Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing

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 Æsculapius 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 232 John Alexander Dowie 276 George O. Barnes 290 Mary Baker Eddy 302 THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF MENTAL HEALING 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…