^m m nt« ■ Kb£H ^1 ■ Jit' ■ I NLn OOSbll^B 7 U.S. NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE NLM005611487 542 RETURN TO NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE BEFORE LAST DATE SHOWN 31/ JUL 311984 V HEALING POWER OF MIND. C HEALING POWER OF MIND. &, gueatisjc on |&incU©xive, With Original Views on the Subject and Complete Instructions For Practice and Self-Treatment. JULIA ANDERSON £OOT. Man is the greatest fact in Nature, Mind is the greatest Jact in Man." SECOND EDITION PEORIA, ILL.: H. S. Hill Printing and Publishing Company, 1886. W/M )88t> Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1886, By Mrs. J. A. Root, in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. Preface to Second Edition. Since the publication of our first edition, San Francisco, Cal., 1884, we have had constant and wide experience both in teaching and healing, and feel that we have grown in the science, which enables us to correct any former errors and extend our pages as well as their usefulness and consequent value to the reader. We hold some views different from any we have seen printed, and our experience confirms us in their correctness and efficacy, and we wish also to place before our readers certain facts and principles that will enable them to successfully treat themselves. We give several chapters on subjects that have a bearing upon, and are intimately related to, mental healing. These chapters are intended in some instances to be more sug- gestive than exhaustive, but we are nevertheless led to believe that they will in all cases prove instructive. " Mental healing," " mind-cure," " metaphysical science," or by whatever name it may be known, is not a new system. In all ages of the. world there have been persons who have cured diseases that learned medical practitioners have pronounced Vi HEALING POWER OF MIND. incurable. These cases have been effected by the power of mind, and we are confident, from our own experience, that the more this invisible agent is brought to bear upon the human system, the less sickness and suffering we shall have in the world. We expect the aid and co-operation of churches, irre- spective of sect, and, in fact, of good and intelligent people everywhere, in our efforts to lessen the sum of human misery and woe. It is sad to see the lives of so many of God's children embittered by disease when the remedy lies in their own hands. Each and all can do something towards remedying this state of things. Our efforts we feel will be crowned with at least as much success in the future as they have been in the past. JULIA ANDERSON ROOT. Peoria, III., August i, 1S86. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTORY, ....... i Physical courage— Moral courage—"This book is published in the interest of health and humanity"- Advanced steps char- acterized as innovations—True know ledge comes from God —Do your own thinking—Medical practitioners—Meta- phvsical science—Intellectual daring—What is progress?— Bishop Heber—What true progress means—The possible faculties of man—Man an unfolding being—Hepler's discov- ery—Gilbert's perception—Change, not progress--Improve- ment of internal man—Brighter day for humanity—Im- portance of work. GOD AND CREATION,......13 What is Creation?—Searches in the wrong direction—The mate- rial world cannot answer—The invisible solves the problem —Creation eternal and infinite—The personality of God— The majesty of the soul—Nature an effect of God—Mythol- ogy attempts to solve the question. THE ORIGIN OF EVIL,......21 Account in Genesis not accepted—Pope's argument not satisfac- tory—The dualistic theory—Milton's argument a failure— Evil a necessity of creation—Christ's saying—Man must transgress—Punishment for wrong-doing a necessity. Vlll HEALING POWER OF MIND. MIND AND MATTER,......27 Berkeley's views—What matter is—What pain is—Sound—The eye does not see, nor the ear hear—Nerves have no feeling —Matter has no intelligence, sensation or feeling—Brain not the organ of mind—The invisible governs matter—Mind a picture gallery—The silent power of mind—The immortal mind and the mortal mind—Impressions last beyond death —No life, intelligence or sensation in matter—Tests for the origin of life—Man distinct from the physical body and the material universe. THINGS SEEN AND UNSEEN, .... 35 The egotist—The forces of Nature are unseen — The germ, acorn, telegraph and magnet—Unseen living things—Sight to be corrected by thought—Vision alone not to be trusted. MAN'S RELATION TO GOD AND CREATION, 39 The influence of man on Creation—Creation not made solely for man—Nothing created in vain—Man's arrogance—The power of mind—The influence of faith—What Christ meant by faith—Can we do as Christ did?—" Man is one with God" —Scriptural quotations prove it. LAWS OF NATURE,......47 Objections to mind-cure—Work in accordance with laws of nature—Definition of laws of nature—What is uniformity? —Laws of mind can override laws of matter—Nothing im- possible. THE MISSION AND DUTY OF MAN, . . 53 Useless to consult the material—The intuition—Man's innate belief—The creating power not malignant—Man compelled to believe in goodness—Man placed in the world to perform a task —God the Great Architect—Duty of preserving health—All healthy things are sweet-tempered. CONTENTS. POWER OF MIND OVER BODY,. Cause and effect—Mind a first cause—Mind has properties pecul- iar to itself—Power of mind—A learned physician's opinion —Homeopath and allopath—Professor Charcot on magnets —A man supposed he was bleeding to death—An English physician's opinion—More killed by fear than by disease— Napoleon's proof. DISEASE AND ITS REMEDIES, .... Disease defined—Matter ignored as a curative agent—All things resolved into a few principles—Change in the theory of color—-Technical terms serve to mystify—Pathology and therapeutics—Dr. Rush—Dr. Mason Good — Dr. Water- house—Dr. Johnson—The worship of drugs. DEATH,.......... What is death?—What is life?—Fear of death—What is eternity? Interior insight—Death finally destroyed by truth. SCRIPTURAL ARGUMENTS, . . . . Bishop Cumberland's liberality — Christ's teaching of faith— Quotations from Scripture concerning cures—Christ's cures not miracles—Christ's followers cure diseases—Use of drugs condemned by the Bible. HEREDITY AND LONGEVITY, . . . . The prevalence of disease—Mother's influence on children- Montaigne's opinion—Peculiar cases of heredity—Dr. Howe on drinking habits—Robert Collyer's sermon—Duration of life in animals and in men—Old age, when desirable. SPIRITUALISM,....... What is spiritualism ?—Not spiritualists—We are all spirits, created so by God—Spirits of dead unreliable—Davis and Swedenborg—The great Infinite Spirit the God of health. X HEALING POWER OF MIND. EFFICACY OF PRAYER,.....105 What is prayer?—Good and bad prayers—Conventional blas- phemy—What prayers will be answered—All men pray— Man made better by praying—Is prayer a force?—Prayer and labor both needed—The three graces—God unchange- able—Prayer should be works, not words—Asking amiss— Application of the mind-cure system—Must let go of the old before you can take hold of the new. INSTRUCTION TO MOTHERS, . . . .113 Importance of maternity—Herbert Spencer's remarks—Decrease of maternity and increase of abortion—Horses and dogs thought more of than men--The child not the exclusive property of its parents—Fathers responsible for disposition of children—Infantile diseases prevented or cured—A race of superior beings. DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES, . . .119 Strictures of San Francisco Bulletin—Our letter to Bulletin— The editor's reply—Man mysteriously connected with his fellows—Opinion of Pythagoras — Disease the result of error, mistake or discord of mortal mind—No limit to the power of this science—Faith a desirable condition and ele- ment to success. PERSONAL EXPERIENCE, . . . . I3I Investigations—First cure—Female diseases—A case of saliva- tion—Curvature of spine — Case of poisoning. Testimo- nials :—Spinal disease, torpid liver, dyspepsia, etc.—Stomach and head—Neuralgia—Incurable malady—Disease of spine —Internal fibroid tumor—Swallowed concentrated lye, ter- rible consequences—Extreme and prolonged nervous pros- tration—Spinal disease, barbarous practice—Congestion of the brain—Thirty years' suffering. CONTENTS. XI INSTRUCTIONS FOR HEALING, . . .147 Principles must be mastered—Innate consciousness—Physical body a correspondence—Mind distinct from body—Formula for treatment—How to talk to patients—Healers must have no doubt—Avoid discussion with some patients—Much not understood—Blindness cured—Freedom of will—Huxley's opinion—Patients should be taught the science—The book of the heart—M. Reveille-Parise on moral therapeutics— The sarcasm of drug-men—Nerve required in mind-healers —Missionary spirit needed—Physical and moral perfection not found. ANTIQUITY OF MIND-CURE, . . . .161 The mind-cure as old as the human race—Opposition of medical practitioners—The pedantry of some medical men—The use of technical terms—Simplicity needed—Dr. Park Quimby— A Boston journal's description—An anecdote of Dr. Quim- by—Mind-cure amongst ancient nations. INSANITY,.........171 The line between sanity and insanity cannot be drawn—Advanced sanity called insanity—Arkwright and Fulton deemed insane —Medical men can give us no rules—Insanity has many causes—Is often inherited—Asylums do not cure insanity— Try the mind-cure. NECESSITY OF CONDITIONS, .... Conditions must be complied with—Our imperfect knowledge necessitates conditions—Mind makes conditions unnecessary —Argument from the inebriate—Drainage, food and air must receive attention—The cholera in France—Killed by fear—Mind the great preventive. *75 xii HEALING POWER OF MIND. PAGE. MORAL EFFECTS,...... . .183 Effect of mind-cure on society—Disease is everywhere—We claim no powers in ourselves—Invisible mind more potent than visible matter—Moral conduct improved—The stern foe of atheism and materialism—Causes students to " search the scriptures " with new light. THE MORTAL AND THE IMMORTAL, . . 187 Man a three-fold being—What is the soul?—Sickness is the be- lief of mortal mind—Spirit (mind-cure) the power to banish false beliefs—Judge the science by its fruits. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS, What is God? .... What is Truth? .... What is Creation? What is Mind?..... What is Matter? .... What is Evil?..... What is Time? .... What is Religion? .... What is Space? .... What is Science? .... 191 192 194 196 196 199 201 204 204 206 INTRODUCTORY. Physical courage is common enough the world over. Man, whether savage, semi-civilized or intelli- gent, shows himself to be possessed of powers that defy physical pain and despise death. The histories of all wars, whether amongst the barbarians or the enlightened nations, are full of deeds of heroism. But the man who will beard the lion in his den, face the tiger in the jungles, or march to the cannon's mouth without flinching, may tremble at the breath of public opinion, or blanch at the attack of a scurril- ous newspaper, and be turned from the path of duty by a little opposition and ridicule. Physical courage is common both to man and beast, but moral courage is a plant of rarer growth. And while we hear a great deal about the wants of the age, we say that the great want of the age is that very moral courage which, in spite of all bitterness and opposition, con- tempt and contumely, will dare to adhere to the true 2 HEALING POWER OF MIND. and the good. The great desire of most men is to be thought, or seem to be, good and true, without much caring whether or not they possess these qualities. Public approbation and applause may be good things in their way, but the time comes in the lives of all men when they are called upon to think in certain directions and to perform certain acts that run coun- ter to popular knowledge and prejudice, and which are sure for a time to bring them an amount of public condemnation and ridicule. This book is published in the interests of the health of humanity, and we cannot but expect that amongst a certain class our efforts will be received with disfavor and opposition. We refer of course to the medical practitioners. But the fault we find with medical men as a class is, that they speak and act as though they had a monopoly of diseases and their cures. They think and act in cer- tain grooves, and woe be to the man who dares to depart from their established methods. This fact is written all down the history of the practice of medi- cine. Every advanced thinker in their own ranks has has been persecuted in every conceivable manner. Harvey, Jenner, Simpson, Elliotson, and a host of others who have made advanced steps have been pounced upon by the entire fraternity and character- ized as innovators and madmen. Who does not re- member the fierce and bitter opposition that awaited INTRODUCTORY. 3 the man who discovered chloroform ? Even preachers denounced from the pulpit the employment of that anaesthetic as flying in the face of the Almighty, who, according to their notions, had ordained that man should feel the pain attending upon the amputation of a limb. We could multiply these cases ad infinitum, as the schoolmen would say. But our object is to call attention to the fact that no man, and no class of men —dignify themselves by what titles they may—can say to the advancing waves of knowledge, " thus far shalt thou come and no farther.1' True knowledge cometh from God, and it is no man's and no set of men's exclusive property. And when men can be brought to recognize this great fact, and act upon it, then will the world come to rejoice in true progres- sion. As the matter at present stands, most people allow certain privileged classes to do their thinking for them, and as a consequence we are surrounded by an atmosphere of mental and moral slavery. More particularly is this true of diseases and their remedies. Now, we want the moral courage that will dare to cut aloof from these old medical traditions, and take this matter of health and disease into our own hands. Is it not time that something should be done in this direction? The flood-gates of disease are open and the whole army of medical practitioners are powerless to stem the tide. Archimedes is reported 4 HEALING POWER OF MIND. to have said, "Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum strong enough, and I will move the world.11 We say, give us the truth of metaphysical science and the courage to apply it, and we will lift from off humanity the mountains of disease that have so long oppressed them. How simple is truth and its applica- tion, when its principles are understood. The old Romans, at immense expense and labor, built huge aqueducts over hill and valley. But the necessity of these costly labors was entirely done away with by a knowledge that water would rise to the level of its source. But, to return to the subject of intellectual daring, "God," says Luther, "does not have his work made manifest by cowards." All the blessings that we enjoy under the names of civil and religious liberty, all the improvements that have taken place in science, have sprung from the small minority of daring and advanced thinkers. It is sad to think how large a number of men do their thinking by proxy, which is the same as saying they do not think at all. And yet God requires of every man that he shall exercise the powers of his own mind, and unless he does this he lives in mental slavery, which is, after all, a more degrading position than physical bondage. Let a man stand proudly and grandly before the material things of this universe, and not regard himself as an INTRODUCTORY. '.) interloper in a world where he deems matter every- thing and himself nothing. It is mind that is every- thing, and before its powers matter is as nothing. It is this great truth that we shall endeavor to set forth in the following pages. What is progress? This question will be answered according to a man's view of life and his belief in the meaning and mission of existence. Progress with one man may mean an increase of money; with another a multiplicity of books; while a third ma}7 claim that it means the entire freedom of the individual. There is no exact definition to be given to the word progress. Whether in the individual or in the nation, we can come to the conclusion that true progress does not consist in the accumulation of material wealth. The good Bishop Heber sang: — " What though the spicy breezes Blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle, Though every prospect pleases, And only man is vile!" Let us apply this truth to our state and nation. What though our mines give forth their endless stores! What though the golden grain waves in the breeze! What though our harbors are crowded with ships bearing the flags of every nation! if the pale image of woe, gaunt poverty and loathsome disease 6 HEALING POWER OF MIND. stalk abroad in our streets! Progress cannot simply- mean the building of large ships, whether for com- merce or for war; it cannot mean the construction of forts and the mobilization of armies; it cannot mean even the increase of learning and science, if these are to be confined to a few. No! no! True human progress can only be seen and exhibited in the growth of better men and women; men and women who shall not be discriminated against because of sex or material possessions; men and women who shall stand equally before the law, written and unwritten, especially the latter; for while in some localities the written law is as free for woman as for man, yet there is a cruel unwritten law in society that condemns woman to eternal infamy for the same act for which there is little or no condemnation for man. We need not enlarge on this subject, as the facts are plain to be seen and read of all men. Progress, to be true, must not be partial and one-sided—it must reach and influ- ence all. The whole tree must grow, and not one branch cultivated at the expense of all the rest. Progress also consists in the unfolding of the faculties of the human soul. We say unfolding, for the reason that the most ignorant savage is born with the possible faculties of the highest and grandest phi- losopher that ever appeared on earth. We say "pos- sible faculties" because they are not yet in existence INTRODUCTORY. 7 in the primitive man. The embryo—the tendency — are there, but not the things themselves. No person of thought will contend that the oak tree, with its trunk, and branches, and leaves, are in the acorn. But the tendency to become these things is there. So with primitive man; he does not possess the faculties, even phrenologically speaking, of the cultivated phi- losopher, and the latter will perform acts that seem to the savage like miracles—he will even regard him as a god. The moral to be learned from these facts is this: The wisest and most advanced man is still an unfolded and unfolding being. There are faculties and powers in the human soul that our age has not yet witnessed. We have been taught to rely too much for progress upon what are called our reason- ing faculties—that is, the faculties that weigh, meas- ure and draw conclusions from facts and phenomena. But even in our present undeveloped state there are evidences that men possess higher powers than these reasoning faculties. Kepler was a great mathemati- cian and a reasoning man, but he perceived or con- ceived of the orbit of Mars, and by a long process of calculation and reasoning he proved the truthfulness of his perception. That perception was simply the exhibition of a power of the mind that has as yet received no name. That power in Kepler's mind grasped at once a great fact. 8 HEALING POWER OF MIND. To say that it was an ignorant guess would simply be a display of the grossest ignorance in those who would make the remark. Gilbert perceived that the earth was a great magnet, whose poles were north and south. The truth of this perception has been verified by numerous accurate observations and reasonable experiments. Very many discoveries in all the walks of life have been made by people who did not possess in any marked degree these so-called reasoning faculties, but they possessed a power of seizins' hold of the truth. There are other methods of arriving at the secrets of nature than by those of the inductive and deductive processes. As the soul is unfolded it seizes its own. Upon the unfoldment of these other and higher faculties of man depends our progress. And in proportion as we live in accordance with God's laws, so will the powers of our soul become unfolded; or, in other words, we shall receive the influx of the wisdom and power of the divine spirit. Let us not mistake mere change for progress, or we shall be like the good woman whose only claim to the title of a progressionist was founded on the fact that every week she changed the position of the furni- ture in her house. Change of government, of school books, of social relations, or a thousand other things, do not necessarily imply progression. This must be INTRODUCTORY. 9 looked for only in the growth and expansion of the soul. Then it is important to know that while we progress in one direction that we do not retrogress in another. It is a lamentable fact that while we are compelled to admit an improvement in many direc- tions, we have also to confess that the diseases of man have increased to an alarming extent. And we should recollect that disease produces not only weak- ness and suffering, but also poverty and crime. It is one of the greatest drag-chains upon human advance- ment. Any plan or system of things that will destroy or prevent disease is so far an engine of progress. These powers we claim for metaphysical science. That it possesses these powers has been demonstrated in thousands of instances; so that the healer and teacher in this science is adding in no small degree to the progress of mankind. And the method by which this is done is the only true and lasting one. We begin in the interior. No amount of paint or powder will put the hue and color of health upon the cheek. To do this we must improve internal man by unfold- ing his spirits and powers. Put good thoughts into a man's mind, and you will alter the appearance of his countenance, and he, because of the new thoughts and aspirations within him, will seek to improve his mate- rial surroundings. In proportion as we improve the mind of man, in proportion as we make the real man 10 HEALING POWER OF MIND. healthy, so will a corresponding improvement take place in all the departments of human existence. It is thus we can ascend the mountain peaks of hope, from whose lofty tops we behold the dawn of a better day. We can truly exclaim, in the words of another: " A brighter morn awaits the human day, When every transfer of earth's natural gifts Shall be a commerce of good words and works; When poverty and wealth, the thirst for fame, The fear of infamy, disease and woe; When war, with its million horrors and fierce hate, Shall live but in the memory of Time; Who, like a penitent libertine, shall start, look back, And shudder at his younger years." But while we talk of progress, let us not suppose that it is a thing that.will come of its own accord. We may pray for it, aspire to it, but we must also labor for it—labor for it with head, heart and hand; and then we can not only hope for it, but can com- mand it. Great reformers have always been great workers. "Idleness," says the good book, "is the rust of the soul." Let all men and women see that they keep their own souls bright, and they will reflect hap- piness all down the paths of progress. " Work, while yet the daylight shines, With a loving heart and true, For golden years are fleeting by, And we are passing, too. INTRODUCTORY. 11 " Wait not for tomorrow's sun To beam upon thy way, For all that thou can'st call thine own Is in this one today. " Then learn to make the most of life — Make glad each passing day; For time will never bring thee back The chances swept away. " Leave no tender word unsaid — Do good while life shall last; You know the mill can never grind With the xvater that is pasty GOD AND CREATION. Creation! What a stupendous word! What does it mean? Who can interpret it to us so that our intellect shall be fed and satisfied with the explana- tion? Many learned and philosophical treatises have been written on this subject, but we venture to assert that but few authors, either ancient or modern, have advanced the human mind one step in this direction. Why is this? We answer, that it is because the} have started on a wrong basis; their questions have been asked in the wrong direction. They have ran- sacked the rocks, they have sounded the depths of old ocean, delved to the very bowels of the earth, laid bare the fossil remains of bygone ages, and showed us the footprints of all the early forms of life, from the inconceivably small insect to the huge monster that dwelt in the primeval forest; and yet, after all these researches, the human mind still asks "What is creation? Had it a beginning? Can it have an end- 14 HEALING POWER OF MIND. ing?11 "All things from a clam!" exclaimed the elder CD O Darwin. But how did he know that a clam or any- thing else was the beginning of life, even on this earth, to say nothing of other planets and worlds and suns that everywhere roll on in the boundless fields of ether? Says the divine Herschel, "Who shall tell what countless forms of life sleep beneath earth's granite pavements?" And yet, most geologists assume to trace all forms of life as coming into exist- ence after the laying down and formation of granite. But suppose that, instead of aiming to wring the secrets of God and creation from visible and external nature, we turn to the invisible and internal; suppose we try the realm of mind and turn awa}- from the realm of matter. The idea of creation implies a creator; and accord- ing to the popular notion, there was a time when this creator began to create, which would mean that there was a time when the Almighty world-builder was idle. The Bible, reason, intuition, all forbid such a conclusion. We are told that God is .the same today, yesterday and forever, and He, accordingly, was always a creator, and has from all eternity been creat- ing. This, we affirm, is the only conclusion we can arrive at; it is the only satisfactory stand that we can take in dealing with this subject. That this world had a beginning is undoubtedly true; but what is true GOD AND CREATION. 15 of this earth cannot be true of an eternal universe that had no beginning. If we expect to fully understand this, we expect too much from the finite intellect; but there are some things which we cannot understand and yet are compelled to believe. For instance, who can understand infinite space? — and yet we are com- pelled to believe in its infinitude. We can conceive of no boundary; in other words, we cannot conceive of any obstruction in space where there is not some- thing beyond. We believe in infinity of time and space because it is a law of mind that compels us so to believe. The cause of this belief comes from the invisible mind, and not from visible matter. Now, we apply the same process of reasoning, or rather of intuition, to God and creation. No man, by searching —that is, searching in the realms of visible matter— can find out God; but we can get perceptions or con- ceptions of Him by trusting to what we shall call the instincts of our invisible soul. So that as we are com- pelled to believe that time and space are eternal, so we are compelled to believe that God and creation are eternal also. All mythologies are full of ingenious endeavors to account for the beginning of creation. These attempts have been no more reasonable than are the endeavors to account for the origin of time and space. How can that which from its very nature is eternal have a 10 HEALING POWER OF MIND. \ beginning? The idea is absurd and preposterous. Among the early Hindoos everything was supposed to be hatched from an egg. But where did the egg come from? It will be seen that these people reasoned from the known phenomena of nature to account for the origin of nature itself. As the egg from a chicken produces a chicken, so in their minds creation and even God Himself were hatched into being. Not only have these attempts been made to account for God's existence by a material process, but millions of persons, even in Christian lands, want to know of God through their material senses. They want to hear, touch and see God the same as they can the mortal frame of a man. God is spirit, and as such must be thought of and approached. Men believing only in the evidences of their senses will deny even a God; because they cannot see spirit with their natural eyes nor touch it with their natural fingers, they will not believe in a life after death. Those are the purely sensual people—dead to every ray of spiritual light, and they laugh at the idea of God, spirit and here- after. Even those who do not deny these existences will affirm that they see no evidence to believe them. These belong to the modern school of ao-nostics. Many of these doubters are men of excellent moral character and great intellectual and scientific attain- ments. Amongst these may be instanced Tyndall an GOD AND CREATION. 17 eminent scientist of this age. He asserts in sub- stance: "I do not deny God, for I know nothing about Him; yet I do not believe in God, for these senses of mine have never seen Him, felt Him nor touched Him." The idea that God is a person and has parts like a man, belongs to a pagan age. When we say God is not a person like a man, we do not thereby deny that He has any personality whatever. We have no desire in this connection to fly to a dictionary for a definition of the word person, for that would limit our meaning. Locke somewhere says that "a person is a thinking, intelligent being." We mean that God is a person in that He is distinct from nature, and is the eternal, intelligent and active principle of all creation—and that as He is eternal so is creation co-eternal with Him. Newton, the great Christian philosopher, says that God is all mind, all eye, all arm, all ear. Of course these expressions are simply intended to con- vey to us that God is everywhere, and that He is all powerful to execute His own will. A poet writes: " When by the wind the tree is shaken, There's not a bough or leaf can fall But of its falling heed is taken By One who sees and governs all. " The tree may fall and be forgotten, And buried in the earth remain, 2 18 HEALING POWER OF MIND. Yet from its juices, rank and rotten, Springs vegetating life again. " The world is with creation teeming, And nothing wholly dies, And things that are destroyed in seeming, In other shapes and forms arise. " And nature still unfolds the tissue Of unseen work by Spirit wrought, And not a work but hath its issue With blessing or with evjl fraught." With regard to the creation of man we are told in Genesis i: 26 and 27: " And God said, ' Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.' " So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." We must put a reasonable and intelligent con- struction upon these sentences. Man cannot be made in the image and likeness of God in power and intelli- gence. The finite cannot be like the infinite. God is not limited in knowledge and goodness, but man is. But man may be like unto God in the essence of his being, because he is a spark of the celestial fire. A GOD AND CREATION. 19 drop of water is, chemically speaking, in the image and likeness of the whole ocean, but it has not the powers of the whole ocean, for the latter can roll mighty waves, raise storms and bear ships on its bosom. In a broad and grand sense, the drop is not like the ocean. And though man is in one sense the image and likeness of God, yet he is not like God in all things, for He has infinite and eternal powers not possessed by man. Nevertheless, this divine likeness, or, if we may so call it, this divine kinship, should awaken in the breast of every man a conscious gran- deur of his divine origin and mission. It was in a moment of inspiration that a poet transported himself to the starry worlds above and exclaimed,— " Even here I feel, Among these mighty things, that as I am I am akin to God; that I am part Of the use universal, and can grasp Some portion of the reason in the which The whole is ruled and founded, and that I have A spirit nobler in its cause and end, Lovlier in order, greater in power, Than all these bright and swift immensities." Still, though man should grandly feel the majesty of his own existence, yet when he contemplates God and creation he will feel his own littleness. He will 20 HEALING POWER OF MIND. feel his vast ignorance in the presence of this vast intelligence. " The Lord of all, Himself through all diffused, Sustains, and is the life of all that lives; Nature is but a name for an effect, Whose cause is God." THE ORIGIN OF EVIL. The account of the origin of evil as recorded in the book of Genesis is not accepted literally by intelli- gent Christians of the present day. Philosophers have exercised their thought and ingenuity in endeav- oring to solve this great problem, and yet today it remains as great a mystery as ever. Pope says— " All nature is but art unknown to thee; All chance, direction which thou canst not see; All discord, harmony not understood; All partial evil, universal good." After all, this is an unsatisfactory explanation. It is simply an admission of evil and then an assertion that it is good. From whatever standpoint we view nature, we find that a system of dualism prevails through all her works. There are light and darkness, heat and cold, attraction and repulsion, upper and under, inner and outer, and good and evil. Whatever 0» HEALING POWER OF MIND. name we call evil by, whether ignorance, or as some doubtful philosophers term it, "undeveloped good," it is still our enemy in whatever shape it appears. To destroy it is our duty, and that of every one on earth. Make heat, and the cold is banished; kindle a light, and the darkness disperses of itself; let in the rays of truth and science upon disease, and it will flee away. Most theoloo-ians start with the assertion that there are two great powers in the universe—a God who is powerful for all good, and a Devil who is powerful for all evil—and that these powers are co-existent and co-eternal, and have been warring against each other through all eternity for supremacy. We have admitted the personality of God, but we deny the per- sonality of a Devil. Discord, error, sin, sickness, ignorance and irreverence are the devils that mislead and torment us. We let in upon these the light of God's truth. We fight disease with the weapons which He has placed in the minds of all His children, and we become conquerors. Who has not read Milton's Paradise Lost? This grand old man, in his blindness, conceived the idea that he could "in the height of his great argument justify the ways of God to man." According to his idea, evil commenced when some archangels in heaven began a war against their maker. They and their adherents were overthrown in that war and cast out THE ORIGIN OF EVIL. 23 of heaven. But does this settle the question? Does it account for the origin of evil? Let us see. Like produces like. The beginning of every action is a thought—a thought good or bad is the seed of an action—and it will at once be seen that no rebel- lious action could have taken place without being pre- ceded by rebellious thoughts or designs. Whence came*those evil thoughts? They had their origin in something. They could not have an origin in good- ness. Let no reader be startled when we assert that evil, or discord, or sin, or by whatever name we call it,' is one of the necessities of creation. This we sub- mit is the doctrine taught by Christ. In Matt, xviii: 7, it is said: "Woe unto the world because of offenses, for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." Why must it needs be ? Simply because it is a necessity, and this necessity is perfectly compatible with the good and rio-hteous government of God. God is a creator, but He cannot create a being equal to Himself. All that He creates must be beneath Himself in intelligence and power, which is the same as saying that we are limited or finite beings. Being thus limited, man must necessarily err, and from this error comes sin and suffering. This is the way, in the face of all the learned treatises on philosophy and theology, that we account for the existence of the suffering and misery of the world. 24 HEALING POWER OF MIND. Now, let us turn to the other side of the picture. Man is made after the image of God; he is a spark of the divine essence; he possesses within himself the power to conquer error, to subdue disease and turn discord to harmony. Thus far we have shown the reasonableness, the justice and goodness of the crea- tion. But when we say that man is made after the image of God, we do not mean physically. When we affirm that man is made after the likeness of God, we do not mean alike in power, in intelligence and good- ness, but in likeness in having a part of His nature, in having a soul that is divine in its essence. But as this soul in him must, as we have before seen, from the necessities of creation, be limited in its powers, it can- not grasp all knowledge; it must commit errors, and thus originates sin and sickness. The objection here that can be made is this: If God has created man so that he must transgress, is it just that he should be punished for his transgression? We answer, perfectly so, because it is a necessity. And we speak reverently. There are necessities that surround God Himself; in other words, there are impossibilities even to the Great Creator. We need here only again refer to the impossibility of God creating a being equal to Himself. He alone is per- fectly good, and He cannot create the perfectly good; but while he cannot do this, He can and has created THE ORIGIN OF EVIL. 25 beings capable of continually striving after goodness and intelligence. This necessitates a man having a will and a power of selection for his needs, wants and progress. When he does not so select he does not fulfill the needs of his soul in the path of its progres- sion, and the result is pain. This pain is necessary and just, for without this reminder man would not strive to unfold his being and fulfill his part in the great plan of his Creator. Now, if there are necessities that surround even God Himself in creation, much more so are there neces- sities that surround man in his life. The laws of God are no respecters of persons. They are like Himself eternal and unchangeable. It is a necessity that they must punish all violations, whether they are made knowingly or unknowingly. A law to be a law must be constant and undeviating under all circumstances. It is not possible to conceive it otherwise. Who can imagine a law of gravitation determining in itself when it shall punish and when it shall not punish? Who can imagine a power in the sea to say when man shall or shall not drown in it? Whoever a man may be, saint or savage, pope or peasant, or whether he falls into the water accident- ally or plunges into it with suicidal intent, if he remains under water a sufficient length of time the result will be death. That is a necessity of law and creation. MIND AND MATTER. Much has been written on these subjects, and we shall touch upon them only so far as they have a strict relation to the purposes of this work. Byron wrote: " When Berkeley said there was no matter and proved it No matter what he said." This might have been intended as a witticism, but it is certainly no reply to the position taken by the great philosopher. Berkeley is not alone in his views upon this subject, for philosophers in all ages have endeavored to show to those who claimed that this universe was nothing but a workshop, wherein all the changes we witness are but the results of the chemi- cal play of atoms, that after all they knew nothing about it, or at least made claims for it that neither fact nor reason would warrant them in doing. What matter really is has never been defined. We only know of it by certain properties, such as form, size 28 HEALING POWER OF MIND. weight, color, and so forth. These properties, whether taken individually or collectively, are not matter itself, but only certain properties of a something that we call matter. Color is but the color of something— size is only the size of something—and so it can be said of all the other properties; but these are not the thing itself. Is there anything underlying all these properties? If so, we do not know what that something is. How do we become conscious of those properties? It is only through our sense of sight and touch and the obstruction we meet with in matter that we become conscious of any existence. In other words, as we know of matter by properties, the recognition of those properties entirely depends upon senses or the quality of mind. Let us illustrate this still further. There is a something that we call pain. Let a person be pricked with a needle, the result will be pain. What makes that result. Cetainly not the needle. The steel of which it is composed could feel no pain. What felt the pain? Every physicist will at once say that it was the nerve that felt the pain—and without the existence of a nerve there could be no such thing as pain? We speak of a burn from the fire producino- pain; but if there were no nerves to feel, there could be no sensation of pain from the burn. Ao-ain there is another thing that we call sound. How is this MIND AND MATTER. 29 made up? Take a small bell and ring it; the tongue strikes against the side of the bell causing it to vibrate. These vibrations set the air in action, producing in it a wave-like motion, and when these waves fall upon the ear, they produce a result we call sound. But if there was no ear to catch those waves there could be no such result as sound. What we have said of feeling and hearing can be applied with equal force of reasoning to all the other senses. But we must go one step further back. When we speak of the nerves of sight, of hearing, of smell, and so forth, we by no means wish to imply that it is these material nerves that in themselves perform the functions attributed to them. On the other hand, we contend that it is not the eye that sees nor the ear that hears. The eye is but the instrument which con- veys impressions to the invisible mind. In itself it has no more the power to see than has the telescope or microscope. • Look at a human body when the life has departed from it. All the organs are there—the nerves are still in existence, but there is no sensation, and the body, whether you dissect it or burn it, can suffer no pain. And why? Because the invisible power that felt, that saw, heard and performed all the other powers, has departed. So that we are driven to the conclusion that matter, in itself, has no intelli- gence nor feeling, and does not possess even the 30 HEALING POWER OF MIND. power of motion. Thus, if we raise an arm and ask the physicist or materialist by what power we perform the act, he readily answers that it is merely muscular motion. If we ask further, what moved the muscles? He replies, the nerves. What then moved the nerves? He answers, the brain. We further desire to know what moved the brain? Here we answer for him, and say it is the spirit. Brain is not the organ of mind in the same sense that the liver is the organ of hepatic secretion. Brain is the organ of the mind. It does not produce mind, but is acted upon by it. The body does not produce life, but is acted upon and vivified by it. Take a seed of any description, analyse it, subject it to any chemical test you please, can you tell or point out its principle of life? No! this is invisible, and yet it is that invisible power in it that is the all- important thing. Turn which way we will, it is the invisible that acts upon, that governs, animates and moves dead visible matter. And we know of no limit that the invisible mind, when used under the powers of science, has over matter. In one sense we may call it all-powerful. But if we know little about the nature of matter, so also do we know but little about the nature of mind. We know nothing of its essence, we only MIND AND MATTER. 31 know of it by its powers and effects, and of these we are in the main ignorant. How wonderful even is memory. By what process are words, ideas and scenes impressed upon and retained in the mind? Every mind is one vast picture gallery upon which is photographed all that we have seen, learned, suffered and enjoyed. Not always to be called up by our own volition, and not always present to our con- sciousness. A landscape, a verse, a quotation, may slumber in the mind for long, long years without being remembered, when suddenly some trifling thing will call up from the chambers of sleep the forgotten impression. Then the effect of mind upon mind is equally mysterious. How often are our thoughts and feelings projected into the mind of another with- out our own intention or knowledge. How grand and yet how silent is this power of mind exercised; there is no beating of drums, no blowing of trumpets, no sounding of gongs, no booming of cannon, and yet the effects of this silent power and march of mind are greater, grander, than the tramp of armed millions and the thunder of all the artillery in the world. The noise, the pomp, the power of the one shall pass away, but the other shall endure forever. Goethe says: "One soul may have a decided influ- ence upon another, merely by means of its silent presence, of which I could relate many instances. It 32 HEALING POWER OF MIND. has often happened to me that when I have been walking with an acquaintance, and have had a living image of something in my mind, he has at once begun to speak of that very thing. I have also known a man who, without saying a word, could suddenly silence a party engaged in cheerful conversation by the mere power of his mind. Nay, he could also introduce a tone which would make everybody .feel uncomfortable. We have all something of electric and magnetic force within us." When the teacher of metaphysical science makes the statement that there is no life, intelligence or sen- sation in matter, he is at once met by the objector with the assertions that all nature contradicts that position—that facts are against us. and that our own sensations contradict the theory. We answer that nature is on our side—that facts sustain us, and that sensation confirms the position taken. Let us look for a moment at nature. It is divided, chemically and physiologically speaking, into two grand divisions —the organic and inorganic. To the former belongs all things that live, whether in the vegetable or animal kingdom. The latter includes all the rocks, minerals and matter in all its forms without life. Now, can the mineral, by any process of digestion, assimilation or growth, become endowed with the life, intelligence or sensation which it is admitted we MIND AND MATTER. 33 find in the organic kingdom? We answer emphat- ically, no! Life, intelligence and sensations, in differ- ent and distinct conditions, are peculiarly and solely the qualities of mind manifested in what is termed by scientists organic nature. A few years ago it was believed that dull, dead, leaden matter possessed within itself spontaneous life. The advocates of this theory contended that life would make its appearance without the influence of any prior life. There were many things that appeared to sustain this view. One scientific gentleman took a portion of hay and sub- jected it for a long time to a boiling process. This decoction he sealed hermetically in a bottle. After a time this mass was examined, and countless forms of life were found therein. Then the advocates of spon- taneous life exclaimed, "See how nature sustains our views!" But there were some scientists who were not satisfied by these experiments, and they said, "Perhaps the germs of life may be in the air. Let us subject this air to chemical conditions as well as the hay and water, and then we shall see if life makes its appearance." They performed experiments in accordance with this suggestion, and the results were that in no instance could life be found, thus proving that the germs of life found after the first experiment existed in the air with which the mass came in contact after boiling. And today it is conceded that 3 34 HEALING POWER OF MIND. there is a deep, impassable gulf between inorganic matter and organic life. So that from this, and num- erous other kinds of experiments, the metaphysical healer is justified in denying to matter either life, intelligence or sensation. He further says that matter cannot derive life and sensation from mind. They are as distinct from each other as night and day. When man possesses spiritual understanding he will instantly perceive that he is distinct from his physical body and the material universe. Man does not derive his strength and glory from his body or brain. "As a plant upon the earth, so a man rests upon the bosom of God. He is nourished by unfailing fountains, and is fed according to his need by inexhaustible powers." THINGS SEEN AND UNSEEN. It is commonly said of the egotist, "he thinks he knows it all, and what he does not know is not worth knowing." It may be affirmed more forcibly that men generally think they see it all, and that what they do not see is not worth seeing. There is no sense, no power of the mind, that men are tyrannized over so much by as their eyesight. They are, in fact, to a large extent, the slaves of their vision. St. Paul says : "The things which are seen are temooral, but the things which are unseen are eternal." The scriptural saying has been adopted by the best thinkers of the age, that "The invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things which are made." Sweden- borg, in his doctrine of correspondences and represen- tations, says, "Of the astonishing things that occur, I will not say in living bodies only, but throughout nature, and which correspond so entirely to supreme 36 HEALING POWER OF MIND. and spiritual things, one would believe that the physical world was purely symbolical of the spiritual world." That astute thinker, Carlyle, says, "All vis- ible things are emblems. What thou seest is not there on its own account; strictly speaking, it is not there at all. Matter exists only spiritually, and to represent some idea and body it forth." But we desire for a moment to call attention to the things which physicists class as natural phenom- ena. All the mighty forces of nature are unseen. And yet how rarely men think of these things. We gaze upon the locomotive as it speeds with its train of cars over hill and valley, without for a moment think- ing that this power is derived from an unseen agent. The steam in the steam-chest is as invisible as the at- mosphere we breathe. It is only when this steam comes in contact with the atmosphere and becomes condensed, that it is visible. Men speak of the laws of nature as if they were things that they could see and handle. Who ever saw the law of gravitation, or any other law? And yet it is these invisible laws that govern all the mighty and varied operations which are ever taking place around us. The fallino- apple, the crumbling mountain, the moving avalanche, the roaring cataract, the rushing river, the raindrop, the snowflake, all move and fall in obedience to this invisible force of gravitation. We gaze upon a forest THINGS SEEN AND UNSEEN. 37 of oaks and admire their towering strength as they sway their strong arms in the blast. A fire will in a few hours sweep that forest forever from our sight. What survives? It is the invisible that survives and again builds up the visible. The forest is gone, but we have an acorn, and that acorn is capable of pro- ducing an oak and a forest, or a million of forests. The acorn is visible, it is true, but it is not its visible parts that perpetuate the oak. The germ, the life that sends out roots and fibres, and trunks and branches, is an invisible something which we call life; and unless this invisible something survived we could have no visible oaks. We can see a wire of the electric telegraph, and the batteries, and the operators at their instruments, but the power that enables us to send words and messages over continents and through seas is invisible. Electricity is invisible, but it exists in and around every particle of matter, animate and inanimate. Take a common magnet and hold it in close proximity to a needle, the needle is drawn to it by a force; but because we cannot see that force shall we say that it is of any less importance than the needle and the magnet which we can see? How few persons realize that even regarding the forms of life in the animal and vegetable kingdom, that by far the greater number of varieties are not discernible by the naked eye. There are living things 38 HEALING POWER OF MIND. "to whom the fragile blade of grass, that springeth in the morn and perisheth ere noon, is an unbounded world." It has been calculated that there are millions and millions of insects in a cubic inch of water; they are so small, when compared with the finest grain of sand, that it is impossible for us to conceive how they can possess organs which enable them to pass and re- pass and avoid each other; and yet they do these things, and they show us that they have their likes and antipathies the same as the animals which are our everyday companions. Again, our thought is often required to correct the conclusion of our sight. It is not by our eyes alone that we know the earth moves. We ascertain this fact by the exercise of thought. Mere vision would lead us to come to exactly the opposite conclusion. So that, view this universe in what aspect we please, we conclude, first, that with regard to the so-called material things, that it is the invisible mind that cor- rects and properly informs our sense; next, that of all things in the universe it is the unseen which has power, that moulds and fashions the things which are seen, and that it alone endures forever. And when men shall fully understand and believe these things that belief shall be to them as a new Messiah, purify- ing and regenerating their nature; and then, in the fullness of joy, man will exclaim, "I am one with God!" MAN'S RELATION TO GOD AND CREATION. The questions that follow next in order are these: What relation does man stand to creation and its Creator? What influence can he have over the world around? To what extent can he make or mar his joys and sorrows? Macaulay somewhere says, that touching the ways of God with man, the ignorant savage is as wise as the most learned philosopher. This may be true as a matter of reason; but it is untrue as a matter of faith and intuition. But in order to let these faiths and intuitions have full play, man must throw aside his intellectual pride. It is this ingredient that has led him into the grand error of believing that all things were made purposely and solely for his use. A well known satirist writes: " Has God, thou fool! worked solely for thy good, Thy joy, thy pastime, thy attire, thy food? 40 HEALING POWER OF MIND. Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn, For him has kindly spread the flowery lawn? Is it for thee the lark ascends and sings? Joy tunes his voice, joy elevates his wings. Is it for thee the linnet pours his throat? Loves of his own, and raptures swell the note. The bounding steed you pompously bestride Shares with his lord the pleasure and the pride. Is thine alone the seed that strews the plain? The birds of heaven shall vindicate their grain, Thine the full harvest of the golden year. Part pays, and justly, the deserving steer; The hog, that ploughs not, nor obeys thy call, Lives on the labors of this lord of all. Know, Nature's children all divide her care, The fur that warms a monarch, warms a bear. While man exclaims 'See all things for my use!' 'See man for mine!' replies a pampered goose. And just as short of reason he must fall, Who thinks all made for one, not one for all." The poet Gray, in his immortal elegy, written in a country churchyard, too anxious to point a moral or adorn a tale, uses a false illustration when he writes: " Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear; Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air." These lines, which have so often done duty in the pulpit, on the platform, and in fact, in all the walks man's relation to god and creation. 41 of literature and oratory, are a striking example of that intellectual pride and human conceit to which we have called attention. At the moment we write there are countless myriads of the most gorgeous flowers of the most delicate hue and the choicest perfume, growing and blossoming in a thousand nooks and dells, and where they grow, blossom and display a beauty beyond the power of man to imitate, there they die and find no record in the mind of man, and their history is recorded in no book. But shall we say that because they thus live and die that their perfume, their beauty and use are wasted? This would indeed be telling God that he had made things in vain, because they were not intimately and immediately related to man and his convenience and comfort. Because all the rays of sunlight do not fall upon man and the little patch of ground that he cultivates, shall we say that therefore those rays are wasted? Unques- tionably, every ray of light that falls from yonder sun, whether falling upon the barren rock, the sterile desert or the "dark, unfathomed caves of ocean," has its use and mission. Are there not countless forms of veget- able and animal life in the depths of the ocean, aye, in every drop of water, that require the nourishing rays of light to preserve and perpetuate their existence? "All things that on the earth do dwell, unto the earth some special good do give." The grain of sand, the 42 HEALING POWER OF MIND. blade of grass, the tiny insect, the towering mountain, the rolling river and the sounding sea, are as much a necessary part of creation as man. "All are but parts of one stupendous whole." And when man comes to recognize this great fact, then will he come to look at things with an eye of faith, and not as now, through the lens of a proud and utilitarian reason. We should not stand with arrogance before this mighty creation that everywhere encircles us, but with humility and faith, and then things that are now dark to us will appear bright as the noonday. We should gaze upon this kingdom of God with the single-mindedness of a child. Christ says, "Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, shall in nowise enter therein." If we approach God's works as if we knew all their mysteries, then we shall know but little; but if we will sit down before them in humility and rever- ence, then we shall learn more and more of His ways and shall be enabled to enter into the kingdom of His mysteries and power. How far can man control and have power over and use the works of God? There are some things that are inexorable, that exist in spite of and cannot be controlled by the mind of man. There are the move- ments of the heavenly bodies; these are exact and are founded upon the principle of divine mathematics. There are also other things over which man cannot, MAN'S RELATION TO GOD AND CREATION. 43 from their very nature, exercise the slightest influence or control. He cannot destroy God's laws, but he can obey them and use them for his own happiness and progress. It is in this sense that God has given him dominion over all things around him. By the exercise of what power? By the power of mind. This power is the divinity in man. When it is told us that God made man after his own image we take it to mean that he made the spirit of man after his own essence. Jesus taught this doctrine. He proclaimed that God acted through Him, that God spake through Him and that if we wanted to see God that we could do so in Him, and in ourselves when we thought and believed as He did. Thus we have presented to us "the golden key which opens the Palace of Eternity." Christ walked the wave, made the loaves and fishes, healed the sick and raised the dead. On what princi- ples did He do these things? He himself tells us, that His power was from God. He never spake of disease as difficult or dangerous. He never employed drugs of any description. In fact, He in all cases implied that the cure for these diseases was not to be found in visible matter, but in invisible mind. When his followers brought to Him cases they could not heal, He said unto them, "Oh, ye of little faith." This age seems to have lost the meaning of the grandest and sublimest word in the English, or any 44 HEALING POWER OF MIND. other language, namely, Faith. When St. Paul said "faith is the substance of things hoped for—the evi- dence of things not seen," he did not intend to give a complete definition of that word. Whenever Christ used the word faith, He evidently gave to it a mean- ing and power that were more potent for good than that possessed by all the other human powers com- bined. He spoke of faith as a law of God, as real in its operation as the law of gravitation or any other law by which this universe is guided and governed. The question will arise in the minds of some persons as to the possibility of people in modern days possess- ing the power of affecting cures by the same method as recorded in scripture. We answer this question from two standpoints. First, we take the words of Christ himself, who promised his followers,." The works that I do ye shall do." Next, we answer the question from the standpoint of fact, from which there can be no escape for the caviler or the skeptic. We take our stand upon the doctrine, "by their fruits shall ye know them," so that from whatever point we con- sider the relation of man to God and creation—how- ever we may view man as a being of power and duties in this sphere of existence—we are warranted in coming to the conclusion that it is through mind, and faith in its unlimited powers, that he can conquer all disease and suffering, and error, that effect him in his journey through life. man's relation to god and creation. 45 There is no statement that has caused the teacher of mind-cure to be so misunderstood as that wherein he asserts that "Man is one with God." Some people have gone so far as to call this blasphemy, and have held up their hands in peal or affected horror. A little patience—a little christian spirit, and a little generous desire not to do us an injustice, will soon prove to these people that our position is true and impregnable. The words "one with God," do not of course mean that man is on an equality with God in power—in the strength of holiness and mercy and love. Such claims as these would indeed subject us to the charge of insanity. Our claim that man is "one with God," is founded on scripture and on our spirit- ual understanding. And just here is the place to assert that mere words in themselves are nothing; all that should concern us is, what a word or phrase is intended to convey. The word itself is nothing; but what its meaning is in the place where it is used is everything. Now, we are told in the first chapter of Genesis that God made man in his own image and likeness, so that then at least he must have possessed something like unto God. He was born of God, bearino; his likeness of eternal life and love, truth and goodness, justice and wisdom. We are told in Gen. v, 22: "And Enoch walked with God." In so far as he did this he could be said to be "one with God." 46 HEALING POWER OF MIND. In Gen. vi, 9, it reads " Noah was a just man and per- fect in his generation, and Noah walked with God." We all walk with God and are one with God when we allow his loving and unerring laws to flow through us. Below we quote a number of scriptural passages showing in what sense Christ uses the word "one" in claiming relation with God. In John x, 30: "I and my Father are one." John xvii, 11: "Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are." John xvii, 21: "That they may all be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me." Many other passages might be quoted showing that we use the phrase "One with God," in a perfectly scriptural sense. LAWS OF NATURE. In the presentation of the theory of the mind-cure to persons who have never given the subject any con- sideration, amongst the common objections made are the following: "But you do not profess to cure in oppo- sition to the laws of nature? Do you work in harmony with the laws of nature? Do you not recognize that there are peculiarities in certain diseases; and have not certain herbs and mineral substances qualities stamped upon them by their creator, and that, do what you will, you have to follow the laws and methods of nature or you must fail in your operations?" To all these ques- tions we answer, that we work in accordance with the laws of God, and not in opposition to them. The only difference between us is, that we call to our aid the laws of invisible mind, not the laws that bind and govern material drugs. There are men calling them- selves philosophers, who write very learnedly about the laws of nature—they use technical terms and 48 healing power of mind. reason after the most approved scholastic method of logic—but though they turn their logic mills very artistically, yet the}7 do not grind us out one kernel of nourishing corn. They are like some of the equa- tions in algebraic school books—there are plus and minus, a great deal of study and differentiating, but when the problem is finished we find that it ends in zero. After all the learned treatises that have been written about the laws of nature, what do we know of them, what can we say of them ? The only com- plete definition that we can give of the laws of nature is, that they are the laws which produce the phenom- ena of nature. We cannot go behind them, and we cannot explain the why or the wherefore of either the laws or the phenomena. Who can explain why one seed put into the ground should produce a blue flower, and another a red—a third an oak and another a pine tree. If we say these things produce after their kind, we make no explanation of the fact — we merely affirm that things are as they are. There is in the Hindoo Scriptures a definition of law that is very comprehensive. "Law 'tis, which is without name, or color, or hands, or feet; which is smallest of the least, and largest of the large; all, and knowing all things; which hears without ears, sees without eyes, moves without feet, and seizes without hands." LAWS OF NATURE. 49 We are accustomed to say that the laws of nature act with unerring uniformity. But what do we know of their uniformity? That uniformity may be cut off or abrogated by the intervention of some other law. Let a man stand in the middle of a room, holding in his hand a small piece of steel—he opens his hand with the palm downwards and the steel falls to the floor. Why does it fall? In obedience to the law of gravitation, one of the widest and best known of the laws of nature. Suppose, instead of falling to the floor it had ascended to the ceiling and there adhered? "But this is not possible," says some one, "for that would be contrary to a well-known law of nature." By no means. Place a magnet of sufficent force in the ceiling, and your steel flies upward in obedience to the law of the magnet, and this law is just as much a law of nature, and no more nor no less, as the law of gravitation. It is a law of nature that if water is subjected to a certain cold temperature that it will become solid ice, but that law will be rendered inoperative and overcome by the warm rays of the sun. They are both equally the laws of nature, though acting apparently in opposite directions. These examples will serve as illustrations of the fact that there is no such thing as constant uniformity in the operation of any law. Other laws are brought into play that render these laws inoperative. So that 4 50 HEALING POWER OF MIND. we can lay down no laws for nature and say that they are never contravened. All we can do is to observe the operations, record them, and learn wis- dom and humility. Now what do we know of the laws of mind? We answer, almost nothing. It is only here and there that we have observed a few facts, and from these we have as yet been enabled to formulate only a few principles. But what we do know is suffi- cient to convince us that the laws of mind can over- ride the laws of matter and hold them as nothing. So that when we say a thing cannot be done because it is in opposition to the laws of nature, let us consider that until we know all the laws of nature and all the laws of mind, we are not in a position to pronounce anything impossible. Fortunately, we have facts both in sacred and secular history that convince us of the almost omnipotent power of mind over matter and its laws. Christ did not walk the water by destroying a law of nature, but by calling to his aid the law of mind, and by the aid of this law he performed his so- called miracles and effected marvelous cures. And as in essence we are sure that our minds are one with God, so in proportion to our understanding of the laws of mind, and faith in their power, we shall be enabled to overcome all other laws and effect cures. LAWS OF NATURE. 51 And, however learndedly people may talk about the laws of nature, and what is impossible, we have facts that set their opinions and prophecies at defiance, for we hold that in the direction of our work all things are possible with God. MISSION AND DUTY OF MAN. Such of our readers as have perused Pope's Essay on Man, will agree with us that while that production stands unrivalled as a work of its kind, yet that it fails to satisfy either the head or heart. The work is entirely of a materialistic kind. Though here and there are to be found passages that appear to have their birth in the spiritual powers of our nature, yet the author seems to think that he could solve the problem of life, by reference to the visible world as judged of by the reasoning faculties of man. Viewed in this light the work is a splendid failure. What help does it give us to be told to " Laugh where we must, be candid where we can, But vindicate the ways of God to man. Say first of God above or man below, What can we reason, but from what we know. Of man, what see we but his station here, From which to reason or to which refer Through worlds unnumbered though the God be known, 'Tis ours to trace him only in our own." 54 HEALING POWER OF MIND. We have elsewhere in this work aimed to show that man cannot solve those mighty problems that relate to existence by an appeal to reason, nor by consulting material nature. Here, again, we must refer to the intuitions and to faith. Man questions himself. What is the meaning of existence? Why am I here? What use am I to this universe? We affirm, that there dwells, deep down in the bosom of every man, a belief that he comes into the world to do some work which no other man can do—a work imposed upon him by the very laws of his own being. This, to him, is an intuition. He cannot find the cor- roboration of this in the material universe, for his modicum of work seems to be swallowed up, and the only benefit he can witness is, that his labor enables him to clothe himself and procure food. If, per- chance, he is enabled to lay aside a few pieces of yellow metal, yet the reflection will sometimes come, "Of what use can this be to me, I must soon pass away from earth, and as I cannot carry these things with me, of what use are they to me?" And still the question comes—to what end have I lived? Let us here try to explain and to illustrate. Man, we have seen, is but a part of "one stupendous whole." In other words, he is but one of the products of the great intelligent force that lies behind and produces and moves the whole universe. A grain of sand a MISSION AND DUTY OF MAN. 55 blade of grass, a pine tree, a mountain, could with as much reason assume to judge of the meaning of their existence as man. We, in common with all things, animate and inanimate, are alike products of the divine intelligence. Can the clay judge the potter? Have we not the right to presume, and is it not our reasonable duty to presume, that the power that pro- duces and fashions us and all things knows more than ourselves? That power, we are assured, is not malig- nant. It could not have sent us into existence to punish us—for in this case it would have been better that we, and all things, should not have existed. Why is it that we have in our own nature a some- thing that we call conscience, that approves what is right and condemns what is wrong? Why are we, in spite of ourselves, compelled to condemn cruelty, untruth and injustice? Simply because we have something of the godlike within us. We all feel that the thing that is false and unjust must pass away. There is no man so low down, there is no soul stained so foully with sin but is compelled to love the good, the beautiful and true, and hate that which is false. " The darkest night that shrouds the sky Of beauty hath a share; The blackest heart has signs to tell That God still lingers there." 56 HEALING POWER OF MIND. From what we have here advanced we conclude that the universe is founded on immutable justice, and no man can successfully fight against that justice. Sooner or later that which is untrue and unjust must pass away. " And thus the world goes round and round, And the genial seasons run, And ever the truth comes uppermost, And ever is justice done." Now, this power behind nature being just, and possessing an intelligence so far beyond that of the wisest of mortals that we cannot even conceive of its immensity, has not made anything in vain. Our intelligence, glorified by faith, assures us that we are in this life for a purpose—that we are, in fact, work- men placed here to carry out the wise and beneficent plan of God. An architect plans a temple, and his specifications are only so many directions to workmen what they are to do for its erection. He says to one man, make this folindation; to another, build these walls; to a third, carve that image; to a fourth, con- struct that roof. And thus he places his workmen in the various positions where they can be useful. But any of these workmen might say, "Of what use is my work. I can see no good, no use in it. It is in- complete in itself, and must end in nothing." But the MISSION AND DUTY OF MAN. 57 architect who placed these men at their different tasks knew that if every man faithfully performed his own work all their labors would harmonize in the end, and the result would be a temple of beauty. Now, God is our Great Architect; He has placed us in this life to perform our special and different tasks, and though we can sec in them only incompleteness, yet God can see that if we will faithfully perform those tasks they will harmonize in the end, and the results will be of benefit to ourselves, of use to others, and glory to Him. Amongst the chief duties of man is that of obtain- ing and preserving health. A man may possess the wealth of a continent, but if he is the constant victim of disease and suffering, he is a poor man compared with the day laborer, whose pulse beats with health by day and whose nights are blessed with refreshing sleep. Emerson has the following fine remarks on the subject of health: "Get health. No labor, pains, temperance, pov- erty, nor exercise that can gain it must be grudged. For sickness is a cannibal which eats up all the life and youth it can lay hold of, and absorbs its own sons and daughters. I figure it as a pale, wailing, dis- tracted phantom, absolutely selfish, heedless of what is good and great, attentive to its sensations, losing its soul, and afflicting other souls with meanness and 58 HEALING POWER OF MIND. mopings, and with ministration to its voracity of trifles. The best part of health is fine disposition. It is more essential than talent, even in the works of talent. Nothing will supply the want of sunshine to peaches; and, to make knowledge valuable, you must have the cheerfulness of wisdom. Whenever you are sincerely pleased you are nourished. The joy of the spirit indicates its strength. All healthy things are sweet-tempered." POWER OF MIND OVER BODY. As we previously devoted a chapter to "Mind and Matter," our reflections in this connection will principally be confined to the effect of mind upon that particular form of matter called the human body. Here it will be necessary to state our entire disbelief in what is usually styled an axiom in philosophy, namely, "that every effect must have its cause, and every cause must have its effect." Both as a matter of reason and consciousness, we deny this. What, for instance, is volition? It is force in energy directed to some particular end. Whence comes this force? We answer, it originates in the invisible mind. Mind is in itself a first cause, so far as volition is concerned. And the same thing cannot be observed of matter. The materialist assumes that mind is not distinct from matter, or that mind is not an entity separate and apart from matter. If this assumption was true, then it would make man a mere machine to be acted upon 60 HEALING POWER OF MIND. and moved by physical causes. If matter has proper- ties peculiar to itself, so has mind, and one of these properties is that it can originate causes. This is its nature; it is one of its attributes of which all the reasoning of man cannot deprive it. Starting, then, from this standpoint, the explanation will become easy as to how mind can gain such mastery over the material body. It can animate and move it. It can fill it with health when wrongly directed with disease and suffering. When rightly directed by faith and knowledge, it can purge the body from all pain and impurities. Now, while this power has been seen and recog- nized in all ages and countries, even by the so-called learned physicians, yet they have always sought to limit this power or to share it with visible chemicals and drugs. A prominent London physician recently sent a communication to the St. James Gazette, from which we condense the following statement: "You say you 'do not quite grasp the scientific reasons' which I have tried to adduce for the assertion that if a sufferer from even 'incurable disease' will 'only firmly make up his mind that he is going to get well, in many cases his conscience will be justified.' These words were not precisely the words I used, but I will adopt them. The 'scientific reasons' are these: There is in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred a possi- POWER OF MIND OVER BODY. 61 bility of finding a modus vivcndi with disease, even though it be organic and 'incurable.' The very first condition of life is hope: 'While there is life there is hope,' and when hope dies life is no longer 'worth liv- ing.' Nature is not an artisan, but an artist, and with the aid of the 'ghost' (or spirit) she has contrived to put a good deal of 'artistic finish' into her chief work —man. This spirit is the life of the creation, and it is a life with more than one source, if I may so say. Many live by mental and nervous energy. The mul- titude of this class of livers is very great; their bodies are wondrously weak and crippled, but their 'go' and 'spirit' are remarkable, and they live when those around them think they ought to die. Each case must be dealt with individually; but the task of find- ing a modus vivendi with 'incurable disease' is not difficult, and if one be found, the very fact of reliev- ing the diseased organ from the task of playing first role in the drama of life will, in a majority of instances, help to check the malady by which it is affected. When a man hopes, his brain is stimulated, his nervous system is healthily excited, his vital energy is increased. Is it not obvious that if the vital energy be increased, disease may be conquered, or at least outlived and downlived? Forgive me for being so prolix in trying to be plain." Now, although the writer above quoted calls this 62 HEALING POWER OF MIND. exercise of mind-power by the simple name of hope, (we shall not wait here to dispute about terms), we take it to be an admission on his part that there is an invisible something that has an incalculable and won- drous power in curing disease, when the visible drug proves ineffectual. The homoeopath says that the allopath is a poisoner; the allopath calls the homoeo- path a quack; while the eclectic claims to be wiser than both. But while they all admit the great power of mind as a curative agent, they also claim that with- out the administration of drugs, according to their own learned method, that diseases could not be cured. But just at this point the magnetic healer steps in, and he says, "Away with your drugs! Throw physic to the dogs! I can cure by the invisible agent of magnetism, while you signally and wofully fail by the application of your visible nostrums." But perma- nent cures even by magnetism are by no means so certain as its votaries are wont to claim for it. At one time there was a great rage for magnets, but not- withstanding the numerous experiments in this direc- tion, no satisfactory conclusions have been arrived at on the subject. It is now about a century since experiments of this nature were first made, and yet today it is by no means established that the magnet is of any remedial value whatever. Professor Charcot, of Paris, made many experiments on patients with POWER OF MIND OVER BODY. 63 magnets, and he states that he has no faith whatever in the remedial efficacy of the magnet, except as it influenced the imagination of the patient. This is another admission of the power of mind, though Mons. Charcot tries to limit and explain it by the word imagination. History is replete with cases showing the effect of mind over the body. There is the account of the man who was condemned to death for a crime that has been so frequently set forth in medical works. Some physicians obtained permission from the authori- ties to perform an experiment on this man previous to his execution. They bandaged his eyes, laid him on a couch, and caused him to hold his head over a bucket of water. They then punctured his neck with a small instrument, but not sufficient to cause the blood to flow. But they tried to convey to his mind the belief that the blood was flowing, by dropping some water from a small utensil into the bucket. At first they caused the water to drop slowly, and then increased its falling. As this increased the man grew faint, his face became livid, his pulse became weaker and weaker, and the experimenters believing the man would die, ceased their operations, and he at once resumed his wonted vitality. But why, it may be asked, cite these cases from written history? Every- day observation will furnish us with proofs on the 64 HEALING POWER OF MIND. subject. The best authorities are almost unanimous in their belief that there is no sure cure for confirmed habits of inebriety unless the efforts in that direction are aided by a strong exercise of the will. In those localities that are subject to attacks of cholera or deadly fevers, all observers are agreed that more per- sons die through fear than from any other cause. Another leading English physician, in writing to the London Times, in 1884, has some pertinent remarks upon the effect that the mind has over the body. We make the following extracts from his communication: "Now, the first observation I am anxious to make is that in the majority—yes, without hesitation, I affirm, the majority—of these cases it is not true that the lives of the condemned will be one year, or even one day, shorter than the average longevity of per- sons of their age and class who are presumed to be perfectly healthy. I will go further, and say this — the dread they endure and the precautions they are compelled to take not only do not tend to lengthen their lives, but are calculated to abridge them. Long and careful observation of what are called 'diseased lives' has led me to the conclusion that, eliminatino- the depressing and morbid influence of that self-con- sciousness which is bred of a condemned or suspected life, a man is just as well as he feels, taking the aver- POWER OF MIND OVER BODY. 65 age of a sufficient period to cover the cycle of an average mode of existence. Most lives, however monotonous they may be, are marked by a certain rythmical succession of 'ups and downs.' Take the mean of these and that will be the standard and base of probabilities as regards the reasonable 'expectancy' of life, let what will be the matter with the indi- vidual. Disease kills more victims through the mind than by the body. If medicine were so precise a science that a 'prognosis' could be worked out on trustworthy data, something like authority might be held to attach to the dictum of the family doctor or consulting physician; but this is not the fact, and observation and experience combine to show that the duration of any particular life is beyond ken and out of reach of even shrewd guessing until the approach of death is indicated by signs intelligible to all. "What is the moral to be drawn from these gen- eral conclusions? Simply this—let no one, young or old, be so foolish as to be depressed by the dictum of the physician or surgeon who, with portentious shake of the head, gives a despairing opinion. I repeat, that I believe that more persons are killed by 'the fear of death' than by disease. "I know these assertions will be stigmatized as rash and I will be condemned for making them; but I do so advisedly. I believe medicine as a science 5 66 HEALING POWER OF MIND. discredits medicine as an art. I am quite sure it does as far as prognosis is concerned. On the other hand, medicine as an art owes as much, or more, to the ministry of hope as to the influence of drugs." Surely these opinions, coming from a man who was taught from his youth to believe that any disease would succumb to drugs, if only the right ones could be administered, are entitled to our serious considera- tion. Who can be blamed, after such opinions as these, for doubting the power of drugs to cure disease? JN. As a further proof of the influence that mind has over the body, we subjoin some remarks from Goethe: "Napoleon visited those sick of the plague, in order to prove that the man who could vanquish fear could vanquish the plague also; and he was right. 'T is incredible what force the will has in such cases; it penetrates the body and puts it in a state of activity, which repels all hurtful influences, whilst fear invites them." DISEASE AND ITS REMEDIES. What is disease? It is the result of a departure from the spiritual laws of God. Its true cause is not to be attributed to the presence, absence, or decay of any part or parts of the human system. These disar- rangements are the effects and not the causes of the disease. To remedy this state of things we have not to seek to build up materiality, but to aim at once to call to our aid the power of spirit. Our duty in this direction, we apprehend, is so plain that it needs no further words to make it clear. This being conceded, the question arises, with what agents should we approach these mental causes? Matter, we have already seen, does not control or move mind. It is mind that controls and moves matter. Matter being non-intelligent, what effect can it have upon intelligent minds? As this matter in itself has neither sense, feeling nor will, it can have no dynamic power over mind, and can make no departure from God's spiritual 68 HEALING POWER OF MIND. laws, so that we entirely put aside and ignore it as a curative agent. The very simplicity of this method should be sufficient to recomend it to the reflective mind. In mechanics, other things being equal, the simplest machines are the most efficient. "It is sur- prising," says a philosopher, "how all things in the universe resolve themselves into results of a few prin- ciples at last." In chemistry, many things that were once considered to be primary elements have been found to be compounds, so that at last the chemist may find that his metals and minerals are but the results of a very few primary elements. In the science of color, for instance—a few years ago a man would have been styled a fanatic or a madman, who would have denied the existence of seven primary colors. Those who were supposed to know most on the subject proved beyond a doubt that it required seven primary colors from which to make all other colors and shades of color, namely: violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and red. But how stands the fact today? They now recognize only three prima- ries, namely: blue, yellow and red. Some German philosopher asserts that the time will come when all colors will be shown to be composed of two original colors. This cannot be scoffed at as a mere freak of the imagination, for it must be recollected that most of the different chemical substances are not different DISEASE AND ITS REMEDIES. 69 because they are composed of different ingredients, but because of their different proportions of the same elements. Starch, sugar, vinegar and alcohol, are very dissimilar in their nature and effects, but they are all alike composed of the same elements. It is only the different proportions in which these elements are mixed together that give them their distinctive differences. Now, the names of disease is legion, but we trace them to one cause, and for them we have but one cure. The world has for ages been perplexed, mystified and imposed upon by the so-called science of medi- cine. A list of technical and high-sounding words and phrases have been wrapped around diseases and their remedies until the multitude stands in awe of the long array. It is too often the case that people reverence what they do not understand. Call whisky by its medical name, uspiritus frumenti" and it at once inspires respect. Instead of saying that a child has measles, state that it is afflicted with "rubiola" and the same disease with different names is thought to be two distinct diseases. Now, we desire to tear aside this word-fringe, and let in the light of Divine truth upon the whole mass of jargon and quackery. Even amongst physicians we find skeptics regard- ing the utility of their own practice. Many openly admit that they have no very confident faith in the 70 HEALING POWER OF MIND. certainty of their art, and some deny the possibility of their ever constructing a scientific system of remedial methods. "Medicine," says Papillon, "may be sum- med up as the application of certain sciences. When- ever these sciences may advance, that art should do so also." But whatever may be said of the other sciences, we deny that the science of medicine, as a curative or preventive system, has advanced one step —and this is because the agents it employs are false. Medical men have given their time, talents and learn- ing, to the subject; but in spite of them, diseases have increased and multiplied. Their studies with regard to the human system—its construction, func- tions of the organs, their diseases and treatment —are divided as follows: Anatomy teaches how the organs are made; physiology how they perfom their functions in a healthy state; pathology how they dis- charge them in a diseased state; and therapeutics how they discharge them in regard to media, that is to say, the medial agencies of every kind with which they may be brought in contact. Now, the modern physician relies upon all these for his knowledge how to ward off or cure disease. With the first two, anatomy and physiology, we have no quarrel, but against pathology and therapeutics we proclaim a bold and open war. The practice of medical men, in these directions, has been fraught with incalculable DISEASE AND ITS REMEDIES. 71 mischief to the health of the community. The most honest and outspoken of them have so confessed. Dr. Benjamin Rush has said: "It is impossible to calculate the mischief Hippocrates has done by first marking nature with his name, and afterwards letting her loose upon sick people." Dr. Mason Good, a learned professor in London, said: "the effects of medicine on the human system are in the highest degree uncertain, except, indeed, that they have already destroyed more lives than war, pestilence and famine combined." Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, professor in Harvard University, says: "I am sick of learned quackery." Some other distinguished physician has said: "It would be better for mankind if all the drugs were thrown into the sea, but worse for the fishes." Dr. James Johnson, of England, surgeon-extraordi- nary to the king, says: "I declare my conscientious opinion, founded on long observation and reflection, that if there was not a single physician, surgeon, apothecary, man-midwife, chemist, druggist or drug on the face of the earth, there would be less sickness and less mortality." Why these failures? Mainly because the physi- cian of today has followed in the footsteps of his predecessors. He reads in his books that certain diseases are known by certain symptoms, and that 72 HEALING POWER OF MIND. certain drugs administered according to the quantity and method laid down, will effect cures. His diag- nosis is often of the shallowest kind, but even when correct his remedies are still of the conventional description, and if, through the vitality of the patient or by the power of mind, a cure is effected, he tries to convince his patient that his recovery is entirely due to his careful administration of the prescribed drugs. Thus a false over-arching faith has grown in the efficacy of these poisons. The Israelites of old are no more to be condemned for their worship of the golden calf set up in the wilderness, than are the masses for their idolatry of the medical drugs set up amidst humanity in these days of enlightenment. We are endeavoring to wean them from their false faith, and point them to the only true God. The magicians have thrown down their rods, and now we throw down our rod of mind-cure, and it will swallow up all the rest. DEATH. Though to millions of living men and women the word "death" is one of gloomy import, yet we hope not to make this chapter either gloomy or in any way disagreeable. What is death? Shelley says: "How wonderful is death! Death and his brother sleep; One pale as yonder waning moon, With lips of lurid blue; The other rosy as the morn, When throned on ocean's wave It blushes o'er the world — Vet both so passing wonderful." Death has been called the king of terrors. Pie has been set forth in picture books as a grim skeleton sent into the world to steal away the fair ones from earth. We have been taught to think that death is the natural and insatiable foe of creation. Death is as natural as life. We go one step further, and say 74 HEALING POWER OF MIND. it is more so. There is at all moments going on through organized matter a fierce struggle against life, and it is dead, dull matter that effects the mas- tery. We are not now speaking of mind, but of physical organization. Watch the life of a plant: it is endowed with a passing power over the elements, by which it makes use of the earth, the air, the rain and the sun. Take away the power of the plant to use these elements, and they at once turn upon it and it is withered and rotted by the very things which before nourished it. What, then, is the meaning of death as applied to man? What, also, is the meaning of life? To the physiologist and philosopher, the leading qualities which distinguish living things are reproduction, growth and waste. While man stands in vital rela- tion with the elements and things around him, we say the man is alive. When he has no longer any rela- tion to them, we say the man is dead. Probably one of the most complete definitions of life is, "the sum total of those functions which resist death." When man ceases to have connection with his surroundings, we at once pronounce him dead. So that death, in a general sense, means a dissolution of physical organ- ism and a destruction of form. But the word death is often used in another sense. It is used to express a state of torpor or indifference, or a want of certain DEATH. 75 qualities and things. Thus we speak of men as being "financially dead,"—"dead to all intellectual pleas- ures,"— "dead to all moral feeling and principle." By these expressions it is not meant to convey disso- lution, much less total destruction. Then we have such expressions as " She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth,"—"to be carnally-minded is death,"—"the wages of sin is death," and "dead in trespasses and sins." It is safe to affirm that if we live in constant dread of death there is something sadly wrong in our con- dition. An Indian prince, Tesso, one day riding in the forest, saw a herd of elk sporting. "See how happy," he said, "these browsing elks are! Why should not priests, lodged and fed comfortably in the temples, also amuse themselves?" Returning home, he imparted this reflection to the king. The king on the next day conferred the sovereignty on him, say- ing, "Prince, administer this empire for seven days; at the termination of that period I shall put thee to death." At the end of the seventh day the king inquired, "From what cause hast thou become so emaciated?" He answered, "From the horror of death." The monarch replied, "Live, my child, and be wise. Thou hast ceased to take recreation, saying to thyself 'in seven days I shall be put to death.' These priests in the temple incessantly meditate on 76 HEALING POWER OF MIND. death; how can they enter into healthful diversions?" This problem of death is what every man has to solve for himself. His neighbor cannot do it for him. Probably this is what the ancients intended to embody in the Sphinx. The Sphinx sat by the roadside pro- pounding a riddle to the traveler. If the traveler solved the riddle, he killed the Sphinx; if not, it killed him. Not long since we were in a small town in one of the Southern States, and engaged a man to drive us round to view the objects of interest in the neighbor- hood. The first place to which he took us was the cemetery, and he did not seem to be aware of any- thing that could interest us but that. So there are people in life whose sole place of interest is the grave- yard. These people suffer from trouble of one kind or another, and they would gladly be dismissed from the duties of life. But how will death help them? Must not man do his stint of work before he dies? Will the duties which he should perform be dismissed when a man dies, if he should not have performed them ? It is a wrong idea that some people have, that when they pass away they go from time into eternity. They are as much in eternity now as they ever will be. We do not enter eternity at death—we enter it at birth. And happy are they who, when the chano-e DEATH. 77 called death comes, can exclaim with the pious Adrian, "The world recedes; it disappears! Heaven opens on my eyes! My ears With sounds seraphic ring! Lord, lend your wings! I mount! I fly! Oh, grave! where is thy victory ? Oh, death! where is thy sting?" If we would be well and happy — if we would see and learn the fleeting, the mortal and perishable, from the immortal, then we must shut our eyes on the out- ward and dying universe, and open them to the inward and living universe. This is what may be called the interior insight, and to this there can be no death. So that we may say that the true mind-cure scientist believes in living and not in dying. There is no death only to that which emanates from the carnal mind—in its own beliefs it creates its own images, and to itself these are real. We are told that the carnal mind is at enmity with God; consequently this condition of things can only be destroyed by an understanding and application of truth. SCRIPTURAL ARGUMENTS. We have as yet taken no position for which we cannot find scriptural authority. The good Bishop Cumberland said: "I read my Bible as I read a book of facts, and I put upon those facts such an interpre- tation as an enlightened Christian conscience enables me to do." This is just the liberty we take for our- selves and concede to others. We are advancing no new doctrine, but only aiming to give force and vitality to an old one—a doctrine taught and prac- tised by the Master. It appears to be assumed by large masses of church members, that Chritsianity consists in passing a life of praise and prayer, and preaching against the moral evils of the world. Christ taught both by precept and example that one of the chief duties of life was to cure suffering and banish bodily disease. The ancient temples were at once church and hospital. The early Christians were healers, conceiving it to be their imperative duty to 80 HEALING POWER OF MIND. follow in Christ's footsteps, for they felt the truth of the saying, "Except ye have the spirit of Christ ye are none of his." We feel that it is one of the most damaging omissions in the lives of modern Christians that sufficient prominence has not been given to the healing of disease. And, further though they speak of faith as a necessary thing to spiritual salvation, yet they have lost sight of it as a word full of meaning, and having direct reference to the curing of all bodily disease. Christ constantly spoke of faith as the great and requisite in everything, especially to the curing of disease. He never advised his followers to have recourse to the use of drugs, for he did not use them himself, evidently not recognizing them as useful or necessary agents. Let us follow him through some of his journeys, and aim to learn lessons therefrom. We subjoin several passages from the scriptures, with their places of reference. When he had ended his sermon on the mount, wherein he spake as man never spake, the first act he performed was to cure a case of bodily infirmity: "When he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him. And behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be SCRIPTURAL ARGUMENTS. 81 thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed." Matt, viii, i, 2, 3. Here we take occasion to remark that this was an exhibition of the omnipotence of mind over matter. We desire to record not only cases of cure, but also to state events wherein he showed the power of mind over inanimate things. "And when he was entered into a ship, his disci- ples followed him. And behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves; but he was asleep. And his disci- ples came to him and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us; we perish. And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith! Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm." Matt, viii, 23 to 26. "And behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed; and Jesus, seeing their faith, said unto the sick of the pals}7, Son, be of good cheer; thy sins are forgiven thee." Matt, x, 2. In the above quotation it will be observed that sickness is spoken of as a sin. It will be necessary to bear this in mind, for it is by sin that diseases are in the world, and in proportion as we overcome sin we destroy disease; but we can never overcome sin by the use of drugs. 6 82 HEALING POWER OF MIND. Again, in Matt, ix, I to 29, it is recorded: "While he spake these things unto them, behold, there came a certain ruler, and worshipped him, say- ing, My daughter is even now dead: but come and lay thy hand upon her and she shall live. And Jesus arose and followed him, and so did his disciples. (And behold, a woman which was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind him, and touched the hem of his garment. For she said with- in herself, if I may touch his garment, I shall be whole. But Jesus turned him about, and when he saw her he said, Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour.) And when Jesus came into the ruler's house, and saw the minstrels and the people making a noise, he said unto them, Give place: for the maid is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn. But when the people were put forth, he went in and took her by the hand, and the maid arose. And the fame hereof went abroad into all the land. And when Jesus departed thence, two blind men followed him, crying, and saying, Thou son of David, have mercy on us. And when he was come into the house, the blind men came to him: and Jesus saith unto them, Believe ye that I am able to do this? They said unto him, Yea, Lord. Then SCRIPTURAL ARGUMENTS. 83 touched he their eyes, saying, According to your faith, be it unto you." The great lesson in the above to be learned, is that the power of faith in those possessing disease is some- times a necessary element. As the parable of the sower has a bearing upon the thorough success in some cases of the faith or mind-cure, we here quote it: "And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow; and when he sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured them up; some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, be- cause they had no deepness of earth: and when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had not root, they withered away. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them: but other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundred-fold, some sixty-fold, some thirty-fold. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear."—Matt, xiii, 3 to 9. Indeed, so necessary does faith seem to be in the case of some persons that it appears to be almost impossible to cure them without their own individual faith in the power of God to restore them to health. Hence, it is recorded of Christ's sojourn in a certain 84 HEALING POWER OF MIND. place: "And he did not many mighty works there, because of their unbelief." Below will be found several scriptural accounts of cases of cure: "And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man kneeling down to him, and saying, Lord, have mercy on my son; for he is lunatic, and sore vexed, for oft-times he falleth into the fire, and aft into the water. And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him. Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Bring him hither to me. And Jesus rebuked the devil, and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour. Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place, and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you."—Matt, xvii, 14 to 20. "And behold, two blind men sitting by the way- side, when they heard that Jesus passed by, cried out, saying, Have mercy on us, O Lord, thou son of David. And the multitude rebuked them, because they should hold their peace; but they cried the more, saying, Plave mercy on us, O Lord, thou son of SCRIPTURAL ARGUMENTS. 85 David. And Jesus stood still, and called them, and said, What will ye that I shall do unto you ? They say unto him, Lord, that our eyes may be opened. So Jesus had compassion on them, and touched their eyes: and immediately their eyes received sight, and they followed him."—Matt, xx, 30 to 34. "And behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself. And when Jesus saw her, he called her to him, and said unto her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirm- ity; and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God."—Luke xiv, 11 to 13. "And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off, and they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed."—Luke xvii, 12 to 14. "Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, and said, Where have ye laid him? They say unto him, Lord, 86 HEALING POWER OF MIND. come and see. Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, Be- hold how he loved him! And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died? Jesus therefore again groaning in himself, cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh, for he hath been dead four days. Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that if thou wouldst believe, thou shouldst see the glory of God? Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me: And I knew that thou hearest me always; but because of the people which stand by, I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. And when he had thus spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes; and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go."—St. John xi, 32 to 44. The above are some of the instances of cure by Christ. It might be here objected that though Christ effected these cures, yet that they were done by a SCRIPTURAL ARGUMENTS. 87 miraculous power. Now, we do not believe in mira- cles—that is, as the popular mind understands them. Many persons' ideas of miracles are that they are effects brought about by rescinding, cutting off or over-riding the laws of nature, which, after all, are the laws of God. But we say that God's laws never have been and never can be set aside or contravened. Those things recorded in the New Testament as miracles, and the thousands of things that have occurred since the days of Christ that are looked upon as miracles, are not miracles at all. They are the results of laws that are brought into play, of which the mass of people are ignorant. Christ never claimed to perform miracles. What he did was entirely in accordance with the laws of God. He did not even claim that he alone possessed the power to perform the things which he did; on the other hand, he said to his followers, "The works that I shall do ye shall do, and greater than these." Peter cured the lame man, Paul restored the cripple, and Christ's dis- ciples everywhere went about curing diseases. When they brought to him cases which they could not cure, he simply said to them, "O ye of little faith." In closing this chapter it will be pertinent to refer to a very common expression that falls from the lips of even good Christians. When sickness overtakes them, they speak of it as an affliction from God. In 88 HEALING POWER OF MIND. one sense this is right, and from another view it is entirely wrong. Sickness is an affliction from God because it is the result of a violation of God's laws. In Lamentations iii, 33: "For he doth not afflict will- ingly, nor grieve the children of men." David says: "No good thing will he withhold from them who walketh uprightly." He is able and willing to cure all sickness and sorrow in those who will seek him aright. In Ex. xxiii, 25: He promises that if the people will hearken unto his voice, he will take sick- ness away from the midst of them. In II Chronicles xvi, 12, it is written: "And Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great; yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians. And Asa slept with his fathers." Since the days of Asa, just how many have slept with their fathers because they "sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians," it is impossible to tell. Doubtless many millions. As many more have lived lives of suffering because their whole system has been poisoned with drugs. HEREDITY AND LONGEVITY. We need no statistics to prove to us the fearful prevalence of disease and suffering. In one shape or another they are to be found in every locality and in almost every house. We may justly assume that a vast deal of suffering might be prevented by the judicious use of means within the reach of every indi- vidual. It is certain that the diseases and appetites of parents are transmitted to their offspring. We con- stantly find the children of those who are addicted to the use of alcohol and tobacco manifestingr the same desire for these things as their progenitors. Though the habits, mind and disposition of the father have considerable influence in determining the physical, mental and moral condition of his offspring, yet they cannot be compared to the influences of the mother for good or for evil upon her children. These remarks are forcibly true of the period preceding the time when she becomes a mother. At these times some DO HEALING POWER OF MIND. mothers are in the habit of using vile drugs, and when this is not the case they often permit themselves to become violent in temper or they indulge in despond- ing moods. All these can be obviated by a knowl- edge and application of metaphysical science. When mothers understand and act upon this great truth, a speedy improvement will take place in the human race. Man is an animal, and more than an animal, and it is a shame to our civilization that the horse, the ox, the sheep and the hog have more care bestowed upon them in improving and perpetuating their species than man. Montaigne, in his essay on the "Resemblance of Children to their Fathers," says "there is a certain sort of crafty humility that springs from presumption, as this, for example: that we confess our ignorance in many things, and are so courteous as to acknowledge that there are in works of nature some qualities and conditions that are imperceptible to us, and of which our understanding cannot discern the means and causes; by which honest declaration we hope to obtain that people shall also believe us of those that we say we do understand. We need not trouble our- selves to seek out miracles and strange difficulties; methinks there are such incomprehensible wonders amongst the things that we ordinarily see as surpass all difficulties of miracles." In his essay he goes on HEREDITY AND LONGEVITY. 1)1 and applies these remarks to inherited peculiarities of character, figure, constitution and habits. Many things in nature can be referred to law, and we can readily prophecy with a degree of certainty as to what will occur, and sometimes tell the "how" of their occurrence. But in the matter of heredity this is not possible. However, the lesson is forced upon us that traits are inherited, and in some cases make their appearance after the lapse of two or three gen- erations. Sometimes they pertain to the configura- tion of the body; at other times to a peculiarity of the countenance; while in many instances it is matters of disposition alone that are conspicuous. One or two of these may be mentioned. Montaigne states that in the family of Lepidus, at Rome, there were three, not successively, but by intervals, that were born with the same eye—covered with a cartilage. In Greece there was a family almost every member of which had the crown of the head pointed like a lance-head; all whose heads were not so formed being regarded as illegitimate. Some years ago there was on exhibi- tion in Europe a father and son, named Jeftichjew, whose faces were so covered with hair as to give them the appearance of Skye terriers; the fur was as soft and as white as the fur of the Angora cat. A well authenticated case is that of a family in England, named Lambert. The peculiarity affecting this 92 HEALING POWER OF MIND. family appeared first in the person of Edward Lam- bert, whose whole body, except the face, the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet, was covered with a sort of shell, consisting of horny excrescences. He was the father of six children, all of whom, as soon as they had reached the age of six weeks, presented the same peculiarity. Only one of them lived; he mar- ried, and transmitted the peculiarity to all his sons. For five generations all the male members of the family were distinguished by the horny excrescences which had adorned the body of Edward Lambert. There are many other cases of inherited physical peculiarities which could be given, but the above instances will be found sufficient for the purposes of this work. The hereditary transmission of qualities will be generally admitted, whether they are physical, mental or moral; and although wise and learned fathers do not always possess wise and learned children, still there can be no doubt of the transmission of intellect- ual forces and tendencies. If the ancestry of our poets, historians, scientists and warriors could be traced, we should find enough to convince us that they possessed special powers sufficient to account for the transcendant powers in their offspring. In this connection it will be well for our temper- ance friends to learn a lesson which, to some extent, HEREDITY AND LONGEVITY. 93 will afford them argument' against the use of stimu- lating drinks by parents. Dr. Howe says: "The children of drunkards are deficient in bodily and vital energy, and are predisposed by their very organiza- tion to have a craving for alcoholic stimulants. If they pursue the course of their fathers, which they have more temptation to follow and less power to avoid than the children of the temperate, they add to their hereditary weakness and increase the tendency to idiocy or insanity in their constitution, and this they leave to their children after them." A sermon was preached by Robert Collyer, of Chicago, entitled "The Thorn in the Flesh," from which we make the following extract: "In the far- reaching influences that go to every life, and away backward as certainly as forward, children are some- times born with appetites fatally strong in their nature. As the}7 grow up the appetite grows with them, and speedily becomes a master, the master or tyrant, and by the time he arrives at manhood the man is a slave. I heard a man say that for eight-and- twenty years the soul within him had to stand like an unsleeping sentinel, guarding his appetite for strong drink. To be a man at last, under such a disadvan- tage, not to mention a saint, is as fine a piece of grace as can well be seen. There is no doctrine that demands a larger vision than this of the depravity of 94 HEALING POWER OF MIND. human nature." Let the reader just think of this. A man for twenty-eight years beset by a demon, and yet not fall! Has the preacher overdrawn his pic- ture? We do not want to discuss the total depravity doctrine, but we affirm that there was no necessity for that long besetment of temptation. Metaphysical science says, "Resist the devil and he will flee from you." Yea, the devil of appetite for strong drink. We have known of cases cured, and we further affirm that no outward circumstances without internal cure will prove effective. So that in the temperance reform, metaphysical science is bound to play an important part. The question has often been discussed as to the length of the term, if any, that Divine Providence has affixed to the duration of human life. The ex- pression, (Gen. vi, 3), "His days shall be an hundred and twenty years," has been estimated by some to mean that this should be the extreme duration of life; others have thought that it meant the average. It is certain that the duration of life varies in different ages. Abraham lived one hundred and five years. Joshua died at one hundred and ten. When David wrote his Psalms, eighty years was considered an extraordinary age. In the 90th Psalm, verse 10, it is recorded; "The days of our years are three-score HEREDITY AND LONGEVITY. 95 years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be four-score years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow." However, there are many cases in our times where persons have attained to a greater age than this, and have passed their aged days in comfort and peace. How long man, under the most favorable circumstances, was intended to live, is a matter partly of observation and partly of conjecture. A distin- guished French scientist, P. Flourens, says: "The normal duration of human life may be treated in two ways, as Haller and Buff on have done—historically or physiologically. They sought historically what the natural, ordinary, and normal term of the life of man is, and they placed it between ninety and a hundred years. They afterwards sought, still histor- ically, to learn what is the extreme limit of human life, and Haller has placed it at a little less than two centuries. Buffon thought that the total duration of life could be estimated by the period of growth." Now, if we take the limit of the complete growth in man and the following named animals to be as follows, we may make some intelligent approxima- tion as to the natural duration of life: This completion takes place—■ DURATION OK LIFE. In the camel at 8 years, About 40 year- u u horse " 5 u 25 « u u ox " 4 u 20 " u u dog " 3 u 10 to 12 " a u cat " 18 mon ths 9 to 10 " 96 HEALING POWER OF MIND. Man is considered to be about twenty years in Growing;. If from the above table we conclude that animals live five times as long as their period of growth, then may we not conclude that man will live five times his period of growth, which would make the duration of human life one hundred years. But whether this is so or not, is not so much a matter of importance as the manner in which human beings lead their lives. A long life is not so much to be desired as a life of usefulness. Burke says: "Old age, when it has been attained in the path of wisdom and virtue, claims universal honor and respect." An old age of that kind is to be desired, but there are cases where persons have lived long whose career has been one continued course of selfishness. Others have had their declining years marred and made miserable by diseases and pains which might have been prevented. Give us health, usefulness and long life. The metaphysical healer will bestow his time and talent not alone in curing diseases, but in prevent- ing them he will prevent the impairment of health and the disturbing of the affections and the intellect. He will, also, as opportunity may occur, instil into the minds of those with whom he comes in contact, such ideas as will improve them spiritually, and thus lead them nearer to God. Wealth is a good thing to have, but too many sacrifice their lives and every HEREDITY AND LONGEVITY. 1)7 noble feeling of manhood to obtain it. Their cry has been, gold! gold! " Bright and yellow, hard and cold; Molten, graven, hammered and rolled; Heavy to get and light to hold; Hoarded, bartered, bought and sold; Stolen, borrowed, squandered doled; Spurned by the young, but hugged by the old; To the very verge of the churchyard mould." We must not lose sight of the fact that when we speak of longevity and its diseases, that mental and moral diseases are often as dangerous, and sometimes more so, than the so-called physical diseases. In no way is this more strikingly exhibited than in the insane craving for money which some aged persons display up to the edge of the grave. The habit of grasping and hoarding has become so strong upon them that they appear powerless to resist it. Of such souls we should say that they have wandered far from their Maker, and have missed the true object and aims of life. They neither love their fellow men nor their God. They are blind, torpid, and are neither friends, lovers nor citizens of the world, and can have no sympathy with mankind. They know nothing of human nor divine love. How admonishing in this connection are the words of Henry More: 7 98 HEALING POWER OF MIND. " But souls that of his own good life partake, He loves as his own self; dear as his eye They are to Him; He'll never them forsake: When they shall die, then God himself shall die: They live, they live in blest eternity." Metaphysical science says, desire to live long, but also desire to live well. Good actions are of more importance than longevity, but if we live in accord- ance with God's laws, both are attainable. SPIRITUALISM. The mind-cure is the most spiritual of all sciences and systems. We have no desire to enter into a con- troversy with that large body of citizens calling them- selves Spiritualists. We only wish to set ourselves right with them and others by stating that we neither practice clairvoyance nor consult the spirits of the departed when performing our cures. We rely upon the Great Infinite Spirit, God, alone for aid. We ignore alike drugs, magnetism, clairvoyance and the consultation of spirits. We do not deny that some of these things may afford temporary relief, but we doubt their efficacy in effecting permanent cures. We take the position that for effectual cures of disease we must draw from the Divine Fountain of our being, and this we can only do by placing ourselves in har- mony with God. It is only by taking this position that we can hope to succeed. While on this earth we are as much spirits as those who have gone beyond 100 HEALING POWER OF MIND. the veil. And Spiritualists tell us that the disem- bodied spirits carry with them the imperfections and errors acquired in this life, and that there as here, are many unhappy, inharmonious spirits. Of what use, then, is it to call for aid upon those who are like our- selves? In this life, if we will, we can acquire the knowledge which, by the help of Him "from whom cometh every good and perfect gift," is equal to the cure of all sickness, sin and disease. Let us, then, seek this knowledge—seek it earnestly, in prayer, in faith, in singleness of heart. Christ said, "If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light." We must neither seek nor work doubtingly, but seek with unclouded vision and an eye single to the discov- ery of truth as it is, and seeking we shall find, and like the poor woman mentioned in Scripture, we shall be made whole. We recognize no benefit from the mere contact of the hand, for this would be an admission that there was a curative property in matter. What magnetism is, we know not. By some it is termed a fluid, and by others an essence of mind. Certain it is that it is not mind itself. Neither do we pretend to know what mind is, and it may be we shall never know. There appears to be a reason why we should not have it in our power to define mind. Nothing possesses the power of self-analyzation. A tree, a drop of water, a SPIRITUALISM. 101 grain of sand, cannot comprehend nor analyze them- selves. These are all forms of matter, and matter cannot investigate nor comprehend itself. Mind investigates matter because it is outside and inde- pendent of it. But mind cannot investigate its own essence; all it can do is to analyze, point out and name its powers and effects. Again, many Spiritualists claim to have communi- cations from doctors in the spirit world, in which the}7 recommend the use of drugs for effecting cures. Now, as we entirely ignore the use of drugs, of what use would it be to us to call upon these spiritual doc- tors? We have quite a sufficient number of M.D.'s of that stripe in this sphere of existence without seek- ing to call back those who have left their nostrums on earth. It has become common to talk of the mind-cure as something akin to psychology or mediumship. If that eminent seer, Swedenborg, can be relied on, we have little to hope from the spirits in the other life, either in the way of healing, spiritual enlightenment or moral progress. In his Diary he says that "spirits narrate things wholly false, and lie. When spirits begin to speak with men, care should be taken not to believe them; for almost everything they say is made up by them, and they lie. They love to feign. What- ever ma}7 be the topic spoken of, they think they 102 HEALING POWER OF MIND. know it, and form different opinions about it, alto- gether as if they knew; and if man then listens and believes, they insist, and in various ways deceive and seduce." We give this merely as Swedenborg's tes- timony as to the source of his information. Many Spiritualists are in the habit of calling Andrew Jackson Davis a medium. He denies this. For proof of this, the reader is referred to "Nature's Divine Revelations," p. 44, and to "Magic Staff," pp. 308-312. He claims that he can put himself in com- munication with the intelligence and wisdom of the ages; that he is nourished by unfailing fountains of knowledge, and draws from thence wisdom at his will. While in the case of Swedenborg, his claim is that he receives his information and instruction directly from the Lord. Here are the testimonies of two of the most remarkable men of modern days, each towering above the mass of men as the Himalayas tower above the earth, each claiming his own peculiar source of inspiration. We shall leave it to the adherents of the respective parties to decide upon the genuineness of these claims. But if Swedenborg received informa- tion from the Lord, why should not other men, and all men according to their spiritual condition? Plas God selected only a few men in thousands of years to make his desires and ways known to his children? He is unchangeable and no respecter of persons. If SPIRITUALISM. 103 A. J. Davis can drink from unfailing fountains of wis- dom, are those fountains sealed to every one except Mr. Davis? Is it not right and reasonable to suppose that every one can drink thereat, receiving according to his own capacity of receptivity? If the Lord sup- plies wisdom to Swedenborg, and Davis can go to fountains or reservoirs for unmeasured knowledge, and have no need of consulting disembodied spirits, why cannot the teacher and believer in mind-cure go to the Great Infinite Spirit or the Great Infinite Foun- tain for their supply of health or their power to ban- ish disease? At least there appears to be no use or need for calling in the aid of individual spirits from another sphere. If God is the God of all knowledge, so is He the God of health. If ignorance is the enemy of God, so is disease; and for power and knowledge to banish them both, we should go direct to the Great Infinite Source. EFFICACY OF PRAYER. What is prayer? "It is the heart's sincere desire, uttered or unexpressed." In view of all that we have previously advanced, how much can we reasonably hope from the employment of prayer? On this sub- ject mankind can be readily divided into two classes, namely, those who expect too much from praying, and those who flatly deny its utility. The monks of old sang, Laborare est orare—" To labor is to pray." This is worthy to be remembered by those who would trust everything to prayer. There are good prayers, and there are vain, foolish, and even mali- cious prayers. The time has come when it behooves our churches to look a little more closely than they have hitherto done at the uses and power of prayer. If there is any one time more than another that it is wrong to take God's name in vain, it is when men pray to Him simply to have their own selfish ends answered, or that they may receive some benefit or 106 HEALING POWER OF MIND. blessing which they are too indolent to labor for. Many, very many prayers are simpl}7 utterances of conventional blasphemy. Two monarchs go to war, both believing in the same God, and they cause prayers to be said in all of their respective churches for the success of their respective arms. Are these people in a true sense praying to God at all? Are they not selfishly and savagely ejaculating one against the other? Two adjoining farmers pray to God; one wants dry weather and the other rain. Each wants his selfish ends answered without regard to the other's welfare. Are not all such prayers better left unsaid? Nay, are they not wicked prayers? What these people really need is a truer knowledge of their own relations and duties — and higher, nobler and grander conceptions of Almighty God. The Master told us to pray to the Father in these words: "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Right here, those who do not believe in prayer will say: "But will not God do His will without our praying to him?" We answer that God and the Universe will do that which is right and proper for us when we supplicate aright. Prayer alone is a use- less thing, but prayer with work in the right direction is a combination of power that nothing can resist. There is not a man on earth who does not, at some time or other, pray. An inspiration is a prayer; and EFFICACY OF PRAYER. 107 there never yet was a man who aspired to, and prayed for, a good and needed thing that was not drawn nearer to that goodness, and its attainment thereby made more easy. Let the inebriate pray fervently and earnestly to become a sober man, and he will soon find his efforts and work in the direction of his prayer. Let a false, useless, worthless man truly pray to become manly, and true, and good, and his prayer will act like a trumpet calling his energies to arm and to battle. So that in these directions prayer1 is of incalculable benefit. But we do not limit its uses to this one power. May not a true prayer be an appeal to a law, or to the invoking of a law? We know not. We find that our own intense desires are often communicated to other minds, even without our uttering a word. We know not by what process this is done, but we know it to be a fact. And there are millions of well attested facts in existence showing that prayers have brought forth fruit. Just how far the power of prayer extends, and the effort, which is something different, begins, we cannot tell. But we know that there are two distinct forces, though we cannot draw the line of demarcation; just as we know that there are distinct things in hill and valley, though we cannot draw the line between them. Let no man scoff at prayer; he may sometimes say, "I do not know enough to believe, and I do not know 108 HEALING POWER OF MIND. enough to ridicule." So far as prayer has influence in the mind-cure, it may, for aught we know, serve to concentrate and direct the needed curative force. But we cannot hope for success until we acquire a knowledge of God's laws and how to apply them. Let us never forget that all good work is a good prayer. There are cases where mere words are but a mockery, and in these cases good deeds are the only effective prayers. A prayer offered for a hungry, famishing man would not supply his wants. What he would need would be the prayer of the Good Samaritan. " Give him a lift, don't kneel in prayer, Nor moralize with his despair; The man is down, and his great need, Is ready help, not prayer or creed. 'Tis time when the wounds are washed and healed, That the inward motive be revealed; But now, whate'er the spirit be, Mere words are but a mockery. One grain of aid just now is more To him than tomes of saintly lore; Pray, if you must, within your heart, But give him a lift, give him a start. The world is full of good advice, Of prayers, and praise and preaching nice; But the generous souls who aid mankind, Are scarce as gold and hard to find. EFFICACY OF PRAYER. 109 Give like a Christian, speak in deeds, A noble life's the best of creeds, And he shall wear a royal crown Who gives them a lift when they are down." Love, prayer, action, are the three graces that must go hand in hand on the road of humanity. Each left alone will effect little or nothing. When each is genuine, it will link itself to the others. These constitute the hope, the happiness, and the progress of the human race, Praying without ceasing is Christianity, or a con- tinued working in union with God. The unchange- able, unerring principle, God, who is the same yester- day, today and forever, cannot be changed or influ- enced in the least by a mortal sense of man's needs. No amount of eloquence could change that which is unchangeable, make right more than right, or Infinite Wisdom wiser. Christianity makes one better by purifying the erring mind; it is the right thought which brings forth the right act. Not prayer of words, but of works; in other words, the understanding of God is the pure fountain wherewith to purify the streams and destroy error, sin, sickness and death. Praying God to forgive our sins would be like asking the principle of mathematics to work out a problem for us, or to forgive our mistakes. Principle neither forgives nor 110 HEALING POWER OF MIND. punishes; it is stationary and unchangeable. We must reach it with thoughts, not words; and through the understanding of it, destroy error or " cease to do evil and learn to do well." We pray to God to for- give what should be destroyed; we ask Him to remember us, and He forgets nothing. We ask Infinite Wisdom to care for finite senses and to spirit- ualize mortality. Admitting God Omnipotent, Un- changeable Intelligence, and praying to Him to do this, or to do that, would be limiting His power, and a contradiction; it would be a "house divided against itself." God is Omnipotent, and cannot be overcome by food, baths, or change of temperature. Asking God to do our work is asking amiss, and we receive not. " Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he reap also." God is ever present, and the blessings of truth are free to all. If we desire them and put in practice our desire, we shall receive them. James understood this when he said, " I will show thee my faith by my works." The only acceptable prayer is to do right so far as we understand the right, and to walk in the light so far as we receive it. A good motive, guided by the thought in the understanding of God, brings forth good works, and is faith with works; it destroys sin and sickness. All sin is thought before it is an act, therefore EFFICACY OF PRAYER. Ill mind is the criminal. Instead of asking God to for- give sin and heal the sick, we should seek the under- standing of God, Truth, Life and Love, and this pure fountain will cleanse the mind and destroy all error. The incorrect views entertained of God hide the understanding. Heaven, eternal harmony, can never be reached by prayer of words. "Faith," (or Under- standing) the Scriptures declare to be, "the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen." Holding the unreal as reality is heaping wrath upon ourselves, or furnishing fuel for the flames. Having our thoughts in union with God on all that is right and good, and opposed to all that is wrong, our body, governed by this mind, could not be sick. Understanding God to be omnipotent, we should place no faith in drugs, neither pray to Almighty God to heal us, and act against our prayer by taking medicine, denying in practice what we admit in statement, and showing that we hold drugs superior to God. Prayer of words will become obso- lete, and thoughts and works more than words, as we understand God better. Some have asked me, " What are sins against God's laws? " I shall say, Learn the commandments. The first is, " Thou shalt have no other God before me." The second is, "Love thy neighbor as thyself." 112 HEALING POWER OF MIND. In these two commandments all others are briefly comprehended; and acknowledge but one God, and the spiritual creation and the universe. In the mind-cure system we do not go to the one suffering; from his affected terrible condition with a drug or theological fear. We depend upon that which is greater than either, as we regard both as only the results of mortal or undeveloped reasoning. We depend upon mind in its entirety, and not upon any deductions or beliefs. We neither hold our patient's hope in drugs or in any more religious assur- ance, which only a few believe in, but we hold it in the clear understanding, the knowledge of true being: which knowledge or attainment is our own health or salvation, and then becomes theirs also by the inter- blending of mind. The people are not correctly taught by the clergy or by the doctors. These teachers, as well as the people, are all in the material. They are not spiritual. They believe very generally in matter and but little in mind. You cannot get into the new unless you can get out of the old. To take hold nearly always means first to let go. Peter would never have walked on the water if he had not let go the boat. While he held to it he sunk in the water; when he let go, then he walked on the water. Everything that is is the result and property of mind. You cannot name EFFICACY OF PRAYER. 113 anything outside of mind or separate from it; it is mind always that feels and suffers. Mere matter is void of life, hence void of feeling; then it is not mat- ter that suffers or is sick. Feeling is in life only; therefore all feeling is in mind. Then, as sickness is always mental, or in mind, the remedy surely must be mental, or mind. Thus you medicine doctors and medicine takers ought to see the fallacy of giving drugs to mind. 8 \ INSTRUCTION TO MOTHERS. The subject of maternity is one of such transcend- ent importance, not only to the parent, but to the entire race, that it seems marvelous that more has not been written about it. It is true there are difficulties surrounding the treatment of the subject, but no false modesty should teach us to ignore it entirely. Chil- dren have rights as well as adults, and have they not a right to sound and healthy constitutions? How many poor children are ushered into the world whose lives, from the cradle to the grave, are one continued journey of sorrow and pain. Flerbert Spencer, in his Treatise on Education, says: "Seriously, is it not an astonishing fact, that though on the treatment of off- spring depend their lives or deaths and their moral welfare or ruin, yet not a word of instruction on the treatment of offspring is ever given to those who will hereafter be parents? Is it not monstrous that the fate of a new generation should be left to the chances 116 HEALING POWER OF MIND. of unreasoning custom, impulse or fancy, joined with the suggestions of ignorant nurses and the prejudiced counsel of grandmothers? If a merchant commenced business without any knowledge of arithmetic and book-keeping, we should exclaim at his folly and look for disastrous consequences. Or if before studying anatomy, a man set up as a surgical operator, we should wonder at his audacity and pity his patients. But that parents should begin the difficult task of rearing children without ever having given a thought to the principles—physical, moral or intellectual— which ought to guide them, excites neither surprise at the actors nor pity for their victims. * * * Here are the indisputable facts: that the development of children in mind and body rigorously obeys certain laws that, unless conformed to by parents, death is inevitable; that unless they are in a great degree con- formed to, there must result serious physical and mental defects; and that only when they are com- pletely conformed to can a perfect maturity be reached. Judge, then, whether all who may one day be parents should not strive with some anxiety to learn what those laws are." It is a lamentable fact that there is a decrease of healthy maternity among American women, and in some quarters there is an increase of the horrible practice of abortion. These evils must not be laid INSTRUCTION TO MOTHERS. 117 entirely at the door of woman, for man is in part their instigator. We want to spread knowledge and create a healthy sentiment on this subject. Even at the expense of not having such fine horses, expert dogs, and fat pigs, we want a stronger, healthier, better class of children. If one or the other must be neglected, we say let the pigs go. Children are brought into the world inheriting the defects, physical and mental, of their parents. If these evils can be prevented, is it not our imperative duty to do it? We shall thereby save the world an immense amount of misery, and also add to the future greatness of man- kind. There is not a position in the world so sacred as that of being a mother. It involves duties of the very highest order, and it should be remembered that the child is not the exclusive property of its parents, for as well as belonging to them, it belongs to its country and to its God. It is in the power of the mother, to a very large extent, to mold and make the character of her offspring. Especially is this true of pre-natal condition. At these times, by a wise direc- tion of her own thoughts and will, guided by a thor- ough knowledge of metaphysical science, she can in a great degree determine the disposition of her child. Fathers, too, should aim at these periods to keep the mother in the happiest and calmest frame of mind. Violent fits of anger, and indeed excitement of every 118 HEALING POWER OF MIND. kind, should be avoided. Then in after years, as soon as reason has sufficiently dawned upon the mind, the child should be taught to conquer and treat itself. We have known quite young children to acquire suffi- cient control over themselves as to be able to con- quer pain. There is no study that is more important to children than the mind-cure. A number of those infantile diseases, such as croup, measles, and the like, when not prevented can be very much lessened in their effects and pains, by the parent and child bring- ing into exercise the power which the mind has over the body. There are many cases where the dangerous disease of diphtheria has been rendered comparatively harmless by this mental application. Mothers should be taught to know the influence that mind has over matter, and then, for the sake of their children, they should use that knowledge. What a race of superior beings might be produced if mothers would use the power which God has put in their hands. Instead of having wives and mothers in a true sense, society is filled with women who apparently care for nothing more than to make them- selves milliners' blocks and objects of fashion and admiration for the gaping crowd. These remarks are not intended to disparage taste in dress, nor care for the same; but we desire to lead women, especially mothers, to higher aims in life, and point them to duties that are of lasting and eternal importance. DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES. While in San Francisco, California, engaged in effecting cures and teaching the science of metaphysi- cal healing, in the summer of 1884, the Evening Bulletin, a paper that for respectability and thought was considered to occupy a leading position among the journals of that coast, made some strictures on the healing method. We were invited to make a brief statement of our views and claims for publica- tion in that paper. This we did, and as readers like to see both sides of the question discussed, we print the communication and the editor's answer, both appearing in the same issue: "FAITH CURE AND MIND CURE. " Editor Bulletin:—In your last Friday's issue appeared an article under the above heading, which though it contained some truths, yet gave but an imperfect outline of the position and claims of this 120 HEALING POWER OF MIND. new science. As I have had considerable practice both as a healer and teacher in metaphysical science, or as it is popularly called, " the mind cure," I venture to ask for space in your journal to set forth what we believe, and also what we claim to be able to perform. " First—We contend that disease, whatever form it may assume, is mental and not physical; in other words, that all diseases are but effects, having their origin in the regions of mind and not of matter. This will seem to persons of the old school a radical position to take, and yet a careful observation of the writings of all practitioners reveals the fact that they have always recognized while administering their drugs, that after all, the cheerfulness, the hope, the faith, or to put it tersely, the mind of the patients, is the great factor in restoring them to health. What is this but admitting that despondency, dread, apprehen- sion and fear are the great products of disease? " Second—We ignore drugs in whatever form administered as perfectly worthless curative agents. All outward agents of whatever nature, although they may for a time appear to cure disease, yet in the end prove worthless. They are delusions and snares. They for a time cover up diseases, which reappear in their first or some other form. While many persons DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES. 121 are compelled by facts to admit that cures have been effected by our method, they say that the diseases so cured are always what medical men call of a nervous kind. This is not true. We recognize no limit, and acknowledge no classification. " Third—We believe in one eternal and unchange- able God, who is the same today, yesterday and for- ever. From Him cometh every good and perfect gift—even the gift of healing of disease. The early Christians always practiced the gifts of healing—and declared that those gifts came from God. Christians of today, of whatever sect, will not dare to deny that Christ and his followers possessed and practiced the power of healing, but they seem disposed to doubt whether these powers have descended to modern times. We answer these doubts by an appeal to facts to be found in San Francisco and elsewhere. We recognize no permanent curative agent except the universal mind of God. The better we live, the closer becomes our relation to God, and we can draw from this universal fountain the power which, if applied by knowledge, is equal to the curing of "all the ills which flesh is heir to." We hear much in these days of the power of magnetism and the influence which departed spirits have upon the human organism. Whatever powers these may have, we know that they 122 HEALING POWER OF MIND. are of a limited and even doubtful character. All human beings are spirits, and as such can hold com- munion with the Infinite Spirit, and need not depend upon departed friends to do the work in this mundane sphere which they can do themselves. "Fourth—As all persons can work out problems in mathematics when they understand the principles, so any one can produce harmony in music by ruling out the discord. So also can any one bring health and harmony into their lives when they understand God's laws, and how to apply them. Disease is a discord, an error, and we recognize no power beneath the Divine to remove it. When this is recognized and acted upon, the problem of disease or discord in God's children will be solved, and harmony, health and hap- piness will reign upon the earth. "In penning this I am conscious that I may expose myself to the ridicule of some and to the skepticism of others. These things have always been the herit- age of those who have dared to step aside from the beaten track, but Divine power and the world of fact will in the end win them over. We feel with the old thinkers "that one, with God, is a majority." God layeth His hand on slowly, but His power is irresisti- ble. I regret that I cannot more fully express myself, DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES. 123 but as my space must necessarily be limited in a jour- nal that is published in so many public interests, I subscribe myself, Respectfully, "Julia Anderson Root." The learned editor replied as follows: "the gift of healing. "An editorial which appeared in this paper some days ago on faith and mind cures has elicited a reply, which appears in another column. Of course the writer does not agree with the views expressed in this journal. It is presumed that there is such a thing as the philosophy of disease, including, of course, remedial agents. But the diagnosis which our correspondent gives is not consistent with any philosophy which has thus far been recognized in the world. It is simply that all diseases originate in the mind. They are mere discords of the soul, to be cured by a direct interposition of Providence, which amounts to a miraculous intervention applied to per- sonal healing. This theory discards all secondary agents, such as drugs and the help of skilled physi- cians who know minutely the whole human anatomy, and who have had the advantage of the best medical training which the world affords. It relegates the healing art to a class of persons who ignore the 124 healing power of mind. physical system both from policy and because they actually know nothing about it, and who prefer, for their own conscience, to locate all diseases of the mind, and to call for Divine assistance in removing them, counting human skill as nothing. "Now, there is a class of diseases which possibly can be treated in this way with some benefit to the patient. In some cases the disease is nothing more than a delusion. There is a theory that the majority of the people are not sane on all subjects. There is some degree of abnormalism. That, however, is a fanciful theory, founded on nothing more than a class of mental phenomena which have a close connection with bodily infirmities. To say that the victim of neuralgia or dyspepsia, or of a consuming fever, or of the small-pox, has no physical disease, that his ail- ments are simply the result of a disease in his mind, or a disease which is to be located there, is simply absurd. The skeptic has a good right to call at once for a demonstration. The individual whose mind is in a perfectly healthy condition is prostrated with a fever or some actual disease, of course his mind, as a consequence, is affected by his bodily condition. But that is a secondary consideration. The mind-cure in all this class of cases is perfectly hopeless. The disease is not there. It is not a discord in the mind of the patient, but it is a poison DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES. 125 in his physical system. That cannot be removed by laying on of hands, nor by any degree of faith in an unseen power. There never has been a well authenticated case in modern times where a patient was cured in the last stages of consumption by any medication of his mind, such as is involved in the faith-cure theory—not a single instance where a malignant cancer has been cured by faiath, or crushed limb restored. "Now, there is a class of diseases, partly fictitious and partly real, which are limited to the nervous system and the mind of the victim. If the individual is under a delusion that something ails him, that is the disease. No doubt there are thousands in this condition. The world is full of delusions. What is needful in such cases is to remove the delusion, and if it can be removed by another delusion, perhaps the end justifies the means. It might better accord with the truth to tell the patient that nothing ails him. But in a morbid condition of mind that will not always do. Old Dr. Abernethy and other God- fearing physicians would have told such patients that nothing under the heavens ailed them, and that their chief need was to get out in the bracing atmosphere, and take more cheerful views of life. "Just here is room for the play of all sorts of quackery. How many cures have been effected by 126 HEALING POWER OF MIND. administering bread pills? That was an old applica- tion of the faith cure. The patient believed that there was great virtue in the medicine and so got well—that is, escaped from his delusion. In every insane asylum the skillful physician knows that a majority of his patients are suffering from delusions which are brought on by a bad condition of the phys- ical system. He knows just how far he can go with his mind cure; but he knows well enough that he cannot reach that ultimatum without first searching for disease in the physical system and applying his remedies there. "On the theory which our correspondent promul- gates, what a beneficent work might be wrought in these asylums by the faith-cure practice! There are a thousand people in a single institution, all under some sort of a delusion. Once remove this and the patient is well. It is only a discord in the mind! No doubt, any form of mental delusion is in the direction of insanity. It is a symptom of unsound mentality. If the symptoms progress far enough a case of insanity is recorded. But in a majority of such cases some well-chosen remedial agent, such as a change of climate, travel, medicine wisely administered, is all that is needful for the complaining party. And some- times to be told bluntly that there is no serious thing the matter, is a potent remedy. DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES. 127 " The province of faith cure and mind cure we con- ceive to be to exorcise from the mind of the patient his delusions. The taint of mental abnormalism is now so wide-spread that there is room for remedies included in faith cure and mind cure. These reme- dies cannot be applied to physical ills in any other than an indirect way. When it is perceived that the mind is acting unfavorably upon the body, a restora- tion of the one will have a beneficial influence on the other. This class of nervous diseases come in time to affect the body, producing insomnia, low spirits, loss of tone and vitality. Of course if the mind can be brought into a healthy condition, the result will go a long way toward restoring a healthy tone to the physical system. But when one is run over by a loco- motive and his legs are mashed to a jelly, the faith cure must be counted out. If anything saves him it will be the surgeon's knife and good nursing. When a victim is overtaken by the yellow fever and the poison is in all his veins, or the cholera which col- lapses his stomach, the trouble is not primarily in his mind. It is absurd to refer this disease to any such source, and it would be arrant quackery to depend upon the expedients recognized as belonging to the faith or mind cure. In the latter class of remedies there is room for the occult and the mysterious. To this day great dependence is placed upon the incanta- 128 HEALING POWER OF MIND. tions and pow-wow of medicine men among uncivil- ized and half-civilized people. But among enlight- ened people it is supposed that such remedies are discarded; or they only furnish fresh illustrations of the delusions which have not yet been banished from the world." We give the above reply by the editor of the Evening Bulletin because it so well illustrates the fallacies and errors into which so many fall, and the misunderstanding of the words "mind-cure." "There is nothing the matter with my mind," say many patients, who evidently have no more comprehension of the science or the real meaning of "mind-cure" than the editor above quoted; and yet he assumes to know it all, and without serious thought or considera- tion, jumps at conclusions (which are wholly errone- N ous), and from that false standpoint undertakes to lay down the law and constitutes himself the judge of what can and cannot be done by the application of a science of which he is entirely ignorant. Of course the absurdity and falsity of his premises and conclu- sions need not to be pointed out to those "in the understanding," but to those "still in darkness" some of his assertions may seem fairly plausible. But, when we say that disease originates in the mind, we do not mean that it in all cases orig- DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES. 129 inates in the mind of the patient or particular person suffering from disease, but that it had its origin some time or other in the error, mistake or discord of mortal mind. Man is mysteriously connected men- tally with his fellows. It was Pythagoras who said that if there is one poor suffering soul in this universe, all other souls will be affected until that suffering soul is restored to health. The error, the discord of one is the error and discord of the whole, liable to be acted upon by fear and other agents, and made manifest as circumstances may dictate. The editor is further in error when he says that neuralgia, dyspepsia, or consuming fever cannot be cured by this method. We recognize.no limit to this power when properly applied. Of course we do not ignore the necessity of conditions. Christ himself recognized the necessity of conditions in effecting cures. What does it mean when it is stated: "And he could do no mighty works there because of their unbelief"? Here was an admission that belief or faith was a necessary element to success in those particular cases. If a man should come to us with a disease and obstinately refuse to believe that we could cure him, or strongly doubted that we had any power whatever to do him any good, these fears and doubts would go a long way in keeping him in his diseased condition. But with the perfect knowledge in the mind of the opera- 9 130 HEALING POWER OF MIND. tor, and a perfect faith in the mind of the patient, we recognize no limit to the cure of any disease. For the truth of this we appeal to facts, some of which will be found elsewhere in this work. We do not desire to follow the learned editor through all his objections and quasi-objections. What he urges mainly against the mind-cure can be urged against cures by any method or process whatever. PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. When we began to investigate the claims of this science, we did so with the determination of making our researches thorough. We had previously investi- gated a number of the isms of the day, but we could find no resting place, and were mentally starving for something to believe in and feed upon. The more we studied and thought, the more brightly the light dawned upon us, and we soon found that the mind- cure was capable of doing all that its most ardent advocates claimed for it. About the first practical truth that we had of its efficacy was when we were cured of diphtheria in about twenty minutes by a lady who had had some experience in the science. We then commenced studying the system. Some time after this we called upon a lady who was suffer- ing from neuralgia, and had been suffering from the same excrutiating pain at intervals for three or four years past. Periods of suffering would afflict her 132 HEALING POWER OF MIND. sometimes for seven or eight days together. When we called upon her she had been suffering for about three days, and during all that time had been deprived of sleep. On her chest and sides were numerous mus- tard plasters, which had afforded her no relief. We told her that if she would follow directions, and would remove her plasters, we would treat her for her com- plaint. This she did, saying she would do anything to get rid of her pain. We then gave her a treat- ment of about fifteen minutes, at the end of which time she felt almost free from pain, and expressed astonishment at the result. That evening she retired early, slept till nine o'clock the next morning, and rose refreshed and perfectly free from pain. When we called upon her she expressed great surprise at the cure. We then gave her instructions how to treat herself. The pain was entirely removed, and she has repeatedly said to friends that she would not part with her knowledge for a million of dollars. This was about the first cure we effected, and this act gave us more confidence in the mind-cure than all the reason- ing in the world could have done. This case, we may say, was our starting point as a practitioner. From that time to this we have met with almost unvarying success. Another extraordinary case that we will mention is that of a lady who had been suffering for about PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. 133 three years from a complication of diseases peculiar to the female system. She had the advice and experi- ence of several eminent physicians of San Francisco, had also placed herself under the charge of mag- netic healers, but in every case without receiving any permanent benefit. She had given up all hope of ever getting well. On paying her a visit, we found her in bed, in a desponding mood. By treatment, argument and entreaty, we induced her to get up and walk to our rooms, where we gave her further treatment. These treatments were continued every day for a week. During this week she admitted that she had walked more than for years past. From the time we gave her the first treatment she never had occasion, through sickness, to return to her bed. In about three weeks after this, she had perfectly recov- ered. We taught her the science, and she at once commenced treating and teaching others. She is now a happy and useful woman. Another case was that of a lady about fifty years of age, who had been salivated when young, from the effects of which she had never recovered. Physicians to whom she had applied had informed her that her internal organs had become so much impaired that there were no hopes of her recovery, and that all she could do would be to make herself as comfortable as 134 HEALING POWER OF MIND. possible. After two weeks treatment we restored her to health and happiness. A daughter of this lady came to us to be treated for curvature of spine and some nervous trouble. This was another case that physicians had abandoned. After about fourteen treatments she was completely restored to health. This young lady learned the science, and is now practicing the same. She for- warded to us a few words concerning her own case, with full liberty to publish the same. Here is the communication: No. 8 Bond Street, San Francisco, June ist, 1884. I had been suffering from spinal disease, caused from a fall when a child; also from torpid liver, indigestion and general nervous debility. I had been treated by different physicians, who would patch me up for a short time, but then I would get back in my old plan again, when I heard of Mrs. J. A. Root, who practiced by metaphysical science the art of healing. I was treated by her, and gradually all my pains and disagreeable feelings left me. I pronounce myself cured, and have learned the science. Miss M. E. Shephard. Another case was that of a lady, who called upon us with her husband. She had been suffering for sev- eral years with pains in her stomach. She had applied to several physicians, who had given her no relief. She had also tried various remedies prescribed PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. 135 for her by sympathizing friends, but without avail. On the morning of her visit to us she had been suffer- ing excruciating pains, and was hardly able to move about. On questioning her, we learned that about six years previously she had eaten something that contained poison. After a few minutes of treatment she acknowledged to feeling better. The blood in her veins began to circulate freely. We gave her in all five treatments, and she was completely restored to health. The following is a copy of a letter received from her: Quincy, Plumas Co., Cal.. May n, 1884. Mrs. J. Anderson Root: Dear Friend:—I have suffered from troubles of the stom- ach and head, also nervous trouble, for several years, until you gave me the first treatment, which improved me greatly. I have taken live treatments, and feel well and strong. If this will be of any benefit to you or others, you may use it. Gratefully yours, Mrs. W. J. Edwards. The following is another testimonial received from one of our patients: 622 Ellis Street, San Francisco, March 26. 1884. After suffering a number of years from neuralgia, and thinking my case hopeless, my attention was at last drawn to the new metaphysical science as practiced by Mrs. J. Anderson Root, of San Francisco, and now I am happy to say to the public that I was entirely cured by that lady in one treatment. Minna Frances. 136 HEALING POWER OF MIND. We will further add, that since treating Mrs. Frances we were called upon to pay a visit to her house, and found her son, a youth of fifteen years of age, suffering severely from an attack of pneumonia. We at once gave him a treatment, which threw him into a profuse perspiration. He went to bed and slept soundly, and after awakening, he was restored to health. This is another fact, which is worth a whole volume of reasoning. We add a further testimonial of the efficacy of mind-cure: No. 707 Post Street, San Francisco, April 26th, 1884. Mrs. J. Anderson Root: I desire to say, for the benefit of the public and the advance- ment of the mind-cure, that I was suffering from what was supposed to be an incurable malady. I was treated by several popular physicians, and also by magnetic healers, but with little benefit. In a fortunate moment you came to me, and after a few treatments I was restored to health. My cure seemed to me miraculous; I had given up all hopes of recoverv. Since that time I have learned the science, and am now practicing successfully, and God helping me I shall labor faith- fully in the field of love and truth. Mrs. E. S. Hill. We have given the above testimonials, not for the purpose of parading our own skill, but as so many facts, proving beyond a doubt that the mind-cure proved effective where the skill of the best medical PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. 137 men, aided by the power of all the drugs in their pharmacopcea, had failed. Since the first edition of this work was printed we have taught the science to many hundreds of persons in different States of the Union. Many of these students have become efficient healers and have performed some remarkable cures. These facts have, of course, been very satisfactory to us. As well as teaching this science, we have also treated large num- bers for various diseases. While some have not responded to our treatment, we can gladly say that in the vast majority of cases we have either effected cures or alleviated suffering. It was not to be expected that we should meet with uninterrupted suc- cess or receive the universal plaudits of the unin- formed public. He who teaches a new science must necessarily meet with the opposition, misrepresenta- tion, and ofttimes with the persecution of the world. However, taking all things into consideration, we have cause to rejoice at the success we have met with and the treatment we have received. While we have frequently been misrepresented through the press, we have also, through the same channel, received many words of encouragement and praise. We have aimed to meet honest skepticism with arguments and facts. The former they might dispute, 138 HEALING POWER OF MIND. but the latter remained unanswerable. The inexora- ble logic of fact is at all times more than a match for the pedantic logic of the schools. There has been a disposition on the part of a few medical practitioners to deny power of any kind to the mind-cure science. Others have admitted its partial success in certain cases, but denying its power in all others. Thus they very graciously concede that something like mind- cure may be effective in a certain class of nervous diseases, sick headaches, hysteria, and the like, but that in certain other ailments and diseases the mind- cure can have no effect whatever. These objectors very gravely and confidently say: "Your mind-cure may be effective in cases which we class under the name of functional disturbances, but you cannot show us a case of organic disease that has been cured by this so-called science." We shall here meet them on their own ground; but we shall insist upon being treated fairly. While in California in the month of February, 1885, we were called upon to visit a Mrs. L. A. Gale, residing in the town of San Leandro, in California. The lady had been suffering for more than four years with disease in the spine, and for over three years had been confined to her bed. During this period she had been treated by many eminent physicians of the PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. 139 various schools of practice, without any benefit. Her case was pronounced by all of them incurable. We gave her a week's treatment, and at the end of that time she was enabled to rise from her bed and could walk about as well as ever. At the end of two weeks she visited her friends in San Francisco — a distance of fifteen miles—with perfect ease and comfort. Her friends were greatly astonished to see her, as they never expected her to be able to walk again. From that time to the present she has been perfectly well and happy. She is now practicing this science in San Francisco and other parts of California, and will be glad to answer all questions having reference to her case. Her address is 719 Valencia Street, San Francisco. Another cure of organic disease is that of a lady whose letter we give below: Portland, Oregon, May ist, 1886. To all ■whom it may concern : Up to August ist, 1885, I had been a constant sufferer from an internal fibroid tumor for almost five years, when my atten- tion was first called to mind-cure, and through the kindly inter- est of a friend was directed to Mrs. J. Anderson Root, of San Francisco, Cal. My case had been thoroughly diagnosed by the best surgeons of the allopathic and homeopathic schools, and pronounced incurable by any system of treatment and of a type seldom operated on with the knife successfully. Nevertheless, 140 HEALING POWER OF MIND. I tried various kinds of patent medicines, including the cele- brated clover extract, without the least benefit, and had for three years been under treatment of a very superior homeopathic phy- sician, who kindly made my case a study, and whose medicines somewhat mitigated my sufferings, but the growth increased steadily, and with it misery untold. I could neither walk or ride with comfort, and was obliged to keep a reclining position most of the time. In this hopeless condition I applied to Mrs. Root, without the slightest faith that her treatment could affect a tumor. I had heard of her wonderful success in other diseases, and though " incurable" had been stamped upon my mind, I felt willing to give mind-cure a trial, to please my friends, and that nothing should be left undone. I thank God I am able to say (and with greatest pleasure) after the third treatment I had reason to be convinced, beyond a doubt, that there was something in mind-cure for tumors. The relief was indescribable. I no longer was compelled to lie down, and could walk or ride as I had not been able to do for years. The improvement has been constant, the growth has decreased one-third, and at this date the transition from a state of hopeless invalidism to perfect health is alike surprising to myself and friends. I have studied the science with Mrs. Root, and thanks to her valuable instructions, can successfully treat myself and others. Any one desirous of further information in regard to my case, may address Mrs. e. De PranS) Portlatid, Oregon. PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. 141 The following is an equally important case of cure of organic disease by the science of mind-cure: Los Angelos, Cal., March nth, 1886. To the Public: Five years ago my daughter, then seventeen years of age, by an almost fatal mistake, swallowed a few drops of concen- trated lye, made into a very strong solution for cleaning pur- poses. As soon as possible I administered cream, which she held in her mouth for a moment before she knew I intended her to swallow it, consequently the throat and mouth, though badly burned, were sore but a few days, but the oesophagus, or tube that leads to the stomach, was so excoriated that she was unable to swallow anything but liquid food or porridge for sev- eral months. We kept her alive for the first few days by forc- ing her to swallow a few drops of warm milk every few min- utes, or the orifice would have closed up entirely and death have been the inevitable result. I had constant fear for months of her strangling, as even the softest food would often find lodg- ment at the sore, could not pass down, and would with great difficulty be ejected at the mouth. When the sore healed, a few months later, a skillful physician — Dr. G. W. Barnes, of San Diego, formerly of Cleveland, Ohio, — was employed, who, being in close correspondence with eminent surgeons of the latter city, with instruments for the purpose, stretched the aesophagus daily for several months — five or six, I think. A cicatrice had been formed which filled nearly the whole of the tube, and as that would not give way, the stain of the stretching all came on the healthy portion, which finally became so thin as to break and bleed a little, which warned the doctor to desist. Bv masticating the food very thoroughly she has been able to eat most anything that was not fibrous, but could not eat meat 142 HEALING POWER OF MIND. without removing it from the mouth after chewing, and could not swallow anything without external pressure on the muscles of the throat to produce an artificial force to send it down; and that was not always successful, as she would often have to leave the table, and with severe and painful effort bring up the food that would not pass the contraction. It was known as " stricture of the agsophagus," was considered a very dangerous and rare affliction, but very few cases having been known, and, I think, a complete recovery unknown. Mrs. Root gave her treatment for one week, when she was able to swallow without external pressure and without the dis- agreeable attendant noiselike croaking that was so annoying, and she has eaten and swallowed beefsteak this week for the first time in five years, and I feel that very shortly there will be a complete cure. Mrs. E. A. Bush. Every community has numerous cases of organic disease, which for months and years have refused to yield to the treatment of the prevailing schools of medicines. Other cases have been given up and a cure has been pronounced impossible by the whole medical fraternity. These cases, in some instances, have been sent to us, and our objectors have ex- claimed, "let her cure this case and then we shall believe in mind-cure." We ask the candid reader, whether in the event of our failure to cure such a case that it would be a fair test of the efficacy of mind-cure? If so, it ought to be a fair test of the efficacy of homeopathy, allopathy, and all the other PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. 143 schools of treatment. But we do not rest here. We accept the challenge, and below will be found refer- ence to cures effected by us that have been pro- nounced incurable by the entire medical fraternity. Though we believe the above cited cases ought to be sufficient to establish beyond a doubt the efficacy of the metaphysical science in curing organic diseases of all kinds, we will add to the list: Santa Monica, Cal., May n, 1886. Having a strong desire to recommend the mind-cure healing to suffering humanity, I cheerfully give my testimonial. I have been an invalid for ten years, with nervous prostration. Most of the time during this long period I have been confined to my bed. For the past three and a half years have not been able to bear my weight on my feet or sit up more than twenty minutes per day. During the ten years my head was never free from pain, and at times the pain was very severe; my head became so sensitive from the long-continued pain that the least effort on my part would completely exhaust me. I could not endure the least noise. My spine was so affected I had to be turned and lifted like a baby. My eyes were very weak, and my arms also became so weak I could not feel myself. For six months I had not been able to speak a loud word. I had been treated and given up by a large number of physicians, and refused admis- sion into the hospitals at San Francisco and Los Angeles, because they all considered me a hopeless case. In February, 1886, Mrs. J. A. Root, the mind-cure healer of San Francisco, heard of my case and sought me out. At the end of the first week after treatment I could talk as well as 144 HEALING POWER OF MIND. ever, and at the end of the second week I could walk; and within four weeks from the time she gave me the first treatment I took a journey of nearly three thousand miles by rail, and felt better at the end of the journey than at the beginning, and have been gaining steadily in strength ever since. Mrs. Jesup W. Scott. Another case, furnishing further and indisputable evidence of the efficacy of this science in the cure of organic as well as functional diseases, is that of Miss Kitty Sisson, of Peoria, 111.: Some seven years ago, Miss Sisson suffered serious injury of the spine by a fall, from which she had been confined in bed most of the time, and nearly all that time a helpless invalid under the constant charge of the best regular physi- cians. Not responding satisfactorily to their treat- ment, but rather steadily failing, it was decided, after a consultation by seven members of the Medical Society, to remove the lower extremity of the spine by a surgical operation. This was done, but the result was not satisfactory, and the patient continued to grow worse—being only occasionally temporarily improved, and at best able to walk but a few steps at a time with ample support—from which condition she would again relapse into utter helplessness. Every regular practice and treatment available was tried, and she was taken to distant cities for treatment by specialists in such diseases, without satisfactory relief. PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. 145 Long confinement and suffering from this diseased organ produced a complication of functional troubles, from which she was suffering nearly as much as from the organic disease, when I first met her, and her friends were nearly discouraged, but the following short testimonial tells the result of my visits: 303 Armstrong Ave., Peoria, III., June 19, 1886. My Dear Mrs. Root: , Miss Sisson was a member of our family for a year and a half. She suffered from a complication of diseases; was intensely nervous; had not walked more than a few steps for seven years. Her physicians failed to benefit her permanently. After your fifth treatment she walked down stairs and took tea with the family, and now enjoys perfect health. May the good work go on, and other hearts be gladdened as ours have been. Yours with love, Mary A. Armstrong. After recovery, Miss Sisson attended my lectures and soon after went with her family to Dallas, Texas, and is now successfully healing and teaching in that city, where I spent some three weeks with her in May last very pleasantly and profitably to myself, and I hope to my numerous pupils and patients there. Any reader desiring further information regarding this interesting case may address the lady as above, or Mr. W. P. Sisson, Peoria, 111. 10 146 HEALING POWER OF MIND. With the following testimonial from Mrs. Hill, who is now a co-worker in the science, we close this chapter. These, we think, ought' to be sufficient, to satisfy the most skeptical of the efficacy of this science to entirely cure organic as well as functional diseases: 1524 North-Madison Ave., Peoria, III., July, 1886. For about thirty years I suffered almost constantly, more or less severely, from congestion of the lower brain, caused by a fall. Long suffering and excessive pain from this diseased organ often produced spasms so severe that life was frequently despaired of, resulting in complete nervous prostration. During the entire time I was in charge and acting under the advice of the best physicians, and upon their suggestion traveled exten- sively east and west — three times to California. But my case steadily grew worse until I and my friends had about given up all hope. It was at this time, being then at my mother's, in Oakland, Cal., that I was providentially led — yes, truly by the Spirit of God — to Mrs. Root, through whom I was trans- formed from a hopeless, despairing invalid into a strong, healthy, happy woman. I feel that I am truly " born again," and am now able, with this science and the ever sustaining help of God, to "go and do likewise." For all which I shall ever feel thankful to Mrs. Root for raising me up and showing me the way, and I esteem it a privilege as well as duty, to labor constantly and faithfully in the Truth. Mrs. Ada A. Hill. INSTRUCTIONS FOR HEALING. All that we have advanced in previous chapters has either a direct or indirect bearing upon the sub- ject of the present chapter, and it is absolutely neces- sary that the positions we have taken should be thoroughly understood, otherwise the student is not likely to meet with success in curing disease, either in himself or others. The conviction must be thor- oughly implanted in the mind, that mind and matter are two distinct things, whether matter is in an organized or unorganized state. Next, that it is mind only that can feel, think and act, and the only thing in creation that possesses force. For the truth of this proposition we do not rely simplv upon mathematical demonstration and visible facts, but also upon that which is equallv convincing, namely, innate consciousness. When a person says, "I have a headache;" "I have pain in the stomach;" what is the "I" ? Plainly, it is not the head nor the 148 HEALING POWER OF MIND. stomach that speaks. It is something outside and independent of these organs, for it speaks of them as being distinct from itself. Again, this "I" says, "My head aches," "My stomach pains me," "My hands are cold," "My feet are warm." Here the "I" speaks of "my" things—that is, that the "I" is not these organs, but. that it owns them. They are not me, but mine—that is, I am something independent of them. This something is the soul. The position we take is, that the body and its organs are but the correspondences of a spiritual body and organs. These spiritual organs are the real and lasting, while the material are but manifestations, and are not lasting. These material manifestations cannot control the spiritual, but the spiritual can and does control the material. Upon a true under- standing and conviction of this great truth lies our success in healing. Without this is understood, the student must turn back to the contents of this book, and become thoroughly imbued with the doctrines and truths herein taught. INSTRUCTIONS FOR HEALING. 149 FORMULA FOR TREATMENT {to be varied according to the symptoms or beliefs of the patient, taking up the organs affected more particularly and their surrounding organs, and disputing the evidence of the personal senses.) You are spirit, made in the likeness and image of God; unseen to mortal eye; perfect in His perfection; one with Him—a part of his divine essence—and as such you could not suffer from any physical disease or discord, for you are born of God, bearing his like- ness of eternal life and love, truth and goodness, justice and harmony, and governed by Plis laws only, which are perfect and harmonious: therefore, you are not sick. All the organs of your body are in a perfectly healthy condition. There could be no inflammation, irritation or congestion of the brain or organs of the head and throat, or of the liver, lungs, heart, stomach, spleen, kidneys or bladder; no inflam- mation or irritation of the gastric nerve. There is no indigestion or constipation existing. The spinal cord, spinal nerve and all the nerve centers are in a per- fectly healthy state. No obstruction to the circula- tion, nor impoverishment of the blood; no inherited taint, catarrhal poison or acid in the blood. The mucous membrane and all the linings and tissues throughout the body are in a healthy state. You have nothing to fear from any of them, for there is no life, sensation nor intelligence in matter; no power in 150 HEALING POWER OF MIND. flesh, blood or bones to make you suffer, except through the mortal (or carnal) mind, which is enmity to God, and is filled with false beliefs and discords, which express themselves on the body in the form of disease; but your immortal mind is your God-given heritage, which can control the mortal when you choose to exercise it. You must awake, arise, know who you are, take up your heritage and control your body harmoniously. Now, in the name of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I command all false beliefs, evil influences and dark images to depart from your mind, and leave you in peace now and forever. Very often patients have a great desire to discuss, and will want the healer to make it plain to them how cures can be effected. In these instances it is well to cite them cures that have been effected. Facts will often prove effective when reasoning will fail. Many persons will say that such a thing is impos- sible. Arago said, "Outside of pure mathematics, let no man pronounce anything impossible." Everything is possible that is not morally impossible. The impos- sibilities of one age become the possibilities of the next. The old practitioners in drugs have pronounced it impossible to cure certain cases, but the metaphys- ical healer has cured many of them. INSTRUCTIONS FOR HEALING. 151 As a general thing, it is wise to avoid discussion with patients, especially if they should have a stub- born disposition. To argue with an obstinate man will only cause him to adhere more closely to his errors. In these cases you can only state results and give facts. Conviction must be left to time. The adherents of this science must make up their minds to receive some amount of misrepresentation, obloquy and even persecution; but it should always be remembered that he who possesses the truth has a mighty weapon at his command. One cure will have a greater effect upon the minds of most people than all the logical reasoning that can be employed. Then, every case which offers itself for cure is certain to have peculiarities of its own. What will prove effective in one case may fail in another. But there is a cure for everything that is curable, and the prac- titioner of this science must look upward and onward, never for a moment doubting of ultimate success. As the mind-cure is really but an exhibition of the almost omnipotent power which mind has over mat- ter, the student should be careful to master the prin- ciples set forth in the chapters of this book. It is true that we know but little of what mind can do and cannot do; but we know of its mighty power through witnessing its results, and these are sufficient to 152 HEALING POWER OF MIND. inspire us with unbounded confidence and infinite hope. Even persons who have well studied this system, and practiced it with great success, still confess that there is in it much that they do not understand. But this science is truth. Disease is a falsehood, and truth will cast it out. It is not light cases nor transitory pains alone that are cured, but contagious and heredi- tary diseases also have been successfully treated. In some instances these have yielded to a few treatments, but sometimes a long course of treatment has been found necessary. In Charlestown resides a gentleman whose eyes were covered with cataracts, and who had been told by one of the most eminent doctors of that city that he would be blind—that nothing could help him. The patient went to a metaphysical healer, at that time being so blind that he could not read the signs on the street. After a few weeks of treatment both cataracts had disappeared. Another lady, in Medford, Mass., after one hundred and twenty-five treatments, was relieved of even a worse blindness. Today there is scarcely a locality in which cases of cure are not found. Elsewhere in this book will be found an account of a few of the many cures which we ourselves have successfully treated. Too much importance cannot be attached to the influence of the will in effecting cures. Not that the INSTRUCTIONS FOR HEALING. 153 will itself is a curative agent, but it directs and con- centrates forces which are healing agents. It also keeps off evils. A person, to be a successful healer, either of himself or others, must believe not only in the power but also in the freedom of the will. A believer in the necessitarian or fatalist doctrine need never hope to meet with success. These people believe that every phenomenon is a cause of its inva- riable consequent, and also an effect of its invariable antecedent, and this antecedent again is an effect of its antecedent, and so backwards forever. This is the doctrine of necessity. Necessity is a true doc- trine with regard to some things, and so also is free- dom of the will. Two opposites explain and limit each other. You could know nothing of necessity without there was freedom, no more than you could know anything of pleasure, except by recognizing it as the opposite of pain. Will is a first cause—it is self-originating, hence its power. This is one of the great weapons of the metaphysical healer. Huxley truly says: — "That man, I think, has had a liberal education who has been so trained in youth that his body is the ready servant of his will, * * * whose mind is stored with a knowledge of the great and fundamental truths of nature and the laws of her operations; one who, no stunted ascetic, is full of life and fire, but 154 HEALING POWER OF MIND. whose passions are trained to come to heal by a vig- orous will, the servant of a tender conscience; who has learned to love all beauty, whether of nature or of art, to hate all vileness, and to respect others as himself." Experience has taught us that although a patient may be fully cured of certain diseases, yet that these diseases will return if the patient is exposed to the old conditions and influences. Hence it is of the highest importance that every person who is cured by this system should receive instructions how to treat himself. Contest with disease is a perpetual battle, for it is ever on the watch, ready to attack the human system, and any fear, any admission of its presence, increases its power. The pitying expressions of friends, such as, "Oh, how sick you look," "You are quite poorly," "You need rest," "You ought to con- sult a physician," have influences that tighten the chain of disease around patients. Sick persons want cheerful expressions and encouragement of every kind. It will frequently be found that a patient, after one or two treatments, will exhibit symptoms that might lead him to believe that he was in a worse condition than when the treatment began. But these are good omens, showing that the treatment has taken effect. It should be explained to him that this is but INSTRUCTIONS FOR HEALING. 155 a breaking up old conditions, and a bringing them to the surface in order to expunge them from the mind. Then too it must be borne in mind that moral treat- ment goes a long way in effecting cures. Upon this subject there are some excellent remarks in a work written by M. Reveille-Parise on Moral Therapeutics. The author says: "If a patient dies we open his body, rummage among the viscera, and scrutinize most narrowly all the organs and tissues, in the hope of discovering lesions of some sort or another. There is not a small vessel, membrane, cavity or follicle which is not attentively examined—the color, the weight, the thickness, the volume, the alteration— nothing escapes the eye of the studious anatomist. He handles, touches, smells, and looks at everything; then he draws his conclusions one way or another. One thing alone escapes his attention — that is, he is looking at merely organic effects, forgetting all the while that he must mount higher up to discover their causes. These organic alterations are observed per- haps in the body of a person who has suffered from mental distress and anxiety; these have been the energetic cause of his decay, but they cannot be dis- covered in tne laboratory or amphitheatre. Many physicians of extensive experience are destitute of the ability of searching out the mental causes of diseases. They cannot read the book of the heart, and yet it is 156 HEALING POWER OF MIND. in this book that are inscribed day by day, and hour by hour, all the griefs, and all the miseries, and all the joys, and all the hopes of man, and in which will be found the most active and incessant principle of that frightful series of organic changes which constitute pathology. This is quite true: whenever the equi- librium of our mental nature is long or very seriously disturbed, we may rest assured that our animal func- tions will suffer." It must always be remembered that we are not treating matter, but mind. We must try to lift up and cherish the spirit, so that it will rise above all discord and inharmony. In his work on Mental Hygiene, Dr. Sweetzer says: "The influence of the intellect and the passions upon the health and endurance of the human organi- zation has been but imperfectly understood and appre- ciated in its character and importance by mankind at large. Few, we believe, have formed any adequate estimate of the sum of bodily ills which have their source in the mind. Those of the medical profession, even, concentrating their attention upon the physical, are too prone to neglect the mental causes of disease; and thus may patients be subjected to the harshest medicines of the pharmacopoeia, the true origin of whose malady is some inward sorrow, which a moral balm alone can reach." INSTRUCTIONS FOR HEALING. 157 Now, although many quotations of a like charac- ter from medical works could be given, the healer in this science must not suppose that medical men will endorse metaphysical healing. On the other hand, they are ready with their cries of "quackery," "charlatanism," "humbuggery," and choice terms of a like import. If we can be scolded, ridiculed and frightened from our path, there are numbers ready to perform that task gratuitously. Having put our hands to the plow, we must not look back. If in all cases the healer does not meet with instant success, let him not lose heart. In the path of duty we require patience, kindness, knowledge and hearts of steel, to fight down disease, and also the opposition of those who desire to make a monopoly of treating diseases. We must look upward and onward. " Give us the nerve of steel, And the arm of fearless might, And the strength of will that is ready still To battle for the right. Give us the clear, cool brain, That is never asleep or dozing, But sparkling ever with bold endeavor To wake the world from its prosing. Give us the heart to feel The sufferings of another, 158 HEALING POWER OF MIND. And fearless power in a dying hour To aid a suffering brother. Give us the nerve of steel, And the arm of fearless might, And the heart that can love and feel, And the head that is always right. For the foeman is now abroad, And the land is filled with crimes — Let it be our prayer to God, ' Oh give us the men for the times.'" The true healer must have something of the mis- sionary spirit in him if he would be successful. And in view of the fact that disease breeds suffering, poverty and crime, he can go forth into the world like a true missionary, scattering blessings amongst mankind. For these labors the world expects to reward him, so that at least he may be able to live and labor. And, like a true missionary, the healer must not fail to take into account the power of kind words and acts. The worst way to reform the world is to condemn it, and the worst way to heal diseases and cure persons of their errors, is to condemn the individual. The old fable, wherein the sun and wind disputed as to who would make the traveler take off his cloak, has still a good moral for us. The wind INSTRUCTIONS FOR HEALING. 159 blew its hardest, which only caused the traveler to cling more closely to his garment. But the sun shed its silent rays warmer and warmer upon the man, until he quietly threw aside his cloak. Errors are garments that cling more closely to the person when subjected to harsh opposition and upbraiding, but will be quietly thrown aside when touched by the wand of kind treatment. If erring men are appealed to as if they were men, and not despised brutes, success would more frequently attend the efforts of the re- former. We should never sit in harsh judgment upon the faults and follies of others. The anatomist and sculptor tell us that there is no human being that is perfectly formed. One arm is longer or larger than the other, one side of the body is a little differ- ently shaped from the opposite one. Sometimes the right eye is different from the left, or the nose may be a little awry. We do not find physical perfection anywhere. So in our moral nature we can find defects in every human being. This should teach us charity; and whether the disease be physical, mental or moral, treatment that is based on sympathy and kindness will prove effective when uncouth and cen- sorious measures will fail. "A soft answer turneth away wrath," when severity will increase the flame. The healer should recollect that his mission is 160 HEALING POWER OF MIND. amongst the highest on earth. He is a creator of happiness in others, and when he is conscious of doing this, he himself will be reaping the highest blessings which it is possible for man to reap on earth. ANTIQUITY OF MIND-CURE. The mind-cure is frequently spoken of as that "new method," "the new-fangled theory," and "the modern craze," as if it was an invention of these latter days. The truth is, that the mind-cure is as old as the race. Read the history of any nation, peruse the narratives of all travelers, and you will find that in some form or other a belief in the power of mind over matter, and a practice of mental healing, have always obtained. We are aware that its antiquity does not prove its truthfulness, but it relieves it of the charge of modern invention or discovery. At various times, and amongst all nations, it has appeared under differ- ent names. One man has claimed to be a prophet sent by the Lord; another, that he was sent by the angels, or was himself an angel in disguise; while a third would assert that he possessed a key that would unlock all the mysteries of nature. A still larger number asserted that, while they could perform cures n 162 HEALING POWER OF MIND. without study or the use of drugs, they knew not whence they derived their power. Now, it is the very simplicity of the method that brings it into disfavor with many persons, especially with those who have pored over books, passed through colleges, and spent much time and money in placing them just where they stand. "How can ignorant people effect cures, when they, with all their medical skill and knowl- edge, fail? The thing is absurd—impossible!" they cry. But have not these medical practitioners a dis- eased notion of their own importance? Do they not place an exaggerated estimate upon the value of their learning and facts? Do they not mistake a little information and knowledge for true education in the line of their profession? Watch one of these young students, fresh from his medical college, after obtain- ing a diploma. If he should have something of the pedant in him, which not unfrequently happens, he will take every opportunity to use his medical terms in the description of disease. Thus, he will stand at the bedside of a sick child, and in answer to the ques- tion of the anxious parent regarding the nature of the disease, he will learnedly stroke his incipient beard and solemnly exclaim, "I observe a few macules about the face and arms, but the epidermis seems to be ex- clusively involved. There is some febrile movement, and we may rationally expect a roseola within a few ANTIQUITY OF MIND-CURE. 163 hours. This case is liable to develop into rubeola, with lachrymation, ozena, angina, and all the other symptoms characteristic of the disease." And pray, most learned doctor, give us an English name for that terrific disease. "Oh, ah, yes; well, it is the measles." Thank you for the modern name; you can keep the terms of antiquity for use on some future occasion. There is much in the present school of medicine that is a huge collection of antiquity, hewed and plastered into some kind of shape, so as to make it pass under the name of "the modern school of medicine." Read the modern works on medicine, and you find them a conglomeration of terms, of divers and diverse opin- ions, and we are struck with a feeling of awe concern- ing; the things which we do not understand. How applicable here is the verse— " The wise men of Egypt were secret as dummies, And even when they most condescended to teach, They packed up their meaning as they did their mummies, In so many wrappers 'twas out of one's reach." There is, at least, about the mind-cure the merit of simplicity. And this, we conceive, should be the merit of all systems. That which comes to us so mystified, so wrapped around by high-flown words and phrases, should always challenge our investigation if not our doubt. Considering what he has done, the 164 HEALING POWER OF MIND. world has erred in assigning so high a rank to the mere medical practitioner. The system is a gigantic phantom. Let the hand of truth and simplicity tear the mask from its face. Men have invented rules and plans; have published volumes on the philosophy of life and death; and their works are replete with quo- tations and adorned and dressed in grandiloquent words and phrases; but just here open your Saxon bible and see the purity of diction and the plainness of the language of a Paul, a John and a James. We want this same simplicity in dealing with disease. Let us not ask whether a thing has the air of antiquity about it, or is altogether of modern origin. Let the inquiry be, Is it true, is it effective? That, after all, must be the touchstone. Of course we have nothing to say against learning itself, but we object to its use when wrapped around errors. "The majesty of nature is the curtain of deity; and the light of deity is grace and truth." There is a great deal of stuff and nonsense that for ages have done duty as philoso- phy. Men need to be taught to trust more and more to their intuitions. It is by these, more than by learn- ing and philosophy, that the world has been carried forward. " A few plain instincts and a few plain rules Among the herdsmen of the Alps have wrought More for mankind, at this unhappy clay, Than all the pride of intellect and thought." ANTIQUITY OF MIND-CURE. 165 Observation and experience have taught us to believe that a few plain rules and a few plain instincts relating to the mind-cure will do more for mankind than the learned rules of drug-administering medical practitioners. In modern times considerable attention has been given to the mind-cure in the United States. Its pro- gress here of late years received its greatest impulse from Dr. P. P. Quimby, a native of Belfast, Maine. Of this remarkable man Dr. Dresser, of Massachu- setts, says: "He practiced his system for the cure of the sick for many years in Maine, and was located in Portland from 1859 to 1865. Dr. Quimby was a man somewhat peculiar in his make-up. With a mind of large comprehension, he had a wonderful power of concentration of thought, and he was so extremely practical and mathematical in his mode of reasoning that it was with difficulty that he could entertain an opinion, or any proposition that was not fully demon- strated by truth. Such a mind, being of an inquiring nature, would certainly find out the truth of things if it were possible, before entertaining a mere belief. I witnessed many of Dr. Quimby's cures, of such cases as paralysis, cancers, tumors, consumption, rheuma- tism, nervous disorders and other minor complaints. Upon opening a closet door in the doctor's rooms, at 166 HEALING POWER OF MIND. one time, I saw an armful of crutches and canes that had been left there by people who had come to the doctor in various crippled conditions, and had gone away without the need of these supports. It was viewed as a most speaking sight." A Boston journal gives an account of the position and advancement of the science in that city: "In Boston there are four schools of this system, and all of these hold as their fundamental idea that disease does not come from God, and that He has nothing to do with its perpetuation, but that it is one of the errors of man, which can be cured by truth; the application of this truth is not by faith, but by an intelligent understanding. The schools, however, dis- agree in regard to later developments, some claiming to be farther advanced than the others. Of the few heads of these schools, one—Dr. Evans, now residing in East Salisbury — is a venerable gentleman of 60 odd years of age, who was formerly a clergyman for twenty-five years before he visited Dr. Quimby as a patient, twenty-one years ago, following which he left preaching and practiced healing the sick, employ- ing rubbing and manipulating as a part of his system. Another leader and head of a school is Mrs. Eddy, who resides on Columbus avenue, and who was a patient with Quimby twenty-two years ago. Her ANTIQUITY OF MIND-CURE. 167 assumed title is Christian Scientist, and her followers bear the same name. A third is Dr. E. J. Arens, residing at Union Park, who practices and teaches under the name of metaphysician. The fourth leader is Dr. J. A. Dresser, residing on Columbus avenue, a pupil of Dr. Quimby, who follows out his teacher's system, pure and simple. Besides these four practi- tioners, there are about a dozen others who practice the mind-cure as a profession, and who teach to classes of young and old the methods of curing. Generally, free instruction is given once a week to all who will come. Among those who have attended these lectures are many Bostonians, who, though decidedly averse to having the fact publicly known, for fear of ridicule, yet are imbued with faith—some with a little, some with a great deal —in the truth of the system, and who often practice at their homes on the husband, father or son who happens to believe that he is afflicted with a headache, toothache or sore finger. And they claim success in curing." Of Dr. Quimby, we remember when a girl, of his going round the country effecting cures that were looked upon by many as being miracles. There was an anecdote told of him that we think has not before found its way to print:—When near Portland, Maine, he called at a house, to the inhabitants of which he 168 HEALING POWER OF MIND. was a stranger. He found a middle-aged man seated on the verandah, and asked if he could obtain a drink of water. The man replied that he could, but as his people were away, and he was lame from rheumatism, that he would have to help himself. Quimby replied that he did not think he was lame, and believed he could walk. The man said, "It is a long time since I have been able to walk, or even to move about, except by the aid of crutches." Quimby replied, "I realize that you can walk; give me your hand." He took the man by the hand and caused him to walk back and forth on the verandah; and before he left, the lame man had no use for his crutches, and could walk as well as he ever could. When his people returned, greatly to their astonishment, they found him walking in the garden. He asked Quimby for his name, but this he refused to give, for the reason that he hated notoriety. He would "do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame." Of such stamp was this modern apostle of the mind-cure. There can be no doubt that those cases that have come down to us from old times, wherein it is claimed that the Lord sent down his servants from Heaven to make cures, have been made through the influence of mind acting upon mind. India, China, Japan, Egypt, Syria, even our old Scandinavian mythology, are rich with accounts of cases that have yielded to this silent, ANTIQUITY OP MIND-CURE. 169 unseen influence, when all other means have failed. Fortunately, we have both antiquity and modern times on our side. But what has been done is only to be taken as an earnest of what we can do. "I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widening with the process of the suns." INSANITY. No man has yet been enabled to draw the line of demarcation between sanity and insanity. One learned writer asserts that "all men are at times tinged with insanity." It is a common remark, upon speaking on something that is beyond dispute, that "it is as plain as the nose on your face." But though the nose is plain enough on the face, yet it is not possible to draw the line where the nose joins the face. We do not, however, argue from our inability to do this that they are not two distinct things. So, from our inability to draw the line between sanity and insanity, we must not contend that there are not two distinct conditions of mind. The use of one term to express a condition, necessarily implies the opposite. Otherwise, we are all either sane or insane. Certain it is that there is always much in the world that is termed insanity that is only a high and advanced form of sanity. Arkwright, the inventor, 172 HEALING POWER OF MIND. was believed by his neighbors, and by his own wife, to be an insane man, simply because he contended that he could invent a machine that would do the work of many men. Our own Fulton, who ran the first steam vessel, was believed by very many intelli- gent persons to be insane—and for no other reason than that he had notions that were contrary to and in advance of their own. All up and down history we find that nearly every man who had ideas, whether in poetry, art, science, mechanics, or religion, that were in advance of the ideas of those around him, was adjudged by the community as being insane. How, then, can advocates of the mind-cure be sur- prised if now and then they are dubbed " crazy people?" That which is the insanity of one age often becomes the admired sanity of another. After all, we only make approximations as to what is, and what constitutes insanity. Some persons are deemed insane on one point, and some on another, while others are insane at one period of time and at other moments are deemed perfectly rational and intelli- gent. Medical men can give us no rules for guidance that are accepted as final in any court of justice, as to what constitutes insanity. It is purely a matter of opinion. Insanity has many causes. One man becomes in- sane through the loss of money; the loss of friends, INSANITY. 173 of children; the use of opiates and narcotics; fright, starvation, and many other things and conditions have reduced thousands upon thousands to that con- dition which we all agree to call insane. That it is in some cases inherited, is placed beyond a doubt. Esquirol found among 1,375 lunatics 337 unquestion- able cases of hereditary transmission. Guislain and others regard that at least one out of every four insane persons inherit the disease. Dr. Morel gives an account of a family in which he attended four brothers. Their grandfather had died insane, while their father had no powers of concentration, but would be constantly changing his mind from one thing to another. Of these four children one was a maniac; another was afflicted with melancholy mad- ness; the third had suicidal intentions; the fourth was extremely nervous and timorous. Now, there must be something rotten about our boasted civilization, or else about our physical and mental doctors, when this scourge is a thousand times more distinguishable among civilized than among un- civilized nations. And there must be something still more rotten about the system which permits the hud- dling together in localities of hundreds and thousands of these unfortunates, and then learnedly calling it treatment for the insane. Our asylums are but insti- tutions for the preservation of insanity. The words 174 HEALING POWER OF MIND. written over the entrance to Dante's Inferno, "Leave all hope behind, ye who enter here," should be in- scribed over the gates of every asylum in the land. How few of these unfortunates are restored to health and their friends. Asylums are medical institutions for the inoculation of insanity. We have as yet had no opportunity of. fairly trying to cure a case of in- sanity, but when conditions can be made favorable, we shall certainly try the experiment without fear of the result. We hope to see the time when the mind- cure will be given as fair a trial for treating the insane as is now given to a system of close confine- ment and drugs. That the spirit itself can become insane, is, from our standpoint, an utter impossibility. That it can have its origin in matter, is, to us, simply an absurdity; and the men of the lance and probe have never yet pretended that they have discovered its cause in the disarrangement of the physical struc- ture. In what direction, then, shall we look for it? We answer, in the unconscious mind, or in the dis- arrangement of that condition of vitality and sensa- tion that is brought about by the influence of mind upon matter. NECESSITY OE CONDITIONS. All through the pages of this book we have sought to make the widest possible distinction be- tween mind and matter. We have also aimed to show that the invisible is the only real and perma- nent thing in the Universe. All the mighty changes that are forever and forever going on around us are simply the results of invisible mind, which in one direction or another is stamping itself upon dead, dull, inert matter. Hold in your hand a watch, and with its springs, levers, wheels, brightly polished, finely adorned metals, it is a thing of beauty — a thing of life. What has produced it? Mind! That mechanism was once dull, shapeless, inactive matter. As a watch, it owes its existence to mind. So it is with our houses, ships, palaces, monuments, machines, temples, and all things that entitle us to the name of civilization. A man that we call a sculptor, comes along with the unseen image of the beautiful im- 176 HEALING POWER OF MIND. printed on his unseen mind—he finds a senseless, ill-shapen block of marble, and upon this he carves the image of his mind. Behold the statute! What made it? Mind! Turn in what direction you please —put your question in any form you desire, and the answer will come back to you—it is mind! mind! that produces these mighty results. What is it that animates, moves and controls these muscles of the body—that makes the eye to see, the ear to hear, and the tongue to speak? It is mind, mind, every- where. Watch the silent stars at night; hear the rushing of the cataract; the booming of the ocean; see the mighty forests, the gladsome flowers, and the countless forms of life that everywhere prevail, and ask what produces all these? The answer again comes—it is the mind! " It warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees; Lives through all life, extends through all extent, Spreads undivided — operates unspent." Now, although we thus attribute everything to mind, and give to it a creative, a remedial and cura- tive power, let it not be supposed that we entirely ignore the necessity of complying with conditions in order to obtain and preserve our bodies and minds in a healthy state. To take such a stand as that would NECESSITY OF CONDITIONS. 177 very justly expose us to the charge of fanaticism or insanity. Undoubtedly there are conditions which we now, in our imperfect state, have to comply with that by-and-by we shall entirely ignore. As knowl- edge increases, and as mind is brought into play, we can dispense with conditions which we are now com- pelled to comply with. We had at one time to comply with the conditions, sails, winds and currents in order to cross the ocean. Today we have rendered these conditions unnecessary. At one time we had to comply with conditions, ink and paper, to send a message to a friend; but unseen mind calls to our aid an invisible agent, and lo! our old conditions are put aside. And Utopian as it may seem to man}7, we believe that the age will come when even the tele- graph will be superseded as a condition of forward- ing messages. Who will dare to limit the power of mind! We shall one day exclaim, "Old things are passed away; behold all things are become new." There was a time when men could not exist at the bottom of the ocean, but now, with a simple diving apparatus, they can spend hours under water without the slightest injury to themselves. Thus, one by one, man is overcoming conditions, and putting them aside as useless or harmless. These views will apply to man and his conditions of health. There are things and conditions relating 12 178 HEALING POWER OF MIND. to man and his organism that it is now absolutely necessary for us to comply with, which by-and-by, when we come to know more and more of mind and its powers, that we can completely ignore. Until that time arrives it would be worse than folly for us not to inculcate the necessity of observing conditions, and of complying with their requirements. Suppose by the power of this science we should win a man from his inordinate craving for strong drink, we do not contend that if he return again to his cups that the drink will have no effect upon him —we do not even say that he will never thereafter feel a return of his appetite for liquor. But we do say, and there are many cases to prove the truth of our saying, that we can remove that appetite and give him the knowledge which, if he will apply, he can become the master of his appetite, and he shall never again become its slave. He can, by the power of his own mind, prevent himself from falling into his slavish condition, and this is a grander and more effective weapon to put into his hands than the strongest chem- ical argument that can be adduced. The habits of the inebriate and some kindred cases are peculiar for this reason, that these persons know better than they act—they sin against knowledge. These cases, for this very reason, require a different kind of treatment. There are cases, as everybody knows, of sickness and NECESSITY OF CONDITIONS. 179 disease that are the results of sheer ignorance, and the patient's mind has only to be directed to the case, and the requisite treatment supplied by the healer, for relief or cure to be speedily brought about. We do not advise persons to rush into miasmatic and mala- rious districts in order to prove that the mind-cure can be made effective in the treatment of fever and ague. We have not yet learned that the allopath recommends this course in order to prove the power of arsenic or quinine. We know that the sanitary condition of our cities and houses everywhere requires to be improved. Ventilation in sleeping apartments, especially, is in the worst possible condition. Food is eaten that never ought to be taken into the stomach. The results are disease, suffering and premature death. Against these things we wage an uncom- promising war. Our weapons are not drugs, for this would be putting one devil into the system to drive another out. These are conditions that we protest against. We also, for the sake of our common nature, protest against the habits of some medical men in telling their patients that their cases are serious, that such an organ is diseased* that the functions of another are disturbed, and another almost gone. This practice is as dangerous, if not more so, than the administration of drugs. To our knowledge, many persons' lives 180 HEALING POWER OF MIND. have been shortened by the remarks of these medical men. They thus create a condition worse than that in which they find the sufferer. Experience will bear us out when we say that the most successful medical practitioners have been those who have had the most cheerful dispositions and have administered the fewest drugs. This is only another way of saying that the less poison and the more mind-treatment the patient receives the more sure is his recovery. So far from our ignoring conditions, we teach per- sons to get out of bad conditions as speedily as possi- ble—to expose themselves to those conditions as little as possible; but when, through exposure, neglect or ignorance, disease is contracted, let them not add dis- ease to disease by the use of poisonous drugs. At the moment of writing this, the cholera, sup- posed to be of the Asiatic type, has made its appear- ance in Marseilles, Toulon, Aries, and several other cities and towns in France. Whatever may be the immediate cause of this disease, it is certain that the most skillful physicians cannot agree upon the point. It seems, however, to be conceded that fright kills more persons than the disease itself. Many have become insane through fear, while others have com- mitted suicide. This is another proof of the effect of the mind upon the body. A pubjic journal, in com- menting on this subject, says: "There is little if any NECESSITY OF CONDITIONS. 181 danger of a healthy man with a strong mind being affected with the epidemic. It is fear that causes some persons to contract the disease, and it is fear that kills others." So that, in concluding this chapter on conditions, we remark that by far the greatest of all conditions in warding off disease of any kind, and in curing the same, is the condition of the mind itself. This is both a bulwark and a weapon. Let all per- sons seek to use it. An even mind and a knowledge of the principles of mind-cure are worth all the drugs in the universe for the prevention and cure of disease of any and all descriptions. MORAL EFFECTS. We have frequently been asked by students and others what will be the effect upon society when the study and practice of mind-cure will have become universal. We lay no claim to being a prophet, nevertheless we venture to predict that when this science shall have become understood and put into practice, that it will change the face of society. There is need of change, look in what direction we will. The church, the school, the home and all insti- tutions are afflicted with a great unrest. Disease, sickness of some kind, is in nearly every home of the land. This is lamentable and oftentimes heartrend- ing. Look at war—that is an evil. Sometimes it is a necessity. But there are moments when the cannon has ceased its roar, the fierce charger is harnessed to the peaceful plow, and the proud sword sleeps in its scabbard; yet the black banner of disease is ever afloat—its victims are perpetually passing to untimely 184 HEALING POWER OF MIND. graves. If this state of things was interminable, we might almost despair of the human race. Now, any system that will only partially remedy this state of affairs, is worthy the attention of the reformer and philanthropist. The mind-cure scientist says there is no necessity for anyone to be sick if God's laws are obeyed. In many a home there are ailing people who have no organic disease, nor indeed any functional derange- ment, yet these people are a source of misery to them- selves and annoyance to others. They are peevish, stingy and fretful, and they seem to think it the first duty of life to put others in a like condition with themselves. These people are often disagreeable against their better nature. Many cases of this nature have been cured by this science when all other reme- dies have failed. By this means we have brought peace to many a home. We say this not through any spirit of boasting, but in a spirit of rejoicing that we have been the creators of happiness. No well informed practitioner of mind-cure will ever mention his cures in a spirit of boasting, but rather will he exclaim with the psalmist David, "Not unto us, O Lord, but unto Thy name give glory for Thy mere}' and for Thy truth's sake." We claim no powers in ourselves to effect cures, and consequently arrogate to ourselves no praise. Swedenborg very, beautifully MORAL EFFECTS. 185 says, ltIf any angel believes that he has power of himself, he instantly becomes so weak that he cannot resist one evil spirit; therefore the angels attribute no merit to themselves, and are averse to all praise and glory on account of anything they do, ascribing it to the Lord." The very power which the mind-curer brings to bear serves to wean his mind from natural things. It makes him think that there is something more potent than visible matter, and that is invisible mind. This leads him and those who have been benefitted by his treatment to enquire and meditate upon the nature of that invisible something — and thus a man, if he is a sensualist or materialist, to meditate upon immortality and the great hereafter. We know of many instances where the habits and moral conduct of persons have been improved since the}' commenced the study of mind-cure, and they have been made more charitable in their views of the moral deficiencies of other people. Surely there is great need in society of improvement in this direction. Many a member of a Christian church can needfully appeal to his God — " Let not this weak, unknowing hand Presume thy bolts to throw, And deal damnation round the land On each I deem thv foe. 1S6 HEALING POWER OF MIND. " Teach me to feel another's woe — To hide the fault I see; What mercy I to others show, That mercy show to me." We call the attention of our Christian brethren to another benefit that has already been produced by the study of the mind-cure system, apart from its curative powers: that is, that it has caused many persons to search the scriptures, with benefit to themselves, who had never read them before, or having read them had ceased their studies. We know that this science is the stern foe of atheism and materialism. There are instances where men and women have been led to a better and higher appreciation of the character and life of Christ from having seen the cures, heard the lectures and read the works of mind-cure scientists. THE MORTAL AND THE IMMORTAL. We frequently speak of the mortal and the immortal part of a man. We also use the terms body, soul and spirit. In the Scriptures and also in common conversation we often use the words "soul" and "spirit" synonymously. To us man is a three- fold being—spirit, soul and body. We desire to keep these terms distinct, and to give to each a sep- arate and definite meaning. The spirit is that which is made in the image and likeness of God, and cannot err. The body is that portion of a man which, as we have previously seen, has neither life, sensation, nor intelligence. This leaves us to treat of that portion which we call the soul. It occupies an intermediate position between the spirit and the body. It is capa- ble of entertaining and reflecting the divine principles of the Creator. And in proportion as it does this, man is free and happy. But in its fallen, darkened condition, soul reflects only error, discord and disease. 188 HEALING POWER OF MIND. It is this intermediate part of man that has caused the sorrow, sin and suffering of the world. Thus, it is apparent if we would improve man's condition and put him in harmony with God's laws, that our only method is to destroy the errors and false beliefs of the soul. Sometimes we call the soul in its darkened condition the mortal or carnal mind, in contradistinc- tion to the spirit or immortal mind. As has been ob- served, the spirit cannot be subjected to sickness— and the body being composed of dead, dull, inert matter, cannot know or suffer disease or pain. How, then, shall we banish disease, or how shall pain be overcome? As pain and disease cannot be in the spirit nor in the body, it must be in the belief of the mortal mind; then, if we can bring the power of the spirit to overcome those beliefs, we shall at once banish disease. This is the true theory and practice of the mind-cure. It has been proved true in a thousand instances. We do not appeal to dead, poisonous drugs to overcome or destroy apparent dis- ease in a senseless and unintelligent body, but we seek to bring the power of spirit and Almighty God to banish the false beliefs of the mortal or erring mind. Spirit is power; it is in the image and likeness of God: it can know no disease, suffering or pain. On the other hand, its presence and power are potent to drive away these darkened images and bring light THE MORTAL AND THE IMMORTAL. 189 and peace. The body in itself can feel no pain; it is but the reflection of the false beliefs of the mortal mind. Hence, instead of treating the body and its apparent pains and diseases, we seek to banish the images from the mortal mind; and, having done this, discord and disease disappear. If this is theory, then its correctness has been proved by millions of indis- putable facts. By the fruits of the mind-cure, judge of its truthfulness and its power to do good and bless mankind. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. It is hoped and believed that the following infor- mation, put into the form of questions and answers, will be of considerable use to the students of meta- physical science, and impress upon their minds certain facts and truths which it is important for them to know. WHAT IS GOD? God is the divine intelligence that creates, upholds and governs all things. He is self-existent—had no beginning and can have no ending. He is the great Fountain of Mind from which all other minds derive power and intelligence. He is not separated from His work, but "lives through all life and extends through all extent." Neither is he separated from man, but will at all times hearken to the cry of those who seek him aright. The idea that God made this 192 HEALING POWER OF MIND. world as a mechanic makes a machine and sits apart to watch its operations, is a crude idea and worthy only of barbarous ages. God is in His works. He is never idle, but is ever breathing the breath of life into and through all animate things. As a single lamp will light a million tapers without being in the least diminished, so countless billions of souls emanate from God without diminishing His power. WHAT IS TRUTH? In one aspect truth is, as Locke remarks, an affair of language. Two persons witness an event; one uses language and relates the event just as it occur- red, but another uses words that convey things that are not like the occurrence. The one, we say, speaks the Truth, the other speaks falsely. The word fact is often used erroneously for the word truth. It is time to insist upon the proper use of these words. A fact is a thing done, and a thing that exists or has existed. Thus it is a fact that such a man as Wash- ington existed; it is a fact that grass is green; it is a fact that thousands were killed at the battle of Waterloo; but we cannot properly call these facts truths. In brief we may say that facts are things as they exist, and occurrences; Truth is the exact QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 193 relating of these things as they exist and occur. But a truth may also be a principle, an inherent quality, a tendency—a something that has never taken place or been acted out. Friar Bacon is said to have invented gunpowder; let us rather say that he was not an inventor, but a discoverer of qualities or principles inherent in certain chemical substances. He found that if nitre, charcoal and sulphur were mixed in cer- tain proportions, that the mixture would form a cer- tain compound called gunpowder. Now, if Friar Bacon had not discovered the making of gunpowder, would it not have been true that these mixtures would still have formed that compound? If their relations had not been discovered for five hundred years hence, would it not still have been true that they would have made gunpowder? The same can be said of dynamite or any other chemical com- pound. Principles are truths, whether they are car- ried out into fact or not. This is also true of moral and mental principles. They are all equally truths, whether man applies them or not. The Bible says that "a soft answer turneth away wrath;" but if all men up to this date had given harsh answers to wrath, would not that saying still have been true? Read the beatitudes in the fifth chapter of Matthew; they are eternally true, whether man acts upon them l3 194 HEALING POWER OF MIND. or not. Their truth does not depend upon the point of their being exhibited in an act. Here, then, we see that truth is a different thing from a fact. It exists before the fact, and is inde- pendent of it. Truth is an emanation from God, and whether man discovers these truths or not, or whether he acts upon the truth when discovered, or declines to do so, it is still eternal truth. It is safe to say that principles, or the rays of truth, are streaming in every direction around us, and in proportion as we discover and act upon them, so do we become truth- ful and Godlike. WHAT IS CREATION? It is the outward and visible manifestation of an inward creating intelligent power. It is the precipi- tation of the divine mind. It is the unfolding and blossoming of the thoughts of God. So far as the creation of this earth is concerned, it had a begin- ning; but so far as the boundless universe is con- cerned, it had no beginning. Creation is a river that has flowed eternally—it is flowing now, and will forever continue so to do. The work of Creation is never finished, for God QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 195 creates for ever and for ever. Evolution is not opposed to creation, but rather adds strength and wonderment to it. Assume, if you choose, that many of the forms of life which we see were evolved from a single germ, it only increases our wonderment that a germ should possess so many amazing poten- tialities. This only adds grandeur to the eternal Creator for having so marvelous a power as to endow a small thing with such wonderful unfolding powers and possibilities. Astronomy proves to us that worlds are still in process of formation, and are being fitted for life and the abode of man. Nature is more than it seems to us—more that this world, which is but a small bubble floating on a shoreless sea of space. If any person thinks that this earth is the only place in the universe that is fitted up for the abode of intelligent beings, then that person accuses Nature and God of having created countless worlds and suns in vain. As soon as men learn that this earth is but one, and by no means the largest body moving round the sun, and that worlds and suns are infinite in number, then their ideas of Creation will expand, and they will have more exalted notions of God, the Creator. 196 HEALING POWER OF MIND. WHAT IS MIND? Mind is the exact opposite of matter. It has a dynamic power over matter. As clay is in the hands of the potter, so is matter in the control of mind. It is not matter that fashions and controls mind, but it is mind that shapes and governs matter. Undoubtedly there are laws governing mind, but as yet we know nothing of them. We see and feel its power—we know of its many and varied operations; but we do not know all that it can do, nor yet what it cannot do. It is immortal in its essence. It is an emanation from God. It is that which receives and retains im- pressions both consciously and unconsciously, so that we may be said to have a conscious and unconscious mind. When harmonious impressions are made upon the mind the results are health and happiness; when those impressions are discordant they produce pain and disease. How careful should we be then in sub- jecting ourselves to impressions. WHAT IS MATTER? It is that which possesses neither feeling, intelli- gence, force, nor power of motion. See, side by side, QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 197 the living, warm, active man, and the motionless corpse. The one lifts an arm, it gestures, it speaks, it feels, its numerous senses are keenly alive to ex- ternal things. But the other! Speak to it, move it, dissect it, but it hears not, feels not, it manifests no thought. Why not? There are all the organs—it has a brain, nerves, muscles, the same as the other, but it is only matter. That which alone can feel, think and act, is not there. What language can make it plainer that matter, even when organized, has in itself no feeling, motion or intelligence. All that we know of matter is by certain properties, such as form, size, color, weight and so forth. So far as the eye is concerned we have only a surface knowl- edge of it. Take a cube of wood into the hands, and you see its various sides. Cut it in two, and in each piece you still see only the surface of the parts. And however often you may divide it, it is still surface, and surface only that you behold. However large or small the piece may be this fact still holds true of it. Now, though matter is considered by some to be the only substantial and lasting thing in the universe, yet, in truth, it is restless, fleeting, and unsubstantial. It is for ever and for ever undergoing change. The globules of water in ocean, lake and river; the parti- cles of the impalpable ether; the atoms of the granite mountain, are never at rest, but are silently changing 198 HEALING POWER OF MIND. — imperceptibly to the eye it may be, but still they are never at one-millionth part of a second the same as they are at the immediately preceding part. That which we call decay is only chemical change, and this decay overtakes all things. Everything of which we have knowledge or can conceive, is eternally grow- ing, decaying, changing. The eye sees the chains of mountains, the firm rock that for thousands of years hath withstood the lashings of mighty waves, but these are ever changing. " Like the baseless fabric of a vision, The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherits shall dissolve, And, as an unsubstantial pageant fades, Leave not a rack behind. As the clay is in the hands of the potter, so is visible matter in the power of invisible mind. And while this matter passes away, mind endureth forever. What has been said respecting matter has not been to deny its existence; to do this, as an author remarks, would be an act of lunacy. We are only desirous of showing that the common notion about matter is an erroneous one. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 19!) WHAT IS EVIL? Evil is an opposing force to that which is good, but it is not an equal force with goodness. Some persons call evil undeveloped good. If so, undevel- oped good is evil, and often for the hour or the day it has more than the force of that which is good. But evil is not lasting; it passeth away. But truth and goodness possess an inherent force and immortality of their own. Evil cannot destroy evil; this can only be done by truth. Darkness cannot banish darkness; this can only be done by light. Man possesses the power of overcoming evil by using the weapon of truth, which God has placed in his mind and soul. Evil is inharmony. The word harmony is thought by many to be restricted to sound. Sir Thomas Browne says: "There is a music in beauty, and the silent note which Cupid strikes is far sweeter than the sound of an instrument." Byron speaks of "the mind, the music breathing from the face." When we speak of the music of the spheres, we mean the harmony of form and motion. Physical harmony in the human body means a just and harmonious relation between all its parts and forces. Take the two extremes of heat and cold: — either of these in excess will destroy the body; but when they are in a harmonious relation 200 HEALING POWER OF MIND. the body is in health. The same may be said of labor and rest. When we act in accordance with law we are in harmony with it; we are one with it. The patriarch Jacob was said to be "one with God"—that is, he acted in harmony with the laws of God, and so are we "one with God" when we act in harmony with His laws. When we do not act in harmony with these, then so far our acts are evil. The aim of the mind-cure is to destroy evil by producing harmony and to bring every sinful man back to the laws of God. Further, the would-be definition that "evil is unde- veloped good" is apt to lead people astray. Others have defined evil as being "nothing in itself—a mere negative of positive good, the same as cold is in itself nothing but a mere absence of heat." This analogical reasoning is often false, and should always be intelli- gently used. If by saying that cold is only the absence of heat it is meant to imply that it is not a positive force, then the assertion is plainly false. In itself it may be a nothing, or a mere negation, but it is such a negation, when in a state with something else, as to have all the force of that which is a posi- tive. If cold is nothing, cold air, cold water, cold earth are positive things. Cold air, sweeping over a QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 201 lake, will cover its surface with ice. Cold air will, if intense enough, destroy life. The air warmed by the rays of the sun, sweeping over the lake, will melt that ice. Again the air becomes cold, and again the ice is formed. Are not both agents positive in producing results? So with good and evil. Call evil, if you will, a mere negation, or only the absence of good, but when that evil is combined with force it has all the power for the time being of positive good. The arm, when outstretched by the force of goodness, will minister peace and comfort to the suffering and needy; but the same arm, when uplifted by the force of evil, will bring suffering and even death. WHAT IS TIME? Perhaps there is no word in more constant use than the word "time." How few who ask themselves what it means. Mention the word time, and the eyes are instantly turned to the clock. But if all the clocks and watches were put out of existence, if all the hour-glasses and sun-dials were destroyed, if the earth should be consumed by fire, the sun cease to shine, and ever}7 article of matter resolve into impal- pable ether, time would still exist — would still follow 202 HEALING POWER OF MIND. on as it ever has done and must ever continue to do. Time is not a force—it is only a condition in which forces exist and operate. It is a common saying that "time teaches him who has no teacher;" but it is not time that teaches us, but the events, the facts, the experiences and troubles that occur in time that make an impression upon us and teach us. Time, as we have before said, is not a force in itself, and can pro- duce nothing and can exert no influence. Schopen- hauer very finely says: "Time flies over things, but leaves no trace upon them." Causes operate in time, and produce the changes which are erroneously attributed to time, as if the latter was a force in itself. Cities have become deserts, luxurious soils and dwell- ing-houses and temples have been buried deeply beneath burning sands. Where now the icy regions hold fast in their embrace eternal solitude and silence geology proves to us that the most gorgeous plants once thrived and blossomed in thermal reo-ions of light, life and beauty. See the aged man whose head is silvered with straggling hairs; mark the furrows in his cheek; look upon the crumbling Parthenon; the Roman monuments falling to dust; the massive and lofty Pyramids silently but surely shrinking away, and ask if it is time that is the operator. No; it is the sun, the rain, the wind, the laws of nature, which are never idle, that are working these changes. Time QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 203 is the element, the condition in which these forces operate; but time has no force of its own—it is not a force at all. We pretend to measure time by clocks and watches, but these things after all are but mechanical instruments made to perform certain revo- lutions; and by their agreement one with another we are enabled to regulate our own movements one with another; but these instruments are not time itself nor the true measure of time. Let a man suffer intense pain — let his mind be held in suspense in anticipation of something, and what we call five minutes is to him an hour. So far as time is related to us, and so far as we can measure its duration, we can only do this by the soul—by the intensity of the unseen life within us. "We live in deeds, not years — in thoughts, not breaths — In feelings, not in figures on a dial. Count time by heart-throbs; he lives most who feels most, Thinks the noblest, acts the best." Time is neither a force nor a thing-—it can do nothing of itself. Time is a condition in which the soul acts. 204 HEALING POWER OF MIND. WHAT IS RELIGION? Many answers have been given to this question. According to Quatrefages, religion is a "belief in beings superior to man, and capable of exercising good or evil influences upon his destiny; and the con- viction that the existence of man is not limited to the present life, but that there remains for him a future beyond the grave." Whatever definition we may try to give it will be found more or less incomplete. The metaphysical healer, in dealing with the Bible, gives to it a spiritual significance, while many look at it entirely from a materialistic standpoint. It matters not so much to us what is religion as what are religious acts. Christ went about healing the sick, and if we do the same we know that we are thus far on the road of religion. We have unbounded faith in God, and know while we implicitly trust in Him we can never go religiously wrong. WHAT IS SPACE? Space is boundless and eternal. It is a sea with- out limit, without shores. In it all things swim and float. Without space no real existence is possible, QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 205 and it is only as things occupy different positions of space that we can distinguish one from another. Space is, and must of necessity be, infinite. We may cast our minds thousands of miles and billions of leagues away, but imagination is compelled to stop, tired with its flight. Let it again take flight billions of billions of leagues, and we find some impediment to its flight. What is that impediment? Is it a solid substance? How far does that stretch onward? Does it end? What then is beyond that? The mind is wearied—it returns to itself and asserts that there can be no boundary to space, above, below, to the right, to the left; in any and in every direction it stretches on forever and forever. Comprehend this we cannot, believe it we must. Wherever we go, whether in body or mind, eternal space and its twin brother time are our companions. The one is the illimitable ocean, the other is the illimitable atmos- phere, that are below, above and everywhere sur- rounding us. 206 HEALING POWER OF MIND. WHAT IS SCIENCE? It is a common thing for people to use the word Science without having any definite knowledge of what it means. In brief it is only another word for knowledge. When this knowledge is classified and directed to some particular end, then we give that science a name. Thus we have the science of Botany, of Astronomy, of Conchology, and so forth. John Stuart Mill says: "The language of science is, this is so, and this is not so. Science observes phenomena and endeavors to discover their law." Professor Huxley says: "True science and true religion are twin sisters, and the separation of either from the other is sure to prove the death of both. Science prospers exactly in proportion as it is religious, and religion flourishes in exact proportion to the scientific depth and firmness of its basis. The great deeds of philosophers have been less the fruit of , their intellect than of the direction of that intellect by an eminently religious state of mind. Truth has yielded herself rather to their patience, their „ love, their single heartedness, and their self-denial, than to their logical acumen." In corroboration of this view we instance the science of metaphysical healing as also a religion, or, to speak more definitely, it is a QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 2<>7 branch of religion. When some persons hear of cures by the mental treatment, they ask: "But do you use any scientific methods?" We answer: "This is a science, and though its phenomena are not so well known and classified as in the case of some other sciences, it is nevertheless none the less a science on that account. As a science it has effected cures where other scientific methods have failed." MAR e*i<&o ^ry NLM005611487