13. Necromancy-a

We have declared boldly our opinion, or rather our conviction, as to the possibility of resurrection in certain cases: it remains for us now to complete the revelation of this arcanum and to expose its practice. Death is a phantom of ignorance; it does not exist; everything in Nature is living, and it is because it is alive that everything is in motion and undergoes incessant change of form. Old age is the beginning of regeneration; it is the labour of renewing life; and the ancients represented the mystery we term death by the Fountain of Youth, which was entered in decrepitude and left in new childhood. The body is a garment of the soul. When this garment is worn out completely, or seriously and irreparably rent, it is abandoned and never rejoined. But when it is removed by some accident without being worn out or destroyed, it can, in certain cases, be reassumed, either by our own efforts or by the assistance of a stronger and more active will than ours. Death is neither the end of life nor the beginning of immortality: it is the continuation and transformation of life. Now a transformation being always a progress, few of those who are apparently dead will consent to return to life, that is, to take up the vestment which they have left behind. It is this which makes resurrection one of the hardest works of the highest initiation, and hence its success is never infallible, but must be regarded almost invariably as accidental and unexpected. To raise up a dead person we must rivet suddenly and energetically the most powerful chains of attraction which connect it with the body that it has just quitted. It is, therefore, necessary to be acquainted previously with this chain, then to seize thereon, finally to project an effort of will sufficiently powerful to link it up instantaneously and irresistibly. All this, as we say, is extremely difficult, but is in no sense absolutely impossible. The prejudices of materialistic science exclude resurrection at present from the natural order of things, and hence there is a disposition to explain all phenomena of this class by lethargies, more or less complicated with signs of death and more or less long in duration. If Lazarus rose again before our doctors, they would record in their memorials to official academies a strange case of lethargy, accompanied by an apparent beginning of putrefaction and a strong corpse-like odour: the exceptional occurrence would be labelled with a suitable name, and the matter would be at an end. We have no wish to alarm anyone, and if, out of respect for men with diplomas who represent orthodox science, it is requisite to term our theories concerning resurrection the art of curing exceptional and aggravated trances, nothing, I hope, will hinder us from making such a concession. But if ever a resurrection has taken place in the world, it is incontestable that resurrection is possible. Now, the bodies corporate protect religion, and religion asserts positively the fact of resurrections; therefore resurrections are possible. From this escape is difficult. To say that such things are possible outside the laws of Nature, and by an influence contrary to universal harmony, is to affirm that the spirit of disorder, darkness and death can be sovereign arbiter of life. Let us not dispute with worshippers of the devil, but pass on. It is not religion alone which attests the facts of resurrection: we have collected a number of cases. An occurrence which impressed the imagination of Greuze the painter has been reproduced by him in one of his most remarkable pictures. An unworthy son, present at his father's deathbed, seizes and destroys a will unfavourable to himself; the father rallies, leaps up, curses his son and then drops back dead a second time.