Lumen

Qu?rens. Your revelations which were interrupted by the break of day, O Lumen, have left me hungering and thirsting to hear more of this wonderful mystery. As a child to whom one shows a delicious fruit longs to have a bite, and when he has tasted of it begs for more, so my curiosity is eager to have renewed enjoyment of these paradoxes of nature.

May I venture to submit to you a few questions in relation to the subject, which have been suggested to me by the friends to whom I have communicated the substance of your revelations, and then may I ask you to continue the narrative of your impressions of the regions beyond this Earth?

Scientific truth, not fancy or romance.

Lumen. No, my friend, I cannot consent to such curiosity. However perfectly disposed your mind may be to accept my communications, I am convinced that all the details of my subject have not been equally apprehended by you, and are not in your eyes equally self-evident. My recital has been called mystical by those who have not quite understood that it is neither a romance nor a phantasy, but a scientific truth, a physical fact demonstrable and demonstrated, indisputable and as positive as the fall of an aerolite or the motion of a cannon-ball. The reason which prevents you and your friends from fully comprehending these facts is, that they took place beyond this Earth, in regions foreign to the sphere of your impressions, and inaccessible to your terrestrial senses. Naturally you do not comprehend them. (Pardon my frankness, but in the spiritual world one is frank; there, even thoughts are visible.) You only comprehend those things which you perceive. And as you persist in regarding your ideas of time and space as absolute, although they are only relative, and thence form a judgment on truths which are quite beyond your sphere, and which are imperceptible to your terrestrial organism and faculties, I should not do you a true service, my friend, in giving you fuller details of my ultra-terrestrial observations.

An inquiring mind.

Qu?rens. It is not, I assure you, in a spirit of simple curiosity, dear Lumen, that I ventured to draw you forth from the bosom of the invisible world, where advanced souls partake of indescribable joys. But I have understood, perhaps better than you, the grandeur of the problem, and it is under the inspiration of an earnest, studious avidity that I seek for other aspects of it, still more novel than those you have given me, if I may say so, or rather more bold and more incomprehensible. As the result of reflection, I have arrived at the conclusion that what we know is nothing, and that what we do not know is everything; I am therefore disposed to welcome everything you tell me. I beg of you, if you will allow me, to share your revelations. . . .

Lumen. The fact is, my friend, I assure you, either you are not sufficiently able to understand, or you are too willing to believe: in the first case, you do not fully comprehend; in the second, you are too credulous, and do not appreciate my communications at their full value. However, I shall continue.

Qu?rens. Dear comrade of my earthly life!

Lumen. The remaining facts, which I shall now relate to you, are still more extraordinary than any that preceded them.

Qu?rens. I feel like Tantalus in the midst of his lake, or like the spirits in the twenty-fourth canto of the Purgatorio. I am as eager as the Hesperides holding out their hands for the fragrant fruit, or as Eve in her desire for. . . .

Travelling on a ray of light.

Lumen sees the Revolution of 1848.

Lumen. Some time after my departure from the Earth, the eyes of my soul being still mournfully directed toward my native world, I found that, on an attentive examination, I could perceive at the 45th degree of north latitude and the 35th degree of longitude, a triangular piece of land of a sombre colour, north of the Black Sea, on the shores of which I saw, towards the west, a grievous number of my compatriots madly engaged in killing one another. I recalled to mind that relic of barbarism, war, formerly called glorious, with which you are still beset and burdened, and I remembered that in this corner of the Crimea 800,000 men fell, in ignorance of the cause of their mutual massacre. Some clouds then passed over Europe. At that time I was not on Capella, but in mid space, between that star and the Earth, about half the distance from Vega. Having left the Earth some time before, I turned toward a group of stars, that, seen from your planet, are to the left of Capella. Meanwhile my thoughts recurred from time to time to the Earth, and soon after taking the observation to which I have referred, my eyes being fixed on Paris, I was surprised to see it a prey to an insurrection of the people. Examining it more attentively, I discerned barricades on the boulevards, near the H?tel de Ville, and along the streets, and the citizens firing at one another. The first idea that occurred to me was that a new revolution was taking place before my eyes, and that Napoleon III. was dethroned. But, by the secret sympathy of souls, my sight was attracted to a barricade in the Faubourg St. Antoine, upon which I saw lying prostrate the Archbishop Denis Auguste Affre, with whom I had been slightly acquainted. His sightless eyes were turned towards the heavens where I was, but he saw nothing; in his hand he held a green branch. I was thus witnessing the days of 1848, and in particular that of the 25th of June.

He sees the events of 1831.

A few minutes-a few hours, perhaps-passed, during which my imagination and my reason sought in turns for an explanation of this special scene. To see 1848 after 1854! When my sight was again attracted to the Earth, I remarked a distribution of tricoloured flags in a grand square of the city of Lyons, Trying to distinguish the official person who was making this distribution, I recognised the uniforms, and I remembered that after the accession of Louis Philippe, the young Duke of Orleans had been sent to quell the disturbances in the capital of French manufactures. It followed from thence that, after 1854 and 1848, I had before my eyes an event of 1831. Presently my glance turned to Paris on the day of a public fête. The king, a coarse-looking man, with a rubicund face, was tearing along in a magnificent chariot, and was just crossing the Pont Neuf. The weather was splendid. Some fair ladies posed, like a basket of lilies, on the white parapet of the bridge. Floating over Paris some brightly-coloured creatures could be seen. Evidently I beheld the en trance of the Bourbons into France.

Supposed explanation of this strange slight.

I should not have understood this last strange sight if I had not recollected that a number of balloons, in the form of animals, had been sent up on that occasion. From my higher altitude they appeared to wriggle about the roofs of the houses. To see again past events was comprehensible enough, according to the law of light. But to see things contrary to their real order in time, that was too fantastic, and puzzled me beyond expression. Nevertheless, as I had the things before my eyes, I could not deny the fact. I sought forthwith for some hypothesis to account for this singular phenomenon. At first I supposed it was really the Earth that I saw, and that by a fiat of fate, the secret of which is known only to God, the history of France repeats itself, and passes through the same phases that it has already traversed; that the course of events proceed up to a certain maximum, where they shine gloriously for a time, and then comes a reaction to the original state of things, by an oscillation in human affairs like the variations of the magnetic needle, or like the movements of the stars.

The personages whom I took for the Duke of Orleans and Louis XVIII. were perhaps other princes, who were repeating exactly what the former had done. This hypothesis, however, appeared to be so very extraordinary, that I paused to consider a more rational theory. Admitting the fact of the number of stars, with planets moving round them, is it not probable that a world exactly like the Earth exists somewhere in the universe of space?

Calculation of probabilities.

The calculation of probabilities supplies an answer to this question. The greater the number of worlds, the greater will be the probability that the forces of nature have given birth to an organisation like that of the Earth. Now the real number of worlds surpasses all human calculation, either written or possible to be written. If we could understand what "infinite" means, we might venture to say that this number is infinite. I concluded, then, that there is a very high probability in favour of the existence of many worlds exactly like the Earth, on the surface of which the same history is accomplished, and the same succession of historical events takes place; worlds which are inhabited by identically the same species of vegetables and animals, and the same humanity, and where men and families like our own, I doubt not, exist.

In the second place, I asked myself if another world analogous to the Earth might not also be symmetrical to it; and then I worked out the geometry of the problem, and the metaphysical theory of images. I arrived at the conclusion that it was possible for the world in question to be like the Earth, but in an inverse form. When you look at yourself in a mirror, you notice that the ring on your right hand appears to be on the ring-finger of your left hand. This explains the symbol. If you wink your right eye, your reflection winks the left eye; when you advance your right arm, your image advances the left arm. It is not impossible that in the infinity of the stars a world exists exactly the converse of the terrestrial world. Undoubtedly in an infinity of worlds the non-existence of a similar world, perhaps of millions of them, would be the real impossibility. Nature of necessity repeats herself, reproduces herself, but still under all forms plays the game of creation. I thought therefore that the world on which I saw those things was not the Earth, but a globe like the Earth, the history of which was precisely the opposite of yours.

Qu?rens. I myself have had the idea also that it might have been as you say. But was it not easy for you to make sure of it by ascertaining whether it was the Earth or another star that you had before your eyes, by examining its astronomical position?

The solution of the problem.

Lumen. That is precisely what I did immediately, and this examination confirmed me in my opinion. The star where I had just witnessed four facts, analogous to four terrestrial facts, but inversely, did not appear to me to occupy its original position. The little constellation of the Altar no longer existed, and on that side of the heavens where you remember the Earth appeared to be in my first episode, there was an irregular polygon of unknown stars. I was thus convinced that it was not our Earth that I had before my eyes. I could no longer feel any doubt about it, and I was satisfied that I had now, for my field of exploration, a world so much the more curious that it was not the Earth, and that its history appeared to represent, in an inverse order, the scenes of the history of our world.

History retraced

France of the past.

Some events, it is true, did not appear to have corresponding ones on the Earth, but in general the coincidence was very remarkable. I was the more struck with this because the contempt which I feel for the instigators of war had led me to hope that a folly so absurd and so infamous might not have existed in other worlds. But, on the contrary, the greater part of the events which I witnessed were combats or preparations for war. After a battle, which appeared to me very much to resemble that of Waterloo, I saw the battle of the Pyramids. An image of Napoleon as emperor had become first Consul, and I saw the Revolution succeed to the Consulate. Some time after I observed the square in front of the Chateau of Versailles covered with mourning-coaches, and in an open pathway from Ville-d'Avray I recognised the botanist Jean Jacques Rousseau slowly walking along, and, no doubt, at that moment philosophising on the death of Louis XV. I was particularly struck with the gala fêtes at the beginning of the reign of Louis XV., worthy successors of those of the Regency, during which the treasures of France glistened in precious stones on the fingers of the three or four adored courtesans. I saw Voltaire, with his white cotton cap, in his park at Ferney; and later on, Bossuet, walking on the little terrace of his episcopal palace at Meaux, not far from the little hill through which the railway is now cut, but I could not see the least trace of the railway line. In this same succession of events, I saw the highroads covered with diligences, and large sailing ships on the seas. Steam and all the factories that are moved by it now, had disappeared. Neither telegraphs nor any other application of electricity existed. Balloons, which more than once I had seen in the field of observation, were lost to sight. The last that I saw was the shapeless globe sent up by the brothers Montgolfier at Annonay in the presence of the States-General. The face of the Earth was quite changed-Paris, Lyons, Marseilles, Havre, and more especially Versailles, were not recognisable; the first four had lost their immense activity, the last had gained incomparably in magnificence.

The monarchy.

I had formed a very imperfect idea of the splendour of the royal fêtes at Versailles. It was a satisfaction to me to be present at them; and it was not without interest that I recognised Louis XIV. himself, on the splendid terrace at the west, surrounded by a thousand nobles whose breasts were covered with decorations. It was in the evening; the last rays of glowing sunshine were reflected on the royal fa?ade, whilst gallant couples gravely descended the steps of the marble stairs, and presently disappeared along the silent and shady avenues. My sight was fixed in preference on France, or at least toward that region of this unknown world which represented France to me; for absence makes the heart grow fonder, and when far from one's country one thinks of it all the more, and recurs with ever new interest to the thought of it. Do not believe that souls liberated from their bodies are scornful, and indifferent, and devoid of memory. Our existence would then be a sad one. No; we preserve the faculty of remembrance. Our hearts are not wholly absorbed in the life of the spirit; and so it was with an instinctive feeling of delight, which you can imagine, that thus I saw again the history of France unfolded before me as though its phases were being accomplished in an inverse order.

Feudalism

Joan of Arc.

The Crusades.

The history of France unrolled.

After the people had amalgamated into one nationality, I saw the rule of a single sovereign established. After that came princely feudalism. Mazarin, Richelieu, Louis XIII., and Henry IV. appeared to me at Saint Germain. The Bourbons and the Guises resumed their skirmishes for me. I thought I could distinguish the night of St. Bartholomew, I saw some special events in the history of our provinces-for instance, one of the scenes in the sorcery of Chaumont, which I had time to observe, before the Church of Saint Jean, and the massacre of the Protestants at Vassy. What a comedy is human life! Alas! too often a tragedy! Suddenly I beheld in space the magnificent comet of 1577, in the form of a sabre. In grand array in the midst of a plain, brilliantly decorated, I recognised Francis I. and Charles V. saluting one another. Louis XI. I perceived on a terrace of the Bastile, attended by his two gloomy companions. Later on, my sight was turned to a square in Rouen, where I observed flames and smoke, and in their midst I discerned the form of the Maid of Orleans. Convinced as I was that the world I was looking at was the exact counterpart of the Earth, I divined beforehand the events that I was about to see. Thus, after having seen Saint Louis dying before Tunis, I was present at the eighth Crusade, and subsequently at the third, where I recognised Frederick Barbarossa by his beard. Then at the first Crusade, when Peter the Hermit and Godfrey reminded me of Tasso. I was not a little surprised. I then expected to see, in succession, Hugh Capet, leading a procession, arrayed in his official robes; the Council of Tauriacum deciding that the judgment of God would be pronounced in the battle of Fontanet; Charles the Bald ordering the massacre of a hundred thousand men and all the Merovingian nobility; Charlemagne crowned in Rome: his war against the Saxons and the Lombards; Charles Martel hammering away at the Saracens; King Dagobert founding the Abbey of St. Denis, just as I had seen Alexander III. laying the first stone of Notre Dame; Brunehaut dragged along the pavement by a horse; the Visigoths, the Vandals, the Ostrogoths, Clovis Meroveus appearing in the country of the Saliens: in a word, the history of France, from its very beginning, unrolled itself before me in an order inverse to the succession of events-this was what actually happened. Many historical questions which were very important, and which had hitherto been obscure to me, were rendered clear. I ascertained, among other things, that the French were the original possessors of the right bank of the Rhine, and that the Germans have no right to claim that river, and still less to dispute the possession of the left bank.

Old Paris

Rome of the C?sars.

Judea.

Calvary.

Death of Julius C?sar.

There was, I assure you, an immense interest in taking part, if I may so express myself, in the events of which I had but the vague ideas derived from the echoes of history, often deceptive, and in visiting countries that are now totally transformed. The vast and brilliant capital of modern civilisation became old to me, and had shrunk to the size of an ordinary town, but was at the same time fortified with crenellated towers. I admired in turns the beautiful city of the fifteenth century, its curious types of architecture, the celebrated tower of Nesle, and the extensive convents of Saint Germain-des-Prés. Where the tower of St. Jacques now stands, I recognised the gloomy court of the alchemist Nicolas Flamel. The round and pointed roofs had the singular effect of looking like mushrooms on the banks of a river. Then this feudal aspect disappeared, and gave place to a solitary castle in the Seine valley surrounded by cottages; and finally there was nothing but a fertile plain, where one could only distinguish a few huts of savages. At the same time I remarked that the seat of civilisation was changed, and was now in the south. I will confess to you, my friend, that I never felt greater delight than at the moment when I was permitted to see Rome of the C?sars in all its splendour. It was the day of a triumph, and no doubt under the rule of the Syrian princes; for in the midst of magnificent surroundings, gorgeous chariots, the purple oriflammes of the Senate, and of elegant women and of performers of theatres, I distinguished the Emperor luxuriously reclining in a golden car, clothed in delicately-coloured silk, covered with precious stones and ornaments in gold and silver, which glittered in the golden sunshine. This must have been Heliogabalus, the priest of the sun. The Coliseum, the temple of Antoninus, the triumphal arches, and Trajan's column were standing. Rome was in all its ancient beauty and grandeur, that last beautiful phase which was no more than a scene in a theatre to those crowned buffoons. A little later I was present at the eruption of Vesuvius, which overwhelmed Herculaneum and Pompeii. I saw Rome in flames, just for a moment; and although I was not able to distinguish Nero on his terrace, I have no doubt I beheld the conflagration in the year 64, and the signal for the persecution of the Christians. A few hours after, my attention being still occupied in examining the extensive gardens by the Tiber, I had just seen the Emperor near a parterre of roses, when, in consequence of the revolution of the Earth on its axis, Judea was presented to me. How anxiously I regarded it when I distinguished Jerusalem and the mountain of Golgotha. Jesus was climbing this mountain, accompanied by a few women, escorted by a troop of soldiers, and followed by the Jewish populace. I shall never forget this spectacle. It assumed a totally different aspect to me from what it did to those who were living at the time and who took part in it, for the glorious future (and the past also) of the Christian Church was unfolded for me as the crown of the Divine sacrifice. . . . I cannot dwell on it; you can understand what various feelings agitated my soul on this supreme occasion. . . . A little later, returning to Rome, I recognised Julius C?sar prostrate in death, with Antony beside him holding what I think was a roll of papyrus in his left hand. The conspirators were hastening down to the banks of the Tiber. With a very natural curiosity I traced back the life of Julius C?sar, and found him with Vercingetorix in the centre of Gaul, and I may state that none of the suppositions of our modern historians respecting the situation of Alesia are correct. In fact, this fortress was situated on . . .

Qu?rens.. Master, pardon me for interrupting you, but I am anxious to seize this opportunity to question you on a particular point respecting the Dictator. Since you have seen Julius C?sar, tell me, I pray you, if his face resembles that given by the Emperor Napoleon III. in his great work on the life of that famous captain?

Lumen. I should be delighted, my old friend, to enlighten you on this point if it were possible for me to do so. But reflect for a moment, and you will see that the laws of perspective forbid me.

Qu?rens. Of perspective? You mean to say of politics.

Lumen. No, of perspective (although these two things strongly resemble one another); for in seeing great men from the height of heaven, I do not see them as they appear to the vulgar. From the heavens we see men geometrically from above, not face to face; that is to say, when they are standing we have only a horizontal projection of them. You may remember that once in a balloon, as we passed over the Vend?me Column at Paris, you remarked to me that Napoleon seen from that height was not above the level of other men. It was just the same with C?sar. In the other world material measures disappear, only intellectual measures exist.

Roman history.

Building of the Pyramids.

The Stone Age.

To continue, however, I retraced history, from Julius C?sar to the Consuls, and then to the kings of Latium, in order to witness the rape of the Sabines, which I was pleased to observe actually, as a type of ancient manners. History has embellished many things, and I discovered that most events as represented to us are totally different from the actual facts. Then I saw King Candaules in Lydia, in the scene in the bath that you remember, then the invasion of Egypt by the Ethiopians, the oligarchical republic of Corinth, the eighth Olympiad in Greece, and Isaiah the prophet in Judea. I saw the building of the Pyramids by troops of obedient slaves under chiefs mounted on dromedaries. The great dynasties of Bactria and of India appeared before me, and China showed the marvellous skill in the arts that she possessed even before the birth of the western world. I had an opportunity to search for the Atlantis of Plato, and I saw that the opinions of Bailly on that continent, now submerged, are not devoid of foundation. In Gaul I could distinguish nothing but vast forests and swamps; even the Druids had disappeared, and the savage inhabitants strongly resembled those that we find now in Oceania. It was truly the stone age as it is unearthed for us by modern arch?ologists. Further back still, I saw that the number of men diminished by degrees, and the domination of nature seemed to belong to a race of the great apes, to the cave bears, to lions, hyenas, and the rhinoceros. A moment arrived when it was not only impossible to distinguish a single man on the surface of the earth, but when not the least vestige of the human race was visible. All had disappeared; earthquakes, volcanoes, deluges prevailed over the surface of the planet, and the presence of man in the midst of such a chaotic state of things was no longer possible.

Qu?rens. I shall confess to you, dear Lumen, that I have waited with impatience for the moment when you should arrive at the garden of Eden, in order to learn in what form the creation of the human race on the earth was presented to you. I am surprised that you do not seem to have thought of making this important observation.

Lumen. I relate to you only the things which I saw, my curious friend, and I refrain from substituting the dreams of my imagination for the evidences of my sight. I did not perceive the least trace of that Eden so poetically depicted in the primitive theogonies. Now, this was very extraordinary, since the resemblance between the world that I had before my eyes and the Earth was so complete. It was more than surprising, if the terrestrial paradise was really the cradle of humanity. But I do not see why paradise might not have been, with as good reason, at the end of human society.

Qu?rens. Indeed I think it would be more just to suppose it to be at the end rather than the beginning, as the result and the recompense, instead of the misunderstood prelude, to a life of suffering. But since you have not seen it I shall not urge my question.

Prehistoric ages.

A dying world.

The beginning, not the end of the Earth.

Lumen. Finally, in concluding my observations of this singular world, whose history was exactly the inverse of yours, I saw marvellous animals, of monstrous forms, in combat on the shores of vast oceans. There were enormous serpents armed with formidable paws; crocodiles that flew in the air, sustained by wings organically longer than their bodies; misshapen fishes with jaws wide enough to swallow an ox; birds of prey struggling in terrible battles in the desert islands. There were whole continents covered with forests, trees with enormous leaves entangled in one another; a vegetation at once sombre and severe, for the vegetable kingdom was devoid of both flowers and fruit. The mountains vomited forth clouds of flame and vapour, the rivers fell in cataracts, the ground opened in immense chasms in which were engulfed hills, woods, streams, trees, and animals. But before long it became impossible for me to perceive even the surface of the globe; a universal sea appeared to cover it, and the vegetable kingdom, like the animal kingdom, was slowly effaced, and gave place to a monotonous verdure interspersed with lightning and whitish smoke. Henceforth it was a dying world. I was present at the last palpitations of its heart, intermittently revealed in the gloom by flashes of flame. Then it seemed to me that it rained everywhere over its whole surface, for the Sun threw light on nothing but clouds and torrents of rain. The hemisphere opposite to the Sun appeared less sombre than before, and one could perceive a dull light gleaming through the tempests. This light increased in intensity, and spread over the entire sphere. Great crevasses became red like iron in the furnace; and as iron in a hot furnace becomes bright red, then orange, then yellow, then in succession white and incandescent, so the world passed through all the progressive phases of heat. Its volume increased, its movement of rotation became slower. The mysterious globe seemed like an immense sphere of molten metal enveloped in metallic vapours. Under the incessant action of this interior furnace and the elemental combats (or combinations) of this strange chemistry, it acquired enormous proportions, and the sphere of fire became a sphere of smoke. Thence it went on developing without cessation, and lost its personality. The Sun, which at first had shed light on it, no longer surpassed it in brightness, and it itself increased so much in circumference that it became evident to me that the vaporous planet would soon lose its own existence and be absorbed in the enlarged atmosphere of the Sun. It is a rare experience to be present at the end of a world. And so in my enthusiasm I could not prevent myself from crying out with a kind of vanity, "Behold the end of the world, O God! and this, then, is the fate in store for all the inhabited worlds!" "This is not the end," replied a voice in the hearing of my soul; "this is the beginning." "How can this be the beginning?" thought I immediately. "The beginning of the Earth itself," replied the same voice. "Thou hast seen over again the whole history of the Earth in thus withdrawing from her with a velocity greater than that of light."

This declaration did not surprise me so much as the first episode of my ultra-terrestrial life, for I was now familiarised with the astonishing effects of the laws of light; I was henceforth prepared for every new surprise. I had some doubts of the fact, in consequence of certain details that I have not given you to avoid disturbing the unity of my recital or breaking the thread of my narrative, but which were nevertheless incomparably more extraordinary than the general succession of events.

Qu?rens. But if it was really the Earth, how comes it that the astronomical calculations you made in order to recognise her in the constellation of the Altar, indicated, as you have pointed out, that the world you were examining was neither the Earth nor a star of the Altar?

Events retraced.

Sidereal perspective.

Lumen. The fact is, that even that constellation had itself changed in consequence of my voyage in space. In place of the stars of the third magnitude, α, γ, and ? (alpha, gamma, zeta), and stars of the fourth magnitude, β, δ, and θ (beta, delta, theta), which constitute that figure as seen from the Earth, my distance towards the nebul? had reduced those starsa to little imperceptible points. It had placed other brilliant stars there, which were no doubt α (alpha) and β (beta) of Auriga, θ, ι, η (theta, iota, eta), and perhaps even ε (epsilon) of the same constellation-stars diametrically opposite to the preceding when seen from the Earth, but which were necessarily interposed there when I had passed them by. The celestial perspective had already changed, and it had become, in truth, almost impossible to determine the position of our Sun.

It was really the Earth that Lumen saw.

Qu?rens. I had not thought of this inevitable change of perspective on the other side of Capella; and so it was really the Earth that you saw, and therefore its history was unrolled before you in an inverse order-you saw ancient events taking place after modern events. By what new process has light thus enabled you to ascend the stream of time? Furthermore, dear Lumen, you have informed me that you have observed some curious particulars relative to the Earth itself. I am wishful to ask you some special questions on these details. I shall listen, then, with interest to the extraordinary history which ought to complete this recital, persuaded, as before, that it will fully reward my curiosity.

Lumen. Whilst not very long ago (but I can no longer express that time by earthly measurements), in a melancholy region of Capella, I was contemplating the starry heavens at the beginning of a clear night, occupied in noting the star which is your earthly Sun, and near it the little azure planet, your Earth, I observed one of the scenes of my childhood-my young mother seated in the midst of a garden, holding an infant in her arms (my brother), having at her side a little girl of two summers (my sister), and a boy two years older (myself).

I saw myself at that age when man is not yet conscious of his intellectual existence, though he bears even then upon his brow the germ of future promise. Whilst dreaming of this singular spectacle, which showed me myself at the entrance of my earthly career, I felt my attention drawn from your planet by a superior power, and directed towards another point in the heavens, which, even at that moment, seemed to be linked with the Earth and my career there, by some mysterious tie. I could not turn my gaze from this new point in the the heavens, my eyes being, as it were, chained to the spot by some magnetic power I was unable to resist. Several times I endeavoured to withdraw my eyes, and to fix them on the Earth I love so well; but in vain, for I was ever re-attracted to the same unknown star.

The star Gamma in Virgo.

Life on the planet of Virgo.

This star, upon which my eyes sought instinctively to divine something, belongs to the constellation of Virgo, whose form varies slightly as seen from Capella. It is a double star, that is to say, an association of two suns, one of a silvery whiteness, the other of a bright golden yellow, which revolve round one another once in 175 years. This star can be seen from the Earth with the naked eye, and its sign is the letter γ (Gamma), in the constellation of Virgo. Around each of the suns which form it there is a planetary system. My sight was fixed upon one of the planets belonging to the golden sun. On that planet there are animals and vegetables as upon the Earth; their forms bear a similarity to earthly ones, although there is an essential difference in their organisms. Their animal kingdom is analogous to yours; they have fishes in the seas, quadrupeds in the air, in which men can fly without wings, by reason of the extreme density of the atmosphere. The men of this planet possess almost the same form as those on the Earth, but no hair grows upon their heads, and they have three large thin thumbs instead of five fingers on their hands, and three great toes at the heel in place of soles to their feet, the extremities of their arms and legs being supple as india-rubber. They have, nevertheless, two eyes, a nose, and a mouth, which give them their resemblance to earthly beings. They have not two ears, one on each side of the head, but one only, in the shape of a cone, which is placed on the upper part of the skull like a little hat.

They live in societies and wear clothing. Thus, you see, in their exterior they differ little from the inhabitants of the Earth.

Qu?rens. Are there, then, in other worlds beings entirely distinct from us, but who, notwithstanding their dissimilarities, can be compared with us?

Lumen. A distinction profound and unimaginable by you separates in general the animal life of the different worlds. These forms are the result of elements special to each globe, and of the forces which regulate them: matter, density, weight, heat, light, electricity, atmosphere, &c., differ essentially on each globe. Even in the same system these forms differ.

The system of Gamma in Virgo.

Thus the men of Uranus and Mercury do not in any way resemble the men of the Earth; those who see them for the first time cannot perceive that they possess either head, members, or senses. On the contrary, the forms of those in the planetary system of Virgo, towards which my attention was being persistently drawn, are nearly similar to those of the inhabitants of the Earth, whom they also resemble morally and intellectually. Slightly inferior to ourselves, they belong to that scale in the order of souls which immediately precedes that of terrestrial humanity as a whole.

Qu?rens.. Yet there is a wide divergence between human beings themselves in all that pertains both to intellect and morals. We in Europe differ greatly from the tribes of Abyssinia and from the savages of the Oceanic Isles. What people do you take as a type of the highest degree of intelligence on the Earth?

The Arabs and their intelligence.

Lumen. The Arabs. They are capable of producing their Keplers, their Newtons, their Galileos, their Archimedes, their Euclids, their D'Alemberts. Besides, they sprang from those primitive hordes whose roots reach down to the bed rock of humanity. But it is not necessary to choose a people for a type. It is better to consider modern civilisation as a whole. Nor is there so marked a distance as you appear to suppose, between the brain capacity of a negro and that of the Latin race.

However, if you insist upon a comparison, I can assure you that the men of the planet of Virgo are almost on a par intellectually with the Scandinavians.

Vital difference between Virgo and the Earth.

The most vital difference which exists between their world and the Earth, is the absence of sex. Neither plants, animals, nor human beings have sex. Generation is effected spontaneously, as the natural result of the union of certain physiological conditions in some of the fertile isles of this planet, man not being formed in the womb of his mother as upon earth. It would be useless to explain the process, to one whose earthly faculties prevent him comprehending the facts of a world distinctly different from his own. It results from this organic arrangement, that marriage in any form does not exist in this world, and that the friendships between human beings are never mixed with the carnal desires, which are inevitably manifested on the Earth between people of different sexes, even when the attraction is most pure. Probably you will remember that during the protozoic period, the inhabitants of the Earth were all deaf, dumb, and sexless. The division into sexes took place much later in the history of Nature both among animals and plants.

Being attracted towards this far-off planet I attentively examined its surface with my spiritual sight, and I was specially drawn, without knowing the cause, to a white city, resembling from afar a region covered with snow; but it is improbable that it was snow, as it is unlikely that water can exist on that globe in the same physical and chemical conditions as upon the Earth. Upon the borders of this city an avenue led to a neighbouring wood of yellow trees. I soon remarked three persons who seemed to be slowly sauntering towards this wood. This little group was formed of two friends, who were in close conversation, and of a third, who differed from both by his red garment and the burden he bore, and who was probably their servant, their slave, or some domestic animal. Whilst intently regarding the two principal personages, I observed the one to the right raise his face to the sky, as if some one had called him from a balloon, and turn his gaze towards Capella, a star which, doubtless, he did not see, because for him it was then daylight. Oh, my old friend, I shall never forget the sudden surprise this sight gave me! I can still scarcely believe that I was not dreaming. . . .

This person on the planet of Virgo, who was looking towards me without knowing it, was. . . . Can I tell you? Well, it was myself!

Qu?rens. How yourself?

Lumen. Yes, my very self. I recognised myself instantly, and you can judge of my surprise!

Qu?rens. Certainly I can. I cannot comprehend it at all.

Anterior existence

Lumen. The fact is, the situation was so entirely novel that it demands explanation. It was in truth myself, and I was not long in finding out, not only that it was my former face and figure, but also that the person walking by my side was my dear Kathleen, an intimate friend, and the companion of my studies upon that planet. My gaze followed them as far as the Yellow Wood, across picturesque valleys, beneath golden cupolas, under trees covered with large orange-tinted branches, and through hedges of elms with amber-coloured leaves. A purling brook babbled on the fine sand, and we seated ourselves on its banks. I recall sweet hours we have passed together, the happy years which have glided away in this far-off country, the fraternal confidences, and the impressions we shared, in the midst of woodland scenes, of silent plains, of mist-covered hills, and of little lakes which smilingly reflected the heavens. With aspirations raised towards all that was grand and sacred in nature, we adored God in His works. With what joy I saw again this phase of my previous existence, and riveted anew the golden chain, whose links life on Earth had broken!

In truth, dear Qu?rens, it was my very self who then was living on that planet of Virgo. I really saw myself, and I could follow in sequence the events of my life and the happiest moments of that existence, now so far remote.

Besides, if I had had any doubt of my identity, the uncertainty would have ceased during my observation, for whilst pondering upon the matter, I saw Berthor-my brother during that existence-come out of the wood, approach us, and join in our conversation by the side of the murmuring brook.

Qu?rens. Master, I fail still to comprehend how you could really see yourself on that planet of Virgo. Were you then gifted with ubiquity?

Could you, like Francis of Assisi or Apollonius of Tyana, be in two places at the same time?

Scientific explanation of anterior life on Virgo.

Lumen. Certainly not. But in examining the astronomical co-ordinates of the Sun Gamma in Virgo, and knowing its parallax as seen from Capella, I came to the conclusion that the light from this Sun could not employ less than 172 years in traversing the distance which separates it from Capella.

I was then actually receiving the luminous ray which left that world 172 years before. And it so happens that at that epoch I was absolutely living upon the planet of which we speak, and that I was then in my twentieth year. In verifying these periods, and in comparing the different planetary styles, I found, in fact, that I was born on the world of Virgo in the year 45904 (which corresponds to the year 1677 of the Christian era on Earth), and that I died-through an accident-in the year 45913, which corresponds to the year 1767. Each year of this planet equals ten of yours. When I saw myself, as I have just told you, I appeared to be about twenty years of age according to earthly reckoning, but following the way of reckoning on that planet, I was only two years old. There the age of fifteen years is often reached, which is considered the limit of life on that globe, and is equivalent to 150 years on the Earth.

Light takes 172 years to travel from Virgo to Capella.

The luminous ray, or, to speak more accurately, the aspect or photograph of the world of Virgo, takes 172 earthly years to traverse the immense space which separates it from Capella; consequently, upon finding myself upon this last star, I was receiving at that very moment the image which left the constellation of Virgo 172 years previously. And although things have changed greatly, though generations have followed generations, though I died there myself, and have had time to be born again and live seventy-two years on the Earth, nevertheless light had taken all this time to cross the space which separates Virgo from Capella, and was bringing afresh to me impressions of events long passed away.

Qu?rens. This duration of the passage of light being proved, I have not any objection to urge on this point, but I frankly own that to credit an experience of such amazing singularity, taxes my imagination beyond its just limits.

The history of each world is contained in the rays of light.

Lumen. This is not any imagination, my old friend. It is a reality, eternal and sacred, holding its fixed place in the universal plan of creation. The light of every star, direct or reflected-say otherwise, the aspect of each Sun, and of each planet-is diffused in space, according to a rate of rapidity already known to you, and the luminous ray contains in itself all that is visible. As nothing can be lost, the history of each world is contained in the light which incessantly emanates from it in successive waves, eternally travelling into infinite space without any possibility of its being annihilated. True, the terrestrial eye cannot read it; but there are eyes immeasurably superior to your earthly ones.

Light is vibrations of ether; Sight, perceptions of thought.

I make use of the terms sight and light, in these conversations, in order that you may comprehend me; but, as I told you in a previous communication, speaking absolutely, there is not such a thing as light, only vibrations of ether; neither is there any sight, only perceptions of the mind. Moreover, even upon the Earth, when you examine the nature of a star with a telescope, or better still with a spectroscope, you well know it is not its actual state you have before your eyes, but its past state, transmitted to you by a ray of light which left it, perhaps, ten thousand years ago. You know, besides, that a certain number of stars, of which your astronomers on the Earth are seeking to determine the physical and numerical properties, and which shine brilliantly over your heads, have long ago ceased even to exist-may indeed have ceased to exist since the beginning of your world.

Qu?rens. We know this is so. Thus you have seen, unrolled before your eyes, your existence previous to the last one, 172 years after it had flown by.

Lumen. Say rather one phase of this existence; but I could have been able, and could now indeed review my entire life by going closer to that planet, as I have already done for my terrestrial existence.

Qu?rens. So, through the medium of light, you have really seen again your last two incarnations?

Lumen. Precisely; and what is more, I have seen them, and continue to see them, simultaneously, side by side as it were of one another.

Qu?rens. You see them again both at the same time?

Lumen. This fact is easily explained. The light from the Earth takes seventy-two years to reach Capella. The light from the planet of Virgo, being once and a half farther off than Capella, takes once and a half longer time to travel, which would make it about 172 years. As I lived seventy-two years upon the Earth, and one hundred years before that upon the other planet, these two periods reach me at precisely the same time upon Capella. Thus by simply looking at these two worlds, I have before me my last two existences, which unroll themselves as if I were not here to see them, and without my being able to change any of the acts that I see myself upon the point of accomplishing, either upon the one or the other, since those acts, although present and future to my actual observation, are in reality past.

Qu?rens. This is indeed a strange experience!

Lumen. But what struck me most in this unexpected observation of two of my previous existences in two different worlds, thus unrolled before me, was the odd resemblance between these two lives. I found that I had almost the same tastes in the one as in the other, the same passions, the same errors. Nothing criminal, nothing saintly in either.

Explanation of inherent tastes.

Furthermore (extraordinary coincidence), I have witnessed scenes in the first analogous to those I have seen upon the Earth. This explains the innate tastes I brought into the terrestrial world, for the poetry of the North, the poems of Ossian, the dreamy landscape of Ireland, for its mountains and its Aurora Borealis. For Scotland, Scandinavia, Sweden, Norway with its fiords, Spitzbergen with its solitudes-all alike attracted me. Old towers in ruins, rocks and wild ravines, sombre pines soughing with the northern winds-all these appealed to me on the Earth, and seemed to have some mysterious link with my deepest thoughts. When I saw Ireland for the first time, I felt as if I had lived there before. When for the first time I ascended the Rigi and the Finsteraarhorn, and saw the superb sunrise over the snowy summits of the Alps, it seemed as if I had previously seen all this. The spectre of the Brocken was not new, the reason being that I had in a former life inhabited similar regions on the planet of Virgo. The same life, the same actions, the same circumstances, the same conditions-analogies, analogies! Almost all that I have seen, done, thought on the Earth, I had already seen, done, thought a hundred years before upon that anterior world. I had always suspected it! Taking it altogether, however, my terrestrial life as a whole was superior to the one preceding it. Each child in coming into the world brings with him different faculties, special predispositions, innate dissimilarities, which no one denies, and can only be explained to the philosophical mind,-or in view of eternal Justice,-by the supposition of works previously accomplished by free souls.

But though my terrestrial life was superior to its anterior one, evincing, as it did, a more accurate and profound knowledge of the system of the World, it yet lacked, I am bound to state, the possession of certain moral and physical qualities which belonged to me in my former existence.

On the other hand, I had faculties on that World which I had not had upon the Earth. I may cite one specially, that of flying.

Flying without wings.

I see that on the planet of Virgo I could fly, just as easily as walk, and this without either aeronautic apparatus or wings, by simply stretching my arms and legs, as if I were swimming in the water. On closely examining the mode of locomotion in use on that planet, I see clearly that I have (or rather had) neither wings, balloon, nor any kind of mechanical appliance. At a given moment I spring from the ground by a vigorous leap, and, spreading out my arms, sail in the air without fatigue. At other times, descending a steep mountain on foot, I spring out into space, with feet pressed together, and float at will, with a slow and oblique motion, to any point I wish, standing upright as soon as my feet touch the ground.

Dreams bring reminiscences of a former existence.

Then again, when I wish to do so, I fly slowly in the manner of a dove which describes a curve in returning to its dovecot. All this I distinctly see myself doing in this world. Not once, but a hundred, a thousand times have I thus felt myself transported in my dreams on Earth softly, naturally, and without apparatus. How can such impossibilities so often present themselves to us in our dreams? Nothing can explain them, for nothing analogous exists upon this earthly globe. Obeying instinctively this innate tendency, I have frequently soared into the atmosphere suspended from the car of a balloon, but the sensation is not the same; one does not feel one's self flying; on the contrary, one has the feeling of being stationary.

I now have the key to my dreams. During the slumber of my terrestrial senses my soul had reminiscences of its anterior existence.

Qu?rens. But I also often feel, and see myself flying in dreams in precisely the way you describe, without wings or machinery, and simply by an effort of will. Is this, then, a proof that I also have lived upon the planet of Virgo?

Lumen. I do not know. If you had abnormal sight, or instruments, or eyes sufficiently piercing, you could see this planet from your globe, examine its surface, and if, perchance, you had existed there when it parted with the luminous rays which have actually reached the Earth, you might perhaps find yourself again there. But your eyes are too feeble to make a like research. Besides, it does not follow that because you have been able to fly, that therefore you have lived in that world. There are a considerable number of worlds where flying is the normal condition, and where all the human race possess this faculty. In reality, there are but few planets where the living creatures crawl as upon the Earth.

Plurality of existences.

Qu?rens. The conclusion resulting then from your experience is, that you have had a life anterior to that upon the Earth. Do you, then, believe in a plurality of existences for the soul?

Lumen. You forget that you speak to a disembodied spirit. I ought to be well fitted to give such evidence, having before me both my earthly life and my anterior life upon the planet of Virgo. Besides, I can recall many other existences.

Qu?rens. Ah! that is precisely what I lack in order to possess a similar conviction. I can recall absolutely nothing that preceded my birth into this world.

The soul's memory.

Lumen. You are yet in the flesh; you must wait for freedom from earthly fetters before you can recall your spiritual life. The soul has only full remembrance, full possession of itself in its normal, its celestial life; that is to say, between its incarnations. It then sees not only its life on the Earth, but all its anterior lives.

How could a soul, enveloped in the gross materialities of the flesh, and fixed there for a transitory work, recall its spiritual life? Would not such a remembrance even prove hurtful? What trammels would not be put upon the soul's liberty of action, could it see its life from the beginning to the end?

Where would be the merit of striving if one's destiny could be foreseen?

Souls incarnated upon the Earth have not yet attained to a sufficiently elevated state of advancement, for the memory of their anterior life to be of use to them.

Man is oblivious of anterior impressions, as in the butterfly.

The permanence of the anterior impressions of the soul is not manifested in this world of passage. The caterpillar does not remember its rudimentary existence in the egg. The sleeping chrysalis cannot recall the days it spent in work when it crawled upon the herbage. The butterfly, which flits from flower to flower, has not any memory of the time when its cocoon dreamed, as it hung suspended from its web; nor of the twilight, when its larv? trailed from plant to plant; nor of the night, when it was buried like a nut in its shell. This does not alter the fact that the egg, the caterpillar, the chrysalis, and the butterfly, are one and the same being.

In certain cases, even of terrestrial life, you have remarkable examples of forgetfulness, such as that of somnambulism, either natural or artificial, and also in certain psychical conditions of which modern science makes a study. Hence it is not surprising that during one existence we should not remember our anterior ones. Uranic life and planetary life represent two states, free and distinct the one from the other.

Qu?rens. Still, master, if we had already lived a life before this one, something of it would remain with us, otherwise these anterior existences might as well never have been.

Heredity.

Dissimilarities.

Lumen. Do you, then, call it nothing to be born on the Earth with innate tendencies? Such a thing as intellectual heredity does not exist. Take two children of the same parentage, receiving identically the same education, surrounded by the same care, and having in every respect similar environments. Now examine each of them. Are they equal? Not in any way; equality of souls does not exist. The one is born with pacific instincts and great intelligence. He will be good, learned, wise, illustrious perchance, amid the thinkers of his age. The other one brings with him a domineering, envious perhaps, or even a brutal instinct. His career defines and accentuates itself as each year passes, and will lead him eventually to high rank in military life, and will give him the honour (little to be coveted, though still admired upon the Earth) which is attached to the title of an official assassin.

Whether feebly or strongly pronounced, this dissimilarity of character, which depends neither upon family, nor upon race, nor upon education, nor upon material conditions, is manifest in every man. Reflect upon this at your leisure; you will arrive at the conviction that it is absolutely inexplicable, and can only be accounted for by belief in an anterior life of the soul.

Creation of the soul.

Qu?rens. Have not most philosophers and theologians taught that the soul and the body are created at one and the same time?

Lumen. And which, pray, is the precise moment of its creation? Is it at the moment of birth? Legislation, enlightened by anatomical physiology, knows that a child lives before being delivered from its uterine prison, therefore the destruction of an embryo of eight months is regarded as murder. At what period do you then suppose, that the soul appears in the fluid brain of the foetus or of the embryo?

Qu?rens. It was thought in olden times that the real spiritual quickening of the human being took place during the sixth week of gestation, but the modern belief is that it occurs at the moment of conception.

Lumen. Oh, bitter mockery! In accordance with this view you would have the eternal designs of the Creator dependent in their execution upon capricious desires, upon the intermittent flames of two amorous hearts! You would dare to admit that our immortal being is created by the physical contact of two human beings! You would be disposed to believe that the Divine Head which governs the worlds, is influenced by intrigue, by passion, even by crime! You would think that the number of souls depends upon the number of flowers impregnated by the touch of the sweet pollen dust borne to them on golden wings?

Is not such a doctrine, such a supposition, an outrage upon the Divine dignity and the spiritual grandeur of the soul itself? And would it not, besides, be the complete materialisation of our intellectual faculties?

Qu?rens. And yet--

Lumen. Yes; that seems so to you, because upon your planet no soul can incarnate itself otherwise than in a human embryo. It is a law of life on the Earth. But you must look through the veil. The soul is not an effect. The body serves it only as its garment.

Qu?rens. I admit that it would indeed be singular that an event of such dire importance as the creation of an immortal soul should spring from a carnal cause, should be the result of casual unions, more or less legitimate. Also, I agree with you that organic causes do not explain the different degrees of capacity with which mankind is born into this world.

But I ask, of what use would be these various existences if, on beginning a new life, we retain no remembrance of those that precede it? Also, if it is really desirable to have in prospect a journey without end through endless worlds, and an eternal transmigration? For at last there must be an end to it all, and, after many ?ons of voyages, we must some day finish our existence and seek repose. Would it not be as well to do so after one existence only?

The unknown.

Lumen. O men! You do not comprehend either time or space. Do you not know that outside the movement of the stars time no longer exists, and that eternity is no longer measured? Do you not know that in the infinite extent of the sidereal universe space is but a vain word, no longer measurable? You ignore all; principles, causes, all escape you: atoms upon a movable atom, you have not any exact appreciation of the universe; and yet, despite ignorance so dense, and comprehension so obscure, you would attempt to judge all, to envelop all, to seize all! But it would be easier to put the ocean into a nutshell than it would be to make you, with your terrestrial brain, understand the law of destiny.

Nothing created, nothing annihilated.

Can you not, then, by making a legitimate use of the faculty of induction which has been given you, gather the direct consequences resulting from observation supported by reason? Observation, sustained by proof, shows conclusively that all are not equal on coming into this world; that the past is not unlike the future; and that the eternity which is before us is equally behind us; that nothing is created in nature, and that nothing is annihilated; that nature includes all things existing, and that God, spirit, law, number, are no more outside nature than matter, weight, motion; that moral truth, justice, wisdom, virtue, exist in the progress of the world as surely as its physical reality; that justice decrees equity in the distribution of its destinies; that our destinies are not accomplished upon this earthly planet; that the empyrean heaven does not exist, and that the Earth is a star in the sky; that other inhabited planets soar with ours in the vast expanse; opening out to the wings of the soul an inexhaustible field of vision, and that the infinite in the universe corresponds, in the material creation, with the eternity of our intelligence in the spiritual creation.

Unknown forces in nature.

Affinities.

Are not certainties such as these, followed by the inductions with which they inspire us, sufficient to liberate your mind from ancient prejudices, and to open out, to an enlightened judgment, a panorama worthy of the vague yet profound desires of our souls? I could illustrate this general sketch by examples and details which would surprise you still more. Let it suffice for me to add that there are in nature other forces than those you know, which, both in essence and in mode of action, differ from electricity, attraction, light, &c. Now, among these natural and unknown forces there is one in particular, the study of which will ultimately lead to singular discoveries in elucidating the problems of the soul and of life. This is the psychic force. This invisible fluidic force establishes a mysterious bond, unknown to themselves, between living beings, and already in many cases you have been able to recognise its existence. Take the case of two beings in love (as the saying is). It seems impossible for them to live apart. Should circumstances lead to their being separated, our two lovers become absent-minded, and their souls as it were leave their bodies, and span any distance which prevents them re-uniting with one another. The thoughts of the one are shared by the other, and they live together despite their separation.

Should any misfortune touch one, the other becomes immediately conscious of it; and such separations have been known to end in death. How many facts have been stated by trustworthy witnesses of the sudden apparition of a person to an intimate friend, of a wife to a husband, of a mother to a son, and vice versa, just at the moment of death, even though many leagues might separate them! The most captious critic cannot in these days deny facts thus circumstantially proved. Twin children living ten leagues apart, and under very different conditions, are stricken at the same time with the same malady, or if one is excessively fatigued, the other feels the same without apparently any assignable cause. And so on. These facts prove that ties of sympathy exist between souls and even between bodies, and give room for the repeated reflection, that we are far from knowing all the forces operating in nature.

If I communicate these views to you, my friend, it is chiefly to show that you can not only have a foretaste of truth before death, but also that earthly existence is not so entirely deprived of light, as to prevent one's reason recognising the chief characteristics of the moral world. Besides, all these truths will be emphasised by my further narration, when you learn that it is not only the previous existence before my last one that I have seen again, thanks to the slowness of light, but also my ante-penultimate planetary life, inclusive of more than ten existences preceding that one in which we came to know each other upon this Earth.

Plurality of lives.

Qu?rens. Reflection and study had already inclined me, Lumen, to believe in the plurality of the existences of the soul. Yet this doctrine lacks proofs, logical, moral, and even physical, as numerous and as weighty as are those in favour of the plurality of the inhabited worlds. I own that until now I had grave doubts on the subject. Modern optics and marvellous calculations, which enable us to touch, as it were, the other worlds, show us their years, their seasons, their days, and make us acquainted with the varieties of nature living on their surface. All these elements have enabled contemporaneous astronomy to establish the fact of human existence in the other worlds on a strong and imperishable foundation. But I repeat that it is not so with palingenesis, though I am strongly inclined towards the doctrine of the transmigration of souls in the actual heaven, since this is the only way by which we can gain an idea of eternal life. My desires, however, need to be sustained by the help of a light, and inspired by a confidence I do not yet possess.

Lumen. It is precisely this light which we have under consideration, and will be brought out by this interview.

I have, I own, an advantage over you, since I speak de visu, and that I strictly limit myself to interpret with exactitude the events with which my spiritual life is actually woven. But since you can see the possibility and probability of the scientific explanation of my statement, you cannot fail as you listen to increase your light and augment your knowledge.

Qu?rens. It is for this cause chiefly that I am always eager to hear you.

Lumen. Light, you understand, is the means of giving to the disincarnated soul a direct vision of its planetary existences.

Constellations.

After having reviewed my earthly existence, I saw once more my life previous to my last one, upon one of the planets of Gamma in Virgo, light bringing to me the former only after 72 years, and the latter after 172 years. I see myself at present from Capella as I was upon the earth 72 years ago, and as I was upon Virgo 172 years ago. Thus two existences, both past and successive, are here shown me as present and simultaneous, by virtue of the laws of light which transmit them to me.

Andromeda.

Effects of perspective.

Nearly five hundred years ago, I lived upon a world whose astronomical position as seen from the earth is precisely that of the left breast of Andromeda. Assuredly the inhabitants of that world do not suspect that the denizens of a little planet in space have joined the stars by fictitious lines, tracing figures of men, women, animals, and divers objects, incorporating all the stars in figures more or less original, in order to give them a name. It would greatly astonish some of these planetary people if they were told, that upon the Earth certain stars bear the names of Heart-of-the-Scorpion (what a heart!), Head-of-the-Dog, Tail-of-the-Great-Bear, Eye-of-the-Bull, Neck-of-the-Dragon, Brow-of-Capricorn. You are, of course, aware that neither the constellations drawn upon the celestial globe, nor the position of the stars upon that globe, are either real or absolute, but are only the result of the position of the Earth in space, and thus are simply a question of perspective. Go to the top of a mountain and fix upon a map the respective positions of all the summits surrounding you in that circular panorama, its hills, its valleys, its villages, its lakes; a map so constructed could only serve for the place from whence it was drawn. Now transport yourself ten miles farther; the same summits are visible, but their respective positions in regard to each other are different, resulting from the change in perspective. The panorama of the Alps and of the Oberland, as seen from Lucerne, and Pilatus does not in the least resemble that seen from the Fulkhorn, or from the Schynige Platte above Interlaken. Yet these are the same summits and the same lakes. It is exactly so with the stars. The same aspect is seen both from the star Delta in Andromeda and from the Earth; but there is not a constellation that can be recognised, because all the celestial perspectives have changed; stars of the first magnitude have become of the second and of the third; whilst others, of lesser magnitudes, seen nearer, shine with increased brilliancy; and, above all, the respective situation of the stars as regards one another has completely changed in consequence of the different position of that star and of the Earth.

Qu?rens. Therefore the appearance of the constellation which one has so long believed to be ineffaceably traced upon the vaulted sky is only due to perspective. In changing our position we change our perspective, and our sky is no longer the same. But, then, ought we not to have a change of celestial perspective every six months, since during this interval the Earth has greatly altered its position, having removed to a distance of seventy-four millions of leagues from the place it formerly occupied?

Lumen. This objection proves that you have perfectly comprehended the principle of the deformation of the constellations as one moves in any direction in space.

It would be, as you suppose, if the Earth's orbit were of a dimension sufficiently vast for the two opposite points of this orbit to change the view of this celestial scenery.

Qu?rens. Seventy-four millions of leagues-

Lumen. Are as nothing in the order of celestial distances, and can no more affect the perspectives of the stars, than taking a step in the cupola of the Pantheon would change the apparent position of the buildings in Paris to the eye of the observer.

The charts of the Middle Ages.

Qu?rens. Certain charts of the Middle Ages represent the Zodiac as an arch in the heavens, and place some of the constellations, such as Andromeda, the Lyre, Cassiopea, and the Eagle, in the same region as the Seraphim, the Cherubim, and the Thrones. That, therefore, was simply fancy, since constellations have no real existence, but are simply appearances due to perspective.

Lumen. Certainly the old heaven of theology has no legitimate place to-day, and simple common sense shows that it does not exist. Two truths cannot oppose one another; it is a necessity that the spiritual heaven should accord with the physical heaven, and the object of my various conversations is the demonstration of this truth. Upon the world of Andromeda of which I speak, there is nothing resembling the constellation of Andromeda. Seen from the Earth, those stars which appear joined and have served on the celestial landscape to distinguish the daughter of Cepheus and Cassiopea, are in reality spread out in space at all sorts of distances, and in every direction. One cannot find either there or elsewhere the least vestige of the tracings of terrestrial mythology.

The poetry of the heavens lost.

Qu?rens. All its poetry is lost. . . . I shall feel, however, a certain satisfaction in believing that for a part of my life I have rested on the bosom of Andromeda. It is a pleasant fancy. There is in it a mythological perfume and a comforting sensation. I should like to be transported there without fear of the monster, and without solicitude for the young Perseus bearing the head of the Medusa, and mounted on his famous Pegasus. But now, thanks to the scalpel of science, there is no longer an unveiled princess bound to a rock on the sea-shore, nor a virgin holding an ear of golden corn, nor Orion pursuing the Pleiades; Venus has vanished from our evening sky, and old Saturn has let fall his scythe in the night. Science has caused these ancient myths to disappear! I regret its progress.

The facts of astronomy grander than its fancies.

Lumen. Do you, then, prefer illusion to reality? Do you not know that truth is immeasurably more beautiful, grander, and infinitely more marvellous than error, however that may be embellished? What can be comparable in all the mythologies past and present, to the rapt scientific contemplation of celestial grandeurs and the sublime movements of nature? What impression can strike the soul more profoundly than the fact of the expanse crowded with worlds, and the immensity of the sidereal systems? What voice is more eloquent than the silence of a star-lit night? What wild flight of imagination could conceive an image surpassing that, of the interstellar voyage of light, stamping with the seal of eternity the transitory events of the life of each world?

Throw off, then, my friend, your old errors and become worthy of the majesty of science. Listen to what follows:-

Description of the world of Andromeda.

The elements.

By reason of the time light employs in coming from the system δ of Andromeda to Capella, I have seen again, in this year of 1869, my ante-penultimate existence, already ended five hundred years ago. That world is very singular according to our ideas. It has only one kingdom on its surface, and that the animal kingdom. The vegetable kingdom does not exist there. But that animal kingdom is very different from ours, and of a superior kind, although it is endowed with five senses similar to those on the Earth. It is a world without sleep and without fixity. It is entirely enveloped in a rose-coloured ocean, less dense than terrestrial water, and more dense than our atmosphere. It is a substance holding a middle place as a fluid, between air and water. Terrestrial chemistry does not produce any similar substance, therefore it would be in vain to try and represent it to you. Carbolic acid gas that can be held invisible at the bottom of a glass, and can be poured out like water, will give you the nearest idea of it. This is due to a fixed quantity of heat and electricity held in permanence upon that globe. You are aware that the composition of all things upon the Earth, whether mineral, vegetable, or animal, is in three states, solid, liquid, and gaseous, and that the sole cause of these different conditions is the heat radiated from the Sun upon the surface of the Earth. The interior heat of the globe has now hardly any appreciable effect upon its surface.

Degree of heat fixes the condition of matter.

Effect of the Earth flying off at a tangent.

Less solar heat would liquefy gases and solidify liquids. Greater heat would dissolve solids and evaporate liquids. A more or less quantity of heat would produce liquid air (yes, liquid air), and marble would be turned into gas. If by any cause whatever the earthly planet were one day to fly off from its orbit at a tangent, and rush away into the glacial obscurity of space, you would see all the water on the Earth become solid, and gases in their turn become liquids; then as to solids themselves . . . you would see! No, you could not see this by remaining upon the Earth, but you could from the depths of space witness this curious spectacle, should your globe ever indulge in the freak of escaping from its orbit at a tangent. And note further, that should this colossal cold ever take place suddenly, all creatures would find themselves immediately frozen on the spot, and the globe would carry into space the singular panorama of the whole human race, and every animal immovably congealed for all eternity, in the various attitudes assumed by each individual and each creature, at the moment of the catastrophe.

Worlds in a glacial state. Life arrested.

The awakening out of glacial repose.

There are worlds now in this state. They are eccentric worlds, the life of whose inhabitants has been insensibly arrested by the rapid flight of their planet away from the Sun, and they have been transformed into millions of statues. Most of them are lying down asleep, seeing that this profound change of temperature takes many days in its accomplishment. There they are by millions, pell-mell, dead, or, to be more accurate, sunk in a complete lethargy. The cold preserves them. Three or four thousand years later, when the planet returns from its dark and frozen aphelion to its brilliant perihelion, towards the sun-whose fertilising heat caressing its surface with welcoming rays will rapidly increase-and when it has reached the degree which betokens the normal temperature of these beings, they will be resuscitated at the age at which they were when overtaken by sleep; they will take up their affairs from the moment of their interruption (long interruption indeed!) without any consciousness that they had slept a dreamless sleep for so many ages. One may see some continuing a game, or finishing a phrase whose first words have been uttered four thousand years ago. All this is perfectly simple, for we have seen that time does not in reality exist. This, on a large scale, is exactly what passes on a small one on the Earth when you revive infusoria, which take a fresh lease of life under the rain, after several years of apparent death.

World of Andromeda.

But to return to our world of Andromeda; the rose-coloured and quasi-liquid atmosphere, surrounding it entirely as an ocean without islands, is the abode of living beings, who are perpetually floating in the depths of that ocean which none have ever sounded: from their birth to their death they have not one moment's repose. Incessant activity is the condition of their existence. Should they become stationary they would perish. In order to breathe, that is to say, to enable this fluid element to penetrate to their bosom, they are constrained to keep their tentacles in unceasing motion, and their lungs (I use this word the better to be understood) constantly open.

Process of nourishment.

The external form of this human race resembles that of the sirens of antiquity, but is less elegant, and their organism approaches that of the seal. Do you see the essential difference between their constitution and that of terrestrial man? It is that on the Earth we breathe without being conscious of the act, and obtain oxygen without exertion, not being compelled with difficulty to convert venous into arterial blood by the absorption of oxygen. Upon this other world, on the contrary, this nourishment is only obtained with labour and at the price of incessant effort.

Qu?rens. Then this world is inferior to ours in the scale of progress?

Lumen. Without any doubt, seeing that I inhabited it before coming upon the Earth. But do not think that the Earth is much superior by reason of our being able to breathe whilst we are asleep. Doubtless, it is a great advantage to be furnished with a pneumatic mechanism, which opens involuntarily every time that our organism needs the least breath of air, and which acts automatically and unceasingly night and day. But man does not live on air alone; his earthly organism requires to be nourished with something more solid, and this solid something does not come to him involuntarily as does air.

Labour of life on the Earth.

What is the result? Look for a moment at the Earth. See what sorrow, what desolation! What a world of misery and brutality! Multitudes bowed down with bent backs to the soil, which they dig with toil and pain, that they may gain their daily bread! All these heads bent down to the grossness of matter, in place of being raised up to the contemplation of nature! All these efforts and these labours, bringing in their wake feebleness and disease! All this traffic to amass a little gold at the expense of others! Man taking advantage of his brother man! Castes, aristocracies, robbery and ruin, ambitions, thrones, wars! In a word, personal interests, always selfish, often sordid, and the reign of matter over mind. Such is the normal state of the Earth, a condition forced by the law which rules over your bodies, compelling you to kill in order to live, and to prefer the possession of material goods that cannot be earned beyond the grave, to the possession of intellectual gifts, which the soul can keep as a rich and inalienable possession.

Qu?rens. You speak, master, as if you thought it were possible to live without eating.

Lumen. Do you, then, believe that the beings of every world in space are subject to an operation so ridiculous as this? Happily, in many of the worlds, the spirit is not subjected to such ignominy.

Atmospheric nutrition.

It is not so difficult as you may suppose, on first thoughts, to believe in the possibility of atmospheric nutriment. The maintenance of life among man and the animals depends upon two causes, respiration and nutrition. The first is found naturally in the atmosphere; the second is derived from nourishment. Nutrition produces blood; from the blood come the tissues, the muscles, the bones, the cartilages, the flesh, the brain, the nerves, in a word, the organic constituents of the body. The oxygen we breathe can itself be considered as a nutritive substance, inasmuch as it combines with the principal aliments absorbed by the stomach, and completes the formation of the blood and the development of the tissues.

The process of alimentation.

Now, to imagine nutrition passing entirely into the domain of the atmosphere, it is only necessary to observe that, as a whole, a complete aliment is made up of albumen, of sugar, of fat, and of salt, and to imagine also that an atmospheric fluid, in place of being composed of azote and of oxygen only, should be formed of these different substances in a gaseous state. These aliments are found in the solids that you absorb; digestion is the function which separates them, and which causes them to assimilate with the organs to which they belong. When, for example, you eat a morsel of bread, you introduce into your stomach a grain of starch, a substance insoluble in water, and which is not found in the blood. The saliva, and the pancreatic juice, transform the insoluble starch into soluble sugar. The bile, the pancreatic juice, and the intestinal secretions, change the sugar into fat. Both sugar and fat are present in the blood, and it is by the processes of alimentation that substances are separated and assimilated in your body.

It astonishes you, my friend, that after living five years-according to terrestrial reckoning-in the celestial world, I can remember all these material terms, and condescend to make use of them. But the memories that I have brought from the Earth are still vivid, and as we speak on this occasion on a question of organic physiology, I do not feel ashamed of calling things by their own names.

If, then, we suppose that in place of being combined or mixed in the constitution of bodies, solid or liquid, these aliments could be found in a gaseous state in the composition of the atmosphere, we should create by this means nutritive atmospheres, which would dispense with digestion and its attendant coarse and humiliating functions.

That which man is capable of imagining in the restricted sphere of his observation, Nature has put in practice in more than one spot of the universe.

Besides, I can assure you that when one has ceased to be accustomed to this material process of the introduction of nourishment into the digestive tube, one cannot avoid being impressed with its coarseness. This was the reflection I made a few days ago whilst observing one of the richest countries on your planet. I was struck by the suave and angelic beauty of a maiden, reclining in a gondola as it floated gently on the blue waters of the Bosphorus before Constantinople. Red velvet cushions, embroidered with brilliant silks, whose heavy tassels of gold touched the water, formed the divan of this young Circassian. Before her knelt a little black slave playing upon some stringed instrument. Her form was so juvenile and graceful, her bended arm so elegant, her eyes so pure and innocent, her pensive brow so calm under the light of heaven, that for an instant I was captivated by a kind of retrospective admiration for this masterpiece of living nature.

Well! while this pure vision of awakening youth, sweet as a flower opening its petals to the sun's rays, held me in a kind of passing enchantment, the bark reached the landing-stage, and the maiden, leaning on a slave, seated herself on a couch near a well-spread table, around which others had already gathered. She began to eat! Yes! for near an hour she was eating!

I could scarcely tolerate the earthly recollections recalled by this ridiculous spectacle. To see a being like that partaking of food through the mouth, and making her charming body the receptacle for I do not know what substances! What vulgarity! Masticating morsels of some kind of animal which her pearly teeth did not disdain to chew, and again fragments of another animal which her virginal lips opened without hesitation to receive and swallow! What a diet: a medley of ingredients drawn from cattle, or from deer, which have lived in the mire and afterwards been slaughtered. Horror! I turned away with sadness from this strange contrast, and directed my gaze to the system of Saturn, where humanity need not stoop to such necessities.

Victims to the struggle for existence.

The floating beings belonging to the world of Andromeda, where my antepenultimate existence was passed, are submitted to a still more degrading manner of sustaining life than are the inhabitants of the Earth. They have not the advantage of finding three parts of their nutriment supplied by the air, as is the case on your globe: they must work to obtain what may be called their oxygen, and, without ceasing, they are condemned to use their lungs in order to prepare the nutritious air they need, without sleeping, and without ever feeling satisfied, because, despite their incessant toil, they cannot absorb more than a small quantity at a time. Thus they pass their entire life, and finally die victims to the struggle for existence.

Qu?rens. Better far never to have been born! But does not the same reflection apply to the Earth?

What is the use of being born, to weary one's self with endless work and worry, to turn in the same daily treadmill for sixty or a hundred years; to sleep, to eat, to work, to speak, to run, to err, to agitate, to dream, ad infinitum? Of what use is all this? Would not one be just as advanced if one were extinguished the day after birth, or, better still, if one did not take the trouble to come into the world? Nature would not go on in any worse fashion, and even if it did, no one would be the wiser. And one might ask, of what use is Nature herself, and why does the universe exist at all?

Humanity in Andromeda.

Humanity.

Lumen. That is the great mystery. Yet must all destinies be accomplished. The world of Andromeda is decidedly an inferior one. To give you an idea of the poor mental calibre of its inhabitants, I will cite two examples, selecting the subjects of religion and politics, as these are generally the best criterions of the value of a people. In religion, in place of seeking for God in nature, and of basing their judgment on science, instead of aspiring to the truth, and of using their eyes to see and their reason to comprehend-in a word, in place of establishing the foundations of their philosophy upon knowledge as exact as possible of the order which governs the world-they are divided into sects, who are voluntarily blind, and believe they render homage to their pretended God by ceasing to reason, and think they adore Him, in maintaining that their anthill is unique in space; by reciting phrases and in injuring other sects, and alas! by blessing swords, and burnings at the stake, and in authorising massacres and wars. Their doctrines contain assertions which seem expressly imagined to outrage common sense. These are precisely those which constitute the articles of their faith and belief!

They are stupid in politics. The most intelligent and pure-minded do not understand each other. Therefore the Republic seems to be a form of government which cannot be realised. Tracing the annals of their history as far back as possible, one sees a people, cowardly and indifferent, deliberately choosing, rather than govern themselves, to be led by an individual claiming to be their Basileus, their king. This chief deprives them of three-fourths of their resources, keeping for himself and his, the atmosphere containing the greatest amount of rose-essence-that is to say, that he keeps the best in the land for his own use; he numbers his subjects, and from time to time sends them to fight with neighbouring peoples, who, like themselves, are subject to a similar Basileus.

Marshalling them like shoals of herrings, he directs them on either side towards the field of battle, which they call the field of honour, they then destroy one another like furious fools, without knowing why, and without, for that matter, the power to comprehend, as they do not even speak the same language.

And do you imagine that those who, most favoured by chance, live to return, feel any hatred against their Basileus?

Nothing of the kind. The remnant of the army who live to see their homes again, think nothing more natural than to celebrate their thanksgivings in company with the dignitaries of their sects, supplicating their God to grant long life to, and to pour blessings upon, the worthy man whom they designate their father and king.

Organisation of the beings on Andromeda.

Qu?rens. I gather from this narration, that the inhabitants of Delta Andromeda are, both physically and intellectually, greatly our inferiors, for upon the Earth we do not regulate our affairs in this manner. . . . In short, upon their globe there is only one living kingdom, and that a mobile one, without repose, without sleep, kept in perpetual agitation by reason of an inexorable fate. A world like this strikes me as being very fantastic.

Lumen. What, then, would you say of the one I inhabited fifteen centuries ago? A world also containing only one kingdom, and that not a movable one, but, on the contrary, as fixed as is your vegetable kingdom?

Qu?rens. How! Animals and men held down by roots?