The Phantom World Part 57

The fathers of the first ages speak often of the power that the Christians exercised against the demons, against those who called themselves diviners, against magicians and other subalterns of the devil; princ.i.p.ally against those who were possessed, who were then frequently seen, and are so still from time to time, both in the church and out of the church. Exorcisms and other prayers of the church have always been employed against these, and with success.

Emperors and kings have employed their authority and the rigor of the laws against those who have devoted themselves to the service of the demon, and used spells, charms, and other methods which the demon employs, to entice and destroy both men and animals, or the fruits of the country.

We might add to the remarks of the reverend Dominican father divers other propositions drawn from the same work; for instance, when the author says that "the angels know everything here below; for if it is by means of specialties, which G.o.d communicates to them every day, as St. Augustine thinks, there is no reason to believe that they do not know all the wants of mankind, and that they cannot console and strengthen them, render themselves visible to them by the permission of G.o.d, without always receiving from him an express order so to do."

This proposition is rather rash: it is not certain that the angels know everything that pa.s.ses here below. Jesus Christ, in St. Matthew xxiv. 36, says that the angels do not know the day of his coming. It is still more doubtful that the angels can appear without an express command from G.o.d, and that St. Augustine has so taught.

He says, a little while after--"That demons often appeared before Jesus Christ in fantastic forms, which they a.s.sumed as the angels do,"

that is to say, in aerial bodies which they organized; "whilst at present, and since the coming of Jesus Christ, those wonders and spells have been so common that the people attributed them to sorcery and commerce with the devil, whereas it is attested that they can be operated only by natural magic, which is the knowledge of secret effects from natural causes, and many of them by the subtilty of the air alone. This is the opinion of the greater number of the fathers who have spoken of them."

This proposition is false, and contrary to the doctrine and practice of the church; and it is not true that it is the opinion of the greater number of the fathers; he should have cited some of them.[659]

He says that "the Book of Job and the song of Hezekiah are full of testimonies that the Holy Spirit seems to have taught us, that our souls cannot return to earth after our death, until G.o.d has made angels of them."

It is true that the Holy Scriptures speak of the resurrection and return of souls into their bodies as of a thing that is impossible in the natural course. Man cannot raise up himself from the dead, neither can he raise up his fellow-man without an effort of the supreme might of G.o.d. Neither can the spirits of the deceased appear to the living without the command or permission of G.o.d. But it is false to say, "that G.o.d makes angels of our souls, and that then they can appear to the living."

Our souls will never become angels; but Jesus Christ tells us that after our death our souls will be _as_ the angels of G.o.d, (Matt. xxii.

30); that is to say, spiritual, incorporeal, immortal, and exempt from all the wants and weaknesses of this present life; but he does not say that our souls must _become_ angels.

He affirms "that what Jesus Christ said, 'that spirits have neither flesh nor bones,' far from leading us to believe that spirits can return to earth, proves, on the contrary, evidently that they cannot without a miracle render themselves visible to mankind; since it requires absolutely a corporeal substance and organs of speech to make ourselves heard, which does not agree with the spirits, who naturally cannot be subject to our senses."

This is no more impossible than what he said beforehand of the apparitions of angels, since our souls, after the death of the body, are "like unto the angels," according to the Gospel. He acknowledges himself, with St. Jerome against Vigilantius, that the saints who are in heaven appear sometimes visibly to men. "Whence comes it that animals have, as well as ourselves, the faculty of memory, but not the reflection which accompanies it, which proceeds only from the soul, which they have not?"

Is not memory itself the reflection of what we have seen, done, or heard; and in animals is not memory followed by reflection,[660] since they avenge themselves on those who hurt them, avoid that which has incommoded them, foreseeing what might happen to themselves from it if they fell again into the same mistake?

After having spoken of natural palingenesis, he concludes--"And thus we see how little cause there is to attribute these appearances to the return of souls to earth, or to demons, as do some ignorant persons."

If those who work the wonders of natural palingenesis, and admit the natural return of phantoms in the cemeteries, and fields of battle, which I do not think happens naturally, could show that these phantoms speak, act, move, foretell the future, and do what is related of returned souls or other apparitions, whether good angels or bad ones, we might conclude that there is no reason to attribute them to souls, angels, and demons; but, 1, they have never been able to cause the appearance of the phantom of a dead man, by any secret of art. 2. If it had been possible to raise his shade, they could never have inspired it with thought or reasoning powers, as we see in the angels and demons, who appear, reason, and act, as intelligent beings, and gifted with the knowledge of the past, the present, and sometimes of the future.

He denies that the souls in purgatory return to earth; for if they could come back, "everybody would receive similar visits from their relations and friends, since all the souls would feel disposed to do the same. Apparently," says he, "G.o.d would grant them this permission, and if they had this permission, every person of good sense would be at a loss to comprehend why they should accompany all their appearances with all the follies so circ.u.mstantially related."

We may reply, that the return of souls to earth may depend neither on their inclination nor their will, but on the will of G.o.d, who grants this permission to whom he pleases, when he will, and as he will.

The wicked rich man asked that Lazarus[661] might be sent to this world to warn his brothers not to fall into the same misfortune as himself, but he could not obtain it. There are an infinity of souls in the same case and disposition, who cannot obtain leave to return themselves or to send others in their place.

If certain narratives of the return of spirits to earth have been accompanied by circ.u.mstances somewhat comic, it does not militate against the truth of the thing; since for one recital imprudently embellished by uncertain circ.u.mstances, there are a thousand written sensibly and seriously, and in a manner very conformable to truth.

He maintains that all the apparitions which cannot be attributed to angels or to blessed spirits, are produced only by one of these three causes:--the power of imagination; the extreme subtility of the senses; and the derangement of the organs, as in cases of madness and in high fevers.

This proposition is rash, and has before been refuted by the Reverend Father Richard.

The author recounts all that he has said of the spirit of St. Maur, in causing the motion of the bed in the presence of three persons who were wide awake, the repeated shrieks of a person whom they did not see, of a door well-bolted, of repeated blows upon the walls, of panes of gla.s.s struck with violence in the presence of three persons, without their being able to see the author of all this movement;--he reduces all this to a derangement of the imagination, the subtilty of the air, or the vapors casually arising in the brain of an invalid.

Why did he not deny all these facts? Why did he give himself the trouble to compose so carefully a dissertation to explain a phenomenon, which, according to him, can boast neither truth nor reality? For my part, I am very glad to give the public notice that I neither adopt nor approve this anonymous dissertation, which I never saw before it was printed; that I know nothing of the author, take no part in it, and have no interest in defending him. If the subject of apparitions be purely philosophical, and it can without injury to religion be reduced to a problem, I should have taken a different method to destroy it, and I should have suffered my reasoning and my imagination to act more freely.

Footnotes:

[645] Letter of the Reverend Father Richard, a Dominican of Amiens, of the 29th of July, 1746.

[646] See on this subject the letter of the Marquis Maffei, which follows.

[647] St. Thomas, i. part 9, 89, art. 8, ad. 2.

[648] The author had foreseen this objection from the beginning of his dissertation.

[649] Aug. Serm. de Semp. 197.

[650] John xvi. 11.

[651] Luke xxii. 31.

[652] 2 Cor. xi. 7.

[653] 1 Tim. i. 2.

[654] 1 Cor. xi. 30.

[655] 2 Cor. ii. 11, and xi. 14.

[656] 2 Thess. ii.

[657] 1 Pet. v. 8.

[658] Ephes. vi. 12.

[659] They are cited in the letter of the Marquis Maffei.

[660] The author, as we may see, is not a Cartesian, since he a.s.signs reflection even to animals. But if they reflect, they choose; whence it consequently follows that they are free.

[661] Luke xiii. 14.

CHAPTER LXIII.

DISSERTATION BY AN ANONYMOUS WRITER.

_Answer to a Letter on the subject of the Apparition of St. Maur._

"You have been before me, sir, respecting the spirit of St. Maur, which causes so much conversation at Paris; for I had resolved to send you a short detail of that event, in order that you might impart to me your reflections on a matter so delicate and so interesting to all Paris. But since you have read an account of it, I cannot understand why you have hesitated a moment to decide what you ought to think of it. What you do me the honor to tell me, that you have suspended your judgment of the case until I have informed you of mine, does me too much honor for me to be persuaded of it; and I think there is more probability in believing that it is a trick you are playing me, to see how I shall extricate myself from such slippery ground. Nevertheless, I cannot resist the entreaties, or rather the orders, with which your letter is filled; and I prefer to expose myself to the pleasantry of the free thinkers, or the reproaches of the credulous, than the anger of those with which I am threatened by yourself.

"You ask if I believe that spirits come back, and if the circ.u.mstance which occurred at St. Maur can be attributed to one of those incorporeal substances?

"To answer your two questions in the same order that you propose them to me, I must first tell you, that the ancient heathens acknowledge various kinds of spirits, which they called _lares_, _larvae_, _lemures_, _genii_, _manes_.

"For ourselves, without pausing at the folly of our cabalistic philosophers, who fancy spirits in every element, calling those sylphs which they pretend to inhabit the air; _gnomes_, those which they feign to be under the earth; _ondines_, those which dwell in the water; and _salamanders_, those of fire; we acknowledge but three sorts of created spirits, namely, angels, demons, and the souls which G.o.d has united to our bodies, and which are separated from them by death.

"The Holy Scriptures speak in too many places of the apparitions of the angels to Abraham, Jacob, Tobit, and several other holy patriarchs and prophets, for us to doubt of it. Besides, as their name signifies their ministry, being created by G.o.d to be his messengers, and to execute his commands, it is easy to believe that they have often appeared visibly to men, to announce to them the will of the Almighty.