What Of The Dead?

( Originally Published 1919 )

Evocation of the Dead—Was probably practised before the Deluge—Statement of M. de Mirville—Evocation appeals to the Curiosity of People—Preparing for Initiation into Spiritism—Planchette and Ouija Board—The TranceMedium—Sincerity of Spiritists—Souls of the Dead do not come back to Earth—Evocation condemned by Moses and by Saul—Wonderful Examples.

The practice of "calling up the dead" and conversing with them, which is opposed to the teaching of the Catholic Church and to the instinct and reason of man, obtained probably inante-diluvian times. We know from the pages of Holy Writ that in the days of the patriarchs and prophets the custom was universal and tended largely to a physical and moral degeneracy which belongs, even today, to all oriental races.

We do not altogether agree with M. de Mirville in his statement that: "Among the civilized races of Europe and America the cult of Evocation or Spiritism is confined to persons of weak mentality and of a low order of intelligence." We are of the opinion that among the believers in the cult are many men and women of good and trained intellects who believe what they believe because they have not studied Spiritism and its development from the pages of the Sacred Scriptures, from the writings of the early Christian Fathers, theologians, and doctors of the Church, from the decrees of provincial councils and from the briefs, or prohibitions of many Popes, notably Benedict XIV and Leo XI.

The methods of the Spiritism of today appeal urgently to innate curiosity and to an insatiable craving in many persons for the new and the untried.

In nearly all initial experiments the novice experiences sensations like unto those which the hypnotised feels when surrendering his will to the hypnotiser. After additional experiences, his curiosity, the books he reads, or the promptings of a Spiritist acquaintance induce him to attend "sittings" where experiments are conducted with planchette or the ouija board.

After this, he frequents seances, is placed enrapport (in communication) with the dead with spirits—who make their presence known by rappings, by slate-writing, whisperings in his ear, by personal contact or by divers other acts. After these experiences he falls under the influence of the trance-medium and comes into intimate and familiar association with malign spirits masquerading as the souls of men or women who at one time lived upon our earth.

Henceforth, and in every instance, the answers he receives to his questions purport to come from dead human beings. These communications have a particular charm for him, he feels honored by the confidence the dead repose in him and elated with the privilege by which he is permitted to converse with them. From now on he is a confirmed Spiritist, prepared to defend his cult and, if necessary, like Robert Dale Owen, to die for it.

Now does he actually enter into communion with the souls of the dead, or is he, as were those living in Apostolic times, "giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils"? (1 Timothy IV, 1.)

Is it permitted for man by sacrilegious incantations, from curiosity, whim or caprice or for any motive to disturb the repose of the tomb?

The souls of the dead—saved or lost—do not respond to the evocations of man. This is the teaching of the Old and New Testaments, of the Catholic Church, and of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church. " The souls of the just are in the hands of God and the torment of death shall not touch them." (Wisdom III, 1.)

When we read in Deut. (XVIII, 11) : " Neither let there be found among you any one that .. . consulteth pythonic spirits, or . . . seeketh the truth from the dead,"—are we to believe that the souls of the dead, like obedient servants, will come at the sound of our voice and give answer to our questions? Certainly not. The language of the Sacred Text simply conforms to the prevailing belief of the time. When we read in Genesis : "Remember, man, thou art but dust, and into dust thou shalt return," we know that the prophecy refers only to the body of man. The same form of _expression obtains when the evil spirits adored by the heathen are called gods, in the verse, "the gods of the Gentiles are demons."

It is not in the power of man, certainly not in that of a medium, to summon the dead, trouble their repose, or disturb their hallowed rest. But under very exceptional circumstances, or for a very special reason, does God ever permit a departed soul to return to earth by request of the living? It may happen, for confronted with the narrative in the first Book of Kings recording the appearance of the dead prophet, Samuel, we cannot deny the possibility of human apparitions. Our difficulty consists in determining whether these apparitions are the absolute personalities themselves or good or bad angels representing them. If the souls of the just ever return to this earth, it can only happen by an act of their own pure wills, and by divine permission. The eternally lost soul cannot come back to earth. The patriarch Job informs us that: "As a cloud is dissipated and passeth away; so he that has gone down to hell shall not come up. Nor shall he return any more into his house, neither shall his place know him again" (Job VII, 9 sq.).

If Dives, the selfish and proud rich man who "was buried in hell," could return to earth, he would not have begged of Abraham to send some one to his five brothers on earth to warn them to lead better lives, "lest they also come into this place of torments" (Luke XVI, 28).

That the dead do not return to earth, except by the permission of God and for a special reason, is a truth of Scripture and of Catholic theology.

Neither does Holy Writ, or theology, -which is the science that treats of divine things and of the relations of man with God, and is intimately acquainted with and contrasts and compares the texts and verses of the Sacred Books,—raise an eternal and unscalable rampart between our eyes and the vision of departed souls.

Theologians are of the opinion that there have been occasions and times when redeemed souls were permitted to return to the earth, and appear to one or many persons, and deliver a message or a warning. In corroboration of this here is what the Oxford scholar, Thomas W. Allies, relates in his "Journal" of a tour through Europe in the years 1845-48. The learned Abbe Theodore Ratisbonne, who saw and spoke to the apparition, was one of the most distinguished and upright men of his day.

" At four we went to a Benediction at Abbe Ratisbonne 's house. We then adjourned to the parlor, with M. Ratisbonne, Lady and Mr. , a Scotch minister. Here we conversed about various matters. . . . They asked me about my visit to the Tyrolese stigmatisees. Lady — told of the apparition, soon after his death—of a gentleman to Lord in fulfilment of a promise he had, six months before, made to him. M. Ratisbonne remarked that appearances of this kind often happened, adding : 'I believe it from what occurred to myself." Occurred to you!' I said. 'What do you mean ? " I had been called in,' he answered, once at Strasburg, to administer extreme unetion to a young married lady. I found her in the agony of death, screaming fearfully; her husband was supporting her in his arms on the bed. I administered the last unction to her; and an effect followed which I have often observed: she became calm, and died in the utmost peace. Some days afterwards I was in my room about noon, looking out on the garden.

Suddenly I saw her within two steps of me, the same exactly as when living, but with a great brightness all around her. She made a motion to me of inexpressible sweetness and happiness, as if thanking me for a great service, and disappeared. At the first moment I felt a thrill like an electric shock ; but this passed. I mentioned this vision afterwards to a friend, and to her husband. I had known but little of her.

I asked if he was quite sure this was not an illusion, but he had no doubt about it. Of the many stories of this kind one has heard this is the first told me by the person to whom it happened."

It seems to be, however, the prevailing opinion among theologians that a disembodied, or, more correctly, a separated soul, whether lost or saved, never appears in person. They do not deny that God may confer on disembodied souls a power possessed by good and bad angels over matter, but contend that this power would mean an intrinsic change in the properties and nature of the soul. But if this opinion be accepted as a judgment and a finality, how are we to explain the presence of Moses and Elias at the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor.

For in the seventeenth chapter of St. Matthew it is mentioned without any equivocation that Moses and Elias were actually present. Moreover, the apparition of Lourdes would not be that of the Blessed Virgin, but, possibly, of an angel representing her. The great St. Augustine hesitated to commit himself to a positive answer to the question of the possibility of departed souls returning to earth. He writes :

"Some of the dead can be transported among the living; not that the act is accomplished by virtue of their own nature, for it can only occur by consent and effect of divine power; but, when these things happen, is the presence of the dead positive and real, or is it that they are represented by a spirit, clothed in their garb and resembling them? This is what I cannot determine." (De Cura pro Mortuis, Chap. XV). More than once since the death, A. D. 430, of the illustrious Bishop of Hippo has this question troubled thoughtful minds. "Is it, then, the real soul itself," asks the orthodox Count de Mirville, " or a good or bad angel, which deceives our eyes when we believe we have seen and spoken with a departed soul?"

While the prevailing opinion of the masters of the science of theology, and of St. Thomas, surnamed the "Angel of the Schools," is that an angel, good or bad, appears in the place of the soul, we have nowhere read that the apparition of the soul itself is impossible. Lord Byron,—poet, sceptic, and philosopher,—positively asserted that he saw the ghost of his friend Shelley soon after he was drowned.

And he is just as positive when he states that "with his own eyes" he saw the phantom monk who haunted Newstead Abbey, a spoliation which Byron's ancestors received as a gift from Henry VIII. Now, what object could a spirit have in representing Shelley or the monk who disturbed the repose of Byron's household?

Then take this instance recorded by Mrs. Hall in her first volume of "The Night Side of Nature": "Mr. Kidd said to me : 'One beautiful night I awoke in my hammock feeling a heavy weight upon my chest. I opened my eyes and saw the form of my brother stretched across the hammock. I tried to persuade myself that I was dreaming and closed my eyes to sleep again. But the same weight pressed upon me and, looking, I saw my brother as before. I stretched out my hand and touched his uniform: It was wet! Some one entered the room when I cried out, then the body vanished. I afterwards learned that on that very night my brother was drowned in the Indian Ocean.' "

Now, why should a spirit, in this case, simulate the brother of Mr. Kidd, unless we assume that in the other world the spirit was asked by the drowned man to do so?

And in this awful example taken from Robert Dale Owen's "Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World," why should a spirit haunt a man who had in no way injured it? I give the history, writes Mr. Owen, as extracted from Mrs. Hall's letter to me, dated London, March 31, 1859. The circumstances occurred in London.

"All young girls have friendships one with another and when I was seventeen my friend, above all others, was Kate L. She was a young Irish lady, my senior by three years,— a gentle, affectionate, pretty creature, much devoted to her old mother, and exercising constant forbearance toward a disagreeable brother who would persist in playing the flute, though he played both out of time and tune. This brother was my bete noire; and whenever I complained of his bad playing, Kate would say, ‘Ah, wait till Robert comes home he plays and sings like an angel, and is so handsome !' This Robert had been with his regiment for some years in Canada and his coming home was to be thehappiness of mother and daughter. For three months before his return nothing else was talked of. If I had had any talent for falling in love, I should have done so, in anticipation, with Robert L--; but that was not my weakness; and I was much amused with my friend's speculations as to whether Robert would fall in love with me, or I with him, first.

"When we met, there was, happily, no danger to either. He told Kate that her friend was always laughing; and I thought I had never looked on a face so beautiful in outline and yet so haggard and painful. His large blue eyes were deeply set, but always seemed looking for something they could not find. To look at him made me uncomfortable. But this was not so strange as the change which, after a time, was evident in Kate. She had become, in less than a week, cold and constrained. I was to have spent the day with her ; but she made some apology, and, in doing so, burst into tears.

Something was evidently wrong, which I felt satisfied time must disclose. In about a week more she came to see me by myself, looking ten years older. She closed the door of my room, and then said she desired to tell me something which she felt I could hardly believe, but that, if I was not afraid, I might come and judge for myself. After Robert's return, she said, for a week or so they had been delightfully happy.

But very soon—she thought about the tenth day, or rather night—they were alarmed by loud raps and knocks in Robert's room. It was the back room on the same floor on which Mrs. L--- and her daughter slept together in a large front bed-chamber. They heard him swearing at the noise, as if it had been his servant; but the man did not sleep in the house.

At last he threw his boots at it ; and the more violent he became, the more violent seemed to grow the disturbance. At last his mother ventured to knock at his door and ask what was the matter. He told her to come in. She brought a lighted candle and set it on the table. As she entered, her son's favorite pointer rushed out of the room. 'So,' he said, 'the dog's gone ! I have not been able to keep a dog in my room at night for years ; but under your roof, mother,

I fancied, I hoped, I might escape a persecution that I see now pursues me even here. I am sorry for Kate's canary-bird that hung behind the curtain. I heard it fluttering after the first round. Of course it is dead!' The old lady got up, all trembling, to look at poor Kate's bird. It was dead, at the bottom of the cage, all its feathers ruffled.

" 'Is there no Bible in the room?' she inquired. 'Yes,'—he drew one from under his pillow: 'that, I think, protects me from blows.'

He looked so dreadfully exhausted that his mother wished to leave the room, to get him some wine. 'No : stay here : do not leave me !' he entreated. Hardly had he ceased speaking, when some huge, heavy substance seemed rolling down the chimney and flopped on the hearth; but Mrs. L saw nothing. The next moment, as from a strong wind, the light was extinguished, while knocks and raps and a rushing sound passed round the apartment. Robert L— alternately prayed and swore ; and the old lady, usually remarkable for her selfpossession, had great difficulty in preventing herself from fainting. The noise continued, sometimes seeming like violent thumps, sometimes the sounds appearing to trickle around the room. At last her other son, roused by the disturbance, came in, and found his mother on her knees, praying. That night she slept in her son's room, or rather attempted to do so; for sleep was impossible, though her bed was not touched or shaken. Kate remained outside the open door. It was impossible to see, because, immediately after the first plunge down the chimney, the lights were extinguished.

The next morning, Robert told his family that for more than ten years he had been the victim of this spirit-persecution. If he lay in his tent, it was there, disturbing his brother officers, who gradually shunned the society of 'the haunted man,' as they called him,—one who 'must have done something to draw down such punishment.' When on leave of absence, he was generally free from the visitation for three or four nights ; then it found him out again. He never was suffered to remain in a lodging; being regularly 'warned out' by the householders, who would not endure the noise.

"After breakfast, the next-door neighbors sent in to complain of the noises of the preceding night. On the succeeding nights, several friends (two or three of whom I knew) sat up with Mrs. L and sought to investigate, according to human means, the cause. In vain! They verified the fact; the cause remained hidden in mystery.

"Kate wished me to hear for myself but I had not courage to do so, nor would my dear mother have permitted it.

"No inducement could prevail on the pointer to return to his master's room, by day or night.

He was a recent purchase, and, until the first noise in London came, had appreciated Robert's kindness. After that, he evidently disliked his master. 'It is the old story over again,' said Robert. 'I could never keep a dog. I thought I would try again; but I shall never have any thing to love, and nothing will ever be permitted to love me.' The animal soon after got out; and they supposed it ran away, or was stolen.

"The young man, seeing his mother and sister fading away under anxiety and want of rest, told them he could bear his affliction better by himself, and would therefore go to Ireland, his native country, and reside in some detached country cottage, where he could fish and shoot.

"He went. Before his departure I once heard the poor fellow say, 'It is hard to be so punished; but perhaps I have deserved it.'

"I learned, afterward, that there was more than a suspicion that he had abandoned an unfortunate girl who 'loved not wisely, but too well.' "

If lost souls can by anticipation revenge themselves on their betrayers and victims, may we not, without an excess of temerity, apply to them the words of the patriarch to the Lord:

"For thou scourgest and thou savest : thou leadest down to hell and bringest up again: and there is none that can escape thy hand."

Now it may be asked: "Notwithstanding the denials seriously expressed by many theologians of the possibility of a departed soul returning to earth, is not the belief in the real and actual appearances of dead persons returning, an incontestable fact going back to a remote antiquity ? " It is and we hesitate to deny the possibility of a soul reappearing when we re-read the history of the apparition of Samuel, and are confronted with the positive language of the Evangelist, who, without any equivocation, or the use of any precaution in his language, relates a triple and an exceptionally remarkable miracle enclosed in one and the same phenomenon.

When a supernatural change took place in the personal appearance of our Divine Lord on the Mount, by his side stood Elias, whom death had not robbed of his mortal body, and the great prophet Moses, whose soul and body had been parted for many centuries. Nothing seems to more clearly establish and justify a belief in a direct and real apparition than the words of the sacred text. Peter, James, and John beheld Elias and Moses talking with Jesus.

"Those who deny the reality of these facts, those who treat the whole problem as a joke, regard planchette as a toy, and deny the reality of powers and influences which work unseen, should observe the effects of some of the Spiritualistic manifestations. They would no longer, I imagine, scoff at that investigation and be tempted to call all mediums frauds, but would be inclined to admit that there is a true terror of the dark, and that there are 'principalities and powers' with which we, in our ignorance, toy, without knowing and realizing the frightful consequences which may result from this tampering with the unseen world."