Experimental investigation of the spirit manifestations, [electronic ...

282 ADDITIONAL CORROBORATIVE EVIDENCEreply not agreeing with the question, I told the medium to say to his spiritthat he had badly replied. Then the spirit made the medium write asfollows: 'If I have not complied with your request, it is because I do notunderstand that lanjjruajjre/142G. ''As the medium did not understand what had been read to thespirit, which in French would mean, Comment vous appelcz-vous? (Whatis your name ?) I perceived that if the spirit did not reply to the Spanish,it was because the medium neither spoke nor understood that tongue;which agreed with what my spirit had told me. Then I requested themedium to ask his spirit to make me write. On the affirmative responseof the spirit, I took the pen, and addressing the same question to him :Como te Uamos? he replied in Spanish Benito. Answer me in FrenchBcnoit. In Latin Benedictus.1427. " This experiment confirming what my spirit had told me, thatthe spirits could produce only the language of those with whom they communed,was a new proof for me of the non-intervention of the devil ;seeing,according to the ritual, that he is master of all languages, and thatmediums only write those they understand, and have previously learnt.*If M. do Mirville desires to make some such experiments with me, it willafford me great pleasure to do so.1428. " Nota bene : What merits particular regard in the informationreceived from my spirit friend as to the language used by spirits in communingwith men is, that the same was said one hundred and five yearssince by the ecstatic Swedenborg.and Hell, by Le Boys des Guays.See No. 236 of his Treatise on Heaven1429. "This will suffice for the present for M. de Mirville. It remainsfor him to explain the facts we have reported, and to reconcile them withhis Pneumatologr/ : in expectation I proceed to notice the Supernaturalin General of M. de Gasparin.Second Part.1430. "All the prodigies of the mesmeric subjects of clairvoyants, thesorcery, haunting spirits, apparitions, visions, &c., owe their origin, accordingto M. de Gasparin, to nervous excitement, fluidic action, and some-[•• Our author seems to confound his dramatis jicrsonce : he first says it is the languageof the communicant, and afterward the language of the medium which the spirit understands.But the simple theory is, according to the experience of the Western hemisphere,that what is communicated depends on the intelligence of the communicating agent,which is the spirit. That spirits, it is true, possess the clairvoyant faculty, and can readour thoughts, but those thoughts must be clothed in a language they understand. Translator.][I am under the impression that the power of the spirit to construe our thoughts, varieswith the spirit and medium, and with the same medium under different conditions as tohealth and tranquillity of mind. No invariable rule can, in my opinion, be said to existas to the powers of spirits to learn our thoughts, whether we speak one language or another.—Du.II.VRE.]