"The practice of magnetism borders on that of magic; in the former, indeed, there is no invocation of the devil, but he comes of himself. Whoever gives himself up to it plucks from nature something that cannot be lawfully won except in the church of Jesus Christ, and which cannot keep its power of healing, and sanctifying, except in her bosom. Nature, for all such as are not in active union with Jesus Christ by true faith and sanctifying grace, is full of satanic influences. Magnetic subjects see nothing in its essence and in its relation of dependence upon God; they see everything in a state of isolation and separation, as if they were looking through a hole or crack. They see one ray of things; and would to God this ray were pure--that is to say, holy! It is in God's mercy that he has veiled and separated us from one another; that he has raised a wall between us. Since we are all full of sin, and exercise influence one upon the other, it is well that we should be obliged to interpose some preamble before seducing one another and reciprocating the contagious influence of the evil spirit. But in Jesus Christ, God himself made man is given us as our head, in union with whom we can, when purified and sanctified, become one--one body--without bringing into this union our sins and evil inclinations. Whoever would bring to an end in any other way this separation which God has established is uniting himself, after a most dangerous fashion, to fallen nature, in which he reigns with all his allurements who drew it to its fall. "I see that magnetism is essentially true; but in that veiled light there crouches a thief who has broken his chain. All union amongst sinners is dangerous, interpenetration more especially so. But when this befalls a soul that is altogether cloudless; when a state, the condition of whose clairvoyance is its simplicity and directness, falls a prey to artifice and intrigue, then _one of the faculties of man before his fall--a faculty which is not quite dead_--is in a certain manner revived, to leave him more unarmed, more mystified, and exposed internally to the assaults of the demon. This state is real--it exists; but it is covered with a veil, because it is a spring poisoned for all except the saints. "I feel that the state of these persons follows a course in certain respects parallel to mine, but moving in an opposite direction, coming from elsewhere, and having other consequences. The sin of a man with only the faculty of ordinary vision is an act wrought by the senses or in their forum. The inward light is not thereby darkened, but speaks in the conscience, and urges from within, like a judge, to sensible acts of repentance and penance. It leads us to those remedies which the church administers under a sensible form--the sacraments. Then the sensitive part is the sinner, and the inward light the accuser.