Observations placeholder
Paul Gibier - Western Fakirism – A spirit that told jokes of dubious taste
Identifier
028775
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
All this points to spirits that are living not dead - mischievous out of body explorers or similar.
A description of the experience
Spiritism (Western Fakirism) Study Historical, Critical and Experimental - Dr. Paul Gibier [1887]
One evening last winter, we were at Mr. B..., a distinguished professor who possesses the ability to "make the table talk", as they say. It was proposed that we should once again strike a blow at our skepticism towards the spirits, by having a "table séance".
Mr. and Mrs. B... placed their hands on the table in their dining room, and invited us to do like them: we let ourselves go.
Soon the table moved, and, by striking the letters of the alphabet, it spit out a few jokes of dubious taste, to such an extent that Mr. B's young wife... became very red. Mr. B... told us: "I know who it is: it is an inferior spirit, rather bad than good, that we cannot get rid of".
But now the "communication" changed its tone, and a very beautiful sentence was dictated to us.
The style was completely different to the spellings given so far, and we laughed and said that the communicating spirit must not be the same as it was before.
The table protested: "It's the same one".
So, replied we, you are not the author of this sentence.
Answer: "No".
We asked for the name of the book where the sentence in question was located, and this name was given to us (the book happened to be in Mr. B's library...) as well as the number of the chapter, where the passage was located.
Nevertheless, the exact number of the chapter was only given on the third occasion after the book had been quickly leafed through here and there. The sentence was found and corresponded approximately verbatim to the one given by the table.
Finally, we asked the "spirit" to make itself known, and he dictated the following quatrain in a few minutes:
"I'm in heaven and so is a decommissioned one,
I mingle, demon, with the crowd of angels,
I sully their whiteness when I touch my mud;
Near the gold amphorae, I'm a broken pot!"
"Satan."
Oh! Oh! they said immediately, Sir Satan, we still suspect you of having stolen this from someone.
Satan was, moreover, a very good boy: he told us that he was the Satan of whom Victor Hugo[1] speaks and that he was soon to regain his place in the dwelling of the chosen ones; then he said good evening, diabolically, by making the table bow gracefully to each of us.
[1] The end of Satan. Posthumous works.