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Magnetism

Interviewed in 1992 about magnetism the well-known French healer Jean-Claude Collard answered more or less*as follows :
*Some precisions (historical references and so on...) have been added

For the healer magnetism the benefits of which are proved daily is a universal energy source that emanates from living bodies, minerals and the most various elements that constitute Cosmos.
I know it exists really because I pick it up. Everybody experiences its existence one day.
I know it is powerful and efficacious. As a matter of fact I relieve pain and I can even cure illnesses by means of my own one.

Physical or Mineral Magnetism

Magnetism that is a matter of physics is some measurable force, quantifiable, equated and reproductible at will. It was discovered two thousand years ago. It is by now well known and mastered. It is a twin force of electricity that is radiated by magnets.
That power allows the good working of our modern technology, from telecommunication until the launching of rockets. As a basic power of nature it governs the interaction of atoms, the circulation of electrons, of quarks and of those infinitesimally small elements that are still being discovered.
That magnetism can be obviously proved.
 

Animal or Vital Magnetism

More particularly called vital power, etheric power, celestial power, animal or human power, it would represent according Dr Franz Anton Mesmer* some energy coming from celestial bodies and analog to the power of the magnets although it is obviously more subtle.
That particular force would reside in the bodies of humans and animals. Mesmer affirms that some people can possess a high degree of that animal magnetism and contribute their accumulated energy to their fellow creatures.
*Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815) was a German physician and astrologist who invented what he called animal magnetism and other spiritual forces often grouped together as Mesmerism. He chose animal (from Latin animal=soul ) to identify that force that belongs in all animate beings.

The procedure is varied.
According to Mesmer, illness is caused by obstacles to the free flow of the process of life through thousands of channels in our bodies. Overcoming these obstacles and restoring flow produce crises which restore health. As a matter of fact, many patients feel peculiar sensations or have convulsions that are to be regarded as symptoms of the illness and are supposed to bring out the cure. The advantage of magnetism involves accelerating some curing crises without danger.
When Nature fails to do this spontaneously ,  contact with a conductor of animal magnetism is a necessary and sufficient remedy. The magnetizer conveys the fluid by motions of hands touching or not the patient, or by motions of eyes , looking fixedly into the patient’s eyes, through the medium of irradiated water  or other magnetized by the conductor’s objects, or by mere mental power.

Mental magnetism

It is man’s distinguished feature. It is produced by the transmitter’s special power of thinking.  It is effective thanks to mental concentration, suggestion. It can act at distance.

That magnetism is neutral but it can act both ways: good or bad. Even more subtle than both the previous ones –mineral and vital- it combines and increases  their effects.
That mental power can fascinate,  bewitch , charm, suggest,  hypnotise, even at distance in the manner voodooists,  spellcasters  work with traditional tools (e.g. a “voult”, a French word for voodoo doll).
A special chapter will be devoted to that subject.

The theory of magnetism was also aimed to explain the paranormal phenomena such as, for example, sleepwalking, hypnosis, diabolical possession, clear-sightedness or even prophesying.

Prayer or Spiritual magnetism
Spiritual magnetism simply comes from the creative power we call God.
Since the mists of time man has been inhabited by the sense of divine and its power. It is enough for you to confirm or to submit to God’s will to get God’s power abundantly.

Because it is dished up in every shape, lead astray by sects, spiritual magnetism is a new tool to draw, sensitive, weak beings, gullible, illuminated people and lots or sincere spirituality seekers.
Fortunately you can find sincere adepts of spiritual magnetism within reach, to hand and heart without being mistaken.
 

Reality and Polemics about Cosmic Magnetism

In 1784, without Mesmer requesting it, King Louis XVI appointed four members of the Faculty of Medicine as commissioners to investigate animal magnetism as practiced by d'Eslon. At the request of these commissioners the King appointed five additional commissioners from the Royal Academy of Sciences. These included the famous chemist Antoine Lavoisier, the physician Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, the astronomerJean Sylvain Bailly, and the American ambassador Benjamin Franklin.The commission conducted a series of experiments aimed, not at determining whether Mesmer's treatment worked, but whether he had discovered a new physical fluid. Whilst the Commission agreed that the cures claimed by Mesmer were indeed cures, the Commission also concluded there was no evidence of the existence of his magnetic fluid, and that its effects derived from either the imaginations of its subjects or through charlatanry. As said, the investigation of the commission was not conducted on Mesmer himself, but on what did dr. D’Eslon, a student of Mesmer and his disciple. And many affirmed that D’Eslon didn't know completely the true system of Mesmer.
In fact, two centuries ago the controversy about magnetism did not oppose physicians to healers but physicians holding a diploma to other holding a diploma. It was a quarrel between scientists, some of them defending dogmatic, metaphysical medicine, other ones defending innovative experimental one.
However if methaphysics can be rationally proved, it cannot be proved experimentally.
As a result Mesmer was driven into exile soon after the investigations on animal magnetism.

Yet long before him Paracelsus (1493-1543) wrote:”Man has got within himself some magnetic force without which he does not exist”.
His hermetical views were that sickness and health in the body relied on the harmony of man (the microcosm) and Nature (macrocosm),
The use of magnets in medicine and wellness dates back to physician and alchemist Paracelsus who used them to draw disease away from the body. ...
Paracelsus gained a reputation for being arrogant, and soon provoked the anger of other physicians in Europe. He held the chair of medicine at the University of Basel for less than a year while there he angered his colleagues by publicly burning books by other physicians. He was forced from the city after having legal trouble on a ridiculous pretext.

According to “diehard” scientists cosmic magnetism different from the physical magnetism of magnets does not exist. Animal, human, vital or spiritual magnetism is all theory, it is even absolute “poppycock”(a joke). For empirical scientists it is the breath of life, vital energy par excellence.

Who, considerating that debate, is to be believed? What conclusions can we draw from all this?

Held up to ridicule, discredited for long in scientists’ eyes  human magnetism became the healers’ privileged field and the empiricists’ in general. Among them there were honest and efficient practitioners.
But taking advantage of that good luck lots of charlatans only in it for the money occupied the abandoned field by the doctors .
They set out their appealing theories in front of credulous crowds and took  innumerable gullible persons in.
 Did Voltaire not say: “Charlatanism was born on the day when the first crook found the first idiot.”
Indeed, only idiots and uneducated people were easily convinced by their pseudo-scientific charabia. They were numerous. As a consequence of this the concept of magnetism remained suspect for more than a century.

That misleading of some respectable empiric knowledge the charlatans caused prejudice to the patients who might have been cured by honest magnetizers, the latter being pointed at as not much reliable.
That unfair situation for animal magnetism and for honest healers avoided any serious and ambitious seeker to study the phenomenon for fear that The Faculty of Medicine might close the door of The Royal Road of official medicine and prevent him from practising.
Nevertheless some scientists who were not suspected of heresy defended magnetism courageously and went on searching , not so as  to prove it experimentally but to study and
verify its effects.

Du Potet (a leading exponent of animal magnetism in nineteenth-century France) was such a man. In his book Magnetism and Magic he affirms that the fluid is not a substance that can be weighed, measured, condensed but some vital.

 

Reality of the effects of magnetism

Everyone can experiment its influence in everyday life.
Indeed while being in a strong personality’s presence you cannot fail to feel either positive or negative “waves” radiating from the person in question.
An ill child will feel better when his mother lays her hand on his painful body .
As a matter of fact our hearts are captivated by love, kindness, beauty emanating from beings and objects.
We can feel in harmony as well in a little place in the country as in a palace or in a chapel because the vibrations there are particularly positive. They are manifestations of some unknown power that radiates.
In constant partnership with man, cosmic magnetism seems to be the regulating principle above anything else, the energy that restores loss of balance and harmony, that realigns, that removes the patient’s suffering.

How does magnetism work?
On the one hand I cannot sincerely give any precise scientific explanation.
On the other hand I can affirm it can work independently of any suggestion as it is used on  the dying, babies, young children, animals and also at distance.
I do not know its means of spreading either
What I am sure of is that when I focus my thought on someone powerfully, when I strongly direct  my determination to heal to a  suffering being, when I visualize clearly what I want, the situation gets clear and the problem can often be solved.
Human, animal, in brief vital magnetism and the energy it conveys is a stabilizing medium for body and mind.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s magnetism ?

Whether it is called polarity, vital energy or Chi electromagnetism, our body works thanks to cosmic(Yang), earth (Yin) or environmental energy. It penetrates the body to enable vital functions to play their role successfully. The magnetizer uses the electromecanic energy that surrounds us as a therapy to relieve patients.

How is this possible?

Taking in account that every living being is a living magnet, it is able to exert an attractive or repulsing force on other magnets or on other beings. Without magnetism and its different poles moving in relation to one another, man would gravitate in space. These exchanges promote energy balance, contrary to the disease which is a state of imbalance, temporary weakness, and sometimes times fatal.

When was magnetism discovered?

The imposition of hands has always existed. Besides, there are headstones dating back thousands of years demonstrating the imposition of hands as well as in the Bible. As above-mentioned  the German physician Anton Mesmer first expounded on certain tides in the human body that might be accounted by the movements of the sun and the moon. Then he produced an “artificial” tide in a patient by having her swallow a preparation containing iron, and by attaching magnets to various parts of her body. She reported feeling a mysterious fluid running through her body and was relieved of her symptoms for several hours. He did not believe that the magnets had achieved the cure by themselves only. He felt he had transferred what he called “animal magnetism” which had accumulated in the process, to her. He had invented what he called “animal magnetism". Forced to flee from Vienna after his unsuccessful attempt to treat an 18-year-old blind musician he went to Paris where he established a medical practice. Paris soon divided into those who believed he was a charlatan and those who thought he had made a great discovery. The evolution of his ideas and practices nevertheless led James Braid (a Scottish surgeon) to develop hypnosis in 1842

Who can become a hypnotist?

Everybody!  Magnetism is a natural agent that is specific to living beings. Obviously we must study the laws of energy and apply them every day to oneself to develop one’s own magnetism and other qualities such as patience. However, some people have more sensitivity or acuity than others to feel the energy that radiates from their own bodies and those of others. They are therefore more inclined to use it. You will meet some people who are frightened by those sensations that they do not understand about and do not control. They should dare know by experimenting.

When do we use magnetism?

We often use it without being aware of it. For example, a mother whose young child was injured has the instinctive reaction to put her hand on the sore area to calm and relieve pain.

Is it possible to magnetize yourself?

Yes. We can develop our personal magnetism and awaken faculties lying dormant within ourselves.  When being injured, we are intuitively inclined to put our hand on the painful area to relieve pain. This is one of the numerous applications of magnetism.

Has magnetism been the subject of scientific studies?

Of course it has! Research conducted by scientists with sophisticated material has shown the existence of a radiation around living beings. Ce rayonnement a une couleur, une épaisseur et se modifie selon notre environnement. Nous sommes tous enveloppés par l'énergie et nous en produisons constamment. This radiation has some colour, some density and changes according to our environment. We are all surrounded by energy and we produce it continuously.

How does the practitioner proceed?

After having established a calm contact with the patient, the magnetizer puts his or her hands over his or her body. Doing so, he harmonizes vital energy in order to unblock the conflict zones so that illness can be cured.

What the patient feel?

Very often, though his eyes closed, the patient will perceive the presence of the magnetizer’s hands which walk over his  body yet they do not necessarily touch it.  He will feel an exciting or a calming effect, heat, tingling or internal movement that comes from blood control reacting to the effects of magnetism.

How long is a session?

It varies, from a few minutes to an hour.

Can all these diseases be treated by magnetism?

No.  But its complementary work promotes medical treatment or natural healing. Unfortunately despite the greatest willingness on both sides, we sometimes have to admit fate is implacable and condemned patients are beyond help.

Can it be used on babies?

Yes. In fact, many moms use magnetism with their infants suffering from colic by  immediately putting her hands over the belly. Others do it to calm and soothe the baby.

Can it of some help for restless kids?

Definitely! Magnetism has a soothing effect on excited children because touching, caressing  them reassures, relaxes, calms.