I found myself, then, confronted with an unexplained fact that was, in appearance, contrary to the laws of nature and that my reason rejected. I had not yet seen or investigated anything; the experiments done in the presence of honorable and trustworthy people had at least confirmed for me the possibility of the purely material effect, but the idea of a talking table still did not enter my mind.

In May 1855, I witnessed for the first time the phenomenon of rapping tables, which jumped and moved under conditions that precluded doubt.

These meetings provided me with my first opportunity for serious studies of the subject that later led to the Spiritist Doctrine-study filled less with revelation and more with systematic observation. As to any new subject, I applied rigorous method to the investigation: avoiding preconceived notions, I observed attentively, compared observations, and deduced the consequences. I tried to identify the causes of the phenomena by linking the facts logically, and I did not accept an explanation as valid unless it could resolve all the difficulties of the question. This was the way I had always, from the age of fifteen or sixteen, proceeded in my scientific investigations. I understood from the beginning the gravity of the exploration I was undertaking. I foresaw in those phenomena, the key to the solution of problems so obscure and so disputed, both in the past and in the future, which I had searched for all my life; the phenomena posed a complete revolution in ideas and beliefs. It was necessary, therefore, to act not lightly, but rather with circumspection, to be positive rather than idealistic, so as not to be carried away by illusions.

One of my first observations was that the spirits, being only the souls of men and women, did not have either absolute wisdom or absolute knowledge; their knowledge was limited to the level of their advancement and their remarks had only the value of a personal opinion. Recognizing this fact from the beginning saved me from the serious error of believing in the spirits' infallibility, and prevented me from formulating premature theories based upon the opinion of only one or a few spirits.

The mere fact of communication with the spirits, no matter what they said, proved the existence of an invisible world. This, in itself, was a fantastic discovery, opening an immense field for exploration and providing a key to understanding a multitude of unexplained phenomena. No less important, it furnished the means to understand the state of that world and its customs, if we may thus call them. I observed early on that each spirit, with its own personal position and knowledge, unveiled to me an aspect of that world, just as one comes to know about a country by interrogating inhabitants of all classes and circumstances, each able to impart something and none able, individually, to impart everything. Any observer is obliged to form a picture of the whole by examining the material collected from different sources, which he must compile, coordinate, and compare. I, then, dealt with the spirits as I would have dealt with human subjects; from the lowest to the most elevated, they were, for me, simply a means of gathering information, not infallible experts.

* Translator's Note: Allan Kardec was a serious investigator of a phenomenon that intrigued some of the great scientists of his time-the effect of the mind on physical healing. The field evolved into what is known today as hypnosis. The history of modern hypnosis begins in the eighteenth century with the arrival of Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815). Portuguese monk, Abbe Faria (1756-1819), learned to produce a somnambulist state simply by gazing steadily at the patient and then shouting "Sleep!" Dr. James Braid (1795-1869) coined the word 'hypnotism' after the Greek god of sleep, Hypnos, to describe the art and science of inducing hypnosis. Support for the teaching of the therapeutic use of hypnosis in medicine finally came in 1955 from the British Medical Association, and was closely followed in 1958 by the American Medical Association. It has received "bad press" of late, mainly due to the unscrupulous practices of some stage hypnotists, but its professional use in treating both physical and mental disorders continues to thrive.