Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1869

A disciple of Charles Fourier, who is also a Spiritist, recently sent us the request for an evocation asking for an answer, if possible, to enlighten himself on certain questions. Since both seemed instructive to us, we transcribed them below.



Paris, Group Desliens, March 9^th, 1869

“Brother Fourier, from the top of the ultra-worldly sphere, if your Spirit can see and hear me, I beg you to communicate with me, to strengthen the conviction that your admirable theory of the four movements has given me on the law of universal harmony, or to discourage me if you had the misfortune of deceiving yourself. - You, whose incomparable genius seems to have lifted the curtain that hid nature, and whose Spirit must be even more lucid than it was in the material world, I beg you to tell me if you acknowledge, in the spiritual world as on Earth, that the natural order established by God is crumbling in our social organization; whether passionate attractions are really the lever that God uses to lead man towards his true destiny; whether analogy is a sure way of discovering the truth.

Please also tell me what you think of the cooperative societies that germinate on all sides on the surface of our globe. If your Spirit can read the mind of the sincere man, you must know that doubt makes him unhappy; that is why I beg you, from your abode beyond the grave, to kindly do whatever depends on you to convince me.

Receive, our brother, the assurance of respect I owe to your memory and of my greatest veneration.

J. G.”

Answer: It is a very serious question, dear brother in belief, to ask a man if he was mistaken, when a certain number of years have passed since he exposed the system that best satisfied his aspirations towards the unknown! Was I wrong?... Who was not mistaken when he wanted to lift the veil that hid the sacred fire, with his own strength! Prometheus made men with that fire, but the law of progress condemned those men to physical and moral struggles. I made a system destined to live a time, like all systems, then to transform, to associate with new, more real elements. As you see, it is ideas as well as men. Since they are born, they do not die, they transform. Coarse at first, wrapped in the mist of language, they successively find craftsmen who cut and polish them more and more, until the shapeless pebble becomes the diamond with a bright shine, the precious stone par excellence.

I searched conscientiously and found a lot. Based on the acquired principles, I advanced the intelligent and regenerative thinking by a few steps. What I discovered was true, in principle; I distorted it, by willing to apply it. I wanted to create the series, to establish harmonies; but these series, these harmonies did not need a creator; they existed since the beginning; and I could only disturb them by wanting to establish them on the small bases of my conception, when God had given them the universe as a gigantic laboratory.

My most serious title, and perhaps the most neglected and ignored, is to have shared with Jean Reynaud, Ballanche, Joseph de Maistre and many others, the presentiment of the truth; it is to have dreamed of this human regeneration by trial, this succession of restorative existences, this communication of the free world and the world chained to matter, that you have the pleasure of touching with your finger. We had foreseen and you are making our dream come true. These are our greatest titles of glory, the only ones that, for my part, I esteem and remember.

You say you doubt, my friend! So much the better, for he who truly doubts seeks, and he who seeks, finds. Seek, therefore, and if it only depends on me to put conviction in your hands, count on my devoted assistance; but listen to a friend's advice that I put into practice in my life and that has always done me good: "If you want a serious demonstration of a universal law, seek its individual application.” Do you want the truth? Seek it in yourself and in observing the facts of your own life. All the evidence is there. Let him who wants to know examine himself, and he will find.

Charles Fourier.”