BY CAMILLE FLAMMARION.

Translated from the author’s manuscript, by G. A. H. Meyer and J. H. Wiggin.

The idea expressed in this distich is so self-evident that we might almost characterize it as trite. Yet the history of every science marks many eminent men, of superior intelligence, who have been arrested in the way of progress by a wholly contrary opinion, and have very innocently supposed that science had uttered to them her last word. In astronomy, in physics, in chemistry, in optics, in natural history, in physiology, in anatomy, in medicine, in botany, in geology, in all branches of human knowledge, it would be easy to fill several pages with the names of celebrated men who believed science would never pass the limits reached in their own time, and that nothing remained to be discovered thereafter. In the army of wise men now living it would not be difficult to name many distinguished scholars who imagine that, in the spheres whereof they are masters, it is needless to search for anything new.

It may be unbecoming to talk about one’s self, but as, on the one side, some have done me the honor to ask what I think of certain problems,—while, on the other side, I have been more than once accused of busying myself, in a rather unscientific way, with certain vague investigations,—I will begin by acknowledging that the maxim contained in the two verses of my motto has been the conviction of my whole life; and if, from my callow youth until this very day, I have been interested in the study of phenomena pertaining to the domain of inquiries called occult, such as magnetism, spiritualism, hypnotism, telepathy, ghost-seeing, it is because I believe we know next to nothing of what may be known, and that nearly everything still remains to be apprehended; for I believe the thirst for knowledge is one of our best faculties, the one most prolific, without which we should still be dwelling in an Age of Stone, inasmuch as it is our right, if not our duty, to seek the truth by all the methods accessible to our intellectual powers.

It is for this reason that I published among other things, in the course of the year 1865,—now a quarter-century past,—a treatise entitled Unknown Natural Forces, and touching certain questions analogous to those which are to occupy our attention in this paper; and so I ask my readers to note the following quotations therefrom, as an introduction to our present investigation:

I beg the reader to excuse the length of this citation; but it seems to me to serve so naturally as an introduction to this present inquiry that even to-day, after a lapse of a quarter-century, I really see no important changes to be made in this old declaration, except to add that it now appears to me to have been rather audacious on the part of a man so very young, and that it forthwith won him many hearty enemies among the elect of science.

The experimental method is bound to conquer here, as everywhere. Let us, then, without partisanship, study the question under its divers aspects.

1

“The immortality of the soul is a matter so important,” writes Pascal, “that one must have lost all moral sensibility if he remains indifferent as to its nature.”

Why should we give up the hope of ever arriving at a knowledge of the nature of the thinking principle which animates us, and of ascertaining whether or not it outlives the destruction of the body? It must be admitted that hitherto science has taught us nothing on this fundamental subject. Is this any reason for renouncing the study of the problem? On this, as on many other points, we are not of the same mind as those material Positivists who declare themselves satisfied with not knowing anything. We think, on the contrary, that we should attack the problem by all methods, and not neglect a single hint which may aid the solution.

Personally, I declare that I have not yet discovered for myself one fact which proves with certainty the existence of soul as separate from body. Otherwise, however sublime astronomical science may be,—though it stand at the head of human researches, as the first, the most important, and the most widespread of all sciences,—I avow that, if the inductive method had permitted me to penetrate secrets of existence, I should inevitably have abandoned the science of the firmament, for that which would have dethroned the other through its prime and unequalled importance; since it would be superfluous for us to evade the fact that the gravest and most interesting of all questions, to ourselves, is that of our continuous personal existence. The existence of God, of the entire universe, touches us far less intimately. If we ever cease to live (for what is the span of a human life in the light of eternity!) it is a matter of utter indifference to us whether other things exist or not. Doubtless this reasoning is severely egotistic! Ah, how can it be otherwise?

If we have no clear and irrefutable proofs, we have still the aid of a goodly number of observations, establishing the conclusion that we are compassed about by a set of phenomena, and by powers differing from the physical order commonly observed day by day; and these phenomena urge us to pursue every line of investigation, having for its end a psychical acquaintance with human nature.

Let us begin at the beginning, with a recital of observations which, from their very nature, have the disadvantage of being very personal.

2

At the age of sixteen, on my way home one day from the Paris Observatory, I noticed, on the bookseller’s stand in the Galeries de l’Odeon, a green-covered volume entitled Le Livre des Esprits (Book of Spirits), by Allan-Kardec. I bought it, and read it through at a sitting. There was in it something unexpected, original, curious. Were they true, the phenomena therein recounted? Did they solve the great problem of futurity, as the author contended? In my anxiety to ascertain this I made the acquaintance of the high-priest, for Allan-Kardec had made of Spiritism a veritable religion. I assisted at the sÉances. I experimented and became myself a medium. In one of Allan-Kardec’s works, called Genesis, over the signature of Galilee, may be read a whole chapter on Cosmogony, which I wrote in a mediumistic condition.

I was at that time connected with the principal circles in Paris where these experiments were tried, and for two years I even filled the exacting position of secretary to one of these circles, an office which morally bound me not to be absent from a single sÉance.

Communications were received in three different ways: by writing with our own hands; by placing our hands upon planchette, in which a pencil was placed which did the writing; by raps beneath the table, or by movements which indicated certain letters, when the alphabet was repeated aloud by one of the sitters.

The first method was the only one in use in the Society for Spiritualist Study presided over by Allan-Kardec; but it is the method leaving the widest margin for doubt. Indeed, at the end of several years of experimenting in this fashion, the result was that I became skeptical even of myself, and for the reasons following.

It cannot be denied that, under mediumistic conditions, one does not write in his usual fashion. In the normal state, when we wish to write a sentence, we mentally construct that sentence—if not the whole of it, at least a part of it—before writing the words. The pen and hand obey the creative thought. It is not so when one writes mediumistically. One rests one’s hand, motionless but docile, on a sheet of paper, and then waits. After a little while the hand begins to move, and to form letters, words, and phrases. One does not create these sentences, as in the normal state, but waits for them to produce themselves. Yet the mind is nevertheless associated therewith. The subject treated is in unison with one’s ordinary ideas. The written language is one’s own. If one is deficient in orthography, the composition will betray this fault. Moreover, the mind is so intimately connected with what is written, that if it ponders something else, if the thoughts are allowed to wander from the immediate subject, then the hand will pause, or trace incoherent signs.

Such is the state of the writing-medium,—at least, so far as I have observed it in myself. It is a sort of auto-suggestive state. We are assured there are mediums who write so mechanically that they know not what they are writing, and record theses in strange tongues, on subjects concerning which they are ignorant; but this I have never been able to verify with any certainty.

A few years previous to my commencement of these studies, my illustrious friend Victorien Sardou had undergone similar experiences. As a medium he wrote descriptions of divers planets in our system, principally of Jupiter, and drew very odd pictures, representing the habitations of that planet. One of these pictures depicted the house of Mozart, while others represented the dwellings of Zoroaster and of Bernard Palissy, who seemed to be country neighbors in that immense planet. These habitations appeared to be aËrial and of marvellous lightness. The first of them, Mozart’s, was essentially formed of musical instruments and indications, such as the staff, notes, and clefs. The second was principally bucolic. There were to be seen flowers, hammocks, swings, flying men; while underneath were intelligent animals, engaged in playing a novel game of tenpins, in which the sport did not lie in bowling the pins over, but in crowning their heads, as in the childish game of cup-and-ball. I reproduced this last design in the work entitled, Les Terres du Ciel (Heavenly Globes), page 180.

These curious drawings prove, beyond a peradventure, that the signature, Bernard Palissy in Jupiter, is apocryphal, and that it was not a spirit inhabitant of Jupiter who guided Victorien Sardou’s hand. Neither did the gifted author conceive these sketches beforehand, and execute them in pursuance of a deliberate purpose; but at that time he found himself in a mental condition similar to that above described. We may neither be magnetized nor hypnotized, nor put to sleep in any fashion, and yet the brain may remain alien to our mechanical productions. Its cells are functionally agitated, and doubtless act by a reflex impulsion on the motor nerves. We all then believed that Jupiter was inhabited by a superior race. These communications were the reflections of opinions generally held. In these days, however, nobody imagines anything of the kind about Jupiter. Moreover, spirit sÉances have never taught us the least thing in astronomy. Such manifestations in nowise prove the intervention of spirits. Have writing-mediums given us other proofs, more convincing? This question we will examine later.

3

The second method, planchette, is more independent. This little wooden writer became the fashion chiefly through Madame de Girardin. Its communications soothed her last days, and prepared her for a death fragrant with hope. She believed she was in communication with the spirits of Sappho, Shakespeare, Madame de SÉvignÉ, and MoliÈre; and amidst these convictions she died, without disquietude, without rebellion, without regret. She had introduced a taste for such experiments into the home of Victor Hugo, in Jersey. Nine years later, Auguste Vacquerie, in Les Miettes de l’Histoire (Crumbs of History), wrote as follows:

Madame de Girardin’s departure [from Jersey] did not abate my desire for experimenting with the tables. I pressed eagerly forward into this great marvel,—the half-opened door of death.No longer did I wait for the evening. At midday I began my investigations, and forsook them only with the dawn. If I interrupted myself at all during that time, it was only to dine. Personally I had no effect upon the table, and did not touch it; but I asked questions. The mode of communication was always the same, and I had accustomed myself to it. Madame de Girardin sent me two tablets from Paris,—a little tablet, one of whose legs was a pencil, for writing and drawing. A few trials proved that this tablet designed poorly and wrote badly. The other was larger, and consisted of a disk, or dial, whereon was inscribed the alphabet, the letters being designated by a movable pointer. This apparatus also was rejected after an unsuccessful trial, and I finally resumed the primitive process, which—simplified by familiarity and sundry convenient abbreviations—soon afforded all desirable rapidity. I talked fluently with the table, the murmur of the sea mingling with our conversation, whose mysteriousness was increased by the winter, at night, amidst storms, and through isolation. The table no longer responded by a few words merely, but by sentences and pages. It was usually grave and magisterial, but at times it would be witty and even comical. Sometimes it had an access of choler. More than once I was insolently reproved for speaking to it irreverently, and I confess to not feeling at ease until I had obtained forgiveness. The table made certain exactions. It chose the interlocutors it preferred. It wished sometimes to be questioned in verse, and was obeyed; and then it would answer in verse. All these dialogues were collected, not at the close of the sÉance, but at the moment, and under the dictation of the table. They will some day be published, and will propound an imperious problem to all intelligent minds thirsting for new truths.

If now asked for my explanation of all this, I hesitate to reply. I should not have hesitated in Jersey. I should have unhesitatingly affirmed the presence of spirits. It is not the opinion of Paris which now retards me. I know what respect is due to the opinion of the Paris of to-day, of that Paris so wise, so practical, and so positive, which believes in nothing but dancing skirts and brokers’ bulletins; but the capital’s shrugging shoulders would not compel me to lower my voice. I am even happy to say, in the face of Paris, that as to the existence of what are called spirits, I have no doubts. I have never had that fatuous vanity as to our race, which declares that the ascending ladder of being ends with man. I am persuaded that we have at least as many rounds above us as there are beneath our feet, and I believe as firmly in spirits above as I do in donkeys beneath. The existence of spirits once admitted, their intervention becomes merely a question of details. Why could they not communicate with man by some means, and why may not that means be a table? Because immaterial beings cannot move a table? But who can say these beings are immaterial? They also may have bodies, but more subtile than ours,—bodies as imperceptible to our sight, as light is to our touch. It is fairly presumable that there are transitional states between the human condition and the immaterial. Death comes after life, as man supersedes the animal. The inferior animals are men, with less soul. Man is an animal with more equipoise and self-direction. Death brings a condition of less materiality, but still with some matter left. I know therefore no reasonable argument against the reality of the table phenomena.

Nine years, however, have passed away since all this occurred. I gave up my daily interviews after a few months, for the sake of a friend whose insufficient mind could not bear these breaths from the unknown. I have never reperused the sheets whereon sleep the words which moved me so profoundly. I am no longer in Jersey, upon that rock lost among the waves, where the exile was torn from his native soil, away from life. Myself a living corpse, it did not astonish me to encounter the dead alive; and so little is certainty natural to man, that one may doubt even the things he has seen with his eyes and touched with his hands.

Finally, Victor Hugo, who assisted at these experiments, has said: “The moving and speaking table has been greatly ridiculed. Let us speak plainly! This ridicule is misplaced. It is the bounden duty of science to sound the depths of all phenomena. To ignore spiritualistic phenomena, to leave them bankrupt by inattention, is to make a bankrupt of truth itself.” (Les Genies [The Geniuses]: Shakespeare.)