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Spiritist Journal — Journal of Psychological Studies — 1858 > June > Theory of Physical Manifestations II
The continuation of physical manifestations
We ask the reader to refer to the first article we published on the subject. This is its continuation and would be barely intelligible if that beginning were not in mind.
As we said, the explanations we have given for the physical manifestations are based on observation of the facts and on their logical deduction: we conclude according to what we have seen. How, however, do the modifications that make it perceptible and tangible take place in etherized matter?
To begin with, we will let the Spirits whom we question about it speak, then add our comments. The answers that follow were given by the Spirit of São Luís and are in agreement with what we were previously told by other Spirits.
the fluid
1. ─ How can a Spirit appear with the solidity of a living body?
─ It combines a part of the universal fluid with the fluid that comes out of the medium suitable for this purpose.. This fluid takes the form that the Spirit desires, but usually this form is impalpable.
2. ─ What is the nature of this fluid?
─ Fluid. This says it all.
3. ─ Is this fluid material?
─ Semi-material.
4. ─ Is it this fluid that makes up the perispirit?
─ Yea, is the connection of Spirit to matter.
5. ─ Is this fluid that gives life, the vital principle?
─ Always him. I said Link.
6. ─ Is this fluid an emanation of the Divinity?
─ No.
7. ─ Is it a creation of the Divinity?
─ Yes. Everything is created except God himself.
8. ─ Does the universal fluid have any relationship with the electric fluid, whose effects we know?
─ Yes. It's your element.
9. ─ Is the ethereal substance that exists between the planets the universal fluid in question?
─ It involves the worlds. Without the vital principle, nothing would live. If a person were to rise beyond the fluidic envelope of the globes, he would perish, because his fluidic envelope of him would withdraw, to join the mass. This fluid animates you. It is he that you breathe.
10. Is this fluid the same on all globes?
─ It is the same principle, more or less ethereal, according to the nature of the worlds. Yours is one of the most material.
11. Since it is this fluid that composes the perispirit, there must be a kind of condensation state that, to a certain extent, brings it closer to matter.
─ Yes, to a certain extent, as it does not have its properties. It is more or less condensed, according to the worlds.
How Spirits Use Fluid
12. ─ Is it the solidified spirits that raise the table?
─ This question will still not lead to the point you want. When a table moves under your hands, the Spirit evoked by your Spirit will withdraw from the universal fluid that which will animate that table with an artificial life. The spirits that produce this type of effects are always inferior spirits not yet completely detached from their fluid or perispirit. The table, thus prepared at its will (at the will of the Beating Spirits), the Spirit attracts and moves it, under the influence of its own fluid, released by its will. When the mass he wants to lift or move is too heavy for him, he calls to his aid Spirits who are in conditions identical to his. I think I explained myself clearly enough to be understood.
13. ─ Are the spirits called to your aid your inferiors?
─ They are almost always the same. They often come by themselves.
14. - We understand that superior spirits do not deal with things that are inferior to them. But we ask if, because they were dematerialized, they would have the power to do so, if they wanted to?
─ They have moral strength, as others have physical strength. When they need that strength, they use those who have it. Have you not been told that they make use of inferior spirits as you make use of carriers?
Mr. home
15. ─ Where does Mr. man? [
─ From your organization.
16. ─ What is special about it?
─ The question is not precise.
17. ─ We ask if it is a question of your physical or moral organization.
─ I said organization.
18. ─ Among the people present there is someone who may have the same faculty as Mr. man?
─ They have it to a certain degree. Was it not one of you who moved the table?
The movement of objects and clothing
19. ─ When a person makes an object move, is it always with the help of a foreign spirit or can such an action be exclusive to the medium?
─ Sometimes the spirit of the medium can act alone. Most of the time, however, he is helped by the evoked Spirits. This is easy to recognize.
20. ─ How do Spirits appear with the clothes they wore on Earth?
─ Often she has only the appearance. Indeed, for how many phenomena among you you have no solution! How does the wind, which is impalpable, uproot and break trees, which are solid matter?
21. ─ What do you mean when you say that his clothing “is just an appearance?”
─ When you touch it, nothing is found.
22. ─ If we understand what you said correctly, the vital principle resides in the universal fluid; From it the Spirit extracts the semi-material envelope that constitutes its perispirit and it is through this fluid that it acts on inert matter. That's right?
─ Yes, that is, it animates matter by a kind of factitious life; matter is animated by animal life. The table that moves under your hands lives and suffers like an animal; obeys by itself to be intelligent. It is not he who directs it, as a man does with a burden. When the table rises, it is not the Spirit that lifts it. It is the animated table that obeys the intelligent Spirit.
23. ─ Since the universal fluid is the source of life, is it at the same time the source of intelligence?
─ No. The fluid just animates matter.
Final considerations
This theory of physical manifestations offers several points of contact with the one we have given, although it differs in certain respects. From one to the other, a capital point emerges: the universal fluid, in which the principle of life resides, is the main agent of these manifestations and this agent receives the impulse of the Spirit, whether incarnate or wandering. This condensed fluid constitutes the perispirit or semi-material envelope of the Spirit. When incarnated, the perispirit is united to the matter of the body; when in a state of erraticity, it is free.
Now, two questions arise here: that of the appearance of Spirits and that of the movement they impart to solid bodies.
As for the first, we will say that, in the normal state, the etherized matter of the perispirit escapes the perception of our organs; only the soul can see it, whether in dreams or in a somnambulistic state or even half asleep; in a word, whenever there is total or partial suspension of the activity of the senses. When the Spirit is incarnated, the substance of the perispirit is more or less closely linked to the matter of the body; more or less adherent, if we may say so. In some people there is a kind of emanation of this fluid, as a result of their organization and this is what properly constitutes the mediums of physical influences. Emanating from the body, this fluid combines, according to laws that are still unknown to us, with that which forms the semi-material envelope of a foreign Spirit. This results in a certain modification, a kind of molecular reaction that momentarily alters its properties, to the point of making it visible and, in certain cases, tangible. This effect can be produced with or without the help of the medium's will, and this is what distinguishes natural mediums from optional mediums. The emission of the fluid can be more or less abundant: hence the more or less powerful mediums. It is not permanent, which explains the intermittence of that power. Finally, if we take into account the degree of affinity that can exist between the fluid of the medium and that of this or that Spirit, it will be understood that its action can be exercised on some and not on others.
What we have just said evidently applies also to the mediumistic force, with regard to the movement of solid bodies. It remains to be seen how this movement operates.
According to the answers above, the question presents itself under an entirely new aspect. Thus, when an object is set in motion, snatched or thrown into the air, it will not be the Spirit that picks it up, pushes it or lifts it, as we would do with the hand: it, so to speak, saturates with its fluid, by combining with that of the medium and, thus momentarily vivified, the object acts as if it were a living being, with the difference that, having no will of its own, it follows the impulse of the Spirit's will. This will can be either of the spirit of the medium or of a foreign spirit and, sometimes, of both, acting in agreement, according to whether they are sympathetic or not. The sympathy or antipathy that may exist between the medium and the Spirits who deal with these material effects explains why not all are able to provoke them.
Considering that the vital fluid, somehow emitted by the Spirit, gives a factitious and momentary life to inert bodies and that the perispirit is nothing other than the vital fluid itself, it follows that, when incarnated, it is the Spirit that it gives life to the body, through its perispirit: it remains united to it as long as the organization allows it, and when it withdraws, the body dies.
Now if, instead of the table, the wood is carved into a statue, and if we act on it in the same way as on the table, we will have a statue that moves from the place, which will respond by movements and by blows; in a word, a momentarily animated statue of artificial life. What light does this theory throw on a host of hitherto unexplained phenomena! How many wonderful allegories and effects she explains! It's a whole philosophy.
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Article cited: Theory of physical manifestations I
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