The right hand will produce attraction, calm and easiness on the left and back side of the body; and repulsion, excitation and uneasiness on the right and forepart of the body; and the left hand will produce the same corresponding effects on the right and forepart of the body, and on the left and backpart. The right-hand, a positive pole, will act with more energy than the left-hand, a negative one.
He found by experiments that the most certain and active results are produced by presenting the palm of the hand within about two inches from the diseased part, the attractions and repulsions being in inverse ratio of the square of the distances. Every time we want to take off a pain, or calm an excitation, we will succeed by presenting the palm of the right hand to the diseased part, if that part is on the left side or the back of the body, or by presenting the palm of the left hand, if it is on the right side or the forepart of the body. For example, a heaviness in the head, a neuralgia and in general, all kinds of headaches, will cease more or less rapidly under the influence of the palm of the hand presented with the fingers upright at about two inches from the forehead. To calm the nervous system, place yourself on the left of the patient and apply the left hand on the epigastrium, and the right hand on the vertebral column, on the corresponding part. If we were to use the other hand on the same part, we should increase for a while the intensity of the pain. To obtain the desired result, the time necessarily varies according to the nature of the disease and sensibility of the patient.
With a knowledge of the laws regulating the human polarity, Magnetism becomes an exact science, a positive one. But the application of it is also an art which constant practice may improve considerably.
Ch. J. Quetil, F. T. S.
The Hermetic Philosophy.
Fragments of the Ancient Wisdom Religion have come down to us from the remotest past, through many channels, and in various forms.
The study of philology alone will be inadequate to discover the true meaning of ancient sacred writings, though it may very greatly assist the labors of those who have already gained a clue to the Secret Doctrine. The Theosophist and the Antiquarian differ very widely, and though the former has sometimes been accused of searching out obsolete doctrines and magnifying the achievements of the past, but little observation will be required to reveal the fact, that that for which they search may be very old because it is valuable, but never valuable merely because it is old. In short that of which they are in search may truly be said to never fade, and ne’er grow old, though it is often lost sight of. Occultism is not a new craze as some suppose, it is not simply a line of the marvelous, it is rather the profoundest of all sciences, conforming in its methods of research and the character of its results to those of all sciences. The naturalist does not hesitate to construct from a single tooth or a few fragments of bone, the entire animal and assign to it its proper place, declare its habits, modes of life, size, &c., &c., even though he fixed its era centuries ago, and no one nowadays questions the general correctness of the result; the study of comparative anatomy and the science of biology testify all this. In like manner and by similar methods may one familiar with the science of occultism, which deals with the operation of uniform laws in the higher realms of nature, arrive at exact data from very small beginnings, and with this advantage, viz., that he has the means at hand to verify his conclusions, which the naturalist has not, for in this realm there are no extinct species, the elements of human nature, and the laws which underlie their unfoldment and manifestation are the same now, as thousands of years ago.
It is the custom of many who are entirely ignorant of this higher science, to deny its existence and ridicule its cultivators. Just as an uneducated and conceited boor would ridicule an Agassiz for attempting to reconstruct an animal from its thigh bone. When, therefore, one entirely ignorant not only of the principles but of the existence of such a thing as occult science, examines ancient records in which it is concealed, he will arise from his task possibly better satisfied with his own possessions as contrasted with the “ignorance” of past ages, but seldom wiser for his endeavor. Few persons nowadays are ignorant of the form of most ancient hierarchic writings, as consisting of, or containing a double meaning under the garb of allegory or parable. It is moreover becoming quite generally known that many of these ancient records are of vital importance to us of the present day, as containing the very knowledge of which we stand most in need, and the amount of attention they are receiving may be determined by observing the interest in, and almost unprecedented sales of, such works as Arnold’s Light of Asia, while the labors of men like Max Muller in rendering the ancient scriptures into English have made it possible for everyone to gain some familiarity with the religious casts of antiquity. Bearing in mind these general observations, let us briefly examine one of the most ancient, most famous, and yet least comprehended sources of ancient wisdom. As to the questions who was Hermes? which Hermes? when did he write? we have these points for the philologists and historians, quoting here the remark of Iamblichus in his treatise on the Mysteries: “Hermes, the God who presides over language, was formerly very properly considered as common to all priests; and the power who presides over the true science concerning the Gods is one and the same in the whole of things. Hence our ancestors dedicated the inventions of their wisdom to this deity, inscribing all their own writings with the name of Hermes,” and “the late learned Divine Doctor Everard” in the preface to his translation of the Divine Pymander 1650, contends that Hermes Trismegistus lived a long time before Moses, that he had “perfect and exact knowledge of all things contained in the world,” * * “that he was the first that invented the art of communicating knowledge to the world by writing, that he was King of Egypt, that he styled himself the son of Saturn, and that he was believed to have come from heaven, and not to have been born on earth.”[66]
The above writer goes on to say that Hermes did excel in the right understanding of, because he attained to, the knowledge of the quintessence of the whole universe, otherwise called the Elixir of the philosophers, which secret many ignorantly deny, many have sought after, and some have found. A description of this great Treasure is said to have been found engraved upon a Smaragdine Tablet in the valley of Hebron after the flood.[67]