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Magical practice in
pre-Roman France was vested iiTthe druidic cast, and was
practically identical with that of the same body in
Britain, from which, indeed, it drew its inspiration. It
is not likely that Roman magic gained any footing in Gaul,
but we have little evidence to show whether this was or
was not the case. In the early Prankish period of the
Merovingian dynasty, we find the baleful personality of
Fredegonda, wife of Hilperic, king of Soissons, " a woman
whose glance was witchcraft." She destroyed many people on
the pretext of sorcery, but there is no doubt that she
herself experimented in black magic, and protected many
practitioners of the art. Thus she saved a sorceress who
had been arrested by Ageric, bishop of Verdun, by hiding
her in the palace. (See Fredegonda.) The practice of magic
was not punished under the rule of the early French kings,
except in those in high places, with whom it was regarded
as a political offence, as in the case of the military
leader Mummol, who was tortured by command of Hilperic for
sorcery. One of the Salic laws attributed to Pharamond by
Sigebert states that; "If any one shall testify that
another has acted as hMburge or strioporte—titles applied
to those who carry the copper vessel to the spot where the
vampires perform their enchantments—and if he fail to
convict him, he shall be condemned hereby to a forfeit of
7,500 deniers, being 180} sous. ... If a vampire shall
devour a man and be found guilty, she shall forfeit 8,000
deniers, being 200" sous."
- The Church legislated also against sorcerers and
vampires, and the Council of Agde, in Languedoc, held in
A.D. 506, pronounced excommunication against them. The
first Council of Orleans, convened in 541, condemned
divination and augury, and that of Narbonne, in 589,
besides excommunicating all sorcerers, ordained that they
should be sold as slaves for the benefit of the poor.
Those who had dealings with the Devil were also condemned
to be whipped by the same Council. Some extraordinary
phenomena are alleged to have occurred in France during
the reign of Pepin le Bref. The air seemed to be alive
with human shapes, mirages filled the heavens, and
sorcerers were seen among the clouds, scattering
unwholesome powders and poisons with open hands; crops
failed, cattle died, and many human beings perished. It is
perhaps possible that such visions were stimulated by the
teachings of the famous Kabalist, Zedekias, who presided
over a school of occult science, where he refrained indeed
from unveiling the hidden secrets of his art, and
contented himself by spreading the theory of elemental
spirits, who, he stated, had before the fall of man been
subservient to him.
It was thought that the visions alluded to above signified
the descent of sylphs and salamanders in search of their
former masters. Says Eliphas Levi:
" Voyages to the land of sylphs were talked of on all
sides as we talk at the present day of animated tables and
fluidic manifestations. The folly took possession even of
strong minds, and it was time for an intervention on the
part of the Church, which does not relish the supernatural
being hawked in the public streets, seeing that such
disclosures, by imperilling the respect due to authority
and to the hierarchic chain of instruction, cannot be
attributed to the spirit of order and light. The
cloud-phantoms were therefore arraigned and accused of
being hell-born illusions, while the people—anxious to get
something into their hands—began a crusade against
sorcerers. The public folly turned into a paroxysm of
mania; strangers in country places were accused of
descending from heaven and were killed without mercy;
imbeciles confessed that they had been abducted by sylphs
or demons; others who had boasted like this previously
either would not or could not unsay it; they were burned
or drowned, and, according to Garinet, the number who
perished throughout the kingdom almost exceeds belief. It
is the common catastrophe of dramas in which the first
parts are plajed by ignorance or fear.
" Such visionary epidemics recurred in the reigns
following, and all the power of Charlemagne was put in
action to calm the public agitation. An edict, afterwards
renewed by Louis the Rous, forbade sylphs to manifest
under the heaviest penalties. It will be understood that
in the absence of the aerial beings the judgments fell
upon those who had made a boast of having seen them, and
hence they ceased to be seen. The ships in air sailed back
to the port of oblivion, and no one claimed any longer to
have journeyed through the blue distance. Other popular
frenzies replaced the previous mania, while the romantic
splendours of the great reign of Charlemagne furnished the
makers of legends with new prodigies to believe and new
marvels to relate."
Around the figure of Charlemagne (q.v.) clusters such an
immense amount of the matter of faery that it is reserved
for treatment in a special article, and it will suffice to
state here that it almost partakes of the nature of true
myth. It is stated that the Enchiridion (q.v.) (which may
well be stigmatised as an early text-book of occult
absurdity having no claim to figure in the true genealogy
of occult, literature) was presented to Charlemagne by
Pope Leo III.
Eliphas Levi presents a picturesque condition of affairs
in the France of Charlemagne in the following passage :
" We know that superstitions die hard and that degenerated
Druidism had struck its roots deeply in the savage lands
of the North. The recurring insurrections of Saxons
testified to a fanaticism which was (a) always turbulent,
and (b) incapable of repression by moral force alone. All
defeated forms of worship—Roman paganism, Germanic
idolatry, Jewish rancour conspired against victorious
Christianity. Nocturnal assemblies took place; thereat the
conspirators cemented their alliance with the blood of
human victims ; and a pantheistic idol of monstrous form,
with the horns of a goat, presided over festivals which
might be called agapos of hatred. In a word, the Sabbath
was still celebrated in every forest and wild if yet
unreclaimed provinces. The adepts who attended them were
masked and otherwise unrecognisable; the assemblies
extinguished their lights and broke up before daybreak,
the guilty were to be found everywhere, and they could be
brought to book nowhere. It came about therefore tkat
Charlemagne determined to fight them with their own
weapons.
" In those days, moreover, feudal tyrants were in league
with sectarians against lawful authority; female sorcerers
were attached to castles as courtesans; bandits who
frequented the Sabbaths divided with nobles the
blood-stained loot of rapine ; feudal courts were at the
command of the highest bidder; and the public burdens
weighed with all their force only on the weak and poor.
The evil was at its height in Westphalia, and faithful
agents were despatched thither by Charlemagne entrusted
with a secret mission. Whatsoever energy remained among
the oppressed, whosoever still loved justice, whether
among the people or among the nobility, were drawn by
these emissaries together, bound by pledges and vigilance
in common. To the initiates thus incorporated they made
known the full powers which they carried from the emperor
himself, and they proceeded to institute the Tribunal of
Free Judges.
A great deal of this, of course, is only what might be
expected from the French magus. It is not likely that the
Sabbath was yet celebrated in such an extreme manner as in
later times, nor was the Vehmgericht founded by
Charlemagne, or indeed, founded at all, for four and a
half centuries after his day.
From the reign of Robert the Pious to that of St. Louis,
there is not much to relate that can strike the
imagination of the student of occult history. In the time
of the latter monarch flourished the famous Rabbi Jachiel,
the celebrated Kabalist. There is some reason to believe
that he had glimmerings of the uses of electricity, for on
the approach of night a radiant star appeared in his
lodging, the light being so brilliant that no eye could
gaze thereon without being dazzled, while it darted
rainbow colours. It appeared to be inexhaustible, and was
never replenished with oil or other combustible substance.
When the Rabbi was annoyed by intruders at his door he
struck a nail fixed in his cabinet, producing
simultaneously a blue spark on the head of the nail and
the door-knocker, to which, if the intruder clung, he
received a severe shock. Albertus Magnus (q.v.) lived at
the same period.
The next circumstance of interest which falls to be noted
is the prosecutions of the Templars (q.v.) who were
brought to trial by Philip the Fair. Other prosecutions
for sorcery were those of Joan of Arc, Gilles de Laval
(q.v.), lord of Raiz, the prototype of Bluebeard, a
renowned sorcerer, who with two assistants, PreJati and
Sille, practised diabolical rites at his castle of
Machecoul, celebrating the black mass in the most
revolting manner. He had been in the habit of slaughtering
children to assist him in his search for the philosopher's
stone. We now near the period of those astounding
prosecutions for sorcery which are fully noted under the
article " Witchcraft" and elsewhere. As early as the
thirteenth century the charge of sorcery had been made as
one of the means of branding with infamy the heretical
Waldenses (q.v.), who were accused of selling themselves
to the Devil, and of holding sabbatical orgies where they
did homage to the enemy of mankind. About the middle of
the fifteenth century France became the theatre of
wholesale oppression against suspected sorcerers, but one
finds leading up to this a series of events which prove
that the outburst in question was by no means a novelty in
that country. In 1315 Enguerraud de Marigny, who had
conducted the execution of the Templars a minister of
Philip the Fair, was hanged along with an adventurer named
Paviot, for attempting to compass the deaths of the Counts
of Valois and St. Paul. In 1334 the Countess of Artois and
her son were thrown into prison on a suspicion of sorcery.
In 1393, in the reign of Charles VI., it was considered
that his sister-in-law, the Duchess of Orleans, who was a
viscomte and the daughter of the Duke of Milan, had
rendered the King mad by sorcery. The ministers of the
court resolved to pit a magician against her, and one
Arnaud Guillaume (q.v.) was brought from Guienne as a
suitable adversary to the noble lady. He possessed a book
to which he gave the strange title of Smagorad, the
original of which, he said, was given by God to Adam, to
console him for the loss of his son Abel, and he asserted
that the possessor of this volume could hold the stars in
subjection, and command the four elements. He assured the
King's advisers that Charles was suffering from the
malignity of a sorcerer, but in the meantime the young
monarch recovered, and the possessor of the patriarchal
volume fell back into his original obscurity. Five years
later the King had another attack, and two Augustine
friars were sent from Guienne for the purpose of effecting
a cure. But their conduct was so outrageous that they were
executed. A third attack in 1403 was combated by two
SMteiCTS oi T*i)OTi, Powison and Briquet. "For this
purpose they established themselves in a thick wood not
^&5&w&'&»$&e&&5Si)Oii; Vnere'ftiey ma&e a magic circle of
iron of immense weight, which was supported by iron
columns of the height of a middle-sized man, and to which
twelve chains of iron were attached. So great was the
popular anxiety for the King's recovery, that the two
sorcerers succeeded in persuading twelve of the principal
persons of the town to enter the circle, and allow
'themselves to be fastened by the chains. The sorcerers
then proceeded with their incantations, but they were
altogether without result. The bailiff of Dijon, who was
one of the twelve, and had averred his incredulity from
the first, caused the sorcerers to be arrested, and they
were burnt for their pretences.
The Duke of Orleans appears to have fallen under the same
suspicion of sorcery as his Italian consort. After his
murder by order of the Duke of Burgundy—the commencement
of those troubles which led to the desolation of
France—the latter drew up various heads of accusation
against his victim as justifications of the crime, and one
of these was, that the Duke of Orleans had attempted to
compass bis death by means of sorcery. According to this
statement, he had received a magician—another apostate
friar— into his castle of Mountjoie, where he was employed
in these sinister designs. He performed his magical
ceremonies before sunrise on a neighbouring mountain,
where two demons, named Herman and Astra-mon, appeared to
him; and these became his active instruments in the
prosecution of his design.
About the year 1400 the belief in the nightly meetings of
the witches' Sabbath had become almost universal. It would
indeed be difficult to attempt to trace the origin of this
practice, which does not seem altogether referable to the
survival of pagan belief. (See Wtebentt.) The wholesale
nature of the prosecutions against sorcerers and witches
prove that there must have been an extraordinary number of
them in the country. In Paris alone, in the time of
Charles IX, there were no less than thirty thousand
sorcerers, and it is computed that France contained more
than three times that number in the reign of Henry III.,
not a town or village being exempt from their presence.
They belonged to all classes, and generally met the same
fate, regardless of rank, age or sex. Children of the ten-derest
years and nonagenarians were alike committed to the
flames, and the terror of being publicly accused as a
sorcerer hung like a black cloud over the life of every
successful man, as the charge was one which envy readily
seized upon for the destruction of its object. No
elaborate or perfect creed regarding witchcraft had at
this epoch been evolved in England, but in France and
other continental countries it had been assuming a form
systematic and complete. There were probably two reasons
for this, the decrees of ecclesiastical councils and the
numerous treatises of scholars who professed to illustrate
their various
theories regarding sorcery by alleged statements from the
mouths of its innumerable victims. Indeed the writings of
these men served to standardise the sorcery creed of all
continental countries. During the earlier part of the
sixteenth century, trials for witchcraft in France are of
rare occurrence, and there are no cases of great
importance recorded till after the year 1560. In 1561 a
number of persons were brought to trial at Vernon, accused
of having held their Sabbath as witches in an old ruined
castle in the shape of cats; and witnesses deposed to
having seen the assembly, and to having suffered from the
attacks of the pseudo-feline conspirators. But the court
threw out the charge, as worthy only of ridicule. In 1564,
three men and a woman were executed at Poitiers, after
having been made to confess to various acts of sorcery;
among other things, they said that they had regularly
attended the witches' Sabbath, which was heltHtae. tJWS&^^m
that the demon who presided at it ended by burning himself
to make powder for the use of his agents in mischief. In
1571, a mere conjurer, who played tricks upon cards, was
thrown into prison in Paris, forced to confess that he was
an attendant on the Sabbath, and then executed. In 1573, a
man was burnt at Drole, on the charge of having changed
himself into a wolf, and in that form devoured several
children. Several witches, who all confessed to having
been at the Sabbaths, were in the same year condemned to
be burnt in different parts of France. In 1578, another
man was tried and condemned in Paris for changing himself
into a wolf; and a man was condemned at Orleans for the
same supposed crime.in 1583. As France was often infested
by these rapacious animals, it is not difficult to
conceive how popular credulity was led to connect their
ravages with the crime of witchcraft. The belief in whr.t
were in England called wer-wolves (men-wolves), and in
France loups-garous, was a very ancient superstition
throughout Europe. It is asserted by a serious and
intelligent writer of the time that, in 1588, a gent/eman.
looking out of the window of his chateau in a village two
leagues from Apchon, in the mountains of Auyergne, saw one
of his acquaintances going a-hunting, and begged he would
bring him home some game. The hunter, while occupied in
the chase, was attacked by a fierce she-wolf, and after
having fired at it without effect, struck it with his
hunting-knife, ard cut off the paw of his right fore-leg,
on which it immediately took to flight. The hunter took up
the paw, threw it into his bag with the rest of his game,
and soon afterwards returned to his friend's chateau, and
told him of his adventure, at the same time putting his
hand into the bag to bring forth the wolf's paw in
confirmation of his story. What was his surprise at
drawing out a lady's hand, with a gold ring on one finger
! His friend's astonishment was still greater when he
recognised the ring as one which he had given to his own
wife ; and, descending hastily into the kitchen, he found
the lady warming herself by the fire, with her right arm
wrapped in her apron. This he at once seized, and found to
his horror that the hand was cut off. The lady confessed
that it was she who, in the form of a wolf, had attacked
the hunter; she was, in due course of time, brought to her
trial and condemned, and was immediately afterwards burnt
at Rioms.
In 1578, a witch was burnt at Compiegne; she confessed
that she had given herself to the devil, who appeared to
her as a great black man, on horseback, booted and
spurred. Another avowed witch was burnt the same year, who
also stated that the evil one came to her in the shape of
a black man. In 1582 and 1583, several witches were burnt,
all frequenters of the Sabbaths. Several local councils at
this date passed severe laws against witchcraft, and from
that time to the end of the century, the number of
miserable persons put to death in France under the
accusation was very great. In the course only of fifteen
years, from 1580 to 1595, and only in one province, that
of Lorraine, the president Remigius burnt nine hundred
witches, and as many more fled out of the country to save
their lives; and about the close of the century, one of
the French judges tells us that the crime of witchcraft
had become so common that there were not jails enough to
hold the prisoners, or judges to hear their causes. A
trial which he had witnessed in 1568, induced Jean Bodin,
a learned physician, to compose his book De la Demonomanie
des Sorciers, which
•was ever afterwards the text-book on this subject.
Among the English witches, the evil one generally came in
person to seduce his victims, but in France and other
countries, this seems to have been unnecessary, as each
person, when once initiated, became seized with an
uncontrollable desire of making converts, whom he or she
carried to the Sabbath to be duly enrolled. Bodin says,
that one witch was enough to corrupt five hundred honest
persons. The infection quickly ran through a family, and
was generally carried down from generation to generation,
which explained satisfactorily, according to the learned
commentator on demonology just mentioned, the extent to
which the evil had spread itself in his days. The novice,
at his or her reception, after having performed the
preliminaries, and in general received a new and burlesque
rite of baptism, was marked with the sign of the demon in
some part of the body least exposed to observation, and
performed the first criminal act of compliance which was
afterwards to be so frequently repeated, the evil one
presenting himself on these occasions in the form of
either sex, the reverse to that of the victim.
Towards the end of the sixteenth century, the witchcraft
infatuation had risen to its greatest height in France,
and not only the lower classes, but persons of the highest
rank in society were liable to suspicions of dealing in
sorcery. We need only mention that such charges were
publicly made against King Henry III. and Queen Catherine
de Medicis, and that, early in the following century, they
became the ground of state trials which had a fatal
conclusion.
In 1610, during the reign of Louis XIII., occurred the
cause celebre of the marechale d'Ancre. Among the servants
attached to the train of Marie de Medici was a certain
Eleanora Don, who married one, Concini, a prodigal
spendthrift. Marie de Medici, as guardian to her son, was
virtually ruler of France, and considerable power was
•exercised by these favourites of hers. The result was
that the peers of France leagued themselves together
against the upstarts, but with little result at first, as
Concini was created Marechal of France, with the title of
Marquis
•d'Ancre. His wife, who was very superstitious, fell sick,
and attributed her ill-health to the effects of sorcery.
The upshot was that d'Ancre was assassinated by the nobles
•during a hunting expedition. The mob dragged the corpse
of d'Ancre from its grave and hanged it on the Pont Neuf.
His wretched widow was accused of sorcery, and of having
bewitched the Queen Mother. The exorcists who had assisted
her to free herself from illness had advised the sacrifice
of a cock, and this was now represented as a sacrifice* to
the infernal powers. Added to this, the astrological
nativities of the royal family were found in her
possession, as were, it is said, a quantity of magical
books, and a great number of magical characters. After
being tortured without result she was beheaded and burnt,
and strangely enough the anger of the Parisian mob turned
to general commiseration. Many other interesting cases
occurred in France in the seventeenth century, among
others that of the Ursulines at Aix (q.v.), for the
enchantment of whom Louis Gaufridi was burnt, the Nuns of
Louviais, and the nuns of Assonne. The Case of the
Ursulines of Loudon
(q.v.), is fully dealt with elsewhere. (See Urban Grandier).
The eighteenth century in France was fairly prolific in
occult history. At a time when Europe was credulous about
nothing but magic, France did not escape the prevailing
craze. Perhaps the most striking personality of this age
in the occult connection was the Comte de Saint Germain
(q.v.), who was credited with possessing the secrets of
alchemy and magic. His family connections were unknown,
and his conversation suggested that he had lived for many
centuries. Another mysterious adept was an alchemist
calling himself Lascaris (q.v.) who literally sowed his
path through Europe with gold. Then followed Cag-liostro
(q.v.), who attained a fame unrivalled in the history of
French occultism. He founded many masonic lodges
throughout the country, and assisted in many ways to bring
about the French Revolution. A school of initiates was,
founded by Martines de Pasqually, which appears in some
measure to have incorporated the teachings of the later
European adepts. One-of the most important figures at this
time is Louis Claude de Saint-Martin, known as " Le
Philosophe Inconnu " who came under the influence of
Pasqually (q.v.), and later, under that of the writings of
Boehme, whose works he translated. Cazotte (q.v.) was the
first of these names who were associated with both magic
and the Revolution, which, indeed, owed much in its
inception to those mysterious brotherhoods of France and
Germany, who during the eighteenth century sowed the seeds
of equality and Illuminism throughout Europe. Another was
Loiseaut (q.v.), who formed a mystical society, which met
in great secrecy, awaiting a vision of John the Baptist,
who came to them to foretell the Revolution. The spiritual
director of this circle was a monk named Dom Gerle (q.v.)
one of the first mesmerists in Paris, who is said to have
foretold the dreadful fame of Robespierre by means of
Catherine Theot, his medium. He was expelled by the
members of the circle, acting on the advice of one of
their number, Sister Francoise Andre, who cherished a
notion to preserve the crown for the future reign of Louis
XVII., and thus gave rise to that multitude of stories
connected with the so-called '' Saviours'' of the youthful
" Capet." This sect, or a portion of it, became notorious
under the leadership of Vintras (q.v.), when its meetings
degenerated into the most dreadful debauchery. The
appearance of Mile. Lenormand as a prophetess at the end
of the eighteenth century may be said to close the occult
history of that age. With the beginning of the nineteenth
century we find the craze for magnetism rampant. In his
works The Reform of Philosophy and Yes or No, Wronski
pretended to have discovered the first theorems of the
Kabala, and later beguiled rich persons of weak intellect
into paying him large sums in return for knowledge of the
Absolute. The Saviours of Louis XVII. were formally
condemned in 1853 by the Pope as practitioners of black
magic, but they in turn condemned the Pope, and their
leader, Vintras, constituted himself Sovereign Pontiff,
but he was arrested on the charge of roguery and after
five years' imprisonment, found an asylum in England.
The Baron du Potet did much to advance the science of
Mesmer and by this time was being seriously followed by
Cahagnet and others (See Mesmerism). In the middle of the
nineteenth century all sorts of absurdities swayed occult
Paris. The tale of Alphonse Esquiros (q.v.) entitled The
Magician founded a school of magic phantasy, which was
assiduously nursed by Henri Delaage (q.v.), who was said
to have the gift of ubiquity, and who made a collection of
processes from the old magicians for acquiring physical
beauty.
Spiritualism. The Comte d'Ourches was the first to
introduce into France automatic writing and table-writing.
Baron Guldenstubbe, in his Practical Experimental
Pneu-matology; or, the Reality of Spirits and the
Marvellous Phenomena of their Direct Writing, gives an
account of his discovery as follows:
" It was in the course of the year 1850, or about three
years prior to the epidemic of table-rapping, that the
author sought to introduce into France the circles of
American spiritualism, the mysterious Rochester knockings
and the purely automatic writings of mediums.
Unfortunately he met with many obstacles raised by other
mesmerists. Those who were committed to the hypothesis of
a magnetic fluid, and even those who styled themselves
Spiritual Mesmerists, but who were really inferior
inducers of somnambulism, treated the mysterious knockings
of American spiritualism as visionary follies. It was
therefore only after more than six months that the author
was able to form bis first circle on the American plan,
and then thanks to the zealous concurrence of M. Rousaan,
a former member of the Socielt des Magneliseurs
Spiritualities, a simple man who was full of enthusiasm
for the holy cause of spiritualism. We were joined by a
number of other persons, amongst whom was the Abbe Chatel,
founder of the Eglise Francaise, who, despite his
rationalistic tendencies, ended by admitting the reality
of objective and supernatural revelation, as an
indispensable condition of spiritualism and all practical
religions. Setting aside the moral conditions which are
equally requisite, it is known that American circles aie
based on the distinction of positive and electric or
negative magnetic currents.
" The circles consist of twelve persons, representing in
equal proportions the positive and negative or sensitive
elements. This distinction does not follow the sex of the
members, though generally women are negative and
sensitive, while men are positive and magnetic. The mental
and physical constitution of each individual must be
studied before forming the circles, for some delicate
women have masculine qualities, while some strong men are,
morally speaking, women. A table is placed in a clear and
ventilated spot; the medium is seated at one end and
entirely isolated; by his calm and contemplative quietude
he serves as a conductor for the electricity, and it may
be noted that a good somnambulist is usually an excellent
medium. The six electrical or negative dispositions, which
are generally recognised by their emotional qualities and
their sensibility, are placed at the right of the medium,
the most sensitive of all being next him. The same rule is
followed with the positive personalities, who are at the
left of the medium, with the most positive next to him. In
order to form a chain, the twelve persons each place their
right hand on the table. Observe that the medium or
mediums, if there be more than one, are entirely isolated
from those who form the chain.
" After a number of seances, certain remarkable phenomena
have been obtained, such as simultaneous shocks, felt by
all present at the moment of mental evocation on the part
of the most intelligent persons. It is the same with
mysterious knockings and other strange sounds; many
people, including those least sensitive, have had
simultaneous visions, though remaining in the ordinary
waking state. Sensitive persons have acquired that most
wonderful gift of mediuraship, namely, automatic writing,
as the result of an invisible attraction which uses the
non-intelligent instrument of a human arm to express its
ideas. For the rest, non-sensitive persons experience the
mysterious influence of an external wind, but the effect
is- not strong enough to put their limbs in motion. All
these phenomena, obtained according to the mode of
American spiritualism, have the defect of being more or
less indirect, because it is impossible in these
experiments to dispense with the mediation of a human
being or medium. It is
the same with the table-turning which invaded Europe in
the middle of the year 1853.
" The author has had many table experiences with his
honourable friend, the Comte d'Ourches, one of the most
instructed persons in Magic and the Occult Sciences. We
attained by degrees the point when tables moved, apart
from any contact whatever, while the Comte d'Ourches has
caused them to rise, also without contact. The author has
made tables rush across a room with great rapidity, and
not only without contact but without the magnetic aid of a
circle of sitters. The vibrations of piano-chords under
similar circumstances took place on January 20,1856, in
the presence of the Comte de Szapary and Comte d'Ourches.
Now all such phenomena are proof positive of certain
occult forces, but they do not demonstrate adequately the
real and substantial existence of unseen intelligences,
independent of our will and imagination, though the limits
of these have been vastly extended in respect of their
possibilities. Hence the reproach made against American
spiritualists, because their communications with the world
of spirits are so insignificant in character, being
confined to mysterious knockings and other sound
vibrations. As a fact, there is no direct phenomenon at
once intelligent and material, independent of our will and
imagination, to compare with the direct writing of
spirits, v:ho have neither been invoked or evoked, and it
is this only which offers irrefutable proof as to the
reality of the supernatural world.
"-The author, being always in search of such proof, at
once intelligent and palpable, concerning the substantial
reality of the supernatural world, in order to demonstrate
by certain facts the immortality of the soul, has never
wearied of addressing fervent prayers to the Eternal, that
He might vouchsafe to indicate an infallible means for
strengthening that faith in immortality which is the
eternal basis of religion. The Eternal, Whose mercy is
infinite, has abundantly answered this feeble prayer. On
August ist, 1856, the idea came to the author of trying
whether spirits could write diicctly, that is, apart from
the presence of a medium. Remembering the marvellous
direct writing of the Decalogue, communicated to Moses,
and that other writing, equally direct and mysterious, at
the feast of Belshazzar, recorded by Daniel; having
further heard about those modern mysteries of Stratford in
America, where certain strange and illegible characters
were found upon strips of paper, apparently apart from
mediumship, the author sought to establish the actuality
of such important phenomena, if indeed within the limits
of possibility.
" He therefore placed a sheet of blank letter paper and a
sharply pointed pencil in a box, which he then locked, and
carried the key about him, imparting his design to-no one.
Twelve days he waited in vain, but what was his
astonishment on August I3th, 1856, when he found certain
mysterious characters traced on the paper. He repeated the
experiment ten times on that day, placing a new sheet of
paper each time in the box, with the same result
invariably. On the following day he made twenty
experiments but left the box open, without losing sight of
it. He witnessed the formation of characters and words in
the Es-thonian language with no motion of the pencil. The
latter being obviously useless he decided to dispense with
it and placed blank paper sometimes on a table of his own,
sometimes on the pedestals of old statues, on sarcophagi,
on urns, etc., in the Louvre, at St. Denis, at t&e Church
of St. Etienne du Mont, etc., Similar experiments were
made in different cemetries of Paris, but the author has
no liking for cemetries, while most saints prefer the
localities where they have lived on earth to those in
which their mortal remains are laid to rest." We are now
launched upon the sea of modern spiritualism in France,
which occupied the entire activities of occultists in that
country for several decades, and which it will be better
to trace from the period of its importation into the
country.
Very soon after public attention had been drawn to the
subject of magnetism in France by Mesmer and d'Eslon,
several men distinguished for learning and scientific
attainments, followed up their experiments with great
success. Amongst these was the Baron Dupotet, whose deep
interest in the subject of magnetism induced him to
publish a periodical which, under the title of Journal de
Magnetisme— still forms a complete treasury of well
collated facts, and curious experiments in occult force.
From this work we learn that the Baron's investigations
commenced in the year 1836, since which period up to 1848,
he chronicled the production of the following remarkable
phases of phenomena, the occurrence of which is testified
to by numerous scientific and eminent witnesses. Through
the Baron's magnetized subjects was evolved, clairvoyance,
trance-speaking, and healing; stigmata or raised letters
and figures on the subject's body; elevation of
somnambulists into the air; insensibility to fire, injury
or touch. In the presence of the magnetized objects also,
heavy bodies were moved without human contact, and objects
were brought from distant places through walls and closed
doors. Sometimes the " Lucides " described scenes in the
spirit world, found lost property, prophesied and spoke in
foreign languages.
In 1840, Baron Dupotet writes that he had " rediscovered
in magnetism the magic of antiquity." " Let the savants,"
he says, " reject the doctrine of spiritual appearances;
the enquirer of to-day is compelled to believe it; from an
examination of undeniable facts." ... "If the knowledge of
ancient magic is lost, all the facts remain on which to
reconstruct it."
But of all the revealers to whom French Spiritualism is
indebted for indubitable proof of super-mundane
intercourse, none stands more prominent in truthfulness
and worth, than M. Cahagnet, the well-known author of "The
Celestial Telegraph," a work translated into English in
1848.
M. Cahagnet was an unlearned mechanic, a man of the people
and though a sensible and interesting writer, was neither
well read, nor highly educated. He affirms that he was a "
materialist" when first his attention was attracted to the
subject of animal magnetism, but being of a thoughtful
nature, he determined to devote all the leisure he could
spare to a thorough examination of its possibilities. When
he found that he possessed the power to induce the
magnetic sleep in others, he proceeded on the plan then
generally adopted by mesmerists, namely, to try how far he
could succeed in biologizing his subjects, that is to say,
to substitute his own senses, mind, and will, for those of
the sleeper.
In the course of these experiments M. Cahagnet discovered
that he could effect remarkable cures of disease, and
being naturally of a benevolent disposition, he determined
to bend all his energies in this desirable direction. He
soon found, however, that he was destined to realize the
aphorism, " he builded wiser than he knew." A new and most
perplexing obstacle arose to confound his philosophy and
scatter his theories to the winds; this was the fact, that
some of his subjects, instead of representing what simply
he wiled, or manifesting—in accordance with his views of
biology—merely the influence of his mind, began to
transcend both will and mind, and wander off in space, to
regions they persisted in calling the " land of spirits,"
and to describe people, whom they emphatically affirmed to
be the souls of those whom the world called dead.
For a long time M. Cahagnet strove vehemently to combat
what he termed these "wild hallucinations," but when he
found them constantly recurring, and vast numbers of those
who had come to witness the experiments in magnetism
recognising in the descriptions given by the somnambulists
the spirits of those whom they had known on earth, and
mourned as dead, conviction became inevitable, and the
magnetizer, like his visitors, was compelled to admit a
new and wonderful phase of lucidity, and one which carried
the vision of the clairvoyant from earth to heaven, and
pierced the veil which separated the mortal from the
realms of immortality. It was after a long series of
carefully conducted experiments of the above description,
that M. Cahagnet was finally persuaded to give the results
of his wonderful seances to the world, under the name and
style of The Celestial Telegraph, or, Secrets of the Life
to Come.
The author of Art Magic says: " The narrow conservatism of
the age, and the pitiful jealousy of the Medical Faculty,
rendered it difficult and harassing to conduct magnetic
experiments openly in Europe within several years of
Mesmer's decease. Still such experiments were not wanting,
and to show their results, we give a few excerpts from the
correspondence between the famous French Magnetists, MM.
Deleuze and Billot, from the years 1829 to 1840. By these
letters, published in 1836, it appears that M. Billot
commenced his experiments in magnetizing as early as 1789,
and that during forty years, he had an opportunity of
witnessing facts in clairvoyance, ecstasy, and
somnambulism, which at the time of their publication
transcended the belief of the general mass of readers. On
many occasions in the presence of entranced subjects,
spirits recognised as having once lived on earth in mortal
form—would come in bodily presence before the eyes of an
assembled multitude and at request bring flowers, fruits,
and objects, removed by distance from the scene of the
experiments.
" M. Deleuze frankly admits that his experience was more
limited to those phases of somnambulism in which his
subjects submitted to amputations and severe surgical
operations without experiencing the slightest pain. . . .
In a letter dated 1831 M. Billot writing to Deleuze says:—
•'' I repeat, I have seen and known all that is permitted
to man. I have seen the stigmata arise on magnetized
subjects; I have dispelled obsessions of evil spirits
with, a single word. I have seen spirits bring those
material objects I told you of, and when requested, make
them so light that they -would float, and, again, a small
boileau de bonbons was rendered so heavy that I failed to
move it an inch until the power was removed.
"' To those who enjoyed the unspeakable privilege of
listening to the " somnambules " of Billot, Deleuze, and
Cahagnet, another and yet more striking feature of
unanimous revelation was poured forth. Spirits of those wh»
had passed away from earth strong in the faith of Roman
Catholicism—often priests and dignitaries of that
conservative Church, addressing prejudiced believers in
their former doctiine, asserted that there was no creed in
Heaven —no sectarian worship, or ecclesiastical dogmatism
there prevailing.
" ' They taught that God was a grand Spiritual Sun— life
on earth a probation—the spheres, different degrees of
comprehensive happiness or states of retributive
suffering—each appropriate to the good or evil deeds done
on earth. They described the ascending changes open to
every soul in proportion to his own efforts to improve.
"' They all insisted that man was his own judge, incurred
a penalty or reward for which there was no substitution.
They taught nothing of Christ, absolutely denied the idea
of vicarious atonement—and represented man as his own
Saviour or destroyer.
" ' They spoke of arts, sciences, and continued
activities, as if the life beyond was but an extension of
the present on a greatly improved scale. Descriptions of
the radiant beauty, supernal happiness, and ecstatic
sublimity manifested by the blest spirits who had risen to
the spheres of Paradise, Heaven, and the glory of angelic
companionships melts the heart, and fills the soul with
irresistible yearning, to lay down life's weary burdens
and be at rest with them.' "
Having shown that Spiritualism arose in France as in
Germany from the awakening of psychic powers evolved by
magnetism, and traced the footprints of the great temple
builders who have laid the foundation stones of the
spiritual edifice in the human system and steadily worked
upwards from matter to force, and from thence to spirit in
every gradation of sphere, life and progress, we recall
the pithy words of the Baron de Potet, who, in addressing
the would-be leaders of public opinion in his essay on the
" Philosophical Teaching of Magnetism," says:
" You savants of our country; you have not shown
yourselves better informed than the Siamese.
" For these sixty years it has been shouted in your ears:
The Magnetizers march to the discovery of a moral world;
all the phenomena they produce indisputably proves its
existence.
" You have declared that they were impostors, imbeciles,
and the most illustrious amongst you have only pronounced
a verdict -which will attest to future ages your ignorance
or your insincerity.
" Before the soul is disengaged from matter, it can, and
•does, converse with pure spirits. Already it can gaze
prophetically on its own future destiny, by regarding the
condition of those who have gone before—but a step— yet
one which the eye of spirit alone can measure, and if men
are spirits already, who can stay the eagle glance of the
soul into the land of its own inheritance ? "
In following up the history of Spiritualism in France,
although we find it has gained an immense foothold, and
exerted a wide-spread influence upon the popular mind, it
is nevertheless evident, that one of the chief obstacles
to its general acceptance has been its lack of internal
unity, and the antagonistic sentiments which have
prevailed amongst its acknowledged leaders.
Two of those who have figured most prominently in the
grand drama of French Spiritualism, and in all probability
exerted more influence upon public opinion than any other
members of its dramatis person®, were MM. Allan Kardec and
Pierart, the respective editors of the two leading
Spiritual journals, entitled La Revue Spirile and La Revue
Spiritualisie. These may also be regarded as the
representatives of the two opposing factions known as
Spiritualists and Spiritists, the former teaching that the
soul of man undergoes but one mortal birth, and continues
its progress through eternity in spiritual states, the
latter affirming the doctrine of Re-incarnation, and
alleging that the one spirit in man can and does undergo
many incarnations in different mortal forms.
M. Kardec and his followers represented the " Spiritists "
or Re-incarnatibnists—M. Pierart leading the ranks of the
opposing faction most commonly called Spiritualists.
In respect to the question of testimony, it must be
remembered that M. Kardec derived his communications
chiefly from those writing and trance mediums who might
have proved the most susceptible to his influence, and is
•said to have persistently banished from his circles, not
only Mr. Home, M. Bredif, and other physical mediums, but
all those who did not endorse his favourite dogma through
their communications.
Says the author of Nineteenth Century Miracles: It
must not be supposed that the schism which divided the two
leaders of French Spiritualism was confined to the
immediate sphere of action in which they moved. Scattered
sympathisers with the writings of Allan Kardec, may be
found all over the Continent of Europe, and in small
numbers in America also. Few people who read works put
forward with authoritative pretentions have the faculty of
thoroughly digesting what they read, hence, when M.
Kardec's books were translated into the English language,
and it became the publisher's interest to aid in their
circulation, they found more readers than thinkers, and
their plausible style attracted more admiration than
sincere conviction. In France, no, doubt M. Kardec's
personal influence, and strong psychological power,
admirably fitted him for a propagandist, and when we
remember how readily any doctrines eloquently advocated
will command adherents, especially among restless and
excitable natures, we need be at no loss to discover why
M. Kardec's writings have become so popular and his
opinions so generally accepted by his readers. Little or
no spiritual literature was disseminated in the French
language when Allan Kardec's works were first published.
He possessed that indomitable energy and psychological
influence in which his much harassed rival Pierart was
wanting. Thus in a measure, the field of Continental
spiritual propagandism was his own, nor did he fail to
make use of his great opportunities.
'• The successes achieved by Kardec's journal. La Revue
Spirite, communicated a wave of influence also, which
propagated journals of a similar character all over the
country. Thus in 1864, there were no less than ten
spiritualistic periodicals published in France, under fhe
following titles : La Revue Spirite, La Revue
Spiritualiste, and L'Ave-nir, Paris; four Spiritist
journals published in Bordeaux, which, in 1865, became
merged into L' Union Spirite Borde-laise; La Medium
Evangelique, Toulouse; L'Echo £ outre Tombe, Marseilles;
and La Verity, Lyons. The editors of these journals are
said to have been all followers of Allan Kardec, with the
exception of M. Pierart, editor of La Revue Spiritualiste."
It must be remarked that the doctrines of the Re-incar-nationists,
although defended with great ability by their
propagandists, who included many of the most capable minds
of France, were not suffered to pass without severe
castigation on the part of their English neighbours; and
it becomes necessary to note how the French spiritual
schism was received on the other side of the Channel. In
the London Spiritual Magazine of 1865, the editor, in
commenting on the ominous silence of the Spirite journals
concerning Dr. Maldigny's opera of Swedenborg says:—
" It is worthy of note that the journals of the Kardec
school, so far as we have seen them, do not take the least
notice of this opera. The Avenir of Paris, which appears
weekly, but greatly wants facts, has not a word to say
about it. .... It is greatly to be regretted that the main
object of the Kardecian journals seems to be, not the
demonstration of the constantly recurring facts of
Spiritualism, but the deification of Kardec's doctrine of
Re-incarnation.
" To this doctrine—which has nothing to do with
Spiritualism, even if it had a leg of reason or fact to
stand on— all the strength, and almost all the space of
these journals is devoted.
" These are the things which give the enemies of
Spiritualism a real handle against it, and bring it into
contempt with sober minds. Re-incarnation is a doctrine
which cuts up by the roots all individual identity in the
future existence. It desolates utterly that dearest
yearning of the human heart for reunion with its loved
ones in a permanent world. If some are to go back into
fresh physical bodies, and bear new names, and new
natures, if they are to become respectively Tom Styles,
Ned Snooks, and a score of other people, who shall ever
hope to meet again with his friends, wife, children,
brothers and sisters ? When he enters the spirit-world and
enquires for them, he will have to learn that they are
already gone back to earth, and are somebody else, the
sons and daughters of other people, and will have to
become over and over the kindred of a dozen other families
in succession ! Surely, no such most cheerless crochet
could bewitch the intellects of any people, except under
the most especial bedevilment of the most sarcastic and
mischievous of devils."
In the January number for 1866, a still stronger article
on this subject appears from the pen of Wrn. Howitt, who
writes the following fearless words of protest against the
doctrine of Re-incarnation:
" In the Avenir of November and, M. Pezzani thinks he has
silenced M. Pierart, by asserting that without
Reincarnation all is chaos and injustice in God's
creation: ' In this world there are rich and poor,
oppressed and oppressors, and without Re-incarnation,
God's justice could not be vindicated.' That is to say, in
M. Pezzani's conception, God has not room in the infinite
future to punish and ledress every wrong, without sending
back souls again and again into the flesh. M. Pezzani's
idea, and that of his brother Re-incarnationists is, that
the best way to get from Paris to London is to travel any
number of times from Paris to Calais and back again. We
English, that the only way is to go on to London at once.
... As to M. Pezzani's notions of God's injustice without
Reincarnation, if souls were re-incarnated a score of
times, injustice between man and man, riches and poverty,
oppression and wrong, all the enigmas of social inequality
would remain just then as now.
" In noticing these movements in the Spiritist camp in
France, we should be doing a great injustice if we did not
refer to the zealous, eloquent, and unremitting exertions
of M. Pierait in the Revue Spiritualists, to expose and
lesist the errors of the Spirite to which we have alluded.
The doctrine of Re-incarnation, M. Pierart has
persistently resisted and denounced as at once false,
unfounded on any evidence, and most pernicious to the
character of Spiritualism."
Allan Kardec died on March 3ist, 1869.
Notwithstanding the fact that the experimental method of
receiving communications through physical mediumship was
not in favour with M. Allan Kardec and his followers,
there is an abundant amount of phenomena of all kinds
recorded in M. Pierart's excellent journal, La Revue
Spirit-ualiste, also in many other European journals
devoted to the subject. From this we are about to select
such facts of a representative character as will give a
general view of French Spiritualism in the nineteenth
century.
The celebrated " Cure D'Ars," the founder of the D'Ars "
Providence," and many other noble works cf charity, Jean
Baptiste Vianney, was born in the vicinity of Lyons, in
1786, in a humble sphere of life. His natural capacity was
by no means remarkable, and at school he was only
remembered as a somewhat dull scholar. Circumstances
having opened up the way for his becoming a priest,
although he had only Latin enough to say mass, and no
iearning beyond the routine of his profession, yet his
amiable nature and unaffected piety won him friends
wherever he went. After some changes of fortune and the
rejection of two good offers of rich positions, which in
his extreme humility lie did not deem himself fit for, he
accepted the pastoral charge of the little agricultural
village of D'Ars, now in the arrondisement of Trevoux.
Very soon his reputation for beneficence drew round him a
much larger circle of poor dependents than he could
provide for, and then it was that he commenced his extra-
171 France
ordinary life of faith, supplicating in fervent prayer for
whatever means were necessary to carry out his divine
mission of blessing to his unfortunate fellow creatures.
In this way the sphere of his benevolence, and the
wonderful results of the means he employed to maintain it,
reached proportions that could scarcely be credited.
But now a still more wonderful thing was tc happen in the
enchanted region of D'Ars. Persons afflicted with disease
began to experience sudden cures whilst praying before the
altar, or making confessions to the Cure. The fame of this
new miracle soon spread abroad, until the Abbe Monnin
declares that upwards of 20,000 persons annually came from
Germany, Italy, Belgium, and all parts of France, and even
from England, and that in less than six years this number
increased to an average of 80,000. Diseases of every kind
that had been pronounced incurable, were dissipated at
once. The indefatibagle Cure gave himself up to the work,
heart and soul. His church stood open dny and night, and
the immense crowds that surrounded it, were obliged to
wait for hours and sometimes days, to reach the good
healer. No one was allowed to take precedence of the rest,
except in cases of extreme poverty or extreme suffering.
Princes, nobles, and great ladies, often drove up as near
as they could to the church in grand carriages, and
manifested the utmost astonishment when informed that
notwithstanding their rank, they could not be admitted
except in turn. The Cure only permitted himself to take
four hours sleep, namely from eleven to three, and when he
came to the confessional again, the church and all the
approaches to it were crowded with those who had waited
all night to secure their places. Omnibuses were
established to convey patients from Lyons to D'Ars, and
the Saone was covered with boats full of anxious pilgrims.
There can be no doubt that the first well marked impulse
which experimental spiritualism received through the
invocatory processes of the circle, in France, as in many
other countries of Europe, was due to the visits of Mr. D.
D. Home, the celebrated non-professional, physical medium,
and subsequently to the large influx of professional
mediums, who found in France an excellent field for the
demonstration of their peculiar gfts.
Of Mr. Home's seances it would be superfluous to write, he
himself having related them in two volumes published at
different periods of his career, and his many admiring
friends having sufficiently described the marvels of which
they were witnesses in numerous magazines and newspaper
articles.
Mr. Home's manifestations were given in France almost
exclusively to personages of rank, or those distinguished
by literary fame. He was a guest of royalty, the nobility,
and persons of ihe highest position. During his residence
in Paris, undei the Imperial regime, he was a frequent and
ever-welcome visitor at the court of the late Emperor
Louis Napoleon. A record of the manifestations produced
through his meiiumship was kept by command of the Empress,
and frequently read to her favoured friends. Amongst these
memoranda is one which went the round of the papers at the
time of its occurrence, hence there can be no impropriety
in alluding to it now. It stated that on one occasion a
seance was held at the Tuileries, when none were present
save the Emperor, the Empress, the Duchess de Montebello,
and Mr. D. D. Home.
On the table were placed pen, ink, and paper, and
presently a spirit hand was seen, which dipped the pen in
the ink and deliberately wrote the name of the first
Napoleon, in a perfect facsimile of that monarch's
handwriting. Tua Emoeror asked if he might be permitted to
kiss this wonderful h ind, when it instantly rose to his
lips, subsequently passing to those of the Empress, and
Mr. Home.
The Emperor carefully preserved this precious autograph,
and inscribed with it a memorandum to the effect that the
hand was warm, soft, and resembled exactly that of his
great predecessor and uncle.
As an evidence of the wide popularity to which the subject
of Spiritualism had attained in 1869, M. quotes in one of
his numbers of that year, an article from the Siecle, a
leading paper, but one which has hitherto contained many
notices inimical to Spiritualism. The writer, M. Eugene
Bonnemere, says :
" Although somnambulism has been a hundred times
annihilated by the Academy of Medicine, it is more alive
than ever in Paris; in the midst of all the lights of the
age, it continues, right or wrong, to excite the
multitude. Protean in its forms, infinite in its
manifestations, if you put it out of the door, it knocks
at the window; if that be not opened, it knocks on the
ceiling, on the walls; it raps on the table at which you
innocently seat yourselves to dine or for a game of whist.
If you close your ears to its sounds, it grows excited,
strikes the table, whirls it about in a giddy maze, lifts
up its feet, and proceeds to talk through mediumship, as
the dumb talk with their fingers.
" You have all known the rage for table-turning. At one
time we ceased to ask after each other's health, but asked
how your table was. ' Thank you, mine turns beautifully;
and how goes yours on ?' Everything turned ; hats and the
heads in them. One was led almost to believe that a circle
of passengers being formed round the mainmast of a ship of
great tonnage, and a magnetic chain thus established, they
might make the vessel spin round till it disappeared in
the depth of the ocean, as a gimlet disappears in a deal
board. The Church interfered; it caused its thunders to
roar, declaring that it was Satan himself who thus raised
the devil in the tables, and having formally forbade the
world to turn, it now forbade the faithful to turn tables,
hats, brains, or ships of huge size. But Satan held his
own. The sovereign of the nether world passed into a new
one, and that is the reason that America sends us mediums,
beginning so gloriously with the famous Home, and ending
with the Brothers Davenport. One remembers with what a
frenzy everyone precipitated himself in pursuit of
mediums. Everyone wished to have one of his own; and when
you introduced a young man into society, you did not say,
' He is a good waltzer,' but, ' He is a medium.' Official
science has killed and buried this Somnambulism a score of
times; but it must have done it very badly, for there it
is as alive as evr.r, only christened ofresh with a new
name."
Amongst the many distinguished adherents of Spiritualism
in the department of French literature, none have more
bravely asserted and defended their belief than Camille
Flammarion, the celebrated astronomer; Victor Hugo,
Alexandre Dumas, and Victorien Sardou, the renowned writer
of French comedy. M. Sardou was himself a medium of
singularly happy endowments. He executed a number of
curious drawings, purporting to represent scenes in the
spirit world, amongst which was an exquisite and complex
work of art entitled, " The House of Mozart."
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