The Spiritists are numerous in St. Petersburg, and they count on very enlightened serious men, who understand the purpose and the high humanitarian significance of the doctrine. One of them, whom we did not have the honor to know, kindly sent us a document even more precious for the history of Spiritism, since it was unknown, and that it touches on highest social echelons. Here is what our honorable correspondent said in his cover letter:
“
The Imperial Library of Saint Petersburg published, in 1858, in a very small number of copies, a collection of unpublished letters by the famous physiognomist Lavater; these letters, hitherto unknown in Germany, were addressed to Empress Mary of Russia, wife of Paul I and grandmother of the reigning emperor. The reading of these letters struck me by the philosophical ideas, eminently Spiritists, that they contain, on the relations that exist between the visible world and the invisible world, the intuitive mediumship and the influence of the fluids that produce it.Presuming that these letters, probably unknown in France, could interest the enlightened Spiritists of this country, by teaching them that their intimate convictions were shared by the eminent Swiss philosopher and two crowned heads, I take the liberty, sir, to send you enclosed the exact and almost literal translation of those letters, that you may find fit to include in your wise and so interesting monthly publication.I take this opportunity, sir, to express to you the feelings of my deep and perfect esteem, shared by the sincere Spiritists of all countries, who know how to appreciate with dignity the eminent services that your steadfast zeal has rendered to the scientific development and to the propagation of the sublime and so consoling Spiritist doctrine. This third revelation will result in the regeneration, moral progress and the consolidation of faith in the poor humanity, unfortunately misguided, and that floats between skepticism and indifference in matters of religion and morals."- W. de F.We are publishing the entire manuscript of M. de F. Its scope obliges us to make it the subject of three articles.
PreambleAt the Grand Ducal Castle of Pawlowsk, located twenty-four versts
[2] from Petersburg, where Emperor Paul of Russia spent the happiest years of his life, and that later became the favorite residence of Empress Mary, her dignified widow, true benefactress of the suffering humanity, there is a selected library, founded by the imperial couple, in which, among many scientific and literary treasures, there is a packet of hand-written letters of Lavater, that remained unknown to the biographers of the famous physiognomist.
These letters are dated from Zurich, 1798. Sixteen years earlier, in Zurich and Schaffouse, Lavater had had the opportunity to get acquainted with the Count and the Countess of the North (it is by this title that the Grand-Duke of Russia and his wife were then traveling in Europe), and from 1796 to 1800, he sent to Russia, to the address of the Empress Marie, reflections on the physiognomy, attaching letters intended to depict the state of the soul after death.
In these letters, Lavater takes as his point of departure that a soul, having left her body, inspires her ideas in a person of her choice, fit for the light (lichtfæhig), and makes that person write letters addressed to a friend left behind on earth, to instruct him about the state in which she is found.
These unpublished letters from Lavater were discovered during a revision of the Grand Ducal Library by Dr. Minzloff, librarian of the Imperial Library of Petersburg and put in order by the latter. With the authorization of the current owner of Pawlowsk Castle, SAI the Grand Duke Constantine, and by the enlightened patronage of Baron de Korff, currently a member of the Council of the Empire, former chief director of this library that owes him its most notable improvements, they were published in 1858, in Petersburg, with the title:
Johann-Kaspar Lavater's briefe, an die kaïserin Maria Feodorowna, gemahlin kaïser Paul I von Russland (Letters from Johann-Kaspar Lavater to the empress Marie Féodorowna, wife of the Emperor Paul I of Russia). This work was printed at the expense of the Imperial Library and offered as a tribute to the Senate of the University of Jena, on the 300
th anniversary of its foundation.
These letters, six in total, are of the greatest interest, in that they positively prove that the Spiritist ideas, and especially those of the possibility of communication between the spiritual world and the material world, were germinating in Europe seventy years ago, and that not only was the famous physiognomist convinced of these reports, but that he himself was what, in Spiritism, one calls an intuitive medium, that is a man receiving the thoughts of the Spirits by intuition and transcribing their communications. The letters from a dead friend, that Lavater had attached to his own letters, are eminently Spiritists; they develop and clarify, in a manner as ingenious as witty, the fundamental ideas of Spiritism, and come to the support of all that this doctrine offers that is most rational, more profoundly philosophical, religious, and consoling for humanity.
The people who do not know Spiritism, will be able to suppose that these letters of a Spirit to his friend on earth, are only a poetic form that Lavater gives to his own spiritualist ideas; but those who are initiated into the truths of Spiritism, will find them in these communications, as they were and are still given by the Spirits, through different mediums intuitive, auditory, writers, speaking, ecstatic, etc. It is not natural to suppose that Lavater could himself have conceived and exposed with such great lucidity and precision, abstract and elevated ideas about the state of the soul after death, and their means of communication with embodied Spirits, that is, men. These ideas could only come from the discarnate Spirits themselves. There is no doubt that one of them, having retained feelings of affection for a friend who still lives on Earth, gave him, through the intermediary of an intuitive medium (perhaps Lavater himself was this friend), notions on this subject, to initiate him into the mysteries of the tomb, to the extent of what a Spirit is allowed to reveal to men, and what they are able to understand.
We give here the exact translation of Lavater's letters, written in German, as well as that of the communications from beyond the grave, that he addressed to the Empress Marie, according to the latter's desire to know the ideas of the German philosopher on the state of the soul after the death of the body.
First LetterAbout the state of the soul after deathGeneral Ideas
Most revered Mary of Russia!
Deign to grant me permission not to give you the title of majesty, that is due to you from the world, but that does not harmonize with the holiness of the subject about which you wished I spoke to you, and to be able to write to you frankly and with complete freedom.
You want to know some of my ideas on the state of the souls after death.
Despite the little that is given to the wisest and the most enlightened among us to know, since none of those who left for the unknown land has returned, the thoughtful man, the disciple of He who came down to us from heaven, is nevertheless able to say as much as we need to know to encourage us, to calm us down and to make us think.
For this time, I will restrict myself to explaining to you some of the most general ideas on this subject.
I think there must be a big difference between the state, the way of thinking and feeling of a soul separated from its material body, and the state it was in during its union with it. This difference must be at least as significant as that that exists between the condition of a newborn child and that of a child living in its mother's womb.
We are related to matter, and it is our senses and our organs that give our souls perceptions and understanding.
Based on the difference between the construction of the telescope, the microscope, and the glasses, that our eyes use to see, the objects we look at through them appear to us in a different form. Our senses are the telescopes, microscopes, and glasses, necessary for our present life, that is the material life.
I think that the visible world must disappear for the soul separated from its body, just as it escapes from it during the sleep. Or else the world, that the soul glimpsed at during its bodily existence, must appear to the dematerialized soul in an entirely different way.
If, for some time, the soul could remain without a body, the material world would not exist for it. But if
it is provided with a spiritual body, immediately after having left its body, that I find very likely,
that it would have withdrawn from her material body, the new body will necessarily give it a completely different perception of things. If, which can easily happen to impure souls, this body remained for some time imperfect and undeveloped, the whole universe would appear to the soul in a cloudy state, as seen through frosted glass.
But if the spiritual body,
conductor, and intermediary of its new impressions, were or became more developed or better organized, the world of the soul would appear to it, according to the nature and the qualities of its new organs, as well as according to the degree of its harmony and perfection, more regular and more beautiful.
The organs are simplified, acquire harmony among themselves and are more appropriate to the nature, character, needs and strengths of the soul, depending on whether it is concentrated, enriched, and refined down here, pursuing a single goal, and acting in a specific direction.
The soul itself perfects, by existing on earth, the qualities of the spiritual body, of the vehicle in which it will continue to exist after the death of its material body, and that will serve as its organ to conceive, feel, and act in its new existence. This new body, appropriate to its intimate nature, will make it pure, loving, vivacious and suitable for a thousand beautiful sensations, impressions, contemplations, actions, and pleasures.
All that we can, and all that we cannot yet say about the state of the soul after death, will always be based on this single permanent and general axiom:
man reaps what he has sown.
It is difficult to find a principle that is simpler, clearer, more abundant, and more suitable to be applied to all possible cases.
There is a general law of nature, closely related, even identical, to the above-mentioned principle, concerning the state of the soul after death, an equivalent law in all worlds, in all possible states, in the material world and in the spiritual world, visible and invisible, knowingly:
“What looks alike tends to come together. All that is identical attracts each other, if there are no obstacles that oppose their union.”
The whole doctrine of the state of the soul after death is based on this simple principle;
all that we ordinarily call: preliminary judgment, compensation, supreme happiness, disgrace, can be explained in this way: the society of those who, like you, have sowed good in themselves and beyond them; you will enjoy the friendship of those to whom you were like in their way of sowing good."
Each soul separated from its body, free from the chains of matter, appears to itself as it really is. All the illusions, all the seductions that prevented it from recognizing itself and seeing its strengths, weaknesses and faults will disappear. It will experience an overwhelming tendency to move towards souls that resemble it and to move away from those that are unlike it. Its own inner weight, as obeying the law of gravity, will draw it into bottomless abysses (at least that is how it will seem to it); or else, according to the degree of its purity, it will soar, like a spark carried by its lightness in the air, and will pass rapidly into the luminous, fluidic, and ethereal regions.
The soul gives itself a weight that is proper to itself, through its inner sense; its state of perfection pushes it forward, backward, or sideways; its own moral or religious character inspires it with certain particular tendencies. The good will rise to the good; the need it feels for good will draw it to them. The bad guy is necessarily pushed towards the bad guys. The steep fall of the rude, immoral and irreligious souls, to the souls that are like them, will be just as swift and inevitable as the fall from an anvil into an abyss, when nothing can stop it.
That's enough for now.
Zurich, 1. VIII. 1798
Joann-Kasper Lavater
JEAN-GASPAR LAVATER.
With God’s permission, continued every eight days
Second Letter
The needs experienced by the human spirit,
during its exile in the material body, remain the same as soon as it leaves it. Its happiness will consist in the possibility of being able to satisfy its spiritual needs; its disgrace, in the impossibility of being able to satisfy its carnal appetites, in a less material world.
Unmet needs constitute disgrace; their satisfaction constitutes the supreme happiness.I would like to tell every man: “
Analyze the nature of your needs; give them their real name; ask yourself: are they admissible in a less material world? Can they find their satisfaction there?” And if they could truly be content with it, would they be of those whom an intellectual and immortal Spirit can honorably confess and desire its satisfaction, without feeling a deep shame in front of other similar intellectual and immortal beings?
The soul's need to satisfy the spiritual aspirations of other immortal souls; to provide them with the pure enjoyments of life, to inspire them with the assurance of the continuation of their existence after death, to cooperate thereby in the great plan of supreme wisdom and love; the progress acquired by this noble activity, so worthy of man, together with the selfless desire for good, give the human souls the
aptitude, and hence
the right to be received into the circles of more elevated Spirits, purer, more holy.
When we have, much venerated Empress, the intimate conviction that the most natural need, and yet very rare, that can arise in an immortal soul: that of God, the need to approach him more and more in all aspects, and to be like the invisible Father of all creatures, once became predominant in us, oh! then, we must not have the slightest fear concerning our future state, when death will have rid us of our body, this thick wall that hid God from us. This material body that separated us from God is brought down, and the veil that hid from us the sight of the most holy of holies is torn. The adorable Being whom we loved above all, with all his resplendent graces, will then have free entry into our soul hungry of him, then receiving him with joy and love.
As soon as the boundless love for God has gained the upper hand in our soul, as a result of the efforts that it will have made to approach Him and be like Him in its vivifying love for humanity, and by all the means that it had in its power, this soul, freed from its body, necessarily passing through many degrees to perfect itself ever more, it will ascend with astonishing ease and rapidity towards the object of its deepest veneration and of its boundless love, towards the inexhaustible source and the only one sufficient for the satisfaction of all its needs and aspirations.
No weak eye, sick or veiled, is in a condition look at the sun face to face; likewise no impure Spirit, still enveloped in the material fog with which an exclusively material life surrounded it, even at the moment of its separation from the body, would be able to endure the sight of the purest sun of Spirits, in its resplendent clarity, its symbol, its focus, from which emanate these streams of light that even penetrate finite beings with the feeling of their infinity.
Who better than you, madam, knows that the good are attracted only by the good! That only the elevated souls know how to enjoy the presence of other elite souls! Any man knowing life and men, one who often had to find himself in the company of these dishonest, effeminate flatterers, lacking in character, always eager to pick up and put forward the most insignificant word, the slightest allusion of those that they seek the favor, or else of these hypocrites, trying to penetrate shrewdly into the ideas of the others, to interpret them, then in a completely opposite direction, that one, I say, must know how much these vile souls and slaves suddenly embarrassed by a simple word spoken with firmness and dignity; how a single stern look confuses them, making them feel deeply that they are known and that they are judged at their true value! How painful it becomes for them to endure the presence of an honest man! No deceitful and hypocritical soul is happy by the contact of an honest and energetic soul that reads it. Each impure soul, having left its body, must according to its intimate nature, as if pushed by an occult and invincible power, flee the presence of every pure and luminous being, hiding as much as possible, the sight of its many imperfections that it is not in a condition to hide from herself or from others.
Even if it were not written: “
No one, without being purified, will be able to see the Lord,” it would be perfectly in the order of things. An impure soul finds itself in an absolute impossibility of entering in any relationship whatsoever with a pure soul, nor feeling the slightest sympathy for that. A light fearing soul cannot, by that very fact, be attracted to the source of light. Clarity, deprived of all darkness, must burn it like a consuming fire.
And what are the souls, madam, that we call impure? I think that these are the ones in which the desire to purify oneself, to correct oneself, to perfect oneself, has never prevailed. I think they are those who have not submitted to the high principle of selflessness in all things; those who have chosen themselves as the unique center of all their desires and ideas; those who regard themselves as the goal of all around them, who only seek the means of satisfying their passions and their senses; finally, those overwhelmed by selfishness, pride, self-esteem and personal interest, who want to serve two masters who contradict one another, and do that simultaneously.
Such souls must find themselves, I believe, after their separation from their body, in the miserable state of a horrible contemplation of themselves; or, what amounts to the same thing, of the deep contempt that they feel for themselves, and to be drawn by an irresistible force towards the dreadful company of other egoistic souls, incessantly condemning themselves.
It is selfishness that produces the impurity of the soul and makes it suffer. It is fought in all human souls by something that is its contrary, something pure, divine: the moral feeling. Without this feeling, man is not capable of any moral pleasure, of any esteem, or of any contempt for himself, understanding neither heaven nor hell. This divine light makes all the darkness that he discovers in himself unbearable, and this is the reason why delicate souls, those who possess the moral sense, suffer more ruthlessly when selfishness takes hold of them and subjugates that feeling.
His purity, his ability to receive light, his happiness, his heaven, his God depend on the agreement and harmony that subsist in man, between himself and his inner law. His God appears to him like himself. To those who know how to love, God appears as the supreme love, in a thousand loving forms. His degree of happiness and his ability to make others happy are in proportion to the principle of love that rules in him. He who loves selflessly remains in constant harmony with the source of all love and all who draw love from it.
Let us try to keep love in all its purity within us, madam, and we will always be drawn by it towards the most loving souls. Let us cleanse ourselves more of the stains of selfishness every day, and then, whether we must leave this world today or tomorrow, returning our mortal envelope to earth, our soul will take off with lightning speed towards the model of all those who love, and will meet them with indescribable happiness.
None of us can know what will become of one’s soul after the death of one’s body, and yet I am fully convinced that purified love must necessarily give our Spirit, delivered from his body, boundless freedom, a hundredfold existence, a continual enjoyment of God, and unlimited power to bring happiness to all those who are fit to taste the supreme bliss.
Oh! How incomparable is the moral freedom of the Spirit stripped of its body! With what lightness the soul of the loving being, surrounded by a resplendent light, ascends! What infinite science, what power to communicate to others, becomes its prerogative! What light springs from itself! What life animates all the atoms that form it! Floods of pleasures rush from all sides to meet it to satisfy its purest and highest needs! Countless legions of loving beings reach out to it! Harmonious voices are heard in these numerous choirs radiant with joy, saying: “
Spirit of our Spirit! Heart of our heart! Love drawn from the source of all love! Loving soul, you belong to us all, and we are all yours! Each of us is yours and you belong to each of us. God is love and God is ours. We are all filled with God, and love finds its bliss in the bliss of all."
I ardently wish, most revered Empress, that you, your noble and generous husband, the Emperor, both dedicated to good, and I with you, may we all never become strangers to love that is God and man at the same time; may it be granted to us to form ourselves for the pleasures of love through our actions, our prayers and our sufferings, bringing us closer to the one who allowed himself to be tied to the cross of the Golgotha.
Zurich, August 18
th, 1798
Johann-Kaspar Lavater
We can already see in what order of ideas Lavater wrote to the Empress Mary, and to what extent he possessed the intuition of the principles of modern Spiritism. We will better assess it by the complement of this remarkable correspondence. While awaiting the reflections that we will attach to that, we believe to be right now to point out an important fact: that in order to maintain a correspondence on such a subject with the Empress, the latter had to share these ideas, and several circumstances do not allow us to doubt that it was the same with the Czar, her husband. It was by his request, or better by their request, that Lavater wrote, and the tone of his letters proves that he was addressing convinced people. As we can see, the Spiritist beliefs in the high spheres do not date from today. In fact, we can also see in the Spiritist Review, April 1866, the account of a tangible apparition of Peter the Great to this same Paul I.
Having Lavater's letters been read at the Parisian Society and a conversation taken place on this subject, Paul I undoubtedly attracted by the thought that was directed towards him on this occasion, spontaneously manifested himself and without evocation, to one of the mediums to whom he dictated the following communication:
Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, February 7
th, 1868 – medium Mr. Leymarie
Power is a heavy thing, and the troubles it leaves painfully impress our souls! The setbacks are continual; one must conform to habits, to the old institutions, to prejudice, and God knows what resistance is needed to oppose all the appetites that reach the throne, like tumultuous waves. So, what a happiness when, leaving for a moment this robe of Nessus called royalty, we can shut ourselves off in a peaceful place, where we can rest in peace far from the noise and tumult of the ambitions!
My dear Marie liked calm. A solid, gentle, resigned, loving character, she would have rather forgotten greatness to devote herself completely to charity, to study the lofty philosophical questions that were the drivers of her faculties. Like her, I loved these intellectual recreations; they were a balm to my wounds as a sovereign, a new force to guide me in the maze of European politics.
Lavater, that great heart, that great Spirit, that predestined brother, initiated us in his sublime doctrine; his letters, that you have today, were awaited by us with great anxiety. All they contained was the mirage of our personal ideas; we read them, these dear letters, with childish joy, happy to lay down our crown, its gravity, its etiquette, to discuss the rights of the soul, its emancipation, and its divine course towards the Eternal.
All these questions, that are burning today, we accepted them seventy years ago; they were part of our life, of our rest. Many strange effects, apparitions, rumors, had strengthened our opinion on this subject. The Empress Marie saw and heard the Spirits; through them she had learned of events that happened at great distances. Prince Lopoukine, who died in Kiev, several hundred leagues away, had come to tell us of his death, the incidents that had preceded his departure, the expression of his last wishes; the Empress had written by dictation of the Spirit Lopoukine, and twenty days later the court heard all the details we already had. They were a resounding confirmation for us, and the proof that Lavater and we were initiated into the great truths.
Today we know the doctrine better from you, the doctrine whose basis you have broadened; we will come back to ask you for a few moments, and we thank you in advance, if you will listen to Mary of Russia and the one who had the privilege of having her as a companion.
Paul I
[1] Johann Kaspar Lavater, German physiognomist, philosopher, theologian, poet, and magnetism enthusiast, born in 1741 (Wikipedia, T.N.)
[2] Russian unit of distance equal to 0.6629 mile (1.067 kilometers) – Merriam-Webster dictionary (T.N.)
