Marius George, Allan Kardec, etc. - Philosophie rationnelle - La Vie posthume - très rare revue ésotérique - 1855

Marius George, Rational Philosophy - The Posthumous Life, Monthly Review.

Marseille, [offices of the review], 1885-1886. In-8, [4]-24-24-[49-288]-[3]p.

Rarest gathering of the first twelve issues of this esoteric review which would last 4 years, and thus 48 issues, the last (4th year, no. 12, June 1889) beginning with a “goodbye” that aims to be a confession of faith, insisting on its differences with Kardecism. Marius George hoped to resume publication in July 1890 but the review is very dead with this final issue.

This is indeed the gathering of the first twelve numbers, to which are added a half-title, a title page and a table of contents. Note that the pagination of the first two numbers begins at 1 but the third number continues the pagination, as if no. 2 had been paginated 25 to 48.

It seems that Marius George was born in 1837. He died in September 1897, as announced in “L’Humanité Intégrale, organ of the immortalist,” a journal he founded in January 1896. No. 8 of October 1897 describes him as a “bold thinker, impeccable logician who, for so many years, supported the good fight of survivalist ideas.” He had been a disciple of Kardec before distancing himself.

In the same issue, Adèle Maurel says:
« It was in July 1885 that the first issue of La Vie posthume appeared, with the cooperation of a brilliant Spirit from the other world: Alpha. In the meantime, communications from Spirit Jean were elaborated within a group of friends, and in March 1886 La Vie posthume published the first chapters of the theory that caused such a revolution in the world of spiritualists. Among the new views expressed by Spirit Jean is the notion of natural return to life in the flesh, not by a law of arbitrariness or the being’s own choice, but by the same reasons of decrepitude that push us toward the tomb».

Albert Perrin adds: « Marius George, like [Charles] Miquel, was a communist; like him, he dreamed and hoped for a society without material miseries and without moral suffering. […] George, imbued with a vast philosophy, fully emancipated, surpassed terrestrial humanity, drew its bounds to the infinite of matter, extended it further, beyond death into an eternity of progress and happiness ».

Era-demi-basane, smooth spine, gilded edging, epidermations on the caps, small tears on the half-title, tear repaired (before binding) on a leaf of the table of contents.

Very rare document."