Leisure Activities of a Spiritist in the Desert
We are reproducing, without comments, the following passages from a letter sent to us last March, by one of our correspondents, a captain in the African army.
“Spiritism is spreading in the North of Africa and will gain the center, if the French go there. Here it is entering Laghouat, on the edges of the Sahara, at 33° degree of latitude. I lent your books out; some of my comrades have read them; we discussed, and strength and reason remained with the Doctrine.
For several years now I have been engaged in the study of comparative anatomy, physiology, and psychology. The same stream of ideas led me to study animals. I was able to realize, by observation, that all the organs, all the apparatuses, are simplified while descending towards the races and the lower species. How beautiful it is to study nature! How one feels the spirit everywhere! Sometimes I spend long hours following the habits and life movements of insects and reptiles in these regions; I witness their struggles, their efforts, their tricks to ensure their existence; I contemplate the battle of the species. The Sahara, on the edges of which we have been camping for over a year, so deserted to my comrades, seems to me, on the contrary, well populated; where they find exile, I meet freedom! It's because I know that God is everywhere, and that everyone brings happiness in themselves. Whether I am at the Pole or at the Equator, my friends in space will follow me there, and I know that the dear invisible ones can populate the saddest solitudes. It is not that I disdain the company of my fellow human beings, nor that I am indifferent to the affections that I have preserved in France, oh no! because I look forward to seeing and embracing my family and all those who are dear to me, but it is only to testify that we can be happy in any part of the world that we find ourselves, when we take God as our guide . To the Spiritist there is never any isolation; he knows himself, he feels himself constantly surrounded by benevolent beings with whom he is in communion of thoughts.
Your last work, Genesis, that I have just reread, and on various chapters on which I have particularly focused, reveals to us the mysteries of creation and throws a terrible blow to the prejudices. This reading did me immense good and opened new horizons to me. I already understood our origin and saw in my material body the last ring of animality on Earth; I knew that the Spirit, during its bodily gestation, takes an active part in the construction of its nest and appropriates its envelope to its new needs. To the proud ones, this theory of the origin of man may seem offensive to human greatness and dignity, but it will be accepted in the future, because of its striking simplicity and breadth.
Geology, in fact, allows us to read in the great book of nature. Through that we find that the species of today would have for ancestors the species whose remains are found in the earthly layers; we can no longer deny that there is a continual progression in the development of organic forms, when we see the simplest species appearing first. These species have been modified by the instincts of animals themselves, provided with organs appropriate to their new needs and development. Besides, nature change the species when the need arises; life gradually multiplies their organs and specializes them. The species come out of each other, without the need for a miraculous intervention. Adam did not come out from the hands of the Creator fully armed; a chimpanzee certainly gave birth to him.
The species are not independent from one another; they are linked by a secret filiation, and one can even regard them as united to humanity. As you so rightly say, from the zoophyte to man, there is a chain, all rings of which have a point of contact with the previous ring. And just as the spirit rises and cannot remain stationary, the instinct of the animal progresses, and each incarnation makes it transposes a step of the ladder of beings. The phases of these metamorphoses are counted by thousands of rings, and the rudimentary forms, of which a few samples are found in the Silurian soils, tell us where the animal has been.
There should no longer be a veil between nature and man, and nothing should remain hidden. Earth is our domain: it is up to us to study its laws; it was ignorance and laziness that created the mysteries. How much greater God appears to us in the harmony and unity of his laws!
I am sincerely sorry for people who are bored, because it shows that they don't think of anyone else, and that their minds are as empty as the stomach of a hungry person."
