The Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1863

As it must have been noticed Mr. Constant got to Morzine with the idea that the cause of the disease was purely physical. He could be right for it as it would be absurd to suppose a hidden influence to every effect that had an unknown cause. According to him such a cause was entirely in the conditions of hygiene, physiology and climatic circumstances of the inhabitants. We do not pretend to say that he had arrived with another contrary opinion ready, something that would not be more logical. All we say is that with his preconceived idea he only saw what he wanted to see whilst if he had just admitted the possibility of another cause he would have seen something else.

When a cause is real it must explain all the effects that are produced. If certain effects contradict the cause it means that the cause is false or that it is not the only cause and then it is necessary to look for another one. It is undoubtedly the more logical path.

That is how justice is done in search for the causes of criminality. When looking for the perpetrator of a crime will law enforcement arrive at the crime scene with the preconceived idea that it was done in this or that way by this or that person? No. It is necessary to observe the minor details and rebuild the event from the effects to the causes, setting aside those that are irreconcilable with the observed effects and from deduction to deduction it is rare the case in which truth is not established.

The same occurs to the sciences. When a difficulty presents itself as insoluble, the wisest things to do is to suspend the assessment. From that moment on any hypothesis is allowed to try to solve the issue. However, if the hypothesis does not address all the facets of the problem it means that it is not true. It does not bear the character of an absolute truth if it cannot explain everything.

That is how in Spiritism, for example, leaving aside the material proof, going back from the effects to the causes, arrives at the principle of the plurality of existences as an unavoidable consequence because only this principle can clearly explain what no other has been able to do.

Applying such a method to the facts of Morzine, it is easy to see that the only cause admitted by Mr. Constant is far from explaining everything. He attests, for example, that the crises cease when the patients are away from the region of the commune. If the illness is due to the lymphatic constitution and the bad nutrition of the inhabitants how can it stop its action when the patients transpose the bridge that separate them from the neighboring community? If the nervous breakdowns were not followed by any other symptom there is no doubt that one could attribute them to such a physical state but there are other phenomena that could not be explained exclusively by such a state.

Here Spiritism offers us with a shocking comparison. In the beginning of the manifestations when we saw turning and rapping tables, tables that would rise in space without any support, the first thought was that it was taking place by the action of electricity, magnetism or another unknown field. Such a supposition was not absurd; on the contrary it had all the likelihood. However, when it was found out that the movements were followed by intelligent signs; that followed an intelligent and spontaneous will, the first hypothesis had to be abandoned because it did not solve that part of the phenomena and it was imperative to acknowledge an intelligent cause producing an intelligent effect. Which intelligence was that? It was still through experimentation that one arrived at that cause and not through a preconceived system.

Let us mention another example. When Newton was observing the fall of bodies and that all of them would follow the same direction he searched for a cause and raised a hypothesis. That hypothesis, by resolving all cases of the same kind, became the law of universal gravitation, a purely mechanical law because all the effects were mechanical. However, let us imagine that when observing the fall of an apple the apple had obeyed his will; that his command would make the apple rise up instead of going down; that it would move from left to right; that it would stop or continue its movement; that by any sign it had responded to his thoughts, he would then have been forced to admit that there was something else besides a mechanical law, that since the apple was not intelligent it had to have obeyed an intelligence. That is what happened to the turning tables. That is what happens to the patients of Morzine.

Speaking only about the facts observed by Mr. Constant we would then ask: How come bad nourishment and a lymphatic condition could produce bad feelings against religion in people that are naturally religious and even devout followers? If it were an isolated fact it could be an exception but it is acknowledged as general and that it is one of the features of the disease there and elsewhere. That is an effect. Look for its cause. Don’t you know it? Be it. Confess that you don’t know but don’t say that it is due to the fact that the villagers eat potato and black bread or due to their ignorance and limited intelligence because the same effects will be shown to you on wealthy and educated people. If comfort were enough to cure wickedness we would be stunned by the number of sinners and blasphemous people that are not deprived of anything.

Would hygiene explain better this other not less characteristic and general fact of the feeling of duality unequivocally translated by the patients’ language? Certainly not. It is always a third party speaking. There is always a distinction between the speaker and the young lady, a constant fact on the individuals of the same case irrespective of their social class.

The meds are inefficient for a good reason. They are good to the lady, the corporeal being, but not to the third one, the one that cannot be seen but that nonetheless makes her act, embarrasses her, subjugates her and takes her down and that utilizes her limbs to hit and her mouth to speak.

Dr. Chiara, another doctor who also visited Morzine, published his assessment^[2] attesting the same phenomena and the same symptoms as Dr. Constant. However, to him, as to the latter, the malign Spirits are in the imagination of the patients. We find the following fact about a patient in his work:

“The episode begins by a hiccup and swallowing movements; by the alternative bending and straightening of the head on the trunk; later on, after several contortions that give her nice face a horrible expression she shouts:

Talking about another patient, he says:

“After a few minutes of a mute scene, of a more or less expressive pantomime, our possessed starts to say horrible words. Bubbling of rage she insults us all with an unprecedented fury. However – we must say now – it is not the lady that expresses herself like that but the devil that possesses her and that using her organs speaks in her own name. As for our innocent girl she is just a passive instrument from which the notion of self was completely abolished. When questioned directly she remains dumb. Only Beelzebub responds. Finally, after approximately three minutes that horrible drama suddenly ends, like by magic. The girl B… recovers her very calm and natural appearance as if nothing had happened. She was knitting before so she continues to knit as if the work were not interrupted. I question her. She responds that she does not feel tired at all and remembers nothing. I mention the swear words and insults against us but she seems bothered by that and apologizes. In all those patients general sensitivity is completely abolished. The can be pinched, poked at or burned to feel nothing. I pierced the folded skin of one of them who felt nothing despite the bleeding. I also saw several of those patients away from the trance in Morzine. They were fat and nice young ladies, enjoying a perfect moral and physical health. It would be impossible to suppose any disorder just by looking at them.”

That in contrast to the skinny and painful state that Mr. Constant believes to have found. As for the phenomenon of lack of sensitivity during the episodes that is not the only proximity to facts presented by catalepsy, somnambulism and double vision. Alter all the observations Dr. Chiara came to the following definition of the illness:

“It is a morbid group of different symptoms of a bit of nervous and mental disorders. In short it is a sui generis disease that I will call – not giving importance to names – hystericaldemonia a name that has already been used before.”

It is the case of saying: “whoever has ears, let them hear”. It is a particular illness, formed by different parts whose source is everywhere. That is the same as simply saying: “It is a disease that I don’t understand.” It is a ‘sui generis’ illness, we agree, but what is it that you cannot even give a name to?

We could demonstrate the insufficiency of a purely material cause to explain the illness of Morzine by many other approximations but the readers will do it themselves. I refer them to the preceding articles about the same subject in which we explained the mode by which the action of the obsessing Spirits take place as well as the phenomena that result from that action and the analogy will support the latest evidence.

If to the people of Morzine the third intervening power is the devil it is because they were told so and it all that they knew. As a matter of fact, it is well-known that certain inferior Spirits have fun by taking infernal names in order to terrify people. Replace that name by the word Spirit or even better, bad Spirit, and you shall have the perfect reproduction of every scene of obsession and subjugation that we reported.

There is no doubt that in a region where the idea of Spiritism dominated, in the case of a similar epidemic, the patients would say that they were solicited by bad Spirits whereas in the eyes of other certain people they would be considered mentally insane. They say that it is the devil: it is a nervous disease. That is what would have happened in Morzine had the knowledge of Spiritism preceded the invasion of those Spirits. My adversaries would then have shouted: Help! Get him! But Providence did not want to give them such satisfaction. On the contrary, they wanted to prove their impotence to fight the illness by conventional means. The bottom line is that they sent the patients away to the hospitals of Thonon, Chambery, Lyon, Macon, etc. It was a good solution to them because when all were removed they could boast about the fact that there wasn’t any remaining patient in the region. The measure could have been based on an observation that there was no episode beyond the borders of the commune but as it seems it was based on another observation: the isolation of patients. In fact, Mr. Constant’s opinion is categorical:

“There should be a kind of Lazaretto, he says, where the moral illnesses could be hidden as soon as they were produced and whose contagious characteristic was established, as my old friend Dr. Bouchut said. While there was not a better place, the Lazaretto was found in the asylum of the mentally ill, the only truly convenient for the rational treatment of patients with the type of disease I am dealing with, admitting or not that those patients are taken by some sort of mental alienation. It is necessary to pose a certain level of intimation onto them; occupy their minds leaving the minimum possible time for other concerns; absolutely subtract any meaningless religious influence from them, avoid conversations, advices or observations that can feed back their mistakes that must on the contrary be fought back daily; give them an appropriate regimen and finally force them to take the prescriptions adequate to mental treatments and the means of executing them. Where can one find all those necessary conditions if not in an asylum? Some are afraid of the contact of these patients with the truly alienated ones. Such a contact seemed to have been less harmful than thought and also it would have been easy to have a special pavilion to the patients of Morzine. If the agglomeration had had any inconvenience it would have found compensation in the gathering itself and I am convinced that the name asylum, house of mad people, by itself would have produce more than one cure and that there would not be many devils that would not have run away from the shower.”

We are far from sharing Mr. Constant’s optimism about the harmlessness of the contact with the mentally ill and the efficacy of the showers in similar cases. We are, on the contrary, persuaded that such a regimen may produce true madness where there is only apparent disease. Now, notice that out of the episodic crises the patients have common sense and are mentally and physically healthy; there isn’t more than a transient disturbance without any indication of madness as such. Their brains, necessarily weakened by the frequent attacks, would be even more easily influenced by the vision and by the idea of being among the truly ill patients.

Mr. Constant attributed the development and continuity of the illness within the limitation he understood. He therefore recommended putting them together with the mentally ill or having them in a hospital pavilion. Isn’t that an evident contradiction? Is it what he understood to be a moral treatment?

In our opinion the disease is due to a different cause and requires different healing procedures. Its source is in the unstoppable interaction between the visible and the invisible world that surrounds us and in whose environment we live, that is, among people and Spirits who are nothing more than the souls of those who lived before and among which there are good ones and bad ones. Such interaction is one of the forces of the laws of Nature and produce a number of misunderstood psychological, physiological and moral phenomena because their cause was unknown. Spiritism enlightened us about that law and considering that the effects are submitted to a natural law there is nothing of supernatural about it. We feel the influence of these beings who live in such environment that is not as much immaterial as people imagine it to be, with their fluidic bodies similar to ours. The influence of the good Spirits is healthy and beneficial. That of the bad Spirits is pernicious like the contact with evil people in our Society.

Thus, we say that there is a momentary cloud of such bad and invisible beings upon Morzine as it has happened to several other places and they will not be expelled by juicy food and showers. Some call them devils or demons. We called them just bad or inferior Spirits but that does not imply the absence of a good quality since this has a big difference in terms of consequences for the very idea of demons is that these are a different set of creatures, separated from humanity, whilst in fact they are only the souls of people who were bad on Earth but that will end up improving one day. When they go to such places they do as they would during their lives, that is, the actions of a bunch of evil men. Hence it is necessary to expel them as one would do to the enemy’s troop. It is in the nature of these Spirits to be averse to religion because they fear its power like the criminals who are averse to the law and to the judges who condemn them, expressing their feeling by the mouth of their victims who are truly unconscious mediums absolutely right when they side that they are just echoes. The patient is reduced to passivity as in the situation of a man dominated by a stronger enemy that obliges him to obey. The ‘self’ of the strange Spirit temporarily neutralizes the ‘self’ of the person. There is an obsessive subjugation and not possession.

“What absurd thinking!”, certain doctors will say. It may be absurb but it is still accepted as truth by a large number of doctors. Time will come, and faster than many think, in which the action of the invisible world will be generally accepted and the influence of the bad Spirits identified among the causes of pathologies. The important role of the perispirit in physiology will be taken into account and a new avenue of cure will be open to a large number of diseases considered incurable. If that is the case, people will ask, what is the cause of the inefficacy of exorcism? It demonstrates one thing: exorcism as practiced is worth as much as the meds because its efficacy is not in the exterior act, in the virtue of words or signals but in the moral ascendency exercised upon the bad Spirits.

Were it not the patients who said: “it is not medication that we lack but priests”? And insulted them by saying that they were not saint enough to have ascendency upon the devil. Was it too much potato eating that led them to speak like that? No, but their intuition of truth. The inefficacy of exorcism in similar cases is demonstrated by experience. And why is that? Because it consists of ceremonies and formulas that make the bad Spirits laugh while they yield to the moral ascendency that is imposed on them. They see that people try to dominate them by powerless means and want to show stronger. They are like the wild horse that takes the unable rider down but that is docile to an expert.

“In one of those ceremonies”, Dr. Chiara says, “…all the patients were gathered in one church where there was a terrible riot. All the women had a simultaneous crisis taking the church benches down, breaking them and rolling on the floor, messing with men and children who hopelessly tried to stop them. They say horrible and incredible blasphemies and question the priests with the most insulting words.”

They then stopped public ceremonies of exorcism and started doing it a home, at any time of day or night, and since that did not have better results the stopped that too.

We cited several examples of moral strength is similar cases and in the absence of a large enough number of sufficient proofs it would be enough to remember that of Jesus Christ that only had to ask the demons to leave in order to have them expelled. Compare in possessed of those days in the Gospels to those of our time and you will see a shocking similarity. Jesus cured them by miracles, you will say. Be it but here there is one fact that took place among the schismatic that you will not consider less miraculous.

Mr. A… from Moscow that had not read our report told us a few days back that the inhabitants of a village in his properties were taken by a disease similar in all aspects to that of Morzine. Same crises, same convulsions, same blasphemies, same insults against the priests, same effect of exorcism and same uselessness of medical science. One of his uncles, Mr. R… from Moscow, powerful magnetizer, a good man by excellence and of a very good heart, having come to visit those unfortunate patients stopped the convulsions by a simple imposition of the hands always followed by feverous prayers. He ended up radically curing almost all the patients by the same procedure.

This example is not the only one. How to explain it if not by the influence of magnetism seconded by prayer, a medicine not much used by our materialists because it is not found in the codex of our pharmacies? A powerful medication though when it is said from the bottom of the heart and not with the lips and when supported by a vivid faith and an eager desire for good. Describing obsession in our first articles we explained the fluidic action produced in such circumstances and from there we conclude by analogy that it would have been a powerful support in Morzine. At any rate, it seems that the illness has found its term despite the fact that the conditions of the region remain the same.

Why is that? That is what we are not allowed to say yet. Since it will be later acknowledged it will have served Spiritism more than people think even if only to demonstrate by a great example that those who don’t know them are not shielded against the action of the bad Spirits as well as the impotence of ordinary means employed to have them expelled.

We will end by tranquilizing certain inhabitants of the region under the pretense influence that some of them could have by produced evil actions as they say. The belief in fortune tellers must be relegated to superstition. May they show good hearts and those who are in charge of leading them strive to elevate them morally, that is a safe way of neutralizing the influence of the bad Spirits and must prevent a return to what happened. The bad Spirits only address those that they know can be dominated and not those that are morally superior – we don’t mean intellectually – and are shielded against attacks.

Here a very natural objection is presented that is convenient to analyze. You may perhaps ask why all those who are bad are not reached by possession? We respond that by doing bad they suffer the pernicious influence of the bad spirits in a different way, listening to their advice for which they shall be punished with the more severity the more they act with knowledge of cause. Do not believe in the virtues of any talisman, amulet, sign or any word to keep the bad Spirits away. Purity of heart and intention, the love of God and towards the neighbor that is the talisman because that subtracts from them any domination upon our souls.

Here is the communication that St. Louis gave about it at the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies:

“The possessed of Morzine are really under the influence of bad Spirits attracted to that region by causes that you will one day learn or even better that you will yourself get to know one day. The knowledge of Spiritism will allow the predominance of the good over bad influence, that is, the healing and consoling Spirits attracted by sympathetic fluids will replace the malign and cruel influence that devastates that population. Spiritism is called up to do great services. It will be the healer of such diseases whose cause was formerly unknown and before which science remains powerless. It will probe the moral ulcers and give them the healing balsam. By turning people better it will keep them away from the bad Spirits who are attracted by the vices of humanity. If every person were good the bad Spirits would stay away from them because they would be unable to lead them to doing bad. The presence of good people sends them away as the presence of vicious people attract them whilst the opposite happens to the good Spirits. Therefore, be good if you only want the good Spirits around you.” – Medium Mrs. Costel.

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[1] See the issues of the Spiritist Review December 1862, January, February and April 1863


[2] Les Diables de Morzine, at the Mégret, quai de l’Hôpital 51, Lyon.