THE FLUIDS.

I.

NATURE AND PROPERTY OF THE FLUIDS: Fluidic elements.

— Formation and properties of the perispirit.

— Action of the Spirits upon the fluids. Fluidic creations. Photography of thought.

— Qualities of the fluids.

II. EXPLANATION OF CERTAIN PHENOMENA CONSIDERED SUPERNATURAL: Spiritual or psychic sight. Double sight. Somnambulism. Dreams.

— Catalepsies. Resurrections.

— Cures. — Apparitions.

Transfigurations.

— Physical manifestations. Mediumship.

— Obsessions and possessions.

EXPLANATION OF CERTAIN FACTS CONSIDERED SUPERNATURAL.

Spiritual or psychic sight. Double sight. Somnambulism. Dreams.

— The perispirit is the bond of union between corporeal life and spiritual life; 2 it is through its intermediary that the incarnate Spirit finds itself in continuous relation with the disincarnate ones; 3 it is, in short, through its intermediary that there are produced in man special phenomena, whose fundamental cause is not found in tangible matter and which, for that reason, appear supernatural.

It is in the properties and in the radiations of the perispiritic fluid that one must seek the cause of double sight, or spiritual sight, which may also be called psychic sight, with which many persons are frequently endowed against their will, as well as of somnambulic sight.

The perispirit is the sensitive organ of the Spirit, by means of which the latter perceives spiritual things that escape the corporeal senses.

Through the organs of the body, sight, hearing and the various sensations are localized and limited to the perception of material things; through the spiritual, or psychic, sense, they become generalized: the Spirit sees, hears and feels, throughout its whole being, all that is found within the sphere of radiation of its perispiritic fluid.

In man, such phenomena constitute the manifestation of spiritual life; it is the soul acting outside the organism.

In double sight, or perception by the psychic sense, he does not see with the eyes of the body, although, many times, by habit, he directs his gaze toward the point that draws his attention; he sees with the eyes of the soul, and the proof of it is that he sees perfectly well with his eyes closed and sees what is far beyond the reach of the visual ray; 9 he reads the thought figured in the fluidic ray. (no. 15) n

— Although, during life, the Spirit finds itself bound to the body by the perispirit, it is not so enslaved to it that it cannot lengthen the chain that binds it and transport itself to a distant point, whether upon the Earth or in space.

The Spirit is bound to its body only with regret, because its normal life is one of liberty, and corporeal life is that of the serf bound to the soil.

Consequently, it feels happy in leaving the body, as the bird does in finding itself outside the cage, and so it takes advantage of every occasion that presents itself to escape from it, of every instant in which its presence is not necessary to the life of relations.

There is then the phenomenon to which is given the name of emancipation of the soul, a phenomenon that is always produced during sleep; 5 every time that the body rests, that the senses become inactive, the Spirit detaches itself. (The Spirits' Book: chapter VIII.)

In those moments, the Spirit lives the spiritual life, while the body lives only the vegetative life; 7 it finds itself, in part, in the state in which it will find itself after death: it traverses space, it confers with friends and other Spirits, free or incarnate like itself.

The fluidic bond that binds it to the body is definitively broken only on the occasion of death; 9 complete separation occurs only as the effect of the absolute extinction of vital activity.

While the body lives, the Spirit, at whatever distance it may be, is instantaneously called back to its prison, as soon as its presence there becomes necessary; it then resumes the course of the exterior life of relations.

At times, upon awakening, it preserves from its peregrinations a remembrance, a more or less precise remembrance, which constitutes the dream; 12 in all cases, it brings from them intuitions that suggest to it new ideas and thoughts and justify the proverb: Night is a good counselor.

Thus likewise are explained certain phenomena characteristic of natural and magnetic somnambulism, of catalepsy, of lethargy, of ecstasy, etc., and which are nothing more than manifestations of spiritual life. n

— Since spiritual sight does not operate by means of the eyes of the body, it follows that the perception of things does not take place by means of ordinary light: in fact, material light is made for the material world; 2 for the spiritual world, a special light exists, whose nature is unknown to us, but which is, without doubt, one of the properties of the ethereal fluid, suited to the visual perceptions of the soul.

There is, therefore, material light and spiritual light.

The first emanates from foci circumscribed to luminous bodies; the second has its focus everywhere: such is the reason why there is no obstacle for spiritual sight, which is hindered neither by distance nor by the opacity of matter, obscurity not existing for it.

The spiritual world is, then, illuminated by spiritual light, which has its own effects, as the material world is illuminated by solar light.

— Thus, enveloped in its perispirit, the soul carries with it its luminous principle; 2 penetrating matter by virtue of its ethereal essence, there are, for its sight, no opaque bodies.

Nevertheless, spiritual sight is not identical, whether in extent or in penetration, for all Spirits; 4 only pure Spirits possess it in all its power; in the inferior ones it is weakened by the relative coarseness of the perispirit, which interposes itself before them like a fog.

It is manifested in different degrees, in incarnate Spirits, by the phenomenon of second sight, both in natural or magnetic somnambulism and in the waking state.

According to the degree of power of the faculty, it is said that the lucidity is greater or lesser.

It is with the aid of this faculty that certain persons see the interior of the human organism and describe the causes of illnesses.

— Spiritual sight, therefore, affords special perceptions that, not having the material organs for their seat, operate under conditions very different from those that proceed from corporeal life. For this reason one cannot attain identical effects, nor experience them by the same procedures.

Being effected outside the organism, it has a mobility that overthrows all forecasts.

It becomes indispensable to study it in its effects and in its causes, and not to assimilate it to ordinary sight, which it is not destined to supply, save in exceptional cases, which could not be taken as a rule.

— Spiritual sight is necessarily incomplete and imperfect in incarnate Spirits and, consequently, subject to aberrations.

Having the soul itself for its seat, the state of the latter must influence the perceptions that that sight affords.

According to the degree of development, the circumstances and the moral state of the individual, it may give, whether during sleep or in the waking state:

1st the perception of certain material and real facts, such as the knowledge of some that occur at great distance, the descriptive details of a locality, the causes of an illness and the suitable remedies;

2nd the perception of things equally real of the spiritual world, such as the presence of the Spirits; 6 3rd fantastic images created by the imagination, analogous to the fluidic creations of thought. (see, above, no. 14.)

These creations are always in relation with the moral dispositions of the Spirit that engenders them.

It is thus that the thought of persons strongly imbued with certain religious beliefs and preoccupied with them presents to them hell, its furnaces, its tortures and its demons, just as those persons imagine them:

at times, it is a whole epic; 9 the pagans saw Olympus and Tartarus, as the Christians see hell and paradise.

If, upon awakening, or upon coming out of the ecstasy, they preserve an exact remembrance of their visions, those who had them take them for realities confirmatory of their beliefs, when all is nothing but the product of their own thoughts. n

It is fitting, then, that a very rigorous distinction be made in ecstatic visions, before credit is given to them.

In this regard, the remedy for excessive credulity is the study of the laws that govern the spiritual world.

— Dreams properly so called present the three characters of the visions described above.

To the first two categories of these visions belong the dreams of foresight, presentiments and warnings; n 3 in the third, that is, in the fluidic creations of thought, is to be found the cause of certain fantastic images, which have nothing real about them, with respect to corporeal life, but which present at times, for the Spirit, such a reality that the body feels the counter-shock of it, there being cases in which the hair whitens under the impression of a dream.

These creations may be provoked: by the exaltation of beliefs; 5 by retrospective remembrances; 6 by tastes, desires, passions, fear, remorse; 7 by habitual preoccupations; 8 by the necessities of the body, or by an embarrassment in the functions of the organism; 9 finally, by other Spirits, with benevolent or malevolent aim, according to their nature. n CATALEPSIES.

RESURRECTIONS.

— Inert matter is insensible; the perispiritic fluid is equally so, but it transmits the sensation to the sensitive center, which is the Spirit.

The painful lesions of the body thus reverberate upon the Spirit, like an electric shock, through the intermediary of the perispiritic fluid, which seems to have in the nerves its conducting wires.

It is the nervous influx of the physiologists who, being unaware of the relations of that fluid with the spiritual principle, have not yet been able to find an explanation for all its effects.

The interruption may occur through the separation of a limb, or through the severing of a nerve, but also, partially or in a general manner and without any lesion, in the moments of emancipation, of great overexcitation or preoccupation of the Spirit.

In that state, the Spirit does not think of the body and, in its feverish activity, draws to itself, so to speak, the perispiritic fluid which, withdrawing from the surface, produces there a momentary insensibility.

One might also admit that, in certain circumstances, in the perispiritic fluid itself a molecular modification occurs, which temporarily removes from it the property of transmission.

It is for this reason that, many times, in the ardor of combat, a soldier does not perceive that he is wounded and that a person, whose attention is concentrated on a work, does not hear the noise made around him.

An analogous effect, though more pronounced, is verified in some somnambulists, in lethargy and in catalepsy.

Finally, in the same manner one may also explain the insensibility of the convulsionaries and of many martyrs. (Spiritist Review, January, 1868: Study on the Aïssaouas.)

Paralysis no longer has absolutely the same cause: there the effect is entirely organic; it is the nerves themselves, the conducting wires, that become unfit for fluidic circulation; they are the strings of the instrument that have become altered.

— In certain pathological states, when the Spirit has left the body and the perispirit is adhered to it only at a few points, the body presents all the appearances of death, and an absolute truth is enunciated in saying that life there hangs by a thread.

Such a state may last for a longer or shorter time; some parts of the body may even enter into decomposition, without, however, life being definitively extinct.

As long as the last thread is not broken, the Spirit may, whether by an energetic action of its own will, or by an equally strong foreign fluidic influx, be called to return to the body.

It is thus that certain facts of the prolongation of life against all probabilities, and some supposed resurrections, are explained. It is the plant being reborn, as sometimes happens, from a single rootlet of the root; 5 when, however, the last molecules of the fluidic body have detached themselves from the carnal body, or when the latter has reached an irreparable state of degradation, all return to life becomes impossible. n CURES.

— As has been seen, the universal fluid is the primitive element of the carnal body and of the perispirit, which are simple transformations of it.

Through the identity of its nature, this fluid, condensed in the perispirit, can furnish reparative principles to the body; the Spirit, incarnate or disincarnate, is the propelling agent that infiltrates into a deteriorated body a part of the substance of its fluidic envelope.

The cure operates by means of the substitution of an unhealthy molecule by a healthy molecule.

The curative power will, then, be in direct proportion to the purity of the inoculated substance; 5 but it depends also on the energy of the will which, the greater it is, the more abundant the fluidic emission it will provoke and the greater the force of penetration it will give to the fluid; 6 it depends also on the intentions of the one who desires to accomplish the cure, be it a Man or a Spirit.

The fluids that emanate from an impure source are like altered medicinal substances.

— The effects of fluidic action upon the sick are extremely varied, according to the circumstances; sometimes it is slow and requires prolonged treatment, as in ordinary magnetism; at other times it is rapid, like an electric current.

There are persons endowed with such power that they operate instantaneous cures in some of the sick, by means only of the laying on of hands, or even exclusively by an act of the will.

Between the two extreme poles of this faculty, there are infinite gradations. All cures of this kind are varieties of magnetism and differ only in the intensity and the rapidity of the action.

The principle is always the same: the fluid, playing the role of therapeutic agent and whose effect is subordinate to its quality and to special circumstances.

— Magnetic action can be produced in many ways: 1st By the magnetizer's own fluid; it is magnetism properly so called, or human magnetism, whose action is bound to the strength and, above all, to the quality of the fluid.

2nd By the fluid of the Spirits, acting directly and without intermediary upon an incarnate, whether to cure him or to calm a suffering, whether to provoke spontaneous somnambulic sleep, whether to exercise upon the individual any physical or moral influence whatever. It is spiritual magnetism, whose quality is in direct proportion to the qualities of the Spirit. n 3rd By the fluids that the Spirits pour upon the magnetizer, who serves as the vehicle for that pouring. It is mixed magnetism, semi-spiritual, or, if one prefers, human-spiritual. Combined with the human fluid, the spiritual fluid imparts to it qualities that it lacks. In such circumstances, the assistance of the Spirits is often spontaneous, but, most often, provoked by an appeal from the magnetizer.

— The faculty of curing by fluidic influence is very common and can develop by means of exercise; 2 but that of curing instantaneously, by the laying on of hands, that one is rarer and its maximum degree must be considered exceptional.

Nevertheless, in diverse epochs and in the midst of almost all peoples, there have arisen individuals who possessed it in an eminent degree. In these latter times, many notable examples have appeared whose authenticity admits of no contestation.

Since cures of this kind rest upon a natural principle and since the power to operate them does not constitute a privilege, what follows is that they do not operate outside [the laws] of Nature and that they are miraculous only in appearance. n APPARITIONS.

TRANSFIGURATIONS.

— For us, the perispirit, in its normal state, is invisible; but, as it is formed of ethereal substance, the Spirit, in certain cases, can, by an act of its will, make it pass through a molecular modification that renders it momentarily visible.

It is thus that apparitions are produced, which occur, just like the other phenomena, not outside the laws of Nature. There is in this nothing more extraordinary than in the case of vapor which, when very rarefied, is invisible, but which becomes visible when condensed.

According to the degree of condensation of the perispiritic fluid, the apparition is at times vague and vaporous; at other times, more distinctly defined; at others, finally, with all the appearances of tangible matter; it may even reach real tangibility, to the point that the observer is deceived with respect to the nature of the being he has before him.

Vaporous apparitions are frequent, the form under which many individuals, after having died, present themselves to the persons who are dear to them.

Tangible apparitions are rarer, although there are very numerous cases of them, perfectly authenticated.

If the Spirit wishes to make itself known, it imprints upon its envelope all the exterior signs it had when alive. n

— It is to be noted that tangible apparitions have only the appearances of carnal matter; they could not have its qualities; 2 by virtue of their fluidic nature, they cannot have the cohesion of matter, because, in reality, there is no flesh in them.

They form instantaneously and instantaneously disappear, or evaporate through the disaggregation of the fluidic molecules.

The beings that present themselves under these conditions are neither born nor die, like other men; they are seen and cease to be so without anyone knowing whence they come, how they came, nor where they go; no one could kill them, nor seize them, nor imprison them, since they lack a carnal body; the blows struck against them would reach the void.

Such is the character of the agéneres, with whom one may converse, without suspecting that they are such, but who do not tarry long among humans and cannot become members of the household of a house, nor figure among the members of a family.

Moreover, they always denote, in their attitudes, something strange and unusual that derives at once from materiality and from spirituality: 7 in them, the gaze is simultaneously vaporous and brilliant, it lacks the clearness of the gaze through the eyes of the flesh; 8 the language, brief and almost always sententious, has nothing of the brilliance and the volubility of human language; 9 their approach causes a singular and indefinable sensation of surprise, which inspires a kind of fear; 10 and whoever comes into contact with them, although he takes them for individuals like all the others, is led to say involuntarily: There is a singular creature. n

— The perispirit being the same, both in the incarnate and in the disincarnate, an incarnate Spirit, by an entirely identical effect, can, in a moment of liberty, appear at a point different from that in which its body rests, with the features habitual to it and with all the signs of its identity.

It was this phenomenon, of which many authentic cases are known, that gave rise to the belief in double men. n

— An effect peculiar to phenomena of this species consists in the fact that vaporous and even tangible apparitions are not perceptible to everyone indiscriminately; 2 the Spirits show themselves only when they wish and to whom they also wish.

A Spirit, then, could appear in an assembly to one or to many of those present and not be seen by the others.

This happens because perceptions of this kind are effected by means of spiritual sight, and not through the intermediary of carnal sight; 5 for not only is the former not given to everyone, but it may, if it be convenient, be withdrawn, by the will alone of the Spirit, from the one to whom it does not wish to show itself, just as it may give it, momentarily, if it deems it necessary.

The condensation of the perispiritic fluid in apparitions, going even as far as tangibility, lacks the properties of ordinary matter: if such were not the case, apparitions would be perceptible by the eyes of the body and, then, all the persons present would perceive them. n

— The Spirit being able to operate transformations in the contexture of its perispiritic envelope, and this envelope radiating around the body like a fluidic atmosphere, there may be produced on the very surface of the body a phenomenon analogous to that of apparitions.

The real image of the body may be effaced more or less completely, beneath the fluidic layer, and assume another appearance; or else, seen through the modified fluidic layer, the original features may take on another expression.

If, leaving behind the commonplace, the incarnate Spirit identifies itself with the things of the spiritual world, the expression of an ugly countenance may become beautiful, radiant and even luminous; if, on the contrary, the Spirit is prey to evil passions, a beautiful countenance may take on a hideous aspect.

Thus are operated the transfigurations, which always reflect the qualities and sentiments predominant in the Spirit.

The phenomenon results, therefore, from a fluidic transformation; it is a kind of perispiritic apparition, which is produced upon the very body of the living person and, sometimes, at the moment of death, instead of being produced at a distance, as in apparitions properly so called.

What distinguishes apparitions of this kind is that they are, generally, perceptible by all those present and with the eyes of the body, precisely because they are based on visible carnal matter, whereas, in purely fluidic apparitions, there is no tangible matter. n PHYSICAL MANIFESTATIONS. MEDIUMSHIP.

— The phenomena of the turning and talking tables, of the ethereal suspension of heavy bodies, of mediumistic writing, as ancient as the world but commonplace today, afford the explanation of certain others, analogous and spontaneous, to which, through ignorance of the law that governs them, a supernatural and miraculous character was attributed.

Such phenomena have for their basis the properties of the perispiritic fluid, whether of the incarnate or of free Spirits.

— It was by means of its perispirit that the Spirit acted upon its living body; 2 it is again through the intermediary of this same fluid that it manifests itself; it is by acting upon inert matter that it produces noises; movements of tables and other objects, that it raises, overturns, or transports them.

There is nothing surprising in this phenomenon, if we consider that, among us, the most powerful motors are found in the most rarefied and even imponderable fluids, such as air, vapor and electricity.

It is likewise with the assistance of its perispirit that the Spirit causes the mediums to write, speak, draw; 5 no longer having a tangible body to act ostensibly when it wishes to manifest itself, it makes use of the body of the medium, whose organs it borrows, a body which it causes to act as if it were its own, by means of the fluidic effluvium that it pours upon it.

— By the same process the Spirit acts upon the table, whether to make it move, without its movement having a determined significance, or to make it give intelligent raps, indicative of the letters of the alphabet, in order to form words and sentences, that phenomenon being called typtology.

The table is nothing but an instrument that the Spirit utilizes, as it utilizes the pencil to write. For this effect, it gives it a momentary vitality, by means of the fluid that it inoculates into it, but it does not in the least identify itself with it.

Those persons perform a ridiculous act who, seized with emotion when a being dear to them manifests itself, embrace the table; it is exactly as if they embraced the cane that a friend uses to strike the ground. The same is done by those who address their words to the table, as if the Spirit were stuck within the wood, or as if the wood had become Spirit.

When communications are transmitted by this means, one should imagine that the Spirit is, not in the table, but beside it, just as it would be if it were alive and as it would be seen, if at the moment it could make itself visible.

The same occurs in communications by writing: one would see the Spirit beside the medium, directing his hand or transmitting thoughts to him by means of a fluidic current.

— When the table detaches itself from the ground and floats in space without a point of support, the Spirit does not lift it with the strength of an arm: it envelops it and penetrates it with a kind of fluidic atmosphere that neutralizes the effect of gravitation, as the air does with balloons and kites.

The fluid that infiltrates into the table gives it momentarily a greater specific lightness. When it becomes fixed to the ground, it finds itself in a situation analogous to that of the pneumatic bell-jar under which a vacuum has been made.

There are here no more than simple comparisons destined to show the analogy of the effects and not the absolute similarity of the causes. (The Mediums' Book, 2nd Part, chapter IV.)

It is understood, after what has been said, that there is, for the Spirit, no greater difficulty in carrying off a person than in carrying off a table, in transporting an object from one place to another, or in throwing it wherever it may be. All these phenomena are produced by virtue of the same law. n

When the table pursues someone, it is not the Spirit that runs, for it may remain tranquilly in the same place, but it gives it an impulse by a fluidic current, with the aid of which it makes it move at its will.

When the raps are heard in the table or elsewhere, it is not that the Spirit is striking with its hand, or with any object. It merely directs upon the point whence the noise comes a jet of fluid, and this produces the effect of an electric shock.

It is as possible for it to modify the noise as it is for any person to modify the sounds produced by the air. n

— A very frequent phenomenon in mediumship is the aptitude of certain mediums for writing in a language that is foreign to them; for explaining, orally or in writing, subjects that are beyond the reach of the instruction they have received.

The case is not rare of some who write fluently without ever having learned to write; of others who compose poems, without ever in their life having known how to make a verse; of others who draw, paint, sculpt, compose music, play an instrument, without knowing drawing, painting, sculpture, or the musical art.

The fact frequently occurs of a writing medium reproducing with perfection the handwriting and the signature that the Spirits, who communicate through him, had when alive, although he had not known them.

Nothing, however, presents in this phenomenon anything more marvelous than that of making a child write, by guiding its hand; one can, in this manner, get it to execute all that one wishes.

One can make any person write in an idiom that he does not know, by dictating to him the words letter by letter.

It is understood that the same can occur with mediumship, once one attends to the manner in which the Spirits communicate with the mediums who, for them, are nothing more than passive instruments.

If, however, the medium has the mechanism, if he has overcome the practical difficulties, if the expressions are familiar to him, if, finally, he possesses in his brain the elements of that which the Spirit wishes to make him execute, he finds himself in the position of the man who knows how to read and write fluently; the work becomes easier and more rapid; it then only remains for the Spirit to transmit its thoughts to the interpreter, so that the latter may reproduce them by the means at his disposal.

The aptitude of a medium for things that are foreign to him also frequently has its roots in the knowledge that he possessed in another existence and of which his Spirit preserved the intuition.

If, for example, he was a poet or a musician, he will find more facility in assimilating the poetic or musical thought that a Spirit wishes to make him express.

The language that he is ignorant of today may have been familiar to him in another existence, whence his greater aptitude for writing mediumistically in that language. n OBSESSIONS AND POSSESSIONS.

— Evil Spirits swarm around the Earth, in consequence of the moral inferiority of its inhabitants.

The maleficent action of these Spirits is an integral part of the scourges with which Humanity finds itself struggling in this world.

Obsession, which is one of the effects of such action, like the illnesses and all the tribulations of life, must, then, be considered as a trial or expiation and accepted with that character.

Obsession is the name given to the persistent action that an evil Spirit exercises upon an individual.

It presents very different characters, ranging from simple moral influence, without perceptible exterior signs, to the complete disturbance of the organism and of the mental faculties.

It obliterates all the mediumistic faculties; 7 in audient and psychographic mediumship, it is translated by the obstinacy of a Spirit in wishing to manifest itself, to the exclusion of any other.

— Just as illnesses result from the physical imperfections that render the body accessible to pernicious exterior influences, obsession always proceeds from a moral imperfection, which gives ascendancy to an evil Spirit.

To a physical cause, a physical force is opposed; to a moral cause it is necessary that a moral force be set in opposition.

To preserve it from illnesses, the body is fortified; to guarantee it against obsession, the soul must be strengthened; 4 whence, for the obsessed person, the necessity of working to better himself, which most often suffices to free him from the obsessor, without the aid of others.

This aid becomes necessary when the obsession degenerates into subjugation and into possession, because in that case the patient not rarely loses the will and free will.

Almost always obsession expresses a vengeance taken by a Spirit and whose origin is frequently found in the relations that the obsessed person maintained with the obsessor in a preceding existence.

In cases of grave obsession, the obsessed person remains as if enveloped and impregnated by a pernicious fluid, which neutralizes the action of the salutary fluids and repels them.

It is from that fluid that he must be disentangled; now, an evil fluid cannot be eliminated by another equally evil one.

By means of an action identical to that of the healing medium, in cases of illness, it is necessary to expel an evil fluid with the aid of a better fluid.

Not always, however, does this mechanical action suffice; it is fitting, above all, to act upon the intelligent being, with whom one must possess the right to speak with authority, which, however, is wanting to whoever does not have moral superiority; the greater the latter is, the greater also will be the former.

But that is not yet all: to ensure the deliverance of the victim, it becomes indispensable that the perverse Spirit be led to renounce its evil designs; 12 that repentance be made to dawn in it, as well as the desire for good, by means of instructions skillfully ministered, in evocations particularly made with the aim of giving it moral education; 13 one may then have the gratifying satisfaction of liberating an incarnate person and of converting an imperfect Spirit.

The work becomes easier when the obsessed person, understanding his situation, concurs in it with the will and prayer; 15 the same does not happen when, seduced by the Spirit that dominates him, he deludes himself with respect to the qualities of the latter and takes pleasure in the error into which he is led, because, then, far from seconding it, the obsessed person repels all assistance.

This is the case of fascination, infinitely more rebellious always than the most violent subjugation. (The Mediums' Book, 2nd Part, chapter XXIII.)

In all cases of obsession, prayer is the most powerful means available for dissuading the obsessor from its maleficent purposes. n

— In obsession, the Spirit acts exteriorly, with the aid of its perispirit, which it identifies with that of the incarnate person, the latter ending up entangled by a sort of web and constrained to act against his will.

In possession, instead of acting exteriorly, the acting Spirit substitutes itself, so to speak, for the incarnate Spirit; 3 it takes its body for a dwelling, without the latter, however, being abandoned by its owner, since that can only occur through death.

Possession, consequently, is always temporary and intermittent, because a disincarnate Spirit cannot definitively take the place of an incarnate one, for the reason that the molecular union of the perispirit and the body can only operate at the moment of conception. (Chap. XI, no. 18.)

In momentary possession of the body of the incarnate person, the Spirit makes use of it as if it were its own: it speaks through his mouth, sees through his eyes, operates with his arms, as it would do if it were alive.

It is not as in talking mediumship, in which the incarnate Spirit speaks transmitting the thought of a disincarnate one; in the case of possession it is indeed the latter that speaks and acts; whoever knew it in life recognizes its language, its voice, its gestures and even the expression of its physiognomy.

— In obsession there is always a malefactor Spirit.

In possession it may be a question of a good Spirit that wishes to speak and that, in order to cause a greater impression on the hearers, takes the body of an incarnate person, who voluntarily lends it to him, as he would lend his garment to another incarnate person.

This is verified without any disturbance or inconvenience, during the time in which the incarnate Spirit finds itself at liberty, as in the state of emancipation, the latter remaining beside its substitute to hear it.

When the possessing Spirit is evil, things happen in another manner; it does not take the body of the incarnate person moderately, it seizes it, if the latter does not possess enough moral force to resist.

It does this out of malice toward him, whom it tortures and martyrs in every way, going to the extreme of attempting to exterminate him, whether by strangulation, whether by throwing him into the fire or to other dangerous places.

Making use of the organs and the limbs of the unhappy patient, it blasphemes, insults and mistreats those around him; it gives itself over to eccentricities and to acts that present all the characters of furious madness.

The facts of this kind are numerous, in different degrees of intensity, and many cases of madness derive from no other cause.

Often, there are also pathological disorders, which are mere consequences and against which medical treatments avail nothing, as long as the originating cause subsists.

By making known this source whence proceeds a part of human miseries, Spiritism indicates the remedy to be applied: to act upon the author of the evil who, being an intelligent being, must be treated by means of intelligence. n

— Obsession and possession are most often individual; but, not rarely they are epidemic.

When upon a locality there is cast a flock of evil Spirits, it is as if a troop of enemies invaded it. The number of individuals attacked may then be very considerable. n [1] Facts of double sight and somnambulic lucidity related in the Spiritist Review, January 1858: Visions; November 1858: Somnambulic independence; July 1861: The visions of Mr. O; November 1865: The patriarch Joseph and the seer of Zimmerwald.

[2] Cases of lethargy and of catalepsy: Spiritist Review: Madame Schwabenhaus, September 1858. The cataleptic young woman of Swabia, January 1866.

[3] The visions of Sister Elmerick may be explained thus, who, referring back to the time of the passion of Christ, says she saw material things, which never existed, save in the books that she read; those of Mrs. Cantianille (Spiritist Review, of August 1866) and a part of those of Swedenborg.

[4] See, below, chapter XVI. Theory of prescience, nos. 1, 2 and 3.

[5] Spiritist Review, June 1866: An instructive dream; September 1866: Hair whitened under the impression of a dream. — The Spirits' Book, part 2, chapter VIII, no. 400.

[6] Examples: Spiritist Review: Doctor Cardon, August 1863; May 1866: A resurrection — The Corsican woman.

[7] Examples: Spiritist Review, February 1863: Cure by a Spirit; April 1865: Curative power of spiritual magnetism; September 1865: Cure of a fracture by spiritual magnetization.

[8] Cases of instantaneous cures related in the Spiritist Review: December 1866: The prince of Hohenlohe, healing medium; Jacob, October and November 1866; October and November 1867; Simonet, August 1867; The caïd Hassan, Tripolitan healer or the Blessing of blood; November 1867: The cure Gassner — healing medium.

[9] The Mediums' Book, 2nd Part, chaps. VI and VII.

[10] Examples of vaporous or tangible apparitions and of agéneres: Spiritist Review, January 1858: Visions; October 1858: Phenomena of apparition; February 1859: The agéneres; March 1859: Pliny the Younger; January 1859: The phantom of Bayonne; November 1859: Warnings from beyond the tomb — The officer of Crimea; August 1859: An obliging Spirit; April 1860: Tangible apparition; May 1860: The library of New York; July 1861: The visions of Mr. O; April 1866: A vision of Paul I; December 1866: The worker Thomas Martin, and Louis XVIII. [11] Examples of apparitions of living persons: Spiritist Review, of December 1858. Phenomenon of Bicorporeity; February 1858: The agéneres; August 1859: An obliging Spirit; November 1860: Phenomenon of Bicorporeity — Maria d'Agreda.

[12] The narratives of purely individual apparitions must be received with extreme reserve, for in certain cases they might be nothing but the effect of an overexcited imagination and perhaps of an invention with self-interested ends. It is fitting, then, to take into account, very scrupulously, the circumstances, the honesty of the person, as well as the interest that she may have in abusing the credulity of excessively trusting individuals. [13] Example and theory of transfiguration: Spiritist Review, March 1859: Phenomenon of Transfiguration; The Mediums' Book, 2nd Part, chapter VII.

[14] Such is the principle of the phenomena of conveyance, a phenomenon that is very real, but which it is not fitting to admit, save with extreme reserve, inasmuch as it is one of those that most lend themselves to imitation and to trickery. The irrecusable honesty of the person who obtains them, her absolute disinterestedness, material and moral, and the concurrence of accessory circumstances must be taken into serious consideration. It is important, above all, to be wary of the production of such effects, when they occur with excessive facility, and to hold as suspect those that are renewed with extreme frequency and, so to speak, at will. Conjurers do more extraordinary things. No less positive is the fact of the raising up of a person; but it must be much rarer, because more difficult to imitate. It is known that Mr. Home rose more than once up to the ceiling, thus making a circuit of the room. It is said that Saint Cupertino possessed the same faculty, the fact being no more miraculous with the latter than with the former.

[15] Cases of material manifestations and of disturbances operated by the Spirits: Spiritist Review, January 1858: Physical manifestations — The orphan girl of the Passage des Panoramas; February 1858: Mademoiselle Clairon and the Phantom; May, June and July 1858: The rapping Spirit of Bergzabern; August 1858: The rapping Spirit of Dibbelsdorf; March 1860: Spontaneous physical manifestations — The baker of Dieppe; April 1860: The manufacturer of Saint Petersburg; August 1860: The ragpicker of the Rue des Noyers; January 1861: The rapping Spirit of the Aube; January 1864: A rapping Spirit in the sixteenth century; May 1864: Manifestations of Poitiers; June 1864: The rapping Spirit of Sister Maria; April 1865: Spontaneous manifestations in Marseille; August 1865: Manifestations of Fives; February 1866: The rats of Équihem. [16] The aptitude that some persons denote for languages that they handle, without, so to speak, having learned them, has for its origin nothing but the intuitive remembrance of what they knew in another existence. The case of the poet Méry, related in the Spiritist Review of November 1864, is a proof of what we say. It is evident that, if in his youth, Méry had been a medium, he would have written in Latin as easily as in French and everyone would have seen in that fact a prodigy. [17]

[What is stated below, in items 47 to 49, comes to clarify the concept of possession enunciated in The Mediums' Book no. 241, written by the Codifier eight years before.]

[18] Examples of cure of obsessions and of possessions: Spiritist Review, December 1863 and January 1864: A case of possession — Miss Júlia; February, March and July 1864: Cure of an obsession — The young obsessed woman of Marmande (Tereza B.); January 1865: New cure of a young obsessed woman of Marmande (Valentine Laurent); June 1865: The Spirits in Spain — Cure of an obsessed woman in Barcelona; February 1866: Cures of obsessions; June 1867: Healing Group of Marmande — Intervention of relatives in the cures. [19] It was exactly of this kind the epidemic that, some years ago, attacked the village of Morzine in Savoy. See the complete account of that epidemic in the Spiritist Review of December 1862, January, February, April and May 1863: Causes of obsession and means of combating it — Studies on the possessed of Morzine.