Questions
A. How was Jesus in an organic point of view?
B. What is the explanation given by Spiritism about the healing of the bleeding woman?
C. Does Spiritism also heal?
Reading Text
1000. Prescience Theory - How is it possible to know the future? We understand the possibility of predicting events resulting from the present state. However, we do not understand those that have no relation to this present, and even less those which are commonly attributed to chance.
1001. There are no future things, they say; they are still in the nothing; how then can we know if they will happen? But, cases of predictions are in a great number. Therefore, we arrive to the conclusion that a phenomenon occurs with no explanation. There is no key, since there is no effect without a cause.
1002. Let us take, for comparison, an example based on our daily life. It will help us to understand the principle that we have to develop. Suppose a man, placed on top of a high mountain, is watching the vast plain before him. In this situation, the distance of a league is very little for him, because with just a glance he is able to see all the land accidents, from one extreme to another of the road that is before his eyes. The one who travels along this road knows that by keeping on walking, he will arrive at the end of it. This is a fact, a consequence of what will happen if he keeps going. However, the land accidents, the ups and downs, the water courses that he will have to cross, the woods, the cliffs where he may fall, the welcoming homes where he may rest, the thieves peeking to steal, all this depends only of himself. For him it is the unknown, the future, because his eyes cannot see more than a small area around him. As for the period of time, it depends on how long he takes to walk it. Take from him the reference points and the length of time does not exist any longer.
1003. For the man, who is on top of the mountain and looks down, everything he sees is the present. Let us suppose that this man descends from this point and walks to the traveler and tells him “At a certain point, you will find such a thing, you will be attacked and rescued”. This man will be predicting the future, but the future for the traveler, not for him, author of the prediction, because for him that future is the present.
1004. Now, let us withdraw from the purely material things and enter, by means of our thought, in the area of the spiritual life. We see the same phenomenon occurring in a larger scale. The dematerialized Spirits are like the mountain man; space and time do not exist for them. But, the amplitude and penetration of their sight are proportional to their enlightenment and the spiritual elevation they have reached in the spiritual hierarchy.
1005. Now we understand that, according to the level of perfection, a Spirit may cover a period of years, of some centuries, even of some thousands of years, because what is a century in comparison with the infinite? For him, the events do not take place in succession, as the road incidents before the traveler: he sees at the same time the beginning and the end of the period; all events that, during that period of time, are the future for the man on Earth are the present for him, and then he could say for sure: Such a thing will happen in such a time, because he sees this specific thing in the same manner as the mountain man sees what the traveler can expect during his trip.
1006. If such a gift, even limited, can be considered as an attribute of the creature, to what degree does it not exist in God, who covers the infinite? For the Creator time does not exist: the beginning and the end of the worlds are His present. Having this immense panorama in mind, what is the significance of a period of one’s life, of a generation, or of people?
1007. Since man has to contribute for the overall progress, and certain events must result of his cooperation, it can happen that in certain special cases, he senses these events, in order to prepare him to be ready and act when the occasion arrives. That is why God, sometimes, allows man to unveil and become aware, always for a useful purpose and never to satisfy man’s curiosity. And we must note that this kind of revelations always occur spontaneously and never, or at least very rarely, in response to a direct question.
1008. This is why, in certain occasions, this gift develops providentially, on the verge of danger, great calamities, revolutions, and this is the reason why numerous clairvoyants appear within persecuted sects. This is also the reason why we see the great Captains move resolutely against the enemy, certain of their victory; also, men of genius like, for instance, Christopher Columbus, reach for a goal, announcing in advance, so to speak, the moment they will reach it, because they saw that goal, and for their Spirits it does not belong any longer to the unknown.
1009. Therefore, there is nothing of supernatural in the gift of prediction, more than other numerous phenomena. It is based on the properties of the soul and the law of the relations of the visible world with the invisible world, as taught by Spiritism. The theory of prescience or foreknowledge may not solve absolutely all cases that may arise from the revelation of the future, but we can say that it establishes its fundamental principle.
1010. To understand spiritual things, and to have a clear idea of what the spiritual sight is, in the same manner as our sight works before a landscape, we lack, indeed, one sense, exactly like the man born blind cannot understand the effects of light colors, and sight without the contact.
1011. This faculty is inherent in the state of spiritualization, or, if you prefer, the dematerialization of the Spirit. This means that the spiritualization produces an effect which can be compared, though very imperfectly, to the overall vision of the man on the mountain. This comparison was aimed to simply show that events that still pertain to some in the future, for others are the present and, therefore, can be predicted, which does not imply that the effect is produced in the same way.
1012. To therefore enjoy this perception the Spirit does not need to move to any special place on space. The Spirit has this full perception whether he is beside us on this Earth, or if a thousand leagues away, whereas we do not see anything beyond our visual horizon. Since the sight in Spirits does not work in the same way or with the same elements as in humans, the horizon of the former is very different. It is precisely this sense that we lack to be able to understand it. The Spirit beside the embodied is like a clairvoyant next to the blind.
1013. The incarnated Spirit not only sees, but also remembers what he saw in the state of a free Spirit, and this recollection is like a picture in his mind. While incarnated he sees vaguely, as through a veil. In the state of freedom he sees and understands clearly. Vision is not outside but in him, and this is the reason why he does not need the outside light.
1014. His moral development widens his ideas and understanding. Due to the gradual dematerialization of the perispirit, and the gross elements (that affect the fineness of his understanding), withdraw and leave him, he then becomes purer, thus making it easier to understand that the growth of all these faculties go along with the progress of the Spirit.
Answers to the proposed questions
A. How was Jesus in an organic point of view?
As a man, Jesus had the structure of fleshly beings; however, as a pure Spirit, detached from matter, he had to live more in the spiritual life than in the physical life, but human weaknesses did not affect Him. His superiority over men did not derive from the particular qualities of His body, but from His Spirit that dominated matter in absolute, and from His perispirit, taken from the most quintessential part of the terrestrial fluids. His soul probably was not attached to the body, except by strictly indispensable ties. Being His soul constantly disengaged, it certainly gave him double vision, not only permanently, but of exceptional penetration and superior to that ordinary men have. The same must have happened regarding all phenomena that depend on perispiritual or psychic fluids. The quality of these fluids gave Him an immense magnetic force, supported by the incessant desire to be good. (Genesis, Chapter XV, items 1 and 2).
B. What is the explanation given by Spiritism about the healing of the bleeding woman?
This woman, who for twelve years had a hemorrhage, suffered greatly at the hands of doctors and even having spent all her monies, she had no relief. She heard about Jesus and the crowd that followed Him. She managed to get behind Him, and touched His clothes. She thought: “If I can just touch His clothes, I will be healed”. And, as soon as she touched His clothes, the blood flow stopped and she felt she had been healed.
Immediately, Jesus, feeling that the virtue had gone through Him, said, “Who touched my clothes”? His disciples said “You know that the crowd is pressing around you and you ask who touched you?” But he looked around searching for who had touched Him. The woman, knowing what had happened, in fear and dread threw herself at His feet and told Him the truth. Jesus said, “My daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be healed of your illness”.
The words: “feeling that the virtue had gone through Him” are significant. They refer to the fluidic movement which had gone from Jesus to the ill woman; both felt the action that had just occurred.
Note that the effect was not due to any act of Jesus’ will; there was no magnetization, or laying on of hands. All it took was a normal fluid irradiation to perform the healing.
But why was this irradiation directed to that woman and not to other people, since Jesus was not thinking of her and had a crowd around him?
The reason is very simple. The fluid, considered a therapeutic matter, has to reach the organic matter in order to repair it; it can then be directed to the illness by using the healer’s will power, or attracted by the burning desire of being healed, or by means of trust, in a word: the patient's faith. Regarding the fluid stream, the first acts as a poking pump and the second as a suction pump. Sometimes the simultaneity of the two actions is required; in other cases, just one. This second case is what happened there. This is the reason why Jesus said, “Your faith has saved you".
It is understood that the faith to which he referred to is not a mystic virtue, as many understand, but a real force of attraction, so that the one who does not possess it, sends a contrary force repulsing the fluidic flow, or at least an inertial force, which paralyzes action. Thus, it is also understood that if two patients are presented to the healer with the same disease, one can be cured and the not the other. This is one of the most important principles of the healing mediumship and which explains certain apparent anomalies, pointing a very natural cause for them. (Genesis, Chapter XV, items 10 and 11).
C. Does Spiritism also heal?
Yes. Spiritism does heal our physical ailments, but mainly it heals our moral illnesses and this is one of the greatest wonders that justify its origin.
Its most sincere supporters are not those who feel touched by watching the extraordinary phenomena, but those who receive from it consolation for their souls, those who it frees from the torture of doubt, those who it lifts their spirits at the time of distress and those who are assured by Spiritism about the future and the knowledge of its nature and destiny. (Genesis, Chapter XV, items 26 to 28).
