“A century ago society was influenced by the materialistic ideas reproduced in all forms and translated into most literary and artistic works. Disbelief was in fashion and the denial of everything including God was in vogue. Present life was considered positive and beyond that it was all uncertainty.; This lead to people living out their lives for the present because after that who cares! That was the thought of all of those that pretended to be above prejudices and for that reason called themselves ‘strong minds’. One must acknowledge that they were the largest number and among them where the ones who were assigned the task of driving and guiding society and whose example would necessarily have great influence.
The clergy also suffered from this influence. The public or private conduct of several of its members where completely contradictory to their teachings and Jesus’ teachings. The clergy did not believe in what they preached because if they did firmly believe in a future lifeand in the punishments they would have passed over less the interests of heavens than those of Earth. Thus, the foundations of every human institution had been sought in the material order of things. However, they ended up recognizing that those institutions lacked a solid supporting point for the ones that seemed well established would fall flat on a stormy day, given that the vices were masked by repressive laws but mankind had not become better.
What would that supporting point be? That was the question that they tried to answer and even recognized that God could be useful to something in the universe. Later some strong Spirits started to fear and to avoid discounting the future (they did that in their lips only) they said: People pretend that everything ends with death but what do they know the ones who say so? In fact it is only their opinion after all. Before Christopher Columbus people also believed that there was nothing beyond the oceans. And if there were something beyond the grave? It would be interesting to know, however, because if there is something we all have to go through as we all die. How does one live there? Good? Bad? The question is important and must be considered. But what if we continue to live beyond the physical body? We must then have a soul. The soul would not be fake then? Then, how is that soul? Where does it come from? Where does it go to?
A vague uneasiness took over these boasters before the idea of death. They started to seek, to discuss, recognizing that they would never be okay on Earth, regardless, and that in some cases they would even be very bad, then casting their eyes and hopes towards the future. All the extremes find their reaction when not in agreement with the truth because it is only the truth that is unable to be changed. The materialistic ideas had met their apogee. It was then that they noticed that they did not provide what was demanded from them; that they would leave an emptiness in the hearts; that they would create an unfathomable abyss that would back up in horror as they do before a rock cliff. Hence an aspiration for the unknown and as a consequence an inevitable reaction towards the spiritualist ideas as the only possible way out.
It is a reaction that has manifested itself for some years now. But humans arrived at the apex of intelligence. At this age, when the capacity of understanding reached maturity, mankind can no longer be led like in the infancy or adolescence. The positivism of life taught them to search. We say more, made it necessary to understand the whys and hows of everything for in our mathematical century there is the need for the awareness of everything, to calculate everything, to measure everything in order to probe the terrain where we set foot.
They want certainty if not material at least moral even in the abstraction. It is not enough to say that something is good or bad; people want to know why it is good or bad and if there is or there is not reason to prescribe or prohibit that. That is why blind faith no longer has a place in our “thinking” century. They no long ask for faith. Today they wish for and are thirsty of that faith because it is a necessity. They want a reasoned faith though. Discussing their belief is a necessity of the time that willing or not one has to accept.
The spiritualist ideas respond well to the general aspirations since they are preferable to skepticism and the idea of the oblivious because people instinctively know that they are right but they satisfy imperfectly only because the soul is still left in vagueness and those ideas are on their own powerless to provide the solution to a number of problems.
Simple spiritualism is in the position of a person that feels the objective but still does not know the path to achieve that and that finds obstacles on the way. That is why a large number of writers and philosophers have lately probed these mysterious secrets; why so many systems have been created aiming at the solution of innumerable problems that remain insoluble.
Regardless of these systems being rational or absurd they do not witness a lesser spiritualist tendency of the this time, tendencies that are no longer mysteries; that people no longer try to hide and from which, on the contrary, they are proud of as they formerly were of their disbelief.
If none of those systems got the absolute truth it is incontestable that several were close or made it blossom and that the discussion that followed paved the way preparing the minds for such studies.
It was in those eminently favorable circumstances that Spiritism arrived. A little bit earlier and it would have clashed with the almighty materialism; a little bit later and it would have been muffled by blind fanaticism. It shows up at the moment when fanaticism killed by the disbelief that it provoked itself it no longer can oppose a serious barrier to Spiritism, a time when fanaticism is fatigued by the void left by materialism; at the moment when the spiritualist reaction, provoked by the excesses of materialism, takes all minds over when people are looking for the great solutions that are of interest of the whole humanity.
Therefore it is at that moment that it comes to resolve these problems not by hypothesis but by effective proofs, giving Spiritism the positive character, the only one that satisfy the times. There people find what was not found elsewhere. That is why it is accepted so easily. Thousands of organizations paved the way and continue to do that gradually sowing the professed ideas.
One must not believe that there are only serious books read by a small number of scholars. Notice how much the Spiritist thoughts abound in the form of romance or bulletins, penetrating everywhere even among those that think the least about Spiritism. These are so many other latent germs that will blossom when the great light comes so that they will be familiarized with the new ideas.
One of the most important principles of Spiritism is undisputedly that of the plurality of the physical existences, that is the reincarnation, voluntarily or out of ignorance confused by the skeptical with the principle of metempsychosis. Without this principle, we face so many unsolvable difficulties in the moral and psychological order that many modern philosophers were led to it by the force of reason as a necessary law of nature, like Charles Fourier, Jean Reynaud and many others. That principle, today openly discussed by renowned people who yet are not Spiritist has a tendency to be introduced in modern philosophy. With that key in hand people will see new horizons opening up before their eyes and the most difficult issues been level planed like magic. Such a position cannot be avoided. People will be led to that by the force of things because the plurality of the existences is not a system but a law of nature that sticks out from the evidence of the facts.
Although not elevated to the position of a doctrine or not so clearly formulated as in Fourier and Reynaud, the principle of the plurality of the existences is now found in a number of authors and consequently in every mouth so that one can say that it is in the order of the day and tends to find a place amongst the most common beliefs given that in several of them it precedes the knowledge of Spiritism. It is a natural consequence of the spiritualist reaction that takes place at this time with the strong impulse of Spiritism.
With respect to the citations our only difficulty would be in the choice. We shall be restricted to the passage below from one of the latest novels by Mrs. George Sand:
Mademoseille de la Quintinie, an outstanding philosophical work that made the index of the Roman curia as well as the Revue des Deux Mondes
[1] in its publications number 1 and 15 in March, April and May 1863. The passage is about a very guilty priest that is taken by regret to the earthly reparation and atonement after the rigorous advices of a lay person that says the following:
“
You say that you have overcome the age of passions! No, because you have entered the age of vengeance and persecutions. Watch out! However, irrespective of your fate among us I tell you that we will meet again in another place where we will get along better and love one another instead of fighting each other. Like you, I don’t believe in the that evil goes unpunished and in the efficacy of the error. I believe that you will atone the voluntary hardening of your soul by great lacerations of the heart in another life. All that is left to you is to enter the progressive path of happiness for I am certain that everything can be rescued starting from this life. The human soul is gifted with wonderful powers of repentance and rehabilitation. This is not contrary to your dogma, and your contrition word says a lot."
In a forthcoming article we will examine the works of Mr. Renan about the life of Jesus and will show that despite its appearance and without the knowledge of the author it is a spiritualist reaction. Materialism uselessly shakes the circle of logic and universal awareness that surrounds it, however much it proclaims the obliviousness. Its final screams are muffled by the voice that shouts in all corners of the world: “We have an immortal soul.” But who will benefit from the reaction? That is what a not distant future will tell us. Hoping to be able to talk about Mr. Rena’s work we insistently recommend a little brochure to our readers in which the question seems to be handled in a very rational way, with precious observations about this delicate issue. The title is:
“Réflexions d’un orthodoxe de l’Église grecque sur la vie de Jésus, by
M. Renan (Didier e Co., price 50 cents).
[1] Review of two worlds (TN)
