Lemaire
Lemaire was a mass murderer executed on December 31, 1857. He was called on January 29, 1858.
The medium’s hand begins writing...
LemaireI am here.
MediumWhat do you feel on seeing us?
LemaireShame.
MediumDid you keep your self-control up to the last moment?
LemaireYes.
MediumDid you become aware of your new existence immediately after your execution?
LemaireI was thrown into confusion, and I have not yet completely come out of it.
LemaireI felt immense pain.
LemaireIt seemed to me that my heart was what felt it.
LemaireI saw something...I did not know what...roll to the foot of the scaffold.
LemaireI saw blood flowing, and my pain became even sharper.
MediumWas that pain only physical, like a severe wound or losing a limb?
LemaireNo. It was remorse...a great moral pain.
MediumWhen did you begin to feel that pain?
LemaireAs soon as I was free from my body.
MediumWas it your spirit or your body that felt the physical pain of the execution?
LemaireThe moral pain was in my spirit.
LemaireThe physical pain was felt by the body, but my spirit felt it too, though separated from it.
MediumDid you see your mutilated body?
LemaireI saw a shapeless mass that I seemed not to have left, and yet I felt myself to be whole.
LemaireI was still myself.
MediumWhat impression did that sight make on you?
LemaireI felt my pain too strongly to pay attention to it.
LemaireI was lost in suffering.
MediumIs it true that the body continues to live for some moments after decapitation, and that the condemned person keeps mental consciousness?
LemaireThe spirit withdraws gradually from the body.
LemaireThe more tightly it is held in matter, the slower the separation.
MediumSome observers thought they saw anger, or movements showing a wish to speak, in faces separated from their bodies. Was that only nervous movement, or an act of the will?
LemaireIt was by the will, because in such cases the spirit has not yet left the body.
MediumWhat was your first feeling in your new state?
LemaireAn unbearable suffering...a sort of piercing remorse whose cause I could not make out.
MediumDid you find yourself among the accomplices executed with you?
LemaireFor our great misery, yes.
LemaireThe sight of one another is a constant torture.
LemaireEach of us blames the others as the cause of his crimes.
MediumDo you meet your victims?
LemaireI see them.
LemaireThey are happy.
LemaireTheir eyes follow me.
LemaireI feel their gaze pierce to the bottom of my soul.
LemaireIt is useless to try to escape them.
MediumWhat do you feel when you see them?
LemaireShame and remorse.
LemaireI brought it on myself...and I still hate them.
MediumWhat do they feel when they see you?
LemairePity.
MediumDo they feel hatred and the desire for revenge?
LemaireThey pray that I may atone for my crimes.
LemaireYou cannot imagine how horrible it is to owe everything to those we hate.
MediumDo you regret your life on Earth?
LemaireI regret nothing except my crimes.
LemaireIf I still had my life in my hands, I would not give way to temptation.
MediumWas the tendency to evil in your nature, or were you drawn into evil by the surroundings in which you lived?
LemaireThe tendency to crime was in my nature, for I was only a low spirit.
LemaireI wanted to rise quickly, but what I asked for was beyond my strength.
LemaireI thought too highly of my strength.
LemaireI chose a terrible trial, and I gave way to the temptations of evil.
MediumIf good principles had been placed in your mind by education, would you have been turned away from wickedness?
LemaireYes, but I chose the position into which I was born.
MediumCould you have been a good man?
LemaireI might have been a weak man, neither good nor bad.
LemaireI might have corrected the evil tendency of my nature during my last life.
LemaireBut I could not have raised myself to goodness.
MediumDuring your last life, did you believe in God?
LemaireNo.
MediumIt is said, however, that you repented at the moment of death. Is it true?
LemaireI believed in a God of vengeance, and I feared His justice.
MediumIs your repentance more sincere now?
LemaireAlas...I see what I have done.
MediumWhat do you now think of God?
LemaireI feel Him, but I do not understand Him.
MediumDo you regard the punishment inflicted on you on Earth as just?
LemaireYes.
MediumDo you hope to obtain forgiveness for your crimes?
LemaireI do not know.
MediumHow do you hope to repair them?
LemaireBy going through new trials, but it seems to me there is an eternity between them and me.
MediumWhere are you now?
LemaireI am in misery.
MediumWe ask you in what place you are.
LemaireClose to the medium.
MediumIf we could see you, in what form would you appear to us?
LemaireIn the form I had in your world, with my head cut off from my body.
MediumCould you make yourself visible to us?
LemaireNo. Leave me to myself.
MediumWill you tell us how you managed to escape from the prison at Montdidier?
LemaireI remember nothing of it.
LemaireMy suffering is so dreadful that I remember nothing but my crimes.
LemaireLeave me to myself.
MediumCan we do anything to lessen your suffering?
LemairePray that my atonement may soon begin.
Allan notes that Lemaire unknowingly revealed an important point. Spirits can surround themselves with images produced by their own inner state. In this case, his victims stood before him as part of the punishment of his conscience.