Theoretical essay on instantaneous cures.

— Of all the Spiritist phenomena, one of the most extraordinary is, without contradiction, that of instantaneous cures. One understands cures produced by the continued action of a good fluid; but one asks how this fluid can operate a sudden transformation in the organism and, above all, why the individual who possesses this faculty does not have influence over all those afflicted by the same disease, admitting that there are specialties. The sympathy of the fluids is a reason, no doubt, but one that does not completely satisfy, because it has nothing positive, nor anything scientific. Nevertheless, instantaneous cures are a fact that could not be called into doubt. If one had in support of it only examples from remote times, one could, with some appearance of grounds, consider them as legendary, or, at least, as amplified by credulity; but when the same phenomena reproduce themselves before our eyes, in the most skeptical century with regard to supernatural things, negation is no longer possible, and one is forced to see in them, not a miraculous effect, but a phenomenon that must have its cause in the laws of Nature, still unknown. The following explanation, deduced from the indications furnished by a medium in a state of spontaneous somnambulism, is based on physiological considerations that seem to us to cast new light on the question. It was given on the occasion of a person afflicted with grave infirmities, who asked whether a fluidic treatment might be salutary for her.

However rational this explanation may appear to us, we do not give it as absolute, but as a hypothesis and as a theme for study, until it has received the double sanction of logic and of the general opinion of the spirits, the only valid control of Spiritist doctrines, and which can ensure their perpetuity.

In therapeutic medication, remedies appropriate to the ailment are necessary. Since the same remedy cannot have contrary virtues: being, at the same time, stimulating and calming, very pungent and refreshing, it cannot suit all cases. This is why there is no universal remedy.

It is the same with the healing fluid, a true therapeutic agent, whose qualities vary according to the physical and moral temperament of the individuals who transmit it. There are fluids that overexcite and others that calm, harsh fluids and others that are gentle, and of many other nuances. According to their qualities, the same fluid, like the same remedy, may be salutary in certain cases, ineffective and even harmful in others; from which it follows that the cure depends, in principle, on the appropriateness of the qualities of the fluid to the nature and the cause of the ailment. This is what many persons do not understand, and why they are astonished that a healer does not cure all ailments. As for the circumstances that influence the intrinsic qualities of the fluids, they were sufficiently developed in chapter XIV of Genesis, it being superfluous to recall them here.

— To this entirely physical cause of non-cures, one must add one that is entirely moral, which Spiritism makes known to us. It is that the majority of diseases, like all human miseries, are expiations of the present or of the past, or trials for the future; they are debts contracted, whose consequences must be suffered until they have been settled. He, then, who must endure his trial to the end cannot be cured. This principle is a motive of resignation for the sick person, but it must not be an excuse for the physician who would seek, in the necessity of the trial, a convenient means to shelter his ignorance.

— Considered solely from the physiological point of view, diseases have two causes, which until now have not been distinguished, and which could not be appreciated before the new knowledge brought by Spiritism. It is from the difference between these two causes that the possibility of instantaneous cures arises, in special cases, and not in all.

Certain ailments have their original cause in the very alteration of the organic tissues; this is the only one that Science admits to this day. And since, to remedy it, it knows only tangible medicinal substances, it does not understand the action of an impalpable fluid, having the will as its propeller. Nevertheless, there are the magnetic healers to prove that it is not an illusion.

In the cure of diseases of this nature, by the fluidic influx, there is substitution of the morbid organic molecules by healthy molecules. It is the story of an old house, whose decayed stones are replaced by good stones; one always has the same house, but restored and consolidated. The Saint-Jacques tower and Notre-Dame de Paris have just undergone a treatment of this kind.

The fluidic substance produces an effect analogous to that of the medicinal substance, with this difference: its penetration being greater, by reason of the tenuity of its constituent principles, it acts more directly upon the primary molecules of the organism than the coarser molecules of material substances can do. In the second place, its efficacy is more general, without being universal, because its qualities are modifiable by thought, whereas those of matter are fixed and invariable and can be applied only in determined cases.

Such is, in general thesis, the principle upon which magnetic treatments rest. Let us add summarily, and from memory, since we cannot go deeply into the subject here, that the action of homeopathic remedies in infinitesimal doses is based on the same principle; the medicinal substance, brought by division to the atomic state, acquires to a certain extent the properties of fluids, less, however, the animic principle, which exists in the animalized fluids and gives them special qualities.

In sum, it is a matter of repairing an organic disorder by the introduction, into the economy [into the organism], of sound materials, replacing deteriorated materials. These sound materials may be furnished by ordinary medicaments in their natural state; by these same medicaments in a state of homeopathic division; finally, by the magnetic fluid, which is nothing but spiritualized matter. These are three modes of reparation, or rather, of introduction and assimilation of the reparative elements; all three are equally in Nature, and have their utility, according to the special cases, which explains why one succeeds where another fails, for it would be partiality to deny the services rendered by ordinary medicine. In our opinion, they are three branches of the art of healing, destined to supplement and complete one another, according to circumstances, but of which none has grounds to deem itself the universal panacea of the human race. Each of these means may therefore be effective, if employed to the purpose and suited to the specialty of the ailment; but, whatever it may be, one understands that the molecular substitution necessary to the restoration of equilibrium cannot operate except gradually, and not by enchantment and by a stroke of the baton; if possible, the cure can only be the result of a continuous and persevering action, more or less long, according to the gravity of the cases.

Nevertheless, instantaneous cures are a fact, and as they cannot be more miraculous than the others, they must take place in special circumstances. What proves it is that they do not occur indistinctly for all diseases, nor for all individuals. It is, then, a natural phenomenon, whose law must be sought. Now, here is the explanation given of it; to understand it, one had to have the point of comparison we have just established.

Certain affections, even very grave ones and passed into the chronic state, do not have as their first cause the alteration of the organic molecules, but the presence of a bad fluid which, so to speak, disaggregates them, disturbing their economy [their organism].

It happens here as in a clock, in which all the parts are in good condition, but whose movement is stopped or thrown out of order by dust; no part need be replaced, and yet it does not work; to restore the regularity of the movement it suffices to purge the clock of the obstacle that prevented it from working.

Such is the case with a great number of diseases, whose origin is due to the pernicious fluids with which the organism is penetrated. To obtain the cure, it is not deteriorated molecules that must be replaced, but a foreign body that must be expelled; the cause of the ailment having disappeared, equilibrium is restored and the functions resume their course.

One conceives that in such cases the therapeutic medicaments, destined, by their nature, to act upon matter, have no efficacy upon a fluidic agent; for this reason ordinary medicine is impotent in all ailments caused by vitiated fluids, and they are numerous. To matter one can oppose matter, but to a bad fluid one must oppose a better and more powerful fluid. Therapeutic medicine naturally fails against fluidic agents; for the same reason, fluidic medicine fails where matter must be opposed to matter; homeopathic medicine seems to us to be the intermediary, the connecting link between these two extremes, and must particularly triumph in affections that could be called mixed. Whatever the pretension of each of these systems to supremacy, what is positive is that each, on its side, obtains incontestable successes, but that, up to the present, none has justified being in exclusive possession of the truth; whence one must conclude that all have their utility, and that the essential thing is to apply them suitably.

— We have not to occupy ourselves here with the cases in which fluidic treatment is applicable, but with the cause by which this treatment may, at times, be instantaneous, whereas in other cases it requires a continued action.

This difference is connected to the very nature and the first cause of the ailment. Two affections that, apparently, present identical symptoms may have different causes; one may be determined by the alteration of the organic molecules and, in this case, it is necessary to repair, to replace, as I was told, the deteriorated molecules by healthy molecules, an operation that can only be done gradually; the other, by the infiltration, into the healthy organs, of a bad fluid, which disturbs their functions. In this case, it is not a matter of repairing, but of expelling. These two cases require, in the healing fluid, different qualities; in the first, a fluid more gentle than violent is needed, above all rich in reparative principles; in the second, an energetic fluid, more suited to expulsion than to reparation; according to the quality of this fluid, the expulsion may be rapid and as if by the effect of an electric discharge. The sick person, suddenly freed from the foreign cause that made him suffer, feels relieved immediately, as happens in the extraction of a decayed tooth. No longer obstructed, the organ returns to its normal state and resumes its functions. Thus may be explained the instantaneous cures, which are, in reality, only a variety of magnetic action. As one sees, they rest upon an essentially physiological principle and have nothing more miraculous than the other Spiritist phenomena. One understands at once why these kinds of cure are not applicable to all diseases. Their obtaining is due, at the same time, to the first cause of the ailment, which is not the same in all individuals, and to the special qualities of the fluid that is opposed to it. From this it results that a person who produces rapid effects is not always suited to a regular magnetic treatment, and that excellent magnetizers are unfit for instantaneous cures. This theory may be summarized thus: “When the ailment requires the reparation of altered organs, the cure is necessarily slow and requires a continuous action and a fluid of special quality; when it is a matter of the expulsion of a bad fluid, it may be rapid and even instantaneous.”

To simplify the question, we have considered only the two extreme points; but between the two there are infinite gradations, that is, a multitude of cases in which the two causes exist simultaneously in different degrees, and with more or less preponderance of each; in which, consequently, it is necessary, at the same time, to expel and to repair. According to which of the two causes predominates, the cure is more or less slow; if it be that of the bad fluid, after the expulsion the reparation is needed; if it be the organic disorder, after the reparation the expulsion is necessary. The cure is only complete after the destruction of the causes. This is the most common case. This is why therapeutic treatments often need to be complemented by a fluidic treatment and reciprocally; this is also why instantaneous cures, which occur in cases where the fluidic predominance is, so to speak, exclusive, can never become a universal curative means; consequently, they are not called to supplant either Medicine, or homeopathy, or ordinary magnetism. The instantaneous cure, radical and definitive, may be considered as an exceptional case, considering that it is rare: 1st that the expulsion of the bad fluid be complete at the first stroke; 2nd that the fluidic cause not be accompanied by some organic alteration, which obliges, in one case and the other, returning to it several times.

Finally, the bad fluids being able to emanate only from bad spirits, their introduction into the economy [into the organism] is often linked to obsession. From this it results that, to obtain the cure, it is necessary to treat, at the same time, the sick person and the obsessing spirit.

— These observations show how many things must be taken into account in the treatment of diseases, and how much still remains to be learned in this regard. Moreover, they confirm a capital fact, which stands out from the work Genesis – the alliance of Spiritism and Science. Spiritism marches over the same terrain as Science, up to the limits of tangible matter; but, whereas Science stops at that point, Spiritism continues its way and pursues its investigations into the phenomena of Nature, with the aid of the elements it gathers in the extra-material world; only there is the solution of the difficulties against which Science collides. Note. – The person whose request gave rise to this explanation is in the case of diseases of complex cause.

Her organism is profoundly altered and, at the same time, saturated with the most pernicious fluids, which make her incurable by ordinary therapeutics alone. A violent and very energetic magnetization would produce no more than a momentary overexcitation, soon followed by greater prostration, by activating the work of decomposition. She would need a gentle magnetization, continued for a long time, a penetrating reparative fluid, and not a fluid that shakes, but that repairs nothing. Consequently, she is inaccessible to instantaneous cure.