In the new edition we give to the public, we have detached from volume three what concerns the HUMAN ANALOGIES to make it a fourth volume.
This division was imperative.
The questions that refer to the Analogies of Mystics have recently expanded considerably, particularly with regard to magnetism and hypnosis. Experiments have been multiplied, obtained from the results which are believed to be new, presented solutions in various directions.
There was a kind of passion, I was going to say, for the eccentricities and mysteries of loccultism.
Some are looking for appearances of religion, others for pretexts of unbelief; many are losing balance between faith and reason; some Catholics are so in Paise, that they have dreamed of making it the ground for a hybrid alliance with the worst negators of our beliefs.
We do not have to change the pre-
This is a very important point in our book; and, in short, few truly new facts to record. But it is good for our readers to know that we have carefully followed experiences, debates and opinions.
These additions would have increased the third volume, already so compact with its 132 pages.
That is the reason for our fourth volume.
Need to report natural phenomena which present analogies with mystical manifestations.— Difficulty to discern the supernatural from the natural, coming from the contiguousness of the two orders and apparent irregularities of nature.—Suffice to study the patural anomalies which lend us to confusion, to distinguish them from the mystical one.
— Two pitfalls to avoid: constantly transforming the extraordinary into supernatural, and bringing back all supernatural to the extraordinary. — Paralogism of rationalistic argumentation supported mainly by doctors. — March of discussion, and indication of points of view.
I. — God is the sole author of the true mystic; in this order, the demon can only counterfeit and parody. We have exposed divine miracles and evil parodys; it seems that our work stops there. But the title of our book still promises to distinguish the mystical facts of natural analogy that seem to be closer to it. That will be the last effort of our task.
Nature, in particular in man, offers anomalies that limit to supernatural wonders, and
This resemblance creates a danger of confusion between the two orders as serious as it often does.
It is important to see this peril, to recognize its causes and forms, to formulate rules that preserve illusions.
I. — The difficulty of discerning the supernatural from the natural is sometimes very great. The supernatural occurs where nature stops. If these limits, which mark the stopping point of nature and the entry into the scene of a higher force, were clearly defined and infallibly recognized, the confusion between the two orders would be impossible, and there would be no need to study here the human phenomena that are approaching mysticism. But, though nature has energies always measured, and a radius of exercise that it does not exceed, knowing the imperfect that we have the intrinsic power of beings and their external conditions of action, exposes us to perplexities, and, if we are not attentive, to contempts on the true borders of nature and the supernatural.
Much more, the supernatural appearing where nature expires, there are two phenomena, one of one order, the other of a different order, separated by an imperceptible line, and the second of which seems to be only the natural sequence of the first. Who sees how difficult the distinction will be and how easy the error will be? When you travel by rail at night, you can't see the bridge that connects the banks of the river or the banks of the valley. Similarly, natural facts can have as a trait of union or as a crowning of supernatural facts, without it being easy to grasp the link. Everyone will pronounce according to his or her provisions and prejudices. Because they see nature, some conclude that everything in the series is nature; others, because, at one point, it is survivable.
They are indisputable, will assert highly that he is on the whole line. The middle ground, which makes the part of each of the elements, will be excessively difficult to hold. Both are mistaken, and it was never more true to say that the truth is between the extremes.
Another peril: not only does any created nature suffer a limit beyond which it can do nothing, but the very development of the constitutive forces of a being is subject to external conditions, including the freeing of people into extranatural regions. But it may also happen that purely natural causes intervene unexpectedly, interrupt the regular course of things, and determine in the very sphere of the nature of jumps, leaps, to speak so, whose strangeness will make think, perhaps believe, of a miraculous intervention.
HI. — However, nothing should be overstated. These complications come out of the ordinary course of nature; they are anomalies whose very character warns that one must be kept in mind. The first movement would be to believe that one is no longer in nature, when one is still there; but to this first movement succeeds a cautious reflection that brings back to doubt and examination.
It is not therefore a question of getting into a general and detailed study of man and the beings that surround him; it is sufficient to point out the eccentricities and deviations that are confusing from the point of view of mysticism, to specify them, to bring them closer to the mystical facts with which they can be confused, and, by careful analysis of each other, to project their similarities and diversities.
These eccentric phenomena take on the appearances, sometimes of divine and true mysticism, sometimes of cursed counterfeits. We will be careful to indicate to which of the
These two forms refer to these analogies, and we will discuss to what extent the divine and the evil can mingle with the natural.
IV. — We have already made the point, two pitfalls are to be avoided here: to see the miracle in everything that breaks out extraordinary, and to deny absolutely the miracle by bringing it back to the extraordinary. One is no more reasonable than the other.
The vulgar, in whom ignorance sustains superstition, searches everywhere for supernatural signs which he imputes in turn to God or to the demon: a comet, a boreal aurora, an aerolith, are all promises or threats of the future. As soon as a disease breaks down, the cause is sought in magic malice, and if it has singular characters, it is not a mere intervention of the evil mind. A brain exhales and dreams of visions, ecstasy, divine communications; immediately the crowd rushes eager to contemplate this spectacle, and, without control or criticism, declares all wonderful, miraculous, divine.
Let us add that in fact credulity and ignorance the vulgar extends far. The very habit of faith, if it lacks light, can lead to illusion. We openly profess, and in this we are right, that God intervenes in all the events of the world, and that his action can even change the ordinary course of things. As soon as the extraordinary appears, one is tempted to see it as a miraculous departure from the regular walking of nature. Similarly, one believes in the evil role of the devil; as soon as an evil takes on certain proportions and becomes complicated by some singularity, one imputes to an occult influence of the evil mind: in a word, one sees everywhere the miracle, the miracle sometimes divine, sometimes evil.
V. — These aberrations of credulity are the beautiful part
To the unbelievers determined not to admit a supernatural. For them, the supernatural is all that the human crowd shone with a mixture of unanticipated whirlwinds from nature, ignorance, stupidity or deceit on the part of man. And the examples abound to support this odious interpretation.
It is true that the facts in the opposite direction, that is, truly supernatural, are also in large numbers, and remain what they are. When he encounters those who refuse to comply with the theories of denial, the secret energies of nature are alleged, abnormal disturbances, morbid states above all; for, to the doctors especially, become today the supporters of unbelief and impiety, returns the main part in this work of negation and false science. They believe that they act as masters on all the embarrassing cases in which they refuse to see the supernatural, cataloguing them among the physiological and pathological phenomena that emerge from their art, as if the sum of the human infirmities that they are powerless to heal, and even to qualify, was not already considerable enough. Using Greek words, they classify what they do not know or are determined to ignore, and that is enough for them.
The work that we have completed has condemned us to read much, to read detestable things; but, as we sadly declare, nothing has seemed to us systematically incomplete, false, empty, disgusting, to legal medical elucubrations in order to elude the supernatural and to challenge any extrahuman intervention, either divine or evil. Each step, we find so-called demonstrations that ultimately return to arguments such as these: There are fools who think they are under evil domination; therefore all demoniacs are only fools.—When you dream, you think you have visions; therefore
# 2e k z t D: TAIAN
When one has visions, one dreams. — Hysterics take hallucinations for divine manifestations or diabolical obsessions; therefore what is called divine manifestations and diabolical obsessions is the fruit of hysteria. — Catalepsia strikes immobility like ecstasy; therefore ecstatics are only patients with catalepsis.
What about such a pitiful logic?
That is not all, when the extranatural phenomenon does not find an equivalent in the pathological dictionary, as it happens, for example, for stigmas, we use an elastic genus that lends itself to ill-defined diseases, such as neurosis, and, to qualify the species, we will create a word of circumstance: the evil of stigmas will be called a stigmaitic neuropathy!
At other times, this very controversial thing is laid down in principle, and the deduced consequences of these improvised axioms are declared obvious. Thus, you will be told with the most perfect assurance: the facts of magnetism are purely natural, and exclude any intervention superior to man; but, we continue, there is no mystical prodigy which, from near or far, does not bind or: confines itself to magnetic experiments; and we conclude: therefore it is superfluous to seek out of the human enclosure the interpretation of mystical phenomena; forgetting to prove that all mystical manifestations have their similar forms in the games of magnetism, and that from this similarity one can infer the equivalence of the two. orders. In the series of magnetic phenomena, it is certainly some which are or can be natural; but it is also some which, despite the analogies and the
1 See Medical report from Dr. Warlomont on Louise Lateau's stigma. Bulletin of the Royal Belgian Academy of Medicine, 1875, 3rd series, t. 9, p. 277-299.
The appearances, accuse an invisible agent operating in -Tman or on man.
Moreover, whether it is magnetism or anything else, good faith and true science require that the facts be set out, not by making a triage favourable to premeditated conclusions, but by sincerely and resolutely addressing the most characteristic circumstances, the most contrary to the preferred system, and then by establishing, and not only to affirm, that these facts, in what they have exorbitantly, do not go beyond the human sphere. Until then, we must refrain from deciding on the character of the phenomena, and we must not establish in certainty what is by no means demonstrated. That doctors repeat their assurance before a client who escapes from them must be forgiven; but a similar attitude, in the presence of true theses that cannot support the test of a fair discussion, is not suitable for serious and honest minds.
The language violence that many allow against Christianity and mysticism, is less indicative of full certainty than the lack of evidence. They do not tolerate above all that they are reminded of their competence and that their at least strange claim to represent science is rejected. "But," I will be told, "that is the objection that one of them poses in the midst of virulent declamations against stigmatized and ecstatic, where ignorance disputes with paedantry," you go out here from your domain and invade another, that of Christian mysticism. What you rank among the hallucinations is precisely the reality, the expression of religious truth. I don't accept that limit we want you to have.
1 Dr Croco, Discussion on mystical diseases. Bulletin de l'Acad. royal de Belgique, 1875, 3rd series, t. 9, p. 750, 751.
to impose; science does not recognize any other than the weakness of the human mind, and nothing is alien to its domain... This leads to a word of Christian mysticism, whose ecstasy is the pivot and support. No more than ecstasy, mysticism belongs exclusively to Christianity. Mysticism is, like ecstasy, of all times and places. Jews, Greeks, Egyptians, Hindus, Buddhists, had their mystics as well as Christians; and all these mystics are surprisingly alike. Science is in no way confused in their presence; it has a square ready to house them; it sees nothing other than sick brain products, and it refers them to psychiatry (sic), from the fakirs to Saint Teresa, and from the returners of the Middle Ages to the mediums and spiritists of the 19th century. What strikes us, moreover, is the infertility of all this thaumaturgy from the scientific and humanitarian point of view. Never has it been the starting point of any progress, etc." — Let us stop this tirade, quite in the tune of the diatribes produced to mysticism by medical fanaticism.
Dr. Charcot and his assessors at the Salpêtrière have surpassed each other in their attacks on miracle and mysticism. To hear this world, they alone have science, reason and spirit. We understand the indignant verve of the believer and scholar, Mr. Imbert-Gourbeyre, wiping this intolerant interference:
"The school of Salpêtrière became the hysterical school, hysteria being its raison d'être, the teacher having hysterized all the pathology.
"More seriously, Charcot, a free thinker of the sectarian genre, commits the fault of leaving his role and com-
1 Stigmalisalion, t. 4 p. VI
_petency. He wanted to use hysteria and hypnotism to break the supernatural facts, such as stigma, divine ecstasy, the miracles of Lourdes, demonic possessions; he had to fail scientifically. In all these questions of higher order, he, his students and lieutenants did nothing but spread their ignorance, their impotence; some, their bad faith. Masters and disciples ventured on a ground unknown to them; they ignored and wanted to ignore that, for the supernatural order facts, there existed an experimental science entirely made, mystical theology. They would have had to consult, question the first observers, inquire into the facts presented by them: it was all justice.
"To support their thesis, the Salpetrians have contented themselves with pure assertion, with the assertion without evidence. Rarely are such serious issues dealt with with with such overt care and lightness."
Let's go ahead and add that doctors are not alone in allowing these illogical attempts; they have a legion with them. Among the writers who took on the task of popularizing anti-religious negations, the palm is, on equal merit, returned to MM. Alfred Maury +, Louis Figuier?, Ernest Bersot*. A false display of philosophy, criticism, natural science and history, an air of disdainful impartiality, the calculated attenuation of facts to explain, and the counterfoot of the true principles of solution, all this, combined with an attractive and literary form, makes their books the most dangerous in the species, and did not
1 Magic and Astrology, 1 vol. in-12. — Sleep and Dreams, 1 vol. in-12.
2 Ilistory of the Wonderful, 4 vol. in-12.
3 Mesmer and animal magnetism, rotating tables and spirits, A vol. in-12,
little contributed to accrediting to an already warned public against the supernatural the paralogisms of unbelief.
VI. — For us, it is between the excessive claims of the too gullible believers and the extreme negations of the unbelievers and sceptics that we would like to stand, seeking and showing the truth, not only by general considerations insufficient to remove the practical difficulties, but in the calm discussion of the particular forms that give rise to confusion and error.
These equivocal forms, which recall and complicate mystical facts, are grouped under the statements of the causes that determine them; and these causes, it is in Phomme or around man that they must be sought.
The error that man imposes or suffers himself in relation to the facts of mystical appearance, is voluntary or involuntary. When it is the result of conscious machination, it is simply imposture. The case comes together quite frequently for us to make a special mention of it.
Apart from imposture, the causes of error may come from physiological or psychological constitution, from habits contracted, from certain diseases, and finally from artificial excitation.
When we have exhausted this list, our task will be completed.
Imposture is common in the errors that affect mysticism. — We fake the evil scenes. — We simulate divine favors, revelations, ecstasy. Example narrated by Zacchias. — Under these appearances natural diseases are hidden. — The devil mixes more than once his lies with those of man. — Diabolical imposture of Madeleine de Cordoba. — The motive of these artifices is in human passions. — Prodigious example misled by pride. — The ploys of voluptuousness, greed, the desire to molester explain many wonderful things. — Difficulty of making the right share of imposture and unconscious illusion.
I. — The number of those who have used the artifice of bad faith to simulate the divine supernatural or the evil prestiges is great. Sometimes the impostor keeps a deep secret; those only penetrate him who have the divine gift of discernment of the spirits or sufficient natural finesse; ordinarily there are third parties who protect the deception and make themselves as the matchers of these scenes of lie.
II. — Most of the so-called sorcerers and magicians are but vile charlatans, who abuse the vulgar and have no common with the demon but trick and daring. To satisfy greed and get out of misery, there are no manoeuvres that are not used. We accuse the devil of completely imaginary calamitous misdeeds, and we
exploits public compassion by lamentable tales forged at leisure. The ungodliness that seeks to mock the faith in the invisible world, and more often the evil pleasure that believers themselves give themselves to scare shy, reckless, or bragging people, have made imagine mysterious, tumultuous, comical, and more tragic scenes, whose evil spirits are supposed to be the authors. We go so far as to simulate possession! to show ourselves, exploit the crowds, default and ridicule the use of exorcisms.
II. — Mystical favours are even more frequently, on the part of man, the objective and occasion of his lies. He invents God's revelations in their dual form of visions and words without shame. Hence so many vain and ridiculous prophecies running around the world, worrying weak heads, and sometimes surprising serious minds. Undoubtedly, one is not obliged to add faith to the words of the first revealed come, and prudence requires waiting for evidence; but often from the outsides of virtue and holiness, from the so-called miracles that lack all control, from the predictions that are already proclaimed, impose, not only on the simple and the eager, but more once to the very skilled. The first seduced are usually confessors, too confident in the people they lead, and misled by a secret satisfaction of having under their leadership souls called to extraordinary ways.
Frightened ecstasy is not unheard of. Zacchias, the learned doctor-legist, had seen with his eyes a Sicilian, whose deceit was known to him, performing in the churches,
Cf. Monkeys, Mystique, 1. 6, c. 11, t. 4 p. 165-178.
Quæst. medico-legal., 1.3, title. 2, q. 6, n. 8, t. 2, p. 133: Vidi ego mulierem mihi satis notam, quae se, ubi frequens hominum coetus in templis sacrisk locis convenisset, raptam in ecstasim efingebat, and admiration
in front of an ebash audience, at this sacrilegious game with amazing perfection. She was contravening the ecstasy for an entire hour and beyond, her arms on the cross, her eyelids still, her eyes fixed, sometimes standing and as ready to sprung out of the earth, bringing the brightness of the flame and the paleness of death to her face in turn. The spectators shouted at the miracle and holiness, while I, the author adds, could not help but laugh, and the naughty was mocking in herself even more of this stupid crowd.
IV. — He meets who, under these false appearances of ecstasy, conceal attacks of epilepsy, catalepsy, or fainting due to any other natural cause. In the second century, it was the tactic of the infamous Montan, and later that of Mohammed, one and the other subjects to epilepsy. Gerson t, whose authority in mystical matters is so considerable, quotes at the end of his treatise of
non parva dignum erat quam suitable simularet. Stabat extensis brachiis in crucis modum, palpebris immobilibus, oculis fixis, and per horæ spatium ac ultra eo in actu perseverabat; interdum veluti ad coelum volatura and in aerem se elevatura corpus tollebat, illud mirum in modum extendens. Sed admirationem omnem superare mihi visum est quod vultum in mille colores vel ictu oculi immutaret; nam modo rubescebat et quasi ardore quodam incendi viebatur, modo adeo pallescebat ut quasi emortua languageret; denuo ac dicto citius rubore perfundebatur, ac denique veluti animo deficiens ad seipsam re dire simulabat, ita ut circumstantes omnes eam divino raptu prehensam pro sancta venerarentur..., non sine mei ipsius risu, et mullo majori, ut credo, ipsiusmet fæminæ derisu, quam ego quidem intus and in cute agnoscebam. Erat autem Sicula.
1 Doctrinarum examination, ad fin., t. 4, Col 49: Recitatus is nuper Lugduni Galliæ coram clero process cujusdam muiieris delatæ et detentæ Burgi in Bressia... Hæc mulier sub pallio devotionis and revelationum fingebat mirabilia. Astruebat enim se ess unam de quinque foeminobus missis a Deo, compassisive pro redimendis innumeris animabus de inferno. And jam sua collusione subdola deceperat in religione illa quam plurimas simplifices mulierculas. Sciebat viendo frontem peccata quae fecerat unusquisque; hoc enim, secundum Augustinum, etiam diaboli malitia scire potest and am revelare... Habebat... duos carbons in pede, which eam aflixerant quotiescumque aliqua anima ad infernum descendisset. Quotidie tres animas ab inferno liberavit, unam vel dues sine difficultate, aliam
Ü Ü Ü Ü Ü: THE ANALOGIES OF THE EXAMINATION OF THE DOCTRINES, A case of this kind which made great noise in Bourg, in Bresse, and in the surrounding countries. In the year 1424, a woman was arrested in this city and was judged to have long been accused of having deceived the public by false revelations and impudent immunities. She gave herself for one of the five women appointed by God to sympathize with the sad fate of the damned and to redeem them from hell. At the simple inspection of the forehead, she guessed each other's sins. She had two coaly abscesses at her foot, whose pains doubled every time a soul descended into hell. Every day she delivered from the dark abyss one or two souls without difficulty, three or more with more pain. Frequent delights drew him admirable secrets; his life was a continuous abstinence and a constant wonder. These extravagances of assertions and conduct led her to refer her to ecclesiastical judges, who were deceptive of the public. These so-called ecstasy were nothing more than a crisis of evil. Applied to torture, she confessed that greed and poverty had pushed her into these juggleries, retracted everything that was desired, and at this price obtained life saved.
V. — Gerson notes that some of these perfidies could indeed be the work of the demon. It is not uncommon, in fact, for the lying angel to mix his game with human deceptions. Sometimes it is he who makes his offers and throws into the ways of imposture; sometimes he helps the hypocrite in distress or in search of wonderful. Of all
seu alias cum poena majori ut icebat. Mentis quoque exessus seu extaticos frequencer habebat, in quibus mirabilia per revelationem didicerat. Eratque mire abstinentiæ, singularissimæ etiam vitae... Poenis ut torqueretur est addicta, queæ omnem veritatem confessa est, qualifier prædicta cupiditatis occasione finxisset, ut hoc modo se nutriret et suæ paupertati sournet. Inventa is insist morbum caducum habere, ac eumdem sub extaticis excessibus quos finxerat palliares
examples of such an agreement between man and demon
. to lie in concert, it is no wonder that
that of Madeleine de la Croix, or Cordoba, so called
of her name of religion, and of the place where she became famous by her crimes and misfortunes.
Born to poor parents in Aguilar, Spain, about 1487, she entered the convent of the Franciscans of Cordoba, already preceded by a singular reputation of virtue, and took the habit there in 1504. The opinion of his holiness only increased, so much so that the first figures of the kingdom: cardinals, bishops, nuncios, princes, dukes, scholars, religious of all orders, wanted to see and maintain it. The Empress, the wife of Charles-Quint,
_send his portrait, the more the hat and the baptism dress of the infant, still unborn, and which had to be Philip IT, so that Madeleine would bless them. She called him in her letters her dearest mother, and the happiest creature in the world. " She was spoken of in almost all of Christendom, and there was no doubt about her merit or holiness. The preachers praised her in the pulpit; each paid her the same tribute, either in public or in particular," as a person of good standing attested! to the trial that brought down so many illusions.
Elected abbess in 1533, and re-elected suddenly in the next two elections, she multiplied her prophecies, her wonders, with so much brightness and abundance that it seemed necessary to build up the public by writing her life and spreading it to profusion. The so-called saint wanted to put the seal on her reputation by persuading her entourage that she had no food other than the divine Eucharist.
It was the pitfall of his glory. His sisters, who were watching, perhaps with a jealous eye, saw each other during his last
1 Cf, LiorenTe, Hist, critic of the Inquisit., Ch. 46, a. 4, t. 2, p. 105.
And their concerns increased by learning from one another of the counsels and words that made a mind different from that of God suspect. They informed the superiors, but they treated all these words as slanders. The nuns did not, however, in the subsequent elections of 1542, dismiss the abbess so many times elected, but now considered unworthy. She, for her part, replied to the act which deprived her of authority by having, at her own discretion, with the exception of the sisters, abundant alms which came to her from all sides, and which she had so far used to build the convent and to provide the community.
God's time was about to ring. The following year, 1543, Madeleine fell ill, and her doctor warned that she should prepare for death. The confessor was ordered. When she saw him, she was seized with a tremor, which spread fear around her. She asked to postpone her confession the next day. But, the next two days, as soon as the confessor appeared, the convulsions resumed immediately, which suggested that the cause could be supernatural. When questioned by the virtue of the exorcisms, the demon declared himself, and said that he was a seraphim, master of Madeleine almost since his birth, that he would not leave her and sooner or later take her to hell, that he had with him a companion and under him several legions.
On this data, the confessor asked the patient and somed her, in the presence of the whole community, to pay homage to the truth, in order to save her soul. She then began her confession, which she then retracted and again took them, and finally confirmed them before the commissioners of the Holy Office. We borrow from Llorente!
1 Hist. crit. de l'Inquisition, ibid., p. 106-110.
extracts from the minutes of this legal confession, warning that this odious historian of the Spanish Inquisition erases as much as he can the traces of the supernatural; we will see that still remains.
Madeleine de la Croix was only five years old, when for the first time "the devil appeared to him in the form of an angel of light, and announced to him that she would be a great saint, urging him to lead a devoted life from that moment on. The demon repeated several times in the sequel the same apparitions. He presented himself to her one day under the figure of Jesus Christ crucified, and told her to crucify herself like him, which she did with nails that she shoved into the wall. When the evil angel had told him to follow him, she obeyed, but fell to the ground and broke two ribs; the devil healed her by pretending always to be Jesus Christ... Another day, the demon, who always gave himself to Jesus Christ, took her as his wife, and touched her two fingers as a sign of the covenant, telling her that they would not become greater, which had proved itself and had given her a commitment to speak to everyone about this accident as a miracle. When she reached the age of twelve, she was already holy, and in order to preserve this reputation she did many good works and false miracles. She then saw demons, who had taken the form of several saints who she honoured with a particular devotion, among others St Jerome, St Dominique, St Francis and St Anthony; she kneeled down in their presence, believing that she would do so in front of these same saints. Sometimes it seemed to him to see the Most Holy Trinity or other extraordinary things, and all this increased in her the desire she had to pass as holy."When this vanity had become dominant in her soul, the demon showed himself to her under the figure of a beautiful young man, told him that he was one of the fallen seraphim.
And that he had been with him since the age of five. His name was Balban; he had a companion named Python. He told her that by persevering in the life she had begun, she could enjoy with him all the pleasures that her mind would conceive of thought, and that he would take care to increase the reputation of holiness that she had already made. Madeleine submitted herself to what was proposed to her, provided that she would not be condemned for ever, which Balban did not hesitate to promise her. This promise was followed by an express pact with the demon, by which she undertook to follow his advice. Since then, the demon had served him as an incubator....
"Having taken the habit of a nun, when already her reputation of holiness was well established, she used to cry out at the time of receiving communion, and to make ecstasy that the other nuns took as true. In one of these delights he was pierced with pins, to see if she would appear to be sourfir; indeed she experienced severe pains, but without testifying to anything, so as not to harm the good opinion of her. The same pattern led her to crucify herself several times in her cell, to injury herself in her hands, in her feet and in her side, and then to show them in certain festive days.
"With the help of her demon, she came out of her convent from time to time, came to the Franciscans' convent or to some other, saw all that was done there, and then told what she had seen, to make it seem that she had knowledge of the secret things. During these trips, one could not see his absence in the convent, because then Python, Balban's friend, took the form of Madeleine, and was everywhere in his place... One day, while she was in the choir with the nuns, her demon entered under the figure of a dove, and came to herself.
Putting herself close to her ear; she told the nuns that the Holy Spirit was, and then they bowed down to worship...
"She wanted to make it grow during the space of eleven years that she did not eat anything and took for all food only the Holy Eucharist; false assertion, since during the first seven years she ate bread and drank water without being seen, helped by some nuns her confidants, and that during the last four years she had eaten various things that were found to be able to provide her."
Simon Maiolo, considers more impartial and otherwise enlightened than Llorente in questions of mysticism, adds to this account other peculiarities which attest even better the intervention of the demon in this strange life. We pass them under silence, as well as several facts told by Llorente himself, What we have just reported is enough to demonstrate how far the agreement of man and Satan can bear the lie!
For the morals of this story, however, let us add the following:
"Madeleine was condemned (by the Holy Office) to leave her prison in nun's clothes and without veil, the rope on her neck, a gag in her mouth and a candle lit in her hands; to go to the cathedral of Cordoba, where a scaffold would be prepared for the ceremony of her autodafé, on which she would hear the reading of her judgment and her motives, as well as the sermon of use; to be locked in a convent of nuns of order of Saint Francis, outside the city; to spend there the summer of her days, without veil and deprived of the right to vote...;
1 S. Maioro, Dies canicul., sagi. t. 2, p. 287. — See Bona, Discr, spir. +19, Ip 311.
to communicate only after three years, if this is not in case of a serious illness; and if she lacked to any of the articles of her judgment, she should be regarded as relapsing, and as having abjured the holy Catholic faith."
VI. — Whether man manoeuvres alone or uses evil expeditions, the motive of these fireworks is in the various human passions. What continued Madeleine de Cordoba through all the ploys of her hypocrisy, if not the satisfaction of vanity and lust?
Pride, the immoderate desire for fame, vain complacency often inspired these tactics of lies. One of the most prodigious cases in this case is that of a doctor from Peru called François de la Croix.
He had the reputation of a pious priest, of a scholar theologian, of a prodigious man. He met a false devotee, Berthe, for his misfortune, who made him
1 LLrorente, Hist.crit. de l'Inq., p. 113.
2 Josepn a Cosra, from Novassimis temporibus, I. 2, c. 11: Fuit in hoc Peruensi regno vir magni pro illo tempore æstimatus, doctus theologus ac theologus professor, idemque catholicus ac pius diu habitus ac pene tunc hujus orbis miraculum. Is, familiaritate mulierculæ cujuspiam, quae se edoceri ab angelo magna quaedam mysteria jactabat, quae extra se interdum rapiebatur aut rapi simulabat..., ita devinctus est ut illam de summis theologiae queæstionibus sæpe consulteret, in omnibus pro oraculo haberet, magnis. revelationibus plenam and Deo valde charam prædicaret, satis alioqui sorddam and perexiguo sensu præditam, nisi ad instruenda mendacia... Ile theologus, quod e muliercula magna et mira de se audiret, ac mullo grandiora futura conciperet, libenter ei se discipulum addixit, cujus patrem spiritualem agebat. Quid multa, eo abductus is homo ut miracula facere tentaret and proud sibi persuadeet, cum miraculi vestigium only held thatexstaret. Ob haec, et quod propositiones aliquot ab illa prophetissa accepisset a sensu catholicæ Ecclesiae alienas, a sanctissimæ Inquisitionis judicibus, toto hoc regno stupente, comprehensus est. Ibi per quinquennium fere auditus, toleratus, examinationatus, ac tandem patefactus is homo omnium superbissimus ac insanissimus.. Serio affirms se et regem futurum and Pontificem summum, Sede Apostolica ad haec regna translata; concessam quoque sibi sanctitatem super omnes angelos et choros cælestes atque Apostolos omnes; quin etiam oblateam sibi a Deo unionem hypostaticam, sed ab ipso non essesam, etc.
9 increased his dreams or lies, and threw him himself into even greater illusions. She said she was in a usual relationship with a heavenly spirit, from which she received wonderful confidences in evil or simulated ecstasy. She persuaded her director, who had become her disciple, that God called her to the highest destinies. He was to be king first and pope afterwards; better still: the world's Redeemer to restore the Church and perfect the work of Christ, by abolishing confession and ecclesiastical celibacy, by allowing polygamy, and by other similar reforms. He would only have wanted him to be God, accepting the offer of the hypostatic union; but he had modestly declined it. Nevertheless, it was by the fullness of grace and the brilliance of holiness above the Apostles and angelic choirs. The miracles he thought he was doing, which no one saw, were the guarantors of his divine mission.
This holy man began to draw all this out in his preaching, and more than a hundred propositions were gathered that felt heresy or absurdity. He was denounced to the Inquisition of Quito. He was tried to disappoint him and to obtain a retraction: he amazed his judges by his departures, his knowledge of the Scriptures, and even more so by his imperturbable assurance. The prospect of the last torture could not make him bow; he announced, among other things, that when he went up on the stake the fire of the sky would fall upon the Inquisition. There was nothing; the Inquisition remained intact, and the poor fool was burned.
VII. — The voluptuousness, too, is often hidden under mystical appearances, seeking unexpected and effective means of seduction, makes it an impenetrable veil to the simplicity of the vulgar, often even to the insight of the directors; the more shameful the fall, the more mysterious it envelops.
Llorente! reports a scandalous case revealed before the court where he himself served as secretary. A provincial of capuchins, who lived in Cartagena, New Granada, and enjoyed a great reputation for virtue, was brought from America to Spain, and referred to the Madrid Inquisition, for perverting several of its penitents, alleging to them alleged revelations. Our Lord, he said to each one of them, had appeared to him and given him and her a dispensation from the law of continence, provided that he kept the most inviolable secret. That secret was heavy to wear. One of these girls, who had become dangerously ill, opened himself up to another priest and authorized him to awaken the inquisitors. Returning to health, she renewed her testimony before the commissioners of the Holy Office, adding with candour that she had not believed the truth of the alleged revelation, but that she had made a pretext to cover her passion. The inquisitor informed and discovered other harms.
The perpetrator was secretly arrested, taken to Spain and handed over to the Madrid inquisitors. He acknowledged the truth of the statements made against him, but began to maintain, with sufficient presence of spirit, that the revelations were no less true and that he had made me obey the orders of heaven, God being perfectly free, he said, to dispense him and these daughters from the sixth precept, as he had dispensed Abraham from the fifth, when he commanded him to take away his son's life, and the Hebrews from the seventh, when he authorized them to steal the things of the Egyptians. His judges warned that this defence system could only lead him to his loss, and urged him to renounce it. He renounced it, first of all by alleging that he
1 critical list of the Spanish Inquisition, ch. 28, a. 2,t. 3 p. 44-51.
had been able to delude himself, and at last confessing without detours his machinations and perjures.
Alvarez Pélage rightly says that women are even more skilled in these kinds of tricks, and points out in particular an unfortunate one who had imposed them on himself and the most experienced men, through his out of piety, his visions, his delights, and in secret a return from his debauchery t.
Coupidity, in fact, should not be mentioned last in the enumeration of the evil instincts that push man to simulate the supernatural. The number is large, of those who speculate and speculate on the pious or superstitious credulity of the crowds. By the example reported by Gerson, 11 would be easy to add many more, and our century, apparently so disdainful of the supernatural, is not the least fertile in miracles and surprises of this kind. These stories would teach us nothing, except the tricks of one another and the ineptitude of the other.
It is a fact of experience that hysterics have a singular propensity to lie; when their mind is turned to mystical illusions, it is not inventions that they imagine and assert with unsurprising assurance.
Injured pride, jealousy, hatred, the desire to molester make imagine heavenly or demonic interventions, which mislead by insinuations or throw away
1 From Planctu Eccles. 1. 9, c. 45, § 9, f. cxxx1: Quædam earrum spiritum fingentes, and raptum and simulant ecstasim, and prophetizant and divinant, mulat lucrantur et mullos decipunt, ad quorum restitutionem tenentur, quia per fraudm, lucratæ sunt. Quarum unam ego cognovi, habentem raptum ad placitum, and fornicantem in occulto ad libitum. Cujus post mortem, filiam vidi monacham, quam de fornicario habuerat, quae mihi illud facinus revelavit matris quam longo tempore deceptus honoraveram..., nec ego solus et alii inferiores, sed multi prælati, and sancti religiosi et multi etiam cardinales, in qua recte se transfiguraverat angelus tenebrarum in angelum lucis.
in cruel alarms. Man has less trouble than he says to admit divine favors, and he loses capacity when he believes himself to be plagued by the wrath of heaven or the mcnacles of hell. Imposters and maliciouss have the door open to sow false joys or imaginary terrors around them; the spirit of invention and boldness are sufficient for such effects.
The unhealthy pleasure of discrediting genuine miracles has made us try more than once to impose temporary subreptices: after having surprised public credulity, we reveal the trick; and, from the false miracle, we argue against the true miracle, against the miracle in general. It's a kind of logic that honest people don't know. Like the fact told by Mr. Boissarie, the leading doctor responsible for Lourdes' medical findings:
"I remember," he said, "having seen during the national pilgrimage a strong, robust, colourful woman who wanted us to see that she had been cured of three deadly diseases: cancer, a cyst of the ovary, a white tumor of the hip. His doctor, a Jew, said that he had found these three diseases on her. (was a lot, it was too much. His embodiment, his good look, all told us that if this woman had been sick, long ago. The trap was too rude. We had some trouble driving it away; it absolutely wanted to be classified as miraculous."
VHI. — Let's add a last word. Between premeditated imposture and unconscious illusion that is abusing, there are imperceptible intervals and nuances, which sometimes draw closer to one of these extremities and sometimes to the other. Often the two things get mixed up in the same person
1 Lourdes, Medical History, 1891.
25 and the same life: illusion on one point, lie on another; deceit and bad faith first, in the sequel aberration and a kind of intimate persuasion. The very habit of lying weakens the spring of truth, and there are professional liars who seem to be mistaken themselves in the things they invent.
From there, in many encounters, a real difficulty in assigning the right proportions of imposture per se. But as soon as there is a mistake, whether it is deliberate deception or unconscious illusion, whether the respective part of man and that of the demon remain undecided, it does not matter: it is enough to know that God is not there.
The unconscious illusions take their source in the human compound. — The temperament can be for many in these scorns, mainly melancholic, and also nervous and blood. — These various complexions do not exclude mystic graces. — Women are particularly suspicious in fact of mysticalism; they are nevertheless the ordinary subjects of these wonders. — Childhood and old age are exposed to illusions; however, no age is a stumbling block to the extraordinary supernatural.
I. — Man deceives man by lying; but more often he deceives others and deceives himself without his knowledge. The history of human illusions would be long; it is enough for us to have to recognize those that obscure mysticism.
By whatever nature, these errors take all their source in one of the elements that make up man, soul and body, or rather in the human compound itself; depending on whether it holds more from the body than from the soul or soul more than from the body, the cause that determines them is considered organic or spiritual.
I. — In the physiological order, temperament, sex, age, exert influences which, by accentuating, can lead to real mental aberrations.
We don't have to clear up the temperament or describe it.
his varieties, but only to see his share in mystical illusions.
Cardinal Bona*, formulating the rules for judging revelations, recommends that the body constitution be properly considered, because of its influence on morals, for those, he said, are easily delusional, who have a malady complexion, a vehement and agitated imagination, a black bile, a fruitful source of dark and false images that impress them and disturb them, to the point that on the eve they make dreams and imagine themselves seeing and hearing what does not affect their eyes or ears. And elsewhere °, speaking of false ecstasy, the same author assures that the temperament can provide certain clues that it is the nature that is at stake, if it is mainly the atrabilary temperament, whose effect is to absorb the mind on a point up to the abstract of all the rest.
The melancholic temperament is, in fact, generally pointed out by the authors as the most inclined to mystical illusions. Of its nature, it tends to the concentration of the mind and to the deviations of the imagination; it is understood that the abstraction of external things simulates ecstasy, and that the vivacity of the images raised in the mind makes the supernatural visions and revelations appear.
The nervous temperament, in which lim-
1 From Discr. spir. ©. 20, n. 3 p. 316: Consideranda corporis constitutio, cx qua plerumque animi mores pendant. Etenim facile decipi possunt, qui param firma valetudine utuntur, qui turbidæ ac vementis imaginatis sunt, qui aa bile abundant quae depravare phantasiam solet, variasque imaginées turbatis sensibus printe, adeo ut vigilantes sibi somnia fingunt, atque ea empire et autre existimant queæ nec visu nec auditu percipiunt. — Cf. Dr. Lnio, Disg. magic. 1. 4, C. 1, q. 3, S. 2, p. 125.
2 De Discrete. spir. ©. 14, n. 5, p. 280: Ex hominis quoque temperamento ccrtum ecstasis judicium proui potest; nam qui atra bile abundant, ita mentem uni objecto applicre solent ut a reliquis omnibus avocentur.
pressurenability and mobility, can give rise to the same scorn. Unexpected and deep concussion prints a sudden jerk that strikes the imagination, the exalted and shows him everywhere, in the trouble of his images, the extraordinary, the supernatural diabolical or divine, sad or joyful. according to the occurrences.
The blood temperament, a friend of pleasure and eager for caresses, is inclined by this slope to mystical sweetness, to spiritual suavities, and thus to the illusions of love.
HI. — From what these tendencies expose to error, from the conclusion that mystic graces never meet in the complexions that we have just reported, would be a ridiculous aberration. As we have said in determining the laws of contemplation, God takes counsel in his broads only of his mercy and goodness. The desires and impulses of nature cannot rise to these heights, nor do the antipathies of the temperament prevent them from being reached, when God pleases them to carry them. St Thomas! states the same doctrine concerning prophecy, and the same must be said of all other supernatural communications. The history of the holy souls admitted to these favors of divine grace, attests that it accommodates the most diverse complexions, and if one had to come to exceptions, it would not of course be with regard to natures that seem more in harmony with the phenomena of supernatural order.
IV. — Sex requires even more attention and vigilance, for, in fact, as a mystic, women are unanimously reported as suspects and subject to error. Their nervous, delicate, affective organization makes them more accessible to feeling than to reason, rather not to be able to do so.
1 Sun. 2.9, q. 172, to, 3,
their lives pass by to feel and love. Purer than man, when they are pure, they go to God with an easier impulse; and, weak, inconsistent, insatiable with emotions, is it surprising that they make themselves a haven, a support, a food? But, on the one hand, this relative weakness of mind; on the other, this urgent need for love exposes them to the surprises of illusion. So all mystics recommend to be wary of the extraordinary supernatural of which women are the subjects.
"They need to be treated more carefully," says Bona, "because this sex is all the more suspicious because it is weaker. Women are a damper temperament, and in the vehemence of their thoughts and affections, they imagine themselves seeing what they want. Moreover, what is born of the agitations of the spirit, very vivid in them, they believe it to come from the truth. Being less powerful on the side of reason, it is not difficult for Satan to use their natural weakness to deceive them first by various illusions, and then by them throw other people into error." — Having cited several examples in support of these principles, this learned author concludes as follows: "What I have just said is enough to inform and warn those who are in charge of the conduct of souls, so that they do not easily believe in the
1 De Discr. spir. c. 20, n. 4 p. 316: Major cautio erga foeminas adhibenda, quarum sexus eo suspectior is quo imbecillior. Naturæ sunt humidioris, and ex vehementia cogitationum et affectionuum putant se empirere queæ cupiunt, et quod ab animi perturbibus nascitur, quae in ipsis acerrimæ sunt, a veritate oriri credunt; cumque ratione minus pollerant, no est difficile diabolo earum nativa imbecillitate uti, ut eas primum variis illusionibus decipiat, et per easdem alios in errores inducat... Possem et alia multa attexere sequentium sæculorum exempla, sed hec abunde sufficiunt ad eorum instructionem et cautam qui animas regendes susceperunt, ne facile credant mulierum revelationibus, illis exceptis quas longa experientialia et diligenti examine probaverint a Deo esse.
revelations of women, except those they have recognized by a long experience and a very careful examination to be truly of God."
"We must remember," said Térèse! to his sisters, "that the natural weakness is great, especially in women, and that it is more revealed in this way of prayer; therefore, to the least thing that appears in the eyes of the mind, we must not imagine as soon as it is a vision."
What else will we say about and against women? We could quote a great deal and write at length, to claim the severity of the Bible, the sentences of philosophers, the requisites of moralists, making the woman the worst kind of beings; then, to be fair and true, to resume her praise in the opposite sense, in the name of Scripture, philosophy, morality, religion, leaving aside poetry, which might tell us more than it is appropriate to hear. What would follow, in the end, from these contradictory assertions, except that the woman, when following the slope of evil, will degrade, sávilize and surpass in wickedness the evil man; but also that the woman, good, generous, who is inspired by her heart, conscience, faith, is better than man and can become a subject of admiration to heaven and earth? And, to keep us in the order that is before us, it is a recognized point of all that it returns to the main, predominant part, not only of contemplation, as we have said in its place?, but of mysticism in general. Who would challenge it, would by that very way prove that the history of the saints is for him a sealed book.
In short, it remains to be remembered that the woman is sea-
1 Foundations, c. 8. 2First Part, Che 95 1.41, ps 142:
It is carefully organized for the supernatural life and the passive operations of the mystic, but also that, by its nature, it is weak, subject to illusion, to the feint itself and to hypocrisy; that it is therefore necessary to constantly guard against its impressions, its insinuations, its narratives, and to pronounce on the supernatural states of which it would be the subject only after slow trials and the most vigilant examination.
V. — Regardless of its intimate constitution, the body also feels the vicissitudes of age. Childhood and old age are periods of weakness. At the beginning of life, the brain, still tender, receives impressions with excessive vivacity, which, together with inexperience, often gives a body to purely imaginary representations. In decline, the organ of intellectual life escapes the empire of will, and the impotence of reasoning makes the floating images of the mind take for reality. The first impulses of fervour also expose teenagers and novices to illusions; they often take for supernatural manifestations the shaking of impetuous organization and the vivid paintings of an overexcited imagination!.
However, no age excludes mystical communications. As a child, the chaste Joseph saw his future greatness in symbolic form, and the patriarch Jacob, dying of caducity, unfolded in the eyes of his sons the mysteries of the future. Samuel, and later Daniel, received from childhood the prophetic mission, and exercised it.
1 Bona, De discr. spir., ©. 20, n. 3 p. 316: Plurimum refert... sitne senex aut puer; nam senes exhaustis viribus sæpius delirant; pueri autem, qui cerebro humidiori sunt, facile commoventeur et falsa pro veris apprehendun. Fraus etiam in incipientibus metuenda est; cito enim fallitur novitius fervor, præcipue in adolescentibus, quorum ardor nimius est, motus inconstantes, impetus præceps et frrenis. — Cf. Derrio, Disg, mag., l. 4, ©. 1, q. 3, sect. 2, n, 6, p. 125,
; St John the Evangelist reached the end of his long apostolate, when he was entrusted with the secrets of Revelation, and he wrote his gospel. The history of the saints shows us that they are visited by God, some in their early childhood, and others in the decrepitude of age. Let us read the lives of Blessed Hermann Joseph of Steinfeld, Blessed Suso, St Stanislas Kostka, Blessed Osanne of Mantua, Saint Rose of Lima, Venerable Agnes of Langeac, and then those of the famous cenobits, whom abstinence and prayer seemed to render immortal, of a Saint Anthony, of a Saint Hilarion, of a Saint Macaire, or of so many other saints and saints who have reached an extreme age; we will see with what charm God gives himself to the age of innocence, and with what increasing tenderness he abandons himself to his constants and faithful servants.
Therefore, if age is to be taken into account in the assessment of mystical facts, it is necessary to avoid turning these reservations of prudence into an exclusive rule and an absolute principle t.
1 See Scuram, Theol, myst., § 526, t. 2, p. 244.
poe a
Power and fertility of the imagination. — It feels like the state of gold-
— The various forms and degrees of the illusions to which it gives rise.— It does not exert any influence on the outside world. — The importance of this demonstration against unbelief. —
Would it play a part in remote efficiency, imagination cannot give reason to phenomena that exceed the natural reach of man.
I. — If the causes of illusion come from the organism, the field, in truth, is in the soul, in this part where the images of material things accumulate, and where the invisibles themselves appear only clothed with a body, in the imagination: fruitful power which evokes the visions of the past and creates new ones, separates or gathers the elements of things, multiplies beings and colors them in varying colors to the infinite; magical faculty which holds both the mind and the body, which turns spiritualizes the body and materializes the mind; trait of union Mysterious of the two worlds where the double nature of man melts into unity and harmony; angels by pure thought, body by body, we are one and the other, we become one and the other, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the other, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the other, the, the other, the, the, the, the other, the, the, the other, the, the, the, the, the, the, the other, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the other, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the other, the other, the, the other, the, the other, the other
No men by imagination. IV 3
Let's hear Fénelon describe this interesting aspect of ourselves; we will better understand the illusions that result from it. "I know all the bodies of the universe that have struck my senses for many years," he said, "I have distinct images of them that represent them to me, so that I believe to see them even when they are no longer. My brain is like a painting cabinet, whose paintings are moving and tidying up at the discretion of the master of the house. The painters, by their art, never reach but an imperfect resemblance; for the portraits that Jai in the head, they are so faithful that it is by consulting them that I perceive the defects of those of the painters, and that I correct them in myself. Do these images, more resembling than the masterpieces of the art of the painters, sink into my head without any art? Is it a book whose characters have been arranged by themselves? If there is art, it is not from me; for I find within me this collection of images without ever having thought to burn them, or to put them in order. But again all these images appear and withdraw as I please, without causing any confusion; I call them, they come; I send them away, they sink back, I know no place; they assemble or separate as I please. I don't know where they remain or what they are: however, I still find them ready.
"The agitation of so many old and new images, which wake up, which join, which separate, does not disturb a certain order that they have. If a few do not appear in the first order, at least I am assured that they are not far away: they must be hidden in certain corners. I do not ignore them as the things I may never know; on the contrary, I know confusedly what I am looking for. If any
1 Treaty of the existence of God, 41 P., c. 2, t. 4 p. 26,
other image appears in place of the one I called, I send it back without hesitation, saying: It's not you I need... The same person goes through my head several times: first I see her as a child, then as a young person, and finally as an elderly person. I place wrinkles on the same face where I see on the other hand the tender graces of childhood; I join what is no longer with what is still, without confusing these ends. I keep a I don't know what is in turn all the things I've known since I was in the world. From this unknown treasure come out all the perfumes, all the harmonies, all the tastes, all the degrees of light, all the colors and all their nuances: finally all the figures that have passed through my senses, and which they have entrusted to my brain...
"So these are two wonders also incomprehensible: one, let my brain be a kind of book where there is an almost infinite number of images and characters arranged with an order that I did not make and that chance could do... So what hand could have made him up? The second wonder I find in my brain is to see that my mind is so easy to read everything it likes in this inner book. He reads characters he doesn't know. I've never seen the fingerprints in my brain, and the substance of my brain itself, which is like the paper of the book, is completely unknown to me. All these innumerable characters are transposed, and then return to their rank to obey me. I have a power as divine over a work that I don't know, and that is incapable of knowing; that which hears nothing heareth my thought, and executeth it in the moment."
II. — The brain, in the thought of Fénelon, is only the instrument of imagination and memory, — two faculties that the perceptive psychologist gathers here, — as it is the instrument of all the operations of the mind. We're doing it.
understands, depending on whether the organ is more or less healthy and available, intellectual life is exercised with varying degrees of perfection and regularity. Imagination, in particular, feels the slightest disturbance of the body, and if the brain escapes the empire of will, the images go and come without follow-up like the leaves of a book abandoned to the whim of the wind, sometimes vivid and ardent in the same way as the most concrete realities, sometimes vague, undecided, floating like the dreams of the night.
Hence countless illusions, and, however admirable in its mechanism and its paintings, the imagination is no less a perpetual source of error for man. No, let's note it, that it never betrays the truth: the images it shows exist and are always true; but it is man who is mistaken himself by wrong judgments, by transforming these images into real objects, or by referring them to an external causation free: Tuitement or falsely assumed. The imagination presents an image, man makes it a reality; the imagination presents an image naturally hatched in the mind, man sees there the manifestation of an invisible power: error is not in the vision of the mind, it is in the judgment that follows it. It is therefore wrong to call the imagination the madman of the house; the madman is the master who claims more than he sees or what he does not see. It is at least indisputable that by judgment one regularizes the sensitivity £.
II. — We must now recognize the illusions of mysticism. From this point of view, the imagination can be divided into three classes: the intimate visions and impressions that do not exceed the {gold of the soul, the in-
1 Monrayene, Trials, 1. 4, ch. 20, t. 4 p. 78: I am one of those who smells very great eflort of imagination. Everyone is hit, but none are overturned. His impression pierces me; and my art is to escape, for lack of force to resist.
fluence on the organs, action on the outside world; in three words: the purely psychological power of the imagination, its power over the organism, its power out of the enclosure of the own body on foreign bodies.
The first aspect presents analogies with the inner phenomena of mysticism: contemplation in its multiple forms, visions and supernatural words.
The second embraces a multitude of organic eccentricities imputed to the imagination, among which many confine themselves to characterized mystical states, such as ecstasy and supernatural diseases.
In relation to the outside world, placed outside the enclosure of the soul and the body that it animates, the imagination is powerless to produce real effects; but if it does not realize them, it can represent them with a vivacity such as it is believed to see them, through a mental aberration called hallucination. Here, strictly speaking, there is no analogy, except for rationalists who, with the sole aim of removing all supernatural, bring back the external manifestations inexplicable by nature, to psychological errors.
It is therefore necessary to establish the indisputable objectivity of certain mystical facts, and as for those who consume themselves in the soul or locate themselves in the organs, to distinguish them from similar phenomena coming from the natural source of the imagination.
In order to proceed with increasing methodology and clarity, we will propose these questions in the order of their obviousness. However, while it is easy to establish that the empire of imagination over the outside world is null, it is less so to say what it can or cannot in the area of the body that it lives in, and much less to assign the limit that it cannot exceed in the purely psychological sphere. The examination of the influences on ex-
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Thus, in the first place, we will form the continuation of this chapter; we will study, in the next chapter, the effects exerted by the soul, by means of imagination, on the body that it animates, and, in the third, the intimate and subjective field of the imagination itself.
IV. — The point of view of external influences is subdivided into two assertions:
Imagination does not exert any action outside the enclosure of the soul and organs, and the effects it seems to present are merely mental illusions;
Even by giving the imagination objective and distant energies, it would not suffice to give reason to external mystical phenomena.
The reasoned discussion of these two points will, we hope, make it possible to distinguish the true mystic from the analogies of the imagination.
And first, imagination can't do anything about the outside world; the effects it seems to produce are purely illusory, and, if they are real, they must be brought back to another extrinsic cause.
This thesis is so obvious that she has met other contradictors than Paracelse and Pierre Pomponace, or, to put it better, Avicenne t, whose two charlatans repeated dreams. The strength of the imagination, according to the famous Arab philosopher, can go so far as to heal and make sick, at his will, the people whom it aims; much more, to make or prevent rain, hail, wind, snow, and in general all the phenomena of nature.
To make such assertions is to refute them, will we say. we after Benedict XIV?, and as he finds us by-
1 Naturalium, l. 4, ©. 6. 2 Serv. Dei beatific., 1. 4, P.1, c. ult., n.18,t. 4 p. 174: Retulisse et confutasse memoratam sensiam unum et idem prorsus esse vidétur.
39 made just the virulent exit of Théophile Raynaud! against these ridiculous utopias: "The whip or the fork," wrote the Jesuit scholar, "are the only arguments to use against these sornot distors, who attribute to the imagination the exorbitant power to fascinate or heal at a distance, to move things far away, to produce lightning, lightning and thunderstorms. Of course, these singular philosophers have never known sickness, either by themselves or in their friends; they have never missed treasures and riches; their imagination has given them everything they want." Further on, the same author, passing on to the stigmatic footprints that one would pretend to engrave, through the effort of imagination, on foreign bodies, describes this theory as a bad joke unworthy of a man of common sense. He was a hundred times right.
How, in fact, could the imagination, without leaving its enclosure, act on the outside world? Matter only changes under a direct or mediate impulse; yet the soul does not extend its action beyond the body it animates, and it only influences other bodies by its own?. God himself touches beings only by a
1 De Stigmatismo, €. 7 t. 13, p. 178: Digna sunt scutica vel etiam furca, quae alii blasterones eflicaciæ imaginais attributea volunt, ut fascinare, vel sanare procul positos, res disjunctas loco movere, ciere fulgura et fulmina, imbresque de coeælo devocare. Oportet profecto hos philosophastros, quibus pepo pro corde fuchet, nunquam ægrotasse, vel quos charos haberent, nunquam sinisse conlictari cum ægritudine, semper item abundasse thesaurus ac opibus, ad quae inhiat mortalium cupiditas. Potuerunt enim omnia illa, and quaecumque alia humanæ cupiditati optabilia, per imaginationem parare. Num vigilamus ista audiens...? Ut autem alieno corpore, præsertim abjuncto, imaginatio aliquid posit printe, vel utin corpore proprio homo, jam grandis natu, indicter posit aliquas notas, illudve præter naturam afficere interventu solius imaginalis, tam nugatorium est ut ferri ab homine sano non posit.
2 S. Tuomas, Sum. 1 P., q. 417, a. 3: Materiam corporalem immutare non possunt (angeli) naturali virtute, nisi applicando corporalia agentia ad performed aliquos progendos. Multo igitur minus anima sua virtute naturali potest immutare materialm corporalem, nisi mediantibus aliquibus corporbus.
positive act, and the fundamental proof of where one infers his immensity or his universal presence is that, by his creative virtue, he acts immediately on every existing one, and that this immediate operation logically presupposes presence.
What we say about imagination must also be understood by other psychological faculties and functions; but, in fact, there is reason to attribute an exceptional causality out of the mind only to the imagination, because it alone emerges misleading images that one takes for reality.
If, therefore, one has to justify external facts corresponding to psychological acts which give themselves for their causes, it remains, assuming this established connection, only one of these two hypotheses: or these phenomena are only apparent, and in this case one would be mistaken by taking for external realities what is only mental illusion; or these facts are real, and therefore one must conclude to the intervention of external causation proportional to the effect produced.
V.—The point where we are seems to us to be crucial and decisive for the demonstrations of mysticism against unbelief.
Basically, the whole question is: Is there sometimes, between a psychological act and an external fact, such an appearance of connectedness that it would seem to depend on that one, was there a manifest disproportion between the two terms; and this disproportion between the apparent effect and the putative cause does not obviously accuse an invisible agent that restores balance, or rather becomes the true cause of these results, human in appearance, miraculous in reality?
To establish, therefore, the existence of undeniable facts offering this dual character, on the one hand, to correspond
to well-known internal acts, and on the other hand to be in natural disproportion with the energy available to the mind that perceives them and the environment in which they occur, is to demonstrate the intervention of an extranatural agent, and thus demonstrate that there are truly miraculous facts. But this demonstration seems as easy as it is conclusive. Rationalism finds no other way to avoid it but to pass from one to the other of these two ends: to deny the objectivity of phenomena by bringing them back to unconscious illusions, or to ignore their supernaturality by imagining natural interpretations. But, at some point, the alternative becomes notoriously insufficient; for there are such external and public facts, that to see pure hallucinations there is to declare oneself hallucinated; and at the same time so far apart from the natural laws that the simplest common sense defends to give them for the work of nature.
Do we want some examples?
Were Moses and the Hebrews hallucinated when they thought they would walk through the Red Sea dry, and see with their eyes the waters suspended like two liquid walls? And if we have to admit the fact, what natural explanation will we find? The Jews, who felt the fetid smell that the body of Lazarus was exhaling, and then saw him rise to the voice of the Saviour, walk, live for many years, were they victims of a dazzling spirit, showing them Lazarus in turn dead and alive? And if the resurrection is certain, who is responsible for explaining it without resorting to the miracle?
When Saint Francis Xavier! appeared on the ship, begging the captain and the passengers to wait for the return of the lost sailors; and, far from there, on the boat
1.0f Part 2, c. 13; t. 2, p. 230.
22. © to the ship, where was the illusion? In the crew, who saw with his eyes the charitable apostle repeating his prayers and melting in tears, or in the fifteen shipwrecked, that his presence gave hope and life? And since the two-location is accepted as unquestionable, how will one interpret it according to the laws of the natural order?
When St Joseph of Copertino! took his flight, carried away by love, to the tabernacle or to the cross, before an assembly of brothers or faithful, will it be said that these witnesses were all equally hallucinated? And if they were not hallucinated, what natural principle will it be necessary to use to have the secret of these aerial ascents?
We could quote at length; that we should simply refer, as regards the supernaturality of the facts, to the marks previously assigned to the divine miracle?, and to the characteristic notes of the diabolical prestiges °.
As for the objectivity of the phenomena, we demand for mysticism only what is required to distinguish the external facts from the mental illusions, namely, the control of the senses by each other, and a sufficient plurality of testimonies excluding individual hallucination. If these guarantees are sufficient in ordinary cases, why would they not suffice when it comes to extranatural and mystical manifestations? Here, as elsewhere, bad faith alone demands double standards. The bodily appearances, the outer words, the sudden translations at a great distance, the countless wonders performed by the saints on the physical world, in these various ways that we have described, all the facts of this nature, sufficiently guaranteed, contradict the
1 See Part 2, c. 39, t. 2, p. 620, 606; c. 33, p. 660. 2 Chap. 3, t. 3. 3 Chap. 8.
Theory which brings the wonderful back to a psychological illusion.
VI. — Secondly, the imagination would be given remote efficiency, it would not be able to account for phenomena that go beyond the natural reach of man. The wonderful that man could not accomplish by direct and external action, he will be more justified forbidden when he has, in order to realize it, only the intimate effort of his thought, unless he admits that the results grow in proportion to impotence and inaction.
Has anything like this ever been measured? By putting all the resources of art into play, you could not heal such infirmity, congenital blindness, for example, the deep injury of an essential organ; and now, without doing anything, just by wanting and wanting this healing, you have come to the end of accomplishing it! You are absolutely unaware of what will be done in a distant time by free beings who are not yet; by looking into the current causes, you would not lift this veil of the future: and you will only have to dream within yourself, without any examination, without prior inspection of the existing things, to see what no man knows! You might try to fly through the spaces, only by the exercise of your limbs; you would certainly have the fate of the imprudent Icare; but imagine strongly that it pushes you wings and that you can win the air, that's enough; you will surpass the light and fast bird! You would torment the atmosphere in vain to put it in a state of storm; you would be laughed at and your efforts; but you will concentrate your thoughts powerfully on this object, and you will decimate the winds, you will set lightning and thunder in motion, you will open the cataracts of the sky!
It's enough to say these things to those who keep a tint of good faith and common sense.
So let us boldly conclude that the imagination is incapable of exerting any natural or extranatural influence on the outside world.
We still have to see what she can do about the body and in her own enclosure.
— Influence of the imagination on the organs, but not limitless. — Body disorders caused by the vivid paintings and impetuous movements of passions, mainly in the nervous system. — Organic disorders and lesions which the imagination is unable to produce. — Rationalist theory which makes stigmas the product of the imagination. — Absurdity of this hypothesis. — Vesifications and hemorrhages obtained by the hypnotic suggestion. — Stigma is not therapeutic. — Inscriptions and symbolic incrustations are also unrealizable by imagination. — What the imagination can heal. — In doubtful cases, caution forbids one or the other to assert or deny the miracle. — Double limit that the imagination does not pass: it never operates in an unconscious way; — it does not realize effects that exceed human power. — Summary.
I. — To deny the power of imagination on the human body would be to ignore the role of Pâme in organic life, and the backlashes that the organism refers to the soul. The soul is the vital, constitutive, perpetually active principle of the body that it inhabits; it is, according to the philosophical and expressive term, the form, the plastic and organizing form, and this, to consider not only the whole, but also each part and the detail of the various functions. This is how man is one in
the apparent duality of his being, and the variety of elements that contribute to the building of his organs and to the blooming of his powers. Union is so intimate that the body does not make any movement without the help of the soul, and the soul itself does not perform its most intimate operations without a prior exercise of the body. The echo of the organic shakes on the soul constitutes it in the state of sensation, and the rejailing on the body of intellectual life produces the feeling. Through physical sensitivity, the soul lives in the body, and through moral sensitivity, the body is associated with the life of the soul. The consciousness of this association goes unnoticed in the normal conditions of life: the soul flourishes in the feeling as if it were alone in feeling, and the body, in turn, seems to ask only to itself the sensations localized in its organs; at the bottom, one and the other work together.
II.—All mental faculties have their share of action and dependence in turn imposed and received; but none of them act more powerfully on the senses and suffer their influence more than the imagination. Each external concussion brings up an image that responds to it, and each inner image, appearing in the eyes of the mind, renews in turn, with more or less vivacity, the body shaking that has determined it.
"The organs of our senses," says Malebranche t, "are made up of small nets, which on one side end at the outer parts of the body and the skin, and on the other end towards the middle of the brain. Now these little nets can be moved in two ways, or starting with the tips that end in the brain, or with those that end outside. The agitation of these little nets that can communicate to the brain only the soul can see
1 Search for the Truth, 1.2, ch.14, t.1, p. 243.
47 something, if the agitation begins with the impression that the objects make on the outer surface of the nets of our nerves, and that it communicates to the brain, then the soul feels and judges that what it feels is outside, that is, that it perceives an object as present. But if there are only the inner nets that are slightly shaken by the course of animal spirits, or in some other way, the soul imagines and judges that what she imagines is not outside, but within the brain, that is, that she sees an object as absent. That's the difference between feeling and imagining."
Thus nerves are like messengers between imagination and senses, and it is difficult to establish a line of demarcation that reaches and does not exceed these reciprocal influences. Under the stroke of a fiery passion, the soul can communicate to the body an activity and resistance of which it would not be able in its normal state, as also to reduce it to impotence and inertia; and in turn, the body, overexcited and troubled, exalts or paralyses mental operations.
We will discuss, in dealing with diseases, the reactions of the body that go back to mind; at present we have in mind only the bodily influences exerted by imagination, and among these effects, those alone must occupy us, which are, so to speak, within our jurisdiction, by the analogies which they present with mysticism.
We do not have to conceal the strange anomalies that the imagination can determine in the organic system; but, so wide as the part is made, the limits imposed on nature are not Jarnese crossed by the sole effort of nature itself; when these barriers are exceeded, one is no longer in the presence of a physiological and natural phenomenon, but in a higher order and in the face of an extrahuman causalile.
Surprising things are told of the backlashes exerted by women's imagination on the fruit they bear in their breasts. During this physiological period of formation, the mother is one with her child, and it is understood, without being able to explain too much, that the vivid impressions felt by her are distasteful on the nascent organism that lives and makes itself of its substance. We do not have to deepen this point of view which is indifferent enough to mysticism; it is sufficient at present to discuss the action that the soul exercises through imagination on its own organs.
II. — By turning the passions into action through the vivid paintings she offers to the mind, imagination affects the body in a thousand ways. "The effect of any kind of passion," the famous Bichat rightly said, "is to bring about a change, some alteration in organ life." Under the blow of love or hatred, joy or sadness, the soul comes to simmer into the object that lurks or obsesses, to the point of losing the feeling of the things that surround it, and of deserting its members in a way, as it happens in ecstasy; the inner images can become so vivid that the nerves shake like a concussion from the outside; hence the danger of taking for real what is only imaginary: hallucination then replaces the outward appearance.
The power of imagination is even more evident in organic disorders, in diseases, usually to produce or exaggerate them, sometimes to cure them.
Everyone knows that because of feeling sick, you become sick, which is particularly true in neurosis or neurosis.
1 Physiological research on life and death, Paris, 1800, in-80.
49 disorders of the nervous system. The intimate connection between imagination and nerves explains these kinds of effects amply. One can even die from a real evil that has become real by being imaginary, or from an organic disorder caused by the shaking of the imagination. In 1750, the doctors of Copenhagen made an experiment as demonstrative as it was curious, on a criminal condemned to the torment of the wheel. He was told that his sentence was commuted to a much softer one, death by bleeding. He was taken to the place where the sentence was to be executed; there he was blindfolded, then he was plucked to the four limbs as if to open his veins, and the noise of four taps of water flowing into basins persuaded the patient that the blood was escaping from his body. Soon he was taken from cold sweats, syncopes, and after two and a half hours of this imaginary torture, he was seen exhaling in d'affirous convulsions.
Irrespective of any preconceived idea that first makes the disease believe and then brings it, violent passions have the immediate effect of throwing the disorder into the physiological economy, and very often result in a disturbance of the nervous system.
"In all these disorders of the organization, and often also because they cause and cause these disorders, moral causes must hold a great place for the study of the nervous state, let us read in a masterly treatise! on these kinds of diseases. In fact, they contribute to producing it in two ways: they tend, on the one hand, to alter the nutritional functions, from where the debilitating that we have spoken of, with or without anaemia or chlorosis, can follow; and, on the other hand, they exaggerate the nervous system.
1 Sanpras and Bounouexox, Trailed performs nerve diseases,
Threshold 1, 00h, Lt. lp; bo, IV A
"I think it is right to list among the first the most chronic moral troubles, sorrows, jealousies, envy, hatred, vagrancy, all these long passions that take hold of an intelligence, torment it incessantly, and occupy it despite the time, distraction, reason, consciousness; of which it has been rightly said that they gnaw those who are prey to it. Then the digestion languishes, the sleep is disturbed, the breathing suffers, and the resulting decay inevitably leads to the nervous state.
"In the second class, that of moral causes that exalt sensitivity, come to place all the living affections: anger, joy, seizing, the bursts of all fanaticism. This action would be almost zero in a non-predisposed subject. But, if suitable predispositions exist, the exaltation of sensitivity caused by these sudden movements is sufficient to decide a state that was still in power and had not had an opportunity to reveal itself.
Finally, the moral causes that I call mixed, because they are a mixture of acute and chronic moral conditions, and because their effects are double, depending on the state of the organizations they take over, and depending on the circumstances of good and evil, activity or demeanour that they involve. These are the passions of play, ambition, pride, love, the exaltations of fanaticism or religious, or patriotic, or philosophical. Here the action can be chronic, for it is passions that last; and acute, for they are full of peripets, anguish and surprises. Therefore, they determine double effects: they break a constitution unable to support them; they exalt, on the contrary, the one who feels strength to walk to the purpose of his desires."
These influences of passions on the body in general
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and on the nerves in particular, are therefore true; and when they do not present in themselves or in the way in which they declare themselves any indication of extranatural intervention, they can be attributed to the imagination, and explain them by the natural predominance of one over the other of the two elements that make up man.
IV. — But when the effect takes on such a character, when it begins and continues in such a way that it becomes unreasonable and ridiculous to impute the principle to the imagination, common sense requires that one resorts to another causality. For as long as you think about it, want it or fear it, you will not determine, according to your fears or desires, instantly or even in the long run, a local and external injury, an injury or a wound to your head, face, arms, feet. If we find ourselves in the presence of phenomena of this nature, we must leave man to be right.
V.—Stigma is obviously in this case. We have made it known in its place the multiple forms t, the circumstances, the true causes °; and if the reader takes the trouble to refer to these detailed descriptions, too long for us to repeat them in full here, he will easily convince himself how this order of phenomena is outside natural laws. We will recall what is sufficient to demonstrate that the imagination is powerless to achieve such effects.
We have already refuted the interpretation by which Görres tries to explain the stigmas by the action of the soul associated in a loving compassion with the sufferings of the divine Crucified: the theory which is substantially identical with that which attributes these fingerprints to the immigi-
1 Part Two, c. 24,t. 2, p. 500. 2 Ibid., c. 25, p: 484. 8 Jbid., c. 25, p. 485.
a little reflection and good faith, we will see without effort how free it is, and, we dare say, ridiculous.
Dr. Lefebvre t, de Louvain, in an extremely remarkable work on the subject before us, sums up the rationalistic thesis concerning stigma:
"The subjects predestined to ecstasy and stigma are usually people predisposed to neurosis, either by inheritance or by the vices of their education; their temperament is nervous, impressionable, often even they usually suffer from serious innervation disorders: they are hysterical women, hypochondriac men. Their constitution is weakened by fasts, macerations and all the rigors of asceticism. It is because the woman offers to a higher degree than the man this nervous susceptibility, that we see much more cases of ecstasy and stiginatization in the female sex than in the other sex.
"The subjects usually live in a mystical environment, where readings, interviews, images that they have before their eyes are increasingly exalting their religious tendencies, where the constantly-recalled example of Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Thérèse, Saint Catherine of Siena, exercises a real contagion on their minds. It is for this reason that these phenomena occur almost always in contemplative orders.
"The imagination of these people is lively and ardent; the heart is passionate, and he has not found a natural food in the tenderness of the earth. Their thoughts and affections are increasingly concentrated in a picful contemplation: ecstasy is established. But ecstasy is the complete empire of morale over physics; that, in this state, the
1 Louise Laleuu of Bois-d'Haine, her life, her exlases, her sligmales. Medically killed,
thought is fixed on the painful phases of Christ's passion, that it ignites the desire to share these sufferings, and soon a nerve and blood flow will establish itself on the hands, on the feet, on the side. Once hemorrhage has been produced, it will preferably be repeated on Friday, the day when mystical concern is more complete, and when the sick are used to concentrating on the long and prolonged contemplations of the torment of the cross, and thus determine, through the effort of an exaggerated will, in a morbid way, the renewal of the phenomenon."
Mr. Alfred Maury! is the main proponent of these interpretations, to which he devoted, in his sinuous book on , a long chapter of nearly eighty pages, very accurately summarized by M. Lefebvre. To convince himself that the Catholic doctor of Louvain does not slander the professor of the Collège de France, it is sufficient to quote the following lines?, where the latter condenses and sums up his theory: "The study of stigma offers us the ultimate reaction of ideas about the organization. But this singular effect is itself the powerful counter-effect of an excessive influence of physics on morale... Ecstatic mysticism is a long chain of moral and physical hallucinations that lead to stigmatization and later death among the most delicate and excitable organizations. It is the most obvious proof of the influence of imagination and ideas on the economy."
VI. — A remark, which we have already made, first appears in mind, and puts to the fore this theory of imagination: If the meditative long, loving, insatiable wounds of the Saviour suffice to reproduce these em-
1 Magic and astrology in ancient times and in the Middle Ages, 4th ed.
p. 343-492. 2 Ibid., p. 409, 421.
sacred prencts, how does it pass more than twelve centuries without this phenomenon being encountered in the Church, neither in the series of martyrs, nor in the countless phalanges of contemplatives? How the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of compassion, how the Madeleine, Saint Paule and her daughters, Saint Hildegarde, Saint Brigitte, Saint Paul l'Ermite, Saint Anthony, Saint Benedict, Saint Bernard, Saint Bonaventure, and closer to us, this admirable Thomas of Jesus, who gave himself to such a profound, so pious meditation of the sufferings of Jesus Christ, so many saints and saints, lovers and lovers passionate about the Cross, who have absorbed themselves in the thought and the love of divine wounds, how they did not bring forth, germinate on their flesh, at the sweet warmth of their flesh. Imagination and the fruitful dew of their tears, these so much loved wounds?
Of course, imaginative admirers, only concerned about escaping the supernatural, did not take care of the physiological difficulty of stigmas. A little attention, however, is enough to measure it. Stigma opens up to the flank, feet and hands, often very deep wounds, or at least determines blood congestion in the most varied forms, and these wounds are kept constantly fresh or with periodic discharges, but always free from suppuration and ordinary phases of healing. How could the imagination mark and maintain such prints? It is worth maintaining that by the effort of the imagination one can break one leg, cut off one arm, cut down one's head, stabbing one another, poisoning one another, changing one's face, transforming one's limbs, in a word, making one's body, by an inner act, all that one wants. More than that, it is an otherwise great prodigy to open your heart with a blow of imagination, and to continue to live, than to give oneself death in a trans-
sings the head, or piercing the chest with an equally imaginary blow. Those who exalt the power of imagination to the stigmatizations, should also agree that it can produce the various effects that we have just pointed out: logic pushes them so far, or warns them to abandon the principle put forward to escape the supernatural stigmatization. However, if they mention only one case, we say no take-off, no mutilation, but a simple bleeding carried out by the imagination.
VII. — It is true, through the hypnotic suggestion, skin redness, vesications, traces of burns, even haemorrhages were obtained. We accept of confidence the account of the already numerous experimenters and the testimony of Dr Bernheim +,
1 From the suggestion, c. 4: "In some subjects redness can be determined at a specific point in the body. Mr. Beaunis said to a sleepwalker: "After you wake up you will have a red spot on the point that I'm "touching right now." Ten minutes after waking up, a low-intensity redness began to appear at the indicated point, then gradually increased, and, after ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, gradually disappeared.
"In some subjects, we can do more: we can make a vesication by hypnotic suggestion. Mr. Focachon, a pharmacist at Charmes, showed us the phenomenon in a somnambule that he brought to Nancy so that we could control the experience. During his sleep, eight postage stamps were applied to his left shoulder at eleven o'clock in the morning, suggesting that he be given a vesicatory. She is left asleep all day long; she is only awakened at mealtime; she is not lost sight. She is asleep for the night, suggesting that she will only wake up in the morning at seven o'clock. Today, at eight and a quarter o'clock, the bandage is removed, the postage stamps have not been disturbed; within the range of four to five centimetres, we see the modified, yellowish-white epidermis. Only the epidermis is not raised and does not form a bell. It is thickened, slightly pleated, and presents in a word the aspect of the period immediately preceding the vesication itself. This area of the skin is surrounded by an area of intense redness with swelling. The person returns to Charmes with Mr. At four o'clock in the evening, four or five phlytenes (soursouflages) were developed; fifteen days later, the vesicatory was still in full suppuration.
AO LEE AND) Tien mr
who in vain tried to produce these effects, despite
His great experience of hypnosis.
Let us first observe that there is far from these undetermined, temporary, wounds with truly stigmallic wounds: wide and deep, permanent or constantly periodic, spreading blood in abundance, opening, as we see in Saint Teresus, exits to the region of the heart, bright, embalmed, incorruptible.
Second, the real stigmas are alien to the suggestion and to Pauto-suggestion: most of the stigma-
"Mr. Focachon succeeded in another person the same experience: vesication occurred in 48 hours.
"Mr. Dumontpallier, having tried to reproduce this phenomenon, observed several times, not vesication, but a noticeable rise in temperature.
"Finally, in some subjects, bleeding and bloody sligmates may be induced by suggestion.
"Mrs. Bourrut and Borot of Rochefort experienced in this regard a young hysterepileptic marine soldier. Having put him in sleepwalking, Mr. Bourrut made the following suggestion to him: "Tonight, at four o'clock, after being asleep, you will go to my office, you will sit down "in the armchair, you will cross your arms on your chest and you will bleed from the "nose." At that time he did the thing; from the left nostril there were a few drops of blood.
"Another day another experimenter traced the name of the subject on both forearms, with the moss end of a stylus; then, he said to him, once immersed in sleepwalking: "At four o'clock tonight, you will fall asleep- "Mira, and you will bleed in arms to the lines I have just drawn; and your "name will be written on your arms in letters of blood." At four o'clock, it is observed, it is seen to be hypnotized; on the left arm, the characters are drawn in relief and bright red, and a few droplets of blood bead in several places. Three months later, the characters were still visible, although they had påli little by little.
"Dr. Mabille... repeated the experiences of Rochefort on the patient taken to the asylum and renewed that of stigma. He got instant bleeding in his home on a specific area of the body.
"It therefore seems to be demonstrated by these few facts that the suggestion can affect cardiac function and vasomotor innervation. However, the phenomena of this order occur more rarely; they are exceptional and are obtained in only a few subjects, I have tried unnecessarily in many to reproduce them."
Wounded without knowing it, without waiting, without wanting them, rather begging to be delivered from it.
Finally, by taking exudations and hypnotic haemorrhages as they are given and leaving them in their small and insignificant proportion, they remain suspect in our eyes, and nothing, in our opinion, allows them to be attributed to the natural strength of the imagination of the suggested subject or to suggest himself. Despite all that has been written to judge hypnotism in nature, the question remains pending, and pretending to solve it by the anomalies of the suggestion would be a manifest pelition of principle.
Two agents are visible here: the magnetizer and the magnetized. The simple common sense says that the magnetizer can't do anything simply by thought or speech on a foreign body. He exercises, in truth, a singular influence on the magnetized; but this influence cannot go so far as to make him produce on himself, through the effort of the imagination, more than he can achieve in the fullness of his forces, in all the effort of his reflection and freedom.
This is the case with stigma.
The two visible operators being unable to justify these effects, on their behalf, must resort to an invisible third who operates in the shadow and accomplishes what man cannot.
Moreover, let us say again, there is in fact neither parity nor proportion between the stigmatization of saints and the parodys of hypnotic suggestion. These attempts only bring out the divine origin of real stigma.
To the intrinsic difficulty of achieving by the sole effort of the thought the sligmatic wounds, add well
Other; for example, those of Pinstantaneity with which these prints usually occur, their prompt disappearance or their sudden invisibility granted to prayer. Nature is here in disarray, and fear of the supernatural throws unbelief into the most flagrant alternative of ignorance or bad faith.
VIII. In vain, medicine tries to come to the rescue, making stigmaisalion a case of nosology, if not therapeutic. To color this usurpation, it was thought that it was sufficient to classify and medically qualify the phenomenon, and for this purpose stigmas were placed among neurosis, under this luminous statement of stigmatic neuropathy!. If neurosis is present, it is clear that it can only be stigmatic; but it should be demonstrated that neurosis is present, and this is what it is not done. Doctors Lefebvre?, [Imbert-Gourbeyre*, Jorezt, who have
1 Dr. Warcomowr, Report of the Commission to Examine the Work of Mr. D! CnarBonnier, entitled: Diseases and various faculties of mystics (Bulletin of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium, 1875, t. 9, p-299, n. 81): "The ecstasy and stigma are united as the two terms of a proposal, under the contiguous law. It is a neurosis having its seat in the bulb, whose first stage consists in paralysis of the vasomotor center, and the second in its excitement. We therefore believe that it should be given a place, in nosological settings, among the neurosis genus, under the name of stigmatic neuropathia."
2 D'Lefebvre's answer to D! Warlomont, ibid., p. 657 et seq.
3 The Sligmatized, t. 1, p. 206: "Medical science is obliged to confess that this is not a known disease, and that it is powerless to solve the problem."
The Sligmatisalion, t. 2, p. 82: "Medicine does not know the disease of the five wounds; it has not described it in its books and for reasons... The doctor who dares to describe in a book the cing plagues as a natural disease would be honored and consoled by all the Christian doctors in the world."
4 Medicine and the question of stigmaisalion, p. 24: "The Report (of the D! Warlomont) did not prove that stigmatic haemorrhage shows the characteristics of the haemorrhages that nosography teaches us to know. He has not shown that the so-called stigmatic neuropathy constitutes a disease, and his diagnosis in this regard is therefore merely a fable."
published on this issue studies as conscientious as they are competent, absolutely challenge the nosological character of stigmas. In fact, the difficulty, in our opinion, is not whether stigmaisalion is a morbid state or not; but whether, by taking it as it is declared and maintained, as it is in general and the details of its circumstances, it is explained by a play or a natural disorder of the organism, or whether it involves the intervention of an extrinsic agent.
To achieve stigmatization as the natural consequence of an organic disturbance, it was alleged that they coincided with women with a suspension of their periodic duties. "It should be noted, according to Mr. A. Maury!, that almost all the ecstatics were in a state of physical disorder that did not allow regular functions to be performed; secretions, periodic blood loss, elevated and, in some cases, took the course of stigmata." Good faith and science defend to assert without proof. However, while there is not a single proven case where stigma has led to the suppression of normal pearls, there are several cases where stigma has preceded or followed the period of these accidents; much more, where the coexistence of rules with stigma has been observed. And then, as Dr. Imbert-Gourbeyre notes?,
1 Magic and astrology, ch. 3 p. 394, 4th ed.
2 The Sligmalized, t. 2, p. 213: "History does not give a single case of monthly stigmatization... How can we accept that periodic functions, subject to the monthly cycle, could have changed all of a sudden to become daily, sometimes bi-weekly, or simply weekly, other times completely irregular or annual? Is it necessary to make the woman completely master of her body, to the point of directing, at her own discretion and according to the whim of her imagination, the most important and least subject to the will? We doctors, despite the most active remedies, are powerless to restore periodic functions in cases of absolute amenorrhea, so
catamenial functions in the space of one month, deviations must naturally tend to occur in the same interval; however, there is not a single case of monthly stigmatization.
Pure hypothesis therefore: ridiculous, applied to men, subjects also of stigmalisation; contradicted by the facts in women themselves.
One more blow, all the efforts of unbelief, medical and other, are powerless to bring down stigmas to an order of natural phenomena.
IX. — To the stigmas, we must attach the inscriptions and symbolic inlays, which we have spoken of in the places where we have dealt with stigmalization, either divinet or diabolical? These prints and wonderful symbols cannot be the act of chance or of imagination; it must be recognized that there is a trace of an invisible hand that prints the seal of life or death. It is enough to convince one to consider them in their concrete truth. Let the reader please refer to the descriptions we have made of it, reread in particular the wonderful work done in the heart of Saint Claire of Montefalco 3, and, we could not doubt, he will remain convinced that the imagination is for nothing in these signs and prints.
The various phenomena of stigmalisation do not therefore constitute morbid states, and would they have this characteristic?
that we are helped by the imagination of the woman and the desire for motherhood; and the woman, by virtue of her mysticism alone, would have the power to make so strange a way of deviating from the functions that, in a multitude of cases, she cannot even restore in their normal conditions!"
ADD EC Ad (2 DaS)
- What? See above, chap. 7 p. 137.
3 9th P., c. 24, t, 2, p. 524.
61 would not follow that they result from a natural effort of imagination.
X. — The most difficult thing, in fact diseases, is not to determine them, but to heal them. Imagination, so fruitful to harm, would it also have some curative virtue?
The desire, confidence and hope, we cannot dissipate from it, help powerfully to heal; doctors do not ignore and are careful not to neglect this means, often more effective than their remedies. In general, any slow and progressive cure is supposed to be the work of time and nature, and if it is neurosis, the instant anenilated even of healing is not always a peremptory sign of miracle. We have seen patients with anaesthesia, regaining movement under the blow of sudden and violent emotion. Fear, Pamour, joy, carried to excess, can produce such salutary concussions.
Hypnotists use and abuse mental suggestion to heal their subjects. The results are generally rare and not long-lasting; and triumphs have had to be overcome that were promised.
"Despite the brilliant statistics provided by a number of observers," said one of Charcot's assessors at the Salpêtrière, "Mr. Paul Richert, I think it wise not to base on hypnolic cure, even in cases that seem to have to be more favorable, too great expectations."
In the case of hysterical disorders, the results obtained can be summarized as follows:
Exceptionally, healing was achieved at the first attempt. Most often, hypnotizations have had to be repeated a number of times. In name-
1 Paralysis and hysterical contractures, p. 151, Paris 1892.
In many cases, the disappearance of paralysis or contracture, under the suggestive influence, was only temporary, the evil reoccurring a few hours or days later, and again requiring the use of the suggestion.
Thus, patients have been treated for years, delivered to the truth of their evil, but provided they are asleep and suggested daily or several times a day.
Finally, Mr. Pitres points out, for the sake of a very precise view, a disadvantage of the hypnoterapic method which it is useful to know. "Sometimes," he says, "an accident that is removed by the suggestion is replaced by another accident that is more unpleasant than the first one, so that the sick, who have in short lost their way, come and ask the doctor to give back the evil they had at first."
By bringing into consideration all these cases, which, strictly speaking, cannot be regarded as cures, those in which the suggestion has been entirely powerless, those finally who are refractory not only to the suggestion, but to the hypnotism itself, — and there are still many, even among the hysterical ones, — we can conclude, without fear of exaggeration, that there are relatively few cases of contractures or hysterical paralysis cured by hypnotism."
The truth is that even with the prestige of the doctor and the hypnotist, the imagination is not very good for the sick. In some cases, however, it operates on a transitional basis.
The expectation of a supernatural contest brought about by a lively faith and long desires, could it not also determine in the nervous system sudden revolutions that the vulgar would not fail to take as half-way between the two?
3 to; s
scrapes, while, in reality, there would be only an organic shake whose true agent would be imagination?
It should not be contested absolutely, when it comes to affections that have their seat or their starting point in the nervous system; and it should be admitted if the healing was only transient to me; for, almost always, when these results are purely natural, they are unsustainable: The first state is back in the past. Unless there are extrinsic and undoubted signs that the miracle has taken place, and that it has had as its object a temporary relief, it can only be seen as a natural effect. It would also be wise not to affirm the miracle in the sudden, even definitive, disappearance of eccentric nervous attacks, carried out under the blow of a surprise, of any impression, alive, strong, unexpected.
XI. — It would be wrong, however, in these various cases to conclude always at the negation of the miracle; in fact, there is room here for the miracle, because the result produced may not be the work of nature, but come from extrinsic and relatively supernatural intervention. No matter how difficult the finding, and precisely because of this difficulty, it would have been wrong to blame indistinctly the godly belief that these effects are extranatural favours of divine goodness; or, if they have the characters of the evil manifestations, the persuasion that they are the work of the corrupting spirit. In these doubtful conjectures, caution requires each other not to speak out too openly. More importantly, the doctors? who, of these cases, are
1 Zaccnras, Quæst. medico-legal., l. Four, title. 1, q. 8, n. 9, p. 106. 2 See J.M. Cnarcor, Lessons on Nervous System Diseases at the Salpetriere, collected and published by Bunxevice, 12° leg., p. 312-
rare sudden healing in nerve diseases,
Argu the constantly natural nature of healings of all kinds, they go beyond the goal.
XII. — As long as the virtue of imagination is exaggerated, there are limits which are only crossed in contempt of Pevidence and common sense. The following two reservations are imperative to every reasonable mind: not to claim for the imagination of the elves of which it is completely unconscious, nor to achieve results that exceed human capacity.
It is clear, first of all, that the imagination is awoper as much as it knows and wants, and, consequently, that this exercise does not go without the exercise of consciousness. So when the subject has no feeling or desire for the effect to be produced, this effect does not result from his imagination. Thus, when St Peter and St John met at the door of the temple the lame man of birth who asked for alms, he did not think of getting his healing; it was the Prince of the Apostles who fixed his eyes on him and commanded him, in the name of Jesus Christ, to rise and walk +.
XIII. — The second reservation, which prohibits Pima-
314. — Dr. Charcot, referring his scholarly experiments on the patients of the Salpêtrière, after having assured that hysterical contracture can suddenly disappear, adds the most doctoral tone: "It is necessary to know well, gentlemen, the possibility of these healings, which, still today, make the miracle cry, but whose charlatans alone make themselves glory. Before our century, these facts were often invoked when it came to establishing before the most incredulous the influence of the supernatural in therapeutics, and..." — From what these diseases can in some very rare encounters instantly cease by the sole effort of nature, how would the learned doctor take it to demonstrate that these healings are never miraculous? Besides, Mr. Would Charcot put all the well-known miraculous healings on the same foot as the sudden healings of hysterical contracture? It would be a paralogism by too bold a gt whose specialty should be left to the charlatans alone. 1 Aet am, 2-8.
rF NES
all supernatural, is no less obvious. It is necessary to place in this category sudden healings of notable external wounds, deep lesions, inveterate wounds, mutilations; in a word, all organic restorations which are not sufficient for the restorative forces of nature, and which accuse the occurrence of a greater causality.
Benedict XIV! assigns the condilions of the miraculous cure as required in the trials of canonization. It is possible to judge by this whether the Church is easy to admit miracles. The disease must be serious and impossible or at least difficult to cure; it must not reach the highest point of the crisis, so that it must then tend to decline; it must not be given remedies or, if used, it must be found that they have not had any effect; the healing has been sudden and perfect; it must be preceded by crisis or release; and the evil does not come back. It is wise to stick to these rules; then one will be sure to be in the miracle.
To this order also belong all the extranatural states, which we have seen in the body, such as ecstatic flight?, luminous radiation, Podor suave #, balsamic discharges *, and amazing transformation of the senses that God operates in his servants ©.
1 From Beatific. and Canonis., 1. 4, P. 1, ©. 8, Synopsis, p. 223: Ut sanatio inter miracula enumerationatur, opus est, ut morbus sit gravis and curatu vel imposibilis vel difficilis; non sit in ultima parte statis ita ut paulo post declinare debeat; non fuerint adhibita medicamenta, vel adhibita non profuerint; ut sanatio sit soudia et perfecta; quin ulla notabilis evacuatio aut crisis præcedat; nac morbus redeat.
AC e P., 1:72, Ch. 32 p039.
3 bidat 2 ehi 29; p.593,
S Jbid Oct. 25 Ch327- p592;
o Year C 28 pe STT
6 Ibid., t. 2, ch. 30, p. 604.
All these wonders are derogations from the natural order, from the current laws that are binding on man. By using all industries, all external means, Phomme would not change this state of affairs, would not alter the regular course of body nature and organic life: for greater reason, he remains powerless when reduced to vows, desires, the efforts of his imagination.
XIV. — In short, imagination exerts an unquestionable influence on the organism; it can do much to shake it, to disturb it and to papise it. In some cases, its action can become so extraordinary that the vulgar will not fail to see miraculous, and it will be difficult for the most skilled to decide whether there is miracle or not. The nervous disorders, above all, give rise to these perplexities, and it sometimes becomes difficult to pronounce in one direction or another: the phenomenon could absolutely be only natural; on the other hand, there are reasons to hold it as miraculous: in such conjectures it is necessary to abstain, or to decide only on peremptory extrinsic notes.
When the effect on the body exceeds the natural power of man, whether it be diseases or lesions, to be determined or to be cured, or any other extranatural phenomenon, they cannot be attributed without inconsequence to the imagination; to give reason for these facts which exceed man, one must leave man.
Finally, somewhere in the imagination, one must always assume in his exercise a certain awareness of what it operates through his desires or fears; if therefore a result of marvelous appearance is declared in a subject which has no knowledge, no prediction, no fear or desire, one cannot reasonably impute to imagination,
: f i to
The three mental illusions that imagination can give rise to. — L' hallucination and doctors. — Hallucinations varying from each sense; their duration; their extension. — Mystical phenomena falsely reputed as hallucinatory by rationalists. — Principles to distinguish these facts from hallucinations: control of one meaning by others, plurality and agreement of witnesses, external effects. — Second danger of illusion: to confuse the purely natural phenomena of imagination with the mystical prodigies that are carried out by imaginary representations. — Unpossibility — The decisive characters that make the supernatural facts surely recognised. — Third danger: taking imaginary representations for intellectual visions. — Characteristic signs of intellectual vision. — Latest conclusions on analogies drawn from imagination.
I. — On foreign bodies, imagination can't do anything; on the organs that serve as an instrument and an echo, it can do a lot; not as much as scientific and medical rationalism would like to persuade it. We need to examine what imagination can do in its own sphere and in the exclusive enclosure of the soul. The chapter that we're starting with raises the problem and tries to solve it,
The imagination, we have said, collects the images of the senses, brings them closer, multiplies them by countless combinations, applies them to the very things that the senses do not reach, renews with the first vivacity the impressions received, and thus makes itself an ideal world in which appear, with and through these sensitive perceptions, the various forms of intellectual life.
Mental representations give rise to indefinite errors. These only belong to our subject that interests mysticism. Now, one can reduce to three the analogies of this imaginary world with the supernatural phenomena, and the misguided to which they expose.;
The work of imagination is sometimes accomplished in such a brilliant and subtle light that the mind is tempted to believe in an operation of understanding and a divine communication of intellectual order.
Other times and more frequently, even with the consciousness that everything happens in the foreground of imagination, the excited images come to appear so amazing, so wonderful, that one believes in it.Recognize the trace of an extrinsic causality superior to man, and one transforms into miraculous vision an unaccustomed and extraordinary shaking of nature.
Finally, the inner images are so vividly declared that they determine an excitement similar to that resulting from external realities, which leads to a false conclusion that these visions exist objectively.
This last aberration has become the main point of support of rationalism against mysticism: we will discuss it first, and then go back to the other two, with acquired solutions and increasing clarity.
I. — The illusion, which makes purely imaginary impressions take for external realities, is called
hallucination, a Greek and Latin word! which means extravacate?.
These mental disturbances are transient or chronic. Chronic, they accuse a brain disorder, and constitute a kind of mania or madness; transient, they are in the state what one or more acts are in habit. Whether it is a passenger or a persevering one, the whole difficulty is in the phenomenon itself, and since this phenomenon consists in transforming narrow impressions into organic and external sensations in the imagination, we deal here with the other effects of the imagination, rather than at the place where the errors from morbid states will be discussed. We are all the more allowed to follow this course, since we do not agree to see undistinctly in all the hallucinations of pathological cases ÿ.
The illusion is generally distinguished from hallucination; it is summed up in an erroneous judgment of a truly external reality; it is purely internal and mental. Just as it is, this distinction is of little importance from the point of view of where we are, and when it becomes necessary, we will not fail to point it out.
Rationalistic doctors fall into the category of
1 Latin hallucinator, and originally Greek &\0w, j-extravac.
2 See "Siluer, Psychological Fragments on Madness, 1834. — EsQuirol, Mental Diseases, 1838. — CALmEL, De la folie, 1845. — BAILLARGER, Des hallucinations, 1846. — Lélur, L'amulette de Pascal, pour servier à l'histoire des hallucinations, 1846; From the Demon of Socrates, 1856. — MICHEA, Hallucinations, 1846.—Brierre DE Borsmonr, De des hallucinations, 3° ed., 1862. — Rirri, Physiological Theory of Hallucination, 1874. — Nouv. dict. de médec. et de surgerie, par Jaccoun, art. Hallucination, by Auc. Moret. — Encyclopaedia of Science, Literature and the Arts, art. Hallucination, by Dr.BourniN, 1879. — Fr.N Bonniot, The Miracle and Medical Sciences, 1879.
3 See. Boucaut, Nervosism, 1860, p. 100. — Bnierre DE Boismont, Des hallucinations, p. 6.
hallucinations all the sensitive facts that they cannot relate to a natural causality, and in particular mystical visions, without distinction, this is understood, — how to distinguish what is unknown? — between intellectual visions.
tuelle, imaginary and body; distinction however strong
important, because if the last kind of vision lends itself to hallucination, hallucination has nothing to do with the other two. For us, remaining within our framework and in the exact notions, we will deal only with the purely hallucinatory phenomenon, as we have defined it, and that most of the authors define it, i.e.: an internal fact of imagination transformed into an external fact of perception of the senses; and our task is to show that if there are hallucinatory facts, there are also some that are both miraculous and truly objective, and that it is possible to distinguish one from the other.
II. — The strange phenomenon of hallucination is absolutely beyond doubt, and there is no sense that it is reaching. However, sight, hearing and touch are more exposed than smell and taste.
The hallucinatory shows take all forms. People and things, the most fantastic images appear at the glance in all attitudes, with the most varied nuances and at various distances, sometimes sharp, precise, whole, sometimes vaporous, floating, partial. Sometimes the vision stops if the eyelids are closed or an opaque object is interposed; other times it persists even with closed eyes and in darkness, which helps to recognize and combat contempt.
The hearing suffers all the illusions of the phenomena that are of its dependence: it is a voice that is heard and to which one responds; they are more or less numerous interlocutors, who speak openly or with covered words, precise melodies, harmonious concerts, or even
s4à t ot t
awry vaccuse, horrific disagreements, resounding detonations, the sound of bells, a cliquetis of arms; here whispers, whispers, sighs, complaints; there distant noises that give rise to anxiety, or a close tumult that throws into terror; often it is a mysterious word, a word of reprimand, of insult, of sarcasm, of threat, of obsessiveness, or simply an almost imperceptible prospect, the step of an invisible being that approaches, passes, moves away; in a word, all kinds of sounds that can strike the ear.
The touch is quite frequently hallucinated in nervous people, especially among women, and one cannot be too careful in the accounts that they make of sensations, troubles, violence attributable, in their opinion, to invisible agents. Some claim to be victims of the most atrocious cruelty, who believe that they are harassed, torn apart, mutilated, killed, subjected to torture of iron, fire, cold, or even more detestable horrors.
The smell is delusional in its turn by imaginary scents, usually fetish and unbearable, sometimes delicious and benevolent. Usually they have a definite character: it is putrefaction with its varieties more or less unpleasant; it is sulfur, ammonia, lalcali; or musk, rose, violet. Delectable or mephitic, they appear to be widespread in the atmosphere or to be released from clean organs, from surrounding bodies.
The hallucinations of taste, although rarer, meet more than once. Without touching anything, you think you're eating succulent food, drinking exquisite liquors, or pretending to be poisoned by poisonous substances and unhealthy foods.
The duration of these erroneous sensations, whether considered in one direction or another, is not always equal;
for a few moments, barely the time to see and remember themselves; in others they persevered for hours and whole days.
Often hallucination is shared by several senses. "The observation," said Mr. Brierre de Boismont!, as competent in the finding of facts as it is inaccurate and heterodox in their interpretation, the observation seems to have established that hallucinations are rarely limited to a meaning; while recognizing the truth of this fact, on which M. Foville insists very much, it can be said that in general hallucinations of one sense or another prevail over those of the other senses. It is especially in the ‘acute' diseases that there are at the same time several hallucinations combined. The hallucinations of the various senses are often associated two to two, three to three... When hallucinations of several senses exist, these hallucinations usually have close relations with each other." IV. — The hallucinations are only too real, it is undeniable. But there are mystical phenomena that are not hallucinatory, facts that are notoriously external and supernatural in relation to man.
The mystical wonders that one strives to encompass among hallucinations are in large numbers. In God's part, let us point out the sensitive appearance, the supernatural words of the outside, the miraculous impressions of the senses, the radiance, the burning, the sweet smells and other divine favors of the same nature; then the diabolical prestiges, the translations and the fantastic scenes of the Sabbath, the obsessions, the violent or consented infamys of which the demon makes himself the instigator and the instrument; in a word, all the extranatural manifestations, either di-
1 Hallucinations, ch. 16, p. 597.
which are ascribed by action on organs and on senses.
V. — How can we distinguish these phenomena from mental hallucination?
We have already assigned the characters by which external visions and purely imaginary visions differ. Let us recall these rules from which we borrowed the substance from Bona and Benedict XIV.
First, one must control the testimony of one meaning by the testimony of others; for it is rare, very rare, except for cases of madness or acute illness, that hallucination be general, at least for a significant time and in a continuous way. But, apart from the fact that this simultaneousity is not theoretically demonstrated impossible, this control of one meaning by another is not practicable, since the objects of a vision do not lend themselves to these careful findings of unbelief. The certainty would be complete if, to the external vision, the translation or displacement of an external object corresponded.
In general, the assertion of one can be called into question, especially if it is contradicted by many who would have been able to see and hear. However, the denial is not absolutely peremptory; for, by miracle, a fact can be sensitive to some without being so for others °. But when all or the vast majority of the witnesses claim that they perceive a fact as externally perceived by them, this agreement sufficiently guarantees the externality of this fact. Unless it is assumed that extrinsic and superhuman intervention is taking place, it cannot be admitted that many people, who are sound in mind, are uniformly and simultaneously hallucinating; for, with such surprises, the certi-
19th P., c. 2, n. 3,t.2, p. 23. 2 Ibid., p. 24.
I'm not sure you'd be able to do that. Is it believed that the spirit of system and the fear of the supernatural come so far as to make admit, as the simplest thing in the world, the collective hallucinations! between sensible people; and, in evidence, we cite facts offering all the characters of supernatural visions: a demonstrative process which one would vainly seek in Aristotle's logic or in that of Port Royal. It is supposed that there is no supernatural?: it is therefore necessary, or that things are not, or that they are natural.
Regardless of the plurality of the spectators and the uniformity of their testimony, the external effects in some cases suffice to establish the reality of the appearance. Thus, when Heliodore è is castigated and left for death in the temple by the angels of God, neither the unfortunate profanator, nor the people, witness to the prodigy, think of it as a pure hallucination, We could cite a hundred examples of the same nature.
A careful application of these rules will allow us to see with certainty the real objectivity, not only of the body vision, but of all similar mystical prodigies, whose unbelief wants to hallucinate. This is an order of phenomena directed at a
I Brienre De Boismonr, Hallucinations, ch. 14, p. 498: These quotations (i.e. appearances that took place during the Crusades) prove, in the most obvious way, that hallucinations can reach a large number of people without them being suspected of insanity.
2 BRIERRE DE Boismont, ibid., p. 440: Indeed, it is indisputable to us that if the supernatural is to be admitted by the religious man (and the scientist?), it cannot be involved without serious disadvantages in the events of this world. Any announcement that God has subjected the facts of the physical order, such as those of the moral order, to invariable laws, and that he does not allow us to depart from them, even in the fulfillment of the great missions which he entrusts to his privileged ones. (This is Jeanne d'Arc, who is West, for Mr. Brierre de Boismont, that a hallucinée.)
è II Macch. u
or to another, of visions or words, movements and translations, touchdowns, luminous or fragrant emanations, to say the least, of everything that affects the senses, one will surely recognize the real, objective, external character of these facts by using the precautions that we have just indicated, namely: the reciprocal control of the senses, where possible, the plurality and uniformity of the testimonies, the external effects.
If, after examination, the fact is truly seen external and extranatural, it will be concluded that it is not an illusion of the mind, nor a manifestation of nature. The question persists as to the objectivity of the phenomenon: it will not be said that it is external or not. But, if we notice it well, even assuming that the fact is purely imaginary, the supernatural is not absolutely eliminated. No doubt, if, reduced to the proportions of a psychological impression, the phenomenon does not present anything that exceeds the natural order, it will have to be awarded to nature; but if the mental impression bears the seal of extrahuman causality, logic requires that the affirmation of the supernatural be maintained there; for the supernatural can burst into the enclosure of the imagination, as we will say by discussing the illusions that are imputed to it in this intimate forum of itself.
VI. — We therefore turn to these difficulties of a new order, pointing out that rationalists do not follow us in this field; it seems to them sufficient for their cause that visions are restricted to purely psychological limits, and they consider it obvious that this so-called internal and mental supernatural is only a very natural form of human thought. Whatever they think, the supernatural still appears here, and there are signs that we can recognize it.
We said, in fact, by dealing with visions and mystical words, that they could be circumscribed in the sphere of imagination, and that they were then qualified as imaginary. On the other hand, in this same chamber, images so vivid and vibrant that they seem not to differ from mystical representations attributed to a higher power occur through the natural virtue of the imagination.
How can we unravel the supernatural human here?
We have already touched on the issue and the solution, but we must go back to it to dispel the concerns raised in many minds by the natural analogies relating to mysticism.
Between supernatural visions and those coming from nature, there is this difference that they are determined by an earlier work of the mind, arise from previous thoughts, respond to an expectation, a desire, a fear; are born by association or by concomitance, grow up with attention and faint with it; the subject that contemplates them is both the craftsman and the regulator; on the contrary, they declare themselves unexpectedly and withdraw likewise, without the spirit being able to provoke them, maintain them or consider them at its own discretion.
The brightness and splendor of light, the effects of grace especially that transform souls, add a no less characteristic difference: when God reveals himself or intervenes, he gives a deep sense of his identity, and leaves an indelible impression of his presence.
VII. — But, whatever these differential marks may be, are they still sufficient to distinguish between the two orders? We meet burning souls
2nd P., c. 3,t. 2, p. 27. SPEARS St 2 pe 504
77, which multiply, with extreme vivacity, images and paintings; what they tell has all the appearances of the wonderful, and their piety, good faith, pure intentions recommend to them: on these data, will it be safely pronounced that their visions come from God, that they are not conceptions or dreams spontaneously hatched in their minds?
Let us simply say that, in an infinite number of cases, the wisest thing will be to do as Jacob did to Joseph telling his glorious dreams, to consider these things in silence, ‘ by refraining from any decision, to lead these souls without regard for what they believe they perceive and experience, especially not to undertake anything outside on the faith of these revelations. Common sense, reason, also command, in these encounters, not to challenge in a positive way the existence of the supernatural; in summary, when the fact presents serious, but not convincing, appearances of supernaturality, the only conclusion to draw is to draw none, to pronounce nothing for or against.
VIII. — If all the manifestations of the imaginary order were subjected to these perplexities, it would be as much to be silent on a supernatural of which it would be impossible to have and prove; for everything would be reduced to saying that it may be, but that one never knows when it exists. It's not like that. This supernatural, which has the imagination as its field, often finds its guarantee in the external effects which accompany it, which it announces, which it realizes, in decisive testimonies, in the very holiness of the subject.
The mental communication that carries a revelation, a prophecy verified by events, sufficiently proves its authenticity. The dreams of Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar received, Joseph's interpretations?
1 Gen. xxxvi, 11: Pater vero rem tacitus considerabat,. 2 Gen. xLI.
Daniel!, the undisputed guarantee of their origin. The symbolic vision that made the Prince of the Apostles hear the call of the Gentiles to the Gospel, is immediately confirmed by the arrival of the envoys of the centurion Cornelius °. When Blessed Agathe appeared to Saint Lucia? during her sleep, to announce her the healing of her mother, and that, returning to herself, the pious virgin saw her mother healed, did she not have proof that the apparition was not a dream, but a true favor of heaven? When so many saints * warn their friends in dreams that they have just left the earth, does not the coincidence of their death show the supernatural character of these visions?
Authority, in turn, fully sanctions inner revelations in the form of sensitive images. The divine communications told, in our holy books, as arrived during sleep or in a transport of mind, are heard from imaginary visions ÿ, and the number of them is very considerable; therefore there are imaginary visions absolutely indisputable. The Church, as we have said elsewhere, does not impose the particular revelations, but the approval it gives them, would it be just a license to read them and build them, as Benedict XIV wants, recommends them enough to be believed supernatural. Now, to name only Saint Hildegarde and Saint Brigitte, most of the divine manifestations they tell are of imaginary order; so these kinds of visions can be considered supernatural.
Finally, the constant holiness of the subject does not allow
1 Dan. n.
2 Act X.
3 BB, S Tobrut Ey poosi, DiS. 410,98 P.C. Chg 112 WD OA A A P Ch 16; t 2y pt2
A 19 Undistinctly reject both sensitive inner and inner visions, which he assures to have received from God. Saint Teresus!, for example, to whom the abundance of heavenly gifts and the safety of his mind give rank in these questions among the masters, declares that she was for a long time favored by these supernatural representations, and strives to demonstrate that they cannot be the work of the spirit. If these kinds of paintings, however, are but a fantasy of imagination, what becomes the great authority of the Carmelite restorer, and its reform, which has spread over the world so much of edification, was it only the happy dream of a sick brain? The same will have to be said of Saint Catherine of Siena, Saint Francis of Rome, Saint Angele of Foligno, of so many saints and saints who have said themselves and who have believed divinely favored, in this sensitive form, supernatural diilluminations.
Asking the question in this way to those who have the Christian sense and the sense of propriety is solving it: as for others, the Wise One warns us not to waste time explaining to them what they do not want or can't hear °.
1 His life by itself, ch. 28, 29, and passim.
2 Eccli. xxvi, 13: In medio insensatorum serva verbum tempori.
3 [MBERT-GOURBEYRE, La Sligmalisalion, t. 2, p. 366: "There is nothing wrong with the visions and revelations of the saints: it is the opposite among the hallucinators, since hallucination is the false and absurd idea par excellence."The saints have an intelligence and a wonderfully perfected will under divine action; the hallucinators are in the midst of intellectual and moral decay. The partial madness of which they are affected more or less begins the rest of their intelligence in its so-called healthy parts; the moral decay is even more accentuated. — If the saints were hallucinated, they would be in perpetual delusion, as the Fr. de Gallifet said very well; with their multiple revelations and visions, they would necessarily roll d' hallucinations into hallucinations; but science shows that in religious madness, one cannot pass from one hallucination to another; that the subjects are riveted to a hallucination that is one, fixed, invariable as a cliché. — The saints shine by their heroic virtues, in particular by obedience, the Hu-
IX. — The last analogy that the imagination opposes mysticism, and which is relative to intellectual vision, remains to be discussed.
By dealing with mystical communications of this highest order!, we said that it is easy, theoretically speaking, to distinguish them from mental images and external perceptions. The senses and the imagination never apprehend anything but in the body form, while the Hearing grasps only the pure and simple being, even in the bodies. In practice, if one discerns without difficulty the perception of the senses with that of understanding, it is not always easy to clearly unravel the rational intuitions of imaginative representations, especially since these two operations intertwine in the complex act of knowledge?. There are many spirits who think they are reasoning when they only feel, and understand because they see. Scorns are better conceived in the order of supernatural visions. Sometimes, as we have said, representative tables are spread out in an abundance of light and in such brilliant evidence that, in considering them, we think we are acting with understanding rather than imagination.
To the danger of confusion created by the likeness, he adds another from outside. This is a com-
mility, the love of suffering, of God, of neighbor: there are no more virtues in religious hallucinates, not even vulgar virtues. The folly that struck their minds has put their morale into waste; they are indolent, vain, slender, without family affection and other. Those who have previously shone by virtues lose faith, at least the spirit of religion and piety; the observer, in the presence of this moral ruin, wonders whether it is a trial or punishment.
"The radical difference between hallucinates and saints is holiness itself, which God so often illustrates of the greatest wonders."
a ch, t.129 D 46.
2 Bossugr, Knowledge of God, ch. 4, n.10, p. 34: "While these two acts of imagining and hearing are so distinguished, they always mix together."
eA SE ve ta po
It is also agreed that the demon, whose action is exercised on the organs and on the inner senses, may attempt, by this way, counterfeits, in order to mask his play and his presence.
In the end, from the point of view of intellectual illuminations, mental images can lead to a double illusion: by making miraculous communications of understanding take a purely natural work of imagination, or mystical phenomena of imaginative order for phenomena of intellectual order.
The question of supernaturality is the same, whether it is intellectual vision or imaginary vision. The notes that make it discern from any natural fact, are also suitable for any extranatural knowledge, whatever kind it belongs to. So only the second part of the problem has to be solved.
First, let's say that this solution is of minimal importance. As long as the phenomenon is recognized as supernatural, if it is shown above all that it comes from God, it does not matter whether it is by the channel of understanding or by the channel of imagination. No doubt, if the supernatural was constant in the form of a direct communication to understanding, it would be in a position to conclude that God is the author of it; but, for the ordinary, it will be far less difficult to see the supernaturality and divine origin of the phenomenon than the intimate mode of its realization.
X. — In any event, these are the characteristic signs of intellectual vision.
290 Peche in M0 112, "From 2 01:
The proper understanding is to grasp things by the appearance of being and truth, without stopping at the shapes that strike the senses, such as expanse, colour, sound, flavor, smell, resistance. The senses and imagination present these impressions and body images; the task of understanding is to recognize the true and the false.
Another character of the intellectual vision is to be essentially true, because it puts the mind in the face of reality. Hence an invincible conviction that what one sees is the truth, and that one is not the toy of false representations.
The long duration of these visions, the brilliant light that accompanies them, the grace effects that result from them are still signs that help to recognize them, but without providing peremptory and always applicable proof of their identity.
Thus, considered in themselves and theoretically, these distinctive notes are clear and precise; in practice, it becomes more and more extremely difficult to apply them. But, let us say again, the essential thing is to recognize the supernatural and its origin; the question of fashion is quite secondary.
XI. — Here we conclude this long exposition of the analogies that the imagination presents with the mystical facts. We can judge how much rationalism exaggerates parity, and how false the identity it claims is. Totally powerless on the outside world, imagination arouses, it is true, in its psychological sphere and on the body on which it depends, numerous illusions; but, by looking closely at these apparent analogies and bringing them closer to the truly mystical effects, one does not delay in seeing the difference between them: on the one hand, it is the eccentric, the unforeseeable, the abnormal; on the other, it is the
superhuman and lextranatural. But we affirm the mystic, not where the extraordinary appears, but only where nature is surpassed.
In many cases, it is difficult to decide, the limit of nature and beyond remains for us to indecisive. Caution and common sense then recommend abstaining, i.e. not deciding anything, either in one direction or in another. This neutrality is not in popular habits, and it does not always meet among sensible and thoughtful people.
Two causes of illusion in these habits: the concentration of the mind and the weakness of the body. — The intellectual application sometimes absorbs until it determines the alienation of the senses. — Religious meditation, misguided, degenerates into dreams, hallucinations, or a passivity that misleads the soul and exhausts the body. — Excessive austeritys give rise to the same illusions. — We must not exclude from these states the possibility of the supernatural. — Signs to which we recognize whether the phenomena come from nature or from an extrinsic cause.
I. — The kind of life and the habits acquired can determine in man nearby impressions and states, by analogy, mystical facts. These natural eccentricities usually result from one or the other of these two causes, and more often from the two combined!: the concentration of the mind in a scientific or religious meditation, and the weakening of the body by austerity.
II.—Intellectual work that is too much loses the feeling of external things and sometimes throws into a fixity that looks like ecstasy. He managed to simmer in his philosophical contemplations, until he lost the use of the external senses. We're talking about it.
1 See Benoit XIV, from Serv. Dei beatific., 1. 3, c. 49, n. 4 and 5. — BONA; de Discr. spirit. ©. 44; IV, p. 279, — Scuram, Theol. myst., S 551, te 2; pp. 279-982.
the same of Socrates, Carnead, Plotin, Jamblique and others. Archimedes remained famous for his power of abstraction, which made him inattentive to anything other than his problems, and was the cause of his death. Cardan$ boasted of being able to come out of himself and give himself all the hallucinations that he wanted; it was probably a hallucination that he did not count.
Admirative suspension is even more common among artists than among philosophers. Among all the arts, music is the most effective way to throw man in transportation. The rhythm of the rhythm makes the soul vibrate in the body as under a divine bow, attracted by the spontaneous movement of love, absorbs it in a unique feeling, ecstatic or soothing, the ranime or makes it faint, according to the ideal it expresses. The thought, the speech, the movements reach their perfection under the delicious charm of harmony, as well as the remark Cassiodore in a charming praise that we owe him music.
To always reprove such supernatural effects would be to ignore the energies and laws of nature; but, who does not see it? These kinds of wonders can give rise to hesitation and contempt.
II. — Religious meditation, poorly regulated, has a special virtue to exalt the imagination and multiply illusions
1 PLaToN, de Convivio, ad fin. p. 298.
3 Porpayre, Vita Plotini.
4 Eunare, Vitæ Philosopher: Jambl.
8 Shoot Live, Hist., 1. 25, p. 420. — VALUE Max., l. 8, n. 7 p. 449,
6 De Rerum varies, l. 8, ©. 43, t. 3 p. 160: Cum volo, video quae volo, oculis, non vi ies.
7 Epist. 40, Migne, Patr. lat., t. 69, Col. 571: Per manc competenter cogitamus, pulchre loquimur, converienter movemur, etc.
8 See Isaac Vossius of Poematum cantu and viribus rhythmi. — D. CALMET, Diss, on the music of the elders, t. 1, p. 133-146.
mental health. The spiritual objects upon which the inner gaze is fixed and which one pursues from his dreams, appear under sensitive, vivid, striking images, which one considers to be realities, or at least manifestations of another world. Some believe in heavenly visions, intimate symposia of the soul with God, passive states of prayer. Others, who have extreme fear of the demon, imagine seeing him everywhere. It is rare for one to feel the desire to meet ostensibly in the presence of the tempter to challenge and combat him; however, these and these are features of such a reckless presumption, among others the following one read in the life of St. Vincent Ferriert.
A young man, full of unthinkable lurch of the beginnings, dreamed of being measured to the devil, One day when he asked God for this grace, he met a poor woman, ugly and mute, who was making herbs. The hideous face of this old woman, her strange airs, the unarticulated sounds of her voice, her grim gestures, the falseness that she held in her hand quickly persuaded the hot novice that he was at last in the presence of the enemy; he cast himself on this unhappy woman, the crowd under her feet and left her half dead, believing that he had killed her. The judges, less gullible, condemned him to be hanged; for good, St. Vincent Ferrier preached in these lands; he gave
1 RanzANE, BB. 5 April, t. 40, p. 301, n. 21: Coepit Dominum inter alia deprecari, ut permitteret diabolum ei visibiliter in aliqua forma appearer, ut videlicet... eum possess dimicando superare. Dum itaque precaretur talia, supervenit in ipsum locum mulier quaedam... a nativity muta... Adolescens autem cernens feminam deformosissimam (utpote quae erat ætate decrepita, corpore et longa faie macilenta, colore squalida, laceratas vestes induta, quae et altissimas sine verborum expressione voces emittebat, eique falce quam in manu tenebat minari viebatur) eamque, non feminam, sed diabolum in feminæ specie sibi apparentm, esse existimayit... eam semimortuam reliquit.
For first to the victim health and speech, and then obtained the grace of his murderer.
Meditation can take another form no less fruitful in illusions, that of a vague dream where the soul retains, so to speak, its activity to immobilize in passivity and silence. Thus one manages to simulate ecstasy, or rather one obtains a sort of ecstatic somnolence where the divagations of a wandering thought take the place of visions.
Sainte Terèse assures that this abuse of prayer is often encountered in women, and she considers it so pernicious that she proposes, if the other means are ineffective, to prohibit these people, at least for a time, the exercise of prayer itself.
The weakness of the complexion and even more the lack of correctness in the judgment favour and often make these pious inconsistencies irremediable. Let's add that more than once the demon mixes his tricks in it, in order to lead more surely by these appearances of piety and supernaturalness.
IV. — Excessive austerity, by cutting down body forces, also exposes to misguided minds that transform dreams and pure imaginations into divine favors or demonic eruptions. The masters of spiritual life unanimously make this remark. The excess of abstinence, according to Gerson t, weakens the head and disturbs the reason until we no longer know what we are doing, what we are saying, or even what we are. A long inanition, said Bona ° in turn, frequent fasts and
1 De Distinct. verarum visionum a falsis, 2 sign. t. 1, col. 49: Ad by exitium vergunt abstinentia nimia and crapulosa voracitas, nisi quod iremediabilior is excessus in abstinentia; morbos enim affert incurabiles ex lasione cerebri and perturbed rationis.
4 De Discr. spir. v. 20, 1, 3, p. 316: Ex longa item inedia, crebrisk jejuniis ac immoderatis vigiliis exsiccato cerebro dissatisque spiritibus,
Indecent watches exhaust the brain, raise up vain and confused representations, to which soul, delusional, adheres stubbornly as to divine revelations. Saint Térèse! says that she could only cure a nun of similar illusions by prohibiting her excessive fasting.
V. — These various illusions must warn about the states and conditions that give them birth, but do not allow to reject indistinctly all that, in these encounters, takes on the appearances of the supernatural. Let scholars, captivated by the study, lose sight of what is happening around them at times, as it happened to Saint Thomas of Aquinas at the table of King Saint Louis, and to the unfortunate Archimedes among the Roman soldiers, such a phenomenon offers nothing but natural. What we have said in dealing with infidel knowledge is no less indisputable, knowing that God often miraculously illuminates those who engage in secular or sacred studies out of duty and zeal, and others that nothing seems predisposed to science; it is no less true, as we have also said in his place, that the demon cannot transmit an infinity of knowledge through external or imaginary revelations. Similarly, if meditation, misguided and misguided, is nevertheless the way before contemplative ascension; if body mortification, carried to excess, weakens the brain and disturbs the mind, it does not prevent it from being the preliminary indispensable of divine favors.
inania phantasmata representative, quibus illusa mens tanquam divinis revelationibus pertinaciter adhæret,.
1 Foundations, c. 6.
29th P., c. 17, t. 2, p. 361.
C T T T T T T T
Here again, therefore, we must assign the differences between the eccentricities of nature, in these habits of mind and body, and the truly supernatural facts, and remind this law of the prudence which, in doubt, we must know to doubt.
VI. — In principle, all that it is able to achieve must be attributed to nature, and only in cases where its inadequacy becomes known, resort to the supernatural. From a mental absorption which, even if carried to the alienation of the senses, can be natural, one will not conclude to the miracle.
The way in which this absorption is accomplished, and even better what follows it, serves to distinguish it from mystical ecstasy.
The meditative fixedness, whether it is due to study or to lavery, begins with attention, repeats with the erasure of external things, continues, accentuates until it removes any precise feeling, and relaxes insensitively under the counter-effect of effort and fatigue. Generally, the ligature of the senses is not complete, a word, a lively excitement is enough to bring back the consciousness of the outside world. The divine ecstasy, on the contrary, is unannounced, interrupts the course of ordinary thoughts, presents new shows, and suddenly ends outside the forecasts and against the will of the soul.
Natural absorption becomes even more vague and indistinct, as it extends further; however, the mystical vision, usually of short duration, remains engraved in the mind, clear and precise.
The suspension that comes from nature exhausts and weanes the body; the supernatural suspension revives, on the contrary, the forces and seems to communicate to the members something of the prestity of the soul.
Finally, these efforts and differences in nature leave cold
( , hebet rather than raise them; the divine attraction illuminates, ignites and transforms.
From the point of view of the effects, the evil intervention is closer to man than to God; it will therefore betray itself by fatigue, trouble, sterility, not to mention the other characters we have described elsewhere!, and which surely distinguish it even more.
Most of these differences are due to a moral assessment that is difficult to state and apply. When these notes are added certain prophecies, external miracles, precise and marked at the corner of the divine, the conclusion is detached from itself; what is apparent communicates its character to what remains veiled.
130 P., c. 8, p. 138 et seq.
Exorbitant affirmations of rationalistic medicine. — Series of facts to be discussed. — Supernatural, well-defined ecstasy is distinguished by one or the other of the elements that characterize it, by the diseases that are compared to it. — It differs from morbid ecstasy, — from syncope, — from lethargic sleep, — from spontaneous somnambulism, — from catalepsy and epilepsy, — from hysteria. — Supernatural ecstasy is surrounded by prodigies that separate it from all natural analogies.
I. — More than once we have had a deal with doctors who, obstinating to leave their role and competence, affect to bring back to pathological anomalies the most obvious manifestations of the supernatural. Here we have to face them, not without some shyness and a lot of respect. It costs us to have to fight men who, together with the priest, represent in human society consolation and devotion, scientists worthy in so many other respects of public admiration and gratitude. Not all of them are without distinction our adversaries: we know, a few personally, a greater number of them by their writings, who join a science undisputed a deep faith.
Like Dr. Imbert-Gourbeyre, Pintrepid champion of mystical science. "It is not good, my dear colleagues," he said in a speech to doctors, "to be free to think." We, the baptized, who began to pray on the knees of our mothers, we who received Christ at least once in our breasts, why, becoming doctors, would we deny him, separate ourselves from him? He is the only Za way, truth and life. We are too great a race: the first honours of science, the most favoured profession. John calls to our Christian origins, which are even divine."
There are still many who hear and taste this language. These will support us with their authority against the champions of unmistakableness, of which the multitude, alas! magnified day by day, at these official schools of iron and materialism where teach together, through a detestable tradition, the art of healing bodies and killing souls. It is to our body defending and only to protect against their attacks this sacred field of mysticism that we have explored with so much love, that we enter into a struggle with these contemptors of all supernatural. We will not encroach; we will recognize their share, but also the share we intend to keep. If they challenged us because we meddled in medicine, we would disqualify them because they mingle in theology. Between them and us there is an impartial judge who will determine their share and ours: common sense, also attentive to seeing the facts, not to distort them, and, through these facts, to measure the proportions of their causes. We shall endeavour to hear and comply with his judgments, and then we shall be allowed to recall others.
Let us say first of all, if our unbelievers were content to assert that there exist between such an order of phenomena known as supernatural and certain morbid cases of the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the human beings, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, and the, and the people, and the, and the people, the people, the, the, the, the, the, the, and the, and the people, and the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, and the people, and the people,,,, and the people, the people, and the people, and the people, and the people, and the people, and the people, and the people, and the, the people, the people, the people, the people, the people, and the people, the, the, the, the people, the people, and the people, and the people, and the people, and the people, and the people, and the people, and the
which can make one take one another; that a strict and careful attention is necessary to discern well what is nature and what is not, we will fully subscribe to these advices of science and prudence. Some think and speak like this, but it is the small number; the mass holds another language.
The supernatural, they say, is a chimera and an impossibility. God, if there is a God, cannot derogate from the laws of nature; and the devil, if there is a devil, has nothing to do with human things. Your so-called miracles are only anomalies that fall within natural laws; they are mere deviations that fall within our domain. Your visionaries are our hallucinations; your ecstatics are our cataleptics, our hysterics, our lethargics; your obsessed and your possessed are our hypochondriacs and our madmen; your stigmatized are neuropaths of a special kind, and this kind, we languish medically like the rest: it's stigmatic neuropathy! Come to Bicêtre, said Pinel; come to Charenton, tell us Esquirol and Calmeil, come to the Salpêtrière, tell us Doctors Charcot, Bourneville and Regnard, and we will show you in our clients the stigmas, appearances, delights, all the wonderful lextase, all the horrors of possession and obsession. Come in, we cry out the crowd of proclaimers of unbelief, who have seen and often would see nothing, enter these asylums of dementia, and, like us, you will come out convinced that all your miracles are there.
Let us say it highly, this language, which we do not imagine to pleasure, which can be read everywhere, we revolt beyond any measure. What! it will be necessary to go to Charenton to give the gruesome spectacle of human folly to explain St Peter of Alcantara, St John of the Cross, St Philip of Neri, St Francis of Assisi, St John of the Cross,
beloved, St Paul, St Peter, all the prophets who received the divine favors of contemplation and ecstasy! We must therefore attend, at the Salpêtrière, the disgusting scenes of lhysteria, to understand Saint Teresus, Saint Catherine of Siena, Saint Madeleine of Pazzi, Saint Agnes, Saint Lucia, those legions of virgins whom the Saviour flooded with his light and intoxicated with his love!
And to speak only of demonic eruptions, you want us to go to see your fools and your fools to deny that there have never been possessed, and that, turning us back to our Master and our God, Jesus Christ, delivering the energists, ostensibly dismissing the demons, we accuse him of imposture; that, looking in front of the Catholic Church which, at all ages, exercised this ministry of deliverance and put in the hands of its ministers the prayers of exorcisms, we would trace his teachings, his institutions, his practices, miserable comedy!
Truly, it is to believe what is said, that madness is endemic and that those who care for the madmen take something from their clientele.
Another equally unfortunate epidemic is the one that passes from books to readers. The public, — it is as sad as it is certain — this very public, who claims to be a Christian, lends credit to these doctoral claims, and also starts to smile at unbelief in front of whom dares to speak again of mystical states, revelations, ecstasy, malice, and sees in all this only hollow dreams, legendary utopias, unpleasant memories of another age.
IT. — Without going to Charenton or the Salpêtrière, we can unravel the mysticism of the analogies that are sought in human infirmities. There is no question, it is understandable, of a course of nosology: what would be the point of mentioning morbid cases that would have nothing to do with mysticism? These are only a few conditions which
vf i }
sometimes seem, by their strangeness, to emerge from the normal course of nature, and to emerge from it in the manner of phenomena of a higher, divine or evil order. The main claims are the organic disorders that cause the loss of knowledge, an overexcitation of the brain which, on the contrary, activates intellectual insight, violent seizures that seem to accuse extrinsic oppression, and, in general, neurosis!, where these various accidents usually burst. In these organic eccentricities, we believe we discover relationships with visions, ecstasy, supernatural diseases, the transformation of the senses, invulnerability, bilocation, diabolical assaults.
We will confront these extranatural phenomena with the so-called similar morbid states, thus holding us on the ground of mysticism and on the defensive.
In the preceding chapters, we discussed the characteristic differences between visions and hallucinations, and protested against the inclusion of stigmas in the nosological catalogue, showing what was free and inconsistent with this medical interference.
By dealing with mystical diseases, we have sufficiently indicated how they were distinguished from natural diseases.
Miraculous abstinences seem to have to repa-
1 Dr. Tony Dunan", A Revolution in Philosophy, p. 169: "Neurosis was invented by our teachers, in order to designate a nervous, vague and undetermined state, which cannot be recognized as an appreciable seat. Neurosis remains one of the happiest escapes by which the doctor escapes when he does not know the nature of a disease, and he is powerless to relieve the patient. Everyone knows that from the moment a patient is accused of neurosis or nerve disease, he only has to resign himself to suffering, because he has been renounced to fight his evil." — The abuse that some doctors make of this word to explain what they do not know and to get rid of what is bothering them, leads us to believe that there is truth in this deceit of the Frankish doctor, by way of too disdain of his confreres.
to reappear here, because of the analogies they encounter in morbid eccentricities; but what we have said elsewhere seems to us still sufficient to specify the two kinds of phenomena: the reader asks grace, and we with him, against repetitions.
The question of the transformation of the senses will naturally come in the examination of magnetism, of which it constitutes one of the main phenomena.
Apart from these points, studied or postponed, rationalistic and medical challenges mainly concern ecstasy, the freeing of external influences and demonic eruptions.
IHI. — Doctors arrogate the exclusive right to appreciate lextase; exorbitant claim. "First of all, in this matter, we must consult the Church," Dr. Imbert-Gourbeyre rightly observes! Apart from its infallibility, it is an authority that is either willing or forceful. Now she has all the mystical facts since their origin; they are essentially within her jurisdiction; almost nineteen centuries ago she studied them and judges them. As a result, ecstatics were the most experimentally observed. Never before have the subjects been better studied and judged with full knowledge of the case. From this constant and universal observation, observation twenty times centuries old, came out this part of the theology called Mystics: it is a whole science."
Nevertheless, let us discuss the rationalistic interpretations of ecstasy by going one by one through the phenomena that make it up and the morbid disorders with which it is tried to be confused.
The ecstasy is an inner absorption of the soul, which goes so far as to interrupt the exercise of senses in the body. The
1 La Sligmalisalion, ti 2, p. 316.
organic ligature is only a consequence of mental concentration; it is refugee life, absorbed in the ideal world. All to the spiritual object that fascinates her, the soul deserts the body, and, when she resumes her functions there, as much she is unconscious of what may have happened outside, as much as the memory that she keeps of her inner vision is ineffable. Mystical ecstasy invariably takes these three things away: the ligature of external senses, an intimate vision, the memory of this vision.
Now, among the morbid states that one opposes supernatural ecstasy, many, to the truth, reproduce the suspension of external sensitivity or- l ́anesthesia; only a few, a certain mental dream independent of the external senses; but none leaves a clear, precise, deep memory of what was seen during abstraction, from the sole glance of the mind, or at most the vague reminisence of a dream.
Among the conditions that seem, by one or another of the characters we have assigned, to hold mystical ecstasy, comes first even + ecstasy. We said in the previous chapter that the concentration of the mind, combined with anemia, could cause failures that resemble supernatural suspension. These kinds of accidents occur especially in neurosis. The cessation of external sensitivity and a certain mental exaltation can therefore result simultaneously from a diseased, precise or indeterminate state, and take all the appearances of Pextase. This may not allow these ecstatic outings to be transformed into a characterized disease, as doctors and declared opponents of surina-
1 S, Taom. 2. 2, q. 175, a. 1: Hujus modi autem abstractio, ad quaecumque fiat, potest ex triplicati causa contantere: uno modo ex causa corporali, sicut accidit in his qui propter aliquam infirmitatem alienationem
patiuntur; secundo modo ex virtute dæmonis, sicut patet in arreptitiis; tertio modo ex virtute divina.
Section 3: MORBIDES STATES: one can only see signs or effects of a morbid disorder.
IV. — Illness, symptom or result, natural ecstasy exists; it is therefore necessary to assign its characteristic difference with higher ecstasy.
The beginning, the act itself and the sequel serve to distinguish these two states. Morbid ecstasy occurs only gradually, as the mind sinks into meditation; it is rarely complete and does not usually exceed a deep abstraction, that sharp shaking suffices to make it cease; it leaves traces of fatigue and a vague memory that goes down; finally the effects of grace are null or unimportant. On the contrary, the supernatural rapture is sudden, complete, and, when it is divine, it redones the body and transforms the soul. The demon's action is baffled by trouble, exhaustion, vain complacency, temptations and illusions that distance themselves from God. In dealing with ecstasy, we have sufficiently described the relationships and differences between these various states, depending on whether they are of God, of demon or of nature. Let's talk about the other morbid phenomena where we still want to find ecstasy. We believe that it will suffice to report syncope, lethargic sleep, sleepwalking, catalepsia, epilepsy and hysteria. A summary of these pathological phenomena, close to the true notion of ecstasy, will show the essential difference between them and extranatural delight.
V. — Syncope is a failure which temporarily suspends the manifestations of organic, sensual and intellectual life, as a result of a total stoppage or of the
1 A. Maury, Sleep and Dreams, ch. 10, 4th ed., p. 282: The ecstasy must therefore be regarded as a morbid state whatever the cause.
2 9th P., c. 19, t.2, p. 419.— 3rd P., c. 7, p. 134.
99 less noticeable heart action. Blood not circulating
more, the brain ceases its functions, all movements are interrupted, a sudden paleness wins the face and the
all the clues of life retreat and body
no longer obeys the laws of gravity. This apparent death lasts only a few seconds or minutes; it is very rare at least that it lasts for several hours. Anemia, chlorosis, fatigue, sudden impression, haemorrhage, acute crisis are the common causes of these faintings, in which one must see, not a disease, but symptoms of an organic malaise, or signs of a morbid disorder.
The syncope n-a of the ecstasy only the suspension of the senses; the main, that is, the intellectual life brought to its highest power, absolutely lacks. We must ignore the very notion of rapture, as Bona? observes, to look for it and see it in these bodily failures.
VI. — Nor is it in lethargic sleep, which, by its intensity, its duration, the difficulty of awakening, differs from ordinary sleep and seems to be closer to ecstatic absorption.
In this morbid sleep, we report several degrees. It is in the first place the sopor, which throws into drowsiness and a bountiful which make the awakening difficult. Coma is an even more intense sleep and manifests itself in a fever attack. Lethargy, without causing any functional disorder, plunges into a deep and continuous slumber, from which one does not come out, under the blow
1 Zaccrras, Quæst. medico-leg., 1. Two, title. 4, q. 19, n.4, p. 168: Dubium non est in eo virtutes omnes collabi, ac quasi penitus deperdi, cum quibus etiam lædi rationem manifestum inde fit, quod tales in paroxysmo constituti nec quemquam agnoscunt, nec loquuntur, quin et reviviscentes non illico ad mentem re dire comperuntur nec ad rempondent.
2 De discr. spir., ©. 14, 1v, p. 279: Interdum etiam raptus crediteur ab inexpertis quod est deliquium.
to come back there immediately after. The carus is a state of complete insensitivity that resists all stimulants. The more intense and deep these various sleeps, the more they suppress in the subject the exercise of consciousness. However, it is an exception: in lethargy called lucid, while the patient is deprived of any action on the muscular organs and powerless to give externally any sign of life, he keeps within the full enjoyment of sensitivity and intelligence; he sees, he hears, he follows with perfect lucidity all that happens around him.
Here again, where would ecstasy be? In the first three kinds of sleep, there is neither complete alienation of senses nor mental vision; and if, in the carus, the senses are related, the spirit is also in the same proportion. As for lucid lethargy, the senses and consciousness remain there and continue to receive the impressions of the outside world; only one thing characterizes it: the impotence of movement and expression. This is not the ecstasy, this total clearance of the body world produced by the absorption of the soul into the invisible world.
VII. — This is a new form of analogy invoked against ecstatic clairvoyance. We will deal with the final chapter of artificial sleep; we are currently talking about natural and spontaneous sleepwalking, or noctambulism.
It is a mixed state of sleep and sleep, or, if desired, a sleep that leaves a certain freedom of operation, either intellectual or physical, similar to that enjoyed in the normal state. This suspension and partial possession of faculties is not always equal. Sometimes you get up, you act, you go, you come, you talk, you write, you even seem to enjoy an extraordinary lucidity of mind; alone, the consciousness of these operations is em-
and when the day before begins again, any memory of what has been done, of what has been said, is erased; it is less than a dream. More often, we lose the use of appreciative faculties; we act externally, we utter words, but without order, without follow-up, according to the whims of imagination. Finally, intellectual manifestations can be removed, and only external movements remain the day before. These different forms have it in common that the senses do not exercise, or, if they exercise, that the consciousness does not keep any trace of them!, at most the vague memory of a distant dream °. In short, what characterizes noctambulism is the ability to act externally despite sleep and while it suspends in whole or in part the exercise of intellectual life.
It is the opposite of ecstasy, which paralyses the body in favor of the mind, withdraws from the sensitive world to absorb into that of thought, and leaves the objects of the senses unnoticed only to engrave the visions of intelligence into ineffaçable characters.
VII. — Catalepsia, strange, mysterious, less known in its intimate nature than in its external effects, to the extent that it is necessary to see a special disease or only a symptom of illness, seems to have more to do with ecstasy. It accuses itself by an almost always sudden suspension of the freedom of organs, the functions of sensitivity and intelligence, by a fixed body and limbs, which immobilizes in the attitudes where the crisis surprised, and at the same time by a
1 Dict. encycl. des sciences médic., par DECHAMBRE, s. Natural and spontaneous sleepwalking, by B. Bart and E. CHAMBARD, p. 332: In somnambulism, consciousness, the concept of Moë, and consequently the memories of the facts that took place during access, disappear first of all, and the first degree of this neurosis recognizes as the unique, sufficient and necessary condition, the abolition of sensorium.
2 See BRILLAT-SAVARIN, Physiology of taste, meditated. 17, Rest, p. 196.
singular flexibility with impulses coming from a foreign hand!. The members take and keep all the positions that they are given, as if they belonged rather to strangers than to the sick. For him, the time that this impotence lasts does not count: the past access, he resumes his life to the point where it was interrupted, even completing, after long hours of arrest, a sentence started.
There are degrees in this momentary suspension. When catalepsia is complete, "the mental faculties and all manifestations of understanding and thought, all modes of sensitivity, tact, sight, hearing, smell and taste, are interrupted and paralyzed. The patient no longer speaks, no longer hears, no longer sees, no longer feels... One of the features of complete cataleptic access is that the patient, returning to himself, has no awareness of his condition, and does not keep any memory of what happened during the crisis?"
Incomplete catalepsia does not reach the whole body and does not also bind all senses; but what one keeps of consciousness interests me only external things and impotence where one is to answer and act.
What does catalepsia have in common with ecstasy? When eile is complete, only one thing: the total suspension of the senses; but during the crisis, no intimate vision, and then, no memory. If only partial, the ligature of the senses is itself incomplete to the same extent, and the
1 Dr. T. Purz, Mémoires de l'Acad. de médecine, t. 20, p. 455, 4856 (Memory crowned by the Med.Acad. in 41855): Catalepsia is an intermittent neurosis, essentially characterized by the impossibility or is the patient to voluntarily change attitude, while a foreign person may, at his discretion, successively pass all the muscles of animal life through all the intermediate degrees between the extreme limits of contraction and extension.
2 Dict. encycloped. of medical sciences, by DrcnamBre, art, Cafalepsic, by A. Linas, t. 43, p. 59.
DISEASE EXTASE 103 difference with the ecstatic state becomes all the more obvious.
Epilepsy is closer to demonic violence than to ecstasy; but it was a mistake dear to the Montanists to pretend that ecstasy did not go without convulsions, and to confuse it with the epileptic crisis. When the access of this evil is confined to simple vertigo, it has at most some relation to catalepsia: one is suddenly seized of a slight tremor or a fixedness that immobilizes, without knowledge, in the attitude where one was surprised; after a few moments, one returns to oneself with the most complete unconsciousness of this sudden interruption +.
It is necessary to be well ignorant of the conditions of l ́extase or of those of the epilepsy, to confuse one with the other.
IX. — But finally come to the great neurosis, which, to hear rationalism, holds the whole mystic in check. Especially today, when it comes to supernatural states in a human subject, especially in women, unbelievers have a word that answers everything, explains everything, victoriously suppresses, in the name of science, old miracles: this magic word is hysteria.
To consider only etymology?, this evil would only be suitable for women, as it was believed since Hippocrates
1 SANDRAS and BourGuIGnoN, Tr, nerve diseases, 1. 2, ch. 3 p. 274: The loss of consciousness is always complete, whether or not there is a violent convulsion; at the same time as there is a loss of consciousness, the sensitivity is suspended everywhere too, and the sick, returning to them, do not realize at all the blows they have given themselves, the bruises they have suffered... There are also incomplete epilepsies... In these latter forms, access is sometimes so low that there is, so to speak, only a kind of vertigo, temporary absence, either intelligence or consciousness. Only this vertigo is portrayed as epilepsy, and offers some of their characteristic signs. Thus, with or without a prodrome, he seizes the person exposed to it, completely disturbs his intelligence, interrupts him in a sentence started, in an act that he performed, at that moment deprives him of his senses, etc.
2 Of ÿorepx, uterus, matrix,
until recently; but numerous and precise observations seem to establish that strong wen sex is not exempt. However, the very ones who have contributed most to accrediting this feeling maintain that evil, while extending to men, is most prevalent among women, half of whom, according to Dr. Briquet +, would be more or less affected. The experiences of Mr. Charcot?, at the Salpêtrière, seem to confirm the old opinion that this condition has, in their home, its main seat at the very sources of maternity, although this feeling finds serious and many contradictors?.
Three phases are distinguished in hysterical seizures. The first is a sudden access, similar to that of the epilepsy, which for a relatively little time deprives of the use of the senses and ends with moaning, a lively emotion, tears, or a sleep of a few minutes. The malaise usually erupts in the abdominal or epigastric region, where a solid body seems suddenly to detach itself up to the throat, suffocate and suddenly remove, in supreme anguish, the feeling of life. This sign, the immediate precursor of the attack, bears the name of hysterical ball or aura, and from there, no doubt, the former qualifier of steam given to hysteria.
1 Hysteria Treaty, p. 51: The influence of sex on predisposition to hysteria can be summarized as follows: 4° man may have hysteria; 20 He seems to be disposed of this disease about twenty times less than the woman. 3° hysteria is very common in women; 4° at least half of them are hysterical or very impressionable, and the fifth is attacked.
2 Lessons on Nervous System Diseases, done at Salpêtrière by J.-M. Cnarcor, 11th lec.: Ovarian hyperaesthesia.
3 Sanpras and BourGuiGnon, Treaty of Nervous Diseases, 1. 9, c. 9, p. 190: The doctors share, in relation to this disease, three Camps, unequal in number, but all three defended by honourable names. Those who initially place the starting point of the disease in the womb, those who usually find its seat in the system
Those who finally assume a kind of parallelism between the two systems with reciprocal reactions.
The second phase is characterized by violent agitations, grotesque contortions, disorderly postures, jumps that remind the clowns of circuses, which led to the classification of these crises as slowism by Dr. Charcot.
The third, more peaceful, but with more wonderful appearances, simmered by the intellectual overexcitation, by strange scenes of hallucination or sleepwalking lucidity. We can artificially provoke these eccentric states, as we will say when we speak of magnetism.
The suspension of the senses and almost always total anesthesia accompany these various forms of hysteria. Sometimes, however, while the exercise of other senses seems to be interrupted, there is in a few a repetition of sensitivity, or what doctors call hyperaesthesia +.
The violent form of hysteria is too close to the demonic eruptions for unbelief to fail to confuse the two orders of phenomena. The other forms, the last, are rather confined to ecstatic visions, and the same hastened to grasp this pretext of confusion. We will now indicate the difference between hysterical seizures and demonic possessions. Extranatural visions and ecstasy are even more distinct from lucid and hallucinatory hysteria. Here the work of the mind does not exceed the incoherent divagation, or, at most, a view that has nothing miraculous about the natural world?; and, the past crisis, there usually remains in the consciousness no memory. There, on the contrary, the inner gaze is fixed in
1 From the ôpé, above, and atounu: faculty to feel. 2 See Dict. of Medicine and Surgery, by Jaccoun, t. 18, p. 224, art. Hysteria, by G. BERNUT.
superhuman shows whose memory is indestructible.
However, rationalists do not hesitate to place the ecstatics among the patients who torment hysteria. In a book! fort en vogue, published by two disciples of Doctor Charcot, MM. Bourneville and Regnard, we go so far as to put on the same foot Madeleine Bavent, the vast heroine of Louviers, and Marguerite- Marie Alacoque, the blessed confidante of the Sacred Heart. A semblance of good faith leads to this heinous rapprochement: It is in History of Blessed Marguerite-Marie, written by our illustrious hagiographer Myr Bougaud, that we draw the evidence?. So that nothing lacks what can illuminate the parallel, one still draws closer the admirable religious of Paray-le-Monial from the infamous Madeleine of Cordoba. The last word, the word premeditated and that says everything, is that this so-called supernatural, diabolical or divine, is found in the hystericals of the Salpêtrière: these are only sick; these were no other thing °, and the history of hysteria, according to our doctors, is the very history of the supernatural.
It's the grossest contempt.
We have studied, our readers know, the lives and writings of the saints; we have read and often quoted the pages
t Photographic Iconography of the Salpetriere, service of Mr. Charcot, by Bournevizce and P. RrGnarD, 3 vol. in-80, 1877.
2 Ibid., t.2, p. 218. Notes.
3 Ibid., p. 224: According to the theologians, the memory of Madeleine Bavent, the devil's wife, must be dishonored and conspucated, while that of Mary Alacoque, Jesus' wife, must be honored and venerated. This opinion is not ours. For us, it was two sick people who suffered the sad influence of the superstitions of their time. All the phenomena mentioned in Marie Alacoque: hallucinations of sight and hearing, sometimes cheerful, sometimes sad, absorptions, ecstasy, imaginary wounds, erotic delirium, — are found to varying degrees in the hystericals of the Salpètrière. Without the intervention of Fr. de la Colombière, who knows if Marie Alacoque would not have suffered the same fate as Madeleine de Cordoba?
(i) >
written, with incomparable simplicity, by the
_ trouse Marguerite-Marie, we have transcribed a notable
part of the works of Saint Teresus. In order to give a fair ruling on the parallel to which we are forced, we have also gone through the speeches, sentences, cries, exclamations, patiently collected by Doctors Bourneville and Regnard, with their clients of the Salpêtrière: here everything is pure, edifying, elevated, if not sublime; here it is the child, the absurd, the ignoble, in a word, the incoherent rabbling of dementia.
We have described the ecstasy, the true ecstasy, and, to know what is opposed to it, we have had to see the pencils and photographic reproductions of the attitudes and expressions whose so-called ecstasy of the Salpêtrière offer the spectacle: the first is a lovely transformation of the human face under the radius of Dicu; the rest is sad as sickness, insignificant as vulgarity, hebated as madness, when this is not grotesque, lubricated, repulsive.
Let our readers forgive him, in front of such an inconvenient parallel, established for the sole purpose of concluding to identity, when everything clearly concludes to the two extremes of contrast, we find it difficult to contain our indignation $; pity and contempt would suffice.
No, with a little attention and good faith, one cannot confuse divine ecstasy with hysterical access. That if we meet, mixed with those of hysteria, the characters of extranatural ecstasy, which is not impossible, it would only have to be concluded that the demon veils his action under this mask of human infirmity, and that perhaps he is the sole author.
1 See Dissertation of the new Boll. relative to Saint Teresus, 15 Oct., t. 55, p. 523-537.
"The divine ecstasy," says Dr.Imbert-Gourbeyre #, a master in the species, "is composed of physical, psychic and miraculous phenomena: a trilogy which, moreover, has as its substrate holiness, which already clearly separates the hysteria from the ecstasy.
"Three major physical symptoms differentiate lextase from hysteria: immobility, complete dissension of the senses and muscle stiffness.
"In ecstasy, in its most ordinary form, belongs absolute immobility, that of the marble statue or of the apparent death; to the hysteria excessive mobility, which is proved by the four periods of the attack: epileptoid period, that of contortions and large movements, known as slowism; the period of passionate attitudes, and that of delirium. The great hysterics are only agitated; they are even agitated outside of attacks. The ecstatics, on the contrary, are immobilised; and when, by exception, they come out of their extraordinary immobility, it is only to represent the scenes of the Passion, a very rare kind of ecstasy, as well as the ecstasy of jubilation; or else it is to enter into miraculous mobility; and then they travel by steam without touching the ground, they fly like birds in space, or stay suspended in still Pair like rock, or they swing like light feather under the lightest breath. Although mobile in their splintered clowism, the so-called ecstatics of the Salpêtrière have never been mobilized in this way. From the point of view of ecstatic immobility, I would understand that the free thinkers, in their war with the supernatural, would have assimilated divine ecstasy to the catalepsy or the melancholy stupor of the alienated; but having been
1 Stigmatization, t. 2, p. 439-449.
looking for physeria as a comparison type, it is a
Full!
"The complete alienation of senses is not found in any of the diseases opposed to ecstasy. In lhysteria, anaesthesia where insensitivity is almost always partial, rarely generalized, it never fully reached
special senses. The hysterics, during their attacks,
see, hear, retain the sense of taste, of smell, even touch, at least partially, while the special senses, not to mention the general sensitivity, are abolished during ecstasy. In addition, a major differential sign, the alienation of the senses disappears completely with l'extase, while in hysteria partial anaesthesia persists after the attack and become signs of the state of disease.
The same applies to muscle stiffness, which is common and widespread in ecstasy. In the attack of hysteria, on the contrary, it exists only by periods, is most often partial, although sometimes it spreads for a few minutes in the form of tetanus. But, as the second first-order differential sign, the stiffness or contractures of the hysteria persist after the attack, even months and years, while the ecstatic stiffness disappears incontinent with the ecstasy.
"The psychic symptoms of hysteria are losing singularly to be compared with those of l-ecstasy. In female sickness, there is no infuse science, no prophetic spirit; no heavenly visions or inspired discourses; there is nothing else, the most disorderly delusion, even the filthy delusion.
"There is no need to add that hysterical symptoms or miraculous accidents are not involved, and that differences become even more pronounced when stigma is associated with ecstasy. From which it is necessary to
140 0 0 clar that hysterics are neither stigmatized nor ecstatic.
"This is, in short, the differential pattern of divine ecstasy and hysteria: it is unattainable. If free thinkers had known him, or rather had they bothered to study the matter, they would not have spoken without knowing, as I said so often; they would not have committed the insignia of confusing ecstasy and divine stigmatization with hysteria.
"If this confusion is what is most antiscientific, it is also deeply immoral. To make it grasp the supreme inconvenience, it will suffice to take from the Salpêtrière one common type of ecstatic, another of stigmatized, as they were described on the alive by Dr. Richer."
We spare readers these photographic exhibitions of the madmen whose doctors have made a claim against the supernatural.
X. — These are the morbid diseases to which we claim to bring back ecstasy. To consider only the elements, so to speak, intrinsic, which make up it, it is clearly distinguished, by one or the other, from natural phenomena and the so-called similar malady states.
But there are even more decisive marks. They derive from supernatural wonders that usually accompany ecstatic absorption. If it is difficult to make the unbelievers touch the effects of grace that result for the soul of divine attraction, others are the spring of the senses and impose on all. These miraculous effects, we have described them in the long exposure of mystical phenomena; that we suffice to mention the immediate reminder of l'extase by the
19th P., ch, 20, t. 2, p. 431.
to ET的 representatives of spiritual authority, discernment _ by the ecstatics of sacred things?, the freeing of the laws of gravity è, abslinences #, invulnerability#. This last point of view appears in the following question on the miraculous freeing of the outside world, divine prerogative, which we must distinguish, as we have done for ecstasy, from the natural analogies that are opposed to it.
PERD C be 2, D 2 9th P., c. 30, t. 2, p 8:90 Preh 32 t2 D. 638. To R Chr 26 t 2, p $ 9e P., ch. 34, t. 2, p
Nature offers nothing near the miraculous independence enjoyed by the saints in relation to the outside world. — Bilocation is not a morbid duplication. — The freeing of the laws of gravity has not been equivalent in the body order either. — Medical science claims to give reason for invulnerability, but it does not address the wonders of divine invulnerability. — However, it has discussed the facts relating to the convulsions of Saint Médard. — Exhibition of these facts. — Embarras of Messrs. Bersot and Figuier, who refer to doctors. — Insufficient medical interpretation.
I. — We have narrated the admirable independence in which God pleases to put his saints to the outside world, thus preluding before the hour in their mortal bodies to the release of glorious life. By multilocation, he frees them from the present conditions of space; by lack of gravity, he suspends the laws of attraction; by invulnerability, he alters the natural relationships of action and resistance. To these divine miracles, the demon, we have said, can oppose similar prestiges; but does nature offer analogies that allow rationalism to elude the supernatural divine or diabolical? It is us.
In this order, nature has nothing, almost nothing, even in morbid irregularities, which, in this order, induces illusion and provides a serious pretext for unbelief.
II. — First of all, the equivalent of supernatural bilocation would be vainly sought. It is hardly possible to awaken the possibility of an illusion in the morbid disorders of personal identity. We rule out the case of amnesia!, i.e. the temporary or prolonged loss of memory; only the hallucinatory phenomenon of duplication, which occurs from far and far in neuropathic bizarreries, can suggest a rapprochement. This singular illusion consists, sometimes in that the sick person sees objects in repeated forms: it is diplopia?; sometimes in that he loses the feeling of his own existence, and speaks of himself as another °, or even that, by a strange aberration of consciousness, he sees himself in double form as two personalities'; we find fools who think they are dead, beheaded and speak of them as if they
= These facts, which are sufficient to denounce, are indisputable; but what do they have in common with multipresence at points and
1 From "privative, and pvnotc, memory. Cf. Dr. Azam, La double conscience, Journal scientifique, August 31, 1878, p. 194-196. — D' Morrer, Note on Temporary Vamnesia, The Medical Union, 10 June 1879. — Dict. encyclop. des sciences médic., art. AMSIE.
2 From äimdeoc, double, and üntouar, see.
3 V. Ecer, Revue philos., Sept. 1887, p. 309: "The dual personality, the double consciousness in the strict sense of these words, has never been scientifically observed. The double mos in a single body remains a kind of ideal from which some sleepwalkers and other sick people approach more or less: but it cannot be said that it was ever realized... A truly double person would be simple at every moment of his existence, for he would always ignore the one of his two self who would be momentarily in the latent state; his entourage alone would know the duplication of his life."
4 Cf, BauTaIN, Psych. experiment., t. 2, p. 108-109,
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in separate places, very distant even, as we have seen in dealing with real two-locations! Between these two phenomena, there is all the difference between mental illusion and external reality: morbid duplication is illusion; miraculous bilocation is reality.
However, we should not conceal a singular assertion by Görres! about the two-location he naturally sees as possible. Here's how:
"The body is composed of two bodies, so to speak, united in a third, the first of which resides in the system and acts by the nervous fluid, while the other, which comes mainly from the blood, becomes embroiled in the circulatory system, and the bond that unites them both occurs in the muscular system. The first construction of the building is the type, and gives the plane of the other; and both are the image of the soul that resides in them; so that one might call, in a certain sense, the first the spectrum of soul, and the second its plastic envelope. As long as these two bodies are united, in the ordinary course of things, by the bond of personality, they penetrate and bind each other. But if this bond is dissolved by death, they separate: one, the one who has more affinity with the soul, follows it; while the other, closer to the earthly nature, is absorbed by it.
"But between these two extremes, that is, between ordinary life and death, there are joint states in which the bond relaxes without breaking; so that the two natures that he attaches together separate one from another by a kind of eccentric movement. If in this movement the first body, the one that is the highest and which serves as a type to the other, is detached from it by an increase of energy, and coming out of the latent state where it holds it,
1 Mystic,,. 5, c. 17, t. 3 p. 317, 318.
It crosses its limits without leaving it altogether, while the spectrum, emerging from the envelope that covers it, appears in a visible way, almost like the lightning that teares the nude. Thus delivered, it acquires a higher unity and a more powerful and central action. More concentrated, it becomes present, not everywhere, which is suitable only for God, but in several places, according to the measure of the clearance that has operated in him. The soul disappears in the sphere where its power extends, and it can be present where its desires carry it, in all the expanse of this sphere. While present in the part which is wrapped under matter, the soul is still present elsewhere by the typical and central part, and thus becomes visible in the elements and forces of the latter.
"We see that catalepsia and somnambulism, producing a separation of this kind in the elements of which the human personality is composed, sometimes allow it to be seen in several places at once. But this condition can also be the effect of a natural arrangement."
Assuming that the nebulous physiology of German author is demonstrated, it would remain to be established that these different parts of human organization can dissociate themselves without causing death, without drawing man from the established natural order, without consequently leading to a miraculous derogation from the laws that govern him. For, if we admit that multilocation is a miracle in the present state of the human constitution, we may still differ on the interpretation proposed, but, from the point of view of mysticism, we agree.
But, far from being demonstrated, the theory which supposes in man an intermediate principle between soul and body is in formal opposition to catho- teaching.
lic. The Church expressly condemned him to the Council of Vienna in 1311 against Pierre-Jean d'Olive, and to the Council of Lateran in 1517. Closer to us, Pius IX had to renew this sentence, in 1857, against Antoine Günther, and in 1860, against Jean-Baptiste Baltzer. If he had lived, Görres could not have maintained an interpretation formally imprudent by the supreme authority of the Church. Accurate historian when he tells the facts, he almost always sins in doctrine when it comes to miracle.
IT. — The exemption from the laws of gravity by agility, aerial ascension, flight, walking on the waters, neither has any equivalent in nature, and it is hardly possible that he has encountered some imaginations bold enough to attribute such effects to him. Zacchias! reports these eccentric theorists, and only bothers to refute them by mocking them. Görres? risks this pleasant interpretation that, in these kinds of phenomena, the bird develops in man and takes it into its native element of Pair. By taking the thing seriously, rationalism here as a way to escape the supernatural, its ordinary means, to deny the facts. Despite negations, the facts remain and the supernatural too.
The same is true of the privilege of being invisible,
1 Quæst. medico leg., 1. Four, title. 4, q. 6, n. 10, p. 59: Ali præterea sunt ecstatici qui a terra in ecstasi elevantur, et quasi in aere librati permanent; hoc autem (quicquid conati fuerint nonnulli assertare) in naturali ecstasi est ab omni veritate alienum; contra naturæ enim propensionem omnimo est corpus grave a centro proprio virtute sublevari etin aere sustineri, etc.
2 Mystique, l. 4, ch. 23, t. 2,-p. 367: "In the ordinary state, these organs (of movement) are destined for walking; but when the soul prevails over the body, and in it the element of the air subsequently takes over the others, the bird develops in it, so to speak, it prevails over the brute, and, emerging from its envelope, it flies joyfully towards the higher light that draws."
SEP, Ch SE 2 p 605:
= 417 to penetrate the bodies, to resist all their efforts? We do not know that nature has yet delivered such secrets, familiar, we have seen, to the friends of God.
IV. — But at least medical science claims as natural the prodigy of invulnerability, so common in the lives of the saints and even in the evil prestiges. Let's look at whether the theory fits into the facts.
The miraculous facts of the Divine Porse with the purpose of pinvulnerability are innumerable; we have indicated the various forms of this by dealing, in our second part, with the exemption of the external influences which God grants to his saints. The rationalists do not discuss them, doubtless considering it easier to reject them as a whole, than to find them, without leaving nature, a plausible interpretation.
And what could be claimed, indeed, to explain, while contesting the miracle, such a suspension of natural forces? How can we explain these broken torture devices without the bodies of the martyrs being damaged, the swords being blunted on their intact flesh, the devouring logs, the fiery furnaces, the boiling boilers that lose their combustive virtue in contact with God's servants? Mr. Alfred Maury * explains
1 9 P., c. 32, t. 2, p. 601.
2 Ibid., p. 602.
3 Sleep and dreams, ch. 12, 4th ed., p. 327: "Everything that is reported from the torments of Hindu devotees, from the incredible penances of the Brahmanist ascetics, or Buddhists, finds its explanation in the anesthetic state as well. There is no doubt that such insensitivity was the effect of an excessive nerve excitation in the early martyrs of Christianity, due to the exaltation of their religious beliefs. Is it not known that in the heat of combat the soldier does not see any wounds that would cause him, on the contrary, in a calm state, a cruel suffering? All of this shows that the overexcited nerve, in some cases, especially reduces sensitivity."
4148 to enjoy in the midst of their torment by the anesthesia where they threw an overexcited nervous and excessive; he does not attempt to explain the invulnerability itself. The pagans attributed these wonders to magic enchantments; our rationalists, even less believing in the devil than in God, are careful not to resort to these interpretations. They stick to the general and axiomatic denial that the supernatural is impossible. Everything that is not suitable for their theory is declared out of science and not in the future.
V. — Some evil prestiges, however, had a better fortune, especially those of the convulsors of Saint-Médard. In the 18th century, one saw scandalous, fantastic, astounding scenes that all of Paris could witness for years. Several authors of time have made detailed descriptions of them that allow no doubt about the reality of these wonders. The writers of the 19th century think less about discussing the existence than the character. Some of the Catholics have brought out their extranatural form. Constraints of admitting them, the proponents of rationalism, with the help of medical and scholarly explanations, have devoted themselves to suppressing all the wonderful from it.
Of this wonderful, we only want to consider invulnerability at the moment. The quotations will be long, but they will have the effect of putting into full evidence, if not bad faith, at least Villusion of free thinkers, doctors and others, who, after reading and admitting these accounts of eye witnesses, try to bring the facts back to singularities mor-
1 See Hirr. Branch, The Wonderful in Jansenism, etc., 1. 4, ch. 2, p: 130-166. — Lecanu, History of Satan,
419 Bides, and in particular, to the nosological framework of hysteria.
VI. — The blows administered to the convulsors took the name of rescue, because of the relief and voluptuous impression they received, for they were mainly women who played these games as indecent as they were extraordinary. There were the big ones and the small ones. These consisted of blows struck on the head, chest, belly, with the hand, fist, stick, or any other relatively light instrument; or in pressures under enormous weights, in trampling, truncation, swinging. These were blows, murderers of their nature, carried by vigorous arms, often by several concert, and who should have broken the tissues, crushed the bones and killed.
= On these reliefs, large and small, we must hear Carré de Montgeron, the historian convinced of Jansenist miracles. We shall cite only one of his own exploits which is quite convincing in the present question, and part of what he reports about Gabrielle Moler, the most illustrious heroine in the cemetery of Saint-Médard:
"To relieve Gabrielle Moler, we used four iron rods of the small finger size, and the length of about one and a half feet, which had a head about like that of a cart nail and ended in a blunt tip. As Gabrielle was lying down on his back, four people pushed the tips of these four rods with all their strength into the hollow of his stomach, where these tips shoved from the depth of three inches, causing the clothes to penetrate. She was then applied under the chin the tips of two
1 Truth about miracles, etc., t. 3 p. 702-708.
And he was so violent that his head was forced to turn back, and his neck was a kind of bow; and, as these points shoved the flesh of the chin into her mouth and in the top of her throat, she could no longer speak, and was obliged to express herself by signs. Nevertheless, as soon as this rescue was over, there was no trace of these tips left on the skin of his chin...
"Gabrielle made four almost straight excavators on purpose, whose bottom was much sharper than the common excavators. In addition, two of these excavators were cut in the bottom straight line, as usual, and the bottom of the other two were rounded in half a quarter circle. This young convulsive woman placed herself the edge of one of the shovels immediately rounded over one of her breasts over her dress, and the edge of the other below, and the other two on both sides, one on the right and the other on the left; so that her breast was enclosed on all four sides in the edge of these four shovels. Immediately four of the assistants each pushed one of these four shovels with all the strength that was possible to them; but although they did all their efforts there, as the convulsor ordered them, the cutting of these shovels could not in any way penetrate into the breast, nor would it have been iron. And, after these four assistants had unnecessarily exhausted all their forces, Gabrielle often made spectators do the same operation on his other mammella... After this help, Gabrielle, lying on the ground on her back, placed the cutting of one of these shovels on the larynx of her throat, i.e. precisely below the trachea of the artery, and forced one of the assistants to push this shovel perpendicularly with all her strength into her throat, for she knew that at that moment
124 skin, veins, trachea, and all other parts of its throat were also hard, as impenetrable as it had just been its breast. So, no matter how violently the edge of this shovel was pushed on her neck, she received only a pleasant and beneficent impression; which made her undertake to have this operation repeated several times in a row...
"Gabriel lay down on the ground on her back, and had a large iron drum of forty-eight pounds, more than three feet long, and seven to eight inches high, and five to six inches in diameter. It is by this instrument, with such a terrible weight, that it was struck with extreme violence in the hollow of the stomach. After a few moderate blows had been experienced if her stomach had become as invulnerable as she said, one of the strongest assistants raised this drumstick thirty times in a row from the height of nearly two feet and rushed it each time with a terrible force on the stomach of this young convulsive... We even noticed, every time we gave him this terrible help, that the furniture in the bedroom, the windows, the floor and even all the assistants felt it, which was caused only by the backlash that this young child's body gave against the floor... Nevertheless this relief pleased Gabrielle so strongly that she would usually repeat it two or three times in a row after a little break, so that in these three times she received ninety strokes of this drumstick in her stomach...
"Would it be believed that she was immediately receiving another aid whose instrument was even more frightening? It was another two-and-a-half-foot iron drumstick, with a good inch in diameter, and its mass, which was four inches in diameter, ended in tip. We don't
, at the discretion of this convulsor, give him quite violent blows in the hollow of the stomach. Although the attendants used all the strength of their arms, she kept yelling at them: "Strong! Strong! Strong!" And so she received, backed up against a wall, thirty or forty blows immediately. His couture dress and his straitjacket did not fail to be torn by the tip of this terrible instrument at the place where it was struck; but at the same time it was noted with admiration that nevertheless his shirt never penetrated...
"I'll say only one word of the terrible logs that she was being given, since since the surprising phenomenon of prodigious relief began to appear, it has been so common that I have already spoken of it on several occasions. So I will only observe that whatever violent blows were given to her on the stomach, while she was on her knees leaning her back against a wall, she often complained that they were not strong enough, although her body was so severely struck that he bounced against the wall, and caused a considerable shake. She then turned her face and stomach against the wall, and received such blows on the spine of the back, which also bounced her stomach against that wall. At last she was being hit several times on her head...
"But let us not forget to account...for the frightening help of the swords, which in recent years has become so common and Gabrielle has received the first. As early as 1736, this young convulsive man was often led, by the supernatural instinct that guides her, to take the strongest and most affiliated sword of all the spectators, and then, having his back leaned against the wall, she placed the point of the sword above her stomach, and engaged the man who seemed to have the most wrist.
123 firm and vigorous to push it with all its strength; and, although the sword bent and formed a kind of bow by the violence with which it was pushed..., nevertheless the convulsive still said: "Strong! Strong!" After having repeated this amazing help several times, she applied the tip of this sword to her throat, and grew it with the same violence that had been done in the stomach. So the tip shoved the skin into the throat at the depth of four finger-throws; but it could not pierce the skin, so hard that it was pushed.... Gabrielle then twice shoved the tip of this sword into his eyelids, but his eyes were as impenetrable to this weapon as piercing as its throat had been. She could not pierce her eyes, so she put the tip of this sword under her tongue, and pushed it with strength down to the top. She could not bring her in, but she leaned her finger over the tongue precisely above the point of the sword; but, although she repeatedly began to do all her efforts as if to pierce her tongue, she could not overcome it."
The personal exploit of Carré de Montgeron is worth noting: it is the blows of a huge chenet that this Jansenist devoted to another indefatigable and indomitable convulsive.
"I pray to the reader," he said naively, "that I may give him a little more details of the circumstances." The chenet here is a big iron bar without any way; but it is only bent at both ends and separated in two by front to form the pies, and it has a very short and very large amount. This chenet weighs twenty-nine to thirty pounds. It is with this instrument that this convulsive person is given the most terrible blows, not the most terrible.
1 Observations on seizures, 4th P., 43 and 44, t. 2.
(y) , as the author of the Vains efforts says, but in the hollow of the stomach...
"As I am not bluffing for being one of the ones who followed the convulsors the most, I declare without pain that it is about me that this author speaks of... I began, in accordance with my custom, to give the convulsor first only very moderate blows. However, excited by her complaints, which left me with no reason to doubt that the oppression she felt in her stomach could only be relieved by very violent blows, I always admitted to increasing the weight of my own; but it was in vain that Jy employed in the end all that I could gather with forces: the convulsive woman continued to complain that the blows I gave her were so frightful that they did not provide her with any relief, and she forced me to put the chenet into the hands of a great and vigorous man who was among the spectators. This one did nothing. Instructed by the trial that I had to do, that we could not give him too violent blows, he unloaded from him such terrible ones, still in the hollow of the stomach, that they shook the wall against which she was supported.
"The convulsator was immediately given the hundred blows that she saw requested first, counting for nothing the sixty she saw first received from me... After these hundred blows were given to her, I took back the chenet, and I wanted to try against a wall if my blows, which she found so frail and which she complained so bitterly, produced no effect. On the twenty-fifth blow, the stone on which I smote, which was shaken by the previous blows, ended to break: everything that holds it fell on the other side of the wall, and made there an opening of more than half a ped of largo...
< It is very important to note that the strength of the blows given to the convulsors is not stopped on the skin surface. For example, when his blows are struck with great violence, he sinks so before into the stomach of the convulsorator that he seems to penetrate almost to the back, and that he seems to have to crush all the viscera that are under the weight of his blows; and he cries for when the convulsorator writes with an air of contentment painted on his face: "Ah! "that this is good! Oh, how good it is for me! N- " rage, my brother; repeat again by force, if you "can!"
"I've already noticed that the shady blows of the chenet are first on the skin, but without causing the slightest bruising... How, then, have all these so tender, so thin, so delicate parts been able to withstand the force of so violent blows? With such blows, stone walls are pushed down, metal is ferocious, iron bars are broken, bronze statues are broken: how do the blows of such a great violence do not break such untied fibres? How did they not crush such soft glands? How did they not break the veins of such a great finesse? How did they not only touch a film as thin and tender as the epidermis?"
VII. — Let us stop these quotations; they suffice to show the character of these phenomena.
Carré de Montgeron saw supernatural; he was right; but he was wrong when he saw a divine supernatural in favor of Jansenism. God does not intervene miraculously to support heresy, nor in indecent and burlesque scenes like those of convulsions.
For us, who admit evil intervention,
eZ #7 T N f, Y Ve -D LT tr
the explanation is easy. Those who reject any wonderful extranatural assume the hard task of demonstrating that everything has happened here in accordance with the order of nature, the laws of physics and physiology.
Two renowned writers, Messrs. Ernest Bersot and Louis Figuier, subjected the scenes of Jansenist convulsors to the test of criticism. After having reproduced the substance of these facts after the very narration of the Sieur de Montgeron, one of which is one! and the other? agree to acknowledge sincerity, they come to conclusions that misrepresent their defeat.
Mr. Bersot reports to Dr. Bertrand, who brings everything back to magnetism. "When we compare all the facts that we have just mentioned," he says, "we find that they bear witness to a number of extraordinary faculties that, according to Dr. Bertrand, can be summarized as follows: External insensitivity. One sleepwalk, for example, sings, and without any alteration of voice, while one plunges forty or fifty pins into his body." Of course it's not enough. We even question the principle of solution to which we are referred; for if magnetism presents phenomena similar to those whose character we discuss, we classify them already out of the natural order, unless we are explained by nature this suspension of its laws.
1 Bersor, Mesmer and Animal Magnetism, 3rd ed., p. 99: A considerable witness, Carré de Montgeron, an adviser to the Paris Parliament, wrote what he had seen in a book entitled: The Truth of the Miracles of Pris (1737-1748). In his sincerity, he presented this book to Louis XV, who had him locked up in the Bastille, and then sent him into exile, where he died. In 1759 similar facts were attested by the Doyer of Gastel, and by an illustrious man, the Condamine.
2 Fiever, Hist. of the wonderful, t. 1, p. 384: In general, Montgeron never tries to hide, etc. So much accuracy must therefore merit an entire claim on the facts of which it is the sole guarantor,
127 But we will return to this subject in the chapter of magnetism.
Mr. Figuier seems more explicit; in the end, he also refers to the doctors!: to Hecquet, Cabanis, Calmeil, Montègre; and, in the end, not satisfied with their comments, he comes to put into suspicion the accounts which he declared earlier out of reach, but which are wrong to resist rationalistic interpretations. "It must be agreed, however," he says, "that the examples we have just cited are less settled than those of the convulsors. But the facts here are not well verified. We have often even recognized that these fanatics, in believing themselves to be invulnerable, are making a strange illusion.""That is to say, for every attentive reader, that we get rid of the embarrassing facts by denying that they are properly verified, and that those alone must be considered true who are not embarrassing. The process is rather convenient than logical and loyal.
VIII. — But let us see in more detail the medical solutions in this cause systematically devolved to doctors. Taking the facts as they are told by eyewitnesses, we ask for a plausible explanation taken from the natural order, since it is so obstinacy to argue that nothing here exceeds nature.
How did these bare swords, these sharp iron rods, these sharp shovels pushed by vigorous hands, not cause the blood to flow, not penetrate the tissues, not tear the breasts, not pierce the goose, not die the eyes?
If these instruments did not enter the flesh before, it is probably, says Dr. Charcot, that they are not.
1 Fiever, Hist. of the wonderful, t 1, p. 406-416. 2 Ibid., p. he
It is a phenomenon that occurs from far and far in hysterics. Let's just mention it. "This ischemia, which is further pushed to this degree is quite rare, may explain certain facts that are considered miraculous. In the outbreak of St.Medard, for example, the sword blows that were carried to the convulsors did not produce, it is said, bleeding. The reality of the fact cannot be rejected without examination... This was almost always the case, the criticism has shown, of the hysteria pushed to the highest point; and so that on these women, struck with anesthesia, a wound by a piquant instrument, such as a sword, was not followed by blood flow, it was enough, you understand from the above, that the instrument was not pushed too deeply (!!).'" — It is an equivalent admission that if things happened as Carré de Montgeron, Dom La Taste and others tell them, Dr. Charcot was not an explanation to provide. Dr. Bourneville? insists more on lack of bleeding and sensitivity in the scenes of crucification which the convulsors gave the spectacle. We point out to the master and disciple that the sapital here is to explain invulnerability, which they do not do.
But let's look at this specific point of sensitivity.
How did these impressionable women receive these murderous blows without giving evidence of any pain? — (This is the answer of the unbelieving doctors, that all these girls were hysterical, and that anesthesia is one of the ordinary effects of this neurosis. In several morbid states and conditions, especially during crises,
1 Of eyeuv stop, and "blood kill: medical term which means suspension or slowing of blood circulation, and, by extension, the absence or rarity of blood in tissues.
2 Leg. on Nervous System Diseases, 10°L, p. 268.
3 BOURNEVILLE and RecnarD, Iconography of the Salpetriere, Hystero= Epilepsy, observant. 3 p. 47.
129 the organism is affected by insensitivity. Sometimes it is the whole body, sometimes one side, a member, an organ that stops passing external impressions on to the consciousness. We sting, we slit, we burn these parts, the subject does not feel anything. — It is rare for scholarly and unbelieving medicine to address the question of anesthesia without alleging the convulsorants of Saint-Médard. It establishes in principle a solution the very fact that should be explained. We have no interest in challenging the anaesthetic effects of hysteria; let us only see if the interpretation currently fits with the facts.
Anesthesia is the absence of sensation, as its opposite hyperaesthesia is an exaltation of sensitivity. But not only did Jansenist convulsors not feel pain, but they jubilated with pleasure under the strange help that should have broken them. How do I bestow all this?:
The pleasure, continue the unsettled doctors, is as easy to explain as the absence of pain. These subjects were suffering from morbid affections to which these external violences brought relief, and from all those who exalt the feeling of enjoyment, hysteria is in the forefront. The ordinary siege that the evil affects women, seems to Dr. Charcot! a natural explanation of the well-being that these double blows on the flanks brought to the hystericals of Saint-Médard, In these violences, there was at the bottom a recipe of voluptuousness, according to the remark of Calmeil?, and the scholar aleinist in
1 Lee. on Nervous System Diseases, 11th lec., p. 295-296.
2 Madness, t. 2, p. 385: The eagerness with which a number of girls and women convulsive were running, in Paris, after the trials of an apparent martyrdom, is still partly explained by the exaltation of the genitals. At the same time as their sensitivity rose during the hysterical paroxysm, the greater number of convulsors in Saint-Médard proved, by facing the violence of the beatings, usually the most painful, than a sensation of
Pleasure. IV 9
130 ge : this is a very exciting conclusion! "In total, I contact and the repeated impression of the blows produced on the convulsors the effect of a kind of salutary massage, and made the tortures of hysteria less poignant or less sensitive."
If we understand, it means that the convulsors were affected by both anaesthesia or lack of sensitivity that prevented pain, and hyperaesthesia or excess sensitivity that centrifuge pleasure. The pros and cons are too much at once.
That's not all. If physiology is in disarray here, physics is even more lethal. How did these beatings be repeated with big logs, thirty-pound chenets, more than twenty pounds of pebbles, the enormous weight of twenty men trampling on a half-naked body, not crushing flesh and bones? Shouldn't we have lost our minds, or should we turn to people who don't have it anymore, to bring this violence back to calming frictions and a healthy massage? There is no question here of anesthesia or hyperaesthesia, but only of invulnerability, physical resistance of cellular tissues to external physical action. Iron and fire may not be felt; there is no less incised or burned; there is no suffering from the bruising blow, from the pressure that crushes, or from the bruised or crushed. If anesthesia occurs only during the crisis or transport, crisis and past transport, the fractures and rumblings that were thought to be insensitive will be felt: ecstatics? are subject to these conditions, as the others do, unless a miraculous exemption is granted. Is insensitivity constant: tearing, piqure, burns, death, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain,
1 Madness, p. 387. 2 9th P., c. 32, 2, p. 606,
trissures will still mark their APIERES on
body. In either case, we are ex-
So fold how the convulsors of Saint-Médard,
under these violent blows which, according to the most elementary laws of physics, had to pierce or crush them, remained intact.
We are told that there were many wounded and even killed; that is, in these the laws of physics had their effect: we ask why they did not have it on others, on all without distinction.
Mr. L. Figuier tries an explanation which he reproduces from Hecquet and Calmeil. "It must be added," he says, "that in the fanatics of Saint-Médard the blows were never administered only during the convulsive torment, and that then, as M. Calmil, the meteorism of the belly, the state of spasm of the uterus on women, the food channel in all the sick, the state of contraction, of eethism, of turgism of the fleshy envelopes of the muscular planes that protect and cover the abdomen, chest, main vascular trunks and bone surfaces, had to contribute singularly to attenuate, cushion and cancel the violence of the blows... The incredible resistance that skin, cell tissue, the surface of the body and the members of the convulsors were facing to shocks that seemed to tear or break them, is likely to excite more surprise. However, this can be explained. This strength of resistance, this insensitivity, seems to be due to the extreme changes in the sensitivity that can be brought about in the animal economy by any exaltation. Anger, fear, all passion, in a word, provided it is brought to its climax, can produce this insensitivity. Montègre cites the fact of a
1 Hist. of the wonderful, t. 1, p. 410.
Butcher who, in a transport of anger, so violently struck his established with the fist that the mark of his fingers remained printed on the wood: nevertheless he had not experienced any painful sensation of this violent blow. The moral dexaltation state often extinguishes all sensitivity. Warriors wounded to death, in the midst of a fight, continue to fight without doubt their wounds, until they suddenly fall..."
Mr. Figuier did not tarry on insensibility: he said nothing probant about the physical strength of resistance. However, let us add to his disclaimer that his conclusion! is perplexed, and that it seems easier to reject the facts than to explain them.
What we say about the sword blows and the blows of the club to which the convulsors resisted, is also suitable for the test of fire. How did these fireworks, above which stood, wrapped in a simple sheet, the Sonnet?, nicknamed Salamandre, have no virtue on it? Montègre* brought this strange reason, 90 years ago, that it happened in the scenes of magnetism. But, who would have been curious to know why the fire does not burn the magnetized, what would the insight doctor have answered?
Let's get this over with. The following alternative is necessary to good faith and logic: to reject the facts as they tell Carré de Montgeron and other eyewitnesses, or to abandon explaining them by the natural laws of physiology and physics. Consequently, natural analogies are not sufficient to justify these phenomena.
1 History of the Wonderful, p. 414: It must be agreed, however, that the examples we have just cited are less settled than those of the convulsors. But the facts here are not well verified.
2 See chap. 7, n. 14, p. 146.
3 Dict, Medical Sciences, 1813, Art. CONVULSIONARY.
bility. But if we accept this conclusion when it comes to the evil prestige, who will want to challenge the facts of truly miraculous and divine invulnerability? What the Spirit of evil realizes through deception and malice, God, the infinite power and goodness, will be able, more importantly, to accomplish.
To sum it all up in two words: that nature presents among the morbid affections analogies with miraculous independence that frees from external servitudes, we do not contest it; but that all the phenomena of this order alleged by the mystic did not have anything miraculous, and return to the bottom to natural anomalies, this is what has not been demonstrated and will never be: to undertake, is to violate at the same time and history and reason.
The sick states which seem to confine to demonic possession: hysteria, — epilepsy, — the chore or dance of Saint-Guy. — Insanity and Dr. Calmeil. — Authentic signs that distinguish the possession of these morbid violences from nature. — Illness and possession may coexist. — General character of accesses which present analogies with the obsession, — In particular, hypocondria and theerotomania. — Principles for distinguishing these states from the demonic assault.— In the absence and insufficiency of positive signs, do not affirm the diabolical intervention.
I. — This last chapter, on the analogy of medicine to mysticism, is intended to distinguish two things which one puts a particular obstinacy to be confused, namely: the evil assaults and certain violent crises of nature. There may not be a situation where unbelief affects more assurance and provides more disdainful challenges.
We have already said that the demon ostensibly torments man in two ways: when he invades the body, tyranny and agitates within like his thing and his organ, it is possession; when he stands outside
135 and that by fatigued or delusionalizing the senses, he strives to reduce the will, is obsession.
Any organic disturbance that seems to remove the body from the empire of the soul and deliver it to a foreign power, reminds us of possession, and we would not dispute that I was more than once, by forgetting the rules laid out in the official ceremonial of the Church, confused one with the other. Reasoning in the opposite direction, rationalism wants to see demonic eruptions as the best demonstrated only natural infirmities. The truth is that possession often coexists with illness, and that, more frequently, since it is the ordinary law, disease exists without possession. In order to prevent contempt, and to refute medical assimilations, let us signal the morbid disorders that ignorance might falsely attribute to the demon or with which false science would pretend to confuse the true evil assaults, and remember the authentic signs that surely make Satan's extranatural intervention recognized.
Let's get back to hysteria first. We have already said that it is characterized at one of its periods by violent and bizarre accesses, during which the patient, outside himself, is agitated. demises into horrific seizures. Sometimes, in addition to the disorderly movements of the body, there are rages of blasphemy, anger, and obscenity, as they would be, enclosed in the flesh, the revolted and filthy spirits.
It is understandable that credulous and superstitious people, who are not accustomed to morbid anomalies, are seeing a evil genius under this violence of nature. On the other hand, strong minds, systematically opposed to any supernatural, diabolical or divine, bring possessions back to these eccentric diseases and medically call them, which exempts them from any other evidence, from hystero-
Demonopathy 1. Especially in a learned word, the epilepsy or any other evil with hysteria, the evidence is at its peak. "If we call indifferently these demonic attacks or access to hysteroepilepsy, it is that for a long time we have believed that demons were the real, living agents that caused these morbid phenomena. These symptoms are quite the same, and it is enough to read the description of the demonic attack of the past, to recognize that it is absolutely identical to the hysterological-epileptic access of today?" The writer we quote fully reveals his thought by the title of his articles: The demoniacs of today? and the demoniacs of old; the demoniacs of today are fools; those of old were no other thing.
It would be more right for everyone to make the part that belongs to him today as it was in the past, to leave to man what is man, and to impute to Satan what comes from Satan.
II. — L-epilepsy, which the ancients called sacred evil, and which we still call the upper ill, is approaching the evil invasion by the suddenness and violence of its attacks.
"A person, apparently healthy, feels suddenly caught with a kind of vertigo; he exudes an involuntary and unarticulated cry, immediately loses knowledge and feeling; then his face, his limbs, his whole body, are agitated with rapid, abrupt, saccadated convulsions, more pronounced on one side than on the other; a foam, often bloody, comes out of the mouth. After a few minutes, the convulsive tremors become a little more
1 See Cazmeiz, pretty, 1. 8, ch. 2, t. 1, p. 254-275; 1, 4, c. 3, t. 2 $ i ve Ricuer, Revue des Deux-Mondes, 15 Jan. 1880, p. 356.
8 Jbid., art. 15 January 4880. 4 Ibid., art. 4 and 45 February 1880.
rare, are more unequal; linsensibility persists; there occurs a coma from which nothing can draw the patient. The coma gives way to a kind of hebetement, astonishment, and finally drowsiness, in which there is often a marked snoring: after a more or less long time, knowledge returns, and with it, gradually, sensitivity... This is the ordinary attack of epilepsy. It lasts a few minutes for seizures, one or two hours for coma, a few hours for sleepiness...
"A kind of fatality, attached to their disease, was caused that, in the early historical times of our science, and still since then, the peoples and even the men of art have accused of this evil some sacred influence, as proved by some names, of which Hippocrates first demonstrated absurdity!"
Epilepsy has been particularly confused with demonic possession, and today we are trying to confuse demonic possession with this evil: two excesses also opposed to the rightful middle of the truth.
IT. — The same applies to the chorea or dance of Saint-Guy.
"The acute-shaped chorea," says the author?, "which we have just taken from the description of epilepsy, "is recognized by the violence of disorder or convulsions, as well as the generality that these symptoms affect. The trunk is drawn in all directions; it rolls and twists on itself in the most frightening way; the limbs are subjected to incessant disorderly gestures; the figure is delivered to the most unexpected grimaces; the mouth is twisted, closed, opened, moved; the strokes creak; the eyes are opened, closed unevenly, directed in all the
1 Sanpras and BouRGUIGNON, Tr. of nerve diseases, l. 2, ch. 3,t.1, p. 272, 251. 2 Sannras, ibid., c. 7 t. 1, p. 397, 406.
and without any concordance in their all wrinkles appear and exaggerate; it becomes impossible for the patient to take, grasp, or direct to a certain point the surrounding bodies; he cannot carry to his mouth, swallow, or chew solid or liquid foods; he only manages with the greatest difficulty to articulate some incoherent syllables, or to render by surprise the sound and articulation of a few words... Rest is impossible, and sleep is only imperfectly suspending the agitation of the unfortunate choreical... In this universal disorder, it is quite difficult to know how far the disorder of intellectual faculties extends. The sick seem vaguely to understand what is said to them; but the answers, the explanation, even by gestures, are impossible to them; the kind of impatience whose convulsions are accompanied is often the only positive sign that they give of their preserved intelligence.
"The chorea, in some subjects, does not cross the narrow limits of a region, of an apparatus. Sometimes the vocal apparatus alone is troubled in its functions, and the voice mimics imperfectly, and as to the sounds and rhythm, the cry of certain animals, the japping of the dog for example... Other times, the muscles that enter the pelvis are alone in spasmodic contraction, and a kind of derytomania seems to maintain the excitement whose genitals are greedy. Sometimes the muscles of a single organ or a single limb will be affected: those of a leg, arm, figure, eye, for example. This will result, or the irregular movements of these parts, in bizarre inequalities in their position and direction, or in singularities in the expression they are charged with: here, singular sombresauts, there, strange contortions of the figure, involuntary blinks of eyes."
What's surprising that at ages of a rudimen-
and of little enlightened faith, the vulgar especially sought
the cause of such strange agitations in the intervention of an invisible and evil being? During the Middle Ages, furibund choreomanies reigned on several occasions in various countries, which were then held for demonic eruptions, and which were perhaps, at least in some places, only natural epidemics of St.Guy's dance; for to pretend that everywhere and always everything was natural in these agitations, that there would never be any evil intervention, is to say more than we know.
IV. — Most of the morbid disorders that we have just reported involve a more or less severe mental disturbance. When this disturbance in conscious life occurs, in a transitory or chronic way, without any character other than this very disorder, it is madness. In general, there are two causes for this partial or total suspension of reason: one physical, consisting of a brain injury; the other moral, a consequence of passions on this instrument of thought; for it is difficult, even in this latter case, to conceive of mental disorder without any prior or concomitant alteration in the organs.
Strange thing, which betrays the concern of bias and the embarrassment of solutions! as soon as the unbelievers perceive a natural analogy that is confusing, immediately to shout: That's the mystic! The hysteria, with its periods of sleep, anesthesia, hyperaesthesia, fury, hallucination, ecstatic suspension, seems to them the true field of mystical illusions, such as visions, ecstasy, possessions, obsessions. When the turn of madness comes, it is it that embraces all forms of pro-
1 See Vincent pe Beauvais, Historical Speculum, 1. 26 c. 10. — Bzovivs, ANN., N. 13, year, 1374, p. 1501.
Reputable supernatural diges. We have ruled out hysterical analogies; we still have to discuss those that are derived from madness, and with all the more care, as medical rationalism boasts highly of having definitively assigned to mysticism its true place among the mental aberrations that sadden and dishonor humanity.
Between the works of this kind that are the law in unbelieving medicine, we will quote in the front line that of Dr.Salmeil, published in 1845, under this solemn and significant title: FOLIA, CONSIDERED FROM THE PATHOLOGICAL, PHILOSOPHIC, HISTORIC AND JUDICIAL POINT OF VIEW, SINCE THE KNOWLEDGE OF SCIENCES IN EUROPE UP TO THE XIX? HEADQUARTERS DESCRIPTION OF THE MAJOR SPIDEMIES OF SIMPLE OR COM-PLIQUÉ LEARNING, THAT HAVE FALLED OUT THE POPULATIONS OF AUTREFICIENCY AND REGNED IN THE MONASTERIES. . This book, written in a tone of competence and impartiality capable of making illusion, very curious moreover by the details of erudition that it accumulates, and even more by the theological and historical blunders of which it abounds, ranks most of the mystical phenomena among the various cerebral affections that constitute madness, under the names of theomania, demonolatry, demonopathy. Is it true? It is Jeanne d'Arc, the glorious virgin of Orléans, the liberator of France, who opens the series of alienates whose learned doctor of Charenton describes dreams and misfortunes'. Others, even more famous, who, before and after her, received the grace of divine enlightenment, are not better treated: the Prince of the Apostles?, Saint Catherine of Siena ê, and in general all the ecstatics, were only hallucinators; in the long enumeration of the possessed and sorcerers,
De la foes 1 2 CR Dba Da LT 2 bida 11, p. 40. 8 Ibid., p. 12.
141 from the 19th century until the end of the last century, not one who had any harm other than that of madness: during these three hundred years, all the exorcisms of the Church, all the sentences of the judges in matters of witchcraft carried to falsehood; and in the thought of the author, it was evident the same of earlier times. He rejects on theologians the rigors whose poor clients, the fools, became victims in these ages of ignorance. We have the misfortune of being a theologian, and, without any intention of burning any witches, fools, or doctors, we maintain the old distinction between mental illnesses and the true mystical states. Will we renew the admission that the theologians and jurists of ancient times may have misled themselves and taken for extranatural phenomena cases of madness; there was not - in the past - only the doctors of fallibles. We agree that even today the contempts are possible, easy, real, if one wants, and that many people see, wrongly, miracles where there are only anomalies of nature. But that stops our concessions. Whatever the errors of fact, the truth is that the phenomena of mysticism and the disturbances of madness are two completely different orders, two orders that one manages to distinguish without too much effort, using already acquired notions and simple common sense.
The varieties of mental alienation are beyond description; the most general forms can only be indicated.' Sometimes it is hallucination, which makes touch, see or hear what has no external reality; sometimes a fixed idea to which one attaches everything, a lubie which exhausts the activity of the mind, or sometimes l ́exalts and seems
1 hour. Daconer, New Basic Treaty and Practice of Mental Illness, 1. 2, ch. 1 p. 161-172.
. All the extremes are met: it is in turn the lincoherence of thoughts, impressions and words, or the stupid mutism of imbecility; the mistrust that multiplies alarms and sees everywhere traps, betrayals, perils, or the illusion that makes believe in the strangest transformations, in all dreams of good or bad fortune; the stupor that paralyzes, or the fury that bursts into insults, blasphemy, and violence.
We do not pretend to strictly define madness, nor to draw a strict nomenclature of its different species; we leave this care to the doctors, who have some difficulty in enough t. We merely describe the most general and common external events.
V. — In this multiplicity of aspects, we only have to consider true or apparent affinities, with mystical phenomena, or rather with demonic possession only. But madness can't make you think
1 Descurer, The Medicine of Passions, 1st P., c. 11, t. 1, p. 287, 3rd ed.: Psychological science cannot provide an exact definition of madness. In this impotence, higher minds have at least sought to classify the many forms it takes, but they have not been happier in their efforts. The sad or cheerful, mild or violent nature of this affection; its walking, sometimes acute, sometimes transient, sometimes chronic; its instantaneous, long or persistent duration; its periodic or irregular returns; the instinctive, affective and intellectual degradations it presents, from mere distraction to complete abrushes, where there is no more sign of perception, everything opposes the embrace of a nosological framework and the discovery of a measure, of a crilerium specifying the point where reason ends and madness begins...
The elders distinguished madness in mania and melancholy; they meant by general delusion, and by melancholy a partial delusion. As an alternative to the generic expression of mental alienation to madness, Pinel admits four essential species of deberrations of understanding: 4° mania, which he defines a general delirium, with agitation, irascibility, leaning to fury; 20 the melancholy, the exclusive delusion, with dejection, with dread, and with desperation; 30 Dementia, a particular debility of the acts of understanding and will; 40 idioticism, sort of stupidity more or less pronounced.
to Satan's asion of man's body, that rightfully
- of one of these three characters: because we are in the grip
to extreme anger and rage, because one believes himself and claims to be possessed, or finally because one realizes wonders that betray or make suspect a superhuman virtue. Of these three signs, the last one deserves to be discussed alone; the other two offer no authentic character of possession, and, whatever the rationalists who repeat themselves to one another, but without proof, this slander, the theologians, let alone the Church, have not included these extravagances of words and gestures among the demonic signs of the demonic irruption. It would seem, by reading some writers, that Catholic doctors have never seen that possessed in madness, as well as by an aberration in the opposite sense these writers stubbornly see only fools in possessed. Let us not appear divided where we agree; no, extraordinary frenzy, nor the persuasion that one is possessed, prove in no way that one is such. To affirm the presence of the demon, we need positive marks, external facts that accuse in man a causal greater than man.
This conclusion extends to all the morbid conditions that we have just reported. In the most extravagant seizures of epilepsy, hysteria, chorea, dementia, there is no reason to conclude possession until there is a prodigious sign that detects both superhuman and evil intervention; but when this sign occurs, whether disease or not, it accuses the presence of a superior agent than man.
We have indicated elsewhere £ these decisive characters by
1 Ch. 6, n.18, p. 231
, which Satan betrays his identity; we need only remind them here to show the essential difference between the above-mentioned morbid crises and the truly evil crisis.
According to the Roman Ritual!, these are the signs that reveal the presence of the demon: conversing in a language that has never been learned, discovering distant and hidden things, deploying forces that naturally surpass ‘age and the condition of the subject. The theologians attach to these marks the following: an extraordinary science in a person who would not have received instruction, or a rare skill in the arts without any prior training, the prompt obedience to exorcisms, the impression of horror produced by the unexpected contact of sacred things. The more these signs are multiplied, the more conclusive they are, as the Ritual observes. These notes, of whatever nature they are supposed to be, have this common and necessary character to detect a power that surpasses that of man.
VI. — These are the authentic signs of possession. But let us rush to add that while diseases can exist and occur regularly outside of the evil action, however, the evil action is allyed as naturally to morbid disorders, and preferably to those that affect the mind, whether it determines them or joins it. The well-known crises of epilepsy, hysteria and madness do not therefore exclude the otherwise formidable access to possession, and it is wrong that the assertion of human evil would infer the negation of evil evil: one does not prevent the other.
1 Obsessed exorcizandis. Signa autem obsidentis dæmonis sunt: ignota lingua loqui pluribus verbis, vel loquentem intelligente, remoteia et occulta patefacere, vires supra ætatis seu conditionis naturam ostendere, and id genus alia: quae cum plurima concurrunt, majora sunt indicia.
Let us boldly conclude against rationalistic medicine that any possession is not a pure natural disease; that, if there is disease without possession and possession without disease, however, both may coexist; and that, separated or simultaneous, they distinguish one from the other by characters easily recognizable and certain.
VIT. — The difficulties are greater with regard to obsession, which we still have to discern in the midst of multiple incidents with which it tends to confuse itself.
The purely external facts well-known and surely distinguished from hallucinations, such as terrifying or corrupting appearances, tumultuous noises, blows, avanias of all kinds by which the demon worries those whom he has permission to molester, are subject to the ordinary conditions of knowledge and certilude required for other sensitive phenomena. The same is not true of inner disturbances, subjective impressions that push to evil, obsessions, in a word, that through the body reach the soul, and by the senses shake the will. Here one can easily misunderstand, because the organism naturally undergoes disturbances very close to these evil offenses.
The hallucination is one of the usual forms of these trials; we have discussed above. With or without hallucination, the morbid accesses which, by constituting opportunities for sin for man, confine themselves to Satan's violence, take on one or the other of these two characters: sadness or love, and this double passion, carried to excess, can be reduced to two well-known maladic states, the first to hypocondria, the second to eroticomania.
VII. — Hypocondria, or black disease, is difficult to achieve.
define!, and the disciples of Hippocrates are so puzzled about the nature of this evil that they do not even agree on the part of the body where he resides, some placing him in the abdominal viscera, others in the gastric region; these in the nervous system in general, those in the brain in particular?.
Whatever the intimate nature and the siege of the disease, the characteristic external effects are an excessive concern for health and a dark sadness that makes people and situations worried, dark, suspicious, and casts a grim veil on them. Just as hysteria is the lot of women, hypocondria is preferably rife among men?.
When dark ideas go so far as to remove the use of free will, it is then one of the forms of mental alienation called lypemania, i.e. the madness of sadness, and quite alien to obsession, which has as its objective a free and responsible will. It is therefore a question of impressions and suggestions, which allow the exercise of moral freedom to remain, not in this sense that it can always contain and direct by mastering the sensitivity and organs, but at least to this extent that it can help itself.
1 BracHet, Treaty of Hypocondria, 3° P., c. 1, p. 345: The word hypocondria is composed of two roots, nò, sub, and yevègos, cartilage. This name was created by the elders, because they placed the seat of the disease under the costal cartilage, in the hypocondres. Although this name has been most generally adopted nowadays, it is not the only name... This tendency of minds to constantly seek new denominations, to multiply synonyms, proves that those that were created do not fully satisfy. So we can only applaud the efforts made to find a denomination that could express, in an exact and unconfusional way, what is meant by hypochondriac disease. Unfortunately, all efforts to date have been unsuccessful: none have been satisfied.
2 A. Fovirx, New Dict. of Medicine and Surgery, t. 18, art. HYPO- CONDRIAQUE.
3 BrACHET, ibid., 2° P., p. 301.
+ Ann, sadness, and pavia, madness.
whatever his good fortune or his bad fortune against outside violence.
And now here's the difficulty. These misconceptions of the sensitivity that are disturbing and desolating: melancholy, bitterness, extreme anxiety, distrust, horrible images, impulses to crime, agitations of anger, fear, despair, all these upheavals, to whatever degree they are supposed to be, can be the effect of disease or diabolical obsession, and even of one and the other at the same time: how can we distinguish true causality?
The difficulty is no less, if not greater, in some assaults that threaten purity, in the violent turpitudes of eroticomania. We mean by this word a tyrannical inclination in the order of voluptuousness. When tyranny primarily affects the imagination or has a specific person as its object, this qualifier is preferred to it; when it occurs in the organs, it takes the name of satyrosis for man, and that of nymphomania for women. Without entering into distinctions and details that alarm modesty, we include these various accesses, whatever their form and character, under the generic name d-erotomania.
It is unquestionable that nature is subject to these upheavals, without the need, in order to excite them, for any evil maneuver. They often occur in hysteria, and are one of the most common punishments of passions. They may also result from a special organization, idiosyncrasy, as expressed by physiologists, which almost invinciblely bows to lubricity. "
1 See DEBRAYNE, Human Physiology Precise, 4° P., ch. 1, p. 302. -
Sanpras and Bourguigon, Tr. of nerve diseases, l. 2, ch. 16, t.1, p. 598-620.
, these odious excitations fully fit the tempting role of the filthy spirit, as we have said in speaking of the passive trials preceding the contemplative life ‘, of obsession? and of turpitudes
evil °.
Here again, how can we recognize what is man and what is demon?
In other words, in the dark, the appearance of sadness, mistrust, hatred, anger, despair; in the unclean ardours that consume the soul and body, when must we see a disease? when, a satanic violence? when, one and the other?
IX. — This is our answer.
When the demon openly declares itself by duly recognized external manoeuvres, and the organic and psychological upheavals coincide, begin and end with these extrinsic signs, there can be no doubt that they are due to the action of Salan.
Similarly, when Our Lord denounces the tempter as the agent of these troubles, which is seen more than once in the lives of the saints, among others in those of Saint Catherine of Siena +, Saint Angèle of Foligno *, St Madeleine of Pazzi, there would be an unwillingness to seek another cause for these cursed suggestions.
We're going further. If it happened that a person, hitherto calm by temperament and virtue, was found to be Po Ch 24 0 EEA 009.
Above, ch. 9, p. 183. 3 above, c. 17, p. 369; c. 49, p. 412. 4 RAymonD DE Caroue, BB. 30 Apr., t. 12 p. 880, n. 108:
HDPE ENT D AO TES S BB 23 Maii, t 19, p.196, n°58.
suddenly, and without apparent sensitive cause, seized horrific uprisings of hatred, despair or impurity, which would fall with the same suddenness, one would be allowed to see there a storm immediately excited by the tempter; more importantly, if these sudden emotions occurred under the blow of a malefice thrown unexpectedly by an enemy hand. Who sees only in such encounters nature is for nothing in evil, and that it is rightfully returned to the filthy and disturbing spirit?
In cases where, on the one hand, temperament or extrinsic circumstances predispose to these intimate disorders, and, on the other hand, the signs of evil action are irrefutable, the logical conclusion is that evil is connected to this dual cause: such simultaneousity is nothing that can be astonished.
X. — Apart from these conjunctures, no matter what the crises are, while resorting to supernatural means to appease them, there is no reason to exclude evil from the nosological framework of nature. And if, apart from the lack of a positive sign of extrinsic intervention, the organization of the subject, his background, the current conditions in which he is found, are sufficient to explain the disorders he feels; it would have been even worse to assert something other than a mere organic disturbance. The supernatural does not presume, he proves himself; òr here nothing betrays his presence. *
Under the same principle, in questionable cases, it must also be prohibited to conclude with the evil supernatural, without however absolutely rejecting it.
The Church gives us the example of this cautious reservation. It authorizes the use of exorcisms, at least in public and officially, only on fully authentic signs of demonic intervention; and, in trials
of canonization where it repeats precautions to pronounce only wisely; it does not qualify as evil assaults of strangeness which can be attributed, with some likelihood, to morbid and natural disorders.
This wisdom of the Church must serve as a rule to contain the impatience of our human judgments.
These are the morbid analogies that sincere science and systematic unbelief point to the theologian's attention, one to recommend prudence, the other to make it a pretext for negation. May we have fulfilled the righteous requirements of the first, and victoriously refuted the arguies of the second.
The two forms of artificial overexcitation. — Ingestion of intoxicating and toxic substances. — Description by an opium eater of the fantastic reveries due to this narcotic. — The hashish, its prodigious effects experienced and told by Theophile Gautier. — Mechanism of the normal play of imagination, hallucinations, and imaginary visions, either divine or evil. — Principles to recognize one another in this diversity.
I. — Any organic and mental state in which man is abstract from the outside world and captivated by more or less striking visions, recalls the mystical attractions and illuminations that remove the soul from the dark regions of the senses, to carry it to the luminous spheres of love. In the previous chapters, we have studied the false analogies requested in turn to human deception, to the constitutive nature of both the soul and the body, to the acquired habits and morbid deviations. We still have to report and discuss some extraordinary artificial states, in which the lucidity of Pspirit survives, at least in part, the suspension or misleading of external senses.
The very nature of these phenomena of a new genre, which today occupy a large place in the controversies relating to mysticism, is that they result from an excitation freely provoked in the organism.
The means used to produce these kinds of effects are reduced to one or the other of these two forms: Ingestion in the body of an exciting and disruptive substance, or external maneuvers that result in chaining the senses together with the repetition of the acuity of the mind. This second form, sufficiently characterised by the generic designation of magnetism, will be the subject of a special and in-depth study.
II. — In this chapter, we propose to mention certain intoxicating and narcotic substances, whose absorption determines cerebral disorders more or less intense, more or less bizarre, having some distant relation to the overexcitations of the mystical order.
Wine drunkenness and other common drinks, and the very one of alcohol and absinthe, are of interest to the questions that are the subject of our study!: we have not yet considered using the visions of drunken people against mysticism; except for the Sabellians, who sought heavenly manifestations there?, no one misunderstands the character of the drunken divagations. Perhaps the hallucinations determined by the opium and hashish offer some distant analogies with the drunkenness of the ecstasy and demonic illusions. That's what decides us to report them here.
I. — L-opium, taken at moderate doses, provides re-
1 See Basser, Intoxication Physiological Study, 1892.
2 S. Basic, Epist. 210, n. 3, Migne, Patr. gr.t. 39, col. 771: Your autem capita illa vino rubata valee jubentes, quae per crapulam evectus ac deinde exæstuans vapor in visa impellit
Me T
fantastic and voluptuous veries; but the long use and labus bring hallucinatory exaltations, night nightmares, before leading to bruising, stupidity.
The first two phases were picturesquely described by an Englishman, Thomas de Quincey, who had made him the sweet, then cruel experience. The enjoyments of the trial gradually raised the dose, and our Englishman came to absorb three hundred and twenty grams of the narcotic perfid. The hour of atonement was not long to ring; it was around the middle of 1817.
"The first thing that forced me to notice a significant change in me," says this interesting opium eater, "was the return of these visions to which childhood alone or the great states of irritability are subject. At night, when I was awake in my bed, long processions passed with a dreadful pump around me; I heard endless stories, sadder and more solemn than those before OEdipe or Priam. At the same time, a change took place in my dreams; a theatre suddenly seemed to open up, to light up in my brain; it presented me with night performances of more than human splendour... It seemed to me every night that I went down, not in metaphor, but literally, in undergrounds and bottomless abysses, and that I felt like I was going down without ever having the hope of being able to climb up... If a dream brought me an image that I had interviewed one day of my life, by virtue of a well known law of nervous organizations, this stone of chance thrown into the circle of spiritual waves, enlarged to infinity. Thus a Malaysman, who had rested for a few hours in my home, evoked the immense and fabulous Orient. Under the related double condition of tropical heat and vertical light, I collected all creatures, birds,
Beasts, reptiles, trees and plants, uses and shows, which are commonly found throughout the tropics region, and I threw them away in China and Indonesia. By a similar feeling, I took Egypt and all its gods, and brought them under the same law. Monkeys, parrots, kakatoes, stared at me staring at me, hugged me, grimaced me, or jacased on my side. I was saving myself in pagodas where I was, for centuries, attached to the top or locked up in secret chambers. I was the idol, I was the priest, I was worshipped, I was sacrificed. I ran away from Brahma's anger through all the forests of Asia, Vischna hated me, Siva held me in an ambush. I suddenly fell to Isis and Osiris; I had done something, they said; I had committed a crime that shuddered the Ibis and the crocodile. I was buried, for a thousand years, in stone beers with mummies and sphinxes, in narrow cells at the heart of the eternal pyramids. I was fucked by crocodiles with cancerous kisses, and I was lying, confused with a multitude of inexpressible and viscous things, among the muds and reeds of the Nile... It was only in those dreams, with one or two slight exceptions, that the circumstances of the physical horror came into play. On every being, on every form, on every threat, punishment, dark imprisonment, glorified a feeling of eternity that caused me the anguish and oppression of madness...
"The feeling of space, and later the feeling of duration, were both excessively increased. The buildings, the mountains, were too large to be measured by the look. The plain stretched and was lost in vastness. This, however, scared me less than the extension of time: I sometimes thought I had lived seventy or a hundred years in one night; I even had a dream of thousands of years, and others
who passed the bounds of all that men can remember.
"The most careful circumstances of childhood, the forgotten scenes of my early years, often relived in my dreams; I could not have remembered them, for if they had been told to me the next day, I would have vainly sought them in my memory, as part of my own experience. But, placed before me as they were, in dreams and apparitions, and clothed with all the surrounding circumstances, I recognized them immediately. One of my close relatives once told me that, in his childhood, he had fallen into a river, and that at the time when death was about to reach him without any unexpected help, he had seen his entire life in an instant, until the smallest accidents, present himself in his eyes as in a mirror, and that he had felt at the same time the singular faculty of grasping the whole as well as the parts. I believe in this story, based on the experiences that l'opium has made me do... I find the same thing in modern books, accompanied by a remark that I also believe true, that the fearsome book of accounts of which Scripture speaks is the soul itself of each individual...
"Until then man's face had mixed with my dreams without any special power to mefray; but what I will call the tyranny of the human face came to be discovered. It was on the rising waves of the ocean that it began to show itself; the sea was as paved with countless figures facing the sky, weeping, sorry, furious, rising to the surface by thousands, by myriads, by generations, by centuries. My agitation became infinite, and my spirit leaped and rolled like the waves of the ocean; it was the reminisence of my perplexed wanderings within the immense London.
"I had seen in my youth a corpse lying on
a dissection table; this old impression gave
to a dream I had quite frequently.
"It seemed to me that I was lying down, and that I had woken up in the night. When I put my hand down to raise my pillow, I felt something that was yielding when I was pressing on it; it was a corpse lying next to me. However, I was neither afraid nor even surprised. I took him in my arms, and I was moving him into the next room, saying to myself: He'll be lying there on the floor; it's impossible for him to come home if I take the key out of my room.
"I went back to sleep there; a few moments later, I was still awake: it was by the noise of my door that they opened; and this idea that my door was opened, though I had taken the key on me, made me feel terrible. So I saw the same body that I had found on the floor. His approach was singular: it seemed like a man who would have been removed from his bones without removing his muscles, and who, trying to lean on his loose and folding muscles, would fall at every step. Yet he came to my bed without speaking, and lay on me; it was then a dreadful sensation, a nightmare of which nothing could approach; for besides the weight of his body, which was informed and delusional, I felt a pestilential smell exhaling kisses from which he covered me. At other times, the corpse came to read over my shoulder in the book that I held in my hand, and its disgusting hair touched my neck and face.
"Let us judge the terror that such a vision must inspire: I remained still in the position where I was, dared not turn the page, and with eyes fixed in the ice on the terrible appearance. A cold sweat flowed over my body; then the door opened, and I saw behind me (in the ice again) enter a procession
sinister: they were horrific skeletons, carrying a
And the heads of their heads, and of the other long candles, which, in the light of a red and trembling light, cast a dull and bluish light, like that of the rays of the moon. They walked round in my room, which, warm as it was before, became icy; and some came down to the dark and sad hearth, warming their long and fat hands, and turning to me to say, It's cold!"
IV. — Hashish? produces even more wonderful effects. We do not have to dwell on the composition of this electuary, which is in great use in the East, among the Arabs especially, as the opium among the Turks and the Chi-
t Confessions of an english opium eater, being an extract from the life of a school, and suspiria de profundis, being a sequel to the confessions, by Tuomas DE Quincey. — L D. M, (Alfred de Musset), 1 vol. in-12, p. 80 to 221. Paris, 1828.
2 J. Moreau (de Tours), du Hachisch et de l'alienation mentale, 1845, D. 5-8: Hachisch is the name of the plant whose active substance forms the basis of various intoxicating preparations used in Egypt, Syria, and generally in almost all eastern regions. This plant is common in India and South Asia, where it comes without cultivation. It is a hemp species that differs very little from our hemp in Europe. The botanists named cannabis indica... The preparation of the most common hashish, and which serves in some way as a main condiment to almost all others, It is the fatty extract. The way to get it is very simple: the leaves and flowers of the plant are boiled with water to which a certain amount of fresh butter has been added; then, being reduced, by evaporation, to the consistency of a syrup, one passes into a linen. This results in butter loaded with the active substance and with a rather pronounced greenish colour. This extract, which is never taken alone, because of its virous and nauseating taste, is used to make different electuaries, pasta, species of nougats, which is carefully flavoured with rose or jasmine essence, in order to mask the unfriendly Podor of pure extract. The most commonly used electuary is that which Arabs call pawamec The leaves of hashish can smoke with tobacco... You have to take hashish fasting, or at least several hours after eating; otherwise, its effects are very uncertain or completely void... In general, the size of a dawamese nut, i.e. about 30 grams, is not less than necessary to obtain some results,
158 ARTIFICIAL SUPEREXCITATIONS, such as alcoholic liqueurs in Europe Septen- 2nd trionale. We will simply quote the fantastic description of the humorous pen by Théophile Gautier, telling a personal experience, and we extract this account from Dr. J's interesting work. Moreau, de Tours, entitled: pu -NATIONMENTale!.
"Of all time," writes Th. Gautier, the Orientals, to whom their religion forbids the use of wine, have sought, through various preparations, to saute the need for intellectual excitement common to all peoples, and that the nations of the West content themselves with spirits and fermented drinks. The desire of the ideal is so strong in man that he, as much as he is in him, tries to loose up the bonds that hold the soul to the body; and as ecstasy is not within the reach of all natures, he drinks cheerfulness, smokes oblivion and eats madness, in the form of wine, tobacco and hashish. — What a strange problem! a little red liquor, a puff of smoke, a spoonful of greenish paste, and the soul, this impalpable essence, is changed at the moment! Serious people make a thousand extravagances; the words involuntarily flow out of the mouth of the silencers: Heraclite laughs with shrapnel, and Democrite weeps!"
After this prelude, the spiritual serialist comes to his own experience. At his request, Dr.Moreau administered him a few grams of dawamese: the result was almost sudden.
"After a few minutes, a general numbness invades me. It seemed to me that my body was dissolving-
1 Part One, p. 21-25. 2 Th. Gautier published his impressions in a series of the newspaper La Presse, July 10, 1843.
and became transparent. I saw very clearly in my chest the hashish I had eaten, in the form of an emerald from which millions of small sparks escaped. The lashes of my eyes lay indefinitely, simmering like gold threads on small ivory wheels that turned all by themselves with a dazzling speed. Around me, it was run-off and collapses of stones of all colours, ever-renewed ramages, which I could not compare better than the games of the kaleidoscope; I still saw my comrades at certain moments, but disfigured, half men, half plants, with pensive airs of ibis, standing on an ostrich leg, beating wings, so strange that I was making a laugh in my corner, and that, in order to associate myself with the buffooning of the show, I began to throw my cushions in the air, catching them up and turning them with the speed of a jugger Indian. One of these gentlemen gave me a speech in Italian, which the hashish, by its power, translated into Spanish. The requests and answers were almost reasonable, and were based on indifferent things, news of theatre or literature.
"The first access was coming to an end. After a few minutes, I found myself in all my coolness, without a headache, without any of the symptoms that accompanied the delivery of wine, and very surprised at what had just happened."A half hour had barely passed since I came back under the hashish. This time, the vision was more complicated and extraordinary. In a confusedly bright air, with a perpetual tingling, the billions of butterflies, whose wings rustled like fans. Giant flowers with crystal calyx, huge passeroses, golden and silver lilies were climbing and spreading around me with a crepitation like that of fireworks bouquets. My hearing had been
wonderfully developed: I heard the sound of colors. Green, red, blue, yellow sounds came to me by perfectly distinct waves. A glass overturned, a crack of armchair, a word pronounced low, vibrates ct sounded in me like thunder bearings; my own voice seemed so strong that I dared not speak, for fear of overthrowing the walls or of bursting like a bomb. More than five hundred pendulums sang to me the hour of their voices fluffed, coppered, Argentinean. Each object with a touch made a note of harmonica or wind harp. I was swimming in an ocean of sound, where, like islets of light, some motifs of Lucia and Barbier floated. Never was such a bliss inundating me with his fragrances; I was so fused into the wave, so absent from myself, so rid of the self, this heinous witness who accompanies you everywhere, that I understood for the first time what the existence of the elementary spirits, angels and souls separated from the body could be. I was like a sponge in the middle of the sea: at every minute, waves of happiness passed through me, coming in and out through my pores; for I had become permeable, and until the slightest capillary vessel, all my being was injecting himself from the color of the fantastic middle where I was immersed. The sounds, the perfumes, the light, came to me by multitudes of thin pipes like hair, in which I heard magnetic currents whistled. — At my calculation, this condition lasted about three hundred years, because the sensations were so numerous and pressed that the real appreciation of time was impossible. — The access I had passed, I saw it had lasted for a quarter of an hour.
"What is special about the hashish's drunkenness is that it is not continuous; it takes you and leaves you, ascends you to heaven and puts you back on earth, without transition. As in madness, we have lucid moments.
"A third access, the last and most odd, ended my oriental evening: in this one, my view faded. Two images of each object reflected on my retina and produced complete symmetry. But soon the magic dough, quite digested, acting more forcefully on my brain, I became completely insane for an hour... The visions became so baroque that the desire to draw them took me, and in less than five minutes I made the portrait of Dr. X..., as he m'appeared, sitting on the piano, dressed in brine, a sun in the back of his jacket. The notes are represented escaping from the keyboard, in the form of rockets and spirals capriciously pulled... Thanks to the hashish, I was able to make after nature the portrait of a farfadet. So far, I've only heard them moan and stir at night in my old buffet."
V. — These lengthy quotations on the extravagances that accompany the use of opium and hashish, show how prodigiously many types and combinations of imagination are able to deploy under the action of ferments that invade and warm the brain. The brain mass is like a keyboard adapted in a way to the mental world; with each key corresponds an order of ideas, and with some keys, the orders combine with the indefinite.
According to the calculations of some physiologists, the brain would contain no less than six hundred thousand cells: it is this world of images born of external sensations that feeds the imagination.
In the normal state, reason directs this game and governs the series of these effects. Sleep suspends the empire of reason, and therefore the images follow adventure, according to the organic impressions and arrangements. Apart from this natural relaxation, suppose any agent that simmers to this focal point of the nervous system, and exercises a
action independent of the will: the cerebral keyboard IV 11
162° ARTIFICIAL SUPEREXCITATIONS thus escapes from the direction of the soul, which, surprised, sees coming up before his eyes of the waves of images, according to the physical excitations exercised on the instrument of thought.
The cause of these cerebral excitements, which take the government of the mental world from Tâme, can be diverse.
Sometimes it is an intimate disturbance of the organ itself, or a disorder that affects the entire circulation and vital movement; the instrument works, but without follow-up, without order, as in the capricious fluctuations of sleep: it is the morbid delirium.
The brain balance can be broken by the introduction of a disturbing element that invades the brain, overexciting or paralyzing the fibers; because the drunkenness usually has these two phases: one of overexcitation, the other of dizzying. During the first t, the wandering imagination síxalte, and the word betrays outside this mental disorder. Here again, the appearance and succession of images will accomplish without rule, without brake, without logical connection. If the will tries to intervene, it may result in a new combination of the images evoked; but as long as the foreign ferment prevents the regular functioning of the brain, the mental divagations will continue; and if the element in question has the virtue of stupefying, producing complete anaesthesia, then any conscious mental exercise will be suspended. These are in particular the effects, which we have just described, of Popium and hashish.
Let us now admit that instead of the human will that leads the ordinary and normal course of thought, it is an invisible power that touches the cerebral keyboard with perfect knowledge of this game; it will bring forth to
1 Cu. Ricuer, Man and Intelligence, p. 95: "It is through the loss of attention, the overexcitation of the imagination and the decrease of judgment that the first effects of drunkenness are characterized."
The HALLUCINATORY VIRESSE 163 will give the simple or combined images to the eyes of the mind; it will give the soul, without the soul cooperating freely, the most diverse performances.
This spiritual power can only be God or angels. God does not even need to use the body instrument to cause mental images to spring out; he only has to produce them within the radius of consciousness. Pure spirits do not have the same power; like other creatures, they undergo the laws of natural order, and, to act on man, they must conform to the conditions of human organization; they reach the soul only by the body. Between the good and the bad angels, however, there is this difference, but only this one, knowing, that some move the instrument in the name of God and to bring in the images that manifest his will, while others have as their purpose in their maneuvers only to mislead and corrupt souls.
VI. — The difficulty is to recognize the principle, the hand, if one wishes, which, acting on the keyboard, evokes the images.
In the normal state, when the soul exercises its unimpeded action, it is she who claims responsibility for mental visions that respond to acts conscious of her will. The natural and organic law of the association of ideas gives rise to so-called lateral appearances, sometimes unwelcome, but which do not prevent soul from continuing the course of its reasonable life.
When, on the contrary, intellectual manifestations escape the initiative and direction of the soul, this can occur in two ways.
This is first the hypothesis of a high vision, followed, well-conducted, and appearing to indicate the intervention of a reason superior to that of man. Then you have to look closely at it to see if it's Phomme's act, or
The work of an extrinsic agent; and, in the latter case, pronounce according to the rules which discern the divine from the evil.
If, instead of an orderly, intentional, purposeful manifestation, only waves of images are presented without a sequel, an inconsistent display of paintings, baroque situations, fantastic performances without order, without purpose, without connection, all is explained by a temporary or chronic disturbance of the cerebral keyboard. When the cause of this disturbance is known, as in drunkenness by spirits, l的opium, hashish, or any other physical ingredient having such effects on the organism, it is to this specific cause that they should be attributed. In such cases, the hypothesis of extrahuman intervention, divine or evil, must be severely ruled out. Of course, divine intervention cannot be said about it; but it is less repulsive that the demon masks his coming under these outside of natural drunkenness; however, to admit it, it would require peremptory signs of a causal greater than man.
We do not have to repeat here the characteristic and distinctive signs of the divine and the devilic; we are in the process of unravelling the human from what surpasses him, and, at this moment, to distinguish from mystical phenomena the divagations caused by opium and hashish. The eccentric nature of these phenomena, their dissipation and their bizarreness, indicate obvious hallucinations; one should close one's eyes to see something else. We are free to decorate these febrile exaltations, these refinements of suspicious voluptuousness, these horrific nightmares, all these mental inconsistencies of pompous names of visions and ecstasy: the phenomenon remains what it is: a cerebral debacle that is without difficulty explained by the toxic nature of the elements ingested.
The reason why magnetism was classified as natural analogies. — Mesmer and his vogue. — The Marquis of Puységur. — Dr. Hervier and François Deleuze. — Alexandre Bertrand, the Baron of the Potet and the former Abbé Constant. — Braid and Azam. — The experiences of Dr. Charcot at the Salpêtrière. — Magnetism and hypnotism in front of my learned bodies.
I. — Magnetism has been occupying, passionate and dividing the world of science for more than a century, and perhaps never a sensitive, palpable phenomenon, spreading out into the open, has subjected doctors first, the theologians then, and still today, to such torture.
This torture, we know it to be subjected to; and by dealing with such a complicated, equally debated subject, on which the Church, questioned, has not yet rendered a decision in the proper doctrinal sense, we will not affect full security.
Is magnetism to take place, as well as several
166: MAGNETISM tries to persuade him, among the inexhaustible forms of human charlatanism? Is it, as many doctors do, and most of the magnetizers by profession, a new or renewed manifestation of the occult forces of nature? Would it be, as some think, a superstitious practice behind which invisible beings would veil their action? Or, finally, should these phenomena, depending on the occurrences, be seen as a mixture of duperies of natural force and demonic interference? — All these hypotheses to mention, to discuss.
In order to escape the accusation of bias, so often articulated by us against the advocates of unbelief, we have classified the facts of magnetism as natural analogies rather than as evil counterfeits, with the reservation, however, not to sacrifice anything of our freedom, the right of examination and the logic of the conclusions. If, after discussion, magnetism seemed to us to exceed nature from all points, we would give it a power superior to man, that is, in this case, to the demon; and, therefore, in order to regain its logical place, the question should go back to the evil counterfeits: if that had been our reasoned opinion, this classification, we understand, would already be realized. If the facts found were recognized human work or maneuver, we would bring them back to man's deceit or action. If there is a mixture of natural and superhuman, we will try to do the sorting and to specify the share of each. In the last two hypotheses, what is meant by human analogies is enough to justify our classification and our march.
II. — The history of magnetism is everywhere!
1 CF. Collection of the most interesting pieces on animal magnetism, 3 vol. in-80, 1784. — Memories to be used in the history and establishment of animal magnetism, by the Marquis de Puyséeur, 4 vol. in-8°, London, 1786. — Deceuze, Hist. crilique du magnetisme, 2 vol. in-8°, 1813, —
Wen will repeat that what is needed to inform our exposure, our review and our conclusions.
The theory and the first applications date back to Mesmer. Antoine Mesmer (1734-1815) studied and first practised medicine in Vienna. As early as 1776, he presented a thesis for his doctoral examination entitled: From Planetarum influxu, where the existence of a universally widespread fluid was asserted, which linked the various bodies and subjected the human organism to sidereal influences. Mineral magnet, in Latin, was like condensation of this physical energy. Already, in 1772, in concert with Fr. Hell, a Jesuit scholar at the Royal Observatory in Vienna, Mesmer made the first experiments on the sick of this virtue of magnet. He soon realized that the prolonged application of the hands produced an effect similar to that of laimant; at that time the discovery of animal magnetism was made.
The capital of Austria did not offer him full confidence or quick fortune, Mesmer came in 1778 to Paris, where he found Pune and the other largely. The public soon flocked to the new healer; the women especially ran in crowds to calm their nerves and curiosity. The cures multiplied with the envi, it was said, and by a process that added to the wonderful. The crowd became such that Mesmer was no longer enough to treat one by one its clients. He then invented his flocks, around which the sick treated themselves in common under his fascination. Those who, under the power of the current, were pampered or seized of convulsive agitation, were taken to a room called the Crisis Room or convulsive room.
Fraurer, Hist. of the wonderful, t. 3. — Bensor, Mesmer and animal magnetism. — DECHAMBRE, Dict. encyclop. of medical sciences.
and received the magnetizer's care individually. At Deslon, one of the first disciples and admirers of Mesmer, the contest was also considerable.
We refrain from describing scenes where indecency frequently challenged him to ridicule, and whose most ordinary result was less the cure of real or imaginary diseases, than unfavorable concussion. However, we would not want to challenge without distinction all the cures performed under Mesmer's passages and with his pack.
Mesmer's goal was less to relieve suffering humanity than to make a fortune. To succeed, he put his secret to auction. A living pension of twenty thousand pounds, offered by the government, did not seem sufficient to his greed. Finally, a company, known as Harmonie, organized itself to buy this precious secret, and the amount of subscriptions earned the German doctor nearly four hundred thousand pounds. His insatiable greed repeatedly broke out the discord between him and the members. In 1785 he escaped the curses and public contempt, travelled through England, Italy, Germany, without finding anywhere else the enthusiasm too easy of the French, and came to settle on the shores of Lake Constance, at Mespurg, where he died in 1815, at the age of eighty-one.
II. — The initiates spread to the provinces and throughout France, mesmerism became fashionable, as was the game of the rotating tables, closer to us. Among the disciples of Mesmer, the Marquis of Puységur pointed out among all. He retired to his land of Buzancy, near Soissons, and began to dispense to all the infirm women the benefit of his passes. The contest was such that the good lord also thought of grouping his clients, not with a bundle, but around a centuries-old tree in the middle of the public square of Buzancy, which had become under
His hands are an inexhaustible magnetic focal point. A rope attached to the old trunk transmitted the fluid to the sick, and when the rope was insufficient, it was only necessary to cling to the hanging branches of the magnetized tree.
On 17 May 1784 he wrote to his brother in Chastenet: "I continue to use the happy power I have from Mr. Mesmer, and I bless him every day; for I am very useful and have many beneficial effects on all the sick in the vicinity; this morning there were more than one hundred and thirty. It is a perpetual procession in the country; Jy spends two hours every morning; my tree is the best package possible, there is not a leaf that does not communicate health; everyone experiences more or less good effects there; you will be charmed to see the picture of humanity that this represents. I was only sorry to be able to touch everyone; but my man, or to say better, my intelligence, calms me. He's teaching me the way I'm supposed to behave. According to him, it is not necessary for me to touch everyone: a look, a gesture, a will, is enough; and he is a peasant, the most limited in the country, who teaches me this. When he's in crisis, I don't know anything deeper, more cautious, more visionary. I have many others, both men and women, who are approaching his condition; but none legal, and that is annoyed to me, for next Tuesday, farewell my advice, this man no longer needs to be touched."
What makes the Lord of Puységur famous in the fascists of magnetism is the discovery he made of artificial sleepwalking, with this peasant whom he speaks of in the previous letter. While he was magnetizing this young man named Victor, with a chest flow, the sick man fell asleep between his arms, and began to talk.
with a wonderful lucidity that the magnetizer directed at his own discretion. The experience, renewed for several days, brought back the same wonders each time. "It was with this man," wrote the Marquis!"I learned, "that I lighten up." When he is in the magnetic state, he is no longer a peasant, barely knowing how to answer a sentence, he is a being that I can't name; I don't need to talk to him; I think before him, and he hears, answers me. Is he coming to his room? He sees it if I want, speaks to him, tells him the things that 7th wants him to tell him, not as I tell him, but as the truth requires. When he wants to say more than I think he should be heard, then I stop his ideas, his phrases in the middle of a word, and I change his idea completely.""We will have to explain ourselves about this wonderful.
IV. — In 1787, Dr.Petetin of Lyon, without his knowledge, revealed the singular disposition of patients affected by catalepsis and d-hysteria to magnetic lucidity, and the displacement of the senses in these morbid crises. He had observed a cataleptic subject who saw, heard, perceived all kinds of sensations by the epigastrium, by the tip of the fingers and the toes. Mesmer's supporters saw it as a confirmation of their doctrine and experiences?.
V.—During the Revolution, public tremors diverted attention from magnetism and magnetizers. We saw them reappear at the end of the first empire. The first Mesmerians lived long enough to make the transition.
1 Memories for the History and Establishment of Animal Magnetism, p. 29.
- What? Memories on the discovery of the phenomena of catalepsia, somnambulism, etc., 1787. — Animal electricity, etc., 1808.
°? Cf. Deceuze, Hist. critique of magnetism, 2 P., sect. 4, ch. SATA p. 262.
BACKGROUND DR. Hervier, a former Augustine monk, who, after being healed by Mesmer, had made the apostle of his system, died only in the early years of the Restoration. The Marquis de Puységur lived until 1895. François Deleuze, one of the most convinced followers, published in 1813 his Critical History of Animal Magnetism, and in 1819 his Practical Instruction, on the same subject; until his death, when he arrived in 1833, he took care of the magnetism, of which he would be dubbed the Mentor.
VI. — A second generation of magnetizers would be attached to the first. Father Faria! will make the beautiful Paris run with its charming somnambulism scenes using an insinuating suggestion. In 1819 Alexandre Bertrand opened a course on magnetism.. In 1820, M. Dupotet inaugurated, at Hôtel-Dieu in Paris, fantastic experiments and sessions, which he had to continue for more than sixty years, and transform into confessed and undeniable scenes of high magic. By mixing magnetism with spiritual theories and practices, the former Abbé Constant, known under the pseudonym of Eliphas Levi, led to the same results and confessions.
VII. — In 1849, a surgeon from Manchester, Dr. Braid, published a so-called new process for determining artificial lethargy accompanied by all the phenomena of magnetic lucidity. In 1859, Dr.Azam of Bordeaux, in turn, experimented with the procedure as an anaesthetic method in surgical operations, and admitted to him, in addition to this effectiveness, all the other magnetic characters indicated by Braid. This discovery was to give magnetism a renewed favor, and P introduced almost into the sanctuary of science, including the
1 The abbot of Faria, From the cause of lucid sleep, where Study of the nature of man, 1819.
closure had resisted all attempts to invade until then.
Dr. Charcot will renew on the neuropaths of the Salpêtrière the scenes of artificial sleepwalking and will open a field, new in appearance, where doctors, this time convinced, would follow him in mass, in vain hope of eliminating the miracle.
VII. — It is not unnecessary for our purpose to see these resistances of the learned bodies to new things that disconcerte systems and routine. Especially in France, scientific academies claim to quarantine everything that smells wonderful.
On arriving in Paris, Mesmer sought the favour of doctors and learned societies; but he and Deslon, his friend first, his competitor then, had on this side the most cruel miscounts.
On 12 March 1784 a commission was appointed by the government to examine the facts of magnetism. His report, written by Bailly, and published in the following month of August, attributed the facts found to these three causes: repeated touching, imagination and limitation, and rejected magnetism as a special phenomenon! The com-
1 This report concludes that: "The commissioners having recognized that the animal magnetic fluid cannot be seen by any of our senses; that it has not had any action on themselves or on the patients whom they have subjected to it; having ascertained that the pressures and touchings cause rarely favorable changes in the animal economy, and still falsified in the imagination; having finally demonstrated through decisive experiments that the imagination without magnetism produces convulsions, and that magnetism without imagination produces nothing, they concluded, with a unanimous voice, on the question The existence and usefulness of magnetism, which nothing proves the existence of the animal magnetic fluid; that this fluid, without existence, is therefore of no use; that the violent effects which one observes in public treatment belong to the tattering, to the imagination put into action, and to this machinal imitation which leads us despite ourselves to repeat what strikes our senses."
Missaries sent a secret memory to the king about the danger that the practice of magnetic passes offered to morals!: it was the most serious part of this verdict against magnetism.
The Royal Society of Medicine appointed a new commission in the same year, which concluded with the same results: the insanity and the peril of animal magnetism.
The Faculty of Medicine proved even more intolerant. When she learned that several of her members had been enrolled among the disciples of Mesmer and Deslon, she drew up a form by which everyone undertook not to declare themselves a supporter of magnetism, either by writing or by practice, under pain of being struck from the picture of the doctors-regents; Deslon, who had first set the example of defection, was deprived of a deliberative voice in the assemblies for a whole year, at the end of which, if he did not come to resipiscence, his name would be removed from the painting of the Faculty. In the recitals, the new healers were called charlatans, enemies of good morals, health and wealth of citizens.
The Mesmerians were careful to submit to these judgments. Sometimes they answered for reasons, sometimes with insults. On both sides, until the stormy days of the Revolution, a rain of pamphlets and epigrams confirmed some in their inflexible routine, and others in their easy enthusiasm.
In 1895, the case was again brought to the Academy of Medicine by Dr. Foissac, and the following year, on the favorable report of a young doctor,
1 The technical details of this secret report do not allow us to quote; we only reproduce the following lines: "When exposed to this danger, strong women move away from it, weak women can lose their morals and their health." Cf. Ficurer, Merchant Hist., t. 3 p. 213-218.
Mr. Husson, the learned society, by thirty-five votes to twenty-five, established a nine-member commission to study the facts of magnetism. After four years of various experiments, Dr. Husson presented, on behalf of the commission, a report that concluded this time with the recognition of the facts, and asked the Academy "to encourage research on magnetism, as a very curious branch of physiology and natural history".
This memory, read in June 1831, remained undiscussed until 1837. The question then reappeared about a tooth extracted without pain to a person magnetized by Dr. Oudet. On these facts, a young doctor, Mr. Bernat, having offered to convince the academicians in a public session, they accepted the test and appointed nine commissioners to know about it. This new experience was a real defeat for magnetism, and the rapporteur, Dubois (d'Amiens), added to it by appearing to give a particular case a general scope by clever implying?. - Yes, sir. Husson protested against this paralogism, in order to avoid the blow which was aimed at his own memory: the conclusions of the new rapporteur were adopted.
To put an end to the complaints and to remove the last doubts about the impotence of magnetism, Dr. Burdin proposed a bonus of three thousand francs to whom would provide the
1 His doctoral thesis, presented on February 24, 1835, was entitled: Experiences and considerations in support of animal magnetism, in-4°, 40 pages.
2 RarrorT, ad fin. — (Excerpt from the Medical Review, August 1838): "Have we found anything else in more, more varied facts and provided by other magnetizers? This is what we will not seek to decide; but what has been proven is that if there are still other magnetizers today, they have not dared to occur in the open; they have not dared to accept at last, where sanction, or academic reprobation."
proof of fact that one can read without the help of the eyes,
the light and touch; seven members of the Academy, appointed by it, were to watch the test.
Mr. Pigeon of Montpellier, both a doctor of medicine and a veterinarian, presented his daughter Léonide, a very lucid subject, it was said, who read fluently, a blindfold; but it was not possible to agree on the conditions of experience. Two others tried it, and the two conclusions were negative. Proud of these results, the Academy declared that
. from now on, any motion for a further consideration of the
magnetism would be ruled out without debate, and that issue would now be placed on the same footing as the quadrature of the circle and the perpetual movement.
It was in 1840.
In 1841 Braid discovered hypnotism. Magnetic sleep will take on a new name, the hypnosis, of which all phenomena, unknown or already seen, will constitute hypnotism. We will have to go back to the identity of magnetism and hypnotism, to answer those who have an interest in contradicting it. Two years later he communicated it to the public, in a book! which had little impact in France. She made more sensation fifteen years later, when MM. Azam and Broca tried it in surgical operations. The results of the proceedings struck Dr. Velpeau, who on 5 December 1859, was quick to report them to the Academy of Sciences. (was to bring back an issue of magnetism; for, as we have said, the practice of hypnotization is complicated by all magnetic characters, especially that of clairvoyance.
The expectations that the new anaesthesia process had
1 Neuropnology, or the Rationale of nervous sleep, considered in relation with Animal magnetism. London, 1843,
The most obvious result of this invention was the reappearance of magnetism in a new form. We then began to regret the subreptitious intrusion into the sanctuaries of science, by another name, of the unfortunate phenomenon so often denied and banned. "When it was necessary to abandon the hypnotic state of finding an anesthesia process," M. The zeal of doctors for this kind of study quickly cooled down. And when a more careful observation had led to the recognition that hypnotism was in essence only animal magnetism, this heresy so often struck by academic lightnings, a real feeling of repulsion was manifested in the medical body against any new examination of this phenomenon. Late regrets were made; it was hoped that this page could be removed from the history of contemporary science; the breasts were struck for letting animal magnetism be introduced, under a false name, into the scientific sanctuary. Thus the man of the fable hates to reject the serpent numbed by the cold, that he has picked up on his way, taking him as a stick."
However, the hour is approaching when the doctors, until then recalcitrant, will greet hypnotism with enthusiasm and seek arguments against the supernatural. Dr. Charcot's experiences at the Salpêtrière and his great authority in the diseases of the nervous system, finally force the doors of the Academy austere. To the kings of March 1889, he was admitted to read in front of the scientist areopage of which he became a member, a remarkable memory on the nervous phenomena determined by hysterical hypnotization and grouped by him under the three
-Hist of the wonderful, t. 3, p: 401.
cataleptic state, lethargic state and somnambulic state.
May we make the point, PAcadémie de médecine has gone, not to the demonstration of facts that have long been imposed, but to the assurance of Dr. Charcot, a free sectarian thinker, making the discovery, not new, the powerful ram that was going to break the Catholic miracle. Hope will be disappointed.
Whatever the intentions, let us already observe that the facts as a whole appear to be out of reach. Dogmatic medicine has found itself vis-à-vis magnetism in the same situation that it has taken against the supernatural; therefore, in its old tactics, it has again judged here, with the exception of a few rare defections, that the most expeditious party was to contest the phenomena or to attach them to natural causalities already known. But in the presence of constantly reborn facts, denying, denying, denying, still, is impossible. The results of hypnotism and the resounding experiments of Dr. Charcot at the Salpêtrière forced the doors of the academies, and many doctors took their part in counting on magnetism, despite the disdain and anathema of the learned bodies.
However, the solutions of continuity, to talk of this way, which meet daily in these practices and disconcert the most skilled experimenters, still allow the recalcitrants to maintain their negations and to prolong the divestments. Insligator of the most important medical publication of this century, Dr. Dechambre, concluded a long article on mesmerism, signed by his name: "As for all the extraordinary properties and faculties that have been endowed with somnambules, and which it is pointless to recall, we look forward to
178 THE MAGNETISM nor concern that it is best demonstrated, and we consider it until further order as a double product of illusion and deception. And since the effects we look at as possible are the result of a cause other than the influence of a special agent called magnetism, we conclude with this radical conclusion: ANIMAL MAGNETISM DOES NOT EXIST!"
In our view, the facts are not academies, and rather it is the academies that are subject to the law of the facts. "We must never forget," we will say with a doctor of great reputation, Dr. Cerise?, "that true science must take over all the real things that false science adorns itself; that, for the true scientist, it is an act of skill to be sincere and impartial." And applying this principle of good faith and true science to the question that is before us, "this is, concluded this honest man and this true scientist, my way of seeing extraordinary neuroses, in their relationship with what is called animal magnetism." — "If it is the dignity of science to beware of deception and credulity, let us add with Mr. Paul Richerÿ, it is also his duty not to reject the facts alone because they seem extraordinary, and she remains powerless to explain it."
There is nothing to allow us to revoke in doubt the facts guaranteed by a multitude of witnesses, among which the diversity of interests, times, characters, beliefs, makes any collusion impossible; facts renewed in a thousand forms for a century, in public sessions, in particular meetings, in the presence of expert judges: doctors, prestidigitators, physicists, and
1 Dict. of Medical Sciences, at the word MESMERISM, p. 207. 2 Annals of the medical-psychological society, 1858. 3 Clinical studies on hysleroepilepsy, 2° P., ch. 5, p. 362.
by men of recognized honesty, such as the Puységur, the Tardy de Montravel, the Deleuze, not to mention
experiments at Salpêtrière, Nancy, and as many other clinics in the world.
"We should overthrow all the moral laws of social life," said the Spanish Cardinal Zephirin Gonzalez!, "and adopt a historical scepticism also contrary to reason and common sense, to claim that hundreds and thousands of facts, sometimes verified in the presence of men warned against their existence, doctors, academicians, scientists; other times before a great number of honest people and people of all conditions and ages, attested almost always by serious minds, in newspapers, magazines, books of all kinds, are only the same. lies or vain fictions without any reality."
This is not possible.
This quick historical overview will provide us with elements of solution; but the complete solution will come mainly, if it is to come, from careful, careful, severe examination of the results and processes of magnetism.
First, let's study the effects, on the body first, in the soul then.
1 Elementary philosophy. (Extract from the letter by Lev. de Madrid.)
Lethargic sleep. — The suspension of the senses. — Their transposition, — Catalepsis and hysteria. — Magnetic and hypnotic cures. — The psychic effects are: lucidity or over intellectual excitement during sleep, — mental dependence on the magnetizer, — and the absence of memory at awakening.
I. — The physiological phenomena of magnetism can be reduced to the following: sleep, suspension or overexcitation of sensitivity, displacement of the senses, attacks caused by catalepsis and dysteria, healing or the relief of diseases.
Sleep is the normal condition of magnetism. By manoeuvring or by the will of a dominating agent, the person subjected to his action falls so deeply asleep that he remains insensitive to any influence other than that of the magnetizer. She sees, hears, feels only to the extent that it allows: for the rest of the world, she does not exist.
We do not have to discuss here how the physiological phenomenon of sleep occurs, nor do we dispute that magnetic sleep is essentially different from ordinary sleep, as many support it. It is sufficient at present to report this prior condition of Magnetic Paclion, while observing that hypnosis or
artificially induced drowsiness awakens the subject to a strange, new life, full of anomalies and mysteries, as we will have occasion to see.
IL. — The hypnosis usually suspends the exercise of meanings with the exception of the wilt, which remains free with regard to the magnetizer and those whom he relates to the magnetized subject. During this lethargy, painful surgical operations were performed, without the patient experiencing any feeling of discomfort. But the opposite also happens; in these states, sensitivity is frequently raised to excess in each of the senses, to the point that ordinary sensations take an extreme vivacity; Phyperaesthesia of hearing in particular becomes extraordinary. What one feels, one feels very strongly, as if life was all concentrated in this point.
IT. — This excitability of the senses by magnetism may explain their apparent displacement, which is one of the most curious phenomena of this state. Many magnetized hear by the epigastrium or any other point of the body, as if the hearing organ had been located in these parts. Some read through the neck, elbow, stomach hollow, or even through the eyes after they have been covered with a band that does not allow any ray to pass. We do not dispute these experiences with many deceptions; this is not a reason to exclude all cases of this kind without examination; a single well-established fact proves more than a hundred aborted trials. All that can be concluded from the inequality of results is that they are caused by a causality of which one only knows the game impractically, or by a free agent who, at his discretion, produces or does not produce the desired effect; but this is not a single fact, but a large number which is alleged in proof of the new location of the various senses in the magnetized.
On the reality and mode of this displacement, the testimonies of hypnotized subjects are not uniform. Some, such as the cataleptics of Petetin!, believe to see through the eyes and hear through the ears, although these sensations only occur to them as a result of a foreign impression, in appearance at least, to the special and true organ; others, such as the somnambul of Tardy de Montravel?, declare that the normal exercise of the senses has ceased, and that the external perceptions take place by the part of the body where the sensitivity is concentrated.
IV. — It is a fact of experience that the resulting sleep is close to catalepsia; the members of the sleeping subject give in to the printed impulse and persevere in it. To move from cataleptoid to lethargy, you simply have to cover your eyes: the body turns over and falls unnerved, the head arched back; to the word of the magnetizer, lucidity is declared, and, with lucidity, all the ease of movement.
According to the impressions communicated to him, the subject is plagued by the emotions and hallucinations that characterize hysteria. The School of Salpêtrière links hypnotic phenomena to the three states of lethargy, catalepsia and d-hysteria.
V. — The curative virtue of magnetism has been and is still singularly exalted. He first announced himself as the universal panacea, and Mesmer had to face this prejudice his vogue and his fortune, perhaps even true healing. The subscribers of the Harmony, among all the Marquis humanitarians of Puységur, celebrated the virtue of a dearly paid secret. All magnetizers and supporters of magnetism, such as Deleuze, Georget,
1 Memories, etc., in-80, 1787, 1st P, — Animal electricity, 1808. 2 Test, note 6, p. 90: "Then she answered me without hesitation: "I don't see "by the eyes; that's where I see (showing his stomach). "
A Bertrand, from the Potet, have focused on demonstrating through detailed experiments the therapeutic effectiveness of the mysterious fluid! The representatives and advocates of hypnotism do not have a better argument in its discharge than the benefit of its healings?.
VI. — The psychic phenomena are no less extraordinary, and it is above all on this side that magnetism touches on the wonderful.
Three characters specify these states from an intellectual point of view: lucidity, dependence on magnetizer and lack of memory.
The clairvoyance of magnetic subjects during the duration of their crisis does not go so far as to deliver to them all the secrets of the world, and to confer to them Pinfaillibility, far from there: most of the answers provided by the somnambules are false; it is much to agree that, during their artificial lethargy, their mind reaches a greater insight than that without they enjoy in the normal state. They solve problems, such as, awakened, they would not hear the statement; they see the inner parts of the body in the open; they discover diseases, their siege, their causes, and the remedies that suit them; they guess the thoughts and intimate arrangements; they know what is going on in the distance, and seem to travel the distance between the place where they were from the place they visited. Imagination repeats power to multiply images, and memory regains extraordinary energy to evoke the visions of the past.
Among the supporters of hypnotism, many would like to
1 C. DeLeuze, Hist. critic of the magnet., 1st P., ch. 7. — From the application of the magnet to the cure of diseases.
2 P, Coconner, L'hypn. franc, p. 215: "Hypnotism is beneficial whatever you say, and the story of the good it produced, if you could write it, would be long and moving."
separate their cause from that of magnetism, by restricting the action of the hypnosis to the simple suggestion. The suggestion itself goes so far that the repudiation of a certain category of facts, which one would like to leave to the burden of magnetism, would not suffice to innocent. But it would be otherwise serious, if magnetism and hypnotism were to be the same under two different names, if they were one and the other of a single cause, if they were solidary and inseparable. The cause being one and the same, the facts, whatever they may be, should logically be attributed to him. We will soon discuss this crucial point of view of identity.
VII. — The empire exercised by the magnetizer on the subject who submits to his action breaks out in all eyes in these strange scenes: one becomes in relation to the other Pinspirator and the regulator of conscious life and external movements. At the discretion of the fascitor, the most diverse impressions of joy or sadness, hatred or love, cold or hot, pain or pleasure follow one another in this being which seems no longer to belong. On the word he hears, things take in his sense the appearances under which they are named to him: a glass of water is presented to him by insinuating that it is an exquisite liqueur: he drinks and gives all the signs of a delicious sensation; he is put into his hands something by speaking to him of sweet and charming flowers: he contemplates them and aspires to smell them with all the testimonies of pleasure. If, on the contrary, the magnetizer signals a spectacle of horror, snakes, monsters: the patient is seized with fear and tries to escape the peril he believes is threatened.
This amazing influence was precisely described by Braid as a suggestion, because, in fact, the magnetizer seems to suggest to the magnetized the series of intimate thoughts and emotions.
Deleuze! sums up the effects of magnetic lethargy: "When magnetism produces somnambulism, the being in this state acquires a prodigious extension in the ability to feel; many of its external organs, usually those of sight and ouie, are dormant, and all the sensations that depend on it are internally operating. There is an infinite number of shades and varieties in this state; but to judge it well, one must examine in its greatest distance from the state of watch, by ignoring everything that Pexperience has not found.
"The sleepwalk has closed eyes and does not see through the eyes, it does not hear through the ears, but it sees and hears better than the awake man.
"He sees and hears only those with whom he is related. He only sees what he looks at, and usually only looks at the objects on which he is directed.
"He is subject to the will of his magnetizer for all things that cannot harm him and for all things that do not upset in him the ideas of righteousness and truth.
"He feels the will of his magnetizer.
"He sees the magnetic fluid.
"He sees or rather feels inside his body and that of others; but he usually notices that parts that are not in the natural state and that disturb harmony.
"He finds in his memory the memory of the things he had forgotten the day before.
"It has forecasts and presentations that may be wrong in several circumstances, and are limited in their scope.
1 Hist, critic of animal magnetism, 1st P., chap. 8, t. 1, p. 185-187.
It comes with a surprising ease.
"It is not free of vanity.
"He perfects himself, for a time, if he is led wisely.
"He goes astray, if he is misdirected.
"When he enters the natural state, he absolutely loses the memory of all the sensations and ideas he has had in the state of sleepwalking; so much so that these two states are also alien to each other, that if sleepwalking and awake man were two different beings."
Deleuze, one of the old representatives of magnetism, is no longer an authority for the current hypnotists. But the recent and confessed eccentricities of hypnosis are almost as extraordinary.
Whether hypnosis can give, during sleep, the strangest hallucinations, all the same ones that it pleases the sleeper to state about what it has done or what it has not done, it is common and usual. It is only to say to the patient that he has been in such an absolutely chemeric situation, that he has made such a speech, that he has committed such a crime, that he has ceased to be a man or woman, that he is a soldier, a magistrate, a sister of Charity, that he has ceased to be himself and that he will no longer be able to speak of himself to the first person: the patient believes everything, sees things as they are said, takes the attitude that is intimate to him.
The suggestion goes further. It prolongs the illusion beyond the crisis of sleep. When he wakes up and becomes conscious, he sees things as he has been told, asleep, that he will see them; he becomes unable to grasp the one he has been forbidden to see; he will lose his memory, the word, partially or totally, at the whim of the hypnotizer.
He will even execute, under an automatic thrust,
THE EFFECTS A8 machinal, the injunctions received, the most saugrenous, the most criminal; and this at distant times, after weeks and months, after a year past, on a fixed day, at fixed time.
The assertions that we are carrying here will not be contested by those who have read the scenes described and the testimonies recorded in the publications relating to lhypnosis.
The influence of the active agent in lhypnotization does not stop at the experimental period of sleep; it extends well beyond that by the ease of falling asleep on a single command word, a slight touch, a simple look. It is not uncommon that, following these reports, women, in particular, have declared themselves to be almost irresistible training for the man who fascinated them.
We will have to go back to those dangers that hypnosis brings to morality.
VIII. — Finally, the hypnotized subjects do not remember what happened in them and around them, what they saw, said or did during their lethargy; but, asleep again, they recover the memory of the facts and impressions that occurred in the previous crises, and even of the old things completely forgotten. The hypnotist directs the mind at his own discretion on such or other point, evoking memories and bringing confessions, without exception the most compromising ones.
The extraordinary thing is that this amnesia in relation to the phenomena experienced in hypnosis ceases as soon as it is a suggestion to be made, and this just at the time set for execution. The known laws of psychology appear here in default or singularly complicated.
The Passes. — The Chain. — The Pack of Mesmer. — The Fascination of the Eye. — The Will of the Magnetizer. — The Fixing of a Shining Point. — The School of Salpetriere and Neurosis. The Nancy School and the suggestion. — The mental and remote suggestion. — Is hypnotization binding on everyone? — How do we get out of hypnotic sleep.
I. — The processes used to magnetically fall asleep have varied from the Mesmer tests to the discovery of Braid. A. The origin, the action of the magnetizer seemed indispensable; in the ensuing, magnetic sleep will be obtained without the intervention of any human agent.
Most of the manoeuvres in which the magnetizer plays an active and predominant role date back to Mesmer or his early disciples, and are based on the theory of a communicated fluid.
Magnetization by the mäin is the oldest and most used. The operator passes and irons his hands, through physical contact or by circumvolutions that describe lines and barely touch, on the person to whom he claims to communicate his fluid; this is what has been called passes. The immediate easing seemed necessary first to get into contact with the subject; once the
communication established, remote passes suffiled at
produce their effect. Magnetization is general or with large currents, when the hands move from the top of the head to the ends of the fingers and feet; but it can be restricted to the part of the body that it wants to relieve, and even determine sleepwalking by operating only around the head and hypocondres. Primary consideration was to draw the passes from top to bottom, and to turn the palm of the hands outside, bringing them back to the starting point; these precautions have long been considered useless t, and each operator varies the passes at his own discretion.
Magnetization has been carried out with the help of intermediaries who receive and transmit the fluid, let us say — in order to remain outside any system — the influence of the main agent.
II. — Intermediaries may be magnetized subjects themselves or persons who connect them, under a
1 DELEUZE, Hist.crit. of magnetism, 11th P., c. 4, t. 1, p. 104: "Be with a sick man whom you want to relieve," he said, "place yourself in front of him, so that your knees touch his own. Take his thumbs, and stay in this situation until you feel that your thumbs and his thumbs have the same degree of heat. Then put your hands on his shoulders; leave them there for two or three minutes, and descend along your arms to regain your thumbs; repeat this three or four times. Then put both hands on the stomach, so that your thumbs are placed on the solar plexus, and the other fingers on the ribs. When you feel a heat communication, go down your hands to your knees, or even to your feet, and continue in the same way, taking care to turn your hands away whenever you come to your head... Make sure your passes are distinct from each other... Do not use any muscle force to direct the action of magnetism. Put in your movements of ease and flexibility. Your hand must not be stretched; on the contrary, your fingers must be slightly curved, because it is mainly by the tip of the fingers that the fluid escapes. Continue to magnetize for about three quarters of an hour... Never have any uncertainty in your processes, do not worry about the effects; act with confidence, with abandonment, etc...."
magnetizer that dominates and directs the action. It was called making the chain.
Deleuze! describes this magnetic treatment put in vogue by Mesmer: "When several patients are gathered together in one place, with well-intentioned people, all well-intentioned in favour of magnetism, they are placed in a circle, so that they touch each other by their knees and feet. They then stand each other by the thumbs: several magnetizers even commit them to tighten the inches of their neighbour to the left, when their neighbour to the right has made the same movement; which establishes a measure and fixes the attention. The magnetizer is first placed at the chain with the others: if there are several magnetizers, one must be the leader, and all the others must be subordinated to him. After a quarter of an hour, magnetism is in circulation, the movement of the fluid accelerates; all the sick feel the action of magnetism, all experience effects: often even some effects are felt by those who are not sick. Then the head of the treatment detachs himself from the chain, which tightens, and magnetizes successively all those who compose it; he then attaches himself to the patient who needs him most, and he charges the other magnetizers to direct the fluid to those entrusted to them. This meeting of several people greatly increases the action of magnetism, and this action continues when the magnetizer rests. Many slight inconveniences heal themselves by the chain without any other help, and the amount of fluid that the sick sometimes water them to become sleepwalkers."
II. — In the opinion of the early apostles of magnetism, this element was a similar fluid, if not identical,
1 Hist.crit. of magnetism, 11th P.,:ch. 4, t. 4 p. 147.
THE PROCESSES 191 to the electric fluid and had to be, like the latter, susceptible to accumulation and condensation; therefore, magnetic tanks were set up.
One of the first experiments of this kind, and undoubtedly the most famous, was the pack. This apparatus consisted of a wooden box in the shape of a tank, closed by a wooden lid, which gave it the appearance of a round table. The interior contained magnetized water, crushed glass, iron silt, one or more layers of bottles filled with magnetized water and symmetrically arranged. All the necks of the upper series were concentrated in a sort of rebar, from where a rope was set up to connect the sick with each other, and to put them in contact with this central point of the reservoir. To the lid were adapted glass or iron rods, cubited and plunged through the lower part into the liquid, outside straight and extended unevenly, so as to reach the hands of the assistants, stored in several concentric circles around the bundle. The chain circulated in all a common stream; the stem directed, at the discretion of each, the regenerative principle on the seat of evil.
Mesmer prepared and regulated the effects of this fantastic device by the sweet and penetrating harmony of a musical instrument.
. The magnetizer thus acts on any object, and makes it an instrument that preserves and transmits its action. We have already spoken of the tree magnetized by the Marquis of Puységur, and around which he treated two hundred sick at once. Mesmer? and Deslon ê had already done quite similar experiments. All those healers
1 Memoirs of the Marquis de Puységur, p. 16 and 17. 1786. 2 Taurus, Research and doubts on animal magnet, p. 67, 1784, 3 Bailly Report, 1784.
ES* to RES sn NES
gave their patients magnetized water. In a word, there is no substance that cannot be subjected to this operation, and become like a container of magic virtue.
The process of communicating this virtue to things! is identical to the one that makes it radiate on people, and often even simpler: a few passes, a touchdown, a slight insufflation, a look can suffice.
IV. — The power of the eye is considerable in the dominance of the magnetizer over his subject; practitioners are unanimous in this regard. Mesmer's fascinant eye may have acted more powerfully on his enthusiastic clientele than his passes and packs. Bailly, in his report, found that Mesmer's disciples also subjugated by the fixedness of the gaze.
Much more, experience shows that this means alone is sufficient to determine the magnetic crisis, especially after the first fascinations. "The means that are external and visible," said Mr. Husson in his report to the Academy of Medicine of which we have already spoken, are not always necessary, since on several occasions the will, the fixedness of the gaze, have sufficed to produce magnetic phenomena, even with the linsu of magnetized... When a person has once fallen into magnetic sleep, I do not always need to use contact and passes to magnetize it again. The
1 Deceuze, Hist. critique of the magn., 4.1, p. 126: "To magnetize a bottle of water, just hold it with one hand, and pass the other hand up and down, and always in the same direction for two or three minutes. The bottle can also be placed on the knee, pressed on the head and magnetized with both hands. This does, we raise it by holding it by the neck, and with the other hand we gather the fluid towards the base. To magnetize a glass of water, just hold it in one hand, and carry over the other hand, bringing your fingers together a dozen times in a row, as if to bring the fluid in. The breath sent on it two or three times completes to load it; but this process is not necessary."
The magnetizer's gaze, his will alone, have the same influence on her."
V. — The great lever of magnetism is the will of the magnetizer, and, as in order to want to know and believe, conviction and will are inseparable here. "Know what you want," Mesmer said. At the end of his Memoirs, the Marquis de Puységur sums up the conditions of magnetic power: "Active will to the good; firm belief in its power; full confidence in employing." Deleuze? reproduces this aphorism and completes it by adding: "The will depends on you"; which is the patriarch's axiom: "Know what you want."
To believe and to want, that would be the fundamental secret of magnetism?. It is at least accepted by all that somnambules are under the complete dependence of their fasciners, and that they direct their impressions, their thoughts, their movements at their own discretion. We cannot think without fear what excesses such dependence can lead to. Vaiement of honest and convinced men, such as Puységur*, Tardy de Montravelÿ, Deleuze‘, Labbé
1 See Fiourer, Hist. of the wonderful, t. 3 p. 384.
2 Hist. critique of magnetism, 1st P., c. 2, t. 4 p. 58.
3 TARDY DE MonTRAVEL, Essay on the theory of magnetic sleepbulism. London, 4785, p. 72, 76; "All those who have practiced magnetism with fruit agree with us that regardless of the methods of use, if one wants to produce real effects, one must focus on magnetizing with a strong and determined will... Come on, come on, come on. These words express everything...: it is when you are in these provisions that you can rely on beneficial effects; it is then that your will will become in you a truly physical agent, to whom the passive and suffering being will always obey and on which you will direct the action."
4 Memories, p. 152 and 153.
ë Essay on the theory of sleepwalking magn., p. 72, 105.
6 Hist.crit. of magnetism, 1st P., c. 9, t. 4 p. 225, note: "It has been claimed that sleepwalking can lead to the oblivion of decency, and this is absolutely false; never can a thought contrary to honesty awaken in the state of sleepwalking."
POS A I Loubert! have claimed that the instinct of morality was more powerful in the magnetized than the empire exercised by the magnetizer; Deslon's confessions, the experiences of Ragazzoni, and others, the human perversity and the very character of the magnetic scenes only justify too much alarms.
Not only does the magnetizer impose his will during the sleep crisis?, but his inner command is enough to determine the crisis, as Dr. Husson observed in his report to the Academy, and can go so far as to put in motion inanimate objects.
VI. — Until 1841, the influence of an intermediate agent was considered an indispensable condition of artificial sleep; Braid's experiences had shaken this persuasion. The new process is to fix a brilliant object at a small distance above the eyes with a prolonged look. The same result can be achieved by focusing the view on a black stone or any other shade, on a bright flame, on any clearly accused point, or even by staring at the tip of its nose. This curious phenomenon, which Braid believed to be new, was described by him as hypnotism, the Greek word Ürvoc, sleep; and it was under this generic name that he would take place in science. From now on, we will talk less about magnetism, but much of it will be dhypnotism.
1 Magnetism, etc., by Abbé J.-B. L., priest, former medical student, p. 651.
2 Tarpy DE Monrraver, Essay, p. 76: "It is not necessary for the magnetizer to command, to raise his voice; it is enough for him to act, and to act with a determined will to communicate his action to the patient, he receives it at the same time. But much more, it is not even necessary for the magnetizer to act; it is enough that he wants to print a movement to the patient, provided that he wants him to have a strong and active will, with a will able to produce a shake in himself."
3 See. DEBRARYNE, Thoughts of a Catholic Believer. p. 471.
4 See. De Minvivce, Des Esprits, 2nd ed., ch. 10, p. 292.
magnetizers will become hypnotists. Charcot will put these experiments in vogue in the medical world. But alongside the school of the Salpêtrière, of which he remains the founder, others rise with the reputation of their operators, especially the school of Nancy, which becomes the rival of the one in Paris!. In essence, the difference is not essential.
VII. — For Charcot and its continuators, the bypnotic phenomena constitute neurosis and take place in three successive states: catalepsia, lethargy, somnambulism. Mr. Paul Richer, in an important book on the great hysteria, gave a presentation of the series of experiments, remarkable by the clarity and precision of the details. The brief summary we give will enable the reader to appreciate the maneuver and the effects of lhypnotization as it is practiced at the Salpêtrière.
Y Abbé Moreau, Hypnotism, p. 206: "The doctrine of the school of Salpêtrière, represented by MM. Charcot, Dumontpallier, Luys, Auguste Voisin, Descourtis, Magnin, Bérillon, Charles Richet, Brouardel, P. Richet, on the production and condition of hypnosis, can be summarized as follows:
"19 The hypnotic state is neurosis,
"20 This condition is peculiar to neuropaths.
"3° The best subjects of study are the great hystericals.
"4° This state is produced by means of passages, pressures, frictions, the fixation of the gaze, the suggestion in the great hysterics.
"50 This state is presented in three distinct phases: catalepsia, lethargy, somnambulism, to which two intermediate phases should be added.
"6° Neuromuscular hyperexcitability is an inherent phenomenon of hypnotism.
"The laws of this neuromuscular hyperexcitability are threefold: during catalepsia, neuromuscular hyperexcitability is zero. There is contracture by deep excitation of the muscle or nerve during lethargy; contracture by over superficial excitation of the skin during sleepwalking. Neuro-muscular hyperexcitability is the most effective sign to detect simulation.
"However, this doctrine must be as rigorous as Mr. Charcot and his students claim it. Some argue that it is not scientific, because it does not respond to the reality of the facts."
2 Clinical studies on hysteroepilepsy ox great hysteria, 1881, 2nd p., ch. 5.
The subject sets a luminous point. After a shorter or shorter time, — a few minutes, even a few seconds for hysterics — cataleptoid suspension usually occurs gradually, sometimes in an instant way. This condition lasts as long as the light continues to affect the retina, and is characterized by the fixed look, complete anaesthesia, flexibility of the limbs, mobility of the physiognomy and hallucinations according to the external suggestions.
If the light disappears or if it covers the sight, suddenly, with catalepsia succeeds lethargy; the subject falls down like a lead. Only lowers the eyelids, lethargy invades this side of the body and catalepsia remains in the other. During lethargy, the eyelids are in constant shivering, the eyeballs in convulsive agitation; anaesthesia is complete.
To move from lethargy to sleepwalking, you just have to strongly question the sleeping subject as if to bring him back to the relationship life. To the voice that fascinates, he rises, walks, writes, speaks, answers questions, sometimes with extraordinary lucidity, carries out all the movements that are suggested to him, always with closed eyes; as soon as the eyes regain light, the cataleptic state resumes. This can be done at will to move from catalepsis to lethargy by returning or removing light.
The hypnotization occurs by means other than light. Sudden vibrations of a tuning, intense and unexpected noise, compression of the eyeballs or vertex, simultaneous look of the experimenter and the subject, have the same effects as the fixation of a luminous point.
In predisposed subjects, certain points of the body
This may be due to a simple contact with hypnotic excitation. Dr. Pitres, a professor at the Faculty of Medicine in Bordeaux, described them as areas of
hypnogenic. No external character reveals them; it is
to experience to discover them!. "Sudden pressure is the most often effective excitation mode in hypnogenic areas. In many cases, the skin that covers them is completely superficially excitation enough to put their excitability into play. Lightly approaching with a foreign or non-foreign body (with a watercolour brush, for example, or with a fragment of rolled paper), single pinsufflation, contact with a few drops of hot or cold water, radiation from an object at high temperature, spraying a few drops of ether, passing an electric shake can, in these cases, cause hypnotic sleep. But not all hypnogenic zones respond to such superficial excitations, and to be sure that a given area of the body is or is not hypnogenic, it is necessary to do methodical exploration by exerting a fairly strong compression on it."
VII. — The school in Nancy, and in particular its most illustrious representative, Dr Bernheim, bring back all the procedures to the suggestion, to the will transmitted by the Phyp-: notifier to the hypnotized that he must sleep. The reciprocal fixedness of the look, the passes, the compressions, all that was a goal and that an effect, bring to sleep. Once sleep occurs, the subject is at the discretion of the medium.
"This is how I proceed to get hypnotic state," says M. Bernheim? I start by telling the patient that I think I have a useful duty to submit him to the
1 Prurals, Chemical lessons on hysteria and hypnolism, t. 2, p. 98. 2 From the suggestion and its applications to therapeutics, p. 1.
at 212 a Pa suggestive therapeutic; that it is possible to cure it: or to relieve it by hypnotism; that it is not harmful or extraordinary; that it is a simple sleep or numbness that can be caused in everyone... Then I tell him: "Look at me and "think only about sleeping. You will feel a heaviness "in the eyelids, a fatigue in your eyes; they cli- "grate, they will get wet, the sight becomes confused; "They're closing." Some subjects close their eyes and sleep immediately. In others, I repeat, I emphasize more, I add the gesture, no matter the nature of the gesture; I place two fingers of the right hand in front of the person's eyes and I invite him to fix them; either with both hands I pass several times from top to bottom before his eyes; or else I commit him to stare at mine and at the same time I try to focus all his attention on the idea of sleep. I say: "Your eyelids are "closed, you can no longer open them; you experience "a heaviness in your arms, in your legs; you no longer "feel anything; sleep is coming"; and I add, in a somewhat imperious tone: "Sleep!" Often this word carries the balance; the eyes close, the sick person sleeps or at least is influenced."
This is the theory professed and practiced by MM. Bernheim, Liebeault and Liegeois, of Nancy, and by a large number of doctors in France and abroad. The presentation was made by the first of these doctors at the International Congress held at the Hôtel-Dieu in Paris in August 1889. He was reluctantly objected that hypnotism was exercised over animals, fish, children, unannounced persons; however, the famous hypnotist continued to attach to the suggestion the full effectiveness of hypnosis.
In the end, the nean theory designates less than one
A process that she expresses an interpretation and doctrine; virtually, it does not exclude the means used by hypnotists and early magnetizers. It would be wrong, moreover, to claim for her the invention and exclusive practice of suggestive influence: since this means was advocated from the beginning of hypnosis and that, in Nancy as elsewhere, we group around the suggestion of the use of other traditional fireworks.
A serious difference, however, separates the two schools. According to Charcot and his assessors of the Salpêtrière, `hypnotism is a three-phase morbid state and favorable to the suggestion; according to the Doctors of Nancy, hypnotic lethargy has nothing morbid in itself and is not subject to the triple form found in hysterics; it begins with the suggestion, it in cents the power.
In short, each magnetizer has its method and means. < Some simply impose their hand on the person's forehead, which they magnetize, immediately or at a slight distance; others lay this hand on the lepigastrian; some on the shoulders. Usually after a few sessions, it is no longer necessary to impose hands, just tell the magnetized person: "In- "Sleep; I want you to sleep," and immediately she sleeps without being able to escape this order. Often it is enough to have the will without manifesting it... But we only gradually arrive at such a great influence!"
Thus the great artifice to which all others end is the suggestion.
IX. — This suggestion, sovereign in hypnotization
1 Rosran, Dict. of Medicine, Art. MAGNETISM, D. 444.
and its various evolutions, is regularly transmitted through the word. Any sign that is sufficiently manifested may determine it. Some hypnotists have gone further; they have tried to produce it by simple mental injunction. From December 2 to February 5, 4886, Dr.Ochorowiez, professor of philosophy at Lemberg, made a series of experiments in this order and came to convince himself that the mental and remote suggestion was achievable. In August of the same year, he renewed the essay, together with Drs. Gibert and Paul Janet, professor of philosophy at Le Havre High School, in this very city, at a distance of several kilometers and unknown of the subject, and he succeeded, if not to suggest everything he wanted, at least to sleep the subject.
"I left Le Havre," wrote M. Ochorowicz!, with deep emotion. I had finally seen the extraordinary phenomenon of remote action, which upsets the opinions currently accepted. I'm not afraid to give up, these experiences have been decisive. I finally had the personal impression of a true, direct, unquestionable action. I was of course that there was no coincidence, no suggestion by attitude, no other possible cause of error." However, he had reservations about the remote suggestion, which he could only succeed in one case. "Pai noticed the mental suggestion closely, but I only saw one remote experience that I think is rigorous?"
Other cases have occurred. In particular, Drs. Barety and Ch. Richet has made experiments that seem to establish that the mental and remote suggestion has its effect.
The distance action, by thought alone, whether formulated or not, constitutes what it is agreed to designate by the
1 Mental Suggestion, p. 443. 2 Ibid., p. 444.
A word of telepathy, composed of two Greek words, which signify the influence exerted and suffered by far +.
X. — It remains to be seen whether the various hypnotic manoeuvres are effective on any kind of person; in other words, whether everyone is likely to be hypnotized.
There is disagreement between the experimenters: we say yes, we say no, we distinguish. According to Dr. Bernheim? "No one can be hypnotized against his will, if he resists the injunction." But to be sure that we will not succumb, there is only one way to avoid the influence of the magnetizer and his maneuvers.
If we have already undergone magnetic fascination, it becomes very difficult to escape it. "That among the subjects that have often been hypnotized many may be asleep against their will, and without their lending in any way, it is not a doubt," says Dr. Albert Moll è. Mr. Beaunis ‘also says: "For those who have already been asleep, they are absolutely under the power of him who usually sleeps them."
On this point, it is agreed that neuroses, hysterics are particularly docile to hypnotic action, although there is this difference between the school of the Salpetriere and that of Nancy that, according to the first, neuropaths are the ordinary subjects of hypnosis, while, for the second, the hypnotic crisis is not a morbid state.
In drawing up the statistics of experiments, it was found that of the 100 people subjected to hypnotic influence, nearly 90 died there and, in sum, that
1 Täke, far away, æabeiv, suffering.
2 From Suggestion, p. 278.
3 Der Hypnotismus, p. 33.
4 The Caused Somnambulism, p. 35.
These alone are assured of themselves who refuse to submit to the maneuvers of the hypnotizer; as for those who have accepted and suffered his empire, nothing protects them with certainty against the fascination that distance, if however they can keep it, for an overriding attraction brings them back, brings them closer, subjugates them.
There are dangers that we will have to come back to.
XI. — The suspension of hypnosis occurs in different ways. Insufflation on the face is usually used. For professional hypnotists, the simple command is sufficient; they can even set the time at which the subject will have to wake up. Sometimes the passes that were used to sleep are also used to bring back the day before.
As the body is thought to recognize areas that need only be pressed to put into lethargy, it is said that there are others whose compression has the immediate effect of awakening; they have been described as "Aypnofrenatrices".
At the Salpêtrière, it was experienced that the compression of the ovaries, already practiced to calm hysterical seizures, determined the awakening in hypnotized ones.
As you can see, the maneuvers that plunge into magnetic and hypnotic lethargy, as well as those that operate the awakening, are strange. Eiles do not have regular and constant efficiency, and sometimes they seem to hold a whim. Is it man and nature that must be imputed? Is it an invisible operator that plays man?
We'll have to look at it.
The name has changed, the thing is the same. — Why do scientists want to distinguish between hypnotism and magnetism. — The postulate of frank hypnotism. — Identity of the processes for magnetization and hypnotization. — Parity of the results: sleep and the intervention of the fasciner, healings. — In the mental order, clairvoyance, the acuity of memory, awakening. — The conclusion is that magnetism and hypnotism proceed from a common causality.
J. — From Mesmer to Braid, artificial sleepwalking, with the variety of phenomena that it complicates, was called magnetism; from Braid, it took the name d的hypnotism. The difference in date and name does not prevent the thing from remaining the same.
We did not think first of challenging it. The new experiments began with a new process, at least in appearance, because it was almost two centuries ago that the German Jesuit scholar Athanase Kircher! hypnotized the hens by staring at them on a brilliant point; but the whole sequence of phenomena obtained by the intermediary of an operator reappeared identical with lucid sleep.
1 Born in 1602, m. in 1680.
Braid confessed or made this identity appear to the frispice of the book where he exhibited his discovery, under this significant title: Neurohypnology or reasoned examination of nervous sleep considered in its relationship with animal magnetism. Our French authors did not hesitate about this conclusion, whose rationalism expected wonders.
"By their results," said Messrs. Demarquay and Giraud-Teulon, in a highly esteemed study on hypnotism!, these experiments already raise a corner of the veil covering the so-called wonders of magnetism, and show that phenomena of the same order as the only truly seen in the facts of magnetism, can be produced without the intermediary of any communication from one person to another. They still agree with the latter in that the predisposing circumstances are the same on both sides, and all of a more or less pathological nature, a common fund of hysteria. The mode of production of this singular sleep, the testimony of the general sensitivity, had brought the word of magnetism to the lips of the least clairvoyant. The resemblance was striking, and the general features the same."
And further on, they conclude: "In summary, hypnousm and sleepwalking are now synonymous terms, and differ only by the mode of production, one artificially induced, the other spontaneous (and also provoked).
Dr Mathias Duval expresses himself almost the same in the New Dictionary of Medicine and Surgery, published under the direction of Mr. Jaccoud?
1 Research on Hypnolism, 1860, p. 15, 17, 53. 2? Volume 18, art. HYPNOTISM, p. 123-449.
MM. Maury, Figuier, Bersot,* to name only the notables of rationalism in the matters we are agitating, have proclaimed the total parity between hypnotism and magnetism. What made them more persuasive, it is true, is that they hoped, after having given hypnotism to nature, to explain magnetism better and, with the two together, to eliminate the supernatural. In spite of intentions, the facts retain their affinity.
II. — Later, we were delighted and wanted to separate new practices from old ones. The doctors of Nancy, especially, who claim to be a school by claiming the monopoly of the suggestion, — in use however from the first day of magnetism and among all hypnotists, — openly repudiate the past of magnetic somnambulism and hold their hypnotization to a new order. The same applies to the doctors of the Salpêtrière: it seems, to hear them, that hypnotism started with Charcot. He himself was not far from believing it; at least he had deafens.
"Mr. Charcot, wrote in 1886 Louis Figuier +, never pronounces the name of animal magnetism. Animal magnetism is a word that smells of charlatanism; but hypnotism has a scientific color; that is why our doctors deny the first and exalt the second. For us who are used to speaking clean, naming things by their name and calling a cat a cat, we allow ourselves to tell the troublemakers of lhypno-
1 Magic and astrology, 2° P., ch. 4 p. 445: "The passive and drowsy state where the hypnotized is placed is very similar to that determined by magnetizers on their sleepwalks."
2 Hist. of the wonderful, t. 3, Ch. 17, p. 379: "Hypnotism clearly reflects the different effects magnetizers have produced from Mesmer to the present day."
3 Mesmer el le magnetisme animal, 3° P., V, p. 246: "In this regard, Vhypnotism would be only magnetism reduced to the clearest."
4 The Ring saw and industrial, 30° year, p. 387.
206 6° ERROR SOURCE: THE MAGNETISM, which they merely resurrect and highlight arch-known phenomena, which have only been stubbornly denied for a long series of years and which, by the natural force of things, resume the place they would have conquered long ago, if a blind and systematic opposition on the part of doctors and academicians had stopped their manifestation in the beginning and in the middle of our century. In our view, there is a complete identity between animal magnetism and hypnotism. We therefore claim that the hypnotizers, these legitimate sons of Mesmer, as Mr. E. Gautier (Figaro, 5 Sept. 1889), are no smarter than the magnetizers, their ancestors, and that the so-called wonders they are trying to dazzle us are only scientific plagiarisms, sheltered under a Greek name."
"If the most famous members of the Academy of Sciences," says Mr. W. de Fonvielle!, the leading figures of the Academy of Medicine, the editors of the main scientific journals, the scientific editors of the main political sheets have abandoned the name of sleepwalk, not because new progress has forced to confess that the properties of sleep had been exaggerated. If they have taken the name of the hypnotized, whose meaning is identical, with the only difference that it comes from Greek instead of coming from Latin, it is not that it felt the need to express a different idea, it is only because sleepwalkingism was condemned, after a period that lasted eighteen years, by the Academy of Medicine, one hopes to bring back this high scientific assembly on its verdict, presenting under a new name the old ideas
1 The Sleepers, p. 27. Extr. of Mr. Moreau, l'Hypnotism, p. 54.
[ 207 struck by an award declared without appeal, considered final."
In accordance with this spirited provision among doctors and in order to express opinions, the International Congress on Hypnotism, held in 1889, issued and adopted this twofold declaration: 4°Lhypnotism is different from animal magnetism; 20 the facts of magnetism can be seen and discussed in themselves.
II. — Among the authors who have openly adopted the distinction and radical separation between magnetism and hypnotism is P. Cocooner. It was on this basis that he conceived his Æypnotism, that is, hypnotism and nothing but that.
"Let it be of course," he says! "that we are talking here only about hypnotism itself, hypnotism of hypnotists, not magnetism, nor spiritism, nor occultism. The exclusive object of our research will be the experiences of MM. Bernheim, Charcot, Pitres, Bérillon, Albert Moll, Forel, and not the true or false stories of Mesmer or Potet, Gurne, Paul Gibier or Aksakow, Stanislas de Gouaita, Lermina or Papus; but for the moment what we want to appreciate and, if possible, explain are the facts that everyone recognizes as belonging to hypnotism, hypnotism, pure of any mix, what I thought I could call: frank hypnotism."
It is clear that if there is a distinct hypnotism and different from magnetism, spiritism, loccultism and anything else, this hypnotism can be termed frank.
That's the question!
的1 Free hypnotism, p. 139.
And the author, who yet shows a very loose mind in his book, did not even think of establishing this starting point; he simply stated it. Of course it is a postulate that he asks, unless he considers the statement to be axiomatic, which would be an exorbitant pretension.
Let's move away from the axiom and confine ourselves to the postulate. In good logic, if the assumption is ill-founded, the deductions from the lower ones will be struck by infirmity. This is the case in the present thesis.
For the moment, I leave aside spiritism and loccultism, although these two categories of phenomena have real affinities with lucid somnambulism, especially the last; let us draw closer only to magnetism from hypnotism. Far from being two distinct orders, it is easy to establish the community of causes, characters and results, in a word an identical genesis.
The identity breaks out in the full resemblance of processes and in the almost complete parity of effects.
IV. — The ordinary condition of magnetization or hypnotization is the intermediary, the active operator who sleeps and directs the series of phenomena. Magnetizer in magnetism, hypnotizer in hypnotism; the office is the same. In hypnotism, it is true, sleep can begin out of human intervention; but in the evolution of phenomena, man reappears.
The means used to determine sleep are the same in magnetism and hypnotism. These are passes, compressions and frictions, the imperative word above all. Braid became popular with hypnotization by fixed eyes on a luminous point; but before and after him, magnetizers and hypnotizers used the mutual encounter of the eyes between active and passive agents. All are unanimous in proclaiming the effectiveness of the will in
who acts and in him who suffers, in the sleeper and in the sleep; in a word the power of the suggestion. The eccentricities of a few operators do not prove anything against the uniformity of the whole.
V. — Parity of means follows that of effects.
The first, the most topical, the fundamental character of these states, is sleep, lucid sleep or sleepwalking, which links the fascinate and the fascinate intellectually; Pun speaks, questions, commands, suggests; the other hears, discusses, obeys, fleets illusion in illusion at the inspiration.
This domination and dependence are found in the scenes of sleepwalking, from Mesmer and Puységur to the current hypnotists, without any difference between them.
Let's note it well, the crucial fact of magnetism and hypnotism is there: in this lucid lethargy that puts sleepwalking at the mercy of foreign domination; in hypnotism and magnetism, the fact is absolutely identical.
In both orders or, to speak more accurately, in both periods of experience, the somnambules show the ordinary overexcitation of the other senses and Panaesthesia, or rather the shift of sensitivity according to the suggestions transmitted and received.
The main goal is to cure diseases: magnetizers and hypnotizers pursue it in l'envi. It is mainly nervous disorders, neurosis, that benefit from sleep and suggestion. In this regard, the experiments of Puységur are fully in line with those of Charcot and Bernheim. We have no more reason to push each other back than the other.
In short, the somatic phenomena in both the
periods are absolutely the same. IV 14
VI. — Parity continues in mental order.
The clairvoyance is the same as the suggestion; only a lot of hypnotists have made a particular effort to see the spirit of the hypnotized mind toward the hypnotizer, while the magnetizers have tried to push his insight into things present or distant whose knowledge escapes man under normal conditions. We can discuss, even challenge facts and results; in essence, these aspects are common and betray a common causality.
The same must be said of the acuteness of memory, which is manifested, identical, in the clairvoyant sleep of magnetism and that of hypnotism.
The awakening doesn't differ either. It was obtained in magnetic tests, as determined in Phypnotization, by simple command, by insufflation, by passages, by local compressions.
We are content with a brief reconciliation of the processes and effects described in the exposure we made to magnetism and hypnotism. A repetition in extenso would be superfluous: we do not have to fear on these points the reproach of inaccuracy.
On this identity of magnetism and hypnotism, the testimonies and authorities overabund. Let us mention only the learned bishop of Madrid, Bishop Sancha-Hervas, in his magisterial pastoral letter on hypnotism +:
"This is not a gratuitous assertion; it can easily be convinced; for, as regards the way of causing magnetic sleep and sleepwalking, we only need to compare the means indicated by
t Pastoral letter on hypnotism, translated from Spanish by R. P. Cuckoo, 8. 7 p. 11.
Rostan and Debreyne with those currently employed by hypnotists, to see that there is almost never any essential difference.
"We will also easily convince ourselves of the truth of our assertion by examining the phenomena of magnetism and hypnotism. In this one we see convulsions, contraction or dilation of the pupil of the eye, catalepsia, lethargy, somnambulism, anesthesia, hyperaesthesia, vision through opaque bodies, transposition of senses, knowledge of hidden things, prediction of future events, even contingents, instant execution or within the fixed period of orders kept secret in the mind, use of foreign languages unknown from the hypnotized, automaticism, complete forgetfulness during the eve of all that happened in sleepbulism, absolute submission and without condition of the hypnotized person to his hypnotizer, and other hypnotic phenomena that we do not mention, in order to avoid an exaggerated length.
"All these accidents were also observed in the artificial sleep of the sleepwalkers: to convince one of them, one only has to see the description of Puységur and his contemporary Deleuze. The detailed and well-reasoned report which was sent in 1825 to the Paris Academy of Medicine by the commission appointed, at the invitation of Foissac, to study the phenomena of magnetism. Indeed, it would seem to have before the eyes those of hypnotism; it seems that this one has only reproduced them by changing the name of the so-called generator cause."
VII. — It therefore appears from the rapprochement between magnetic and hypnotic practices that the name has changed, but that the substance is the same;
that the second are the continuation of the first, and that
the phenomena do not differ substantially; or rather they merge into a full identity, that they have the same genesis, that they proceed from the same causality and that they result in similar results.
As a distinct from magnetism, therefore, free hypnotism does not exist.
We will have to discuss whether, by magnetism or otherwise, hypnotism still limits to occultism by covering the intervention of a secret agent other than man, superior to man.
In any case, the legend of frank hypnotism is over.
The hypothesis of fluid. — The theory of imagination. — The release of the soul during the hypnotic crisis. — The sixth sense that hypnosis would awaken. — The invisible agents.
I. — As the facts told to the charge or glory of magnetism and hypnotism are supposed to be true, what interpretation do they include?
The first, in order of date, is that of a fluid communicated by the magnetizer to the magnetized. Spread throughout nature, if not as the primordial element of the bodies, at least as an ambient environment that compenets them and influences the most intimate parts, the magnetic fluid becomes in living beings animal magnetism, and is likely to identify in man with the nervous fluid. This was essentially the Mesmerian theory, reproduced with variations that do not change
1 Mesmer, Memory on the Discovery of Animal Magnetism, p. 56, 2nd prop.: "There is a universally widespread fluid, and continued from my point of view to suffer no vacuum, whose subtlety makes no comparison possible, and which, of its nature, is likely to receive, propagate and communicate all the impressions of the movement."
, by Puységur!, Tardy de Montravel?, Deleuze, Charpignon‘, Louberti, and later, with a sincere air of novelty, by Dr. Tony Dunandf. Newcomers of hypnotism have a lot of Luidists, but the name of the fluid has varied: it's nervous influx, radiant neuric force, wave transmission $, polarity °.
To an effect which one thinks natural, one seeks, it understands, a cause of the same order; but the hypothesis put forward must be proved under pain of staying free, and that it gives reason for all the phenomena to be deemed sufficient.
It is not clear how fluidism would be sufficient to explain the most prominent prodigies of magnetism in the intellectual order, such as the suggestion with its varieties, the remote view, the clairvoyance that surpasses the reach of the magnetizer and its subject.
As for the facts which require only physical causality, the assumption of a fluid exchanged between the agent and the patient is in itself only acceptable, but it must prove itself. His best testimony comes from magnetism itself. In some experiments, magnetized people believe that a subtle fluid escapes from the magnetizers' hands, ss-accumulate in a container
1 Memories, p. 6.
2 Essay on the theory of magnetic sleepwalking, p. 32.
è Hist; critique of the animal magn., re P., ch. 8, t 4, p. 85.
4 Physical studies on animal magnetism, presented at the Academy of Sciences in 1843.
5 Magnetism and sleepwalking, ch. 19, p. 233-973.
6 A revolution in philosophy resulting from the observation of phenomena of animal magnetism, 1880, p. 23-36.
7 Dr.Baréry, animal Magnetism studied under the name of radiant and circulating neuric force.
8 Dr. PerroneT, Animal Magnetism, p. 60, 1884.
International Congress on Magnetism, 1889. Report, p. 404.
until you overflow: this is what attests, among others, Tardy de Montravel!, Deleuze?, Dr. Charpignon*.
This ethereal flow, generally seen during hypnotic lucidity, could be a nerve or electrical emission due to operation of the magnetizer; it could also be an imaginary illusion, and above all, assuming in magnetism a demonic interference, a prestige executed by the lying mind to accredit the interpretations that mask its presence.
The fluid, moreover, conceived by Mesmer and his supporters, seems emancipated from all physical and physiological laws. "Any agent of nature, he rightly observes. Figuier ‘, is endowed with constant properties and which vary only to a small extent by external circumstances. On the contrary, the fluid of magnetizers is a Protée in a thousand aspects, which changes properties in an incessant way, and in turn produces the most disparate effects, according to the will or whim of the person who sends it. Does the magnetizer want to make a subject insensitive? He pours her fluid. Is he willing to give him a sensibility? He pours his fluid. Does he want to warm up a sick person? Does he want to refresh it? the fluid. Does he want to turn on, calm him? The fluid. Does it cure him with a headache or stroke him with headache? the fluid. Does he want to inspire him?
1 Essay on magnetic sleepwalking theory. Foreword, p. 27; note 4, p. 87.
2 Hist. crilic of magnelism, t.1, p. 86: "Most sleepwalkers see a bright and bright fluid surrounding their magnetizer, and come out with more force from their heads and hands. They recognize that man can at will accumulate this fluid, direct it and impregnate various substances. Many see it not only while they are in sleepwalking, but also a few minutes after they have been awakened; it has a pleasant smell for them, and it communicates a particular taste to water and food."
3 Physiology, Medicine and Metaphysics of Magnelism, 1818.
4 History of the Wonderful, T. 3 p. 315.
the most opposite feelings, cure him from the most disparate diseases in their cause, does he want to plunge him into sleep? the fluid, and always the fluid. Magnetized water, which is charged with the so-called magnetic fluid, is literally a remedy for all ills; it can purge or constipate, fortify or weaken, precipitate blood flow or slow it down, cause it to lose weight or fatten; it is Fontanarose's remedy. In good faith, wouldn't such variability of virtues attributed to an agent be sufficient to have its existence revoked in doubt?"
The very basis of the hypothesis, namely: magnetization by the magnetizer, by a vital element transmission, disappears in the experiments of braidism, to summarize in a consecrated word the hypnotization processes of Dr. Braid. Artificial sleep and other magnetic phenomena occur here without any magnetizing intervention, by the mere fact of a prolonged look at a brilliant point that absorbs and fatigues the sight.
IT. — To the fluid theory, Bailly, on behalf of the commission entrusted in 1784 with examining animal magnetism, opposed an interpretation which removed any special intrinsic or extrinsic causality, and brought back the effects observed to one of these three causes: physical touching, limitation and imagination. The power of imagination, to which the other two causes borrowed the clearest of their effectiveness, became the new hypothesis accepted by most superficial spirits hostile to the wonderful, and also by scholars more accustomed to the discussion of the facts. To the famous Bailly will join the doctors Montègret, Virey?, Bertrand °, Debreyne‘ who,
1 Animal Magnelism and its supporters, in-8°, 1819.
2 Dict. des sciences médic., 1818, s. ANIMAL MAGNETISM, t. 29. 3 Animal magnetism in France, 1896.
4 Thoughts of a Catholic Believer, 1840, 2nd ed., p. 458.
and will not deny any of his medieval views.
holds, Mr. S.A. Morin t, very well versed in magnetic practices, M. Bersot?, P historian of mesmerism, and a crowd of others whom we refrain from naming.
Most hypnotists, both from the school in Paris and Nancy, attribute the mental state of hypnotized subjects to awakening and overexcitement, by means of suggestive speech, imagination. Theories of exalted perception, of hyperidation are only variants. Mr. Figier? summarizes them in this formula: "An exceptional exaltation of senses and intelligence in a state of sleep."
Without absolutely denying the imagination any influence in the scenes of sleepwalking, we do not believe that it is sufficient to give reason for all these facts. How can this theory explain a lethargic sleep that resists all the excitement, the shift of the senses, and especially the prodigious lucidity that makes the distant and hidden things see? Imagination does not come out of the human sphere, but the magnetic clairvoyance attained to knowledge that exceeds the radius of man and the means available to him.
Finally imagination only acts through conscious thought, and yet experience demonstrates the effectiveness of hypnotic processes on subjects completely unconscious of these effects, not keeping any memory after the crisis. How to explain above all unconscious survival, during
1 Magnetism and Occult Sciences, 1860, p. 39: "After a thorough study of matter, having practiced magnetism and observed a very large number of facts, I do not hesitate to recognize that imagination is sufficient to account for all magnetic effects, and must be regarded as the only cause; the hypothesis of a particular agent does not seem to me justified."
2 Mesmer el le magnetisme animal, 3° ed., p. 274.
3 Hist. of the wonderful, t. 3 p. 409.
MAGNETISM an extended time, suggestions received during Phypnotization and which the patient will perform at a precise point? We must therefore either challenge these facts, which is hardly possible, or give up explaining them by imagination.
I. — Another hypothesis is that of the release of the soul from the organism. By natural law, the soul is fixed to the body and exercises its powers only with the help of organs. It perceives light through the eyes, sounds through hearing, strength through tact, smells through smell, flavor through taste. Freed from this law, the soul could establish these relations with the outside world, now localized in this or that sense, to all the parts of the body where it exercises its action and acts of vital presence; it would even, if it is desired, have the freedom of pure spirits, and traverse at its own discretion the spaces, on condition of deserting the organism or rising to multi-presence. We do not see metaphysical repugnance in this release, but it must be agreed that this is not the current order of nature; and that moving from the present state to that which one imagines, it is a miracle, an absolutely divine miracle, God alone being able to derogate in this way from the order established by his all-power. But it is not in the fanciful experiments of magnetism that it is permitted to seek the miraculous intervention of God.
Some admit a subtle material envelope connecting the soul to the body, a kind of elastic cord that would allow the soul to perform distant peregrinations without breaking the knot of organic life. Modern spiritists have called this binding substance, fluidic, the name perisprül!.
1 ALLAN Kanpec, The Book of Mediums, ch. 39, p. 505: "Perisprir (of the Greek rep, around), semimaterial envelope of the spirit. In the incarnate, he acts as a link or intermediary between spirit and matter; in the wandering spirits, he constitutes the fluid body of the spirit."
"By the phenomena of sleepwalking, either natural or magnetic," says Allan Kardec!, "Providence gives us irrefutable proof of the existence and independence of the soul, and makes us witness the sublime spectacle of its emancipation; by this it opens the book of our destinies. When the sleepwalk describes what is happening at a distance, it is obvious that he sees it, not through the eyes of the body; he sees it himself and feels carried there; so there is something there of him, and this something, not being his body, can only be his soul or his mind... In dream and sleepwalking, the soul wanders through the earthly worlds; in ecstasy, it penetrates into an unknown world, into the world of ethereal spirits with which it enters into communication, without however being able to exceed certain limits that it cannot pass without totally breaking the bonds that attach to the body... The emancipation of the soul sometimes manifests itself in the state of watch, and produces the phenomenon referred to as second sight, which gives those who are gifted with it the ability to see, hear and feel beyond the limits of our senses. They perceive things absent wherever the soul extends its action... Natural and artificial sleepwalking, ecstasy and second sight, are only varieties or modifications of the same cause."
Dr. Tony Dunand?, while declaring himself the enemy of spiritism, reproduces this singular way of interpreting the clairvoyance that accompanies spontaneous or artificial sleepwalking. In one and the other state, soul travels in spaces "attached only to the body by fluid links.. The only difference that distinguishes them is that in natural sleepwalking sleep is the work of the mind that calls the soul of the subject in the spaces,
1 The Book of Spirits, I. 2, ch. 8, p. 199-201. 2 A Revolution in Philosophy, p. 192-206.
After sleeping matter, while in artificial sleep, he is a man who begins, and the spirit ends; but the crisis is the same in all respects. For the awakening, it is as well identical. Indeed, after his peregrinations during natural sleepwalking, the soul of the crisiaque enters his body to settle there in its normal state... As for artificial sleepwalking, waking is the result of fluid clearance operated by the author of the crisis. If the sleepwalker has travelled, he returns to his body, settles in, then he agrees to wake up... It is possible for souls to escape from their carnal envelope to go to places or to people who are interested in it. I said that, in this state, the soul remains united only to the body by its fluid bonds; if they were broken, death would be the consequence; and this is seen."
We have already pointed out! the duplication imagined by Gôrres?, to explain the peregrinations carried out by the soul during the somnambulic crisis; this interpretation is substantially the same as the previous one; on one and the other, the judgment is the same.
Apart from the fact that this theory does little to harmonize with Catholic doctrine on human compound, it is difficult to hear the simultaneous presence and absence of the soul in the body, unless it openly admits the miracle of multilocation. By accepting it even, without epilogue, as one imagines, this emancipation of the soul puts aside the existing order, therefore constitutes a miracle reserved to God alone, and we have already said that the divine miracle does not reconcile with the forms of magnetism.
IV. — But, while remaining there, without deserting the body, could Pasme not extend its radius, acquire new faculties, deploy latent energies?
1 See above, c. 9. Mystique, 15, Ch At ND AT:
MISCELLANEOUS Ogai THEORY These answer yes, which bring the magnetic eccentricities to a sixth sense awakened by the fluid that softens others. The first, Mesmer already considered magnetism as a sixth artificial sense.
"Magnetic sleepwalking," said Tardy de Montravelt, "discovers us in man, and in a very sensitive way, a sixth sense that I had not yet been known. This sixth sense seems to be much more exquisite and more sure than the other five; it does not exclude them, it acts with them and they seem to act by him; while, in the state of watch and when man is brought back to his old habit, the five senses of which it is accustomed to use stifle in a way this sixth sense. This last sense is really what we call instinct in animals; it bears all the characters. Like instinct, it never misunderstands the individual's march, condition, and physical needs. I will also say that in man this sixth sense is still what we call consciousness... It seems that this sixth sense, the soul of the other five, is spread throughout the machine, and that it has its main seat in the stomach; since it is in the stomach that the sleepwalk thinks to see and hear."
The continuation of this quotation would not be better to hear what this new meaning consists of, summarising and perfecting all the others, explaining effortlessly all the wonderful, not only magnetism, but some sort of order. That if, moreover, this sixth sense was not enough to clarify everything, nothing would prevent us from imagining a seventh, an eighth, and thus infinitely until we were right about everything. Who sees this entirely free of charge from the hypothesis?
1 Essay on Somnamb Theory, Magn., Ps 46-504
The last word that breaks short of these fanciful assumptions is that the consistency of the established order constitutes the law of nature, and the current order for man is that it arrives at knowledge only by the prior exercise of senses located in the organs; one only leaves there to enter the region of miracle.
V. — Many, indeed, place themselves resolutely on this field of miracle, struck that they are of the extranatural character of magnetic manifestations; but they do not agree on the quality of the invisible agents involved in magnetism.
Some admit that faithful angels are intermediaries of magnetic influences. The most striking is Dr. Billot, who seems to have converted to his honest feeling Deleuze?.
Others bring in good spirits and evil spirits in turn. (is a doctrine familiar to spiritists, as one can convince oneself by reading the elucubrations of their coryphea, Allan Kardec ê. Dr. Tony Dunand, too, distinguishes two sleepwalks: a good and a bad: the bad, which is the most common, comes from the demon *; the good, which was his wife's, is the work of the holy guardian angels.
Get excellent husband was delusional: good angels are
1 Correspondence to the vital magnetism between a lone man (M. Billot) el M. Deleuze, 2 vol. in-8°.
- What? Ibid. Answer by Mr. Deleuze to the Fourteenth Letter of the Solo, t. 2, p. 157.
3 See the Book of Spirits, 1. 2, ch.1, 8, 9.
4 A Revolution in Philosophy, p. 395: "Yes, yes! I condemn and ask the Church to condemn absolutely all magnetizers, all sleepwalkers, all card drawers, all sleepwalkers, and finally all that is practiced today, because this is the ."
5 Ibid., p. 397: "Mme Dunand was the type of true sleepwalking, that is, of the one born under the influence of the holy angels invoked in Catholicism."
MISCELLANEOUS THEORY — 223 Nothing to do in the eccentricities of magnetism and hypnosis fantasies. His first opinion, which refers to demons at least part of sleepwalking, would be rather acceptable.
The presentation that we will make in the next chapter of the opinions expressed by Catholic theologians will facilitate this conclusion.
Relative value of interpretations. — The opinion of Catholic writers who attribute to the demon all the hypnotic manifestations. — The contrary opinion which relates everything to nature. — The opinion which makes one part of nature and another part of the evil intervention. — Principles of solution. — The vice of rationalistic argumentation bringing back to magnetism the facts reputed miraculous and demonic.
I. — The interpretations we have gathered in the previous chapter come mainly from doctors, who are generally unconcerned with doctrinal correctness.
Among Catholic writers who have mixed themselves with magnetism and hypnotism, it is necessary to distinguish between the theologians themselves and the amateurs whom circumstances or a delusional attraction to the stinging things have led to this study.
In the latter category, priests have already been won with easy interpretations, and even, in order to be more convincing or confirm themselves, thought they could attend the scenes they intended to enjoy. They have taken the advice of the medical operators, resolutely declared against any preternatural interference, and they have made books
CATHOLIC THEOLOGIANS 225 with what they saw and what these worthy doctors provided them, very flattered by this unexpected rapprochement. In volumes of four, five and six hundred pages, referring to experiments, they reserved ten, twelve, twenty pages for the most discussion rather little theological, usually to make prevail the rationalistic interpretations, when they did not remain undecided and perplexed, not knowing, — that we are passed this familiar expression, — where to give head. More than one has managed to get read and impress the audience always fond of the extraordinary; they are among the scholars of the day!
We will give a mention to the most serious ones, forgiving others the time they have wasted us; but we must above all take into account the true theologians, those who, from the doctrinal and moral point of view, have formulated a precise opinion.
IT. — In general, Catholic theologians, struck by the disproportion between the means and the results of artificial sleepbulism, between the effects it produces and the energies known to man, tend to see it as a preternatural interference; but they are unanimous in ruling out the hypothesis of an intervention of faithful angels t.
In assessing the facts, they divide.
Some people allocate the whole to demons. Perrone? is not far from thinking that way. While hesitant about the nature of sleep, Fr. Gury* and his annotator, Fr. Ball-
1 Prælect. theol. De vera relig., p. 233.
2 Ibid., p. 188.
3 Casus Cons. C. XIII, t. 4 p. 171: Triplex graduated in magnetismi effectibus exhibitur, scilicet: 40 Status somni in quo sensus tantum consopiuntur. 2° Status somnambulismi in quo quis, usu sensuum destitutus, vividt tamen, loquitur, ad postulata response; 3° mira status sui cognitio, and remediorum sibi convenientium, necton visio eorum quae procul peraguntur. His positis,
Tertius graduated certo damnandus is ut graviter illicitus and superstitione plenus...; secundus graduated, id is somnambulismi, nullo pacto natu-
Rini! adopt virtually the same solution. Clement Mark?, Vincent?, the author of the theology later transformed in Clermont, reasoned likewise. Fr. Pailloux# and especially Fr. Franco rejects magnetism and phypnotism without distinction. The latter declared himself with intransigence which may have affected the effectiveness of the conclusions.
Faithful doctors have joined the theologians in fighting the thesis that affirms the natural character of hypnotism.
In the first line, Dr. Imbert-Gourbeyre, so competent in this area, should be pointed out:
"To argue that these strange things are natural things," he said, "but common sense is protesting: it is to him alone that we must refer to them.
"The suggestion by hypnosis is preternatural for the following reasons:
"40 It is invincible.
ralis censeri potest, and idcirco diabolico interventui tribendum is... Primus graduated, so much more spectator, simplicitis somni statuses, censeri naturalis potest. Sed neuque hoc admitti potest, ete. — Item Comp. moral theol., de præcept. Dec. 1, n. 276-279.
1 Comp. theol. App. 2, t. 4 p. 210-9216.
2 Theol.t. 1, p. 566: Magnetismus spectatus in concreto, seu prout vulgo usurpatur, is illicitus, tum ratione finis ob quem solet exercisei: fai enim ad occulta detegenda, ad performes præternaturales obtinendos, quod est novum divinationis genus; tum ratione modi: exertur enim communicate a viris in muliers, a medicis junioribus in juniores puellas. Porro magnetismi lex est ut inter agentem et patientem summa existat sympathia, ac sæpe vesanus amor cum efferna ad veneea propense, aè motibus turpissimis. Durante somno magnetico, persona magnetizata no is sui juris, sed tota manet in potestate magnetizantis, qui animaæ et corporis facultatibus potest auti easque ad pessima quaeque flectere. Nec desunt alia pericula, nempe morbi, dementiæ, possessionis, imo ipsius mortis, ut experientia observed.
3 Comp. univ. theol. 5, p. 391.
4 Magnelism, Spiritism and Possessions, p. 498,
5 L-Hypnotism back in fashion.
6 L-Hypnotism and Stigma, 1899, p. 26.
"20 She is the work of only one, the medium being solely dependent on her hypnotizer.
"80 She assumes superhuman power in the latter, since he has become master of all the psychic and sensory faculties of the medium, that he certainly makes suggestions and that he gets surprising effects.
"40 And to do all this, the only means employed is the human word; here the means is of any disproportion with the results."
Another doctor, Dr. Hélot, author of an important book on neurosis that confines itself to the evil assaults, has also published two brochures! to deny Phypnotism any natural causality.
IHI. — Others have held and still hold magnetism and Phypnosis as an eccentric product, if Pon wants, but true of nature. Fr. Hervier, the abbots Faria and Loubert did not believe, by practicing magnetization, that they were emerging from the natural order.
Today, it's true, it's mainly PAypnotism that is in vogue and in discussion. The most resolute champion of its natural origin, among the ecclesiastical authors who have written on this subject in recent times, is R. P. Coconnier, of the order of the Preachers Brothers, in his book: I mean, I'm being honest with you. He thought he was doing enough by taking part in the R. P. Franco and his brochure} Hypnotism back in fashion. To facilitate unification, he assumes that the other contradictors all fall under the Jesuit doctrine, even those who, like me, wrote before him. It doesn't matter, in such good company, there is no reason to complain.
1 Honest hypnotism and true hypnotism, 1898. — The Devil in hypnotism, 1899.
The thesis of Fr. Coconnier is clearly presented and supported with skill and conviction, but not peremptoryly in our opinion. The demonstration of the starting point, namely that hypnotism exists different and disjointed from magnetism, its whole and its sequels, has not even been tempted and cannot be made, as we may have established in the previous chapter; but the distinction would be valid, hypnosis alone presents phenomena that seem to exceed the orbit of man. We will point out these points.
IV. — Between these two extreme opinions appears a third, which distinguishes between the purely physiological effects and those of mental lucidity: these, especially in the radiances which exceed the common energy of Phomme, cannot be imputed to him and come back to the disturbing spirits in law; for the others, there is no proof that they exceed the intimate forces of nature, and consequently do not allow to see extranatural there.
Mor Gosset!, Messrs. Martinet? and Bonal. Lehmkuhl', seem to favor this sentiment, which tends to prevail.
Among the authors who have seriously dealt with these mussels and who are involved in nature in the
1 Moral Theol., Precept. of Dec., n. 495.
2 Moral Theol., 1. Two, two. 9,t. 1, p. 525.
3 Inst. theol. de Arg. n. 141, t. 2, p: 290: Theologist and medici circa illorum faucum causam in tres abierunt sententias, scilicet: alii in omni casu rejiciunt and exsecrantur magnetismum velut opus diabolicum; miri enim illi performed, aiunt, neque a Deo neque ex natura repeti posunt. Alii vero tenent omnes magnetismi performed a naturæ viribus procedere possesse. Alii tandem, distinguished, sentiunt performed magnetismi in somno and quosdam in somnambulismo ut naturales probabiliter admintti possesse; performed atem magnetismi in status visionis diaboli interventum supponere, etc...
4 Theol. mor. 1, p. 228: Hæc and similia facta diabolum, non instigatorem tantum, sed communiter saltem realem effectorem habere, res per se clamat. Nam sunt talia quae humanas vires atque naturales vires humanitus applicatas planee excedunt.
hypnotic feasts, we will report in order of date the P. Touroude, priest of the Congregation of Picpus and M. Moreau, vicar general of Langres.
"It is not," said the first, "that we claimed that all these phenomena must be attributed to an extranatural cause. There are a lot of them that can be explained naturally... We recognize, with most of the authors, that during the induced sleep, a large number of very surprising phenomena can be produced, but they are not anything extranatural... Finally, there are those who are so contrary to all that we know of the laws and forces of nature, that it is impossible to explain them, says Dr. Trotin, without a supernatural intervention. This is what most magnetizers call transcendent or higher-order phenomena, such as remote vision or laction, vision through opaque bodies, translation of senses, description of an internal disease and the remedies to be applied, divination or prediction of things to come; the production of stigmas or other sensitive effects, at a fixed time and long enough after the subject has been drawn from magnetic sleep."
Mr. L'Abbé Moreau made roughly the same concessions and reservations:
"The common opinion among Catholic theologians," he says, "is that behind these extraordinary, bizarre, eccentric phenomena, though naturally based, are evil spirits hidden... We see no reason to contradict them (hypnotizers) for a number of phenomena that are obviously natural-based; but for a number of others, we cannot do any restriction and restriction.
1 Hypnotism, its phenomena and its dangers, p. 145, 148.
suspect that they are more or less concealing a demonic interference."
V. — In the presence of this diversity of opinions, what should be said about the nature of magnetism and hypnotism, in order to repeat an identical word as to the meaning? The reader expects us, if not a definitive solution, that we do not flatter ourselves with giving him, at least our humble opinion on an issue that interests such a high point the mystic.
We assume, above all, that the facts relating to magnetism are not questionable as a whole; they do not impose their multiplicity, by the mass and variety of testimonies?. Nor do we doubt the results of experiments under the control of scientific commissions, nor the deceptions recognized and denounced by reliable witnesses. The incoherence and instability of these experiments do not allow for denying Pun or any other of these variable aspects of magnetism; it must be taken as it appears, with its inequalities, its inconsequences, its solutions of continuity, except to deduce from it the conclusion which detracts from it.
These phenomena are subjected to the ordinary condition of natural facts, which consists in the fact that, with the same cause being raised, there is regularly an identical effect. And magnetism refuses to do this: it succeeds in one case, not in another; on this person, not on that person; under the hand of one experimenter, and never through another; here with the brightness of the evidence, there half. Can this whim be the result of natural physical energy? Would it not be the authentic sign of an occult intervention that occurs or is stolen at his own discretion?
1 L-Hypnotism, p. 528, 538. 2 See Perrone, De virt. relig., n. 440-446, p. 174,
Another thing strikes us in these strange scenes of magnetism: the mixture, the disparate, the entanglement of its manifestations, the disproportion between the starting point and the last results. By a gesture or slight contact evenly repeated, by a simple glance, a single act of will, one determines an overexcitation nervous, a lethargy more or less profound, the cataleptic, hysterical, epileptic crisis. Then, to this suspension or to this upheaval of normal life, comes a singular lucidity that pulls man from his accustomed sphere, transforms in him the relations of senses and organs, repeats the acuity of the inner gaze, opens before the mind of unaffordable horizons in ordinary conditions. Are there successive phases of a single phenomenon, or an assemblage of phenomena? Is it a follow-up, a progressive development of natural forces, or a staging carried out by a latent power, or finally the extreme limit of human order and the beginning of another?
A third point is suggested by the two inverse solutions to which the magnetic facts gave rise.
We cannot contest it, there is a striking analogy, and in some respects a true identity, between the wonderful magnetism and the old manifestations reputedly demonic!. Some conclude that magnetism is pure magic; others conclude that ancient magic was only magnetism. The conclusion seems the same; however, there is a radical difference between the two opinions: the former, which attribute to the demon
1 See AUBIN GAUTHIER, History of sleepwalking among all peoples, 2 vol. in-8°, — 1842. Aucuste GAUTHIER, Historical research on Vezercice of medicine in temples, among ancient peoples, in-12, 1844, ch. 8-10. — Perrone, De virt. religiosis, P. $2. €2. 7 p. 351.
The prestiges of magic also impute magnetic facts to him; the second, holding the phenomena as natural in principle, bring back to the same proportions the so-called demonic manifestations of the past. The rationalists go even further; they include in the wonders realized by magnetism, not only the reputed evil prestiges, but all the Christian miracles, especially all phenomena of contemplation and of ecstasy!.
VI. — Rationalistic argumentation is exorbitant of all points. First of all, the parity between our thaumaturges and magnetizers is free and ridiculous: we can want to make magnetism without succeeding; we do not do it without will and despite ourselves. In addition, whether magnetic experiments result in or remain unsuccessful, they are always subject to
1 BouRNEVILLE and REGNARD, Photographic Iconography of the Salpetriere, 3rd P., p. 154: "At all times, what was called contemplative asceticism was produced by the prolonged fixation of some brilliant object or not, to which some virtue was attached, to which some holiness was assumed. — These contemplations helped by a violent intellectual excitement, were quickly followed by hallucinations, appearances and even the attack as described in both thauaturgy and medicine.
"The books of the Christian hagiographers are full of such facts, and they are too well known (?) of all for us to insist on them at a longer time.
"In the Greek monks (scientists of the Salpêtrière probably want to speak of the umbilicals of Mount Athos. — See Bercer, Dict. of theology, with the word nesycnasres), hypnotism is perhaps more in honor than in the Roman religious. It is a fact known to all (????) that these men manage to fall into ecstasy by the prolonged contemplation of their navel."
Mr. Bourneville condenses, with rare happiness, in a hateful mixture of historical enormities and philosophical ineptitudes; he would seem to be rather ill than a doctor; as soon as it is mentioned miracles or thauaturgy, to use his medical slang, it seems that one touches at home the hysterogenic zone: there he is immediately in crisis! This singular doctor can only be described by a whole pot-for-all of medical expressions for the use of the Salpetriere.
processes, which vary as much as possible, but which characterize these operations and allow them to be recognized. Now, we see no traces of these maneuvers in the miracles performed by the Savior Jesus, by the apostles, by the saints of any age, whatever some free thinkers say to whom the assertions cost nothing!
The rapprochement between magnetic phenomena and demonic facts is more well founded; but to conclude from this resemblance, even if it is well established, that these are natural and human, it would have to be shown beforehand that these do not come out of the sphere of man. Let it enter from the devilic into magnetism, it is possible and very believeable, the demon slips into the human scene by all the cracks, if it is allowed to speak so; but that all the devilic is confused with magnetism, that is what should be proved, and what is not proved; and what is less proven, is that magnetism comes into all its aspects within the framework of the physical and human nature.
Will we conclude with the extreme believers that everything is extranatural in magnetism? We would not dare to go so far: the careful inspection of these phenomena reveals accidents that have their similar in nature, next to deviations that obviously come out of its radius. True science takes the facts as they are and in the sphere where they are placed; it does not keep from making Punity where it does not exist.
These various comments lead us to raise the problem: Is there not a mixture of natural and extranatural, human and superhuman in the manifestations of magnetism?
1 See Sxerro (Pseudonym): hypnotism and religions or the end of the wonderful, 1888. — Donato, magnetic fascination.
In order to answer the question correctly, it is necessary to consider one by one the multiple aspects of magnetism, and to pronounce on the character of each of these eu from a double point of view of the results and processes.
This will be the subject of the next chapter.
— The movement of the senses. — The intellectual effects. — The processes used. — Mental Lucidity, — Summary. — Reason for this triage between the facts. — Opposition between free thought and Catholic teaching about the demon.
I. — What we have said about the eccentricities and anomalies of magnetism has prepared this formula: by some aspects, magnetism confines itself to nature; by others, it seems to exceed; but if nature is exceeded, excess can only come from the demon. Hence it follows that in the series of these phenomena considered as a whole, the evil would mix with the human.
To justify this assertion, we only need to examine the variety of aspects that appear in magnetism and hypnosis.
II. We first reported the magnetic cures.
Most of the claims relate to nerve diseases, over which the influence of imagination is unappreciable. In cases, and these are the most common, where healing is gradually taking place, it is necessary to
To rule out the hypothesis of extranatural intervention, and in those where it is quick, almost instantaneous, it becomes very difficult to prove that the practices implemented and supported by imagination have been insufficient to produce it naturally. Finally, would there be cures that by their suddenness and other characters exceed the natural efficiency, one could logically infer from there that all the others are under the same conditions.
Magnetic sleep, taken in itself, does not differ essentially from morbid lethargic states; the attacks caused by catalepsia, d-epilepsia, d-hysteria, are also not distinguished from spontaneous attacks of these diseases; the anesthesia and hyperaesthesia, which occur in artificial sleepwalking, are no less accentuated in obviously natural conditions. The nature of these states can therefore assume responsibility, considering them independently of the means put in place to determine them; for, in this respect, the proportion could be lacking, which we will discuss earlier.
II. — The movement of senses presents more difficulties.
The tact, which is spread throughout the body, must be removed. For the olfactory sense, which lives subtle emanations, it must be difficult to see with certainty its displacement; and the taste is too close to the smell so that Pon can surely certify that no physical emission, part of a close object, has affected the normal seat of flavor. It is not on such senses that the most ordinary experiences of magnetism carry, but mainly on facts of hearing and vision.
The phenomenon of hearing by Pepigastrian or any other part of the organism, can absolutely explain
by an accidental hyperaesthesia which seems to be located at a point in the body different from that of the wilt, but which, in fact, brings to Pouïe herself the organic concussion necessary for his exercise. Who knows that the sound is transmitted by a physical vibration extending to the auditory nerve? However, when a point of the body is in an exceptional state of overexcitation, it may happen that the vibrational concussion that reaches that part determines a feeling of touch more vivid than in the special organ, where, by tact too, it occurs hearing.
Is this the same or otherwise with regard to the phenomenon of vision? In the present state of its nature, man perceives physical objects only through the eyes of the body, and the eyes only enter into exercise under the blow of luminous radiation. If, therefore, the optical nerve is effectively subtracted from the action of light, the organic vision will not take place; or, if it occurs, it seems that it will be accomplished by an extranatural way. Systematic opponents of magnetism and the extranatural challenge any act of vision without the help of the eyes in magnetized subjects. Experiencers and reliable witnesses claim the opposite. Nothing allows us to contradict them, especially when the experiences are attested by men as expert in Part of the prestidigitation as Robert Houdin was. We refer on this subject to the dramatic account of M. de Mirville t. Let us just reproduce a few lines of a loyal statement made by Robert Houdin following a double test where the master master exhausted all the precautions against deception: "I had a second session; the one I attended yesterday at Marcillet's was even more wonderful than the first one, and left me no longer
1 Spirits, 4th P., ch. 1, 2nd ed., p. 18-31.
no doubt about the lucidity of Alexis.. This time I took far greater precautions than at the first... I came back from this session as amazed as I could be, and convinced that it is quite impossible that chance or address can ever produce such wonderful effects t."
By admitting like some the experiments of magnetism, how can we explain this shift in the sense of vision? The evil intervention is entirely in its place here; but it should not be said that as much as it is necessary. It is easy to rule out the hypothesis of the animosic release that we have spoken of, because it carries a miracle of first order, an absolutely divine miracle that does not have here any raison d'être. But, in reality, is nature at the end of its strength? Organic impressions are only shaking or moving communications; yet, since the sound impressions can be naturally communicated from another part of the body to the ear, why can't the light impressions also be communicated to the eye? — The negative seems infinitely more likely to us; at the most we would admit that the hyperaesthesia of the tact can, by replacing it, make it believe in the vision.
IV. — In intellectual effects, there is also a matter of distinction.
The absence of memory has nothing that surpasses the morbid anomalies of nature. The strange thing is that we forget and remember according to the whim of the magnetizer,
The domination or suggestion exercised by him on the hypnotized subject, whatever extraordinary it appears, can largely be explained by the passage from one illusion to another under the exciting of a sensitive sign: the magne-
1 Letter to M. de Mirville, ibid., P. 30,
By his attitudes, his gestures, his words, illusory impressions that respond to these external acts. The hypnotized lives in itself and not outside.
What we do not understand is that only one person, the one who opens the scene by diving into sleep, is likely to enter into a relationship of thought and sensitivity with the patient, and that no other person can be moved and aroused, or be heard without the express will of the sleeper; that vainly one shouts, tortures the hypnotized, that he remains inaccessible to any other influence.
At least the silent communication of thoughts, of wills, without any sign of any significant expression, would reveal, in our view, an intervention other than that of man.
More importantly, the vision that goes beyond the native reach of the mind and makes things see hidden or distant, is it outside the natural forces and presupposes a secret initiator that sees and reveals what escapes man.
V. — The examination of processes also concludes with the mixing of natural and occult action. Many of these means do not seem to be absolutely disproportionate with the effects that result; but they do have no real causal relationship, and can only be opportunities for an invisible agent to enter the human world.
The artificially induced sleep may find sufficient cause in the rhythmic movements of the passes, in the reciprocal fixity of the look between the magnetized and the magnetizer, in the prolonged view on any object. These excitations, multiplied by an anxious expectation of the mind, this absorbent concentration that calls and accelerates the vital movement at the home of a
organ can determine a nervous congestion that suspends the normal exercise of senses.
The provocation of convulsive crises by hypnotic means lends itself to the same interpretation and even seems to confirm it. In fact, in spontaneous attacks of epilepsy, hysteria and convulsions, the eyes are carried up above and affect a converging strabism similar to that which leads to hypnotization!; would these identical effects not betray a common causality?
It is difficult, however, to explain how a simple word, a look is enough to determine total lethargy, and to compare this rebellious lethargy to any excitement with human sleep. Ge that escapes any natural explanation, is that one can fall asleep by a mental and distant command.
The awakening by the sensitive command has nothing in itself but natural; it is by an inner effort of its own will that the sleepwalk, recalled, emerges from its drowsiness. The impressions that the passages make on the organs to hypnotize them can, by virtue of the same principle, determine the return to regular life: one sleeps the child by a monotonous song or by shaking his cradle; sleeping, one awakens him by the same means. Compression of the ovarian point breaks or moves the localized nerve congestion to the brain and restores sensitivity in its normal functioning. These interpretations seem acceptable to us.
1 Dict. of Medicine and Surgery, by Jaccoup, art. HYPNOTISM, by Mr. Mataas DUVAL, t. 18, p. 127: "Azam is convinced that there exists, on the one hand, between the brain phenomena of the attack of epilepsy or d-hysteria and perhaps other purely physiological states, and, on the other hand, the higher convergent strabism, a very special relationship. In the attack of epilepsy, if one opens the eyelids of the sick, one finds the convulsed eyes at the top and inside; likewise in the attack of hysteria and in the convulsive attacks of children."
We have more difficulty in understanding the awakening by a slight breath of magnetizer on our face, and we do not understand it at all by an act of will not meant externally. The first procedure leaves us in doubt as to the origin of these phenomena; the second, if it met very authentically, would make us conclude openly to an evil intervention.
VI. — To get in touch with the hypnoused person, just touch her, put her hands in hers. Let mere contact establish a relationship of sympathy, dependence and what we have called with Braid the suggestion, it can be absolutely; but that this relationship gives the sleepwalk a penetrating lucidity on the person with whom it enters into communication, which she sees to have uncovered the folds of her organs, guesses her thoughts, leads to her past and so-called her future unfolds, one would vainly seek a natural proportion between this physical relationship and this intellectual clairvoyance.
The natural connection is even more evidently lacking in the case, which is very common elsewhere, where sleepwalk is put in contact with a person absent by
the simple contact of an object belonging to it, a hair strand, a linen, a letter. Let it be said as long as we want it to be a fraud; we repeat that if the fraud is not there, there is more than man.
VII. — Thus, in processes as in the results of magnetism, we find mixed phenomena which can be human and natural, and others which accuse a greater causality. Let us leave to nature all that it is capable of carrying, but let us give over to a superhuman occult power, which, as we have said so many times, cannot be
that the corrupting angel. IV 16
To sum up in a few words our thoughts and distinctions on the complex facts of magnetism, we would not like to affirm that slow cures and even sudden cures of nerve diseases carried out by magnetism, artificial sleep, Panesthesia and hyperaesthesia, hypnotization by passages or fixation of the look, the provocation of convulsive or neuropathic crises, such as practice at the Salpêtrière, dependence on the magnetizer suggesting orders, total oblivion of the acts accomplished or seen in the sleepwalk, surpasses human natural forces. We are perplexed about the real causality of magnetic clairvoyance which, without going to unknown things, seems to draw the subject from its ordinary reach, on the exclusive dependence on the magnetizer, on the instantaneity of lethargy, and also on awakening by a simple word or a slight breath.;
But in these operations, we hold for the work of the evil spirit all that man is unable to achieve by the attentive and intensive application of his faculties, such as knowing things naturally hidden and distant, sleeping and awakening, commanding and prohibiting the action by an internal act of will, to enter into contact with an absent by the manipulation of an object that he has touched.
In short, on the naturality, if I can speak in this way, of the suggestion, there is also reason to be concerned. It is too good a chance for the demon to fish in a cloudy water so that he does not intervene.
No doubt, the simple direction of thoughts and impressions of the sleeping subject naturally explains. This phenomenon reproduces in ordinary dreams, where imagination fantasies mix with incidents of
environmental realities. Until then, we can see nothing but connatural and human.
But how can we explain, assuming it is effective, the mental suggestion, the remote suggestion? What perceptible, normal, natural relationship is there between this subject insensitive to all that surrounds, and the silent thought of the medium? It is a manifest law of our mind that his intellectual vision, especially with regard to the outside world, only takes place under the touch of a sensitive excitement.
How can we explain naturally the unconscious realization, after weeks and months, of a suggestion impervious in hypnotic sleep, and of which we do not keep in the meantime any memory, which escapes even the consciousness at the time of its execution? We may be twisted in mind, and there will be no natural and human proportions. To try to impute these results to Phomme alone, we must come to the eccentricities of Görres and to the tortures of German metaphysics.
It is soon done and soon said to ally in these occurrences mysterious laws, secret springs, latent energies of nature, and to grant everything to man, even the impossible, by the fear that one has to find him in company, to put nothing out and above. With such interpretations, any rational argumentation is powerless, science does not exist, there are more in the world than fugitive series of phenomena beyond any prediction and any law. Reason and common sense dictate, on the contrary, that man, no more than the other creatures, cannot escape the limits and conditions of his activity; that for him, as for others, the brewing is not longer than the arms, as Montaigne says, and that, if it occurs in the human scene of mani-
It is because he intervened a foreign agent and superior to man.
If we now come to the lucidity, the argumentation
and conlusion will be the same.. Lucidity is the exercise of mental life during sleep. It is already in action in the suggestion; but we mainly hear of intellectual lacuity which manifests itself in the hypnotized under external excitements, and makes them discover secret and distant things.
Anything which does not exceed, in the state of watch, the knowledge of the subject is suitable for nature and can be awarded to it. A greater ease of expression, an extraordinary awakening of his memory, an abnormal vivacity of attitude and speech, provided that the subject does not exceed what he knows or has known, can still be explained by hyperaesthesia due to hypnotization. But as soon as one comes out of the human foresight and reach, one is more in man; the surplus, if any, must be attributed to another, who becomes responsible. (is elementary logic.
But it is not within man's reach to suddenly know the positive things he has never learned; to perceive realities and facts at a distance where his senses do not attite; to discover, at contact and inspection of an object, secret thoughts, intimate dispossessions, internal illnesses of the present and, more importantly, remote to which this object belongs; to influence, by the sole effort of will and intention, those who are far away, and even those who are near. Once again, when such facts occur, they must be attributed to a different agent than man, who sees further and further than man.
The extrinsic cause that assumes these acts cannot be
that the demon, God and faithful messengers do not lend themselves, as we have already observed, to the fanciful consummations of man, for the sole purpose of providing for his curiosity and whims.
This is therefore our conclusion: there is probably in magnetism, taken in all its phenomena, a mixture of human and evil; but, if the beginning is human, surely the crowning is evil. This interference with the evil spirit, which, by temperament, is mystficator and is nothing more than a matter of the latitude that God leaves him, explains the inequalities, the inconsistencies that the scenes of magnetism present the spectacle and that are confusing our scientists. If magnetism was a natural thing, it would obey constant laws; if, on the contrary, Satan interferes with its play, it is understood that he disconcertes observation by acting or abstaining, at his will or according to the purposes of divine providence.
Abbé Moreau seems to have adopted our conclusion, except for a part which he makes to deception and which we are far from contesting; we even denounced it in a special chapter:
"Next to us," he said, finishing his scholarly study t, the true thesis, the only thesis consistent with natural truth and theological truth would be this one: Hypnotic phenomena are a mixture of deception, natural force and demonic interference. In the light of these three sources, the observations are frank: this fact is clearly due to deception, another to natural forces, another to demon. But soon the phenomenon becomes more complicated, the three sources have mixed their waters; it is impossible for the best practice to distinguish these three currents. Dupery, natural force, demonic interference
1 Hypnolism, ch, 10, p. 533.
"Now, more or less, contribute to the birth, development and perfection of the phenomenon."
VIII. — But, it will be said, why this triage, this mixture of human and evil? If one does so much as suppose Satan's intervention, what is the burden of the whole phenomenon? When the facts belong to the same series, which they compose a single scene, is it logical to admit two disparate orders, to want the supernatural for the sequel and the end, by pushing it back for the beginning?
The objection turns without difficulty in the opposite direction: the completion is supernatural, so the beginning could be also; this second argument is more specious and more acceptable than the first, for at last the demon can accomplish what man does, while man cannot do what the demon does.
In fact, we do not absolutely reject the evil intervention as soon as the magnetic scenes are opened; we recognize, on the contrary, that it is perfectly possible; we only refuse to affirm it before having the positive proof: the miraculous does not suppose itself, it proves itself, and we miss the positive proof here.
The so-called inconsequence of admitting the supernatural at the end without claiming it for the beginning has no basis. What contradiction is there that the demon pursues what man has begun, but is unable to push further? And, assuming, which is in no way doubtful, that the seductive spirit has an interest in veiling its intervention, can it choose its terrain better than at these extreme limits of the human field? The man opens the scene, and where, without his knowledge, his power expires, the enemy introduces his action and his play. To those who do not know the precise line of demarcation of human and evil, — and this line, who knows it?
—- the continuation, must seem, at least at the point of Junction, the natural continuation of the same phenomenon and the deployment of a single force; but, because the demarcation line escapes our eyes, it does not follow that it does not exist. A moment comes when man realizes that the border has been crossed and that he is in a world that is no longer his own. In panoramic views, it often becomes impossible to grasp the extent to which the canvas is linked to reality, to say where the illusion begins, even though the illusion is confessed, manifest and, at a given point, fully recognizable. We do not have a better comparison to make the Pimperceptible juxtaposition of diabolical prestige to human reality; better than man, the demon knows the game of the trompe-lœil.
The scenes of artificial sleepwalking present an anomaly, which casts the public into doubt and, on the contrary, makes us more suspicious: These are the variations and instability of the most accusatory phenomena. In the period of magnetism, the facts of clairvoyance extending up to the absolutely hidden and unknown things of the operators appeared in large numbers, and it still meets; but, today, most hypnotists deny them, because they no longer appear, they say, in their experiences. What do denials do if they exist? It is claimed that they do not belong to science, because they no longer occur; error, it is enough that they have occurred once for science to have the right and duty to take care of them. But why the interruption and the solution of continuity? (here is precisely where the word appears, that is to say, the eruc of the lying spirit to steal Phomme; and there also is the indication that these phenomena do not belong to the natural world.
IX. — Let us add one last consideration, which is such as to highlight the inverse and contradictory tendency, with regard to the demon, between Catholic teaching and free thought.
In principle, free thought excludes intervention in the human world from any agent invisible, superior or inferior to man; it excludes, at least by abstention, the existence of good or bad angels; it rejects as unnecessary the hypothesis of God, the first and only cause, and takes on it to explain world developments without coming out of matter.
This is the attitude taken by free thought, claiming to be science, whose monopoly it is modestly awarded. The demonstrations attempted in the name of pure reason, she disdained them; the most manifest facts articulated against her assertions, she contests them or links them to latent causalities of nature, without any other proof than her bias to relegate the supernatural among the impossibility.
Never before had the derision deployed so boldly.
All against this, the Catholic and theological teaching, — which is a whole, — poses in the front line, as absolutely necessary to render reason for the ideal world and the real world, the P affirmation of God; then, by means of divine revelation, it comes to recognize the existence of good and bad spirits mixed with the softness of the world.
and to the destiny of man himself the work
God's privileged.
To stick to this last point, which concerns us, the constant doctrine of the Church is that fallen angels are moving around us, pursuing, out of jealousy against man and out of hatred against God, the eternal ruin of souls; that they infect all that is in the service and use of man, enveloping as an atmosphere of perdition.
To convince oneself that this is the faith of the Church, it is only to go through the formulas of the Ritual. From the adjurations that precede baptism to the blessings of various foods, the enemy who must be hunted and fought again appears. Let us just mention the prayers of holy water £.
So if one relates to the teaching and practice of the Church, which, for us Catholics, is the rule of truth, the demon intervenes everywhere, and one cannot park too much of his malignant incursions.
In essence, this is in line with the claims of Pope St. Peter: "Watch, for the devil, your enemy, roams like a roaring lion, seeking who to devour," and those of St Paul to the Ephesians: "Be clothed in the weapons of God, that ye may be firm against the embodiments of the devil; for we have not to fight against flesh and blood, but against princes and powers, against the dominions of the world in this dark age, against the evil spirits poured out in Pair."
No doubt, these evil spirits can only exercise their actions within the limits God assigns to them; but we know that the latitude left to their rage goes far and often disconcertes our thoughts.
But was there ever a more favourable field to mix and hide their intervention than that of the strange practices and phenomena of magnetism, hypnotism and
1 De aqua benedict. fafienda: Deus, invictæ virtutis auctor,... who adversæ dominationis vires reprimimis, who inimici rougientis sævitiam superas, who hostile nequitias potenter exbugnas, te, Domine, tresses et tortures deprecamur ac petimus ut manc creaturam salis et aquae dinter aspicias..., ut ubicumque fuerit aspersa, infestatio immundi spiritus alligatur terrorque venenosi serpentis procul pellatur.
2 I Petr., v, 8.
3 Eph., vi, 11 and 12.
spiritism, where all the barriers seem lifted and all the shadows accumulated, where one sees the most fantastic illusions of magic reproduce? Regardless of the findings which accuse or cause to be suspected here of occult interventions, there appears to be a serious presumption that, if the enemy angels of man have license to simmer, hiding their game, in human things, never more beautiful occasion was provided to them only by magnetizers and hypnotists.
If the devil isn't here, I don't know where to look for him.
Nowhere will you answer me.—(That's right; but then, admit it, you are a common cause with the free thinkers.
It is indeed necessary, great aplomb and much complacency for the rationalist thesis, which axiomatically excludes the superhuman and the preternatural, to pronounce that there is no evil interference in these eccentricities which disconcerte man. Doubt, pass again; but insurance is hardly justified. The concern to eliminate Satan from the human scene is too much in harmony with the bias of free thought. It is at least obvious that by professing and fearing this interference, one draws closer to the testimonies of Scripture, the spirit of Christian theology and the practice of the Church.
We agree that the supernatural must be concluded only on sufficient signs that it is no longer in man's orbit; but where human energies appear to be in full disarray, is it allowed to say that we are still in the human sphere?
By weighing, on the one hand, the interpretations by which one tries to confer on man in their entirety the prestiges of magnetism and hypnosis; and, on the other, the
We believe that the second argument outweighs the first, if it does not completely destroy it.
The doubt about the evil origin of hypnotism is enough to cause concern for conscience. — Dangers of these practices for health. — Dangers greater than mental suggestion makes the pursuit of freedom and moral possession. — Appreciation of the facts. — The pastoral letter of Bishop of Madrid. — Last argument of Fr. Coconnier. — Discussion and debate.
— Hypnotism, considered in the suggestion, seriously harms the moral life of man. — Conclusion. I. — We have just seen that there is reason to suspect
in hypnotism, at least in its extreme deviations, the intervention of evil spirits. This suspicion, justified, suffices to misrecord the whole. Where man can realize only one part and where the demon can realize all, it is to be feared that the demon, in fact, will realize all and that man will be there only to initiate.
Those who remove certain magnetic facts from the mass, which they consider to be natural, should not forget that the series as it unfolds, abandoned to its movement, appears to serious theologians, tainted with demonic immixtion, and that the block, to speak in this way, constitutes an imminent danger of superstition.
They exculpate themselves and they may save themselves by Passurance subjectivs that the tried experiments do not fran-
M. do not stifle the orbit of man and by the intentional exclusion of any evil trade; they are nevertheless on suspicious ground and, for this reason and to the extent that the authority of serious contradictors impresses them, they ignore the laws of prudence.
According to the correct remark of P. In order to be safe, it would have to be proven, first, that none of the effects of hypnotism are repugnant to physical laws and that everything, without exception, is derived from nature. Only one effect that goes beyond it puts all causality in doubt; for in these circumstances, the one who can the least can; reason defends to limit his intervention without proof, and the evidence here is impossible to make?.
Truly, when we look with care and sincerity, without bias, at artificial sleepwalking as a whole, from the impregnated sleep to the mental anomalies and disturbances that follow it, how can we escape the surprise that gives unknown, how can we not doubt that such eccentricities draw man from his orbit?
On a few gesioculations, on a word, a sign, a look, we fall asleep from lethargy that resists the most violent excitements. Chloroform, ether and
1 From Præcept. Decal., App. 2, p. 243: At (quod isti parum advertunt) probandum foret nullum ex hujusmodi effectibus legibus physicis ullatenus repugnare, atque adeo ex ipsa natura come possess. Deinde haud oblivioni tradendum est non raro diabolum rebus ipsis naturalibus sese immiscere ut hominibus illudat.
2 Ibid., note a: Atqui, ubi observatoire caussem adsse quae naturalis non est, perperam agueretur eam causam esse naturalem, propterea quod aliquis forte a naturalibus quoque viribus profluere possess. Nam utique ex causæ naturalis ad quaempiam performem insufficientia necessario arguitur causæ præternaturalis præsentia et efficacia; at non vice versa, ex naturali performed jure conclusionditur causam esse naturalem, quaeo præternaturalis causa, quae adest, plus et minus, adeoque utriusque ordinis performem product potest. Neque vero solum necessa no is in hisce adjunctis ad naturalem recurreree; sed vetat sana ratio ne de ea suspicemur quidem,
other anaesthetics, act only after a certain period of time, and the effect stops as soon as the inhalation is suspended. In hypnosis, nothing the same: it is the sudden and absolute suspension of the relationship life.
I'm wrong, and this is where the prodigy repeats and takes on inexplicable proportions. An exception occurs: the relationship life is maintained for one, for the magnetizer who opened the scene while sleeping. Not only is it maintained, but it takes a singular look. This lethargic, for whom the rest of the world does not exist, hears, sees his fasciner; much more, he sees and hears only what he can see and hear; he believes he sees and hears all that he suggests to him, apart from every object, from every truth, from every likelihood; he feels, he thinks, he acts, he walks according to this dominator; for him alone, he has ears, eyes, senses, intellectual perception, will or rather obedience, the most passive obedience. And then, by a word, by a slight insufflation, the operator instantly awakens his subject, who will not remember anything, except what was suggested to him to remember.
One tries to explain the domination of the hypnotizer by the positive side, that is, how the mind can receive the suggestion during sleep; no one has yet given reason for the absolutely exclusive nature of the phenomenon, that is, how it is made that one establishes these relations to the exclusion of all others; how it alone is heard, seen, obeyed, unless, which complements the prodigy, that it consents to admit third parties in the hypnotic scene.
This is the dark and still unexplained point of the problem.
In this respect, the Commission is proposing that the Commission should:
The fact that many of the hypnotic phenomena — if only one well-known as being part of the series — have been found to be causal outside and above man seems sufficient to cause concern and to regulate consciousness in the sense of abstention.
But there are still other dangers that need to be reported.
II.—Whatever their opinion about the natural or preternatural nature of hypnosis, most of those who wrote mention the unfortunate effect it may have on the patient's health. It is not uncommon for these experiments to determine violent crises, over-excite the nervous system, shake the brain, weaken memory, disturb reason. More than one magnetizer saw himself in pain to awaken his subject and bring him back to calm. In some cases, it was felt that it was necessary to renew the experiment, in order to restore balance by means of the suggestion. The disruptions that erupt in the crisis continue long after, and sometimes have a fatal outcome.
"The phenomena caused by animal magnetism," admitted the famous Potett, "take a often frightening development. The patient, in a natural state just now, enters a state of extraordinary convulsions; he rolls down, screams and struggles, and in this state, the more he is touched or left to touch, the more he is annoyed. The convulsions produced in this way sometimes lasted six and eight hours without interruption, and the affected people remained ill for several days, feeling a sense of breakage accompanied by a deep horror for
1 Complete Treaty of Animal Magnetism, 3rd ed., p. 249.
magnetism and magnetizer. The state of calm finally returns, but I saw, in some serious circumstances to the truth, the sick resist rest, antispasmodics, and persist for several weeks."
The confession is rather poorly formulated, but it is sincere and instructive.
The first magnetizers recognized and attested the danger by many examples; Puységur, Deleuze, Faria, spoke like Potet. In 1819, Lombard! denounced these abuses of magnetism and demanded that it be put to an end. Among the practitioners of hypnotism, the statements are roughly equivalent; Doctors Charpignon?, Gilles de la Tourette, Ch. Richet#, Paul Janet, Paul Richer °, Morand, Pitres 8, Zanardelli °, Lombrose! cite series of misadventures that occurred at the expense of hypnotized people during or following experiments.
Dr Bernheim, on the other hand, states that wisely conducted hypnotization is harmless and beneficial: "I do not hesitate to say, with the experience gained, that when hypnotization is well mamied, it does not offer any drawback."
Dr. Grasset, while acknowledging that "in some cases, hypnotism can hurt and should not be used even medically," says the same
1 Hazards of animal magnetism and the importance of stopping its vulgar spread.
2? Physiology of magnetism, 1848.
3 L-Hypnotism and similar states.
4 Sommenabulism caused. (Revue phil. 1880.)
5 From the suggestion in hypnotism. (Revue pol. and litt., 9 August 1884). 6 Great hysteria.
7 Animal Magnetism.
8 Chemical lessons on hysteria and hypnotism, t. 2.
9 Truth about hypnotism.
10 L-Hypnotlism revealed.
11 From the suggestion, 2° P. ch. 2, p. 578. 12 Hypnotism and Catholic doctors:
certificate of satisfaction: "I believe that the consequences of lhypnotism can be absolutely avoided in medical v-hypnotism, and I can say, in all simplicity, that I am aware of having rendered real services to some sick by this means, without ever harming any."
We will not contradict these statements of sincere men; but these personal testimonies do not contradict the facts attested by more. From the washing of all, the danger exists: it is to the experimenters and the patients to see if they can in conscience run these risks, assuming however that they have not against hypnosis other than that of compromising the health of the body.
II. — It is because it leads other people who are otherwise morally serious. I had an opportunity to report them!. Fr. Coconnier knew how to recognize what I conceded; he did not discuss or refute my reservations and contradictions; it is time to reproduce them and recommend them to readers.
The effect of L-hypnotization is to form the patient in a virtually complete dependence on the hypnotizer. This is not disputed and cannot be contested for the duration of the crisis; the fact of some temporary or even actual resistance is only one exception: the law is the imposed and endured domination, by means of the suggestion.
"The suggestion, according to Paul Janet?, is the operation by which in the case of hypnotism, or perhaps in certain states of watchfulness to be defined, one can, with the help of the word, provoke, in a well-arranged nervous subject, a series of phenomena more or less automatic, to do so by means of the words of the author, and by means of the words of the author.
1 Journal l'Univers, 22 and 30 January 1894. 2 Revue pol, et litt., 26 July 1884, p. 102. IV 17
I, act, think, feel as you want, in a word, transform it into a machine."
The suggestion would be more simply defined: Complete subjection of mind and will suffered by the hypnotized subject towards the hypnotizer.
This hardship extends beyond hypnosis. From now on, lhypnotizer retains his empire over the patient, he Pendorts with more ease, he exercises a singular attraction over him, and one has seen women, hitherto reserved and honest, passionately seek their fasciner t. Moreover, the injunctions made during sleep are regularly executed during the day before, at day, at time and in a determined manner, were they absurd, inconvenient, criminal. Whether there are failed experiences and solutions of continuity, we will not challenge it; but what is, is.
These facts are part of hypnotism. It is neither fair nor logical to make a selection, to take account only of the phenomena that one hopes to justify, and to disqualify others. According to Dr. Gilles de la Tourette?, the suggestion is "in this fact, that during hypnotic states, the experimenter can, under certain conditions, make accept ideas capable of being translated into acts that, not only can be carried out during sleep, but will also inevitably accomplish at awakening... If the suggested act during sleep is executed upon awakening, the subject will not remember the conditions under which the suggestion was given, nor will it be possible for him to remember the person who left suggested."
These excesses show how intense, ominous, poignant, irresistible, the domination exercised by opera-
1 See T. Tide, Hypn., its phenomena and dangers, p. 84 et seq. 2 L-Hypnotism, p. 113,
259 in hypnosis; by the end, one can judge the beginning, and by the effects, of the nature of this fascination.
IV. — And now, appreciate the morality of such situations.
We never thought that sleep, taken in itself, could induce intrinsiclimorality of the hypnosis. All we have to do is repeat what we have already written on this subject.
Sleeping is a regular function of organic life. In itself, sleep therefore does not exceed nature. In essence, artificial lethargy does not differ physiologically from spontaneous lethargy. The mechanical processes that determine it, such as the passages, ‘compressions, the fixing of a specific point, the command of the voice and the fascination of the gaze, — we reserve the mental suggestion — have a physical relation to the effect produced. It is therefore logical to admit that sleep caused by these means can be as natural as ordinary sleep.
Nevertheless, it is beyond dispute that the demon, who, better than the professional magnetizers, knows the physiological laws of sleep, can, without Phomme, lead to its application. Only these interventions of an extrahuman cause do not involve themselves; they prove themselves.
Is hypnotic lethargy also lawful, in accordance with the laws governing the moral life of man, a natural assumption in its production and play?
The cessation determined by sleep in the exercise of senses and normal consciousness results in the temporary suspension of reason and freedom, and constitutes, of this leader, a deprivation. But this deprivation is motivated by the periodic restoration of the body, and, for this reason and to this extent, it is in harmony with the human condition. So, wy has no difficulty in giving in to
sleep or even provoke it by means of false means, when there is need or usefulness for organic life.
It would be quite different if artificial lethargy, instead of repairing the body, caused it to get angry and unbalanced. However, in hypnotism, from the confession of the experimenters, this danger is still imminent, we have seen.
The disorder and responsibility are accentuated in cases where sleep is produced only to bring the suspension of reasonable life, without any other reason than to give the unhealthy spectacle of the inconsistencies and cerebral detachment of the person in that state. This is the aggravated case of complete drunkenness, on which the theologians are of the opinion that it constitutes, planned and desired, a mortal sin of its nature, precisely because of the suspension it entails of reasonable and responsible life.
There is not only here, as we notice, lethargy suspending the exercise of the senses; it is rather a violent provocation of the sensitivity; it is not the fluctuations of the dream, but an abdication of the reasonable life and the complete subjection of the mind to the whims of a foreign will. It is less to sleep that one must look at, than to the intended goal: the goal is, not to sleep, but to overexcite mental activity, and to put, without possible resistance on the part of freedom, at the mercy of the fascitor. (It is especially when you go from sleep to suggestion, when the question of morality arises and it repeats the importance.
Once asleep, and already in the state of watch, if he has been subjugated, the patient undergoes, without being able to find himself or to escape, the hallucinations and impulses imposed upon him by the experimenter, he is entirely at his discretion, not only for the course of his thoughts and im-
but for his wills and for his actions. More than that, with perfect unconsciousness, he will carry out on a distant date and precise, in full watch, the orders that were suggested to him at the time of fascination, whatever they may be. And this terrible hardship can last the whole life!
Who does not see it? Such excesses seriously undermine the dignity of reason. If this is not total and definitive madness, what sometimes happens is at least momentary madness, as Dr. Barth observes! "The hypnotized," he said, "is a true alien, his intelligence is distorted in his most secret springs; he has neither more personality nor more responsibility than a madman." And Mr. Arthur Desjardins was right when, in the session of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences on August 44, 1886, he stated "that the rights of humanity are seriously affected by the detestable practices of hypnotism."
To measure the extent to which this disqualification can extend, from the recognition of renowned hypnotists, it will suffice to recall the profession of faith made on this subject on behalf of the School of Nancy and the personal statements presented by Mr. Liégeois, in the case of Michel Eyraud and Gabrielle Bompart, the assassins of clerk Gouffé. Mr. Jules Liegeois, professor of law at the Faculty of Nancy, is the author of two important books on hypnotism: From suggestion and sleepwalking, From hypnotic suggestion in its relationship with civil and criminal law. His testimony is authoritative. Called to give his opinion on Gabrielle Bompart's responsibility, he declared her irresponsible, because she had been hypnotized and suggested. We borrow this account from the newspaper La Croix in its transcript of the hearing of December 19, 1890:
1 Unnatural sleep, p. 137.
962: THE MAGNETISM LIGEOIS, PROFESSOR OF THE RIGHT TO THE FACULTY OF Nancy: The doctrine of the École de Nancy is to declare that the suggestion in hypnotic sleep produces absolute automatism, i.e. that the suggested subject loses all spontaneity; his will becomes, so to speak, abolished, and it is the will of the experimenter that replaces that of the suggestion; and not only this will can be realized during sleep, but also after the suggestion was given back to ordinary life.
"Here are several facts that are due to my personal experience and that took place in the presence of Nancy's Central Commissioner. Several somnambuls were, by chance, in Dr. Liegault's house; they were unknown to me; I caused them to abolish all moral senses, so surprising a suppression of reason and all moral restraints — which, in ordinary life, make it possible to distinguish good from evil — that I managed to make these people commit experimental crimes, for otherwise I would be in court of assizes, accused myself. I gave one of the subjects a retrospective hallucination, I suggested to her in sleep that she had seen two vagrants, which one of them said to the other:
"The fire that just happened, it was I who Pai "lit; they had refused to house me, I blazed these "people, and I stole 500 francs from them."
"You have heard this first conversation: remember also what the other wanderer said: "West you who did this; if you do not give me three hundred francs, I denounce you." And I added to the sleeping woman that I was convinced of what she had seen to the point of going to court to testify.
"The subject was so convinced of what I had said to her, that she did before the central commissioner and before two former magistrates, former presidents of assize courts,
263 the account of these same facts by stating that she had witnessed it.
"On another occasion, in the presence of these same two magistrates, I give him a pistol that I say loaded; I have the precaution to shoot a shot; I almost immediately fall asleep on the subject, and I say to him: "You see, "Well, this gentleman is a former president sitting down, "you're going to shoot him."
"My friend first makes sure that the gun is no longer loaded with bullets, I put the gun back on the subject: she kills him, and although she sees the magistrate in blood, she remains indifferent because the phenomenon is realized, because when the act is committed, the automaticism of the suggestion ceases and the subject returns to the normal state.
"On another occasion, I had a fake poisoning of an aunt committed by her nephew, with sugar powder instead of arsenic; but the aunt was so scared that since then she never wanted to see her nephew again... If I study the present trial, I am struck by one thing; whenever Gabrielle Bompart was able to complete a fact in the normal state, his indications have been absolutely accurate; Indictment Pact adds: "G. Bompart says what must not "do harm or compromise it, or what, "according to its defence system, leaves it a passive role; "but she carefully hides everything that affects her "active participation."
"Well, no, it proves that G. Bompart was suggested as sleeping in deep sleep. There is no example, indeed, that when awakening, a subject remembers what was ordered him during his sleep. Now did Eyraud sleep G. Bompart? There are two very certain facts that I bring to the attention of the jurors. It's just everyone who wanted to sleep G. Bompart did it. From what Eyraud admits to having
tried and added that he did not succeed, is it obliged to accept fully his saying? How! Everyone sleeps Gabrielle Bompart, and this man, who better serve him, is the only one who won't fall asleep?"
This is the power of hypnotic suggestion to the testimony of experimenters and victims. This simple overview enables us to resolve the issue of morality.
The most compelling and pressing conclusion is that the suggestion must be held to be unlawful and immoral, passive and active.
It is unlawful and immoral to build up voluntarily in a state and under a dominion that suspends the exercise of reason and freedom, which subject, under an extrinsic impulse, to a passivity of mind and will such that one can endure and commit the greatest atrocities without remorse or conscience, just as in a bad dream. And what adds to the abdication and peril is that one never completely shakes the fascination once he has suffered.
Such servitude is absolutely reprimanded by reason, it is a moral deprivation to which no one must consent or expose, and which no one, therefore, has the right to exercise, even between married people: the wife owes to her husband deference and subjection, never abdication of her thought and will.
We have already made the remark, the theologians wilt the drunkenness for this recital that it temporarily loses the empire and the use of reason. He did not drink more destructive of rational life than the suggestion.
Is it surprising that in several states the public authorities have banned exercise and the display of hypnotism? It was to be hoped that the ban would become general.
V. — This is our assessment of hypnotic phenomena: according to the basic principles of moral life, based entirely on the exercise of freedom according to the dictate of reason, hypnotism, as it is practiced, cannot be allowed, because it suppresses, by a positive act, the functioning of reason and that of freedom, because it puts the mind to drift, in the impossibility of governing its thoughts and wills.
The point where we are is decisive. Bringing together in a general argument the just suspicions that hypnotism inspires in relation to its demonic provenance, at least in some of its effects, the way it is interpreted by the free thinkers against all supernatural, the disorders whose health it threatens, the disturbance where it throws the mind, the abdication to which it has subjected the will: for each of these reasons, and for all these reasons combined, we therefore hold the practice of hypnotism to be immoral and unlawful.
In order to support this decision of considerable authority, we give place here to an extract of the pastoral letter addressed by the learned bishop of Madrid, Mor Cyriaque Sancha-Hervas, to the faithful of his church, on 19 March 1888; it is a solid and eloquent plea in favor of the cause that we support:
"The distrust inspired by the clearness of Catholics by some hypnographers can only increase if one considers the religious ideas professed by other supporters of hypnotism; some are affiliated with the materialistic school; others belong to Protestantism; others, in large numbers, have shown themselves in their declared enemy writings of the Catholic faith."* They're pro-
266. MAGNETISM all pose, in the name of what they call science, to demonstrate that miracles, prophecies, revelations, healings obtained by the intercession of saints, ecstasy and other supernatural and extraordinary graces that have deserved to be approved by the Church and regarded by it as prodigious effects of the infinite goodness and all-power of God, are only hypnotic phenomena and manifestations of nerve exaltation; they claim thus to destroy the idea of any supernatural order, and to annihilate the obvious and the force of motives. of credibility on which our holy religion rests.
"Finally, to end the obstacles that will always stand in the way of prosperity and the spread of hypnotism, we will talk about the physical and moral ills that it causes. As far as the former are concerned, the testimony of those who have committed themselves to the pratque of lhypnotism is quite clear. Professor Zanardelli admits that people who allow themselves to be hypnotized expose themselves to several dangers, including congestion of blood in the head and heart, loss of breathing and voice, asphyxiation, syncopes, violent seizures t. Dr. Vizioli says that he gave the help of his art to a young man who had gone mad for being hypnotized by Verbeck?. Dr. Grasset, a distinguished publicist and neurologist, argues that if a healthy young man is frequently addicted to hypnotic procedures, he will be made to be simply nervous, neuropathic, then hysterical, and often alienated. Paul Richer, a zealous advocate of hypnotism, says that hypnotic experiments can promote the development of latent neuropathic arrangements, and that there is reason to see the momentary mental disorder that causes the mental disorder to become more and more akin to the mental disorder.
1 The Truth about hypnotism. è Journal of neuropathology.
tyricism, turning into permanent disorder. Alfred d的Hundt, the popular propagator of hypnotism, says that hypnotized people, even after waking up, continue to be attacked with prolonged seizures, and with some symptoms of epilepsy and diidioticism. Madness, he adds, and other accidents caused by magnetism, must force anyone who has not done serious studies on this subject to refrain from magnetizing! Finally, the Alienist doctor César Lombroso quotes more than fifteen people who, for having been subjected to hypnotic experiments, have remained subject to violent convulsions, persistent madness, weakness of mind, loss of memory, and sometimes to l'eczema or skin condition; this is not surprising when one knows the close union between skin disorders and nervous disorders °.
"If the physical ills that hypnotism produces in people who submit to its action are serious, more serious and even more enormous are those that it causes in morals and in public and private honesty. We would like not to touch on this delicate point: we feel bluffed by listing the repugnant crimes and scandals whose hypnotic sessions have been P occasion. Nos would also like to avoid suggesting that, coming out of the bounds of zeal in our sacred ministry, we exaggerate the greatness and deformity of these disorders. However, in order not to fail in our duty, to make our impartiality and our desire to prevent such abuses shine to a fair degree, we will simply report the judgements on this subject made by men whose science and impartiality are well known.
i/ L-Hypnotism revealed. 2 Studies on hypnotism.
"That the cause of somnambulism be attributed to the power of exalted imagination, or to uric and undulatory irradiation, or to a fluid intermediate between sleepwalking and the operator, which causes this state of disturbance in it, it is beyond doubt, the supporters of these various theories all agree, that the hypnotized person, all the time that his artificial sleep lasts, loses his consciousness, abdicates his personality and freedom, and remains, absolutely and unconditionally, subject to the will of the hypnotizer; he can at will deprive him of the ability to act and the power to act. to speak, and to compel her, without being able to resist, to carry out the acts which he suggests to her.
"Once this so transcendental phenomenon of magnetism, now called hypnotism, is admitted, what consequences," said a distinguished professor at the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, "what terrible consequences cannot result from such a power? Which woman or girl will be sure to come out of the hands of a magnetizer who has acted on her with all the more security, as the memory of everything that happened to her has completely erased upon awakening? But, suppose for a moment, the magnetizer resists the temptation of too easy an abuse; his virtue makes him reject an evil act which must remain unpunished, and horrificly rule out any criminal thought; how many other dangers still remain! Can't he steal important family secrets and turn them around for his benefit? Is it not known that the honour of families often depends on the secrecy of certain circumstances? A family wants to let it ignore its origin, sometimes its fortune, sometimes a disease of some of its members, other times an ambitious project. Does it not sometimes suffice to discover one of these secrets,
to cause the entire family to be ruined? We denied the influence of the sexes, and we were wrong, because this influence is powerful. The somnambule feels for its magnetizer a recognition and an unlimited inclination; from there to a true passion there is not far away. I believe that if violence is easy, seduction is even more, and it is less heinous. Who can predict the results?
"The scientist physiologist Dr. Dupan assures us that we cannot doubt the great influence exerted by the magnetizer on the sleepwalk; she does not resist, he says, the orders he gives him; far from there, she carries her gratitude to the enthusiasm of passion, and, as Rostan says, until the point of automatically following him, as a dog follows his master; hence I conclude that magnetic art compromises the health of individuals, public morals and the safety of families ê.
"An illustrious prelate called magnetism a disturbing science, and showed that it tends to introduce disorder into all the physical and moral faculties of man."
"One of the most famous doctors of this century, by endorsing them, quotes the words of the Count of Robian, who maintains that the libertinism of sleepwalking arouses and brutally promotes disorderly passions, causes the licensure of morals and degrades consciences: "The magné- "tism," he adds, "was one of the most powerful dia- "bolic secrets in France to pervert men," and the immorality that he caused is not an accident by chance "or passenger: it is inherent in sleepwalking, it is an accident, it is an accident, it is an accident.
1 Dr.Rostan. — Dictionary of Medicine and Hygiene Courses. 2 Dictionary of Medicine.
3 Philosophical and moral letters to Professor Alibert.
4 Mor the bishop of Moulins, 1836.
"reaches and defiles almost all of its victims, excites "sinful emotions and inflames shameful passions." "If anyone pretended to weaken the authority of these testimonies on the pretext that they were returned in a time when the intermediate fluid system, which seems to be outmoded today, dominated, we would reply: Respectable doctors in medicine argue that the magnetism of a century ago is confused and identified with modern hypnotism; contemporary authors of treatises on hypnotism refer indiscriminately to accidents observed in the various degrees of artificial sleep as magnetic or hypnotic phenomena; and, even more remarkable, modern hypnographs themselves agree with the serious dangers of the practice of hypnotism, the attacks he has made against modesty and morality, and crimes against humanity. executed under the influence of the suggestion. A fair reservation, we understand, and the very character of this pastoral letter, does not allow us to recall in detail the misfortunes caused by hypnotism to honest women and chaste girls, nor to the crimes committed against justice, which the courts have had to deal with; therefore we refer the men of study to the writers who recently published remarkable work on the hypnotic suggestion in his relations with criminal law, they will soon be convinced that hypnotism, as indeed any other practice whose aim is to Changing man into automaton, subjecting him absolutely to the will and referee of others, naturally leads to crime and immorality."
1 DEBREYNE, Thoughts of a believer, and... 2 Tourerte, lHypnotism and similar states from the imedi-legal point of view; Dr. QULLERRE, BenNuemm,
The eminent prelate completes his argument, by refuting the pretexts alleged by the defenders of hypnotism, to execute his misdeeds and legitimize his practice. We can't say better, but let's say:
"The advocates of hypnotism, while admitting the dangers to which it exposes, claim to justify it by saying that the crimes attributed to Pabus are to be attributed to him; it is not, they say, a sufficient reason to condemn it, otherwise it would also be necessary to resent chloroform, arsenic, cocaine and other toxic substances; it is certain that it is abused; and yet, applied by competent persons, at the dose and in the circumstances prescribed by science, they constitute a therapeutic element capable of relieving and curing the diseases of the human being. Man.
"A famous medical teacher responds to this objection: "We abuse only what is good; we abuse "only what can be legitimately and honestly used. Abuse always implies the legitimate use of "a thing that is really useful to society. For example, "the abuse of medicine or chemistry is referred to, because "the benefits of honest and prudent use of science are recognized"; but "the abuse of slander or wear and tear is never mentioned, because the "lawful and honest use of slander or wear and tear is completely unknown; they are, by reason of their absence alone, a disturbance of moral order. And this is pre- "scisely why we can never say that we abuse "magnetism, because there is no way to legitimize its "employment; its practice is not only useless to "society, it is greatly harmful to it, in this sense "that it always tends directly to favor vice and "disorder. Also this art must be condemned, as an "imoral invention, with which the genius of evil, mind
"of lying and Qerror, hallucinating and seduced evil- "rarely en masse poor humanity t."
"The comparison provided by chloroform and other toxic substances is not fair and cannot be accepted: there are certain cases where these therapeutic means are permitted, even by having them used to temporarily suspend intellectual faculties, with the aim of saving life, or to perform surgery that could not be performed without producing anaesthesia. But this is why the use of such medicines is lawful: it is that, when their transitional action is completed, the person on whom they have acted is fully integrated into the exercise of his faculties, his will, free and free, can take responsibility for his acts and conform them or not to the rules of moral order. If hypnotism did not produce other effects, it would not have to be censored in case there was sufficient reason to use it, and assuming that its therapeutic virtue was capable of replacing the substances we are talking about. But the effects of hypnotism are not confined to this; on the contrary, as we have said, and from the admission of doctors in hypnotism, during the physiological disturbance that it produces, the hypnotizer can, at his discretion, make any kind of suggestions, up to the most obscene, up to the most criminal, to the hypnotized person, without the latter being able to resist them; far from there, his will remains slave and dependent on the operator: driven by an irresistible impulse, he must necessarily execute to the end all that has been commanded him, either at the moment or within a time. fixed; all this is deeply immoral and offensive to human dignity, it is a source of trouble for social order.
1 DEBREYNE, Thoughts, etc.
"The supporters of hypnotism are wrongly boasting that they have found a way to avoid the dangers we are talking about, saying that we must never hypnotize someone without obtaining their consent, for a therapeutic purpose, and in the presence of people who enjoy their trust.
"They therefore do not see that, even under these conditions, the use of hypnotism is in no way justified, nor is its harmful consequences avoided. First, several medical doctors are of the opinion that a person can be hypnotized without consent! Moreover, it is not permissible for anyone to consent to be immersed in hypnotic sleep, since it, of its nature, demands the renunciation of freedom, conscience, intellectual judgment; since this sleep will generate in the heart and in the will a blind passion for hypnotizer?; since, finally, this state makes it impossible to freely choose good, to crown itself, therefore, with the merit of good works, and to reduce man to the humiliating condition of a simple instrument to commit any kind of crimes, as if there were no laws to observe and to reduce the number of persons who are not. Commands to keep.
"The presence of persons in possession of the just confidence of the hypnotized is not a better precaution; it will at most prevent the hypnotizer from giving orders or making suggestions manifested by external signs or by speech, it will in no way avoid the purely mental suggestions to which the subject is just as completely docile as if the order were
2 Tourerre says that during sleepwalking, what we will simply call last disorder can take place.
given in writing, or orally!. It is not necessary to show to what seductions, to what frauds, to what crimes can give rise to the state of a person who becomes a pure automaton, without personality, without knowledge, without freedom, absolutely delivered to the violence of another and ready to do whatever he wishes. Therefore, hypnotism is an attack on the conscience of the individual, on the law of the family and on society itself.
"Finally proposing a therapeutic goal exclusively will never be a motive capable of legitimizing the use of hypnotism; it is obvious if one remembers that the hypnotism, by its nature, of the very confession of his apostles, produces, in the psychological order and in the moral order, the phenomena we have spoken of; it will never be allowed to compromise the august dignity of souls to support the health of the body; it will never be allowed, under the pretext of preserving the integrity or the very life of the body, to put in a certain danger the eternal salvation of the soul. It would be to invert the natural order, prefer what is less worth than what is incomparably more worth; it would be to act against the rule established by God, who put the body at the service of the soul, so that the body, under the command and authority of the soul, would allow it to acquire treasures of merit and eternal bliss; and God teaches us that we are obliged to sacrifice all the goods of this world, the health and the very life of the body if it is necessary, in order to reach our last end.
"Since the practices of hypnotism are so disastrous and so full of immorality that, according to some special authors in this matter, they have a necessary relationship with the attacks on modesty and the last disorder*, it is not surprising to see the academies
health boards, consider them harmful to public health, and some governments prohibit and prohibit them absolutely. Thus, in Vienna, in view of the deplorable abuses committed by the hypnotist Hausen, the Director General of Police, by a decree of 12 February 1880, appointed a commission of doctors, chaired by Hoffman, professor of forensic medicine, to study the criminal facts that had been denounced; this commission unanimously decided that it was necessary to prohibit lhypnotism because of the very serious ills that it caused, and indeed the prohibition was decreed, and Hausen expelled from Austrian territory.
"The Sanitary Council of Milan and the health council of its province also decided, in 1886, to defend the use of hypnotism. The government of Illalia, in view of the very serious damage and abuse caused by the hypnotism sessions throughout the kingdom, especially in Turin and Milan, also defended them, in accordance with the opinion of the Higher Health Council, issued in the sessions held from 10 to 14 June 1886, under the chairmanship of the former Minister of Public Education, Dr. Baccelli. The recitals below are as follows: "The shows where we do experiments of "notism" can cause profound disturbances in the "impressible public, as demonstrated, in addition to the "reasons provided by physiology and the clinic, the formal nion of Italian societies of a scientific character, which have studied this problem especially.
"In addition, scientifically proven and officially established facts show that hypnotism can be harmful to people who experience it; and, in this respect, harm can be more serious when it comes to young, nervous, excitable people, weakened by excessive work of mind, and those who are in need of it.
276. MAGNETISM "what have a particular right to be protected by "society.
"As far as the legal question is concerned, "from the point of view of protection due to "individual freedom, one cannot allow human science to be suppressed by practices whose "result is to produce psychico-morbid facts" in the persons who are predisposed to it, and to render "a man enslaved to the will of another, to the point that "the first n" has become more aware of the dangers to which "he exposes himself.
"For these reasons, the Council is of the opinion that "d-hypnotism, or magnetism, or mesmerism, "or fascination, must be prohibited!"
"The Faculty of Medicine of Paris, charged with examining magnetism and its pernicious effects, which in no way differ from those of the hypnotism of our time, resolved, in the session of 14 August 1784, to have it defended to all doctors, based on what is harmful to health, good morals, special interests, and, moreover, on what it employs mysterious processes. This decision is all the more authoritative because the commission had scientific notations such as Franklin, Lavoisier, Bailly in its midst. The emperor of Russia in 1625, the king of Danemarck in 1817, and that same year the kings of Prussia and Sweden, also issued ordinances to prevent the dangers of magnetism; they allowed only the doctors to exercise. We could not expect an absolute ban from these sovereigns, because we still attributed magnetism a therapeulic virtue."
VI. — It is not to be regretted that priests and
Catholic doctors and publicists have been involved in the declared enemies of the supernatural and the extrahuman, whatever, to support the cause of hypnotism. The free discussion, in things that are neither of faith nor of axiomatic evidence, does not harm the truth, and it is also good not to leave to the unbelievers the claim they boast about, to represent science alone.
But freedom of opinion must not take away the firmness of the mind. By bringing together the reasons given on both sides, the plea for hypnotism seemed insufficient. He managed to rule out, to overthrow certain arguments lost in tirailers and not sufficiently resistant by themselves; but, on the natural nature of lhypnosis and on his morality, he avoided objections rather than solves them, he made a diversion to the attack instead of facing it victoriously.
The main champion of this thesis, Fr. Coconnier, after having fought, raised visor, for hypnotism, under a title whose prestige he exaggerated, addresses a last argument that we do not want to leave without answer:
"Unlike those who claim that it can never be allowed, I therefore support," said the author, "that hypnotism reduced to the phenomena produced by verbal suggestion alone is allowed sometimes, — assuming of course that it is not of diabolical origin, which we will demonstrate later. In order to justify this approach, I have considered the hypnosis in general, in its abstract nature, and I thought I discovered that the hypnosis thus considered, from the point of view of its specific morality, should not be classified in the category of good acts or in that of bad acts, but it is among these acts that the
1 Honest hypnotism, ch. 11, p. 289.
theologians call them indifferent, and who are laudable or reprehensible only because of the purpose for which they are laid, or the various circumstances in which they occur. This opinion, moreover, I only Pai issued with the very great reserve that was imposed upon me by my few lights first, and then by the novelty and difficulties of the subject; but I added that, was this theory false, and the reason that it provides me with no value, I would support the thesis no less, because there remains at my disposal another proof both safer and easier."
VII. — This proof, more serene and easier, intended to justify Phypnotism, even though it was bad of its nature, the Reverend Father borrowed it, he said, from Saint Thomas; it serves as an affirmative answer to the following question: "Is it then that a bad act by nature can never become permitted?" (P. 290.)
To this statement as it sounds, we boldly respond: No! What is bad by nature can never be allowed.
But the word is St. Thomas's. Let's hear it first. The Angelic Doctor deals, at the place alleged!, with a completely different question than that of lhypnosis, of which he could not speak, not knowing it; he examines: "If at the same time, without dispensation, two prebends that are not burdened with souls is a mortal sin." It distinguishes between essentially disorderly acts and those which, although reprehensible in their generality, in se, secundum, by taking them in the established order, as it is. The former are always bad; the latter, among which it ranks the case of the multiplicity of benefits, can, under certain circumstances, be allowed and even
1 Quodlibet, 1x, a. 15,
979 laudable. — And it is in this enclave that Fr. Coconnier is home to hypnotism.
This doctrine is that of the School, but it is understood in these precise terms: 1° that acts which take in their substance and by their nature an essential disorder can never become good; 2 that acts which do not have this intrinsic malice character, but are nevertheless subject to a general prohibition in order to safeguard established order, may in certain cases, by virtue of principles and circumstances coming out of common conditions, and whose application, far from compromising the established order, maintain it, may, I say, be lawful and virtuous. The acts of the second category are bad, not intrinsically and by their nature, but because of the social organization as it is; if this organization, instead of suffering from these acts, benefits from it, the prohibition no longer reaches them. The law uses general formulae, as well as Suarez!'s observation in the quote made by Fr. Coconnier himself: this is the reason to share the circumstances and to induce exceptions.
Saint Thomas says, to the truth, that the acts we are talking about carry in itself a certain deformity: in se deformitatem quamdam habet; but neither the holy doctor, Duns Scot, Suarez, nor any theologian maintain that when deformity is in the nature of the action, this action can never become lawful and honest.
1 Legibus, 1. 2, c. 13: Considerandum est legem naturalem, cum per se non sit scripta in tabulis vel membranis, sed in liebus, non semper dictari in mente illis verbis generalibus vel indefinitis quibus a nobis ore profertur, vel scribitur, ut, verbi gratia, lex de reddendo deposito, quatenés naturalis, non ita simpliciter et absolute. in mente judicatur, sed cum limitatione et circumspectione: dictat enim ratio reddendum esse depositum jure et ratioabiliter petenti, vel nisi ratio defensionis justa, vel reipublicæ, vel proprio, vel innocentis obstet. Communicate autem solet illa lex illis verbis tantum ferri: reddendum est depositum, quia cætera subduantelliguntur, nec in forma legis humano modo positæ omnia declarari posunt.
Thus falls the somewhat unfortunate conclusion of P. Coconnier: "These explanations given, no one of our readers will be astonished, I think, to hear me say that hypnotism, he makes bad in himself, in its specific nature, it does not follow that it is always bad, and always defended." What is bad in itself and its natner is always bad and always defended.
VIII. — Is it at least true that hypnotism can benefit from the articulated distinction and does not bring about an essential disorder in its concept?
If it were simply sleep, we would be puzzled; puzzled, because everything is held in lPhypnosis: sleep is only to bring the suggestion, let us say better, the mental hardship of the subject. But this abdication of reason and will at the will of another would be only transitory, and we know that it extends beyond the lethargic crisis, violates the dignity of the free being, the very constitution of the rational and moral life of man. That is why no one can knowingly and freely accept this state of deprivation or help to put others, the very ones who consent to it.
This is not the opinion of the R. P. Coconnier and several others; but it is ours, supported, we believe, at least in relation to the phenomena of suggestion, of the most common sentiment among Catholic theologians.
The well-founded suspicion, which we spoke of at the beginning of this chapter, which weighs on hypnotism, of being, at least in part, the occult work of the enemy power of man, significantly aggravates the reproach of immorality.
1 Of legibus, D: 298.
In summary, that in its extreme deviations, hypnotism out of the human ray, it seems that it cannot be challenged with sufficient theology and good faith.
Practically, even by disavowing these excesses and excluding any superstitious thought, however, because of the Pindivisibihty of the phenomena which the hypnosis is complicated from this strange sleep and the suggestion which delivers the subject at present and for a long time perhaps at the discretion of the experimenter, until the lucidity extending to secret things, ignored, distant, inaccessible in the normal state, these experiences remain very perilous from the double point of view of hygiene and morals, and expose to consequences whose scope escapes the most wise appreciation and the best intention.
For these reasons, we would dare to allow or authorize them.
IX. — The Dominican Father concludes his book: "I am pleased to reiterate — to conclude this long but conscientious and impartial study — to the religious doctors, Christian families and the directors of souls, that this problem is so deeply and rightly concerned:
To these conclusions, allow us to oppose ours:
10 , the identity of hypnotism with magnetism is undeniable;
20 for health, and in Ja mental suggestion it is an essential infringement of moral life, by abdication of reason and will at the mercy of a third party;
282 i , Phomme's known energies are not sufficient to give reason for this;
40 NOW, HYPNOTISM, IN HIS BLOCK, MUST BE HELD FOR IMMORAL AND, AS PRACTICALLY, NOT BE PERMITTED.
Are these conclusions binding on the conscience?
To ours, yes; and it cannot be otherwise for those who appreciate like us hypnotism: it is never allowed to do what one thinks is wrong.
But in the presence of those who practice good faith hypnosis, convinced that she has nothing bad in herself, and use it only for the good they expect, what is the course to be taken?
They are to be illuminated, to the extent possible. In all cases, advice and approval of hypnotization should not be given.
What if they can't shake their false persuasion that hypnotism is neither bad nor dangerous to them, is it necessary to deny them absolution?
In these contexts, which are not chimeral, Mor Gousset! recommended tolerance, with reservations that it is important to report. "In saying that a confessor must absolve the use of magnetism, we assume, first, that the magnetizer and magnetized are in good faith, that they regard animal magnetism as a natural and useful remedy; second, that they do not allow themselves anything, neither one nor another, that can injure Christian modesty, virtue; third, that they renounce any intervention on the part of the demon. If it were otherwise, we could not absolve those who resort to magnetism. We will add that a confessor must neither advise nor approve magnetism,
1 Moral Theol., Decal Precept., n. 429.
983. especially between people of different sex, because of the too great and really dangerous sympathy that is most often formed between the magnetizer and the magnetized person."
Fr. Gury! adheres to this decision as a whole. But his commentator, Fr. Ballerini?, whose casuistics, however, have nothing to say about, does not so far push condescendence.
These questions must be resolved on the basis of the general principles of good faith, in the absence of a decision by the Church.
1 Moral Theol. Tract. de Præc. Dec. Appendix, n. 279, t: 4 p. 485. 2 Theol. mor., ibid., n.a., p. 248: At alia multa sunt eaque satis gravia, queæ fideles ab hisce præstigiis prorsus archere posunt et debent.
The Church leaves freedom to opinions and science. — First decision emanated from the Holy See concerning magnetism in 1840. — Second consultation and second reply on April 21, 1841. — Answer from the Sacred Penancerie to the Bishop of Lausanne, July 30, 14841. — Unnecessary insistence of Mer Gosset. — Prohibition of magnetism in the pontifical states in 1856. — Encyclical letter addressed to all Catholic bishops on July 30, of the same year, on the abuse of magnetism. — Decision concerning hypnotism. — Summary.
I. — We would like to be able to support from the formal authority of the Church the various points of our interpretation and the moral consequences we have derived from it. The decisions already made, without setting out all the distinctions we have made, seem to us to contain them in substance and give them an implicit guarantee.
But we must faithfully observe that the Church is guarding from interfering with the complications of human science. She lets scholarly investigations follow their course, unless they contradict some specific dogma. It protects defined faith and morals, but it abandons the free field to human opinions and arguments. So far, it has avoided deciding on the merits.
She was content to answer questions about the morality of specific scenes and the disproportion of physical means with knowledge beyond the reach of man.
IT. — The first act emanating from the Holy See on this matter is of June 23, 1840.
In a petition addressed to the Supreme Pontiff, it was asked whether it was permissible to take part in the operations of magnetism. The Holy Office replied:
"By avoiding any error, spell, explicit or implicit invocation of the demon, the use of magnetism, i.e. the simple act of using physical means, moreover permitted, is not morally defended, provided that it does not tend to an unlawful end or is in any way wrong. As for the application of purely physical principles and means to truly supernatural things or effects, this is only a completely illegal disappointment and tainted with heresy."
IL. — The following year, a new question was referred to the same court; it was worded as follows:
"As we observe in magnetic operations an upcoming opportunity for unbelief and bad morals, we want to know, for the peace of souls, what the Holy See's opinion on this subject is. The response given by the congregation of the Holy Office is already known;
i Feria IV, die 2 Jun. 4840: Remoto omni errore, sortelegio, explicita aut implicita daemonis invocatione, usus magnetismi, nempe merus actus adhibendi media physica, aliunde licta, no est moraliter vetitus, dummodo non tendat ad finem illicium, aut quomodolibet pravum. Applicatie autem principaliorum et mediorum pure physicorum ad res and performed supernatural vere, ut physice explicentur, nihil est nisi deceptio omnino illicita, et hereticalis. — Cf. L'amx , 4-14 August 1840, t. 106, p. 277, reproducing the .
2 Cf., RELIGION AMI, 22 June 1841, t. 109, p. 597, according to the PIÉMONTAISE Gazette.
but it would be good to obtain from the Holy See, if not a formal decision, at least a more determined and explicit rule on this matter, so that Catholic governments, called from God to protect religion and to make laws that put a brake on public morals, know how to behave."
On April 21, 1841, the Sacred Congregation declared, in a decree approved by Pope Gregory XVI, that the practice of magnetism, according to the exposition made of it, is unlawful.
IV. — In the same year, the sacred Penancerie received the following consultation, officially presented on behalf of the Bishop of Lausanne by his Chancellor, Mr. Fontana. We reproduce it in its entirety because it contains a fairly complete exposition of the ordinary scenes of magnetization, and also because of the dissents which it gave rise to between theologians?.
1 Extr. de l'Amr DE LA RELIGION, 7 August 1841, t. 440, p. 264. — The Latin text is found in most elementary theologies. Cf. Drop, Theol. mor. t. 1, Appendix, p. 565. — Gury, Comp. theol. mor. From Præc. Decal., n. 280.
2 Posrucarum Episcopy Lausanensis circa magnetismum.
Eminently Domine,
Cum hectenus responsa circa magnetismum animalem minimal suffcer emptyantur, sitque magnopere optandum ut tutius magisque uniformiter solvi queant casus non raro incidentes, infra signatus Eminentiæ Vestræ humiliter sequentia exponit.
Persona magnetizata, quae plerumque sexus est feminei, in eum status soporis ingreditor, dictum somnambulismum magneticum, tam alte, ut nec maximus fragor ad ejus aures, nec ferri, ignisve ulla vehementia illam instilare valeant. Ab solo magnetizatore, cui consensum suum dedit (consensus enim est necessarius), ad illud etasis genus adducitur, sive varis palpationibus gesticulationibusve, quando ille adest, sive simpliciti mandateo eodemque interno, cum vel pluribus leucis distat.
Tunc viva voce, seu mentaliter, de suo absentiumque penitus ignotorum sibi morbo interrogatata, haec persona evidenter indocta illico medicos scientia longe superat; res anatomaticas accuuratissime enuntiat, morborum internorum in humano corpore, qui cognitu definituque peritis difficillimi sunt, causam, sedem, naturam indigitat, eorum progressiveus, variations and complications evolvit, idque proprioris terminis; sæpe etiam dictorum morborum diuturnitatem exact prænuntiat, simplicitisima and efficissima præcipit.
-GENERAL 287 "Inadequate responses to animal magnetism so far and the highly desirable advantage of
If adest persona, de qua magnetizata mulier consultur, relationem inter utramque per contactum instituit magnetizator; cum vero abest, cincinnus ex ejus caesarie eam supplement ac sufficit. Hoc enim cincinno tantum ad palmam magnetizatæ admoto, confistim hec declarat quid sit (quin aspiciate oculis), cujus sint capilli, ubinam versetur nunc persona ad quam relevant, quid rerum agat, circaque ejus morbum omnia supradicta documenta ministrat, haud alter atque si medicorum more corpus ipsa introspiceret.
Postremo, magnetizata non oculis cernit, ipsis velatis, quidquid erit illud leget legendi nescia, seu librum, seu manuscriptum, vel apertum vel clausum, seu capiti vel ventri impositum. Etiam ex hac regione ejus verba egredi emptyur. Hocautem status educta, vel ad jussum etiam internum magnetizantis vel quasi sponte sua ipso temporis puncto a se prænuntiato, omnino de rebus in paroxismo peractis sibi conscire vidétur, quantumvis ille duraverit: quaenam ab ipsa petita fuerint, quae vero responseit quae pertulerit, haec omnia nullam in ejus intelectu ideam, nec minimum in memoria vestigium reulerunt.
Itaque orator infrascriptus, tam validas cernens ratioes dubitandi, an simpliciter naturales sint tales carried out, quorum occasionalis causa tam parum cum eis proportionata demonstratur, enixe vehementissimeque Vestram Eminentiam rogat, ut ipsa, pro sua sapientia, ad majorem Omnipotentis gloriam, necnon ad majus animarum bonum, quaæ a Domino redemptæ tanti constiterunt, decernere velit, an posita præfactorum veritate, confessarius parochusve tuto posit pænitentibus aut parochianis sui permittere:
40 Ut animal magnetismum illis characteribus aliisque similibus præditum exercisant, tamquam artem medicinæ auxiliatricem atque replacementum;
2° Ut sese illum in status somnambulismi magnetici semitendos consenting;
3° Ut vel de se vel de aliis personas consulant illo modo magnetizatas;
40 Ut unum de Tribes prædictis suscipiant, habita prius cautala formaliter ex animo renuntiandi cuilibet diabolico pacto explicito, omni etiam satanicæ interventioni, Quoniam hæc non obstante surete a nonnullis ex magnetismo hujusmodi vel iidem vel aliquot performed obtainti jam fuerunt.
Eminentissimi DD. Eminentiæ Vestræ,
De mandateo reverendissimi Episcopi Lausanensis and Genevasis humillimus obsequentissimusque serbus Jac. Xaverius Fontana, Can. Cancel. Episc.
Friburgi Helvetiæ, ex ædibus Episc., die 149 May 1841.
RESPONSIO Sacra Pænitentiaria, mature perpensis expositis, repdendum censet, prout responsitit: Usum magnetismi, prout in casu exponitur, non-Licere. Datum Romæ, in S. Pænitentiaria, die 4 Julii 1844. Card. CASTRACANÉ, Mr. D. Ph. Pomella, S. P. Secretarius.
would have to be able to solve more safely and evenly the cases that arise quite often, decide the undersigned to expose to Your Eminence the following:
"A magnetized person, and he is almost always a woman, enters so deeply into this state of sleep, called magnetic sleepwalking, that neither the greatest noise made to his ears, nor the violence of iron or fire can draw it. The magnetizer alone, to whom she has given her consent (because consent is necessary), causes her to fall into this species of ecstasy, either, when she is present, by touching or gesticulations in various senses, or by a simple inner command, if he is even distant from several leagues.
"Then, questioned, verbally or mentally, about his illness and that of people absent who are completely unknown to him, this person, notoriously ignorant, is at the moment surpassed by many in science by doctors of profession; it gives with perfect precision anatomical descriptions; it indicates the cause, the seat, the nature of the internal diseases of the human body the most difficult to know and to define; it details the progress, variations, complications, and this in technical terms; often in prognostic exactly the duration, and prescribes the simplest and most effective remedies.
"If the person who is the subject of the consultation is present, the magnetizer puts it in contact with the magneus of the contact. Is she absent, a wick of her hair supplants her and suffices. As soon as this strand of hair is only approached by the hand of the magnetized, the latter tells at the moment what it is, without looking at it, of who the hair is, where is currently the person they come from, what it is occupied with, and, regarding its illness, it gives all the information stated
above, with as much accuracy as if she was doing the autopsy of the body like the doctors.
"At last the magnetized woman does not see through her eyes; she will read with a blindfold, and even without knowing how to read, anything, a book, a manuscript, open or closed, which will have been placed on her head or on her belly. It is also from this region that his words seem to come out. Drawn from this state by a very inner command of the magnetizer, or as spontaneously at the precise moment announced by it, it seems to have no awareness of what happened to it during access, no matter how long it was; the questions addressed to it, the answers it has made, all that it has experienced, there is no idea in its intelligence, no vestige in its memory.
"Therefore, the undersigned exhibitor, seeing such strong reasons to doubt that such effects, due to a cause that is clearly so unproportionate, are purely natural, implores very strongly Your Eminence to please, in his wisdom, to decide, for the greatest glory of God and the greatest good of souls so dearly redeemed by Our Lord, whether, supposedly the truth of the facts stated, a confessor or priest can allow his penitents or parishioners: 10° to exercise animal magnetism, thus characterized, as an auxiliary or additional art of medicine; 2 to be put into this state of magnetic sleepwalking; 3 consult the magnetised persons on his or her behalf or on behalf of others; 4° to do one of these three things with the precaution to formally renounce in their hearts any evil pact, explicit or implicit, to any satanic intervention, since, notwithstanding these reservations, it is some who have obtained from magnetism the same effects, or at least some of them
of these effects." IV 49
The answer, dated July 4, 1841:
"The sacred Penitence, after a mature examination of the proposed case, thinks that it is necessary to stick to the following solution: THE USE OF MAGNETISM, AS EXPOSED IN CONSULTATION, IS NOT CHOSE LICITE."
V. — The complication of the case submitted to the judgment of Penancerie left in doubt the true scope of the sentence: did improbation fall on magnetism itself or on bad and perilous circumstances of their nature and separable elsewhere from the phenomenon? Archbishop Gosset of Reims, since Cardinal, put the question clearly:
"Is any abuse set aside," he asked in 1842, "and by abandoning any trade with the demon, allowed to exercise animal magnetism and to resort to it as a remedy that many consider natural and useful to health?" Eighteen months later, on new instances on the part of the prelate for an answer, Cardinal Castracane, a great penitentiary, wrote to him, on the date of September 2, 1843: "I learned from Bishop de Brimont that Your Greatness expects me to receive a letter that will let him know whether the Holy Inquisition has decided the question of magnetism. I pray you, my Lord, to observe that the question is not such as to be decided at once, if ever, because there is no risk of delaying the decision, and that a premature decision could jeopardize the honour of the Holy See; that as long as magnetism and its application to a few particular cases were discussed, the Holy See did not hesitate to pronounce itself..."
VI. — But the abuse of magnetism was growing, and what was most sought with greed in these practices was not the relief of diseases by physical processes that kept some proportions with
the effect produced, but wonderful results using quite disproportionate means, intellectual manifestations that go beyond the reach of man. Therefore, on July 27, 1847, the Sacred Congregation renewed the decision and rule formulated on June 23, 1840.
Nine years later, on 21 May 1856, it prohibited the exercise of magnetism in the pontifical states under the conditions previously exposed?. Finally, on 30 July of the same year, she wrote a new censorship against magnetism, which she sent on 4 August to all the bishops of Catholicism.
VII. — "On reports from all sides and from reliable men on the abuses of magnetism, is it said in this document, the sacred Congregation has decided to write to the bishops so that they may take all their care to remedy them. The decisions already rendered, in particular those of 21 April 1841 and 28 July 1847, set out a safe and easy rule of conduct to discern the extent to which magnetism was permitted. But instead of seeing these phenomena as a new field open to natural science, to the detriment of souls and society, they are made an object of damnable curiosity, an instrument of superstitious divination. Discarded by gestures where modesty is often offended in the transports of sleepwalking and foresight, women of nothing have the vain claim to see the invisible world uncovered, to write things of religion, to evoke the souls of the deceased and to receive answers, to discover hidden and distant things, to indulge, in a word, impudently in all audacity
1 These acts are summarized in the 1856 encyclical; see Friend of the Religion, 3 January 1857, t. 175, p. 21.
2 See Ballerini, Comp. theol. mor. de. Gury, Tr. de Pr. Dec, n. 281, t: 1, p. 220, note a.
superstition by the mobile of a sordid gain. In all these things, by some maneuvers or illusions that we operate them, as long as the proportion lacks between the physical means and the results produced, it remains that there is only illegal deception and suspect error in the faith, and scandal against good manners t.
Feria IV. die 30 Julii 4856. In Congregatione generali S. A. and One. Inquisitionis habita in conventu S. Mr. supra Minervam, Em. ac Rev. DD. Card. in tota republica christiana adversus hereticam pravitatem Generales Inquisitores, mature perpensis iis, quae circa magnetismi experimenta a viris fide dignis undequaque relata sunt, decreverunt edi presentes literas encyclicas ad omnes Episcopos ad magnetismi abusus compescendos. Etenim compertum est, novum quoddam superstitionis genus invehi ex phenomenis magneticis, quibus haud scientitis physicis enucleandis, ut par esset, sed decipendis ac seducendis hominibus student neoterici pres, rati pospe occulta, remota ac futura detegi magnetismi arte vel præstigio, præsertim oper muliercularum, quae unice a magnetizatoris nutu pendent... (Follows decree of 27 July 4847.)
Quamquam generali hoc decreto satis exploitur liliceudo aut illicitudo in usu aut abusu magnetismi, tamen adeo crevit hominum malitia, ut neglecto licito studio scientiæ, potius curiosa sectantes, magna cum animarum jacura, ipsiusque civilis societatis detrimento, ariolandi divinandium quoddam se nactos glorientur. Huic somnambulismi and claæ intuitionis, uti vacant, præstigiis, mulierculæ illæ, gesticulationibus non semper verecundis abreptæ, se invisivita quaque conspicere efficuient, ac de ipsa Religione sermones instituée, animas mortuorum evocare, responsa accipere, ignota ac longinqua detegere aliaque id genus superstitiosa exercise usu temerario præsumunt, magnum quaestum sibi ac dominis suis divinando certo consecuturae. In hisce omnibus, quacum demum utantur arte vel illusione, cum ordinenteur media physica ad performed non natural, reperitur deceptio omnino illicita and hereticalis, and scandalum contra honestatem morum.
Igitur ad tantum nefas and Religioni and civili societati infestissimum effective cohibendum, excitari quam maxime debet pastoralis solicitudo, vigilantia ac zelus Episcoporum omnium. Quapropter quantum divina adjutrice gratia potentur locorum Ordinarii, qua paternæ charitatis monitis, qua severis objurgationibus, qua demum juris remediis adhibitis, prout attentis locorum, personarum temporumque adjunctis, expedire in Domino judicaverint, omnem independent operam ad hujusmodi magnetismi abusus reprimendos et avellendos, ut dominicus grex defenceatur ab inimico homine, depositum Fidei sartum tectumque custodiatur, and fideles sibi crediti a morum corruptione præserventur.
Datum Romæ, in Cancelaria S. Officii apud Vaticanum, die 4 augusti 1886.
V. Card. Maccn.
VII. — On his behalf, the hypnotism obtained a much more recent decision.
In 1899, an Italian doctor addressed the following petition to the Holy See.
"N., doctor of medicine, prostrated at the feet of Your Holiness, in order to tranquillize his conscience, humbly asks whether he can take part in studies currently being carried out by the Society of Medical Sciences of N., on the hypnotic suggestions for the cure of sick children. The aim is not only to discuss facts already achieved, but also to make new experiences, without worrying whether or not they can be explained by natural causes. That is why the beggar, not wanting to expose himself to the danger of error, is waiting docilely for the oracle of the Holy See."
On 26 July 1899, the Holy Office replied to this petition:
"For the experiences already made, they can be allowed, provided that any danger of superstition and scandal is ruled out, and moreover that the supplanter is willing to submit to the decrees of the Holy See, and that he does not sarrogate the role of theologian.
"As for the untried experiences, if they are facts that in all certainty exceed the forces of nature, they cannot be lawful; if one is in doubt on this point, one could tolerate them provided that there is no danger of scandal and that, in advance, one protested not to take any part in facts that would be preternatural!"
1 Feria IV, die Julii 1899. In Congregatione generali habita ab Emis ac Remis DD. Cardin. Generalibus Inquisitoribus, propositionitis suprascriptis precibus, præhabituque Rmorum DD. Consultorum voto, idem EE. ac RR. Patres replyendum mandarunt:
Quoad experimenta jam facta, permitti possesse, modo absit periculum
raai ‘MAGNETISM'
The contemporary Canonist", to whom we borrow the petition and the decision, adds with great meaning:
"This answer indicates in which provisions a Christian scholar must approach the study of such interesting but difficult-to-explain phenomena related to hypnotism; but it does not pronounce itself on the intrinsic character of hypnotism and suggestion."
IX.—All these acts emanating from the Roman congregations are summed up in these three points: 10 Magnetism could be natural in certain respects; according to this spirit, the provincial council of Bordeaux, held in 1859, left behind everything that natural science could claim in these phenomena?; 2 when they are asked for effects which are not proportional to the physical means used to produce them, they enter into the field of superstition; 80 by most of the circumstances that are accompanied, the practice of magnetism is a violation of morals. All the same is the situation of hypnotism.
This is basically our conclusion: Naturally at its starting point, magnetism comes to differences which break any balance between the results and the visible means, and indicate the intervention of a
superstitionis and scandali; and insoper orator paratus sit stare mandateis S. Sedis and theological parties not agat.
Quoad nova experimenta, si agatur de fatis quae certo naturæ vires prætergrediantur, non licere; sin vero de hoc dubitetur, præmissa proteste nullam partem haberi velle in fatis præternaturalibus, tolerandum, modo absit periculum scandali.
In sequence vero feria VI, die ejusdem mensis and anni, in solita audientia a SSmo D. N. Leone Div. Prov. PP. XIIL R. P. D. Adssori impertita, facta de his omnibus relatione, SSmus D. N. responseem Emorum Patrum adprobavit.
J. Can. Maxani, S. R. and Unq. In. Notarius.
1 Sept.- Oct. 1899, p. 591.
2 Title. 4, ©. 2, Collect. Lacensis, t w, col. 763,
295 occult causation which replaces the inadequacy of the apparent means by its own energy, energy superior to that of man, and betraying, under the conditions in which it is exercised, the corrupting Lange.
The mantic rod in use among all peoples. — Matter and shape of the rod; how to use it. — Of all time, it was used as a means of investigation; its great vogue in the xvie and xvine century. — Opinions concerning the results and use of the rod.
I. — Man questions all nature to delight his secrets. After the manifestations that he asks man by magnetism and hypnotism, let us see those that he seeks around him in the inanimate things.
Let's talk first about the divinatory wand, then about the rotating tables. The rotating tables will lead us to spiritism.
These last three chapters will complete our work.
The divinatory wand has been of universal and constant use. In almost all peoples, in fact, the rod appears as a magical instrument in the hands of the enchanters. The scripture indicates the
Egyptians!, the Assyrians? and even the Jews, as gave to these practices. The same can be said of the Persians, Chaldeans and Finns. The Greeks gave Mercury an attribute of the caducation of gold, surrounded by two serpenis, and their great poet, Homer, represents Circé carrying out his magic metamorphoses the wand in hand. RHABDOMANGIE? is also found among Chinese, Medes, Scythes, Germains, Alains, Esclaons, Illyrians, in England, France, Italy, Spain, especially in Bohemia, Moravia, Sweden and Hungary.
II. — The material whose rod is to be made is indifferent, according to some; the intention and use give it its virtue. Generally it is wanted from wood, and myrtle, beech, oak, aune, ash, almond, above all, are preferred.
The way in which they are served and the shape of them still vary according to time and place. Formerly it was a bundle of rods, sometimes arrows, that were thrown down, and the magicians pronounced according to their arrangement and arrangement. In general there is only one wand, simple or forked, straight or curved. The experimenter takes it by its two ends, and turns gently between his fingers, or, if he holds it, twists violently in the direction of the object that it signals. When it is fork shaped, the knot of the fork stays in the middle and moves towards the point of investigation. She's still on the palm.
1 Exod. seen, 11, 12.
2 Ezech. XX1, 21, 22.
4 Fr. The NoRMAND, Magic in the Chaldeans, ch. 5, p. 213, 291. 5 Homer, Odyssey, 1. 10, v. 277: ‘Epueiac xpvo6pparis.
6 Odyssey, 1.10, v. 389:
7 Pe6dos, twig.
8 The Brun, Treaty of superstitions, 1. 7 c. 5-9, p. 235-240.
9 Fr. LenormanD, Magic in the Chaldeans, ch. 5, p. 213.
or on the reverse side of the hand, or you hold it with one end with your fingers, and, turning on itself, bowing or bending, it designates what you are looking for or answering the questions that have been asked!.
II. — In any way and for whatever purpose it is used, its specialty is to enter into movement only in the presence of things to discover. It was always a means of investigation; but it was not until around the 17th century that the discovery of metals was applied, and later on, to the discovery of sources. In the 17th century it served to denounce everything: the waters, the mines, the quarries, the treasures, the bounds of the fields, the assassins and the thieves, and it became particularly famous in France by the exploits of Jacques Aymar, a rich peasant of the Dauphiné, who practiced this art with rare happiness or a singular skill. He was able to follow, in fact, the impressions of his rod, the track of three murderers, from Lyon to Beaucaire, where the first was arrested, and to the points of the borders by which the other two had left the kingdom. But, brought before the prince of Condé, who wanted to see with his eyes all that was told of the rod, Jacques Aymar was, it is said, convinced of imposture. The scientists of the time did not, however, discuss in a variety of ways the reality and nature of these phenomena. The experiences and discussions were renewed in the 17th century, and continued in it, and likely will continue.
IV. — What is to be said about the results and use of the rod?
There are some who want to see that juggleries and illusions: the famous Bayle * and the former encyclopedists repre-
1 BizouanD, Man's Relationship with the Devil, 1. 6, c. 5, t. 2, p. 410.
2 Le Brun, Treaty of superstitions, 1. 7 c. 4 p. 233: The wand only turns on what we want to discover,
3 Le Brun, ibid., c. 11, p. 243. # Dictionary, word Asaris, notes, t, 1, p. 3.
smelled by d'Alembert!, have naturally tasted Celtic
solution: when the facts embarrass, they are denied!
Others do eclecticism: they admit facts that they believe are likely to be natural, such as the movements of the rod at the source?, and they reject or rule out other discoveries that are also imputed to the rod.
In our view, it is too lenient a way to avoid what needs to be clarified. The facts as a whole do not seem to us to be in doubt. Contesting what one has not seen and even what one sees, because the explanation of it is difficult, is a very unworthy process of a serious and impartial mind; let us leave it to the disbeliefs of party-pris, who reject in advance all that disturbs their theories: history and science obey other laws.
Among those who admit the facts, many, most of whom are foreign to theology, strive to bring them back to natural proportions. According to some, and the most numerous, it escapes from the occult things on the wand of imperceptible effluves that determine its movement; others, among which it is necessary to name Görres *
1 Encyclop., word DIVINATOIRE, t. 2, p. 43: "The baguette was given the property to discover mining, hidden treasures and, more importantly, thieves and fugitive murderers. For this latter virtue, it is possible to say credat Judæus Appella. No one is unaware of the famous story of Jacques Aymar, a peasant of Lyon, who, guided by the divine wand, continued in 1692 a murderer for more than forty leagues on earth and more than thirty leagues on the sea. We know today, to be able to doubt it, and we can hardly believe it, that this Jacques Aymar was a fool... With regard to the other effects of the rod, most physicists question them."
2 THOUVENEL, Physical and medical memory on the relationship between the divinatory wand, magnetism and electricity. Paris, 1784, — , Researches sur quelques effluves terres. Paris, 1826.
3 See. The Brun, Treaty of superstitions, 1. 7 c. 12 and 13, p. 244-247.
4 Mystique, l. 5, c. 41, t. 3 p. 226: "If we look for how this driving force works, we can't ignore that it is lying in
and Mr. Chevreul!, claim that the impulse emanates in an unconscious way from the very person who holds the wand.
It is difficult to understand what can be said by these effluves who denounce thieves and criminals long after their misdeeds, and even more so by those who would come from missing bounds whose wand indicates absence in the place they should occupy. These facts must therefore be denied or denied or their discovery attributed to a whole other cause.
As for the unconscious impulse that the researcher would print himself, it would at most explain the movements of the wand in the presence of the things that we already know, but by no means those that occur on the things ignored. This is tantamount to denying what it is to explain; if the rod only guesses what it is known, it is childish to use it to discover what it does not know, and false that by this means nothing has ever been discovered.
More logically, a number of theologians make two parts: they attribute to a natural virtue the discoveries which have a physical influence on the wand, which they commonly admit for the sources, and do not seem unlikely to some for the metals; but, apart from these cases of natural action or sympathy, they recognize in the wonders of the wand an extrinsic and diabolical intervention. In the 20th century, the P. Menestrier?, among other things, seemed in favour of this interpretation, which became quite common nowadays.
muscle system. It is communicated to the muscles by the nerves, and they direct the movement of the muscles towards objects whose meaning has been struck according to the intention of the will."
1 Of the divinatory wand, of the pendulum explorer, and of the rotating tables, at Mallet-Bachelier, 1854.
2 Reflections on the uses and indications of the wand. Lyon, 1694.
è? Bouvier, Instit. theol., Decalog. t. 5, p. 190. — Gury, Comp. th. mor.
However, the feeling that absolutely resents the use of the wand as superstitious, is perhaps even more common and better founded because. It was supported in the 19th century by most scholars versed in theology, by Jesuit Athanase Kircher, the abbot of Rancé, P illustrious Malebranche, and more particularly by Fr. The Brun‘, who recounted the different opinions and motivated his own by reasonings whose strength still imposes itself today, finally by the oracle of moral theology in recent times, Saint Alphonsus of Liguori?. Their argument is based on this principle, that there is no proportional relationship between the movements of the rod and the things it reports, and even the sources and metals. Natural, this relationship would constantly reveal itself in the presence of objects, whether they were hidden or in sight; however, the wand moves only to uncover things buried or unknown. That if virtue is about the person, not about the wand, the wand becomes useless, and the favored subject of this gift, assuming it is natural, should always feel impressed in the same way when approaching the realities that affect it, all the more strongly since these realities are more apparent: experience, as we have already said, is in the opposite direction, and therefore denounces an extranatural causality.
of Præc, Decalog. n. 270 t. 5. p. 202. — Boxar, Inst. theol. Tr. de Decalog. n. 109, t. 5, p. 456. — Vincent, Comp. univ. theolog. Tr. de Præcept. n. 445,t.5, p. 385. — MARTINET, Theol morale. ]. 9, to. 9, t. 4 p. 515.
1 Treaty of superstitions, 1. 7 c. 17, p. 252 (heading: Let the wand not turn naturally, neither on water, nor on metals, nor on anything else).
2 Theol. moral. l. 3, Tr. 4, n. 8, t. 4 p. 259: Usum hujus virgæ aliqui doctores Medici, and Theologi conati sunt naturalem probare and innocentem, sed merito eum reprobat continuat. Tournel. t. 2, p. 268, cum P. Malebranch., P. Lebrun and Aliis.
We have brought closer the phenomena of the rod to those of the pendulum explorer?, whose oscillations provide the answer to the questions asked before. The solutions already given apply to one and the other; those concerning the TOURNANT TABLES, to which we are going to refer, also agree, and complete to shed light on all these points.
1 See GorrEes, Mystique, 1. 5, c. 41, t. 3 p. 210. 2 CHEVREUL, Divinal wand, pendulum explorer and rotating tables. — De Minvize, Question of Spirits, ch. 2, p. 43.
The divinatory tables in antiquity; their reappearance in America in 1849. — Their vogue in Europe. — Reality of the facts. — Vain hypothesis of the muscle thrusts. — Theory insufficient of the fluid. — The invisible agent is the demon. — Episcopal decisions and common sentiment of theologians. — Summary.
I.—Tertullian! pointed out, in the same century, the tables among the instruments of demonic divination. In the magical conjuration against Valens, there was a three-footed table, set in motion by incantatory formulas. If Dr. Mac-Gowan is believed to have done so, China has long been in possession of blowing up tables under mysterious incantations.
As he is known among us, this phenomenon is of American origin and dates back to 1846: the secret was revealed by the striking spirits.
A resident of Hydesville, New York, named Michel Weckman, intends to knock on his door, opens and sees no one. These alerts, renewed with persistence, cause him to abandon his house. Dr. John Fox and his family succeed him, and have to undergo the same importunities. On March 31, 1847, the two youngest girls, Catherine and
1 Apolog. ¢. 23, p. 24: Porro si and magi phantasmata edunt and jam defunctorum infamant animas..., habente simul invitatorum angelorum and daemonum assistem sibi potostatem, per quos and caprae and mensæ divinare consueverunt, quantum magis, etc.
2 See Goucenor DES Mousseaux, Mediat. et moyens mag., Ch. 1.
Marguerite, fourteen years old, and the other twelve, whom these blows kept awake, but without causing them fear, had fun reproducing them by slamming their hands. Immediately the invisible beings repeat these taps in turn, and between them and the young girls they establish communications so precise that they end up being afraid of them. Their mother, attracted by this game, then entered the stage. She asks for ten shots to be hit: ten shots are hit. She asks for the age of her eldest daughter: 14 shots answer her; — the age of her youngest sister: you can hear twelve shots. "Who are you?" she continues. "Nothing.""Is she a living person?""Nothing yet."If you are a spirit, hit two shots." Two blows are ringing. From question to question and from answer to answer, the intrepid questioner learns more than she wants to know. Ge returning says he is the soul of a man killed several years earlier in this house even by the tenant who lived there at the time. The so-called murderer, against whom one could only articulate, was still alive; he demanded in vain justice a charge that dishonored him. Other revelations, just as risky, followed these, and one of them led to the divorce of Fox girls with his first husband, M. Fish, to become Mrs. Brownt. The rest will be worthy of this beginning.
As strikers, the spirits thus became speaking and revealing.
One can imagine the noise of such wonders. The crowd of the curious invaded the house haunted by the spirits, so much so that the Fox family, who had been overcome by this flood of visitors, left Hydesville and settled in Rochester. The elves followed and continued their conversations and revelations with the mother and the girls. In the same way or in the same
1 LAROGHE-HERON, quoted by Fiçerer, Hist. du merveil., t. 4 p. 238.
ORIGINAL to them, they answered the questions with agreed signals, first by striking a certain number of hits, then by designating by series of blows the various letters of the alphabet, and, with these letters, articulating words and phrases: all the means now acquired to stage these means of a new order. The protests were expanding further. These unknown and invisible agents sang, touched the piano, played all kinds of instruments, even moved and carried furniture, without the possibility of having any other palpable traces of their presence,
It was again in Rochester that the phenomenon of rotating tables was declared. In 1849 Mr. Fox, his two daughters and two other persons, conversed together, presumably with the spirits, with his hands sloppyly laid on a table, around which they circled, suddenly the table stirred up, rose up and crossed a distance of six feet. One of the people who attended said: "Would the spirit bring back the table?" and immediately the table returned. There were no more bounds to enthusiasm; they fell on their knees, singing a song of thanksgiving, to which the table was associated by beating the measure with its foot.
Finally the spirits had found docile hearts, and delivered the secret of communicating with them. They had complained so far about public unbelief and the lack of care that they took to publish their revelations. The first convinced and conquered, Catherine and Marguerite Fox, had already begun their lucrative tours across the United States in August 1848. But they were not to maintain the monopoly of these manifestations; many of the followers they soon enjoyed the privilege of entering into contact with the spirits. Finally the tables put this gift at the reach of everyone, the day when the spirits IV 20
These kinds of furniture are preferred to be located. Upon learning of the scene of Rochester, several tried to put themselves through this process in communication with invisible beings, and the tables also turned under their hands. Everyone then mingled, and it was among the Americans as a new religion, which in 1853 already had five hundred thousand followers, under the name of spiritualists or spiritists. On April 17, 1854, the Senate of Washington received a petition, signed by 15,000 citizens, asking it to appoint a scientific commission to examine and study these facts!
II. — From America the dance of the tables passed to Europe in late 1852, in Scotland first, then to London, Bremen, Berlin, Paris and throughout France, where, as early as May 1853, it became the favorite recreation of societies and, among scholars, the subject of systematic denials and interpretations.
1 The undersigned, citizens of the United States of America, respectfully expose to your honourable body that certain physical and intellectual phenomena, of dubious origin and mysterious tendency, have recently manifested themselves in this country and in almost all parts of Europe. The following is an imperfect summary:
4° An occult force, s Pori to stir, lift or hold a large number of heavy bodies...
2° Flashes or lights of various shapes and colours appearing in dark rooms...;
3° Extremely frequent noises in their repetition, strangely varied in their character and more or less significant in their importance. It is sometimes mysterious hits (rapings) that seem to indicate the presence of an invisible intelligence; sometimes sounds similar to those that sound in the workshops of different mechanical professions, or the strident voices of winds and waves, and the cracks of the mast and hull of a ship fighting against a violent storm; sometimes bursting detonations similar to thundering or artillery discharges... In other circumstances, harmonious sounds charm the ear, such as human voices, and more often as chords of several musical instruments, such as the fife, drum, trumpet, guitar, harp and piano. All these sounds were mysteriously produced... without any appearance of human competition or other visible agent.
The process was very simple. The three-footed healers were the favourite subjects of these experiments; after them, the honours were in the hats t. But after them also came the large tables, the billiards, and more often, in small committee, the baskets, the vases, all furniture, finally whose flared shape was suitable for the circular imposition of the hands. There above all was the secret. The experimenters simultaneously rested their hands * on the edges of the instrumented object, juxtaposing them by the simple touch of the little finger to the neighbouring hands, so as to form together an unbroken circular chain. We stayed in this attitude until the table, vase, hat moved in, and then we followed him or we stopped him at his will, we asked him by agreeing to signs of the answer. Once the chain was broken, the prodigy stopped.
After a first dance, the tables often went on their own, or a single friendly hand was enough to get them in the air. In addition to a house, after being joyfully lit up, they ended up in alarms and determined the importunities of the strikers.
This is something worthy of note, indeed, which, in our view, gives a great light to the character of these demonstrations.
1 This is how Mr. In May 1853, Eugène Guinot, the country's soapist, described the new pleasures of Paris society: "The carnival has just reopened, the balls are starting again more numerous, more ardent than in the beautiful days of winter, but with a slight change. In these strange and new dances, dancers are tables, dancers are hats... Table balls and hats, that's the great news, the only story of the week, and of course we rarely had such curious ones. The tables dance, turn, valorize, polarize, mazurkent; they make the evaporates, the coquettes, the quivering, and the hats are their worthy riders. It's all about touching them with your fingers, to put in a good mood, joy and dance, these wooden ladies and beaver gentlemen. Making tables and hats turn, dance and jump, this is the unique, passionate, delusional occupation that Paris, France and the whole of Europe have been engaged in for a few days."
The table movement, preceded in America by the intervention of the spirits, returned to Europe at the same point of departure. The tables were first rotated, then questioned by the number of strokes they were to strike, then the idea came to frame the strokes with the letters of the alphabet, and so the writing was done; soon a pen was fixed, a pencil at the foot of the table.
and the table wrote his answers. After first incubation, a table often went by itself without any need for any contact of the hands, and only she also answered questions with her foot, either by striking or writing. A simple plank substituted at the table and equipped with a pencil, not only responded, but wrote incredible things that no one thought to ask. Finally, the plank itself disappears, and a medium, that is, a person sympathetic to the spirits, arming pens or pencils, traces wonderful revelations, without even paying attention to what she writes, without being aware of it, sometimes in a language unknown to her. More than that, it will be enough to place white paper under the base of a statue, on a tomb, in a cassette, in a locked cabinet; after some time the sheet is loaded with a writing drawn by an invisible hand. America was already practicing this kind of direct communication, when, in 1856, the Baron of Guldenstubbe! put him on the rise in Paris, not without meeting unbelievers?.
Thus, the rotating tables, emerging in America from spiritism, end up in Europe with spiritism: spiritism is, at their point of departure and point of arrival, as their only reason for being. If the primary cause
1 Spiritual Review, 2nd year, p. 207 and 208.
2? Cf. Ficurer, Hist. of the wonderful, t. 4 p. 364. — Goucenor DES MOUS- SEAUX, The Magic in the 19th century, ch. 3 p. 127.
MISCELLANEOUS OPINIONS 309 The final effect is extrahuman, and the phenomenon associated with it is likely to be indissoluble.
Direct trade with spirits is one of the forms of evocation; we will talk about it in the following chapters. At present we have to appreciate the amazing phenomenon of rotating, dancing, speaking, writing tables.
IT. — First of all, we do not believe that a serious and sincere man can question the reality of the facts. The game of rotating tables is hardly any more fashion today, but those who saw these phenomena, took part in them, controlled them in any way, are our contemporaries, it is ourselves, representatives of the mature age or old age. These innumerable and irrefutable testimonies of the living, articles in newspapers and magazines, brochures and books, whatever the spirit and interpretations, establish the full reputation of the facts. I had to have Mr. Littré! was hallucinated by his positivism to see in these experiences multiplied, palpable, accessible to all senses, only an effect of imagination or a disorder of organs.
IV. — The facts admitted, it remains to be explained. The inert matter is powerless to give itself movement; therefore, an extrinsic motor must be sought.
The explanations so far imagined are reduced to the next three.
According to the first, the printed impulse would be due to a muscle push of the operators.
The second attribute the movement to an electric fluid, magnetic or special, which escapes from the hands and obeys the whims of the will.
1 Revue des Deux-Mondes, 15 Feb. 1856.
The third uses the intervention of invisible agents distinct from man. These agents, according to the spiritists, would be good or bad angels, purified souls or even in trial, for in their new gospel there is no eternal reprobation. The Catholic theologians who impute these manifestations to the spirits, hold that these spirits are, not faithful angels, not the souls of the dead, but the demons enemies of God and man, liars, corrupters, irremediably degraded and reprimanded.
For anyone who has seen or studied seriously the facts involved, the theory of muscle action is not sustainable. If operators are aware of the movement they print, science no longer has to intervene; it is only a matter of taxation. In Europe, in America, these thousands of actors who affected the fever of the rotating tables and spent days and nights making them dance and talk, pretended to be admired for the pleasure of making fools! — "Thinking this is obviously being fooled by themselves.
Also, with the possible exception of Mr. Bersot t, whose serious work is to turn the belief in the supernatural, the supporters of the muscle thrust into ridicule: MM. Babinet?
1 Mesmer and animal magnetism, 2° P., § 4, p. 167: The French public is very confused by the new phenomena... He's also very divided. There are believers, and there are many of them in every degree, from fanatics to this person who, after the greatest success near a table, said carelessly: "I think I'm pushing a bit..." There are the curious... There's the laughs... There are people in a bad mood... There are also people who alternately observe, laugh and get angry, depending on the encounters and the arrangement of the moment. — (Mr. Bersot is certainly not among the fanatics, nor among the people of bad mood. His place would be among the curious, "convinced that new phenomena are an illusion", and mainly among the laughs.)
2 Revue des Deux-Mondes, 15 January 1854, p. 408-419: If there's something established in mechanics and physiology, it's that the nascent movements are not very extensive, but irresistible, etc. etc.
MISCELLANEOUS OPINIONS 311 Chevreul!, Faraday?, M. Figuier? himself, who, in fact connoisseur, makes a very wide part of charlatanism, but dares not relate everything to this unique cause, they bring back their theory, with variants that do not change the substance, to an unconscious impulse.
To be truly scientific, theory must be appropriate to all the facts; but the facts for the most part resist the theory of organic thrust. The truth is that the experimenters barely touched the table with their hands, and often however the table walked with such a training that they could barely follow it. Not only were operators aware that they were not acting in proportion to the movement produced, but, in many meetings, they tried vainly to resist it, and in this struggle, the table was seen more than once to break. Extremely heavy or heavy tables, billiards themselves, have been set in motion; and they would like to explain such effects by imperceptible and unconscious impulses. * Finally, would it be enough for all
1 Of the divine wand, of the pendulum explorer, and of the tables of the tower, p. 217.
2 See Bersor, Mesmer, p. 199.
3 Merceill Hist., t. 4 p. 311: This is, in its most succinct sharpness, this theory of unconscious action of muscle movements. Is it enough to explain the rotation of a large dining table, or even a refectory, or that of a healer loaded with a weight of seventy-five kilograms? That's not our opinion... The mechanical effect produced is out of proportion to the cause. (Further, p. 320, Mr. Figuier will fall back in full into the theory he resents here.)
4 Letter from Mr. Seguin, engineer, to Mr. Moigno (May 24, 1853), cited by M. de Mirville, Les œuvres, c. 12 p. 436: How do you want, when the table, touched very lightly with your fingertips, makes an effort against my hand and against my legs, to the point of repelling me and almost breaking, that I may believe that the person who imposes his hands communicates to him an impulse capable of such an effort? And when I am this person, how do you want me to accept your explanation?... So accept frankly, courageously, the facts as they are... The explanation will come later, be sure. Believe firmly
come to denounce, the theory of muscle actions, conscious or unconscious, is absolutely incapable of giving reason to the determined movements, without contact or motion, of spontaneous dance of the tables, of the answers that no actor could suggest, of writing with or without imposition of hands.
This interpretation therefore remains below its task,
V. — The theory of fluid became common from the first invasion of the rotating tables, and appeared a natural explanation of the prodigy. It was a fact of experience that some people, especially the most nervous, and therefore preferably the women, were able to quickly and effectively hold on to the healers and hats: they had fluid; others, on the contrary, seemed unfriendly and powerless, and the tables refused to turn or turned only to regret under their hands: they lacked fluid.
Count Agénor of Gasparin was the main champion of fluidic emanation, and tried to demonstrate it through numerous, varied, conscientious experiences, made
that there is in this phenomenon of rotating tables something more than what you see in it, a physical reality, apart from the imagination and faith of the one who makes them move.
1 EuGene GuinorT, Country Order already cited: Among the spectators who make tapestry at the table ball and hats, are the incredulous and the old. People who have reached 50 years of age are excluded from these experiences, as if they were incapable. At this age, we no longer have the fluid needed to animate a piece of wood, not even to cause the slightest emotion to a simple silk hat. It's about this ball as it is about all the others, the party belongs to the youth. The younger they are, the younger they are, the more they fly, the more we look for them to activate the dance. Nervous women have a lot of fun in these trials. Thirty-year-olds bring valuable help by their strength of character and the energy of their will, when they are provided with these advantages... Just as in the past housewives used to have dancers, they are now worried about having people who can do the tables well... They only ask: Is it good for table dancing?Does it have a lot of fluid? — It is the essential quality now to shine in a living room, to contribute to the brilliance of an evening.
by himself and by his hosts, in his castle of Vallègres. This vital agent, which would print their agitations to the tables, does not differ substantially, according to Mr. de Gasparin, from the principle of magnetism'. At the bottom, it is not important to determine the nature of this human fluid, which, by escaping from the fingers, moves and shakes the tables. Vital, nervous, electrical, magnetic, odilated?, the question is whether it is sufficient to give reason for the facts he claims to explain.
The simple movement of rotation or translation at the touch of the hands, without any indication of intelligence, could perhaps result from the unconscious emission of a vital fluid, provided however that there is a proportion between the object and the physical forces of the operators. The concession can extend to cases where the table, questioned, responds by agreed movements to what the interrogators already know *, to the very many cases of error, and even to those where the answer is yes or no, because there is equal chance of falling ill and meeting just. If the phenomenon stopped there, the theory of fluid might be sufficient to explain it.
It extends further. After walking under the imposition of hands, the tables come into motion without any visible motor, and even against the will of those who have moved them first. In addition, they do not only give false or unlearned answers; they are agitating with all the appearances of intelligence, will,
1 De GaspariN, Rotating tables, t. 4 p. 75: I just pronounced the password, and it will have awakened in the reader the idea of animal magnetism. Nothing is more like magnetic operations than the march of our chain, all hands extended and seeking to determine the lifting of the table.
2 Rocers, Philos. of mysterious agents. Boston, 1853, p. 263. — See. Gov- Gexor of the Moussrals, Mors and practices of demons, ch. 22, p. 340.
3 See. Ma Turcron, Arch. de Québec, commissioned by Friend , March 16, 1854.
passion, in turn joyful, caressing, impatient, furious. What does the fluid do here, so fluid there is? How is it transmitted without any physical contact, at a distance and against the desires of the will? How, emanating from man and without the help of man, does he produce on the table what man with all the application of his mind is incapable of realizing? Where is the physical proportion between the effect and the cause assigned to it?
Of course, for a calm spirit, free of prejudice, which is not concerned to escape at all costs to the so dreaded solution of the supernatural, for this spirit, the proportion does not exist between the effects that we have just spoken of and the so-called human fluid.
And that we do not think of avoiding this argument, in our opinion, absolutely rigorous, by rejecting ourselves on magnetism, where remote action is ostensibly exercised. We will discuss this order of phenomena, and again we will refuse to admit to man such a virtue as natural. We maintain the present conclusions with all the more firmness as the magnetic relations between human beings and human beings are absolutely conceived by intellectual and moral communication, while the relations of this kind are meaningless between man on the one hand and blind, inanimate and inert matter on the other.
VI. — Fluid emanation therefore does not explain the facts as a whole, and in order to be right of most, it is necessary to resort to a whole other causality, to an extrinsic causality to the object moved, and different from man, active, intelligent, superhuman. Thus, we return to the hypothesis that attributes these facts to invisible agents near man and haunting the world he lives in.
At this point, the solution no longer presents any difficulties in the
For these beings wandering in the human world to produce manifestations which intrigue man, which amuse him, fear him, deceive him at their whims, cannot be faithful angels, messengers of God and friends of man; nor are they, we said, in dealing with the identity of spirits in the evocations, souls of the dead, but purely and simply demons.
VII. — This conclusion is consistent with the bishops' ordinances, and formulates the doctrine commonly received among the Catholic authors who have dealt with these matters.
As early as 1853, the bishop of Viviers, who had become Cardinal Guibert ', archbishop of Paris, pointed with rare precision to the character and dangers of the rotating tables. A few months later, the learned bishop of Le Mans, M. Bouvier?, in turn, rejected this new form.
1 Pastoral letter on the danger of the experiences of the talking tables, 27 Nov. 1853. Pastoral Works. t. 1, p. 382-393: For quite a long time now, our dear co-operators, we have been very concerned in the world with strange phenomena that we don't know which mysterious agent, and which we believe to obtain by imposing hands in a certain way on tables or even on other furniture. These tables move, wave in a variety of ways, without apparent impulsive cause, and respond, it is said, by means of signs agreed in advance, to the various questions addressed to them... What, in the original, seemed only a fun physics game, looks quite like today to the mysterious operations of magic, divination or necromancy... You will use all the efforts of your priestly zeal, and, above all, the authority of your example, to remove from these damnable practices all those of your parishioners who would be reckless enough to deliver.
2 Circular letter of 14 Feb. 1854: It has been said that the tables, being interviewed, have very intelligently responded, by means of blows or other sensitive movements, to the questions addressed to them. The facts seemed so extraordinary and absurd to us, that we began by absolutely denying them. But they multiply in such a way, are attested by so many reliable people, who certainly do not want to deceive and have taken all possible precautions to not be soaked themselves, that we no longer see way to deny them again; otherwise we should doubt everything: for facts, clothed with these condi-
, which his Theology had not planned. The bishops of Autun, Cambrai, Rouen, Marseilles, Verdun, Alby, Rennes, Dijon, Orléans, Poitiers, and successively a large number of others prohibit these practices in their respective dioceses.
Apart from the theologians, who in their general treatises classified the phenomena of the rotating tables among the forms of superstition and magic, among others Perrone t, Martinet?, Gury è and his commentator Ballerini *, Vincent *, several priests and religious have specially discussed this matter and conclude to the diabolical intervention; let us mention the Abbés Bautain ©, Thiboudet 7, Lecanu 8, Poussin °, the PP. Matignon "and Pailloux. " Christian laymen have contributed to this study by their science, their own observations, and, through the abundance of details and evidence, have made our most obvious thesis. As early as 1854, M. Bénézet, editor of the Gazette du Languedoc, gave the signal, and, as he told it,
, are elevated to the degree of historical certainty... So we cannot, N. T. C. F., that condemning any participation in these superstitious practices, which seem destined to be the shame of modern unbelief, such as convulsions and convulsions, with their incredible follies, were the reproach of Jansenism.
1 De virt Religionis, Pa 2, 8 2, c. 6, pr. 3 p. 303.
2 Theol. moral, 1. 2, a.9, 8 3, t. 1, p. 519.
3 Comp. moral theol.: Tract. de præc. Decal. Appendix 1, n. 273-278, teå, p. 204.
4 Ibid., note a. ]
8 Comp. universe. theolog.: Tr. de Præceptis,n. 116-118, t.5, p. 389.
6 Notice to Christians on the Turning and Speaking Tables, 1853.
T Spirits and their relationship to the visible world according to tradition, 1854.
8 History of Satan, ch. 20, p. 448. Note F, p. 494.
9 Spiritism, ch. 5, p. 295.
10 The question of the supernatural, ch. 9, p. 542-565. — The living and the dead.
11 Magnetism, spiritism, and possession.
12 Round tables and pantheism, 1854.
O oo © 907 as a loyal man, his personal experiences, he had enough to convince the most unbelieving. After him, we must mention Messrs. de Mirville ‘, Gougenot des Mousseaux?, Bizouard *, Hippolyte Blanc +, Albert Duroy de Bruignac ÿ.
VIII. — In summary, here is our last word on the rotating tables. The facts, even in what they present most prodigiously, seem to us beyond dispute: they are denied only to escape conclusions that are feared. Attributing them indistinctly to the imposture, appearing to admit them, is to deny them again. Theories that try to explain them by an unconscious muscle impulse are incomplete, free, childish, contrary to experience. The purely physical agitations at the touch of hands could absolutely come from a vital emanation; but the movements that no real influence of man could determine, the intellectual manifestations that exceed human capacity, escape this interpretation and accuse the presence of invisible motors, which can only be evil spirits.
And that we do not see any inconsistency in our feeling, in that, on the one hand, we agree that the phenomenon at its beginning could be human and natural, and that, on the other hand, we relate its continuation to a foreign intervention and superior to man, for, it is the proper of the perfidious angel and liar to cover his game in order to deceive man better. Now, the finest way to make illusion, is not to take man on the borders of his nature, where his forces are still exercised, to lead him unsensitized on a terrain that is no longer his own, and where action
1 Spirits, ch. 12 p. 407-455.
2 Morals and practices of demons, ch. 17-93.
3 Man's Relationship with the Devil, 1. 31-33, t. 6. 4 The Wonderful, 1. 5, p. 299-400.
5 Satan and the magic of our days.
Overstepping human forces, Satan enters the scene and opens a new order that seems to be the natural continuation of an order that ends?
These arguments have already been invoked in the discussion and appreciation of hypnotic phenomena: the situations being the same, it is no wonder that the argumentation is also so.
For all these reasons, we take the game of rotating and talking tables as illegal. From its point of departure to its peak, the phenomenon is clearly of origin and of evil institution, and assuming that the first step is still taking place in human order, one is soon led and trained in an order that is no longer so. Finally, while it is certain that the last operations are Satan's work, it is hardly probable that the first ones can be man's work. In these terms, the most complacent theology cannot authorize these practices.
Spiritism is originally linked to the rotating tables.—The facts, as a whole, are unquestionable.—Home and Allan Kardec.—The causality of these phenomena goes back to the demon.—The professed doctrines accuse the same provenance.—The personalities mentioned are the lying angels.—Episcopal decisions.
I. — Spiritism is clearly of a demonyc origin. By giving it place among the analogies of mysticism, we wanted to attach it to the rotating tables, which it was falsely claimed, of course, to bring back to the eccentric natural phenomena. It is not by the rotating tables that spiritism must be appreciated, but rather by spiritism that one must judge the rotating tables to which it has served as a prelude, and of which it is the spontaneous extension.
We saw that before we felt the table shaking under their hands, the Fox ladies of America had had a visit of spirits, striking and speaking spirits.
As soon as the dance of tables, guerdons and hats had taken its vogue, questions and communications with interlocu-
Mysterious drivers, either directly or with the help of
media outlets that were described as mediums. The table was abandoned: a new world opened up to unhealthy curiosity.
For a long time the usual process of entering into contact with the spirits was the writing: the medium sank with a pencil, with a feather, and began to write, with a feverish speed, without any awareness of what he wrote. The finished operation, we read: they were pages followed, bearing the trace and the statements of invisible agents who recorded their profession of faith, gave advice, contradicted common ideas, questioned revealed dogmas, expressly denied them, and freely divagued. At the end of the tirades was the signature of the greatest names: Jesus Christ, John, Paul, Augustine, Socrates, Plato.
The gifted subject of this faculty has received, we have said, the name of medium, because it serves as an intermediary and as an intermediary between the mind and the human public.
Later, the medium will operate without the use of writing, as a visionary and mediator, transmitting requests and answers, or causing extrahuman manifestations.
This role of the medium is closely related to that of the magnetized or hypnotized subject. It can be seen as the central and common point where the transcendent phenomena of these orders, seemingly diverse, come together and identify; It is like the confluence where these waters come down from the same slope, but divided into multiple streams. At this precise point, accuses the intervention of an invisible operator, who is always the same, because there can be no other, disloyal spirit, enemy of man and God. The spirit-to-spirit relationship that is made by suggestion is established with beings
spiritual neighbors of man and ready to establish a relationship with him.
"The study of magnetism and hypnotism," says Gibier, "is, in a way, an entry into the field of preparation for the study of the facts due to the psychic force, as well as the appointment of the special agent who presides over so-called spiritualist phenomena, and they surprise less after the observation of the former."
From the Potet and, more recently, Ch. Richet, one and the other materialists first, like Paul Gibier, came to experimentally demonstrate the action of an invisible agent, one in magnetic operations, the other in the scenes of spiritism.
"Magnetic science," observes P. Touroude?, has not made great progress since Mesmer, and it rotates in a very small circle. It has changed names, modified or discovered some processes, methodically classified phenomena; but in essence, despite all the publications, it still remains in magnetism, hypnotism and spiritism, which in itself is only a variant, a large number of inexplicable phenomena, and the root cause is always as mysterious." 3
Spiritism, at least, goes from a leap to the invisible world that surrounds Phomme; it is not a mystery of facts or doctrines; but it is important to see the starting point and the point of arrival, as well as the intermediates. It is easy to see that the rotating tables have inaugurated spiritism and that through the median operations lhypnotism opens mysterious corridors on the occultism. It is therefore wrong to advocate a hypno-
i Spiritism, Introd. p. vu. 2 L-Hypnotism, p. 49. IV 21
This is a clear approach; the mixture exists and constitutes an element of appreciation.
II. — We wanted to challenge these facts for not having to confess their magical character. Denials are now in vain that spiritism multiplies its sessions and experiences everywhere. This return to occultism had an unexpected and valuable effect: the experimental demonstration of the world of spirits. Several scholars, inclined to materialistic opinions, examined and discussed the facts, and the result was that they attested to invisible agents different from man.
Let's hear about a stubborn Rouergat, known in the scientific world as Dr. J.-P. Philips, by his real name, Mr. Durand (of Gros), — there is so much Durand in France! — that loyal study has come a little closer, but which is still far from the Catholic faith:
"The spiritic phenomenon of automatic writing," said this learned elucubrator +, "has focused first of all the attention of our tellers. The hand of a medium, armed with a pencil or feather, is placed on a sheet of white paper. Soon she starts moving, she writes, and the page is filled. The written thus obtained has a meaning, it is readable and intelligible. However, the medium assures — and one can have the proof that it is true — that, throughout this graphic exercise, his hand was insensitive, that it was not activated by his will, and that the thoughts thus rendered did not emanate from his mind; that, in a word, he remained, from the beginning to the end, totally unconscious of the operation in intelligent and voluntary appearance whose hand was the instrument. Such a phenomenon has now fallen into the public domain, so to speak, as much as it is
1 The Wonderful Scientist, p. 324.
and contesting the reality of it is more possible.
"For those who hold spiritism, this fact attests to the intervention of a spirit, that is, of the soul of a deceased who returns from the other world (which may well not be located far from it), which has temporarily replaced the soul of the living to animate his hand and serve in his place.
"This spiritual hypothesis was first declared absurd, and ruled out with a deep disdain, by physiologists of radical materialism, such as Professor Ch. Richet, of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris, and Lombroso, of the Faculty of Medicine of Turin; and by rationalist philosophers, such as Professors Pierre Janet, of the University of France, Gurney, Podmore, Myers, of Cambridge University, etc. These scientists have all agreed to explain the strange physiopsychological phenomenon by bringing it back to the law ordinary reflex acts, of which it would be only an exaggerated expression (?). From there came the doctrines of unconsciousness, subconsciousness and subliminary consciousness, which was discussed at length in another chapter. The prodigy of automatic writing thus lost its wonderful, and entered, as well as evil, into natural physiology and psychology.
"But soon Mr. Ch. Richet sees himself in the presence of a whole new form of phenomenon: the unconscious pen of the medium reveals the most secret thoughts of the assistants; and these assistants, on the other hand, make write this same pen, — always held by the medium, — under their tacit dictation; that is, they make him write what they want, nothing but by thinking the ideas they desire him.
1 Ibid., p. 228: Mr. Myers defines his subliminary consciousness.. This portion of ourselves that lies below the threshold of ordinary consciousness!
to have these ideas and intent expressed, and although they are not previously manifested by any words, by any gesture, or by any sensitive sign.
"In front of this new property of the "median"- "mical" state, the physiology of reflex movements, even with the reinforcement of the unconscious, subconscious and subliminary conscious, must recognize itself as incompetent, absolutely incompetent; and then one must resort to another hypothesis, that of an invisible agent of intercerebral communication, that is, of a new, mysterious, occult force, which each one baptizes in his own way, one naming it "psychic", another "ecte- "neic", a third "telepathic".
"However, our scientists were not at the end of their astonishment and embarrassment. Now the medium's hand is warning to write in the name of so-called dead people, who give their signature at the bottom with their last address in this world. They enter into detailed and precise details about their person, their life, their family; and, verified, all these details are correct, although they were ignored by the medium and by all those present!
"The psychic, eccentric, telepatic, etc. force is undoubtedly a necessary and legitimate hypothesis to represent the mechanism of the strange communications involved. But, if one can vaguely explain the eransmission of thought, that's all: wanting to attribute to this hypothetical physical agent the conception of thought would be just as unreasonably unreasonable as considering telegraphic electricity as the very writer of the telegram. So the messages written by the medium's hand, which relate exactly a whole chain of particular facts ignored by him and his entourage, and of which no known living person recognizes himself as the sender, the sup-
seem to be an occult correspondent, whose quality has yet to be established."
II. — Daniel Douglas Home‘ had a resounding celebrity in this order of prestige. He told himself his story and his prowess?. His actions and gestures recorded in the book of his revelations, and, confirmed by witnesses of these fantastic scenes, reproduce all demonic manifestations. Pleasant concerts and tumultuous noises, light and meteors, shaking tables, furniture, walls and the ground, secret sensations, invisible communications and touching, colloquiums and external visions, uprisings and space flight: these are the phenomena that this famous medium has offered the spectacle in America, France, England, Italy, Russia. The sessions given to the Tuileries in the presence of Emperor Napoleon II, Empress and chosen assistance made a profound sensation.
Another spiritist, Allan Kardec, pseudonym of Mr. Duvoille, former pension master in the suburbs of Paris, is to doctrine and methods what Home was to experiment. His numerous publications have made a great contribution to accrediting these mistakes and harmful practices.
The sessions given in Milan by knight Ercole Chiaia and a first-rate medium, Mrs.Eusapia Paladino, under the direction of Mr. Aksakof, in the presence of
1 Born in Edinburgh in 1833, died in Auteuil in 1886.
2 Revelations on my supernatural life, Paris, 1863, in-12, 336 p.
3 , — , — , containing the principles of the spirit doctrine on the immortality of the soul, the nature of the spirits and their relationship with men, the moral laws: the present life, the future life and the future of humanity, according to the teaching given by the higher spirits and with the help of various mediums, etc...
valuable that all precautions seem to have been taken to prevent fraud. Everything is gathered together with a lively table, extra-lucid hypnosis, fantastic appearances, manifestations of invisible agents, thus leading to occultism. We cannot reproduce here the details of these experiments; but we refer to the true report in the appendix at the end of the volume. It is sufficient to point out here the association and complicity of elements which one would like natural in a coefficient which is not.
Seeing himself in such bad company and contributing, for his part, to a preternatural and magically apparent result, the R. P. Will Coconnier cease to believe in the purity, the frankness of his client, the hypnotism, and will P finally give up defenceless, to his sad fate?
IV. — We must attribute to these facts their genuine origin and their true causality.
In whatever form it occurs, spiritism betrays its evil provenance by the character of its phenomena, by its doctrine, by its results.
In the face of the wonders of which spiritism gives the spectacle, all rationalistic interpretations to award them to man and to visible operators fail; one is forced to come to an occult agent who is evidently revealed by his actions. Man cannot write in the state of watch, without being aware of it, against the consciousness he does not write, without knowing what he writes, by consigning what he does not know, what he never knew. We can give learned names to these situations: Man is only witness and fool, but not true actor; he is another, veiled, exceeding man, who intervenes.
Experiments by sincere scientists,
HIS honest DOCTRINES, though refractory to the supernatural, have led to this conclusion: spiritism presupposes an invisible, occult operator, a spirit.
This spirit, we will say just now what it is; we are in full magic, and the agent of magic, it is the fallen angel and tempter.
V. — Theories dictated by the spirits tend to nothing less than to overthrow Christianity in its fundamental dogmas, to rehabilitate the demon, to suppress hell or at least to reject the eternity of punishment, to introduce the worship of nature, to deny the personal divinity of Jesus Christ, to free from the Church and faith in the name of conscience and reason, to contradict the stability and perpetuity of Catholic institutions by the law of human perfection and progress; in a word, it is a new gospel that claims to replace the Gospel that preached the apostles in the name of Jesus Christ, and Saint Paul said to the Galatians: "If no one, we or an angel of heaven would come to bring you a Gospel other than that which we have preached to you, whether it be anathema."
In summary, this is the spirit doctrine, according to Fr. Cute °: "The spirits that communicate with us are but the souls of the dead. These souls, freed from the flesh of which they were once clothed, are not, however, completely devoid of body, they retain a semi-material envelope which is called perisprit, and which, in Pétat d'union, performed the functions of intermediate between the two parts of man. At the time of death, this perished follows the soul and does not separate itself from it. (it is by this means that it can still act on the matter and enter into contact with
1 Gale 189. 2 The Question of the Supernatural, ch. 9, p. 545-547, 2nd ed.
. Moreover, the greater or lesser dematerialization of spirits constitutes their degree of purity and goodness, and it is according to this measure that one can establish the scale of their perfection.
"All spirits are called to perfect purity, and they will achieve it infallibly one day; only their progress is more or less rapid, and it depends on their free will. God, who wants to bring them all to the blessed life, has laid down for each one a series of tests graduated according to their efforts: these are all successive incarnations, destined to purify them more and more; when they have reached the perfect clearance, they enter into this blessed life, which is not an idle contemplation, but an active exercise of their faculties; the Creator employs them as his ministers in the government of the universe.
"This is the idea that spiritism gives us the human condition and the nature of the spirits with which it claims to connect us. We can easily see its main dogmas:
"10 God is the creator of all things.
20 Spirits are all of the same nature; the difference between them is that some are more clean, others are more attached to matter.
"30 The future life consists of a series of bodily existences that will succeed to the present existence; each of them will be determined by the merits acquired in the one which laundered; we will go to perfection from life to life, from world to world, until we reach a definitive condition, that is to say, eternal happiness.
"4° In the interval between death and reincarnation, souls, in the state of mind, are wandering around us; they populate the atmosphere where we are; this
;; They are the ones who speak to us, God allowing us to teach us about our duties. But, as they are more or less advanced in the way, many, still completely unclean, seek only to deceive us; others, on the contrary, reveal to us only what must be useful to us. They must be judged according to their teaching; an infallible criterion to appreciate them is their impulse towards good."
The proper character of this doctrine is elasticity, variability, contradictions, relative apology of yes and no, of pro and con.
Spirits still mislead men by their perfidious suggestions. Not content to affirm, for example, that Pindissolubility of marriage is contrary to the natural order!, they advise such a person to break up a first union and to contract another one that is in the vow of his passions?. To others, exalted by the dreams of an ascending metempsycosis, they imply that the time of transmigration has come and that they must, through suicide, put an end to the present test ê.
These spirits come, with the reckless who evoke them, to shameful licenses that fully confirm the fact of incubic turpitudes. The indecentness of our readers and the respect that we owe ourselves, we defend ourselves from addressing the details {.
1 ALLAN Kaardec, the Book of Spirits, n. 697, p. 297.
2? Cf. Ficuxer, History of the Wonderful, t. 4 p. 238.
3 See. WHITE Hrppozyte, the Wonderful, 5, c. 1, p. 361-364.
4 Revus, Spiritualist Review, t. 2, 1859, p. 254: "Some other time we witnessed much more extraordinary things. But here, I don't know if I have to say everything. Close minds will accuse me of indiscretion or falsehood. The facts are strange and delicate in nature: some will believe them proper to spiritualism. But is it harming spiritualism to tell the truth, good as well as evil, so that the light may be done, that everyone may warn himself against the dangers of communications which are not new, which have been revoked in doubt, but whose whole antiquity and the middle age have resounded? So here are the facts in
All their truth, except some reticences that the duties of publicity impose on me, etc..." — (That's enough for us!)
To these perils for faith and morals, we must add the brain disturbances that these kinds of experiences determine in large numbers. Most spiritists end up in madness.
VI. — As these evocations are supposed to take place, what should we think of the various personalities who seem to appear there? What is the occult agent that manifests itself in spiritism?
It is well known, first of all, that these kinds of wonders are not divine in origin, but come from the region of evil. These spirits beyond are therefore neither blessed nor angels of heaven; nor are they souls of purgatory, which in no way belong to satanic authority. So it can only be said of the damned and the demons themselves.
We have said, speaking of the different objects of supernatural vision, that damned people rarely appear, and only to instruct or frighten the living. The demon does not have the power to bring these souls out of the abyss and to produce them at his will, and it is even less permissible that they may, from their own motion, respond to any requisition part of the human world!. So it's not the souls of the dead that go back to the soms of the magicians?
1 Suarez, de Relig., Tr. 3.1. €2. 16, n. 44, t. 13, p. 579: Licet dæmon naturali virtute posit animam separatam loco movere, etiam coactam, tamen secundum legem a Deo statam hoc ei non permittitur, quia in animas sanctas nullam habet potitatem, quod de caelestibus est clarum. Same vero is certum of animabus purgatorii, quia lex divina est, ut inde non exeant, donec solvent, and tunc recta tensive in coelum; nect dæmones habitent in illas animas potostatem ullam. Quod so strong aliqua aliqua illarum inde permittitur exire, solum is ex speciali dispensatione divina, pertinetque ad ejus gratiam et libertatem, non ad magiam. Anime vero inferni ita sunt ex lege Dei alligatæ loco et igni inferni, ut nec sua nec dæmonum omnium voluntate inde exire valeant.
2 Simon Maroro, Dies canicules, colloq. 3, t. 2, p. 237: Nec distinctæ semel a corporibus and collocatæ in definitas sedes redeunt, if revocator,
The result of the magical evocations thus remains entirely in the account of the lying angels. They alone have, with the knowledge of the dead whom they represent, these appearances which delude those who question them and take, depending on the occurrences, such form or name, having only a constant purpose in their sensitive interventions to men, that of deceiving them and losing them? The illusion and the lie continue in these corpses that revive, speak and move under the magical conjurations. We have already seen that God alone has the power to bring life back. There is therefore no real resurrection there, but only prestige due to the momentary action of demons on these human remains.
VII. — On this point, and in everything concerning the proven phenomena of spiritism, there cannot be hesitation among Christians who hear the things of faith, and the crime of trading with lost angels and workers of perdition. Shared on the
magorum obtestationibus aut adjurationibus, ut persuasum erat ethnocis, sed ascititia se illarum imagine ostentatious daemones.
1 S. Tuomas, Sum., 4 P., q. 89, a. 8, ad 2: Quod mortui vitinibus apparent qualityrcumque, vel contingit per specialem Dei dispensationem ut animæ mortuorum rebus vitrium intersint, and is inter divina miracula computandum; vel hujusmodi apparitiones fiunt per operations angelorum bonorum vel malorum, etiam ignorantibus mortuis.
2 Lenmkuuz, Moral Theol., 1, p. 228: At quia ludira sunt atque fidei christianæ, imo sanæ rationis veritatum subversiva, manifesto neque Deum, neque bonos angelos sive animas sanctas pro auctoribus habere ulatenus posunt; ergo auctores habent spiritus malos ipsosque dæmones. Cur autem dicam ipsos dæmones, non animas defunctorum, non ea est ratio, quasi moralis æstimatio adeo sit diversa, prout unum vel alterum dineris (si quae enim animæ defunctorum sese immiscerent, certo certius ex numero repoborum essent), sed quia animæ damnatorum neque ex am viribus neque ex providentia divina communiter illam pompstatem habent humanis hujus vitae rebus sese immiscendi atque homines tentandi et seducendi, ut concessum est diabolo. Hujus igitur præstigia sunt, communiter saltem, etiam quando defuncti in humanis membris appears emptyur; ipsos defunctos sic appears, sane raro omnino fuerit exceptio.
TN E 5 a ) LT Life RE on AND ED a Taking:
causation of the movement of tables, Catholic theologians are unanimous on the character of spiritual practices: they see it as a manifest form of magic.
"Here," said Fr. Ballerini! at the beginning of his appreciation on spiritism, the most recent, but Undoubtedly the worst of superstitions, released in our times from hell for the ruin of souls." And he concludes that these consultations and questions are seriously unlawful, and that it is not even permissible to attend them with a purely passive presence.
1 Gury, Comp. Theol. Mor., De Præcept Decal., t. 1, Appendix m, n. 282: In reviews, sed omnium pessima superstitio, quae hoc ævo in perniciem animarum ab Orco exorta est.
Ab integro fere sæculo per totum orbem grassata fuerat immanis magnetismi luues. Subinde prodiere and percrebuere tabularum rotantium phænomena, quae varis motibus, quaestionibus sibi propositis de rebus occultis, etiam de statu animorum defunctorum responsa dabant. Siluere mox tabulae, seu paulo post seu nostris hisce temporibus, ab anno scilicet 1862, dæmones, qui homines per vaticinia somnantium et posta per responsa tabularum decepperant, ipsis per pythones seu personas intermedias (medium vocant) illudunt et insidiantur.
Sicautem spirituum consultatio habetur. Adis pythonem, cui significas id quod scire cupis de rebus omnino occultis, præsertim ad alteram vitam spectantibus. Ab eo interrogatur, te présente et audiente, aliquis spiritus, quasi sit anima quaepiam, quae ex hac vita jam migroverit, v. gr. anima patris tui, matris, sooris, etc. Ex response, quae dantur, minimal dubitare possess te vere cum defunctis carissimis colloquium habere. Isti enim plurima tibi renuncint, and quidem tibi soli nota, aliis vero prorsus ignota; imo ipso eorum pen responsa eduntur.
Hæc superstitio, prioribus multo pejor, heresim and impietatem magis adhuc redolet; evertit enim dogmata fidei nostræ inconcussa, præsertim, pænarum gehennæ æternitatem. Nam defuncti de status suo præsenti interrogate response se esse jam beatos vel a pænis mox liberandos, liket in infernum demersos se se non difiteantur.
Ex dictis satis patet spirituum consultem diabolicam esse et proprie dictam divinationem sacris Litteris tam severe prohibitam. Who consults spiritus, seu Spiritistæ, ut pestiferum errorem suum fabilius diffundant, suadente diabolo coaluerunt in sectam quae in dies magis præsertim in magnis civitatibus exprescit.
Porro, non solum graviter illicium is spiritus de occultis consulere et interrogatare, sed etiam consulti lilet mere passivæ interesse, siquidem est peccatum cooperationis rei intrinsecæ malæ.
Let us remember here that as soon as this superstitious game of rotating tables and the staging of spirits appeared, the bishops denounced its peril for faith and demonic character. One of the first, if not the first, Archbishop of Quebec, Mor Turgeon, signalled and condemned these practices almost at their beginning, in 1854, in a petition that had a great impact in the Catholic world, through the vigour of discussion and the authority of doctrine. The main passages in this master's paper are:
"Our pastoral responsibility, N. T. C. F., we do a duty to raise our voice today to warn you against a new means of seduction that P Spirit of Darkness wants to introduce among you, to mislead weak souls and bring them into sin. We want to talk about the criminal bus that we make of the rotating tables... We pretend to question these rotating tables and make them speak; we want to use them as a means to know the future and the most secret things, to evoke the souls of the dead, to force them to answer the questions we judge about doing them, to reveal the mysteries of the other world, to say everything we want them to say. So we let ourselves go to the most dangerous illusions, and Pon falls into a superstition whose consequences are terrible. This is the bus we want to resent. This is also the evil we are hastening to condemn and against which we want to protect you.
"And how can you not see that in this way you are going to question the wood or the spirits of the other world, you are seeking to revive in the midst of the Church of God the monstrous errors and damnable superstitions that always made the shame and misfortune of the heathen nations?
"What do you claim, when you speak to this moving table, and you ask for an answer?" Would you have believed that she can hear you, understand you, and that, more enlightened than you, she will read in your thoughts or reveal to you what you do not know? No, because you know she's not feeling and without intelligence. Would you claim to question the souls of the dead by this means? And so what are those souls you would like to relate to, and that you would have the presumption of forcing to come and answer your indiscreet questions? Would it be the souls of the reproved? But does not God put between these unhappy souls and you an immense chaos, which prevents them from hearing you, and does he not hold them in reserve, under the weight of the eternal chains of his righteousness, in the deep darkness where he has cast them out with the prevaricating angels, waiting for the great day of judgment!?
"Would it be the souls of God's chosen ones? But what! would you have been impitied to believe that you can commit:,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
"No, God's chosen ones are in his hand? And no one can delight him. Uniting closely with God, they see everything in God, they hear everything in God, they act only according to the will of God. They are our brothers, it is true, and God, in His mercy, wanted, for our comfort and happiness, that there should be holy communication between them and us. But this relationship and communication with just souls, we cannot
1 Jud., v, G. 2SAD TT, of 3 Joan., x, 28.
to bind and maintain them only by means of religion, which makes us praise God in his saints, and by humble and fervent prayers for the relief of those who are still in pain, or to implore the assistance of those who have entered into glory.
"What spirits would come to answer at these tables that are moving and knocking, to attest to their presence and interpret their thoughts? Would it be the unclean spirits, the angels of Satan?...
"But to have communication with the devil, to have recourse to this enemy of God and men, is this not to give him a kind of worship? This thought scares you and makes you shiver with horror. Yes, we know that. It is, however, N. T. C. F., the crime of those who, by any means whatsoever, persist in wanting to question the spirits, to know the things that God pleased to hide from us, since no spirit other than Satan can present himself to answer them...
"Conclude with us, therefore, that the use of these tables or any other object moving under the secret influence of an unknown cause, to consult the souls of the dead, or we do not know what other spirits, must be classified among the superstitious practices of their nature; and that you could not seriously do it without being guilty of a very serious fault in itself and in its consequences...
"What we want is to show you all that is superstitious and sacrilegious in the thought of using seriously rotating tables to evoke the dead and question the spirits... Finally, our intention is to open your eyes to the disastrous consequences of these practical culprits.
"They have already produced their death fruits and worthy of hell. What mistakes, what extravagances,
What crimes, what misfortunes did they not bring forth in our neighbours of the United States, where they first appeared! Already they have given birth to a sect of ungodly visionaries, whose whole religion seems to be confined to making a sacrilegious cult of spirits, with whom, in their fantastic illusion, they imagine to have a familiar business. Already the communications and revelations of these so-called spirits have brought, among this people, trouble in society, disunity in households, disorder and dishonor in families, and have ended up leading a multitude of people into the alienated asylums...
"To these causes..., 1° We renew the Church's defenses against superstitious practices; 20 We defend, as a superstitious practice, to rotate or strike tables or other objects, with the intention of invoking, consulting or communicating with the dead or spirits."
Nearly at the same time as the Canadian bishop, Bishop Guibert, then Bishop of Viviers, who died archbishop of Paris and cardinal of the Holy Church, published a petition, firmly motivated, reproving the practice of rotating tables and the interpellation of the invisible world of spirits, as tainted with superstition and full of dangers to religion and morality. But we would like to quote again the part of a synodal letter! by Bishop Pius, Bishop of Poitiers, whom his reputation of doctrine and his long services were to raise to purple, a letter addressed in December 1857 to his diocesan clergy, to notify him of several acts and decrees of apostolic authority. It summarizes the decisions of the Holy See, traditional teachings and common sense principles regarding communication with the spirits.
1 Works, $ LIT, p. 51.
CAR not TT
It is not any of you, gentlemen and dear cooperators, who would have heard about the rotating tables, the striking spirits, the various magnetic phenomena leading to fake sleepwalking and the clear intuition... We are not unaware that in recent times completely abusive and reprehensible practices have entered some houses, and we regret to learn that some clergymen have not remained entirely foreign to them. We do not want to omit, gentlemen, today to bring to your knowledge a recent encyclical of the Holy Office, directed against these guilty observances and addressed to all the bishops, with a formal injunction to "implement all means that pastoral care will suggest to them to stop and remove these abuses, so that the Lord's flock is defended from the incursions of the enemy man, and that the deposit of the faith is preserved intact, and that the faithful are preserved from the corruption of morals!"
"You will notice, gentlemen, that this new decree of the Holy Inquisition does not more condemn the use of magnetism in itself than the previous ones. But he repeated what the decree of 98 July 1847 had said, "that the application of purely physical principles and means to objects and to really supernatural effects to explain them physically is nothing but a deceitful deceit and a heretical practice." Jl points out "the reckless audacity with which these people arrogate the ability to write about the things of religion, to evoke the dead, to receive their answers, to discover unknown and distant things, and to engage in other superstitions of this kind"; and finally he states that "no matter what art or illusion comes in,
1 Decree of 30 July 1856. IV 22
in all these acts, as they use physical means to obtain effects that are not natural, there is completely forbidden deceit, heretical maneuver, and scandal against the honesty of morals."
"This decision, which is closely related to several other principles that are certain through Scripture and tradition, will provide you, gentlemen, with principles of solutions in relation to one of the most dangerous and guilty practices, I mean communication with the spirits. Faith does not give rise to doubt that the use of the dead, to learn the truth from them, is an abominable crime before God and worthy of the most terrible punishments. But if it is not permissible to question the dead, and therefore if God refuses the dead the ability to answer questions that the living cannot lawfully address to them, from what source can these answers come that are flattered to obtain and that Pon sometimes obtains? Obviously, no spirit other than the spirit of error and darkness can obey these guilty arrests. Communication with the spirits, therefore, is no more or less trade with the demons; and it is therefore the return to these monstrous disorders and to these damnable superstitions which have placed for so many centuries and which still place the paean nations under the shameful servitude of the infernal powers.
"You will therefore refrain, gentlemen, from conniving in any way to such a serious fault, to such a terrible evil, and you will not neglect any opportunity to manifest your horror for these evil machinations. You will find, I know, honest, virtuous, believing people who assure that they have received this
3 Deut., xvin, 11, 42: Nec quarat a mortuis veritatem; omnia enim haec abominatur Dominus, and propter istius modi scelera delhit eos.
339 provides advice and information useful to their salvation. But you know, like me, that sometimes Satan can transform himself into an angel of light!. And when it would be true, moreover, that in some particular cases the divine all-power would have forced this infernal mouth, which usually knows nothing but lying and defilement, to render oracles of truth and virtue, while admiring the merciful conduct of Providence which would have turned into an opportunity for salvation what was in itself an opportunity for ruin, we should nevertheless affirm the guilt of anyone who resorts to this evocation, because this evocation is intrinsically unlawful and formally prohibited. If it were still true that this manifestation of the spirits would have been useful, in fact, to some unbelievers, to some atheists or deists, who would have been led by these phenomena, obviously supernatural, to recognize the existence of a whole other world that they had denied until then, or with which they believed any impossible relationship, we would conclude from it what we already knew by the Holy Scripture, that the demon does not always foresee the effects of his acts?
"At last our pastoral condescendence can extend its caress until we refrain from disturbing in persuasions dear to them some souls for whom it would seem that the mystery of conversion was truly mixed with that of these reckless curiosities which a certain good faith could absolve from formal fault; but it will not be less acquired that no enlightened conscience can afford either this evocation of the dead, this recourse to the spirits of any kind, or these questions about the most impenetrable secrets of the present life and the mysteries of the future life; it
1 II Cor., x1, 14: Ipse enim Satanas transfigurat se in angelum lucis. 2 ] Cor., No. 1, 8.
will remain assured that the association of the sacraments is irreconcilable with these observances, reprimanded by the law of God and the Church; and we will proclaim that the only relations that are permitted to us with the spirits are the supernatural relations that consist in prayer, in the invocation of angels and elect, in the meditation of their virtues, in the remembrance and limitation of their examples, in the docility to follow the inner inspirations that their intercession with God can bring to our hearts. Moreover, it will remain apparent that in the 19th century, as at the most remote and ignorant ages, a human species, which is naturally brought to the wonderful, turns away from the wonderful realities of revealed religion only to throw itself into the arms of superstition and magic.
"To those who would claim for excuse that these things are done in the form of play and entertainment or in the simple spirit of curiosity, the answer would be easy. Alas, curiosity had a great part in the sin that lost our first parents with all their offspring. And as for entertainment, this is the case of quoting the energetic words of St.Peter Chrysologist: "He who has found his pleasure in playing with the devil will not be allowed to rejoice with Jesus Christ": Qut jocari volue- rit cum diabolo, non potrit Gaudere cum Christo
It is to be feared that these reasons so peremptory and those counsels that breathe wisdom will not be heard or tasted by a large number of Christians, not firm in the faith, and more inclined to give creed to publicists who are amateurs of occultism and free thought than to bishops who provide sound doctrine.
1 Serm., GLv, from Kalendis januarii.
Spiritualism and hypnotism leading to the experimental denial of materialistic theory and to the palpable demonstration of the invisible world. — Experiences of William Cookes.— Profession of faith of Dr.Paul Gibier.— The argumentation of another unbeliever.— Amateurs of occultism.— The trial of the supernatural by the miracle constantly in the Catholic Church.— Lourdes, land of miracle.—Dr. Boissarie.—The unbelievers invited to the experimentation of miracle.
I. — Spiritism, through its predecessor and its constituent experiences, leads to a valuable demonstration: to the existence of occult agents outside matter, whose energies outweigh those of Phomme.
Although man is unaware of the root cause, the principle of causality remains at the bottom of his reason. As soon as he perceives an effect, he imputes a cause to him. In the inanimate nature that surrounds it, does a phenomenon that accuses life occur, it concludes to a living being, Does there occur manifestations of intelligence, it assigns them to an intelligent being that acts within the radius of the senses by escaping their control. In the inert or living world, does he see the deployment of forces superior to him-
and to the surrounding beings, he concludes the vicinity and intervention of preternatural energies. It is the experimental finding of the mind, Pinvisible, the superhuman; and, at the same time, the reversal of materialism that brings everything back to the body, and rationalism that sees nothing above man. The same conclusion is reached by L-hypnosis, by many of its phenomena.
The tip of this demonstration is that it is due to declared opponents of spiritualism and supernaturalism, to notable representatives of the natural sciences, to doctors. Doctors, in particular, are beautiful to see in this evolution. Already in the 17th century and throughout the 19th century, they had and still retain the predominant part in the materialistic and atheistic negation. They denied the soul under the pleasant pretext that it does not appear under the scalpel, and that the brain can well secrete the thought of the moment that the kidney secretes Purine. They declared the Extranatural absurd, unrealizable; and, consequently, chemeric and unobtainable in the world of facts. Now, by a return of revengeful logic, it is by palpable facts that the negators are brought back to the affirmation of the Spirit and the miracle; and the most sincere among them come to establish the existence of the invisible world, not by the help of metaphysics and pure reason, but by the more pregnant method of P experimentation showing in action the spirit and the miracle.
II. — This appearance of the invisible around man, above and beyond, is made sensitive, radiant, irrefutable in the spiritual scenes. We have in this regard the formal confessions of renowned experimenters in this order of phenomenes; and their testimony is all the less suspicious, since they affect, by giving it, the independence of any religious concern.
Let's point out first line Mr. William Cookes, member
Royal Society of London. This scholar, well known in England for his work and his applications in the physical sciences, published in 1874 a book under this title: Researches on the phenomena of spiritualism, in which he exhibited the experiments made in his laboratory by the processes of spiritism. With the help of another English scholar, Sir Russel Wallace, and in the presence of guests who were reviving each session, he gave himself up to inexplicable material findings other than by the intervention of occult agents foreign to human order. He saw, in particular, a fantastic being appearing, at the call of a medium, in the form of a woman, of a rare beauty, which he could palpate, ausculter, weigh, photograph with recording apparatus arranged for this purpose. The only photographic clichés are material proof of the reality of the ghost.
The learned world, that nothing touches on what it is decided not to believe, I will say not to see, opposed rather the conspiracy of silence than ill-fated refutations to these revelations of a serious and expert mind. He himself, after having openly declared his first thought did not come back to it, leaving the contradictors to their unbelief, so much so that many caused that time had changed his ideas and his first impressions. But, questioned in 1891, on this subject by Captain Marin, the anonymous author of the 19th century Magic, he made this answer: "Since the publication of my Researches on the phenomena attributed to spiritism in 1874, I have not seen any reason to change the views on it."
Thus the experiences and statements of the English physicist remain acquired.
III. — A second witness, little suspected of religious complacency, is Dr.Paul Gibier. He too is brought by
practices and in-depth study of spiritism, positivist and atheistic negations to the affirmation of the primary cause, the existence of the soul and immaterial beings. This can be convinced by the reading of two books in which he describes the evolutions of his thinking on this subject Western Spiritism and Fakirism, published in 1886, and Analysis of Things, of 1890.
"Despite the judgment of some followers of positive philosophy," he wrote in the latter book (Preface, p. 11), man cannot resolve to abandon the search for the root causes and the final causes." Then, arguing: "In fact," he observes, "we cannot get out of this dilemma: or there is an intelligence one in the universe, an intelligence from which many limited intelligences have emanated, such as matter in limited objectivity emanating from the energy which itself derives from a higher principle; or matter and energy are endowed with intelligence. For why, alone, would the matter that composes man's brain make intelligence?" (P. 85.)
But the metaphysical arguments do not seem decisive to him either for or against; and this for this reason, — strange reason! — "We can only agree on objects that fall and, in a way, remain in the sense." You see, it's the purest positivism. The topical reason, if any, will therefore, according to Dr. Gibier, be within the realm of meanings. Is there any reason for this?
"My answer," he said, "will be very clear: We can have material evidence of the existence of the soul. This fact leaves no doubt in my mind." (P. 88.) Entering into the presentation of the multiple facts of extranatural appearances, magnetic suggestions, intellectual phenomena unrelated to any brain activity, he concludes that there exists a principle distinct from matter,
principle thinking, free, independent, pre-existing and surviving body.
We do not have to reproduce the data from this argument, which is also consistent with the knowledge of the processes and results of hypnosis and spiritism. We are interested in the conclusion alone. This conclusion, just in its generality, the doctor's insight complicates her fanciful assumptions, which, without infringing its value, help to maintain prejudices contrary to the Christian faith. So will another doctor, who will give us his testimony.
IV. — We have already appointed Mr. Durand, from Gros, originally veiled under the pseudonym of Dr. J.-P. Philips. It is a forceful digger, whose horizon is about circonserit by his Stock; instead of furrows, he makes holes. Sometimes, by excavating, he opens holes that bring him back to the light. It has two or three frank openings, which shed precise light on the point of view that is before us. Atheist, when he wrote of the primary cause, resisting all divine revelation, filled with preventions against the Church and against theology, he made himself a specialty, almost a religion, of magnetism. This led him to escape from the materialism towards which he inclined the dip of his negator spirit, and, wonderful thing! to admit even the miracle, the great scarecrow of unbelief.
In order to highlight and honour the new and definitive religion of science through Biomagnetism, he summarized his struggles and evolutions in some three hundred pages in-8o of his book: the Wonderful Scientist, published in 1894. Through free restrictions, it comes to pose clearly as a starting point of true science, examination of fails; and of examination of the facts of occultism, it logically happens to some conclusion-
We are well-deduced, healthy, and we are preciously recording, namely: that the body is under the government of the soul, and that the soul possesses a clean being, distinct from matter; that around our world is a whole world of superior minds; and that miracle, understood by the intervention of a will that dominates man and the earth, is a rationally acceptable, and even probable, fact. And it is from the study of occultism that he draws these solutions.
"Until recently," he said, "science had denied the world a priori, and so did the totality of hypnotic facts, and rejected the examination of such a hypothesis." At that, she had an excuse, according to this grinchy doctor: the absurd explanations of theology. "This reasoning, however," he adds with more meaning, "was not correct; the theological interpretation of the facts in question could be an obvious error, and the facts themselves nevertheless exist. That's what a number of scientists, and some of the most official, have come to understand now. With irrefutable logic, they argue that the search for the so-called supernatural facts is absolutely scientific, and that this research is not only scientifically legitimate, but is scientifically mandatory. We have quoted elsewhere in this writing the outstanding physiologists and mediums who have taken the lead in this immense scientific innovation. Thanks to their efforts and despite the resistance of the old prejudices, the movement is clearly in progress." (P. 264.)
It is high time, in fact, that our so-called scientists understood that the facts were necessary and that loyal science did not have the right to dismiss them on the pretext that they drew unpleasant, let us say better, conclusions contrary to preconceived nequalities.
Nevertheless, from this very rational starting point, Pauteur was led, by a series of experiences and deductions that it would be too long to reproduce, to recognize the existence of the soul and the world of spirits. His logic was not powerful enough to bring him back to God and to give him the Christian faith, by an absolutely scientific ascent, not to displease this laborious reasoner.
This was at least the result of the examination of the facts for him and others. In the duly observed phenomena of hypnosis and spiritism, they have touched, palpated by the senses themselves the existence and Paction of immaterial, invisible, extranatural energies for Phomme.
V. — We agree, most of the unbelievers and many of the very ones who say themselves and believe themselves Christians, do not know or do not want to conclude from these facts the supernatural as the Catholic teaching affirms. We're afraid of the supernatural, of systematic hostility or ignorance. There are a large number of books, magazines and newspapers dealing with these issues with incompetence; that is the large number. We accept all accounts, except to restrict everything, using fanciful theories, in the sphere of human eccentricities. Others see in the scenes of the occultism only tricks and imposture, which exempts them from explaining anything; and for the few left, they leave the responsibility for it to the unknown forces of nature; easy, but not serious, way to escape the supra and the extra-natural.
1 Wood Juzes, PAu beyond or unknown forces, V. Spirits. (Art. of the newspaper Le Martm, aoù 1901): "God knows how many mediums I have observed, illustrious and unknown; what journeys I have undertaken to grasp a glimmer of this ever-fugitive beyond — even to the bottom of this intoxicating and disappointing India! And all the books I've read, and all
When these amateurs come to the real nas they follow the same procedure. They describe by exaggerating or attenuating; then they deny the facts or assign them to the latent energies of nature. In the order of divine interventions as in the order of evil manifestations, the first law of sincerity and science is to see the facts.
VI. — Experimentation of the invisible and the supernatural is not, in fact, the exclusive privilege of occultism
the experiences I have tried, and all the discussions I have had with the apostles and detractors of both hemispheres, and also my own writings and meditations!
"All this was not in pure loss, certainly; for, as our uncle and master Francisque Sarcey said to me, "it is better for young people "to take care of psychology than to go to the cafe"; but on this tour of the psychic world, I have brought back a frail bag of certainties and hopes.
"First of all, the extraordinary "materializations", these ghosts in bone flesh, whose spiritists are holding back our ears, I have made them my mourning, I think it's frimes. I experimented in London with Crookes' famous medium, the one that produced Katie King, and which is now called Mrs Corner. Well, I was able to see that the grossest cheats, the medium making himself look like the ghosts. As for the photographs of the spirits, I don't believe them either. All the photographers who gave it to them ended up badly, to the correctional officer most of the time. From Home to Eusapia Paladino and Anna Rothe, all the mediums with physical effects, — music boxes flying in the air, sheaves of flowers emerging unexpectedly, hands and feet of rendezvous slapping stunned assistants, — were surprised, in many circumstances, rigging like vulgar prestidigitators. And the question is open: "Do they "always" rich? Most of the communications of minds emanating from tables or mediums in trance, they are often of such a naïveness, of such a childish rascal, of such a banality and so revolting vulgarity, that the terrible word of Huysmans is explained, calling certain mediocre and stercorary sessions "the gougnots of the afterlife!"
"Is that to say, it is necessary to be in the opinion of this hypnotist who recently told a journalist: "There is nothing in spiritism, neither "as ideas, nor as facts, nothing, nothing." I believe, on the contrary, that there is in him all the new psychology and part of physics, limiting it to psychology. It is in the spiritual phenomena that our most subtle investigators have fished, as in troubled water, their best discoveries. It is true that spiritism itself was the successor and vulgarizer of medieval occultism and ancient magic. Like magnetism, he drew attention to the induced sleep and he served
demonic; it is done with more brightness and certainty in the miraculous action of God. The divine miracle is constantly in the Church of Jesus Christ. His finding is, so to speak, within everyone's reach. Who will want to convince himself only to read the authentic minutes discussed in the court where the canonization of the saints is decided. Writers know how to draw from the repertoires of denial and lies; what do they go to the truly historical sources of holiness?
to develop hypnosis and suggestion. "The mediums" with incarnation, who suddenly believe, like the pythonisses of paganism, being possessed of some foreign spirit, served to study the changes of personality and shed light on the so complex problems of madness and dream. The externalization of sensitivity and motorship, as we are now trying to explain them rationally and almost mechanically, was the confused work of the sorcerers and possessed who attributed their origin to invisible entities. Telepathy (the ghosts of the living) comes out of all pieces of spiritism. What will he not give us? By his closeness and his popular wonders, he made many think that the exercises of the evil and divine mystic were not so fabulous. In any case, it puts us on the path of an undecided discovery, but this century will certainly specify: I mean "exteriorization of thought". Thought is a force; it can accumulate, multiply, act on what we call matter, radiate around us. The talking tables prove to us, when they are not rigged, that the souls of the living, at least, can vibrate out of their bodily sheath and give the illusion of a new being. This, based on my long personal experience, seems to me to be acquired or certain. We emanate from ourselves, in the sessions of spiritism and magic, forces of which we are not aware, and which can rise before us and answer us as if they were energies to us strangers.
"But is it all this, and could it not be that by this escape out of our own flesh we can come into contact with unknown entities?
"There, a mystery surrounds us and the vertigo of thought is waiting for us... But I will go further: spiritism has reminded us of the importance of the memory and the perpetual influence of the dead in the world of the living; it has also awakened in the dark and thick souls of this time the feeling of immortality, without which, for me, there is no superior humanity. I hope that there are enough titles to our tribute and that we can forgive him, because of all of this, — to this spiritism so defied and so fruitful, — the charlatans and fools of which he is infected."
In our times, it's even easier. Jesus Christ, the Redeemer, to exalt her holy Mother the Blessed Virgin Mary and to revive faith in souls, has established, at a precise point in the world, in our country of France, as a permanent office, — let us be allowed this word, — of divine miracles. This land of choice is Lourdes, since the day when the Immaculate Virgin daigned to manifest herself there to a humble girl, to invite believers to prayer and penance.
VII. — We could tell what we saw with our eyes. It seemed to us better to collect the testimony of witnesses whom I will call appointed and specialists, doctors who have had this spectacle for many years and were able to appreciate it in its continuity and its whole.
The first is Dr. Baron Dunot de Saint-Maclou, a competent and conscientious man, if he was. He recorded in Lourdes' ANNALES, and declared to ourselves that he had recorded in all certainty frequent miracles exceeding natural energies. But it was mainly his successor, Dr. Boissarie, who was to address to all those in charge of science the invitation and as the challenge of coming to Lourdes to see the divine miracle. All circumscribed as it seems, this field is immense: Catholic Puniverses flocked to the miraculous cave of the Pyrenees, showing all the varieties of human misery and, on the other hand, all the forms of divine miracle.
VIII. — Dr. Boissarie summarized in 1894 the facts in his book: Heavy from 1858 until today. It has not been written in a better documented and better deduced apology, nor has it been recorded in a more conscientious, followed and decisive experiment of the supernatural miraculous.
This masterful work opens with the story discussed by
Appearance. This reading shows that hallucination, lies, the concerns of lucrative or vanity, training, were nothing in the origins of this world pilgrimage. On both sides, every precaution was taken to avoid being fooled. The rest was to be used as a control at the beginning, with the divine intervention of the miracle continuing unabated in countless healings.
It was important to multiply the guarantees to recognize the evil and the prodigy that made it stop. At the time of the great influxes, an office, composed of medical notations, is constantly to examine, appreciate, discuss, decide. The doors are open to any doctor, and even to any branded person, to any scholar, whatever his part, who requests it, without distinction of belief, sympathy or hostility. Zola, the novelist of free thought and garbage, was able to show and opine in all licence. As soon as a significant doubt arises, the case is considered not to have occurred for the annals of the miracle.
For a long time, the legion of unbelieving doctors denied Lourdes' healings, and affected to judge them by the preterity of disdain. He met many of them who told the sick when they left: "Your evil is incurable;" and when these incurable healers return, to renew their first declaration and attest to healing, they are refused. Nevertheless, the stubborn repetition of the wonders, and, if we are allowed the word, the repeated brutality of the fact have finally forced attention. The medical camp was delighted: it admitted healing, but prior to classifying diseases in the context of neurosis, and invoking, to explain these sudden revolutions, the wonderful, but natural power of religious self-suggestion.
Dr. Boissarie has done good justice to this evidence by unquestionable findings that, among the patients cured by the intercession of Notre-Dame de Lourdes, many do not belong to the category of neuropaths, and that the neuroses themselves, so refractory to therapeutics, can be the subject of extranatural healing.
IX. — It is an unbeliever's claim to speak of the miracle in their court: exorbitant claim; for the facts are what they are and do not depend on any category of spectators; moreover, most miraculous facts are common sense as well as medicine. But finally, since these gentlemen of the scholarly faculties want to take on the examination of the miracle, let them bother to go and see it; and, after they have seen it, let them have the loyalty to recognize it.
What we say about the miraculous healings performed in Lourdes is true of all forms of the miracle: it always bears in itself the proof of Pinvisible and the supernatural. But, while the unbelievers disdain or fear the fact and the proof of divine intervention, they go by instinct to the evil experiments; and again, without their knowledge and against their expectation, they find the definite and living index of the invisible appearing among the chimeras and the preternatural declared impossible. Neither they nor the demon expected this unwelcome testimony and contradiction. (is the fate of the error of engaging in circuits that bring it back by a fatal logic to the unknown principles and to have to pronounce itself its own condemnation; only the truth, always in conformity with it, has no need to fear denials.
Our work is over.
The conclusion that emerges from this long exposition of the true mystic, the diabolical counterfeits and human analogies, the conclusion of reason and faith, the spirit and the heart, is summarized in these words of St Paul to the Thessalonians!: Prophetias nolite spermine; omnia autem probate; quod bonum is tenet; i.e.: WATCH THE PROPHETIES, and by prophecies one must hear all the communications of the supernatural and mystical order; March, adds the Apostle, PROVE ALL, subject the facts to careful, impartial examination, discuss the truth, nature, circumstances, results, cause; Only what is good, what comes from God for the sanctification of souls; all the rest is illusion, frivolity or perfidy.
The practical rule is therefore in a wise discernment which, before examination, does not reject anything that is possible, but neither affirms anything that is not proven; recognizes every thing its true character, and relates it to the causality that suits it: to nature what is
11 Thess. y, 120, 21: IV
[n] C9
354: CONCLUSION / natural, to the demon, which betrays his tendency to lies and evil, to God what his power alone can accomplish, which makes his goodness, holiness, and greatness shine forth.
If the reader judges that this rule has been ours, let him bring glory to God; if he sees deviations and failures, let him impute them, not to our will and intention, but to our insufficiency.
And now, may the most adorable and merciful Trinity forgive us our indecentness and our faults; may she grant us, in this world, grace and fidelity, and, at the end of the trial, the eternal joy of contemplating it, of loving it, of praise, with angels and saints, with the glorious Virgin Mary, united to the Savior Jesus, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit in the centuries and centuries,
The official account of the occult scenes of which the famous Eusapia Paladino was the subject in Milan, is not mentioned in the text, under the inspection and control of scientists not inclined to the extranatural.
The sincerity of the subject and the insight of the witnesses were questioned, mainly on the basis of the solution of continuity of the phenomena.
In our opinion, the witnesses who signed this report do not present anything that makes them recusable and suspect, and the fact of the inconsistency and the lack of follow-up in these experiments allows only one conclusion, namely: the absence of human causation and the intervention of an invisible agent, which acts or abstinates at its own discretion. The facts are what they are. "The greatest disruption of the mind," said Pastor, "is to believe things because they want to be." Reversing the formula, we say: "Another disregulation of the mind is to deny things, because one does not want them to be,"
Taking into consideration the testimony of Professor Cesare Lombroso concerning the median phenomena which occur through Mrs. Eusapia Paladino, the undersigned met here in Milan to do a series of studies with her to verify these phenomena, submitting it to experiments and observations as rigorous as possible, There were in total seventeen sessions, which were held in Mr. Finzi (rue du Mont-de-Piété) between nine o'clock in the evening and midnight.
The medium, invited to these sessions by Mr. Aksakof, was introduced by Knight Chiaia, who attended only one third of the sessions, and almost only the first and the least important.
In view of the emotion produced in the world of the press by Pan-
We believe that we must publish without delay this short account of all our observations and experiences.
Before entering into the matter, we must immediately point out that the results obtained do not always correspond to our expectations. Not that we do not have in great quantity the facts, apparently or really important and wonderful; but in most cases we have been unable to apply the rules of experimental art which, in other fields of observation, are considered necessary to achieve certain and undeniable results.
The most important of these rules is to change the modes of experimentation one after the other, so as to clear the real cause, or at least the real conditions of all the facts. It is precisely from this point of view that our experiences seem to us to be too incomplete.
It is true that often the medium, in order to prove his good faith, spontaneously proposed to change some peculiarity of one or the other experience, and many times took the initiative of these changes. But this was mainly about seemingly indifferent circumstances, according to our way of thinking. The changes, on the contrary, which we felt were necessary to put out of doubt the true character of the results, or were not accepted as possible by the medium, or, if they were achieved, most of the time succeeded in rendering the experiment null or at least resulted in obscure results.
We do not believe that we have the right to explain these facts with the help of these insulting assumptions that many still find the simplest, and whose newspapers have made themselves champions.
On the contrary, we believe that these are phenomena of an unknown nature, and we admit that we do not know the conditions necessary for them to occur. To fix these conditions on our own account would therefore be as extravagant as to pretend to experience the Torricelli barometer with a tube closed down, or electrostatic experiments in a humidity saturated atmosphere, or even to make photography by exposing the plate sensitive to the
full light, before placing it in the dark room. However, by admitting all this (and not a reasonable man can doubt it), it remains true that the marked impossibility of varying experiences, at our discretion, has in particular diminished the value and interest of the results obtained, by removing from them, in many cases, this rigorous demonstration which one is entitled to demand for facts of this nature, or rather to which one must aspire.
For these reasons, among the countless experiments carried out, we will either ignore or quickly mention those which we believe are not very convincing, and in respect of which the conclusions could easily vary among the various experimenters. On the contrary, we will note in more detail the circumstances in which, despite the obstacle we have just mentioned, we seem to have reached a sufficient degree of probability.
3. Movements of objects at a distance, without any contact with any of the people present.
(a) Spontaneous movements of objects.
These phenomena were observed several times during our sessions; frequently a chair placed for this purpose not far from the table, between the medium and one of its neighbours, moved and sometimes approached the table. A remarkable example occurred in the second session, still in full light; a heavy chair (10 kg.), which was one metre from the table and behind the medium, approached Mr. Sheparelli, who was sitting by the medium, stood up to put it back in place, but barely sat down that the chair was moving a second time towards him,
(b) Non-contact table movements.
It was desirable to obtain this phenomenon by means of a
fun. For this purpose, the table was placed on wheels, the feet of the
and all the assistants made the chain.
with hands, including those of the medium. When the table started moving, we raised all hands without breaking the chain, and the table, thus isolated, made several movements, as in the second experiment. This experience was repeated several times.
(c) Move the lever of the rocking balance.
This experience was first made in the September 21 session.
After seeing the influence of the medium's body on the balance, while he sat there, it was interesting to see if this experiment could succeed at a distance. For this purpose, the balance was placed behind the back of the medium sitting at the table, so that the platform was ten centimetres from his chair, the edge of his dress was first put in contact with the platform; the lever began to move. So, Mr. Brofferio put himself down and held the edge with his hand; he found that he was not quite straight, and then he took his place again.
Movements continuing with enough force, Mr. Aksakof went down behind the medium, completely isolated the platform from the edge of his dress, folded it under the chair and assured with the hand that the space was well free between the platform and the chair, which he immediately made known to us.
While it remained in this position, the lever continued to move and beat against the stop bar, which we all saw and heard. A second time, the same experience was made, in the September 27 session, before Professor Richet. When, after a certain expectation, the movement of the lever occurred in the sight of all, beating against the stop, R. Richet immediately left his place with the medium and assured himself, by passing his hand in the air and on the ground, between the medium and the platform, that this space was free of communication, of any string or fireworks.
4. Hits and reproductions of sounds in the table.
These blows have always occurred during our sessions, to express yes or no; sometimes they were strong and sharp, and seemed to resonate in the wood of the table; but, as we have noticed, the location of the sound is not easy, and
We were not able to try, on this point, any experiment, except for the rhythmic strokes or the various frictions we made on the table which seemed to reproduce in the inside of the table, but weak.
The phenomena observed in the complete darkness occurred while we were all sitting around the table, making the chain (at least during the first minutes). The psychic's hands and feet were held by his two neighbors. Invariably, things being in this state, soon came about the most varied and singular facts, that in full light we would have desired in vain, the darkness obviously increasing the ease of these manifestations, which can be classified as follows:
1. Hits on the table significantly stronger than those heard in full light under or in the table; terrible blows, like a punch or a strong blow given on the table.
2. Shocks and blows struck against the chairs of the psychic's neighbours, sometimes strong enough to turn the chair with the person. Sometimes, this person rising, his chair was removed.
3. Transportation on tables of various objects, such as chairs, clothes and other things, sometimes "several metres away" and weighing "many kilograms".
4. Transport in Vair of various objects, musical instruments, for example; percussions and sounds produced by these objects.
5. Transport, on the table, of the medium with the chair on which he was sitting.
6. Appearances of very short-lived phosphorescent points (a fraction of a second), and of light, particularly light discs, which often split, with a very short duration.
7. Noise of two hands that struck one against the other in Vair l ́une.
8. Sensitive air breaths, like a slight wind limited to a small space.
9. Touches produced by a mysterious hand, either on the dressed parts of our body, or on the naked parts (face and hands), and in the latter case we experience exactly that feeling of contact and warmth produced by a human hand. Sometimes one actually perceives these touchings, which produce a corresponding noise.
10. Vision of one or two hands projected on phosphorescent paper, or a weakly lit window.
11. Various works made by these hands; knots made and undone, traces of pencil (in any appearance) left on a sheet of paper or elsewhere. Prints of these hands on a sheet of blackened paper.
12. Contact with our hands with a mysterious figure that is certainly not that of the medium.
All those who deny the possibility of median phenomena try to explain these facts on the assumption that the medium has the faculty (declared impossible by Professor Richet) to see in the complete darkness where the experiments were being made, and that this one, by a skillful artifice, by shaking in a thousand ways in the darkness, ends up holding the same hand by his two neighbours, making the other free to produce the touchings. Those of us who have had the opportunity to have Eusapia's hands in custody, are obliged to confess that it certainly was not suitable to facilitate their supervision and to make them at any time sure of their fact.
At the time of some important phenomenon, she began to shake with her whole body, twisting and trying to deliver her hands, especially the right, as a disturbing contact. In order to make their surveillance continuous, his neighbours were obliged to follow all the movements of the fugitive hand, during which it was not uncommon to lose contact for a few moments, just at the moment when it was most desirable to ensure that it was. It wasn't easy to know whether the right hand or the left hand of the medium was held.
For this reason, many very numerous manifestations, observed in the darkness, were considered as
We shall therefore ignore them, setting out only a few cases on which we can have no doubt, either because of the certainty of the control exercised or because of the obvious impossibility that they were the work of the medium.
(a) Bringing different objects, while the medium's hands were attached to those of its neighbours.
To ensure that we were not the victims of an illusion, we attached the hands of the medium to those of its two neighbours, by means of a simple string of 3 millim. in diameter, so that the movements of the four hands were mutually controlled... The fastening was done in the following way: around each wrist of the medium three turns of string were made, without leaving any play, almost to the point of hurting him, and then twice a single knot was made. This was done, a bell was placed on a chair, to the right of the medium. The chain was made, and the medium's hands were held as usual, as well as his feet. We made darkness, expressing the desire for the bell to hold immediately, after which we would have detached the medium. Immediately, we heard the chair roll over, describe a curve on the ground, approach the table, and soon place itself on it. The bell was held, then projected on the table. Having made the light suddenly, it was found that the knots were in perfect order. It is clear that the input of the chair could be produced by the action of the medium's hands, during this experiment, which lasted in all only ten minutes,
(b) Fingerprints obtained on smoked paper.
To make sure that we were dealing with a human hand, we fixed on the table, on the opposite side to that of the medium, a sheet of paper blackened with black smoke, expressing the desire that the hand leave a print on it, that the medium's hand remained clean, and that the black smoke, was carried on one of our hands. The medium's hands were held by those of MM. Schiaparelli and Prel. And they made the chain and the darkness; and we heard a hand strike lightly on the table, and soon M. du Prel announced that his
left hand, which he held on Mr. Finzi, had felt fingers rubbing her.;
Having made the light, we found on the paper several fingerprints, and the back of Mr. du Prel's hand dyed with smoke black; the medium's hands, examined immediately, bore no trace. This experiment was repeated three times, insisting on having a complete print: on a second sheet five fingers were obtained, and on a third, the print of an almost entire left hand. After that, the back of Mr. du Prel's hand was completely blackened, and the hands of the medium were perfectly clear.
(c) Hands on a slightly illuminated background.
We put on the table a cardboard coated with a phosphorescent substance (calcium sulfide), and we put others on chairs, at different points in the room. In these conditions we saw very well the profile of a hand that lay on the board of the table and on the bottom formed by the other cartons; we saw the shadow of the hand pass and iron around us.
On the evening of 21 September, one of us saw, on several occasions, not one, but two hands at a time projecting on the weak light of a window, closed only by tiles (outside it was dark, but it was not absolute darkness); the hands were quickly moving, yet not enough so that we could not clearly distinguish the profile. They were completely opaque and projected on the window in absolutely black silhouettes, It was not possible for observers to make a judgment on the arms to which these hands were attached, because only a small part of these arms, next to the wrist, interposed in front of the weak clarity of the window, in the place where it could be observed.
These phenomena of simultaneous appearance of two hands are very significant, because they cannot be explained by the hypothesis of a deception of the medium, which could in no way have made it free more than one, thanks to the supervision of its neighbours. The same conclusion applies to the beating of both hands Pune against the other, which was heard several times in the air during our experiments,
363 (d) Removal of the medium on the table.
We place this kidnapping, which was carried out twice on 23 September and 3 October, among the most important and significant facts: the medium, who was sitting at a
the end of the table, making great moanings, was lifted up with his chair and placed with her on the table, sitting in the same position, always holding hands and accompanied by her neighbours.
On the evening of September 28, the medium, while his two hands were held by MM. Richet and Lombroso complained of hands that seized him under his arm; then, in a state of trance, he said, of a changed path which is ordinary in this state: "Now I bring my psychic to the table." After two or three seconds, the chair with the medium sitting there was, not thrown out, but raised carefully and placed on the table, while MM. Richet and Lombroso are sure that they did nothing to help this ascent through their own efforts. After talking, still in trance state, the medium announced his descent, and Mr. Finzi being replaced by Mr. Lombroso, the medium was laid down on the ground with as much safety and precision, while MM. Richet and Finzi accompanied, without helping them in any way, the movements of the hands and the body, and asked at every moment about the position of the hands.
In addition, during the descent, both of them felt, on several occasions, a hand that touched them slightly on the head. On the evening of 3 October, the same phenomenon was repeated in quite similar circumstances, with Messrs. du Prel and Finzi standing next to the medium.
(e) Touching. A few deserve to be noted particularly, because of a circumstance capable of providing some interesting notion about their possible origin; and first of all, we must note the touching that was felt by the people placed out of the reach of the medium's hands.
Thus, on 6 October, Mr. Gerosa, who was at the distance of three places from the medium (about one metre), having raised her hand to be touched, felt several times a hand that struck her to lower, and as he persisted, he
was struck with a trumpet, which a little PRES had made sounds lair.
Secondly, we must note the touchdowns which are delicate operations, which we cannot do in the darkness with the precision we have noticed them.
Twice (16 and 21 September), Mr. Schiaparelli had his glasses removed and placed in front of another person on the table. These glasses are attached to the ears by means of two springs, and it takes some attention to remove them, even for those who operate in full light. Yet they were taken away, in complete darkness, with such delicacy and promptness, that the experimenter only saw it when he no longer felt the usual contact of his glasses on his nose, on his temples, and on his ears, and he had to grope with his hands to make sure that they were no longer in their usual place.
Similar effects resulted from many other touchings, performed with excessive delicacy, for example when one of the assistants felt a stroke of the hair and beard. In all the countless maneuvers executed by mysterious hands, there was never a badness or shock, which is usually inevitable for those who operate in the darkness.
(f) Contacts with a human figure.
One of us who expressed the desire to be kissed felt in front of his own mouth the rapid noise of a kiss, but not accompanied by a touch of lips: this happened twice (21 September and 1 October). On three different occasions, one of the assistants came to touch a human figure with hair and beard; the contact of the skin was absolutely that of a living man, the hair was much stiffer and bristled than those of the medium, and the beard, on the contrary, appeared very thin (1st, 5 and 6 October).
(h) Zœllner experiments on penetration of a solid through another solid.
We know the famous experiments by which astronomer Zællner tried to prove experimentally the existence of a
Iron
The fourth dimension of space, which, according to his view, could have served as the basis for an acceptable theory of many median phenomena.
Although we are well aware that, according to a widely held opinion, Zooellner may have been the victim of a very skilful mystification, we thought it very important to try some of her experiences with the help of Mrs. Eusapia. Only one of them who would have succeeded, with due care, would have rewarded us with the wear and tear of all our sorrows and would have given us a clear proof of the reality of the medianmical facts, even in the eyes of the most obstinate contradictors. We tried three of Zœllner's experiments successively, namely:
1° L between two solid rings (of wood or cardboard) previously separated;
20 The formation of a single knot on an endless rope;
3° The penetration of a solid object from the outside inside a closed box, whose key was kept in safe hand.
None of these attempts succeeded. The same was true of another experiment which would have been equally convincing, that of casting the mysterious hand into melted paraffin...
In order to achieve a complete conviction, one had to try to obtain the important phenomena of darkness, without losing sight of the medium. Since darkness is, in what it seems, quite favorable to their manifestation, it was necessary to leave darkness to phenomena and maintain light for us and the medium. This is how we proceed in the session of October 6th: a portion of a room was separated from the other by a hanging, so that it would remain in darkness, and the medium was placed, sitting on a chair, in front of the opening of the curtain, having the back in the dark part; the arms, hands, face and feet in the illuminated part of the room.
Behind the curtain, a small chair with a bell was placed, half-mere about the chair of the medium, and on another chair further away, a vase was placed full of wet clay, perfectly united on the surface, In the ecla-
ree, we found a circle around the table, which was placed in front of the medium. His hands were always held by his neighbours, Messrs. Schiaparelli and Prel. The room was lit by a red-glass lantern, placed on another table. This was the first time the medium had been subjected to these conditions.
Soon the phenomena began. Then, in the light of a candle without red glasses, we saw the hanging swelling towards us; the psychic's neighbors, holding their hands against the hanging, felt a resistance; the chair of one of them was drawn violently, and then five shots were struck, which meant that there was less light required. Then we lit instead the red lantern, protecting it, moreover, partly with a screen; but shortly after we could remove this object, and before that, the lantern was placed on our table, in front of the medium. The edges of the orifice of the hanging were fixed at the corners of the table, and, at the request of the medium, folded below its head and fixed with pins: then, on the head of the medium, something began to appear several times. Mr. Aksakof rose up, put his hand in the crack of the curtain above the head of the medium, and soon announced that fingers were touching him several times, and then his hand was drawn through the curtain; and finally he felt that something was coming to push his hand; it was the small chair; he held it, and the chair was taken again, and fell to the ground. All the assistants put their hands in the opening and felt the contact of the hands. In the black background of this opening, above the head of the medium, the usual bluish glows appeared several times; Mr. Schiaparelli was hit strongly, through the curtain, on the back and on the side; his head was covered and drawn into the dark part, while, with his left hand, he still held the right of the medium and, with his right hand, the left of Finzi.
In this position, he felt touched by bare and warm fingers, saw glimmers describing curves in lair, and illuminating a little the hand or body on which they depended. Then he took up his place, and then a hand began to appear at the opening, without being removed so quickly, and therefore more distinctly. The psychic, having never seen this before, raised his head to look at, and immediately his hand to-
with the face. M. du Prel, without letting go of the medium's hand, passed his head into the opening, above the head of the medium, and immediately he felt strongly touched in different parts and by several fingers. Between the two heads, the hand showed itself again.
Mr. du Prel took up his place, and Mr. Aksakof presented a pencil in the opening; the pencil was drawn by the hand and did not fall; then, a little later, it was thrown through the slit, on the table. Once a fist was found closed on the head of the medium; then the open hand was slowly seen, holding its fingers apart.
It is impossible to count the number of times that this hand appeared and was touched by one of us; it is enough to say that no doubt was more possible: it was truly a living and human hand that we saw and touched, while at the same time the bust and arms of the medium remained visible and his hands were held by his two neighbours. At the end of the sitting, M. du Prel passed first into the dark part, and announced to us a print in the clay; indeed, we found that it was distorted by a deep scratch of five fingers belonging to the right hand (which explained the fact that a piece of clay had been thrown on the table, through the orifice of the hanging, towards the end of the sitting), permanent proof that we had not been hallucinated.
These facts were repeated several times, in the same form or in a very little different form, in the evenings of 9, 13, 15, 17 and 18 October.
So, all the wonderful phenomena we have observed in complete or almost complete darkness, we have also obtained them without losing sight of the medium, even for a moment. In this, the session of October 6 was for us the obvious and absolute finding of the accuracy of our previous observations in the darkness; it was the undeniable proof that, in order to explain the phenomena of complete darkness, it is not absolutely necessary to assume a
We found that these phenomena can result from a cause identical to that which produces them when the medium is visible, with sufficient light to control its position and movements.
By publishing this short and incomplete account of our experiences, we also have a duty to say that our convictions are as follows:
1° In the circumstances given, none of the phenomena obtained in the light more or less intense, could have been produced with any kind of fireworks;
2° That the same opinion can be affirmed in large part for the phenomena of complete darkness. For a number of them, we can well recognize, in extreme rigor, the possibility of imitating them with some clever artifice of the medium; however, from what we have said, it is obvious that this hypothesis would not only be unlikely, but still useless in the present case, since, even if we admitted, all the clearly proven facts would not be reached.
We also recognize that, from the point of view of exact science, our experiences are still lacking; they were undertaken without knowing what we needed, and the various devices we used had to be prepared and improvised by MM. Finzi, Gerosa and Ermacora.
However, what we have seen and found is enough in our eyes to prove that these phenomena are worthy of the attention of scholars.
We consider it our duty to publicly express our appreciation for Mr. D. Ercole Chiaia, who has continued for many years, with so much zeal and patience, in spite of the clamours and the denigrations, the development of the midwayerial faculty of this remarkable subject, calling upon him the attention of the men of study, and having in view only one goal: the triumph of an unpopular truth.
ALEXANDRE AKSAKOF, director of the newspaper Les Études psychiques, Leipzig; State Councillor of S. Mr. Emperor of Russia.
369. GIOVANNI SCHIAPARELLI, Director of the Milan Observatory. , Doctor of Philosophy of Munich. ANGELO BROFFERIO, Professor of Philosophy.
Giuseppe GEROSA, professor of physics at the Royal Higher School of Agriculture in Portici.
G.B. ERMACORA, Doctor of Physics. GiorGio Finzi, doctor in physics.
Some of our sessions were attended by a number of others, including:
MM. CHARLES RICHET, Professor at the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, Director of the Journal scientifique (5 sessions).
CESARE LomBroso, professor at the Faculty of Medicine in Turin (2 sessions).
(The Roman numeral indicates the volume, and the Arabic numeral the page.)
Supernatural ABSTINENCES: He, 553. — Vertu of the Eucharist in these abstinences, 557. — Conditions and signs of miraculous abstinence, 597.
The demon can realize or simulate these abstinences:
III, 138. Good AnGrs: Their various manifestations, I, 138. — Circumstances in which they manifest themselves. — Intervention of the
Guardian angels, 160.
ANIMALS: Symbolic Apparitions, I, 270. — Empire of the Saints on Animals, 674-678.
INFUSED APTITUDES: Science, II, 861. — The arts, 980.
ART: Supernatural artistic aptitudes, I, 386.—Bible poetry, 388.—Poetry in the saints, 389.—Music, 892.—Painting, 307.—Sculpture and Parchment, 400.—Sacred eloquence, 401.
Form of divination: angelic art, Part of St Paul, II, 320.—The art of St Anselm, 362.
DIVINATORIES: In use among all peoples, IV, 296. — Means of investigation, 298. — Opinions concerning causality, results and use, 298.
BrLocarions of the living, Il, 230. — Saint's Multilocations
Francis of Assisi, 240; — Saint Lidwine, 2441; — Saint Francis Xavier, 244; — Saint Martin of Porres, 244; — of B. Angelo d'Acri, 246; — of Saint Joseph de Copertino, 247; — of Mary d'Agréda, 248; — of Mother Agnes de Langeac, 253; — of Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, 255. — psychic state during the bilocation, 256. — Various explanations of the prodigy, 257-265. — Reality of the double presence in body and soul, 265. Bilocations and instant translations are forbidden to the demon, II, 422. Bilocation is not morbid duplication, IV, 119. BLESSURE of love; mystical transport, I, 248-963. MAGIC CHARMS. Parodys of the Divine Sacraments, II,
405. — Their composition, 409. — Various species, 419. —— The philacteries, 417. — The amulets, 418. — The talismans, 430. — Magical healing, 361.
CLOCHES, which sound themselves, I, 292.
Heart (Renovation of). Influence of mystical life on the heart, IT, 620. — Renovation of the heart into several saints, 621.— Physical extraction into several others, 624. — Gift Jesus Christ makes of his heart, 629. — Interpretation of this prodigy, 633.
SURNATURAL CONTEMPLATION. Notion, I, 54. — His two elements: intuition and Pamour, 55.— Excellence, 61. — Various forms, 71. — Objects contemplated, 83. — Causes of contemplation: the part of man, 102; — Ja part de Dieu, 114.— Effects, 127.— Duration, 140. — Subjects, 150. — Degrees, 162-355. — Tests which
before and with the contemplative state, 357-
CONVULSIONARY OF Uzès and Dijon in the 1st century, and those of Saint-Médard in the xvue, HE, 160,
Prodigies relating to the convulsionaries of the cemetery of Saint-Médard, IV, 118.
Cross (La) and crucifix; miraculous manifestations, IF, 976.
Damned (Thes); their apparitions, I, 218. — To which forms they are recognized, 229. — In their sensitive apparitions, demons use the bodies of the damned, 208.
Decreted in contemplation, He, 162-177.
Demons. Their apparitions, I, 195. — Purpose of these manifestations, 203-906. — Diversity of these visions, 207-217.
The devil can only counterfeit the exclusively divine miracles, HE, 407-195. — He realizes the miracles of the common order, 131-151. — Signs that characterize his intervention, 153-173. — He parodys the divine, 175. — Various forms of these parodys, 279. — He manifests himself ostensibly to his followers in the magic pact, 290, — and in the scenes of the Sabbath, 380.
Is he involved in hypnotism? IV, 225; — in rotating tables? 314, — He is the authentic agent of the phenomena of spiritism, 3206.
God. His part in contemplation, I, 104. — He is the principal object, 83.
God is also the main object of supernatural vision, He, 67-99.
God is the true author of the mystical facts, IT, 5. — The supernatural of grace and glory has God as its object, 9. — All true supernatural comes from God, 98. — God claims exclusively the miracles of first and second order, 43-56. — Signs to which divine intervention is recognized, HI, 59-70.
SPRITISH DISCERNMENT: its forms and degrees, IT, 904, — This gift is not permanent, 859.
It constitutes an exclusively divine miracle, II, 53. — One of the free graces given, 98.
Divinarion. Notion and field of divination, HI, 316. — The well-known art, 317. — Express or tacit invocation of the demon, to arrive at the knowledge of the unknown, 317.
Donations pu Sair-Esprit. They accompany the sanctifying grace, III, 75. — Their relation to the infuse virtues, 77. — They exist to two degrees, one ordinary, the other miraculous, 80. — By the miraculous side, each of the seven gifts to its part in mystical life, 80. — The share of these gifts, 82-86.
Mystical impairments. Simple inner heat, Il, 468. — Combustion, 469. — Fire, 470. — Embarrassment of the saints, 474. — Explanation of mystical incandescence, 476.
The demon can simulate these wonders, IN, 135.
EMPIRE SAINTS on inanimate nature, II, 669; — on elements, 663-672; — on fields, harvests, flowers and fruit, 674; — on animals, 076.
Era (The Three) of Spiritual Life: Purgative, Illuminative, Unitive Life, I, 16.—Mysticism has its field in one-sided life, 17.
Eucnery. His role in the mystical covenant, I, 345.—Frequent Apparitions of Jesus Christ at the altar and in Phostia, I, 405.—Vertu of Eucharistic communion in the abstinences of the saints, 55.
Use of the Eucharist for the deliverance of the possessed, I, 246. — Profanation of the Holy Species in the satanic assemblies, 363-390.
MAGJQUES. Variety of demonic apparitions, III, 305. — Evocation of the dead or necromancy, 306. — Scene of this kind in the Pharsal of Lucain,
307.—These sensitive manifestations are the exclusive work of demons, 312.—Evocative processes, 440.—The ritual formulas, 441.—Ceremonial to evoke a death, 445.
Practices of Spiritism, IV, 319-355.—The personalities are only demons, 330.
Exorcisms, II, 354. — The Catholic Church alone owns and exercises this power, 254-260, — Form and effectiveness of these adjurations, 256.— Precautions and rules to follow in exorcisms, 263-265.
Mystical Exrase, I, 407. — Notion, 408. — The element of the soul, #10. — The part of the body, #11. — The two general forms: ecstasy and ravishing, 491. — Condition of virtue for supernatural ecstasy, 422. — The causes that determine it in soul: it is born of Pamour, 425. — Causes in the body, 430. — Its effects in soul, 491-437. — Effects on the body, 438. — It intervenes in sleep or in the previous day, 445. — Its duration, 449. — Its phases, 428-459. — The suspension of the Pextase by the reminder, 455.— Conditions of recall, 462.
The demon can simulate the ecstasy, III, 134.
Mystical ecstasy is different from the diseases that lead to alienation or overexcitation of the senses, such as syncope, lethargy, somnambulism, catalepsia, lepilepsia, hysteria, IV, 98-103. — Supernatural ecstasy is surrounded by prodigies that separate it from natural analogies, 110.— The freeing of the laws of gravity that accompanies lextase true wa no equivalent in nature, 118. — The same is true for invulnerability, 117.
MYSTICAL FIANÇALLES, and their ceremonial, I, 302. . Germination and miraculous production in the history of saints, II, 279.
Francis (Saint) of Assisi: his bilocations, II, 239. — History of his stigmatization, 539. — His empire over animals, 674.
SANCTIVE GRACE. Absolute supernatural grace, II,
9. — It is not a development of nature, 15. — It enhances nature, but not by creation, 24. — It does not consist in union or
the conjunction of a creature with a creature, 26-30. — It is an intimate association with the lives of the three divine persons, 33.
, FREE DATA. Their relationship with grace in general, I, 90. — The righteous are the ordinary subjects, 92. — Classification of these graces by St.Thomas and Suarez, 94. — Enumeration of these graces, 95-99. — Some are given in the form of habit, and others transiently, 100. — Role of these graces in mysticism, 101.
Hagrrupes, sources of illusions, IV, 84. — The concentration of the mind and weakness of the body, 84; — The overly intensive religious meditation, 85; — Excessive austerity, 87.
Hypxorism (L) His identity with magnetism, IV, 203. — Why do some want to distinguish them, 205. — L-Hypnotism and Fr. Coconnier, 207. — The identity proved by the uniformity of processes and results, 208-211. — Hypnotic practices are dangerous and illegal, 235-242. — Rome Decision concerning the practice of hypnotism, 293.
ILLUSIONS in the order of mystical analogies, IV, 26. — Mistakes due to temperament, 26. — Women are particularly suspicious, 28. — Childhood and old age are exposed to it, 31.
[ : Miraculous wonders, Il, 281.
Imacınation (L) Power and Variance, IV, 33. — The
316 forms and the degrees of illusions to which it exposes, 86. — It cannot exert influence on the outside world, 38.— It cannot give reason for the facts which exceed the natural scope of man, 45.— Its action on the body is considerable, 46-48.— Organic disorders and lesions which it is unable to produce, 51.—What must be thought of the vesifications and hemorrhages obtained in hypnosis, 55.— Neither stigmatization nor symbolic incrustations are the result of imagination, 60.—In many cases healings. 63.—Double limit that the imagination does not exceed; it never operates unconsciously, nor beyond human power, 64-66.—Effects of imagination in the enclosure of Passus, 67.—The hallucination and its dangers, 68-73.—Perilous analogies of certain natural wonders with mystical representations, 79.
ImposrurE (L°) frequents in the simulation of mystical facts, IV, 11; — one feigns diabotic invasions, 11; — the divine favors: revelations, ecstasy, 12. — The demon mingles more than once with these lies; Madeleine de Cordoba, 44.—The motive of these artifices is in human passions, 20-27.—Difficulty of making the right part of imposture and unconscious illusion, 24.
INCOMBUSTIBILITY OF Ecstatics, II, 650.
How the demon protects from fire, HI, 146. This prodigy in the convulsoraries of Saint-Médard, IN AT
Ivress (L°) MYSTIQUE, contemplative transport, I, 208.— His various forms, 210.—His effects, 213.—His degrees, 216.—His duration, 247:—Precautions, 217.
HALLUGINATOIRE ISLAND, IV, 454. —— Ingestion of intoxicating and toxic substances, 152. — [L-opium, 152. — Le hashisch, 157. — Principles for assessing these substances.
eccentricities, 163. Jesus Curisr. Object of mystical contemplation, I, 88. Appearances of the Saviour before Ascension, I, 97.—Body Appearances since Ascensiôn, 98-100.—In the form of the Child, the poor, the pilgrim, 4101- 103.—The Eucharist the ordinary theatre of its manifestations, 105.—Imaginary and intellectual visions of Jesus Christ, 106-112. — Does it appear personally? 114-193.
MYSTICAL JUBILATION. His cause is in He, 464. — The various ways of being translated, 464. — Saint Philip of Neri, 474.
Lamps and candles miraculously lit, II, 294.
INFUSED WEAPONS. The supernatural gift of tears, He, 480. — Their Source, 481.
The sorcerers have no tears, II, 451.
BALSAMIC LIQUEURS, in the annals of holiness, IT, 577. — Rare during the lives of the saints, these pro-
~ Diges are frequent after their death, 580. — The oil that comes from the bones of St.Nicolas de Myre, 580. — Mystical sense of these flows, 987.
Macrg. Notion and Origin, IM, 274-275. — Reality of this trade with the demon, 279-284. — Belief and Universal Practice, 285. — Penalties enacted by all ancient laws, 287. — The pact, its form, its clauses, its effects, 290-294. — It may be broken, 295. — Magical wonders, 304; — Evocations, 305-342; — Divination, 315-895; — Malefices, 327-352; — Satanic favours, 356-869; — Sabbath, 375-404. — The diabolical sacraments, 405.— Incantatory processes, 407-
424; — divinatories, 496-437; — evocatories, 440-448. — External signs betraying demonic trade,
450-555. — Witchcraft and Magic Collections, 424. MaGnerism. His genesis, IV, 165. — His principal representatives, 165-171. — Long systematic opposition of doctors, 172. — Description of phenomena: sleep, 180; — suspension and transposition of senses, 181; — catalepsia and hysteria, 182; — magnetic cures, 182; — lucidity and
mental dependence, 183.—Processes nr and hypnotic: passes, chain, pack, 188-190;
The fascination of the gaze, the speech, the will of the magnetizer, 192; — the fixation of a certain point, 194. — Dissidence between the hypnotists of the Salpetriere and those of Nancy, 195-197.— How one withdraws from magnetic sleep, 202. — Magnetism and lhypnotism are but one, 203-211.— Various interpretations of these phenomena: fluid, 213; — Pimaginal, 216; — the release of the soul, 248; — the sixth sense, 220; — the invisible agents, 222. — Sharing between the theologians: some attribute everything to the demon, 235; — the others, to nature, 227; — the others make a share in the — The principle of solution, 230. — Magnetism presents a mixture of human and diabolical, 235. — This is apparent from the examination of the various phenomena, 235-241. — Justification of triage, 246. — Hypnotic practices are dangerous and illegal, 292. — Dangers for health, 255. — Dangers for freedom and morals, 217. — Pastoral letter from the Bishop of Madrid, 265. — Answer to one last argument of Father. Coconnier. — Church decisions on magnetism leaving the freedom of opinion and science, 284-290. — Prohibition of magnetism
in the Papal States, and encyclical letter to all bishops, in 1856, 290.—Last reply concerning hypnotism, 294. MYSTICAL DISEASES. Their true causes, IT, 485.—Signs to which they are recognized, 486.—Saint Lidwine, 495. Morbid states that limit to ecstasy, IV, 91: — natural ecstasy, syncope, lethargic sleep, somnambulism, catalepsia, epilepsy, hysteria, 98-103. — Supernatural ecstasy is surrounded by miraculous characters, 110. — Diseases that seem to be approaching diabolical eruptions, 134: — lepilepsy, St. Guy's dance, madness, 136-139; — the hypocondria and theerotomania, 145. — Signs that distinguish the diabolic violence from these morbid states, 142-148. — In the absence of sufficient characters, do not affirm demonic intervention, 149. Mazerics. The evil is distinguished from the charm, II, 327.
— Causality, 328. — Reality, 329. — Malbenefits against health, 330.— Impure misfit, 333. — Bestial transformations, 837. — Metamorphosis, 338. —
Remedy against malice, 352. MYSTICAL MARRIAGE: contemplative state, I, 313.
It consists, 316. — How it is celebrated and concluded, 321. — It renews itself, 829. — The title of spouse is attributed to the Word, 324. — This mystery
327. — His wonderful effects, 331: — the beauty which he communicates to the soul, 331; — the spiritual touches, 335; — the wounds of love, 337; — peace and virtues, 338; — relative impeccability, 342. — The role of the Eucharist in the mystical covenant, 345. — It is usually after Holy Communion that spiritual marriage is celebrated and renewed, 3406. Marcous (Les) and other healers, II, 366.
Mesmer, his magnetic system and his vogue, IV, 165.
Miracles. Miraculous wonders of the saints through speech, contact, simple appearance, IH, 682-683.
Concept of the miracle, I, 41. — The exclusively divine miracle, 43: — the creation of a substance, 43; — Ja Resurrection, 44, — the renewal of a member, 49; — the prophecy and discernment of spirits, 53; — the intellectual words and visions, 54; — in the moral order, sudden conversions and sublime ascensions, 96. — In the common supernatural, signs that mark the divine, 59-72. — A great number of cases remain insoluble, 72.
Diabolical Counterfeiting of the Miracle Reserved to God, HT, 108-198.—Contrary to the Common Miracle, 131-146.—How the demon operates the counterfeits of the true miracle, 140.—In reality, it does not derogate from natural laws and its miracles are false.
Mystical. Notion, I, 15. — Experimental Mystics, 91. — Doctrinal Mystics, 28.— Necessity of Mystical Theology, 29.
Infuse Science of Mystical Theology and Holy Scriptures, II, 375-381.
DEMONIAL OBSSSION; differs from possession, II, 179.—Internal Obsession, 180.—External Obsession and its Violence, 180.—Signs and Precautions to Recognize the Devilic Intervention, 166.—Causes of Pobsession from Pobsedus, 188.—It may have as its starting point malice, 189.—God may allow it to experience virtue, 189.—Remedy against Obsession, 270.
MYSTICAL ODOR. Frequency of this prodigy, II, 562. — It often sexhales from sick bodies and covered with wounds, 964. — It is usual in stigma,
Lg to I TE al TT. this ME A
564. — It is especially attached to the bodies of the saints and their relics, and this for centuries, 566. — These smells are nothing natural either in their characters or in their causes, 572. The demon can realize this prodigy, IH, 140. — The infecting smell of witches, 453. SURNATURAL PAROLES. They're different from visions, II,
296. — The Three Orders, 298. — The Atrial Words, 300. — The Imaginary Words, 304. — The Intellectual Words, 308. — Classification of Saints
John of the Cross in successive, formal and substantial words, 314-399.
PESANTEUR (Freezing of the laws of the): suspension, ascension, ecstatic flight, I, 339. — Miraculous agility out of ecstasy: Christine lAdmirable, 642. — Walk on the waters, 647. — Explanation of these wonders, 549.
The demon can simulate them, I, 141.
MYSTICAL PLAIES: Supreme purification for contemplative ascension, I, 439.
DiABOLIC possession. Notion, IHI, 494. — Proofs of his existence, 192. — The fallen angels are the authors, 201. — Several demons can compete in the same individual, 203. — Their action is confined to the body of the possessed, 206. — This influence is limited to the motor force, 207. — Crisis and the intervals of calm, 209. — Possession may affect a morbid form, 211. — Seat of the demon in the body of the possessed, 213.— Causes of possession, 218. — The revealing signs, 231.— Remedy, 233. — The supernatural remedies. are the only effective ones, 244. — List of these remedies, 245-965. — The following: signs of issue, 268.
Propuer, Concept of Prophecy, I, 339. — Both
vision and expression, 389.—Inner enlightenment and its degrees, 342.—Prophecy can
to fulfill with or without ecstasy, 343. — Value of the prophecy taken in itself, 345. — Difficulty of hearing it well, 847. — This gift is not permanent, 999.
Prophecy belongs only to God, II, 58.—It is part of the graces given for free, 98.
PURGATORY; vision given to several holy souls, II, 182. — The forms in which these suffering souls manifest themselves, 187.
PURIFICATIONS PASSIVE Their raison d'être in contemplation, I, 358. — Rigueur de ces ordeals, 361. — Commencement, 365. — Duration, 867. — They pred. to contemplation, 374. — Purification of the senses, 378. — Variety of forms, 382-384. — Agents: God, men, the demon, 391-394. — Effects, 399. — The Purification of the Spirit, 404. — His
406. — His forms, 409-413. — Causes and effects of these spiritual trials, 416-495. — Purification of love, 435. — His degrees, 436-440. —
Its effects and its ten echelons, 443.
QUIUNCTION, degree and state of passive prayer, I, 190. — Description and degrees, 190-193. — Its duration, 196. — Its effects in the soul, 199. — Perfection required or conferred by peace of mind.
RAVEMENT, form of lextase, I, 298.
Miraculous RAYONMENT among the saints, II, 548. — It is sometimes restricted to part of the body, 595. — It may be extrinsic, 995.— Frequency of these wonders at the birth and especially at the death of the saints, 999. — Interpretation, 602.
LIABILITIES. First degree of contemplation, I, 180. — Its effects, 186.
RELATIONS of saints; miracles of which they are the object, I, 285.
SURNATURAL REVELATIONS. Notion and classification, IL, 325. — They are performed by vision, by word or by instinct, 326. — They are public or private, 326. — Existence of special revelations, 827.— They are imposed on those who receive them and to those who know them with certainty, 331. — Dangers of private revelations, 333.— They are subject to the control of authority, 336. — Various forms: prophecy, 339; — discernment of spirits, 353. — Divine revelations may exceptionally have as organs sinners and imperfect ones, 359.
SABBAT, demonic assembly, IT, 375. — Place and time of these meetings, 377. — Fantastic journey, 378. — More women than men, 380. — Presidency of Satan, 380. — Idolate cult and infamous liturgy, 382-383. — Banquet, 385. — Dances and orgies, 386. — What should we think of the Sabbath? 390. — His possibility, 992. — Evidence of his reality provided by the accused, witnesses and judges, 394. — Strange interpretations by Görres, 396. — Immixion of the Church in the prosecution of sorcerers, 401. — Opinions of demonologists and theologians on the existence and nature of the Sabbath, 401. — Canon of the Council of Ancyre relating to transport in the air, 403. — Always possible and very likely realized in the past, demonic meetings in this form seem rare today, 404.
Sacesse (Don of). His share in contemplative prayer, I, 86.
SAGESSE (Free gift given). How this grace is distinguished from the wisdom gift of the Holy Spirit, I, 95.
Saints. They are the ordinary subjects of contemplation, 1, 150.
They rarely appear in intellectual vision, IF, 166; — but frequently, in imaginary visions, 167;
— in bodily visions, 169. — Causes and circumstances of these manifestations, 170. — Variety of forms, 475. — Are these apparitions personal or performed by angels? 178. — What bodies do the saints wear in their apparitions? 181. — The righteous
are the ordinary subjects of graces given free of charge, 92.
Spanish saludadoras, superstition suspects healers, IH, 362.
SCIENCE (Gift of). His role in contemplation, I, 84.
SCIENCE. Free of charge; how it differs
of science, gift of the Holy Spirit, II, 95.— Role in mysticism, 101. SCIENCE INFUSE, Il, 301. — First elements of Pin-
— Science infuse in Adam and Solomon, 365; — in Gregory Lopez and Mary d'Agréda, 374. — Science infuse in Ja médecine, 374; — mystical theology, 375; — dogmatic and moral theology, 378; — holy scriptures, 379.
God alone can give the infusion of science, HI, 920. — Extrahuman science serves as a sign in the evil possession, 320.
THINGS transformed in mystical life, He, 604. — Power and miraculous powers in voice, sight, piousness, smell, taste and tact, 604-615. — True miracles, 018.
PASSIVE SILENCE, meeting in several degrees of contemplative prayer, is not a special degree, I, 186.
MYSTICAL SUMMER. His concept and relationship to bodily sleep, I, 221, — His causes, 299, — He is
— Its duration, 230.— Its marks, 2392.— Its effects, 233. — Perfection of this state, 234.
SPIRITISM. Renewed form of magic, II, 312.
This superstitious practice is linked to the tables
turning points, IV, 319.— Reality of the facts, 322. Home and Allan Kardec, 325. — Complete ‘cause of these phenomena, in what they have of real, is attributable to demons, 326.
STIGMATES of magicians and sorcerers, II, 454.
STIGMATISATION (The) divine. What it consists of, IT, 500. — Its various forms, 501-505.— Stigmates of the hands and feet, 505. — Lateral Stigma, 509.— The bloody crown, 512. — The agony and blood sweat, 914. — The flogging, 516. — The successive scenes of the Passion, 516.— Plastic formations and inlays outside and within the flesh, 93.— The causes of stigmatization, 531. — Free of rationalist interpretation of these phenomena, 538. — Stigmatized subjects, 048; — Their number, 550.
Imagination cannot produce real stigma
of the Crucifixion, IV, 51.—Stigma is not therapeutic, 98.
Ecstatic SusPENSION, H, 639.— Prodigious ascents in the air, 640-649.
TOURNING TABLES. Their history, IV, 303. — Reality of phenomena, 309.—- Vain hypothesis of muscle thrusts, 309. — Insufficient theory of fluid,
312. — The invisible agent is the demon, 314. — Episcopal decisions and common sentiment of theologians, 319.
DIVINE TOUCHES, form of passive contemplation, I, 936. — Effects in the soul and on the body, 242.— God
Only is able to produce them, 245. IV 25
, in mystical subjects. The miracles in speech and song, Il, 604. — Transformation of sight, of the wie, of the smell, of taste, of tact, 608-615. — Multiplication of these wonders in Catherine Emmerich, 616. — Reasoned explanations, 618.
The devil can delude the senses to the point of making their transformation seem, IM, 440.
Transport MysriQues. What they consist of, I, 208. — Intoxication, 210. — Sleep, 221. — Divine touches, 236. — The wound of love, 248.
Trinity. Manifestations of the Three Divine Persons in Various Visions, H, 69-91.
Sanctifying grace is an association with the lives of the three divine Persons, MI, 33.
VAMPIRES, debt and interpretation to be given to them, IHI, 348-359.
Green. Free from the law of sleep among contemplatives, I, 559.— supernatural characters of these insomnia, 561.
Life (The Holy One). Object of supernatural contemplation, I, 94.
It often appears in visions, II, 425-135.
VierGES (CHRETIANS) are the preferred subjects of contemplation, 1, 158.
BEATIFIC VISION. It does not enter into the regular favors of mystical contemplation, I, 347. — It is an exception from time to time realized, 349.
SURNATURAL Visions. General Concept, II, 4. — Three species, 6.— They constitute true miracles, 18. — Body vision, 20. — How it occurs, 24. — Imaginary vision, 46. — It is representative or symbolic, 38. — The elements that are
— His two elements, 52. — His three degrees, 60. — His invincible certainty and divine provenance, 61. — The various objects of the triple vision, 67-294. — Various visions of hell, 220. The demon contradicts the external visions and immagi-
II, 132.
INCUBIC VOLUPTED, II, 369.—Violences of demonic obsession, 183.
Inch (St): III, p. 369.
Agathe (Ste): IT, p. 169; III, p. 368.
Agathe (Bs) of the Cross: He, p. 364, 564.
Agnes (Ste), martyr: He, p. 149, 594, 652.
Agnes (Bse) of Bohemia: II, p. 641.
Agnes (Ven.) de Langeac: I, p. 305, 398, 444; IL, p. 104, 4109, 132,162, 513, 563,581, 601, 611, 629, 665, 672.
Agnès (Ste) de Montepulciano: p. 147, 213, 579, 582.
Agrippine (Ste): II, p. 177.
Aiou (St) de Lérins: II, p. 606.
Alban (St): II, p. 410.
Albert (B.) the Great: He, p. 376.
Aldebrand (St): II, p. 294.
Aldegonda (Ste): IT, p. 148, 498, 568.
Aldhelm (St): II, p. 673.
Alphonse (St) de Liguori: II, p. 255.
Alvarez Balthasar (P.):1, p. 368.
Amable (St): III, p. 369.
Amand (St) de Maëstricht: II, p. 581.
Ambroise (St), Doctor: II, p. 403, III, p. 368.
Ambroise Autpert (B.): II, p. 402.
Ambroise (B.) of Siena: II, p. 598.
Anastase (St): II, p. 606.
Andrew (St), apostle: IT, p. 584.
André Avellini (St): He, p. 594.
Andre (St) the Scot: II, p. 566.
Angèle (St) de Foligno: I, p. 305, 311, 362, 367, 398, 419: II, 57, 109, 113, 328, 614.
Angèle (Ste) de Merici: II, p. 380.
Angel of Peace: II, p. 534.
Angélico (B.) de Fiésole: II, p. 398.
Angelo (B.) d'Acri: II, p. 232, 246, 583, 598.
Anthuse (Ste): II, p. 657.
Antoine (St), from the desert: I, p. 397; I, p. 89, 138, 631; I, p. 182, 250, 149, 196, 68, 373.
Antoine (St) de Padua: He, p. 101, 172, 212, 236, 240, 651, 674.
Apollonia (Ste): III, 368.
‘- Arsene (St): II, p. 594.
Asteria (St): II, p. 676.
Athanase (St): II, p. 568.
Aubert (St): IT, p. 158.
Augustin (St), Doctor: He, p. 88.
Augustin (St), of England: It, p. 285.
Ausbert (St): He, p. 274.
Aymar (Jacques): IV, p. 298.
Azam (Dr.): IV, p. 171.
Baptista Varani (Bse): I, p. 40; II, p. 509.
Barbe (Ste): II, p. 594.
Baront (St): II, p. 225.
Basile (St), Doctor: IT, p. 74.
ı Benezet: IV, p. 316.
Benoît (St): I, p. 384; He, p. 206, 295, 672. i
Bernard (St) d'Arce: He, p. 294.
Bernard (St) de Clairvaux: H, p. 280, 348, 680; III, p. 199, 225, 250.
Bernardin (St) of Siena: II, p. 223, 402.
Welcome Bojani (Bse): He, p. 214.
Blaise (St): II, p. 176, 674.
Bocal: III, p. 385.
Bonaventure (St): II, p. 86, 141, 391,
Boniface (St), Camaldule: I, p. 653.
Boniface (B.) of Lausanne: I, p. 146.
Boniface (St), from Mainz: IT, p. 294.
Good (Ste), from Pisa: IT, p. 281, 657.
Braid: LIL, p. 652, 663.
Brigitte (S), Ireland: II, p. 256, 600, 669.
Brigitte (Ste), Sweden: II, p. 328, 508, 587, 612, 615.
Bruno (St) I, p. 227, 23%.
Cajatan (St): II, p. 570.
Candide (Ste): II, p. 584.
Carpus: II, p. 110.
Catherine (Ven.), fond. des Jésuates: IT, p. 556.
Catherine (Ste), of Alexandria, martyrdom: I, p. 308; II, p. 651.
Catherine (Ste) of Bologna: I, p. 303; I, p. 401, 210, 328, 397, 574, 591.
Catherine (Ste) of Genoa: II, p. 472, 565, 613.
Catherine (Bse) de Racconigi: II, p. 165, 601, 625. Catherine (Ste) de Ricci: I, p. 307;
II, p. 183, 280, 328, 364, 440, 503, 521.537, 560, 565, 570, 624, 683.
Catherine (St) of Siena: I, p. 306, 397; II, p. 104, 165, 328, 362, 415, 439, 454, 465, 510, 544, 555, 613, 630, 653; II, p. 373.
Cedmon: II, p. 393.
Cecile (Ste): II, p. 160.
Chantal (Ste Françoise de): IT, p. 176, 233, 298.
. Charles Borromée (St): II, p. 172, 600, 613; II, p. 330.
Chiledoin (Ste): II, p. 600.
Christine (Bse) Admirable: II, p. 380, 467, 577, 607, 643, 653.
Christine (Bse) de Stommeln: I, p. 152; IL, p. 213, 453,513, 524, 563, 608; 1IT, p. 373.
Claire (Ste): HI, p. 369.
taa A
Claire (Bse) de Montefalco: [, p. 368; He, p. 509, 524. To
Claver, B.: II, p. 671.
Clement (St), Pope: II, p. 669.
Clement (St) d'Ancyre: I, p. 652.
Cloud (St): IN, p. 369.
Coengen (St): II, p. 608, 637.
Colette (Ste): I, p. 303; IT, p. 105, 140, 151.206, 214, 378, 449, 494, 554, 559, 597, 641; III, p. 373.
Columba (St): II, p. 569, 596.
Comgall (St): He, p. 594.
Conon (St): II, p. 294.
Constance (St): II, p. 449.
Constantine the Gr.: II, p. 277.
Convulsors of Saint-Médard: IIL, p. 144, 461.
Cunegunde (Ste): II, p. 653.
Cyprien (St) and Justine (Ste) p. 296.
Dalmace (St): II, p. 554.
Davanzato, B.: He, p. 641.
Davin (St): II, p. 568.
Demetrius (St): II, p. 584.
Denis le Chartreux: II, p. 185, 228,
Didace or Diègue (St): I, p. 455.
Dominique (St): II, p. 127, 283, 650, 670, 681.
Dominique de Jésus-Marie: II, p. 455, 502, 640.
Donstain (St): II, p. 76.
Dorothy (Ste): IT, p. 272.
Dulcissime (St) and his companions: He, p. 568.
From the Potet: IV, p. 170.
Duthac (St): He, p. 653.
Elie Marion, ecstatic of the Cevennes: II, p. 144.
Elizabeth (Bse): He, p. 294.
Elisabeth (Ste) of Hungary: If, p. 275,
Elisabeth (Ste) of Portugal: II, p. 566, 682.
Elizabeth (St) of Schonauge: II,
Elizabeth (Ste) the Thaumaturge: If, 554.
Elouan (St): II, p. 674,
Elpidus (St): I, p. 555, 560.
Emilie Bicchieri (Bse): He, p. 512.
Emmerich (Anne-Cather.): II, p.256, 258, 455, 488,512, 524, 616, 642.
Ephrem (St): II, p. 377.
Ephyse (S:): II, p. 652.
Erichto, Thessaly's magician: III, p. 464.
Erkonwald ($t): H, p. 364.
Erry (St): He, p. 293.
Lopez hope (Bse): I, p. 363.
Étienne (St), pope: II, p. 568.
Étienne (St) de Muret: II, p. 563.
Étienne (St) le Thaumaturge: II, p. 657.
Étiennette (Bse) de Soncino: p. 305, 458.
Eudocus (Ste): IT, p. 504.
Eulalie (Ste): p. II, 567.
Euphemia (Ste): He, p. 571, 581.
Eusebius (St): II, p. 606.
Eustochia of Padua: II, p. 224.
Euthymus (St): He, p. 365, 555.
Felan (St): He, p. 596.
Congratulated (Ste): He, p. 368.
Felix (St) of Cantalice: II, p. 466, 615.
Félix (St) de Nole: II, p. 470.
Félix (St) de Trier: II, p. 477.
Félix (St) de Valois: II, p. 126.
Ferdinand, B.: II, p. 158.
Fintan (St): He, p. 594.
Fortunate (Ste): II, p. 568.
Fox (John family): 1V, p. 305.
François (St) d'Assisi: I, p. 368, 397; IL, pp. 173,1976, 239, 394, 470,510, 523, 539, 615, 674.
Francis (St) of Borgia: II, p. 594.
François de la Croix: III, p. 505.
François Dyrrachin (B.): He, p. 609.
Francois (B.) by Fabriano H, p. 679.
François (St) de Paule: If, p. 295, 570.
François Régis (St): He, p. 403.
François (St) de Sales: He, p. 233;
* IIL, p. 48.
François (St) de Solano: IT, p. 678.
François Xavier (St): II, p. 241, 469, 640, 664.
Françoise Romaine (St):II, p. 160, 164, 184, 214.993, 328, 44l, 493.
Furcy (St): He, p. 414.
Gasparin (Agénor de): IV, p. 312.
Geneviève (Ste) from Paris: He, p. 596; UL, p. 250.
Gengoul (St): He, p. 296.
Gérard Majella: II, p. 465 467 656.
Gérardesque (Ste): II, p. 39, 508.
Germain (St) de Capoue: He, p. 176.
Germaine (Ste): He, p. 276.
Gertrude (Ste): I, p. 308, 329; I, p. 328, 621.
Gertrude (Ste) de Nivelle: II, p. 598.
Gertrude (Ven.) of Oosten: II, p. 504, 538.
Gilduin (St): I, p. 208.
Gilles (B.) d'Assise: I, p. 351; II, p. 446.
Gilles (B.) de Vaozel: II, p. 650; HI, p. 296, 395.
Old man (Urbain): IH, p. 225.
Gregory (St) the Great: He, p. 74, 381.
Gregory VII (St), pope: H, p. 74, 282.
Gregory Lopez: II, p. 367.
Gregory (St) of Nazianze: II, p. 40.
Gregory (St) The Thaumaturge: II, D 6633 HIS D250
Guedas (St): II, p. 448.
Guiborade (St): II, p. 296.
Guillaume d'Olive (St): H, p. 594.
Guldenstubbe (baron of): II, p. 452.
Gurvalle (St): II, p. 177.
Guthlac (St): II, p. 200.
Guy (B.) of Cortone: He, p. 173.
Hélène (Bse), of the third order of the Erm. of Saint-Aug.: II, p. 75.
Hélène (Bse) of Hungary: He, p. 503, 505, 537.
Henri (B.) de Trevisio: He, p. 294.
Heibert (St): II, p. 600.
Hermagoras (St), martyr: He, p. 564.
Hermann Joseph (B.) of Steinfeld: II, p. 396, 614, 657.
Hierothea: I, p. 22.
Hilaire, magician: HI, p. 441.
Hilarion (St):1, p. 397; IM, p. 489, 250,373, 408. -
Hildegarde (Ste): II, p. 41, 295, 398, 374; III, p. 64.
Home David Dunglas: 308.
Hubert (St): II, p. 368.
Hubertin de Casali: I, p. 368.
Hugues (St) de Cluny: I, p. 9, 75.
Humbert (St): II, p. 676.
Humiliane Cerchi (Bse): II, p. 75, 101.
Hyacinthe (St): He, p. 648.
Ida (Bse) de Louvain: He, p. 106, 147, 364, 502, 506, 510, 514.
II, p. 285,
Ignatius (St) of Loyola: II, p. 483.
Isidore (St) the Labourer: II, p. 292.
Isidore (St) of Seville: IT, p. 679.
Ivan (St): II, p. 677.
Ivette (Ste): I, p. 303.
Jacques (St) de Nisibe: II, p. 679.
Jacques (St) de Tarentaise: He, p. 676.
Jean Chrysostom (St): II, p. 74, 144
Jean (St) Colombini: II, p. 403, 471, 597.
Jean (St) de Caramole: II, p. 567.
Jean Damascene (St): III, p. 51.
John (St) of God: He, p. 403, 456, 241, 214, 539, 600.
Jean Gualbert (St): HI, p. 225, 250, 408.
John of the Cross (St): I, p. 426; H, p- 285, 517: III, p. 250, 273, 321.
John (St) of Matha: H, p. 75.
Jean Nepomucène (St): II, p. 590.
John (St) of Saint-Facond: II, p. 567, 594.
Joan of Arce: II, p. 458, 302.
Jeanne de la Croix: II, p. 440, 504, 506, 527.
Jeanne de Jésus-Marie: If, p. 515.
Jeanne (Bs) d'Orvieto: II, p. 270, 494, 613.
Jeanne (Ste) de Valois: II, p. 129, 581, 693.
Jeanne-Marie de la Croix: He, p. 491. 514, 537, 565, 612.
Jole (St): H, p. 654.
Joseph (St) of Copertino: II, p. 247, 354, 378, 455, 568, 608, 612, 640, 642, 646, 653, 685.
Joseph FHymnograph: IT, p. 389.
Julien (St), martyr: II, p. 676.
Julien (St) du Mans: H, p. 669.
Julien l'Apostat: III, p. 253.
Julienne (Bse) de Cateldo: IT, p. 404.
Julienne (St) du Mont-Cornillon: II, p. 105, 112, 329, 464, 468.
Kentigern (St): II, p. 595.
Laborde (Leon de): III, p. 439.
Lambert (St): He, p. 654.
Lantages (of): I, p. 40.
Laurent Justinien (St): I, p. 41; If, p. 84, 151.
Lazarus (St), painter: IN, p. 397.
Light (St): H, p. 606.
Leo II (St) Pope: IT, p. 49.
394 Leufroi (St): He, p. 674. Lidwine (Ste): II, p. 160, 477, 183,
241, 259, 495, 502, 560, 564.
Related (St): III, p. 369. Louis Bertrand (St): II, p. 569, 600,
Louis (St) de Gonzague: II, p. 473. Wolf (St): HI, p. 369. Lucie (Ste): He, p. 470, 651; HI,
Lucie (Bse) de Narni: II, p. 473, 502,
Lucien (St): II, p. 657.
Ludger (St): II, p. 294.
Lunar (St): II, p. 362.
Lupicin (St): IT, p: 215.
Lutgarde (Ste): IL, p. 147, 168, 328,
Luther: I, p. 262. Macaire (St) d'Alex.: He, p. 559.676;
IIL, p. 250, 340.
Macaire (St) of Egypt: He, p. 194. Madeleine de Cordoba: II, p. 500. Madeleine (Bs!) by Panateri: If,
Mohammed: IV, p. 13.
Marcelline Pauper: II, p. 539. Marcou (St): I, p. 366. Marguerite (Bse) de Cortone: IF,
p. 185, 203, 481, 515, 615; I,
Marguerite (Ste) of Ravenna:
Marguerite of the Blessed Sacrament: If,
p. 107, 516, 642. Marguerite (B®) from Tiferne
Marguerite (Bs) of Ypres: II, p. 608. Marguerite - Catherine Turpin: II,
Marguerite Faventine (Bse): I, p. 305. Marguerite-Marie Alacoque (Bse):
I, p. 254, 398; II, p. 82, 109, 186,
206, 328, 478, 627; HI, p. 68. Marie d'Agréda (Ven.): I, p. 152;
II, p. 1431; 257, 398, 374, 458, 639. Mary (Bse) of the Angels: II, p. 566,
072500 Marie Bagnési (Ven.): 11, p. 493,
Mary the Good One: II, p. 281. Marie-Dominique Lazzari: II, p. 544,
Marie Égyptienne (S): I, p. 368.
Marie-Françoise (Bs) des Plaines: II, p. 507.
Marie de Maillies: II, p. 143,151, 187.
Marie (Ven.) d'Oignies: II, p. 109, 135, 160, 169, 455, 484, 494, 555.
Marie-Madeleine (Ste) de Pazzi: I, p. 305, 367, 368, 410, 419, 426; He, p. 39, 90, 109, 224, 328, 440, 45,449, 470, 481, 510, 529, 605, 610, 622, 677, 683.
. Marie-Madeleine (Bse) des Ursins: Ip 615.
Marie-Marguerite des Anges p. 508.
Marie Raggi (Bs):1II, p. 658.
Marien (St): II, p. 596.
Martin (St) de Porres: II, p. 188, 244, 678.
Martin (St) de Tours: II, p. 107, 151, 158, 207, 209.
Martine (Ste): II, p. 564.
Mathias (St), Apostle: II, p. 568.
Matthew (St), apostle: II, p. 584.
Maure (Ste): II, p. 569, 580.
Maximus ($t): II, p. 148.
Mayeul (St): II, p. 295.
Mechtilde (Ven.) of Spanheim: II,
Medard (St): II, p. 599.
Mesmer: IV, p. 167.
Michel Archangel: II, p. 154.
Michel-des-Saints (St): II, p. 439.631.
Migalena: III, p. 385.
Mildride (Ste): II, p. 74.
Moler (Gabrielle): IV, p. 119.
Monique (Ste): II, p. 98, 568.
Montan: IV, p. 43.
Necato, witch: IH, p. 479.
Nevelo, B., of Favence: II, p. 657.
Nicolas Factor: He, p. 472.
Nicolas (St) de Myre: IE, p. 150, 584.
Nicolas (B.) de la Roche: II, p. 225, 556.
Nicole Obry of Vervins: III, p. 200, 248.
Norbert (St): He, p. 39, 403.
Obice (St): II, p. 225.
Oil: I, p. 367, 386; II, p. 131, 163, 354, 524.
Olive (S'e), from Palermo: IT, p. 177.
Omer (St): II, p. 566.
Five-
Oswald (St): II, p. 145, 211, 214.
Otte (Ste): He, p. 481.
Oyent (St): He, p. 612.
Pacoma (St): III, p. 250, 373.
Pâris, Jansenist deacon: III, p. 129.
Pascal Baylon (St): II, p. 405, 285.466.
Paternian (St): He, p. 566.
Paul (St) of the Cross: II, p. 493, 640.
Paul (St), of Verdun: II, p. 584.
Perez (John): III, p. 292.
Petetin (Dr.): IV, p. 174.
Petrone (St): II, p. 600.
Phantin (St): He, p. 449.
Philbert (St): IT, p. 464.
Philippe (St) de Néri: II, p. 17, 106, 143,282, 354, 474, 563, 596, 612, 639, 668, 680, 683; III, p. 250.
Philippine, B.: He, p. 641.
Piat (St): II, p. 566.
Picard (Mathurin): II, p. 225.
Pius ValS ILp. 231:
Peter (St), apostle: II, p. 100; MI, p. 118.
Peter (St) d'Alcantara: II, p. 192, 446.466, 472, 554, 560, 566, 641, 654.
Pierre Célestin (St): He, p. 75, 293:
Damascus Stone (St): He, p. 606.
Pierre Nolasque (St): II, p. 1926.
Pierre Pétron, B.: He, p. 220, 568.
Pierre Regalat (St): I1, p. 256.
Pigeon (Leonie): IV, p. 175.
Placid (St): He, p. 74.
Polycarp (St): He, p. 652.
Potit (St), martyr: II, p. 564.
Risk (Ste): II, p. 564, 594.
Puységur (Marquis de): IV, p. 169.
Radbod: IIL, p. 359.
Rainier (St), from Pisa: II, p. 75, 579, 614.
Raphael (the angel): D 238:
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Raymond Nonnat (St): II, p. 606; IIL, p. 368.
Raymond (St) de Pegnafort: IT, p. 567, 647, 649.
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Rictrude (Ste): II, p. 324.
Roman (St): II, P. 215.
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IT, pe M6: TT
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Rupert: II, p. 382.
Sabas (St): II, p. 363.
Samson (St), of Dol: II, p. 74, 148.
Save (St): II, p. 415.
Scolastic (Ste): II, p. 477, 666; II, p. 368.
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Severin (St): II, p. 234, 599, 642.
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Stagire: III, p. 228.
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