PRACTICAL HINTS IN HEALING.

 

While a few have this faculty pre-eminently, a majority have it in marked degree. It is pleasant to have such in the sick-room. There is helpfulness and restoration in their presence. The gentle touch of their hand, a few low words of assurance bring health as no medicine can.

 

Light passes, with the touch of the finger-tips may be given, but it should be borne in mind that magnetic cure is not massage.

 

The operator must have tact to make the subject follow his suggestions. He should be cheerful, sympathetic, and encouraging. The patient's mind, prone to dwell on his ailment, should be diverted into new channels, and away from the trouble. Confidence should be gained, and this must come of the known character of the healer into which all his life has gone. A noble unselfish character, is the foundation of success in healing. He is not a wonder worker, or performer of miracles. His method is controlled by psychic laws, which he must observe.

 

IMPERSONATION.

 

When a medium is used to impersonate a spirit, the breath of the medium would be that of the spirit, and the hands of the medium would be employed. In such cases he would not be responsible, unless he claimed that the manifestations were independent, and if so received, it would be misrepresentation and fraud. Unless the "test conditions" demonstrate that the medium could not have touched the trumpet, the facts as represented—finger marks on the trumpet and blackening—are conclusive evidence that the hands of the medium held it, and his breath spoke through it.

 

That the medium impersonated and was thus used unconsciously is the most charitable interpretation. It is claimed, however, that the manifestations were independent; for if not, no explanation would be called for.

 

This question is given more space than, perhaps, passingly it would seem to merit, because it represents a large class of so-called spiritual manifestations and the theories and speculations formulated thereon. Spiritualism is like a vast current wide and deep, covered over with froth, slime and wreckage. Manifestations with fraud more or less mingled with the genuine, have been carelessly observed, and ambitious theories offered for their explanation. How much speculation was called out by the "paraffine casts," and the most arrant deception by mediums has been glossed over by referring their dereliction to evil spirits, Jesuits, etc. When the mouth of the trumpet, on a certain occasion, was blackened, and after the seance the lips of the medium were covered with lamp black, a most elaborate explanation was put forth by the editor of a leading spiritual paper, that the spirit drew the vital elements from the medium, and when the seance closed these returned carrying the very particles with them! It was an absolute proof of fraud.

 

There is an abundance of genuine spiritual manifestations, after throwing out all that are questionable. Investigation cannot be too carefully conducted in this field where so little is known with certainty.

 

PSYCHOMETRY.

 

Psychometry depends like spirit manifestations on the impressibility of the brain. We are surrounded by a spirit atmosphere or ether, which we normally do not sense, but as the electrometer detects the presence of electricity, so the sensitive brain perceives this ether. There is an influence exerted by individuals unconsciously an each other, which cannot be felt by the nerves in their ordinary state, but which is plainly recognized by aid of clairvoyance. To the spiritual eye, every individual appears like a luminous center, throwing off thought-vibrations as a lamp throws off light.

 

In making experiments in this department or in any other relating to mind or spirit, the greatest care should be used and the conditions already known complied with in as perfect a manner as possible. The student of the physical sciences deals with elements he can see, feel, and measure. He understands their properties—can combine them and observe the results. If he place iron and sulphur in a retort, and applies heat, he knows that a sulphuret of iron will be produced; and that he will obtain water by burning hydrogen and oxygen together in all these operations he can pronounce with certainty what the effects will be, for he can fulfill all the necessary conditions.

 

Not so, however, with the student of psychology. He enters a new and unexplored realm, and deals with elements so ethereal and subtile that they lose all properties usually attributed to matter and become more properly agents than elements. He cannot see nor measure them; nor can he fulfill the required conditions, for he does not know what they are. His steps are empirical and the results obtained subject to great detractions. As the psychic student knows little of his subject, he cannot exercise too great care.

 

It may seem incredible that any influence is left on paper by simply writing a name on it, and still more incredible that character can be delineated therefrom. Yet this is a fact every day apparent.

 

A lock of hair, a portion of garment worn, or fragment of mineral, gives the same influence. The observations thus far made are all tentative and liable to modification in their bearings by more accurately instituted research.