Assessment by the newspaper La Solidarité
[1]The newspaper La Solidarité, January 15
th, 1869, analyzes the statistics of Spiritism that we published in our previous issue; it criticizes some figures, but we are pleased with its support for all the work that it appreciates in the following terms:
"
We regret that we cannot reproduce, for lack of space, the much wise reflections that Mr. Allan Kardec adds to that statistic. We shall limit ourselves to noting with him that there are Spiritists in all levels of the social scale; that the vast majority of Spiritists are among the enlightened and not among the ignorant; that Spiritism has spread everywhere from the top to the bottom of the social ladder; that affliction and misfortune are the great recruiters of Spiritism, as a result of the consolations and hopes it gives to those who weep and sorrow; that Spiritism finds easier access among unbelievers in religious matters than among people who have a regular faith; finally, that after the fanatics, the most refractory to the Spiritist ideas are those whose thoughts are all focused on possessions and material pleasures, irrespective of their condition.”
It is a fact of paramount importance attested everywhere that "
the vast majority of Spiritists are among the enlightened and not among the ignorant." In the presence of such material fact, what happens to the accusation of stupidity, ignorance, madness, ineptitude, so thoughtlessly thrown at Spiritists by malevolence?
Spreading from the top to the
bottom of the ladder, Spiritism further proves that the privileged classes understand its moralizing influence upon the masses, since they strive to make it penetrate there. Indeed, the examples before us, although partial and still isolated, demonstrate in a peremptory way that the spirit of the proletariat would be quite different if it were imbued with the principles of the Spiritist doctrine.
The main objection of the
La Soliarité, and it is very serious, concerns the number of Spiritists around the world. Here is what it says about that:
"The Spiritist Review is very wrong when it estimates that there are only six or seven million Spiritists in the whole world. It obviously forgets to count Asia. If by the term Spiritist we mean people who believe in life beyond the grave and in the relationship of the living with the souls of dead people, it is by hundreds of millions that they must be counted. Belief in spirits exists among all the followers of Buddhism, and it can be said that it is the bottom line of all religions of the Far East. It is especially general in China. The three ancient sects that for so long have divided the populations in the Middle Empire, believe in the manes, the Spirits, and profess their cult. We can even say that this is a common ground for them. There the worshippers of the Tao and Fo meet with the cultists of the philosopher Confucius. The priests of the Lao-Tzu sect, and especially the Tao-Tse, or doctors of Reason,
owe to the Spiritist practices a large part of their influence on the populations. These influencers question the Spirits and obtain written answers that have neither more nor less value than those of our mediums. These are advice and warnings regarded as being given to the living by the Spirit of a dead person; there are revelations of secrets known only to the interrogator, sometimes predictions that come true or not, but that are likely to strike the listeners and flatter their desires so much that they take care of realizing
the oracle
themselves. Such correspondence is obtained by processes that do not differ much from those of our Spiritists, but that nevertheless must be more perfected if we consider the long experience of the operators who traditionally practice them. Here is how they were described to us by an eyewitness, Mr. D..., who lives in China for a long time and is familiar with the language of the country. "A fishing pole, 50 to 60 centimeters long, is held at both ends by two people, one of whom is the medium and the other the interrogator. In the middle of this pole, a small stick of the same material is tied, much like a pencil for length and size. Below this small device there is a layer of sand, or a box containing millet. The stick traces characters by moving mechanically
on this sand or on these seeds. As they are formed, these characters are read and reproduced immediately on paper by a scholar present at the meeting. The result is sentences and writings that are somewhat long, interesting, but always with a logical value.” If the Tao-Tse is to be believed, these processes come to them from Lao-Tzu himself. Now if, according to history, Lao-Tzu lived in the sixth century BC, it is worth remembering that, according to the legend, he is like the
Word of the Christians, prior to the beginning
and contemporary to the great non-entity,
as the doctors of
Reason say.We see that Spiritism goes back to a rather pretty antiquity. Doesn't that prove it to be true? No, no doubt, but, if it is enough for a belief to be ancient to be venerable, and to be strong by the number of its supporters to be respected, I do not know of any who has more titles of respect and veneration by my contemporaries.” It goes without saying that we fully agree with this correction, and we are glad that it comes from a foreign source, because it proves that we have not sought to inflate the picture. Our readers will appreciate, as we do, the way in which this newspaper, commendable by its serious character, considers Spiritism; we see that it is a reasoned assessment on its part. We knew well that the Spiritist ideas are wide widespread among the peoples of the Far East, and if we did not take them into account, it is for the fact that, in our evaluation, we proposed to present, as we said, only the movement of modern Spiritism, reserving the right to later carry out a special study on the antecedence of these ideas. We sincerely thank the author of the article for getting ahead of us. Elsewhere he says: "
We believe that this uncertainty (about the real number of Spiritists, especially in France) is first due to the absence of positive statements from the part of the followers; then to the floating state of beliefs. There are, and we could cite many examples of this in Paris, a host of people who believe in Spiritism and who do not boast about it.”
This is perfectly right; thus, we have spoken only of the de facto Spiritists; otherwise, as we have said, if we considered the Spiritists by intuition, in France alone we would count them in the millions; but we preferred to be below rather than above the truth, so as not to be accused of exaggeration. However, the increase must be very noticeable, so that some opponents have brought it to hyperbolic figures, such as the author of the pamphlet:
the Budget of Spiritism, that undoubtedly saw the Spiritists with a magnifying glass, in 1863 estimating them in twenty million in France (Spiritist Review, June 1863).
Regarding the proportion of official scholars, in the category of level of education, the author says: "
We would like to see with the naked eye those 4 per cent of official scholars: 40,000 in Europe; 24,000 in France alone; it is too many official scholars; 6 per cent of illiterates is hardly anything.” The criticism would be well founded if, as the author supposes, it were 4 per cent of the approximate number of six hundred thousand Spiritists in France, that would be twenty-four thousand; it would be a lot, indeed, because it would be somewhat difficult to find such figure of official scholars in the entire population of France. On such a basis, the calculation would obviously be ridiculous, and the same could be said of the illiterate. The purpose of this assessment is therefore not to establish the actual number of official Spiritist scholars, but the relative proportion in which they are found, relatively to the various levels of education, among which they are minority. In other categories, we have limited ourselves to a simple classification, without a numerical percent evaluation. When we used the latter process, it was to make the proportion more evident.
To better define our thought, we will say that by official scholars we do not mean all those whose knowledge is evidenced by a diploma, but only those that occupy official positions, such as members of Academies, professors of Faculties, etc., who are thus more prominent, and whose names are authoritative in sciences for that matter; from such point of
view, a doctor of medicine can be very enlightened, without being an official scholar.
The official position has a great influence on how certain things are viewed; as a proof of that we will mention the example of a distinguished doctor, who has been deceased for several years, and whom we knew personally. He was then a great supporter of magnetism, about which he had written, and this was what put us in contact with him. As his reputation grew, he successively acquired several official positions. As he rose, his passion for magnetism decreased; so much so that when he got to the top of the ladder, it fell below zero, for he openly renounced his old convictions. Considerations of the same kind may explain the rank of certain classes regarding Spiritism. The category of the afflicted, of people without worry, the happy of the world, the sensualists, provide the author of the article with the following thought:
"It's a shame that this is pure fantasy. No sensualists, that's understandable; Spiritism and materialism exclude one another. Sixty afflicted out of a hundred Spiritists, this is still understandable. It is for those who cry that the relationships with a better world are precious. But thirty out of a hundred people without worry, that is too much! If Spiritism worked such miracles, it would make many other conquests. It would do it especially among the happy of the world, who are also almost always the most worried and tormented.” There is a manifest error here, for it would seem that such result is due to Spiritism, while it is Spiritism that draws from these categories more or less followers, according to the predispositions it encounters there. These figures simply mean that it finds the most adherents among the afflicted; a little less among people without worry; but even less among the happy of the world, and none among the sensualists.
First one must agree on the words. Materialism and sensualism are not synonymous and do not always go hand in hand; for we see people, spiritualists by profession and by duty, who are very sensual, while there are very moderate materialists in their way of life; materialism is often for them only an opinion that they have embraced for lack of finding a more rational one; therefore, when they recognize that Spiritism fills the void made in their consciousness by
skepticism, they gladly accept it; sensualists, on the contrary, are the most refractory to that.
One rather bizarre thing is that Spiritism finds more resistance among pantheists in general, than among those who are frankly materialistic. This is probably for the fact that the pantheist has almost always made a system for himself; he has something, while the materialist has nothing, and that emptiness worries him.
By the happy of the world, we mean those who go as such to the eyes of the crowd, because they can profusely give themselves all the pleasures of life. It is true that they are often the most worried and tormented; but why is that? Worries caused by wealth and ambition. Besides these incessant concerns, the anxieties of loss or gain, the hassle of business for some, pleasures for others, they have too little time left to worry about the future.
Being able to have the peace of the soul only on the condition of renouncing to what is the object of their lusts, Spiritism touches them little, philosophically speaking. Except for the sorrows of the heart that spare no one, except the selfish, the torments of life are most often for them in the disappointments of vanity, of the desire to possess, to shine, to command. Thus, we can say that they torment themselves.
Calm, tranquility, on the contrary, are found especially in modest positions, when the well-being of life is ensured. There, there is little or no ambition; they are content with what they have, not tormenting themselves to become rich, by taking the random risks of agiotage or speculation. These are the ones we call
without worry, relatively speaking; however small the
elevation of their thoughts, they willingly take care of serious things; Spiritism offers them an attractive subject of meditation, and they accept it more easily than those to whom the whirlwind of the world drives a continuous fever.
These are the reasons for that classification, which is not, as we can see, as fanciful as the author of the article supposes. We thank him for giving us the opportunity to point out mistakes that others may have made because we were not explicit enough.
In our statistics, we have omitted two functions that are important by their nature, and because they have a fairly large number of sincere and dedicated followers; it is the
mayors and justices of
peace, who
are in fifth place, with the bailiffs and police commissioners.
Another omission that has been criticized, and that we are being urged to remedy, is that of the Polish, in the category of peoples. It is perfectly founded because Spiritism has had many keen followers in that nation since the beginning. As a rank, Poland comes in fifth, between Russia and Germany. To complete the nomenclature, it would have been necessary to include other countries such as Holland, for example, which would come after England; Portugal, after Greece; the Danubio provinces where there are also Spiritists, but on which we do not have positive enough data to assign them a rank. As for Turkey, almost all the followers consist of French, Italians, and Greeks.
A more rational classification, and more accurate than that by territorial countries, would be by races or nationalities, that are not confined within circumscribed limits, and that carry, wherever they are spread, their greater or lesser ability to assimilate the Spiritist ideas. From this point of view, in the same country, there would often be several distinctions to be made.
The following communication was given in a group in Paris, concerning the rank of tailors among the industrial professions.
Paris, January 6
th, 1869. Group Desliens, medium Mr. Leymarie
“You have created categories, dear teacher, at the head of which you have placed certain professions. Do you know what entices some people to become Spiritists, in our opinion? These are the thousand persecutions they endure in their professions. The first ones you are talking about must have order, economy, care, taste, be a little bit of an artist, and then still be patient, know how to wait, listen, smile, and greet with a certain elegance; but after all these small conventions, more serious than one thinks, one must still calculate, do their balance sheet by dues and receivables, and suffer, suffer continuously. In contact with men of all classes, commenting on complaints, confidences, deceptions, false faces, they learn a lot! By leading this multiple life, their intelligence broadens by comparison; their minds are strengthened by disappointment and suffering; and that is why some corporations understand and cheer all the progress; they love French theatre, beautiful architecture, drawing, philosophy; love freedom and all its consequences. Always ahead and on the lookout for what consoles and makes us hope, they give themselves to Spiritism, that to them it is a strength, a burning promise, a truth that exalt the sacrifice, and more than you believe, the number one rank lives on sacrifices.Sonnet.”
[1] The newspaper
La Solidarité appears twice a month. Price: 10 francs per year. Paris, Library of Social Sciences, rue des Saints-Pères, 13.
