Journal de l'Ame.
S'occupant d'une maniere generale et particuliere des phenomenes psychologiques, physiques et morale, ou intellectuels, et cherchant sourtout a bien etablir la theorie scientifique du Christianisme et l'immortalite de l'âme. Prouver que la venir du Christ n'est autre chose que son revelement religieux sur toute l'humanite.—Il tend aussi a etablir sout logiquement, soit pratiquement par les differentes dictes spiritualistes que tous les phenomenes de l'univers sont, soit de nature electrique soit de nature magnetique, c'est-a-dire, que l'action physique doit être envisagee comme synonyme d'actioin electrique, et la puissance intellectuelle comme synonyme de la puissance magnetique / Individuelle et generale, s'occupant essentiallement de phenomenes d'intuition ou de sentiment, et en particulier, de ceux qu'on observe dans la priere, les songes, la contemplation, l'extase, les visions, la lucidite magnetique ou somnambulique, l'instinct des animeaux, les phenomenes des tables et du crayon.
1856—1860
Monthly
Geneva, Switzerland.
Language: French.
Editor: Dr. Roessinger.
Publisher: P.A. Bonnaret.
Succeeded by: Revue Spiritualiste (merged into, January 1861)
1/1, July 1856-3/9, September 1860.
32 pp., 6 x 9.
Six francs in Switzerland, 8 in France, and 12 elsewhere.

The journal as bound in annual volumes does not distinguish individual issues, but each separate issue begins with Roessinger's "Causerie." Frederic-Louis Roessinger (1800-1862) was a distinguished Swiss physician who wrote on rheumatism and on the effect of wool clothing on chronic headaches. He was a Republican and devoted Mazzinian and was imprisoned for his role in the revolution of 1831 that attempted to establish a republic in Neufchatel. After being freed he published Fragment sur l'electricite Universelle ou Attraction Mutuel in 1839 on the universal magnetic affinity of all things. This journal was largely devoted to working out the permutations of the relationship between magnetism and the communications of the spirits. Roessinger also saw the journal and spiritualism as part of the ongoing war against materialism and labored to defend spiritualism not only against local pastors who attacked its orthodoxy but also against non-believing "intellectuals" who disdained it. Roessinger's principal medium was a young woman called "Libna"who, he believed, spoke under the direct influence of Le Sauveur (Jesus), and, as a consequence, Roessinger was, unlike most of his spiritualist contemporaries, a devout Christian, holding that no mediumistic communication could be genuine that did not completely agree with the doctrines of Christ and the Bible. Libna also was noted for her ability to answer questions posed to her in German, which she did not speak.

Roessinger wrote the entire contents of the journal himself, and gives brief notices of interesting articles in contemporary journals such as The Spiritual Magazine of London and Le Spiritualiste de Nouvelles-Orleans, and also gave a biography of Swedenborg and a long discussion of the phenomena of D.D. Home which he saw as the triumph of human will in controlling nature. The journal also published regularly the communications of the spirits through several mediums in Roessinger's circle. The Revue Spirite in its first number, January 1858, fraternally greeted Journal de l'Ame as the only journal theretofore consecrated to Kardec's "doctrine spirite." This was true in a sense, since Roessinger had given long extracts, with his commentary, from Kardec's Livre des esprits in the first issue of this journal, but he was careful to note his disagreements with Kardec on electrical and magnetic role of the forces in nature. L. Lecocq, "Revue Magnetique," in L.-A. Cahagnet, Encyclopedie Magnetique Spiritiualiste (Paris: Author, 1859), 4:111-123, reviewed extensively the issue for August 1859, especially the claims of Roessinger to explain meteorological and physical phenomena. NYPL; ZDB: Tubingen UB; Freiburg UB; Munchen UB; Berlin UB Humboldt; Rostock UB; Greifswald UB; Gottingen SuUB; Innsbruck University.

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