Faith-healing, Christian Science and Kindred Phenomena/"Christian Science" and "Mind Cure"

by James Monroe Buckley

"CHRISTIAN SCIENCE" AND "MIND CURE"

THIRTY years ago the phrases Christian Science and Mind Cure, in the sense now attached to them, were unknown; to-day in the press, in conversation, in literature, and especially in discussions relating to health and disease, and to the more occult phenomena of human nature, they frequently occur. To many they have no definite meaning, and long conversations are carried on concerning them in which the most diverse views are maintained, ending in confusion and contradiction, because those who converse have not a uniform conception of the signification of the terms. Some declare Christian Science and Mind Cure to be the same; others stoutly deny this, and seek to establish a radical distinction. Some represent Christian Science as a great advance upon ordinary Christianity; others denounce it as but refined Pantheism; while many more brand both Christian Science and Mind Cure as delusion, a reaction from the uncompromising materialism of the age.

Mrs. Mary Baker Glover Eddy, President of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, claims to have been the first to use the phrase "Christian Science."

It was in Massachusetts, in the year 1866. that I discovered the Science of Metaphysical Healing, which I afterwards named Christian Science. The discovery came to pass in this way. During twenty years prior to my discovery I had been trying to trace all physical effects to a mental cause; and in January of 1866 I gained the scientific certainty that all causation was Mind, and every effect a mental phenomenon.

Mrs. Eddy further states that about the year 1862 her health was failing rapidly, and she "employed a distinguished mesmerist, Mr. P. P. Quimby—a sensible, elderly gentleman, with some advanced views about healing.... There were no Metaphysical Healers then. The Science of Mental Healing had not been discovered."

Whether or not Mrs. Eddy is indebted for her ideas to Mr. Quimby has since been the subject of heated discussion; for the short time which has elapsed since the "discovery" has been long enough for the development of several rival schools, which have engendered toward one another as much intensity of feeling as the odium theologicum and odium medicum combined. Speaking of her rivals, Mrs. Eddy modestly observes: "Some silly publications, whose only correct or salient points are borrowed, without credit, from 'Science and Health,' would set the world right on Metaphysical Healing, like children thrumming a piano and pretending to teach music or criticise Mozart."

The history of the discovery is of sufficient importance to be given. "The cowardly claim that I am not the originator of my own writings, but that one P. P. Quimby is, has been legally met and punished.... Mr. Quimby died in 1865, and my first knowledge of Christian Science, or Metaphysical Healing, was gained in 1866.... When he doctored me I was ignorant of the nature of mesmerism, but subsequent knowledge has convinced me that he practiced it." Mrs. Eddy says that after having been for many years a sufferer from chronic diseases, she met with an accident which produced, according to physicians, a fatal injury. They gave her up to die, and declared that she would not live till noon. She replied that she would be well at that time. Her pastor called after service and found her busy about the house. One of her assistants says that "while she knew that she was healed by the direct and gracious exercise of the divine power, she was indisposed to make an old-time miracle of it."

After three years' meditation she concluded that her recovery was in accordance with general spiritual laws, capable of being known and clearly stated. She then began to teach and write; though prior to the expiration of the three years, namely, in 1867, she taught a purely metaphysical system of healing to, as she says, "the very first student who was ever so instructed since the days of the Apostles and the primitive Church." Her essays were circulated among her students privately. In 1870 she copyrighted her first pamphlet, but did not publish it till six years afterward.

In 1876 she organized the Christian Scientist Association, and in 1879, at a meeting of that association, she organized a Church, "a Mind Healing Church, without creeds, called the Church of Christ." To the pastorate of this she accepted a call, and was ordained in Boston, 1881. The college flourishes, the church has an assistant pastor, and Mrs. Eddy receives so much patronage as a teacher as to compel the publication of the following:

The authoress takes no patients, and has no time for medical consultation.

Practitioners, who of course are not obliged to waste much time upon such sordid things as anatomy, physiology, or materia medica, are prepared with, unusual rapidity. The primary class in Christian Science Mind Healing includes twelve lessons. In the first week six of these are given. The term continues only about three weeks, and the charge for tuition is $300. The normal class requires six lectures. Graduates from the primary class are advised to practise at least one year before entering this class, and for these six lectures they must pay $200. There is also a class of Metaphysical Obstetrics which requires only six lectures, for which $100 must be paid. In addition to these there is a class in Theology, including six lectures on the Scriptures, for which $200 must be paid. The largest discount to an indigent student is $100 on the first course. Husbands and wives, if they enter together the primary class, may pay $300; but, entering at different times, must pay the regular price, and must do that for all other courses, payment being made strictly in advance. It is obvious therefore, that the benefits of the Mind Cure cannot be applied to commercial transactions; and that 800 material dollars, exclusive of board, are required to master the Science of Metaphysical Healing,—unless one were to say that national bank notes are merely material symbols of an immaterial and impalpable essence.

Considering the short time that has elapsed since the "discovery," the number of practitioners, as advertised in one of their magazines, is very large. Sixty-six are women, and twenty-nine men; and all but five of the men appear to be associated with their wives in the practice of the profession. There are also Christian Science institutes and colleges advertised: two in New York, four in Chicago, one in Milwaukee, one in Brooklyn, and one in Colorado. The other institutions do not charge so large a sum as Mrs. Eddy. Some of them agree to give sufficient instruction for $25 to justify the would-be practitioner in beginning. Others communicate all they know, with the privilege of meeting for conversation once a month for a year, on payment of $100. They give diplomas, valued according to the standing of the respective schools. Impostors have arisen, so that Mrs. Eddy has notified the public that all persons claiming to have been her pupils, who cannot show diplomas legally certifying to that effect, are preferring false claims.

THEORY

By a careful examination of the works of those who have written upon this subject, including Evans, Grimké, Stuart, Arens, Taylor, Baldwin, Hazzard, Nichols, Marston, etc., and by conversation with Mental Healers, Christian Scientists, and their patients, I have ascertained that most of them concur with Mrs. Eddy in the fundamental principles of the system, and that where they diverge it is upon minor points.

Her hypothesis is that "the only realities are the Divine Mind and its ideas.... That erring mortal views, misnamed mind, produce all the organic and animal action of the mortal body.... Rightly understood, instead of possessing sentient matter, we have sensationless bodies.... Whence came to me this conviction in antagonism to the testimony of the human senses? From the self-evident fact that matter has no sensation; from the common human experience of the falsity of all material things; from the obvious fact that mortal mind is what suffers, feels, sees; since matter cannot suffer."

The method of Mrs. Eddy's reasoning may be seen in the following extracts:

The ineradicable belief that pain is located in a limb which has been removed, when really the sensation is believed to be in the nerves, is an added proof of the unreliability of physical testimony.... Electricity is not a vital fluid, but an element of mortal mind,—the thought-essence that forms the link between what is termed matter and mortal mind. Both are different strata of human belief. The grosser substratum is named matter. The more ethereal is called human mind, which is the nearer counterfeit of the Immortal Mind, and hence the more accountable and sinful belief.... You say, "Toil fatigues me." But what is this you or me? Is it muscle or mind? Which one is tired and so speaks? Without mind, could the muscles be tired? Do the muscles talk, or do you talk for them? Matter is non-intelligent. Mortal mind does the talking, and that which affirms it to be tired first made it so.

Having adopted a theory, she does not shrink from its logical sequences:

You would not say that a wheel is fatigued; and yet, the body is just as material as the wheel. Setting aside what the human mind says of the body, it would never be weary any more than the inanimate wheel. Understanding this great fact rests you more than hours of repose.

Her most frequently repeated assertions are such as these:

God is supreme; is mind; is principle, not person; includes all and is reflected by all that is real and eternal; is Spirit, and Spirit is infinite; is the only substance; is the only life. Man was and is the idea of God; therefore mind can never be in man. Divine Science shows that matter and mortal body are the illusions of human belief, which seem to appear and disappear to mortal sense alone. When this belief changes, as in dreams, the material body changes with it, going wherever we wish, and becoming whatsoever belief may decree. Human mortality proves that error has been engrafted into both the dreams and conclusions of material and mortal humanity. Besiege sickness and death with these principles, and all will disappear.

As these doctrines are unquestionably in substance such as have been held by certain metaphysicians in past ages, Mrs. Eddy feels called upon to answer those who make that charge:

Those who formerly sneered at it as foolish and eccentric now declare Bishop Berkeley, David Hume, Ralph Waldo Emerson, certain German philosophers, or some unlearned mesmerist, to have been the real originators of Mind Healing. Emerson's ethics are models of their kind; but even that good man and genial philosopher partially lost his mental faculties before his death, showing that he did not understand the Science of Mind Healing, as elaborated in my "Science and Health"; nor did he pretend to do so.

Sickness, then, is a dream of falsity, to be antagonized by the metaphysical healer, mentally, and audibly when it may be necessary.

Mrs. Eddy's theories are her religion, and her Science—so called—is based upon the religious principles which she holds.

One of Mrs. Eddy's former students, named Arens, for whom she entertains a strong spiritual antipathy, has published a volume called "Old Theology in its Application to the Healing of the Sick." In the introduction he writes:

It will be unnecessary to ask the reader for charitable criticism when I say that I make no claims to being a ripe scholar, and that my knowledge of the English language is very imperfect. The truths set forth in this volume have been expressed as clearly as possible, considering the disadvantages under which I have labored, one of which is the poverty of words in the English language to express spiritual thoughts. It has been found necessary to employ close punctuation, and in some instances to disregard some rules of grammar and rhetoric, in order to give the requisite shade of thought.

The mental difficulty in understanding him arises from his incompetency as a writer. His reflection upon the poverty of the English language is another form of confessing his ignorance of it; and his disregard of the rules of grammar and rhetoric does not result from his difficulty in giving shades of thought, but from his lack of knowledge of the language. Mrs. Eddy thus described him in 1883:

When he entered the class of my husband, the late Asa G. Eddy, in 1879, he had no knowledge whatever, and claimed none, as can be shown under his own signature, of Metaphysics or Christian Science.... While teaching him my system of Mental Healing, his motives and aims and the general constitution of his mind were found so remote from the requirements of Christian Science, that his teacher despaired of imparting to him a due understanding of the subject. Perhaps it was to meet this great want without remedying it, and cover his lack of learning, that he committed to memory many paragraphs from my works, and is in the habit of repeating them in his attempts to lecture. He, who now proclaims himself a professor in the solemn department that he assumes as a jay in borrowed plumes, was the most ignorant and empty-minded scholar I ever remember of examining.

That his earlier work consists largely of passages taken from Mrs. Eddy's writings, and that it is as a whole in every respect inferior to them, is the simple statement of a fact. He has, however, acquired considerable reputation, and has a constituency. Before advancing the fundamental principles of his system, he attempts to show the inconsistencies of medical science in the following passage:

Materia medica teaches that mercury cures, also that mercury kills; that ipecac causes vomiting, and that an overdose checks it, etc.; these are contradictions in themselves. A rule that can be contradicted is not demonstrable, and therefore not truth. If one and one made two only occasionally, and at other times made three or more, it would be no fact or rule, because not demonstrable, and no dependence could be placed upon it. If from a science (truth) it is found that mercury cures, it would be found that the more of that so-called necessary quality taken into the system, the better it would be for the patient; such would be the result from a perfect rule or from truth.

Here is an example of his style:

Suppose I should be walking past a house, and a pane of glass should fall from an upper window cutting me and causing my death; the glass was made and placed by life, and life broke it and caused it to fall. My life brought me here from Prussia and carried me by the house at the time that happened; therefore life was the cause of my death, and, strange as it may seem, is the cause of all action.

From this profound (?) reasoning he concludes:

If life is the cause of all action it must be the cause of sickness.... Thought is the first product of life, and as the thought is so will the action be. Life cannot act contrary to the thoughts which are become beliefs or opinions, that is, which have taken root or are become attached to it, unless it acts unconsciously.

Mrs. Eddy sued this Dr. Arens for infringing her copyright, and obtained judgment against him, so that he was compelled to destroy a large edition of one of his pamphlets.

Dr. Arens established a university in the city of Boston, incorporated five or six years, called the "University of the Science of Spirit." It confers the following degrees: "F. D.," Defender of the Faith, and "S. S. D.," Doctor of the Science of Spirit. The charge for instruction in the general course is one hundred dollars. These courses are somewhat pretentious. The first treats the "Scientific Basis of Theology," "the Difference between God and the Universe," etc., and, proceeding through twenty-one theological points, concludes by setting forth "the First Step in Immortality," and "How to Destroy Sickness." The second course discusses "Theos, Chaos, and Cosmos"; gives a theory of the creation of the universe down to the creation of the "first material human body," which it treats under "its outline and quality; the necessity for respiration; the first consciousness of existence; the separation of male and female; the origin of self-will and its results." And finally, "the beginning of sickness and trouble."

Dr. Marston treats "God, Man, Matter, Disease, Sin, and Death, Healing, Treatment, and Universal Truth." In his book he states that "the mental healer does not care by what medical name the distress is known; it maybe nervousness, dyspepsia, asthma, fever,—words all alike to him, since the effects they denote are simply reflections or registers of wrong thinking." In illustrating this he says:

A case may be cited to illustrate the meaning: A middle-aged man who has suffered many years with chronic rheumatism, until it is torture for him to move, has also an excitable temper, a despotic will, and is so intolerant that he cannot abide opposition, but flies into a towering rage if he is crossed. He has had many physicians who ascribe the painful inflammation of his joints to an improper secretion of uric acid; and his nervousness and irritability are easily accounted for by the prolonged suffering he has endured. This case presents the same conditions to the mental healer, but his conclusions are different. To him the bodily trouble is a reflection or effect of lack of mental ease; and the unamiable nature results from a dominant feeling that other people are enemies seeking to oppose the poor man's wishes and thwart his plans. In treating the case, the doctor addresses remedies to the disturbed secretions which are an effect, while the mental healer directs his to the primary cause, which is fear.

His cure is reduced to its simplest form as follows: "The senses say matter can suffer pain; God says matter is insensible. The senses declare a man sick; God says the real man knows nothing of disease." Under the head of Sin and Death he says: "Scientific Christianity does not recognize the definition of theology, but holds that, strictly speaking, there is no sin." He finally describes the cure thus: "A mental cure is the discovery made by a sick person that he is well."

W. F. Evans, a voluminous writer, formerly an evangelical minister, then a Swedenborgian, and lately a mental healer, remarks:

The process is essentially a spiritual work; it is held that there is a part of us that is never sick, and this part is mentally worked upon so as to control the sick person's consciousness, this destroys the sickness, for mind cures matter. A disciple of this school is sick—no, he is not sick, for that is something which he will not admit; he has a belief that he is sick; he then says mentally to the rebellious body, "What are you? You have no power over me; you are merely the covering given to me for present purposes; it is an error to suppose that I am sick; I recognize the great truth that I myself, my individuality, my personality, my mind, cannot be sick, for it is immortal, made in the image of God; when I recognize the existence of that truth there is no room left for the existence of error; two things cannot occupy one and the same place; error cannot exist in the same place with truth, therefore error is not in existence; hence I am not sick."

Mrs. Grimké, author of "Personified Unthinkables," says:

Now, rheumatism or pneumonia, etc., are verbal expressions for unthinkables, just as 2 + 2 = 5 is a verbal expression for a lie. By means of the picturing faculty, both of the individual and of those about him, the outward manifestation of the unthinkable will express itself upon the body just as surely as the magic-lantern will reflect the picture inserted between the light and the lenses wheu the proper conditions are met.... The problem of Health, then, would be how to cultivate and keep clean and healthy pictures in the mind. Health would then be an essential part of the ego. Man would be a strict unity, not a trinity, of Intellect, Body, and Morals, and the absolutely necessary postulates of this Unity would be Infinite Mind, Freedom, and Eternal Life.

There are those who in their own opinion have reached a greater elevation than either the Christian Scientists or the Mind Curers, "and profess to heal by the transfer of psychic energy." The chief practitioner in this sphere informed me that the relative rank of these sciences is, 1. The lower grade—the mere physical system. 2. What is called animal magnetism. 3. The mind cure. 4. The spirits (when they are good spirits). 5. Including all that is good in the others, he places in the supernal. He claimed that there has been in all ages an order called the Inspirati, who practised this method, and offered to make me a Knight of that order.

This will suffice until it fails to attract patients, when, no doubt, a sixth order, that of the Empyrean, will be devised.

Some of the Christian Scientists have attempted to construct a technical language, which, when translated, shows that they attach as much importance to learned terms as does any form of the material science that they denounce. "Gnosis.—The 'Spiritual Understanding,' the 'Immediate Intuition.' Vir.—The God in Man. Harmatia.—Off-the-trackness. Homo.—The Creature of God. Ego.—The Homo as he is. Nemo.—The Homo as he sees himself. Entheasm.—Direct Communication with God. Nihiloid.—Like unto nothing, the proper name of disease, disorder, discomfort. Yoga.—Concentration of Thought. Dama.—Subjugation of Sense. Karma.—Law of Cause and Effect. Maya.—Illusion, 'Mortal Mind,' False Beliefs.—Chaos, The Habitat of Humbug."

Most of these terms appear to have had an oriental origin, and are as valuable in affecting the ordinary mind as chloride of sodium for salt, capsicum for pepper, and H₂O for water. They serve also to make it appear that the Science is difficult, and that large fees for instruction are reasonable.

They make use of certain forms of expression which savor more strongly of cant than any phrases that have ever been used by religious sects. They use the word "belief" in speaking of a disease, or even of a defect of character. A lady, talking with a practitioner of this school of a mutual acquaintance, said she thought her selfish. "Yes," replied the Christian Scientist, "I believe she has a strong belief in selfishness."

To a patient who had every symptom of a torpid liver another healer of the school said, "It is unfortunate that you have such a belief in bile." To which the astonished patient, new to the Science, replied that he thought any one would have the same belief who had the same kind of liver.

PRACTICE

The manner in which Christian Science antagonizes dreams of falsity is interesting, whether the theories be accepted or not.

First.—Both the patient and the metaphysical healer must be taught that

Anatomy, Physiology, Treatises on Health, sustained by what is termed material law, are the husbandmen of sickness and disease. It is proverbial that as long as you read medical works you will be sick.... Clairvoyants and medical charlatans are the prolific sources of sickness.... They first help to form the image of illness in mortal minds, by telling patients that they have a disease; and then they go to work to destroy that disease. They unweave their own webs.... When there were fewer doctors, and less thought was given to sanitary subjects, there were better constitutions and less disease.

Second.—Diet is a matter of no importance.

We are told that the simple food our forefathers ate assisted to make them healthy; but that is a mistake. Their diet would not cure dyspepsia at this period. With rules of health in the head, and the most digestible food in the stomach, there would still be dyspeptics.

Third.—Exercise is of no importance.

Because the muscles of the blacksmith's arm are strongly developed, it does not follow that exercise did it, or that an arm less used must be fragile. If matter were the cause of action, and muscles, without the coöperation of mortal mind, could lift the hammer and smite the nail, it might be thought true that hammering enlarges the muscles. But the trip-hammer is not increased in size by exercise. Why not, since muscles are as material as wood and iron.

Fourth.—A proper view of Mrs. Eddy's publications is, however, of great importance.

My publications alone heal more sickness than an unconscientious student can begin to reach. If patients seem the worse for reading my book, this change may either arise from the frightened mind of the physician, or mark the crisis of the disease. Perseverance in its perusal would heal them completely.

Fifth.

Never tell the sick they have more courage than strength. Tell them rather that their strength is in proportion to their courage.... Instruct the sick that they are not helpless victims; but that, if they only know how, they can resist disease and ward it off, just as positively as they can a temptation to sin.

Sixth.—In preparing to treat patients, the healer must strengthen and steady his own mind.

Be firm in your understanding that Mind governs the body. Have no foolish fears that matter governs, and can ache, swell, and be inflamed from a law of its own; when it is self-evident that matter can have no pain or inflammation.... If you believe in inflamed or weak nerves, you are liable to an attack from that source. You will call it neuralgia, but I call it Illusion.... When treating the sick, first make your mental plea in behalf of harmony, ... then realize the absence of disease.... Use such powerful eloquence as a Congressman would employ to defeat the passage of an inhuman law.

Seventh.—You are fortunate if your patient knows little or nothing, for "a patient thoroughly booked in medical theories has less sense of the divine power, and is more difficult to heal through Mind, than an aboriginal Indian who never bowed the knee to the Baal of civilization."

Eighth.—See that the "minds which surround your patient do not act against your influence by continually expressing such opinions as may alarm or discourage.... You should seek to be alone with the sick while treating them."

Ninth.—Bathing and rubbing are of no use.

Bathing and rubbing to alter the secretions, or remove unhealthy exhalations from the cuticle, receive a useful rebuke from Christian Healing.... John Quincy Adams presents an instance of firm health and an adherence to hygienic rules, but there are few others.

Tenth.—What if the patient grow worse?

Suppose the patient should appear to grow worse. This I term chemicalization. It is the upheaval produced when Immortal Truth is destroying erroneous and mortal belief. Chemicalization brings sin and sickness to the surface, as in a fermenting fluid, allowing impurities to pass away. Patients unfamiliar with the cause of this commotion, and ignorant that it is a favorable omen, may be alarmed. If such is the case, explain to them the law of this action.

Eleventh.—Subtle mental practices are recommended.

I will here state a phenomenon which I have observed. If you call mentally and silently the disease by name, as you argue against it, as a general rule the body will respond more quickly; just as a person replies more readily when his name is spoken; but this is because you are not perfectly attuned to Divine Science, and need the arguments of truth for reminders. To let Spirit bear witness without words is the more scientific way.

This is further modified:

You may call the disease by name when you address it mentally; but by naming it audibly, you are liable to impress it upon the mind. The Silence of Science is eloquent and powerful to unclasp the hand of disease and reduce it to nothingness.

Twelfth.—Some of the things that are not to be done.

A Christian Scientist never gives medicine, never recommends hygiene, never manipulates. He never tries to "focus mind." He never places patient and practitioner "back to back," never consults "spirits," nor requires the life history of his patient. Above all, he cannot trespass on the rights of Mind through animal magnetism.

The foregoing rules for practice are taken from Mrs. Eddy's different works.

The difference between the views of Mrs. Eddy and those who diverge from her is superficial, though neither she nor they will admit it. Miss Kate Taylor, in "Selfhood Lost in Godhood," referring to Mrs. Eddy's large work, says: "It can be read with profit by any who are seeking truth with sincerity, and with no tendency to become biased." She also says that she was formerly a member of the Christian Science Association, and "learned that limitations are not conducive to growth, and that, as Emerson truly says, 'God always disappoints monopolies,'" and frankly gives her opinion of those denounced by her former preceptor.

The so-called mal-practitioners and mesmerists therein mentioned, on thorough investigation,—not only by myself, but in company with others who seek to be liberal-minded and to give Truth its due wherever it exists,—I find to be simply those who have separated themselves from the Association, that they might pursue their own convictions of right, and step out of the regular ranks of stereotyped terms to let their thoughts find expression in their own words.

The chief point of departure in Miss Taylor's theories from those of Mrs. Eddy is in the value attached to a knowledge of the preceding life of the patient.

Physical disease has many different causes. The physician treating a patient is often narrowed in his efforts to do good, because of some hidden moral or mental cause, some underlying fear, some sorrow, some inherited proclivity, some wrong unforgiven, some trait of character, some past occurrence which has tinged, perhaps almost unconsciously, the whole tenor of a life. It is not necessary that a person's innermost sacred thoughts and life be unveiled, as the physician does not expect, neither does he like, to receive confidences, unless, indeed, they are given voluntarily with a feeling of trust. Some word or hint, though, to the physician would often aid materially.... The treatment consists in a vigorous holding of the patient to his right of soul-growth, unobstructed and unretarded by physical defects.... In answer to the question, "Is it prayer?" I would first quote Victor Hugo's definition of prayer,—"Every thought is a prayer; there are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees,"— and then answer, Yes, it is prayer. Prayer with the old interpretation begs the Father to change the unchangeable, while prayer with the new interpretation lifts the beggar to a comprehension that he himself has omitted to take the gifts already prepared for him from the foundation of the world.

She gives this advice to the sick:

Eradicate all thoughts of physiology, drugs, laws of health, sickness, and pain, and know that God is the only panacea,—divine love the only medicine.... Seek the help of a Christian Healer.... Judge him not unjustly, ... neither be in opposition, for his is a good motive.... While under his treatment obey any natural impulse, without fear of consequence. Remember! without fear. This does not mean to be foolhardy in the beginning,—unless the cure should be almost instantaneous,—but advance gradually.... If you have a time during the treatment when you should feel worse, do not be discouraged.... Look forward.... One little secret it is well to know.... Deny every thought of sickness every time it enters your mind.... Never use will-power, mistaking it for divine Truth.

Also Mrs. Stuart teaches the importance of a knowledge of the previous life:

A man came to me from Erie, Penn., with what was called by different M. D's softening of the brain and Bright's disease of the kidneys. After questioning him I found his trouble dated back to the Chicago fire. Now he was not conscious of any fear, was in no personal danger for himself or family. But he was in that atmosphere of mental confusion and terror all through the city. He was cured by treatment on that point and nothing else. A woman came to me who had suffered five years with what the doctors called rheumatism. I happened to know that the death of a child had caused this effect. By silently erasing that picture of death and holding in its place an image of Life, eternal Life, she was entirely cured in twenty minutes.

SPECIMEN TREATMENTS

Mental treatment is that which the metaphysical healer is supposed to be giving the patient when she sits silently before him for a period longer or shorter according to her judgment of the necessities of the case. Some of the practitioners have revealed the thoughts which constitute a mental treatment, so that if truth is an element of their system, we can speak confidently upon this part of it.

I said to him mentally: "You have no disease; what you call your disease is a fixed mode of thought arising from the absence of positive belief in absolute good. Be stronger," I said, "you must believe in absolute good; I am looking at you, and I see you a beautiful, strong spirit, perfectly sound. What makes you think yourself diseased? You are not diseased; the shadow of a doubt is reflected on your feet, but it has no real existence. There, look down yourself and see that it is gone. Why, it was a mere negation, and the place where you located it now shows for itself as sound as the rest of your body. Don't you know that imperfection is impossible to that beautiful creature, your real self? Since there is no evil in all the universe, and since man is the highest expression of good amidst ubiquitous Good, how can you be diseased? You are not diseased. There is not an angel in all the spheres sounder or more divine than you." Then I spoke out aloud: "There now," I said, "you won't have that pain again." As I said it there was a surge of conviction through me that seemed to act on the blood-vessels of my body and made me tingle all over."—Helen Wilmans.

To this treatment I shall refer in elucidating the causes of the phenomena.

Dr. Evans controverts some of Mrs. Eddy's theories:

To modify a patient's thinking in regard to himself and his disease, we employ the principle of suggestion or positive affirmation—not mental argument, as it is sometimes called, for argument creates doubt and reaction. No sick man was ever cured by reasoning with him, mentally or verbally. It is the business of the man who knows the truth, not to argue, but to affirm.... No intelligent practitioner of the mind cure will ignore wholly all medical science.... The phrenopathic system is not necessarily antagonistic to other methods of cure, as the various hygienic regulations, and even the use of the harmless specific remedies.

He repudiates Mrs. Eddy's ideas about the personality of God, and says:

It is not necessary to deny the personality of God, ... Neither is it necessary to deny the personality and persistent individuality of the human spirit.

He also flatly denies Miss Taylor's theories, saying, "The selfhood is not lost in Godhood." "It is not necessary to tell a man dying of consumption that he is not sick, for that is not true." He says that one may or may not use the imposition of hands in healing the sick.

As an example of Christian Science superstition exceeding anything attempted by the most ignorant advocates of patent Faith Healing, read the following, taken verbatim, italics, small caps, etc., from a text-book on Mind Cure, issued by the President of the "New York School of Primitive and Practical Christian Science," who states that his school will be free from "eccentricity, pretension, and fanaticism"!

PRAYER FOR A DYSPEPTIC.

Holy Reality! We BELIEVE in Thee that Thou art EVERYWHERE present. We really believe it. Blessed Reality we do not pretend to believe, think we believe, believe that we believe. WE BELIEVE. Believing that Thou art every where present, we believe that Thou art in this patient's stomach, in every fibre, in every cell, in every atom, that Thou are the sole, only Reality of that stomach. Heavenly, Holy Reality, we will try not to be such hypocrites and infidels, as every day of our lives to affirm our faith in Thee and then immediately begin to tell how sick we are, forgetting that Thou art everything and that Thou art not sick, and therefore that nothing in this universe was ever sick, is now sick, or can be sick. Forgive us our sins in that we have this day talked about our backaches, that we have told our neighbors that our food hurts us, that we mentioned to a visitor that there was a lump in our stomach, that we have wasted our valuable time which should have been spent in Thy service, in worrying for fear that our stomach would grow worse, in that we have disobeyed Thy blessed law in thinking that some kind of medicine would help us. We know, Father and Mother of us all, that there is no such a thing as a really diseased stomach, that the disease is the Carnal Mortal Mind given over to the World, the Flesh, and the Devil; that the mortal mind is a twist, a distortion, a false attitude, the HARMATIA of Thought. Shining and Glorious Verity, we recognize the great and splendid FACT that the moment we really believe the Truth, Disease ceases to trouble us, that the Truth is that there is no Disease in either real Body or Mind; that in the Mind what seems to be a disease is a False Belief, a Parasite, a hateful Excrescence, and that what happens in the Body is the shadow of the LIE in the Soul. Lord, help us to believe that ALL Evil is Utterly Unreal; that it is silly to be sick, absurd to be ailing, wicked to be wailing, atheism and denial of God to say "I am sick." Help us to stoutly affirm with our hand in Your hand, with our eyes fixed on Thee that we have no Dyspepsia, that we never had Dyspepsia, that we will never have Dyspepsia, that there is no such thing, that there never was any such thing, that there never will be any such thing. Amen.—Hazzard.

It is claimed by all the Christian Science and Mind Cure practitioners that they can operate upon patients at a distance.

There is no space nor time to mind. A person in St. Louis may be near to me while I am in New York. A person in the same room may be very distant. Sit down and think about the person you wish to affect. Think long enough and strong enough and you are sure to reach him.—Hazzard. The following is a case of heart disease which I cured without having seen the patient: "Please find enclosed a check for five hundred dollars, in reward for your services that can never be repaid. The day you received my husband's letter I became conscious for the first time in forty-eight hours. My servant brought my wrapper, and I arose from bed and sat up.... The enlargement of my left side is all gone, and the doctors pronounce me rid of heart disease. I had been afflicted with it from infancy. It became organic enlargement of the heart and dropsy of the chest. I was only waiting and almost longing to die, but you have healed me. How wonderful to think of it, when you and I have never seen each other."—Eddy.

One of them says:

Remember that every thought that you think will be transferred to the persons thought of if you think long enough and strong enough.—Hazzard.

This surpasses the love-powders that are sold among the colored people and the ignorant, as it is necessary to purchase and administer them, which is sometimes considerable trouble.

The practical directions to attain this power are as follows:

How to "concentrate." 1. Look at an object on the ceiling ten minutes; think of that object alone. 2. Write a proposition on a sheet of paper, as "God is the only reality." Think it for ten minutes with your eyes fixed upon the paper. 3. Begin to think of a subject, and give a dollar to the poor for every time your mind wanders. How to "subjugate." Forget yourself, forget the world, forget you have a body, forget you have any business or friends. Empty your mind of its contents. Be a man of one idea. Get out of yourself.—Hazzard.

The rules for absent treatment are:

1. Seat yourself alone. Let the room be silent. 2. Subjugate your senses to all else but your thought. 3. Fix your thought upon the patient. 4. Picture him in your mind. 5. Go through the treatment.—Hazzard.

The patient may be in three different ways. He may be sympathetic; that will help you greatly. He may be apathetic; that is not so good, but better than the next. He may be antipathetic, hostile; then say not a word, but silently "give it to him" till he becomes less "cantankerous" and more Christ-like.—Hazzard.

MIND CURERS versus FAITH HEALERS, MESMERISTS, ETC.

Mrs. Eddy speaks of Mesmerism in this way:

Mortal mind, acting from the basis of sensuous belief in matter, is animal magnetism.... In proportion as you understand Christian Science you lose animal magnetism.... Its basis being a belief and this belief an error, animal magnetism, or mesmerism, is a mere negation, possessing neither intelligence nor power.... An evil mind at work mesmerically is an engine of mischief little understood.... Animal magnetism, clairvoyance, mediumship, and mesmerism are antagonistic to this Science, and would prevent the demonstration thereof.... The Mesmeriser produces pain by making his subjects believe that he feels it; here pain is proved to be a belief without any adequate cause. That social curse, the mesmerist, by making his victims believe they cannot move a limb, renders it impossible for them to do so until their belief or understanding masters his.

Of Spiritualism:

Spiritualism with its material accompaniments would destroy the supremacy of Spirit.

And of Clairvoyance specifically:

Clairvoyance investigates and influences mortal thought only.... Clairvoyance can do evil, can accuse wrongfully, and err in every direction.

Of Faith Cure:

It is asked, Why are faith cures sometimes more speedy than some of the cures wrought through Christian Scientists? Because faith is belief, and not understanding; and it is easier to believe than to understand Spiritual Truth. It demands less cross-bearing, self-renunciation, and Divine Science, to admit the claims of the personal senses, and appeal for relief to a humanized God, than to deny those claims and learn the divine way, drinking his cup, being baptized with his baptism, gaining the end through persecution and purity. Millions are believing in God, or Good, without sharing the fruits of goodness, not having reached its Science. Belief is mental blindness, if it admits Truth without understanding it. It cannot say with the Apostle, "I know in whom I have believed." There is even danger in the mental state called belief, for if Truth is admitted but not understood, error may enter through this same channel of ignorance. The Faith cure has devout followers, whose Christian practice is far in advance of mere theory.

Marston, speaking of change in the inverted thought of the sick person, says:

Since a change of the inverted thought of the sick person is all that can be produced by extraneous influence, the treatment of a professional Healer is not the only means of securing it. While a majority of cases are affected in that way, there are well-attested instances to show that anything that will enable the sick person to change his thought may put him in a condition to receive spiritual healing. A text from Scripture or some other writings may be brought to his mind with such force as to do this, or some sudden event may startle him out of his chronic delusion. It is in this way alone that we can account for cures that seem to result from prayer, a resort to relics, charms, and other things believed to possess peculiar virtue. This is why good results follow any one of the thousand absurd acts, by the performance of which superstitious and credulous people seek to be restored to health.

Another remarks:

The question is often asked, In what does the Christian Science healing differ from the faith cure? In the faith cure the patient must have faith; in Christian Science that is not necessary; patients have frequently been helped or entirely cured, without knowing they were being treated.... No great faith is necessary on the part of the patient; but it will expedite his recovery if he take interest enough in the method by which he is being healed to read suitable books on the subject, and converse profitably with the healer.... Prayer to a personal God affects the sick like a drug that has no efficacy of its own, but borrows its power from human faith and belief. The drug does nothing because it has no intelligence.

TESTS OF THE THEORY

First Test. If their principles be true, food should not be necessary. Mrs. Eddy affirms this:

Gustatory pleasure is a sensuous illusion, an illusion that diminishes as we understand our spiritual being and ascend the ladder of Life. This woman learned that food neither strengthens nor weakens the body,—that mind alone does this.... Teach them that their bodies are nourished more by Truth than by food.

Then, finding herself unable to silence the testimony of the senses, she endeavors to circumvent it thus:

Admitting the common hypothesis, that food is requisite to sustain human life, there follows the necessity for another admission, in the opposite direction,—namely, that food has power to destroy life, through its deficiency or excess, in quality or quantity. This is a specimen of the ambiguous character of all material health-theories. They are self-contradictory and self-destructive,—"a kingdom divided against itself, that is brought to desolation." If food preserves life, it cannot destroy it. The truth is, food does not affect the life of man; and this becomes self-evident when we learn that God is our only life. Because sin and sickness are not qualities of Soul or Life, we have hope in immortality; but it would be foolish to venture beyond our present understanding, foolish to stop eating, until we gain more goodness and a clearer comprehension of the living God. In that perfect day of understanding, we shall neither eat to live, nor live to eat.

When they dispense with food because "mortal mind" is under the influence of an illusion concerning it,—absurdly supposing "that food supports life,"—and continue to live with the accidents of the human body sustained entirely by the divine "substance" of which they speak, they will furnish a demonstration which will utterly destroy every remaining illusion of mortal mind. But so long as they eat, they are either voluntarily perpetuating an illusion, or demonstrating that they are wrong in their notions. If they are in such a low stage as to be compelled to eat when it would not be necessary if they were in a higher plane, they may, for the same reason, be compelled to use drugs.

Second Test. They deny that drugs, per se, as taken into the human system, have any power.

Christian Science divests material drugs of their imaginary power.... The uselessness of drugs, the emptiness of knowledge, the nothingness of matter and its imaginary laws, are apparent as we rise from the rubbish of belief to the acquisition and demonstration of spiritual understanding.... When the sick recover by the use of drugs, it is the law of a general belief, culminating in individual faith that heals, and according to this faith will the effect be.—Eddy.

Surely the mind needs healing that could invent the following absurdity:

The not uncommon notion that drugs possess absolute, inherent curative virtues of their own involves an error. Arnica, quinine, opium, could not produce the effects ascribed to them except by imputed virtue. Men think they will act thus on the physical system, consequently they do. The property of alcohol is to intoxicate; but if the common thought had endowed it simply with a nourishing quality like milk, it would produce a similar effect. A curious question arises about the origin of healing virtues, if it be admitted that all drugs were originally destitute of them. We can conceive of a time in the mental history of the race when no therapeutic value was assigned to certain drugs, when, in fact, it was not known that they possessed any. How did it come to pass that common thought, or any thought, endowed them with healing virtue, in the first place? Simply in this way: Man finding himself unprotected, and liable to be hurt by the elements in the midst of which he lived, forgot the true source of healing, and began to seek earnestly for material remedies for disease and wounds. The desire for something led to experiments; and with each trial there was associated the hope that the means applied would prove efficacious. Then what was at first an earnest hope came at length to be a belief; and thus, by gradual steps, a belief in the contents of the entire pharmacopoeia was established.—Marston.

It is true that in many cases the effect of a medicine is to be attributed entirely to the imagination, or to the belief that it will have such and such effects; but the statement of such extreme positions as these shows the irrationality of the theories upon which they are based. According to the above, if it were generally believed that alcohol were unintoxicating, nourishing, and bland as milk, it would be an excellent article with which to nourish infants; and, on the other hand, if it were generally believed that milk were intoxicating, all the influences of alcohol would be produced upon those who drank it. If the public could only be educated to believe alcohol to be nourishing, the entire mammalian genus might be nursing their offspring upon alcohol with equally good results. No insane asylum can furnish a more transparent delusion.

That drugs produce effects upon animals has been demonstrated beyond the possibility of contradiction, and that, when the animals did not know that they were taking drugs; and small doses have produced not the slightest effect, while large doses—the animals in each case not knowing that they were taking medicines—have produced great effect, and do so with uniformity. Also the effect of medicines upon idiots and unconscious infants is capable of exact demonstration.

Allied to the effect of drugs is that of poisons, almost every drug having the effect of a poison if taken in excess. Some poisons, however, are of such nature that the smallest possible dose may be attended with fatal results. In the case of animals, poisons introduced into the system without the knowledge of the animals do their work effectually. Strychnine carefully introduced into a piece of meat so small that a cat will swallow it whole, will in a very short time show its effects. The instinct of the animal will cause its rejection if there be the slightest possibility of perceiving it; but if sufficient means be taken to keep the animal from knowing that it is taking anything except meat, it will swallow the meat, and the poison will do its work.

These facts are admitted by the advocates of Christian Science and Mind Cure, and the absolute lunacy of their theories is seen in the manner in which they attempt to account for the effects.

If a dose of poison is swallowed through mistake, the patient dies, while physician and patient are expecting favorable results. Did belief cause this death? Even so, and as directly as if the poison had been intentionally taken.... The few who think a drug harmless, where a mistake has been made in the prescription, are unequal to the many who have named it poison, and so the majority opinion governs the result.—Eddy.

It is said that arsenic kills; but it would be very difficult for any one to prove how it kills; since persons have had all the symptoms of arsenic poisoning without having taken any arsenic; and again, persons have taken arsenic and did not die.... Suppose you take a child that knows nothing about arsenic, and administer the usual dose, the child will probably die, but I will show you that the arsenic was not the cause of the death.... Here you may say. "What had the life of the child to do with the action, the child not knowing anything about arsenic?" We will admit that the child was ignorant of the nature of the poison, but all who are educated in physiology and materia medica know that it kills, therefore the thought, although unconscious to the child, was hereditary in its life. It is, indeed, a universal thought admitted as a fact in every life or soul. A thought is a product of life and is action, and this thought, produced and accepted by life, acts upon the life of the child and produces unconsciously a confusion therein. This confusion produces a fear; this fear in the child's life heats the blood and causes the first conscious action.—Arens.

The effects of various experiments, with chemicals and medicine, upon cats and dogs, are studied most minutely by distinguished scientific men, and the results witnessed published to the world with a presumption of wisdom and profundity of learning that carry the conviction to most minds that the properties of such drugs, and their effects upon the human system, have been forever established. And Materia Medica falls back upon these so-called demonstrations of Science as absolutely indisputable proofs of its Theories. Now it never seems to have occurred to them that all the effects witnessed of such experimenting might be accounted for on the basis of Thought, and with the view of investigating the subject to establish a totally opposite explanation; and to show that Mind acting on Matter could account for all their facts, the following experiments have been recently made: The object of the experiments was a dog, a noble thoroughbred, of great sagacity and intelligence. The first experiment consisted in conveying commands to him entirely through mind. Not a word was spoken, but his mistress would say to him mentally,—"Carlo, come here." or "Carlo, lie down." and although the thought might have to be repeated mentally a number of times, yet it would reach him, and sometimes he would respond almost immediately. Second experiment: One day his master discovered an appearance to which he gave the name Mange. All the dogs around were having it. It was catching,—Dr. So-and-So had pronounced it mange, and proscribed a mixture of Sulphur and Castor Oil, etc., which was to be applied externally in such a way that Carlo, in attempting to remove the preparation with his tongue, would got a dose into his system. But here the mistress interposed, and insisted that Carlo should be subjected wholly to mental treatment. The result was entirely satisfactory. The appearance vanished as it came. Again the experiment of placing Carlo entirely under the intelligence of his master's mind and thoughts for a certain period was tried, and compared with the effects of leaving him wholly under his mistress's mind. In the former case he soon exhibited every symptom of dyspepsia and indigestion in every form to which the master was subject, and in a very marked degree. But under the thought of the mistress, every symptom and appearance vanished at once. He soon attained a perfection of physical condition which constantly attracted the notice of every one. Experiments of this kind were carried much further, and can be by any one who wishes to test the matter for themselves. In all the instances just mentioned, the physical condition of the dog responded to the mind under whose influence it chanced to be. Love and Fear (especially fear) are the most marked characteristics of the animal mind. The instances are innumerable where the instinct of the animal surpasses the reason of man in detecting the kindly thought, or the thought of harm, toward itself. When a scientific experimenter gives a drug to a dog, it is done with a perfect certainty in his mind that disorder, derangement of the system, suffering, etc., in some form or another, are sure to follow. A fear corresponding to the thought of the man instantly seizes upon the dog, and various results do follow. The experimenter notes them down and then proceeds to try his drug on dog number 2, all the while holding in his mind an image of the results of experiment number 1, expecting to see similar results. In all probability he sees them.—Stuart.^[1]

Third Test. Extraordinary accidents to the body. Whatever may be said of the power of thought in the production of ordinary disease, the effects of accidents to persons who are entirely unconscious when they occur, as the sleeping victims of railroad disasters, are facts which, if they do not terminate human life at once, require the aid of surgery.

Mrs. Eddy says:

The fear of dissevered bodily members, or a belief in such a possibility, is reflected on the body, in the shape of headache, fractured bones, dislocated joints, and so on, as directly as shame is seen in the blush rising to the cheek. This human error about physical wounds and colics is part and parcel of the delusion that matter can feel and see, having sensation and substance.

It is confessed, however, that very little progress has been made in this department:

Christian Science is always the most skilful surgeon, but surgery is the branch of its healing that will be last demonstrated. However, it is but just to say that I have already in my possession well-authenticated records of the cure, by mental surgery alone, of dislocated hip-joints and spinal vertebræ.

But records, to be well authenticated, require more than an assertion. And the records may be authentic, and what they contain may never have been thoroughly tested. As they affirm that "bones have only the substance of thought, they are only an appearance to mortal mind"; if their theories be true at all, they should be able to rectify every result of accident to the body as readily and speedily as diseases originating within the system.

Fourth Test. Insanity. It is a well-established fact that blows upon the head produce insanity. It is equally well established that surgery in many cases is able to remove the difficulty by an obviously physical readjustment, where the surgeon himself cannot be positive what the effect will be until after the experiment, and the victim has no knowledge whatever upon the subject. During the late war, a negro was wounded in the head by the explosion of a shell. He wandered about for several years, to all appearance a driveling idiot, when certain surgeons took an interest in his case, and concluded that the removal of a piece of the skull which had been driven in and pressed upon the brain, might restore his reason. Knowing that no damage could be done to his mind by the operation, they performed it, and were almost appalled when, after the lapse of so many years, as they lifted the piece of skull and removed the pressure upon the brain, the light of intelligence returned to the eye of the man, who said, "We were at Manassas yesterday; where are we to-day?" A similar case, where there had been delirium alternating with coma for a week, occurred in March last.

The transient effect of stimulants upon persons who have been in a state of dementia apparently for a long time, is also well known.

Mrs. Eddy upon this subject directs practitioners to tell the moderately sick man,

that he suffers only as the insane suffer, from a mere belief. The only difference is that insanity implies belief in a diseased brain, while physical ailments (so called) arise from belief that some other portions of the body are deranged.... The entire mortal body is evolved from mortal mind. A bunion would produce insanity as perceptible as that produced by congestion of the brain, were it not that mortal mind calls the bunion an unconscious portion of the body. Reverse this belief, and the results would be different.

It may be readily admitted that if a man believed his mind was in his foot, and believed it was out of order, he might be crazy. But in selecting the bunion for an illustration, Mrs. Eddy was not so wide of the mark as she might have been. More than twenty years ago, while listening to the lectures of Dr. C. E. Brown-Séquard, before the physicians of Brooklyn, I heard him give the following case: A youth (fourteen years old) went to bed perfectly sane, nor had he ever had a symptom of insanity. The next morning when he arose and stepped upon the floor he became a maniac. With great difficulty he was replaced upon the bed, and the moment he touched it he was sane. During the morning he made several attempts to rise, always with the same result. A physician was called, who in his account of the case says: "When sitting up in his bed he drew on his stockings; but on putting his feet on the floor and standing up, his countenance instantly changed, the jaw became violently convulsed, etc. He was pushed back on the bed, was at once calm, looked surprised, and asked what was the matter. Inquiry showed that he had been fishing the preceding day, but had met with no accident. His legs were examined minutely, but nothing unusual was seen; but, says the physician, "On holding up the right great toe with my finger and thumb to examine the sole of that foot, the leg was drawn up and the muscles of the jaws were suddenly convulsed, and on releasing the toe these effects instantly ceased." After further experiment, an irritated point, so small as to be scarcely visible, was taken away by the cutting of a piece of skin, and "the strange sensation was gone and never returned."^[2]

Post-mortem examinations which exhibit the degeneration of the brain structure are of no importance in the eyes of these professors of dreams.

Fifth Test. The perpetuation of youth and the abolition of death should also be within the range of these magicians.

Baldwin, of Chicago, says:

Man should grow younger as he grows older; the principle is simple. "As we think so are we" is stereotyped. Thoughts and ideas are ever striving for external expression. By keeping the mind young we have a perfect guarantee for continued youthfulness of body. Thought will externalize itself; thus growing thought will ever keep us young. Reliance on drugs makes the mind, consequently the body, prematurely old. This new system will make us younger at seventy than at seventeen, for then we will have more of genuine philosophy.

Mrs. Eddy meets this matter in the style of Jules Verne:

The error of thinking that we are growing old, and the benefits of destroying that illusion, are illustrated in a sketch from the history of an English lady, published in the London "Lancet." Disappointed in love in early years she became insane. She lost all calculation of time. Believing that she still lived in the same hour that parted her from her lover, she took no note of years, but daily stood before the window, watching for his coming. In this mental state she remained young. Having no appearance of age, she literally grew no older. Some American travelers saw her when she was seventy-four, and supposed her a young lady. Not a wrinkle or gray hair appeared, but youth sat gently on cheek and brow. Asked to judge her age, and being unacquainted with her history, each visitor conjectured that she must be under twenty.

That the above should be adduced as proof of anything would be wonderful if the person adducing it had not previously adopted a theory which supersedes the necessity of demonstration. It is important to notice that if the belief had anything to do with it, this amazing result grew from a belief in a falsehood. She did not live in the same hour that parted her from her lover; she believed that she did, and, according to Mrs. Eddy, this belief of a falsehood counteracted all the ordinary consequences of the flight of time.

But the delusion among the insane that they are young, that they are independent of time and of this world, is very common; and the most painfully paradoxical sights that I have ever witnessed have been men and women, toothless, denuded of hair, and with all the signs of age,—sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything,—some of them declaring that they were young girls and engaged to be married to presidents and kings, and even to divine beings. These delusions in some instances have been fixed for many years. Having had an official connection with an insane asylum for five years, I have had more opportunities than were desired for conversing with persons of this class.

Granting the case adduced by Mrs. Eddy to be true, and admitting that the state of the mind may have had some effect, it is of no scientific importance; for the number who show no signs of age until fifty, sixty, or even seventy years have passed, is by no means small in the aggregate; we meet them everywhere. One of the most astute observers of human nature, himself a physician, solemnly warned a gentleman that if he continued to take only four hours' sleep in twenty-four, he would die before he was fifty years of age. "What do you suppose my age to be now?" said the gentleman. "Thirty," said the physician. "I am sixty-nine," was the reply, which proved to be the fact.

Mrs. Eddy, not content with this case, continues: "I have seen age regain two of the elements it had lost, sight and teeth. A lady of eighty-five whom I knew had a return of sight. Another lady at ninety had new teeth,—incisors, cuspids, bicuspids, and one molar." Such instances as these are not uncommon, but are generally a great surprise to the persons themselves, and unconnected with any delusion as to flight of time. They are simply freaks of nature.

There is a flattening of the eye which comes on with advancing years, and necessitates the use of glasses. Many persons who have few signs of age, retain the color of the cheek, have lost no teeth, and whose natural force is not abated, find their eyes dim. According to these metaphysical healers this is not necessary, but I have observed that a number of them say nothing about being themselves compelled to use glasses.

Much is made of one case of a metaphysical healer, who, after using glasses fifteen years, threw them away, and can now read even in the railroad cars without them. Such cases of second sight have occurred at intervals always, and under all systems, and sometimes when the progress of old age had been so great that the persons had suffered many infirmities, and had but a few months left in which to "see as well as ever they did in their lives."

Some famous actors and actresses, without the use of pigments, dyes, or paints, notwithstanding the irregular hours and other accidents of their professional life, have maintained an astonishing youthfulness of appearance down to nearly threescore years and ten.

John Wesley at seventy-five, according to testimony indubitable and from a variety of sources, not only presented the appearance of a man not yet past the prime of life, but, what is more remarkable, had the undiminished energy, vivacity, melody and strength of voice which accompany youth. Nor at eighty-five had he exhibited much change. In the city of Chicago there died recently a professional man nearly seventy-five years of age, whose teeth, complexion, color, hair, voice, and mind showed no signs of his being over forty-five years of age. Henry Ward Beecher, the January before his death, could write to his oldest brother that he had no rheumatism, neuralgia, sleeplessness, or deafness, was not bald, and did not need spectacles.

Meanwhile it is impossible not to suppose that the case as described by Mrs. Eddy has been greatly exaggerated. That some Americans who saw her at the age of seventy-four supposed her to be under twenty, is to be taken "cum grano salis."

As for death, if the theories of these romantic philosophers be true, it should give way; if not in every case, at least in some. It is said that there are hundreds of persons in Boston who believe that Mrs. Eddy will never die. Joanna Southcott, who arose in England in 1792, made many disciples, by some estimated at one hundred thousand, who believed that she would never die; but unfortunately for their credulity she succumbed to the inevitable decree.

Sixth Test. If these theories are true, clothing, so far as sustaining warmth and life is concerned, is superfluous, and fire unnecessary. This conclusion reduces the whole scheme to an absurdity.

EXPLANATION OF THEIR ALLEGED SUCCESS

In endeavoring to ascertain the causes of recoveries which undoubtedly occur when the patient is under the supervision of Christian Scientists and Mind Curers, it would be a blunder to omit the testimony of Mrs. Eddy as to her experiments with homeopathy. She says that she has attenuated common table salt until there was not a single saline property left; and yet with one drop of that in a goblet of water, and a teaspoonful administered every three hours, she has cured a patient sinking in the last stage of typhoid fever. Describing a case of dropsy given up by the faculty, she says that after giving some medicines of high attenuation, she gave the patient unmedicated pellets for a while, and found that she continued to improve. Finally she induced the patient to give up her medicine for one day, and risk the effects. After trying this, she informed Mrs. Eddy that she could get along two days without the globules; but on the third day had to take them. She went on in this way, taking unmedicated pellets, with occasional visits from Mrs. Eddy, and employing no other means was cured. Thus Mrs. Eddy says she discovered that mind was potent over matter and that drugs have no power.

It is not to be inferred from the above that homeopathic remedies, which have been modified by the discoveries made and the experience attained since the time of Hahnemann, are generally powerless. That question is not essential to this inquiry. But the confession of Mrs. Eddy that her experiments were the means of teaching her that mind and not matter effects the cure, will be regarded by all who do not accept her theories as containing the principal key to the problem. She made the common error of generalizing from a few particulars, and ever since has endeavored to test facts by theory instead of making facts the test. Because she found a supposed mental cause adequate to a cure in a few cases, she leaped to the wild conclusion that all causes are mental. Notwithstanding these numerous absurdities and the radical error, it would be unwise to lose sight of the specific elements in the practice of Christian Science and the various forms of Mind Cure as a profession.

The patients who are treated by these practitioners have, to begin with, the vis medicatrix naturæ, which is the final element in every cure, recognized to be such by the leaders of the medical profession for a long period of time. Sir John Forbes, M. D., one of the most eminent regular physicians of England, remarks of the practice of his own School in his famous article on homeopathy:

First, that in a large proportion of the cases treated by allopathic physicians, the disease is cured by nature, and not by them. Second, that in a lesser but still not a small proportion, the disease is cured by nature in spite of them; in other words, their interference retarding instead of assisting the cure. Third, that in, consequently, a considerable proportion of diseases it would fare as well or better with patients if all remedies—at least all active remedies, especially drugs—were abandoned.

Sydenham long ago said, "I often think more could be left to Nature than we are in the habit of leaving to her; to imagine that she always wants the help of art is an error, and an unlearned error too."

Sir John Marshall, F. R. S., in opening the session of the London University Medical School in 1865, said,

The vis medicatrix naturæ is the agent to employ in the healing of an ulcer, or the union of a broken bone; and it is equally true that the physician or surgeon never cured a disease; he only assists the natural processes of cure performed by the intrinsic conservative energy of the frame, and this is but the extension of the force imparted at the origination of the individual being.

Under the Mind Cure this force of nature is still at work, and in the great number of self-limited diseases which tend to recovery, it is left free from all error of practitioners. If it loses any advantages which the introduction of the proper drugs might give, it is saved from the consequences of the administration of the wrong ones.

The number of instances in which the prescriptions interfere with nature is so great that Dr. Paris wrote, many years ago, "The file of every apothecary would furnish a volume of instances where the ingredients of the prescription were fighting together in the dark. This is especially true of diseases of children. The late Dr. Marshall Hall said, "Of the whole number of fatal cases of diseases in infancy, a great proportion occur from the inappropriate or undue application of exhausting remedies."

Farther, those who are treated by the Mind Curers in many cases derive benefit from the freedom of diet, air, and exercise allowed. They are told to pay no attention to symptoms, think nothing whatever about their diseases, and not talk about them; to eat, sleep, drink, and act as nearly as possible as if they were well; and in a large majority of chronic diseases, this is all that is needed to produce a return to health.

They have also the benefits of faith and fancy; as they are taught to imagine healthy, vigorous organs, and their whole bodies in the condition of health, and with such mental pictures to drive away all consciousness of symptoms, they summon to their aid that most potent of all influences, a calm and fearless mind. The presence of the practitioner and her methods greatly contribute to this calming influence.

She enters with a cheerful air and, without taking your hand or approaching your bed, seats herself and asks you to tell her all your symptoms. [She may, however, belong to the class which will not allow any description of symptoms.] She receives your budget of ailments calmly, without one expression of sympathy, for she has none, considering all your maladies as an illusion or dream from which it is her divine mission to awaken you. You are made to feel, immediately, that there is little of consequence in all that you have been telling her. She then relapses into a silence of ten or fifteen minute's, in which her kind face wears a resolute expression, making it almost stern.... After this silent treatment she speaks to you in the most encouraging manner, endeavoring to call you away from yourself to the contemplation of spiritual truth.

A point of difference between Faith Healers and Mind Carers is worthy of observation. Faith Healers eequire the patient to have faith; Mind Curers make a boast of the fact that faith is not necessary. A close analysis, however, shows that this boast is vain. Before they are sent for there is usually some faith, and often much, combined with a distrust of other systems. This was, as some of their authorities affirm, the case when they began. Sufficient time has elapsed to develop a constituency who employ no other methods. If there is no faith, there must be a distrust of other forms of practice, or there would be no reason for turning to the new. Where there is no faith on the part of the patient, usually his friends believe, and have induced him to make the experiment. Thus he is surrounded by an atmosphere of faith which is so important that all the writers attach great weight to it.

Friends and attendants who are believers in Mental cure, and know what sort of a mental atmosphere is favorable to restoring health, may do much to help the metaphysician in his work. But, unfortunately, this is seldom the case; and the friends are usually ignorant on the subject, and innocently burdening the invalid with just that kind of hurtful sympathy which keeps him under a cloud of depression. When such is the case, their absence is more helpful than their presence, and it is desirable to be alone with the patient while treating him.—Marston.

Some even go so far as to say that they should be, if possible, removed from the society of those who do not believe.

But a favorable atmosphere exists to some extent among those who have induced an unbelieving invalid to send for a mental healer. Assuming that the healer has arrived, it is easy to see how faith is engendered. She takes her seat, and after a few unimportant questions becomes silent. The thoughts that wander through the mind of the invalid, as told me by a patient of thorough intelligence, an alumnus of one of the first universities of this country, were such as these: "Can there be anything in this? I don't believe there is, and yet a great many people are believing in it, and some most wonderful cures have taken place. There is Mrs. —— I know that she was given up to die by our best physicians, and I know that she is well." Then the eye will turn to the face of the metaphysician, who seems looking at far-off things and wrestling with some problem not yet solved, but of the certainty of the solution of which she has no doubt. Sometimes the practitioners cover their eyes, and this would add to the effect in many temperaments. The fifteen minutes pass and leave the unbeliever passive; as a quotation elsewhere describes it, "less cantankerous."

The encouraging words of the healer on departing are not without effect, differing as they do from the uncertain or preternaturally solemn forthgivings, or ill-concealed misgivings, of many ordinary physicians. There are no medicines to take, no symptoms to watch, and only the certainty of recovery to be dwelt upon. Whatever the appetite calls for is to be eaten without anxiety as to the consequences, and if there be no appetite there is to be no eating and no anxiety as to the result of abstinence.

The effect of the treatment having been pleasant, the patient rather longs than otherwise for the next day to come, and for the next. If the disease be one that under ordinary circumstances would require an operation, the dreadful image of the surgeon's knife no longer appals the patient's mind. The invalid discovers that he does not die, that he sleeps a little better; certainly he is not aroused to take medicine, and there is no fear that he will take cold; he feels decidedly better at the next visit, and now faith is not only born but turned into sight. His friends assure him that he is better, and he tells them that he is so.

Perhaps the most potent cause in awakening faith is the sublime audacity displayed by the practitioner who dares to dispense with drugs, manipulation, hygiene, prayer, and religious ceremony. That spectacle would infallibly produce either such opposition and contempt as would result in the termination of the experiment, or faith. It is impossible to be in a negative position in its presence, where the responsibilities of life and death are assumed.

As for "absent treatments," these are based on the theory that to think of another entirely and abstractedly occasions a spiritual presence of that other. "Distance is annihilated, and his living image and inner personality seem to stand before us, and what we say to it we say to him."

These persons catch up and incorporate with their theories the yet immature investigations of the Society for Psychical Research, in which it is claimed that a sensitive subject can form in the mind a distinct mental picture or idea of words and letters which had been in the mind of an agent. Healers endeavor to extend those phenomena so as to make them annihilate space; and, according to them, "it is as easy to affect a person in the interior of Africa by a mental influence, as in the same room." Here they affiliate with the whole mass of superstitions which accumulated in the early history of the human race, and reappear in certain temperaments in each generation. Whether such a thing as thought-transference exists, there is not space here to inquire; nor is it necessary, for the effects of the "absent treatment," so called, can all be accounted for without any such assumption.

Patients thus treated know or they do not know that they are being treated. When they know, there is nothing to explain, for it is the same as if patient and practitioner were in each other's presence. All the mental operations, as well as the original force of nature, proceed under the conviction that they are being treated by a mental healer. If they do not know the entire field of coincidence and the vis medicatrix naturæ remain inviolate; and to determine that there is any connection between the alleged treatment and the change in the condition of the patient would require a vast number of cases and detailed coincidence of time and symptom, for which these practitioners do not display ability, and for which, on their own testimony, they have had no opportunity. Indeed, their theories are such as to make all investigation superfluous and tedious.

The case upon which Mrs. Eddy appears to rely is described thus: "The day you received my husband's letter I became conscious for the first time in forty-eight hours." What can this prove? What evidence is there that she would not have become conscious if the letter had never been written? If she were ever to come out of an unconscious state and recover, it must be at some time. The coincidence of Mrs. Eddy's receiving a letter from the husband does not show any connection between the two facts, for such letters have been sent and the patients have died. To my personal knowledge her treatments have failed, and her predictions have not been fulfilled, the patient dying in excruciating agony. Instances which have occurred, and can be reproduced at any time, of the attempted absent treatment of persons who never existed, are numerous; for there is not one of this class of healers that cannot be so imposed upon. This is sufficient to raise a powerful presumption that the spiritual presence which they evoke, and to which they speak, is "such stuff as dreams are made of."

It is not to be denied that they make more cures than any bungler or extremist of a school using drugs would expect. But their failures are numerous, and, like faith healers, they never publish these. Compelled, however, to admit this, the chancellor of the University of the Science of Spirit says:

Our inability to heal instantaneously as they (Jesus and the Apostles) are recorded to have done, is attributable to our deficiency in the realization of the doctrine. While we claim that our theory of healing is applicable to all diseases, we do not claim to possess sufficient understanding in it at the present time to heal all diseases instantaneously, neither would we now guarantee to cure certain diseases, such as cancer or consumption in the last stages. Of one thing, however, we are confident, i. e., that we can do more good in all cases of illness than can be done with any other theory, or with materia medica.—Arens.

They are rather more successful than faith healers for this reason: with the faith healers it is generally either an instantaneous cure, or none at all. And an instantaneous cure cannot be made to apply to a great many cases, and what is supposed to be such is very frequently a delusion followed by a complete relapse. The Christian Scientists, however, and their congeners make many visits and give nature a much better opportunity without the destruction of the patient's faith in them by a failure at a critical juncture; thus it happens that the proportion of recoveries is more numerous.

The principal practical element has been more or less recognized and employed by the greatest physicians of every school through the whole history of medical practice, as well as by quacks and superstitious pagan priests. "The History of Medical Economy during the Middle Ages," by George F. Fort, contains numerous illustrations of this subject, though adduced for another purpose, and, unlike many other treatises, giving the authorities with most painstaking accuracy.

Dr. Rush, of whom Dr. Tuke affirms that few physicians have had more practical experience of disease, says:

I have frequently prescribed remedies of doubtful efficacy in the critical stage of acute diseases, but never till I had worked up my patients into a confidence bordering upon certainty of their probable good effects. The success of this measure has much oftener answered than disappointed my expectations.

The "British and Foreign Medical Review" for January, 1846, whose editor then was Sir John Forbes, contained an article written by himself which encourages "the administration of simple, feeble, and altogether powerless, non-perturbing medicines, in all cases in which drugs are prescribed pro forma, for the satisfaction of the patient's mind, and not with the view of producing any direct remedial effect."

"Physic and Physicians," published in 1839, speaking of the celebrated and extraordinarily successful Dr. Radcliffe, who was the founder of the Radcliffe Library at Oxford University, and died in 1714, says that he paid particular attention to the mind of the patient under his care, and had been heard to say that he attributed much of his success and eminence to this circumstance. There is a very good anecdote illustrating his views upon this subject:

A lady of rank consulted Radcliffe in great distress about her daughter, and the doctor began the investigation of the case by asking, "Why, what ails her?" "Alas! doctor," replied the mother, "I cannot tell; but she has lost her humor, her looks, her stomach; her strength consumes every day, and we are apprehensive that she cannot live." "Why do you not marry her?" said Radcliffe. "Alas! doctor, that we would fain do, and have offered her as good a match as ever she could expect." "Is there no other that you think she would be content to marry?" "Ah, doctor, that is what troubles us; for there is a young gentleman we doubt she loves, that her father and I can never consent to." "Why, look you, madam," replied Radcliffe gravely, "then the case is this: your daughter would marry one man, and you would have her marry another. In all my books I find no remedy for such a disease as this."

This principle has also been employed by certain priests and clergymen of every sect. A young woman, a teacher, was, as she believed and as her friends supposed, at the point of death. Her physician was not quite certain that she was as ill as she seemed, and requested the pastor to assist him in breaking up her delusion that she must die. He attempted it, but she refused to hear him, and intrusted him with messages for her friends, especially for her class in the Sunday School. When about to bid her farewell, he informed her that he would return in the afternoon; she replied that she would like him to pray with her, but that it was useless to ask for her recovery. Having in view her hearing what he had to say, he prayed in such a way as to break the spell and cause her to believe that she would recover; as he did this, the morbid symptoms of approaching death gave way, and she is still living.

Another case was still more remarkable. A woman, ill and bedridden, conceived a high regard for the piety and intelligence of her pastor. He entered her room and in a loud and solemn voice said, "I command you to arise!" Involuntarily she arose and resumed the duties of housekeeping, which after the lapse of ten years she still performs.

A Roman Catholic priest, of high position in his church, told the writer that he thought he had saved scores of lives by refusing to administer the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, which led the patients to say "Father —— does not think I am going to die."

In 1832, when the cholera raged in Norfolk, Virginia, Dr. Buzzell, a physician of great local celebrity, lived there. He was driving night and day, and on one occasion was summoned to see a stalwart negro who was apparently in the state of collapse. Instead of beginning at once to treat him, he accused him of shamming, denounced and derided him in every possible way for calling him when he was at work night and day, driven almost to death. Then, assuming the appearance of intense excitement, he procured a switch and began to thrash the negro very severely. The more he groaned, and the more he said he was dying, the more Dr. Buzzell thrashed him, and with his threatenings and beatings brought on such a tremendous reaction that the man recovered.

In a visit to a branch of the Oneida Community at Wallingford, in 1856, I asked Mrs. Miller, the sister of John H. Noyes, the founder of the community, what they did if any of the inmates became ill, as they repudiated medicines. She said they had very little sickness. "But, have I not heard of an epidemic of diphtheria among you?" She said there had been, but by their treatment they saved every case. "What was that treatment?" "It was treatment by criticism." "How was it applied?" "So soon as a person was taken ill, a committee was appointed who went into the room and sat down, paying no attention to the patient; they began at once to speak about him or her, criticizing the patient's peculiarities, bringing every defect to the surface, and unsparingly condemning it." Mrs. Miller added that no one could endure this more than an hour. The mental and moral irritation was so great that they began to perspire and invariably recovered. The universal efficacy of this method may well be doubted, for many persons live in such an atmosphere that if that treatment would save them, they would never die; while others are so callous to all criticism that the remedy would be without effect.

In a certain lunatic asylum was a patient, a very attractive young lady, whose delusion took the form that she was specially called of God to do some great work which had not yet been indicated to her. With this were connected several pernicious practices, such as fasting, excessive prayer, and others of similar character. The asylum physicians were very much interested in her, but the months passed away and she did not improve.

At last one of the assistant physicians, especially interested in the influence of the mind upon the body, determined upon a plan to effect her cure by a powerful mental operation. Accordingly, he introduced a tube into her room, without her knowledge, and also prepared a calcium light so that, at a certain time, he could flood the room with rays of intense brilliancy.

The young woman had not walked a step for many months. At the appointed hour, with all the physicians standing in the hall, and the wife of the physician in chief—a thoroughly Christian woman, intensely sympathetic with the patient—also with them, the physician spoke through the tube in the name of the Lord, informing the girl that He had heard her prayers, that she should soon be sent upon her mission, and that she should go forth from the place to her own home to testify to His glory. At the same instant that the voice was heard, the room was flooded with a light much brighter than the sun at noonday.

Her face, with the utmost simplicity of faith, was lighted up with a joy that seemed too great for mortal; and those who were situated where they could see it, declared that hardly ever in their lives had they seen such an expression of seraphic bliss.

Of course, great interest centered in the conduct of the young woman the next morning. She said not a word to a human being upon her vision, but in the morning rose and walked the entire length of the hall, and continued to improve in physical and mental health till discharged from the asylum as practically cured.

Our informant, an official of the institution, of entire credibility, has not heard from her for some time; but, up to a recent period, she remained in good health.

This is an instance of cure effected by the operation of the mind upon the body, as extraordinary as any instance of cure which can be adduced by Faith Healers or Christian Scientists.

The nervous "temperament" or condition of the healer appears to be of no special importance; that is, it is of importance only in the same sense that it is to salesmen, public speakers, school-teachers, lawyers, sea-captains, detectives, military leaders, physicians, and all who impress themselves upon others. I have seen successful healers thin and tall; others short and fat; some pale, others florid; some intelligent, others unintelligent; some intellectual, more only intelligent; some in good health, others diseased; one of the best was so feeble as to seem on the verge of death.^[3]

The specimen mental treatment given on page 257 shows how the practitioner worked herself up to the point; and it is easy to fancy how forcibly she spoke when a surge of conviction that seemed to act on all the blood-vessels of her body and made her tingle all over, went through her; and it is equally easy to imagine the effect upon the patient.

The relation of the Mind Cure movement to ordinary medical practice is important. It emphasizes what the most philosophical physicians of all schools have always deemed of the first importance, though many have neglected it. It teaches that medicine is but occasionally necessary. It hastens the time when patients of discrimination will rather pay more for advice how to live, and for frank declarations that they do not need medicine, than for drugs. It promotes general reliance upon those processes which go on equally in health and disease.

But these ethereal practitioners have no new force to offer; there is no causal connection between their cures and their theories.

What they believe has practically nothing to do with their success. If a new school were to arise claiming to heal diseases without drugs or hygiene, or prayer, by the hypothetical odylic force invented by Baron Reichenbach, the effects would be the same, if the practice were the same.

Recoveries as remarkable have been occurring through all the ages, as the results of mental states and nature's own powers.

They will not be able to displace either the skilled surgeon or the educated physician; for their arrogant and exclusive pretensions are of the nature of a "craze." Most sensible persons will prefer a physician who understands both the mind and the body; who can be a "father confessor" to the sick man, relieving him of the responsibility of treating himself, quieting his mind, strengthening him by hope, and stimulating him by his personal presence; one who, understanding the mineral, plant, and animal substances included in the materia medica, can assist nature, interfering only when absolutely necessary and certainly safe; too learned and honest, when not knowing what to do, ever to do he knows not what.

They will also prefer a physician who can relieve their pains when incurable, smooth their pathway to the inevitable end, or, when he has the happiness to see them convalescent, will be able to give them such hygienic hints as may prevent a recurrence of the malady, or save them from something worse.

The verdict of mankind, excepting minds prone to vagaries on the borderland of insanity, will be that pronounced by Ecclesiasticus more than two thousand years ago:

"The Lord hath created medicines out of the earth; and he that is wise will not abhor them. My son, in thy sickness be not negligent; but pray unto the Lord, and he will make thee whole. Leave off from sin, and order thy hands aright, and cleanse thy heart from all wickedness. Then give place to the physician, for the Lord hath created him: let hlm not go from thee, for thou hast need of him. There is a time when in their hands there is good success. For they shall also pray unto the Lord, that he would prosper that which they give for ease and to prolong life."

1. Mrs. Stuart in the foregoing passage is only a little more absurd than Mrs. Eddy. "The preference of mortal mind for any method creates a demand for it, and the body seems to require it. You can even educate a healthy horse so far in physiology that he will take cold without his blanket; whereas the wild animal, left to his instincts, sniffs the wind with delight." The connection of this quotation with what goes before shows that the horse does not take cold, in the opinion of Mrs. Eddy, because, having been accustomed to the blanket, his system is so weakened that he will take cold without it; but because the training of the said horse has been such that he is led to believe that if the blanket is not on he will take cold!
2. This case can be found (No. 44) in "Lectures on the Physiology and Pathology of the Central Nervous System," by Brown-Séquard; published, 1860, in Philadelphia. Also in Holmes's "Annals of Surgery," vol. 3, p. 330.  A similar account can be found of insanity produced four years after a boy trod on a piece of glass, which was entirely relieved by removing from a point near the ball of the big toe a trifling piece of glass. What is called the nervous temperament or condition is of importance.
3. In practice it seems to be more difficult to successfully treat one's self than to treat another person. The reason for this is that, when personally under the influence of supposed disease, the appeal of the senses is more forcible than when the deception shows itself in another. But that one can couquer the results of his own inverted thinking, there is not the slightest occasion to doubt.... We must not, however, make the mistake of supposing that he who would attempt to bring healing to others must first be sound himself.... The effect of a treatment depends not on its length, but on the condition of the healer who exercises it, and the dynamic power of the thought exerted.—Marston.