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The Life of a Sensitive – Madame Michael Bouissou

At last during the war years I had the opportunity of working regularly with several doctors.

Before telling of certain experiences and of the way in which I worked, I want to make this quite clear: these doctors, no more than Dr. E- had done in the old days, never let themselves be influenced by my gift in giving their diagnosis. Quite the contrary. When they had an interesting case they noted as usual the symptoms and the information given by the sick person and then on some excuse gave him a sheet of blank paper, asking him to write on it, for example, some piece of information about his disease. This sheet was immediately slipped into a sealed envelope and marked number 1.

The sheet which the doctor had written on for his own purposes was also put in an envelope, sealed and numbered number 2.

When he considered he had a sufficient number of these cases (never less than three and never more than seven) the doctor came to me and held out in a fan the numbered envelopes without knowing which one I drew. I opened the envelope, took the sheet of paper in my left hand and carried out my reading. When this was finished the doctor checked the number on the envelope, opened the corresponding number and then studied his own notes, comparing my results with his diagnosis. In this way medical secrecy was observed. I never read the name or address on the sheet of paper. When writing, the sick people had impregnated this blank sheet with ‘fluid’ and that was all that was necessary. Thought-transmission was not possible since the doctor did not know which envelope I had taken from the ones he had handed me. Sometimes, when it was a question of members of their family, they gave me a photo instead of a sheet of paper.

Carried out in these conditions, calmly and without check, the invalid being absent, these experiments fascinated me and I knew that they were of the greatest interest to the doctors. They were enabled at their leisure to study a supernormal faculty, the results obtained and the way in which they were obtained. Here, too, as at the Cercle Hemera, they regretted not being able to verify whether this work brought about any physiological changes in the medium- acceleration or slowing down of the blood circulation, muscular tension, difficulty, for example, in accomplishing certain movements.

Although I could never permit a medical examination, however cursory (the least contact, as I have already mentioned, interrupted the flow), I tried at their request to examine myself during my work.

Except for a great susceptibility to cold, noise and even to smells, I could discover nothing in the state of trance that differed from my normal balance. I noticed one curious detail. As I am very short-sighted I wear glasses, but as soon as I started to work I took them off and this was the case from the very first day. To sum it up, one no longer needed to "see" to have a vision. No explanation can be found for this fact.