Spiritism, Introduction of The Spirits book - Part I of VI

By Allan Kardek

I

For new ideas new words are needed, in order to secure clearness of language by avoiding the confusion inseparable from the employment of the same term for expressing different meanings. The words spiritual, spiritualist, spiritualism, have a definite acceptation; to give them a new one, in order to apply them to the doctrine set forth by spirits, would be to multiply the causes of amphibology, already so numerous. Strictly speaking, Spiritualism is the opposite of Materialism; every one is a Spiritualist who believes that there is in him something more than matter, but does not follow that he believes in the existence of spirits, or in their communication with the visible world. Instead, therefore of the words SPIRITUAL, SPIRITUALISM, we employ, to designate this latter belief, the words SPIRITIST, SPIRITISM, which, by their form, indicate their origin and radical meaning, and have thus the advantage of being perfectly intelligible; and we reserve the words spiritualism, spiritualist, for the expression of the meaning attached to them by common acceptation. We say, then, that the fundamental principle of the spiritist theory, or Spiritism, is the relation of the material world with spirits, or the beings of the invisible world; and we designate the adherents of the spirit theory as spiritists.

In a special sense, "The Spirits Book" contains the doctrine or theory of spiritism; in a general sense, it appertains to the spiritualist school, of which it presents one of the phases. It is for this reason that we have inscribed the words Spiritualist Philosophy on its title-page.

II

There is another word of which it is equally necessary to define the meaning, because it is the keystone of every system of morality, and also because, owing to the lack of a precise definition, it has been made the subject of innumerable controversies; we refer to the word soul. The divergence of opinion concerning the nature of the soul is a result of the variety of meanings attached to this word. A perfect language, in which every idea had its own special term, would save a vast deal of discussion; for, in that case, misunderstanding would be impossible.

Some writers define the soul as being the principle of organic life, having no existence of its own, and ceasing with the life of the body. According to this purely Materialistic belief, the soul is an effect, and not a cause.

Others consider the soul as being the principle of intelligence, the universal agent, of which each being absorbs a portion. According to them, there is, in the entire universe, only one soul, which distributes sparks of itself among all intelligent beings during their life; each spark, after the death of the being it has animated, returning to the common source, and blending again with the general whole, as brooks and rivers return to the ocean from which they were produced. This opinion differs from the preceding one, inasmuch as, according to the latter hypothesis, there is in us something more than matter, something that remains in existence after our death; but, practically, it is much as though nothing remained of us, since, no longer possessing individuality, we should retain no consciousness of our identity. According to this hypothesis, the universal soul is God, and each being is a portion of the Divinity. It is a species of Pantheism.

According to others, again, the soul is a moral being, distinct, independent of matter, and preserving its individuality after death. This acceptation of the word soul is certainly the one most generally received; because, under one name or another, the idea of a being that survives the body is found as an instinctive belief, and independently of all teaching, among all nations, whatever their degree of civilisation. This doctrine, according to which the soul is a cause, and not an effect, is that of the spiritualists.

Without discussing the value of these opinions, and considering the subject merely under its philological aspect, we say that these three applications of the word soul constitute three distinct ideas, each of which demands a different term. "Soul" has, therefore, a triple meaning, and is employed by each school according to the special meaning it attributes to that word. In order to avoid the confusion naturally resulting from the use of the same word to express three different ideas, it would be necessary to confine the word to one of these three ideas; it would not matter to which, provided the choice were clearly understood. We think it more natural to take it in its most common acceptation; and for this reason we employ the word Soul to indicate the immaterial and individual being which resides in us, and survives the body. Even if this being did not really exist, and were only a product of the imagination, a specific term would still be needed to designate it.

For want of such a term for each of the other ideas now loosely understood by the word soul, we employ the term vital principle to designate the material and organic life which, whatever may be its source, is common to all living creatures, from the plant to man. As life can exist without the thinking faculty, the vital principle is something distinct from independent of it. The word vitality would not express the same idea. According to some, the vital principle is a property of matter; an effect produced wherever matter is found under certain given conditions; while, in the opinion of the greater number of thinkers, it resides in a special fluid, universally diffused, and of which each being absorbs and assimilates a portion during life, as inert bodies absorb light: the vital principle being identical with the vital fluid, which is generally regarded as being the same as the animalised electric fluid, designated also as the magnetic fluid, the nervous fluid, etc.

However this may be, one fact is certain, for it is proved by observation, viz., that organic beings possess in themselves a force which so long as it exists, produces the phenomena of life; that physical life is common to all organic beings, and is independent of intelligence and thought; that intelligence and thought are faculties peculiar to certain organic species; and, lastly, that, among the organic species endowed with intelligence and thought, there is one which is endowed with a special moral sense that gives it an incontestable superiority over the others, viz., human species.

It is evident that, being employed according to various acceptations, the term soul does not exclude either Materialism or Pantheism. Spiritualists themselves understand the term soul according to one or other of the first two definitions, without denying the distinct immaterial being, to which in that case, it would give some other name. This word, therefore, is not the representative of an opinion; it is a Protean term, defined by each after his own fashion, and thus giving rise to interminable disputes.

We might also avoid confusion, even while employing the word soul in the three senses defined above, by adding to it some qualifying term that should specify the point of view from which we consider it, or the mode in which we apply it. It would be, in that case, a generic word, representing at once the principles of material life, of intelligence, and of the moral faculty, each of which would be distinguished by an attribute, as is done, for example, with the word gas, by adding the words hydrogen, oxygen, etc. Thus we might say - and it would, perhaps, be the best plan to adopt - vital soul for the principle of material life, intellectual soul for the principle of intelligence, and spiritual soul for the principle of our individuality after death; in which case the vital soul would be common to all organic beings, plants, animals, and men; the intellectual soul would be the peculiar property of animals and men; and the spiritual soul would belong to men only.

We have thought it all the more important to be explicit in regard to this point, because the spiritist theory is naturally based on the existence in us of a being independent of matter, and that survives the body. As the word soul will frequently recur in the course of this work, it was necessary to define the meaning we attach to it, in order to avoid all misunderstanding.

We now come to the principal object of this preliminary explanation.

III

Spiritist doctrine, like all new theories, has its supporters and its opponents. We will endeavour to reply to some of the objections of the latter, by examining the worth of the reasons on which they are based, without, however, pretending to be able to convince everybody, but addressing ourselves to those who, without prejudices or preconceived ideas, are sincerely and honestly desirous of arriving at the truth; and will prove to them that those objections are the result of a too hasty conclusion in regard to facts imperfectly observed.

Of the facts referred to, the one first observed was the movement of objects, popularly called "table-turning." This phenomenon, first observed in America (or rather, renewed in that country, for history proves it to have been produced in the most remote ages of antiquity), was attended with various strange accompaniments, such as unusual noises, raps produced without any ostensible cause, etc. From America this phenomenon spread rapidly over Europe and the rest of the world. It was met at first with incredulity; but the movements were produced by so many experimenters, that it soon became impossible to doubt its reality.

If the phenomenon in question had been limited to the movement of inert objects, it might have been possible to explain it by some purely physical cause. We are far from knowing all the secret agencies of nature, or all the properties of those which are known to us. Electricity, moreover, is not only multiplying, day by day, the resources it offers to mankind, but appears to be about to irradiate science with a new light. It seemed, therefore, by no means impossible that electricity, modified by certain circumstances, or some other unknown agent, might be the cause of these movements. The fact that the presence of several persons increased the intensity of the action appeared to strengthen the supposition; for the union of these might not ineptly be regarded as constituting a battery, of which the power was in proportion to the number of its elements.

That the movement of the tables should be circular was in no way surprising, for the circular movements is of frequent occurrence in nature. All the stars move in circles; and it therefore seemed to be possible that in the movement of the tables we had a reflex on a small scale of the movement of the universe; or that some cause, hitherto unknown, might produce, accidentally, and, in regard to small objects, a current analogous to that which impels the worlds of the universe in their orbits.

But the movement in question was not always circular. It was often irregular, disorderly; the object moved was sometimes violently shaken, overthrown, carried about in various directions, and, in contravention of all known laws of statics, lifted from the ground and held up in the air. Still, in all this, there was nothing that might not be explained by the force of some invisible physical agent. Do we not see electricity overthrow buildings, uproot trees, and hurl to considerable distances the heaviest bodies, attracting or repelling, as the case may be?

The rappings and other unusual noises, supposing them to be due to something else than the dilation of the wood, or other accidental cause, might well be produced by an accumulation of the mysterious fluid; for does not electricity produce the loudest sounds?

Up to this point everything might be considered as belonging to the domain of physics and physiology. Without going beyond this circle of ideas, the learned might have found in the phenomenon referred to matter well worthy of serious study. Why was this not done? It is painful to be obliged to make the confession, but the neglect of the scientific world was due to causes that add one more proof to the many already given of the frivolity of the human mind. In the first place, the non-glamour of the object which mainly served as the basis of the earliest experimentations had something to do with this disdain. What an influence, in regard to even the most serious matters, is often exerted by a mere word! Without reflecting that the movement referred to might be communicated to any object, the idea of tables became associated with it in the general mind, doubtless because a table, being the most convenient object upon which to experiment and also because people can place themselves round a table more conveniently than round any other piece of furniture, was generally employed in the experiments referred to. But men who pride themselves on their mental superiority are sometimes so puerile as to warrant the suspicion that a good many keen and cultivated minds may have considered it beneath them to take any notice of what was commonly known as "the dance of tables." If the phenomenon observed by Galvani had been made known by some unlearned person, and dubbed with some absurd nickname, it would probably have been consigned to the lumber-room, along with the divining-rod; for where is the scientist who would not in that case have regarded it as derogatory to occupy himself with the dance of frogs?

A few men of superior intellect, however, being modest enough to admit that nature might not have revealed to them all her secrets, conscientiously endeavoured to see into the matter for themselves; but the phenomena not having always responded to their attempts, and not being always produced at their pleasure, and according to their methods of experimenting, they arrived at an adverse conclusion in regard to them. The tables, however, despite that conclusion, continued to turn; and we may say of them, with Galileo," Nevertheless, they move !" We may assert, still further, that the facts alluded to have been multiplied to such an extent that they have become naturalised among us, so that opinions are now only divided as to their nature.

And here let us ask whether the fact that these phenomena are not always produced in exactly the same way, and according to the wishes and requirements of each individual observer, can be reasonably regarded as constituting an argument against their reality? Are not the phenomena of electricity and chemistry subordinated to certain conditions, and should we be right in denying their reality because they do not occur when those conditions are not present? Is it strange, then, that certain conditions should be necessary to the production of the phenomenon of the movement of objects by the human fluid, or that it should not occur when the observer, placing himself at his own individual point of view, insists on producing it at his own pleasure, or in subjecting it to the laws of phenomena already known, without considering that a new order of facts may, and indeed must, result from the action of laws equally new to us? Now, in order to arrive at a knowledge of such laws, it is necessary to study the circumstances under which those facts are produced; and such a study can only be made through long-sustained and attentive observation.

"But," it is often objected, "there is evident trickery in some of the occurrences referred to." To this objection we reply, in the first place, by asking whether the objectors are quite sure that what they have taken for trickery may not be simply an order of facts which they are not yet able to account for, as was the case with the peasant who mistook the experiments of a learned professor of physics for the tricks of a clever conjuror? But even admitting that there has been trickery in some cases, is that a reason for denying the reality of facts? Must we deny the reality of physics because certain conjurors give themselves the title of physicists? Moreover, the character of the persons concerned in these manifestations should be taken into account, and the interest they may have in deceiving. Would they do so by way of a joke? A joke may amuse for a moment, but a mystification, if kept up too long, would become as wearisome to the mystifier as to the mystified. Besides, a mystification carried on from one end of the earth to the other, and among the most serious, honourable, and enlightened people, would be at least as extraordinary as the phenomena in question.

By Allan Karde (1804-1869), translated by Anna Blackwell

See more articles by Allan Karde here: The Spirits book