The Essence of Islam – Volume III — Page 222
222 Essence of Islam-III exercises. . . . It has been conclusively established that, un- der Divine direction, Messiah, son of Mary, was an ex- pert in mesmerism, like the Prophet Isaiah, though he was not as great an expert as the latter, because even the bones of Isaiah performed the miracle that when they were brought into contact with a corpse, it came back to life; but the corpses of the two thieves who were nailed to the cross at the same time with Jesus were not revived through contact with his body. In any case, these mes- meric activities of Jesus were in accord with the thinking of his age for a special purpose. It should, however, be kept in mind that mesmerism is not worthy of such ap- preciation as the common people imagine. Had I not looked upon it with contempt and disgust, I could, by the grace of God Almighty and with His support, have per- formed the same wonders as were performed by Jesus. But I prefer the spiritual method that was followed by the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him. ) Jesus had adopted this method under Divine direc- tion in view of the earthy and low thinking of the Jews, which had become their second nature. In truth he was not fond of this method. One evil characteristic of this physical practice is that a person who continues to employ his emotional and intel- lectual faculties to heal physical maladies suffers a seri- ous decline of the spiritual capacities, which heal spiritual ills through their influence, and is not able to achieve any remarkable success in illumining and purify- ing souls. That is why Jesus, who healed those afflicted with physical ailments with this method, was not able to achieve any noticeable success in impressing hearts with guidance and the Unity of God and steadfastness of faith. But the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be