Medicine in the Middle Ages: Extracts from "Le Moyen Age Medical" by Dr. Edmond Dupouy; translated by T. C. MinorDupouy, Edmond
History
Medicine in the Middle Ages: Extracts from "Le Moyen Age Medical" by Dr. Edmond Dupouy; translated by T. C. Minor
Dupouy, Edmond
Medicine, Medieval
“5. The evidence of the existence of this force governed by an
intelligence rests on
“(_a_) The evidence observed through the senses.
“(_b_) The fact that _the force_ often uses a language unknown to the
medium.
“(_c_) The fact that the subject matter treated is very frequently
superior to the medium’s knowledge or education.
“(_d_) The fact that it has been found impossible to produce the same
results by fraud under the conditions in which these phenomena are
obtained.
“(_e_) The fact that these special phenomena are not only produced in
public and by paid mediums, but likewise in a family circle where no
strangers are admitted.”
Without writing to prejudice the question, I believe, in my turn, that
I can solemnly affirm that this force has intimate connection with the
soul, the mind or the ministerial part of our being, as it is called;
that it acts on our ideas as well as on our physiological functions,
and it is to my mind the destiny of humanity to investigate its essence
and study its phenomena, its manifestations and all its sensible
effects by all our senses and means of investigation.
It is high time that secular boasting of the materialistic scientists
be checked, and that they should recognize the fact that force does
not arise from matter alone but exists independent of it and primarily
submits to its laws.
Starting, then, with the proposition that an unknown force exists, to
whose influence we unconsciously submit, science should investigate
this force, isolate, and control it, if it be in our power so to do.
Instead of opposing an ignorant skepticism to modern discoveries
in _psychic force_, our learned Academicians should investigate
the acquired facts for inspiration in future work, remembering
that good thought of Laplace: “We are so far from knowing all the
agents of Nature and their different modes of action, that it is
not philosophical to deny the existence of phenomena simply because
they cannot be explained in the actual condition of our present
knowledge.”[94]
Such are the conclusions I believe I have a right to draw from my
historical studies on the Demonomania of the Middle Ages. Let me
briefly recapitulate my personal views on the subject:
1. There exists a psychic force, intelligent, inherent to humanity,
manifesting itself, under determined conditions, by various phenomena,
with an intensity more or less great.
2. Certain human beings, known as mediums, who are very sensitive to
the action of magnetism, facilitate the production of these phenomena,
considered as supernatural in the actual state of our present
scientific knowledge, and in apparent contradiction with all known
physical and physiological laws.
3. In certain nervous conditions, natural or provoked, this Force can
possess the human organism and bring about, temporarily, either a
change in one’s personality or an alteration in one’s sensations and in
the intellectual and moral faculties.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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