Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1868

Is Spiritism a Religion?

“For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” Matthews 18, 20



Dear Spiritist Brothers and Sisters,

We are gathered on this day consecrated by tradition to the commemoration of the dead, to give to those of our brothers who have left Earth, a particular testimony of sympathy; to continue the relationships of affection and brotherhood that existed between them and us during their life, and to call upon them the bounties of the Almighty. But why meet? Cannot we do in private what we propose to do together? What use can there be in meeting like this, on a specific day?

Jesus indicates that to us by the words we have reported above. This utility is in the result produced by the communion of thoughts that is established among people united for the same purpose.

But do we understand the full significance of this expression: Communion of thoughts? Undoubtedly, until this day, few people had a complete idea of that. Spiritism, that explains so many things by the laws it reveals to us, comes again to explain the cause, the effects, and the power of this situation of Spirit.

Communion of thought means common thought, unity of intention, of will, of desire, of aspiration. No one can fail to recognize that thought is a force; but is it a purely psychological and abstract force? No; otherwise, we would not be able to explain certain effects of thought, and even less of the communion of thought. To understand it, it is necessary to know the properties and the action of the elements that constitute our spiritual essence, and it is Spiritism that teaches us that.



Thought is the characteristic attribute of the spiritual being; it is what distinguishes Spirit from matter; without thought, the Spirit would not be Spirit. The will is not a special attribute of the Spirit, it is the thought that got to a certain degree of energy; it is thought that has become a driving force. It is by the will that the spirit impresses movements in a determined direction on the limbs and on the body. But if it has the power to act on the material organs, how much greater this power must not be on the fluidic elements that surround us! Thought acts on ambient fluids, as sound acts on air; those fluids bring us thought, as air brings us sound. We can therefore say with certainty that there are, in these fluids, waves and rays of thoughts that cross without being confused, as there are waves and sound rays in the air.

An assembly is a focus where diverse thoughts radiate; it's like an orchestra, a choir of thoughts where everyone produces their own note. The result is a multitude of currents and fluidic emissions, each one receiving the impression through the spiritual sense, as in a choir of music, each receives the impression of sounds through the sense of hearing.

But just as there are harmonic or dissonant sound waves, there are also harmonic or dissonant thoughts. If the whole is harmonic, the impression is pleasant; if it is discordant, the impression is painful. Now, for this, it is not necessary that the thought be expressed in words; the fluidic radiation does not exist less, whether it is expressed or not; if they are all benevolent, all the assistants experience a real well-being, they feel at ease; but if a few bad thoughts are mixed with them, they produce the effect of a current of icy air in a lukewarm environment.

Such is the cause of the feeling of satisfaction that one experiences in a sympathetic meeting; there it reigns like a healthy psychological atmosphere, where one can breathe at ease; we come out of that comforted, because we are pervaded with beneficial fluidic emissions. This also explains the anxiety, the indefinable uneasiness that one feels in an unsympathetic environment, where malicious thoughts provoke, so to speak, unhealthy fluidic currents.

The communion of thoughts, therefore, produces a kind of physical effect that reacts on the psychological; that is what only Spiritism could make us understand. Man feels it instinctively, for he seeks meetings in which he knows he will find such communion; in these homogeneous and sympathetic meetings, he draws new psychological forces; one could say that he recovers there the fluidic losses that take place every day by the radiation of thought, as he recovers by food the losses of the material body.

To these effects of communion of thoughts is added another that is their natural consequence, and that is important not to lose sight of: it is the power that the thought or the will acquires through the ensemble of thoughts or wills united. The will being an active force, this force is multiplied by the number of identical wills, just as the muscular force is multiplied by the number of arms.

Having this point established, we can see that in the relations established between men and Spirits, in a meeting where a perfect communion of thoughts holds, there is an attractive or repulsive power that an isolated individual does not always possess. If, until now, large meetings are less favorable, it is due to the difficulty of obtaining a perfect homogeneity of thoughts, that is dependent on the imperfection of human nature on Earth. The larger the gatherings, the more heterogeneous elements are mixed, paralyzing the action of the good elements, acting like grains of sand in a gear. This does not happen in more advanced worlds, and this situation will change as men become better on Earth.

To the Spiritists, the communion of thoughts has an even more special result. We have seen the effect of this man-to-man communion; Spiritism proves to us that it is not less important from men to Spirits, and vice versa. Indeed, if the collective thought acquires force by the number, a set of identical thoughts, having the goal of doing good, will have more power to neutralize the action of the bad Spirits; thus, we see that their tactics is to drive towards division and isolation. A man alone can succumb, while if his will is supported by other wills, he will be able to resist, according to the axiom: unity makes strength, an axiom that is true both from a moral as well as a physical point of view.

On the other hand, if the action of malevolent Spirits can be paralyzed by a common thought, it is evident that that of the good Spirits will be seconded; their beneficial influence will encounter no obstacles; their fluidic emanation, not being stopped by contrary currents, will spread over all the assistants, precisely because everyone will have attracted them by their thought, not each one for their personal benefit, but for the benefit of all, according to the law of charity. Those emanations will descend upon them in tongues of fire, using an admirable image of the Gospel.

Thus, by the communion of thoughts, men assist one another, and at the same time they assist the Spirits and are assisted by them. The relations between the visible world and the invisible world are no longer individual, they are collective, and therefore more powerful for the benefit of the masses, as for that of individuals; in short, it establishes solidarity, that is the basis of fraternity. Nobody works for oneself, but for all, and by working for all each one is accounted for; this is what selfishness does not understand.

Thanks to Spiritism, we therefore understand the power and the effects of collective thought; we can better understand the feeling of well-being that we experience in a homogeneous and friendly environment; but we also know that it is the same with the Spirits, because they too receive the emanations of all the benevolent thoughts that rise towards them, like a cloud of perfume. Those who are happy experience an even greater joy in this harmonious concert; those who suffer feel a greater relief.

All religious meetings, whatever cult they belong to, are founded on the communion of thoughts; it is there, in fact, that it must and can exercise all its power, because the goal must be the freedom of thought from the clutches of matter. Unfortunately, most have deviated from this principle, as they turn religion into a matter of form. It follows from this that the duty of each one consists of the fulfillment of the form, believing to be good with God and with men, when the formula was practiced. It also results from this that each one goes to places of religious meetings with a personal thought, for his own account, and most often without any feeling of brotherhood towards the other members; he is isolated in the midst of the crowd, and thinks of heaven only for himself.

This is certainly not how Jesus understood it when he said: "for where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them." Gathered in my name, that is, with a common thought; but one cannot be united in the name of Jesus without assimilating his principles, his doctrine; now, what is the fundamental principle of the doctrine of Jesus? Charity in thought, word, and deed. The selfish and the proud lie when they say they are gathered in the name of Jesus, because Jesus disavows them for his disciples.

Struck by these abuses and deviations, there are people who deny the usefulness of religious assemblies, and consequently of buildings dedicated to these assemblies. In their radicalism, they think that it would be better to build hospices than temples, since the temple of God is everywhere, that God can be worshiped everywhere, that everyone can pray at home and at any time, while the poor, the sick and the frail need places of refuge.

But from the fact that abuses are committed, from the fact that one has deviated from the right path, does it follow that the right path does not exist, and that everything that is abused is bad? To speak like that is to misunderstand the source and the benefits of the communion of thoughts that must be the essence of religious assemblies; it is to ignore the causes that provoke it. It is understandable that materialists profess such ideas, for they disregard the spiritual life in all things; but on the part of the spiritualists, and even more so of the Spiritists, that would be nonsense. Religious isolation, like social isolation, leads to selfishness. It is possible that a few men are strong enough in themselves, largely endowed with heart, so that their faith and their charity do not need to be warmed in a common focus; it is possible, but this is not the case with the masses, that need a stimulus, without which they could be dominated by indifference.

Moreover, who is the man that can claim to be sufficiently enlightened to have nothing to learn concerning his future interests, and perfect enough to do without advice in this life? Is he always able to learn by himself? No; most need direct teachings in matters of religion and morality, as in matters of science. Without a doubt, this teaching can be given everywhere, under the dome of heaven as under that of a temple; but why shouldn’t men have special places for the affairs of heaven, as they have for the earthly affairs? Why shouldn't they have religious assemblies, as they have political, scientific, and industrial assemblies?

This is a stock exchange where one always wins, without making anyone lose anything. This does not prevent foundations for the benefit of the unfortunate; but we add that when men understand better their interests in heaven, there will be less people in the hospices.

If the religious assemblies - we speak in general, without referring to any worship - have too often deviated from the main primitive goal, that is the fraternal communion of thought; if the teaching given there has not always followed the progressive movement of humanity, it is because men do not progress all the same, at the same time; what they don't do in one period, they do in another; as they become clearer, they see the gaps that exist in their institutions, and they fill them out; they understand that what was good at one time, regarding the degree of civilization, becomes insufficient in a more advanced state, and they restore the standard. We know that Spiritism is the great lever of progress in all things; that it marks an era of renovation. So let us know how to wait and let us not ask from an era more than it can give. Like with the plants, the ideas need to mature to harvest the benefits. Furthermore, let us know how to make the necessary concessions at times of transition, because nothing in nature takes place in a sudden and instantaneous way.

We have said that the real goal of religious assemblies must be the communion of thoughts; it is because in fact the word religion means link; a religion, in its broad and true sense, is a bond that unites men in a community of feelings, principles and beliefs; this name was consecutively given to these same principles codified and formulated in dogmas or articles of faith. It is in this sense that we say: political religion; however, even in this sense, the word religion is not synonymous with opinion; it implies a particular idea: that of conscientious faith; that is why we also say: political faith.

However, men can enlist, by interest, in a party, without having faith in that party, and the proof is that they leave it, without scruple, when they find their interest elsewhere, while the one that embraces it with conviction is unshakeable; he persists at the cost of the greatest sacrifices, and it is the abnegation of personal interests that is the real touchstone of sincere faith. However, if the renunciation of an opinion, motivated by interest, is an act of contemptible cowardice, it is on the contrary respectable, when it is the fruit of acknowledgement of an earlier mistake; it is then an act of self-sacrifice and common sense. There is more courage and greatness in openly admitting that we have made a mistake, than in persisting, out of self-esteem, in what we know to be false, and in order not to belie ourselves, showing more stubbornness than firmness, more pride than good judgment, and more weakness than strength. It is even more: it is hypocrisy because we want to appear to be what we are not; it is also a bad deed, because it is an encouragement to error by our own example.

The link established by a religion, whatever the object, is then an essentially moral bond, that links hearts, identifies thoughts, aspirations, and is not only the result of material commitments that one breaks at will, or the realization of formulas that speak more to the eyes than to the Spirit. The effect of this moral bond is to establish mutual indulgence and benevolence, fraternity, and solidarity among those united by it, because of the communion of views and feelings. It is also in this sense that it is said: the religion of friendship, the religion of family.

If that is so, it will be said, is Spiritism a religion? Well yes! no doubt, gentlemen; in the philosophical sense, Spiritism is a religion, and we pride ourselves on that, because it is the doctrine that founds the bonds of fraternity and the communion of thoughts, not on a simple convention, but on the most solid foundations: the very laws of nature.

Why then have we declared that Spiritism is not a religion? Because there is only one word to express two different ideas, and that, in the general opinion, the word religion is inseparable from that of worship; that it brings up exclusively an idea of form, and that Spiritism does not have one. If Spiritism were to call itself religion, the public would only see a new edition, a variant, if you will, of the absolute principles in matters of faith; a priestly caste with its entourage of hierarchies, ceremonies, and privileges; they would not separate it from the ideas of mysticism, and from the abuses against which public opinion has often been raised.

Since Spiritism does not have any of the characteristics of a religion, in the usual meaning of the word, it could not, and it should not be adorned with a title whose value one would inevitably have been mistaken about; that is why it simply says: philosophical and moral doctrine.

Spiritist meetings can therefore be held religiously, that is with the reverence and respect that the serious nature of the matters that are dealt with entails; on the occasion one can even say prayers that instead of being said in private, are said in common, without being taken by religious assemblies for that matter. Make no mistake this is not playing with words; the nuance is perfectly clear, and the apparent confusion only comes from the lack of one word for each idea.

What is therefore the link that must exist between the Spiritists? They are not united by any material contract, by any binding practice; what is the feeling in which all thoughts must merge? It is an entirely moral, entirely spiritual, completely humanitarian feeling: that of charity for all, in other words: love thy neighbor that includes the living and the dead, since we know that the dead are always part of humanity.

Charity is the soul of Spiritism: it sums up all the duties of man towards himself and towards his fellows; that is why we can say that there is no true Spiritist without charity.

But charity is still one of those words with multiple meanings, the full significance of which must be well understood; and if the Spirits keep preaching and defining it, it is probably because they recognize that it is still necessary.

The field of charity is very broad; it comprises two great divisions that, for lack of special terms, we can designate by the expressions: beneficent charity and benevolent charity. The first is easily understood, naturally proportionate to the material resources available; but the second is within the reach of everyone, the poorest as well as the richest. If beneficence is necessarily limited, nothing other than the wish could place limits on benevolence. So, what does it take to practice benevolent charity? To love your neighbor as yourself: if you love your neighbor as much as yourself, you will love him very much; we will act towards others as we would like others to act towards us; we won't wish to or hurt anybody, because we wouldn't want to be harmed.

To love one's neighbor is therefore to abjure any feeling of hatred, animosity, resentment, envy, jealousy, revenge, in a word, any desire and any thought of harming; it is to forgive one's enemies and to return good for evil; it is to be indulgent for the imperfections of his fellows and not to look for the speck in the eye of his neighbor, whereas one does not see the beam in his own; it is to veil or excuse the faults of others, instead of taking pleasure in highlighting them out of a spirit of slander; again, it is not to show off at the expense of others; not to seek to crush anyone under the weight of our superiority; not to despise anyone out of pride. This is true benevolent charity, practical charity, without which charity is an empty word; it is the charity of the true Spiritist, as well as of the true Christian; it is the one without which, the one who says: there is no salvation but through charity, pronounces his own condemnation, in this world as well as in the next.

How many things still to be said on this subject! What beautiful instructions the Spirits constantly give us! Without the fear of taking too long and of abusing your patience, ladies and gentlemen, it would be easy to demonstrate that, from the point of view of personal interest, selfish if you will, for all men are not ripe yet for a complete abnegation, to do good only for the sake of good, it would be, I say, easy to demonstrate that they have everything to gain by doing so and everything to lose by doing otherwise, even in their social relations; also, good attracts good and the protection of good Spirits; evil attracts evil and opens the door to the malice of the evil ones. Sooner or later the proud is punished by humiliation, the ambitious by disappointments, the selfish by the ruin of his hopes, the hypocrite by the shame of being exposed; he who abandons the good Spirits is abandoned by them, and from fall to fall, finally sees himself at the bottom of the abyss, while the good Spirits encourage and support him who, in the greatest trials, never ceases to trust the Providence and never deviates from the right path; the one, finally, whose secret feelings conceal no hidden motives of vanity or personal interest. Thus, on the one hand, guaranteed gain; on the other, certain loss; each, by virtue of his free will, can choose the risk he wants to take, but can only blame himself for the consequences of his choice.

To believe in an almighty God, supremely just and good; to believe in the soul and its immortality; in the preexistence of the soul as the only justification for the present; in the plurality of existences as a means of atonement, reparation and intellectual and moral advancement; in the perfectibility of the most imperfect beings; in the increasing bliss with perfection; in the equitable compensation for good and evil, according to the principle: to each one according to his own works; in the equality of justice for all, without exceptions, favors or privileges for any creature; in the duration of the atonement limited to that of the imperfection; in man's free will, that always leaves him the choice between good and evil; believe in the continuity of relations between the visible and the invisible world; in the solidarity that links all past, present and future, incarnate and discarnate beings; to consider earthly life as transitory and one of the phases of the life of the Spirit, that is eternal; courageously accept trials with a view to a future more desirable than the present; to practice charity in thought, word and deed, in the broadest sense of the word; to strive every day to be better than the day before, eradicating some imperfection from his soul; to submit all beliefs to the control of free examination and reason, and accept nothing by blind faith; to respect all sincere beliefs, however irrational they may appear to us, and do not violate anyone's conscience; finally see in the discoveries of science the revelation of the laws of nature, that are the laws of God: this is the Creed, the religion of Spiritism, a religion that can be reconciled with all cults, that is to say with every way of worshiping God. It is the bond that must unite all Spiritists in a holy communion of thoughts, while waiting for it to rally all men under the flag of universal fraternity.

With fraternity, daughter of charity, men will live in peace, and will spare themselves the innumerable evils that arise from discord, in turn the daughter of pride, selfishness, ambition, jealousy and all the imperfections of mankind.

Spiritism gives men everything they need for their happiness down here, because it teaches them to be content with what they have; may the Spiritists, therefore, be the first ones to take advantage of the benefits that it brings, inaugurating among themselves the kingdom of harmony that will cast light onto future generations.

The Spirits that surround us here are innumerable, attracted by the goal that we set out for ourselves in meeting, to give to our thoughts the force that is born from the union. Let us give those who are dear to us fond memories and a token of our love, encouragement, and consolation to those in need. Let us ensure that each one receives his share of the feelings of benevolent charity that drives us, and that this meeting bears the fruits that all are entitled to expect from it.

Allan Kardec

After this speech, a spontaneous communication was read, dictated by the Spirit of Mr. H. Dozon on the solemnity of All Saints' Day, November 1^st, 1865, read each year at the commemorative meeting.





All Saints' Day.

The celebration of All Saints, my good friends, is a memorial that, for most of those who do not have true faith, saddens them, and makes them shed tears instead of cheering up. Notice that from the humble cottage to the palace, when the funeral knell recalls the name of a husband or a wife, of a father, of a mother, of a son, of a daughter, they cry; it seems that everything is over, that they have nothing more to hope for down here, and yet they pray! What is that prayer then? It is a thought given to the loved one, but without hope; tears that suffocate the prayer; Why? Ah! For they doubt; they do not have that lively faith that brings hope, that sustains you in the greatest struggles. This is because they did not understand that the earthly life is only a momentary separation; in short, those who taught them to pray did not have the true faith themselves, the faith that is based on reason.

But the time has come when these beautiful words of Christ will be finally understood: “My father must be worshiped, not only in the temples, but everywhere, in Spirit and in truth.” The time will come when they come true. Beautiful and sublime words! Yes, my God, you are not worshiped only in the temples, but you are worshiped on the mountain and everywhere. Yes, he who dipped his lips in the blessed cup of Spiritism, prays not only on this day, but every day; the traveler prays on his way, the worker during his work; he who can dispose of his time uses it to the relief of his brothers who are suffering.

My brothers, rejoice, for in a very short time you will see great things! When I was on Earth, I saw the doctrine, great and beautiful, but I was far from being able to understand it in all its greatness and in its true purpose. Therefore, I will say to you: Redouble your zeal; console those who are suffering, for there are creatures that have suffered so much in life that they need to be supported and helped in the struggle. You know how pleasing to God charity is: practice it, therefore, in all forms; practice it in the name of the Spirits whose memory you celebrate on this day, and they will bless you!

H. Dozon.”



After the usual prayers (see the Spiritist Review, November 1865), thirty-two communications were obtained by the eighteen mediums present. Given the impossibility of publishing them all, the Society has chosen the following three, to be attached to the above speech that it has requested to print. The others will find a place in the special collections to be published later.



I

“A great Spirit, La Rochefoucauld^[2], said in one of his works, that one should tremble before life and before death! Certainly, if one must tremble, it is for seeing their existence uncertain, troubled, completely missed; it is for having accomplished a sterile work, useless to oneself and to others; it is for having been a false friend, a bad brother, a wicked council; it is for having been a bad son, a thoughtless father, an unjust citizen, ignoring one’s duties, one’s country, the laws that govern you, society and solidarity.

How many of my friends have I seen, beautiful minds, ingenious, educated, often missing the deep purpose of life! They constructed somewhat absurd hypotheses: here, the denial, there, the ardent faith; elsewhere, they became neophytes of this or that system of government, of philosophy, and much too often, unfortunately, they threw away their fine intelligences in a ditch, from where they could no longer emerge, except bruised and wrinkled forever.

Life with its toughness, setbacks, and uncertainties, is nevertheless a beautiful thing! How? You emerge from an embryo, from nothing, and you draw around you the kisses, the care, the love, the dedication, the work, and that is nothing but life! How is it then that for you, feeble beings, without strength, without language, entire generations have created the unceasingly explored fields of human acquisitions? Acquisitions of knowledge, philosophy, mechanics, various sciences; thousands of courageous citizens have used their bodies and disposed of their vigils to create thousands of different elements of your civilization, for you. From the first letters to a scholarly description, you find everything that can guide and shape the mind; today we can see, for everything is light. The shadow of the dark ages is gone forever, and a sixteen-year-old can gaze and admire a sunrise and analyze it, weigh the air, and create a thousand divine pleasures using chemistry, physics, mechanics, and astronomy. With painting, he reproduces a landscape; with music, he inscribes some of those harmonies that God profusely spreads in the infinite harmonies!

With life, one can love, give, spread a lot; one can sun oneself, sometimes, and enlighten one’s interior, one’s family, one’s entourage, be useful, fulfill one’s mission. Oh! yes, life is a beautiful thing, quivering, full of fire and expansion, full of fraternity and those dazzling things that throw our little miseries to the last spot.

O all of you, my dear co-disciples of the rue de Richelieu; you, my faithful of the 14; all of you who, so many times, have questioned the existence by asking yourselves the last word; you who bowed your heads, uncertain before the last hour, before the word death, that to you means emptiness, separation, disintegration, to you I come to say: raise your head and hope; no more weakness, no more fear; for if your conscientious studies and the religions of your parents have left you with nothing but disgust for life, only uncertainty and disbelief, it is because badly guided human science, sterile in everything, has only reached nothingness. All of you, who love humanity and summarize future hope by studying social sciences, by their serious application, I say to you: hope, believe and seek. Like me, you let the truth pass; we let it go, while it knocked on our stubbornly shut door. From now on, you will love life, you will love death, this great consoler, because you will want to avoid starting over, by an exemplary life; you will want to wait on the threshold of erraticity for all those you love, not just your family, but the entire generation that you have guided, to welcome them and migrate to superior worlds.

You see that I live, and we all live. Reincarnation, that made us laugh so much, is the solved problem that we have been eagerly looking for. There it is, this problem in your hand, full of attractions of ardent promises; your parents, your spouses, your children, the crowd of friends, want to answer you; they are all gathered, the dear ones disappeared from your eyes; they will speak to your Spirit, to your reason; they will reveal truths to you, and faith is a beloved law; but question them with perseverance.

Ah! death frightened us, and we trembled! Yet here I am, Guillaumin, a skeptical, an uncertain, brought back to the truth. Thousands of Spirits are in a hurry, awaiting your decision; they love remembrance and pilgrimage to cemeteries! This respect for the dead is a milestone; but these dead are all alive; instead of funeral urns, and more or less true speeches, they ask you for an exchange of thoughts, advice, a sweet trade of Spirit, this community of ideas that drives courage, perseverance, will, acts of devotion, and this strengthening and consoling thought that life is steeped in death, and that we can henceforth, despite La Rochefoucauld and other great geniuses, tremble neither before life, nor before death.

God is exuberance, it is life in everything and always. It is up to us to understand his wisdom in the various phases through which he purifies humanity.

Guillaumin (medium, Mr. Leymarie).”



II

“Choosing the wrong moment has always been one of my continual blunders, and to come on this day, in the midst of this large gathering of Spirits and incarnates, is truly a daring act that my shyness alone can be capable; but I see in you so much goodness, gentleness, amenity; I feel so well that in each of you I can find a loving, compassionate heart, and since indulgence is the least of the qualities that animate your hearts, despite my audacity, I am not troubled and I keep all the presence of spirit that sometimes fails me, in less imposing circumstances.

But you will ask, what is this stranger up to, with his insinuating verbiage, who instead of an instructor, comes to monopolize a useful medium? As for now you are right; I then hasten to make my plan known, so as not to appropriate any longer a place that I steal.

In a passage of the speech delivered by your President today, a reflection vibrated in my ear, as only a truth can do, and mingled with the crowd of attentive Spirits, I suddenly brought myself to the open. I was again severely judged by a crowd of Spirits who, basing themselves on their memories and the reputation of an appreciation carried over from other times, they suddenly recognized in me the savage misanthropist, the bear of civilization, the stern critic of institutions at odds with his own judgment. Alas! how much suffering caused by an error, and how long does the harm done to the masses last, by the stupid pretension of a proud of humility, a madman of feeling!

Yes, you are right: isolation in religious and social matters can only engender egoism, and without realizing it very often, man becomes misanthropic by letting his egoism dominate him. Meditation, produced by the effect of the grandiose silence of nature, speaking to the soul, is useful, but its usefulness can only produce its fruits as much as the being, who hears nature speaking to his soul, reports to men the truth of his morality; but if he who feels, in the face of creation, his soul soaring into regions of a pure and virtuous era, if he uses his sensations, when awaken in the midst of the institutions of his time, only to blame the abuses that his sensitive nature exaggerates before him, because he suffers from it, if he only finds gall and resentment to right the wrongs of mankind, without kindly showing them the true path, as he discovered it in nature herself, oh! then, woe to him, if he only uses his intelligence to whip, instead of healing the wounds of society!

Yes, you are right: to live alone amid nature is to be selfish and a thief, for man was created for sociability; and this is so true that I, the savage, the misanthropist, the fierce hermit, come to applaud this passage of the speech given here: Social and religious isolation leads to selfishness.

Unite therefore, in your efforts and ideas, especially love. Be good, gentle, human; give friendship the feeling of fraternity; preach by the example of your actions, the beneficial effects of your philosophical beliefs; be Spiritists in fact and not only by name; and soon the madmen of my sort, the utopians of good, will no longer need to moan about the defects of a legislation under which they must live, for understood and especially practiced Spiritism will reform everything to the benefit of men.

J.J. Rosseau (medium Mr. Morin)”



III



The fragrance that exudes from all good feelings is a constant prayer that rises to God, and all good deeds are thanksgiving to the Lord.

Mrs. Victor Hugo

Devotion by gratitude is an impulse of the heart; devotion for love is an impulse of the soul.

Mrs. Dauban

Recognition is a blessing that rewards those who deserve it. Gratitude is an act of the heart that gives, at the same time, the pleasure of good to the one to whom one should be grateful, and to the one who is so.

Vézy

Ingratitude is punished as a bad deed by the neglect of which it is the object, as gratitude is rewarded by the joy it delivers.

Leclerc

Woman’s duty is to bring to man all consolations and encouragements necessary to his life of vicissitudes and painful works. The woman must be his support, his guide, the torch that illuminates his path and must prevent him from failing; if she fails in her mission, she will be punished; but, if despite her devotion, the man rejects the impulses of her heart, she is doubly rewarded for having persisted in the accomplishment of her duties.

Delphine de Girardin

Doubt is the slow poison that the soul causes matter to absorb and for which it receives the first punishment. Doubt is the suicide of the soul, that inevitably leads to the death of the body. - A soul committing suicide is difficult to understand; but isn't that dying to live in the shadows when you feel the light around you? Therefore, take away from your Spirit the veil that hides from you the splendors of life, and see those radiant suns that give you the light of day: that is the true light; that is the goal you must reach by faith.

Jobard

Selfishness is the paralysis of all good feelings. Selfishness is the deformity of the soul, that trespasses matter by making you love everything that is addressed to her, rejecting everything that is addressed to others. Selfishness is the denial of the sublime sentence of Christ, a sentence disgracefully overturned: "Do to others what you would like others do to you."

Placid

Susceptibility, here is a fault for everyone's use, and everyone, don't you say the opposite, is somewhat loaded with that. Phew! If you knew how ridiculous it is to be susceptible, and how awkward this defect is, I assure you that no one would want to be affected by it any longer, because people like to be beautiful.

Gay

Pride is everyone's social umbrella, and that everyone casts onto the gracious self-love; one must certainly have self-esteem and pride, that's what gives the ambition for good (no pun intended), but when it is too much, it spoils the Spirit and corrupts the heart.

Mangin

Ambition, he has just said, but do you know what is the ambition that does not prevent the soul from rising towards the splendors of infinity? Well! It is the one that leads you to do good. All other ambitions lead you to pride and selfishness, the scourges of humanity.

Bonnefon

My dear friends, the Spirits who have just spoken to you, not only were happy to make their presence known, but they have the joy to think that each of you will strive to correct yourselves and to put into practice the wise lessons that they have given you, and those that are brought to you at each of your sessions. Believe it, the Spirits are what your parents were or should have been to you. They scold you while advising you, while helping you; and when you do not listen to them, they tell you that they are abandoning you; they revolt against you; then, just after having harshly spoken to you, they come back, encouraging you and constantly striving to push your thoughts toward good. Yes, the Spirits love you as the good father loves his children; they take pity on you, look after your life, keeping away from you all the evil things that can happen to you, just as the mother surrounds her child with all the most delicate care, with all the attentions required by his fragility. God gave them such a mission; he gave them the courage to fulfill it and none of these good Spirits, whatever their degree in the spiritual hierarchy, will fail in their task; they understand, they feel, they see these divine splendors that must be their reward; they move forward, and would like to take you with them, to push you past them if they could. That's why they scold you, that's why they advise you. On your side, pray for them, so that your rebellion does not prevent them from bringing their support to you, and that God continues to give them the strength to help you out.

St. Louis (medium Mr. Bertrand)

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[1] The first part of this speech is taken from an earlier publication on the Communion of Thoughts, but that was necessary to recall, given its connection with the main idea.




[2] The French original says “Larochefoucauld” that seems a typo or perhaps the name was simplified in those days. The French moralist of the 17^thCentury was Francois de La Rochefoucauld 1613-1680 (Wikipedia) T.N.