You are in:
Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1866 > May > Conversations from beyond the grave > Retrospective Memories of a Spirit
Retrospective Memories of a Spirit
Spontaneous communication, Tulle November 26th, 1866
Medium Mr. Leymarie
Spontaneous communication, Tulle November 26th, 1866
Medium Mr. Leymarie
Do you know, friends, where my communication is from? From a lost gorge, where the houses dispute their foundations with the difficulties accumulated by creation. Climbing houses winding on the slope of almost vertical hills, hanging from the sides of the rocks. Poor dwellings that housed many generations; above the roofs are the gardens where birds sing their prayers. When the first flowers announce the beautiful days, full of air and sun, this music seems to come out of areal layers, and the inhabitant that folds and work the iron, the factory and its discordant noise match their bitter and noisy rhythm with the harmony of the little artists of the good God.
But above those deteriorated, disheveled, original, dislocated houses, there are high mountains with unparalleled greenery; the walker sees the horizon broadening at each step; the villages, the churches seem to came out of the abyss, and this strange, wild, mutable panorama is lost in the distance, dominated by mountains with their summits whitened by the snow.
But I forgot: you must undoubtedly perceive a silvery strip, clear, capricious, transparent like a mirror: it is the Corrèze. Sometimes enclosed between rocks, it is quiet and grave; sometimes she escapes joyful, cheerful, through the meadows, willows and poplars, offering her cup to the lips of numerous flocks, and her beneficial transparency to the frolics of bathers; she purifies the city that is graciously divided.
I love this countryside, with its old houses, its gigantic steeple, it noise, its crown of chestnut trees; I love it because I was born there, because everything that I describe to your benevolent soul is part of the memories of my last incarnation. Beloved relatives, sincere friends always surrounded me with tender care; they helped my spiritual advancement. Having reached grandeur, I owed them my fraternal feelings; my works honored them, and when I come, as a Spirit, to visit the town of my infancy, I cannot help it but to climb the Puy-Saint-Clair, the last home of the citizens of Tulle, greeting the earthly remains of the beloved Spirits.
Strange fantasy! The cemetery is five hundred feet above the city; around, the infinite horizon. We are along among nature, its prestige, and God, the King of all greatness, of all hopes. Our ancestors wanted to bring together their beloved dead to their true dwelling, to tell them: Spirits, fly away! The air around calls you. Come out, resplendent from your prison, so that the enchanting spectacle of this immense horizon prepare you for the wonders that you were called upon to contemplate. If they had such a thought, I approve, because death is not so gloomy as they portray it. To the Spiritists, isn’t that the true life, the desired separation, the welcome of the exiled in the groups of the erratic, where one comes to study, learn, and prepare to the trials?
In a few years, instead of groaning, of mourning, this separation will be a celebration to the incarnate Spirits, when the dead have fulfilled their Spiritists duties, in the true meaning of the word; but they will cry, they will moan for the earthling egotist that had never practiced charity, fraternity, all virtues, all duties so well defined in The Spirits’ Book.
After having spoken about the dead, will you allow me to speak about the living? I am very attached to all hopes, to my country, where there is so much to do, much deserving sincere wishes. Progress, this inflexible leveler, is slow to take root in mountainous regions, it is true, but it knows how to instill itself, in time, with habits and social mores; it dismisses the opposition, one by one, finally allowing glimpses of new light to the pariah of the work, whose body, still leaning over the ungrateful land, is as rough as the tracing of the furrows.
The vigorous nature of those brave inhabitants awaits spiritual redemption. They do not know what it is to think, to judge soundly and to utilize all the resources of the mind; interest alone dominates them in all its harshness; common, heavy nourishment lends itself to that sterility of the spirit; away from the noise of politics, scientific discoveries, they are like oxen, oblivious to their strength, ready to accept the burden, and under the goad, they go to mass, to the cabaret, to the village, not out of interest but habit, sleeping at the sermons, jumping to the discordant sound of a musette[1], uttering insane shouts, brutally obeying the movements of the flesh.
The priest is careful not to change these old ways and social mores; he talks about faith, the mysteries, passion, always the devil, and that incoherent mix finds an echo, without harmony, in the head of that brave people that vows, make bare feet pilgrimage and indulges in the strangest superstitious social mores.
Thus, when a child is sick, not very open, without intelligence, they hasten to take her to a village called St. Paul; she is first immersed in a privileged, but payed for, water; she is then made to sit on a blessed anvil, and a blacksmith, armed with a heavy hammer, strikes vigorously the anvil; it is said that the commotion, resulting from the repeated blows, infallibly cure the patient. This is called being forged, in St. Paul. Women with a spleen problem will also bathe in the miraculous water and be forged. Judge by this example in a hundred what the teaching of the priests of this region is.
However, take this brute and speak about interest; the cunning peasant, prudent like a savage, defends himself with aplomb and defeats the smartest judges. Shine a little light onto his brain, teach him the first elements of sciences, and you shall have true, healthy, and virile minds, full of good will.
Let the railroads cross this country and immediately you will have a bountiful soil with wine, delicious fruits, selected grain, fragrant truffles, exquisite chestnut, unparalleled vine or mushroom, magnificent woods, inexhaustible coal mines, iron, copper, first-rate cattle, air, greenery, splendid landscapes.
And when so many hopes only ask to flourish, when so many other countries are, like this one, in mortal prostration, let us wish that The Spirits Book penetrates all hearts, and all lost corners of this world. The doctrine that it contains is the only one that can change the minds of the populations, by yanking them away from the absurd pressure of those who ignore the great laws of erraticity, and who want to immobilize human belief in a maze where they themselves have so much difficulty in recognizing one other. So, let us all work with ardor for this desired renovation that must break down all barriers, and create the promised end to the generation that will soon come.
Baluze
Observation: The name Baluze is known to our readers through the excellent communications that he often dictates to his fellow citizen and favorite medium, Mr. Leymarie. It was during a trip by the latter to his homeland that he gave him the above communication. Baluze, a renowned historian, born in Tulle in 1630, deceased in Paris in 1718, published many admired works; he was Colbert's librarian. His biography (Feller's Dictionary) says "men of letters regretted the loss of a profound scholar, and his friends a gentle and generous man." There is a quay in Tulle that bears his name. Mr. Leymarie, who was unaware of the history of St. Paul, inquired about it, and acquired the certainty that these superstitious practices are still in use.
[1] Kind of oboe common in France of the nineteenth century (T.N.)
But above those deteriorated, disheveled, original, dislocated houses, there are high mountains with unparalleled greenery; the walker sees the horizon broadening at each step; the villages, the churches seem to came out of the abyss, and this strange, wild, mutable panorama is lost in the distance, dominated by mountains with their summits whitened by the snow.
But I forgot: you must undoubtedly perceive a silvery strip, clear, capricious, transparent like a mirror: it is the Corrèze. Sometimes enclosed between rocks, it is quiet and grave; sometimes she escapes joyful, cheerful, through the meadows, willows and poplars, offering her cup to the lips of numerous flocks, and her beneficial transparency to the frolics of bathers; she purifies the city that is graciously divided.
I love this countryside, with its old houses, its gigantic steeple, it noise, its crown of chestnut trees; I love it because I was born there, because everything that I describe to your benevolent soul is part of the memories of my last incarnation. Beloved relatives, sincere friends always surrounded me with tender care; they helped my spiritual advancement. Having reached grandeur, I owed them my fraternal feelings; my works honored them, and when I come, as a Spirit, to visit the town of my infancy, I cannot help it but to climb the Puy-Saint-Clair, the last home of the citizens of Tulle, greeting the earthly remains of the beloved Spirits.
Strange fantasy! The cemetery is five hundred feet above the city; around, the infinite horizon. We are along among nature, its prestige, and God, the King of all greatness, of all hopes. Our ancestors wanted to bring together their beloved dead to their true dwelling, to tell them: Spirits, fly away! The air around calls you. Come out, resplendent from your prison, so that the enchanting spectacle of this immense horizon prepare you for the wonders that you were called upon to contemplate. If they had such a thought, I approve, because death is not so gloomy as they portray it. To the Spiritists, isn’t that the true life, the desired separation, the welcome of the exiled in the groups of the erratic, where one comes to study, learn, and prepare to the trials?
In a few years, instead of groaning, of mourning, this separation will be a celebration to the incarnate Spirits, when the dead have fulfilled their Spiritists duties, in the true meaning of the word; but they will cry, they will moan for the earthling egotist that had never practiced charity, fraternity, all virtues, all duties so well defined in The Spirits’ Book.
After having spoken about the dead, will you allow me to speak about the living? I am very attached to all hopes, to my country, where there is so much to do, much deserving sincere wishes. Progress, this inflexible leveler, is slow to take root in mountainous regions, it is true, but it knows how to instill itself, in time, with habits and social mores; it dismisses the opposition, one by one, finally allowing glimpses of new light to the pariah of the work, whose body, still leaning over the ungrateful land, is as rough as the tracing of the furrows.
The vigorous nature of those brave inhabitants awaits spiritual redemption. They do not know what it is to think, to judge soundly and to utilize all the resources of the mind; interest alone dominates them in all its harshness; common, heavy nourishment lends itself to that sterility of the spirit; away from the noise of politics, scientific discoveries, they are like oxen, oblivious to their strength, ready to accept the burden, and under the goad, they go to mass, to the cabaret, to the village, not out of interest but habit, sleeping at the sermons, jumping to the discordant sound of a musette[1], uttering insane shouts, brutally obeying the movements of the flesh.
The priest is careful not to change these old ways and social mores; he talks about faith, the mysteries, passion, always the devil, and that incoherent mix finds an echo, without harmony, in the head of that brave people that vows, make bare feet pilgrimage and indulges in the strangest superstitious social mores.
Thus, when a child is sick, not very open, without intelligence, they hasten to take her to a village called St. Paul; she is first immersed in a privileged, but payed for, water; she is then made to sit on a blessed anvil, and a blacksmith, armed with a heavy hammer, strikes vigorously the anvil; it is said that the commotion, resulting from the repeated blows, infallibly cure the patient. This is called being forged, in St. Paul. Women with a spleen problem will also bathe in the miraculous water and be forged. Judge by this example in a hundred what the teaching of the priests of this region is.
However, take this brute and speak about interest; the cunning peasant, prudent like a savage, defends himself with aplomb and defeats the smartest judges. Shine a little light onto his brain, teach him the first elements of sciences, and you shall have true, healthy, and virile minds, full of good will.
Let the railroads cross this country and immediately you will have a bountiful soil with wine, delicious fruits, selected grain, fragrant truffles, exquisite chestnut, unparalleled vine or mushroom, magnificent woods, inexhaustible coal mines, iron, copper, first-rate cattle, air, greenery, splendid landscapes.
And when so many hopes only ask to flourish, when so many other countries are, like this one, in mortal prostration, let us wish that The Spirits Book penetrates all hearts, and all lost corners of this world. The doctrine that it contains is the only one that can change the minds of the populations, by yanking them away from the absurd pressure of those who ignore the great laws of erraticity, and who want to immobilize human belief in a maze where they themselves have so much difficulty in recognizing one other. So, let us all work with ardor for this desired renovation that must break down all barriers, and create the promised end to the generation that will soon come.
Baluze
Observation: The name Baluze is known to our readers through the excellent communications that he often dictates to his fellow citizen and favorite medium, Mr. Leymarie. It was during a trip by the latter to his homeland that he gave him the above communication. Baluze, a renowned historian, born in Tulle in 1630, deceased in Paris in 1718, published many admired works; he was Colbert's librarian. His biography (Feller's Dictionary) says "men of letters regretted the loss of a profound scholar, and his friends a gentle and generous man." There is a quay in Tulle that bears his name. Mr. Leymarie, who was unaware of the history of St. Paul, inquired about it, and acquired the certainty that these superstitious practices are still in use.
[1] Kind of oboe common in France of the nineteenth century (T.N.)