M. the Chevalier Gougenot des Mousseaux, and his friend and colla-

borateur, the Marquis Eudes de Mirville, to judge by their long titles, must be aristocrats pur sang, and they are, moreover, writers of no small erudition and talent Were they to show themselves a little more parsi- monious of double points of exclamation following every vituperation, and invective against Satan and his worshippers, their style would be fault- less. As it is, the crusade against the enemy of mankind was fierce, and lasted for over twenty years.
What with the Catholics piling up their psychological phenomena to prove the existence of a personal devil, and the Count de Gasparin, an ancient minister of Louis Philippe, collecting volumes of other facts lo prove the contrary, the spiritists of France have contracted an everlast- ing debt of gratitude toward the disputants. The existence of an unseen spiritual universe peopled with invisible beings has now been demon- strated beyond question. Ransacking the oldest libraries, they have dis- tilled from the historical records the quintessence of evidence. All epochs, from the Homeric ages down to the present day, nave supplied their choicest materials to these indefatigable authors. In trying to prove the authenticity of the miracles wrought by Satan in the days preceding the Christian era, as well as throughout the middle ages, they have sim- ply laid a firm foundation for a study of the phenomena in our modem times.
Though an ardent, uncompromising enthusiast, des Mousseaux un- wittingly transforms himself into the tempting demon, or — as he is fond of calling the Devil — the " serpent of Genesis'^ In his desire to demon- strate in every manifestation the presence of the Evil One, he only suc- ceeds in demonstrating that Spiritualism and magic are no new things in the world, but very ancient twin-brothers, whose origin must be sought for in the earliest infancy of ancient India, Chaldea, Babylonia, Egypt, Persia, and Greece.
He proves the existence of " spirits," whether these be angels or devils, with such a clearness of argument and logic, and such an amount
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of evidence, historical, irrefutable, and strictly authenticated, that little is left for spiritualist authors who may come after him. How unfortunate that the scientists, who believe neither in devil nor spirit, are more than likely to ridicule M. des Mousseaux's books without reading them, fcnr they really contain so many facts of profound scientific interest I
But what can we expect in our own age of unbelief, when we find Plato, over twenty-two centuries ago, complaining of the same ? " Me, too," says he, in his Euthyphrofty " when I say anything in the public assembly concerning divine things, and predict to them what is going to happen, they ridicule as mad; and although nothing thai I have predicted has proved untrue, yet they envy all such men as we are. However, we ought not to heed, but pursue our own way."
The literary resources of the Vatican and other Catholic repositories of learning must have been freely placed at the disposal of these modem authors. When one has such treasures at hand — original manuscripts^ papyri, and books pillaged from the richest heathen libraries \ old trea- tises on magic and alchemy ; and records of all the trials for witchcraft, and sentences for the same to rack, stake, and torture, it is mighty easy to write volumes of accusations against the Devil. We affirm on good grounds that there are hundreds of the most valuable works on the occult sciences, which are sentenced to eternal concealment from the public, but are attentively read and studied by the privileged who have access to the Vatican Library. The laws of nature are the same for heathen sor- cerer as for Catholic saint ; and a " miracle " may be produced as well by one as by the other, without the slightest intervention of God or devil.
Hardly had the manifestations begun to attract attention in Europe, than the clergy commenced their outcry that their traditional enemy had reappeared under another name, and " divine miracles " also began to be heard of in isolated instances. First they were confined to humble individuals, some of whom claimed to have them produced through the intervention of the Virgin Mary, saints and angels ; others — according to the clergy — began to suffer from obsession and possession ; for the Devil must have his share of fame as well as the Deity. Finding that, not- withstanding the warning, the independent, or so-called spiritual phe- nomena went on increasing and multiplying, and that these manifesta- tions threatened to upset the carefully-constructed dogmas of the Church, the world was suddenly startled by extraordinary intelligence. In 1 864, a whole community became possessed of the Devil. Morzine, and the awful stories of its demoniacs ; Valleyres, and the narratives of its well- authenticated exhibitions of sorcery ; and those of the Presbytere de Cideville curdled the blood in Catholic veins.
Strange to say, the question has been asked over and over again.
WHY THERE ARE NO MIRACLES IN RUSSIA. 17
why the " divine " miracles and most of the obsessions are so strictly confined to Roman Catholic dioceses and countries ? Why is it that since the Reformation there has been scarcely one single divine " mira- cle " in a Protestant land ? Of course, the answer we must expect from Catholics is, that the latter are peopled by heretics, and abandoned by God. Then why are there no more Church-miracles in Russia, a coun- try whose religion differs from the Roman Catholic f^th but in external forms of rites, its fundamental dogmas being identically the same, except as to the emanation of the Holy Ghost ? Russia has her accepted saints and thaumatorgical relics, and miracle-working images. The St. Mitro- phaniy of Voroneg is an authenticated miracle- worker, but his miracles are limited to healing ; and though hundreds upon hundreds have been healed through faith, and though the old cathedral is full of magnetic ef- fiuvia, and whole generations will go on believing in his power, and some persons will always be healed, still no such miracles are heard of in Rus- sia as the Madonna-walking, and Madonna letter-writing, and statue-talk- ing of Catholic countries. VVhy is this so ? Simply because the emperors have strictly forbidden that sort of thing. The Czar, Peter the Great, stopped every spurious " divine " miracle with one frown of his mighty brow. He declared he would have no false miracles played by the holy icanes (images of saints), and they disappeared forever. *
There are cases on record of isolated and independent phenomena exhibited by certain images in the last century ; the latest was the bleed- ing of the cheek of an image of the Virgin, when a soldier of Napoleon cut her face in two. This miracle, alleged to have happened in 1812, in the days of the invasion by the " grand army," was the final farewell. f
• Dr. Stanley : " Lectures on the Eastern Church," p. 407.
f In the government of Tambov, a gentleman, a rich landed proprietor, had a curious happen in his family during the Hungarian campaign of 184S. His only and much- beloved nephew, whom, having no children, he had adopted as a son, was in the Russian army. The elderly couple had a portrait of his — a water-color painting— constantly, during the meals, placed on the table in front of the young man^s usual seat. One evening as the family, with some friends, were at their early tea, the glass over the por- trait, without any one touching it, was shattered to atoms with a loud explosion. As the aunt of the young soldier caught the picture in her hand she saw the forehead and head besmeared with blood. The guests, in order to quiet her, attributed the blood to her having cut her fingers with the broken glass. But, examine as they would, they could not find the vestige of a cut on her fingers, and no one had touched the picture but herself. Alarmed at her state of excitement the husband, pretending to examine the portrait more closely, cut his finger on purpose, and then tried to assure her tliat it was his blood and that, in the first excitement, he had touched the frame without any one remarking it All was in vain, the old lady felt sure that Dimitry was killed. She began to have m.isses said for him daily at the village church, and arrayed the whole
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But since then, although the three successive emperors have been pious men, their will has been respected, and the images and jsaints have remained quiet, and hardly been spoken of except as connected with religious worship. In Poland, a land of furious ultramontanism, there were, at different times, desperate attempts at miracle-doing. They died at birth, however, for the argus-eyed police were there ; a Catholic mira- cle in Poland, made public by the priests, generally meaning political revolution, bloodshed, and war.
Is it then, not permissible to at least suspect that if, in one country divine miracles may be arrested by civil and military law, and in another they ntifer occur ^ we must search for the explanation of the two facts in some natural cause, instead of attributing them to either god or devil ? In our opinion — ^if it is worth anything — the whole secret may be accounted for as follows. In Russia, the clergy know better than to bewilder their parishes, whose piety is sincere and faith strong without miracles ; they know that nothing is better calculated than the latter to sow seeds of distrust, doubt, and finally of skepticism which leads directly to atheism. Moreover the climate is less propitious, and the magnetism of the average population too positive, too healthy^ to call forth independ^ ent phenomena; and fraud would not answer. On the other hand, neither in Protestant Germany, nor England, nor yet in America, since the days of the Reformation, has the clergy had access to any of the Vati- can secret libraries. Hence they are all but poor hands at the magic of Albertus Magnus.
As for America being overflowed with sensitives and mediums, the reason for it is partially attributable to climatic influence and especially to the physiological condition of the population. Since the days of the Salem witchcraft, 200 years ago, when the comparatively few settlers had pure and unadulterated blood in their veins, nothing much had been heard of " spirits" or "mediums" until 1840. * The phenomena then first appeared among the ascetic and exalted Shakers, whose religious aspirations, peculiar mode of life, moral purity, and physical chastity all led to the production-of independent phenomena of a psychological
household in deep mourning. Several weeks later, an official communication was received from the colonel of the regiment, stating that their nephew was killed by m fragment of a shell which had carried off the upper part of his head.
* Executions for witchcraft took place, not much later than a century ago, in other of the American provinces. Notoriously there were negroes executed in New Jersey by burning at the stake — the penalty denounced in several States. Even in South Caro- lina, in 1865, when the State government was " reconstructed," after the civil war, the statutes inflicting death for witchcraft were found to be still unrepealed. It is not m hundred years since they have been enforced to the murderous letter of their text.
THE PHYSICO-PSYCHOLOGICAL AMERICAN TYPE. 1 9
as well as physical nature. Hundreds of thousands, and even millions of men froqa various climates and of different constitutions and habits, have, since 1692, invaded North America, and by intermarrying have sub- stantially changed the physical type of the inhabitants. Of what country in the world do the women's constitutions bear comparison with the deli- \:ate, nervous, and sensitive constitutions of the feminine portion of the population of the United States ? We were struck on our arrival in the country with the semi-transparent delicacy of skin of the natives of both sexes. Comi>are a hard-working Irish factory girl or boy, with one froui a genuine American family. Look at their hands. One works as hard as the other ; they are of equal age, and both seemingly healthy ; and still, while the hands of the one, after an hour's soaping, will show a skin little softer than that of a young alligator, those of the other, notwith- standing constant use, will allow you to observe the circulation of the blood under the thin and delicate epidermis. No wonder, then, that while America is the conservatory of sensitives the majority of its clergy, unable to produce divine or any other miracles, stoutly deny the possi- bility of any phenomena except those produced by tricks and juggling. And no wonder also that the Catholic priesthood, who are practically aware of the existence of magic and s|)iritual phenomena, and believe in them while dreading their consequences, try to attribute the whole to the agency of the Devil.
Let us adduce one more argument, if only for the sake of circum- stantial evidence. In what countries have " divine miracles " flourished most, been most frequent and most stupendous ? Catholic Spain, and Pontifical Italy, beyond question. And which more than these tw^o, has had access to ancient literature ? Spain was famous for her libraries ; the Moors were celebrated for their profound learning in alchemy and other sciences. The Vatican is the storehouse of an immense number of ancient manuscripts. During the long interval of nearly 1,500 years they have been accumulating, from trial after trial, books and manuscripts confiscated from their sentenced victims, to their own profit. The Cath- olics may plead that the books were generally committed to the flames ; that the treatises of famous sorcerers and enchanters perished with their accursed authors. But the Vatican, if it could speak, could tell a dif- ferent story. It knows too well of the existence of certain closets and rooms, access to which is had but by the very few. It knows that the entrances to these secret hiding-places are so cleverly concealed from sight in the carved frame-work and under the profuse ornamentation of the library-walls, that there have even been Popes who lived and died within the precmcts of the palace without ever suspecting their existence. But these Popes were neither Sylvester II., Benedict IX., John XX., nor
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the Vlih and Vllth Gregory ; nor yet the famous Borgia of toxicological memory. Neither were those who remained ignorant of the^ hidden lore friends of the sons of J^oyola.
Where, in the records of European Magic, can we find cleverer enchanters than in the mysterious solitudes of the cloister ? Albert Magnus, the famous Bishop and conjurer of Ratisbon, was never sur- passed in his art. Roger Bacon was a monk, and Thomas Aquinas one of the most learned pupils of Albertus. Trithemius, Abbot of the Spanheim Benedictines, was the teacher, friend, and confidant of Corne- lius Agrippa; and while the confederations of the Theosophists were scattered broadcast about Germany, where they first originated, assist- ing one another, and struggling for years for the acquirement of esoteric knowledge, any person who knew how to become the favored pupil of cer- tain monks, might very soon be proficient in all the important branches of occult learning.
This is all in history and cannot be easily denied. Magic, in all its aspects, was widely and nearly openly practiced by the clergy till the Reformation. And even he who was once called the " Father of the Reformation," the famous John Reuchlin, * author of the Mirific Word and friend of Pico di Mirandola, the teacher and instnictor of Erasmus, Luther, and Melancthon, was a kabalist and occultist.
The ancient Sortilcgium, or divination by means of Sortes or lots — an art and practice now decried by the clergy as an abomination, desig- nated by Siat lo Jac. as felony, f and by Stat, 12 Carolus IL ex- cepted out of the general pardons, on the ground of being sorcery — was widely practiced by the clergy and monks. Nay, it was sanctioned by St. Augustine himself, who does not " disapprove of this method of learning futurity, provided it be not used for worldly purposes." More than that, he confesses having practiced it himself. J
Aye ; but the clergy called it Sortes Sanctorum^ when it was they who practiced it ; while the Sortes Pranestince^ succeeded by the Series Homericce and Sortes Virgi/iana, were abominable heathenism^ the worship of the Devil, when used by any one else.
Gregory de Tours informs us that when the clergy resorted to the Sortes th Lord that He would discover His will, and disclose to them futurity in one of the verses of the book. Gilbert de Nogent writes that in his days
♦ Vid£ the title-page on the English translation of MayerhofTs ** Reuchlin uivl Seine Zeit," Berlin. 1830. **The Life and Times of John Reuchlin, or Capnion, the Father of the German Reformation," by F. Barham, London, 1843.
f I^rd Coke : 3 ** Institutes/' fol. 44.
% Vide **The Life of St. Gregory of Tours."
EPISCOPAL DIVINATION BY THE "LOT." 21
(about the twelfth century) the custom was, at the consecration of bishops, to consult the Sartes Sanctorum^ to thereby learn the success and fate of the episcopate. On the other hand, we are told that the Sor- tes Sanctorum were condemned by the Council of Agda, in 506. In this case again we are left to inquire, in which instance has the infallibility of the Church failed ? Was it when she prohibited that which was practiced by her greatest saint and patron, Augustine, or in the twelfth century, when it was openly and with the sanction of the same Church practiced by the clergy for the benefit of the bishop's elections ? Or, must we still believe that in both of these contradictory cases the Vatican was inspired by the direct " spirit of God ? "
If any doubt that Gregory of Tours approved of a practice that pre- vails to this day, more or less, even among strict Protestants, let them read this : ** Lendastus, Earl of Tours, who was for ruining me with Queen Fredegonde, coming to Tours, big with evil designs against me, I withdrew to my oratory under a deep concern, where I took the Psalms. . . . My heart revived within me when I cast my eyes on this of the seventy-seventh Psalm : * He caused them to go on with confidence, whilst the sea swallowed up their enemies.* Accordingly, the count spoke not a word to my prejudice ; and leaving Tours that very day, the boat in which he was, sunk in a storm, but his skill in swimming saved him."
The sainted bishop simply confesses here to having practiced a bit of sorcery. Every mesmerizer knows the power of will during an intense desire bent on any particular subject. Whether in consequence of " co- incidents " or otherwise, the opened verse suggested to his mind revenge by drowning. Passing the remainder of the day in " deep concern," and possessed by this all-absorbing thought, the saint — it may be unconsciously — exercises his will on the subject ; and thus while imagining in the acci- dent the hand of God, he simply becomes a sorcerer exercising his mag- netic will which reacts on the person feared ; and the count barely escapes with his life. Were the accident decreed by God, the culprit would have been drowned ; for a simple bath could not have altered his malevolent resolution against St. Gregory had he been very intent on it.
Furthermore, we find anathemas fulminated against this lottery of fate, at the council of Varres, which forbids " all ecclesiastics, under pain of excommunication, to perform that kind of divination, or to pry into futurity, by looking into any book, or writing, whatsoever." The same prohibition is pronounced at the councils of Agda in 506, of Orleans, in 511, of Auxerre in 595, and finally at the council of Aenham in mo ; the latter condemning " sorcerers, witches, diviners, such as occasioned death by magical operations, and who practiced fortune-telling by the
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holy-book lots ; " and the complaint of the joint clergy against de Gar- lande, their bishop at Orleans, and addressed to Pope Alexander III., concludes in this manner : " Let your apostolical hands put on strength to strip naked the iniquity of this man, that the curse prognosticated on the day of his consecration may overtake him ; for the gospels being opened on the altar according to custom^ the first words were : and the young man^ leaving his linen cloth, /led from them naked'* *
Why then roast the lay- magicians and consul ters of books, and cano- nize the ecclesiastics ? Simply because the mediaeval as well as the modem phenomena, manifested through laymen, whether produced through occult knowledge or happening independently, upset the claims of both the Catholic and Protestant Churches to divine miracles. In the face of reiterated and unimpeachable evidence it became impossible for the former to maintain successfully the assertion that seemingly miracu- lous manifestations by the "good angels" and God's direct intervention could be produced exclusively by her chosen ministers and holy saints. Neither could the Protestant well maintain on the same ground that miracles had ended with the apostolic ages. For, whether of the same nature or not, the modern phenomena claimed close kinship with the biblical ones. The magnetists and healers of our century came into direct and open competition with the apostles. The Zouave Jacob, of France, had outrivalled the prophet Elijah in recalling to life persons who were seemingly dead ; and Alexis, the somnambulist, mentioned by Mr. Wallace in his work,t was, by his lucidity, putting to shame apostles, prophets, and the Sibyls of old. Since the burning of the last witch, the great Revolution of France, so elaborately prepared by the league of the secret societies and their clever emissaries, had blown over Europe and awakened terror in the bosom of the clergy. It had, like a destroy- ing hurricane, swept away in its course those best allies of the Church, the Roman Catholic aristocracy. A sure foundation was now laid for the right of individual opinion. The world was freed from ecclesiastical tyranny by opening an unobstructed path to Napoleon the Great, who had given the deathblow to the Inquisition. This great slaughter-house of the Christian Church — wherein she butchered, in the name of the Lamb, all the sheep arbitrarily declared scurvy — was in ruins, and she found herself left to her own responsibility and resources.
So long as the phenomena had appeared only sporadically, she had always felt herself powerful enough to repress the consequences. Super-
♦ Translated from the original document in the Archives of Orleans, France ; also see •* Sortes and Sortilegium ; " '« Life of Peter de Blois." f *• Miracles and Modem Spiritualism."
MIRACLES BY THE LAITY. 23
sdtion and belief in the Devil were as strong as ever, and Science had not yet djxed to publicly measure her forces with those of supernatural Religion. Meanwhile the enemy had slowly but surely gained ground. All at once it broke out with an unexpected violence. ** Miracles " began to appear in full daylight, and passed from their mystic seclusion into the domain of natural law, where the profane hand of Science was ready to strip off their sacerdotal mask. Still, for a time, the Church held her position, and with the powerful help of superstitious fear checked the progress of the intruding force. But, when in succession appeared mesmerists and som- nambulists, reproducing the physical and mental phenomenon of ecstasy, hitherto beUeved to be the special gift of saints ; when the passion for the turning tables had reached in France and elsewhere its climax of fiiiy ; when the psychography — alleged spiritual — from a simple curiosity had developed itself and settled into an unabated interest, and finally ebbed into religious mysticism ; when the echoes aroused by the first raps of Rochester, crossing the oceans, spread until they were re-percussed from nearly every corner of the world — then, and only then, the Latin Church was fully awakened to a sense of danger. Wonder after wonder was reported to have occurred in the spiritual circles and the lecture-rooms of the mesmerists ; the sick were healed, the blind made to see, the lame to walk, the deaf to hear. J. R. Newton in America, and Du Potet in France, were healing the multitude without the slightest claim to divine intervention. The great discovery of Mesmer, which reveals to the earnest inquirer the mechanism of nature, mastered, as if by magical power,, organic and inorganic bodies.
But this was not the worst. A more direful calamity for the Church occurred in the evocation from the upper and nether worlds of a multi- tude of " spirits," whose private bearing and conversation gave the direct lie to the most cherished and profitable dogmas of the Church. These ** spirits " claimed to be the identical entities, in a disembodied state, of fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters, friends and acquaintances of the persons viewing the weird phenomena. The Devil seemed to have no objective existence, and this struck at the very foundation upon which the chair of St. Peter rested.* Not a spirit except the mocking nianni-
• There were two chairs of the titular apostle at Rome. The clergy, frightened at the uninterrupted evidence furnished by scientific research, at last decided to confront the enemy, and we find the **Chronique des Arts'' giving the cleverest, and at the same time most yesuitical^ explanation of the fact. According to their story, ** The increase in the number of the faithful decided Peter upon making Rome henceforth the centre of his action. The cemetery of Ostrianum was too distant and would not suffice far the reunions of the Christians. The motive which had induced the Apostle to confer on Linos and Cletus successively the episcopal character, in order to render them capa-
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kins of Planchette would confess to the most distant relationship with the Satanic majesty, or accredit him with the governorship of a single inch of territory. The clergy felt their prestige growing weaker every day, as they saw the people impatiently shaking off, in the broad daylight of tnith, the dark veils with which they had been blindfolded for so many centuries. Then finally, fortune, which previously had been on their side in the long-waged conflict between theology and science, deserted to their adversary. The help of the latter to the study of the occult side of nature was truly precious and timely, and science has unwittingly widened the once narrow path of the phenomena into a broad highway. Had not
ble pf sharing the solicitudes of a church whose extent was to be without limits, led naturally to a multiplication of the places of meeting. The particular residence of Peter was therefore fixed at Viminal ; and there was established that mysterious Chair, the symbol of power and truth. The august seat which was venerated at the Ostrian Cata- combs was not, however, removed. Peter still visited this cradle of the Roman Church, and often, without doubt, exercised his holy functions there. A second Chair, expressing the same mystery as the first, was set up at Cornelia, and it is this which has come dovm to us through the ages."
Now, so far from it being possible that there ever were two genuine chairs of this kind, the majority of critics show that Peter never was at Rome at all ; the reasons are many and unanswerable. Perhaps we had best begin by pointing to the works of Justin Martyr. This great champion of Christianity, writing in the early part of the second century in Rome^ where he fixed his abode, eager to g6t hold of the least proof in favor of the truth for which he suffered, seems perfectly unconscious of SL Peter* s existence 1 1
Neither does any other writer of any consequence mention him in connection with the Church of Rome, earlier than the days of Irenaeus, when the latter set himself to invent a new religion, drawn from the depths of his imagination. We refer the reader anxious to learn more to the able work of Mr. George Rcber, entitled " The Christ of Paul." The arguments of this author are conclusive. The above article in the ** Chron- ique des Arts,'' speaks of the increase of the faithful to such an extent that Ostrianum could not contain the number of Christians. Now, if Peter was at Rome at all — runs Mr. Rebcr's argument — it must have been between the years a. d. 64 and 69 ; for at 64 he was at Babylon, from whence he wrote epistles and letters to Rome, and at some time between 64 and 68 (the reign of Nero) he either died a martyr or in his bed, for Ircmeus makes him deliver the Church of Rome, together with Paul ( ! ? ) (whom he persecuted and quarrelled with all his life), into the hands of Linus, who became bishop in 69 (see Reber's ** Christ of Paul," p. 122). We will treat of it more fully in