But how and by what means can such a communication be established? What is the agency whose existence we must presuppose, in order that beings floating in the ethereal spaces can produce an impression here below? What transcendent system of electric telegraphy does the superhuman being employ? On this point we are absolutely ignorant, but the fact that communication does exist between these beings and our globe appears to us to be certain; a conviction which we base upon the following grounds.
First, let us address ourselves to the popular feeling. As we have already said, we are not afraid of invoking vulgar prejudices and opinions, because they are almost always the expression of some great moral truth. Observations repeated thousands of times, traditions transmitted from generation to generation, and which have resisted the control of time, without being either altered or destroyed, cannot deceive. Only, when the people amidst whom this tradition has been formulated and preserved, are unenlightened, they translate their observations into a coarse form.
Let us inquire into the origin of those ghosts in which many civilized people firmly believe! Take away the absurd white sheet, and the human form with which the simple superstition of the peasantry invest them, and you will find in ghosts the idea of communication between the souls of the dead and the living, you will find the thought which we are endeavouring to put before you in a scientific form.
This popular notion about ghosts has extended to persons who appear to be educated and enlightened, but who are, in reality, as ignorant in matters of philosophy as the simple peasants, and who are, in addition, addicted to mysticism, which obscures their reason. We allude to spiritualists.
The term spiritualists is applied to the partisans of a new superstition which sprung up in America and Europe in 1855, as a result of the moral malady of table-turning. These good people imagine that they can, by their will, and according to their fancy, cause the souls of the dead, of great men, or of their own relatives and friends, to descend to the earth. They evoke the soul of Socrates or Confucius, as easily as that of a defunct relative, and they are so simple as to imagine that these souls come at their call to converse with them. A person who is called a medium is the intermediary between the invoker and the soul invoked. The medium, under the influence of an unconscious and habitual hallucination, writes down on paper all the answers made by the spirit, or rather he writes down everything that comes into his own foolish head, imagining himself to be faithfully transmitting messages from the other world. The people who listen to him take these things, which are simply the thoughts of the ignorant medium, for revelations from beyond the tomb.
In spiritualism there exists only one true and rational idea; it is the possibility of man's placing himself in relation with the souls of the dead; but the coarse means resorted to by the partisans of this mystic doctrine, cause every enlightened and educated man to repudiate any fellowship with them. We merely mention spiritualism in this place as a vulgar and foolish phase of the popular belief in ghosts. It has higher pretensions, but science and reason alike forbid us to admit them.
The fact of communication between superhuman beings and the dwellers upon the earth being, it seems to us, proved, we shall now consider how those superhuman beings and men who live on the earth or on the other planets may be brought into relation with each other. It appears to us that this communication is chiefly in action during sleep, and through the medium of dreams. Sleep, that curious and ill-explained state, is the condition of our being during which a portion of our physiological functions, those which establish our connection with the external world, are abolished, while the soul preserves a part of its activity. In this condition, the body being seized by a kind of death, the soul, on the contrary, continues to act, to feel, and to manifest itself by the phenomena of dreams. Now, in the superhuman being, the spiritual portion, the soul, dominates immensely over the material portion. The superhuman being is, so to speak, all intelligence. Man, when he is in the condition of sleep and dreaming, approaches nearer to the superhuman being than when he is in a waking state; there is, then, more resemblance, more natural affinity between them. Consequently communications can be more easily established between these two beings who are drawn together by analogy of condition.
There is a saying, the result of repeated observation, which is logical and true. It is, the night brings counsel. Is not this as much as to say that it is during the night we receive the secret communications and the solitary advice of those beloved invisible beings who watch over us, and inspire us with their supreme wisdom? It is certain that when we have to make a decision, to unravel a thought, it often happens that we fall asleep in the midst of perplexity and uncertainty, and that the next day we awake, having taken our decision, unravelled our thought, which explains the phrase, the night brings counsel. Ancient times, and the middle ages, accorded an extraordinary importance to dreams. They were considered to be sent by God, as His warnings, hence the importance attached to their interpretation. "During sleep," says Tertullian, "the honours which await men are revealed to us; during sleep, remedies are indicated, thefts revealed, treasures discovered."[10]
Visions played a great part among Christians in mediæval times. It was during sleep that saints, inspired persons, and devotees received communications of an extraordinary order. We are far from believing that it is during sleep and dreams only that we can feel the presence and the influence of superhuman beings. There are few persons who have not felt, while waking, an unaccountable influence of this kind. We feel a soft, gentle impression, a sort of vague, mysterious push, which excites a spontaneous resolution, a sudden inspiration, an unhoped-for suggestion.
We must observe that all men are not recipients of these mysterious impressions. The superhuman being cannot manifest himself except to those whom he loves, and who remember him; to those whom he wishes to protect against the dangers and difficulties of this terrestrial life. A father, or a mother, snatched away from filial love by death, comes to speak to the soul which remains and mourns here below. A son, torn in the dawn of life from the tenderness of his parents, comes to console them for his loss, to enlighten them with his advice, to furnish them, by the inspiration of his lofty wisdom, with the means of sustaining all the trials of this lower life. Two friends are united, despite the barrier of the tomb. Two lovers, whom death has sundered, are again brought together. An adored wife, taken by death from her husband, reveals herself to his heart. Then all those sentiments of mutual affection which subsisted between them spring up again; death, which has appeared to sever the ties between these souls, does no more than veil them from the eyes of strangers. Death is conquered; the phantom is laid low, and we may cry with the prophet in the Scripture, "Oh, Death! where is thy sting? Oh, Grave, where is thy victory?"