The Alcaide Hassan, Tripolitan Healer

— The following account, published in the Tour du monde, pages 74 and following, is taken from the Promenades dans la Tripolitaine, by the Baron de Krafft.

“I often have as my guide and walking companion on my excursions outside the city the cavas-bachi (chief of the janissaries) of the consulate of France, whom the consul general was kind enough to place at my disposal. He is a magnificent black man from Ouadaï, six feet tall, who, despite his graying beard, has retained all the activity and all the energy of youth. The alcaide Hassan is no ordinary man: in the time of the Caramanlys, he governed the tribe of the Ouerchéfâna for eighteen years, and no one better than he knew how to hold this turbulent horde in check. Brave to the point of rashness, he always defended the interests of those under his charge against the neighboring tribes and, if necessary, against the government itself; but, at the same time, his own people could no longer give themselves over to their whims and did not trifle with the severity of the alcaide Hassan. To him, a man’s life was scarcely more precious than that of a sheep, and he would certainly be quite embarrassed if he were asked the exact number of heads he had caused to fall by his own hand, so untroubled is his conscience on this point. An excellent man, moreover, entirely devoted to the consulate, which he has served for ten years. “On one of our first outings, I saw a group of five or six women approach him with a suppliant air. Two of them held in their arms poor little infants, whose faces, heads, and necks were covered with a dartrous n crust of purulent scabs. It was horrible and unpleasant to behold.

“– Our father, said the desolate mothers to the alcaide Hassan, it is the prophet of God who brings you near our home, for we wished to go to the city to find you, and for fully ten days we have been awaiting the occasion. The djardoun (a small white lizard, quite harmless) passed over our breast and poisoned our milk; see the state of your children and cure them, that God may bless you.

“– So you are a physician? I asked my companion.

“– No, he replied, but I have the blessing of blood in my hands, and whoever has it, as I do, can cure this disease. It is a natural gift of every man whose arm has cut off a few heads. — Come, women, give what is required.

“And at once one of the mothers presents to the doctor a white hen, seven eggs, and three coins of twenty paras; then she crouches at his feet, lifting the little patient above her head. Hassan solemnly takes from his belt his tinderbox and his firestone, as though he wished to light his pipe. Bismillah! (in the name of God!) he says, and he sets about striking from the flint numerous sparks over the sick child, while reciting the sourat-el-fatéha, the first chapter of the Koran. “The operation finished, it was the turn of the other child, by means of the same offering; content, and after having respectfully kissed the hand that had just restored health to their children, the women departed.

“It seems that my face betrayed my incredulity, for the alcaide Hassan, gathering up the fees for his marvelous cure, called out to his clients: “Do not fail to come in seven days to present your children to me in the skifa of the consulate.” (The skifa is the outer vestibule, the waiting room in great houses).

“Indeed, a week later, the little ones were shown to me; one was completely cured, the other had only a few scars of very satisfactory appearance, indicating a cure very near at hand. I was stupefied, but not convinced. Nevertheless, more than twenty similar experiences afterward compelled me to believe in the incredible virtue of hands blessed by blood.”

— There are creatures whom not even the most obvious facts can convince; yet it must be granted that, in this case, it is logically permissible not to believe in the efficacy of the blessing of blood, obtained above all under such conditions, nor in that of the sparks of the tinderbox. Nevertheless, the material fact of the cure does not cease to exist; if it does not have this cause, it must have another. If twenty similar experiences, known to the narrator, came to confirm it, this cause cannot be fortuitous and must derive from a law. Now, this law is none other than the healing faculty with which that man is endowed. In his ignorance of the principle, he attributed the faculty to what he called the blessing of blood, a belief in keeping with the customs of the country, where a man’s life is worth nothing. The tinderbox and the other formulas are accessories that have value only in his imagination and that serve, no doubt, by the importance attached to them, to give him more confidence in himself and, consequently, to increase his fluidic power.

— This fact naturally raises a question of principle, relating to the gift of the faculty of healing, to which the following communication, given on the subject, responds.

(Society of Paris, February 23, 1867. — Medium: Mr. Desliens.)

At times people are astonished, with apparent reason, when they find in unworthy individuals notably developed faculties, which ought rather to be the attribute of virtuous men free from prejudices; and yet, the history of past centuries presents, on nearly every page, examples of remarkable mediumships, possessed by inferior and impure Spirits, by fanatics devoid of reason! What can be the cause of such an anomaly?

Nevertheless, there is nothing here that should cause astonishment; a somewhat serious and considered study of the problem will give its key.

When extraordinary phenomena, belonging to the extracorporeal order, are produced, what really happens? — It is that incarnate individualities serve as organs of transmission for the manifestation. They are instruments moved by an exterior will. Now, would one demand of a mere instrument what one would require of the artist who makes it vibrate?… If it is evident that a good piano is preferable to a defective one, it is no less certain that, in the one as in the other, the touch of the artist will be distinguished from that of a beginner. — If, then, the Spirit who intervenes in the cure finds a good instrument, he will gladly make use of it; if not, he will employ what is offered to him, however defective it may be. It is also necessary to consider, in the exercise of the mediumistic faculty, and in particular in the exercise of healing mediumship, that two quite distinct cases may present themselves: either the medium may be a healer by his own initiative, or he is no more than a more or less passive agent of an exceptional motive force.

In the first case, he will only be able to act if his virtues and his moral strength permit it. He will be an example in his conduct, private or public, a model, a missionary come to serve as a guide or as a rallying sign to men of good will! Christ is the supreme personification of the healer.

As for him who is merely a medium, being an instrument, he may be more or less defective, and the acts that are performed through his intermediary in no way prevent him from being imperfect, selfish, proud, or fanatical. A member of the great human family, in the same way as the generality, he shares in all its weaknesses.

Remember these words of Jesus: “It is not those who enjoy health who need a physician.” One must, then, see a sign of the will of Providence in those faculties that develop in imperfect milieus and persons. It is a means of giving them the faith that, sooner or later, will lead them to good; if not today, then tomorrow; they are seeds that are not lost, for you, Spiritists, know that nothing is lost for the Spirit.

In natures more crude both morally and physically, it is not rare to find transcendent faculties, because those individualities, having little or no personal will, limit themselves to letting the influence that directs them act. One might say that they act by instinct, whereas a more developed intelligence, wishing to account for the cause that sets it in motion, sometimes places itself in conditions that do not permit so easy a realization of the providential designs.

However bizarre and inexplicable the effects that are produced before your eyes may be, study them attentively before considering a single one as an infraction of the eternal laws of the Supreme Master! There is not a single one that does not affirm His existence, His justice, and His eternal wisdom; if appearance says the contrary, believe well that it will be only an appearance, which will disappear to give place to reality, with a more thorough study of the known laws and the knowledge of those whose discovery is reserved for the future. Clélie Duplantier. n [1]

[see Clélie Duplantier.]