Spiritists, the fact in question is not surprising, and can be explained by analogy with a host of facts of the same kind whose authenticity cannot be disputed. However, the circumstances in which it occurred present a difficulty, but Spiritism has never said it had nothing more to learn. It is still far from knowing all the applications of the key that it has; it applies itself to their study, in order to arrive at a as complete knowledge as possible of the natural forces and of the invisible world, amid which we live, a world that interests us all, because all, without exception, must enter it sooner or later, and we see every day, by the example of those who leave, the advantage of knowing it in advance.



We cannot repeat it enough, that Spiritism makes no preconceived theory; it sees, observes, studies the effects, and from the effects it seeks to trace back to the cause, so that when it formulates a principle or a theory, it is always based on experience. It is, therefore, strictly correct to say that it is a science of observation. Those who believe to see in it only a work of the imagination prove that they do not know the first words.



If Mrs. de Ogé's father had been dead, without her knowing it, at the time when she felt the effects of which we have spoken, these effects would be explained in the simplest way. The Spirit, freed from the body, would have come towards her to warn her of his departure from this world, and to attest his presence by a sensitive manifestation, using his perispiritual fluid; that is very frequent. We understand perfectly well that here the effect is due to the same fluidic principle, that is to say, to the action of the perispirit; but how could the material action of the body, that took place at the time of death, have occurred identically six months before the death, when nothing ostensible, disease or other cause, could make it foreseen?



Here is the explanation given at the Parisian Society:



“The Spirit of this lady's father, in a state of detachment, had anticipated the knowledge of his death, and how it would take place. His spiritual sight embracing a certain time lapse, the thing was, for him, as present; but in the waking state he retained no memory of that. It was he himself that manifested to his daughter, six months earlier, under the conditions that were to reproduce, so that later she would know that it was him, and that being prepared for an approaching separation, she was not surprised by his departure. As a Spirit, she was aware of that, for the two Spirits communicated in their moments of freedom; that's what gave her the intuition that someone should die in that room. This event was also held with the aim of providing a subject of instruction about the knowledge of the invisible world."