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