Cure of a Fractureby spiritual magnetization
The readers will undoubtedly remember the case of an almost instantaneous cure of a sprain operated by the Spirit of Dr. Demeure, a few days after his death, reported in our Spiritist Review of last March, as well as the description of the touching scene that took place on that occasion. That excellent Spirit comes again to reinforce his good will through an even more wonderful cure, in the same person. Here is what was sent to us from Montauban, on July 14th, 1865:
“The Spirit of Dr. Demeure has just given us one more proof of his solicitude and profound knowledge. Here the details of the event.
In the morning of May 26th last, Mrs. Maurel, our clairvoyant and mechanical writing medium, suffered a terrible fall and broke her forearm, a little bit below the elbow. The fracture, complicated by distensions in the wrist and elbow, was well characterized by the cracking of the bones and swelling, the most common signs. Still under the first emotions caused by the event, Mrs. Maurel parents were about to send for the first doctor possible when she stopped them, took a pencil and wrote the following with her left hand: - Do not look for a doctor; I will take care of that. Demeure. They then waited confidently.
Following the instructions of the Spirit, slings and a device were immediately built and applied. It was followed by a spiritual magnetization given by the good Spirits that ordered her to rest momentarily. In the evening of that same day some followers solicited by the Spirits gathered in the home of Mrs. Maurel that entered into a somnambulistic sleep helped by a magnetizing medium. Dr. Demeure then continued the treatment that he had initiated in the morning, acting mechanically upon the fractured arm. Our patient then immediately and without any other help but her left hand removed the first device, leaving only the slings, when we saw the affect limb moving around in a proper way to facilitate the reduction of the fracture. It seemed to be the object of intelligent touches, particularly at the point where the soldering of the bones should take place; after that it extended, by the action of longitudinal tractions. A few moments after that magnetization, Mrs. Maurel herself applied the slings and the device again, a device that consisted of two little wooden boards connected to each other by a strap. It all happened as if an experienced surgeon had operated all that materially; curiously during the works one could hear these words from the patient’s mouth by the effect of pain: - do not tighten so much… you hurt me!... She could see the Spirit of the doctor and was talking to him, begging for him to alleviate her. It was therefore a being invisible to everybody but to her that touched her arm, using unconsciously her own left hand. What was the role of the magnetizing medium during those activities? To us he seemed inactive, however, with his hand resting on her shoulder blade, he contributed to the phenomenon by the emission of fluids that were necessary to the process. In the evenings of the 27th and 28th Mrs. Maurel for the first time presented elevated fever for having disarranged her arm during the sleep. It was an urgent situation that had to be attended. They gathered again on the 28th and after the somnambulistic sleep the magnetic chain was formed once more by request of the good Spirits. After several passes and manipulations, very similar to the described above, the arm returned to good condition, not before the poor lady experienced terrible pains. Despite the new incident the arm was already feeling the healthy effect produced by the earlier magnetizations. What follows below, in fact, demonstrates that.
Momentarily disentangled from the little boards, the arm was resting on some pillows when suddenly it raised a few centimeters horizontally and moved smoothly to the left and to the right; it was then lowered at an angle and was submitted to a traction. The Spirits then started to turn it in all directions, from time to time, making it work correctly the articulations of the wrist and elbow. Such automatic movements, imposed on a fractured and inert arm, contrary to all known laws of gravity and mechanics, they could only be attributed to the fluidic action. If we were not certain about the fracture of that poor lady, as well as hearing her painful screams, I confess that it would have been very hard for me to admit the fact, one of the most impressive that science can register. I can then say, in all honesty, that I am glad for having been able to witness such phenomenon.
On the 29th, 30th, 31st and next days the successive spiritual magnetizations, followed by thousands of varied manipulations, brought a noticeable improvement to the general state of our patient. The arm improved its condition on a daily basis. The 31st in particular marked the first step in the recovery. That evening two Spirits that were noticed by their radiation assisted our friend doctor Demeure. They seemed to give him advices that he promptly applied. One of them, from time to time, worked directly and under his influence there was an observable instantaneous relief. At the end of that night the little boards were definitely removed, and only the slings remained to hold the arm and keep it in a given position. I must add that a device to produce suspension was added to give solidity to the bandage. Finally, after the sixth day of the fracture and despite the relapse of the 27th, the fracture was so much healed that the techniques utilized by doctors for thirty or forty days became useless. We gathered again on June 4that night by the call of the good Spirits and for the reduction of the fracture that had complicated due to distensions. As soon as Mrs. Maurel fell in the somnambulistic sleep she started removing the slings herself, rotating her other hand so fast that was difficult for us to follow her actions. From that moment onwards, she used the arm normally. She was cured. At the end of that session there was a touching scene that needs to be reported here.
The good Spirits, counting thirty of them, in the beginning formed a magnetic chain similar to the one that we formed ourselves. Mrs. Maurel was surrounded by and in the middle of the two magnetic chains, linked by her right arm, receiving their good influence. Radiant of satisfaction she then took the occasion to thank the powerful support she had received for her cure. In turn she received encouragement to continue to persevere on the good path. After that she tried her strength in a thousand ways: she presented her arm to those present, she made them touch the scars at the points of soldered bones; shook their hands with force, happily announcing her cure operated by the good Spirits. When she woke up and seeing that she had recovered all her movements she passed out, taken by profound emotion!
When we witness such facts, we must proclaim them out loud since they do deserve the attention of serious people. Why then, in the intelligent world, there is so much resistance to the acceptance of the idea that the Spirit may exert influence upon matter? Why we find people that believe in the existence and individuality of the soul but refuse the possibility of their manifestation? It is because they are not aware of the material faculties of the Spirit, that seems to be totally immaterial to them. Experience demonstrates, on the contrary, that for its very nature, the Spirit acts upon the imponderable fluids, and consequently upon the ponderable ones, and even upon our tangible bodies. How does an ordinary magnetizer work? Let us suppose, for example that he wants to act upon an arm. He concentrates his whole attention on that limb and by simple movements of his own fingers, executed at a distance and in all directions, acting as if the contact with the hand was real, he directs a fluidic current onto the desired spot. The Spirit does not act differently. Their fluidic action takes place from perispirit to perispirit and from that to the material body. The somnambulistic states facilitate that action considerably, thanks to the detachment of the perispirit that better identifies with the fluidic nature of the Spirit, then suffering the spiritual fluidic influence, elevated to its maximum power.
The whole city was involved with that cure, obtained without the help of the official science, and everyone had their own opinion. Some pretended that the arm was not broken, but the fracture was well attested by several witnesses, among them Dr. D… that visited the patient during the treatment. Others said: - It is really impressive – and stopped there. Useless to say that some believed that Mrs. Maurel had been cured by the devil. If she were not amongst blasphemous hands they would have seen a miracle there. The Spiritists that get the phenomenon simply see the action of a natural force up until now unknown, that Spiritism came to reveal to humanity.”
Observations: If there are Spiritist facts that can be attributed to imagination, as for example the visions, in this case it would not be possible. Mrs. Maurel did not dream that she had broken her arm, as with several other people that followed her treatment; the pain that she felt was not hallucination; her cure in eight days is not an illusion, since she can use her arm. The positive fact is there, before which we must necessarily bend over. It confuses sciences, it is true, because in the current state of affairs it seems impossible, but hasn’t it always been like that when new laws were revealed? Is it the speed of the healing that scares you out? But hasn’t science found so many agents more active than it was known before, to speed up certain cures? Weren’t means of healing certain ulcers almost instantaneously found recently? Weren’t means of activating vegetation and fruitification found? Why couldn’t we have a means of activating the soldering of bones? Do we already know all the agents of nature? Hasn’t God kept any secrete from us? There is no more logic in denying today the possibility of a cure faster than that of the previous century, of denying the possibility of walking in a few hours the path that we used to walk in ten days.
You may say that such a means is not in the codex; it is true; but before the vaccine was introduced there, wasn’t its inventor called a mad man? Homeopathic medications are not there either, but that does not preclude homeopathic doctors to cure and be found everywhere. As a matter of fact, since we are not dealing with a pharmaceutical preparation here, it is more likely that such a means of cure does not enter official science for a long time.
But, some will say, if the doctors exert their profession after death, they come to compete with the living doctors; it is well possible; nonetheless, the latter may rest assured; if they are subtracted from a few patients it is not to overcome them but to demonstrate that they are not absolutely dead, and to offer a selfless help to those interested in accepting it. To help them understand better, to show them that in certain cases one could go without them. There has always and there will always be doctors; only those that take advantage of the novelties brought by the discarnate ones will that a great advantage upon the ones left behind. The Spirits come to help in the development of human science and not to suppress it.
In the cure of Mrs. Maurel, a fact that might perhaps be even more surprising than the quick soldering of the bones is the movement of the fractured limb, that seems to be contrary to all known laws of mechanics and gravity. Contrary or not, the fact is there; it does exist, has a cause; if it repeats it means that it is submitted to a law. Well, that is the law that Spiritism unveils to us by the properties of the spiritual fluids. That arm, once submitted to the laws of gravity only, could not be raised; now supposing it immersed in a fluid whose density is much higher than that of air, even fractured as it is, once it is sustained by that fluid that reduces its weight, it will be able to move effortlessly, and even be raised. That is how during a bath an arm seems to be much lighter inside than outside the water. Replace the liquid by a fluid that has similar properties and you will have the same situation as in the present case, a phenomenon that is based on the same principle of the turning tables and persons that are lifted in the air without a supporting point. That is the perispiritual fluid, that is guided by the will of the Spirit, and whose properties he modifies by the simple action of his will. In the present case one must then imagine Mrs. Maurel’s arm immersed in a fluidic medium that produces the effect of hot air in balloons. Someone asked if in the cure of the fracture in question Dr. Demeure had acted with or without the help of electricity and heat.
We respond to that, as in all cases of spiritual magnetization, that the cure was produced by the action of the fluid emitted by the Spirit; that such a fluid, although ethereal, is still matter; that the current that is produced may impregnate and saturate all molecules of the sick part of the patient; that the Spirit may modify its properties, like the magnetizer modifies that of water, giving it a healing virtue proper to the necessity; that the energy of that current is proportional to the number, the quality and homogeneity of the elements that constitute that chain of people called to provide their portion of fluid. That chain is likely to activate the reaction that produces the soldering effect of the bones and therefore lead to a faster cure than when it is left on its own.
Would electricity and heat play a role in such phenomenon? That is more likely if we take into account that the Spirit did not cure out of a miracle, but through a more judicious application of the laws of nature, given his enlightenment. If, as science must acknowledge, electricity and heat are not special fluids, but modification or properties of an elemental universal fluid, they must be part of the elements that constitute the spiritual fluid. Their action, in the present case, is implicitly understood, absolutely like when one drinks wine one also drinks water and alcohol.
