Note 6 — THE WHITE SOUL.1

Since the invasion of September 1870, Rome has been placarded with announcements of mediums who may be consulted on every possible occasion. I give the whole story as it was told me, but I have, of course, no means of knowing how the séance was conducted, and there is every likelihood the man would be so full of the strange occurrence that he would begin by letting out all on which he came to it to seek confirmation. The introduction of these mediums has been welcomed as supplying the means of gratifying that craving after the supernatural which was denied them under the former administration. ‘Witchcraft was forbidden by the former law, therefore we may suppose it was wrong,’ reason the less intelligent and those who wish to be deceived; ‘spiritismo is allowed by the law which rules us to-day, therefore we may suppose it is right;’ and thus we are beginning to see here what Cantù had written of other parts of Italy and Europe: ‘But who will feel the courage to contemn the follies of another age when he sees the absurd credulity of our own, which upon similar manifestations founds other theories.... Recent writers on the subject (see in particular, Allan Kardec, ‘Le Spiritisme à sa plus simple expression,’ ‘Le Livre des esprits,’ &c.), themselves acknowledge that the oracles and pythonesses of old, and the genii, sorcerers, and magicians of later ages, were the predecessors of these mediums. We have therefore come back to that which we ridicule in our ancestors.’ ↑