_Blasphemous Conclusion of Mainauduc's Lectures.—The Effects which he
produced explained.—Disappearance of the Imposture._
The conclusion of the extraordinary book from whence I have condensed
the summary of this prodigious quackery, is even more extraordinary and
more daring than the quackery itself. It may be transcribed without
offence to religion, for every catholic will regard its atrocious
impiety with due abhorrence.
"I flatter myself," says this man at the close of his lectures, "you are
now convinced that this science is of too exalted a nature to be trifled
with or despised; and I fondly hope that even the superficial specimen
which you have thus far received has given you room to suppose it, not a
human device, held out for the sportive gratification of the idle
moment, but a divine call from the affectionate creating Parent,
inviting his rebellious children by every persuasive, by every tender
motive, to renounce the destructive allurements of earthly influence,
and to perform the duties which he sent his beloved Son into the world
to inculcate, as the only and effectual conditions on which the deluded
spirit in man should escape future punishment. The apostles received and
accepted of those terms; disciples out of number embraced the doctrine,
and by example, by discourse, and by cures, influenced the minds of the
unthinking multitude, absorbed in sin, and rioting in obstinate
disobedience.—Again, the Almighty Father deigns to rouse his children
from that indifference to their impending fate, into which the watchful
enemy omits no opportunity of enticing them. To lead our Saviour from
his duty, the tempter showed and offered him all this world's
grandeur;—so he daily in some degree does to us. Our Saviour spurned him
with contempt, and so must we. Our blessed Saviour, whose spirit was a
stranger to sin, cured by perfect spiritual and physical innocence, and
by an uninterrupted dependence on his Great, Omnipotent, Spiritual
Father. He never failed. His chosen apostles cured by relinquishing this
world and following him. We have but one example, that I can recollect,
of their having failed, and then Christ told them what was necessary to
ensure success. The disciples and the followers of the apostles
performed many cures, but how far they were checquered by failures I am
not informed. Paracelsus, Sir Kenelm Digby, Sir Robert Fludd, and
several others, experienced sufficient power in themselves to verify the
words of our Saviour; but were soon deprived of what was only lent to
urge them to seek for the great original cause. "Verily, verily," said
Christ, "the works which I do shall ye do also; and greater works than
these shall ye do, for I go unto my father." Valentine Greatrakes, by
obeying the instructions imparted to him in visions, performed many
cures; but ceasing to look up to the source, and giving way to medical
importunity, he administered drugs, and could not expect success.
Gasner, a moral and religious man, performed many cures; he was shut up
in a convent, through the ignorance of his superiors, and the
superstitious blindness of the age he lived in; thence his progress was
trivial, though his dawnings seemed to promise much. Mesmer pillaged the
subject from Sir Robert Fludd, and found to a certainty the existence of
the power: undisposed to attend to our Saviour's information, he
preferred loadstones and magnetic ideas to the service of the Great
Author; and after performing several accidental cures, his magnetism and
his errors shared the fate of his predecessors. Doctor D'Eslon, his
partner, though a man of strong reason and impartiality, ascribed the
power which he experienced to the physical will of man; and after
performing some cures, he fell asleep. At length, after so many
centuries of ignorance, it has graciously pleased the Almighty Father to
draw aside the veil, and disclose his sacred mysteries to this favoured
generation. And when I shall be called home, it will, I hope, appear,
that for a bright and happy certainty of serving my God, and living with
my Saviour, I pointed out to you, my brethren, the Almighty's real
science, and that path to Heaven, which Christ, _the only perfect and
successful one of this list_, left to mankind, as his last testament,
and inestimable dying gift."[19]
This portentous blasphemy shows to what excess any kind of impiety may
be carried on in this country, provided it does not appear as a direct
attack upon religion. So infamous an impostor would in our country
quickly have been silenced by the Holy Office, or, to speak more truly,
the salutary dread of the Holy Office would have restrained him within
decent bounds. Was he pure rogue undiluted with any mixture of
enthusiasm, or did he, contrary to the ordinary process, begin in rogue,
and end in enthusiast?
It is a common observation, that a man may tell a story of his own
invention so often that he verily believes it himself at last. There is
more than this in the present case. Mainauduc pretended to possess an
extraordinary power over the bodily functions of others: it was easy to
hire patients at first who would act as he prescribed, and much was to
be expected afterwards from credulity; but that it should prove that he
actually did possess this power in as great a degree as he ever
pretended, over persons not in collusion with him, nor prepared to be
affected by their previous belief, but unprejudiced, incredulous,
reasonable people, philosophical observers who went to examine and
detect the imposition, in sound health of body and mind, was more than
he expected, and perhaps more than he could explain. This actually was
the case; they who went to hear him with a firm and rational disbelief,
expecting to be amused by the folly of his patients, were themselves
thrown into what is called _the crisis_: his steady looks and continued
gesticulations arrested their attention, made them dizzy, deranged the
ordinary functions of the system, and fairly deprived them for a time of
all voluntary power, and all perception.
How dangerous a power this was, and to what detestable purposes it might
be applied, need not be explained. The solution is easy and convincing,
but it by no means follows that he himself comprehended it. If we direct
our attention to the involuntary operations of life within us, they are
immediately deranged. Think for a minute upon the palpitation of the
heart, endeavour to feel the peristaltic motion, or breathe by an act of
volition, and you disturb those actions which the life within us carries
on unerringly, and as far as we can perceive unconsciously. Any person
may make the experiment, and satisfy himself. The animal magnetists kept
up this unnatural state of attention long enough by their treatment to
produce a suspension of these involuntary motions, and consequent
insensibility.
In a country like this, where the government has no discretionary power
of interfering, to punish villany, and of course where whosoever can
invent a new roguery may practise it with impunity, till a new law be
made to render it criminal, Mainauduc might have gone on triumphantly,
and have made himself the head of a sect, or even a religion, had the
times been favourable. But politics interfered, and took off the
attention of all the wilder and busier spirits. He died, and left a
woman to succeed him in the chair. The female caliph either wanted
ability to keep the believers together, or having made a fortune thought
it best to retire from trade. So the school was broken up. Happily for
some of the disciples, who could not exist without a constant supply of
new miracles to feed their credulity, Richard Brothers appeared, who
laid higher claims than Mainauduc, and promised more wonderful things.
But of him hereafter.
[19] The translator thought the daring impiety of this whole extract so
truly extraordinary, that he determined to seek for it in the original
work, instead of re-translating it from D. Manuel's Spanish. With much
difficulty he succeeded in finding the book: it is a large thin quarto
volume, printed in 1798, with a portrait of Mainauduc from a picture by
Cosway. From this the technical language of the summary has been
corrected, and the exact words of this extract copied, so that the
reader may rely upon their perfect accuracy.—TR.