Healing mediums.

— An officer of the chasseurs, a Spiritist of long standing, and one of the numerous examples of moral reforms that Spiritism can operate, has transmitted to us the following details:

“Dear master, we are taking advantage of the long winter hours to devote ourselves with ardor to the development of our mediumistic faculties. The triad of the 4th chasseurs, ever united, ever lively, is inspired by its duties and attempts new efforts. No doubt you wish to know the object of our labors, in order to learn whether the field we cultivate is not barren. You will be able to judge it by the following details. For some months our labors have had as their aim the study of the fluids. This study has developed in us the healing mediumship; thus, we now apply it with success. A few days ago, a simple fluidic emission of five minutes with my hand was enough to remove a violent neuralgia.

“For twenty years Madame P.. was afflicted with an acute hyperesthesia, or exaggerated sensitivity of the skin, an ailment that had kept her confined to her room for fifteen years. She lives in a small neighboring town and, having heard of our Spiritist group, came to seek relief with us. She left at the end of thirty-five days, completely cured. During that time she received daily a quarter of an hour of fluidic emission, with the concurrence of our spiritual guides.

“At the same time we were caring for an epileptic, stricken with that terrible infirmity for twenty-seven years. The fits recurred almost every night, during which his mother spent long hours at his bedside. Thirty-five days sufficed for this important cure; and how happy that mother was, taking her son away radically cured! The three of us took turns every eight days. For the fluidic emission, we sometimes placed the hand over the pit of the patient's stomach, sometimes over the nape, at the root of the neck. Each day the patient could observe an improvement; we ourselves, after the evocation and during the recollection, felt the exterior fluid invade us, pass through us, and escape from us through our outstretched fingers and our arms extended toward the body of the patient we were treating.

“At this moment we are offering our care to a second epileptic; this time the ailment may perhaps be more rebellious, because it is hereditary. The father left in his four children the germ of this affection; in short, with the help of God and the good Spirits, we hope to reduce it in all of them.

“Dear master, we call for the aid of your prayers and those of our brothers in Paris. For us, this concurrence will be an encouragement and a stimulus to our efforts. Then, your good Spirits can come to our aid, render the treatment more salutary, and shorten its duration.

“As you may well imagine, we accept as recompense – and it must already be enough – only the satisfaction of having done our duty and obeyed the impulse of the good Spirits. The true love of one's neighbor brings with it an unalloyed joy and leaves in us something luminous, which delights and elevates the soul. Thus we seek, as much as our imperfections permit us, to imbue ourselves with the duties of the true Spiritist, which are nothing other than the application of the evangelical precepts.

“Monsieur G… of L… is to bring us his brother-in-law, whom an evildoing Spirit has subjugated for two years. Lamennais, our spiritual guide, charges us with the treatment of this rebellious obsession. Would God also give us the power to cast out demons? If so, we would have only to humble ourselves before so great a favor, instead of taking pride in it. How much greater still would be our obligation to better ourselves, in order to bear witness to our gratitude and not to lose gifts so precious!”

This interesting letter having been read at the Spiritist Society of Paris, in the session of December 18, 1863, one of our good mediums obtained on the subject, spontaneously, the two following communications:

— “Existing in man in different degrees of development, in all epochs the will has served both to cure and to relieve. It is regrettable that we are obliged to observe that it has also been the source of many evils, but this is one of the consequences of the abuse that the being often makes of free will. The will develops the fluid, whether animal or spiritual, because, as you now know, there are several kinds of magnetism, among whose number are animal magnetism and spiritual magnetism which, according to the occurrence, may ask support of the first. Another kind of magnetism, far more powerful still, is the prayer that a pure and disinterested soul addresses to God.

“The will has often been ill understood. In general, he who magnetizes thinks only of manifesting his fluidic force, of pouring out his own fluid upon the patient submitted to his care, without concerning himself whether or not there is a Providence that takes an interest in the case as much as or more than he does. Acting alone, he can obtain only what his force, by itself, can produce, whereas the healing mediums begin by elevating their soul to God and by acknowledging that, of themselves, they can do nothing. They thereby perform an act of humility, of abnegation; then, confessing themselves too weak, God, in His solicitude, sends them powerful succor, which the first cannot obtain, since he judges himself sufficient for the work undertaken. God always rewards sincere humility, elevating it, whereas He lowers pride. This succor that He sends is the good Spirits, who come to penetrate the medium with their beneficent fluid, which is transmitted to the patient. It is also for this reason that the magnetism employed by the healing mediums is so potent and produces those cures classified as miraculous, and which are due simply to the nature of the fluid poured out upon the medium; while the ordinary magnetizer exhausts himself, often uselessly, in giving passes, the healing medium infiltrates a regenerating fluid by the simple laying on of hands, thanks to the concurrence of the good Spirits. But this concurrence is granted only to sincere faith and to purity of intention.” Mesmer. n (Medium: Monsieur Albert.)

— “A word about the healing mediums of whom you have just spoken [no. 1]. They are all in the most praiseworthy dispositions; they have the faith that moves mountains, the disinterestedness that purifies the acts of life, and the humility that sanctifies them. May they persevere in the work of beneficence they have undertaken; may they well remember that he who practices the sacred laws taught by Spiritism draws constantly nearer to the Creator. May prayer, which is the strongest will, always be their guide, their point of support, when they employ their faculty. Throughout His existence, the Christ gave you the most irrefutable proof of the firmest will; but it was the will of good and not that of pride. When at times He said: I will, the word was full of unction; His apostles, who surrounded Him, felt their hearts open to this holy word. The constant gentleness of the Christ, His submission to the will of the Father, His perfect abnegation, are the most beautiful models of the will that can be proposed as an example.” Paul, apostle. n (Medium: Monsieur Albert.)

— A few explanations will make easily understood what occurs in this circumstance. It is known that the ordinary magnetic fluid can give to certain substances particular active properties. In this case, it acts in a certain way as a chemical agent, modifying the molecular state of bodies; there is nothing, then, astonishing that it can modify the state of certain organs; but it is equally understood that its action, more or less salutary, must depend on its quality; hence the expressions “good or bad fluid; agreeable or painful fluid.” In magnetic action properly so called, it is the personal fluid of the magnetizer that is transmitted, and this fluid, which is nothing other than the perispirit [or rather, the perispiritual fluid], is known always to partake, more or less, of the material qualities of the body, while at the same time undergoing the moral influence of the Spirit. It is therefore impossible that the fluid proper to an incarnate being should be of absolute purity, which is why its curative action is slow, sometimes null, sometimes even harmful, because it may transmit morbid principles to the patient. From the fact that a fluid is abundant and energetic enough to produce instantaneous effects of sleep, of catalepsy, of attraction, or of repulsion, it does not at all follow that it has the necessary qualities to cure; it is the force that fells, and not the balm, that soothes and restores; thus, there are disincarnate Spirits of inferior order, whose fluid may even be very maleficent, which Spiritists have occasion to observe at every instant. Only in the superior Spirits is the perispiritual fluid stripped of all the impurities of matter; it is, in a certain way, quintessenced; consequently, its action must be more salutary and more immediate; it is the beneficent fluid par excellence. Since it cannot be found among the incarnate, nor among the ordinary disincarnate, it is necessary to ask it of the elevated Spirits, as one goes to seek in distant regions the remedies we do not find in our own land. The healing medium emits little of his own fluid; he feels the current of the foreign fluid that penetrates him and to which he serves as a conduit; it is with this fluid that he magnetizes, and there is what characterizes spiritual magnetism and distinguishes it from animal magnetism: the one comes from man; the other, from the Spirits. As can be seen, there is nothing marvelous in this, but a phenomenon resulting from a law of Nature that was not known. To cure by ordinary therapeutics, the first medicaments that come to hand do not suffice; pure ones are needed, not spoiled or adulterated, and suitably prepared. For the same reason, to cure by fluidic action, the most purified fluids are the most salutary; since these beneficent fluids are the very fluids of the superior Spirits, it is the concurrence of these latter that must be obtained. For this, prayer and invocation are necessary. But to pray and, above all, to pray with fervor, faith is needed. For the prayer to be heard, it must be made with humility and dictated by a real sentiment of benevolence and of charity. Now, there is no true charity without devotion, nor devotion without disinterestedness. Without these conditions, the magnetizer, deprived of the assistance of the good Spirits, is reduced to his own forces, often insufficient, whereas with their concurrence, those forces may be increased a hundredfold in power and in efficacy. But there is no liquor, however pure it may be, that does not become altered in passing through an impure vessel; the same occurs with the fluid of the superior Spirits, in passing through the incarnate. Hence, for the mediums in whom this precious faculty is revealed, and who wish to see it grow and not be lost, the necessity of working at their moral betterment. Between the magnetizer and the healing medium there is, then, this capital difference: the first magnetizes with his own fluid, and the second with the purified fluid of the Spirits; whence it follows that these latter give their concurrence to whom they will and when they will; that they may refuse it and, consequently, withdraw the faculty from him who should abuse it or divert it from its humanitarian and charitable end, in order to make a trade of it. When Jesus said to the apostles: “Go! cast out the demons, heal the sick,” He added: “Freely give what you have freely received.”

The healing mediums tend to multiply, as the Spirits have announced, and this with a view to propagating Spiritism, by the impression that this new order of phenomena will not fail to produce upon the masses, since there is no one who does not care about his health, even the greatest unbelievers. In this way, when they see obtained with the concurrence of the Spirits what Science cannot give, it will be necessary to agree that there is a force outside our world. Thus Science will be led to come out of the exclusively material path in which it has remained until today. When the antispiritualist or antispiritist magnetizers see that there exists a magnetism more powerful than their own, they will be forced to go back to the true cause.

It is important, nevertheless, to guard against charlatanism, which will not fail to attempt to exploit this new faculty for its own profit. For this, there is a very simple means: to remember that there is no disinterested charlatanism, and that absolute disinterestedness, material and moral, is the best guarantee of sincerity. If there is a faculty given by God with a holy aim, it is without a shadow of doubt this one, for it imperiously requires the concurrence of the superior Spirits, and this cannot be acquired by charlatanism. It is so that one may be well edified as to the wholly special nature of this faculty that we have described it with some detail. Although we have been able to confirm its existence by authentic facts, many of which passed beneath our eyes, it may be said that it is still rare, and exists only partially in the mediums who possess it, whether because they do not have all the qualities required to possess it in its plenitude, or because it is still in its beginnings. This is why, until today, the facts have not had much repercussion; but they will not be slow to take on developments capable of drawing general attention. Within a few years it will reveal itself in some persons predestined for this, with a force that will triumph over many obstinacies. But these are not the only facts that the future reserves for us, and by which God will confound the proud and convince them of their impotence. The healing mediums are one of the thousand providential means of attaining this objective and of hastening the triumph of Spiritism. It is easily understood that this qualification cannot be conferred upon writing mediums, who obtain medical prescriptions from certain Spirits. We regard the healing mediumship only from the phenomenal point of view and as a means of propagation, and not as a habitual recourse. In a forthcoming article we will treat of its possible alliance with ordinary Medicine and magnetism.

[1]

[v. Mesmer.]

[2] [v.

Saint Paul.]