|
Spiritualism.—Two cases of spiritual visitation
occurred in the Swiss Cantons during last
century, of so startling a nature, as to attract
the eyes of ail Europe. The following
brief summary of the Morzine epidemic is
collated from the pages of the Cornhitt
Magazine, two or three of the London daily
journals, the Reveu Spirite, and Mr. William
Howitt's magazine article entitled," The Devils
of Morzine." The period of the occurrence was
about 1860; the scene, . the parish of Morzine,
a beautiful valley of the Savoy, not more than
half a day's journey from the Lake of Geneva.
The place is quite, remote, and had been seldom
visited by tourists before the period named
above. Being moreover shut in by high mountains,
and inhabited by a simple, industrious^ and
pious class of peasantry, Morzine might have
appeared to a casual visitor the very centre of
health, peace, and good order, The first
appearance of an abnormal visitation was the
conduct of a young girl, who, from being quiet,
modest, and well-conducted, suddenly began to
exhibit what her distressed family and friends
supposed to be the symptoms of insanity. She ran
about in the most singular and aimless way;
climbed high trees, scaled walls, and was found^
perched on roofs and cornices, which it seemed
impossible for any creature but a squirrel to
reach. She soon became wholly intractable; was
given to fits of hysteria, violent laughter,
passionate weeping, and general aberration from
her customary modest behavitfur. Whilst her
parents were anxiously seeking advice in this
dilemma, another and still another of the young
girl's ordinary companions were seized with the
same malady. In the course of ten days the
report prevailed, that over fifty
females—ranging from seven years of age to
fifty—had been seized, and were exhibiting
symptoms of the most bewildering mental
aberration. The crawling, climbing, leaping,
wild singing, furious swearing, and frantic
behaviour of these unfortunates, soon found
crowds of imitators. Before the tidings of this
frightful affliction, had passed beyond the
district in which it originated several hundreds
of women and children, and scores of young men,
were writhing under the contagion. The seizures
were sudden, like the attacks; they seldom
lasted long, yet they never seemed to yield to
any form of treatment, whether harsh or kind,
medical, religious or persuasive. The' first
symptoms of this malady do not seem to have been
noted with sufficient attention to justify one
in giving details which could be considered
accurate. It was only when the number of the
possessed exceeded two thousand persons, and the
case .was attracting multitudes of curious
enquirers from all parts of the Continent, that
the medical men, priests, and journalists of the
day, began to keep and publish constant records
of the progress of the epidemic One of the
strangest features of the case, and one which
most constantly baffled the faculty, was the
appearance of rugged health, and freedom from
all physical disease, which distinguished this
malady. As a general rule, the victims spoke in
hoarse, rough tones unlike their own, used
profane language, such as few of them could ever
have heard, and imitated the actions of
crawling, leaping, climbing animals with ghastly
fidelity. Sometimes they would roll their bodies
up into balls and distort their limbs beyond the
power of the attendant physicians to account
for, or disentangle. Many amongst them were
levitated in the air, and in a few instances,
the women spoke in foreign tongues, manifested
high conditions of exaltation, described
glorious visions, prophesied, gave clairvoyant
descriptions of absent persons and distant
places, sang hymns, and preached in strains of
sublime inspiration. It must be added, that
these instances were very rare, and were only
noticeable in the earlier stages of the
obsession. It is almost needless to say that the
tidings of this horrible obsession attracted
immense multitudes of witnesses, no less than
the attention of the learned and philosophic.
When the attempts of the medical faculty, the
church, and the law, had been tried again and
again, and all had utterly failed to modify the
ever-increasing horrors of this malady, the
Emperor
of the French, the late Louis Napoleon, under
whose protectorate Morzine was then governed,
yielding to the representations of his advisers,
actually sent out three military companies to
Morzine, charged with strict orders to quell the
disturbances " on the authority of the Emperor,
or by force if necessary." The result of this
high-handed policy was to increase tenfold the
violence of the disease, and to augment the
number of the afflicted, in the persons of many
of the very soldiers who sank under the contagio*
which they were expected to quench. The next
move of the baffled French Government, was a
spiritual one; aa army of priests, headed by a
venerable Bishop, much beloved in his diocese,
being despatched in the quality of exorcists, at
the suggestion of the Archbishop of Para.
Unhappily this second experiment worked no
better than the first. Respectable looking
groups of well-dressed men, women, and children,
would pass into the churches im reverent
silence, and with all the appearance of health
and piety—but no sooner was the sound of the
priest's voice, or the notes of the organ heard,
than shrieks, execrations, sobbings, and
frenzied cries, resounded from different parts
of the assembly. Anxious fathers and husbands
were busy in carrying their distracted relatives
into tfc? open air, and whether in the church or
the home, ever^ attempt of a sacerdotal
character, was sure to arouse the mania to
heights of fury unknown before. The time came at
length, when the good old Bishop thought of a
coup de grace to achieve a general victory over
the adf«r-sary. He commanded that as many as
possible of the afflicted should be gathered
together to hear high mast, when he trusted that
the solemnity of the occasion wo*M be sufficient
to defeat what he evidently believed to be the
combined forces of Satan.
According to the description cited by William
Hontt in his paper on " The Devils of Morzine,"
the assemblage m question, including at least
two thousand of the possessed, and a number of
spectators, must have far more faithfmly
illustrated Milton's description of Pandemonium
than aay mortal scene before enacted. Children
and women wene leaping over the seats and
benches; clambering up tie pillars, and
shrieking defiance from pinnacles witkk scarcely
admitted of a foothold for a bird. The Bishop"!
letter contains but one remark which seems to
ofier a clue to these scenes of horror and
madness. He says : " When in my distress and
confusion I accidentally boi my hand on the
heads of these unfortunates, I found that the
paroxysm instantly subsided, and that however wM
and clamorous they may have been before, the
parties so touched generally sunk down as it
were into a swoon, nr deep sleep, and woke up
most commonly restored to sanity. and a sense of
propriety." The complete failure of epis-copal
influence threw the Government back on the help
of medical science. Dr. Constans had, since his
first visit, published a report, in which he
held out hopes of cure if kv advice were
strictly followed. He was again commissicnad to
do what he could for Morzine. Armed with the
povcs of a dictator he returned there, and
backed by a fresk detachment of sixty soldiers,
a brigade of gendarmes and a fresh cure, he
issued despotic decrees, and threatened lunatic
asylums, and in any case deportation for the
convulsed. • He fined any person who accused
others of magk^ or in any way encouraged the
prevalent idea of supernatml evil. He desired
the cure to preach sermons against the
possibility of demoniacal possession, but this
order conU not be carried out by even the most
obedient priest. The persons affected with fits
were dispersed in every direction. Some were
sent to asylums and hospitals, and many wen?
simply exiled from Chablais. They were not
allowed *n revisit except by very special favour.
Mr. William Howitt writing in the London
Spiritual Magazine says : " We need not point to
the salient facts of our narrative, or disclose
the various theories that have been invented to
account for them. .... It is impossible not to
see the resemblance of the Morzine epidemic with
the demonopathy of the sixteenth century, and
the history of the Jansenist and Ceven-nes
convulsionnaires. .... Some of the facts we have
related were often observed in the state of
hypnotism, or nervous sleep, with which
physicians are familiar. The hallucinations of
which we have given instances are too common to
astonish us. But the likeness of this epidemic
to others that have been observed does not
account for its symptoms."
Home | Alternative
Medicine | Astrology | Channeling
|
Divination |
Esoteric & Occult |
Food
|
Life
After Death | Michael
Teachings
| Mind
& Body | Paranormal
| Philosophy
& Religion |
Relationships
| Spiritual
Growth
| World
Issues
|
