Madam Countess Adélaïde de Clérambert, medium physician Madam Countess Clérambert lived in Sain-Symphorien-sur-Coise, Department of Loire; she died a few years ago of an old age. Endowed with a superior intelligence, she had shown, from an early age, a particular taste for medical studies, and was delighted to works dealing with this science. In the last twenty years of her life, she had devoted herself to the relief of suffering, with an entirely philanthropic dedication and the most complete self-sacrifice. The many cures that she operated on people deemed incurable had given her a certain reputation; but, as modest as she was charitable, she took neither vanity nor profit from it.
To her acquired medical knowledge, that she no doubt made use of in her treatments, she added a faculty of intuition that was nothing other than an unconscious mediumship, for she often treated by correspondence, and without having seen the patients shed described disease perfectly; moreover, she herself said that she received instructions, without explaining the manner in which they were transmitted to her. She had, many times, had physical manifestations, such as transportations, movements of objects and other phenomena of that kind, although she did not know Spiritism. One day, one of her patients wrote to her that he had had abscesses, and to give her an idea, had drawn the pattern on a sheet of paper; but, having forgotten to enclose it in the letter, this lady answered through the mail: "Since the drawing that you indicated was not in the letter, I thought you had forgotten it, but I just found one this morning, in my drawer, that must be the same as yours, and that I am sending to you.” Indeed, this pattern reproduced exactly the shape and size of the abscesses.
She treated neither by magnetism, nor by the laying on of hands, nor by the ostensive intervention of the Spirits, but by the use of medicines that most often she prepared herself, according to the indications that were available to her. Her medication varied for the same disease on different individuals; it had no secret recipe for universal effectiveness, but was guided by the circumstances. The result was sometimes almost instantaneous, and in some cases was obtained only after a follow-up treatment, but always short compared to ordinary medicine. It radically cured a large number of epileptics and patients with acute or chronic diseases, abandoned by doctors.
Madam de Clérambert was, therefore, not a healing medium, in the meaning given to the word, but a medical medium. She enjoyed a clairvoyance that allowed her to see the illness, and guided her in the application of the remedies that were inspired to her, helped moreover by the knowledge that she had of the medical matter and especially of the properties of the plants. Through her dedication, her moral and material selflessness, that have never been denied, by her unalterable benevolence towards those that sought her, Madam de Clérambert, as with Abbé Prince de Hohenlohe, must have preserved the precious faculty that had been granted to her until the end of her life, and that she would undoubtedly have seen weaken and disappear, if she had not remained in the noble use that she gave it.
Her financial situation, without being very comfortable, was sufficient to rule out any pretext for any remuneration; so, she asked for absolutely nothing, but she received from the rich, grateful to have been healed, what they believed they had to give, and she used it to provide for those who lacked the necessary.
The documents in the above note were provided by a person who was healed by Madam de Clérambert, and they were confirmed by others who knew her. Having this note been read at the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, Madame de Clérambert gave the response below.
Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, Paris April 5th, 1867 – medium Mr. Desliens
Evocation: The story that we have just read naturally gives us the desire to talk to you, and to count you among the number of Spirits that are willing to contribute to our instruction. We hope you will attend our call, and in that case we will take the liberty of addressing the following questions to you:
1 – What do you think of the note that we have just read and the thoughts that follow?
2 – What is the origin of your innate taste for medical studies?
3 – By what way did you receive the inspirations that were given to you for the treatment of the sick?
4 – Can you, as a Spirit, continue to render the services that you rendered as incarnate, when you were called by a sick person, with the help of a medium?
Asnwer: Thank you, Mr. President, for the kind words you have been kind enough to say to me, and I gladly accept the praise you have given to my character. It is, I believe, the expression of the truth, and I will not have the pride or the false modesty to refuse it. An instrument chosen by the Providence, undoubtedly, because of my good will and the particular aptitude that favored the exercise of my faculty, I only did my duty by devoting myself to the relief of those who called on my help. Sometimes greeted by gratitude, often by forgetting, my heart was no more proud of the votes of some than it suffered from the ingratitude of others, since I knew very well that I was unworthy of some, and put myself above others.
But it is enough to talk about myself; let us come to the faculty that has earned me the honor of being called into the midst of this sympathetic society, where one likes to rest one's sight, especially when one has been, like me, the object of calumny and malicious attacks from those whose beliefs or interests have been harmed. May God forgive them as I did myself!
From my earliest childhood, and by a sort of natural attraction, I got involved with the study of plants and their beneficial action to the human body. Where did this taste, usually unnatural to my sex, come from? I didn't know it then, but I know today that it was not the first time that human health was the object of my greatest concern: I had been a doctor. As for the special faculty, that allowed me to see from a distance, the diagnosis of the illnesses of certain patients (because I did not see for everyone), and to prescribe the drugs that were to restore health, it was very similar to that of your current medical mediums; like them, I was in touch with an occult being who called himself Spirit, and whose healthy influence strongly helped me to relieve the unfortunate people that came to me. He had prescribed me the most complete selflessness, or pay the price of instantly losing a faculty that made me happy. I do not know for what reason, perhaps because it would have been premature to reveal the origin of my prescriptions, he had also recommended to me, in the most formal way, not to say from whom I received the prescriptions that I gave my patients. Finally, he considered moral selflessness, humility and self-sacrifice as one of the essential conditions for the perpetuation of my faculty. I followed his advice and did well.
You are right, Sir, when you say that physicians will one day be called upon to play a role of the same nature as mine, when Spiritism has conquered the considerable influence, that will make it, in the future, the universal instrument of progress and of peoples’ happiness! Yes, certain doctors will have faculties of this nature, and will be able to render much greater services, as their acquired knowledge will allow them more easily to spiritually assimilate the instructions that will be given to them.
It is a fact that you must have noticed, that the instructions dealing with special matters are the more easily, and the more widely developed, the closer the personal knowledge of the medium is to the nature of those that he is called upon to transmit. Therefore, I could certainly prescribe treatments to the sick who would turn to me to obtain their cure, but I would not do it with the same ease with all the instruments; while some would easily pass my indications, others could only do so incorrectly or incompletely. However, if my assistance can be useful to you, irrespective of the circumstances, I will be glad to help you in your work, according to the measure of my knowledge, unfortunately much limited apart from certain special attributions.
Adèle de Clérambert
Observation: The Spirit signs Adèle, while, during her life, her name was Adélaïde; Having asked her why, she replied that Adèle was her real name, and that it was only from a childhood habit that she was called Adélaïde.
