The Process of Marseille’s Poisoners The name of Spiritism was incidentally involved in this deplorable affair; one of the accused, the herbalist Joye, said he was involved, and that he was questioning the Spirits; does it prove that he was a Spiritist, and can we infer from that anything against the doctrine? Those who want to decry it will undoubtedly not fail to seek there a pretext for accusation; but if the diatribes of malevolence have hitherto gone without result, it is because they have always been false, and it will be the same here. It is quite simple to know if Spiritism incurs any responsibility in this case: it is to inquire in good faith, not among the adversaries, but from the very source, what is it that he prescribes and what is it that he condemns; there is nothing secret about it; his teachings are out in the open and anyone can control them. If, therefore, the books of the doctrine only contain instructions lead to good; if they explicitly and formally condemn all the actions of this man, the practices in which he has indulged himself, the despicable and ridiculous role he attributes to the Spirits, it is for the fact that he did not collect his inspirations there; there isn’t an impartial man who does not agree and does not declare Spiritism out of the question in this episode.
Spiritism only recognizes as its followers those who put its teachings into practice, that is who work for their own moral improvement, because that is the characteristic sign of the true Spiritist. It is not more responsible for the acts of those who like to call themselves Spiritists than true science is for the charlatanism of the swindlers who call themselves physics teachers, nor the sane religion for the abuses committed in its name.
The prosecution says, about Joye: "A register has been found with him that gives an idea of his character and his occupations." According to him, each page would have been written from the dictation of the Spirits, full of ardent sighs towards Jesus Christ. Every page speaks of God and the saints are invoked. On the side, so to speak, there are notes that can give an idea of the usual operations of the herbalist:
“For Spiritism, 4.25 francs – the sick, 6 francs - letters, 2 francs - Spells, 10 francs - Exorcisms, 4 francs - Divination wand, 10 francs - Hexes for fortune telling, 60 francs" and many other designations, among which we meet with evil spells to satiety, ending with this one: “In January I made 226 francs. The other months were less successful."
Has anyone ever seen in the books of the Spiritist doctrine the apology for such practices, or anything likely to provoke them? Don’t we see, on the contrary, that they repudiate any connection with magic, witchcraft, devils, card drawers, diviners, fortune tellers, and all those who make a living from trading with the Spirits, by claiming to have them at their command at so much per session?
If Joye were a Spiritist, he would have already regarded it as a profanation to bring in the Spirits in such circumstances; he would have known, moreover, that the Spirits are not at the orders of anyone and do not come on command, or by the influence of any cabalistic sign; that the Spirits are the souls of men who have lived on Earth or in other worlds, our parents, our friends, our contemporaries or our ancestors; that they were men like us, and that after our death we will be Spirits like them; that gnome, goblins, leprechauns, demons are creations of pure fantasy and exist only in the imagination; that the Spirits are free, freer than when they were incarnate, and that the claim to submit them to our whims and our will, to make them act and speak as we please for our amusement or our interest, is a chimerical idea; that they come when they want, how they want, and to whom it suits them; that the providential purpose of the communications with the Spirits is our instruction and moral improvement, and not to help us in the material things of life that we can do or find for ourselves, and much less to serve greed; finally, because of their very nature and the respect that we owe to the souls of those who have lived, it is as irrational as it is immoral to hold an office open to consultations or exhibitions of the Spirits. To ignore these things is to ignore the “a b c d” of Spiritism; and when the critic confuses it with fortune telling, chiromancy, exorcisms, the practices of witchcraft, spells, enchantments, etc., it proves that it ignores all of its principles; now, to deny or condemn a doctrine that one does not know is to fail the most elementary logic; it is to lend it or make it say precisely the opposite of what it says; it is slander or partiality.
Since Joye mixed the name of God, Jesus, and the invocation of saints with his procedures, he could just as easily mix the name of Spiritism, that does not prove against the doctrine any more than his simulacrum of devotion proves against the healthy religion. He was therefore no more a Spiritist, because he supposedly questioned the Spirits, than the women Lamberte and Dye were pious, because they burnt candles to the Good Mother, Our Lady of La Guard, for the success of their poisonings. Moreover, if he were a Spiritist, it would not even have occurred to him to use, for the perpetration of evil, a doctrine whose first law is the love of neighbor, and that has for motto: there is no salvation except through charity. If one imputed to Spiritism the incitement to such acts, one could, by the same token, blame religion.
Here are some thoughts on this subject, from the National Opinion, on December 8th:
“The newspaper Le Monde accuses the Siècle, the bad newspapers, the bad meetings, the bad books, of complicity in the affair of the poisoners of Marseilles.
We read, with painful curiosity, the debates on this strange affair; but we have not seen anywhere that the wizard Joye or the witch Lamberte were subscribers to the Siècle, the L’Avenir or the Opinion. We found only one diary at Joye's: it was an issue of the Devil, Diary from Hell. The widows who figure in this amiable trial are far from being free thinkers. They burn candles to the good Virgin, to obtain from Our Lady the grace to calmly poison their husbands. We find in the case all the old paraphernalia of the Middle Ages: bones of corpses collected in the cemetery; disguises that are just spells of the time of Queen Margot. All those ladies were educated, not in the Elisa Lemonnier schools, but with the good nuns. Add to Catholic superstitions the modern superstitions, Spiritism, and charlatanism. It was absurdity that drove those women to crime. Thus, in Spain, near the mouths of the Ebro, one sees in the mountain a chapel erected to Our Lady of the Thieves.
“Sow superstition and you will reap crime. That is why we ask that science be sown. "Enlighten the head of the people," said Victor Hugo, "and you will no longer need to cut it off."
J. Labbé.”
The argument that the accused did not subscribe to certain newspapers lacks in accuracy, because we know that it is not necessary to be a subscriber to a newspaper to read it, especially for that class of people. The National Opinion could therefore have reached some of them, without any conclusion against this newspaper. What would it have said if Joye had claimed to have been inspired by the doctrines of that periodical? It would have replied: read it and see if you find there a single word that might excite bad passions. Father Verger certainly had the Gospel with him; besides, he had to study it, given his condition; can we say that it was the Gospel that prompted him to assassinate the Archbishop of Paris? Was it the Gospel that armed the hands of Ravaillac and Jacques Clément? Who lit the pyres of the Inquisition? And yet, it is in the name of the Gospel that all those crimes were committed.
The author of the article says: “sow superstition, and you will reap crime;” He is right, but what is wrong is to confuse the abuse of something thing with the thing itself; if we wanted to suppress everything that could be abused, very little would escape proscription, without exception to the press. Some modern reformers are like men who would cut down a good tree, because it bears some crooked fruit.
He adds: “That is why we ask that science be sown.” He is right again, for science is an element of progress, but is it sufficient for complete moralization? Don’t we see men putting their knowledge at the service of their bad passions? Wasn't Lapommeraie an educated man, a licensed doctor, enjoying a certain credit, and a man of society? It was the same with Castaing and so many others. One can therefore abuse science; should we conclude that science is a bad thing? And because a doctor has failed, should the fault fall onto the entire medical profession? Why then impute to Spiritism that of a man who liked to call himself a Spiritist, and who was not one? Before passing any judgment whatsoever, one had to first inquire whether he had been able to find in the Spiritist Doctrine maxims capable of justifying his acts. Why the medical science is not supportive of Lapommeraie’s crime? Because the latter could not draw incitement to crime from the principles of that science; he applied for evil the resources that it provides for good; and yet he was more of a doctor than Joye was a Spiritist. This is the case of applying the proverb: "When you want to kill your dog, you say it is mad."
Education is essential, no one disputes that; but without moralization, it is only an instrument, too often unproductive for those who do not know how to regulate it use to good. To educate the masses without moralizing them is to place a tool in their hands without teaching them how to use it, for moralization that is addressed to the heart does not necessarily follow the instruction that is addressed only to the intelligence. Experience is there to prove it. But how to moralize the masses? This is what people have been the least concerned with, and it will certainly not be by nourishing them with the idea that there is no God, nor soul, nor hope, because all the sophisms in the world will not demonstrate that the man who believes that for him everything begins and ends with his body, has more powerful reasons to constrain himself in order to improve, than the one who understands the solidarity that exists between the past, the present and the future. It is, however, this belief in the nothingness that a certain school of the so-called reformers claims to impose on humanity, as the element of moral progress par excellence.
In quoting Victor Hugo, the author forgets, or better, does not suspect, that the latter has openly affirmed his belief in the fundamental principles of Spiritism on many occasions; it is true that it is not Spiritism like that of Joye; but when we don't know, it is easy to get confused.
However regrettable the abuse that was made of the name of Spiritism in this affair, not a single Spiritist was worried with the consequences that could result from that to the doctrine; it is because, in fact, its morality being unassailable, it cannot be affected; experience proves, on the contrary, that there isn’t a single circumstance in which the name of Spiritism was involved that has not turned to its own benefit by an increase in the number of adepts, because the examination that the impact provokes can only be to its advantage.
It should be noted, however, that in this case, with very few exceptions, the press refrained from any comment on Spiritism; a few years ago, it would have opened its columns for two months, and would not have failed to present Joye as one of the highest priests of doctrine. It has also been observed that neither the President of the Court nor the Attorney General in his indictment dwelled on this circumstance and drew no inference from it. It was just Joye's lawyer that did his job as best as he could.
