The Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1863

In last December’s article we reviewed the method used by spirits to exert material actions upon human beings. It causes is entirely in the perispirit that is not only the principle of all Spiritist phenomena but also of a number of moral, physiological and pathological effects that were misunderstood before the knowledge of this agent whose discovery. When the time is right this will open new horizons to science when science decides to acknowledge the existence of the invisible world.

As we have seen before the perispirit plays an important role in every phenomena of life. It is the source of multiple affections whose cause is uselessly addressed through surgery and other medical methods. One can also explain the reactions from individual to individual, the instinctive attractions and repulsions, the magnetic action, etc. In a free Spirit, that is discarnate, the perispirit replaces the material body. It is the sensitive agent, the organ through which the Spirit acts.

The Spirit reaches the individual upon whom wishes to act, surrounding, penetrating, magnetizing and involving that individual through the fluidic and expansive nature of the perispirit.perispirit. People, embedded in that invisible world, are incessantly submitted to that influence in the same way that we are influenced by the atmosphere that we breathe and such influence is translated by moral and physiological effects that go unnoticed and that are frequently attributed to entirely opposite causes. This influence naturally differs according to the good or bad qualities of the Spirit as explained in the preceding article. If the Spirit is good and benevolent the influence or impression if you wish will be pleasant and healthy. It is like the caress of a mother with the baby in her arms. If the Spirit is bad and devilish the influence will be tough, painful, harmful and full of anxiety. It feels like a constraint rather than an embrace.

We live in this fluidic ocean endlessly fighting contrary currents that we attract or repel or allow ourselves to be carried away according to our personal qualities but in which the individual always preserves the free-will, essential attribute of mankind, and according to which one can always choose the path to follow.

As one can see this is entirely independent of the mediumistic faculty as it is commonly understood. Since the action of the invisible world is part of nature it is exerted upon individuals regardless of any knowledge about Spiritism. We are submitted to that influence as we are to the action of atmospheric electricity even without knowing physics; as we become sick without knowing medicine. Now, as physics teaches us the cause of certain phenomena and medicine of certain diseases the study of the Spiritist science teaches us the cause of phenomena due to the occult influence of the invisible world and explain that to us, something that without such a cause would go unexplained.

Mediumship is the means of observation. The medium – allow us the comparison – is the laboratory tool through which the action of the invisible world is translated in a positive way. It is through the facility that we are offered to have the experiments repeated that mediumship allows us to study the modes and several nuances of that action. It was from that study and observations that the Spiritist science was born.

Every individual that in any way feels the influence of the Spirits is for that matter a medium and hence it can also be said that every individual are mediums. However, it is through effective, conscious and facultative mediumship that the existence of the invisible world was demonstrated and it was through the diversity of the obtained or provoked manifestations that we learned about the quality of the beings that inhabit that world and role they play in nature. The medium did to the invisible world the same that the microscope did to the world of the infinitely small. In a word it is then a new force, a new power, a new law that was revealed to us.

It is really unconceivable that disbelief alone may repel this idea for it presupposes the existence of a soul in us, an intelligent principle that outlives the body.

If it were about the discovery of a material substance, rather than an intelligent one, it would be accepted without difficulty but the action of an intelligence beyond mankind is a superstition. If we go back to the general facts based on the observation of mediumistic events, we conclude by the similarity of causes given the similarity of effects. It is through the analogy between the Morzine phenomena and those that are observed daily through mediumistic means that it seems evident to us that there is a participation of malevolent Spirits. In those cases, it would not be less evident for anyone who have given some thought to the isolated cases reported in the Spiritist Review. The only difference is in the aliment’s characteristics.

History registers several similar cases among which the religious women of Loudun, the convulsionary of Saint-Médard, the case of Cévènes and the possessed from the times of Jesus Christ. The latter ones in particular presented remarkable analogy with those of Morzine. Something that deserves a special note is the fact that wherever those phenomena were produced, there was a dominant idea that they were due to the Spirits and such idea was somehow intuitive in those who were affected.

If we want to refer to our first article with the theory of the obsession contained in The Mediums’ Book and the events reported in the Spiritist Review, we will see that the action of the bad Spirits upon the creatures that are taken over presents nuances that are extremely varied in intensity and duration according to the degree of evilness and obstinacy of the Spirit and also according to the moral state of the person that gives them a more or less easy access. Such action is frequently momentary and accidental, more malicious and unpleasant than dangerous, as in the case that we reported in the preceding article. The following fact belongs to that category.





Mr. Indermühle, from Berne, a member of the Spiritist Society of Paris, told us that the administrator of his estate in Zimmerwald, a man of herculean strength, felt the other night as being grabbed by someone who shook him violently. It was like a nightmare. But the man was very much awake and stood up trying to fight back for some time. When he finally freed himself, he took his sword that was hanging by his bed and unsuccessfully sought the aggressor in the dark. He then lit a candle and searched everywhere finding nothing. The door was closed. As soon as he returned to bed the gardener who was sleeping in the adjacent bedroom started to ask for help shouting that he was being strangled. The caretaker rushed to the gardener’s bedroom but like in his case found nothing. A woman servant that was also sleeping in the same building heard a noise. On the day after they all came horrified to tell Mr. Indermühle what had happened. After learning about every single detail and certifying that no stranger could have entered the rooms Mr. Indermühle concluded that it was a bad prank from some Spirit because for some time now unequivocal physical manifestations of several kinds had manifested themselves in his own house. He appeased his servants asking them to carefully observe the details of any occurrence in case it happened again.

Since he and his wife are mediums, he then evoked the disturbing Spirit that confessed the event and apologized saying: “I wanted to speak with you because I am unhappy and need your prayers. For a long time now I have been doing everything I can to draw your attention: I touch you – I have even pulled your ear (confirmed by Mr. Indermühle) but all without any result. I then thought that creating the situation last night you would think of calling me. You have just done that so I am happy but I assure you that I had no bad intention. Promise you will call me again a few times and pray for me.”

Mr. Indermühle gave him a severe warning, repeated the conversation and gave him moral advices that he listened attentively. He prayed for the Spirit and asked his people to do the same. They did, as they were all sympathetic, and everything went back to normal.

Unfortunately, not every Spirit has good intentions. This one was not bad. There are some, however, whose actions are tenacious, permanent and can even bring unpleasant consequences to the health of the individual and more than that to the intellectual capabilities, if the Spirit subjugates the victim to the point of neutralizing the free-will and hence leading to carry out extravagances. This is the case with obsessive insanity that, although similar in its effects, is very different to pathological insanity with respect to its causes.

In our travels we saw the obsessed young man that we mentioned in the January 1861 issue of the Review with the title “The Rapping Spirit of Aube” and we heard from his father and from an eyewitnesses the confirmation of these facts. The young man is now sixteen years old; he is healthy, tall, perfectly formed and nonetheless he has complaints in his stomach and some weakness of the limbs and, according to him, those limitations don’t allow him to work. Once you see him it is easy to conclude that his ailment is laziness but that does not subtract anything from the reality of the phenomena from five years ago and take us back to Bergzabern (Spiritist Review May, June and July 1858). We cannot say the same about his moral health. He was very smart in his childhood and was a fast learner in school. His abilities diminished materially since those days. It is necessary to add that it was only recently that he and his parents learned about Spiritism through word of mouth, not reading anything about the subject. They had never heard about it before then; therefore, we cannot see in Spiritism the cause for those events. The physical phenomena practically stopped or are very rare these days but his intellectual state is the same regrettably to his parents that live out of their work.





The effect of prayers in cases like this is well-known but one cannot expect much from the young man in this case and we would need the support of his parents. They agree that he is under an occult and malevolent influence but their belief does not go much beyond that and their religious faith is very weak.

We told his father that it was necessary to pray but pray sincerely and with commitment. “It is what they told me” he said. “I prayed a few times but without result. If I only knew that praying several times during a twenty-four hours period would resolve that I would do it right now.” It shows the kind of help we can find from those most interested in circumstances like that.

Here is the counterpart of that and a proof of the efficacy of the prayer when said from the heart and not from the lips.

A certain young lady, contrary to her own inclinations, married a man toward whom she had no love. Her broken heart had led her to mental disturbances. She lost her mind and had to be taken into a hospital. She had never heard about Spiritism but had she got involved and people would say that the Spirits had messed with her mind. Hence the disease was caused by an exclusively personal and intellectual accident. It is understandable that conventional medication would produce little or almost no effect and since there was no apparent obsession one could even doubt the efficacy of prayer.

A family friend and member of the Spiritist Society of Paris thought that he should question a superior Spirit about the case, getting this answer:

“The single mindedness of that lady by its own right attracts to her a large number of bad Spirits that invade her with their fluids, feed her with the single idea and preclude her from receiving good influences. There are plenty of Spirits like that in environments where she is and creates a barrier that makes curing the patient difficult. You may cure her, though, but for that it is necessary a moral strength capable defeating the resistance and such a power is not given to a single person. You need five or six sincere Spiritists gathering every day and for a few moments pleading from the bottom of their hearts to have the assistance of the good Spirits and also that the truly sincere prayer may become a mental magnetization. You don’t need to be close to her to do that. On the contrary, through your thoughts you may take her a healthy fluidic chain whose strength will be directly proportional to your intent and augmented by the number of persons. In such a way you can neutralize the bad fluid that surrounds her. Do that having faith in God and wait.”

Six people dedicated to this charity work and during a whole month they did not miss a single day of their mission. After a few days the patient was sensibly calmer. Fifteen days later the improvement was clear and she has now returned to her house in perfect health, still ignoring, like her husband, the origin of the cure. The way to act is clearly indicated here and we have nothing more accurate to add to the explanation given by the spirt. Prayer not only has the effect of attracting a foreign help to the patient but it also exerts a magnetic action.

How powerful would magnetism be with the support of prayer! Unfortunately, certain magnetizers, following the example of many physicians, make abstraction of the Spiritual element. They only see the mechanical action thus lacking the help of powerful auxiliary force. We hope that the true Spiritists may see in this example another proof of the good that can be done in similar circumstances.

A question of great importance is presented here: Can the mediumistic exercise improve bodily health and mental faculties? One must notice that this is how most detractors of Spiritism formulate the question or, even better, instead of framing a question they transform the principle in an axiom by stating that mediumship leads to insanity.

We refer to real insanity and not to this more burlesque one with which they classify our followers. Such question could be conceived from the part of someone who believed in the existence of the Spirits and on the action that they can exert because there is something real to them. For those who don’t believe, however, the question does not make sense because if the Spirit does not exist it cannot produce any effect. Since such a thesis is unsustainable they shield themselves in the dangers of super excitation of the brain that in their opinion may be caused by a simple belief in the Spirits.

We will not go back to this already studied point but ask if there is already any statistics about all the brains that have been disturbed by the devil and the terrible scenarios of torture in hell and the eternal condemnation and if it is more harmful to believe that there are good and benevolent Spirits around us, our relatives, parents, friends and guardian angel or the devil.

Once there is the belief in the existence of the Spirits and their action is more rational and serious to have the question formulated as: Can the exercise of mediumship facilitate the invasion of bad Spirits around a person and the impact from this activity?

We have never dissimulated the obstacles found with mediumship and that is the reason why we multiplied the instructions about it in The Mediums’ Book and never stop recommending people to have it studied previously before initiating that practice. Thus since the publication of that book the number of obsessed people has diminished significantly notably because it spares the rookies an experience that they would otherwise have acquired the hard way.

We state once more: Yes, mediumship has inconveniences when practiced without experience of which the least one is to be mystified by the deceiving and lighthearted Spirits. The practice of experimental Spiritism without study is the same as to make chemical manipulations without knowing chemistry.

The large number of examples of obsessed and subjugated persons in the most unpleasant way who have never heard about Spiritism demonstrates by and large that the exercise of mediumship does not have the privilege of attracting bad Spirits. More than that experience demonstrates that mediumship is a means of keeping them away for it allows to recognize them.

Nevertheless, since sometimes they may be wandering around us it may well happen that by finding the opportunity to manifest they take the chance as long as they see a moral or physical predisposition in the medium that makes him/her accessible to their influence. Now such predisposition is in the individual and in previous personal causes and did not appear with mediumship. One can say that the exercise of mediumship is a circumstance rather than a cause. However, if some creatures are in this group there are others that offer an impassable obstacle to the bad Spirits who avoid them. We speak of really bad and evildoer Spirits, the only really dangerous ones, and not of lighthearted and mocking Spirits that sneak everywhere.

The presumption of being invulnerable to the bad Spirits has often been punished in a cruel way because they are never harmlessly challenged in their pride. Pride is an open door to them because nobody offers less resistance than a proud person when attacked in their weak spot. Hence, before addressing the Spirits, it is highly recommended that we are protected against the assault of the bad ones similarly to the one who enters a dangerous area. This is initially achieved by the previous study that shows the path and precautions to take; then comes the prayer. We need to be clear, however, that the only true preservative in is us, in our own strength and never in exterior things and that there are no talismans, amulets, sacramental words, sacred or profane words that have the least efficacy if we don’t have the required qualities in ourselves. Hence these qualities are the ones that need to be acquired.

If we were truly convinced of the essential and serious objective of Spiritism; if we prepared ourselves constantly for the practice of mediumship by a fervent appeal to our guardian angel and our protector Spirits; if we studied ourselves striving to purify from our imperfections the cases of mediumistic obsessions would be even less frequent.

Unfortunately, many people only see the facts of manifestations. Not satisfied with the moral proofs that exist they want to have the satisfaction of communicating personally with the Spirits at any price, forcing the development of a faculty that is sometimes underveloped in them, driven more by curiosity than a sincere desire to improve. It results, which instead of being embedded in a healthy atmosphere and protected, open up the door to obsessing Spirits who will torment them in a different way and on another occasion but who take the opportunity that is offered to them.

What can then be said about those who make a pastime out of the manifestations and see in them just a motive for distraction and curiosity or look for means of satisfying their ambition, greed or material interests? It is in these cases that one can say that the exercise of mediumship may provoke the invasion of bad Spirits. Yes, it is dangerous to play with serious things. How many people read The Spirits’ Book only to know how to operate because their only interest is the recipe or how to proceed! The moral side of the issue is an accessory to them. Hence one cannot blame Spiritism for something that results from imprudence.

Returning to the possessed of Morzine.

Something that one Spirit can do to an individual, several Spirits can do to multiple individuals simultaneously, giving the obsession an epidemic character. A cloud of bad Spirits may invade a region and manifest there in several ways. It was an epidemic like this that spread in Judea during the time of Jesus Christ and in our opinion it is a similar epidemic that took place in Morzine.

It is what we intend to establish in a follow up article where we shall point out the essentially obsessive characters of that disease. We will analyze the medical reports with their observations and among them the reports from Dr. Constant as well as the means of cure that were employed be it through medicine or exorcism.