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| source title = Spiritualist, The
| source title = London Spiritualist
| source details = Jan. 4, 1878, p. 9
| source details = No. 280, January 4, 1878, pp. 9-10
| publication date = 1878-01-04
| publication date = 1878-01-04
| original date =
| original date =
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{{Style S-Small capitals|Sir}}.—In the ''Revue Spirite ''of November we find the following :—“It would require much space to enumerate the services already rendered by typtology, and to note the facts of importance elicited thereby. It is to table-rapping that we are indebted for the remarkable poetry of the ''Spirit-Rapper of Carcassonne. ''Spirits have been reproached frequently for their mediocrity in prose; the spirit-rapper of Carcassonne carried away the prize at the floral games of Toulouse, for a fable in verse.” A specimen of the poetry of this spirit versifier, through table-rapping, has appeared for a long time in the ''Revue Spirite ''almost monthly, although physical mediumship is not held in much esteem in France. You kindly inserted in your journal, some months back, an attempt of mine to render into English a fable, in allusion to the present unfortunate war, from the verse of the spirit-rapper aforesaid. I have now made another attempt to translate the spirit-rapper of Carcassonne’s verse from the ''Revue Spirite ''of November. It touches upon what we all understand when we talk of the spirit of the Pharisee, who had the character of being full of his own self-assertive superiority and self-righteousness, while he despised others. Whether that pride be materialistic or Spiritual; whether assumed on vicarious grounds, or otherwise, it has the same source and the same fruit. Here is my attempt:—
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{{Style P-Poem|poem=What! said a ''savant ''proud. Can fools be led
To think it possible to raise the dead!
You, friend of yore, so versed in views material,
Do you now seek to call forth ghosts aerial?
Come, be sincere; can you raise up the dead?
The Bible; Socrates . . . You have lost your head!
Saul and his peers are wholly out of season;
The shade of Socrates defies all reason.
You are mad or mountebank, the which you will,
Ono of the two; yet, more presumptuous still,
Dost understand me now; what can you prove?
Sir, our device is Charity and Love.
Much can we prove, but prudence is our aim;
To learn and apprehend is what we claim
To be our duty; what is more, our right.
We use our private judgment, ears, and sight.
This is our stand-point firm; nor will we botch it,
And mar its fair results for anybody’s crotchet.
Folly! . . . Not so. We know the pride of science.
The ''savant ''true is different, without defiance.
He meditates, observes; but boldly goes ''en avant,*''
He knows the ''savant ''proud is nothing but “a ''savant.''”
{{Style P-Signature in capitals|The Spirit-Rapper of Carcassonne.}}}}
One certainly regrets that this unhappy table-rapper, according to Col. Olcott, “cannot bring forth good fruit;” although it has been said that by our words we shall be justified, and by our words condemned; because ''“physical ''mediumship in general” comes under the Theosophist’s ban. Colonel Olcott, their champion, says, “''Evil ''influences are ''alone ''drawn towards such magnets.” He tells us “That mediumistic ''physical ''phenomena are not produced by pure spirits, but by ‘''souls’'' ''embodied ''or'' disembodied.” ''And what is his definition of “soul”? He calls it “the astral man, or double, or soul,” and he tells us, “From a being thus brutalised, the divine, immortal spirit ''has ''shrunk in horror, ''and death finds the man but a duality, ''of which one part goes into the ground to rot, the other wanders in and about the habitations of men, obsessing sensitives, to glut vicariously its depraved appetites, until its'' ''life is burnt out by their very intensity, and dissolution comes to crown the dreadful career. These earth-bound souls then, that the Romans called the ''larvae, ''are the ‘elementaries’of the Theosophical society.” Mark, ''all ''Spiritualism produced by physical mediumship, without exception, ''all ''deceased souls, whom we may have supposed to be the spirits of our nearest and dearest ones—our mothers, fathers, children—who may have given us, by some tender and well remembered signs, the strongest proofs of their identity; who may have come to us also, before and did since, uncalled, whether in sleeping or waking, friends whom we may have often seen clairvoyantly, or heard clair-audiently, in the same way as all ancient books on religion give hundreds on hundreds of instances of; not to mention many other spirits—for I must still call them such—whom, judging them by their words and works, it would be hard to contaminate with the felon’s brand, ''all, ''I say, brought before us by any ''physical ''mediumship whatever, “from rapping to full form manifestations,” are, according to Colonel Olcott, but mere “souls,” “elementaries,” who, whether in bodily or fluidic life, ''have already lost'' their immortal spirits, and are only waiting until, burnt out by their own vice, they shall be “''annihilated''’’! And, since they are not the beings they profess to be, are necessarily deceivers, liars, demons—''all,'' ''all! ''And you, too, spirit-rapper of Carcassonne, with your moral, witty, pungent sayings, coming, as they do, through physical medium- ship, are but one of Colonel Olcott’s spiritless “souls”; “glutting vicariously your depraved appetites, until your life shall be burnt out by their very intensity,” in honest, worthy satire of self-righteous Pharisees! I should like to know, if this spirit-rapper be vicarious, who is his rector? for he is assuredly not an “elemental” to be made a slave of. Certainly, those who would believe the Colonel, and say that his spirit-rapper has lost his spirit, cannot say he has lost the spirit of candour, and truth, and repartee.
All this of Colonel Olcott is very sweeping indeed. “Let them,” Bismarck is reported to have remarked when Paris was surrounded by German troops—“Let them stew in their own juice.” But this, be it remembered, was only spoken of the bodies of men, not of their souls, which many believe are never separated from their spirits, either before or after leaving earth; which last, I mean the ''spirits ''of men, we quite agree with Col. Olcott, are at any rate eternal and immortal, as sparks of Divinity. Bismarck would, I verily believe, have shrunk at that which a Theosophist, taught by “elementals,” can allege with such infinite coolness; but who can possess, we think, but little of the spirit of the despised “Spirit-Rapper of Carcassonne” (for I must still aver that it has a spirit, the Colonel notwithstanding), whose “device is Charity and Love;” little of the spirit of the angels’ text, which is, “Good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people;” and perhaps but a cloudy remembrance of who it is that has made us all, and not we our-selves, consequently, whose people we are of necessity and right, just as much as a watch is just such as its maker has fashioned it. Many of those whom Colonel Olcott calls “souls,” bereft of spirit, “astral men,” “elementaries,” are bad enough, doubtless, in all conscience; but we cannot take for granted all that “elementals,” under compulsion, teach Theosophists concerning “elementaries.” We cannot but think that {{Style S-HPB SB. Continues on |4-122}}
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<gallery widths=300px heights=300px>
london_spiritualist_n.280_1878-01-04.pdf|page=11|London Spiritualist, No. 280, January 4, 1878, pp. 9-10
</gallery>