MAGNETIC HEALING.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1536, 24 July 1886, Page 2

MAGNETIC HEALING.

TO THE EDITOR. The smallest hurts sometimes increase and rage More than all art of physio can assuage ; Sometime the fury of the worst disease

The hand, by gentie passes, will appease. Sir,- -According to promise, I will give your readers a few simple rules for magnetic healing. They are taken from a work by Dr Babbitt, entitled “Vital Magnetism, the Fountain of Life but I may as well tell first who Dr Babbitt is. Dr Edwin Dwight Babbitt was a grandson of the Rev. Abner Smith, who graduated at Harvard University in 1770, and son of the Rev. Samuel T. Babbitt, a Congregational clerayman afd a graduate of Yale. He was born at Hamden, How York, on Feb. Ist, 1828, and received the scholastic part of his education at different academies in that State, and at Knox College in Galesburg, 111., where his father was residing as a missionary. An education which he prizes very highly was that which he gained by residing in various parts of the Union, and by a year’s residence in Europe, all of which opened up the great human world to him in its many phases. Another important experience in the art of imparting knowledge to others was a considerable period spent In teaching. In hi* younger days he matured what is called the Babbittonian system of penmanship, which has been republished in London, and is still in use in America, being published by Geo. Sherwood and Co„ in Chicago. In 1860 he established the Miami Commercial College in Drayton, Ohio, which he conducted for several years. It is still conducted with marked skill by one of his students, Mr A. D. Wilt. Thirteen brief rules by Dr Babbitt—(l) Make passes from heated or inflamed parts toward the extremities or cold parts. (2) Give a new tide of life to cold negative parts by holding, rubbing, or spotting them. (3). Place the right hand, which is positive, on the hot part, and the left, or negative hand, on the cool, on the principal that forces flow from positive to negative. Reverse this order in thoroughly left-handed persons. (4). If the system is dormant, as in chronic rheumatism, paralysis, etc., upward movements are very important as assisting capillary action. Pass up all the limbs and spine, but avoid upward passes near the head. Vitalise the back, neck, and shoulders thoroughly ; make passes from the hips upwards diagonally to the shoulders, and animate the portions back and front of the ears thoroughly. (5). When liver, stomach, and general visceral system are torpid knead them thoroughly, without causing too much pain, but especially make a large circle over them, moving up on the right side over the ascending colon, across over the liver, stomach, and spleen, and down the left side over the descending colon. This is admirable for costivoness, and should be practised several minutes every night and morning. For diarrhoea move in just the opposite directions. (6). The solur plexus, whicii is at the pit of the stomach is the most important nerve-centre in the system. If it is cold and inactive hold the hands over it ; if too hot make downward passes and scatter the heat. (7). If there is inflammation at the lungs, heart, kidneys, etc., do not manipulate directly over the place, but at a little distance off. Also make downward passes. (8), For headache hold right hand on forehead, left hand on back head or neck, and especially make downward passes -over the side and back neck ; rub the feet and hands, etc. (9). Autoraany or selfmanipulation, though not equal to a fine magnetic hand of another, is capable of accomplishing wonders if persevered in. Practise it daily. (10). To tone up the muscular system rub thoroughly the ' upper back head and just below the neck over the bractrail plexus; also make passes from the cheeks to the upper back bead. (ID- To quicken a dull intellect rub the forehead, brows, and temples. To animate the moral powers, rub the top and front head. To scatter extra heat in the passional region, pass from the back head and neck, down the shoulders and arms. (12). For convulsions, apoplexy, and sunstroke, rub the back head and neck and spine powerfully, heat the feet, pour water as hot as can ho borne for five minutes or more on the back head nod neck, etc. (13). When the magnetist arouses a dormant system, do not be alarmed if you feel worse for while. I may say that 1 have never tried No. 5, neither have I ever made upward passes except in demagnetising a subject that was in the magnetic sleep. In reference to rule No. 8, i never held my hands on any person for headache more than 15 minutes, generally about 10 or 12, although I have cured in 3 minutes persons who were very susceptible to the influence. Hold your hand as directed say for 5 minutes, then without removing the right hand make passes with the left down the back of the head, shaking the hand every time, the same as if it was wet and you wished to shake the water off it, then returned it with a sweep well out from the subject, because if you bring it up too close to the body you will undo any good that the downward pass may have done ; repeat this for a few minutes, th«a place left hand As before. You must feel within yourself that you are taking the pain away and go at it with the intention of doing so. In treating a person for ailments in the. heart, lungs, liver, or kidneys, I breath | into those parts, and also hold ray hands on them, and make passes over them, 1 have brought a lady out of a faint in about 10 seconds, merely by breathing over the heart. She said she could feel it going up to the brain. Any time she ever fainted before she always had a very severe headache afterwards, but this t’hie she never felt it. Phenomenal magnetism I will not speak of at as ic requires a groat deal of study before is justified in trying it, I any

was studying it for 5 years, and doing a little curing all that time, before I ever tried to put any person into the magnetic sleep, bat my first trial and also the second was successful, and I have been able to develops clairvoyance in one of them. She has already diagnosed about 30 peop'e with entire satisfaction, and should any of our local doctors have a complicated case I will be moat happy to give them a diagnosis free of charge, and they can judge for themselves of the reliability of it. I will now give you some of the necessary qualifications of a healer—-“ Every one has not the power to magnetise, and even every one who has the power will not be able to do so beneficially, lobe a magnetist, certain physical and psychical qualities are requisite that cannot be all acquired, but must be regarded in these combination as a gift of nature. Physically a magnetist should have a preponderance of magnetic energy over the subject, yet there have been cases observed, although rarely, where persons physically weak, and even subject to somnambulism* could act strongly upon others, which phenomena have‘°been attempted to be explained by the theory that, with these persons, the vital force has more tendency to shoot out from its centre to its circumference, and acta upon a wider extent. A magnetist should not only have a strong, but a perfectly healthy body, for only in a state of health are we enabled to impart our vitality to another being, and to recuperate that which has been given away. A magnetist affected with disease will nut only act imperfectly, but also impart his own feelings of disease to the subject, and increase the latter’s sufferings. The magnetist should be in the years of active life, between 25 and 50, as loss of vital power beyond that age might prove injurious to himself. With regard to psychological conditions, a strong and healthy sou! is as requisite as a strong and healthy body is for phyaical conditions. An impure and perverse mind is, even in ordinary life, conspicuously repulsive. According to Hufland, the chief qualifies(ion of a .magnetist is ; That he should be in good health and morally pure. Imagination and sensual feelings may be so mixed up with the magnetic force as to produce the most perverse and unhappy consequences. The Rev. T. Tyne, A.M., has issued an excellent little work on magnetic healing, composed of details of cases which hare been cured by magnetism. His knowledge seems to have been practical. He says—“ This treatise would scarcely be complete without a brief indication of the best method of Magnetising. This appears to be to stand near the patient, and if there be local suffering, to hold the hand over the region at a short distance from it, with the wish to give relief, when, in not a few instances, the pain will be found to retreat to the extremities, following it with the hand, a few slow passes may then be made over the limb and perhaps beginning from the head downwards.” A very few trials are all that opportunity or disposition induce me to ; but some eminent magnetists have persevered daily fora long time, and ultimately have succeeded and cured. Water breathed upon, or with passes made ever it, may at times be sent to a distance, and will usually increase the activity of the force, and various substances may in * similar way receive the magnetic energy. After a little experience nearly every magnetist has a method of his or her own. lam familiar with the methods adopted by the following persons for producing the magnetic sleep, and they all differ from each other : —Mrs Wallace, Professor Gregory, Dr Darling, Mr Lewis, Captain James, Mesmer, Dr Koiser, Abbd Farie, Bruno, Deluse, Billets, Tests, Baron Dupotet, LaPontaine, Countess C., Marquis Db Puyaegur, and Captain Hudson. Trusting that some of your readers may receive some benefit from what 1 have said,—l I am etc. Andrew Gibson. Burnside, Terauka, July 21st, 1886.