Title: Celestial letters: morals and magic in nineteenth-century France
Abstract: Although historians and anthropologists of writing have studied writings to God, correspondence in the other direction—letters from heaven—have been neglected. Celestial letters had medieval origins and appear in many national and religious contexts. This article is based on forty-one nineteenth-century examples: forty of them are French and survive in printed form and one, exceptional because it is handwritten, is a Spanish manuscript. In analysing the distinctive features of celestial letters in this period, we examine their homiletic function as well as the magical properties attributed to them. In letters from God, the orthodox Catholic sermon was intertwined with elements of folklore and popular conceptions of the sacred. The letters are evidence of the strength of popular magical beliefs and of the dynamic interaction between official religion and popular practices. They were also the forerunners of twentieth-century chain letters which are also briefly considered here.