That was a cutting insult to the Academicians, to be sure; but ever since 1850 they seem to have been doomed to suffer in their pride more than most of them can bear. The idea of asking the attention of the forty “Immortals” to the pranks of the Devil! They vowed revenge, and, leaguing themselves together, propounded a theory which exceeded in absurdity even de Mirville’s demonolatry! Dr. Royer and Jobart de Lamballe — both celebrities in their way — formed an alliance and presented to the Institute a German whose cleverness afforded, according to his statement, the key to all the knockings and rappings of both hemispheres. “We blush” — remarks the Marquis de Mirville — “to say that the whole of the trick consisted simply in the reiterated displacement of one of the muscular tendons of the legs. Great demonstration of the system in full sitting of the Institute — and on the spot . . . expressions of Academical gratitude for this interesting communication, and, a few days later, a full assurance given to the public by a professor of the medical
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faculty, that, scientists having pronounced their opinion, the mystery was at last unravelled!”
But such scientific explanations neither prevented the phenomenon from quietly following its course, nor the two writers on demonology from proceeding to expound their strictly orthodox theories.
Denying that the Church had anything to do with his books, des Mousseaux gravely gave the Academy, in addition to his Memoire, the following interesting and profoundly philosophical thoughts on Satan:
“The Devil is the chief pillar of Faith. He is one of the grand personages whose life is closely allied to that of the church; and without his speech which issued out so triumphantly from the mouth of the Serpent, his medium, the fall of man could not have taken place. Thus, if it was not for him, the Saviour, the Crucified, the Redeemer, would be but the most ridiculous of supernumeraries, and the Cross an insult to good sense!”
This writer, be it remembered, is only the faithful echo of the church, which anathematizes equally the one who denies God and him who doubts the objective existence of Satan.
But the Marquis de Mirville carries this idea of God’s partnership with the Devil still further. According to him it is a regular commercial affair, in which the senior “silent partner” suffers the active business of the firm to be transacted as it may please his junior associate, by whose audacity and industry he profits. Who could be of any other opinion, upon reading the following?
“At the moment of this spiritual invasion of 1853, so slightingly regarded, we had dared to pronounce the word of a ‘threatening catastrophe.’ The world was nevertheless at peace, but history showing us the same symptoms at all disastrous epochs, we had a presentiment of the sad effects of a law which Goerres has formulated thus: [vol. v., p. 356.] ‘These mysterious apparitions have invariably indicated the chastening hand of God on earth.’ ”
These guerilla-skirmishes between the champions of the clergy and the materialistic Academy of Science, prove abundantly how little the latter has done toward uprooting blind fanaticism from the minds of even very educated persons. Evidently science has neither completely conquered nor muzzled theology. She will master her only on that day when she will condescend to see in the spiritual phenomenon something besides mere hallucination and charlatanry. But how can she do it without investigating it thoroughly? Let us suppose that before the time when
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electro-magnetism was publicly acknowledged, the Copenhagen Professor Oersted, its discoverer, had been suffering from an attack of what we call psychophobia, or pneumatophobia. He notices that the wire along which a voltaic current is passing shows a tendency to turn the magnetic needle from its natural position to one perpendicular to the direction of the current. Suppose, moreover, that the professor had heard much of certain superstitious people who used that kind of magnetized needles to converse with unseen intelligences. That they received signals and even held correct conversations with them by means of the tippings of such a needle, and that in consequence he suddenly felt a scientific horror and disgust for such an ignorant belief, and refused, point-blank, to have anything to do with such a needle. What would have been the result? Electro-magnetism might not have been discovered till now, and our experimentalists would have been the principal losers thereby.
Moe is the founder of GnosticWarrior.com. He is a father, husband, author, martial arts black belt, and an expert in Gnosticism, the occult, and esotericism.
