CHAPTER I

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THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF MENTAL HEALING

by

GEORGE BARTON CUTTEN, Ph.D.

(Yale)

President Of Acadia University

Illustrated

New York

Charles Scribner's Sons

1911

[Illustration: BAS-RELIEF REPRESENTING THE GALLIC AESCULAPIUS

DISPATCHING A DEMON]

Copyright, 1911, by

Charles Scribner's Sons

Published February, 1911

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY

OF

Artemus Wyman Sawyer, D.D., LL.D.

PRESIDENT OF ACADIA UNIVERSITY

1869-1896

HE HID FROM US HIS HEART WHILE WE THOUGHT THAT HE LOVED

ONLY HIS STUDIES; WE LATER LEARNED THAT HE LAID

EMPHASIS ON THAT WHICH HE LOVED ONLY LESS--TRUE

KNOWLEDGE, IN ORDER THAT HE MIGHT INTRODUCE

IT TO THOSE THAT HE LOVED MOST--HIS

PUPILS. HE TAUGHT AS NONE OTHER

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Introduction--Mental Healing 3

II. Early Civilizations 19

III. The Influence of Christianity 35

IV. Relics and Shrines 61

V. Healers 110

VI. Talismans 138

VII. Amulets 158

VIII. Charms 189

IX. Royal Touch 224

X. Mesmer and After 249

XI. The Healers of the Nineteenth Century 273

Index 309

PREFACE

The present decade has experienced an intense interest in mental

healing. This has come as a culmination of the development along these

lines during the past half century. It has shown itself in the

beginning of new religious sects with this as a, or the, fundamental

tenet, in more wide-spread general movements, and in the scientific

study and application of the principles underlying this form of

therapeutics.

Many have been led astray because, being ignorant of the mental

healing movements and vagaries of the past, the late applications,

veiled in metaphysical or religious verbiage, have seemed to them to

be new in origin and principle. No one could consider an historical

survey of the subject and reasonably hold this opinion. It is on

account of the ignorance of similar movements, millenniums old, that

so much, if any, originality can be credited to the founders.

The object of this volume is to present a general view of mental

healing, dealing more especially with the historical side of the

subject. While this is divided topically, the topics are presented in

a comparatively chronological order, and thereby trace the development

of the subject to the present century.

The term "mental healing" is given the broadest possible use, and

comprehends any cures which may be brought about by the effect of the

mind over the body, regardless of whether the power back of the cure

is supposed to be deity, demons, other human beings, or the individual

mind of the patient.

It is hoped that this may contribute to the knowledge of a subject

which is of such wide-spread popular interest.

George Barton Cutten.

Wolfville, Nova Scotia,

_December 1, 1910._

ILLUSTRATIONS

Bas-relief representing the Gallic AEsculapius

dispatching a demon _Frontispiece_

FACING

PAGE

Cure through the Intercession of a Healing Saint 72

Valentine Greatrakes 134

Sir Kenelm Digby 152

King's Touch-pieces 226

F. A. Mesmer 252

John Alexander Dowie 276

George O. Barnes 290

Mary Baker Eddy 302

THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF

MENTAL HEALING

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION--MENTAL HEALING

"'Tis painful thinking that corrodes our

clay."--ARMSTRONG.

"Oh, if I could once make a resolution, and determine to

be well!"--WALDERSTEIN.

"The body and the mind are like a jerkin and a jerkin's

lining, rumple the one and you rumple the

other."--STERNE.

"I find, by experience, that the mind and the body are

more than married, for they are most intimately united;

and when the one suffers, the other

sympathizes."--CHESTERFIELD.

"Sublime is the dominion of the mind over the body, that

for a time can make flesh and nerve impregnable, and

string the sinews like steel, so that the weak become so

mighty."--STOWE.

"The surest road to health, say what they will, Is never

to suppose we shall be ill; Most of those evils we poor

mortals know From doctors and imagination

flow."--CHURCHILL.

The fact that there is a reciprocal relation between mental states and

bodily conditions, acting both for good and ill, is nothing new in

human experience. Even among the most crude and unobserving,

traditions and incidents have given witness to this knowledge. For

centuries stories of the hair turning white during the night on

account of fright or sorrow, the cause and cure of diseases through

emotional disturbances, and death, usually directly by apoplexy,

caused by anger, grief, or joy, have been current and generally

accepted. On the other hand, irritability and moroseness caused by

disordered organs of digestion, change of acumen or morals due to

injury of the brain or nervous system, and insanity produced by bodily

diseases, are also accepted proofs of the effect of the body on the

mind.

Recent scientific investigation has been directed along the line of

the influence of the mind over the body, and to that phase of this

influence which deals with the cure rather than the cause of disease.

In addition to what the scientists have done along this line, various

religious cults have added the application of these principles to

their other tenets and activities, or else have made this the chief

corner-stone of a new structure. There are some reasons why this

connection with religion should continue to exist, and why it has been

a great help both to the building up of these particular sects and the

healing of the bodies of those who combine religion with mental

healing.

We must not forget that in early days the priest, the magician, and

the physician were combined in one person, and that primitive

religious notions are difficult to slough off. Shortly before the

beginning of the Christian era there were some indications that

healing was to be freed from the bondage of religion, but the

influence of Jesus' healing upon Christians, and the overwhelming

influence of Christianity upon the whole world, delayed this movement,

so that it did not again become prominent until the sixteenth

century. About this time, when therapeutics as a science began to

shake off the shackles of religion and superstition, another startling

innovation was noticeable, viz., the division of mental healing into

religious and non-religious healing. This change came gradually, and

as is usual in all reform, certain prophets saw and proclaimed the

real truth which the people were not able to follow or receive for

centuries.

Paracelsus, who lived during the first half of the sixteenth century,

wrote these shrewd words: "Whether the object of your faith is real or

false, you will nevertheless obtain the same effects. Thus, if I

believe in St. Peter's statue as I would have believed in St. Peter

himself, I will obtain the same effects that I would have obtained

from St. Peter; but that is superstition. Faith, however, produces

miracles, and whether it be true or false faith, it will always

produce the same wonders." We have also this penetrating observation

from Pierre Ponponazzi, of Milan, an author of the same century: "We

can easily conceive the marvellous effects which confidence and

imagination can produce, particularly when both qualities are

reciprocal between the subject and the person who influences them. The

cures attributed to the influence of certain relics are the effect of

this imagination and confidence. Quacks and philosophers know that if

the bones of any skeleton were put in the place of the saint's bones,

the sick would none the less experience beneficial effects, if they

believed they were near veritable relics."

What seemed to be a movement whereby mental healing should be divided

so that only a portion of it should be connected with religion proved

to be too far in advance of its time, and not until the advent of

Mesmer was this accomplished. Healing other than mental, however, did

obtain its freedom at this time. While Mesmer and his followers

emphasized non-religious mental healing, it should not be thought that

mental therapeutics was ever entirely separated from the church. There

have always been found some sects which laid particular emphasis on

it, and both Roman Catholic and Protestant orthodox Christianity have

always admitted it. It has been considered, even if not admitted, that

the power of the Infinite was more clearly shown by the healing of the

body than by the restoration of the moral life. It is natural, then,

that the sects which showed this special proof of God's presence and

power would grow faster than their spiritual competitors, but that

they would decline more rapidly and surely than those which espoused

more spiritual doctrines.

On the other hand, it is not difficult to see why mental healing would

be helped by its connection with religion. Religion grips the whole

mind more firmly than any other subject has ever done, and when one

accepts the orthodox conception of God, he naturally expects to come

in contact with One whose sympathies are in favor of the cure of his

diseases, and whose power is sufficient to bring about this cure. With

this basis there is set up in the mind of the patient an expectancy

which has always proven to be a most valuable precursor of a cure. The

devout religious attitude of mind is one most favorable for the

working of suggestion, and persons of the temperament adapted to the

religious expression most valued in the past are those who could be

most readily affected by mental means. For these reasons, it can be

easily understood why mental healing has continued to be associated

with religion, and why when thus associated it has been so successful.

To those not very familiar with mental healing, it has seemed strange

that any law could be formulated which would comprehend every variety.

In the following pages many different forms will be described, and in

examining the subject it will be found that many and varied are the

explanations given for the results produced. We find also a general

distrust of all the others, or else a claim that this particular sect

is the only real and true exponent of mental healing, and that it

produces the only genuine cures. Those which claim to be Christian

sects, however divergent the direct explanation of their results, give

the final credit to God, and base their _modus operandi_ upon the

Bible--in fact, they claim to be the direct successors of Jesus and

his disciples in this respect.

We find, however, that the healer connected with the Christian sect

has no advantage over his Mohammedan or Buddhist brother, and that

neither is able to succeed better than the non-religious healer in all

cases. We recognize that when one class of healers fails in a case

another may succeed, but the successful one is just as liable to fail

in a second case when the first one cures. What particular form of

suggestion is most effective in any given case depends upon the

temperament of the individual and his education, religious training,

and environment. When we consider the whole matter we are forced to

the conclusion that mental cures are independent of any particular

sect, religion, or philosophy; some are cured by one form and some by

another. Not the creed, but some force which resides in the mind of

every one accomplishes the cure, and the most that any religion or

philosophy can do is to bring this force into action.

As a general rule, one sharp distinction is noticed between the

religious and the non-religious healers, viz., the religious healer

sees no limit to his healing power, and affirms that cancer and

Bright's disease are as easily cured, in theory at least, as neuralgia

or insomnia; the non-religious healer, sometimes designated as the

"scientific healer," on the contrary, recognizes that there are some

diseases which are more easily cured than others, and that of those

others some are practically incurable by psycho-therapeutic methods.

The line has been drawn in the past between functional and organic

diseases, the former including diseases where there is simply a

derangement of function, like indigestion, and the latter

comprehending the diseases where the organ is affected, like ulcer of

the stomach. The more we know about diseases the less sure we seem to

be about their classification; some of which we were formerly sure

have recently caused us considerable doubt. For example, we have

formerly classed cancer as an organic disease and consequently

incurable by mental means. The question is now asked, "Is cancer an

organic disease, or is it some functional derangement of the

epithelium tissue which causes it to grow indefinitely until it

invades some vital organ?"

A further question arises due to further study. Some of the latest

investigators claim that most if not all persons have cancer at some

time in life, but that anti-toxin or some other remedy is supplied by

the body itself, and the growth is stopped and the tissue absorbed.

The question then seems to be pertinent, "If the body can produce the

cure within itself, and this would be functional, why cannot mental

means stimulate the body to produce it?" or "Does not mental influence

stimulate the body to produce it?" What the cancer experts tell us of

the wide-spread extension of the disease and its spontaneous cure, the

tuberculosis experts affirm of tuberculosis, and certainly of the

latter disease spontaneous cures are not uncommon. We also know that

mental influence may, in fact does, have an indirect but no less

beneficial influence in the cure of tuberculosis. From these examples

one seems to be forced to either one of two conclusions, either of

which is contrary to generally accepted ideas, viz., first, that these

are not organic diseases; or, second, organic diseases are aided or

cured by means of mental healing. In general, however, the distinction

holds good; the so-called functional cases are amenable to cure by

mental means, and the organic are much less so.

Coming back, then, to the common law which underlies all cases or

forms of mental healing, we find two general principles upon which it

is built--the power of the mind over the body, and the importance of

suggestion as a factor in the cure of the disease. The law may be

tersely stated in the first person as follows: My body tends to adjust

itself so as to be in harmony with my ideas concerning it. This law is

equally applicable to the cause or cure of disease by mental means. To

apply this law in a universal way as far as mental healing is

concerned, we should notice that however the thought of cure may come

into the mind, whether by external or auto-suggestion, if it is firmly

rooted so as to impress the subconsciousness, that part of the mind

which rules the bodily organs, a tendency toward cure is at once set

up and continues as long as that thought has the ascendancy.

Hack Tuke quotes Johannes Mueller, a physiologist who lived during the

first half of the last century, as follows: "It may be stated as a

general fact that any state of body which is conceived to be

approaching, and which is expected with certain confidence and

certainty of occurrence, will be very prone to ensue, as the mere

result of the idea, if it do not lie beyond the bounds of

possibility." This is a fair statement of the law from the stand-point

of consciousness, but does not include all of the vast influence of

subconscious ideas which are so potent in the cure of diseases by

mental means. Mueller's observation was in advance of his times, but

could not be expected to include the results of the latest researches

of modern science.

For a great many years physicians have recognized that not only are

all diseases made worse by an incorrect mental attitude, but that some

diseases are the direct result of worry and other mental disturbances.

The mental force which causes colored water to act as an emetic, or

postage-stamps to produce a blister, can also produce organic diseases

of a serious nature. The large mental factor in the cause of diseases

is generally admitted, and it seems reasonable to infer that what is

caused by mental influence may be cured by the same means. There is

no restriction in the power of the mind in causing disease, and should

we restrict the mind as a factor in the cure? The trouble seems to be

in the explanation. People ask, "How can the mind have such an effect

upon the body?" and to the answer of this question we must now turn

our attention.

We all recognize that involuntarily certain bodily effects take place.

We blush when we do not wish to; we betray our fears by our blanched

faces. Some other factors of mind than the conscious mental processes

have charge, and rule certain functions. The heart, the respiratory

apparatus, the glands, and digestive organs all carry on their regular

functions during sleep and also better without our direction when we

are awake. What is the explanation of this? We have recently been

saying that the subconsciousness rules these physical organs, and

through this that the effects already referred to take place. So much

has been written recently regarding the subconsciousness that anything

more at this time would be superfluous; suffice it to say that the

general conclusions on that subject are accepted as the basis of faith

cure. We may, however, go further in our endeavor to explain.

In such mental troubles as psychasthesia much has lately been heard

about psycho-analysis and re-education. What does that mean in the

language of the psychology of a few years ago? In cases of

unreasonable fears or phobias, for example, there is a firmly rooted

system of ideas which refuses to depart at the command of

consciousness. We analyze the mental store to find out the cause of

the unreasonable persistence, and sometimes, quite frequently in fact,

have to resort to hypnosis or hypnodization to find the initial

trouble. It is then corrected, and re-education consists in living

over again from the first experience, the events connected with that

fear and correcting them up to date. In this process minutes only are

used where the original experiences took weeks. Putting it in other

words, we have certain systems of ideas; as a psychological fact of

long standing we know that other elements may be injected into that

system so as to change it, or that one system may be destroyed and

another system built up to take its place. This is the secret of cures

of this nature--of mental troubles--the irritating factor, the thorn

in the mind, is extracted.

We have heard in modern psychology of the hot and cold places in

consciousness, or, to use other terms for the same idea, the central

and peripheral ideas, meaning the ideas which dominate consciousness,

and those which are in the background. The mind can readily attend to

only one thing at a time; if that be pain, for example, that takes up

all of our attention. On the other hand, if for some reason some other

ideas suddenly become central, then the pain is driven away to the

periphery and we say we have no pain, or we have less pain. The

sufferer from neuralgia experiences no pain as he responds to the fire

alarm, and the toothache stops entirely as we undergo the excitement

and fear of entering the dentist's office. Serious lesions yield to

profound emotion born of persuasion, confidence, or excitement; either

the gouty or rheumatic man, after hobbling about for years, finds his

legs if pursued by a wild bull, or the weak and enfeebled invalid will

jump from the bed and carry out heavy articles from a burning house.

The central idea is sufficient to command all the reserve energy, and

that idea which has suddenly and unexpectedly become central may

remain so. What Chalmers called "the expulsive power of a new

affection" in the cure of souls, is the precise method of operation in

the cure of some bodily ills.

I have here made two suggestions which may help to show how mental

healing may be brought about. Not simply the alleviation of bodily

ills, but the complete cure may result from the influence on the

subconsciousness. A large number of cures are brought about by faith

in certain religious practices, this faith amounting to a certainty in

the minds of the patients before the cure is started or while it is in

progress. Trustful expectation in any one direction acts powerfully

through the subconsciousness because it absorbs the whole mind, and

thus competition with other ideas, either consciously or

subconsciously, is largely excluded. It is this which acts in mental

healing under the caption of faith, although some abnormal conditions

may also arise to assist the suggestion.

That this confident expectation of a cure is the most potent means of

bringing it about, doing that which no medical treatment can

accomplish, may be affirmed as the generalized result of experiences

of the most varied kind, extending through a long series of ages. It

is this factor which is common to methods of the most diverse

character. It is noticeable that any system of treatment, however

absurd, that can be puffed into public notoriety for efficacy, any

individual who by accident or design obtains a reputation for a

special gift of healing, is certain to attract a multitude of

sufferers, among whom will be many who are capable of being really

benefited by a strong assurance of relief. Thus, the practitioner with

a great reputation has an advantage over his neighboring physicians,

not only on account of the superior skill which he may have acquired,

but because his reputation causes this confident expectation, so

beneficial in itself.

There have been fashions in cures as in other things. At one time a

certain relic, or healer, would attract and cure, and shortly

afterward it would be deserted and inefficacious, not because it had

lost its power, but because it had lost its reputation, and the

people had consequently lost their faith in it. Some other relics

would then acquire a reputation, spring into popular favor, and the

crowds would flock to them. We have many modern instances of this

kind. If sufficient confidence in the power of a concoction, a shrine,

a relic, or a person can be aroused, genuine cures can be wrought

regardless of the healing properties of the dose.

The whole system of mental therapeutics may be divided into two parts;

what we may designate as metaphysical cure denies that either matter

or evil exists, and heals by inspiring the belief that the disease

cannot assail the patient because he is pure spirit; the other class,

faith cure, recognizes the disease, but cures by faith in the power of

divinity, persons, objects, or suggestion.

Without doubt the best example of the former theory and the most

successful application of it are found in Christian Science. Perhaps

it is not so difficult to understand the frame of mind which brought

about this theory on the part of Mrs. Eddy. Here was an hysterical,

neurotic woman who knew nothing all her life but illness and

misfortune. She had suffered much from many physicians and was none

the better but rather worse. One physician had called her disease one

thing, another had designated it another, until confusion and

uncertainty were increased with every physician consulted. She began

to despair of ever either knowing about her disease or of having it

cured. As a last resort she went to Quimby, and he told her there was

no disease and no need of suffering. He denied the suffering, and she

accepted his teaching; she followed him in denying disease and then

matter, and kept on with her theory of negation and denial until she

evolved her present theory. It was a natural reaction from all

conceivable pains characteristic of hysteria, to no pain; from all

conceivable diseases which different physicians had opined, to no

disease; from the infirmity of body with its inhibitory discomfitures,

to no body. The history of the founder of Christian Science is its

best _raison d'etre_, especially from a psychological stand-point, and

the rather strange thing is that a reaction from an abnormality, going

as it naturally does to another abnormality, should find a response in

the religious cravings of so many; the philosophy undoubtedly would

not attract as it does were there not connected with it, in the

practical working of the system, the lure of mental healing.

Faith cure, the other form of mental healing, has such a variety of

forms that it is practically impossible to describe a typical one.

Faith in some power, or, what amounts to the same thing, the

uncritical reception of suggestions concerning the cure, is the common

factor in all forms.

The question naturally arises, Which is the best form of mental

healing? There is no best form for all diseases and all persons. For

example, it matters not how new associational systems are formed so

long as they are substituted for the pernicious ones. It may be in the

common experiences of every-day life, through the pleading of a

friend, during sleep or trance, in some abnormal state of a hypnotic

character, or during religious ecstasy, and we cannot well say in any

given case that one form will be more efficacious than another. Mental

healing creates nothing new, but simply makes use of the normal

mechanism of the mind and body. The question then is, What method of

mental healing is most likely to stimulate the mental mechanism so

that physiological processes will be set up leading to a cure? The

great power of faith and expectancy may decide the question, and the

answer may be in favor of the form in which the patient has the most

faith, either on account of its reputation, or on account of some

prejudice on the part of the patient.