| Year 16 | Number 96 | 2008 | June 15th, 2008 |
| "Unshakable
faith is only that which can face reason face to
face in every Humankind epoch." Allan Kardec |
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"I love to
think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which
God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in." "More and more as we come closer and closer in touch with nature and its teachings are we able to see the Divine and are therefore fitted to interpret correctly the various languages spoken by all forms of nature about us." "Our creator is the same and never changes despite the names given Him by people here and in all parts of the world. Even if we gave Him no name at all, He would still be there, within us, waiting to give us good on this earth."
Quotes from George
Washington Carver
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| °EDITORIAL
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| STAGNATION ON THE EVOLUTIONARY PATH:
AN ILLUSION |
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| ° THE CODIFICATION
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| GENESIS:
The Miracles and the Predictions According to Spiritism |
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| CHRISTIANITY AND SPIRITUALISM by Leon Denis | |||
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| HEAVEN
AND HELL - PART SECOND - EXAMPLES |
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CHAPTER IV - SUFFERING SPIRITS
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| HALF A CAREER WITH THE PARANORMAL |
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II US SPIRITIST MEDICAL CONGRESS - Bridging Medicine and Spirituality
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| ° EDITORIAL |
Renato Costa
As spiritists we believe that everything
in Creation, from the tiniest superstring of theoretical physics to an
enormous supernova and every being in Creation, from the simplest
living being to an archangel, is always progressing. Real stagnation is
as impossible to us as retrograding.
However, since there are religious traditions that believe that stagnation in the evolutionary path is possible, I suggest that we use an image compatible with Spiritism to explain a situation where evolution can be wrongly perceived as stagnation. The image I will use requires a minimum familiarity with the mathematical representation on a plane and inside a 3D space.
First, let us consider evolution as a two-dimensional plane that can be mapped as having coordinates wisdom and goodness. Spirits start their voyage at the (0,0) point on the map and they must reach perfection, which is located at the (W,G) point (where W represents the maximum value of wisdom and G the maximum value of goodness).
While our image stays as simple as that, every infinitesimal increase in time will correspond to an always positive movement of the spirit from one coordinate point to the next. Since the spirit’s memory can never forget, there is no way for retrogression to occur.
In order to understand spiritual unbalances with this simple model, we only need to figure out what happens when a spirit moves quickly in the wisdom direction without much movement in the goodness one. When that happens we get what some religious traditions call devils. The image can also explain differences in velocity from one spirit to another, on the basis of the infinite different paths that can be taken from the (0,0) point to the (W,G) one. The most well balanced path will coincide with the diagonal of our map, which we know to be the shortest path. Our image does not explain, however, differences in speed between two spirits both evolving in the same direction at each time (both acquiring the same percentages of wisdom and goodness as they evolve).
In order to understand such a possibility we have to introduce the third component of our image, the third coordinate of a 3D space, adding landscape to the map, each possible landscape representing one belief system available. Certain belief systems can be viewed as almost plain surfaces, whereas others as highly irregular ones, full of peaks to be climbed, canyons and rivers to be crossed. This new image not only accepts the difference in speed between two spirits going in the same (horizontal) direction but also explains an apparent stagnation state in the evolution of a spirit. After all, there are belief systems that look like very irregular landscapes, leading the spirit to paths that make the spirit take an enormous time to move from any point (w,g) to the next one. Anyone looking from a bird’s eye down to the 3D map – having thus a purely horizontal view - will have the impression that spirits that are climbing enormously high peaks are stuck at the same position without moving at all. This way one can explain why some belief systems think that stagnation is possible.
Renato Costa
Back to Content
| ° THE CODIFICATION |
GENESIS: The Miracles and the Predictions According to Spiritism
BY Allan Kardec
Author of "The Spirits' Book," "The Mediums' Book," and "Heaven and Hell."
Translated By The Spirit-Guides of W. J. Colville
[Colby & Rich, Publishers - 1883 - Boston - USA]
The spiritual doctrine is the result of the collective and concordant teachings of spirits.
Science is called in to make the statements in Genesis agree with the laws of nature.
God proves his greatness and power by the immutability of his laws, and not by their suspension.
For God the past and the future are the present.
PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION
In offering an English
translation of this wonderful work - Allan Kardec's masterpiece - to
the English-speaking public, the translator feels considerable
embarrassment, knowing how very imperfectly the work has been
accomplished. Nevertheless, despite many deficiencies in beauty of
style and accuracy of expression, the public are assured that the
original ideas of the author have been preserved in all their
integrity; only the charming polish so distinguishable in the French
literature has been lost.
Possessing myself but the most meager acquaintance with the French language, the task of translating so large and valuable a work out of that tongue would have been utterly beyond me, had it not been for the constant and inestimable assistance I have received from the spirits, who originally gave the philosophy to the world when Allan Kardec was yet in material form among us. These intelligences and Allan Kardec himself have frequently made their presence known to me, compelling me to materially change many passages that nothing might be sent out to the world of a misleading nature. The thought is, I am convinced, throughout the volume, true to the author's original conception; but that the language is in many parts crude and sadly defective, no one can realize more deeply than myself.
While acknowledging my indebtedness to invisible helpers, I must not refrain from expressing my most sincere thanks to a lady in Boston, whose wide acquaintance with the French tongue renders her an authority on all matters of translation, who has, from pure love of the glorious truths of the spiritual philosophy and a desire to disseminate these truths far and wide, given a vast amount of her valuable time to assisting me in the arduous and yet most delightful task of preparing this volume for the press. It is now sent forth in confident assurance that it contains facts relative to the soul and its unfoldment destined to work a complete revolution in the thought of the age.
While many may disagree with the author's conclusions, none can deny the force of his arguments; nor can any man or woman, capable of appreciating real nobility of character, fail to admire the sublimity of a mind devoting itself through the best years of an earthly life to intercourse with the spiritual-world, and to the publication of revolutionary literature without any reward other than the satisfaction of seizing truth, and disseminating it freely among the hungering multitudes.
Allan Kardec was a man almost without a peer in self-devotion to the good of the race in the city and country where he lived. He has gone to his rest and his reward, and verily his works do follow him. That this humble effort to spread the truth he lived only to proclaim may assist some minds in their attempts to solve life's greatest problems and that the exalted teachers in the higher life, who have used the translator as an amanuensis for the presentation of their thoughts in a new dress, may go with all who shall read this volume, is the earnest hope and desire of those spirits' willing instrument,
Possessing myself but the most meager acquaintance with the French language, the task of translating so large and valuable a work out of that tongue would have been utterly beyond me, had it not been for the constant and inestimable assistance I have received from the spirits, who originally gave the philosophy to the world when Allan Kardec was yet in material form among us. These intelligences and Allan Kardec himself have frequently made their presence known to me, compelling me to materially change many passages that nothing might be sent out to the world of a misleading nature. The thought is, I am convinced, throughout the volume, true to the author's original conception; but that the language is in many parts crude and sadly defective, no one can realize more deeply than myself.
While acknowledging my indebtedness to invisible helpers, I must not refrain from expressing my most sincere thanks to a lady in Boston, whose wide acquaintance with the French tongue renders her an authority on all matters of translation, who has, from pure love of the glorious truths of the spiritual philosophy and a desire to disseminate these truths far and wide, given a vast amount of her valuable time to assisting me in the arduous and yet most delightful task of preparing this volume for the press. It is now sent forth in confident assurance that it contains facts relative to the soul and its unfoldment destined to work a complete revolution in the thought of the age.
While many may disagree with the author's conclusions, none can deny the force of his arguments; nor can any man or woman, capable of appreciating real nobility of character, fail to admire the sublimity of a mind devoting itself through the best years of an earthly life to intercourse with the spiritual-world, and to the publication of revolutionary literature without any reward other than the satisfaction of seizing truth, and disseminating it freely among the hungering multitudes.
Allan Kardec was a man almost without a peer in self-devotion to the good of the race in the city and country where he lived. He has gone to his rest and his reward, and verily his works do follow him. That this humble effort to spread the truth he lived only to proclaim may assist some minds in their attempts to solve life's greatest problems and that the exalted teachers in the higher life, who have used the translator as an amanuensis for the presentation of their thoughts in a new dress, may go with all who shall read this volume, is the earnest hope and desire of those spirits' willing instrument,
W. J. COLVILLE
Boston, April, 1883.
THIS new work is one step more in advance in the effects and applications of Spiritism. As its title indicates, its object is the study of three points diversely commented upon and interpreted even to this day, - "Genesis, Miracles, and Prophesies" in their relations with the recently known laws which are revealed through the observation of spiritual phenomena. Two elements, or we may say two forces, govern the universe, - the one the spiritual, the other the material, element. By the simultaneous action of these two principles are developed some special phenomena, which are naturally rendered inexplicable if one abstracts either of them, just as the formation of water would be inexplicable if one should take away one of its two constituent elements, oxygen and hydrogen. Spiritism, in demonstrating the existence of the spiritual world and its relations with the material world, furnishes the key to a multitude of unknown phenomena, which are considered as inadmissible by a certain class of thinkers. The record of such facts abounds in the Scriptures; and it is in default of knowledge concerning the laws that govern them that commentators of the two opposing parties, moving always in the same circle of ideas, -some abstracting positive gifts from science, others from the spiritual principle, - have not been able to arrive at any rational solution.
The solution is found only in the reciprocal action of spirit and mater. It takes away, it is true, the greater part of the supernatural character of these facts. But which is the more valuable method, - to admit them as springing from the laws of nature, or to reject them entirely? Their absolute rejection removes the base from the edifice; while their admission as facts, suppressing only the accessories, leaves the base intact. This is why Spiritism leads so many people to a belief in truths which they formerly considered Utopian ideas. This work is then, as we have said before, a complement of the applications of Spiritism to this point of special view. The materials were ready, or at least elaborated, a long time since; but the moment for their publication had not arrived. It was necessary at first that the ideas which were to form the base should arrive at maturity; and, moreover, it was necessary to take advantage of circumstances.
Spiritism has neither mysteries nor secret theories. It can bear the full light of day so that every one can judge of it by a knowledge of its laws; but every thing must come in its own time in order to win its way. A solution given lightly, prior to the complete elucidation of the question, would be a retarding force, rather than a means of advancement. In the matter in question the importance of the subject makes it a duty to avoid all precipitation.
Before entering into the subject, it has appeared necessary to us to define distinctly the respective roles of spirits and men according to the new doctrine. These preliminary considerations, which discard all ideas of mysticism, form the subject of the first chapter, entitled "Character of the Spiritual Revelation." We call serious attention to this point, because it is in a measure the knot of the question. Notwithstanding the work incumbent upon human activity in the elaboration of this doctrine, the initiative belongs to the spirits; cut conclusions are drawn from the personal opinion of no one of them. The truth can only be the resultant of their collective and concordant teachings. Without this united testimony, a doctrine could not lawfully be called the doctrine of the spirits; it would be merely that of one spirit, and would possess only the value of a personal opinion. General concordance in teaching is the essential character of the doctrine, the condition even of its existence. It is evident that all principles which have not received the consecration of general agreement can only be considered as a fractional part of this same doctrine, merely as a simple, isolated opinion for which Spiritism cannot assume the responsibility. It is the concordant, collective teaching of the spirits who have passed beyond, which constitutes the logical criterion, and which gives strength to the spiritual doctrine, assuring to it perpetuity. In order to change it, it would be necessary that the universal experience and teachings of spirits should change, and the day come when they would contradict what they have previously declared. Since it has its source in the teachings of the spirits, to cause it to fail would necessitate a cessation in the existence of the spirits. Thus established, it must prevail over every personal system which has not, like it, roots extending in all directions. "The Book of Spirits" has seen its credit consolidate, because it is the expression of a general collective thought. In the month of April, 1867, it accomplished its first decennial period. In this interval, the fundamental principles which form its base have been successively completed and developed by following progressive teachings of the spirits; but not one of its declarations has received contradiction through the trial. All without exception have remained firm, stronger than ever; while, among all the contradictory ideas with which persons have tried to oppose them, not one has prevailed, because on all sides the spiritual teachings was confirmatory. This characteristic result we can proclaim without vanity, as its merit is not attributable to us. Similar circumstances have presided at the editing of our other works. Thus we have been able in all truth to tell the public that they are in accordance with Spiritism itself, owing to their conformity with the general teachings of the spirits. In this volume we can present under similar conditions the complement of the precedents, with the exception, however, of some theories yet hypothetical, which we have taken care to indicate as such, and which ought not to be considered as other than individual opinions until they have been confirmed. If they be contradicted, the responsibility of them does not rest upon the general doctrine. Yet the constant readers of the "Revue" ¹ will have observed that most of the ideas only outlined in preceding articles are enlarged upon and developed in this last work. The "Revue" is often for us a trial-ground, destined to sound the opinions of men and spirits upon certain principles, before admitting them as constituent parts of the doctrine.
INTRODUCTION
THIS new work is one step more in advance in the effects and applications of Spiritism. As its title indicates, its object is the study of three points diversely commented upon and interpreted even to this day, - "Genesis, Miracles, and Prophesies" in their relations with the recently known laws which are revealed through the observation of spiritual phenomena. Two elements, or we may say two forces, govern the universe, - the one the spiritual, the other the material, element. By the simultaneous action of these two principles are developed some special phenomena, which are naturally rendered inexplicable if one abstracts either of them, just as the formation of water would be inexplicable if one should take away one of its two constituent elements, oxygen and hydrogen. Spiritism, in demonstrating the existence of the spiritual world and its relations with the material world, furnishes the key to a multitude of unknown phenomena, which are considered as inadmissible by a certain class of thinkers. The record of such facts abounds in the Scriptures; and it is in default of knowledge concerning the laws that govern them that commentators of the two opposing parties, moving always in the same circle of ideas, -some abstracting positive gifts from science, others from the spiritual principle, - have not been able to arrive at any rational solution.
The solution is found only in the reciprocal action of spirit and mater. It takes away, it is true, the greater part of the supernatural character of these facts. But which is the more valuable method, - to admit them as springing from the laws of nature, or to reject them entirely? Their absolute rejection removes the base from the edifice; while their admission as facts, suppressing only the accessories, leaves the base intact. This is why Spiritism leads so many people to a belief in truths which they formerly considered Utopian ideas. This work is then, as we have said before, a complement of the applications of Spiritism to this point of special view. The materials were ready, or at least elaborated, a long time since; but the moment for their publication had not arrived. It was necessary at first that the ideas which were to form the base should arrive at maturity; and, moreover, it was necessary to take advantage of circumstances.
Spiritism has neither mysteries nor secret theories. It can bear the full light of day so that every one can judge of it by a knowledge of its laws; but every thing must come in its own time in order to win its way. A solution given lightly, prior to the complete elucidation of the question, would be a retarding force, rather than a means of advancement. In the matter in question the importance of the subject makes it a duty to avoid all precipitation.
Before entering into the subject, it has appeared necessary to us to define distinctly the respective roles of spirits and men according to the new doctrine. These preliminary considerations, which discard all ideas of mysticism, form the subject of the first chapter, entitled "Character of the Spiritual Revelation." We call serious attention to this point, because it is in a measure the knot of the question. Notwithstanding the work incumbent upon human activity in the elaboration of this doctrine, the initiative belongs to the spirits; cut conclusions are drawn from the personal opinion of no one of them. The truth can only be the resultant of their collective and concordant teachings. Without this united testimony, a doctrine could not lawfully be called the doctrine of the spirits; it would be merely that of one spirit, and would possess only the value of a personal opinion. General concordance in teaching is the essential character of the doctrine, the condition even of its existence. It is evident that all principles which have not received the consecration of general agreement can only be considered as a fractional part of this same doctrine, merely as a simple, isolated opinion for which Spiritism cannot assume the responsibility. It is the concordant, collective teaching of the spirits who have passed beyond, which constitutes the logical criterion, and which gives strength to the spiritual doctrine, assuring to it perpetuity. In order to change it, it would be necessary that the universal experience and teachings of spirits should change, and the day come when they would contradict what they have previously declared. Since it has its source in the teachings of the spirits, to cause it to fail would necessitate a cessation in the existence of the spirits. Thus established, it must prevail over every personal system which has not, like it, roots extending in all directions. "The Book of Spirits" has seen its credit consolidate, because it is the expression of a general collective thought. In the month of April, 1867, it accomplished its first decennial period. In this interval, the fundamental principles which form its base have been successively completed and developed by following progressive teachings of the spirits; but not one of its declarations has received contradiction through the trial. All without exception have remained firm, stronger than ever; while, among all the contradictory ideas with which persons have tried to oppose them, not one has prevailed, because on all sides the spiritual teachings was confirmatory. This characteristic result we can proclaim without vanity, as its merit is not attributable to us. Similar circumstances have presided at the editing of our other works. Thus we have been able in all truth to tell the public that they are in accordance with Spiritism itself, owing to their conformity with the general teachings of the spirits. In this volume we can present under similar conditions the complement of the precedents, with the exception, however, of some theories yet hypothetical, which we have taken care to indicate as such, and which ought not to be considered as other than individual opinions until they have been confirmed. If they be contradicted, the responsibility of them does not rest upon the general doctrine. Yet the constant readers of the "Revue" ¹ will have observed that most of the ideas only outlined in preceding articles are enlarged upon and developed in this last work. The "Revue" is often for us a trial-ground, destined to sound the opinions of men and spirits upon certain principles, before admitting them as constituent parts of the doctrine.
| ° ELECTRONIC BOOKS |
CHRISTIANITY AND SPIRITUALISM
The History of the Gospels
The Secret Doctrine of Christianity
Intercourse with the Spirits of the Dead
The New Revelation
Vitam Impendere Vero
By
LÉON DENIS
Author of
"Après La Mort, "Dans L'Invisible," ETC.
Translated from the French by
HELEN DRAPER SPEAKMAN
LONDON
PHILIP WELLBY
6 Henrietta Street Covent Garden
1904
This book is out of print indefinitely
1st Electronic Edition by
the
Advanced
Study Group of Spiritism
(GEAE)
2006
COMPLEMENTARY
NOTES
Note # 7
Note # 7
SPIRITUAL
PHENOMENA IN THE BIBLE
Much
stress has been laid on the prohibitions of Moses contained in
Deuteronomy, Exodus and Leviticus. Certain theologians of the present
day have quoted these prohibitions in condemning the study and practice
of spiritualism. But what Moses condemned were the magicians, the
soothsayers, the augurs, in a word, all that constitute magic, and all
this is also condemned by modern spiritualism.
The prohibitions of Moses could not apply to the intercourse between men and the spirits of the dead, since Moses knew nothing, or rather could say nothing, about survival. They had but one object, to preserve the Hebrews from the idolatrous practices of the neighboring peoples. Perhaps they were also directed against the abuse and evil use of evocations, for, in spite of Moses' orders, spiritualistic phenomena are frequently recorded in the Bible. The roll of the seers, the oracles, the sorceresses, of the inspired of all descriptions, is everywhere consider able. Do we not see Daniel, for instance, causing, by his prayers, mediumistic occurrences? (Daniel IX. 21). The book which bears his name is nevertheless held to be inspired.
How could the interdictions of Moses serve as an argument to the believers of today, when, during the first three centuries of our era, the Christians saw no objection to their intercourse with the invisible world.
St John says: "Believe not every spirit; but try the spirits, whether they are of God" ( I John IV. 1). This is not a prohibition, but quite the contrary.
The Hebrews, believing as they did that the soul of man vanishes away at death, or that it returns to the "scheol," never to leave it more (Job X. 21, 22), and that no revelation from beyond the tomb is possible, did not hesitate to attribute to God Himself all the manifestations. Consequently God intervenes at every moment in the Bible, and often in circumstances highly unworthy of Him.
It was the custom to consult seers on all the occurrences of daily life, for lost objects, for alliances, for enterprises of all sorts. We read in 1 Samuel IX. 9: "Beforetime in Israel, when a man went to inquire of God, thus he spake: Come and let us go to the seer, for he that is now called a prophet, was beforetime called a seer."
Was it then God who inspired all the answers of the seers? But the prophets and the seers were fallible and were often mistaken. How then can we reconcile these errors with the infallibility of God?
By some singular mood of contradiction possessed by those who denied the manifestations of the spirits, they often evoked the dead, thus admitting the facts after denying the cause which produced them. It is thus that Saul evoked the spirit of Samuel through the witch of Ender (1 Samuel XXIII. 6).
These cases show us, that, in spite of their ignorance of the soul and the future life, in spite of the prohibitions of Moses, certain Hebrews believed in survival and the possibility of communicating with the dead. It is thus easy to understand the inequality of inspiration among the prophets and their frequent errors due to the inspiration of more or less enlightened spirits. How is it that the Jewish authors never understood this? There is evidently no other explanation of the facts.
God being infinite wisdom, it is impossible to attribute to Him a doctrine which does not even inform man on such an essential point as his destiny beyond the tomb; whereas the spirits being but the souls of disembodied men, more or less pure and enlightened, possessed only a limited knowledge. Their inspiration given to the prophets, must necessarily show itself sometimes by powerful and elevated, and sometimes by vulgar and erroneous teachings.
Often, in their revelations, they were obliged to take into account the state of the times and the backward condition of the people to whom they were addressed.
Little by little, the beliefs of the Jews became enlarged and widened by contact with other peoples, more advanced in civilization.
The idea of survival and successive existences of the soul spread from Egypt into India and reached Judea. The Sadducees accused the Pharisees of having borrowed from the Orientals their belief in multiplicity of lives of the soul. This fact is attested by the historian Josephus (Antiq. Jud. I. XVIII). The Essenes and the Therapeuts professed the same doctrine. Perhaps there existed even at that time, in Judea, as was proved to exist later, behind the official doctrine, a secret and more complete doctrine, reserved for chosen intellects. ¹
However that may be, let us return to the spiritualistic facts mentioned in the Bible, which establish the relations of the Hebrews with the spirits of the dead, in conditions analogous to those we observe today.
As in our day, their mediums, whom they called prophets, were recognized as such on account of a special faculty (Numbers XII. 6) sometimes latent and requiring a special development, such as is still in use in spiritualistic groups; as in the case of Joshua, whom Moses "instructed" by the laying on of hands (Numbers XXVII. 15-23). This often occurs in the history of the Apostles.
As in the case of our mediums, the lucidity of the prophets is intermittent. "The most enlightened prophets," says Le Maistre de Sacy in his commentary on 1 Kings IV. 3, "have not always the faculty of prophecy" (see also Isa. XXIX. 10).
As in our day, the mediumistic connection was sometimes slow in establishing itself; Jeremiah waited ten days for an answer to his supplication (Jer. XLII. 7).
Others traded on their pretended lucidity to make money. We read in Ezequiel XIII. 1 and following: "Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel... Woe unto the foolish prophets, that follow their own spirit and have seen nothing... They have seen vanity and lying divination, saying, The Lord saith: "and the Lord hath not sent them; and they have made others to hope that they would confirm the word" (see also Micah III. 11 and Jer. V. 31).
In old Jewish days they often mad use of music to facilitate mediumship. Elisha asked for a minstrel, to enable him to prophesy (2 Kings III. 15); and darkness was regarded as propitious for this class of phenomena.
"The Lord hath said that He would dwell in the thick darkness," said Solomon, speaking of the Holy Place, at the time of the dedication of the temple (2 Chron. VI. 1); and indeed, it was in the same sanctuary that the manifestations often took place, the "cloud" showed itself there (2 Chron. V. 13, 14); and Zacharias there sees the angel who predicts to him the birth of his son (Luke I. 10 and following verses).
Appreciating to the full the gift of mediumship, it was sought, then as now, to cultivate it; only what is done today in a small way among spiritualists, was then done on a large scale; there were in Judea several schools for prophets, some predicting the future, others speaking to the people by inspiration to increase their religious zeal and exhort them to lead a moral life.
As for the phenomena themselves, even a cursory examination of the Bible stories will show us that they were of the same nature as those seen today.
Let us pass then rapidly in review, beginning with those which, having been in our day the first to call attention to the invisible world, are still regarded by certain superficial or little-informed observers, as representing spiritualism itself; we refer to the movement of objects without contact.
The Bible (2 Kings VI. 6), tells us that Elisha, by throwing in a piece of wood, caused an axehead to return to the surface of the water, and float.
As for levitation, this same Elisha, transported to the exiles near the river of Kedar (Ez. III. 14, 15), and Philip who disappeared suddenly from the eyes of the Ethiopian and was found at Azotus (Acts VIII. 39, 40) are remarkable instances.
We may cite, as a mediumistic writing, the Tables of the Law (Exodus XXXII> 15, 16). All the circumstances under which these tables were obtained proved super abundantly the intervention of the invisible world.
No less convincing is the inscription traced by a materialized hand, on the wall of the palace during a feast given by king Belshazzar (Daniel V.).
All the luminous phenomena observed today have also their parallels in the Bible, from the simple shining of the skin of Moses' face (Ex. XXXIV. 29, 30), or Christ at the Transfiguration, and the production of lights (Acts II. 3, and IX. 3,4), up to the complete apparitions which are innumerable in the Bible. (See, among others, in the second Book of the Maccabees, the apparition of the prophet Jeremiah and of the high priest Onias to Judas Maccabees.)
The magnetic cures are without number. Sometimes the fluidic action is sustained by prayer and faith, as in the case of Jairus' daughter, sometimes the magnetic fluid acts alone, the operator being unconscious of it (Mark V. 25-34); or again the cure is effected by the laying on of hands, or by means of magnetized objects (Acts XIX. 11, 12).
Mediumship by means of a glass of water, a present day occurrence, is found in these ancient narratives. What indeed, was the cup which Joseph used (Gen. XLIV. 5), and by "which he divined," if not the common glass of water or the crystal ball, or any other object presenting a polished surface, wherein present day mediums see pictures form themselves which are visible to them alone.
In the Bible, we find many cases of clairvoyance, comprising as today, dreams, intuitions, presentiments, etc., all forms of mediumship, which have at all times been very numerous, and which are constantly occurring under our eyes today (2 Kings VI. 8-12).
We must mention inspiration, that influx of lofty thoughts which comes to us from the beyond and gives to our words something superhuman. The men of Judea, those ardent-souled prophets, felt the benefits thereof, and it is due to this gift, this breath which animated their discourses, that the old Hebrew Bible has been so long considered a divine revelation.
The numerous blemishes, which show glaringly to the impartial observer, the weakness, the childishness of the advice, and the information demanded of God (Gen. XXV. 22, 1 Sam. IX. 6, 2 Kings I. 1-4, 1 Sam. XXX. 3-8) are all overlooked, whereas we would be rightly blamed for introducing such subjects in a spiritualistic group.
The cruelties approved, nay, even ordered by Jehovah, are forgotten, as well as the indecent details, in fact all that which in this book revolts us, or deserves our blame; and we remember only the moral beauties which it contains, and especially the expression of a living and passionate faith which awaits the reign of justice, if not for the present generation, who live only on hope, at least for those to come.
The prohibitions of Moses could not apply to the intercourse between men and the spirits of the dead, since Moses knew nothing, or rather could say nothing, about survival. They had but one object, to preserve the Hebrews from the idolatrous practices of the neighboring peoples. Perhaps they were also directed against the abuse and evil use of evocations, for, in spite of Moses' orders, spiritualistic phenomena are frequently recorded in the Bible. The roll of the seers, the oracles, the sorceresses, of the inspired of all descriptions, is everywhere consider able. Do we not see Daniel, for instance, causing, by his prayers, mediumistic occurrences? (Daniel IX. 21). The book which bears his name is nevertheless held to be inspired.
How could the interdictions of Moses serve as an argument to the believers of today, when, during the first three centuries of our era, the Christians saw no objection to their intercourse with the invisible world.
St John says: "Believe not every spirit; but try the spirits, whether they are of God" ( I John IV. 1). This is not a prohibition, but quite the contrary.
The Hebrews, believing as they did that the soul of man vanishes away at death, or that it returns to the "scheol," never to leave it more (Job X. 21, 22), and that no revelation from beyond the tomb is possible, did not hesitate to attribute to God Himself all the manifestations. Consequently God intervenes at every moment in the Bible, and often in circumstances highly unworthy of Him.
It was the custom to consult seers on all the occurrences of daily life, for lost objects, for alliances, for enterprises of all sorts. We read in 1 Samuel IX. 9: "Beforetime in Israel, when a man went to inquire of God, thus he spake: Come and let us go to the seer, for he that is now called a prophet, was beforetime called a seer."
Was it then God who inspired all the answers of the seers? But the prophets and the seers were fallible and were often mistaken. How then can we reconcile these errors with the infallibility of God?
By some singular mood of contradiction possessed by those who denied the manifestations of the spirits, they often evoked the dead, thus admitting the facts after denying the cause which produced them. It is thus that Saul evoked the spirit of Samuel through the witch of Ender (1 Samuel XXIII. 6).
These cases show us, that, in spite of their ignorance of the soul and the future life, in spite of the prohibitions of Moses, certain Hebrews believed in survival and the possibility of communicating with the dead. It is thus easy to understand the inequality of inspiration among the prophets and their frequent errors due to the inspiration of more or less enlightened spirits. How is it that the Jewish authors never understood this? There is evidently no other explanation of the facts.
God being infinite wisdom, it is impossible to attribute to Him a doctrine which does not even inform man on such an essential point as his destiny beyond the tomb; whereas the spirits being but the souls of disembodied men, more or less pure and enlightened, possessed only a limited knowledge. Their inspiration given to the prophets, must necessarily show itself sometimes by powerful and elevated, and sometimes by vulgar and erroneous teachings.
Often, in their revelations, they were obliged to take into account the state of the times and the backward condition of the people to whom they were addressed.
Little by little, the beliefs of the Jews became enlarged and widened by contact with other peoples, more advanced in civilization.
The idea of survival and successive existences of the soul spread from Egypt into India and reached Judea. The Sadducees accused the Pharisees of having borrowed from the Orientals their belief in multiplicity of lives of the soul. This fact is attested by the historian Josephus (Antiq. Jud. I. XVIII). The Essenes and the Therapeuts professed the same doctrine. Perhaps there existed even at that time, in Judea, as was proved to exist later, behind the official doctrine, a secret and more complete doctrine, reserved for chosen intellects. ¹
However that may be, let us return to the spiritualistic facts mentioned in the Bible, which establish the relations of the Hebrews with the spirits of the dead, in conditions analogous to those we observe today.
As in our day, their mediums, whom they called prophets, were recognized as such on account of a special faculty (Numbers XII. 6) sometimes latent and requiring a special development, such as is still in use in spiritualistic groups; as in the case of Joshua, whom Moses "instructed" by the laying on of hands (Numbers XXVII. 15-23). This often occurs in the history of the Apostles.
As in the case of our mediums, the lucidity of the prophets is intermittent. "The most enlightened prophets," says Le Maistre de Sacy in his commentary on 1 Kings IV. 3, "have not always the faculty of prophecy" (see also Isa. XXIX. 10).
As in our day, the mediumistic connection was sometimes slow in establishing itself; Jeremiah waited ten days for an answer to his supplication (Jer. XLII. 7).
Others traded on their pretended lucidity to make money. We read in Ezequiel XIII. 1 and following: "Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel... Woe unto the foolish prophets, that follow their own spirit and have seen nothing... They have seen vanity and lying divination, saying, The Lord saith: "and the Lord hath not sent them; and they have made others to hope that they would confirm the word" (see also Micah III. 11 and Jer. V. 31).
In old Jewish days they often mad use of music to facilitate mediumship. Elisha asked for a minstrel, to enable him to prophesy (2 Kings III. 15); and darkness was regarded as propitious for this class of phenomena.
"The Lord hath said that He would dwell in the thick darkness," said Solomon, speaking of the Holy Place, at the time of the dedication of the temple (2 Chron. VI. 1); and indeed, it was in the same sanctuary that the manifestations often took place, the "cloud" showed itself there (2 Chron. V. 13, 14); and Zacharias there sees the angel who predicts to him the birth of his son (Luke I. 10 and following verses).
Appreciating to the full the gift of mediumship, it was sought, then as now, to cultivate it; only what is done today in a small way among spiritualists, was then done on a large scale; there were in Judea several schools for prophets, some predicting the future, others speaking to the people by inspiration to increase their religious zeal and exhort them to lead a moral life.
As for the phenomena themselves, even a cursory examination of the Bible stories will show us that they were of the same nature as those seen today.
Let us pass then rapidly in review, beginning with those which, having been in our day the first to call attention to the invisible world, are still regarded by certain superficial or little-informed observers, as representing spiritualism itself; we refer to the movement of objects without contact.
The Bible (2 Kings VI. 6), tells us that Elisha, by throwing in a piece of wood, caused an axehead to return to the surface of the water, and float.
As for levitation, this same Elisha, transported to the exiles near the river of Kedar (Ez. III. 14, 15), and Philip who disappeared suddenly from the eyes of the Ethiopian and was found at Azotus (Acts VIII. 39, 40) are remarkable instances.
We may cite, as a mediumistic writing, the Tables of the Law (Exodus XXXII> 15, 16). All the circumstances under which these tables were obtained proved super abundantly the intervention of the invisible world.
No less convincing is the inscription traced by a materialized hand, on the wall of the palace during a feast given by king Belshazzar (Daniel V.).
All the luminous phenomena observed today have also their parallels in the Bible, from the simple shining of the skin of Moses' face (Ex. XXXIV. 29, 30), or Christ at the Transfiguration, and the production of lights (Acts II. 3, and IX. 3,4), up to the complete apparitions which are innumerable in the Bible. (See, among others, in the second Book of the Maccabees, the apparition of the prophet Jeremiah and of the high priest Onias to Judas Maccabees.)
The magnetic cures are without number. Sometimes the fluidic action is sustained by prayer and faith, as in the case of Jairus' daughter, sometimes the magnetic fluid acts alone, the operator being unconscious of it (Mark V. 25-34); or again the cure is effected by the laying on of hands, or by means of magnetized objects (Acts XIX. 11, 12).
Mediumship by means of a glass of water, a present day occurrence, is found in these ancient narratives. What indeed, was the cup which Joseph used (Gen. XLIV. 5), and by "which he divined," if not the common glass of water or the crystal ball, or any other object presenting a polished surface, wherein present day mediums see pictures form themselves which are visible to them alone.
In the Bible, we find many cases of clairvoyance, comprising as today, dreams, intuitions, presentiments, etc., all forms of mediumship, which have at all times been very numerous, and which are constantly occurring under our eyes today (2 Kings VI. 8-12).
We must mention inspiration, that influx of lofty thoughts which comes to us from the beyond and gives to our words something superhuman. The men of Judea, those ardent-souled prophets, felt the benefits thereof, and it is due to this gift, this breath which animated their discourses, that the old Hebrew Bible has been so long considered a divine revelation.
The numerous blemishes, which show glaringly to the impartial observer, the weakness, the childishness of the advice, and the information demanded of God (Gen. XXV. 22, 1 Sam. IX. 6, 2 Kings I. 1-4, 1 Sam. XXX. 3-8) are all overlooked, whereas we would be rightly blamed for introducing such subjects in a spiritualistic group.
The cruelties approved, nay, even ordered by Jehovah, are forgotten, as well as the indecent details, in fact all that which in this book revolts us, or deserves our blame; and we remember only the moral beauties which it contains, and especially the expression of a living and passionate faith which awaits the reign of justice, if not for the present generation, who live only on hope, at least for those to come.
¹ See "Après la Mort," p. 81, by same author.
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| ° SPIRIT
MESSAGES |
HEAVEN AND HELL
Or
The Divine Justice Vindicated in the Plurality of Existence
Concerning
The passage from the earthly life to spirit-life,
future rewards and punishments,
angels and devils, etc.
Followed by numerous examples of the state of the soul,
during and after death.
BEING THE PRACTICAL CONFIRMATION OF "THE SPIRITS' BOOK"
BY Allan Kardec
Translated from the Sixtieth Thousand - By Anna Blackwell
[London: Trubner & Co., Ludgate Hill - 1878]
Part Second - Examples
CHAPTER I
THE PASSAGE
Third Part
[The First and Second Part of this theoretical topic were published on the SM # 94 and SM # 95]
11. Very different is the position of the spirit of him who has become
dematerialized during his earthly life, even in cases in which death is
effected by the agency of the most painful maladies. The fluidic links
which unite his body and his perispirit, being already weakened, fall
asunder without shock; his confidence in the future, which he foresees
in thought (and sometimes even in reality), causes him to regard death
as a deliverance and his sufferings as a trial, appointed and accepted
beforehand, and of which he will understand the necessity and the
utility on his return to the spirit-world; hence there results, for
him, a calmness and resignation that soften the severest sufferings.
When death has taken place, the links which connected his spirit with
his fleshly body being instantly broken, no painful reaction takes
place in his consciousness; he feels, on awaking in the spirit-world,
free, lively, relieved of a heavy burden, and thoroughly happy in his
complete deliverance from physical pain.
12. In cases of violent death, the conditions under which the process
of separation is effected are not exactly the same. No partial
disaggregation of the elements of his personality having already
commenced the separation of his body and his perispirit, the organic
life is suddenly arrested when in full force; in such a case, the
disengagement of the perispirit only begins to be effected after death
has occurred, and, as in all other cases, can only be effected
gradually. *
The spirit unexpectedly seized upon by death, is, as it were, stunned by the suddenness of the
event; but, as he feels and thinks, he supposes himself to be still
living the earthly life, and he retains this illusion until he has come
to understand his real position. This intermediate state between the
life of the flesh and the life of the spirit-world is one of the most
interesting subjects of study that are offered to us by evocation,
because it presents to us the curious spectacle of a spirit who
mistakes his fluidic body for his fleshly body, and who experiences all
the sensations of organic life. It offers an infinite variety of
shades, according to the character, the knowledge, and the degree of
moral advancement of each spirit. It is of short duration for those
whose soul is purified, because, in their case, there has already been
a commencement of the liberating process, of which death, even the most
sudden, has only hastened the completion; but, for the others, this
situation is a terrible one. It is, especially, in the case of those
who have committed suicide, that this situation is the most painful.
The body adhering to the perispirit by every fiber, all the convulsions
of the former are repeated by repercussion in the soul, which thus
undergoes the most horrible sufferings.
13. The various states of the spirit at the moment of death may be
summed up as follows:-
The more slowly a spirit's disengagement is effected, the more severely
does he suffer; the rapidity with which his disengagement is effected
is in proportion to the degree of his moral advancement; for the spirit
whose soul is already dematerialized, whose conscience is pure, death
is but a momentary sleep, void of suffering, and the awaking from which
is unspeakable delightful.
14. In order that men may be induced to labor diligently to effect
their own purification, to repress their evil tendencies, and to
vanquish their worldly passions, they
must see the advantages which such a line of action will secure to them
in the future life; in order that they may be able to identify
themselves with that future life, to concentrate their aspirations upon
it, and to prefer it to the life of the earth, they must not only
believe in its existence, but must also understand it; they must be
able to contemplate it under an aspect which shall be in harmony with
their reason and their common sense, with their innate desire of
happiness, and with their highest idea of the greatness, goodness, and
justice of God. Of all the philosophic doctrines hitherto presented to
the human mind, spiritism is the one which exercises, in this respect,
the mos powerful influence, through the immovable faith which it gives
to those who really comprehend its scope and teachings.
The enlightened spiritist does not begin by believing; he believes
because he understands, and he
understands because the principles of spiritism approve
themselves to his judgment. Nevertheless, his belief is not merely the
assent of his reason; for the future life is a reality which is
displayed incessantly before his eyes, and which he sees and touches,
so to say, every moment; consequently, no doubt in regard to it can
enter his mind. The short span of his present life seems as nothing tom
him in comparison with the spirit-life of eternity, which he sees to be
his veritable life; and he therefore attaches but little importance to
the incidents of the road which is leading him thither, and he meets,
with resignation, the vicissitudes of which he comprehends both the
cause and the utility. His soul is raised above the trials and troubles
of his earthly existence by the direct relationships which he
cultivates with the invisible world around us; the fluidic links which
connect him with matter are thus gradually weakened, and a partial
loosening of those links, effected during the course of his present
existence, facilitates his passage from the life of the earth to the
life of the spirit-world. The mental clouding inseparable from the
transition is of brief duration in his case, because, as soon as he has
crossed the threshold of the spirit-world, he knows where he is;
nothing in that world seems foreign to him; he perfectly understands
the situation in which he finds himself.
15. Spiritism, assuredly, is not indispensable to the obtaining of this
result, and it makes no pretension to be the sole agent for securing
the wellbeing of the soul in the other life; but it facilitates the
attainment of that wellbeing through the knowledge it gives us, during
our present existence, of the nature and conditions of the
spirit-world, through the sentiments it inspires, and through the
determination which it awakens, in the minds of all who have sincerely
accepted its principles, to labor unremittingly for their mental and
moral advancement. It also gives, to every one, the means of
facilitating the disengagement of other
spirits at the moment when they are quitting their terrestrial
envelope, and of shortening their subsequent period of confusion, by
prayer and evocation. By sincere prayer, which is a spiritual magnetizing, we
assist the spirit who is passing away to obtain a more rapid
disaggregation of the perispiritual fluid; by evocation, conducted
wisely and prudently, and by addressing the spirit in words of kindness
and encouragement, we rouse him out of the state of torpor in which he
finds himself, and we help him to recover his self-consciousness more
quickly; if he be in a state of distress, we urge him to the repentance
which alone can shorten his sufferings.
In the examples
we are about to adduce, the happiness and unhappiness of spirit-life
are illustrated by the narratives of the spirits themselves, who thus
initiate us into the various phases of their realm of existence. We
have not sought to bring before the reader the personages, more or less
illustrious, of antiquity, whose position may have undergone
considerable change since the existence by which they are known to us,
and concerning whom it would be impossible to obtain sufficient proofs
of identity. We have, on the contrary, selected the experiences of
those whose earthly existence was passed amidst the ordinary
circumstances of the life of our own day, because it is from these that
the greatest sum of instruction can be drawn. The more nearly the
terrestrial existence of a spirit was related to our own, through his
social position, his employments, his relationships, etc., the more
closely does the narration of his experiences in the spirit-world come
home to us, and the easier is it for us to obtain a reasonable
probability of the identity of the narrator. The positions of common
life are those of the greater number, for which reason the experiences
of spirits whose earthly existence was passed in those positions are of
more general applicability; exceptional positions are less interesting
to the greater number, because they go beyond the sphere of their
thoughts and habits. We have, therefore, not sought to bring forward
illustrious names; if, among those whose statements we have selected,
some few are well known, the greater number are altogether obscure. To
have paraded renowned names would have added nothing to the
instructiveness of these recitals, and would probably have roused the
ill-will of the friends and connections of those who bore them. We
address ourselves neither to the inquisitive nor to the lovers of
scandal, but to those who sincerely desire light on the subject of the
future life towards which we are tending.
We might have multiplied these examples ad infinitum; but, being compelled
to restrict their number, we have chosen those which convey the
greatest amount of information in regard to the state of the
spirit-world, through the position of the spirit himself, or through
the explanations he is able to give us. The greater part of them are as
yet unpublished; some few of them, only, have been published in the Revue Spirite; of these, we have
suppressed all details not bearing directly on the aim of the present
work, and we have added the complementary explanations which have
subsequently been given in regard to them by our spirit-guides.
* Every occurrence, however sudden it may appear to us,
having been foreseen and provided for
by the over rulers, it follows that the duration of the union of
soul and body is determined at the moment of conception, and comes to
an end, on the arrival, and only on
the arrival, of the date appointed for its ending. The rapidity
with which, in some cases of death from what we improperly term
"accident," the spirit has announced himself as being completely free
of his fleshly body, proves the correctness of this view of the matter.
When sudden death is followed by a long persistence of the union
between the perispirit and the body, this persistence results from the
fact that the time appointed for the cessation of their union has not
yet arrived; and the suffering thus entailed on the spirit is at once
the predetermined expiation of some crime in his past and a lesson
needed for his future advancement. In cases of voluntary suicide, the
spirit appears to remain, as a general rule, riveted by his perispirit
to his decaying body, until the expiration of the period originally
appointed for the duration of their union. - TR.
Note
from the Editor:
The theoretical part of the above Chapter I is now concluded. However,
the examples of communications
from spirits in different conditions [Happy Spirits; Spirits in a Middling
Condition and Suffering Spirits],
will continue to be published on the following issues of the
Spiritist Messenger.
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CHAPTER
IV - SUFFERING SPIRITS
PUNISHMENT
[General description of the state of the guilty on their return to the spirit-world;
dictated at a meeting of the Spiritist Society of Paris, October, 1860.]
[The spirit is addressing the medium, who knew him during his earthly life]
PUNISHMENT
[General description of the state of the guilty on their return to the spirit-world;
dictated at a meeting of the Spiritist Society of Paris, October, 1860.]
WICKED, selfish,
obstinate spirits are given over, immediately after their death, to
harrowing doubts in regard to their present and future destiny. They
look around them, and as they do not at once perceive any object on
which to wreak their evil tendencies, they are seized with despair, for
isolation and inaction are intolerable to evil spirits. They next begin
to examine more carefully the surroundings amidst which they find
themselves; they soon perceive the prostration of the weaker spirits
who are undergoing punishment, and they attach themselves to these as
to a prey, arming themselves against them with the memory of their past
misdeeds, of which they remind them incessantly by mocking gestures.
This derisory pantomime not sufficient for their malice, they swoop
down upon the earth like famished vultures. They seek out, among
mankind, the souls they think most likely to offer an easy road to
their temptations, they take possession of such, stimulating their
cupidity, striving to extinguish their faith in God and immortality;
until, having obtained the mastery of their conscience, they draw them
into every sort of evil.
The backward spirit who is thus able to exercise his malice is almost happy; he only suffers when he is unable to act, or when his efforts are frustrated by the action of superior spirits.
Meantime, centuries succeed to centuries; the evil spirits at length, finds himself suddenly invaded by darkness. His circle of action closes round him like a prison; his conscience, hitherto passive, pierces him with its torturing stings. Reduced to inaction, carried away by a whirlwind of regrets and apprehensions, he wanders he knows not whiter, possessed with shuddering terror. Presently, a sense of emptiness pervades his being; a frightful void seems to yawn around him; the moment for commencing his expiation has come. Reincarnation stares him in the face, with all its horrors; he beholds, as in a mirage, the terrible trials to which he is about to be subjected; he would fain shrink back, but he is drawn onwards by a force superior to his own. Hurled down into the yawning abyss of fleshly life, he sinks through the horror of emptiness until the vale of oblivion envelopes him like a shroud. Born again into the life of the earth, he lives, he acts, he is again guilty of evil deeds; he is tormented by vague reminiscences that he cannot account for, by fitful presentiments that make him tremble, but that do not yet suffice to induce him to quit the path of evil. Extended on a prison couch, or on a luxurious bed (what matters it which?), the dying reprobate becomes aware, under his seeming unconsciousness, of a whole world of forgotten thoughts and sensations that are coming to life and moving within him. Under his closed eyelids, he sees a light that is not of earth; he hears strange sounds; his soul, about to quit his body, is uneasy and agitated, his stiffened hands clutch vainly at the coverings under which he is lying. He tries to speak; he would fain shriek, to those about him, "Hold me back! I see my chastisement!" But the power of speech no longer exists for him; death settles on his pallid lips; and those about him whisper "He is at rest!"
But, no; he hears all they say; he hovers around the mortal body that he is unwilling to abandon; an occult force draws him away; he sees; and
he recognizes what he sees as something he has seen before. Wild with terror, he leaps forth into space, seeking a refuge in which to hide himself! But there is no refuge, no retreat, for him! Other spirits soon find him out and render to him the evil he has formerly done to others; chastised, mocked at, filled with shame and confusion in his turn, he wanders disconsolate, and he will continue to wander thus until a ray of the Divine Light can find an entrance into the soul that begins to weary of its obduracy, showing it the Divine Avenger as the Divine Victor of all evil, as the judge whose sentence can only be reversed by repentance and expiation.
NOVELThe backward spirit who is thus able to exercise his malice is almost happy; he only suffers when he is unable to act, or when his efforts are frustrated by the action of superior spirits.
Meantime, centuries succeed to centuries; the evil spirits at length, finds himself suddenly invaded by darkness. His circle of action closes round him like a prison; his conscience, hitherto passive, pierces him with its torturing stings. Reduced to inaction, carried away by a whirlwind of regrets and apprehensions, he wanders he knows not whiter, possessed with shuddering terror. Presently, a sense of emptiness pervades his being; a frightful void seems to yawn around him; the moment for commencing his expiation has come. Reincarnation stares him in the face, with all its horrors; he beholds, as in a mirage, the terrible trials to which he is about to be subjected; he would fain shrink back, but he is drawn onwards by a force superior to his own. Hurled down into the yawning abyss of fleshly life, he sinks through the horror of emptiness until the vale of oblivion envelopes him like a shroud. Born again into the life of the earth, he lives, he acts, he is again guilty of evil deeds; he is tormented by vague reminiscences that he cannot account for, by fitful presentiments that make him tremble, but that do not yet suffice to induce him to quit the path of evil. Extended on a prison couch, or on a luxurious bed (what matters it which?), the dying reprobate becomes aware, under his seeming unconsciousness, of a whole world of forgotten thoughts and sensations that are coming to life and moving within him. Under his closed eyelids, he sees a light that is not of earth; he hears strange sounds; his soul, about to quit his body, is uneasy and agitated, his stiffened hands clutch vainly at the coverings under which he is lying. He tries to speak; he would fain shriek, to those about him, "Hold me back! I see my chastisement!" But the power of speech no longer exists for him; death settles on his pallid lips; and those about him whisper "He is at rest!"
But, no; he hears all they say; he hovers around the mortal body that he is unwilling to abandon; an occult force draws him away; he sees; and
he recognizes what he sees as something he has seen before. Wild with terror, he leaps forth into space, seeking a refuge in which to hide himself! But there is no refuge, no retreat, for him! Other spirits soon find him out and render to him the evil he has formerly done to others; chastised, mocked at, filled with shame and confusion in his turn, he wanders disconsolate, and he will continue to wander thus until a ray of the Divine Light can find an entrance into the soul that begins to weary of its obduracy, showing it the Divine Avenger as the Divine Victor of all evil, as the judge whose sentence can only be reversed by repentance and expiation.
GEORGE
A truer, more eloquent, more terrible picture of the fate of the evil-doer was never drawn. Is there any need of adding, to the horrible sufferings thus portrayed, the phantasmagoria of material flames and physical pictures?
A truer, more eloquent, more terrible picture of the fate of the evil-doer was never drawn. Is there any need of adding, to the horrible sufferings thus portrayed, the phantasmagoria of material flames and physical pictures?
[The spirit is addressing the medium, who knew him during his earthly life]
I am going to tell
you what I went through with in dying. My spirit, held to my body by
the bonds of materiality, had great difficulty in getting free; this
was a first and very severe distress. The physical life, which I had
quited at the age of twenty-four, was still so strong in me that I had
no idea I had been withdrawn from it. I searched about for my body, and
was both astonished and alarmed at finding myself lost in the midst of
a crowd of shadows. At length, I was suddenly struck with the
consciousness of my state and the remembrance of the misdeeds done by
me in all my incarnations; a pitiless light illuminated the most secret
recesses of my sou, which, feeling itself naked, was seized with overwhelming
shame. I sought to escape from this misery by directing my attention to
the objects - new, and yet known to
me - with which I was surrounded. Radiant spirits, floating
through the ether, showed me happiness to which I could not aspire;
dark and frightful forms - some of them plunged in gloomy despair,
others mocking or furious - were gliding about me, and upon the earth
to which I remained attached. I saw the movements of the people in the
world, and I envied their ignorance of the other life with which they
are in unconscious relationship; a whole order of sensations, unknown,
or rather, recovered,
suddenly invaded my being. Drawn along by an irresistible force, trying
to fly from the tortures that beset me, I rushed madly forward,
regardless of the elements, regardless of physical obstacles; and
neither the beauties of nature nor the splendors of the celestial
regions could allay, for a single instant, the torments of may
conscience and the terror caused me by the revelation of eternity. A
mortal may form some idea of physical tortures from the shuddering of
the flesh; but your fragile sorrows - softened by hope, tempered by the
incidents of your earthly life, put an end to by forgetfulness - cannot
give you the faintest notion of the anguish of a soul that suffers
without cessation, without hope, without repentance! I remained, for a
length of time that I am unable to measure, envying the happy spirits
of whose splendors I sometimes obtained glimpses, detesting the evil
spirits who pursued me with their mocking, despising the human beings
whose turpitudes I witnessed, passing from the deepest prostration to
insensate revolt.
At last, you called me; and, for the first time, a feeling of gentleness and tenderness appeased my suffering. I listened to the teachings given you by your guides; my eyes were opened to the truth; I prayed, and God heard me! He has now revealed Himself to me by His mercy, as He had previously revealed Himself to me by His justice.
July 30th - I am now less unhappy, for I no longer feel the chain that held me to my body. I am free, at last; but I have not completed my expiation; I must make up for lost time, if I would not prolong my sufferings. I trust that God will see the sincerity of my repentance and grant me His forgiveness. Pray for me still, I beg of you.
Men, my Brothers! I lived only for myself; now I am expiating this wickedness, and I suffer! May God give you grace to avoid the thorns by which I am torn! Walk in the broad road of holiness and pray for me; for I made a bad use of the possessions which God lends to His creatures!
He who sacrifices his intelligence and his higher sentiments to his animal instincts assimilates himself to the animals. Man should use with sobriety the property of which he is only the depositary; he should accustom himself to live exclusively for the eternity that is awaiting him, and he should consequently detach himself from material enjoyments. His food should have no other aim than that of sustaining his vitality; his luxury should be strictly subordinated to the necessities of his position; his tastes, and even his natural tendencies, should be regulated by his reason; for, without this mastery of his animal nature, he debases instead of purifying himself. Human passions are a narrow bond that cuts into the flesh; be careful, therefore, not to tighten it. Live, but be not high livers. You know not what such abuses cost when we return to the native land of the soul! Terrestrial passions strip us of everything before they leave us, and we arrive in the presence of God naked, entirely naked. Rid yourselves, therefore, of those passions, and clothe yourselves with good deeds; they will aid you to cross the space that separates you from eternity. They will hide your human weaknesses with a shining mantle. Clothe yourselves with charity and love, divine garments of which nothing can deprive you!
This
spirit is on the right road, since, to his repentance, he adds the
giving of good advice in regard to the dangers of the evil road he
formerly followed. To acknowledge one's fault is, in itself,
meritorious, and is a first step on the road to reformation; and for
this reason, his situation, though not one of happiness, is no longer
that of a "suffering spirit." He repents; and he is therefore becoming
fitted to make the reparation which he will accomplish in another life
of trial. Would you know what, before reaching that point, is the
situation of the spirits of those whose earthly life, altogether
sensual, has failed to excite their spirit to any other activity than
that of incessantly inventing new pleasures of the sensual order? The
influence of matter follows them beyond the grave; their appetites are
left intact by death, but, their range of vision being as narrow as
upon the earth, they seek in vain for the means of satisfying them.
Never having cultivated mental and moral pleasures, their soul wanders
through space - which is a void for them - without aim, without hope, a
prey to the anxiety of one who sees before him no other perspective
than that of an illimitable desert. The nullity of their intellectual
occupations during the life of the body has its natural result in the
nullity of the working of their spirit after death. Unable any longer
to satisfy their body, they are incapable of procuring any satisfaction
for their soul; hence arises, for them, a crushing weariness of which
they cannot foresee any termination, and to escape from which they
would gladly accept annihilation. But
there is no annihilation; they have been able to kill their
body, but they cannot kill their soul; they are therefore obliged to
live on, undergoing all this mental torture, until, vanquished by
lassitude, they at length determine to turn towards their Maker.
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[Published on the May Newsletter 2008 of the Spiritist Society of Florida]
At last, you called me; and, for the first time, a feeling of gentleness and tenderness appeased my suffering. I listened to the teachings given you by your guides; my eyes were opened to the truth; I prayed, and God heard me! He has now revealed Himself to me by His mercy, as He had previously revealed Himself to me by His justice.
NOVEL
Regrets
of one who had indulged in high living
[Bordeaux, April 19th, 1862]
[Bordeaux, April 19th, 1862]
July 30th - I am now less unhappy, for I no longer feel the chain that held me to my body. I am free, at last; but I have not completed my expiation; I must make up for lost time, if I would not prolong my sufferings. I trust that God will see the sincerity of my repentance and grant me His forgiveness. Pray for me still, I beg of you.
Men, my Brothers! I lived only for myself; now I am expiating this wickedness, and I suffer! May God give you grace to avoid the thorns by which I am torn! Walk in the broad road of holiness and pray for me; for I made a bad use of the possessions which God lends to His creatures!
He who sacrifices his intelligence and his higher sentiments to his animal instincts assimilates himself to the animals. Man should use with sobriety the property of which he is only the depositary; he should accustom himself to live exclusively for the eternity that is awaiting him, and he should consequently detach himself from material enjoyments. His food should have no other aim than that of sustaining his vitality; his luxury should be strictly subordinated to the necessities of his position; his tastes, and even his natural tendencies, should be regulated by his reason; for, without this mastery of his animal nature, he debases instead of purifying himself. Human passions are a narrow bond that cuts into the flesh; be careful, therefore, not to tighten it. Live, but be not high livers. You know not what such abuses cost when we return to the native land of the soul! Terrestrial passions strip us of everything before they leave us, and we arrive in the presence of God naked, entirely naked. Rid yourselves, therefore, of those passions, and clothe yourselves with good deeds; they will aid you to cross the space that separates you from eternity. They will hide your human weaknesses with a shining mantle. Clothe yourselves with charity and love, divine garments of which nothing can deprive you!
Commentary
by the Medium's Guide
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Spirit
communication by Julie L. Harper
[Published on the May Newsletter 2008 of the Spiritist Society of Florida]
Do not
rely solely on words within the covers of books or from the
mouths of eloquent speakers. Great wisdom is accessible to
all who seek answers from within.
Wisdom
comes from the nurturing, and subsequent growth, of one’s
soul. It
rests within the silence of your heart as a rightful treasure gifted to
you by God.
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| ° ARTICLES |
IAN STEVENSON
Department of Psychiatric Medicine
University of Virginia Health System
Charlottesville, VA, USA
Department of Psychiatric Medicine
University of Virginia Health System
Charlottesville, VA, USA
To begin with a definition, the word paranormal means communication without the currently recognized sensory processes; it may also refer to physical movements without the recognized physical processes. For centuries, phenomena now described as paranormal occurred and were described. Most historians of the subject agree, however, that systematic inquiries about such occurrences did not begin until 1882, when the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) was founded in London. Its founders openly stated their intention to investigate unusual phenomena.
I am a latecomer in this field, because my activity in it did not begin until I had already established myself in conventional psychiatry. I had had training in that specialty and in psychosomatic medicine. My research and training enabled me to advance in academic positions; in 1957 I was appointed professor and Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia.
How I reached that position requires a short digression. From birth on I suffered from repeated bouts of bronchitis and spent much time in bed. The illnesses held me back, but I read a great deal, and my succoring mother kept restoring my health. I have an unusually retentive memory, and in phases of good health I jumped ahead of my peers scholastically. Professors like superior students, and I became a favorite of some at McGill University. After I had recovered from several bouts of pneumonia, one of the professors advised me to leave the cold of Canada for the warmth of Arizona. While in Arizona, I somehow learned to improve my health. Thereafter, I resumed a normal upward path in training and academic placement.
On the way up I acquired some reputation as a maverick. This epithet seemed appropriate for someone who questioned the assumption, held then dogmatically by most psychiatrists, that human personality is more plastic in infancy and childhood than it is in later years (Stevenson, 1957). The publication of my challenge to this doctrine annoyed many of my colleagues in psychiatry and even enraged a few. For me, the reception of my article on this subject provided useful training for responding to the rejection of my studies of paranormal phenomena.
About the time of my appointment to the University of Virginia I returned to an earlier interest. In childhood I was exposed to reports of paranormal phenomena through reading in my mother’s extensive library about oriental religions and theosophy, the latter of which was a derivative of Buddhism and Hinduism. My training in medicine brought me some understanding of scientific methods, and I began to ask myself about the evidence for the unusual phenomena reported in the books I had read. It did not seem conclusive, but it also did not seem negligible. So I read more about psychical research, especially in the works of the founders of the SPR, such as Frederic Myers and Edmund Gurney, for whom I
developed an abiding admiration. I also became acquainted with the leaders of the American Society for Psychical Research, which was a younger sister, so to speak, of the SPR. In this group C. J. Ducasse and Laura Dale especially earned my gratitude by showing me that skepticism about some evidence for paranormal phenomena did not exclude acceptance of other evidence.
I needed their guidance. My first publications in the field were book reviews, and one of the first of these almost exposed my inexperience publicly. I wrote a review of a book entitled The Third Eye: The Autobiography of a Tibetan Lama. Its author claimed to have been a Tibetan lama endowed with immense paranormal powers. I was taking him seriously until, just in time, I learned that the author of this book was an Englishman who had never been to Tibet, much less come from there. I modified my review (Stevenson, 1958).
Writing about a subject provides an excellent means of learning about it. Accordingly, I learned much bywriting and then publishing in Harper’s Magazine a review article about parapsychology entitled ‘‘The Uncomfortable Facts about Extrasensory Perception’’ (Stevenson, 1959). This earned the approval of Dr. J. B. Rhine, who was then director of a research laboratory at Duke University. (Rhine had renamed the field, or at least his substantial part of it, ‘‘parapsychology.’’ Of this, he and his wife, Dr. Louisa Rhine, were undisputed sovereigns.)
In 1959 I visited the Rhines and their associates. After the conventional morning coffee with general conversation about parapsychology, Louisa Rhine led me into a side room for a private conversation. There she explained to me her belief that nothing substantial could ever be made of reports of individual cases. In her view, they were all worthless as scientific evidence. In my article in Harper’s Magazine I had mentioned individual case reports and wrote that at least some of them deserved the attention of investigators. Louisa Rhine generously hoped to save me from futile endeavors. Her warning came too late. Some of the reports I read by the earlier psychical researchers of what were then called ‘‘spontaneous cases’’ had deeply impressed me. Despite her strictures about them, Louisa Rhine nevertheless studied spontaneous cases herself, but she did this almost exclusively only on the percipient’s side of a case. The earlier investigators, however, had investigated both the senders (or agents) and the
percipients (receivers) of the experiences. They noticed similar features in many of the cases reported. Among these were a high incidence of sudden, often violent, death (or other serious crisis) in the agent and a familial or other emotional link between the two participants in a case.
I decided to investigate cases that came to my attention and began to publish reports of them. At this time—the late 1950s—an earlier interest that I had in reincarnation revived, and I quickly learned that few cases suggestive of reincarnation had been investigated. One of the few exceptions was a report of four cases published by an Indian investigator in a French journal (Sunderlal, 1924). (I later learned the author had first offered his report to an American journal, which had rejected it.) I thought perhaps even uninvestigated cases would reveal some feature of interest. I therefore examined the published details of 44 reports of claims to remember a previous life. I had come across these in newspapers,
magazines, and books. Most of these reports gave few details, and almost none offered any verified (or even verifiable) evidence. I winnowed the 44 cases by excluding those in which the subject and presumed deceased person were related or well acquainted and those in which the subject made six or fewer statements about the claimed past life. Of the remaining 28 cases, the age of first speaking about the previous life was known in 25. In 22 of these, the claimed memories had first been uttered when the subject was a child less than 10 years of age. This seemed worth wider attention. Accordingly, I published (in the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research) a two-part article on these cases and
recommended that more such children should be sought and their claims investigated (Stevenson, 1960a,b).
It never occurred to me then that I would be the person to initiate the investigations that I advocated. I was too busy: administering a department, caring for patients, and engaged in other research. My paper had, however, come to the attention of two persons whose interest and support it stimulated. They influenced my life profoundly.
The first of these persons, Eileen Garrett, was both a spiritualist medium and a remarkably successful entrepreneur. She had persuaded a wealthy donor to establish the Parapsychology Foundation, of which Eileen was the President. I first met her in about 1957 and, at the time, mentioned my interest in reincarnation. Early in 1961 she telephoned me and said that she had received a report of a child in India who claimed to remember a previous life. The child seemed to be like the ones I had mentioned in my article. Garrett asked me whether I would be interested in going to India to investigate the child’s claims. The Parapsychology Foundation would pay my expenses. I accepted her suggestion, with the understanding that I could only go to India during my vacation, in August. When August came, I went to India and spent four weeks there and then about a week in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Before leaving for Asia, I had some fragmentary information about three or four other cases in India and about two in Sri Lanka. This information did not prepare me, however, for the surprise of finding an abundance of cases in both countries. By the time I left Asia I learned of no fewer than 25 cases in India and seven in Sri Lanka. In less than five weeks, I could not adequately investigate all these cases and so selected a few to study carefully. I noted the locations and a few details about the other cases.
A second surprise for me during this first trip to India came when I learned that the cases consisted of much more than a child’s claim to remember a previous life. The children also showed behavior that was unusual in their families and that, in those cases in which the claims were verified, matched the behavior of the deceased persons the children claimed to have been. My first journey to Asia therefore showed the need for more journeys.
This brings me to the second important reader of my 1960 article in the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research. This was Chester F. Carlson, the inventor of xerography. He had trained as a scientist, and before his second marriage he believed, as most scientists did (and still do), that the mind is only a product of the brain and its properties entirely physical. His second wife, Dorris, had some capacity for extrasensory perception. She impressed her husband with her ability and also influenced him to support research into paranormal phenomena. Early in 1961 he offered funds for my research after I had already committed myself to going to India in August. I told him that I could not honestly accept additional funds at that time. (Before leaving for India I did nevertheless accept from him a few hundred dollars for a tape recorder.)
When my first work in India showed the need for further journeys there, it occurred to me that I could make those journeys if I could reduce the time I was then giving to clinical practice. Chester Carlson made this possible with annual gifts to the University of Virginia. In 1964 he made a particularly large donation that became the ‘‘deposit,’’ so to speak, for an endowed chair of which I was the first incumbent. It was, incidentally, one of the first such chairs at the University of Virginia. The funds of the endowed chair gave me more time for research, but the expenses of journeys to investigate cases still needed annual donations, which Chester Carlson also provided.
As a donor of funds for research, Chester Carlson was unusual, perhaps unique. He insisted on giving anonymously, but other donors have done this. Most donors, however, later remain detached from the details of the research they support. Chester Carlson, in contrast, followed the details of research—at least of what I was doing—with keen interest. He said he would like to observe some of my interviews, and he accompanied me on one of my field trips to Alaska, where I was studying cases among the Tlingit peoples. He sometimes asked questions, but was never obtrusive. He rarely made suggestions, but what he said always deserved attention. My friendship with him belongs among the most pleasant and also, as I shall explain, the most important of my memories.
The report of my first studies in Asia was in press when unexpectedly a man who had helped me with some cases was accused of cheating. Although the allegation applied to experiments with which I had nothing to do, suspicion spread to the work the accused man had done for me, and the editor stopped the printing of my report. I had had other interpreters besides the man accused of cheating, and, believing that the man had not cheated when working with me, I proposed to return to India and study the cases anew. Yet this entailed great additional expense, and I asked Chester Carlson’s advice. He encouraged me to return to India. I did this and, with new interpreters, showed the authenticity of the cases. The printing of my report was then resumed, and it was duly published as Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation (Stevenson 1966/1974a).
During the eight years of Chester Carlson’s support of my research (1961–68), I was still not exclusively committed to the study of paranormal phenomena. My bibliography shows my interest in psychiatry and psychosomatic medicine had not diminished. I had and still have a keen interest in the question of why a person develops one kind of illness instead of another kind. Papers touching on this subject could be published in conventional journals when studies of paranormal phenomena could not. In 1960 I published a book on interviewing (Stevenson, 1960/1971). A few years later I published another book, really a textbook, on psychiatric examinations (Stevenson, 1969).
In this period I widened my studies of paranormal phenomena beyond the children who claimed to remember past lives. For example, I investigated and published papers on apparitions, precognition, mediumship, and ‘‘psychic photography.’’ In 1970 I published my first book on paranormal phenomena, one on what I called ‘‘telepathic impressions’’ (Stevenson, 1970). (This gave Dr. Louisa Rhine, who reviewed the book, an opportunity to belittle more publicly the study of spontaneous cases.) My most important accomplishment of this period, however, was the mentioned publication in 1966 of my book Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation (Stevenson, 1966/1974a). This presented reports of the cases with abundant details about the informants for each case and what they had said about the subjects’ claims to have lived past lives.
In 1968 Chester Carlson died. I was just one of many persons who mourned his death as a personal loss. His friendship and that of his wife, Dorris, had enriched my life beyond measure. For me, however, his death also meant the end of his annual subsidies for my research. I remember thinking I would have to return to the other half of my career, the conventional one of research in psychiatry and psychosomatic medicine. Then, to the astonishment of a great many people, not least myself, we learned that Chester Carlson’s will bequeathed to the University of Virginia a million dollars for my research on paranormal phenomena. Not surprisingly, this provoked a controversy among the University administrators. I learned afterwards that some adversaries of my research had said that I could take the million dollars with me if I would leave the University. (No one said this directly to me.) The President of the University (Edgar Shannon) had not long before publicly cited an oft-quoted statement of Thomas Jefferson, written in 1820 as he was in the process of founding the university. ‘‘This institution,’’ Jefferson wrote, ‘‘will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it’’ (Lipscomb & Bergh, 1903: 303). Even the most obdurate opponents of my research did not dare act against Jefferson’s precept. My supporters therefore prevailed, and the University accepted Chester Carlson’s bequest. For this, I owe much to President Edgar Shannon and also to Thomas Hunter, then Chancellor of Medical Affairs.
Even before Chester Carlson’s death, I had decided that I wanted to devote full time to research on paranormal phenomena, particularly those suggesting life after death. In 1967 I resigned as Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry after negotiating the establishment of a small Division within the Department. I did not wish the word ‘‘parapsychology’’ in the title of the new Division, because I thought that would imply and even facilitate a separation from psychiatry and medicine. That, however, was exactly what my successor as Chairman seemed to wish—an insulating distance between our research and respectability. (Later, under a friendlier administration, I readily obtained authorization to change the
Division’s name to the one I had earlier wished: Division of Personality Studies.)
During the 1960s and through most of the 1970s, I worked alone at the University of Virginia. When I was in Asia, I had some excellent interpreters assisting me, but they all had regular occupations to which they returned as soon as I left. We needed more continuity. Chester Carlson’s bequest and some funds from other donors made it possible for me to engage a Research Assistant and to support other investigators.
The first of the other investigators was Gaither Pratt. He had for many years been a close associate of J. B. Rhine, but when Rhine retired from Duke University and established a private foundation (to which he took the funds then held by his laboratory), Pratt had no place in the foundation. At this point (1964) Chester Carlson offered to fund Pratt if we could find a place for him at the University of Virginia. I welcomed this proposal, but had to use all my diplomatic skill to persuade the Dean of the Medical School to agree with me. With some reluctance he did so, remarking as he did, that ‘‘This is something that we cannot keep private.’’
For five years after Chester Carlson’s death, Dorris Carlson gave the Division annual donations. This enabled us to continue supporting Gaither Pratt and two other able parapsychologists, Rex Stanford and John Palmer. The publications of these three researchers, then and later, provided an important chapter in the history of parapsychology. When, in 1973, Dorris Carlson withdrew her support, I was obliged to encourage my colleagues to find other positions.
Later, our fortunes revived, and in one way or another I could afford to have colleagues again. Bruce Greyson, Satwant Pasricha, Emily Kelly, and Antonia Mills came to me and in one or another way moved from being assistants to become independent investigators. More recently Jim Tucker joined our group and has already shown himself a prolific and highly competent investigator and author. I should here also mention Erlendur Haraldsson of the University of Iceland and Jrgen Keil of the University of Tasmania. They maintained their local academic positions, but received funding from our Division that enabled them both to work independently and to collaborate with me on some joint projects. Walker Cowen, founder and Director of the University of Virginia Press (to give its current name), became my publisher from 1970 until his death in 1987. He enabled me to put into print a substantial number of case reports that would otherwise still remain in typescript on my shelves. He acknowledged that my books ‘‘are for the future.’’ Unfortunately, he died before the future he expected had come, and his successor had a different opinion of what that future should be. I had to find a new publisher; but fortune favored me again and led me first to Praeger Scientific Publishers and then to Robbie Franklin of McFarland and Company.
Some of my later books were reviewed in general scientific journals, but most were not. Along the way, I have learned much about the power of book-review editors and that of editors also. For example, in 2000 I sent a review paper about the children who claim to remember past lives to David Horrobin, the editor of Medical Hypotheses. He founded this journal to provide a publication for deviant ideas and research on unconventional topics. It had referees, and he sent my paper to several of them. Then he wrote to me, saying he could not find anyone who would take my paper seriously, but he was going to publish it anyway, which he did (Stevenson, 2000).
I believe I am best known for my studies of children who claim to remember past lives. I cannot object to that, but I hope other investigators will continue some of the other approaches to the evidence for life after death that I explored. Here I am thinking of cases of responsive xenoglossy (unlearned language) about which I published two books (Stevenson, 1974b, 1984) and the combination-lock test (Stevenson, 1968). Fortunately, my successors are not bound by my ideas. Emily Kelly’s ongoing studies of mediumship show her independence.
In 1980 I met yet another man who greatly influenced my life. A colleague at the University of Virginia introduced me to Peter Sturrock, who explained to me his idea for what became the Society for Scientific Exploration. He invited me to join the Founding Committee, and I did so enthusiastically. The Society’s meetings and its Journal of Scientific Exploration provide a forum where research on paranormal phenomena can be presented to other scientists without obstruction or derision. The Society also welcomes presentations of research on many other phenomena neglected by most scientists. The founders of the Society believed, and I think they and their successors still believe, that the very existence of the Society challenges other scientific societies to liberalize their policies toward unconventional ideas and investigations. This has not yet happened.
Yet we must persist. I think we should do so uncomplainingly. I am myself weary of reading lamentations about Galileo, Wegener, Jenner, and numerous other scientists whose contemporaries at first rejected their novel ideas. We cannot expect all skeptics of new ideas to surrender as a whole, collapsing simultaneously like the walls of Jericho. Each of us must contend for our own new ideas. We are blessed that we can at least expose them to some other scientists through the opportunities afforded by the Society for Scientific Exploration.
The Society for Scientific Exploration offered me the first opportunities to report adequately two of my most significant investigations. I refer, first, to the birthmarks and birth defects that occur frequently in children who remember past lives, and, second, to what I believe are important residues of unusual behavior derived from past lives. Informants drew my attention to these two features of the cases as early as my first journey to Asia in 1961, and I find it now a source of chagrin that I did not publish full details of the birthmarks and birth defects until 1997 (Stevenson, 1997a,b).
Some readers of my publications may regard my monograph Reincarnation and Biology as my Meisterwerk. With regard to mere bulk (2 volumes, 2268 pages) no one would disagree. I hope, however, that the work is more than a compilation. It includes reports of cases and additional details about cases that I had not previously published. The chapter on twins (one or both of whom claim to remember a past life) may be one of the most important of all my publications. As for the behavioral residues of past lives, I have repeatedly drawn attention to their importance as a third component to the development of human personality, the other two being genes and the environment after conception (Stevenson, 1977, 2000). In a paper recently published (with Jrgen Keil) I have recurred to this important feature, which is well exemplified in the cases of children of Myanmar who remember previous lives as Japanese soldiers killed during World War II (Stevenson & Keil, 2005).
We often cannot identify important aspects of events as such when they happen. My second marriage provides a significant example of this. In 1985 I married Margaret Pertzoff, who was then a professor of history at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College. She was and remains an avowed skeptic of paranormal phenomena. She did not conceal her stance on the subject, but never allowed it to interfere with the happiness she brought me with our marriage. Her benevolent silences sometimes provided a valuable check on what might have otherwise become unwarranted enthusiasm on my part.
In 1997–98 I committed myself to a project that seemed foolhardy, but also had the possibility of making my research better known to the general public. I agreed to a writer’s request to accompany me on field trips in Asia. He would ‘‘look over my shoulder’’ as I conducted my interviews for the cases. He was to pay his own expenses and afterwards would be free to write about his experiences without censorship by me. This turned out well. The writer was Tom Shroder, who is now a senior editor with The Washington Post. Tom was a companionable traveler, and he endured well the frequent roughness of journeys in Lebanon and India. The book he wrote is entitled Old Souls: The Scientific Evidence for Past Lives (Shroder, 1999). It seems fair to me and, more importantly, fair to the children who claim to remember past lives. The book has indeed made better known the cases of these children.
My physical journeys are now over, at least for this life. Nonetheless, I do not regard the time I devoted to psychiatry and psychosomatic medicine as ill-spent. On the contrary, I think that it gave me a helpful preparation for whatever I have later accomplished in studying paranormal phenomena.
We all die of some affliction. What determines the nature of that affliction? I believe the search for the answer may lead us to think that the nature of our illnesses may derive at least in part from previous lives. The cases of children who claim to remember previous lives and who have related birthmarks and birth defects suggest this; some such children have related internal diseases. My own physical condition, defects of my bronchial tubes (from early childhood on) of which I have written separately (Stevenson, 1952a,b), has given me a personal interest in this important question. Let no one think that I know the answer. I am still seeking.
Acknowledgments
I wish first to thank Professor Henry Bauer for suggesting that I write this essay. I owe thanks also for helpful comments on drafts of the essay from Emily W. Kelly, Jim Tucker, and Patricia Estes.
References
Lipscomb, A. A., & Bergh, A. E. eds. (1903). The Writings of Thomas Jefferson. Vol. 15. Issued under the auspices of The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association of the United States. Washington, DC.
Shroder, T. (1999). Old Souls: The Scientific Evidence for Past Lives. Simon & Schuster.
Stevenson, I. (1952a). Illness from the inside. Harper’s Magazine, 204, 61–67.
Stevenson, I. (1952b). Observations on Illness from the Inside (Bronchiectasis). In Pinner, M., & Miller, B. (Eds.), When Doctors are Patients (Chapter 21). W. W. Norton & Co.
Stevenson, I. (1957). Is the human personality more plastic in infancy and childhood? American Journal of Psychiatry, 114, 152–161.
Stevenson, I. (1958). Book Review of The Third Eye: The Autobiography of a Tibetan Lama. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 52, 122–123.
Stevenson, I. (1959). The uncomfortable facts about extrasensory perception. Harper’s Magazine, 219, 19–25.
Stevenson, I. (1960a). The evidence for survival from claimed memories of former incarnations. part I. review of the data. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 54, 51–71.
Stevenson, I. (1960b). The evidence for survival from claimed memories of former incarnations. part II. analysis of the data and suggestions for further investigations. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 54, 95–117.
Stevenson, I. (1968). The combination lock test for survival. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 62, 246–254.
Stevenson, I. (1969). The Psychiatric Examination. Little, Brown & Co.
Stevenson, I. (1970). Telepathic Impressions. University Press of Virginia. (Also published in 1970 in Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research, Vol. 29.)
Stevenson, I. (1971). The Diagnostic Interview. 2nd rev. ed. Harper & Row. (First published in 1960 under the title Medical History-Taking. New York: Paul B. Hoeber, Inc.)
Stevenson, I. (1973). A communicator of the ‘‘drop in’’ type in france: The case of Robert Marie. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 67, 47–76.
Stevenson, I. (1974a). Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation. 2nd rev. ed. University Press of Virginia. (First published in 1966 in Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research, vol. 26.)
Stevenson, I. (1974b). Xenoglossy: A Review and Report of a Case. University Press of Virginia. (Also published in 1974 in Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research, Vol. 31.)
Stevenson, I. (1977.) The explanatory value of the idea of reincarnation. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 164, 305–326.
Stevenson, I. (1984.) Unlearned Language: New Studies in Xenoglossy. University Press of Virginia.
Stevenson, I. (1997a). Reincarnation and Biology: A Contribution to the Etiology of Birthmarks and Birth Defects. (2 vols.) Praeger Scientific Publishers.
Stevenson, I. (1997b). Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect. Praeger Scientific Publishers.
Stevenson, I. (2000). The phenomenon of claimed memories of previous lives: Possible interpretations and importance. Medical Hypotheses, 54, 652–659.
Stevenson, I., & Keil, J. (2005). Children of Myanmar who behave like Japanese soldiers: A possible third element in personality. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 19, 171–183.
Sunderlal, R. B. S. (1924). Cas apparents de re´miniscences de vies ante´rieures. Revue me´tapsychique, 302–307.
| ° NEWS,
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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS
The Spiritist Society of Baltimore
The Spiritist Society of Baltimore
June 29th - The New Generation: Spirituality for Children
The
central objective of the workshop is to deepen our understanding of our
children, youth, as much as ourselves. Dr. Anseloni introduces
practical teachings combining findings from The fields of Neuroscience,
Psychology and Spiritism. Based on her recent book (The New Generation
The Spiritist View on Indigo and Crystal Children) written with the
internationally Renowned medium, speaker and educator Divaldo Franco,
Dr. Anseloni will cover topics such as:
- Understanding Indigo and Crystal
- Indigo Children and ADHD
-The New Generation on Human Brain
- Cases on Indigo and Crystal Children
- Visualization for the New Generation and their mission
The
outcome of this experience shall change the way you view your children,
society and yourself.
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