Hors d'Oeuvre

The Perfect Healer

The trial involving Jean Béziat of Avignonet before the Toulouse Court of Appeal is amusing in that it pits healers against doctors. For doctors, the word "healer" is a pejorative term, to be taken in a negative light; a healer is a waster of his profession, who must be punished by law.
Thus, Mr. Arnal, Jean Béziat's defense attorney, erred when, in his closing argument, he attempted to explain his client's case:
"My client is being criticized, not for having healed, but for having healed without a diploma."
It's exactly the opposite. Jean Béziat is being criticized, not precisely for having treated his patients without a diploma, but for having healed them. The medical profession would not have been upset if Jean Béziat had not had the impropriety to perform his miracles." By failing them, he would have contributed to the confusion of healers and the prestige of qualified physicians. Each hearse carrying a victim of Jean Béziat to his final resting place would have been a triumphal chariot for the Faculty; and the doctors of the region would not have dreamed of hindering such a precious demonstration.
Jean Béziat, for his part, does not want to be confused with the doctors and denies having used medical methods. He used only metaphysical procedures. He appeared to be practicing massages; he performed laying-on of hands; he did not address the flesh directly, but the spirit.
Regarding taxes, the Avignonet healer showed himself to be a much more subtle jurist than his lawyer. For he justified his profession from a tax point of view.
"Since last year, I have been taxed by the tax authorities on my profession as a healer." I will therefore be forced, to my great regret, to fall into the trap of doctors and present my clients with bills... If I am sued, I will sue the Minister of Finance, who is imposing on me a profession that the Minister of Justice has forbidden me to practice.
Mr. Caillaux has been warned. And Jean Béziat has demonstrated in his response a very timely sense of current events.
Now, if the profession of healer is justified by budgetary necessities, it is also justified by scientific considerations.
No one dreams of denying magnetism, which is a universal law of attraction, in the realm of inert things as in the animal world.
No one dreams of denying the curative power of certain plants, certain chemical substances, certain fluids. Some essences are beneficial; others are deadly poisons. It is undeniable that some human beings possess within them a gift of suggestion, magnetism, a sedative or irritant power, a natural aptitude to release good or evil, through emanation. Some human beings are remedies, others poisons. If you grant opium the "virtus dormitiva," will you deny the "virtus curativa" to a creature made in the image of God, the source of all grace? To be a healer, one must be gifted. Above all, one must have faith in one's own power. Hoaxers and charlatans are quickly burned. Great sorcerers operate by means of contagion.
To be a miracle worker, one must first be distant. Those who strive for miracles must begin by making a pilgrimage. It is hard to imagine a healer living in Paris; It's hard to see a thermal or miraculous spring in the suburbs... Avignonet and Lourdes are admirably situated.
The Zouave Jacob, Messmer, Cagliostro, and the Curé d'Ars had faith. You have to go very far to reach Jean Béziat or soak your ailment in the supernatural pool. As for Father Soury and Father Hamon, no one has ever seen them: thus, partaking of the divine nature, they derive their power from invisibility and mystery!
On the other hand, this is the season when you can observe a distressing phenomenon: Priests in large numbers go to Vichy to treat their livers.
Doctors in large numbers, doctors who are sick (and it's their turn), are drawn to Lourdes, also by their faith.
They are bad doctors and unbelieving priests, who have no confidence in their own specialty.

G. de la Fouchardière.