Urania

by Camille Flammarion

And now for the third fact.

In the month of February, 1772, being in London, Swedenborg sent a note to the Rev. John Wesley (founder of the Wesleyan sect), telling him that he should be very glad to make his acquaintance. The zealous preacher received the note just as he was setting out on a journey, and replied that he should profit by the gracious permission to visit him, on his return, which would be in about six months. Swedenborg answered him "that in that case they would never see each other in this world, as the 29th of the next month was to be the day of his death."

Swedenborg really died on the date mentioned by himself more than a month beforehand.

These are three facts whose authenticity it is impossible to doubt, but which in our present condition of knowledge no one would be able to explain.

We might multiply these authentic accounts indefinitely. Facts analogous to those already mentioned of communications from a distance, whether at the moment of death or in the normal condition of life, are not so rare—without, however, being very frequent—but that every one of our readers may have heard such cited, or perhaps have observed them himself in more than one instance. Besides, experiments made in the realms of magnetism show also that under certain ascertained psychological conditions an experimenter can act upon his subject not only at the distance of a few metres, but of several kilometres, and even of more than a hundred kilometres, according to the sensitiveness of the subject, as well as to the intensity of the magnetizer's will. Moreover, space is not what we suppose. The distance from Paris to London is great for a walker, and was even insurmountable before the invention of boats; it is nothing for electricity. The distance from the Earth to the Moon is great for our present modes of locomotion;
it is nothing for attraction. In fact,
from an absolute point of view, the space which separates us from Sirius is not a greater part of infinity than the distance from Paris to Versailles, or from your left eye to your right.

There is more yet; the separation which seems to us to exist between the Earth and the Moon, or between the Earth and Mars, or even between the Earth and Sirius, is only an illusion due to the insufficiency of our perceptions. The Moon acts constantly upon the Earth, and moves it perpetually. The attraction of Mars for our planet is equally acute, and we in our turn disturb Mars in its course in submitting to the influence of the Moon. We act upon the Sun itself, and make it move as if we touched it. By virtue of attraction, the Moon causes the Earth to turn every month around their common centre of gravity,—a point which travels one thousand seven hundred kilometres below the surface of the globe. The Earth causes the Sun to turn annually around their common centre of gravity, situated four hundred and fifty-six kilometres from the solar centre; all the worlds act upon each other perpetually, so that there is no isolation, no real separation, between them. Instead of being a void separating the worlds from one another, space is rather a connecting link. Now, if attraction thus establishes a real, perpetual, active, and indisputable communication between the Earth and its sisters in immensity, as proved by the precision of astronomical observations, we do not see by what right pretended positivists can declare that no communication can be possible between two beings, more or less distant from each other, either on the Earth or in two different worlds.

Cannot two brains that vibrate in unison at a distance of many kilometres be moved by the same psychic force? Cannot the emotion which starts from a brain reach a brain vibrating at no matter what distance, just as sound crosses a room, making the strings of a piano or violin vibrate?

Do not forget that our brains are composed of molecules which do not touch, and which are in constant vibration. And why speak of brains? Cannot thought, will, psychic force, whatever its nature may be, act on a being to whom it is attached by the sympathetic and indissoluble ties of intellectual relationship? Do not the palpitations of a heart suddenly transmit themselves to the heart which beats in unison with ours? Are we to admit in the cases of apparitions noted above that the mind of the dead has really assumed a corporeal form when near the observer? In the greater part of the cases this hypothesis does not seem necessary. In our dreams we think we see persons who are not before our closed eyes at all. We see them perfectly, as well as in broad daylight; we speak to them, converse with them. Surely it is neither our retina nor our optic nerve which sees them, any more than our ear hears them. Our cerebral cells alone are concerned in it.

Certain apparitions may be objective, exterior, and substantial; others may be subjective,—in that case the being who manifests himself would act from a distance on the being who sees, and this influence on his brain would determine the interior vision which appears exterior, as in dreams, but may be purely subjective and interior. Just as a thought, a memory, may arouse an image in our minds which may be very distinct and very vivid, just so one intelligence acting upon another may make an image appear in him which will for a moment give him the illusion of reality. It is not the retina which is affected by a positive reality, it is the optic thalami of the brain which are excited. In what way? The present state of our physiological and psychological knowledge does not yet teach us that.