In the Spiritist Review of December 1862 and January-March and May 1863 we provided a detailed report and assessment of the demoniacal epidemic of Morzine, High Savoy, and demonstrated the insufficiency of the means employed to fight it. Although the problem has never ceased completely there had been a kind of break. Several newspapers, as well as our personal correspondence, indicate the resurgence of the problem with renewed intensity. The journal of animal magnetism, Magnétiseur, published in Genève by Mr. Lafontaine, carries the following report in its May 15th, 1864 issue:
“The demoniacal epidemic that reigns in the burg of Morzine since 1857 and in the surrounding shanties located in the mountains of High Savoy, has not yet finished its devastation. The French government has shown concern with the case since the Savoy belongs to France. Specialized and intelligent persons were sent in to study the issue and its development together with inspectors of hospices of the mentally ill. Some measures were tried, some women moved to Chambery, Annecy, Thoron, etc. but the results of these attempts were unsatisfactory. Despite the medical treatment that was considered adequate there was only a few cases of cure and when the women returned to their homes they would fall ill once again.
After having initially reached children and young ladies only, the epidemic moved on to affect mature and even elderly women. Not many men suffered the influence however it claimed the life of one. This miserable person squeezed himself in the little space between the stove and the wall from where he said he could not leave, remaining there for a full month without food. He died of hunger and total breakdown, victimized by his own sick imagination.
The French government envoys prepared reports and in one of them Mr. Constant, among other things, declared that the small number of cures in that population were due to the magnetism that I employed in Genève on girls and ladies that were brought to me in 1858 and 1859. Our readers know that such scourge that the good peasants of Morzine and, what is more unpleasant, their spiritual guides, attribute to the devil manifest in those that are taken by violent convulsions followed by screams, pain in the stomach and impressive acrobatic moves, not to mention the blasphemies and other scandalous processes in which the patients find themselves guilty of something when entering o Church. We were able to cure several of those patients that had no further issues while away from the pernicious and contagious influence and the impressionable minds of their region.
In Morzine, however, the terrible disease did not stop devastating the unfortunate population. On the contrary, the number of victims continued to rise. Prayers and exorcisms were done in vain; patients were uselessly taken to hospitals of several neighboring towns. The scourge that more easily attacks the more sensitive imagination of young ladies became bloodthirsty and the only attested cures were those operated by us, and that we have reported in our journal.
Finally and given the absence of any new means of cure, a great blow was attempted. Monsignor Bishop of Annecy announced recently that he was going to visit Morzine both to baptize the inhabitants that had not yet received that sacrament and to teach the means of defeating that terrible disease. The good people of the village had high hopes for that visit. It took place Saturday, April 30th and Sunday, May 1st and here the details of the events that followed:
About 4am on Saturday the ecclesiastic approached the village. He was horse-back riding, followed by a large number of priests. The patients were gathered at the Church and some driven there by force. A witnessed said that – since the time when the Bishop stepped foot in Morzine the patients, feeling his approximation, were taken by the most violent convulsions and in particular those that were kept in the Church would scream and screech beyond humans. Every girl that had endured the diseases at some point in the past returned to show the symptoms again and many of them were free from that for over five years without any attack and now taken again by the same convulsions of those horrible crises.
The Bishop himself turned a pale face by hearing the shouts that welcomed him. Regardless he continued to move towards the Church despite the vociferation of some patients that had escaped from the hands of their guardians, throwing themselves and cursing him. He dismounted by the Church’s door and entered with dignity. He had just stepped in for the riot to redouble. It was then a truly hellish seen. The possessed girls, about seventy of them with one man, cursed and jumped all over the place. That last many hours and when the priest wanted to carry out the Confirmation the furor redoubled again, if that is at all possible. Seven or eight men had to join forces with the police and drag them towards the altar.
The Bishop should leave at 4pm but at 7pm he was still in Church where three patients were not able to be dragged to him. They were then able to bring two, breathless, foaming by the mouth and cursing at the feet of the priest. The last one resisted all efforts. The Bishop, defeated by fatigue and emotion, renounced to the imposition of hands on her. He left the Church trembling, disturbed, with his legs covered by excoriations received from the patients while agitating under his blessings. He left the village extending words of good wishes to the inhabitants but without hiding his profound impression of astonishment before an evil that he could had never imagined to be of such significance. He finished by confessing that ‘he had not felt strong enough to quench the flame that he had come to heal, promising to return as soon as possible, armed with greater powers’. Today we are not making any assessment. We are limiting ourselves to report these deplorable facts. In our next issue perhaps we will say how painful all of that is to us.”
Ch. Lafontaine
This is the succinct report that the Courrier des Alpes gave about the events and that several papers reproduced without comments:
“There is a lot of talk about an incident in Annecy, so much painful as unforeseen, that required the travel of Monsignor Maguin, our dignified prelate. Everybody knows the disease that has affected the commune of Morzine for a long time, particularly the women, namely the possessed. Many inhabitants of the commune, in fact, are persuaded that a curse has been cast upon that region. People also remember the fact that in 1862 a certain number of people were affected by that strange disease that produces the effects of furious madness, without the actual signs of the disease, spread in several hospitals and multiples locations in France, returning perfectly cured. This year the disease affected other people and took terrifying proportions. It was under such circumstances that Monsignor Maguin, only touched by charity, made his pastoral visit to Morzine and it was at the time he was administering the Confirmation that a certain number of unfortunate patients attending the ceremony were suddenly taken by the fit. The Church was then shaken by a terrible scandal. The details of that scene are too afflictive to be reported. I will only say that the superior administration was moved by that sad episode and that a platoon of thirty men from the infantry was dispatched to the region. I learned from a good source that such a platoon will double and commanded by a high echelon officer, assigned with detailed instructions. Unnecessary to say that other measures will be taken such as for example the dispatch of specialized doctors tasked with the study of the disease. The army is assigned with the mission of protecting people.”
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Science is lost there and that is a confession of impotence. Then, what will the doctors do there? Haven’t they sent some highly qualified before? They say specialized doctors will be sent. But how can one establish their specialization if the nature of the disease is unknown and in which science is lost? We can understand the specialty of ophthalmology for the diseases of the eyes and toxicology for the cases of poisoning but here what is the category? The alienists? It is alright if demonstrated that the patients have a mental disorder but the alienists themselves acknowledged their failure. There is no agreement with respect to the cause or the actual treatment. Now, if science gets lost there, and that is an actual fact, the alienists are no more specialists than the surgeons. It is true that an army will join them but such a means has already been employed unsuccessfully. We doubt it very much that it will be successful this time around.
If science fails it means that it is not in the right direction. What is strange about that? Everything reveals a moral cause and they send in people that only believe in matter. They search matter and find nothing there, astoundingly demonstrating that they do not search what is needed. If it is more specialized doctors that they want then have them found among the spiritualist doctors rather than materialists. The former will at least be able to understand that there could be something there beyond the physical organization.
Religion was not more successful. It applied its ammunition against the devils but it was powerless to bring them to reason. It must be the case that either the devil is stronger or it is not the devil. The frequent failures in similar cases indicates one of the two things: it is wrong or it is defeated by the enemy.
The clearest aspect in all that is the fact that none of the employed means yielded good result and they will not have better result while adamant in not finding the origin of the true cause. A careful study of the symptoms demonstrate with the strongest evidence that its cause is in the action of the invisible world upon the visible one, an action that is the source of more diseases than one can imagine, against which science fails because it fights the effect and not the cause. In a word, that is what Spiritism calls obsession, taken to the highest degree, that is, subjugation and possession. The crises are consecutive effects. The cause is the obsessing Spirit. It is therefore upon that creature that one must act like in the convulsions produced by worms one acts upon the worms.
Some will say that the system is absurd. It is absurd to those that admit nothing beyond the tangible world but much positive to those that attest the existence of the spiritual world and the presence of invisible beings around us. As a matter of fact, the system is based on experience and observation and not in a pre-conceived theory. The action of an invisible malevolent being was attested in a number of isolated cases, keeping a complete analogy with the events of Morzine, from what is then logical to conclude that the cause is the same since the effects are similar. The difference is only in the quantity. All of the symptoms, without exception, observed in patients of that region were also observed in the particular cases that we mentioned. Considering that patients affected by the same problem were freed, without exorcisms, medications or even police, what was done elsewhere can be done in Morzine. If that is the cases, people will ask, why then the means employed by the Church are ineffective?
Here is why:
The Church believes in demons that is in a category of creatures of a perverse nature and eternally devoted to evil and for that reason not perfectible. With such an idea the Church does not try to better them. Spiritism on the contrary acknowledged that the invisible world is formed by the souls or Spirits of people that lived on Earth and that, after death, inhabit the space. There are good and bad among them, like among mankind. From those that were happy to do evil when alive there are some that persist doing bad things after death. However, since they belong to humanity, they are subordinated to the law of progress and can improve. Hence they are not demons, in the sense attributed by the Church, but imperfect Spirits.
Their actions affect people both on the physical as well as moral side. From that a number of diseases that have no root in the organism, apparent madness that are refractory to any medication. It is a new field of pathology that may be called ‘spiritual pathology’. Experience teaches to distinguish the cases in this category from those that belong to organic pathology. We do not intend to describe the treatment of such diseases because it has already been done somewhere else. We will only recap that it consists of a triple action: the fluidic action that frees the perispirits of the patient from the pressure of the malevolent Spirit; the ascendant exerted upon the latter by the authority with a moral superiority and in the moralizing influence of the advices that are given. The first one is a simple accessory of the two others. Alone it is insufficient because if it can momentarily keep the Spirit away there is nothing that preclude that Spirit from coming back. One must employ efforts to lead that Spirit to a voluntary renunciation of the intents, then moralizing the Spirit.
It is a true educational process that takes place that requires sensibility, patience, devotion and above all a sincere faith. Experience demonstrates the power of such a means by the results obtained but it also demonstrates that in certain cases it is necessary the simultaneous support of several people united by a common intention.
Now, what is it that the Church does in such cases? Certain that it is dealing with incorrigible demons the Church gives no attention to their improvement. It believes to be able to keep them away by fear and by the use of signs, formulas and instruments of exorcism that make them laugh and reinforce their malice as verified in all cases in which there was an attempt to exorcise places where there was noise and disturbance. It is a fact demonstrated by experience that the signs and exterior acts have no power upon them while the most hardened and perverse among them have been seen to yield to a moral pressure, returning to good feelings. Then the double satisfaction of freeing the obsessed person and bring a lost soul back to God.
People may also ask why the Spiritists that are convinced of the cause of the problem and the means of fighting it did not go to Morzine to operate miracles there. To begin with the Spiritists make no miracles. The curative action that may be exerted in such cases has nothing of wonderful or supernatural since it rests on a natural law, that is the relationships between the visible and invisible worlds, a law that by providing the reason for certain misunderstood phenomena for lack of knowledge narrows the limits of the supernatural, instead of widening them. Second, one must ask if their help would be acceptable; if they would not have found a systematic opposition; if far from being supported they would not have been hindered by the very persons that failed; if they would not have been insulted and mistreated by a population super excited by fanaticism, then accused of witchery together with the patients themselves and of acting in the name of the devil, as seen in other places.
In the individual and isolated cases those that dedicate themselves to alleviate the afflicted are generally helped by family and neighborhood, frequently by the patients themselves, upon whom they must act morally and through good and encouraging words that must excite the prayer. Similar cures do not happen instantaneously. Those workers need calm and profound reverence. In the current circumstances would such conditions be possible in Morzine? That is very doubtful. God will provide when the time is right to stop evil. As a matter of fact the events in Morzine and their continuation have a reason to be in the same way of the manifestations of the same kind in Poitiers. They will multiply, isolated or collectively, to convince people about the impotence of the means employed up until now to stop them, forcing disbelief to finally acknowledge the existence of an extra human power.
For every case of obsession, possession and any other unpleasant manifestations, we call the attention to what is in The Mediums’ Book, in the chapter about obsession; to the articles of the Spiritist Review relatives to Morzine, reported above; to our February, March and June 1864 articles regarding the obsessed of Marmande; and finally to the items 325 to 335 of the Imitation of the Gospels. There you will find the necessary instructions to be followed under similar circumstances.
