COMMUNICATION WITH THE DEAD
In discussing either communication with the dead, or reincarnation, or any other point of spiritist doctrine, there is one category of argument which we shall not take into account, namely, arguments of a sentimental character, which we consider as absolutely null from whatever point of view. We know that spiritists willingly resort to such reasons, which are not reasons at all; that they base their strongest case on them, and that they are sincerely persuaded that these can actually justify their beliefs, all of which is wholly in conformity with their mentality. Certainly, spiritists are far from having a monopoly on the sentimentality generally so predominant among modern Westerners, but spiritist sentimentality takes on forms that are particularly irritating for anyone free of their prejudices. We know of nothing more foolishly puerile than invocations addressed to the 'dear spirits', the singing of which opens most séances, and the absurd enthusiasm in the presence of the most banal 'communications' or the most ridiculous manifestations. In these conditions, it is not surprising that spiritists continually dwell upon what is 'consoling' in their theories. That they find them consoling is their own affair, and no concern of ours. There are others, at least as numerous, who do not share the same appreciation and who even hold the exact opposite, although this in itself proves nothing. In general, when two adversaries use the same argument it is probable that the argument in question is worthless. In cases like the present one we have always been astonished to note that some can find nothing better to say against spiritism than that it is not 'consoling' to picture the dead as spreading foolishness, moving
tables, or giving themselves up to thousands of grotesque stupidities. Certainly, we tend toward such a view rather than that of the spiritists who, for their part, find consolation in these things. For our part, we do not believe that such considerations should intervene when it is question of the truth or falsity of a theory. First, nothing is more relative, since everyone finds 'consolation' in what pleases him, in what agrees with his own sentimental dispositions, and there is no more need to discuss such things than anything else that is simply a matter of taste; what is absurd is the wish to persuade others that such and such an appreciation is worth more than its contrary. And then, since not everyone has the same need for 'consolations', all are not disposed to grant the same importance to these considerations; in our view, such things are only of very minor value because what is important is the truth. Sentimentalists do not see things this way, their way of seeing things being valid only for themselves, whereas truth must be equally binding upon all insofar as it is understood. Finally, truth has no need to be 'consoling'; if there are those who, knowing the truth, find it comforting, so much the better for them; but this is a function of how their sentimental nature is affected. There may be others who are affected in quite different and even contrary ways; and it is certain that it will always be thus, for nothing is more variable and diverse than sentiment. But whatever the case, it has nothing to do with truth itself.
That said, we recall that when it is a question of communication with the dead, this expression implies that what is communicated with is the real being of the dead. This is how spiritists understand the matter, and this is what we must consider exclusively; it cannot be a question of the intervention of just any secondary and dissociated elements coming from the dead. We have said that intervention by precisely these latter elements is perfectly possible, but the spiritists on the contrary do not want to consider this possibility. Therefore we need not be concerned with this at the moment, and the same applies to reincarnation. We recall also that for the spiritists it is essentially a question of communicating with the dead by material means, and it is in these terms that we have defined their claims from the outset because they served well enough to make our meaning clear. There is still room for equivocation, however, for there are
extremely divergent conceptions of matter; what is not material for some may be material for others, not to speak of those for whom the very notion of matter is strange or has no meaning. For greater clarity, therefore, we will say that the spiritists have in view a communication established by sensory or perceptible means.
This in fact is the fundamental hypothesis of spiritism, and it is precisely this which we say is absolutely impossible; and we will shortly give the reasons why this is so. We want our position in this regard to be perfectly clear: a philosopher, even when refusing to admit the truth or even the possibility of the spiritist theory, may nevertheless regard it as representing one hypothesis among others; and even if he finds it implausible, it may be that either communication with the dead or reincarnation appear to him as 'problems' which perhaps he has no means of resolving. For us, on the contrary, there is no 'problem' because they are impossibilities pure and simple. We do not claim that the demonstration of this may be easy to understand for everyone, for it appeals to notions of the metaphysical order, albeit rather elementary ones. Nor do we claim that our exposition will be absolutely complete, because all that is implied in it cannot be developed in the confines of this study, and there are points that we will have to take up elsewhere. Nevertheless, when fully understood this demonstration leads to absolute certitude, like everything else which has a truly metaphysical character. If some do not find it fully satisfying, the fault can only be in our imperfect expression or in their equally imperfect understanding of it.
For two beings to communicate between themselves by sensory, that is perceptible, means it is necessary first of all that their senses be the same, at least partially. If one of them cannot have sensations or if they do not have common sensations, no communication is possible. This may seem obvious enough, but there are truths of this kind which are easily forgotten or to which one gives no attention, but which have an unexpected significance. Of the two conditions mentioned, it is the first that establishes in an absolute manner the impossibility of communication with the dead by means of spiritist practices. As to the second, at the very least it gravely compromises the possibility of interplanetary communication. The last point is
directly connected with what we said at the end of the preceding chapter. We shall examine it first because the considerations introduced will facilitate understanding of the other question, which is the one that primarily interests us.
If we admit the theory that explains all sensations by more or less rapid vibratory movements, and if we consider a chart showing the vibrations per second corresponding to each kind of sensation, we are struck by the fact that the intervals representing what our senses transmit to us are very small in relation to the whole. They are separated by other intervals wherein nothing is perceptible to us; and further, it is not possible to assign a determinate limit to the increasing or decreasing frequency of the vibrations, [1] so that we must consider the chart as subject to prolongation on both extremes by indefinite possibilities of sensations, which for us correspond to no actual sensation. But to say that there are possibilities of sensations is to say that these sensations may exist with creatures other than ourselves, and who by contrast may have none of the sensations which we have. When we say 'ourselves' we do not mean men only but all terrestrial creatures in general, for it does not appear that sense faculties vary to a great degree, and even if these faculties are susceptible of a variable extension they always remain fundamentally the same. The nature of these sense faculties, therefore, seems to be determined by the terrestrial milieu; it is not a property inherent to this or that species but a function of the fact that these creatures live on earth and not elsewhere. Analogically, on any other planet the sense faculties must be similarly determined, but it may be that they coincide in no way with the faculties possessed by terrestrial creatures - and it is even extremely probable that this must be so. Indeed, every possibility of sensation can be realized somewhere in the corporeal world, since all that is of the nature of sensation is essentially a corporeal faculty. These possibilities being indefinite, the chances are quite slim that any one of them would be realized twice, that is to say that two beings inhabiting two different
planets should possess faculties that totally or even partially coincide. If it is supposed, however, that despite everything this coincidence could be realized, there is again only the slenderest of possibilities that they would be realized precisely in those conditions of temporal and spatial proximity which might permit communication. These chances, which are already infinitesimal for the entire corporeal order, are illimitably reduced if one envisages only those heavenly bodies existing simultaneously at a given moment; they are reduced immeasurably more if, among these heavenly bodies, only those near to one another, such as are the planets of a given system, are considered. It must be so because time and space themselves represent indefinite possibilities. We do not hold interplanetary communication to be an absolute impossibility; we only say that the chances for something of this kind can be expressed only by a quantity infinitesimal to several degrees and that if the question is posed in a determined instance, as, for example, the earth and another planet of the solar system, one hardly runs any risk in regarding those chances as practically nil. All this is, in sum, only an application of the theory of probabilities. What is important to note is that the obstacle to interplanetary communication does not lie in the difficulties experienced by two men totally ignorant of one another's languages; such difficulties would not be insurmountable because the two beings could always find some measure of remedy in faculties common to both of them. But where common faculties do not exist, at least on the sensible level where communication is presumed to operate, the obstacle cannot in any way be avoided because it arises from a difference in nature of the beings under consideration. If such beings are of such a nature that nothing which provokes sensation in us provokes sensation in them, then so far as we are concerned these beings are as if they did not exist, and conversely. Even if they were at our side we would be no better off for it, and probably would not even perceive their presence, or in any case would probably not recognize them as living beings. Let it be said in passing that this allows us to think it not impossible that there may exist in the terrestrial milieu creatures entirely different from those known to us, creatures with whom we have no means of relating. But we will not dwell on this, especially because if such creatures
exist they would have nothing in common with our humanity. However that may be, what we have just said shows the great element of naïveté in the illusions of certain thinkers in regard to interplanetary communication, illusions deriving from the error we have previously noted, that of projecting purely terrestrial representations everywhere. If it is said that such representations are the only ones possible for us, we would agree; but, then, no representation is better than a false representation. It is perfectly true that what is in question is not imaginable, but it must not be concluded from this that it is inconceivable; on the contrary, it is quite easily conceivable. One of the great errors of modern philosophers consists in confusing the conceivable and the imaginable, an error particularly conspicuous with Kant, although it is not unique to him. It is even characteristic of the Western mentality, at least ever since the Western mind turned almost exclusively toward objects of sense. Obviously whoever confuses things in this way is incapable of metaphysical understanding.
The corporeal order, admitting of indefinite possibilities, must contain beings whose diversity is likewise indefinite. Nevertheless, the corporeal realm in its entirety represents only a single state of existence defined by a certain set of determined conditions common to all that is included in this realm, even while these beings express themselves in extremely varied ways. In passing from one state of existence to another, the differences are incomparably greater because there will be no common conditions, the determining conditions of a given state being replaced by others which analogously define the other state. This time, therefore, there will no longer be any point of comparison with the corporeal and sensible order envisaged in its entirely and considered in such and such a modality, as for example that which constitutes terrestrial existence. Conditions such as space and time are in no way applicable to another state because they are precisely those which define the corporeal state. Even if there is something that corresponds analogically, this 'something' does not admit of any representation by us.
Imagination, which is a faculty of the sensory realm, cannot attain the realities of another realm, any more than sensation itself can do so, for it is sensation that furnishes the imagination with all
the elements of its constructs. It is not through the senses that one can ever find the means to relate to another order; a radical heterogeneity separates them, though not a principial irreducibility. If there is to be communication between two different states, this can only be through a principle both common to and superior to the two states, and not directly from one to another. But it is obvious that the possibility in question here does not concern spiritism in any degree.
Considering only two states in themselves, we said that the possibility of communication between them appears extremely improbable, even though it was still only a question of beings pertaining to diverse modalities of the same state. When it is a matter of beings belonging to two different states, communication between them is an absolute impossibility. To be precise, it is a question, at least for the moment, of a communication that is assumed to be established by means which each of these beings finds in the conditions of its own state, that is to say of faculties that are a result of these very conditions. This is the case with sensible faculties in the corporeal order, and it is in fact sensible faculties to which the spiritists resort. Such communication is an absolute impossibility, for the faculties in question pertain properly and rigorously to a single one of the states envisaged, as do the conditions from which they derive. If these conditions were common to the two states, the two would be confounded and would be only one and the same state, as it is precisely these conditions that define a given state of existence. [2] The absurdity of spiritism is thus fully demonstrated, and we can let the matter rest. Nevertheless, as the very rigor of this demonstration may make it difficult to grasp for those not in the habit of thinking in this way, we add several complementary observations which, by presenting the question under a slightly different and more particularized aspect, will render the absurdity of spiritism still more apparent.
For a being to be manifested in the corporeal world, it is necessary that it possess the appropriate faculties, that is to say faculties of sensation and action; and it is necessary that the being also possess organs corresponding to these faculties. Such faculties may well exist without the corresponding organs, but only in a latent and virtual state; they would be unactualized potentialities and would be useless for the creature in question. Therefore, even if one supposes that the being that has quit the corporeal state to pass over to another state retains in itself in some manner the faculties of the corporeal state, these faculties could exist only as potentialities and henceforth could not serve in any way to communicate with corporeal beings. Moreover, a being could carry within itself potentialities corresponding to all the states of which it is susceptible; and indeed this must be so in some manner for otherwise those states would not be possibilities for it. We speak here of the being in its total reality and not of that part consisting only of the possibilities of a single state such as the human individuality. Though all this is beyond our present concern, we allude to it in order that we may not overlook anything that might provide an opening for objections.
But in order to eliminate every ambiguity we must add that human individuality is not solely the corporeal state; it also consists of diverse prolongations which, along with the corporeal state itself, constitute a single degree or state of universal existence. This last complication hardly need concern us here, for though it is true that the corporeal state is not absolutely complete, nevertheless it alone is involved in sensible manifestation. Fundamentally, 'corporeal' and 'sensible' are completely identical. To return to our point of departure, we can thus say that communication by sensory means is possible only between two beings that have bodies, which is to say in short that for a being to be manifested corporeally, he must be corporeal, and in this form the dictum is a truism. The spiritists themselves cannot openly oppose this evident truth, which is why, without being aware of the reasons that compel them, they imagine that their 'spirits' retain all the faculties of sensation possessed by terrestrial beings. They attribute to their 'spirits' an organism, a sort of body that is not really a body, as it is presumed to have properties incompatible with the very notion of body and not to have all the
properties essential to that notion. The spiritist 'body' retains some of these properties, such as being subject to space and time, but this is far from sufficient. There can be no middle ground: either a being has a body or it does not. If it is dead in the ordinary sense of the word, which the spiritists call 'disincarnated', this means that it has left the body; henceforth it no longer belongs to the corporeal world, whence it follows that all sensible manifestation has become impossible for it. We almost feel as if we should apologize for emphasizing things that are so fundamentally simple, but we know it is necessary. Let us note further that this line of argument in no way prejudices anything regarding the posthumous state of the human being. In whatever way we conceive this state, we can agree in the recognition that it is in no wise corporeal-at least if we do not accept the gross representations of the 'afterlife' described in the last chapter, with all the contradictory elements involved. This last opinion cannot be seriously entertained, and every other opinion, whatever it may be, must necessarily entail the formal negation of the spiritist hypothesis. This last remark is very important, for there are two further cases to be considered: after death, and by the very fact of this change, the being has passed into an entirely different state defined by conditions other than those of the preceding state, and then the refutation we set forth in the first place applies immediately without any restrictions; or, the deceased remains in some modality of the same state other than the corporeal modality, one characterized by the disappearance of one or more of the conditions which together are necessary to constitute corporeal existence. The condition that has necessarily disappeared (which is not to say that others, too, may not have disappeared) is the presence of matteror to be more precise, 'quantified matter.' [3] We can readily acknowledge that these two cases represent genuine possibilities. In the first case, the human individuality has given place to another state, whether individual or not, which can no longer be said to be human. In the second case, on the contrary, it can be said that the human individuality subsists in one of its prolongations mentioned, but this individuality is henceforth incorporeal and so incapable of
sensible manifestation, a fact that suffices for it to count for absolutely nothing in the phenomena of spiritism. It is hardly necessary to point out that this second case, among others, corresponds to immortality as understood in a Western religious sense. It is definitely the human individuality that is in question, and the fact that the idea of life is brought in, however modified it may be, implies that this state retains certain of the conditions of the preceding state. For life itself, in all the extensions of which it is capable, is only one of these conditions and nothing more. But there is still a third case to be considered, that of immortality understood in the metaphysical and Eastern sense, that is to say the case wherein the being has been delivered, either in an immediate or deferred manner (as regards the final goal it matters little whether there are intermediate states) into the unconditioned state, which is superior to all the conditioned states that have been in question up to this point, and which is the principle of all lesser states. But this final possibility is too transcendent for us to consider at this time; and it goes without saying that spiritism, given its basis in phenomena, has nothing in common with things of this order. Such a state is not only beyond sensible manifestation, but is beyond all manifestation whatsoever.
In all that has preceded we have naturally had in mind communication with the 'spirits' only as this is conceived by the spiritists. After having established the impossibility of such communication, one might still ask if there is not a possibility of communication of quite another kind, conveyed by a sort of special inspiration or intuition in the absence of any sensory phenomena. Though this doubtless would not interest the spiritists, it might interest others. It is difficult to treat this question completely because, although it is a possibility, the means of expression and of giving an account of it are almost entirely lacking. Moreover, the real possibility of such communication would require the actualization of such exceptional conditions that it is practically useless to speak of the matter. Generally, however, we can say that in order to have dealings with a being in another state of existence, one would have had to develop in oneself the possibilities of that state, so that even if the being who might partake of the other state is presently a man living on earth, it is nevertheless not as a human and earthly individual that it could
attain that state, but only insofar as it is something else at the same time. Relatively speaking, the simplest case is where the being with whom it is a question of communicating remains in one of the prolongations of the individual human state. It would then suffice if the living being might have extended its own individuality in a corresponding direction, beyond the corporeal modality to which it is ordinarily limited in act if not in potentiality (for the possibilities of the integral individuality are obviously the same for all, although they may remain purely virtual throughout all earthly existence). This may be realized in certain mystical states, and even produced apart from the volition of the subject of this realization. Then if we consider communication with a being that has passed to an entirely different state, we can say that practically speaking this is an impossibility; it would not be possible unless the living being had attained a superior state sufficiently elevated to be in effect a principle common to both the other two and thereby permitting their union and implying 'eminently' all their possibilities. But then the question would be of no interest, for having reached such a state the being will not have any need to redescend to an inferior state that does not directly concern it. Finally, in all this it is a question of something other than the human individual. [4] As for communicating with a being that has attained absolute immortality, it would presuppose that the living being itself possessed the corresponding state, that is to say it would have actually and fully realized its own transcendent personality. Moreover, one cannot speak of that state as analogous to any particular and conditioned state; it can no longer be a question of anything that resembles individualities, and the word 'communication' itself loses all its meaning precisely because all comparison with the human state ceases to be applicable in this context. These explanations may still seem somewhat obscure, but to clarify them further would require too many developments that
are completely outside our subject, [5] though we may develop them in other studies. Moreover, the question is far from having the importance that some might wish to attribute to it, because true inspiration is in reality something quite different: its source does not lie in communication with any other beings whatsoever, but rather in communication with the superior states of one's own being, which is something totally different. Also in connection with these matters, let us repeat what we have already said in reference to magic, although what we have just been saying is of a far higher order: those who really know what is involved and who have a profound knowledge of it are entirely uninterested in application. As for the 'empiricists' (for whom action in this field is by the nature of things limited to cases where only some extensions of the human individuality intervene), they obviously cannot be prevented from applying, rightly or wrongly, the fragmentary and uncoordinated bits of knowledge which they may have stumbled upon. But it is always good to warn them that they do so only at their own risk and peril.