The Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1859

Allan Kardec

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Paul Gaimard

Navy physician and naturalist traveler died on December 11th, 1858 at the age of 64. He was evoked on the 24 of the same month, by one of his friends, Mr. Sardou.


1. Evocation
- I am here. What do you want?

2. What is your current state?
- I am errant like the spirits who leave Earth and feel the desire to advance through the good path. We seek enlightenment and later we choose.

3. Have your ideas about the nature of human beings modified?
- Very much. You can assess that well.

4. What do you think now about the kind of life that you led in the existence that you have just left on Earth?
- I am happy since I have worked.

5. You thought that everything ends at the grave. Thus the Epicureanism and the desire that you sometime expressed of living for centuries, in order to enjoy life well. What do you think about those who have that philosophy?
- I am sorry for them. However, that thinking is useful to them.

With such a philosophy they can coldly appreciate everything that excites others. This allows them to judge in a sound way many things that easily fascinate the credulous.


OBSERVATION: This is a personal opinion of the spirit that we give as such and not as a maxim.

6. A person that endeavors morally, more than intellectually, does better than the one that is bonded to the intellectual progress, above all, and neglects the moral?
- Yes. The moral aspect is more important. God gives spirit as a reward to the good ones, whereas the moral must be acquired.


7. What do you understand by the spirit given by God?
- A vast intelligence.


8. However, there are many evil ones that have a vast intelligence.
- I told you already. You asked what would be better to endeavor to acquire, and I said that the moral would be preferable. But the one who works for the betterment of their spirit may ac- quire a high degree of intelligence. When will you understand it?


9. Are you completely detached from the material influence of the body?
- Yes. What you have been told about it only encompasses a small portion of humanity.



NOTE: It happened sometimes that evoked spirits, even a few months after their death, declared to be still under the influence of matter. All of them, though, were people that have not progressed moral or intellectually. It is to this part of humanity that the spirit of Paul Gaimard refers.


10. Have you had other existences on Earth, besides the last one?
- Yes.


11. Was the latest one a consequence of the preceding one?
- No. There was a large interval between them.

12. Despite the interval, however, couldn’t there be a relationship be- tween those two existences?
- If you understand me well, each minute of our lives is a consequence of the preceding minute.



NOTE: Attending this meeting, Dr. B. gave his opinion that certain instincts sometimes awake in us could well be the reflex of a preceding existence. He mentioned several cases perfectly verified in young ladies who, during their pregnancy, were led to erratic behavior, like for example the one that grabbed the arm of a young butcher, biting him ferociously; another one that beheaded a child and the lady herself took the child to the police commissioner; a third one that killed her husband, sliced him into pieces, salted him, feeding herself from him for several days. That doctor then asked if in previous existences wouldn’t those ladies have been anthropophagous.

13. You heard what Dr. B. has just mentioned. Would these instincts, which go by the name of desire in pregnant ladies, be a conse- quence of habits held on a previous existence?
- No. These are a transient madness; a passion in its highest degree. The spirit becomes eclipsed by the will.

NOTE: Dr. B. indicates that the physicians really consider these acts as transient madness. We share such opinion, but for other reasons, since persons not familiar with the spiritist phe- nomena are led to attribute them to exclusive causes that are known to them. We are persuaded that we must have reminis- cences of certain previous moral dispositions. We will even say that it is impossible that things occur differently, since progress only takes place gradually. But this is not the case here because the persons gave no signs of ferocity, before that pathological state. There was evidently only a temporary perturbation of the moral faculties. The reflex of previous dispositions is recog- nized through other signs, unequivocal in a way, which we will develop in a special article supported by facts.

14. Have you accomplished simultaneous moral as well as intellectual progress in your latest existence?
- Yes. Mainly intellectual.

15. Could you tell us what was the kind of life you had in your life before the last one?
- Oh! I was obscure. I had a family that I made unhappy. Later

I had to expiate in a hard way. But, why do you ask me? That is over and now I am in a new phase.

NOTE: Paul Gaimard died single, at the age of 64. More than once he regretted not having had a family.

16. Do you expect to reincarnate soon?
- No. I want to study first. We like this errant state because the soul is more its own self; the spirit has more consciousness of its strength. The flesh weighs, darkens and hinders.

NOTE: All spirits say that they study, do research and ob- serve in the errant state, in order to make a choice. Isn’t that the counterpart of the corporeal life? Don’t we make mis- takes, sometimes for years, before we select a career that we consider more adequate to our progress? Don’t we sometimes change it as we get more mature? Don’t we go about everyday trying to establish what to do next? Well, what do the several corporeal existences represent to the spirit other than periods, days of the spiritual life that is, as we know, the normal life, for the corporeal life is only transient and passing? Nothing more sublime than this theory. Isn’t that in perfect agreement with the harmonious grandiosity of the universe? Still once more, it was not us who invented that and we are sorry for not having that merit. Nevertheless, the more we go deep into that theory the more we find it productive in solving the problems that were inexplicable hitherto.

17. In which planet do you plan or wish to reincarnate?
- I don’t know. Give me time to search.


18. Which kind of existence would you ask God for?
- The continuation of the last one; the greatest possible development of the intellectual faculties.


19. It seems that you place the intellectual development in the first line, leaving the moral faculties in second place, contrary to what you said before.
- My heart is not sufficiently well formed to be able to appreciate the others.


20. Do you see the other spirits and have a relationship with them?
- Yes.


21. Are there some among them with whom you were acquainted on Earth?
- Yes. Dumont-d’Urville.


22. Do you also see the spirit of Jacques Arago, with whom you traveled?
- Yes.


23. Are those spirits in the same condition as yours?
- No. Some are more elevated, others less.


24. We refer to the spirits of Dumont-d’Urville and Jacques Arago.
- I don’t want to specify.


25. Are you happy that we have evoked you?
- Yes, particularly for one person.


26. Can we do anything for you?
- Yes.


27. If we evoked you within a few months, would you still kindly answer our questions?
- With pleasure. Good-bye.

28. You say good-bye. Can you please tell us where you are going to?
- Without any waste of time (to express myself as I would have done a few days ago), I will cross a space a thousand times longer than the itinerary that I followed in my journeys on Earth, which I considered so long, and that in less than a second, out of a thought. I am going to a meeting of spirits where I will take lessons and where I will be able to learn my new Science, my new life. Good-bye.

OBSERVATION: Who had known Mr. Paul Gaimard perfectly well would attest that this communication is highlighted by the hallmark of his individuality. Learn, see and get to know things were his domi- nant passion. That is what explains his trips around the world and to the regions of the North Pole, as well as his excursions to Russia and Poland, during the first breakout of cholera in Europe. Dominated by his passion and by the need of satisfying it, he exhibited a rare cold blood before the greatest dangers. That is how, thanks to his calmness and determination, he was able to free himself from an anthropopha- gus tribe that had surprised him in a Pacific island.

One statement of his characterizes well his avidity for seeing new things, for watching the spectacle of unexpected accidents. One day, during the most dramatic period of 1848, he said: “What a happiness to live during a period so fertile of extraordinary and unpredictable events!”

Almost uniquely dedicated to the sciences that deal with the orga- nized matter, his spirit had substantially neglected the philosophical sciences. Thus, one could say that his ideas lacked elevation. However, not a single act of his life demonstrates that he had ignored the great moral laws imposed on humanity. In short, Mr. Paul Gaimard had a beautiful intelligence. Essentially worthy and honest, naturally kind, he was incapable of causing any loss to anybody. We can only criticize his perhaps excessive friendship with the pleasures; but neither the world nor the pleasures corrupted his reason or his heart. Thus, Mr. Paul Gaimard was worthy of the friend who misses him and everyone that knew him. SARDOU

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