Healing Mediumship
The following was sent to us from Lyon, on July 12
th, 1865:
“Dear Mr. Kardec,
As a Spiritist, I come to appeal to your kindness and request some advices with respect to the practice of healing mediumship by the imposition of hands. I am certain that a simple article about this matter in the Spiritist Review with some developments would be welcomed with great interest, not only by those that like myself are heavily involved with this subject, but also by many others that after reading the article would be inspired to get involved with that. I always remember the words of a somnambulist that I had formed. During her magnetically induced sleep I used to send her to visit a distant patient and when I asked her about the ways we could heal that patient she said: - There is a person in your village, Mr. Joe Doe, that could do it. He is a healing medium, but he is not aware of that.
I do not know how special this faculty is. It is up to you, more than anybody else, to clarify it. But if indeed it is, even more desirable that you would bring this to the attention of the Spiritists. Many out there, even the ones that do not share our opinions, and that could read you would feel no rejection for carrying a faculty that only requires faith in God and prayer. What can be more general and universal? It is not a matter of Spiritism, and everyone may keep their convictions in their own fields. How many sisters in charity, how many country healers, how many thousands of good people of strong faith could be healing mediums! That is a dream I have in all religions and sects. Once accepted everywhere, that faculty, that divine gift from our creator’s goodness, instead of staying as the apanage of some, would in a become of public domain, if I can say so. It would be a great day to those in suffering; and there are so many of them!
But in order to practice that mediumship, in addition to a strong faith and prayer, there could be other conditions to attend, processes to follow, in order to proceed as efficiently as possible. What is the role of the imposition of hands? What is the role of the Spirits? Is a good will needed like in magnetic operations or just the prayer and allowing a hidden influence to act? Is that faculty really special or accessible to all? Does the physical organization play a role there? Which one? Can it be developed? In which sense?
It is here that you long lasting experience, your studies about the fluidic influences, the teaching of the superior Spirits that assist you, and finally the documents that you collect from all corners of the world may allow you to clarify and instruct us. Nobody else is placed in that unique position, but you. All of those that deal with this matter, like myself, would like to have your advices, I am certain about that and I do believe to be the interpreter of them all. What a fecund mine healing mediumship is! The body could be relieved or healed and by that relief or cure the path of the heart is founds, a path many times failed by logic. How resourceful Spiritism is! What a wealth of means to serve! Let us keep them all productive; may everything contribute to elevate and propagate it. You neglect nothing to support all that, dear Kardec, and after God and the good Spirits, Spiritism owes you what it is. You have already been granted your award in this world by the sympathy and affection of millions of followers that pray for you, not to mention the true award that waits for you in the better world.
It has been an honor…etc.”
A.D.
What the honorable corresponding member asks for is nothing short of a treaty about the subject. The subject was sketched in The Mediums’ Book and in many other articles of the Spiritist Review, regarding cases of cure and obsession; it is summarized in The Gospel According to Spiritism, regarding the prayers in favor of ill persons and the healing medium. If a complete and regular treaty has not been produced yet it is due to two causes: the first is that despite all the activity developed in our work, it is impossible to us to do everything at the same time; the second and more serious is the insufficiency of our own knowledge about the subject. The knowledge about healing mediumship is one of the conquests due to Spiritism; but Spiritism that begins cannot have said everything; it just cannot suddenly show us everything that is encompassed; it shows us new things on a daily basis, from which new principles are derived and that come to corroborate or complement the already known ones, but there is a time for everything. Healing mediumship should have its turn. Although a component of Spiritism it is a whole science on its own because it is linked to magnetism, involving not only the so-called diseases but also all the varieties of numerous and complex obsessions that, in turn, influence the body. Therefore, such a vast subject cannot be developed in a few words. We are working on that as in many other parts of Spiritism, but since we would not like to introduce there anything personal or hypothetic, we only follow the path of experience and observation. Since the scope of this article would not allow the development that is required, we summarize a few fundamental principles demonstrated by experience.
- – The mediums that receive indications of medicine from the part of the Spirits are not what is called healing medium because they themselves do not heal; these are simply writing mediums that more than others have a special aptitude for that kind of communication, and for that very reason could be called consulting mediums, as others are poets or painters. Healing mediumship is exercised by the direct action of the medium upon the patient, with the support of a kind of true magnetization or through the mind;
- When we say medium, we say intermediary. The difference between the magnetizer per se and the healing medium is that the first utilizes her personal fluid and the second the fluid of the Spirits to whom she serves as a conductor. Magnetism produced by the fluid of a person is human magnetism; the one that comes from the fluid of the Spirits is spiritual magnetism;
- The magnetic fluid therefore has two very distinct sources: the incarnate Spirits and the discarnate ones. That difference in origin produces a great difference in the quality of the fluid and its effects; the human fluid is always more or less impregnated by physical and moral impurities of the incarnate; the fluid of the Spirits is necessarily purer and for that very reason has more active properties, that lead to a faster cure. When the fluid passes through an incarnate Spirit it may be altered, like some crystalline water passing through a dirty reservoir, like every medication that is altered if remains for a long time in inadequate storage, partially losing its good properties. Hence the need that every healing medium has to work their own depuration, that is, their moral betterment following this vulgar principle: clean the recipient before serving, if something good is expected. That alone is enough to show that the first one to show up could not be a healing medium in the true meaning of the expression;
- The purer and more detached from matter the Spirit that provides the fluid, the purer and more efficient it will be. It follows that the fluid from inferior Spirits must approach that o men and may have bad properties if the Spirit is impure and driven by bad intentions. For the same reason the qualities of human fluids present infinite nuances, according to the moral and physical qualities of the individual. It is evident that a sick body may inoculate morbid principles in the magnetized. The moral qualities of the magnetizer, that is the nobility of intentions and feelings, the strong and selfless desire to alleviate a fellow human being, together with the health of the body, give their fluid a healing power that can, in certain cases, approach the qualities of the spiritual fluid. Consequently, it would be a mistake to consider the magnetizer a simple machine of transmissions of fluid. Here, as in everything else, the result is proportional to the instrument and the producing agent. For those reasons it would be unwise to submit oneself to the magnetic action of the first unknown person that presents itself. Abstracting from the indispensable knowledge of practical things, the fluid of the magnetizer is like that of a breast-feeding mother: healthy or insalubrious.
- Since human fluid is less active it requires a more continual magnetization and a sometimes-long treatment. By spending its own fluid, the magnetizer tires and fatigues since she gives away her own vital fluid; that is why this must be recovered from time to time. The spiritual fluid, more powerful in its purity, produces faster effects and sometimes almost instantaneous. Since the fluid does not belong to the magnetizer there is almost no fatigue;
- The Spirit may act directly, without intermediaries, upon an individual, as it was attested on several occasions, be it to bring relief, to cure or to induce a somnambulistic sleep. When the Spirit acts through an intermediary it is then a healing mediumship;
- The healing medium receives the influx of the fluid from the Spirit whereas the magnetizer takes everything from her own. But the healing mediums, in the true meaning of the expression, that is to say, those whose personalities are totally faded before the spiritual action, those are extremely rare because such a faculty, in its highest level, requires a set of moral qualities rarely found on Earth; those are the only ones that can achieve instantaneous cures by the imposition of hands, something that seems prodigious to us. Many people may pretend to have such a favor. Since pride and egotism are the main sources of human imperfection, it follows that the ones that brag about having such a gift, that go about telling marvelous stories of their doing; that seek glory and reputation or advantage, those are the ones in the worst condition to obtain them, because such a gift is an exclusive privilege of modesty, humbleness, devotion and selflessness. Jesus used to say to those that he healed: “Go, thank the Lord and say nothing to anyone.”
- Since healing mediumship is an exception here on Earth it follows that there is always a simultaneous action of the human and spiritual fluid; it means that the healing mediums are more or less magnetizers, acting according to the magnetic processes. The difference is in the predominance of one upon the other fluid and in a more or less rapid cure. Every magnetizer may become a healing medium, if capable of seeking the assistance of the good Spirits. In such cases the Spirits come in their support, cast their fluids upon them and that may multiply manifold the power of the purely human fluid;
- The Spirits attend those that they wish; they cannot be coerced by any will power; they yield to a fervent and sincere prayer but never to an injunction. From that it follows that the simple will may not lead to the healing mediumship and that nobody can become a healing medium by their own choice. A true healing medium is recognized by the results that are obtained and not by their pretension of being one;
- But if the good will is inefficient to entice the support of the Spirits it is very powerful to give the human or spiritual fluid a good direction and a greater energy. The flow is feeble, and the emission is weak in a distracted and apathetic person; the spiritual fluid stops there, without any benefit; in a person of very energetic will the fluids flow like in a shower. One must not confuse energetic will with stubbornness because stubbornness is always the result of pride and selfishness, whereas the humbler person may have the will of devotion. The will is still very powerful to give to the fluids the special qualities of evil. This is a point of capital importance related to a still not much known principle that is everywhere, the fluidic creations and the modifications that the thought may produce in matter. Thought provokes a fluidic emission that may operate certain molecular and atomic transformations, as we see produced by the effect of electricity, light and heat;
- The prayer, that is a thought, when fervent, sincere, with the heart, produces the effect of a magnetization, not only calling for the assistance of the good Spirits but also by directing to the patient a healthy fluidic current. Here we call the attention to the prayers contained in the Gospel According to Spiritism, in favor of ill or obsessed persons;
- If the healing mediumship is a privilege of very elevated souls, the possibility of mitigating certain sufferings, even that of healing certain diseases, although not instantaneously, is up to everybody, without the need of being a magnetizer. The knowledge about magnetic processes is useful in complicated cases but it is not indispensable. Since everybody may appeal to the good Spirits, everybody may pray and wish well, frequently it is enough to impose the hands upon a sore are to calm it down; that is what any individual may do if in good faith, good will and trust in God. It is noticeable that the majority of the unconscious healing mediums, those that are unaware of their gifts, and sometimes found in the humblest positions and without education, they recommend the prayer and by praying they help one another. It is only their ignorance that makes them believe in the influence of this or that formula. They sometimes mix that with superstitious practices that we must keep in the right perspective;
- But by the fact that satisfactory results were obtained one or more times it would be premature to consider one as a heling medium and conclude that one can heal any type of disease. Experience demonstrates that in the strict meaning of the expression there aren’t universal healing mediums even among the most gifted ones. One could cure one patient and not be as successful with another one; the other medium could heal a type of disease in one patient and not to the same with another one carrying the same problem; finally, the other medium may carry the gift today and not have it tomorrow, and may recover it later on, according to the affinities and the on-going fluidic conditions;
- Healing mediumship is an aptitude inherent to the individual, like all other types of mediumship, however the effective result of that mediumship is independent of the mediums’ will. It incontestably develops through exercise, in special through the practice of good deeds and charity; but, since it could not have the regularity and permanence of a talent acquired by education, and that one can always dominate, it could not turn into a profession. It would therefore be abusive someone presenting themselves as a healing medium. Such thoughts do not apply to magnetizers since it is their force and they have the freedom of using it as they wish;
- It is a mistake to believe that those that do not share our ideas will not show disgust by the practice of this faculty. Rational healing mediumship is intimately linked to Spiritism because it essentially rests on the support of the Spirits. Those that do not believe in Spirits, not even in their own souls, and much less in the efficacy of the prayer, would not know how to position themselves in the required conditions, and for that very reason it is not something that one may try automatically. Among those that believe in the soul and in its immortality, how many are there still today that would step back out of fear by the simple appeal to the Spirits, afraid of attracting the devil, and that in good faith still believe that all cures are the works of the devil? Fanaticism is blind; it does not reason. It won’t certainly be always like that, but a long time will still pass before light penetrates certain minds. While we wait, let us do as much good as possible with the help of Spiritism; let us do it even to our enemies, even if paid with ingratitude. It is the best means of succeeding against certain resistances and demonstrate that Spiritism is not as bad as some pretend it to be.
