On this page
-
Text (2)
-
June 28, 1851.] QLlfrt 3Lfcltlf t% 611
-
A NEW PROPHET. the Sanctuary of Spiritua...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
June 28, 1851.] Qllfrt 3lfcltlf T% 611
June 28 , 1851 . ] QLlfrt 3 Lfcltlf t % 611
A New Prophet. The Sanctuary Of Spiritua...
A NEW PROPHET . the Sanctuary of Spiritualism ; a Study of the Human Soul , and of it Relations with the Universe through Somnambulism and Best y . By L . A . Cahagnet . Translated by M . Flinders Pearson . George Pierce . A friend of ours has for many years been forming a collection of Mad Books , with a view of extracting something like the philosophy of aberrations , coordinating all the eccentricities of speculation under some general law . On his shelves M . Cahagnet must find a place . Among mad books this is of the maddest . The Poughkeepsie seer did at least alternate his nonsense with gleams of sense
from celebrated thinkers ; but M . Cahagnet disdains such servile eclecticism ; for what to him is human science or human renown t he who has penetrated the great mysteries of existence , who has achieved by means of an Oriental drug , what Plotinus thought could only be attained in rare g limpses by the severest discipline of philosophic ecstasy , and only finally attained in death , when the disengaged soul was once more mingled with the Infinite ! M . Cahagnet has no philosophic pretensions ; he is humble as befits " a simple workman / ' and modestly confesses that he has " no other instruction than inspiration ! ! "
So many gentlemen claim inspiration now-a-days , that one is quite bewildered by the conflicting prophets , the more so because they use their amazing and superhuman powers with such very insignificant results . Here is an apostle of Clairvoyance , who , as we see , professes to know all things , to have entered the sanctuary of spiritualism , to have discovered the relations of the human soul with the universe , and who now undertakes to soothe our anxious minds , and to settle the vexed questions of
Pate , Foreknowledge , Freewill absolute , all by the simple means of a little Haschich , or Eastern Hemp . Well ! we live steeped in such wonders , our ignorance being the veil which hides them from our astonishment , that a cautious philosopher will not absolutely pooh-pooh even Haschich ; he will look into it , and see what " revelations" it sends forth . This did we with M . Cahagnet . ' Not unversed in philosophic speculation , we sat awhile at his feet to listen to his " revelations . " The reader will perhaps follow us as
we turn over the " Metaphysical Propositions" in which the author has expressed his philosophy . He begins by stating that God is all that is , without everything that is being individually God . His next proposition is simple Berkleyism , " Matter , in the ponderability which we ascribe to it , is only a mode of perception of our senses . " We are then gravely informed that there is no time but the present : " the past and future are only an effect produced by our observation of the individuality of the things which surround us . " Space is declared to be a nonentity , " since it represents void and
nothing . Hitherto we have been travelling amidst propositions more or less familiar to the metaphysician ; but M . Cahagnet is not " inspired" merely to tell us what we may find in cobweb-covered quartos , be has higher aims , and has deeper truths to utter , . // . : —¦ " Life ia only one thought which observes another thought . " " Motion proceeds from tho collision of thoughts . " Tho spiritual world is a state of thought . " " The material world is a state of thought . " " The finite is a word . "
" The infinite is a word . " You are requested to meditate on those Orphic sayings ! Nothing less than "inspiration" was necessary to discover such tremendous vorities One may indeed , if inclined to hypercriticism , suggest that their distinguishing characteristic is Mcarcely that of luminousness—one may wish for something more of precision in dicta delivered from iimpiration ; but prophets are proverbially obscure , and demand considerable latitude in the interpretation of their utterances . With good will and perfect faith something may be made out of the above , us of this solution of the origin of evil
quea-Having set down forty-five elaborate definitions in the above Orphic style , M . Cahagnet , with playful modesty , not far removed from truth , says : — " Like all babblers , \ re are about to try and gain our diploma as philosopher or fool , by definitions worthy of the latter title ; for the more man reasons , the less reasonable he is . The mysteries of nature are not explicable by words , they are felt ; we are assured , therefore * that we shall rather perplex the question than resolve it . " After this declaration that the more man reasons the less reasonable he is , we naturally quit the confined track of philosophy for the more enlarged and inspiring sphere of ecstasy ; and here is the author ' s own account of his experience : —
" One day a friend of mine announced to me that , in passing the Rue de l'Ancienne Comedie , he had seen at an apothecary ' s , on a card , these words' Haschich . d'Orient' ( preparation of hemp in the East ) . Ah , then I felt myself at the summit of my wishes . I ran forthwith to procure myself some of this precious drug at 50 centimes the gramme ( about 23 grains ) , although it might be rather dear to give 250 francs per pound for a few leaves of hemp and some pistaches as marmalade ! The apothecary gave me the requisite information , as to the method of taking this potion . I had read many descriptions of the effects of this plant , and deemed myself
sufficiently instructed . I returned home , and apprised two friends of my precious discovery , and the day I intended taking this narcotic . I had got three grammes of it : we were in the midst of winter , and the chamber I lived in was very damp and cold . I give you these details , they being essential to what I shall explain to you by-and-by . I took these three grammes in a cup of strong coffee , as directed . It was two hours after dinner : at half-past seven in the evening I had not felt anything . My two friends despairing of the success of the experiment , had gone away , leaving me plunged in the conviction that I should obtain no results . Hardly had they
gone away , than I drew near the hearth , and gazed at it mechanically . I then experienced a nervous sensation , which seemed to me to drive my eyes out of their sockets . I saw the hearth vanish from my sight to a great distance ; it appeared to descend into the street , which . I quickly perceived to be full of public vehicles , and the passengers who traversed it . I apprised Adele of this , to me , strange sight , exclaiming , ' How droll it is ! ' I raised my legs as I -walked ; at each movement I felt my feet mount up to the interior of my limbs , which made me imagine that it was my inward or spiritual leg which got rid of its material envelope , as of a sheath , and mounted up
indefinitely in order to quit it entirely . When this spiritual foot was in my material calf , it seemed to me that it rested up on the prolongation o this limb as upon something soft , a sponge for example . Adele was in front of me , and laughed at my singular movements . So great a sympathy was then established between us two , that I was obliged to execute all the movements that she executed ; my chin appeared to me to make only one with hers—I laughed with her laugh , I spoke with , her speech . What surprised me greatly was to see myself in a . vast garden , and to hear myself spoken to outside its walls . Adele addressed some questions to me , and in order to reply to
them , I found my self obliged to open the door . The sympathetic effect had given place to this other spiritual combination , which made me fancy myself what I looked at , and f orced me naturally to hear myself spoken to as though outside that object . My voice had the effect of a distant voice that did not belong to me . The strangest thing to me was that in this garden I looked at a glass cover p laced over a vegetable , and felt a conviction that I was that cover . It was the same with respect to the vegetable it covered . What amused me extremely , and subsequently attracted my attention and reflection , was that I thus found myself all that I looked at : and what seemed not less
extraentered and descended within it as into a house . The most sublime spectacle there awaited me ; one would have 6 aid that a fairy hand had made preparations for it during my absence . I found myself in the midst of a most complicated universe , which ¦ was nothing less than that same material body , in which I then felt a shock which commenced in the small of the back , and stopped at the crown of the head . It was so excessively violent , and produced so painful an effect upon me , that it is impossible to describe it to you . Imagine fora moment that my nerves , blood-vessels , tendons , and most delicate fibres had their extremities under the epidermis , and
that , having a point of junction in the veins , they then traversed the heart , lungs , and all the viscera ; that an invisible hand shook violently this multitude of filaments ; think of what they must feel at all their extremities ; suppose afterwards that each of these threads was shaken separately and successively —how painful the sensation that must result from it . I saw—I knew—but I purchased this spectacle at a very high price in physical agonies . If there is no pleasure without pain , there is doubtless no pain "without pleasure . So it happened to me . The most beautiful spectacle man has ever seen , was the reward of my sufferings—a vast panorama of all that I had life
seen , thought , or known in the course of my was represented in the most brilliant colours , in the form of transparent pictures , illuminated from behind by an incomparable light . This panorama unfolded itself around me , revolving with so much rapidity , and representing so immense a variety of these images , that I should be obliged to write a volume to describe to you in detail what I saw in a few hours . This state is so different from the material state , that it is wholly impossible , while subjected to its influence , to appreciate the time that slips away , and the space that exists between the succession and continuance of these images . I felt a conviction that I hovered over the centre and above this microscopic
universe , which nevertheless presented to me the semblances of forms and space , producing the same effect and impression as material forms and spaces . Being swayed by the idea of observation and comparison between this state and the material state , I could not but pronounce in favour of the former . The material state appeared in all respects inferior , thAt is to say , the towns , monuments , public places , gardens , sky , and earth , were of incomparable beauty . I found myself in the spots I desired to visit , without ceasing to observe that I perceived them in myself , that they Avere my domain . I had got the solution 1 had been in search of ; I understood what man \ va .
—I was a universe in miniature ; and I appreciated how it was a clairvoyant could be in Egypt or China without journeying thither ; how he could offer his hanu to an African without change of place . I conclude , first , that this state is the spiritual state we shall enter on quitting our material state . Secondly , that to estimate it at its full value , we ought to make it ten ) to elucidate some kind of problem . Thirdly , that all the sensations experienced , and all that is seen ik that state , is in the domain of our body or the sphere which surrounds it . Fourthly , that we aro the ruler * of creation , and have the power to dispose of it as it * sovereign masters after God . Fifthly , that it prein the
sents itself to our observation particular poinr we wish to study . Sixthly , that it is sufficient for us to wish to see mi object for the desired object t <> be present to our view , and receive a solution huitable to what we require to know . Seventhly , that it i .-equally sufficient to wish to pass through or assume the forms offered to our sight for it to he so . Eighthly , that everything that exists , universally , is a compound of the same substance more or less ponderable that appearances and observation alone indicate their ponderability . Ninthly , that this substance is merely light in its purest manifestation . Tenthly , that all these beings , plncea , and objects are only thoughts , having an individualised form , and existthere is life
ing in full activity , seeing that nothing - less in creation . Eleventhly , that it suffices to the soul , in this state , that a thought should present itself to its observation , for it t <» see this thought in its type form and active rxist . etiee . ; that the soul finds itself in this thought , wh' -reas . in the material state it . merely feel * without , s ^ ccinj ; it , its nmteiiul body in that respect interposing im obstacle . Twelfthly , thni we may establish by the propa ^ 'iHon of this state the most sublime doctrine ! that ever existed , subjecting the individual under its mllueiice to tho receiver u . siiires in the soinuambulie condition , that iff , to lend and direct him according tolas desires , if ho cannot « lo it himself . I teach you thereby tho means o in-BtructingyourHelf , and of verifying the truths 1 have revealed to you to the pr « H « iit tune ; kam how to
profit by them . When his interlocutor quietly suggests that there may bo HO . nethintf of " hallucination ' m these experiences , ho crushes tho objection in this magisterial and ' satisfactory way : — « . | , ' rror—mi error , my friend : there aro no lwilhuinatioiiH ; thero arc only disordered observations . ' " iM ' wv ' wg that this haschich has' the real key lo all tho myaterius of existence , that it can withdraw
ordinary , when I viewed a faggot of wood , I felt myself transformed into all tho pieces that composed it : 1 saw outwardly the bark , and internally their veins and juices . L thus visited everything minutely , and not with a glance of observation merely ; I walked at large in these same objects , which Avere not materially in my chamber . I hud the consciousness of my entire individuality in their very narrowest pores . If my observation of details ceased , 1 found myself the entire object I gazed at . This subsist
peculiarity could exist only from the unity - ing between myself and that object ; it was for mo what my material body is to me : I was it , and it was me . These phenomena demonstrated to me that these hallucinations , ho called by nil those who have taken this beverage , and on whom similar effects have been produced , were intended to establish Hacred truths , especially by directing towards them tho serious observation of nil studious men , and might be deemed fully sufficient to prove that we can bo alt and in nil .
" ] Jut to continue . A still more powerful effect was to give mo tho solution I sought . Detached from my material body as I felt that I wan , I
retion : — " flood and evil are states produced by nn observing thought . " Not very luminous , certainly ; lmt how profound ! Then hearken to this definition of Love :-r" Love in the fusion of homogeneous thoughts . " It may gratify lovers to know that ! and it may gratify metaphysicians to hear that " I / ujht in the substance , of thought ; " as well a « that " Darkness in only a defect of observation—an inertia of the mind . "
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), June 28, 1851, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_28061851/page/15/
-