Jupiter’s dwellings
To certain people convinced of the existence of the spirits – and here I do not mention others – one
must be surprised that the spirits, like us, may have their homes and cities. I was not spared of
criticism: “Houses of spirits in Jupiter! ... What a joke! ...”
Joke it may be. But I have nothing to do with that. If in the likelihood of the explanations, the reader
does not find sufficient proof of its truthfulness; if, as with us, he is not surprised by the perfect
agreement between those revelations of the spirits and the most positive data of astronomy; if, in
one word, he cannot see more than skillful mystification in the following details and in the drawing
that is related to that, I invite you to explain yourself with the spirits, of whom I am a faithful echo
and instrument. May Palissy or Mozart be evoked or another inhabitant of that happy world; may
they be questioned; and may my assertions be controlled by theirs; may, finally, it all be discussed
with them; as for myself I do no more than presenting what is given to me and repeating what I
have been told; and that by an absolutely passive role, I judge myself sheltered from censorship as
well as from praise.
Given that exception and admitting the trust in the spirits, if one accepts as true the only really
beautiful and wise doctrine hitherto revealed by the evocation of the dead, that is, the migration of
the souls from planet to planet, their successive incarnations and their never ending progress
through work, then Jupiter inhabitants should no longer cause us any admiration. Since the moment
when a spirit incarnates in a world like ours, subjected to a double revolution, which is the alternate
days and nights and the cycle of seasons and since it has a body, this material covering, however fragile it may be, not only requires nutrition and clothing but also a shelter, or at least a resting place
and, consequently, a dwelling.
This is exactly what we were told. As with us and better than us, Jupiter inhabitants have their
common homes and their families, harmonious groups of sympathetic spirits, united in triumph
along the way of their common struggle. Therefore the spacious homes that deserve the name of
palaces.
Still, as happens to us, the spirits have their parties, ceremonies and public gatherings. Thus a
number of edifices are especially built for that purpose. It is necessary to be prepared to find in
those superior regions an active and laborious humanity as ours, also submitted to their laws, needs
and duties, with the only difference that progress, which in our case reacts to our efforts, becomes
an easy achievement to spirits detached from our earthly vices, like them.
I should not handle the architecture of their dwellings here. A word of explanation, however, will be
useful to the understanding of the details that follow.
As good spirits only inhabits Jupiter, it does not follow that they are all on the same level of
excellence: between the kindness of the simple man and that of the genius there are several nuances.
The whole social organization of that superior world is based precisely on the variety of
intelligences and aptitudes and, through the application of harmonious laws whose explanation
would be too lengthy here, it is up to the more elevated and depurated spirits to manage the higher
direction of the planet. Such supremacy does not stop there. It extends up to the inferior worlds
where those spirits, by their influence, favor, and incessantly activate religious progress, are the
guiders of all others. It is necessary to add that to those depurated spirits there is nothing but
intellectual work as their activities take place in the domain of the mind and they have acquired
enough control over matter in other not to be even slightly limited by that in the exercise of their
free will.
The body of those spirits, by the way, as of all inhabitants of Jupiter, is of so low density that it can
be compared to our most imponderable fluids. Somewhat taller than our body whose shape it
exactly reproduces, more beautiful and purer however, it would have a vaporous shape to us – and
here I regretfully use a word that designates a substance still too gross –vapor, I was saying,
intangible and shiny, particularly around the borders of the face and head, hence life and
intelligence irradiate from a very ardent focus. It is exactly that magnetic shine foreseen by
Christian visionaries that our painters translated by the nimbus or aureole of the saints.
It is understandable that such a structure does not bring much difficulty to the extra worldly
communications of those spirits, allowing them an easy and fast dislocation around their own
planet. The body so easily avoids the effect of gravity and its density is so much alike the
atmospheric density that it can come and go move up and down to the simple effort of the will.
Thus, some characters that Palissy made me draw are represented hovering the ground or the
surface of the waters or still very high up in the air, with every freedom of action and motion that
we attribute to the angels. The more elevated the spirit the easier that motion, as we can easily
understand. Thus, nothing in that planet is easier than the determination of the level of a given
spirit, at first sight, as they move about. Two signs denounce it: the height of their flight and the
more or less shiny aureole.
In Jupiter, as everywhere else, those who fly higher are infrequent. Below them there are several
categories of inferior spirits, be it in virtue, be it in power, but, naturally, free to rise at a higher level
one day through their acts. Leveled and classified according to their merits, they dedicate more
particularly to the tasks of interest of their own planet and do not exert the influence of the others
over the inferior worlds. It is true that they respond to an evocation with good and wise revelations
but given the hurry to leave us, as demonstrated by their brief answers. It is promptly seen that they
have a lot to do elsewhere and that they are not yet sufficiently free so as to simultaneously irradiate
in two different points, far away from one another. Finally, following the less perfect of those
spirits, but separated by an abyss, there are the animals that are the only servers and workers of the
planet thus deserve a special reference.
If we designate the bizarre beings that occupy the inferior limits of the scale by the name of
“animals” it is because the spirits themselves admitted its use, besides the fact that our language
does not have a more adequate term. Such a designation significantly degrades them; however,
calling them “men” would elevate them too much. These are spirits truly dedicated to the animality,
maybe for a long time, maybe forever, once the spirits are not in total agreement in that regard and
the solution to this issue seems to belong to worlds more elevated than Jupiter. Nevertheless,
whatever their future may be there is no mistake with respect to their past: those spirits, before
going to Jupiter, continuously migrated in our inferior worlds, from the body of one animal to
another, through a perfectly graduated scale of progression. A careful study of our earthly animals,
their customs, their individual characters, their ferocity away from men and the slow but always
possible domestication, everything yields sufficient demonstration of the reality of such animal
ascension.
Thus, no matter how we look at it, the Universal harmony is summarized in only one law: progress
everywhere and to all, to the animal as to the plant, to the plant as to the mineral. In principle a
purely material progress, in the insensitive molecules of the metal or the pebble and gradually more
intelligent, as we move up in the scale of the creatures and as the individuality tends to separate
from the masses, in order to stand alone and know oneself.
This thought is elevated and consoling, as never before, because it proves that nothing is sacrificed;
that the reward is always proportional to the actual progress. For example: the dedication of a dog
by its owner is not sterile to the spirits, as it will have its just compensation beyond this world.
That is the case with the animal spirits that inhabit Jupiter. They perfected at the same time as us,
with us and with our help. The law is even more remarkable: it awards so much the devotement to
man, as the first condition to their planetary ascension, that the wishes of a spirit in Jupiter can
attract to him every animal that in one of his previous lives had given him proof of affection. Those
sympathies, that in those regions form families of spirits, also aggregate around these families’
entourages of dedicated animals. Consequently, our attachment to an animal in our world, our care
in taming and humanizing them, everything has a reason, and everything will be rewarded: it is a
good server that we prepare to a better world.
It will thus be a worker since all material work is reserved to that species, all the corporeal effort:
hauling or construction, sowing or harvesting. The Supreme Intelligence has prepared a body that
accomplishes all that, simultaneously participating into the advantages of animal and man. We can
have an idea from a sketch of Palissy, representing some of those animals entertaining themselves in
a ball game. The best comparison one could have would be with the fauns and satyrs of the Fable.
The slightly hairy body stands up like ours; in some the paws disappear, giving place to certain legs
which still resemble the primitive form, and also two robust arms, singularly implanted and
terminated by two real hands, if we consider the position of the thumbs. Surprisingly the head is not
so much advanced as the rest. Thus, the looks has something of human but the skull, the jaw and
ear, above all, have nothing noticeably different from the earthy animals. It is then simple to
distinguish them: this is a dog, the other a lion. Adequately dressed with outfits very similar to ours,
only lack the oral word to look like some men from our planet: this is precisely what they miss and
what they could not do. Skilful to understand each other through a language that has no similarity
with ours, they no long misunderstand the intention of the spirits who guide them: a glance, a
gesture is enough. The animal guesses and obeys, without a whisper, certain magnetic impulses
whose secret is already known by our tamers of beasts and, what is more important, voluntarily
since they are fascinated. That is how every heavy duty is imposed on them and that with their
support everything works regularly, from one to the next extreme of the social scale: the elevated
spirit thinks and deliberates; the inferior spirit acts on his own initiative and the animal executes.
Thus the conception, execution and the action harmonize, bringing everything to their conclusion,
swiftly and through the simplest and safest way.
I apologize for such an explanation: it was necessary to the subject that we can mention now.
While waiting for the promised maps which will greatly facilitate the study of the whole planet, we
can, through the description given by the spirits, have an idea of their great city, of the city by
excellence, of that focus of light and activities that they agree to call – what seems strange to us –
by the Latin name Julnius.
“In our largest continent”, says Palissy, “in a valley of seven to eight hundred leagues wide, to
utilize your measurement system, a magnificent river comes down from the northern mountains
and, boosted by a lot of streams and creeks, forms seven or eight lakes in its path, that the smallest
would be called “sea” among you. It was by the shores of the largest of those lakes, baptized as the
“Pearl”, that our predecessors launched the foundations of Julnius. That primitive city still exists,
guarded as a precious relic. Its architecture is very different from yours. When the time comes I will
explain all that to you: know only that the modern city is just a few hundred meters away from the
old one. Constrained by high mountains, the lake pours into the valley from eight huge waterfalls
that form other isolated streams, dispersed in all directions. With the support of those watercourses
we excavate several rivulets, canals and lakes in the plains, keeping the firm soil only for the houses
and gardens. That results in a kind of amphibious city, like your Venice, where one cannot say, at
first sight, if it was originally built on the ground or on the water. Today I will not say much about
four sacred edifices built upstream of the falls, so that the water gushes out through their porches.
Such constructions would seem incredible to you for their greatness and audacity.
“Here I describe the ground level city, somehow more material, city of the planetary occupations,
the one we finally call the “lower city”. It has its streets, or even better, its paths designed for the
internal service; its public grounds, its porches and its bridges over the canals, for the come and go
of the servers. But the intelligent town, the spiritual city, the true Julnius, per say, should not be
sought on the ground. It is aloft.
“A firm terrain is needed to the material bodies of our animals, incapable of flying *, but our fluidic
and shiny bodies require an adequate airborne shelter, almost intangible and mobile, according to
our wishes. Our skills solved that problem with the help of time and the conditions that the Great
Architect has given us. You understand well the need for such an indispensable conquest of the air,
to spirits like ours. Our day lasts five hours as also does our night but everything is relative to spirits
ready to act and think like us; to spirits that understand each other by the language of their eyes and
can magnetically communicate from a distance, our five hour day would be equivalent to a week of
your activities. All that was still too little in our opinion. The immobility of the homes, the fixed
spot of the dwellings, was a hindrance to all of our great realizations. Today, by the easy movement
of those birds’ nests, by the possibility of transporting ourselves to anywhere on the planet,
whenever we want to, our existence has multiplied at least twice, and with that everything it can
produce as useful and great.
“During certain times of the year”, adds the spirit, “in certain festivities, for example, you will see
somewhere the skies darkened by the cloud of houses that come from all points of the horizon. It is
a curious gathering of beautiful homes, gracious, light, of all forms, colors, balanced on several
levels, continuously moving from the lower to the celestial city. A few days later it is all gone,
empty and all those birds gradually leave.”
“Those floating homes lack nothing, not even the enchantment of the green leaves and flowers. I
speak about vegetation with no similarity among you, of plants and even bushes that by the nature
of their organs, live, breathe, feed and reproduce themselves in the air.”
The same spirit still said:
We have those bunches of huge flowers, whose forms and nuances you cannot imagine, and of such
a delicate fabric which makes them almost transparent. Balanced aloft, having broadleaf supporters
and tendrils like those of the vine, they assemble into a thousand shades or disperse with the wind,
offering a charming spectacle to the passers-by of the lower city... Imagine the grace of those rafts
of greenery, of those floating gardens that our will can make or break and that sometimes last a
whole season! Long trails of vines and flowering branches are detached from those heights, down to
the ground; huge clusters are agitated, exhaling perfume from the loosening petals... The spirits
who travel through the air stop there: it is a place of resting and gathering and, if you will, a means
of transportation to complete a journey without fatigue and in good company.”
Another spirit was sitting on one of those flowers at the time I evoked him. He said:
“Now it is night time in Julnius and I am sitting at a distance, on one of those airborne flowers that
only sprout under our moonshine here. The lower city sleeps at my feet; around me and just above
my head and to the endless distance, there is only movement and happiness in space. We don’t sleep
much: our soul is much detached so that our body’s needs do not tyrannize it. Night exists more to
our servers than to us. It is the time of visitations, long talks, lonely strolls, daydreams and music. I
only see airborne habitations resplendent of lights or rafts of flowers loaded with happy tufts... The
first of our moons illuminates the lower city: it is a smooth light, comparable to your moonshines;
but, the second one rises from the lake side, of greenish shines, yielding the whole river with that
appearance of a vast lawn...”
It is by the right riverbank “whose water, says the spirit, would give you the impression of the consistency of a very light vaporous shape” ** that Mozart’s house is built, whose drawing Palissy
was kind enough to make me reproduce on copper. I present here only the façade of the southern
side. The great entrance is on the left, looking to the plains; to the right is the river; to the north and
south the gardens. I asked Mozart who were his neighbors.
- Above and below me two spirits that you don’t know, but to the left there is only a large
meadow that separates me from Cervantes’s garden.
The house has four faces like ours but it would be a mistake to take that by a general rule. It is
built with a certain stone that the animals take from the northern mountains and whose color the
spirit compares to the shades of green that sometimes mix with the celestial blue, at sunset.
Regarding its strength we can have an idea by this comparison of Palissy: “it would melt so
rapidly under the pressure of your fingers as the snow flake does, yet that is one of the most
resistant materials of that planet!”
The spirits engraved strange arabesques on the walls that the drawing tries to reproduce. These
are ornaments engraved on the stone and colored later, or incrustations produced on the rigid
green stone by a process very much in use these days, that keeps the whole refinement of the
contour of the vegetables, the loveliness of their tissues and the richness of their colors. “A
discovery”, added the spirit, “that you will have one day and that will change many things.”
The large window to the right presents an example of that kind of ornament: one of its borders is
nothing but a huge reed, whose leaves were preserved. The same happens to the coronation of
the main window, imitating the shape of a treble clef: these are entwined and petrified plants. It is through such a process that most coronations of buildings, gates, porches, etc are obtained.
Sometimes the plant is attached with its roots to the wall, free to grow. It then grows, develops,
the leaves spread at random and when it achieves the full and desired development for the
ornamentation of the building, the artist petrifies it on the spot. Palissy’s house is almost entirely
decorated by such a process.
Destined initially only to the furniture, then to the casing of doors and windows, this type of
ornament gradually perfected, finally taking over the architecture as a whole. Nowadays it’s not
only flowers and bushes that are petrified but the whole trees themselves, from the root to the
crown. The palaces, as with other buildings, have almost no other type of columns.
Similar petrification is applied to the decoration of the windows. Flowers or large leaves are
skillfully stripped from its lamina. Only a bunch of fibers remain, so fine as the finest muslin.
These are then crystallized and artistically arranged to make up the whole window that filters a
smooth luminosity to the interior. A kind of multi colored liquid glass that hardens in the air,
transforming the leaf into a kind of stained glass, is also employed. Charming and illuminated
transparent branches result from the arrangement of those leaves at the windows.
As for the dimensions of those openings and several other details that, at first sight, may
surprise you, I am forced to provide an explanation: history of architecture in Jupiter would
require a whole volume. I shall not talk about the furniture either, sticking to the general
structure of the house.
From the preceding, the reader should have understood that the house of the continent, to the
spirit, is nothing more than a kind of resting place.
The lower city is only used by the spirits of the second order, in charge of the planetary
businesses, like agriculture, for example, or the exchanges and to keep the good order among
the servers. Thus, every house on the ground generally has two storeys, the ground level
destined to the spirits who operate under the orders of the master, also accessible to the animals;
the upper level only used by the spirit that occasionally stays there. That is why we see, in
several houses of Jupiter, like this one for example, as with Zoroaster’s, a staircase and a ramp.
Those who can fly on the surface of the water like the robins or run on top of the wheat crops
without bending them can perfectly well move without stairs and ramps to get to their homes.
But the inferior spirits cannot fly so easily. Those cannot rise but by irregular movements and
the ramps are not always useless to them. Finally, the stairs are absolutely necessary to the
animal servers that only walk like us. The former also have their pavilions which, by the way,
are very elegant and are part of every large residence, but their functions constantly draw their
attention to the master’s house, being thus necessary to facilitate their entry and also the internal
traffic. That is why such original constructions, whose bases are similar to our earthly buildings
but entirely different on the upper level.
This one distinguishes itself by an originality that we could not absolutely imitate. It is a kind of
arrow that swings at the top of the building, above the great window with its original
coronation. That delicate and easy moving topsail is supposed to stay put, since the artist’s
conception, at the very place he had defined, not supported by anything, but completing the
decoration. The dimension of the copper plate, regrettably, would not allow space for its
representation.
As for Mozart’s airborne house, it is only needed to the testimony of its existence. The limits of
this article do not allow me to extend beyond the subject.
I shall not conclude, however, without an in-passing explanation about the kind of ornaments
that the great artist chose for his home. The similarity with our terrestrial music is easy to
identify: the treble clef is frequently repeated and – original thing – never the bass clef! In the
decoration of the ground floor we find a violin bow, a kind of tiorba or bandolin, a harp and a music staff. Above there is a large window that vaguely resembles the format of an organ; the
others have the appearance of large musical notes but the small ones are abundant everywhere.
It would be a mistake to conclude that Jupiter’s music is comparable to ours and that it is
presented by the same symbols. Mozart gave an explanation about that so as to eliminate any
doubt. But, in the decoration of their homes, the spirits remember the earthly mission that gave
them the merit of the incarnation in Jupiter and that magnificently summarizes the character of
their intelligence. Thus, in Zoroaster’s house it is the planets and the flame that constitute every
decorative element.
Besides, as it seems, this symbolism has its own rules and secrecy. Those ornamental elements
are not randomly arranged. They have their own logic, imagination and precise meaning but it is
an art that the spirits of Jupiter refrain from leading us to understand, at least by now, and about
what they do not willingly explain.
Our early architects also employed a symbolism in the decoration of their cathedrals. St. Jacques
tower is a hermetic poem if we give credit to the tradition. Therefore there is no reason for
surprise with respect to the originality of Jupiter’s architecture. If it counters our ideas about
human art it is in fact due to an abyss between an architecture that lives and speaks and an
inexpressive masonry like ours. In this, as in everything else, prudence helps us to avoid such an
error of relativism that intends to reduce everything else to the proportions and habits of the
terrestrial man. If the inhabitants of Jupiter ate, slept, lived, and walked like us, there would be
no advantage in going there. It is because that planet differs a lot from ours that we want to
know it and dream about it as our future dwelling.
As for myself I believe I have not wasted my time and would be very happy for having been
chosen by the spirits to be their interpreter if their drawings and their descriptions inspired in
one believer only the desire to move up to Jupiter more rapidly, giving him courage to do
everything in order to achieve that.
VICTORIEN SARDOU
The author of this interesting description is one of those ardent and enlightened individuals that
are not afraid of confessing their beliefs loud and clear and that position themselves above the
criticism of those who believe in nothing but in their own circle of ideas. Connecting their
names to a new doctrine, defying sarcasm, is a courage not given to all. We congratulate Mr. V.
Sardou for having done this. His work reveals a distinct author who is still young but has
already conquered a place of honor in literature, allying his talent of writer to his profound
knowledge of a scholar. It is one more proof that Spiritism does not recruit among fools and
ignorant. We wish Mr. Sardou may complete his work as soon as possible and as brilliantly as
he started. If the astronomers unveil to us, through wise researches, the mechanism of the
Universe, the spirits, by their revelations, let us know its moral state and, as they say, with the
objective of motivating us towards the good, to deserve a better life.
ALLAN KARDEC
__________________________
* Exception made, however, to certain winged animals destined to work in the air and to certain tasks that
the carpenter would execute among us. It is a transformation of the bird, as the animals described above are a
transformation of the quadruped.
** Jupiter’s density is 0.23 or about 1⁄4 of Earth’s density. Everything that the spirit says here is likely. It is understandable that everything is relative and that in such an ethereal globe everything is ethereal as well.
