We say dreams, because dream is the consequence of a natural and periodical
ecstasy which we term sleep; to be in ecstasy is to sleep; magnetic somnambulism
is a production and direction of ecstasy. The errors which occur therein are occasioned
by reflections from the DIAPHANE of waking persons, and, above all, of the
magnetizer. Dream is vision produced by the refraction of a ray of truth. Chimerical
fantasy is hallucination occasioned by a reflection. The temptation of St.
Anthony, with its nightmares and its monsters, represents the confusion of reflections
with direct rays. So long as the soul struggles it is reasonable; when it yields
to this species of invading intoxication it becomes mad. To disentangle the direct
ray, and separate it from the reflection – such is the work of the initiate. Here let
us state distinctly that this work is being performed continually in the world by
some of the flower of mankind; that there is hence a permanent revelation by
intuition; and that there is no insuperable barrier which separates souls, because
there are no sudden interruptions and no high walls in Nature by which minds
can be divided from one another. All is transition and blending, wherefore,
assuming the perfectibility, if not infinite at least indefinite, of human faculties, it
will be understood that every person can attain to see all, and therefore to know
all. There is no void in Nature: all is peopled. There is no true death in Nature: all
is alive. “Seest thou that star?” asked Napoleon of Cardinal Fesch. “No, Sire.” “I
see it,” said the Emperor, and he most certainly did. When great men are accused
of superstition, it is because they behold what remains unseen by the crowd. Men
of genius differ from simple seers by their faculty of communicating sensibly to
others that which they themselves perceive, and of making themselves believed by
the force of enthusiasm and sympathy. Such persons are the media of the Divine
Word.
Let us now specify the manner in which visions operate. All forms correspond
to ideas, and there is no idea which has not its proper and peculiar form. The primordial
light, which is the vehicle of all ideas, is the mother of all forms, and
transmits them