Draft of a spiritist explanation of sleep paralysis

Our studies show that the invisible world surrounding us constantly acts on the visible world as one of the forces of Nature. Would the knowledge of these hidden forces that dominate and subjugate us constitute the key to many problems, the explanation of a lot of unnoticed things? If these effects can be afflictive, would the knowledge of the causes for such evil represent a mean to preserve us against it, just as the knowledge of electricity provided us the means of mitigating the perils of lightning? If we fail, we should complain only of ourselves because ignorance will not serve as an excuse. (A. Kardec, La Revue Spirite, July 1859, "Closing speech of the social year 1858-1859")

I looked for rest in the setting of a pleasant weekend afternoon. Sleep comes, but not in the usual way. Just before waking up, I begin to perceive everything around me. Through eyes half closed, I see the familiar decoration of my bedroom. Suddenly, panic and despair take hold of me: I cannot get up! I hear voices of relatives nearby who know I am asleep. I try to turn my head, but it turned into lead. I try to raise my arm over my abdomen, but it is now made of steel. How long do I stay in this state? I do not know, but, when I finally wake up, I have the strange feeling of having being separated from my body for an unknown period of time. What happened to me? I just went through an experience of sleep paralysis.

How many times did I have this experience? Probably, three times in my life. The so-called "sleep paralysis" is a rare occurrence in the life of an individual, however, statistically, it is much disseminated in the population. Also, my private experience is far from being the most common. In addition to the feeling of lack of "body control", people often describe hidden presences, anomalous perceptions of intrusive figures in the scene, adding terror to the unpleasant feeling of an immovable body. However, reports have a point in common: during sleep paralysis, the personality remains intact, aware of the reality around it, but, for some reason, cannot "adjust itself" to the body and ends up perceiving what appears to be a mixture of "reality" and "hallucination".

Hallucinations or reports of anomalous perceptions?

The term "hallucination" is relatively recent. Popularized by J. Étienne Esquirol around 1817, its modern meaning involves "a percept, experienced by a waking individual, in the absence of an appropriate stimulus from the extracorporeal world" (Blom 2009). Its widespread use substituted the previous term "Phantasia". In the works of A. Kardec, both "hallucination" and "apparition" refer to distinct phenomena. The distinction is of fundamental importance since skeptics of the spiritual nature of man obviously deny the existence of apparitions which exist as perceptions of a hidden world. In other words, to deny the existence of apparitions is to constrain the entire external world to the limits of ordinary human senses, which was disproven by modern science (physics in particular) for a wide class of material phenomena. The realm of psychic reality still awaits exploration.

Thus, many perceptions during sleep paralysis are repeatedly described as "hypnagogic" and "hypnopompic" hallucinations. These words were created by the Spiritualist philologist Frederic Myers (1843-1901), but they do not explain anything. These are seemingly scaring words for perceptions occurring before and after sleep, respectively, but no explanatory power.

Already in the XIXth century, reports of sleep paralysis called the attention of W. James as described by Hufford (2005):

It was about September of 1884... Suddenly I felt something come into the room and stay close to my bed. It remained only a minute or two. I did not recognize it by any ordinary sense, and yet there was a horrible ‘sensation’ connected with it. It stirred something more at the roots of my being than any ordinary perception. The feeling had something of the quality of a very large tearing vital pain spreading chiefly over the chest, but within the organism – and yet the feeling was not pain so much as abhorrence. At all events, something was present with me, and I knew its presence far more surely than I had ever known the presence of any fleshly living creature. I was conscious of its departure as of its coming; an almost instantaneously swift going through the door, and the ‘horrible sensation’ disappeared.

as the typical manifestation of the 'bedroom intruder' in the experience. The reader can find other reports on the internet taking into account Note 1.

In an interesting relationship of sleep paralysis and psychic phenomena, Proud (2009) describes Hufford (1989) report of a case in 1975, the so-called "Ghost of Bowling Green" in which some people experienced sleep paralysis in a haunted house. An important key to understanding sleep paralysis and definitely establishing their 'spirit' origin is the similarity of accounts across many cultures. As pointed out by Proud (2009):

Why, Hufford asks, are the “hallucinations” of SP sufferers, though separated in time and by culture, so remarkably similar? How does one explain such common sensations as being strangled, of having one’s bed shaken back and forth, or of being grasped by the hand? The same can be said of the voices SP sufferers hear, which, in Cheyne’s words, “are typically simple and direct.” Why don’t the messages of these voices vary all that much from SP sufferer to SP sufferer? And why – as shown in previous chapters – do people in haunted houses experience the same types of phenomena as SP sufferers?

Thus, the regularity of the experiences points to an external cause, albeit somehow altered by the semi-awake state. A crucial line of investigation to rule out the "hallucination" hypothesis is to investigate a possible connection between sleep paralysis and psychic phenomena. Another interesting conclusion by Proud is the link between sleep paralysis and claimed "UFO abductions". These later ones might be explained in terms of sleep paralysis episodes.

In summary,  some of the features of sleep paralysis are:

• The feeling of being "awake". The sensation of sleep paralysis is not of a dream. As pointed out by Parker and Blackmore (2002): "These results show that SP is significantly different from dreams, but is a remarkably uniform state, regardless of 'the dreamer's' gender".
• The environment is perceived realistically which adds to the feeling of being, in fact, awake during sleep paralysis;
• Inability to move which makes the subject a passive observer of his state;
• They are more often during awakening (only about 10% occur when one falls asleep, therefore, they often share a "hypnopompic" character);
• Occurrences seem to mainly affect young adults;
• The person who suffers paralysis is not under drug effects;
• Also, the paralyzed person is mentally healthy with no sign of mental illness of any sort (however, some accounts seem to correlate sleep paralysis with mental disorders, see Cheyene 2001)
• Some experiences describe breathing difficulties;
• The episodes are uncontrollable. They cannot be predicted and no infallible method of stopping them could be found yet;
• A strong feeling of lack of body control, hence the name "paralysis". During sleep paralysis consciousness remains active - it is not a dream state - although the person may feel displaced or not attached to the body. In my own experience I feel as if a "rubber band" connected my head to my other body's head;
• Some reports (about 1/4 of the cases) almost always describe the presence of a malignant entity or "thing" that observes the paralyzed person;
• A few reports describe complete out-of-body experiences.
• As described by Hufford (1989), careful investigations would reveal a hidden link between sleep paralysis and many psychic phenomena. 

Toward a Spiritist explanation

There is no definitive theory allowing us to integrate all conscious (and worse still unconscious) perception states in the brain. This is so in spite of the countless materialistic proposals in the literature. All materialistic "explanations" however presuppose from the start that sleep paralysis is just a variety of hallucinatory experience (remember, we start this discussion with a very brief reference to Esquirol and the word he invented), even though there is a common pattern behind all accounts. As such they supposed to be false perceptions created by the brain in spite of the similarities of reports. This is the most important and unproven assumption of these approaches. Now, it is obvious that false perceptions do exist - although they may be motivated by external stimuli that reach the nervous system – when the body is in an altered state of consciousness (as caused, for example, by drugs), the mind may hallucinate and create false impressions. However, from this, it does not follow logically that all impressions gained while awake are indeed false. Nor it is clear where and how these perceptions are created, that is, what is the real source of them. 

The inexistence of such complete theory of mind implies that hallucinations, in general, cannot be explained away easily, but only associated or correlated to certain mental states. Indeed none of our perceptions can be satisfactorily explained by modern neurologic theories. The use of complicated names does not help to explain anything either, nor any reference to precise subparts of the cerebral tissue where the onset of these states is allegedly located. As put forward by David Chalmers the roots of this state of affairs are the called “hard problem of mind”, so that we are still very far away from any solid explanation in spite of all progress made in neurobiology. This opens a universe of possibilities, including Spiritualist explanations. The existence of certain correlations between the use of drugs and unconformities in the nervous systems (mental disorders) does not authorize us to explain sleep paralysis in the same way. In many of the sleep paralysis reports, the person was not under the effect of drugs. Although sleep paralysis may affect from 3% to 6% of the population. it is still a rare event in the life of an individual. Most importantly, the events are uncontrollable. Thus there is no known way to induce sleep paralysis, it cannot be regarded as a mental disease affecting the population.

Indeed, the presence of a "malignant entity" is so frequent that many clinicians are forced to provide an explanation. Let us have a look at a good one:

It is argued that the sensed presence during sleep paralysis arises because of REM-related endogenous activation of a hypervigilant and biased attentive state, the normal function of which is to resolve ambiguities inherent in biologically relevant threat cues. Given the lack of disambiguating environmental cues, however, the feeling of presence persists as a protracted experience that is both numinous and ominous. (Cheyne 2001).

From our point of view, however, this is a typical ad-hoc construction, a mixture of linguistic elements common to certain mind approaches giving the impression of explanation based on the idea of false perceptions. Moreover, this idea only fits some reports and lacks generality which is the real challenge of theories of mental events.  It surely does not explain my own experience, I did not catch glimpse of any "mysterious threat". In fact, many sleep paralysis accounts are devoid of such presences. 

For Spiritism, the brain does not create the mental state, nor consciousness. It is indeed an interface for the mind manifestation. As a consequence, even if some physiological causes may be found associated with sleep paralysis, its dynamics cannot despise the true nature of the human being. All hallucinations, appearing as tangible objects to the mind (that give rise to the so-called "lucid dreams") have an origin in the spiritual element, be it the incarnate being a product of its mental activity or the disembodied spirit. In fact, some medium's accounts (as A. Luiz in F. Xavier literature) describe spirits having hallucinations, which suggests that the phenomenon is not destroyed by physical death since its origin is not in the physical brain.

"Achilles searching for the soul of Patroclus" by Johann Heinrich Füssli (1741-1825)

From the spiritist perspective, two main principles orient the understanding of sleep paralysis:

1. The dual nature of the human being: the biological evolution in humans are constantly providing experiences that begin to prepare the being for an unfolded life - between the two planes of existence (dreams are just part of these experiences). Sleep paralysis may be seen as normal "training" episodes in the material life of the incarnated spirit;
2. Spirits are everywhere" (6b). Probably many reports of strange presences - most often linked to feelings of evil - are actually brought about by disembodied entities;

Sleep paralysis, therefore, could be described as an "incomplete splitting" phenomenon, a threshold zone between the onset of sleep and the awakened state, when faculties typical of the disembodied spirit operate together but out of sync with the sensory faculties of the incarnate. During this condition, the person begins to feel the presence of other spirits (which are most often around us) but interpret them in an exaggerated way. Clearly, only a few people can delve into the spirit realm even during such altered state, so that the majority only experience the paralysis as a manifestation of this lack of synchronicity between the spirit and the material bodies. 

We speak about the human senses in terms of only five traditional perceptions: sight (vision), hearing (audition), taste (gustation), smell (olfaction), and touch. However, the feeling of belonging and controlling our (material) body is also a state of perception which, during sleep paralysis, is challenged. For the majority of people (including me), the first spirit perception corresponds to the feeling of another body which must be reattached to the material counterpart. Other people, however, start to see and hear the spirit realm around and mix these perceptions with the immediate material "reality" (the vision of the room, nearby recognizable voices etc).  

Many of those who go through sleep paralysis consider themselves agnostic or religiously neutral. However, during the episodes they found themselves asking for the protection of God in some way. Maybe this is an indication that during sleep paralysis the person is under a strict control of his unconscious mind - which is a manifestation of the true spirit consciousness. During sleep paralysis, they think much more as a free (but bound) spirit than as an incarnate.

Obsession or spirit possession

We do not believe that sleep paralysis involves obsessions or even the onset of an obsessive process - that is the person is under the evil influence of earthbound spirits. Obsessions hardly restrict their performance to sleep, the waking period of people under the obsessive influence is also altered. Therefore, there is no point in applying "spirit release" therapies to the occasional sufferer of sleep paralysis.

How to mitigate the negative feeling during sleep paralysis

The spiritist explanation has an advantage: it allows us to propose procedures that can, in theory (and there are confirming reports), reduce the stress of paralysis. 

Bearing in mind that sleep paralysis is a phenomenon of spirit-body splitting, we must regard full mental control and the adoption of a positive attitude with requests of superior protection - which often involves the act of praying - as practical steps towards mitigating the negative effects of sleep paralysis. However, we cannot ensure complete elimination of the episodes because other causes may be involved. 

As the person during sleep paralysis is fully "aware", she/he should, in fact, ask for superior protection (in accordance with the person's own religious orientation). Prayer is, in fact, a kind of mental signal launched in space by way of which the devotee asks for help.  Prayer allows one to get rid of the oppressive influence, reduce or even eliminate the action of annoying spirits during sleep paralysis. It strengthens (predisposes positively) the spirit under the stressing situation because it calls out the help of spirit protectors who knows how to cease the phenomenon. Prayer will always work when it has a serious aim and does not involve any abrogation of God's laws - which are conditions fulfilled by the troubled person during paralysis. 

In any way, we will only have an effective sleep paralysis therapy when all causes (both physical and spiritual) are fully acknowledged. Clearly, the spiritist contribution cannot be overlooked.

References

Adler, S. R. (2011). Sleep paralysis: Night-mares, Nocebos, and the mind-body connection. Rutgers University Press.

Chalmers, D. (2007). The hard problem of consciousness. The Blackwell companion to consciousness, 225-235.

Blom, J. D. (2009). A dictionary of hallucinations. Springer Science & Business Media.

Cheyne, J. A. (2001). The ominous numinous. Sensed presence and "other" hallucinations. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 8(5-6), 133-150.

Cheyne, J. A. (2003). Sleep paralysis and the structure of waking-nightmare hallucinations. Dreaming, 13(3), 163.

Hufford, D. (1989). The terror that comes in the night: An experience-centered study of supernatural assault traditions (Vol. 7). University of Pennsylvania Press.

Hufford, D. J. (2005). Sleep paralysis as spiritual experience. Transcultural Psychiatry, 42(1), 11-45.

Parker, J. D., & Blackmore, S. J. (2002). Comparing the content of sleep paralysis and dream reports. Dreaming, 12(1), 45.

Proud, L. (2009). Dark intrusions: An investigation into the paranormal nature of sleep paralysis experiences. Anomalist Books.

McCarty, D. E., & Chesson Jr, A. L. (2009). A case of sleep paralysis with hypnopompic hallucinations. Journal of clinical sleep medicine: JCSM: official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 5(1), 83.

Notes

(1) Many sites in 2018 describe experiences with adjectives such as 'terrifying', 'chilling', 'truly terrifying' etc and I don't reproduce them here since it is impossible to know if they were invented. I was not scared in my experience, however, I know about the scary ones based on witnesses accounts cited by serious researchers. 

Medical Sites on sleep paralysis

• Sleep paralysis Project. A site with a "scientific" proposal for treating sleep paralysis which presupposes the manifestations are caused by a pathology in the brain. 
• Periodic Paralysis Association. Another medical site on sleep paralysis with a lot of information.

The moral crisis (by Leon Denis) and the Spiritist answer

The present hour is a time of crisis and renewal. The world is in fermentation, corruption is in the ascendant: the mighty shadow spreads and the peril is great, but behind the shadow we perceive the light, and behind the peril, salvation. Society cannot perish: if it bears within it the germs of decomposition, there likewise are those of transformation and redemption. Decomposition confirms death, but it also heralds the new birth. It is the prelude of another life.

And whence will proceed this light, this salvation, this redemption? Surely not from the Church, which is incapable of regenerating the human mind. Not from science, which cares neither for conscience nor for character, but only for that which concerns the senses: devotion, virtue, justice, love all that enters into the making of noble characters and wholesome societies - none of these appertain to the domain of the senses.

That the moral level should be raised, that the two streams of superstition and skepticism, which terminate in a sea of sterility, may be checked, a fresh conception of life and of the universe is indispensable. One which, based upon the study of nature and conscience, upon the observation of facts and the principles of reason, may at last determine the aim of our life and regulate our onward progression. What we require is a belief which affords an incentive for improvement, a moral sanction and a strong conviction as to our ultimate fate.

But this conception and this teaching we already have: and daily are they becoming better known. Above the din of the disputes, above the divergences of philosophical schools, a voice has made itself heard - the voice of the Dead. The Dead have revealed themselves from beyond the grave, more alive than when they stood amongst us in the flesh. In the light of their revelations the veil has fallen, which hid from us the future life. Their precepts will conciliate all conflicting creeds, and will cause a new flame to arise from the ashes of the past. In the philosophy of Spiritism, we find again that secret doctrine which ran like a golden vein through the quartz of the ages, but renovated and now cleansed of its dross. Its shattered remnants have been gathered and bound together by a powerful cement, and even now frame an edifice vast enough to accommodate all nations and all civilizations. That the strength of its foundations might be beyond suspicion, the new edifice has been erected upon the rock of direct experience and constantly renewed faith. Thanks to it, the certainty of immortality is being made manifest to all men, together with the innumerable existence and the unceasing progress that await us in the successive cycles of eternity.

Such doctrine is bound to transform all the nations and classes of the world: conveying light where all is dark: melting, with its heat, the icy selfishness that lies at the heart of man: revealing to all men the laws that unite them with the bonds of a close solidarity. Its unification will be compounded of peace and harmony. Through it we shall learn the act with one heart and with one mind. Conscious of his strength, man will be able to advance with an assured tread towards his splendid destiny.

Leon Denis. From "Here and Hereafter", First Part, "The Moral Crisis". Translated by George Fleurot. Willian Rider and Son Limited. 2nd Edition. 1910.

Principles of spiritual healing 1: introduction

Fig 1 Jesus raises the daughter of Jairus. Gustave Doré (1832-1883).

In a sequence of several short texts, we will introduce and discuss here several aspects related to "spiritual healing" from the spiritist point of view. The subject is surely relevant, given the complex nature of healing process and the perspective of new treatments. In this introductory post, we will present some of the recent findings in the field and the spiritist interpretation of them, emphasizing the multiple sides of the phenomenon.

One should first give precise meaning to the words used to the notion of "healing" and "spiritual". The word "spiritual" is linked to "spirit" - in fact it is rooted in this word. The notion of spirit many times is in opposition to "matter" or the material part of the human being. Surely, if there is any recovery and it involves the body, "spiritual healing" can only refer to the process of obtaining the cure without the use of any material help, in a "spiritual way". Sometimes one also hears about "spirit healing" which seems to emphasize the spirit nature of the healing process. However, if there is a cure, it must involve certain material transformations, that is, they end up related to the body. Therefore, there must have a link, a channel or way between the purely "mental" or "spirit" side to the bodily "stuff". Understand this way or mechanism is presently one of the most challenging tasks since it involves the so-called "mind-body" interaction problem to which Spiritism may contribute. 

From the spiritist viewpoint, since life is eternal and the body is only a cloth - which is permanently dispensed after death - the real cure is a process attached to the spirit nature of human beings. Therefore, one can speak about the "true remedy" as a process which starts during the incarnate period but may only terminate after death. In fact, death may be part of the healing process from the viewpoint of the spirit life - hence the existence of terminal diseases. In this respect, to understand the true state of health one should also understand the hidden reason behind the existence of diseases affecting humans. According to the spirits, they are caused by deep unbalances in the human soul. Hence, although many physical causes may be identified as associated to a given body malfunction,  there will only be true cure after important transformations take place in the human spirit so as to render it "clean" from the conditions leading to the disease state. However, this is not the whole story. According to the spirits, in many situations, before reincarnation, the spirit asks for certain diseases in its future life in order to avoid the repetition of past mistakes: 

Before reincarnation, in the possession of full understanding as spirits, we analyzed the susceptible points of our souls and pleaded the issuing of physical hindrances at proper time in our own favor to immunize ourselves against the repetition of past mistakes we are still attached to. (Emmanuel, "Leis do Amor", F. C. Xavier, medium)

The law of "cause and effect" applied to the soul must be thoroughly investigated in order to fully understand the reason behind the occurrence of diseases. In fact, the very condition of an incarnate in this planet is a sign of our still imperfect nature as spirits (spirits say these imperfections are all related to the way we relate to ourselves, to God and our incarnate fellow). Otherwise, we should already have gained access to the superior worlds where diseases are not known - at least as they are on Earth. As a first conclusion, we should never miss this important point: my transitory life is just a brief moment in my true spirit existence and the diseases offer me important temporal opportunities of improvement of my soul. 

First works

fig. 2 "La Revue Spirite", or "Spiritist Magazine"

founded by Allan Kardec, discussed the existence

of healing mediums in its March 1860 issue..

Having said that, it is also appropriate to say that people can be attained cure of the body right now, both by undertaking the many treatments science has discovered by medicine and through "spiritual healing" as well. This is not in contradiction to what was written before. It is simply the end tip of the improvement process when the body no longer reflects the spirit unbalances because the soul is now straightened. The time is now ripe for the full recovery because we are worthy of it. The existence of "nonphysical" process of healing was discussed by Allan Kardec already in 1860 in the "Revue Spirite" (in the March issue, 1) under the title "Un médium guérisseur" ("A healing medium"). Part of the teachings put forward by the spirits to Kardec about "healing mediums" can be read in "The Book on Mediums" (2), Chapter 14, "Of mediums", when Kardec presents the many types of mediums. In Paragraph 175, one can read:

We shall say only that this kind of mediumship consists principally in the gift possessed by some persons of healing by the simple touch, by the look, even by the gesture, without the help of any medication. It will, doubtless, be said, that it is nothing but magnetism. It is evident the magnetic fluid here plays a great part; but this phenomenon is carefully examined, it is easily seen that there is something more (2).

The word in italics "magnetism" is of considerable importance here in order to understand Kardec's statement. This word has nothing to do with "magnetism" in the physical sense, the property of natural or artificial magnets. To understand this word in Kardec's context, we should go back to F. A. Mesmer (1734-1815) who coined the expression "animal magnetism" (3) as an analogue to "natural magnetism" to explain the many cures obtained by him (4). The idea is that a kind of fluid - called magnetic fluid - was exchanged between healer and the ill person. Since Mesmer theory had considerable influence at the time, it was natural to Kardec to adopt it - it was in fact accepted by many influential scholars. Later, Mesmer ideas were academically surpassed by the alternative idea of hypnosis which came as a kind of "official" explanation to the healing mystery.

Fig. 3 Illustration from Baron Du Potet's 1863 work 

on "mesmerism" depicting the idea of magnetic

 "effluvia" from healer to the patient as a possible 

explanation of healing process.

However, how much hypnotism can explain the many cures obtained by spiritual healers around the world today is a measure of the magnitude of the mistake of associating Mesmer's achievements with a purely hypnotic action. Surely Mesmer's flamboyant and theatrical personality did not contribute to his fame among scholars who were jealous of his miracles. Mainstream medicine today denies the existence of spiritual healing in much the same way it denied Mesmer's works in the past. In any way,  the presence of a kind of "invisible matter" exchanged between healer and the ill is still a useful principle and has survived in our days in the many references to a kind of "healing energy" responsible for the cures as we will see in a future post. 

Spirits account of the process of spiritual healing

After realizing hypnotism as a kind of "alternative explanation" put forward by scholars to explain away a phenomena originally discovered by Mesmer and reinforced by the existence of healing mediums and their associated phenomena, we can understand the explanation advanced by the spirits in Paragraph 176 of (2) on spiritual healing, (spirit answers and some original French words used by Kardec - neologisms in English -  are written in italics below). We reproduced some parts of this paragraph here given its importance and return later with some comments.

1. Can persons endowed with magnetic power (puissance magnétique) be considered as forming a variety of mediums? 

You cannot doubt it.

2. Yet the medium is an intermediary between the spirits and man; but the magnetizer (magnétiseur), drawing his strength from within himself, seems not to be the intermediary of any foreign power.  

It is an error: the magnetic power resides, doubtless, in the man; but it is augmented by the action of the spirits he calls to his aid. If you magnetize with a view to healing, for instance, and you invoke a good spirit, who interest himself in you and your patient, he augments your strength and your will;  he directs your fluid , and gives in the necessary qualities.

3. But there are very good magnetizers who do not believe in spirits. 

Do you think that spirits act only on those who believe in them? Those who magnetize for good purposes are seconded by good spirits every man who has a desire to do good undoubtedly calls them; the same as by the desire of evil, and evil intentions, he calls the evil.

4. Would he who has the power acct more efficaciously, should he believe in the intervention of spirits?

  He would do things you would look upon as miracles.

5.  Have some persons truly the gift of healing by the simple touch, without employing magnetic passes (passes magnétiques) ? 

Assuredly; have you not numerous examples of it? 

6. In this case is the magnetic action, or only influence of spirits? 

Both; these persons are veritable mediums, because they can act under the influence of spirits; but that is not to say they would be writing mediums as you would understand it.

One of the most important contributions of the spirititst teachings to the understanding of the true human nature and destiny is the role played by the spirits in the many human affairs. Accordingly, it is impossible to appreciate the phenomenon of spiritual healing without taking into account the spirits. They are not only responsible for the uncontrollable aspect of the healing process, but also by its full performance. No matter how one designates the invisible matter exchanged during the healing session - carried out in the presence of a healer - the recovery itself is mediated by the spirits who catalyze the whole healing action.

There is a strong dependence of the healing success on the force of the illness (how serious it affects the organism), since, for certain diseases, even the ill person has the power of cure himself, as can be seen in experiments exploring the placebo effect. In the questions above, Kardec confirms the healing action of people at his time known as "magnetizers" (nowadays, this term is no longer used), but emphasizes an important element in the presence and action of the spirits, no matter the healing power. To provide such action, the healer not even needs to believe in their existence, but this belief can greatly magnify the effect. The mental action exercised by the desire of attaining the cure works as a kind of "invocation" that is sufficient to call the attention of spirits and improve the process.

The idea of healing mediumship should however not be confused with intellectual mediumship when information from the spirit world is "channeled" through a medium. However, the characterization of spiritual healing as the result of a kind of "mediumship" is legitimate given the role played by the spirits in the process. In a future post, we will search the recent literature of modern experiments using healers and find more evidence in support of a possible spirit intervention. We will also see how prayer can affect the recovery of a given disease.  

References

1 - You can the original article by Kardec in French here:

 http://spirite.free.fr/ouvrages/revue1860/RS60.htm

2 - See  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_on_Mediums for a short introduction to this fundamental work. Anna Blackwell translation - "The Medium's Book'"- is found here: 

http://www.oconsolador.com.br/linkfixo/bibliotecavirtual/ingles/Mediums.pdf

The quote is acccording to Emma Wood translation: A. Kardec (1970). The Book on Mediums. Ed. Samuel Weiser, Inc. The original book in French can be read here: 

http://www.spirite.be/livres/fr/allankardec-mediums.pdf 

3 - For an incomplete e possibly biased account on Mesmer life see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Mesmer

4 - In fact, the word "fluid" was used to describe many natural phenomena and not only magnetism. The "electric fluid" was conceived as responsible for all phenomena of electricity - including dynamic electricity, the idea of "electric current" was still in its infancy at the beginning of the XIX century. The same idea was applied to natural magnets which were viewed as possessing a kind of virtue in the form of magnetic fluid - exchanged through magnetic induction, for example, a kind of "action at distance". It was not difficult for Mesmer to conclude for the existence of a new type of fluid, this time associated to animals and human beings, carrying the "virtues of health" and which was also viewed as a kind of action at distance, as represented in Fig. 3. 

  

Mediumship and art: Florêncio Anton psychic paintings

Painter or drawer mediums are people who "paint or draw under the influence of the spirits" (1). They are rarer than other notable kinds of mediumship (as psychography, for example), however, their artistic works can be impressive, mainly if they paint or draw under very particular circumstances. We already presented here the mediumship of Luiz Antônio Gasparetto, however, other Brazilian mediums followed him and are presently active. An interesting case is Florêncio Anton (2).

Florencio Anton was born in November 1973 in the city of Salvador (Bahia). Since his first childhood, he was in contact with spirits. One of this entities used to warn him on his misdoings and helped him as a family guide. When he was 14 he was initiated to Spiritism after a battle to understand the many phenomena that took place in his presence. He looked for answers to clairvoyance, out of the body experiences, physical effects and other occurrences he was associated with since they always happened around him. At the time, he participated in many activities of GFLM (Grupo da Fraternidade Leopoldo Machado) and was in contact with the thoughts of Allan Kardec, Leon Denis, Emmanuel and many other spiritist authors. 

His psychic gifts quickly arose at special seances of psychography, psychophony, and clairvoyance. His first artistic manifestation occurred on December 21 1990 and was conducted by Manoel M. Canuto Oliveira, a civil engineer and expert in psychic phenomena. At night, the spirits invited him to concentrate and pray before several posters and pencils, which were used to produced good quality sketches. However, in the normal state, Florencio has never shown any ability to draw. His mediumship then improved considerably and is today entirely dedicated to painting. His public demonstrations include special ‘painting seances’ performed not only in Brazil but in many other countries such as Belgium, France, England, Italy, Spain, Germany, and others. He often paints with closed eyes and, depending on the picture size, theme and author, Florencio finished a painting between 3 to 20 minutes. He also already painted using his feet, in darkness, with two hands at the same time and two canvas at inverted positions. More than 30000 paintings were produced by him since 1990 under the control of more than 110 disembodied authors of distinct nationalities.

The social purpose of Anton’s works

Florencio Anton supports charitable works at the city of Salvador using the income generated by the paintings. Grupo Espírita Scheilla (GES) is the spiritist foundation started by Florencio in 1999 (together with Sidney Rocha and Ana M. Lima) hosting a variety of pedagogical and psychological free services to help poor families and children of Salvador. Being a spiritist institution, GES manages Comunidade Maria de Nazaré (CMAN or Mary of Nazareth Community) whose site may be reached at (4). As remarked in (2), "it should be mentioned that Florencio supports himself solely by his job as a teacher and Regression Therapist since he, as a spiritualist, is not able to use the money generated through the sale of the paintings for his own use." As a matter of fact, as a spiritist, he is not allowed to use the income generated by the paintings to himself, otherwise, spirits would quickly abandon him. His gift is dependent upon the good use he makes of it.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Franklin Santana Santos for sending me some references about Florencio Antono works.

Gallery

This one is from my private collection...

More painting reproductions can be seen at (5).

References

1 - Kardec. A. "The book on mediums". 2nd Part - On spirit manifestation, Chapter XVI - On special mediums. Translated excerpt from a Portuguese version.

2 - http://af8366.wixsite.com/florencio (access December 2016)

3 - http://www.idagron.com/the_medium and the video https://vimeo.com/164405063

4 - http://www.cman.org.br/ 

5 - http://www.cman.org.br/pintura-mediunica/ 

The musical mediumship of Jorge Rizzini

Jorge Rizzini (1924-2008).

The different varieties of mediums rest upon special faculties whose principle are still unknown to us. At first sight and to those who haven't made a systematic study of this science yet, it seems easier for a medium to write prose than verses. One would say - mainly if one deals with a mechanical medium - a spirit can both make the medium write in a foreign language and make him sketch or write music. However, that is not so. Although at every moment one can see sketches, verses and music made by mediums who, in the normal state, are not draftsmen, poets nor musicians, it is certain that not all them are able to produce such things. In spite of their lack of knowledge, they have an intuitive faculty and flexibility which transform them into gentle instruments. That is what Bernard Palissy said when he was asked about his choice of Mr. Victorien Sardou, who couldn't draw, to make his admirable sketches (Revue Spirit, April/August 1858). "It is because he is the most flexible one", he replied. The same happens with other skills. And - what an amazing thing! - we have seen spirits refused to write verses using mediums knowing poetry, while dictated lovely poems to others lacking the knowledge of poetic rules. This fact proves once again that spirits have free-will and that futile are our attempts to submit them to our whims. (A. Kardec (1859). Revue Spirite, March, "Study about mediums".)

Musical mediumship is the psychic capability of "execute, compose or write music, under the influence of the spirits." (1). One shoul, however, distinguish between "mediums of musical effects" who "obtain the playing of certain instruments without human contact" and musical mediums. The first ones are much rarer than musical mediums because the action of playing instruments requires "telekinetic" ability as displayed, for example, by the famous Scottish medium D. D. Home (1833-1886). The most extraordinary musical medium of modern times was Rosemary Brown (2) who produced musical pieces of nearly 400 spirit authors.

In Brazil, there are still some musical mediums, the most notorious one was surely Jorge Rizzini (1924-2008). Rizzini was born in São Paulo in a Spiritist family (3) and worked as writer, jornalist, radio broadcaster and advertiser. From 1950 on, Rizzini was actively involved with the Spiritist movement in Brazil, having helped to promote Spiritism alongside spiritist celebrities such as Chico Xavier, Herculano Pires, Yvonne Pereira and Deolindo Amorim. Rizzini launched the first Spiritist TV programm in the Brazil at TV Cultura channel. His greatest heritage is however his musics as a consequence of his ability to write music in trance while not knowing music at all.

Back cover of a rare EME album from 1995 containing psychic compositions by
 Jorge Rizzini after the first psychic music festival in São Paulo in 1982.

Rizzini was able to reproduce a wide repertoire of styles ranging from opera to samba as illustrated by two pieces presented below. His spirit contributors include names such as Lamartine Babo (1904-1963), Ataulfo Alves (1909-1969), Ary Barroso (1903-1964), Francisco Alves (1898-1952), Noel Rosa (1910-1937), Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901), Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924), Carlos Gardel, (1890-1935) Duke Ellington (1899-1974) and John Philips Sousa (1854-1932).  As for his previous musical knowledge he said

"I never studied music; I don't play any instrument, not even by ear, I don't know to write music, I don't sing and worse of all, I'm tuneless!" (3)

Like Rosemary Brown, Rizzini was flexible enough to the spirits, in spite of lack of musical knowledge. As an communication man, Rizzini organized several musical festivals, inviting professional musicians to play his psychic works. These were known as "Spiritist music meetings" with the aim of spreading the truth of immortality as some of his music lyrics suggest:

Caminhar é uma opção. Walking is an option

De quem quer chegar. Of those wanting to come.

É falar ao coração It is speaking to the heart

De quem quer escutar...Of those who want to listen...

Vamos dar as boas vindas. Let's welcome

Pra quem vem nos assistir. The ones coming to watch us

E cantar com alegria! And sing with joy!

Porque estamos aqui,  Because we are here,

Fazendo o nosso show! To give the concert!

Cantando de verdade Really singing 

Que a vida continua. That life goes on.

Que felicidade! What a happiness!

E você que está me ouvindo, And you listening to me,

Caia na real! Get real!

Ninguém acaba com a morte Death destroys no one

Pois voltamos do astral. Because we are back from the astral

A nossa ponte é Our bridge is 

A mediunidade! Mediumship!

Abençoada oportunidade! Blessed opportunity!

Even so, Brazilian spiritists scarcely supported Rizzini efforts. There is a local tendency to hide prominent mediums fearing misinterpretations. As a consequence, music mediumship is rarely highlighted in spiritit art meetings. Many of Rizzini's works are not available in digital form; although part of the material has been reedited recently (5), past works survive today only through old vinyl records.  Overall even Rizzini's life poorly documented as compared to the richness of his mediumship, and Ref. (3) is surely the best source.

Some Examples of widely different styles

Ary Barroso.

1 - By the Brazilian composer Ary Barroso (who in life made musics to artists such as Carmen Miranda and is the author of "Aquarela do Brasil"), Rizzini-Barroso piece "Brasil luz" (1982) is an interesting reproduction of Barroso pre bossa nova style.

2 - By the famous Italian opera composer Giacomo Puccini, "Dolce Maria" with lyrics in Italian. I couldn't find any information about the composition year or further details on this piece, which is however quite beautiful as our readers can judge by themselves.

"Brasil Luz", by Ary Barroso, under Rizzini's mediumship (1982).

"Dolce Maria" by  G. Puccini under Rizzini's mediumship.

Final remark

It is important to study and monitor the work of past and future musical mediums for a variety of reasons, the most important one is to better understand the origin, nature and mechanism of pure mediumship. Musical mediumship hosts a special place in the pantheon of psychic abilities because, being a communication process by excellence, this kind of mediumship attains a high level of expression as derived by the character of music as an universal language. Also,  it seems fair to ask to what point human musical creativity is influenced by the spirits. If, on one hand, psychic flexibility is the source of musical mediumship, on the other, one can ask what someone with musical background and some psychic ability could get in this field. It is thus understandable to view artistic creativity as a kind of cooperation between two planes of life rather than a purely human capability.

References

1 - A Kardec. (1986) The Medium's Book. 2nd Edition by FEB. Transl by A. Blackwell. Cap. XVI, "Special Mediums" P. 189, 190.

2 - See the previous posts:

• http://spiritistknowledge.blogspot.com.br/2012/08/two-new-composition-inspired-by-f.html
• http://spiritistknowledge.blogspot.com.br/2013/11/new-article-about-rosemary-brown-in-skl.html

3 - The text of this post is based on http://jorge-rizzini.blogspot.com.br/ 

4 - See "Compositores do Além" (2006), a DVD launched by Versátil Home video. Directed by Jorge Rizzini and Edson Audi.

How can some animals find their way back to home?

It is presently a mystery how some lost animals - usually cats and dogs - find their way home. A recent case was Pero (1), a four-year sheepdog which was back to home 15 days later after its scape. Somehow Pero was able to find its home 240 miles (~400 km) away.  Many other "anecdotes" accumulate, narrated by many families and now Pero's case seems to have confirmed this surprising ability.

According to the present scientific knowledge, animals are endowed with a multitude of "sensors" (2) used to provide accurate information and supporting the notion that they are able to guide themselves through long distances. Such sensor are not only far superior than the human versions (dogs, for example, have acute smell and hearing, cats see very well in the dark etc), but represent perhaps other sense modes as, for example, magnetic sensing. Birds and bees have their own inner "compasses". Magnetic substances have been found in the retina of many animals, including dogs (see the case of Cryptochrome 1 in Ref. 3). Could dogs and other higher mammals guide themselves using magnetic fields? These are some of the ideas and conjectures, but even if it were absolutely proved that animals do in fact use the north-south line in a complex path, much more is in fact needed in order to completely explain Pero's case. To see that, just imagine yourself lost in a distant place, unable to speak and understand anyone, but having a compass and a sensible scent detector... 

Another conjecture added by Spiritism

In an essay entitled "The mediumship of animals" in "The Medium's Book" (4), A. Kardec published a text by Erastus motivated by some discussions in the Paris Spiritist Society as well as several letters received by Kardec on the question of animals and their mediumship.  This text was originally published in the Revue Spirit (The Spiritist Magazine) in August 1861 under the title "Animal mediums". Essentially, in the original meaning, mediumship is a human ability so that one cannot talk about an equivalent notion for animals. Mediumship is a complex phenomena, requiring a certain  ressonance between two minds of the same status, that is, two spirits of the same "evolutionaly rank". Hence, for the sake of clarity, one cannot truly speak about "animal mediums" and some of the strange phenomena related to animals need another explanation.

However, this does not mean animals cannot detect the presence or, perhaps, receive information from the Spirits (4):

Spirits can render themselves visible and tangible to animals and the sudden terror with which the latter are sometimes seized, and for which you can perceive no reason, is caused by their seeing one or several spirits bearing ill-will towards their owners, or towards some of the persons present. You frequently see horses that will neither go forwards nor backwards, or that rear or shy at some obstacle unseen by you, and which is often a spirit, or a group of spirits, terrifying the animal, out of malice, or by way of a joke. Remember how Balaam's ass, seeing an angel before her, and frightened at his flaming sword, stood obstinately still ; the angel, before making himself visible to Balaam, having appeared first to the animal only. But, though we can render ourselves visible to animals, we cannot medianimise them any more than we can medianimise inert matter ; the conscious or unconscious co-operation of a human medium is always a necessary condition of our intercommunication with men, because, for this, we require the union of similar fluids, which do not exist either in the animals or in inert matter.

The episode of Ballam's ass as narrated in Numbers 22:23 and cited by Erastus in (4).

According to this quote, animals can sense Spirits through the presence of mediums, who are always humans. These mediums may not even know they are acting as intermediaries (that is, the phenomenon is spontaneous). During these episodes, Spirits may remain invisible to humans, however, they are perceived by animals which use their far improved senses.

As a conclusion, Spirits may be involved in Pero's case and many others involving lost animals which find their way home so easily. At least, we should see this explanation as a plausible mechanism, since even with the help of improved senses, it is hard to imagine how animals can do the work. To do so, animals must have many friends among the "invisibles".

Notes and references

1 - See (accessed in june 2016)

• http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-mid-wales-36130437
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_xb97z-taI

2 - http://www.sciencealert.com/how-dogs-find-their-way-home-without-a-gps

3 - Ver http://www.nature.com/articles/srep21848

4 - Kardec A (1986). The Medium's Book. 2nd Edition. Brasília: FEB. Available at: http://www.allankardec.com/Allan_Kardec/Le_livre_des_esprits/lesp_us.pdf (accessed on june 2016).  

Historical files of old Spiritualist journals

Image of "Almanaque del Espiritismo" (or "The Spiritist Almanac"),
an edition of 1873 (first year). Edited in Madrid (1), Spain. Source: Spanish National Library.

The IAPSOP (International Association for the Preservation of Spiritualist and Occcult Periodicals, 2) has recently uploaded a page with many images of old and rare Spiritualist journals (the files are not transcribed but can be read either using OCR or any other method).

You can easily acess this material at:

http://www.iapsop.com/archive/materials/index.html (access february 2016)

Among the precious works one can find:

• "Revue Spirite": http://www.iapsop.com/archive/materials/revue_spirite/
• "Light": http://www.iapsop.com/archive/materials/light/
• "The Spiritual Telegraph": http://www.iapsop.com/archive/materials/spiritual_telegraph/
• "Proceedings of and Journal of the Society for Psychical Research": http://www.iapsop.com/archive/materials/spr_proceedings/ 

Such references are rich resources for many researchers  and constitute an important memory, in particular for the Spiritualist and Spiritist movements of the XIX and XX centuries.

I thank Chrystiann Lavarini for sending me the link.

References

1 -See
 http://www.iapsop.com/archive/materials/almanaque_del_espiritismo/almanaque_del_espiritismo_1873.pdf
2 - http://www.iapsop.com/ (access february 2016)