Silvio PellicoExtracted from
My Prisons, by Silvio Pellico, Chapters XLV and XLVI
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Such a state was a real disease; I don't know if I shouldn't say a sort of somnambulism. It seemed to me that there were two men in me: one who wanted to write continuously, and the other who wanted to do something else ... “During those horrible nights, my imagination was sometimes excited to such an extent that, while awake, in my prison I thought I heard sometimes moans, sometimes stifled laughter. Since my childhood, I had never believed in wizards or Spirits, and now those laughter and moans terrified me; I did not know how to explain them; I was forced to wonder if I weren’t the plaything of some unknown and evil power. "Several times I took the light, trembling, and looked to see if anyone was hidden under my bed, making fun of me. When I was at the table, sometimes it seemed to me that someone was pulling me by my coat, sometimes that someone was pushing a book that fell to the ground; sometimes also I thought that a person behind me was blowing my light to put it out. I then stood up hurriedly, I looked around; I walked around with suspicion, asking myself if I were crazy or in my whole sense, for amid all that I was experiencing, I could no longer distinguish reality from illusion, and I cried with anguish: My God, my God, ut quid dereliquisti me?[1] “Once I got to bed before dawn, and I was perfectly sure that I had placed my handkerchief under my pillow. After a moment of dozing off, I awoke as usual, and it seemed that I was being strangled. I felt my neck tightly wrapped. Strange thing! It was wrapped with my handkerchief, strongly tied by several knots! I could have sworn I hadn't tied those knots; I hadn't even touched my handkerchief since I put it under the pillow. I had to have done it while dreaming or in a fit of delirium, without having kept any memory of that; but I could not believe it, and since that moment I feared to be strangled every night." If some of these facts can be attributed to an imagination overexcited by suffering, there are others that seem genuinely provoked by invisible agents, and it must be noted that Silvio Pellico did not believe in these things; such a cause could not occur to him, and unable to explain it to himself, he was frightened by what was happening around him. Today that his Spirit is freed from the veil of matter, he realizes not only these facts, but the different events of his life; he acknowledges as fair what previously seemed unfair to him. He explained this in the following communication, requested for this purpose.
Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, October 18
th, 1867
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How great and powerful is this God humans have constantly diminished by trying to define him, and how the petty passions that we lend him to understand him are proof of our weakness and our lack of progress! A vengeful God! A God-judge! An executioner God! No; all of this only exists in human imagination, incapable of understanding infinity. What a crazy recklessness to want to define God! He is incomprehensible and indefinable, and we can only bow under his mighty hand, without seeking to understand and analyze his nature. The facts are there to prove to us that he exists! Let us study these facts and through them go back from cause to cause as far as we can go; but let us not tackle the cause of the causes until we fully possess the secondary causes, and when we understand all their effects! ... Yes, the laws of the Eternal are immutable! Today they strike the culprit, as they have always done, according to the nature of the faults committed and in proportion to those faults. They strike inexorably, and are followed by moral consequences, not fatal, but inevitable. The penalty of retaliation is a fact, and the word of the old law: "Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth," is accomplished in all its rigor. Not only is the proud man humbled, but he is struck in his pride in the same way he struck others. The iniquitous judge is unjustly condemned; the despot becomes oppressed! Yes, I have ruled over men; I made them bend under an iron yoke; I struck them in their affections and their freedom; and later, in my turn, I had to bow under the oppressor, I was deprived of my affections and my freedom! But how can the oppressor of yesterday become the republican of tomorrow? It is a very simple thing, and the observation of the facts that take place before your eyes should give you the key. Don’t you see, during a single existence, the same personality, alternately dominant and dominated? And isn’t that the case, if it governs despotically in the first case, it is, in the second, one of those who struggle most strongly against despotism? The same takes place from one life to another. This is certainly not a rule without exception; but generally, those who are apparently the most frenzied liberals, once were the keenest supporters of power, and this is understandable, for it is logical that those who have long been accustomed to reign unchallenged, satisfying their least whims without obstacles, be those who suffer the most from oppression, and the most passionate about throwing off its yoke. Despotism and its excesses, by a remarkable consequence of the laws of God, necessarily drive those who exercise it to an unrestrained love of liberty, and these two excesses, one worn out by the other, inevitably bring calm and moderation. These are the explanations I believe to be useful to you, regarding the desire you have expressed. I will be pleased if they are such as to satisfy you.Silvio Pellico.”
[1] Latin expression meaning: why have you forsaken me? (T.N.)
