Parapsychology and spirituality in the Chile of the 20th century

By Sergio Salinas Canas

The interesting thing is that the people who gave him these qualifications were outstanding professionals, doctors, engineers, lawyers, whose work was based on positivism, on that philosophical theory that considers that the only means of knowledge is proven or verified experience through the senses.

The family of Jaime Galte narrated that the date and time of his departure were known to him. In this sense, the Venezuelan engineer, Carlos Morawho was secretary of the Chilean Society of Parapsychologytold me -in an interview- that “when he still didn’t feel any discomfort, the doctor halfanne, one of spirit that was incarnated in him, made him a diagnosis without possible prescription. And although he kept his incurable cancer a secret, he announced the outcome shortly before it happened. When the date arrived, he said: today is the day. Before passing away, Jaime Galté whispered to his daughter Sonya: “The appointed time is drawing near. The masters prepare the way for this spiritual being who has been able to fulfill your sublime mission in this world of forms with love and charity, leaving a trail of faith and hope. And just as after the storm the horizon opens up and lets us see the resplendent sun, so this body will free its spirit to see the Divine Light”.

An authorless text uploaded to the web in 2010 describes what the meetings were like that would mark the history of parapsychology in Chili. It was the first time that the way in which the lawyer and academic Jaime Galté Carré channeled him was made public. The text states that:

“While the world was devastated by convulsive times of the post war, in Chile, in the house of the medium, in Avenida The marinecommune of San Miguela Martinist group met (Christian initiation order related to the Rosicrucian Order) seeking spiritual growth. The attendees waited expectantly for Galté to fall into a trance, knowing in advance that what they would hear would exceed his capacity for amazement. Soon, Galté fell into a deep trance, a whispering, melodic voice with a marked English accent broke into the silent and magical atmosphere and, ready to address any topic, he asked the attendees what topic worried them today. It was Lowe, as that character called himself, emphasizing that the name did not matter; the answers were clear, simple, loaded with a wealth of extraterrestrial wisdom: issues as complex as the concept of sin were elucidated with the clarity and illumination typical of an enlightened person. Without dogma and without prejudice of any kind, he led the listeners towards a pragmatic revelation, eloquent and impossible not to be overwhelmed by the wisdom of its content. In the distance, an old tape recorder General ElectricI recorded the entire session. Later, the content would be listened to and transcribed to edit it in two books that we keep as a treasure… on the threshold Y before the threshold”.

A first conclusion, the development of scientific parapsychology in Chile during the 20th century was directly related to the extrasensory faculties possessed by the Chilean lawyer and academic, Jaime Galté, and his channelings that, in addition to incorporation mediumship or psychophony, also contemplated the automatic writing of the spirit of doctor Halfanne, deceased in bolivia in 1906. Between both types of canalizations, 300 were registered by means of typewriter sheets and, as of the fifties, 17 of them, by means of mediumship technology, on magnetic tapes. There are also photographic records of 30 of the recipes obtained by automatic writing.

The connection with spirits had begun in Chile with the help of spiritism a few years earlier. In 1862 a Castilian translation of a work by Allan Kardec in the city of Chillan (central-southern zone of Chile). And, ten years later, in 1873, the first spiritist center was inaugurated in Santiago From Chile. The Spiritism had acquired a public presence as a reaction to the dominant relations of power in the conservative Chilean society. Among the participants in these groups there were prominent intellectuals of liberal affiliation and workers from the saltpeter pampas with anarchist credentials.

Spiritism was presented as a middle way between religion and science; Spiritism boasts of preserving the virtues of both without suffering from any of their vices: neither fanaticism nor materialism, two forms of epistemological sectarianism that, differences aside, claim for themselves the monopoly of truth, violating the consciences of contemporaries.

The first known medium was Jacinto Chacon Barrios (naval hero’s uncle Arturo Prat Chacon), who created, in 1875, the spiritualist society of Valparaiso with his other nephew, Richard. The spiritualism that Arturo and carmel shared with Jacinto Chacón, his wife Rosario Orrego, Edward of the Bar and other Buenos Aires personalities, formed a circle, whose mediums were Doña Rosa Orrego and Don Jacinto Chacón. They practiced automatic writing and in the dark received messages from the dead in this way.

Spiritist groups continued to develop in Chile until the beginning of the 20th century, when they began to decline and give way to other philosophical and initiation schools. It is in this context that the first manifestation of Jaime Galté’s paranormal powers occurs, a premonitory dream, which an 18-year-old boy had; It was May 23, 1921.

writer and diplomat Michael Serrano He maintains in one of his books that Jaime Galté told him: “From that moment my life changed definitively. I continued studying, until I graduated as a lawyer, but I already had one foot in the other world. It was thus that one day, while visiting a friend’s house, after dinner, they confided in me their concern for their youngest daughter; she had acquired a skin disease, which they could not cure, because the doctors were not right with a medicine. The family doctor, who had known the girl since she was little, had just died. They believed that he could have healed her and, knowing of my mediumistic experience, they begged me to try to communicate with the doctor so that he could give us a prescription. I agreed. And this was my second experience in the ‘beyond’. However, I was unable to contact the doctor. They revealed to me that he was not authorized to be contacted; but that there was another doctor, Belgian or German, who died at the beginning of the century in Bolivia, whose mission was to continue working on the land” (it was Dr. Erick Halfanne).

In a tape dated July 19, 1953, the spirit of Master Lowe refers to the pyramids of Egypt affirming that they hide a great spiritual secret. In channeling it is argued that its construction has an exoteric and an esoteric explanation. The first refers to remembering the memory of a pharaoh, manifesting it as his tomb. And the second refers to a series or school of symbols that would have been left to the priestly caste of initiates. Consequently, the pyramids constitute an encyclopedia of this knowledge accessible exclusively to those who possess the necessary keys to decipher it.

The mystery of them would correspond to using the corresponding keys to decipher all the symbols they contain. And in this way reach the knowledge that the initiates possessed at this time. Evidently, the Egyptian initiation was graduated for the initiates. In this case, it would be necessary to know how to start reading if all the keys were known to know how to start reading (…) But in addition to this, dear brothers, the pyramids have another mystery that is not easy for current generations to decipher. And it is that now they are acting and meeting in the initiation, exclusively spiritualist, the old initiates, disembodied, with the old ones, currently incarnated. And this advance of them, constitutes at present an impenetrable mystery.

According to a colleague from the chair of procedural law and the Comptroller General of the Republica famous Spanish doctor –Gregory Maranon– came to Chile especially to find out about these abilities and faculties of Jaime Galté and wanted to take him to Spain to do a study. The attempt would have failed due to the outbreak of the civil war (1936). In a press article it is argued that the discovery made by Galté (and the spirit of Dr. Halfanne) in a patient with a serious kidney condition that no one suspected, was known in Spain by Marañon, who would have expressed “his admiration in writing, clarifying that at first he had believed that it was the work of a prestigious Chilean colleague”. It is also mentioned that it was requested by international universities and research centers, such as the Society for Psychical Research in London (London Society for Psychical Research), but with the arrival of the Second World War it was not possible to make a trip to England.

Fifty-seven years after his departure, a new biography of Jaime Galté is soon to appear in which both his abilities as a medium and his messages as a spiritual teacher are developed, which I have titled: Jaime Galté: The good beetle. Parapsychology and spirituality in the Chile of the 20th century.

By Sergio Salinas Canas

Biographer of Jaime Galte

Column originally published on October 31, 2022 in The Thinker.