Celestial Telegraph (Vol. 1 & 2 Set)

VOLUME 1:

"Death is but one of the hours of our dial, and our dial must turn for ever." ~SAINT MARTIN.

The object of this work is not a desire to create or annihilate such or such a system to favor any particular religion or creed, more or less prominent in our age; its sole object is to commune with men who, like me, seek the truth with all the strength of their soul, Pursue the track wherein I believe it to be, and you will find it. Be prudent; admit, reject nlaught without mature examination, and what you do not comprehend never proclaim to be impossible!

Excerpt:

Somnambulism, ecstasy, promoted by magnetism, are the only means of attaining the ends I have proposed to myself; any other state, effected by the ordinary means of narcotics, leaves the' individual too much dependent on the resources of his belief, the influence of desires, and naught but very suspicious results are obtained. If, on the contrary, divers subjects, taken among all the conditions of civilized life, are directed by men who have no other object but that of procuring information, the results will be more complete;- and why? because the isolated ecstatic is like unto a frail skiff on a boundless ocean, having no decided course; the account that he will give of his voyage will portray the ensemble of the picture he has seen, without describing its parts; if he is conducted by a will stronger than his own toward a proposed object, we shall arrive at the truth.

Once in this track, it would be wrong in us to be stopped by the desire of knowing, comprehending, and defining the existence of God; to doubt him, would be to erase one's self fiom the list of reasonable beings; to demonstrate him, would be to suppose him Incapable of doing so himself; to speak of his goodness, his justice, that is but right! but of his wrath, that would be assimilating him to ourselves; to give him the form of the sun, of a man, of a tortoise, of vegetables, would be to repeat a multitude of systems, all of which do but end in keeping our language in an eternal movement, and demonstrate how foolish man is to wish to explain what he can not rationally and mathematically comprehend; we will restrict ourselves to the confession that, before explaining God, we should wish to be able to, explain ourselves.

The word God, or Jehovah, designates a being to whom we attribute the innumerable mysteries surrounding us!a thinking being, the author of all, the central focus toward which all beings gravitate, and to which all are indebted for being what they are. This ought to suffice us. Immersed in these explorations, we will not imitate prophets or their commentators, who have written only for a few, whose intelligence more or less expanded, alone profited by their writings. No symbolical, cabalistical, or mystical figures;- such is not my purpose. I desire, if possible, to say to all beings: "

This work will offer you the proof of a better world than ours, wherein you will live after having left your body in this, and wherein a God, infinitely good, will reward you a hundredfold for the evils it was profitable for you to suffer in this world of grief. I am about to prove to you that your relations, your friends, therein await you with impatience; that you can, although on this globe, enter into communication with them, speak to them, and obtain from them the information you deem fit; to effect this, deny not the existence of the soul, or at least strive conscientiously to obtain the proofs you desire; by somnambulism you may have as many as you please."

I can not pass over the word soul without addressing these questions to-whomsoever believes not in its existence.'What man of sense is there who can answer that there is not a being within our body that seems separate from it, although intimately united to it?

This self that responds to the least desire of reason, this mover, this mother-thought, around which are grouped the thousand-and-one tlhoughts colnstituting our whole existence, something that invariably says to us: " I am here, I exist with you, I a aa unity for you and a fraction for the mass; in my unity, I am as complicated as the mass. I am termed soul, spirit, mover, essential part of God, without knowing positively the nature bf my essence; whether I be matter in its most ethereal life, or a luminous substance apart, I am the slave of this matter but for a moment in eternity, I undergo its laws only because I am identified with it through necessity; whether I be of its nature or another, there nevertheless comes a moment when I separate from it: what represents death, restores to the earth the atoms which the body borrowed from it, and I restore to space the particle of spiritual substance of which I am formed.

I, immortal child of eternity, a traveller halting for a moment on this petty heap of dust, return to my vast domain never more to quit it, and there enjoy the properties with which my Creator has endowed me. "

If matter had me not to animate it, to think in it, and cause it to act, this body, which would be but a compound of material fluids and molecules, according to your philosophy, could be set in motion by'the harmony of these same fluids. When I quit the body, with the combinations possessed by chemistry, physics, and medicine, why do they not succeed in reharmonizing these molecules, and restoring to them existence!

Galvanism has succeeded in setting in play the nervous mechanism after I had abandoned my envelope; but there stops its power; thought, my inseparable property, can only be communicated by myself; myself, alone. I am the grand ]ever that can cause all these organs with whose ramifications I am acquainted, to perform their functions; no motion can replace me-think and act for me! Wherefore? Because I am the life; because I am an individualized thought, and protected by my Creator. I alone can be this self, this spirit, this soul! which can no more end than the nature of its substance, which is whatsoever is!

Because you can not see me or touch me with your material organs, you say that I am not a being apart, a power apart.."

Were it necessary to admit only what your material organs can see and touch, you might deny thought, speech, electricity, galvanism, sympathy, antipathy, attraction, repulsion, the properties of the loadstone, in short, the aggregations of the three kingdoms, from the ethereal molecule in which are found the principles of the diamond, to that of the plant and the animal! How many things, however, exist which the eyes see not, or the hands touch; we can not, in the presence of the effects, deny the causes which we know not how to explain.

VOLUME 2:

What magnetism rigorously demonstrates is the spirituality of the soul and its immortality; also, that souls separated from the body can in certain cases put tIlenselves in communication with living beings, and Convey to them their sentiments. The study of the phenomena of somnambulism is, in this respect, more important than in that of curing diseases."- DELEUZE

Excerpt:

In this second volume I present to the world a sufficient number of testimonials to apparitions obtained, recognised, and signed as true, by princes, counts, viscounts, generals, colonels, pastors of differeant creeds, landholders, merchants, men of letters, magnetizers, and artisans, personages of different nations, all ready to confirm by their verbal testimony what they signed at my abode.

I do niot think that with such supporters, and such frankness on my part, any charlatanism, bad faith, and, above all, hallucination, can be suspected; my judgment may be confined to the little instruction I have received, and to a few persuasions more or less true and admissible; but the persons whose testimonials will be read are competent witnesses-savans interested in this question; magnetizers, who had not, till then, pnshed their experiments in this direction, and who much doubted the possibility of causing to appear thus deceased persons, in conditions necessary to admit of their being recognised and holding converse with them: a great question assuredly was that, which I sought to resolve with all the force of my intelligence, and which I have succeeded in causing to be resolved by others with more facility than one could have ventured to hope.

I come, therefore, to present to the public this second volninme, in which I have thought proper to answer, by way of refutation, certain objections made to different propositions set forth in the first volume.

I have thought fit to reconcile this faculty of clairvoyantes with that which our fathers must have possessed, as well in ancient times as in the middle ages, thus permitting them to open different schools, where similar beliefs were taught, which demonstrated, a priori, the existence of the soul after its separation from matter, living individualized in a better world unn der the human form, having recollection of its self and its terrestrial existence, reuniting itself according to its affections to its relatives or friends, dead like itself, and having sensations, usages, affections, as here below: this is what, in a few words, I have desired to demonstrate as mathematically as possible by the aid of somnambulism and apparitions.

I may applaud myself for this undertaking, because, up to the present moment, it has completely succeeded with all those who have engaged in it. Some magnetizers have been so obliging as to respond to the general appeal I made, and have furnished me with several experiments, which will be read after mine and with no less interest.

SoME persons, after reading the " Secrets," have objected that there could not be any usages in the world of spirits as on earth, still less objects adapted for such usages; one of them thought it extraordinary that there should be houses, furniture, ..., and exclaimed while ridiculing this assertion: " Masons and tapestry-makers can't want for work there, then!" I have but a few observations to make in this respect: What is understood by life l Is it not thinking? Thinking of what? Of something. What is this something? All that can be perceived by the eye, heard by the ear, and that can fall under the other senses.

1. Places, accidents of places, ornaments of places.

2. Living beings and of our own nature, with whom we shall be in communication.

To be in communication it is necessary to speak. Speak of what? Of things past, present, or future. These somethings ought to represent images to our eyes as they do on earth. Without this I should not comprehend a life in which we should not think. Thought is the sight of something, speech is the name of this thing, sensation is the touch of this thing.

Take away these properties from spiritual life, what remains for it. Nothingness! Give it these properties, they can not exist without the things thought.

From the moment you admit thought, you admit the view of it; thus the thought of a place must represent a place in its entire form and with its accidents; there, a garden with trees, fruits, and flowers; an atmosphere, light of some kind; farther on, beings of a nature similar to yours, grouped, standing, seated or lying on what bears them.

These beings can not remain standing or lying an eternity; they must admire these fruits, intoxicate themselves with the perfume of these flowers, breathe this sweet atmosphere, contemplate the light by which they see these things; but if a whole eternity were spent in seeing only trees, fruits, flowers, and grass, we should be soon tired of such a state; there must, we are sensible of it, be a progression, a succession in the thoughts to feed the sensations, and this succession of thoughts gives rise to the supposition, as I have said of thinking, seeing, and feeling something else. It is the infinite of the creation that is before us; palaces, houses, furniture, usages, in short, must exist there.

If all this exists there, it is for the purpose of gratifying our sensations, our affections, and our infinite desires. It will be objected that all these things may exist in heaven without our being bound to fabricate them as on earth. I answer that that is true. Scarcely have you desired an object than it presents itself to your view, because it is the type of your thought, and bears the very form of the object thought; but this does not do away with there being affections that wish to fabricate, co-arrange, or embellish the object thought as they do on earth. If man progresses in each of his thoughts and desires to take notes on what he observes, makes a book of them in order to communicate his observations to his fellow-beings, he must find paper and things necessary to form this book, another will have the affection of printing it, a third of publishing it, and so on.

If I wish to play music, although it be possible for me to have or to hear it at my pleasure, if I prefer playing myself, I must have instruments that I can make or find, ready made it is true, without any other pains than merely desiring them; but lihe who has a taste for making such instruments has a right to make them, since for him it is no longer a necessity in order to live, but an affection that constitutes his whole happiness.

An architect has the same right; it is his supreme felicity to produce a masterpiece; the mason's, to show his superiority in the details of this palace, and so on. Take away one of the things I have just enumerated fiom the spiritual life, because this thing comes not within the range of your tastes; your neighbor will have the same right. I, too, and we shall end with annihilating all that constitutes the future life. Heaven will no longer be even a place, a state, it will be nothingness.

I do not think it necessary to carry these conclusions any farther in order to prove the absurdity of such an argument. Those who believe that singing the praises of God for a whole eternity is the sole occupation of spirits must necessarily divest spirits of forms, because forms demand usages, walking, seeing, hearing, feeling, touching...

There is no need of forms for singing; but what sing? The marvels of creation. And what marvels since you refuse them admission into heaven? Can it be those you have seen on earth where all is but wretchedness and grief? May God inspire you, bigot souls! I remain mute, and can not praise God for a creation which I do not understand; if he gives me the means of understanding it, being stripped of my material garment, it could only be from observation.

Observation supposes two contrary things; if I annihilate these things and their typical forms, how should I observe and judge? Come, then, you who will have neither objects nor usages in the spiritual world, you shall be placed like Napoleon on the column Vendome, when you are fatigued with the posture you will ask God to change it.

If we admitted such a state of -imbecility, shall I call it? - on our exit from this world, we must likewise be deprived of our respective sexes, for love supposes an agglomeration of sensations. What! feel where there is no usage?