Justin Bontisharts had a child ten years old, with arms and legs much atrophied because of rickets. The child, who had never been able to walk, was near death. Dr. Dozens, who had treated the case, was present when the mother placed the child in the water at Lourdes. The child remained motionless, so much so that many bystanders thought it dead. Two days after returning home, however, the child, much to the surprise of the parents, began walking normally and continued to do so.
For more documentation of miraculous cures at Lourdes, Wallace recommended to his readers two books by Henri Lasserre, notre Dame de lourdes and les episodes miraculeux de lourdes. “The most remarkable feature of these cures,” wrote Wallace (1905 v. 2, p. 306), “is their rapidity, often amounting to instantaneousness, which broadly marks them off from all ordinary remedial agencies.”
Wallace then described some cases. “One of the most prominent of these, related by M. Lasserre, is that of Frangois Macary, a carpenter of Lavaur. He had varicose veins for thirty years; they were thick as one’s finger, with enormous nodosities and frequent bleedings, producing numerous ulcers, so that it had been for many years impossible for him to walk or stand. Three physicians had declared him to be absolutely incurable. At sixty years of age he heard of the cures at Lourdes, and determined to try the waters. A bottle was sent him. Compresses with this were applied in the evening to his two legs. He slept well all night, and early next morning was quite well; his legs were smooth, and there was hardly a trace of the swollen veins, nodosities, and ulcers. The three doctors who had attended him certify to these facts” (Wallace 1905, v. 2, p. 306).
Most interesting is Wallace’s explanation of the cures. The cures, according to Wallace, were not caused by the water itself but by a “a real spiritual agency,” believed by those cured to be the Virgin Mary (Wallace 1905, v. 2, p. 308). The cures were, however, rare, and it was impossible to predict who would experience a cure. Wallace noted that cures were not limited to patients who were especially religious or otherwise deserving. In this respect, Wallace considered the patients to be similar to spiritualistic mediums, who were not usually paragons of virtue. Because certain patients, like mediums, were somehow sensitive, they were, regardless of other considerations, selected by spiritual entities as the conduits for psychical effects.
In many cases, cured individuals were “induced to try the Lourdes water often by a very unusual combination of circumstances” (Wallace 1905, v. 2, p. 308). To explain this Wallace suggested the following sequence of events in typical cures: (1) spiritual intelligences select particular individuals for their sensitivity to psychic intervention and possession of a normally incurable condition susceptible to paranormal healing; (2) spiritual intelligences begin the cures, unknown to the patients; (3) desiring ultimately to heighten the spiritual awareness of the patients and others, the spiritual intelligences, at critical moments in the cures, implant in the minds of the patients the idea of using Lourdes water or going to Lourdes; (4) the patients act on these implanted suggestions, experience tangible cures, and attribute them to miraculous intervention by the Virgin Mary (Wallace 1905, v. 2, pp. 308–309). According to this scheme, the spiritual intelligences would in these cases act in conformity with the religious and cultural conditioning of the patients. This is an important idea, to which we shall return in coming chapters.
Against Hume on miracles
The cures at Lourdes, imbued with Catholic tradition, are usually called miracles, a word with religious connotations. The paranormal phenomena witnessed by Wallace at séances, although devoid of conventional religious overtones, are just as miraculous, in the sense of violating natural law, as understood by orthodox materialistic science. These phenomena might be called secular miracles. Reports of miracles, secular and religious, attained wide circulation, even in educated circles in Europe. Those who wished to dismiss such reports, which undermined the foundations of a strictly materialistic science, often did so in the name of David Hume, who a century earlier had argued in his book An inquiry into Human understanding against the acceptance of miracles.
Hume appealed to uniform human experience in his refutation of miracles. For example, Hume observed “it is a miracle that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed in any age or any country.” Wallace noted two flaws in this argument. First, the appeal to uniform human experience, granting the truly uniform nature of the experience, insures that no really new fact could ever be established. Second, Wallace questioned the veracity of Hume’s version of uniform human experience. “Reputed miracles abound in all periods of history,” wrote Wallace (1896, p. 8). And they continued up to the present, thus nullifying Hume’s assumption.
Wallace (1896, p. 8) gave levitation of the human body as an instance of a miraculous event for which there is abundant human testimony: “A few well-known examples are those of St. Francis d’Assisi who was often seen by many persons to rise in the air, and the fact is testified by his secretary, who could only reach his feet. St. Theresa, a nun in a convent in Spain, was often raised into the air in the sight of all the sisterhood. Lord Orrery and Mr. Valentine Greatrak both informed Dr. Henry More and Mr. Glanvil that at Lord Conway’s house at Ragley, in Ireland, a gentleman’s butler, in their presence and in broad daylight, rose into the air and floated about the room above their heads. This is related by Glanvil in his Sadducismus Triumphatus. . . . So we all know that at least fifty persons of high character may be found in London who will testify that they have seen the same thing happen to Mr. Hume.”
Wallace then pointed out a contradiction in the pages of Hume’s own discussion of miracles. Hume had written that for testimony in favor of a miracle to be accepted, it should have the following characteristics. The testimony must be given by multiple observers. The observers should have reputations for honesty. They should be in social positions that entailed some definite material risk in the event their testimony were to be found false. As for the events themselves, they should be public, and they should take place in a civilized part of the world. Hume maintained that such satisfactory testimony was “not to be found, in all history” (Hume, cited in Wallace 1896, p. 8).
But Wallace noted that Hume then gave an account of some miraculous occurrences that fulfilled his own strict criteria. Hume told of the many extraordinary cures that took place in Paris at the tomb of the Abbé Paris, a saintly member of the Jansenists, a persecuted Catholic sect. Hume said of these events, which took place not long before he wrote his book: “The curing of the sick, giving hearing to the deaf, and sight to the blind, were everywhere talked of as the usual effects of that holy sepulchre. But what is more extraordinary, many of the miracles were immediately proved upon the spot, before judges of unquestioned integrity, attested by witnesses of credit and distinction, in a learned age, and on the most eminent theatre that is now in the world.” Not only that, said Hume. The Jesuits, who thoroughly opposed the Jansenists, and desired to expose the miracles as hoaxes, were unable to do so, despite their access to the full power of church and state. Given this set of circumstances, it seems Hume should have accepted the miracle. Instead, he wrote: “Where shall we find such a number of circumstances agreeing to the corroboration of one fact? And what have we to oppose to such a cloud of witnesses, but the absolute impossibility, or miraculous nature of the events which they relate? And this, surely, in the eyes of all reasonable people, will alone be regarded as a sufficient refutation” (Wallace 1896, p. 9). Wallace faulted Hume for this blatantly self-contradictory conclusion.