MIND AND BODY/PART 5
CHAPTER V
THE HISTORY OF
PSYCHO-THERAPY
One of the most remarkable achievements
of the New Psychology is that of gathering up the scattered instances of the
effect of the power of the mind over the body, under the various masks and
guises worn during the ages, and uniting them in one broad and general
synthesis in which is to be seen the one fundamental principle of Mental
Healing operating under a thousand names, forms and theories, in every race,
nation and clime in all ages past and present. The New Psychology is the great
reconciler of the various theories, dogmas and speculations concerned with the
subject of the strange cures effected by the mind, as well as with the equally
strange adverse effect upon the physical organism of negative thoughts.
From the earliest days of
history we find records of strange and marvelous cures effected by non-material
agents. In some cases the effect is attributed to magical power, while in
others, and the majority of cases, the cure is attributed to some particular
religious belief, creed or ceremony. Not only in the folk-lore of the several
races, and in their general traditions, but also in the written and graven
record do we find traces of the universality of the principle of mental
therapeutics.
H. Addington Bruce says:
“Psychotherapy might well be cited in support of the old adage that there is
nothing new but what has been forgotten. Traces of it are to be found almost as
far back as authentic history extends, and even allusion to methods which bear
a strong resemblance to those of modern times. The literature and monumental
remains of ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, Persia, India and China reveal a
widespread knowledge of hypnotism and its therapeutic value. There is in the
British Museum a bas-relief from Thebes which has been interpreted as
representing a physician hypnotizing a patient by making ‘passes’ over him.
According to the Ebers papyrus, the ‘laying on of hands’ formed a
prominent feature of Egyptian medical practice as early as 1552 B. C., or
nearly thirty-five hundred years ago; and it is known that a similar mode of
treatment was employed by priests of Chaldea in ministering to the sick. So,
also, the priests of the famous Temples of Health are credited with having
worked numerous cures by the mere touch of the hands. In connection with these
same Temples of Health were sleeping chambers, repose in which was supposed to
be exceptionally beneficial. Asclepiades of Bithynia, who won considerable fame
at Rome as a physician, systematically made use of the ‘induced trance’ in the
treatment of certain diseases. Plautus, Martial, and Seneca refer in their
writings to some mysterious process of manipulation which had the same
effect—that is, of putting persons into an artificial sleep. And Solon sang,
apparently, of some form of mesmeric cure:
“‘The smallest hurts sometimes
increase and rage
More than all art of
physic can assuage;
Sometimes the fury of
the worst disease
The hand by gentle
stroking, will appease.’
“Many other instances might
be mentioned testifying to the remarkable extent to which psycho-therapy, in
one form or another, was utilized in the countries of the ancient world. This,
of course, does not necessarily imply that the ancients had any real understanding
of the psychological and physiological principles governing its operation. On
the contrary, there is every reason to believe that they used it much as do too
many of the mental healers of to-day—on the basis of ‘faith cure’ pure and
simple, with no attempt at diagnosis, and in a hit-or-miss fashion. It was not
until the very end of the Middle Ages, so far as history informs us, that
anything even remotely resembling a scientific inquiry into its nature and
possibilities was undertaken, and then only in a faint, vague, indefinite way,
by men who were metaphysicians and mystics rather than scientists. The first of
these, Petrys Pomponatius, a sixteenth-century philosopher, sought to prove
that disease was curable without drugs, by means of the ‘magnetism’ existing in
certain specially gifted individuals. ‘When those who are endowed with this
faculty,’ he affirmed, ‘operate by employing the force of the imagination and
the will, this force affects their blood and their spirits, which produce the
intended effects by means of an evaporation thrown outwards.’ Following
Pomponatius, John Baptist von Helmont, to whom medical science owes a great
deal, also proclaimed the curative virtue of magnetism, which he described as
an invisible fluid called forth and directed by the influence of the human
will. Other writers, notably Sir Kenelm Digby, laid stress on the power of the
imagination as an agent in the cause as well as the cure of disease, compiling
in a curious little treatise published in 1658, as interesting a collection of
illustrative cases as is contained in the literature of modern psycho-therapy.”
In the Middle Ages, we read
that there were many instances of miraculous cures effected at the various
shrines of the saints, and in the churches in which were exhibited the bones
and other relics of the holy people of church history. As Dr. George R. Patton
says: “A word scrawled upon parchment, for instance, would cure fevers;
an hexameter from the Iliad of Homer cured gout, while rheumatism succumbed
to a verse from Lamentations. These could be multiplied, and undoubtedly all
were equally potent of cure in like manner.... At one time holy wells were to
be found in almost every parish of Ireland, to which wearisome journeys were
made for the miraculous powers of cure. It was the custom of the cured to hang
upon the bushes contiguous to the springs small fragments of their clothing, or
a cane, or a crutch as a memento of cure, so that from afar the springs could
be easily located by the many colored fragments of clothing, rags, canes and
crutches swayed upon the branches by the wind. Inasmuch as the bushes for many
rods around were thus adorned, the cures must have been far from few.”
In the Middle Ages it was
the custom of persons afflicted with scrofula and kindred disorders to come
before the king upon certain days to receive the “Royal Touch,” or
laying-on-of-hands which was held to be an infallible specific for the disease.
The custom was instituted by Edward the Confessor, and continued until the
accession to power of the house of Brunswick. It is a matter of history that
many persons were cured by the touch of the king’s hands. Wiseman, a celebrated
surgeon and physician of old London testifies as follows: “I myself have been
an eye-witness of many thousands of cures performed by his majesty’s touch
alone, without any assistance of medicine or surgery, and those, many of them,
such as had tired out the endeavors of able surgeons before they came
hither.... I must needs profess that what I write will little more than show
the weakness of our ability when compared with his majesty’s, who cureth more
in one year than all the surgeons of London have done in an age.” The virtue of
the “King’s Touch” was finally brought in doubt by the wonderful successes of a
man by the name of Valentine Greatrakes, who in the Seventeenth Century began
“laying on hands” and made even more wonderful cures than those of the king. So
marked was his success that the government had difficulty in suppressing
the growing conviction among the common people that Greatrakes must be of
royal blood, and the rightful heir to the throne, because of the great healing
virtues of his hands, which, they argued, could be possessed only by those
having royal blood in their veins. The Chirurgical Society of London
investigated Greatrakes’ cures, and rendered an opinion that he healed by
virtue of “some mysterious sanative contagion in his body.”
But perhaps the most
notable figure in the European history of Mental Healing was Franz Anton
Mesmer, a native of Switzerland, who was born in 1734, and who later in the
century created the greatest excitement in several European countries by his
strange theories and miraculous claims. Frank Podmore in a recent work says of
Mesmer: “He had no pretensions to be a thinker; he stole his philosophy
ready-made from a few belated alchemists; and his entire system of healing was
based on a delusion. His extraordinary success was due to the lucky accident of
the times. Mesmer’s first claim to our remembrance lies in this—that he wrested
the privilege of healing from the churches and gave it to mankind as a
universal possession.”
Mesmer held that there was
in Nature a universal magnetic force which had a powerful therapeutic effect
when properly applied. He cured many people by touching them with an iron rod,
through which he claimed the universal magnetism flowed from his body to that
of the patient. He called this magnetic fluid “animal magnetism.” Later on he
devised his celebrated “magnetic tub” or baquet, by means of which
he was able to treat his patients en masse. Podmore gives the
following interesting account of scenes surrounding his treatments:
“The baquet was a large
oaken tub, four or five feet in diameter and a foot or more in depth, closed by
a wooden cover. Inside the tub were placed bottles full of water disposed in
rows radiating from the center, the necks in some of the rows pointing towards
the center, in others away from it. All these bottles had been previously
‘magnetized’ by Mesmer. Sometimes there were several rows of bottles, one above
the other; the machine was then said to be at high pressure. The bottles
rested on layers of powdered glass and iron filings. The tub itself was filled
with water. The whole machine, it will be seen, was a kind of travesty of the
galvanic cell. To carry out the resemblance, the cover of the tub was pierced
with holes, through which passed slender iron rods of varying lengths, which
were jointed and movable, so that they could be readily applied to any part of
the patient’s body. Round this battery the patients were seated in a circle,
each with his iron rod. Further, a cord, attached at one end to the tub, was
passed round the body of each of the sitters, so as to bind them all into a
chain. Outside the first a second circle would frequently be formed, who would
connect themselves together by holding hands. Mesmer, in a lilac robe, and his
assistant operators—vigorous and handsome young men selected for the
purpose—walked about the room, pointing their fingers or an iron rod held in
their hands at the diseased parts.”
Mesmer made many wonderful
cures, and attracted wide attention. In 1781 the king of France offered
him a pension of thirty thousand livres if he would make public his secret. The
offer was refused, but he gave private instruction and opened a school. He had
many pupils and followers, prominent among whom was the Marquis de Puysegur,
who made discoveries resulting in the identification of Mesmerism with the
“trance condition” now commonly associated with the term, whereas originally
Mesmerism included simply the healing process. Mesmer’s methods continued
popular for many years after his death, until Braid’s work resulted in the
founding of the modern school of Hypnotism, and Mesmerism died out.
The Abbe Faria, about 1815,
after investigating Mesmerism and attracting much attention, discarded the
“fluidic” theory of Mesmer, and held, instead, that in order to induce the
mesmeric state and to produce the phenomena thereof, it was necessary merely to
create a mental state of “expectant attention” on the part of the patient. The
cause of the state and the phenomena, he held, was not in the operator but in
the mind of the patient—purely subjective, in fact. Alexander Bertrand, a
Frenchman, published a work about this time, holding theories similar to those
of Faria. In 1841 James Braid, an English physician, becoming interested in
Mesmerism, discovered that the mesmeric state might be artificially induced by
staring at bright objects until the eyes became fatigued, etc., and, later,
that any method whereby concentration and “expectant attention” might be
induced would produce the phenomenon. He duplicated all the feats of the
mesmerists, including the healing of diseases. He called his new system
“Hypnotism” to distinguish it from Mesmerism, and under its new name it gained
favor among the medical fraternity. Moreover, in connection with his
predecessors, Faria and Bertrand, he laid the basis for the modern theories of
Suggestive Therapeutics.
Shortly after Braid’s
death, in 1860, Dr. A. A. Liebault, a French physician, established his since
famous School of Nancy, in which during the after years the later wonderful
discoveries in Suggestive Therapeutics were made. He used the methods
of hypnotism, but Suggestion was ever the operative principle recognized
and applied. Liebault said: “It is all a matter of Suggestion. My patients
are suggested to sleep, and their ills are suggested out
of them. It is very simple, once you understand the laws of Suggestion.” Dr.
Charcot, in his celebrated clinic in the Salpetriere, in Paris, did great work
along the same general lines, although proceeding under somewhat different
theories. Following the example of these and other eminent authorities, the
medical fraternity has gradually adopted many of the ideas of Suggestive
Therapeutics, and to-day many of the best medical schools throughout this
country and Europe give instruction in this branch of healing. Many books have
been written on the subject by eminent medical authorities, and the indications
are that during the present century Suggestive Therapeutics, in its various
forms, will come even more prominently into popular favor, and that it will be
developed far beyond its present limits. Experimental work along these lines is
now being conducted in many psychological laboratories in our great
universities.
At the same time, as we
shall now see, Mental Healing has been attracting much attention along other
lines, outside of the medical profession, and often allied with religious and
metaphysical movements. To understand the subject, we must study it in all of
its phases.
In the early part of the
nineteenth century Elijah Perkins, an ignorant blacksmith living in Connecticut
conceived a queer idea of curing disease by means of a peculiar pair of tongs
manufactured by himself, one prong being of brass and the other of steel. These
tongs were called “tractors,” and were applied to the body of the patient in
the region affected by disease, the body being stroked in a downward direction
for a period of about ten minutes. The tractors were used to treat all manner
of complaints, ailments and diseases, internal and external, with a wonderful
degree of success. Almost miraculous cures of all manner of complaints were
reported, and people flocked to Perkins from far and near in order to receive
the benefit of his wonderful treatments.
Soon this system of healing
came to be called “Perkinsism,” as a tribute to the inventor. The popularity of
the system spread rapidly in the United States, particularly in New England,
every city and many towns patronizing Perkins’ practitioners and healers. From
this country the craze spread to Great Britain, and even to the Continent.
Centers of treatment, and even hospitals, were established by the
“Perkinsites,” and the fame of the tractors increased daily in ever widening
circles. In Europe alone it is reported that over 1,500,000 cures were
performed, and the medical fraternity were at their wit’s ends to explain the
phenomenon. Finally, Dr. Haygarth, of London, conceived the idea that the real
virtue of the cures was vested in the minds, belief and imagination of the
patients rather than in the tractors, and that the cures were the result of the
induced mental states of the patients instead of by the metallic qualities of
the apparatus. He determined to investigate the matter under this hypothesis,
and accordingly constructed a pair of tractors of wood, painted to
resemble the genuine ones. The following account by Bostock describes the
result: “He accordingly formed pieces of wood into the shape of tractors and
with much assumed pomp and ceremony applied them to a number of sick persons
who had been previously prepared to expect something extraordinary. The effects
were found to be astonishing. Obstinate pains in the limbs were suddenly cured;
joints that had long been immovable were restored to motion, and, in short,
except the renewal of lost parts or the change in mechanical structure, nothing
seemed beyond their power to accomplish.” The exposure of this experiment, and
the general acceptance of the explanation of the phenomena, caused “Perkinsism”
to die out rapidly, and at the present time it is heard of only in connection
with the history of medicine and in the pages of works devoted to the subject
of the effect of the mind over the body.
The success of “Perkinsism”
is but a typical instance which is duplicated every twenty years or so by the
rapid rise, spread and then rapid decline of some new “craze” in healing,
all of which, when investigated are seen to be but new examples of the power of
the mental states of faith and imagination upon the physical organism. The
well-known “blue glass” craze of about thirty-five years ago gives us another
interesting example. General Pleasanton, a well-known and prominent citizen of
Philadelphia, announced his discovery that the rays of the sun passing through
the medium of blue glass possessed a wonderful therapeutic value. The idea
fired the public imagination at once, and the General’s book met with a large
sale. Everyone, seemingly, began to experiment with the blue glass rays.
Windows were fitted with blue glass panes, and the patients sat so that the
sun’s rays might fall upon them after passing through the blue panes. Wonderful
cures were reported from all directions, the results of “Perkinsism” being
duplicated in almost every detail. Even cripples reported cures, and many
chronic and “incurable” cases were healed almost instantaneously. Bedridden
people threw aside their blankets and walked again, after a brief treatment.
The interest developed into a veritable “craze,” and the glass factories were
operated overtime in order to meet the overwhelming demand for blue glass, the
price of which rapidly advanced to fifty cents and even a dollar for a small
pane, because of the scarcity. It was freely predicted that the days of
physicians were over, and that the blue glass was the long-sought-for panacea
for all human ills. Suddenly, however, and from no apparent cause, the interest
in the matter dropped, and now all that is left of the blue glass craze is the
occasional sight of an old blue pane in some window, the owner of which
evidently felt disinclined to pay the price of replacing it with a clear pane.
Only a few days ago, in an old-fashioned quarter of a large city, the writer
saw several panes of the old blue glass in the frame of the window of an old
house which had seen better days but which was now used as a cheap tenement
house.
The history of medicine is
filled with records of similar “crazes” following the announcement of some new
method of “cure.” The striking peculiarity of these cures is that they all
occur during the height of the excitement and notoriety of the early days of
the announcement, while they decline in proportion to the decline in
public faith and interest, the explanation being that in every instance the
cure is effected by the action of the mental states of expectancy, faith, and
the imagination of the patient, irrespective of any virtue in the method or
system itself. In short, all these cures belong to the category of
faith-cures—they are merely duplicates of the world-old cures resulting
from faith in sacred relics, shrines, bones of holy people, sacred places,
etc., of which nearly every religion has given us many examples. The history of
medicine gives us many instances of the efficacy of the therapeutic power of
Faith.
Sir Humphrey Davy relates a
case in which a man seriously ill manifested immediate improvement after the
placing of a clinical thermometer in his mouth, he supposing that it was some
new and powerful healing instrument. The grotesque remedies of the ancient
physicians, and the bizarre decoctions of the quacks of the
present, all work cures. The “bread-pills” and other placebos of the “regulars”
have cured many a case when other remedies have failed.
It is related that several
hundred years ago, a young English law-student while on a lark with several of
his boon companions found themselves in a rural inn, without money with which
to pay their reckoning. Finally, after much thought, the young man called the
inn-keeper and told him that he, the student, was a great physician, and that
he would prepare for him a magic amulet which would cure all diseases, in
return for the receipted account of himself and friends. The landlord gladly consented,
and the young man wrote some gibberish on a bit of parchment, which together
with sundry articles of rubbish he inserted in a silk cover. With a wise and
dignified air he then departed. Many years rolled by, and the young man rose to
the position of a High Justice of the realm. One day before him was brought a
woman accused of magic and witchcraft. The evidence showed that she had
cured many people by applying to their bodies a little magic amulet, which the
church authorities considered to be the work of the devil. The woman, on the
stand, admitted the use of the amulet and the many cures resulting therefrom,
but defended herself by saying that the instrument of cure had been given to
her father, now deceased, many years ago, by a great physician who had stopped
at her father’s inn. She held that the cures were genuine medical cures
resulting from the medicinal virtues of the amulet, and not the result of magic
or witchcraft. The Justice asked to be handed the wonderful amulet. Ripping it
open with his pen-knife, he found enclosed the identical scrawl inserted by
himself many years before. He announced the circumstances from the bench, and
discharged the woman—but the healing virtues of the amulet had disappeared,
never to return. The cures were the result of the faith and imagination of the
patients.
The modern instances of the
several great “Divine Healers,” such as John Alexander Dowie of Chicago, and
Francis Schlatter of Denver, give us additional evidence of the efficacy
of Faith as a therapeutic agent. John Alexander Dowie, a Scotch preacher, came
to America some twenty years ago, and instituted a new religion in which
healing was an important feature. He claimed that all disease was the result of
the devil, and that belief in God and the prayers of Dowie and his assistants
would work the cure of the devil’s evil operations. Great numbers flocked to
Dowie’s standard, and thousands of wonderful cures were reported. His
“Tabernacle” was filled with testimonials and trophies from cured people. Back
of Dowie’s pulpit were displayed many crutches, plaster-casts, braces, and
other spoils wrested from the devil by Dowie and his aids. His experience
meetings were thronged with persons willing and anxious to testify that whereas
they had been afflicted they were now whole again. Dowie succeeded in building
up a great following all over the world, and had he not overreached himself and
allowed his colossal vanity to overshadow his original ideas, the probability
is that he would have founded a church which would have endured for
centuries. As it is, he was discredited and disowned by his followers, and his
church is now but little more than a memory.
Francis Schlatter, the
German shoemaker of Denver, with his Divine Healing, was a well known figure in
the west several years ago. He was undoubtedly a half-insane fanatic, believing
himself inspired by God to heal the nations. Persons flocked to him from afar,
and he is reported to have healed thousands, many of whom were suffering from
serious ailments. He afterward disappeared, and is believed to have died in the
desert of the far west. Students of Mental Suggestion and Psychic Therapeutics
find in the instances of Dowie and Schlatter merely the same underlying
principle of Mental Healing resulting from faith, which is operative in all of
the other cases mentioned. The theology, creed, theories of methods have but
little to do with the cures, so long as the proper degree of faith is induced
in the mind of the patient. Faith in anything will work cures,
providing it is sufficiently intense and active.
Another branch of Mental
Healing is seen in the modern schools of the “New Thought,” “Mental Science,”
“Christian Science,” and the “Emmanuel Movement.” The authorities generally
agree upon tracing the rise of these several schools to the general interest in
the subject manifested in the United States and Great Britain about the middle
of the last century. Some of the authorities believe that this general interest
was induced largely by the teachings of Charles Poyen, a Frenchman who came
from France to New England about 1835, bringing with him the French teachings
and theories regarding mesmerism and the phenomena allied thereto. Poyen’s
teachings attracted marked interest and attention, and he soon had a host of
followers, students and imitators. Teachers of the “new science” sprang up on
all sides. Many theories were evolved and actively supported by the adherents
of the several prominent teachers. The rise of interest in phrenology and the
dawning interest in spiritualism aided the spread of the new teachings
regarding mesmerism, clairvoyance, psychic healing, etc., and the pages of
many magazines and books published about that time show that a public taste had
been created for the strange and mysterious.
Dr. J. S. Grimes, a
physician interested in phrenology, taught that the phenomena were due to the
action of a strange atmospheric force which he called “etherium.” Rev. J. Bovee
Dods evolved a theory based upon the supposed existence of an electrical
principle, and called his system “Electro-Biology,” by means of which he
attracted to himself a large following. Dods wrote several large books on the
subject, and traveled on lecture tours in this country and Great Britain,
arousing great enthusiasm and making many cures. Rev. Leroy Sunderland
expounded the doctrine of “patheism,” in which he combined a strange mixture of
mysticism and what has since been called “suggestion,” to which he afterward
added the current teachings of spiritualism after his conversion to that philosophy.
It would seem that credit should be given Sunderland for his early announcement
of the principle of suggestion, for he said: “When a relation is once
established between an operator and his patient, corresponding changes may be
induced in the nervous system of the latter by mere volition, and by
suggestions addressed to either of the external senses.” The decade,
1840-1850 witnessed a remarkable interest in psychic phenomena of all kinds,
and during that time there was undoubtedly laid the foundations upon which the
later structures have since been erected. Any one reading the short stories of
Poe, and other writers of that period, may readily see the state of public
interest in these subjects at that time.
The authorities generally
agree that in Phineas Parkhurst Quimby we have the direct connecting link
between the period just mentioned and the present. Quimby played quite an
important role in the evolution of the modern conceptions of mental healing, or
psycho-therapy as it is now called. He was a poor clockmaker, of quite limited
means, of good character and a strong personality. His education is said to
have been limited, but he made up for his lack in this respect by his naturally
keen and inquiring mind. In 1838 one of the teachers of mesmerism visited
his home in Belfast, Maine, and Quimby attended the seance. He became intensely
interested in what he saw, and in the theories propounded, and began to
experiment on the people in his town, the result being that he soon acquired a
reputation as a powerful mesmerist and a good healer. He followed along the
general lines of the “Electro-Biology” theory for a time, and then evolved
theories of his own. He cured himself and many others by manual treatment, and
was soon kept quite busy in his healing work.
Quimby, thinking deeply
regarding the cures he was making, soon came to the conclusion that while
his cures were genuine, his theories were
wrong. He gradually evolved the idea that diseases are caused by erroneous
thinking, and that his cures resulted from changing these wrong mental states
for those based upon true conceptions. He held that all that is required to
effect a cure is to bring about “a change of thought.” Following upon this new
conception, he ceased mesmerizing his patients, and began to treat them by
simply sitting by the side of the afflicted person, picturing him as well and
whole, and impressing upon the patient’s mind that he is well and whole, in
Truth. From this fundamental idea he gradually evolved a philosophy which
has strongly influenced that of later schools. Quimby talked much regarding his
great “discovery,” as he called it, and built great hopes upon establishing
“the science of health and happiness.” He began to speak of the “Truth” in his
“science,” which he held to be identical with that taught by Christ, and by
means of which Jesus performed his miraculous cures. Before he had firmly
established his “science,” however, he died, leaving his work to be carried on
by others, notably by Dr. Warren F. Evans, and Julius A. Dresser, to whom
should be given the credit for launching what is now known as “the New Thought
Movement.”
Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy,
who afterward established “Christian Science” was one of Quimby’s patients and
students, and Dresser and others have positively stated and claimed that from
him she received her ideas of the philosophy which she afterward developed
into the great “Christian Science” movement. Mrs. Eddy, and her adherents, as
positively deny to Quimby any credit for having inspired Mrs. Eddy’s work. We
merely state the opposing sides of the controversy here, taking no sides in the
matter, the discussion not concerning us in the present consideration.
The success of Evans and
Dresser, and of Mrs. Eddy, in their respective schools and organizations, have
caused many other teachers to come to the front, until at the present time
there are many schools, cults and organizations basing their cures upon the
broad principles of Mental Healing. Mrs. Eddy, and her followers, deny having
anything in common with the other schools, however, holding that the latter are
concerned with “mortal mind” while “Christian Science” alone is based upon
Divine Mind, or Truth. In spite of the conflicting claims and theories, the
fact remains that thousands of persons have been healed of various diseases by
the various schools, cults, and teachings. To the authorities who stand
outside of and apart from these opposing organizations, it seems that all the
cures are based upon the same general principle, i. e., that of the
influence of mental states over physical conditions, and that religious
theories or metaphysical philosophies have nothing whatever to do with the
production of the cures, except in the direction of giving a strong suggestion
to those accepting them. The fact that all the schools make
cures, in about the same proportion, and of the same general classes of
complaints, would seem to show that the theories and dogmas have nothing to do
with the process of cure—and that the healing is done in spite of the
theories, rather than because of them.
The much advertised
“Emmanuel Movement” now so popular in the orthodox churches throughout the
country, is recognized by all the authorities as being nothing more than
suggestion applied in connection with the religious and theological principles
of the churches in question, and, in truth, as applying methods more in favor
by the old school of mesmerists than by the later “New Thought”
practitioners, or by the “Christian Science” healers. From this movement,
however, there will probably evolve a more scientific system, manifesting none
of the crudities which so disfigure its present stage, at least in the hands of
some of its practitioners.
In the following chapter we
may see that the same element of Faith, Belief and Expectancy is manifested in
all the various forms of Mental Healing, by whatever name, or under whatever
theory, the method is applied. In short, that the cures are purely psychological,
rather than metaphysical or religious, in their nature.
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