We have had several occasions to say that Spiritism has many followers in Spain, proving that the repression of ideas does not prevent them from happening; we already knew that for a long time Cadiz had been the seat of an important Spiritist center. One of the members of that Society, having come to Paris last year, gave us circumstantial details of great interest on this subject, and of which he has since reminded us in his correspondence. The abundance of material alone precluded us from publishing them earlier.
The Spiritists of Cadiz claim, for their city, the honor of having been one of the first, if not even the first in Europe to have a Spiritist meeting established, and receiving regular communications from the Spirits, by writing and typtology
[1], on moral and philosophical subjects. This claim is in fact justified by the publication of a book printed in the Spanish language, in Cadiz, in 1854. First, it contains an explanatory preface on the discovery of the talking tables and how to use them; then the answers given by the Spirits, to the questions addressed to them in a series of sessions held from the year 1853. The process consisted in the use of a three-legged little table, and an alphabet divided into three series, each corresponding to one of the legs of the table. These answers are arguably very basic compared to what we get today, and not all of them are flawlessly correct, but most are consistent with the current teaching. We will only cite a few to show that at the time when, almost everywhere else, the turning tables were only taken as a matter of entertainment, in Cadiz they were already thinking of using the phenomenon for serious instructions.
“November 8th, 1853 - Is there a Spirit here?- Yes. - What's your name? - Eqe.- In which part of the world did you live? - North America. - Were you a man or a woman? - Woman. - Tell us your name in English? - Akka. - How do you translate bello into English?- Fine. - Why did you come here? - To do good. - To you or to us? - To all. - So, you can do us this good? - I can; it's all in the work. - How will we do that? - By emancipating women; it all depends on her. November 11th The Spirit Eqe. - Is there another way to communicate with the Spirits? - Yes, by thought. - In which way? - I Read yours. - And how could we get along with the thought of the Spirits? - By concentration. - Is there a way to get there easily? - Yes, happiness. - How do you get happiness? - By loving each other. November 25th Anna Ruiz. - Where does our soul go when it separates from the body? - It does not leave Earth. - You mean the body? - No, the soul. - Do you have the same pleasures in the other life as in this one? - The same and better: we work throughout the universe. November 26th Odiuz.- Do the Spirits take a form? - Yes. - Which one? - The human form. There are two bodies, one material, the other light. - Is the body of light the Spirit? - No: it is an aggregation of ether; light fluids form the body of light.- What is a Spirit? - A man in a state of essence. - What is his destiny? - To organize the cosmic material movement; to cooperate with God in the order and the laws of the worlds in the universe. November 30th A Spirit, spontaneously Order distributes the harmonies. This law tells you that every globe in the solar system is inhabited by a humanity like yours; each member of this humanity is a complete being in the rank they occupy; it has a head, a trunk, and limbs. Each has their marked destination, collective or terrestrial, visible, or invisible. The sun, like the planets and their satellites, has its inhabitants, with a complex destiny. Each of the humanities that inhabit these various globes has a double existence, visible and invisible, and a spiritual word appropriate to each of these states. December 1st Odiuz. Read John, and you will have the meaning of the word verb. You will know what the verb of solar humanity is; each humanity has its Providence, its man-God; the light of the solar man-God is the anthropomorphic Providence of all the globes of the solar system. December 8th - Is there an analogy between material light and spiritual light? - The sun shines, the planets reflect its light. Solar intelligence illuminates planetary intelligences, and those of their satellites. Intelligent light emanates from the brain of solar humanity, that is the intelligent spark, just as the sun is the material spark of all globes. There is also analogy in the mode of expansion of the intelligent light, in each humanity that receives it from the main focus, to communicate it to its members. There is a unity of system between the material world and the spiritual world. We have a nature that reflects the laws that preceded creation. Then comes the human mind that analyzes nature to discover these laws, interpret them and understand them. That analysis is to the spiritual light what refraction is to the physical light for all of humanity forms an intellectual prism in which the unique divine light refracts in a thousand different ways. January 4th, 1854 - Why don't the Spirits always come to our call?- Because they are very busy. - Why have some of the Spirits who have presented themselves so far answered with riddles or nonsense? - Because they were ignorant or lighthearted Spirits. - How to distinguish them from serious Spirits? - By their answers.- Can the Spirits make themselves visible? - Sometimes. - In which case? - When it comes to humiliating fanaticism. - In which form did the Spirit present himself to the Archbishop of Paris? - Human form. - What is the real religion? - Love one another.”
The following extract, from a letter from our correspondent, dated August 17
th, 1867, will give an idea of the Spirit that presides over the present Spiritist Society of Cadiz:
“
For eleven years we have been in communication with Spirits of superior life, and in that length of time they have made important revelations to us on morals, spiritual life and other matters that concern progress. We meet five times a week. The Spirit President of our Society, to which the other Spirits grant a certain supremacy, is called Pastoret. We have in Dona J… an excellent seeing and speaking medium. She communicates through a three-legged little table that only serves to establish the fluidic current, and she sees the words written on a kind of fluidic ribbon that constantly passes before her eyes, and she reads from that, like in a book. Such means of communication, together with the benevolence of the Spirits who come to our sessions, allow us to present our observations, and to establish almost familiar discussions with those same Spirits. Each evening the session is opened by the presence of the Spirit of Doctor Gardoqui, whom we know and that practiced medicine in Cadiz, when alive. After giving advice to our brothers present, he goes to visit the sick people that we recommend to him; he indicates the necessary remedies, and almost always with success. After the doctor's visit, comes the familiar Spirit from the circle, that brings us other Spirits, sometimes superior to instruct us, sometimes inferior so that we help them with our advice and encouragement. By indication of our guides, we periodically accomplish missions of charity towards the poor. Besides ridicule, against which you, French people, must fight as well as we do, we fight against intolerance; however, we are not discouraged, because the strength of conviction that God gives us is more powerful than the obstacles. We end each session with the following prayer: Universal Father! Almighty Lord! We turn to you because we recognize you as the unique and eternal God. Father! We wish not to incur your disapproval, but on the contrary, to advance our purification to approach you, the only true good, supreme happiness promised to those who return to you. Lord! We continually remind you of our sins so that you may forgive us after the atonement they deserve. What do we already owe to your great kindness! Be merciful to us. Eternal Father, you gave me life, and with life intelligence to know you, a heart to love you and to love my fellow human beings. My intelligence will grow when I think of you, and when I rise to you. Universal father of all beings, great architect of the Universe, holy water with which we quench our thirst for the divine love, neither the course of time, nor the difference of minds prevent us from recognizing you, because your great power and your great love can be seen everywhere. Father! We deliver ourselves to your mercy, and as proof of our sincerity, we offer you our lives, our goods, all that you have given us. We don't have anything that doesn't come from you; we put everything at the disposal of our brothers in need, so that they benefit from the fruit of our intelligence and our work. We are your children, Lord! and we ask from your infinite goodness a ray of light to lead us on the road that you have shown us, until we arrive at the complement of our bliss. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us the trespasses that we have forgiven those who trespass against us, now and always until the hour of our death. We address our prayers to you, infinitely good Father, for all our brothers who suffer on earth and in space. Our thought is for them and our trust in you." May the Spiritists of Cadiz receive, through us, the sincere congratulations of their brothers from all countries. The initiative they took, at the end of Europe, and on a refractory land, without relationships with other centers, without any other guide than their own inspirations, while Spiritism was still in its childhood, almost everywhere, is further proof that the regenerative movement receives its impulse from above Earth, and that its focus is everywhere; that it is thus reckless and presumptuous to hope to stifle it by repressing it on one point, since in the absence of an outlet, it has a thousand through which light will be done. What are the barriers for what comes from above? What is the use of crushing a few individuals when there are millions of them scattered all over the world who receive the light and shed it? Wanting to annihilate what is outside the power of man, isn't that playing the role of giants who wanted to climb the sky?
[1] Mediumship using the language of signs, tilting and/or knocking – alphabetical typtology. (T.N.)
