Journal Le Siècle – Paris somnambulist
For some time now, Le Siècle has published with the title of Tout Paris, a number of very interesting series written by different authors; there was Paris artist, Paris gastronome, Paris litigator, etc. In its April 24th and 25th, 1868 series, it published Paris somnambulist, by Mr. Eugène Bonnemère, the author of the Novel of the future. It is an account at the same time scientific and true of the different varieties of somnambulism, in which it incidentally brings in Spiritism, with its own name, however with all the rhetorical precautions determined by the requirements of the newspaper, whose responsibility it did not want to take; this is what explains some reluctance. The lack of space does not allow us to quote as many statements as we would have liked, so that we will confine ourselves to the following passages:
“The highest form of somnambulism is unquestionably Spiritism, that aspires to pass to the state of science. It has an already rich literature, and the books of Mr. Allan Kardec are notably authoritative on the subject.”
“Spiritism is the correspondence of souls to one another. According to the followers of this belief, an invisible being communicates with another, called a medium, endowed with a particular organism that allows him to receive the thoughts of those who have once lived, and that write, either by a mechanical, unconscious impulse, written by hand, or by direct transmission to the intelligence of the mediums."
“No, there is no such a thing as death. It is the moment of rest after the journey is over and the task finished; then, it is the awakening for a new work, more useful and greater than the one that has just been accomplished."
“We leave, taking with us the memory of the knowledge acquired here; the world to which we will go gives us its own, and we will group them all in a bundle to form progress."
"It is through the succession of generations that humanity advances, each time walking one more step towards the light, because they arrive animated by souls, always natively pure after they have returned to God, and remain imbued with the progress they have acquired."
“As a result of conquests secured for good, the land we inhabit will deserve to climb the ladder of the worlds itself. A new cataclysm will come; certain plant essences, certain animal species, inferior or harmful, will disappear as others disappeared in the past, to make room for more perfect creations, and we in turn will become a world in which already tried beings will come to seek a greater development. It is up to us to hasten, by our efforts, the advent of this happier period. Our beloved dead come to help us in this difficult task."
“As we can see, these beliefs, serious or not, do not lack a certain magnificence. Materialism and atheism, that human sentiment rejects with all its heart, are only an inevitable reaction against ideas, hardly admissible by reason, about God, nature, and the destinies of souls. Spiritism, by broadening the question, revives a faith that is ready to be extinguished in the hearts."
