Livro The Casuist (Volume 3); A Collection of Cases in Moral and Pastoral Theology

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IS IT LAWFUL TO ASSIST AT SPIRITISTIC SEANCES? Peter, a man of excellent character, though somewhat ingenuous, has been present several times at private spiritistic seances. He was led by curiosity alone.

He took no active part in the experiments, nor did he sit in the circle. He was a passive spectator only. For this, however, he was severely taken to task by some friends, who maintained that even passive assistance at spiritistic manifestations is sinful, because it is a communing with evil spirits.

Peter, however, maintains that the nature of these spirit manifestations is not known, and, therefore, can not be condemned as unlawful or evil, and he does not see why he may not continue to assist at them.

Answer.?I. Briefly, the phenomena of spiritism may be summed up as follows: The earliest phenomenon that takes place when a number of persons gather together to hold a spiritistic seance is the movement of the table around which the persons are seated and on which they lightly place their hands.

The table is moved in a jerky and undecided way at first, and, to all appearances, unconsciously by one of the sitters. But after a time the movement becomes regular and seems to indicate a force operating independently of the sitters.

When this force is fully developed, three or four strong adults, deliberately exercising all their physical strength, can not control it. Even a very heavy dining-room table, on which many heavy objects have been placed, may rise up bodily in the air, and remain suspended for some seconds, and then descend to its normal position, without disturbing anything on it.

The same phenomenon takes place with desks, chairs, boxes or other furniture. When these physical manifestations have reached a certain degree of what is called development, the ...