Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1869

In the previous issue, we published the account of the singular state of a Spirit who thought he was dreaming. He finally woke up, and spontaneously announced it in the following communication:

Parisian Society, February 12^th, 1869 – medium Mr. Laymarie

“Gentlemen, it is necessary, despite myself, that I open my eyes and ears; I must hear and see. I may deny and declare that you are maniac people, very brave, but very prone to daydreams, illusions, but I confess, despite all my words, I must finally realize that I no longer dream. On this, I am fixed, but completely fixed. I come to your house every Friday, the meeting days, and by hearing repeatedly, I wanted to know if this famous dream would extend indefinitely. Friend Jobard took it upon himself to educate me on the subject, and that with supporting evidence.

I no longer belong to Earth; I am dead; I have seen the mourning of my loved ones, the regrets of friends, the contentment of some envious ones, and now I come to see you. My body did not follow me; it is there alright, in its corner, in the middle of human manure; and, either with or without appeal, I come to you today, no longer with spite, but with the desire and conviction to be enlightened. I discern perfectly well; I see what I have been; I travel immense distances with Jobard: so, I live; I conceive, I combine, I possess my will and my free-will: thus, not everything dies. Therefore, we were not an intelligent aggregation of molecules, and all our chants about the intelligence of matter, were just empty sentences and without consistency.

Ah! believe it, gentlemen, if my eyes open, I glimpse at a new truth, and it is not without suffering, without revolts, without bitter returns!

Hence it is very true! The Spirit remains! An intelligent fluid, it can live its own ethereal life, without matter, and according to your word: semi-material. Sometimes, however, I wonder if the whimsical dream I had been having for more than a month, does not continue with new, unheard-of adventures; but Jobard's cold and impassive reasoning forces my hand, and when I resist, he shouts, he likes to confuse me, and enjoys confusing me with epigrams and happy sayings! No matter how much I rebel and revolt, one must obey the truth.


The Desnoyers of Earth, the author of Jean-Paul Choppard is still alive, and his ardent thought embraces other horizons. He was once liberal and down to earth, whereas now he tackles and handles unknown, wonderful problems; and, in the face of these new assessments, please forgive me, gentlemen, for my somewhat lighthearted remarks, for if I were not completely right, you might well be a little wrong.

I must think, to definitively recognize myself, and if the result of my serious research leads me to your ideas, it is to be hoped, it will no longer be to burn my brains.

See you another time, gentlemen.

Louis Desnoyers.”



The same Spirit spontaneously gave the following communication about Lamartine's death.

(Parisian Society, March 5^th, 1869 – medium Mr. Leymarie)

“Yes, gentlemen, we die somewhat forgotten; poor beings, we live proud of the organs that transmit our thoughts. We want life with its exuberances, we plan a multitude of projects. Our design is to have repercussion in this world, and when the last hour comes, all those noises, all that little fuss, our pride, our selfishness, our work, everything is engulfed in the mass. It is a drop of water in the human ocean.

Lamartine was a great and noble Spirit, chivalrous, enthusiastic, a true master in the sense of the word, a very pure, well-cut diamond; he was handsome, tall; he had the gaze, he had the gesture of the predestined; he knew how to think, how to write; he knew how to speak; he was an inspired, a transformer!... A poet, he gave impulse to literature by lending it his prestigious wings; As a man, he ruled a people, a revolution, and his hands came out clean from the contact with power.

No one, more than he, was loved, indulged, blessed, worshipped; and when the white hair came, when discouragement took the handsome old man, the fighter of the great days, he was no longer forgiven for a moment of failure. Even a weakened France slapped the poet, the great man; she wanted to shrink him, the fighter of two revolutions, and oblivion, I repeat, seemed to bury that great and magnanimous figure! He is dead, truly dead, for I welcomed him beyond the grave, with all those who had appreciated and liked him, despite the ostracism used by the youth in schools as a weapon against him.

He was transfigured, yes, gentlemen, transfigured by the pain of having seen those who had loved him so much, denying him the devotion that he never knew how to refuse in former times, while the winners reached out to him. The poet had become a philosopher, and the thinker matured his sore soul for the great trial. He saw better; he sensed everything, everything you hope for, gentlemen, and everything I did not expect.

More than him, I am a defeated; defeated by death, defeated in my lifetime by need, that insatiable enemy that teases us like a rodent; and much more defeated today, for I come to bow before the truth.

Ah! if a great truth is shining for France today; if the France of 89, if the mother of so many disappeared geniuses again begins to feel that one of his dearest children, the good, the noble Lamartine has disappeared, I feel today that nothing is dead for him; his memory is everywhere; the sound waves of so many memories move the world. He was immortal among you, but much more so among us, where he is truly transfigured. His Spirit shines, and God can receive the great unknown. Lamartine can now embrace the widest horizons and sing the grandiose hymns that his big heart had dreamed of. He can prepare your future, my friends, and accelerate with us the humanitarian phases. More than ever, he will be able to see developing in you that ardent love for education, progress, freedom, and association that are the elements of the future. France is an initiator; she knows what she can do: she will want, she will dare, when her powerful mane shakes the anthill that lives at the expense of her virility and greatness.

Will I, like him, be able to earn my halo and become resplendent with happiness, to see myself regenerated by your belief, whose greatness I understand today? Through you, God has marked me as a lost sheep; thank you, gentlemen. In contact with the much-mourned dead, I feel myself alive, and I will soon say with you in the same prayer: Death is the halo; death is life.

Louis Desnoyers.”



Observation: A lady, a member of the Society, who knew Mr. Lamartine particularly well, and had witnessed his last moments, had just said that after his death, his physiognomy had literally transfigured, no longer showing the decay of the old age; it is to this circumstance that the Spirit alludes.