may be proper before considering its philosophy. Its novelty having
worn off, it is perhaps less prominent as a current topic than
formerly, but its progress, though quiet, has been remarkable during
the past five years. Careful estimates by those in the best position
to judge place the number of those who accept its leading principles,
in the United States, at over a million. Owing to the distrust of
public opinion, a large majority hold their views quietly but none the
less firmly. But a small fraction of its adherents are identified
with its organizations, and yet within the limits of one school [those
distinctively known as Christian Scientists], there are about thirty
organized churches, and also one hundred and twenty societies which
maintain regular Sunday services, though not yet having church
organization. There are also between forty and fifty dispensaries and
reading rooms, and a rapidly increasing literature, both of standard
works and periodicals. One of the other schools, distinctively known
as Mind Cure, has also a large number of organizations similar in
character. The number of regularly graduated practitioners cannot be
accurately estimated, but they are numbered by the thousand. Of the
million more or less of believers in the principles of mind healing,
it may be admitted that perhaps a large majority, in the event of
severe acute illness, would still make some use of old remedies, or
would combine both where circumstances would allow. Life-long habits
are tenacious; to defy the force of public opinion, the importunity of
friends and the overwhelming aggregation of surrounding belief, is a
trying ordeal. Until public opinion softens, mental healing in its
purity will be mainly employed in chronic troubles, or at least for
those which are not of a sudden and acute nature. Mind healers would
differ in acute cases, as to how far those who have had no previous
growth of trust in unseen forces should be left to those alone. In the
present stage of progress in mind healing, there should be nothing
which would require anyone to dispense with reasonable nursing nor
with common sense. Some things which are ideally and abstractly true,
can only be fully realized in the future, and it is not well to
prematurely use them before the conditions are fully ripened.
All new innovations, no matter how much needed, have had to pass
through a period when "they were everywhere spoken against." The time
is not distant when personal liberty in respect to choice in one's
method of healing may be enjoyed without unpleasant criticism or
notoriety.
The more important schools which agree in the one cardinal principle
of healing through mind, designate their respective systems as
Christian Science, Mind Cure, and Christian Metaphysics. These terms,
in common use, are somewhat interchangeable. There are also those who
combine mind healing with Theosophy, and still others who differ in
non-essentials. What is distinctively known as "Faith Cure" has
little in common with those before named. Its theory is that disease
is healed by special interposition in answer to prayer. None of the
other systems accept anything as special, but believe in the
universality and continuity of orderly law.
There are many leaders, authors, and workers in this movement, who are
eminent; but as principles are more important than personality, their
names need not be enumerated.
Why did this movement originate among women, and why have so large a
proportion of its exponents belonged to the so-called weaker sex?
Because the intuitional and spiritual senses of women are keener than
those of men, and mental healing is not the result of profound
reasoning. It is the seeming "weak things of the world which confound
the strong." Men are largely immersed in intellectual and formulated
systems, and when the time was ripe for new light and attainment in
spiritual evolution to dawn upon humanity, it might have been expected
that its first delicate rays would be detected by woman.
The one great principle which underlies all mind healing is contained
in the assumption that all primary causation relating to the human
organism is mental or spiritual. The mind, which is the real man, is
the cause, and the body the result. The mind is the expressor, and the
body the expression. The inner life forces build the body, and not the
body the life forces. The thought forms the brain, and not the brain
the thought. The physical man is but the printed page, or external
manifestation, of the intrinsic man which is higher and back of him.
Materia medica deals with effects rather than primary causes. It seeks
to modify the expression, which can only be done through the
expressor. It is axiomatic that to change results we deal with causes.
This principle is so widely recognized that it is seen in an endless
variety of phases, even among barbarous and half-civilized races. The
charms and incantations used for healing among Indian tribes have this
significance. With all their barbarism they are near to nature and
keen in locating causation. With nothing more than a superstitious
basis, charms, incantations, dances, images, ceremonies, and shrines
have a wonderful influence for healing. They divert the mind from the
ailment, and stimulate a strong faith which awakens the recuperative
forces to action, and thus cause a rapid recovery.
A traveller in Algiers relates the following conversation he had with
a Moorish woman of high class: "When ill do you go to the doctor?" he
asked. "Oh, no; we go to the Marabout; he writes a few words from the
Koran on a piece of paper, which we chew and swallow, with a little
water from the sacred well at the Mosque. We need no more and soon
recover."
If a skilful exercise of baseless superstition upon mind can be so
efficacious, what results are possible by a judicious use of the
truth? Mental causation is abundantly proved by the well-known effects
of fear, anger, envy, anxiety, and other passions and emotions, upon
the physical organism. Acute fear will paralyze the nerve centres, and
sometimes turn the hair white in a single night. A mother's milk can
be poisoned by a fit of anger. An eminent writer, Dr. Tuke, enumerates
as among the direct products of fear, insanity, idiocy, paralysis of
various muscles and organs, profuse perspiration, cholerina, jaundice,
sudden decay of teeth, fatal anaemia, skin diseases, erysipelas, and
eczema. Passion, sinful thought, avarice, envy, jealousy, selfishness,
all press for external bodily expression. Even false philosophies,
false theology, and false conceptions of God make their unwholesome
influence felt in every bodily tissue. By infallible law, mental
states are mirrored upon the body, but because the process is complex
and gradual, we fail to observe the connection. Mind translates itself
into flesh and blood.
What must be the physical result upon humanity of thousands of years
of chronic fearing, sinning, selfishness, anxiety, and unnumbered
other morbid conditions? These are all the time pulling down the cells
and tissues, which only divine, harmonious, and wholesome thought can
build up. Is it surprising that no one is perfectly healthy? If man
were not linked to God, and unconsciously receiving an inflow of
recuperative vital force, the multitudinous destroyers would soon
disintegrate his physical organism. Can the building forces be
strengthened, stimulated, and made more harmonious and divine? Yes,
through mind. The mind surely but unconsciously pervades every
physical tissue with its vital influence, and is present in every
function; throbbing in the heart, breathing in the lungs, and weaving
its own quality into nutrition, assimilation, sensation, and motion.
A conscious fear of any particular disease is not necessary to induce
it. The accumulated strands of the unconscious fear of generations
have been twisted into the warp and woof of our mentality, and we find
ourselves on the plane of reciprocity with disease. Our door is open
to receive it. What is disease? A mental spectre, which to material
vision has terrible proportions. A kingly tyrant, crowned by our own
beliefs. It has exactly that power which our fears, theories, and
acceptances have conferred upon it. It is not an objective entity, but
our sensuous beliefs have galvanized it into life. "As a man thinketh,
so is he." Realism to us may be conferred upon the most absolute
non-entity, if we give it large thought space, and fear it. As a
condition, disease is existent; but not as a God-created entity, in
and of itself. It appears veritable to us, because we have
unconsciously identified the Ego with the body.
The material standpoint is false. We are immaterial; not bodies, but
spirits--even here and now. Having lost spiritual consciousness, we
practically,--though not theoretically,--feel that we are bodies. To
grasp our divine selfhood and steadily hold it, disarms fear and all
its allies, and promotes recuperation and harmony. When the intrinsic
man dethrones the false and sensuous claimant, and asserts his divine
birthright of wholeness [holiness] the body as a correspondence falls
into line and gradually expresses health on its own plane. Normally
and logically, that which is higher should rule the lower. The body,
instead of being the unrelenting despot, then becomes the docile and
useful servant. In its subordinate position, where it rightfully
belongs, it grows beautiful and harmonious. Men live mainly in their
bodily sensations. Such living, though apparently real, is a false
sense of life. There is a profound significance in the scriptural
injunction, "Take no thought for your body." The dyspeptic thinks of
his stomach, and the more he has it in mind the more abnormally
sensitive it becomes. The sound man has no knowledge of such an organ,
except as a matter of theory. The body, when watched, petted, and
idolized, soon assumes the character of a usurper and tyrant.
Retribution is sure and inherent under such conditions.
A change of environment often cures, simply because novelty diverts
thought which before has been centered upon the body. The improvement,
however, is often credited to better climate, water, or air. Human
pride seeks for its causation without rather than within. Secondary
causation is really effect, though not often so diagnosed. The draft
occasions the cold, but it gets its deadly qualities from cumulative
belief and fear. Who has not seen persons in which this bondage and
sensitiveness have become so intense that even a breath of God's pure
air alarms them. In this way a great mass of secondary causation has
been invested with power for evil, and mistaken for that which is
primary. Noting the tremendous power of grown-up accumulations of
false belief, we may glance at the modus operandi of mental healing.
There are two distinct lines of treatment which may effect a cure; one
by intelligent and persistent self-discipline and culture, and the
other through the efforts of another person called a healer. Often
there is a combination of both. The power does not lie in the
personality of the healer, nor in the exercise of his will-power.
Neither hypnotism nor mesmeric control are elements in true
mind-healing. The healer, in reality, is but an interpreter and
teacher. The divine recuperative forces which exist, but are latent,
are awakened and called into action. The patient is like a discordant
instrument containing great capabilities, only waiting to respond in
unison to active harmony. His distorted thought must be elevated and
harmonized, so that he will see things in their true perspective. The
healer gently guides him up into the "mount of transfiguration," where
he feels the glow of the divine image within, and sees that wholeness
is already his, and will be made manifest as he recognizes it. A
successful healer must be an overflowing fountain of love and
good-will. He is but a conduit through which flows the divine
repletion. He makes ideal conditions present. He steadily holds a
mental image of his patient as already whole, and silently appeals to
the unconscious mind of the invalid, to induce him to accept the same
view. The patient's mental background is like a sensitive plate, upon
which will gradually appear outlines of health as they are positively
presented. Improved views of his own condition spring up from within,
and seem to him to be original. As they grow into expression in the
outer man, his cure is complete.
Do failures occur? Undoubtedly, and often. Even infallible principles
can have but imperfect application because of local limitations. The
failure of a particular field of grain does not disprove the universal
principle of vegetable growth. The imperfection of the healer, and the
lack of receptivity in the patient, are local limitations. There are
sudden cures, but as a rule recovery will be in the nature of a
progressive growth. Lack of immediate results often causes
disappointment, and leads to an abandonment of the treatment before
the seed has had time to take root. The healer is the sower, and the
patient's unconscious mind is the soil. Often rubbish must be cleared
away before any fertile spot is found. The cure must come from within.
Sometimes the patient is cherishing some secret sin, or giving place
to trains of thought colored with envy, jealousy, avarice, or
selfishness. These are all positive obstacles to both mental and
physical improvement, for thoughts are real things. The patient must
actively co-operate with the healer, and make himself transparent to
the truth. That which is misshapen has to grow symmetrical. Even if
the mind could be instantly permeated with the belief of health, the
body will need a little time to completely change its expression.
Should these limitations discourage anyone? Not in the least, but
rather the reverse. The fact that the cure is in the nature of a
growth, is evidence that it is normal and permanent, rather than
magical or capricious. Limitations are present, but they can be
surmounted.
The phenomenon of pain, so commonly regarded as an evil, is only a
warning voice to summon our consciousness from its resting-place in
the damp, morgue-like basement of our being, to the higher apartments,
where sunshine and harmony are ever present. It is beneficent when its
message is heeded, for it is thereby transformed into blessing. Our
resistance to it, and misunderstanding of its significance, prevent
that possible transformation. The process of cure through mind, though
in itself a steady growth, often appears to the consciousness of the
patient as vibratory and uneven.
Many could heal themselves without the aid of another, if they
appreciated the tremendous power for good of concentrated mental
delineation of the ideal. By such exercises of mind, a wholesome
environment can be built up, even if at first the process seems almost
mechanical. But instead of such self-building, out of an infinitude of
divine material, the average man is inclined to vacate the control of
his being, put his body into the keeping of his doctor, and his soul
[himself] into the care of his priest or pastor.
Efficiency for self-treatment is increased as the power of abstraction
is cultivated. Hold a firm consciousness of the spiritual self, and of
the fact that the material form is only expression made visible.
Firmly deny the validity of adverse sensuous evidence, and at length
it will disappear. Silently but persistently affirm health, harmony,
and the divine image. Give out good thought, for thoughts are real
gifts. In proportion as you pour out, the divine repletion pours in.
Look upon the physical self as only a false claimant for the Ego. Hold
only the good in your field of vision, and let disease and evil fade
out to their native nothingness, from lack of standing-room. Even a
warfare against evils as objective realities, tends to make them more
realistic. At convenient seasons, bar out the external world, and
rivet the mind tenaciously to the loftiest ideals and aspirations, and
for the time being forget that you possess a body. Oh, victim of
nervous prostration and insomnia, test these principles and see if
they are not superior to anodynes, opiates, bromides, and chorals, and
be assured that they leave no sting behind. The great boon which they
bestow is not limited to nervous and mental disorders; its virtue
penetrates to the outermost physical limits.
The whole atmosphere of race thought in which we live is sensuous.
This vast unconscious influence must be overcome. The mental healer is
like one rowing against the current of a mighty river. Humanity is
"bound in one bundle," and it is with difficulty that a few can
advance much faster than the rythmical step of the mass. Even the
Great Exemplar in some places could not do many mighty works because
of surrounding unbelief.
Man is peering into the dust for new supplies of life, which are
stored around and above him. Is it not time that he should make a
serious effort to throw off the galling yoke of cruel though
intangible masters, and achieve freedom and emancipation?
Turning to the religious aspect of mental healing, it is seen to be in
harmony with revelation, and also with the highest spiritual ideal in
all religions. While rebuking scholastic and dogmatic systems on the
one hand, and pseudo-scientific materialism on the other, it vitalizes
and makes practical the principles of the Sermon on the Mount. The
healing of to-day is the same in kind, though not equal in degree to
that of the primitive church. It is in accord with spiritual law,
which is ever uniformly the same under like conditions. The miracles
of the Apostolic Age were real as transactions, but their miraculous
hue was in the materialistic vision of the observers. Healing is the
outward and practical attestation of the power and genuineness of
spiritual religion, and ought not to have dropped out of the Church.
The divine commission to preach the gospel and heal the sick, never
rightly could have been severed in twain, because they are only
different sides of one Whole. By what authority is one part declared
binding through ages and the other ignored? Who will assert that God
is changeable, so that any divinely bestowed boon to one age could be
withdrawn from a subsequent one? The direct assurance of the Christ,
that "these signs shall follow them that believe," is perpetual in its
scope, because "them that believe" are limited to no age, race, or
condition. As ecclesiasticism and materialism crept into the early
church, and personal ambitions and worldly policies sapped its
vitality, spiritual transparency and brotherly love faded out, and
with them went the power--or rather the recognition of the power--to
heal.
Wonderful works are not limited alone to those who accept the
Christian religion; but in proportion as other systems recognize the
supremacy of the spiritual element, and catch even a partial glow of
"that true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world,"
their intrinsic qualities will be made outwardly manifest. A right
conception of God, as infinite present Good, strongly aids in
producing the expression of health. "In Him we live, and move, and
have our being." An abiding concept of such truth directly promotes
trust, harmony, healing. Seeming ills are not God-created powers, but
human perversions and reflected images of subjective states. As a
higher and spiritual standpoint is gained, apparent evils dissolve,
and then in bold relief is seen the fair proportions of the Kingdom of
the Real.
[Illustration: MR. AND MRS. JAS. A. HERNE.]
MR. AND MRS. HERNE.
BY HAMLIN GARLAND.
In May last, in a small hall in Boston, on a stage of planking, hung
with drapery, was produced one of the most radical plays from a native
author ever performed in America. Mr. and Mrs. James A. Herne, unable
to obtain a hearing in the theatres for their play, which had been
endorsed by some of the best known literary men of the day, were
forced to hire a hall, and produce _Margaret Fleming_ bare of all
mechanical illusion, and shorn of all its scenic and atmospheric
effects. Everybody, even their friends, prophesied disaster. In such
surroundings failure seemed certain. But a few who knew the play and
its authors better, felt confident that there was a public for them.
It was a notable event, and the fame of _Margaret Fleming_ is still on
its travels across the dramatic world.
There were two reasons for this result, the magnificent art of Mrs.
Herne, which "created illusion by its utter simplicity and absolute
truth to life," and second, because the play was, in fact, as one
critic said, "an epoch-marking play." It could afford to dispense with
canvas, bunch-lights, machinery, as it dispensed with conventional
plot and epithet, and as its actors discarded declamation and mere
noise.
The phenomenal success of Mr. and Mrs. Herne brought them prominently
before the literary public. Interest became very strong in them as
persons as well as artists, and from an intimate personal acquaintance
with them both, I have been asked to give this brief sketch of their
work previous to _Margaret Fleming_, for epoch-marking as it was, it
was only a logical latest outcome of the work the Hernes have been
doing for the last ten years.
Mr. Herne is a man of large experience, having been on the stage for
thirty years. He has been through all the legitimate lines. He has
been a member of a stock company, manager of theatres, and author and
manager of several plays of his own, previous to the writing of
_Margaret_ _Fleming_. His first real attempt at writing was _Hearts
of Oak_. The home scenes, and notably the famous dinner scene, which
became such a feature, showed the direction of his power. This play,
produced about twelve years ago with Mrs. Herne as "Crystal," was
their first attempt to handle humble American life, and was very
successful.
Mr. Herne's next venture was an ambitious one. It was the writing of a
play based upon the American Revolution. In the spring of '86 he
produced at the Boston Theatre _The Minute Men_, where it was received
with immense enthusiasm. It was somewhat conventional in plot, but in
all its scenes of home life was true and fine. The central figures
were Reuben (a backwoodsman), and Dorothy, his adopted daughter.
Whatever concerned these two characters was keyed to the note of life.
Like all Mr. Herne's acting, Reuben was utterly unconscious of
himself. He went about as a backwoodsman naturally does, without
posturing or swagger. With the sweetness and quaintness of Sam Lawson,
he had the comfortable aspect of a well-fed Pennsylvania Quaker.
Mrs. Herne's Dorothy was a fitting companion piece, faultlessly true,
and sweet, and natural. Her spontaneous laugh is as infectiously
gleeful as Joe Jefferson's chuckle. Those who have never seen her in
this part can hardly realize how fine a comedienne she really is.
Mr. Herne's next play was simpler, stronger, and better, though less
picturesque. _Drifting Apart_ was based upon the commonest of life's
tragedies--the home of a drunkard. It is the most effective of
sermons, without one word of preaching. The drifting apart of husband
and wife through the husband's "failin'" is set forth with unexampled
concreteness, and yet there is no introduction of horror. We
understand it all by the sufferings of the wife, with whom we
alternately hope and despair. I copy here what I wrote of it at the
time when I knew neither Mr. and Mrs. Herne, nor any other of their
plays.
The second act in this play for tenderness and truth has not been
surpassed in any American play. A daring thing exquisitely done
was that holiest of confidences between husband and wife. The
vast audience sat hushed as death before that touching, almost
sacred scene, as they do when sitting before some great tragedy.
What does this mean, if not that our dramatists have been too
distrustful of the public? They have gone round the earth in
search of material for plays, not knowing that the most moving
of all life is that which lies closest at hand, after all.
Mrs. Herne's acting of Mary Miller was my first realization of the
compelling power of truth. It was so utterly opposed to the "tragedy
of the legitimate." Here was tragedy that appalled and fascinated like
the great fact of living. No noise, no contortions of face or limbs,
yet somehow I was made to feel the dumb, inarticulate, interior agony
of a mother. Never before had such acting faced me across the
footlights. The fourth act was like one of Millet's paintings, with
that mysterious quality of reserve--the quality of life again.
In this play, as in _Hearts of Oak_, there was no villain and no plot.
The scene was laid in a fishing village near Gloucester. I can do no
better than to give you a taste of the quaint second act.
It is Christmas eve and Jack and Mary have been married a year. Jack
is preparing to go out. Mary is secretly disturbed over his going but
hides it. "Mother" sits by the fire knitting. Mary is sewing by the
window.
_Jack._ Say, Mary! D'you know, I can shave myself better'n any
barber thet ever honed a razor?
_Mary._ I always told you you could, Jack, if you'd only try.
_Jack._ Feel my face now--ain't it as smooth as any baby's?
_Mary._ (_Feeling his face._) Yes, Jack, as smooth as any _old_
baby's.