WHAT IS MIND CURE?
THIS subject has given rise to an endless variety of contradictory
discussions, and while it has won for itself fanatical devotees on
one side, it has been ridiculed on the other. This is not at all
surprising, when an inquiry is made into the competency of the parties
to the controversy. To be informed in metaphysical philosophy, or
fully equipped in scriptural lore, but without a practical study in
the art and theory of medical science, precludes the possibility of
presenting the theme in a logical manner, or establishing a relevancy
between medical science and mind cure. A medical education that is
based on strictly physical characteristics of disease, as they are
studied at the bedside, or in a microscopical laboratory, is equally
inadequate; for the question of mind cure goes beyond the physical into
the metaphysical, and not until the operations of the mind have been
closely followed to the bodily or organic functions, can the intimacy
of their relations be thoroughly appreciated. Medical men betray their
incapacity for observation if they contemptuously dismiss the subject
of mind cure by some superficial, disparaging illustration, for there
is much more in the subject than is dreamt of, even in the mind of the
average college professor.
“The mind,” says Dr. W. F. Evans, “can be made the plastic or formative
principle of the body, and that thought can retard, pervert, or
stimulate and correct the different functions of the human organism.”
The relation of spirit and matter is very intimate, and some very
clever thinkers resolve all matter into spirit, in its ultimate
analysis.
Bishop Berkeley affirms this in his “Principles of Human Knowledge.” In
section seven he says “there is not any other substance than spirit.”
If we view nature from a materialistic standpoint, we see only one-half
of what we think we do, and even that must be very imperfectly judged
by our senses. Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling states the relation
of matter and spirit, in very simple and plain words, so that a child
can understand what he says: “Nature is spirit visible, and spirit, is
invisible nature.” This may be illustrated in physical science from
what chemistry teaches of the physical properties of the _diamond_,
whose atoms or molecules are so perfectly continuous and closely
aggregated that it forms one of the hardest substances known to
physicists. These atoms of pure carbon may be made to repel each other,
so that the diamond assumes a gaseous state, which is imperceptible to
our senses.
I am aware that the definition of a gas is not that which
metaphysicians would accept as applicable to spirit, and yet it
illustrates the idea from a physical standpoint. It is much better to
illustrate a question with something with which people are generally
familiar. The body and every organ and tissue forming a constituent
part of it, is simply the plain ordinary matter in motion, vitalized
by what we call life, and this life principle is a mystery, and what
is true of the diamond is true of the human body in its entirety. If
placed in a crematory, it is reduced to a few ounces of bone ash, and,
with the addition of a little acid, this too would soon disappear into
invisible gases, so that the doctrine of philosophers, that matter is
spirit, is, after all, not so far removed from physical evidence.
Physiological science gives abundant proof that the mind has a powerful
influence over the body. By mind is meant all that class of mental
phenomena called reason, and the emotions and passions. Doctor Evans
says “the body is included in the being of the mind,” or, in other
words, that matter is included in the being of spirit.
The thinking quality of the mind is undoubtedly the mainspring of its
action, of which the formation of ideas is the highest kind of mental
activity. These originate either within the mind or are brought within
its sphere by transformed impressions from without, but through the
power of the Will these are more or less modified, and may, indeed, be
entirely suspended, so that the mind may become entirely passive and
not think of anything. It is the exercise of this Will power which may
make the operations of thought conducive to health or disease.
_Cogito ergo sum_, “I think, therefore I am,” is a maxim of Descartes.
What we think and give shape to in thought has for us a real existence,
and we have it in our power to create thoughts that will have either
a painful or pleasurable sensation. Painful sensations have occurred
to persons by the conviction of the existence of a cause which would,
when present, have produced certain results. Of this several examples
are given in W. B. Carpenter’s physiology: “A clergyman told me that
some time ago suspicions were entertained in his parish of a woman who
was supposed to have poisoned her newly-born infant. The coffin was
exhumed, and the coroner, who attended with the medical men to examine
the body, declared that he already perceived the oder of decomposition,
which made him feel faint, and in consequence he withdrew. But on
opening the coffin it was found to be empty, and it was afterwards
ascertained that no child had been born, and consequently no murder
committed.” The second case is yet more remarkable: “A butcher was
brought into the drug store of Mr. Macfarlan, from the market-place
opposite, laboring under a terrible accident. The man, on trying to
hook up a heavy piece of meat above his head, slipped, and the sharp
hook penetrated his arm, so that he himself was suspended. On being
examined he was pale, almost pulseless, and expressed himself as
suffering acute agony. The arm could not be moved without causing
excessive pain, and in cutting off the sleeve he frequently cried
out. Yet when the arm was exposed, it was found to be quite uninjured,
the hook having only traversed the sleeve of his coat.” In this, and
similar cases, the sensation was perfectly real to the individual
who experienced it, but it originated in the mind by an impression
through the nerves of _internal sensation_ which created the idea or
image in the brain, and the _external senses_ to which it was referred
had nothing to do in causing the feeling. Diseases are thus created
every day, either by ourselves or by those to whom we go for advice.
I call to mind a lady who had gone to a distinguished practitioner
for a supposed womb disease for some six months. She experienced no
change for the better, but kept on growing continually worse, so that
she no longer had a refreshing sleep, and her appetite for food was
entirely gone. On examination I found her womb entirely healthy, in
fact, exceptionally so, thanks to her attending physician, because,
after a certain amount of useless doctoring, the rule is quite the
other way. I told this lady of her error or delusion respecting her
womb, and prescribed a quieting mixture for the night and a tonic for
the day. She began at once to improve, and when I saw her again, six
weeks afterwards, she had so fleshed up that I failed to recognize in
her traces of her former delusion. The disease of which this woman was
suffering was imaginary, and had no real existence for anyone outside
of herself. She was the victim of the harrowing symptoms which her
mind conjured into shape, and an attempt to brush aside the disease,
with the flippant remark that “there was nothing the matter with her,”
would have been cruel, unscientific, and absurd. The ailment which she
thought she had, had as much an existence as though the most malignant
disease was destroying her life; for her imaginary disease was doing
the same thing, only in a different way.
Imagination is the most powerful function of the human brain.
Associated with thought, it constitutes the empire of the soul, which
recognizes neither time nor space. With it we are brought into
communion with everything that is grand and beautiful in nature.
Imagination is the architect of our souls; it continually creates and
projects into the beyond; it enlarges the sphere of our thought in
building up artificial structures for our pleasure and entertainment.
When it becomes perverted and abnormal from false impressions, either
through the nerves of internal sensation or through the nerves of
external sense, or, what quite often occurs, from morbid thoughts or
ideas received from others, it becomes equally potent in causing misery
and disease.
Expectation or attention influences, in a remarkable degree, the
bodily functions. There are a great many persons who keep themselves
in misery and disease by always thinking of their imaginary or real
sickness. I had a profitable experience some years ago in my own case,
which conclusively proved to my mind the aggravating tendency which
constant attention has on disease. I had contracted an ordinary catarrh
of the pharynx, or what is generally called a sore throat. At first I
did not mind it, but in the course of time, from continued exposure
in all kinds of inclement weather, at all hours of the day or night,
it fastened itself upon me so that it was at times very annoying by
its dryness and pain. I do not know of anything that I did not use,
but, after a trial of several years, I was convinced that the more I
looked at it and the more I treated it with sprays, gargles, etc., the
worse it became, so that one day I resolved to let it alone, and not
think about it. I took a teasponful of glycerine once in a while when
it became too dry. For years I have not looked at it, and for all I
know, it is perfectly well. I stopped bundling up my neck, used light
bedcovering, so as not to sweat, and by this simple method accomplished
what the very best selected drugs utterly failed to do.
The great English authority, Daniel Hack Tuke, in his work, “The
Influence of the Mind on the Body in Health and Disease,” quotes from
Unzer’s work, published in Germany in the year 1771: “Expectation of
the action of a remedy often causes us to experience its operation
beforehand.” And John Hunter said as early as 1786: “I am confident
that I can fix my attention to any part until I have a sensation
in that part.” A great number of cases are recorded where complete
insensibility to bodily pain has been induced without the use of drugs.
The intention of administering a certain drug was made known in this
manner. Bread pills have acted as decided cathartics, and an empty
chloroform or ether bottle put the sensitive into a profound stupor or
insensibility.
Dr. Woodhouse Braine, of the Charing Cross Hospital, writes: “During
the year 1862 I was called upon to give chloroform to a very nervous
and highly hysterical girl, who was about to have two fatty tumors
of the scalp removed. On going into the operating room, it was found
that the bottle containing the chloroform had been removed to the
dispensary, and on testing the Snow’s inhaler, which at that time I
was in the habit of using, I found it to be quite devoid of even any
smell of chloroform. Then, having sent for the bottle, in order to
accustom the girl to the face-piece, I applied it to her face, and she
at once began to breathe rapidly through it. When she had done this for
about half a minute, she said, ‘Oh, I feel it, I feel I am going off,’
and as the chloroform bottle had not arrived, she was told to go on
breathing quietly. At this time her hand, which had been resting across
her chest, slipped down by her side, and as she did not replace it, I
thought I would pinch her arm gently to see the amount of discomfort
her hysterical state would induce her to bear. She did not notice a
gentle pinch, and so I pinched her harder, and then as hard as I could,
and to my surprise I found that she did not feel at all. Finding this
was the case, I asked the operator to begin, and he incised one of
the tumors, and then, as the cyst was only slightly adherent, peeled
it away. At this time I had removed the face-piece, and, wishing to
see the effect of her imagination, I said to the operator, who was
going to remove the second tumor, ‘Wait a minute; she seems to be
coming round.’ Instantly her respiration, which had been quite quiet,
altered in character, becoming rapid as when I first applied the
inhaler, and she commenced moving her arms about. I then replaced the
face-piece, and her breathing again became quiet, and she submitted to
the second operation without moving a muscle. When the water dressing
and bandages were applied, in answer to the question as to whether she
had felt anything, she said, ‘No; I was quite unconscious of all that
was done.’” The mental phenomenon that we observe in this case clearly
shows how completely the sensation of the patient was suspended by the
imaginary chloroform, which existed only in her mind, yet the real drug
could not have been more potent in its effects.
Phenomena of the same mental process, like the different colors of the
solar spectrum coming from one source, constitute the different stages
or degrees of what is generally called mesmerism or somnambulism,
until the sensitive arrives at that condition of complete double
consciousness now commonly called hypnotism, in which state the will
power of the person becomes entirely suspended, so that he acts
only from suggestions of another person, regardless of propriety or
consequences. When a subject who has been completely hypnotized is
restored to his normal condition, he remembers nothing of what has
transpired during the somnambulistic state. We all have acquaintances
of whom we speak as being easily led; by that we mean that they have no
will or mind of their own. These persons are truly unfortunate, because
they are at the complete mercy of every designing person or cunning
rogue. They constitute the large army of dupes who support the great
number of idle women and lazy men, who claim to be clairvoyants, life
readers and fortune tellers. In sickness they are equally as credulous,
and when they are a little out of sorts, they would a great deal rather
be told that some dangerous or severe illness has hold of them than
to hear the truth that, outside of not eating properly, or clothing
themselves improperly, or being out late at nights when they should be
in their beds, there is nothing the matter with them.
These are the dupes who fill up the chairs in the doctor’s waiting
rooms, on regular days, for local or special treatment for diseases
which could be much better treated by themselves at home, if they
only were fortunate enough to fall into a physician’s hands who had
the honesty to tell them so. This can be further illustrated by an
experience of which every one of us has been a victim at least once
in our lives. When we were trying on a pair of new shoes, we felt
that they pinched, or were too short and generally uncomfortable; but
the salesman insisted that they were a “perfect fit” and that after a
little wearing they would surely suit. The shoes were bought, and we
were convinced, after a few days, that our impression of the smallness
of the shoes was correct, because they continued to pinch us; but we
were for the time mesmerized or psychologized by the clerk into buying
what we were satisfied in our own minds to be not what we wanted. This
should be constantly guarded against, and our conscious will power
should always be exercised on all occasions.
Parents should take particular pains to cultivate the will power of
their children, in the right direction, of course. To stifle the will
of children, when the exercise of it entails no bad consequences, is
wrong, because it weakens their character, and makes them the prey
of the wicked and selfish when they are grown to adult age. This
influence which one person may exercise over another is not due to any
particular force or magnetism, as was supposed by Mesmer, and which
is yet claimed by ignorant frauds and pretenders, but it is simply a
suspension of your own _will_, or a sacrifice of force of character.
Dr. J. M. Charcot, of France, has lately taken up this subject, and
has given it a great deal of attention. His researches have confirmed
the experiments and conclusions of Braid, an English surgeon of
Manchester, who, in 1841, showed that, in order to produce artificial
somnambulism, there was no need of any extraneous influence, and that
any person of moderate sensibility can easily produce in himself the
“magnetic sleep” without any aid or act of another.
Braid discovered that to simply fix the eyes for a few minutes on
some shining object, placed a little higher than the ordinary plane
of vision, and five or six inches from the eyes, caused that total
abstraction which Doctor Braid called “hypnotism,” and which now, in
honor of the experimenter, is often called “Braidism.” This Doctor
Charcot calls “impersonal” sleep, artificially produced by mechanical
means. He remarks: “The psychic characteristic of the state of
somnambulism is an absolute trust, a boundless credulity on the part
of the subject toward the one who has hypnotized him. Take one example
from among a thousand: I present to a woman patient in the hypnotic
state a blank leaf of paper, and say to her: ‘Here is my portrait; what
do you think of it? Is it a good likeness?’ After a moment’s hesitation
she answers, ‘Yes, indeed; your photograph! Will you give it to me?’
The image being now fixed in her mind, I take the leaf of paper, with
a private mark, and mix it with a score of other leaves precisely like
it. I then hand the whole pack to the patient, bidding her to go over
them and let me know whether she finds among them anything she has seen
before. She begins to look at the leaves one after another, and as soon
as her eyes fall upon the one first shown, she exclaims, ‘Look! your
portrait!’” This is the latest phenomenon, and proves how the mind may
print an image on a substance, as the sun prints on a negative.
For persons of casual thought or reading, hypnotism may at first appear
complicated and mysterious, but if you will only bear in mind that the
different mental processes operating between two persons always resolve
themselves into a _weaker_ will power _yielding_ and a _stronger_
will power _controlling_, you have a key which unlocks the different
manifestations of minds in their relations one with the other. This
does not relate to action alone, but to the creation and meaning of our
thoughts.
The cures effected by the royal touch, which prevailed in England
from the time of Edward, the confessor, to Queen Anne, were but a
disguised hypnotism, or a sort of mind cure. Soothsayers, or magnetic
healers, who claim a healing magnetism, are either knaves or fools,
and often both. They undoubtedly can report cures, but these are due
to the natural tendency of some diseases to get well, and to the
hopeful thoughts which these persons inspire by their promises of a
cure; sometimes these hopes are heightened by the different movements
or passes which the healer makes. The greatest healer of whom we
have any reliable record never claimed any abnormal power or force.
Christ healed by the Word, that means by the thought or mind. Faith
in anything creates a curative or healing thought in the mind of the
patient, which stimulates the reparative or healing force of nature,
and in this manner wonderful cures are effected.
The faith, or confidence, which you have in a physician stimulates you
at once into a better or stronger feeling. This has been the experience
of every sick person, but this is not due to any power or force that
this person possesses, which departs from him and goes over to you,
but is entirely due to the confidence, which stimulates your own nerve
centers, and especially the brain. The soothing and quieting influence
which the “Weapon Ointment” had on the injured person was not due to
any virtue of this ointment, because it was never applied to the wound,
but to the weapon or implement which caused the wound. Its operations
were entirely mental or psychical. It pacified the excited and anxious
mind into the faith or belief that the best possible thing to do was
being done, and nature went on triumphantly and effected the cure, for
which, of course, she never got any credit. When a doctor or healer
enters the chamber of the sick, putting on a wise air, or indulges in
affectation, and when he succeeds in making a good impression, that
alone assuages the pain. But if, on the other hand, he impresses his
patients unfavorably, the sooner he gets out of their sight, the better
they feel, because his presence has inspired neither confidence nor
hope.
Hysteria constitutes a peculiar group of diseases which belong to
that class of nervous ailments that are included among functional
affections; they are oftener amenable to faith or mind cures than
to drugs. A great number of diseases of women belong to this class
and these poor deluded creatures never had anything real or serious
the matter with them, until they went to some doctor who began to
apply irritating drugs to their delicate organs, which made them ever
afterwards habitues of doctors’ offices.
Functional diseases have a wide range. As their name implies, they
are characterized by a disturbance of the function of an organ or
system, without any visible alteration of its tissue or texture; there
are no pathological or histological changes, which the most careful
microscopic examination can detect. They constitute a scapegoat for our
ignorance; it appears to be in the majority of instances a disturbance
between the psychic or spiritual forces as they operate on the tissues.
The normal and harmonious relations between the mind and the body
or any particular organ are disarranged. Such are the hysterical
convulsions or spasms which we see in women who have suffered
great mental strain, especially grief, and often it is due to pure
“cussedness,” or unbridled passion. In men there is also a hysteria;
it was formerly believed that this peculiar nervous derangement was
confined to women only, hence the name, but this was an error. I was
once called to attend a physician of more than average ability, who
located in this city for the purpose of enlarging his field of labor
and usefulness; from where he came he had been very successful. His
reputation as a surgeon was enviable and deservedly so, but here, in
this city, among strangers and strange customs, he was a failure. This
preyed on his mind so that he became despondent and gloomy. He failed
in flesh and strength. I found him in his room convulsively sobbing,
which shortly turned into a paroxysm of laughter. I prevailed upon
him to return to his former residence among his friends and admirers,
which he did, and he told me afterwards that from the moment he struck
his “old stamping-ground” he felt stronger and better, and shortly
recovered his former mirth and healthfulness.
Girls show this abnormal nervous function in different ways. I have
known a case where a sensitive girl accidentally saw another girl in an
epileptic fit; the contortions became so real and fixed in her mind,
or imagination, that they were transmuted into motions or epileptic
fits. I tried remedies but without any beneficial results. The parents
afterwards went the rounds of the “fits doctors,” but with the same
negative results. A Christian scientist or faith healer cured her, by
cultivating or strengthening her will power.
There is a class of these faith healers, composed of silly, loquacious
women and men, who know nothing at all of the principle governing their
cures, and they glibly tell their patients, “You must say or think
there is no disease, or I have no pain, or there is no body; all is
well; all is good,” and a great deal of similar nonsense. All is not
good, and all is not well by any means. I would say, Indeed there is
pain, disease, and a body, but by striving to live a healthful moral
life, and thinking healthful thoughts, of the good, the pure, and the
beautiful, the curative energy of nature will become stimulated to
repair the defects, to harmonize the functions and dissipate disease.
A person who is troubled with dyspepsia cannot get well if he thinks of
nothing but an acid or sour stomach, or feels the food disagreeing with
him before he has it in his mouth. He must have thoughts quite remote
from these, and the chances are nine out of ten he will not feel what
he eats. There is the same state of mind about “catching cold.” Some
persons are forever on the alert to catch a cold, and why should they
not, when they are always watching out for it? If you dress so that
you do not sweat, and do not use too thick bedcovering, and are not
constantly on the catch or lookout, I assure you you will not catch
cold, nor will it catch you.
Terror or fright causes or cures diseases. Dr. Toad reports the case
of a boy, in Tuke’s work, nine years of age, who was frightened into
chorea, or St. Vitus’ dance, by his sister, who had covered herself
with a white sheet and appeared before him unexpectedly, while he was
in bed. I know, also, a case of functional bladder weakness of a child
who wet his bed at night during sleep. There appeared no signs of any
local disease, nor was any remedy which I employed of the slightest
advantage. The father of the child, becoming exasperated, gave the
child a severe thrashing one morning. The mother remonstrated at what
she considered cruel and useless chastisement. But, strange yet true,
that child never wet the bed after that; it was entirely cured by
fright.
Sympathy will often make persons sick; of this I had in my own
experience an opportunity for a very interesting observation. It was
the husband of a woman who had been retching and vomiting incident to
the early months of her pregnancy. So great was the sympathy of her
husband that he retched and vomited exactly like his wife, not only
when in her presence, but when separated from her, the impressions
or thought exciting the _excito-motor_ nerves of the stomach. This
sympathetic sickness lasted as long as that of his wife.
Dr. H. C. Sawyer, author of “Nerve Waste,” has kindly shown the writer
another form of functional or hysterical disorder, which was, or
is even yet, considered by many general practitioners a scrofulous
enlargement of the joints; but the doctor discovered the peculiarity
of _metastasis_, which means a sudden or complete removal of a disease
from one part to another. This gave the disease what he termed a
hysterical or functional character. It would be the swelling of the
elbow of one arm and the knee of the opposite side at one time; and
in the course of a few weeks or months these would feel and appear
entirely well, while the disease had located itself in other joints.
This case the doctor considered could be only reached through the
mind, or some faith cure. He further believed that many of these
enlarged and swollen joints among the wealthier classes were due to a
nervous trouble. Indeed, it would be an easy matter to cite case after
case, from my own experience, or quote cases from the highest medical
authorities, illustrating in every conceivable manner how the mind, the
imagination, the emotions, or the different passions, are continually
causing disease and suffering.
It must naturally follow that what is potent to induce diseases will,
under different conditions, be a means of curing them.
A serious question now arises with reference to the selection of
cases suitable to _mind-cure_ treatment. Bigoted fanaticism is quite
incompetent, so are the great majority of spiritual healers, owing to
their absolute ignorance of the scientific aspects of disease. The
first prerequisite for intelligent and proper treatment is to establish
the precise nature of the disease under consideration. It must be
distinctly grouped or classed, whether it be a functional or hysterical
disease, or a zymotic or contagious affection.
In diphtheria or typhoid fever mind cure subserves no purpose; the
treatment must be avowedly antiseptic and stimulating.
If it be a physical injury, say a fractured bone, it must be treated on
mechanical principles.
A woman suffering in the pangs of labor, which is being delayed from
some abnormal position or some other physical obstruction, can only
be delivered through mechanical methods; and here the enthusiastic
mind healer may commit serious errors, sacrificing limb and life by
unnecessary delay. So I would lay down this broad maxim, that the mind
healer must either be a competent, educated physician, or a physician
should be a competent metaphysician.
NOTE.—In the year 1887 Mrs. A. C. Hurrell was a healthy, middle-aged
woman and the mother of two children. When the youngest was ten months
old she contracted a severe cold. The coughing spells “took her
breath,” and from these exaggerated expiratory paroxysms she drifted
into _spasmodic asthma_, at least that was the diagnosis of prominent
medical men of Sacramento and of this city. Change of climate was
advised and tried, so were also the different drugs which experience
had taught to be useful, even operations were performed on her nasal
passages by enterprising specialists, but all to no purpose. Morphine
was prescribed by the first medical attendant, and when her suffering
became unbearable she had to fall back on this drug for relief. In
May, 1890, I was consulted, but a most careful examination revealed
nothing which I could assign as a cause and upon which to base a
hopeful treatment.
In October, 1891, she was persuaded to take treatment from a lady
who claimed to cure through Christian Science (a mind healer). The
treatment commenced on a Thursday afternoon. The lady impressed on
her that the morphine, of which she now consumed, hypodermically,
the enormous quantity of ninety grains a week, was injurious, and
that if she made up her mind that there was no disease the asthma
would leave her. Friday night the patient was in great agony, both
from the withdrawal of the drug and the asthmatic attack, and this
double pressure weakened the faith of both patient and healer, but
the husband stood firm and insisted that she have no morphine. The
struggle for breath and the narcotic continued until four o’clock
Sunday morning, when she began to get easier; the improvement
continued, and in ten days she had “outgrown” both. I saw her two
months later, entirely recovered, and the most brilliant specimen of
the efficiency of mind cure that one could wish to see.