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A . NEW PROPHET . The Sanctu ry of Spiritualism ; a Study of the Human Soul , and of it * Relations with the Universe through Somnambulism and Ecst y . By JL . A . Caliagnet . Trauslated 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 soihe general law . On his shelves M . Cabagnet must find a place . Among mad books this is of the maddest . The Poug hkeepsie 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 ! 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 rareg 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 Hasckich , 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 , he has higher aims , and has deeper truths to utter , e . g . : _ " Life is only one thought which observes another thought . " " Motion proceeds from the collision of thoughts . " " The spiritual world is a state of thought . " " The material world is a state of thought . " " The Jinite is a word . " " The infinite is a word . "
You are requested to meditate on those Orphic sayings ! Nothing less than " inspiration" necessary to discover Httch tremendous verities One may indeed , if inclined to hypercriticism , suggest that their distinguishing characteristic is scarcely that of luminousness—one may wish for something more of precision in dicta delivered from inspiration ; but prophets are proverbially obscure , : uid 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 question : —
" Cuod and evil me states produced by an observing thought . " Not very luminous , certainly ; but , how profound Tlum hearken to this definition of Love : — " Love is the fusion of homogeneous thoughts . It may gratify lovers to know that ! and it may gratify metaphysicians to hair that " lAyht is the substunae of thought ; " as well as that " Darkness in only a defect of observation - ¦ ; m inertia oi the mind . "
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 , we 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 o £ mine announced to me that , in passing the Hue 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 limb ? , 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 spiritualfoot was in my material calf , it seemed to me that it rested upon , the prolongation of 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 myself 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 forced 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 Rlass cover placed over a vegetable , and felt a conviction that I was that cover . It wna the same with respect to the vegetable it covered . What amused me extremely , and subsequently attracted my attention and reflection , was that I thub found myself all that I looked at ; and what seemed not less
extraordinary , when I viewed a faggot of wood , I ielt myself transformed into all the pieces that composed it : 1 saw outwardly the bark , and internally ihnr veins and juices . I thus visited everything minutely , and not with a glance of observation merely ; I walked at large in these same objects , which wen : not materially in my chamber . I had tho consciousness of my entire individuality in their very narrowest pores . If my observation of details ceased , I found myself the entire object I gazed at . This peculiarity could exist only from tho unity
subsisting between myself and that object ; it was tor me what my material body is to me : 1 was it , and it was me . These phenomena demonstrated to me that these hallucinations , ho called by all thoso who have taken this beverage , and on whom similar effects have been produced , wero intended to establish sacred truth * , especially by directing towards them tho serious observation of all studious men , und might be deemed fully sufficient to prove that we can bo all and in alt .
" Hut to continue . A still more powerful effect waste ) give me the solution I sought . Dt . tached from my material body a 9 I ft It that I was , I
reentered and descended within it as into a house . The most sublime spectacle there awaited me ; -one would have said 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 for a 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 seen , thought , or known in the course of my life 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 saythe 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 were my domain . I had got the solution 1 had been in search of ; I understood what man wa . « — 1 was a universe in miniature ; and I appreciated howit was a clairvoyant could be in Egypt or China without journeying thither ; how he could offer his hand to an African without change of place . I conclude , first , that this state is the spiritual state we shall cntc-r on quitting our material state . Secondly , that to estimate it at its full value , we ought to make it ten < l to elucidate some kind of problem . Thirdly , that all
the sensations experienced , and all that is seen in that state , is in the domain of our body or the sphere which surrounds it . Fourthly , that we are the rulers of creation , and have the power to dispose of it as its sovereign master * after God . Fifthly , that it presents itself to our observation , in the particular point we wish to study . Sixthly , that it is sufficient for us to wish to see an object for the desired object tv be present to our view , and receive a solution suitable to what we require to know . Seventhly , that it is equally sufficient to wish to pass through or assume the forms offered to our sight for it to be so . Eighthly , that everything that exists , universally , in a compound of the same substance more or less ponderable observation alone indicate
that appearances and their ponderability . Ninthly , that this substance is merely light in its purest manifestation . Tcnthly , that all these beings , places , and objects are onl > thoughts , having an individualised form , and exist inK in full activity , htci . iK that there is nothing lifeless in creation . JOhvcnihl y , that it suffices to thsoul , in this state , that a " thought should present itself to its observation , for it , V > see this thought !»• its type form and active txistc-. ue ; that the soul tin itself in this thought , wlu rens in tho material sta' < it merely feels without n ^ ing it , its mateiinl body »' that respect interposing nn obstacle . Twelfthly , thn . we may establish by the propagation oi this state tl < most sublime doctrine that ever existed , subjtetiKii : the individual under its influence to the rcce vi <) usages in the soirmambulic condition , that ih , to It ... and direct him according to his desires , if hocimiiodo it himself . I teach you thereby the means of > ..-strueting yourself , and of verifying the truths I have revealed to yo u to the present tune ; learn how to profit by them . When his interlocutor quietly BUKgesta that thei may bo something © f "hallucination" in these ex perienccs , he crushes the objection in this magiv terial and satisfactory way : — „ j , ' rror—nn emHF , my friend : there are no hallucinutloiia ; there are only ditordered observations I Believing that this hasckich has * the real key o all the lnvHtericH of existence , that it can wifhmuw
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June 23 , 1851 . ] ' © ft **** & **? 611
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 28, 1851, page 611, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1889/page/15/
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