Mind and Body

i
 Mind and Body

Writings
Thought Force in Business and Everyday Life
The Law of the New Thought
Nuggets of the New Thought
Memory Culture: The Science of Observing, Remembering and Recalling
Dynamic Thought or The Law of Vibrant Energy
Thought Vibration or the Law of Attraction in the Thought World
Practical Mind‑Reading
Practical Psychomancy and Crystal Gazing
The Mind Building of a Child
The Secret of Mental Magic
Mental Fascination
Self‑Healing by Thought Force
Mind‑Power: The Law of Dynamic Mentation
Practical Mental Influence
Reincarnation and the Law of Karma
The Inner Consciousness
The Secret of Success
Memory: How to Develop, Train and Use It
Subconscious and the Superconscious Planes of Mind
Suggestion and Auto‑Suggestion
The Art of Expression
The Art of Logical Thinking
The New Psychology: Its Message, Principles and Practice
The Will
Thought‑Culture
Human Nature: Its Inner States and Outer Forms
Mind and Body or Mental States and Physical Conditions
Telepathy: Its Theory, Facts and Proof
The Crucible of Modern Thought
The Psychology of Salesmanship
The Psychology of Success
Scientific Parenthood
The Message of the New Thought
Your Mind and How to Use It
The Mastery of Being
Mind‑Power: The Secret of Mental Magic
The New Psychology of Healing
New Thought: Its History and Principles
ii
 

Mind and Body or

Mental States and Physical Conditions

1910

William Walker Atkinson

1862–1932

信
YOGeBooks: Hollister, MO
2013:09:06:16:04:06
iii
 Mind and Body

Copyright
YOGeBooks by Roger L. Cole, Hollister, MO 65810
© 2010 YOGeBooks by Roger L. Cole
All rights reserved. Electronic edition published 2010

isbn: 978-1-61183-098-9 (pdf)

isbn: 978-1-61183-099-6 (epub)

www.yogebooks.com

iv
 Contents
Chapter I.…………………………………… The Subconscious Mind.
Chapter II.………………………………… The Sympathetic System.
Chapter III.…………………………………………… The Cell‑Minds.
Chapter IV.………………………………… The Mental Basis of Cure.
Chapter V.………………………… The History of Psycho‑Therapy.
Chapter VI.………………………………………………… Faith Cures.
Chapter VII.………………………… The Power of the Imagination.
Chapter VIII.……………………………………Belief and Suggestion.
Chapter IX.……………………………Psycho‑Therapeutic Methods.
Chapter X.…………………………… The Reaction of the Physical.

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Mind and Body

vi
 Foreword

M ind and Body—Mental States and Physical

Conditions! To the mind of those who have contented
themselves with merely the superficial aspects of
things, these two things—mind and body; and mental states
and physical conditions—seem to be as far apart as the two
poles; seem to be opposites and contradictories impossible of
reconciliation. But to those who have penetrated beneath the
surface of things, these two apparent opposites are seen to be
so closely related and inter‑related—so blended and mingled
together in manifestation—that it is practically impossible to
scientifically determine where the one leaves off and the other
begins. And so constant and close is their mutual action and
reaction, that it often becomes impossible to state positively
which is the cause and which the effect.
In the first place, Science now informs us that in all living
substance, from cell to mammoth, there is and must be Mind.
There can be no Life without Mind. Mind, indeed, is held
to be the very “livingness” of Life—the greater the degree of
manifestation of Mind, the higher the degree of Life. Moreover,
the New Psychology informs us that upon the activities of
the Subconscious Mind depend all the processes of physical
life—that the Subconscious Mind is the essence of what was
vii
 Mind and Body
formerly called the Vital Force—and is embodied in every cell,
cell‑group or organ of the body. And, that this Subconscious
Mind is amenable to suggestion, good and evil, from the
conscious mind of its owner, as well as from outside. When
the subject of the influence of Mental States upon Physical
Conditions is studied, one sees that the Physical Condition is
merely the reflection of the Mental State, and the problem
seems to be solved, the mystery of Health and Disease solved.
But in this, as in everything else, there is seen to be an opposing
phase—the other side of the shield. Let us look at the other
side of the question:
Just as we find that wherever there is living substance there is
Mind, so do we find that we are unable to intelligently consider
Mind unless as embodied in living substance. The idea of Mind,
independent of its substantial embodiment, becomes a mere
abstraction impossible of mental imaging—something like
color independent of the colored substance, or light without
the illuminated substance. And just as we find that Mental
States influence Physical Conditions, so do we find that Physical
Conditions influence Mental States. And, so the problem of
Life, Health and Disease once more loses its simplicity, and the
mystery again deepens. The deeper we dig into the subject, the
more do we become impressed with the idea of the universal
principle of Action and Reaction so apparent in all phenomena.
The Mind acts upon the Body; the Body reacts upon the Mind;
cause and effect become confused; the reasoning becomes
circular—like a ring it has no beginning, no end; its beginning
may be any place we may prefer, its ending likewise.
The only reconciliation is to be found in the fundamental
working hypothesis which holds that both Mind and Body—
both Mental States and Physical Conditions—are the two
aspects of something greater than either—the opposing poles of
the same Reality. The radical Materialist asserts that the Body
is the only reality, and that Mind is merely its “by‑product.”
The Mentalist asserts that the Mind is the only reality, and
viii
 Foreword
that the Body is merely its grosser form of manifestation. The
unprejudiced philosopher is apt to stand aside and say: “You are
both right, yet both wrong—each is stating the truth, but only
the half‑truth.” With the working hypothesis that Mind and
Body are but varying aspects of the Truth—that Mind is the
inner essence of the Body, and Body the outward manifestation
of the Mind—we find ourselves on safe ground.
We mention this fundamental principle here, for in the body
of this book we shall not invade the province of metaphysics or
philosophy, but shall hold ourselves firmly to our own field, that
of psychology. Of course, the very nature of the subject renders
it necessary that we consider the influence of psychology upon
physiology, but we have remembered that this book belongs
to the general subject of the New Psychology, and we have
accordingly emphasized the psychological side of the subject.
But the same material could have been used by a writer upon
physiology, by changing the emphasis from the psychological
phase to the physiological.
We have written this book to reach not only those who
refuse to see the wonderful influence of the Mental States over
the Physical Conditions, but also for our “metaphysical” friends
who have become so enamored with the power of the Mind
that they practically ignore the existence of the Body, indeed,
in some cases, actually denying the existence of the latter. We
believe that there is a sane middle‑ground in “metaphysical
healing,” as there is in the material treatment of disease. In this
case, not only does Truth lie between the two extremes, but
it is composed of the blending and assimilation of the two
opposing ideas and theories. But, even if the reader does not
fully agree with us in our general theories and conclusions, he
will find within the covers of this book a mass of facts which he
may use in building up a new theory of his own. And, after all,
what are theories but the threads upon which are strung the
beads of facts—if our string does not meet with your approval,

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 Mind and Body
break it and string the beads of fact upon a thread of your own.
Theories come, and theories go—but facts remain.

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Mind and Body

1
Mind and Body

2
 The Subconscious Mind.

Chapter I.

The Subconscious Mind.

I n order to understand the nature of the influence of the mind

upon the body—the effect of mental states upon physical
functions—we must know something of that wonderful
field of mental activity which in the New Psychology is known
as “The Subconscious Mind,” and which by some writers has
been styled the “Subjective Mind;” the “Involuntary Mind;” the
“Subliminal Mind;” the “Unconscious Mind,” etc., the difference
in names arising because of the comparative newness of the
investigation and classification.
Among the various functions of the Subconscious Mind,
one of the most important is that of the charge and control
of the involuntary activities and functions of the human body
through the agency of the sympathetic nervous system, the cells,
and cell‑groups. As all students of physiology know, the greater
part of the activities of the body are involuntary—that is, are
independent (or partly so) of the control of the conscious will.
As Dr. Sohofield says: “The unconscious mind, in addition to the
three qualities which it shares in common with the conscious—
viz., will, intellect and emotion—has undoubtedly another very
important one—nutrition, or the general maintenance of the
body.” And as Hudson states: “The subjective mind has absolute
3
 Mind and Body
control of the functions, conditions and sensations of the body.”
Notwithstanding the dispute which is still raging concerning
what the Subconscious mind is, the authorities all agree upon
the fact that, whatever else it may be, it may be considered as
that phase, aspect, part, or field of the mind which has charge
and control of the greater part of the physical functioning of
the body.
Von Hartmann says: “The explanation that unconscious
psychical activity itself appropriately forms and maintains
the body has not only nothing to be said against it, but has
all possible analogies from the most different departments
of physical and animal life in its favor, and appears to be as
scientifically certain as is possible in the inferences from effect
to cause.” Maudsley says: “The connection of mind and body
is such that a given state of mind tends to echo itself at once
in the body.” Carpenter says: “If a psychosis or mental state is
produced by a neurosis or material nerve state, as pain by a
prick, so also is a neurosis produced by a psychosis. That mental
antecedents call forth physical consequents is just as certain as
that physical antecedents call forth mental consequents.” Tuke
says: “Mind, through sensory, motor, vaso‑motor and trophic
nerves, causes changes in sensation, muscular contraction,
nutrition and secretion.…If the brain is an outgrowth from a
body corpuscle and is in immediate relation with the structures
and tissues that preceded it, then, though these continue to
have their own action, the brain must be expected to act
upon the muscular tissue, the organic functions and upon the
nervous system itself.”
Von Hartmann also says: “In willing any conscious act, the
unconscious will is evoked to institute means to bring about the
effect. Thus, if I will a stronger salivary secretion, the conscious
willing of this effect excites the unconscious will to institute
the necessary means. Mothers are said to be able to provide
through the will a more copious secretion, if the sight of the
child arouses in them the will to suckle. There are people who
4
 The Subconscious Mind.
perspire voluntarily. I now possess the power of instantaneously
reducing the severest hiccoughs to silence by my own win,
while it was formerly a source of great inconvenience to me.…
An irritation to cough, which has no mechanical cause, may be
permanently suppressed by the will. I believe we might possess
a far greater voluntary power over our bodily functions if we
were only accustomed from childhood to institute experiments
and to practice ourselves therein.…We have arrived at the
conclusion that every action of the mind on the body, without
exception, is only possible by means of an unconscious will; that
such an unconscious will can be called forth partly by means of
a conscious will, partly also through the conscious idea of the
effect, without conscious will, and even in opposition to the
conscious will.”
Henry Wood says of the Subconscious Mind: “It acts
automatically upon the physical organism. It cognizes external
facts, conditions, limitations, and even contagions, quite
independent of its active counterpart. One may, therefore, ‘take’
a disease and be unaware of any exposure. The subconsciousness
has been unwittingly trained to fear, and accept it; and it is this
quality, rather than the mere inert matter of the body, that
succumbs. Matter is never the actor, but is always acted upon.
This silent, mental partner, in operation, seems to be a living,
thinking personality, conducting affairs on its own account.
It is a compound of almost unimaginable variety, including
wisdom and foolishness, logic and nonsense, and yet having a
working unitary economy. It is a hidden force to be dealt with
and educated, for it is often found insubordinate and unruly. It
refuses co‑operation with its lesser but more active and wiser
counterpart. It is very ‘set’ in its views, and only changes its
qualities and opinions by slow degrees. But, like a pair of horses,
not until these two mental factors can be trained together can
there be harmony and efficiency.”
In order to understand the important part played in
the physical economy by the Subconscious Mind, it is only
5
 Mind and Body
necessary to understand the various processes of the human
system which are out of the ordinary field of the voluntary
or conscious mind. We then realize that the entire process of
nutrition, including digestion, assimilation, etc., the processes
of elimination, the processes of circulation, the processes of
growth, in fact the entire processes manifested in the work
of the cells, cell‑groups, ganglia, physical organs, etc., are in
charge of and controlled by the Subconscious Mind. Our food
is digested and transformed into the nourishing substances of
the blood; then carried through the arteries to all parts of the
body, where it is absorbed by the cells and used to replace the
worn‑out material, the latter then being carried back through
the veins to the lungs where the waste matter is burned up,
and the balance again sent on its journey through the arteries
re‑charged with the life‑giving oxygen. All of these processes,
and many others of almost equal importance, are out of the
field of the conscious or voluntary mind, and are governed by
the Subconscious Mind. As we shall see when we consider the
Sympathetic Nervous System, the greater part of the body is
dominated by the Subconscious Mind, and that the welfare
of the major physical functions depends entirely, or almost so,
upon this great area or field of the mind.
The best authorities now generally agree that there is no part
of the body which may be considered as devoid of mind. The
Subconscious Mind is not confined to the brain, or even the
greater plexuses of the nervous system, but extends to all parts
of the body, to every nerve, muscle, and even to every cell and
cell‑group of the body. The functions and processes of the body
are no longer considered as purely mechanical, or chemical, but
are now seen to be the result of mental action of some kind or
degree. Therefore, in considering the Subconscious Mind, one
must not think of it as resident in the brain alone, but rather
as being distributed over the entire physical body. There is mind
in every cell, every organ, every muscle, every nerve—in every
part of the body.
6
 The Subconscious Mind.
The importance of the above statements regarding the power
and importance of the Subconscious Mind may be realized
when one remembers the dictum of the New Psychology, to
wit: The Subconscious Mind is amenable to Suggestion. When it
is realized that this great controller of the physical organism is
so constituted that it accepts as truth the suggestions from the
conscious mind of its owner, as well as those emanating from
the conscious minds of other people, it may be understood why
Faith, Belief, and Expectant Attention manifest such marked
effects upon the physical body and the general health, for good
or for evil, as indicated in the preceding chapters. All of the
many instances and examples recited in the preceding chapters
may be understood when it is realized that the Subconscious
Mind, which is in control of the physical functions and vital
processes, will accept the suggestions from the conscious mind
of its owner, and also suggestions from outside which the
conscious mind of its owner allows to pass down to it. If, as
Henry Wood has said in the paragraph previously quoted, it
“acts automatically upon the physical organism,” and “seems to
be a living, thinking personality, conducting affairs on its own
account,” and at the same time, accepts and ‘takes on.’ suggested
conditions, it may be readily understood how the wonderful
and almost incredible statements of the authorities mentioned
in the preceding chapters have had real and substantial basis
in truth.
This understanding of the part played by the Subjective Mind
in controlling and affecting physical conditions and activities,
together with its suggestible qualities and nature, gives us a
key to the whole question of the “Why?” of Mental Healing.
Suggestion is the connecting link between Mind and Body, and
an understanding of its laws and principles enables one to see
the moving cause of the strange phenomena of the Faith Cures,
under whatever name they may pass, and under whatever guise
they may present themselves. “Suggestion” is the explanation
offered by the New Psychology for the almost miraculous
7
 Mind and Body
phenomena which other schools seek to explain upon some
hypothesis based either upon religious beliefs, or upon some
metaphysical or philosophical doctrine. The New Psychology
holds that it is not necessary to go outside of the realms of
psychology and physiology in studying Mental Healing or
Psycho‑Therapy; and that the theories of the semi‑religious and
metaphysical cults are merely strange guises or masks which
serve to conceal the real operative principle of cure.
The following quotation from Dr. Schofield will serve to call
the attention to the important part played by the Subconscious
Mind in the physical activities, a fact which is not generally
recognized: “It has often been a mystery how the body thrives
so well with so little oversight or care on the part of its owner.
No machine could be constructed, nor could any combination
of solids or liquids in organic compounds, regulate, control,
counteract, help, hinder or arrange for the continual succession
of differing events, foods, surroundings and conditions which
are constantly affecting the body. And yet, in the midst of
this ever‑changing and varying succession of influences, the
body holds on its course of growth, health, nutrition and
self‑maintenance with the most marvelous constancy. We
perceive, of course, clearly, that the best of qualities—regulation,
control, etc., etc.—are all mental qualities, and at the same
time we are equally clear that by no self‑examination can we
say we consciously exercise any of these mental powers over
the organic processes of our bodies. One would think, then,
that the conclusion is sufficiently simple and obvious—that
they must be used unconsciously; in other words, it is, and can
be nothing else than unconscious mental powers that control,
guide and govern the functions and organs of the body.
“Our ordinary text‑books on physiology give but little idea of
what I may call the intelligence that presides over the various
systems of the body, showing itself in the bones, as we have seen,
in distributing the available but insufficient amount of lime salts
in disease; not equally, but for the protection of the most vital
8
 The Subconscious Mind.
parts, leaving those of lesser value disproportionally deficient. In
the muscular system nearly all contractions are involuntary. Even
in the voluntary (so‑called) muscles, the most we can do is to
will results. We do not will the contractions that carry out these
results. Muscles, striped and unstriped, are ceaselessly acting
without the slightest consciousness in maintaining the balance
of the body, the expression of the face, the general attributes
corresponding to mental states, the carrying on of digestion
and other processes with a purposiveness, and adaptation of
means to new ends and new conditions, ceaselessly arising, that
are beyond all material mechanism. Consider, for instance, the
marvelous increase of smooth muscle in the uterus at term,
and also its no less marvelous subsequent involution; observe,
too, the compensating muscular increase of a damaged heart
until the balance is restored and the necessity for it ceases, as
does growth at a fixed period; consider in detail the repair of a
broken bone. These actions are not mere properties of matter;
they demand, and are the result of, a controlling mind.
“The circulation does not go round as most text‑books would
lead us to believe, as the result merely of the action of a system
of elastic tubes, connected with a self‑acting force‑pump. It
is such views as these that degrade physiology and obscure
the marvels of the body. The circulation never flows for two
minutes in the same manner. In an instant, miles of capillaries
are closed or opened up, according to the ever‑varying body
needs, of which, consciously, we are entirely unaware. The
blood supply of each organ is not mechanical, but is carefully
regulated from minute to minute in health, exactly according
to its needs and activities, and when this ever fails, we at once
recognize it as disease, and call it congestion and so forth. The
very heart‑beat itself is never constant, but varies pro rata
with the amount of exercise, activity of vital functions, of
conditions of temperature, etc., and even of emotions and
other direct mental feelings. The whole reproductive system
is obviously under the sway and guidance of more than blind
9
 Mind and Body
material forces. In short, when thoroughly analyzed, the action
and regulation of no system of the body can be satisfactorily
explained, without postulating an unconscious mental element,
which does, if allowed, satisfactorily explain all the phenomena.”

10
 Chapter II.

The Sympathetic System.

T he average person has a general understanding of what

is meant by “the nervous system,” but inquiry will show
that by this term he usually includes only that part of the
nervous system which is known as the “cerebro‑spinal system,”
or the system of nerves consisting of the brain and spinal cord,
and the nerves extending therefrom throughout the body,
the offices of which are to control the voluntary movements
of the body. The average person is almost entirely ignorant of
the existence of the Great Sympathetic System which controls
the involuntary movements and processes, such as the
processes and functions of nutrition, secretion, reproduction,
excretion, the vaso‑motor action, etc. In physiology, the term
“sympathetic” is used in the sense of: “Reciprocal action of the
different parts of the body on each other; an affection of one
part of the body in consequence of something taking place in
another. Thus when there is a local injury, the whole frame after
a time suffers with it. A wound anywhere will tend to create
feverishness everywhere; derangement of the stomach will
tend to produce headache, liver complaint to produce pain in
the shoulder, etc.”

11
 Mind and Body
An old authority thus describes the Sympathetic Nerves:
“A system of nerves, running from the base of the skull to the
coccyx, along both sides of the body, and consisting of a series
of ganglia along the spinal column by the side of the vertebræ.
With this trunk of the sympathetic there are communicating
branches which connect the ganglia, or the intermediate cord,
with all the spinal and several of the cranial nerves proceeding
to primary branches on the neighboring organs or other ganglia,
and finally numerous flexures of nerves running to the viscera.
Various fibers from the sympathetic communicate with those
of the cerebro‑spinal system. The term ‘sympathetic’ has been
applied on the supposition that it is the agent in producing
sympathy between different parts of the body. It more certainly
affects the secretions.” In the New Psychology the Sympathetic
Nervous System is recognized as that directly under the control
of the Subconscious Mind.
The Cerebro‑Spinal Nervous System is concerned with the
activities arising from the conscious activities of the mind,
including those of the five senses. It controls the muscles by
which we speak, walk, move our limbs, and pursue the ordinary
activities of outer life. But, while these are very important to the
individual, there is another set of activities—inner activities—
which are none the less important. The Sympathetic System
controls the involuntary muscles by means of which the
heart throbs, the arteries pulsate, the air is conveyed to the
lungs, the blood moves to and from the heart, the various
glands and tubes of the body operate, and the entire work of
nutrition, repair, and body‑building is performed. While the
Cerebro‑Spinal System, and the Conscious Mind are able to rest
a considerable portion of the twenty‑four hours of the day, the
Sympathetic System and the Subconscious Mind must needs
work every minute of the twenty‑four hours, without rest or
vacation, during the life of their owner.
Dr. E. H. Pratt, in his valuable “Series of Impersonations”
published in the medical magazines several years ago, and
12
 The Sympathetic System.
since reproduced in book form, makes “The Sympathetic Man”
speak as follows: “The entire body can do nothing without
me, and my occupation of supplying the inspiration for our
entire family is so constant and engaging that I am compelled
to attend strictly to business night and day from one end of
life to the other, and have no time whatever for observation,
education, or amusement outside of my daily tasks. As
a rule, I perform my work so noiselessly that the rest of the
family are scarcely conscious of my existence, for when I am
well everything works all right, each organ plays its part as
usual, and the entire machinery of life is operated noiselessly
and without friction. When I am not well, however, and am
not quite equal to the demands made upon me, I have two
ways of making it known to the family. One is by appealing to
self‑consciousness through the assistance of my cerebro‑spinal
brother, with whom I am closely associated, thereby causing
some disturbance of sensation or locomotion (the most
frequent disturbance in this direction being the instituting of
some form of pain); or I sometimes take it into my head to say
nothing to my cerebro‑spinal brother about my affairs, but
simply shirk my duties, and my inefficiency becomes manifest
only when some one or all of the organs suffer from some
function poorly performed.”
The nerve‑centres of the Cerebro‑Spinal System are grouped
closely together, while those of the Sympathetic System are
scattered about the body, each organ having its appropriate
centre or tiny‑brain. The heart, the liver, the kidneys, the spleen,
the brain, the intestinal tract, the bladder, the generative organs,
have each its own particular nerve‑centre of the Sympathetic
System—each its tiny‑brain—each, however, connected with all
the others. And more than this—in addition to the tiny‑brains
in each of the important vital organs, there are found scattered
through the trunk a number of ganglia, or knots of gray nervous
matter, arranged longitudinally in two lines extending from just
in front of the spinal column from the base of the skull to the
13
 Mind and Body
end of the spinal column, each vertebra having its appropriate
ganglia. In some cases several of these ganglia are grouped
together, the number ranging from two to three. Each ganglion
is a distinct centre giving off branches in four directions.
There is also one place in which are grouped together several
very large ganglia, forming what is known as the Solar Plexus,
or Abdominal Brain, which is situated at the upper part of
the abdomen, behind the stomach and in front of the aorta
and the pillars of the diaphragm, and from which issue nerves
extending in all directions. By some authorities the Solar Plexus
is regarded as the great centre of the Sympathetic System, and
the main seat of the Subconscious Mind. Dr. Byron Robinson
bestowed upon this centre the name “The Abdominal Brain,”
saying of the use of the term: “I mean to convey the idea that
it is endowed with the high powers and phenomena of a great
nervous centre; that it can organize, multiply, and diminish
forces.”
One of the most interesting and significant features of the
ganglia is that of their connection with the nerve centres of the
Cerebro‑Spinal System, indicating the reciprocal action existing
between the two great nervous systems. From each one of the
ganglia in the two great lines forming the system, issues a tiny
filament which connects with the spinal cord; and at the same
time it receives from the spinal cord a tiny filament in return,
thus establishing a double line of communication. It is held by
some authorities that one of these filaments acts as a sending
wire, and the other as a receiving wire between the two systems.
Be this as it may, the inter‑communication between the two
systems is clearly indicated.
It must be remembered that the involuntary muscles which
move the heart, as well as the tiny muscles which form the
middle‑coat of the arteries and the veins, are controlled by
the Sympathetic System, and thus the important work of the
circulation, which goes on day and night, year in and year out,
during life, is directly under the charge of the Sympathetic
14
 The Sympathetic System.
System and the Subconscious Mind. Also, the involuntary
muscles which are concerned with the activities of the liver, the
kidneys and the spleen, are under the same direct control.
Dr. E. H. Pratt, in the “Series of Impersonations” above referred
to makes the “Subconscious Man” tell the following wonderful
truth, which we suggest each reader read carefully and fix in
his mind: “My brother the Sympathetic Man has told you that
I am the animating spirit of his construction; and as he is the
great body builder, having furnished the emotions under which
our entire family has been put into form, you can understand
by what right I pose before you as the human form of forms.
All the rest of the family are because I am. Even my Conscious
brother, who claims superiority to his fellow‑shapes because he
bosses them around a little and makes use of them, is a subject
of my own creation.…I am the life of the Sympathetic Man,
whose existence as a human shape has already sufficiently been
well established, and as there is no part of him which is not
alive, the conclusion is very evident that his shape and mine
are identical. There is no part of the sympathetic system which is
not animated by my own principle of vitality. Indeed, he is but
a cup of life, though I can assure you that his cup is full, and he
would not be good for much if it was not. So, if you are able to
conceive the shape of the Sympathetic Man, you can regard
this form as identical with my own. This is really a very modest
claim on my part, and does not quite do justice to myself, for
in reality the Sympathetic Man does not contain all there is of
me by any means, for I am not only in him, but all around him,
and he is not by any means capable of containing my full self.”
When it is seen that the vital activities of the physical body
are ruled, governed and controlled by the Sympathetic System,
animated by the Subconscious Mind, and that the latter is
amenable to Suggestion from the Conscious Mind and from
outside, we may begin to get a glimmer of the great light which
illuminates the principle of Mental Healing. If the Subconscious
Mind, the builder, is influenced by Suggestion to neglect his
15
 Mind and Body
work, or to build wrongly, it is likewise possible for him to heed
proper Suggestion and to repair his mistakes and to rebuild
properly. This principle being grasped, the rest will seem to
be merely an understanding of the best methods of reaching
the Subconscious Mind by Suggestion or Auto‑Suggestion.
We may now begin to understand the truth of the old axiom:
“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he”—physically. And
as Thought is based largely upon Belief, can we not see the
dynamic force of Faith? Is there not a real psychological basis
for so‑called “miracles?” Is not the wonder‑working of the cults
now understandable?

16
 Chapter III.

The Cell‑Minds.

M odern science has demonstrated that the human

body is composed of a multitude of microscopic
cells, that is, that the muscles, nerves, tissues, blood,
bones, hair and nails are made up of minute cells, and groups
of cells. Virchow says: “It is of the cells that the tissues are built
up and the nerves formed. There is no part of the human body
in which the cell is not seen. All these cells are neuclated—have
in them a central life—spot like the yolk of an egg. Each cell is
born, reproduces itself, dies and is absorbed. The maintenance
of life and health depends upon the constant regeneration of
the cells. When man can control the life and death of the cell he
becomes the creator.” Medical science now practically asserts
that disease of the body is really disease of the cells of which
the body is composed, and that all healing of the body must
consist of the healing of the cells—that is, of restoring the cells
to normal activity and functioning.
The following quotation from Hudson, following Stephens,
is interesting: “An aggregation of cells became a confederation,
with its differentiation of cell functions and still further division
of labor. As a result of a long process of such differentiation,
the organisms of the larger animals and of man came to be
17
 Mind and Body
composed, as we find them, of thirty or more different species of
cells. For example, we have the muscle cells, whose vital energies
are devoted to the office of contraction, or vigorous shortening
of length; connective‑tissue cells, whose office is mainly to
produce and conserve a tough fibre for binding together and
covering in the organism; bone cells, whose life work is to select
and collocate salts of lime for the organic framework, levers
and joints; hair, nail, horn and feather cells, which work in
silicates for the protection, defense, and ornamentation of the
organism; gland cells, whose motif in living has come to be the
abstraction from the blood of substances which are recombined
to produce juices needed to aid the various processes or steps
of digestion; blood cells, which have assumed the laborious
function of general carriers, scavengers, and repairers of the
organism; eye, ear, nasal and palate cells, which have become
the special artificers of complicated apparatus for transmitting
light, sound, odors, and flavors to the highly sentient brain cells;
pulmonary cells, which elaborate a tissue for the introduction
of oxygen and the elimination of carbon dioxide and other
waste products; hepatic (liver) cells, which have, in response
to the needs of the organism, descended to the menial office
of living on the waste products and converting them into
chemical reagents to facilitate digestion—these and numerous
other species of cells; and lastly, most important and of greatest
interest, brain and nerve cells.”
The various cells of the body are constantly busy, each
performing its particular task, either singly or in connection
with other cells in the cell‑group. Like a great arm, the cells are
divided into classes, some being engaged in the active daily
work, while others are held back on the reserve line. Some are
engaged in building up the tissues, muscles and bones, while
others are busy manufacturing the juices, secretions, fluids and
chemical compounds required in the great laboratory of the
body. Some remain at their posts, stationary during their entire
life, while others remain stationary only until the call comes for
18
 The Cell‑Minds.
their services, while a third class are in constant motion from
place to place either following regular routes or else travelling
under a roving commission. Some of the moving cells act as
carriers of material—the hod‑carriers of the body, while others
move about doing special repair work such as the healing of
wounds, etc., while others still are the scavengers and street
cleaners of system, and others form the cell army and cell police
force. The body has been compared to a vast communistic or
socialistic colony, each member of which cheerfully devotes
his life‑work, and often his life itself, to the common good. The
brain cells are of course the most highly organized, and the most
highly differentiated of the cells. The nerve cells constitute a
living telegraph system over which is carried the messages from
the several parts of the body, each cell being in close contact
with its neighbor on each side—the nerve cells practically clasp
hands and form a living chain of communication.
The blood cells are important members of the cell‑community,
and are exceedingly numerous, there being over 75,000,000,000
of the red‑blood cells alone. These red‑blood cells move in the
blood currents, carrying through the arteries each its little load
of oxygen which it transports to the distant tissues that they
may be invigorated and vitalized anew; and, returning, carrying
through the veins the debris and waste products of the system
to the great crematory of the lungs where the waste is burnt
and thrown off from the body. Like the ships that sail the sea,
each cell carries its outgoing cargo, and returns with another
one. Some of these cells perform the office of special repairers,
forcing their way through the walls of the blood‑vessels and
penetrating the tissues in order to perform their special tasks.
There are several other kinds of cells in the blood besides the
carriers just mentioned. There are the wonderful soldier and
police cells which maintain order and fight battles when
necessary. The police cells are on the constant lookout for
germs, bacteria and other microscopic disturbers of the peace
of the body. When these tiny policemen discover vagrant
19
 Mind and Body
germs, or criminal bacteria, they rush upon the intruder and
tying him up in a mesh, proceed to devour him. If the intruder
be too large or vigorous, a call for assistance is sent out, and
the reserve police rush to the assistance of their brothers and
overpower the disturber of the peace. Sometimes when the
vagrants are too numerous, the policemen throw them out
from the body, by means of pimples, boils and similar eruptions.
In case of infectious diseases, an army corps is ordered out in
full strength and a royal fight is waged between the invading
army and the defenders of home and country.
Some of the blood cells take a part in the process of extracting
from the food its nourishing particles, and then carrying the
same through the blood‑channels to all parts of the body, where
it is used to feed and nourish the stationary cells there located.
These cells manufacture the chemical juices of the body, such as
bile, gastric juice, pancreatic juices, milk, etc., in short the entire
physical process is carried on by these indefatigable tiny cells.
The body of each of us is simply a great community of cells of
various kinds. The cells are born by the form of reproduction
common to all cells, that of sub‑division. Each cell grows until
a certain size is reached, when it assumes a “dumb‑bell” shape,
with a tiny waist line, which waist is afterward dissolved and
the two cells move away from each other. In this way, and
this way alone, does the body grow, the material required for
the enlargement of the cell being supplied from the food and
nourishment partaken by the individual. Cells die after having
performed their life‑work, and their corpses are carried through
the veins by the carrier cells, and cast into the crematory of the
lungs where they are consumed.
The body is constantly undergoing a process of change and
regeneration. Old cells are being cast off every second, and new
cells are taking their places. Our muscles, tissues, hair, nails,
nerves, brain substance, and even our bones are constantly
being made over and rebuilt. Our bodies to‑day do not contain
a single particle of the material which composed them a few
20
 The Cell‑Minds.
years back. A few weeks suffices to replace our entire skin, and
a few months to replace other parts of the body. If a sufficiently
large microscope could be placed over our bodies, we would
see each part of it as active as a hive of bees, each cell being in
action and motion, and the entire domestic work of the human
hive being performed: according to law and order. Verily, “we
are fearfully and wonderfully made.”
A number of the best authorities have used the illustration
of the process of the cells in healing an ordinary wound, in
order to show the activity and “mind” of the tiny cells. We
have become so accustomed to the natural healing of a wound,
scratch or broken skin, that we have grown to regard it as an
almost mechanical process. But, science shows us that there
is manifested in the healing process a marvellous degree of life
and mind in the cells. Let us consider the process of healing
an ordinary wound, that we may see the cells at work. Let us
imagine that we are gazing at the wounded part through a
marvellously strong microscope which enables us to see every
cell at work. If such a glass were provided we should witness a
scene similar to that now to be described.
In the first place, through our glass, we should see the gaping
wound enlarged to gigantic proportions. We should see the torn
skin, tissues, lymphatic and blood vessels, glands, muscles and
nerves. We would see the blood pouring forth washing away
the dirt and foreign substances that have entered the wound.
We would then see the messages calling for help flashing over
the living telegraph wires of the nerves, each nerve‑cell rapidly
passing the word to its neighbor until the great sympathetic
centres received the call and sounded the alarm and sent out
a “hurry up” call to the cells needed for the repair work. In the
meantime the cells of the blood, coming in contact with the
outside air have begun to coagulate into a sticky substance,
which is the beginning of the scab, the purpose being to close
the wound and to hold the severed parts together. The repair
cells having now arrived at the scene of the accident begin to
21
 Mind and Body
mend the break. The tissue, nerve, and muscle cells, on each
side of the wound begin to multiply rapidly, receiving their
nourishment from the blood cells, and quickly a cell bridge is
built up until the two severed edges of the wound are reunited.
This bridging is no haphazard process, for the presence of
directing law and order is apparent. The newly‑born cells of
the blood‑vessels unite with their brothers on the other side,
evenly and in an orderly manner, new tubular channels being
formed skillfully. The cells of the connective tissues likewise
grow toward each other, and unite in the same orderly manner.
The nerve‑cells repair their broken lines, just as do a gang of
linemen repair the interrupted telegraph system. The muscles
are united in the same way. But mark you this, there is no
mistake in this connecting process—muscle does not connect
with nerve, nor blood‑vessel with connective tissue. Finally,
the inner repairs and connections having been completed, the
scab disappears and the cells of the outer skin rebuild the outer
covering, and the wound is healed. This process may occupy a
few hours, or many days, depending upon the character of the
wound, but the process is the same in all cases. The surgeon
merely disinfects and cleans the wound, and placing the parts
together allows the cells to perform their healing work, for no
other power can perform the task. The knitting together of
a broken bone proceeds along the same lines—the surgeon
places the parts in juxtaposition, binds the limb together to
prevent slipping, and the cells do the rest.
When the body is well nourished, the general system well
toned up, and the mind cheerful and active, the repair work
proceeds rapidly. But when the physical system is run down,
the body poorly nourished, and the mind depressed and full of
fear, the work is retarded and interfered with. It is this healing
power inherent in the cells that physicians speak of as the vis
vita or vis medicatrix naturae, or “the healing power of nature.”
Of it Dr. Patton says: “By the term ‘efforts of nature’ we mean a
certain curative or restorative principle, or vis vita, implanted in
22
 The Cell‑Minds.
every living or organized body, constantly operative for its repair,
preservation and health. This instinctive endeavor to repair the
human organism is signally shown in the event of a severed
or lost part, as a finger, for instance; for nature unaided will
repair and fashion a stump equal to one from the hands of an
eminent surgeon.…Nature, unaided, may be equally potent in
ordinary illness. Many individuals, even when severely ill, either
from motives of economy, prejudice, or skepticism, remain at
rest in bed, under favorable hygiene, regimen, etc., and speedily
get well without a physician or medicine.”
Dr. Schofield says: “The vis medicatrix naturae is a very potent
factor in the amelioration of disease, if it only be allowed fair
play. An exercise of faith, as a rule, suspends the operation
of adverse influences, and appeals strongly through the
consciousness, to the inner and underlying faculty of vital force
(i. e., unconscious mind).” Dr. Bruce says: “We are compelled
to acknowledge a power of natural recovery inherent in the
body—a similar statement has been made by writers on the
principle of medicine in all ages.…The body does possess a
means and mechanism for modifying or neutralizing influences
which it cannot directly overcome.” Oliver Wendell Holmes
says: “Whatever other theories we hold we must recognize the
‘vis medicatrix naturae’ in some shape or other.” Bruce says: “A
natural power of the prevention and repair of disorders and
disease has as real and as active an existence within us, as have
the ordinary functions of the organs themselves. “Hippocrates
said: “Nature is the physician of diseases.” And Ambrose Pare
wrote on the walls of the great medical school, the Ecole de
Medicine of Paris, these words: “Je le ponsez et Dieu le guarit,”
which translated is: “I dressed the wound, and God healed it.”
It is of course true that the life and mind in the cells is derived
from the Subconscious Mind, in fact the cells themselves may
be said to embody the Subconscious Mind, just as the cells of
the brain embody the Conscious Mind. In every cell there is to
be found intelligence in a degree required for the successful
23
 Mind and Body
performance of the particular task of that cell. Hudson says:
“All organic tissue is made up of microscopic cells, each one of
which is a living, intelligent entity.” And, again, “The subordinate
intelligences are the cells of which the whole body is composed,
each of which is an intelligent entity, endowed with powers
commensurate with its functions.” In short, the cells of the body
are living organs for the expression and manifestation of the
Subconscious Mind. There is not a single cell, group, or part of
the party which is devoid of mind. Mind is imminent in the
entire body, and in its every part, down to the smallest cell.
The following quotation from Dr. Thomson J. Hudson’s
“Mental Medicine” clearly expresses a truth conceded by
modern science. Dr. Hudson says:
“It follows a priori, that every cell in the body is endowed with
intelligence; and this is precisely what all biological science tells
us is true. Beginning with the lowest form of animal life, the
humblest cytode, every living cell is endowed with a wonderful
intelligence. There is, in fact, no line to be drawn between life
and mind; that is to say, every living organism is a mind organism,
from the monera, crawling upon the bed of the ocean, to the
most highly differentiated cell in the cerebral cortex of man.
Volumes have been written to demonstrate that ‘psychological
phenomena begin among the very lowest class of beings; they
are met with in every form of life, from the simplest cellule to
the most complicated organism. It is they that are the essential
phenomena of life, inherent in all protoplasm.’ (Binet.) It is, in
fact, an axiom of science that the lowest unicellular organism is
endowed with the potentialities of manhood; I have remarked
that each living cell is endowed with a wonderful intelligence.
This is emphatically true, whether it is a unicellular organism or
a constituent element of a multicellular organism. Its wonderful
character consists not so much in the amount of intelligence
possessed by each individual cell, as it does in the quality of
that intelligence. That is to say, each cell is endowed with an
instinctive, or intuitive, knowledge of all that is essential to the
24
 The Cell‑Minds.
preservation of its own life, the conservation of its energies, and
the perpetuation of its species. In other words, it is endowed
with an intuitive knowledge of the laws of its own being, which
knowledge is proportioned to its stage of development and
adapted to its environment.”
The cell has the intelligence sufficient to enable it to seek
nourishment, and to move from one place to another in
search for food or for other purposes. It holds to its food when
secured, and envelops it until it is absorbed and digested. It
exercises the power of choice, accepting and selecting one
portion of food in preference to another. It has the power of
discriminating between nourishing food and the reverse. The
authorities show that it has a rudimentary memory, and avoids
the repetition of an unpleasant or painful experience, and also
returns to the locality in which it has previously secured food.
Biological experiments have shown that the cells are capable
of experiencing surprise, pleasure and fear, and that they
experience different degrees of feeling, and react accordingly
in response to stimuli. Verworn, a biologist, even goes so far as
to assert that they habitually adapt means to ends, near and
remote. In his remarkable work on cell‑life, “The Psychic Life of
Micro‑organisms,” Binet says: “We shall not regard it as strange,
perhaps, to find so complete a psychology in the history of the
lower organisms, when we call to mind that, agreeably to the
ideas of evolution now accepted, a higher animal is nothing
more than a colony of protozoans. Every one of the cells
composing such an animal has retained its primitive properties,
giving them a higher degree of perfection by division of labor
and by selection. The epithelial cells that secrete the nails and
hair are organisms perfected with reference to the secretion of
protective parts. Similarly, the cells of the brain are organisms
that have been perfected with reference to psychical attributes.”
Dr. Schofield says: “That life involves mind has, of course,
like all else, been vigorously disputed and equally vigorously
affirmed. ‘Life,’ says Prof. Bascom, ‘is not force; it is combining
25
 Mind and Body
power. It is the product and presence of mind.’…The extent
to which the word mind may be employed as the inherent
cause of purposive movements in organisms is a very difficult
question to solve. There can be no doubt that the actual agents
in such movements are the natural forces, but behind these the
directing and starting power seems to be psychic.…There being
an indwelling power, not only for purposive action in each cell,
but for endless combinations of cell activities for common
ends not at all connected with the mere nutrition of the single
cell, but for the good of the completed organism. “ Dr. Dunn
says: “From the first movement when the primordial cell‑germ
of a human organism comes into being, the entire individual
is present, fitted for human destiny. From the same moment,
matter, life and mind are never for an instant separated, their
union constituting the essential work of our present existence.”
Carpenter says: “The convertibility of physical forces and
correlation of these with the vital and the intricacy of that nexus
between mental and bodily activity which cannot be analyzed,
all lead upwards towards one and the same conclusion—the
source of all power is mind. And that physical conclusion is the
apex of the pyramid which has its foundation in the primitive
instincts of humanity.”
Having seen the evidences of life and mind in the single cell,
let us now proceed to a consideration of the intelligence or
mind inherent and manifest in the groups of cells, large and
small, including the largest groups which compose the several
organs of the body. This line of investigation will lead us to a
fuller understanding of the influence of the mental states upon
the health or disease of the organs and parts. It will be seen that
Mental Healing has a sound biological as well as a psychological
basis of truth, and that it is not necessary to invade the fields of
metaphysics or theology in order to find an explanation of the
effect of mind over body.

26
 Chapter IV.

The Mental Basis of Cure.

W e have seen that in each cell in the human body

is embodied a part of the Subconscious Mind,
sufficient in quantity and quality to enable the cell
to perform its particular work in the physical community of
cells. In the same manner each group of cells, large or small, is
possessed of the quantity and quality of mind adapted to the
successful performance of its particular function. And, rising in
the scale, we find that each of the physical organs is possessed
of a “composite cell‑soul” or “organ‑mind.” As Hudson says:
“Each organ of the body is composed of a group of cells which
are differentiated with special reference to the functions to be
performed by that organ. In other words, every function of life
is performed by groups of co‑operative cells, so that the body
as a whole is simply a confederation of the various groups.”
For instance, as Haeckel says: “This ‘tissue soul’ is the
higher psychological function which gives physiological
individuality to the compound multicellular organism as a
true ‘cell commonwealth.’ It controls all the separate ‘cell souls’
of the social cells—the mutually dependent ‘citizens’ which
constitute the community.…The human egg‑cell, as soon as
it is fertilized, multiplies by division and forms a community,
27
 Mind and Body
or colony of many social cells. These differentiate themselves,
and by their specialization, by various modifications of these
cells, the various tissues which compose the various organs
are developed. The developed many‑celled organisms of man
and of all higher animals resemble, therefore, a social civil
community, the numerous single individuals of which are,
indeed, developed in various ways, but which were originally
only simple cells of one common structure.”
Biology shows us that there are unquestionably methods of
communication between cell and cell, although it has not as
yet been definitely determined just how this communication is
effected. In the cell‑communities of the micro‑organisms there
is undoubtedly present the power to communicate on the part
of the several cells composing the community, and the pain or
discomfort of one part is evidently felt by the whole community.
Just as an army, or a congregation, has a mind common to the
whole, in addition to the individual minds of its units, so has
every organ of the body an “organ mind” in addition to the
individual cell minds of its unit cells. The fact of the existence
of “group‑mind,” or “collective‑mind” is recognized by the best
authorities in modern psychology, and the study of its principles
throws light on some hitherto perplexing phenomena.
Prof. Le Bon, in his work “The Crowd,” says of the “collective
mind” of men: “The sentiments and ideas of all the persons
in the gathering take one and the same direction, and their
conscious personality vanishes. A collective mind is formed,
doubtless transitory, but presenting very clearly marked
characteristics. The gathering has become what, in the absence
of a better expression, I will call an organized crowd, or, if the
term be considered preferable, a psychological crowd. It forms
a single being, and is subjected to the law of the mental unity
of crowds.…The most striking peculiarity presented by a
psychological crowd is the following: Whoever be the individuals
that compose it, however like or unlike be their mode of life,
their occupation, their character, or their intelligence, the fact
28
 The Mental Basis of Cure.
that they have been transformed into a crowd puts them in
possession of a sort of collective mind, which makes them feel,
think, and act in a manner quite different from that in which
each individual of them would feel, think and act, were he in
a state of isolation. There are certain ideas and feelings which
do not come into being, or do not transform themselves into
acts, except in the case of the individuals forming a crowd.…In
the collective mind the intellectual aptitudes of the individuals,
and in consequence their individuality, is weakened.…The most
careful observations seem to prove that an individual immerged
for some length of time in a crowd in action soon finds itself in
a special state, which most resembles the state of fascination in
which the hypnotized individual finds himself.…The conscious
personality has entirely vanished, will and discernment are lost.
All feelings and thoughts are bent in the direction determined
by the hypnotizer.…An individual in a crowd is a grain of sand
amid other grains of sand, which the wind stirs up at will.”
In short, psychology recognizes a mental fusion between
the individual minds of units composing a community of cells,
insects, higher animals and even men. The “spirit of the hive”
noted by all students of bee‑life, and the community spirit in an
ant‑hill are instances serving to illustrate the general principle
of “the collective mind.” As we have seen in the preceding
chapter, the entire human body is a vast community of cells,
each unit in the community having relations with every other
unit, and all having sprung from the same original egg‑cell. This
great community, or nation of cells is divided into many smaller
communities, chief among which are the principal organs of
the body, as the stomach, the intestines, the liver, the kidneys,
the spleen, the heart, etc. And, following the general rule, each
of these organ‑communities possesses its own “collective mind,”
subordinate, of course, to the great community mind known
as the Subconscious Mind. Ordinarily these communities
live in peace and harmony, and in obedience to the national
government. But occasionally rebellions and revolutions
29
 Mind and Body
are started, which cause much inharmony, pain and disease.
Sometimes these rebellions arise from abuse of the particular
organ by its owner, or from sympathy with another abused
organ, or from general abuse of the system. But, at other times,
there seems to be an active discontent springing up in an organ,
to the quelling of which the entire Subconscious Mind bends
its energy and forces. Very often these rebellions are started by
adverse autosuggestions or fearthoughts emanating from the
conscious mind of the individual, which act according to the
law of suggestion and practically hypnotize the mind of the
organ in question.
This idea of each organ having a mind of its own—being
practically an entity, in fact—may be somewhat startling to
those who have never had the matter presented to them, but
the statement is backed up by the best scientific authorities who,
however, do not usually state it in so plain terms, or popular
form. It is likely that the science of the future will make some
great discoveries regarding this matter of the “collective mind”
of the organs, and that the schools of medicine will adapt the
new knowledge to the treatment of disease. In the meantime,
the practitioners of Mental Healing are availing themselves of
this principle, often without realizing the principle itself.
The writer has been interested in this subject of the “organ
mind” for a number of years, and has conducted a number
of experiments along this line, the result being that he feels
more firmly convinced each year of the truth of the theory
or idea. He has found that mental treatments based on this
theory have been very successful, much more so in fact than
those conducted in pursuance to other theories. It seems that
by applying the suggestive treatment direct to the affected
organ a quicker response is had. The writer is indebted to Dr.
Paul Edwards, a well known mental healer, who several years
ago advanced the idea that the mind or “intelligence” in the
several organs differed greatly in temperament and quality. He
informed us that he had proven to his own satisfaction that the
30
 The Mental Basis of Cure.
heart is “very intelligent,” and quite amenable to mild, gentle,
coaxing suggestions, advice or orders; while, on the other hand,
the liver is a most mulish, stubborn, obstinate organ‑mind,
which requires one to drive it in a sharp positive manner.
Investigation along these lines suggested by Dr. Edwards has
convinced the writer that the theory is warranted by the
facts. Experiments have shown that the heart organ‑mind is
gentle, mild, and easily influenced by kindly suggestion, advice
and requests and that it needs but a word directed to it to
attract its attention. Likewise, the liver has been found to be
brutish, stubborn and obstinate, needing the most vigorous
suggestions—in short the liver‑mind is a donkey and must be
so treated. The liver‑mind is sluggish, torpid and sleepy, and
needs much prodding before it will “sit up and take notice.” The
stomach has been found to be quite intelligent, especially when
it has not been brutalized by “stuffing.” It will readily respond
to suggestive treatment of all kinds, it being noticed that it may
be easily flattered or “jollied” into good behavior, just as may
certain children. The nervous system has a mind of its own, and
will accept suggestions, although it is usually difficult to attract
its attention, owing to its habit of concentration upon its regular
work. The bowel‑mind will respond to firm, kind treatment, as
will also the uterus‑mind and the mind controlling the other
organs peculiar to women.
In another work, the writer has said regarding this form of
treatment of the organs through their organ‑minds: “Remember,
always, that you are mind talking to mind, not to dead matter.
There is mind in every cell, nerve, organ and part of the body,
and in the body as a whole, and this mind will listen to your
central mind and obey it, because your central mind is positive
to it—the organ is negative to you. Carry this idea with you in
giving these treatments, and endeavor to visualize the mind in
the organs, as clearly as may be, for by so doing you get them
in better rapport with you, and can handle them to better
advantage. And always remember that the virtue lies not in
31
 Mind and Body
the mere sound of the words that happen to reach the organ
or cells—they do not understand words as words, but they do
understand the meaning behind the words. But without words
it is very hard for you to think, or clearly express the feeling—
and so, by all means use the words just as if the organ‑mind
understood the actual meaning thereof, for by so doing you
can drive in the meaning of the word—and induce the mental
state and conditions necessary to work the cure.
Dr. S. F. Meacham, in a magazine article published several
years ago, said: “Let me once more call your attention to that
one great principle of disease and cure. It is the only medical
creed I hold to‑day and will bear repeating, lest we neglect it.
Disease is a failure of the cells to make good their waste, or to
do their full duty. This may be an individual matter with the
cell, or may result from imperfect co‑operation; there may
be a mutiny in the co‑operative commonwealth constituting
the body. Apart from all mutual help, or co‑operation of cells,
each individual cell must either do its full duty, or suffer, and
perchance die, as the result. Remember that each individual
cell lives, and has an office that no other cell can fill to save it.
If the other cell does the work, it will live, but the failing cell
will not profit thereby. By co‑operating they may lighten each
other’s labors, but no cell is or can be exempt from doing its
part. Any failure of this kind is disease either local or general,
according to the degree and nature of the failure, or according
to the importance of the mutinous or weakened cell. A cure
results when the cells again do their work. Or, if a certain
number die, a cure is established when other cells learn to do
that particular work, which is sometimes the case. A remedy
is any substance, or force, or procedure that will stimulate, or
help, or remove obstacles that prevent these cells from doing
their work. Keep in mind, that the life process acting through or
in the cell does the work either aided, or alone. The lesson then
is that all these methods do good, and that owing to the view
point, mental status, or expectancy of the individual, now one
32
 The Mental Basis of Cure.
and now another method will appeal to him and be accepted.
No matter what we do, we aid, we assist only—we do not
cure.…The process going on in each cell is an intelligent one, and
all extrinsic methods are really but suggestions offered to the
cell, the real worker; and the fact is that anyone of these helps
may be chosen, and all may be rejected.…”
“The repair of a cell is as equally as intellectual a process as
any other can be. If, for instance, blind force can repair one
cell, it can many; if it can build one, it can all, and mind and
intellect are then without causal efficacy, without spontaneity,
and blind force, fatality and purposeless action reign supreme.…
According to this theory the building and repairing of cells
would not be intellectual, as there would be no working plan
or purpose. I am aware that a purely extrinsic study of the cells
and of the body will force this conclusion upon any candid,
unprejudiced mind; but a study from the inside is a different
matter. A cell, looked at from without, moves only when
stimulated; but is this really true? The body is but a compound
of cells when viewed from the outside; then if one cell moves
when stimulated, why not twenty, a hundred, a thousand, a
billion, the entire body? But is it true of the body? You come to
me and propose some scheme, or act, which I carry out. Now is
your proposition the real cause of my act, or only a condition?
Do I not choose, and either do the thing or not, as determined
from within? If this is true of the body, why not of the cell? May
not the stimulation we see be a condition only, and the real
cause of the act be within the cell itself?…The cell is not a mere
machine, but a living entity, doing everything that the body
does. It eats, drinks, moves, reproduces its kind, selects its food,
repairs its waste, etc. These are intellectual processes, but may
not be conscious.…
“The cure consists in the repairing of the wasted tissue, and
in the cells restoring and repairing themselves into a definite
pattern, necessary to mutual work, so that the commonwealth
may prosper. Air, water, sunshine, food, etc., are necessary
33
 Mind and Body
to the performance of this work of repair. When these are
furnished, even under the best conditions possible, the cells
must use them to build up the waste, and this they do by
their internal forces. But this process is what is called repair on
the one hand, and cure on the other. External means may be
essential, but that will not make them really curative.…It is well,
also, to keep in mind that external in the true sense of the term
as we are using it here. Any force outside of the diseased cell is
an external force to that cell even if it be thought‑force. Disease
is always treated by external force, external as defined above,
and all disease is just as surely cured by internal force—viz: force
resident in the cell itself. Here we all stand around the suffering
cell, one with drug‑power in his hand, another with electricity,
or water, or heat, or directed attention—thought‑force or more
nourishment which necessitates a better circulation to that area,
or some other of the thousand therapeutic measures, and we
are close enough together at last to see that we are simply using
different stimuli to try to aid the real worker within the cell to
do his work by furnishing, not only material that is necessary,
but force as well, that out of the abundance his work may be
easy and rapid.”
The reader who will consider the numerous instances of cure
by Suggestion or Faith‑Cure, as noted in the following chapters,
will be better able to understand the principle underlying
these cures if he will realize the fact brought out so forcibly by
Dr. Meacham, as above quoted. The attention of the patient
being directed to the organ affected, in connection with the
stimulating and vitalizing effect of Faith and Belief, starts into
renewed activity the cell‑mind of the organ in question, and
arouses its reparative and recuperative energies. Each organ,
and its component cells and cell‑groups, is of course under
the control of the Subconscious Mind, and forms a part of
the material embodiment thereof. The Subconscious Mind,
being stimulated by the Suggestion and Faith, and having its
Expectant Attention aroused, concentrates its energies upon
34
 The Mental Basis of Cure.
the reparative and recuperative processes in the organ, and the
work of cure proceeds. The cure, in every case, is simply either
repair work, or else the restoration of normal functioning—in
either case the cells themselves doing the work.
In the consideration of the reasons underlying the cure of
disease by Psycho‑Therapeutics, we must first consider the
question of what disease really is. And in this phase of the
consideration, it will be well for us to first dispel the erroneous
ideas concerning disease which we have been entertaining.
Perhaps the following striking statement from Sidney Murphy,
M. D., printed in the magazine “Suggestion” several years ago,
may help you to form a correct idea of the nature of disease, or
rather a correct idea of what disease is not. Dr. Murphy says, in
the said article, among other things: “Prof. S D. Gross, formerly of
the New York University Medical School, says: ‘Of the essence of
disease very little is known‑indeed nothing at all’ Nevertheless
it is evident that medical men have an idea on the subject. The
theory generally held, I believe, is that disease is destructive
action; but just what this means, whether destructive action
on the part of vitality itself, or by something acting upon the
vitality, is not so clear; but we are enabled to gain some light by
reference to the expression used in medical books concerning
it. Thus we find that disease ‘attacks us,’ that it ‘seats itself in an
organ,’ that ‘it works through us, runs its course,’ etc. It is also
said to be ‘very malignant,’ or ‘quite mild,’ ‘persistently resisting
all treatment,’ or ‘yielding readily’ to it. In fact, it is considered
an entity, possessing character and disposition and general
vital qualities—a something which domiciles itself in the vital
domain, and exercises its forces to the destruction of the vital
powers. It is indeed spoken of as one would speak of a rat in
his granary, or a mouse in his cupboard, and efforts are made
to dislodge it, or kill it, as one would dislodge or kill any other
living thing. This theory of disease is beginning to be looked
upon even by the medical world as untenable. Living things
are always possessed of organizations having form or shape;
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 Mind and Body
and hence if disease were such, its form would be discerned
and described; a thing which never has been done. Disease by
our ancestors was considered a subtile and mysterious thing
which pounced down upon us, and runs its course without
any reference to causes; and language being formed to convey
this idea, it has been transmitted almost unchanged from
generation to generation down to the present time. And the
medical profession of today is simply an embodiment of that
idea. It is probable that the term ‘destructive action’ is generally
held to mean destructive action on the part of the vitality
itself.…Life in organic form is developed according to law.
Slowly rising into power, organization at length reaches it zenith,
and then goes down the gentle declivity, until the soul steps
off into the great beyond, without pain or struggle, provided
always that the conditions of life are natural and therefore
favorable; but if these be unfavorable, unfavorable results
must of course follow; vitality, nevertheless, doing the best it
can under the circumstances to preserve the normal state of
the body. Disease, we propose to show, is not antagonistic to
vital action, but the opposite, a remedial effort, or vital action
on the defensive. It is not a downward tendency, nor the result
of a downward tendency on the part of a living organism, but
is itself an upward or self‑preservative tendency, the result
of disobedience to natural laws. It is simply abnormal action,
because of abnormal conditions.”
In considering the above revolutionary statement of Dr.
Murphy, we must remember that “vitality” or “vital force” is
simply the action of the Subconscious Mind operating through
the sympathetic system, the organ‑minds, and the cell‑minds.
All vital energy, at the last is mental energy. And, we must also
remember that the “abnormal conditions” which Dr. Murphy
speaks of as being the cause of “abnormal action” or disease, are
not confined alone to physical or material conditions, but also
to abnormal mental conditions, such as fearthought, adverse
suggestions, improper use of the imagination, etc. As we have
36
 The Mental Basis of Cure.
seen in the preceding chapters, the causes of disease may be
mental as well as material or physical.
The Subconscious Mind in its vital activities is constantly at
work building up, repairing, growing, nourishing, supporting
and regulating the body, doing its best to throw off abnormal
conditions, and seeking to do the best it can when these
conditions cannot be removed. With its source pure and
unpolluted the stream of vitality flows on unhindered, but
when the poison of fearthought, adverse suggestion and false
belief is poured into the source or spring from which the stream
rises, it follows that the waters of life will no longer be pure and
clear. Let us notice the general direction of the vital activities of
the Subconscious Mind.
In the first place we find that the vital activities are primarily
concerned with self‑preservation, that is with the preservation
of the individual and the race. One has but to notice the
ever‑present manifestation of the “race instinct” which draws
the males and females of the several species together, that they
may mate and bring forth the young needed to keep alive the
species. The parental devotions, with its many sacrifices of
personal pleasure for the young, are instances ever before us.
And no less striking is the companion activities which make
for the preservation of the individual. The instinctive tendency
toward self‑preservation is so strong that it overpowers the
reason in the majority of cases. Men may decry the value of life,
but let their life be threatened and the instinctive protective
feeling causes them to fight for life against all odds. “All that a
man hath will he give for his life.” And this instinctive activity
is manifest not only in the individual as a whole, but in every
cell of his body. Every cell is striving hard for the welfare of the
community of which it forms a part. Even in disease it strives to
throw off the abnormal conditions which afflict the body, and
failing to do so it hobbles along doing the best it can under the
circumstances.

37
 Mind and Body
The tiny seed sprouting in the ground, and lifting weights
a thousand times that of itself, shows the self‑preservative
energies and activities of the mind principle within it. The
healing work of the cells in the case of a wound, or of a broken
bone, as described elsewhere in this book, gives us another
example. The healing efforts of the organism striving to throw
off the morbid substances within the body, purging them away
in a flux, or burning them up with a fever, show the operations of
the same principle. This, we have seen, is called the vis medicatrix
naturae, or “healing power of nature,” which operates in man as
well as in the case of the lower animals—but it is really but the
operations of the great Subconscious Mind of the individual. As
Dr. Murphy, previously quoted, says: “Certainly all experience
declares and all physicians will admit that where vital power
is abundant in a man he will get well from almost any injuries
short of complete destruction of vital organs; but where vitality
is low, recovery is much more difficult, if not impossible, which
can only be explained on the principle that vitality always
works upward toward life and health to the extent of its ability
under the circumstances, because, if it worked downward, the
less vitality, the more surely and speedily would death result.”
Following the law of self‑preservation, we find that of
accommodation manifesting itself in the vital activities of the
Subconscious Mind. This principle or law works in the direction
of adjusting the organism to conditions which it cannot remedy.
Thus a sapling bent out of shape, will bend its branches upward
until once more they will reach toward the sky notwithstanding
the deformed trunk. Seed sprouting from a narrow crevice in a
rock, and unable to split the rock, will assume a deformed shape
but will hold tenaciously to life, and will thrive under these
abnormal conditions. This principle of accommodation acts
upon the idea of “life at any price,” and of “making the best of
things.” Man and the lower animals accommodate themselves
to their environment, when they are unable to overcome
the unsatisfactory conditions of the latter. The study of
38
 The Mental Basis of Cure.
anthropology, natural history, and botany will convince anyone
that the principle of accommodation is everywhere present in
connection with that of self‑preservation. And the diseased
conditions, and abnormal functioning, which we find in cases
of chronic diseases is simply the principle of accommodation
in the vital activities of the Subconscious Mind, but which it
is “trying to make the best of it,” and holding on to “life at any
price.”
Dr. Murphy, previously quoted, says: “Disease, in its essential
nature, has a deeper significance than simply abnormal
manifestations. It is really a remedial effort, not necessarily
successful, but an attempt to change, or have changed existing
conditions. And for this reason any improper relation of the
living organism to external agents necessarily results in an injury
to that organism, which by virtue of its being self‑preservative,
immediately sets up defensive action, and begins as soon as
possible to repair the damages that have accrued. This defensive
or reparative action, of course, corresponds to the conditions
to be corrected, and hence is abnormal and diseased; and its
severity and persistence will depend upon the damages to be
repaired, and the intensity and persistence of the causes that
produced it. Serious injury present or impending will demand
serious vital action; desperate conditions, desperate action. But
in all cases the action is vital, an attempt at restoration, and
the energy displayed will exactly correspond to the interests
involved and the vitality that is available.”
From the above, and from what has been shown in previous
chapters, it will be seen that just as is health the result of the
normal functioning of the Subconscious Mind, so is disease the
result of its abnormal functioning. And it may also be seen that
the true healing power must come alone from and through the
Subconscious Mind itself, although the same may be aroused,
awakened and directed by various outside agencies. As Dr.
Thomson J. Hudson says: “Granted that there is an intelligence
that controls the functions of the body in health, it follows
39
 Mind and Body
that it is the same power or energy that fails in case of disease.
Failing, it requires assistance; and that is what all therapeutic
agencies aim to accomplish. No intelligent physician of any
school claims to be able to do more than to ‘assist nature’
to restore normal conditions of the body. That it is a mental
energy that thus requires assistance, no one denies; for science
teaches us that the whole body is made up of a confederation
of intelligent entities, each of which performs its functions with
an intelligence exactly adapted to the performance of its special
duties as a member of the confederacy. There is, indeed, no life
without mind, from the lowest unicellular organism up to man.
It is therefore a mental energy that actuates every fiber of the
body under all its conditions. That there is a central intelligence
that controls each of these mind organisms, is self‑evident.…It is
sufficient for us to know that such an intelligence exists, and
that, for the time being, it is the controlling energy that normally
regulates the action of the myriad cells of which the body is
composed. It is, then, a mental organism that all therapeutic
agencies are designed to energize, when, for any cause, it fails to
perform its functions with reference to any part of the physical
structure.”

40
 Chapter V.

The History of Psycho‑Therapy.

O ne 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.
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 Mind and Body
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
42
 The History of Psycho‑Therapy.
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 psychotherapy.”
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
43
 Mind and Body
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
44
 The History of Psycho‑Therapy.
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
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 Mind and Body
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 livre a 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
46
 The History of Psycho‑Therapy.
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.

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 Mind and Body
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
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 The History of Psycho‑Therapy.
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
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 Mind and Body
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
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 The History of Psycho‑Therapy.
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.
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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
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 The History of Psycho‑Therapy.
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 “pantheism, “ in which
he combined a strange mixture of mysticism and what has
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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. Anyone 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
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 The History of Psycho‑Therapy.
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
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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.
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 Chapter VI.

Faith Cures.

F ollowing the scientific study of the phenomena of cures

of physical illness by means of the power of mental states,
and the recognition of the fact that there is a common
principle operative under the various guises and forms, there
sprang into scientific usage the term “Faith Cures” which was
used to designate all instances and forms of cures coming under
the general classification of mental healing. Prof. Goddard
defines the term as follows: “A term applied to the practice of
curing disease by an appeal to the hope, belief, or expectation
of the patient, and without the use of drugs or other material
means. Formerly it was confined to methods requiring the
exercise of religious faith, such as the ‘prayer cure’ and ‘divine
healing,’ but has now come to be used in the broader sense,
and includes the cures of ‘Mental Science,’ and hypnotism;
also a large part of the cures effected by patent medicines and
nostrums, as well as many folk‑practices and home remedies.
By some it is used to include also Christian Science, but the
believers in the latter regard it as entirely distinct.”
The term “Suggestion,” used in the same sense as “Faith Cure”
in relation to the healing of disease, has also come into popular
usage, but inasmuch as Suggestion has a much larger meaning
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outside of its therapeutic phases, it may be said the best
authorities to‑day use the term “Faith Cure” as representing
simply one phase of Suggestion.
Prof. Goddard, in his article on “Faith Cure,” in the New
International Encyclopaedia (Dodd, Mead & Co., New York),
says: “Besides these recognized forms (divine healing, mental
science, etc.), faith cure is an important element in cures
wrought by patent medicines and nostrums, home remedies
and folk practices. The advertisement, testimonial of friend, or
family tradition arouses the faith of the sick man, and he comes
to believe that he needs only to follow directions to be fully
cured. The actual value of faith cure as a therapeutic method
has been the subject of much discussion. It can no longer be
denied that it has value. From divine healing to patent medicine
and Father Kneipp’s water cure, all cure disease. Each appeals to
a particular type of mind, but the results are practically the same
in all—same diseases cured, same successes, same failures. Many
faith‑curists claim that all diseases in all persons can be cured
by their method; others hold that the principle is of limited
application. Of them all, the hypnotists are the only ones who
do not make sweeping claims.”
After stating “the tendency to exaggeration and the
infrequency of impartial judgment” in connection with many
instances of claimed cures, the above mentioned authority
proceeds as follows: “The actual cures, however, are sufficiently
numerous and sufficiently striking to need an explanation.
These different forms agree in only one point‑viz., the mental
state of the patient is one of hope and expectation. Can states of
mind cause or cure disease? Some familiar occurrences seem to
justify an affirmative answer. It is well known that certain glands
and secretions are markedly affected by emotions. Fright causes
the saliva to cease to flow and the perspiration to start. Sorrow
causes the lachrymal glands to secrete tears. Happiness favors
digestion, unhappiness retards it. Mosso has demonstrated
that the bladder is especially sensitive to emotional states. In
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general, the pleasant emotions produce an opposite physical
effect from the unpleasant ones. There are many glands within
the body whose action under emotion we cannot observe;
but we may reasonably assume that they also are affected by
emotional states. Hence, if unpleasant emotions so act upon
the glands as to derange the system and cause disease, the
pleasant emotions may reasonably be assumed to tend to
restore the normal functions. The various forms of faith cure
tend strongly to put the patient in a happy frame of mind—a
condition favorable to health. However, there are all degrees
of faith and wide differences in the way the system responds
to the emotional state. One person is slightly affected by a
strong emotion; another is strongly affected by a weak emotion.
Hence, there must always be a wide difference in the results
of faith‑cure methods. The diseases most amenable to faith
cure are nervous—including many not recognized as nervous,
but having a neural condition as their basis—and functional
derangements. Organic diseases are not usually cured, though
the symptoms are frequently ameliorated. Chronic diseases due
to neuro‑muscular habit often yield to hypnotic treatment.”
Prof. R. P. Halleck says: “Were it not for this power of the
imagination, the majority of quack nostrums would disappear.
In most cases bread pills, properly labeled, with positive
assurances of certain cures accompanying them, would
answer the purpose far better than these nostrums, or even
much better than a great deal of the medicine administered
by regular physicians. Warts have been charmed away by
medicines which could have had only a mental effect. Dr. Tuke
gives many cases of patients cured of rheumatism by rubbing
them with a certain substance declared to possess magic
power. The material in some cases was metal; in others wood;
in still others, wax. He also recites the case of a very intelligent
officer who had vainly taken powerful remedies to cure cramp
in the stomach. Then ‘he was told that on the next attack he
would be put under a medicine which was generally believed
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to be most effective, but which was rarely used.’ When the
cramps came on again, ‘a powder containing four grains of
ground biscuit was administered every seven minutes, while
the greatest anxiety was expressed (within the hearing of the
party) lest too much be given. Half‑drachm doses of bismuth
had never procured the same relief in less than three hours. For
four successive times did the same kind of attack recur, and four
times was it met by the same remedy, and with like success.’ A
house surgeon in a French hospital experimented with one
hundred patients, giving them sugared water. Then, with a
great show of fear, he pretended that he had made a mistake
and given them an emetic instead of the proper medicine. Dr.
Tuke says: ‘The result may easily be anticipated by those who
can estimate the influence of the imagination. No fewer than
eighty—four‑fifths—were unmistakably sick.’
“We have a well authenticated case of a butcher, who, while
trying to hang up a heavy piece of meat, slipped and was
himself caught by the arm upon the hook. When he was taken
to a surgeon, the butcher said he was suffering so much that
he could not endure the removal of his coat; the sleeve must
be cut off. When this was done, it was found that the hook
had passed through his clothing close to the skin, but had
not even scratched it. A man sentenced to be bled to death
was blindfolded. A harmless incision was then made in his
arm and tepid water fixed so as to run down it and drop with
considerable noise into a basin. The attendants frequently
commented on the flow of blood and the weakening pulse. The
criminal’s false idea of what was taking place was as powerful in
its effects as the reality, and he soon died.…There is perhaps not
a person living who would not at times be benefited by a bread
pill, administered by some one in whom great confidence was
reposed.”
The same authority also says: “It has been known for a long
time that if the attention is directed toward any bodily organ,
abnormal sensations may be caused in it, and disease may be
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 Faith Cures.
developed. The renowned Dr. John Hunter said: ‘I am confident
that I can fix my attention to any part, until I have a sensation
in that part.’” Dr. Tuke says that these “are words which ought
to be inscribed in letters of gold over the entrance of a hospital
for the Cure of Disease by Psychopathy.” Hunter’s confident
assertion is the more interesting because, drawn from his own
experience, it shows that the principle is not confined in its
operation to the susceptible and nervous, but operates even
on men of the highest mental endowment. We have examples
from the literature of the seventeenth century, showing how the
expectation of a complaint will produce it. In 1607 an ignorant
English physician told a clergyman’s wife that she had sciatica,
although there was, in reality, nothing the matter with her sciatic
nerve. Her attention was thereby directed to it and a severe
attack of sciatica was the result. When a person inexperienced
in medicine reads carefully the symptoms of some disease, he is
apt to begin an attentive search for those symptoms and to end
by fancying he has them. Seasick persons have been relieved
of their nausea by being made to bail a leaking boat from the
fear that it would sink. All their attention was thereby diverted
from themselves. Many can recall how children, and grown
persons, too, have forgotten all about their alleged intense
thirst, as soon as their attention was diverted. Some persons,
after eating something which they fancy is a trifle indigestible,
center their attention upon the stomach, expecting symptoms
of indigestion, and are often not disappointed. A man who had
good reason to fear hydrophobia, determined that he would
not have it. The pain in the bitten arm became intense, and
he saw that he must have something to divert his attention
from the wound and his danger. He therefore went hunting,
but found no game. To make amends, he summoned a more
inflexible will and exerted at every step ‘a strong mental effort
against the disease.’ He kept on hunting until he felt better,
and he mastered himself so perfectly that he probably thereby
warded off an attack of hydrophobia. Accordingly as we center
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our attention upon one thing or another, we largely determine
our mental happiness and hence our bodily health. One person,
in walking through a noble forest, may search only for spiders,
and venomous creatures, while another confines his attention
to the singing birds in the branches above. One reason why
travel is such a cure for diseases of body and mind is because so
many new things thereby come in to claim the attention and
divert it from its former objects. The following expression from
Dr. Tuke should be remembered: ‘Thought strongly directed to
any part tends to increase its vascularity, and consequently its
sensibility.’”
Dr. C. F. Winbigler says: “The practitioner secures the same
effects from a placebo or powdered pop‑corn as from some
drugs by using suggestion with the former. Every successful
physician has used this method at one time or another, and
sometimes when he was utterly puzzled as to what he should
prescribe, he thus secured a marvellous result, and a cure of the
patient was effected.…Every believer in Psycho‑therapeutics
knows that there is a psychical as well as a physical effect
from the use of drugs. The psychical value is based on the
expectation of their special action, and that which is in the
physician’s mind may be subtly and powerfully carried over
into the patient’s mind. The physician’s personality, attitude
and interest in the patient accomplishes vastly more than the
drugs he prescribes or administers. If he is cheerful and hopeful,
he gives potency to their action; if he is gloomy, pessimistic and
hopeless, he nullifies their effects. ‘The cure of the patient is
effected through the subconscious mind, and the attitude and
bearings of the physician, attendants, the surroundings and the
medicines employed, become powerful suggestions.”
Prof. Elmer Gates says: “The system makes an effort to
eliminate the metabolic products of tissue‑waste, and it is
therefore not surprising that during acute grief tears are
copiously excreted; that during sudden fear the bowels and the
kidneys are caused to act, that during prolonged fear, the body
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 Faith Cures.
is covered with a cold perspiration; and, that during anger, the
mouth tastes bitter, due largely to the increased elimination
of sulpho‑cyanates. The perspiration during fear is chemically
different, and even smells different from that which exudes
during a happy mood.…Now if it can be shown in many ways
that the elimination of waste products is retarded by sad
and painful emotions; nay, worse than that, these depressing
emotions directly augment the amount of these poisons.
Conversely, the pleasurable and happy emotions, during
the time they are active, inhibit the poisonous effects of the
depressing moods, and cause the bodily cells to create and
store up vital energy and nutritive tissue products.”
In an issue of “The American Practitioner and News,” is
reported a discussion before the Lexington (Ky.) Medical and
Surgical Society, in which a member, Dr. Guest, related the
following experience: “I have a brother‑in‑law who suffers
every summer with hay‑fever. He has a relative who believes in
Christian Science. She told him that she felt positive that she
could direct him to a woman, a Christian Scientist, who would
cure him. He at first objected, because he hated to go to a
woman physician. He arranged, however, to communicate with
her daily by letter. When his hay‑fever broke out he suffered
with it all that day and night, and the next morning wrote her a
note telling her to put him on treatment immediately. When he
returned that night he was improved and slept better. He wrote
a second note the next morning and was much encouraged.
The third day he repeated his letter writing and stated that the
symptoms had almost ceased. And he was guying me about
being cured by Christian Science when regular physicians could
do nothing for him. The night of the third day, when he came
home to supper, he found a note from the Christian Scientist,
stating that she has been in the country and would put him
under treatment the next day. Realizing that all his treatment
had been only in his imagination, the symptoms reappeared
with the same intensity as before.”
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Dr. A. J. Parks of New York, says: “The absolute and complete
control that the sympathetic nervous system exercises over the
physical organization is so perfectly clear and well‑known to
every observer that the recital of the phenomena in the vast
and countless series of manifestations is unnecessary. We are
all aware of the fact that digestion is promptly arrested upon
the receipt of bad news. The appetite at once disappears. It
ceases, and the whole system feels the effect of the depressing
impulse—the mental and spiritual wave which lowers the vital
thermometer. Fear not only suspends the digestive function but
arrests the formation of the secretions upon which digestion
depends. A sudden fright frequently paralyzes the heart
beyond recovery, whereas a pleasant and pleasing message
soothes and gently excites the whole granular system, increases
the secretions, aids digestion and sends a thrill of joy to the
sensorium, which diffuses the glad tidings to every nerve fibril
in the complex organization.”
Dr. T. A. Borton, in an address before the Indiana State
Medical Society, said: “The subject which I desire to present
to you today has to do with the influence of the mind over
the functions of the body. Its silent, unobserved force results
in producing pathological conditions, and those, by reflex
action, excite morbid sensibilities of the mind and thus
derange the nerve centres, resulting in a changed condition
or over‑excitability of the nerve energies, which becomes a
secondary diseased condition in the form of different types of
neurasthenia. I have been interested in this subject for many
years, and in my practice have had extended opportunities
for making observations as to the potency of the mental and
suggestive pathology bearing on this subject. I would especially
refer to the healing of the body through these mental forces,
changing healthy, normal conditions into unhealthy or diseased
conditions and vice versa. These changes are not miraculous,
but proceed from natural causes in the operation of the mind,
as a therapeutic agency, operating through the functions of the
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body, sometimes as a tonic or stimulant, warding off diseases
under the most exposed conditions, defending and holding
the system in a state of health, while those void of these
mental assurances become victims to the ravages of disease
through contagion or infection. This protective mental force
of the mind has been demonstrated many times in hospitals
and other places where contagious diseases were prevailing.
The mental force possesses a protective power when rightly
exercised beyond what is usually conceded, not only in the way
of defense; but also in correcting disease when in existence. I
believe these to be much greater than has been generally
admitted or understood.…We all know how difficult it is to
get good results from medication in which our patients have
no confidence, and it is an established fact that we get better
results from drugs which are given with the patient’s knowledge
of their intended effect. I have often produced desired results
from means entirely inert, stating the desired and expected effect
of its administration. I have frequently quieted the severest pain
by injecting pure water into the arm of the patient.”
Dr. G. R. Patton, in an address before the Wabasha County
(Minn.) Medical Society, said: “ As Bacon said, ‘Faith, confidence,
belief and hope are the working forces that make the cure—
that work the miracle.’ The mind as a dynamic force exerted
over the functions of the body has been, doubtless, operatively
manifest from the cradle of our existence. By the phrase,
‘the mind as a dynamic force,’ I refer to the various forms of
suggestion as well as to various affective faculties of the mind,
or those states caused by the sympathetic action of the brain,
such as faith, confidence, belief, imagination, emotions, hope
and the like. Any or all of them may become active over the
bodily functions.…As instance of the mental impression acting
upon observable functions revealed through the capillary
circulation as revealed to the sight, I will mention blushing or
pallor of the face, depending upon the theme presented to
the thought; the mouth watering on the sight or thought of
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 Mind and Body
tempting food; the flow of tears from words or thoughts that
excite grief; nausea or vomiting from a sickening spectacle;
sexual excitement from obscene thought or lascivious sights.
Instances might be multiplied. And is it not a fair inference,
indeed, that through the vasomoter nerves, the internal viscera
may be subject to like effects through mental impressions, and
that thus acute as well as chronic congestive ailments thereof
may be favorably influenced or even cured thereby?…It is
my conviction that recognition of the power and usefulness
of mental dynamics, including all forms of suggestion over
physiological and pathological processes in combating diseases,
is unquestionably the most impressive advance in modern
medicine. Mental influence alone may diminish or increase
the activities of the physiological processes to the extent of
removing the pathological effects of disease.…A celebrated
medical teacher, after an exhaustive dissertation over a case was
leaving the bedside without prescribing any treatment when
the house physician asked what should be given the patient.
‘Oh,’ said the professor, ‘a hopeful prognosis and anything else
you please.’ To this he added, ‘the doleful doctor will be a failure,
while the hopeful one will prove a winner from start to finish.’ It
is reasonably assured that ultimately the physician will become
not so much the man behind the pill as the judicious advisor,
the wise counsellor, gently leading the sick ‘into green pastures,
beside still waters,’ through paths that lead onward to recovery,
assisting nature at times, if needs be, with a big bread pill.”
Dr. Herbert A. Parkyn, the well‑known authority on suggestive
therapeutics, says: “Certain results will follow certain thoughts,
and in every instance that it is possible to get the patient to
think the thoughts we desire, we secure the results we desire.
It is the work of the suggestionist to place these thoughts in
the mind of the patient so that he is bound to think them, and
this can be done to some degree, if not perfectly, in every case.
It is well to have faith, but faith is not absolutely necessary at
the outset. It is time enough for the patient to have faith in
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 Faith Cures.
the treatment when he can perceive the benefit he is receiving.
Understanding the mental and physical changes which follow
a certain thought, the suggestionist is able to bring about those
mental or physical changes, by using direct suggestion in such a
way that his patient is bound to think the thoughts which will
produce the results. A man may not have faith in the statement
that the thought of lemon juice will stimulate the flow of saliva,
but if he will imagine for a moment that he is squeezing the
juice of a lemon into his mouth the saliva will immediately
flow more freely than usual, regardless of his faith. Similarly,
many, if not all of the organs of the body, can be affected by
impulses following certain lines of thought, and these impulses
will follow the thought and stimulate the organs regardless of
faith. It is simply necessary to get a patient to think the proper
thoughts, and it is in the thought directing that the work of the
suggestionist lies.”

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Mind and Body

68
 Chapter VII.

The Power of the Imagination.

D r. F. W. Southworth says: “Fear is itself a contagious

disease and is sometimes reflected from one mind
to another with great rapidity. It passes from one to
another, from the healthy to the ill, from doctor or nurse to
patient, from mother to child, and so on. The greatest fears we
can usually get away from, but it is the little fears and anxieties,
constant apprehension, fears of imagined evils of all sorts which
prey upon our vitality and lessen our powers, thus rendering
us more susceptible to disease. To avert disease, then, we
must eradicate fear; but how shall we accomplish it? Through
wise education—educating the people to a higher standard
of living; by teaching a sounder hygiene; a wiser philosophy
and a more cheerful theology. By erasing a thousand errors
and superstitions from fearful minds and pointing them to
the light, beauty and loveliness of the truth. This mental and
moral sanitation is still ahead of us, but it is more valuable and
desirable than all quarantines, inventions, experiments, and
microscopical researches after physical or material causes.”
Sir George Paget, M. D., says: “In many cases I have seen
reasons for believing that cancer has had its origin in prolonged
anxiety.” Dr. Murchison says: “I have been surprised to find how
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 Mind and Body
often patients with primary cancer of the liver have traced the
cause of this illness to protracted grief and anxiety. These cases
have been far too numerous to be accounted for as merely
coincidents.” Sir B. W. Richardson, M. D., says: “Eruptions of the
skin frequently follow excessive mental strain. In all these, as
well as in cancer, epilepsy and mania, the cause is frequently
partly or wholly mental. It is remarkable how little the question
of the origin of physical disease from mental influences has
been studied.” Prof. Elmer Gates says: “My experiments show
that irascible, malevolent and depressing emotions generate in
the system injurious compounds, some of which are extremely
poisonous. Also that agreeable, happy emotions generate
chemical compounds of nutritious value which stimulate the
cells to manufacture energy.”
Dr. Patton, in the address before the Wabasha County
Medical Society, above mentioned, gives the following
interesting case of the effect of faith and expectant attention,
or Suggestion: He said: “While surgeon of a Cincinnati hospital
one of the messenger boys was often disobedient of orders. The
sister superior once asked me how to punish him. I suggested
putting him to bed and making him sick with medicine. My
advice was acted upon with alacrity. A teaspoonful of colored
water was given him every fifteen minutes. With assumed
gravity, I ordered the nurse, in the boy’s presence, to keep giving
the medicine until he became sick and vomited. Within an hour
he vomited profusely.…A funny incident illustrative of the faith
and confidence sometimes reposed in the medical man and his
power in curing disease, happened in my first year of practice.
An Irish laborer, much given to profanity, came to my office,
with a cold on his chest. I prescribed a soothing mixture and
a liniment of camphor, ammonia and soap. A few days later,
meeting him on the street, I asked him if the medicine had cured
him all right. He replied with enthusiasm, ‘Oh! yes, yes, it acted
most beautifully and cured me pretty d——d quick, but it was
awful hot stuff, for it burned in my throat like hell‑fire itself.’ I
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 The Power of the Imagination.
knew at once, but did not tell him, that he had been swallowing
the liniment of camphor, hartshorn and soap, and rubbing the
cough mixture on the outside. His faith was even stronger than
the liniment, and cured him in spite of the blunder.
“Perhaps the most wonderful confirmation came under my
observation while wintering in San Antonio, Texas, in 1880.
Some nostrum fakirs with a retinue of fourteen musicians and
comedians came to this city in an immense chariot, drawn by
eight gaily caparisoned horses. Every evening they came upon
the military plaza to sell their panacea. I went over one evening
out of curiosity, being attracted by the songs and music. The
head fakir was shouting to an immense crowd about the
virtues of his specific. He claimed that it contained thirteen
ingredients, gathered at a great expense from all quarters
of the globe, and would cure all the ills that flesh was heir to.
Cures were warranted in every case, or the money refunded
on the following evening. After this harangue, he said that the
medicine was for sale at $1 per bottle, until 300 bottles had been
sold, as it was an invariable rule to sell only that number on any
one evening. Immediately a frenzied mob rushed pell‑mell to
the end of the chariot, each one holding aloft a silver dollar. He
had previously announced that no change would be made, and
that everyone to get the medicine should have a dollar ready
in his hand. In half an hour 300 bottles had been sold, the
empty trunk closed with a bang, and the statement made that
no more could be had until the following evening, although
there was yet a great multitude clamoring for more. Curiosity
again led me to the plaza the next evening, and I went early.
The initial performance was a free tooth‑pulling, to last thirty
minutes. He said he was the kingpin of the tooth‑pullers, and
I believe he was. The rapidity of his work was a marvel. He
snatched from various jaws about 250 teeth, including the
good ones, within the limit, throwing them from his forceps
right and left among his audience. Those operated upon were
wrought to such a frenzy of excitement and wonder that each
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 Mind and Body
one, without an exception, declared that no pain whatever had
been experienced. A call was then made for the 300 who had
bought medicine on the previous evening to mount the chariot
and tell what the medicine had done for them.
“From every quarter men and women, both white and
colored, pressed forward to give their experience. Their stories
were grotesque and curious enough, but no matter what their
ailments, cures had resulted in every case. At the end of half
an hour, while the experience meeting was at its acme, the
fakir abruptly closed it, saying, in a regretful voice, that the
rest would have to wait until the next evening to tell of their
cures, as he now wanted those to come forward who had not
been cured by the medicine bought on the previous evening.
He stood in silence with folded arms for three minutes. No
one having come forward, the voice of this arrant charlatan
rang out in stentorian tones, ‘All, all have been cured! We have
cured everyone!’ Then another 300 bottles were sold in a jiffy, I
myself being one of the fortunate purchasers. The chief of this
outfit stopped in the hotel where I was. After dinner the next
day, I made his acquaintance in the smoking room, saying I was
a doctor, too; that I had attended two of his soirees, bought
his medicine and was greatly interested in it. I surprised him
by the statement that his medicine was made by M. & Co.,
wholesale druggists of Cincinnati, and that it was fluid extract
of podophyllin. He stared for some moments, but made no
reply. I continued, ‘I know M.’s fluid extract, as his process of its
manufacture is peculiar, and differs from other manufacturers
in this, that he exhausts the root by percolation with alcohol,
ether and glycerine, giving the product a sweetish taste and a
slight ethereal odor.’ The man asked if I was also a chemist. I
replied, ‘Yes, I once lectured in a medical college in Cincinnati
on drugs and their uses, and I can readily tell fluid extracts by
their taste, odor and physical characteristics.’
“After some hesitation, he said, ‘Yes, this is M.’s podophyllin
and nothing else. I inquired if he attributed all his success to the
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 The Power of the Imagination.
medicine. He answered, ‘No, for once in Missouri the mandrake
ran out before a new lot arrived. We found something like it in
a drug store of the town, and the people got well just the same.
If the people believe you can cure them, and have faith in your
medicine, they get well anyway, or they think they do, which is the
same thing.’ The fakirs remained one week, sold 2,100 bottles,
and presumably cured 2,100 people, as no one came forward
to reclaim his dollar for the medicine, which was contained in a
two‑drachm vial of 120 drops. A dose was one drop after each
meal in one spoonful of water.
“When I was in California recently a friend mentioned that
an intelligent relative of his was being treated by a celebrated
Chinese doctor. The relative claimed that Chinese physicians
were better than our own; that they had devoted 5,000 years to
medicine and had thus become so learned and skillful that they
could tell all diseases without asking a single question, simply
by feeling the pulse. Out of curiosity I visited this physician,
ostensibly as a patient. Without so declaring myself, he knew
intuitively that I came to consult him. Without asking any
questions he placed his finger upon my right wrist, communed
with himself for a few moments, and then gravely informed me
that I had thirty‑seven diseases; some in the blood, some in the
brain, some in the kidneys, some in the liver, and many others
in the heart and lungs. He said it would take sixteen different
herbs to cure me. He volunteered the statement that he could
detect 6,000 diseases by the pulse alone, and that he used
400 herbs in the treatment of the various diseases. Upon his
request, I examined his portfolio containing 350 testimonials
of marvellous cures, wrought upon American residents of
California during his seventeen years’ practice on the coast.
Many of them were from parties of intelligence and eminence,
and were so extraordinary that nothing short of their being
attested by numerous witnesses of unimpeachable veracity,
could satisfy one of their truth. Now, permit me to say that I
have no pulse in the right wrist, the pulse being congenitally
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 Mind and Body
absent; but through it he made the pretense of locating so
many diseases. This doubtless is the form and character of
medical practice in China among the native Chinamen, and
probably has been for many centuries among a population of
400,000,000. Is not the logic from the above facts irresistible,
that in China the native physician cannot tell one disease
from another, and that all his work is simply nonsense and
guess work? There can be no escape from this conclusion—it
follows as lucidly as a demonstrated problem in Euclid—that
any benefit that may ever accrue from their treatment is wholly
due to the dynamic force of the brain upon the functions of the
body.”
The following, from a Philadelphia journal, gives a striking
illustration of the fact that the imagination is a real factor in
many cases of physical ailment: “The fact that the throes of the
imagination under great nervous excitement often produce a
corresponding physical frenzy was illustrated recently in the
case of a man who had gone to sleep with his artificial teeth
in his mouth. Waking suddenly with a choking sensation, he
found his teeth had disappeared. He looked in the glass of
water where they were usually deposited, did not see them
and realized they must be far down his throat. Choking and
struggling, he hammered on the door of a friend sleeping in
the house, who, seeing his critical condition, vainly tried to
draw the teeth out of the sufferer’s throat. He could feel the
teeth, but had not the strength to extract them. He ran for a
blacksmith who lived a few doors away, but the blacksmith’s
hand was too big to put into the man’s mouth. A doctor had
been sent for, but he was so long in coming that the victim
of the accident seemed likely to die of suffocation before the
physician arrived. A little girl of ten years was brought under
the impression that her small hand might reach the obstacle
and withdraw it, but she got frightened and began to cry. The
sufferer became black in the face, his throat swelled out, and his
friends expected every moment to be his last, when finally the
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 The Power of the Imagination.
doctor arrived. He heard the history of the case, saw that the
teeth were not in the man’s jaws nor in their nightly receptacle,
felt the throat and cast his eyes seriously upon the floor. There,
on the floor, he saw the whole set of teeth. He adjusted them to
the jaws of the patient, told him to breathe freely, and every
symptom of suffocation disappeared.”
The following from an Eastern journal illustrates another
phase of the subject: “Salpetriere, the hospital for nervous
diseases, made famous by the investigations of Dr. Charcot,
has an interesting case of religious mania. The patient, who is
a woman of about forty years of age, entertains the belief that
she is crucified, and this delusion has caused a contraction of
the muscles of the feet of such a nature that she can walk only
on tip‑toe. The patient, moreover, is subject occasionally to
the still more extraordinary manifestation—that of ‘stigmata.’
Instances of ‘stigmata’ are tolerably frequent in the ‘Lives of the
Saints’ of alleged supernatural marks on the body in imitation
of the wounds of Christ. These ‘stigmata’ have been observed
beyond all question on the woman at the Salpetriere. Their
appearance on the body coincides with the return of the most
solemn religious anniversaries. These ‘stigmata’ are so visible
that it has been possible to photograph them. The doctors
of the Salpetriere in order to assure themselves that these
manifestations were not the result of trickery, contrived a sort of
shade having a glass front and metal sides, and capable of being
hermetically attached to the body by means of India rubber
fixings. These shades were placed in position a considerable
time before the dates at which the stigmata are wont to appear.
When they were affixed there were no marks whatever on the
patient’s body, but at the expected period the ‘stigmata’ were
visible as usual through the glass.”
In a Southern journal there is reported an interesting case,
in which a New Orleans physician tells the following story: “A
nervous man recently called on me and asked, ‘In what part
of the abdomen are the premonitory pains of appendicitis
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felt?’ On the left side, exactly here,’ I replied, indicating a spot
a little above the point of the hip‑bone. He went out, and next
afternoon I was summoned in hot haste to the St. Charles hotel.
I found the planter writhing on his bed, his forehead beaded
with sweat, and his whole appearance indicating intense
suffering. ‘I have an attack of appendicitis,’ he groaned, ‘and I’m
a dead man! I’ll never survive an operation!’ ‘Where do you feel
the pain?’ I asked. ‘Oh, right here,’ he replied, putting his finger
on the spot I had located at the office. ‘I feel as if somebody had
a knife in me turning it around.’ ‘Well, then, it isn’t appendicitis,
at any rate,’ I said cheerfully, ‘because it is the wrong side.’ ‘The
wrong side!’ he exclaimed, glaring at me indignantly. ‘Why, you
told me yourself it was on the left side!’ ‘Then I must have been
abstracted,’ I replied calmly; ‘I should have said the right side.’
I prescribed something that wouldn’t hurt him, and learned
afterward that he ate his dinner in the dining‑room the same
evening. Oh! yes; he was no doubt in real pain when I called,
but you can make your finger ache merely by concentrating your
attention on it for a few moments.”
Frank F. Moore, in “A Journalist’s Note Book” tells the
following amusing and significant story of the influence of
imagination upon health. “A young civil servant in India, feeling
fagged from the excessive heat and from long hours of work
consulted the best doctor within reach. The doctor looked him
over, sounded his heart and lungs, and then said gravely: ‘I will
write you tomorrow.’ The next day the young man received
a letter telling him that his left lung was gone and his heart
seriously affected, and advising him to lose no time in adjusting
his business affairs. ‘Of course, you may live for weeks,’ the
latter said, ‘but you had best not leave important matters
undecided.’ Naturally the young official was dismayed by so
dark a prognosis—nothing less than a death warrant. Within
twenty‑four hours he was having difficulty with his respiration,
and was seized with an acute pain in the region of the heart. He
took to his bed with the feeling that he should never rise from
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 The Power of the Imagination.
it. During the night he became so much worse that his servant
sent for the doctor. ‘What on earth have you been doing to
yourself?’ demanded the doctor. ‘There were no indications of
this sort when I saw you yesterday?’ ‘It is my heart, I suppose,’
weakly answered the patient. ‘Your heart!’ repeated the doctor.
‘Your heart was all right yesterday.’ ‘My lungs, then.’ ‘What is the
matter with you, man? You don’t seem to have been drinking?’
‘Your letter,’ gasped the patient. ‘You said I had only a few weeks
to live.’ ‘Are you crazy?’ said the doctor. ‘I wrote you to take a
few weeks vacation in the hills, and you would be all right.’ For
reply the patient drew the letter from under the bedclothes
and gave it to the doctor. ‘Heavens!’ cried that gentleman as he
glanced at it. ‘This was meant for another man! My assistant has
mixed up the letters.’ The young man at once sat up in bed and
made a rapid recovery. And what of the patient for whom the
direful prognosis was intended? Delighted with the report that
a sojourn in the hills would set him right, he started at once,
and five years later was alive and in fair health.”
The following is clipped from a medical journal: “Some
physician makes use of this suggestive phrase—‘the dynamic
power of an idea,’ and, as an illustration of what is meant by
this expression, the following incident is related. Not long
ago a man in taking medicine was suddenly possessed by the
notion that he had by mistake taken arsenic. His wife insisted
to the contrary, but he proceeded to manifest all the peculiar
symptoms of arsenical poisoning, and finally died. So certain
was his wife that he had not taken arsenic that an autopsy was
held, when not an atom of the poison could be found. Of what
did this man die? Arsenic? No, of the dynamic power of an idea
or arsenic. Happily for humanity this dynamic power of ideas
works constructively no less certainly than it does destructively,
and an idea of health fixed in the consciousness and persistently
adhered to would tend to bring the best results. Over a hundred
years ago, old John Hunter said, ‘As the state of mind is capable
of producing disease, another state of it may effect a cure.’”
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 Mind and Body
Dr. William C. Prime relates the following case in his book
“Among the Northern Hills.” “The judge was summoned in a
hurry to see an old lady who had managed her farm for forty
years since her husband’s death. She had two sons, and a
stepson, John, who was not an admirable person. After a long
drive on a stormy night the judge found the old lady apparently
just alive, and was told by the doctor in attendance to hurry,
as his patient was very weak. The judge brought paper and ink
with him. He found a stand and a candle, placed them at the
head of the bed, and after saying a few words to the woman,
told her he was ready to prepare the will if she would go on and
tell him what she wanted him to do. He wrote the introductory
phrase rapidly, and leaning over toward her said, ‘Now, go on,
Mrs. Norton.’
“Her voice was quite faint, and she seemed to speak with an
effort. She said: ‘First of all, I want to give the farm to my sons,
Harry and James. Just put that down.’ ‘But,’ said the judge, ‘you
can’t do that, Mrs. Norton. The farm isn’t yours to give away.’
‘The farm isn’t mine?’ she said in a voice decidedly stronger than
before. ‘No, the farm isn’t yours. You have only a life interest
in it.’ ‘This farm that I’ve run for goin’ on forty‑three year next
spring isn’t mine to do with what I please with it? Why not,
Judge I’d like to know what you mean!’ ‘Why, Mr. Norton, your
husband, gave you a life estate in all his property, and on your
death the farm goes to his son, John, and your children get the
village houses. I have explained that to you very often before.’
‘And when I die, John Norton is to have this house and farm
whether I will or not?’ ‘Just so. It will be his.’ ‘Then I ain’t goin’ to
die!’ said the old woman, in a clear and decidedly ringing and
healthy voice. And so saying, she threw her feet over the front
of the bed, sat up, gathered a blanket and coverlet about her,
straightened her gaunt form, walked across the room and sat
down in a great chair before the fire.

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 The Power of the Imagination.
“The doctor and the judge went home. That was fifteen years
ago. The old lady is alive to‑day. And she accomplished her
intent. She beat John after all. He died four years ago.”

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80
 Chapter VIII.

Belief and Suggestion.

The writer has been informed by a prominent physician
of Chicago, that for many years he has been in the habit
of administering hypodermic injections of distilled water,
accompanying the same by the statement that he is injecting
morphine. He states that in every case, he has succeeded in
inducing a quiet, peaceful sleep, and a cessation of pain after
the injection, which can be attributed only to the belief of the
patient. The same physician also relates the case of a woman
who believed that she had taken strychnine by mistake. When
the doctor was called he found the woman manifesting every
symptom of strychnine poisoning, even down to the most
minute details, and he is of the opinion that death would have
ensued in a short time had he not proceeded to administer the
regular antidotes and restorative treatment. After the woman
was brought out of the condition, it was discovered that the
supposed strychnine was nothing but a harmless powder. In
relating the case, the physician always adds that the woman
had witnessed the death struggles of a dog which had been
poisoned by strychnine several months previous, which
might have had some effect in enabling her to unconsciously
counterfeit the symptoms.
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Dr. Max Eastman, in a recent magazine article says: “The
mission of this paper is to offer guidance in a matter about
which a great quantity of the general public is very much at sea.
In this question of ‘mind over matter,’ the reformers have done
their work. They have stirred things up. They have bestowed
upon the world about a hundred and fifty little religions and
a confused idea that there must be some truth in the matter
somewhere. The ignorant have done their work. They have
persecuted the believers, jeered at them, or damned them
with a vacuous smile. The world will never lack ballast. It is
only the scientists that have failed of their duty. They have
stalked through a routine of elevated lectures, written a few
incomprehensible books, and kept the science of psychology,
so far as the hungry world goes, sealed up in their own proud
bosoms. In all this uproar of faith‑cures, and miracles, and
shouting prophets, we have heard few illuminating words from
the universities. The consequence is that we are without a helm,
and the reform blows now one way and now another.…
“The law of suggestion, which is one of the great discoveries
of modern science, was first formulated by Dr. Liebault at
Paris, in a book published in 1866. Since his day the number of
physicians who practice ‘suggestive therapeutics’ has steadily
increased, until to‑day no thorough clinical hospital is without
a professional suggestionist. The practice does not involve any
metaphysical theories, the passage of any hidden force from
one brain to another, any ‘planes of existence,’ or any religious
upset, or any poetic physiology, or the swallowing of any
occult doctrines whatever. It is one of the simplest and coolest
of scientific theories. It is a question of the relation between
the brain and the bodily organs. It seems never to have been
clearly stated that healing disease by suggestion depends not
in the least degree upon any theory of the relation of mind and
matter.…The attempt to fix an idea in the mind without reason
is suggestion. It is accomplished usually in medical practice by
asking the patient to lie down and relax his body and his mind
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 Belief and Suggestion.
and then vigorously stating to him the desired idea. It may be
accomplished in a number of ways. The patient may be told
that the operator is a wizard and is about to transfer an idea
from his own mind to that of the patient. If the patient believes
him he will very likely accept the idea. It may be accomplished
by gestures or incantations which the patient regards with
superstitious awe, provided it is explained beforehand what
these gestures are meant to produce. It may be accomplished
by telling the patient he has no body, and sitting with him for
awhile in spiritual silence, provided he knows what to expect.
“All these methods, if one believes in them, are good, and they
prove by their success the law of suggestion. But the method
that is based on a sure truth is the method of the scientist. He
reasons with his patient, he stirs in him what moral or religious
enthusiasm he can, and to these means he adds tactfully the
subtle suggestive powers of his own presence and eloquence.
This force, together with the power which is revealed in a man
of correcting his own mental habits, is the greatest practical
discovery of modern psychology.…Suggestive therapeutics is
the use of suggestion to fix in the mind ideas of healthy mental
habits.…
“Our question is: can the physical conditions of the brain
affect the physical condition of the stomach? We know that
the brain‑building condition which accompanies the idea
of raising our hand can affect the condition of the muscles
of our arm—and we call that a voluntary function. Now the
question is whether the brain condition which accompanies
the idea of enlivening our stomach can have an effect upon
that involuntary function. Experiments with suggestion have
proved that in some cases it can, if it continues long enough.
Persons of a very suggestible nature, can, for instance, by
concentrating their mind upon a certain part of the body,
increase the flow of blood to that part, although the regulation
of blood flow is supposed to be entirely involuntary. The
action of the heart, also the movements of the digestive organs
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particularly, and of the organs of elimination, are almost directly
affected in suggestible persons by that change in their brains
which accompanies certain ideas.…Science has established
then, that suggestion can effect to some extent, the so‑called
involuntary functions of the body; but the extent or limitation
of these effects is by no means determined. It could not be
determined scientifically without years of diligent experiment
and tabulation. Any dogmatic statement upon one side or the
other of that question, is therefore premature and against the
spirit of science.”
Dr. Leith, in his Edinburgh lectures in 1896, said: “I am inclined
to doubt whether the benefits of Nauheim (a treatment for
the heart) is not after all to be explained largely, if not entirely,
by the influence of the mental factor.” Tuke says that: “ John
Hunter says he was subject to spasm of his ‘vital parts’ when
anxious about an event; as, for instance, whether his bees
would swarm or not, whether the large cat he was anxious to
kill would get away before he could get the gun. After death
it was found that he had some heart disease.…Lord Eglinton
told John Hunter how, when two soldiers were condemned to
be shot, it was arranged the one who threw the number with
the dice should be reprieved; the one who proved successful
generally fainted, while the one to be shot remained calm.” Dr.
Schofield says: “During the rush of Consumptives to Berlin for
inoculation by Dr. Koch’s tuberculin, a special set of symptoms
were observed to follow the injection and were taken as being
diagnostic of the existence of tuberculosis; among others, a rise
of temperature after so many hours. These phenomena were
eagerly looked for by the patients, and occurred accurately in
several who were injected with pure water. The formation of
blisters full of serum from the application of plain stamp and
other paper to various parts of the bodies of patients in the
hypnotic state, is well attested and undoubtedly true.”
Dr. Krafft‑Ebing has produced a rise from 37 degrees
centigrade to 38.5 degrees centigrade in patients by fixing
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their minds by suggestion. In the same way Binet lowered the
temperature 10 degrees centigrade. The latter authority says:
“How can it be, when one merely says to the patient: ‘Your
hand will become cold,’ and the vaso‑motor system answers by
constricting the artery? C’est ce que depasse notre imagination.”
Schofield commenting on the above, says: “Indeed there is
no way of accounting for such a phenomena but by freely
admitting the presence of unconscious psychic forces in the
body, capable of so influencing the structures of the body as
to produce physical changes.” Tuke says: “A lady saw a child in
immediate danger of having its ankle crushed by an iron gate.
She was greatly agitated, but could not move, owing to intense
pain coming on in her corresponding ankle. She walked home
with difficulty, took off her stocking and found a circle around
the ankle of a light red color, with a large red spot on the outer
side. By the morning her whole foot was inflamed, and she had
to remain in bed for some days. A young woman witnessing the
lancing of an abscess in the axilla immediately felt pain in that
region, followed by inflammation. Dr. Marmise of Bordeaux
tells us of a lady’s maid, who when the surgeon put his lancet
into her mistress’s arm to bleed her, felt the prick in her own
arm, and shortly after there appeared a bruise at the spot.”
It is related that St. Francis d’Assisi dwelt so long in
concentrated meditation upon the thought and picture of the
Crucifixion that he suffered intense pain in his hands and feet, at
the points corresponding to the place of the nails in the hands
and feet of Christ, which was afterward followed by marked
inflammation at those points, terminating in actual ulceration.
The phenomena of the stigmata in the cases of religious
enthusiasts and fanatics has been mentioned elsewhere in this
book. Prof. Barrett says of the phenomenon: “It is not so well
known, but it is nevertheless the fact, that utterly startling
physiological changes can be produced in a hypnotized subject
merely by conscious or unconscious mental suggestion. Thus a
red scar or a painful burn, or even a figure of a definite shape,
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such as a cross or an initial, can be caused to appear on the body
of the entranced. subject solely through suggesting the idea. By
creating some local disturbance of the blood‑vessel in the skin,
the unconscious self has done what would be impossible for
the conscious to perform. And so in the well‑attested cases of
stigmata, where a close resemblance to the wounds of the body
of the crucified Saviour appears on the body of the ecstatic. This
is a case of unconscious self‑suggestion, arising from the intent
and adoring gaze of the ecstatic upon the bleeding figure on
the crucifix.”
Dr. Schofield says: “The breath is altered by the emotions. The
short quiet breath of joy contrasts with the long sigh of relief
after breathless suspense. Joy gives eupnœa or easy breathing,
grief or rather fear tends to dyspnœa or difficult breathing.
Sobbing goes with grief, laughter with joy, and one often merges
into the other. Yawning is produced by pure idea or by seeing
it, as well as by fatigue. Dr. Morton Prince says a lady he knew
always had violent catarrh in the nose (hay fever) if a rose was in
the room. He gave her an artificial one and the usual symptoms
followed. How many cases of hay‑fever have a somewhat similar
origin in the unconscious mind?…The hair may be turned grey
and white by emotion in a few hours or sooner. With regard
to the stomach and digestion, apart from actual disease, we
may notice one or two instances of unconscious mind action.
A man who was very sea‑sick lost a valuable set of artificial
teeth overboard, and was instantly cured. If the thoughts are
strongly directed to the intestinal canal, as by bread pills, it
will produce strong peristaltic action. Vomiting occurs from
mental causes, apart from organic brain disease. Bad news will
produce nausea; emotion also, or seeing another person vomit,
or certain smells or ideas, or thoughts about a sea‑voyage, etc.,
or the thought that an emetic has been taken.…The thought of
an acid fruit will fill the mouth with water. A successful way of
stopping discordant street music is to suck a lemon within a full
view of a German band. Fear will so dry the throat that dry rice
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cannot be swallowed. This is a test in India for the detection of
a murderer. The suspected man is brought forward and given a
handful of dry rice to swallow. If he can do this he is innocent;
if he cannot he is guilty, fear having dried up his mouth.…A
young lady who could not be cured of vomiting was engaged
to be married. On being told that the wedding day must be
postponed till cured, the vomiting ceased.…A mother nursing
her child always found the milk secreted when she heard the
child crying for any length of time. Fear stops the secretion
of milk, and worry will entirely change its character, so as to
become absolutely injurious to the child.”
Maudsley says: “Perhaps we do not as physicians consider
sufficiently the influence of mental states in the production
of disease, their importance as symptoms; or realize all the
advantages which we take of them in our efforts to cure disease.
Quackery seems to have got hold of a truth which legitimate
medicine fails to appreciate or use adequately.” Dr. Buckley
says: “A doctor was called to see a lady with severe rheumatism,
and tried to extemporize a vapor bath in bed, with an old
tin pipe and a tea‑kettle; and only succeeded in scalding the
patient with the boiling water proceeding from the overful
kettle through the pipe. The patient screamed: ‘Doctor, you
have scalded me,’ and leaped out of bed. But the rheumatism
was cured, and did not return.” Tuke relates an amusing
instance of the effect of suggestion and faith upon warts. He
had been considering the subject of the various “pow‑wows”
or “wart‑cures” of the old women, and determined to try some
experiments in order to see whether these cures were not due
simply to mental influences and expectant attention. On an
official tour he visited an asylum, where he was regarded as a
great personage by reason of his office. He noticed that several
of the inmates were afflicted with warts, and muttering a few
words over the excresences, he told the owners that by such
and such a day the warts would have completely disappeared.
He forgot the circumstances, owing to the press of his official
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duties, and was agreeably surprised when, on his next round
of visits, he was told that his patients had been cured at the
time he had predicted. Nearly everyone has had some personal
acquaintance with some of these “pow‑wow” wart cures, in one
form or another. Tying a knot in a piece of cord, then rubbing
the wart with it, and burying the string, has cured thousands
of cases of warts—the suggestion being the real cause behind
the mask.
Ferassi cured fifty cases of ague by a charm, which consisted
merely of a piece of paper with the word “Febrifuge” written
on it. The patient was directed to clip off one letter of the
word each day until cured. Some patients recovered as soon
as the first “F” was clipped from the paper. The writer hereof
knows personally of a number of people having been cured
of fever and ague by means of a written “charm” which an old
man in Philadelphia sold them at a dollar a copy. The old man
informed him that he, “and his father before him” had cured
thousands of people in this way, making a comfortable living
from the practice. Dr. Gerbe, of Paris, cured 401 out of 629 cases
of toothache by masked suggestion administered in the form
of causing the patients to crush a small insect between their
fingers, after having strongly impressed upon them the fact
that this was an infallible cure.
Dr. Schofield reports the following interesting cases of cures
by auto‑suggestion and faith: “A surgeon took into a hospital
ward some time ago, a little boy who had kept his bed for five
years, having hurt his spine in a fall. He had been all the time
totally paralyzed in the legs, and could not feel when they were
touched or pinched; nor could he move them in the least degree.
After careful examination, the doctor explained minutely to
the boy the awful nature of the electric battery, and told him
to prepare for its application the next day. At the same time
he showed him a sixpence, and sympathizing with his state,
told him that the sixpence should be his if, notwithstanding,
he should have improved enough the next day to walk leaning
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on and pushing a chair, which would also save the need of the
battery. In two weeks the boy was running races in the park,
and his cure was reported in the ‘Lancet.’…A young lady who
had taken ether three and a half years before, on the inhaler
being held three inches away from the face, and retaining a
faint odor of ether, went right off, and becoming unconscious
without any ether being used or the inhaler touching her face. A
woman was brought on a couch into a London hospital by two
ladies, who said she had been suffering from incurable paralysis
of the spine for two years, and having exhausted all their means
in nursing her, they now sought to get her admitted, pending
her removal to a home for incurables. In two hours I had cured
her by agencies which owed all their virtue to their influence
on the mind, and I walked with the woman half a mile up
and down the waiting‑room, and she then returned home in
an omnibus, being completely cured. An amusing case is that
of a paralyzed girl, who on learning that she had secured the
affections of the curate, who used to visit her, got out of bed
and walked—cured; and soon afterwards made an excellent
pastor’s wife. A remarkable instance of this sort of cure is that
of a child afflicted with paralysis, who was brought up from
the country to Paris to the Hotel Dieu. The child, who had
heard a great deal of the wonderful metropolis, its magnificent
hospitals, its omnipotent doctors, and their wonderful cures,
was awe‑struck, and so vividly impressed with the idea that
such surroundings must have a curative influence, that the day
after her arrival she sat up in bed much better. The good doctor
just passed around, but had not time to treat her till the third
day; by which time when he came round she was out of bed,
walking about the room, quite restored by the glimpses she had
got of his majestic presence.”
Having now shown by numerous disinterested authorities,
the majority of whom belong to the medical profession, that
the mental states of belief, faith and expectancy, and their
negative aspects of fear, apprehension, and false‑belief, may,
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and do, influence physical conditions, functioning and activities,
irrespective of the particular theory, creed, or explanation
accepted by the patient himself, or herself, we see the necessity
of seeking for the common principle of cure manifesting in
the various forms of phenomena. And before this common
principle may be grasped, we must needs acquaint ourselves
with the physical organism involved in the process of cure.
Accordingly the several succeeding chapters will be devoted to
that phase of the general subject.

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 Chapter IX.

Psycho‑Therapeutic Methods.

T he reader will have seen from the preceding chapters

that we have proceeded upon the theory that Suggestion
is the universal operative principle manifesting in all
forms of mental healing, under whatever guise the latter may
be presented and by whatever method it may be applied. But
it must be remembered that by “Suggestion” we do not mean
the theories of any particular group of psycho‑therapists, but
rather the broad general principle indicated by that term which
operates in the direction of influencing the Subconscious Mind
and its activities. Let us consider the principle of Suggestion
that we may understand what it is, and what it is not.
The term “Suggestion” has as its root the Latin word suggero,
which is translated as follows: sug (or sub), “under;” and
gero, “to carry;” that is, “to carry or place under.” In its general
usage it signifies “The introduction indirectly into the mind
or thoughts; or that which is so introduced.” Ordinarily a
“suggestion” is an idea indirectly insinuated into the mind, and
generally without the process of argument or reasoning. In the
New Psychology, the term “suggestion” is used in the sense of
an idea which is “carried under” the objective or conscious
mind, and introduced to the subjective or Subconscious Mind.
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In Suggestive Therapeutics, a “suggestion” is an idea introduced
into that part of the Subconscious Mind which governs and
controls the physical functions and activities, and which is
embodied in the cells and cell‑groups of the body as we have
stated in the preceding chapters.
By many mental healers the term “Suggestion” is applied only
to the particular method of applying Suggestion employed by
physicians and others who practice under the general theories
of Suggestive Therapeutics, and the first mentioned class deny
that they use Suggestion because, as they say, they do not use
the methods of the practitioners of Suggestive Therapeutics,
and make their cures by “metaphysical” or “spiritual” means,
or according to some creed or metaphysical theory which,
accepted, works the cure. We think that the unprejudiced
reader who has followed us this far will have seen that these
metaphysical theories, creeds, and special dogmas are simply
the outward mask of Suggestion. These healers simply supply a
form of Suggestion which is acceptable to the patient because
of his temperament, training, etc., and the healing process
operates along the lines of the “faith cure.”
The fact that healers of entirely opposite theories and
doctrines manage to make cures in about the same proportion
and in about the same time, would seem to prove that the
theories or dogmas have but little to do with the real work of
healing. Whatever form of Suggestion is most acceptable to the
patient, will best perform the healing work in that particular
case. This will also serve to explain why some patients failing
to obtain relief from one school of mental healing often are
cured by healers of another school, and vice versa. Some need
Suggestion couched in the mystical terms of some of the cults;
others need it garbed in religious drapings, while others prefer
some vague metaphysical theory which seems to explain
the phenomena. Others still are repelled by any of the above
forms, but respond readily to the Suggestion of a physician
administering “straight” suggestive treatment, without any
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religious, metaphysical, or mystical disguise. In all of these cases
the real healing work is done by the Subconscious Mind of the
patient himself, the various forms of Suggestion serving merely
to awaken and rouse into activity the latent forces of nature.
We invite your consideration of the following forms of
“treatment” for various disorders, as given by some of the
“Divine Scientists” and other metaphysical and semi‑religious
organizations and cults. As you read them, try to discover the
Suggestive germ so nicely surrounded by the sugarcoating—
the Suggestive pill so cleverly concealed by the “metaphysical”
raisin.
From a journal published in Chicago several years ago, called
“Universal Truth,” the following “treatments” were clipped:
A correspondent who asked for a “treatment” adapted to the
cure of nervousness, is instructed to use the following formula,
which must be “repeated over and over”:
“I am warmed and fed and clothed and healed by Divine Love.”
Another correspondent is given the following formula for
the cure of sore feet, the affirmation to be made frequently:
“I so thoroughly understand the divine working of the Truth, and
I so thoroughly realize the presence of the Father in me and about
me that I am now conscious that omnipotent Love rules in every
atom of my being, soul and body. My feet can never be weary
nor sore. God created my feet perfect. I walk the pathway of life
in perfect ease and comfort. All the obstacles in my path have
vanished, and my feet are bathed in a sea of pure love. Through
a knowledge and realization of the presence of Omnipotence, I
praise and thank God for the perfect spirit of peace that now
dwells within me.”
The following additional “treatment” is suggested to this
sufferer from sore feet:
“Mentally place yourself in an attitude to realize the power
of the words you utter, for the fullness of peace and harmony
in your feet comes with realization. The more frequently this

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spiritual medicine is used, the sooner comes manifestation of
perfect health.”
The same journal contained the following item:
“The following invigorating affirmations are used at the
Exodus Club, Chicago, Sunday mornings, the congregation
repeating them after the leader: ‘With reverent recognition of
my birthright, I claim my sonship with the Almighty. I am free
from disease and disorder. I am in harmony with my source. The
Infinite Health is made manifest in me. The Infinite Substance
is my constant supply. The Infinite Life fills and strengthens me.
The Infinite Intelligence illumines and directs me. The Infinite
Love surrounds and protects me. The Infinite Power upholds and
supports me. I am out of bondage. I have the freedom of the sons
of God. With all that is in me I rejoice and give thanks. God and,
man are the all in all, now and forever more.’”
The same journal recommends the following affirmations for
general health treatment:
“Monday—Perfect health is my external birthright.
Tuesday—I have health of intellect, therefore I have wise
judgment and clear understanding.
Wednesday—I am morally healthful, therefore in all my
dealings I love to realize that I am quickened by the spirit of
integrity.
Thursday—Healthfulness of soul gives me a pure heart and
righteousness of motive in everything I do.
Friday—Meditation upon the health of my real being
outpictures in physical health and strength, in even temper,
joyous spirits and in kind words.
Saturday—My health, is inexhaustible, because I keep my eye
steadily fixed upon its eternal Principle, and my mouth filled with
words of its Omnipotence.
Sunday—The Father and I are one; one in purpose, alike in
Substance, and one in manifestation.”
In the same journal a correspondent gives the following
treatment for rupture:
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 Psycho‑Therapeutic Methods.
“You were conceived in Divine Love. You are the expression of
that pure, perfect Love. Divine Love is a binding, cementing power.
It is the power that holds all atoms in their places. Every atom of
your body is drawn and held together in its place by this power. If
any of them get separated as by rupture or any other appearance,
they may be drawn together and cemented by the omnipotent
power of Love; but the word must be spoken. Therefore use the
following: ‘The omnipotent spirit of Love in me heals this rupture
and gives me peace.’ Then, mentally realize the truth of your
words, for the Spirit alone can heal.”
The following treatment for appendicitis is given in the same
journal:
“The false theories of physicians and surgeons, and the
general impressions regarding that error named Appendicitis
are powerless to produce or perpetuate such manifestation.
The great law of harmony reigns and only waits the universal
acknowledgment of its supremacy to obliterate all such falsity,
thereby obliterating the manifestation. We claim, therefore,
freedom from such error for every soul. We make this claim in
the name of Jesus Christ.”
From the same source is taken this treatment for periodical
nausea in a child:
“Dear child, every organ of your body is designed to represent
the ideal and perfect organ in your real spiritual being; and every
function of your body must respond to the word of truth which is
now sent forth to establish harmony in your consciousness. The
infinite Love that is omnipresent and all‑powerful permeates and
penetrates every organ and function of your body, and corrects
every tendency to discord or disease. By that infinite Love you are
now made free. You are fearless and free. You are joyous and free.
You are free from the fear of others. You manifest health, strength
and peace. Harmony reigns in mind and body. The word of truth
has made you free.”
Also the following treatment for constipation:

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“I do realize that the power of divine Love so permeates every
atom of my being that my bowels move freely and without effort.
This inflowing of divine Love removes all obstructions and I am
healed. I realize joy and eternal life so fully that the spirit of Peace
is ever present with me. I acknowledge the fullness of joy, peace
and power, and have come into a realization of my oneness with
infinite Spirit; therefore I rest in thee, O my father.”
Another journal of “Divine Science” gave the following
“Health Thought” to be held during the month:
“All the natural channels of my body are open and free. The
substance of my body is good.”
Also the following treatment for general health:
“What is true of God is true of man. God is the One All, and
is always in a state of wholeness. I, the man of God, am always
whole, like unto the One All. No false belief environs or limits me.
No shadow darkens my mental vision. My body is a heavenly
body, and my eyes do behold the glory of God in all visible things.
I am well, and provided for, thank God, and nothing can make
me think otherwise.”
While to the orthodox practitioner of medicine the
above affirmation and “treatments” may seem to be nothing
but a ridiculous conglomeration of mystical, religious and
metaphysical terms, without sequence, logical relation, or
common‑sense, it is true that statements and treatments similar
to the above have successfully healed man, cases of physical
ailments. There are thousands of people who will testify that
they were healed in a similar manner, and the majority of them
believed that there was some particular and peculiar virtue in
the formula used, or in the theories and beliefs upon which the
formula was based. But the unprejudiced student of Suggestion
will readily see that the real healing force was with the mind
and being of the patients themselves, and that the faith, belief
and expectant attention was aroused by the formula and the
theories. The principle is that of all Faith Cures—the principle
of Suggestion.
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 Psycho‑Therapeutic Methods.
Other schools of metaphysical or religious healers treat the
patient by impressing upon his mind the fact that God being
perfect, good and loving could not be guilty of creating evil,
pain or disease, and that such things are non‑existent in the
“Divine Mind,” and are merely illusion, errors, or false claims of
the “mortal mind,” or “carnal mind” of the patient; therefore,
if the patient will deny their reality, and will admit as existent
only such things as are held in the Divine Mind, i. e., the good
things, then the evil things, being merely illusions and untruths,
must of necessity fade away and disappear and perfect health
will result. Others treat their patients by impressing upon their
minds the idea that sickness and disease is either the world or
“the devil,” or of the “principle of evil,” the latter being described
as “the negation of truth,” and similar terms; and that therefore
fixing the mind and faith upon the “principle of Good,” or
God, must result in driving away the evil conditions. Others
hold that disembodied spirits are aiding in the cure. There are
thousands of variations rung on the chimes of metaphysical
or religious suggestions in the cults. And they all make some
cures, remember—in spite of their theories rather than because
of them.
The Mental Scientists come nearest to the ideas of the New
Psychology, when they teach that “As a man thinketh, so is he,”
and that the mind of man creates physical conditions, good
and evil, and that the constant holding of the ideal of perfect
health and the assertion thereof, will restore normal healthy
conditions to the person suffering from physical ailments.
Mental Science is very near to being “straight suggestion” so
far as the actual method of treatment is concerned, although it
resembles some of the other cults when it begins to speculate
or dogmatize regarding the nature of the universe, etc.
Differing from these metaphysical, mystical, or religious
schools of healing in theory, although employing the same
principle, we find the school of Suggestive Therapeutics, proper,
favored by many of the regular physicians and by a number
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of other healers who base their treatment upon the idea of
“straight suggestion” coupled with hygienic truth and rational
physiological facts. Perhaps a better idea of the theories and
ideas of this school may be obtained by referring to the actual
treatments given by some of their leading practitioners.
Herbert A. Parkyn, M. D., an eminent practitioner of
Suggestive Therapeutics, gives the following instruction to his
pupils: “Students often ask for information as to what they
should say to a patient when thorough relaxation is realized.
As no two cases are exactly alike, it follows that the suggestions
given must necessarily fit the case, and be given with a view
to bring about the mental and physical condition desired. For
instance, in treating a patient who is afflicted with insomnia,
suggestions of sleep should be persistently given; and in cases
of malnutrition suggestions of hunger should be made to
stimulate the appetite for food. The operator should bear in
mind that the reiteration of the suggestion that will change the
condition existing, to that desired, is always the right one, and
his own intelligence will be the best guarantee as to what the
suggestion should be.…Always arouse the expectant attention
of a patient.…So logical a line of argument can be made that
each patient will have a reason for expecting certain conditions
to be brought about. With the patient’s attention on the desired
results, they generally come to pass. It is better not to give
negative suggestions, such as, ‘You will not, or cannot do this,
that or the other thing,’ etc. Pointing out what is not desirable
does not suffice. In place of such suggestions, tell what you
really wish your patients to do. For example, if a man should
mount his bicycle incorrectly, he would profit nothing if we
should merely tell him that the way he mounted was not the
proper one. How much easier it would be for all concerned
if the proper manner of mounting should be shown at once.
Just so it is with therapeutic suggestions, keep suggesting the
conditions of mind or body you wish to bring about.”

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The following treatment given as an example by F. W.
Southworth, M. D., in his little book on “True Metaphysical
Science, and its Practical Application through the Law of
Suggestion,” furnishes an excellent illustration of the form of
suggestive treatment favored by this particular school. The
patient is addressed as follows:
“As thoughts are not only things, but forces and act upon
our mental and physical life for good or ill, we must be careful
to always keep ourselves in that condition of thought which
builds up and strengthens, to constantly think thoughts of
health, of happiness, of good, to be cheerful, hopeful, confident
and fearless. (Repeat five or six times.) In order to sustain this
condition of positive thinking it requires the development of
the will power. The will is the motive power and the controlling
force in all aspects of our life, but we develop it especially for the
concentration and control of thought. This is the higher self—
the infinite will. Exercise it with vigor and earnest persistency,
and learn to rely upon it. Assert its power as you assert the
power of the muscles in exercise and it will manifest itself and
the thought will be positive, the secretions of the body will be
normal, and the circulation of the blood in the head will be kept
at that proper equilibrium which insures the constant nutrition
of the cells of the brain and their constant vigor and strength
of control of all the organs and tissues of the body, and this vast
and intricate machinery of the body will work harmoniously
for the production of nutrition through elaboration of the food
elements.
“As our body is constantly changing and wasting, we must
rebuild and restore it constantly, and we do so from the air we
breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. The most
important of these is the air you breathe, as it is not only a
food in itself to the tissues, but it vitalizes the food you eat and
the water you drink. Give it that quality of your thought and
breathe it as you have been directed at least six times per day
for a period of from five to ten minutes each time. Recognize
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it as both a food and an eliminator of poisons, as it is, and
breathe, breathe, breathe, by Nature’s method, and the lungs
will distribute the oxygen to the blood, and the blood being the
common carrier of the body will take it to all parts of the body
and on its return will gather up all the waste and poisonous
matters and will bring them to the lungs, where, meeting the
fresh oxygen, they will be burned up and exhaled as carbonic
acid gas, leaving the body pure and clean.
“The water you drink, in the proportion of three and one‑half
pints each day, is necessary in all adult bodies to insure perfect
secretion and excretion. As the result of this required liquid
being provided in normal quantity, the secreting glands will
manufacture the proper amount of juices needed in digestion,
absorption and assimilation of your food, and the excreting
glands, those which bring about excretion or the removal
of waste matters from the body—the liver giving you the
bile, which produces a daily movement of the bowels—the
kidneys and bladder removing the chemical deposits which
come about through the processes of digestion, and the skin
excreting a large amount of waste matter from its twelve
square feet of surface, which you remove with a towel each
morning after moistening it with cold water. By following these
laws of Nature you will have a good appetite and digestion, a
daily movement of the bowels, refreshing sleep, and, as your
nutrition is restored from day to day, a feeling of satisfaction
and happiness will be the result. Be earnest and persistent and
do everything cheerfully, with a firm determination of doing
your part to restore nutrition.
“When you breathe, give it the quality of your thought; it is
for the purpose of getting food, life; feeding from the air and
eliminating poisons from your body. (Repeat five and six times.)
When you sip the water, think each time that it is to produce
perfect secretion and excretion—to give you a good appetite,
digestion, refreshing sleep and a free movement of the bowels
each morning. (Repeat five or six times.) Each day look forward
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to the morrow for progress and advancement. Think health—
talk it and nothing else. Do not talk with anyone about disease
or allow any person to talk to you on such subjects. Be cheerful,
hopeful, confident and fearless always, and you will be happy
and healthy. Eat, drink, breathe and be merry.”
It will be noticed that in the above described treatment, the
suggestions are made along physiological and hygienic lines.
That is, the suggestions indicate the physiological processes
which are performed normally in the healthy person, the idea
being to set up an ideal pattern for the Subconscious mind to
follow. In all scientific suggestive treatment the idea is always
to paint a mental picture of the desired conditions rather than
to dwell upon the existing undesirable conditions. The ideal is
always held up to view, and the patient’s mind is led to realize
the ideal—to make the ideal real—to manifest the thought in
action—to materialize the mental picture.
The general principles of Suggestive Therapeutics may be
applied effectively by means of Auto‑Suggestion. In fact, the
“affirmations,” “statements” and “assertions” used by many of
the New Thought schools are but forms of Auto‑Suggestion.
There is no essential difference between the Suggestion given by
others, and the Auto‑Suggestion given by one’s self to one’s self.
The healing power is in the mind of the patient, and whether it
is called forth by his own Auto‑Suggestion or the Suggestion
of a healer matters not. The Auto‑Suggestion is merely a case
of self‑healing by Suggestion, and is administered upon the
principle of “every man his own suggestionist”—“sez I to meself,
sez I.” Auto‑Suggestions are usually given to one’s self in the
form of “affirmations,” as, “I am improving; my stomach is doing
its work well, digesting what is given it, and the nourishment is
assimilated, etc.” In other works by the writer hereof, the method
of addressing one’s self as one would another is recommended
as particularly efficacious. That is to say, instead of saying, “I am,
etc,” in Auto‑Suggestion, it is better to address one’s self in the
second person, as “John Smith (naming yourself), you are, etc.”
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In short, the Auto‑Suggestion seems to have additional force
imparted to it by being directed as if it were being given to
another person.
The following thought of Dr. Schofield is worthy of careful
consideration in connection with the methods of applying
Suggestion. He says, referring to the treatment of hysterical
disorders and ailments: “We must, however, remember one
great point with regard to suggestion—that it is like nitrogen.
Nitrogen is the essential element in all animal life; it forms
four‑fifths of the air we breathe, and yet, curious to say, we
have no power to use it in a pure state. We can only take it
unconsciously, when combined with other substances in the
form of proteid food. It is the same with suggestions. Not one
hysterical sufferer in a hundred can receive and profit by them
in a raw state—that is, consciously; they must generally be
presented, as we have said, indirectly to the sub‑conscious mind
by the treatment and environment of the patient. An electric
shock often cures slight hysterical diseases instantaneously,
acting, as it often does, on the unconscious mind through
the conscious. No doubt it would be easier if we could say
to these sufferers, ‘The disease is caused by suggestions from
ideal centers, and to cure it, all you have to do is to believe
you are well.’ Still, it would be as impossible for us to take our
nitrogen pure from the air, the mind cannot as a rule be thus
acted on directly when the brain is unhealthy. Suggestion must
be wrapped in objective treatment, directed ostensibly and
vigorously to the simulated disease.”
Not only is the above true regarding the treatment of hysterical
disorders, but to all disorders as well. The methods which will
bring about the best results must be carefully modeled upon
the patient’s particular temperament, education, prejudices for
and against, and general belief. The skilled suggestionist adapts
his treatment and methods to each individual case coming
to him for treatment. Whatever method will best arouse the
patient’s belief, faith and expectant attention is the best method
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for administering the suggestions. The successful suggestionist
must be “all things to all men,” never, however, losing sight of
the fundamental principle of Suggestion—the arousing of faith,
belief, and expectant attention.

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 Chapter X.

The Reaction of the Physical.

A s we have stated in our Foreword, there is a constant

action and reaction between the Mental States and the
Physical Conditions. In this book, from the nature of our
subject, we have started with the phase of the Mental State and
worked from that point to the consideration of the Physical
Condition. In the same way, many physiologists start from the
phase of the Physical Condition, and work up to the Mental
State. But, starting from either phase, the candid investigator
must admit that there is an endless chain of action and reaction
between Mind and Body—between Body and Mind.
This action and reaction works along the lines of building-up
as well as tearing-down. For instance, if a person’s Mental States
are positive, optimistic, cheerful and uplifting, the body will
respond and the Physical Conditions will improve. The Physical
Conditions, thus improving, will react upon the Mental States
giving them a clearness and strength greater than previously
manifested. The improved Mental State again acts upon the
Physical Conditions, improving the latter still further. And so
on, an endless chain of cause and effect, each effect becoming
a cause for a subsequent effect, and each cause arising from a
preceding effect. Likewise, a depressed, harmful Mental State
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will act upon the Physical Conditions, which in turn will react
upon the Mental States, and so on, in an endless chain of
destructive cause and effect. It is a striking illustration of the
old Biblical statement: “To him who hath shall be given; to him
who hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.” In
improving either the Mental State or the Physical Condition,
one gives an uplift to the whole process of action and reaction;
while, whatever adversely affects either Mental State or Physical
Condition, starts into operation a depressing and destructive
process of action and reaction. The ideal to be aimed at is, of
course, “A healthy Mind in a healthy Body”—and the two are so
closely related that what affects one, favorably or unfavorably,
is sure to react upon the other.
Just as the influence of the Mental States over the Physical
Conditions has been shown to operate by means of the
Sympathetic Nervous System (controlled of course by the
Subconscious Mind), so the influence of Physical Conditions
over Mental States may be explained in physiological terms. In
order to understand the reaction of the Body upon the Mind,
we have but to recall the fact that the Subconscious Mind
is the builder and preserver of the very brain-cells which are
used by the Conscious Mind in manifesting thought. And also,
that the entire Nervous System, both Cerebro-Spinal as well as
Sympathetic, is really under the control of the Subconscious
Mind so far as growth and nourishment is concerned. The very
brain and nerve-centers in and through which is manifested
thought, feeling, emotion, and will, are nourished by the
Sympathetic System, and are hurt by anything affecting the
latter. The Sympathetic System joins all parts of the organism
so closely together that trouble in one part is reflected in
other parts. Just as depressing thoughts will cause the organs
to function improperly, so will the improper functioning of an
organ tend to produce depressing thoughts.
Herbert A. Parkyn, M. D., well states the action and reaction
of Mind and Body, as follows: “A tree is much like a human
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being. ‘Give it plenty of fresh air, water and a rich soil, and it will
flourish. In the same degree in which it is deprived of these does
it wilt, and the first part of the tree to wilt when the nutrition
becomes imperfect is the top. This is owing to the force of gravity;
the blood of the tree, the sap, having to overcome this force of
nature when nourishing the highest leaves. The blood of man
is also affected by this same force, and the moment a man’s
circulation begins to run down, owing to stinted nutrition, we
find that the first symptoms of trouble appear in the head.…
The brain failing to receive its accustomed amount of blood,
such troubles as impaired memory, inability to concentrate the
attention, sleeplessness, nervousness, irritableness, the blues
and slight headaches develop; and the impulses sent all over
the body becoming feebler, the various organs do not perform
their functions as satisfactorily as usual. The impulses to the
stomach and bowels becoming weaker and weaker, dyspepsia,
or constipation, or both, soon follow. As soon as these, the main
organs of nutrition, are out of order, nutrition fails rapidly and
more ‘head symptoms’ develop. Every impulse of the muscular
system leaves the brain, and the strength of these impulses
depends upon the nutrition to the brain centers controlling the
various groups. As the nutrition to these centers declines, the
whole muscular system, including the muscles of the bowels,
becomes weaker and the patient complains that he exhausts
easily. The impulses for elimination becoming weaker, waste
products remain in the circulation, and any of the evils, which
naturally follow this state of affairs, such as rheumatism, sick-
headache, biliousness, etc., are likely to develop. The centers of
the special senses feeling the lessening of the vital fluid, such
troubles as impaired vision, impaired hearing, loss of appetite
(sense of taste) and inability to detect odors quickly soon
follow. The sense of touch becomes more acute, and it is for
this reason that one in poor health becomes hypersensitive.
Lowered circulation in the mucous membrane of the throat

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and nose is often the cause of nasal catarrh appearing on the
scene as an early symptom.”
It will thus be seen that the Physical Conditions, perhaps
originally caused by depressing Mental States, have brought
about a state of affairs in which the brain is imperfectly
nourished and which consequently cannot think properly. The
liver being out of order, the spirits are depressed; the brain being
imperfectly nourished, the attention and will are weakened,
and the patient finds it hard to use his mind to influence his
bodily conditions. The bowels not moving properly, the waste-
products poison the circulation, and the brain is unable to think
clearly. In fact, the whole physical system is often so disturbed
that a condition known as “nervous prostration” sets in, in
which it is practically impossible for the patient to hold the
Mental States which will improve the Physical Conditions. In
these cases outside help is generally necessary, unless in cases
where a sudden shock, or an urgent necessity arouses the latent
mental forces of the individual, and he asserts the power that is
in him, and begins to reverse the chain of cause and effect and
to start on the upward climb.
The following additional quotation from Dr. Parkyn, gives
us a vivid insight into the effect upon the Mental States of
abnormal Physical Conditions: Dr. Parkyn says: “No organ
of the body can perform its functions properly when the
amount of blood supplied to it is insufficient, and we find,
when the blood supply to the brain is not up to the normal
standard, that brain functions are interfered with to a degree
corresponding to the reduction in the circulation. Since the
amount of blood normally supplied to the brain is lessened
in nervous prostration, we find that the memory fails and the
ability to concentrate the attention disappears. The reasoning
power becomes weakened and the steadiest mind commences
to vacillate. Fears and hallucinations of every description may
fill the mind of a patient at this stage, and every impression
he receives is likely to be greatly distorted or misconstrued.
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Melancholia with a constant fear of impending danger is often
present. In fact, the brain seems to lose even the power to
control its functions, and the mind becomes active day and
night.…The reduction of the nutrition to the brain lessens the
activity of all the cerebral centers also, and digestion becomes
markedly impaired, thereby weakening the organ itself upon
which the supply of vital force depends.”
The physiologist is able to furnish a great variety of illustrations
of the effect of Physical Conditions over Mental States. He
shows that many cases of mental trouble are due to eye-strain,
and other muscular disturbances, and that serious mental
complaints sometimes arise by reason of physical lesions. The
very terms used to designate certain abnormal mental states
show the relation, as for instance, melancholia which is derived
from the Greek words meaning “black bile”; and hysteria, which
is derived from the Greek word meaning “the womb; or uterus.”
Every one knows the Mental States produced by a sluggish
liver, or by dyspepsia, or from constipation. We all know the
difference between our mental capacity for thinking when we
are tired, as contrasted with that accompanying the refreshed
physical condition. No man, whatever his philosophy, can
truthfully claim to be able to maintain a placid, even disposition,
and a perfectly controlled temper, when he is suffering from a
boil on the back of his neck. And, all know that after indulging
in the midnight “Welsh rarebit,” one is apt to dream of his
grandmother’s ghost, or see dream elephants with wings. All
know the delirium produced by overindulgence in liquor, and
the hallucinations that accompany fever. The effect of drugs,
tobacco, and alcohol upon the Mental States are well known.
“Philip drunk” is a very different mentality from “Philip sober.”
The Mental States accompanying particular diseases are well
known to physicians. One disease predisposes the sufferer to
gloominess, while another will induce a state of feverish hilarity.
Some leading authorities now hold that many cases of insanity

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are really due to abnormal conditions of the blood, rather than
to any diseased condition of the brain.
One of the most marked instances of the action and reaction
of Mental States and Physical Conditions is met with in the
activities of the sexual organism. Psychologists very properly
hold that sexual excesses and abnormalities are largely due
to improper thinking, that is, by allowing the attention and
interest to dwell too strongly and continuously upon subjects
connected with the activities of that part of the physical system.
Mental treatment along the lines of Suggestive Therapeutics
has resulted in curing many persons of troubles of this sort. But,
note the correlated fact—excess and abnormalities of the kind
mentioned, almost invariably react upon the mentality of the
person indulging in them, and softening of the brain, paralysis,
or imbecility have often arisen directly from these physical
abuses. It will be seen that any sane treatment of these troubles
must take into consideration both Body and Mind. In the same
way it is a fact that just as certain Mental States, notably those of
fear, worry, grief, jealousy, etc., will injuriously affect the organs
of digestion and assimilation, so will imperfect functioning
of these organs tend to produce depressing mental states
similar to those just mentioned. Many instances of the strange
correspondences are met with in the study of physiological-
psychology, or psychological-physiology.
In order to more fully appreciate the relation between the
Body and the Mind, let us read the following lines from Prof.
Halleck: “Marvelous as are the mind’s achievements, we must
note that it is as completely dependent upon the nervous
system as is a plant upon sun, rain and air. Suppose a child of
intelligent parents were ushered into the world without a nerve
leading from his otherwise perfect brain to any portion of his
body, with no optic nerve to transmit the glorious sensations
from the eye, no auditory nerve to conduct the vibrations of
the mother’s voice, no tactile nerves to convey the touch of a
hand, no olfactory nerve to rouse the brain with the delicate
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aroma from the orchards and the wild flowers in spring, no
gustatory, thermal or muscular nerves. Could such a child live,
as the years rolled on, the books of Shakespeare and of Milton
would be opened in vain before the child’s eyes. The wisest men
might talk to him with utmost eloquence, all to no purpose.
Nature could not whisper one of her inspiring truths into his
deaf ear, could not light up that dark mind with a picture of the
rainbow or of a human face. No matter how perfect might be
the child’s brain and his inherited capacity for mental activities,
his faculties would remain for this life shrouded in Egyptian
darkness. Perception could give memory nothing to retain,
and thought could not weave her matchless fabrics without
materials.”
The very feelings or emotions themselves are so closely
related to the accompanying physical expressions, that it is
difficult to distinguish between cause and effect, or indeed
to state positively which really is the cause of the other. Prof.
William James, in some of his works, strongly indicates this
close relation, as for instance when he says: “The feeling, in
the coarser emotions, result from the bodily expression.…My
theory is that the bodily changes follow directly the perception
of the exciting fact, and that our feeling of the same changes
as they occur is the emotion.…Particular perceptions certainly
do produce widespread bodily effects by a sort of immediate
physical influence, antecedent to the arousal of an emotion or
emotional idea.…Every one of the bodily changes, whatsoever
it may be, is felt, acutely or obscurely, the moment it occurs.…If
we fancy some strong emotion, and then try to abstract from
our consciousness of it all the feelings of its bodily symptoms,
we have nothing left behind.…A disembodied human emotion
is a sheer nonentity. I do not say that it is a contradiction in the
nature of things, or that pure spirits are necessarily condemned
to cold intellectual lives; but I say that for us emotion
disassociated from all bodily feelings is inconceivable. The more
closely I scrutinize my states, the more persuaded I become
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that whatever ‘coarse’ affections and passions I have are in very
truth constituted by, and made up of, those bodily changes
which we ordinarily call their expression or consequence.…But
our emotions must always be inwardly what they are, whatever
may be the physiological ground of their apparition. If they are
deep, pure, worthy, spiritual facts on any conceivable theory
of their physiological source, they remain no less deep, more
spiritual, and worthy of regard on this present sensational
theory.”
A deeper consideration of the relation between Mind and
Body would necessitate our invading the field of metaphysical
speculation, which we have expressed our intention to avoid
doing. Enough for the purposes of our present consideration
is: the recognition that each individual is possessed of a mind
and a material body; that these two phases or aspects of himself
are closely related by an infinite variety of ties and filaments;
that these two phases of his being act and react upon each other
constantly and continuously; that in all considerations of the
question of either mental or physical well-being, or both, that
both of these phases of being must be considered; that any system
of therapeutics which ignores either of these phases, is necessarily
“one-sided” and incomplete; and that, while, for convenience and
clearness of specialized thinking, we may consider the Mind and
the Body as separate and independent of each other, yet, we
must, in the end, recognize their interdependence, mutual relation,
action and reaction.
Thus, the New Psychology recognizes the importance of the
Body, while the New Physiology recognizes the importance of
the Mind. And, in the end, we feel that both physiology and
psychology must be recognized as being but two different
phases of one great science—the Science of Life.
finis

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 Bibliography

Bibliography
Atkinson, William Walker. Mind and Body or Mental States and Physical
Conditions. Chicago, IL: The Progress Company, 1910.
Atkinson, William Walker. Mind and Body or Mental States and Physical
Conditions. Holyoke, MA: The Elizabeth Towne Co, 1912.

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