Spiritist DissertationsMagnetism and Spiritism
Parisian Society, May 12th, 1867 – medium Mr. Desliens
“During my lifetime I was concerned with the practice of magnetism, from an exclusively material point of view; at least, I believed it so; I know today that the voluntary or involuntary elevation of the soul, willing to desire the cure of the patient, is a true spiritual magnetization.
Healing is due to many variable causes: A certain disease, treated in such a way, yields to the power of material action; another, which is identical, but less marked, does not undergo any kind of improvement, although the curative means employed are perhaps still more powerful. What are the reasons for these variations in influence? - To a cause ignored by most magnetizers, who attack only morbid material principles; they are the consequence of the moral situation of the individual.
Material illness is an effect; to destroy this effect, it is not enough to attack it, to take it hand-to-hand and annihilate it; the cause still existing, will reproduce new morbid effects when the curative action is removed.
The fluid, transmitting health in magnetism, is an intermediary between matter and the spiritual part of the being, and that one could compare to the perispirit. It unites two bodies to one another; it is a bridge over that passes the elements that are to bring healing to the diseased organs. Being an intermediary between Spirit and matter, by virtue of its molecular constitution, this fluid can transmit just as well a spiritual influence as a purely animal influence.
What is Spiritism in the end, or rather what is mediumship, this faculty hitherto misunderstood, and whose considerable extension has established on incontestable bases the fundamental principles of the new revelation? It is purely and simply a variety of the magnetic action exerted by one or more incorporeal magnetizers, on a human subject, acting in the waking state or in the ecstatic state, consciously or unconsciously.
What, on the other hand, is magnetism? A variety of Spiritism in which incarnate Spirits act on other incarnate Spirits.
Finally, there is a third variety of magnetism or Spiritism, depending on whether one takes, as a point of departure, the action of incarnates on incarnates, or that of relatively free Spirits on Spirits, imprisoned in a body; this third variety, that has for principle the action of the incarnates on the Spirits, is revealed in the treatment and the moralization of the obsessing Spirits.
Spiritism is, therefore, only spiritual magnetism, and magnetism is nothing other than human Spiritism.
Indeed, how does the magnetizer proceed when he wants to subject a somnambulist subject to his influence? He involves him in his fluid; he possesses him, to a certain extent, and notice, without ever succeeding in annihilating his free will, without being able to turn him into his thing, a purely passive instrument. Often the magnetized resists the influence of the magnetizer and he acts in one direction when the latter would like the action to be utterly opposed. Although generally the somnambulist is asleep, and his own Spirit acts while his body remains more or less inert, it also happens, but more rarely, that the subject, simply fascinated, enlightened, remains in the waking state, although with a greater tension of mind and an unusual exaltation of his faculties.
And now, how does the Spirit that wants to communicate, proceed? It enfolds the medium in its fluid; it possesses him to a certain extent, without ever succeeding in making it his own thing, a purely passive instrument. You may object to me that in cases of obsession, possession, the annihilation of free will appears to be complete. There would be a lot to say about this question, for the annihilating action bears more on the material vital forces than on the Spirit, that may find itself paralyzed, overwhelmed and powerless to resist, but whose thought is never wiped out, as has been observed on many occasions. Even in the case of obsession, I find a confirmation, a proof in support of my theory, by recalling that the obsession is also exerted from incarnate to incarnate, and that we have seen magnetizers taking advantage of the domination exerted on their somnambulists to lead them to commit blameworthy actions. Here, as always, the exception proves the rule.
Although generally the mediumistic subject is awake, in certain cases, that are becoming more and more frequent, spontaneous somnambulism occurs in the medium, and he speaks for himself or by suggestion, absolutely as the magnetic somnambulist behaves in the same circumstances.
Finally, how do you deal with obsessive or simply inferior Spirits that you want to moralize? You act on them by fluidic attraction; you magnetize them, unconsciously, most of the time, to keep them in your circle of action; consciously, sometimes, when you establish around them a fluidic sheet that they cannot penetrate without your permission, and you act on them by the moral power that is no other than a quintessential magnetic action.
As you have been told many times, there are no gaps in the work of nature, no sudden jumps, but insensitive transitions that make one move, little by little, from a state to another, without noticing the change other than through awareness of a better situation.
Magnetism is therefore a lower degree of Spiritism, and that imperceptibly merges with the latter by a series of varieties that differ little from one another, as the animal is a higher state of the plant, etc. In either case, they are two steps of the infinite ladder that connects all creations, from the tiny atom to the Creator God! Above you, the dazzling light that your weak eyes cannot yet bear; below, there is a deep darkness that your most powerful optical instruments have not yet been able to illuminate. Yesterday you didn't know anything; today you see the deep abyss in which your origin is lost. You have a presentiment of the infinitely perfect goal towards which all your aspirations tend; and to whom do you owe all this knowledge? To magnetism! To Spiritism! To all the revelations that result from a law of universal relation between all beings and their Creator! To a science hatched yesterday by your conception, but whose existence is lost in the mists of time, because it is one of the fundamental bases of creation.
From all this, I conclude that magnetism, developed by Spiritism, is the keystone of the moral and material health of future humanity.
E. Quineman”
Observation: The correctness of the assessments, and the depths of the new point of view contained in this communication will not escape anyone. Mr. Quinemant, although he had left for a very short time, revealed himself from start, and without the least hesitation, as a Spirit of incontestable superiority. Barely freed from matter, that seems to have left no trace on him, he deploys his faculties with a remarkable power, that promises one more good adviser to his brothers on Earth.
Those who claimed that Spiritism was dragging itself into the rut of commonplaces and banalities, can see, by the questions which it has been tackling for some time, if it remains stationary, and they will see it even better as it continues to develop its consequences. Strictly speaking, however, he does not teach anything new; if we carefully study its fundamental constitutive principles, we will see that they contain the seeds of everything; but these germs can only develop gradually; if all do not flourish at the same time, it is because the extension of the circle of its attributions does not depend on the will of men, but on that of the Spirits, who regulate the degree of their teaching according to the opportunity. It is in vain that men would like to anticipate time; they cannot constrain the will of the Spirits who act according to higher inspirations, and do not indulge the impatience of the incarnate; they know how to make this impatience sterile if necessary. Let us therefore let them act; let us strengthen ourselves in what they teach us and let us be sure that they will know how to make Spiritism give what it must give.
