Healing of a fracture,

No doubt our readers will recall the case of the almost instantaneous healing of a sprain performed by the Spirit Dr. Demeure, a few days after his death, which we reported in the Review of last March, as well as the description of the touching scene that took place on that occasion. This kindly Spirit has just revealed his good will through a still more wonderful healing, in the same person. Here is what was written to us from Montauban, on July 14, 1865:

The Spirit Dr. Demeure has just given us a new proof of his solicitude and of his profound knowledge. Here is on what occasion:

On the morning of May 26 last, Mrs. Maurel, our seeing medium and mechanical writer, suffered a disastrous fall and broke her forearm, a little below the elbow.

This fracture, complicated by distensions in the wrist and the elbow, was clearly characterized by the crepitation of the bones and the swelling, which are the surest signs.

Under the impression of the first emotion produced by the event, Mrs. Maurel's relatives were going to fetch the first physician who might appear when she, holding them back, took up a pencil and wrote mediumistically with her left hand: “Do not seek a physician; I will take charge of this. Demeure.” They then waited with confidence.

Following the Spirit's instructions, small bands and an apparatus were immediately prepared and applied. Next a spiritual magnetization was performed, practiced by the good Spirits, who ordered a temporary rest.

On the evening of the same day, a few adepts, summoned by the Spirits, gathered at Mrs. Maurel's home; she, having been put to sleep by a magnetizing medium, was not long in entering a somnambulistic state. Then Dr. Demeure continued the treatment he had begun in the morning, acting mechanically upon the fractured arm. With no apparent resource other than her left hand, our patient had soon already removed the first apparatus, leaving only the bands, when one saw, imperceptibly and under the influence of spiritual magnetic attraction, the limb take various positions suited to facilitating the reduction of the fracture. It then seemed to be the object of intelligent touches, especially at the point where the soldering of the bones was to take place; then it lengthened, under the action of longitudinal tractions. After a few moments of this spiritual magnetization, Mrs. Maurel proceeded by herself to the consolidation of the bands and to a new application of the apparatus, which consisted of two small boards bound together and to the arm by means of a strap. Everything, then, had taken place as if a skilled surgeon had himself operated visibly; and, a curious thing, one heard during the work these words which, under the oppression of pain, escaped from the patient's mouth: “Do not press so hard!… You are hurting me!…” She saw the Spirit of the doctor and it was to him that she addressed herself, begging him to have care for her sensitivity. It was, then, a being invisible to all except to her, who made her press her arm, unconsciously making use of her own left hand. What was the role of the magnetizing medium during this work? To our eyes he seemed inactive; with his right hand, resting on the somnambulist's shoulder, he contributed his part to the phenomenon, by the emission of the fluids necessary to its realization.

On the night of the 27th to the 28th, Mrs. Maurel having disarranged her arm as a consequence of a false position taken during sleep, a high fever manifested itself, for the first time. It was urgent to remedy this state of things. Thus, they gathered again on the 28th and, once the somnambulism was declared, the magnetic chain was formed, at the request of the good Spirits. After several passes and various manipulations, in all similar to those described above, the arm was set back in good condition, not without the poor lady having experienced cruel sufferings. Despite the new accident, the limb was already feeling the salutary effect produced by the previous magnetizations; moreover, what follows proves it. Momentarily freed from the small boards, the forearm rested upon cushions, when, suddenly, it rose a few centimeters in a horizontal position, moving gently from left to right and vice versa; then it lowered obliquely and was subjected to a new traction. Next the Spirits set about turning it in every direction, making, from time to time, the joints of the elbow and the wrist work properly. Such automatic movements imparted to a fractured, inert arm, contrary to all the known laws of gravity and mechanics, could only be attributed to fluidic action. If one were not certain of the existence of this fracture, as well as of the piercing cries of this unfortunate woman, I confess that I would have had great difficulty in admitting the fact, one of the most curious that Science can record. Thus, I can say, with all sincerity, that I feel happy to have been able to witness such a phenomenon. On the following days, the 29th, 30th and 31st, the successive spiritual magnetizations, accompanied by manipulations varied in a thousand ways, brought about a sensible improvement in the general state of our patient; daily the arm acquired new strength. The 31st especially must be noted, as marking the first step toward convalescence. That evening two Spirits, who made themselves noticed by the brilliance of their radiance, assisted our friend Demeure. They seemed to give him advice, which he hastened to put into practice. One of them, indeed, from time to time set himself to the work and, by his gentle influence, always produced an instantaneous relief. Toward the end of the evening the small boards were definitively abandoned, only the bands remaining to support the arm and keep it in a certain position. I must add that, in addition, a suspension apparatus came to increase the solidity of the bandages. Thus, on the sixth day after the accident, and in spite of the regrettable accidental relapse of the 27th, the fracture was so far on the way to healing that the employment of the means used by physicians during thirty or forty days had become useless. On June 4, the day fixed by the good Spirits for the definitive reduction of this fracture complicated by distensions, we gathered in the evening. Hardly had she entered somnambulism when Mrs. Maurel began to unwind the bands that wrapped her arm, imparting to it a movement of rotation so rapid that the eye could scarcely follow the contours of the curve described. From that moment on she began to use her arm, as usual. She was healed. At the end of the session there was a touching scene, which deserves to be related. The good Spirits, thirty in number, at the beginning formed a magnetic chain parallel to the one we ourselves were forming. Mrs. Maurel having placed herself, by her right hand, in direct communication, successively, with each pair of Spirits, received the beneficent action of a double energetic fluidic current, since she placed herself within the two chains. Radiant with satisfaction, she took the opportunity to thank effusively the powerful aid they had lent to her healing. In turn, she received encouragement to persevere in good. This finished, she tested her strength in a thousand ways; presenting her arm to those present, she had them touch the scars of the soldering of the bones; she pressed their hands forcefully, announcing to them with joy the healing performed by the good Spirits. Upon awakening, finding herself free in all her movements, she swooned, overcome by profound emotion!… When one has been witness to such facts, one cannot help proclaiming them aloud, for they deserve to draw the attention of serious people.

Why, then, in the intelligent world does one encounter so much resistance to admitting the intervention of Spirits upon matter? Why are there people who believe in the existence and the individuality of the Spirit, and refuse it the possibility of manifesting itself? It is because they do not take account of the physical faculties of the Spirit, which appears to them immaterial in an absolute manner. On the contrary, experience demonstrates that, by its very nature, it acts directly upon the imponderable fluids and, consequently, upon the ponderable fluids, and even upon tangible bodies. How does an ordinary magnetizer proceed? Let us suppose, for example, that he wishes to act upon an arm. He concentrates his action upon that limb and, by a simple movement of the fingers, executed at a distance and in every direction, acting absolutely as if the contact of the hand were real, directs a fluidic current upon the point aimed at. The Spirit acts in no other way; its fluidic action is transmitted from perispirit to perispirit, and from this to the material body. The state of somnambulism considerably facilitates this action, thanks to the disengagement of the perispirit, which better identifies itself with the fluidic nature of the Spirit, and then undergoes the spiritual magnetic influence, raised to its greatest power. The entire city occupied itself with this healing, obtained without the aid of official science, and each one gives his opinion. Some claimed that the arm was not broken; but the fracture had been duly and properly verified by numerous eyewitnesses, among others Dr. D…, who visited the patient during the treatment. Others said: “It is most surprising!” and stopped at that. Needless to add that some asserted that Mrs. Maurel had been healed by the demon. If she had not been in profane hands, they would have seen in it a miracle. For the Spiritists, who take account of the phenomenon, they see in it quite simply the action of a natural force, until now unknown, and which Spiritism has come to reveal to men. Observations.

– If there are Spiritist facts which, up to a certain point, could be attributed to the imagination, such as that of visions, for example, in this one it would no longer be the same.

Mrs. Maurel did not dream that she had broken her arm, nor likewise did the various persons who followed the treatment; the pains she felt were not hallucination; her healing in eight days is not an illusion, for she uses her arm. The brute fact is there, before which we must necessarily bow. It confounds Science, it is true, because, in the present state of knowledge, it seems impossible. But was it not always thus that new laws were revealed? Is it the rapidity of the healing that astonishes you?

Has Medicine, nevertheless, not discovered countless agents more active than those it knew for hastening certain healings? In recent times has it not found the means to cicatrize certain wounds almost instantaneously? Has it not found that of activating vegetation and fructification? Why should it not have one for activating the soldering of the bones? So you know all the agents of Nature and God has no more secrets for you? There is no more logic in denying today the possibility of a rapid healing than there was, in the last century, in denying the possibility of covering in a few hours the road that took ten days to traverse. You will say that this means is not in the pharmacopoeia, and it is true; but before the vaccine was inscribed in it, was its inventor not treated as a madman? Homeopathic remedies are likewise not found there, which does not prevent homeopathic physicians from being found everywhere and healing. Besides, since here it is not a matter of a pharmaceutical preparation, it is more than probable that this means of healing will not figure for a long time in official science.

But, they will say, if physicians come to exercise their art after being dead, they will compete with living physicians; it is quite possible; nevertheless, let the latter set their minds at rest; if they take from them some practices, it is not to supplant them, but to prove to them that they are not absolutely dead, and to offer their disinterested aid to those who deign to accept it. To make them understand better, they show them that, in certain circumstances, one can do without them. There have always been physicians and there always will be; only those who profit from the novelties brought to them by the disincarnate will have a great advantage over those who remain in the rear. The Spirits come to aid the development of human science, and not to suppress it. In the healing of Mrs. Maurel, a fact that perhaps surprises even more than the rapidity of the soldering of the bones, is the movement of the fractured arm, which seems to contradict all the known laws of dynamics and of gravity. Contrary or not, the fact is there; since it exists, it has a cause; since it repeats itself, it is submitted to a law. Now, it is this law that Spiritism comes to make known to us through the properties of the perispiritual fluids. That arm, submitted only to the laws of gravity, could not rise; imagine it, however, plunged into a liquid of density much greater than that of air; fractured as it is, sustained by that liquid which diminishes its weight, it will there be able to move without difficulty and even to rise without the least effort. It is thus that in an immersion bath, the arm, which seems very heavy out of the water, seems very light within it. Substitute for the liquid a fluid that enjoys the same properties and you will have what takes place in the present case, a phenomenon that rests upon the same principle as that of the tables and of the persons who maintain themselves in space without a point of support. That fluid is the perispiritual fluid, which the Spirit directs at will, and whose properties it modifies by the simple action of the will. In the present circumstance, one must, then, imagine Mrs. Maurel's arm plunged into a fluidic medium that produces the effect of air upon balloons. In this regard, someone asked whether, in the healing of this fracture, the Spirit Dr. Demeure had acted with or without the aid of electricity and heat.

To this we reply that the healing was produced, in this as in all cases of healing, by spiritual magnetization, by the action of the fluid emanated from the Spirit; that this fluid, though ethereal, is no less matter; that by the current it imparts to it, the Spirit can with it impregnate and saturate all the molecules of the affected part; that it can modify their properties, as the magnetizer modifies those of water and gives it a curative virtue appropriate to the needs; that the energy of the current is in proportion to the number, the quality and the homogeneity of the elements that compose the current of the persons called to furnish their fluidic contingent. This current probably activates the secretion that is to produce the soldering of the bones, thus producing a more rapid healing than when left to itself. Now do electricity and heat play a part in this phenomenon? This is all the more probable as the Spirit did not heal by miracle, but by a more judicious application of the laws of Nature, by virtue of his clairvoyance. If, as Science is led to admit, electricity and heat are not special fluids, but modifications or properties of a universal elementary fluid, they must form part of the constitutive elements of the perispiritual fluid. Their action, in the present case, is, then, implicitly comprised, absolutely as when one drinks wine, one necessarily drinks water and alcohol.