20. The Universal Medicineb

A philosopher declared that he would discredit universal testimony rather than believe in the resurrection of a dead person, but his utterance was rash, for it was on the faith of universal testimony that he believed in the impossibility of resurrection. Supposing such an occurrence were proved, what would follow? Must we deny evidence or renounce reason? It would be absurd to say so. We should infer rather that we were wrong in supposing resurrection to be impossible. Ab actu ad posse valet consecutio. Let us now make bold to affirm that resurrection is possible and occurs oftener than might be thought. Many persons whose deaths have been attested legally and scientifically have been found afterwards in their coffins dead indeed, but having evidently come to life and having bitten through their clenched hands so as to open the arteries and escape from their horrible agonies. A doctor would tell us that such persons were in a lethargy and not dead. But what is lethargy? It is the name which we give to an uncompleted death, a death which is falsified by return to life. It is easy by words to escape from a difficulty when it is impossible to explain facts. The soul is joined to the body by means of sensibility, and when sensibility ceases it is a sure sign that the soul is departing. The magnetic sleep is a lethargy or factitious death which is curable at will. The etherization or torpor produced by chloroform is a real lethargy which ends sometimes in absolute death, when the soul, ravished by its temporary liberation, makes an effort of will to become free altogether, which is possible for those who have conquered hell, that is to say, whose moral strength is superior to that of astral attraction. Hence resurrection is possible only for elementary souls, and it is these above all who run the risk of involuntary revival in the tomb. Great men and true sages are never buried alive. The theory and practice of resurrection will be given in our “Ritual”; to those meanwhile who may ask whether I have raised the dead, I would say that if I replied in the affirmative they would not believe me. It remains now to examine whether the abolition of pain is possible, and whether it is wholesome to employ chloroform or magnetism for surgical operations. We think, and science will acknowledge it later on, that by diminishing sensibility we diminish life, and what we subtract from pain under such circumstances turns to the profit of death. Suffering bears witness to the struggle for life, and hence we observe that the dressing of a wound is excessively painful for the persons who have been operated on under anaesthetics. If chloroform were resorted to at each dressing, one of two things would happen - either the patient would die or the pain would return and continue between the dressings. Nature is not violated with impunity.