The Revue Spirite of 1861

Part 8

 
We continue in this issue the study of the Revue Spirite of 1861, a monthly newspaper focused on the divulgation of Spiritism, founded and directed by Allan Kardec. This study is based on the translation into the Portuguese language made by Julio Abreu Filho and published by EDICEL. The answers to the proposed issues are at the end of the text for reading.

Issues for discussion

A. Should the medium know beforehand the questions that are going to be asked to the Spirits?

B. How does Fenelon define a good prayer?

C. What did Kardec say about charlatanism?

Text for reading

130. Commenting on an account of visions published by the Spiritual Magazine of London, Kardec reiterates that there are no Spirits of wandering animals in the invisible world and that therefore there can be no apparitions of animals. (Pages 227 to 229).

(Editor’s Note: This experience later on proved that Kardec’s information was not correct. In the Spiritist Magazine of May, 1865, the Encoder himself published a letter from a correspondent based in Dieppe, which mentions the manifestation of the little dog, Mika, then disembodied, fact which was perceived by the author of the letter himself, his wife and a daughter who slept in the next room. Mentioning this subject in a mediumship communication given on the night of April 21, 1865, through the psychic Mr. E. Vezy, published in the same issue of the Spiritist Magazine, a Spirit said textually that the reported manifestation could indeed occur, although it was transitory.)

131. Erastus and Timothy's message explains that the Spirits communicate with the incarnated Spirits and also with the disembodied Spirits, by the simple radiation of their thought. (P. 232)

132. When they find in a medium the brain equipped with knowledge acquired in the present life and the Spirit rich of previous latent knowledge, they use him preferably, because with him the phenomenon becomes easier. (P. 232)

133. In this case, they find in the medium's brain the proper elements to clothe his thought with the garment of the word - whether it is the intuitive, semi-mechanical or mechanical medium. That is why the dictations obtained by the medium, although they come from different Spirits, they have in the form and tone, the personal stamp of the medium, since he influences the form of the message by the qualities and properties inherent in his individuality. (P. 232)

134. The Spirit is like one who can show his music on a piano, a flute, or a double bass. (P. 233)

135. If he has, however, only a whistle or a simple pipe, how will he present it? (P. 233)

136. Erasto and Timoteo explain that the questions to be asked to the Spirits must be read in advance to the medium, so that he may identify himself with the Spirit of the one who evokes; and they go on saying that the Spirits do not need to clothe their thinking; they perceive and communicate their thought by the simple fact that they have it. (P. 234)

137. Fenelon says that if men knew the power of the heart's prayer, how many people dragged by weakness would have recourse to it at the time of the fall! "You are," he states, "the precious antidote that heals the almost always mortal wounds that matter opens in the Spirit, causing the venom of brutal sensations to run in their veins". (P. 238)

138. Fenelon says: "The good prayer is the one that comes from the heart; it is not made of many words; only once in a while does it let its cry to God escape in aspirations, in anguish or in a request for forgiveness, as if it begged for Him to come to our rescue, and the Good Spirits take it to God’s feet, our just and tender Father, and that incense is to Him a pleasant essence". (P. 238)

139. The Revue comments on news published by Le Siècle, dated July 4, 1861, on the death of Pierre Valin, the soldier who thought himself dead and spoke of himself in the third person. (P. 239)

140. Kardec states that all magnetizers know that it is very common for sleepwalkers to speak in the third person, thus making a distinction between the personality of their soul and that of the body. (P. 242)

141. The intelligent principle (soul) is like those gases that do not bind to certain bodies but by an ephemeral cohesion and that escape at the first breath. There is always a tendency to get rid of your bodily burden, as long as the force that maintains the balance ceases to act for any cause. Only the harmonious activity of the organs maintains the intimate and complete union between soul and body; but at the slightest suspension of this activity the soul takes up flight again: it is what happens in sleep, in the half-asleep, in catalepsy, in lethargy, in somnambulism, in ecstasy, and in certain pathological states. (P. 242)

142. A number of spiritual phenomena have no other cause but the emancipation of the soul. (P. 242)

143. Kardec again criticizes the practice observed in America, where it is considered natural that mediums should be paid. This is quite typical of a country where time is money, notes the Encoder. (P. 246)

144. The Revue transcribes the dialogues maintained by Kardec with the Spirit of Don Peyra, prior of Amilly. (P. 246)

145. After explaining that he still worked with chemistry in the spiritual plane, Don Peyra said that the Spirits are not meant to help men in similar researches to the ones he did - in search of treasure. (Pages 249 and 250)

146. In a letter to Kardec, J. B. Borreau says that Dom Peyra, when he fixed himself on Amilly, obtained- through magnetism and electricity – god cures there. Seeing, however, that business was not going as well as he wished, he used charlatanism and practiced with his electric machine magical arts that made him a sorcerer. (P. 252)

147. Criticizing charlatanism, Kardec says that mediums would gain a hundred times more in consideration, if compared to what they do not receive in material proceeds. To live, there are more honest activities than exploring the "dead." (P. 255)

148. Frivolous and less serious mediums attract Spirits of the same nature. That is why their communications are marked by banalities, frivolities, disorderly ideas, and, at times, unorthodox in Spiritist matters. (P. 256) (Continued on next issue.)

Answers to the issues

A. Should the medium know beforehand the questions that are going to be asked to the Spirits?

Yes. This measure, proposed by Kardec, is necessary for him to identify himself previously with the one who evocates. (Revue Spirite, 1861, 234).

B. How does Fenelon define a good prayer?

The good prayer, says Fenelon, is the one that comes from the heart. It does not have many words and occasionally it lets its cry out to God in aspirations, in anguish or request for forgiveness, as begging the Father to come to our rescue. (Ibid, page 238)

C. What did Kardec say about charlatanism?

The Encoder criticized it, saying that mediums would earn a hundred times more in consideration of what they fail to earn in material proceeds. To live, there are more honest activities than exploring the "dead." (Ibid, page 255)