REPRESENTATIONS OF THE AFTERLIFE
It is reported that certain savages depict posthumous existence exactly like earthly life, with the dead continuing to accomplish the same acts, hunting and fishing, making war, giving themselves up to all their habitual occupations, not forgetting eating and drinking. And to be sure, there is no lack of comment on the naïveté and boorishness of these conceptions. Actually, it is prudent to be always a little sceptical of reports concerning savages, and this for several reasons: first, the accounts of travelers, the only source of these stories, are often fanciful; second, someone who believes he is giving a true account of what he has seen and heard nevertheless may have understood nothing and, without being aware of it, may substitute his personal interpretation for the facts; and finally, there are the scholars, or so-called scholars, who superimpose their own interpretations as a result of preconceived ideas. What is obtained in elaborations of this kind is not what the savages think, but what they ought to think according to this or that 'anthropological' or 'sociological' theory. Things are less simple in reality, or rather they are complicated in a different way; for savages, just like the civilized, have their own ways of thinking which are difficult of access to people of other races. There are few resources for understanding savages or for ascertaining how well they are understood; generally, savages are hard pressed to explain their own mental processes, even granting that they know their own minds. As regards the assertions mentioned above, it is claimed that they are supported by many facts (which proves absolutely nothing), such as objects buried with the dead or offerings of
food placed on graves. Similar rites have existed and still exist among peoples who can in no way be considered savages, and these rites do not correspond to the crude conceptions of which they are believed to be evidence.
The real meaning is quite different from that attributed to them by European thinkers, and in reality, these rites concern only certain inferior elements of the human being. Savages, who in our view are not 'primitives' but rather degenerates, may have retained certain rites from a very distant past, but without understanding them; the meaning of their tradition has been lost to them and has become a matter of routine or of 'superstition' in the etymological sense of the word. In such conditions it is not difficult to imagine that some tribes (though one must not generalize overmuch) have come to visualize the future life more or less as reported above. But it is not necessary to go so far afield to discover, with even greater certainty, conceptions or rather descriptions exactly like those mentioned. In our time as much as in any other, they could probably be found among the lower classes even of peoples who boast of their civilization. If a search for such examples were made among the peasants of Europe, we believe the harvest would be abundant. Moreover, in the same countries the clearest examples, those that assume the most precise forms in their crudeness, are perhaps not furnished by the unlettered but rather by people having some education, some of whom are even regarded as 'intellectuals'. Descriptions of this kind are asserted with greater vigor among the spiritists than anywhere else-a curious topic for study which we recommend to sociologists who, at least here, will not run the risk of erroneous interpretations.
We cannot do better than begin by citing some extracts from Allan Kardec himself. This is what he has to say about the 'state of trouble' that follows immediately after death:
This trouble presents particular characteristics according to the character of the individual and especially according to the manner of death. In violent deaths, deaths by suicide, by torture, accident, apoplexy, wounds, etc., the spirit is surprised, astonished, and does not believe himself to be dead; he stubbornly maintains the contrary; nevertheless, he sees his body, he knows
it is his, and he does not understand that he is separated from it; he goes near loved ones, speaks to them, and does not understand why they do not hear him. This illusion lasts until the entire disengagement of the perispirit; only then does the spirit recognize and understand that he is no longer among the living. This phenomenon is easily explained. Caught unawares by death, the spirit is giddy from the abrupt change that has been wrought in him; for him, death is still a synonym for destruction, annihilation; now, since he thinks that he sees, that he hears, in his own understanding he is not dead; what augments his illusion is that he sees a body shaped like his previous body but has not yet had time to study its ethereal character; he believes it to be solid and compact like his first one; and when his attention is drawn to this he is astonished that he is unable to feel himself. . . . Some spirits behave thus even though death has not come unexpectedly; but this behavior is always more general among those who, though ill, had not thought of dying. One then sees the singular spectacle of a spirit following his own funeral procession as if it were that of a stranger, and speaking as if it were something of no concern to him, up to the moment when he understands the truth. . . . In the case of collective death, it has been observed that all those who perish at the same time do not always meet one another again immediately. In the trouble that follows death, each one goes his own way or concerns himself only with those in whom he is interested. [1]
And here is what might be called the daily life of the 'spirits':
The situation of the spirits and the way they view things is infinitely varied by reason of their moral and intellectual development. Generally, spirits of a superior order stay on the earth only for short periods; everything that takes place here is so petty in comparison with the infinite, things to which men attach the greatest importance are so childish in their eyes, that they find little that attracts them, unless they are called upon to cooperate in the progress of humanity. Often the spirits of a middling order
remain here for longer periods even though they consider things from a loftier point of view than when they were in this life. The coarser spirits are somewhat sedentary and make up the mass of the ambient population of the invisible world; they have kept almost the same ideas, the same tastes, and the same inclinations that they had while in their corporeal envelope; they join in our meetings, our work, our amusements, in which they take a more or less active part, according to their disposition. Unable to satisfy their passions, they take vicarious delight in those who do and urge them on. Among their number are those who are more serious and who see and observe in order to learn and perfect themselves. [2]
It seems indeed that these 'wandering spirits', that is, those awaiting a new incarnation, gather information 'in seeing and observing what happens in the places they pass through' and also 'by listening to the speeches of enlightened men and the advice of spirits superior to themselves, gaining ideas they did not previously have. [3] The peregrinations of these 'wandering spirits', instructive though they may be, have the disadvantage of being almost as fatiguing as earthly travel, but
there are worlds set apart for these wandering beings, worlds where they may stay temporarily, kinds of bivouacs or camps for rest from too much wandering, which is always a little painful. These are intermediary positions among the other worlds, graduated according to the spirits who may go there, and to a certain extent these spirits enjoy great well-being. [4]
Every 'spirit' cannot go just anywhere; here is how they themselves explain the relationships prevailing among them:
The spirits of different orders are seen by one another, but they differ one from another. They flee or approach according to the analogy or antipathy of their sentiments, as happens among us.
[5] Those of the same rank join together through a kind of affinity and form groups or families of spirits united by sympathy and by the ends they agree to pursue: the good by the desire to do good, the bad by the desire to do ill, by shame over their faults and the need to seek their own kind. Like a great city where men of every rank and condition meet and are of the same mind without being confused; where societies are formed on the basis of analogous tastes; where vice and virtue jostle one another without speaking. . . . The good go everywhere, and this must be so in order for them to exercise their influence on the evil; the regions inhabited by the good are forbidden to imperfect spirits, so that they may not bring trouble by their wicked passions. . . . The spirits see and understand one another; speech is material: it is the reflection of the spirit. The universal fluid establishes between them an uninterrupted communication; it is the vehicle for transmission of thought as air is for us the vehicle for sound, a sort of universal telegraph that unites all worlds and permits spirits to communicate from one world to another. . . . They confirm their individuality by the perispirit which makes them distinct from one another, as the body does among living men. [6]
One could easily multiply these citations, and add texts which show the 'spirits' intervening in almost all earthly events, and others that specify 'the occupations and missions of the spirits'; but that would quickly become tedious. Few books are as unbearable to read as is the generality of spiritist literature. We think the preceding extracts need no comment; we will only note once again the idea that the 'spirits' retain all the sensations of the living, because this is particularly important and constantly recurs. The only difference is that these sensations do not reach the spirits through special localized organs but by the entire 'perispirit'. And the most material faculties, those such as sense perception that are most dependent on
[7] the corporeal organism, are regarded as 'attributes of the spirit', which 'are part of his being.' [7]
After considering Allan Kardec, we do well to cite the most 'representative' of his current disciples, Léon Denis:
The spirits of an inferior order, enveloped in thick fluids, are subject to the laws of gravitation and are drawn toward matter. . . . Whereas the purified spirit ranges through a vast and radiant compass, sojourns as he pleases on the worlds and hardly perceives any limits to his flight, the impure spirit cannot distance himself from material spheres. . . . The life of the advanced spirit is essentially active, though without fatigue. Distances do not exist for him. He moves with the rapidity of thought. His envelope, like a light vapor, has acquired such subtlety that it becomes invisible to inferior spirits. He sees, hears, feels, perceives, not by material organs which are interposed between nature and ourselves and intercept the greater part of sensations, but directly, without intermediary, through all parts of his being. Also, his perceptions are much clearer and more intense than ours. The lofty spirit swims as it were in the bosom of an ocean of delicious sensations. Changing pictures unroll before his sight, charming harmonies lull and enchant him. For him, colors are perfumes, perfumes are sounds. But no matter how exquisite his perceptions, he can withdraw and recollect himself at will, enveloping himself in a fluid veil and isolating himself in the bosom of space. The advanced spirit is free from all corporeal needs. Nourishment and sleep serve no purpose. . . . The inferior spirits bring with them, beyond the grave, their habits, their needs, their material preoccupations. Unable to raise themselves above the earthly atmosphere, they return to partake of the life of men, become involved in their struggles, their works, their pleasures. . . . In the realm of wandering [erraticité] there are immense crowds always seeking a better state which escapes them. . . . It serves in a way as the vestibule of the luminous spaces of the better worlds. All pass through, all sojourn there, but so as to rise
[8] higher. . . . All the regions of the universe are peopled with busy spirits. Everywhere crowds, swarms of spirits rising up, descending, moving about in the bosom of light or in dark regions. At one point, listeners assemble to receive instructions from higher spirits. Further on, groups are formed to fête a new arrival. Elsewhere, other spirits combine fluids, giving them a thousand forms, a thousand mellow shades, preparing them for subtle uses intended by superior geniuses. Other crowds press around the spheres and follow them in their revolutions, gloomy and troubled crowds who, without knowing it, influence the atmospheric elements. . . . The spirit, being fluidic himself, acts upon the fluids of space. By the power of his will, he mixes them, disposes of them as he will, gives them the colors and shapes that answer to his intention. It is by means of these fluids that works defying all comparison and all analysis are executed: changing, luminous pictures; reproductions of human lives, lives of faith and of sacrifice, painful apostolates, dramas of the infinite. . . It is in these fluidic abodes that spiritual displays and feasts are unfolded. The pure spirits, dazzling with light, are grouped by families. Their brilliance, the variegated nuances of their envelopes, provide the means of measuring their ascendancy, of determining their attributes. . . . The superior rank of a spirit is recognized by his fluidic garment. It is like an envelope woven of the merits and qualities acquired in the succession of his existences. Dark and dull for the inferior soul, his whiteness increases in proportion to the progress he has realized and becomes purer and purer. Already brilliant with the lofty spirit, it gives to superior souls an unbearable splendor. [8]
Let no one say that these are only more or less figurative 'manners of speaking'; all this, for the spiritists, must be taken literally and rigorously.
However extravagant the French spiritists' conceptions of the future life may be, it seems that they are exceeded by those of the Anglo-Saxon spiritists, especially by what is recounted in a book
[9] entitled Summerland, as the 'abode of the spirits' is called. We said elsewhere that the Theosophists sometimes severely criticize this foolery, in which they are correct. Thus Annie Besant speaks of 'the coarsest of all the descriptions, those of modern Summerland, with its "husband-spirits", its "wife-spirits", its "children-spirits", going to school and to university, becoming adult spirits. [9] This is very proper, certainly, but one may ask if the Theosophists really have the right to mock the 'spiritualists'.
One can judge this by several citations taken from another eminent Theosophist, [Charles] Leadbeater:
Arriving on the astral plane after death, people do not understand that they are dead; and even if they become aware of it, they do not at first perceive how this world differs from the physical world. . . . Thus the recently deceased are sometimes seen trying to eat, preparing for themselves completely imaginary dinners, while others build houses. In the beyond I have definitely seen a man build for himself a house, stone by stone, creating each stone by an effort of thought; he had not understood that by the same process he could quite as easily have built the entire house at once without going to any more trouble. Discovering that the stones were weightless, he was led little by little to understand that the conditions of this new world were different from those to which he had been accustomed on earth, which led him to continue his examination. In Summerland [10] men surround themselves with landscapes which they create themselves; however, some avoid this effort and are contented with those that have already been imagined by others. Men who live on the sixth sub-level, that is to say near the earth, are surrounded with the astral counterpart of mountains, trees, and physical lakes, so that they are not moved to construct their own; those who inhabit higher sub-planes, who soar over the surface of the earth, create for themselves all the landscapes they wish. . . . An eminent
[11] materialist, well known during his life by one of our colleagues in the Theosophical Society, was recently discovered by the latter surrounded by all his books, pursuing his studies almost as he did on earth. [11]
Other than the complications of levels' and 'sub-levels' we can hardly see that there is any difference. It is true that Leadbeater is a former spiritist who may still be influenced by his previous ideas, but the same applies to many of his colleagues. Theosophists have really borrowed too much from spiritism to permit them to criticize the spiritists. It should be noted that they generally attribute socalled observations of this kind to 'clairvoyance', while the spiritists admit them on faith as simple 'communications'. Nevertheless, spiritism also has its 'seers', and what is awkward is that where there is divergence between the two schools, there is similar discord between the respective visions, those of one school being conformed to that school's own theories. No greater value can be granted them, therefore, than is granted the 'communications', to which the same conditions apply; in both, suggestion plays a preponderant role.
But let us return to the spiritists: the most extraordinary thing we know of in this kind of affair is a book entitled Mes expériences avec les esprits, written by an American of French origin, Henry Lacroix. This work, which was published in Paris in 1889, proves that the spiritists do not have the slightest sense of the absurd. Papus himself considered the author a 'dangerous fanatic' and wrote that 'reading this book is enough to drive any level-headed person away from spiritism. [12] Donald MacNab said 'those who are not enemies of a gentle gaiety have only to read this work to realize the extravagance of the spiritists' and he 'recommends this case especially to the attention of psychiatrists. [13] This lucubration must be cited almost in its entirety to show the point to which certain aberrations can go; it is truly unbelievable, and the recommendation of this book would
[14] certainly make excellent anti-spiritist propaganda for those not already infected with the spiritist contagion, but who might be attracted to it. Among other curiosities in the book is a description and drawing of the 'fluidic house' of the author (for if he is to be believed, he lives in both worlds simultaneously) and also portraits of his 'spirit-children' drawn by him 'under their mechanical control.' Out of fifteen children, he had lost twelve, but they had continued to live and grow 'in the fluidic world,' where some of them even married! In this connection, and according to the same author, 'in the United States there are frequently marriages between the living and the dead,' and he cites the case of a judge Lawrence who was remarried to his deceased wife by a pastor of his friends. [14] If this is true, it provides a sad idea of the mentality of American spiritists. Elsewhere we learn how the 'spirits' feed themselves, how they dress, how they build dwellings. But better perhaps are the posthumous manifestations of Madame de Giradin and several related episodes. Here is a sample:
It was night and I was busy reading or writing, when I saw Delphine [Mme de Giradin] come near me with a bundle in her arms, which she put down at my feet. I did not immediately see what it was but I saw soon enough that it was a human form. I then realized what was wanted of me. I was to dematerialize this unhappy spirit whose name was Alfred de Musset! What convinced me was that Delphine had hastily left after doing her work, as if she feared being present at the operation. . . . The operation consisted of removing from the entire form of the spirit a kind of epidermis (which was tied to the interior of the organism by every kind of fiber or tether) by flaying, which beginning with the head I finally did without losing my composure in spite of the piercing cries and the violent convulsions of the patient, which I heard and which I certainly saw but without paying them any mind. . . . The next day Delphine arrived to speak to me of her protegé and she said to me that after having squandered on my victim all the necessary care needed to bring
[15] him around after all the effects of the terrible operation that I had made him undergo, friends had organized a 'pagan festival' to celebrate his deliverance. [15]
No less interesting is the account of a theatrical production with the 'spirits':
While Céleste [one of the 'daughter-spirits' of the author] accompanied me one day on one of my promenades, Delphine unexpectedly came near us and said to my daughter, 'Why don't you invite your father to go and hear you at the opera?' Céleste responded, 'But I must ask the director!'. . . Several days later Céleste came to tell me that her director had invited me and would be enchanted to receive me with my friends. So one evening I went to the opera with Delphine and a dozen friends [spirits]. . . . The immense hall, an amphitheater, overflowed with spectators. Fortunately for our friends and us our choice seats allowed space to move about freely. The audience, consisting of nearly twenty thousand people, momentarily became an agitated sea when the play moved the hearts of the knowing public. Aridide, or the Signs of the Times was the name of this opera, and Céleste, as lead, appeared to advantage, resplendent, inflamed by the artistic fire that animated her. At her twelvehundredth performance, this collaborative effort of the most renowned minds so captivated the spirits that the crowd of the curious, finding no place in the enclosure, formed a vault (or a roof) with their compressed bodies built up to the edifice. The active troupe, without counting the supernumeraries or the orchestra consisted of one hundred and fifty artists of the first rank. Céleste has often given me the titles of other productions in which she has played. . . . She said that Balzac had composed a very beautiful opera or drama with magnificent scenery which was being performed. [16]
[16] - That does not hinder the 'spirits', apart from these productions especially intended for them, also from attending those given in our world (ibid., pp 155-156).
Despite her success, a little while later the poor Céleste fell afoul of her director and was fired! Another time, the author attended a meeting of a different kind, 'in a beautiful circular temple dedicated to Science'; there, on the invitation of the president, he mounted the podium and gave a great speech 'before that learned assembly of five or six hundred scientific spirits; it was one of their periodic gatherings. [17] Sometime later he came in contact with the spirit of the painter Courbet, cured him of a 'posthumous drunkenness', then had him named director of a great academy of painting which enjoyed a good reputation in the zone where he was. [18] And now comes the Masonry of the 'spirits', which presents some analogies with the 'Great White Lodge' of the Theosophists:
The 'great Brothers' are beings who have passed through all the degrees of spiritual and material life. They form a society of diverse classes which is established, to use an earthly word, at the confines of the fluidic and ethereal worlds, the latter being the highest, the 'perfect' world. This society, called the Great Brotherhood, is the avant-garde of the ethereal world; it is the administrative government of the two spheres, spiritual and material, or of the fluidic world and the earth. It is this society, with the legislative concurrence of the ethereal world properly so called, that governs spirits and 'mortals' through all phases of existence.
In another passage an account is given of a 'major initiation' in the 'Great Brotherhood', that of a deceased spirit from Belgium named Jobard; [19] this bears some resemblance to Masonic initiations, but the 'trials' are more serious and are not purely symbolic. This ceremony was presided over by the author himself who, though still among the living, possessed one of the highest grades in this strange association. On another day he is seen 'placing himself at the head of a troop of the Third Order [sic] composed of nearly ten thousand spirits, masculine and feminine, to go 'to a colony peopled by somewhat retrograde spirits' and by a chemical process known to us
[20] 'purify the atmosphere of that place where there are more than a million inhabitants in order to produce a salutary reaction in the ideas entertained by these populations.' It seems that 'this country is a dependency of the fluidic France' [20] because here, as with the Theosophists, each region of the earth has its 'fluidic counterpart'. The 'Great Brotherhood' is struggling against another organization, also 'fluidic', which of course is 'a clerical Order. [21] Moreover, the author expressly declares that 'the principal purpose of his mission is to undermine and restrain clerical authority in the other world and, by way of consequence, in this world as well. [22] But enough of these follies. Nevertheless, we had to provide a little glimpse of them, magnified as it were so as to make clear the mentality which in a more or less attenuated degree is also that of many other spiritists and 'neo-spiritualists'. Are we not justified then in denouncing these things as a real public menace?
As a further curiosity we provide this description, differing sharply from the preceding, which a 'spirit' has given of his life in the beyond:
Most often, man dies without being aware of what is happening to him. He returns to consciousness after several days, sometimes after several months. The awakening is far from agreeable. He sees himself surrounded by beings whom he does not recognize; the heads of these beings resemble skulls. The terror that seizes him often makes him lose consciousness again. Little by little he becomes accustomed to these visions. The body of these spirits is material and is composed of a gaseous mass having more or less the weight of air; it is composed of a head and a chest; there are neither arms, legs, nor abdomen. The spirits move with a swiftness dependent upon their will. When they move rapidly, their bodies are lengthened and become cylindrical. When they move with the greatest possible speed, their bodies take the form of a spiral with fourteen turns and a diameter
of thirty-five centimeters. The spiral can have a diameter of about four centimeters. In this form they attain a speed equal that of sound. . . . Ordinarily we find ourselves in the homes of men, for rain and wind are very disagreeable to us. Usually we do not see sufficiently; there is too much light for us. The light we prefer is that of acetylene; it is the ideal light. Secondly, the mediums radiate a light which permits us to see about one meter around them; this light attracts spirits. The spirits see the clothes of men only vaguely; the garments resemble a cloud. They even see some interior organs of the human body, but they do not see the brain because of the bony skull. But they hear men think and sometimes these thoughts are heard at quite a distance even though no word has been uttered. In the world of the spirits the law of the strongest prevails; it is a state of anarchy. If séances are unsuccessful it is because an evilly-disposed spirit does not leave the table and remains above it from one séance to another so that the spirits who seriously wish to communicate cannot come near the table. . . . On the average, spirits live from one hundred to one hundred and fifty years. The density of the body increases until the age of one hundred years; after that density and strength diminish, and they finally dissolve, as everything in nature is dissolved. . . . We are subject to the laws of air pressure; we are material; we do not interest ourselves, we bore ourselves. Everything material is subject to the laws of matter; matter decomposes; our lives do not endure for more than a hundred and fifty years at most; then we die for good. [23]
This materialistic 'spirit' and denier of immortality must be regarded by the majority of spiritists as a little heterodox and not very enlightened. The experimenters who received these strange 'communications' give assurances, moreover, that 'the most intelligent spirits positively protest against the idea of God. [24] We have quite a few reasons for thinking that they themselves have strong
preferences for atheism and 'monism'. Whatever the case, the men who have seriously registered the divagations we have just sampled are among those who claim to study these phenomena 'scientifically'. They surround themselves with impressive apparatus and even imagine that they have created a new science, 'physical psychology'. Is there not matter here to disgust sensible men as regards these studies, and is one not tempted to excuse those who prefer to deny all this a priori? Nevertheless, right next to the article from which we cited the foregoing excerpts there is another piece in which a psychist - really only a poorly disguised spiritist - tranquilly declares that 'the doubters, the contradictors, and the obstinate in the study of psychic phenomena must be considered to be mentally ill'; and that 'the scientific mind exhibited in these researches can, over a period of time, provoke a sort of mania in the researcher, . . . a chronic delirium, convulsions, a kind of lucid folly,' so that at last 'doubt establishing itself firmly on predisposed terrain, may evolve into maniacal folly. [25] Evidently those who are well balanced must seem fools in the eyes of those who are more or less unbalanced. This is only natural, but it is not reassuring to think that if spiritism continues to gain ground, a day may come when whoever criticizes it will simply expose himself to being committed to a psychiatric asylum.
A question to which the spiritists attach great importance but on which they have been unable to reach mutual understanding is that of knowing whether spirits retain their gender. It interests them especially because of the consequences it may have from the perspective of reincarnation: if gender is inherent to the 'perispirit', it must remain invariable in all existences. Obviously, for those who have been present at 'marriages of spirits', like Henry Lacroix, the question is resolved in the affirmative; or rather, it is not even posed. But not all spiritists enjoy such exceptional faculties. Allan Kardec, moreover, has clearly reached a negative verdict:
Spirits do not have gender as you understand this, for the sexes depend on the organization [no doubt he intends to say 'on the
organism']. Among them there is love and sympathy, but based on the similarity of sentiments. . . Spirits incarnate as men or women because they themselves do not have gender; as they must progress in all things, each gender, like each social position, offers them tests, special duties, and occasions to gain experience. He who might always be a man would know only what men know. [26]
But Kardec's disciples were not so sure, no doubt because they had received contradictory 'communications'; thus, in 1913, the spiritist journal Fraterniste felt a need to pose the question expressly, which it did in these terms:
How do you conceive the life beyond? In particular, do spirits, or more accurately perispirits, retain their sex, or does one become neuter on entering the astral plane? And if gender is lost, how do you explain that in being incarnated again gender is clearly determined? It is known that many occultists claim that the perispirit is the mold on which the new body is formed.
The last sentence contains an error regarding occultists properly so called, for they say on the contrary that the 'astral body', which for them is the equivalent of the 'perispirit', is dissolved in the interval between two 'incarnations', so that the opinion expressed in this sentence is rather that of certain spiritists. But there is so much confusion in all this that one can assuredly be excused if one loses one's bearings. Léon Denis, after having 'asked the advice of his spiritual guides,' responded that 'gender subsists, but remains neuter and useless,' and that 'at the time of reincarnation the perispirit again binds itself to matter and takes up its customary gender,' at least 'unless the spirit wishes to change sex, which choice is accorded them.' On this point Gabriel Delanne is more faithful to the teaching of Allan Kardec, for he states that 'spirits are asexual, quite simply because in the beyond they do not need to reproduce,' and that certain facts of reincarnation seem to prove an alternation in genders for a given spirit according to the aim it had set for itself
here below; that, at least, is what seems to be the teaching of communications received nearly everywhere for half a century. [27]
Among the published responses were those of several occultists, notably Papus who, invoking the authority of Swedenborg, wrote this:
The sexes exist for spiritual beings but these sexes have no relationship to their analogues on this earth. On the invisible plane there are beings who are sentimentally feminine and beings who are mentally masculine. Coming to this earth, each of these beings can take a material sex other than the astral gender that he had possessed.
On the other hand, the dissident occultist Ernest Bosc frankly acknowledges that he conceives life in the beyond absolutely like this lower world, but with the difference that on the other side much more time remains for us to work mentally and spiritually at our evolution since we no longer have to give our entire attention to our material interests. This 'simplification' did not keep him from rightly protesting against the shocking remark that followed the questionnaire of the Fraterniste, namely that
all the importance of this question will be understood when we have said that, for many spiritists, the spirits are asexual, although the occultists believe in incubi and succubi, thus attributing gender to our friends of Space.
No one has ever said that incubi and succubi are 'disincarnated' humans, though some occultists seem to regard them as 'elementals'. But before this, all those who believed in their existence unanimously agreed that they were demons and nothing else. If this is what the spiritists call their 'friends of Space', it is quite edifying!
We have had to anticipate the question of reincarnation somewhat, and in bringing this chapter to a close we will call attention to another point which gives rise to as many divergent opinions as that just discussed: do all reincarnations take place on this earth or can
they also occur on other planets? Allan Kardec teaches that 'the soul can live several times on the same globe if it is not sufficiently advanced to pass on to a superior world'; [28] for him, there can be a plurality of earthly existences, but there are also existences on other planets, and it is the degree of evolution of the 'spirits' that determines their passage from one to another. Here are the details he provides concerning the planets of the solar system:
According to the spirits, of all the spheres that compose our planetary system the earth is one of those whose inhabitants are the least advanced physically and morally; Mars is more inferior still, while Jupiter is superior in every respect. The sun is not a world inhabited by corporeal creatures, but a rendezvous of superior spirits that by thought radiate from there toward other worlds, which they direct through the mediation of less elevated spirits to whom they transmit themselves by means of the universal fluid. As to its physical constitution, the sun is a focus of electricity. All the suns seem to be identically situated. The volume and the distance of the sun have no necessary relationship with the degree of advancement of the worlds, since it appears that Venus is more advanced than the Earth, and Saturn less advanced than Jupiter. Several spirits that have animated people known on the earth have reincarnated on Jupiter, one of the worlds nearest to perfection. It has been astonishing to see on this very advanced sphere men whom opinion here below would not have considered of such competence. But that should occasion no surprise if it is recognized that certain spirits living on this planet have been sent here to fulfill a mission which, in our view, did not place them in the first rank. Secondly, between their earthly existence and that on Jupiter there may have been intermediary levels in which they could have improved themselves. Third, and finally, in this world [that is, Jupiter] as in our own, there are different degrees of development and between these degrees there may be all the distance that separates the savage from the civilized man. Thus, from the fact of living on
[29] Jupiter it does not follow that one is on the level of the most advanced beings, any more than the fact of living in Paris implies that one is at the level of a member of its scientific Institute. [29]
We have already had the story of the 'spirits' living on Jupiter in connection with the mediumistic drawings of Victorien Sardou. It may be asked how it happens that these 'spirits', even though living on another planet, can nevertheless send 'messages' to those living on the earth. Do the spiritists, then, believe they have resolved in their own fashion the problem of interplanetary communication? Their opinion seems to be that these communications are in fact possible through their processes but only when this involves 'superior spirits' who, 'although inhabiting certain worlds, are not confined to them as are men living on the earth, and who are more adept than others at being everywhere. [30] Some occultist and Theosophical 'clairvoyants', such as Leadbeater, claim to have the power of transporting themselves to other planets in order to make 'investigations'; no doubt they must be ranked among the 'superior spirits' of whom the spiritists speak. But even if they too can personally transport themselves to other planets, the spiritists have no need to go to all that trouble, for the 'spirits' themselves, whether incarnated or not, come to satisfy their curiosity and to tell them of all that happens in these worlds. To tell the truth, what the 'spirits' tell is not of much interest; in the book of Dunglas Home which we have already cited in connection with Allan Kardec, there is a chapter entitled 'Absurdities', from which we quote this passage:
The scientific data we offer the reader has been furnished us in the form of a brochure. It is a valuable account that would delight the learned world. It is seen, for example, that glass has a great role on the planet Jupiter; it is an indispensable substance, the necessary complement to all commodious existence in those latitudes. The dead are placed in boxes of glass, which are then used as ornaments in homes. The houses, too, are in glass, so that it is not good to throw stones on that planet. There are rows
of these crystal palaces, called Séména. A kind of mystical ceremony is practiced in them, and on such occasions-that is, every seven years-the Holy Sacrament is carried in procession through the glass cities in a chariot of glass. The inhabitants are of gigantic stature, as Scarron says, being seven or eight feet tall. They keep a special species of parrot as domestic animals. On entering a house one of them is invariably found behind the door knitting night-caps. . . . If we believe another medium, no less well informed, rice is what is best adapted to the soil of the planet Mercury, if memory serves. But there it does not grow in the form of a plant as it does on Earth; thanks to climatic influences and to a stipulated manipulation, it sends shoots into the air higher than a great oak tree. The citizen of Mercury who desires to enjoy the perfection of otium cum dignitate [leisure with dignity] must, while still young, place all his assets into the cultivation of rice. He chooses a stalk from among the loftiest of his estate and clambers up to the very top; then, like a rat in a cheese, he enters the enormous husk to eat the delicious fruit. When he has eaten all of it, he begins the same task on another stalk. [31]
Unfortunately, Home did not give precise references, but we have no doubt as to the authenticity of what he reports, which is certainly greatly surpassed by the extravagances of Henry Lacroix. This foolery, which is quite in character with the usual 'tone' of spiritist 'communications', denotes above all a great poverty of imagination. All this is very far from the fantasies of writers who have dreamed of journeys to other planets, and who at least do not claim that their inventions are an expression of reality. There are cases, moreover, in which such works have certainly been influential: we have heard a spiritist give a description of the inhabitants of Neptune which was clearly inspired by the novels of Wells. It is to be noted that even among writers best endowed with imagination these fantasies always remain fundamentally earthbound; they have shaped the habitants of other planets from elements borrowed from those of
the earth, more or less modified either in their proportions or in their arrangement. It could not be otherwise, and this is one of the best examples that can be given to show that the imagination is nothing more than a faculty of sense. This observation should make understandable our comparison of these two conceptions concerning 'afterlife' properly speaking. In both cases the real source is exactly the same, and the result is only what it can be when it is a question of the 'subconscious' imagination of very ordinary and even below-average men. As we have said, this subject is directly related to the question of communication with the dead: it is these very earthly descriptions which permit belief in the possibility of such communication. Thus we are finally led to examine the fundamental hypothesis of spiritism, an examination which will be greatly facilitated by all of the above.