Allan Kardec-THE Spirit's Book_ The Principles of Spiritist Doctrine (1989)

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THE SPIRITS’ BOOK
being, it is evident that, when his influence is destroyed, he will really be driven away. If you
attribute a malady to the devil, you may say, when you have cured the malady, that you have
driven the devil away. A statement may be true or false, according to the meaning attributed
to certain words. The most weighty truths may appear absurd when you look only at the form
under which they are presented, and when an allegory is taken for a fact. Get this principle
well into your mind, and keep it there; for it is of universal application."
Convulsionaries.
481. Do spirits play a part in the phenomena exhibited by the individuals designated under
the name of convulsionaries.?
"Yes, a very important one, as does also the agent that you call magnetism, whether employed
by human beings or by spirits; for this agent is the original source of those phenomena. Hut
charlatanism has often exaggerated those effects, and made them a matter of speculation,
which has brought them into ridicule."
-What is generally the nature of the spirits who help to produce phenomena of this kind?
"Of slight elevation. Do you suppose that spirits of high degree would waste their time in
such a way?"
482. How can a whole population be suddenly thrown into the abnormal state of convulsions
and crises.'
"Through sympathy. Moral dispositions are sometimes exceedingly contagious. You are not
so ignorant of the effects of human magnetism as not to understand this, and also the part that
certain spirits would naturally take in such occurrences, through sympathy with those by
whom they are produced."
Among the strange peculiarities remarked in convulsionaries, several are evidently identical with those of
which somnambulism and mesmerism offer numerous examples-viz., physical insensibility, thought
reading, sympathetic transmission or sensations, etc. It is therefore impossible to doubt that these crisiacs
are in a sort of waking somnambulism, determined by the influence which they unwittingly exercise upon
each other. They are at once mesmerised and mesmerised, unconsciously to themselves.
483. What is the cause of the physical insensibility sometimes remarked in convulsionaries,
and sometimes, also, in other persons, when subjected to the most atrocious tortures?
"In some cases it is simply an effect of human magnetism, which acts upon the nervous
system in the same manner as do certain substances. In other cases, mental excitement
deadens the