Switzerland
For ancient matter see Teutons. (See Spiritualism.-Two cases of spiritual visitation occurred in the Swiss Cantons during last century, of so startling a nature, as to attract the eyes of all Europe. The following brief summary of the Morzine epidemic is collated from the pages of the Cornhill Magazine, two or three of the London daily journals, the Reveu Spirite, and Mr. William Howitt's magazine article entitled, "The Devils of Morzine." The period of the occurrence was about 1860; the scene, the parish of Morzine, a beautiful valley of the Savoy, not more than half a day's journey from the Lake of Geneva. The place is quite, remote, and had been seldom visited by tourists before the period named above. Being moreover shut in by high mountains, and inhabited by a simple, industrious, and pious class of peasantry, Morzine might have appeared to a casual visitor the very centre of health, peace, and good order. The first appearance of an abnormal visitation was the conduct of a young girl, who, from being quiet, modest, and well-conducted, suddenly began to exhibit what her distressed family and friends supposed to be the symptoms of insanity. She ran about in the most singular and aimless way; climbed high trees, scaled walls, and was found perched on roofs and cornices, which it seemed impossible for any creature but a squirrel to reach. She soon became wholly intractable; was given to fits of hysteria, violent laughter, passionate weeping, and general aberration from her customary modest behaviour. Whilst her parents were anxiously seeking advice in this dilemma, another and still another of the young girl's ordinary companions were seized with the same malady. In the course of ten days the report prevailed, that over fifty females-ranging from seven years of age to fifty-had been seized, and were exhibiting symptoms of the most bewildering mental aberration. The crawling, climbing, leaping, wild singing, furious swearing, and frantic behaviour of these unfortunates, soon found crowds of imitators. Before the tidings of this frightful affliction, had passed beyond the district in which it originated several hundreds of women and children, and scores of young men, were writhing under the contagion. The seizures were sudden, like the attacks; they seldom lasted long, yet they never seemed to yield to any form of treatment, whether harsh or kind, medical, religious or persuasive. The first symptoms of this malady do not seem to have been noted with sufficient attention to justify one in giving details which could be considered accurate. It was only when the number of the possessed exceeded two thousand persons, and the case was attracting multitudes of curious enquirers from all parts of the Continent, that the medical men, priests, and journalists of the day, began to keep and publish constant records of the progress of the epidemic One of the strangest features of the case, and one which most constantly baffled the faculty, was the appearance of rugged health, and freedom from all physical disease, which distinguished this malady. As a general rule, the victims spoke in hoarse, rough tones unlike their own, used profane language, such as few of them could ever have heard, and imitated the actions of crawling, leaping, climbing animals with ghastly fidelity. Sometimes they would roll their bodies up into balls and distort their limbs beyond the power of the attendant physicians to account for, or disentangle. Many amongst them were levitated in the air, and in a few instances, the women spoke in foreign tongues, manifested high conditions of exaltation, described glorious visions, prophesied, gave clairvoyant descriptions of absent persons and distant places, sang hymns, and preached in strains of sublime inspiration. It must be added, that these instances were very rare, and were only noticeable in the earlier stages of the obsession. It is almost needless to say that the tidings of this horrible obsession attracted immense multitudes of witnesses, no less than the attention of the learned and philosophic. When the attempts of the medical faculty, the church, and the law, had been tried again and all had utterly failed to modify the ever-increasing horrors of this malady, the Emperor Switzerland of the French, the late Louis Napoleon, under whose protectorate Morzine was then governed, yielding to the representations of his advisers, actually sent out three military companies to Morzine, charged with strict orders to quell the disturbances" on the authority of the Emperor, or by force if necessary." The result of this high-handed policy was to increase tenfold the violence of the disease, and to augment the number of the afflicted, in the persons of many of the very soldiers who sank under the contagion which they were expected to quench. The next move of the baffled French Government, was a spiritual one; an army of priests, headed by a venerable Bishop, much beloved in his diocese, being despatched in the quality of exorcists, at the suggestion of the Archbishop of Paris. Unhappily this second experiment worked no better than the first. Respectable looking groups of well-dressed men, women, and children, would pass into the churches in reverent silence, and with all the appearance of health and piety-but no sooner was the sound of the priest's voice, or the notes of the organ heard, than shrieks, execrations, sobbings, and frenzied cries, resounded from different parts of the assembly. Anxious fathers and husbands were busy in carrying their distracted relatives into the open air, and whether in the church or the home, every attempt of a sacerdotal character, was sure to arouse the mania to heights of fury unknown before. The time came at length, when the good old Bishop thought of a coup de grace to achieve a general victory over the adversary. He commanded that as many as possible of the afflicted should be gathered together to hear high mass, when he trusted that the solemnity of the occasion would be sufficient to defeat what he evidently believed to be the combined forces of Satan.
According to the description cited by William Howitt in his paper on " The Devils of Morzine," the assemblage in question, including at least two thousand of the possessed, and a number of spectators, must have far more faithfully illustrated Milton's description of Pandemonium than any mortal scene before enacted. Children and women were pillars, and shrieking defiance from pinnacles which leaping over the seats and benches; clambering up the scarcely admitted of a foothold for a bird. The Bishop's letter contains but one remark which seems to offer a clue to these scenes of horror and madness. He says: "When in my distress and confusion I accidentally laid my hand on the heads of these unfortunates, I found that the paroxysm instantly subsided, and that however wild and clamorous they may have been before, the parties so touched generally sunk down as it were into a swoon, or deep sleep, and woke up most commonly restored to sanity, and a sense of propriety." The complete failure of episcopal influence threw the Government back on the help of medical science. Dr. Constans had, since his first visit, published a report, in which he held out hopes of cure if his advice were strictly followed. He was again commissioned to do what he could for Morzine. Armed with the powers of a dictator he returned there, and backed by a fresh detachment of sixty soldiers, a brigade of gendarmes and a fresh curé, he issued despotic decrees, and threatened lunatic asylums, and in any case deportation for the convulsed. He fined any person who accused others of magic, or in any way encouraged the prevalent idea of supernatural evil. He desired the curé to preach sermons against the possibility of demoniacal possession, but this order could not be carried out by even the most obedient priest. The persons affected with fits were dispersed in every direction. Some were sent to asylums and hospitals, and many were simply exiled from Chablais. They were not allowed to revisit except by very special favour. Mr. William Howitt, writing in the London Spiritual Magazine says: "We need not point to the salient facts of our narrative, or discuss Sword, Magical the various theories that have been invented to account for them.
It is impossible not to see the resemblance of the Morzine epidemic with the demonopathy of the sixteenth century, and the history of the Jansenist and Cevennes convulsionnaires. Some of the facts we have related were often observed in the state of hypnotism, or nervous sleep, with which physicians are familiar. The hallucinations of which we have given instances are too common to astonish us. But the likeness of this epidemic to others that have been observed does not account for its symptoms."
Sword, Magical: (See Magic.)