Do you then believe that these magnetisers, who, by hocus pocus
tricks, pretend to work a miracle, are delegated by God, or assisted
by the solver of all these kind of difficulties- the devil?
Do they, when they put to flight, as it is said, disorders that have
baffled the powers of medicine, work in conformity to the light of
reason? or, do they effect these wonderful cures by supernatural aid?
By a communication, an adept may answer, with the world of
spirits. A noble privilege, it must be allowed. Some of the ancients
mention familiar daemons, who guarded them from danger by kindly
intimating, we cannot guess in what manner, when any danger was
nigh; or, pointed out what they ought to undertake. Yet the men who
laid claim to this privilege, out of the order of nature, insisted
that it was the reward, or consequence, of superiour temperance and
piety. But the present workers of wonders are not raised above their
fellows by superiour temperance or sanctity. They do not cure for
the love of God, but money. These are the priests of quackery,
though it is true they have not the convenient expedient of selling
masses for souls in purgatory, or churches where they can display
crutches, and models of limbs made sound by a touch or a word.
I am not conversant with the technical terms, or initiated into
the arcana, therefore, I may speak improperly; but it is clear that
men who will not conform to the law of reason, and earn a
subsistence in an honest way, by degrees, are very fortunate in
becoming acquainted with such obliging spirits.
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