Divine Faith and Human Faith

Faith is the innate sentiment in human beings of their future destiny; it is the awareness they have of the immense faculties whose seed was deposited in them, first in a latent state, and which they now must make blossom and grow by their active will.

Until now, faith has not been understood except from the religious aspect, because Christ extolled it as a powerful lever and because he has been seen only as the head of a religion. But Christ, who performed material miracles, has demonstrated through these same miracles what humans can do when they have faith; that is, the will to wish and the certainty that such will can obtain its fulfillment. By following his example, did not the apostles also perform miracles? Well, what were those miracles except natural effects whose cause was unknown to  humans back then,  but which today have been largely explained and which will be fully understood through the study of Spiritism and magnetism?

Faith is either human or divine, depending on whether people apply their faculties to  their earthly needs or to  their heavenly and future aspirations. Individuals of genius who pursue the accomplishment of some great enterprise triumph if they have faith, because they feel within them that they can and must reach it, and this certainty provides them with immense power. Moral persons, who believe in their heavenly future and who want to fill their lives with noble and beautiful actions in the certainty of the happiness that awaits them, draw from their faith the strength they need, thereby accomplishing the miracles of charity, devotion and selflessness. Finally, with faith there are no evil tendencies that cannot be overcome.

Magnetism is one of the greatest proofs of faith put into action. It is through faith that magnetism heals and produces the remarkable phenomena that formerly were regarded as miracles.

I will repeat: faith is both human and divine. If all incarnates were fully persuaded of the power they have within them, and if they wanted to put their will in the service of that power, they would be capable of accomplishing what until today have been called prodigies, and which are actually nothing more than a development of human faculties.

A Protector Spirit (Paris, 1863)